ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Once-staunch Donald Trump supporter Kraig Moss followed the Republican to more than 45 campaign rallies across the country and became known as the "Trump troubadour" for his guitar-playing at the candidate's events.



But now Moss, an upstate New York resident whose son died of a heroin overdose, says President Trump's push for the GOP health care bill caused him to lose trust. Moss said he was particularly upset by the bills weakening requirements for insurers to cover mental health and substance abuse treatment.



"I feel betrayed," Moss told ABC News. "I feel like I've been lied to.



Moss said he worked with other Trump supporters to bring many people into the GOP candidates camp.



"People that were on the right, in the middle, and didn't really have a thought of which way they were going to go, we swayed them to come over on Donald Trump's side," Moss said in an interview Friday.



Moss said he was drawn to Trump by the candidate's promise to end the opioid epidemic in the U.S. After his son, who struggled with addiction, died of an overdose in 2014, Moss said his work for Trump's candidacy got him "off the couch."



"I went all in with Donald Trump, and put everything that I had, including my heart and soul, into what he had to say because this was the one thing that got me off the couch and got me out into the world and gave me purpose to go talk to these kids I'd meet," he said.



But the presidents support of the Republicans American Health Care Act made Moss lose faith.



"It really was just recent when I just all of a sudden realized that I've been duped," he told ABC News. "I can't believe that the man would even consider trying to put something like this through."



Republican leadership on Friday pulled their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare after failing to garner enough support from GOP House members for it to pass.



Even with the bill now off the table, Moss says he still wont support Trump.



"Trust is something that takes a lifetime to achieve and one day to lose, and you just don't flip a switch and get the trust back," he said. "There's no halfway, 'Well, I trust him on this, I don't trust him on that.' Once a man shows his true colors, once a man shows that he can't be trusted on one issue, it just, it goes right across the board."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
This month, Arizona Corporation Commissioners are touring the state for several public hearings related to a rate increase request filed by Arizona Public Service last year.

The latest version of the request proposes to raise customer bills an average of $6 per month. The proposed rate structure also would compensate new solar users less for energy they deliver back to the grid but no longer includes a mandatory, and controversial, demand charge for all new solar users in APS territory.

Commissioners, who regulate for-profit utilities in the state, are supposed to vote on the case in June.

Until Friday, the public comment hearing schedule for the case included Yuma, Phoenix, Douglas and the Verde Valley, but skipped Flagstaff despite requests from city officials for a hearing here.

According to Arizona Corporation Commission Bob Burns, that wasnt by accident.

Burns said that after hearing from Flagstaff city officials who requested a local public comment opportunity, he twice requested that the commission discuss holding a Flagstaff hearing at its staff meeting. Twice, he said, Chairman Tom Forese did not include any such discussion on the meeting agenda.

When Burns tried to schedule his own staff meeting to discuss a Flagstaff hearing, he said Forese canceled it.

Forese declined to comment for this story when contacted on Friday.

A frustrated Burns has since scheduled his own hearing in Flagstaff on April 3, when residents will be able to give comments that will be logged in the APS rate cases official docket.

Another APS rate case public comment hearing that has already been scheduled by the commission will be held Wednesday in Clarkdale.

But commissioners arent fulfilling their responsibility to ratepayers if they are requiring people to drive more than an hour to get to a hearing where they will likely have just three minutes to speak, Burns said.

Its important for the commission to see people face to face and this is why. I think its important we travel to you and not require you to travel to the Verde Valley, Burns said. Its a significant burden to do that, so if we are going to serve the ratepayers of Arizona as we are elected to do, we ought to be willing to hear what they want to say about having their rates increased because that's what this is about.

The commission has the power to decide when and where to hold public comment sessions, Burns said.

But when someone specifically requests one we ought to be honoring that request, he said.

Burns has also pushed for a public comment hearing in Payson.

In a February letter to Forese, Commissioner Andy Tobin stated his opinion about a Flagstaff hearing. He wrote that the Prescott area, including major surrounding towns, has 41,000 more APS customers than the Flagstaff area, which has about 55,000 customers, and that a Verde Valley hearing location allows for people from Coconino, Yavapai and Gila counties to comment. The letter did not address why the commission couldnt hold two meetings, one in the Verde Valley or Prescott area and another in Flagstaff.

Forese also sent a letter Friday that responded to the city of Flagstaff's request for a public comment session here, said Shane Dille, deputy city manager.

"The chairman acknowledged the city of Flagstaff's significance in northern Arizona and basically said because of that significance I strongly encourage the public in Flagstaff to come down to public comment session in the Verde Valley," Dille said on Friday.

The public also has the opportunity to hear about and comment on the APS rate case Tuesday when representatives from the utility make a presentation to Flagstaff City Council at its work session.
DAMASCUS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army announced Friday capturing all positions lost to the rebels during their second wave of attacks, which started on Tuesday, state news agency SANA reported.

The army succeeded to capture all positions that had been infiltrated by the rebels in the northern part of the rebel-held neighborhood of Jobar in the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus.

The factories area, on the frontline between the government-controlled areas east of Damascus and rebel-held areas in Jobar and the rest of Ghouta, was "the graveyard for several waves of attacks by the terrorists," according to the military statement.

Moreover, the elite forces of the Syrian army are hunting down the remnants of the fleeing militants of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front in the depth of Jobar, the statement added.

The rebels of the Nusra Front and likeminded groups unleashed a wide-scale offensive on eastern Damascus on Sunday, prompting intense battles with the Syrian government forces, and renewed their attack on Tuesday.

The aim of the rebel attack was to break the government forces' siege on the rebel in the Qaboun neighborhood.

Reports said the Syrian air force struck position of the rebels inside Ghouta to push the rebels to retreat from the frontline.

Observers believe the rebel attacks aimed to pressure the Syrian government into giving concessions during the current round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva.
PARIS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- An Odoxa poll released on Friday showed that nearly half of French voters had not made their final choices as to which candidate they wanted to support following an unpredictable campaign.

Seventy-four percent of voters said they would go to the polling station for the first round of voting in April. However, 43 percent were still undecided over which candidate to vote for, according to the survey.

"2017 proposes an unprecedented uncertainty in the (country's) electoral history," the pollster said.

As the election approaches, the contest to win France's top political position remains uncertain amid a series of surprises, starting with the outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande's decision not to seek a second term.

Additionally, fraud scandals have tainted far-right leader Marine Le Pen's bid and as well as that of conservative contender Francois Fillon, who has lost his top spot in the wake of the fake job affair, which is giving a boost to the independent challenger Emmanuel Macron.

Launching his own bid, Macron portrayed himself as a "candidate for jobs," proposing a "progressive" platform expected to pull France into the 21st century.

The country's surveys suggest Macron is likely to qualify for May's run-off vote against the National Front's Le Pen.

In a further sign of Macron's increasing chances of the presidency, French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian of the ruling Socialist Party, said on Friday that he backed his presidential bid.

"I decided to support Emmanuel Macron. His project is voluntarist and pragmatic," Le Drian told CNews television.

Le Drian, a close ally of Hollande, joined two members of the Socialist government -- biodiversity minister Barbara Pompili and Bernard Poignant, a close adviser to the French head of state -- in announcing their endorsement to the centrist front-runner.
PARIS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- La Liga giants Barcelona and five other clubs on Friday were fined by UEFA for their respective fans misconduct.

Barca were fined 19,000 euros as their fans in Camp Nou invaded the pitch following a 6-1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the return leg of Champions League last 16, which resulted in a historic comeback.

Ligue 1 side Saint-Etienne received a 50,000-euro fine as their fans lit fireworks in a Europa League showdown with Manchester United at Old Trafford, where the Red Devils won 3-0. Russian side Rostov were also fined 16,000 euros for fireworks in a Europa League contest with Sparta Prague.

Napoli must pay 38,000 euros following their fans' use of a laser pointer in Champions League matchup against Real Madrid.

The remaining two fines went to Arsenal and Bayern Munich respectively, with the former suffering a 5,000-euro fine for fan pitch invasion, while the latter being penalized for 3,000 euros after their fans threw objects in a Champions League match.
UNITED NATIONS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- An estimated 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in Mosul's Old City in north Iraq as fighting intensifies and people continue to flee, the UN refugee agency representative warned on Friday.

"The worst is yet to come," said Bruno Geddo, the representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Iraq.

Speaking by phone with the UN News Center, Geddo said the fighting in the west has been more intense than in the less densely populated east of the city, where the battle ended in January.

"People are stuck between a rock and a hard place," he said. "There's fighting shelling, bombing."

When people try to flee, extremists shoot them. Some have tried to leave during prayers or under cover of fog at first light, but were killed, Geddo said.

Meanwhile, life in the Old City is becoming impossible with a lack of food, clean water or fuel, Geddo said.

Meeting with civilians at the UNHCR transit and reception centre at Hammam al-Alil, outside of the city centre, Geddo said the number of people moving through has "surged' in recent days with up to 12,000 people arriving daily.

Some 340,000 people have been displaced since the fighting in Mosul started last October. Of those, about 72,000 have returned home.

The UN representative called on all those fighting to allow civilians to leave areas of conflict for safer zones, and no one should be forced to come back home.

"Liberating Mosul is necessary but not sufficient," Geddo said. "We equally have to get it right with the protection of civilians and in the humanitarian response."

Mosul witnessed a fighting between the Iraqi government forces and Islamic State (IS/Da'esh) terrorists

The Iraqi government force's advance toward Mosul came after the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Feb. 19 the start of an offensive to drive the extremist militants out of the western side of Mosul, locally known as the right bank of Tigris River which bisects the city.

Late in January, Abadi declared the liberation of the eastern side of Mosul, or the left bank of Tigris, after more than 100 days of fighting against the Islamic State (IS) militants.

However, the western side of Mosul, with its narrow streets and a heavy population of between 750,000 and 800,000, appears to be a bigger challenge to the Iraqi forces, according to the United Nations estimates.

Mosul, 400 kilomters north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, 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.
TIRANA, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Albania exported 1,868 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in 2016, registering an increase by almost twice as much compared to 2015, National Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) said Friday.

According to INSTAT, the export growth came as a result of the favorable hydro conditions but also due to the increased power generation capacities of the country over the past few years.

INSTAT data also showed that net domestic electricity production was estimated at around 7,136 GWh in 2016 from 5,866 GWh produced in 2015, a year-on-year growth of 22 percent.

Electricity from the private hydro-power plants accounted for 29 percent of the total production, compared with 24 percent in 2015, statistics confirmed.

On the other hand, power losses in the national transmission and distribution networks were reduced to around 28 percent, down from 30.2 percent registered in 2015.

According to INSTAT, electricity losses were mainly technical losses due to deterioration of the aging distribution and transmission assets. Enditem
LONDON, March 24 (Xinhua) -- European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned Friday that the EU could be doomed if other member states followed Brexit in leaving the bloc.

He also said Britain would face a bill of around 63 billion U.S. dollars as part of its departure from the EU, but insisted this was not a punishment.

Juncker was speaking in a media interview just days ahead of British Prime Minister Theresa May's starting of the Brexit process by sending a letter to trigger article 50.

The letter, to be sent next Wednesday, will kick-start two years of talks between London and Brussels to reach a deal on the future relationship between Britain and the EU.

In Friday's interview, Juncker described Brexit as a failure and a tragedy, but insisted he was not hostile towards Britain.

Juncker said that if any of the remaining 27 member states were to follow in Britain's footsteps, it could threaten the trading and economic bloc.

"I don't want others to take the same avenue. Let's suppose that others will leave -- two, three, four or five. That would be the end, the EU would collapse," he said.

There has been talk on both sides of the English Channel as to how much Britain would have to pay to leave the EU, with some sources putting the amount at 75 billion U.S. dollars or even higher.

In the interview, Juncker said the estimated 63 billion U.S. dollar price tag would cover the cost of projects Britain was already committed too, as well as the cost of pensions of EU officials who served during the period of Britain's membership.

The Commission president said the EU would approach withdrawal talks in a friendly and fair way, adding he was strongly committed to protecting the status of the three million EU nationals currently living in Britain and the million British nationals living in other EU states.

The interview came a day before leaders of EU member states are to gather in Rome Saturday to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Rome 60 years ago, the agreement that saw the birth of what is now the EU. Britain will not join in the celebrations.

Related:

EU to convene summit on April 29 to approve guidelines on Brexit

BRUSSELS, March 21 (Xinhua) -- European Council President Donald Tusk on Tuesday announced that he will convene a summit on April 29 to approve the European Union(EU)'s guidelines on Brexit.

"I will call European Council on April 29 to adopt EU27 Brexit Guidelines. Priority must be certainty, clarity for all: citizens, companies and member states," Tusk tweeted. Full story
CHICAGO, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) grains futures closed mixed on Friday with soybeans reaching a new low since October.

The most active corn contract for May delivery inched down 0.5 cents, or 0.14 percent, to 3.5625 dollars per bushel. May wheat delivery rose 3.75 cents, or 0.89 percent to 4.2475 dollars per bushel. May soybeans fell 15.25 cents, or 1.54 percent, to 9.7575 dollars per bushel.

Traders said the two-digit decline of soybeans was a result of rising forecasts for already record-high South American harvests, which dragged the futures of May soybeans well below the 10-dollar-per-bushel psychological level.

Corn futures were further dragged down, hitting their lowest since January.

While the European wheat futures fell to their lowest in more than three months, the Chicago wheat of May delivery rallied on Friday thanks to bargain buying. A stronger euro and a relatively weaker U.S. dollar will make European wheat more expensive and American wheat more competitive at markets. Enditem
Senior Islamic Hamas movement accuses Israel of assassinating one Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip. (AFP photo)

GAZA, March 24 (March) -- Senior Islamic Hamas movement officials accused Israel on Friday of assassinating one Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip.

The movement said in a short text message sent to reporters that the collaborators of the Israeli occupation shot dead Mazen Fuqaha'a, a Hamas leader who was released from occupation jail in 2011.

Izzat al-Resheq, a senior Hamas movement leader, said in an emailed press statement that "it is a coward assassination operation committed by the collaborators of the (Israeli) occupation that killed the leader."

Al-Resheq said that unknown militants gunned down Fuqaha'a at the entrance of a building where he lived in one of Gaza city's neighborhood.

Hamas movement mourned Fuqaha'a, saying that his blood won't go cheaply and "the (Israeli) occupation will pay a heavy price for its crimes."

Fuqaha'a was released in the Egyptian-brokered prisoners' swap deal reached in October 2011 between Israel and Hamas. Israel deported Fuqaha'a to Gaza right after he was released.

Fuqaha'a was from the town of Tubas near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, and he was responsible for the killing of nine Israelis in 2002 in revenge for the assassination of a senior Hamas leader in Gaza.

There has been no immediate Israeli army response to Hamas accusations that it stands behind the killing of Fuqaha'a.
GENEVA, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The UN Syria envoy said Friday that while he didn't expect a breakthrough in the latest round of Syria peace talks, he would rely on headway made earlier this month to help pave the way towards brokering a political end to the Syrian conflict.

"Regarding our objectives, I will try to be careful about expectations as we were on the fourth round. I'm not expecting miracles, breakthroughs or breakdowns," Staffan de Mistura told press in a stakeout.

"What I am expecting is building on the fourth round, with some incremental, constructive steps," he added.

The fifth and latest round of UN-mediated political talks resumed Friday in a bid to broker a political end to the six-year Syrian conflict which has killed over 310,000 people and displaced millions of others.

The last time the sides convened in the Swiss city was earlier this month, with invitees agreeing on the agenda going forward after nine days of proximity negotiations.

This includes addressing issues of governance, constitution, elections, as well as counter terrorism, security and confidence building measures.

De Mistura said that opening bilateral meetings with both the Syrian government delegation and its opposition counterpart had enabled parties to touch upon issues of substance.

The Syrian government delegation, headed by Bashar al-Jaafari, has said from the outset that "counter-terrorism basket" should be prioritized considering the situation on the ground in Syria.

The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), one of Syrian opposition groups engaged in the political process, has emphasized the need to focus discussions on the issue of political transition.

"All of them have to talk about all four baskets, no one can exclude the other baskets, that's the deal and a ruling supported by the UN Security Council," de Mistura reminded.

He also confirmed that in a bid to gain maximum support from regional stakeholders, he will travel to Jordan on March 27 to meet with Arab League members.
Herve Ladsous, United Nations under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, speaks during a farewell session with reporters at the UN headquarters in New York, March 24, 2017. UN peacekeeping operations, facing a possible 1 billion U.S. dollar cut in contributions from Washington, will "adjust" to a tighter budget, the retiring UN peacekeeping chief said here Friday. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- UN peacekeeping operations, facing a possible 1 billion U.S. dollar cut in contributions from Washington, will "adjust" to a tighter budget, the retiring UN peacekeeping chief said here Friday.

The UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Herve Ladsous, was asked during a farewell session with reporters at UN Headquarters in New York if the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which he heads, could live with a cut in U.S. contributions from 28 percent to 25 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

"We live with what we are given by the bodies of the United Nations and we adjust," he replied, saying that the UN General Assembly approves the budget and "makes decisions as to what monies are given and we adjust accordingly."

Ladsous also pointed out that a few years ago since he began in 2011 his department trimmed operating costs by about 1 billion U.S. dollars to the current 7.2 billion dollars. UN Budgets are for two years.

There have been numerous reports the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump wants to reduce Washington's contribution to UN peacekeeping from the current 28 percent to 25 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

The United States is the largest single contributor to the regular UN budget as well as to peacekeeping funding.

Foreign Policy magazine reported in its online magazine on Friday the Trump administration "is seeking to cut 1 billion U.S. dollars in funding for U.N. peacekeeping" and to eliminate hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars for other U.N. programs that care for the impoverished, according to two diplomatic sources briefed on the plan.

However, the article was quick to point out such a proposal "is certain to face strong pushback from Democratic and Republican congressional leaders."

It said they have warned such a budget "will never be passed."

Ladsous declined to speculate on how such a massive cut would be handled, pointing out he is out of office next week, at the end of the month, and it would be up to his successor, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, to adjust to such possible funding cuts.

Earlier this month, Ladsous travelled to Mali and South Sudan with Lacroix, who, 56, will replace Ladsous on April 1.

However, Ladsous did say that because of work already in progress, "probably in a month or two we will have permanent capacity to deploy a vanguard brigade within 30-60 days," pointing out currently, "there was no way we could deploy any unit in less than six to eight months."

There has long been criticism of peacekeeping taking too long to deploy troops after being ordered through a mandate of the UN Security Council.

However, the world organization does not have a standing army, so it has to find a country willing to assign peacekeepers, then finding a place for them to situate and the necessary support and equipment needed for their mission.

Despite the trimmed budget, Ladsous said that "21st century technology" has been introduced to peacekeepers.

"Now so many of our missions have surveillance drones, have sophisticated detection equipment, balloons, cameras, radars," he said. "I think it has changed so much from the times of not so very long ago when people had just a pair of binoculars and an old-fashioned radio. It's gone ahead."

Meanwhile, the UN peacekeeping chief also said that he was proud of the fact he introduced more peacekeepers from the "global north" to help ease the burden of peacekeepers traditionally from the "global south," citing troops from European Union countries serving in central Africa.

He was also pleased to report three UN peacekeeping missions soon would be winding down, "Ivory Coast right now, Liberia within a year, Haiti subject to a soon-to-come decision by the Security Council, but most likely will close down in October."

"We have made a policy of constant review so that we are as attuned to the needs and do not add strata on strata and actually adapt to new circumstances," Ladsous said. "We are trying to ... define some bench marks toward an exit strategy because some missions are not eternal. They should stick to a process and be able to adjust."

Performance linked to accountability was another topic.

"We have made a number of policies that draw consequences from the performance, or lack of, of people be it professional (or otherwise) when they don't do the job and commit errors of judgment and of action but also in terms of conduct," he said. That also refers to in particular, but not only, sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA).

In recent years, SEA has been a scourge of several missions -- many in Africa -- with some peacekeepers seeking sex or abusing victims who many times were only seeking food, supplies or other assistance.

He said a zero tolerance policy for SEA has been "strengthened by the latest report of the secretary-general that it is "standard policy and people are accountable for what they do."

But the undersecretary-general said one frequent challenge for peacekeepers in not-so-peaceful missions, especially those without a political solution, are the continuing questions: "Is there a peace to defend? Is there a peace to keep?"
The frigid top of the Earth just set yet another record for low levels of sea ice in what scientists say is a signal of an overheating world.

The extent of floating ice in the Arctic hit a new low for winter: 5.57 million square miles (14.42 million square kilometers). That's about 35,000 square miles (97,000 square kilometers)  an area about the size of Maine  below 2015's record. Last year had a shade more than 2015, but nearly a tied record.

This puts the Arctic in a "deep hole" as the crucial spring and summer melt season starts and more regions will likely be ice-free, said Mark Serreze , director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, which released the findings Wednesday.

"It's a key part of the Earth's climate system and we're losing it," he said. "We're losing the ice in all seasons now."

At the other end of the world, Antarctica, where sea ice reaches its lowest point of the year in March, also hit a record low mark. Antarctic sea ice varies widely unlike Arctic sea ice, which has steadily decreased.

The ice data center measures how wide sea ice extends based on satellite imagery. It's harder to measure the thickness and overall volume, but data from the University of Washington show that as of late last month ice volume levels were down 42 percent from 1979, said polar science center chief Axel Schweiger .

Several scientists called the sea ice loss disturbing.

"It's evidence that the climate at the top of the world continues to change faster than anywhere else on Earth with impacts to us that are still frankly unknown," Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor and retired admiral David W. Titley , said in an email.

Scientists blame a combination of natural random weather and man-made global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas. The winter of 2016-2017 was unusually toasty and the Arctic saw three "extreme heat waves," Serreze said.

A new study earlier this month in the journal Nature Climate Change found that natural causes can explain between 30 and 50 percent of plunging September sea ice lows, while Serezze and others give climate change an even bigger role in sea ice loss.

A relatively new idea  that still divides meteorologists  links the shriveling ice cap at the North Pole to a weaker polar vortex and weak and ambling jet stream, which can mean more extreme weather for a good part of the rest of the world.

"Recent cold spells and big snowstorms that we have experienced over the past few winters have occurred when the polar vortex is weak," top winter weather forecaster Judah Cohen , of the private Atmospheric Environmental Research in Lexington, Massachusetts, said in an email.

It's not just the weather.

As more regions become free of ice, shipping lanes will open in the Arctic, there will be more drilling for oil and gas and more overall economic activity. And that may mean rising tensions between countries over newly available resources, Serreze said.

"The Arctic is the canary in the climate's coal mine," said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. "What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic. This entire planet is interconnected."
BERLIN, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Themed "d!conomy - no limits," this year's CeBIT trade fair closed Friday in Hannover, Germany, with the technological innovations with the potential to change the world highlighting the world's largest computer expo.

The latest developments in the Internet of Things and the combination of everyday objects with internet connectivity and data analytics were on show.

About 3,000 exhibitors from 70 countries and regions around the world displayed and examined their ideas and solutions for a digital world.

Vodafone displayed vehicles equipped with LTE-V2X technology, allowing them to communicate in order to avoid accidents.

Deutsche Telekom demonstrated power-saving Narrowband-IoT technology's ability to connect residential and commercial buildings as well as the evolving 5G mobile telephony standard.

The cutting edge of artificial intelligence was represented by Fujisoft's humanoid robots that are capable of self-learning and which are already in use in some senior residential homes.

Sophos' Haunted House, a replica smart home showing how cyber criminals can attack everything from networked fridges to digitally controlled heating systems or CCTV cameras, shows the importance of cyber security as threats posed by IoT are increasing.

Huawei used the occasion to launch its Global OpenLab Program to promote implementation of its "Platform + Ecosystem" strategy to bring together partners in order to build an ICT ecosystem capable of powering the smart society of the future. The company plans to invest 200 million U.S. dollars to establish an additional 15 OpenLabs in the next three years. By the end of 2019, there will be 20 worldwide.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the fair on Sunday, accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Japan was CeBIT's Partner Country this year and set a record with its lineup of 120 companies in two halls.

Over 200,000 visitors attended the five-day CeBIT digital trade fair in Hannover this year.
Cordons and police are seen in front of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, March 23, 2017. The EU-27 leaders will meet on Saturday in Rome for the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. (Xinhua/Jin Yu)

by Alessandra Cardone

ROME, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Rome has tightened security measures, as the Italian capital is preparing for the major celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding treaty of the European Union (EU) on Saturday.

More than 30 EU leaders are expected to attend the ceremony in center of Rome, where the founding treaty was signed on March 25, 1957.

Police forces were on high alert, and their staff were increased to 5,000, while Italy's Civil Aviation Authority declared a full flight ban over Rome from 6 a.m. on Friday to 11 p.m. on Saturday.

At the same time, important venues in the capital would remain cordoned off, including parliament, government building, and presidential palace, while major tourist attractions would be closed.

A most restricted zone, namely the "Blue Area," was declared around the Capitoline Hill, where the celebrations will actually take place. It would be off-limits for all transport means and all citizens, but residents.

Some 40 checkpoints were set up at the main gates to the two zones, and about 100 additional surveillance cameras were installed across the capital, according to police.

The plan was imposed after an emergency meeting of the Counter-Terrorism Strategic Analysis Committee (CASA) was called on Thursday, also following London terror attack the previous day.

On request of Interior Ministry Marco Minniti, the CASA will meet in permanent session until after the EU summit.

On Saturday, the 27 leaders of EU member states and the representatives of EU institutions gather to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome 60 years ago, which brought West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg as a common community, paving the way for the European Union.

The ceremony will be followed by a formal "Rome Declaration," and leaders are expected to outline Europe's future, especially after the forthcoming exit of Britain.

"As Europeans, we are aware of the full scope of the current changes, and we need new ideas and solutions to respond to today's challenges," Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Friday, after a meeting with EU heads of states and Catholic Pope Francis.

"We have to do this especially for our youth -- the EU's Millennials -- who are the first EU natives, and the best-educated generation of our common history," Gentiloni added.

Besides the anti-terror alert, security forces will have to oversee six demonstrations that were authorized to take place in the capital across the weekend.

Organized by both pro-EU and anti-EU groups, the rallies might draw up to 25,000 people overall, Ansa news agency reported.

Special attention would be paid to the anti-EU demonstrations for fear of possible infiltrations by radical, violent minorities, according to security sources.

Various side-events and debates were also planned to celebrate the date and to discuss EU's current major social and political challenges.

Among such initiatives, a meeting was held earlier on Friday with trade unions and business associations, Italy's Gentiloni, and EU representatives including European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker.

"At EU level, we are not discussing issues that really concern people in their daily life," Juncker said at the event. "This is why the gap between European policy-makers and common citizens is widening."

Related:

Spotlight: Europe holds high-profile celebrations for Treaty of Rome anniversary

BRUSSELS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) leaders will gather in Rome on Saturday for a special summit to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which launched the EU's predecessor, he European Economic Community (EEC).
WASHINGTON, March 24 (Xinhua) -- A GOP-sponsored health care bill was pulled from the floor of the House of Representatives ahead of a vote at U.S. President Donald Trump's request, because not enough votes have been secured for its passing, U.S. media reported Friday.

"We couldn't get on Democratic vote and we were a little bit shy, very little, but it was still a little bit shy, so we pulled it," Trump was quoted by The Washington Post as saying.

Trump said Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, was not to be blamed.

The bill, named American Health Care Act, was rolled out by House Republicans in a bid to fulfill Trump's campaign promise of "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act, a signature legislation of of the Obama administration thas it also known as Obamacare.

But the bill faced objection from factions within the Republican Party, as a group of conservative House members, known as the Freedom Caucus, refused to back the legislation that they said included too much regulations.

Efforts from Ryan and the White House on Thursday yielded no results, leading to the delay of the vote originally planned on Thursday to Friday.

After deciding to pull the bill from voting, Trump signaled that he would not ask Republican leaders to work on the bill in the coming weeks, but will wait until what he expect will be a doomed fate of Obamacare.

"As you know, I've been saying for years that the best thing is to let Obamacare explode and then go make a deal with the Democrats and have on unified deal. And they will come to us," he said.

"I never said I was going to repeal and replace in the first 61 days," he said.

Failing to secure enough votes for the bill came as the second major policy setback for the Trump administration, after repeated efforts to curb immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries was thwarted by federal courts.

The episode also revealed a deepening rift among GOP's own ranks which the White House and Republican leaders found themselves struggling to contain.
HELSINKI, March 24 (Xinhua) -- As leaders of the European Union were on their way to meet in Rome and give a declaration about the future of the EU, political debate continued intensely in Finland about the role of Finland in the EU.

Following a closed door meeting of the parliamentary Grand Committee earlier in the week, opposition parties criticized the three-party coalition government for lack of determination and strategy.

In early March, Prime Minister Juha Sipila coined the Finnish line as "middle of the road". He flagged for continued unity of the EU.

Paavo Lipponen, the then prime minister at the time when Finland joined the EU, demanded that Finland should be in the core of the EU. In an article published in the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat last week, he warned against Finland "ending up in the outer fringe of the union."

Reviewing the situation on Friday, national Yle radio analyst Matti Koivisto attributed the unclear Finnish line to the difficulty in accommodating the views of the anti-EU True Finns and the rest of the government.

Kristi Raik, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told Yle on Friday that she expected Finland could join the more intense core of cooperation, but the question remained open. "There is more uncertainty about the position of Sweden and Denmark," she said.

Tytti Tuppurainen, the social democratic vice chairman of the Grand Committee, claimed that Finland is not prepared for the alternative that various speeds will commence in the EU earlier than anticipated.

Anne-Mari Virolainen, the conservative chairman of the Grand Committee, defended the government but said she shared the view that the government's EU strategy lacked depth.

Prime Minister Sipila denied that there exists disagreement inside the coalition about the attitude towards the EU. Sipila reiterated that the current coalition would not arrange a referendum about EU membership. Such demands have been heard, however, within the True Finns, one of the three coalition parties.

The ongoing debate about the vision of the future EU concerns Finnish in respect of security as well.

The Grand Committee vice chairman Tuppurainen used the expression "spheres of interest" that has a notorious cold war flavour to Finns. She said that if Europe reverts to "a scene of competing national interests," the influence of the great powers would increase. "And in such a Europe, Finland would always be in someone's 'sphere of interest'", she said.

Newspaper Helsingin Sanomat said in an editorial that the "middle of the road" is no longer available. The newspaper described the government line as a "strategy without strategy."
Liu Jieyi (2nd L, front), China's permanent representative to the UN, speaks during a General Assembly event on the protection of wildlife at the UN headquarters in New York, March 3, 2017. Liu Jieyi on Friday called on international community to step up efforts to combat illegal trade in wildlife through law enforcement. (Xinhua/Hu Yousong)

UNITED NATIONS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Friday urged the international community to scale up cooperation to better protect cultural heritage in conflict areas.

Addressing an open meeting of the UN Security Council on the protection against destruction and trafficking of cultural heritage by terrorist groups in situations of armed conflicts, Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, emphasized the importance of international cooperation in this regard.

"The international community needs to scale up its support for countries in conflict areas, cut off the channels for terrorist groups smuggling and trafficking cultural heritage" in a joint effort to prevent cultural heritage from harms of conflicts, said the ambassador.

Efforts should be stepped up to support conflict areas to build up their national capacity of protection, said the ambassador, calling on countries in conflict areas to formulate relevant protection policies, establish early warning mechanisms, and enhance capacity building for the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflict.

"The international community, while respecting the sovereignty of countries in conflict areas, needs to provide constructive support, and fully respect the ownership of all cultural heritage," Liu said.

"Terrorism has become the main threat to cultural heritage in conflict areas," he noted, urging the international community to implement Resolution 2347, maximize the role of relevant Council mechanisms, build an information network, and resolutely crack down on terrorist activities to destroy their smuggling and trafficking of cultural heritage.

"International cooperation should be further strengthened," he said.

All countries should strengthen cooperation in information sharing and law enforcement in the fight against destruction and trafficking of cultural heritage by terrorist groups, said the ambassador.
ISLAMABAD, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Friday rejected as flawed the U.S. State Department's Human Rights Report 2016, which has scathingly criticized the country on account of human rights situation.

The U.S. State Department in its annual report on human rights around the world earlier this month alleged that Pakistan is involved in "human rights violations" including "poor implementation and enforcement of laws, and frequent mob violence and vigilante justice, gender inequality, violence against gender and sexual minorities, and sectarian violence."

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman termed the document as the "so-called Country Reports on HR Practices for 2016."

"As a matter of principle, we do not recognize validity of unilateral approaches including reports sitting in judgment of other states. As such, these reports are invariably inherently flawed and lack objectivity. It comes as no surprise that as regard Pakistan, the Report is far removed from facts and depicts a grossly inaccurate and misrepresented picture," Nafees Zakaria said.

The spokesman told his weekly briefing that Pakistan remains deeply committed to the promotion and protection of human rights of all its citizens.

"The Government accords high priority to advancing the mutually reinforcing objectives of development, human rights and democracy for the people of Pakistan. Many international obligations have been undertaken by Pakistan besides a number of important domestic initiatives for the promotion and protection of human rights," he said when his attention was invited to the U.S. report.

He further said Pakistan is fully conscious of its international and national obligations with regard to promotion and protection of human rights, and the Government remains committed in its resolve to ensure fundamental rights, prosperity and well-being of all the people of Pakistan.

"International cooperation and constructive dialogue coupled with adherence to international conventions are the best ways of promoting the common objective of universal human rights. Countries that are not even party to some of the core human rights conventions have no standing to question others," Zakaria said.
NEW DELHI, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday called his British counterpart Theresa May to express his solidarity over the terror attack in London this week.

"PM called UK PM Theresa May to express India's solidarity and conveyed deepest condolences for victims of the terror attack in London," a spokesman of India's prime minister office wrote on twitter.

The attack on Wednesday in Westminster killed four and injured dozens of others.

Indian President and Prime Minister Thursday condemned the attack and said they stand in solidarity with the UK.

"Deeply saddened by the terror attack in London. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. At this difficult moment, India stands with UK in the fight against terrorism," Modi wrote on twitter.
NEW DELHI, Mar. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Indian Navy Friday said that it has successfully conducted the first trial of the recently installed surface-to-air missile (SAM) system from its aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.

The firing was conducted in the Arabian Sea Wednesday as part of the Operational Readiness Inspection of the Western Fleet by Vice Admiral Girish Luthra, an official statement said.

"During the firing carried out in the Arabian Sea, the missile was fired against a live low flying high speed target. The target was successfully engaged and destroyed," it said.

"The missile resembles a significant achievement in providing Air Interception and Defence capabilities, upgrading the strength of the Navy's aircraft carrier and the fleet's operational capabilities," the statement added.

INS Vikramaditya is a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier which entered into service with the Indian Navy in 2013 at a ceremony held at Severodvinsk in Russia. She has been renamed in honour of Vikramaditya, a legendary emperor of Ujjain in western India.
DHAKA, March 24 (Xinhua) -- A suspected suicide bomber died after blowing himself up near Bangladesh's principal airport in capital Dhaka on Friday night, police said, in the second attack within the span of a week claimed by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists.

According to a jihadist threat monitoring portal, SITE Intelligence Group, IS claimed its responsibility of bomb blast near a police box in front of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka in an online statement.

The authenticity of the statement has not been confirmed by Bangladesh Police on Friday night.

"A youth (aged about 25) blew himself up with a bomb attached to his body,"the Dhaka Metropolitan Police official said but did not like to be named.

The bomber died in what is believed to be a suicide attack.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia, however, told reporters at the scene that the man was simply a carrier of the bomb and his intention was not to attack any of the law enforcers.

"The man could have attacked 8-10 law enforcers there if he wanted. But he didn't want so. So we can't say that it was an attack. "

"We think the bomb exploded accidentally as the carrier was scared to see law enforcers on the street."

Nure Azam Mia, officer-in-charge of Airport Police Station in Dhaka, told journalists that the blast happened at about 7:40 p.m. (local time).

No law enforcer was injured in the blast.

A bomb disposal unit searched the man's bag and found three powerful bombs, which were later defused.

A high alert was put on strategically important places including airports and prisons in Bangladesh following a "suicide blast" at the proposed headquarters of the country's elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in capital Dhaka last Friday.

The last Friday incident took place a day after Bangladesh law enforcers stormed a militant hideout at Sitakunda on the outskirts of the country's seaport city Chittagong, some 242 km southeast of Dhaka.

Five including four militants of Neo-JMB (an offshoot of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) were killed during the raid.

At least two of them reportedly blew themselves up in suicide explosions and two others were shot by law enforcers.

Neo-JMB has been blamed for an attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter last July, in which 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, were killed.

In the wake of the Dhaka cafe attack, Bangladeshi law enforcers have conducted series of such big operations against militants.
BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Tractors, plows, combine harvesters, now that spring has arrived, the machinery in Fu Haiwei's rural cooperative is ready for this year's farming.

The national cooperative is in Dongguan township, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, and boasted more than 2,000 hectares of farmland in its heyday, with regular corn the stable crop.

But last year, Fu switched from growing regular corn to "fruit corn."

"Traditional corn had been experiencing a surplus crisis," Fu said. "But preferential government purchase policies for regular corn are decreasing due to mounting inventory pressure, and it is not wise to grow more."

China has been pushing agricultural reform since 2016, urging farmers to adjust the mix of their crops to stop blind expansion and focus on sustainable development, particularly in the corn industry.

This week, authorities with the National Development and Reform Commission said that China would continue to conduct agricultural reform by letting the market play a decisive role in the pricing of corn and soy in the China's northeast provinces and northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the country's major crop areas.

This has given those who have adjusted the mix of what they grow, like Fu, hopes of a better profit.

"I grow more 'fresh corn' and less regular corn these days," Fu said.

Last year, Fu's cooperative grew more than 200 hectares of fresh corn, also known as fruit corn, whose special flavor and delicate texture makes it more popular and expensive than regular corn. He also grew more than 200 hectares of silage corn, mainly as fodder.

"Each hectare of silage corn and fresh corn generated 1,500 yuan (218 U.S. dollars) and 9,000 yuan more than regular corn [respectively]," Fu said. "I have already inked a deal with a company to provide 667 hectares of fresh corn this year."

Heilongjiang, China's biggest production base for crops, plans to reduce 666,667 hectares of regular corn and replace it with fresh corn and vegetables this year.

"Growing regular corn might have guaranteed good profits in the past because however much you grew, the government would purchase it at high prices," Fu said. "But now it is a different story."

The regular corn industry has been experiencing a surplus crisis after years of preferential government policies caused rapid expansion and excessive corn supply.

China began buying corn for state reserves in 2008 to protect local farmers from the global financial crisis. For years, the policy kept corn prices stable and high. However, years of good harvest and rising corn imports have generated a huge corn inventory, while market demand is stagnant.

Realizing the rising corn supply was a problem, the government launched reforms. Authorities announced plans to slash corn production in 2016 and partly remove favorable policies, which caused corn prices to tumble.

Under such circumstances, farmer Li Shuai abandoned growing corn this year and turned to an alternative crop: herbal medicine.

Li comes from Inner Mongolia's Naiman Banner, a large corn farming area. It produces more than 1.5 billion kilograms every year.

Two years ago, he grew more than 13 hectares of regular corn, but tumbling prices saw him suffer big losses.

"Last year, the local government started to encourage us to grow herbs instead of corn, and subsidized us," Li said. "I followed the government's guidance and made quite some money."

This year, Li plans to lease more land to grow herbs.

"Corn has always been a pillar agricultural industry in Naiman, but its dominant role is now hurting farmers due to excessive supply and retreating state favorable policies," said Bai Hua, deputy head of Naiman Banner.

"We are now encouraging farmers to optimize crop structure by growing Chinese herbs, as well as other types of grain, to reduce their reliance on corn," Bai said. "We need to grow what the market needs."

Such agricultural reforms are seeing substantial progress. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, while corn growth is expected to fall this year, growth of rice and wheat will remain stable, and crops in short supply, such as soy, whole grain and good-quality forage grass will see significant growth.

The ministry said that while it was necessary to decrease excessive corn supply, it was also important to increase planting of other good-quality agricultural produce.

"I'm sure it will be a good year this year," Fu said. "Agricultural reform has sowed the seed of hope for us."
NEW DELHI, March 24 Xinhua) -- Indian government Friday said it was going to conduct joint military exercises with several countries including China, United Kingdom, Russia and United States this year to boost military ties and enhance bilateral defence cooperation

The information was given India's junior minister for Defense Subhash Bhamre in the parliament.

"Military exercises are to be conducted with Australia, Bangladesh, China, France, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States of America during the year 2017," Bhamre told parliament.

According to Bhamre to boost the military co-operation with other countries, a number of activities like, high level official visits, exchange of military experiences, participation in each others' military courses, trainings, seminars, workshops, visit to each other's military establishments are undertaken.

This month Indian military conducted joint military exercises with Oman and Nepal in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand respectively.

Defense analysts say such programmes enable participating military personnel to learn and adopt best practices of their counterparts.
BOAO, Hainan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the opening ceremony of the 2017 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, held in China's Hainan Province Saturday morning.

The theme for this year's conference is "Globalization and Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives."




Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (2nd R) and then New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (3rd R) attend a signing ceremony of bilateral cooperation agreements after their talks in Beijing, capital of China, April 18, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

BEIJING, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is scheduled to arrive in New Zealand Sunday for an official visit.

Since China and New Zealand established diplomatic ties on Dec. 22, 1972, their bilateral relations have been improving steadily with frequent high-level exchanges. The following is a chronology of such exchanges and the many "firsts" in China-New Zealand ties since 1972:

In late April to early May of 1976, then New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon visited China.

In September 1980, Muldoon again visited China.

In April 1985, Hu Yaobang, then secretary general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), paid a visit to New Zealand.

In March 1986, then New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange visited China.

In November 1988, then Chinese Premier Li Peng visited New Zealand.

In May 1993, then New Zealand Prime Minister James Brendan Bolger visited China.

In November 1997, Bolger again visited China and attended the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In September 1999, then Chinese President Jiang Zemin paid a state visit to New Zealand, the first such visit by a Chinese president. Both countries hailed the development of their ties and vowed to establish long-term, stable and all-round cooperation toward the 21st century.

In April 2001, then New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark visited China and held talks with Chinese senior officials on issues of common concern.

In October 2003, then Chinese President Hu Jintao paid a state visit to New Zealand and held talks with senior New Zealand officials on issues of common concern. The two countries reached consensus on boosting bilateral ties and signed several cooperation documents.

In April 2004, New Zealand recognized China's market economy status, becoming the first developed country to treat China as a full market economy in trade.

In April 2006, then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited New Zealand. The two countries vowed to make joint efforts to further bilateral relations.

In April 2008, Clark again visited China and signed the China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Chinese government.

In April 2009, then New Zealand Prime Minister John Key paid an official visit to China. Both countries pledged to jointly cope with the global financial crisis.

In June 2010, then Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited New Zealand and held talks with Key. The two sides agreed to boost ties through practical cooperation.

In April 2013, Key visited China and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

In November 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited New Zealand. The two countries elevated their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

In April 2016, then New Zealand Prime Minister John Key visited China. The two countries pledged to further expand the bilateral trade and promote the negotiation on upgrading their free trade agreement (FTA). Enditem
VIENTIANE, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Garment exports of Laos were recorded at more than 37 million pieces, amounting to over 160 million U.S. dollars, according to the Association of the Lao Garment Industry on Friday.

The number of clothes exported dropped by five percent in 2016 compared to the previous year, President of the Association of the Lao Garment Industry Xaybandith Rasphone was quoted by Lao state-run news agency KPL as saying on Saturday.

"We will strive to increase our products constantly and marketing promotion to raise the volume of export this year," he said, adding that "We will work closely with the Industry and Handicraft Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to make a strategic plan for development of the garment industry sector."

In addition, the association will continue to mobilize small-scale garment factories across the country to become members of the association in a bid to increase productivity in the future.

The association will also coordinate with local cloth shops to reduce importing clothes from neighboring countries, aiming at promoting domestic products consumption.

There are a total of 85 garment factories nationwide with more than 27,000 employees, of whom almost 90 percent are female, according to the latest information in 2016.

As many as 57 garment factories reported to producing garments for export, and 47 factories are members of the association.

The main export markets of Lao garments are the European Union, Japan, United States and Canada.
BOAO, Hainan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the opening ceremony of the 2017 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, held in China's Hainan Province Saturday morning.

Since its establishment 16 years ago, the Boao Forum for Asia has played an important role in building Asian consensus, promoting Asian cooperation and upgrading Asian influence, Xi noted.

The theme for this year's conference is "Globalization and Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives."

Xi said the theme reflected the attention on economic globalization paid by the international community, especially the Asian countries.

The president called upon attendees of the conference to pool their wisdom on solving the major problems faced by the world and regional economy, and jointly push forward a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economic globalization process.

Talking about economic globalization in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli asked the Asian countries to join hands in promoting economic globalization and free trade, and forging the community of common destiny for Asia and the mankind.

To achieve that goal, the Asian countries should promote a development mode featuring peace, innovation, openness, sharing and fairness, said Zhang.




WELLINGTON, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming visit to New Zealand will open a new chapter in China-New Zealand relations and exert great influence on regional prosperity and development, Chinese ambassador to New Zealand Wang Lutong wrote in an article earlier this week.

At the invitation of New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English, Li will pay an official visit to New Zealand from Sunday to Wednesday.

The visit will be the first of its kind by a Chinese premier in 11 years and will be Li's first visit to New Zealand since he took office, Wang said.

During Li's stay in New Zealand, he will meet Governor General Patsy Reddy and hold talks with English to exchange views with them on bilateral ties and major issues of common concern, Wang said.

The two sides will sign a series of cooperative agreements regarding trade, people-to-people exchanges and technology, according to the ambassador.

Li's visit could lead to further high-level exchanges between China and New Zealand and broaden ties between the two countries, he said.

The visit will send a signal that both China and New Zealand are committed to openness and win-win cooperation, which has international implications far beyond bilateral ties, Wang said.

In his article, Wang mentioned that Rewi Alley, a New Zealand writer, educator and social reformer, went to China in 1927 and dedicated 60 years of his life to China's national independence, writing a chapter on the friendly exchanges between the two peoples.

Since China and New Zealand forged diplomatic ties 45 years ago, bilateral relations have witnessed remarkable growth, Wang said. The relationship has become a paradigm of harmonious coexistence between countries that have different social systems, different cultural traditions and are at different stages of development, he said.

The ambassador hailed New Zealand for leading developed countries in building ties with China.

Wang noted that New Zealand has been a front-runner among developed economies in conducting cooperation with China. It is the first developed country that signed a bilateral agreement with China on China's accession to the World Trade Organization, recognized China's full market economy status, signed a free trade agreement with China, and also the first Western nation to join China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Wang said.

He added that this year China and New Zealand will kick off negotiations to upgrade their free trade agreement, creating another first.

All these groundbreaking and exemplary "firsts" showed the farsighted approach that the leaders and governments of the two countries have adopted to serve the fundamental and long-term interests of their two peoples, leaving remarkable imprints on the history of China-New Zealand ties, Wang said.

The ambassador said bilateral trade as been beneficial to both sides due to their complementary advantages. Two-way trade increased to more than 20 billion New Zealand dollars (about 14 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016 from 7 million New Zealand dollars (about 4.9 million U.S. dollars) more than 40 years ago and is advancing steadily toward 30 billion New Zealand dollars (about 21 billion U.S. dollars), a goal for 2020 set by the leaders of the two countries, said Wang.

Wang noted that bilateral trade has maintained double-digit growth since the China-New Zealand free trade agreement took effect in 2008.

Chinese investment in New Zealand has greatly increased and played an active role in helping New Zealand counter the 2008 global financial crisis and become a "star of economic growth" among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, he added.

Now, China is New Zealand's largest trade partner, export market and source of imports, Wang said, adding that there is still great potential for economic and trade cooperation between the two sides.

Furthermore, China has remained New Zealand's largest source of overseas students for more than a decade, with 31,000 Chinese students and scholars studying in New Zealand in 2016, the diplomat said.

Tourism is another bright spot in relations, with more than 400,000 Chinese visiting New Zealand in 2016, an increase of 30 percent.

There's been growing enthusiasm to studying the Chinese language, said Wang, noting that three Confucius Institutes and 30 Confucius Classrooms have been set up in New Zealand. More than 300 middle and primary schools offer Chinese language courses, and there are more than 40,000 people studying the Chinese language.

There are more than 70 flights every week between major cities of the two countries.

Both China and New Zealand, though at different stages of development, firmly believe in safeguarding global free trade, oppose trade protectionism and are committed to jointly building an open global economy, Wang said.

The two countries also share broad common interests in safeguarding regional and world peace, while continuing to coordinate under multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Pacific Islands Forum.

"Grasping the opportunity of Li's New Zealand visit and the 45th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral ties, China will work with New Zealand to usher their comprehensive strategic partnership toward a new voyage, one that will further benefit both sides," Wang said.
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli addresses the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2017 in Boao, south China's Hainan Province, March 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BOAO, Hainan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- China is expected to import goods worth 8 trillion U.S. dollars in the next five years, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli said Saturday at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia in south China's Hainan Province.

During the period, the country will attract 600 billion dollars of foreign investment, with its outbound investment reaching 750 billion dollars, he said as he highlighted China's commitment to opening-up and easier access for foreign investment.

He added that Chinese tourists will make 700 million overseas visits in coming five years, stressing that China will keep opening its door wider.

The country will further ease access for foreign investment into its service, manufacturing and mining sectors, he said.

Foreign-funded enterprises will be encouraged to list on local bourses and issue bonds in China, the vice premier said, adding that they will be treated equally as domestic market players.

The legitimate rights of investors will be strictly protected, he said.
by Levi J Parsons

SYDNEY, March 25 (Xinhua) -- At a time of uncertainty, where protectionist economic policy poses some threats to the broader global market, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Australia has highlighted the importance of the two nation's responsibility to work together and develop trade in the Asia-Pacific.

For China and Australia, the stability and prosperity of the region relies on access to the free market and the global economy.

"Given the less than desirable global economic recovery, the push-back against globalization, rising protectionism, heightened geopolitical rivalry and local conflicts, the existing international order and system is being called into question," Li said in a signed article published Wednesday on The Australian, a leading national newspaper.

In fact, China as well, faces its own trade challenges.

Its free trade agreement with Australia runs at a deficit, with the Aussies exporting more and importing less than China.

But Premier Li's answer to this problem is not to reject free trade. Instead, he plans to open the door even wider.

"Cutting oneself off could neither ensure success of one's own endeavor nor peace and development of the world at large. A trade war will not make trade fairer. Protectionism offers no genuine protection," Li said.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull agrees with the stance made by China and reiterated in an article for the Australian Financial Review that Australia remains committed to championing trade liberalisation and welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping's robust defence of open markets in Davos.

Turnbull added that the result of China and Australia's outward-looking cooperation on trade is "30 years of rising living standards."

"In China, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted from poverty. In Australia, real incomes have doubled since 1975," Turnbull said.

Engagement of the two countries will feature as a key driver that underpins the economic and political security of the region.

"Australia and China's relationship is quite incredible in a sense, because it's very successful," Professor James Laurenceson, deputy director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, told Xinhua.

"Australia and China have very different histories, cultures, languages, values even. So it's important that the relationship is coming from a solid foundation, and leader visits are an important part of building that foundation," Laurenceson said.

"Last year, Prime Minister Turnbull was in China, in 2014 President Xi Jinping came to Australia, now we have Premier Li visiting us, so look, it's a good sign for the future of the relationship when you have leaders from both countries committing to the relationship," Laurenceson added.

Executive Director of the University of New South Wales International Laurie Pearcey echoed these thoughts, telling Xinhua that "the Chinese premier's visit will ensure that the framework for the ongoing development of bilateral relations is exceptionally strong."

"Without the ongoing mobility and the dialogue between the leaders at the highest levels of our government, then everything else that follows is just simply not possible," Pearcey said.

He said that China is pushing for economic reforms and playing a role as a champion for globalization. Australia is certainly doing the same.
KATHMANDU, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Nepal and China have pledged to further develop their ties as Nepal expressed its willingness to join China's Belt and Road initiative.

When meeting with visiting Chinese Defense Minister and State Councilor Chang Wanquan on Thursday, Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal highly appreciated China's neighborhood diplomacy featuring amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness.

He also thanked China for its assistance to Nepal's socio-economic development and national defense, especially the Chinese aid for post-quake reconstruction after a devastating earthquake hit the Himalayan nation in 2015.

"Nepal is committed to the one-China policy and it will always stand against anti-Chinese activities. Nepal is keen to be a partner of the Belt and Road initiative," the prime minister said.

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative, known as Belt and Road initiative, was proposed by China in 2013 with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes.

For his part, Chang appreciated Nepal's strong support to China in regard to its "core interest" issues of Taiwan and Tibet.

Chang further said leaders from both sides have reached consensus on deepening bilateral ties, which has pointed out direction of development of relations between the two countries and two militaries.

China is ready to join hands with Nepal to further promote their comprehensive partnership of cooperation so as to benefit the two peoples, he added.

Also on Thursday, the Chinese defense minister and his Nepali counterpart Balkrishna Khand met to discuss ways to strengthen military cooperation between the two sides.

Both sides agreed to implement consensus reached between leaders of the two countries, maintain high-level military exchanges, tighten border control, and deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields.

The Chinese minister arrived here on Thursday for a three-day visit.
KATHMANDU, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari has pledged to enhance cooperation with China within the framework of China's Belt and Road initiative.

When meeting with visiting Chinese Defense Minister and State Councilor Chang Wanquan on Friday, Bhandari said Nepal and China have been good neighbors and partners for generations.

Both countries have maintained high-level exchange of visits in recent years, which has enhanced exchanges and cooperation in such fields as politics, trade and defense, she said.

Nepal is ready to make joint efforts with China to deepen pragmatic cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road initiative so as to benefit the two peoples, the president added.

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative, known as Belt and Road initiative, was proposed by China in 2013 with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes.

For his part, Chang appreciated Nepal's support to China over its "core interest" issues.

China is willing to join hands with Nepal to push forward the Belt and Road initiative, expand defense and security cooperation, and elevate their military ties to a higher level.

The Chinese defense minister arrived here on Thursday for a three-day visit.
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VIENNA, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen sharply criticized Britain's approach to Brexit under Prime Minister Theresa May.

In an interview with the Austria Press Agency published on Friday, Alexander Van der Bellen said, there presently exist "100,000 open questions to clarify."

He pointed out that numerous issues concerning personal profit, such as the pensions of British citizens living in the European Union (EU), have not yet been answered. There has "not one single compromisable proposal" from the May administration, he said.

The president added the Brexit is nonetheless to be accepted, though it serves as a "wake-up call" to the rest of the EU.

He also referred to the nationalist rhetoric of far-right politicians such as Geert Wilders of the PVV party in Holland and Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Front in France, as "completely unrealistic."

Earlier this month, Britain's EU envoy Tim Barrow informed the office of European Council President Donald Tusk of Britain's intention to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on March 29, nine months after the country voted to leave the bloc.

However, except for finally settling on the date to formally start the Brexit negotiations and that Britain wants a "hard Brexit," the British government has so far given little clue about how it will proceed with what could be more than two years of talks.
YANGON, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has rejected a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to send a fact-finding mission to the country to investigate alleged human rights abuse by security forces against Muslims in northern Rakhine state.

"The establishment of an international fact-finding mission would do more to inflame rather than resolve the issues at this time," the Myanmar Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late Friday night.

The resolution, tabled by the European Union, was adopted without a vote at the 34th session of the HRC held in Geneva on Friday.

A number of HRC member countries have dissociated themselves from the resolution or voiced their opposition to the establishment of such mission.

The statement said the HRC's move is not in accord with the situation on ground and the Myanmar government voices full commitment to promote and protect human rights for the benefit of the people of Myanmar.

Myanmar would unveil an action plan to promptly implement the recommendations made by the government-assigned Advisory Commission on Rakhine state.
SUVA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Fiji and Malaysia have explored mutual cooperation in capacity building for police officers, the Fijian government said on Saturday.

Fijian Minister of Defense and National Security Ratu Inoke Kubuabola and Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs Ahmad Zahid Hamidi have discussed the constant and steady senior command training of Fijian police officers in Malaysia, and the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs will increase the current number of Fijian police officers to be trained in Malaysia from one to two officers a year, according to Fiji's Department of Information.

"The bilateral meeting also looked at the training of specialized police officers in the areas of forensic in disaster victim identification and toxicology," said Minister Kubuabola.

The two ministers have also discussed cracking-down drug smuggling in Southeast Asia as well as the Pacific region.
haoby John MacDonald

WELLINGTON, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The "shopping list" is all written up as New Zealand heads into talks to upgrade its free trade agreement (FTA) with China.

But trade officials and exporters have expectations that won't appear on the final documents as they want leadership from China during uncertain times.

FREE TRADE ADVOCATE

Still recovering from the United States' withdrawal from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and with signs of growing U.S. insularity, New Zealand is seeking a new light in free trade.

New Zealand will be looking for signs from visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang as to how China sees the new "trade architecture" of the Asia-Pacific region, said New Zealand China Council Acting Executive Director Stephen Jacobi.

Jacobi said New Zealand exporters would like to see China "pick up the pace a bit" in the 16-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) talks.

Catherine Beard, executive director of the Export New Zealand lobby group, sees a major role for China in "a sort of coalition of the willing" to continue to advocate for free trade.

"Across the Asia-Pacific, there's been a lot of people pulled out of poverty due to trade. I think China understands the value of trade hugely because of the transformation of its economy, which wouldn't have been possible without access to international markets," Beard told Xinhua.

"If we can have countries like China raising the bar in agreements like RCEP, that would be hugely helpful because they have the negotiating power and if the Asia-Pacific could become a free trade area that could become very powerful," she said.

As anti-globalization is rearing its head worldwide, the Chinese leadership has recently stressed on various occasions that the country will remain committed to its opening-up policy and promoting global free trade and investment.

"We have seen in practice how the trend of economic globalization has become closely interconnected with, even inseparable from, peace, development and cooperation," Li said in a signed article carried Wednesday by an Australian newspaper, ahead of his visit to the country.

"We stand ready to work with other countries to support economic globalization and free trade, improve the global governance system and facilitate progress of mankind," said Li, who left Beijing on Wednesday for official visits to Australia and New Zealand, the first such by a Chinese premier to the two Oceanian countries in 11 years.

A NEW FIRST

This month, the New Zealand government announced an ambitious goal of having free trade agreements cover 90 percent of the country's exports by 2030, up from 53 percent now.

Trade Minister Todd McClay told Xinhua New Zealand sees China as a constructive partner. "So their agreement to launch an upgrade to our FTA is a demonstration that they support a high-quality agreement and they're starting to show leadership in the RCEP negotiations which New Zealand is also involved in."

"For any country in the world that believes trade agreements can deliver for their economies and their citizens, the best way to do this is with a high quality ambitious comprehensive agreement," said McClay.

"Certainly I would argue that the China-New Zealand FTA is one of those and we'll be looking to make sure that the level of ambition delivered to the RCEP agreement is also extremely high," McClay added.

McClay said the upgrade is another first to add to the "four firsts" already achieved in New Zealand's relations with China: the first developed country to agree to China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 1997; the first country to recognize China as a market economy in 2004; the first developed country to start FTA negotiations with China in 2004; and the first developed country to successfully conclude FTA negotiations with China in 2008.

"It shows the maturity and strength of the relationship," he said, adding New Zealand-China trade ties have grown significantly since the FTA came into effect.

PEOPLE-POWERED TRADE

So what specifically is on the agenda?

"For New Zealand, it's about finding ways to ensure that the high-quality agreement that we signed with China eight years ago remains relevant and keeps pace with the growing relationship, but in particular we'll want to look at services and investment and the digital economy," said McClay.

"We also think that non-tariff measures are important. The current agreement has a way of dealing with non-tariff measures or non-tariff barriers, but we want to make sure that it continues to deliver," he said.

Better access for meat, especially the highest quality fresh meat, said Beard, horticulture and processed forestry products are also viewed as important for New Zealand.

Much of the negotiation will focus on updating administrative requirements and regulations, though these are evolving as trade expands.

Visas should also be on the agenda so more New Zealanders can take up internships and work opportunities in China, said Asia New Zealand Foundation Executive Director Simon Draper.

While all this is important to growing trade, the FTA upgrade would be a bonus in itself, New Zealand China Trade Association Chairman Martin Thomson told Xinhua.

"The other aspect is that an FTA upgrade is very good for the profile of New Zealand within China. It just brings with it a whole lot of publicity and focus and would be seen in China as a positive step in the relationship of the two countries," Thomson said.
LONDON, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The British police are investigating the reason behind Wednesday's terror attack in central London that left four people dead and at least 50 injured.

Khalid Masood, 52, drove a rented SUV across the crowded Westminster Bridge, leaving a trail of dead and wounded. Then he jumped out and attacked Constable Keith Palmer, an officer guarding Parliament, stabbing him to death before being shot to death by police.

Although the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, police are investigating whether the homegrown killer acted totally alone inspired by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him, according to Britain's top counter-terrorism officer Mark Rowley.

British police said Friday they had arrested two more suspects related to the London attack, the deadliest in Britain since the 2005 London suicide bombings that killed 52 people.

Rowley described the overnight arrests of two men aged 27 and 35 in Birmingham and Manchester as "significant."

At least 10 people have been arrested over the attack, all on suspicion of preparation of terrorist attacks.

British police say six people, including two women and four men, being held in connection with the attack have been released without charge. They were all arrested in Birmingham, central England, where Masood recently lived.

Masood, born into a middle-class family in Kent, southeastern England, moved through several addresses in England.

British newspaper the Daily Mail said he was brought up by his single mother in the seaside town of Rye, East Sussex, southeastern England, later converted to Islam and changed his name.

Former schoolmates told the Daily Mail that he had been a popular student who excelled academically and at sport, and that he was a "happy-go-lucky" character.

He later began drinking and using drugs and slipped into criminal behavior, receiving convictions for assault and possession of offensive weapons between 1983 and 2003, according to the paper.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Masood was investigated in relation to concerns about violent extremism years ago. But she called him "a peripheral figure."

"Our working assumption is that he was inspired by international terrorism," Rowley said.

Masood's age does not fit the profile of militant attackers, who are typically younger than 30, according to counter-terrorism officers.

"Masood is not atypical in being a British-born convert with a criminal record. He was slightly more unusual in being older, but we do not know how long ago he was radicalized," Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, told Reuters.

"If it was in prison, this would be a common pathway," Joshi said.

The Sun tabloid said he married a Muslim woman in 2004 and moved the following year to Saudi Arabia. Investigators were trying to determine how long he stayed and what he was doing in the kingdom.

The Saudi embassy in London on Friday issued a statement saying Masood was not known to their security services and did not have a criminal record in Saudi Arabia.

In one of the last places Masood lived, a home in Birmingham, neighbors recalled him as a quiet man.

Birmingham is home to many British Muslims. There are over 213,000 Muslims in the city, more than one-fifth of the population, according to the 2011 census.

Sabeur Toumi, manager of the hotel in the beachside city of Brighton on the south coast of England where Masood stayed the night before the attack, said he seemed unusually outgoing and mentioned details about his family, including having a sick father.

"He was normal, in fact friendly, because we spent possibly five or 10 minutes talking to him about his background and where he came from," Toumi told Sky News. He was "laughing and joking, telling us stories about where he lived."
SHANGHAI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The European Investment Bank (EIB) has committed to increasing support for climate-related investment in China, a senior official of the bank said.

Jonathan Taylor, vice president of the EIB, the European Union's long-term lending institution, said the bank has a strong pipeline of climate-related projects across China, including urban transport, forestry and energy efficiency, under examination and expected to be financed in the coming months.

The bank plans to lend 500 million euros (about 540 million U.S. dollars) to Chinese projects this year and another 500 million euros in 2018, according to Taylor.

Last year, the bank lent 298 million euros to eight Chinese projects, ranging from forestry and energy efficiency to biomass for energy conversion.

The EIB is also working with China's central bank on the "harmonization" of green bond standards, Taylor said.

"We are seeking to arrive at an acceptable common standard between China and Europe to enhance investors' confidence and to support green finance," he said.

On Wednesday, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), China's central bank, and the EIB announced a joint initiative to provide a clear framework for analysis and decision-making in green finance.

PBOC economist Ma Jun said earlier this week that one barrier to cross-border green capital flow was the lack of consistent standards between markets, China will make its green bond standards more consistent with international criteria to help attract more investment.

China is pushing the development of green finance to support its industrial upgrading and anti-pollution campaign.

According to credit rating agency Moody's, green bond issues worldwide hit a record high of 93.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, rising 120 percent from a year earlier, bolstered by China-based issuers.

China accounted for nearly 40 percent of new green bonds last year, followed by the United States, France and Germany, according to Moody's.
NEW DELHI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- India said on Saturday that it mulls sealing the international borders with neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh soon as an effort to curb terrorism and the entry of refugees into this country.

"India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh as soon as possible. This could be India's major step against terrorism and the problem of refugees," Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

"The border with Pakistan will be sealed by 2018. The decision has been taken in the wake of an increase in infiltration attempts," he added.

The minister said the government would apply technological solutions for sealing the border in difficult terrains and the sealing project would be periodically monitored by top bureaucrats and the Border Security Force, which guards the international borders.

The international border between India and Pakistan runs from the Line of Control (LoC), which separates the Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in the north, to Wagah, which partitioned India's Punjab state and the Punjab Province of Pakistan in the east.

The Zero Point separates the western Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to Sindh province of Pakistan in the south.

On the other hand, India and Bangladesh share a 4,096-km-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, including 262 kms in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, 856 kms in Tripura, 180 kms in Mizoram, 443 kms in Meghalaya and 2,217 km in West Bengal.
KAMPALA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Friday left for neighboring Kenya where he will meet his counterparts to discuss solutions to the Somali refugee crisis.

The meeting scheduled for Saturday will bring together heads of state of member countries of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the international community and other stakeholders.

The summit aims to marshal a comprehensive regional approach to deliver durable solutions for Somali refugees whilst promoting sustainable re- integration of returnees in Somalia.

UN figures show more than two million Somalis have been displaced in one of the world's most protracted humanitarian crises that has now entered its third decade.

An estimated 1.1 million Somalis are internally displaced inside the Horn of Africa nation and some 900,000 are refugees in neighboring countries, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda.
CAIRO, March 25 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced the former head of the Journalists Union and two board members a year in jail on charges of harboring colleagues wanted by the law, official news agency MENA reported.

The sentence in November for the three journalists Yehia Qalah, Khalid al-Balshy and Gamal Abdel Rahim was two years in jail, MENA said.

But Saturday's sentence was handed without labor, so according to Egyptian laws, the three journalists won't be imprisoned but banned from travel for three years, in case they are charged in any other cases.

The case dates back to May 2, 2016, when the police raided the Egyptian syndicate to arrest two opposition journalists, Mahmoud al-Sakka and Amr Badr, who took shelter inside the premise.

Union officials condemned the raid, saying it's the first time the syndicate has been stormed in its history, but the interior ministry said Sakka and Badr were arrested on criminal charges.
KAMPALA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Uganda has set up national task force to combat the outbreak of army-worms in the east African country.

Vincent Ssempijja, minister of agriculture in a statement issued on Friday said the task force will develop action plans for effective management of the army-worm both in the short and long term periods.

He said the ministry of agriculture as an emergency measure is going to buy pesticides known to have worked successfully elsewhere in the control of army worms.

He said government will also procure motorized pumps and all other related items.

He urged farmers and the general public to promptly report any outbreaks for guidance on the interim measures of managing the pest.

Government has set aside one billion shillings (over 285,700 U.S. dollars) to control the pest.

Ssempijja said the presence of the army-worms poses an export risk for the country which would have a negative effect on foreign exchange earnings.

The outbreak was first reported in Uganda in 2016 in three districts. It has now spread to over 20 districts.

"Ministry of agriculture has so far confirmed damages on maize and sugarcane crops," the statement said.

Ssempijja said government is yet to establish the impact of the pest in Uganda but based on their effects elsewhere, the impact may be huge.

"Based on the estimated yield loss of 15 percent -75 percent elsewhere, the presence of the army-worm in Uganda could translate to an annual loss of at least 450,000 metric tonnes of maize that is equivalent to almost 200 million dollars.

The figures, according to ministry of agriculture, are only reflective of maize however the pest affects more crops heightening the potential loss to the economy.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop in Sydney, Australia, March 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhu Hongye)

SYDNEY, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop here on Saturday.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's ongoing visit to Australia is a success and has achieved a series of further progress in bilateral ties, Bishop said, adding that Australia was keen to work with China to boost bilateral cooperation in various fields.

Freshly returning from a counterterrorism conference in the United States, the Australian top diplomat expressed her government's hope to strengthen anti-terror exchanges and cooperation with Beijing.

Wang said Premier Li's visit sends a strong signal that the two nations are ready to join hands in maintaining free trade, peace and stability in the region and world, as well as harmonious coexistence of multi-culture.

The two sides have agreed to build a new era of prosperity via free trade and multiple cooperation and launched three major dialogue mechanisms on innovation, energy and security, which adds new content to their bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership, Wang said.

During Li's visit, the prime ministers of both countries have reached important consensus that the two sides should adhere to the principle of mutual respect and promote a healthy and stable development of bilateral relations.

Li arrived in Canberra Wednesday night for an official visit to Australia. Following his Australian trip, the Chinese premier will pay an official visit to New Zealand.
BOAO, Hainan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- While globalization is suffering from setbacks due to uneven economic growth, the Belt and Road Initiative offers new momentum by creating more opportunities that can bring mutual benefits.

"The initiative is important in connecting countries and creating more opportunities for exchanges of goods and services, thus helping regional development," Hans-Paul Burkner, chairman of the Boston Consulting Group, told Xinhua on the sidelines of ongoing Boao Forum for Asia (BFA)in Hainan, the southernmost province in China.

Not only China will become a beneficiary but also countries in Asia and beyond, leading to a "win-win" situation, Burkner said.

The Belt and Road Initiative was proposed by China in the hope of forming a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes. It has won support from over 100 countries and international organizations, with the signing of nearly 50 inter-governmental agreements of cooperation.

The value of infrastructure projects rose 47 percent to nearly 500 billion U.S. dollars in 66 countries and regions that fall under the initiative in 2016, according to accounting firm PwC.

The initiative has offered a new way to tackle the anti-globalization trend, according to BFA's annual report on the development of emerging economies.

Globalization has played a vital role in boosting prosperity and reducing poverty and it is time to push it to a new level, according to Burkner.

"Now we need to continue globalization and usher it into the next phase, and the initiative will be significant to really connect more countries to the world economy," Burkner said, adding that China's efforts will generate new momentum.

While pushing forward the initiative, China has also vowed to open wider to the world with easier market access and equal treatment for foreign companies, moves to further integrate into the world economy.

China's opening, especially in services, means fresh business opportunities for foreign investors, and in the same time more Chinese companies will become international, increasing their presence in rest of the world, Burkner said.
Photo taken on March 24, 2017 shows a banner celebrating the 60th anniversary of Treaty of Rome is displayed on European Commission building in Brussels, Belgium, March 24, 2017. The EU-27 leaders will meet in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of signing of the treaty and discuss about the future of the bloc without Britain. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

ROME, March 25 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) leaders gathered in the Italian capital on Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome that launched the European integration process.

The summit is meant to celebrate the major achievements reached by European countries since they embarked on the journey of integration.

Besides that, there are challenges for the EU to address. Its leaders are expected to sign a Declaration of Rome to outline Europe's future goals and perspectives, especially after Britain's forthcoming exit from the bloc.

The declaration will be signed at the ancient Hall of the Horatii and Curiatii, exactly where the Treaty of Rome was signed.

On March 25 of 1957, Italy, France, the Federal Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg signed the treaty to create the European Economic Community (EEC).

They committed to implement a progressive economic integration, including a single market for goods, people, services, labor and capital, and a custom union. On the same day in Rome, the Euratom treaty on establishing the European Atomic Energy Community was also signed. Both treaties entered into force on Jan. 1, 1958.

In 1951, the same six founding member states launched the European Coal and Steel Community, putting their respective productions under a common authority.

Such entities, and the EEC especially, paved the way for the European Union, as it is known today.

On Saturday, heads of state or government from 27 EU members and top officials of EU institutions, attended the major ceremony in the Palace of the Conservators in the Capitoline Hill of Rome.

The EU special summit took place amid tight security measures, and some 5,000 police forces have been deployed across the city.

Although a security plan for the summit had long been prepared, concerns increased after the terror attack occurred in London on March 22.

Two security zones have since Friday been put in place around Rome's sensitive districts, including parliament, government, and presidential palace, and indeed around the Capitoline Hill.

The air space over Rome will remain closed through near midnight Saturday, banning commercial and emergency flights, ultra-light aircraft and drones, according to the Italian Civil Aviation Authority.

Related:

Spotlight: Europe holds high-profile celebrations for Treaty of Rome anniversary
File photo show residents of Zimbabwe gather at a booth set up by Chinese tech firm Huawei during the 57th Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, April 28, 2016. (Xinhua/Stringer)

HARARE, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's state-owned fixed line telephone operator TelOne on Thursday launched a world class data center which is part of the national broadband project being funded by China Exim Bank.

Chinese firm Huawei is implementing the national broadband project under a 98 million U.S. dollars China Exim Bank loan facility.

The loan facility is part of the several cooperation agreements that were signed by Zimbabwe and China in Beijing in 2015.

Information, Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services Minister Supa Mandiwanzira hailed the launch of the data center, saying it was a key project for the Zimbabwean government in its efforts to expand internet connectivity to underserved and rural areas.

"The launch of the data center is an important development worth celebrating as it is in sync with the big data era that the country has entered into making such facilities indispensable," the minister said when he launched the center, which costs 1.64 million U.S. dollars,

TelOne board Chairman Charles Shamu said the firm had to date drawn down 33 million from the China Exim Bank 98 million facility since commencement of the national broadband project in 2016 as the company moves to introduce multimedia services to counter the decline in voice revenues.

He said the data center, the digitalization of several exchanges, convergence and introduction of prepaid billing platform, upgrade of information superhighway of Mutare-Harare-Bulawayo-Plumtree fibre optic backbone link, upgrade of Bulawayo-Victoria Falls microwave radio link and the on-going Bulawayo-Beitbridge fibre backbone link roll-out were some of the projects that had been implemented through the draw down.

TelOne managing director Chipo Mutasa said companies using their data center could cut connectivity costs by up to 35 percent.

"We are pleased to confirm that the facilities we have built are world class, tier 3 meaning we guarantee reliability at 99.982 percent uptime. I therefore implore on all of you to seriously consider us to host you instead of constructing your own centers," she said.

She said TelOne had built this facility to cater for the current and future Information and Communication Technology processing needs of enterprises in Zimbabwe and beyond.

The first of its kind in Zimbabwe, the data center is a centralized location where large amounts of data are stored, processed, accessed and distributed.
File photo shows a Somali refugee mother with her children pose for photos at Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, May 8, 2015. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)

NAIROBI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A group of non-government organizations (NGOs) on Friday called on African leaders to find practical solutions to protect and assist Somali refugees and asylum seekers facing ongoing conflict and a humanitarian crisis in Somalia.

In a joint statement issued on the eve of the regional summit on refugees, members of the Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat (ReDSS), Somalia NGO Consortium and the Inter-agency Working Group (IAWG) expressed hope that the leaders will take practical steps towards the development and implementation of a comprehensive regional approach.

"It is hoped that such an approach, developed in the spirit of the New York Declaration, will support countries and communities that host Somali refugees in improving asylum space, integrated access to services, inclusive economic opportunities and infrastructure for all," the organizations said.

Kenya will on Saturday host an Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) summit that will bring together Eastern African heads of state to discuss the situation of Somali refugees in the region.

Kenya's role as a refugee host has been marred by its continued insistence on closing Dadaab refugee camp, host to over 300,000 Somali refugees, by May.

The vast majority of Somali refugees have been hosted in neighboring countries for decades.

"It is critical to support host countries to include displacement in their National Development Plans to complement humanitarian interventions, addressing displacement-affected communities' needs and contributing to a comprehensive effort," the NGOs said.

"This Summit provides a unique opportunity to call on the international community to demonstrate solidarity with IGAD member states through responsibility sharing and increased resettlement quotas for Somali refugees," the statement said.

The summit comes at a time when the East and Horn of Africa region is facing a severe drought that has already caused a famine in parts of South Sudan and that threatens to do the same in Somalia.

Abdurahman Sharif, Director of the Somalia NGO Consortium, said the threat of famine in Somalia is real and hoped that the African leaders will commit themselves to averting it.

"If we don't collectively act now, the consequences can be catastrophic not only for Somalia but also for the region," he warned.

Over 260,000 Somalis have already been internally displaced since the end of 2016 due to the pre-famine situation.

The agencies called for international financial institutions to cancel Somalia's debts to support and accelerate the country's development and to mitigate the long-term effects of the current pre-famine situation.

NGOs are concerned that the population movement is happening within a backdrop of continuing returns of Somalis from Kenya and suspension of registration of new arrivals.

"The organizations urged Kenya, Somalia and UNHCR to suspend the return process given the impending humanitarian crisis and the adverse consequences that sustained repatriation may create and urge the government of Kenya to resume registration of new arrivals," they said.
File photo shows recyclable cloth bags shown at a shopping center in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Sept. 25, 2014. (Xinhua)

ACCRA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Ghana is going to introduce biodegradable plastics this year, the Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng said on Thursday.

Frimpong-Boateng was opening a regional policy dialogue of the Switch Africa Green (SAG) project in Accra which assembled stakeholders from six African countries to share experiences on the switch to green business development for sustainable growth.

The dialogue is to create a common understanding of policy landscape to enable countries to strengthen their institutions with appropriate tools and legal instruments for green business development.

In an answer to a question by Xinhua about plans to ban plastic bags in Ghana, Frimpong-Boateng said Ghana is going to introduce biodegradable plastics this year.

He said the Ghana Standards Authority had begun running tests on some resins that it is going to encourage or force plastic manufacturers to use to get biodegradable materials in Ghana.

"But that is not the solution. The solution is our attitude. We can continue to use plastic provided we are going to abide by environmental laws and rules. If you don't litter and you segregate your waste, the plastic will become a very good raw material for other things. So it all depends on our attitude."

"We will introduce biodegradable plastics but if at some point we are not prepared to change our ways, then we would have to take other more drastic measures," he said.

The SWITCH Africa Green project is developed and funded by the European Union to support African countries in their transition to an inclusive green economy.

These transitions are envisaged to happen by adopting and implementing Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) patterns and practices in selected focus areas.

The participating countries, namely Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa and Uganda, have already developed their national SCP programs and national green economy strategies.

The UN Resident Coordinator, Christine Evans-Klock, highly commended Ghana's commitment to the global agenda to halt climate change in the context of the Paris Agreement through its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (NDICs).

She said the SAG project was a strategic and opportune tool for Ghana and the five other African pilot countries to accelerate transition towards an inclusive economy based on sustainable consumption and production patterns, while generating growth, creating decent jobs and reducing poverty.
TOKYO, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga vows on Saturday to start a new battle against the U.S. Futenma base relocation plan pushed forward by the central government and the United States.

"From this day, Okinawa's new battle begins. I will definitely not allow the construction of Henoko base," Onaga told a rally near the site for the relocation in the Henoko District of Nago city.

He also said that he would "employ all means" to scrap the land reclamation approval so as to block the relocation plan.

It was the first time that the governor participated in an anti-relocation rally since he was elected in 2014, according to local reports.

Some 3,500 people attended the rally, including Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine and lawmakers representing the island prefecture.

The rally also adopted a resolution, requiring the central government of Japan and the United States to give up their plan to relocate the U.S. Futenma base from Ginowan to the less populated Henoko coastal area of Nago.

Onaga, well known for his opposition to the plan, revoked in October 2015 an approval issued by former governor Hirokazu Nakaima for the landfill work of the relocation plan.

He was forced to withdraw his order on the site after the Supreme Court ruled late last year against the governor's attempt to revoke the land reclamation work approval.

Onaga tried to show the Okinawa people by attending the rally that he was still determined to block the relocation plan, said local reports.

Japan's central government had said that the relocation plan is "the only solution" for removing the dangers posed by the base to the crowded residential area of Ginowan without undermining the Japan-U.S. alliance.

The Okinawans, however, have called for the base to be removed from the prefecture, complaining of sufferings caused by aircraft noise, crimes committed by the U.S. servicemen as well as safety concerns.
BAGHDAD, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi forces will mainly pursue street-to-street battles to dislodge Islamic State (IS) militants from the heavily-populated western Mosul rather than by heavy shelling and airstrikes in order to minimize civilian casualties, state-run al-Sabah newspaper reported Saturday.

The military decision came "to refute the lies claimed by the terrorist gangs of Daesh (IS militant group) after it portrayed the innocents whom they killed as victims of the bombing of the heroic Iraqi forces in order to mislead public opinion," al-Sabah quoted sources from the Iraqi military command as saying.

The remaining IS-held neighborhoods in western Mosul will be liberated mainly by fighters highly trained on fighting in populated neighborhoods to "protect the unarmed civilians, who are used by terrorists as human shields in order to slow down the advance of the security forces," the newspaper said.

Media reports said hundreds of civilians were buried under the debris of their houses by heavy bombardments of U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi aircraft during the past few days.

Mohammed Abd-Rabbah, a member of parliament from Mosul, told Xinhua that many families would shelter in a basement at a big house in the neighborhood of Mosul al-Jadida, or New Mosul in English, but the house and its surroundings were bombed by warplanes, killing some 137 civilians, most of them women and children.

After recapturing the neighborhood, civil defense teams pulled out some 200 bodies of civilians after clearing the demolished houses in only two streets in the densely-populated Mosul al-Jadida, according to the lawmaker.

Abd-Rabbah also said IS militants prevent civilians from leaving their homes, using them as human shields and their houses to fight security forces.

Late on Friday night, the United Nations expressed concerns about reports of civilian casualties in Mosul, and urged the parties of the conflict to avoid such casualties.

"We are stunned by this terrible loss of life and wish to express our deepest condolences to the many families who have reportedly been impacted by this tragedy," a UN statement quoted Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, as saying.

"Nothing in this conflict is more important than protecting civilians. All parties of the conflict are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians. This means that combatants cannot use people as human shields and cannot imperil lives through indiscriminate use of fire power," Grande said.

Meanwhile, Bruno Geddo, the representative of the UN Refugee Agency in Iraq, warned that an estimated 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in Mosul's old city in northern Iraq as fighting intensifies and people continue to flee.

"The worst is yet to come," he said. Speaking by phone with the UN News Center, Geddo said the fighting in the west of the city has been more intense than the less densely populated east, where the battle ended in January.

"People are stuck between a rock and a hard place," he said. "There's fighting shelling, bombing."

"When people try to flee, extremists shoot them. Some have tried to leave during prayers or under cover of fog at first light, but were killed," Geddo added.

On Tuesday, Jasim al-Attiyah, deputy minister of the Iraqi Migration and Displaced Ministry, told Xinhua that the fierce battles brought the total number of civilians who left their homes in Mosul's both eastern and western sides to 415,000 since the beginning of the military offensive in October to reclaim the IS's largest stronghold in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces, announced the start of an offensive on February 19 to drive extremist militants out of the western side of Mosul.

Late in January, Abadi declared the liberation of Mosul's eastern side, or the left bank of Tigris, after over 100 days of fighting IS militants.

However, Mosul's heavily-populated western part with its narrow streets appears to be a bigger challenge to Iraqi forces.

Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their posts and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
MANCHESTER, Britain, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A National People's Congress (NPC) delegation of legislators from southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Saturday started a four-day trip in Britain where they will visit the local parliament and a university.

The delegation, headed by Padma Choling, who is also a senior member of China's NPC Standing Committee, met with the deputy leader of the Manchester City Council Sue Murphy Saturday morning.

Padma Choling said China's people's congress at different levels stand ready to strengthen communication with their counterparts in Britain and the Manchester City, to promote the exchanges between the two countries and two peoples.

Murphy, on her side, said she is happy to see the cultural diversity in China and expects to visit Tibet.

The delegation is scheduled to visit the British Parliament and the University of Westminster where they will talk with officials, professors and students.
YANGON, March 25 (Xinhua) -- It has been one year since the establishment of Myanmar's very first Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) on March 25 last year.

Under an agreement signed in December 2014, the YSX is jointly owned by the state Myanmar Economic Bank with 51 percent share and Tokyo Stock Exchange and Daiwa Securities Group with 49 percent share.

The YSX began trading with only one listed company, the First Myanmar Investment (FMI), available for transactions.

At present, there have been four listed companies with six securities companies providing services as underwriters on the YSX and one settlement bank.

Although the YSX has drawn much interest from local investors in the initial period, the securities trading and per share prices declined since late last year.

This was due to the country's weak financial sector, especially the banking sector and less public awareness about the YSX.

"We need time to develop the capital market in our country to keep abreast of other international markets," U Yin Zaw Myo, managing director of the YSX told Xinhua Saturday.

The obvious declination of interest is because the local investors had high expectations of profit at the beginning but the market did not develop as much as expected, said U Win Aung, chairman of Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings Public Limited (MTSH) which is one of the listed companies at the YSX.

However, the YSX has plans to cope with the weakness. The YSX will extend the trading time to four times per day from the middle of April though there are only two times per day currently.

People will be able to trade securities through their mobile phone, computers and tablets in near future. The educating programs are also held across the nation, said U Yin Zaw Myo.

Myanmar's Union Tax Bill for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, which is being submitted to the parliament, will favor income tax exemption to listed companies, he added.

"Despite less people's interest, local companies are willing to be publicly listed at the YSX in an effort to meet the criteria. The capital market here has high potential anyway," U Ye Min Aung, vice-president of Union of Myanmar Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) told Xinhua.

Myanmar's new Company Act, which will allow foreign investors at the YSX, will be submitted to the parliament soon.
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-two Islamic State (IS) militants have been confirmed dead in drone attacks in eastern Nangarhar province on Friday, a spokesman for the provincial government said Saturday.

The airstrikes targeted IS hideouts in Milo area of Nazian district on Friday evening, leaving 22 IS militants dead, said Attaullah Khogiani.

Two group commanders named Zabihullah alias Shino and Daz Gul were among those killed in the raids, the spokesman added.

The IS group has yet to make comment on the drone raids.

The U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan usually conduct drone strikes against militants operating in the war-battered country.

Parts of Nangarhar province with Jalalabad as its capital has been the scene of IS activities over the past two years.
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni signs the "Declaration of Rome" during a ceremony at Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy, on March 25, 2017. European Union (EU) leaders on Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome founding the integration process, with a major ceremony in the Italian capital. (Xinhua/Jin Yu)

ROME, March 25 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) leaders on Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome founding the integration process, with a major ceremony in the Italian capital.

The heads of state and government of 27 member states, and top EU officials, were welcomed by Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Rome mayor Virginia Raggi at the Capitoline Hill, where the Treaty of Rome was signed on March 25, 1957.

The summit was meant as both a commemorative event and a "decisive moment" for the EU, given Britain's unprecedented decision to leave the Union and other major challenges facing the bloc.

"Today, we celebrate the perseverance and the cleverness of EU's founding fathers, which has its best proof in this crowded hall," Gentiloni said in his opening speech in the very place where the Treaty of Rome was signed 60 years ago.

"We were six in 1957, and now we are 27," he added, referring to leaders of the six founding member states, namely Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, who witnessed the birth of the Treaty of Rome.

The Treaty established the European Economic Community (EEC), which paved the way for the later European Union.

In his address, Gentiloni also recalled many achievements of the European integration project, while acknowledging that EU has found itself unprepared and responded late before major recent challenges such as migration, economic crisis, and unemployment among others.

"This has triggered a rejection in segments of the public opinion, and rekindled nationalist forces that we thought were buried in the past," he stressed.

He added the trust of EU citizens would need to be restored by stimulating growth, tackling social inequalities, and reaffirming common European values.

According to President of the European Council Donald Tusk, unity only would ensure the bloc's survival as a political entity. "Either Europe will be united, or it will not be at all," Tusk remarked at the ceremony.

All 27 leaders later signed the "Declaration of Rome" meant to revive the fundamental principles of EU's integration, and outline its future perspectives.

Previous objections from Poland and Greece on the blueprint -- about the idea of a multi-speed Europe and EU's austerity policies, respectively -- were lifted ahead of the ceremony.

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker expressed confidence in the bloc's ability to overcome difficulties.

"As much as they are daunting, today's challenges are not at all comparable to those faced by our founding fathers," Junker said, referring to the fact that Europe's integration process stemmed from the huge destruction of the World War II.

Saturday's celebrations took place amid strict security measures, and some 5,000 police officers were deployed across the city. The alert had been raised since Friday, due to both the EU summit and the terror attack in London on March 22.
An Afghan security force member takes part in a military operation in Darzab district of Jawzjan province, Afghanistan, March 25, 2017. Militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) have killed three civilians in Darzab district of the northern Jawzjan province, deputy police chief of the province Abdul Hafiz Khashi said Saturday. (Xinhua/Mohammad Jan Aria)

SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) have killed three civilians in Darzab district of the northern Jawzjan province, deputy police chief of the province Abdul Hafiz Khashi said Saturday.

The hardline armed militants, according to Khashi, abducted three innocent civilians including a 70-year-old on Friday and their bodies were found Saturday.

Darzab district in the northern Jawzjan province with Shiberghan as its capital has been the scene of IS activities over the past year.
Greek army soldiers take part in the Independence Day parade in Athens, Greece, on March 25, 2017. Greece commemorated on Saturday the 196th anniversary of the 1821 war of independence against the 400-year Ottoman rule with the annual military parade in the center of Athens and student parades across the country. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

by Alexia Vlachou

ATHENS, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Greece commemorated on Saturday the 196th anniversary of the 1821 war of independence against the 400-year Ottoman rule with the annual military parade in the center of Athens and student parades across the country.

In their statements for the day Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Defense Minister Panos Kammenos and opposition parties referred to Greece's efforts for Europe's unity and the current challenges to overcome the economic crisis.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, Pavlopoulos stressed Greece's European path and the need for unity.

"Our ancestors, just before the start of the revolution, appealed to the European nations for freedom. We send them today the message that Greece has decided irrevocably to belong to the EU and its hardcore, the Eurozone," Pavlopoulos said after the end of the military parade in front of the parliament.

"For Greece to be outside Europe is inconceivable, while the EU would never be the same without Greece," he added.

Thousands of Greek citizens attended the celebrations of the Independence Day in the center of Athens commemorating war heroes and waving Greek national flags during the military parade.

In front of the Tomb of the Unknown Hero, mechanized units and foot soldiers marched, while flights of Armed Forces aircrafts and helicopters flashed above the crowd.

"The celebration of March 25 anniversary means a lot of things for all the Greeks," Dimitris from the southern Greece city of Kalamata who attended for the first time the military parade in Athens told Xinhua.
BOAO, Hainan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Economic globalization, not isolation, will ensure a better future for Asia and the world, according to the ongoing Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in Hainan Province.

The theme of the conference - "Globalization and Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives" - reflects the attention to economic globalization paid by the international community, especially Asian countries, said Chinese President Xi Jinping in a congratulatory letter to the conference's opening session on Saturday.

Xi called upon attendees at the conference to pool their wisdom on solving the major problems facing the world and regional economy, and push forward a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economic globalization process.

The conference, which concludes on March 26, chimes with China's stance and efforts on globalization despite increasing anti-globalization sentiment.

In his January speech during the World Economic Forum at Davos, Xi said protectionism is like "locking oneself in a dark room."

In a speech at the opening ceremony at Boao, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli asked Asian countries to promote economic globalization and free trade, and forge a community of common destiny for Asia and mankind.

To achieve that goal, Asia needs peace, innovation, openness, sharing and fairness, said Zhang.

GLOBALIZATION WINS GLOBAL OVATION

China's confidence resonates with international community.

Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and CFO of the New Development Bank, said the world is in the midst of a transition where questions are being raised about the downside of globalization.

Maasdorp said that Xi's letter and the address from the vice premier cemented the view that China sees globalization as a positive force for the world and will defend free trade.

"We are pleased to hear some of the key words such as openness and inclusiveness that China is reaffirming to support the next phase development of globalization," said Peder Holk Nielsen, CEO of Denmark-based biotech firm Novozymes.

"Innovation is regarded as a prominent impetus to global economic vitality through new technologies and new development models," Nielsen said.

Elaborating on innovation, Zhang Gaoli called for economic structural reform, utilization of new technology and development of a new economy.

David Morris, chief representative of the Pacific Islands Forum, said, "The Pacific Islands region has vast resources but is remote from major economies, so we look forward to more open markets, better connectivity and international cooperation to support sustainable development."

In his speech, Zhang reaffirmed China's commitment to further opening up its market, saying that the country is expected to import goods worth 8 trillion U.S. dollars in the next five years.

During the period, China will attract 600 billion dollars of foreign investment, with outbound investment reaching 750 billion dollars, he said.

BELT AND ROAD: THE WAY FORWARD

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013 with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa, is part of the Chinese answer to globalization.

The initiative, which has seen the participation of more than 100 countries and international organizations, has helped stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and improve quality of life, said the vice premier.

The scheme has promoted economic and trade cooperation and offered a new way to curb the anti-globalization trend, according to BFA's annual report on the development of emerging economies.

Hans-Paul Burkner, chairman of the Boston Consulting Group, said, "The Belt and Road Initiative is very important to connecting countries and creating more opportunities for exchanges of goods and services."

Burkner believes the initiative can push globalization to a new level, as it can connect more countries in Asia and beyond to the world economy.

Vice president of Asian Development Bank Stephen Groff said, "It is an ambitious plan for the region as a whole, and we are strong supporters for the notion of regional cooperation and integration."

Future strong growth for Asia is dependent on the ability of Asian economies to further integrate, Groff said.

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz said the initiative strengthens the links between Pakistan and China.

"We have started working on several projects, and more would happen," he said. "Once you improve connectivity, you create interdependence, which puts friendship and relationships on a solid footing."

"The initiative will carry much of the hopes of a new round of globalization," said Chi Fulin, head of the China Institute for Reform and Development.

NO MORE LOSING OUT

The BFA also addresses the challenges of economic globalization, including the feared gap between winners and losers.

Prime Minister of Nepal Pushpa Kamal Dahal said that there has been a critical asymmetry in sharing the benefits of globalization, which has led to apprehensions in various parts of the world.

Zhou Wenzhong, BFA's secretary general, said though globalization has driven the world economy and poverty alleviation over the past decades, it has also accentuated the imbalance between growth and distribution, capital and labor, efficiency and fairness.

How a country accommodates people and industries which are on the losing end of globalization determines its integration with others, said Yao Zhizhong, deputy director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Generally speaking, globalization is beneficial to emerging economies, and its progress hinges on the management of negative effects, he said.

There are no losers in globalization, said Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

"Blaming globalization works in nobody's interests," Jin said. Although the extent of benefits may vary, an open dialogue can enhance mutual understanding.

Globalization is a natural process but countries have to improve domestic policies, Jin said.
BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese court has ruled in favor of Apple Inc. in design patent disputes between it and a domestic phone-maker, overturning a ban on selling iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus phones in China.

Last May, a Beijing patent regulator ordered Apple's Chinese subsidiary and a local retailer Zoomflight to stop selling the said phones after Shenzhen Baili Marketing services Co. (Shenzhen Baili) lodged a complaint to it, claiming that the patent for the design of its mobile phone 100c was being infringed upon by the iPhone sales.

Apple and Zoomflight took the Beijing Intellectual Property Office's banning order to court.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court on Friday revoked the ban, saying Apple and Zoomflight did not violate Shenzhen Baili's design patent for 100c phones.

The court ruled that the regulator did not follow due procedures in ordering the ban while there is no sufficient proof to claim the designs constitute violation of intellectual property rights.

Representatives of Beijing Intellectual Property Office and Shenzhen Baili said they would take time to decide whether to appeal the ruling.

In another related ruling, the same court denied a request by Apple to demand stripping Shenzhen Baili of its design patent for 100c phones. Apple first filed the request to the Patent Reexamination Board of State Intellectual Property Office. The board rejected the request, but Apple lodged a lawsuit against the rejection to court.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court on Friday ruled to maintain the board's decision. It remains not immediately clear if Apple will appeal.

Apple phones are popular among China's urban young people, but the sale faces stiff competition from domestic phone makers, which produce a wider range of affordable and quality smart phones.

Last year, three domestic brands -- OPPO, Huawei and Vivo -- outperformed Apple as China's top selling phone brands, according to a report by the International Data Corporation.

OPPO sold 78.4 million handsets in China last year, tailed by Huawei with 76.6 million units.
NAIROBI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A leading Kenyan afro-pop band Sauti Sol, is set to make its first tour of China in May this year.

The four-man band, that originally started as a cappella group, are set to sing in Swahili and Chinese.

"We intend to promote Kenyan music in China and also invite Chinese musicians to come to Kenya and perform," the band's leader Bien-Aime Baraza told Xinhua in an interview in Nairobi on Saturday.

Baraza revealed that during the ten-day tour, the band will perform in Chinese cities including Beijing, Shangai, and Chengdu.

"We plan to meet and perform alongside the Chinese musicians and plan on the promotion of cultural exchange since Kenyans know very little about Chinese culture besides business and foods," he added.

He observed that the trip will create an open understanding between the two countries and encourage diplomacy at a different level by tapping music knowledge from the Asian population.

Sauti Sol was crowned Best Group in Africa at the 2016 MTV Africa Music awards, Soundcity MTV Awards, AFRIMA Awards and UK's BEFFTA Awards.

The band has previously toured Europe, United States of America and several African countries.

The band that is composed of Baraza, Willis Austin Chimano, Polycarp Otieno and Savara Mudigi are currently looking for sponsors to enable them perform in the Chinese cities.
HONG KONG, March 25 (Xinhua) -- At least 18 people were injured Saturday afternoon when an escalator at a shopping mall in China's Hong Kong suddenly reversed direction and sped up.

Video footage shot by witnesses showed that an up-going escalator suddenly reversed and went downward at an obviously higher speed, leading dozens of passengers to lose balance and roll down to the ground.

Local radio RTHK quoted an injured passenger as saying that the escalator was going "twice as fast."

Several ambulances rushed to the scene and took the injured to nearby hospitals.

A man who suffered head injury was in serious condition, according to police.

RTHK quoted an expert in escalator maintenance of Hong Kong's Vocational Training Center as saying that this kind of accidents rarely happen in Hong Kong and may be attributed to the malfunction of the escalator's anti-reversal gear and auxiliary safety gear.

A spokeswoman of the shopping mall in Mong Kok and a director of the mall's property management company said the escalator has been in service for years with a fine record of operation.

It passed a recent inspection on March 23, showing no signs of mechanical defects or falling short of safety standard.

The contractor for maintaining the escalator has been asked to investigate the cause of the accident.
NAIROBI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency on Saturday appealed for support for efforts aimed at bringing greater stability inside Somalia, and to the countries hosting Somali refugees.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)'s Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, George Okoth-Obbo lauded Somalia's neighbors for their generosity in providing protection to refugees in spite of their own socio-economic, national security and environmental challenges.

He said countries hosting Somali refugees have to find alternative solutions for them locally, focusing on the socio-economic inclusion of refugees side by side with resilience support for host communities.

"We invite the countries to also consider local integration, especially for refugees who have integrated, for example, those married to nationals," Okoth-Obbo told the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Special Summit of Regional Heads of State on durable solutions for the protracted Somali refugee situation in Nairobi.

He said the UN refugee agency is delighted by this unprecedented regional effort that commits to providing collective protection and assistance to Somali refugees.

UNHCR called for global responsibility sharing with the region, where communities have been hosting and sharing limited resources with Somali refugees for years.

Okoth-Obbo also appealed for the need to preserve asylum space for Somali refugees unable to return home.

Over 2 million Somalis have been displaced in one of the world's most protracted displacement crises.

There are an estimated 1 million internally displaced persons within Somalia and 900,000 Somali refugees - many now third generation - in Kenya (324,000), Ethiopia (241,000), Yemen (255,000), Uganda (39,500) and Djibouti (13,000).

Though voluntary returns continue, security, access and absorption limitations restrict the scale of returns to Somalia at the present moment.

"Thus, UNHCR highlighted the importance of creating predictable peace, security, social and community conditions, for Somalis in the country and refugees whose decision to return, can thus be more sustainable," Okoth-Obbo said.

The summit highlighted that voluntary return is not the exclusive option and has urged heightened international solidarity and responsibility sharing through continued resettlement of Somali refugees and provision of complementary pathways for third country admissions - such as medical evacuation and humanitarian admission programmes, family reunification and opportunities for skilled migration, labour mobility and education.

Okoth-Obbo also said the drought which has affected some 6.2 million people, half of Somalia's population, is a serious issue and finding solutions must be accelerated.

"We need to recognize that the region faces new challenges, such as the current drought and food insecurity, gripping the region, threatening starvation and death," he said.

Severe drought conditions across the region have led to food crises in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Yemen. Countries are facing the worst drought in 60 years.

UNHCR is urging the need for an immediate scale up of the response to the drought to mitigate and avert famine to reduce its adverse humanitarian impact.

"Time is of the essence and resolute action by humanitarian actors, strongly supported by the international community, is required," Okoth-Obbo stressed.
NAIROBI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The Kenya Chinese Chamber of Commerce (KCCC), a trade lobby bringing together the Chinese business community operating in the East African nation, was launched on Saturday.

Chairman of the East Africa Chinese Chamber of Commerce Han Jun said the new body is expected to unite and empower members to form a cohesive force among domestic and overseas Chinese.

Han observed that Kenya has become a trading spot of the China-Africa cooperation.

"Kenya has become an important direction and foothold in East Africa for China's belt and road initiative and national strategy of going abroad," he noted.

With many Chinese projects including the ongoing construction of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, the launch of the direct flight of China Southern to Kenya and the completion of the Thika Highway, a number of Chinese firms have been attracted to Kenya.

"The chamber is expected to forge a new chapter between the Chinese people working in Kenya and further the modernization process," KCCC Chairman Zhuo Wu said.

Zhuo said the new chamber will help create additional jobs for the local Kenyan people and contribute to Kenya's economic development programs.

"We are going to continue strengthening the relationship between China and Kenya and also make contributions towards the economic and cultural development of the two countries," said Zhuo.
The sunken passenger ferry Sewol is raised during its salvage operations on the sea off Jindo Island, South Korea, March 23, 2017. The ill-fated vessel with 476 passengers on board capsized and sank off the Jindo Island, South Jeolla province on April 16, 2014. The Sewol has lain in waters off southeastern South Korea for almost three years. (Xinhua/NEWSIS)

By Yoo Seungki

SEOUL, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A candlelight rally was held once again in South Korea on Saturday night to demand truth behind the country's worst maritime disaster that claimed over 300 lives three years ago.

The 6,825-ton passenger ferry Sewol capsized and sank in waters off Jindo Island on April 16, 2014. After having lain in the seabed to the southwest of South Korea, the ill-fated vessel was salvaged earlier this week.

The ferry was transported to a semi-submersible barge that would carry it to a port in Mokpo, about 90 km away from the site. At the port, search operations will be conducted as nine bodies are still unaccounted for.

Organizers said over 100,000 South Koreans gathered at the Gwanghwamun square in central Seoul to participate in the candlelit vigil.

People chanted "Get to the bottom of the Sewol disaster" and "Imprison Park Geun-hye."

Just two weeks after the constitutional court's ruling on March 10 to remove former President Park Geun-hye from office, the ferry was successfully lifted above the sea.

Suspicions were raised that the Park administration had deliberately delayed the lifting for three years to cover up truth behind the maritime tragedy that killed 304 passengers, mostly high school students on a school trip.

Park was grilled by prosecutors on Tuesday over the corruption scandal that led to her impeachment.

Local media speculations say it would be determined early next week whether to take Park into custody.

Earlier in the day, people visited a memorial altar inside the square to mourn the victims and the nine missing passengers. People waited in queue to lay white chrysanthemum before hundreds of portraits.

Some shed tears after the mourning, while others took a look around the altar. Sculpture of yellow ribbon, which symbolized the victims, was set up with photos of the missing people attached.

Group photos of the deceased students, taken a year before the disaster, were displayed on the wall of cloth tents that have been pitched for almost three years.

Inside the tents, some of the bereaved families, politicians and civic group activists staged hunger strikes in 2014 to protest against what the families called the "deliberate hindrance" to investigation into the accident.

The hindrance seemed to have much to do with the so-called "lost 7 hours" of former President Park.

Speculation says Park failed to normally handle rescue operations for the first seven hours of the sinking, leading to the initial bungling of rescue operations and the massive deaths of passengers.

Park's whereabouts was one of the key subjects of the investigation by special prosecutors, who had probed the corruption scandal for 70 days through the end of February but found few clues to it.

One of the bereaved families said on the main stage during the Saturday demonstration that the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries tasked with the salvaging operations was seeking to dismantle the Sewol ferry on the excuse of inspection, asking people to help the wreckage left intact.

Leaving the vessel untouched would be one of the most important things in future examinations to find the clear cause of the disaster.

Over 100 holes have been drilled in the hull on the pretext of the salvaging operation, but it raised doubts about what was behind the drilling.
Russian ruble banknotes and coins are pictured on January 21, 2016. (Sputnik Photo)

MOSCOW, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Russia has finished building an alternative inter-bank payment system that could function if the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is shut down in Russia, local media reported Friday.

There were threats that we can be disconnected from SWIFT, Russia Today cited Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina as saying.

"And if something happens, all operations in SWIFT format will work inside the country. We have created a substitute," said Nabiullina.

Some 330 Russian banks have been connected to the SWIFT alternative, called SPFS, which ensures "guaranteed and uninterrupted provision of services for the transmission of the electronic messages on financial transactions," Russia's Central Bank says on its website.

Russia has prepared for any of monetary crisis, such as a dollar collapse or sanctions that might be used to attack the Russian currency the ruble, said Nabiullina.

The SPFS began operations in December 2014, when relations between Russia and the West worsened. Some Western politicians urged disconnecting Russia from SWIFT.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull hold the fifth annual meeting of the two prime ministers in Canberra, Australia, March 24, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhua) -- China and Australia on Friday inked a series of bilateral agreements and moved to expand free trade between the two major Asia-Pacific economies in a vote of confidence for regional cooperation in the face of rising protectionism.

Visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull in Canberra witnessed the signing of a number of cooperation documents in such fields as the economy and trade, innovation, agriculture, food, intellectual property, security of law enforcement, tourism and education.

The two countries also started negotiations to further expand the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) to other fields, especially services and investment, Li told the Australia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum in Sydney.

In the new global reality that seems to be tilting towards protectionism and anti-globalization, China and Australia offer a perfect example of how free trade does not lead to tit-for-tat combat, but generates gains for both.

Australia, a country abundant in natural resources, needs globalization for international trade, while the world's biggest trader China needs an open market.

As Australia's biggest trading partner for the past 8 years, China has been a loyal buyer of everything from iron ore to milk powder and a passionate salesman of everything the country makes. Australia has become China's eighth largest trading partner.

China-Australia bilateral trade reached 104 billion U.S. Dollars in 2016, expanding at least 1,500-fold since the two forged diplomatic relations in 1972.

"Those solid facts tell the world they need each other," said Liu Qing, head of the Asia-Pacific department at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS).

No doubt protectionism is going to win applause somewhere somehow, said Liu, but it would not change the prospects between China and Australia.

The two have highly complementary economies and development strategies, said Liu, referring to China's Belt and Road Initiative and Australia's development plan in its north.

In an article on The Australian newspaper on Thursday, Li said, "Advance is a key word in both the Chinese and Australian national anthems."

He believed that the two countries will counter global instability through steady development and co-operation.

China and Australia have a long history of cooperation.

The two countries sign the ChAFTA in 2015, which immediately brought down tariffs for Australian beef, wine, fruits and other products to have easier access to the Chinese market.

In the wine industry, before ChAFTA, China was Australia's second-largest market, worth about 320 million U.S. dollars in 2015-2016. Australian wine was subject to a 14-percent tariff before it hit Chinese shelves.

Now about a year later, with the tariff reduced to 5.6 percent, China has become Australia's largest market for wine, now worth almost 375 million U.S. dollars annually.

According to the ChAFTA, a third round of tariff cuts took place in January. When the agreement is fully implemented, 96 percent of Australian goods will be duty free, so are 100 percent of Chinese exports to Australia.

China and Australia do not always see eye to eye -- anti-dumping probes come and go -- and the ChAFTA process was full of twists and turns.

But the fact that they have overcome various hurdles and reached the present stage demonstrates that they have both the will and the wisdom to chart a win-win course.

"This is a bilateral relationship that has been overwhelmingly good for both countries," said James Laurenceson, deputy director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.

"You don't trade because one person wins and one person loses. That's the beauty of economics; whether it's trade or investment, it's a positive sum game," said Laurenceson.
BOAO, Hainan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- China on Saturday called on littoral countries of the South China Sea to establish a cooperation mechanism.

Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin made the proposal when delivering a speech at a symposium on South China Sea as part of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference.

Without interfering with each country's proposition, the mechanism would serve as a platform to enhance mutual trust, strengthen cooperation and share interests, Liu said.

It would contribute to exchanges in such areas as disaster prevention and reduction, maritime rescue, environmental protection, biodiversity, scientific research and navigation safety, he added.

Liu noted the mechanism would be complementary to the existing bilateral ones between China and member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as multilateral ones between China and ASEAN countries under the framework of Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC).

It would not involve resolving disputes, rather, it aims to press ahead pragmatic cooperation, the vice minister stressed.

Noting cooperation among littoral countries should not affect settlement of territorial and jurisdictional disputes through consultation and negotiation by countries directly concerned, Liu expressed China's willingness to conduct further communication and coordination with concerning parties.

Responding to Liu's proposal positively, experts attending the symposium urged all littoral states of the South China Sea to cement traditional friendship, jointly push forward pragmatic cooperation, and create benign atmosphere for the final settlement of disputes via consultation and negotiation by countries directly concerned.
ISLAMABAD, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa said Saturday that the country has started fencing border with Afghanistan in a move to stop the cross-border movement of the militants.

Security officials have long been complaining that the Pakistani militants, who have escaped as a result of military operations, now operate from the Afghan soil of the border.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have nearly 2,600-kilometer-long common border, mostly porous, and Pakistani officials insist that bombers could enter Pakistan due to weak border control.

During his visit to Pak-Afghan border areas in Mohmand and Orakzai tribal agencies, Bajwa told the troops that fencing has commenced in Bajaur and Mohmand agencies as they are high threat zones.

Both Bajaur and Mohmand border Afghanistan and had once been under the influence of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

"Additional technical surveillance means are also being deployed along the border besides regular air surveillance," Bajwa said, adding the Pakistan Army shall employ all resources required for defense of the country and security of peace-loving Pakistani tribes.

The army chief said that efforts are in hand to evolve a bilateral border security mechanism with the Afghan authorities, according to an army statement.

"A better managed, secure and peaceful border is in mutual interest of both brotherly countries who have given phenomenal sacrifices in the war against terrorism," he said.
Cars pass the European Commission building on which a banner is displayed celebrating the 60th anniversary of Treaty of Rome, in Brussels, Belgium, March 24, 2017. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

ROME, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A multi-speed Europe could be an effective solution for the several challenges the European Union (EU) is facing, experts told Xinhua in recent interviews.

On Saturday, the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome took place in the Italian capital, where 27 leaders from EU member states gathered for a special summit.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has said in recent weeks that the final declaration of the summit would outline the results achieved by the bloc and its prospects over the next 10 years.

In preparation for the Rome summit, the European Commission presented a White Paper on the future of Europe that outlines five possible scenarios from now to 2025. One of those is named "those who want more do more" that envisages a multi-speed bloc instead of an "ever closer Union."

"The idea of a multi-speed Europe is used to imagine a more flexible union, to allow those who want to go forward more rapidly or to integrate more in some sectors to do so, leaving open the possibility that other countries could join later," Ettore Greco, Director of Institute of International Affairs, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Antonio Villafranca, research coordinator and head of the European program at the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) said: "The idea of a multi-speed Europe that is being discussed these days should not be a taboo...It already exists."

"The eurozone, for instance, is a form of multi-speed Europe. The treaties allow it. The Lisbon treaty says that on some subjects, such as prosecution, defense, foreign and security policy, for example, it takes at least nine countries to launch enhanced cooperation. This could be a path, obviously not in all sectors," he explained.

According to the experts, one of the main challenges Europe is facing is the difficulty in reviving economic growth.

"Growth rates remain very low, especially in some countries, and there are risks of a new phase of financial instability, because in some countries public debt remains high and the banking systems are fragile," said Greco.

Some structural problems affect the growth, but countries are experiencing difficulties in introducing structural reforms to deal with them, he added.

Economy is an important aspect, Villafranca agreed. "There is no doubt that the problems of the European Union -- also those in the field of security policy -- are exaggerated by an economic situation that is not satisfactory, or that citizens do not deem satisfactory," he told Xinhua.

"The continuing economic crisis, even though technically it is not a crisis because the sign is positive, accentuates problems and creates further divisions within the European Union. In recent years, for example, there was a split between countries on the issue of Greek debt. Now there is another subject: migration," he said.

Greco believes there is also a division among European countries on what Europe should do, from an economic point of view.

"EU members are also divided on other challenges they have to face, such as immigration, and the main challenges Europe is facing including Brexit and the Trump presidency," he said.

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, the Institute of International Affairs presented a proposal called "Differentiated Integration: A Way Forward for Europe."

According to its authors, differentiated integration is a chance to save the European project from disintegration, as an established method of integration for the future.

"The proposal sketches differentiation scenarios in three macro areas: economic governance, defense and freedom, security and justice, and links them to three institutional anchors: the eurozone, Permanent Structured Cooperation in the field of defense and the Schengen area," said Greco.

It is difficult to say what will happen to Europe in the coming years, also because important elections are expected this year in major countries, Villafranca argued.

"Their results will also contribute to shape the future EU. For sure, speaking about the future of the bloc, there is a need of 'more' Europe," he said.

Villafranca said that in some fields, a multi-speed Europe could be a concrete solution for current challenges.

"For instance, in the economic sector, Europe could do much more. One step could be the completion of the banking union," he added.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) meets with Australian New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian in Sydney, Australia, March 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

SYDNEY, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday called for enhancing cooperation with the Australian state of New South Wales.

Li made the remark when meeting with New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian in Sydney during his five-day visit to Australia.

"We encourage Chinese companies to enhance cooperation with New South Wales, and expand cooperation in the fields of energy and resources, agriculture and animal husbandry, finance, and science and technological innovation, " Li said.

China also urges its companies to increase exchanges with companies of New South Wales in economy and trade, investment, culture, education and tourism, he added.

While stating that China will open its door wider and wider, Li said he hopes that New South Wales would provide good environment and convenience for Chinese companies to invest and do business in the state.

Describing Li's visit to Australia as productive, fruitful and successful, Berejiklian said New South Wales treasures China-Australia friendship and is willing to seize the opportunity provided by the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement to expand cooperation with China in the fields of finance, medical care, education and tourism.

Berejiklian said more Chinese companies are welcome to invest in the state of New South Wales.
ISLAMABAD, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said Saturday that the government has permitted former army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif to lead a military alliance of 39 Islamic countries.

Raheel retired as Pakistan's army chief in November 2016 after completing his three-year term.

It was reported in January that the Islamic Military Alliance (IMA), which was formed in Saudi Arabia in December 2015 to combat terrorism, has picked Raheel to head the grouping. However, controversy surfaced later that he had not sought permission from Islamabad.

"The government has given its approval and it has been decided in principle that Gen. Raheel will go to Saudi Arabia to lead the alliance," Asif told the private Geo television on Saturday.

The minister also disclosed that the Saudi government had formally approached Pakistan to seek the services of Raheel Sharif.

Defense ministers of the IMA member countries are scheduled to meet in Saudi Arabia in May, according to Asif.
ADDIS ABABA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Aboret Alemu is toiling in the Arerti Industrial Park, currently under construction and part of Ethiopian government's drive to build special economic zones where domestic and foreign companies can use local labor to manufacture and export goods.

The Industrial Park, located 140 kms east of the capital city Addis Ababa, is designed and being built by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), one of several industrial parks the government is building across the country with a view to making the horn of Africa nation a manufacturing hub.

Alemu, an assistant to a site manager at the industrial park, says the experience gained from a Chinese mentor is the reason he is braving the heat and working at the site.

"Our skin colors may differ, but we feel like we're one people. My mentor, a hardworking and efficient carpenter who has returned to China, is the one that's motivated me to work here," he says.

Woody Lau, Business Manager at CCCC says Arerti Industrial Park, is expected to employ about 400 persons when the first phase incorporating a ceramic plant is finished at a cost of tens of millions of U.S. dollars.

"We're building another industrial park in Mekelle city, capital of Tigray regional state, 783 kms north of Addis Ababa, as well as the 220 kms Mekelle-Woldiya electrified rail line," he says, emphasizing the multi-sectoral nature of CCCC's projects in Ethiopia.

CCCC is not new to building projects that have had strategic changes to Ethiopia, with its trademark finished project being Ethiopia's first toll road the Addis-Ababa Adama expressway inaugurated in April 2014.

Chinese companies including CCCC are engaged in activities ranging from building industrial parks, setting up leather factories, constructing rail lines and roads.

The Ethiopian government is relying on help from Chinese firms to give employment opportunities to its predominantly young population, boost knowledge transfer and earn much needed hard currency for its fast developing economy.

With a mostly young population of about 100 million the second largest in Africa after Nigeria, Ethiopia is betting on investments in industrial parks including from Chinese firms to help meet the demands of job market and keep the nation stable and prosperous.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, European Council President Donald Tusk and Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (L to R) celebrate the signing of the "Declaration of Rome" during a ceremony at Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy, on March 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Jin Yu)

ROME, March 25 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) leaders on Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome founding the integration process, with a major ceremony in the Italian capital.

The heads of state and government of 27 member states, and top EU officials, were welcomed by Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Rome mayor Virginia Raggi at the Capitoline Hill, where the Treaty of Rome was signed on March 25, 1957.

The summit was meant as both a commemorative event and a "decisive moment" for the EU, given Britain's unprecedented decision to leave the Union and other major challenges facing the bloc.

"Today, we celebrate the perseverance and the cleverness of EU's founding fathers, which has its best proof in this crowded hall," Gentiloni said in his opening speech in the very place where the Treaty of Rome was signed 60 years ago.

"We were six in 1957, and now we are 27," he added, referring to leaders of the six founding member states, namely Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, who witnessed the birth of the Treaty of Rome.

The Treaty established the European Economic Community (EEC), which paved the way for the later European Union.

In his address, Gentiloni also recalled many achievements of the European integration project, while acknowledging that EU has found itself unprepared and responded late before major recent challenges such as migration, economic crisis, and unemployment among others.

"This has triggered a rejection in segments of the public opinion, and rekindled nationalist forces that we thought were buried in the past," he stressed.

He added the trust of EU citizens would need to be restored by stimulating growth, tackling social inequalities, and reaffirming common European values.

According to President of the European Council Donald Tusk, unity only would ensure the bloc's survival as a political entity. "Either Europe will be united, or it will not be at all," Tusk remarked at the ceremony.

All 27 leaders later signed the "Declaration of Rome" meant to revive the fundamental principles of EU's integration, and outline its future perspectives.

Previous objections from Poland and Greece on the blueprint -- about the idea of a multi-speed Europe and EU's austerity policies, respectively -- were lifted ahead of the ceremony.

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker expressed confidence in the bloc's ability to overcome difficulties.

"As much as they are daunting, today's challenges are not at all comparable to those faced by our founding fathers," Junker said, referring to the fact that Europe's integration process stemmed from the huge destruction of the World War II.

Saturday's celebrations took place amid strict security measures, and some 5,000 police officers were deployed across the city. The alert had been raised since Friday, due to both the EU summit and the terror attack in London on March 22.
MANDERA, Kenya, March 25 (Xinhua) -- At least two children were killed and three others injured on Saturday after explosion went off in a village in Kenya's Mandera county which borders Somalia.

A regional government official David Mbeki said one minor died on the spot while the other succumbed to injuries at the local hospital in an incident which took place in Hareeralesa village.

He said the Kenya Defence Force (KDF) soldiers responded timely and took the injured to hospital.

"Two children were killed and three others critically injured after an explosion went off in a village. Bomb experts have launched investigations into the incident," Mbeki said.

The latest incident comes after a four month lull in terror attacks by Al-Shabaab militants from neighboring Somalia. The government has imposed a curfew in the region.

The government has also enhanced security along Mandera-Lamu border, which is prone to attacks due to its nearness to Somalia where the militants are based.

Kenya has introduced a raft of measures in its latest move to fight terrorism following the massacre among them closure of money transfer companies that are used by the Al-Shabaab to fund its activities.

Since Kenya sent troops across the border into Somalia in October 2011, northern and parts of eastern regions have been hit by a series of blasts, many targeting local security forces and humanitarian workers.

Several attacks believed to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab have occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa and Dadaab districts of northern Kenya even as the military reports gains against the Islamist group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them. Enditem
by Chrispinus Omar and Njoroge Kaburo

NAIROBI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A summit of East African leaders agreed on Saturday to facilitate the voluntary return of Somali refugees but the UN refugee agency immediately announced that it would not back the returns to a country facing threats of severe famine.

The leaders of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) resolved to support the Nairobi Comprehensive Plan of Action for Durable Solutions for Somali Refugees and a separate plan for regional response to the refugee crisis meant to assist Somalia in surviving the ongoing drought and looming famine.

The leaders, who met in Nairobi for the Special Summit of IGAD, the first such meeting of its kind on the crisis in Somalia, agreed that they would create an enabling environment for safe, sustainable and voluntary return and reintegration of Somali refugees.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official, George Okoth-Obbo said the UNHCR would not facilitate the return of refugees to Somalia because of the drought and the looming famine.

At the end of a summit, which the leaders from the seven countries in the East African region, termed "cordial and frank," the leaders called for the strengthening of security and stability in Somalia.

In a communique issued at the end of an IGAD special summit on durable solutions for Somali refugees hosted by President Uhuru Kenyatta in his capacity as the regional body's rapporteur, the leaders urged the international community to immediately increase assistance to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to discharge its mandate.

They cited enhancing the discharge of the mandate of the AMISOM and reinforcing the capacity of the National Security Forces of Somalia as key components of boosting security and stability in the Horn of Africa nation.

The regional leaders also agreed to bolster the protection of refugees and respond effectively to the drought in the region to prevent new forced displacement.

The day-long summit agreed to maintain the asylum space and to support the integration of the refugees in the communities.

The leaders declared the seven-member states of IGAD -- Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia -- would work toward aligning their domestic laws and policies, civil documentation and other administrative procedures affecting the protection of the refugees.

They also agreed to facilitate the refugees to access paid jobs and to work toward creating policies to facilitate the assistance to refugees in their national policies.

The leaders have pledged to continue the strengthening of capacity of the countries of the region to enhance the assistance provided to refugees.

"We are in the grip of a serious drought and loss of livestock," said Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who chaired the Summit on Somali refugees.

He said the refugee crisis in Somalia is a global crisis whose resolution requires the contribution of all organizations and states concerned.

The IGAD Summit was held amid a pending closure of the Dadaab Refugee Complex in northeastern Kenya, home to some 270,000 Somali refugees.

Other recommendations of the summit included the strengthening of the capacity of countries in the region to contribute to the protection and provision of assistance to Somali refugees, continue enhancing security within refugee camps and out-of-camp refugee population, and ensure the civilian and humanitarian character of refugee camps and settlements.

The special summit decided to: "strengthen regional cooperation on durable solutions for Somali refugees through the creation of an IGAD multi-donor trust fund designed to support and facilitate the creation of an enabling environment and the rolling out of durable solutions including safe, sustainable and voluntary return of refuges."
Former Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley John J. Mack speaks at "Conversations with Global Business Leaders" event in New York on March 23, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Ming)

NEW YORK, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The United States banking industry is in a total safe state and it is ready for some deregulation to sustain development, former Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley John J. Mack has said here.

The regulatory oversight now is dramatic in the financial sector, the amount of capital that firms appearing is huge, and the amount of risk has been de-risked, Mack said in an event titled "Conversations with Global Business Leaders" in New York on Thursday.

Mack, the CEO who led the investment bank through the 2008 financial crisis, said that situation now is completely different from nine years ago in the banking industry.

The financial crisis in 2008 began with a crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, and developed into a global banking crisis with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Many considered that excessive risk taken by banks was the major cause of the crisis.

"Today there are a lot more regulation; the Federal Reserve is much more involved in the risks that investment banks take. The banks clearly remember what they went through, there is much more focus on risk control," Mack said.

"Now I don't see any risk from overexposure too much leverage, also we have done a lot of work on cleaning up the housing market and mortgages," he added.

In response to the 2008 financial crisis, former U.S. President Barack Obama enacted a bill called the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010.

Under the law, regulators introduced strict capital standards on banks, called for annual stress tests for systemically important banks, and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

However, U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to scale back Dodd-Frank Act, saying the Wall Street reform law is a "disaster" and "horrible" for business vitality.

The financial sector in the stock market posted sharp gains since Trump was elected, surging 18 percent on his promise to cut bank regulations.

Trump's viewpoints were echoed by Mack, who said that too much regulation may hurt the market.

"There does need some change in the regulatory oversize," he said. "The stocks may go down in the future with too much control."
KIGALI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- About 200 military officers from 13 African countries are meeting in Rwanda for joint military drills.

The training which opened on Saturday at Rwanda Military Academy-Gako, in eastern Rwanda drew participants from Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

The third Command Post Exercise dubbed "Utulivau Africa III", will run from March 20-31.

It is conducted under the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC).

The ACIRC is a strategic security partnership between the African Union and Volunteering Nations to enable the AU to intervene on short notice in a crisis that may pop up on the African Continent.

The partnership was put in place in 2013 to serve as an interim mechanism until the African Standby Force becomes fully operational.

Opening the training, Major Gen. Jacques Musemakweli, the Army Chief of Staff of the Rwanda Defense Force, explained that the exercise is geared at preparing participants for future interventions.

"Ultimately, the success of this exercise will go a long way to guarantee attainment of our leaders' aspirations of finding African solutions to African problems," he said.

Bam Sivuyiye, the head of peace support operation division at the African Union Commission said the force should be ready to deploy when called upon.

To date, the East African Standby force is the only regional combined army that has pledged readiness to intervene. Enditem
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, European Council President Donald Tusk and Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (L to R) celebrate the signing of the "Declaration of Rome" during a ceremony at Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy, on March 25, 2017. European Union (EU) leaders on Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome founding the integration process, with a major ceremony in the Italian capital. (Xinhua/Jin Yu)

by Alessandra Cardone

ROME, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) leaders tried to revamp integration project by signing a Rome Declaration at a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the founding Treaty of Rome in the Italian capital on Saturday.

In the Rome Declaration, a formal blueprint for EU's future, they vowed to "set out a joint vision for the years to come."

The summit drew heads of state and government from 27 EU member states, along with top EU institutional figures. British Prime Minister Theresa May did not attend, and her government is expected to officially trigger the two-year procedure to leave the bloc next Wednesday.

"The EU is facing unprecedented challenges, both global and domestic," leaders said in the declaration, mentioning conflicts, terrorism, migration, protectionism, and social inequalities.

"Together, we are determined to address the challenges... and to offer to our citizens both security and new opportunities."

The Rome Declaration was signed at the ancient and richly decorated Orazi e Curiazi Hall in Rome's Capitoline Hill, exactly where the original Treaty of Rome was signed 60 years ago.

The 1957 treaty established the European Economic Community (EEC), paving the way to the current European Union.

"Today, we celebrate the perseverance and the cleverness of the (EU) founding fathers," Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in his opening address."This crowded hall is proof of this: we were six in 1957, and now we are 27."

Gentiloni recalled many achievements of the European integration, but also acknowledged that, facing today's major issues, the EU has found itself unprepared and responded late.

This triggered "a crisis of rejection by segments of the public opinion" and rekindled "close nationalism", according to Gentiloni, who mentioned the Brexit as an example.

"As such, this is the message we want to launch today: we have learned the lesson, and the EU has chosen to start up again, and it has a horizon to do so in the next 10 years," Gentiloni said.

In the declaration, the EU 27 committed to make the EU stronger and more resilient. "Unity is both a necessity and our free choice," they said.

"Taken individually, we would be side-lined by global dynamics. We will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction."

The reference to "different paces and intensity" of integration was a mild mention of the proposal of a multi-speed EU, which would entail different groups of countries willingly moving towards further integration at different paces within the bloc.

Since the proposal has drawn harsh criticism from Eastern European countries, it was not wholly expressed. Yet, it was embodied in the paper."As a political entity, Europe will either be united, or will not be at all," President of the European Council Donald Tusk said at the ceremony.

"Only a united Europe can be a sovereign Europe in relation to the rest of the word," he added.

In the common declaration, the leaders of the 27 member states and those of the EU institutions pledged to move towards "a Union where citizens feel safe and move freely... and jobs and growth are created."

They also committed to boost EU's social dimension, and to make Europe stronger at global level through both existing partnerships and common security and defence.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker delivered the most optimistic remarks. "However daunting our challenges may feel today, they are in no way comparable to those faced by our founding fathers," he said, referring to the fact that Europe's integration stemmed from the tragedy of World War II.

Both before and during Rome's summit, member states succeeded in smoothing out their different visions of EU's future, according to the EU Commission chief. This would allow "an incipient optimistic mood" about the way to proceed, after Britain leaves.

"Contrary to what has been assumed, there was no big dispute between several conceivable paths," Junker said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu talks with Swiss Federal Councillor Didier Burkhalter on March 23, 2017 in Bern, Switzerland. (AFP photo)

ANKARA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's Foreign Ministry has summoned Swiss counselor in Ankara on Saturday over PKK sympathizers' rally targeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Bern, state-run Anadolu Agency cited an anonymous official.

The Swiss ambassador, Walter Haffner, will be called to the ministry on Sunday, the official said, as he was out of the city.

According to reports from Switzerland, more than 200 people demonstrated in front of the federal parliament building in Bern on Saturday, holding banners and flags against Erdogan and promote a "No" vote for the April referendum.

The Turkish referendum, to be held on April 16, will introduce several constitutional amendments and switch parliamentary system to presidential system.

The reforms would hand wide-ranging executive powers to the president and the post of prime minister would be abolished.

The president would also be allowed to retain ties to a political party.

Other changes include reducing the minimum age for parliamentary candidates to 18 and raising the number of deputies to 600.

Simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections for a five-year term would be held in November 2019 under the new constitution, the report said.

Founded in 1978, the PKK has waged bloody campaign against the Turkish state for decades, and was officially listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the EU.
A barber makes a "hair painting"in Jilin City, northeast China's Jilin Province, March 22, 2017. A barber made a leopard painting using cut hairs of his customers on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Wang Mingming)
Photo taken on March 24, 2017 shows the giant panda Bao Bao at the Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Bao Bao, a giant panda born in the United States, ended its one-month quarantine here on Friday after returning to China. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin)
Archived Results for Saturday, March 25th, 2017

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My father was Darth Vader.No, that doesn't make me a Jedi Knight. My father was also Boss Hogg and a range of other bad guys. During his nearly two decades as principal of North Carolina's largest elementary school, located in the Mecklenburg County community of Matthews, Harold Hood made it an annual tradition to ride in the town's parade dressed as a popular villain of the day. Bad guys were more fun to portray, he explained, particularly for the kids in the crowd.When I was one of those kids, I just thought my dad was being his usual funny self. He liked to tell jokes, frequently corny, and stories of his life, frequently silly and self-deprecating. But as I got older, became a supervisor, and then a leader of an organization myself, I came to understand that school principal Harold Hood had been using humor as a management tool.He used it to build rapport with his staff, from custodians and support staff to veteran teachers. He used it to cut the tension in stressful situations with students or parents, to nudge teachers genially rather than command them gruffly, and to help people draw the right conclusions for themselves rather than simply telling them the answer.When my dad retired from Matthews School in 1992, The Charlotte Observer published a profile that made it clearer what he'd been up to all along. "He's sort of a happy-go-lucky man that everyone really likes," said one parent, a local politician. "He always knows what's going on" and "is among the most observant people I know," said one of his teachers. "He had a wonderful sense of humor," said another teacher, "but he's a no-nonsense person." A secretary said he "handles everything so calmly, it's beautiful to watch him work."While my father got his administrative training in the 1960s, when research about school leadership was still in its infancy, his instincts and practices track well with what scholars now know about principal effectiveness. Top performers create a compelling and unifying vision for their school, gather and consume information ravenously, and build strong personal relationships with the people they lead.North Carolina is at the early stages of a fundamental reinvention of principal preparation. Rather than rely on an "opt-in" model, in which campuses accept pretty much any teacher looking to move up to administration, the five training programs associated with the new North Carolina Alliance for School Leadership Development (NCASLD) actively recruit prospects for principal preparation.One of them is North Carolina State University's Northeast Leadership Academy. The nonprofit news service Education NC recently reported on one way this leadership academy screens for the most-promising trainees. When prospects are brought to tour a school, the academy makes sure there are custodians or other support staff in the hallways. Do the prospective principals think to say hello to them or ask them questions? Observers note that. My dad would have passed this test with flying colors - and immediately grasped its purpose.Over the past two years, the state legislature has directed $5 million into the NCASLD-facilitated training programs. More than 100 of the trainees will be eligible to work in North Carolina schools within the next two years. BEST NC, an alliance of business leaders and other advocates of education reform, is championing the program and advocating that lawmakers continue to fund and nurture it.By some estimates, about a quarter of the entire effect of schooling on student learning is attributable to school leadership, directly or indirectly. Effective principals hire, develop, and retain the best instructional talent. High-performing teachers are unlikely to stay long where there is dismal leadership, particularly in high-poverty schools or those in desperate need of a turnaround.My father Harold Hood passed away last December, just before Christmas. Although he enjoyed playing the villain in the annual parade, he worked hard the rest of the year at the heroic task of inspiring teachers and students to excel. Leadership matters. Let's cultivate it.
Dillon: 95 to 179 criminal gangs in TT

Dillon made these statements in response to questions from Opposition MPs in the House of Representatives. On missing people, Dillon stated, Investigations commence immediately on reports of these incidents. The minister outlined the steps taken by the Police Service in investigating those reports indicating there is assistance from the Defence Force and the private sector in these efforts.

He said the latter involves electronic billboards being used to display photos of the missing individuals and urging the public to provide the police with any information on their whereabouts.

This did not satisfy Chaguanas West MP Ganga Singh who scoffed, It is clear that the standard operating procedures werent followed with respect to (murdered businesswoman) Sharlene Somai. On the issue of gangs, Dillon disclosed that prior to 2014, there was no centralised reporting for information on criminal gangs.

He said the total number of people in these gangs ranges between 1,500 to 1,600. He indicated that in the period September 2011 to January, 54 youths were involved in gang activity.

He said six youths under the age of 18 were charged under the Anti-Gang Act 2011.

Dillon also said that on February 3, a letter was sent from the PSC to the successful firm selected through open tender to interview candidates for the CoP and Deputy CoP posts.

The minister added that out of ten firms which initially expressed interest, only four submitted written proposals to the Commission. He said a lack of quorum due to the terms of office of members of the PSC expiring last November, caused a delay in this exercise
Rowley condemns London attack

A statement issued by the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday said Rowley denounced the horrific attack, expressed solidarity with the international community in condemning all such acts and offered thoughts and prayers to the families and loved ones of the victims.

Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young expressed similar sentiments at the post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Anns on Thursday. Young said, We stand in solidarity with them and with the rest of the world in condemning the attacks on the democracy of any country in the world. Young also announced that Community Development, Culture and the Arts Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly and a member of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop will represent this country at the funeral of Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott in St Lucia today. Walcott lived in Trinidad for 20 years and founded the TTW in 1959.
Children protest outside Parliament

Children, some in school uniform, also took part in the placard protest which took place while the Lower House was sitting.

President of the primary schools PTA Teacher Association, Indar Jairaj, told Newsday that parents are fed up of promises from Education Minister Anthony Garcia and Minister in the Education Ministry, Dr Lovell Francis, that construction will be completed.

Construction stopped last October, over six months now, because the contractor wasnt paid. The new school is 90 percent complete but our children still have to get up at six in the morning to catch the bus to the Hanuman Milan Temple all the way in Penal Rock Road. If their school was completed, they could get up later and walk to school, Jairaj said.

Three washrooms for 271 students (at) the temple. Imagine a young child has to line up for 15 minutes to use the washroom. Mr Garcia, Dr Francis, you promised us our school. Please give us our school, thats all we are asking for, Jairaj pleaded. Newsday caught up with Francis in the Parliament Chamber, shortly before the start of yesterdays sitting.

Francis assured, We intend to complete the school this year. We want to have it ready for the new school year in September. Asked about the delay in getting the school completed, Francis said, Unfortunately, even though the school is 90 percent complete, none of the invoices that were submitted by the contractor were ever paid, so we have to pay for the 90 percent complete plus to get the remaining work finished. That bill is about $31 million. So contractually, we are obligated to pay off that (bill). Francis explained that getting the money to pay the contractor required approval from both the Minister of Planning and the Minister of Finance to re-allocate the necessary funds.

Even though theres money allocated to the ministry, we dont have carte blanche authority to do whatever we want with it because the money was budgeted specifically per institution. Francis said while there is the feeling nothing is happening, We are in the midst of the process. We started working on getting permission for this last November. Officials from the Education Ministry are scheduled to meet with officials from the Planning Ministry on Tuesday to get final approval for the re-allocation of funds.
Cop charged for social media false news

PC Javaughn Ballington, of the Court and Process Branch of the Tobago Division, has appeared before a Scarborough magistrate charged with malicious publication of defamatory libel, contrary to Section 8 of the Libel and Defamation Act Chapter 11:16 .

Ballington appeared before Senior Magistrate Lucina Cardenas- Ragoonanan in the Scarborough Magistrates Court on Thursday, after investigations by officers of the Professional Standards Bureau, who laid the charge, Ballington was granted bail of $40,000 with a surety and will return to court on May 16 .

Head of corporate communications of the Police Service Ellen Lewis reminded the public of the law and said people would be prosecuted if found to be in contravention of it .

According to reports, the video of a prisoner was uploaded to Facebook .

The post claimed that the man had been bitten on his genitals by a schoolgirl whom he had allegedly sexually assaulted .

This turned out to be false .

The investigations into the incident took place two days after Attorney General Faris Al Rawi said he would bring legislation to Parliament to deal with the proliferation of false and misleading information on social media forums which could lead to public outrage, fear, hate and/or panic .

The man deemed a high-risk prisoner, was brought to Tobago to attend court and while inside the Scarborough Magistrates Court, he complained of feeling unwell. He was taken to Scarborough General Hospital under armed police escort .

While he was being examined by a doctor, it is alleged that a policeman recorded the examination using his cellular phone .

The recording was uploaded to social media, with a post saying the man was being treated for a bite to his penis inflicted by a schoolgirl while he was forcing her to perform a sex act. The post was shared hundreds of times. Most comments focused on condemning the prisoner, with some commentators saying doctors should castrate him .

Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams condemned the posting of fake news on social media, saying this could give the wrong impression of Trinidad and Tobago to an international social- media audience
Policewoman laid to rest

Pastor Dr David. Ibeleme, who officiated,. said it is a completely. different ball game and. it is important to realise. anyone who decides. to take the life of a police. officer does not care. about the life of any other. citizen..

If they are killing. police, forget that nonsense. about preserving. yourself. Your days of. preserving yourself are. over when they start to. kill police. All this nonsense. about being afraid. to talk and you fraid to. dead, this is not the time. for that. When they start. taking police lives forget. about being afraid. to dead...you are dead. already, so you might as. well start talking..

Among those gathered. to pay their respects. were National Security. Minister Edmund. Dillon, Acting Commissioner. of Police Stephen. Williams and Chief of. Defence Staff Rodney. Smart. All police officers. including Commissioner. Williams wore a. black armband as a sign. of mourning.

The congregation. stood as officers brought. in Josephs casket which. was closed and covered. with the flag of the TT. Police Service. The flag. was later handed over. to Josephs mother Paula. Guy, along with a photo. of her in police uniform.

In an address to the congregation,. Ag CoP Williams. said now that people. have been charged. for Josephs murder, justice. must be allowed to. take its course.

He also gave thanks. to the public for their. assistance in finding Josephs. body, noting that. families can never really. get closure when a loved. one is murdered but recovering. the body goes. a long way in that final. rites can be performed.

Clearly the entire society. rallied around. the organisation so we. could reach to the point. of solving this crime in. the shortest period of. time.

And I want to especially. reach out to the. Defence Force and Mr. Rodney Smart for the. extensive support we. got, especially from the. Coast Guard.. Joseph who was last. posted at Morvant Police. Station was described. by family members. and fellow officers. alike as a young, energetic. woman.

She was reported. missing on Friday. March 10, after not. showing up for work.

Her body was found. stuffed in a bag and. dumped in the Gulf of. Paria off Sea Lots.

An autopsy later. proved inconclusive.

A man and his former. wife have been jointly. charged for PC Josephs. murder while the man. had an additional charge. of unlawful disposal of a. body laid against him.
Mitchell: I am not heartless

Mitchell during an interview with Newsday said the HDC was not heartless, but was instead upholding the law.

The minister was responding to Moonilals statements in a media release which called on the Government to show compassion to the affected families who were now left without shelter.

Moonilal had also stated that the families were being treated as criminals as they were thrown out on the streets.

However, Mitchell said lawlessness would not be tolerated by the HDC and anyone seeking to encourage such is not patriotic.

We need to be aware of such persons, he said. Mitchell said the residents acted unlawfully and breached the trespassing sign at their own risk.

The families were evicted from a building complex at Harmony Hall, Gasparillo.

The ministry of Social Development has since intervened and reached out to the residents said Mitchell.

He noted that officials are now offering the evicted residents food card assistance and house rental grants.

He said that rental grants can be accessed for a period of up to six months.

We are assisting these families and the ministry is now in discussion with these residents, he said.

A mother of three told Newsday they admitted that they were wrong, but they were asking for the Government to have mercy on them.

Yes, we are sorry, but please just give us a place to stay. We are all willing to pay the rent. If we had a place to go we would not have done this, please think about our children, the mother said.

Adding, the mother said she was thankful that the minister was looking into their plight.

The illegal occupation of the decrepit buildings started a few years ago when persons, learning that the structures were condemned, repaired the vandalised apartments and quietly moved in.

On Monday last, HDC officials and work crews arrived with protection in the form of heavily armed police officers from the Inter Agency Task Force (IATF). The occupants were ordered to remove their belongings from the apartments and leave.
Garcia: Santa Rita schoolboy has ODD

Garcia made this disclosure in the House of Representatives as he dismissed a claim from Princes Town MP Barry Padarath that bullying at the school was being done by several students.

The symptoms of ODD include throwing repeated temper tantrums; excessively arguing with adults; actively refusing to comply with requests and rules; deliberately trying to annoy or upset others, or being easily annoyed by others; blaming others for your mistakes and having frequent outbursts of anger and resentment Only one student has been identified at the school, who has exhibited this type of behaviour.

It is not widespread. It is not associated with more than one student, Garcia said. As Opposition MPs grumbled after Garcia said the reports indicate the student has ODD, the the minister said the student is crying out for help. Government MPs thumped their desks as Garcia said the ministry will ensure the student, receives the requisite assistance. Thanking Mayaro MP Rushton Paray for his assistance in this matter, Garcia said, We have assigned officers from our student support services to the school who are at present having discussions with the school authorities and also the parents. On another issue, Garcia said the Waterloo High School has a school based management plan. He added, the safety of students is the paramount responsibility of the principal. Asked by Chaguanas East MP Fazal Karim to comment on a fence at the school which had a hole in it for the past year, Garcia said he could not comment until ongoing investigations at the school are completed.

The body of missing 16-yearold Waterloo Secondary School pupil Jesse Beephan was discovered behind the school on Wednesday.
thitivong/iStock/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- London terror attack suspect Khalid Masood visited Saudi Arabia three times -- including two stints teaching English -- but he was not on any security watchlist, the kingdom's London embassy said late Friday.



"The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia wishes to clarify that Khalid Masood was in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and April 2008 to April 2009, when he worked as an English teacher having first obtained a work visa," the embassy said in a statement. "In 2015, he obtained an Umra visa through an approved travel agent and was in the Kingdom from the 3rd-8th March."



Masood was also not on the radar of security officials.



"During his time in Saudi Arabia, Khalid Masood did not appear on the security services' radar and does not have a criminal record in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the statement read.



The embassy expressed its condolences to Britain, writing, "Saudi Arabia continues to stand with the United Kingdom during this difficult time and reaffirms its commitment to continue its work with the United Kingdom in any way to assist in the ongoing investigation."



The embassy also took the opportunity to stress its commitment to defeating terrorism.



"The attack in London this week has again demonstrated the importance of international efforts to confront and eradicate terrorism," the embassy said. "At such a time, our ongoing security cooperation is most crucial to the defeat of terrorism and the saving of innocent lives."



Masood's reign of terror began Wednesday after a car he was driving struck pedestrians and three police officers on Westminster Bridge.



The car then crashed into the fence around the Houses of Parliament, and armed with a knife, he attacked an officer who was standing guard.



Masood was shot and killed by police.



Four people -- including police officer Keith Palmer -- were killed, and at least 28 were injured.



On Saturday, Palmer's family released a statement thanking the public and the London Metropolitan Police for the support and well wishes.



"We want to thank everyone who has reached out to us over the past few days for their kindness and generosity," the statement read. "The police have been a constant, unwavering support at this very difficult time. It has made us realize what a caring, strong and supportive family Keith was part of during his career with the police. We can't thank them enough."



The statement added, "We would also like to express our gratitude to the people who were with Keith in his last moments and who were working that day. There was nothing more you could have done."

Press statement regarding the Westminster terror attack pic.twitter.com/X2YXXarXwH  Saudi Embassy UK (@SaudiEmbassyUK) March 24, 2017

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
With the Midterm Elections less than one week away: What do you consider the top issues that you will be voting on to be corrected by your better representation?

Education Crime Big Government getting Bigger Biden /Democrat controlled Spike in Energy Cost Inflation created by Legislation of Majority in Power Gender Reassignment Corrupted Bureaucratic /Service (DOJ, FBI, etc.) Institutions Abortion Discredited Legacy Media Ending the Corruption of Dishonest Politicians Corruptive Influence of Social Media Wide Open Southern Border
Arima Hospital costing $250M less

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, speaking to reporters during a tour of the facility on Thursday afternoon, said the hospital was being built as is .

We have not touched one square foot of that facility, Deyalsingh said .

The facility, as designed, is going ahead for 150 rooms. What has been reduced is the cost of the building .

We have said in the Parliament that we have to cut out waste, mismanagement and corruption .

You are getting the same hospital with the same capacity, but the people of Arima are being saved a quarter of a million dollars. We are trying to do more with less all the time. The new Arima Hospital is intended to complement the new Sangre Grande Hospital and the Couva Hospital .

Deyalsingh said this would free up the three legacy hospitals - Mt Hope, Portof- Spain and Sangre Grande - to become tertiary centres of excellence .

The facility is being constructed by China Railway Construction (Caribbean) Company Ltd .

The minister also said Government is committed to building a new lab to encompass the Chemistry, Food and Drugs, Trinidad Public Health Lab, the Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and the National Blood Transfusion Service .

Deyalsingh said the population has to get into a stage of reduction of demand for health care service .

He said it was his intention to change the model from one of reactive medicine treatment to one of prevention, adding that in the private sector, it costs about $10,000 per day to have one patient stay in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) .

Education Minister and Member of Parliament for Arima, Anthony Garcia, said when the idea for a new hospital was proposed, they were met with many objections because it was felt that because of the close proximity to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex at Mt Hope, and because of the access to the Priority Bus Route, there was no need for a first class hospital in Arima .

The people in Arima continued in our fight and our agitation and we got the hospital that the people in Arima need, Garcia said .

Deyalsingh said the use of the old facility was yet to be determined, but said it could be used as part of primary health care .

The overall completion of the facility was 28 percent, and is expected to be completed by June 2018 .
Deyalsingh hopeful of blood donation service

Addressing local and international doctors at the start of a three-day symposium on Inherited Blood Disorders at Hilton Trinidad yesterday, Deyalsingh said it was unpardonable that the degradation of the physical premises which previously housed the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) at Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain, had to be shut down every time it rained. Deyalsingh said after 11 years of successive governments spending close to 44 billion on the health sector, there were serious issues that are not properly addressed.

He yesterday announced that former director of the Society for Inherited and Severe Blood Disorder TT (SISBDTT), Haematologist Dr Waveney Patricia Charles has been appointed to act until permanent arrangement could be made to fix the broken institution he inherited in 2015.

On becoming Minister of Health, I found out that TT did not have a Director Medicine at the blood bank since 2011.

How do you run a blood bank without a director? Nobody was applying for the post. I took a note to Cabinet, and we have a very archaic system of appointing people and that is one of the reasons it is so difficult to fill vacancies. He continued, You have to rely on offices like the Chief Personnel Officer, Service Commissions and it is just a nightmare to appoint people to get a job description. I went to Cabinet to get the post of medical director at the blood bank suppressed.

You cannot fill it so you have to fill it via contract. Also speaking at the symposium, President of the SISBDTT Issa Ali said according to the World Federation of Haemophilia (WFH) one in 10,000 is born with haemophilia, in TT, one in ten has the Sickle Cell trait, one in 15 has the Sickle Cell-beta thalassemia, and haemophilia one in 5,000 males which is equivalent to the WFHs quote, of one in 10,000 people.

Also in attendance were WFH representative Luisa Durante, patron of SISBDTT Zalayhar Hassanali, and Dr Wayne Frederick, 17th President of Howard University.
Young: PP caused MTHL problem

MTHLs first contract expired in 2013. They (PP) did nothing to re-negotiate. Young continued, All the other contracts then starting expiring in 2015. They did nothing about it and now have the audacity to say it is us? The minister disclosed that Government is very deep in negotiations with MTHL.

Government MPs thumped their desks as Young declared, We intend to come to a resolution and this government is going to strive to save every single job. Rejecting Tewaries claim that Government has created a war zone in Point Lisas, Young countered that the National Gas Company (NGC) is now facing billions of dollars in claims from energy companies that were filed under the previous administration in August 2015. He said these companies were forced to go to litigation because the last government refused to sit and talk with them.

Young also alleged that at the Estate Management Business Development Corporation (EMBD), the Government discovered that the PP government presided over a situation where $400 million was spent on roads which were never built. He asked Opposition MPs, Is that how you manage the country? Reminding MPs that Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is leading a small delegation to meet with executives of BP, Shell and Exxon in Houston next Wednesday, Young said this was nothing like the delegations in the PPs tenure which comprised, their sister, their brother, their hairdresser, a handbag carrier. He reiterated that Government hopes to conclude a gas sales agreement regarding Venezuelas Dragon Field by July and Rowleys mission to Houston is another avenue aimed at the countrys development. In his earlier contribution, Tewarie said it was unfair for Government to reintroduce the property tax now. He also said Government could not sell off State Enterprises, just so. While he admitted that some State Enterprises should be sold, Tewarie said this had to be done in a particular way. Claiming citizens and business people were becoming frustrated by the PNMs inactions on the economy, Tewarie said, This government does not inspire confidence in anything.
No return to old forex system, says Imbert

In December 2015, the Cabinet fired Rambarran as governor. In a statement then, Imbert said, The Cabinets decision was based primarily on legal advice from both internal and external counsel, including senior counsel, who advised that the disclosure by the former Governor of the names of the largest users of foreign exchange in Trinidad and Tobago and the amounts of foreign exchange that they used was a breach of section 56 of the Central Bank Act and section 8 of the Financial Institutions Act.

In response to another question from Naparima MP Rodney Charles, Imbert said he spoke about the exchange rate in the Mid-Year Review last April. It is therefore incorrect to speak about a weakening of the exchange rate. Imbert reminded MPs that he told the country at that time that, revenues from petroleum which is our primary source of foreign exchange have declined by 92 percent.

At Thursdays post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Anns, Imbert said consideration is being given toward shifting the direction of foreign exchange from importers of manufactured goods to local manufacturers who are exporting goods to other markets. He reiterated that the US$251 million withdrawn from the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF) would be used to partially fund projects in the 2017 Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP). On Thursday, Imbert also said plans to split the HSF into separate heritage and stabilisation components were proceeding apace.
PM among 30 with uncashed cheques

However, Newsday was reliably informed that the cheque listed in Rowleys name has nothing to do with the period he was suspended from Parliament as Opposition Leader.

Rowley was suspended from the House of Representatives on May 6, 2015, for the remainder of that parliamentary term, after the then Peoples Partnership (PP) government used its simple majority to pass a motion to suspend him on the basis of claims he made with respect to the emailgate matter. The motion was passed in the House at 9.15 pm by a vote of 24 for to one against, hours after Rowley and 11 other Peoples National Movement (PNM) MPs walked out of the Parliament chamber after debate began on a second motion of no confidence against him. Then Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner was the lone opposing vote to Rowleys suspension.

According to a newspaper advertisement, the Office of the Parliament advised the individuals and groups in question that these cheques will become void on March 31, 2017. The Office of the Parliament further stated, Cheques dated within the last six months should be cashed immediately. It added, However, cheques that are stale-dated (that is, more than six months have elapsed since the date of issue) should be brought immediately to the Financial Management Unit, Office of the Parliament, for revalidation. Senior government officials told Newsday yesterday the cheque listed in Rowleys name for this period represents a payment made to Rowley which had been misplaced. Since the cheque is lost, it cannot be replaced without public notification after a specific period of time, one official said.

A second official indicated that to date, Rowley has not been paid for the period of his suspension, so there can be no loss on that score. Rowley, the Diego Martin West MP, has publicly stated that his suspension from Parliament was irregular. He has said he continued to function as Opposition Leader during that period. He has argued that it is against that background that he should be paid. Rowley has also said that if it is found that he could not function as Opposition Leader while suspended, there could be a constitutional crisis because he signed off on the appointment of senior state officers and other duties. Newsday understands this matter is currently in the hands of the Prime Ministers lawyers.
Mrs. Patricia Marie Green Arsenault, age 81, a resident of Pitt County, died Sunday, March 19, 2017 at her home.A memorial service will be held at Arthur Christian Church in Bell Arthur, NC at 11:00 AM on Saturday, April 8, 2017.Mrs. Arsenault was born in Rochester, NY on January 5, 1936 to the late Gerald James Green and Evelyn Virginia Kolb Varela. On September 25, 1957, she married MSG Alfred William Arsenault, Sr., USA, who preceded her in death on November 30, 1985. She taught for 40 years and retired from Pearl River High School in Pearl River, LA where she taught English and Latin. Mrs. Arsenault moved to eastern North Carolina in the early 2000's where she has resided ever since.Survivors include three children, Renee Marie Arsenault of Slidell, LA, Alfred William Arsenault, Jr. and wife Mimi of Ellicott City, MD, Robert Michael Arsenault of Greenville, NC; six grandchildren, Shauna Arsenault Byers and husband Jamie; Alexandra Arsenault, Beth, Will, Kate, and Mary Arsenault; one great grandchild, Lida Blaise Byers; and a brother, James Green and wife Linda of Cuyahoga Falls, OH.In addition to her husband, she is preceded in death by her sister, Susan Ray.Condolences may be addressed to the family online by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Arsenault family.
IDEOLOGICAL HOLOCAUST: Being a conservative in Hollywood is like being a Jew in 1930s Germany, warns Tim Allen

Despite their endless push for more tolerance and acceptance, liberal democrats have a tendency to not only reject but viciously condemn anyone who doesnt think the way that they do. They believe in diversity for all unless you happen to believe that the Hummer that you drive to work every day really isnt contributing to the end of the world. They stand for inclusiveness unless you are a member of the NRA and carry a gun for self-defense. They think that we should all come together and accept people who are different unless you voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. In other words, unless you are an anti-gun, anti-rich, open borders environmentalist, you are either shunned, or more commonly, aggressively attacked.

There are few places where this left wing hatred manifests itself more than in Hollywood, which in recent years has practically become the capital for all things liberal and politically correct.

In a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, actor Tim Allen didnt hold back when describing what it was like being a Republican in Hollywood. You gotta be real careful around here, Allen said. You get beat up if you dont believe what everybody else believes. This is like 30s Germany.

Allen currently plays an outspoken conservative on the show Last Man Standing, and ironically, he has right-wing leanings in real life as well. When Kimmel asked him about attending the inauguration of Donald Trump back in January, Allen replied, I was invited, we did a VIP thing for the vets, and went to a veterans ball, so I went to go see Democrats and Republicans. He added, Yeah, I went to the inauguration.

It makes sense that there would be so much hostility towards conservatism inside Hollywood. After all, its not exactly a secret that the vast majority of actors and actresses are outspoken progressives.

Speaking before the United Nations last year, actor Leonardo DiCaprio gave an impassioned speech about the dangers of climate change and how human beings are contributing to earths demise. On the topic of the Paris Agreement for Climate Change, the 41-year-old actor said, We can congratulate each other today, but it will mean absolutely nothing if you return to your countries and dont take action to implement the deal. DiCaprio later went on to warn our planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground where they belong.

More recently, actress Meryl Streep used her speech at the 2017 Golden Globes to attack Donald Trump. Streep shamed Trump for when he imitated a disabled reporter on the campaign trail, something that has been proven to have been taken out of context. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose, she declared. Streep then went on to urge the press to hold power to account and to call him on the carpet for every outrage.

Its also worth noting that dozens of Hollywood stars openly supported and even campaigned for Hillary Clinton while she was out on the campaign trail. These stars include but are not limited to: Demi Lovato, Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Ellen DeGeneres, Elizabeth Banks, Kat Dennings, Bryan Cranston, Drew Barrymore, Shonda Rhimes, J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Scarlett Johansson, Kerry Washington, Olivia Wilde, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Reese Witherspoon, Julianne Moore, Lena Dunham, Robert De Niro and George Clooney.

The evidence is overwhelming  Tim Allen hit the nail on the head when he said that being a conservative star in liberal Hollywood was like living in Nazi Germany. Not only are conservatives heavily outnumbered, but as Allen pointed out, the Hollywood leftists dont hesitate to attack. It is, in many ways, an ideological holocaust.

Sources:

PageSix.com

DailyMail.co.uk

CNN.com

NewsDay.com

Submit a correction >>
Delhi BJP's Panch Parmeshwar Sammelan to be held on 25th March in Ramila Maidan

New Delhi, Sat, 25 Mar 2017 NI Wire

Delhi BJP has termed the Booth level workers as Panch Parmeshwar and the BJP National President Shri Amit Shah will launch the election campaign for the upcoming MCD elections tomorrow - Manoj Tiwari

The ensuing MCD election is an opportunity for the voters of Delhi to give mandate against the Government involved in corruption, nepotism & stalling development works and hope that the people will give a reasonable mandate  Vinay Sahastrabuddhe

New Delhi, 24th March: BJP Delhi Pradesh today held a Press Conference in connection with the Panch Parmeshwar Conference to be held on Saturday the 25th March in Ramila Maidan the venue of conference. In the presence of National Vice President and MP Shri Vinay Sahastrabudhe, Pradesh Incharge Shri Shyam Jaju, Co-Incharge Shri Tarun Chugh, Booth Management Convener Shri Tilak Raj Kataria and Co-Convener Shri Harsh Deep Malhotra and Pradesh Office bearers Shri Rajiv Babbar, Smt. Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Shri Harish Khurana, Shri Ashok Goel, Shri Naveen Kumar & Shri Tajinder Pal Singh Baggha. Pradesh President Shri Manoj Tiwari said that completing the first phase of the organizational preparations for the upcoming MCD elections a conference of the workers connected with all the 13372 polling booths of Delhi has been organized on Saturday the 25th March.

Delhi BJP has termed the Booth level workers as Panch Parmeshwar and the BJP National President Shri Amit Shah will launch the election campaign for the upcoming MCD elections by addressing this conference. Urban Development Minister Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu & BJP National Organization General Secretary Shri Ramlal and all the MPs from Delhi and the senior leaders/office bearers will guide the workers on this occasion.

Shri Tiwari said that the Ramlila Maidan has been divided into 14 enclosures in the order of BJP's 14 organizational districts and LED screens are being installed in each enclosure so that the workers may easily listen to the address of National President Shri Amit Shah. The workers are themselves making arrangement for refreshment etc. in this programme.

Replying to the questions of the media persons the BJP National Vice President Shri Vinay Sahastrabuddhe said that due to the mis-governance of the President Delhi Government, the development works have stopped and the National Capital has become centre of anarchy and corruption.

Shri Sahastrabuddhe said that the ensuing MCD election is an opportunity for the voters of Delhi to give mandate against the Government involved in corruption, nepotism & stalling development works and hope that the people will give a reasonable mandate.
Delivers 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University: Vice President of India

New Delhi, Sat, 25 Mar 2017 NI Wire

Need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values: Vice President

The Vice President of India, M. Hamid Ansari has said that there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to people. He was delivering the 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University, in Chandigarh today. The Governor of Haryana, Prof. Kaptan Singh Solanki, the Vice Chancellor of Panjab University, Prof. A.K. Grover and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

Sharing his thoughts on the importance of universities in our society the Vice President talked about the idea of a university and how it distinguishes itself from other institutions where instructions are imparted focused on catering to requirements of daily life; the need for them to teach its members to think, to go beyond the obvious in learning for examination purposes, and to acquire the capacity and habit to question; the necessity for them to focus on research, to produce new knowledge that may be beneficial to society and the economy; the need to undertake social research, given the diversity and complexity of all societies in a fast changing world; and the imperative need for academic freedom so that the thought process and its expression is untrammelled by official or societal constraints.

The Vice President said that a University has to be more than a mere polytechnic. Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections, the university should first aim to build a profound understanding of the discipline, he added.

The Vice President said that a University has the twin responsibility of providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those very matters. He also underlined the important role of social research in questioning and deconstructing social and cultural mythologies' that circulate and proliferate in any society, especially during phases of change and uncertainty.

The Vice President said that the recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be. The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be public good', he added.

The Vice President said that the right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms. A University must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom, he added.

Following is the Text of Vice President's address:

It has been my privilege to be the Chancellor of this university, famous for its work and alumni, for almost a decade. I confess I have followed the dictum that a Chancellor should be seen infrequently and heard rarely.

This is one of those rare occasions, of convocation, when I get the opportunity to congratulate the Vice Chancellor, faculty, staff and students for the good work that is being done here.

I am very happy that the University has decided to celebrate the singular achievements and services of some individuals by award of honoris causa degrees and the Rattan honours. I congratulate Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi for the D. Litt, Justice Khehar for the Doctorate of Law, Dr. N.S. Kapny and Prof. G.S. Khush for the Doctorates of Science. I also congratulate Shri Anupam Kher for the Kala Rattan, Dr. Dalip Kaur Tiwana for the Sahitya Rattan and Dr. P.D. Gupta for the Vigyan Rattan Awards.

Convocations are calling together of a university community to celebrate academic achievements and excellence; it is customary to use the occasion to cogitate in public in the expectation that the audience would do likewise.

I take this opportunity to share with you some thoughts on the importance of universities in our society and the requirements for the universities to play that role. Specifically I want to talk about:

 The idea of a university and how it distinguishes itself from other institutions where instructions are imparted focused on catering to requirements of daily life;

 The need for them to teach its members to think, to go beyond the obvious in learning for examination purposes, and to acquire the capacity and habit to question;

 The necessity for them to focus on research, to produce new knowledge that may be beneficial to society and the economy;

 The need for universities to undertake social research, given the diversity and complexity of all societies in a fast changing world; and

 The imperative need for academic freedom so that the thought process and its expression is untrammeled by official or societal constraints.



Allow me to begin with a blasphemous preposition: Do we still need Universities?'

A professor of business psychology in a university somewhere has argued that higher education is at best incoherent and at worst suicidal since students enroll to enhance their career potential but end up as unemployed or unemployable as they were in their pre-college lives.' He goes on to argue that the only way to fix universities is to align demand (what students want and employers need) with supply (what universities offer).

This trend of thinking, essentially utilitarian in a narrow sense, is not uncommon in our times. And yet, to reduce all human activity to its utilitarian dimensions is to negate the ventures of the human mind and spirit that has characterized human progress down the ages.

Civilizations in different times have brought forth universities. Plato's Academia and Aristotle's Lyceum in Athens in 4th century BC, Nalanda in India in 5th century AD, Al Azhar in Egypt in 952 and Bologna in Italy in 1088 were in different senses precursors of modern universities.

Cardinal Newman in 1852 described a university as a seat of wisdom, a light to the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and a great deal more.'

A university training, he added, aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspirations, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political powers and refining the intercourse of private life.'

In our times, the University has become not only a catalyst of scientific and economic change, but also vehicle of equalization of chances and democratization of society by making possible equal opportunities for people -contributing not only to economic growth, but to social equality or, at least, lesser inequality. This was summed up a few years back by the President of the Copenhagen Business School, Per Holten-Andersen who identified four classical and one modern function of a university:

 To act as repositories of the knowledge of humanity;

 To generate new Knowledge by research;

 Transfer knowledge to the next generation by education;

 Transfer knowledge to Society, by dissemination; and

 Generating development and economic growth.

The last, admittedly, has acquired enhanced importance today but its efficacy is intrinsically linked to, and dependent upon, the institutions that produce new knowledge.

There is much clamor and urgency today for university research to be translated into products and services. While there is no argument against applied research; and the need to commercialize such research, we must also accept that many of our present challenges require paradigm-shifts and disruptive convergent innovation. After all, necessity is the mother of invention only in the very short term. Over the long haul, invention is the mother of necessity - changing not only what is possible, but what we regard as essential. We need to recognize that risk, waste and failure are all essential parts of the process'. Good science, like good art, is a creative enterprise.

Today's preoccupations are often myopic or ephemeral, giving little thought for tomorrow. History is at its most illuminating when written with the full consciousness of what people wrongly expected to happen. Even in the domain of technology, future developments only a few years away have been shrouded from contemporary eyes. Many, possibly most, have arisen unexpectedly from research with other objectives, and assessments of technological potential have invariably missed the mark. One of the roles of the university, thus, is to prepare the knowledge that an unpredictable future may need.'

A University has to be more than a mere polytechnic. University education and intellectual enrichment must not be construed solely or even primarily as a path to employment. Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections, the university should first aim to build a profound understanding of the discipline. A university law program, for example, should aim primarily to produce graduates with a deep understanding of law, rather than lawyers, per se.

A University has the twin responsibility of providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those very matters. These two functions should reinforce one another. In recent times, there is a pre-occupation with technological research as against research in pure and social sciences. Often, questions are raised about the importance, and benefits of social research to present requirements.

Situating the relevance of contemporary social enquiry is complex and multifaceted. It is of paramount importance, especially for societies like ours that are in a transition process. It can help address challenges and identify possible solutions in areas essential to a transitional society's political stability and socio-economic development, including existential issues like inter-ethnic relations, protection of minorities, nation-building and good governance.

Social research examining the dynamics and direction of political, economic and social change improves our understanding of such processes, and can help identify pockets of malcontent and resentment, allowing these to be addressed before they become impediments to social harmony.

The other important role of social research is in questioning and deconstructing social and cultural mythologies' that circulate and proliferate in any society, especially during phases of change and uncertainty. The period of rapid transition in India, particularly, in the last 25 years, offers a particularly fertile climate for such mythologies- which are often harmful for liberal values and the exercise of democracy. Here, the social sciences, with their robust basis in rational criteria, their critical view of societal phenomena, and the sophisticated analytical methods they employ', can be an apt antidote.

An important aim of higher education is to learn to ask questions and to develop the capacity for reasoned arguments. This is what Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore alluded to when he sang;

Where the mind is without fear....Where knowledge is free..Where words come out from the depth of truth'

The right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms. The national interest' in this scheme is constitutional rule. This is what Dr. Ambedkar had in mind when he said that,

It is only constitutional morality that must guide the government, not any whimsical invocation of narrow-minded, parochial figureheads and mythical characters.

This approximates what Cardinal Newman envisaged as the role of the University, some 100 years before Ambedkar, that the idea of a university is to be determined without recourse to any authority and should be based on human wisdom'. It should be a place for the diffusion and extension of knowledge.

Intellectual dissent has the power to clarify differences and elucidate competing assumptions. It enables each of us to recognize the strengths and weaknesses in our thinking. Strong intellectual work can only be done in an atmosphere where scholars feel free to take risks, challenge conventions, and change their minds. A University must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom. Except in cases of illegal conduct or violence, a University should never seek to silence or influence faculty members or students to adopt or renounce any particular position. Indeed, universities should take all legal action necessary to defend their academic integrity and freedom.

Academic freedom is the foundation of the University's mission to discover, improve, and disseminate knowledge. This is to be done by examining different ideas in an environment that encourages free and scrupulous debate. The ideas, no matter how uncomfortable or disturbing to the accepted status quo, can and must be challenged, modified and even discarded- on their merit, but may never be muted or suppressed.

The University, in discharge of its duties, has the responsibility of speaking out without the fear of intimidation; and to give offense, even at the cost of inviting protests. Not doing so would be to deviate from the path of rational enquiry and undermine our curiosity about the world by embracing ill-defined orthodoxies, which would impoverish our pursuit of knowledge.

Academic freedom requires a robust tolerance for disagreement and criticism, a willingness to have one's assumptions questioned, and openness to new ideas that may prove offensive. This tolerance always has the potential to conflict with other virtues and causes, so it needs to be defended repeatedly and vigilantly.

We need to revisit these commitments today because we are again in a climate that questions the value and scope of academic freedom. Recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be. The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be public good.'

In a period of rampant distrust of matters intellectual there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to people. We need to remind ourselves of the democratic aspirations of pragmatic liberal education while recalling that our finest universities help fulfill the dreams of our best selves as a people.'

In November 2005 an eminent scientist cautioned the world about the dangerous times that lie ahead in the realities of the external world and warned against retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason (instead of) free, open, un-prejudiced, unhindered questioning and enquiry that are under serious threat from resurgent fundamentalism, West and East.

This proposition has universal validity.

As one of the premier institutions of the country, the Panjab University has to play its role of a neutral assembler of talent; that of an unmatched idea factory where the passion, creativity and idealism of young minds can be applied to meeting the transitional needs of our society, polity and economy.

As the Chancellor of the University, I urge you to proceed purposefully in this direction.

Jai Hind.

Source: PIB
Doris Grey Morris Jones, age 95, a resident of Washington, NC died Monday March 20, 2017 at River Trace Nursing and Rehabilitation.A funeral service will be held 3:00 PM Friday March 24, 2017 at the Second Baptist Church of Washington and will be officiated by Mike Scott, John Koch, and Phil Hayes. Pallbearers include Kuel Whitford, Ira Whitford, Danny Buck, Billy Morris, Mike Hall, and Billy Braddy.Mrs. Jones was born in Craven County on September 18, 1921 to the late Bill Henry Morris and Sadie Sutton. On August 7, 1945, she married Kennie Jones who preceded her in death on July 24, 1972. She was a graduate of Vanceboro Farm Life High School. Mrs. Jones took a correspondence course in bookkeeping and worked as a bookkeeper at Sampsons Shirt Factory. She was a member of Second Baptist Church in Washington.Survivors include a son, Kenneth Morris Jones and wife Rebecca "Becky" of Washington, a daughter, Kathy J. Alligood and husband Manfred of Washington, six grandchildren, and seventeen great grandchildren.She is preceded in death by two grandchildren, Angela Jones Miller and Cpl. Kevin M. Jones, three brothers, William Morris, Albert Morris, Phillip Morris, and a sister, Lee Belle Buck.The family will receive friends from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM Thursday March 23, 2017 at Paul Funeral Home & Crematory.Flowers are appreciated or memorial contributions may be made to Second Baptist Church, P. O. Box 114, Washington, NC 27889 or to Gideon International, P. O. Box 2578, Washington, NC 27889.Condolences may be addressed to the family online by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Jones family.
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Whether on land, in the air, or in the sea, communications and networking continue to move forward.

For example, at the recent Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition, Nokia (News - Alert) announced the expansion of its 1830 family of products. That includes the 1830 Photonic Service Demarcation product, and a high-performance data center interconnect solution called the 1830 Photonic Service Interconnect.





On the wireless frontier, meanwhile, Nokia announced it has completed pre-standard testing of 600MHz on commercially available hardware. The Federal Communications Commission this year is repurposing 600MHz spectrum that had been used by broadcast TV companies so it can be employed by cellular service providers. This spectrum can be used to augment existing LTE (News - Alert) networks in both metropolitan and rural areas.

The infrastructure supplier has also revealed its working with Indias fastest growing operator, Jio. Nokia will provide the company its 1830 Photonic Service Switch, which features 100G dense wavelength division multiplexing and generalized multi-protocol label switching capabilities.

Meanwhile, Qualcomm (News - Alert) has come out with the 205 Mobile Platform, which provides 4G LTE connectivity and services to entry-level feature phones in emerging markets.

Qualcomm Technologies is committed to the migration of users and networks from 2G, 2.5G, and 3G to 4G. Feature phones are a lifeline in many emerging countries and the Qualcomm 205 Mobile Platform allows us to bring 4G connectivity and services to the masses with devices at price points never seen before, said Kedar Kondap, vice president of product management at Qualcomm Technologies Inc.

Also this week, we wrote about the potential to use Wi-Fi on light beams. As we reported, beams can carry as much as 40 gigabits per second per ray.

And I did a piece about Nokias work with Facebook on a field trial of submarine cables leveraging shaped 64 QAM technology. The companies were able to achieve record-breaking results through this effort.
The US defense department once again sounded the alarm over Moscows growing interest in Libya, indicating that ties between Russians and head of the Libyan National Army Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar is evident.



After Syria, Moscow and Washington have engaged in another diplomatic showdown in the North African country.

General Thomas Tom Waldhauser, who heads the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) on Friday told media that Russia is engaged in the border area between Libya and Egypt.

They are trying to influence the action, we watch what they do with great concern, Waldhauser told reports at the Pentagon.

In addition to the military side of this, weve seen some recent activity in business ventures  whether its oil, whether its weapon sales

Moscow is believed to have deployed to an air base at Sid Barrani, which is located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the Libyan border.

Russians rejected the claims. Even though Moscow has not sent any troops in the oil rich country, it is well-known that Haftar has become Russias major Libyan interlocutor.

The Russians and Haftar, the linkage I think is undeniable at this point in time, Waldhauser added.

The US helped UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) to flush out Islamic State group militants in Sirte; Muammar Gaddafis hometown.

Despite announcing the end of the aerial operations in December, the US has maintained a group of American soldiers on the Libyan soil.
Mr. Jason Leroy Lewis, age 45, a resident of Blounts Creek, died Tuesday, March 21, 2017 at Vidant Medical Center.Funeral services will be 2:00 pm Thursday, March 23, 2017 at Smyrna Free Will Baptist Church and will be conducted by Pastor Joel Cannon. Burial will follow in Warren Memorial Cemetery.Jason was born in Beaufort County on October 7, 1971 to the late William Earl Lewis, Sr. and Betsy Harding Lewis who survives. He was a 1989 graduate of Aurora High School, attended Smyrna Free Will Baptist Church and was a member of the Blounts Creek Fire Department.Survivors include his mother, Betsy Harding Lewis of Grifton, his daughter, Shelbey Lewis of Blounts Creek and his son, Josh Lewis of Blounts Creek. He was preceded in death by his brother, William Earl Lewis, Jr.The family will receive friends from 6:30 pm until 8:00 pm Wednesday, March 22, 2017 at Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington.Memorials may be made to the Jason Lewis Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 1465, Washington, NC 27889.You may address condolences to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Lewis family.
Mrs. Geneva Gray Gurganus Woolard, age 87, a resident of 109 Shore Drive, Bath, NC died Tuesday March 21, 2017 at Vidant Beaufort Hospital of Washington.A memorial service will be held 11:00 a.m. Friday March 24, 2017 at Bath Christian Church officiated by Rev. Curtis White and Rev. Merritt Watson. Honorary pallbearers will be Jimmy Gaylord, Matt Woolard, Doug Gaylord, Kevin Gaylord, Sammy Robbins, John Holt, Starley Stell and Walt Davis.The family will receive friends 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday March 23, 2017 at the home.Mrs. Woolard was born in Beaufort County on December 27, 1929 daughter of the late Farris Franklin Gurganus and the late Eliza Elizabeth Carrowan Gurganus. She attended Bath High School. On March 22, 1947 she married the love of her life, Claude Matthew "C.M." Woolard, Jr., who survives. Mrs. Woolard worked as a group leader at Hamilton Beach of Washington until it's closure in Washington at which time she retired. She was a very active member of Bath Christian Church.Surviving along with her husband "C.M." of the home are two daughters: Terry Woolard of Bath and Jeannie Woolard (Dale) of Bath; two sisters: Lenora Elvin of Norfolk, VA and Katherine Bueche' of San Antonio, TX; a grandson: Matthew Woolard of Bethel; a special niece: Joann Gaylord (Jimmy) of Raleigh and her devoted pet Yorkie: Leo. Mrs. Woolard was preceded in death by a son: Meredith Gregory Woolard and three brothers: Roy, Robert and Preston Gurganus.In lieu of flowers the family kindly asks for memorial contributions be made to Bath Christian Church, P.O. Box 300 Bath, NC 27808.Online condolences may be offered to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Woolard family.
Ms. Marilyn Joan Fuller, age 67, a resident of Washington, passed away Sunday March 5, 2017 at Ridgewood Manor Nursing Center.Ms. Fuller was born July 12, 1949 in Washington DC to the late Frank Gardner Fuller and Bernadette Angeline Klich Fuller. She was a 1967 graduate of J.H. Rose High School and attended Sacred Heart College in Belmont, NC.Survivors include one brother, Stephen Fuller and wife Beth of Washington; one sister, Ellen Bartless of Auburn, GA; two nieces, Amanda Taylor Stang of New York, NY and Elizabeth Marie Perez of Coralville, IA.Memorials may be made to the Mental Health Association of Eastern Carolina, P.O. Box 2482, Greenville, NC 27836.You may address condolences to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Fuller family.
When a person decides to purchase life insurance they are asked about their health status and history and are, in part, charged a premium based on their answers to those questions. When a person decides to purchase a long-term care policy, that person is also asked about his or her health status and history, which is reflected in their premiums. Similar to investigating the driving record of someone purchasing auto insurance, this information is integral to determining the actuarial risk associated with the potential insurance customer. It is probably safe to assume that there are few people, particularly those who apply for these kinds of policies, who do not expect such questions to be asked or who consider those kinds of questions to be unreasonable given the nature of the insurance being purchased.And yet, because of a central tenet of Obamacare that is being fully embraced by most Republicans in Congress and is part of their proposed American Health Care Act, the providers of health insurance, the one kind of insurance where a person's health history would be most important to consider, are not allowed to ask any questions regarding an applicant's health status or history. In fact, under the legislation proposed by Speaker Paul Ryan and backed by President Trump, it would be illegal for a government recognized health insurance provider to base any part of the premium it charges on the actual health risks associated with the person being insured.In 2009, President Obama decided to use the federal government to take complete control of and centrally plan the health insurance industry. As part of this, the government forced insurance companies to adopt a system of rate determination called "community rating," where insurance companies can only use a few criteria in determining what rates can be charged to different customers and none of them include health status or history. In fact, rates cannot be charged on the basis of individual circumstances at all but only on the basis of certain class related criteria. The most important of these was age. While other plans could be sold, the purchasers of such plans would not be recognized as having health insurance at all and would be subject to fines under the individual mandate.Under the mandated system of community rating, an insurance company may charge a person over 55 years old up to three times the amount that it charges a younger person, say a 30-year-old, living in the same geographical area. This is regardless of how unhealthy or fit either the younger person or the older person is. In other words, the health insurance company is allowed to use age as a blunt proxy for health status, not for individuals but only for entire classes based on age. Typically, proxies, in any situation, are used when actual information is unavailable or inaccessible. This is not the case for health insurance. As with life and long-term care insurance, the health status of individuals can easily be determined through questionnaires, but the idea of doing that was inconsistent with Obamacare's vision of health care coverage being a social entitlement, like Medicare or Medicaid, rather than actual insurance.The American Health Care Act not only fully embraces this principle that is a central part of Obamacare but, in fact, continues with idea that the health insurance industry needs to be centrally planned from Washington, D.C. The AHCA continues to require that, in determining health insurance premiums, insurance companies must ignore the potential policy holder's actual health risks. Furthermore, it continues to pit older ratepayers against younger ones by only allowing companies to differentiate premiums based on age. The only difference between Obamacare and the AHCA is that the wedge between older and younger policyholders is widened even further. Instead of allowing insurance companies to charge three times more for the older person's policy than the policy of a younger person, as is the case under Obamacare, with no reference to the health status of either the younger person or the older person, the Republic sponsored AHCA allows insurance companies to charge five times more for the older person's policy.What this means is that under the Republican plan, an unhealthy 30-year-old who is obese, never exercises, has high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and generally lives an unhealthy lifestyle is likely to be paying one-fifth of the premium for the same policy as a 55-year-old who is physically fit, walks three miles a day, eats healthily, and has normal blood pressure and cholesterol. It should also be noted that while the individual mandate is gotten rid of in the Ryan/Trump plan they have put in place an alternative enforcement mechanism. The tax credit for purchasing health insurance would only be available if the insured purchases one of the AHCA approved plans.It should also be noted that not only will the system of community rating be continued under the AHCA, putting the government in charge of health insurance pricing, but so will all of the insurance mandates, the so-called "10 essential health benefits" that exist under Obamacare. (Note: As this is being written the possibility of eliminating at least some of these is being discussed as an amendment to the AHCA.) This means that not only will the price of health insurance continue to be centrally determined from Washington but so will with the coverage. Despite all of the rhetoric about returning health care decisions to the consumer, all important decision about what a health insurance policy looks like and how much it will cost will remain in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats.Many of the more conservative and libertarian members of Congress have, for a host of reasons, taken to calling the AHCA "Obamacare light," but if it is passed and signed into law without addressing the issue of community rating, the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner may have labeled it even more accurately: "Obamacare forever."
Adrian Ajao, a.k.a. Khalid Masood.

British authorities still have nine people in custody and being questioned in connection to the car rampage and stabbing near Parliament on Wednesday. Two were characterized as significant arrests. Police also seized three vehicles after an armed raid Friday morning near the complex in Birmingham where the attacker, Khalid Masood, is believed to have been staying. Police also said they seized more than 2,700 items, which includes massive amounts of computer data.

In the meantime, more details are emerging about 52-year-old Khalid Masood, who was fatally shot by police after he stabbed an officer outside Parlaiment. Masood had multiple aliases, but he was born in Britain as Adrian Russell Ajao. Prime Minister Theresa May had said Thursday that he been investigated by MI5, Britains domestic intelligence agency, for violent extremism but that he was a peripheral figure and was no longer on the security services radar. It is unclear when he converted to Islam (his mom was Christian), though there are reports he traveled to Saudi Arabia for year-long stays in November 2005 and April 2008; the BBC says that the embassys records indicate he went there to teach English. Masood did have a long criminal record, and served jail time after slashing a guy in a bar fight in 2000, reports the Guardian.

Police are still trying to pin down Massods preparation and movements before the attack. While theres still no evidence of further threats, youll understand our determination is to whether he acted totally alone inspired by terrorist propaganda or if others have encouraged supported or directed him, said Mark Rowley, the head of counteterrorism for the Metropolitan Police in London. Masood was reportedly on WhatsApp moments before he began plowing down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, and he stayed in Brighton the night before the attack, where a hotel manager described him to Sky News as a nice guest who was laughing and joking.

The death toll in the attack has also risen to four, not including Masood. A 75-year-old man who was injured died overnight, and 17 people remain hospitalized.

*This post misidentified the British domestic intelligence agency as M15. It is MI5. The error has been corrected.
Donald Trump seems ready to move on to other issues, and so far Paul Ryan doesnt seem to disagree. Photo: Olivier Doulier - Pool/Getty Images

For the next few days the pure politics of the failed House bill to repeal and replace Obamacare will be the center of attention, as fingers are pointed and scores are settled and grim assessments of the leadership abilities of Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are offered.

But eventually, and in some cases perhaps after a good purging bender, the movers and shakers of the GOP will have to figure out what they do next on health-care policy, and on the rest of their agenda.

The good news for Republicans that nobody much appreciates right now is that there was nothing mandatory about this whole messy enterprise. Yes, if they just give up on enacting a budget-reconciliation bill for fiscal year 2017 (thats technically what the American Health Care Act is), they will defy the instructions they gave themselves back on January 13 when they enacted the budget resolution that put this runaway train in motion. Yes, there are both political and fiscal consequences for just bagging it. But theres no judge who will fine them for it. So technically, the president is right: They can move on, and they can punish the American people by letting the Affordable Care Act stay in place.

And there was certainly nothing in Speaker Paul Ryans press conference after the bill was pulled to suggest any present intention to go back to the drawing board and come up with another bill. He admitted repeatedly that Obamacare would be in place for the foreseeable future. And then Donald Trump put the lid on the coffin by repeatedly saying nothing would happen on health care until Democrats joined in after Obamacare explodes.

Barring some second wind for a repeal/replace effort, or the unquenchable possibility that Donald Trump will change his mind, it will probably become an agenda item that slips into the future, or at least until 2018. The possible exception, particularly if the current system of individual health insurance continues to struggle with higher premiums and the withdrawal of insurers from purchasing exchanges, would be for Republicans to ask Democrats to cooperate in some sort of fix that they could market as sort of repeal-and-replace on the cheap.

Is it possible Democrats would be interested in this sort of deal once they finish celebrating the implosion of Trumpcare? Probably not anytime soon. The only vehicle for a bipartisan compromise at the moment is the Cassidy-Collins proposal that lets states decide whether to stick with Obamacare (including the Medicaid expansion) or move in a more conservative direction. This might have been enticing to some blue-state governors and Members of Congress back when it looked like Republicans had the means to enact something far more draconian. But at the moment it would look like a betrayal of Democratic constituencies in red states.

What might happen instead is that Republicans, freed from the responsibility of actually enacting anything, which their trifecta and the budget reconciliation made possible, will retreat to proposing impracticable health-care legislation they know Democrats wont support and can easily filibuster. It will be just like Obama is still president and Republicans could demagogue on health care to their hearts desire!

In the short term, Republicans will have to deal with some immediate challenges exacerbated by this fiasco, like the need to satisfy their anti-abortion constituents by defunding Planned Parenthood, pursuing a tax-cut package without the improved revenue baseline that AHCA would have provided, and finding a new vehicle for reforming Medicaid (i.e., capping federal expenditures).

From a longer perspective, Republicans now understand how Democrats felt when the Clinton Health Plan went down to defeat in 1994. If it takes them half as long as it took Democrats to take another swing for the fences on health-care policy, we wont soon see any vindication of the doomed effort that died today.
Murads Retinol Youth Serum and It Cosmetics CC Cream.

After a month of fashion weeks, my rolling suitcase and skin-care and makeup products got a good workout (my neglected biceps on the other hand  ). Here were some of my favorite beauty products from the past few months that I used till their broken, squeezed-out, last-pumped end. Read on for the bronzer Ive been using every day for the past two years, a retinol serum that never made me look red or flaky, and a light yet highly impactful moisturizing eye cream.

Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow $68 This Charlotte Tilbury palette has traveled so much that it deserves its own passport. I carry it with me on every trip and use it every single day. This morning though, I dropped it in my bathroom and the bronzer half, which was already close to hitting pan, broke. R.I.P my favorite bronzer, which was never streaky, orange, or glittery, and never made me look I had two chocolate bars of contour unevenly blended on my cheeks. $68 at Violet Grey Buy

It Cosmetics Your Skin But Better CC Cream with SPF 50+ $15 Apart from walking on the shady side of the street, I like my SPF to be 50 and above but thats hard to find in any skin-coverage product. The closest Ive found are the Korean cushion compacts, but sometimes Im a little more sleep deprived than that, which is why I like this foundation from It Cosmetics. They say its a CC cream, but it honestly offers medium-plus coverage that blends really easily and seamlessly over skin, so it has the feel of a foundation. Dont be scared  it comes out a little thick but its great at covering up redness and giving coverage that looks smooth, polished, and natural. If you dont believe me, Jamie Kern Lima can show you on QVC. $15 at Sephora Buy

Murad Retinol Youth Renewal Serum $88 Do you hear the word retinol and think, huh, what for? This product is for you. If you read our retinol explainer and thought, TL;DR, in short, retinol is a form of Vitamin A that makes your skin shed skin quicker, thus enabling you to get newer, baby skin cells faster, resulting in smoother, younger skin. The problem is that the dermatologist-grade versions of retinol often give you the skin flakies, but the non-dermatologist ones are often too gentle to make any real effect. Murad did the work for you, with a gentle-yet-effective retinol derivative. The cream goes on seamlessly, doesnt cause any irritation, and wont make your skin look like you got beard burn. $88 at Dermstore Buy

Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye Serum Synchronized Complex II $66 I really miss this eye cream. It was the last thing I thought about before bed, the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning, and it had a soothing, silky fluid texture that I loved smearing above and under my eyes. Some parts of my skin-care routine feel like work, but this wasnt it. Putting it on made my old standby mini under-eye wrinkle  long christened Fred, a little less Fred- and crepe-like in nature, and even reduced the beginning signs of the smile crinkles I think Ive started to develop. Not smiling isnt an option, but reducing Freds appearance is, and Ill miss this eye cream in my skin-care rotation. $66 at Neiman Marcus Buy

Sisley Cleansing Milk with White Lily $120 Milk isnt necessarily something I want in the shower, yet this milky cleanser from Sisley became one of my favorites. I loved the delicate, non-oily, almost-cold-cream texture of this product, which belied how efficiently and capably it could remove an entire days grime, oil, and stress. It doesnt foam but the milky texture makes it all the more soothing to skin, and its been a longtime favorite of Sisley customers with sensitive skin. It is very expensive for a cleanser, but this bottle lasted me well over three years. Using this made my skin feel so pure and good I almost forgot that it was my second time washing it. $120 at Nordstrom Buy

Every editorial product is independently selected. If you buy something through our links, New York may earn an affiliate commission.
wtf

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val sis there's some things that you keep to yourself

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Ew I had no idea he was a creep.

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This is the kind of thing that's funny on talk shows but way awk on twitter

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Oh this ish wouldn't be funny in any platform. This is hella creepy and I hope her husband steps in if he tries to meet her again.

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I really don't think it's that serious lol

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i love his twitter. Val is awesome. now that he isnt a walking sex dream anymore is one of the best thing on twitter.

Val if you are ONTD, I LOVE YOU!

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this was my exact reaction and i was actually about to post this exact gif lol

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Also, Kilmer does not have a tag?



why... would he? some level of relevancy is usually required for one

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right? he hasn't been relevant for at least a decade

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Seriously. We can't even get tags for half the relevant people who get posted about regularly, nobody's checking for a Val Kilmer tag.

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lmfao ikr. Like who is even looking for him nowadays?

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ikr people here ask that all the time for the most washed up celebs

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Willow forever tbqh

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i bet how he thinks that's a huge compliment. men are so fucking creepy and clueless

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They continue to be the absolute worst.

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Right? It amazes me that men think their sexual fantasies A) need to be known by everyone and B) that women should be ~honored that some dude is attracted to them.

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jealous honestly. i would let val kilmer put his penis in my vagina.

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i would let top gun era val kilmer do anything to me. anything.

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I have a thing for TB riddled "Tombstone" Val Kilmer tbh and I hate it.

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he didnt age too well, but fuck me hard, he used to be SO HOT.

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Maybe 20 years ago when was hot

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He was never attractive.

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How old is this child?

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He looks 12





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omw

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r u ok

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he looks like barron trump

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no

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i have definitely stood in a sea of carbon copies of this boy at a mac demarco show

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what the fuk is wrong with you?

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quizblorg, is that you?

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ew he literally looks like a child

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donde dejaste tus lentes?

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No. He looks 14 and unless you're 21 or under STOP. Don't be Connor from HTGAWM. Do better.

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Lmao have we got another Indio Downey situation on our hands?

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You need Jesus.

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These comments made me have to google him and he's 21????



He looks fucking 13. Helllllll no.

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Oh god no. He looks young enough to call me ma'am or Mrs.

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uh... kid looks 15.



Let's wait 5 years then make that comment.. provided it's still necessary.





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lol ew

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I see i've been confusing him for johnny knoxville.

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Life comes at you fast

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Robert sucked the life out of him and also stole his soul while we're at it too

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I detect no lies

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Tru... That was when Val was really coming down and rdj was really coming up again... He stole his life essence smh

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Contact: Attila Nemecz

Attila Nemecz Attila.Nemecz@beaufortccc.edu

WASHINGTON, NC Ideally, valued positions provide enough income to sustain workers and their families. Unfortunately, some jobs can only sustain employees in the short term. Beaufort County Community College student Yalissa Mondragon found that working at a pre-school and trying to raise a family was one of those situations. She has taken her passion for children and directed it into a new profession: neonatal nursing.said Mondragon of her income at the time.Mondragon is a mother of three and her husband Isael is a mechanic specializing in foreign diesel cars. The quest to find a sustainable income sent her back to college.Mondragon, like so many other students at BCCC, had a long road ahead of her before attending community college that would inspire her career choice. She had her first child, Andrew, at 16, following in the footsteps of her mother, who had her at 15. Mondragon had a tumultuous childhood, bouncing around from state to state. The family moved from Fayetteville, NC, to Mississippi and then Louisiana. Finally they returned to North Carolina, where she attended high school in Bear Grass.After high school, she attended community college, but she was unsuccessful.she said.Coming from Bear Grass, where her graduating class had 30 students, taking classes at Pitt Community College, where class sizes can swell to as many as 70 students, was too overwhelming. The instructors did not have time to provide her with extra help.She left college and started working at the pre-school. Her haphazard childhood steeled her commitment to children.she said as her eyes welled up with tears. She wanted to find another field where she could make even more of a difference in the lives of children.she said.When she got hired at the pre-school, she hoped she would be able to make a career of it, but it became clear to her that this was an unlikely prospect. Her co-workers were also working to further their education, working on degrees such as medical office administration.She was living paycheck to paycheck.She chose BCCC as the place to complete her education due to the smaller class sizes and personal attention students receive. She has completed two associate's degrees and will graduate from the nursing program in May 2018. She thought,She has experienced preventative care on the part of the instructors at BCCC. The instructors anticipate that students will need extra help. They set up enrichment labs and group study sessions to help them adjust to the rigorous study that the nursing program demands.she said.She has yet to meet an instructor who has not helped her solve a problem within the same week.Mondragon said of her instructors.Even in the many hours of online classes that are part of her curriculum, the instructors will share advice that will help on tests or links to helpful videos.Her life is much more settled now. She and her husband got married last year, seven years into their relationship. There was no big ceremony, just a trip down to the courthouse. Her kids were annoyed that they got married without telling them. Just like her experience with college, she wanted to make sure she was ready to be successful. She got married the first time just a year out of high school due to social pressure. They did not know each other. They did not live together. This time around she and Isael intentionally waited, despite pressure for them to get married.she said. They each brought a child to the relationship and had a daughter, Valeria, together.They placed a home on land adjacent to her parents' house. Her mother now sends her supportive texts. With her step-father's experience in construction, they are making renovations.After finishing at BCCC, she plans to get a bachelor's degree from East Carolina University, but online classes will help her avoid the anxiety of large class sizes. She plans to work in labor and delivery at the Vidant Beaufort Hospital.she said of her clinical experience.Mondragon smiles now because, through BCCC, she has found a way to support her family and make the lives of other families so much better.
I love that movie musicals are coming back in style thanks to La La Land. Im a big fan of live action musicals, so whatever reason Hollywood makes them is fine with me. Not crazy about the idea of all the songs being Top 40 hits though, but Ill reserve judgement until I actually see it.

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Not if they are uninspired musicals like LA LA land tho.

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Dear god you icon is perfect.

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Thank you! We both have have excellent taste in icons <3

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this is from 2012 from the DFthis is from 2012

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Okay..

What event are they at? There's a football jacket, hockey jerseys and a basketball jacket. Mess.

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They've been friends since co-starring in Havoc back in 2005

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I am all for this.

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A musical comedy is basically everything that tatum is best at. This will be amazing omg

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Has he been in a musical comedy before? That pitch doesn't make sense. This film I'd neither pitch perfect nor book of Mormon.

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this scene in hail caesar comes to mind





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not personally interested in this cast, but i love musicals and really hope we get a boost of them being made. preferably with mostly POC cast

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the title sounds insufferable, reading a lot variety lately and omg so many schubbly dude comedies are in the pipeline, ugh

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Why can't I get over JGL 



Edited at 2017-03-25 06:52 am (UTC)

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i'd watch this if they were gay lovers in this

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Would make it instantly less annoying

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Yessss, gimme all the musicals

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What's the gif from?

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Born to Dance

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This gif is so pretty

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Top 100 type hits? Not for the last decade then, I hope

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I want both these men to double dick my tight boy pussy and shoot their loads deep into me, leaving me gaping and dripping with their cum babies. I want to be their cum slut



Edited at 2017-03-25 07:20 am (UTC)

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You took me there. You have a knack for descriptive storytellng. I sense a bestseller in your future!

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i'd be here for another channing dance film

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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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since they seem like bffs, how do you guys meet good girl friends? most of mine have moved away and i miss having a partner in crime.



i'm trying bumble bff but everyone on there is pretty normal or is super into being healthy... neither of which are anything like me. i've been having social anxiety for too long and am trying to fix that but don't know how ahhhh.



Edited at 2017-03-25 07:44 am (UTC)

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meetup! I met a girl in a group there and she introduced me to her friends, one of which she met on there as well who has since become my closest friend here. It's kinda awkward at first, and I was in a couple groups and awkwardly talked to a few people before I met her, but it's worked out crazy well





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Try joining some sort of group or club that involves an activity you enjoy. A friend of mine did improv this past year and I could tell that she made one or two lifelong friends from the experience.



Itll be easier for you to meet a person you have a lot in common with if you put yourself out there doing something you really love.



Edited at 2017-03-25 01:31 pm (UTC)

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i've actually been considering taking an acting class for fun. i haven't since i live in los angeles so everyone is all ~serious~ about acting but i think it would just be cool to put yourself in other headspaces... just never in front of a camera please. i used to direct and want to get back into filming things eventually so might start looking a couple places up and could maybe work on a project with some classmates.

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thank you for the suggestion, btw!

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oh so the coming back of musicals has begun bc of la la land. it's interesting to see if we're going to get quick moneygrabs or good/great musicals now.

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This shit is tired.



I hope the show flops.

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And malik better be pronounced as mal-lick and not muh-leak..



If not, may black twitter attack!

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CBS claims they originally offered the roles to actors of color and those actors turned down the roles so they revamped the show.



Sure Jan.gif

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Right?! Poc don't have the luxury of doing that.

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And there weren't other actors of color as second string? They probably offered it to denzel Washington and Penelope Cruz...

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Who did they ask? Denzel and Viola?

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ikr??? sheeesh

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Like they offered all of the roles to every single POC actor in the business and they ALL turned it down? Do they really think that people will believe that?

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So they couldn't cast other actors of color to replace the original actors? Lol sure.

I hope it flops harder than that show with Katherine Heigl.





Edited at 2017-03-25 03:23 pm (UTC)

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I look forward to its cancellation

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Lmao

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Are there a lot of white guys named Malik?

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No. They're best effort is to try to diffuse the situation by saying he's a white guy who converted to Islam. However, since it's CBS and their general appeal is to the 60+ crowd, they'll just change the name to Michael.

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I can't even imagine a reality where they have a white Muslim character in a show like this.

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putting the BS in CBS.

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I don't understand why networks continue to do this.

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CBS ain't shet, I remember that casting initiative mentioned in the post that they launched nationwide for PoC actors specifically for this pilot season, there's no way they didn't have multiple talented PoC to hire. Even if the two supposed leads turned it down, there are hundreds more that are also talented. They just wanted more white leads to "play if safe" (which is also bs).



Also how many boring white sci-fis do we need? They are all so tired and the leads so bland.



Edited at 2017-03-25 03:26 pm (UTC)

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lmao so there are only two well known POC potential tv actors in hollywood ?? lol k. and the white guy is pretty much unknown.

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CBS claims they originally offered the roles to actors of color and those actors turned down the roles so they revamped the show.



I hate this, I bet if it's true they offered it to 1 actor of colour each and when they couldn't get their way they were like "Well, we tried".

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It's not true lbr

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Supposing they're not lying about casting two actors of color, they really couldn't find another biracial Latina actress or another Black actor?? Their two originals were literally the only people who could fill the role? Sure Jan.

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I have a hard time believing that two POC turned down lead roles on a CBS show. GTFO with your lies.

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And even if they did you can find another one? They're not magical creatures seen once every decade

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It's convenient that they were able to find POC to play the supporting role, though. So apparently everyone they asked was like "nah, sounds like too much work, but let me have that supporting role where i can stand in the background until the white guy needs someone to talk to"

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yep! hahahaa they have to include that they have poc playing the smaller roles. oh wow, look at that. so you just happen to find these people playing supporting but not the lead? hmm

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lol mte

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lmao right?

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A white man named Malik 

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Lmao I ain't even notice that. Praying this sparks a black twitter hashtag

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lmao bloop

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I screaming at the notion. 

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idk, we could finally be getting some real transracial representation with this show. this is a huge step forward for CBS.

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I look forward to this clearly Muslim convert adding to the diversity bingo.

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I snorted omg

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That doesnt make sense. You offer it to two people, they turn it down so you go "well...might as well start from scratch and go in a different direction"

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CBS fucking would.

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is there any good CBS show except Survivor? it's like all shitty sitcoms about doofus dads and their eye-rolling wives

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I mean, "good" but I still watch Hawaii 5-0 for the gorgeous locale and Alex O'Loughlin and Daniel Dae Kim

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Elementary is their only good show and it's probably getting cancelled.

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person of interest was amazing. and the occasional procedural can be fun (like hawaii five-0).



so i gess what i'm saying is "no"

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Idk I also liked The Odd Couple and The Great Indoors.

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I enjoy Scorpion

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ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney.gif



But i need Wolfgang from Sense8 to do some bareback action and show more peen.

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oh 3 million?



bye bitch.

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I need Wolfgang from Sense8 to do some bareback action and show more peen.



clutching pearls. Got a link sis?

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he showed dick in the first film iirc

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haven't seen the first one but can we just talk about how like 95% of lgbt movies end in tragedy like i am so sick of that bullshit

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It wasn't exactly a tragedy tho, they didn't end up together but they left it very open ended



Also they went full on during the love scenes, I get fed up with how chaste most Hollywood or American m/m scenes are like come on

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watch the handmaiden!

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mte

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nah it wasn't that good

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Oh wait math, lol. It's just over 3 Million Dollars.

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Is this on Netflix sis?

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it was

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3 million is a lot of money but i mean, theres so few good lgbt films, i think its good for people to put their money where their mouths are and support campaigns like this. show the film industry that there are huges audiences willing to put their money towards lgbt films.



plus its a flexible fundraiser, so they'll get money regardless of whether or not they reach that target.

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they were so hot in that movie.

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They've been trying to get this made for a few years now. apparently they already wrote a script but need funding for the movie. I remember Wolfgang tweeting about the sequel.



I would gladly give them money to help get this made. it's a really good film that deserves a sequel

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Thanks for this post OP, meant to make one yesterday but I was so busy!



Please please donate guys, the first one is a great film and go see it if you haven't already



for all you thirsty hoes maybe this will convince you





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lol dat sexy time out in the rain.c

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I definitely fell in love with Max Riemelt after watching Sense8 and this was one of the first things I watched after for him. Totally worth it, I would love a sequel

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I wish I could donate to this but I'm cheap and a fat ass and I wanna get a burger tonight \_()_/





OT: I wanna learn German so bad, I need to pick up my Duolingo lessons again.

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I got as far as Die frau trinkt wasser (aka like lesson 3) like 7 months ago but I guess it helped since I remembered that useless sentence lol I need to get back into it too

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The only one I remember is Ich trinke Apelsaft but that was years ago when the course was in beta, I hope they have new sentences now.

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I kinda love how your icon actually goes with that sentence.

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yes pls

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This movie was so hot, I literally said "calm down" to myself at one point.

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those sex scenes had me turning thew volume down in my own home and putting my computer screen more towards myself.

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lmfao

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I had to go read some fan fic after seeing it to get my happy ending fix!



I was fully expecting the already out cop to have offed himself or have gotten killed.

So it was kind of a relief that he just transferred to a new place.

But the other guy was a cop in the Internet age. He can find him if he really wants to, now that he sorted his own shit out.

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this movie had some hot scenes but that's pretty much it. not something I would watch again



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Norwegian crude oil extraction peaked in 2001 at 3.12 Million barrels per day (Mb/d) and in 2016 it was 1.62 Mb/d, growing from 1.57 Mb/d in 2015 and 1,46 Mb/d in 2013 (a growth of 10 percent since 2013).

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorates (NPD) recent forecast expects crude oil extracted from the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) to fall to 1.60 Mb/d in 2017.

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 01: The chart shows the historical extraction (production) of crude oil (by discovery/field) for the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) with data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) for the years 1970  2016. The chart also includes my forecast for crude oil extraction from discoveries/fields towards 2030 based on reviews on individual fields, NPDs estimates of remaining recoverable reserves, the development/forecast for the R/P ratio as of end 2016.

Further, the chart shows a forecast for total crude oil extraction from sanctioned discoveries/fields (green area, refer also figure 02) and expected contribution from Johan Sverdrup phase I (blue area) [at end 2016 estimated at 1.78 Gb; [Gb, Giga (Billion) barrels, refer also figure 07] and this development phase is now scheduled to start flowing in late 2019.

Sanctioned Developments in Figure 01 represents the total contributions from 7 sanctioned developments of discoveries now scheduled to start to flow between 2017 and 2019.

My forecast for 2017 is 1.51 Mb/d with crude oil from the NCS.

My forecast shown in figure 01 includes all producing and sanctioned developments, but not contingent resources in the fields (business areas). The forecast is subject to revisions as the reserve base becomes revised (as discoveries pass the commercial hurdles) the tail is likely to fatten as from 2022/2023 mainly due to Johan Sverdrup phase II and Johan Castberg (Barents Sea). Related: The Oil Market Is At A Major Turning Point

My forecast includes about 7 percent reserve growth (300 Mb) for discoveries in the extraction phase, but does not include the effects from fields/discoveries being plugged and abandoned as these reach the end of their economic life.

Discoveries sanctioned for development and Johan Sverdrup (with an expected start up late 2019) is expected to generally slow down the decline in Norwegian crude oil extraction.

My forecast in figure 01 shows that the Norwegian crude oil extraction will be in a considerable decline until Johan Sverdrup Phase I builds towards the plateau. Norwegian oil consumption is now around 0.2 Mb/d, and with what is known about Norwegian crude oil reserves, Norway will remain a net exporter of crude oil for another 20 to 30 years.

Discoveries under development and scheduled to start to flow during 2017  2019

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 02: The figure above shows a forecast of crude oil production from NCS sanctioned fields which is scheduled to start to flow during the years 2017 to 2019. Any changes to the scheduled startups could affect the forecasts as shown in figures 01 and 02.

It is now expected that around 0.03 Mb/d (Mb; Million barrels) on an annual basis will be added during 2017 from startups of sanctioned developments like Gina Krog, Flyndre, Hanz and Byrding.

Norway extracted, sold and delivered around 591 Mb of crude oil in 2016, up from 572 Mb in 2015 (up 3 percent).

The 4 sanctioned developments scheduled to start up in 2017 are now estimated to add around 130 Mb of crude oil reserves for extraction in 2017 (developments/discoveries reported under existing business areas and are not included) while expected extracted is 550  570 Mb.

My 2016 forecast

In the spring of 2016 I forecast that crude oil extraction from NCS in 2016 would become 1.50 Mb/d and it became 1.62 Mb/d. The reasons for this deviation are several.

My model used for forecasting Norwegian crude oil extraction for my 2016 forecast left out one discovery/field (a broken link) which, when adjusted for, would have brought my forecast to 1,55 Mb/d in 2016.

Fields that had been in the extraction phase before 2002 lost only 22 kb/d during 2016 (less than half of what was expected). New developments delivered 38 kb/d more than expected. This is due to combinations of less downtime and recent developments delivering (way) above expectations.

The flip side to developments delivering above expectations are that they later are likely to have steeper declines.

kb/d; kilo (1,000) barrels per day

A closer look at actual crude oil extraction

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 03: The figure above shows development of crude oil extraction from NCS sanctioned fields that started to flow prior to 2002 and by vintage since 2002 (rh scale) together with the (nominal) oil price (lh scale).

Note the recent years slow down and temporary reversal in crude oil extraction from discoveries starting to flow prior to 2002. Collectively these grew their extraction with 28 kb/d since 2013.

In 2016 around 54 percent of the crude oil came from business areas that started to flow prior to 2002 while 46 percent came from 49 (out of 76 with reported crude oil extraction) discoveries started since 2002.

The high oil price in recent years allowed for more infill drilling and developments of discoveries within existing business areas. Infill drilling allows both for accelerated depletion and increased recovery. Inasmuch infill drilling has been widely used in recent years, a period with lasting lower oil prices may materialize itself through higher decline rates.

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 04: The figure above shows development of crude oil extraction from sanctioned NCS fields by vintage since 2002 (rh scale) together with the (nominal) oil price (lh scale).

The characteristics of small deep water discoveries/fields (here defined as having less than 100 Mb of recoverable crude oil) are a fast build up, followed by a short plateau (typically 2 years) succeeded by steep declines, typically at annual rates of 15  25 percent, refer also figures 09 and 10.

A growing portfolio of small discoveries with short plateaus followed by steep declines makes it increasingly difficult to keep pace with the Red Queen. The portfolio of developments sanctioned in the high price environment is fast being depleted.

Several of the recent NCS developments that were sanctioned after the increase in the oil price have been subject to considerable reserves after the price collapse (and thus financially) write downs which also weakens the companies balance sheets and affect their financial capacities for future investments. Several of these developments were sanctioned on the expectations of a lasting high oil price.

The bigger picture

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 05: The figure above shows developments in world crude oil and condensates supplies split on 3 entities, North America [Canada, Mexico and USA], OPEC and other non-OPEC, which includes Norway, using January 2007 as a baseline [colored areas and rh scale]. The black line shows the development in the oil price [black line and lh scale].

The figure shows that it was very likely the rapid debt fueled growth in Light Tight Oil (LTO) extraction, primarily in the USA, led to an oversupplied market that collapsed the oil price. After the oil price collapsed, OPEC increased its production in an effort to recapture its market share which was not very helpful for the oil price.

The chart also reveals another interesting fact, other non-OPEC (light green area) had a negligible change to their oil extraction during the years the oil price remained high. The other non-OPEC share of the global crude oil supplies has been in a steady decline since 2007 and was at about 37 percent (about 30 Mb/d) in 2016. Related: OPEC Out Of Moves As Goldman Sachs Expects Another Oil Glut In 2018

The development in other non-OPEC crude oil supplies while oil prices remained high is a giveaway about their future potential for crude oil supplies.

The R/P ratio reveals the future trajectory for NCS crude oil extraction

A simplistic description of the R/P ratio (Reserves at year end divided by the Production for that same year) is the (theoretical) number of years the extraction/production level may be sustained using that year as a baseline. In the real world, it works somewhat differently, as the reservoir depletes the extraction will (normally) decline. This may result that the R/P ratio remains fairly constant during the decline/tail phase as the reservoir depletes and the extraction declines.

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 06: The chart above shows cumulative NCS crude oil extraction versus the R/P ratio for fields/discoveries in the extraction phase at end 2016 plotted against the right-hand scale [black dots connected by a black line]. The red line, plotted against the left-hand scale, shows the cumulative portion of the crude oil extraction versus the R/P ratio.

For all NCS discoveries/fields in the extraction phase their R/P ratio was 6,7 at end 2016.

Figure 06 illustrates that about 50 percent of the NCS crude oil extraction in 2016 was from 42 fields/discoveries (out of 76 with reported crude oil extraction) with an R/P ratio of 5 or less.

Broadly speaking reservoirs of crude oil with an R/P ratio of less than 5 should be expected to exhibit steep depletion induced declines in extraction, and year over year declines in the range of 15  25 percent has been observed.

Development of Norwegian crude oil reserves

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 07: The figure shows the history and the status of the total discoveries by year (stacked columns) since oil exploration started on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) and as of 2016. The light green columns show what has been extracted, sold and delivered. The dark green portion of the columns is total remaining reserves. The yellow portion of the columns shows reserves in discoveries under evaluation. Furthermore, in the chart is also shown annual production (thick black line) for extraction of crude oil since it began in the 1970s. The chart has a table that shows the year of discovery for fields estimated to originally hold more than 1 Giga barrels (Gb) of recoverable crude oil.

(Gb; G = Giga, Billion barrels)

Figure 07 illustrates that the biggest NCS discoveries were made early and these discoveries continues to contribute a big portion of total NCS crude oil production.

Of 18 discoveries started from 2012 to 2016 NPD data shows a downward revision to total estimated recoverable reserves from 1 034 Mb to 967 Mb or about 6 percent.

Discoveries and contingent reserves in fields now hold the potential to add about 4 Gb to a total of about 36  38 Gb of reserves.

Figure 07 also illustrates that the growth in the oil price above $50/b in 2005 allowed for increased exploration activities resulting in several successful discoveries with the most prominent being the Johan Sverdrup discovery in 2010.

The chart above is based upon Norwegian Petroleum Facts.

(A site operated by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy [MOE] and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate [NPD].)

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 08: The chart above shows the development of total NCS crude oil discoveries since exploration began and as of end 2016 [data from NPD Resource Accounting at end 2016]. The chart is often referred to as a creaming curve.

The light green portion of the columns shows the development in total extracted, sold and delivered. The dark green portion shows the development in estimated remaining recoverable reserves. The yellow portion shows the development in total estimated reserves in discoveries that are under evaluation and that has not been sanctioned at end 2016.

The chart illustrates that a major portion of the NCS reserves was discovered in an early phase and the effect from the recent years higher oil price encouraged increased exploration and testing of new exploration models resulting in new discoveries of which many are expected to be commercialized.

Depletion and decline rates for small deep water discoveries

A closer look at deep water fields illustrate the rapid depletion and high decline rates, which are typical for discoveries/fields with about 100 Mb of recoverable crude oil.

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 09: The chart above shows the development of crude oil extraction (green area and right hand scale), annualized (12 MMA) extraction rate (black line and right hand scale) for the Skarv discovery/field.

At end 2016 NPD estimated Skarv to contain 120 Mb with original recoverable crude oil.

Skarv had an annualized decline of about 25 percent in 2016.

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 10: The chart above shows the development of relative remaining reserves (black line and left hand scale), annualized yield (red line and right hand scale) and the annual moving average of the depletion rate (blue dotted lines, right hand scale) for crude oil extraction from the Skarv discovery/field.

At end 2016 NPD estimated Skarv to contain 120 Mb with original recoverable crude oil.

The past high crude oil depletion rate for Skarv and its R/P of 3,6 at end 2016 suggests now a continued high decline rate in the extraction.

By FractionalFlow.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Russia is budgeting its federal spending to expectations that oil prices will hover around $40 a barrel for the next several years, according to a new report by Bloomberg.

Such preparations go against predictions by international oil industry experts that barrel prices will rise to $60 and remain there over the long term. These forecasts are based on expectations that the global oil supply glut will reverse over the next couple of years, bringing prices up to a new normal, which will still stand far lower than the $100+ levels seen before the market crash occurred in late 2014.

A recent Bloomberg survey of oil analysts showed a 16 percent expected increase in the price of the Brent barrel, the international benchmark, by the end of the year led by production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and eleven other partner nations.

The Finance Ministry, the cabinet and the central bank are leaning on the cautious side in terms of their expectations regarding growth, driven still to a large degree by oil, Piotr Matys, a currency strategist at Rabobank in London said of Russias bearish market outlook. Its better to be conservative and to be surprised on the upside than too optimistic and end up disappointed.

Related: Energy Market Deregulation: Be Careful What You Wish For

On Friday, Russian policy makers predicted a $50 Urals barrel on average for the current year, with prices settling to a low of $40 by the end of 2017. The following two years will see stability at that level, according to the Moscow model.

Once (actually more than once) bitten, twice shy, Elina Ribakova, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London told Bloomberg this week. The central bank and the Finance Ministry are sticking to the conservative $40 oil scenario because they want to be ready for and protect themselves against the worst-case scenario.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

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After consulting both civil,military security wings in embassy before he issued visas to US officials: Hussain Haqqani

WASHINGTON: Former ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani said on Friday that he had consulted both the civil and military security wings in the embassy before issuing visas to US officials.



A document released to the media earlier on Friday showed that former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani had authorised Mr Haqqani to issue year-long visas to US officials without clearance from Islamabad.



Mr Haqqani did not say if he had issued visas without informing the government but did state that he had consulted security personnel at the embassy before approving the applications.



I have consistently said no unauthorised visas were issued by the embassy in Washington while I was the ambassador, he wrote in an email to Dawn.



The former ambassador, like Pakistan Peoples Party leaders in Pakistan, also said that the real issue was not issuance of visas to US officials but [Al Qaeda chief] Osama bin Ladens presence in Pakistan.



He said the document released to the media vindicated his position on the issue, including my assertion that the military wing of the embassy was involved in vetting of visas to the US officials.



Mr Haqqani advised those making a mountain out of a molehill to stop doing so and examine institutional failings rather than blaming an individual unfairly.



The document leaked  a letter sent to the embassy in Washington with the signatures of then prime ministers principal secretary Nargis Sethi  showed that the authorisation to issue one-year visas to US officials without consulting Islamabad came from the office of the prime minister.



The Prime Minister has been pleased to decide that the Ambassador in Washington will be empowered, with immediate effect, to issue visas valid up to one year without Embassy having to refer each aforementioned visa application to the concerned authorities in Pakistan. The Pakistan embassy in US would issue these visas under intimation to the Prime Ministers office in Islamabad, Ms Sethi wrote.



Although the content of the letter indicated that Mr Haqqani had the discretion to ignore the normal procedure for issuing officials visas, he said he did not do so. No visas were issued without proper procedure and vetting involving security agencies. Period, he wrote.



Mr Haqqani said the prime minister Gillanis July (14), 2010 letter was essentially a general executive order establishing procedure and authorising the ambassador to issue visas requested by the US State Department without referral to Islamabad.



Upon receiving that authorisation, the internal embassy system was to delegate scrutiny to Defence Attaches office and Counsellor representing interior ministry, he wrote.



The former ambassador said that since the May 2, 2011 US raid that killed Osama in Abbottabad, he had repeatedly asserted that a) no unauthorised visas were given and, b) scrutiny process may have changed but both major intelligence agencies remained involved in issuance of all visas to US officials.



Mr Haqqani said he would not get into how, why and what prime minister Gillani wrote in that letter because its a fake issue.



Instead of wasting time on procedures for issuing visas to officials of an ally and aid donor, Pakistans media should do its job in focusing on how OBL lived in Pakistan for so long.



Mr Haqqani said that those who were whipping up this controversy also knew that visas had been issued to US officials under one procedure or another since 1947 and would continue to be issued.



All branches of the Pakistan government, civil and military, maintain close ties with their counterparts in Washington and none has ever officially objected to US officials travelling to Pakistan, he added.



In a March 10 article in the Washington Post, Mr Haqqani said that his connections with the Obama administration enabled the US to target and kill the Al Qaeda leader.



He wrote that the friends he made in the Obama presidential election campaign team were able to ask, three years later, as National Security Council officials, for help in stationing US Special Operations and intelligence personnel on the ground in Pakistan.



Explaining how he responded to those requests, the former ambassador wrote: I brought the request directly to Pakistans civilian leaders, who approved (and) these locally stationed Americans proved invaluable when Obama decided to send in Navy SEAL Team 6 without notifying Pakistan.
ICT administration stopped Maulana Abdul Aziz to hold gathering at Lal Masjid

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration on Friday enforced its writ by not allowing Maulana Abdul Aziz to hold a gathering at the Lal Masjid. A heavy law enforcement presence was visible around Municipal Road in Sector G-6  where the mosque is located  since 10am. All roads leading towards Lal Masjid from Melody Market, Aabpara and Shaheed-i-Millat Road were cordoned off and no one, not even pedestrians, were allowed to proceed towards the mosque.



As a result, the Friday congregation at Lal Masjid was very thinly attended  mostly by media persons and employees of the National Accountability Bureau, located across the road.



Maulana Aziz had given the call for a conference against blasphemy on social media to be held at Lal Masjid on Friday, but negotiations between his followers and the ICT administration broke down late on Thursday night.



Though no written reply was given, the ICT administration turned down the application for the event and verbally conveyed this to the Lal Masjid administration.



Permission could not be granted to hold a conference at Lal Masjid because Maulana Abdul Aziz is a proscribed person and [the mosque] is government property  only the government has the right to decide [what] activities [are held] there, an official told reporters.



Meanwhile, Lal Masjid announced that the conference would be held with the help of the faithful, who were extolled to gather at Lal Masjid at any cost.



An ICT official told reporters that law enforcement personnel would be deployed around the Lal Masjid to prevent the arrival of outsiders, especially students from other seminaries of the twin cities.



Around 600 personnel, including members of the anti-terrorist squad and anti-riot police, commandoes and women police were deployed at various points, while traffic police helped divert traffic from blocked roads in G-6 and G-7 sectors.



A senior officer of the ICT administration told media men they had anticipated that Maulana Abdul Aziz would try to use the Friday prayers to attract a crowd, who would be touted as participants of the conference.



Therefore, a decision was taken at a high level that no one should be allowed to proceed towards Lal Masjid for Friday prayers, he said.



While the situation there remained under control, tensions simmered at another state-run mosque down the road  the Masjid-i-Rehmania in Aabpara  where a large number of seminary students and clerics gathered ahead of Friday prayers.



Delivering the Friday sermon, mosque khateeb Qari Abdul Rehman Muawia made a fiery speech against the government and announced on the loudspeaker that no power could stop them from holding a gathering to condemn blasphemers.



However, when Islamabad Deputy Commissioner retired Capt Mushtaq Ahmed arrived at the mosque compound in his official vehicle, the cleric changed his tone, announcing Maulana [Abdul Aziz] has said that we will attend Friday prayers and go back.



Following this announcement, several people were seen heading back towards the Aabpara bus stand without attending the Friday congregation.



Around the same time  just before Friday prayers  Maulana Abdul Aziz was holding forth at the Jamia Hafsa in Sector G-7, which is also his residence. The cleric held a chaotic presser amid high pitched sloganeering by his followers, deploring the unIslamic state of affairs in the country.



He criticised parliamentarians and government functionaries, denouncing even religious leaders who shared benches with women members in the National and provincial assemblies.



He announced that they would hold the conference against blasphemy next Friday or the one after that after permission is granted by authorities.



A sizable law enforcement presence also remained alert outside Jamia Hafsa, sealing all roads around the building. A large number of women police officers in riot gear were seen patrolling the narrow lanes, ostensibly to prevent students from the womens seminary from taking to the streets.
Sika or Jw3t33 are very popular terms used to caption money or riches in many Ashanti or Akan parts of Ghana. A rich person, known as sikanyin in twi represents someone who has amassed so much wealth that he/she stands out in community or the society. Some have even reached national and international status. One overwhelming fact about these individuals is the fact that a greater chunk of them are Akans, more specifically Ashantis. Then this question pops up. Why are the Ashantis the richest group of Ghanaians? Jumia Travel, Africas leading online travel agency attempts to examine possible reasons for this popular assumption.



Land of Gold  Historically, we can confidently say the Ashantis are by far the richest sect of Ghanaians by birth. Born into riches, they are destined for wealth by inheritance. Many Ashantis acquire their starting capital from their fathers and forefathers. They have something to build on from the start. The Ashanti Kingdom is also popular called the land of gold because it houses the biggest mines in the country. The obuasi gold mine has for many decades been a hub for Ghanas gold mining activities elevating the country to a very good standing as one of Africas leading gold producing countries. Have you ever watched an Ashanti ceremony? The full regalia worn by the chiefs and kinsmen will dazzle you. Expensive Kente with very beautiful gold ornaments clearly depict how rich these group of people are. Other rich minerals are also mined here. A look at the top richest men in Ghana clearly shows us also that most of the rich folk are Ashantis.



Hardwork  Another reason that may be attributed to Ashantis being the richest Ghanaians is hard work. Indisputably, the Ashantis who are spread all over the country are much more involved in businesses and work extremely hard for their money. You will hardly find an Ashanti without a job. Either self employed or working with a firm. Many of them also learn a trade. No wonder the biggest open market in Ghana can be found there. They are naturally born traders and are very good at what they do. Give an Ashanti anything and expect them to sell it at a very good price. They dont relent until the work is done and they have their monies worth for the product or service rendered. They work very hard and hence it comes as no surprise that most of them are successful and rich.



Risk Takers  Fearless, aggressive, and smart are some words that can be used to describe the Ashantis way of doing business. However, the most appropriate thing to say may be that they are risk takers. They dive in when they see a business opportunity. This may occasionally be detrimental and they may be on the losing end but trust them to come out on tops on most occasions. Most successful businessmen and women are the ones who take risks and venture into the unknown, work hard and make a way even when the path to success looks gloomy. If there are any group of people in Ghana who will readily explore an opportunity, then its the Ashantis.



Support for each other  Nana Kofi goes to the USA to work. After 10 years he makes it and settles down. Then he comes back home to take Afia Kobi who is his niece along with him. She too works hard and after a while comes back to Ghana to take her nephew Kwabena Yeboah out of Ghana to work and make some money. The cycle continues till every member of the family is in a comfortable position. This trait is very common with the Ashantis who are always there to support and enrich each other. Due to this special and generous attitude, we find many more rich people being Ashantis than any other tribe in Ghana. Another thing that makes more of them rich is the level of generosity. An Ashanti man can give out his asset or business to his family member or kinsman to manage and make more money whiles he concentrates on other businesses with the assurance that the business still goes on and they both benefit. They hardly let each other down. This is why they keep getting rich.



Big spenders  To catch a whale, you need to throw in a herring or smaller fish. This is a strategy that hardly fails and the Ashantis are by far the biggest users of this phenomenon. They spend big, invest big and almost always reap bountifully. The trick here is, the money hardly gets out of their own circles. During a festival, a group of rih Ashanti friends will go back home, book a hotel owned by an Ashanti, eat from a restaurant or chop bar managed by an Ashanti and even drink at a bar owned by their kinsmen. At all these places, they spend heavily and patronize from their own people hence the money stays in their own circle.

The above mentioned points are not to say that other tribes in Ghana are not rich or do not practice any of these things. However, the group that stands out as those who do it more and better are the Ashantis. Maybe, in some time to come, this will change but until then, the children of Gold lead the way.





Source: Bennet Otoo, Jumia Travel









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Parks to Benefit Children, Veterans with Disabilities

Clayton, which received $86,810 for the Celebration Park-Contemplate Area;

Edenton, which received $198,720 for the conversion of Colonial Park to Universal Design. Universal design refers to broad-spectrum ideas for producing buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to older people and people with disabilities;

Fayetteville, which received $250,000 for the Massey Hill Recreation Center Universally-Accessible Sports Field;

Graham, which received $500,000 for the City of Graham Inclusive Playground;

Granite Falls, which received $80,000 for Shuford Recreation Accessibility Enhancement Project;

Greenville, which received $179,272 for Accessible Water Sports Facility;

High Point, which received $194,344 for the Oak Hollow Marina and Sailboat Point Accessibility Enhancements;

Indian Trail, which received $172,125 for the Crooked Creek Accessible Playground;

Marion, which received $159,622 for the Marion Community Park Project;

Oak Island, which received $84,352 for the American's with Disabilities Act Beach Access Project;

Rowan County, which received $264,959 for the Ellis Park Accessible Playground Renovation Project;

Shelby, which received $240,000 for the All Aboard Park: Unlimited Play for Everyone;

Smithfield, which received $160,000 for Partnership to build a Miracle Inclusive Playground & Fitness Trail;

Swansboro, which received $196,324 for the Swansboro Municipal Park Enhancement Program;

Waynesville, which received $90,300 for Recreation Park Inclusive Playground;

Yadkin County, which received $41,580 for Lance Corporal Daniel Swaim Playground;

Yadkin County, which received $43,020 for Yadkin Memorial Park - Universal Design Improvements, and

Maysville, which received $58,527 for the Frost Park Splash Park.

Contact: Ford Porter

Ford Porter govpress@nc.gov

RALEIGH: Gov. Roy Cooper today announced $3 million in grants to fund local parks and recreation projects designed for children and veterans with disabilities.The grants are part of the $2 billion Connect NC Infrastructure Bond program approved by voters in 2016. The N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund Authority selected 18 projects across North Carolina to receive grants at its meeting March 3 at William B. Umstead State Park in Raleigh.Gov. Cooper said in announcing the grants.Local communities applied for the grants to fund development and renovation of public park and recreation areas for children and military veterans with special needs. The N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund Authority considered 45 grant applications requesting nearly $9.5 million. The maximum grant for a single project under the program was $500,000. Awardees are required to provide matching funds equal to a minimum of 25 percent of the grant.said Mike Murphy, director of the N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation.The Parks and Recreation Trust Fund is administered through the state Division of Parks and Recreation and was established in 1994 by the N.C. General Assembly.The local governments receiving grants are:
This is the latest in a series of posts about the 1916 presidential election between Democratic incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Republican challenger Charles Evans Hughes, a Glens Falls native.

The Evening Gazette of Port Jervis on Oct. 6, 1916, published a day-old wire report about the arrival in Chicago of the Billion Dollar Special, as Democrats called the Hughesettes womens campaign rain.

When the womens campaign train for Hughes arrived in Chicago at 12:15 this afternoon, the petticoat spellbinders found a large committee of Republican women waiting to welcome them with a hundred automobiles and a brass band, the report stated.

However, the smiles faded when the Hughes supporters noticed that Miss Gertrude Barnum, a Chicago union organizer, had rallied 75 Democratic women holding banners in a silent protest of Hughes' candidacy.

Wilson! Wilson! Wilson! was the word that stood out in flaming letters of red from every banner, the report stated.

Mrs. Catherine Waugh McCallough, who had been nominated as a presidential elector for Illinois, held a banner that read, Go back home to Wall Street. We want Wilson.

The Republican women road in an automobile parade to the La Salle Hotel. Where a campaign luncheon was planned/

The Democratic women walked behind the Republican parade and chanted, We walk! We walk! The Republican women ride, but we walk!

The complete report can be read at the New York State Historic Newspapers website, a project of public libraries.

Click here to view the most recent previous report in the series.
The Thunder signed Brendan Bradley out of UVM on Friday and he made his professional debut in the overtime win over Reading.

The 24-year-old forward played a four-year career at UVM, capping it off with a 20-point (six goals, 14 assists) senior year. He had one shot on Friday.

The Thunder put Mike Bergin on injured reserve, retroactive to March 6, and shifted Pete MacArthur and Stepan Falkovsky to reserve.

Drew Fielding, who played 12 games with the Thunder (3.95 GAA, .858 SV %), signed with AHL Providence, so the Thunder are back to two goalies.
QUEENSBURY  A Vermont man who was arrested for possessing crack cocaine in Lake George last summer was sentenced Wednesday to 3 years in prison.

Desmond D. Feurtado, 28, of Rutland, pleaded guilty last month to a felony count of criminal possession of a controlled substance for an August arrest on Route 9 in Lake George.

He was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped for a traffic violation, and was found to have 9 grams of crack cocaine, according to State Police.

Feurtado, who has a lengthy record of drug arrests in Vermont that includes a felony, was sentenced by Warren County Judge John Hall to spend 1.5 years on parole after he is released from prison.
MOREAU  A voided contract may be at the heart of a logging dispute that could end up with the town starting one lawsuit and defending itself in another.

The issue: Did Saratoga Land Management Corp. unfairly drop out of a contract? Or was that contract automatically replaced with another, later one also signed by the town?

The town signed an agreement with the company to log the Palmerton Mountain land. The company said it would cut out trails and vistas, paying for timber as it went. The grade of each log would be evaluated, and the company would pay market value.

But thats not what happened. The town ended up with a second contract, in which it would get an average price per species of tree, rather than the per-log market value price in the first contract.

That contract was voided out, said Chuck Gerber, president of Saratoga Land Management Corp.

The new contract had another company logging Palmerton after Saratoga marked the trees to be cut. The town paid Saratoga $1,500 for laying out the trails by marking the trees. It also paid Saratoga a 15 percent fee on the bidding price of the logs for Palmerton and another site. Saratoga was paid a total of $11,195.

But before the loggers could start work at Palmerton, Supervisor Gardner Congdon stopped the contract when he was elected. He objected strenuously to the prices, saying the town was getting a bad deal.

Now the second logging company is threatening to sue the town, and the town might sue Saratoga Land Management Corp., all over two competing contracts that might have been in effect at the same time.

Town officials found no evidence that the contract was voided after Saratoga officials made the claim late Wednesday.

Congdon also questioned why the company would switch from logging the trees to asking bidders to do that work.

Gerber said he was working with logging company Prentiss & Carlisle and happened to meet up with company representatives while he was evaluating the towns trees.

Prentiss & Carlisle said they were interested in doing the whole thing, Gerber said. So I figured others might bid on it too.

He advised the town to put the logging out to bid.

Our job was to get the town the most money, he said, noting that since Saratoga received a percentage of the buyers payment, it was in the companys interest to get the town the best price.

The Town Board decided to accept the bid, although there was just one bidder and another contract in effect for the same trees.

Congdon doesnt believe the town got the best prices. The company responded with a lengthy defense Wednesday, listing prices on timber at the time of the contract at many different mills in the area.

Those published prices showed that the town was paid top dollar for some of its wood, minus about $200 per thousand feet for logging and hauling costs.

But other species were paid on the low end of the spectrum. The trouble is that the town was offered a price per species, with no variation on price for good logs versus poor quality logs.

Congdon is certain that some of the trees logged were of very high quality and worth much more than the town was paid. He would have preferred the first contract, in which Saratoga agreed to pay for each log by grade. Thats the contract that Saratoga says was voided.

Gerber stood by the prices in the bid.

These are great prices, he said.

But Prentiss & Carlisle was the only bidder. Congdon questioned why no other logger tried for the lucrative contract.

The contract with Chuck from Saratoga was in effect. And hes saying that mysteriously, Prentiss showed up. At that point in time, his contract called for laying the trees down. All he had to do was carry out the contract he had, Congdon said. Prentiss said, Im interested in that, a bid was written up with specifications Prentiss could meet, and they got one bid. There was, at the minimum, conversations and/or collusion between those two parties.

Gerber said Congdon should blame the Town Board for accepting a one-bid job.

The Town Board could have said, Get us more bids, he said, adding that he still feels that the bid was good.

We would never have paid $25,000 for timber on that site, he said.

Prentiss & Carlisle had to pay their bid of $25,000 in advance for the trees they were to log. Since the work was stopped, they want their money back. The Town Board has not voted on whether to return that money.
Weve supported Gov. Andrew Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship proposal, which would make state colleges and universities tuition-free for many students from middle-income families, but on second thought, there is a better way.

Cuomos proposal leaves out the states private colleges, and that is a mistake. The great strength of New Yorks higher education system is that it comprises both excellent state schools and excellent private colleges that offer their own unique programs and campus cultures.

The Excelsior Scholarship would put private colleges at a competitive disadvantage with SUNY schools, weakening them to the point, in some cases, that they would be forced to eliminate programs or even close. This would hurt the overall state of higher education in New York.

The solution is an easy one: Instead of starting a new program, with all the attendant costs of new bureaucracy, expand the existing state Tuition Assistance Program, known as TAP. The Tuition Assistance Program grants financial aid to New York students attending New York schools, public and private.

TAP grants are based on household income, and right now, for middle class students, they dont amount to much in the context of the cost of a year of college. But with an infusion of cash equal to what Cuomo has proposed spending, TAP could make college much more affordable for thousands of students.

A proposal now being considered by the state Senate and backed by our state Sen. Betty Little, would increase the minimum TAP grant from $500 to $3,000 and the maximum grant to $5,500. The income threshold would go up from $80,000 to $100,000 this coming school year, then to $110,000 and $125,000 in succeeding years.

Expanding an existing program has obvious advantages over starting a new one. All the administration, all the application materials are already in place just the numbers have to be changed. It will be easy for students and parents to apply, and it will be easy for the state and the colleges to handle the applications.

A new program would mean new paperwork, and as any parent of a college student can tell you, the paperwork burden to apply for financial aid is already substantial.

More importantly, expanding TAP means keeping state and private colleges on a level playing field in regards to public financial aid.

Students cant always find what they want at a state school, and they cant always get into a state school. As the cost of attending college has risen over the past few decades, admission to state schools has gotten much more competitive. Now the top SUNY schools, such as Geneseo and Binghamton, are among the most selective in the state.

We want to make sure private colleges remain healthy, because they are critical to local economies. In some places, such as the Tri-Lakes region of the Adirondacks, a small private college like Paul Smiths is one of the largest and best-paying employers. From a students standpoint, no public college offers an experience like Paul Smiths  its buildings ensconced in the Adirondack wilderness, its forestry students using that wilderness as their laboratory.

Cuomos proposal, if it goes through the Legislature, would devastate Paul Smiths and other small colleges already balancing on the edge of financial viability. Families with an annual income of $80,000 could get more than $6,000 from the state to attend a SUNY school under the Excelsior program; while theyd get just $500 from TAP in its current configuration to attend a school like Paul Smiths.

We agree with the governors intention to help families for whom college is a financial stretch. But lets not hurt the states great diversity of public and private colleges in the process. The money Cuomo wants to use for Excelsior Scholarships should be poured into TAP instead.
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Main_sail/iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. military admitted that an airstrike in Iraq on March 17 corresponds to a site where 200 civilians allegedly died, but said it is still assessing the particulars of the strike and the validity of allegations of civilian casualties.



"An initial review of strike data from March 16-23 indicates that, at the request of the Iraqi Security Forces, the coalition struck ISIS fighters and equipment, March 17, in West Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties," stated a media release from the task force Saturday. A formal review of the March 17 operation "is underway to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties," the release said.



The militarys release came after it earlier announced a review of whether any of three airstrikes in Syria and Iraq over the past week were linked to reported deaths of hundreds of civilians.



In addition to the March 17 airstrike in western Mosul that reportedly killed 200 civilians, Central Command also said this week it is reviewing a March 16 airstrike near a mosque in al-Jinnah, Syria, that is said to have killed dozens, and an airstrike Monday, March 20, on a school building outside of Raqqa, Syria, that may have also killed dozens of civilians fleeing local fighting.



The March 17 strike targeted three adjoining houses. Local news reports indicate ISIS may have used civilians in the area as human shields in an effort to guard against airstrikes on the buildings. The Iraqi military's media operations center has claimed that ISIS was responsible for the civilian deaths.



Col. Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the operation against ISIS in Iraq, Syria and beyond, noted on Friday that ISIS has previously demonstrated disregard for civilians and civilian facilities by using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals and religious sites."



Scrocca added there have been instances where ISIS forced families from their homes to booby-trap them with explosives to delay Iraqi forces.



The Central Command's release on Saturday asserted that the coalition fighting ISIS "respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from ISIS brutality. Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISISs inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians."



"Coalition forces comply with the Law of Armed Conflict and take all reasonable precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians," the statement said.



The U.S.-led coalition has conducted more than 19,000 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since the summer of 2014.



U.S. Central Command has also opened a credibility assessment into an airstrike Monday night, March 20, that targeted a school building near Raqqa, ISIS's de facto capital inside Syria.



The activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights alleges that an airstrike on the school killed 33 civilians who had been seeking shelter from local fighting.



And, U.S. Central Command is conducting a full investigation and credibility assessment of an airstrike on March 16 in the village of al-Jinnah in northwestern Syria.



U.S. officials said that airstrike killed dozens of al-Qaeda militants who had gathered for a meeting in a building near a mosque across the street. They emphasized that the mosque was not struck and that the building was not affiliated with the mosque. However, locals said that dozens of worshipers were killed in the airstrike and that the targeted building was, in fact, a mosque.



A military spokesman confirmed that earlier this week Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command, ordered a full investigation into the circumstances of the mission.



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Kathy Manos Penn

nbsp;Who knew that line came from Frank Zappa? I sure didn't, though I wholeheartedly agree with him. My day is not complete until I read at least a few pages in a book-usually a mystery novel--before turning out the bedside light. Oh, I read the newspaper every day, and like many of you, I read business emails and news all day long, but that's just not the same as reading a good book.I've been a voracious reader since childhood, and I know how fortunate I am that my parents read aloud to me and took me to the library. I recall the Golden books like The Poky Little Puppy. Do you remember the Dr. Seuss books arriving in the mail? I bet many of you also read the Bobbsey Twins or perhaps The Boxcar Children, depending on your age, and graduated to Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys.Just writing this brings other childhood books to mind: Big Red, Old Yeller, Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe. I guess we all went through a phase of reading books about animals, but I also recall The Five Little Peppers, Heidi and the Little House on the Prairie books. Many of these are still on my bookshelves.Perhaps it was my love of reading that led me to major in English. I enjoyed all of my literature courses as an undergrad but treasured my time in the master's program where I focused on British literature. Diving into Arthurian legend and discovering Mrs. Malaprop transported me to other times and worlds. To this day, I prefer British mysteries to any other.What fun to read a mystery that imagines the discovery of a missing Shakespearean play or references the friendship of Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker. And if you are thinking, "Gee, get a life," I also read all the Spenser and Elvis Cole mysteries set in modern day America.Lately, though, it's the post WWI era that holds my interest, so the Inspector Rutledge and Maisie Dobbs mysteries are current favorites. While I'm not one to pick up a history book on WWI or any other topic, I do enjoy learning from historical novels. I had only a vague idea of the devastation of WWI and its impact on Great Britain until I read these books. The Death Instinct, a story based on the 1920 bombing of Wall Street, just arrived in the mail, and I can tell from the reviews that it will give me a similar feel for how WWI altered life in America.Before I move on to New York City, though, I'll need to finish The Messenger of Athens, a mystery set on a Greek island. I'm enjoying the descriptions of whitewashed cottages and bright blue doors with the Aegean sea in the background. As The Cat in the Hat says, "The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." I think he nailed it; don't you?
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A report examining the submission process for Montana's ACT scores to the feds last year found that all scores were not actually submitted as proficient, as Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen claimed earlier this year, though education officials initially intended to do so.

The report, which Arntzen commissioned, also found issues with the reporting process internally at the Office of Public Instruction, and recommended clearer procedures for handling student test scores.

Previous Superintendent Denise Juneau announced that the state would use the ACT to report federally mandated test scores for high school juniors in late 2015. After raising concerns about Juneau's authority to make that call, Montana's Board of Public Education backed up her decision while being aware that the test did not line up with Montana's education standards.

Arntzen called a press conference in January where she accused Juneau's administration of "falsifying" test scores.

They did not meet state and federal reporting standards and misrepresented student proficiency, Arntzen said at the press conference. It was reported that all Montana (high school juniors) were proficient.

Juneau chalked up the score reporting to a federal form that forced the state to report scores, no matter whether the information was applicable, and that the reporting was intended to be revised later.

The report, authored by Communication and Management Services, a Helena management and personnel consulting firm that doesn't have specific education expertise, backs up Juneau's claim that OPI intended to change the test scores.

It also found that despite widespread assumptions at OPI, the ACT scores did not require a label from one of four federal score categories, so they were never submitted as proficient. The process appeared to sow significant confusion among agency employees.

OPI officials reviewed a draft copy of the report on March 2, but an employee revised their statement to CMS on March 6, delaying the report's release. That stemmed from access to the reported scores, available since Feb. 20, which showed they weren't submitted as proficient.

The report also delved into why the office never developed cut scores, which would have translated the ACT's 36-point scale into the four federal categories, and never examined the test's alignment with state standards.

Its conclusions called the performance of Judy Snow, OPI's assessment director who retired last fall, into question. CMS did not interview Snow or any former OPI employees. The report does not name employees, but Snow's position is clear based on job titles.

The report says that "there was little or no work done" to address cut scores or standards alignment after Juneau's initial ACT announcement, despite assumptions among OPI employees interviewed for the report that Snow "was taking the necessary steps to implement Superintendent Juneau's directive to use the ACT" and meet federal requirements.

It also notes a lack of communication from Snow to OPI employees and said that despite overlapping employment for her and new assessment director Jessica Eilertson, there was little transfer of departmental knowledge. The report raises questions about accountability within OPI under Jueanu.

It recommends several changes to streamline communication and data handling.

Juneau, in an emailed statement Friday, took issue with the report's lack of contact with her staffers. Several OPI employees left the agency before Arntzen took over, including Chief of Staff Madalyn Quinlan.

"The report proves Elsie is more interested in political games than doing her job," the statement said. "The report takes shots at my former coworkers without consulting any member of my administration to get the facts."

Arntzen said the report's value "cannot be stressed enough."

"Having identified the failures of the past, it is now my job to take leadership and move forward," she said in an emailed statement. "The report indicates several areas of improvement that can be made immediately including proactive management and increased accountability, knowledge transfer and succession planning, and continuous quality improvement. OPI is developing a comprehensive master plan for data accountability."

Arntzen previously said Montana could lose federal funding because the ACT didn't meet federal requirements. However, most other states' testing processes don't meet all federal requirements either.

Twleve states use the ACT or SAT, another college readiness exam, for federal accountability, according to an "Education Week" database. At least seven states won permission from the feds to use those tests, but still must go through the peer-review process.

The Montana debate centers on No Child Left Behind, which will be replaced when the Every Student Succeeds Act goes into effect for the 2017-2018 school year. The new law appears to open the door to ACT use, allowing for "nationally recognized high school academic assessments," but it still requires a peer-review process.

Montanas peer review process has been pushed back a year, according to the federal spokeswoman, because of changes to its assessment program in the 2015-2016 school year  presumably the ACT switch.

In decision letters sent to Wyoming and Wisconsin, who use the ACT, the test was labeled as partially meeting federal requirements for NCLB, in part because the test does not align with state standards.

However, the letters make no mention of the potential loss of federal funding, nor do they declare states non-compliant. Such letters often point out flaws in submissions for any state and request that states resubmit information with corrections.

A review of the latest round of peer review assessment letters shows that of the 31 states that received decision letters, not one met every requirement under NCLB. And none of the letters threaten the loss of federal funding.

In California, state education officials are in the midst of a showdown with federal officials because its use of a test the feds didn't sign off on. State officials have held their ground despite a response from feds citing "many possible enforcement actions and remedies available to be applied by the department, including the withholding of funds, according to Edsource, a California education news outlet.

Unlike California's test, 12 states use the ACT or SAT, another college readiness exam, for federal accountability, according to a database of state tests by Education Week. At least seven states have won permission from the feds to use those tests but still must go through the peer-review process.
Ambrin Masood, a faculty member at Montana State University Billings originally from Pakistan, said she and her family have felt a welcome in Montana that they didnt experience a decade ago in her previous home  Auburn, Alabama, where she earned her Ph.D.

That is a good, hospitable state, she told a crowd of about 55 people Wednesday on campus to hear her talk, Understanding the Worldview of Our Fellow Muslims. But during his preschool years, her son was never invited to a birthday party, never given a birthday card. He was never invited to a sleepover, and my play date offers were never accepted. We came here, and on his third day of kindergarten, he got a play date.

To answer the call to prayer every day at Elysian School, her son is allowed to spend recess alone in the schools music room.

I love Montana, she said, and I seriously love the people of Montana. Part of my resilience is my colleagues, and the love I get from Montanans.

Masoods talk, sponsored by Humanities Montana with help from the campus women's center and philosophy club, focused on the resilience that Masood derives from her Muslim faith.

Her life so far, she said, can be divided into two stages  Pakistan and the United States, where she became a citizen three years ago.

Pakistan gave me my childhood and my husband, she said, and America gave me my Ph.D. and my kids.

Her three children grinned broadly nearly throughout their mothers 90-minute presentation.

As a child, her father  a member of Pakistans air force  was stationed for a time in Saudi Arabia. That made one of the five pillars of Islam  the Hajj, or pilgrimage  doable.

And, at least once, memorable.

During one pilgrimage, her then-8-year-old brother had this prayer: the then-president of Pakistan had decreed that Pakistani students studying abroad must take classes  even math classes  in their native Urdu, not the English her brother preferred. Please, please God, her brother prayed at Kaba, the holiest place in Mecca, change math class back to English.

Muslims, she said, believe that fervent prayers offered at Kaba are immediately answered. When he returned to school, her brother found that, indeed, classes would once again be offered in English.

We still talk about that one, she said.

Masood drew parallels with her faith and those of Christians and Jews, all of them people of the book, she said.

Once you read the Quran  actually read it  itll impress you, she said. The whole world right now hates Islam, and that is the reason for my presentation. The Quran doesnt teach you to hate. It gives you the choice, and it repeats a lot of whats in the Bible and the Torah.

People who have read it tell me, Its not that threatening, she said. It teaches how to live peacefully and stress-free.

Theres also no mention of Jihad, defined as struggle or effort and much more than a holy war, she said, offering this example:

Say Masood saved her money to purchase just the right pair of boots. On the first day wearing them, she sees someone walking barefoot in the cold.

I can afford another pair of boots, she said. If I give them to that person, that sacrifice is Jihad.

Islam, of course, diverges from Christianity, and Masood listed some of the ways. Muslims dont believe that God had a son. They claim Jesus, whom Muslims "revere," she said, didnt suffer on the cross. Rather, God plucked Jesus out of his body so he wouldnt feel the pain of the crucifixion.

What about Muslim women? Masood asked with a smile.

My students ask if I feel oppressed, and I tell them I feel respected, she said, telling another illustrative story: During her second trip to the United States, Masood couldnt get an airport worker to help her with a heavy suitcase. Thats not my job, the man told her.

In Pakistan, I would never have that problem, she said. In Pakistan, India and elsewhere, families take pride in their women.

She said shes grateful for the opportunity to speak, and for attendees kind words during and after her presentation.

Fear is a huge stressor, and it kills resiliency, she said. The best way not to feel stressed (about Islam) is to learn more about it.




















European Union leaders renewed their vows at a special summit in Rome on Saturday, celebrating the blocs 60th anniversary with a commitment to a common future without Britain.









With the EU facing crises including migration, a moribund economy, terrorism and populism, as well as Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk called for leadership to shore up the bloc.





Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago, Tusk said in a speech.





The Rome Declaration that the leaders signed proclaims that Europe is our common future, and sets out the path for the next decade in a rapidly changing world.









It is it a bit of a tighter squeeze in the room today than when the original six states signed up, joked Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after welcoming the leaders to the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori for a ceremony long on pomp and short on real politics.





European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker also insisted the EU could ride out recent storms. Daunting as they are, the challenges we face today are in no way comparable to those faced by the founding fathers, he said, recalling how the new Europe was built from the ashes of World War II. We are standing on the shoulders of giants, Juncker said, voicing confidence that the EU would still be around to celebrate its 100th birthday.





























The leaders of the 27 EU member states that will remain in the bloc after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, signed on Saturday the Rome Declaration on the achievements, challenges and priorities of the post-Brexit European Union.

The declaration is the main outcome of the Rome Summit, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which laid the foundations of the European Union back in 1957. The leaders express their desire to respond to the challenges together and also set priorities for the future: security and safety, prosperity and economic growth, social policy and strong positions on the global scene.





The leaders of the 27 EU member states claimed to seek even greater unity and solidarity as the European Union is facing unprecedented challenges, in the Rome Declaration signed on Saturday.





"The European Union is facing unprecedented challenges, both global and domestic: regional conflicts, terrorism, growing migratory pressures, protectionism and social and economic inequalities We will make the European Union stronger and more resilient, through even greater unity and solidarity amongst us and the respect of common rules," the declaration read.





The European Union plans to strengthen its positions on the international arena, creating new ties and promoting stability in the neighboring regions "to the east and south," EU leaders said in the Rome Declaration signed on Saturday.





"We commit to the Rome Agenda, and pledge to work towards a Union further developing existing partnerships, building new ones and promoting stability and prosperity in its immediate neighbourhood to the east and south, but also in the Middle East and across Africa and globally," the declaration read.









The European Union vows to stay committed to strengthening its common security and defense, including in collaboration with NATO, EU leaders said in the Rome Declaration signed on Saturday. "[The European] Union committed to strengthening its common security and defence, also in cooperation and complementarity with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, taking into account national circumstances and legal commitments," the declaration read.

The declaration is the main outcome of the Rome Summit, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which laid the foundations of the European Union back in 1957.





































The French city of Lille is on lockdown after three people, including a 14-year-old boy, have been shot and injured near the PortedArras metro station in the southern part of the city.









According to local media , one of the injuries is life-threatening, while the other two are not. Armed police have now sealed the area and are surveilling the city. Whether the attack is terror related is currently unknown, although local police have claimed it was gang related. The attack was in place Jacques Febvrier, next to the Porte dArras metro station. Officers remain at the scene, a police spokesperson said. Those hurt have been taken to the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital. None of the injuries are life threatening. A car pulled up outside the station and targeted the three youths hurt. It appears this was a settling of scores, he continued.

The incident comes at a time when Europe is on high alert, after an Islamist attack in London killed four innocent people and injured 50, with two people still in critical condition.

































A DRIVE-BY shooting in central Lille has left three wounded after a hooded gunman opened fire outside a train station. The shooter has reportedly fled the scene leaving several victims  including a schoolboy  with gunshot wounds.





Armed police have now sealed off all roads leading into the city centre as they try to contain the situation and catch the gunman. French reports say there were several shots fired near the Porte dArras metro station at around 9.50pm. Its said a 14-year-old boy had been shot in leg and at least two others youths had been injured. Two of the wounded were found at the scene, while the third made their way to a nearby hospital. Those injured are said to have been shot several times, reports respected French news site La Voix Du Nord.





































Senior Hamas militant Mazen Fukaha was assassinated in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the small coastal enclave said.



The martyr Mazen Fukaha was shot in the head, leading to his death, Health Ministry Spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said on Twitter.









The deadly incident took place in front of Fukahas home in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in the southern half of Gaza City.



The parties behind the assassination are unknown, the Hamas-backed Interior Ministry said in a statement, adding that the local security services opened an investigation.



Hamas, however, officially accused Israel of carrying out the assassination.



Hamas and its fighting brigades place the full responsibility for this reprehensible crime on the Israeli occupation and its collaborators, Hamas said in an official statement.



Hamas also threatened possible retaliation for Fukahas assassination.



The occupation knows that the blood of those struggling in the way of God will not be wasted, Hamas stated. Hamas knows how to deal with these crimes.



The Ezzeldin Qassam Brigades, Hamass armed wing, said it will exact revenge for Fukahas assassination.









We will make the enemy regret the day that he thought it could begin [to carry out assassinations], the Qassam Brigades said in an official statement. We swear to God, our Muslim nation, and our people that the enemy will pay a price for this crime that is equal in size to the assassination of our martyr leader [Mazin Fukaha]. He who plays with fire will be burned by it.



Israeli officials did not immediately comment on the deadly incident.



Fukaha, who was born and raised in Tubas, was a senior militant in Qassam Brigades in the West Bank, which carried out a number of suicide bombing attacks against Israel during the second intifada.





































China warned the United States Thursday that a bomber aircraft illegally flew in Chinese airspace in the East China Sea. The pilots and the Pentagon rejected Chinas message, insisting that they were conducting routine operations in international airspace. The U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer aircraft had entered the controversial Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which covers disputed waters between Japan and South Korea, and was not recognized by the U.S. and Japan when it was declared by China in November 2013 . At the time, then-Secretary of State John Kerry said that it was an escalatory action, which will only increase tensions in the region and create risks of an incident. The pilots Thursday responded to the call from Chinese air traffic controllers by saying they had not deviated from their original flight path, U.S. Pacific Air Forces spokesman Maj. Phil Ventura told CNN . Ventura added that the U.S. had not changed its position on the status of the air defense zone.




































































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Montana's shortage of psychiatrists causes many patients to wait months for an appointment, and it drains money out of our state.

Each year, about $3 million is spent on out-of-state psychiatric services because too few psychiatrists practice in Montana, according to a recent survey of 30 Montana health care providers. Those costs include such things as recruiting, contracts with out-of-state tele-psychiatry services and hiring temporary help because staff recruiting has been unsuccessful.

Montana hospitals which are already training family practice and internal medicine residents are pitching an increase in state Graduate Medical Education funding that would help sustain the three existing programs and launch a psychiatric residency. The funding request is for a $400,000 annual increase in the state GME support that presently is $519,000.

That's a very small slice of what it costs to train these new doctors, but it's vital that the state demonstrate its commitment so that other funding can be secured.

The average cost of training a resident in Montana is $267,000 a year, according to information from the Montana Graduate Medical Education Council. With 75 residents in training now, the total cost is about $20 million. Just more than half of that comes from Medicare, a third is contributed by sponsoring hospitals, including Billings Clinic and St. Vincent Healthcare. The state contributes $519,000. Medicaid and grants account for the rest.

On Wednesday in Helena, Dr. Eric Arzubi, a psychiatrist from Billings Clinic, urged the Senate Finance and Claims Committee to provide "seed money" that would help Montana residency programs start training doctors in rural communities. Doctors tend to stay to work in the areas where they complete their residency. So to get more doctors for Montana, we need to train more here. To recruit more doctors for rural Montana, we need to train them in small towns.

Montana residencies have a great track record of training doctors who stay. For the past 20 years, about 70 percent of graduates from the residency based at RiverStone Health have chosen to work in Montana.

Those residencies have helped Montana hospitals recruit doctors who want to teach as well as treat patients. The psychiatric residency would do the same, Arzubi said.

The Montana psychiatric residency is being planned with several partners, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which is critically short of psychiatrists in Montana, a situation that resulted in closure of an inpatient treatment unit shortly after it opened in Helena.

If the psychiatric residency gains the momentum that state support would create, Arzubi hopes that the program could start training doctors in 2018. The first two years of the residency would be completed at a large academic hospital, and the second two years would be Montana rotations. It's possible that third- or fourth-year residents could start working in Montana as early as 2018. These doctors would provide patient care under faculty supervision, immediately enhancing the psychiatric workforce.

For $400,000 a year, the Legislature can invest in the doctors that Montana needs now and will need as our population ages. We urge all Montana lawmakers to support this relatively modest investment in their constituents' health and Montana's economy.
The announcement to support Ghanas agriculture sector was made by Andy Karas, the USAID Ghana Mission Director, at a two-day Feed the Future Implementing Partners Meeting held in Accra on the theme: Sustaining the Momentum to Finish Strongly.

The Feed-The-Future Initiative was started in Ghana in 2013 and it predominantly covers the three northern regions.

It is a US government programme aimed at combating global hunger and promoting food security.

Mr Karas said the Feed-The-Future Initiative has double the production of staples, improved income of farmers and reduced poverty by 16 percent over the last four years.

Since Feed the Future started in 2013, our progress has been very encouraging. In the Northern Region, we have made significant progress with poverty and nutrition goals, he said.

Vulnerable families are accessing economic opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty and thrive. I cannot overstate that these achievements would not have been possible without everyone here today.

He further said US government was committed to extending the Feed-the-Future Initiative in Ghana when it ends next year, adding that Ghana stand the chance of attracting more funding for agriculture.

USAID is committed to working with the Ghana government and our Feed the Future partners to accelerate agricultural growth and improve the nutritional status of women and children, he added.

In addition, he said the USAID is building seed and fertilizer industries through the Feed-the-Future Initiative.
The factory is expected to open in Wisconsin in 2020 and employ 400 individuals. Haribo is one of the largest candy makers in the world and they want to produce in the US to compete with the likes of Mars, Modelez, Nestle, and Hershey.
The ban, which was announced on Tuesday, forbids passengers from bringing any electronic devices larger than a cell phone into the cabin of certain flights to the US.

Airlines were sent scrambling for answers to the operational nightmare created by the ban, after getting just 96 hours to comply or risk losing their license to fly into the US.There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the ban's motives, its effectiveness at deterring a terrorist attack, the huge loopholes left open by the Trump administration, and how airlines are expected to comply with the ban and a Federal Aviation Administration prohibition against checking lithium-ion battery devices.

Here's what we know so far.

The ban requires passengers to place all electronic items larger than a cell phone in their checked luggage so the devices cannot be accessed in flight. This includes laptops, tablets, e-readers, portable DVD players, gaming devices larger than a smartphone, and travel-size printers and scanners. However, necessary medical devices are exempt.

The new policy covers only non-stop flights to the US coming from one of 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa  including a few of the busiest transit hubs in the world: Istanbul, Turkey and Dubai in the UAE.

Flights from the US to these destinations will not be affected.

But not all flights from these airlines into the US will be affected by the ban. For instance, Emirates offers flights to New York's JFK International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey from Dubai that stop in Milan, Italy and Athens, Greece. On Thursday, Emirates confirmed that passengers on these flights will be permitted to have their laptops and other electronic devices with them in the cabin.

In addition, no flights operated by US or European airlines will be affected directly by the ban because none offer non-stop service to the US from that region of the world. However, several US carriers including American, United, JetBlue, and Alaska could see their business take a hit. This is because airlines such as Qatar, Turkish, and Emirates feed passengers directly into their respective domestic networks.

The ban calls for all large electronic devices to be packed with checked luggage at each passenger's point of origin. This means that those transiting through the affected airports will be without their devices from the onset of their trip. For instance, if you are traveling from Mumbai, India to Atlanta, GA via Doha, Qatar, your laptop will have to be checked in Mumbai even though it's not one of the airports on the banned list.

Passengers who use the service will be required to declare their large electronic devices to security agents before boarding US-bound flights. The devices would then be packed in secure boxes and stored in the aircraft's cargo hold. The boxes would be returned to the travelers once they reached the US.

Other airlines such as Qatar Airways have indicated they will implement extra security measures to ensure the security of the devices. Although none have yet to clarify what those measure are.

According to US officials, there's no set date for the end of the ban and its need will be periodically reviewed.

According to senior administration officials, the decision to implement these security measures is a result of intelligence showing a risk for terrorist activity involving commercial aviation.

"Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation and are aggressively pursuing innovative methods to undertake their attacks, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items," an official said on Monday.

In addition, several aviation industry analysts who have spoken with Business Insider question whether a ban of this type would even be effective in countering a terrorist attack. Doha, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi are major international transit hubs with extensive multilayered security procedures. US-bound flights are also screened in dedicated facilities using well-trained security professionals who often have experience in law enforcement or the military.

In fact, Abu Dhabi International Airport is equipped with a US Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance facility where passengers and bags headed for the US are screened by US customs officials.

The electronics ban will have a few unintended side effects. One of the most serious is the large number of lithium-ion batteries in the cargo hold of an airliner.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it's behavior with potentially catastrophic consequences.

"FAA battery fire testing has highlighted the potential risk of a catastrophic aircraft loss due to damage resulting from a lithium battery fire or explosion," the agency wrote in an alert in February. "Current cargo fire suppression systems cannot effectively control a lithium battery fire."

Administration officials told journalists on Monday that they were working with the FAA to maintain a safe flying environment, but they did not state specifics. Business Insider asked DHS for specifics on Tuesday but has not yet heard back from officials.

This is particularly concerning for Michael Mo, the cofounder and CEO of KULR Technologies, a company that specializes in thermal-management systems for batteries.

According to Mo, the only saving grace here is that spare batteries and power banks are still prohibited. Which means only batteries fitted inside devices will be stored with cargo. Even though it's not perfectly safe, these batteries tend to be more stable and less likely to combust.

With the laptop ban still in its infancy, more details will likely emerge in the near future. Stay tuned.
JACKSON, Wyo.  When Tenley Thompson got married in 2009 on the Kelly campus of Teton Science Schools the wildflowers were in full bloom.

That's because she analyzed the blooming data of her favorite wildflowers from over 60 years of research to pick her wedding date.

"I don't even deny my dorkyness at this point," Thompson said.

Thompson is an artist, veterinary technician and former wildlife biologist with an affinity for wolves and bears. She's what she likes to call a Renaissance woman.

Thompson's earliest memories are of Jackson Hole, but she doesn't consider herself a local. She doesn't know what to call herself.

"I'm as far from a local as you can get," Thompson said, "but it's not like I just moved here. I feel like I've been here my whole life."

It's because she has. Her parents fell in love with the place in the late 1960s and bought a condo  then upgraded to a house. Thompson still went to school in Maryland, but every other moment of her childhood was spent in the Tetons.

Having spent so much of her childhood in Jackson she knew she wanted to be a wildlife biologist. She went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and did just that (and met her husband). And then she moved right back to Jackson (and brought him).

"If you're a wildlife biologist this place is pretty much nirvana," Thompson said. "It's either, like, go to Africa or here and you're going to be in pretty good shape."

She started out doing research projects and around 2005 she partnered with Teton Science Schools to try something new  wildlife safaris. It was a brave new world and no one really knew what it was, she said, but because of her research work she knew where the animals were.

"Ten years ago we took it so casually," Thompson said. "For us it was kind of a bunch of young research kids having fun and figuring things out."

Now it's one of Jackson's largest industries.

Thompson left Teton Science Schools to start a program at the Four Seasons in Teton Village, and later an astronomy program there.

She loved what she was doing, she said, but it gradually took over her life. Most people in the valley have never seen a wolf, she said, yet every single day she was supposed to magically make one appear.

"Once I got known for being able to do it, the expectation was that every time I was going to pull it off and I wasn't going to fail," she said. "Of course you're going to fail  they're wolves."

She slowly burned out and decided to leave in October 2015.

"I couldn't think straight anymore," Thompson said. "I think I was on so little sleep I just couldn't even think. I went home and slept for a week."

After a little break she had to figure out what to do next.

"I was too old for a quarter-life crisis, and there was no crisis involved," said Thompson, who was 34 at the time. "I was kind of having a really good time figuring it out. I was kind of excited about reinventing myself a little bit."

Thompson always admired the Renaissance man, people like Leonardo da Vinci who excelled in different fields.

"I wanted to be a Renaissance woman when I was 5," Thompson said. "I just wanted to know everything about everything, and I didn't need to be amazing at anything."

So in the grand Renaissance woman tradition she decided to jump headfirst into something completely new.

"I was excited about the idea that I could completely drop what I was doing and go in a different direction," Thompson said. "I was invigorated by it."

It would have made sense to start her own wildlife safari company, she said. She already had people sending in resumes and investors waiting. Or it would have made sense to be a full-time wildlife photographer. She was already in a few galleries.

"I basically threw away this home run," Thompson said, "which seems so stupid but I'm so happy about it."

Instead she decided to become an artist  specifically a ceramic artist. Well, only after she approached it from a scientific perspective. She made spreadsheets and did statistical analyses on her viability as an artist.

"If it involves art I'm going to math it up," she said, "and I'm going to analytically figure out how to be an artist. I think it's the most dorky way anyone became an artist ever."

The math worked out, enough, for it to be a go  she created Jumping Jackalope Studios.

"It had a higher likelihood of failure than all the other options that had been presented to me, but I liked it," she said.

As a backup plan she signed on to work a few days a week at the Animal Care Clinic as a veterinary technician. She could engage her brain there, and her heart in her art. Her boss, Dr. Ernie Patterson, was supportive, she said.

"He doesn't think that it's crazy at all that a scientist wants to become an artist and is actually going to become an animal nurse at the same time," she said.

It's safe to say that Thompson is a busy woman.

"In many ways I'm probably putting more hours in per week than I ever was," she said. "But I'm not burned out, I'm happier than I've ever been."

And she still gets to see the animals that she loves.

"I thought when I left that the hardest part would be that I wouldn't be spending every day out with the wolves that I loved," she said. "I thought that I would lose them in my life. I could handle losing the guiding, but I couldn't handle losing the wolves and bears."

Now she just brings along a sketchbook.

"Finding wolves was my greatest stress, and now finding wolves is one of my greatest stress relievers," she said.

___

Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
All over social media, journalists, pundits, and even some of the very politicians voting on the healthcare bill have mistakenly referred to it with the acronym "ACHA," instead of the seemingly correct "AHCA."

But these mistaken acronyms are more than just a case of coincidental typos. As New York University linguist Lisa Davidson explained, there's a perfectly scientific reason why this acronym in particular seems to be dogging so many people.

As Davidson explained, it comes down to how often certain combinations of letters appear in English words  or "orthographic frequency," in linguistic terms.

"The spelling 'CH' is extremely common," Davidson told Business Insider. "We're spelling that all the time. So when we go to type something or write something, that's a natural thing to come up with."

A look at the dictionary clarifies her point. The cluster "ch" makes an appearance in thousands of English words  choice, rich, and teach, just to name a few. Meanwhile, the sequence "hc" is considerably more obscure  those letters almost never appear together at all, save a few obscure compound words like "pushcart" or "fishcake." (Perhaps ironically, they do show up side-by-side in the middle of the word "healthcare.")

When we come across an acronym like AHCA, our brain naturally interprets it as the more plausible series of letters, resulting in ACHAs across the keyboard.

"'AHCA' is definitely not something that we ever type, and it's not something we ever see spelled," Davidson told Business Insider. "So if we see the acronym we are very unlikely to retain the 'HC' in memory."

"Our muscle memory would never have us typing 'HC' because we never see that in English."
Fox News host Sean Hannity opened his Thursday night show with a monologue defending Trump and denouncing Republican lawmakers, including Ryan, who is leading the effort to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, for failing to come together over the bill.

"It's time to fix this mess that you have made for the president, and it's time for you to give the American people a bill that you have now promised them for almost eight years," Hannity said. "For the love of God, after eight years, can you please do your job?"

Meanwhile, the Drudge Report, which has remained mostly quiet throughout the healthcare debate, featured a photo of Ryan with the headline, "House sets risky health care vote, pass it to know what's in it."

The headline was apparently referring to former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's now infamous comment in 2010, when Congress was considering the

A Friday Breitbart News story aggregating a New York Magazine piece by Gabriel Sherman read, "Report: Steve Bannon Says American Health Care Act Written by the Insurance Industry."

The story focused on Trump strategist Steve Bannon's reported longtime dislike for Ryan, suggesting that Bannon privately hopes the current version of the healthcare bill will fail.
Friday is judgment day for the Republican Party's opening bid to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

After President Trump issued an ultimatum to Republicans on Thursday, the House began debating their legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare in the early hours of Friday morning.

The GOP leadership originally wanted to vote on the AHCA on Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the Affordable Care Act being signed into law. But leaders were unable to garner enough support for the bill and delayed the vote.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told a group of Republicans on Thursday night that they had to pass the AHCA on Friday  or Trump would move on from the bill and leave them stuck with Obamacare.

It put the onus on House GOP members. But given reservations from conservatives who do not think the bill goes far enough in its repeal of Obamacare and moderates who think the AHCA does not solve the problems of the healthcare system, the outcome of the vote is unclear.

House Speaker Paul Ryan went to the White House early Friday afternoon to brief Trump on the latest with the healthcare bill.

Reports indicated that Ryan told Trump that the GOP did not have enough votes to pass the bill. Despite the possibility that the GOP leadership could pull the bill and not have a vote, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at the daily press briefing that the vote was still scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET.

Republican Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas, who has been against the AHCA, tweeted that the bill did not have enough votes to pass and the vote could be delayed again.

"

The final offer

The American Health Care Act has changed considerably from its introduction on March 6.

In an effort to win over conservative members of the House GOP, the final bill will have a provision that would do away with the ACA's "essential health benefits." Those mandate that insurance companies cover certain types of care, such as prenatal care and preventive screenings such as mammograms.

The effects of these changes on things like the federal budget, health-insurance marketplace, and premiums are unknown, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has not had the time to score the updated bill. Some health-policy experts have said that the recent changes would likely cause a further deterioration of the individual health-insurance marketplace.

Despite attacking Democrats for the process in which they passed the ACA, Republicans would likely introduce the completed bill and take a final vote the same day. The vote would come less than three weeks after the introduction of the original AHCA. By contrast, the ACA was introduced five months before the House passed the bill in 2009.

Losing support on both sides

The problem facing the AHCA on its crucial day is that even with the concessions, both moderates and conservative Republicans have taken issue with parts of the bill.

Conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus have said the bill did not go far enough in its repeal of Obamacare's insurance regulations, even with the end of essential health benefits.

Freedom Caucus members want to see more of the so-called Title 1 regulations stripped, including provisions preventing insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions and the ability for a child to stay on their parents' health insurance until they are 26 years old. Both provisions have proved very popular with the American public.

The White House has balked at the demands, which has left Freedom Caucus members at large decidedly against the bill. According to reports, the Freedom Caucus held a meeting Friday morning and many of its roughly 35-member caucus were still strongly in the "no" camp.

At the same time conservatives are asking for more parts of the ACA to be repealed, moderates have been coming out against the bill for going too far in disrupting the healthcare system.

One high-profile moderate defector was Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. Frelinghuysen, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, wrote in a Facebook post that the changes to the essential health benefits persuaded him to vote "no" on the bill.

"

What to expect

The White House and GOP leadership will continue to wrangle votes as debate on the AHCA continues for four hours, according to the rules set by the House Rules Committee on Friday morning. The Democrats and Republicans will have two hours apiece to debate the bill, in which House lawmakers can make their closing arguments about the proposal.
He disclosed that there are about 770 French projects in Ghana, adding he welcomes such investments and the importance of the security of such investments.

READ MORE: France to relocate Embassy in Ghana

He made the comments at an event in Accra to commission the construction of a new French Embassy in Accra.

"In may 2014, the Ghana-France Chamber of Commence was outdooored in Accra as one of the initiative of the economic development between our two countries," he said.

"Only last month in February, Air France commenced its flight between Paris and Accra. This brings to record a hundred and seventy French projects in Ghana with services as the leading sector."

He added: "This growing number of French companies in Ghana is welcomed and I want to say that Ghana recognises the importance of the security of such investment and will ensure that our relevant institution stand ready to protect it."

Touching on the role of France on the African continent, he praised France for its increased collaboration in security matters such as security exchange programmes and the training of 15,000 troops.

READ MORE: Dangote Group to raise fund for the Africa Center

"In recent times, Ghana and France have increased collaboration in security matters for the maintain of peace and security through technical exchanges with the military and police service," Akufo-Addo opined.
In an interview, Ofoe Gator, the deputy public relations officer of the university told Accra-based Citi FM that the water shortage was a result of a technical challenge.

READ ALSO: France to relocate Embassy in Ghana

However, according to GWCL, the university is indebted to it after many months of failing to pay its water bills.

The situation has left students of the university struggling in their bid to get water to bath and cook on campus.

READ ALSO: Rubbish collector rapes disabled woman
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But President of the National Council of Parent Teacher Association, Alexender Yaw Danso, said parents need to know the exact amount and date due for payment of the fees to enable them to prepare and pay the required amount.

According to him, the concerns of parents are legitimate because not all the students will finish their WASCCE exams in the same month. He said others will finish in the middle of May while others will finish in April.

In an interview with Radio Ghana, Mr Dansu said it will be unfair to ask all of them to pay the same amount of fees but admitted that the non-payment of the third term fees partially or fully is likely to pose feeding and other challenges to the administrators of the schools.

"Issues concerning parents, issues concerning our wards are not being addressed to the parents. This directive is not the first time, previous years, they were issued. Even last year the Director General issued a directive that those who are in default of payment of their fees should not be allowed to take their exams," he said.

"Now the U-turn that they shouldn't do such. Meanwhile, they are saying the third term fees should be paid in the second term and that we can pay in instalment. Today they are stating the exams and so the question we would want to ask is when is the deadline for the final payment, are they supposed to pay the full third term fees because not all the students are going to finish their exams at the same time.

READ MORE: Students rusticated over clashes

"So if you ask me to pay full term fees when in actual fact some of them will be leaving by the middle of next month and some by the middle of April, it means you haven't covered the full them so why should we pay," he quizzed.
Yesterday, March 23, 2017, was their wedding anniversary and we're looking back to all the times the duo were so adorable on social media.

1. This time she twerked for him

2. Then Annie said she wanted to grow old and die alongside husband touching the hearts of millions

She shared the photo above on January 17, 2017, writing, "I stared at this image for at least 15mins or even more... and realised I was tearing up

The picture made me feel all "types of ways" And the love in my heart towards Innocent just tripled instantly. I know we will grow old n die someday, but God please I want to spend all my days with him, grow old with him and die beside him..next to him.. I can't Live if I have to do that without him..

I won't survive it! Life Without Him won't be worth it again.. Sad that When we grow old n grey,1 of us will go before the other, but please can we at least grow very old together and GO together..

3. They were both conferred with chieftaincy titles

2face was made the Tafindan Kudenda which means Ambassador of Peace while Annie was conferred with a chieftaincy title Matan Tafindan.

4. Then they fell asleep cuddled up in the backseat of a car

This was back in 2014. The couples were spotted together asleep in each others arms on a road trip to Benue State.

5. Then he released a special anniversary video to celebrate Annie

The loving husband released a special video to celebrate his wife who featured in the original 'African queen' video in 2004.
He takes over from Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, now a Member of Parliament, whose time was dogged with many controversies.

So, what should Mayor Sowahs priorities be for the next four years?

Keep the city clean

Accra is incredibly filthy and it smells. As such, devising a formula to get the city of Accra looking spick and span is perhaps the most important of all Mayor Sowahs priorities. The city needs to increase its waste management capabilities and enforce sanitation laws. He also needs to tackle the open defecation menace in Accra and finally ensure that the infamous Lavender Hill is closed forever.

READ ALSO: Sowah confirmed as Accra Mayor

Accra Floods

The perennial floods in Accra are another major challenge the new major must find a solution to. In June 2015, 150 lives were lost as result of the floods and a massive fire that followed. Accras major drains are either too small to contain the amounts of water, they are chocked with plastic waste or have buildings blocking the waterways. Together with stakeholders such as the Town and Country Planning Department and the Ministry of Works and Housing, he needs to design a plan that can stop the city from submerging under water for days.

Markets and Hawkers

Accra is Ghanas commercial hub and trading within the city accounts for a large portion of the countrys gross domestic product. However, the citys markets are nothing to write home about. They are congested and unhygienic; hence the city requires new and improved markets. Hawkers have also taken over the citys streets. Mayor Sowah will have to exhibit political boldness in order to rid the city of its hawkers; a situation although would be unpopular but needs to be done.

Tourism and greens spaces

The city has a number of tourist attractions that have in the past been left unexplored. Because Accra is the first port of call for international travellers, the city can make a lot of internally generated funds from the beaches, hotels and European colonial architecture in places such as Jamestown and Osu.

Accra is gradually turning into a concrete jungle and the expanding population requires a need to match in infrastructure. The citys needs open, green spaces such as parks and other recreational facilities to clean up the polluted air, make its citizens fit and ensure that they enjoy the benefits of city life.

Squatters

The average Ghanaian scraps in order to afford decent housing in the capital. This has made homelessness in the city very high. As such, residents have been forced onto informal settlements such as Old Fadama and kiosks along the major high ways. Attempts to remove informal settlers have proven futile largely because of a lack of political correctness.

Shift system
A Twitter user, Adesanya Abel posted a picture of the victim of the attack whose corpse laid on the street after he was killed.

He wrote, "174 battalion military officers beat this man to death in Ogijo, his corpse is lying on the street right nw. retweet for justice."

This development is one of many demeaning behaviour of military officers who have shown no regard for lives of civilians.

They are often accused of using their power to create fear in the minds of civilians who naturally should have been the main beneficiary of their sworn oath to defend.

Recently, some soldiers in Onitsha, Anambra State, Nigeria were caught on camera as they brutalized a crippled man.
The arrest follows public uproar about the lukewarm attitude the police had adopted in dealing the group which the ranking member on foreign affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said could grow to become a terrorist organisation.

On Newsfile Saturday, Mr Okudzeto said there cannot be any justification for the existence of paramilitary groups within the ranks of the governing party.

According to him, the security bodies known to the state are the Police and the Army, warning that the Delta Force and the Invincible Forces could grow to become like Boko Haram.

These groups all over the place be it the Delta Force, the Invincible Forces, whatever they call themselves, they are not know to parliament, they are not know to the constitution. They should not be tolerated, he said.

The suspect, known as Kwadwo Bamba, is in police custody assisting in investigations.
RAWLINS, Wyo.  Southern Wyoming police say a couple arrested in possession of 48 pounds of marijuana purchased in Oregon was planning on selling it in Indiana.

The Rawlins Daily Times reported Friday (http://bit.ly/2nQ0zRi ) that 59-year-old Michael Ellet and 24-year-old Monica Milliner from Marion, Indiana, both face charges of felony possession of marijuana, possession with intent to deliver marijuana and conspiracy to deliver marijuana.

Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper David Chatfield said he initially stopped the pair on Monday for travelling 78 mph in a 75 mph zone but later noticed the driver, Ellet, smelled like marijuana. Chatfield said after talking with the pair, he had his K9 search the vehicle for drugs, which they found in the trunk.

Along with the marijuana, police also found marijuana edibles, credit cards, cell phones and miscellaneous paperwork.

___

Information from: Rawlins (Wyo.) Daily Times, http://www.rawlinstimes.com
It symbolizes the partnership between our two countries since it makes Ghanaian teams, French teams, both in France and in Ghana work very hard together despite all the differences-- cultural differences, linguistics differences and also maybe business or work environment which are all different. Despite all of that they work closely together and they will achieve this very project on time, Pujolas said on Friday.

The current French Embassy shares the premises with the Flagstaff House, the seat of government.

President Nana Akufo-Addo expressed the governments deep satisfaction at Frances decision to resettle their embassy.

He further assured them that the relocation exercise will be done without political difficulties.

Many Ghanaians have spoken about the security threats it poses to the country even before the construction of the building was completed.
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He also pledged that the government will upgrade other military installation and facilities such as the 37 military hospital, designate the yet to be completed the Military hospital in the Ashanti Region as emergency hospital and also the construct a new military hospital in the Northern region.

Special Medical Intake III training arose out of the high demand for officers of the Medical Corps to man the 37 Military Hospital, the medical reception stations in various garrisons of the GAF, the upcoming military hospital in Kumasi and also to meet the demand for international Peace Support Operations, the vice president said.

READ MORE: Let armed forces deal with armed robbery

The 37 Military Hospital will be upgraded with a new set of state-of-the-art infrastructure and equipment to make it fit its merit as a referral hospital attending to the needs of the huge military and civilian populations.

He also praised the militarys role in restoring democracy in The Gambia.
They were immediately put before the court and have been remanded into police custody to reappear on March 27.

READ MORE: Bawumia expresses concern over galamsey

The suspects were immediately put before the Sekondi District Magistrate Court, but have been remanded into police custody to reappear on 27th March, 2017, the Public Relations Officer for the Ghana Police in the Western Region, ASP Olivia Awurabena Adiku tolf Citi FM.

Investigations have started into the incident. We are liaising with the Ghana Immigration Service to know the status of the Chinese nationals involved and when that is determined, we will take it from there, she said.

READ MORE: Police officers arrested for robbing miners

He said the police is determined to flush out illegal miners on all rivers in the region to ensure that the rivers are back to their former state.
Gergen compared Trump to House Speaker Paul Ryan in his remarks, saying "I thought Paul Ryan manned up, he took responsibility," but that Trump "is a man who just shoves off on other people and describes things in ways that are just misleading."

While the panelists discussed past presidents who stumbled politically in their first 100 days  John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton for example  Gergen said of Trump's early aughts:

"When you add up the totality of it, you said this is his worst week of his presidency, I think this might be the worst 100 days weve ever seen of a president," Gergen said.

He lambasted Trump's showing as president, saying:

"Earlier this week his credibility took a direct hit over the wiretapping, and now his capacity is taking a direct hit. He came to us as the dealmaker, his ultimate promise was he was the dealmaker and he was going to make the system work, and that so clearly has failed."

In the recent days since it became clear the GOP's American Health Care Act would not have enough votes to pass, Trump has attacked the House Freedom Caucus and blamed House Democrats for the bill not passing, saying "We had no Democrat support, no votes from the Democrats," which made the passing "very difficult," despite Republicans holding a House majority.

He also called Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer "the losers" in the failure of the bill "because now they own Obamacare."
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
Speaking to Punch, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa said their rescue is a matter of urgency.

It was gathered that 90 of the girls, who were trafficked to the two countries, are in Burkina Faso while the remaining 40 are in Mali.

She said the Nigerian embassies in the two countries are looking into how to rescue the girls.

Dabiri-Erewa also warned Nigerians not to travel to Libya following a death penalty awaiting illegal migrants in that country.

Just recently, 171 Nigerians were repatriated to the country from Libya. The returnees were brought back through a joint effort of the International Organisation of Migration and the National Emergency Management Agency, in collaboration with the officials of the NCRMID.
A statement released on Friday, March 24, by the Media Consultant to the airline, Simon Tumba said the NCAA brokered the peace meeting held on Thursday evening.

Tumba listed unions at the meeting to include the National Union of Air Transport Employees, Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and National Association of Aircraft Pilot and Engineers.

The unions on Thursday, March 23, shut down the airline over refusal to reinstate sacked workers.

According to Tumba, the airline has resumed normal operations with effect from Friday morning on all routes.

He quoted Roy Ilegbodu, the Chief Executive Officer of the airline, as saying: "the management apologise to its customers for the disruption of services on Thursday following the picketing of its operations by the unions."

He added: "We reassure our customers of timely departure, great travel experience and look forward to welcoming them on board our flights."

ALSO READ: Court fixes date for ruling of AMCONs takeover of Arik Air

Tumba also said the airline has reactivated its online platform for customers to book and pay online through all its network.
According to The Nation, Buhari is studying the reasons given by the Senate for the rejection of Magu, and that he would make his position known to the upper chamber in the coming week.

The report said Buhari prefers and trusts Magu to oversee the affairs of the anti-graft agency and that he is not convinced that the man is not fit for the job.

The source said: "Personally, the President prefers Magu and he is standing by him. As at this week, the position of the President has not changed.

"There is no doubt that the Presidents advisers have recommended the retention of Magu and he is likely to heed their advice.

"As I am talking to you, there is no fresh security report or any updated information which can make Buhari to turn against Magu. So, he is likely to stand by his letter to the Senate.

"At personal level, Buhari has confided in his key aides that he wants Magu in charge of EFCC."

The Senate first rejected Magu's nomination after a damning report against him by the Department of State Service (DSS), declaring him unfit for the job on grounds of corruption.

Following his second rejection by the Red Chamber, the DSS reportedly forwarded more detailed report and documents against Magu to the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN).

Details of the documents, which was leaked to the media on Friday, March 24 - see here - purportedly proves the acting EFCC chairman is not fit to retain his job.

Magu, however, has responded to the new report in a counter memo to the AGF, declaring the allegations false in its entirety.

Magu said: "Sir, it is important to situate my relationship with Commodore Mohammed Umar (rtd), in proper perspective.

"Our paths crossed when we became members of the Presidential Committee on the investigation on arms procurement. He was instrumental in getting some of the information that helped the committee to make significant breakthrough in its assignment.

"Beyond that, the relationship between Umar and myself is one of professional acquaintance, devoid of issues of conflict of interest. So, it comes to me with shock, the imputation by the DSS that we have a "mutually beneficial relationship".

"This appears suggestive that Mohammed and I were involved in activities that could be said to be untoward. I certainly have no knowledge of such activities.

"The claim that EFCC documents, including EFCC letters addressed to the Vice President and being investigation reports on the activities of Emmanuel Kachikwu and his brother Dumebi Kachikwu, were found in his home during a search by the DSS came to me as a surprise.

"If that is correct, he should be made to disclose how he came by such documents. I never discussed my official duties with him let alone give him documents pertaining to investigations being conducted by the Commission.

"Interestingly, Mohammed was detained for several months by the DSS. In all those months, did he claim that I mandated him to commit any crime or that I was an accomplice to any crime? If there is any such claim, I will wholeheartedly like to be confronted with the allegation.

"It is interesting to note that when Mohammed was eventually charged to court, the charges against him were money laundering and illegal possession of firearms, and nothing related to my purported "shady" relationship with him."

He explained the circumstances in which EFCC files were found in his house after the removal of the pioneer Chairman of EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.

At this time, Magu was serving in the Police Force as the head of the Economic Governance Unit.

He said: "It is true that my residence was searched on the orders of Mrs. Farida Waziri, shortly after she succeeded Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as Chairman of the EFCC and some documents relating to cases under investigation were found in my house. At the time of the raid, I was yet to formally hand over to my successor, Umar Sanda, as head of the Economic Governance Unit.

"My schedule at the time warranted that I worked round the clock and it was impossible to conclude all assignments without working at home.

"The documents found in my house were actually found in my office bag where I kept documents relating to investigations. I was in the process of handing over and it would be wrong to suggest that I willfully kept the Commissions files at home.

"Nevertheless, the incident was thoroughly investigated by the police as I was placed on suspension without pay for 20 months. But in the end, I was reprimanded, recalled and promoted to Assistant Commissioner of Police.

"It is important, sir, to draw your attention to the fact that some of us that worked closely with Ribadu were victimised after his exit.

"And my ordeal was orchestrated as punishment for being the chief investigative officer for most of the high-profile cases involving politically exposed persons some of whom became very influential in government at the time."

On the N39.8 million apartment rented for him, Magu said it was false that the house was also furnished for N43 million.

He added: "I live in the official residence of the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). This accommodation, contrary to the report of the DSS, is not my private home, neither was it rented and furnished for me by Commodore Umar Mohammed (rtd).

"It was rented and furnished by the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory through the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, under the safe house scheme.

"It is also false that the house was rented for N20 million per annum and furnished for N43 million. The entire cost for both two-year rent and the furnishing of the house is N39.628 million.

"Details of the transaction are contained in the contract award letter and payment schedule which are attached to this letter."
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
Mr Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, in Ibadan during a courtesy call on Gov. Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Fashola was in the state to assess the level of some ongoing federal government projects and inauguration of the completed federal housing units.

He said that effort was ongoing to refund to Oyo State Government its intervention fund on federal road projects.

The minister commended the governor for rehabilitating some federal roads, assuring him that the federal government will refund the funds expended soon.

A lot of progress has been made in quantifying the level of intervention and outstanding liabilities made on the federal roads by states through the concerned ministries and agencies and will soon be approved, he said.

Fashola said that the level of work ongoing on the federal roads was a turnaround from what was obtained before the inception of President Muhammadu Buharis administration.

Most of these roads have been awarded eight years ago and the contractors have since abandoned them due to lack of funding. But today the contractors have returned to site.

The federal government is not in competition with any state government but to assist them in all ramifications for social economic development.

Our purpose is to help state governments connect to one another and to enhance efficiency in the movement of goods and persons, he said.

He said that the ongoing road projects have facilitated employments for residents, adding that this is reducing unemployment rate in the states.

Fashola said that the infrastructural projects had achieved job creation for the teeming residents of the state.

We can tell you authoritatively that the ongoing projects have employed over 1,000 residents at the various sites. This to a large extent will drive the economy out of recession, he said.

He called for the return of Oyo state government to the National Housing Fund programme, noting that the state is no longer participating in the programme.

The minister said that the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) was changing and now completing projects.

Fashola said that the FMBN was now returning a surplus of N2.7 billion, which he said was the highest recorded in the last 20 years.

Fashola appealed to the governor for additional 10 hectares of land to the initial four hectares allocated to them for the construction of federal housing units in the state.

He also appreciated the cordial relationship between officers of federal government and that of the state governments.

Mr Anya Omerekpe, the Federal Controller, Federal Ministry of Works in Oyo State, said that the ministry was managing 1,156 kilometres of federal roads in the state.

He stated that there are 11 ongoing federal government road projects in the state, thanking the state government for its cooperation.

Responding, Ajimobi commended the Fashola for his outstanding performance since inception as a minister, describing him as a field minister.

He said that he has never doubted Fasholas capability of delivering as a minister, adding that he performed creditably well as the governor of Lagos State.

Ajimobi said that the state has never experienced unprecedented presence of a minister in terms of infrastructural development like Fashola.

The governor ordered the release of 10 additional hectares of land to the federal ministry of housing for the building of housing units in the state.
U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, Wyoming's lone member of the House, blamed some of her colleagues for the stunning collapse of the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare on Friday afternoon.

House GOP leadership pulled the American Health Care Act, the replacement bill also referred to as Trumpcare, from consideration after it became clear that Speaker Paul Ryan did not have the votes to pass it.

"We thought we were in a position where we had the votes to repeal and replace it," Cheney said in an interview. "But you just had a number of Republicans who decided it was better to vote with Pelosi, better to vote essentially to maintain Obamacare."

While Republican defectors were split into two camps  moderates who worried the bill did too much and conservatives who worried it did too little  Cheney supported the AHCA and said it was an important first step toward improving the nation's health care system.

"It's such a shame," Cheney said. "These are people's lives we're talking about, and people have got to be rescued from this collapsing system."

Ryan and President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to replace Obamacare, both said Friday that they were now done attempting to replace Obamacare and would focus on other legislative goals.

But Cheney said that she was not finished with the issue.

"We've got to rescue the American health care system from Obamacare," she said. "Whether we're able to take it up in exactly the same form I don't know. We'll have to see."

Relief for some

Meanwhile, some Wyoming groups expressed relief that Obamacare will remain the law of the land  at least for now  after congressional Republicans abruptly pulled their repeal-and-replace plan without a vote.

Obamacare isnt perfect, said Eric Boley, executive director of the Wyoming Hospital Association. But the GOP replacement plan had too many unknowns.

We felt like this was moving too quickly and there were too many unanswered questions, specifically for Wyoming and what it would do for Wyoming, he said. Our request was to get that information before a vote.

Boley traveled to Washington on Monday and Tuesday to speak to Wyomings all-Republican congressional delegation  Cheney and Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso.

Additionally, executives at local hospitals made calls to the delegation and their staffs.

Im sure itll come back, Boley said.

The AHCA was widely unpopular, with just 17 percent of American voters supporting the legislation, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.

Among Republican voters, 41 percent supported the bill.

Cheney said the unpopularity was in part due to a misunderstanding of the repeal and replace process. She said the AHCA was one of three steps. The second step was for the Trump administration to make new rules giving more power to the states. Finally, Congress would pass more legislation to, for example, enable insurance companies to compete across state lines.

"Those three parts of the package were all critically important and necessary," Cheney said.

But many voters and major medical organizations balked at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Republican plan, which estimated that 24 million Americans would lose coverage if the AHCA became law.

The bill would have kept some popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the official name of Obamacare, including protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions and allowing children to stay on their parents insurance until age 26. But it would have repealed the individual mandate and changed the tax credit system that helps people who do not receive insurance through their employer to receive coverage.

Under Obamacare, the tax credits were tied to income but under Trumpcare they would have been pegged exclusively to age. Older Wyomingites, who currently receive subsidies of up to $14,330 could have seen that amount drop to $4,000. Amendments to the legislation introduced this week were meant to assuage the concerns about insurance costs for seniors but still failed to placate some moderate Republican lawmakers.

The AHCA would have also significantly changed Medicaid by capping the federal contribution to the program. A Star-Tribune analysis of the impact on Wyoming estimated the state could face a $239 million deficit for Medicaid over the next 10 years under Trumpcare.

The original legislation would have cut the federal deficit by $337 billion, an amount that was reduced following changes to provide more subsidies for seniors.

New plan sought

In a statement, Barrasso said the decision to pull the bill doesn't change the fact that Congress must act to address issues with Obamacare, which he called a failing law.

"Over the coming months, Congress and the Trump administration must find consensus on policies to lower health care costs for all Americans, he said.

Enzi also said Congress should continue to focus on reforms in the health care system.

"The status quo is failing millions of Americans and change is necessary so Congress will need to continue to work on improving health care for millions of Americans in order to lower costs, increase access and ultimately provide better care, " he said in a statement.

Wyoming is a rural state where health care is expensive. Wyomingites on the Obamacare insurance marketplace receive higher tax credits than the national average. Tax credits under the replacement plan would have been scaled back.

In Wyoming, 23,000 people have insurance purchased through the Obamacare exchange, including nearly 2,700 people in Natrona County. Ninety-four percent of Wyomingites on the exchanges receive subsidies, according to a Friday statement from the Wyoming Medical Center.

Officials at the Casper hospital expected its costs to increase with the repeal of Obamacare. They figured more people would be unable to afford health insurance under the repeal-and-replace bill, leaving the hospital to absorb costs of people using the emergency room, the statement said.

The hospital cannot turn away people from the ER if they're unable to pay.

"Wyoming Medical Center believes that the more people who have access to affordable health insurance, the healthier the community in which they live," read the statement, sent by spokeswoman Kristy Bleizeffer. "People who are insured access health care earlier in the disease process, when disease is both cheaper to treat and before it becomes catastrophic."

The repeal-and-replace bill was unpopular with many conservatives, who didnt think it guaranteed enough cost savings, and progressives, who thought it threw out too many good aspects of Obamacare.

"Thanks to the grassroots organizing of concerned Wyomingites and people across the country, this dangerous piece of legislation has failed, said Aimee Van Cleave, executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party. It is undeniable proof that when people take the time to share their stories and make their voices heard  legislators have no choice but to pay attention."

Van Cleave was disappointed that Cheney had said she was planning to vote for the GOP bill.

"Unfortunately, Rep. Cheney has once again proven that she is uninterested in the concerns of rural hospital officials, health care experts, and most importantly, everyday Wyomingites who have reached out to share how this bill would negatively impact their lives, she said.

Not all Wyomingites cheered the preliminary GOP failure to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Bill Schilling, president of the Wyoming Business Alliance, which advocates for companies in the state, said increases in health care for employers have been unsustainable in the past 10 years.

We had momentum on this as a fairly decisive issue in the election," Schilling said. "And its pretty clear that the current Affordable Care Act has flaws. So vote on it. Send it to the Senate to see what they will do in terms of their craftsmanship.
Kanu, who is in Kuje Prison, is the leader of the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB).

Speaking while receiving Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Owerri airport on Friday, March 24, Okorocha said there is a need for Nigerians to unite against all odds.

ALSO READ: Biafra agitator embarrasses Okorocha in London

The Governor said activities should be seen as youthful exuberance.

"What he is agitating for, is what others are agitating for too. But he used the wrong language and insulted leaders including myself. But this is the time for national reconciliation," The Sun quoted Okorocha as saying said.
An eyewitness, who spoke to Punch, said that the incident happened at 10, Prince Jamiu Oyebade Street, Ogijo.

He explained that the soldiers stormed the deceased's house on the invitation of his landlady over his outstanding two-month rent.

On arrival, the soldiers beat him mercilessly, after which he was taken to the Pillars Hospital, Ogijo.

The witness said: "The beating happened last week. It was the landlady of the victim that invited the military from 174 Battalion just because of little misunderstanding.

"The victim has been in the hospital since that last week before he finally gave up yesterday night.

"His family brought his body, dumped it at the front of the house for the landlady."

ALSO READ: Soldiers brutalize crippled man for wearing camouflage

Confirming the incident, the Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Abimbola Oyeyemi, identified the deceased as Adeola Oyekan.

He said an order of arrest has been issued for the landlady and his son.

Oyeyemi said: "The Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, has directed that the landlady and the son should be arrested.

"Through that, the son will be able to identify the soldiers."

The spokesman assured the victim's family that all those involved in the killing of their son will face the wrath of the law.
The News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) reports that Justice Umar Sifawa, gave the order in a ruling on a motion filed by the National Vice Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), North-West, Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir.

Abdulkadir had dragged Danbaba, the grandson of the late Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, to court for alleged defamation of character.

He alleged that Danbaba had in a publication in August, 2016, described his late father as a  slave bought by one Gwaggo, for two shillings.

The complainant had told the court that Danbaba said that he (Abdulkadir) did not take adequate care of his late mother.

The respondent had filed a notice of appeal on the ground that the court had erred by issuing a summon on March 13 and March 22, giving him only two days to appear before it for his defence.

The motion on notice filed by Danbabas counsel, Prof. Yusuf Dankofa, also said the court breached the appellants right to fair hearing and fair trial.

This, he averred, was in violation of section 36 ( 6) ( B), of the Constitution that states, every person charged with a criminal offence shall be entitled to be given adequate time and facility for the preparation of the defence.

Danbaba had also filed a motion on notice praying for the stay of the courts proceedings, pending the determination of his appeal at the State High Court.

The counsel to the complainant, Mr John Shaka, on Friday urged the court to strike out both the respondents motion on notice and notice of appeal.

Shaka had also prayed for the court to order the Inspector-General of Police to arrest and produce the respondent before the court.

The counsel to the respondent was, however, not in court on Friday.

In his ruling, Sifawa refused to grant the prayers of the complainant to strike out the respondents motion on notice and notice of appeal.

The Judge said, it is premature to do so as the accused should be given another chance to present his case, if he wishes to do so.

Sifawa, however, granted, in part, the prayer seeking the issuance of an order to the IGP for the arrest and production of Danbaba.

He said: This is to the effect that a bench warrant shall be issued immediately for the arrest and production of accused before the court.

But, the order is to the CP of Sokoto State and not the IGP as applied for, to arrest the accused wherever he is found in Nigeria, pending further instructions by the court.
Osinbajo made the promise on Friday in Umuahia during a town hall meeting with representatives of different groups from the oil-producing commumites in the state, comprising traditional rulers, women and youth groups.

He said that the federal government and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs would work hand-in-hand with the state government to ensure that beneficiaries of the amnesty programme hailed from Asa, the oil-producing area of Ukwa West Local Government Area of the state.

Osinbajo was reacting to the protest by the people of the area at the meeting that the state was not included in the programme.

The people publicly disowned the purported list of 237 indigenes from the oil-producing communities alleged to have benefited from the programme.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports Brig.-Gen. Paul Boroh, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, said at the forum that the record available to him showed that 237 people of the area had so far benefited from the programme.

The vice president, however, expressed concern over the alleged discrepancy in the list and the agitation that Abia was excluded from the programme.

It is clear from what happened here that somebody somewhere is doing something funny, Osinbajo said.

He therefore assured the people that there would be closer rapport between the federal and Abia governments to ensure that the state benefited from the programme.

Osinbajo also assured the people that government would also include Asa in the cleanup exercise as was being done in other Niger Delta regions in the country.

He further said that oil-producing communities in the country, including Asa, would also benefit from the modular refineries being planned by the federal government to integrate local refineries.

He said that the federal government had ordered contractors handling road projects in different parts of the country to return to site within 30 days or face prosecution.

He restated governments commitment toward job creation and technical training for the nations youth, saying that no fewer than 2,000 Abia youths were registered in the N-Power programme.

On the agitation for the establishment of a federal university in the oil-rich area of the state, the vice president said that it could only be achieved through collaboration between the federal and state governments along with the Nigeria Universities Commission.

He assured that the federal government would soon announce the names of the representatives of Abia and Ondo states in the boards of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

He thanked the youths of the area for their peaceful disposition and also commended the government and traditional rulers for restraining them from militancy and violent agitations.

He said that federal government was seriously committed to developing the Niger Delta region with the oil resources.

He therefore urged the people to join hands with the government to ensure that oil was utilised to better the lot of the people of the region now that the resources were available.

Osinbajo said that with the increasing decline in the demand for oil in the international market, we must make haste and move quickly to use the oil to transform the nation.

He said that China, India and America, which were highest importers of oil from Nigeria no longer had need for oil since they had found alternative sources of fuel.

The Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr Okey Enelama, said that Aba would benefit from the industrial parks and free trade zones being packaged by the federal government.

The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Usani Uguru, and Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachukwu, in their separate speeches underscored the various federal government initiatives to alleviate the plight of the oil-producing communities in Nigeria.

They said that the present administration was determined to redress the problem of environmental pollution and degradation in the Niger Delta region caused by years of neglect.

On his part, Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu said that no single Abia indigene has benefited from the amnesty programme.

Ikpeazu said that he was happy with the drama that played out at the hall and called for an inquiry on the purported list of 237 beneficiaries from the state as presented by Boroh.

He also requested that the oil companies operating in Ukwa West should be made to respect the rules and laws on local content in order to give the oil-bearing communities a sense of belonging.

Representatives of the various groups in their separate speeches called for federal governments presence in the area.

The speakers included former Senate President, Sen. Adolfus Wabara, and National Assembly members from Abia South Senatorial District, including Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe and Rep. Uzoma Abonta.

Others were Eze Young Ogbonna, Mr Chima Nwogu, Chief Don Ubani and a former Abia representative in the NDDC board.

They also called on the federal government to address the infrastructure needs of the area.

They urged the oil companies to improve on their scholarship scheme as well as job opportunities for youths of the area to check restiveness.
Addressing the invited guests at the IMAX Cinema, the filmmaker broke down in tears as she stated that the script and movie were created '100 %' by her.

She further described the court injunction as bullying and abuse of the law.

She was supported on the stage by MO Abudu, Kemi Lala Akindoju, Chioma Chukwuka, Ufuoma McDermott among others.

Read her full speech below;

"I'm so honoured that you're all here today, thank you so much. Thank you for honouring me, thank you for your support over the years, thank you for always being there when I call. It means so much to me, and I don't take it for granted. "

"I was really looking forward to showing you the movie tonight. The movie screened at Toronto International Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival and in America, but all that is nothing if Nigerian people don't see it. "

"Unfortunately, we can't show the film. At 5pm, we got an injunction from the court not to show this film. I'm sure some of you heard some allegation sometime ago, but, my story, my script, my movie, was written 100% by me. You can take that to the bank."

"What anybody says, what anybody does, it's all a lie. I don't know why this is happening, I work hard. "

"It's a shame that anybody would want to stop this. I mean, it has been a long process, we shot this movie last year, we have gone everywhere, we have put in so much money, publicity and everything, and some people are trying to stop it. "

"God is on the throne and it's fine. It will all come out in the wash. This is not going to stop me, I'm going to keep pushing. "

"I could have gone ahead to show this film today, but, I'm a law abiding citizen and I have to follow the law, unfortunately.

"I believe that it is bullying, I believe that it is abuse of the law, and we are going to take this up. "

The movie which was scheduled to premiere on March 24, 2017, at IMAX Cinema, Lekki Phase 1, was halted after Oboli, Dioni Visions and Filmone Distribution were served an injunction to stop the premiere and nationwide release of the movie.

The complaint was filed by Raconteur Productions. And, if the actress had proceeded with the premiere, she would have been guilty of contempt of court.

The complaint is related to the undefinedn 2016 by Canada-based writer, Jude Idada.

Pulse had reached out Oboli's Reps in 2016, but there was no response. When he revealed that he was in touch with his lawyer.
The only time you see something different is during the Ramadan, if the Sultan of Sokoto or Emir or someone highly placed in the Islamic world makes a statement.

This is really sad considering the fact that Nigeria is dominated by two religions, Christianity and Islam.

Worldwide, Islam is the second largest religion with 1.3 billion, as documented by The Register.

According to a new report, this number is only going to get bigger, since Islam is going to replace Christianity as the World's most popular religion in 53 years!

With all of these, why is there barely anything related to Islam in the Nigeria online space?

I took this concern to my friends, who are Muslims, and we came up with these three reasons.

1. Muslims do not rely on the Internet for religious knowledge: According to my friends, the Internet is not where Muslims go to for knowledge. Rather, they turn to scholars, Imams, Qu'rans and other Islamic texts. This implies that no serious Muslim is going to turn to Google for answers, when they have other, better ways.

2. The need to verify and state your sources: With Muslims, there is a need to know the source of your information. This means you can not just say anything without having proof. I learnt that every Hadith (sayings of the prophet) can still be traced to the prophet Muhammad himself, who lived about 1400 years ago!!!! Wow. So, you have to be able to prove what you are saying.

Also, anything that is said has to be backed by scholarly opinion because Muslims regard scholars as the successors and inheritors of the prophets. Abu Darda reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said,  This long chain of transmission of knowledge, combined with the need to be completely sure, definitely prevents the Internet from being overly jam-packed with information.

3. The fear of online bullying: My friends say that there is nothing as scary as not getting something wrong in Islam. This is because the religion is very structured, leaving little room for personal opinion. Jabir ibn Abdullah reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, would praise Allah in his sermon as He deserves to be praised and then he would say, Whoever Allah guides, no one can lead him astray. Whoever Allah sends astray, no one can guide him. The truest word is the Book of Allah and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad. The most evil matters are those that are newly invented

This means everything HAS to be based on the Qu'ran. When this is not the case, the person will be seriously criticised. In the words of my friend, "there is an eggshell approach to addressing Islamic issues." This means the fear of being criticised/bullied is strong enough to prevent anyone from saying or writing just anything on the Internet.

Basically, this is why we do not have enough Islam online presence as compared to Christainity.

Is this a bad thing? I don't think so.

I wish we had some of this kind of structure with Christians, then maybe we would not just have churches anywhere and everywhere, or people, who can just come with their own version of Christianity, which is usually different from what Jesus Christ stood for.

ALSO READ: 10 times South African pastors have embarrassed Christianity

Kudos to Muslims for doing their very best to stay true to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's delegation has sought to keep terrorism as the focus, accusing the main opposition High Negotiations Committee of partnering with extremists.

For the HNC, the issue of governance and especially Assad's removal is the top priority.

"All of them have to talk about all four (issues)", de Mistura told reporters after meeting the government and HNC. "That is (the) deal", he added, following the first full day of the round.

Speaking earlier, the regime's lead negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari said his camp had begun talks on the terrorism issue, given "developments on the ground."

Rebels and allied jihadists this week launched two surprise offensives on government positions in Damascus and central Hama province.

The HNC delegation chief Nasr al-Hariri told reporters the opposition had focused on political transition first.

The sides are meeting separately with the UN.

De Mistura said he would aim to mesh the ideas shared on all subjects by both sides when the round ends next Friday.

"I am not expecting miracles, I am not expecting breakthroughs ... and I am not expecting breakdowns," the UN envoy said, reiterating that agreement on the agenda was itself a mark of progress.

The fact that talks were going ahead despite an escalation of violence was also a "sign of maturity" among the rival camps, he said.

De Mistura added that he will fly to Jordan's capital for one day on Monday to brief an Arab League meeting on the negotiations, with his deputy Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy leading the round for a day.

Four previous rounds have yielded little with the government emboldened following major military victories in recent months helped partly by strong support from its ally Russia.
The 39-year-old Tunisian, identified as Mohamed R. was charged with "an attempt to murder in a terrorist manner, an attempt to hit and wound in a terrorist manner and arms infractions," the federal prosecutor's office said.

The authorities said they found a rifle and bladed weapons in the car after they arrested the suspect on Thursday.

The man drove at high speed through the shopping area, forcing people to jump out of the way, authorities said.

He also ignored an initial order to stop by soldiers.

A source close to the investigation said the man was "under the influence of something" but it was not clear what substance.
Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through the world's busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai.

Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban, including Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport and Qatar's Hamad International Airport.

And while the ban has sparked anger across the region for again targeting majority-Muslim countries, some increasingly wary travellers shrugged off the latest restriction.

"It's a rule. I follow the rules," said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year.

"The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours."

Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

"When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again," read a statement emailed to AFP.

The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.
The Eagle force, as it is called, consists of 300 officers with access to intelligence.

They are tasked with cracking down on drug-related criminal activity in Panama City and the major Atlantic coast city of Colon, each located at either entrance to the Panama Canal.

"Unfortunately, in the cities of Panama and Colon there are powerful narco gangs operating," President Juan Carlos Varela said.

The flow of drugs coming from Colombia, with much headed for the United States, has created a spike in violence as Panama's 150 gangs compete for turf and smuggling routes, he said.
Two challengers vying to unseat the current Democratic-NPL Partys chairwoman next month say the party needs to return to its roots and rebuild.

The partys reorganization meeting is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. April 8 in the auditorium at the North Dakota Heritage Center, located on the state Capitol grounds.

Elections for state party chair, vice chair, secretary, treasurer and regional representatives will be chosen.

Chairwoman Kylie Oversen is running for a second two-year term. Challenging her are newly elected District 8 chairman and 2016 District 8 House candidate Casey Buchmann as well as C.T. Marhula, a former Grand Forks School Board member.

Theres a lot of new energy and excitement. We have a lot of new people at the table, Oversen said.

A new infusion of energy and attendance at district party reorganization meetings across the state is in response to the election of Republican Donald Trump as president, according to Oversen.

The Democrats face a steep uphill climb to regain its voice at the state level. Net losses of 10 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate were sustained in November as state Republicans rode Trumps coattails and outmatched Democrats on the campaign trail.

Oversen was among the House members defeated in November.

Republicans hold their largest legislative majorities in decades as well as every statewide elected office in the Capitol tower and two of three seats in the congressional delegation.

Oversen said the party held meetings around the state following the election and has begun efforts to improve party infrastructure.

The effort of the state party last cycle and the continued losses is unacceptable, according to Oversen's challengers.

We need a wholesale change. We need to start from the ground up. We have no teeth," said Buchmann, adding the party needs to make a concerted effort to be more visible, particularly in the rural districts, and make a far stronger case to voters.

The party has ignored farmers, ranchers and labor groups, ceding ground to Republicans for too long, according to Buchmann, who said the state party needs to step out of the national Democratic Partys shadow and provide a vision on issues state residents care about and less emphasis on social issues that resonate more in states on either coast.

That doesnt mean squat to a farmer, Buchmann said of some social issues, such as gay marriage.

Marhulas rhetoric was similar to Buchmanns.

We have to return to our Nonpartisan League roots and adopt a 47-district strategy, Marhula said. I was really disappointed in the effort last cycle. What works in Cavalier might not work in Bismarck or Fargo.

The party has several strong districts that should make an effort to help mentor and work with weaker neighboring districts, said Marhula, adding that, if he were chair, hed meet with leaders in each district and develop complete plans and goals for each district to achieve in terms of rebuilding themselves.

If the party can distinguish itself from the national party and speak to voters on North Dakota issues such as jobs, health care, agriculture and others they can rebound, he said.

In North Dakota were a meat and potatoes party, Martula said.

North Dakota GOP Chairman Kelly Armstrong, who will be running for a second two-year term, said that partys reorganization and leadership elections will be held the first weekend in June.
It said it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strike on the town Hammuriyeh in the opposition bastion of Eastern Ghouta, which has been targeted by both the government and its ally Russia in the past.

"Sixteen civilians, including a child, were killed and around 50 others wounded in an air strike on the main street in the town of Hammuriyeh," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

He could not immediately confirm if all the wounded were civilians, or if some were rebel fighters.

The death toll could rise further because a number of the injured were in serious condition, he added.

An AFP photographer saw members of the White Helmets rescue organisation removing survivors from the aftermath of the street, including a man whose face was coated in blood.

Other White Helmet volunteers sprayed water from hoses onto smoking rubble including overturned and mangled cars.

Elsewhere, a man carried two children, a girl in yellow fluffy pyjamas, her hair stiff with dust, and a smaller child whose head was haphazardly bandaged.

Another carried the lifeless body of a child, half its head missing below a crop of black curls.

The Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus has been under a devastating government siege since 2012, and is also the regular target of regime air strikes and artillery fire.

It is the last remaining opposition stronghold near Damascus, where a string of local "reconciliation deals" have seen villages and towns brought back under the control of President Bashar al-Assad's government.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said Thursday he had complained to his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro about the "totally unacceptable" move by Venezuelan troops who had camped out for more than 48 hours near the Colombian border town of Arauquita.

Colombia said the troops withdrew Thursday only after Bogota's energetic protests.

But Padrino insisted that his troops had never left Venezuelan soil.

"We are sure that the encampment, in the Los Pajaros sector, is in our territory," the general said in a video released by the Telesur network in Caracas.

A Venezuelan government statement said the incident was probably caused by a shifting of the course of the Arauca River, which marks the boundary between the countries.

"The riverbed is constantly changing as a result of flooding,"" said a statement read by Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez. This had led to previous "differences of interpretation," she added.

Rodriguez, without admitting to any error, said the issue would be taken up by "technical diplomatic teams."

Padrino, too, avoided any mention of a troop "withdrawal," saying only that soldiers had been moved "more to the interior of our territory to facilitate political dialogue" and to "clarify what are the correct and historical boundaries."

The two countries began reopening in August border crossings closed a year earlier after an armed attack on a Venezuelan military patrol that left three soldiers wounded.
Amos Yee, 18, shocked Singaporeans in March 2015 after posting an expletive-laden video attacking Lee as the founding prime minister's death triggered a massive outpouring of grief in the city-state.

He was jailed for four weeks for hurting the religious feelings of Christians and posting an obscene image as part of his attacks on Lee -- whose son Lee Hsien Loong is now the prime minister -- but served 50 days including penalties for violating bail conditions.

He was jailed again in 2016 for six weeks for insulting Muslims and Christians in a series of videos posted online, but critics claim the real reason was to silence him.

The Singapore government had no immediate reaction to the ruling, which is still open to an appeal by the US government.

Yee's lawyer Sandra Grossman of Maryland-based Grossman Law LLC told AFP by telephone that US immigration judge Samuel B. Cole had granted her client's application for asylum.

"Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore," the judge said in the decision, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

"Accordingly, this court grants his application for asylum."

The judge said evidence presented during the hearing "demonstrates Singapore's persecution of Yee was a pretext to silence his political opinions critical of the Singapore government".

He also described Yee as a "young political dissident".

Singapore, an island republic of 5.6 million which has long been been criticised for strict controls on dissent, takes pride in its racial and social cohesion, which it regards as essential for stability in a volatile region.

The US Department of Homeland Security had opposed Yee's asylum application, saying he was legally prosecuted by the Singapore government.

Yee, a filmmaker-turned-activist, was detained by US authorities after he arrived in Chicago airport in December.

Speaking by telephone from Maryland, lawyer Grossman, who has represented Yee for free, said the US government "has the right to appeal this decision" within the next 30 days.

"The law agrees that he is eligible for immediate release," Grossman said.

-- 'Quintessential political dissident' --

The lawyer said she contacted the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office on Friday and was told Yee will be transferred to an ICE detention facility in Chicago on Monday and will be considered for release.

Phil Robertson, campaign group Human Rights Watch's deputy Asia director, lauded the US judge's asylum decision.

"There was never any doubt that Amos Yee is the quintessential political dissident, escaping from the sort of a pressure cooker environment that city-state Singapore excels in devising for dissidents who challenge its prerogatives," Robertson told AFP.

"It's clear the Singapore government saw Amos Yee as the proverbial nail sticking up that had to be hammered down."

Activist Shelley Thio, of the rights group Community Action Network Singapore, said Yee's mother, Mary, received the news of the decision "with much relief".

"Grossman Law is now trying to secure Amos' release and we are hopeful that Amos will be released soon," Thio said.

In Yee's video attacking Lee, he compared the late leader, who was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, to Jesus, saying "they are both power-hungry and malicious but deceive others into thinking they are compassionate and kind".
"What exactly are they celebrating? The fact that they are talking about a multi-speed Europe shows they have accepted defeat. They don't have a clue about how to create a unified Europe," Varoufakis said.

As the finance minister who attempted, unsuccessfully, to defy Germany and international lenders at the height of Greece's debt crisis, Varoufakis is liked by critics of the EU's economic "austerity" policies.

Ahead of unveiling his plans for a pro-growth European New Deal on Saturday, he hit out at EU leaders' "business as usual" approach, which he said "is fanning the flames of xenophobia and populism."

He said his New Deal proposals -- coinciding with the official EU event marking 60 years after the Treaty of Rome launched the process of European integration -- involved issuing European Investment Bank bonds to promote growth.

These could be used to fund green technologies and guarantee employment in struggling areas of Europe, reducing the migration that has created tensions and contributed to Britain's vote to leave the EU, he said.

"It's not just a bunch of idealistic goals," he said of the plans, which were drawn up by a 20-strong team of economists, also insisting that DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe 2025) "is not a left-wing movement".

"It is trying to do what European democrats should have done in 1930, after the Wall Street crash and just before Europe descended into an abyss," he added.

He said a crisis was looming when European Central Bank governor Mario Draghi turns off the quantitative easing taps.

"There is a serious risk of the tapering of quantitative easing threatening the integrity of the eurozone, especially at the periphery."

Varoufakis said DiEM25 was an open platform to develop policies that established political parties could adopt, but he did not rule out it presenting its own candidates at the 2019 elections to the European Parliament.
Nye Countys graduation rate has fluctuated over the past few years due to various changes to how the state of Nevada compiles the number.

The rate has gone from 64.9 percent in 2011, to 56.3 percent in 2012, jumping to 70.2 percent in 2013. But a change in how the state found the cohort, or the percent of group, in this case the students, who have a shared a particular event together during a precise time span, was found in the system that represented that hike.

The number has been more stable over the past few years, with the latest number coming in at 69 percent in 2015. That number is the most accurate number that has been reported over the past five years, according to Nye County School District Assistant Superintendent/Chief Academic Officer Dr. Kim Friel.

Were at 69.01 percent right now and thats without including the fifth-year seniors at this point, Friel said. The fifth year seniors are the ones who just took proficiency again.

Friel said that 119 seniors did not receive a diploma for various reasons this past graduating year. Of those, 27 were fifth-year seniors, who have recently retaken the proficiency exam.

If they pass proficiency, that (graduation) rate will go up, Friel said. Those 27 can move us up to 70 percent.

Another segment of students that negatively affects the graduation rates are those who transfer out of district and are accounted for once they depart.

Lets say someone withdraws and they dont request a transcript and we dont know where they went, they become a dropout for us automatically, Friel said. This happens because a kid could leave us in 9th grade and move to a state where 9th grade is in middle school and theyre going into 10th grade and they dont need their transcripts.

Adult education, or those seeking their equivalency diploma after their high school career has concluded, hurt the graduating number as much as anyone, as they have a 4 percent graduation rate.

The graduation rate from 2015 is based on all students who entered their 9th grade year during the 2011-2012 school year anywhere, who attended at least one day in a Nye County School District high school, and who left without being known to have enrolled into another school prior to the end of the 2014-2015 school year. The rate is based on students who earned a standard diploma, an advanced diploma or an adult education diploma.

Students who are freshman in 2016 will be the last graduating class to use the Nevada High School Proficiency test as their pass-fail determiner.

If they dont pass it, it doesnt matter if they passed all four years of high school and everything else, if they cant pass their proficiency, theyre not going to graduate, theyre not going to get a diploma, Friel said. So thats why the fifth year senior came into play, so they can study for the proficiency and pass it.

Starting in 2017, students will begin taking tests at the completion of various classes throughout their high school career called the end of course test.

Those proficiency exams are given at the end of Algebra I, Geometry, English 9 and English 10, Friel said. Then there is the ACT test that they will take as juniors and they will combine it all together and that becomes their proficiency. Not this one test that takes all at the end of their schooling.

The ACT test is now required to be taken by all students during their junior year.

Once the new testing goes into effect, Friel sees a spike in the rate taking place in the district initially.

For two years its going to go sky high, Friel said of the graduation rates after the new testing guidelines go into place. This years juniors and sophomores, so the class of 2017 and 2018, theyre actually setting the baseline scores for all of those exams for the state.

Once they set those baseline scores, the class of 2019, which are freshmen this school year, they will be held to those scores and they cannot graduate unless they have those scores plus pass all their classes, Friel explained.

They look at a lot of things, I couldnt really tell you how they come up with the baseline, but they will come up with the baseline similar to the high school proficiency, she said. For proficiency they decided that 311 was the score that they determined that somebody passed  311 of 500.

There are several steps taken within the school district to give students all the assistance they need in order to graduate from high school.

Credit recovery is set up so that once a student fails a class they can enter the program so they can pass that class. There is also tutoring at all the schools. Pathways Innovative Education has test prep in high school proficiency and the graduation equivalency test prep as well. Individual teachers within each high school also provide one-on-one tutoring for interested students.

If the student really wants the help, we can get them the help, Friel said.

With all the aid offered to students along with the number increasing in 2015 over 2014, Friel said the district is aiming at the number rising once again next year.

Were aiming at getting the number to 70 percent this year without having to wait for the fifth year seniors to finish, she said. Then the fifth year seniors will just add to it.

Contact reporter Mick Akers at makers@pvtimes.com. Find him on Twitter: @mickakers.
What began as a Quad-City couple's search for a new location for their own growing businesses has led to revival of a vacant department store in northwest Davenport.

Chris and Lisa Belser needed a building to house her business-to-business services company PSS (Promotion Support Services), which had outgrown the former industrial space it occupied in Rock Island. After a lengthy search for the right property, they bought the closed K's Merchandise store/warehouse at Marquette Street and West Kimberly Road in 2014.

It was big enough for a trio of their businesses, including PSS, Dimensional Graphics and an second location for his Bi-State Masonry. But the Port Byron, Illinois, couple did more than carve out space in the 82,000-square-feet building for their own interests. They created a new office/retail development at 1320 W. Kimberly Road that now is 100 percent leased.

The property now is known as Robin Creek Centre for the creek that runs along two sides of it.

Chris Belser said they have plans to build a second structure that would face south toward Marquette Street and could hold another four retail units.

"We'll start that in the spring of 2018," he said, adding that they have done much of the renovation work themselves. "We just need a little break."

Their company, Belser Ventures, which also offices there, acquired the building three years ago from JJZ Corp., a corporation formed by Centennial Contractors of Moline. The previous owners met opposition from neighbors to their plans for a warehouse operation. The new Popeyes Chicken also was built on property JJZ Corp. had owned.

"It's worked great for us. It's been a blessing, and we're glad to help the west end a little bit,'' said Chris Belser, who, along with his wife, is a Davenport native. "I think the area is booming a little bit."

Among their tenants is the newest arrival, QC Antiques, as well as the Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center, mortgage company Members Financial and Phoenix Nails & Spa.

The blood center's new donor center, which relocated Nov. 1 from the nearby CASI, has benefited from the increased visibility, said Kirby Winn, the blood center's spokesman. "It's good for us to be in locations where there are other successful businesses or offices because of the traffic."

He said the additional space also will allow the blood center to relocate its blood services for cancer patients from its headquarters in east Davenport to the new west Davenport site.

"We like having that presence on West Kimberly," Winn said. In fact, the new location has seen a 10 percent increase in whole blood donations and a 40 percent increase in platelet donations. Part of the increase, he said, is due to a new piece of equipment that it did not have room for at its previous location.

PSS did not have the same visibility needs and occupies only a small storefront in the front of the building. But PSS' operation takes up the whole back of the building, Belser said.

PSS provides business-to-business services such as transcription and data entry services, order fulfillment, statement rendering and more. Lisa Belser, who ran the operation since it was founded in 1989, bought it in November 2011.

As one of the area's largest mailers, Chris Belser said they acquired Dimensional Graphics, in part, because of the volume of printing PSS has. "But we're printing for anybody, not just us."

With 60,000 square feet, PSS anchors the building with two floors of offices and the warehouse space. It has 110 employees. Dimensional Graphics employs 10 people.

The property houses a second office for Bi-State Masonry, headquartered in Rock Island, which employs a total of 50.

"We've added 50 employees just at PSS in the last two to three years and we're still looking to expand," Chris Belser said. Dimensional Graphics has added three or four.
The Quad-City region's Memorial Day racing tradition has added a most appropriate name to its moniker  the Kwik Star Criterium.

Think about it. Those bicyclists have to be "kwik" as they race through the hilly Village of East Davenport course. And to the cheering spectators, I'm sure they are the stars of the criterium.

The Quad-Cities Bicycle Club, which runs the annual race, said Kwik Star stores' parent company, Kwik Trip Inc., has signed on as the title sponsor.

"The race has a great history and long tradition so we are grateful for the opportunity to help support an event which benefits the Quad-Cities and our surrounding communities," said Carl Rick, the company's public relations specialist and third-generation owner.

The sponsorship comes as Kwik Star has widened its footprint here with six Kwik Star stores and one Kwik Star Express across the Iowa Quad-Cities.

"We'd like to get a few more in the area," Rick said, adding that the company has plans to open 50-55 new stores across Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Bicycle club member John Harrington said the club is excited to have the new title sponsor. "While our race draws racers from all over the country, the core of our ridership and spectators are from Iowa and the surrounding states," he said.

Kwik Trip is one of the nation's largest independently held convenience store chains. Headquartered in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, it is privately held by the Zietlow family. The chain includes more than 550 Kwik Trip and Kwik Star stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa and employs more than 18,000.

Rick said the company, founded in 1965, now is three generations strong. In fiscal 2016, Kwik Trip donated $11 million in support of its communities.

It now adds its name to a race as old as its company. Launched as the Moline Criterium, the race has seen several evolutions and moved in 2014 to the village.

1st Gateway's CEO elected to national board

Pat Drennen, CEO of 1st Gateway Credit Union, Camanche, has been elected to the board of directors of the Credit Union National Association, or CUNA.

A 27-year employee of 1st Gateway, he was a member of the Iowa Credit Union League board of directors for more than 20 years  including three as its board chair. Drennen began his career as a state credit union examiner.

Jim Nussle, the national association's president, said Drennen's "vast experience throughout many levels of the credit union system will serve the CUNA/League system well as we work to improve the operating environment for credit unions."

Drennen served on several Iowa League's subsidiary companies, including his current board position on TMG Financial Services, the credit card portfolio management company. He also is the league's principal key contact for U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Drennen is one of four board directors representing District 4, which covers Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin.

Best burgers trimmed to Top 10 in Iowa



From the follow-up file: The 2017 Iowa's Best Burger contest now is down to the Top 10, and sorry folks, the Quad-Cities is not represented.

Iowans submitted more than 9,200 nominations for nearly 500 Iowa restaurants, which organizers say is a new contest record.

Those making the final cut are Ankeny Diner, Ankeny; BeerBurger, North Liberty; BW's Burgers, West Des Moines; Doc's Stadium Bar & Grill, Jefferson; Down Right Delicious, Clarinda; Elm's Club, Creston; Saucy Focaccia, Cedar Rapids; Smokin Hereford, Storm Lake; The Irish Shanit, Elgin; and Vaughn's Cafe and Bakery, Clarinda.

The Top Ten now will be visited by a panel of anonymous judges and a winner will be crowned May 1.

For more information on the contest, visit www.iabeef.org.
A public Vietnam Veteran Remembrance Ceremony will be 10 a.m. Wednesday at VFW Post 8890, 1810 1st St., East Moline. The ceremony will include the reading of a roll call of all the Quad-City area names of the Iowa and Illinois veterans who were killed in the Vietnam War.
A Davenport couple was arrested this week after investigators say they sold heroin in the Quad-Cities over at least a three-year period.

Derrick A. Stewart, 48, and Teresa M. Bush, 42, made an initial appearance Thursday in U.S. District Court, Davenport, on a charge of conspiracy to distribute heroin.

Preliminary and detention hearings are scheduled for Tuesday.

According to the federal criminal complaint unsealed Thursday:

On March 2, the Scott County Sheriffs Office executed a search warrant at Stewart and Bushs home in the 600 block of West 51st Street.

Deputies who searched their room discovered a locked safe; Stewart provided deputies with the code to unlock it.

Inside, deputies found a clear plastic bag with 16.6 grams of purported heroin, cash and a loaded .40-caliber Hi-point handgun.

A .380-caliber handgun was found in a bedroom closet. On the bed was a digital scale, a roll of aluminum foil commonly used to package heroin, as well as empty prepared foils to be used to package user quantity heroin for distribution.

Stewart told deputies that he buys heroin from a supplier in Chicago and that he and Bush have been driving to Chicago every other week for the past three years.

The first year, they purchased 20 grams every week. By the third year, they were purchasing 50 grams every other week.

Stewart and Bush said they had been paying $6,000 each time for the past year and have a standing order with their supplier.

They said they typically meet their supplier in a drug store parking lot on the south side of Chicago. Once they meet the supplier, Bush gets into the suppliers vehicle and exchanges the money for a sealed chips bag that contains heroin.

Based on information provided by Stewart, officers estimate that the two have distributed more than 2,000 grams of heroin in the Quad-Cities, according to the criminal complaint.
DAVENPORT  Rosa Elba Knapp, 66, of Davenport, died peacefully the afternoon of March 22, 2017, in the presence of her husband of 45 years, David, and her three adult children. Per Rosas wishes, cremation rites have been accorded. A funeral Mass will be 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 1, at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Davenport. The family members will greet friends one hour prior to the service at the church. Cunnick-Collins Mortuary and Cremation Service is assisting the family with arrangements.

On Sept. 9, 1950, Rosa was born to Victor Alfonso Suarez and Noris Suarez M. in the Port of Callao, (Lima) Peru. During her lifetime, she traveled to many countries and lived in Peru, Brazil and England, where she attended university and finally to the United States. Rosa had a gift for languages with the ability to speak and write fluently in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and Italian. She used her linguistic skills as a volunteer interpreter for the local police and fire departments around the Quad-Cities. Recognizing the need, she worked with local police departments to develop and teach Spanish for Police classes for police officers, firefighters and first responders. This experience led to her opening a successful Davenport-based business called Translations Unlimited providing interpreting and translating services in and around the Quad-City area. In addition to her work life, Rosa immensely loved and enjoyed her family and grandchildren.

Rosa is survived by her mother, Noris Escudero, of Lima, Peru; her husband, David Knapp, of Davenport; her brothers, Victor Alfonso Tito Suarez, of Weston, Florida, and Cecil Fell Jr. of Miami, Florida; her children, Teresa Harrington, of Spanish Fort, Alamba, Rossana Nelson, of Davenport and Paul Knapp, of Chicago; her five grandchildren, Savannah, Remington, Cannon Roark, Sydney and Mia Nelson.

The family wishes to thank all of those who helped care for her during her illness, especially the Genesis Visiting Nurse Association and Genesis Hospice nursing staff.

Online condolences may be shared with the family at www.Cunnick-Collins.com.
Unique spices, vibrant colors and joyous music are major staples in the Indian culture, but in North Dakota there isnt always a chance to experience authentic Indian food. So the Carmelite Sisters of Spirit of Life Catholic Church will bring the cuisine to Mandan.

From 6 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Spirit of Life Catholic Church will host "A Taste of India." The supper, open to the public, will feature various Indian dishes, including chili chicken, shrimp curry, fried rice, appam and stew, paratha and beef curry as main dishes. For dessert, there will be payasam, sugiyan and fried plantain. The meal will be served buffet style, with a freewill donation.

The purpose of the event is to help raise funds for the churchs Mother Teresa Outreach program.

Joy and happiness, Sister Mary Michael said of the meal's offerings. Michael, who is from south India and joined the congregation in 1976 when she was 19, has been a sister for 39 years. She has served in different parts of India, Italy and has been at Spirit of Life for two years. Michael says she takes a holistic approach to serving social, spiritual and economic needs.

The cultural event invites people to come and experience a little bit of India, said Cheryl Hansen, the churchs finance and business administrator. The outreach program and the fundraiser was secondary to the idea that this could be a great community social event where we come together and have a meal and the sisters are able to interact with the people."

For more information, call Spirit of Life Catholic Church, 701-663-1660.
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFNS) | The Air Force released an industry invitation to participate today to evaluate the military utility of light attack platforms in future force structure.

The invitation is part of a broader Air Force effort to explore cost-effective attack platform options. The live-fly experiment is an element of the Light Attack Capabilities Experimentation Campaign run by the Air Force Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and is currently scheduled for summer at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.

This is an evolution of the close air support experimentation effort which we have now broadened to include a variety of counter-land missions typical of extended operations since Desert Storm, said Lt. Gen. Arnie Bunch, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisitions military deputy.

Industry members are invited to participate with aircraft that may meet an Air Force need for a low-cost capability that is supportable and sustainable. This spring the Air Force will analyze data received from vendors seeking to participate in the experimentation campaign and will then invite selected offerors to participate in a live-fly capabilities assessment this summer.

The Air Force will host the live-fly experiment to assess the capabilities of these off-the-shelf attack aircraft. Industry participants will participate with suitable aircraft, which will be flown by Air Force personnel in scenarios designed to highlight aspects of various combat missions, such as close air support, armed reconnaissance, combat search and rescue, and strike control and reconnaissance.

The live-fly experiment also includes the employment of weapons commonly used by other fighter/attack aircraft to demonstrate the capabilities of light attack aircraft for traditional counter-land missions.

After 25 years of continuous combat operations, our Air Force is in more demand than ever, said Lt. Gen. Jerry Harris, the deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements. Since we dont expect deployment requirements to decrease, we have to look for innovative and affordable ways to meet capability demands in permissive environments while building and maintaining readiness to meet emerging threats in more contested environments.

The live-fly experimentation will include a number of mission events including medium altitude basic day and night surface attack, precision munition surface attack, armed reconnaissance and close air support.

This is an experiment, not a competition, said Harris, emphasizing the event may not necessarily lead to any acquisition.

Experimentation and prototyping are envisioned as potential pathways to identify new operational concepts and candidate capabilities which can be rapidly and affordably fielded. The Air Force is interested in using agile solutions by leveraging rapid acquisition authorities where appropriate, to meet anticipated needs.

The results of the Light Attack Capabilities Experimentation Campaign will be used to inform requirements and criteria for future investment decisions.

To view the industry invitation to participate on the Federal Business Opportunities website, visit go.usa.gov/xXBXE.
Three days after turning 82, a Rapid Valley man was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for aggravated assault and discharging a firearm at a motor vehicle in 2016.

At an October trial in 7th Circuit Court, Raymond Elliott was convicted of the two felonies and a misdemeanor charge of second-degree intentional damage to private property.

According to law enforcement reports filed in court, Elliott pointed a pistol at James Williams, who was driving a tractor near his home on South Valley Drive in April, and fired at the vehicle, damaging two of the tires. Williams, 67, was apparently cleaning out a ditch at the edge of Elliotts property.

Elliott, an Air Force veteran, pleaded not guilty to all three charges and said he had acted in self-defense. A jury, after deliberating for an hour at a one-day trial, found him guilty on all counts.

At the sentencing hearing Friday, Deputy States Attorney Josh Hendrickson described the case as very unusual because of Elliotts age and lack of criminal history.

Hendrickson said he would have recommended probation. But because Elliott never accepted responsibility for the offenses, and Hendrickson said its likely he will act the same way again, the prosecutor asked the court for eight-year concurrent sentences.

Each of Elliotts felony offenses carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison, and the misdemeanor, a year in jail.

Defense lawyer Angela Colbath explained that Elliott disagreed with the outcome of his case because he believed his first attorney did not present important information at the trial.

Colbath described her client as well-educated and accomplished. He graduated from South Dakota School of Mines & Technology with an electrical engineering degree in 1961. He has four patents and has had his work published in scientific journals, according to the court.

Colbath asked Judge Matthew Brown for a probationary sentence. Elliott declined to speak.

This is not an easy decision, Brown said before pronouncing a prison sentence to help safeguard the community.

Elliott received four years on each of his felony convictions, to be served at the same time. For the misdemeanor, Brown gave him credit for the day he was detained in jail after his arrest in April. He will be eligible for parole after serving two years.

Elliott, wearing a black suit and red-striped tie, was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.
Trials that were scheduled Friday for a troubled hotel company were averted by an agreement to keep a Black Hills hotel closed while the company pursues several permits.

The Winona Inn Limited Partnership, which is registered to Mark Arend, of St. Paul, Minn., faces charges for ordinance violations in magistrate court and a related complaint in civil court, both filed by the Pennington County States Attorneys Office.

Both cases arose from problems with the septic system at the Lodge at Mount Rushmore, a seasonally operated, 50-room hotel just outside the Keystone city limits and about five miles from Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

Septic systems are underground structures  typically consisting of tanks and drain fields  used to treat wastewater in rural areas that lack centralized sewer systems. Public complaints about the The Lodge at Mount Rushmore's septic system have brought government inspectors to the hotel on multiple occasions. During some visits, inspectors noted a stench emanating from the system and observed raw sewage surfacing from an underground drain field.

Pennington County charged Arend in magistrate court with violating county ordinances and sought fines as punishment. The county also filed a complaint in civil court seeking an order preventing the hotel from operating until it comes into regulatory compliance.

A court order agreed to by Arend and the county forestalled trials in both cases, which were scheduled to run back to back Friday at the Pennington County Courthouse.

The order states, in part, that the hotel will remain closed pending the issuance of several items: an underground injection control permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a lodging license from the South Dakota Department of Health and a conditional operating permit for the septic system from Pennington County. The order also states that no further guest reservations will be accepted pending the EPAs final decision on the underground injection control permit, and the hotel must make reasonable efforts to notify guests affected by the closure and must refund money paid for affected reservations.

The EPA previously announced its intent to deny a permit to the hotel, pending a public comment period. That period ended this month. An EPA spokeswoman said Friday that the agency is reviewing the comments and anticipates a final decision before the end of April.

The new court order says a status hearing on the two pending county cases will be scheduled within 30 days, or as the courts calendar allows.
[Breaking news update, published at 4:39 p.m. ET]

One person was killed Saturday by a shooter on the Las Vegas Strip, police spokesman Officer Larry Hadfield said, and one other person was wounded. The suspect is barricaded on a bus, and tactical teams and negotiators are on the scene on Las Vegas Boulevard.

[Previous story, published at 4:22 p.m. ET]

Part of the Las Vegas Strip was shut down Saturday as police investigated a shooting that sent at least one person to the hospital.

Police surrounded a bus as they investigated the shooting, Officer Larry Hadfield told CNN. Police said they believe the shooter is on the bus.

"This incident is being treated as a barricade at this time. There is no credible information that there is a second suspect," Hadfield said.

The Cosmopolitan Hotel, near where the bus was parked, said its staff was cooperating with police but that it had no other details about the shooting.

Developing story - more to come
MADRID - Spain's exports to China hit a record high in 2016 with 5.03 billion euros ($5.43 billion), Spanish news agency EFE reported on Friday.

Spanish exports to China increased by 14.8 percent in 2016 year-on-year, hitting a record high of 5.03 billion euros, according to data from the ICEX (the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade).

The rise was led by the agri-food industry, whose exports rose by 58 percent in 2016 when compared with the previous year, especially because of pork exports, as well as beer, olive oil and wine shipping.

Exports of pork products rose by 80 percent last year to 700 million euros with a total of 420,000 tons of pork products shipped to the Asian country.

Meanwhile, exports of olive oil rose by 14 percent in 2016 year-on-year, those of wine increased by 23 percent and those of beer rose by 45 percent, according to the report.
"I will regret (my) vote on (Oklahoma Attorney General Scott ) Pruitt if he breaks his promise."

 Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., explaining she voted to confirm Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency after he promised to maintain the Renewable Fuel Standard Program, which mandates an increased use of ethanol to be blended into the country's fuel supply annually.

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"The purpose of the committee is to encourage people to find ways to do projects that will help people remember World War I."

 Susan Wefald, vice chair of the North Dakota World War I Centennial Commission.

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"It's not a joint (sold) on a street corner. You get it, it is what you get."

 Rep. Robin Weisz, R-Hurdsfield, on making sure the medical marijuana program is safe.

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"These are people who are in really difficult situations financially, who are really humiliated by the idea that they have to come and apply for benefits to get them through this rough patch. This is just one more insult to them."

 Sen. Judy Lee, R-West Fargo, opposing a bill to require those who seek Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits through the state's Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program to undergo an addiction screening. The Senate rejected the bill.

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"He was always a gentleman, worked very hard for his clients, but always a gentleman."

 Al Hardy, the former law partner to Judge Donald Jorgensen. Jorgensen died this week at 72.

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"You want to live in an area that's close to stores, that's close to the library, that's close to restaurants, that's close to businesses. You want to be able to do stuff without having to get in your car."

 Nick Schwieters, 32, a community magazine publisher from Bismarck, on the desire to live downtown.

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"The biggest thing is he believes in law and order."

 Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., urging President Donald Trump to retain Chris Myers as the U.S. attorney for the district of North Dakota.

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"The oil market is under pressure, and U.S. inventories continue to build, despite OPEC efforts to reduce supply. This has resulted in the delay of the customary seasonal gas price spike. Gas prices could drop in the short term, but the downward trend may only be temporary."

 Gene LaDoucer, North Dakota spokesman for AAA-The Auto Club Group, on why gas prices have remained low.

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"I really enjoyed it, actually, but I did not think I would get that far."

 Rayne Korsmo, 12, representing Grand Forks County, after he won the North Dakota State Spelling Bee.

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"At some time in the next year, we will be a full-fledged radio station to the point of where we'll have local news, local sports."

 Jay Schmaltz, discussing the Linton High School radio station, KLHS.
The U.S. Constitution is arguably the greatest governing document ever written. But great notwithstanding, our Constitution has its frailties. Indeed, every socio-legal contract ever conceived has an intrinsic Achilles heel. For Americas Constitution that vulnerable place is located in its fifth section: Article V.

Article V gives state-level lawmakers the power to force Congress to arrange a meeting (convention) of delegates to change, suspend, rewrite or overhaul the Constitution of the United States of America.

Our nations Constitution is not an easy study. The relevant part of Article V, however, is only 87 words in length and takes less than a minute to read and comprehend. (Lincolns Gettysburg address was a comparative tome at 272 words.) The literary footprint of Article V is unremarkable, belying a clear and present danger to our nations supreme law in its entirety.

Manipulation of our Constitution through its fifth section is serious and recent; this isnt a fictional Tom Clancy conspiracy novel. South Dakotas House of Representatives conducted floor debate three times this year on the invocation of an Article V Convention (House Joint Resolution, HJR 1002). Our Constitution was under genuine and substantial threat.

Ostensibly, the resolutions primary purpose was to force Congress to exercise self-control in collecting and expending taxpayer dollars. Washington, D.C., was to be contractually bound by the Constitution via the colloquialisms Convention of States and Balanced Budget Amendment. Despite attractive taxpayer-seductive language, S.D.s state representatives wisely and soundly killed HJR 1002.

Although advertised otherwise, the Article V application for a Convention of States does not grant S.D.s Legislature any control over convention topics. Our U.S. Constitution would be hung on a wall to become a dartboard for random whimsical repeals and modifications. Would South Dakotans be willing to risk their right to keep and bear firearms or freely worship? I think not.

Had the Article V Convention been authorized, the U.S. Congress wouldve had sole authority to appoint delegates and assign state allegiance to each. Californias 55 electoral votes versus South Dakotas three? Couldve happened. Congress also owned the prerogative to select the ratification process. Further, once convened, delegates become self-sovereign; accountable only to themselves  not to Congress, not to the S.D. Legislature, not even to "We the People."

Every S.D. state representative favors fiscal responsibility and limited federal government. Proponents of the Article V Convention couldnt explain why theyd hold our Constitution hostage, in ransom for unenforceable federal fiscal requirements. Blackmailing Congress is flawed strategy. An Article V Convention directly implies that our Constitution is structurally unsound and in dire need of repair. The majority of S.D.s state representatives did not  and do not  concur.

Besides, theres a better and safer way. If answerable fiscal policy is the target, then American citizens should focus their sights on our elected officials at their federal posts. Know that our Constitution in its present state already includes restraints on the Feds. Demand your elected officials adhere to the Constitution  not amend it. None of the existing 27 constitutional amendments were enacted utilizing Article V procedures.

President James Madison  a primary author of our Constitution  expressed grave concern regarding Article V difficulties. In 1788, he stated hed quite tremble at the thought of likely insidious partisan delegates at Article V Conventions. Eventually, he proposed the Constitution be void of all reference to the Article V process.

Our supreme law is vulnerable at its succinct, exploitable fifth section. Since our nations birth more than a million American men and women have sacrificed their lives, providing the armor thats protected the Constitution at its Achilles heel. The Article V Convention of States is perilous self-sabotage. The sacred, venerable Constitution of the United States of America is not wherein the problem lies. This state legislator asks  and votes  that it be left alone.
In 1976, I finished my nursing degree and worked in an intensive care unit in Bismarck. Many of the patients I cared for came in with illnesses that could have been prevented had they accessed good health care. Years later, as a teacher, I helped prepare nursing students for what they would see in their rural practice: higher prevalence of many chronic illnesses and higher rates of uninsured patients.

Taken together, this meant greater burden of illness and less capacity to address it. Also, these students reviewed research indicating that a major reason people everywhere refused recommended cancer and other screenings  a major reason that they showed up sicker and later than they should have  was because they couldnt afford the cost of care. And they couldnt afford the costs because they werent insured.

Additionally, every year, their numbers  in North Dakota and across America  were growing. As a nurse, it is jarring to think that something as basic as the cost of a mammogram could be the reason that neighbors or family members fall ill with treatable health problems, causing time away from work and family, and in some cases, even death. It is also a problem for the financial health of institutions when uninsured individuals treated in emergency rooms, hospitals and doctors offices are unable to pay for their care.

Uncompensated care drives up health care costs for everyone. But this picture began to change with the Affordable Care Act. Since the ACAs passage, virtually all Americans with health insurance, including those reading this letter, cannot be charged out-of-pocket costs for important preventive services. Since the ACA was passed, insured Americans can no longer lose their insurance coverage just when they may need it the most, because insurance companies are prohibited from setting annual or lifetime coverage limits. Since the ACA was passed, the number of uninsured Americans has dropped to its lowest level on record.

With coverage, families dont have to worry about whether they are one illness or accident away from a financial crisis. They dont have to live with the stress of being unable to get coverage because of a pre-existing health problem like asthma or cancer. Now, that doesnt mean the law is perfect. It isnt. More needs to be done to bring down costs and to introduce competition in places where there isnt enough, but that can be done without repealing the law and tearing apart the health care of millions of people. We know theres a need for ACA coverage. Consider that enrollment numbers for the ACA marketplace remained steady compared to last year, with the same percentage of young adults signing up.

Furthermore, despite headlines about dramatic premium increases, for the 83 percent of ACA enrollees who receive tax credits, they saw no rate increase compared to 2016. Yet today, with these gains in place, we are at the brink of seeing the ACA torn apart and replaced by the American Health Care Act, which isnt a replacement at all. It will actually increase health care costs for virtually everyone while decreasing the number of insured Americans. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, (led by a Republican nominee), projects that, if passed, 14 million people will join the ranks of the uninsured in 2018. That number jumps to 24 million over the next decade. And why does that happen?

Its because the bill rolls back coverage for lower income Americans, the disabled and the elderly and lets insurance companies charge older Americans considerably more for their health coverage. People in many rural areas will also pay more because, unlike the ACA, there are no adjustments to offset traditionally higher premiums charged in rural markets. Tax credits that now help to reduce premiums in the Health Insurance Marketplace will be reduced, for some by as much as 50 percent. The AHCA scales back financial assistance for lower income families while providing an average tax cut of $57,000 for millionaires.

Equally concerning, the AHCA guts the ACAs prevention and public health fund, the source of many services that stand between American families and serious illnesses and disease outbreaks. It should come as no surprise that the bill is opposed by the American Medical Association, which bluntly stated that the AHCA is critically flawed and would have an adverse impact on patients and the health of the nation.

Groups ranging from the American Nurses Association and the American Hospital Association to AARP and the American Cancer Society have all expressed opposition. There are clear opportunities to work together to improve the ACA. Next steps should include building on its successes while looking for ways to further bend the cost curve for low- and middle-income families, insuring more, not fewer people, and continuing to strengthen ACA provisions designed to improve care quality.

But, step one for Congress is simple  echoing the oath taken by graduating medical students in North Dakota and across the nation: first, do no harm.
From the North Fork of the Flathead River to the committee rooms of Helena, Bob Ream stood up for the wild places and things he loved.

The University of Montana professor, state legislator, and avid backpacker, who chaired both the Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Montana Democratic Party, died on Wednesday of pancreatic cancer. Ream was 80.

Natalie Dawson, the current director of UMs Wilderness Institute and Ream family friend, said her mentor remained vigorous right up to his cancer diagnosis and beyond.

He got to see the Bud Moore film right before he passed away, Dawson said, referring to a new documentary about the pioneering Forest Service leader. He was naming everyone in the film.

Ream founded the Wilderness Institute in 1974 and its undergraduate program in Wilderness and Civilization has enrolled more than a thousand students. Dawson said he regularly attended the annual program rendezvous, most recently last summer at the Benchmark trailhead in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Ream taught wildlife biology for 28 years in Missoula, including two years as interim dean of the UM College of Forestry from 1993 to 1994. He was a member of the state House of Representatives from 1983 to 1997.

In the early 1970s, Ream set up a reporting system for wolf sightings. He saw the northwest edge of Glacier National Park and the surrounding national forest was a hot spot, and focused his research attention there. With fellow researcher Diane Boyd, he started trapping and tracking the first wolf packs dispersing out of the Canadian Rockies into Montana.

Retired UM wildlife biologist Dan Pletscher explained that study was groundbreaking. Previous observations involved relatively simple environments where wolf packs fed on caribou herds in the Yukon or moose in Michigan.

Here we had and assemblage of six possible prey species in Glacier, plus six predators, Pletscher said. That was a much more complicated system than elsewhere. The information Bob and the Wolf Ecology Center put together helped them predict what the results of reintroducing wolves in Yellowstone might be.

The news passing drew accolades for Ream from across the state. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, sent an email on Thursday evening calling Ream a champion for Montana.

His belief that our public lands, wildlife, rivers and streams belonged to every Montanan  not just a select few  is a lasting legacy that will benefit and inspire our state for generations to come, Tester wrote. Bob was one of the first people I met when I decided to get involved in public service, and I am grateful for his life of leadership.

Ambassador and former Sen. Max Baucus added Ream was a true, salt-of-the-earth Montanan, public servant, and ardent conservationist.

For many years, Bob was at the forefront of many landmark efforts to enhance our states outdoor heritage, protect special places, and further our understanding of Montanas rich biological diversity, Baucus wrote. Bob was a giant amongst Montana Democrats who reached across party lines to fight for the little guy. Mel and I offer our deepest condolences to his family and our profound appreciation for his many great contributions to our great state.

During his time in the Legislature, Ream was the chief sponsor of the state stream access law, restitution requirements for wildlife poaching, and a system for Montanas state agencies to cooperate with federal Superfund cleanup projects.

His four years on the Fish and Game Commission coincided with the surging population of reintroduced wolves and their impact on elk herds and livestock. That, combined with his leadership in the state Democratic Party, prompted the Republican-controlled Senate to reject his bid for a second term on the commission in 2013.

Former Cinnabar Foundation executive director Jim Pozewitz said many wildlife experts prefer their animal subjects to human company, but Ream was determined to stay embedded in all parts of this democracy. He recalled an episode during the 1989 Legislature when Montana was under national scrutiny for its law requiring killing of all bison that migrated out of Yellowstone National Park in winter.

He carried the bill to stop the slaughter, Posewitz said. When it had to get its final vote, those insisting every buffalo be killed were hammering it mercilessly. Then it was Bobs turn to close the debate as author. He took the microphone, and sang: Buffalo Bill, wont you come out tonight? That brought the House down.

Thats the kind of guy he was. If there was nobody left to stand, Bob Ream would stand up and get it done.
A House bill that would fund nearly half of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks warden budget with federal dollars for the next two years has put the agency at odds with members of the Legislature.

House Bill 2, the state budget bill, would take $5.1 million next year and $5.4 million in 2019 from federal tax dollars collected from the sale of fishing and hunting gear to help fund FWPs law enforcement division  almost half of the $11.6 million warden budget. The measure passed the House on its third reading by a vote of 58-40 on March 17 and goes before the Senate for hearings on March 27 and 28.

In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, FWP director Martha Williams told the legislators that law enforcement activities are specifically excluded from use of federal Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds.

Pittman-Robertson funds have been collected by the federal government from the sales of guns and ammunition since Congress passed the act in 1937. Dingell-Johnson monies are collected from a tax on fishing gear and some boat sales. A portion of the revenue is given to state wildlife agencies for conservation efforts, requiring a 25 percent state match, and with strict stipulations on how the money can be spent. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversees distribution of the funds.

Committee action

Rep. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, oversaw the subcommittee that came up with the use of the federal funds for FWPs warden budget. He told the House Appropriations Committee that the group received an email from USFWS staff saying the allotment was allowed under the act.

Its a generally accepted principle from the Fish and Wildlife Service, he told the committee during a March 7 hearing.

What he didnt say is that a USFWS employee contacted by the committees fiscal analyst wrote in an email: When bills are proposed or passed that require the State fish and wildlife agency to spend money in a certain way, there is legitimate concern as to whether it is a diversion of funds under the Acts. The email was later provided to the committee.

Written in HB2 is an explanation justifying use of the federal funding by saying that it would be for wardens when they conduct fish and wildlife surveys/inventories, research and relations with landowners and other individuals regarding the status of fish and wildlife, research into fish and wildlife problems, and education on hunting and fishing.

Calls to Glimm for more information about the committees decision were not returned by press time. A USFWS official contacted by the Billings Gazette said he knew of no state that uses the federal funds to pay for half of its warden budget.

Repercussions

FWP and the USFWS agree that the funds cannot be used for law enforcement, but they can go to warden funding for any incidental work they may do that would relate to such activities, like negotiating Block Management Program contracts, collecting biological data or for managing urban deer populations in towns like Helena.

Tying almost 50 percent of the wardens funding to such activities, and the requirement to document that work to the satisfaction of the feds, would create several problems, though.

How do you tease that out when they go from law enforcement to being a biologist? questioned Bob Curry, deputy assistant director of the USFWSs Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program. The opportunity for things to go awry are very high.

In a March 6 opinion, FWP chief legal counsel Becky Dockter wrote that requiring wardens to devote so much of their time to nonenforcement would contradict their duties as defined under state statute.

Wardens are required by statute to devote all their time for which they are appointed to their official duties, Dockter wrote. Those duties are primarily enforcement in nature. The statute outlining warden official duties lists, first and foremost, enforcement of the laws of this state and the rules of the department

Wardens, therefore, are authorized by law to conduct very little nonenforcement duties, she added.

Right now, wardens spend 93 percent of their time on enforcement or duties not eligible for federal funding, Dockter wrote.

The result of a 50 percent federal funding requirement would be to cut at least 43 percent of its law enforcement activities in order to comply with the conditions for use of PR dollars, she added.

Such a change could lead to the reclassification of the wardens and a pay cut, could jeopardize programs meant to catch poachers, and with certain wardens dedicated strictly to enforcement activities  such as regional investigators  the change could require other wardens to devote all of their time to nonenforcement activities, Dockter wrote.

Dollar signs

Curry said its not uncommon for states to see the federal dollars as an appealing cash cow. Last year Montana FWP collected about $28 million in Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds along with state wildlife grants. That money went to fund FWP biologists, wildlife management and habitat acquisition.

That funding is critical to a lot of what we do, said Ron Aasheim, FWP administrator of Communication and Education.

FWP receives no state general fund dollars for its operation, instead acquiring its income from hunting and fishing license sales, along with the federal funding which fluctuates based on those excise tax collections.

Curry also noted that loss of control by state wildlife agencies over the federal money, whats called a diversion, can jeopardize all of the states federal wildlife dollars.

The regional offices deal with that on a fairly regular basis, Curry said. Loss of control is an issue and concern.

Williams told the House Appropriations Committee that she doesnt see the Legislatures allocation of the federal money as a diversion, its simply not authorized.

Already used

FWP has tapped the federal funds for a portion of its enforcement budget in the past. According to Williams, the agency negotiated with the USFWS during the last Legislature to push that as high as we could to reach an agreed upon 7 percent of federal funds going to the warden budget. In 2016 and 2017 that amounted to more than $587,000, a far cry from $5.1 million.

Mike Korn, retired assistant chief of law enforcement, told the Independent Record newspaper in Helena that the initial decision to use federal excise taxes in the enforcement division came in 2013. It was at that time, and through the recognition that wardens perform a number of duties outside of enforcing laws, that the department felt use of the funding was appropriate.

There are a finite number of things we do thats non-law enforcement, say trapping bears or assisting biologists, he said, and Im really proud that we were able to do that. But it is absolutely unequivocal that you cant use (Pittman-Robertson) dollars for law enforcement, so it was maybe 20 percent at the most at the time.

We think its a bad idea, said Nick Gevock, of the Montana Wildlife Federation. It would affect how game wardens do their jobs. Its something we hope to fix on the Senate side.

Also brought up by one legislator was the question of how diverting wardens from enforcement could affect income generated by citations, a question to which Williams did not have an answer.

Glimm told the full House during a floor session on March 16 that it was a policy decision to use the federal money and that it would not change the wardens job classification.

It keeps them in the same general law enforcement activities that theyve been in, he said.

-- Brett French is outdoors editor for The Billings Gazette
Florence Carlton High School is helping students with special needs prepare for the workforce and connect to jobs in the community.

The school has received a contract from the Montana Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services to start a program called Pre-Employment Transition Service or Pre-Ets.

Autumn Bonds is the special education teacher and coordinator of this program that provides services to high school students with disabilities, ages 14  21.

"The purpose of pre-employment is to strengthen the education to career connection and increase employment for people who experience barriers to employment, Bonds said. Service categories include: job exploration counseling, work-based learning experience, counseling on opportunities for enrollment in postsecondary education, workplace readiness and instruction in self advocacy.

Judie Fisher works directly with students in the learning center. She explained that counselors at Montana Vocational Rehabilitation had such large caseloads that high school graduates were waiting.

Vocational Rehabilitation allocated part of their funds for the schools to create transition programs, Fisher said.

The program gets students started earlier by customizing employment to their abilities and getting them out into the community.

Some kids can only work three or four hours a day and we know our kids best, she said. This will help them get job skills for some sort of employment when they graduate. We dont want them sitting home doing nothing or on a waiting list after graduation.

Fisher said the program allows teachers to customize employment, customize the students day and keep them in the community.

Transportation is a huge issue and most of our kids do not drive, she said. It also helps them gain skills now so they have something to look forward to after high school. We can prepare them from freshman year all the way through.

Fisher said that currently students are focusing on jobs that help the school community. Students help in shop class, stock books in the library, take care of the mail distribution, run the lost and found, prepare and deliver towels used in the kindergarten and do box top preparation.

Skills for the lost and found include sorting, laundry, tagging, hanging and displaying items or returning them to their owner if a name is found on the item. In handling the box tops students learn to look for expiration dates, cut on the dotted lines, how package them and mail them.

On March 15 in addition to lost and found work the students helped Fisher sort Cub Scout badges.

Im in charge of our local Cub Scouts and Im the awards chair and they help me separate all these little segments, sort and cross check inventory, she said. Were working on checking what you get, not just taking it for granted.

She said the students work on anything to give them the skill of collating, washing dishes and some cooking.

Fisher said Pre-Employment Transition Service is important to makes sure the students are getting their class work done on time to receive the needed credits.

Besides their academics we try to customize any kind of employment opportunity we can foster, Fisher said. This gives them confidence and teaches responsibility and the ability to do things on their own.

Fisher said the Florence Carlton school system, Individualized Education Program Teams and administration is accepting and supportive of students with disabilities.

We have amazing general education teachers that are making Pre-Ets content a part of their curriculum and have been way before we got this contract, Fisher said. We have a great network of support and a very knowledgeable staff.

She praised English teacher Kathryn Read who teaches a career unit that begins with exploring career options and culminates with learning to complete a job application, write a cover letter and build a resume.

Fisher said students with disabilities choose to participate in the Pre-Ets program and she helps them learn soft skills needed in every job including being punctual, reliable and staying on task.

The Pre-Ets program gives them a sense of pride and gives them a break from the academic world, Fisher said. They see they have worth by learning and doing a job and being around other adults. It is rewarding for them and they deserve it.

Bonds said that Fisher has been working on the job readiness skills students need even before Florence Carlton received the Pre-Ets contract.

She is so amazing with the kids and those job readiness skills, she said.

Bonds said every school in Montana has the opportunity to be involved in the Pre-Ets contract.

It is not unique to Florence but we are starting at the ground floor, Bonds said. Ruth Blacketer secured the contract for us last year and we are continuing those services. We are going above and beyond. Once you get going, the ball gets bigger and bigger.

There are about 45 students eligible for the program at Florence Carlton and the school receives funding depending on the number of students in the program. These funds also provide for a transition specialist.

The transition specialist will focus our Pre-Ets students on the Montana Career Information System, do interest inventories and explore careers, Bonds said. I do campus visits and job-shadowing. We are getting our students out in the community and letting them know what opportunities are available.

Bonds said the Pre-Ets program provides an exciting opportunity for students to be more prepared for life.

I am just so excited for the positive impact that this contract will have on the students, the school and the community, Bonds said. Well help students transition from high school into college, career and community - where ever they are headed.
HELENA  For the second legislative session in a row, Republicans have rejected one of Gov. Steve Bullocks top policy priorities: to expand early education in Montana.

Republican members of the House Education Committee voted against House Bill 563 Wednesday, effectively killing the measure unless those same legislators vote to reconsider or Democrats successfully blast it to the House floor where they remain outnumbered.

Today Republican legislators again told Montanans that our kids education and futures are not a priority, Bullock, a Democrat, said in a statement. As a father and someone who wants all of Montanas kids to succeed, I find it beyond disappointing that Republicans refuse to make a responsible economic investment that will benefit Montana families for generations to come.

Rep. Kathy Kelker, D-Billings, had pitched HB 563 to the committee on Monday. The measure would have offered $12 million grants over the next two fiscal years to support preschool for four-year-olds whose parents make less than double the federal poverty level. Thats less than $49,200 for a family of four. The preschools would have to meet state board of education standards for quality and could be part of an elementary school district, a Head Start program or a private provider with at least a three-star rating determined by the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Montana is one of the last states that hasn't yet created or expanded public-supported early education in response to numerous national studies that show quality preschool programs improve outcomes at school and reduce the need for costly special education services, public assistance programs or incarceration later in life.

On Friday, Bullock had welcomed Montana teachers, parents and kids to rally at the state capitol to tout the proposal. Alabama Early Education Secretary Jeana Ross flew in to speak with legislators about the success of that states similar program, one of several Republican officials from other states tapped by Bullock to speak in support of his proposal.

The bill killed Wednesday was scaled back and cheaper than a 2015 proposal Republicans shot down because of budgetary concerns. That proposal would have cost $37 million and did not screen participation by income.

Republican leaders have said from the start of the session that they would be unlikely to support Bullocks early education proposal as the state faces a budget crunch. Others have expressed skepticism about the validity of studies showing the lifelong benefits of quality preschool, questioned how such programs differ from daycare or opposed the proposal because of limiting the assistance to families based on income.

Before Wednesdays vote, Rep. Scott Staffanson, R-Sidney, said the expansion was unnecessary, pointing to existing private programs and saying kids so young should be at home with their mothers to prepare them for kindergarten.

I think were discouraging families, he said. And putting them in school at an age when many of them are not old enough to learn a lot of the things the kids need to know by the time theyre ready for school.

Although he supported the idea of expanded preschool funding, Rep. Fred Anderson, R-Helena, said he could not vote for it because of its price tag.

We havent adequately funded special education. We havent adequately funded career education, he said. I understand the importance of this and would never quibble with that, but Im unfortunately going to vote no on this because of the fiscal situation.
sacw.net - 24 March 2017

Shiv chuy thali thali rozaan Mav Zaan Hyound ta Mussalman Trukhay chukh ta panunuy paan parzaan Ada Chay Saahibas Zaani Zaan (Lalla-Ded, quoted in Mattoo 2007) Shiva abides in all that is everywhere Then do not discriminate between a Hindu and a Muslim If you are wise seek the Absolute within yourself That is true knowledge of the Lord (from aLal-Dedas Vakhsa )

Kashmiris have taken pride in inhabiting a cultural space between Vedic Hinduism and Sufi Islam. The traditional communal harmony in Kashmir enabled the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Hindus, mutual respect for their places of worship, and an ability to synthesize not just cultural but religious practices as well (for conceptualizations of Kashmiriyat, see Kaw 2004; Razdan 1999; Rushdie 2005; Whitehead 2004: 335a40). Deep reverence for each otheras shrines and the relics housed in those shrines is a well entrenched aspect of the culture. Salman Rushdie (2005: 57) describes this sentiment of aKashmiriyata succinctly in his fictionalized account of the history of J & K, Shalimar the Clown: aThe words Hindu and Muslim had no place in their story. . . . In the Valley these words were merely descriptions, not divisions. The frontiers between the words, their hard edges, had grown smudged and blurred.a

A fitting symbol of this syncretic ethos of Kashmir is Lalla-Ded, a figure revered by both the Pandits and Muslims of Kashmir. Lalla-Ded was born in 1334 into a Kashmiri Brahmin home in village Simpur, about four miles from Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir. She was brutalized in a marriage that was arranged for her by the elders once she crossed the threshold of puberty. Unwilling to acquiesce to the constraints placed on the atraditionala woman and questioning the self-abnegation of women that disallows them from reconciling their private selves with their roles as public contributorsto the community, Lalla-Ded disavowed the psychosocial narratives inscribed on the female body in defiance of the continued conscription of women (Bhatnagar, Dube and Dube 2004: 30).

Challenging a Patriarchal and Hierarchical Society

I would argue that by committing the sacrilegious act of crossing the threshold of the husbandas house in order to choose a life of asceticism, Lalla-Ded subverted the traditional reliance on male authority. She was a yogini, a professed woman ascetic, who disseminated the yogic doctrines with an unquenchable zeal. Her passionate pursuit of self-knowledge led her down the tortuous path of a yogic life, but the flame of her devotion blazed bright. Lalla-Ded is a watershed in the cultural and spiritual development of Kashmir. Bazazas assessment of the asplendida role that Kashmiri women of ancient times played in the social and cultural life of Kashmir is glorious but romanticized, and discounts the disparagements that intellectually inclined women had to combat in order to emerge as public figures.

But unconditional freedom from sexualized hierarchies does not exist in any social matrix. Bazazas assessment of Kashmiri women in ancient times is sanguine but mythical in that it ignores the ainternal dynamics of patriarchal and hierarchical societies, essentially biased against women. Rigid, reprehensive customs and conventions placed women inferior to men in status, rights, power and freedom in these societies. Discrimination and equality were accepted as a natural scheme of thingsa (Misri 2002: 7). The women whose positions on the political and artistic zenith Bazaz chooses to foreground were affiliated with the royalty in a monarchical regime basking in the freedom from economic constraints and societal limitations that women of other classes were tormented by. But Lalla-Ded sought, in the social arrangement to which she had access, concepts and tools for a new society which would be liberated from gendered forms of oppression. She intervened in patriarchal national history by speaking from her location about the political realities that had woven the web of prevalent social relations. Lalla-Dedas ability to be alert to how a womanas aspirations for personal emancipation are mediated by her responsibility towards her community, and the ways in which this sense of responsibility inflects her own emancipatory thought, underscores her importance for me. She rejected a sexualized persona in order to break the power nexus that underlined the objectification of athe damsel in distress.a

Although a Sufi mystic, childless Lalla-Ded eroded the construct of woman as goddess or mother that binds her to a form of subordination that is the ultimate paradigm of social relationships in traditional societies. Most historians are of the opinion that Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali, the founding father of the predominant Sufi sect in the Kashmir Valley, Rishiism, acknowledged Lalla-Ded as his spiritual mentor. There is a legend that the infant Noor-ud-Din adamantly refused to be suckled by his mother, Sudra. When the infant was brought to Lalla-Ded, she reprimanded him for his rejection of nourishment. Subsequently, the boy allowed his mother to nurse him. Later, Lalla- Ded facilitated Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Walias immersion into the intellectual radicalism generated by her philosophy of Religious Humanism (Bazaz [1959] 2005: 138). The recorded poems and paradigmatic sayings of Lalla-Ded and of Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali enrich Kashmiri literature and add layer upon layer to the culture. (For renditions of syncretic Kashmiri literature with a rich spiritual content, see Kaul 1999; Murphy 1999; Parimoo 1978;Sufi 1979.)

After extensive research on poetry and literature in the Kashmiri language, Sir George Grierson (1911) drew the inference that Lalla-Ded is the oldest Kashmiri author. Her verses retain their relevance in various parts of the Valley even centuries after the decline of mysticism: aLal Vakyas [wise sayings], rich in philosophical theme and content, rolled down to generations through word of mouth in Kashmiri, language of the massesa (Misri 2002: 9). A prolific scholar of Lalla-Dedas religious philosophy, Professor Amar Nath Dhar, sent me an eloquent e-mail (on 18 April 2008) about her composite spiritualism and its cohesive impact on Kashmiri society, which dissipated because of the relegation of the syncretism that was lived by Lalla-Ded and Noor-ud-Din Wali to circumscribing political, literary and cultural realms:

Nund Rishi alias Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali was greatly influenced by Lalla-Ded. Holding her in very special regard, he was not averse to the Hindu belief in the avtarhood of Lalla-Ded. The Rishi order founded by him evolved in theValley itself after the advent of Islam. It was Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Walias unqualified veneration for the saint-poetess Lalla that had a great impact on devout Kashmiri Muslims, his followers. That explains why for centuries the Muslims in the Valley have continued to own her, delighting in memorizing her sayings and quoting them on festive occasions such as marriage ceremonies and cultural functions, as the Kashmiri Pandits do as well. The Sufis in Kashmir, especially those who were not alien to the Valley but rooted in the humanistic Rishi tradition nurtured by Noor-ud-Din Wali (Nund Rishi) and his followers, contributed a lot to the preservation of the composite Kashmiri ethos.

Although she was born into a Hindu family, Lalla-Ded awas greatly influenced by Islamic Sufiistic thought and may, in truth, be said to be above all religious conventionalitiesa (Sufi 1979: 167). The most significant contribution of Lalla-Ded to the Kashmiri language and literature is that she translated the sophisticated, esoteric concepts of Saiva philosophy and her mystic experiences into the vernacular and made them accessible to the many. She employed metaphors, idioms and images from experiences with which ordinary people could relate, in her translations of abstruse concepts. Her deployment of the easily recitable verse form of the vaakh in Kashmiri, the language of the masses, enables the incorporation of her utterances into the common mode of speech. She sought to forge a relationship with her Creator which did not require the intercession of a religious male figure, a Brahmin priest or a Mullah.

While further researching Lalla-Ded as a mystic and a poet, I found Sir Richard Carnac Templeas heart-warming translations of her verses. I was particularly inspired by the one in which the self is foregrounded as the cure of all spiritual, physical, mental and material afflictions:

Lady, rise and offer to the Name, Bearing in thy hand the flesh and wine. Such shall never bring thee loss and shame, Be it of no custom that is thine. This they know for Knowledge that have found a Be the loud Cry from His Place but heard a Unity Betwixt the Lord and Sound, Just as Sound hath unison with Word. Feed thy fatted rams, thou worldly one, Take them grain and dainties, and then slay. Give thy thoughts that reek with asaid and donea Last-fruits of Knowledge, and cast away. Then shalt see with Spirit-eyes the Place Where the dwelling of the Lord shall be: Then shall pass thy terrors of disgrace: Then shall Custom lose her hold on thee. aThink not on the things that are without, Fix upon thy inner self thy Thought: So shalt thou be freed from let or doubta : a Precepts these that my Preceptor taught. Dance then, Lalla, clothed but by air: Sing, then, Lalla, clad but in the sky. Air and sky: what garment is more fair? aCloth,a saith Custom a Doth that Sanctify? (R.C. Temple, aaClotha, Saith Custom a Doth that Sanctify?,a in Temple [1924] 2005: 172a73)

Lalla-Ded was a visionary whose promethean verses broke the intractable frameworks of conventional thought and behaviour, which pinioned the self.

Self-Awareness Erodes Constrictive Conventions

She pre-empted the modern-day psychoanalytic promulgation of the concept of self-awareness:

Lalla has yet another hard saying. The sense of it adopted in the English wording is that she utters a cry of despair. Like Christian in The Pilgrimas Progress, she has been bearing on her back a burden of worldly illusions and pleasures, compared to a load of sugar-candy, and the knot of the porteras string that supports it has become loose and galls her. She has found that such a burden produces toil and pain. Her wasted life in this workaday world has become a weariness, and she is in despair. She has recourse to her Guru, her spiritual Teacher. His words cause her intolerable pain, such as that experienced by the loss of a beloved object a the worldly illusion that she must abandon. She learns that the whole of the flock of factors that make up her sentient existence have lost their proper ruler, the mind; for it is steeped in ignorance of Self. (Ibid.: 227)

Recognizing oneas strengths and weaknesses enables one to pave the tortuous path toward self-advancement a a much sought after goal that would allow people of different intellectual dispositions to relegate lifeas peripherals to the background and face the vicissitudes of fate with courage and faith in themselves.

It is a herculean task not just to recognize the self, but to channelize the confidence which the said recognition fosters. Self awareness enabled Lalla-Ded, unobstructed by a false consciousness, to practice religious, cultural and social iconoclasm in an idolatrous and cult worshipping society. Again anticipating the psychoanalytic emphasis on maintaining serenity and verbalizing destructive emotions in order to defang them, Lalla-Ded exhorts the believer to

Keep thy mind calm as the Peaceful Sea, Slaking and quenching the fires of Wrath, Lest from thy bondage thou set them free And the words of rage, as flames, break forth: Words that shall sear, as with fire, thy mind Burnt in anger to be healed in truth. What are they? Nothing. Nothing but wind, When thou hast weighed them in scales of Truth. (Ibid.: 181)

In an age in which the culture was pervaded by conservative sensibilities, well-defined gender roles and the confinement of women to home and hearth, Lalla-Dedas blatant mockery of confining conventions was condemned by the upholders of the hegemonic order.

Her honed self-knowledge and sublimation of needs highlighted by society taught Lalla to maintain an unscarred mind in the face of thoughtless condemnation and adversity. Critical intelligence, particularly when expressed by a woman to break down societal, religious and cultural edifices, has always been intimidating and has invited virulent criticism, as it did in Lallaas case. The ravages of time and the putative liberation of women in the twenty-first century have not diminished the potency of Lalla-Dedas radicalism, the tangible beauty of her poetry, and its pertinence in this day and age.

In an enlightening conversation that I had with Mohammad Yousuf Taing, former secretary of the Cultural Academy and Director General Culture, J & K government, he pointed out that it is also believed that Lalla-Ded was greatly influenced by discourses on mysticism and on the different schools of Sufi thought given by Mir Syed Ali Hamadani, Shah Hamadan, a regal Central Asian Islamic scholar and mystic who disseminated and perpetuated Islamic teachings in predominantly brahminical fourteenth and fifteenth-century Kashmir. In fact, educated Kashmiri Muslims are of the firm opinion that the verses which Lalla-Ded composed after having forged a spiritual alliance with Shah Hamadan and other Muslim scholars reverberate with Islamic thought.

Lalla fills her teaching with many things that are common to all religious philosophy. There are in it many touches of Vaishnavism, the great rival of Shaivism, much that is reminiscent of the doctrines and methods of the Muhammadan Sufis, who were in India and Kashmir well before her day, and teaching that might be Christian with Biblical analogies, though the Indiansa knowledge of Christianity, if any, must have been very remote and indirect at her date. (Temple [1924] 2005: 165)

Lalla-Dedas secular and anachronistic teachings were a death-knell for orthodox religion. Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali placed Lalla-Ded in the role of the mother who honed his knowledge of the ethos of Kashmir (for a delineation of Lalla-Dedas religious philosophy, see Bamzai 1994; Murphy 1999).

Impact of Lalla-Dedas Teachings on Pandit and Muslim Communities

Lalla-Dedas poignant verses, pulsating with the pain and damnation of peripheralized social and economic groups, were not written down but were ensconced in the language and cultural discourse of the ahoi polloia, and continue to reverberate in the day and age of political paranoia and religious fundamentalisms. She chose to break the mould of patriarchy in a stiflingly traditional society by not allowing her intellectual and spiritual freedoms to be curbed.

Through her poetry, Lalla-Ded questioned restrictive cultural mores, religious, social, economic and gender hierarchies, and the relevance of esoteric knowledge. She deconstructed traditional dichotomous categories and anticipated the postmodern notion of the implosion of the Supreme and Nature, the individual Self with the Universal Self. The true devotee, from the non-dualist point of view, ais one who recognizes that He is all in all and that all creation and all experiences are but modes of Hima (Temple [1924] 2005: 169). Lalla renders her teachings with sensuous imagery, making them easier to visualize. For instance, she illustrates her teaching of the implosion of dichotomous structures and of the unity of the Self with the Supreme using the analogy of the melding of ice, snow and water. She explains that the three are different, but the sun enables the blending of all three. Similarly, true knowledge enables the soul to recognize not only its oneness with the Supreme, but also with the entire universe (ibid.: 179).
THC Fair at Oregon State Fairgrounds April 1-2 Weekend

The Hemp & Cannabis Fair Returns Featuring Local Businesses and Education



Singing Bird Family Farm from Grants Pass made a great showing at the 2016 THC Fair.

Photo: Bonnie King Salem-News.com



(SALEM, Ore.) - The Hemp & Cannabis Fair  or THC Fair as it has affectionately become known  returns to Salem bigger and better than ever April 1-2, 2017.

Showcasing 100 vendor booths and a lecture stage with sessions all weekend, THC Fair is bringing together local dispensaries, smoke shops, horticulture and hemp-based products to make this a one-stop destination for anyone curious about hemp or cannabis.

THC Fair vendors have everything you need to grow, process and enjoy cannabis.

"Theres no other place where you can learn about rules, regulations, horticulture, manufacture, medical uses, the list goes on and on! said Naomi Forkash, Director of The Hemp & Cannabis Fair.

A series of lectures will offer insights from experts in a wide variety of fields including medicinal uses, growing & harvesting techniques, legal Q&As and much more.

There will be raffles, prizes and plenty of opportunities to learn and shop at the Oregon State Fairgrounds, April 1-2.

THC Fair hosted over a dozen expos in 2016 across Oregon and Alaska and held Oregons largest consumer cannabis expo in Southern Oregon this past January.

This event is restricted to 21+ or 18+ with OMMP. Tickets are just $15 ($10 for veterans) and give you full weekend access to the fair and lecture series. Discounted advanced tickets are available to purchase online at www.thcfair.com.

Event hours are Saturday from 10am-5pm and Sunday, 11am-5pm.

In accordance with OLCC recreational marijuana guidelines, there will be no on-site consumption of cannabis promoted or allowed.
Gov. Doug Burgum declared a state of emergency for Walsh County on Friday based on threats of major flooding.

The governors executive order activates the North Dakota State of Emergency Operations Plan, which puts state agencies such as the North Dakota National Guard on standby for flood response, according to a news release from the governors office.

Burgum is requesting flood preparation help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and an emergency declaration is needed to obtain federal support, the governors office said. Brent Nelson, emergency manager for Walsh County, said he expects to find out this weekend whether the request has been approved.

The current financial situation of the state due to the economic downturns in the agricultural and crude oil markets, coupled with unforeseeable expenses associated with the Dakota Access Pipeline protest response, makes federal support a necessity, the order says.

Nelson said the area is expected to see significant runoff starting late this weekend into Monday, and will likely reach the flood stage by March 29.

The most recent flood outlook from the National Weather Service projects a crest range of 14 to 16 feet for the Park River at Grafton around April 1, which would be close to the record flood crest set in 2013. The news release cites heavy snowpack, frozen and saturated soils and a climate outlook that indicates above-normal precipitation trends.

Nelson said Grafton will likely begin closing roads Monday to determine how high to construct temporary levees. He said the town has about 1,200 sandbags filled for the purpose.

Nelson encouraged residents to have sewer plugs ready in the case of power failures and to not drive over flooded roads outside town. He said the Walsh County Highway Department can provide sandbag supplies to rural residents if needed.

Some of it still depends on how fast everything starts melting and moving, he said. Were kind of waiting for the whole melt process to proceed a little bit farther so we can get a feel on how fast some of this meltwater is going to show up.
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GRAND FORKS -- Each day, up to 70 volunteers and Grand Forks Senior Center staff put together hot and cold meals to deliver to about 100 residents who otherwise cannot leave their homes.

For the ones receiving the meals, mostly seniors, it is their ray of sunshine, said Dawne Barwin, the centers Meals on Wheels coordinator.

For some, its probably the one person they see every day, she said of meal recipients.

A proposed amendment to a North Dakota Senate bill limiting matching funds to senior citizen services has some, including Grand Forks Senior Center staff, worried Meals on Wheels programs across the state could be at risk, especially considering President Donald Trumps budget cut proposals.

Trumps proposed budget calls for cuts to the U.S. Health and Human Service Department, as well as eliminating Community Services Block Grants and Community Development Block Grants, which provide funds to Meals on Wheels programs across the country. In North Dakota, its not yet clear how the Meals on Wheels program would be impacted. Funding for senior nutrition services, including home-delivered meals, comes from a variety of federal, state and local sources, according to the state Department of Human Services.

The proposal would cap the matching grants from the states senior citizen services and programs fund at $3.5 million annually, roughly the same as the $3,493,688 the state paid to counties this year, according to figures provided by the North Dakota Treasurers Office. State matching funds have grown steadily over the past decade, from just less than $1 million paid in 2006 to the almost $3.5 million paid in 2017.

The Office of the State Tax Commissioner predicts the state would pay more than $3.9 million next year in matching funds, based on last years tax figures. Rep. Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo, said that would roughly amount to a $400,000 cut, and she worried a cap wouldnt account for program growth.

I think theres a lot  of unintended consequences, Hogan said. And because we didnt really have a hearing, we didnt really process it.

The proposal is part of an amendment that was attached to an unrelated Senate bill.

Senate Bill 2273 originally was given a do not pass recommendation from the House Finance and Taxation Committee this month. But it was re-referred to the committee last week and given a do pass recommendation with the amendment, proposed by Rep. Craig Headland, R-Montpelier, the committees chairman.

For Grand Forks Senior Center Executive Director Colette Iseminger, the amendment appeared to come out of nowhere.

All of the sudden they were talking about this amendment, she said.

Headland said the committee still is reviewing the bill before it heads to the floor for a vote.

Headland pointed to the states budget woes in arguing lawmakers need to limit automatic funding increases, and he said the cap was proposed after new information came from the Treasurers Office. He noted the cap is a little more than what was paid this year.

There is no reduction in the program, Headland said. We have to look at all areas of government that have these automatic increases that are really out of our hands.

Value statement

The amendment comes less than a week after Trump proposed a nearly 18 percent cut across the board for the U.S. Health and Human Service Department. He also suggested eliminating the $715 million Community Service Block Grant program, which provides funds to Meal on Wheels programs across the country.

Funding for North Dakota Meals on Wheels programs dont come from the CSBG, but they do come from the HHS. Citing the vagueness of Trumps budget, Iseminger and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp worry Meals on Wheels in North Dakota still could be in danger in light of White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaneys comments.

We had (Mulvaney) basically say he did not think Meals on Wheels was an effective program, Heitkamp said. Thats ridiculous.

She also feared for other programs that help families with low incomes heat their homes.

We can go through all of these programs, and somehow it seems like the programs that hit the top line  all hit low-income elderly residents the hardest, she said. I think that is a value statement.

Waiting list or fewer meals

Meals on Wheels in North Dakota served 1.12 million meals to nearly 19,000 seniors last year, with about 512,000 meals being delivered to 5,200 seniors at their homes. With the programs in North Dakota totaling $8.86 million, $2.58 million was covered by federal funds.

Each senior meal for North Dakotans costs $8.59 -- federal funds pays for more than a third of the meal, the state pays 21 percent, local providers cover about 15 percent and seniors pay 29 percent, or about $2.50, according to the North Dakota Senior Service Providers.

Iseminger said capping grants would help the state budget, but expenses have increased over time -- a senior meal went from $6.02 in 2007 to $8.59 in 2015.

With the elderly population growing and possible cuts on the horizon, she fears the center wont be able to afford to supply meals to everyone who requests them. That could mean stopping weekend meals or creating a waiting list, she said.

We have never implemented a waiting list for our Meals on Wheels, but if our funding is going to be cut, I see that coming, that we would have to say we can only do so many meals a day, she said. The problem with that is most people who call and need to get meals, its not something that can wait, especially if they are in a crisis situation.

Iseminger also worried other programs the center provides could suffer, such as activities, health services, the resource team and transportation aid.

Shes uncertain whether the North Dakota amendment would pass. There is a lot of support for senior services in the Legislature, she said, but she understands the state has to make cuts as revenue decreases.

I think the mentality for some of the legislators is everybody has to feel the pain, she said.

Tribune reporter Blair Emerson contributed to this report.
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 Thanks to voter approval of Prop 57, "California prisons to free 9,500 inmates in 4 years" based on new early-release credit rules | Main | Notable perspectives on state and direction of modern criminal justice reform efforts 

March 25, 2017

"End the death penalty for mentally ill criminals"

The title of this post is the title of this new Washington Post commentary that strikes me as notable because it is penned by two former midwestern governors, Bob Taft (who was governor of Ohio from 1999 to 2007) and Joseph Kernan (who was governor of Indiana from 2003 to 2005). Here are excerpts:

Legislators in six states  Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia  have proposed legislation to prohibit the death penalty for individuals with severe mental illness. As former governors of states that are grappling with this issue, we strongly support this effort to end an inhumane practice that fails to respect common standards of decency and comport with recommendations of mental-health experts. The overwhelming majority of people with severe mental illness are not violent; in fact, they are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crime. For the very small number who do commit a capital crime while suffering from a severe mental disorder, current death-penalty law does not adequately take the effects of their illness into account. As a result, defendants with severe mental illness  such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury  continue to be sentenced to death and executed. Last March, Texas executed Adam Ward, a man recognized as diagnosed with bipolar disorder and placed on lithium as early as age four, according to appellate court documents. And in 2015, Georgia executed Andrew Brannan, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who also had a pronounced mental illness. He qualified for 100 percent disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs because of his PTSD and bipolar disorder. Although their grave illnesses do not excuse these defendants crimes, we believe that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole would have been a more appropriate punishment. Illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are characterized by impairments that  when untreated  significantly affect ones ability to distinguish fact from reality, to make rational decisions or to react appropriately to events and other people. Under these conditions, the degree of culpability may not rise to the level of cold, unimpaired calculus that justifies the ultimate penalty.... Studies have also shown that death- penalty jurors often misunderstand mental illness, which is often viewed as an aggravating factor  that is, a reason to sentence someone to death  rather than as a mitigating factor, which is what it should be. The troubling consequence is that some defendants may end up on death row because of their mental illness. The fact that the death penalty applies to those with mental illness also means that veterans with demonstrated PTSD may be executed. Even though most of the thousands of veterans struggling with PTSD do not commit the serious crimes that may be eligible for the death penalty, an estimated 10 percent of the United States death-row inmates are veterans  some of whom suffered from active and severe symptoms of PTSD at the time of their crime. These veterans have experienced trauma that few others have faced and have made a vital contribution to the safety of our country that deserves our recognition.... The death penalty was not intended for people in the throes of severe delusions, living with schizophrenia or suffering from combat-related PTSD. These are not the blameworthy individuals whose executions can be justified. We come from different political parties, but we join the majority of Americans  supporters and opponents of the death penalty alike  who believe it should not be imposed on defendants with such serious impairments. This is a fair, efficient and bipartisan reform that would put an end to a practice that is not consistent with current knowledge about mental illness and fundamental principles of human decency.

March 25, 2017 at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Comments

I once tried to buy a briefcase in the souk of Fez, Morocco. I said, this looks like plastic, and you are charging for leather. He replied, it is European leather. Ah, I said.

I now support abolition.

1) We should have the European death penalty. It is quite lively, and it is called, suicide. The US prisons accomplished the greatest achievement in psychiatry of the 20th Century, at no cost, no program, no treatment, no additional staff. They nearly eliminated prison suicide by a warden policy change. Meanwhile suicide in European prisons is massive;

2) The opiate overdose epidemic will be causing the attrition of the violent criminal class. That will be thanks to Chinese imported carfentanyl, an opiate 10,000 times more potent than morphine. It standard use is by veterinarians needing to deeply anesthetize elephants for prolonged major surgeries;

3) CRISPR/cas9 technology will soon fix the defects that result in criminality and in addiction. These defects were well described in the mid 19th Century. This change will be despite the all out obstruction by the lawyer profession, trying to save their totally worthless, and toxic, government, make work jobs.

The law, a worthless form of rent seeking, is in deep failure. It never addresses problems, only technology does.

Posted by: David Behar | Mar 25, 2017 11:50:08 AM

When holding them for life without the possibility of parole, their mental health should be factored in, though time on death row with an unclear end point might have special concerns in this area [see, e.g., Justice Breyer's recent dissent from denial].

Upcoming: "But given the ubiquity of plea deals in the criminal justice system and the apparent frequency with which criminal defendants receive bad advice about the immigration consequences of such pleas from their attorneys, this is a case that attorneys and advocates in the field of crimmigration will be watching closely."

Crimmigration.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/03/argument-preview-immigration-ineffective-assistance-plea-bargaining/#more-254061

Posted by: Joe | Mar 25, 2017 1:46:28 PM

There is no basis for lessened culpability for even the most demented defendant.

If any of you retributionists ever argue there is, you must return your above average salaries. You are no more nor less responsible for your achievement than the most mentally ill defendant is for his crimes. The insanity defense is just a made up, false, lawyer propaganda lie. It is as fictitious as all their other just made up, lying doctrines. All behavior, even the greatest achievements, are brain based with influences by cultural and personal relationship factors.

Only 1 in million people can pitch a baseball at 95 mph for 3 hours at a baseball game. That ability is brain based. However, that person's Daddy taught him baseball, and encouraged the talented person. The person put in 10,000 hours of hard work to get really good enough to compete with the other talented pitchers.



Those factors, including the 10,000 hours of hard practice were made possible by human and other infrastructure. That pitcher did not have get his own food, for example. There is absolutely no reason to pay $10 million for that skill, if you believe the mentally ill are not fully culpable.

Paranoid people kill 2000 people a year, thanks to the Supreme Court. Over 40 years ago, it decide to take over psychiatry. This was to provide jobs for a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, and the lawyer asshole in between. One had to prove a dangerous act and mental illness, as opposed to just the need for mental health treatment. You can thank the Supreme Court for 10% of the murders since 1976. These include all rampage murders. Every single one is 100% the fault of the lawyer profession.

The usual commitment hearing in Philadelphia is like The Trial of the Century. The lawyer defends the insane with every procedural tactic, every motion for continuances, every demand for records. So, I am breathlessly running into a court, apologizing for my 5 minute's lateness. The judge says, no problem, and hands me the commitment papers. He says, "And, take the patient with you."

The city's fastest commitment hearing had taken place. This patient was a janitor for the court at City Hall.

Posted by: David Behar | Mar 25, 2017 9:49:27 PM

This defines this effort as, strictly, anti death penalty, as most of them are:

"Although their grave illnesses do not excuse these defendants crimes, we believe that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole would have been a more appropriate punishment"

Why?

If the murderer is legally, morally and mentally culpable for the murder, so as to serve a life sentence, then the determination that they are legally, morally and mentally culpable, so as to be given a death sentence should be left of to the judge or jury.

It all comes down to a one vote difference by the jury, 8% of the jury. If one juror does not believe that the guilty murderer's mental illness does not mitigate against the death penalty, they deserve the death penalty.

Simple.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | Mar 26, 2017 8:02:20 AM

The majority of criminals have antisocial personality disorder. It is a mental illness with defined criteria. The diagnosis predicts the future of the individual. It is the only psychiatric diagnosis that has its own physiologic test.

It runs in families, and is likely genetically determined, no matter the upbringing. Because of their sexual promiscuity, they have more children, and are increasing at a rate faster than the population.

It is a devastating and highly established mental illness. Why not use it as an excuse, and free almost all the prisoners, to maintain the mitigating factor of mental illness?

Posted by: David Behar | Mar 26, 2017 11:07:59 AM

The remarks by DS require one to accept the premise.

The system as applied basically sets up a subset as eligible to death and a judge/jury determines specifically as applied to a certain person if they are "legally, morally and mentally culpable for the murder."

The law sets forth the subset, different states having different rules. The article wants to make the rules more strict in a certain fashion, narrow the subset some. This is "anti-death penalty" in that fashion, but so would narrowing the subset to those over eighteen (now a result of a SCOTUS opinion, but state law can say this above and beyond that) or whatnot.

The "simplicity" of allowing the margins here to turn on one juror can be phrased in various ways, including how simply problematic living and dying turning on that is.

Posted by: Joe | Mar 26, 2017 12:54:35 PM

My problem with the argument is that -- unless specifically defined -- severe is ambiguous. Severe can apply both to the nature of the mental disorder and to the impact of the disorder on the individual. This is particularly true for disorders which are treatable or partially treatable by medications. A person may have sporadic episodes in which the disorder has a significant impact on behavior, but otherwise be fully functional. I would not be inclined to have an automatic rule that somebody who suffers from PTSD is ineligible for the death penalty if the PTSD had no impact on their criminal conduct. On the other hand, I would be inclined to return a lesser sentence (or find them not guilty by reason of mental disease) if they were having a flashback at the time of the crime. The current system allows a jury to sort out these facts and give them weight.

Posted by: tmm | Mar 27, 2017 5:15:58 PM

The linked article provides a link as well to specific legislation.

Those interested to follow the links and examine the texts to determine if they are specific enough and so forth.

Posted by: Joe | Mar 28, 2017 12:26:36 PM

Post a comment
In the second case of an armed woman barricaded in an SRO in recent weeks and causing a neighborhood crisis, reports of shots fired and a woman barricaded in a room on the 200 block of Turk Street Saturday morning led to the SFPD shutting down two blocks in the Tenderloin and evacuating a floor of the building where the incident occurred.

Details are few so far, but CBS 5 reports that this all went down around 8:50 a.m. at the Salvation Army Corps Community Center, which is where the female suspect was staying. Because the woman's room had a window facing the street, two blocks of Turk Street were cleared as a precaution after she retreated back to the room when police arrived.

This was all in the vicinity of the Tenderloin Police Station as well, and Captain Theresa Ewins said that the woman had been detained, and that no one was injured despite the gunfire, which the Chronicle reports went through several walls. The incident was resolved as of about 11 a.m. when the woman surrendered.

The situation follows on another that occurred two weeks ago at an SRO in the Mission when a woman, who later admitted to being very drunk, pulled a gun on an exterminator when he knocked on her door. That incident led to a seven-hour standoff and shelter-in-place drama on Valencia Street.
PITTSBURGH  Gisele Fetterman, who started the Braddock Free Store and co-founded the excess food collection service 412 Food Rescue, goes to great lengths to instill values of egalitarianism in her three young children.

Back in 2013, before state-level bans against same-sex marriage were overturned, her husband, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, performed the first gay marriage in Allegheny County in their home, although the union would not be legally recognized. Gisele Fetterman  originally from Rio de Janeiro  told her oldest child, Karl, now 8, that the ceremony would be between two men. He simply responded, So what?

Now, amid fallout from the Trump administrations revised travel ban, daughter Grace, 5, doesnt understand why none of her dolls resemble her friend Salmas mother, Safaa Bokhari, a 30-year-old Muslim from Saudi Arabia who wears a hijab, or a traditional head covering. She lives in Oakland.

I love that Grace doesnt understand why someone would have an issue (with veiled dolls), Gisele Fetterman said.

But while Gisele Fetterman easily found doll-sized glasses for Graces Barbies on Amazon after her daughter got her first pair, she could not find a hijab. It was difficult for her to explain to her young daughter why a portion of the population was not represented in her doll collection, which includes an African-American doll and a doll in a wheelchair. As of 2015, Pew Research Center estimated that 3.3 million Muslims live in the United States.

Out of this frustration, Gisele Fetterman enlisted help from Cindy McCune, a stay-at-home mother of two and artist based in Rankin. McCune, who operates Etsy shop TheBigOh, fashioned Graces first Barbie hijab among about 100 others she has made.

Gisele Fettermans idea has since grown into Hello Hijab, a locally based initiative that will sell doll-sized hijabs for $6 each. The hijabs will be available online at her site, ForGoodPgh.com beginning April 1.

The small squares of fabric are each handmade in varying colors and patterns, mirroring the real-life headscarves that typically measure 36 inches on each side. Gisele Fetterman said Muslim seamstresses will create the next round of mini hijabs at what she called a living wage of $15 per hour.

If children grow up playing with the dolls and understanding that were all different but similar, too, they will be much more accepting adults, Gisele Fetterman said. For her, Hello Hijab is securely grounded in education.

Each scarf will be packaged with a tag, featuring the Hello Hijab logo and a few lines of text describing the nature of the hijab and why theyre important. The message will be written with positivity and inclusivity in mind, Gisele Fetterman said.

The number of scarves produced depends on demand, Gisele Fetterman said, but she has already gauged interested from customers in other states, such as New York and New Jersey.

Last year, Nigerian medical scientist Haneefah Adam, then 24, created the wildly popular Hijarbie Instagram account, which now has amassed 781,000 followers, worldwide. Previously, she had not seen dolls in the head garb, she told CNN, so she was inspired to create role models who dressed modestly.

On the site, Adam posted photos of Barbie dolls clad in mini hijabs she had made herself. Some of the posts feature side-by-side comparisons of the dolls with real-life style influences.

Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie, did not respond to telephone or email requests earlier this week for comment on past or future plans to create Muslim dolls or accessories.

Gisele Fetterman said that any small difference the Hello Hijab makes is worthwhile.

If every playroom has at least one doll with a hijab and that affects five more children who affect 10 more, then I think our work will be considered a success, she said.

After paying seamstresses, Gisele Fetterman said 100 percent of Hello Hijabs proceeds will benefit the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, the ACLU, Community Blueprint and the refugee relief department of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

I joke, but its true  if my kids saw a person walking down the street with purple skin and three eyes, to them it would be just like another person walking down the street, Gisele Fetterman said. I think this will be a much kinder generation.
SIOUX CITY | Tricia Currans-Sheehan loves the "new book smell."

No, not the new car smell.

Rather, the Briar Cliff University English and writing professor enjoys the aroma of the ink that lingers on freshly printed editions of The Briar Cliff Review, the internationally renowned literary magazine she has been editing for nearly 30 years.

"It may sound funny but I like the smell of ink," Currans-Sheehan explained, cracking open an advance copy of the magazine. "It's special to me."

The 29th edition of The Briar Cliff Review will be released at 6 p.m. April 20 at an opening reception at the Sioux City Art Center, 225 Nebraska St.

In addition, art from the literary journal will be exhibited.

"I think representation of visual art is one of the things that sets The Briar Cliff Review apart from other publications," Currans-Sheehan said. "We have a full-size format that allows for elegantly pleasing design. While other magazines offer simply text, we offer more."

Despite that, Currans-Sheehan, a novelist and prolific short story writer, remains a believer in the written word.

Annually, she and a small staff of professors and students plow through the hundreds of short stories submitted by writers.

From these entries, Currans-Sheehan and other Briar Cliff Review editors choose the stories that will be printed and eligible for $1,000 prizes for best poetry, best fiction and best nonfiction.

"I think our magazine is perfect for a writer at the start of his career as well as the writer at the mid-point in his career," she said. "(The mid-point writer) may have had some initial success but he needs the extra boost of confidence that comes with being published in a well-respected anthology."

This was the case for author Jenna Blum, whose 2004 best-selling novel, "Those Who Save Us," was inspired by a short story she originally wrote for The Briar Cliff Review.

"(Blum's) success really opened the floodgates for writers wanting to be published by us," Currans-Sheehan noted. "We have a history and a reputation that is very appealing to emerging writers."

Certain genres of stories, she said, are more likely to be selected than others.

"We lean toward naturalism in our stories," Currans-Sheehan said. "While your story on space aliens might be awesome, it may not be right for The Briar Cliff Review."

Which stories, then, would be considered a more natural fit?

"It all comes down to good characters and a strong ending," Currans-Sheehan said. "There have been many a short story that starts off strong but end with a wrap-everything-in-a-bow finish."

If you start off strong, you also have to maintain that same pace," she said.

That rule could also explain The Briar Cliff Review's continued success.

"There are many literary magazines in the marketplace," she said. "They'll last a few years before disbanding."

Dedication, then, becomes another factor in longevity, particularly among editors.

Need proof? "You know it's still exciting to see the newest edition of The Briar Cliff Review come back from the printers," Currans-Sheehan said. "That has never changed."
SIOUX CITY | A pallet company and a logistics company plan to purchase portions of a 21.4-acre parcel of land in Sioux City's Bridgeport West Business Park.

Both businesses would support the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant under construction at an adjacent site, and are expected to create at least 63 direct jobs combined.

Economic development staff will request the council approve a resolution Monday showing the city's intent to accept proposals for the land, which sits adjacent to the nearly $300 million pork plant, expected to start up in late July.

Tritz Pallet Inc. plans to build a new industrial and manufacturing facility on approximately 12 acres of the property, an investment of $6 million.

Monterey Management LLC plans to construct a four-building logistics complex to service inbound and outbound hog trucks on an approximately 9.5-acre portion of the property, an investment of $11.7 million.

Tritz Pallet Inc. is a pallet management company with corporate offices in Le Mars, Iowa. It operates facilities in Denver, Kansas City, Sioux Falls and at 2301 Bridgeport Drive in Sioux City. The company has about 25 customers in Siouxland, including Seaboard Triumph.

President Frank Tritz said the company's current Sioux City facility is not semi truck accessible and has no loading docks, and the new facility will substantially increase its productivity.

"It'll help us centralize our business closer to our customers and take some pressure off of our Kansas City facility," he said. "We do like 36 semi loads a day out of the Kansas City facility."

The company plans to purchase a speculative building and 4.78 acres on the property for $1.2 million, as well as 3.78 acres north of the building for $94,500, and another 3.3 acres for $99,000.

The company also plans to construct a 140,000-square-foot building north of the spec building and to build out the existing spec building, a $6 million investment.

The expansion will allow the company to add 15-25 more employees. It currently employs fewer than 10 at its Sioux City location, Tritz said.

Monterey Management LLC has proposed to purchase 9.52 acres for $325,000 to develop a 3,200-square-foot logistics facility, a 19,000-square-foot bio-security facility, a 6,400 maintenance facility and an 8,000-square-foot convenience store -- a total investment of $11.7 million. The company would offer fuel, wash bays and other services to trucks entering and exiting the pork plant, according to city documents.

The economic impact is expected to create 38 direct jobs. It will add about $4.6 million in new tax base.

Well be adding jobs and new investments, and were pleased with that," said economic development director Marty Dougherty. "We were pleased that we were able to accommodate the two proposed developments on the ground that is available."

Sioux City began accepting proposals for the site, located at the intersection of Oehlerking Drive and Boulevard of Champions, in early February.

The speculative building on the property was a joint effort between Sioux City and South Sioux City-based H&R Construction. The city provided 4.5 acres of land for the building, which was completed at a cost of $2.1 million in 2015.

If the council passes the resolution, staff will work with the developers to negotiate a development agreement and move toward completion of the property sale. Staff expect that would occur at the council's May 8 meeting.
SIOUX CITY | When her home energy bills escalated during the winter, Amy Derby turned to a federal assistance program.

The Sioux City woman said she was initially embarrassed to apply for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. But after being diagnosed with two types of cancer, having an apartment fire and the death of her mother, Derby knew she needed financial help.

"I was living check to check, and then no check to no check," Derby said, who received $350 for the cold weather months.

"Boy, it got me through the winter months," Derby said. "Without it, I would have had my utilities shut off."

But Derby and several thousand low-income Siouxland people could lose access to LIHEAP money, under President Trump's preliminary budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

The new administration's $17.9 billion budget would cut billions of dollars in discretionary spending, potentially impacting a series of programs that serve Siouxlanders.

National headlines have highlighted the threat Trump's "skinny" budget poses to one of the most beloved programs in the country -- Meals on Wheels. But local officials say the cuts would have little to no effect on the service that delivers hot meals to homebound elderly residents in Siouxland.

The warning sirens about Meals on Wheels is tied to a provision in Trump's budget that would axe federal Community Development Block Grant funds, a source of funding for some Meals on Wheels programs around the country.

The Connections Area Agency on Aging, which operates Meals on Wheels in Sioux City and 20 western Iowa counties, receives various federal, state and local funding, but not Community Development Block Grant dollars. The agency also conducts local fundraising.

Chris Kuchta, the community relations coordinator, who oversees Meals on Wheels in Woodbury, Plymouth, Cherokee, Ida and Monona counties, said Connections officials are cautiously watching the budget process in Washington, as well as in Des Moines, where Iowa lawmakers are looking for ways to close a big budget gap due to lower-than-anticipated revenues.

"I don't think we've dodged a bullet yet. I don't think there has been a full disclosure of the budget. We expect there will be some budget cuts, but we don't know to what degree," Kuchta said.

"We always have to reallocate where our core services are when we are looking at those kinds of cuts. But right now, it is business as usual."

Trump's budget's outline calls for eliminating 62 non-defense agencies and programs, including the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. In budget documents, the Republican administration says the heating assistance program has a lower impact in comparison to other federal aid programs, and is unable to demonstrate strong performance outcomes.

LIHEAP is available to qualified applicants throughout Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. In Woodbury County, the program for years has been administered by the Community Action Agency of Siouxland.

Community Action Agency official LaRae Lyons said the current LIHEAP budget is nearly $1.59 million and applications are taken from Oct. 1 through April 30. Through Monday, 2,904 of the 3,028 applications were approved for energy assistance.

The amount of LIHEAP assistance that people receive depends upon energy usage and income levels. The average award is about $400.

Derby, 49, couldn't work at her job at the Sioux City School District due to the health concerns. Derby brought up that she supported Trump and saw him campaign at the Sioux City Convention Center in 2016.

"I voted for Trump, because I wanted to make America great again...He promised he would not cut (programs for) the poor. I am real disappointed," Derby said.

Community Action Agency of Siouxland Executive Director Jean Logan said the program has been great for Siouxlanders and her understanding is that Trump's budget proposal would completely eliminate LIHEAP. She suspects it would survive in Congress, since she said it has bipartisan support from legislators.

"They understand the value of these programs," she said. "We are good stewards of the money."

"The program would die without funding. ...It would be lamentable," Logan said. "...Families really need that money. It is a significant amount to working families."

She noted another program operated by the agency, the Senior Community Services Employment Program, a job training program for people over age 55, would also be eliminated under Trump's budget blueprint.

Meals on Wheels

While not reliant on Community Development Block Grants, the Connections Area Agency on Aging receives dollars from the Administration on Community Living, housed within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Since the 1970s, the agency has administered funds related to the Older Americans Act.

Connections uses $280,000 in federal money in the current fiscal year in its 20-county area, stretching as far south as the Missouri border, for home-delivered meals, which include not only Meals on Wheels, but also frozen and shelf stable meals. This allotment covers about 35 percent of the total cost for meals.

To qualify for Meals on Wheels, applicants must be over age 60, be home-bound and have a physician's referral. Some people may only need the meals for a few weeks after a hospital stay; others may get the food for much longer periods. The recipients don't have to pay for the meals, but are asked to give a voluntary contribution.

Kuchta said a fast-growing portion of Iowa is people over age 80, so Meals on Wheels is an important service. She said the continuation of the program is crucial because it gives elderly people a hot, well-balanced meal and may comprise their sole social moment of the day with the outside world.

"These meals are highly nutritious, make up more than 30 percent of daily nutritional needs," he said.

About 250 meals are delivered on weekdays in Woodbury, Plymouth, Cherokee, Ida and Monona counties. Up to 400 people are approved to get meals, but they may only receive them from two to five days per week, depending upon the local organizations.

Depending on the city, the dinners are served as part of the Meals on Wheels program or under the congregate meal name.

The goal is to keep people living in their homes longer, since the costs of being served in a nursing home can be six times higher, Kuchta said.

"It is concerning when we see President Trump announcing cuts to home- and community-based services, because the alternative may be seeing our oldest community members going into nursing homes to meet their needs at a much higher cost," he said.
FARGO  A satellite built by students from North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota could be launched to the International Space Station sometime this summer, an NDSU professor said.

Vibration testing, fixing problems found in those tests, and lots of paperwork remain before OpenOrbiter 1, a tiny cube-shaped satellite, will become part of a payload package to be sent to the International Space Station, said computer science instructor Jeremy Straub.

Just in the last week or two, we have been quickly responding to a lot of queries from NASA  so we can continue to move forward at the rate we need to, he said.

Organizers hoped OpenOrbiter would be launched early this year, but given all of the testing and safety requirements, You never say an exact date with a satellite, Straub said.

The cubesat, which is 10 to 11 centimeters on each side, is designed to upload apps for science and engineering experiments, and to test a miniature 3-D printer exposed to the conditions of low Earth orbit, he said. It is the first satellite made in North Dakota, Straub said.

He said much of what will be done with the satellite in coming months is being handled by a firm called NanoRacks, which on its website bills itself as the concierge to the stars, saying it will take care of all necessary details to place your payload into space.

Straub said the hardware is set, though there might be some software updates required.

When OpenOrbiter passes all of its tests and is approved by each group that must sign off before launch, NanoRacks will put it into a tube with several other satellites, then into a padded bag to be handled by astronauts.

A spacewalk must be scheduled to install the satellite for launch from the International Space Station. It must move away from the space station before it can begin transmitting data, Straub said.

Were aiming to be ready to launch in the summer, he said.

It is a secondary payload, so it can be bumped to a later launch date by other items or missions deemed more important.

There are a lot of things that have to go right to hit the nail on the head with the schedule, Straub said.

The satellite program involves dozens of students and faculty from each campus in computer engineering, computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering, and other fields, he said.

Each school built a version of the satellite. The best components of the two cubesats will make up the satellite that gets launched. The satellites also serve as back-ups for each other, with the potential of swapping out parts, Straub said.
CHICAGO -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are all over America's public schools.

Not physically, of course, but they are ever-present in the minds of millions of students who are either in the country without legal status or have parents who are.

It comes out in countless ways -- fidgetiness belying anxiety, depression manifesting itself as anger, and sometimes as just the plain old listlessness of a student who is sleepy in class because he or she was awake in the night wondering if parents, uncles or grandparents will be taken away soon.

Even teachers aren't immune to such fears. Though educators are never informed by the school about the legal status of students or their families -- not only are school personnel prohibited from inquiring about the immigration status of students, by federal law the schools themselves are not allowed to ask families or students about their citizenship -- teachers worry.

Sometimes students or their parents openly discuss their immigration problems with teachers they trust. Other times teachers just infer things from conversations with families at open houses or conferences. But in most cases we don't really know.

Early last week, a Hispanic student was called out of my class by the office for a parent pick-up. The girl looked at me and another teacher in the room quizzically and said, "No, I'm not supposed to go home early."

We called the office and confirmed that this student was being taken out of school in the middle of the day and, ultimately, she was asked to pack up and go.

At the time, I had the fleeting thought: "Oh no, I hope this isn't some sort of terrible immigration emergency and this is the last time I'm ever going to see this kid."

The next day, she didn't come to school and I willed away negative thoughts about her family being on the run or otherwise in crisis.

As of this writing, she still hasn't been back to school. It's probably nothing, but I won't know until I see her again.

Realistically, these teacherly moments of stress are nothing compared to what the students themselves are contending with.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, about 2.5 million undocumented youth live in the U.S. and another 4.1 million children are U.S.-born but live in mixed-status households with at least one parent or family member who is unlawfully present. They all have the constitutional right to attend public schools.

And it's safe to say that whether any of these students have ever laid eyes on an ICE agent or not, the fear of having their family come into contact with one is nothing short of a daily source of trauma.

Some school systems, like the Chicago Public Schools, have told principals not to let federal immigration authorities inside district buildings unless they have a criminal warrant. They said in a statement, "To be very clear, CPS does not provide assistance to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the enforcement of federal civil immigration law."

Schools in California, Utah, Colorado, Pennsylvania and other states are conspicuously putting similar measures into place to ensure that immigration officials do not come onto school grounds without warrants.

Others, in communities with large Latino populations, are going so far as providing teachers with handouts about what they can do in the event that an ICE officer comes to their classroom.

"Ask to see the enforcement agent's credentials and warrants," "Ask the enforcement agent why this matter could not be dealt with at the student's home," and "Encourage enforcement agents to interview students outside of school hours and off school grounds," reads one fact sheet.

If this sounds like public schools are having to spend scarce resources and time preparing their administrators and teaching staff to stand up to armed federal agents -- that about sums it up.

And these new duties are in addition to having to deal with instances of students making racial slurs and chanting taunts like "Build that wall!" in school hallways.

For schools in communities with large populations of unlawfully present immigrants, the specter of having ICE agents show up during class is revolting.

Though there is a policy stating that ICE officers and immigration agents should refrain from enforcement actions at K-12 schools, there is no statute or law guaranteeing it.

There ought to be.
Their hands finally forced, we learned this past week where Iowas Congressional Republicans stood on their partys plan to dismantle the Democrats health care reforms.

Even if they never got to cast their vote.

Iowas three Republican U.S. House members never went officially on the House record because GOP legislation to repeal much of the health care reform implemented by Democrats under former President Barack Obama was pulled by leaders Friday just minutes before a planned vote.

But the Iowa delegation had stated their intentions earlier in the week.

Rod Blum, from the eastern Iowa 1st District, and David Young, from the central Iowa 3rd District, said they planned to vote against the proposal, placing them among the roughly two dozen House Republicans to make such a pledge.

Steve King, from the western Iowa 4th District, said he planned to vote in support of the legislation on the promise of alterations to be made in the Senate.

Each vote is interesting in its own right, and worth exploring.

Blum had been noncommittal regarding his vote until Tuesday, just days before Friday's debate in the U.S. House. Blum said he opposed the GOP plan because it did not sufficiently drive down health care costs.

Blum is in his second term representing a district that has roughly 20,000 more Democratic voters than Republicans. Perhaps his vote was motivated by surviving re-election in such a district.

However, Blum also is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, which consists of some of the Houses most conservative members. Many members of that group had said they were opposed to the GOP health care bill.

Young also kept his vote close to the vest until revealing his feelings on Wednesday.

Young represents a district that has roughly 10,000 more Republican voters than Democrats. In a statement, Young called the GOP bill a very good start but said the bill does not yet get it right.

Youngs statement seemed to indicate a willingness to support an updated bill when he added, This conversation is not over.

King announced in a live video posted on Facebook that he would support the bill after receiving assurances that, eventually, it will strip mandated benefits for insurance coverage.

King represents Iowas most conservative district. Iowa's 4th Congressional has roughly 40,000 more Republican voters than Democrats.

It was an interesting week for congressional Republicans as they inched closer to taking significant action on health care reform but ultimately bailed. After spending much of the past eight years and two national elections promising to repeal Obamas health care law, Republicans in Washington have been dealing with the reality of the significant effort it will take to make that happen without upsetting their constituents.

Republican leaders at the very top --- President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan --- spent the week encouraging Republicans to support the legislation. National media reports said Trump threatened to help promote primary election candidates against Republicans who declined to support the GOP health care bill.

But as Republican efforts to demolish Obamas health care law intensified, the law grew increasingly popular in public opinion polls. The law --- properly known as the Affordable Care Act and more commonly known as Obamacare --- started March with its best-ever average on Real Clear Politics at plus-5.3.

So Republicans are left to deal with their conservative base that still wants the law ripped off the books, but also growing support from others --- including some Republicans --- who want it preserved.

All of this helped to make this weeks House GOP vote-wrangling so interesting.

And it never even made it to the Senate.
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Occidental Petroleum Corporation is an international oil and gas giant founded in 1920 to explore for oil in California. The company made its name in the early 1960safter discovering the Lathrop Gas Field in Lathrop, California. The company expanded into chemicals manufacturing in 1968 and then in 1972 it became a pioneer in the quest to extract oil from shale. In 1993, the company made a historic move by exiting its coal operations, and then it did so again when it embraced a lower carbon future.

The company worked to realign its goals with a carbon-free future in 2021. After extensive review, new carbon emission targets were laid out along with a plan that the Transition Pathway Initiative recognized as being 1 of 3 coming from major oil companies that could realistically result in net-zero emissions by 2050. Since then the company has laid interim goals that include net zero from operations and energy by 2040 and no routine flaring by 2030.

Today, Occidental Petroleum is an integrated energy company with operations in the US, the Middle East, Africa, and Columbia along with some other smaller operations. The company operates a network of best-in-class production, delivery, and storage facilities with operations centered in the US. On a net basis, the companys US operations accounted for more than 75% of the total in 2022 with 19% from Middle East operations and the remainder from Columbia and elsewhere.

The company engages in the oil & gas business as an explorer, producer, and mid-stream infrastructure operator. The company operates through three segments that include Oil and Gas, Chemicals, and Midstream & Marketing.

The oil and gas segment explores for oil, develops new fields, and produces hydrocarbon liquids, gasses, and condensates. The chemicals segment manufactures a range of chemicals including chlorine, potassium chemicals, and vinyl. The midstream segment transports, stores, and markets hydrocarbons. It is the 6th largest oil and gas producer in the US by market cap. The company attained the position after its acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum in 2019, the 4th largest oil and gas acquisition at the time.

Berkshire Hathaway became Occidental Petroleums largest shareholder in mid-2022. The firm had purchased more than 26% of the shares as of 10/14/2022 and had regulatory approval to purchase up to 50% of the company in total.
Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.




Moscow, 25 March 2017 (SPS) -The Sahrawi coordinator with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) M'hamed Khaddad called Friday in Moscow for "strict" compliance with the international legality to allow the people exercise the right to self-determination.

Speaking at a joint press conference with other members of the Polisario Front delegation on a visit to Moscow, Khaddad said neither the long years of war nor Morocco's political manoeuvres undermined the determination of the Sahrawi people to regain independence."

"The international community stresses a political settlement is essential as evidenced by the resolution 2285 adopted in April 2016 by the UN Security Council, which advocates the continuation of negotiations to allow the Sahrawi people exercise the self-determination of the Sahrawi people," stated Khaddad.

"The UN has a mission in Western Sahara since 1991, which is charge of holding the referendum. Morocco undermines UN's steps and measures to establish peace," he recalled.

As regards his visit to Moscow, the Sahrawi official called it "successful."

The Polisario Front delegation, made up of Brahim Mohamed Mahmoud, Secretary of State for Documentation and Security, Fatima Mehdi, Secretary General of General Union of Sahrawi women and Representative of the Polisario Front to Russia Ali Salem Mohamed Fadhel, held talks with the Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Presidential Representative for the Middle East and Africa Mikhail Bogdanov.

On this occasion, Bogdanov "reiterated Russias unchanging position on the need for a mutually acceptable political solution to this long-running problem, based on relevant UN resolutions, and emphasised Moscows desire to continue focused work in this area with all interested parties, in particular, with its partners in the Group of Friends of Western Sahara." (SPS)

062/090/700




Yonkers Raceways Blue Chip Matchmaker offered up Round 2 on Friday night (March 24), with another trio of $40,000 divisions for top-flight pacing mares.

The opening event saw Empress Deo (Matt Kakaley, $25) get encouraged to leave the gate, then trip out from the pocket to pick off Shesjustadelight N (Ron Cushing) at the wire in 1:54. Divas Image (Joe Bongiorno), as the just-over-even-money favourite, was third.

From post position No. 5, Empress Deo left to an immediate lead, then relented to pole-sitting Shesjustadelight N at a :27.2 opening quarter-mile.

After a soft :56.4 half, series-debuting Sandbetweenurtoes (Brett Miller) tried it first-up from fifth. She didnt threaten as Delight led comfortably in and out of a 1:26 three-quarters, up a length-and-a-quarter entering the lane.

A week ago, it was Empress Deo cutting the fractions and Shesjustadelight N beating her from behind. It was turnabout and fair play this time around, with Empress Deo ducking inside and getting the decision by a head.

Divas Image was beaten a length, with Lispatty (Mark MacDonald) and Sandbetweenurtoes rounding out the payees.

For fourth choice Empress Deo, a six-year-old daughter of Rocknroll Hanover owned by Legacy Racing of Delaware and trained by Wayne Givens, the win was her first in 10 seasonal starts. The exacta paid $71, with the triple returning $146.

Friday nights second Matchmaker grouping saw Mackenzie A (Jordan Stratton, $6.80) win both the draw and the race (1:53.2).

Giving it up early to Wrangler Magic (Dube), Mackenzie A then played a game of Ladies Leapfrog, making the lead just after a :28.2 opening quarter-mile. It was an equally-time second substation (:56.4 intermission), then Betabcool N (Mark MacDonald) moved from fifth.

Mackenzie A was comfy through a 1:24.4 three-quarters as the miss opened a couple of lengths into the lane. She held off a good effort from Wrangler Magic, winning by a half-length. Betabcool N held third, with a from-last, 79-1 Medusa (Kakaley) and a never-in-it, 9-10 fave Mach It A Par (Jason Bartlett) settling for the minors.

For Mackenzie A, a five-year-old Down Under daughter of Rock N Roll Heaven co-owned by Harry von Knoblauch & Ellen Kinser and trained by Peter Tritton, the win was her first in four seasonal/North American starts. The exacta paid $36.40, with the triple returning $205.

The second rounds final foray offered the fastest female, as it did a week ago. This time, it was odds-on Bedroomconfessions (Scott Zeron, $2.90) giving nothing else a shot (:27.3, :57, 1:25.2, 1:52.3).

Leaving from the pylons, Bedroomconfessions toured the terrain with the ease of a qualifier. She stuffed Krispy Apple (Miller) in behind at the outset, then did as she pleased. The lead was three lengths in and out of the final turn and three and a quarter lengths at the wire.

Regil Elektra (Bartlett) was a solid, two-move second, with Kiwis Sell A Bit N (Stratton) and Change The Rulz N (George Brennan) earning the rest of the reward money.

For Bedroomconfessions, a five-year-old statebred daughter of American Ideal co-owned by trainer Tony Alagna (as Alagna Racing) and Riverview Racing, the win was her third in six 17 starts. The exacta paid $6.20, with the triple (three wagering favourites in order) returning $12.40.

Shes a big horse, but she gets around a [half-mile track] so well, Zeron said. They never tried her much on the small tracks before this season, but shes faster in these turns than she is in the straightaway.

The race couldnt have been easier. Everyone else was happy to line up behind us. Never showed her the whip, never pulled the plugs.

(With files from Yonkers Raceway)
Friday, March 24, 2017

This week, Joe Kristan (CPA & Shareholder, Roth & Company (Des Moines, Iowa); Editor, Tax Update Blog) discusses a recent Tax Court case denying a couple's claimed $18,000 charitable deduction for used clothing donated to their church.

Deducting that gold mine in your closet. Thrift shop values. Tax pros might expect Goodwill and Salvation Army to be the largest industrial enterprises in the nation, going by the values clients provide for used clothing they give away. The Tax Court gave us a lesson last week on the sort of tax value you can squeeze out of last years wardrobe. A Colorado couple must have really cleared out the closets and attic in 2013, as they claimed a charitable donation of $18,000 for donation of used clothing to a church. Unfortunately, the court record is light on just what those clothes were: Other than generalized references to various clothing designers and the quality of the items petitioners claimed to have donated, no details as to the number of specific items donated or the value of any specific item have been provided. Petitioners did not present any written substantiation for the charitable contribution deduction, nor could petitioner recall how the value of the donations was calculated.

Documentation means a lot in the tax law, and for big non-cash donations, its pretty much everything. Judge Carluzzo reviews the documentation hurdles non-cash deductions have to clear (citations and footnotes omitted, emphasis added): First, any contribution of $250 or more must satisfy the requirement of section 1.170A-13(f)(1), Income Tax Regs., which provides that to be allowed a charitable contribution deduction of $250 or more, the taxpayer must substantiate the contribution with a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the donee organization. Second, for noncash contributions in excess of $500, a taxpayer must maintain reliable written records with respect to each donated item. These records must include, inter alia: (1) the approximate date and manner of the propertys acquisition; (2) a description of the property in detail reasonable under the circumstances; (3) the propertys cost or other basis; (4) the propertys fair market value at the time of contribution; and (5) the method by which its fair market value was determined. Third, for noncash contributions of property with a claimed value of $5,000 or more, a taxpayer must  in addition to satisfying both sets of requirements described above  obtain a qualified appraisal of the donated item(s) and attach to his tax return a fully completed appraisal summary on Form 8283. It appears the taxpayers failed to clear the easiest first hurdle. Even if they got to hurdle number three, the appraisal, it might be a challenge to find a qualified appraiser for $18,000 of used clothing. To have a qualified appraisal, you need a qualified appraiser. IRS Publication 561 explains what that means: A qualified appraiser is an individual who meets all the following requirements. 1. The individual either: a. Has earned an appraisal designation from a recognized professional appraiser organization for demonstrated competency in valuing the type of property being appraised, or b. Has met certain minimum education and experience requirements. For real property, the appraiser must be licensed or certified for the type of property being appraised in the state in which the property is located. For property other than real property, the appraiser must have successfully completed college or professional-level coursework relevant to the property being valued, must have at least 2 years of experience in the trade or business of buying, selling, or valuing the type of property being valued, and must fully describe in the appraisal his or her qualifying education and experience. 2. The individual regularly prepares appraisals for which he or she is paid. 3. The individual demonstrates verifiable education and experience in valuing the type of property being appraised. To do this, the appraiser can make a declaration in the appraisal that, because of his or her background, experience, education, and membership in professional associations, he or she is qualified to make appraisals of the type of property being valued If there are appraisers out there with those sorts of credentials, the taxpayers missed them. Decision for IRS. The moral? The IRS seems to be pretty good at spotting questionable property donations. If you dont have the paperwork or the appraisal, dont claim over $5,000 for donations of property, unless you are donating publicly traded securities. If you do, you get in line for an IRS visit, a deduction of zero, and the 20% accuracy related penalty the IRS piled on top for these taxpayers. Cite: Gaines v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2017-15 (Mar. 16, 2017)

Monday, March 20, 2017

Career Corner. Reorganization  What to Do When You Get a New Boss (Bryce Sanders, Going Concern)

Jason Dinesen, Glossary: Revenue Procedure. In tax terms, a revenue procedure is IRS guidance on how taxpayers should comply with certain laws and regulations.

Jim Maule, Commas and (Tax) Statutes. Though the dispute between advocates of the Oxford comma and those who do not subscribe to it will continue, it is clear that using the comma can provide clarification that its absence cannot offer.

Kay Bell, When it came to tax filing, the Devil made him not do it. No, thats who writes the tax law.

Kristine Tidgren, Why a Federal Court Dismissed the DMWW Lawsuit (Ag Docket) The court was required to dismiss the lawsuit after finding thateven if DMWW was able to prove an injurythe drainage districts would have no ability to redress (or remedy) that injury. In other words, the drainage districts were not the proper defendants for this Clean Water Act lawsuit.

Lew Taishoff, I SING THE SERVICE ELECTRONIC. Howbeit, practitioner, be aware that the judges, clerks, intakers and flailing date-stampers at the Glasshouse at 400 Second Street, NW adjure you to recollect Walts immortal words: They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them.'

Morgan Scarboro, Kansas Looks at Filling Revenue Gap with Sales Tax Base Broadening. (Tax Policy Blog). Still facing the distortionary pass-through carve-out, policymakers are seeking to raise revenue from another source. One option, HB 2384, which will be heard in the House Taxation Committee next Tuesday, would expand the sales tax base to some personal services (see below), raising $51 million in 2018.

Congratulations to Peter Reilly, whose 2014 post Pulling IRS Into Your Business Dispute Might Not Be Such A Good Idea was cited on brief by a by the winning side as a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned a district court decision. Peter explains in Blog Cited In Appellate Brief In Form 1099 Case:

So last week was my week for feeling vindicated. First there was President Trumps return, which showed the New York Times to the contrary notwithstanding, that then developer Donald Trumps nearly billion dollar loss carryover was not an eighteen year Get Out Of Tax Free card. And now we have the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Shiner V Turnoy overturning a District Court decision that I questioned back in 2014.

Well done, Peter.

Robert Wood, Man Draws $4.3M IRS Penalty For Lending $100K To Struggling Business. This is the doctor who used personal funds for the last payroll when a thieving bookkeeper bankrupted his practice.

TaxGrrrl, Taxes From A To Z (2017): C Is For Canceled Debt

TaxProf, The IRS Scandal, Day 1411: Why Did Donald Trump Fire Sally Yates And Preet Bharara, But Not John Koskinen? Maybe Koskinen knows too much. Maybe the President likes the idea of the IRS harassing political enemies as long as he gets to pick them.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

David Henderson, Thoughts on the Republican Health Insurance Reform (EconLog). As I wrote over 20 years ago, the combination of guaranteed issue and community rating, a key feature of Obamacare, leads to the destruction of insurance markets. No one would advocate forcing insurance companies to issue house insurance policies to people whose houses are burning, at premiums equal to those paid by others whose houses arent burning.

Jack Townsend, Article on Filings in Coinbase John Doe Summons Case. Also, the affidavit indicates a low level of tax compliance on Form 8949 for bitcoin users. The IRS says Bitcoin users have to report a capital gain transaction every time they spend their virtual currency. When you impose an onerous reporting obligation on routine transactions, dont be surprised if compliance isnt great.

Jeremy Scott, Trumps Leaked Return Shows Why We Need an AMT (Tax Analysts Blog). A very wealthy taxpayer had deductions that offset most of his income, so to ensure that some tax was paid, the AMT kicked in.

Why is this is nonsense on stilts?

The Trump AMT probably the result of AMT loss carryforwards being used up before regular tax loss carryforwards. This probably generated an AMT credit carryforward that offset subsequent regular tax.

The point of an income tax is to measure and tax income  not just to beat up on wealthy people. If deductions allowed in the income tax distort income, get rid of the deductions. Dont make people compute income different ways until they come up with a result you like.

If Trump really had operating losses  and that isnt seriously disputed  he shouldnt pay income taxes until the losses are used up. After all, the point of the income tax is to tax income, not losses.

AMT, which requires taxpayers to compute taxable income at least twice, is expensive for taxpayers and foolish tax policy. If you prefer the results that AMT generates, then go with real tax reform with a broad base, a lower rate, and fewer deductions.

Kay Bell, Springtime is energy tax break time

Lew Taishoff, APPEAL? DONT APPEAL? YOURE FORKED. This dealt with the SDLIA, whereby the S Corp pays life insurance premiums on the key employee (the sole shareholder, officer, director, etc.) and deducts the same. The premiums supposedly fund the defined benefit pension plan, but the death benefit under said plan is a puny fraction of the death benefit of the life insurance policy.

News from the Profession. Talent Worries and Opposing Auditor Rotation (Caleb Newquist, Going Concern). Nothing says accounting news quite like a corgi on a beach.

Roger McEowen, The Changing Structure of Agricultural Production andthe IRS:

Thus, as more farmers shift the payroll compliance duties to others so that the farmer has more time to devote to conducting farming operations, this case sounds a loud warning  shifting the payroll duties does not shift the responsibility to see that trust fund withholdings have been paid to the IRS. The farmer will be held liable. The responsibility cant be delegated. Make sure to watch payroll taxes.

Remit your payroll taxes on time. If you use a payroll service or payroll clerk, make it a habit to log into EFTPS, the Eletronic Federal Tax Payment System, to make sure that your payments are actually being made.

Russ Fox, Do Not Blindly Pay IRS Notices, Reason:

The IRS AUR [Automated Underreporting Unit] program is a huge (or should I say bigly) money maker for the agency. People blindly pay these notices; after all, if the IRS sends it out it must be right? Well, the last survey I saw showed that two-thirds of IRS notices are wrong in whole or in part. AUR notices are not screened before being sent out. The recipient is literally the first person to have read it.

Russ tells an all-too-common story about how a client taxpayer got a notice saying she had underreported $50,000 of income that was clearly shown on her return.

TaxProf, The Best And Worst States For Business: 90% Of The Top 10 Voted For Trump; 80% Of The Bottom 10 Voted For Clinton.

The political angle is less interesting to me than Iowas ranking as tied for 10th best. The ranking, The First McGee Annual Report on the Best and Worst States for Business, combines five rankings of business climate to produce a combined score. Iowas 40th place ranking in business tax climate is offset by a fifth-place regulatory freedom ranking by the libertarian Cato Institute and a 4th place ranking by the Institute for Legal Reform, which ranks the business friendliness of state legal systems.

Just think of how good Iowa would look if our tax climate were even average.

TaxGrrrl, IRS Tries Again To Make Coinbase Turn Over Customer Account Data. The newest round of court filings suggests that there might be wide-scale tax evasion related to virtual currency.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Career Corner, How to Say No in Public Accounting Without Killing Your Career (Rachel Andujar, Going Concern).

Carl Davis, Amazon Will Collect Every State Sales Tax by April 1 (Tax Justice Blog)

Jack Townsend, Fifth Circuit Rejects Nontraditional Contest of FBAR Willful Burden of Proof Contest

Jim Maule, Tax Return Preparation as a Side Job. The plaintiff opened her case by saying, Im a tax preparer and Im an adult entertainer. So I dance full time and I do taxes seasonally' Here in Iowa, it usually is a good idea to keep your clothes on this time of year.

Jon Baron, Blockchain, Accounting and Audit: What Accountants Need to Know (Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting Blog).

Kay Bell, 12 often overlooked tax breaks.

Lew Taishoff, DECLARE IT AMONG THE NATIONS Tax Court hasnt got the freewheeling jurisdiction of USDC to go whithersoever it listeth.

Nicole Kaeding, Joseph Henchman, Complicated State Taxes for Business Travelers (Tax Policy Blog):

Tomorrow [today], the House Judiciary Committee will hold a markup of HB 1393, the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2017.

The bill limits states from imposing or collecting individual income tax on people who are in the state for less than 30 days.

Most states technically require such payments when someone is in the state for even a day (see map below), and even that withholding to be set up in advance. Such practices disrupt interstate commerce and falsely suggest that business travelers earn their income in traveling states and not from the home office. Weve increasingly heard horror stories of states trying to collect these sums.

Since all states provide a credit for taxes paid to another state, making people fill out 20 or 30 tax returns for a net national wash is lunacy. Most everyone, except some state tax administrators, supports this legislation.

Senators and representatives from a few states that get a disproportionate share of business travel do oppose the bill. In doing so, they inconvenience all of their own constituents who travel as a favor to their in-state revenue departments.

Paul Neiffer, Will Net Investment Income Tax Disappear in 2017. The House Republications released a managers amendment Monday night that may lead to the repeal of the net investment income tax effective January 1, 2017.

Russ Fox begins his filing season Annual Blog Hiatus.

Sam Brunson, Satan, Tea Parties, and the IRS (Surly Subgroup). Did you hear that the IRS granted a Satanic cult tax-exempt status in ten days?!?

Stephen Olsen, Second Circuit Tosses Penalties Because of IRS Failure To Obtain Supervisor Approval (Procedurally Taxing).

TaxGrrrl, Taxes From A To Z (2017): F Is For Fat Finger Error

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Howard Gleckman, The AHCAs Tax Changes And Transfers Would Benefit The Wealthy, Hurt The Lowest Income Households (TaxVox)

Jason Dinesen, The 4 Choices a Small Business Owner Has When Their Business is No Longer a Side Business. Many of the business clients I work with are either side businesses, or side businesses that are turning into real businesses. Ive written before about the struggle of taking a side business and turning it into something more.

Kay Bell, Health Savings Accounts medical and tax advantages. Im a believer.

Keith Fogg, A Crack in the Glass Ceiling  Victory in a Financial Disability Case (Procedurally Taxing). The IRS has administratively erased a Code provision designed to help repair old tax problems of taxpayers who have lost the ability to manage their affairs. A court case may force the IRS to follow the law. The facts here follow fairly closely the facts in the case Brockamp v. United States, 519 U.S. 347 (1997), in which another 90 year old gentleman failed to timely file a refund claim and the failure was discovered by his executor after the ordinary statute of limitations had expired.

Kicking to the wrong side of the field? With the house AHCA vote today, Arnold Kling tells us that our health insurance debate isnt even addressing the real issues. Health Insurance: Where are the Goal Posts?

Lew Taishoff, THE JERSEY BOUNCE  PART DEUX. Judge Gustafson, take a bow.

Megan McArdle, Better Health Care for Less Money? Its Not Easy. No government system in the world has actually lowered health-care costs on any sustained basis, absent something like the Greek financial crisis that forces a sudden and drastic reduction in government spending.

Morgan Scarboro and Nicole Kaeding have news on Multiple Tax Proposals in Minnesota:

With a projected surplus of $1.65 billion, some policymakers in Minnesota want tax reform. Several plans are being discussed in the state legislature, ranging from a $300 million tax cut proposed in the updated budget of Governor Mark Dayton (D) to a $1.35 billion tax cut proposed by House Republicans.

A different sort of debate than we are having in Iowa. But there are similarities:

Minnesota needs broad tax reform. The state currently levies the third highest individual and corporate income tax rates in the country. Its property tax system is unnecessarily complex and burdensome to businesses. The state ranks 46th in our State Business Tax Climate Index.

Iowas climate is in 40th place, but Minnesota is significantly worse.

News from the Profession. Robot Auditors Wont Have a Problem Giving Clients Bad News (Caleb Newquist, Going Concern)

Richard Phillips, GOP Healthcare Bill Cuts Insurance Coverage for Millions to Pay for Tax Cuts for the Wealthy; ITEP State-By-State Estimates (Tax Justice Blog)

Roger McEowen, Farm-Related Casualty Losses and Involuntary Conversions  Helpful Tax Rules in Times of Distress. The amount of the deduction for casualty losses is the lesser of the difference between the fair market value before the casualty or theft and the fair market value afterwards, and the amount of the adjusted income tax basis for purposes of determining loss.

Sam Brunson, Update on the Future of Treasury Regulations (Surly Subgroup). Yesterday, Commissioner Koskinen announced that the IRS was set to begin issuing subregulatory guidance again. He didnt define what he meant by subregulatory, but it probably includes revenue procedures, notices, and revenue rulings, at least.

TaxGrrrl, In Search Of Votes, GOP Makes Changes To Plan To Repeal & Replace Obamacare

Tony Nitti, In Amended Health Care Bill, GOP Doubles Down On Tax Breaks For The Rich, Reduced Medicaid Funding. Eliminating unwise and complex tax = tax breaks for the rich.

Friday, March 24, 2017

Riddles of the Profession: Talent Crisis Survey: Where Have All the Accountants Gone? (Adrienne Gonzalez, Going Concern)

Annette Nellen, ACA has lots of tax provisions. A handy list.

Carl Davis, Taxing the Gig Economy (Tax Justice Blog). Our ever-changing economy demands that lawmakers update our tax laws to keep pace.

David Brunori, Single Sales, Bad Taxes, and the Need for Guidance (Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting Blog). The trend toward single sales factor apportionment is unstoppable.

David Herzig updates his list of Tax Professors on Twitter (Surly Subgroup)

Elaine Maag, Simplifying And Targeting Tax Subsidies For Child Care (TaxVox). Congress should consider simplifying and expanding current benefits rather than further complicating the problem by creating three new benefits.

Jason Dinesen, Allocating Estimated Payments for Taxable Refund Calculations. When a taxpayer receives a refund of state income taxes, and the taxpayer took a deduction on their federal tax return, and some of the payments made to the state were estimated payments that may have been made in a different calendar year  well, it can require some math to determine the taxable refund and the deductible portion of the estimated payment.

Jim Maule, What Sort of Tax or Fee Will Hawaii Use to Fix Its Highways?. Surely a state caught between higher fuel taxes and arguments about vehicle weight and value would find merit in an idea that takes the best of the weight-based tax and blends it with another measure of wear and tear, vehicle mileage. But Im not holding my breath.

Amazon celebrates? Amazon tax-free shopping ends nationwide on April 1 (Kay Bell). I think it will become clear that sales tax avoidance isnt what makes Amazons business model work. Income tax avoidance, that always helps.

Lew Taishoff, THE MOST UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL. Tax Court, per Judge Lauber, has unloaded upon you 188 pages, demolishing your twelve (count em, twelve) lawyers under a barrage of eighteen (count em, eighteen) lawyers, in Amazon.Com, Inc. & Subsidiaries, 148 T. C. 8, filed 2/23/17. A $234 million win for Amazon.

Robert Wood, Man Could Face 5 Years For $18M IRS Employment Tax Violation. The IRS doesnt look at failure to remit payroll tax as an alternate form of borrowing. They see it as an alternate form of stealing.

TaxGrrrl, Tax, Medicaid Tweaks Not Enough As GOP Postpones Vote On Obamacare Replacement:

After hours on Thursday, President Trump reportedly pushed for a vote on Friday and Ryan has agreed. However, it appears that the GOP still does not have the necessary support. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) said about the health care proposal, Theyre going to bring it up, pass or fail.

Considering the poor results from passing ACA in a hurry, maybe a hurried repeal isnt a great idea.

TaxProf, The IRS Scandal, Day 1416: Media Attention And IRS Abuse. Aside from a small number of groups related to the Occupy Wall Street movement and the defunct advocacy group Acorn, libertarian and free-market groups were almost exclusively targeted.

Veronique De Rugy, Dont Let Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Kill Tax Day (Reason.com):

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), think that is one time too many. They want the Internal Revenue Service to prepare tax returns on behalf of taxpayers instead of leaving it as an individual responsibility.

This idea is pitched as a simplification. And, to be fair, the complexity of our tax code is undeniable. It results in tax-compliance costs that can reach nearly $1 trillion annually, according to my colleague Jason Fichtner. However, the solution to this complexity isnt to add to the opacity of the system and make the cost of government even less visible to those picking up the tab. Theres already too much of that.

Sometimes I think that having the IRS process taxes from information returns and just send a statement and a refund to taxpayers with only wage income would be good policy. After years of watching the way the IRS and the tax law really work, though, I dont think its possible. The tax law is too complex, and the challenge of doing it right is probably beyond what the tax agency could accomplish with adequate competency.

I am sympathetic to the argument that its good for taxpayers to see what they are paying, and how, but Id be more persuaded if the current system had done a better job of preventing high rates and complexity.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/03/weekly.html
In a closet-sized room in Mark Morris High Schools career center, packages and cans of food fill several shelves. Vegetables, peanut butter, fruit cups, bags of nuts, boxes of pasta and other staples are neatly organized according to food group.

This is the high schools Pride Pantry, where Seniors Makenzie Weber and Kennedy Werner spend their free time stocking shelves, taking inventory and handing out food and toiletries to fellow students in need. The girls created the pantry in November for a Future Business Leaders of America club service project.

We had looked at doing the food drive for the homeless community, Makenzie said. That kind of morphed into, Well, we have hungry students at Mark Morris, why dont we fight it in our own school first? 

Several members of the club, including Makenzie and Kennedy, will present the project and a written report at the FBLA state competition in Spokane in April.

The idea was first presented by business teacher and FBLA club adviser Jocelyn Schauer. Schauer said in the fall she spoke with another adviser from Puyallup whose school had recently created a food pantry for their own students.

It was pretty much unanimous that our chapter agreed that we would put this in, Makenzie said. The club held fundraisers that made nearly $500 and solicited donations from local businesses and community members. Lower Columbia CAP contributed a portion of food donations from Februarys Civil War Food Drive, too.

Despite the hours of hard work club members put into fundraising, organizing and preparing the pantry, students didnt use it during the first week.

That was a little heartbreaking, Makenzie said. The group had a backup plan, though: if no one used the pantry, all donations would go back to homeless shelters or Lower Columbia CAP.

Then slowly but surely students began coming to the pantry, with consistent users by mid-December. Club members interviewed several users to see what additional food theyd like to see in the pantry. Highly requested items included toiletries, like soap and toilet paper.

They also interviewed the students to see if their project was making a difference. It was.

Usually around the end of the month we dont have any food stamps left to help support us, so this helps keep a stable balance so that we have food towards the end of the month, one student told the club.

We can actually eat until the end of the month and were not scraping our cupboards bare, another student told club members. ... for instance, like now we dont have a lot of food in our house  so like all the snack stuff that we have (from the pantry) gives us three kids snacks every single day after school, and food during weekends.

The pantry is technically open and staffed by Makenzie or Kennedy every Friday afternoon after school, but the pair said students use the pantry during the week as well.

Were not going to close the doors to students who need food during the week, Makenzie said. The two recognized that some students might not want to access the pantry when other students are not there so as to remain anonymous.

The girls are very respectful of the dignity of the kids here at Mark Morris, club adviser Schauer said. The pantry is monitored during the day by Elaine Peters, a staff member in the career center.

Administration has been supportive, too.

We were worried going in that there would be a problem, some sort of code or something like that, that would make it not possible, Makenzie said. But Principal Phil Suek thought it was a great idea.

Within the first five words we said, he was like, Yeah, lets do this. Im going to help you,  Makenzie said.

Its been difficult to determine just how many students use the pantry. Every week is a little different. About eight or nine students visited the pantry on a recent Friday, Makenzie said, though sometimes there is more or less than that.

But the pantry gets enough use that every two weeks or so Makenzie and Kennedy find themselves restocking the shelves. The two hope that it continues after they graduate this year.

You just have to find a kid thats passionate about it, said Schauer , the club adviser. I think there are kids that have a passion for others. Every class you have kids that are genuinely concerned about people.
Total Lubricants launches new engine oil in Bangladesh

French Ambassador to Bangladesh Sophie Aubert, attends the launching ceremony of Total Quartz 3500 Super engine oil at a city hotel on Saturday. Md Abul Khair, Managing Director of Padma Oil Company Limited, Pai Kok Tan, Vice President of Total Oil Asia P

Economic Reporter :

France based engine oil brand Total Lubricants launched new engine oil "Total Quartz 3500 SUPER" in Bangladesh's market.

Trade Service International (TSI), the sole distributor of Total Lubricants in Bangladesh, launched the new engine oil at a program on Saturday in a city hotel, said a press release.

French Ambassador to Bangladesh Sophie Aubert attended the launching ceremony at the chief guest. Managing Director of Padma Oil Company Limited Md Abul Khair, Vice President of Total Oil Asia Pacific Pai Kok Tan and TSI Chairman Syed Mahmudul Huq were also present in the ceremony.

Total Quartz 3500 engine oil protect the engine against wear and corrosion ensuring it a longer life. The special engine oil also reduces friction between the moving parts that increase engine performance and reduce fuel consumption.

The Total Quartz 3500 removes impurities to the oil filter that help in cleanliness of the filters and prevent it from serious damage.

Magical power of Total Quartz 3500 Engine oil seal space between the piston and cylinder which optimize engine performances and efficiency. It also helps to cool the engine, preventing energy loss and engine deterioration.

Total Quartz 3500 is suitable for Petrol, Diesel and LPG engine.

Speaking on the occasion, Sophie Aubert said "Total Engine oil is a perfect illustration of French technology and I hope through this brand the customer of Bangladesh will get better standard service".
Lights go out around the world for 10th Earth Hour

AFP, Sydney, Australia :



From Sydney Opera House to the Eiffel tower in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, landmarks across the globe dimmed their lights on Saturday night for the 10th edition of the Earth Hour campaign calling for action on climate change.

Millions of people from 178 countries and territories were expected to take part in WWF's Earth Hour this year, organizers said, with monuments and buildings such as Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and the Empire State Building plunging into darkness for 60 minutes from 8:30 pm local time.

The annual event kicked off in Sydney, where the Earth Hour idea originated in 2007.

"We just saw the Sydney Harbor Bridge switch its lights off and buildings around as well," Earth Hour's Australia manager Sam Webb told AFP from The Rocks area.

Earth Hour's global executive director Siddarth Das said organizers were excited about how much the movement had grown since it began nine years ago.

"From one city it has now grown to over 178 countries and territories and over 7,000 cities, so we couldn't be happier about how millions of people across the world are coming together for climate action," he told AFP via telephone from Singapore ahead of the lights out.
Troubled EU seeks unity in Rome on 60th birthday

(Front L to R) French President Francois Hollande, Romania\'s President Klaus Iohannis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy pose for a family photo during a meeting on the 60th annivers

AFP, Rome :



European Union leaders celebrated the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaties at a special summit in Rome on Saturday in a symbolic show of unity despite Britain's looming departure.

Meeting without Britain, the other 27 member countries will endorse a declaration of intent for the next decade, on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

EU President Donald Tusk and the prime ministers of Italy and Malta greeted the leaders as they arrived at the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori next to the Forum, for a ceremony long on pomp and short on real politics.

"There will be a 100th birthday of the European Union," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview with German television ahead of the summit. The leaders had the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears, after he warned on the eve of the summit that the crisis-ridden bloc "risks dying" without a new vision.

The Argentine pontiff urged the leaders at a personal audience in the Vatican City on Friday to show solidarity as an "antidote" to populist parties whose popularity has surged in Europe.

The White House congratulated the EU overnight on its 60th birthday, in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels. "Our two continents share the same values and, above all, the same commitment to promote peace and prosperity through freedom, democracy, and the rule of law," the White House said in a statement.

The 27 are set to hear a series of speeches urging unity and leadership from Tusk, Juncker, Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni and Maltese premier Joseph Muscat, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency.

But British Prime Minister Theresa May's absence, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and a row over the wording of the Rome declaration underscore the challenges the EU faces. Security is tight with snipers on rooftops, drones in the skies and 3,000 police officers on the streets following an attack this week in London claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

The Rome Declaration that the leaders will sign proclaims that "Europe is our common future", according to a copy obtained by AFP.

But mass migration, the eurozone debt crisis, terrorism and the rise of populist parties have left a bloc formed from the ashes of World War II searching for new answers.

The leaders are deeply divided over the way forward almost before they have started.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo only agreed to sign the declaration at the last minute, after bitterly opposing a reference to a "multi-speed" Europe favoured by powerhouse states France and Germany. Poland, central Europe's largest economy, is concerned that as one of nine of the EU's current 28 members outside the eurozone, it could be left behind should countries sharing the single currency push ahead with integration.

Greece, the loudest voice against the austerity policies wrought by its three eurozone bailouts, meanwhile insisted that the document should mention social policies. The aim of the summit was to channel the spirit of the Treaty of Rome that Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg.
Modi befriends Trump as Putin and Xi move closer together

A file photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin with China\'s President Xi Jinping.

Newsweek :

Are we witnessing seismic shifts in the Russia-India-China triangle? It would seem so-but the shifts are long in the making.

Historically, Indo-Russian relations have been far stronger than Sin-Russian relations. In recent years, however, and especially since the onset of the crisis in Ukraine in 2014, the dynamics of this "strategic triangle," as former Russian Prime Minister Evenly Primark called it, have changed.

Trending: Google's Eric Schmidt 'Can't Guarantee' Ads Won't Appear by Extremist Content

Despite a shared history of strong bilateral relations and overlapping multilateral memberships, India and Russia are drifting apart. The flurry of agreements signed in October 2016 notwithstanding, defense ties are weakening and economic relations have failed to meet targets.

More important, each country now worries about the other's relationship with its main strategic competitor-India is anxious about tight Russo-China relations, and Russia is concerned about the recent uptick in Indo-U.S.. relations.

Indeed, despite a good working relationship between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Indian prime minister Brenda Mod, relations between Russia and India have been deteriorative in both capitals. While this depersonalization has significance on multiple levels, the concern here is the implications of weaker bilateral ties for Indo-Russian cooperation toward reforming the global order.

Since 2006, the main locus of Russo-Indian cooperation toward reforming global order has been the BRICKS countries-Brazil, Russia, India, China and (since 2011) South Africa. The BRICKS group of nations has been most active in the area of global economic governance, but it boasts a sprawling set of working groups and a stated aim of entirely reforming the global order. For Russia, India and China are the most important partners in the group, and their importance grows directly out of Primark's strategic triangle.

Cooperation in the BRICKS has always been circumscribed by profound differences among its members. These include not only different positions in discrete international institutions that dictate different approaches but also variance in larger strategic goals.

For Russia, BRICKS has always been about politics, and has in many ways been a prime tool in Russian efforts-both rhetorical and otherwise-to balance against U.S.. hegemony in the global system.

India, while certainly in possession of a strong strain of anti-Westerns in its own foreign policy, has nevertheless viewed BRICKS primarily in terms of noneconomic and India's ongoing efforts to increase its voice in prime organs of global governance. Countering U.S.. supremacy as such is, for India, a useful side benefit of BRICKS rather than the group's main purpose.
Thoughts on our Liberation War

Md. Shairul Mashreque and M. Abul Kashem Mozumder :

War of Liberation in 1971 was the culmination of a series of seminal events like language movement(1952), 1954 election, Agartala conspiracy case against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Six-point movement, 1970 election, the heat of march 1971, Bangabandhu's clarion call and Operation search light in 25 march 1971 and the formation of Mujibnagar government. The intellectuals, students as youth, journalists, peasants, industrial workers, public officials and staff, police, EPR and East Bengal regiment and women and other sections fought Liberation War. Their sacrifice, their zeal, their heroism and their gallantry form an essential part of our liberation history. Our intellectuals and their followings were always politically conscious nourishing differing ideologies. Their thought process shapes our perceptions about culture and Bengali identity with a sense of history. The Dhaka based intellectuals comprising of Varsity Professors, prominent journalists, lawyers, high profile officials and diplomats in their sharp writings and group discussions created concept notes on our identity, cultural and political rights and the need for socio-economic emancipation. They in fact set the tone of our great tradition bringing the people of all walks of life under its fold. Two economy theory guiding Six point movement in 1966 was the brain child of Dhaka University intelligentsia. They all even with different ideologies were progressive in mindset (pro-liberation social forces).

Nevertheless the main actors in our liberation struggle happened to be common masses. They rallied behind our vernaculars elites fighting for parity and justice lending spontaneous support to Bangabandhu in every stage of Bangladesh movement. They have had the glaring examples of scarifying their lives for the cause of mother tongue, democracy and independence. Their contributions to the history of liberation were heavy, yet missed out in historical records. Only leaders as cults led them with rising consciousness occupy important positions in history. Even then we pay homage to the martyrs when occasions arise and there is a long list of freedom fighters including the shaheeds. Thousands of freedom fighters including the martyrs joined the Liberation War to free our country from the hands of occupation forces. Our common masses as freedom fighters by their undaunted bravery created a glorious history. It was the determined will of the masses that could defy the atrocious dare devil military forces and their cohorts even with antiquated weapons.

History as a way of learning always keeps the common masses out of reckoning. The historical experience should not be one describing the role of heroes and leaders as icons. Historians with a broader spectrum of illustration from the micro realities may turn out to transform history into a living tool for the present and future.

"Historians with a very long-term view of the past that provides one kind of context for 1971 would emphasize that people in the land that became Bangladesh had declared independence many times, in many idioms, over the centuries. Political theorists and historians would also point out that even in the 20th century; the term "independence" has not been used only to mean national state sovereignty. Historically, proclamations of independence have taken many forms, each appropriate in its own setting. And so they did in the land that became Bangladesh until in March 1971, when the idea of independence acquired a new context, which never existed before and gave proclamations of independence new meaning."(Ludden).

Whatever may be the context of the movement for independence at different stages of our social and economic history it turns out to become a zero sum game as the freedom lovers and fighters became disillusioned as it only symbolizes national sovereignty full of state symbols and emblems. Popular emancipation continues to remain a distant dream. The rising popular expectations transform into rising frustration.

Only the observance of Victory Day will not bring about liberation of commoners from the deluge of exploitation. Only change of political map may do a little in changing the nature of the state. The Independence has to be meaningful to smoothe way to popular emancipation. We need to change our mind-set for an affirmative Bangladesh growing out of a Liberation War. The goal to achieve economic emancipation is a far cry. Unfortunately more than 4 decades have passed since independence; the toiling masses continue to fight for social justice and democratic rights. Most of them are still living in abject poverty. Each successive regime that ruled the country failed to fulfill the expectation of the people. Wanton corruption and abuse of power rather add to economic crisis adversely affecting the disadvantaged groups. The journey to corruption-free society started on a firm footing during the incumbency of army back Care taker government. But euphoria started evaporating very soon as the abuse of power by some helmspersons messed up things. We have another problem. Side by side with political divide we have digital divide. This is to be addressed to prevent widening of rural-urban gap.

Grim socio-economic realities in the countryside and other aberrations afflicted peasants. Socially aware anguished observers look at social and political vortex that overtime developed in the country due largely to the onslaught of misgovernance. Socio-economic implications of political transformation in the country lie in its exclusionary effects on 'a large segment of the population.' the exclusionary effects on the community are damaging. The ordinary masses without wealth or patronage resources have little prospect of surviving even in the independent country. This perspective in independence has the implication of disempowering the poor leaving them at the level of non-participation in public affairs. Policy environment displays an 'exclusionary relation' from the system of distribution. The disadvantaged groups are structurally excluded from ownership and access to resources. Legislative measures in line with on going policies or new policy options hardly improve state intervention as the bureaucratic machinery determines forward course of action at the implementation stage. There has been a very little alliance between public administration implementing public policies and ordinary masses.

Most of the benefits of development even after Liberation have yet to reach the poor. In other words development initiates barely touch the bottom end of the distribution profile. Various instruments of public policy even pro-poor ones nowhere led to 'greater economic equality and lessening of concentration of economic power'. There is capitalistic concentration in the capital intensive development intervention. The position occupied by the 22 families during pre-liberation time was replaced by emerging bourgeoisie elements. This sort of development intervention has eliminated the vulnerable that lack or fail to mobilize the minimum resource base. The lopsided distribution pattern is related to differing wealth, status and power in a semi-feudal capitalist society.

The people cannot pin hopes on lofty goals of the populist politicians. They might have expected that independence or liberation would feed them in milk and honey. But the politicians and administrative elites had enjoyed much of honey and milk deriving from the lack of misgovernance.

However Bangabandhu dreams of an affluent and enlightened society. "Mujib dead is stronger than Mujib alive" Bangabandhu tried to shape perceptions of countless admirers and supporters around his long cherished dream of golden Bengal. He pioneered nation building albeit with reformation line in a new country as a new beacon in the realm of nation building. His vision of development is mass oriented with the programmes of nationalization, removal of private ownership of the means of production, land reform and land redistribution, revamping rural economy, and changes in revenue system, especially tax exemption up to 25 bighas of land.

(The writers are Professor, Department of Public Administration Chittagong University and Member, PSC respectively)
Independence and National Day

Muhammad Quamrul Islam :

We were 30 years old at end of first decade in service career in March1971 as Dhaka University batch 1961 beaming with Bengali nationalistic spirit in continuation of democratic practices in the College and University campus regularly in academic excellence. Our 'Paltan-Stadium group' comprising batch mates, affectionate juniors and respected seniors met every evening to exchange views on current affairs emanating from language movement from partition of Bengal 1947, socio-economic and political aspirations to participate in cultural and political movements as well as personal matters advancing the cause. As septuagenarian we have seen at childhood the fading sun of British rule in undivided India who left creating two independent states dividing India by porous borders as per their communal divide and rule policy in 1947, we knew from our respective family and teachers of history in the class room, the woes of which is still felt notwithstanding regional grouping like SAARC, a non-starter organization.

True Pakistan was a peculiar state with two wings separated by thousand miles with East Bengal having the majority of 56% population and West wing comprising four provinces 44%. It's central government capital was in Karachi and later Islamabad in West Pakistan.

Soon it was felt west wing was metropolitan wing and east wing was colonial wing; there were deprivations inflicted by the power elite, not people, led to the struggle of Bengalis in historical lines pioneered by leader of the oppressed Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to have meaningful independence which was attained on March 26, 1971 by sacrifices of the millions.

The turning point in history was election on December 7, 1970 where Awami League secured 167 seats in National Assembly and won majority to form the government led by Bangabandhu. For this people of all strata were eagerly waiting for a session of Parliament and it was scheduled to commence on March 3, 1971. But, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, chief of Pakistan People's Party, which won second position expressed his willingness to share power with Awami League ignoring all democratic norms and conspired with President Yahya Khan.

On March 1,1971 President Yahya Khan suspended sine die the Parliamentary session, which was instantly rejected by the people who took to streets raised full throated slogans against Yahya-Bhutto clique in Dhaka and everywhere in the erstwhile East Pakistan demanding independent Bangladesh. We were at that hour of the day on way to Dredger organization, biggest quasi commercial outfit in erstwhile East Pakistan.

Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) dredger base at Narayangonj destined to be separate self-financing Corporation meeting the needs of whole country, found spontaneous processions, and everybody at base stunned came out of office, workshop and dredgers to join the movement under the leadership of Bangabandhu.

Apropos decision of Awami League working committee hartal was observed in Dhaka on March 2 and throughout Bangladesh on March 3. Sheikh Mujib called for immediate transfer of power. Everybody of the country looked at Bangabandhu who astutely controlled the emotions of the millions towards independence with least sacrifices. I asked Accounts officer Sikder in Dredger organization, who hailed from Gopalgonj, had relations with family of Bangabandhu to keep track on next course, and know about his speech on 7th March.

He went to Dhanmondhi residence in the morning and found him exclusively in a room deeply engrossed as advised by Begum Mujib to prepare the speech after prayer and read Holy Quran. The article of PM Sheikh Hasina on her mother published in media on August 11, 2016 may be referred.

In the afternoon of 7th March Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib delivered the historic speech in the mammoth public meeting at the Ramna Race Course Maidan, which we attended near the podium. We saw planes hovering over our heads as if to bomb, but everybody was undaunted ready to embrace martyrdom and listened his speech with rapt attention and applause.

He declared, "Our struggle this time is the struggle for freedom-our struggle this time is for independence."

Simultaneously he declared programmes for peaceful non-cooperation movement, which was accordingly observed. Mujib-Yahya talks commenced on March16 which ended on March 23 without any tangible result. Sheikh Mujib was informed that a declaration would be made in this regard later on; but actually Bhutto-Yahya clique was conspiring to finalize their preparations to perpetrate genocide on Bengalis in their lust for power and greed, where people does not matter. Leaders representing other parties from west wing were in Dhaka, and in one evening Khan Abdul Wali Khan told us at National Awami Party (NAP) office he knew Bhutto from student life as class mate that can go to any extent to satisfy his greed for power, which one cannot imagine. And that happened.

On March 25 at night under orders of Pakistan President Yahya armed forces attacked on the unarmed Bengalis in Dhaka and other places. It went on a rampage to kill Bengali Police personnel at Rajarbag Police Line and soldiers of EPR and East Bengal Regiment (EBR) and in cantonments at Chittagong, Comilla and Jessore. These forced the Bengali members of the armed forces into rebellion against Pakistani forces. Chittagong Radio Station came under the control of rebels.

Bangabandhu declared independence on March 26 that was passed thru EPR wireless for which arrangement was kept as he felt he might be killed or arrested. The moment he declared independence army attacked his residence and arrested him.

The curfew was imposed but people kept up the morale to resist. In the evening of March 27 Major Ziaur Rahman of 8th East Bengal Regiment urged the people to join the freedom struggle under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, from Chittagong Radio. That was what we have seen and heard; people's war was ensued and led to victory at immense sacrifices.

Observing the Day in 2017 we are to make those sacrifices meaningful and reckon what we are today in the context of goals of emancipation of the masses, restoring moral values, instead of twisting history for personal aggrandizement and self-glorification of neo-wealthy power elite. Let us bid farewell to divisiveness of all types adhering to ideological principles and shun power mongering. Let not a vernacular daily editor betray batch mate for personal glory or a full timer came to my residence after massacre of 25th March along with his mess cook before he left to cross the border; now in affluence.



(The writer is an economist, advocate and social activist. E-mail: [email protected])
Boosting sensitivity in society to heal disorders in humans emphasized





Dhaka University (DU) Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr AAMS Arefin Siddique called for increasing sensitivity among people in society to heal disorders in human beings.

"There are lots of disorders in nature. Similarly, there are different types of disorders in human beings as well," a DU press release on the 21st instant quoted Prof Arefin as saying as chief guest at a discussion on the campus marking the 'World Down Syndrome Day'.

The DU Vice-Chancellor suggested further increasing sensitivity at social, family and personal levels to heal asthenia in human being.

DU Communication Disorders Department, Japan Bangladesh Friendship Hospital (JBFH) and Down Syndrome Society of Bangladesh (DSSB) jointly organized the discussion meeting to mark the 'World Down Syndrome Day-2017'.

Faculty of Sciences Dean Professor Dr MA Aziz, Faculty of Social Sciences Dean Professor Farid Uddin Ahmed, Chairman of JBFH Professor Dr Sardar A Naeem and Chairman of DSSB Sardar A Razzak addressed the function as special guests.

Chairman of DU Communication Disorder Department Professor Dr Hakim Arif presided over the function.

A publication titled 'Down Syndrome Voice' was unveiled at the function, the release said.

Earlier, led by the DU VC, a colorful procession was brought from Aparajeyo Bangla that paraded main streets of the campus, the release added.




'Bangladesh role model for development'





The tremendous success achieved by the present government in development has turned Bangladesh into a role model for upgrading the life standard of the common people. This view was expressed at a discussion organised by Rangpur District Information Office at Begum Rokeya Smriti Degree College at Pairaband village under Mithapukur upazila yesterday with assistance of the upazila administration. The discussion was arranged for informing the common people about the ten special development initiatives of the prime minister, successes achieved by the government and its future development plans to further speed up national development.

Mithapukur Upazila Nirbahi Officer Harun Ar Rashid addressed the discussion on the government successes and preventing terrorism and militancy as the chief guest with Senior District Information Officer Md Humayun Kabir in the chair.

Mithapukur Upazila Agriculture Officer Khorshed Alam, Pairaband Union Parishad Chairman Foyzar Rahman Khan, Vice-principal Abu Al Baker, Upazila Secondary Education Officer Zahidul Islam, Upazila Women Affairs Officer Mollika Pervin addressed as special guests. At the beginning, Humayun Kabir discussed the successes achieved by the government during the past eight years in the implementation of the Vision 2021, Charter of Changes and digitisation to accelerate pace of development. He narrated the Prime Minister's ten special initiatives of 'Ektee Bari, Ektee Khamar' project, Asrayan Prokalpo, digital Bangladesh, education assistance, women empowerment, electricity for all, social safety, community clinic and mental health, investment development and environment protection programmes.

He discussed the successes achieved in the education, health, agriculture, poverty alleviation, social safety-net, power generation, road communication, women and children development, women empowerment and digitisation and ICT sectors.

He mentioned epoch-making successes like self-reliance in food, strengthening local government, self-employments, producing skilled human recourses, prevention of militancy, terrorism, drug abuse, dowry, child marriage and superstitions.

Later, heads of upazila level different government offices discussed the successes achieved by their respective departments in accelerating development while the civil society members narrated stories of changing life standard of the common people.

The chief guest narrated future development plans of the government and success already achieved in reaching government services easily at the peoples' doorsteps in building a middle income nation by 2021 and developed country by 2041 next.
We must prove worthy of people`s supreme sacrifice

THE nation celebrates the 47th Independence and National Day today although we achieved our real independence on the Victory Day on December 16 when the country was freed from Pakistani occupation forces in 1971. March 26th is observed as the day of Declaration of Independence that led the nation to Liberation War.



No responsible government would have ordered the army to be indiscriminately ruthless against the unarmed people in the name of saving united Pakistan. Pakistan was finished and divided because of the brutal repression of March 26, 1971. There was no preparation for armed resistance.



President Gen. Yahya Khan was unable to convene the newly elected National Assembly into session exacerbating the political crisis resulting from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's conspiracies as the leader of the majority from West Pakistan.



Our people had no choice but to organize the Liberation War with the help of India. The international community also supported our struggle for freedom under a democratic government. Our Liberation War immediately became the high symbol of a fight of our people for democratic rights. Bangladesh became an independent country nine months later through a bloody war. During this time the people staying within the country lived in the horror of massacre of Pakistani army who treated our people as being under their military occupation.



Though Bangabandhu warned against the dire consequences if the political differences were not met peacefully, it was Pakistan army that declared war against our unarmed people. The military operation was totally mindless and heartless. Bangabandhu was kept in the prison but no need was felt to talk to him for a peaceful settlement.



On this occasion, we not only mourn the deaths of our peaceful people, we must also express our resolve to make their sacrifices not to go in vain in free Bangladesh. The question must be asked how faithful we have been to those who made supreme sacrifice not just for territorial division of Pakistan but to make Bangladesh a country of freedom and justice, free from exploitation.






Expats facing troubles in Singapore: Govt nonchalant

TWO Singaporean NGOs have sent a report to the United Nations, detailing that Bangladeshi expatriate workers face forced labour and debt bondage, but Bangladesh government is not doing enough to protect them. The Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME) and Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) sent the joint shadow report to the UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CMW) early this month, as per reports of a local daily.



The UN Committee meets in Geneva next month to review Bangladesh's commitment to protecting its migrant workers under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. The HOME has provided legal aid, employment advice and financial assistance to 776 Bangladeshis, while TWC2 has provided services to 2,834 Bangladeshis in last two years.



The 11 indicators include abuse of vulnerability, deception, restriction of movement, isolation, retention of identity documents, physical and sexual violence, withholding of wages, intimidation and threats, debt bondage, excessive overtime, abusive living and working conditions and excessive overtime. It says vulnerability of the migrant springs from the high fees demanded by recruiters and intermediaries in Bangladesh.



A survey by TWC2 published last month found that in 2015, first-time Bangladeshi construction workers paid an average of 15,555 Singaporean dollars or Tk 8.7 lakh to work in Singapore, now home to 160,000 Bangladeshis. However, their basic monthly salaries are low, which mostly range from S$300 to S$600, which means, their recruitment fees could be equivalent to between 26-51 months of their wages.



It should not come as a surprise that the workers are the wretched of the earth -- neither their government nor the Singaporean government have been able to help them. It is the common plight that our workers overseas suffer while receiving little or no assistance from our consular offices abroad. This situation must change as our Embassies abroad must be more vigorous and proactive to help prevent such exploitation of our workers.

Other things can also be done -- provide the workers with a rudimentary training so that they can themselves apply directly for jobs -- thus forever cutting out the need for middlemen and their high charges -- it makes no sense to pay money for a job which will pay for itself from anywhere from 2-5 years. Promotional campaigns to elucidate the absurdity of the situation and to reveal the full extent of the trap our workers get into should be aired on all electronic and print media.



There seems to be no end to the agonies our tireless hardworking workers face -- and it seems to be a situation which goes on repeating itself. We need to do more to protect our workers now -- regulating fees which are being charged and ensuring their welfare through our consulates abroad are good options to look into now.
Couple found dead

UNB, Bandarban :

Police recovered slaughtered bodies of a couple at Eyangsa Chhoto Marma Para in Lama upazila early Saturday.

The deceased were identified as Kelaching, 75, a former UP member and his wife Shimlani, 50.

Neighbours saw their house door open in the morning and found the bodies of them lying on their room floor and informed police, said Anwar Hossain, officer-in-charge of Lama Police Station.

Later, police recovered the bodies around 8.30am and sent those to Sadar Hospital for autopsy.

The motive behind the murder is still unclear, the OC said.


Hard term loans to be discouraged

Badrul Ahsan :

The government has finalized the draft of National Development Policy on Development Cooperation (NDPDC) with a general principle to discourage all offers of foreign loans and grants having hard-terms, higher transaction cost and less aligned with national priorities.

The main aim to make the development policy is to discipline mobilising and managing foreign loans and grants and ensure effective use of foreign funds.

Besides, all forms of tied loan will also be strongly discouraged, the final draft of the policy said.

The government will generally prefer concessional loan or soft loan and encourage its partner to provide foreign assistance through budget support.

Every year the country was receiving and utilising a huge amount of foreign assistance in the forms of loans and grants without having any consolidated policy or guidelines on mobilising and managing the funds.

So, the authority thinks, formulating a comprehensive policy has become an imperative for the government to handle the foreign assistance strategically, according to the country's own development priorities and bring discipline to the sector.

The final draft of the policy has been posted on the website of Economic Relations Division (ERD) of the Finance Ministry for the stakeholders' feedback, officials of the division said. However, the policy is expected to place before the Cabinet soon for its approval as the government decided to make it effective from the beginning of the next fiscal year starting in July.

The policy has set some objectives ensuring that foreign assistance is need-based and result-oriented and poses no challenge to macro-economic stability, security and integrity of the country.

Credits from the International Monetary Fund, special borrowing by the ministry of food, Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, Bangladesh Biman, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, assistance for defence and special assistance during disaster and natural calamity, however, shall remain beyond the scope of this policy.

According to the policy, all development interventions should be based on the priorities set by the national development planning and budgeting documents and systems.

All data regarding foreign assistance, both on-budget (implemented by the government ministries and agencies) and off-budget (implemented by non-government ogransations or NGOs, private sector) shall be made public through the ERD online system.

The government will generally prefer concessional loan, as such, loans can be helpful to address the lack of long-term financing for infrastructure.

According to it, loans having a grant element of at least 25 per cent and other concessional elements may be considered as concessional.

The policy says that though the government's priority is concessional loan, non-concessional loans may be pursued only for priority projects/programmes of the government under certain conditions and only in exceptional cases.

All non-concessional loans must require approval of the standing committee on non-concessional loan headed by Finance Minister, it says, adding that the government will undertake periodic analysis of debt.


Emirates introduce laptop, tablet handling service for US flights

Emirates Airlines has introduced complimentary "Laptop and Tablet Handling Service" to beat the electronics ban by the US.

According to a statement of the Middle-East-based airlines, this service will enable passengers to use their laptops and tablet devices until just before they board their flights to the US.

The statement said from Saturday (25 March), travellers on non-stop flights to the US from Dubai International airport (DXB) will not be allowed to carry any electronic device larger than a cell phone or smartphone, excluding medical devices, into the aircraft cabin. Travellers must pack these electronic devices in their checked-in baggage Emirates new service will enable passengers travelling to the US via Dubai to use their laptops and tablet devices on the first part of their journeys, and also during transit in Dubai.

They must then declare and hand over their laptops, tablets, and other banned electronic devices to security staff at the gate just before boarding their US-bound flight. Emirates staff will carefully pack the devices into boxes, load into the aircraft hold, and return to the passengers at their US destination.


CCC poll a challenge for democratic journey: CEC

Staff Reporter :

Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda on Saturday said, the Election Commission (EC) is considering the upcoming Comilla City Corporation election as a challenge for journey to democracy.

"I hope that the Comilla election will be free, fair and impartial. Any kind of negligence or partisan attitude on the part of election officers will not be tolerated," he said.

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) said this at a discussion with the election officials at the Cultural Academy of Comilla City on Saturday.

Election Commission Secretary Mohammad Abdullah, Additional Secretary Mukhlesur Rahman, Comilla Deputy Commissioner Jahangir Alam and Superintendent of Police Shah Abid Hossain also spoke at the event.

Comilla City Corporation Election Returning Officer Rakib Uddin Mandol was also present.

"We are the supporters of law and justice. None will be able to prevent them (Election Officers) from performing their responsibilities," Nurul Huda said.

Nobody will be allowed to jeopardise law, regardless of social status, he said with warning of severe action in case of breach of law.

In every polling center, one man only can influence. He is presiding officer, the CEC said.

He also urged all his colleagues to perform their best during the election, reports our local correspondent.

He also inaugurated a training session there for the presiding officers and assistant presiding officers who will perform the election duties.

The CCC election will be held on March 30.


Cordons and police are seen in front of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, March 23, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

ROME -- Rome has tightened security measures, as the Italian capital is preparing for the major celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding treaty of the European Union (EU) on Saturday.

More than 30 EU leaders are expected to attend the ceremony in center of Rome, where the founding treaty was signed on March 25, 1957.

Police forces were on high alert, and their staff were increased to 5,000, while Italy's Civil Aviation Authority declared a full flight ban over Rome from 6 a.m. on Friday to 11 p.m. on Saturday.

At the same time, important venues in the capital would remain cordoned off, including parliament, government building, and presidential palace, while major tourist attractions would be closed.

A most restricted zone, namely the "Blue Area," was declared around the Capitoline Hill, where the celebrations will actually take place. It would be off-limits for all transport means and all citizens, but residents.

Some 40 checkpoints were set up at the main gates to the two zones, and about 100 additional surveillance cameras were installed across the capital, according to police.

The plan was imposed after an emergency meeting of the Counter-Terrorism Strategic Analysis Committee (CASA) was called on Thursday, also following London terror attack the previous day.

On request of Interior Ministry Marco Minniti, the CASA will meet in permanent session until after the EU summit.

On Saturday, the 27 leaders of EU member states and the representatives of EU institutions gather to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome 60 years ago, which brought West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg as a common community, paving the way for the European Union.

The ceremony will be followed by a formal "Rome Declaration," and leaders are expected to outline Europe's future, especially after the forthcoming exit of Britain.
Genocide Day observed

The nation yesterday observed the 'Genocide Day' for the first time with the demand for recognizing the day as "International Genocide Day" commemorating the atrocities launched by Pakistani Army on the unarmed Bengalis on black night of March 25 in 1971.

The government, Awami League, 14-party alliance, other political, social and cultural organizations drew up elaborate programmes across the country to recall the genocide carried out by Pakistani occupation forces along with its local collaborators including Rajakar, Al Badr and Al Shams as around 30 lakh people embraced martyrdom and two lakh women were raped in the nine month long Liberation War.

President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages yesterday marking the "Genocide Day".

President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday described the "Genocide Day" as a strong protest against the Pakistani genocide launched on Bangalees 46 years ago.

In his message, the President said genocide in 1971 is a black chapter in the history of mankind. "None can forget the horrors of the genocide," he said.

He called for upholding the demand worldwide through the observance of the day so that such genocide would recur nowhere in the world.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her message, said the incidents of killing of a large number of people in the short span of time are rare in the world.

She said the decision of observing "Genocide Day" is a manifestation of paying tributes to the 30 lakh martyrs who made supreme sacrifices to liberate the nation.

The day's programmes included paying tributes to the 1971 martyrs at killing grounds at different places of the country, prayers, reminiscence, candle light vigil, screening of documentaries, discussions, playing of patriotic songs and recitation of poems.

Awami League observed the day at the cities, districts, thanas, pourashavas and unions throughout the country in a befitting manner.

The 14-party alliance paid rich tributes to the 1971 martyrs by placing wreaths at Mirpur Killing Ground while they also staged a discussion there.

Chaired by 14-praty spokesman and Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammed Nasim, the discussion was addressed the by Workers Party President and Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal General Secretary Shirin Akhtar, Samyabadi Dal General Secretary Dilip Barua and Swechchhasebak League General Secretary Pankaj Debnath, among others.

Dhaka University and Dhaka University Teachers' Association (DUTA) arranged a candle light vigil at Smriti Chirantan Square in the evening recalling the martyrs of Dhaka University.

A discussion was also held and a documentary was screened to mark the genocide day. Vice-Chancellor Professor AAMS Arefin Siddique joined the function.

On this fateful night in 1971, Dhaka University was one of the main targets as Pakistani military junta carried out a planned massacre killing 200 students, 10 teachers and 12 employees mercilessly.

Jagannath Hall, a non-Muslim dormitory of the university, and Iqbal Hall, now Sergeant Zohurul Haq Hall witnessed a bloodbath on that night.

DU and Dhaka University Teachers' Association (DUTA) arranged a candle light vigil at Smriti Chirantan Square in the evening recalling the martyrs of Dhaka University. A discussion was also held and a documentary was screened to mark the genocide day.

Marking the night, Jagannath Hall organized different programmes including candle light vigil, prayer, reminiscence, screening of documentary, drawing competition and discussion to recall the atrocities carried on the black night. Jagannath Hall Provost Professor Asim Sarker chaired the programmes.

Candles were lit at the Mass Grave and martyrs monument on the dormitory premises while roads inside the hall were painted with the symbolic pictures of the massacre.

Earlier, Awami League advisory Council Member and Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed joined a discussion organized by Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) at the Jagannath Hall Upasanaloy.

Tofail said military ruler Ziaur Rahman and his wife Begum Khaleda Zia had distorted the country's history.

He said Khaleda Zia wanted to create confusion over the total number of martyrs in the Liberation War that followed the attempt of the Pakistanis to divert the history of the independence to another direction.

To mark the day, Liberation War Affairs Ministry also arranged a discussion at the historic Suhrawardy Udyan.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque, Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Professor AAMS Arefin Siddique, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Liberation War Affairs Chairman Captain (retd) AB Tajul Islam, Muktijoddha Sangsad Chairman Helal Morshed Khan, Bir Bikram and Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah, among others, addressed the discussion.

The minister also inaugurated a two-day photography exhibition titled "Raktakto March 25, Gonohotyar Itibritto" near the Independence Monument at the historic Suhrawardy Udyan reminding the atrocities committed on March 25, 1971. Cultural functions and discussion programmes were arranged by the ministry at district and upazila levels across the country. Jatiya Press Club also staged a discussion on its premises with its President Muhammad Shafiqur Rahman in the chair.

Conducted by member of JPC executive body and editor of daily Bhorer Kagaj Shyamal Dutta, the discussion was joined by Awami League Advisory Council Member Mozaffar Hossain Paltu, academician Muntassir Mamoon, freedom fighter and journalist Harun Habib, columnist Syed Abul Maksud, journalists Abed Khan, M Shahjahan Miah and Shaheen Reza Noor, among others.

Islamic Foundation also organized a discussion at its office at Agargaon with its director general Shamim Mohammd Afjal in the chair.

Qurankhawni, milad and prayers were held at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque praying for eternal peace of the martyred while Islamic Foundation officers and employees and musullis also joined in the monajat.

Marking the day, Food Minister Advocate Quamrul Islam inaugurated a monument named "Bijoy 71" at Tejgaon CSD Chattar.

International War Crimes Mass Trial Movement and Sramik-Karmachari-Peshajibi-Muktijoddha Samanway Parishad jointly staged different programmes including photo-exhibition, lighting of candles, cultural function and screening of films in front of National Museum at Shahbagh.

Dhaka City Awami League South and North organized two separate rallies at Lalbagh Azad playground and Mirpur Bangla College playground respectively simultaneously.

Workers Party arranged discussion at its office and also screened a documentary on liberation war.

A mass signature campaign demanding international recognition of Genocide Day on March 25 began at Jatiya Press Club.

Prime Minister's Media Advisor Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhory inaugurated the campaign organized by Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) and Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ).

On March 11, the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament) unanimously adopted a resolution to observe March 25 as the "Gonohotya Dibos" (Day of Genocide. Subsequently the cabinet division in a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair, unanimously endorsed the decision on March 20.

Later, a gazette notification was also published in this regard on March 21.


Two cops among 3 killed in blast near militants` den : 40 injured

Staff Reporter :

At least three persons, including an Inspector of Police, were killed and 40 others injured in two separate bomb blast incidents amid the tight security of the law enforcers on the Sylhet-Fenchuganj road in Shibbari area on Saturday evening, police said.

The incident occurred only a quarter kilometer away from the militant den 'Atia Mahal" of South Surma upazila where raid by joint forces was continuing till filing of this report at 11:00pm, said our local correspondent quoting Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP) Commissioner Gulam Kibria.

Of the deceased, one has been identified as Md Monir, an Inspector of South Surma Police Station, said Jedan Al Musa, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Media) of Sylhet Metropolitan Police. The two other victims were common people, he said.

Police surrounded the spots considering the security issue as thousands of people gathered in the area, the police official said.

Meanwhile, sounds of heavy explosions and gunshots were heard from the suspected militant hideout after five hours as the army commandos alongwith police and SWAT were conducting the operation at the five-storey building.

The joint forces led by Army Para-Commando Battalion launched the assault code named 'Operation Twilight' at the militant den 'Atia Mahal' in Sylhet's South Surma Shibbari area on Saturday morning.

The army Para-Commandos led by a Major General launched the crackdown assisted by police's Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, counter terrorism unit and elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), according to him. He said, "GOC (General Officer Commanding) of the Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the 'Operation Twilight' there."

According to him, the assault began at 9:00am. until 2:00pm, gunfire was heard twice from the scene, but the exchanges of fire intensified afterwards and explosions rocked the area.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Rashedul Hasan, Director of Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR), said that Army has requested the media not to telecast the assault live.

The army has codenamed it 'Operation Twilight' -- a change of name from 'Operation Spring Rain' christened by the SWAT, he said.

He said that the soldiers were leading the assault and "the SWAT was only helping them."

However, intense gun firing was heard from within the hideout after every one to two minutes, starting about 5:00pm. The sound was mostly from the western side of the building, local sources said.

They said, sounds of four 'grenade' explosions were heard in Shibbari area at about 2:15pm. And soon after the explosions, army personnel were brought out of the militant den and later army medical core members took them by ambulance.

Militants also hurled a grenade at the roadside. At least six people suffered splinter injuries in several explosions during the operation at a suspected militant den yesterday evening.

Since Friday morning, the law enforcers have cordoned off the five-storey building where suspected militants are believed to have been hiding with a huge cache of explosives.

Around 100 residents remained trapped inside the building 'Atia Villa' till Friday night, while police managed to evacuate 70 others from an adjacent four-storey building.

At least two suspected militants -- a male and a female -- were inside one of the six apartments on Atia Villa's ground floor in Shibbari area, police said.

Law enforcers couldn't enter the building as the militant suspects blocked the entrance to the main building with a refrigerator. "We saw the militants trying to attach grenades to the refrigerator," said an official of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Sylhet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Golam Kibria said, "We called in an observation team of the army to assess how much explosives are inside the apartment  Those explosives could be powerful."

He said they would conduct the drive with extreme caution, keeping in mind the safety of the residents trapped inside the building. In reply to a query, the policxe official claimed that the situation was under control, and hoped they would be able to convince the suspected militants to surrender.

Lt Col Mohammad Rashidul Hasan, Director of Inter Services Public Relation Directorate (ISPR), told journalists that an observation team from the army went to the scene to assess the situation.

The team would decide whether a Para-Commando team was needed for carrying out a drive, he said.

Meanwhile, Osmani Medical College Emergency Medical Officer Dr Tanvir said that a three-member medical team has been dispatched to the area.

Nazrul Islam, one of the residents trapped on the building's second floor, said he heard gunshots around 5:30am and later learnt that suspected militants were hiding on the ground floor. Nazrul said he and his three family members were passing time in fear.

Muhibur Rahman, Sub-Inspector of Jakiganj Police Station, said his family was also trapped inside the building.

Police tracked down the Sylhet hideout barely a week after they busted two militant dens in Chittagong.

Seeking anonymity, a high-up of Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP) said, they increased surveillance in the city following information from counterterrorism officials, and found the hideout early Friday.

Rokonuddin, Additional Police Commissioner of the SMP, told reporters that they detected an anomaly in the tenant's information and finally tracked down the hideout.

Basudeb Banik, Deputy Commissioner (South) of the SMP, said police cordoned off Atia Villa around 1:30am Friday and disconnected the building's electricity connection around 5:30am. About half-an-hour later, police, through a hand-mike, asked the militant suspects to surrender.

Around 6:30am, the suspected militants threw a grenade at police from the apartment on the ground floor. Police then fired blanks, said Basudeb.

Later, the male militant suspect shouted, "Send forces."

Akhtar Hossain, Officer-in-Charge of Jalalabad Police Station, said, around 1:30pm on Friday, the female militant suspect yelled from a window of the apartment "Bring SWAT quickly because you won't be able to do anything to us We don't have much time."

A Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team and a bomb disposal unit from the DMP arrived at the scene from the capital around 4:20pm. The joint forces comprise district police, members of SWAT, a five-member bomb disposal unit, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and the Army commandos.

Besides, members of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Detective Branch (DB) of Police, City Special Branch (SB), Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) and other law enforcement are also in the spot.

Urging the law enforcers to free his tenants first, the owner of "Atia Mahal" Ustar Ali yesterday said that he has no objection if his building is damaged for securing safe passage for the trapped people.

Ali had earlier said a couple identifying themselves as Kawsar Ahmed and Marzina Begum rented the apartment three months back. The couple provided all necessary documents, including copies of their national identity cards, said Ali, also proprietor of Atia Travels.

Ali's son Kawsar Rahman Ripon said Ahmed identified himself as an auditor of a private company.

He also mentioned that he didn't notice anything suspicious in the couple's behaviour.
BNP expresses doubt about militants death in blast

Staff Reporter :

The BNP on Saturday expressed doubt over the death of a man in bomb explosion on Friday near the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport check point.

"There remains a question whether the death of the bomb carrier

happened in explosion or for any other reason. We demand a transparent statement from the government, said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

He said it while talking to journalists after inaugurating a photo exhibition on life and works of late President Ziaur Rahman on the ground floor of the BNP's Naya Paltan office on the occasion of Independence and National Day organised by the Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal.

A suspected bomb carrier was killed in an explosion reportedly between two police boxes near the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Friday evening.

Islamic State (IS) affiliated Amaq news agency in their telegram claimed the responsibility for the attack.

Mirza Fakhrul accused the government of keeping the extremism problem alive, instead of resolving.
India to bear total construction cost

Anisul Islam Noor :

India agreed to bear the entire construction cost of the proposed 130-kilometre cross-country pipeline to export diesel to Bangladesh, BPC sources said.

In exchange, the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) would import diesel from the Numaligarh refinery of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) for 15 years at par the international market premium rate, a senior BPC official confirmed The New Nation over phone on Saturday.

A final deal on the issue is expected to be inked next month during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to India, said the official.

He said that Bangladesh and India resolved the pending dispute at a joint meeting held in India last week.

The BPCL had earlier intended to provide the pipeline construction cost from Indian credit resource, which was opposed by the BPC resulting in a delay of the project, said the official.

The Indian state-owned BPCL would export around 1.0 million tonnes of 0.20 per cent sulfur diesel to Bangladesh for 15 years through this pipeline.

The BPC and the BPCL also agreed on the premium rate at US$ 5.50 per barrel to Mean of Platts Arab Gulf (MoPAG) diesel assessment on cost and freight (CFR) basis meaning that the price would be above US$ 5.50 per barrel from international price of diesel.

Two state-run oil entities also had agreed to stall the initial plan of setting up a joint venture company to share the cost of building the oil-carrying pipeline.

The pipeline, once constructed, would carry diesel to Bangladesh's northern region.

Diesel demand is around 1.10 million tonnes in 16 northern districts of Bangladesh, the BPC official said.

Initially, the pipeline is planned to carry around 300,000 tonnes of diesel to Bangladesh which would gradually be increased to 1.0 million tonnes.

The pipeline would touch Panchagarh, Nilphamari and Dinajpur inside Bangladesh to reach Parbatipur oil storage tanks.

Of the total 130 km, the length of pipeline inside Bangladesh would be 125 km and in India it would be around five km, said officials.

Initially, the BPCL was asking for a premium rate of around $8.80 per barrel to MoPAG diesel assessments, while the BPC was seeking the premium at par with international market.

At present, the BPC has been importing diesel from international market at a premium rate of around $2.50 per barrel to the MoPAG diesel assessments on CFR basis.
The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
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If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs.
Paris, TX (75460)

Today

Thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 63F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 63F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
The Delta Companies Southern Illinois Stone was recognized with several awards at the Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers (IAAP) annual convention in February in Springfield, according to a news release from the IAAP.

Southern Illinois Stone achieved a community relations award in part for welcoming students from the Simpson Hill School District for a visit to learn about mining and search for fossils. Graduate students from Southern Illinois University are using the quarry to further their research projects.

Southern Illinois Stone was also granted a Gold level Rock Solid Excellence in Safety award for its strong commitment to the health and safety of miners.

By rewarding our industrys leaders, these programs encourage IAAP members to adopt more proactive safety, health, environmental and community relations practices designed to ensure the companys operations remain sustainable and upstanding members of the communities they serve, said Shawn McKinney, assistant director for the IAAP.

The Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers is the trade association serving the stone, sand, gravel and industrial mineral mining industry in Illinois.
HERRIN  Carterville Boy Scout Gabriel Ballard is helping give child abuse a voice through his Eagle Scout project.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Franklin-Williamson Child Advocacy Center wants everyone to help spread the message.

Abuse gets its power from silence. When you give it a voice, you stop it, Leah Brown, executive director of Franklin-Williamson Child Advocacy Center, said.

When Ballard and his Boy Scout Troop visited Franklin-Williamson Child Advocacy Center, the goal was for the Scouts to learn more about the center and what it does, as well as how the Scouts could help the center.

Shortly after the visit, Ballard was trying to decide what to do for his Eagle Scout Project. His idea was to make Blue Kids, cutouts placed on a lawn, to help raise awareness of child abuse and neglect in Southern Illinois.

I just thought about it and called to ask Mrs. Brown if we could do it, Gabriel said.

Brown said Gabriel approached her about a year ago to see what he could do for the center. She approved.

Blue Kids represent abused and neglected children. They are designed to bring awareness to the problem of child abuse and neglect. It grew out of the Blue Ribbon Campaign, which began as one womans tribute to her grandson after he died at the hands of his mothers abusive partner. The color blue symbolizes bruises on the victims of child abuse.

Gabriel designed the cutouts and developed a template. His original plan was to cut out the figures with a jig saw, but someone suggested he contact Mike Fleming, vocational teacher and department chair at Carterville High School.

Mike Fleming at the high school allowed us to use the shop, so we ended up with 120 kids instead of 100, Gabriel said.

Gabriel delivered the Blue Kids to the advocacy center Thursday afternoon with some help from his parents, Kelli Ballard and Steve Battiste, and friend and fellow Scout, Eric Pfeilschifter.

What were hoping is that businesses will sponsor the children for the month of April, Brown said.

Businesses and individuals can have a pair of Blue Kids (a boy and girl) in their yards with a sign that reads, Prevent Child Abuse one child at a time. Child Advocacy Center, www.wcocac.org for a $100 tax-deductible donation. The center will deliver signs April 1 and pick them up May 1.

I think this is a wonderful message for Gabriel to take on a topic as child abuse at his age, Brown said.

Franklin-Williamson Child Advocacy Center received referrals for 257 children in 2016. All of these children are residents of Franklin and Williamson counties. The center conducted 110 forensic interviews and 42 children and families received free counseling.

For more information, visit the centers Facebook page, website www.wcocac.org or call 618-942-3800.
CARTERVILLE  During Tuesdays meeting, the John A. Logan College Board of Trustees are scheduled to discuss the issuance of cash flow bonds.

Brad McCormick, vice president of business services and college facilities for JALC, said the measure would allow J.P. Morgan to sell $5.4 million bonds to investors, which would be paid back within five years. The funds would then go into the schools restrictive working cash fund, which exists should the college need extra funds during the year. Any money taken from the working cash fund will legally have to be replaced within 12 months.

He likened borrowing from the fund to a family borrowing from savings in lean times with the rule to pay it all back.

McCormick said it has been two fiscal years since it received full funding from the state, the last full payment came in fiscal year 2015.

In FY16. the school received 35 percent of its normal funding, and in FY17, it received 45 percent. McCormick said looking into the future, he anticipates the school will get 40 percent for the next fiscal year, which prompted the decision to ask to issue the bonds.

As we are looking into the next 12 months of cash flow and not know what the state is going to do, we see again the need to have a plan to be able to fund normal operational expenses, he said.

McCormick said it just helps the school tread water.

It buys us time to be able to hope that the state will resume to some normalcy, he said.

As his office and the board looked at ways to ensure the college will have enough in their operating budget in this and the upcoming school year, they were determined to find an option that would be neutral to taxpayers and issuing these bonds was their solution. The school currently has a $14.5 million debt from a previous bond sale in 2007 that it has refinanced, adding four years to the 20 year payment schedule.

They did this in order to absorb the impact the new bonds would have on the taxpayer. Because of this move, residents should feel no impact on their tax bill.

They have no plans to increase the tax levy to raise the funds they need.

This is not the first time JALC has found itself faced with potentially needing access to extra funds mid-year. McCormick said during its February meeting last year, it was authorized that for six months the college could use a $5 million line of credit for the purpose of cash flow. However, McCormick said they were able to get by without needing to use those funds.

But, this year is different.

The colleges fund balance goal is to have a minimum of 25 percent with a maximum of 50 percent in the operating fund. Currently, McCormick said the school is at 27 percent and he is not anticipating any more money from the state.

This is where the cash flow bonds come in.

I know by the end of this year, before June 30, Im going to be below, well below, that 25 percent and as I get farther, closer down to the low end of that I may be in a situation, depending on how long the state takes, that I would exhaust all of it at which time I would go to this, what will be $7.4 million, McCormick said.

McCormick said that while this measure is needed, it is certainly not a long-term solution. Currently, he said, state revenue makes up about 15 percent of JALCs total revenue and McCormick said students are not paying for more than 50 percent of the total cost of operating the college

Thats not sustainable in the long term at all, McCormick said. There has got to be more state revenue.

If the board approves the bonds, which McCormick said he believes they likely will, it would permanently increase the available cash flow funds from $2 million to $7.4 million. McCormick said this has been a long time coming.

The $2 million in cash flow JALC currently has was gained from a similar bond issue in the 1980s. This has not kept up with a steadily increasing budget over the last 30 years. McCormick said this ranks JALC last among community colleges in Southern Illinois in terms of working cash flow funds.

This measure was something that is needed even if we werent facing the situation we are facing with the state, McCormick said.

McCormick said finding funding is currently vital and he sees these bonds as the best way forward.

If we did not do this we would have to eliminate components of the college, McCormick said. He was not able to clarify further as he has not had discussions as to what those cuts would be.

The John A. Logan college Board of Trustees will meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the board room of the Administration Building in Carterville.
The state has placed on indefinite probation the license of a medical doctor who runs a clinic in Marion that advertises it is sympathetic to patients seeking access to the states medical marijuana program.

Dr. Bodo Schneider's clinic also specialized in pain management, but his patients receiving prescription pain medication must be transferred to another health care provider under the terms of a consent agreement he entered into with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The order is effective as of Wednesday.

Schneider can continue to practice, but in a limited scope under the specific terms of the agreement. He can continue to see new and continuing patients enrolled in the state's medical marijuana program, and Schneider said he plans to continue that portion of his private practice.

The consent agreement follows formal allegations by the state that he inappropriately charged patients and failed to establish a bona fide patient/relationship before certifying their conditions for the medical marijuana program, as required by the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act. The states original complaint was filed in June 2015.

In an amended complaint filed in December, the state additionally accused Schneider of prescribing embarrassingly high opioids to patients without proper oversight and monitoring of patients' use of highly addictive drugs.

According to the order, Schneider acknowledges that should this matter proceed to a contested hearing, the (Medical Disciplinary Board) could find a violation of the Medical Practice Act. It states that IDFPR and Schneider stipulate that the acknowledgement is made only for the purposes of the consent order.

The consent order states he must transfer any patients currently prescribed Schedule II-V controlled substances to another healthcare provider within 90 days. Schneider said on Friday that the patients had already been transferred.

In the future, he is prohibited from prescribing any Schedule II-V controlled substances to any patient in excess of 12 weeks. Schneider said he asked for this term in the consent order so that he could return to emergency room medicine.

Further, his solo practice is limited to the care and treatment of patients for the purpose of compliance with Illinois medical marijuana program, and he must provide quarterly reports to IDFPR on place of residence, current practice location, and information on any criminal, administrative or civil actions filed.

The Marion Pied Pfeifer Compassionate Care Clinic, of which Schneider is medical director, opened in September 2013 at 8386 Old Route 13 in Marion. In late 2014, when the state began accepting applications for medical marijuana certification, word spread that Schneiders clinic was one of the few in the area that was willing to certify patients.

Schneider said he saw numerous patients throughout Southern Illinois, and argued that he was providing a service to people in Southern Illinois who otherwise would not have the same access to the states medical marijuana pilot program as people living elsewhere in Illinois.

Southern Illinois Healthcare, Heartland Regional Medical Center and the SIU School of Medicine directed their physicians not to participate in certifying patients for medical marijuana, citing legal uncertainty given that marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. There are other private practice physicians in the region who have certified patients for the medical marijuana program, but the newspaper is not aware of any others besides Pied Pfeifer who openly advertise that they were sympathetic to those seeking the program.

Doctors do not prescribe medical marijuana under the law, but rather certify that patients have a qualifying condition as part of their application for a registry identification card, that then allows them to purchase marijuana at an approved dispensary.

In interviews and statements to the newspaper prior to the consent order, Schneider denied all of the allegations leveled against him by the state.

In January, Schneider announced the closure of his Pied Pfeifer clinics in Marion and Orland Park. At the time, Schneider, in an emailed statement, said he was sad to announce the closure of the clinics, but regrettably the business model has not lived up to forecast.

He said the last day for regular office visits would be Feb. 17 to allow for the orderly transition of pain management and primary care patients to other health care providers. He also said he intended to hold clinics twice a year at both locations in order to maintain the bona fide patient/physician relationship for patients enrolled in the medical marijuana program.

On Friday, Schneider said his office has received such an influx of concern since the announcement from prospective patients hoping to access their medical marijuana registry identification card that he has amended his plan, and intends to hold office hours once a week in Marion for new patients.

The clinic remains open to referrals from physicians restricted by their employers from doing the certifications, he said.
This was far more than a routine legislative flub. It is a warning to congressional Republicans and the Trump White House.

The embarrassing collapse of the Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act makes clear the limits of the GOP's unwise, unworkable insistence on shutting Democrats out of lawmaking. The refusal to move any piece of legislation forward without Democratic votes will bedevil Ryan and Trump as they attempt to rewrite the tax codes, immigration laws and the nation's multi-trillion-dollar budget.

For decades, success in Congress depended on an alliance between Republicans and conservative, so-called Blue Dog Democrats. The result was a string of centrist deals that marginalized ultra-liberal and super conservative members and allowed legislation to move forward.

That system broke down in the 1990s. Election after election, conservative Democrats got wiped out in the South, while liberal Republicans were rendered extinct in New England and other Northeastern districts.

But having more conservatives in the GOP conference doesn't always help the party get things done. By making every vote a matter of securing a near-unanimous Republican majority -- and by shunning any possibility of working with conservative Democrats on select issues -- Ryan, like his predecessor, John Boehner, has placed himself in thrall to the most hard-line conservatives in his conference, the so-called Freedom Caucus.

The parliamentary math is brutally simple. Ryan's self-imposed requirement to pass legislation by relying exclusively on Republicans means that any group of 23 or more GOP members can hamstring the speaker by denying him a majority -- or threatening to do so, an effective power play in its own right.

And that is precisely what the Freedom Caucus, a loose collection of 30 to 40 ultra-conservatives, has chosen to do. Prominent members of the caucus defected from the Ryan bill, with one, Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, calling the Ryan bill "the largest welfare program ever proposed" by Republicans and calling for Congress to simply eliminate Obamacare with no replacement.

"It's not a repeal. It's a marketing ploy," he said of the Ryan bill.

While Brooks and other hard-liners were threatening to jump ship unless Obamacare was eliminated, powerful moderate Republicans like Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, wanted to keep some protections in for the most vulnerable of his constituents.

"Unfortunately, the legislation before the House today is currently unacceptable as it would place significant new costs and barriers to care on my constituents in New Jersey," Frelinghuysen said shortly before the vote, explaining why he could not support it.

Trump and Ryan say they have no plans to revive health care reform anytime soon. But as they move on to other topics, they should remember the health care debacle -- and the folly of putting their agenda at the mercy of extremists.
The chairman of the Denmark Technical College Area Commission continues to defend his action to have the college's interim president removed even as a state legislator and higher education official are raising their eyebrows about the action and how it may negatively impact the institution's future.

The State Board of Technical and Comprehensive Education named Dr. Christopher Hall as interim president at the college following the commission's removal of former President Dr. Leonard McIntyre in January.

Hall was ordered off the campus on Thursday in a move authorized by the commission's three-member executive committee, which is led by commission Chairman Thomas Williams.

The move has other commissioners and officials questioning the committee's authority.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, is a member of the General Assembly's Higher Education Subcommittee and says Thursday's removal of Hall was "counterproductive" in fixing the problems at the school.

"And it begs the question why any of the current members have been recommended for reappointment," Cobb-Hunter said.

Local lawmakers, including Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, have been pushing legislation to make changes at the college. Hutto previously introduced a plan to dissolve the Area Commission and hand control to the State Tech Board.

Under a compromise plan, new commissioners would be appointed to lead the school. Bamberg, Barnwell and Allendale county legislative delegation members submitted a list of replacement commissioners to Gov. Henry McMaster.

Williams was the only member of the present commission being recommended for reappointment.

Cobb-Hunter said the board chairman does not have the authority to "terminate the acting president."

"This move jeopardizes any good will that exists on the House side to be supportive of the institution. I was hopeful that the lessons learned from the South Carolina State University situation had taken hold at Denmark Tech, but clearly I was wrong," she said.

Williams said he has appointed Tia Wright-Richards, who served as interim vice president of academic affairs, to serve as interim president. He said he acted within his authority as executive committee chairman to have Hall removed and name a replacement.

"First off, our bylaws allow for the executive committee to act in the absence of the full board. The board has to ratify or reject what the executive committee has done at our next board meeting," he said.

"She (Wright-Richards) is qualified because of the position that she holds. It's not meant to be a long-standing thing. We gotta have somebody named in that position at all time. ... We didn't pay a whole lot of attention to her qualifications ... because this position was meant to be a temporary situation."

The next regularly scheduled board meeting is set for noon Monday, April 24, but a special meeting has been set for 5 p.m. Monday, March 27, in Blatt Hall on the DTC campus.

The meeting agenda calls for a closed session on a personnel matter regarding removal and appointment of an interim president. In open session, the board is to discuss "the chairman's involvement in the college's operations."

Williams has said that two college employees were suspended shortly after Hall was named interim president, one of whom was the school's liaison to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

"This is not about Chris Hall. The number one thing is about the way that State Tech has used Chris Hall to treat two of our employees. The State Tech is claiming that they're doing an investigation on one guy, but they could not find anything on him. I've asked State Tech to bring this employee back.

"He's the only person that we have at Denmark Tech that can make sure that we are in compliance with all of our SACS requirements and to let this guy go and we don't have any evidence of wrongdoing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," Williams said.

He added, "What State Tech and Dr. Hall are doing is putting the college in jeopardy so that we will be bankrupt and lose our accreditation. As commissioners, we need to have enough vision to see what's happening to us and not wait until it happens before we react."

State Tech Vice President of Communications Kelly C. Steinhilper said Williams' actions in having Hall removed could actually present its own set of accreditation issues.

"It is the State Board's hope that the full commission will correct and admonish Williams' actions at Monday's meeting. The existing commission board is still in place. The new board proposed by the delegation has not been approved by the governor," she said.

"Since 2012, Denmark Technical College's fund balance has decreased from $9.5 million to $285,000 and over that same time, the enrollment at the college has fallen from 2,003 to 632," Steinhilper said. "While I cannot comment on the specific personnel issues, decisions made by the System Office center around bringing Denmark Tech to a point of financial stability that will ensure the long-term sustainability of the college."

She said Williams' claims "are unfounded tactics that have no basis in facts and are self-serving."

"He has involved himself in personnel matters that, as a commissioner, he has no jurisdiction. In fact, his actions on Thursday could present their own Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation issues," Steinhilper said. "SACS prohibits the involvement of a college's governing body in day-to-day operational matters such as personnel."

Cobb-Hunter said,"SACS was the scapegoat which for years delayed action at SCSU, and it's being trotted out once more in this case. The Higher Education Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee requested the State Technical College Commission to take over the operation of the school and has expertise to deal with SACS and any other issues identified at Denmark Tech."

Rep. Lonnie Hosey, D-Barnwell, said he thinks Williams should continue his service on the new board.

"When you transition and don't have anybody there to tell you what's going on, how do you start from scratch? Somebody has to leave some kind of remnant. You don't have the president, you don't have the board members, so you're starting brand new," Hosey said.

He added, "If you don't have the history or the way things have gone in the past, you'll probably repeat those things unknowingly. Somebody needs to be there to say, 'Well, we've done this before and it didn't work. Let's discuss it if you want to do so.' That's the reason that I thought that he should stay."

As to Hall's removal on Thursday, Hosey said, "If that's written in the policy or something like that, then you follow it. But I don't know it, so I'd rather not comment on it until I do know about it."

Williams said, "There's nothing 'illegal' about what we done. Everybody wanna throw that word out when they disagree with what's going on, but the full board will have an opportunity to override us or agree with us."
A while back, I mentioned the fire that broke out aboard USS Enterprise while undergoing an operational readiness exercise prior to her deployment to Vietnam. One of the commenters mentioned he was aboard, and thought you, dear reader, would be interested in his recollections of that tragic day. Without futher ado, JW Russells story.

I guess the best place to begin is at the beginning. Liberty for the Enterprise Crew, ended 0800 the morning of the 13th Jan 1969. I was assigned to aircraft loading crew in Attack Squadron VA. 145. under the command of, Commander, J Holland. We were headed out for our ORE. (Operational Readiness Inspection,) before we take off for Yankee Station, the Vietnam Operating Area. I had spent the proceeding day with my cousin who was stationed in Pearl Harbor. My work day started at 2000, the evening of the 13th.



The first part of the inspection was a Alpha Strike, the morning of the 14th. Our A-6's were equipped and with five MERs each Multiple Ejector Bomb racks. Each MER would carry 6 low drag 500lb bombs That is a total of 18000 lbs of ordnance per bird. We finished up about 0630. Just about the time They called the crew to Flight Quarters.



We briefed the on coming crew on the load up. The we headed to our bunks. Some of the night crew decide to stay and watch the first launch. I was not that eager, so I headed forward on O2 level to my compartment and my bunk.



It felt like just hit the pillow and closed my eyes, the next thing I knew I was on the deck. When my head cleared enough for me to understand what I was going one I heard over the 1MC ships speaker system, General Quarters, General Quarters, Fire On the Flight Deck. This is No Drill! This is No Drill! Then came a Thump that shook the whole ship. When you are that close to a explosion you don't really hear it, you feel it. The lights in the compartment were still on; thank god. The klaxon sounded again and the call, This is No Drill, General Quarters, General Quarters, Fire on the flight deck. All Hands Man Your Battle Station.



The closest door to me was the Port Side. But as I headed for the exit two more explosions knocked me off my feet. They came from the direction I was headed. I turned around and headed for the starboard side door. When I got into the Starboard Side Passageway, it was jammed solid, no one could move. From a passage way just aft of me a officer in his flight suite yelled at us, You People are Sailors act like it. Clear this Passageway. And just that quickly the passageway cleared and we started making our way forward. As I moved along, I decided to head for the Flight Deck. I turned down a side passageway I met a Yellow Shirt coming down from the Flight Deck. As he secured the Water Tight Door, He said you can't go this way the whole Starboard side Aft is on fire; head for the Hangar Deck.



I turned and headed forward down the passage way with the Yellow Shirt close behind. Just as I reached a ladder leading down there was another explosion and I was slammed up against the forward Bulkhead. When my head cleared enough to think straight, I looked for the Yellow Shirt, but he was nowhere to be seen. To this day I don't know what happened to him. He may have ducked into another compartment or down another ladder. All I know is I don,t remember seeing him again.



When I got to the Hangar Bay I was greeted with a sight that had to be seen to be believed. A waterfall of fire was pouring down from the Flight Deck into the hanger bay. The Fire crews were standing right at the base of the fire fall, using their hoses to push the flames over the side. The fire just kept pouring down. If the crew had stopped even for a moment the fire would have flooded the aft hangar bay. They never gave an inch. Later I heard that the aft fuel pumps were pumping JP5 into the fire. I was never able to confirm that story but something was feeding the fire.



As I stood there not knowing what to do a Damage Control crewman grabbed me by my jersey and said,Come with me. Like I had a choice. He dragged me further aft where there we about a dozen men opening OBA canisters. The DC guy handed me an OBA and said, Put this on. As I was putting the OBA on and he dragged me to a line of men wearing OB A's. A group of DC crew men were handing out canvas bags full of canisters. The DC guy handed me a canvas sack and said, Take this bag and follow that line over there, aft to the fire crew on the fantail.



With my hand on the line I started aft. I hadn't gone a dozen feet when all the light in the world was swallowed up by the black smoke billowing out of the fantail passageway. It took all my willpower not to drop the bag and take off running. But I kept walking. What I didn't know was the worst was yet to come. It happened when I met some one coming the other way. I had to turn loose of the line to get by. The panic that ran through me when my hand lost the security of that line. Remembering It still makes my knees weak. At last I was standing on the fantail. I handed off my sack and started my trip return trip to the hangar bay. I think I made two more trips to the fantail. I could have been more but I don't think it was less. When the DC Chief called for men to man a man a fire hose on the flight deck. They didn't have to call twice. Anything had to be better than stumbling in that black pit. I have heard Airedales harass HT's and the other black shoe rates but I'll bet you that when a sailor dies there will be an HT guiding his lost souls to heaven. When the smoke blinds you and the water is poring in it takes real guts to stay in the compartment and plug that hole and the fight fire.



Well by the time I made it to the flight deck most of the explosions were over but there was still plenty 20mm cooking off and whizzing through the air. They put me on a hose crew that was spraying water on a melted F-4. Yes the Plane was literally melted to puddle the ammo that had been in it's can's were sticking up all over the place like dandy lions sprouting in a field. If that wasn't enough to give you the willies' there were pieces of HE scattered all over the deck like party favors at a kids birthday. As I was looking around I saw a destroyer aft on the starboard side so close to our fantail that I could have jumped on to her bridge. I learned later She was the USS Rogers. She threw herself right into the fire with the bombs still exploding. I lift a glass to her every Jan 14th.



I stood there a couple of hours spraying water on a puddle of an airplane. In any other story with the fire out and no more explosions you would say that is the end. But I want to include something else. The FOD walk down; it occurred after they secured most of the fire parties. The 5MC called all Ordnance Personnel to the Island. Once we were all assembled. The flight deck crew handed us two plastic bags one red and one yellow. We were instructed to put the HE, in the red bag and Remains, in the Yellow bag. So there we were lined up from Port to Starboard, catwalks included, walking aft picking up the unexploded explosive and the remains of our fellow crew men. It was a sobering experience.



Well the walk down was complete and the fire watches had been set. We pulled into Pearl Harbor. This reception was a lot different than the last time we pulled in ambulances had taken the place of the Hula girls.



As any of you who have been through a disaster know, we weren't done yet. We were called to muster; every single crewman had to be accounted for. My Squadrons Ordnance crew had lost our shop and our berthing compartment. Both had been obliterated. And to add a little sugar to the cake I was informed I was in the duty section and That I would stand the mid. to four, Fire Watch. By the time my day ended I had been up thirty hours. When I started this I was worried that I wouldn't remember enough, now I am surprised by how much I retained.

JW Russell AO1 USN. RET. (1967 to 1987)
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Our guest this week on the Cool Tools Show is Danielle Applestone. Danielle is a material scientist, co-founder and CEO of Other Machine Co., the leading manufacturer of high-precision desktop CNC milling machines. Formerly, Danielle ran a DARPA project to develop digital design software and manufacturing tools for the classroom. Danielle's team took that technology and launched Other Machine Co. in 2013.

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Show notes:

Monarch Instrument Examiner 1000 ($1,200)

"I came across this electronic stethoscope as part of our manufacturing process. We would get motors from a manufacturer that looked balanced and met a spec, but once we put the whole machine together, sometimes a machine would have a lot of vibration and we didn't know how to quantify that vibration or to know what was good or what was bad.  There's a lot of intuition when you're putting something complicated together like "Well, it feels right," or "It doesn't feel right." That's really hard to do so we found this amazing thing, which cut a ton of time out of our manufacturing process and now we have beautiful graphs of everything. We know exactly what things vibrate and which ones don't. You can use it on musical instruments. It's an amazing tool. Once you have one you realize how much you needed one in your life."

Bicycle inner tubes with holes in them

"I came across bicycle inner tubes with holes in them through a friend who had made a sail boat that was attached only with these bicycle inner tubes it was a catamaran. The reason why they're so important is they are waterproof, they stretch, and you don't have to tie them in knots, so you can latch things together really quickly and then undo them, and make a new configuration.  They're used a little bit like a bungee cord, but bungee cords are really expensive and you have to make do with the hooks whereas if you take a long inner tube that has a hole in it  you're not going to use it anyway  slice it up into strips. It's like a variable length bungee cord, but it also doesn't have the hooks so you can just wrap it around itself and tuck it under and it'll stay put."

The Encyclopedia of Country Living ($20)

"This is a great tool. This is so comprehensive for every little thing. I moved out into Kentucky and lived on 1200 acres for a while and didn't have much. It was the go-to for, "Okay, we need to build a shanty for chickens. We need to learn how to clean a chicken." It has everything, like "How to bury your own dead."  The thing that's magic about this book is it has the right level of detail, just enough to get yourself in trouble.  It's just enough to get you going and then you can kind of DIY the rest. I still use it. The pages are all rained on, and moldy, and whatever, but it's well loved."

X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer

"Yeah, well we just went from just about the lowest tech to the highest tech thing I've ever laid my hands on.  What's great about this tool is it's super useful for telling what's on the surface of materials. I used to be a material scientist and I worked on lithium ion batteries. The surface is where all the action is. There's not a lot of techniques out there that are nondestructive. Usually, if you invent a material, you have a sample, you have to crush it up or put it on a slide, you have to do something to it that mixes the surface in with the bulk. Sometimes, you don't want that.  The X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer is amazing because you can just put a sample in and it's nondestructive . How it works is you take a beam of x-ray, so you shoot photons at the surface of your material and those photons have enough energy to pick off electrons. A photon goes in, ejects an electron, and then there's a collector that collects that electron and measures the kinetic energy, measures how fast it was moving. Then, if you know the energy of your x-ray going in, and the energy of that electron that you caught, you can just subtract and figure out how tightly bound was that electron to my surface. What's cool about that is if you know how tightly a molecule was hanging onto it's electron, you can tell what that molecule was. Whether it was a sulfur dioxide, or sulfur monoxide, the electrons that are swimming around those molecules will be held differently depending on what those molecules are.  The place that I used one was at the University of Texas at Austin. They're quite common, but they're usually at universities, or national labs  They're millions of dollars."
By Trend





President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev congratulated President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopios Pavlopoulos on the occasion of his countrys national holiday.

On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my most sincere congratulations to you and the people of your country on the occasion of the national holiday of the Hellenic Republic  Independence Day, noted the president.

On this remarkable day, I wish you robust health, success in your work, and the friendly people of Greece everlasting peace and prosperity, he added.












Azerbaijani MP Kamran Bayramov has drawn the attention of participants of the 94th NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) Rose Roth seminar in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the threats posed by the unresolved Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.





He said the conflict poses real threats to Europe. The conflict still remains unresolved because of unconstructive position of Armenia. The so-called referendum which was conducted by Armenia in Azerbaijan`s occupied lands triggered more tension in the region.





Bayramov said that this provocative move of Armenia is indicative of Yerevan`s unwillingness to find a political solution to the dispute. These moves of Armenia harm European security.





The MP proposed drafting a report within the NATO PA evaluating the threats posed by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to Europe and condemning Armenia`s moves.





Titled The Western Balkans: Transition Challenges, European Aspirations and Links to the MENA Region, the seminar brought together 170 participants, including 84 members of parliament from 36 NATO member states and partner countries.





The three-day event saw participants discuss prospects for EU and NATO enlargement in the Western Balkans, intra-regional relations and internal political developments in the context of challenges coming from the unstable Middle East and North Africa region.












By Trend





Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Bangladesh's President Abdul Hamid.

"On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my most sincere congratulations to you and your people on the occasion of the public holiday of the People's Republic of Bangladesh  Independence Day.

On this remarkable day, I wish you robust health, success in your work, and the friendly people of Bangladesh peace and prosperity" said the congratulatory letter.
By Trend





Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is to set off for Moscow at the official invitation of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, PressTV reported.

Heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, Rouhani will leave Tehran for Moscow on Monday to hold talks with Putin and other senior officials of the country, Iranian president's deputy chief of staff for communications and information, Parviz Esmaeili, said on Friday.

He added that the sides would discuss leading bilateral, regional and international issues.

He noted that Iranian and Russian officials would sign agreements to bolster cooperation in legal and judicial sectors, roads and urban development, technology and communications, energy and sports.

Esmaeili said Iranian entrepreneurs and tradespeople would also hold negotiations with their Russian counterparts and sign deals to strengthen cooperation between the two countries private sectors.

Pointing to prominent positions of Iran and Russia in the region and the world, the official said the continuation and development of mutual relations, the ways to promote regional stability and security and the fight against terrorism would be among the main topics on the agenda of the talks.

Rouhani and Putin have held eight meetings over the past four years. Tehran and Moscow enjoy strategic relations with senior delegations of the two countries regularly exchanging visits.

The two presidents have also held several phone conversations and discussed the avenues for the continuation of bilateral cooperation on the crisis in Syria and the fight against international terrorism.

Russia has been carrying out an aerial campaign against militants in Syria, including formerly in Aleppo, on a request from the Syrian government. Iran, too, has been offering Damascus advisory military help.
By Trend





The US-led coalition air forces launched 35 strikes consisting of 89 engagements against the Daesh targets in Syria and Iraq, according to Operation Inherent Resolve, Sputnik reported.

The US-led coalition in Syria and Iraq carried out 35 strikes consisting of 89 engagements against the Islamic State on Thursday, including 22 strikes near Raqqa, Operation Inherent Resolve said in a press release.

"Near Ar Raqqah, 22 strikes engaged eight ISIS [Islamic State] tactical units; destroyed seven fighting positions, five vehicles, three IEDS, two tunnels, and a VBIED; damaged five supply routes and a bridge; and suppressed an ISIS tactical unit," the release stated on Friday.

On Wednesday, the US-led coalition said it assisted the Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) with an air assault in the vicinity of Tabqah dam near Raqqa.

In Iraq, the coalition conducted 13 strikes consisting of 45 engagements. The strikes, which took place near Kisik, Mosul, Rawah, Sinjar and Tal Afar, destroyed multiple terrorists buildings, tactical units, supply routes and an Daesh headquarters, among other targets.

The US-led coalition of 68 nations is conducting airstrikes, ground-based and rocket-propelled artillery fire against the Daesh in Syria and Iraq.

The strikes in Iraq are conducted in support of the Iraqi government, but those in Syria are not authorized by the UN Security Council or the government of President Bashar Assad.
By Trend





Aprils approaching referendum aims to create a Turkish-type presidential system to carry the already-democratic and prosperous country a step further, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, Anadolu reported.

A local and national presidency would be within the framework of Turkish Republic's founding principles from 1923, Erdogan said during an engagement in Turkey's Aegean Denizli province.

"We have reached this day with democracy and we will continue to move on with democracy," he added.

According to Erdogan, the next presidential election will be in November 2019 if the April 16 referendum on sweeping constitutional changes is passed.

"If my [Justice and Development (AK)] party nominates me as the next president, then we'll proceed together. If they choose someone else, that person will rule the country," Erdogan said.

He accused past coalition governments of fostering instability, saying the reforms offered in the coming referendum aimed to ensure Turkey's political system stays stable and secure.

Reacting to criticism from main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan said Turkey in the last 15 years under the leadership of the AK Party had developed more than ever without any coalitions.

Erdogan said Turkey's economic growth during periods of single-party rule was approximately six percent, whereas the rate was only four while being administered by coalition governments.

According to Erdogan, if the political instability in Turkey since 1991 had never taken place, Turkeys per capita income would now have been double its current $11,000.

- Ban on Turkish newspaper at European Parliament

Erdogan also demanded an explanation for a decision by the European Parliament in Brussels to ban the distribution of English-language Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah from its premises.

The ban came after a complaint by Dutch lawmaker Jeroen Lenaers.

Erdogan said double standards should not be applied against different countries, adding Europe would suffer most from such a loss.

His statement comes after Ankara heavily criticized European states following decisions in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands to ban some campaign rallies ahead of Turkeys referendum.

President Erdogan compared the bans with Nazi-era practices and also accused European governments of taking sides in Turkeys referendum by favoring the No campaign.

- Mega projects

Turkey, Erdogan said, had been working to build giant infrastructure projects across the country to boost economic growth, including Istanbuls third airport, which will have a capacity of up to 200 million passengers a year.

According to Erdogan, the airport will have a capacity of 90 million passengers in the first quarter of next year and 150 million by 2023.

In 2015, Turkey closed seven projects totaling a record $44.7 billion, according to the World Bank Group.

A total of four mega projects are currently under construction: Istanbuls third airport; the Gebze-Halkali commuter train link in Istanbul; the Ovit tunnel in northeastern Anatolia; and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway.

Last year Turkey opened a third bridge over the Bosphorus Strait (the Yavuz Sultan Bridge, named for a 16th century sultan known for his expansion of the Ottoman Empire), plus the worlds fourth-longest suspension bridge over Izmit Bay (the Osman Gazi Bridge), plus the Eurasia Tunnel, which is an underground road link spanning Istanbuls European and Asian sides.
By Trend





U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet NATO foreign ministers at a rescheduled gathering on March 31, a senior State Department official said on Friday, ending a furor over his earlier decision to skip the event, Reuters reported.

Reuters exclusively reported on Monday that Tillerson had decided not to attend his first meeting with the ministers, originally scheduled for April 5-6 - raising fears about the new U.S. administration's commitment to the military alliance.

But the State Department official said the meeting in Brussels had been brought forward and would now go ahead. There was no official statement from NATO.

Tillerson's potential no-show had increased unease caused by U.S. President Donald Trump's description of NATO as "obsolete" during his election campaign.

Trump has since said he strongly supports the alliance, but in interviews and speeches he continues to air grievances over what he see as Europe's failure to pay its fair share of protecting the West.

Tillerson met many of the NATO foreign ministers in Washington this week at a gathering of the coalition fighting Islamic State militants, but the meeting in Brussels would be his first formal NATO ministerial.

Given the U.S. role as the de facto head of the alliance, it is rare for the United States' top diplomat to miss a NATO meeting. The last time was during the Iraq war in 2003, when Colin Powell was forced to cancel at the last moment.

Tillerson, a former top executive at Exxon Mobil Corp who worked with the Russian government, originally decided to attend a U.S. visit by the Chinese president instead of the April NATO meeting, Reuters reported.

"The Secretary of State will visit NATO in Brussels on Friday, March 31st. The visit will come after his trip to Ankara, Turkey. Details about his schedule are forthcoming," the State Department official said on Friday.
By Trend





An informed source at the scene said that the Syrian Armed Forces on Friday established control of the city of Dayr Hafir in the Aleppo province, Sputnik reported.

The Syrian Armed Forces on Friday established control of the city of Dayr Hafir in the Aleppo province, an informed source at the scene told Sputnik.

The source said the liberation of the city was preceded by a series of bitter clashes between the army and militants of the Islamic State (Daesh) terrorist group.

Dayr Hafir is Daesh last major stronghold on the Syrian army's way to Raqqa.
By Trend





U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with senior Turkish officials in Ankara next week, in talks that could be vital to an advancing U.S.-backed campaign to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State, U.S, Reuters reported.

Turkey has been pressing the United States to drop its military alliance with the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which it considers part of the Kurdistan Workers' Party that has been fighting an insurgency for three decades in Turkey.

But U.S. officials have long viewed Kurdish fighters as key to an approaching assault on Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital. It would work alongside Arab fighters in the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Instead, Turkey wants the United States to draw from Syrian Arab rebel groups backed by Ankara for the final assault on Raqqa, a predominantly Arab city, proposals that so far have failed to convince U.S. officials who are not certain that the Turkish-backed Arab force is large and well-trained enough.

"We first need to work out details with Turkey," one senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The decision sets President Donald Trump's wish for quick battlefield victories against the need to maintain the United States' longstanding strategic alliance with Turkey, a NATO ally which provides the United States access to a base critical for the air war in Syria.

The Raqqa campaign appears to be gathering steam as an overlapping U.S.-backed effort in Iraq is drawing closer to driving Islamic State from the city of Mosul.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday that the battle for Raqqa would likely start "in the coming days."

The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia told Reuters last week that the assault would begin at the start of April, and that the YPG would be taking part.

Some U.S. officials think that timeline is too optimistic, noting that a major battle underway for Tabqa dam, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Raqqa, could take weeks to complete.

The Pentagon also has said the United States has not decided on the composition of an American-backed assault force in Raqqa.

The United States has about 1,000 troops in Syria at the moment, and the Raqqa campaign could involve hundreds more.
By day, Scott Weaver is a grocery store clerk. When he's not working, he's making elaborate sculptures out of toothpicks and Elmer's Glue. His tool is a nail clipper. His largest work is called "Rolling Through the Bay." It's a 9-foot sculpture of San Francisco. You drop a marble in it at the top, and it will take a rolling tour through Coit Tower, Chinatown, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other landmarks. It took him over 3,000 hours over a 30-year-year period to make it, and it has 105,387 and 1/2 toothpicks.

I saw Scott's work at Maker Faire a few years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since. This video is part of an excellent series called "Coolest Thing I've Ever Made."
By Trend





A senior Hamas official identified as Mazen Faqha was killed in the Gaza Strip, Sputnik reported.

Faqha was shot dead by gunmen in Gaza on Friday and Hamas has accused Israel of being behind the shooting, the Arutz Sheva news agency said on Saturday.

Mazen Faqha was released by Israel in exchange for a kidnapped soldier in 2011. He was reportedly a senior member of the Hamas military wing.

Hamas, an Islamist political and militant group, seeks the creation of an independent state of Palestine and wants Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories. Hamas has been the governing authority of the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Israel classifies Hamas as a terrorist movement, accusing it of attacking the country's territory.
A national fund to help rebuild dilapidated homes in Bahrain could be launched with money taken from government coffers and investors, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.



For further details, visit http://www.gdnonline.com
Hyatt Hotels Corporation has made it to the Top 15 Great Places to Work (GPTW) in the UAE list for the fourth consecutive year, revealed Great Place to Work, a global research, training and consultancy firm that recognizes the best workplaces in over 50 countries worldwide.



The recognition is based on employees assessments of their jobs, and opportunities for training and support for work-life balance, among other factors, it said in its seventh annual list of Top Companies to Work For in the UAE.



The 2016-2017 UAE list is the largest yet for Great Place to Work and recognizes the top 24 companies with outstanding workplace cultures. They serve businesses, non-profits and government agencies.



This recognition from GPTW is extremely encouraging and motivating, as it is the result of what we do everyday, caring for people so that they can be their best, said Ramjan Bhugeloo, Regional VP, Human Resources, Southwest Asia, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts.



In addition to this, Hyatt has earned the #32 position in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2017, an annual ranking of companies with outstanding workplace cultures. Also being listed in the prestigious list for four successive years, this position jumped 15 places up since 2016.



"Our working culture is the artery between the company and our employees. We are committed to work-life balance, and a sense of care and belonging for our employees whom we fondly call the Hyatt Family," remarked Mark Hoplamazian, the president and CEO.



"Our philosophy of caring for people so they can be the best version of themselves helps to foster authentic and meaningful connections, not just with each other but with our guests as well," he stated.



"The Great Place to Work recognition is evidence of all that has been achieved till date. Making it to the list along with other global giants is an indication of triumph and accomplishment for all our Hyatt Family members. Listening, noticing others, extending a meaningful gesture can make all the difference in helping to be the best," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Euronews, a leading international news channel, has appointed Myriam Vergne as the new vice president sales for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.



Engaged in a strategic business transformation with its ambitious development plan Euronews Next, the top European news channel has reinforced its sales department with the creation of the new position of VP Sales, EMEA.



In her new role, Vergne will lead and manage the Paris, London, Berlin and Dubai offices' teams in charge of sales across EMEA and Latin America starting from April 3.



With over 20 years' experience, she is a high-profile and much respected professional in the media industry, said a statement from Euronews.



A dual French-Austrian citizen born in Switzerland, Vergne studied in Paris and graduated with a Master's degree in Business Administration and Marketing from the ISC Paris Business School.



Vergne, who was earlier with The Economist Group, will be based at the Paris office from where she will play a key role in the development of the group's new commercial strategy for the region with the aim of increasing Euronews and Africanews market share and accelerating long-term sustainable revenue growth.



Carolyn Gibson, the chief revenue officer, said: "As we embark on our exciting new strategic plan for Euronews, we are simultaneously overhauling the commercial business model as we develop our capabilities and solutions for marketers seeking a meaningful dialogue with our audiences."



With her proven track record and her deep understanding of customer needs, Vergne will be a key element in the delivery of this transformation. "Her leadership and entrepreneurial flair make her a great person to lead the EMEA sales team in this exciting new phase of our development," he added.



On her appointement, Vergne said: "I am impressed by the new development strategy of the Euronews Group and specifically its new editorial proposition."



"I am pleased to take part in this incredible transformation, to develop exciting and creative marketing solutions for our customers and position Euronews as a strategic, trusted and key partner for those brands," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Dubai-based global marine terminal operator DP World said it has begun delivering over 4.5 million litres of water to people living in villages in the Sahil region of Somaliland.



The water will be distributed in 410 tankers, carrying 11,000 litres each. The aid is estimated to reach 15,000 people living in villages in the region over the next month, according to a statement from DP World.



The aid is taking place less than a month since the company took over operations for the management and development of a multi-purpose port in Berbera.



The Dubai marine terminal operators $442 million investment in the port of Berbera will include a first phase of a 400-m quay and 250,000 sq m yard extension, gantry cranes and reach stackers to handle containers and cargo.



Work will be phased over time and is dependent on port volumes with the aim of creating a regional trading hub along with the scope for a free zone. The project will focus on containers with the capability to handle other types of cargo and will be implemented with the government of Somaliland.



DP World said it is working in partnership with the Water Authority to address the urgent needs of people in the region in response to the devastating drought which has been affecting the area for two years.



Over 1.6 million people in Somaliland (46 per cent of the population) are in need of some form of humanitarian aid with the drought drying out wells, causing crop failure and death of live-stock.



Group chairman and chief executive Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem said: "There is an urgent need for aid in Somaliland. It is the responsibility of the international community to act now and help people who are at risk."



DP World, he stated, is committed to bringing sustainability into every aspect of its work with activities brought together under its global Our World, Our Future sustainability programme.



The company is focused on four key areas - the environment; its people; safety and society.



"We take our commitment to our communities very seriously and this work aims to address the immediate needs of the people in the Sahil region. We will continue to monitor the situation and work with our partners to offer sustainable aid solutions in the future," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Etihad Airways has celebrated the graduation of its 2000th Flying Nanny, continuing its relationship with Norland, a respected UK-based higher education college.



This Norland approved training ensures that Etihad Airways highly trained cabin crew members who transfer to become Flying Nannies, can combine their service and hospitality expertise with an appreciation of the childcare skills required to ensure outstanding service and inflight care for the airlines younger guests.



The bespoke training programme, devised by Norland specifically for the Etihad Airways Training Academy, provides cabin crew with the skills to support families on longhaul flights.



Linda Celestino, Etihad Airways' vice president guest experience, said: Flying with a young family can be daunting, even for our most experienced guests, and the Flying Nanny role demonstrates our understanding of their needs and our unwavering commitment to making the journey as relaxing, entertaining and comfortable as possible - for both parent and child.



Flying Nannies were introduced by Etihad Airways in September 2013, and are onboard to provide an extra pair of hands and to allow parents more personal time while they entertain the children.



Claire Burgess, head of research, consultancy and training at Norland, who has been delivering the training at Etihad Airways headquarters since the Flying Nanny initiative began, commented: This milestone reflects how successful the Flying Nanny programme has been for Etihad Airways, and it proves that Norlands expertise continues to make a positive impact on the passenger experience.



In September 2016, the airline introduced a new Flying Nanny Kit as part of a new range of Etihad Explorers childrens activity packs, to keep its younger guests occupied while onboard.



The kit promotes greater interaction between nanny and child and contains an extensive range of fun items including Origami, games, pom-poms, flight certificates, tools for magic tricks and face-painting, and a Flying Nanny stamp of approval which the nanny can use to reward children during their in-flight activities.  TradeArabia News Service


12-24 Club receives operations gift

The 12-24 Club has received $60,000 from the McMurry Foundation for operations.

"This grant will allow us to continue serving all who seek recovery from addiction every day," said director Dan Cantine. "The McMurry Foundation has supported our efforts for over 20 years. Just as important is their commitment to helping others. We are grateful for all that the McMurry Foundation has done for many."

For more information about the 12-24 Club, call 237-8035 or visit www.1224club.org.

Donations needed

The American Legion Post 2 in Casper is asking for donations of garage sale items for a booth at the Super Garage Sale on March 25. Proceeds from the booth help continue to serve veterans and their families in Natrona County.

Large items like furniture cannot be accepted because their is no storage space, but sporting goods, camping gear, hunting and fishing gear, any tools and small cooking appliances would be greatly appreciated.

All items donated are tax deductible and all funds will stay in Natrona County.

For free pick-up of donations, call or text 267-1800. God bless America and all veterans, past and present.

Caps 4 Kids March 22

The March gathering of Caps 4 Kids is 12:30 or 1 p.m., until mid-afternoon on Wednesday, March 22, at the Central Wyoming Senior Center, 1831 E. 4th St. All who knit or crochet are welcome for a few hours of crafting and socialization.

A generous donation of yarn has been received. Come select favorite colors and make a few caps that will be donated next fall to the young and old. There are patterns available or you may use your own design. All sizes of caps are created.

Please contact the Senior Center at 265-4678 for more information. They will forward your inquiry to a member of the group.

School collects shoes March 25

Mount Hope Lutheran School is conducting a shoe drive from 9 to 11 a.m., on March 25, 2017. Mount Hope will earn funds based on the total weight of the shoes collected as Funds2Orgs will purchase all of the donated footwear. Those dollars will then help MHLS to purchase new playground equipment. Anyone may help by donating gently worn, used or new shoes, at Mount Hope Lutheran School, located at 2300 Hickory St. If anyone would like to donate and is unable to stop by on Saturday, March 25, an alternate drop box is located inside Lifetime Fitness, 300 Landmark Dr.

All donated shoes will be redistributed throughout the Funds2Orgs network of microenterprise partners in developing nations. Funds2Orgs helps impoverished people start, maintain and grow businesses in countries such as Haiti, Honduras and other nations in Central America and Africa. Proceeds from the shoe sales are used to feed, clothe and house their families. One budding entrepreneur in Haiti even earned enough to send her son to law school. With Funds2Orgs, your shoes are given a second chance and could help a family in need.

In the U.S. alone, over 600 million pairs of shoes are thrown away per year. A special thanks to Lifetime Fitness for their tremendous support.

Scarves for Special Olympics

Special Olympics Wyoming invites those who knit and crochet to make scarves for the Wyoming Special Olympics athletes to wear at State Winter Games in February 2018. Please use black, grey and white colors, approximately 6- by 60-inches in any pattern. The deadline to receive the scarves is January 2018. Please send scarves to Special Olympics Wyoming, attn. Scarf Project 2017, P.O. Box 624, Jackson, WY 83001. There is more information available at www.sowy.org/other-fundraisers.

Monthly vets ceremony March 31

The Natrona County United Veterans Council and the staff of the Oregon Trail Wyoming State Veterans Cemetery conduct a monthly memorial service for those known Wyoming veterans who have died since the last memorial service February 28, when 86 Wyoming veterans were honored.

This months memorial service is at noon, March 31, in the Tom Walsh Chapel at The Oregon Trail Veterans Cemetery. All are welcome to attend.

The memorial service is provided on behalf of a grateful state and nation as an expression of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service rendered by each of these veterans.

The veterans name, Wyoming community and branch of service is read at roll call. There is a rifle salute, taps, and the folding of a flag.

Community baby shower April 8

The Natrona County Prevention Coalition presents the Community Baby Shower from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 8, 2017, at the Boys and Girls Club of Central Wyoming, 1701 E. K St. The Community Baby Shower is a free celebration for all things babies and toddlers. All expecting parents and parents of children up to age 3 are invited for giveaways, door prizes, interactive activities, and the opportunity to learn about local community resources.

Founded in 2002, the Mission of NCPC is to prevent substance abuse in our community by promoting healthy and positive choices. NCPC is a collaboration of over 40 members made up from community agencies, businesses, and concerned citizens. NCPC is responsible for conducting and holding multiple substance-free events for the community throughout the year, including: Family Day, Community Baby Shower and First Night. Mercer Family Resource Center is the lead agency for NCPC and acts as the Coalitions fiscal agent.

For more information on the Community Baby Shower, please contact Lisa Brown, family and parenting co-chair, at 265-7366 or lbrown@mercercasper.com.

Food of the month

Wyoming Food for Thought Project has announced its food of the month suggestions for the nearly 1,000 weekend food bags its volunteers prepare for food-insecure school students in Natrona County each week. Often, schools, churches and other groups designate certain collection days for a specific type of food as a donation.

The suggested food items may be taken to program headquarters at 900 St. John, but it's best to call ahead to make certain someone is there to receive it.

March, cereal; April, granola bars; May, tuna; June, peanut butter; July, pork 'n beans; August, mac n cheese; September, Chef Boyardee products; October, cereal; November, soup; December, chili.

For more information, call Cassandra at 337-1703.

Blood centers extend hours

United Blood Services is expanding hours at its Casper and Cheyenne donor centers in an effort to make blood donation more convenient for more donors.

The center at 2801 East 2nd Street in Casper will be open six days a week. Closed only on Tuesday, the Casper center will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, and from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

The center at 112 E. 8th Ave. in Cheyenne will be open five days a week, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Blood donations can drop as much as 20 percent during the holidays and winter months, but every two seconds, every day of the year a patient in the U.S. needs a blood transfusion.

Whole blood donors are eligible to give blood every eight weeks and are encouraged to donate at least three times each year to help UBS meet the needs of patients.

Donors can save time and fill out their Fast Track Health History Questionnaire online at unitedbloodservices.org the day of their donation. To donate blood, volunteers must be at least 16 years old (16 and 17-year-old donors need a minor donor permit which is available online) and be in good health.

In addition to its community donor centers in Cheyenne and Casper, UBS operates various blood drives across Wyoming. To make an appointment call 877-827-4376 or go to unitedbloodservices.org.

Disabled vets need volunteer drivers

The Disabled American Veterans need volunteer drivers to take veterans to their medical appointment at the VA hospital in Cheyenne. The volunteer driver will transport them in a VA vehicle. If you are interested, please call the DAV transportation office in Cheyenne at 307-778-7577 for further information.

English speakers needed

CHAT, the English Conversation Club at Casper College Adult Learning Center, needs English speakers to meet international community members and help them speak English. Join us for an international potluck in the Werner Technical Center, Rm. 105: March 22, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.; April 13, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.; and May 4, 11 a.m. to noon. For more information, call 268-2230 or email mdugan@caspercollege.edu.
Summer 2012 was quickly becoming the hottest and driest part of one of the hottest and driest years in Wyomings recorded history.

Wildfires ravaged forests and grasslands in nearly every portion of the state. Temperatures were in the triple digits. Portions of northeast Wyoming hadnt seen significant amounts of rain in months.

Then a damaged power pole fell on a tree in the Black Hills, and embers tumbled to the ground.

Strong winds fanned the sparks that spread into a fire that burned hot and moved quick. More than 500 firefighters battled the growing blaze. As it tore south, officials put Newcastle  a town of 3,400 nestled in the juniper and ponderosa pines at the base of the Black Hills  on evacuation notice. Conditions were changing every hour.

It was a busy summer, and resources were really thin. They tried to make fire lines, but embers blew across, said Dick Terry, Wyoming State Forestrys northeast district forester. It was pretty much out of control for a full week.

But as the blaze moved toward Newcastle, it ran into a fire break, an area thinned of underbrush and crowded trees to help in exactly that situation. The distance between treetops prevented flames from jumping from one dry branch to another. The lack of low bushes kept the fire from licking up into the forest ceiling.

It gave firefighters enough time to build a line and burn the fire back. Then the wind switched direction, and Newcastle residents breathed a collective, if cautious, sigh of relief.

Anythings possible, but the odds greatly increased having that fuel work there, Terry said. Its definitely possible it could have gone into Newcastle.

The fire break that is given at least some credit for saving the northeast Wyoming town was paid for by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Fire Plan, a federal pot of money intended to help prevent fires where forests and urban areas meet. Communities across the West depend on those types of grants from D.C. to cover expensive fire remediation projects to protect homes and towns, Terry said.

And its the federal budget that officials like Terry and Bill Crapser, Wyomings state forester, are worried continues to shrink. President Donald Trumps proposed budget includes a 21 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and a 12 percent cut to the Department of Interior, which controls the Bureau of Land Management.

At a time when budgets for pricey forest remediation projects were already running thin, and the West is growing ever hotter and drier, fire officials worry additional cuts could mean bigger and more destructive wildfires are not a matter of if, but when.

Costly preparation

Wildfires need three things to grow: oxygen, heat and fuels. In firefighting classes, its presented as a triangle  get rid of one of those elements, and you stop the fire. And out of those three, fuels is the only one humans can control.

Thats why fire officials laud forest remediation projects as one of the keys to stopping major blazes, especially at a time when small fires have been suppressed for a century.

It makes a huge difference, said Crapser, the state forester. If you look at the Lava Mountain fire by Dubois this summer, the Union Pass area, folks had done a lot of thinning and defensible space around their homes, and it made a huge difference in firefighters ability to help save their homes.

The U.S. Forest Service has numbers to back up anecdotal evidence. The agency has analyzed 1,400 projects since 2006 and found that thinning hazardous fuels, which includes things like underbrush and small trees, was 90 percent effective in reducing the cost and damage of wildfires, Mike Ferris, an emergency management specialist with the Forest Service, wrote in an email.

In practicality, fire remediation, or hazardous fuels removal, is cumbersome and expensive. About 7 percent of the Forest Services current annual budget is earmarked for prescribed fires, mechanical thinning and other remediation, Ferris noted. Thats about $374 million of a $5.6 billion budget. While the budget has been largely increasing for the last decade, it was $1 million lower this year than in 2016.

Even in a forest like the Black Hills, where theres a market for the timber, clearing out underbrush and young trees and leaving enough trees to still resemble a healthy forest can cost up to $1,000 an acre, said Terry, the regional forester.

And in the Black Hills, where a disproportionate amount of the forest is privately owned, that kind of work just isnt possible without federal grants.

But fighting big fires is even more expensive, not to mention the destruction. The Forest Service spends about $1.6 billion, or 29 percent, of its annual budget on fire suppression.

Sen. John Barrasso, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said he wants agencies to be able to prioritize active management to prevent these catastrophic fires.

 I place a high priority on forest management across the West. Catastrophic fires compromise air and water quality, displace people and wildlife and threaten critical infrastructure, he wrote in an email to the Star-Tribune. Ill continue to look for opportunities to support legislation and policies that address fire borrowing long-term and provide real reforms to how we manage our national forests.

Locals like Terry and Crapser are keeping an eye on Trumps proposed budget. While details are scarce right now  and the budget needs to be approved by Congress before becoming official  they are nervous.

I think from what weve seen so far, probably the availability of federal funds for fuels work will be harder and harder to find, Crapser said. Then there will be less and less work on the ground with less money.

A tinder box

While this winter has been one of the wettest in Wyomings recorded history, periods of hot and dry weather are likely to follow, caution climatologists.

Wyoming has become about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit hotter since the early 20th century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Centers for Environmental Information.

This increase is most evident in winter warming, which has been characterized by a below average occurrence of very cold days since 2000, the site reads.

As a result, winter and spring precipitation may actually increase as higher temperatures speed evaporation rates, said Tim Brown, director of the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nevada.

Maybe even more important than hotter days are warmer nights, he added.

The very warm nights is actually a very important factor in the drought and fire business, Brown said. If the nights stay warm, that also means theyre staying drier, and that further dries out the fuels.

And an increase in spring precipitation will grow more grasses, which could result in more fuels to dry and burn in the summer, he added.

Will warmer, drier weather create more severe fire seasons?

The answer is complicated, he said, but probably.

You still have to have ignitions, Brown added. And the ignitions come both naturally from lightning and humans. Theyre both very difficult to predict on a long-term level.

Sign of the times

The Oil Creek Fire, which ultimately burned more than 62,000 acres of forest northwest of Newcastle, was human caused. A fire investigator found the ignition to be a damaged power pole owned by what was then called Black Hills Power  now Black Hills Energy, according to the Associated Press.

A lawsuit filed by 87 plaintiffs accused Black Hills Power of being negligent and hiding evidence. The company denied the allegations, and the case was settled out of court, the AP reported.

The fire was one of 1,300 that ripped across Wyoming five years ago. The Arapaho Fire near Douglas burned about 100,000 acres and consumed about 90 buildings. The Sheepherder Hill fire on Casper Mountain burned 5,000 acres and destroyed 37 structures.

It was the most expensive fire season  costing state, local and federal agencies $90 million.

Since then, the state has had wetter springs and summers, though scars from catastrophic fires such as the Cole Creek Fire, which displaced 1,300 people near Casper, and the Lava Mountain fire near Dubois, still mar the landscape.

Crapser doesnt know what this summers season will bring. After years as the states forester, hes stopped trying to predict.

Fires have already cropped up in the Bighorn Mountains and in the grassland near Cheyenne.

Weve seen probably more large fires in the last 15 years than weve seen before that, Crapser said. West-wide, were seeing more fires and more extreme fire behavior than weve seen in the past.
Gray wolves continued their steady increase in population and range in Washington last year despite the deaths of at least 14 animals, according to a 25-page annual report on the endangered species recovery.

The states minimum estimated wolf population increased by about 28 percent from 2015 estimates to at least 115 wolves in 20 known packs, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said in the report released Friday.

Wolf counts are expressed as minimum estimates, because of the difficulty of accounting for every animal, especially lone wolves without a pack, the agency said.

The packs going into this year included at least 10 successful breeding pairs, up from five documented in 2015.

The first breeding pack in more than 70 years was confirmed in Washington in 2008 and wolf numbers have increased roughly 30 percent every year since then, officials say.

At least 35 pups survived to the beginning of 2017, the report says. Wolf denning is underway to produce another crop of pups for this year.

Most of the wolves  15 of the known 20 packs  are in the northeastern quarter of the state, where ranchers, county commissioners and hunters are eager to reach wolf recovery quotas so the predators can be managed more effectively.

Hunting and trapping for wolves is allowed in Idaho and Montana, where wolves have been removed from endangered species protections.

My comment on wolf recovery is that it has recovered to a level that has never existed here in recorded history, Stevens County Commissioner Don Dashiell said.

The three northeastern counties have taken the brunt of wolf recovery impacts, while the predators have been slow to recolonize the western portion of the state.

Pack sizes in 2016 ranged from two to 13 and averaged five wolves. Two new packs were documentedSherman in the northeast area of the state and Touchet in the southeast.

The minimum numbers are derived from monitoring that involved trapping and aerial captures to attach GPS collars on at least one wolf in each of 13 packs. Remote cameras also were used for the monitoring by state, federal and tribal wildlife agencies.

Were glad the population continues to expand, and that participation in conflict avoidance is going up as well, said Mitch Friedman of Conservation Northwest, a nonprofit group that promotes deterrent programs to reduce conflicts between wolves and livestock.

Hopefully, this will be the year that at least one pack is confirmed in the South Cascades.

Wolves will remain protected until state and federal endangered species protocols are met naturally. No wolf introductions or relocations are permitted in Washington, according to the states 2011 Wolf Conservation and Management Plan.

Nine cattle were confirmed killed by wolves in 2016, state Fish and Wildlife investigators said. Six were classified as probable wolf-kills. Another six cattle were confirmed to have been injured by wolves, and one injury to a dog was classified as probable.

Other livestock could have been lost to unconfirmed wolf predation, the report says, noting that four of the states 20 known packs were involved in at least one confirmed fatal livestock attack last year.

Seven of the 12 wolves in the Profanity Peak Pack were removed by agency staff shooting from helicopters last year after the pack was involved with at least 15 dead or injured cattle. The state reported spending $135,000 over three months on that mission alone.

The report also outlines an array of nonlethal strategies the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department employed last year to reduce conflicts between wolves and domestic animals, including cost-sharing agreements with 55 ranchers who took proactive steps to protect their livestock.

The agencys total cost for research, monitoring and managing wolves last year was about $2.9 million, said Donny Martorello, the departments wolf manager.

We know that some level of conflict is inevitable between wolves and livestock sharing the landscape, he said. For that reason, we are encouraged by the growing number of livestock producers using proactive, nonlethal measures to protect their herds and flocks over the past two years.

The state paid a total of $12,330 to compensate four claims by producers for livestock losses directly caused by wolves. Another $65,648 was paid, as recommended by the Livestock Review Board, for two claims of possible losses to wolves.

GPS monitoring allowed state and federal biologists to document the far-flung travels of at least three wolves that left their packs last year. A Huckleberry Pack wolf left the group and traveled into Canada and nearly 400 miles east into central Montana before it was killed near a sheep operation.

Wolves are still protected throughout Washington by state laws. The exception is on the Colville and Spokane Indian reservations, where wildlife is managed by the tribes and limited wolf hunting is permitted for tribal members.

One wolf was killed by hunters on the Colville Reservation and two wolves on the Spokane Indian Reservation last year.

Since the federal Endangered Species Act protects the gray wolf in the western two-thirds of the state, Washingtons annual wolf population status report is required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

Full delisting of wolves under state law is set to begin when at least four successful breeding pairs are documented in each of three recovery areas, including Western Washington, plus an additional three breeding pairs anywhere in the state for three consecutive years.

Another threshold that would trigger delisting would be four successful breeding pairs in each recovery area plus an additional six breeding pairs anywhere in the state for a single year.
Carla and I just returned from a one-week trip to Tokyo. It was my sixth visit to Japan's capital, and it was my favorite. For the next few days, I'll be writing about recommended things to do there. See them all here.

We arrived at Narita airport about 1:30pm Tokyo time. At the airport, I noticed a lot of vending machines selling SIM cards with high-speed data. You can get a week's worth of unlimited data for less than $10 a day. If your phone is locked, you can rent a wi-fi hot spot for about the same amount. I used a wi-fi hotspot to consult Google Maps many times every day to navigate around the city. Google Maps will also tell you which trains to use to get from one place to another. We also used Yelp to find restaurants and learn when they open and close.

There are several ways to get from Narita to Tokyo (about 50 miles). A taxi or Uber costs almost $300 and you will have to deal with traffic. There are also luxury buses, which can take you right to your hotel (provided you are staying in one of the major ones). My favorite way to get to Tokyo from the airport is by train. Both the Narita Express ($28) and the Skyliner ($22) have terminals inside the airport. They are convenient and fast. The Skyliner is faster and cheaper, but stops only at the Ueno and Nippori stations. The Narita Express stops at more places, including Shibuya and Shinjuku. We took the Narita Express because we were staying near the Shinjuku Station.

At Shinjuku station we took a taxi to our Airbnb. I've taken a lot of taxi rides in Japan, and in 100% of the cases the following five things were true:

1. The driver didn't understand a word of English. (Hand your phone to him with the address displayed on the screen. He'll enter the address in his navigation system.)

2. The car was immaculate inside and out.

3. The driver was a man.

4. The driver got confused if I tried to tip him.

5. The driver automatically opened and closed my door for me. Do not try to open and close the yourself because it will strain the mechanism and annoy the heck out of the driver.

Cars drive on the left side of the road in Japan, by the way.

We took a very short ride to our Airbnb (right next to Yoyogi Park, home to the famous Meiji Jingu, a Shinto shrine) and took the elevator to the 9th floor. Here's what the place looked like, along with views from the balcony:

At $225 a night, (here's a referral code you can use to get a $40 Airbnb credit. I'll get $20 in credit if you use it) it's much cheaper than many hotels in the area. It has a kitchen, a loft with two futons, a bedroom with two large beds, a dining area, a Japanese style tub, and a washer/dryer. It also includes a wi-fi hotspot that you can take with you as you travel around Tokyo.

By the time we got settled in and took a shower after 16 hours of travel, we were hungry and sleepy. I looked on Yelp and found a place called Vegetable Curry Camp just a few minutes walk from our place. It was a cute tiny restaurant in the basement. They had boxes of fresh vegetables next to the front door, and the decor was "1960 American campground." We got sizzling skillets of fresh vegetable curry and plates of rice. The bill for both of us was less than $20. (In fact, many of the restaurants we went to were a lot cheaper than places in Los Angeles).

On the way back, we stopped at one of the ubiquitous konbini (, short for convenience store) to buy eggs and onigiri (rice filled with fish or other fillings) for breakfast the next morning. We slept like logs.

Stayed tuned for day 2, to find out about Meiji Jingu and the interesting little stores in Harajuku.
Learn to make a scarf in a few hours, participate in family crafts and try a local makers market this weekend, among other options.

Steve Frame and his Western Rebels will play from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the Casper Senior Center. Admission is $5, and snacks will be served after 8. CDs will be available.

Mount Hope Lutheran School is conducting a shoe drive from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday. Mount Hope will earn funds based on the total weight of the shoes collected as Funds2Orgs will purchase all of the donated footwear. Those dollars will then help MHLS to purchase new playground equipment. Anyone may help by donating gently worn, used or new shoes, at Mount Hope Lutheran School, located at 2300 Hickory St. An alternate drop box is located inside Lifetime Fitness, 300 Landmark Dr.

Saturday Morning Watercolor Sessions will be taught by Bev Mathisen from 10 a.m. to noon at Art 321 and will focus on using acrylic inks. These are coordinated by Ellen Black, 265-6783. $10 per session.

The Natrona County VITA Program, a United Way of Natrona County initiative, is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at Aspen Creek Building, 800 Werner Ct., Ste. 206 for free tax return assistance. This is a first come, first served program. Individuals must bring their Social Security card, photo identification and paperwork. For a list of paperwork, please visit www.wyomingfreetaxservice.org.

Make a scarf in two hours





Learn to make a scarf in two hours from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Casper Recreation Center.

Learn to knit or crochet a boucle yarn and fur scarf in a couple of hours. The yarn and size 35 knitting needles or Q crochet hook are included in the registration fee. Some beginning knitting or crochet knowledge is helpful in completing the project during class.

Sign up online at Active Casper or Casper Recreation Center, 1801 E. 4th St., phone 307-235-8383.

The Natrona County Library will host a family crafting program from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday. Participants will turn acrylic painted CDs into works of art by outlining designs and then scratching onto the design, removing the paint and exposing the shiny, colorful surface. All supplies provided. Call 577-READ ext. 5 for more information.

Fort Caspar Museum is hosting its monthly hands-on workshop, Fremont Family Funday, from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday. This month, the theme is a mini Mountain Man Rendezvous. Hear about some of the early mountain men of the West and learn about their equipment and clothing. Participants can also make a mountain man paper doll.

No reservations are required. It is open to all ages and is free with museum admission. Children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

For more information, call the museum at 235-8462 or visit www.fortcasparwyoming.com.

The Food for Thought Winter Makers Markets take place on the second and fourth Saturday of every month (March 25; April 8 and 22; May 13 and 27), from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the lobby of the Wyoming National Apartments building, 204 E. Second St. This is a free and family-friendly event, although food donations are accepted to support the weekend food bag program. A token system for SNAP users is provided and Double Up Food Bucks program is offered. Everyone is welcome, so come support local business owners and vendors. For more information, call Cassandra at 337-1703 or email cbush@wyfftp.org.Follow community news editor Sally Ann Shurmur on Twitter @WYOSAS
A Rock Springs couple who became stranded Thursday afternoon while on an outing in the Boars Tusk area were rescued by Sweetwater County Sheriff's deputies Thursday evening, according to a news release from the agency.

The couple became badly stuck in the remote area north of Rock Springs but were able to use a cellphone to call for help, Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell said.

Officers at the Sweetwater Combined Communications Center and the couple were able to provide grid coordinates to deputies, who found the two just before dark. No injuries were reported, the release stated.

Lowell urged people to use caution while traveling in the backcountry under current wet conditions. "Even if you're on a regular dirt road, conditions can be risky," he said. "And going off-road is riskier still."
With the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge as a backdrop, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, then-Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and other western governors announced that the greater sage grouse would not be listed as an endangered species.

The events on this day in September 2015 represented a culmination of efforts among all lands (private, state and federal/public) and all hands (ranchers, sportsmen, conservationists, energy and mineral industries, elected officials, landowners and federal and state agencies).

What was called the greatest conservation collaborative of all American history  management plans, both statewide and federally  determined the fate of the greater sage grouse. The Western governors and federal partners were to be celebrated for their leadership, dedication, and vision for proactively and strategically developing conservation plans for the greater sage grouse.

Back in 2007, then-Gov. Freudenthal brought attention to the greater sage grouse and its perilous position in the west. With the potential of the sage grouse listing looming, Wyoming needed to do something immediately.

A cross-section of Wyomingites was needed. A diverse team named the Sage Grouse Implementation Team (SGIT) was selected to sit down at the table and discuss management solutions and actions  to solve problems from the local level. Ten years ago meetings began. Conversations and tensions grew and tapered. All stakeholders were represented  agriculture/ranching, industry, conservation, sportsmen, elected officials and state and federal agencies. Understanding one anothers vision, values and needs along with identifying the needs of the bird and the task at hand was a monumental undertaking.

The team identified core areas of sage grouse habitat to aid in management protocols and prescriptions based upon known locations of 2,400-plus sage grouse leks across Wyoming where the birds congregate to breed each spring. These core areas cover 15.5 million acres of the state of Wyoming and support 84 percent of the birds population. The Core Area Strategy has been emulated across the West.

Data collection as well as studying critical aspects related to the bird such as noise impacts, winter concentration areas, and disturbance levels have been vital to determining the best paths forward for the bird. The most recent document prescribing conservation management and guidance for development in Wyomings sagebrush landscape is in the form of Meads 2015 executive order and 38 pages of supporting attachments.

The many collaborative efforts speak to the all-lands, all-hands vision of Wyoming. The results have been unparalleled. A decade ago, Wyoming established itself as a leader by setting a path forward. Others followed, and largely on the basis of the core area strategy, the USFWS deemed no listing was necessary for the bird. This has benefited the bird, its habitat and those that make a living on the landscape.

Yet there is more to be done. Reconciliation of Wyomings plan with the BLMs Resource Management Plans needs to take place to provide clarity about management requirements both inside and outside of the birds core areas. With the success of the all lands, all hands approach, SGIT believes our state plan should be allowed to work.

This process worked  let it continue to work.
Tucson Electric Power has rolled out new rate options that could help customers trim their bills  or if theyre not careful, cost them more.

New TEP rates approved by state regulators in February include optional time of use residential rate plans, which feature higher rates for power used during peak periods  3 to 7 p.m. in the summer  and lower rates for off-peak usage.

For the first time, TEP also is offering residential customers optional demand rates that base part of the bill on a period of peak usage in a month, along with a hybrid time-of-use plan with a demand charge. Similar time-of-use and demand plans are available for TEPs small general service business customers.

Existing TEP customers need do nothing to keep their current rate plans, which rose an estimated $8 a month for the typical home customer as a result of the recent Arizona Corporation Commission decision.

TEP is still providing a traditional, two-part residential rate, with a basic monthly service charge plus usage charges that increase as customers hit certain usage tiers.

As a result of the recent rate ruling, TEPs time-of-use rate soon will become the default for all new customers, though they may opt for other plans.

As an incentive to sign onto time-of-use or demand rates, customers pay a monthly service charge of $10, compared with $13 for the basic rate.

TEP says customers can save money on their bills with time-of-use or demand rates, while helping to reduce overall peak power demand that drives overall grid costs.

TEPs service costs are driven by the need to satisfy customers highest demand, even if it only occurs once each month, so prompting customers to limit their peak demand helps keep costs down for everyone, TEP spokesman Joe Barrios said.

The idea is that now, providing rates that reflect those costs to the customers, ideally that could have a impact on demand, Barrios said, adding that TEP has no current plans to propose mandatory time-of-use or demand rates.

RATE TRENDS

Utilities and state regulators across the nation are looking at new rate designs to offset a slowdown in demand for power attributed to factors such as wider adoption of energy-efficient technologies, a decline in manufacturing, the growth of customer-owned solar energy systems and general consumer belt-tightening.

An analysis of alternative rate designs last year by the non-profit Rocky Mountain Institute found that time-based rates have the potential to cut peak power loads by up to 50 percent and reduce usage by up to 10 percent.

But although utilities in 49 states and the District of Columbia have time-based rates, adoption remains low at just 4 percent of residential utility customers enrolled, the Rocky Mountain Institute found.

An Arizona consumer advocate agreed that time-of-use rates can save money for ratepayers and their utilities.

But if ratepayers switch to a TOU or demand rate without altering their electric use, they could experience a significant increase in their monthly bills, said Diane Brown, executive director of the Arizona Public Interest Research Group.

Such rates should not be mandatory, and even making them the default for new customers is concerning, Brown said.

She said many customers  particularly low-income and fixed-income ratepayers  cant easily modify how or when they use power because they are homebound, work from home, have varying work schedules or have large households.

Our overall view is that customers, not TEP, should determine at the onset which rate plan best suits their needs, Brown said.

DEMAND RATES

Demand rates have mainly been used by commercial customers of TEP and other utilities, but Arizona Public Service Co. has had long experience with such rates.

APS, Arizonas largest state-regulated utility, instituted a mandatory demand rate for home customers with central air conditioning in 1981.

Later in the 1980s, APS added time-of-use rate options and made demand rates optional.

But as of last year, more than 110,000 or about 11 percent of APS customers are on voluntary demand rates, and nearly 40 percent of APS customers are on time-of-use rates.

TEP has been slightly behind the curve in adopting time-sensitive rates. Barrios acknowledged TEP has been slower than APS and other peers to install new automatic meter reading, or AMR, meters, partly because TEP was searching for the most cost-effective technology.

TEP has offered time-of-use rates for years and has about 10,000 or about 4 percent of its customers on such rates, Barrios said.

Those existing time-of-use customers have been switched to updated TOU rates, Barrios said, noting that the peak summer rate period has been cut by an hour.

He also noted TEP has long offered demand rates to commercial customers, but new time-of-use and demand options are available to the smallest business class, small general service.

BILL SPIKES

TEPs new residential demand rate features a charge for the highest one-hour period of usage during peak demand periods each month, measured in kilowatts (as opposed to the kilowatt hours used to measure consumption).

Demand-rate customers also pay a basic monthly charge of $10 and pay energy usage charges, billed in kilowatt-hours, that are lower than energy charges under the basic, flat-rate plan.

TEPs demand charge is $8.85 per kilowatt up to 7 kW usage, with the rate for demand above 7 kW rising to $12.85 per Kw.

Such demand can roughly be calculated by the rating of each energy-using device, but it takes some research and some vigilance to know whats turned on and when.

Depending on their size, central air conditioners alone demand from 3 to 5 kilowatts, and adding high-demand appliances such as electric dryers can quickly boost the demand charge.

Arizona PIRGs Brown said demand rates are more complicated than other plans and require careful energy management to avoid bill spikes.

A demand charge based on an hour usage instead of a month can really trigger a hefty electric bill, she said. Demand-charge plans really need good educational materials and utility staff to work with ratepayers to understand how to best utilize their plan.

TEPs new rates are detailed on the companys website, and brochures explaining the rate options are on the way.

Brown noted that APS in its pending rate case initially sought to mandate demand rates for most of its residential customers, which was met with opposition from consumer advocates.

Under a pending rate settlement, new APS customers would be required to sign up for demand or time-of-use rates and use them for three months before being allowed to switch to the standard flat-rate plan.

Noting that the Corporation Commission also rejected mandatory demand rates in a rate case of UNS Electric, a sister company to TEP, Brown said regulators seem to agree that the public isnt ready for mandatory demand rates.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some March 25 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.
A federal judge has rejected claims by a Border Patrol agent that he cant be tried on murder charges in his court.

U.S. District Judge Raner Collins said the evidence shows that Lonnie Swartz was standing within a 60-foot zone adjacent to the international border when he shot 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was in Mexico.

Collins said he reads the law to say that zone is part of what he is known as the Roosevelt Reservation, an area first claimed by the federal government in 1897. And that, the judge said, means that Swartz, who now is on administrative leave, was standing on federal property when he fired the shot across the border that killed Rodriguez.

The ruling, unless overturned, clears the way for the criminal case against Swartz to proceed.

But Collins, in a separate ruling, blocked federal prosecutors from using at trial some statements Swartz made to a supervisor immediately following the shooting.

The judge said Swartz clearly believed he was compelled to make those statements because of Border Patrol policy. And Collins said such compelled, coerced and involuntary statements are inadmissible.

Swartz is facing a separate civil lawsuit, also in federal court, filed by the mother of the victim. But that case remains on hold until an appellate court decides whether it has jurisdiction in that case.

There apparently is no dispute that Swartz fired the shots, 10 of which an autopsy showed entered from the back.

Swartz contends the boy was throwing rocks across the border, a contention that the boys family denies.

What is in dispute is whether Swartz can face criminal charges in federal court.

Swartzs attorney, Sean Chapman, said his client was standing within the state of Arizona and Santa Cruz County when he discharged his firearm.

That, Chapman argued, means Collins has no jurisdiction to hear the murder charges.

There is no indication that the alleged crime was committed on federal land, Chapman argued.

Collins, however, did not see it that way.

He said the evidence shows the federal government claims a 60-foot stretch of land all along the international border.

And Collins rejected Chapmans claim that federal reservation disappeared after Arizona became a state in 1912.

Even if Arizona has not, in its enabling act, disclaimed all right and title to the lands at issue in this motion, this court would still be satisfied that the Roosevelt Reservation maintained its character after Arizona was admitted as a state of the union, the judge wrote.

In the United States, the Constitution permits the state and federal governments to exercise concurrent jurisdiction without undue influence, Collins wrote. Anyway, he said, The state of Arizona has not protested this courts assertion of jurisdiction over this matter.

The statements at issue were made by Swartz to supervisor Leo Cruz Mendez.

They included, They were throwing rocks, They hit the dog, and I shot and theres someone dead in Mexico.

Collins said Swartz clearly believed he would be exposed to discipline up to and including removal if he did not answer the questions.

The threatened penalty was, therefore, both sufficiently coercive and more than merely hypothetical, the judge concluded.

And Collins said the government, in its questioning, acted as his employer and cannot now use the same statements in its role as prosecutor.

The rulings, released Friday, do not resolve the separate question of whether the youths mother can sue Swartz civilly in federal court.

In October, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments about whether she had standing to sue in federal court because her son was not in the United States at the time of the 2012 shooting.

The appellate justices have not yet ruled, waiting to see what the U.S. Supreme Court decides in a similar case out of Texas.

During arguments, Chapman pointed out that the boy was shot and died in Mexico.

And he argued that any ties the boy had to relatives in the United States were not enough to extend to him the protections of the U.S. Constitution.

But Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union told the judges thats legally irrelevant.

We dont think that you need to want to live in the U.S. to not be shot across the border, he said.

Gelernt warned the three-judge panel it would set a bad precedent to allow Swartz  and anyone else who fires shots across the border  to escape civil liability.
The ouch/oops idea proved irresistibly precious.

In a 20-page document called Diversity and Inclusiveness in the Classroom, the University of Arizonas vice provost for inclusive excellence, Jesus Trevino, suggested a way of dealing with offenses committed in the college classroom, a method that apparently exists at several campuses.

If a student feels hurt or offended by another students comment, the hurt student can say ouch. In acknowledgment, the student who made the hurtful comment says oops. If necessary, there can be further dialogue about this exchange.

Its the kind of touchy-feely idea on college campuses these days that drives some people insane  Im often among them, shaking my head at the absurdity. And so, on March 15, Tucson radio talker Garret Lewis lambasted the guidelines on his KNST 790-AM morning show. Then the usual set of right-leaning outlets picked up the story.

Washington Free Beacon: New Safe Space Guidelines at University of Arizona Treat Students Like Preschoolers.

Breitbart News: University of Arizona Instructs Students to Say Ouch! when Offended.

Fox News: Snowflake Watch: Safe words for safe spaces.

None of the publications bothered to contact the UA, spokesman Chris Sigurdson told me. Thats bad journalism.

Nevertheless, they werent wrong in their criticisms. The guidelines seem to fetishize the idea of marginalized groups and protecting their multiplying ranks from offense.

Introducing the guidelines, for example, Trevino wrote: In addition, many campus constituents have social identities that historically have been underrepresented (e.g. Black/African Americans, Latinx/Chicanx/Hispanic, Asian American/Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, LGBTQIA+ folks, international students and employees, people with diverse religious affiliations, veterans, non-traditional students, women, first-generation college students, and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds).

For those who havent kept up, latinx was invented to replace the masculine-gendered adjective latino and also latin@, which originally replaced latino but was considered exclusionary because it only reflects masculine and feminine gender. LGBTQIA+ takes in intersex people, asexual people, and anybody who isnt actively heterosexual.

Beyond the elaborate lingo, some of the ideas seemed obvious, juvenile or just plain strange.

Collages and other forms of art tap into students creative and visual side, Trevino wrote. Here students might be asked to create a collage depicting intergroup relations or intergroup concepts and ideas.

Can you imagine spending your precious college years making a collage showing intergroup relations, concepts or ideas?! Better to save the tuition and go to truck-driving school.

  

But I may be a particularly prickly audience for this kind of thing. I first heard the phrase P.C. when I visited Oberlin College in Ohio as a high school senior. It was 1986, and I had to ask to find out it meant politically correct. Then I had to ask what that meant. By the time I graduated from college there, I practically had a degree in political correctness.

By now, the phrase has become so pervasive and overused, its practically lost all meaning.

But I got my deepest lesson in this uniform campus mindset when I was a college senior at Oberlin in April 1990. Larry Kramer, who founded the AIDS advocacy group Act Up, spoke at the auditorium one Friday night. After his inflaming speech, students gathered spontaneously outside the student union. After some speechifying by the usual campus activists, one of them proposed a march against bigotry to the college presidents house a couple of blocks away.

To this day I regret not having the courage to raise my hand in that crowd of perhaps 100 students and ask the question on my mind: Why? It was late at night. It seemed like an overly generic cause. And there was no particular reason to go to the college presidents house.

But the march happened, and I hesitantly joined. A student rang the presidents doorbell. Anticlimactically, nobody answered because they werent home. So the decision was made to sit in on the presidents lawn. The whole thing was farcical and would have ended quickly, except the town police unexpectedly showed up. What happened next would not be called a riot because there was little or no violence, but it certainly became a mass disturbance, with arrests, physical struggles, some baton swings, and police vehicles blocked in by gathering protesters.

Looking back, it was all pointless  the march, the police response, the disturbance, the arrests. And that, among other experiences, helped build my skepticism to initiatives like this new one at the UA.

  

If you talk to Trevino and read the guidelines carefully, though, you see some valuable material in their heart. Most of all, it tries to show UA faculty members how to run classroom discussions so everyone is heard and everyone learns.

Trevino, hired as the universitys diversity officer last year for a whopping $214,000 salary, told me he cobbled together the document from lessons hes learned, in rapid response to the 2016 general election. Some professors were having a hard time with polarizing classroom discussions and wanted suggestions, Trevino said. But the problems werent and arent pervasive.

Most of the teaching that takes place in higher education is free of conflict, he told me. Across higher education, you do have these incidents, but its not as if every day we cant talk to each other because people are offended.

Nobody outside the university took much notice of the document, sent to all faculty members. Im guessing few people inside the university took much notice either  till Lewis talked about it on the radio.

Trevino labeled the contents as merely suggestions for faculty who want to engender the broadest possible perspectives, opinions, and experiences and to maximize free speech in the classroom.

While the document works to ensure the aforementioned marginalized groups are heard and not subject to offenses, many of the suggestions would also protect politically conservative students or other minority viewpoints on campus.

If you are going to express your political opinions in the classroom, Trevino wrote to the notoriously liberal faculty, understand that there is a risk of silencing students who do not agree with your views. As a faculty member, when you express your views to students you are doing so out of a position of power.

In another section, he writes, It is important to constantly mix the students so that they can get to know everyone in class, not just those they are comfortable with.

One that really struck me, since Im a loudmouth, was, People who listen more than they speak often have more of value to share. Indeed.

So, yes, the phrase microaggression , used often in these guidelines, makes me squirm. It could be used to enforce ideological uniformity if opposing viewpoints are labeled microaggressions against marginalized groups, requiring an ouch and an oops of apology.

But if used honorably, many of the lessons could have the opposite effect: opening up discussions to broader, free-flowing speech rather than pinching it down.
A reward of up to $7,500 through 88-CRIME is being offered for information leading to an arrest in a sexual assault and kidnapping last month.

Detectives are asking the public for help in identifying the assailant who attacked a woman Feb. 27 at a midtown business in the 1600 block of North Swan Road, said Sgt. Pete Dugan, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

The neighborhood is south of East Pima Street.

After the attack at about 8:30 p.m., the man kidnapped the woman and her 3-year-old son in the woman's car, Dugan said.

The woman had finished working and was preparing to leave. She buckled her son into the car seat in the vehicle, and went back inside the building to retrieve something she left behind, Dugan said. He said a man holding brass knuckles followed her inside.

The man threatened to hurt the woman if she didn't follow his directions, said Dugan. He said the man forced her into an office and sexually assaulted her.

Dugan said the man then demanded her car keys and he forced her into the car before driving away. When they were stopped at a traffic light at East Grant Road and North Mountain Avenue, a Tucson Fire Department truck approached with its emergency lights on, Dugan said.

The woman jumped out of the car and flagged down firefighters for help.

Meanwhile, the assailant drove off heading west with the woman's son in the back seat.

Sexual assault detectives and sex offender registration and tracking unit detectives went to the scene, and an Amber Alert was issued, Dugan said.

The car was found at about 1 a.m. in the 4400 block of East Water Street, and the boy was asleep and unharmed in the back seat, said Dugan.

The assailant, who was captured on surveillance video, is believed to be a white man who is between 40 to 50 years old. He has acne scars on his face, and is about 6 feet tall. He has a strong build.

Detectives ask anyone with information to call 88-CRIME, the anonymous tipster hotline.
A Tucson woman has pleaded guilty to an open-ended offense for her involvement in a prostitution business that ensnared local police employees, records show.

Miranda Gomez was identified by the Tucson Police Department as the booker for Daisys Delights, an illicit massage parlor that operated for about two years until it was raided in January 2015, according to police documents.

Gomez, 32, took the appointments and communicated with clients of the business, which included public safety employees, the documents said.

On March 13, Gomez pleaded guilty to attempting to receive the earnings of a prostitute, which is considered an open-ended or undesignated offense, meaning it will be treated as a felony until the court enters an order designating the offense as a misdemeanor, according to the plea agreement filed in Pima County Superior Court.

Her conviction carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, three years of probation and up to $150,000 in fines, the agreement says. She will be sentenced by Pima County Superior Court Judge Paul Tang on April 17.

Gomez was initially charged with illegal control of an enterprise and receiving the earnings of a prostitute, both felonies.

Daisys Delights was an offshoot of the long-running illegal massage parlor, By Spanish that police began investigating in November of 2011. Their investigation revealed that a former employee of By Spanish, Stephanie Garcia, started a competing business, police documents show.

During the investigation into the businesses, investigators discovered that 10 Tucson police employees had knowledge of or were customers of the businesses.

Garcia, who is facing eight felony charges, including illegal control of an enterprise, money laundering, maintaining a house of prostitution and receiving the earnings of a prostitute, has a case management hearing scheduled in Pima County Superior Court on April 10.
Twenty years ago, internet access was a luxury that only a small number of schools in the country could afford. Thats no longer true .

As more instructional technology advances and more material lives online instead of on book shelves or in cabinets, nearly all schools in the country have adopted some sort of access to the internet, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

However, data from a nonprofit advocating for better internet access in schools shows Arizona is still lagging.

Thats not to say progress isnt being made; a statewide initiative coupled with federal funding could boost internet connectivity in Arizonas public and charter schools substantially in coming years.

Education Superhighway ranked Arizona 44th worst out of 50 states for connectivity in 2016.

Fifty-five districts and charter schools in the state, including five in Pima County, dont meet the minimum connectivity goal or need more sufficient wireless access.

Internet access enables instruction experiences beyond traditional methods, educators say.

Students in rural areas can gain access to accelerated or specialized courses through the internet. Classes can take virtual field trips to national parks or even world-renowned museums. Teachers can track student progress in real time and use the data to give individualized attention to struggling kids.

There is almost a universal agreement that technology is a critical enabler of teaching and learning in our schools, said Evan Marwell, the CEO of Education Superhighway, the nonprofit using government data to understand internet access issues in schools and helps them with procurement.

But those opportunities may not be there yet for some 250,000 students in the state, many of whom are in rural areas, whose schools do not meet the FCCs minimum connectivity goal.

Its not a mandate, but 100 Kbps, or kilobits per second, per student is what the FCC, State Educational Technology Directors Association and Education Superhighway agree as the minimum bandwidth, or capacity of internet access, to facilitate instructional technology.

Tucson Unified School District, which is largest district in the county, has double the amount of the minimum goal.

Some district make do with less, he said. But given the minimum goal was adopted by the FCC in 2014 and technology advances rapidly, the goal would be harder to achieve in coming years, not easier.

To put things into perspective, Marwell says his household of five has a 100 Mbps, or megabits per second, connection. Thats a thousand times more than 100 Kbps.

But that 100 Mbps is the maximum capacity, not whats being delivered regularly by the service provider, he said. On average, internet customers can expect to get about half the advertised speed.

That boils down to about 10 Mbps per person in Marwells family, he said. To stream a high-definition video, it takes about 5 Mbps.

You can imagine, if youre in a school in rural Arizona that has 100 kids and you only have 10 Mbps of bandwidth, only one, maybe two classrooms can stream a video possibly, he said.

A TALE OF TWO DISTRICTS

About 135 miles west of Tucson in Ajo, Superintendent Bob Dooley has a lot of pride in his district, which serves 435 students, and the instructional technology it provides.

For a small district, were in pretty decent shape, he said. The district received a hefty grant four years ago to update its technology. It now has smart whiteboards in every classroom, computer labs and accelerated or specialized courses students can take online.

We still have textbooks and calculators, but technology is definitely an asset, he said. We would not be serving our students if we didnt expose them to technology.

It worries him that his kids arent getting the same access as those in Phoenix or Tucson though. Larger schools generally tend to have more resources, he said.

Ajo Unified has the same bandwidth of 100 Mbps, which is the same amount that Marwell of Education Superhighway has for his family. The network is shared by staff members too, who use it for important functions like payroll and financial accounts.

Dooley said hes very satisfied with the service hes getting from the local internet service provider, Table Top Telephone Co., though he hasnt got another choice. It is the only provider in the town of about 3,300 people.

When its time for assessments, its kind of like a perfect storm analogy, Dooley said. Two or three classes taking an assessment online at the same time as some kids taking online courses can create delay issues.

To avoid that, the Ajo district plans to triple its bandwidth through a federal funding program called E-Rate, which makes $3.9 billion available to public schools and libraries seeking to improve internet access. It also wants to expand technology use.

We always want to look down the road 25 years, Dooley said.

Across the county, Scott Little, chief financial officer of Amphitheater schools in the Tucson area who also oversees technology, monitors the districts internet usage from his desk. He pulls up a dashboard, which can tell him what sites are using more of the bandwidth and when the peak times are.

As of 2016, the district didnt meet the 100 Kbps per student goal. But Little said he thinks the goal is arbitrary. Its more of a wish list and less of a mandate, he said. At 28 Kbps per student, Amphi makes do by restricting access to things like streaming radio or social media. He can even customize whats restricted to whom.

In my opinion, bandwidth is a bit like jails and roads, he said. You build them, and people will find a way to use them to capacity.

Because capital funding source from the state has dried up, the district is planning on having students bringing in their own devices like tablets and laptops, which would add about 14,000 new connections to the internet, Little said.

To support that and future growth, Amphi is getting a new internet connection and an infrastructure upgrade that would increase the districts bandwidth to 2 Gbps, which is five times more than the existing bandwidth.

Amphi is one of the first school districts in the country to use the E-Rate program to fund something called dark fiber. Fiber optic cables are threads that transmit data. Dark fiber, by extension, is unused fiber optics that can be turned on for more capacity.

So what Amphi is doing is building a system with more capacity than it immediately plans to use to account for growth, Little said. That means if the need for internet capacity grows in coming years, whether its because of enrollment increase or technology advancement, the district can tap into the extra capacity built into the system.

Its all about being cost-effective, Little said. The district would save about $575,000 in 10 years by having the unused fiber optics already in place.

CHANGING TIDE

Arizona is in the bottom tier now, but there are measures in place to change the tide, said Stefan Swiat, an Arizona Department of Education spokesman. The state launched an initiative to expand broadband access in schools, especially in rural areas.

Urban Arizona keeps progressing and keeps getting access to better technology, he said. Rural Arizona keeps falling behind. What this does is level the playing field.

Through a grant program from the K-12 Broadband and Digital Learning Policy Academy, the state education department would receive $10 from the grant for every dollar the state invests.

To enable state investment, the Arizona Corporation Commission recently approved a one-time expansion of the Arizona Universal Service Fund to distribute $8 million.

The initiative would help schools build appropriate infrastructure and help guide them through the procurement process, including helping them make the most of E-Rate. It could benefit 100,000 students in the next two years and level the playing field for rural schools that face challenges in getting high-speed internet.

Its a game changer, Swiat said. This is a once-in-a-generation type of opportunity for Arizona.
A controversial proposed expansion of the University of Arizonas Honors College, including a 1,000-bed dorm, is moving forward despite protests from nearby residents and concerns about the legality of the proposal.

UA officials met with area residents twice last week, offering an overview of the plan to build a six-story building that would span an entire city block between East Drachman and Mabel streets and North Fremont and Santa Rita avenues, north of East Speedway.

The land where the dorm is proposed is owned by American Campus Communities and is outside the official campus boundaries. ACC, based near Austin, Texas, is one of the nations largest developers of student housing communities .

A two-hour meeting Monday on campus had more than 80 people attend, mostly nearby residents who were visibly upset and often alluded to previous disputes with the university expanding into their neighborhoods.

University officials said a second meeting held the following night was less confrontational.

Peter Dourlein, the campus architect for the university, said those attending the second meeting offered suggestions on ways to change the projects physical dimensions that could help alleviate some of their concerns.

In addition to the 1,000-bed dorm building, plans include multi-story buildings for classrooms, office space, a recreation center and a four-story parking garage to be built on the adjacent block between North Park and Fremont avenues.

The university is also considering demolishing several buildings along Park between Drachman and Adams streets, and putting in surface lots to offer additional parking.

The neighborhood now consists of homes, apartments catering to students, university parking lots and vacant land.

Currently, many UA students who are part of the Honors College live in residence halls close to Euclid Avenue and Sixth Street. The UA said there are more than 4,000 students enrolled in the Honors College.

Many frustrated residents said they are weighing their options, legal and political, and were concerned there was little information coming from the university about the proposal.

Some said they hoped the universitys presumed new president, Dr. Robert Robbins, will weigh in on the proposal and work with the neighborhoods.

On Monday night, former City Councilwoman Molly McKasson said she hoped the Tucson City Council would find a way to stop the project, which does not have to abide by city zoning codes, including when it comes to building heights, density and parking requirements.

As of now, the university does not have a formal agreement with the ACC for the project, currently known as a memorandum of understanding.

Councilman Steve Kozachik, who is also a university employee, said the UA has worked hard in the past to establish good rapport with the surrounding neighborhoods and that he hopes the school works with residents over their concerns.

On Friday, Dourlein confirmed he and other university officials are continuing to meet with ACC to discuss plans for the project. He expects that the university will hold more public meetings in about two weeks.
Key votes ahead

Key Votes Ahead

In the week of March 27, the House will take up a measure to roll back certain privacy protections for Internet users, while Senate will conduct confirmation votes on nominees to serve in the Trump administration.

Key Votes Ahead

In the week of March 27, the House will take up a measure to roll back certain privacy protections for internet users, while Senate will conduct confirmation votes on nominees to serve in the Trump administration.

In the week of March 27, the House will take up a measure to roll back certain privacy protections for Internet users, while Senate will conduct confirmation votes on nominees to serve in the Trump administration.
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A team led by University of Arizona astronomer Christopher Walker has been selected by NASA to launch a balloon-borne observatory to study the interstellar gas in the Milky Way and a smaller satellite galaxy.

The $40 million mission is scheduled to launch in December 2021 from NASAs balloon facility in Antarctica.

It will use NASAs latest Ultra-Long-Duration Balloon technology, allowing the observatory to stay aloft for 100 to 170 days.

That will be enough time to map a large swath of the Milky Way galaxy and all of the smaller satellite galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, said Walker, an astronomer at the Steward Observatory.

The Milky Way, our home galaxy, is a more evolved present-day galaxy, while the Large Magellanic Cloud has characteristics of a galaxy in the early universe, he said.

Using those two bookends, Walker said astronomers can understand the life cycle of the interstellar medium and how the gas and dust between the stars assembled into stars and planets and all the stuff that goes with it.

Walker said he tells his students at the UA that the study of such seemingly esoteric phenomena is really very personal  4.7 billion years ago, every atom in your body was floating in the interstellar medium.

Walker, who first proposed the mission as an orbital one 14 years ago, said switching to a balloon launch allows him to gather the same scientific data in less time for 5 percent of the cost of a rocket-launched satellite.

From a balloon, you can have a much more powerful instrument, Walker said. It also uses state-of-the art technology.

The observatory will include a 1-meter mirror and an array of instruments to detect emission lines from carbon, oxygen and nitrogen.

Thats difficult to impossible to do with ground-based telescopes, Walker said, but the balloon will take the telescope above 95 percent of the Earths atmosphere. Thats critical for terahertz astronomy, which explores the millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths of light between infrared and microwaves.

The mission is known as GUSTO, which stands for Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory.

GUSTO will provide the first complete study of all phases of the stellar life cycle, from the formation of molecular clouds, through star birth and evolution, to the formation of gas clouds and the re-initiation of the cycle, Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director in the Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said Friday in a NASA news release.

Walker and co-investigator Craig Kulesa, another Steward astronomer, lead an international team that has already launched two Stratospheric Terahertz Observatories  pathfinder missions that proved the scientific merit of GUSTO, said Walker.

Those missions featured a Frankensteins monster observatory, cobbled together from parts originally slated for other missions, Walker said.

GUSTO will be built with new parts, with the telescope, mirror and instruments developed at the UA.

Mission operations and the gondola for the instruments will be supplied by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MIT, Arizona State University and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research will contribute detector technology.
HINDSIGHT - WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING ABOUT OR DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT
It has been a little over two months since Donald Trump became the president of the United States. During this period, the world has seen bigotry at the highest level. After just a week in office, we saw a failed attempt by the most unanticipated president to keep nationals from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the country. Just when it was starting to seem like things could not get any more ridiculous, the Trump administration bans carry-on laptops, tablets, and other portable electronic devices on flights from ten airports in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The nine airlines affected are Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, EgyptAir, Turkish Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Emirates and Etihad Airways.

Britain follows suit

It gets worse. Britain has decided to follow the United States. British Airways and EasyJet are among the airlines included in this ban but the choice of countries is still questionable. Canada is considering prohibiting personal electronics on board flights from the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa. They claim that it is an anti-terrorist precaution. The question is, what are they going to do about terrorists travelling from all the other airports not affected? Because unless this dubious ban affects every airport in the world, it cannot be treated as a security issue.

Also, is it not possible to trigger an explosion using smartphones? It is just wrong in a lot of ways.

The ban on electronics is dubious

One theory is that this could be a commercial dispute. The United States' three major airlines- American, Delta, and United- have accused the Middle Eastern trio of Qatar Airways, Emirates, and Etihad of receiving unfair advantages in the form of subsidies provided by their governments.

Over the past decade, the Middle Eastern airlines have moved into the United States market and started to compete with their award winning service and lavish jets. The new ban will clearly benefit American carriers while harming the businesses of the targeted airlines. For example, passengers travelling for business purposes are likely to rethink and choose a carrier they can work on using laptops and other devices.

From their point of view, why pay for business-class or first-class if they cannot travel and work comfortably?

Needless to say, the countries affected need to retaliate and they need to do it now. Sulking is not the answer. They can cut ties with the world's bullies. They can put an end to Trump's businesses in the Middle East. Even an attempt at sweet revenge by banning electronics on board flights from the United States and Britain would be better than being victims of absurd decisions. Why stand witness?
Many Muslim leaders have come forward since Wednesday to condemn the terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge that also extended to the Parliamentary estate, apparently 40 yards away from Prime Minister Theresa May. A 4x4 was driven through a crowd of people on the bridge and a police officer was killed following a stabbing. The leaders who have spoken out include Harun Khan, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, but there are others. One of them, Mohammed Kozbar, the chairman of the Finsbury Park mosque, used to be associated with Abu Hamza.

He appears to have changed his tune since then, but still, he used to be associated with Abu Hamza.

The mosque ended its association with Hamza in 2005

The mosque, located in East London, cut ties with radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza in 2005, and has since been seen as a model example of stereotype-busting by the Muslim community. Hamza, the Egyptian preacher of Islamic fundamentalism and being a militant Muslim, used to be the mosque's imam. Kozbar has said that the Westminster attack was appalling and barbaric, adding that the killing of innocent victims should be condemned by everyone.

Relaying what the Metropolitan police said on Twitter, Kozbar announced, We must stand together against those people who would use this incident to spread extremist views and also those who would spread fear and hate within our society. His MLK-style dream is that this attack is going to unite us against all kinds of extremism, hate, and racism.
The London Evening standard recently reported that the government were set to abandon another manifesto pledge. This time it was the promise to ban Ivory trade in the UK. Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom was touted to unveil proposals that allow the sale of antiques carved from ivory before 1947, despite the fears that it could refuel illegal poaching from the endangered African elephant.

The manifesto pledge was to press for a total ban on ivory sales. I have been attempting to get an answer from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) since first reading this, eventually they replied.

DEFRAs response

They stated We have been actively exploring options to implement the Governments manifesto commitment to press for a total ban on ivory sales before going on to say we will consult on our proposals soon. The Secretary Of States proposal to ban sales of worked ivory less than 70 years old this year (i.e. with a fixed start date of 1947) and further claiming that this will make UK rules among the worlds toughest.

They continued The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Dr Therese Coffey attended the 17th Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) during September last year. The UK was pleased that at the CITES Conference, Parties voted against a resumption of trading in ivory dated after 1989.

Interestingly they added that There was also a clear direction to close national ivory markets where these fuel poaching and illegal trade and decisive action to strengthen National Ivory Action Plans, which help combat ivory trafficking in key markets.

Before finishing by saying We continue to target the illegal wildlife trade using our law enforcement agencies within the UK and around the world, sharing our expertise to help tackle poaching and trafficking, including support for British Military training of anti-poaching trackers in key African countries.

Further information

Unfortunately, there is much conjecture and little substance on whether it is true that they will allow the sale of antiques carved from ivory poached prior 1947.

I have responded and will follow up with a full article on the issue once the information is either already in the public eye or they have afforded me a response, whichever arrives first. Either way the response itself has a positive tone on what the government are doing to combat such a serious issue, whether they follow through with a strong policy is yet to be seen.
Back in 2012, Barack Obama was voted in for a second term and things seemed to be looking up in terms of racial issues in the United States, until a black teenager named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, and that reminded us all that yeah, America is still a very, very racist nation. The guy who did it, George Zimmerman, who wasnt even a cop, he was just a member of the neighbourhood watch, was acquitted by the courts. So, he murdered a 17-year-old kid and got off scot free for it.

Big shock, right? Unfortunately that seems to happen all the time these days.

In America, that is. Not here. But there, it happens all the time. Hence black lives matter, the popular movement thats taking on all these cases and bringing attention to the fact that the white murderers of black people are always getting acquitted. And now Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, is contributing to that media attention, with a new multimedia project based around the Trayvon Martin case.

The project will be comprised of a movie and a 6-part documentary series

Jay-Zs ambitious Trayvon Martin project is a collaboration with The Weinstein Company, who have made some very racially conscious films and done some great things for the black community in Fruitvale Station. That was an emotionally gut-wrenching dramatization of the death of Oscar Grant, one of the very first Black Lives Matter cases.

Also, the film was directed by Ryan Coogler, whos gone on to make Creed and will later this year give us the first Marvel film about a black superhero with Black Panther. So, thanks for that, Weinstein Company. Hopefully with this new Trayvon Martin project, they can give us the next Ryan Coogler, and the industry can get an injection of these brilliant, talented, visionary black directors to compete with all the hack white directors whove managed to make it through because theyre white and its Hollywood.

The film and TV documentary series will focus on not just Martins death, but all his life. At the time of his callous, racially-driven, unprosecuted murder, Martin was a high school student, filled with potential. And when a neighbourhood watch guy named George Zimmerman slayed him and then went to caught and got let off, it attracted attention worldwide because thats insane.

The project will be based on two books

The film and documentary will be based on two separate books. One is Suspicion Nation: The inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It (which is a very interesting and contemplative title, to say the least, since it seems to be looking at the bigger picture and not solely on the one murder case), which was written by a journalist named Lisa Bloom, and Rest In Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin, which was penned by Martins grief-stricken parents. Jay-Z is producing the documentary series, while The Weinstein Company is tackling its accompanying film.
I have been reading the Manosphere for about the last six months. Before then I had never heard of it. But there is nothing in it that hasn&...
Unified Communications Week in Review: CoreDial, Microsoft, RingCentral & More

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By Alicia Young

Web Editor By Alicia YoungWeb Editor

Welcome back to the week in review, where we take a look at all the top stories making headlines in Unified Communications this week.

The week started off with the news that Tata Communications Transformation Services Limited (TCTSL), a telco transformation and managed services provider, has partnered with Microsoft (News - Alert) to deliver Network Assessment as a Service (NAaaS) to its channel partners. Given Microsofts size and presence, its assumed that being one of the companys partners is beneficial anyway. Now, thanks to this new agreement, those same partners will be receiving even more perks. Find out how NAaaS will benefit them HERE.





Also this week, we took a look at how people in prison are able to communicate with the outside world. Communications between inmates and their families has always relied on traditional methods like mail and phone calls. Now, ConnectNetwork, a friend or family member website created by GTL (News - Alert), provider of correctional technology solutions, is giving prisoners the chance to exchange photo messages with loved ones. The full story is HERE.

In other news, RingCentral (News - Alert) and CoreDial both looked to improve their current offerings this week. First, RingCentral unveiled the latest version of RingCentral Office, which will use the companys Glip team collaboration offering as its primary interface. The new and improved solution will provide users with a single view of their voice, video, messaging, tasks, file sharing, fax, SMS capabilities and much more. All the details are HERE.

Finally, CoreDial also improved upon its offering this week by improving SwitchConnex and its suite of UCaaS solutions by bringing in BroadSoft (News - Alert) technology. The addition of the BroadSoft BroadWorks call control services will, according to the company, allow its channel partner community to compete and increase its revenue and win over more customers. Based on the fact that the BroadWorks platform has been deployed by more than 800 service providers around the world, its safe to say that CoreDial will likely benefit from this integration. Everything you need to know is HERE.

Thats all for this week. Come back next week to read all the latest news in the Unified Communications space.
Amos Yee, a controversial Singaporean teen blogger, has been granted asylum within the United States. On social media, both critics and supporters of Yee appeared to be happy for him. Within his home country, Yee had become infamous over videos criticizing religion and politics, leading to arrests and media turmoil.

An immigration official thought Yee risked serious persecution in Singapore

According to reports, Yee had come to the United States on a tourist visa, but told immigration officials that he was seeking refugee status. He had been detained in the country since he arrived at Chicago's O'Hare airport this past December.

Reportedly, the United States Department of Homeland Security originally opposed Yee's application for asylum, but an immigration judge ruled in his favor on Friday, and Yee is expected to be released shortly. According to Yees legal team, he could be released as early as this following Monday.

Judge Samuel Cole released a thirteen-page decision that explained it was felt that Yee faced serious persecution in his native country, in part due to his political opinions, and it was feared that it would continue should he not be granted asylum.

Both critics and fans are happy that Yee is in the United States

Yee is said to be a controversial figure within his home country. Reportedly, Yees critics in Singapore celebrated him being granted asylum in the United States on social media.

One Facebook user wrote that it was hoped to be the "last we heard of" Yee, and it has been said that it was a common comment among Yee's critics online. Some Singaporeans have sympathized with Yee. Another Facebook user reportedly said that he could live the "free life" that he desires and wished him, "Congratulations."

Yee, said to be a former child actor, is known for his controversial content online.

Known specifically as a critic of Christianity and Islam, he was imprisoned in September 2016 for six weeks after being charged with "wounding religious feelings" He had previously been jailed for four weeks beforehand in 2015 for a video criticizing the country's former Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, comparing him to Jesus Christ.

He also posted a crude cartoon portraying Lee Kuan Yew engaged in anal sex with Margaret Thatcher.

In addition, Yee also made headlines during his arrest for making false allegations that he had been molested by his bailor, Vincent Law, which he later confessed had been made up to manipulate mainstream media, in order to reportedly make a statement on how tabloid-focused it had become.
On Tuesday night, Donald Trump once again criticized federal judges and the court system for blocking both of his attempts at a travel ban. In response, many in the media are questioning the president's decision.

MSNBC on Trump

Within a week of being sworn into office, President Donald Trump signed his travel ban executive order that critics refer to as a "Muslim ban." Backlash quickly followed, resulting in nation-wide protests at various airports as authorities were instructed to block travel to and from seven different majority-Muslim countries.

After a federal judge and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the order, the White House went back to work and released a watered-down version that they hoped would stand. However, a judge in Hawaii struck down the order and Trump's ban was once again blocked. After calling out the judges during a Tuesday night gathering with top Republicans, the issue was highlighted during the March 22 edition of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC.

While discussion the issue with a group of panelists, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough ripped into Donald Trump for his attack on judges, which took place at the same time his Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch was going through his confirmation hearing. "Donald Trump, once again, steps on positive headlines, Scarborough said, before adding, "He should have been celebrating Gorsuch last night."

Trump criticizes judges hours after Gorsuch says it's "disheartening" https://t.co/6kiVGKRfiu pic.twitter.com/KrncaQITGo  The Hill (@thehill) March 22, 2017

"Instead, he has to take a veiled swipe at a man who is the only thing good Donald Trump has done this entire, you know, his first two months," Joe Scarborough continued.

"He couldnt even do that because he has absolutely no discipline," the MSNBC host went on to say. "He had to attack the one good headline he had last night, which shows you just how clueless this man continues to be," he added.

Scarborough: Trump Shows How 'Clueless' He is By Attacking the 'One Good Headline' He Has in Gorsuch https://t.co/v04L7h0Oo2 (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/gLu0kSu8PU  Mediaite (@Mediaite) March 22, 2017

Next up

While it's unknown if Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed to the Supreme Court, Donald Trump's decision to attack judges and the court system at this time has left many scratching their heads. As of press time, Gorsuch is in the middle of his hearing in Congress, and only time will tell if he will fill the vacant seat on the highest court in the land.
According to Denison Police, 18-year-old Breana Harmon Talbott had earlier this month given a dramatic story about her abduction and rape by three black men. On March 8, the Texas teenager went into a dennison church, clad only in a shirt and underwear. She was bloody and was scratched and cut. The story she told turns out to be fabricated.

The Texas teen was reported missing

Earlier that same day, Talbotts fiance, Sam Hollingsworth, had contacted police to report her missing. Hollingsworth told them he had found her car, with the door open, parked at an apartment complex and that her keys and phone had been found close by.

This led to Denison police officers frantically searching for the Texas teen for around three hours.

When Talbott was eventually found at the church, she told police that three black males in ski masks had kidnapped her. She said the men took her into the woods and raped her. Police did search the woods and say they found clothing and other effects belonging to the teenager. However, from there on, her story just didnt hold.

Lt. Mike Eppler of the Denison Police told USA Today that there were things about her story that just didnt add up. According to Eppler, the crime scene appeared to have been staged. When a medical examination was made, Talbotts body showed no evidence of sexual assault.

Social media attention for Texas teen

When her story first came out, Talbotts alleged rape gained a lot of attention on social media. The story was particularly picked up by white nationalist groups on social media, who used the story as an example of double standards in the media relating to white crime victims.

Two weeks later, Texas teenager confesses

It has been more than two weeks since the alleged abduction and rape and now Talbott has opened up to confess that the kidnapping and rape story it was a hoax. The injuries she had were apparently self-inflicted. She was in the Grayson County Jail for a short while but was released on Thursday.

However, she is facing a misdemeanor charge for giving a false report to the police.

Denison police say 18 yo Breana Talbott lied about being abducted by 3 black men & raped. She's charged w making false report @FOX4 at 5:30 pic.twitter.com/Zu06YMD1IZ  Natalie Solis (@Fox4Natalie) March 22, 2017

Police chief Jay Burch called the rape hoax an insult to their community and that it was particularly insulting to the African-American community, adding the story caused much anger and hurt. According to a report by the Dallas News Eppler says it is still unclear why Talbott invented the story and said there were no other suspects in relation to the hoax.
The trump administration and military officials confirmed on Saturday an airstrike in Mosul that killed more than 100 people. While the Trump administration and those in charge of the strike said the attack was aimed at the Islamic State in Mosul, it appears there were rather substantial numbers of civilians caught up in the blasts.

During the admission of the strike, military officials have made it clear the attack was at the request of Iraqi forces. Those forces are still attempting to take Mosul back from ISIS. The loss of life underlines just how difficult this kind of frontal assault can be on the people who are caught in the middle.

Reversal of previous policy

The US-led coalition had previously stated they weren't certain who was responsible for the strike in the affected area. The Trump administration has also confirmed more than 60 bodies have been pulled out of the rubble. The Washington Post reports the number is expected to reach at least 100 once people who have been reported missing are pulled out from under the rubble.

An initial review of strike data  indicates that, at the request of the Iraqi security forces, the Coalition struck ISIS fighters and equipment, March 17, in west Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties, the task force leading the coalition said in a statement.

Greatest loss of civilian life under Trump administration

If the numbers can be confirmed, it would mark the greatest amount of civilian lives lost not just under the Trump administration, but also since the United States military started airstrikes Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria in 2014. This appears to be another strike against the approach the United States and its allies have used in the battle for Mosul since this phase of the war began.

President Trump has said his administration is going to be looking long and hard at how the military is carrying out the campaign against ISIS. By all accounts President Trump doesn't feel as though the United States is being aggressive enough.
Quinnipiac University released its latest presidential poll on Wednesday and the news for President Donald Trump was not good. And it is getting worse for him because the respected pollster found that Trump's support among Republicans, white voters and men is rapidly eroding. The poll confirms an earlier Gallup Daily Presidential Tracking poll which showed Trump with the worst approval rating of any president at this point in their term. Trump scored a stunningly negative 37  56 percent approval rating from the American voters, the worst score in his first sixty-plus days.

It gets worse with Trump rapidly losing support among his strongest and most loyal base of Republicans, white voters, and men. Republican support slipped from 91  5 percent two weeks ago to a loss of 10 points to 81  14 percent. White voters now disapprove of him by a margin of 44  50 percent, compared with an earlier positive approval at 49  45 percent. Men also have turned on Trump from an "earlier approval" of 49  45 percent to a "disapproval" of 43  52 percent.

Trump support erodes equally across the board

Among women, the disapproval is 60  31 percent and even more among Democrats who disapprove by 90  6 percent. Amond other groups, independents disapprove 60  31 and non-white voters disapprove by 75  16 percent.

Tim Malloy, the assistant director of Quinnipiac Polling said the slippage among his "base" is most alarming with men without a college degree having doubts about Trump.

Latest Quinnipiac University poll says Trumps base support is eroding https://t.co/fP4eFR2mOW pic.twitter.com/RZ7mwv6rKx  The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 22, 2017

Today's Quinnipiac poll shows some brutal numbers for Trump. pic.twitter.com/wcly1LJzMG  Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) March 22, 2017

American voters say Trump is not honest

73 percent of voters say Trump makes statements that are false and without evidence 'very often' and 'somewhat often.' American voters also are questioning the honesty of the president.

Base Erodes As Trump Drops To New Low Scores, National Poll Finds; Voters Say 6035 Percent President Is Not Honesthttps://t.co/6gps8Nvw3B  Quinnipiac Poll (@QuinnipiacPoll) March 22, 2017

On the issue of the charge from Trump that Obama "wiretapped" him and the Trump Tower, only 19 percent believe that the charge, compared with 70 percent who do not believe it. Among Republicans, it is virtually even at 41-39 percent. The Quinnipiac Poll also showed the majority of American voters disapprove Trump's handling of major issues facing the nation.
The repeal and replacement of the ACA was the major item of the Oval Offices to do list and was one of the first executive orders signed by President Donald Trump. As the blame game now does the rounds of the Republicans the businessman must remember the famous plaque on President Harry S. Trumans Oval Office desk; the buck stops here.

Numbers

There was no real political reason for Paul Ryans bill to be withdrawn yesterday. The GOP holds the Oval Office and the majority in both the Senate and Congress and these on their own should have been enough to ensure passage of the legislation and the elimination of the hated Obamacare.

Donald Trump signed the order sure that his election victory would have overcome the divisions within his own Party but what happened only made the divisions wider, they also became much more public.

His insistence that a replacement be prepared as soon as possible effectively forced House Leader Paul Ryan to prepare the legislation in a short time and without consultation with the major players. This was a recipe for disaster.

Republicans

The proposed Bill had two immediate effects. The first was to fuel the public protests against the repeal which forced some Republicans to abandon the town hall meetings and for many to begin worrying about next years midterms.

The second effect was to worsen the ideological feud between the Partys factions and the result was three blocks of votes composed of those who accepted the legislation, those who thought it went too far and those who thought it would not go far enough.

This feud then became a public spectacle as the newspapers began to keep running tallies of the defectors which further angered President Trump who then began making diktats against the doubters. While this made the Congress even more doubtful, with a single seat majority it made defeat in the Senate a foregone conclusion.

This lack of consultation was then further highlighted when President Trump then blamed the one group that did nothing to defeat the legislation because that was not their job.

Democrats

Following the withdrawal of the bill President Trump blamed the Democrats for the defeat as not one of them had supported it. This was a naive and revealing statement by the President and showed that he has not yet understood the nature of politics.

Without forgetting the fact the Democrats considered the Affordable Care Act one of their proudest achievements under Barack Obama, their job is to act as the opposition to the government thus to ensure that the faults of the bill were highlighted to the public and to the wavering Republicans.

Given the divisions within the GOP and the priority he gave it President Trump, assisted by Leader Paul Ryan, should have included Democrat Leaders in the consultation process for the new bill. This did not happen and the Democrats were simply happy to sit back and allow the Republicans to implode in a spectacular fashion.

Inexperience

The inordinate haste to keep the promise and the lack of planning were not the responsibility of Paul Ryan but of Donald Trump who thought that electoral victory was a rubber stamp to churn out orders and pieces of legislation with no opposition, including from within his own Party.

The threat on Thursday to vote on approve the bill on Friday or face its definitive withdrawal was not the action of an experienced politician but of a frustrated businessman whose customers were refusing to accept the incentives to close the deal.

The recalcitrant Republicans simply ignored his orders and stated they would oppose the bill, in effect weakening the standing of the Oval Office with their open defiance and the defeat was signalled by the pulling of the bill.

Now it is up the Donald Trump to understand the message from his erstwhile supporters. If he does not begin to change his manner of ordering the Party to blindly follow his instructions he better get used to the feeling of defeat because yesterday will only be a sample of his future.
Over the last 48 hours, the two biggest stories to dominate the news cycle have involved the controversy surrounding former Breitbart News editor milo yiannopoulos, and the Donald Trump administration's decision to rollback protection for transgender students. Reaction to the news has mostly fallen down party lines, which was evident in the latest rant from conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren.

Tomi gets triggered

After skyrocketing into the mainstream over the last month, Milo Yiannopoulos has fallen from grace following the release of a video that resurfaced appearing to show the controversial British journalist defending pedophilia.

While Yiannopoulos has since apologized, claiming his remarks were taken out of context, the incident caused him to lose his $250,000 book deal, his speaking slot at CPAC, and his job at Breitbart News. Yiannopoulos has also come under fire for comments made on "Real Time with Bill Maher" just last week, where he attacked transgender individuals, citing an unverified statistic that puts the group in a negative light. Fast forward to Wednesday, and the White House announced they were rolling back the aforementioned Obama-era protections for transgender students that allowed them to use any bathroom they wanted at a public school. In response, Tomi Lahren decided to lash out and voice her opinion during the February 22 edition of "Final Thoughts" on the Blaze TV.

"So what has President Trump done today to fuel the left and mainstream media?," Tomi Lahren rhetorically asked to open up her "Final Thoughts" segment. "Well, he's ready to return America's taxpayer funded bathrooms and locker rooms to normal, how dare he, right?" Lahren said. Not stopping there, the popular conservative social media star then went on to attack recent news headlines for reporting that Donald Trump was allegedly attacking LGBT rights.

Lahren referred to the recent reporting on the issue as "fake news" that was being fed to the "buzz-word sheep of the left."

Do we get our bathrooms back? My final thoughts: https://t.co/b0aLc1pCbf  Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) February 23, 2017

"The Trump administration will undo President Obama's free-for-all bathroom dictate which was an overreach and an infringement on state's rights in the first place," Tomi Lahren said.

Going further, Lahren went on to claim that Obama had created a "safe space for transgenders" but also for "creeps and pedophiles."

Tomi on Milo

Tomi Lahren continued her tirade by mocking the political left, stating that according the liberals, "You should be applauded for your 'trans-bravery' but if you are Milo Yiannopoulos and share your own abuse story, you are still vilified and unworthy of getting the slightest bit of compassion or forgiveness." Lahren concluded her segment by accusing liberals and Democrats of being hypocrites in their attacks on conservatives.
Prince Harry has been dating actress Meghan Markle since last July. Even though they live about 3,483 miles apart, they have managed to see each other numerous times since their first date. They have taken several romantic vacations together. Meghan has spent most of this year with Harry in England. Her hit drama, "Suits" isn't filming until April. That has freed her up to be with him a lot this year.

Meeting Queen Elizabeth

There have been signs along the way that the couple's relationship is growing. Last month, Meghan was Harry's guest at his best friend's wedding in Jamaica.

Last Sunday night, the two of them had what was described as the most romantic date in London when they had a private tour of the Natural History Museum.

Prince Harry will introduce Meghan to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II of England in just a couple of days. Not only is meeting the queen an indication that Harry is really serious about Meghan, but it is also an indication that the queen must think it is special since she is stretching out her proverbial royal scepter. It is extra nice that the meeting is taking place on Mother's Day, Sunday, March 26, 2017. That's when Mother's Day is celebrated in Britain instead of on the second Sunday in May as it is observed in the United States. Meghan will meet Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace during a brunch given to honor all mothers of the royal family.

Other family members

The actress has already met other members of the royal family. She has met all four royals in line to the throne that come before her boyfriend who is fifth. She met Harry's father, Prince Charles, his brother, Prince William, his nephew, Prince George and his niece, Princess Charlotte. She has also met Prince William's wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.

They all have given their stamp of approval concerning Meghan.

Prince Harry is really excited about Queen Elizabeth agreeing to meet Meghan. His grandmother has heard about his girlfriend and is very impressed with the humanitarian work the actress does. It has been reported that the Queen said she has never seen her grandson so happy.
Prior to yesterday's terrorist attack on London Khalid Masood, a 52-year-old British man, had a history of criminal activity and multiple aliases. He was well-known to the authorities in the UK for crimes such as assault, public order offenses, possession of weapons and criminal damage. Although there was no information indicating that Khalid Masood would take part or lead a terror attack, his long list of criminal activity and offenses started in 1983 when he was 17-years-old.

Attacker from Kent

He was born in Kent, England where he became an English teacher.

A bit later in life, he converted to Islam and moved to the West Midlands. ISIS is now claiming that Khalid Masood is a soldier of the Islamic State and are taking responsibility for the London attack. Along with Masood, an additional nine people have been arrested on suspicion of assisting with terrorist attacks and plots.

The other people who have been arrested and may be connected with Masood, ISIS, and future or current terrorist attack plans include six men and three women. These possible terrorists range in age from 21-years-old to 58-years-old. It is not yet known if they all have connections to ISIS or if there are additional terrorist attacks planned for London.

ISIS claim responsibility

After ISIS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in London the group stated that they are going to launch attacks on the civilians and military/protection forces in other countries who have connections to the US. The terror group did specify that they are directing their attacks on countries who have partnered with the US to bomb specific areas of Syria and Iraq.

However, there were no specific details on any planned attacks or locations for these attacks given.

Over the last 20 years, terrorist attacks on London have increased and ISIS has laid claim to many of these attacks. The last terrorist attack of similar size to yesterday's attack by Khalid Masood was in 2005 and is known as the London bombings. During this attack, three bombs were detonated in succession in the London Underground train systems.
Technology took a joint task force of Israeli cybercrime police and the FBI to the home of Jewish teen Michael Kaydar, 19-years-old. Kaydar lives with his parents in the coastal city Ashkelon and now stands accused of issuing a wave of bomb threats to Jewish organizations in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and, more recently, Israeli educational institutions, according to Israeli police.

Kaydar is alleged to have used disposable Google Voice call forwarding, Bitcoin digital currency, and Spoofcards voice-altering option to mask caller ID, gender, identity, and location.

Routing his internet connection through proxy servers both cloaked and unveiled his location, leading to his arrest after Kaydar reportedly failed to verify that an anonymous proxy server was actively concealing his IP.

Hiding proved futile for Kaydar

Masking his telephone number, using a voice synthesizer to sound like a female, hiding his IP number through anonymous proxy servers overseas, and paying with untraceable currency proved futile as the result of one mistake when making a threat. Police learned of his location by tracing his IP (Internet Protocol) address. Israeli cybercrimes, antifraud police arrested Kaydar.

United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, lauded the FBI and Israeli National Police for the arrest of the accused suspect.

The Department of Justice is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, Sessions remarked, we will not tolerate the targeting of any community in this country on the basis of their religious beliefs.

The 19-year-olds attorney, Galit Bash, asserts her client has an inoperable brain tumor, which was diagnosed when Kaydar was 14-years-old.

She claims the tumor could affect his cognitive behavior and lead to irrational behavior.

Shock in response to Kaydars arrest

Jews worldwide uttered a collective gasp, according to USA Today, when they learned that the suspect is also Jewish. Michael Feinstein, at the helm of a Maryland Jewish community center that was twice-threatened this year, is stunned by the arrest Kaydar.

Kaydar is Israeli-American, and he has dual citizenship. He has not lived in the United States, according to his attorney. The United States Department of Justice has not commented if Kaydar will face U.S. charges and possible extradition.
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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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Entertainment /

by Staff reporter

Generations: The Legacy creator has said that the main studio where the popular soapie is filmed will be renamed The Joe Mafela Studio.It is currently Studio 5 but Mfundi said that Joe brought audiences to the SABC and his contribution deserves something significant."Without the content and the people who bring audiences the SABC is brick and mortar. Joe brought audiences."Mfundi spoke about how after returning to South Africa after spending many years overseas it was Joe who invited him out."He was my friend. I've lost a friend."Mfundi was speaking at the memorial service for Joe Mafela. The actor died on Saturday night after being involved in a car accident on Johannesburg.Mafela will be buried in a civic funeral in Johannesburg on Wednesday.The honour is bestowed by the city on citizens who made an invaluable contribution to its residents.
The opinions expressed by "Don Quixote" are strictly his own and do not represent the opinions of Vernon Council!

Because I value your thoughtful opinions, I encourage you to add a comment to this discussion. Don't be offended if I edit your comments for clarity or to keep out questionable matters, however, and I may even delete off-topic comments.

Bob Spiers Vernon City Councillor
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News / Africa

by Staff reporter

Johannesburg  Two men allegedly involved in the multi-million-rand OR Tambo International Airport heist are expected back in the Kempton Park Magistrate's Court on Friday.According to News24 , Mosiwa Steven Motani, 35, and Khululekani Sibanda, 31, face charges of robbery.The two were arrested last week. They were released on R50 000 bail and are expected back in the Kempton Park Magistrate's Court on Friday.Five other men - France Manaka Simon Thlokwane Prince Raphael Dube Sibusiso Mnisi and Thando Sonqishe - accused of being involved in the heist appeared in the same court on Monday afternoon.Their case was postponed for a formal bail application on March 28 and 29.Suspects in a marked police vehicle stole R24m in foreign currency from an SA Airways plane after it landed on March 7.Police launched a high-level investigation involving all law enforcement agencies.
News / National

by Staff reporter

LEBANESE businessman Jamal Ahmed, who is entangled an $1,35 million diamond ring wrangle with First Lady Grace Mugabe, has once again refuted claims that he is a fugitive from justice.He claimed he had nowhere to stay after his properties were seized allegedly by President Robert Mugabe's wife.Ahmed made the remarks while responding to claims by Officer Commanding Crime, CID Law and Order, Superintendent Nyambo Viera that he was under investigation on several charges.In his answering affidavit filed on Wednesday this week, Ahmed said Viera "must be one of the most inefficient superintendents in the police force"."I deny in the strongest possible terms that I am on the run and repeat that I left Harare to attend to my ailing father who subsequently died and that no one from the police had intimated they were interested in me," Ahmed said."If as at October 2016 Nyambo Viera, who claims he has been conducting investigations since early 2016, had not even contacted me or attended at any of the premises to collect evidence, he must be the most inefficient superintendent in the entire police force These are not investigations initiated in early 2016, but investigations by a captured police force in an endeavour to provide cover for the First Lady."The businessman said he had read "what purports to be the respondent's (police) opposing papers", seeking to deny to be joined in the property seizure matter. Ahmed said he was surprised at the absolute failure by the force to deal with the substance of the application and to provide supporting evidence that the police were investigating him."I note, with amazement, that an officer holding the rank of superintendent has not sought to take the court into confidence by clearly setting out what criminal activities he claims to be investigating, when exactly he commenced such investigations, who the complainants are, how far such investigations have progressed etc," Ahmed said."I repeat that I am not on the run and the only reason I have not returned to Zimbabwe is that I have been threatened by the First Lady and in any event, I have nowhere to live. With the attitude adopted by the police, there can be no question that her threats are real and that I would get no assistance from the captured police force."He urged the court to take judicial notice of the fact that every report made to the police was recorded on receipt in the Reports Received Book (RRB) and as such he was challenging Viera to produce the relevant book where the reports were recorded."Only joinder would force the respondents (police) to place this documentation before the court. The lack of candour is, therefore, a good ground to join the respondents in the main application," he said."As the courts are obliged to do justice to all, including the police, irrespective of status, it is crucial that the police be before the court to explain the legal basis upon which the claim to have lawfully taken over private property and evicted lawful occupants without any form of due process."Ahmed also said to allow the police to "glibly hide behind investigation" would make virtually every owner of private property a sitting duck for the police "who can invade any private property, unlawfully kick out lawful occupants and install themselves on such private property rent-free for as long as they require free accommodation".The businessman reiterated that seizure of his properties was at the instigation of Grace following a botched diamond ring deal."I say the illegalities were at the instance of the respondents in the main application as the First Lady and her son (Russel Goreraza) had threatened the takeover of the properties and one of her security personnel admittedly supervised these illegalities," he said.In February this year, Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri warned, through Viera, Beatrice Mtetwa, Ahmed's lawyer, to desist from interfering with police investigations by allegedly helping Ahmed to play hide-and-seek with the law enforcement agents.Commenting on Grace's involvement in the matter, Viera said: "The insinuation that the police are acting in concert with the second respondent (Grace Mugabe) in the main case is ludicrous and meritless. The police are carrying out their mandate by investigating cases in which the second respondent in the main case is a complainant."The matter is still pending.
HA NOI  Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Viet Nam surged to US$7.71 billion in the first quarter of 2017, exceeding the amount during the same period in 2016 by 91.5 per cent.

Figures released Friday by the planning and investment ministrys Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) showed that during this period, there were 493 newly approved projects with a total registered capital of up to $2.9 billion, up by 6.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

At the same time, 223 projects from the previous years applied for capital adjustment, for an added amount of $3.94 billion, representing a 206 per cent year-on-year rise. Foreign investors also contributed $852.8 million to local projects in the period, a 171.5 per cent from the corresponding period last year.

Capital disbursement for FDI in the first quarter of 2017 was estimated to reach $3.62 billion, up by 3.4 per cent compared to the same period in 2016.

The rapid increase of FDI in Viet Nam is because of several large-scale newly approved projects in March. Notably, the Samsung Display project got expansion approval in northern Bac Ninh Province, with an additional investment of $2.5 billion. This pushed the FDI figures to US$7.71 billion in the first quarter, which is double that in the first two months.

The other big projects that got the nod include Taiwan Polytex Far Eastern (Viet Nam) Company in southern Binh Duong Province ($485.8 million); Coca-Cola Viet Nam in Ha Noi ($319.8 million additional capital); Viet Nam Singapore Industrial Park III ($284.75 million); Tole Panel plant in southern Binh Phuoc Province ($269.5 million), and Kolon Industries Inc ($220 million).

Thanks to Samsungs billion-dollar project, Bac Ninh Province saw the largest registered capital of $2.61 billion, accounting for 34 per cent of the total FDI in Viet Nam in Q1. It is followed by Binh Duong Province at $1.39 million or 18 per cent of the countrys total FDI. HCM City took the third place with $600 million.

South Korea was the most significant investor with $3.74 billion, followed by Singapore with $910.8 million and China with $823.6 million.

The processing and manufacturing sector remained the most attractive area to foreign investors, and saw a total investment of $6.54 billion. Real estate followed with $343 million. The wholesale and retail sectors took the third place at $296.8 million.

Viet Nam a targeted market

The surge of FDI in Viet Nam in the first quarter, in turn, has made it a more attractive destination for foreign investors.

Cushman & Wakefield Consulting Groups latest report on capital market showed that Viet Nam has been a potential destination for global investment inflows. In the 2014-16 period, the country received around $66 billion in FDI, an average increase of $2 billion a year.

Ben Gray, director of capital market department at Cushman & Wakefield Viet Nam, said foreign investors paid a lot of attention to Viet Nam. This year and the years to come will be a favourable time to invest in assets in the country.

A lot of FDI has come into the property market, accounting for 10 per cent of the average FDI per year, and this sector is considered a possible investment channel to help managers earn profits.

FDI disbursement in 2016 was a record high at $15.8 billion.

The Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) 2016, released last week by the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the record FDI disbursement in 2016 is an important step for the economy as it shows investor trust.

The PCI report also quoted analysis from fDi Intelligence that stated that Viet Nam held the top position in the Greenfield Investment Index among new emerging economies.

Nguyen Mai, former vice-chairman of the State Committee for Co-operation and Investment, said high FDI inflows could go beyond 2020 if the country continues to maintain its advantages of steady growth rate, stable politics and economy.

Sounding a word of caution, Phan Huu Thang, former director of FIA, said Viet Nam had viewed attracting FDI as an achievement in the past few years, but that there had been issues such as environmental pollution and transfer pricing. Viet Nam should not aim to attract FDI at any price, he said. The country should choose suitable FDI projects and maintain a good balance of partners to avoid a lot of dependence on only a few investors.

Mai agreed and said the government should change direction and policies for attracting FDI in the future. The new policies should focus on clean energy development, environment-friendly technologies and hi-tech agriculture.  VNS
SOC TRANG  A conference was held in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang on Thursday to discuss how to realise the US$10 billion shrimp export target by 2025 as requested by the Prime Minister.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam directed relevant agencies and localities to keep a close track of weather patterns and epidemic diseases and increase output from now on, especially amid the uncertain climate conditions at present.

Localities should adopt more technological advances in production, with a focus on controlling the quality of fries and spreading effective farming models, he suggested.

The provinces of Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Soc Trang were asked to increase supervision in the use of antibiotics for shrimp, thereby increasing the staples value and expanding markets at home and abroad.

This year, the country strives to breed 700,000ha of shrimp, with nearly 130 billion fries for an output of 660,000 tonnes.

To that end, the Directorate of Fisheries outlined four specific measures -- environment monitoring and forecast and response to drought and saline intrusion, fries quality and production, feed management and bio-produce for shrimp farming, and breeding technical process.

Although it has suffered less from drought and saline intrusion compared with the same period last year, the region is still hit by unseasonal rainfall and changing temperatures, which partly hurt shrimp breeding, it said.

Statistics revealed that the new farming coverage has, so far, surpassed 536,440ha, which is mostly prawn (more than 521,000ha) while the remaining 15,000ha is for white leg shrimp farming. Total production is estimated at some 40,000 tonnes this year, an increase of 20 percent year-on-year.

Associate professor Truong Quoc Phu from Can Tho University proposed developing organic shrimp breeding models and opening centres for shrimp fries research to ease reliance on imported shrimp, making it easier for the formation of value chains and to attract more investment.

Luong Minh Quyet, director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, suggested the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development offer advice on building a decree on the management of processing, exporting and developing shrimp farming in brackish water.

To minimise risks for breeders, he also called attention to relevant agricultural insurance policies and breeders access to capital.  VNS
Teachers are often people who care a lot about their students.

Ninh Van Dau is one such teacher.

He noticed a student with great hope had stopped coming to school.

So, he went to find him in his familys fields.

His family did not have money and needed him to work but Ninh Van Dau managed to get him to come back to school so that he could have more hope later in life.

By Hong Van

Ninh Van Dau was on a mission.

On March 7, accompanied by a student, the 36-year-old teacher, drove his bike across more than 20 kilometres of bumpy forest road in Gia Lai Province to find a missing 12th grade student.

But Ksor Gol had not been abducted. He had dropped out of school because of financial problems.

The teacher found his absence heart-wrenching. He knew that absence from the classroom now could lead to an absence of decent livelihood opportunities.

A few days earlier, Dau posted on his Facebook page a plea for the boy to return.

The class and I are waiting for you [to come back]. If you do not, I will come to your maize field to get you back.

When the student failed to show up after a few days, Dau set out to the milpa where Gol and his family worked on a farm.

Gols poor family wanted him to work, and the distance between the school and the workplace was very long. He quit.

I was tired, Tuc [the student accompanying Dau] was also tired. Yet all that vanished when I saw Gols dark face stained with dirt. It reminded me of my tough childhood.

As I talked to him, I forgot the rough road that wed taken. He sat with me all day, but said nothing except, Ive quit," Dau wrote.

But I could see in his smart eyes and talk that he did aspire to study further.

Daus sharing of the story on the Internet helped. Many people called the inh Tien Hoang High School and offered financial support for Gol.

On the afternoon of March 8, school principal Tran Van The and teacher Dau successfully got Gol back to school.

The said this was not the first case that Dau had helped. He had visited students homes many times, talking, sharing and persuading parents to encourage their children to return to school.

Dau also contacted some newspaper agencies directly to ask for scholarships for students wanting to pursue higher studies in university.

Adopting students

Since 2009, Dau had also adopted four students, all of them in very difficult circumstances. One lost both his parents, another had his father too sick to work and fund the studies of the children.

With his limited income, Dau cannot give much financial support, but he gives the students a lot of moral support, encouraging them to be brave and overcome all difficulties.

One of the students graduated from college and found work as a commune official, another has graduated from a Lat University with a degree in mathematics, and yet another is second year student of Nha Trang University.

Teacher Dau is a native of Yen Mo District in the northern province of Ninh Binh. He was born into a poor family with three other siblings. After graduating from the Quy Nhon University in 2005, Dau volunteered to teach in Gia Lai province. He has been working as a high school teacher for almost 10 years now, and has lost none of his enthusiasm and dedication.

I love literature, because I have a romantic soul. I was a young passionate and enthusiastic youth when I was a fresh graduate; so I decided to move to this land, to experience what I have learned from literary works at school, disregarding my familys disapproval, said Dau.

"Yet initially, I could not help feeling disappointed with the poor conditions here. Things were incredibly hard at first, but the longer I stayed, the closer relationship between me and my students and local residents became.

"I just dont want to live apart from this place as their life is so tough. If I leave, who will stay to help them? This question has pushed and motivated me to work and live here," said Dau.

Most of the people living in Krong Pa District where Dau works, belong to the Jarai ethnic minority. Theyve had to survive on just cassava for a long time, according to Dau.

"Things are tough. I was born in a rural village so I understand their difficult life. The students that live in remote areas find it hard to travel to school, and it is difficult to stay motivated," he said.

"The 10th graders in the school are mostly poor performers. Poor living conditions, high child marriage rates and the fact that many students are main labourers earning money for the family are the major reasons for the high dropout rates here.

Being a teacher who has worked in mountainous areas for years and especially working as a head teacher, it breaks my heart whenever I saw a student absent from the class."

Four years ago, another poor student named Lep also thought of quitting school, and finally got back with Daus support. Lep graduated from college and is now working as a teacher in Krong Pa District.

What I have done is not a big deal. It may be due to the fact that, on the social network, non-educational stories are spread so often that when they know about my stories, they are moved. Yet I am not the only teacher to do this, all the teachers do it when a student quits school," said Dau.

Phung Xuan Nha, minister of Education and Training, has sent a letter praising Daus beautiful deed, where the teacher did not bother about the hardship involved in getting his student back.

"It is a deed worth of high respect and not one that many can do," Nha wrote.

I highly value your beautiful and compassionate deed."

He wrote further that Daus actions will definitely spread in the education field and the community and be an inspiration, creating trust among students and teachers nationwide." VNS

GLOSSARY

But Ksor Gol had not been abducted.

Abducted means kidnapped.

He had dropped out of school because of financial problems.

Financial problems happen to people when they run out of money.

The teacher found his absence heart-wrenching.

Heart-wrenching means sad and emotional.

A few days earlier, Dau posted on his Facebook page a plea for the boy to return.

Plea means beg.

When the student failed to show up after a few days, Dau set out to the milpa where Gol and his family worked on a farm.

A milpa is a piece of land that has been cleared to become a field.

Yet all that vanished when I saw Gols dark face stained with dirt.

Stained means marked.

But I could see in his smart eyes and talk that he did aspire to study further.

To aspire to do something means to hope to do it and to work hard towards that goal.

The said this was not the first case that Dau had helped. He had visited students homes many times, talking, sharing and persuading parents to encourage their children to return to school.

Persuading means to gently get someone to think its a good idea to do something.

Dau also contacted some newspaper agencies directly to ask for scholarships for students wanting to pursue higher studies in university.

Scholarships are awards for clever or skilled people that help pay their school or university fees.

To pursue means to follow.

Since 2009, Dau had also adopted four students, all of them in very difficult circumstances.

To adopt students means to take them on as if they are your own children.

With his limited income, Dau cannot give much financial support, but he gives the students a lot of moral support, encouraging them to be brave and overcome all difficulties.

Moral support means psychological support.

Teacher Dau is a native of Yen Mo District in the northern province of Ninh Binh.

If you are a native of a place, you come from there.

After graduating from the Quy Nhon University in 2005, Dau volunteered to teach in Gia Lai province.

To volunteer means to do something without expecting to be paid.

He has been working as a high school teacher for almost 10 years now, and has lost none of his enthusiasm and dedication.

To have enthusiasm means to want to do something and to be happy about doing it.

Dedication means giving time and effort to something.

I love literature, because I have a romantic soul.

Literature is the work published in books.

"Yet initially, I could not help feeling disappointed with the poor conditions here.@

Initially means at first.

"The students that live in remote areas find it hard to travel to school, and it is difficult to stay motivated," he said.

Remote areas are places that are far away from anywhere else.

He wrote further that Daus actions will definitely spread in the education field and the community and be an inspiration, creating trust among students and teachers nationwide."

If something is an inspiration it gives people the energy to go out and do something positive.

WORKSHEET

Find words that mean the following in the Word Search:

What Ksor Gols face was stained with. The subjects in which one of the students graduated from a Lat University. The ethnic minority that most of the people living in Krong Pa District belong to. The number of children in the family in which Ninh Van Dau grew up. The vehicle Ninh Van Dau used on bumpy forest roads to find Ksor Gol.

c h r i s t i f o u r c b i l l i o n e r b s a d l i k o n a o d r s t a i d w e s t i a u o a c c r i e s n j m t s e y m a t h e m a t i c s i n c p l m n r p l g c a r o e n t o a o i i t u d t m u c h i s l e s r p i b i k e r d n t s

ANSWERS:

 Duncan Guy/Learn the News/ Viet Nam News 2017

1. Dirt; 2. Mathematics; 3. Jarai; 4. Four; 5. Bike.
Life is hard in the borderland, but teachers in the mountainous province of Lai Chau are doing their best to bring young children to school so that they can learn how to read and write.

Impoverished villages located deep in the countrys northern mountain range have become their second home. Many have been in these parts of the country for tens of years; some even left their own children in their hometown to continue their work.

These teachers, who are barely doing financially better than their poor students, are there to help local communities break away from vicious cycles of illiteracy and poverty, one young pupil at a time.

It is a struggle for them, both teachers and students, just to get to school. Long and treacherous mountain dirt roads, unpredictable weather calamities and parents who are too poor or unwilling to send their children to school  these are just a few obstacles the incredible spirits face on a daily basis.

It is an uphill battle they have to fight. But this is the first time there is hope in eradicating illiteracy in local communities, and it is all thanks to the nameless teachers who refuse to give up.

Thats the big picture. For most of those teachers, it is enough to see brilliant smiles on the faces of young children in classrooms as they learn new things every day.  VNS




Bruno Angelet*

On March 25, the European Union will mark 60 years since the Rome Treaties were signed, the first step towards a united Europe. Since the birth of the European Communities in 1957, the citizens of our member states have enjoyed six decades of unprecedented peace, prosperity and security.

The contrast to the first half of the 20th Century could not be greater. Two catastrophic wars in Europe between 1914 and 1945 left millions dead and a continent devastated, divided and prostrate. For countries that had long been at war, European integration has been the most successful peace project in our history.

However, we are living in unpredictable times and the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaties is the opportunity not only to reaffirm our commitment to the values and objectives on which the European project was founded but also to take pragmatic and ambitious steps forward.

The 60th anniversary of the European Union is also an occasion for us mark our relations with countries in the world including Viet Nam. Our bilateral relationship has flourished strongly over the last two decades. The European Union has strong stakes in the success of Viet Nams reforms. It is committed to forging an upgraded, broader and more diversified relationship with Viet Nam, a partner willing to take on increasing responsibilities on the world scene, a central actor of ASEAN, and a particularly dynamic economy.

The entry into force last year of the EU-Viet Nam Comprehensive Partnership and Co-operation Agreement will broaden further the scope of EU-Viet Nam co-operation in areas such as trade, the environment, energy, science and technology, good governance, as well as tourism, culture, migration, counter terrorism and the fight against corruption and organised crime.

The EU is the second largest trading partner of Viet Nam and the EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement, expected to be signed soon, will provide momentum to further accelerate trade and investment ties in the coming years.

The high number of Vietnamese students studying in Europe reflects the strong people-to-people exchange in the bilateral ties between the European Union and Viet Nam. Currently, out of a total number of 62,843 Vietnamese students following courses abroad, Europe is the second biggest net receiver of Vietnamese students with more than one-third, or over 15,000, studying in Europe.

The world is going through a time of great uncertainty. The global balance of power is shifting and the foundations of a rules-based international order are too often being questioned. The European Union will be an increasingly vital power to preserve and strengthen the global order.

The EU is now the second largest global economy. We are the largest global market and the leading foreign investor in most parts of the globe. The EU has achieved a strong position by acting together with one voice on the global stage, as well as concluding bilateral trade deals with many important partners around the world.

We invest more in development cooperation and humanitarian aid than the rest of the world combined. EU development aid goes to around 150 countries and increasingly focuses on the poorest places in the world. In the period 2014-2020, about 75 per cent of EU support will go to countries which are often hard hit by natural disasters or conflict, something that makes their citizens particularly vulnerable. Humanitarian crises continue to take a heavy toll internationally, and in 2016 the EU allocated relief assistance of over 1.5 billion for food, shelter, protection and healthcare to 120 million people in over 80 countries. The EU has been, since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, the largest single donor of humanitarian aid to care for the millions of men, women and children displaced by the conflict.

We stand for better global rules, rules that protect people against abuse, rules that expand rights and raise standards. It is thanks to our engagement  the Union together with its Member States  that the global community has set up innovative agreements like the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development. In a world of re-emerging power politics, the European Union will have an even more significant role to play.

A more fragile international environment calls for greater engagement, not for retrenchment. This is why the EU will continue to support and help the United Nations. Our co-operation with the UN covers peace missions, diplomatic efforts, human rights, tackling hunger and fighting crime.

Whatever events the future brings, one thing is certain: the EU will continue to put promoting international peace and security, development co-operation, human rights and responding to humanitarian crises at the heart of its foreign and security policies.

*Bruno Angelet, Ambassador  Head of EU Delegation in Viet Nam
BEN TRE  Students at Luong The Vinh High School in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Ben Tre grow clean vegetables at school and have even begun to sell them.

Phan Thi Kim Thanh, a teacher at the school who manages the student-farmers, said: The school has just been opened. There is an empty yard and the school decided students can use it to grow clean vegetables.

Three student groups grow green vegetables and one group grows vegetable sprouts.

They harvest 30-50 kilogrammes of clean vegetables a month, which they sell to teachers and their own families and supply to the school canteen to cook for semi-boarding students.

The vegetables grown are onion, green cabbage, water morning glory, and Malabar spinach.

The sale proceeds are divided equally among the members after a portion is donated to support the schools disadvantaged students.

Nguyen Thi Thuy Nhi, a member of the group growing sprouts, said she and her five schoolmates were very happy to use their free time to grow vegetables.

Her group harvests around two kilogrammes a day, and each member has received around VN200,000 (US$8.8) as a share of the profits over the five months since they began.

Nhi said growing vegetables is a way to put the knowledge they acquired in class to use, and she also grows clean vegetables at home and helps neighbours do the same.

Nguyen Van Canh, a member of one of the other groups, said the work of turning over the soil and watering vegetables relaxes him and keeps him healthy.

His family was very surprised when he brought a bunch of green cabbage when he returned from school one day.

They thought he had bought the vegetable at the local market, and were very happy when they learnt he had grown them with his own hands.

The school is now soliciting donations to build a net house and set up a system of growing hydroponic vegetables on an area of more than 200sq.m in its yard.

It plans to find buyers for the vegetables to enable steady output and profits.

ong Thi Thuan, the school headmistress, said growing vegetables is a healthy activity for students after school hours.
HCM CITY RMIT University team Woohoo will represent Viet Nam at the Regional HSBC - HKU Asia Pacific Business Case Competition in Hong Kong next June.

The team comprising Nguyen Hoang My Kim, Mai Thanh Tung, Nguyen Thi Anh Ngoc, and Vu Hoang Uyen qualified by winning the HSBC Business Case Competition final held in HCM City along with a cash prize of VN50 million (US$2,200).

A total of 44 students from six universities competed in business strategy-making and presentation.

The final round saw sophisticated presentations by two teams from RMIT and one team from the Foreign Trade University.

The contest has been developed by the renowned Asia Case Research Center of the Faculty of Business and Economics, the University of Hong Kong, the regions largest producer of business cases.

The competition provides students the opportunity to foster analytical thinking, creativity, innovation and communication and presentation skills, vital when they enter the workforce on graduation.

The Regional HSBC - HKU Asia Pacific Business Case Competition will be held at the University of Hong Kong with 24 teams from 19 regional universities contesting for a prize of US$10,000.VNS
HCM City  The HCM City Department of Transport is carrying out a feasibility study to ban private vehicles on a 221ha zone in the citys downtown.

The zone will include Le Duan, Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, Pasteur, Hai Ba Trung, Mac inh Chi, ong Khoi, Nguyen Hue, Nguyen Du, Ly Tu Trong, Le Loi and many small streets.

It has many historical, cultural and tourism spots like the city hall, the court, Reunification Palace, Ben Thanh market, Tao an Park, Music College, Opera House and zoo.

Several parking areas will be designated for private vehicles in the area around the zone, and transportation inside it will be by public electric buses or monorail.

In 2012 too the city had drawn up a similar plan. Then it was a 930ha area and included a tunnel on Ton uc Thang Street in front of Bach ang Park for vehicles while the roads were for pedestrians only.

The latest plan has tweaked the old one, and will initially focus on a part of the 930ha around Nguyen Hue Street, which has become a pedestrians-only street during weekends and public holidays.

In future the area will be linked with the metro.

This is the best time for the city to establish walking streets since it is taking back pavements for use by pedestrians, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted Tran Quang Lam, deputy director of the department, as saying.

At first the walking-only area will be on Saturday, Sunday and public holiday nights.

o Hong Ngoc, the owner of a restaurant on Bui Vien Street, which will be part of the zone, said: The walking street will make it difficult for travelling but be good for business.

Chu Khac Hieu, a city resident, said: The city should have parking lots nearby as well as a convenient bus system.

Cao Hong Viet, deputy chairman of the Pham Ngu Lao Ward Peoples Committee, revealed that 95 per cent of residents on Bui Vien Street want to make it a walking-only street.

This is the place where foreign visitors live, and walking street would create a unique image for HCM City.

Parking spaces for people who would like to enter the walking zone and public transport system inside are two difficult requirements policy makers have to ensure before embarking on the project.

Bui Vien Street will be used as a test case, with the trial beginning before April 30. It has around 20 alleys with 1,000 people living there. It gets 500  1,200 foreign visitors every day.

During the trial period, it will be off-limits to vehicles from 7pm to 2am on Saturdays and Sundays. Security cameras will be set up and officers will be on patrol. People can do business on pavements. There will be free toilets and wifi for visitors as well as assistance.

Le Dieu Anh, an expert on urban and community development at NGO Cities Alliance, said: We should start with the question: what is the purpose of walking-only streets? If it is economic, local authorities must make a careful study.

Authorities must carefully discuss with local residents how to properly organise space and operate the streets.

Nguyen Ngoc Phuoc ai of the HCM City Research and Development Institute said: Authorities can hand over the management and use of walking streets to a company, which can be in charge of everything on the streets and has to pay tax. -- VNS
The Ha Noi Peoples Committee has opted to give VN120 billion (US$5.3 million) as payment for 3,700 irrigation workers in Ha Noi who did not receive their full salary over the past five months. Photo laodong.vn

HA NOI  The Ha Noi Peoples Committee has opted to give VN120 billion (US$5.3 million) as payment for 3,700 irrigation workers in Ha Noi who did not receive their full salary over the past five months.

Speaking on the late salary, Chu Phu My, director of the Ha Noi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told the Lao ong (Labour) newspaper that the failure to pay salary was due to an array of causes.

First, the municipal peoples committee realised that expenses for irrigation fees in Ha Noi in 2014 were more than VN700 billion ($31.1 million), much higher than neighbouring provinces with the same agricultural land areas.

Therefore, last year, the municipal peoples committee asked the State Audit Office of Viet Nam to check the expenditure of all five irrigation enterprises in the capital.

Based on the studys results, the Ha Noi Peoples Committee decided last years irrigational fees would equal 40 per cent of the 2014 metric. As a result, workers temporarily did not receive salary.

Secondly, said director My, concerned departments have been confused by the Ministry of Finances Circular 280.

City authorities were not sure whether the circular provided that fees for irrigational services are to be paid by the users or from the State budget.

As many as 3,700 workers of irrigation enterprises in Ha Noi received nothing, or only half of their monthly salary, during the past five months.

Nguyen Ngoc Hoang, a worker at the Phuc Tho Irrigation Enterprise, is the breadwinner for his sick mother and his small children, but he has not received any salary since August last year. Before then, he and other workers of the enterprise only received 80 per cent of their monthly salary.

Ive been borrowing money everywhere, but its still not enough to cover hospital expenses for my ill mother, he said.

Many other enterprise workers are poor, and the owed salary to some workers has reached over VN50 million (US$2,200).

Nearly 800 workers at the Tich River Irrigation Investment and Development Enterprise face the same predicament.

Ha, one of the companys workers, said that his salary, bonuses and other social welfare benefits were cut since November last year.

Workers of the Nhue River Irrigation Enterprise received only half of their monthly salary from August to December last year. And since the beginning of this year they have not received any money at all.  VNS
HCM CITY  The municipal administration plans to have 70 per cent of industrial production enterprises in HCM City invest at least eight per cent of their pre-tax profits in developing and applying new technologies by 2020.

Officials said the plan reflects the awareness that technological renovation is an urgent need should the nation want to remain competitive as it deepens its international integration process.

A report compiled by the Viet Nam News Agency (VNA) last week notes that while a science and technology market, where innovative solutions are developed and sold, has advanced considerably in the country in recent years, many difficulties remain in connecting sellers and buyers.

The report says that at present, HCM City has about a million scientists, including academics, engineers and other technology experts, working in around 100 universities and colleges. The city also has 218 science and technology institutes and over 100,000 enterprises.

This has meant that quite a few good scientific and technological innovations have been developed, but before 2012, the transfer of technology from developers to users was very poor.

Tech trade

In 2012, realising the important role played by technological innovation in the citys economic development, HCM City authorities decided to pilot a technology transaction floor. The aim was to turn it into a focal point in technology transfer by the year 2018.

Besides this, city authorities have regularly organised Techmart Fairs, Techmart Online and Techmart Daily so that the public and enterprises are aware of technological innovations. Such innovations could help improve the living standards of the community and also enhance productivity of enterprises.

Techmart Daily has thus far drawn the participation of 70 entities that have put on offer over 170 technological innovations and equipment.

Nguyen Khac Thanh, Deputy Director of the HCM City Department of Science and Technology, said the citys sci-tech market was one of the five busiest markets in the city besides the real estate market and consumer goods market.

This is an indication of the important role played by the sci-tech market in the course of the citys socio-economic development, Thanh said.

He said those participating in the transaction floor were mainly enterprises (about 80 per cent), professional and amateur innovators (11 per cent), and the remaining were staff from research institutes and universities.

Thanh also said that in 2016, the citys technology transaction floor received 145 orders for technology and equipment and provided relevant information to more than 80 enterprises. Seven technology transfer contracts worth almost VN8 billion (nearly $360,000) were signed on the transaction floor last year.

Luong Tu Son, deputy director of the HCM City Centre for Information and Statistics for Science and Technology, said that in the 2012-2016 period, some 40 technology transfer contracts worth about VN50 billion (more than $2.2 million) were signed, and this was a positive sign.

Weak links

The VNA report quoted Tran Anh Tam, deputy director of the Research and Development Department under the General Corporation of Fertiliser and Petro Chemicals, as saying connectivity between research institutes, universities and enterprises was very poor.

To improve this situation, state management agencies should act as matchmakers between scientists and enterprises, said Huynh Quyen, Vice Principal of the Science and Technology Faculty of the HCM National University.

Last year, the HCM City Peoples Committee issued a five-year (2016-2020) plan to develop the citys sci-tech market, showcasing its intent to facilitate the application of advanced scientific and technological developments in production.

Pham Van Xu, director of the Science Department, under the HCM Citys General Department of Science and Technology, said that in the near future, the city will invest more in science and technology, particularly in areas that directly address urgent social and market issues.

It will also encourage the establishment of a linkage chain between enterprises and research institutes, he said.

Enumerating specific targets for the sci-tech market, Nguyen Khac Thanh, deputy director of the citys Department of Science and Technology, said: In the 2016-2020 five-year period, the city will try to achieve an annual growth of about 15 percent normal sci-tech transactions, and about 20 percent in hi-tech areas prioritised by the central Government.

Time gap

HCM City ranks first in the country for the number of patent applications, the VNA report said.

From 2008-2016, 1.635 applications were registered, 251 of which were approved.

Huynh Quyen, acting director of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the Viet Nam National University, HCM City, told VNA that commercialisation of patented innovations had mainly taken place at the Bach Khoa (Polytechnic), Nong Lam (Agriculture and Forestry), Cong Nghiep (Industry) universities and some faculties under the HCM City University.

For example, in 2012 alone, the HCM City Polytechnic University earned VN90 billion ($3.95 million) from commercialising their innovations.

Thanh said it typically takes quite a long time and a lot of efforts to develop a new technology, make it into a product and then commercialise it. The whole process might take as much as a decade, he said.

A different perspective was offered by Hoang To Nhu, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Intellectual Property Rights. We can commercialise the innovation, right at the outset, when the idea is formed. This is a good way to invite interested people or organisations to join research and development efforts, she said.  VNS
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Top officials from Tendai Biti's People Democratic Party (PDP) party have been accused of infiltrating Joice Mujuru's National People's Party (NPP) with the aim of splitting it, reports show.According to reports Saturday, the plot includes assuming provincial and national positions at the NPP's elections to establish a substantive national leadership slated for today, and then months later defect en masse to the PDP.The alleged defections would make Mujuru to be viewed as weak and, therefore, unsuitable for very senior positions on the opposition coalition, NewsDay reported.NPP members from Masvingo said the plot was being implemented by officials who have joined the party from the PDP.The report said former PDP members jostling for positions in the NPP were still working with their former party and had two meetings this year to strategise the infiltration and cause a split."The plot has come to be dubbed as the Third Force and was aimed at discrediting Mujuru, while at the same time propelling Biti so that his stakes at the coalition negotiating table would rise" the publication said.Although most opposition leaders have endorsed MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai as the best candidate to lead the mooted coalition against President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF in the forthcoming 2018 general elections, the PDP outfit allegedly wanted to torpedo the former labour unionist."The PDP members still believed Biti is the best candidate to lead the coalition on account of Tsvangirai's ill-health, but without numbers, they still face a mountain task against Mujuru."The plot is thus to have mass defections from Mujuru's camp to prop up Biti's profile and take over leadership of the coalition ahead of the Mujuru," one member told NewsDay Weekender on condition of anonymity."When we started the NPP as Zimbabwe People First, we agreed to accept anyone from anywhere and treat each other as equal partners."We had people from PDP. They joined the party and after a meeting with Biti on January 13 in Masvingo, they reinforced the recruitment drive in other provinces."Now they are a structure within a structure. They now want to dominate the provincial and national leadership positions and resign en mass after six weeks to dent president Mujuru's image. The problem is more pronounced in Masvingo where they are working with a senior NPP official who is the both in the provincial and interim structures," he said.NPP spokesperson Jealousy Mawarire said: "Normally, when you get allegations of such gravity, it is prudent to study them first and comment later."PDP spokesperson Jacob Mafume said his party has no intention to undermine Mujuru or any other opposition party.
HA NOI  Overprotective parents are compromising the wholesome development of a considerable number of Vietnamese children, experts warn.

While it is natural that parents wish good things for their children and provide for them as much as they can, this can prove counterproductive, they say.

They say too much protection and support can turn into pressure that prevents children from exposing their talents or developing in a natural way that makes them most happy.

Dr Vu Thu Huong, a primary education expert with the Ha Noi National University of Education, says a majority of Vietnamese children are suffering from developmental limitations because they are unduly pampered.

While there have been campaigns against parents giving themselves the right to decide their childrens future, their impact has not been significant, Huong tells the Lao ong (Labour) newspaper.

Parents imposing decisions will destroy the childrens confidence and creativity, Huong says.

Children can become passive, lack self confidence and determination, and even suffer chronic stress if they are made too dependent on their parents support, she adds.

She says that in some cases, parents are so anxious about their childrens future that they do not believe in their childrens capacity to survive in the society, especially when they face negative situations.

This will cause serious psychological problems that persist when they become adults, and the weaknesses in their behaviour become apparent, Huong says.

Overprotective parents are doing their children a disfavour because they unwittingly encourage irresponsibility, which will make it difficult for them in the future as they try to forge a career for themselves, she says.

The expert agrees with many others that the Vietnamese education system is also to blame for the current situation, particularly because of the teaching style that is not participatory.

Freedom of expression

Nguyen Phuong Linh. Director of the Management and Sustainable Development Centre (MSD), notes that the international convention on the Rights of the Child, which Viet Nam has signed, gives children the right to express their views in all areas.

Linh says childrens opinions should be respected and dealt with seriously by adults and authorities.

Viet Nams Children Law 2016 and many actions plans include legal corridors for children to participate in all social activities by giving their opinions and ensuring a safe environment to act and develop, Linh tells Lao ong.

However, the implementation of such laws is being hindered or rendered ineffective because some adults, including teachers and parents, continue to assert too much authority over children.

Linh says the truth is that at schools or in their families, children do not get many opportunities to express their opinions and views.

She cites as an example the case of the Nam Trung Yen Primary School in Ha Nois where students were forced to take part in a survey with answers prepared by adults, not themselves.

They did not even have the right to say no to such survesy, Linh says.

Linh also criticises parents who pressurise their children to follow a career chosen for them, even if their children cant do it or dont want to do it.

In such cases, children unable to fulfill their parents dreams become easily disappointed and pessimistic, and tend to loose direction in life, she says.

Not well protected

Apart from the negative role of parents, many shortcomings have been found in the implementation of policies and laws dealing with childrens rights.

At a recent meeting organised in Ha Noi by the MSD and the Centre for Reseach and Development Communication (RED), experts focused on why so many cases of sexual abuse of children had come to light in recent days.

They expressed shock and disappointment that such cases were happening repeatedly without firm interventions from the authorities.

The experts felt Viet Nams legal system was not straight enough in deal with child abuse because it paid more attention to hard evidence rather than childrens circumstances and voices.

They agreed that ways would have to be found to give children a voice in policies designed to protect them. VNS
QUANG NAM  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday praised the residents of Quang Nam for their efforts in making the central province one of 15 localities with the biggest contributions to the State Budget in 2016.

He made the laudatory comments while attending the 20th anniversary of the provinces re-establishment, when it separated from former Quang Nam-a Nang Province, as well as the 42nd anniversary of the Quang Nam Liberation Day.

The province has witnessed rapid socio-economic development over past decades. It had a GDP of just VN607 billion (US$26.6 million) in 1997, but this has grown to VN 20 trillion ($878 million) in 2016, Phuc said.

The province was once one of the poorest localities in the country, but now it has joined the ranks of the top contributors to the state budget. Quang Nam no longer needs to receive aid from the Government, he added.

Phuc noted that the province changed its economic structure from a predominantly agricultural economy to one where the industrial and service sector accounted for 88 per cent of its GDP.

The PM advised the province to boost tourism as a key industry because it has two UNESCO world heritage sites  My Son Sanctuary and Hoi An City - as well as the World Biosphere Reserve, Cham Island.

Phuc presented the province with the Independence Order First Class for the great contribution it had made to national development over past decades.

Quang Nam Party secretary Nguyen Ngoc Quang said the province had seen face-lifting growth in the past 20 years.

He said Quang Nam, which once drew 70 per cent of its budget from the State Treasury, started contributing to it after 20 years of development.

Last year, the province began construction of the Nam Hoi An Casino Resort Project in the UNESCO heritage city of Hoi An.

With total investment of US$4 billion, the project will become Viet Nams second largest casino resort after the Grand Ho Tram Strip Resort and Casino in the southern province of Ba Ria  Vung Tau, o Xuan Dien, head of the management board for the Chu Lai Open Economic Zone, told Viet Nam News.

Nam Hoi An was among the 12 projects that received investment certificates in Quang Nam last year.

Quang Nam Peoples Committee Chairman inh Van Thu said the new licensing process was part of the provinces efforts to establish a reliable partnership with investors, and to accelerate the progress and efficiency of its investments.

The Truong Hai Automobile JSC (Thaco) has also begun work on expanding the Truong Hai  Chu Lai Mechanical Automobile Industrial Zone with an investment of VN794 billion (US$35.3 million) in Quang Nam. The company has invested US$400 million in building the Chu Lai  Truong Hai Industrial Complex, which has a logistics centre, car production lines, a vocational training college, a seaport as well as a shipping service.  VNS
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust in Ha Noi yesterday.  Photo Doan Tan

HA NOI  Viet Nam is keen on developing co-operation in the education sector with the US in general and the Harvard University in particular, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said yesterday.

Receiving Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust in Ha Noi, he thanked the university for supporting Viet Nam in successfully organising the Viet Nam Executive Leadership Program (VELP).

Noting that educational reform and improving the quality of training was a crucial factor in the development of a country, he requested that the Harvard University continues to support Viet Nam with leadership training and tertiary administration, as well as opening training courses for Viet Nams senior officials.

The PM proposed that Harvard strengthens co-ordination with Viet Nam in sourcing funding to maintain the VELP programme, and increase the number of Vietnamese students admitted to the university in the future.

Faust said she hoped the curriculum at the new Fulbright University Viet Nam (FUV) would become a co-operation model connecting Vietnamese and US scholars and researchers.

Both Viet Nam and the US placed a high priority on education, which could help the two countries deal with the challenges they are facing, she said, stressing that there were numerous co-peration opportunities for Viet Nam and Harvard.

She said the university was expanding collaboration with Vietnamese peers, including medical institutions, and pledged to support and promote implementation of the FUV project in Viet Nam.  VNS
ARLINGTON  A gas station owner has been arrested for allegedly improperly transporting fuel.

Fayette County sheriffs deputies arrested Zachary James Less, 22, for 23 charges, including no placards when required, no shipping papers, no markings on holding tanks, load not secure in vehicle, operating a commercial vehicle without a commercial drivers license, driving without proper endorsements, improper transport of hazardous material, no breakaway device connected to towing unit and expired registration on vehicle.

Less co-owns the Pit Lane in Waverly, Arlington and Volga, deputies said. He is accused of transporting thousands of gallons of fuel from store to store only using a trailer and plastic tanks.

Fayette County investigators received a tip about the allegations earlier this month, and he was stopped on Friday and found to be carrying more than 1,000 gallons of fuel hidden in a trailer that was being pulled by his personal vehicle, deputies said. Authorities obtained a warrant to search the Arlington Pit Lane to gather evidence.

The Iowa Department of Transportation Motor vehicle Enforcement units assisted in the investigation, which is ongoing.
WATERLOO  It was show and tell Friday at the Waterloo Career Centers nursing assistant lab.

High school students worked with their classmates to demonstrate blood pressure checks and the proper way to lift patients out of a bed, transfer them to a commode or help them use a walker. They were surrounded by Waterloo Community Schools administrators and Ryan Wise, director of the Iowa Department of Education.

Students in the nursing assistant program divide their time between the lab, equipped with hospital beds and a variety of medical devices, and an adjacent classroom. Its one of two programs that provide daily 90-minute classes at the center, which opened last fall in a renovated portion of Central Middle School. The digital graphics program across the hall has a similar two-room setup, with lab and classroom space. Students in the programs earn both high school and Hawkeye Community College credit for the classes.

Wise was there to get a look at how the district has been implementing the programs since the states updated career and technical education legislation was signed into law nearly a year ago. He was accompanied by Scott Slechta of Fairfield, Iowas 2016 teacher of the year.

Earlier in the day, they visited the FIRST Robotics Competition at the University of Northern Iowas UNI-Dome and McLeod Center as well as an elementary school in Cedar Falls. Following the stop at the career center, they also visited Highland Elementary School.

After touring classes at the career center, Wise said the district has a clear vision for career education that fits so nicely as a state where we want to go.

Waterloo Schools is set to expand its offerings next fall with the addition of three more programs. I think this is really exciting, he added. I think there are so many great things happening for students.

Over a salad lunch made by culinary students from West High School, teacher Doreen Mingo said the classes are doing more than preparing students to become certified nursing assistants. She brings medical professionals such as nurses, doctors, occupational and physical therapists, radiologists and others into the class so students can learn about a range of related career options.

Its opening their mind and its showing them things they can do, she told the visitors. They have greater dreams and goals.

Wise praised the approach along with an effort getting underway to partner with other school districts whose students want to enroll in the programs. Already, the Waterloo and Cedar Falls community schools have forged ties that will allow students from both districts next year to enroll in the career center and Cedar Falls High Schools new Center for Professional Studies.

The regional planning is critical, said Wise. So, its great to hear youre all thinking about that.

Later, he called it a foundational component of career and technical education in Iowa. Regional planning partnerships that include community colleges, area education agencies and school districts are required and funded by the legislation signed last year.

A big part of the law was creating standards, said Wise. We wanted to create those standards and let local districts, AEAs and community colleges run with that.
CEDAR FALLS  Dan Britt of Northern Iowa Therapy has been working through the Medicaid transition to three private managed care organizations for nearly a year. Hes come to the conclusion it has never been worse.

He explained his problems with getting paid for services in speech, occupational and physical therapies, particularly serving children. He ultimately cut ties with one provider, creating another string of issues for the companys patients.

This is absolutely a mess, and I have absolutely no faith that anyone in this room can do a thing about it, Britt told the five Democratic lawmakers at the Cedar Falls legislative forum Friday night. No one is talking about how much money every provider group has lost because of this.

The event, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Black Hawk-Bremer Counties and a coalition of 30 bipartisan organizations, invites members of both parties, but only Democratic lawmakers have been attending.

Britt said he didnt need a response from the lawmakers; hed talked to them all before.

But Rep. Bob Kressig, D-Cedar Falls, offered a brief one anyway.

You said no one is talking about it. Every one of us up here is talking about it; the real issue is nobody is listening to what youre saying, Kressig said.

It was a sense Democratic lawmakers shared on a series of issues at Fridays forum, including the Medicaid privatization.

I share a lot of your concerns on everything, Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, told Black Hawk County Supervisor Frank Magsamen after he had laid out a series of concerns about losing local control and budgetary issues. Unfortunately, Im not going to be able to stop what theyre attempting to do.

Democrats are in the minority in both the House and Senate and cant impeded the Republican majoritys legislative priorities.

The idea they are not being heard hit home for the more than 125 people attending Fridays forum: They had just learned Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, would no longer be attending over concerns the events are too partisan.

I think when people decide not to attend this type of meeting, theyre not willing to listen to what people have to say. I think that should be a frustration for everyone in this room. Its a frustration of mine, Kressig said. He encouraged voters to contact Republican lawmakers with their concerns.

He said he and other lawmakers have faced questions from both sides of the aisle. That was the case Friday, as public comments included a couple of testy exchanges with anti-abortion advocates.

Democratic lawmakers expressed frustration with Rogers absence, though each mentioned it just once during the meeting. Their frustrations earned widespread applause from the audience.

Lawmakers also aired concerns about the lack of information they had received from Republicans, especially on the nights topic of budget and taxes.

Rep. Ras Smith, D-Waterloo, said he and his colleagues have asked Republicans why some bills are necessary. He said the response is, because its in the bill.

Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, said theres been an unprecedented lack of discussion about the most pressing issues that face all of us.

He and Dotzler said plans that cost the state money are unlikely to pass, other than perhaps the voter integrity bill. Danielson noted budget woes have forced two rounds of cuts totaling more than $100 million each for this fiscal year and an anticipated $170 million revenue drop for next fiscal year. He said new tax credits are reducing state revenues.
WATERLOO  Republican 1st District U.S. Rep. Rod Blum said he supported the Friday afternoon decision to pull the American Health Care Act, a bill proposed by Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare.

I support the presidents decision to pull the AHCA bill, Blum said in a statement. Throughout this process, I have been consistent in stating that the main goal of any reform bill must be to make health care more affordable for hardworking American families. Unfortunately, the AHCA fell short of that goal, and for that reason I could not support it.

Blum, a second-term lawmaker from Dubuque, came out against the AHCA proposal Tuesday and had opposed it since, even as it underwent changes in an attempt to get it passed in the U.S. House.

He said, however, hes not deterred from trying to repeal and replace Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act.

I believe Congress should slow down and discuss in an open and transparent manner the best solutions to address the real problem: the unsustainably high cost of health care in America, Blum said.

Since coming out against the bill, Blum has focused on the desire to ensure health care costs go down for Americans.

#AHCA doesnt do enough to lower premiums for hardworking Americans. Im a no on current version  need to drive down actual costs! Blum tweeted Tuesday.

Shortly after the bill was pulled Friday, he sent a similar tweet, praising Republican President Donald Trump for pulling the proposal and adding, lets fix this and drive down health care costs for hardworking Americans before releasing a formal statement.

Blums calling for a slowed-down process seems to be likely.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., held a press conference Friday afternoon, where he said, Obamacare is the law of the land. Its going to remain the law of the land until its replaced. We did not quite have the votes to replace this law, so yeah, were going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.

Blum said in his statement he wont listen to what the political class at the Capitol wants him to do but rather to do what I think is right for the citizens of eastern Iowa.

Though the bill was pulled, it did not stop a rally from being held outside Blums office Saturday led by the progressive group Americans for Democratic Action Iowa.

We cautiously welcome news that there will be no vote (Friday) on the current version of the American Health Care Act, but this is just the start of the fight, said ADA Iowa field organizer Chris Schwartz. Rep. Blum was one of the GOP congresspeople who pledged to vote no on the American Health Care Act but we fear that he is holding out for an even worse option that would leave more families uninsured.
A roundup of items of interest from Thursday.

FREEDOM TO BINGE: A House Judiciary subcommittee delayed action on a medical amnesty bill that would provide legal protection to 911 callers who are under the legal drinking age of 21 but need help in an emergency when drinking has taken place.

No one should have to think about the legal implications of calling for help, Cole Staudt, an Iowa State University student from Rockford, told the subcommittee considering SF 415.

The bill was approved 49-0 in the Senate.

The immunity, similar to laws in 36 other states, Staudt said, would not extend to anyone already the subject of a criminal investigation or under correctional supervision and would not extend to emergencies where illegal drugs were involved. The caller must remain on the scene and cooperate with law enforcement.

Lawmakers are waiting to learn whether the law would put Iowa out of compliance with federal laws regarding the legal drinking age and open containers. If Iowa is not in compliance, it could jeopardize $82 million in transportation funding, said Renee Jerman of the Iowa Department of Transportation.

ADJOURNMENT TARGET: Republicans, who hold majorities in the House and Senate, say they are on track to end the 2017 session close to the April 18 adjournment target.

Normally the first session of a General Assembly is scheduled for 110 days of expense money for legislators, but budget cutbacks prompted lawmakers to scale that back by 10 days this year.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said there still is significant work left to do, including crafting a fiscal 2018 state budget. But he expects things to wind down after lawmakers get back the sessions second funnel deadline next week.

That deadline requires bills to clear one chamber and a committee of the other to remain eligible for consideration this year.

We want to continue to accomplish the agenda we set out to do and I have the expectation that that can be done within the time frame of the 100 days that have been set out. I would expect us to adjourn some time very near to that 100th day, he said.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said she is building my calendar to be done around the April 18 adjournment target.

HOUSE TRAFFIC ISSUES: House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, was noncommittal Thursday on two transportation bills approved by the Senate because her GOP majority members have not discussed them. But she said she expected legislation to further restrict texting while driving would get passed this session.

We absolutely want to move forward with safety, she told reporters. I think theres an appetite to move something forward.

Drivers would be able to use hand-held devices to make phone calls or check GPS directions but could be pulled over by law officers for using them to text message under Senate File 234, which cleared the Senate by a 43-6 margin Wednesday.

A House committee has approved a tougher bill that would ban the use of hand-held devices while driving and would allow a one-year transition period before law officers would switch from issuing warnings to ticketing violators.

Upmeyer said she expected the House GOP caucus to discuss both approaches and choose one or come up with something different.

Senators also approved a separate measure to bring traffic cameras under stricter state regulation.

Upmeyer said the Senate bill would get committee consideration before next weeks second funnel deadline for bills to pass one chamber and a committee of the other to remain eligible for action this year.

AUTISM TREATMENT: Iowa senators voted 48-0 Thursday to send Gov. Terry Branstad legislation that would require insurance companies to cover applied behavior analysis for children with autism in group coverage plans exceeding 50 employees.

It will help a lot of people. This is a big day, said Sen. Bill Anderson, R-Pierson, the bills floor manager.

He said the legislation was the result of collaboration by many people over a number of years.

This is about more than passing legislation, said Sen. Amanda Ragan, D-Mason City. This will impact peoples lives. This will have a huge impact.

Under the bill, insurance coverage would become available for families with dependents younger than 19 who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

SIGNED INTO LAW: Gov. Terry Branstad signed the following seven bills into law Thursday:

House File 303, relating to notifications made by the commissioner of insurance about the need for a receivership for certain preened sellers and cemeteries.

House File 372,allowing turns against red lights.

House File 203, authorizing the use of primary road fund moneys for the secondary road and municipal street systems.

House File 577, relating to the treatment of Lyme disease or other tick-borne diseases

Senate File 409, relating to state credit union examinations and boards meetings.

Senate File 376, relating to disclosure of asbestos bankruptcy trust claims.

Senate File 357 modifying licensing provisions applicable to electricians and electrical contractors.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Zimbabwe has joined a growing band of other countries in banning the importation of meat and related products from Brazil, with that country already investigating rotten meat exports.Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made said the position was precautionary."This is a matter that is being investigated by the Brazilian Government themselves."So, with us it is the same, we suspended importation of any goods that are related to meat products originating from Brazil" Made said.Zimbabwe has been importing large quantities of meat, including cheap chickens from Brazil.According to Made the ban would subsist until Brazilian authorities finalised investigations into the matter and Zimbabwe's authorities conducted inspections in the country and were satisfied.South Africa and China have also imposed a ban on the products, with Hong Kong experiencing price instability as a result of the ban, as the country imports large quantities from Brazil.
I have trouble watching Cabaret, the 1966 musical that choreographer Bob Fosse would direct in an Academy Award-winning film 1972. Its a scary work of art. Cabaret is set in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic in 1931, a city and time at the height of a joie dvivre during a wave of liberal attitudes; resplendent with what we might think of as libertine or even Pagan approach to life and sex. The film opens with the catchy song Wilkommen by the carnivalesque master of ceremonies singing:

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

Fremde, etranger, stranger

Glucklich zu sehen,

Je suis enchante,

Happy to see you,

Bleibe, reste, stay.

The words are hallmarks of hospitality, but the moment is pregnant with a tremendous dread that would culminate in the Holocaust. No matter how I use the film in class or workshops, no matter how much I enjoy the music, that gravid terror always looms for me. Some of my ancestors fled Nazi Germany; and if I had been alive then and there, theres little chance I would have seen the end of World War II.

I recognize the fiction of Cabaret, and yet that ominous backdrop of a changing world that is inexorably shifting to the right echoes in our present moment. Now to be clear, this is not an opinion essay about President Trump and what his administration will unleash, might unleash or is unleashing. I lived through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and through ACT-UP, I learned what we are capable of in resisting callous administrations. We overcame, for example, the Reagan administrations convenient blindness from regressive fervor while they witnessed hundreds of thousands  later millions  literally die around us. This essay is not about the current cabal of White House stooges and their myopic and hypocritical allies in Congress.

This essay  I hope  is about a shift away from the Enlightenment values that undergird the modern civil and secular society in which most of us live. It is important to us because all modern Neopaganism is rooted in the Enlightenment. I am certainly aware that many of our traditions invoke a lineage that predates the 17th century, but the Enlightenment is itself a culmination of political backlash against conservative forces that dictated not just social order but also the dominance of religion in controlling action as well as thought.

One major accomplishment of the Enlightenment is that it marginalized fanaticism. The period ushered in the elements of deism, the religious perspective that the universe is knowable through reason but also in concert with the presence of deity. This weakened institutions that demanded subservience and obedience. With that, the period also piloted in a worldview that personal discernment was a powerful force for learning about our world and ourselves.

As the Enlightenment raged the values of dissent, self-expression, personal enterprise and thoughtful criticism were enshrined as modern ideals. The Declaration of Independence, for example, is imbued with Enlightenment ideals. These views and ideals tore at the dominance of the religious establishment in the West and validated other ways of understanding the universe as well as living an ethical life. The Enlightenment opened the well that made  in my opinion  modern Paganism possible: it heralded our Risorgimento.

But now, a backlash has begun. We are witnessing something more complicated than a retaliation against intellectualism and reason. The de-funding of the National Endowment of the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are the first projected casualties of that war. The NEH and NEA are the modern homes of Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Terpsichore and Thalia, six of the nine inspirational goddesses of Hellenic religion. Solon, the Athenian poet and statesman, saw them as necessary for a good life and a good society. Clearly, destroying the muses leads to ignorance and a people easily controlled by aristocrats.

Other Pagan values are being assaulted. We are witnessing revulsion toward hospitality, consensus and inclusion, and a dismantling of the institutions charged with protecting the Earth. In a way, I feel that we are witnessing the manifestations of spiritual warfare against that Pagan resurgence.

Spiritual warfare is a precise term of art. It is a Christian concept referring to resisting and rebelling through prayer, anointing, exorcism and other techniques against preternatural evil forces that embolden and underpin Satanic control of the world. It is the use of techniques like exorcism that validate Christian authority over evil, as well as serve as badges of righteousness. Ephesians 6:10-18 describes the components of the armor of God  belief, righteousness truth, etc.  in preparation for spiritual battle to promote faith salvation and, ironically, peace. Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians underscore their responsibility to dominate evil by pointing to Matthew 12:27-29: And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. How can anyone enter a strong mans house and steal his possessions, unless he first ties up the strong man?

You, dear reader, are that strong man.

The logic of spiritual warfare has been used to subdue idolatry from ouija boards to Native American art to awens; and, of course, more famously, in the hunt and murder of women accused of witchcraft. The arsenal of spiritual warfare was invoked in the 1980s during the Satanic panic episodes of unsubstantiated ritual abuse. It use has a single objective: power.

That has set the stage for the present. The rise in liberal and secular values has been framed as an assault on the spiritual welfare of a Christian majority. While this is certainly not the philosophical position of many Christians, especially the many from liberal denominations and orders within Christianity, a vocal minority of Christian evangelicals from nondenominational traditions are decrying what they perceive is a conspiracy to suppress their beliefs, and that capitulating to that conspiracy is nothing less than rebellion against the divine. Just as there is no such thing as persecution of Christians in the West, there is no conspiracy to subvert Christianity, but the utility of that myth is not lost to evangelical leaders.

Like in Lord of the Flies, paranoia and the belief in demonic council have led to a societal retreat from reason through the fabrication of a mythic beast that is lurking on the island. The fictional beast is slowly adopted as reality and used to establish control and obliterate anti-authoritarian opposition, ultimately with violent consequences. That cautionary tale of tribalism is slowly becoming a documentary of reality.

You, dear reader, are also that beast.

The spiritual warfare must not relent. I have heard Ill pray for you far too many times this year. Its not a sentiment of concern, its an aggression, and it must be clearly and unquestionably labeled as such. Aggressive prayer is not intended as a compassionate action but rather a violent one; an action where who I am is obliterated and replaced with a believer who champions a specific brand of Christianity. It may be something between Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives. Ill pray for you is as much code for were watching as it is for a spiritual militaristic operation. It underscores our otherness and a deep distrust of our non-conformity. It says nothing less than you are targets.

Ive also witnessed a rise in propaganda. Driving to a festival this past weekend, every billboard for almost 100 miles was reinforcing that submission to Christianity is the only choice for a constructive society and eternal life. One cautioned that being anti-God is a form of treason. Another one showed Jesus return that is prophesied in the Revelation, only this time with Marines, tanks and weapons of war. To Pagan eyes, they also said, You are a danger.

These are far cries from the central ministry of peace that Jesus taught, yet they now pervade the consciousness of many fundamentalist strands of Christianity, especially those with little to no history in managing diverse populations in their communion. These are far cries from the central ministry of peace that Jesus taught, yet, they now pervade the consciousness of many a Christian.

Most disturbingly, there has been a rise in anti-Semitism hallmarked by violence. These are attacks on all communities of faith, including ours. They are nothing short of abomination.

Now, while the memories bound in my DNA from my ancestors are whispering that these are becoming dangerous times, they are also whispering that fundamentalism  in any religion  is an illness worthy of compassion. Solutions to fundamentalism like satire, education, shaming, pity and reason have been consistently failing, but I do remain resolute that Enlightenment values will guide us to solutions.

Principal in manifesting those values is our interfaith work. I am convinced that we must bring our interfaith work more solidly to our forefront. The challenge of any religion is to avoid looking inwardly to the point of blindness.

Now, I should say, that Im personally terrible at interfaith work, but I try. I am far too quick to have my eyes glaze over when Abrahamic dogma is presented as singular, universal truth. Im no good at prayer breakfasts, trust me, yet I also know so many nuns and sisters eager for dialogue. Not for conversion, but for conversation. They want to better understand the complexity of faith and the human experience. They are both a blessing as well as a counter pole to the religious fundamentalism pervading American evangelicalism.

These women highlight that our dialogue is not just worthwhile, but that in these times, it is critical. They recognize that interfaith does not mean just talking among different strands of Abrahamic religions and denominations; they strive for inter-religious dialogue. We might do well  on a personal level  to consider all invitations for such dialogue, accepting every opportunity as a gift from our muses. They are powerful allies, and we can add our own powerful resources. We can support and honor our Pagan elders who engage in interfaith dialogue by learning from their tremendous experience in the conducting such complicated yet essential work. They not only possess astounding experience and commitment but they also carry tremendous wisdom. Their knowledge, skill and work are forging stronger, more diverse communities of faith that are both wiser and safer.

Im not disheartened, but I am concerned. The social climate feels like it has turned more severely against us, but we have the tools and wisdom in our community to turn that tide. It is an act of bravery to reveal oneself as Pagan, and an added act of courage to go further into interfaith work. I also think that bravery and courage are blessings we have in abundance.

Wir sagen

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome

Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret.

* * *

The views and opinions expressed by our diverse panel of columnists and guest writers represent the many diverging perspectives held within the global Pagan, Heathen and polytheist communities, but do not necessarily reflect the views of The Wild Hunt Inc. or its management.
On a recent visit to Tokyo, Japan, I came across a beautiful bird that I took to be a Whites Thrush, Zoothera dauma. It has wonderful brassy/golden markings on its back and coverts and crisp crescents on its breast and belly. In flight, it shows a bright flash of white separated by a black bar. It looked as if it may have sustained an injury, but it appeared to be able to feed itself well enough.

My confusion came as I tried to enter it onto an eBird checklist. Whites Thrush is now Zoothera aurea and Z. dauma, the senior title, has been retained by the Scaly Thrush. There must have been a split since our last encounter in Hong Kong over 21 years ago. My Japanese field guide, published in 1982, calls my bird Whites Ground Thrush and prefers the Turdus genus. Two different editions (twenty two and sixteen years out of date) of my Hong Kong guide use the same illustration and merely change the name from Whites Thrush (Scaly Thrush), to Scaly Thrush, using Zootheera dauma in both cases.

Species searches on eBird reveal that both species might be found in Tokyo, though Whites is much more common, with a few contemporary sightings.

So I resorted to the internet. How I wish now that I had not. There is scant information there about the split and less still about the reason for allocating a tick to each. Where there is a description of one of the birds, the author fails to mention which one. Images are regularly mislabelled and who knows who to trust? One author hedged his bets by using 15 different names to describe one picture. In future guys, if you dont know, just say so (for the record, so far, I dont know either).

So I consulted the eBird taxonomic updates and there, in the 2015 changes, appeared the following which I copy and paste for your reading pleasure;

Scaly Thrush Zoothera dauma: Scaly Thrush is split into four species: the migratory northern Whites Thrush of eastern Russia and northeastern China, wintering in southeast Asia; the largely resident Scaly Thrush that occurs from northeastern India (wintering to central-northern India) through Malaysia and with an island endemic outlier population on Amami Island of southern Japan; the island endemic Sri Lanka Thrush; and the southern India endemic Nilgiri Thrush which occurs mostly in the western Ghats.

It indicates that the Whites Thrush has a range which is further north and east, but does not rule out the Scaly Thrush. Clicking on the map links will reveal that they have both been recorded in Tokyo. It also suggests that my field guides may have been a bit precocious in using Whites Thrush so long ago.

Further reading brought;

page 404, Scaly Thrush Zoothera dauma

Scaly Thrush is split into four species, following Rasmussen and Anderton (2005): Whites Thrush Zoothera aurea; Scaly Thrush Zoothera dauma; Nilgiri Thrush Zoothera neilgherriensis; and Sri Lanka Thrush Zoothera imbricata. Whites Thrush contains two subspecies, aurea and toratugumi; and Scaly Thrush includes the subspecies dauma, major, and horsfieldi, each of which also is recogized as a monotypic group. Nilgiri Thrush and Sri Lanka Thrush are monotypic.

Reference:

Rasmussen, P.C., and J.C. Anderton. 2005. Birds of South Asia. The Ripley guide. Volume 2: attributes and status. Smithsonian Institution and Lynx Edicions, Washington D.C. and Barcelona.

The Handbook of the Birds of the World, gives an interesting history of the taxonomy, though it has yet to agree to or up-date the split. It was first named in 1790 from Kashmir by Latham who bi-nominated it as Turdus dauma. Now Zoothera, the Z.d. aurea and Z.d. toratugumi races (still awaiting that split) are migratory while the other races are largely sedentary. Z.d. toratugumi is the only one that gets a Japanese mention to the north of the archipelago. www.hbw.com also notes that Z.d. aurea and Z.d. toratugumi were split on vocal difference. Since the non-migratory forms are less likely to stray and the two migratory races have both recently been split to Whites, this could be the deal breaker and the subsp toratugumi does lend a pleasing Japanese accent to the chase

At this point I need to make a decision between my allegiance to www.eBird.org or the very enlightening and extensive work of www.hbw.com I am not qualified to do so by any scientific means, but I enter my sightings on eBird and until I can come up with a specific answer, the entry will read Whites/Scaly Thrush which is most unsatisfactory.

So what does a chap do in this position? He consults his birdy pal Graham, thats what. Graham has appeared on the pages of 10,000 Birds before as a guest writer and has an experienced understanding of the flight attendant/birder complex, being one himself. He also loves a challenge that involves poking around the internet and making comparisons to dusty old tomes (again, being one himself).

Whites Thrush

Whilst Graham concurred that Whites was the favourite by range, his various texts describing the physical indicators (most of which are comparative) it could not conclusively eliminate either of my options.

My final port of call was to the Oriental Bird Club from whom I received probably the most reliable advice. Mr B.R. Sykes on behalf of the OBC told me that I had touched on one the the most controversial problems in Asian taxonomy and that the matter is yet to be resolved. He went further and suggested that insufficient care had been taken in labelling some of the internet images, but that the pictures of my bird were consistent with the Z.a.toratugumi race.

So, a reasonable decision could be made by eliminating the geographical alternatives which are endemic elsewhere. Z.a. toratugumi, the northerly form of the migratory species that occurs in Japan should be the obvious choice, but by this logic, all such thrushes seen in Japan (apart from Amami Island) should be Whites. Seems acceptable, why all the fuss? So, why do eBird still give me an option to select Scaly Thrush, or worse still, Whites/Scaly Thrush?

Of course now I will have to go back and reassess that bird from Hong Kong all those years ago. Graham., Mr.Sykes?
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Information Minister Christopher Mushohwe has declared that Cabinet ministers who are criticizing government sponsored Command Agriculture project are thieves placing Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo at the heart of the accusation.Moyo has been in the forefront in attacking the controversial project.Mushohwe told editors in Harare that "I am telling you that Command Agriculture is a Government policy. Anybody who says anything otherwise is sharing his or her personal opinion and not Government policy."Those who say Command Agriculture is being run by thieves, are the thieves themselves," he said.Moyo has a well documented history of attacking the project on his twitter account.On March 6 following a story published in The Herald, Moyo wrote on his Twitter handle: "Report by @Herald Zimbabwe that 'Command Agric exceeds target' is at best premature & at worst needlessly false!"He went on to post on March 10 that "1 /2: Maize is on 1,3m ha: 1,1m is Presidential Input Scheme; 153,102.60ha is Command Agriculture & the rest private!"Moyo on the same date added "2 /2: Command Agriculture targeted 400 000ha, but contracted 247 035ha of which 191 124ha (77 percent) were tilled & 153 102,60ha (61 percent) were planted on!"On March 11, he also wrote that, "Command is a tried & tested military concept. It is also a great in programming. But in civil matters command is an oxymoron & non- starter!"
It requires remarkable skill, dedication and discipline to become a military pilot. Despite the nations colors that don an aircrafts fuselage, or what service affiliation rests on the chests of its aircrew, a military pilot is a capable and readily accessible force for effectively responding to and neutralizing a threat of any magnitude, at any time, or any place.



However, like the students of the Royal Australian Air Force Base Air Warfare Instructors Course are learning in Exercise Diamond Shield 2017, it doesnt come without hard work and extensive exposure to tactical exploitation by some of the most well-trained and experienced fighter combat instructors in the world; the 18th Aggressor Squadron from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.



Our mission is to replicate an adversary for the RAAF pilots as part of Exercise Diamond Shield 2017, said U.S. Air Force Major Robert Claw Carden, 18th Aggressor Squadron pilot. We have the ability to replicate any adversary that the RAAF, or any nation for that matter, desires and then use specific tactics, techniques and procedures to punish Blue Air.



Blue Air refers to friendly forces while Red Air applies to those mimicking enemy forces. The objective of this training format is to challenge pilots to anticipate and become more receptive to real-world enemy forces they could potentially encounter during a national or international security threat.



Primarily, we try to replicate real-world threats, be it specific to an aircraft or weaponry, explained Carden. Since were flying [F-16 Fighting Falcons], were not actually transforming the aircraft into a [Shenyang] J-11 or a [Mikoyan] MiG-29, for instance, so we use our [Aggressor Threat Replication Guide] in order to provide replication tactics on how we can adjust our avionics or how we might employ those avionics with our [F-16s] in order to better emulate a requested adversary.



Although it runs only every two years, the six-month AWI course is a vital part of training for its already experienced F-18 Hornet students with Diamond Shield as one of the practical components of the course. For the Australian Defence Force, the role of the 18th Aggressors means earning graduates who are experts, capable of integration across the services and whom have technical mastery of their own roles, platforms and systems.



From the perspective of a supportive agency like RAAF 3 Squadron - who provides Red Air augments to the 18th Aggressor Squadron - operating in this environment challenges their TTPs and provides a unique perspective on interoperability they dont often get.



[The 18th Aggressor Squadron] are some of the best at providing threats, threat replication and for providing the Red Air instruction, said Royal Australian Air Force Flying Officer Justin Nash, 3 Squadron F-18A Hornet pilot. But the big thing for us is the different aircraft type and the different types of things they can represent. Its different from what were used to seeing in our normal training so [Diamond Shield] is a big favorite for [AWIC].



So although the 18th Aggressor Red Air pilots dont necessarily integrate with the AWIC Blue Air students, their unique aircraft capabilities, tactical strategies and ability to exploit plans carried out by Blue Air provide valuable insight during mission debriefs and examples interoperability intended by both AWIC and Diamond Shield.



Were observing Blue Air in either real-time or through our observations while training them and ultimately exploiting and punishing their errors in the air, said Carden. Later, when we debrief and reconstruct the entire mission, the RAAF pilots have the ability to find where those critical breakdowns occurred in their gameplan and hopefully next time adjusting that gameplan so those errors aren't then exploited or at least mitigated from that type of exploitation in the future.



This very process is the foundation of Exercise Diamond Shield, and quite fundamental to the intent of the 18th Aggressor Squadrons overall mission. Their ability to tailor and design to a joint or allied nations desired learning objective is also matched by their ability to perceive real-world events and then communicating that to their joint partners.



The biggest lesson is the briefs and lectures on global threat situations and what theyre advertising as some of the solutions to that, said Nash. In the actual flying role we have as pilots, were seeing new tactics and seeing pictures we havent seen before; this too helps us devise and implement new TTPs that will be picked up by both experienced and newly arrived pilots.



At the culmination of Diamond Shield on March 31, the key objective for the RAAF is advancing and sustaining interoperability throughout the Pacific region, while respectively, for the U.S. Air Force, it is also about increasing the capabilities of the pilots charged with providing this world class training.



They routinely reference interoperability, making a plan that can operate a high level with any joint partner and the closer partners, said Nash. It is very easy to explain and bring people into the loop; its very robust and the 18th Aggressors support has been important for developing new TTPs which will make it much easier to be interoperable.



For a number of younger pilots that have the potential to go back to the [Combat Air Force], interoperability and joint integration with our RAAF partners here will help these pilots as they go back to a Blue unit, said Carden. Knowing they might have seen errors in Blue gameplans - be it planning or execution errors - as prior adversaries, they could potentially exploit those errors so they can apply learned tactics to avoid what they saw exposed while here in the 18th Aggressor Squadron and enhance our overall Air Force capabilities.
Rafia Zakaria in Literary Hub:

Historian and intellectual Pankaj Mishras latest book Age of Anger: A History of the Present, published earlier this month, presents what Mishra calls an emotional history at a time of worldwide emergency when rage fills the global political sphere. Mishra locates the core of our chaotic condition in the Nietzchean concept of ressentiment, a creative force that animates the rebellion of the poorest and most disenfranchised against the ruling class. It is this very force, Mishra argues, that is animating those most marginalized, its power whetted by the contradiction between the equality promised in prose and exalted in rhetoric but never delivered in reality.

Mishra recently traveled to the United States, during the pause between President Trumps first travel ban on the citizens of seven Muslim countries, and all refugees, and the striking down of his new one. A few days after we spoke, the Presidents new budget pledged to do away with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. The budget for the U.S. State Department is to be slashed while the U.S. Defense budget will be augmented by billions of dollars. It certainly seems that the world is at the brink of even more war, more destruction, more displacement, and more turning away. In our conversation, Mishra and I spoke about the prescience of Age of Anger and his framing of our bleak and divided global moment.

Rafia Zakaria: The very first page of your book describes its stages of production: beginning at Modi, writing through Brexit and published with the election of Donald Trump. When you were at the beginning of this intellectual journey, did you foresee how it would proceed, both in terms of the books and the politics it aspires to explain?

Pankaj Mishra: I wish I could claim that kind of prescience. I knew that things were going very wrong in Europe and that inequality was an issue in the U.S. I did not know Brexit would happen or that Donald Trump would be elected. I just thought that there would be very large number of people who would vote for him, but I hoped that not enough would go as far as actually electing a maniac and a troll to the White House. I wrote my book obviously taking into account the state of dissatisfaction, but I could not predict the political outcome.

More here.
News / National

by Staff reporter

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has divided opinion among opposition political parties coalescing to form a pact ahead of next year's watershed elections, as more voices come in the open backing his candidacy to lead the alliance.While most leaders from Coalitions of Democrats (Code) and the National Electoral Reform Agenda (Nera) have openly endorsed Tsvangirai as the torch bearer, some within Code still argue otherwise.In a statement, the Maxwell Shumba-led Zimbabwe People First (ZimFirst), seemed incensed by the idea of having the MDC at the forefront."MDC has always held the belief it can go it alone, since 1999," ZimFirst said."They failed to push for reforms despite commanding majority in Parliament at some stage," the party said.However, during a Nera-organised demonstration against the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) on Wednesday, opposition party leaders jostled to identify Tsvangirai as the only person who must lead the coalition.This also comes after former Finance minister Simba Makoni, who is now leading his own political outfit Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn (MKD) party has also endorsed Tsvangirai to lead the coalition.Makoni, who is a member of Code recently told the Daily News that while the group has not yet settled on who should lead the proposed coalition, it would be "foolhardy" to ignore that popularity and experience of Tsvangirai  the only politician to ever beat president Robert Mugabe in an election in 2008.He said he would like to see Code making concerted efforts to woo the MDC leader, whose party belongs to Nera.The MKD leader's sentiments resonate with those of a large cross section of Zimbabweans, including other leading politicians, analysts and civic groups, who all say that Tsvangirai is the only opposition leader capable of giving Mugabe and the warring Zanu-PF a run for their money.Recently, former Cabinet minister and caretaker leader of the Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) Didymus Mutasa praised the former labour union leader, saying he had persevered against all odds in his push for a more democratic Zimbabwe, including taking on Mugabe and a Zanu-PF that often behaved thuggishly when challenged.People's Democratic Party (PDP) leader Tendai Biti has also passionately appealed to Tsvangirai to move decisively on the mooted grand alliance.Analysts described the move as welcoming on the part of Biti, whose relations with Tsvangirai had seemingly turned frosty since the time that he formed his own party.However, in a statement, Code chairperson Farai Mbira, said the group is making strides to engage those political parties that are outside their grouping to deliberate on the coalition."...some of our leaders have approached or engaged with parties outside Code to persuade them to join with the rest of the democratic forces in Code," Mbira said. "This engagement does not imply that Code is not able to go forward but that it is our desire to go along with everybody and not leave anyone behind. Code is open to those who wish to respond positively to the wishes of the majority of Zimbabweans who want to see a united opposition."Those parties not yet in Code have not been excluded but that they have not yet decided to join."The group further said it has so far agreed on fielding a single candidate for all contested positions, which will be shared equitably between members."We have not settled on the presidential candidate but will do so when we have completed our engagements with all partners and potentials. Settling on a presidential candidate is not going to be difficult as each leader in Code has accepted that someone else could be chosen and none has given any conditionality," Mbira said.
What was South Dakota's biggest lottery winning? Here's the top 10.

The top 10 biggest lottery winners in the state's history, according to the South Dakota Lottery.
A budding writer, Ivan Del Valle has launched a crowdfunding campaign via Publishizer to back the publishing of his debut book titled, The Ring Of The Witch. Ivan sets out to raise funds to publish the first batch of the book, hoping to make as much impact as possible in the literary fiction category within the writing industry.

As a surprise gift I am planning on giving my wife during the first half of this year, I embarked in writing this book that falls into the Modern Adaptations Of Greek Mythology category. It was not simply about writing it, but about the personal development journey of researching, learning, experimenting, and sharing the process of its creation through social media says the Writer, Ivan Del Valle.

The book The Ring Of The Witch: The Curse of Apollo. is currently being crowdfunded on Publishizer, and the campaign went live on Monday, March 20th, 2017. Two publishers have shown interest in publishing the book already. All the money raised through the crowdfunding campaign will go towards getting it published.

To learn more about the crowdfunding campaign and make your donations, please visit https://publishizer.com/the-ring-of-the-witch

Details of the book

The 30-chapter book will be in English and is themed around the Greek god Apollo. All the chapters are available for reading online free of charge during the crowdfunding campaign. The novel is a fast-paced modern adaptation mythic story based on tormented characters battling against a chaotic end for humanity. Spiritual beliefs such as immortality, reincarnation, and life after death are the core behind the whole story, which makes reference to real events, organizations, and locations in Greece, Egypt, Poland, and other parts of the world.

About the author

Ivan del Valle is an IT Enterprise Architect proudly born and raised in the beautiful Caribbean Island of Puerto Rico. He currently resides in one of the most romantic places in the entire world, which is the historical Charleston area in South Carolina, USA. His experience working with geographically dispersed teams sets the base for his writing, which he describes as creative, bold, and full of spontaneity.

Media Contact

Company Name: Ring of the Witch

Contact Person: Ivan Del Valle

Email: media@ringofthewitch.com

Phone: +1(404) 444-3024 2

Country: United States

Website: www.ringofthewitch.com
News / National

by The Independent

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is wasting time and resources globe-trotting to attend low-key conferences like the just-ended African Economic Platform held in Mauritius when he is supposed to be spearheading Zimbabwe's economic revival efforts.Mugabe this weekend returned from the two-day forum, which was attended by various intellectuals, business leaders, civil society, the private sector and political leaders.It seems Mugabe was the only head of the state at the forum officially opened by Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth.Other heads of state and government were represented by their deputies, ministers and in some cases, speakers of parliament. As usual, Mugabe stuck out like a sore thumb.Instead of wasting precious resources at a time government is virtually bankrupt, Mugabe should be focussing on the country's myriad problems.Mugabe, who squandered more than US$30 million in the first 10 months of last year gallivanting around the globe, has neglected the problems at home, which include a deepening economic crisis characterised by a debilitating liquidity crunch, low capacity utilisation of less than 50%, widespread company closures and close to 95% unemployment.Indeed he has become the country's own version of Christopher Columbus, the difference being that Mugabe has very little to show for his numerous trips except a pile of useless MOUs, whose details are never revealed.Currently needing his urgent attention are flood victims. As a result of heavy flooding caused by incessant rains induced by Cyclone Dineo, to date 251 people have been reported dead, over 2 000 people displaced, livelihoods disrupted while infrastructure such as roads, bridges, schools and water resources sustained heavy damage.Instead of clocking more flying hours, Mugabe should be visiting flood victims, particularly those in the southern parts of the country. Areas that have been worst affected by the floods are Chiredzi, Kanyemba, Lupane, Mwenezi, Mberengwa, Insiza and Tsholotsho.Government has declared the floods a national disaster and set up a cabinet committee on emergence preparedness and disaster management chaired by Local government minister Saviour Kasukuwere.It is not only cruel but also uncaring of Mugabe to spend millions on his foreign junkets when there are people, through no fault of their own, who have been left destitute.The hiring of a plane from the Middle East for a whooping US$1 million, to travel to Ghana and Singapore is further evidence of the incredible selfishness of the doddering leader.This was after his party spent more than US$1,1 million on his lavish 93rd birthday bash in Matobo.Mugabe has in the first three months of this year, in addition to these trips, also gone to China and Lesotho, further depleting government's coffers which are already constrained, not only by the need to pay wages for its workers, but also by last year's bonuses as well.That Mugabe went to Singapore for treatment as the country's health workers went on strike at home, resulting in the loss of many lives, speaks to a leader who has clearly lost the plot insofar as running the country is concerned.That Mugabe goes to attend Ghana's 60th independence celebrations, and only to be captured snoozing at the ceremony is testament that the nonagenarian has overstayed in his office. His continued tenacious grip on power is now inimical to the country's well-being.This rubbishes his spokesperson George Charamba's disingenuous defence of his boss, who said that diplomacy does not come cheap.Mugabe's dereliction of duty has not only become a national liability, but also an embarrassment.It provides clear evidence that his time is surely up.


By Anne Dachel



Winnipeg Free Press and Sesame Street are soft-selling us autism.

April, National Autism Awareness Month has turned from creating awareness of the autism epidemic to promoting autism as a neurological difference to be accepted and accommodated. This March 22 article about the new Sesame Street autistic character from the Winnipeg Free Press does just that. The video clip shows Julia (who has autism) singing with Sesame Street's "fairy in training," Abby Cadabby, "Everything's A-Okay..." Reporter Jen Zoratti doesn't tell us that two percent of our children now have this disorder, but she does mention that she has a brother with Asperger's.

And that is the message for April, and it's diabolically deceptive because it doesn't just advocate for compassion for the disabled, it's telling us that autism is only a neurological difference. Since Julia is a character with features of autism that don't severely impact her life (she flaps her hands and is sensitive to noise), it doesn't seem like such a bad thing. Julia interacts with others and seems pretty typical.

Winnipeg Free Press: Muppet with autism is just the latest in a long list of progressive Sesame Street characters

The newest member of the Sesame Street gang is already poised to be an icon and she hasnt even been on TV yet.

Julia, a four-year-old with bright red hair and big green eyes, is the first Muppet to have autism. Shell make her official debut on April 11, but social media is already buzzing about her thanks to a 60 Minutes special that aired on Sunday. Through Julia and her interactions with other characters, Sesame Street aims to promote understanding and acceptance of neurodiversity.

In the first episode, the characters will get to know Julia. Sometimes she doesnt make eye contact or answer a question right away, and sometimes she flaps her arms. She doesnt like loud noises, and she might repeat herself.

When Big Bird introduces himself to Julia, she ignores him and keeps colouring. Later, he learns not to take it personally, she just does things a little differently. "In a Julia sort of way."...

But many kids will see themselves in her, and they will see her being treated with kindness, acceptance and compassion. They will see that its OK for Julia to do things in a Julia sort of way. ...

Its not just children who could benefit from such an education. There are adults out there who use the word "Aspergers" when they mean "awkward." There are adults out there who believe vaccines cause autism, and that autism is a fate worse than death. There are adults who bully and isolate neurodivergent people at work.

Sesame Street and Julia wont singlehandedly raise a more accepting and empathetic generation.

But they will change lives.

Notice that people who claim there's a link between vaccines and autism are included in the same paragraph with those who bully and discriminate against those with autism.
News / National

by Staff reporter

A 34-YEAR-OLD man from Mberengwa flew into a rage and stabbed his wife leading to her death following a misunderstanding over her new cellphone, a court heard yesterday.The woman died at Zvishavane District Hospital on Thursday following the attack on Wednesday.Nyasha Mandanda of Magada village under Chief Nyamhondo yesterday appeared before Mberengwa Magistrate Mrs Evia Matura facing murder charges.Mrs Matura remanded Mandanda in custody to April 3 and also advised him to apply for bail at the High Court.Prosecuting, Ms Wadzanai Shayanewako told the court that on Wednesday, Mandanda came home from work and found his wife, Natsiwe Moyo (24), having a bath. "The accused person noticed a cellphone which was new and decided to ask the now deceased about it. When the accused person questioned his wife about the cellphone, she did not give a clear answer and a misunderstanding arose," said Ms Shayanewako.She said Mandanda suspected his wife was cheating and thought her lover might have bought her the phone.As the row escalated, the prosecutor said, Mandanda who was armed with a knife stabbed Moyo on the right side of the neck and left her lying on the floor.The court heard Moyo shouted for help and neighbours came to her rescue. "Moyo was rushed to Mberengwa District hospital where she was transferred to Zvishavane District hospital and she died on admission," said Ms Shayanewako.She said Mandanda was later arrested.
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Asian air cargo carriers recorded a demand boom in February, with Cathay Pacific citing improvements in imports from North America and Europe.

The latest monthly figures from some of Asias leading airlines show high single-digit and double-digit year-on-year demand improvements in February, usually the slowest month of the year.

The regions busiest cargo carrier, Cathay Pacific, recorded a 12% improvement in demand during the month to 764m cargo and mail revenue tonne km, with tonnage up 17.4% on a year ago.

Meanwhile, capacity grew by the lower amount of 1.2% and therefore cargo load factors increased to 64.2% compared with 58% last year.

Click here to access the Data Hub menu or on the image below to go directly to the interactive chart

Demand comparisons during the first two months of the year are affected by the timing of the Chinese New Year.

When looking at both months together, the Hong Kong-headquartered carriers saw demand improve 5.9% year on year. There was also an extra day in February last year due to the leap year.

The carrier also started its metal neutral partnership with Lufthansa Cargo on February 1.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales & Marketing Mark Sutch said: As expected, the first half of February saw volumes significantly affected by the Chinese New Year holiday.

However, trade in the region was quick to rebound from the middle of the month, which was soon followed by a pick-up in long-haul trade, leading to a full recovery by month-end.

It was encouraging to see inbound loads from North America and Europe throughout  albeit on a reduced operating capacity.

Taking into account the changes in the Chinese New Year holiday period this year, we managed solid tonnage growth; a reflection of the overall strengthening of the global air cargo demand.

We predict March to be a busy month with more project shipments in the pipeline and the launch of a number of new consumer products.

The fastest growing carrier during the month was China Southern, which registered a demand improvement of 28.9% to 401m revenue freight tonne km. This is the carriers largest year-on-year percentage growth since February 2015 when US west coast seaport strikes resulted in a boom in air cargo demand.

China Southern has regularly seen double-digit percentage improvements in volumes over the last few years. Over the first two months, demand at China Southern increased by 11.2%.

Capacity was up by 3.8% and as its cargo load factor for February reached 42.2% compared with 34% this time last year.

Other carriers to report demand growth were: Air China, up 11.7% in February and 5.3% over the first two months; China Airlines registered an 11% improvement in February and 8.4% for the first two months; and Eva Air saw cargo demand improve 7.4% last month and 7.4% in January and February combined.

However, it was not all good news for Asian carriers; Singapore Airlines (SIA) Cargo and China Eastern registered declines, although this was caused by internal decisions.

China Eastern saw demand drop by 48.1% to 150m revenue and freight km as it sold its stake in freighter operator China Cargo Airlines.

Meanwhile, SIA Cargo said a reduction in freighter capacity was the reason behind a 5.9% reduction in cargo capacity in February. Demand during the month was down by 2.1% to 465m freight tonne km.
March 23, 2017

Both chambers of Congress are introducing bipartisan Iran sanctions bills this week just in time for the main pro-Israel lobby's annual conference in Washington.

Legislation from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., would require the Donald Trump administration to sanction Iranian and foreign individuals and entities that support Tehran's ballistic missile program, according to a copy obtained by Al-Monitor. The panel's top Democrat, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., is co-sponsoring the bill, according to an aide.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., introduced broader legislation March 23 that would also target Iran over its human rights violations and terrorism. It would notably extend terrorism sanctions to the Islam Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and sanction anyone found to violate the international arms embargo against Iran.

A total of 14 lawmakers  seven Republicans and seven Democrats  are original co-sponsors, including ranking member Ben Cardin, D-Md. Both he and Menendez voted against the 2015 nuclear deal.

"We've been negotiating and I am satisfied with where we were able to get to," Cardin said. "The important part is that there is nothing in this bill  that could cause a violation of the [nuclear deal]. It is strong in dealing with Iran's other non-nuclear activities, such as dealing with the ballistic missile violations, their arms issues, human rights and dealing with terrorism. So the four areas that were not in the nuclear agreement we strengthened, but did it in a way that is directed toward those activities and has nothing to do with the nuclear issue."

A Cardin aide said the senator was notably able to remove language that would have made it impossible for the Trump or future administrations to use national security waivers to enter into international agreements with Iran. Also removed, the aide said, were several provisions seen as violating the letter or spirit of the nuclear deal, including limitations on off-shore dollar clearing and U-turn transactions and reports on Iran's use of commercial aircraft for terrorist activities and on the value and uses of sanctions relief granted under the nuclear deal.

The aide said the changes helped bring more Democrats on board, including Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind. Other members are still on the fence.

"I think there's some rough edges that still need to be smoothed out," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the committee's Middle East panel. "It's got to be proportional to the threat."

The House bill would not only target the missile program but would also go after individuals and entities that provide "significant financial services" to the program's supporters. Another provision would punish anyone found to facilitate the transfer of conventional arms to or from Iran. Congress is particularly upset at Tehran's support for Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria and assorted Shiite militias in Iraq.

The new authorities in the House bill would be included as an amendment to the existing Iran Sanctions Act. Congress overwhelmingly voted last year to renew the legislation for 10 years, defying the Barack Obama administration's warnings that doing so would antagonize the Iranians even as they appear to be complying with the nuclear deal.

Royce's bill would enshrine into US law a United Nations Security Council resolution negotiated as part of the nuclear deal that "calls upon" Iran not to undertake activity on ballistic missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead. That resolution, UNSC 2231, only permits conventional arms transfers to and from Iran if allowed by the Security Council on a case-by-case basis. Iran, for its part, asserts that the Security Council language does not outright ban either activity.

In addition, the House bill would require President Trump to report to Congress in case of any future Iran ballistic missile tests, and whether those responsible have been sanctioned. It also requires the administration to provide an analysis of the foreign and domestic supply chain that supports Irans ballistic missile program and help Congress determine the vulnerabilities and challenges in curbing support for the program.

The Trump White House has signaled its intention to firmly deal with any perceived Iranian violations of the nuclear deal and UN Security Council resolutions. The Treasury Department sanctioned 25 individuals and entities in February following an Iranian missile test, fulfilling a promise to put Tehran "on notice" that any moves that the United States sees as aggressive won't be tolerated.

A summary of the bill first obtained by Al-Monitor quotes former President Barack Obama's own words in asserting that the bill does not violate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

"With very limited exceptions, Iran will continue to be denied access to our market  the worlds largest  and we will maintain powerful sanctions targeting Irans support for groups such as Hizballah, its destabilizing role in Yemen, its backing of the Assad regime, its missile program and its human rights abuses at home," Obama wrote to Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., in an August 2015 letter. "Critically, I made sure that the United States reserved its right to maintain and enforce existing sanctions and even to deploy new sanctions to address those continuing concerns, which we fully intend to do when circumstances warrants."

The bills were wrapped up just days before the start of the annual gathering of the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee, often referred to as AIPAC, here in Washington. Hundreds of activists will descend on Capitol Hill on March 28 to lobby their representatives, greatly boosting the bill's odds of passage.

Editor's note: This article has been updated since its initial publication.
Saturday, March 25, 2017 at 7:41AM

Joy, 14, fled her village in South Sudan when she was eight months pregnant (Photo Credit: Simon Edmunds/Save the Children)MUNDRI, South Sudan (AP) -- After months of being raped by her rebel captors in the middle of South Sudan's civil war, the young woman became pregnant.

Held in a muddy pit, sometimes chained to other prisoners, she later watched her hair fall out and her weight plummet. But the child was a spark of life.

And so she named him Barack Obama, she explains, now free. "I still have hope," she says, caressing the baby's cheek with a finger. "I just don't even know where to start."

The slender 23-year-old is one of thousands of rape victims in South Sudan's three-year-old conflict, which has created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises. Sexual violence has reached "epic proportions," says the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.

Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60 percent last year. Seventy percent of women sheltering in U.N. camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began, according to a U.N. humanitarian survey conducted in December.

Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicenter of the problem. Aid organizations blame it on the recent increase in fighting here between rebels and government troops, the latest shift of the war in an already devastated nation.

The young woman didn't expect to become embroiled in South Sudan's conflict.

"I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams," she said in an interview earlier this month. "If I talk about it, I just cry."

She had been visiting her family in the summer of 2015, with plans to return to school in the capital, Juba. She never made it back.

Instead, she was abducted by rebels loyal to an opposition group calling itself MTN, after a popular African telephone company. Their catch phrase riffs on the company's slogan, taunting: "We're everywhere you go."

The rebels burst through the door of her mother's hut, firing their weapons and shouting, she said. They were searching for her uncle, who'd been accused of conspiring with government forces.

"They beat my grandfather and aunt and then said if they couldn't find my uncle they'll take me instead," she said. "I told them I'd rather die than go with them."

But the rebels dragged her into the bush and brought her to their headquarters, where she was charged, tried and convicted for her uncle's "crimes."

For the next 16 months, she was forced to live in large, muddy pits infested with snakes, she said. Subsisting on only vegetables, she wasted away.

"I'm not attractive anymore," she says now, tugging at the waistband of her baggy pants. Shifting around in a plastic chair outside a coffee shop, she shyly adjusted her headscarf, covering what little hair she has left.
GameStop_store_Ypsilanti.JPG

A GameStop storefront in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 2010. (Dwight Burdette (Own work), Creative Commons license via Wikimedia Commons)

Increasing competition and digital sales may be to blame for GameStop's plan to shutter at least 150 of its 7,500 stores worldwide.

The Texas-based retailer announced Thursday it will close 2-3 percent of its store footprint in 2017, while opening about 100 new locations globally.

GameStop CEO Paul Raines said in a fourth-quarter release the company's non-gaming businesses "drove gross margin expansion and significantly contributed to our profits," but the video game side didn't do so well.

" ... The video game category was weak, particularly in the back half of 2016, as the console cycle ages," he said. "Looking at 2017, Technology Brands and Collectibles are expected to generate another year of strong growth, and new hardware innovation in the video game category looks promising."

It is unclear which stores will shut down or exactly when the closures will happen. A GameStop spokesperson told Fortune the process will occur throughout 2017.

GameStop's total global sales for the most recent quarter dropped 13.6 percent to $3.05 billion, while consolidated comparable store sales declined 16.3 percent. The Fortune 500 company blamed the dip on "weak sales of certain AAA titles and aggressive console promotions by other retailers on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday."

GameStop has dozens of stores across north, central and south Alabama.
Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Lots of people will be at Alabama's beaches this summer, and most will be looking for a place to eat. Pleasure Island has hundreds of places to get chow. Check out our epic list of 42 places (in no particular order) to try on your next visit to Orange Beach and Gulf Shores. Pictured here is Doc's Seafood Shack.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Desoto's Seafood Kitchen

Desoto's Seafood Kitchen: One of the most famous restaurants in Gulf Shores, Desoto's has earned a loyal local and tourist following for their superb seafood menu and traditional Southern-inspired comfort food items, awesome daily specials, great apps, all at very affordable prices, two dining rooms, small bar with craft beers on draft, drink specials. Right across the street from the beach. Locals' secret: Gator bites paired with craft beer in a beer stein. Location: 138 West 1st Ave., Gulf Shores, 251-848-7294.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Ginny Lane Bar and Grill

Ginny Lane: Upscale menu specializing in pasta, seafood dishes, fine meats, semi casual atmosphere with local art for sale on the walls, full bar, live music nightly, patio seating with view of Intracoastal Waterway and Wharf Marina. Worth the pricey menu. Locals' secret: Black angus beef paired with UFO on draft. Location: 4780 Wharf Pkway., The Wharf, Orange Beach, 251-224-6500.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Flippers Seafood and Oyster Bar

Flippers Seafood and Oyster Bar: Cajun and Creole-inspired family eatery featuring seafood plates, extensive fun menu for those on a budget, cool outdoor tiki bar, live music, perfect for large families, reservations not recommended, large two-level dining room, lots of deck seating with beautiful view of Bear Point Marina and backbay. Locals' secret: One pound of fried blue crabs (market price) paired with frozen beverage. Location: 5749 Bay la Launch Ave., Orange Beach, 251-981-3547.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Flora-Bama Yacht Club

Flora-Bama Yacht Club: Upscale menu with great variety of primarily seafood dishes and signature items and daily specials, some basket items for kids, very relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere in open air dining room with view of Ole River and Ono Island, large square bar, lots of TVs, live music nightly, beach access, boat access, outdoor bar, lots of picnic bench seating. Menu costs a little more but worth it. Locals' secret: New Orleans BBQ fired-roasted oysters ($24 dozen) paired with Blue Chair Bay Rum drink. Location: 17350 Perdido Key Drive, Perdido Key, Fla., 850-483-6272.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Pleasure Island Tiki Bar

Pleasure Island Tiki Bar. Open air eatery cooking up tasty bar and grill food in baskets, great wraps, fries, live music almost every night, full bar, awesome view of the Terry Cove. Locals' secret: Great loaded nachos and one of the island's best bushwackers. 27844 Canal Road, Orange Beach, 251-981-8454.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Brick and Spoon

Brick and Spoon: Place to be each Sunday for brunch grilling up specialty egg dishes with a seafood twist plus other signature delights like shrimp and grits, beignets, and cornmeal-dusted Louisiana oysters, best bloody mary's on the island, locals hangout, large dining room, full bar, usually a wait on Sunday, call ahead for large parties, perfect family eatery on any morning. Locals' secret: Killer Creole Omelet, loaded bloody Mary. Location: 24705 Canal Road, Orange Beach, 251-981-7772.

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Haley Laurence | hlaurence@al.com

Papa Rocco's

Papa Rocco's Pizza: Famous and popular pizza parlor specializing in custom and signature pizza pies, pasta dishes, some sandwiches, large appetizer section, all at reasonable prices, full bar, live music on some nights, dining room seating only, great place to meet locals, reservations not accepted, small wait at busier nights. Locals' secret: Seafood shrimp pizza ($19) paired with draft beer in mug. Location: 101 West 6th Ave., Gulf Shores, 251-948-7262.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

The Hangout

The Hangout: Very popular family restaurant located at the beach featuring great seafood and sandwich basket food for those on a budget, perfect for large parties, huge square bar with lots of TVs, large open air dining room with view of Gulf of Mexico, live music nightly and daily, games, several outdoor bars. The Hangout is ground zero for tourists looking to have fun. Reservations not recommended, short wait on busier nights. Locals' secret: Local smoked tuna dip and hummus platter ($12) paired with Twisted Blueberry Lemonade alcohol drink. Location: 101 East Beach Blvd., Gulf Shores, 251-948-3030.

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Lulu's at Homeport

Lulu's at Homeport: Ground zero for tourists looking to entertain the whole family in giant open air dining room with view of Intracoastal Waterway, features a large menu served in baskets with lots of seafood, po boys, large kids menu at reasonable prices, some specialty plated dishes worth the price, enormous square bar, huge play area for kids, outdoor bar, live music nightly and daily. Locals' secret: Fried green tomatoes with Wow sauce ($9) paired with Cadillac Margarita. Location: 200 East 25th Ave., Gulf Shores, 251-967-5858.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Fisher's at Orange Beach Marina

Fisher's at Orange Beach Marina: Upscale eatery in casual, nautical atmosphere, serving some of the area's finest seafood creations, spacious, open air dining room with view of Orange Beach Marina and water, gift shop, two full bars, outdoor grassy area, one of the island's premier eateries. Locals' secret: Murder Point farm raised oysters (market price) paired with signature Saltwater Margarita ($12). Location: 27075 Marina Road, Orange Beach, 251-981-7305.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Anchor Bar and Grill

Anchor Bar and Grill: Limited, gourmet menu featuring specialty creations, limited dining room seating but plenty of covered deck seating with stunning view of Terry Cove. Locals' secret: Cuban sandwich ($13) paired with Mason jar tropical cocktail. Location: Hudson Marina, 4575 Wilson Blvd., Orange Beach, 251-200-0250.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Duck's Diner

Duck's Diner: A staple on the island, Duck's is known for its breakfast dishes but they serve up a whole lot more including traditional Southern-inspired lunch and dinner specials, great Blue Plate specials for around $9, cozy dining room, small bar, great place to learn meet locals and learn about the history of Orange Beach. Locals' secret: Bama Burger ($11) paired with bottled beer. Location: 4560 Easy Street, Orange Beach, 251-948-9191.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

The Keg

The Keg: Late night, locals dive bar famous for its cheeseburger (one of the best in the state of Alabama), pretty much the only thing you want to order here, but well worth it for its greasy spoon style burger that has earned numerous awards, served in a bar atmosphere, some live music, outdoor bar, great place to meet locals. Walk-in only. Locals' secret: The burger ($10) and a cold beer, the later in the night, the better. Location: 26796 Canal Road, Orange Beach, 251-981-9462.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Crico's Pizza

Crico's Pizza: No frills pizza parlor up the road from the beach serving up some of the area's best pizza pies prepared with fresh ingredients, daily buffet and great submarine sandwiches all at very affordable prices to feed whole family, no bar, some outdoor seating. Locals' secret: Supreme pizza and endless sweet tea. Yes, they deliver. Location: 309 Gulf Shores Pkway., Gulf Shores, 251-948-3100.

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Villagio Grille

Villagio Grille: Upscale eatery serving gourmet pizza and other seafood dishes, table cloth, full bar with outstanding wine selection, sophisticated dining room, patio seating, very romantic spot, reservations not required but recommeded. Locals' secret: Chicken pesto flat ($12) paired with 2013 Smith and Hook red wine. Location: 4790 Main Street, The Wharf, Orange Beach, 251-224-6510.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Mud Bugs

Mud Bugs: Popular dive bar and dance club with locals up the road from the beach, serving up bar food that is surprisingly tasty and cheap, too, large bar with nightly live music, outdoor area, lots of bar games like darts and pool, great place to mingle with local color but probably not best for families. Locals' secret: Loaded nachos ($12) and large draft beer. Location: 624 Gulf Shores Pkway., Gulf Shores, 251-948-8081.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

The Southern Grind

The Southern Grind: Awesome coffee shop for tourists and local alike, serving up gourmet breakfast and limited lunch at reasonable prices, pleasant dining room with lots of local art and items for sale, pet-friendly patio area and plenty of outdoor seating, packed out during Sunday brunch. Locals' secret: Jalapeno Potato Scramble paired with mocha frappe. Location: 4651 Main Street, The Wharf, Orange Beach, 251-923-3265.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Another Broken Egg

Another Broken Egg: Chain serving up breakfast, drinks in a casual setting. 25910 Canal Rd k, Orange Beach.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

The Gulf

The Gulf: Hot spot for superb and thoughtful but limited menu, all outdoor seating with view of Gulf of Mexico, beach area with comfy seats, fun house music, great for kids and dogs, two large bars, famous for its food and view. Locals' secret: Awesome cheeseburger with a cold beer ($15). 27500 Perdido Beach Blvd., Orange Beach, 251-424-1800.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Cosmo's

Cosmo's: Upscale menu in a casual atmosphere, plated cuisine, surf and turf, daily specials, full bar with craft beer on draft, patio seating, live music under the stars. Reservation recommended as there is usually a considerable wait. Locals' secret: Turkey and havarti sandwich is awesome for something lighter. Location: 25753 Canal Road, Orange Beach, 251-943-9663.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Gulf Shores Diner

Gulf Shores Diner: Secret little place snowbirds and locals have come to love, serving up classic breakfast, lunch and dinner at great prices, perfect for family looking to get good sandwiches and some seafood on the cheap, pleasant dining room, coffee bar. Locals' secret: Steak, eggs and hash browns ($10) and cup of coffee. Location: 3639 Gulf Shores Pkwy., Gulf Shores, 251-948-0088.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Mikato's

Mikato's: Traditional hibachi restaurant and sushi bar on the way to the beach, customers get a fun and tasty hibachi experience, surf and turf hibachi, little pricey but if you're looking for something different than seafood it's a good option. Locals' secret: Shrimp hibachi, Sapporo beer. Location: 3800 Gulf Shores Pkway., Pelican Place, Gulf Shores, 251-968-2525.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

The Diner

The Diner: Located in the heart of Gulf Shores, The Diner grills up breakfast, lunch and dinner, popular with locals and tourists alike, traditional seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, fine cuts of meat, plus some house signature items, daily specials, overall great menu, large dining room, reservations not required, call ahead with larger parties. Locals' secret: Ashle's Chicken ($10) paired with Hot Rod signature alcohol beverage. Location: 2420 East 2nd Street, Gulf Shores, 251-500-1581.

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Rum Sisters

Rum Sisters: Nope, it's not a restaurant but Rum Sisters is worth checking out for their homemade rum cakes in a plethora of flavors and sizes all made on site, fun little dining room serving coffee, orders of all sizes taken. Locals' secret: Buckwacker Rum Cake. Location: 2200 East 2nd Street, Gulf Shores, 517-0444.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Lillian's Pizza

Lillian's Pizza: Located just over the Alabama state line in Florida, Lillian's tosses gourmet, signature pizzas with fresh ingredients, popular with locals, delivers, large spacious dining room, covered deck, full bar, some live music, pizza will cost you more than chain but well worth it. Locals' secret: Large calzone ($11) paired with margarita. Location: 14514 Perdido Key Drive, Pensacola, 850-492-0131.

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Bahama Bob's

Bahama Bob's Beach Side Cafe: Known for its cheeseburger, which it calls "A Paradise Lovers Burger" Bahama Bob's serves a variety of items perfect for the whole family, decent prices, small dining room, small bar, lots of covered deck seating, patrons can also enjoy a view of the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf Shores Public Beach, usually a wait during the day. Locals' secret: Cheeseburger with pineapple ($10). Location: 601 West Beach Blvd., Gulf Shores, 251-948-2100.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Kitty's Kafe

Kitty's Kafe: One of the most popular breakfast joints at Alabama's beaches serving up outstanding Southern-inspired morning plates, plus some great classic diner lunch items, cool dining room with lots of photographs, outdoor seating, small breakfast bar, great prices for one of the best breakfasts around. Locals' secret: Anything from breakfast menu paired with $2 mimosa. Location: 3800 Gulf Shores Pkwy., Gulf Shores, 251-948-5233.

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John Hill, Independent BW Photographer

Pink Pony Pub

Pink Pony Pub: Knows to locals as "The Pony" this beach-side watering hole serves up some great bar grub including sandwiches and some great appetizer items, but tourists love it for its view of the beach, small dining space, large bar, deck seating. Locals' secret: Gator bites ($9) paired with bushwacker. Location: 137 East Gulf Place, Gulf Shores, 251-948-6371.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Big Fish

Big Fish Restaurant and Bar: Popular fine dining eatery with Asian twist, superb seafood dishes, creative appetizers, best sushi on the island, large sophisticated dining room, awesome outdoor patio seating area, large bar where locals meet, reservations recommended, usually long wait on busier nights. Locals' secret: Sushi specials at happy hour, cosmopolitan. Location: 25814 Canal Road, Orange Beach, 251-981-5516.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Shrimp Basket

Shrimp Basket: Looking for good grub to feed the kids before or after the beach, then Shrimp Basket is the way to go, serves a variety of seafood basket items on the cheap. Locals' secret: Fish tacos paired with large sweet tea. Good to go to the beach. Location: 26651 Perdido Beach Blvd., Orange Beach, 251-974-1833.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Cactus Cantina

Cactus Cantina: Traditional Mexican cuisine with California twist, limited but great menu, burritos, tacos, all made with fresh ingredients, popular with tourists on the way to the beach, large, split dining room, covered patio seating, huge fun bar with happy hour, bar seating area, great prices for upscale Mexican food. Locals' secret: Large guacamole dip paired with large margarita on the rocks with salt. Location: 3849 Gulf Shores Pkwy., Gulf Shores, 251-943-8115.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Pirates Cove

Pirates Cove: Sure, there's a few things on the bar menu, but locals, tourists and celebrities hit the Cove for one reason -- the greasy spoon burger, winner of many best burger awards, Pirates Cove has live music nightly, subject of many magazine articles, great place to meet locals, located on the water. Locals' secret: Burger and bushwcker ($20). Location: 6664 County Road 64, Elberta, Ala., 251987-1224.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Sea N Suds

Sea N Suds: Famous local eatery overlooking Gulf of Mexico whipping up tasty seafood items, great appetizers, cheeseburgers, oysters and more, popular local hangout, great prices for a great view. Locals' secret: Gumbo and oysters paired with bottled beer. Keep it simple here. Location: 405 East Beach Blvd., Gulf Shores, 251-984-7894.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Cobalt The Restaurant

Cobalt the Restaurant: Upscale restaurant serving fine dining menu, many seafood choices, fine cuts of meat, surf and turf, kids menu, daily specials, huge dining room, large bar, plenty of patio seating, tiki bar with live music on some nights, view of Intracoastal Waterway and Perdido Pass, one of the island's premier dining destinations, reservations recommended on busier nights with larger parties. Locals' secret: Blackened daily catch with mashed potatoes, greens paired with a fine wine. Location: 28099 Perdido Beach Blvd., Orange Beach, 251-923-5300.

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Robin Conn, The Huntsville Times

Moe's Original BBQ

Moe's Original BBQ: Famous barbecue joint across the street from the beach Moe's whips up traditional and signature smoked basket creations, small usually packed dining room, awesome outdoor seating with beach sand, live music on some nights. Locals' secret: Half chicken and white BBQ sauce, large sweet tea. Location: 25603 Perdido Beach Blvd., Orange Beach, 251-981-7427.

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Tara Massouleh | tmassouleh@al.com

Tacky Jack's

Tacky Jack's Orange Beach: Famous tourist restaurant serving seafood plates to large groups, very reasonable prices, great view of water, large bar, live music, gift shop, perfect for the whole family. Locals' secret: Fish tacos paired with bushwacker. Location: 27206 Safe Harbor Drive, Orange Beach, 251-981-4144.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Hurricane Grill and Wings

Hurricane Grill: Popular bar with locals, popular restaurant with tourists, so you'll find a mix of patrons here, serves up a variety of house specialty grill foods at great prices, some Mexican-inspired food, great burgers and wings, cool dining room with lots of TVs, large fun bar with craft beers. Locals' secret: Cheeseburger sliders ($12) paired with a draft beer. Location: 25755 Perdido Beach Blvd., Orange Beach, 251-981-3041.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

King Neptune's

King Neptue's: Centrally located, this Gulf Shores staple is a snowbird gathering place, but is a great option for tourists looking for classic Gulf Shores joint serving seafood dishes with a large family on a tight budget, lots of seafood choices and some daily specials, small dining room, good sized bar, awesome happy hour, reservations not accepted. Locals' secret: Royal Reds (market) $1.50 bloody Mary. Location: 1137 Gulf Shores Pkwy., Gulf Shores, 251-968-5454.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Acme Oyster House

Acme Oyster House: A standard in the Gulf Shores culinary landscape for vacationers, AOH does one thing and one thing well -- oysters, but they have other great seafood items with a Deep South twist, large dining room inspired by New Orleans. Locals' secret: Fried oyster po boy ($17) and root beer float. Location: 216 East 24th Ave., Gulf Shores, 251-424-1783.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Doc's Seafood Shack

Doc's Seafood Shack: A must-try for tourists, famous for its simple seafood menu for those on a budget but want big taste, serving up fish sandwiches, seafood platters, small dining room, does not take reservations, usually long wait on busier nights. Locals' secret: Gumbo and onion rings paired with bottled beer. Location: 26029 Canal Road, Orange Beach, 251-981-6999.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Original Oyster House

Original Oyster House: Practically a Gulf Shores institution, OOH is a must-try for all tourists, featuring a large menu including many seafood items including several oyster dishes, spacious dining room with water view, no bar, no outdoor seating, usually long wait on busier times, reservations not required. Locals' secret: Oyster po boy. Location: 701 Gulf Shores, Pkwy., Gulf Shores, 251-948-2445.

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Brian Kelly | bkelly@al.com

Cotton's Restaurant

Cotton's Restaurant: Probably the oldest eatery on the island, Cotton's serves up upscale Southern-inspired comfort food and tasty seafood, not on the cheap but worth every dime, large second floor dining room featuring historical Orange Beach decor, cozy bar, gift shop, super popular with large parties, great specials, reservations not required but recommended for large parties. Locals' secret: Stuffed shrimp ($21) paired with their famous bushwacker. Location: 26009 Perdido Beach Blvd., Orange Beach, 251-981-9268.

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Haley Laurence | hlaurence@al.com

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An Andalusia man was killed Saturday morning when his vehicle struck a tree and caught fire during a crash on Covington County 31.

William Leon Burgans, 45, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Alabama state troopers.

Troopers say Burgans was driving a 2000 Ford Ranger that left the roadway, struck a tree and caught fire at around 7:30 a.m. The crash occurred about nine miles south of Andalusia.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
The tenant of a Southtown apartment shot and killed a man who invaded his residence Friday night, according to Birmingham police.

A man, later identified as Darius Chatman, 26, of Birmingham, was found dead in the grass in the rear of a Southtown housing development apartment located in the 2500 block of 9th Court South.

Officers from Birmingham's South Precinct saw a man standing outside of the 2502 apartment firing a handgun at around 11:38 p.m., police said.

While officers were detaining the man, they saw what appeared to be blood on the front lawn and through the apartment. Officers then saw a man lying in the grass at the back of the apartment. The man, later identified as Chatman, had a bandana over his face and gloves on his hands, police said.

Chatman was pronounced dead at the scene.

Birmingham police said the preliminary investigation shows Chatman entered the apartment Friday night armed with a handgun and attempted to rob the tenant.

The tenant and Chatman struggled inside the apartment, police said. Chatman shot the tenant in the groin area.

Birmingham police said the scene suggests that the tenant then secured a handgun from the apartment and shot and killed Chatman.

Police recovered two handguns from the scene.

The tenant was transported to UAB Hospital where he is currently in stable condition.

Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call Birmingham Police Department Homicide Unit at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers 205-254-7777.
An Indiana couple is in custody after a police pursuit and theft of a Jemison police vehicle on Thursday afternoon.

The incident began at around 1:30 p.m. when Jemison police Sgt. Brandon Wright attempted to pull over a small gold Kia that was speeding on County Road 29 near Interstate 65 exit 219, according to Jemison police. The officer pursued when the driver refused to pull over.

The pursuit ended when the Kia crashed at Collins Chapel Church.

According to Jemison police, the Kia was occupied by a man and a woman. The man ran from vehicle while the officer was taking the woman into custody.

While Sgt. Wright was occupied with the woman, the man got inside the police vehicle and started traveling in reverse toward the officer.

Wright fired shots into the vehicle in an attempt to stop it, police said.

According to Jemison police, the suspect then left the scene in the police vehicle and started traveling south on County Road 29. About a mile from the scene, the police vehicle was spotted at a residence where the suspect was attempting to steal another vehicle.

The suspect was then taken into custody by other responding officers.

According to Jemison police, the couple is from Indiana. Their names and charges haven't been released yet. They are being held in the Chilton County Jail.

The Kia the couple was driving was reported stolen in Alabaster.

The Chilton County Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident at the request of Jemison police.
Vegas Strip Shooting

Las Vegas SWAT officers surround a bus along Las Vegas Boulevard, Saturday, March 25, 2017, in Las Vegas. Police say part of the Strip has been closed down after a shooting.

(AP Photo/John Locher)

LAS VEGAS--A shooting on the Las Vegas Strip has left one person dead and another injured, and the gunman has surrendered to authorities.

The southern end of the normally bustling Strip looked like a ghost town Saturday afternoon after police blocked off portions of Las Vegas Boulevard. Tourists walking down the street were suddenly approached by police officers who rushed them into buildings.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police spokesman Larry Hadfield said earlier Saturday that the gunman was holed up on a bus on Las Vegas Boulevard, near the Cosmopolitan hotel and that police officers were in the "tactical phase" of removing the man from the bus.

Hadfield said there was no active-shooter situation inside any of the Strip's casinos.

Chris Ferris, a dishwasher at the Cosmopolitan, said he was working on the second floor when a manager rounded up all employees and told them to go to the back of the building for safety. Only later did the manager say what was happening. Eventually, the employees were told to go home.

Ferris, interviewed while walking down Harmon Avenue, was asked if he had ever seen anything like this on the Strip. "No, this is very unusual," he said. "But I'll be back at work tomorrow."

-- David Montero and Kurtis Lee, Los Angeles Times
A Huntsville man accused of killing his brother-in-law is facing an upgraded charge of capital murder and an additional count of arson, authorities said today.

Keon Ronnell Jackson, 29, is accused of fatally shooting Casey Moore, robbing the victim and leaving his body in a burning home March 8.

Jackson initially was charged with murder and robbery, but police have upgraded the murder charge to a capital offense and added the arson charge, Huntsville police Lt. Stacy Bates said today.

Jackson is accused of stealing his brother-in-law's keys, phone and wallet during the fatal encounter at the victim's home on the 3300 block of East Tucker Drive, according to court documents released this week. Police have not release details about a motive in the slaying.

Moore, 36, was killed using a .380-cailber pistol, a Huntsville police investigator wrote in an arrest affidavit.

In Alabama, a person accused of killing someone during a robbery is charged with capital murder, which is punishable by the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jackson is charged with first-degree arson because he set fire to Moore's home, where police found the victim's body around 6 a.m. the day of the killing, authorities said. That charge is a Class A felony, punishable by up to life in prison.

Police detained Jackson in a parking lot near the home before finding Moore's body. Jackson called 911 around 5:20 that morning to report he shot someone, police said. He was found driving the victim's car near Blue Spring and Mastin Lake roads. He then led police to the home.

Jackson is being held in the Madison County Jail with bail set at $160,000. Court records do not name a defense attorney for the case.
Family mourns death of 17-year-old boy, after Israel refused to let him leave Gaza for an urgent medical procedure.

In 2016, Israel approved fewer than 50 percent of requests to exit the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing for medical treatment abroad.

In many cases, cancer patients who had received two or three cycles [of treatment] had their travel requests stalled or rejected, effectively turning Erez into a trap and limiting the benefit of the treatment they may receive, said Samir Zaqout, a field researcher at the Gaza-based al-Mezan human rights organisation.

Al-Mezan regularly records cases of desperately ill Palestinians being approached by Israeli intelligence officers to collaborate in exchange for access to medical treatment. Two Palestinian patients died in 2016 after being denied access, while nine others were detained at Erez after they were told they had been granted travel permits. Dozens more have reported various forms of harassment and extortion, although Israel has denied using such interrogations to gather intelligence, saying the goal was to determine whether patients posed a threat.

Below is the story of one young man whose case ended in tragedy.

READ MORE: Gazas cancer patients  We are dying slowly

Hassan Shubair is starkly matter-of-fact when asked about the fate of his son, 17-year-old Ahmed Shubair.

Instead of a high school diploma, my son received his death certificate, Hassan told Al Jazeera.

Ahmed, who was in his final year of school, died in mid-January from severe heart failure, joining a growing list of victims who have succumbed to death as a result of Israels siege on Gaza.

His father, who works as a legal adviser in the economy ministry, noted Ahmeds health had been in jeopardy since infancy.

From his very early days, Ahmed suffered from a faulty heart that required several major procedures and frequent visits to hospitals in Israel and the West Bank for follow-up, Hassan said, noting that the procedures included a successful artificial heart valve implantation in 2007, after which Ahmed was able to lead a fairly normal life.

He loved swimming. The beach was his favourite getaway, Amal, Ahmeds mother, told Al Jazeera. He was smart and excelled in class. His dream was to be able to help sick children with conditions like his, so he studied hard to be able to join medical school and, hopefully, to one day become a heart surgeon.

But in late 2015, Ahmeds condition started to deteriorate.

My sons heart was failing again, and doctors told us that he needed to replace the heart valve that he had installed nine years ago, Amal said.

Doctors at the Tel Hashomer Medical Centre in Jerusalem reached the same conclusion, and a date was set for the operation in early 2016. Ahmed and his mother went through the usual process of applying for permission to travel to Jerusalem through Erez.

But the desperately needed clearance was not granted. Instead, in late February, Amal was summoned to Erez for an interview. She had little choice but to comply.

READ MORE: Gazas crumbling healthcare system

After showing up at the specified time, Amal was presented with a difficult choice.

They [Israeli intelligence] told me that they were going to grant Ahmed access to medical treatment in exchange for my collaboration, she said. I said that I wont help them take other peoples lives to save my sons.

Amal says that she was then warned by the intelligence officers that her decision would affect her sons prospects of treatment  but the family persisted. We applied again, but  they kept telling us that the application was still going through a background check.

Months later, an answer finally came. We received a call from the liaison office on November 3 telling us that the Israelis wanted to interview Ahmed at Erez, Hassan said.

Two weeks later, Hassan watched as Ahmed disappeared into the long corridor leading from Gaza to the Israeli side of the Erez crossing.

I waited for 12 hours. When Ahmed came out later, he looked exhausted and he was afraid. The Israeli officers took away his possessions and medication and kept him waiting in an empty room for 10 hours before he was interviewed, Hassan said.

During the interview, Ahmed received the same offer that Amal had rejected months earlier, his family said.

He told them that he was just a sick boy hoping to get treatment, and that he spent most of his life between hospitals and knew nothing about the names or whereabouts of Palestinian militants, Hassan said. He never posed a threat to anyone in any of his previous treatment trips; he told them that, but this was not what they wanted to hear, so they sent him back and told him that he will die in Gaza.

Ahmeds health deteriorated rapidly over the following two months. His breathing became shallower as fluids accumulated in his lungs and body, until he could breathe no more. He died on January 14, 2017.

Ahmeds death devastated his family and friends, especially his 15-year-old brother, Ali, with whom he shared a room.

I watched him every night, fighting for every breath as he got worse, Ali told Al Jazeera.

Before he died, Ahmed told his parents that the Israeli officers had asked him one final question during his interview: They asked him, would he treat Jewish children seeking to receive treatment in Gaza, should the situation be the other way around? His answer was a straight yes, Amal said.

Ali says he now wants to become a heart surgeon, to fulfil his brothers dream.

Two weeks after Ahmeds death, the family received a phone call from an Israeli liaison officer, informing them that Ahmed and his mother had been granted permission for travel. For Amal, the phone call was too much to bear: They wont respect our grief.

For Hassan, Ahmed died with dignity and honour, refusing to spy for the enemy to save his own life.

No one his age should face such a terrible choice, Hassan said, but Ahmed made the right call.
More than 250 people have been killed so far this rainy season as floods have left remote communities isolated.

Sibhula, Zimbabwe  Musa Ndlovu, 97, Sehelo Msebele, 35, and Siphiwenkosi Ndlovu, 20, are standing at the bank of a fast-flowing river. The three women are preparing to return home after a day spent grinding maize.

But since heavy rainfall triggered by Tropical Storm Dineo, which left a trail of destruction across parts of southern Africa, damaged the bridge that crossed the Hovi River, that has meant wading and swimming through the rivers brown water.

For the women live in the village of Sibhula, a remote settlement that is home to 1,000 people, 550km south-west of the capital, Harare, and which for more than three weeks has been trapped by two flooded rivers that run parallel to it; the Hovi and the Maleme.

Malamulela Ncube, 17, steps forward as one of the women balances a sack of ground maize on his shoulder. He wades through the river to return the sack to their village.

He will do the same thing with the three remaining sacks.

As he places the fourth on his shoulder, the three women follow his lead, hiking up their skirts and dipping their shoeless feet into the river. One by one, they wade in. Joining hands, they move in a curved line that pushes against the current. At times they fall backwards into the water, but they get up again and keep on moving until they reach the other side.

Driven by desperation, the villagers must gamble with the waters, swimming against the rapid currents, to go in search of food, medicine and other basic necessities.

The army has airdropped two flood relief consignments into Sibhula which included maize grain  but the villagers must cross the river to reach the grinding mill.

A perilous crossing

The three women have each ground 20kg of maize, the countrys staple, into mealie meal. Sebele hopes to feed her family of five for up to two weeks on the cornmeal by carefully rationing it into two meals a day  porridge in the morning and sadza, a thicker, doughy version eaten as a main meal.

But once the two weeks are up, Sebele and Ndlovu say they are willing to cross the river again if the bridge has not been fixed.

People are crying with this water, they don't know what to do. The hospital and the grinding mill are on this side so we have to come or we'll have nothing to eat ... by Musa Ndlovu, the village head of Sibhula

People are crying with this water, they dont know what to do, says Ndlovu. The hospital and the granding mill are on the other side of the river.

Well have nothing to eat [if we do not cross], the 97-year-old adds. Its dangerous to cross the water like this, but theres nothing we can do, we need to survive.

She is aware of the risk she is taking. But, like Sebele, she feels its riskier not to cross.

The flooding of the rivers has also affected the communitys livelihood as many depend on subsistence farming and vending to make a living. For close to a month, Sebele, who normally sells her vegetables in Makwe Business Centre, the adjacent rural settlement on the mainland, has been unable to make a living.

The flooding of these rivers has really disabled us because we cant do anything; we cant work and our children cannot go to school, she says.

Last year we could not harvest much because there was a drought, but now we have too much water . We could not eat because there was no rain, but now weve lost a lot because of these rains. I cant earn anything like this.

READ MORE: Zimbabwes dams swell up as the rainy season ends

The local authorities routinely caution against crossing flooded rivers, but the district administrator, Judge Dube, says little can be done to stop people from taking the risk. While efforts to deliver more food and medical supplies are underway, Dube says plans are moving slowly as the emergency services, the Civil Protection Unit (CPU), are still to conduct a full assessment of Sibhula.

A more lasting solution, he points out, may lay in the building of temporary bridges.

We expect the military will be deployed so they can start putting up temporary bridges, but we dont know when that will be because the resources are still being mobilised, he says.

Across Zimbabwe more than 70 bridges have been damaged by floods and in some areas, pockets of people have been marooned, cut off by overflowing rivers. Thus far, more than 250 people have died during this rainy season and thousands more have been left homeless.

Last month, the government declared the floods a national disaster. It is seeking donor assistance in raising close to $200m to repair the destroyed infrastructure, including roads and bridges, but has so far only raised $35m of the required amount.

We were not ready

Although the government is working in partnership with local and international humanitarian agencies to mobilise a flood response, the United Nations has called for more to be done as huge gaps remain in providing lifesaving assistance to those affected.

We had two previous years of drought, but given the changing weather patterns we were expecting floods this year so we were a little prepared, but we didn't know where they would be or the level of destruction that would come with it by Bishow Parajuli, UN Resident Coordinator

UN Resident Coordinator, Bishow Parajuli, told Al Jazeera that there has been a positive response from international donors, such as the African Development Bank, which is currently conducting an assessment of the damaged infrastructure.

Other partners such as the United States, Britain, Japan and China have promised to scale up their response, he says, but emergency funding is limited.

We had two previous years of drought, but given the changing weather patterns we were expecting floods this year so we were a little prepared, but we didnt know where they would be or the level of destruction that would come with it, Parajuli explains.

We are appealing for more support and weve received a promising response, but we are also aware there are limited emergency resources and on a global scale there are serious situations in other countries as well such as South Sudan, Yemen and Nigeria where theres famine in some places.

Parajuli adds that despite the promise of a good harvest next month, the UN agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), would continue to provide food aid so people would not finish their food too quickly.

Last year, a devastating drought left up to four million people in need of assistance, according to the WFP, but this seasons heavy rainfall has meant that in some areas crops have been washed away or are waterlogged.

I dont know where to begin

In Sipepa, a hamlet in Tsholotsho District in the countrys far west, the flooding of the Gwaai River, caused by the downgraded Cyclone Dineo, destroyed crops, livestock and displaced hundreds of people.

Gladys Ngwenya, 70, lost her entire crop, livestock and furniture to the floods. She is currently living in the Sipepa Flood Victims Camp, which was set up by government district administrators with the support of international aid agencies in the grounds of Sipepa Rural Hospital to accommodate up to 900 people. She says she is thankful that she and her two grandchildren were airlifted to safety by the airforce, but she still worries about starting over once the government relocates them to a new area.

We are given food to eat here, and they [emergency officials] have said they will help us when we leave, but I dont know how; right now we have nothing. All my chickens and the maize Id planted were taken by the water and now I dont even know where to begin, she says.

Andrew Gabela, the camp co-ordinator, explains that although Tsholotsho is generally a flood-prone district, the authorities were not prepared for the storm.

READ MORE: Zimbabwe floods killed 246, made thousands homeless

But the situation is now under control, he says, and the district authorities are making plans to eventually relocate people to a safer, less flood-prone area.

We were overwhelmed when this happened, we were not ready at all. We hadnt expected so much damage. But with the help of donors, weve started making plans to relocate them, Gabela says. But for this period these people will be here until their new homes have been built.

They will need something to start over, but well cross that bridge later, its one among many challenges were trying to deal with.

At the camp, Ngwenya shares a large tent with dozens of other women and children. Although NGOs have been quick in their response, the communal site lacks adequate sanitation facilities, blankets and sanitary supplies for women.

For now, the villagers live in uncertainty about what the future holds. Much like the country itself, they can only hope that they will be able to rebuild their lives after losing so much.

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Thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets on Saturday in the besieged Gaza Strip for the funeral of murdered Hamas commander Mazen Faqha.

The Hamas movement announced on Friday that 38-year-old Faqha, a former prisoner and senior leader in the al-Qassam Brigades, was assassinated by unidentified assailants in southern Gaza City, accusing Israel of carrying out the targeted killing.

Senior member of Hamas politburo Izzat al-Rishq said the gun used to kill Faqha was equipped with a silencer.

Originally from the district of Tubas in the northern occupied West Bank, Faqha was released from serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal and exiled to the Gaza Strip.

The Islamic Jihad Movement said Faqhas assassination marked the beginning of a new offensive by Israel against the Palestinian resistance, and that the resistance had the right to respond and defend itself.
American University of Beirut to pay $700,000 for violating US sanctions by giving media training to banned outlets.

A Lebanese university will pay $700,000 to settle a US lawsuit over allegations it provided material support to entities linked to Hezbollah, US officials said.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) confirmed in a statement on Friday it was settling the lawsuit, which charged it had violated the terms of grants it received from US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The US Attorneys Office in Manhattan announced the deal on Thursday, saying AUB would be required to pay the US government $700,000 and revise its internal policies to ensure future compliance with US law.

For years, the American University of Beirut accepted grant money from USAID, but failed to take reasonable steps to ensure against providing material support to entities on the Treasury Departments prohibited list, said Acting Manhattan US Attorney Joon H Kim said.

With todays settlement, the University is being made to pay a financial penalty for its conduct, and importantly, it has admitted to its conduct and agreed to put proper precautions in place to ensure that it does not happen again.

Media training

The civil lawsuit charged that AUB violated US law by providing media training between 2007-2009 to representatives of two media outlets  Al-Nour Radio and Al-Manar television  under US sanctions for their ties to Hezbollah.

It also accused AUB of listing the Hezbollah-linked Jihad al-Binaa, also under US sanctions, on the universitys NGO database.

Hezbollah, a Shia political and military organisation with members in Lebanons parliament and government, is listed as a terrorist group in the United States and entities linked to it are also under sanctions.

READ MORE: Lebanon braced for fallout of US law on Hezbollah

In its statement, AUB said it acknowledged the accusations but it insisted AUB does not agree that its conduct was knowing, intentional or reckless.

It welcomed the settlement and said it would conduct additional training of faculty and staff on US law going forward.

AUB was founded in 1866 and is considered one of the Middle Easts leading universities.

Hezbollah funding

In a separate case on Friday, a Lebanese businessman who the US says has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah has pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges.

Kassim Tajideen, who was arrested in Morocco earlier this month, made his first court appearance in Washington on Friday.

He was ordered detained after prosecutors called him a flight risk.

An 11-count indictment unsealed on Friday accuses Tajeddine of violating the sanctions against the Lebanese group.

A lawyer for Tajideen declined to comment after the court appearance.
At least two civilians and one policeman killed during the operation at a residential building in Sylhet city.

At least two civilians and one policeman have been killed by explosions during an anti-terror operation in northeast Bangladesh.

The countrys Daily Star newspaper reported on Saturday that two civilians were killed and another 26 injured when a blast ripped through the Shibbari area of Sylhet city as paramilitary commandos and SWAT carried out a raid on a suspected extremist hideout.

A second blast in front of the hideout killed a policeman and left five others injured, it added.

Armed forces spokesman Colonel Rashidul Hasan told the AFP news agency that 78 people, who were trapped in the five-storey building, had been rescued after a more than 30-hour standoff.

Acting on a tip-off, police said they raided the building early on Friday and cordoned off the area after the attackers detonated small bombs.

The operation began at 7:00am (01:00 GMT) in the morning and is still going on, Hasan said, adding the commandos exchanged fire with the attackers who were confined to a ground-floor apartment of the building.

The spokesman did not say how many people were in the building, but police said there were at least two, including a woman.

WATCH Does Bangladesh have an ISIL problem?

The raid comes after a series of suicide attacks this month including one at a police checkpoint near the countrys main international airport on Friday night.

Two of the attacks, including Fridays blast in which the suicide attacker was killed, were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

ISIL has also claimed responsibility for a wave of killings since 2015 including a major attack on a Dhaka cafe last year in which 22 people, including 18 foreign hostages, were killed.

The Bangladeshi government denies ISIL has any presence in the country, arguing instead that a new faction of Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was behind that and other attacks.
President says Turkey may hold a public vote on whether to continue to pursue European Union membership.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey may hold a referendum on whether to carry on with negotiations about joining the European Union.

Turkey, which applied for EU membership in 1987, began accession talks in 2005. Yet, negotiations have moved very slowly due to disagreements over Cyprus, human rights and other issues.





Speaking on Saturday at a Turkish-Anglo conference in southern Antalya province, Erdogan said Ankara would likely review its ties with the bloc after a nationwide vote next month on sweeping constitutional changes.

You [Britain] have made a decision with Brexit, there may be different things after April 16, he said, referring to a June 2016 referendum in which British voters backed the countrys exit from the EU.



We have a referendum on April 16. After it, we may hold a Brexit-like referendum on the [EU] negotiations. No matter what our nation decides, we will obey it, Erdogan was quoted by the state-run Anadolu news agency as saying.

READ MORE: Turkeys constitutional reform  All you need to know

Aprils referendum comes less than a year after a failed coup attempt against the government.

Voters will decide if they want a set of constitutional changes to significantly expand presidential powers.

The key amendments foresee the creation of vice presidents and the abolition of the office of the prime minister.

The government says the changes will prevent a return to fragile parliamentary coalitions of the past, and provide stability at a time of turmoil.

But critics say the proposed changes are actually aimed at weakening the parliament while creating a political system without checks and balances, which may eventually bring Turkey under a one-man rule.
Leaders renew Rome treaty vows as they mark the 60th anniversary of EUs founding pact in the Italian capital.

European Union leaders are renewing their vows on the 60th anniversary of the troubled blocs founding treaties at a special summit in Rome designed to show unity despite Britains looming divorce.

Meeting on Saturday in the same Renaissance-era palace where six founding countries signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957, the 27 leaders, minus Britain, will endorse a declaration of intent for the next decade.

The ceremonial gathering in Rome began with an audience with Pope Francis who gave messages of solidarity in the Vatican on Friday evening.





You are called on to blaze the path of a new European humanism, Francis told the leaders.

When a body loses its sense of direction and is no longer able to look ahead, it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying, he said.

The White House congratulated the EU overnight on its 60th birthday, in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump s administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels.

However, British Prime Minister Theresa Mays absence from the summit, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and an argument over the wording of the Rome declaration underscore the challenges the EU faces.

High security

Security is tight with snipers on rooftops, drones in the skies and 3,000 police officers on the streets, as Italy takes no risks following an attack this week in London claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL , also known as ISIS) group.

Around 30,000 protesters are expected to take part in four separate marches  both pro- and anti-Europe  throughout the day in the Italian capital. Police plan to stop all traffic and declare a no-fly zone.

The Rome Declaration that the leaders will sign proclaims that Europe is our common future, according to a copy obtained by the AFP news agency, after a series of crises that have shaken its foundations.

RELATED: How will Brexit affect the European Union?

Mass migration, the eurozone debt crisis, attacks by armed groups and the rise of populist parties have left the bloc, formed from the ashes of World War II, searching for new answers.

Yet, the leaders are deeply divided over the way forward almost before they have started.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo only agreed to sign the declaration at the last minute, after bitterly opposing a reference to a multi-speed Europe favoured by powerhouse states France and Germany , AFP said.

Poland , central Europes largest economy, is concerned that, as one of nine of the EUs current 28 members outside the eurozone, it could be left behind should countries sharing the single currency push ahead with integration.

Greece , the loudest voice against the austerity policies wrought by its three eurozone bailouts, meanwhile insisted that the document should mention social policies.
Passengers decry US, UK ban on laptops and tablets in hand luggage on some flights from Middle East and North Africa.

The US and British ban on laptops and tablets in carry-on luggage on some flights from the Middle East and North Africa has come into force, immediately drawing complaints from passengers at several airports.

The ban requires that personal devices larger than a mobile phone  such as tablets, laptops and cameras  be placed in checked baggage for US and Britain-bound flights.

The US restrictions apply to flights originating from 10 airports in countries including Turkey , Qatar and the United Arab Emirates .

The British restrictions do not include the UAE or Qatar , but do affect Turkey, Lebanon , Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia .

The affected airports had until Saturday to implement the new rules.

The bans have already led to discontent and complaints from passengers at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, which is one of those listed.

This airport is so secured. The security level is so high compared to other airports in the rest of this part of the world. So, why doing that from here? Haggai Mazursky, a traveller, told Reuters news agency.

Al Jazeeras Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said the airlines were trying to limit passengers frustrations while holding talks with the United States to lift the ban.

They [Turkish airlines] believe that if the comfort of passenger is affected, it will impact the industry as a whole and the company as well, she said.

In efforts to make it easier for the passengers, they [Turkish Airlines] are offering free wifi during flights and will also launch a special mobile application in April.

READ MORE: The Arab airlines using Trumps bans for marketing

US and British officials said the decision to implement the security measures was a result of intelligence showing an increased risk for terrorist activity involving commercial aviation.

However, many observers in the Middle East and North Africa said the ban amounted to discrimination, while others questioned the basis for the electronics ban, saying they were a ploy to undermine the aviation industry of the countries affected.

If you say it like this, you are saying everybody can be a terrorist. Its not respectful. I think its not good, said one passenger at Ataturk International Airport.

READ MORE: US electronics ban for Middle East flights draws doubts

Geoffrey Thomas, the editor-in-chief of Airlineratings.com, said the UK joining the ban gave it some credibility that there might be an evolving threat, but, at the same time, the UK has not banned UAE and Qatar, which raises a lot of concern as to what this is all about.

Are you affected by the #ElectronicsBan on flights to the US, UK? How is it impacting your journey? Share your thoughts below pic.twitter.com/Gtm4QoNnGL  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 25, 2017

Some suggest that the ban on UAE and Qatar has more to do with the Trump administrations desire to curb the power of Middle East carriers, because one of the crazy parts about this ban is that Emirates from Dubai to Athens, and on to the US, is not included in the measures.

And then, you have cities that actually have security challenges, such as Lagos and Islamabad, which are also not included in the ban. So, there are questions about this that leave a lot of experts perplexed, Thomas said.

Turkeys foreign ministry said on Thursday that talks were under way to try to persuade the US and Britain to exclude Turkish Airlines and Istanbul airport from the ban s.
Gaza police say Israel and collaborators responsible for killing of senior Hamas member Mazen Faqha.

Unknown assailants in the Gaza Strip have shot dead a senior Hamas member, officials in Gaza said, blaming Israel for the killing.

Iyad al-Bozum, an interior ministry spokesman in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, said that gunmen opened fire on Mazen Faqha in the Tell al-Hama neighbourhood, adding that an investigation into the incident has been launched.

Hamas and its military wing hold Israel and its collaborators responsible for this despicable crime Israel knows that the blood of fighters is not spilled in vain and Hamas will know how to act, the group said in a statement.

Another senior Hamas official, Izzat El-Reshiq, said the killers used silencers on their weapons during the attack.

Police spokesman Ayman al-Batniji said Faqha had four bullets in his head and said Israel and its collaborators were responsible for the killing. We know how to respond to this crime, he added.

Faqha, 38, was a senior Hamas official in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when he was jailed by Israel in 2003 for planning attacks against Israelis.

He was sentenced to nine life terms but was released into the Gaza Strip as one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners that Israel let go in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit.

Shalit was held in the coastal enclave after being seized in a cross-border raid in 2006.

An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the assissination in the Hamas-run Palestinian coastal enclave, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2006.
Amos Yee, accused of insulting the islands late leader and religious groups, was jailed for weeks in 2015 and 2016.

A Singaporean teenage blogger who was jailed twice for his online posts insulting his government was granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge in Chicago ruled.

Amos Yee was jailed in 2015 for four weeks for hurting the religious feelings of Christians and posting an obscene image as part of his attacks on the islands late leader Lee Kuan Yew  whose son Lee Hsien Loong is now the prime minister.

He was jailed again in 2016 for six weeks for insulting Muslims and Christians in a series of videos posted online, but critics claim the real reason was to silence him.

Judge Samuel Cole issued a 13-page decision on Friday, more than two weeks after Yees closed-door hearing on the asylum application.

Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore, Cole wrote.

Cole said testimony during Yees hearing showed that while the Singapore governments stated reason for punishing him involved religion, its real purpose was to stifle Yees political speech.

READ MORE: Obedience and uncertainty in Singapore

He said Yees prison sentence was unusually long and harsh especially for his age.

Department of Homeland Security attorneys had opposed the asylum bid, saying Yees case didnt qualify as persecution based on political beliefs.

It was unclear whether they would appeal the decision or if Yee would have to remain imprisoned if they did. Attorneys have 30 days to appeal.

Singapore, an island republic of 5.6 million which has long been been criticised for strict controls on dissent, takes pride in its racial and social cohesion, which it regards as essential for stability in a volatile region.
Officials say the rebel fighters attacked the police as they were driving from Tshikapa to Kananga.

Rebel fighters have killed at least 40 policemen in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, in one of the deadliest attacks on security forces since a violent uprising began late last year.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia reportedly killed the police officers on Saturday and only spared those who spoke their local language.





They ambushed the policemen as they travelled from Tshikapa to Kananga, Ambrose Muwasa, a senior security officer, told the Anadolu Agency.

After capturing them, they started killing them and only spared six who spoke Tshiluba language.

Corneil Mbombo, the president of the Civil Society of Kasai, a province-wide activist group, told the Reuters news agency that the 40 officers had been decapitated.

The militia then reportedly fled with vehicles and guns belonging to the police.

The rebel group has been fighting DRC forces since August 2016, when security forces killed their leader  Kamwina Nsapu. The violence has since spread to five provinces, posing the biggest threat yet to the rule of President Joseph Kabila.

According to the United Nations, more than 400 people have been killed and rights groups have warned the military against excessive use of force.

Several mass graves, suspected to contain bodies of militia fighters, have been discovered by local and international human rights groups.

And last month, the rebel fighters attacked police only to have the army respond with fierce force, killing more than 100 of them in an act condemned by human rights groups.
After witnessing the car-and-knife attack from his office window, Muddassar Ahmed launched a crowdfunding campaign.

A crowdfunding campaign by a British Muslim who witnessed an attack in London that killed four people has almost reached a target of $37,000, which will be donated to the victims families.

By the time of publishing, more than 1,000 people had donated $33,500 towards the fund.

On Wednesday, Muddassar Ahmed was barricaded in a nearby office building in Westminster at the time of the car-and-knife attack, which also wounded dozens.

I was there and I was shocked, he told Al Jazeera. Because I saw what happened, I felt that had to do something for the victims  I wanted to raise money quickly so I launched the campaign late that night.

It was primarily to help families of the victims  it was something that could be done to offer support and empathise with the families.

Ahmed then called his friends to help with fundraising.

Two British Muslim MPs  Naz Shah and Yasmin Qureshi  have since voiced their support for the Muslims United for London initiative.

Being proactive is part of the solution

On the crowdfunding page, Ahmed wrote that he was shocked to witness the injuries and loss of life outside my window.

I reflected on what it means to be a born-and-bred Londoner and found myself proud of how security and medical services responded, he said.

The suspect behind the attack, who was killed after he stabbed a policeman to death, was named as 52-year-old Khalid Masood. Reports said he was a Muslim convert.

Some 40 people were injured in the attack, 29 of whom were being treated in hospital, according to police. Seven were still in critical condition.

Rather than just condemning the attacks, being proactive and actually doing something is part of the solution, said Ahmed.

While acknowledging that the campaign might help to show Muslims in a positive light, that was not his primary goal.

READ MORE: Seeking solace in wake of the Westminster attack

Some of Britains Muslim community leaders remain concerned about a possible backlash in the aftermath of the attack.

Following similar violence across Europe in recent years, Muslims have suffered collective punishment as some equate Islam with terrorism.

In London, police have advised several mosques to increase security.

Were in a very difficult position, the Muslim community, Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the Finsbury Park mosque, told Al Jazeera.

We hope that theres no reaction from some far-right extremists who may use this incident to spread fear and hate and racism among our society.

READ MORE: On Facebook Live, emojis and distortion

Meanwhile, religious leaders from different faiths have gathered near the site of the attack to call for unity.

To Christians, to Anglicans, who sense a great emotion of anger, that is appropriate when the innocent are killed, said Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury. It is not appropriate to be angry at a whole category of people, but simply at one person.

Woman in hijab abused on social media

Following Wednesdays attack, a photograph picturing a Muslim woman walking at the scene went viral, with many questioning her willingness to aid the wounded.

Thousands of people on Twitter shared the image, which drew a barrage of racist messages.

The Muslim woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, later released a statement through Tell MAMA, a UK-based organisation that keeps track of Islamophobic attacks.

My thoughts at that moment were one of sadness, fear, and concern, the woman said. What the image does not show is that I had talked to other witnesses to try and find out what was happening, to see if I could be of any help, even though enough people were at the scene tending to the victims.

She added that she was devastated by the attack, and at the shock of finding her picture plastered all over social media by those who could not look beyond my attire, who draw conclusions based on hate and xenophobia.

Additional reporting by Zineb Abdessadok, Neave Barker, Barnaby Phillips.
Police detain scores attempting to hold banned rally, days after president warns of foreign-backed plot to topple him.

Authorities in Belarus have detained protesters as they attempted to hold a banned rally in the capital Minsk, amid rising public anger over falling living standards and an unpopular tax on the unemployed.

News agencies reported that scores of people, including 10 journalists, were taken away by riot police on Saturday, a day after authorities told organisers the event would be illegal.

Amnesty International said on its Russian-language Twitter account that dozens of people were grabbed off the street indiscriminately. Some were beaten, according to reports.

The wide-scale detentions were also reported by Viasna, a human rights group, which said that police had earlier raided its offices and briefly detained about 60 activists.

Al Jazeeras Rory Challands, reporting form Minsk, said smaller groups of people gathered around the city after the main demonstration was blocked by police. He added though, that police soon turned up at those small protests as well.

Opposition leader Vladimir Nekliayev, who was set to speak at the protest, was stopped at the border on Saturday morning on his way to Minsk, his wife told the AFP news agency.

WATCH: Belarus  Europes last dictatorship

The planned demonstration was the latest in a wave of protests since February that pose the biggest challenge in years to President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet state for nearly a quarter of a century.

Earlier this week, Lukashenko accused a fifth column of plotting to overthrow him with the help of foreign-backed fighters. On Friday, he built on this theme, saying someone wants to blow up the situation, and they use our scumbags.

Belarus has been in recession for the past two years, suffering the knock-on effects of an economic downturn in Russia and a sharp fall in oil prices.

Uladzimir Matskevich, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera that this hardship has brought thousands to the streets, including former Lukashenko supporters.

The special thing about this year is that this protest wave has spread to small towns where unemployment is high and they are economically depressed, Matskevich said.

In these places people used to support this regime. Now the situation has changed and the authorities got frightened, he added.

Protester Lubov Sankevich told Reuters news agency that he no longer supports Lukashenko.

I voted for him, but now I tell Lukashenko  leave, Sankevich said. Im afraid, but how long we can be afraid? Why should I be afraid of prison if Im already in prison?

A tax on those unemployed for six months, known as a law against social parasites, was among the issues that first triggered the protests.

Lukashenko suspended the tax for one year in light of the backlash, but the protests have continued.

Those against the tax say it is unfairly punishes people who are unable to find work.

Journalists targeted

Saturdays crackdown was the culmination of the Belarussian authorities hardening their position on the protests.

Valentin Stefanovich, a Belarusian rights activist, told Al Jazeera he believe the crackdown was meant to bring down the momentum of protesters over the past few weeks.

I suspect that the goal is to bring down the intensity of the rallies which weve seen during the last month, Stefanovich said.

On Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) joined 48 rights organisations in calling for Lukashenko to end the detention and harassment of protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists and members of the countrys opposition party.

According to CPJ, at least 32 journalists have been detained or obstructed since the beginning of the month.

It is unclear as yet how the crackdown will affect relations with Belarus neighbours.

Lukashenko has sought to improve ties with the West against the backdrop of cooling relations with Russia.

He has pardoned several political prisoners, spurring the European Union to lift sanctions against a country once described by the US as  Europes last dictatorship.
Separatist groups vow to boycott talks with the government next week, explaining they are not sufficiently inclusive.

Malis main Tuareg factions say they will boycott talks with the government next week on implementing a 2015 peace agreement, dimming hopes of attaining peace in the West African country.

The main separatist groups in northern Mali  the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) and Platform, a coalition of pro-government Tuareg  said they could not take part in the conference, explaining that it was not sufficiently inclusive.





We cannot take part in a conference which, far from uniting, risks being divisive, the groups said in a statement on Saturday.

The 2015 peace accord was meant to draw a line under a conflict that has pitted nomadic Tuaregs in the north against the government in the south.

But the implementation of the agreement has been held up by bickering, while armed groups affiliated to al-Qaeda have exploited the security vacuum to step up attacks.

After months of delays and arguments, there had been some signs of progress in recent weeks with the return of state authority to some cities from which it had been absent since the Tuareg revolt began in 2012.

READ MORE: Mali conflict puts over 250,000 orphans at risk

In April 2012, a nomadic rebel group called the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) seized control of an area larger than France before being ousted by al-Qaeda-linked groups who imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law on the local population, carrying out amputations and executions.

In January 2013, France launched a military intervention in its former West African colony to stop the rebels southward offensive.

Despite continued French troop deployments, a United Nations peacekeeping mission and years of peace talks, Mali remains beset by unrest and ethnic strife.

In recent months, joint patrols by fighters from the various armed factions and the Malian security forces have helped restore confidence, but tensions remain high.

Earlier this month, armed groups surrounded Timbuktu, once a popular tourist destination because of its fabled history of gilded Islamic empires that grew rich on trade connecting Africas interior with its Mediterranean coast.

The armed groups were opposed to the return of state authority to the city, and no agreement has yet been reached to allow it to go ahead.
Coalition says it struck area in west Mosul where officials say scores of civilians were killed by aerial bombardment.

The US-led coalition bombing ISIL positions in Iraq has admitted that it carried out air raids last week at a location in west Mosul where officials and residents say scores of civilians were killed.

The acknowledgement on Saturday came hours after the United Nations said it was stunned by the reported deaths of civilians in suspected coalition air raids in Mosuls ISIL-held al-Jadida district on March 17.

An initial review of strike data  indicates that the coalition struck [ISIL] fighters and equipment, March 17, in west Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties, the US militarys Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Saturday.





The coalition said that it had struck the area at the request of the Iraqi security forces and was investigating to determine the facts and the validity of reports of civilian casualties.

Al Jazeeras Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq, said it took about a week for the coalition to acknowledge the air raids.

The response came after intense pressure here in Iraq  probably popular pressure more than government pressure, she said.

About 200 people are thought to have died in that strike alone, our correspondent added. These reports of a high toll of civilian casualties were first given by the civilians who actually managed to get out of western Mosul.

OPINION: ISIL after Mosul  Insurgency and rivalry

Iraqi officials and witnesses say that air raids in west Mosul have killed hundreds of people in recent days, but the exact number of victims could not be independently confirmed.

Bassma Bassim, the head of the Mosul District Council, said more than 500 civilians were killed by air raids over the past week alone.

I have never met so many people with so many martyrs in their families, Bassim said, adding that witnesses are questioning whether civilians are being targeted on purpose.

I have talked to so many people from the victims families who confirmed that there are only five or six ISIL fighters in the new Mosul area who freely move in the streets without being targeted. They said only civilians in the area are being targeted.





Nawfal Hammadi, the governor of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, said the coalition had carried out the air raids in al-Jadida.

Hammadi had put the toll at more than 130 civilians killed, but later referred to the burial of hundreds of martyrs under the rubble of the houses in the Mosul al-Jadida area.

Civil defence officials and residents have said many people lay buried in collapsed buildings after air raids against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, (ISIL, also known as ISIS) triggered a big explosion.

Reports on the numbers of civilian casualties have varied but Civil Defence chief Brigadier Mohammed Al-Jawari told reporters on Thursday that rescue teams had recovered 40 bodies from collapsed buildings.

The Speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Salim al-Jabouri, said in a statement: Whats happening in the west part of Mosul is extremely serious and could not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Earlier on Saturday, the UN expressed profound concern over the escalating civilian death toll in the battle to retake Mosul.

We are stunned by this terrible loss of life, Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement referring to the March 17 incident.

READ MORE: Battle for Mosul  Sharp rise in civilian deaths

Mark Kimmitt, a former US assistant secretary for political and military affairs, told Al Jazeera that while the deaths of civilians were unfortunate, such incidents happen in combat.

He added: Coalition forces are doing everything they can, along with Iraqi security forces, to minimise civilian casualties.

But lets be clear: [ISIL] deliberately kept civilians in this area for this specific purpose.

The US-backed offensive to drive ISIL out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured most of the city. The entire eastern side and about half of the west is under Iraqi control.

But advances have stuttered in the past two weeks as fighting enters the narrow alleys of the Old City, home to the al-Nuri Mosque where ISIL groups leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Al Jazeeras Abdel-Hamid said thousands of civilians are trapped inside the Old City and exposed to the intense fighting.

ISIL fighters have been using snipers on top of the building in the city shooting randomly at any civilians, including children, she said.

Many children in the hospital near Erbil have known to be specifically targeted by these snipers. We can see a very complicated battle ahead.

READ MORE: The day after the battle for Mosul

Iraqi government forces have temporarily paused their push to recapture Mosul because of the high rate of civilian casualties, a security forces spokesman said.

The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans, a Federal Police spokesman said on Saturday.

Its a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on.

The fighters have used civilians as human shields and opened fire on them as they try to escape ISIL-held neighbourhoods, fleeing residents said.

The UNs Grande said civilians were at extreme risk as the fighting in Mosul intensified and all sides must to do their utmost to avoid such casualties.

International humanitarian law is clear. Parties to the conflict  all parties  are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians. This means that combatants cannot use people as human shields and cannot imperil lives through indiscriminate use of fire-power, she said.

Fleeing residents have described grim living conditions inside the city, saying there is no running water or electricity and no food coming in. Aid agencies say as many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western half of Mosul.

The eastern side of the city was recaptured in a three-month offensive that ended in January, but the west, with its densely populated maze of narrow streets, is thought to pose a greater challenge.
There has been an outcry over the high number of civilians killed by suspected US-led coalition air strikes in Mosul.

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of civilians killed in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria and Iraq.

Rights groups who monitor deaths of civilians in both countries have said dozens of people have been killed in recent weeks in three separate air strikes.

Most of those who died were in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The US-led coalition on Saturday admitted to carrying out air raids last week at a location in west Mosul where scores of civilians were reportedly killed.

Several more were killed in northern Syria, when bombs were dropped on a school sheltering people and on a mosque. The US is investigating the incidents.

So, what is behind what appears to be an increase in the number of air raids against ISIL? And why has there been a sharp increase in the number of civilian deaths?

Presenter: Martine Dennis

Guests:

Mark Kimmitt  retired US brigadier general who served as the deputy director of operations and chief military spokesman in Iraq

Ahmed Rushdi  director of the House of Iraqi Expertise Foundation

Chris Woods  director of airwars.org, which tracks air strikes and civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria
The case against Assange is as political as it is legal; where does it go from here? Plus, Kenyas election influencers.
Scroll to watch part two of the interview

Turkey has been a NATO strategic ally since 1952. The country located at the intersection of east and west, has had a long relationship with Western nations.

But now  in a surprise move  it is turning to Russia to reinforce its defence systems.

Turkey is at the epicenter of every one out of two problems across the world. Thus, Turkey's desire to bolster its own defence system should not be perceived as hostility towards anyone. by Fikri Isik, defence minister

Ankaras negotiations with Moscow to acquire Russian S-400 missiles, a tool that can hit targets up to 400km away and one of the most advanced in the Russian arsenal, have raised questions in the West.

However, Turkey has stated that its commitment to NATO has not changed.

Turkeys NATO membership continues and Turkey is fully committed to its obligations towards NATO and Turkey continues to fulfil its obligations, said Fikri Isik, the Turkish defence minister.

So, the fact that S-400 missiles are bought doesnt mean that Turkey will not fulfil its obligations  This is just a method adopted to meet Turkeys needs related to air and missile defence systems.

But NATO members remain suspicious towards Russias actions.

We believe that Russians have deliberately deployed [missiles] in order to pose a threat to NATO, US General Paul Selva said earlier this month.

Russia and NATOs relationship  has become very tense, especially due to the invasions of Ukraine and Crimea, Isik says.

Turkey and Russias relationship doesnt indicate that Turkey approves the steps taken by Russia  However, the fact that Turkey and Russia are neighbouring countries and the fact that they need to collaborate in certain areas is also a reality that cannot be ignored, he adds.

As conflicts continue in the region, is Turkey actually preparing a shift in its defence posture? Or is the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan instead being let down by NATO at a crucial time when the Middle East is plagued by instability?

Is Turkey feeling threatened? And if so, by whom?

PART TWO





On August 24, 2016, Turkey launched a military operation in northern Syria under the code name of Operation Euphrates Shield.

As Turkey, our priorities are very clear for us. We defend the territorial integrity of Syria. Syria should continue as one single state. However, it should be a democratic Syria. by Fikri Isik, defence minister

The main goals of the campaign were to maintain border security, to confront the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group and to prevent the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)  as well as its affiliates Syrian PYD/YPG  the opportunity to create autonomous zones on Turkeys doorstep.

Erdogan has previously said the main objective of a Turkish incursion into northern Syria is to clear a 5,000sq-km safe zone, vowing to press on towards ISILs self-declared capital in the country, Raqqa.

Raqqa is a city, [that] Daesh [ISIL] considers significantly important, its a symbolic city for them. Cleaning it of Daesh is a priority for Turkey as much it is a priority to the world, Isik says.

The government has said Turkish forces had no intention of staying in Syria once the area had been cleared of both ISIL and Kurdish YPG fighters.

The reason for the existence of Turkish troops there is obvious. To eliminate the threats against Turkey, clean Daesh (ISIL) and prevent the dominance of other terrorist organisations in this area. After these goals are achieved, Turkish troops will withdraw. You shouldnt have any hesitations about that, Isik says.

At this point, what we specifically want to do, our most essential priority is the territorial integrity of Syria. We dont want Syria to be divided. We want a democratic Syria. A democratic Syria that reflects all the diversity of the Syrian people and the flag to fly over this land should be the flag of that democratic Syria, he adds.

On this part of the interview, we discuss the potential threats to Turkey as a result of the conflicts taking place in the region, as well as Ankaras military goals in Syria.

You can talk to Al Jazeera too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on Facebook.
CSC, a large U.S. refined sugar importer and exporter, has commenced a new packaging and distribution operation at the Port of Brownsville this week.



A large U.S. refined sugar importer and exporter has started a new packaging and distribution operation this week at the Port of Brownsville, located at the southern tip of Texas.

We chose the Port of Brownsville specifically because it provides great access from both Union Pacific and BNSF railroads, CSC Sugar President and CEO Paul Farmer said. The freight rate to Brownsville is basically the same regardless where youre coming from, whether its from the sugar growing regions in Minnesota or Idaho. Having the Brownsville Rio Grande International Railway as the local short line is also a key part of the deal.

In 2014, the port entered a partnership with OmniTRAX to operate BRG and develop the 1,400-acre GEOTRAC Industrial Hub.

CSC is one of the largest importers and exporters of refined sugar to and from North America, and began discussions with the port about the project in late 2015. The Connecticut company leased 242,000 square feet of warehousing space at Brownsville to export beet sugar to Africa, which comes from the West and Midwest via UP and BNSF railroads.

CSC expects to receive up to 25 to 30 railcars weekly. Its expected that about 500 tons of sugar daily will be packaged in 50-kilogram bags for export.

The combined warehouses will accommodate 25,000 packaged tons of stored sugar, the Port of Brownsville said.
As the hearing for Judge Neil Gorsuch wrapped up on Thursday, one theme stood out strongest: Gorsuch is not even the main actor. Rather, the starring role was shared by those in the Democratic Party, who, put simply, do not understand originalism  nor, quite possibly, even the Constitution.

It is not likely that the Democrats were looking to showcase their woeful ignorance of a judicial philosophy. Then again, this is a party in deep trouble, though you wouldn't know that by asking its members. There is perhaps no one who better illustrates this than Edward-Isaac Dovere in "Democrats in the Wilderness," written for Politico.

With all their failings, the Democrats are looking to play the political game  that is, they want to make Gorsuch, who was confirmed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals by a unanimous voice vote, look bad at all costs. This involved reminding him that he's not Judge Merrick Garland, as if Gorsuch didn't already know that and could do anything about it. To his credit, Gorsuch thinks "the world of Merrick Garland" and he is "an outstanding judge."

Almost just as petty, Democrats jumped at the opportunity to ask Gorsuch about his views, as if being an originalist meant he would be against the LGBT community. The clear winner with this technique was Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.)  and fittingly so, considering his role as an entertainer.

Not only did Gorsuch not take the bait, including and especially from Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), but he showed off the fitting nominee he is: one who has a healthy grasp on how it is not so much his personal beliefs that matter, but his judicial philosophy that guides his decisions. What Democrats did do well is demonstrate that they can't fathom having to separate the two.

On the first day, ranking member Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lambasted the originalist view, admitting that her beef was "personal." She finds uch a "judicial philosophy" "really troubling." She described how "it means in essence that judges and courts should evaluate our constitutional rights and privileges as they were understood in 1789." To prove her point, Feinstein referenced enslaved African-Americans and women.

She claimed that this view would "ignore the intent of the Framers, that the Constitution would be a framework on which to build," and that "it severely limits the genius of what our Constitution upholds."

Feinstein's examples would prove the flaws of originalism if only she had not left out a glaring omission: the constitutional amendment process. One could find perhaps no better originalist than the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia, as President Donald Trump likes to call him. Scalia was a promoter of the constitutional amendment process, which has acknowledged and enshrined the rights of women and black Americans.

What is Feinstein's alternative? "I firmly believe that the American Constitution is a living document, intended to evolve as our country evolves," she said. One can only surmise that it is up to judges to decide not merely what the law says, but, if they don't like it, what the law ought to say.

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) could also not help showing off her gross misunderstanding.

Gorsuch not only sailed through such questioning, but cleared up for Klobuchar that he is "not looking to take us back to quill pens and horse and buggies." She had asked:

So when the Constitution refers 30-some times to 'his' or 'he' when describing the president of the United States, you would see that as, 'Well back then they actually thought a woman could be president even through women couldn't vote?'

A Supreme Court nominee should not have to defend how he believes that women can be president. In the end, it worked to Gorsuch's advantage, as it showcased his likability. "Of course women can be president of the United States," he said. That wasn't even the best part. "I'm a father of two daughters, and I hope one of them turns out to be president of the United States."

Being an originalist does not require an insistence that the Constitution is not open to change, but rather an insistence that changes be done through the proper process. What it does mean is that judges do just that: they judge. What they don't do is use their own political beliefs to change the law to fit their view of what the law should be. It is not exaggeration to warn that doing so threatens the very framework of the separation of powers, as unelected judges insert themselves into roles designed exclusively for the legislative branch.

It is telling for Democrats to have exposed themselves in such a way. It could spell doom for the Democratic Party and its future, at least with their influence on the judiciary. There is another worse option, however, for generations to come, if decisions are made by activist judges who will interpret and evolve the Constitution for their own political and personal gains. In other words, a Democrat's dream.

Rebecca Downs has had her writing published at several outlets, mostly pro-life. You can find her on Facebook.
The new threat made by Iran to ignore a key aspect of the nuclear deal aimed at curbing its nuclear program is a necessary reminder of a very important issue. Despite all the probable results that may ensue from Irans upcoming presidential elections, the mullahs regime in Tehran will not lose its dangerous characteristics.

This can also be perceived as a silver bullet against the impression, put forward by the Obama administration, that the highly flawed 2015 accord will actually transform the regime into a moderate entity. While Tehran has been at the receiving end of tens of billions, any engagement between Iran and the West is a repeat of a decades-old failed appeasement policy.

Iran support for terrorism, its campaign to literally take control over Sunni governments, its increasing military posturing, the provocative threats made against the West and its allies, and domestic human rights violations have all been subjects of condemnation by the United States and its allies. With Tehran intensifying its belligerence and raising the stakes against the nuclear accord, all abovementioned factors are deepening into new perspectives.

In the latest of such episodes, Tehran is again challenging the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by raising threats to unilaterally overturn a provision limiting its heavy water stockpile to 130 tons. This is a highly sensitive issue, as heavy water is a major element used in the production of plutonium. While already twice over the limit, Tehran has now informed the International Atomic Energy Agency through a letter saying there should be no need to abide by the terms as the mullahs continue their efforts to find buyers abroad for their heavy water surplus.

There are further concerns over compliance issues with Iran, especially since signs are seen in measures aimed at rewriting the JCPOA. The IAEA remains unable to determine the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities in Iran, as noted by the prestigious nonproliferation think tank Institute for Science and International Security.

Iran is currently raising the stakes for Washington and its Middle East allies by carrying out military drills. The regimes navy is seeking to expand its exercise campaign in international waters, according to Irans naval chief, going to make claims of launching an indigenous warship, the Sahand destroyer. Such announcements are made only a month after naval drills covering a two million square-kilometer area spanning Persian Gulf waters, especially the complex Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has further pursued such behavior by unveiling the Karrar, claiming to be its first advanced battle tank, despite many questioning the legitimacy of such assertions. Testing more sophisticated ballistic missiles continue to be on the regimes schedule, many of them enjoying nuclear-warhead mounting capability.

In the meantime, Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are now resorting to the use of Iran-designed drone boats packed with explosives. Such practices pose serious threats to commercial and military shipping lines in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb strait. However, Iran understands the consequences of becoming even more involved in Yemens continuing conflict.

In Lebanon, reports suggest that Iran is establishing underground rocket factories for its offspring, the Hizballah, Tehrans terrorist client camped deep in southern Lebanon and strategically located near Israels northern borders. The controversial matter has continued for decades as Israel is known to have launched airstrikes targeting Hizballah convoys and attacking a major arms factory in Sudan.

In regards to human rights, Tehran is escalating the crackdown against any individual deemed to threaten the intense grip the regime has established on political and social matters. Troubling numbers include nearly 3,000 executions under the watch of the so-called moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, including 75 women.

As the next presidential elections are looming around the corner in May, those following developments in Iran are mistakenly -- and at times with political motivations -- sounding alarm bells that increasing U.S. aggression in the face of Iran will strengthen the regimes hardliners, increase the possibility of Rouhani losing, and rendering a new period of tension in U.S.-Iran relations.

Yet despite this perspective that has taken conventional wisdom in Washington hostage for decades, there is a stark reality that deserves recognition: it is Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who has the final word on all national security and foreign affairs. Neither Rouhani, nor any other president before him, have been anything near a moderate or reformer.

One reason lies in the fact that the regimes 12-member Guardian Council carefully vets all candidates before any elections. This is an ultraconservative body with members directly and indirectly selected by Khamenei himself. This leaves no room for even the slightest hope of change from within the Iranian regime.

Iran has a regime that has been  and remains -- completely anti-American from day one. Careful consideration and planning for the future is needed after the Obama administration provided too much breathing room for the mullahs regime. From this day forward, Tehran must be punished for its belligerence, starting with blacklisting the Revolutionary Guards, the entity behind much of the crises riddling the Middle East and beyond. This is how the international community begins to contain Iran.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio is blaming the "dynamic of hate" that he says was created by President Trump during the campaign for the brutal slaying of a black man by a white man who traveled from Baltimore to New York to "kill black people."

This is directly counter to what de Blasio has been saying about Trump since the election.

Politico:

The comments Friday on WNYC's "Brian Lehrer Show" mark a shift in how the mayor has spoken about the role of Trump's rhetoric in hate crimes in New York City and elsewhere. Last December, while announcing an uptick in hate crimes in the city, the mayor said, "You can't have a candidate for president single out groups of Americans, negatively, and not have some ramifications for that." But when asked then if the rise in hate crimes was "directly" related to Trump's remarks, de Blasio said it was "more complicated than that." Earlier this month, de Blasio visited a Jewish community center on Staten Island that was among dozens of Jewish organizations around the country targeted with bomb threats. He was joined at the event by City Councilman Joe Borelli, a top Trump campaign surrogate. Both downplayed the notion of any linkage to Trump. When asked on Staten Island if he saw a connection to Trump and the targeted attacks on Jewish organizations, de Blasio said the president's action "does not help at all." The mayor went on to say, "forces of hate have been unleashed that we have not seen anything like, in decades." Borelli said then he may disagree with the mayor on politics, but "the mayor is not my enemy, or even my adversary when it comes to standing against hate, here on Staten Island or citywide."

Is President Trump really to blame for the murder of a black man by a racist? Here's a description of the attack, by James Jackson on Timothy Caughman:

Jackson, an Army veteran who grew up in Maryland and served in Afghanistan, allegedly checked into a Manhattan hotel Friday and picked his first target Monday  Timothy Caughman, 66, who lived in a rooming house and was out gathering recyclables from trash cans  with the intent to wage a larger attack later in Times Square. Prosecutors said Jackson stabbed Caughman multiple times with a 26-inch sword. The victim was able to stagger to a police station. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. After Jackson, who police said washed off Caughman's blood in a restaurant bathroom, saw surveillance photos of himself on media, he walked into a police station and turned himself in.

Part of the liberal narrative about "hate crimes" is that they can be "inspired" by conservatives  even if the perpetrator is insane. Hence, a campaign poster created by Sarah Palin that featured a bulls-eye on Gabby Giffords's congressional district led to her shooting  despite the fact the mentally unbalanced shooter had almost certainly never seen the poster.

In this case, just what was Jackson "inspired" by? Was he goaded into the killing by the president's actual rhetoric or by the hysterically inaccurate, deliberately falsified narrative advanced by liberals specifically designed to scare the daylights out of minorities? A mentally unbalanced racist wouldn't hear what President Trump was saying. He would be aware of the interpretation of that rhetoric by the left.

The problem with de Blasio's "dynamic of hate" is that you have to look at who actually created that dynamic. You also have to judge what was going on in the mind of a man who murdered someone with a sword and then walked into a police station to surrender after seeing his picture on TV. Does that sound rational to you? And if it doesn't, how can he be "inspired" in a rational way by Trump's rhetoric?

De Blasio should have stuck with the notion that motivation for hate crimes "was more complicated than that."
Are you ready for Barack Obama's Birthday as a holiday on which government employees get a day off and schools are closed? Now that neither George Washington's nor Abraham Lincoln's birth is considered worthy of a national holiday, creating Barack Obama Day as a state holiday in Illinois would definitely make a statement. An insane statement, but when did that ever stop the Democrats?

Hoang Tran reports for Chicago City Wire:

House Bill 503, introduced by Rep. Sonya Harper (D-Chicago), would amend the State Commemorative Dates Act and make August 4, Obama's birthday, a holiday in which state agencies would close. If the date falls on a Sunday, the following Monday would be reserved for the holiday. If schools are in session, they would have the day off.

The problem is that Illinois is already so deeply in debt that each state resident is on the hook for over $45,000 in unfunded state liabilities. The depth of the sustained fiscal irresponsibility is breathtaking:

Business economist Thomas Walstrum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago examined a quarter-century's combined overspending by Illinois state and local governments, the big ones in and around Chicago included. Each of those governments wants taxpayers to think of its rising debt in unthreatening isolation; Walstrum's method instead frames all this overspending as one combined wallop with long-term consequences for Illinois taxpayers. Walstrum reports that while the typical U.S. state was spending an average of 5.7 percent more, year after year, than it had in revenue  a foolish habit, we think  Illinois governments together were spending 15.9 percent more than they had available. Imagine the compounded effect of overspending your income by 15.9 percent, year after year. Three-fourths of that overspending went to, yes, fat pension promises and other retirement costs. Another big expense: rising interest payments on all this rising debt.

Illinois simply cannot afford to spend millions of dollars each year to give teachers and state employees an extra paid holiday.

Harper had asserted that the estimated fiscal impact to the state would be approximately $3.2 million in personnel costs, which she said was about the same as with other state holidays. But Andersson argued that the cost is closer to $20 million when you add the loss in productivity. "Our analysis shows that the loss in productivity is $16 million," he said. "So, we are not really talking just $3.2 million. We're really coming close to $20 million in lost productivity and direct personnel costs." He said that a state already in a deep hole financially cannot afford another holiday. "To the $3.2 million or $20 million in lost productivity  where are we going to find the money?" he asked. "We don't have the money. We're broke. What are we going to do?"

I suggest commemorating President Obama in a more appropriate way: naming the state's bankruptcy filing after him. Illinois would be the first state ever to declare bankruptcy and would need a great deal of judicial help. Who more appropriate to name it after than the man who singlehandedly doubled the national debt?
Al Franken made a strong case for himself during the Gorsuch confirmation hearings, but in a last-minute surge, his Democrat Senate colleague Kamala Harris has stolen the crown (or dunce cap) from his grasp. The magnitude of this achievement should not be underestimated: after all, Franken is a man whose distinctive competence is beclowning himself.

With this tweet, Senator Harris has achieved some sort of immortality:

Judge Gorsuch has consistently valued legalisms over real lives. I won't support his nomination. https://t.co/7SLAOI6MXx  Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) March 24, 2017

Brian Anderson aptly sums up the message here: "Kamala Harris says she won't be voting to confirm Gorsuch because he bases his decisions on the law instead of feelings."

Harris is a graduate of the University of California's Hastings College of the Law and has served as a district attorney (of San Francisco) and attorney general of the state of California. She thus knows that "legalisms" (aka what the law actually says) are the very basis of the rule of law. When she touts "real lives," not the law as the proper basis for SCOTUS rulings, she openly endorses a political system based on favoritism, not the rule of law.

Barack Obama notoriously called Harris "the best-looking attorney general in the country"  a sin in the eyes of feminists, and one he apologized for. But I think he had her political career correctly explained: it is entirely based on feelings and superficial appearances.

For an Officer of the Court to say what she did is a scandal.

Expect the media to completely ignore it.
Time will tell whether a qualified judge like Mr. Gorsuch can get 60 votes or not. Frankly, his resume and experience should translate into 90-something votes.

Nevertheless, the Senate Democrats are under such pressure from the left that I am not optimistic that Mr. Gorsuch will get any votes from anyone with a "D" next to his name. Shame on red-state Democrats if Mr. Gorsuch cannot get one of them to vote "yes."

So let's move and nuke the Senate Democrats.

I agree with Rebecca Berg that the nuclear option is very likely:

Democrats "are in no position to ask for any sort of a deal on anything," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, citing that change. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the Republicans who has most stridently defended Senate filibuster rules, told RealClearPolitics that he would support the nuclear option to confirm Gorsuch. "If they filibuster him, it means there's nobody a Republican could pick that they could support. That means they're telling Trump they don't recognize him as president," Graham said. "... I'm not going to play that game and let them use the traditions of the Senate when they choose to and grab power when they want to."

The purists will try to defend the 60-vote rule. However, I am not alone in my frustration with this rule.

In theory, the 60-vote rule was intended to bring people together or create consensus. Instead, the 60-vote rule kept the U.S. Senate from voting one way or another on the Iran deal. It has made it impossible to approve good judges like Neil Gorsuch.

So nuke the Senate Democrats and move on.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
Earlier this month, President Trump released his budget proposal allocating $1.4 billion to school choice. On the campaign trail, he professed that states spend far more money on education than the federal government does. In the same vein, the president wants states together to contribute $110 billion of their education budgets toward this new system. In theory, this pool of money will result in $12,000 per pupil.

Despite the evidence supporting school choice, this proposal is unlikely to come to fruition due to great opposition and the current success of state programs. Opponents claim that school choice takes public money and gives it to private entities, which is true. They also claim that school choice leads to segregation in schools, which is untrue. A more palatable option for both sides of the school choice debate would be public school open enrollment by states.

Open enrollment would permit students to enroll at any public school in their state, regardless of where they live. This alternative to complete school choice would still give parents the option of moving their child from an underperforming school, while keeping public funds separate from private entities. The National Bureau of Economic Research conducted a  study on the impact of school choice on student outcomes in Chicago public schools. While this study concerns school choice broadly because studies on open enrollment  programs  are ongoing, certain portions can be applicable to open enrollment as well. The researchers found that students who attended a school with significantly higher math and reading test scores performed better. However, even those students who attended lower-achieving schools still showed positive effects.

Another argument against school choice is that it will lead to the segregation of public schools. Although seen as a possible result of school choice, public schools are already increasingly segregated. A 2016 report by the Government Accountability Office found that from 2000 to 2013, public schools with high percentages of poor and black or Hispanic students rose from 9 to 16 percent. The current system of public education is evidently not working to reduce segregation in schools. By giving children the opportunity to get out of their district if moving is not an option, their chances of attending a diverse school are higher. In a report  by the Friedman Foundation, Dr. Forster states that under the current system, if a school is predominantly Caucasian, located in a Caucasian neighborhood, even a small percentage of minorities creates the illusion of integration. He found that out of ten empirical case studies of school choice, nine concluded positive effects on racial segregation, meaning that segregation was reduced. The remaining case study showed no visible effect.

Currently, forty-six states have some form of open enrollment. These programs range from voluntary inter-district to mandatory intra-district school choice. It is a disparate array of programs; however, each caters to the needs of the state. Creating a mandatory federal school choice program will keep national government overreach in education present. Open enrollment programs in states are still new, with the oldest dating back to the nineties. However, a paper written by Ronald Iarussi of the Mahoning County Educational Services Center and Mahoning County Career and Technical Center and Karen Larwin of Youngstown State University suggests that inter-district open enrollment has shown positive results. While students in the investigation did not perform significantly higher when they switched schools, their academic scores did not pull down those of their counterparts, as opponents claim. The authors also found that students perform markedly better in their new districts than those children from their home districts.

President Trump's education proposal is overly ambitious, as many of his plans are. The best compromise on school choice is open enrollment for public schools conducted by the states. It would fulfill Trumps goal of greater school choice, without complete pushback from both sides of the aisle. School choice has been proven to be effective in improving the lives of children at low-achieving schools by giving them a way out, and it does not make racial segregation any worse than it already is. If anything, it improves it. Being trapped by a ZIP code is an utterly arbitrary way of servicing education. The various issues that will arise can be mitigated, such as shifting funds to focus more on transportation. Giving disadvantaged families the power to choose their childrens education will provide them a chance for a successful future.

Elisabeth Allen graduated in 2016 from the University of South Carolina. She has been active in both national and state politics, working as a page in the U.S. House of Representatives and interning for Congressman Tom Rice and Speaker John Boehner. After a brief stint in local S.C. campaigns. Elisabeth joined the policy team at the S.C. Policy Council, where she does policy analysis and research.
Don't worry: congressional Republicans all understand the world of hurt they are in for if they ask their supporters to re-elect them without having repealed Obamacare. There is going to be major health care reform, but working out the details turns out to be (surprise!) complicated, and turning over the new plan to Paul Ryan was a mistake, as was the strategy of narrowly tailoring the law to reconciliation with 51 Senate votes.

Meanwhile, tax reform can't wait. That is how we get the economy moving and improve people's lives before they vote in November 2018.

Donald Trump knows that you always have to be prepared to walk away from the deal, or in the current case, the House vote. The need to make a deal, any deal, hands leverage to the other side. He said so in The Art of the Deal, and besides, every competent negotiator knows it.

Now, both caucuses of the House and both parties need to face up to the slow-motion collapse of Obamacare, as premiums continue to soar and insurers vanish from entire state markets. There will be sob stories aplenty.

Democrats just could not help themselves, rejoicing on camera over the humiliation of the Republicans. They are celebrating the disaster that will unfold, and those clips will live on in GOP video ads. They reiterated their continuing ownership of Obamacare with this celebration.

If the GOP plays it smart, a continuing campaign highlighting the disasters of Obamacare, complete with victims, would lead up to a real plan for reform resting on a systemic, not incremental change, and market forces replacing entire bureaucracies. Radical simplicity can replace the byzantine system of third-party payers and regulations  universal catastrophic care combined with medical savings accounts to pay for routine expenses, for instance. For poor people, let the government put in a thousand dollars per year; that's cheaper than what we have now.

If not this approach, find other ways of getting money to people who can make their own decisions on what to buy in the way of medical care, and let the vendors compete openly on price and other factors.

Force the Democrats to tell the American people that this plan is not for them. Especially if there is the prospect of a thousand bucks a year landing in their account that they get to spend, Americans just might like an approach that puts the power in their own hands.
The following is copied from the Washington Post website, March 20:

"There's a smell of treason in the air," presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. "Imagine if J. Edgar Hoover or any other FBI director would have testified against a sitting president? It would have been a mind-boggling event."

Three days later, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a Trump-hater, put the quote on top of his column: "'A Smell / Of Treason / In the Air.'" In that column, Kristof asserted that someone who is not a Democrat claims "that there's a persuasive piece of intelligence on ties between Russia and a member of the Trump team that isn't yet public." What kind of "ties"? Kristof didn't say. Kristof continued: "The most likely scenario for collusion seems fuzzier and less transactional than many Democrats anticipate." He went on to offer "[a] bit of conjecture" suggesting more anti-Trump "sound and fury, signifying nothing."

How about this for "conjecture"? (First, consider this observation from New York Times columnist David Brooks, whose frothing anti-Trump column of February 17 included this startling comment: "The intelligence community has only just begun to undermine this president." The Democrats, during the 2016 presidential campaign, desperate to divert attention away from misuse by Hillary Clinton of her personal email server to conduct official State Department business, alleged Russian hacking of Clinton's emails and went from there to claim that Putin meddled in the election to defeat Clinton. To make the allegation believable, it was necessary to refer to "intelligence" reports, which offered "high confidence" where evidence should have been.

No thought was given to the chance that the anti-Trump machinations would come to light, because the point of the exercise was to ensure the election of Clinton, guaranteeing that the machinations would never see the light of day. Indeed, the Clintonistas were convinced that their candidate would become the 45th U.S. president.

Then comes the reality of November 8, 2016, and the first thought of the Clintonistas: we must keep Trump from getting his hands on our files. (This is not to rule out the likelihood of a great deal of paper-shredding and email-deleting.) Recall that among the first post-election moves to focus on Trump's links to Putin was the demand from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta to have intelligence officials brief the members of the Electoral College on Russian interference on the 2016 presidential election. The Clintonistas could, of course, count on their agents in the media to carry reports and columns of Russian ties to the Trump campaign  with, as noted by David Brooks, the intelligence people doing their part "to undermine this president."

Further conjecture: the hope of the Clintonistas that their avalanche of anti-Trump innuendo and smears would encourage anti-Trumpers artfully and publicly to sniff the "smell of treason in the air."

What we're actually smelling is the unpleasant odor left by Clintonistas more desperate than ever to remove Trump.

Consider, now, a curious letter in the New York Times, March 24, in which the father of an 11-year-old girl writes that she offers the idea of a constitutional amendment "to rerun an election" obtained through "fraud or treason." But there is no need to go to such institutional lengths to upend the results of November 8, 2016. Is there any doubt, now, that the left continues to hope to remove Trump?
I believe I now understand the story of the dangerous Trump-Russia connection that has received 24-7 coverage by the media and Democrats. Because of this story, the main media outlets don't even have enough time to cover the rape of a 14-year-old by two illegal aliens the Obama administration allowed to roam the country.

Last July, the "independent" FBI director, Comey, was sitting there minding his own business, and without any surveillance of Trump and his associates and without any input from anyone in the Obama administration, he decided that it was necessary to open an investigation of Russian-Trump connections. I believe there were two candidates for president, but somehow only Trump was investigated.

I believe that Putin and his team were sitting around saying, We've got to get rid of Hillary, because although Russia paid off Bill and Podesta and made sure the Clinton Foundation got tons of donations so Hillary would allow the sale of uranium to go through, Putin wanted Trump. The Russians were allowed to expand wherever they wanted with Obama and Hillary; Obama dropped the missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic; Obama did nothing about his silly red line in Syria; he and NATO reneged on their commitment to defend Ukraine when Russia attacked; and the Obama administration continually lied so it could get Iran over a hundred billion dollars to buy weapons from Russia, to buy uranium from Russia, and to help us protect Assad.

Therefore, obviously, Putin wanted to get rid of Hillary and elect Trump. After all, Obama had told Putin to cut it out on any interference in September, and that was too much of a threat. Wasn't it great in 2012, when Obama said he would have more flexibility with Russia after he was re-elected and when he reminded Mitt Romney that the Cold War is over and it was silly of him to believe that Russia is dangerous? Obama, Hillary, and John Kerry have always had an extremely intelligent foreign policy to lead from behind...so Russia wanted Trump.

By October, with absolutely no spying or surveillance of Trump, the New York Times got illegal scoops from unnamed intelligence sources about the Trump-Russia connection. Of course, there seems never to have been any concern with all the Hillary-Russia connections, so there was no need to spy on them or have any concern there. Only Trump and his people. If no one was listening in before the election, how would the stories have come out?

Throughout the release of Democrat emails, Julian Assange said they didn't come from Russia, but whom are we to believe: Assange or the NYT and all the other media outlets and unnamed Obama intelligence officials who said it was Russia?

Comey, who wasn't able to tell if Hillary and her aides had the intent to break the law with her server, somehow is able to read Putin's mind on whom he wanted to be elected despite not even having a pretend interview like what the FBI had with Hillary.

Throughout the last eight years, no one from the intelligence community, the Democrats, or the media ever did a story about Russian interference in our elections, but only now, when Hillary, a congenital liar who got filthy rich while serving in public office, lost was everyone concerned about interference, and of course, it was Trump who was the problem.

Seventeen intelligence agencies who seemed to have no idea that Hillary was running classified documents for four years somehow are able to tell absolutely that Russia hacked the DNC and that they and Putin wanted Trump to win. They are amazing.

Why would anyone ever believe that Obama would ever target his political enemies? After all, he never called Tea Party members terrorist, never had the IRS intentionally shut up political opponents, and never had the Justice Department and Democrat attorneys general throughout the country threaten legal action against anyone who disagreed with the agenda on climate change. I say never because the media and Democrats never really cared about those stories.

After being extremely secretive throughout his eight years, at the end of his presidency, Obama and Loretta Lynch reduced the classification on many documents so they could more easily be disseminated throughout the government. I am amazed that with all the accidental intercepts and the unmasking of individuals, not one of the leaked conversations or documents involved Obama administration officials, Kerry, Democrat congressmen, or Hillary. The intelligence agencies are gathering information around the world, but they accidentally picked up only communications involving Trump and his team. The only unmasked names involved Trump transition members.

Maybe if we called it profiling, the media and Democrats would care. Even the NYT admitted that the reason Obama and Lynch did it was to harm Trump. Aren't the media and Democrats surprised or concerned that only people related to Trump had their conversations released? Even if Obama didn't order the spying himself, the buck stops with him.

Obviously, no one really cares if Russia interfered with the election, because if anyone did, there would be reports on Hillary as well as Trump, and there would have been intelligence reports from 2008 and 2012, because Russia has tried to interfere for a long time. The sole purpose of these reports and leaks is that need of the powerful people in D.C. from both parties to destroy the outsider Trump to protect their power. The media are willing accomplices.

So everyone should remember that whatever Trump does or the Republicans do, they must be defeated. Democrats have always been obstructionists. They will get along only if people who disagree give in. McCain and Graham are in demand only when they trash other Republicans.

Everyone should also remember that little 14-year-old girls and young women like Kate Steinle, and all other people who are attacked or killed by illegal immigrants, are expendable and not worth telling the public about because that diverts from the agenda.

Newspapers are always trying to save time and money because their readership is going down, so I believe they should just use one headline for all papers while Trump is serving: "Trump delusional, evil, stupid; Obama and Hillary smart, enlightened, pure as driven snow." That will be much easier and cheaper than coming up with a version of the same headline every day.
You'll never guess the excuse Venezuela is using to explain why its troops illegally entered the territory of its neighbor, Colombia.

Julian Villabona Galarza reports in the Panam Post:

Venezuela tried to downplay its illegal entry of troops into Colombia this week by claiming the constantly changing direction of a river near the border accidentally led the soldiers beyond their jurisdiction.

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said the Venezuelan soldiers entered Colombia's eastern department of Arauca as a result of the Arauca River, which she said is constantly changing its flow and direction.

A diplomatic commission still has to clarify the incident, which is reportedly expected in the coming hours.

The government of Venezuela confirmed soldiers who invaded neighboring territory were part of a group carrying out operations to combat supposed criminal acts by Colombians near the border.

According to Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, the issue was addressed during a phone conversation with Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro. Santos reportedly told him it was "unacceptable" for Venezuelan troops to enter another country and raise their flag  a gesture that could have been interpreted as a violation of Colombian sovereignty.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. TANYA SANCHEZ, individually and on behalf of M.S., her minor daughter; VINCENT SANCHEZ; DANIELLE BRIZENO, Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. ROSE SURRATT, in her individual capacity, Defendant - Appellant, DANNY SURRATT; SHIRLEY SEAGO; JASON DAUGHERTY, in their individual capacities, Defendants. No. 15-2207 Decided: March 24, 2017

Before LUCERO, EBEL, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

Plaintiffs sued Rose Surratt under 42 U.S.C.  1983 for violating her granddaughter's substantive due process right to bodily integrity under the Fourteenth Amendment. She appeals the district court's denial of her motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity. We reverse and remand for the parties and the district court to address whether Rose Surratt acted under color of state law.

This claim was brought on behalf of M.S., minor daughter of plaintiffs Tanya and Vincent Sanchez, sister of plaintiff Danielle Brizeno, and granddaughter of defendant Rose Surratt, who is married to Danny Surratt. According to the complaint, Danny Surratt twice sexually molested nine-year-old M.S., who told her sister Danielle, who next told Rose Surratt, who then, with the intent of destroying evidence, instructed her son-in-law Vincent to bathe M.S., including the cleaning of her private parts. App. at 11  24, 26. At the time, the Surratts were deputy sheriffs in Lea County, New Mexico. Danny Surratt was convicted of criminal sexual penetration of a child under the age of 13, a first-degree felony.

The district court denied Rose Surratt's motion asserting qualified immunity. The parties did not brief, and the court did not address, whether she had acted under color of state law. This court raised this issue for the first time on its own at oral argument. See Oral Arg., No. 15-2207, at 01:10-02:54.

Because (1) acting under color of state law is essential for a  1983 claim, (2) Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 315 (1981) and Jojola v. Chavez, 55 F.3d 488, 492 (10th Cir. 1995), both said that under color of state law is jurisdictional, (3) the complaint is unclear whether Rose Surratt acted under color of state law, (4) the parties have not briefed or developed the record on this question, and (5) constitutional avoidance points to determining the state-actor issue before the qualified-immunity issue, we remand for further development and consideration of whether Rose Surratt acted under color or state law.

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse and remand with instructions to vacate the decision denying qualified immunity and to conduct further proceedings consistent with this order and judgment.

ENTERED FOR THE COURT,

FOOTNOTES

. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291 over an interlocutory appeal challenging the court's denial of qualified immunity. Big Cats of Serenity Springs, Inc. v. Rhodes, 843 F.3d 853, 856 (10th Cir. 2016).

. We express no opinion regarding the district court's decision to deny Rose Surratt qualified immunity.

. Rose Surratt's motion asked the court to assume she had fulfilled the under-color-of-state-law requirement.

Per Curiam
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOSE RENE NUNEZ-ROBLES, Defendant-Appellant. No. 16-15425 Decided: March 24, 2017

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, MARTIN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

Jose Nunez-Robles pleaded guilty to one count of reentry of a deported alien. After granting him a one month downward departure, the district court sentenced Nunez-Robles to 40 months in prison. He contends that his sentence was substantively unreasonable.

Taking into account Nunez-Robles' acceptance of responsibility and prior felony conviction for possession with intent to distribute, the presentence investigation report in this case indicated that his advisory guideline range was 41 to 51 months in prison. Nunez-Robles did not dispute that calculation. Instead, he requested a downward departure based on his cultural assimilation under U.S.S.G.  2L1.2 cmt. n.9 (2015) and a downward variance based on the factors listed in 18 U.S.C.  3553(a).

In support of his request for a downward departure and downward variance, Nunez-Robles indicated that he was originally brought to the United States at the age of seven (he was thirty-six at the time of sentencing). He went to school in America before dropping out after the 11th grade, married a United States citizen, and had two children with her. He resided continuously in the United States until he was first deported in February 2008. His family and friends are in this country. Nunez-Robles also pointed out that he re-entered the United States to reunite with his family and that his offense amounted to at most, an international trespass. He argued that he was not a danger to the community, had been working, and would be adequately deterred from future illegal conduct by a sentence of 24 months in prison.

The district court granted his request for a downward departure, but only departed from the advisory guideline range by one month, sentencing Nunez-Robles to 40 months in prison instead of 41. He appeals. He contends that his sentence was substantively unreasonable because the district court should have departed or varied further downward based upon his strong ties to the United States and the  3553(a) factors. We disagree.

Initially, to the extent Nunez-Robles seeks to challenge the reasonableness of the district court's downward departure standing alone, he cannot do so. This Court lacks jurisdiction to review a district court's discretionary refusal to grant a downward departure, unless the district court incorrectly believed that it lacked the statutory authority to depart from the guideline range. United States v. Norris, 452 F.3d 1275, 1282 (11th Cir. 2006). If we lack jurisdiction to consider whether the district court erred by refusing to grant any departure, it follows that we lack jurisdiction to consider whether it should have granted a bigger one. As a result, we consider only Nunez-Robles' contention that his sentence as a whole, including the downward departure, was substantively unreasonable.

We review the substantive reasonableness of the district court's sentence for an abuse of discretion, Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S. Ct. 586, 597 (2007), and [t]he party challenging the sentence bears the burden to show it was unreasonable in light of the record and the [18 U.S.C.]  3553(a) factors, United States v. Tome, 611 F.3d 1371, 1378 (11th Cir. 2010). [W]e are to vacate the sentence if, but only if, we are left with the definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in weighing the  3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case. United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1190 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (quotation marks omitted).

In general, the district court is not required to state on the record that it has explicitly considered each of the  3553(a) factors or to discuss each of the  3553(a) factors.  It is sufficient that the district court considers the defendant's arguments at sentencing and states that it has taken the  3553(a) factors into account. United States v. Sanchez, 586 F.3d 918, 967 (11th Cir. 2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Although we do not automatically presume a sentence within the guidelines range is reasonable, we ordinarily  expect a sentence within the [g]uidelines range to be reasonable. United States v. Hunt, 526 F.3d 739, 746 (11th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted) (first alteration in original).

In this case, the district court expressly stated that it considered the  3553(a) factors. And its consideration of a couple of the factors is apparent from the record of the sentence hearing. During the course of the government's argument, the district court made clear that it did not think much weight should be given to several of Nunez-Robles' prior arrests because he ultimately was not convicted on those charges. See 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(1) (requiring the district court to consider the history and characteristics of the defendant). He also considered the nature of Nunez-Robles' past convictions. See id. He considered Nunez-Robles' ability to pay the fines that he imposed. See id.  3553(a)(2) (requiring the district court to consider the kinds of sentences available). And he clearly considered the mitigating evidence concerning Nunez-Robles' cultural assimilation in the United States, because he granted a downward departure, even though he determined that not much of one was appropriate. See id.  3553(a)(1).

We cannot say that the district court made a clear error in judgment by balancing the factors as he did, regardless of whether we would have struck the same balance ourselves. Gall, 552 U.S. at 51, 128 S. Ct. at 597 (The fact that the appellate court might reasonably have concluded that a different sentence was appropriate is insufficient to justify reversal of the district court.); Irey, 612 F.3d at 1190. This is especially so in light of the fact we expect a sentence below the [g]uidelines range to be reasonable, even if we do not presume that it is. See Hunt, 526 F.3d at 746 (quotation marks omitted). As a result, the district court's sentence was not substantively unreasonable.

AFFIRMED.

PER CURIAM:
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. MARK SANDERS, Appellant No. 15-3020 Decided: March 23, 2017

Before: HARDIMAN and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges, and ROSENTHAL,* District Judge. Eric A. Boden [Argued], Arlene D. Fisk, Office of the United States Attorney, 615 Chestnut Street, Suite 1250, Philadelphia, PA 19106, Attorneys for Appellee Rocco C. Cipparone, Jr. [Argued], Cipparone Law, 205 Black Horse Pike, Haddon Heights, NJ 08035, Attorney for DefendantAppellant

OPINION**

Mark Sanders appeals his judgment of conviction following a jury trial. We will affirm.

I 1

Sanders was convicted of four crimes arising out of his participation in a theft at gunpoint of a Suzuki dirt bike. Most pertinent to this appeal are his convictions for conspiracy to commit robbery of a motor vehicle in violation of 18 U.S.C.  371 and aiding and abetting the robbery of a motor vehicle in violation of 18 U.S.C.  2119. Sanders raises three challenges on appeal: (1) the Government constructively amended his indictment; (2) the evidence at trial was insufficient to convict him; and (3) the District Court admitted irrelevant evidence. We consider each argument in turn.

A

The crux of Sanders's first claimthat the Government constructively amended his indictmentis based on this syllogism: (1) Sanders was indicted for stealing a Suzuki dirt bike that traveled in interstate commerce; (2) although the Government offered evidence that the dirt bike traveled in foreign commerce (from Japan to the United States), it offered no evidence that the dirt bike traveled in interstate commerce; therefore, (3) Sanders was convicted of a crime for which he was never indicted. See Sanders Br. 3334, 3746.

At first glance, this syllogism makes sense. It ultimately fails, however, because the phrase interstate or foreign commerce as used in  2119 is a unitary concept that requires the Government to prove only that the motor vehicle traveled in either interstate or foreign commerce.

A constructive amendment occurs when a defendant is deprived of his substantial right to be tried only on charges presented in an indictment returned by a grand jury. United States v. Syme, 276 F.3d 131, 148 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 140 (1985)). An indictment is constructively amended when the evidence and jury instructions at trial modify essential terms of the charged offense [such] that there is a substantial likelihood that the jury may have convicted the defendant for an offense differing from the offense the indictment returned by the grand jury actually charged. United States v. Daraio, 445 F.3d 253, 25960 (3d Cir. 2006).

The statute at issue in this appeal18 U.S.C.  2119provides that one may be convicted if a motor vehicle was transported in interstate or foreign commerce. So long as a motor vehicle enters the State from elsewhere, the interstate or foreign commerce element of the offense is satisfied. Thus, the Government's evidence that the Suzuki dirt bike traveled in foreign commerce did not modify essential terms of the charged offense [such] that there is a substantial likelihood that the jury may have convicted Sanders of an offense different from the one in the indictment. Daraio, 445 F.3d at 25960. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reached the same conclusion when it considered similar language in another criminal statute. See United States v. Young, 730 F.2d 221, 224 (5th Cir. 1984) (holding interstate or foreign commerce was a unitary concept in 18 U.S.C.  922(h)(1)); see also United States v. Alvarez, 972 F.2d 1000, 100304 (9th Cir. 1992) (the same in 18 U.S.C.  922(g)), overruled on other grounds by Kawashima v. Mukasey, 530 F.3d 1111, 1116 (9th Cir. 2008).

Against the text of  2119 and these precedents, Sanders relies principally on the Supreme Court's decision in Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212 (1960). There, an indictment accused the defendant of interfering with interstate commerce through the shipment of sand, but the Government proved only that he had shipped steel. Id. at 217. The Supreme Court held that this difference unconstitutionally broadened the indictment: when only one particular kind of commerce is charged to have been burdened[,] a conviction must rest on that charge and not another, even though it be assumed that under an indictment drawn in general terms a conviction might rest upon a showing that commerce of one kind or another had been burdened. Id. at 218.

Stirone is inapposite to Sanders's case. The statute at issue prohibited, inter alia, obstruct[ing]  the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by  extortion  18 U.S.C.  1951(a). Because there was no evidence that the defendant moved sand, he was convicted of moving a different commodity (steel) than the one for which he was indicted. Here, Sanders was indicted for conspiracy to rob a Suzuki dirt bike and the proof at trial showed that a Suzuki dirt bike (not a Honda sedan, for example) was stolen. See Young, 730 F.2d at 224 (Mr. Young was not indicted for receiving one particular firearm and then convicted for receiving another. The factual basis for the indictment is identical to that for the conviction.  Stirone [is] not applicable.).

We also note that the Government's proof neither surprised nor prejudiced Sanders. Long before trial, Sanders was aware that the Government intended to prove the jurisdictional element of  2119 through evidence that Suzuki dirt bikes are made in Japan and that this Suzuki dirt bike entered Pennsylvania through travel in foreign commerce. Because the jurisdictional element of  2119 is satisfied as long as the indictment charged either interstate commerce or foreign commerce (or both), the evidence proved either (or both), and the jury instructions included either (or both), Sanders was convicted of the offense for which he was indicted.

B

Sanders next cites two reasons why the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction: (1) it failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he participated in the robbery; and (2) it did not establish that the dirt bike traveled in interstate commerce.

Sanders's first argument is unsupported by the record. He is correct that no witness specifically identified him and there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. But as the District Court rightly noted, see App. 306, there was compelling circumstantial evidence that Sanders was a culprit, particularly under our deferential standard of review. See United States v. Caraballo-Rodriguez, 726 F.3d 418, 430 (3d Cir. 2013) (en banc).

The second argument is foreclosed by our analysis of Sanders's constructive amendment claim. Here again, he is correct that the indictment, jury instructions, and verdict slip all neglected to mention foreign commerce. Yet it is undisputed that the Government introduced expert testimony that the Suzuki dirt bike traveled in foreign commerce. App. 175, 296. Because interstate or foreign commerce is a unitary concept in  2119, see supra Section I-A, this proof was sufficient to support Sanders's conviction.

C

Sanders's final argument is that the District Court erred by admitting, over his objection, Officer McAllister's lay testimony about his familiarity with Suzuki motorcycles. Sanders argues that Officer McAllister's knowledge about where his Suzuki motorcycles were manufactured was irrelevant to the question of where the Suzuki dirt bike in this case was manufactured. Sanders Br. 59. Assuming that the District Court abused its discretion in allowing this testimony, that error was harmless in light of the uncontroverted expert testimony that Suzuki motorcycles and dirt bikes were manufactured in Japan. App. 296. This fact established the interstate or foreign commerce nexus required by the statute. Accordingly, we think it highly probable that the error did not affect the outcome of the case. Moyer v. United Dominion Indus., Inc., 473 F.3d 532, 545 (3d Cir. 2007) (quoting Forrest v. Beloit Corp., 424 F.3d 344, 349 (3d Cir. 2005)).

II

For the reasons stated, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

FOOTNOTES

. The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C.  3231. We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291.

. Perhaps ironically, the Government requested jury instructions that tracked the statutory language, but the District Court acceded to Sanders's request to delete or foreign from the instructions. App. 32728.

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. SAMUEL WAYNE HILL, a/k/a Sam Hill, Defendant - Appellant. No. 15-4700 Decided: March 23, 2017

Before MOTZ, AGEE, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Cindy H. Popkin-Bradley, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, United States Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, First Assistant United States Attorney, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Samuel Wayne Hill pled guilty, pursuant to a written plea agreement, to conspiracy to manufacture, distribute, and possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1), 846 (2012). The district court sentenced Hill to 480 months' imprisonment, which was within his Sentencing Guidelines range of 360 months to life. The court also imposed a lifetime term of supervised release, which was an upward variance from the Guidelines range of five years.

In his opening brief on appeal, Hill argued that the district court committed procedural sentencing error by failing to explain adequately the 480-month sentence, to address his arguments for a downward variance, and to explain the reasons supporting the upward variance in the term of supervised release. Hill also contended that the court's comments at the end of the sentencing hearing demonstrated judicial bias in violation of due process.

We previously granted the Government's motion to dismiss this appeal, in part, based on the waiver-of-appellate-rights provision included in Hill's plea agreement, pursuant to which Hill waived his right to appeal a within-Guidelines sentence. We ruled that Hill's acceptance of this waiver was knowing and voluntary and that the first two appellate issues fell within the scope of the waiver. However, neither Hill's challenge to the reasonableness of his upward variant term of supervised release nor his due process claim is foreclosed by the appellate waiver. We address each of these claims in turn.

First, pursuant to Rule 28 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the argument section of the brief must contain  appellant's contentions and the reasons for them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the record on which the appellant relies. Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A). Issues not raised in a party's opening brief are waived. United States v. Bartko, 728 F.3d 327, 335 (4th Cir. 2013).

To be sure, Hill's opening brief identifies the lifetime term of supervised release as part of the issue on appeal. But the argument portion of the brief frames the claimed procedural sentencing error in terms of the court's failure to explain either the 480-month custodial sentence or its reasons for rejecting the requested downward variance. The closest Hill comes to asserting an argument relevant to the supervised release term is his statement that, [i]t was also a violation of the law not to give reasons for rejecting a request for downward variance and upwardly depart on supervised release and use key words and phrases to justify the upward departure. (Appellant's Br. at 31). This simply is not enough to raise the issue sufficiently to entitle Hill to appellate review by this court. See Eriline Co. S.A. v. Johnson, 440 F.3d 648, 653 n.7 (4th Cir. 2006) (holding that a single sentence in an opening brief asserting a district court's alleged error is insufficient to raise on appeal any merits-based challenge to the district court's ruling). We thus hold that Hill has waived appellate review of this particular claim.

Finally, then, there is Hill's claim that the district court violated due process when, at the end of the sentencing hearing, it made two statements regarding the societal harms caused by cooking methamphetamine. While the district court's strongly worded comments conveyed a disdain for methamphetamine cooks and the serious, long-lasting, detrimental effects of methamphetamine on a community, the challenged comments do not suggest bias amounting to a due process violation. Rather, the comments reflected the court's frustration with the methamphetamine epidemic and its consideration of Hill's criminal conduct  specifically, that Hill participated in the conspiracy for four years, distributed nearly three kilograms of methamphetamine in his community, cooked in multiple locations where on one occasion an explosion occurred and resulted in serious injuries, and remained addicted to the drug himself. See Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 55556 (1994) (Not establishing bias or partiality  are expressions of impatience, dissatisfaction, annoyance, and even anger, that are within the bounds of what imperfect men and women, even after having been confirmed as federal judges, sometimes display.). Such comments are well within bounds and thus do not offend due process. See United States v. Bakker, 925 F.2d 728, 740 (4th Cir. 1991) (We recognize that a sentencing court can consider the impact a defendant's crimes have had on a community and can vindicate that community's interests in justice. To a considerable extent a sentencing judge is the embodiment of public condemnation and social outrage. As the community's spokesperson, a judge can lecture a defendant as a lesson to that defendant and as a deterrent to others. (citations omitted)).

Accordingly, we affirm the remaining portion of Hill's criminal judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

FOOTNOTES

. Specifically, the statement of the argument is as follows: Whether the district court committed procedural error when it did not adequately explain why it imposed 480 months as the term of imprisonment, why it rejected Mr. Samuel Hill's arguments for a variance, and why it ordered a term of life for supervised release. (Appellant's Br. (ECF No. 35) at 20).

. Even if it were not waived, Hill's challenge to the district court's explanation for the supervised release term would not garner Hill any relief. Because Hill did not ask for any specific term of supervised release and did not object to the selected term of supervised release, we would review Hill's procedural reasonableness challenge only for plain error. United States v. Webb, 738 F.3d 638, 640 (4th Cir. 2013). To establish plain error, Hill must show that (1) the district court erred, (2) the error is clear or obvious, and (3) the error affected his substantial rights, meaning that it affected the outcome of the district court proceedings. United Statesv. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 73234 (1993). Our review of the record satisfies us that there is no such plain error here.Prior to sentencing Hill, the district court identified and addressed itself to Hill's criminal history, his personal circumstances (including his ongoing drug addiction and early exposure to the culture of methamphetamine production), and Hill's significant involvement with the long-lasting methamphetamine production operation that was underlying the charged conspiracy. The court concluded by observing that the (Continued) imposed sentence, which included both the custodial term of imprisonment and the term of supervised release, was appropriate given the extensive and ongoing nature of Hill's egregious criminal conduct. We thus readily conclude that there was no procedural error  let alone plain error  in this regard.

PER CURIAM:
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United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JESUS SOTO-OZUNA, a/k/a NERI, a/k/a CHUY, Defendant-Appellant. No. 16-3085 Decided: March 22, 2017

Before DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

ORDER

Jesus Soto-Ozuna appeals the denial of his motion under 18 U.S.C.  3582(c)(2) for a sentence reduction based on Amendment 782 to the Sentencing Guidelines, which retroactively lowered the base offense level for most drug crimes. See U.S.S.G.  1B1.10(d); id. supp. to app. C., amend. 782 (2014). The district court denied the motion, stating that Soto-Ozuna's sentence was imposed based on a binding plea agreement. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C). We affirm.

Soto-Ozuna pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1), 846. He signed a plea agreement in which both parties agreed to various sentencing guidelines stipulations, including an adjusted offense level of 38. The parties agreed that the court was to determine Soto-Ozuna's criminal history category, after which the parties would jointly recommend a sentence at the low end of the advisory Guideline range established above (that is, the low end of adjusted offense level 38). As part of the agreement, Soto-Ozuna also waived his right to appeal his conviction or sentence, or otherwise contest his conviction or sentence or seek to modify his sentence or the matter in which it was determined in any type of proceeding, including, but not limited to, an action brought under 28 U.S.C.  2255.

Soto-Ozuna later moved to reduce his sentence based on Amendment 782, arguing that this court entertains  3582(c) motions from defendants who have signed binding plea agreements so long as the agreement expressly uses the guidelines to determine the term of imprisonment. See Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522, 53444 (2011) (Sotomayor, J., concurring); United States v. Scott, 711 F.3d 784, 787 (7th Cir. 2013); United States v. Dixon, 687 F.3d 356, 359 (7th Cir. 2012). The district court denied the motion, concluding that Soto-Ozuna was not entitled to a reduction because his sentence was imposed based on only the plea agreement, not the guidelines.

On appeal Soto-Ozuna maintains that his plea agreement and resulting sentence were based on the guidelines and that he thus is eligible for a sentence reduction. The government counters that Soto-Ozuna waived his right to move under  3582(c)(2) when he agreed not to seek to modify his sentence  in any type of proceeding.

We agree with the government that Soto-Ozuna waived his right to file a motion under  3582(c)(2) when he agreed not to attempt to modify his sentence. We enforce appellate waivers in plea agreements if the terms of the waiver are express and unambiguous and the defendant knowingly and voluntarily entered into the agreement. United States v. Sakellarion, 649 F.3d 634, 63839 (7th Cir. 2011); United States v. Aslan, 644 F.3d 526, 534 (7th Cir. 2011). It is true that this court has refused to extend broad appellate waivers in plea agreements to  3582(c)(2) motions where the plea agreement said only that the defendant waived his right to appeal [his] sentence or to contest [his] sentence or the manner that it was determined in any post-conviction proceeding or collateral attack. United States v. Woods, 581 F.3d 531, 533, 536 (7th Cir. 2009) overruled on other grounds by United States v. Taylor, 778 F.3d 667, 669 (7th Cir. 2015); United States v. Monroe, 580 F.3d 552, 55556, 559 (7th Cir. 2009). But Soto-Ozuna's plea agreement barred him additionally from seek[ing] to modify his sentence or the manner in which it was determined in any type of proceeding. And there is no suggestion that Soto-Ozuna's waiver was not knowing and voluntary: He acknowledges in his appellate brief that he told the district court during sentencing that he understood the terms of his plea agreement, including his express waiver of his right to seek to modify his sentence.

Soto-Ozuna tries to undermine this waiver by pointing to an apparent typographical error in the plea colloquy transcript. According to the transcript, he was asked at the hearing if he understood that he expressly agreed not to modify [his] sentence on the manner in which it was determined (emphasis added) instead of or the manner in which it was determined, as written in the plea agreement. Soto-Ozuna insists that he is not challenging his sentence on the manner in which it was determined. This appears to be a distinction without a difference. Even if we credit Soto-Ozuna's interpretation of the wording, he has not suggested why the difference is legally significant.

Finally, Soto-Ozuna asserts for the first time in his reply brief that he is not bound by his agreement because he is a Spanish speaker and the court did not ask him if the agreement had been translated into Spanish. But Soto-Ozuna may not raise new arguments in his reply brief. Ill. Commerce Comm'n v. Fed. Energy Regulatory Comm'n, 721 F.3d 764, 776 (7th Cir. 2013); United States v. Cozzi, 613 F.3d 725, 730 (7th Cir. 2010).

AFFIRMED
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, sent a letter of condolence on March 24 to Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, for the casualties suffered during the terrorist attacks in London on March 22, Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

His Holiness expressed his condolences to the friendly people of the United Kingdom, the families and relatives of the victims, wishing a speedy recovery for the injured.

"We strongly condemn these terrorist and extremist acts, which have no justification and is a challenge to all nations and peoples. We are confident that the compassionate UK government will do all that it can to prevent such future crimes, providing your Godly people a peaceful, secure and tranquil life.

May the Heavenly Lord bless you and be supportive to the UK and your pious people, reads the letter sent by His Holiness.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SHAWN D. TAYLOR, Defendant-Appellant. No. 16-3976, No. 4:07-CR-40032 Decided: March 22, 2017

Before DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

ORDER

Shawn Taylor was convicted in 2008 of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, see 21 U.S.C.  846, 841(a)(1). Initially he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and 8 years' supervised release, but he cooperated with the government and was rewarded with a reduced prison term of 80 months, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(b). Taylor completed that term in 2012, but in 2014 the district court revoked his supervised release, principally because of harassing Facebook messages sent to the owner of a local bar. The court ordered him to serve another 10 months in prison to be followed by 8 years' supervised release. Taylor was released again in late 2015, but less than a year later his probation officer again sought revocation. This time Taylor admitted possessing drugs including methamphetamine, and the court sent him back to prison for 48 months, longer than the guidelines reimprisonment range of 12 to 18 months. The court did not impose a new term of supervised release. Taylor filed a notice of appeal from the latest revocation, but his appointed attorney asserts that the appeal is frivolous and seeks to withdraw under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967).

A defendant facing revocation of supervised release does not have a constitutional right to counsel unless he challenges the appropriateness of revocation or asserts substantial and complex grounds in mitigation. See Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 79091 (1973); United States v. Eskridge, 445 F.3d 930, 93233 (7th Cir. 2006). Taylor did not do either. Thus, Anders does not govern our review of counsel's motion to withdraw, though we follow its safeguards to ensure consideration of potential issues. See Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U.S. 551, 55455 (1987); United States v. Wheeler, 814 F.3d 856, 857 (7th Cir. 2016).

Counsel has submitted a brief that explains the nature of the case and addresses potential issues that an appeal of this kind might be expected to involve. We invited Taylor to comment on counsel's motion, but he has not responded. See Cir. R. 51(b). Because counsel's analysis appears to be thorough, we focus our review on the subjects he discusses. See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Wagner, 103 F.3d 551, 553 (7th Cir. 1996).

Counsel first evaluates whether Taylor could argue that the district court incorrectly categorized his violations of supervised release and thus miscalculated the reimprisonment range under the applicable Chapter 7 policy statements. See U.S.S.G. ch. 7, pt. B. Taylor had admitted possessing and using methamphetamine and other illegal drugs multiple times, failing to submit monthly reports to his probation officer, quitting his job without finding another, and failing to complete required treatment for substance abuse. The court concluded that possession of controlled substances was the most serious category of violation, a Grade B under U.S.S.G.  7B1.1(a)(2). Revocation of supervised release and reimprisonment is mandatory for possession of a controlled substance. 18 U.S.C.  3583(g); United States v. Jones, 774 F.3d 399, 403 (7th Cir. 2014).

Criminal conduct punishable under federal or state law by more than a year in jail constitutes at least a Grade B violation of supervised release (though not relevant to this case, felony gun crimes and some violent crimes and serious drug offenses are Grade A violations). U.S.S.G.  7B1.1(a)(1), (2). In Illinois, possessing methamphetamine even for personal use is a felony punishable by more than a year in prison. See 720 ILCS 646/60(b)(1); 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-40(a); People v. Fredericks, 14 N.E.3d 576, 586 (Ill. App. Ct. 2014); People v. Schmidt, 938 N.E.2d 559, 563 (Ill. App. Ct. 2010). That is enough to make an appellate claim about the Class B categorization frivolous. We add, however, that under federal law simple possession of methamphetamine is also punishable by more than a year in prison for anyone who, like Taylor, has a prior conviction for a drug offense. 21 U.S.C.  844(a); Wheeler, 814 F.3d at 85758; United States v. Trotter, 270 F.3d 1150, 1151 (7th Cir. 2001). It follows that an appellate challenge to the policy-statement range of 12 to 18 months in prison likewise would be frivolous given Taylor's criminal history category of IV. See U.S.S.G.  7B1.4(a).

Counsel next considers whether Taylor could argue that the district court overstated the maximum term of reimprisonment allowed by statute. In Taylor's underlying case, the sentencing court found that the conspiracy had involved 472 grams of a substance containing methamphetamine. That quantity, coupled with an enhancement under 21 U.S.C.  851 based on Taylor's previous conviction for a felony drug offense, yielded a statutory maximum of life imprisonment. 21 U.S.C.  841(b)(1)(B). The prospect of a life sentence made the underlying crime a Class A felony. 18 U.S.C.  3559(a)(1), thus allowing for another 5 years in prison after revocation of Taylor's 8-year term of supervised release, id.  3583(e)(3); United States v. Ford, 798 F.3d 655, 661 (7th Cir. 2015). The district court's imposition of a 48-month term of imprisonment was thus within the statutory limit.

Counsel finally questions whether Taylor could argue that the district court imposed an unreasonable term of reimprisonment since it is significantly higher than the Chapter 7 range. While a district judge must consider policy statements, the recommended range is not binding. United States v. Pitre, 504 F.3d 657, 664 (7th Cir. 2007); United States v. Carter, 408 F.3d 852, 854 (7th Cir. 2005). In most revocation proceedings the district court must also consider the pertinent factors listed in 18 U.S.C.  3553(a), see 18 U.S.C.  3583(e); Brown, 823 F.3d at 394; although we have not decided whether this is true for a mandatory revocation, see United States v. DuPriest, 794 F.3d 881, 885 n.3 (7th Cir. 2015); Jones, 774 F.3d at 404. The district judge did discuss information relevant to the  3553(a) factors, however, after acknowledging the policy-statement range, but then decided that Taylor should be reimprisoned above that range. The judge reasoned that supervision had been ineffective for Taylor, noting that Taylor was treated with leniency at his first revocation when instead he could have been reimprisoned above the policy-statement range in light of his sentence reduction under Rule 35(b). See U.S.S.G.  7B1.4 cmt. n.4; United States v. Clay, 752 F.3d 1106, 1109 (7th Cir. 2014). The court added that Taylor posed a danger to the community based on his history of defiance and verbal abuse toward authority figures. Thus, it would be frivolous to claim that the court abused its discretion. See Clay, 752 F.3d at 1109; United States v. Neal, 512 F.3d 427, 43839 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. Bungar, 478 F.3d 540, 54446 (3d Cir. 2007).

Accordingly, we GRANT the motion to withdraw and DISMISS the appeal.

David R. Herndon, Judge.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. PETAR B. YUSEV and KATERINA G. YUSEVA, Petitioners, v. JEFF SESSIONS, Attorney General of the United States, espondent. Nos. 16-1338 Decided: March 23, 2017

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Petar Yusev and his wife, Katerina Yu-seva, have lived in the United States since 2005. They managed this by overstaying their initial one-year non-immigrant visas. On August 16, 2007, some 18 months after their initial entry, they applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). They are citizens of Bulgaria, since 2007 a Member State of the European Union, but they belong to its Macedonian minority and assert that they have been persecuted on that basis. First an immigration judge, and later the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or Board), turned down their requests. The petitions for review now before us challenge the Board's refusal to reopen their case based on their attorney's alleged ineffectiveness, and its refusal to reconsider the ruling on the motion to reopen. Finding no abuse of discretion in either of the Board's decisions, we deny the petitions for review.

I

In their original petitions for asylum and related relief, the Yusevs asserted that they had been members of the United Macedonian Organization Ilinden (UMOI), a party devoted to the rights of ethnic Macedonians (though characterized by the Bulgarian Constitutional Court as a separatist party that could be, and was, banned). They testified about two occasions on which the police assaulted them. In addition, they asserted, the police came looking for them at their home in 2006 and were still looking as of 2007. They also submitted reports detailing Bulgaria's poor treatment of Macedonians. An immigration judge (IJ) denied all relief in a 2013 decision. The judge found that they had missed the one-year deadline for filing an asylum application, 8 U.S.C.  1158(a)(2)(B), and that their tardiness was not excused by changed circumstances in Bulgaria or other extraordinary circumstances, id.  1158(a)(2)(D). The judge denied their request for withholding and CAT protection on the merits, finding that their experiences did not meet the test for past persecution, nor did they support a finding of likely persecution in the future. The BIA affirmed and denied their motion for reconsideration. See Yusev v. Lynch, 643 F. App'x 603 (7th Cir. 2016) (Yusev I).

While the Yusevs were pursuing their petition for review from the denial of their motion for reconsideration in Yusev I, they also were proceeding along a second track. Represented by their current counsel, Daniel Thomann, they filed a motion with the Board to reopen the proceedings based on their first lawyer's ineffectiveness. The Board found the motion to reopen untimely, and it rejected the argument that counsel's ineffectiveness excused the delay. Once again, the Yusevs filed a motion to reconsider, and once again, that motion was denied. They have now filed two petitions for review, one from the denial of reopening and one from the refusal to reconsider. Our review of both these decisions is deferential; we may grant relief only if the Board abused its discretion. Reyes-Cornejo v. Holder, 734 F.3d 636, 647 (7th Cir. 2013); El-Gazawy v. Holder, 690 F.3d 852, 857 (7th Cir. 2012).

II

A

We turn first to the Board's denial of the motion to reopen filed by Attorney Thomann on September 1, 2015. This motion was based on the alleged ineffectiveness of the Yusevs' prior counsel, Alexander Vrbanoff. Non-citizens facing removal are allowed to file one motion to reopen within 90 days of a final order of removal. 8 U.S.C.  1229a(c)(7)(A), (C)(i). In the Yusevs' case, the Board affirmed the original IJ's decision ordering removal through an order dated April 7, 2015. Muddying the waters slightly is the fact that this was not the Board's last word on their original appeal. Instead, on June 17, 2015, the Board partially reopened their case to reinstate the privilege of voluntary departure. It did so because Vrbanoff had forgotten to submit proof of their payment of a voluntary departure bond; they actually had paid, and so the Board corrected its earlier decision in this minor respect.

The Yusevs argue that their 90-day period for the motion to reopen did not begin running until June 17. If that were true, then their motion would have been timely, as it was filed on September 2, 2015. But that is not the way things work. In Sarmiento v. Holder, 680 F.3d 799 (7th Cir. 2012), we joined the Fifth and Ninth Circuits in holding that motions to reopen must be filed within 90 days of the specific proceeding being challenged, which here is the Board's April 7, 2015 order affirming the IJ's decision to require removal. Id. at 802 (emphasis added). That is the order to which the Yusevs object; they have no quarrel with the Board's decision to reinstate voluntary departure on June 17. See also El-Gazawy, 690 F.3d at 859. If the Yusevs' proposed rule were to be adopted, we might as well write the time limits out of the statute. Any petitioner wanting some extra time could just file a new motion to reconsider and have the clock reset. This is a position we cannot accept. As we noted in Almutairi v. Holder, 722 F.3d 996 (7th Cir. 2013), an order from the BIA resolving everything except an issue relating to voluntary departure qualifies as a final decision. Id. at 1001. The Board thus committed no error when it concluded that the September 2, 2015 motion to reopen was untimely.

That brings us to the question whether the Board abused its discretion in concluding that nothing excused the late filing. In principle, equitable tolling can excuse this kind of failure. Yuan Gao v. Mukasey, 519 F.3d 376, 377 (7th Cir. 2008). One reason that might support equitable tolling is ineffective assistance of counsel. El-Gazawy, 690 F.3d at 859. But this is not easy to demonstrate in an immigration proceeding: whatever right to effective counsel exists is present only because of the immigration statutes, and ultimately the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; the more familiar Sixth Amendment right is inapplicable because it is limited to criminal proceedings.

Equitable tolling based on counsel's performance requires, at a minimum, that the petitioner show that he exercised due diligence in seeking relief and that he suffered prejudice as a result of the lawyer's deficient performance. Id. The due diligence requirement is satisfied if the petitioner can show that he could not reasonably have been expected to file earlier. Id. Prejudice is established if the error likely affected the result of the proceedings. Alimi v. Gonzales, 489 F.3d 829, 834 (7th Cir. 2007).

The Yusevs' showing falls short on both these points. Through Attorney Thomann, they filed a motion to reconsider on May 8, 2015, 31 days after the Board's April 7 decision. That motion briefly mentions that the Yusevs intended to pursue an ineffectiveness claim against Vrbanoff and that they were investigating the issue. This was too tentative to be of any help. Moreover, the only actions they eventually took toward this end were to send Vrbanoff a rather general letter expressing displeasure with his performance and to submit a complaint to the Illinois bar after the deadline for the motion to reopen had expired. The Board was not required to view this as the diligence it has a right to expect.

Their showing of prejudice was no better. The crux of their complaint against Vrbanoff was that he had failed to introduce additional evidence that they believe would have tipped the balance in their favor. Here is what they contend Vrbanoff should have added:

 State Department country reports for Bulgaria for 2005, 2006, and 2007

 Reports from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (a local human rights group) from 2007, 2013, and 2014

 A United Nations report from 2011

 A case from the European Court of Human Rights from 2005

These documents do no more than repeat the message that was already before the Board in the evidence that Vrbanoff did introduce. That message was that Macedonians are not a state-recognized ethnicity; that they are barred from forming ethnic pressure groups; and that they face discrimination as well as occasional police harassment. The Board's April 7 decision reflects its awareness of these arguments and thus reinforces the fact that the absence of the new evidence did not prejudice the Yusevs.

Oddly, the Yusevs also argue that Vrbanoff was ineffective because he failed to argue that Bulgaria's accession to the European Union in 2007 constituted a changed circumstance for the worse and thus supported their tardy claims. We have trouble taking this seriously, given the fact that citizens of every Member State of the European Union, including now Bulgaria, are free to move to any other State, see Romania and Bulgaria EU Migration Restrictions Lifted, BBC NEWS (Jan. 1, 2014), http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25565302. They also enjoy the full panoply of rights under both the treaties underlying the EU and the European Human Rights Convention. In any event, there is no evidence that the situation in Bulgaria changed for the worse after its accession to the EU. The UMOI was banned in 2000, remained banned while Bulgaria was moving through the accession process, and is still outlawed today. The police have harassed Macedonians throughout the relevant period. The Board was well within its rights to reject this argument.

B

We have little to add with respect to the Yusevs' motion to reconsider the Board's denial of their untimely motion to reopen. As we noted earlier, we review this decision only for abuse of discretion. A motion to reconsider must alert the Board to additional legal arguments, a change in law, or something that was overlooked in its earlier decision. See In re OS-G-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 56 (BIA 2006); Khan v. Holder, 766 F.3d 689, 696 (7th Cir. 2014). The Yusevs' motion did none of these things; it merely reiterated the points they had made in their earlier submissions. Nothing the Yusevs presented with the motion to reconsider the motion to reopen cured the defects to which the Board had pointed.

We end with a word about the Yusevs' effort to attack the Board's decision not to use a three-member panel in their case. We addressed and rejected this argument in Yusev I, where we noted that the relevant regulations give Board members discretion to refer an appeal to a three-member panel in six different circumstances, but referral is not required. 643 F. App'x at 603, (citing 8 C.F.R.  1003.1(e)(6)); Ward v. Holder, 632 F.3d 395, 39899 (7th Cir. 2011). The contention has not improved with time or reiteration. The Board did not abuse its discretion when it chose in this case to proceed with a single judge.

We have considered the other arguments the Yusevs have presented and find no merit in them. The petitions for review are therefore DENIED.

WOOD, Chief Judge.
Drivers find scheme expensive following cut in incentives; Incomes dropped following high signup.

The incentives  from free smartphones to cash bonuses  meant drivers could earn as much as Rs 1,20,000 a month.

New Delhi: Global ride-hailing firm Uber is rethinking its car leasing strategy in India as drivers have returned dozens of leased cars early after the company cut incentives, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Uber had planned to buy 15,000 new cars last year and lease them out in a bid to attract more drivers  a strategy it has used in other markets  but it suspended the scheme for a while in December after leasing just a third of that total.

After burning through millions of dollars over three years in a battle for market share with local rival Ola, backed by Japans Softbank, Uber has cut the incentives it gives to drivers and raised the fares it charges passengers.

The incentives  from free smartphones to cash bonuses  meant drivers could earn as much as Rs 1,20,000 a month.

Those incentive payments have been pared back, in some cases to as little as 10 per cent of fare income. Ride fares have risen to Rs 1.5 per minute of travel from Rs 1.

The incentives and the scheme aimed at drivers without their own cars, boosted Ubers driver numbers, helping it rapidly gain around 30 per cent market share.

Uber has faced challenges elsewhere in Asia, but the stakes are high in Indias $12 billion taxi market, a key area after it exited China last year, and one where CEO Travis Kalanick has said it expects to be profitable soon.

Uber has said its services are in 29 Indian cities and it has more than 2,50,000 drivers on its platform, but it lags Ola, which says it operates in more than 100 cities with about 5,50,000 drivers.

Two people with knowledge of the matter said Uber miscalculated the impact that the reduced incentives would have on drivers earnings, especially those making lease payments.

At an open meeting for staff in December, around the time the incentives were being reduced, Ubers India boss Amit Jain said the buying-for-lease scheme was being temporarily suspended while the firm evaluated its strategy, one of the sources said.

Uber did not comment on Reuters queries related to Mr Jains announcement or the impact of the incentives cuts on its leasing program.

Raj Beri, business head for leasing in India, said the scheme was set up to help drivers without cars get on its platform and make money. We are very pleased with our progress toward this goal so far, and look forward to introducing the opportunity to more prospective driver partners this year, he said.

In a recent post on the website, Mr Jain defended the cuts to incentives and signaled a strategic shift for India. We can shift from start-up mode to a more sustainable business model, he wrote.

Leasing is only a small part of Ubers overall supply, but is seen as a way to lock drivers on to its platform for longer.

To lease a new small car through Ubers scheme, drivers pay a Rs 33,000 deposit  less than what they would pay to buy a car from a dealer with a bank loan. But weekly payments of about Rs 5,500 over 3 years add up to nearly double what drivers would pay to service a car loan. That wasnt an issue when incentives were high.

Several drivers said they feel trapped as a surge in the number of cars on Uber platform has led to fewer rides making it harder to keep up lease payments.

When Reuters phoned Xchange Leasing, Ubers local leasing arm, officials said that no new cars were currently being leased out. One said the priority was to lease those cars returned by drivers, and it could be 2-3 months before new cars would again be offered.
Reliance Industries has been directed to disgorge the amount, along with interest within 45 days.

The case related to alleged fraudulent trading in the F&O space in the securities of RILs erstwhile listed subsidiary Reliance Petroleum.

New Delhi: Sebi on Friday banned Reliance Industries and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year and directed the Mukesh Ambani-led firm to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore for alleged fraudulent trading in a 10-year-old case.

An RIL company spokesperson said it will challenge the order in the 10-year old case.

Reliance Industries has been asked to disgorge Rs 447 crore, along with an annual interest of 12 per cent since November 29, 2007, which itself would be more than Rs 500 crore, taking the total disgorgement amount to nearly Rs 1,000 crore.

The case related to alleged fraudulent trading in the F&O space in the securities of RILs erstwhile listed subsidiary Reliance Petroleum.

In a 54-page order passed by Sebis whole-time member G. Mahalingam, RIL and 12 other entities have been prohibited from dealing in the equity derivatives in the F&O segment of stock exchanges, directly or indirectly. The ban will be in place for one year from March 24.

Reliance Industries has been directed to disgorge the amount, along with interest within 45 days.

Mahalingam said the directions are being passed after taking into consideration the magnitude of the fraud across the markets.

I am inclined to pass certain directions against the noticees in order to protect the interest of the investors and reinstil their faith in the regulatory system, the order said. The noticees may, however, square off or close out their existing open positions.

The Reliance Industries group had earlier sought to settle the case, but the capital markets regulator had rejected the proposal.

The proceedings in the long-pending case were expedited in the last few months.
The PE was registered based on a complaint filed by the vigilance department of the Delhi government.

New Delhi: Two parties and their leaders, who had been gunning for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the Assembly polls, could be headed for major trouble as the CBI is all set to tighten its noose around them.

The CBI is all set to step up investigations on both the Trinamool Congress and the AAP. While a majority of TMC MPs are allegedly involved in the Narada scam, the CBI has begun looking into Delhis deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, for alleged corruption.

Sources said that with the Supreme Court recently refusing to stay the CBI probe into the Narada sting operation case in which several TMC leaders were allegedly caught on camera taking money, the agency may soon register a case to probe the matter.

If the CBI does file the FIR, all the accused Trinamool leaders are likely to be called in for questioning, sources said.

The SC took on record an unqualified apology tendered by the West Bengal counsel, and dismissed the special leave petition (SLP) as withdrawn.

Meanwhile, the CBI is all set to seek clarification from certain officials of the Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia as part of its preliminary enquiry registered against him.

The agency recently registered a PE against Mr Sisodia to probe the alleged irregularities committed in awarding social media campaign Talk to AK contract to a private firm.

The PE was registered based on a complaint filed by the vigilance department of the Delhi government.

There are allegations that a consultant of a well-known public relations company was hired by the Delhi government to promote the campaign.
It was his first visit to his hometown after he became the CM of Indias largest and most politically crucial state a week ago.

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath Yogi asserted in his first public address after being sworn in that his government would not appease any caste, religious group or community.

Addressing a gathering in Gorakhpur on Saturday, the saffron-robed priest-politician, whose ascent to power is viewed with suspicion by some sections, also sought to assure the people of the state that there would not be any discrimination on the basis of caste, religion or gender.

It was his first visit to his hometown after he became the CM of Indias largest and most politically crucial state a week ago. Diyas were lit and chants of Yogi, Yogi rent the air as his convoy travelled. The Gorakhnath temple, of which he is the head priest, was decorated with flowers and lights to welcome him.

The CM, known for his Hindutva brand of politics, announced a subsidy of Rs 1 lakh to pilgrims for the Kailash Mansarover Yatra and ended his address with Jai Shri Ram that evoked a resounding applause.

He said that for the past 15 years UP had been deprived of the benefits of development and that he had taken on the responsibility of ensuring a balanced development of all 22 crore people of the state.

My effort will be to ensure that development reaches the last man in the line, he said, invoking Prime Minister Narendra Modis slogan, Sabka saath, sabka vikas.

PM Modis development schemes are being made available to all citizens. He laid the foundation for a fertilizer company and an AIIMS hospital, he said.

He told BJP cadres and supporters not to be over-zealous in celebrating the partys historic poll victory and not to take the law into their hands as it could provide anarchist forces a chance to disturb law and order.

The CM spoke about the now-controversial anti-Romeo squads he has set up to stop harassment of girls and women, saying that he has given clear instructions that couples sitting together with each others consent should not be harassed.

The chief minister touched upon another sensitive issue and clarified that only legal slaughterhouses would be allowed to function and all others would be shut as per the directives of the National Green Tribunal.
Singh said that Pakistan border would be sealed by 2018, in the wake of the increase in infiltration attempts.

Gorakhpur: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh soon.

"India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh as soon as possible. This could be India's major step against terrorism and the problem of refugees," he said in his address at the passing out parade of the Border Security Force Assistant Commandants at the BSF Academy in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Singh further said that the border with Pakistan would be sealed by 2018, adding this decision has been taken in the wake of the increase in infiltration attempts.

"The project will be periodically monitored by the Home Secretary at the Central-level, the BSF from the security forces' perspective and the Chief Secretaries at the state-level," Singh said, adding that the government would apply technological solutions for sealing the border in difficult terrains.

Lauding the BSF personnel, the Home Minister stated that the force has changed the rules of engagement at international borders which have made it a known entity in the neighbouring countries.

"The BSF has changed rules of engagement at international borders. Now, the BSF is a known entity even in neighbouring countries," Singh said.

Singh also spoke about the planning for an effective grievances redressal mechanism in the forces which will be implemented soon.

"We are planning for an effective grievances redressal mechanism in the forces. The forces are coming forward with such mechanism," said Singh.

After the passing out parade, the Home Minister signed the visitors' book at the BSF academy.

He also visited the national training centre for dogs at the BSF Academy.
Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.

New Delhi: Eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi civic polls, BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the AAP alleging that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson.

Addressing BJP workers ahead of the MCD elections, Shah referred to party's victories in the recent Assembly polls and said a win the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the national capital.

Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in "saffron", Delhi continues to remain a "white spot" and asked the party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the civic polls.

"After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps and so that the BJP's victory flag is unfurled in the national capital," he said.

Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.

"The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by CBI. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers, street lights.

"A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequer's money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements," Shah said.

The BJP President contrasted his party's "clean record" in governance with the AAP's "tainted" tenure, saying many of its legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and "rape".

He also dared Kejriwal to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges.

"This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls," Shah said, and appealed to party activists to work hard for the elections as it was Delhi where the then Jana Sangh, BJP's predecessor, came to power first.

Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel as well as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari were present at the event.

Shah also referred to the anti-terror surgical strike undertaken last year, saying the armed forces "barged" into Pakistan to avenge the killing of soldiers in Uri last year.
While Mulayam chose not to attend, Shivpal was not even invited.

Lucknow: The national executive of the Samajwadi Party was held here on Saturday to take stock of the partys stunning defeat in the state elections.

The executive meet was presided over by SP president Akhilesh Yadav, but party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his younger brother Shivpal Yadav chose to stay away from the meeting.

Sources said that Mulayam Singh Yadav was invited, but he did not attend while Shivpal Yadav was not even invited.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav later told reporters that elections would be held for various party posts soon, and that the election of the national president would be completed by September 30. He said that the party would start a fresh membership drive from April 15. The meeting also decided to spruce up its organisational structure.

The Samajwadi Party had 229 members in the 16th Assembly, but after the recent elections, the partys strength has been reduced to 47.

Meanwhile, replying to a question, Mr Akhilesh Yadav said that the Adityanath Yogi government had not done any work till now except targeting the youth through its anti-Romeo squads and taking action against officers and employees belonging to one particular caste.

And yes, they are also making officers sweep the floors. I did not know that bureaucrats and government employees can do this work so well, he said.

He said that he was not upset over leaving the official chief ministers residence at 5, Kalidas Marg, but was concerned about the well-being of three peacocks that had started living there during his tenure. He said that the lions in Etawah Safari were also hungry because there was no meat for them.

I have heard that the residence has been purified and cows are being brought in. I hope they take care of the peacocks too, he said.

Replying to another question, he said that if some parties were raising questions over the tampering of EVMs, there was no harm in ordering a probe into this.

The former chief minister said that he would analyse the Assembly results in every Assembly segment and would meet the media only once a month.
The BJP needs to win Delhi civic polls not just to score a hat-trick, but to deliver a body blow to AAP.

New Delhi: With Uttar Pradesh in its pocket and after their stupendous success in Maharashtra and Odisha civic polls, the BJP has now shifted its focus on the next major electoral clash due later this month  municipal polls in Delhi.

With the Congress not in the reckoning, the fight for the 272 Municipal Corporation of Delhi seats is between the BJP and the AAP. Addressing a mammoth rally at Ramlila Grounds on Saturday, BJP chief Amit Shah, his eyes firmly on the MCD polls slated for April 23, told party workers, This is not just an MCD election but an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls.

AAP supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejirwal, aware that a defeat in Delhis civic polls would sound the death knell for his party, promised to abolish house tax on residential properties if voted power in the MCD polls.

The BJP needs to win Delhi civic polls not just to score a hat-trick, but to deliver a body blow to AAP. For AAP, which is still reeling from the crushing blows it suffered in Punjab and Goa, a defeat is bound to lead to an existential crisis.

While Mr Kejriwal spoke of his governments achievements in providing water and bringing down electricity tariff at a press conference, Mr Shah spoke of the BJPs victories in the recently concluded Assembly polls.

The BJP chief, who intends to paint the entire nation saffron, said Delhi remains a white spot. Exhorting BJP workers to work hard as a victory in the civic polls would put the party on the path to capturing Delhi, he thundered, BJP has won everywhere except Delhi and Bihar. Our workers should now resolve to unfurl the victory flag in Delhi.

Blazing guns and amidst chants of Modi, Modi, Mr Shah accused the AAP leaders of indulging in corruption.

The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party. Kejriwals principal secretary was arrested by the CBI. There was corruption in procuring onions, water tankers and street lights, and in appointments at the DCW, Mr Shah said and also brought up an AAP ministers alleged involvement in hawala transactions.

In a reference to AAP trying to make inroads into Gujarat, the BJP chief mocked the party. First they went to Varanasi to take on the Prime Minister, then to Punjab and Goa. This party will set a record of defeats, the BJP president said.

Of the 272 MCD seats, the BJP won 142 in 2012.
One of the attackers was also injured in the cross firing, but they managed to flee from the spot.

New Delhi: A 28-year-old man was allegedly shot dead in a suspected gang war near V3S mall in east Delhi's Preet Vihar area.

The incident happened on the intervening night of March 23 and 24.

Vishal Suri, a resident of southwest Delhi's Uttam Nagar, had gone out for dinner at a restaurant near V3S mall in Preet Vihar with three friends. He remained sitting in his car, while his friends went to buy paranthas.

Meanwhile, three persons arrived in a car bearing an Uttar Pradesh registration number. Following an argument, they pulled Suri out of his car and pumped bullets into him, police said.

On hearing gunshots, his friends came out of the restaurant and opened fire at the attackers.

One of the attackers was also injured in the cross firing, but they managed to flee from the spot.

Police was informed and the victim was rushed to the hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Suri was allegedly facing charges of robbery and attempt to murder.

A police officer said one of the attackers, Nishant, had a rivalry with Suri over surpermacy of their gambling business.
The mother of the girl was aware of her partners misdeeds, but chose to remain silent.

Officials said that the incident came to light after the girls classmate reported the matter. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: With the intervention of the Delhi Commission for Women, an FIR has been registered against a man for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. The man was in a live-in relationship with the girls mother. Officials said that the incident came to light after the girls classmate reported the matter.

The 181 women helpline of the DCW received a call from a woman that her daughters classmate was being sexually assaulted by her mothers live-in partner. The mother of the girl was aware of her partners misdeeds, but chose to remain silent. The incident came to light only after intervention of the girls classmate and her mother, an official said.

Incidentally, one day the girl refused to go home when her mother had come to pick her up from school. The other girls mother was also present there and asked the girl the reason for not going home. The girl then confided in her the details of her ordeal, who then called up the DCW helpline.

Immediately, the counsellor of MHL programme of the Delhi Commission for Women met the victim and counselled her. MHL counsellor then referred the case to counsellor of CIC programme of the commission. With the help of CIC counsellor an FIR was registered at the Ambedkar Nagar police station. The accused has been arrested and the victim has been shifted to a shelter home, the official added.

A case under relevant sections of the IPC and Pocso Act have been registered.
According to the Kaini Anne Mao, the traditional heritage of Makhel holds a significant place in their socio-cultural life.

Through the Makhel tradition, many Naga tribes, with their vast cultural differences, have found a common ground and have claimed it as their common heritage.

New Delhi: Folktales, folksongs, myths, and folk beliefs form an integral part of the oral tradition of the Nagas. Though not very popular such as the Harappan culture, different Naga tribes have been found to be closely related to the Makhel tradition and its antiquities. Through the Makhel tradition, many Naga tribes, with their vast cultural differences, have found a common ground and have claimed it as their common heritage.

The one-day seminar conducted by the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research (CNESPR) at Jamia Millia Islamia University on Friday aimed to interrogate the Makhel heritage of the Nagas from the perspective of oral tradition as exists between different Naga tribes. Its purpose was to answer several questions, such as the association between the timeless folklore and oral tradition of the Nagas and the Makhel tradition and their identity, whether it refers to an individual or a group.

According to the DU assistant professor Kaini Anne Mao, the traditional heritage of Makhel holds a significant place in their socio-cultural life. Of the many narratives of the Makhel oral tradition, the myth of origin  Okhe (Tiger), Ora (Spirit), and Omei (Man) is one of the most important myths of the Nagas. The heritage is a testament of the living tradition which reflects the perception and outlook of the people towards life, she said.

While focusing on the oral and folk tradition, the assistant professor at JMI, Athikho Kaisii, said that the concrete evidence of megalithic relics and legends are the proof for the existence of the Makhelian tradition.

He believes that prior to the coming of print culture and Christianity, the Nagas did not have ordained priest, doctrinal institution, place of worship, or sacred text but simply worshipped god and spirits by means of genna. The word genna has a strong religious connotation rather than a mere social norm.

While addressing the seminar, English professor Veio Pou said that the age old storytelling tradition continues to find its expressions in the new forms, especially in English writings.

This transition from the oral to the written immortalises the celebrated tales and allows the retelling to reach newer imaginations, he said.
Mr Naidu was speaking at the partys booth-level workers meet at Ramlila Maidan ahead of the April 23 civic polls.

New Delhi: Making a blistering attack on Opposition parties, Union urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said that all political parties are now stand divided, and only the BJP is standing united. Mr Naidu was speaking at the partys booth-level workers meet at Ramlila Maidan ahead of the April 23 civic polls. Mr Naidu said that the Congress is a sinking ship and its leaders are joining BJP, leaving the grand old party. Addressing party booth level workers, termed as Panch Parmeshwar, Mr Naidu said that Congress has divided into several parties, Janta Dal has divided into A, B, C and others.

Similarly, Samajwadi Party has divided into a party of father (Mulayam Singh Yadav), son (Akhilesh Yadav) and uncle. In South also, regional parties have divided into several parties but the BJP is the only party which is united and growing across the country, added Mr Naidu. The Union minister also blamed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for stalling development in the city. Unless the Centre, state government and municipal bodies work together, a city cannot develop. In each city, development has been fast through Smart City and AMRUT schemes after the BJP came to power. But, this city (Delhi) is lagging behind because the AAP government is not ready to develop Delhi together with the Narendra Modi government, he said.

Mr Naidu alleged that despite the Prime Minister has given the slogan of Team India for better cooperation between centre, state governments and municipal corporations, the AAP government is not ready to even talk to him (Mr Modi).

Taking a dig on AAP political expansion, Mr Naidu has attacked Arvind Kejriwal and said wherever the AAP leader went he faced defeat and the same fate awaits him in Gujarat also.

Mr Kejriwal needs to be given the message to roam around the country and stay away from Delhi. He went to Varanasi and Goa and was defeated there. He will be treated similarly in Gujarat also, he added.

Terming the municipal elections in the national capital to be held on April 23 as Mini India elections, Mr Naidu said people want to strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modis hands because he is an able leader dedicated to development.

Mocking political rival who are questioning EVMs, Mr Naidu asked people to support BJP in MCD elections and push the button with party symbol Lotus assuring them that their votes will not be changed.
The police laid a trap near Jambhali Pada in Ghatkopar west.

Mumbai: In two separate incidents, the Thane Kasarvadavli police and Ghatkopar police seized demonetised cash worth Rs 33.5 lakh and Rs 16 lakh respectively. The Thane police arrested two men, while the Ghatkopar police arrested four in connection with possession of the demonetised cash.

Acting on a tip off, Thanes Kasarvadavli police laid a trap near Eternity Mall in Thane, where the two arrested accused, residents of Mumbra, were to meet an agent who was going to exchange the demonetised notes with new notes at a commission of five per cent. The police arrested the accused duo identified as Mateem Shaikh (42) and Sameed Shaikh (22), and seized the scrapped notes in denominations of `500 and `1000. The police is probing the case and are likely to arrest the accused agent who would make the exchange for a commission.

While in Ghatkopar, the police received a tip off from an informer and laid a trap near Jambhali Pada in Ghatkopar west on Wednesday. At 9.40 pm, a car arrived with four persons matching the description given by the informer, following which the police intercepted the car and found demonetised cash worth Rs 16 lakh in old denominations of Rs 1000 and Rs500. The police immediately arrested four men identified as Shreedhar Bagal (27), Gajanan Khatal (28), Vijendra Sonawane (33) and Dileep Banushali (48).

In the month of March, the Thane police has seized demonetised cash worth Rs 2.01 crore. The police has booked the arrested accused for possession of the demonetised cash under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and have remanded them in police custody till Monday.
Says Enough is enough, and that govt has agreed to docs demands.

Mumbai: Sending a stern message to the states resident doctors who are on a mass leave stir since Monday to protest instances of assault on doctors by relatives of patients, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis warned them of strict action if they did not resume work by Friday.

Enough is enough. We are not elected to let people die without medical treatment. We are here to help every patient. We have already agreed on all demands (from doctors) about security. Still doctors are not resuming work. It is insensitiveness. We are ready to take all legal actions, Mr Fadnavis said on the floor of the Maharashtra Assembly on Friday.

Mr Fadnavis was aggressive while making a statement on the doctors strike. He said, I personally met representatives of all doctor unions. Government has accepted all their demands regarding security. We will set up an ex-DG level committee for security audit of all hospitals. At the same time, government has assured them of providing all legal aid if necessary.

Giving details about the meeting between the government and doctors unions, the chief minister clarified his stand on legal action. We do not want to take action on doctors. But there is a limit to our patience. People across the state are also angry and blaming the government for inaction. In such a situation, it will not be possible for us to wait for long. I will meet them for one last time today. But if they do not resume work, government will not tolerate (it). We will initiate legal action on them, he said.
The sources also said Mr Modi would discuss the Presidents election with Mr Thackeray and seek his support for the poll.

Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi  intending to resolve issues between Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)  has invited the formers chief, Uddhav Thackeray, for a dinner date in Delhi. Other National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners would also be present for the event, which is expected to take place next week. BJP sources said this would revive the relationship of the NDA allies, which have been going through a rough patch in Maharashtra.

Mr Modi himself is going to host the dinner, sources said, adding that the PM wants the Shiv Sena to co-operate with his government on all fronts.

The sources also said Mr Modi would discuss the Presidents election with Mr Thackeray and seek his support for the poll.

Meanwhile, in the backdrop of news reports about mid-term polls in the state, finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar will meet Mr Thackeray on March 29 to discuss the possibility of the two parties forming an alliance.

The BJP in its core committee meeting on Thursday discussed the Senas pressure tactics and also looked at the possibility of mid-term polls in the state in order to get a majority and form a fresh government.

Sources in the BJP said that the party is upset with the Sena exerting pressure on it in the Legislative Assembly and its initial agitation over a loan waiver for farmers.

The Sena has also supported Opposition parties Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) over the loan waiver issue and had met chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, requesting him to revoke the suspension of 19 Opposition MLAs.
Mr Sinha apparently had an upper hand, but he was edged out after home minister Rajnath Singh pushed his case.

Now that the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls are over, the focus is shifting to the election of the President and vice-president as the term of the incumbents will end in another three months. As is to be expected, the political grapevine in Delhi is abuzz with possible candidates for the posts. And if the names being discussed are any indication, it promises to be an all-women show. Former Union minister and Manipur governor Najma Heptulla tops the list as she has been lobbying furiously for one of these posts for the past three decades. Former Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel, who was stripped of her post last year, is also one of the probables. She was apparently offered a governors post, but she declined. BJPs insiders maintain that Ms Patels rehabilitation is under consideration as the party needs to placate the unhappy Patel community ahead of the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly polls. This is ironical as Ms Patel was removed as chief minister because of her poor handling of the Patel agitation. Meanwhile, Jharkhand governor Draupadi Murmu is being talked about as a possible contender for the Presidents post. Her plus points: she is a woman, a tribal and is said to have acquitted herself well as the governor. Union minister Sushma Swarajs name is also doing the rounds. There are murmurs that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also scouting around for a serious high-profile candidate from the South as the BJPs next target is to establish itself in the southern states.

There has been intense speculation about Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaiks health for several months now, but there is no clarity on it. According to the latest reports, Mr Patnaik has been advised to go to the United States for treatment for an undisclosed ailment but the chief minister is delaying his departure because he is unsure about who should discharge his responsibilities in his absence. Not only is Mr Patnaik a loner he also does not trust anybody. He does not want to hand over the reins to anybody in his party for fear of a coup in his absence. It is said that he has asked his US-based sister Gita Mehta to hold fort while he is away. As a first step, she may be inducted into the Rajya Sabha. This speculation has gained ground after Mr Patnaik suddenly asked senior party leader Bishnu Charan Das to resign from the Upper House last week. Earlier there had been reports that Mr Patnaik wanted to anoint his nephew Arun, son of his brother Prem Patnaik, as his successor. Now into his fourth term, Mr Patnaik retains an iron grip over the Biju Janata Dal, as he is ruthless in crushing any opposition from within the party.

Well-known actor Jaya Bachchan has entered the Rajya Sabha on a Samajawdi Party ticket, but she maintains cordial relations with the ruling BJP. In fact, she is reported to have told a BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh that from among her family members, her son Abhishek Bachchan is a great admirer of the party and that its leadership should invite him to join the party.

Ms Bachchans detractors maintain that she is extending a hand of friendship to the BJP as her Rajya Sabha term ends next year and given the Samajwadi Partys strength in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, it will not have the numbers to nominate her to the Upper House again. In any case, her husband, Amitabh Bachchan, is known to be close to the BJP, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He is a brand ambassador for Gujarat government and the Modi governments flagship programme Swachch Bharat for which he has not taken any payment.

By now, it is well known that Union telecom minister Manoj Sinha and Gorakhpur MP Adityanath Yogi were the final contenders for the post of Uttar Pradesh chief minister. Mr Sinha apparently had an upper hand, but he was edged out after home minister Rajnath Singh pushed his case. This apparently did not go down well with the Prime Minister or BJP president Amit Shah who felt that Mr Singh had proposed

Mr Sinhas name only to stop the Yogi from getting the top post. It is no secret that Mr Singh is wary of the prominence given to the Yogi as he does not want to witness the emergence of a rival thakur leader. At present, Mr Singh is considered to be the tallest thakur leader in UP, but he is bound to be overshadowed by the Yogi now that he has taken charge as chief minister. Meanwhile, a sulking Manoj Sinha is expected to get a promotion when the PM reshuffles his Cabinet to compensate him for losing out on the chief ministers post.
The fact of the matter is that Indians in general, whether Hindu or Muslim, have had enough of this dispute.

On March 21, the Supreme Court, while responding to an urgent hearing on the Ayodhya dispute by Subramanian Swamy, said that the Ram Mandir matter is a sensitive and sentimental issue and should be settled amicably out-of-court by talks between all stakeholders. The court went on to say that it could arrange some principal mediator if so desired. When asked if he would like to mediate, Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar said: If you want me I can, but will not sit on the bench, adding that the court will come into the picture if you cant resolve the issue.

The dispute has had a long and acrimonious history, and there is little to be gained by recounting it. Quite obviously, the matter is neither about law nor about facts only. This is a case where law, fact and faith intersect, and, therefore, the learned SC was right in urging all concerned to try and resolve the matter through discussions outside the formal arena of exclusive juridical intervention.

The reasonable mainstream of India, cutting across religious lines, has for long maintained that the dispute should be resolved either by the court or through a mediated settlement between the stakeholders. Now that the SC has urged that a mediated solution should be given a try, should not all parties heed this call?

Zafaryab Jilani, convener of the Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) has welcomed the SCs concern but rejected its advice out of hand. Earlier also, out-of-court settlement efforts have been made at the highest level and failed, he said. The Muslims are not willing for an out-of-court settlement. None of the demands made by the other parties are acceptable to us. On the other hand, the Central government, and the newly-appointed chief minister of UP, Adityanath Yogi, have welcomed the SCs directive. I welcome what the court has said. Both sides can sit down to find an amicable solution. The government is ready to extend any cooperation to facilitate dialogue.

Between these two opposed reactions lies a gulf in perception that has identifiable reasons. Mr Jilani probably has the not unfounded perception that impartial and sincere talks cannot take place given the acrimonies generated over decades by this dispute, the fact that similar attempts in the past have failed, and the present milieu where loud voices in the Hindu right are proclaiming that the temple will be built come what may. The BJP leadership, both at the Centre and in UP, probably feels that this is the time to isolate those opposing the Ram temple, for which the out-of-court negotiations could provide a suitable platform.

The truth is that, thanks to the SCs directive, a historic and game-changing opportunity has been presented to all concerned to make a genuine effort to find an amicable solution. For too long inter-religious relations have been held hostage to this festering dispute. Law and faith, facts and beliefs, passions and emotions, politics and politicians, and a whole range of vested interests, have clashed with each other. Riots have taken place; the Babri Masjid was demolished; mobs have ruled the roost; the Archaeological Survey of India has intervened; the Allahabad high court has pronounced judgment; and now, the SC has made its plea.

The challenge before India is whether all parties to the dispute can overcome the acrimonies and distrust of the past to find an amicably-resolved solution to this matter. If they can, it would be a victory for the maturity and good sense of our civilisation and for democracy. If they cant it will only undermine further the existing challenges to the composite and plural fabric of our polity.

To succeed in the task suggested by the SC, the BJP would need to rein in its ultra right-wing hotheads. It would need to desist from threats or arbitrary deadlines. Browbeating and public posturing would need to be eschewed. The talks would need to be approached in a spirit of give and take, without absolutist positions, with a view to finding a solution, and not reducing the talks to a tokenistic exercise only to mobilise partisan political support.

The same advice would apply to Mr Jilani too. Muslim representatives would do well to remember that a majority of those whom they claim to represent would rather get this dispute behind them. They need to recognise that for a great many of their Hindu brethren this is a matter of faith, and cannot be confined only to an adjudication of a point of fact. The position that Muslim interlocutors take would need to be guided by the larger good of the country as a whole, and not only a strictly narrow and defensive interpretation of the law. Provided, of course, they are categorically assured that any concessions or adjustments they may make in this matter are not seen as a capitulation by their Hindu interlocutors, or used as a precedent for raking up Mandir-Masjid disputes elsewhere in the country.

The fact of the matter is that Indians in general, whether Hindu or Muslim, have had enough of this dispute. Most of them now want to swim away from the islands of religious exclusivism and the clutches of mullahs and mahants to the secular dividends of a modern, democratic and developed nation. The highest court of the land has provided an opportunity to move ahead. That opportunity must be seized in good faith and with sincerity. Legality is one aspect of this matter, but ultimately, what is crucial is goodwill and maturity. Will the BJP walk the talk on PM Narendra Modis slogan of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, or will it allow hardliners to queer the pitch? Will Adityanath Yogi confound his critics by taking a statesman-like approach in this matter, or will he tread the predictable line his track record indicates? And, above all, will the Muslims rise above their siege mentality and give a fresh chance to the possibility of opening a new chapter of inter-religious harmony?
Law enforcement agencies are issuing a request to people asking them to stop giving Siri the command.

The command to Siri using iPhones is going viral and can become a chaotic issue soon if not stopped.

Siri is an intelligent artificial intelligent assistant by Apple for iPhones and iPads. However, there are some commands that should be taken seriously as they can cause a panic situation with law enforcement agencies.

As reported by Cnet, the latest social trend that is going viral is threatening to become a dangerous one. Asking Siri to say 108 is equivalent to Americas 911 emergency services in India. Apple made it easier for people to call for emergency services around the world and saying the command would simply dial an emergency service in the country you connect. For example, if you ask Siri to dial 911 in the UK, it would dial the UK emergency services 999 in the country.

And for any reason if you end up saying Hey Siri, 108 into your iPhone, it ends up calling the local emergency services in that country. This craze is going viral overseas and people are fooling around with Siri to dial 108 (Indias emergency services  either as a prank or a test). This causes Siri to call 911, which is become a huge task and inconvenience for 911 emergency services in America.

The law enforcement agency in Texas is not happy about it. Cnet reported that The Sheriff's office of Harris County, Texas, has taken to Facebook ask people to stop.

The post reads:

The Harris County Sheriff's Office, along with Texas NENA, are encouraging iPhone users NOT to test the '108' command. This viral prank is becoming increasingly popular on social media, with various speculations as to what the command does. The command, in fact, will instruct Siri to call emergency services, which could potentially tie up emergency lines. In case of an emergency, please dial 9-1-1.

The prank was shared on social media websites and everybody seems to be playing around with Siri to find out what happens. This could soon be a case of cry wolf where the emergency services would not be able to distinguish between a prank call and a real emergency. On the contrary, someone who was to really call up for an emergency would suffer because of the massive issues.

Mic reports, This prank is problematic because it uses resources that are vital for others trying to receive help in real emergency situations. Roughly 240 million calls are made to 911 in the United States each year and placing prank calls can be considered a crime.

According to the National Emergency Number Association:

It's a prank call when someone calls 9-1-1 for a joke, or calls 9-1-1 and hangs up. Prank calls not only waste time and money, but can also be dangerous. If 9-1-1 lines or call takers are busy with prank calls, someone with a real emergency may not be able to get the help they need. In most places, it's against the law to make prank 9-1-1 calls, reported Mic.

Pranksters who tell their friends to say "108" to Siri are effectively having their friends call emergency services without reason. The lesson here is to know your country's emergency service number and not say it to Siri unless you're really in an emergency.

Source
This was Doval's second trip to the US after Donald Trump won the presidential elections in November.

This was decided during National Security Advisor Ajit K Doval's meetings here with US Defence Secretary General (rtd) James Mattis, Secretary of Homeland Security General (rtd) John Kelly and National Security Advisor Lt Gen H R McMaster. (Photo: PTI)

Washington India and the US have pledged to deepen defence partnership and decided to collaborate on a wide range of regional issues including maritime security and counter-terrorism.

This was decided during National Security Advisor Ajit K Doval's meetings here with US Defence Secretary General (rtd) James Mattis, Secretary of Homeland Security General (rtd) John Kelly and National Security Advisor Lt Gen H R McMaster.

In all these meetings, the common thread was expansion and deepening of India-US co-operation in collectively addressing the challenge posed by terrorism in South Asia.

He also met Senator John McCain, Chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee and Senator Richard Burr, Chairman of the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"Mattis specifically applauded India's efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region. Both leaders reaffirmed building upon the significant defence cooperation progress made in recent years," Pentagon Spokesperson Capt Jeff Davis said in a read out of the meeting, adding that the two leaders discussed their role in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles.

"Secretary Mattis and NSA Doval further discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters including maritime security and counter terrorism. The two pledged to continue the strong defence partnership between both nations," Davis said. Doval and McMaster during their meeting at the White House on Thursday "committed" to work together as partners to "combat the full spectrum" of terrorist threats, affirming that both great democracies stand together in the fight against terrorism, a senior Trump administration official said.

"All the meetings were very warm, very positive, very constructive. I think there is an open approach to India," Indian sources said as Doval concluded his meetings in Washington DC yesterday.

This was Doval's second trip to the US after Donald Trump won the presidential elections in November. In December, Doval had met NSA-designate Gen (rtd)

Michael Flynn, who resigned a few weeks after he took over the job due to the controversy surrounding Russian diplomats during the transition and election campaign.

Flynn was replaced by McMaster, who according to the officials, has a very positive view about India.

"The discussions (in all these meetings) covered India's economic plans, reforms, growth. They covered our core security concerns, regional concerns, defence and security aspect of the India-US engagement," the senior official said on condition of anonymity.

For instance, the meeting at the Pentagon covered India-US defence relationship, issues like maritime security.

"Naturally the challenge, nature and manifestation of terrorism and co-operation with regard," the official said, adding that the sense from these meetings came out that the

Trump administration seeks to take forward the upward trajectory of this bilateral relationship.

With Homeland security, issues of radicalisation, cooperation in border controls, issues of information sharing which can help fight terrorist sides popped up.

The Trump administration officials were interested in hearing from Doval on New Delhi's views in the region, in particular Afghanistan and vice versa, informed sources said.

In some of the conversations, issues like demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) also popped up, reflecting the close interest that the US has in the economic growth of India.

There was no specific discussion on Pakistan, but it figured in the context of terrorism in the region.

Inside the Trump administration, it is clear how Pakistan is closely associated with terrorism, the official said.
Kathmandu: India's new envoy to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri on Saturday arrived here and would submit his credentials to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Sunday. Puri, a 1982 batch IFS officer, was on March 10 appointed as India's 24th ambassador to Nepal.

His predecessor Ranjit Rae completed his three and a half year-tenure on February 28.

Puri, born in 1959, is scheduled to submit his letters of credence to President Bhandari tomorrow, according to reports.

Before being assigned to Kathmandu mission, he was India's Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Prior to Brussels, he was India's Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York from 2009 to 2013. He was also a senior member of India's Security Council team during the years 2011 and 2012, when India served on the Security Council.

From 2005-09, he headed the United Nations Division in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi dealing with economic and social issues.

In the course of his Foreign Service career, Puri has served twice in Germany (in Bonn from 1984-86 and Berlin from 1991-94). He was the coordinator of the Festival of India in Germany in 1991-92 and established the Indian Cultural Centre in Berlin.

Puri has a Masters degree in Management. He did his BA (Honours) in Economics from St Stephen's College in New Delhi.
by Sumon Corraya

The bomber blew himself as he tried to enter the airport carrying a bomb, dying right away" in the blast. His identity remains unknown, but his fingerprints have been found. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but the government blames a local recently formed extremist group.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  A suspected suicide bomber died last night near Dhakas Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport as he tried to get into the airport with a bomb.

According to the officer in charge of security, Nur-e-Azam Mia, "the bomb was tied to waist." He "died right away when it exploded.

Preliminary findings indicate a link between the suicide bomber and the Islamic State (IS). On the Arabic language website Amaq, the Jihadi group claimed that one of its supporters "carried out a suicide attack" at a checkpoint near the airport.

However, for the police it was not strictly speaking an attack. The dead man "was carrying a bomb" that blew up. According to other reports, the explosive device was in a "travel bag."

The bomber was 30-32 years old, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. His identity remains unknown at the moment. Police have collected fingerprints and are in the process of determining who he was.

In a statement, the Bangladesh government said that the Islamic State does not have an organisational base in the country. The authorities blame the attempted attack on a local, recently formed extremist group, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which has been banned.

Since yesterday, the authorities have tightened security measures around the capitals International airport.

In the past 12 years, more than a hundred people have died in terrorist attacks. Among the victims are bloggers, foreign tourists and members of religious minorities.

Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country, hitherto characterised by religious harmony and integration. However, extremism has grown in recent years, a threat denounced by the countrys Christian communities, fearful of new attacks.
Francis began his visit at the Case Bianche compound, home to three families. He met priests and consecrated people at the Cathedral where he talked about discernment. Choose the peripheries, reawaken processes, ignite the spent and weakened hope of a society that has become insensible to the pain of others, he said.

Milan (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis began a pastoral visit to Milan this morning. He met with deacons and consecrated people in Milans Duomo focusing on discernment, a choice that as pastors we cannot elude. Before he met with three families at the Case Bianche (White Houses), a residential compound in the citys Forlanini area (pictured), a low-income neighbourhood.

These families exemplify the people who live the suburbs of big cities: an elderly couple married in church 61 years ago, a middle-aged couple married civilly with the seriously ill husband recovering from alcohol abuse, and an open-minded Muslim couple from Morocco who help out with Arabic at the local parish school.

When he arrived, the Holy Father was greeted by thousands of people who had waited for him in the areas main square. Thanking them for your welcome upon arriving in Milan, he told them You are a great gift to me, coming to the city greeted by faces, families, a community."

The pope dedicated the second meeting and most of the morning to priests and consecrated people. In the Duomo Francis answered three questions from a priest, a permanent deacon, and a nun.

In answering the priest who asked him about the challenges of secularism and [. . .] the evolution of Milanese society, which is increasingly plural, multiethnic, multi-religious and multicultural society, the pontiff said There is a choice that as pastors we cannot elude: forming in discernment.

As I think I have understood from the question, diversity presents a very tricky scenario. The culture of abundance to which we are subjected offers a range of many possibilities, presenting them all as valid and good. Our young people are exposed to constant zapping. They can navigate on two or three screens open simultaneously, they can interact at the same time in different virtual scenarios. Like it or not, this is the world in which they find themselves, and it is our duty as pastors to help them through this world. So, I think it is good to teach them how to discern, so that they have the tools and elements to help them walk the path of lift without extinguishing the Holy Spirit that is in them. In a world without choices, or with fewer possibilities, perhaps things seem clearer, I dont know.

Today our faithful, and we ourselves, are exposed to these realities, and for this reason I am convinced that as an ecclesial community we must increase the habitus of discernment. And this is a challenge, and requires the grace of discernment, to try to learn to have the habit of discernment. This grace, from the young to adults, everyone. When we are children it is easy for our mother and father to tell us what we have to do, and thats fine  today I dont think it is so easy; in my day, yes, but today I dont know, but anyway it is easier. But gradually as we grow, amid a multitude of voices where seemingly all are right, the discernment of what leads us to the Resurrection, to the Life and not to a culture of death, is crucial.

The deacon asked what is our role in giving form to the face of the Church that is humble, that is selfless. In his answer, Francis said, You deacons have much to give, much to give. I think of the value of discernment. Within the presbytery, you can be an authoritative voice to show the tension there is between duty and will, the tensions that one lives in family life  you have a mother in law, for example! And also the blessings one lives within family life.

Deacons, he went on to say, are not half priests. Indeed, The diaconate is a specific vocation, a family vocation that requires service, which is one of the characteristic gifts of the people of God. The deacon is, so to say, the custodian of service in the Church. Every word must be carefully measured. You are the guardians of service in the Church: service to the Word, service to the Altar, service to the poor. And your mission, the mission of the deacon, and your contribution consist in this: in reminding us all that faith, in its various expressions  community liturgy, personal prayer, the various forms of charity  and in its various states of life  lay, clerical, family  possesses an essential dimension of service. Service to God and to brothers. And how far we have to go in this sense!

Finally, the nun asked him what existential peripheries and which areas should we choose and favour, with renewed awareness of being a minority?

Francis replied: I would not dare say to you to which existential peripheries you must address your mission, because normally the Spirit inspired charisms for the peripheries, to go to places and corners that are usually abandoned. I dont believe that the Pope can tell you: concern yourselves with this or that. What the Pope must tell you is this: there are few of you, but the few of you there are, go to the peripheries, go to the boundaries and encounter the Lord there, to renew the mission of origins, to the Galilee of the first encounter, return to the Galilee of the first encounter!

Choose the peripheries, reawaken processes, ignite the spent and weakened hope of a society that has become insensible to the pain of others. In our fragility as congregations we can make ourselves more attentive to the many forms of frailty that surround us, and transform them into a space of blessing. It will be the moment that the Lord will tell you, Stop, there is a ram here. Do not sacrifice your only son. Go and take the anointment of Christ, go forth.

And do not forget that whenever Jesus [is] in the midst of His people, they encounter joy. For this alone will bring back our joy and hope, this alone will save us from living in a survival mentality. Please, no, this is resignation! [. . .] Only this will make our lives fruitful and keep our hearts alive: putting Jesus where He belongs, in the midst of His people.

Upon leaving the cathedral, the pontiff recited the Angelus with tens of thousands of people waiting outside in the square and then went to Milans San Vittore Prison to meet and have lunch with prisoners.
Parents should strive to educate children about contents, ideas, values and attitudes about life. He urged them to play with their children, take the time to go to Mass with them, visit a park, and remember that they can see and suffer when they argue.

Milan (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis ended his one-day pastoral visit to Milan in the citys Meazza-San Siro Stadium where he took part in a meeting with thousands of noisy young people, overflowing with joy, songs, and colours.

In his address, he said that parents should strive to educate children about contents, ideas, values and attitudes about life. He urged them to play with their children, take the time to go to Mass with them, visit a park, and remember that they can see and suffer when they argue. He told children to listen to their grandparents and play with their friends without insulting them, keeping in mind that that was how Jesus played. He also warned against bullying.

The pontiff answered some impromptu questions from a very excited child, some parents, and a catechist. Little Davide asked Francis: When you were our age, what helped you grow in friendship with Jesus?". Francis answered saying that his grandparents, playing with friends, the parish did.

"Grandparents have the wisdom of life and with their wisdom they can teach us how to be closer to Jesus. They [Mine] did that to me. My grandparents were the first. A piece of advice: talk to your grandparents. Talk [to them], ask them all the questions you want. Listen to your grandparents. It is important, at this time, to talk with your grandparents."

The Holy Father went on to tell the gathering of young people to examine their conscience as well. Do you tease someone in your school, do you make fun of someone because of some flaw [they may have]? Do you like to shame or beat someone for this? This is called bullying. [. . .] For the holy sacrament of Confirmation promise the Lord that you will never bully nor ever allow it in your school or neighbourhood? Will you promise? Never tease, nor mock a friend in school or in your neighborhood. Will you promise this today?" A collective Yes roared from the 80,000 young people.

Monica and Alberto, who have three children, came next. They asked how to pass onto our children the beauty of faith?" For the pope, this is one of the key questions that touches our lives as parents: the transmission of faith, which also touches our lives as pastors and educators.

The transmission of the faith: That is a question I'd like to ask you. I invite you to remember the people who left an imprint on your faith and what of them remained more impressed on you. What children asked me I ask you. Who, what situations, which things have helped you grow in faith, the transmission of the faith . . . I invite you parents to imagine yourselves as children again and remember the people who helped you believe. Who helped me, me, to believe? [My] Father, mother, grandparents, a catechist, an aunt, a pastor, a neighbour, who knows! . . . We all remember in our mind but especially in our heart those who helped us believe."

"Children, he added, look upon us. you cannot imagine the anguish a child feels when his parents argue. [. . .] Your childrens eyes gradually store and read with the heart how faith is one of the best inheritance you received from your parents and your ancestors. They notice it. If you give faith and live it well, transmission occurs. Showing them how faith helps us move forward and face the many tragedies that we have with a confident, not pessimist attitude, is the best testimony we can give them. There is a saying, words are wind, but what is sown in the memory, in the heart, remains forever."

The pontiff also noted that "In different places, many families have a very fine tradition of going to Mass together and then go to a park with their children to play together. Faith becomes a family need with other families. With friends, family friends . . . This is nice and helps live the commandment of keeping the Sabbath holy. Going to church to pray or nap during the homily is something that happens, right? But it is not only that. Afterwards, everyone plays together. For example, now that nice weather is coming, after going to Mass as a family on Sunday, it would be a good thing if you went to a park or a square to play, be 'together a bit. In my country this is called dominguear, spending Sunday together."

Lastly, in his answer to Valeria, a mom and catechist, on how to educate, Francis stressed an "education based on thinking-feeling-doing, i.e. an education with the intellect, the heart and the hands, three languages. [The goal is] to educate harmoniously with the three languages, so that young people, boys and girls, can think about what they hear and do, hear what they think and do, and do what they think and feel. The three are not separate but hang all together. Only educating the intellect is not enough: this is imparting only conceptual knowledge. This is important, but without heart and hands, it is of no use. No use. Education must be harmonious. We can also say education with content, ideas, values, and attitudes of life. Put in another way for example, [we dont have to] educate only with concepts, ideas. No. The heart too has to grow in education, as does doing, an attitude about the way to go in life."
Representatives from 16 countries met on 20-24 March at the Sanjaya Pastoral Centre in Muntilan, the Bethlehem of Java for the Days of the Diocese. The goal was to rehearse 7th Asian Youth Day (AYD) scheduled for 30 July-6 August 2017.

Jakarta (AsiaNews)  Preliminary meetings have been held in preparation of the 7th Asian Youth Day (AYD), scheduled for 30 July-6 August 2017 in Yogyakarta, Central Java.

In Indonesia, representatives from 16 countries met on 20-24 March during the Days of the Diocese at the Sanjaya Pastoral Centre in Muntilan, a place known as the Bethlehem of Java in the central part of the island by the same name. The meeting was the fifth organised to prepare the upcoming event.

Although it was not the first, the gathering in Muntilan was used to rehearse the 7th AYD. Several important officials from the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC) were present, coming from continents four regions: East Asia (South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau), South-East Asia One (Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia), Asia South-East Two (Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Philippines) and South Asia (India and Bangladesh).

Representatives of Catholic Organisations for Youth in Asia (COYA) were also present.

Fr Dwiharsanto, head of the Steering Committee and former Executive Secretary of the Commission of Youth of the Indonesian Bishops' Conference, said that "even two bishops attended the meeting: Mgr Joel Baylon, head of the Office of Laity and Family of the FABC, and Mgr Cornelius Sim, bishop of the Sultanate of Brunei."

Representatives from the Indonesias 11 dioceses also attended. Foreign participants to the five-day Days in the Diocese were hosted by Catholic congregations.

The event enabled participants to live with new families and experience Indonesias multicultural, multiethnic and multi-religious society.

Mgr Sim told AsiaNews that "after this meeting in Muntilan, young Brunei Catholics will be better motivated by the spirit to participate in this international event. Young Indonesians and volunteers are enthusiastic and we are delighted to be part of the next World Day. "

For Mgr Joel Baylon, young people taking part in the 7th AYD in Indonesia "are spiritually and morally motivated to understand the real situation of the countries in which they live and in which they participate in the Church's life.

Hence, We encourage them to reflect upon their real life with other people from different cultures, languages, traditions, and values."
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process criticised the Jewish state for failing to comply with the UN resolution on settlements. Instead, the Israeli government has authorised a high rate of settlement expansion. For Israels UN ambassador, the settlements are not an obstacle to peace.

New York (AsiaNews)  Israel has not taken any steps to comply with a Security Council call to stop all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and instead authorised "a high rate" of settlement expansion in violation of international law, said UN envoy Nikolay Mladenov.

The UN diplomat, a Bulgarian, told the UN Security Council that the large number of settlement announcements and legislative action by Israel indicate "a clear intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory."

Mr Mladenov was delivering the first report to the council on implementation of the resolution it adopted on 23 December condemning the Israeli government as a "flagrant violation" of international law and recent UN decisions. Israels current administration under Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is the most right-wing in the countrys history.

The resolution was approved by 14 votes with the United States abstaining, a first for Washington since 1979. Israel responded by reducing diplomatic ties with the nations that voted for the resolution.

Mladenov reiterated that the United Nations "considers all settlement activities to be illegal under international law and one of the main obstacles to peace." He called Israels illegal settlement "deeply concerning" undermining the territorial continuity of the future Palestinian state.

In January, Israel made two major announcements for a total of 5,500 housing units in Area C, the 60 per cent of the West Bank it controls directly.

Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon responded in a statement, saying "there is no moral equivalency between the building of homes and murderous terrorism." In his view, "The only impediment to peace is Palestinian violence and incitement," he added "This obsessive focus on Israel must end."

Under the Netanyahu government Israeli settlement activity rose considerably. In 2015 at least 15,000 settlers moved into the West Bank.

According to the Israeli organisation Peace Now, Israeli authorities gave the green light to 2,623 new housing units, including 756 retroactively legalised unlawful units.

At least 570,000 Israeli Jews live in more than 130 settlements built by Israel after 1967 on occupied Palestinian land. However, what started as a trickle has turned into a flood in recent times thanks to the expansionist policy of the Israeli government.

In addition to the formal settlements, there are at least 97 outposts, considered illegal not only under international law but also by the Israeli government.

Peace talks broke down in 2014, triggering a wave of violence that the international community has not been able to stop.
Illinoisans Celebrate The AHCA's Spectacular Failure Outside Trump Tower

By aaroncynic in News on Mar 24, 2017 3:41PM

What was supposed to be a protest outside Trump Tower Friday evening turned into a celebration after Congressional Republicans decided not to vote on the American Health Care Act thanks to a lack of support that crossed party lines.

This is what victory feels like, William McNary, co-director of the group Citizen Action told a crowd of more than 100 demonstrators. Lets be clear we still much be vigilant. Just as hard as they fought to take away the ACA, they are coming back.





"We've got a lot of fights, we can't fight them individually" pic.twitter.com/IMfwGWDFEQ  Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) March 24, 2017





The AHCA, a slapdash legislative effort by hardcore conservative legislators and President Donald Trump to make good on their years-long campaign to repeal and replace the Affordable Healthcare Act passed by President Barack Obama, couldve kicked some 1.3 million Illinoisans off their health insurance plans. An analysis by Senator Dick Durbins office showed that additionally, hospitals wouldve seen their uncompensated care costs rise by $280 million. By 2020, individuals in Illinois wouldve seen their health care costs increase by $3,233, families by $6,298, and seniors by $8,439.

Because of the people that are gathered here today, that is not going to happen, McNary told reporters in an impromptu press conference on Wacker Drive. Let me be clear though, as they keep fighting to take away health care, we have to fight to make sure it is fully funded, fully implemented, fully expanded.

A disappointed President Trump predictably blamed Democrats. With no Democrat support we couldn't quite get there," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "We learned about loyalty, we learned a lot about the vote-getting process."

However, it wasnt only Democrats that destroyed the House Speaker Paul Ryan-led effort to kicking poor people off their health insurance. Critics and those who would have been effected nationwide flooded their congresspeople with phone calls, emails and letters, and legislators who werent too terrified of their own constituents to host town halls often saw raucous and angry complaints from them.





Chanting for town halls pic.twitter.com/gLn27EJDdI  Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) March 24, 2017



Jax West, a resident of the 6th District, represented by Republican Peter Roskam, who once ducked out a back door to avoid angry constituents, was among the demonstrators.

Ive been to his Barrington office, Chicago office, Wheaton office and hes nowhere to be found, West told reporters. He refuses to speak to us to tell us what he stands for and to listen to his constituents on what we truly want.

But while Trump and representatives like Ryan and Roskam got jeers, the mood was celebratory, with cheers from those who wouldve lost their care.

1.3 million people are going to sleep better tonight, said Lynda DeLaforgue, co-director of Citizen Action Illinois. I have stage 4 cancer and I cant tell you what it means to me and how grateful I am to every single person who has written their congressperson, made a telephone call because people like me can go to sleep tonight and know that were going to have a roof over our head, that were not going to lose our life savings because weve got a preexisting condition or theyre going to put a million dollar limit on our healthcare.

While also celebrating the repreive the ACA received, some Illinois legislators also took the opportunity to criticize those who championed the AHCA.

Republicans today have demonstrated their complete inability to govern, said Representative Jan Schakowsky in a statement emailed to Chicagoist. The vote on this legislation was their first big test as a governing party. Despite them having control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, they managed to fail spectacularly.

Senator Dick Durbin Tweeted that the bill was half baked, and Senator Tammy Duckworth tweeted the death of the bill was good news.


How To Buy The Best Mattress

The Key To Choosing The Best Mattress For Your Lifestyle And Budget

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

"Invest in the things that come between you and the ground" is an expression that is especially relevant when shopping for a mattress. Ending up with the wrong product can cause a number of literal and figurative headaches ranging from the hassle of returning an oversized item to suffering from recurring back pain.

On the other hand, a good night's sleep on the right mattress will have you feeling more refreshed and awake in the morning, giving you more energy throughout the day. "One of the most important factors for having good sleep is having enough of it," says Dr. Neil Kline, board-certified sleep physician and representative of the American Sleep Association. "Generally, sleep is more restorative when it is continuous. So reducing extraneous stimuli that can interrupt sleep is beneficial."

In other words, feeling a random spring poking you in the spine can really mess with your sleep quality. And a good mattress can lull you to sleep by regulating your body temperature and keeping your back comfortable.

Considering the effect this purchase can have on your life can make the idea of buying a mattress seem daunting. Not to mention the boredom of shopping at big-box stores or the hefty price tags. But things don't have to be this way. "You don't have to spend a lot to be satisfied," says Nick Robinson, editor and publisher of the mattress review site Sleep Like The Dead.

So how do you choose the right mattress for you? From breaking down the properties of a wide range of mattresses to providing you with expert tips for buying a mattress and highlighting the best mattresses on the market, this comprehensive shopping guide will help inform your decision.

1. The Anatomy Of A Mattress

Not all mattresses are created equal. Some boast a bit of springiness thanks to metal coils, while others are built with a sophisticated mesh material made of different types of foam. Both types of mattresses have a target audience in terms of body shape and weight, so considering the materials that make up a mattress is crucial to finding the perfect mattress for you. It also comes to down to budget and personal preference, of course.

Spring

Mattresses used to be (and still are to an extent) made up of layers of foams and/or fibers and metal coils. A mattress made of spring-like coils has the type of bounciness you would normally associate with energetic kids jumping on motel beds while on vacation.

A simple way to determine if an innerspring mattress is going to sag and flatten like a pancake after a short period of time is to look at coil count, though this matters more if you're looking for mattresses at the very bottom of the price range since higher-end mattresses tend to be built with stronger springs.

Keep in mind that in the same way that a high thread count won't always score you the best sheets, coil count isn't everything. Consumer Reports flat out denies that it matters at all, stating that while a mattress may have more coils, it might be using a thinner-gauge metal, negating any positive effects.

Pocket Spring

There's a good chance you'll come across the term "pocket spring mattress" while shopping. This term refers to an innerspring mattress that features coils individually wrapped in pockets of fabric or foam. This means that each coil functions independently and that if you happen to move at night, your partner won't end up rolling on top of you. It is a pretty useful feature for couples with wildly different sleep styles.

Water

Look, this ain't the '70s. The mattress industry has long since moved away from classic water beds. They are extremely unwieldy, come in non-uniform sizes and heating the water to a satisfactory temperature can rack up your energy bill. And let's not even talk about possible leaks. Avoid water mattresses at all costs.

Adjustable Air

Adjustable air mattresses aren't to be confused with the type of mattresses you would bring on a camping trip. They feature an air pocket that can be inflated or deflated for custom firmness. Sleep Like The Dead gave the airbed category a B- grade in overall group owner satisfaction, citing the low price but "minimal padding and excessive firmness" of many models.

Latex And Memory Foam

Foam rendered from latex is tougher and lasts longer than memory foam. It provides good spinal support, but not as much as memory foam. Memory foam also has the upper hand when it comes to avoiding being woken up by a restless sleeping partner. However, latex foam is better at transferring and regulating temperature.

Regardless of your preference, other types of much denser and harder foam usually make up the base of most modern high-tech foam mattresses, which provides a solid foundation and stops you from rolling around involuntarily at night.

Tempur-Pedic

The brand Tempur-Pedic has become synonymous with high-quality, higher-end mattresses that focus on health, spinal alignment and sleep quality. The manufacturer has been around for over 25 years and has been known to outfit U.S. hospitals with mattresses.

Expect the brand's pricing to be significantly higher than other conventional brands. Prices for Tempur-Pedic mattresses start at around $1,700, making this option a significant investment.

Cooling Gels

Special gels are often mixed into other types of foam to help regulate temperature. These gels are said to improve heat retention in the colder months while keeping things cool when it gets hot.

Gels are found in both spring- and foam-based mattresses. Consumer Reports, however, doubts their temperature-controlling benefits, pointing out that gel layers often get "buried beneath other layers" and only feel cool when used in spring mattresses  not foam ones.

Sophisticated Foam Blends

One of the most popular trends in the mattress industry is the combination of memory, latex, and high- or low-density foams for optimal comfort. Online retailers such as Casper and Leesa promise to provide the perfect sleeping experience by combining these materials, usually in the form of high-density foam as a bottom layer, memory foam in the middle, and a soft, cooling foam for temperature control on the top. Bear in mind that the exact makeup will differ from brand to brand.

2. Qualities Of The Best Mattress For You

Now that you know a bit more about the ins and outs of mattresses and what they're made of, it's time to look at what makes a particular mattress the right choice for you. While the materials being used will give you a pretty good sense of what you should be looking for, there are a couple of other factors you should consider as well.

Size

Mattress sizes generally can be broken down in the following way:

Twin: (39"x75") Typically measuring 39 by 75 inches, a twin-sized mattress is large enough to accommodate one adult or one child.

Twin-XL: (39"x80") The Twin-XL size is as wide as a Twin but can accommodate taller children, young adults or single adults thanks to an extra five inches in length.

Full: (54"x75") Sometimes referred to as Double, this sizing boasts the same length as a twin-sized mattress, but with extra width, allowing two adults to sleep on it. It is a bit of a tight fit for two if you like your space, and might be better for a single person. If you're taller than average, this is not the right size for you as your feet will likely end up over the edge of the bed.

Queen: (60"x80") Queen is six inches wider and five inches taller than Full  and is the most popular and commonly used mattress size. It comfortably fits two adults, and will allow for, say, one person to read at night without bothering the other.

King: (76"x80") King is generally best suited for those who share beds with their significant others as well as feline or canine companions. This is also a great option for couples with kids who might want to crawl into bed with their parents.

California King: (72"x84") If you're looking to buy the largest mattress you can get your hands on  especially if you're very tall  you should consider California King; it's 72 by 84 inches of sleep heaven. Make sure you have the space for it, though.

Sharing A Mattress

As discussed above, if you're sharing your bed with a partner, consider getting a Queen or King mattress depending on how much space you have available and your budget.

Sharing a bed also means more movement. You don't want to bother your partner, and you don't want your partner to bother you. Shifting vibrations and restlessness can cause you to lose sleep, and the wrong mattress could exacerbate that. "How much you toss and turn can definitely be affected by your mattress. Memory foam mattresses tend to reduce tossing and turning, as they tend to envelop the sleeper more which can discourage movement," says Robinson.

But depending on your own preference, you might not like the feeling of trapping yourself into a layer of memory foam. "Even compared to other foam and spring mattresses, memory foam is still going to be slower to react to the sleeper's movements. For the type of sleeper who moves around a lot, hybrid, latex or coil will probably be a preferable option to foam", says Derek Hales, founder and editor-in-chief of Sleepopolis.

The Right Firmness

Firmness is one  if not the most important  factor to consider when buying a mattress. As discussed above, how much you sink in will depend on the materials used. "Typically, your lighter person would prefer something softer, a heavier person something firmer, and your average-sized person something in the middle," says Robinson.

A firm foam-based mattress still won't be able to match the firmness of a spring-type mattress. If you personally prefer a much firmer mattress  or happen to weigh more than 300 pounds  consider looking for a tightly coiled innerspring mattress. It will stop you from sinking in too much and help you sleep comfortably. Don't forget that sinking too far into a mattress can lead to spinal misalignment caused by an uneven sleeping surface, an issue those who sleep on their stomachs should be especially aware of.

Safe Materials

There's a lot of misinformation regarding the toxicity of different mattress materials. Memory foam (aka polyurethane) is often said to be dangerous for your well-being. Myths surrounding the off-gassing of toxic substances such as volatile organic compounds from foam mattresses still linger on today. While a very small percentage of consumers have had allergic reactions to foam materials, there's no strong evidence to suggest these materials are dangerous for the broad population.

In fact, the most statistically significant downside to some of the materials used for building mattresses is bad odor. Sleep Like The Dead found that two percent of buyers returned their mattress simply because it smelled off  but not because of an allergic or otherwise harmful reaction to the materials.

If you do have an existing condition that causes you to negatively react to polyurethane, try getting a latex mattress instead.

To Coil Or Not To Coil

Spring mattresses tend to have more firmness options than foam mattresses and will most likely end up costing you less. Robinson describes a spring mattress as possessing more of a "traditional feel" that will also be a more desirable option for your "romantic activities," as these mattresses offer more bounce than foam ones. Also, spring mattresses tend to be more readily available in retail stores, giving you the opportunity to try them out in person before making a decision.

And, according to Hales, coil mattresses can feel more cooling as they are made with less material. "Most of the cooling dynamic is driven by airflow. With a spring mattress you have the most airflow, which usually leads to better cooling on the sleeping surface."

In recent years, the technology of the materials being used to build coil mattresses has advanced considerably, offering users an excellent sleeping experience.

Responsiveness

Responsiveness in a mattress usually refers to how quickly or slowly a mattress responds to movement. A mattress that is more responsive will "give back" very quickly. Hales says hybrid coil mattresses tend to be more responsive, as they are more firm and have a little bit less give: "One of the biggest complaints of memory foam is the slow response with sleepers feeling stuck or entrapped in the foam  something that is alleviated with modern memory foam. But even compared to other foam and spring mattresses, it's still going to be slower."

And speaking of responsiveness, a mattress with very little "give" is, generally speaking, a much better option for sex. Coil mattresses will prevent you from sinking in, which could make things awkward and unpleasant. Firmer foam mattresses share some of these qualities as well.

Temperature

One of the most important factors to take into consideration when shopping for a mattress is temperature control. As mentioned above, coil and hybrid coil mattresses allow for much greater airflow and decompression than a foam mattress. "There are some good scenarios where spring makes more sense, the biggest is perhaps cooling. With a spring mattress you have the most airflow, which usually leads to better cooling on the sleeping surface," says Hales.

If you tend to run very hot or happen to live in a very hot climate, spring mattresses can oftentimes be a wiser investment. Which is not to say that foam mattresses can't keep you cool. A lot of online retailers will advertise high-tech "cooling gels" that may or may not make an actual difference (as noted above, Consumer Reports has its doubts).

Longevity

Expect your mattress to stay with you for 5 to 10 years. The daily wear and tear of a mattress usually surfaces in the form of lumps, sagging in the middle or rips and stains.

It's also important to consider that if your partner is experiencing a mattress-related decline in sleep quality, the mattress may be affecting your own sleep as well.

The Shopping Experience

Buying a mattress can be done in two ways: In a traditional showroom (think big-box store with a bunch of mattresses lining the walls) and online. "According to the data we've collected  and this is an interesting finding  owner satisfaction tends to be similar whether a person would buy a mattress online untried, or they bought a mattress that they actually laid on in store" says Robinson.

Online retailers often advertise the fact they'll ship your mattress in a box. These "bed-in-a-box" retailers offer foam mattresses that can be vacuum-packed and rolled up for convenient transport and delivery  a whole lot easier and cheaper than renting a van or paying for expensive delivery.

Your Budget

Remember what we said about investing? You may be tempted to purchase a mattress on the cheaper side, but remember that you'll be spending about a third of your time in bed. Consider the fact it might be worth splurging on your mattress and cutting back on another expense.

That being said, you probably don't need to completely break the bank here. "Most people that are most satisfied fall between $550 and $1100, assuming that they do their research," says Robinson. "There really isn't a correlation between spending more and having higher owner satisfaction."

So if you're within that sweet spot, chances are you'll be able to find a mattress that's right for your body and preferences. Now let's figure out how to exactly do that:

Shopping For A Mattress Online

Doing your mattress shopping at home has a number of advantages. Fast shipping, competitive and generous return policies and high ownership satisfaction set online shopping apart from the traditional showroom experience. But there are a number of things you should be aware of before you pull the trigger. Once you've identified where your priorities lie, we've outlined the top four brands we recommend.

Online retailers have managed to solve the issue of cumbersome and expensive shipping by forgoing the traditional innerspring design. Foam can be vacuum-shaped and rolled up into roughly a 1' x 1' x 4' box that can be delivered to your doorstep without having to take out a doorway or having to shout "Pivot!" when maneuvering a massive mattress around tight corners.

Furthermore, online mattress brands will often compete when it comes to very fast expedited shipping. For instance, Leesa offers free 3- to 10-business day shipping with tracking, and Casper and Tuft & Needle promise free two- to five-business day shipping.

Tips & Tricks

Look for unbiased reviews. Check out review sites like Sleep Like The Dead and Sleepopolis. Online mattress retailers will often have a selection of reviews on their own sites, but it's best to read them with a grain of salt and get a second opinion somewhere else.

Many retailers offer free shipping. While that's fine and dandy, make sure to check the return policy, specifically whether the retailer offers a pick-up option if you change your mind. Otherwise, you'll end up having to spend money if you decide to return the mattress. You don't exactly want to end up with a giant and very heavy unwanted mattress in your living room.

Now that you're ready to make a choice, here are our top picks:

Leesa

One of the top online mattress brands is Leesa. The Leesa mattress is made of three foam layers: a robust foundation layer, a contouring memory foam middle layer and two inches of cooling gel on top.

RELATED: Leesa Mattress Review

Why We Love It

It checks all the boxes: It allows for enough airflow, is firm enough for a variety of sleepers (under 300 pounds) and a variety of sleeping positions, and is a great mattress for couples.

Bear in mind, however, that it is a very heavy mattress, coming in at 69 pounds.

Why Others Love It

Consumer Reports gave the Leesa queen-size mattress an overall score of 68 out of 100, reporting excellent durability and a very good option for petite and average side sleepers.

A Consumer Reports reviewer wrote: "We've now owned the mattress for close to two years and we are still satisfied."

Sleepopolis concluded that "Leesa continues to be one of the top-tier picks on the market and one of the best overall mattress values available both on or offline."

Sleep Like The Dead reported that the Leesa mattress has a 78% owner satisfaction rate and commended it for its conforming ability. "A highly conforming bed is one that molds and contours to the body resulting in a cradling, cloud-like, pressure-point-free sensation. Leesa performs above average on this issue."

GRAB $75 OFF YOUR PURCHASE USING THE OFFER CODE "ASKMEN75"

Pricing starts at $450.00 at Leesa.com



Casper

Another big name (and a relatively recent newcomer) in the online mattress industry is Casper. Casper mattresses combine the pressure point-eliminating memory foam and breathability of gel-injected foams with a solid, firm base layer made of high-density material for one of the best sleeping experiences possible.

Why We Love It

Its complex layering of four foams makes it not only good at providing pressure relief and support, it keeps the sleeper cool as well. It features an open-cell layer on the surface, allowing for maximum airflow and a very soft sleeping surface.

Why Others Love it

Sleep Like The Dead found the Casper to have 80% owner satisfaction, citing its good durability, support and conforming qualities while applauding the company's "no-fee, no-restriction" return policies.

Consumer Reports gave the Casper an overall score of 79 out of 100. "The mattress's surface was excellent at conforming to various shapes, maximizing contact with the sleeper, and it proved to be very stable, limiting the amount of vibration transmitted."

Sleepopolis.com gave the Casper a 4.2 stars out of 5, writing that "Casper is an above average mattress that offers a medium firmness and good support for average weight sleepers."

Pricing starts at $550.00 at Amazon.com

Lucid

Lucid offers an excellent value proposition for the budget-oriented. It is almost a fourth of the price of many online competitors and has thousands of good to very good reviews on Amazon.

Why We Love It

The dual-layer mattress exhibits airflow qualities thanks to a two-and-a-half-inch layer of ventilated memory foam, while providing a sturdy base with seven and a half inches of high-density foam. And, of course, it has a very affordable price tag.

Why Others Love It

Sleep Like The Dead found the Lucid to have a 77% owner satisfaction.

Amazon's over 3,000 reviewers gave the Lucid 10-Inch Gel Memory Foam Mattress an average of 4 out of 5 stars. One of the reviewers wrote: "Since my fiancee and I are heavier, it's nice to lay on, and we don't sink in much. I'd say just enough to feel like the bed is conforming, and hugging our bodies. I think it's an excellent value for what you pay for."

Foam Nights wrote: "The manufacturer offers a 25-year warranty, but there are limits. Having said that, this mattress (in my opinion) is great at conforming quickly to the contours of your body, will help with minor aches and pains, and best of all will not cost you the earth!"

$249.99 at Amazon.com

Tuft & Needle

Tuft & Needle has positioned itself right in the middle range in terms of price point. It is less high-end than mass-marketed foam mattresses such as Leesa and Casper but more expensive than budget beds. The Tuft & Needle queen-size mattress goes for only $600, making it a wise choice for a 10-inch multi-layer foam mattress.

Why We Love It

Its price is definitely a strong point, putting it on par with the likes of higher-end IKEA mattresses, while providing an optimal sleeping experience that can be delivered straight to your door.

It offers the usual 100-night trial policy and free shipping as well, which is an extremely convenient shopping experience. This mattress is advertised to be compatible with almost all kinds of bed foundations. Slap it on the floor or combine it with a high-tech adjustable frame.

Why Others Love It

Consumer Reports gave the mattress a 74 out of 100 and a user rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 (over 21 reviews). "The mattress's surface was very good at conforming to various shapes, maximizing contact with the sleeper, and it was more breathable than others, potentially reducing perspiration," wrote one reviewer.

Sleepopolis gave it a 4.2 out of 5 stars, but with a strong caveat: "While it may be an upgrade over the current mattress youre sleeping on, there are likely even better mattresses available at a similar price level."

$600.00 on Amazon.com

Zinus 12-Inch Memory Foam Mattress

Amazon's top pick is this 12-inch Zinus memory foam mattress. Its foam composition is similar to mattresses that costs four times the price, ensuring a cool, pressure point-free night's sleep.

Why We Love It

Special care was put into putting this 12 inch foam mattress together. The foam was infused with natural green tea extract for a special and memorable sleeping experience. It will come in the same convenient and easy to handle box when it's shipped to you and most importantly, it won't cost you a fortune either.

Why Others Love It

Amazon's reviewers gave it an aggregate of 4.5 stars out of 5 (over 5,000 reviews). "This mattress feels just like a hug from a marshmallow while you sleep. The marshmallow loves you very much and will never hurt you," one user wrote.

Sleep Sherpa gave the Zinus a 9 out of 10, writing: "If you're looking for a great value with no frills, this is the mattress for you!"

$289.00 on Amazon.com

Shopping For A Mattress In-Store

Buying the ideal mattress that suits your every need doesn't have to be a complicated process. There's a lot of noise and jargon being thrown at you, whether you're shopping at the local store or online.

Give yourself plenty of time before you head to the local showroom  buying the perfect mattress should never be rushed. There's absolutely no downside (and a lot to be gained) to doing your research beforehand. Don't be pressured into anything, even if that means shooing away the salesperson from time to time.

Lie down on a variety of mattresses to get a feel for the different levels of firmness. Try at least a couple of each type, if available (foam, coil, memory foam pad, etc.).

Take your time, but don't overthink it. A lot of the choice comes down to personal preference  the best person to ask is yourself.

And in case somebody at the store tries to upsell you, you can ignore them. Most likely, you're there for a mattress and nothing else, so don't get pressured into tacking on unnecessary extra purchases.

Return Policies

Whether you're shopping online or in person, it's very wise to get information about return policies prior to biting the bullet. Ask the next available salesperson or chat with online support about the small print. How long do you get to try out your new mattress from the comfort of your own home? If you're not satisfied, are you able to get a full refund? What's the return process like? Do they offer return shipping? How much of the return costs do you have to cover? These are all questions you should know the answers to before handing over your credit card.

Shipping

When it comes to choosing a mattress at a local store, your delivery experience will vary wildly. Often, you'll be able to chose between immediate pickup, local same-day delivery or expedited shipping that will take a little longer.

Maintenance

So now that you've got your brand new mattress  or you're simply wondering what to do with your existing one to get the most out of it  you're probably asking yourself how to best take care of it. Having it sit on your bed frame for years at a time can mean it will develop a sag or lumps.

This is why Robinson suggests rotating your mattress every six months or so. "Some companies usually recommend that the mattress be rotated  not flipped  two or three times a year. For most mattresses, that's typically all the maintenance that's required," he says.

So there you have it, some good news! Taking care of your mattress is extremely simple. Apart from rotating  that is, flipping it both horizontally and diagonally  ensure that your mattress is getting enough air. Air circulation is critical both for your sleep and your mattress' longevity. Now have a look below to find out the best way to dress up and support your new mattress.

Mattress Accessories

You won't get the most out of your new mattress if you let it sit on the floor. There are a lot of options out there to get your mattress off the ground and at a comfortable sleeping height. There are traditional box springs (the large rectangular bases they try to sell you at the showroom), bed frames with either curved or flat lats or flat platforms that often feature round openings on the top. "A foundation has been used to elevate the mattress, and to make sure that the mattress is on a proper base and it doesn't sag or have a short life span," says Robinson.

While it won't affect your sleeping experience as much as your choice of mattress, a good foundation will not only make your mattress last longer, it will also allow you to get in and out much more comfortably.

Here are a couple of great ways to get started.

SafeRest Waterproof Mattress Protector

Protecting your mattress from spills and other rough treatment is critical to making sure your mattress stays your loyal friend for many years to come. This SafeRest mattress protector will make sure to keep nastiness outside of your mattress, including fluids, mites and even harmful bacteria.

$69.95 on Amazon.com

Smart Home Bedding Super Plush Pillow

This best-selling pillow available is made up of 50% cotton and 50% polyester. The soft poly-cotton shell will let you fall asleep at ease. The added dust-mite protection is a big plus as well.

$59.99 on Amazon.com

Utopia Bedding Comforter Duvet Insert

This queen-size duvet insert will wrap you up in a cozy embrace  and it'll last. The box-stitched down will regulate temperatures both in cold and hot climates. It can be machine-washed in cold water and tumble-dried on low speeds if needed. At well under $100, this is a great deal.

$69.99 on Amazon.com

Zinus Box Spring

This Amazon best-seller was rated 4.5 stars out of 5 and currently has over 2,000 user reviews. It will show up at your doorstep in a compact cardboard box and must be assembled using the included instructions and set of screws.

$132.99 on Amazon.com

Red Nomad Memory Foam Mattress Pad

If your current mattress is just a little too firm for your liking and you're not ready to invest in an entirely new one, consider picking up a three-inch memory foam pad from Red Nomad. It promises to keep you cool, alleviate pressure points and it's even made in the USA. Looking at the very positive reviews, it's safe to assume the brand has done a very good job at delivering on its promises.

$499.99 on Amazon.com

Related Readings:

Best Mattresses for Couples

Best Mattresses for Sex

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Harrison Ford was contrite and apologized to air traffic controllers at John Wayne Airport in Orange County last Feb. 13. The FAA released tapes of two radio exchanges and one phone call between Ford and John Wayne tower personnel on Friday. Im the schmuck who landed on the taxiway, Ford told tower personnel in a phone call shortly after putting his Husky down on Taxiway Charlie instead of Runway 20L as cleared. I landed on Charlie? he asks incredulously when a controller gives him the bad news after he cleared, by less than 100 feet, an American Airlines Boeing 737 holding short of the runway Ford was supposed to use. The cool-as-a-cucumber controller tells Ford to keep taxiing on the taxiway to an intersection and hold where hes asked to copy down the phone number for the tower to discuss a possible pilot deviation. Hes then cleared to the FBO.

During the call to the tower, Ford has to dig through his backpack to find his pilot certificate and the FAA employee tells him the delay is not a big deal and to take his time. Its a big deal to me, said Ford. The actor and longtime pilot tells the tower man by way of explanation that he was distracted by the airliner turning to hold short of the runway and by the turbulence from an Airbus that just landed. He apologized several times to the tower worker. There is also tape of a phone call from the captain of the 737 that Ford overflew who told a tower staffer that he was compelled to report the incident. He also pointed out that the tail of his aircraft is 42 feet tall in reference to his perception of how close Ford came to his aircraft. The pilot is assured the FAA is looking into the incident and that the Husky was not cleared to land on the taxiway.
25 March 2017 13:15 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

In case the global financial and economic crisis continues, Azerbaijan may further reduce economic relations with its foreign partners, Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan Aydin Aliyev told Trend.

He added that Azerbaijans current reducing trade with its neighboring countries is natural under such circumstances.

"However, despite the decline of the imports volume, due to the devaluation of Azerbaijani national currency [in February and December 2015], the countrys State Customs Committee ensured revenues worth 2.29 billion manats to Azerbaijani state budget in 2016 against the forecast 1.81 billion manats, thus exceeding the forecast of revenues by 26.6 percent," he said.

"At the same time, customs payments to Azerbaijani state budget for Jan.-Feb. 2017 amounted to to 368.9 million manats, thus exceeding the forecasts by 62.9 million manats," he added.

"However, given the economic crisis, each country should keep development of new entrepreneurship a priority, which plays an important role in the development of the national economy," he noted.

"From this point of view, decrees and orders of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev play a stimulating role in the import substitution," he added. "Id like to say that Azerbaijan is already producing enough goods that can meet the needs of the population in food, construction and manufacturing spheres."

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25 March 2017 16:00 (UTC+04:00)

The sixth edition of the International Government Communication Forum (IGCF 2017) themed Societal ParticipationComprehensive Development, held under the patronage of Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohamed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, concluded yesterday (March 23) at Expo Centre Sharjah, with the issue of a set of recommendations aimed at activating community participation in the achievement of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), AZERTAG reported.

Convening more than 2,500 local, regional and international attendees, the Forum witnessed the participation of high-level officials from 16 countries and included five keynote speeches, seven main sessions, six parallel discussion sessions, five accompanying workshops and three interactive sessions. The list of participants included world statesmen, five UAE ministers, two Nobel Peace Prize laureates and representatives of international organisations and public and private-sector officials. Day one of IGCF 2017 saw the announcement of winners of the fourth Sharjah Government Communication Award.

Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, Chairman of Sharjah Media Council, said: The end of each edition of IGCF marks a new beginning for the further advancement of government communication. Today, our efforts to develop a vital communication ecosystem are closer to accomplishment than ever before, due to the recommendations and insights of the international experts that weve hosted throughout this two-day Forum.

He added: We thank everyone who contributed to making IGCFs sixth edition a grand success, including sponsors, volunteers, and committee members who supported the Forums work mechanisms and offered valuable assistance to the Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB) in achieving the Forums objective of realising Sharjahs vision for government communication.

Jawaher Al Naqbi, Manager of the International Government Communication Forum, unveiled the recommendations of IGCFs sixth edition.

The Forum recommended establishing scientific, cultural and spiritual centres for children and the youth to build responsible personalities who are committed to advancing their countrys interests and social participation.

Secondly, it endorsed devising executive programmes to provide care for the elderly and ensure an environment that meets their needs.

A third recommendation was to enhance education, support scientific research programmes, and build capacities and skills that are vital to achieve the comprehensive development goals.

Fourthly, IGCF 2017 recommended the establishment of a joint Arab committee to support and launch initiatives that stimulate government communication programmes aiming to enhance the efforts of Arab countries towards sustainable development.

IGCF 2017 also called for active societal participation by families, schools, and media outlets in initiating progressive programmes to achieve the sustainable development of societies. In addition, the Forum called for the reinforcement of the medias role as a supporter of sustainable development programmes and human values. It encouraged the participation of people with disabilities in programmes and initiatives to achieve sustainable development in order to better integrate minority segments into mainstream society.

The Sharjah Children Shura Council session suggested embedding a smart alarm on the front doors of houses that would notify residents when exiting the premises about any electrical units that are still in use. Another recommendation of the dedicated session this year was to extend support to productive families in poorer countries, rather than offering direct financial assistance to the governments of these countries. Lastly, the children participating in IGCF 2017 proposed establishing a Childrens Education Charity Fund to support the education of poor children across the world.

For its part, the interactive session for people with disabilities emphasised the need to teach sign language in schools to enable all individuals within a society to communicate with one another. It also recommended issuing the Emirates Code (UAE standard code for the comprehensive environment) for people, institutions and society.

Meanwhile, the Youth Council stressed the pressing need for government entities to familiarise themselves with the most common communication platforms and smart applications among the youth in order to converse better with them. In addition, it highlighted the significance of including community hours as part of regular working hours at government offices  an initiative that will allow the youth to play their role in becoming change agents and delivering a positive impact in society.

The general recommendations of IGCF 2017 also included initiating conversation with government communication directorates at the level of the Arab region to form an Arab network of government communication based in Sharjah with representative offices across all member countries. Moreover, the Forum reiterated the importance of putting in place innovative and modern methods to survey Arab public opinion and public perception on government communication campaigns. The Forum articulated that in order for government communication campaigns to be more influential, they should enhance their presence across and utilisation of multiple social media platforms.

The Forum also called for launching a set of specialised training programmes for government communication professionals to equip them with the newest trends and tools in their field. It stressed the need to give them more flexibility in interacting with the public through social media platforms. Finally, several participating experts called for the launch of development circles to be held throughout the year to follow up on the public discourse about SDGs.

In the domains of environment and climate change, the Forum produced two main recommendations. The first is the need to increase numbers of media officers specialised in environment and climate change across all media platforms, in parallel with broader media coverage for these key issues and more regular in-depth training for dedicated media personnel. The second recommendation mandates transparency as a standard approach by all entities responsible for government communication in order to address relevant environmental challenges and crises effectively. This will also help transform public perception from skeptical to supportive of the efforts of governments to achieve strategic goals.

Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB) honoured the 27 speakers and 7 moderators who took part in the Forum, as well as participants in the Green Chair Initiative and the 28 sponsors, including the United Nations Foundation, Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority, Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services, Sharjah Children Centres, Beeah Company, Emirates Youth Council, Big Heart Foundation, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), National Media Council, Dubai Media Incorporated, Abu Dhabi Media Company, Sharjah Media Corporation, Dar Al Khaleej for Press, Printing, and Publishing, Gulf News, Sky News Arabia, Al Arabiya Channel, BBC, New York Times, Newsweek magazine, The Business Year, Oxford Business Group, Motivate Group, INC magazines, Sharjah 24, Sharjah Islamic Bank, Emirates Airlines, Arabian Gulf Mechanical Centre, and Expo Centre Sharjah, in addition to the 9 supporters of the Forum including Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority, Sharjah Civil Defence, Sharjah Municipality, Sharjah Police, Sharjah General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, Sharjah Department of Government Relations, Sharjah Medical District, Al Qassimi Hospital, Kuwait Hospital, and Al Zahraa Hospital.

The topics discussed in the sixth edition of the International Government Communication Forum reflect the pioneering role of Sharjah and the wider UAE in enhancing the role of government communication in supporting government efforts across all sectors to ensure a brighter future for coming generations.

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Asian economies are looking forward to promoting a more dynamic and sustainable course of globalization, President Xi Jinping said in a letter to the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) on Saturday.

President Xi said this year's conference, themed "Globalization & Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives," shows a collective focus on the issue.

Sixteen years since its founding, Xi applauded efforts made by the Boao forum in terms of building consensus, advancing cooperation and bolstering Asian influence.

Zeng Peiyan, vice-chairman of BFA, read the letter during the opening ceremony of the annual event on Saturday.

Yasuo Fukuda, chairman of BFA, said globalization is important to both developing countries and developed countries.

"We look forward to exchanging views among attendants of the forum," Fukuda said.

Boao, Hainan province, is the permanent location of the event. President Xi said China is pleased to see the forum's achievements as the host country.

The four-day conference kicked off on Thursday and is dedicated to championing a more inclusive globalization process through cooperation and dialogue.
25 March 2017 17:15 (UTC+04:00)

The Uzbek capital of Tashkent will host a gathering of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States on April 7, AZERTAG reported.

The FMs will consider several draft documents, and discuss issues of cooperation within the CIS, and the ways of improving the organization`s regional and global role.

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The name  Rise Baking Co.  might be new, as well as the trademarked technology FastPan, but the South Coast Baking Co. product has been around for decades, as has the management team thats bringing it to the forefront of the in-store bakery sector.



In 2013, Arbor Investments, a private equity firm specializing in food and beverage, began work on a new entity, Rise Baking, which encompasses Minneapolis-based New French Bakery; River Falls, WI-based Best Maid Cookie Co.; Hudson, WI-based Hudson Baking; and, most recently, Irvine, CA-based South Coast Baking, which opened its second facility in Springdale, AR, in 2014.



With a primary focus on frozen cookie dough for in-store bakeries, South Coast opened its Springdale facility to increase capacity and reduce distribution costs by establishing a presence east of the Mississippi River. The bakery already had an office in Northwest Arkansas to support its growing business.



We needed more capacity as well as the East Coast presence, said Kent Hayden, South Coast president. We had an R&D lab and a sales office, so we were well-established in the area.



As the new Springdale plant streamlines distribution across the nation, the integration into Rise Baking stands to change the cookie game for not just South Coast but the rest of the portfolio as well. As these cookie manufacturers come together, Rise Baking is quickly emerging as a major player in the cookie space, specifically in the large  and perhaps fragmented  in-store bakery area that lives between the ultra-premium and the gut stuffers.



In fact, Rise Baking has taken these four producers, who might have been seen as a thorn in the sides of their competitors, and turned them into one $300 million-plus cookie powerhouse.



Welcome to the family



Across the baking industry, companies  even those that might be seemingly unrelated  have been joining forces to create new platforms, product offerings and services. But acquisitions and their subsequent integrations dont happen with the snap of a finger. They require time, patience and a commitment to maintaining a cohesive unit that will ultimately benefit the customer.



Any time you try to bring multiple companies together, one of the hardest things, of course, is the diligence on product categories and financials. But the key  and often the most challenging  is bringing the cultures together to find a common bond and language, said Eric Ahlgren, COO, Rise Baking.



Since its founding in 1999, Arbor has made numerous investments in the North American baking industry, most recently winning Buyouts Magazines 2016 Deal of the Year for the 2015 sale of Gold Standard Baking, and saw an opportunity to pursue a roll-up strategy in the cookie, crispy bar and artisan bread segments. In 2013, Arbor acquired New French Bakery, which produces par-baked and frozen artisan bread for in-store bakeries nationwide, and partnered with industry veteran Mike Schultz, now Rise Baking CEO, to launch the platform.



As plans began for Rise Baking to emerge from Arbors investment portfolio, the company watched with a careful eye for cookie producers that would complement one another in terms of product quality, operational standards and corporate culture. After acquiring New French Bakery, we immediately began pursuing Best Maid, South Coast and Hudson Baking, which were all great cultural fits, and added product capabilities that our team could leverage in the in-store bakery market, said Brody Lynn, partner at Arbor Investments.



Roll-up strategies are not easy to execute, but Mr. Lynn gave credit to Mr. Schultzs 25 years in the baking industry and his ability to bring together not only a cohesive sales force but also corporate cultures that naturally gelled.



Mr. Schultz recalled that in the three-year search for a company to incorporate into the Rise brand, he and Arbor passed on some businesses, simply because their cultures werent the right fit. Integration is just too difficult if you dont have a common vision of the customer and consumer in mind, he said. This could not have been possible without the vision, resources and support of the Arbor Investment team. Its a beautiful thing seeing everything come together perfectly.



When Rise Baking leadership developed its mission statement and core values, it discovered they were all quite similar to those of the legacy companies. There were a few words that were different, but their spirits were spot on with one another, Mr. Hayden said. That was really nice for our people because when we came out with the new mission statement, it wasnt really new to anyone.



Rise Bakings core values revolve around customer focus, work ethic, accountability, passion for results, teamwork, commitment to safety and caring. We cultivate a caring environment where our dedicated and passionate team relentlessly services our customers, is explained in the companys core values statement.



Additionally, the phrase one bite at a time is found in the Rise Baking mission statement, communicating that quality starts with the commitment of its people and lives through each product the company makes in every facility.



This is evident throughout the company and with our sales force, most of whom also have extensive knowledge in manufacturing, Mr. Schultz said. Weve always had that team mentality. Weve known these customers for 25 years; we walk in, and they know us. They know we have a quality product, and well help them grow their business. We dont short our customers  we give them innovation.

Continue reading for more of South Coast's story.
China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) decided to recall all the frozen and chilled meat and poultry imported from the 21 Brazilian plants that are under investigation for a massive meat adulteration scheme, the food safety authority said Friday.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of Hong Kong's Food and Environmental Hygiene Department made the decision "in view of a notification from the Brazilian authorities today that the country will extend its scope of export ban to the 21 plants which are under investigation," it said.

According to information gathered by the CFS so far, among the 21 plants, six of them were involved in the import licenses issued by the CFS in the past six weeks. The CFS will liaise with local importers to follow up on the recall, it said.

The Brazilian police uncovered last week a massive meat adulteration scheme involving some of the country's largest meat producers. According to the police, the adulterated meat was sold in the domestic market as well as exported. The Brazilian authorities later imposed an export ban on 21 plants.

The CFS announce Tuesday an import ban on all the frozen and chilled meat and poultry from Brazil as a "precautionary measure."

It said Friday that the temporary import suspension will be maintained. Once the Brazilian authorities provide more detailed information, the CFS will conduct further risk assessment and suitably review its follow-up actions, including narrowing the scope of the import ban.

As for meat and poultry that has been shipped from Brazil prior to the import ban but has not yet arrived in Hong Kong, the CFS will also make special arrangements, marking and sealing the products upon their arrival for proper handling after the completion of the relevant investigation.

Ko Wing-man, secretary for food and health of the Hong Kong SAR government, said Friday that the recall is with an immediate effect, calling on meat importers and dealers in Hong Kong to cooperate with the CFS to reassure consumers.

"We are keeping in close contact with the Consulate General of Brazil in Hong Kong," Ko said, adding that once the Brazilian authorities confirm the scandal only involves the 21 plants, the scope of Hong Kong's import ban could be narrowed down.
Chinese students returning from overseas studies have lowered their expectations of income amid fierce competition, a report has found.

Published on Friday by overseas recruitment company Lockin China, the report said overseas returnees "are becoming more rational" in their income expectations as an estimated 660,000 returnees are going to join a record high 7.95 million domestic college graduates in the job market this year.

According to the report, which surveyed 150,000 Chinese overseas students and professionals as well as thousands of Chinese enterprises, nearly 64 percent of overseas returnee respondents said their expected annual income ranges from 70,000 ($10,170) to 120,000 yuan.

More than 27 percent of them expect more than 120,000 yuan, "which is much higher than the average level of the market".

Compared with last year when 23 percent of those surveyed expected an annual income of more than 150,000 yuan, this year the group with such an expectation has decreased to only 10.4 percent of respondents.

"There have been a great number of people returning from overseas, and the number is still on the rise. This makes overseas returnees more rational in their income expectations," said Ge Wei, a manager with Lockin.

The report said there has been an "obvious" increase of returnees since 2005 and it was "a turning point" in 2015 when the country saw more than half of those who left to study abroad come back. About 450,000 returnees came back to China in 2015.

The tightened immigration policies in foreign countries, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, are one of the major reasons for the increase of returnees, according to the report. Another major reason is the "global economic recession", it said.

While 63.2 percent of returnees chose the tightened policy as one of the reasons to return, more than 54 percent chose China's rapid economic growth.

Ge also said returnees don't have many advantages when competing with their domestic peers for jobs. On average, they could make only about 500 yuan more a month than their peers who study at home.

It's partly because it is difficult for them to show their advantages in interviews, she said, adding that many domestic graduates gain interview skills through training, but there is no such training in foreign universities.

But usually the returnees show their advantages after working for several years and see more possibilities for promotion and salary increases, she added.

Overseas students now start looking for jobs earlier, the report found.

More than 32 percent of overseas students started applying for domestic jobs six months before graduation.

The proportion of those who seek job opportunities only after returning to China has decreased from 64 percent in 2016 to 44.5 percent in 2017, according to the report.
 Flash

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that he is looking forward to his second trip to China this May to attend the "One Belt, One Road" summit organized by the Chinese government.

"I'm going there. I was invited by the president himself... It's a very ambitious project of China," he said in a speech to a meeting of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FFCCCII) in Manila.

"I'd like to thank China again. Our exports of banana have doubled and the pineapple increased by 50 percent," Duterte said.

Duterte said China has also promised to "open the floodgates" for more Philippine products.

The president reiterated that he has no plan to enter into a military alliance with any country right now.

"But certainly I can choose friends who are kind to us and those who understand us and those who do not make imposition," he said, alluding to China.
Targeting Southeast Texas for the second time in a year, a national organization is asking Orange County to remove a "white Latin cross" and another that sits on an American Legion war memorial, claiming their presence in front of the courthouse is unconstitutional.

Almost a year after the Freedom From Religion Foundation pressured the city of Port Neches into giving up ownership of a large cross at RiverFront park, the organization is waging a similar battle in the neighboring county.
I have often wondered why policymakers in Washington repeatedly fail to seriously address problems with our Social Security and Medicare programs, despite repeated warnings by economists and the programs administrators that the programs will begin spending more than they take in by the end of the decade.

Then I wrote a column advocating entitlement reform. Now I get it.

Given the many strongly worded responses I received, I have a better understanding, at least on some very small scale, what politicians are facing when they so much as whisper the words Social Security and Medicare in the same breath as the word reform.

Indeed, the topic truly is the third rail of Americans politics.

In a recent column, I explained how President Donald Trumps promise to make no changes to Social Security and Medicare was going to be a problem, given the programs trajectories.

I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that fixing these programs so they serve the populations that rely upon them and are around for future generations is a largely uncontroversial idea  especially when so many Americans are concerned about federal debt.

Then a piece about entitlement spending written by my favorite economist and Washington Post columnist, Robert Samuelson, reminded me of something very important: public opinion is awash in contradictions.

My inbox quickly filled with diatribes like this one: Entitlement (expletive), its our money, and lawmakers robbed (the trust fund) and (it) is owed what was taken from it and to be given back with interest, and youll be old some day.

First off, I find it astounding that anyone would trust the government to return to us money that it siphons out of our paychecks each month.

I doubt lawmakers ever met a dollar they didnt promptly spend.

Even if we assume the government holds our money for safekeeping while we age and pays us back with interest, studies show average Social Security and Medicare payouts are significantly higher than what recipients paid in via taxes.

The Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that contingent upon income and lifespan, the average Social Security and Medicare benefits for a couple can be as little as three times their investment and as much as 14 times what they paid in.

While many people contend the monies are in a trust fund, they arent. Most revenues are paid out to current beneficiaries, while the government and future workers are left with an IOU to cover the next generation of beneficiaries.

And the shrinking workforce means that wont be possible at current levels much longer, meaning future generations cant depend on the programs.

In my column, I did not advocate any particular policy changes, but I am not aware of any that call for changes to the benefits of current and near-term beneficiaries. So the angry diatribes of seniors, or near-seniors, are entirely misplaced.

Most proposals suggest modest changes, like means testing or raising the retirement age for Americans still years away from retirement, which are reasonable given the nature of the problem.

No Labels, a bipartisan policy organization headed by former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and former senator Joseph I. Lieberman, has made Social Security and Medicare reform one of its top policy priorities. It advocates higher payroll taxes, among other policy tweaks, to help shore up Social Security.

This wouldnt impact current seniors.

As to the repeated critique by many readers that calling Social Security and Medicare entitlements is a misnomer, I understand the objection.

In his column on entitlement spending, Samuelson suggested we drop the whole notion of entitlement. Just eliminate it. ... This would encourage clarity and candor, and force politicians to name specific policy programs.

He then added that it wont happen. Generally, Americans dont want clarity and candor in their fiscal debates.

Call it whatever you want, reform needs to happen.

And lawmakers must risk the deluge of nasty emails and phone calls and start talking about it more.
The following hospital and health system rating and outlook changes and affirmations took place in the last week, beginning with the most recent.

1. Fitch assigns 'AA-' rating to Allina Health System's bonds

Fitch Ratings assigned an "AA-" rating to Minneapolis-based Allina Health System's bonds.

2. Fitch upgrades rating for Catholic Health Services of Long Island's bonds to 'A-'

Fitch Ratings upgraded the rating on New York-based Catholic Health Services of Long Island's bonds to "A-" from "BBB-."

3. Fitch places DeKalb Medical Center's certificates on Rating Watch Negative

Fitch Ratings placed Decatur, Ga.-based DeKalb Medical Center's "BBB-" rated $177.6 million of series 2010 revenue anticipation certificates on Rating Watch Negative.

4. S&P raises rating on Rogers Memorial Hospital to 'A-'

S&P Global Ratings raised the long-term rating on Oconomowoc, Wis.-based Rogers Memorial Hospital's series 2014A and 2014B bonds to "A-" from "BBB+."

5. S&P assigns 'AA-' rating to Allina Health System's bonds

S&P Global Ratings assigned an "AA-" long-term rating to Minneapolis-based Allina Health System's series 2017 taxable revenue bonds and series 2017A tax-exempt revenue refunding bonds.

6. Moody's downgrades rating on CHI's debt to 'Baa1'

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the long-term debt rating on Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives to "Baa1" from "A3" and downgraded CHI's variable-rate demand bonds backed by self-liquidity to "Baa1/VMIG2" from "A3/VMIG2," affecting approximately $5.7 billion of rated debt.

7. Moody's affirms 'A3' rating on Torrance Memorial Medical Center's bonds

Moody's Investors Service affirmed the "A3" rating on Torrance (Calif.) Memorial Medical Center's revenue bonds, affecting approximately $235 million of rated debt.

8. Moody's assigns 'Aa3' rating to Allina Health System's bonds

Moody's Investors Service assigned an "Aa3" rating to Minneapolis-based Allina Health System's proposed $150 million of series 2017 fixed-rate taxable bonds and $76 million of proposed series 2017A fixed-rate healthcare system revenue refunding bonds.

9. Moody's withdraws rating on Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare's bonds

Moody's Investors Service withdrew the "A2" rating on Naperville, Ill.-based Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare's debt.

10. Moody's downgrades Peninsula Regional Medical Center's rating to 'A3'

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the rating on Salisbury, Md.-based Peninsula Regional Medical Center's revenue bonds to "A3" from "A2," affecting $124 million of outstanding revenue bonds.

11. Moody's withdraws rating on Conway Medical Center's bonds

Moody's Investors Service withdrew its ratings on Conway (S.C.) Medical Center's series 2011A and 2011B bonds.

12. Fitch affirms 'A+' rating on Palomar Health's bonds

Fitch Ratings affirmed the "A+" rating on Escondido, Calif.-based Palomar Health's bonds. The bonds were also placed on rating watch evolving.

13. Fitch affirms 'A' rating on Dignity Health's debt

Fitch Ratings affirmed the "A" rating on Sacramento, Calif.-based Dignity Health's approximately $3.3 billion of outstanding debt.

14. S&P assigns 'AA-' rating to Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare & Affiliates' bonds

S&P Global Ratings assigned an "AA-" rating to Memphis, Tenn.-based Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare & Affiliates' series 2017 revenue bonds.

15. Moody's affirms 'A2' rating on Lee Memorial Health System's bonds

Moody's Investors Service affirmed the "A2" rating on Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Memorial Health System's $307 million of outstanding bonds.

16. S&P affirms 'BBB' rating on Jackson Hospital & Clinic's bonds, revises outlook to negative

S&P Global Ratings revised Montgomery, Ala.-based Jackson Hospital & Clinic's outlook to negative from stable.

17.Moody's assigns 'A1' rating to Medical University of South Carolina's bonds

Moody's Investors Service assigned an "A1" rating to Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina's proposed $24 million of series 2017 revenue refunding bonds.

18. Moody's affirms 'Aa2' rating on Monongahela Valley Health System's LOC-backed bonds

Moody's Investors Service affirmed the "Aa2" long-term joint support letter of credit backed rating on Monongahela (Pa.) Valley Health System's series 2011A and series 2011B hospital revenue bonds.

Editor's note: This article was updated Mon., March 27. An earlier version of this article misstated that the bond rating change applied to Catholic Health Initiatives. Becker's regrets the error.
The expected House vote on the American Health Care Act was cancelled Friday. Here are 10 reactions to the news.

All of the reactions were emailed to Becker's Hospital Review.

Lowell C. Brown, partner and chairman of National Health Care Law Group at Arent Fox. "To me, the collapse of the GOP's effort really began seven years ago when the key players on both sides refused to pass bipartisan health reform. The American healthcare system can't be reformed effectively on a partisan basis. In 2010 the Democrats enacted a massive reform that was 100 percent partisan, and in 2017 the GOP has answered with a replacement that was equally partisan. Our system is a wickedly complex patchwork of policies, designed to satisfy dozens of competing interests. Without significant compromise, there's no workable solution. Social Security and Medicare, for example, had bipartisan support and they endure to this day."

Garrett Fenton, member in the health, welfare and ACA compliance practice areas of Miller & Chevalier: "It appears that the ACA will remain the law of the land, at least for now, with the Trump administration and Congressional GOP leaders eager to move on to tax reform, infrastructure and other priorities. One open question is whether and how the federal agencies in charge of implementing the ACA will take action at the administrative level to effectuate changes in the law. This previously has been referred to as 'stage 2' of the ACA repeal and replacement process. But with the legislative efforts in 'stage 1' falling flat, at least for the time being, it's not clear how much that will impact the stage 2 initiatives at the regulatory level. Many of the details of ACA implementation were delegated to the agencies, particularly HHS, meaning those same agencies still wield a great deal of ability to alter the trajectory of the law, and the insurance and healthcare markets as a whole. It also remains to be seen whether the Senate will proceed with its own ACA repeal and replacement initiatives, notwithstanding the House's failure to reach a consensus."

Bea Grause, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State. "Today the U.S. House of Representative GOP leadership pulled back from plans to hold a vote on the AHCA, the bill that would repeal much of the Affordable Care Act, after it was determined the votes for passage were not there. The Healthcare Association of New York State, New York's statewide hospital and health system association, has opposed AHCA, as it would increase by 24 million the number of uninsured nationwide, including 2.7 million New Yorkers, upend the Medicaid program, and burden hospitals and health systems with fewer resources and more uninsured or underinsured patients. HANYS urges Congress and the administration to embrace working to modify and improve the ACA to ensure meaningful healthcare coverage is as least as expansive as it is today and the healthcare delivery system made stronger."

David Herd, DC, president of the American Chiropractic Association. "The bill considered today by the U.S. House of Representatives needs further work to truly enhance patient access to affordable conservative care. The American Chiropractic Association is particularly concerned with the repeal of the essential health benefits provision within ACA, which outlines the list of benefits plans in the exchange and the private markets must contain. Our greatest concern is that the only affordable plans that will be available will contain minimal coverage, limiting patient access to chiropractors and other providers who offer non-drug, noninvasive conservative approaches to healthcare."

Dr. Herd added: "There was little opportunity for stakeholder input throughout this [repeal and replace] process. We remain ready to work with the administration and Congress on issues to protect the millions of patients who have coverage and to ensure access to cost-effective, conservative treatments provided by doctors of chiropractic."

Jeffrey Hulburt, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization. "The House of Representatives withdrew voting on the AHCA  that's great news for Massachusetts. If the ACA was repealed as proposed in the AHCA, our state stood to lose much more than health insurance coverage. Hospitals, physicians and employees no doubt would have suffered immeasurable consequences.

What's more, the AHCA threatened to reverse the gains we've made in the shift toward a value-based model of care that rewards providers for the quality of care they provide. As one of the early adopters of value-based care, we've seen first-hand that it is possible to achieve cost-effective, high-quality health outcomes when providers and hospitals form partnerships to coordinate all aspects of patient care and share financial risk. Our model works. Recent results from CMS found that BIDCO achieved $55 million in savings while improving care quality for Medicare patients. Massachusetts is leading the nation on healthcare access, quality and cost control. We thank our Congressional Delegation for their dedication to this issue and look forward to working with them to ensure that problems identified in the ACA are addressed in thoughtful way, and future reform efforts protect the extraordinary access to healthcare and innovation that has developed in Massachusetts and across the nation."

Chip Kahn, president and CEO of Federation of American Hospitals. "As the Congress regroups after the consideration of the AHCA, we hope moving forward that policy makers will focus on improving access to affordable healthcare coverage for Americans, protect and strengthen the Medicaid program for the most vulnerable, and restore needed Medicare funding so community hospitals have sufficient resources to continue to deliver high quality care to seniors and the disabled.

If the Congress chooses to go back to the drawing board on ACA repeal and replace legislation in the future, it is important that a recrafted plan puts patients first. We stand ready to work with lawmakers on next steps."

Margaret Murray, CEO of the Association for Community Affiliated Plans. "While ACAP opposed the AHCA, safety-net health plans continue to believe in the importance of health coverage for all Americans at higher quality and lower cost. This moment gives Congress an opportunity to take a different approach to improve the healthcare system. ACAP has offered constructive ideas on how to improve the ACA to make it work for more Americans and we believe the opportunities for genuine improvement are abundant. ACAP is eager to engage in productive bipartisan discussions around reforming the healthcare system. We hope to join other healthcare stakeholders in engaging Congress in a productive dialogue on how to make a healthcare system that works for all Americans."

John Sculley (CMO) and Ravi Ika (CEO) of RxAdvance. "Even if the bill had passed, like Obamacare, it still wouldn't seriously address the crucial $750 billion in waste due to avoidable medical costs. Of these costs, half are due to physician/hospital misuse/incompetency and the other half is due to avoidable, drug-impacted medical costs. If Medicare, followed by Medicaid and commercial insurers, adopt the silver bullet solution of creating preferred physician/hospital networks with risk contracts to manage the uninsured and underinsured and select the right pharmacy benefit partner with risk contracts respectively, we can cut these costs in half and still have more than enough to cover the uninsured and underinsured."

Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of San Diego-based Scripps Health. "Now that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have pulled the new healthcare bill, the obvious question is what will happen next.

Clearly this is far from being over. The political battle waged over the last two months has created a great deal of uncertainty for everyone in the health care industry, including healthcare providers like Scripps Health.

At the same time, maintaining the status quo isnt an attractive option. While extending insurance coverage to millions of more Americans under the Affordable Care Act has been a great accomplishment, we can all agree that the original legislation has some flaws that need to be addressed.

Perhaps this pause in the partisan firestorm in Washington offers the perfect opportunity to find consensus in this incredibly important debate.

I believe these priorities offer the keys to success: Making sure as many Americans as possible have insurance coverage; ensuring that coverage is affordable; and giving health care providers a seat at the table to hammer out the details since we are the ones who better understand the downstream impact of health reform legislation.

Just as Obamacare represented the will of the Democrats, Trumpcare or Ryancare represents the interests of the Republicans. Such partisan-based approaches will always be handicapped by the opposite party's out-of-hand rejection. Instead, we should all be joining forces to create America'sCare  legislation based on compromise and flexibility.

Acting in a truly bipartisan effort will provide a foundation to sustain the provisions of a healthcare law for years to come and to fix the inevitable problems that will surface as we move from political legislation to real-world experience. And it will move us closer than ever to the goals we all share  insurance coverage for all Americans, better access to care and improved quality."

Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association. "Speaker Ryan made the correct choice in pulling the AHCA. This was the right call for lung health and the more than 32 million Americans living with lung disease.

Together with 10 leading patient organizations, we have put forward Consensus Healthcare Reform Principles that identify the fundamental healthcare needs of Americans. The American Lung Association is ready to work with the Congress and the administration on commonsense steps to ensure the healthcare system provides affordable, accessible and adequate healthcare coverage and preserves the coverage provided to millions through Medicare and Medicaid."

More articles on leadership and management:

8 things to know about Wilson Medical Center

Word from the C-suite: President Obama says 'America is stronger because of ACA'

Scripps CEO Chris Van Gorder: 'Good' healthcare law 'will not come out of back room deals'
Under direction from President Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., pulled the American Health Care Act from the House floor Friday afternoon, dashing Republican hopes of quickly repealing and replacing the ACA.

Here are five things to know about why the bill was pulled and what will happen next.

1. Republican leaders made final attempts Friday to sway Freedom Caucus conservatives.Vice President Mike Pence, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, met with the Freedom Caucus at a Republican social club around noon to discuss the bill, according to The Washington Post. Members of this conservative faction represented a large chunk of the Republican opposition to the bill. President Trump himself lobbied 120 lawmakers ahead of Friday's scheduled vote, according to the report.

2. Additional Republicans defected from a yes vote Friday due to last-minute changes made to the bill. Leaders agreed to repeal essential health benefit requirements Thursday in an effort to win more conservative yes votes. However, the concession was dismissed by conservatives and condemned by moderates. According to The New York Times, the decision to add a provision repealing the essential health benefits requirement "doomed the bill."

3. Rep. Ryan visited the White House a little after noon to tell President Trump he had failed to whip the vote, according to The New York Times. With all Democrats planning to vote against the bill, the Republicans could only afford to lose 22 votes in the House for the bill to move on to the Senate. Rep. Ryan was not confident they had the votes needed to win. The White House still wanted to move forward, according to Politico.

4. Around 3:00 p.m. ET, President Trump told Rep. Ryan over the phone to withdraw the bill, according to Politico. Rep. Ryan broke the news to rank-and-file Republicans in a private meeting just 30 minutes later, according to The New York Times. Republicans needed 215 votes to pass the bill. "We just weren't quite there today," Rep. Ryan said on ABC News Live. "We will get there, but we weren't there today." Rep. Ryan said he advised the president that canceling the vote would be best, according to Politico.

5. The ACA prevails  for now. "We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," Rep. Ryan said, according to The New York Times.In the meantime,the administration may be able to make some adjustments to the ACA through regulation. Rep. Ryan told reporters, "I think there are some things that the secretary of HHS can do to try and sort of stabilize things."

President Trump told reporters he believed the ACA would "explode" in the near future, and when it does, he said he would be open to working collaboratively with both parties on another healthcare bill. Meanwhile, GOP senators already started pitching alternative bills Friday afternoon, which they say could pass along party lines in both the House and Senate, according to The Hill.

More articles on leadership and management:

8 things to know about Wilson Medical Center

Word from the C-suite: President Obama says 'America is stronger because of ACA'

Scripps CEO Chris Van Gorder: 'Good' healthcare law 'will not come out of back room deals'
Harrisburg, Pa.-based PinnacleHealth officials said the health system has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to pursue a strategic partnership with Hanover (Pa.) HealthCare Plus, the parent organization of Hanover (Pa.) Hospital.

Under the partnership, Hanover Hospital will remain independent until the organizations' finalize a formal partnership agreement in the next several months. The goal of the partnership is to grow Hanover Hospital's services, recruit physicians and retain current leadership and employees for at least one year and ensure all charitable donations to the hospital remain within the community.

The transaction is pending regulatory approval. This is the fifth transaction the health system has decided to pursue in the last two weeks. PinnacleHealth signed an agreement to purchase four hospitals from Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems and declared its intent to pursue a partnership with Pittsburgh-based UPMC March 14.

"Being a standalone hospital in Pennsylvania is increasingly challenging," said Michael Gaskins, president and CEO of Hanover Hospital. "We are excited about what this partnership means for our hospital and the dedicated employees and physicians who care for patients every day. Our organization looks forward to working with PinnacleHealth not only to enhance the excellent services we provide today, but to explore ways we can grow and increase access to healthcare services for those in our community."



"PinnacleHealth is thrilled for the opportunity to work with a unique organization like Hanover Hospital, which offers extensive services and state-of-the-art technology while providing exceptional, personalized care to the Adams and York communities," said Philip Guarneschelli, president and CEO of PinnacleHealth. "We're looking forward to working with Hanover's employed physicians who are skilled in offering integrated clinical programs that deliver high-quality, efficient care that result in great patient outcomes. Our goal is not only to support the great care patients have come to expect, but also to develop programs and enhance physician recruitment to offer the community even more services close to home."
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WASHINGTON  Seeking and winning the presidency has been a magical voyage of discovery for Donald Trump.

Tuesday night, he divulged a most remarkable finding: Abraham Lincoln was  are you sitting down for this?  a Republican.

Most people dont even know he was a Republican, Trump told a group of Republicans. Right? Does anyone know? A lot of people dont know that.

Its possible that somebody doesnt know that Lincoln, the first Republican president, was a member of the Republican Party, also known as the Party of Lincoln. But it has not been for lack of effort on Trumps part. He has repeatedly tried to educate the populace on this little-known fact.

August 2016: Most people dont know this. The Republican Party is  the party of Abraham Lincoln.

September 2016: A lot of people dont realize that Abraham Lincoln, the great Abraham Lincoln, was a Republican.

October 2016: A lot of people dont know that its the party of Abraham Lincoln.

Beyond this Lincoln revelation, Trump has happened upon many other things that people didnt know. Such as the complexity of health care: Nobody knew health care could be so complicated, he said recently. And the existence of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895: Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.

Later, touring the new African American history museum in Washington, Trump discovered that slavery was bad. Spying a stone auction block, Trump said, according to Alveda King, a part of his entourage: Boy, that is just not good. That is not good. King also told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that upon seeing shackles for children, Trump remarked: That is really bad. That is really bad.

Who knew?

Trumps discoveries of seemingly obvious things raise two possibilities: 1) He thinks people are awfully stupid, or 2) he is discovering for himself things the rest of us already knew. Which is true? Nobody knows. But we do know that there are many other things Trump thinks people dont know about.

Sunday school: I talk about Sunday school, and people dont even know what Im talking about anymore. Its true.

That Bill Clinton signed NAFTA: A lot of people dont know that.

What a value-added tax is: A lot of people dont know what that means.

That we have a trade deficit with Mexico: People dont know that.

That Iraq has large oil reserves: People dont know this about Iraq.

That war is expensive: People dont realize it is a very, very expensive process.

That the country is divided: People dont realize we are an unbelievably divided country.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Trump, in his bid to educate the public about things he has learned, takes on a professorial tone. Talking about the Johnson Amendment on church-state separation, Professor Trump told an audience that its something people dont know in the kind of detail and depth that I have explained it to you today. Trump had just explained to them the Johnson Amendments provenance: This was Lyndon Johnson in the 1970s.

The Johnson Amendment was passed in 1954. Johnson retired in 1969 and died in 1973.

Trump claims that a lot of people dont know that U.S. taxes are the worlds highest and that nobody knows the U.S. murder rate is the highest in 45 years. For good reason: Those things arent true. Conversely, just about everybody knows that Russia was behind the election hacking, but Trump long asserted that nobody knows if its Russia.

While Trump has said nobody knows everything, he claims to come pretty close. In his own words:

Nobody knows health care better than Donald Trump.

Nobody knows the tax code better than I do.

Nobody knows politics better than I do.

Nobody knows more about debt. Im like the king.

By contrast, Trumps list of things other people dont know about is extensive: the heroin problem in New Hampshire, President Obamas record on deportations, the number injured in the Paris terrorist attacks, eminent domain, the existence of two Air Force One planes, Afghanistans mineral deposits, Hillary Clinton flunking a bar exam and the authenticity of Trumps hair.

Trump may be correct when he says most people dont know how much hes worth and dont know that hes a nice person. But hes surely wrong when he says people dont know how bad things are.

A lot of people dont know it, but our countrys in trouble, he has said.

If we didnt know it before, we do now.
The film star has explained how she was tempted by TV.

Hollywood actress Thandie Newton has said she could not turn down a role in Line Of Duty because it is the best thing on British TV.

The Crash star, regularly seen in films and big-budget US TV series such as Westworld, explained why she was so keen to take on the fourth season of the BBC police drama.

According to The Sun, she said: Its because its the best thing on British TV.

When I saw the third season, I was transfixed. I couldnt believe how daring they were to get rid of the star in the first f***ing episode.

The hit BBC One programme, known for its shocking twists, focuses on a police anti-corruption unit and also stars Vicky McClure.

Thandie said: I watched all the episodes, met (creator) Jed (Mercurio) the next day and before even reading the script, I was in.

I was like, Oh my God, the golden age of television is back.

Thandie admitted she would love to do more British TV, but said there were not enough roles available.

She said: Oh God yeah, but its all costume drama, dahling. Thats the fly in my ointment. Youre not going to put a person with brown skin in any of those.

Id love to go home every night and see my kids who are at school in this country, but its never been possible. Ive made 40 movies and four of them were shot in Britain.

Its a disgusting statistic. If I could be in Downton Abbey or Victoria, what would I be? A maid? No thanks.

But Im not moping about it. Im doing things to make that different.

Ive written a six-part series, which Im hoping to make next year. Thats where I find myself at the age of 44.

Give me glass ceilings and Ill smash them. Not only black people, everybody should smash them because I do not believe its what we want in this country.

:: Line Of Duty returns to BBC One on Sunday at 9pm.
This has been a week of contrasts for Theresa May. It started with style - her interview with US Vogue was published alongside a much-scrutinised fashion shoot - and ended in solemnity: on Wednesday night she addressed the nation about the Westminster terrorist attack, before reportedly visiting some of the wounded at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital yesterday.

Praise has been heaped on the Prime Minister for her handling of the aftermath of the atrocity, especially her speech to Parliament on Thursday, in which she declared the country was "not afraid". "Our resolve will never waver in the face of terrorism," she told the Commons. "We know that democracy and the values it entails will always prevail."

Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, called her words "both unifying and defiant", while her own party was similarly effusive. Nusrat Ghani, the MP for Wealden, said: "She displayed a calm strength and a pride in our values which is resolute."

Amy Gray, a Conservative candidate who ran in Hackney North and Stoke Newington in 2015, added: "On Wednesday night I was feeling quite wobbly. My office overlooks Big Ben, and so I had been evacuated from the building. And then the PM came on and struck exactly the right tone. This was spine-stiffening stuff: we will go to work, we will get on the trains.

"I think when you hear Theresa saying that, it comes from the weight of six years as Home Secretary. She knows who is out there, and if she is carrying on as usual, we should be too."

Even though Westminster was in lockdown, May insisted on going to her weekly audience with the Queen on Wednesday evening, telling her aides she would not be cowed by terror, and leaving Downing Street at 6pm.

Resham Kotecha, who has worked with May for almost five years at Women2Win, an organisation May co-founded, believes the PM's best attributes shone through this week.

"She is not the type of Prime Minister who will charm the pants off you, but she is the kind who will lead this country with strength," she said. "She was so calm, which is what London needed from her, and her strength was infectious."

Julian Knight, the Tory MP for Solihull, agreed: "She is very prime ministerial. There's a solemnity to her character which is becoming in that post at a time like this."

Knight supported May in last year's leadership contest from the beginning: "After the Brexit vote, she was what was needed - she had gravitas."

During any leadership campaign, MPs come knocking, asking candidates what they will receive in return for their backing. "Theresa said 'nothing'," recalled a Tory MP. "She cut through the crap and said, 'I'm the best person for the job - you should support me in the interests of the country.' And she was right. She was the only adult in the room."

Even now, May remains a relative unknown, here and abroad. If asked about her interests, most voters would probably only mention her colourful kitten heels.

Her interview with US Vogue was about honing her image and putting our Brexit PM in the international spotlight.

"This was a great way to make her accessible, to show her human side," said Kotecha. "And it was reaching out to a different group who won't be watching Question Time every week."

While we had the three stages of her predecessor David Cameron - the hug-a-hoodie caring Conservative, the PR-led leader with his tight inner circle and finally the over-ambitious gambler - May's image is solid, not built on shifting foundations. "Good governance is at its heart," said a Tory MP. "Quite a counterpoint in this media age."

May remains untested at a general election and ruled out calling a snap vote that could have put to bed questions about her legitimacy.

She not only hasn't gone to the country, though - she didn't even get the nod from the membership, since her rival Andrea Leadsom (who is whispered to be relieved not to be PM now) dropped out.

But many Conservatives believe that despite being a reluctant Remainer (if now a Brexiteer with all the zeal of the convert), she would have won the backing of the membership.

"I phoned up 15 of my senior, party-member constituents when candidates were emerging," an MP said. "Thirteen went with Theresa. If it had gone to a vote, I'm sure Theresa would have won, even against Boris, because Brexit had changed the job description."

Gray added that she was "TM for PM all the way- there were a lot of us quietly mobilising, making phone calls and planning events for her".

This reflects May's loyal following among women. A number of political journalists have said she lacks the network that helped bring Cameron to power.

But perhaps those journalists weren't looking in the right place: May may not have many parliamentary pub buddies, but she does have disciples.

"Many female MPs wouldn't be where they are without May," said Gray. "At the last party conference, she made sure to be at the Women2Win reception and everyone was thrilled. She was treated like a rock star there."

When Kotecha stood in Dulwich and West Norwood in 2015, May spoke at her fundraiser. "Theresa networks differently from many MPs," she said. "She is reserved, but very supportive. She doesn't shout about the work she does supporting female MPs and candidates. She's been doing that for 11 years - back then, getting women ahead in politics was not a fashionable cause. The work she did there was often with no credit publicly."

Surviving six years as Home Secretary - the poisoned chalice of ministerial briefs - is a feat. "It's a huge job, and it's not flashy," noted Gray. "A lot of it we don't see, like with MI5 and the police, what they do to keep us safe."

Gray thinks - though poles apart politically - that May is in character like Clement Attlee. "His leadership style was 'let's get on with the job'," she said. "And he rose through the ranks as May did. She started as a councillor, then was a backbench MP, then Home Secretary."

Kotecha thinks this week will mean the nation understands May better: "I'm pleased the country is getting behind her - that's what she deserves."
Nicki Shroeder (48) is married to Neil and they have three children Adam (17), Emily (16) and Edward (7). She says:

I am originally from Banbridge, and left Northern Ireland in 1987 to study law at Cambridge University. It was there that I met my husband-to-be and we were married the year after I graduated.

The wedding took place in my home town but then we went back to live in London.

The Troubles were still going in Northern Ireland at that time and it was quite refreshing to live somewhere where that was not an issue.

When I had gone to university it was interesting to hear people talking about other things rather than violence or sectarianism. There were a whole range of other political topics which were more relevant to their lives. I was mixing with people from all over the world who had come to Cambridge for their education and that was certainly different from what I was used to home.

As well there were more job opportunities in England, particularly London. Initially I worked in private practice doing media related law for about 14 years and then I took a 10-year break to bring up the children.

I came back into the workforce about three years ago working for the News Media Association and then moved to ITV about two and a half years ago.

I am currently head of business affairs for daytime television, which involves programmes like Good Morning Britain, Loose Women and Lorraine as well as factual programmes.

I do get to meet some of the personalities which people right around the UK can relate to and tune in to watch every day.

It is a great career and no two days are the same.

I do come back to Northern Ireland a couple of times a year to visit my mother, brother and sister who all live in Scarva and they come over to see us as often as they can.

I have never thought that I would come back and live in Northern Ireland. It is the whole package which keeps me in London - career and family. My children were all born here and have put down their roots and have their friends here.

I have actually lived here longer than I did in Northern Ireland. I realise that there has been a sea-change in life in Northern Ireland. I have a nephew who was born after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and I am conscious of the fact that he will have a very different upbringing and childhood to the one that I had.

I have been conscious of the recent election in Northern Ireland and the rows that have surrounded Arlene Foster, but I must admit that my eldest son follows political developments in the province more closely than I do.

However, if I am asked, I say that I am from Northern Ireland. I don't consider myself as English.

When I return to Northern Ireland people say that I have a very strong English accent, yet over in London I am said to have a Northern Irish accent. I live in a sort of a twilight zone.

Maybe one day we will think of retiring to Northern Ireland but we enjoy life in London. We have never thought of moving out of the city to other parts of England and we see ourselves living here for the next 20 odd years at least.

It is a fantastic city with lots to do and see and everything is on your doorstep, which is lovely."

Julie Ann Trainor (30) from Killeavy, Co Armagh, is a freelance journalist in London. She says:

When I was younger, I spent a week in London with my cousin and fell in love with the city. I studied journalism with English at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. While there, and after graduating, I wrote a weekly, gossip-style column for my local newspaper, the Newry Democrat.

After graduating, I worked full-time at Ulster Bank, but never gave up my hopes of a career in media. My second cousin, who incidentally now works for the Belfast Telegraph, got me a week's work experience with the Daily Mirror in London about five years ago, and that was my introduction to how the media operates there.

I was then offered a few weeks' work experience at a magazine, which led to paid commissions, including freelancing for OK magazine, The Star magazine, New magazine, Mail Online and The Sun's website.

My speciality is showbusiness news, and that really is my dream job. It is a tremendous area to work in, but obviously very competitive as many people want to move in those circles, so it is quite hard work. I have been able to attend red carpet events, film premieres, showbusiness parties and product launches, as well as conducting interviews with celebrities like Katie Price, James Arthur, Little Mix and boxers Anthony Joshua and David Haye.

One thing you don't need to be in this job is shy, but I have never met anyone who was rude to me. Perhaps my Irish accent helps.

I came to London because I thought it was the best place to get opportunities for a career in media. It has a better lifestyle than back home. There's much more to do, especially the nightlife and being able to shop around the clock. It's so cosmopolitan and vibrant, with many accents audible on the streets.

Amazingly, a message from my sister, Lorna, who is currently travelling in Argentina, alerted me to this week's terrorist attack in London. She was sending me messages asking if I was safe and then I found out what had happened when I went online.

It was really quite scary, but you cannot live your life in fear. Life in the city went back to normal very quickly with transport running regularly that evening, and by the next day things seemed to be back to normal for most people.

I still come home to Newry every few weeks to see my mum and dad, and I have a brother who is studying overseas. I also do my best try to keep up with local news. The death of Martin McGuinness made the front page in London newspapers, and social media makes it easy to find out what is going on back home.

Would I come home again? I never say never as life in London media is so unpredictable. However, at the moment, I love it. It is definitely a young person's city.

Carmel Martin (32) is married to Owen and they are expecting their first child in July. She says:

I always wanted to be a teacher, and the options for me growing up in Northern Ireland were to do a degree at somewhere like the University of Ulster, as it was then, and then gain a PGCE qualification, which would take another year, or I could go to London and do a specialist teaching degree. I chose the latter, attending St Marys at Twickenham in 2003.

I am fortunate that I have three uncles and an aunt living in England, and they were very supportive towards me when I moved over. The other motivation for going to England was that it would be easier to get a permanent job upon qualification.

I have friends who studied in England and then returned back to Northern Ireland and who are still doing subbing shifts several years later, being unable to get a permanent post.

I was fortunate to get my first post teaching in a primary school straight after completing my degree. I stayed there seven years and have been in my present school for three years.

The career progression opportunities are also better here. I now hold a senior teaching position, head of Key Stage 2, and am part of the leadership team. I would not have had that opportunity so quickly at home.

On my second year in London I met my husband, Owen, who works in marketing with Coca Cola. We have thought about moving to Northern Ireland, and both of us would be keen to do that if everything lined up correctly.

While we earn much more in London than we would back home, the cost of housing especially is much higher, so moving would not be a huge drawback.

In an ideal world, I would like to return to Northern Ireland in about five years time when there would not be the same pressure on me to remain in work. I could take time out to look after any children we had and get them settled in school.

But that plan would depend on my husband getting a job comparable to the one he currently has.

I do have an interest in current affairs in Northern Ireland but, obviously, it does not influence any of our day-to-day decisions, and some of the coverage is just bad press, in my opinion.

I grew up in Cushendun in the Glens of Antrim, and the Troubles never really impinged on our lives. I would have more concern about terrorist attacks in London in the present climate that I ever did at home.

Cushendun is still my home, and even my husband, who is from London, would move there tomorrow if things worked out properly.

Of course, we have a much more diverse range of friends in London than I would have had home. I met a lot of interesting people at university, but I also made friends with people from Northern Ireland who studied over here and then returned home and I am still in contact with them.

The great thing about London is that there is so much to do and see. We live just a 20 minute-train journey from the centre of London with all its attractions, and it certainly gives us a great quality of life.

Catherine Wilson (45) is originally from Co Down. She now lives in Wiltshire, near Stonehenge, and works as head of customer operations with Game. She is a single parent and lives with her son, Adam Brittain (13). She says:

I have lived away from home for more than 20 years. I worked abroad for a couple of years after school, and then my dad died, so I moved home to live with my mum and be there for her. I studied at Queens University and then worked abroad again since I had studied languages.

I met my husband, who was from Glasgow, and we got married in 2001 and moved to Germany because of his job, then moved to Wiltshire when Adam was one. I got back into my career when he went to nursery school but, unfortunately, my husband and I separated in 2009 and got divorced two years later.

At this time, both my parents are dead. They had been the main reason for thinking of returning home, so now I have to think of Adam and what would be best for him.

He is settled in school and his friends are here. I also have a good group of friends who I had met over the years.

I am the youngest of seven girls. I miss my sisters and would like to be closer to them as they are all still in Northern Ireland, but they are focused on their own families.

I often think about moving back home, and Adam and I talk about it quite a bit, but for now being here makes much more sense.

I am a single parent and the breadwinner. I have a really good job and a salary that allows Adam and I to have a comfortable lifestyle. I dont think I would find as senior a post in Northern Ireland, and I would be working for half the salary. Money isnt the most important thing in life, but making sure Adam is cared for is my main priority.

I worry about what would happen if I got sick or lost my job, so I try to save as much money as possible when I am still earning a good salary.

Adam will be going to university in a few years time and I need to plan ahead for that.

Maybe that would be a time for me to move back to Northern Ireland. Who knows? I will decide when that time comes.

I love that Adam has been brought up in a society where he isnt asked which school he went to or what his surname is.

Ive brought him up to think if you are nice, you are nice and that is all that matters, not the colour of your skin or which church you belong to. I am glad life isnt dictated by the colour of the kerbs on your street.

I do worry about what goes on back home and I keep an eye on the news all the time. I am fearful that we are going backwards and that politics is being run by parties from the extremes of life in Northern Ireland, while most people are like me and in the middle.

Our concerns are about things like good healthcare, pensions and job opportunities for young people.

Unfortunately, many of the people in the middle ground didnt vote in the last election, and I think they are a generation who have become apathetic and frustrated by politics. It could be another generation before this changes again.

Will I ever come home? I miss my old friends who have known me all my life and who know me inside out, and I miss my family but, for now, the advantages of life here outweigh the negatives of moving back.
Changed times: Martin McGuinness came a long way from a young IRA activist from the Bogside to a man who pursued peace

The funeral service for Martin McGuinness in Derry was a remarkable tribute to a remarkable man. His death is a reminder to all of the frailty of life.

Just over three months ago, he was preparing to visit China with Arlene Foster. At that point, he was a man of influence and political power, with much still to give.

This week he died, and his death is a tragedy for his wife and family, just like a death in any family from whatever side of the community.

Mr McGuinness's funeral was impressive partly because of the range of people who attended it, including Arlene Foster.

In any other jurisdiction, this would have been an obvious step.

Sadly, however, Northern Ireland is not normal yet, and in this province, where symbolism is so potent, Mrs Foster's presence at Martin McGuinness's funeral was symbolically powerful.

Mrs Foster has gone through a painful experience in the past three months, and to some extent she is the author of her own misfortune.

However, one wonders what her private thoughts are about the early death of a man with whom she worked closely, yet whose dark past was abhorrent to her and her community.

In the presence of death, our private thoughts may not be those which others might expect.

The attendance of ex-US President Bill Clinton, former Irish President Mary McAleese and others at the funeral was another powerful reminder of the many people on all sides who had worked so hard to bring Northern Ireland to where it is today, and what we may lose if the bitter divisions at Stormont are not healed.

The presence of Gerry Adams was yet another powerful reminder of how far we have come along the road of politics, but his graveside oration for his old friend showed the darkness and double-think of the politics that still entraps us so much today.

Let's give Mr Adams the benefit of the doubt after he appealed at the graveside to his unionist "neighbours" while almost in the same breath asserting that Mr McGuinness was "not a terrorist but a freedom fighter".

That is precisely the language which sticks in the throats of Protestants of all political backgrounds, and particularly for the victims and families who suffered from the Provisional IRA's violence, in which the early Martin McGuinness was involved up to the neck.

To deny that he was a terrorist is to do an injustice to his courage in walking the long and hard road to peace.

Mr McGuinness was a man of war and peace, and it was to his credit that he, unlike others, had the courage not to deny it.

The majority of the tributes to him were well-balanced, though some of those coming from the South somewhat glazed over the terror which Mr McGuinness and his colleagues created in the North for people of my generation, who are old enough to remember how bad it was.

The short tribute from the Presbyterian Church, and the possibly more pointed one from the Church of Ireland, rightly maintained that balance, though surprisingly the Methodist tribute said nothing about McGuinness's dark path.

That was a significant omission, and I wonder what the reaction to that would have been from my old friend, the late Gordon Wilson, that staunch Methodist whose daughter was killed in the Enniskillen bomb, the perpetrators of which must have been known to Mr McGuinness.

In an attempt to show Christian charity, we cannot gloss over the past, for by doing so we diminish the huge effort in moving from the darkness to the light.

However, we all must move on, and we must believe that a human being can rise nobly to a level beyond the murky depths of their past.

Martin McGuinness showed us how to do this, and we are the better for it.

There is still much to be done, and it is now up to others to follow his example.

Fr Canny's homily was a masterclass

One of the most difficult challenges for any speaker is to deliver a funeral oration, but the homily of Father Michael Canny at the funeral of Martin McGuinness was one of the best of its kind.

It was moving, yet balanced, and did not shirk the reality of the dead man's dark past, but also paid full tribute to his remarkable journey to peace.

Fr Canny eloquently summarised Martin McGuinness's complex personality and made us feel we knew something more about the human being behind the headlines than we had discovered previously.

Foster's welcome shows city's warmth

The BBC's The View broadcast an excellent live programme from Derry's walls on the night of the funeral.

Apart from the spat between Gregory Campbell and an exasperated Denis Bradley, there was the reminder from Bishop Donal McKeown that Londonderry is special.

He said the warmth of the reception given to Mrs Foster did not surprise him. If Derry can give such a lead, why can't Belfast and other places follow?

Don't judge Tebbit by harsh remarks

It is not for any of us to judge harshly the emotions of those who suffered terribly from the Troubles, though the very bitter reaction of Lord Tebbit to the death of Martin McGuinness will have shocked many people.

His words told me more about Lord Tebbit than Martin McGuinness.

Sadly, his remarks also showed the kind of hell he and his wife had to live through after the Brighton bomb.

That is beyond the comprehension of almost all of us, and we must view his remarks in that context.
Trends, fashions and gimmicks all have unusual influence on the restaurant trade, making it a very precarious investment. Yet restaurants keep opening, bringing untold pleasure to hundreds of thousands of us every year.

What's also exceptional about restaurants is the sheer range now available. You can have just about anything with or without cutlery or furniture, standing up, on the run or sitting down. Some of us prefer to eat in a car park. Just look at any shopping centre at the weekend and you'll be amazed at the number of families sitting inside their steamed-up Toyotas, eating their Big Mac meals, KFCs and Burger Kings.

Then there is another genre, one as likely to return a fortune to the investor as bring heart-break. This is the out-of-town leisureplex restaurant. Think in terms of KFCs and Pizzahuts and standing next to gaming arcades, municipal swimming pools and cinemas.

These successful outlets are hugely popular, attracting thousands of visitors each month. They also have heavy overheads, high rents and service charges, so anyone considering opening a restaurant in one will have thought through very carefully what will and will not work.

Celebrating its first 12 months of successful operation at Lisburn Leisure Park is Beef & Bird, the creation of local couple Bronagh and Anthony Campbell, also known for the Del Toro steak house in the city centre.

The leisure park is strictly family territory. This one includes an Omniplex cinema, the Lagan Valley Leisureplex and its impressing pools, and the Lisburn Bowl, all of which adds up to a rainy day's worth of activities. Cheek by jowl with these are the kind of restaurants that any child aged between four and 18 will lap up.

Beef & Bird is an independent competing with the big multiples, and it delivers a bit more than expected.

It's not all wings and ribs, burgers and chicken fillets. In among the menu's recognisable standards are some sirloins and rump steaks. There are specials of the day which, on closer inspection, reveal a commitment to local produce. And when asking what the most popular dish might be, it turns out to be the most expensive: a 10oz sirloin with chorizo, mozzarella and red onion chutney for 18.95. There is a plainer sirloin for 2 less.

In the passenger seat today is Ali Askir, a restaurateur himself and the founder of the Irish Curry Awards.

He knows all about this kind of food operation, having been in the business more or less ever since coming here from Manchester 20 years ago. I'm keen to get a commercial rather than a culinary view.

He loves the branding and the interior with its funked-up, stripped-down timbers, booths, chicken and cow motifs all over the place. To him it says young teenager. To me it says children and families and every eye-wateringly bright, popular music sound-tracked, plastic table-topped, corporately-approved, bleach-clean, clinical hell-hole I've visited, and I resign myself to eating something battered, deep fried and covered in industrial BBQ sauce.

Once again, I am proved to be profoundly mistaken, full of preconceived judgement and immediately outed as a snobby git when the first mixed platter of wings and pork ribs appear.

The wings come 'neath a coating of tangy and spicy sriracha, which cut through the crispy lightly battered wing skin to provide something squelchily hot and moistly rich. The wings are quality, and time has been spent to confit them to a tender point as appealing as the ribs. The ribs are generous and plentiful, falling off the bone in ample mouthfuls, but there is too much sauce suffocating the delicate pork flavours (note to self: next time, ask for any accompanying sauce to come on the side).

A sirloin is requested, black and red. It comes with its margin fat crisp and dark, the meat in the centre dark red, rare and butter-soft.

It is an outstanding feat, as good as any from Michael Deane's Meat Locker. The salty flavours are everything you wish for from a steak that comes from McAtamney's in Ballymena. What's more, it is accompanied by a very French team of runner beans, buttery cabbage and broccoli and a grilled piece of yellow bell pepper. The tobacco onions are fine and light.

Ali's dish of sizzling beef and chicken goes down well. I can never understand the popularity of this when you consider how long it takes to let a piece of beef rest before its ready to be eaten. But what do I know; he loves it.

Beef & Bird is unexpectedly and surprisingly good. It's a place for romance if you're in your teens, and it is ideal if you're impressing a client from the creative industries - they'll love the cartoon decor.

If you want to give your family a good day out, there are few activities of greater excitement as accessible as the Leisureplex, nor any popular restaurant chain as quality-conscious as Beef & Bird. I'll be back.

The bill

Sharing platter: 8.50

Beef & Bird sizzler: 12.95

10oz Sirloin: 16.95

Total: 38.40

Beef & Bird

Lisburn Leisure Park, Lisburn. Tel: 028 9260 7306
Alliance Party leader Naomi Long says its decision to go in to opposition was "vindicated" following the collapse of the Executive.

She was speaking at the party's annual conference at the Stormont Hotel in Belfast.

"The decision to go into opposition was not without risk, but reality within months our position was vindicated and within eight months the very issues which we had raised contributed to the Executives collapse," she said.

"Throughout our message has been consistent and clear. We are offering people a positive alternative to the politics of the past and we are determined to change our broken politics to better serve our rapidly changing society.

And she said that walking away from Government "is not a choice that any party makes lightly but our priority was how and where we could make most progress on the manifesto pledges we had made during the elections".

"Our manifestos are not empty documents, printed for a launch during the campaign but then left to gather dust between elections," she said.

"They are the documents which drive our work and focus our efforts between elections, whether that be in government or opposition."

Talks to restore Stormont are continuing this weekend, with negotiations hitting a number of stumbling blocks.

There was little sign of a breakthrough between the parties and British and Irish Governments.

The biggest stumbling block appeared to be reaching agreement on dealing with the legacy of the Troubles, including long-delayed inquests.

Naomi Long's speech in full

Distinguished guests, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen:

As always, it is an honour and a privilege to stand before you today to address this 47th Alliance Party Annual Conference. It is a particular privilege to be able to welcome you here to my own constituency in East Belfast.

It also feels a little strange, after 10 years of doing so to introduce the Party Leader, to now be doing so as Party Leader for the first time.

After almost six months in post, I am finally adjusting to my new title and role, though it did take a while. In the early weeks of leadership, I pre-recorded a radio interview. I promptly forgot about it, and the following morning when I was listening to the news, they said that they would be speaking with the Alliance leader next. For a second, I wondered what David was being interviewed about before hearing my own voice being broadcast.

David's 15 years of leadership left us as a party in good health and good spirits, ready to grasp the opportunities ahead for Alliance and most of all, for Northern Ireland. And so I want to begin my remarks today by thanking David for his dedication to that role and to this party over many, many years.

Whilst we have had other opportunities to say thank you as a party, David, I want to reiterate my thanks here at our annual conference, not only for what you have done for the Alliance Party and for Northern Ireland during that time, but also for the way in which you have done it - often at great personal cost, but always with good grace and real dedication.

When I spoke of Davids leadership at our special dinner in November to mark his time as Party Leader, I said that leadership is not just a position you hold, but an attitude you have, and that has proven yet again to be the case with David.

Over the last number of months I have taken to jokingly referring to David as Leader Emeritus, but though said in jest it is a title well-earned for to call him former leader would not reflect his current role within the party.

It speaks volumes of Davids commitment to Alliance that unlike many politicians when their time as leader ends, he has neither disappeared nor become a critic or even a passenger, but has continued to play an active and valuable role, not just as an MLA but within the leadership of Alliance and for his continued support and guidance, I am hugely grateful.

Thank you also to Anne and the family - we owe you all a huge debt for continuing to put up with the demands we make on his and your time when you thought you were finally getting him back. When I took on the leadership about five months ago, I undertook to do a number of things, key among which was to work to build the party and its membership outside our traditional areas of strength.

I did so with a view to the next elections which I rather optimistically thought would be the local Government elections in 2019. As we all now know, that optimism was misplaced; however, the strategy was not.

I have always believed that the vision which we have as a party for an inclusive, open and fair society is one which is as relevant to people in Lisnaskea as in Lisburn, in Newry as in Newtownards, in Derry as in Dundonald and the response to our membership drive confirms that to be true.

That work of reaching out beyond our traditional base, and renewing and reinvigorating our local associations across Northern Ireland, starting with my meetings with Associations, was reflected membership growth in every constituency.

One of the best jobs I get to do as leader is to sign the new members welcome letters and to see not just the number of letters each day but the geographic spread of those addresses has been a real encouragement, as was meeting many of you in a packed Long Gallery in Parliament buildings in January.

For those of you who are with us as today as new members, I want to welcome you and thank you for your support.

However, that strategy was also put to its first electoral test with the collapse of the Assembly in January and the snap election which that triggered at the start of this month.

At a time when there was little good news for liberal politics either nationally or internationally and in an election which was incredibly polarised, we managed to buck that trend, polling our highest number of votes since 1979 and our highest vote share since 1987.

Over 70,000 people voted Alliance across Northern Ireland  a 50% increase in our vote and in many constituencies our vote doubled or tripled from the last election only eight months ago. Not only did we hold our eight seats with increased votes despite the drop from six to five MLAs per constituency, but we were the runner up in both North Belfast with Nuala McAllister and in South Down with Patrick Brown.

I think that success was down to two main factors  the quality of the campaign which we ran as a party and the quality of the candidates.

Thanks to the recruitment and growth in the party, we were able to field candidates in every area who were genuinely grounded in that constituency and capable not only of representing Alliance to the people but also of representing the concerns of local people in our campaign.

I want to thank each of you who had the courage to step up and run as a candidate. Whilst many of you did so knowing that you were unlikely to win an Assembly seat this time, you still worked your constituency and took the Alliance message out into neighbourhoods that hadnt been canvassed by Alliance for a generation. Without your efforts those results could not have been achieved.

You have recruited new voters and new members and are well placed now for potential gains in the local council elections. My advice to you is simple: work like you won and next time you will.

So to Colm, Noreen, Stephen Donnelly, Jackie, Tara, Fay, Danny, Patricia, Chris McCaw, Emmet, Nuala, Patrick, Sorcha, Chris Lyttle, Stewart, Paula, Kellie, David, Stephen Farry and Trevor  thank you. I could not have been prouder of you all.

And could you all keep your diaries free for the next few months  you never know when there might be another election.And this time well get Nuala and Paddy elected too.

As I did my tours of constituencies each Saturday of the campaign, I was struck by two things: Firstly, the enthusiasm and dedication of our volunteers who, regardless of the weather, were determined to get the Alliance message out in every area, and secondly the welcome that message received as we chatted to people on doorsteps and in town centres across Northern Ireland.

I want to thank all of you who participated in the campaign and gave of your time, talent and money to make it a success.

Actually, I was also struck by a third thing: my dog Daisy now officially qualifies as a celebrity, thanks to social media, TV and newspaper appearances  I have a sneaking suspicion that quite a few people who came up to us to chat were at least as interested in meeting the dog as discussing our manifesto pledges. And that was only the candidates.

I also want to say a brief but very sincere thank you to our staff team. For any party to run two major elections in eight months, and to do so not only at such short notice and to such tight deadlines but to deliver the successful campaign and results which they did is remarkable. What is more remarkable is how they delivered those elections on a shoestring budget.

That they also managed to simultaneously provide us with support for the talks, organise our Annual Conference for this weekend, and keep the party ticking over is nothing short of miraculous. To Sharon, Debbie, Sam, Nuala, Connie, Ben, Scott, Michael and Lauren  thank you for all that you do, most of which goes unseen but all of which is hugely appreciated.

To our constituency and research staff who absorbed the upheaval, disruption and stress of setting up offices after Mays election only to have the future thrown into chaos 8 months later, but who have continued to provide the vital constituency service on which much of our success rests  thank you for all of your patience and dedication.

Whilst we were delighted at the election result we of course never lost sight of the fact that the election in itself was the result of political failure and, unless the difficulties which brought about that collapse can be resolved, then the future of devolution looks bleak.

Whilst it was a successful election for Alliance, the mark of a truly successful election for us and for Northern Ireland will be if the devolved institutions can be reformed and power sharing restored on a more sustainable footing and start the job of delivering real change for the people of Northern Ireland.

Regardless of the size of the mandate of any party, it is not worth the ballot papers is cast on, unless you are able to exercise it by working together with others. That is the challenge which we face now and that will be the challenge which remains if the current talks fail to produce an Executive on Monday and if another election is called.

Bertie Ahern this week described the prospect of another election as pointless time wasting which it undoubtedly is. We will return to Stormont as we have after this months election with mostly the same parties, the same people and the same problems. However, it is more serious than just a waste of time.

We are days away from the end of the financial year yet we have no budget. We are days away from the triggering of Brexit yet we have no Brexit plan. We are already overdue the Assembly vote needed to set next years regional rate yet we have no Assembly. We have no Programme for Government  in fact we have no government at all.

This is no time for any parties to indulge themselves in the vanity project that is another election. Our community and voluntary sector, our essential public services, like the health service and education, are already feeling the dire effects of budget uncertainty in reduced services and job losses. We owe it to those who rely on those services and to those who deliver them, to get a functioning executive established now and get back to doing the job that we were elected to do.

Whilst the collapse of the Executive was disappointing, but it was also predictable. We realised towards the end of the previous mandate that significant reform was required to make it fit for purpose and so when we entered negotiations in May about the justice ministry, we were clear about the failings of the previous mandate and offered five clear steps to address them.

Firstly, addressing deficiencies in governance  and in particular the abuse of the petition of concern  in order not only that we could end the veto on socially progressive legislation for which there is overwhelming public support, but also that we could ensure that no one party could exercise a veto over others was long overdue.

Secondly, the failure of political parties to confront legacy issues including ongoing paramilitarism in our community with integrity, was a growing point of tension between parties which needed resolved for the sake of devolution but more importantly to improve the lives of those living with its consequences.

Thirdly, we recognised that there was a need for parties to face up to and address the costs of segregation and division in society to allow us to build a more shared and integrated society but also as part of the means of addressing the very real budget pressures facing departments and put our public finances on a more sustainable footing.

Fourthly, we sought a plan to develop and promote integrated education in Northern Ireland as a means of delivering not only high quality and sustainable education but also to meeting the demand of parents for their children to be educated together.

Fifthly and finally, we wanted to secure additional funding for skills to ensure that not only could tuition fees be maintained at their current level without negative impact on the universities, but also to we could attract the kind of high skilled jobs and opportunities which we believe are necessary if we are to create a more dynamic and balanced economy.

The outright rejection of our five points confirmed for us that any Executive formed would not only fail to address the key emerging challenges for our community and for devolution, but in the manner of that rejection, would potentially struggle to deliver anything at all. As such, it was not an executive in which we could take up a role.

Walking away from Government is not a choice that any party makes lightly but our priority was how and where we could make most progress on the manifesto pledges we had made during the Elections. Our manifestos are not empty documents, printed for a launch during the campaign but then left to gather dust between elections. They are the documents which drive our work and focus our efforts between elections, whether that be in government or opposition.

The decision to go into opposition was not without risk, but reality within months our position was vindicated and within eight months the very issues which we had raised contributed to the Executives collapse.

Throughout our message has been consistent and clear. We are offering people a positive alternative to the politics of the past and we are determined to change our broken politics to better serve our rapidly changing society.

Whether in government or in opposition we intend to drive change, for good.

That means firstly good government.

As I prepare my conference speech each year, I usually read through my speech from the year before.

When I addressed conference last year and in almost every preceding year I did so in the wake of scandal  some accusation of corruption, cronyism or greed  at the heart of our political system  whether it was an expenses scandal, dodgy land deals, or some other allegation which cast a shadow of mistrust over our political system. Last year we met in the wake of an expenses scandal at Stormont, and fresh allegations emerging from the probe into NAMA and the Project Eagle sale.

This year the whiff of corruption and cronyism rapidly became intolerable, as further allegations emerged about the Social Investment Fund  public money  our money - being used to line the pockets of those who the Chief Constable described as community workers by day and paramilitaries by night.

That a self-proclaimed UDA commander, who brazenly claims to be homeland security  a direct challenge to the rule of law  can continue as Chief Executive of an organisation which is in receipt of Government funds would be completely unthinkable elsewhere.

It is long past time that it was unthinkable here.

And we stand here today without an Assembly in place and with the future of devolution still uncertain, in large part due to another scandal  that of the botched renewable heat incentive - and of the inability of the Executive to deal maturely, competently and transparently with the crisis which it precipitated.

Conference, I want to pay tribute to the work which Trevor Lunn did as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, diligently and patiently drawing out key information and exposing the flaws in the scheme and in how it was developed, implemented and monitored.

The murky influence of Special Advisors who in some parties appear to be directing ministers rather than the other way around; the attempts to conceal from public scrutiny the beneficiaries of the scheme; the fact that even when the impact of the lack of cost controls had implications for the budgets of other departments, the extent and cause of the projected overspend were hidden from Executive colleagues; the lack of full disclosure to the Assembly about the real reasons for the overspend exposed a systemic failure of government.

Compounded by the fact that those who had presided over the mess seemed to be happy to take power, but not so happy to accept any responsibility, this episode highlighted for all to see the need for real change in how the Executive conducts its business, in terms of openness and accountability.

It seems that history keeps repeating itself but yet nothing is learned from the repetition. Nothing changes, except that what was the whiff of corruption is now rapidly become a stench which hangs heavily over the guilty and innocent alike. And with every fresh revelation, every new allegation, the publics trust and confidence in politics and politicians is further eroded.

Nowhere is that more clear than in the area of political donations. Year after year Alliance has pressed for change, for swifter progress towards a fully open and transparent politics, and year after year other parties have sought to prevent that openness being delivered despite the fact that, in doing so, they further fuel the publics mistrust and suspicion.

Public scrutiny is key to delivering open, transparent and accountable governance. No politician should seek to pause progress towards delivering it, and the public will rightly question the motives of those who do.

In every other part of the UK, publication of any donation or donations from a single source of 7.5k or more is mandatory; however, NI is exempt, a decision by the Secretary of State which they justify on the basis of security.

However, the time has long since passed where the security situation can be used to justify such a lack of transparency.

You cannot argue on one hand that NI is a safe and stable region for inward investment and tourism, whilst simultaneously arguing on the other that it is so abnormal and dangerous that the same degree of transparency around donors cannot apply here as elsewhere.

Despite prolonged and sustained assault by both dissident republican and loyalist paramilitaries, which saw our party offices damaged and destroyed and the homes and lives of party staff and elected representatives threatened, we have continued to publish in line with the standards in the rest of the UK.

Alliance again called on the Secretary of State to end donor secrecy when we wrote to him during the RHI scandal in December and continue to make the case in the talks process for an immediate lifting of the NI donor publication exemption.

Thanks to an amendment which I made to the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions Bill), all donations made since Jan 2014 which meet the publication threshold in GB, can be made public when the security exemption is lifted. Yet even now in the current talks there are attempts to limit any change to future donations only.

We have been and will continue to press hard on openness, transparency and accountability both between Minsters in the Executive, between the Executive and the Assembly, and crucially between political parties and the public we are elected to serve.

We have an opportunity to deliver good government during the current talks process which we must not squander.

We also remain focused on delivering good services. For those of you who were at the dinner last night, Im sure you will recall Tom Ekins speech  I suspect it is one you will never forget!  and specifically when he said that if the relationships between parties are to improve and normalise, and if the Executive and Assembly are to regain the confidence of the public, they need to start doing things. They need to focus on delivery.

That is all the more the case given the pressures which our key public services face. Our health service is facing a funding gap of 200 million pounds this year alone and the combination of increasing pressures from an ageing population and advances in medical care make the future grave.

Last night, David Gordon said that if you could read the Bengoa Report and not wake up in a sweat during the night, then you were a braver person than he was. That report makes for stark reading. Our national health service is simply not sustainable without major reform.

I want to thank Paula Bradshaw for her work on Bengoa on the Health Committee and for her measured and sensible approach to the need for reform. I believe as she does that such are the challenges facing our national health service and such is its fundamental importance to each and every one of us, that we need a cross-party compact agreed as part of the negotiations that party political campaigning on health reforms, regardless of who becomes health minister, is out of bounds.

We need all parties to sign up to the road map presented by Bengoa and work with patients and clinical staff to shape a service fit for purpose for the future, which delivers high quality care and is financially sustainable. That cross party approach has allowed real progress in places like Glasgow and Manchester and our constituents deserve no less.

Yes the decisions will be difficult and some will be unpopular, but our choice is not between the current service we have and a reformed service but between a reformed service and a service in collapse. The choice is between a national health service and a notional health service.

Whilst health is stark it is not the only service facing mounting pressures. We also face huge challenges in our education system  the challenge of empty desks, limited resources, a lack of coherent planning and the continuing challenge of educational underachievement which limits the opportunities and life chances of too many of our young people.

I want to thank Chris Lyttle for the work which he has done both as vice chair of the education committee in holding the Minister to account but also in East Belfast where he has been one of the political drivers behind Eastside Learning, aimed at driving up aspiration and attainment in education particularly in disadvantaged areas.

We also need to focus on fostering good relationships, not just between parties in the Assembly but also in the community. I think most people would recognise that whilst the peace process has delivered relative stability, the reconciliation process has been the Cinderella element of that work.

Good Prospects for young people so that they build a future here rather than leave.

And last but not least, it also requires good leadership.

There has been much talk for obvious reasons in recent days of what leadership looks like. The passing of Martin McGuinness once again put the nature of his leadership in the spotlight but it also, in how people responded to news of his death, put the wider quality of leadership under scrutiny.

As someone who grew up in the 1970s and 80s, I am under no illusions as to the role of Martin McGuinness and the impact of the IRA campaign on our community. I did not and I will never seek either to diminish the wrong that was done or the grief that was caused nor in any way to justify the use of violence in Northern Ireland.

It is not acceptable now and it was not acceptable then.

Neither do I whitewash out the broken and profoundly unjust nature of the society into which people like Martin McGuinness were born. I understand the anger which led many young people right across our community to turn to violence; nevertheless, I still believe that choice was wrong, destructive and ultimately did more harm than good.

In all that I have said and done since I have acknowledged the genuine and justifiable anger, hurt and pain of those most directly affected by that violence: those who bear the physical, emotional and mental scars of the terrorism which gripped our society for over 30 years.

But I recognise that in these last twenty plus years, he not only moved away from violence but sought to bring others with him. I recognise the value of that work which he did not only in challenging his opponents but also stretching his own constituency, throughout his time in office.

People like Martin McGuinness, Ian Paisley and David Ervine contributed in word and deed to the Troubles and to the painful legacy which we have inherited but I acknowledge and appreciate that they also contributed to the peace when they moved from very entrenched positions towards the relative peace that we now enjoy. That move allowed progress to be made towards a brighter future and for that I am grateful.

However, that darker legacy is still with us and even this week we continue to wrestle with it, not just in finding the right words of condolence for a family which have lost a husband, a father, and grand dad, and of thanks for the good which he did, without increasing the pain of others, but also in how to complete the work of addressing the needs of victims and survivors and their varying desire for truth, justice, practical and emotional support and recognition in a way which demonstrates integrity, compassion and honesty.

If we are to do so, if we are to transition beyond bitterness and hatred, beyond division and conflict, beyond revenge and recrimination, then that demands that we reconcile ourselves not only with each other but also with our painful and broken past. Ultimately, in life we make peace with our enemies not with our friends and we have to find within us some generosity, some grace, some bigger vision of a better future that helps us find the strength to do so.

The past cannot be undone but it does not have to be repeated. It cannot and should not be erased but it must not forever overshadow and limit the future.

We must find a way to make hope flourish in the darkest places.

And so I turn my thoughts to other leaders  some with us in this room, others who have now passed on  who lived through those times but who chose peace when violence was the more obvious choice. Who chose building a shared future when others were tearing the present apart.

I think of the leadership of those who came together in 1970 and formed the Alliance Party as a radical alternative to increasingly divisive politics, at a time when others took Northern Ireland over the brink of destructive action and reaction. Who made hope flourish in the darkest moment.

I think of the leadership of those who joined and led the party, throughout the 1970s and 1980s and who worked ceaselessly for peace. Who spoke out courageously and without fear or favour against injustice and violence and continued to be a voice of reason and calm in unreasonable and turbulent times. Who made hope flourish in the darkest days.

I think of the leadership of those who led the party through successive rounds of talks and negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement and which have been necessary many times since as we have made our faltering steps in the peace and political process. Who were consistent in their commitment to devolution and in their support for the rule of law. Who recognised that reconciliation was not a soft option but a hard necessity if we were to secure real peace, not merely the absence of violence.

They offered a real alternative to the darkness and ensured that the hope of real change could continue to flourish.

We are the people who carry forward that legacy: who are charged with being the change-makers now and tomorrow. Who have a vision of a society which is not about us and them, but about what we can achieve together.

We have a rich and diverse membership, one which is growing rapidly in every part of Northern Ireland; a membership made up of people of all ages, all backgrounds, of different ethnicities, sexual orientations, faiths and abilities: what brings us together, what unites us and makes us strong are our shared beliefs and common values.

Those values bridge across our membership, from the founder members of this party to the newest members in the room. We are joined and connected by a fundamental belief that our people, however diverse, have more in common than divides them.

When it comes to difference, we have a choice: we can use it to divide people and make it a weakness or we can embrace and celebrate that diversity, and make it our strength. In Alliance we choose to celebrate it.

We have a strong and a proud legacy, but more importantly we have an important job to do in this society, continuing to offer an alternative vision for the future: an aspirational vision of a society which is progressive, liberal, fair and open, in which rights are respected, talent is celebrated, creativity is nurtured and each person is valued.

That is a vision which only a party which itself is progressive, liberal, fair and open - a party that has a diverse and vibrant membership - a party committed to offering hope for the future, not fear of it - can truly represent.

That's why our message to people is a confident one. If you share our ambition, if you want that vision too, then join us and be part of making that change.

Today in Parliament Buildings just across the road, the future of devolution hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking down to Mondays deadline.

Whilst others may secretly hanker for a period of direct rule or feel that another election may offer the chance of a better result for their party, we are clear that neither will solve the problems which face us today.

Voter turnout in the Assembly election was the highest we have seen since that first Assembly election after the Good Friday Agreement was signed. They saw the institutions in real jeopardy and the clear message they gave to all of us elected was that they want to see devolution restored and delivering for them.

Our peace process and our institutions are imperfect and unfinished. They are a work in progress. The clear message from voters was the one echoed by Bill Clinton in Long Tower Church on Thursday: Finish the work.

Conference, we are up for that task and whatever is ahead, be it talks or elections, whether in government or opposition, we will play a positive and constructive role in raising the standards of Government; of moving beyond the divisions of our past; of building peace and reconciliation; of driving forward a progressive, liberal, just and vibrant society.

Of being a radical alternative to the established binary politics.

Of ensuring that hope continues to flourish.

Of delivering change. For good.

Thank you.
'The youth, who appeared at Parramatta Children's Court in western Sydney, pleaded guilty to planning a terrorist act by trying to source a gun or a bomb-making manual'

A Sydney teenager has admitted plotting a terrorist attack on an Australian ceremony marking the Gallipoli landings.

The then 16-year-old was arrested and charged with one count of planning a terrorist attack on April 24 last year, a day before hundreds of thousands of Australians gathered at ceremonies to mark Anzac Day.

It commemorates the April 25 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey, the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the First World War.

The youth, who appeared at Parramatta Children's Court in western Sydney, pleaded guilty to planning a terrorist act by trying to source a gun or a bomb-making manual.

He will remain in custody until the case returns to court on April 21, and faces a potential sentence of life in prison.

Police also said they thwarted a planned attack on an Anzac Day ceremony in 2015. They arrested five teenagers on suspicion of plotting an Islamic State group-inspired attack to coincide with the city's Anzac service.
Belfast City Hall lit up in red, white and blue to express solidarity

Arlene Foster signs a book of condolence at Belfast City Hall yesterday for the victims of the London terror attack

DUP leader Arlene Foster was yesterday among the first people to sign a book of condolence opened at Belfast City Hall for victims of the terror attack in London.

The former First Minister was joined by US Consul General Daniel J Lawton, party colleagues and civic leaders at a public event in the afternoon.

Mrs Foster, who attended City Hall with DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, wrote: "Thoughts and prayers with the victims of this terrible atrocity. Terrorism and evil never win. God Bless."

The US Consul General also penned a message expressing solidarity. "The United States has strongly condemned the terrible attack in Westminster and stands by its special partner, the United Kingdom, at this difficult time," he wrote.

Belfast Lord Mayor Brian Kingston, who presided over the opening of the book, called on everyone to stand against "the act of madness" that horrified the city on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Mr Kingston described what happened as "diabolical" and an "attack on democracy".

Mr Kingston added that security forces would now be analysing the attack in order to better protect people from becoming easy victims.

Three people, including a mother-of-two and an American tourist, died after a terrorist used to a car to run over pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. A policeman also died after being fatally stabbed by the attacker as he tried to enter the Houses of Parliament.
The scene of the petrol bomb attack at a house in Craigavon

A petrol bomb attack on a property in Craigavon has been described as an outright attempt to murder two teenagers and their mother.

Two boys, aged 13 and 15, and their "terrified" mum, who is in her early 40s, were treated in hospital yesterday after their semi-detached home was targeted and extensively damaged.

All three victims were downstairs in the living room of the property in the Lakelands area when the device was thrown through the front window at 11.30pm on Thursday.

Up to four youths were seen fleeing from the scene, and neighbours said the woman and both youngsters have been "left terrified by the attack".

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie said he was horrified at the "deliberate attempt to murder".

"A group of individuals ran up to the window, smashed it and put a petrol bomb through it which ignited the living room," he said.

"The family got out; there were minor burns to the 13-year-old boy. None of them were hospitalised after the incident but they all did have to go back for hospital treatment for minor burns.

"There was a clear intent here to cause serious damage, serious injury and to murder.

"The intent was to set that house on fire.

"They would have known there were people inside it. And had they not escaped from that house and had the emergency services not arrived quickly, we could have been looking at a murder scene."

Following the attack, the woman and her sons, who were sitting watching TV in the living room, managed to escape through the front door of the property.

But the ex-soldier and UUP politician also said the family were lucky to be alive.

"Had they been in their beds the smoke could have infiltrated the rooms, the fire could have taken hold, they would not have been able to call the fire services and we could be looking at a very different situation," he said.

Mr Beattie, a war veteran, said it was "absolutely disgusting that people would turn up and set fire to somebody's house in this manner".

"The police have classed this as arson and intent to endanger life but it is clear that the intent here is to murder," he said.

"When somebody does something like that, at that time of night, there is an expectation that the people inside could be in bed and it's only for the fact that they were still up there is a different outcome.

"This is a semi-detached house right beside the Balancing Lakes. Had the fire caught hold, we could have been looking at two houses on fire and given the wind that comes from the Balancing Lakes, God knows what could have happened. This is as serious as it gets."

DUP MP David Simpson called for the youths who were seen running from the scene to come forward and identify themselves to the PSNI.

He added: "There can be no place for those who engage in such attacks and it is vital the police are given all necessary assistance to ensure those responsible are brought before the courts."

Detective Inspector Stephen Harvey said it was "an extremely reckless attack" adding that "it is fortunate that the injuries were not considerably worse".

"I appeal to anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the area or anyone with information about this incident to contact detectives on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 1249 23/03/17," he said.

"Alternatively, if someone would prefer to provide information without giving their details they can contact Crimestoppers and speak to them anonymously on 0800 555 111."
The man who bought killer Colin Howell's luxury home is to appear in court on harassment charges next month.

The disclosure comes days after the owner is said to have put a photograph and message on a Facebook page revealing he was calling the property, near Castlerock, Dunkillyn Farm.

This newspaper revealed in December that an academic had bought the Glebe Road house, which was on the market for 300,000 for a number of months and which apparently sold for below the asking price.

Asked about the alleged harassment, the PSNI said in a short statement: "Police in Coleraine have charged a 52-year-old man with harassment. He is due to appear at Coleraine Magistrates' Court on April 10. As is normal procedure, all charges are reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service."

Police refused to elaborate on the charge, or why it had been brought against the man, but it is believed to relate to an incident in the area on St Patrick's Day.

At the time of the sale, the buyer of the house asked this newspaper to avoid revealing his identity.

There were several reports that the man, who has a number of children, told associates he wanted to "normalise the site" as soon as possible.

Howell moved to the property, which has four bedrooms, four reception rooms, its own lake and paddock, long after he murdered his first wife, Lesley, and Trevor Buchanan, the policeman husband of his mistress, Hazel Stewart, in their family homes in Coleraine.

A source said: "Nothing untoward happened in the Glebe Road house."

Police arrested Howell at the property in 2009 after he confessed to church elders in the kitchen of the house that he had murdered Lesley and Trevor 18 years earlier.

He admitted making it look as if the pair had died in a suicide pact in a car behind a row of cottages in Castlerock called The Apostles.

Police had accepted that Lesley and Trevor had taken their own lives and probably would never have known the truth if Howell had not confessed to the brutal killings and implicated Stewart in them.

Both are now serving life sentences for the murders.

Howell's second wife, Kyle Jorgensen, who had five children by him, left Glebe Road to return to live in the US.

She claimed her husband forced her to stay silent about the murders, which were the subject of a four-part ITV series called The Secret last year, with James Nesbitt portraying the killer dentist.

Last year, a former Coleraine Mayor, Sam Cole, sparked controversy after he suggested that the house could be transformed into a tourist attraction.

There were reports that even though no one had been murdered there, people were taking selfies outside the property, which had been described in estate agent brochures as a "magnificent and idyllic country residence".

The lake at the home has two islands, and Howell is said to have erected a memorial there to his son, Matthew, who died in an accident in Russia in 2007.
As flowers, chocolates and pretty pink cards fill the shops, for one Belfast woman, Mother's Day can't be over quickly enough.

Mum-of-five Carol Corr is grieving for one of her children - her daughter, who is still clinging to life.

Exactly 16 weeks ago yesterday, Carol experienced the stuff of nightmares when she saw her daughter, Joleen, hours after she had been beaten so badly she was barely recognisable.

By the time the young mum made it to hospital doctors feared she wouldn't survive the day.

And while, four months on, Joleen is still breathing, her heartbroken mum is resigned to the fact the girl she brought up is gone forever.

"At the start we kept hoping for a miracle," says Carol, as she clings to a handwritten keepsake Joleen gave her for Mother's Day last year.

"Every day at the hospital I'd ask, is there any change? Is she getting better? But the longer it goes on, reality is setting in and I'm starting to get my head around the fact my Joleen isn't coming back.

"I've spoken to a psychologist about everything that's going on because it's extremely traumatic for me and my other kids. I'm grieving for her. She's here, but she's gone. It's very difficult to come to terms with."

Carol, who is mum also to Cherie (23), Jim (20), Chloe (12), and nine-year-old Christine, has been at her daughter's side every day since the attack at the start of December. "I'd only seen Joleen the day before," says Carol, from west Belfast.

"She was living down in Downpatrick but she'd spent about a week up with me at the end of November with her wee boy. It was her birthday so we had a lovely family day out, she loved it."

And on the day before the family's lives were turned upside down, Joleen picked up a puppy to take home as a Christmas gift for her two-year-old son.

"She rang me from the bus back to Downpatrick," recalls Carol. "She had the pup, a wee Jack Russell, and her son with her.

"She was absolutely over the moon with it and she said it was like having a new baby. She was in good form.

"Later that night, I got a text from her asking about the numbers of a local lottery we'd both bought tickets for, but I told her we hadn't got the numbers. And I never heard from her again."

The following day, the first Friday in December, Carol got the horrifying news that changed her life.

"Everything has been a nightmare since then," she says. "Every Friday I seem to go into a panic because it all comes back.

"And because Joleen's state isn't getting any better we just can't see how we're going to be able to move forward.

"If there was going to be a miracle, it would have happened already."

Joleen is now on the waiting list to move from the Royal Victoria to Musgrave Hospital, where it is expected her condition will remain the same.

"My other kids are fantastic, and yesterday my youngest, Christine, left me a wee note saying she knew I was missing Joleen, but that she wanted me to have a nice Mother's Day," says Carol.

"To be honest I couldn't see it far enough, but I've got to be strong for the kids, especially my two youngest. They've been fantastic although it's very hard for them too so I've got to keep on going."

Not only will Mother's Day be a struggle for Carol, the fact Joleen is missing out on her own big day with her son is heartbreaking too.

"She was a fantastic wee mummy," says Carol.

"She absolutely adored her son and we should have been all celebrating as a family. But we don't even know whether to bring him to see her or not because it's very confusing and upsetting for him.

"We've told him she's asleep, but if he sees her eyes open, then it's harder to explain. He'll think she's awake, but his mummy isn't really there."

Michael O'Connor has been remanded in custody for attempted murder. He is due to appear at Downpatrick Magistrates Court in April.
Police are investigating an attempted petrol bomb attack in Ballymena.

It was thrown at a house in the Lantarra area of the town on Friday night, but failed to ignite.

PSNI constable McToal said: "It is understood the incident occurred shortly before midnight with petrol bombs being thrown at the window of a property but failing to ignite.

"This was an extremely reckless attack and it is fortunate that the were no injuries as a result of it.

"I would appeal to anyone who may have information which may assist the investigation to contact police at Ballymena on the non-emergency number 101 quoting reference number 1463 24/03/17. Alternatively, if someone would prefer to provide information without giving their details they can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers and speak to them anonymously on 0800 555 111."
A 44-year-old man has died at Magilligan Prison.

The Northern Ireland Prison Service said the prisoner's next of kin have been informed.

The head of the Prison Service, Ronnie Armour said: "I would like to extend my sympathy and that of the Northern Ireland Prison Service to the family of the prisoner who has died in Magilligan. My thoughts are with them at this difficult time."

The PSNI, coroner and Prisoner Ombudsman have launched investigations into the death.
Members of the public lay tributes to those killed in the terror attack in Parliament Square in London

A Queen's University graduate who is working as a junior doctor in London has spoke of the moment she rushed to the aid of a police officer wounded in Wednesday's terror attack.

Colleen Anderson (25) who is believed to be from County Durham but graduated from Queen's University Belfast last year, is a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital close to where the tragedy unfolded on Westminster Bridge.

In the moments after the incident, she told reporters how she had tended to an injured police officer in his thirties, and witnessed numerous casualties.

"I walked past about nine injuries but some weren't so insignificant," she said, fighting back tears.

"Somebody was unconscious who did regain consciousness, it was ok.

"I'm just in shock to be honest, I wasn't really expecting that this afternoon."

Colleen revealed that she and other doctors had done everything they could to assist those in need as the traumatic event occurred.

"I was on the ward in our doctor's office just there," she told reporters at the scene, gesturing to a nearby building.

"My SHO (senior house officer) came running past me and I was like 'what's wrong?' and he told me what happened and then I went out and looked and all of us in the office were like, 'We need to do something.'

"So we all just went out and helped, got blankets. Physios were with me helping."

Colleen said that while she had received emergency training, it was "not for that".

"We train for these events: emergency, basic life support, we have to do that, how to triage people, who needs attention first," she explained.

She added that she had got "stuck in" helping with the head injury sustained by the police officer, and that other doctors were also present at th e scene.

Four people were murdered in the midweek terror tragedy, and killer 52-year-old Khalid Masood was shot dead by police.

Masood drove his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and crashed into railings outside the Houses of Parliament.

He then got out of the car and stabbed PC Keith Palmer before being shot dead.

At least 50 people were injured, with 31 needing hospital treatment. Two people remain in a critical condition, and one has life-threatening injuries.

Two police officers injured on Westminster Bridge are being treated for "very significant injuries".

In a statement about the Westminster incident, a spokesperson for Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust said: "Two patients were treated at St Thomas' Hospital following Wednesday's security incident in Westminster - one man and one woman. The man left hospital on Thursday and the woman remains in a stable condition."

Chief Executive of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust Amanda Pritchard added: "I would like to thank all staff who were involved in the response to the terrible event on Wednesday.

"The Trust's major incident procedures have worked well, and there has been an excellent response from both clinical and non-clinical staff. My thoughts are with all affected by this appalling tragedy."

Meanwhile, Muslims condemned the "heinous and appalling" Westminster terror attack as they joined together with Christian and Jewish leaders yesterday just metres from the scene of the horror.

Sheikh Mohammed Al-Hilli, representing Shia Muslims, and Sunni Sheikh Khalifa Ezzat, head Imam at the London Central Mosque, stood side-by-side with Justin Welby, Ephriam Mirvis and Cardinal Vincent Nichols outside Westminster Abbey.

They led a minute of silence in tribute to the four innocent victims who were killed and the many who were left injured.

Mr Al-Hilli said: "As a member of the Shia Muslim community here in the United Kingdom, I would like to express my condolences to the families of the victims of this heinous and appalling attack. We utterly condemn this terrorist act."

Mr Welby said people were still "deeply shocked" by the terror attack and paid tribute to the victims, including Pc Keith Palmer.

He hailed "the police who were there and are here today, whose consistent courage and simple observance of duty is an extraordinary example to all of us and one that we admire very greatly".

Cardinal Nichols said: "Yesterday, I received a message from Pope Francis in which he assured this country of his prayers for our future, for our well-being and for our peace."
He started work aged 11 with the unpleasant task of gutting fish. But now the boss of his own BPerfect cosmetics company, Brendan McDowell has been tipped as one to watch in the new series of RTE's Dragons' Den, starting tomorrow at 9.30pm.

Described as "a brilliant seller" by presenter Richard Curran in a preview this week, Belfast-based Brendan can be seen demonstrating his unique semi-permanent eyebrow kit in front of the panel of business experts, which this year includes pharmaceutical company owner Chanelle McCoy, wife of the legendary Northern Ireland jockey Tony.

If successful, Brendan, a former Living Daily Social sales representative, stands to win an 80,000 (69,221) investment for his BPerfect cosmetics company, which he started up three years ago with just 500.

"Cara Delevingne had brought the focus back on eyebrows, as had Kim Kardashian," Brendan recalls.

"I had always worked in sales and I saw a massive gap in the market for an eyebrow kit.

"No one else was providing one, so I created some semi-permanent make-up that solved the problem.

"I ordered 1,200 units, and sold them at wedding and country shows - the Balmoral Show is really good for sales, funnily enough."

Along with his sister, Leanne (31), a former social care worker, Brendan went on to sell at trade shows in Dublin and all across the UK, attracting a celebrity following, including reality stars from Towie and Geordie Shore.

Last year, BPerfect Cosmetics turned over 266,000, a remarkable success Brendan attributes, in large part, to the example shown to him by his father, who passed away 12 years ago.

The late Brendan McDowell senior was only 43 when he broke his back in a digger while working in his construction business.

He made a full recovery from his injury but, tragically, died from MRSA contracted in hospital.

"Dad was a very hard worker and always said, 'You don't get nothing unless you work for it," Brendan recalls.

"He always worked for other people, but about four years before he passed away he had just gone out on his own and started his own business.

"He always wished he had done it sooner, and I always knew I wanted to do my own thing and make my dad proud."

Brendan also credits his mother Ann, a former civil servant, for giving him advice about cosmetics along the way.

He grew up in Annalong, Co Down, with his sister, who "has a passion for make-up", and now works with him at BPerfect.

It's a rather more glamorous business than Brendan's first job in a fish factory, where he worked during the summer and after school for 1.80 per hour to save up for his first horse - a hobby that later became a real passion.

After attending Shimna Integrated College, he got a GNVQ in construction and progressed to the University of Ulster to study building engineering. However, he dropped out after three months, realising very quickly that construction wasn't for him.

Selling was his real forte and he excelled in several such roles, including daily deals.

It was working with globally successful beauty brands at Living Daily Social that inspired him to travel to a London beauty trade show to see what the trends were.

There, he saw a gap in the market for a quality eyebrow product.

"I got a supplier at the show and bought 50 off-the-shelf eyebrow kits," Brendan explains.

"Then, I bought a table from B&Q and booked a stand at the Kennedy Centre in Belfast. I sold out of each product by closing time.

"I knew then I was on to a winner and I knew I could do better than the standard kit I was selling. I wanted an eyebrow make-up that was oil and mineral-based, so it would be water-resistant and smudge-proof."

Having secured a recommended supplier in Asia, Brendan set about sourcing easy-to-use eyebrow pencils that would complement his product.

Designing the brand came next and Brendan worked closely with his supplier and designer.

Since his first order of 12,000 products, the business has expanded to include mascara, self-tan, a skin primer, mineral make-up foundation and perfume.

The company now sells its products online and through 103 stockists in Northern Ireland, 126 in the Republic of Ireland, 41 in England, seven in Scotland and one in Wales.

Given such impressive figures, Brendan's appearance on Dragons' Den tomorrow should not come as much of a surprise.

He says: "It was about a year ago at a show in the Waterfront Hall when a lady bought the eyebrow kit and mascara at our stand and someone said to me, 'Do you know who that is?'

"Sure enough, it was Eleanor McEvoy from Budget Energy NI, one of the Dragons from the RTE series. She bought the products, but she didn't say who she was.

"I went home and Googled her and filled out an application for the show about nine months ago. I had forgotten about it, but a few weeks ago they contacted me and I got a good feeling about it."

After meeting the producer, Brendan went down to Dublin to film the pitch with the Dragons. "I didn't know Chanelle McCoy," he admits. She liked the product. I was nervous at the start when I was preparing behind the scenes, but once I got started with the pitch I wasn't nervous at all.

"I did a demo with a friend who came down to model for me and got a good reaction from the panel. I've always loved the show, but I never thought I'd be on it.

"The Apprentice, on the other hand, isn't for me. I already have a brand."

After a year of selling the eyebrow kit, Brendan spotted a gap in the market for a complementary eyelash product.

He worked closely with his supplier to develop a mascara made from beeswax that acts like a gel and has brush-on green tea fibres to create the false lash look without the hassle of false lashes - no glue; no mess.

This product quickly became a top seller and a firm favourite with key celebrities and others across the UK and Ireland.

The BPerfect self-tan is one of the more recent products developed by the company in an already competitive marketplace.

"I collaborated with a company in the UK to make sure that it was a product that was safe and easy to use, looked natural, with no unpleasant smells and that could be used by men and women," Brendan says.

"Since then, the tan has become a top seller and has very strong online sales.

"We've recently launched a new deeper colour tan in watermelon, which sold out within four weeks of hitting the shelves."

BPerfect fans include former Miss NI Leanne McDowell, leading Irish blogger Suzanne Jackson, the team from My Sister's Closet, and acclaimed make-up artist Louise McDonnell of LMD Hair and Make-Up in Magherafelt, who is working with Brendan on a new eyeshadow palette of her favourite colours.

Aside from his incredibly hectic work schedule, Brendan is about to move into a new house with his partner, Tony Benson, who works as a researcher at Queen's University in Belfast.

"He's been very supportive and understanding," he says. "I've been away quite a lot building up the business, two or three weeks at a time in the UK.

"We're going to be busy this year too with two new products coming up. And in five year's time, I really hope to have make-up counters in pharmacies and department stores all across Ireland and the UK."

Dragons' Den, RTE One, Sunday at 9.30pm. For further information about BPerfect, visit www.bperfectcosmetics.com
The service held in Lisnaskea on Thursday for those killed by the IRA

Victims of IRA terror have criticised the Northern Ireland's Victims Commissioner for attending the funeral service for former IRA commander and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Victims Commissioner Judith Thompson was among mourners at St Columba's Church for the funeral of Martin McGuinness on Thursday.

At the time of Mr McGuinness's funeral a service was held in Co Fermanagh for those killed by the IRA.

The service at Lisnaskea was attended by relatives of those killed by the IRA, including in the Enniskillen and Claudy bombs, and prayers were said by Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist ministers before a minute's silence was observed.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph last night, Kenny Donaldson - from victims group the South East Fermanagh Foundation - said his organisation had been contacted by victims of terrorism who felt it was unwise for Mrs Thompson to have attended the funeral service for Martin McGuinness.

"We have been contacted by victims and survivors of IRA terrorism who felt that it was inappropriate for their advocate - a victims advocate - to be in attendance at the funeral of someone who directly himself, and also though the organisation he was a senior leader of, actually was the reason why they are victims," Mr Donaldson said.

He added that he understood why she did not attend the victims' service in Lisnaskea as it had been organised with just 24 hours notice.

Asked why she attended the Derry funeral instead of the Fermanagh service, Mrs Thompson told the BBC yesterday: "I think it was said really well yesterday in the way that Arlene Foster was received in that room.

"It was a really poignant moment when she took her seat and there was a spontaneous applause.

"Everybody who was delivering that service welcomed her. And when Bill Clinton said that he and everybody in that room knew that the Troubles had touched her in a very personal and painful way, that's acknowledging the real willingness and ability of those who suffered harm to build those bridges as well as to expect proper acknowledgment of the harm they have suffered," she said

Mrs Thompson was appointed by Mr McGuinness and Peter Robinson during their times as First and deputy First Ministers.

She said she "acknowledged the struggle" many victims have with the veteran republican's past.

"People have an immediate, emotional, personal deep connection to the most dreadful experiences of loss, of pain and harm," she said.

"At the same time a lot of people are saying they are angry, hurt, their life has been changed and damaged also are saying we understand that despite our legitimate grievances to use Clinton's words, we can embrace a different future.

"Peace is made by talking to those you have regarded as your enemies and peace is kept by talking to those you have regarded as your enemy."

Mrs Thompson said her office was involved in the political talks over the past week.

"We have draft legislation for measures to look at the past in an investigative way that could be more successful than leaving our justice system to deal with it. Measures to deal with truth and narratives in more authentic way than currently dealt with; and measures to deal with victims - to provide mental health support, pension, and to deal advocacy and support to those going through historical investigation," she added.
Mr Clinton after giving his speech at the funeral of former Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness on Thursday

Former US President Bill Clinton waves to the public after a visit to the Kilkenny Shop in Dublin's Nassau Street yesterday

Hillary Clinton was moved to tears by the emotional and inspirational speech her husband, former US President Bill Clinton,made at the funeral of Martin McGuinness in Londonderry on Thursday.

Mourners were touched as he called on people and politicians to honour McGuinness and finish the work that is to be done.

Mrs Clinton, a former US Secretary of State and unsuccessful Democratic Party presidential candidate, told her 13.8m Twitter followers: Bills speech brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to share it.

Watch if you want to be inspired today.

Meanwhile, Dublin shoppers were left awestruck as the former US President went on a walkabout in Dublins crowded city centre yesterday afternoon.

Mr Clinton was followed by a gaggle of adoring fans as he browsed through Irish craft and design products in the swish Kilkenny Shop.

Mr Clinton spent almost an hour in the upscale store and filled his basket with a selection of jewellery, homeware and crafts  all produced in Ireland by Irish designers.
Members of the search and rescue team return to the quayside at Blacksod

The body of a crewman of an Irish Coast Guard helicopter that crashed into the Atlantic 11 days ago remains trapped in the wreckage.

After 3m ocean swells hampered diving on Saturday, a submersible robot was used to clear debris and fuselage on the seabed 40m down.

The man's body was discovered on Friday in the cockpit of Rescue 116 off Blackrock island, about 13km (eight miles) off the coast of Co Mayo.

The body of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, a 45-year-old mother-of-one, was the first one of the four crew to have been recovered from the ocean.

The other crew members were Captain Mark Duffy, Winchman Ciaran Smith and Winch Operator Paul Ormsby.

Garda Inspector Gary Walsh said: "The remotely operated vehicle has been in the water on different occasions, but it's still not possible to free the trapped individual in the aircraft.

"No dive could take place due to the sea swell. It is hoped dives can take place tomorrow, judging by the forecast."

An underwater camera is also being used around the wreck site in a bid to find the bodies of the two crew members who are still missing.

Nine drones were deployed on the coast of Mullet peninsula and around Erris Head to comb the shoreline.

The air search, being led by Irish Coast Guard helicopters, continued along north Mayo and into Donegal bay.

Some small pieces of debris from the crash was also discovered between Blacksod and Annagh Head.

Teams of Navy and Garda divers are on standby to enter the water if conditions turn more favourable.

A co-ordination meeting involving Navy chiefs, Irish Coast Guard officials, senior gardai and others involved in the recovery operation took place on the Granuaile to plan for potential dives.

The black box, which holds the flight data and voice records, was taken from the wreckage on Friday and is being flown to Farnborough in England for analysis.

There was no apparent damage to the unit.

Air accident investigators will dry it and attempt to download the data at a special facility during the next week.

The AAIU has said it believed the tail of Rescue 116 hit rocks on the western end of the island as it returned from supporting a rescue mission to refuel at Blacksod.

There was no indication of any danger moments before the Sikorsky S92 vanished, with the crew's final transmission: "Shortly landing at Blacksod."
The body of a woman who was raped and murdered at a tourist resort in India has been flown home to Ireland.

Danielle McLaughlin will undergo a further post-mortem examination in Ireland after an autopsy in India showed she had suffered cerebral damage and constriction to the neck.

The second post-mortem is set to take place in Dublin at the request of Ms McLaughlin's family, who want more information on how she died.

The 28-year-old, from Buncrana, Co Donegal, was found dead in a secluded spot in Canacona, a popular area for holidaymakers in Goa on March 14.

The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust organised for her body to be returned home.

A spokesman said her remains would not return to Buncrana until next week due to the second post-mortem.

Local media reported that the former Liverpool John Moores University student was discovered unclothed and had marks on her head and face.

Indian police said a farmer found Ms McLaughlin's body.

She had travelled to India in February on a British passport with an Australian female friend, and the pair were staying in a beach hut.

They had been celebrating Holi - a Hindu spring festival - in a nearby village.

She left the village late at night and her body was found the next day, police said.

The 24-year-old accused of her killing, whose name has been reported as Vikat Bhagat, appeared in court last week charged with murder, and will also face rape charges.

An officer involved with the investigation told the BBC police believed they had caught the "main culprit", and that he had confessed to the killing.

The Co Donegal community was left in shock at the news of her death, and local man Christy Duffy launched a GoFundMe campaign to help with her repatriation and funeral expenses.
A senior civil servant who has been working to ensure the UK stays together has been moved to the Brexit department amid fresh calls for Scottish independence.

Philip Rycroft, who heads the UK Governance Group, which supports ministers to sustain the union, will become second permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU).

Part of his role will be to ensure the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolved administrations are engaged extensively during exit talks.

It comes after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon demanded a second independence referendum between autumn next year and spring 2019, when she says there will be clarity over the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.

A total of 62% of Scottish voters backed staying in the EU in the referendum, and the SNP manifesto for last year's Holyrood elections made clear another ballot on independence should take place if there were a "material change in circumstances" from the previous ballot in 2014.

Prime Minister Theresa May ruled out another vote before Britain leaves the EU, insisting "now is not the time".

A DExEU spokeswoman said: "Philip Rycroft has been appointed as second permanent secretary in DExEU. He is currently the second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, where he has responsibility for the Constitution Group.

"As a very experienced senior civil servant he will support the Government's top priority of an orderly exit from, and new partnership with, the EU."
Between 25,000 and 100,000 campaigners stood with their heads bowed for a minute-long silence with the only sound the chiming of Big Ben

Tens of thousands of anti-Brexit demonstrators fell silent at Parliament Square in tribute to the victims of the Westminster attack.

Unite for Europe campaigners marched through central London to Westminster, the scene of floral tributes to those killed and injured in Wednesday's atrocity.

Opening the event, Alastair Campbell said: "Before we talk about Brexit, before we call on any of the speakers, we need to recognise that something really bad happened not far from here just the other day."

Campaigners stood with their heads bowed for a minute-long silence on Saturday, with the only sound the chiming of Big Ben.

Between 25,000 and 100,000 demonstrators attended the event, calling for Britain to remain in the European Union - just days before Theresa May triggers Article 50 to begin the exit process on March 29.

The sunny square was filled with protesters, many draped in the European flag and waving banners aloft, including a number declaring: "We are not afraid". Another sign read: "I'm 15 I want my future back!"

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron addressed the crowd, insisting "democracy continues" and adding: "We stand in defiance of that attack."

Lib Dem former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, Labour MP David Lammy and Green co-leader Jonathan Bartley were also among those addressing the crowd.

Organisers refused to call off the event after the attack earlier this week, saying in a statement: "We will not be intimidated. We will stand in unity and solidarity. We will march on the heart of our democracy and reclaim our streets in honour and respect of those that fell."

The march coincides with the EU's 60th anniversary celebrations in Rome, where leaders of the other 27 member states will gather to discuss plans for the future of the union without the UK.

More than a thousand campaigners took to the street in Edinburgh in a simultaneous protest organised by the city's Young European Movement.

Marchers gathered in the city centre before heading to the Scottish Parliament, waving EU and Scottish flags and carrying placards reading "We want EU to stay" and "In business lying is a crime, why not in politics?"

Among those giving speeches were Green MSP Ross Greer, Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP from the Liberal Democrats, SNP MPs Tommy Sheppard and Joanna Cherry.

Young European Movement Edinburgh chairman Jean Francois-Poncet said the march was to protest against Brexit and commemorate 60 years of the European Union.

He said: "We want to raise the issue in British and Scottish people's lives that you have lies in the referendum campaign that people were not held accountable for and, whether you voted Remain or Leave, that is a real issue."
People are being urged to join UK landmarks and famous sites around the world as they switch off their lights for an hour on Saturday night to back action on climate change.

Despite the terror attack in Westminster on Wednesday, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben are joining more than 270 landmarks across the UK in switching off the lights for conservation charity WWF's Earth Hour.

Buckingham Palace, Blackpool Tower, Brighton Pier, the Senedd Building in Cardiff, the Kelpies sculpture in Falkirk and Edinburgh Castle are among those also taking part.

Starting in Samoa and ending 24 hours later in The Cook Islands, people in 184 countries will send a message calling for action to protect the planet by tackling climate change, WWF said.

Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, New York's Empire State Building, the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow, the Egyptian Pyramids and Tokyo Tower will be switching off the lights during their Earth Hour between 8.30pm and 9.30pm.

Members of the public are also being encouraged to take part by switching off their lights for the hour.

Colin Butfield, director of campaigns at WWF, said: "Today, hundreds of millions of people will be showing global unity on climate change during Earth Hour. Climate change is impacting us here and now.

"We are seeing it across the globe, from the Great Barrier Reef suffering mass bleaching for an unprecedented second year in a row, to more severe weather in Britain.

"Following the tragic events in London earlier this week, we are inspired and grateful to hear that the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben will be switching off their lights to show support for global action on climate change."

He added: "Earth Hour is the world's biggest climate change event. All you have to do is switch off your lights for one hour to join hundreds of millions around the world to send a clear signal that we must act and we must act now."

As well as the big switch off, people are kicking off Earth Hour in various ways including a pedal-powered cinema night arranged by Exeter University students on Gylly beach and a musical display at the Senedd.
Tini Owens wants to divorce her husband of nearly 40 years

A woman who says her marriage is "loveless and desperately unhappy" has failed to persuade senior judges to let her divorce her husband of nearly 40 years.

Three Court of Appeal judges ruled that Tini Owens had failed to establish that her marriage to retired businessman Hugh Owens had, legally, irretrievably broken down.

One judge said she had reached her conclusion with "no enthusiasm whatsoever" but said Parliament would have to decide whether to introduce "no fault" divorce on demand.

Another said Parliament had "decreed" that being in a "wretchedly unhappy marriage" was not a ground for divorce even if some people might think otherwise.

Specialist lawyers said the ruling would strengthen calls for the introduction of "no fault" divorce.

Mrs Owens had last year failed to persuade a family court judge to allow her to divorce Mr Owens.

Judge Robin Tolson had refused refused to grant Mrs Owens' divorce petition.

Mrs Owens then asked Court of Appeal judges to overturn that decision.

Three appeal judges - Sir James Munby, the most senior family court judge in England and Wales, Lady Justice Hallett and Lady Justice Macur - analysed the case at a hearing in London on Valentine's Day.

They dismissed Mrs Owens' appeal in a ruling published on Friday.

Appeal judges were told that Mrs Owens, 66, and Mr Owens, 78, had married in 1978 and lived in Broadway, Worcestershire.

A barrister representing Mrs Owens told the appeal court that the ''vast majority'' of divorces were undefended in 21st century England.

Philip Marshall QC said it was "extraordinarily unusual in modern times" for a judge to dismiss a divorce petition.

Mrs Owens said her husband had behaved unreasonably and argued that the marriage had broken down.

Mr Owens disagreed and denied allegations made against him.

He was against a divorce and said they still had a ''few years'' to enjoy.

"We cannot interfere with Judge Tolson's decision and refuse the wife the decree of divorce she sought," said Sir James, who is President of the Family Division of the High Court, in the appeal court ruling.

"Mr Marshall complains that the effect of Judge Tolson's judgment is to leave the wife in a wretched predicament, feeling, as she put it in her witness statement, unloved, isolated and alone, and locked into a loveless and desperately unhappy marriage which, as the judge correctly found, has, in fact if not in law, irretrievably broken down."

He added: "Parliament has decreed that it is not a ground for divorce that you find yourself in a wretchedly unhappy marriage, though some people may say it should be."

Lady Justice Hallett said she had reached the same conclusions "with no enthusiasm whatsoever" and added: "It is for Parliament to decide whether to amend (the law) and to introduce 'no fault' divorce on demand; it is not for the judges to usurp their function."

Sir James indicated that Mrs Owens would be able to petition for divorce at a time when she could establish that she and her husband had been continuously separated for five years.
Malta's prime minister Joseph Muscat, European Council president Donald Tusk, Polish prime minister Beata Szydto and Italian prime minister Paolo Gentiloni appear together in Rome ahead of the summit (AP)

Police in Rome said officers seized sharpened iron bars, clubs and knives ahead of anti-EU march - just a few miles from where the EU summit was being held.

Hours before the marches started on Saturday, police checked the occupants of cars, trucks and buses heading to Rome.

Police said one van inspected at a highway toll had knives and gas masks. In Rome, not far from one of the routes of the marches, traffic police found a bag filled with sharpened iron bars.

By early evening the marches were finished and several thousand protesters were dispersing.

One protest banner read: "Politicians, bankers and eurocrats, our patience is over."

Monuments and museums closed down as a precaution, and streets in the centre of Rome streets were largely deserted except for the marchers.

Italian state TV RaiNew24 reported that police stopped dozens of protesters from reaching twin anti-EU marches.

One protest leader, Tommaso Cacciari, complained that 150 protesters, arriving on buses from north-east Italy, were prevented from joining the marchers.

One anti-EU march moved past the iconic Mouth of Truth monument while another march route flanked the Tiber River. The protests grouped opponents to the EU, NATO and the high-speed rail project in northern Italy.

The Colosseum was closed and museums and many shops closed up, fearing clashes.

Earlier, pro-EU marches went off peacefully in Rome.

AP
The Studio Symphony Orchestra in Belfast will celebrate its 70th anniversary at the Ulster Hall today with a concert filled with European classics.

It is renowned for taking on large-scale works, and under the baton of David Openshaw - a former principal timpanist with the Ulster Orchestra - will play Mahler's demanding Symphony No1, known as The Titan.

It will also play the ever- popular Schumann Piano Symphony with the distinguished young Ulster pianist Michael McHale.

Bernagh Brims, a long-time member of the Studio Symphony, said: "This will be a special concert for us as we are celebrating our 70th season since the orchestra was founded by Dr Havelock Nelson in 1947.

"We have maintained his objectives for the orchestra which include the provision of opportunities for local amateur musicians to play in a large orchestra, and to give talented young musicians an opportunity to perform a concerto with a symphony orchestra.

"We were initially a string orchestra but we soon became a symphony orchestra, and we have been going strong ever since."

Dr Havelock Nelson, who came from Dublin to join the BBC in Belfast, became one of the best-known musicians in Northern Ireland. He was a founding member of Studio Opera which later became the Castleward Opera.

He was also an accomplished conductor, pianist and composer.

Two of the top Northern Ireland-born musicians, Sir James Galway and Barry Douglas, are among the internationally-acclaimed soloists who played with the Studio Symphony.

The 70th Anniversary Concert tonight begins in the Ulster Hall at 7.45pm with a performance of Wagner's Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin.
Surely, I am not the only person who is suspicious of Mother's Day? It's been going on for weeks now, the department store displays of suggested gifts for the person who brought you into the world, the newspaper inserts reminding you to buy her an oversized bouquet of lilies (if you're feeling flush) or carnations (if you're on a budget).

Other commonly suggested gifts include hair straighteners (because which woman does not dream of being gifted a grooming gadget with a plug attached?), a large box of chocolates (which she will feel compelled to consume, though she'd been trying - really hard - to avoid sugar temptation for months now), some class of leatherette wallet or bag (which she will feel compelled to decant her stuff into, though she has a perfectly nice leather one already), 12 Mother's Day-themed cupcakes (see chocolates for response), a monstrous iced cake (ditto).

On eBay, you can buy virtually anything and call it a Mother's Day gift - mugs, teddies, keyrings, wine glasses, door wreaths, gloves, hats, fascinators. You name it and it has a ribbon and a Happy Mother's Day tag on it. For 100 (plus postage), you can name a star for your mother and buy her a crystal star necklace to boot.

It's not terrible, I grant you. I mean, things could definitely be worse. You could get shingles. You could develop hives. Being given a gift that you would probably prefer not to get - for an occasion you are dubious about - is hardly the worst imposition. This is an utterly First World problem - that's a given.

And, in fairness, it's genuinely very sweet to see the efforts little children - in particular - can go to to celebrate Mother's Day. Handmade cards - even when they have obviously been commissioned by a teacher - are always lovely. As the recipient of my fair share of cold toast and undercooked egg offerings at Mother's Day breakfast time, I can report that these, for sure, are very gratefully received, especially if they come with a priceless hug from a small person. And if that's followed up by a free lunch somewhere nice, I can't say I would argue.

And, yet, the whole notion of Mother's Day bothers me. There's just something faintly patronising about it, isn't there? And faintly cynical.

Think about it. A Day for 'Mother'. Who is 'Mother' anyway - virtually nobody calls anyone by that title any more, apart from on this single day each year? (Mind you, Mum's Day would be worse.)

History tells us Mother's Day comes - of course - from the US, where it was first celebrated in 1908, when a woman called Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother at a church in West Virginia. That church, St Andrew's Methodist Church, is now home to a shrine to International Mother's Day.

Her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, was a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the US civil war. She later established so-called Mother's Day work clubs.

And so her daughter thought she should celebrate all mothers, because she believed that they were "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world". Six years later, the day was established as a national celebration in the US. It's hard to argue with any of that.

Interestingly though, Anna Jarvis was not pleased when Hallmark and other firms started to capitalise on the day with gifts and cards. She actually ordered boycotts and protests over the years. I feel her pain.

My further problem with this whole 'holiday' is that I think it can upset people who aren't part of the party. And we all know how it feels not to be invited to a party.

I mean, people who have recently lost their mothers (I am kind of in this group) and have nobody to buy the flowers for. And even more damagingly - how does it affect people who might deeply crave motherhood, but find themselves struggling to achieve it?

I have the same feeling about Father's Day - to be gender-neutral - and also about Valentine's Day, whose existence can only torment those whose heart's desire is to find love.

And given that so many people have fertility problems, I imagine there are many women out there - and I mean otherwise kind, lovely people - who resent Mother's Day for this reason. If mothers are lucky enough to be mothers, they may be thinking, 'Shouldn't that be enough for them?'

All that said, I am looking forward to spending Mother's Day with my offspring, whose company has been promised for the day.

No flowers required.
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The value of library service is often difficult to measure.

Do we look at the number of books that are checked out? The people that come through the door? How do we compare these measures of use with the resources the community contributes for services?

During the great recession, libraries, along with nearly everything else, were faced with budget constraints. Some overextended communities were even forced to foreclose on their libraries by either passing their operations to for-profit companies or simply closing the doors.

These few tragedies aside, most libraries were left articulating their worth in various ways.

San Francisco undertook a study in September 2015 which projected an overall return on investment of between $5.19 and $9.11 for every dollar spent. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh estimated that they have generated $6.14 per $1 of budget provided. Florida public libraries showed that approximately $6.40 of the total value per $1 of the budget was created. South Carolina State Library economic impact was $4.48 per $1 spent, and Phoenix Public Library results showed a value of $10 or greater per $1 spent.

In these examples, the average return on investment is always higher than the resources expended.

What about here in Columbus?

At the urging of the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln conducted a study on the economic impact of the proposed library/cultural arts center project. One part of that study looked at increased library use in communities who have constructed new facilities and how that use equates to the increasing value of services.

The results are striking and very positive. The study found that it is possible to estimate a significant share of both the librarys current value to the community and projected value with a new facility.

The UNL study focused on two of the most important library services identified by patrons in the 2013-2018 CPL Strategic Plan survey: book loans and library wi-fi access. Based on information from other libraries and data from the current Columbus Public Library, the study predicts a 39-percent increase in the value of library services with the construction of a new facility.

Other services, including reference staff support, programming, cultural events and author visits, and spaces for reading, relaxing and meeting, are all presumed to add significant value, but were not tested as a part of the study.

There is no question that libraries offer a great value in Columbus and beyond. Ultimately beauty is in the eye of the library card holder.

If you have not been in to find the value at your library lately, drop by and browse the collection.
 ... You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you at public expense ... 

We have all heard these words, whether weve had contact with law enforcement or not. Almost every police procedural television show and movie has repeated this line whenever someone is arrested on the big (or small) screen.

As public defenders, we are those attorneys.

In our criminal justice system, public defenders are the only institution required by the Constitution. On March 18, 1963, the United States Supreme Court delivered its decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, the decision that guaranteed everyone has the right to counsel, whether they can afford to hire an attorney or not. Since the decision in Gideon, public defenders throughout this country have worked to defend those who would be forgotten and crushed under the weight of the criminal justice system.

I have served this county as a public defender since September 2008, and as the chief public defender since January 2010. My deputy, Kaz Long, has been with the office since August 2015 and been a practicing attorney since 2011. Between us, we have represented clients in manners ranging from the simplest of misdemeanors all the way up to murder cases. Also serving our county in this office are a full-time office manager and full-time paralegal.

The Platte County Public Defenders Office was established in 1993 to provide those constitutionally-mandated legal services at the lowest possible cost to the county. Without the Platte County Public Defenders Office, the courts would have to appoint local attorneys to represent individuals at a much higher expense than the public defender. The services that are provided by our office would equate to roughly $600,000 per year in the regular court-appointed market, despite our entire operating budget being less than $200,000 per year. Our office represents any indigent person charged with a crime for which incarceration is a possible penalty of conviction. In addition to representations in criminal matters, we also represent individuals in certain child support contempt and establishment hearings, as well as those who are the subject of petitions in front of the Mental Health Board.

While significant, the monetary savings to the taxpayers of this county are far from the only benefit that our office provides to the public. In addition to protecting the rights of our clients, by extension, we are also protecting the rights of all the residents of this county.

As a public defender, I have seen how difficult it is for society to separate an individual from the sometimes heinous crimes that he or she is accused of committing. Even in our system, where one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the extreme distrust of someone who has been charged with an offense can be crippling. I have also, at times, experienced the same distrust as my client, simply because I have been given the responsibility of defending them in court. It is important to understand that justice is only possible when everyone has access to it, not just those with the ability to pay for it.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 60 people filled Brandon Universitys Harvest Hall Friday night to show support and promote awareness of the Muslim community.

BU hosted Walking Forward with Muslims: A Community Event in partnership with Westman Immigrant Services and the Brandon Islamic Centre to start a discussion on what it means to be Muslim in Canada in the current political climate.

Its the first time weve had an event like this  and with the recent shootings in Quebec, we decided that this needed to happen sooner than later, said Lisa Park, BUs diversity and human rights adviser.

Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun Brandon University student Fatumo Ahmed speaks during a panel discussion at Brandon University's Harvest Hall on Friday evening as part of the Walking Forward with Muslims community event. The evening included the screening of two short films, food, and a question and answer session and panel discussion aimed at dispelling myths and misconceptions regarding the Muslim faith.

Attendees enjoyed baklava and samosas while taking in two short films  Meghan Cronkrites short film Keep Walking Forward, along with Letter to a Terrorist by Winnipeg filmmaker Ayat Mneina  followed by a panel discussion.

Cheers erupted in the room as panel moderator Emma Varley, an associate professor of anthropology at BU, announced the gathering was a celebration of diversity.

There has been an increase in hate speech  The number of police reported hate crimes in the past three years has more than doubled, Varley told the crowd. We come together for productive and peaceful dialogue.

Faiz Ahmad, president of the Brandon Islamic Centre, said events like this should have been happening earlier, as it is a great platform to begin discussions, clear up assumptions and lead to better understanding.

Its a very timely event. Theres a lot happening in the world, theres a lot of misconceptions  Muslims are all roped in the same view by the media, Ahmad said. Realizing that whatever is happening in the world in the name of Islam, very bad things, those people are not representing Islam. The Muslim community condemns what is happening there, we dont think that they are representing Islam at all  they are tarnishing Islam.

The Brandon Islamic Centre has also been holding open houses in an attempt to break down these misconceptions and barriers, Ahmad said, adding they have received positive turnouts.

People fear the unknown  but once you get to know (the community), you realize were all the same, Ahmad said, We may come from a different country, a different race, a different culture, but deep down we are all human beings  we have the same responsibilities, we have the same needs, we have children, we work  the newcomers are no different from people who came before.

Ahmad said Brandon has also grown, becoming more accepting over the years.

Every now and then you run into someone with very extreme views  but there arent very many of those people (in Brandon), Ahmad said. Generally speaking, the Brandon community has been very accommodating and supportive  Theyre very open. Brandon was a different place 10 years ago, its not the same today.

University students Kristen Smart and Victoria McDougall came to the event in a show of support.

Dr. Mohammad Abidullah (bottom left) speaks during a panel discussion at Brandon University's Harvest Hall on Friday evening as part of the Walking Forward with Muslims community event.

Its important to be here especially with the times as they are  certain communities arent as accepting of different cultures and I think its extremely important that there is acceptance here in Brandon, Smart said.

Both students said they found it encouraging how many people attended.

Brandon can definitely use some improvement (with acceptance) but everywhere can, McDougall said.

Theres always room for improvement.

 edebooy@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @erindebooy
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eye surgery has come along way in recent years, and Brandon ophthalmologist Dr. Guillermo Rocha wants people to know what their options are.

Rocha is hosting a public information seminar at Clarion Hotel & Suites, at 3130 Victoria Ave., on Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

While some peoples perceptions about dry eye, laser surgery, refractive surgery or cataract surgery might have been correct 25 or 30 years ago, options have improved, he said.

Colin Corneau/The Brandon Sun Dr. Guillermo Rocha of Rochas Ocular Microsurgery & Laser Clinic on Sixth Street is hosting a public information seminar at Clarion Hotel & Suites on Victoria Avenue on Tuesday.

Cutting-edge technology is available in Brandon, he said,

noting that his downtown clinic at 144 Sixth St. has the only laser-assisted cataract surgery in a public system in Canada.

Since Rochas Ocular Microsurgery & Laser Centre clinic got the laser assist in September 2015, they have undertaken about 1,500 cataract surgeries with the device.

This is only one option available to those with eye-related issues, with technological advancements coming in on a constant basis.

In short, there are an ever-growing list of options available to people, Rocha said.

Even those who are incomparable for laser eye surgery might find a means of saying goodbye to eye glasses and contact lenses, he said.

Intra-ocular contact lenses can be implanted within the eye itself, Rocha said, adding that they can remain in place permanently.

His clinics Dry Eye Centre of Excellence offers patients different options to deal with dry eye other than visiting ones pharmacy and testing different over-the-counter treatment options.

Once there, people can go to the core of the problem, identify it and properly diagnose it, he said. We educate our patients so they can help themselves, and then treat it with something that can be cost-effective but evidence-based in science.

Like there are many different causes and solutions for dry eye, there are many options and solutions for those with imperfect eyesight.

Not everything works for all people, but its best that people know their options, Rocha said.

Educated in Montreal and Florida, Rocha has been a practising ophthalmologist in Brandon since 1998, after being recruited by the local health region.

Although its already a busy enough practice, he said that next weeks information seminar remains important as a means of battling misconceptions.

If the seminar proves popular, he plans on hosting more in the future.

Attendance is free, but with limited seating Rocha encourages people

to secure a spot by emailing torreyw@grmc.ca or calling 204-727-1954.

 tclarke@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/03/2017 (2058 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A student who used his grandmothers anti-anxiety medication to cope with bullying was Tasered outside a Brandon high school after he overdosed and began acting bizarrely.

Defence lawyer Philip Sieklicki said his young client took more and more of the drug, Clonazepam, because he felt it wasnt easing his anxiety.

Im told that his grandmother takes only one drop at a time  he took the entire bottle, Sieklicki said in court.

Clonazepam is used to treat seizures and panic disorder.

The teen was sentenced on Thursday for possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and for resisting police.

The incident didnt appear in the Brandon Police Service media releases from that time. However, details were shared in court on Thursday during sentencing.

In this particular case, the Brandon Sun has chosen not to name the student.

While he was an adult at the time, authorities agree his actions were out of character and has turned his school life around with the help of counselling.

Having returned to school following a suspension, he is doing much better in school.

Crown attorney Brett Rach said that on Oct. 4 at 4:20 p.m., the students mom called police to state she was picking up her son from Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School as it was believed he was high on a drug.

After taking the drugs, his teacher believed the pupil to be drunk and he became aggressive, so police were called.

Police found the student by the school, at the corner of Maryland Avenue and First Street.

He was highly agitated, showed police his middle finger and swore at them. He pulled out an object and unfolded what was believed to be a knife (following the incident, police learned it was a screwdriver).

The student made stabbing motions with the object and told police to come and get him.

Police repeatedly warned him to drop the knife or hed be Tasered. Police did, in fact, fire the Taser, but it failed to stop the student, who pulled the probes out of his chest.

Still armed with the screwdriver, he then ran around and stopped vehicles and punched their hoods. He tried to get into two or three occupied vehicles that were stopped in traffic, and removed his shirt.

Officers pepper-sprayed the student in the face, but he still kept hold of the screwdriver. They Tasered the teen again and finally subdued him.

It was then that police found the knife was a bicycle tool equipped with a flathead screwdriver.

The teen later explained that he had taken his grandmothers medication to deal with anxiety from bullying. An immigrant, he felt he was being bullied because he couldnt speak English.

While his English skills have since vastly improved, he appeared in court with the assistance of an interpreter.

Given the circumstances, Rach joined Sieklicki in asking the court to impose a conditional discharge that would give the teen a chance to maintain a clean record.

Judge John Combs made it a one-year discharge.

 ihitchen@brandonsun.com
PERU  Her love of hidden gems is a good thing, because when it comes to Nebraska's top tourist attractions, Linda Tynon's place ranks last on the list.

The Cabin at Honey Creek welcomed a whopping 30 visitors in 2016.

"And we had a record year last year," Tynon says.

The cozy cabin sits on an acreage south of Peru, next door to a refurbished schoolhouse from 1889 and overlooking a cornfield, a hayfield and a creek once known as a hub for beehives.

Tynon and her longtime partner, Jerry Patterson, bought the schoolhouse for $4,000 in the 1980s from one of their former professors at Peru State College, who used it for beekeeping. Now the couple lives there when they visit from New York.

Jerry built the cabin himself about seven years ago.

"It was built as a man cave. It turned into a guest house," Tynon said.

It's available on Airbnb for $89 a night beginning in late May.

The cabin is usually full each weekend from June through August. Last year, an out-of-state couple helping at Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville stayed there for two months solid.

And a booking just freed up for Aug. 21, the day a total solar eclipse will sweep across the continental United States. Peru is on the eclipse's path.

"We're busy a lot," Tynon promised, even if "the numbers don't look that way."

When she filled out a questionnaire for the Nebraska Tourism Commission, she didn't know her cabin would end up at the bottom of a list of about 200 major attractions, historical sites and parks.

The state's top draw for tourists, Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, checks in as many people in 3 minutes as the Cabin at Honey Creek does all year.

Some beaches at Lake McConaughy, the No. 2 destination, host more campers in a single summer night.

But Tynon, a 70-year-old former airline customer service representative, has long been a fan of places off the beaten path.

She once ran a pair of websites, NebraskaTheGoodLife.com and ITravelByways.com, with suggested stops along scenic byways in Nebraska and other states. She shut them down years ago, but remnants are still online for those who know where to look.

"I've had the tourism bug my whole life," she said.

She's traveled all over the world. Her favorite place?

"I don't have one," she said, then settles on an answer: "10 degrees either side of the Equator."
Firefighters have been battling an overnight fire at a commercial premises in Bantry, Co Cork.

The fire at Bantry Business Park off the N71 motorway has now been contained to the middle two units, with firefighters from Bantry, Skibbereen and Schull now dampening down the affected area.
Update 10.30pm: Gardai have confirmed a body have been discovered on board the wreckage of the Rescue 116 aircraft.

The discovery was confirmed after eight dives were carried out on the wreckage of Rescue 116 off Blackrock island, about 13km off the coast of Co Mayo.

The body was in the cockpit of the helicopter wreckage on the seabed in 40m of water.

BREAKING: Gardai confirm that body of a #Rescue116 crew member has been found in the helicopter cockpit. His identity is not being released  Fergal O'Brien (@FergalOBrien_) March 24, 2017

The identity of the body has not yet been released.

Officials also said that the other two crew members of the R116 have not yet been located, but that operations will continue overnight.

Briefing at Blacksod. Investigators confirm crew member located in cockpit of #Rescue116. Say not possible to confirm ID at this stage. pic.twitter.com/IWlcvTbHcq  Robin Schiller (@11SchillRob) March 24, 2017

Garda superintendent Tony Healy said efforts were continuing to recover the body.

"It's a challenging time for the families obviously they're going through a stressful time waiting for the recovery of their loved ones," he said.

Families of the crew have been notified and are being supported by garda liaison staff.

Update 6pm: The R116 black box has been recovered by divers working in Blacksod.

The data recorder was found by navy divers who were examining the wreckage of the helicopter, 40 metres underwater.

The R116, which crashed on the Mayo coast last week, was searched by divers today thanks to favourable weather conditions.

The Air Accident Investigation Unit has said the recorder was recovered from the seabed just off Blackrock this afternoon.

It is currently in the custody of the AAIU and will be transferred to the UK tomorrow for further examination.

Authorities said no bodies of three missing crew have been found with the wreckage east of Blackrock island, about 13km off the coast of Co Mayo.

The Sikorsky S-92 is believed to have hit the island before crashing into the sea in the early hours of March 14.

The body of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, a 45-year-old mother-of-one, is the only one of the four crew to have been recovered from the ocean so far.

The other crew members, Captain Mark Duffy, Winchman Ciaran Smith and Winch Operator Paul Ormsby, remain missing.

The black box recorder was taken from the seabed at 4.30pm.

Jurgen Whyte, chief inspector with Ireland's Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU), said the unit appeared to be in good condition.

"It was always a priority to recover the three crew members however there are protocols within our work - where we see a recorder we are obliged to take the recorder," he said.

"The concern was that if we did not take it at the time we would not get it."

"Now our focus is to continue with the operation to seek and recover the three remaining crew members."

Earlier: Dive teams have begun searching the wreckage of a Coast Guard helicopter for its three missing crew after it crashed into the Atlantic over a week ago.

Working in pairs and attached to a ship on the surface by umbilical cables for air and communications, divers have nine or 10 minutes on the seabed.

A dive platform has been set up above the crash site - about 60 metres to the east of Blackrock island, off the coast of Co Mayo.

The Sikorsky S-92 is believed to have hit the island before crashing into the sea in the early hours of March 14.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, a 45-year-old mother-of-one, is the only one of the four crew to have been recovered from the ocean so far.

The other crew members, Captain Mark Duffy, Winchman Ciaran Smith and Winch Operator Paul Ormsby, remain missing.

Superintendent Tony Healy said there is no indication yet if the bodies of the three missing crew are with the wreckage.

"Conditions are close to ideal. Diving has commenced and we are awaiting reports back," he said.

"It's a delicate operation. It's a dangerous operation for the divers. We're operating with their safety in mind at all times."

Visibility on the seabed is said to be good.

On the surface conditions are calm under hazy skies and little wind.

The Irish Lights Vessel Granuaile is positioned next to the dive platform and carrying a recompression chamber in case of emergencies.

A shot line has been dropped next to the wreckage for divers to traverse.

Divers are also obliged to bring the black box flight recorder to the surface if they see it.

Derek Flanagan, divisional controller based at Malin Head for the Coast Guard, said communications between the divers and from them to the surface were key for a methodical search of the wreckage.

"You are talking about a 40 metre dive and about nine minutes bottom time," he said.

"We have such a small amount of time down there that every minute is crucial so we don't waste time when we get down there and get the job done and find these people."

The first dives began at about 11.30am.

The helicopter is lying in an area from where signals from the black box flight recorder are being emitted.

The Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) has said it believed the tail of Rescue 116 hit rocks on the western end of the island, about 13km (eight miles) off the Mayo coast as it returned from supporting a rescue mission to refuel at Blacksod.

There was no indication of any danger moments before the Sikorsky S-92 vanished, with the crew's final transmission: "Shortly landing at Blacksod."
Taoiseach Enda Kenny and other European leaders will today sign the Rome Declaration in the Italian capital.

The 27 leaders will be joined by the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Parliament.
The prevalence of sexual violence has reached "epic proportions" in South Sudan during its civil war, the UN Commission on Human Rights said.

Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60% last year, the group found.

A UN humanitarian aid survey conducted in December found 70% of women sheltering in UN camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began.

Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicentre of the problem.

Aid organisations blame this on a recent increase in fighting between rebels and government troops - the latest shift of the three-year conflict in an already devastated nation.

One young woman who endured months of sexual assaults after being held by rebels said she did not expect to become embroiled in South Sudan's conflict.

"I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams," the 23-year-old said in an interview earlier this month.

"If I talk about it, I just cry."

She had been visiting her family in the summer of 2015, with plans to return to school in the capital, Juba. Instead, she was abducted by rebels loyal to an opposition group calling itself MTN, after a popular African telephone company.

Their catchphrase riffs on the company's slogan, taunting: "We're everywhere you go."

She was taken from her mother's hut by rebels who had been searching for her uncle, who had been accused of conspiring with government forces. At their headquarters, she was charged, tried and convicted for her uncle's alleged crimes.

For the next 16 months, she was forced to live in large, muddy pits infested with snakes. Subsisting on only meagre amounts of food, she wasted away, and her hair fell out. Eventually, she was released in December after she became ill.

"They told me to get medicine and then changed their minds and told me to leave and never come back," she said.

The woman became pregnant during her ordeal, and had a child, which she named Barack Obama.

"I still have hope," she said. "I just don't even know where to start."

Mundri has many such stories. According to a recent Inter-Agency assessment by international and local organisations focused on gender-based violence, 29 rape cases were reported in Mundri between August and October.

Local organisations say the number is likely to be double that, but most incidents go unreported because of the stigma surrounding rape.

James Labadia, founder of local women's aid body Maya, said: "Realistically, it's more like over 50 cases."

He has been working with rape survivors for several years but said things have never been so dire.

"The end of 2016 was the worst quarter I've ever seen," he said.

The group received funds from the US Agency for International Development last year, and while Mr Labadia plans to seek more money, the possibility is in jeopardy thanks to US president Donald Trump's proposed budget cuts.

Reports of rape and abduction are rampant on both sides in Mundri, which is under government control while neighbouring villages are held by the opposition.

South Sudanese officials insist they are taking steps to counter sexual violence.

Things in Mundri are slowly improving, said Abokato Kenyi, the minister of education, gender and social welfare in Amadi state.

"The government has put out a new law that any soldier who misbehaves will now be punished," Mr Kenyi said. As of January, he said, anyone convicted of rape will be sentenced to prison.

During the town's first International Women's Day celebration since 2014 earlier this month, Mr Kenyi called on men and women to work together to combat sexual assault.

But survivors say what they really want is to rebuild their lives.

Since returning to the community, the 23-year-old rape victim has received psychosocial support from Maya's staff and joined a women's group. They are launching business initiatives such as selling soap and baked goods in the hope of helping women become self-sufficient.

Ultimately, the woman's dream is to return to school and become a nurse.

"I can't give up," she said.

"I need to continue going to school and fighting for my rights. When you get the woman, you get the nation."
Fears Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood was groomed for extremism in prison have heightened after it was claimed he turned to Islam behind bars.

Counter-terrorism officers have spent days piecing together what led the 52-year-old to shed his birth name and later unleash carnage on the capital.

Only one man, 58, arrested in Birmingham remains in police custody after a 27-year-old man was released with no further action on Saturday.

A total of 11 people were initially held after raids across the country.

It remains unclear whether the attack which left four dead and scores injured was carried out alone or with support.

The Saudi Arabian embassy in London said Masood worked in the country, home to some of the most virulent Islamic extremism, for several years, raising the possibility he was radicalised overseas.

A childhood friend of the man then known as Adrian Elms told The Sun newspaper he first emerged as a Muslim after serving a jail sentence.

Mark Ashdown, 52, said: "When he first came out he told me he'd become a Muslim in prison and I thought he was joking.

"Then I saw he was quieter and much more serious.

"I gave him some cash-in-hand work for a few months as a labourer.

"He said he needed time to pray and read the Koran - something about finding inner peace."

He added: "There were still flashes of the old Ade, but they were few and far between.

"I heard he'd split from his partner and got even more deeply into religion. But nothing could have prepared me for hearing his name on the radio."

His abrupt religious conversion will fuel concerns about the rising threat of criminals being brought under the influence of hardened jihadists while in prison.

Ministers have announced plans to create specialist units within jails to tackle what a government-ordered review last year concluded was a "growing problem".

His route to extremism could have also come from a stint living in the Middle East.

The Saudi embassy said Masood lived in the country between November 2005 and 2006 and April 2008 and April 2009, during which time he worked as an English teacher on a work visa, travelling to the country again for five days in March 2015.

It said in a statement: "During his time in Saudi Arabia, Khalid Masood did not appear on the security services' radar and does not have a criminal record in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

Details of Masood's history of criminality have continued to come to light, suggesting a propensity for violence which laid the groundwork for his armed rampage on Wednesday.

Unarmed Pc Keith Palmer was knifed after the killer blazed a trail of destruction by driving a car at pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and storming the parliamentary estate armed with two knives.

He was then shot dead by police.

The middle-aged Muslim convert was born in Kent, but moved around the country and used a variety of aliases including Adrian Russell Ajao.

Scotland Yard's head of counter-terrorism Mark Rowley said detectives want to understand his "motivation, preparation and associates" and if he "either acted totally alone, inspired by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him".

Detectives have seized 2,700 items from the searches, including "massive amounts" of computer data, while around 3,500 witnesses have been spoken to.

Searches at three addresses are continuing.

Mr Rowley said: "We remain keen to hear from anyone who knew Khalid Masood well, understands who his associates were, and can provide us with information about places he has recently visited.

"There might well be people out there who did have concerns about Masood but weren't sure or didn't feel comfortable for whatever reason in passing information to us."

Masood was known to police and MI5 but was a "peripheral figure" who was not implicated in any current probe.

He had convictions for assaults, including grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.

Hero MP Tobias Ellwood, who tried to save Pc Palmer's life, and security minister Ben Wallace have been appointed to the Privy Council for their roles in responding to the atrocity.

Masood's victims on the bridge included US tourist Kurt Cochran and his wife Melissa, from Utah, who were on the last day of a trip celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. Mr Cochran was killed and Mrs Cochran was badly injured.

Aysha Frade, who worked in administration at independent sixth-form school DLD College London, in Westminster, also died. She is believed to be a 43- year-old married mother of two.

Leslie Rhodes, a retired window cleaner from Clapham, south London, died from injuries sustained in the attack. He was described by neighbours as a "lovely man".

Two people remain in hospital in a critical condition, one with life-threatening injuries.

Pc Kristofer Aves and another police officer hurt in the attack are also in hospital with "significant injuries".

Police said armed patrols would take place around Wembley Stadium and extra officers would be at the ground when England played a World Cup qualifier against Lithuania on Sunday.

There will also be a minute's silence before the 5pm kick-off.
A newborn baby and its two-year-old sister have been found stabbed to death in North Carolina, police said.

The bodies of four-day-old Genesis Freeman and toddler Serenity Freeman were found today near an intersection close to the city of Raeford, Hoke County sheriff Hubert Peterkin said.
For eight years, the Zammit twins arrived at work an hour early so they could be home in time to pick their children up from school  freeing their working wives to get them off to school.

The arrangement worked like clockwork until a new boss arrived and put an end to the flexible hours at Liverpool Hospital in Sydney's south-west, where the twins Craig and Cameron both work as painters.

Their wives and the NSW Health Minister are now asking why the hospital has fought for two years the brothers' attempt to maintain their family-friendly hours.

Michelle Zammit said her husband Cameron had been working from 6am until 2.30pm for eight years without complaints from the hospital, allowing him to pick up their children from school at 3pm.
Nearly half of all Liberal MPs in the federal parliament are former political staffers, party officials or government advisers, a steep increase since before the last election.

Analysis by Fairfax Media shows 49 per cent of Liberal MPs have worked in state and federal politics before being elected, up from 36 per cent in the 44th Parliament.

Political class: 42 per cent of Malcolm Turnbull's cabinet ministers have been employed as political staffers and party officials. Credit:Andrew Meares

Inside the Labor caucus, 55 per cent of MPs have previously worked as staffers, electorate officers or advisers before being elected, while 40 per cent have previously worked in roles within the trade union movement.

Before 2016 election, 42 per cent of cabinet ministers had been employed as staffers and party officials. In the current Turnbull government cabinet, that number has risen to more than 50 per cent.
The Greens are pushing for a new public authority to take responsibility for Australia's beleaguered electricity system out of politicians' hands.

It follows several organisations, including energy company Origin, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and ClimateWorks, calling for an independent body, similar to the Reserve Bank, to manage what has been described as an energy crisis.

Focus on the future of the electricity system has heightened in the lead-up to the closure this week of Hazelwood, Australia's oldest and most emissions-intensive power plant, which when fully operational had the capacity to deliver about a quarter of Victoria's electricity.

The Greens will introduce legislation in the Senate to create what it calls Renew Australia, which it says can short-circuit a stand-off between the federal and state governments by taking responsibility for the transition to a clean electricity supply.
St Albans, a village hewn to the north bank of the Macdonald River about 100 kilometres to the north-west of Sydney, has managed to avoid many of the changes that have gripped the region in the past 200 years.

Bounded by national park, and directly accessible from Sydney only by crossing Wisemans Ferry, St Albans seems at no risk of being subsumed by the city's outward march of suburbs.

But change is bearing on St Albans. It is bearing in the form of a potential overhaul of what has been a feature of the village since 1824, when a "common" was created for use by those living near St Albans.

The state government is proposing to reform the management of about 200 commons across the state. What this means in practice is not exactly clear. But the commoners of St Albans are wary of the threat it might pose to their control and enjoyment of about 1000 hectares of land.
Meanwhile, queues several kilometres long have formed in north Queensland, as residents clean up and head to the dump, ahead of Tropical Cyclone Debbie's arrival. As of 5pm on Saturday, Tropical Cyclone Debbie was an estimated 640 kilometres east of Cairns and 560 kilometres east-northeast of Townsville. Credit:Bureau of Meteorology A video posted on Twitter showed a traffic jam on the side of the road about midday, leading up to Hervey Range Landfill, west of Townsville. "It's really good that everyone is tidying up though, being safe," a woman can be heard saying in the video. Linda and Adam Neilly with their son Lincoln wait for Cyclone Debbie.

"It's getting pretty crazy, I think we've got the police out here as well." Linda Neilly, a resident of Alice River near Townsville, said it was the calm before the storm at her home on Saturday afternoon, with clear and sunny conditions overhead. However, locals weren't as calm as the weather, with residents stocking up on supplies before the cyclone arrived. "There is a feeling of slight anxiety, everyone is standing together and knows what has to be done because we're quite used to being prepared for cyclones," Ms Neilly said.

"We've been getting the cyclone kit ready and filling up our bathtub to make sure we have enough water. "We bought a generator and the guy at the Honda store said he was getting smashed and had nearly run out of stock." It was a similar story at a nearby supermarket, with locals clearing the shelves in preparation. IGA SUPA Garbutt manager Pirjo Hahling said vegetables, baked beans, spaghetti, water and batteries had flown off the shelves. Ms Hahling said she was confident the supermarket wouldn't run out of stock completely thanks to a delivery truck arriving on Saturday, but non-perishables were being snapped up and may be sold out.

Meanwhile, Ms Neilly said it was important the local community banded together during the tense time to ensure no one was alone when the cyclone hit. She had offered to take in other residents who felt their older houses maybe at risk and anyone who didn't have family nearby. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk urged residents in the general warning area, a 1000-kilometre stretch from Cape Tribulation to St Lawrence, to prepare while the weather was favourable. "We don't know at this stage where the potential cyclone is going to cross land. "I understand up north today the weather conditions are fine, everything is calm and there are blues skies.

"This is the time that you should now be preparing." Ms Palaszczuk said extra emergency services staff had been sent across the region and a decision would be made on Sunday whether to close schools. After a meeting of the Queensland Disaster Management Committee, Ms Palaszczuk reassured residents "everything that can be done, is being done". SES director Steve Hallam said on Friday, emergency services were undertaking "a large amount of preparation" in northern Queensland, with crews checking plans, equipment and making sure everything was ready to go. The Queensland Fire Service sent reinforcements to the affected area, including swift water and urban rescue teams, damage assessment teams as well as additional SES crews.
Jayden Caulfield will be awarded a Star of Courage. Credit:Tammy Law "I remember when the bullet got shot it was slow motion, I remember powder in the air, I remember watching this bullet come towards me I was ready just thinking I've got to take it, I can't move. "And then halfway, I saw Jayden hanging off the bed and we just made eye contact and it was like a whole conversation was had there." Cameron Caulfield has been awarded a Star of Courage Award. Credit:Tammy Law When the bullet hit Miss Moore, her shoulder was shattered, she fell and began to lose blood.

This was when her five little heroes sprang into action. Kaylea Caulfield (pictured) and Zane Fields (Caulfield) will receive a Bravery Medal. Credit:Tammy Law As Mr Fields reloaded his gun Cameron elbowed him, grabbed the gun and ran, hiding the weapon outside. As the assault continued Jayden and Cameron, who had returned to the bedroom, grabbed hold of Mr Field's arms to prevent further assaults on their mother. During this time four-year-old Zane escaped outside with Samantha, who he had earlier put under a bed to keep safe.

Kaylea used strength, which she now says she has no idea where it came from, and helped move her mother out the back door and began to administer first aid to her mother's severe injuries. "I thought I was going to die," Miss Moore said. Mr Fields pleaded guilty to several charges including attempted murder and breach of a domestic violence order. He was sentenced to 12 years jail in October last year. Almost three years on and the family looks back  they have been homeless and living out of a car, suffering depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and Miss Moore continues to face the daily fear of having her injured arm amputated. She has had 35 operations in less than three years.

"They think the blood supply in the bone might have died which means that either there are some big operations to either take from my leg to save that bone which would shorten my leg by an inch or [arm] amputation," Miss Moore said. "I refuse that, I have got this far, it's been nearly three years, I've been fighting for a long time and it takes a lot out of you but I don't want to give up on it  I need my arm. "I know a lot of people say it's just an arm, chop it off. But put yourself in those shoes with five children, I'm not giving up now. I refuse. I don't give up, my family doesn't give up." In recognition of the children's actions to save their mother the Australian Bravery Awards, announced on Sunday, listed Jayden Caulfield and Cameron Caulfield as recipients of the Star of Courage Award. Just six individuals will receive these awards in 2017 and the Caulfield brothers have been revealed as likely being the only siblings to ever receive this accolade and also likely the youngest.

Kaylea Caulfield and Zane Fields (Caulfield) will join 24 other Australians receiving a Bravery Medal. Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove said it was only fitting that outstanding people willing to put themselves in harm's way to assist others in need were recognised through the Australian Honours system. "These awards have helped to define, encourage and reinforce our national aspirations and ideals by identifying role models," he said. "On behalf of all Australians, I thank them for their bravery. They are a source of courage, support and inspiration, and we are a stronger, safer and more caring nation because of them." "I am proud of them, I think more so how they are as a family," Miss Moore said.

All children agreed receiving the letters about their respective awards was a shock, but an honour. Jayden said he wanted to use his Star of Courage award to help other children who had experienced or are experiencing domestic violence. "Domestic violence is such a big issue lately, especially the last couple of years, it's getting out of hand  there's not enough foundations or support, it's not viewed by the higher-ups as a big issue," he said. "Me and my little brother Cameron we're closer now and we've got each other's backs ... I've always followed Cameron, he's like my younger brother role model." Cameron, like his siblings Jayden and Kaylea, is a keen actor and wants to use his award to further the messages he can send with his acting career.

"It's pushed me a lot further, motivated me to go further with my acting and really put in the extra effort that it needs," he said. Kaylea said she looked forward to receiving the award as it made her mum happy. "It will make Mum really proud and happy to have it in her house," she said. Miss Moore said she wanted her children to have the awards to look back on. "I think later on it will be something they'll be really proud of and later on show their children," she said.
Day four of the World Science Festival was by far the busiest day of the five-day event, as thousands of people flocked to spend their Saturday at South Bank to enjoy fun and interactive science.

Bright and early this morning, Dr Karl, one of Australia's favourite science personas, talked to festival-goers about everything to do with health, and answered some of science's most pressing questions: night vision via carrots, weight loss, and the satanic properties of Doritos.

What happens when black holes collide? Gravitational waves appear. Brian Greene led a discussion covering the phenomenon, which produces more energy than all the stars in the observable universe. If you can't fathom how much energy that is, it's a whole lot.

The day continued on with the astronomical theme in an exploration of space travel at the Earth 2.0 discussion, which saw some of our greatest astronomical minds discuss the practicality of space travel and the ethics of living on Mars.

The Street Science! event welcomed families who strolled through the various tents huddled around the Cultural Forecourt. There was everything from dog-like robots to live science experiments, and a whole lot more family-fun science in-between.

Be sure to tune in Sunday morning as we cover the final day of this whirlwind event!
Artisans have raced the clock at one of Melbourne's most loved theatres to restore a 1920s mosaic floor that has been hidden under carpet for 50 years.

The workmen laboured up to 19 hours a day for three months to return the elegant feature, created for the Forum Theatre's opening in 1929, to its former glory.

Melbourne-born, Italian-trained mosaic artisan Fabian Scaunich says the once broken and dirty floor of 200,000 mosaic pieces will be ready for the Comedy Festival launch at the Flinders Street theatre on March 28.

Mr Scaunich and two Italian workmates lifted 40,000 of the most battered pieces, and brushed and washed them.
A Ballarat man has been charged after a dramatic crash in Melbourne's CBD where an allegedly stolen car crashed into a pole and flipped on Swanston Street.

The 36-year-old was charged with nine offences including aggravated burglary, reckless conduct endangering life and theft of a car.

Police block the road after the crash. Credit:Joe Armao

He faced the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Saturday and was remanded in custody to reappear at a later date.

Police said the crash could have had "catastrophic" consequences after the stolen ute struck a traffic light pole on Swanston Street about 6.40am on Friday.
The death of a young man after his car hit a tree on Friday is the latest in a horror weekend on Victoria's roads, taking the toll to six.

Police say the 27-year-old Warranwood man was travelling along Parkhill Drive in Berwick on Friday when he lost control of his vehicle, which struck a tree about 3.30am.

Credit:Paul Rovere

An Ambulance Victoria spokesman said when paramedics arrived the man was in cardiac arrest. He was revived and driven to The Alfred hospital in a critical condition, where he later died.

His death brings the state's road toll to 56 and comes just a day after five people, including two in their 20s, died on Victorian roads in the space of just 24 hours.
Rome: Love it or loathe it, there was a European Union protest to suit all tastes on Saturday in the Italian capital and across the continent.

Federalists, nationalists, populists, unionists and anarchists headed to one of six rallies and demonstrations called to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the signing of the founding treaty of the European Union.

Some 30,000 demonstrators were expected to take part in the various gatherings, with some 5,000 police and security forces on call in case of violence.

During formal ceremonies on the other side of the barricades, Europeans leaders warned they needed to contain their squabbling if the EU is to survive.
Kinshala: Militia fighters in central Democratic Republic of Congo decapitated about 40 police officers in an ambush on Saturday, the deadliest attack on security forces since an insurrection in the region began last August.

The Kamuina Nsapu militants attacked the police on Friday as they drove from Tshikapa to Kananga, local authorities said.

As many as 40 police officers were killed by a militia in an ambush in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday. Credit:AP

The militia members stole arms and vehicles, according to Francois Kalamba, speaker of the Kasai provincial assembly.

The insurgency, which has spread to five provinces, poses the most serious threat yet to the rule of President Joseph Kabila, whose failure to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate in December was followed by a wave of killings and lawlessness across the vast central African nation.
More than a third of US jobs could be at "high risk" of automation by the early 2030s, a per centage that's greater than in Britain, Germany and Japan, according to a report released on Friday.

The analysis, by accounting and consulting firm PwC,

said that in the US, 38 per cent of jobs could be at risk of automation, compared with 30 per cent in Britain, 35 per cent in Germany and 21 per cent in Japan.

Analysts have said truck driving probably will be the first form of driving in the US to be fully automated, as long-range big rigs travel primarily on highways - the easiest roads to navigate without human intervention.
Chicago: A US immigration judge in Chicago has granted asylum to a Singaporean blogger, saying he was persecuted for his political opinions in the Southeast Asian city-state.

Amos Yee, 18, who had been jailed twice in Singapore, qualifies as a political refugee, according to a 13-page opinion by the US immigration judge handed down on Friday.

Yee is immediately eligible for release after having been held in US immigration detention since December 16, 2016, according to his attorney Sandra Grossman.

The Singapore Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment after business hours on Friday evening.
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Game-changing scholar to deliver Creeley Lecture

By BERT GAMBINI

Galvanizing is a great word to describe McGann because his mind works in ways that constantly bring diverse elements together. 

Jerome McGann, one of the founders of the field of digital humanities, will be the featured speaker for UBs second annual Robert Creeley Lecture on Poetry and Poetics on March 30.

The lecture will take place at 4 p.m. in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus.

McGann is John Stewart Bryan Professor in the University of Virginias Department of English and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. The author of 24 books, he has revolutionized the way poetry is discussed, read, written, edited and taught.

McGann is a scholar who is always pushing, extending and breaking boundaries, according to Cristanne Miller, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Edward H. Butler Professor of English, and Myung Mi Kim, the James H. McNulty Chair in the Department of English and director of the UB Poetics Program.

McGanns work has foundationally changed how we think about poetry, says Kim. He is a galvanizing figure, at the forefront of the field in very specific and unique ways.

Galvanizing is a great word to describe McGann because his mind works in ways that constantly bring diverse elements together, Miller notes. He started as a critic of Byrons poetry, but questions about Byron brought in so many other questions that he was soon writing about things that few would have predicted.

The afternoon also will feature a conversation with and an excerpt from SUNY Distinguished Professor David Felders concert film, Les Quartre Temps Cardinaux, a complex song cycle written in part as a response to Creeleys poems Spring Light and Buffalo Evening.

Were trying every year to bring more than one kind of artistic expression into play to show ways how, not just Bobs work, but poetry generally enters a variety of artistic fields, Miller says.

A roundtable response to McGanns lecture, moderated by James Maynard, curator of the UB Poetry Collection, will follow on March 31 at 3 p.m. in the UB Poetry Collection, 420 Capen Hall, also on the North Campus.

All events surrounding the Creeley lecture are free and open to the public.

Creeley (1926-2005) was a former SUNY Distinguished Professor and author of more than 60 books of poetry and criticism. He served as Samuel P. Capen Professor of Poetics at UB and was a faculty member for 37 years, beginning in 1966. He left UB in 2003 to become a Distinguished Professor at Brown University.

His legacy, however, remains as much about community as poetry, and his namesake lecture series is designed purposefully as an energizing public celebration of poetry, say Miller and Kim.

That spirit is so important, says Kim. Creeley bridged many pockets of readers and makers of poetry. He showed how poetry can be manifest in everyday pursuits as much as it can be part of a literary life.

Creeleys footprint in Western New York remains profoundly visible today and can be seen in such local institutions as Just Buffalo Literary Center, founded by Debora Ott, a former student of Creeley who inspired her to establish the organization and take poetry into the community. Jonathan Welch, owner and founder of Talking Leaves, Buffalos venerable independent bookstore, was an admirer of Creeley and lists him among the lures that attracted him to Western New York.

When we thought about the lecture series we wanted to involve the community in some way to mark that this is not just about Robert Creeleys academic legacy, Miller adds. McGanns lecture is called, Reading Poetry. What a welcoming title!

The roundtable discussion on the second day is open to anyone who wants to further explore issues raised by McGanns lecture. There will also be an opportunity for anyone to read a poem, either their own work or a personal favorite.

We also built in a high school poetry contest to the lecture and celebration, says Kim. The winner and runners up, as well as their classmates and families in the audience, will be further exposed to the poetry community at large.

Miller and Kim say SUNY Press has agreed to publish a volume of successive Creeley lectures and their responses every other year.

Last years Creeley Lecture coincided with the 25th anniversary of the UB Poetics Program. The coordinators collected remembrances of Robert Creeley, and Kim and Miller have edited a forthcoming stand-alone volume including that lecture, responses to it and essays developed from the conference. The volume, titled Poetics and Precarity (SUNY Press), is expected to appear in January 2018.
NTSB: PATCO engineer tried to brake before deadly bridge accident

An NTSB investigation into the deadly PATCO accident on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge includes interviews, review of camera images.
After many years of a comfortable banking career with leading banks like GE Capital, Standard Chartered and Barclays, SandeepMenonand SujayPatil decided to shake things up a bit. At roughly 40, they found themselves at the crossroads with two options before them: one was to continue on the stand, oft-treaded path and stay within the comfort zone and the other was to stir things up a bit and take the plunge to go entrepreneurial. .
Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GCMMF), which sells its products under brand, on Saturday defended its TV commercial for ice cream and accused Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) of resorting to stunt to pressurise and frighten it.

FMCG major HUL has moved Bombay High Court against over the commercial, which suggests to consumers to buy ice cream and not the frozen dessert as the latter was made from vegetable oil and was not healthy.

GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi said HULs litigation was a stunt. HUL, which makes frozen dessert, has challenged our latest TV commercial that aims to create awareness among consumers about the difference between ice cream and frozen dessert. The latter is made from vegetable oil, while ice cream is made from milk fat. This is HULs stunt to pressure and frighten us into submission. But they dont know that we are backed by 36 lakh poor farmers who want to make consumers aware about the products they are buying.



He further said HUL had dragged Amul to Advertising Standard Council of India last year objecting to the latters move to distribute pamphlets on the same issue, but the ASCI ruled in its favour, saying Amuls campaign does not disparage the entire campaign of frozen dessert.

He said ice cream is made from milk fat while frozen dessert is made from vegetable fat, and cannot be called an ice cream. FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) has named this category as frozen dessert. We thought of informing our consumers to check the packet of the product to ensure if it is ice cream or frozen dessert.



Amul is looking at Rs 1,000-1,100 crore market share in ice cream segment this year, he said. Sodhi said Amul had created a awareness campaign differentiating between butter and margarine, and is also planning to launch another campaign regarding cheese and cheese analogues.


Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Business Standard Annual Awards in the presence of top India Inc leaders, who gathered in Mumbai on Saturday to celebrate the success of some of their peers who have achieved corporate excellence.
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Name change for ITC has been a part of its metamorphosis. Till 1948, it was Imperial Tobacco Company. In 1969, the company got its first Indian chairman, Ajit Narain Haksar, and the Imperial in the companys name became India and in 1974, it became plain ITC. But for the companys longest-serving chairman, Yogesh Chander Deveshwar, ITC means Indias Trademarks Corporation.
In 2009, Girish Mathrubootham, who was instrumental in developing four helpdesks for Zoho Corporation, returned to India after a stint in the US. While his luggage was in transit, his television set got damaged and he did not get insurance reimbursement despite running from pillar to post.
The power sector is undergoing major changes, with state-owned distribution companies undergoing restructuring, the demand for power falling to historic lows, fuel supply touching new highs and industrial growth at a standstill. Amidst this gloom, the public sector has held its own with robust returns and consistent performance.
InterGlobe Aviation, the company that operates IndiGo, Indias most profitable airline, has redefined aviation in the country. The airline, which started operations in 2006, has become the largest in the country and has proved that it is possible to consistently make profits in the highly competitive domestic aviation industry.
Not every promoter chief is a strong brand ambassador for the company. But 43-year-old Siddhartha Lal is an unconventional CEO and synonymous with the product that has made the company what it is. Siddhartha is Eichers biggest asset, says R L Ravichandran, former CEO of .
In an order that was in the works for nearly a decade, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday barred the countrys second largest company by market capitalisation Reliance Industries from the equity derivatives market for certain unfair trading practices. The order included directions for disgorgement of unlawful gains of Rs 447 crore made in November 2007 through an elaborate trading plan involving a dozen agent entities and coordinated trades across cash and derivatives market. Here are a few key dates and numbers:
For five days, about 4,000 doctors from the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors remained on strike to protest against incidents of violence against them by relatives of patients. They called the strike off only after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis gave them an ultimatum to resume duty or face legal action. In West Bengal, meanwhile, the Assembly has passed a Bill to regulate private hospitals in the state. Under the new law, the state will oversee private health care facilities and decide how much they can charge and review how they deal with complaints from patients. S K KACKER, director of Delhi ENT Hospital & Research Centre and former director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, speaks to Veenu Sandhu about the two issues. Edited excerpts:



What are your views on doctors going on strike, like they did in Maharashtra, to protest against attacks on them?



When a patient is brought into hospital in a critical condition and later dies in spite of being treated, how is it the fault of the doctor? Beating the doctor cannot be justified when he has done his duty responsibly and in spite of his best efforts, a tragedy has occurred.
US president Donald Trump, who gets on Twitter the moment he wakes up, may be social medias most prominent politician user, but he is hardly the only one. For the past two decades, world leaders have leveraged the power of the internet to communicate with the public. In some nations, digital tools are part of an effort to increase government transparency and accountability. In others, they are a platform for propaganda, censorship and fake news.
Ending their five-day strike, the resumed their duties on Saturday morning upon receiving assurances from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and following the intervention by the Bombay High Court about their security.

The Maharashtra Association of (MARD) said in a statement that their meeting with the Chief Minister was satisfactory.

"The state government has issued a letter of assurance and we feel our demands are being addressed. Adequate security will be deployed across hospitals. A 2-pass system per patient will be started immediately at casualty, while one pass will be allowed per patient in general wards. Visiting hours have been fixed at 7.30 am and 8.30 am in the morning, while 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm in the evening," a representative said in the statement.

The statement further stated that, because of a few irresponsible people, they can't deny the rights of the poor in getting adequate treatment.

"FIR regarding assault on doctors on duty is to be lodged strictly under the Doctor's Protection Act 2010 and by the institute. In emergency situations, an alarm to inform the staff will be installed at all government hospitals by April 30, 2017. All charges and punitive actions taken against doctors including expulsion to be revoked completely with no bearing of such actions on their academics in the future", he said.

Further adding, "The Maharashtra State security corporation has been ordered to provide essential security in all government medical colleges accordingly 1,100 security guards shall be provided for the same. In the first stage, 500 security guards shall be provided by April 5 in Mumbai. In the second stage Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, while in the third stage the entire state will be covered by April 30. Out of the guards provided, some will be armed and will be deployed at sensitive locations," representative said.

Yesterday, the doctors had called off the strike after Fadnavis gave an ultimatum to to resume duty or face legal action.

Mumbai Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan also asserted that state doctors have agreed to resume work by 8 am on Saturday.

More than a thousand doctors in Maharashtra were protesting since Monday, demanding better security at hospitals with the increase in incidents of attacks by patients' relatives.

The Emergency ward and Out Patient Department (OPD) have been affected the most by the ongoing strike.

The Bombay High Court earlier on Tuesday ordered Maharashtra's resident doctors to resume work immediately or face action by the management.

The court has specifically said that the hospital management is free to initiate action and contempt proceedings against the doctors on strike.

While asking them to resume their duties immediately, the High Court on Tuesday said that it will hear the junior doctors' mass leave issue today.

The state government has told the court that medical services in Maharashtra were paralysed because 60 per cent of the resident doctors across the state went on strike.
The Conversation Globals new series, Politics in the Age of Social Media, examines how governments around the world rely on digital tools to exercise power.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley (right), who also holds the defence portfolio, takes a close look at the USHUS-II submarine sonar during the handing over ceremony of DRDO-developed products to the Indian Navy in New Delhi on Friday
Need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values: Vice President Delivers 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University

The Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari has said that there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to people. He was delivering the 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University, in Chandigarh today. The Governor of Haryana, Prof. Kaptan Singh Solanki, the Vice Chancellor of Panjab University, Prof. A. K. Grover and other dignitaries were present on the occasion. Sharing his thoughts on the importance of universities in our society the Vice President talked about the idea of a university and how it distinguishes itself from other institutions where instructions are imparted focused on catering to requirements of daily life; the need for them to teach its members to think, to go beyond the obvious in learning for examination purposes, and to acquire the capacity and habit to question; the necessity for them to focus on research, to produce new knowledge that may be beneficial to society and the economy; the need to undertake social research, given the diversity and complexity of all societies in a fast changing world; and the imperative need for academic freedom so that the thought process and its expression is untrammelled by official or societal constraints. The Vice President said that a University has to be more than a mere polytechnic. Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections, the university should first aim to build a profound understanding of the discipline, he added. The Vice President said that a University has the twin responsibility of providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those very matters. He also underlined the important role of social research in questioning and deconstructing social and cultural mythologies that circulate and proliferate in any society, especially during phases of change and uncertainty. The Vice President said that the recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be. The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be public good, he added. The Vice President said that the right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms. A University must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom, he added. Following is the Text of Vice Presidents address: It has been my privilege to be the Chancellor of this university, famous for its work and alumni, for almost a decade. I confess I have followed the dictum that a Chancellor should be seen infrequently and heard rarely. This is one of those rare occasions, of convocation, when I get the opportunity to congratulate the Vice Chancellor, faculty, staff and students for the good work that is being done here. I am very happy that the University has decided to celebrate the singular achievements and services of some individuals by award of honoris causa degrees and the Rattan honours. I congratulate Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi for the D. Litt, Justice Khehar for the Doctorate of Law, Dr. N. S. Kapny and Prof. G. S. Khush for the Doctorates of Science. I also congratulate Shri Anupam Kher for the Kala Rattan, Dr. Dalip Kaur Tiwana for the Sahitya Rattan and Dr. P. D. Gupta for the Vigyan Rattan Awards. Convocations are calling together of a university community to celebrate academic achievements and excellence; it is customary to use the occasion to cogitate in public in the expectation that the audience would do likewise. I take this opportunity to share with you some thoughts on the importance of universities in our society and the requirements for the universities to play that role. Specifically I want to talk about:  The idea of a university and how it distinguishes itself from other institutions where instructions are imparted focused on catering to requirements of daily life;  The need for them to teach its members to think, to go beyond the obvious in learning for examination purposes, and to acquire the capacity and habit to question;  The necessity for them to focus on research, to produce new knowledge that may be beneficial to society and the economy;  The need for universities to undertake social research, given the diversity and complexity of all societies in a fast changing world; and  The imperative need for academic freedom so that the thought process and its expression is untrammeled by official or societal constraints. Allow me to begin with a blasphemous preposition: Do we still need Universities? A professor of business psychology in a university somewhere has argued that higher education is at best incoherent and at worst suicidal since students enroll to enhance their career potential but end up as unemployed or unemployable as they were in their pre-college lives. He goes on to argue that the only way to fix universities is to align demand (what students want and employers need) with supply (what universities offer). This trend of thinking, essentially utilitarian in a narrow sense, is not uncommon in our times. And yet, to reduce all human activity to its utilitarian dimensions is to negate the ventures of the human mind and spirit that has characterized human progress down the ages. Civilizations in different times have brought forth universities. Platos Academia and Aristotles Lyceum in Athens in 4th century BC, Nalanda in India in 5th century AD, Al Azhar in Egypt in 952 and Bologna in Italy in 1088 were in different senses precursors of modern universities. Cardinal Newman in 1852 described a university as a seat of wisdom, a light to the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and a great deal more. A university training, he added, aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspirations, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political powers and refining the intercourse of private life. In our times, the University has become not only a catalyst of scientific and economic change, but also vehicle of equalization of chances and democratization of society by making possible equal opportunities for people contributing not only to economic growth, but to social equality or, at least, lesser inequality. This was summed up a few years back by the President of the Copenhagen Business School, Per Holten-Andersen who identified four classical and one modern function of a university:  To act as repositories of the knowledge of humanity;  To generate new Knowledge by research;  Transfer knowledge to the next generation by education;  Transfer knowledge to Society, by dissemination; and  Generating development and economic growth. The last, admittedly, has acquired enhanced importance today but its efficacy is intrinsically linked to, and dependent upon, the institutions that produce new knowledge. There is much clamor and urgency today for university research to be translated into products and services. While there is no argument against applied research; and the need to commercialize such research, we must also accept that many of our present challenges require paradigm-shifts and disruptive convergent innovation. After all, necessity is the mother of invention only in the very short term. Over the long haul, invention is the mother of necessity  changing not only what is possible, but what we regard as essential.

We need to recognize that risk, waste and failure are all essential parts of the process. Good science, like good art, is a creative enterprise. Today's preoccupations are often myopic or ephemeral, giving little thought for tomorrow. History is at its most illuminating when written with the full consciousness of what people wrongly expected to happen. Even in the domain of technology, future developments only a few years away have been shrouded from contemporary eyes. Many, possibly most, have arisen unexpectedly from research with other objectives, and assessments of technological potential have invariably missed the mark. One of the roles of the university, thus, is to prepare the knowledge that an unpredictable future may need. A University has to be more than a mere polytechnic. University education and intellectual enrichment must not be construed solely or even primarily as a path to employment. Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections, the university should first aim to build a profound understanding of the discipline. A university law program, for example, should aim primarily to produce graduates with a deep understanding of law, rather than lawyers, per se. A University has the twin responsibility of providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those very matters. These two functions should reinforce one another. In recent times, there is a pre-occupation with technological research as against research in pure and social sciences. Often, questions are raised about the importance, and benefits of social research to present requirements. Situating the relevance of contemporary social enquiry is complex and multifaceted. It is of paramount importance, especially for societies like ours that are in a transition process. It can help address challenges and identify possible solutions in areas essential to a transitional societys political stability and socio-economic development, including existential issues like inter-ethnic relations, protection of minorities, nation-building and good governance. Social research examining the dynamics and direction of political, economic and social change improves our understanding of such processes, and can help identify pockets of malcontent and resentment, allowing these to be addressed before they become impediments to social harmony. The other important role of social research is in questioning and deconstructing social and cultural mythologies that circulate and proliferate in any society, especially during phases of change and uncertainty. The period of rapid transition in India, particularly, in the last 25 years, offers a particularly fertile climate for such mythologies- which are often harmful for liberal values and the exercise of democracy. Here, the social sciences, with their robust basis in rational criteria, their critical view of societal phenomena, and the sophisticated analytical methods they employ, can be an apt antidote. An important aim of higher education is to learn to ask questions and to develop the capacity for reasoned arguments. This is what Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore alluded to when he sang; Where the mind is without fear.... Where knowledge is free.. Where words come out from the depth of truth The right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms. The national interest in this scheme is constitutional rule. This is what Dr. Ambedkar had in mind when he said that, It is only constitutional morality that must guide the government, not any whimsical invocation of narrow-minded, parochial figureheads and mythical characters. This approximates what Cardinal Newman envisaged as the role of the University, some 100 years before Ambedkar, that the idea of a university is to be determined without recourse to any authority and should be based on human wisdom. It should be a place for the diffusion and extension of knowledge. Intellectual dissent has the power to clarify differences and elucidate competing assumptions. It enables each of us to recognize the strengths and weaknesses in our thinking. Strong intellectual work can only be done in an atmosphere where scholars feel free to take risks, challenge conventions, and change their minds. A University must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom. Except in cases of illegal conduct or violence, a University should never seek to silence or influence faculty members or students to adopt or renounce any particular position. Indeed, universities should take all legal action necessary to defend their academic integrity and freedom. Academic freedom is the foundation of the Universitys mission to discover, improve, and disseminate knowledge. This is to be done by examining different ideas in an environment that encourages free and scrupulous debate. The ideas, no matter how uncomfortable or disturbing to the accepted status quo, can and must be challenged, modified and even discarded- on their merit, but may never be muted or suppressed. The University, in discharge of its duties, has the responsibility of speaking out without the fear of intimidation; and to give offense, even at the cost of inviting protests. Not doing so would be to deviate from the path of rational enquiry and undermine our curiosity about the world by embracing ill-defined orthodoxies, which would impoverish our pursuit of knowledge. Academic freedom requires a robust tolerance for disagreement and criticism, a willingness to have ones assumptions questioned, and openness to new ideas that may prove offensive. This tolerance always has the potential to conflict with other virtues and causes, so it needs to be defended repeatedly and vigilantly. We need to revisit these commitments today because we are again in a climate that questions the value and scope of academic freedom. Recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be. The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be public good. In a period of rampant distrust of matters intellectual there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to people. We need to remind ourselves of the democratic aspirations of pragmatic liberal education while recalling that our finest universities help fulfill the dreams of our best selves as a people. In November 2005 an eminent scientist cautioned the world about the dangerous times that lie ahead in the realities of the external world and warned against retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason (instead of) free, open, un-prejudiced, unhindered questioning and enquiry that are under serious threat from resurgent fundamentalism, West and East. This proposition has universal validity. As one of the premier institutions of the country, the Panjab University has to play its role of a neutral assembler of talent; that of an unmatched idea factory where the passion, creativity and idealism of young minds can be applied to meeting the transitional needs of our society, polity and economy. As the Chancellor of the University, I urge you to proceed purposefully in this direction. Jai Hind.
The Houston man laid out the details of his triumphant plan during a podcast last July: He told listeners that he had wanted to paste white nationalist fliers across the city's downtown, and, just as importantly, he had wanted the Free Press, a local news and arts website, to write about the fliers.
Last Sunday in Palm Springs, California, Jeffrey P Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, climbed into the cockpit of a 13-foot robot and began flailing his arms as though warming up for a workout, causing the robots enormous appendages to mimic his movements.
House Republican leaders, facing a revolt among conservatives and moderates in their ranks, pulled legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act from consideration on the House floor Friday in a major defeat for President Trump on the first legislative showdown of his presidency.
are offloading some of their most valuable properties as demand from investors in the Asia Pacific region continues despite the Brexit vote.
Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli told a gathering of Asian leaders that the world must commit to multilateral free trade under the World Trade Organisation and needs to reform global economic governance.
A controversial ban on carry-on laptops and tablets on flights from West Asia to the United States and Britain went into effect on Saturday  with less fanfare and frustration than expected.

From Dubai to Doha, passengers on dozens of flights checked in their electronic devices, many shrugging off the measure as yet another inconvenience of global travel.

It's a rule. I follow the rules," said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two-three times a year.

"The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours." At Dubai International, one of the world's busiest hubs, flag carrier Emirates dispatched staff to guide passengers through one of the most intense travel weekends of the year.

Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai Airport expect 89 million passengers this year.

Staff in red suits could be seen at the airport today carrying signs explaining the electronics ban, ready to appease travellers with games and activities for children. Government-owned Emirates, which operates 18 direct flights to the US daily, also began a service to enable passengers to use their electronic devices after check-in and until boarding.

Samuel Porter, who was travelling out of Dubai with his family, nonetheless decided to "avoid delays" at the airport by putting his laptop in the hold.

"The only issue is the kids. I have two kids and the iPad is always in their hands. Maybe they will watch a documentary and learn something useful this time", he told AFP.

The United States this week announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across West Asia.

US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce the measures until at least October 14.

The ban covers electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said earlier this week.

Adding to the disruption today, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

Travellers using 10 airports across West Asia and North Africa are subject to the ban.

Britain has also announced a parallel electronics ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Passengers readying to fly to the UK out of Tunisia Saturday were sceptical, but compliant.

"I think it's bizarre. I don't get it," said Paul, a British tourist on his way home. "I'm also concerned about the security of my own computer... but what can you do." "You do what they tell you to do and keep quiet," said Khairi, a British-Libyan dual citizen flying out of Tunis.

Royal Jordanian, which operates direct flights to London, New York, Detroit and Chicago, poked fun at the ban on its social media accounts.

The airline suggested alternative in-flight activities, including doing "what we Jordanians do best... stare at each other!"



The restrictions have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries.

The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which American airlines do not operate direct flights.

But the United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.

Turkish airports began enforcing the ban today, with national carrier Turkish Airlines offering a similar laptop stowage service to Emirates.

Abu Dhabi, home of UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

But those flying to the US from Abu Dhabi will still need to check in their electronics, Etihad said.
At least two people were killed and 28 others including two policemen and a journalist injured in blasts outside a suspected militant den in Shibbari area of Sylhet city on Saturday evening.

"Two civilians are killed and 28 people including two inspectors of bomb disposal unit sustained injuries in the blast," The Daily Star quoted Golam Kibria, Commissioner of Sylhet Metropolitan Police, as saying.

The blast took place around 6:50 p.m. on a road beside a madrasa, around 400 metres off the five-storey "Atia Mahal" where the paramilitary commandos along with police and SWAT were conducting an operation codenamed "Twilight".

Following the blast, police asked the civilians to leave the place for safety.

However, it is yet to be ascertained that who exploded the bomb targeting the civilians there.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Taking cognizance of the Bikaner sexual assault case, Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria dubbed it a serious offence, saying that it should not be overlooked.

"This has come out in counter of a case, but charges are very serious and can't be denied," Kataria told ANI.

Earlier in the day, expressing grave concern over the sexual assault of a minor in Bikaner, women activist Brinda Adige demanded that the accused must be booked under The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012 and the school management be booked under criminal negligence.

"All these people need to be booked under POSCO and the administration should be booked for criminal negligence," Adige told ANI.

Former Commission for Women (NCW) member Shamina Shafiq also dubbed the incident as shocking and demanded that the case should be dealt very vigilantly.

"It's a very shocking incident, but at the same time I would like to say that one needs to investigate the case very properly because the case perhaps seems to be of 2015 and has been reported now in 2017," she said.

The matter came into light after the minor girl's father alleged that his daughter was raped by eight teachers of a private school who also made a video of the heinous act.

The alleged incident occurred in April 2015 and the FIR was registered on Friday after the girl's father gave a complaint to the police.

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Hitting out at Rajinikanth, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday dubbed the former as a 'coward' for cancelling his proposed visit to Sri Lanka while Congress backed the actor.

"It's typical of the cinema stars they have no bones. All their courage is in cinema but in outside world they are cowards," BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy told ANI.

He further said that cancelling the visit shows utter cowardness of the Tamil superstar.

"This is Rajnikanth in real life. His fans should know that they idealise the one whom they see in reel life," he added.

Swamy further said that Sri Lanka is a friendly country in India and the government has spent a lot of money building houses there.

Meanwhile, Congress leader P.C. Chako stated that it Rajinikanth's personal decision of cancelling his trip to Sri Lanka which has no relevance with political affair.

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A case has been registered against Congress leader V. Hanumantha Rao in Hyderabad's Saifabad Police Station under Sections 353, 294-B and 504 of the Indian Penal code (IPC) for shouting at a Telangana police officer.

Earlier in the day, lambasting a police officer for not allowing him to hold a press conference in Hyderabad, Rao has accused Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao of dictatorship.

"I hold press conference on public issues, on how the government is treating people and what public has to say on this. I have been doing this since a long time. The dictatorship of the Chief Minister is visible which is growing every day. I did not misbehave with anybody. The government is trying to shut the voice of people," Rao said.

He further said he has informed the media a day before holding the conference.

"A circle inspector came and stopped me. He did not have the right to do so. But the Marshall told me to continue with my press conference. I asked them why I am being stopped from holding the conference and on whose order," he added.

Rao said that he is a former MLA and he has the right to hold a press conference which he has been doing since long.

"I was insulted for no reason which I will not accept," he added.

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With the aim of ensuring zero Tuberculosis (TB) deaths and affordable and quality healthcare to the population, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J.P. Nadda launched new initiatives to combat the disease.

The Health Minister announced that the Strategic Program (NSP) would be finalised in one month and would be rolled out across the country. He further added that the resources would not be a constraint and the Government would continue to work with all stakeholders in devising short term and long term approaches.

"Ensuring affordable and quality healthcare to the population is a priority for the government and we are committed to achieving zero TB deaths and therefore we need to re-strategise, think afresh and have to be aggressive in our approach to end TB by 2025," said Nadda at a function on the occasion of 'World TB Day' on Friday.

Acknowledging the substantial progress made by the Government in combating TB, Nadda said that TB control and India's TB Control Programme have been recognised as one of the most successful public health programmes.

He further added that TB was a disease which was largely curable and preventable.

"Drug resistant TB is a growing threat and the diagnosis and treatment is much costlier. We have gone deep into the reason of such a situation and have decided to take a head on attack on the root cause of the disease," he said.

Speaking at the function, Nadda informed that the Government has made case notification mandatory.

"A high proportion, almost 92 percent of TB patients with HIV have been put on antiretroviral therapy," he said.

The Health Minister further stated that the Government had rolled out more than 500 CBNAAT machines in one year, offering rapid quality diagnostics, linking at least one such machine for each district and these steps had led to a 35 percent rise in the Drug Resistant TB case notification in 2016.

"New anti-TB drug Bedaquiline has been introduced under Conditional Access Programme (CAP) to improve outcomes of drug resistant TB treatment," Nadda elaborated.

Addressing the participants, Nadda further said that IT based E-Nikshay platform was made user friendly so that private doctors find it easy to notify.

The Health Minister reiterated that keeping TB at bay was everyone's responsibility, including the private sector to provide quality TB care to all TB patients.

"Every TB patient should be able to access treatment without fear of stigma or unwarranted retrenchment," Nadda said.

On the occasion, Nadda also released Annual TB Report - TB India 2017, Guidance document on nutrition support for Tuberculosis patients, framework for joint TB-Diabetes collaborative activities, Swasth E-Gurukul TB and TB Awareness Media Campaign featuring actor Amitabh Bachchan.

"Awareness plays a vital role in enhancing the uptake of services offered by the government for TB and fighting stigma and discrimination prevalent against the TB patients," he said.

At the event, both MoS (Health) highlighted the several notable steps taken by the Ministry in case finding, formulating standards of care, implementation of RNTCP, government notifications, surveillance tools, advancement of eHealth and eGovernance needs, counselling for TB patients, etc.

The TB programme in January conducted an active case finding campaign targeting specific vulnerable groups like slum dwellers, miners, migrant workers, tribals and people residing in hard to reach areas, covering 50 districts in 17 states/U.T.s. The campaign screened over 45 lakh people and detected more than 2600 additional cases.

The RNTCP is pro-actively engaging with the private sector to improve notification and the quality of care it delivers, by using IT enabled tools and innovative public private partnership models. In the last one year, these efforts have resulted in 1.5 fold increase in number of case notifications from private health care providers.

MoHFW will soon be announcing the new National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination (2017-2025) which will provide a framework to guide all stakeholders, including state governments, development partners, civil society organizations, international agencies, research institutions, the private sector, and many others, to realise the Prime Minister's vision of achieving TB elimination by 2025, five years before the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target.

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President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said that environmental factors are responsible for global burden of disease in terms of healthy life years lost and 23 percent of all deaths.

"Recent studies and systematic reviews indicate that environmental factors are responsible for an estimated 24 percent of the global burden of disease in terms of healthy life years lost and 23 percent of all deaths," President Mukherjee said while addressing the 'World Conference on Environment'.

He asserted that children are the worst sufferers of adverse impact of environmental diseases.

"Twenty-four percent of all deaths under the age of fifteen are due to diarrhoea, malaria and respiratory diseases, all of which are environment related. Nineteen percent of the deaths caused by Cancer worldwide are attributed to carcinogens that unmindful industrialization produces," he added.

President Mukherjee further said that global warming and rising sea levels are no more in the realm of the future, adding that environmental degradation and its impact on health, as also climatic changes are no more theoretical premises.

The President expressed happiness that over the past decade, consciousness about environmental concerns has grown and also resulted in action on part of governments throughout the world.

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Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma on Saturday assured to bring a transparent system to end cheating in the Uttar Pradesh board exams.

Sharma, who paid a surprise visit to the Awadh Inter College here, said that the BJP government would very soon take concrete steps to end cheating in various colleges across the state.

"Every department and organisation concerned has been given instructions and I am personally monitoring it... We will very soon start a transparent system," he said.

According to reports, Sharma had earlier on Thursday directed all the District Magistrates and Senior Superintendent of Police via video-conferencing to ensure proper security at examination centres.

Uttar Pradesh's education department had earlier ordered an inquiry following reports of rampant cheating during the board examinations.

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Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh on Saturday said India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh soon.

"India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh as soon as possible. This could be India's major step against terrorism and the problem of refugees," he said in his address at the passing out parade of the Border Security Force Assistant Commandants at the BSF Academy in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Singh further said that the border with Pakistan would be sealed by 2018, adding this decision has been taken in the wake of the increase in infiltration attempts.

"The project will be periodically monitored by the Home Secretary at the Central-level, the BSF from the security forces' perspective and the Chief Secretaries at the state-level," Singh said, adding that the government would apply technological solutions for sealing the border in difficult terrains.

Lauding the BSF personnel, the Home Minister stated that the force has changed the rules of engagement at international borders which have made it a known entity in the neighbouring countries.

"The BSF has changed rules of engagement at international borders. Now, the BSF is a known entity even in neighbouring countries," Singh said.

Singh also spoke about the planning for an effective grievances redressal mechanism in the forces which will be implemented soon.

"We are planning for an effective grievances redressal mechanism in the forces. The forces are coming forward with such mechanism," said Singh.

After the passing out parade, the Home Minister signed the visitors' book at the BSF academy.

He also visited the training centre for dogs at the BSF Academy.

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The 'Anarchist' is coming!

Jake Gyllenhaal is all set to star in a drama about an American who joins the fight against Islamic state in Syria, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Gyllenhaal will be reteaming with 'Life' director Daniel Espinosa for this project, which is an adaptation of the Rolling Stone article, 'The Anarchist vs. ISIS'.

Espinosa is set to direct the film adaptation and will produce under his newly formed production banner BOZI alongside Ninestories' producers Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker.

"Thematically, we're often attracted to material about the search for identity, especially in a world where it's become easier to feel less and less connected. Seth's story is about people who abandon everything that's familiar as a means to connect in the most brutal of circumstances," said Marker in a statement.

Written by Seth Harp, the Rolling Stone article tells the true story of a ragtag team of American volunteers, socialists and outcasts who are fighting alongside the Kurdish militia known as the YPG to beat ISIS in Syria and establish an anarchist collective amid the rubble of war.

On a related note, Jake Gyllenhaal can be currently seen in 'Life,' alongside Ryan Reynolds and Rebeacca Fergusson.

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Setting the tone for the upcoming municipal corporation elections in Delhi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah on Saturday accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of indulging in corruption.

While addressing a rally in Ramlila Maidan, Shah alleged that no previous government in Delhi has been as corrupt as the incumbent one.

"No other party has done as much corruption as AAP did during their tenure in Delhi. Not one of two but 13 legislators of the AAP have been booked for criminal cases ever since AAP won elections in Delhi," Shah said.

Shah further took a dig at the AAP's performance in Goa and Punjab while stating that party convenor Arvind Kejriwal had made promises to the people of Delhi but only made a record of losing elections.

After attaining a massive mandate in the Uttar Pradesh on the agenda of development, the BJP president assured the same for Delhi.

Shah clearly stated that that the real fight is between them and the AAP in the upcoming MCD polls.

"I urge our party workers to put their hearts into ensuring a victory for the party in the MCD polls. It is not just a battle to win Municipal corporation of Delhi but a step towards rooting out the AAP in all future elections," he added while addressing a booth workers in Delhi.

The polls to the three civic bodies of the capital will be held on April 23.

The BJP has been at the helm of the corporations since 2007.

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Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Saturday said that fencing on the Pak-Afghan border has commenced.

"The border areas of Bajaur and Mohmand agencies will be given first priority as they are high-threat zones," the Dawn quoted an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement as saying.

The statement added that additional technical surveillance means are also being deployed along the border besides regular air surveillance.

The army chief said that efforts are being made to "evolve a bilateral border security mechanism with Afghan authorities".

General Bajwa was on a visit of the border areas in Mohmand and Orakzai agencies.

He was also given a detailed briefing about border security arrangements, cross border terrorist threat and recent terrorist attacks from across on the Pakistani posts.

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A new government report obtained by the Pakistani media has revealed that the major source of funding for terror and extremist groups in the country is crime including extortion, smuggling and kidnapping for ransom.

The report by the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) in Pakistan titled "National Risk Assessment on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing 2017" reportedly details how terror groups generate funds through criminal activities.

The News reported that the first of its kind report was planned to share with the Bank (WB), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Asia Pacific Group (APG) of Money Laundering. A team of assessors of all the stakeholders under the supervision of the FMU compiled the report, which revealed that Pakistan was short of adequate resources, skills and manpower to sufficiently take into account money laundering and terrorism financing.

"Annual operational budget of [these] terrorist organisations is from Rs 5 million to Rs 25 million. Average cost of operation per terror incident varies from Rs 0.5 million to Rs2.5 million depending on magnitude of incident," the 45-page confidential report revealed.

"Main sources of income of terrorists in Pakistan include foreign funding, drug trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, extortion from business, vehicle snatching, 'hawala/hundi', cash couriers, dealings in foreign exchange, contraband items in Fata and sale of items looted from Nato/ISAF containers," the report added.

On terrorism financing risks, the FMU in its report revealed that unrest in the Gulf led to mushrooming of extremist movements and militant organisation as the terrorists from hostile neighboring countries are expanding proxy war in Pakistan. Most preferred foreign destinations for parking billions of rupees and laundered money are the UAE, UK and USA followed by the South-Eastern countries.

Pakistan on request of the Bank decided to carry out this national risk assessment exercise on money laundering and terror financing in 2015-2016. For this purpose, Islamabad formed a national team, which used the National Risk Assessment tool of the Bank where the FMU also engaged Federal Investigation Agency, Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan, National Accountability Bureau, Anti-Narcotics Force, State Bank of Pakistan, Federal Board of Revenue and Ministry of Commerce.

According to the report, sense of money laundering threat alarmed the regulators when they seized an estimated Rs. six billion in past three years where the FIA, NAB, ANF, law enforcement agencies, Currency Declaration Units, SBP and FMU registered/investigated around 8,100 cases/complaints.

In money laundering trends, the regulators noted in the report that corruption was identified as major predicate offence while smuggling, drug trafficking, cheating and fraud, tax frauds, kidnapping for ransom and extortion remained additional factors.

Officials revealed that only one of 256 filed key cases of money laundering was decided by the courts in the last three years, adding that teams seized estimated Rs. four billion during this period.

The regulators arrested some 491 of total 664 accused involved in crimes of money laundering while special teams, under the National Action Plan, arrested 848 accused involved in money laundering, 'hawala and hundi' and illegal money changing during this period. The teams under the NAP also seized Rs. 851 million since January 2015.

Some of proscribed organisations are reportedly generating millions of dollars annually to conduct their operations within and outside the country. Among them the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipa-e-Mohammad are taking the lead.

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The Punjab University on Friday banned curricular and extracurricular activities of all student organisations on the premises of the university here.

The action was taken on the recommendation of the committee constituted by the administration after a recent clash between student organisations.

Students, who want to hold a program, reportedly will need to first submit a proposal to the administration.

The administration will then evaluate the proposal and if approved, the university may provide security to avoid any untoward incident.

Earlier this week, at least five people were injured as students from the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) allegedly gatecrashed a Pakhtun cultural event being held at PU.

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After facing opposition from Tamil fringe groups, superstar Rajinikanth has called off his proposed visit to Sri Lanka to inaugurate a housing scheme in Jaffna.

"VCK chief Thirumavalavan and MDMK chief Vaiko urged me not to visit Sri Lanka. I accepted their request because of cordial relationship," Rajinikanth said.

The decision came after he met with opposition from pro-Tamil outfits in his state.

Rajinikanth was to participate in a charity event, slated to take place on April 9.

He was scheduled to formally present keys to 150 homes built by Gnanam Foundation for the internally displaced Tamils in the island nation.

However, the visit was opposed by the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Marumarlarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMDK).

Gnanam Foundation has been focusing on re-building infrastructure in the key areas of Sri Lanka which were badly affected in the civil war that took place around three decades ago.

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Reel and real life Poornas and their families, along with Poorna's mentor Praveen Kumar were deeply moved by the film's sensitive portrayal of her journey.

While talking to the media at the special screening of 'Poorna: Courage Has No Limit' held by film's director Rahul Bose, Poorna Malavath said, "After seeing the movie, I broke down as the movie is superb, mind blowing and unbelievable! Aditi did a very good job by putting in so much of hard work."

'Poorna' is a biopic of a young girl, Malavath who climbs Mount Everest against all odds, with utmost determination and courage.

She also has a special message for everyone, "First, hard work is important and everyone must use the opportunity given to them and second is girls can do anything."

The parents of Poorna Malavath were out of words after watching their daughter's journey on screen.

Her father Devidas overwhelmingly said, "Film dekhe toh bohot achcha laga!"

Her mentor Praveen Kumar felt utmost pride while watching the film and said, "One of the best biopic I have seen in my entire life. I would like to thank Rahul and his team from the bottom of my life."

Aditi Inamdar, who plays the role of protagonist said, "I watched the film and felt very happy to see myself on screen. I was crying while watching the film. It was the most memorable moment of my life."

The movie is directed by Rahul Bose, produced by Rahul Bose Productions, is slated to release on March 31.

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Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during his meeting with visiting Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisenav assured that Moscow will provide more benefits of bilateral economic relations to Colombo.

The two leaders met on Friday at the Government Reception House in Moscow, reports the Colombo Page.

Medvedev said on the occasion that President Sirisena's visit to Russia is a beginning of a new chapter in bilateral relations between the two countries.

"You have already had productive talks with President Putin. Now it is our turn to fulfill all the agreements reached at the meeting," said Medvedev.

Sri Lanka and Russia, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations this year, discussed issues concerning cooperation in the field of trade, economy, humanitarian and cultural issues. The two parties further discussed the strengthening of longstanding relationship between the two countries.

President Sirisena on his part said, "The people of Sri Lanka will benefit the results of the successful discussions I had with President Putin with the objective of gaining economic and trade assistance required by Sri Lanka,".

The President further stated that Sri Lanka in its way forward for development expects assistance of all friendly countries.

"I am confident that Russia which became a close friend of Sri Lanka after 43 years will provide the required assistance," he added.

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Himanshu Kumar, an IPS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, has been suspended days after he alleged that seniors are targeting subordinates of a particular caste.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had earlier launched an investigation into the allegations made by the 2010-batch IPS officer in a series of tweets.

Himanshu, who was recently transferred to the DGP HQ in Lucknow by the Election Commission, later deleted his tweet.

The IPS officer was earlier posted as the Superintendent of Police in Mainpuri and Firozabad.
A motion was passed in the British Parliament condemning Islamabad's announcement declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth frontier, saying the region is a legal and constitutional part of Jammu and Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947.

The motion which was tabled on March 23 and sponsored by Conservative Party leader Bob Blackman, stated that Pakistan by making such an announcement is implying its attempt to annex the already disputed area.

"Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression," the motion read.

It was further noted that the attempts to change the demography of the region was in violation of State Subject Ordinance and the 'forced and illegal construction' of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) further aggravated and interfered with the disputed territory.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry has said that Beijing was ready to work with Islamabad to take forward the CPEC to benefit the people of both countries.

The CPEC is a 51.5 billion dollar project that aims to connect Kashgar, in China's western province of Xinjiang, with the port of Gwadar in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.

Baloch political and human rights activists have demanded a special rapporteur in the United Nations to probe gross human rights violations in Balochistan province.

With Pakistan planning to declare Gilgit-Baltistan region as its fifth province, the Baloch leaders have warned Islamabad of serious repercussions stating that this development will only lead to massive resistance by the people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The Gilgit-Baltistan area is Pakistan's northernmost administrative territory that borders the disputed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

A committee headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz recommended to grant the region a provincial status, reports the GeoNews.

Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh are four provinces of Pakistan.

However, India claims the Gilgit-Baltistan area as an integral part of its territory.

The area is significant to both Pakistan and China as the $46 billion CPEC passes through the region.

New Delhi has fervently maintained that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes areas currently under Pakistan occupation, is an integral part of the Union of India.

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At least 16 civilians were killed and 50 injured in airstrikes on a Syrian town on the outskirts of the country's capital, according to a war monitoring group.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the aerial bombings took place in the town of Hamoryah, located 12 km to the east of Damascus.

According to the Observatory, the attack came as part of the increased bombings carried out by Syrian regime forces against the eastern Ghouta region over the last few days.

The SOHR said the number of dead could rise since many of the injured were in a serious condition and several people were still missing, reported Efe news.

It added that the number of children and women among the victims remained unknown.

--IANS

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At least three people were injured after a gunman opened fire outside a metro station in the city of Lille in northern France, days after the attack in London.

Armed police rushed to the scene and sealed off streets near the Porte d'Arras Metro station at around 9.45 p.m. (local time) on Friday night, the Mirror reported.

The shots, say reports, were fired at Jacques Febvrier square, a few metres from the metro station.

Witnesses reported at least three injuries, including a 14-year-old boy. The boy is believed to have been shot in the leg, said the local media. They were taken to hospital and are not in a life-threatening condition.

The wounded were reported to have been shot several times, according to French news outlet La Voix.

The motive behind the shooting is not yet known. The shooter is reported to be still on the loose.

France has suffered a string of Islamist terror attacks during the past 12 months.

It comes after a suspected Islamist terrorist was gunned down at Paris Orly airport last week after launching an attack on a police traffic patrol.

Also, a suspected terrorist was arrested in the Belgian city of Antwerp on Thursday after he allegedly tried to drive a car into shoppers on a pedestrianised street, less than 24 hours after the Westminster attack.

The vehicle was reportedly full of liquid gas, knives and rifles.

The suspected driver, in camouflage, was later arrested by the police, the local media reported.

The incident, according to reports, was being investigated as a possible terrorist incident.

--IANS

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India and the US pledged to continue their strong defence partnership during a meeting here between Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis.

According to a readout of their meeting by Pentagon Spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis, Mattis hosted Doval at the Pentagon on Thursday to discuss the importance of the US-India relationship, and the role of both nations in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles.

Mattis specifically applauded India's efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region. Both of them reaffirmed building upon the significant defence cooperation progress made in recent years, the statement said.

Mattis and Doval discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters including maritime security and counter terrorism and the two pledged to continue the strong defence partnership between both nations.

Indian Ambassador to US Navtej Sarna was also present at the meeting.

Doval, who is on a four-day visit to the US, also met Secretary of Homeland Security General (Retd) John Kelly and National Security Advisor Lt Gen H.R. McMaster.

During his meeting with McMaster, both sides reviewed the security situation in South Asia.

Doval's visit to the US comes days after that of Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar.

--IANS

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At least 11 endangered Asian elephants were rescued by Cambodian villagers from a muddy bomb crater on Saturday, an official said.

The elephants, including three youngsters, were trapped in a three-metre deep bomb crater inside the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in Mondolkiri province on Friday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Villagers reported to the conservationists about the incident, said Keo Sopheak, Director of the Environment Department.

"We dug away at the side of the crater, and created a path to enable the wild elephants to climb free," Sopheak said.

He said no elephant was injured in the incident, and they were released into the jungle.

Cambodia is home to over 500 wild elephants, according to the Forestry Administration.

--IANS

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The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has seized a Pakistani fishing boat with a crew of nine in Indian waters off the Gujarat coast, an official statement said on Saturday.

"A Coast Guard Ship, whilst on a routine Exclusive Economic Zone patrol, apprehended a Pakistani fishing boat with nine crew members for fishing in our waters at about 3 p.m. yesterday (Friday)," said an official statement from ICG.

"The boat was escorted to Jakhau port (Gujarat). The boat and the crew have been handed over to police for further investigation," it added.

The boat 'Karachi Pakistan', with around 30 kg of fish on board, had originated from Shah Bunder in Pakistan.

--IANS

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A petition launched by Congress MP Sushmita Dev asking for taxes on sanitary pads to be removed has received support from several Members of Parliament.

On February 25, Sushmita Dev had written a letter to the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley requesting for the tax on sanitary pads to be done away with.

She also started a petition on the online platform for social change -- change.org to seek public support for the cause on the occasion of International Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8.

As many as 2,04,518 people from across the country have come in support of the petition started on the website, according to a release issued by change.org on Saturday.

Alongside massive public support for her petition, Sushmita Dev has received twitter endorsements and letters of support from parliamentarians cutting across party lines.

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi had called this petition a "noble initiative" on twitter and called for "bipartisan support" for Sushmita Dev's petition on March 8.

In his endorsement tweet, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP Baijayant Panda raised the question of contraceptives being tax free while sanitary pads are not and calls for more support on the petition.

Taxes on sanitary products can vary from state to state but they are usually between 12 and 14 per cent.

Dev's petition addressed to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi and Health Minister J.P. Nadda, calls for the GST Bill to abolish taxes on sanitary pads.

The petition also advocates for biodegradable and reusable ones by seeking a 100 per cent tax exemption for environment and health friendly pads, and a minimal tax for non-biodegradable sanitary pads.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in a tweet on Women's day said: "Take a step to change the lives of millions of women this Women's Day. I signed this petition, so should you, because Indian women deserve better."

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on March 22 wrote a letter to Arun Jaitley asking him to look into Dev's request.

"I write to lend my support to my Lok Sabha colleague Sushmita Dev's representation to you concerning the unfair bracketing of sanitary napkins for tax purposes as a 'luxury product'," Tharoor said in his letter.

While Congress MP Supriya Sule in her endorsement said: "Let us appeal government of India to reduce/abolish the tax on sanitary napkins.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MP Kavitha Kalvakuntla extended her full support to the initiative of her fellow Member of Parliament.

Congress politicians who have supported Sushmita Dev's campaign include Salman Khurshid, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Satav, Partap Singh Bajwa and Ninong Ering who have tweeted in support of the campaign #TaxFreeWings.

Sushmita Dev has now written separate letters to Union Ministers Maneka Gandhi and J.P. Nadda, Minister of State for Health Anupriya Singh Patel and the Health Minister of Assam seeking action.

--IANS

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Former Telangana MP and senior Congress leader V. Hanumantha Rao was arrested on Saturday after he staged a sit-in protesting against a "false case" against him for allegedly abusing a police officer.

A day after police booked the case against him for abusing a police inspector and deterring him from discharging his official duty, Rao launched a sit-in at the statue of Rajiv Gandhi at Somajiguda area.

Several leaders of the Congress party including leader of opposition in Telangana assembly, K. Jana Reddy joined him in the protest to show their solidarity.

As the protest was leading to a traffic jam, police arrested Rao.

He was physically lifted into a waiting police vehicle and taken to a police station.

Rao, who is a secretary of the All India Congress Committee, alleged that a false case was lodged against him. He said the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government was imposing restrictions on the movement of opposition leaders.

The senior leader landed himself in a controversy after he allegedly abused a police inspector when the latter tried to prevent him from using the media point in the state assembly premises on Thursday.

Rao got angry when Palaparthy Sudhakar told him that the media point is only for members of the assembly and the council.

"Nee amma (your mother). Who the hell are you to stop me? You are acting like a ruling party agent", the former MP was heard saying to the inspector.

As the video went viral online, the police officer felt insulted and took to Facebook on Friday to express his feelings. He posted that he wants to resign from his job.

Sudhakar said that Rao may have abused him because he belongs to the scheduled caste. He was also unhappy over his senior officers not taking the incident seriously.

Following the inspector's Facebook post, senior officers persuaded him not to resign.

--IANS

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A candle light march and a seminar marked "Genocide Day", in Tripura on Saturday commemorating the atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army on this day in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, 46 years ago.

The programmes were organised by the Bangladesh Assistant High Commission here as part of the observance of the Day for the first time in the 46 year history of post-independence Bangladesh.

Following a recent decision taken by the Bangladesh cabinet headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the country is observing March 25 as "Genocide Day" all across the world, Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh Assistant High Commission in Agartala Mohammad Shakhawat Hossain told IANS.

In Agartala, a seminar was held highlighting the importance of the day. Hossain and noted Bangladesh theatre and film director Nasiruddin Yousuff were among the participants.

Bangladesh Assistant High Commission officials, other staff and their families took part in the candle light march in the city in memory of those who lost their lives, following a brutal crackdown ordered by the then Pakistani military rulers on protesters in Dhaka on March 25, 1971, after refusing to hand over power to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose party Awami League party won the 1970 general election.

The "Genocide Day" was observed a day before the Bangladesh Independence Day and National Day to be celebrated on Sunday.

Hossain said a series of day-long functions have been lined up in Agartala on Sunday on the occasion. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar will be among the dignitaries at the programmes.

A few days after the Pakistani forces had unleashed massive attacks across that country, Bangladeshi leaders vowed to win their independence on March 26, 1971, when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman launched a massive guerilla fight against the then Pakistani rulers.

The Liberation War later turned into a full-scale India-Pakistan War, leading to the surrender of 93,000 Pakistani soldiers in Dhaka on December 16, 1971.

India was the first country to recognise Bangladesh as sovereign nation.

According to Bangladeshi freedom fighters and experts, Pakistani forces during the nine months of Liberation War (March 26 to December 16, 1971) massacred over three million Bengali-speaking people, including children, and gang-raped over six lakh women.

Over one crore families were uprooted from their ancestral homes and lands during that period.

--IANS

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The Congress on Saturday said its Kerala unit Vice-President M.M. Hasan will function as the President till a regular appointment is made.

"Hasan will hold charge of the pradesh Congress President with immediate effect till a regular PCC President is appointed," a party release said.

The post fell vacant after Congress Kerala unit chief V.M. Sudheeran quit on March 10 citing health reasons.

--IANS

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President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said the joint efforts made by India and Bangladesh will help realise the aspirations of people of both the countries.

Mukherjee also extended his greetings and felicitations to the government and people of Bangladesh on their National Day on March 26.

"It is a matter of satisfaction that the close relations between India and Bangladesh have substantially expanded in recent years. We have succeeded in enhancing and intensifying our cooperation in areas of our shared interest," he said in a statement here.

"I am confident our joint efforts will contribute to the realisation of the aspirations of our respective people," he said.

--IANS

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Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that the country's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh will be sealed to stop infiltration of terrorists and refugees.

Speaking at the passing out parade of the Border Security Force (BSF) at Tekanpur in Gwalior district, Rajnath Singh said that the responsibility of barring refugees has been given to the Border Management Division.

"The 3,323-km long border with Pakistan will be made impenetrable. A 6.9-km long laser wall has been constructed in Kashmir and in 45 places in Punjab. A concrete wall will also be constructed in many places in Punjab and Kashmir and a laser wall will be made in Gujarat," he added.

"The BSF is discharging its responsibilities in protecting the nation's borders properly. That's why, the trust and belief of the people towards BSF has increased," the Home Minister told reporters.

Responding to a question, Rajnath said: "The borders would be sealed. Fencing would be done wherever it's possible and in case it's not, technology would be brought into application."

Speaking on the increasing Maoist incidents, he said: "These incidents have decreased 50-55 per cent in the last 2-3 years. Previously, 135 districts were Maoist infested, which has come down to 35 now."

"The state governments are tackling the situation (Maoist incidents) and the central government is providing complete assistance. 100 battalions of paramilitary forces have been stationed in such areas."

Talking about the BJP youths arrested for allegedly establishing parallel telephone exchange lines between India and Pakistan for the exchange strategically important information, Singh said that the NIA is investigating the charges.

--IANS

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Indian Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna put up a spirited fight against top-seeded Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri but couldnt avert his first defeat in the Shenzhen Longgang chess tournament here on Saturday.

World No. 14 Harikrishna, who started the day atop the leader board, succumbed to the precise play of the World No. 11.

"I made a basic error at the opening, with my na5. I should have repeated with nf6 and nf5 instead. But Anish played well and deserved the win," Harikrishna conceded after the loss.

The Indian star has now slipped to the fourth position, with one victory, one defeat and one draw and 1.5 points in his kitty.

Anish, on the other hand, has risen to the top place.

Harikrishna will look to bounce back from this setback on Sunday, when he takes on Yangyi Yu of China. Yu also has 1.5 points, having drawn all his games so far.

--IANS

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The relationship between culture and nationalism as well as the impact of both of these on each other remained the high-point at a culture conclave here on Saturday.

Panelists included former diplomat and author Pavan K. Verma; professor and poet Makarand Paranjape; Vedic scholar David Frawley; and columnist and writer Sadia Dehlvi.

The major outcome of the intense discussion, lasting over an hour, highlighted that the Indian civilization, over the course of history, has believed in acceptance of people across religions, castes and creeds and does not necessarily tend to discriminate on such grounds.

There has been a rising fear though, stressed Dehlvi.

"There has always been a very intimate interaction of cultures in India in the past but it seems very challenging to retain it today. It is extremely frightening for minorities to be asked to leave the country," Dehlvi, who has scripted several documentaries and television programs, including "Amma and Family" (1995), starring Zohra Sehgal, said.

Vedic scholar Frawley, on the other hand, maintained that despite all observations India continues to be the most tolerant and all abiding country in the world. It has stood against all trials of time, he said, adding that the very essence of Vedas and ancient Indian scriptures impress upon the idea of acceptance of all and universal brotherhood.

"India needs stronger cultural unity. All the problems of India will be solved if we gain a strong cultural unity. We have to know our past, not as we have been taught but the facts from the history need to be told," said Frawley.

An American Hindu teacher and author, who has written more than thirty books on topics such as the Vedas, Hinduism, Sanatana Dharma, Yoga, Ayurveda and Vedic astrology, among others, Frawley was honored by the President of India with the Padma Bhushan in 2015 for "distinguished service of a high order to the nation."

Leading the discussion further, Verma, a former MP of the Rajya Sabha said that a part of the problems arise because of the "minority appeasement" by politicians for "short-term electoral benefits".

He stressed that even after having won the elections because of Muslim votes, certain political parties have not done enough for the community.

The panelists also agreed that a historical amnesia of sorts grips the nation as far as historical documentation of the arrival of Islam in India is concerned.

"The problem arises, for instance, the way William Dalrymple glorifies the Mughals. It wasn't as if they arrived and Biryanis were served and we became friends. No, there was extreme brutality, there was jazia laws and temples were ruined. These are facts that cannot be eroded from history," Verma said.

However, the panelists did not see merit in revisiting history as a tool to revenge the historical wrongs. The mistakes of the pasts should be forgotten and we should move ahead in the spirit that is enshrined in our values, the panelists agreed.

"And I wish minorities should be taken along in India's growth story," contended Dehlvi.

The conclave organised by Mail Today, a tabloid newspaper in the Capital.

--IANS

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The Islamic State has taken responsibility for a blast in front of a police box at the entrance to Dhaka's Shahjalal International Airport, describing it as a "suicide attack".

Terrorism monitoring group SITE Intelligence tweeted that the militant group's mouthpiece Amaq news agency reported the "suicide bombing" in the Bangladesh capital near the airport on Friday night, in which the bomber was killed.

"For the 2nd time in one week, #ISIS claimed a suicide bombing in the #Bangladesh capital #Dhaka, the latest targeting a police checkpoint," SITE said in another Twitter message.

An airport police officer had initially said it was a "suicide attack", but Dhaka Metropolitan Police later ruled it out as an attack of that nature, Bdnews24 reported.

DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia said that it is suspected that the man was carrying a bomb in the bag.

He declined to comment on whether militants were involved in the blast, which occurred a week after what the law-enforcing agencies said was a suicide attack on a RAB camp in nearby Ashkona.

Meanwhile, the security forces on Saturday launched a final assault on a suspected militant hideout in Sylhet city, after a 30-hour siege, that began in the early hours of Friday. Over 50 persons were evacuated from a building on the outskirts of the city.

Commandos launched the assault "Operation Twilight" at a complex housing two buildings in Shibbarhi area. The area was cordoned off by the security forces.

Police said the militants were holed up in a flat on the ground floor of one of the buildings. They said that at least two militants -- a male and a female -- were believed to be in the flat.

According to the report, gunfire was heard twice in the area. No other details were available.

Heavily armed members of the law-enforcing agencies surrounded the complex.

An Army officer said that the soldiers were leading the assault and "the SWAT was only helping them".

A police official said a search operation in Sylhet was carried out after getting information that militants have taken shelter in the district.

After finding the hideout at Shibbarhi on Thursday, police locked the flat from outside and cordoned off the complex early on Friday.

Police came under attack later in the morning. The suspects shouted "Allahu Akbar" while hurling grenades at the law enforcers. Police officials retaliated by opening fire, and the cordon was extended to the entire area, Sylhet Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner Rokan Uddin said.

Reports said 17 families from one of the buildings at the complex were evacuated on Friday. They were kept in a school in the area throughout the day. The families stranded in the flats of another building were told to keep their doors and windows shut.

--IANS

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People from the Jewish, Muslim, and Indian American communities gathered on the steps of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in northwest Washington and stood in solidarity against rising hate crimes in the US.

"This is about having peace throughout all communities and religions and races," said Rochelle Berman, who was present at the event on Friday night.

The slogan "We Stand Together Against Hate" was held high above the crowd at the top of the synagogue's steps, reported WJLA news portal, an ABC Television affiliate.

"There should be no discrimination based on race, or gender or skin colour," said a woman.

This year discrimination across the country fuelled vandalism, bomb threats and murders, such as Indian American Srinivas Kuchibholta who was shot and killed during a Kansas hate crime.

"There are just a lot of challenges out there that basically unity is going to bring us all together," said another attendant.

Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while another Indian Alok Madasani was injured in Kansas last month in an apparent hate crime.

An Indian-origin girl was racially abused on a train by an African-American man in New York on February 23.

A 43-year-old Indian-origin store owner, Harnish Patel, was shot dead outside his home in Lancaster County, South Carolina earlier in March.

A Sikh man, Deep Rai, an American citizen, was also fired upon in a racial attack earlier this month.

Also, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic threats and vandalism across the country, which included bomb threats at 90 Jewish community centres and the desecration of cemeteries in several US states last month.

--IANS

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi on Saturday in his first speech after taking up the reins of the state announced his government will provide Rs 1 lakh aid to Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims.

"Those who want to go on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar would be given Rs 1 lakh aid by our government," the Chief Minister said during a rally here.

"We would also establish a Kailash Mansarovar Bhavan either in Lucknow, Ghaziabad or Noida," he added.

--IANS

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The Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA), the apex body of film professionals, on Saturday decided to appeal against the fine imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on them for an 'undeclared ban' on director Vinayan.

On Friday, the CCI penalised Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) and FEFKA and its two subsidiaries for imposing a 'ban' on director Vinayan.

FEFKA top leader and director B.Unnikrishnan told the media that they are going to appeal against the CCI verdict.

"The verdict has been very unfortunate as this is not an issue between individuals. We will appeal against this to the appropriate appellate authority as what we dealt with was issues concerning labour, and hence it has to be addressed by the labour department," said Unnikrishnan, who is currently filming his latest film starring superstar Mohanlal.

Vinayan had approached the CCI against these film bodies who unleashed a campaign against him by asking the various stakeholders in the Malayalam film industry not to associate with him.

Vinayan told the media on Saturday that with the CCI imposing a penalty on the bodies, he has been proven right.

"I lost eight years on account of this 'undeclared ban'. With this CCI verdict, it has been proved that I am right and those against me are wrong," he said.

--IANS

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A team of Kolkata olice on Saturday quizzed Apollo Gleneagles Hospital's General Manager of Pharmacy Sekhar Sharma in relation to the ongoing investigation into the hospital's alleged negligence in the treatment of a patient, police said.

"Sekhar Sharma, GM Pharmacy of the Apollo group was called by the investigating officers to the Phoolbagan Police Station on Saturday for interrogation," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Vishal Garg said.

Earlier this week, Kolkata police also quizzed the group's Vice-President of HR T. Karunakar on relation to the same case.

Apollo Gleneagles is facing a police probe following the death of Sanjoy Roy, who was critically injured in a road accident.

Roy, a resident of Dankuni in Hooghly district, died on February 23 at the state-run SSKM Hospital after being shifted from Apollo.

Later, his relatives and friends accused Apollo of "inadequate treatment" even while raising a huge bill and refusing to allow him to be shifted to SSKM unless they paid up the full amount.

They alleged the hospital delayed his discharge and relented only after they submitted fixed deposit certificates.

A six-member Health Department team set up to probe the allegations against leading private city hospitals found "overall negligence" and other anomalies like improper billing, multiple charges and not following proper medical procedure during treatment.

Police have so far questioned a number of doctors and senior officials of the hospital, including the former Chief Executive Officer of the hospital group's eastern region Rupali Basu, who resigned after the incident.

--IANS

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Specific intelligence indicators have shown that North Korea is ready for its sixth underground nuclear test at any time, US officials said.

Satellite imagery indicates a potentially significant change at the Punggye-ri test site, the officials told CNN on Friday.

For weeks, the satellites had observed extensive activity on the surface, including vehicles, personnel and equipment, as well as two tunnel entrances being dug out.

But the latest imagery shows that activity has now stopped, "a similar change in the pattern also observed before previous tests, indicating all final preparations were now complete."

The South Korean government issued a statement on Friday also saying a test can happen as soon as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un orders it.

"It is assessed that North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test anytime if its leadership decides to do so," Lee Duk-haeng, spokesman for South Korea's the Ministry of Unification, said in the statement.

He said that "South Korean and US intelligence authorities evaluate that North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test anytime on the leadership's decision."

North Korea also continues to move equipment and personnel that could be used to launch ballistic missiles, the US officials told CNN.

They warned that it was impossible for the US to know when a mobile launch or an underground nuclear test will happen.

According to the officials, the US is maintaining the presence of a WC-135 aircraft in the region that can conduct air sampling after a suspected underground test.

--IANS

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Vice President Hamid Ansari on Saturday said that there is an urgent need to defend the intellectual freedom of the Indian universities, according to an official statement.

"In a period of rampant distrust of matters intellectual, there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to people," the Vice President said while delivering the 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University, Chandigarh.

"We need to remind ourselves of the democratic aspirations of pragmatic liberal education while recalling that 'our finest universities help fulfill the dreams of our best selves as a people'," he added.

Talking of the importance of academic freedom in the university system, Ansari said: "Academic freedom is the foundation of the university's mission to discover, improve, and disseminate knowledge."

"The ideas, no matter how uncomfortable or disturbing to the accepted status quo, can and must be challenged, modified and even discarded - on their merit, but may never be muted or suppressed."

Asking for openness to new ideas that may prove offensive and willingness to have one's assumptions questioned, he said: "This tolerance always has the potential to conflict with other virtues and causes, so it needs to be defended repeatedly and vigilantly."

--IANS

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The Union Government on Saturday sought to clarify that there was no agreement or decision on carving out a larger Nagaland state and termed media reports on the issue "erroneous".

"Some media reports have appeared recently to the effect that the Government of India has agreed to carve out a larger Nagaland State by taking away the territories of the states contiguous to Nagaland. Such reports are erroneous. It is clarified that there is no such agreement or decision of the Government of India," said a Union Home Ministry statement.

Assam had witnessed protests after reports in the media that National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah General Secretary T. Muivah had said the August 2015 'framework agreement' recognises his outfit's demand for territorial integration of Naga-inhabited areas in the region.

The Naga group is keen on a 'Greater Nagalim' which includes tracts of land in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and parts of Myanmar where there are Naga inhabitants.

Assam Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had also said earlier that there is no proposal with the central government about larger Nagaland.

"We are committed to protecting Assam's territory," he had said.

--IANS

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Pakistan on Friday rejected as flawed the US State Department's Human Rights Report 2016, which has scathingly criticised the country on account of human rights situation.

The US State Department in its annual report on human rights around the world earlier this month alleged that Pakistan is involved in "human rights violations" including "poor implementation and enforcement of laws, and frequent mob violence and vigilante justice, gender inequality, violence against gender and sexual minorities, and sectarian violence", Xinhua news agency reported.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman termed the document as the "so-called Country Reports on HR Practices for 2016".

"As a matter of principle, we do not recognise validity of unilateral approaches including reports sitting in judgment of other states. As such, these reports are invariably inherently flawed and lack objectivity. It comes as no surprise that as regards Pakistan, the Report is far removed from facts and depicts a grossly inaccurate and misrepresented picture," Nafees Zakaria said.

The spokesman told his weekly briefing that Pakistan remains deeply committed to the promotion and protection of human rights of all its citizens.

"The Government accords high priority to advancing the mutually reinforcing objectives of development, human rights and democracy for the people of Pakistan. Many international obligations have been undertaken by Pakistan besides a number of important domestic initiatives for the promotion and protection of human rights," he said when his attention was invited to the US report.

He further said Pakistan is fully conscious of its international and national obligations with regard to promotion and protection of human rights, and the Government remains committed in its resolve to ensure fundamental rights, prosperity and well-being of all the people of Pakistan.

"International cooperation and constructive dialogue coupled with adherence to international conventions are the best ways of promoting the common objective of universal human rights. Countries that are not even party to some of the core human rights conventions have no standing to question others," Zakaria said.

--IANS

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Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister on Saturday took a dig at the new state government, saying only "anti-Romeo squads and clean-up drives" have been witnessed so far.

The Samajwadi Party leader accused the new government of targeting officials of a certain caste.

"I am waiting for the new Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Yogi Adityanath to come up with something concrete," the Samajwadi Party President told the media after its National Executive meeting.

"As of now, all we are seeing on television are cleanliness drives in government offices and the anti-Romeo campaign (against eve-teasing)," he said.

He also took a dig at state government officials who he said were in an overdrive to ensure cleanliness after a directive from Yogi Adityanath.

"I never knew these officials are so good at wielding brooms; or else, I would have given them this charge long back," he quipped.

He said so far not even the first state Cabinet meeting had taken place and the SP was awaiting its outcome.

Akhilesh was apparently referring to the BJP's poll promise that the loans of small and medium farmers will be waived in the very first Cabinet meeting if the party was voted to power in Uttar Pradesh.
The All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) will decide on signing the tripartite MoU with the government and bank management after knowing its contents, a top leader said on Saturday.

Contrary to its earlier stand of infusing fresh capital in strong banks, the central government has decided to infuse fresh capital totalling Rs 8,586 crore into 10 weak banks subject to commitment to quarterly milestones by bank boards, management, employees and unions.

The government has said the SBI Caps will draw a bank wise action plan based on which a tripartite agreement between the government, bank management and employee unions will be signed committing themselves towards certain milestones.

"We are not averse to sign the MoU (memorandum of understanding). But we should know the provisions of MoU before committing ourselves," C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA, told IANS.

"SBI Caps have not given any detail about the bank wise action plan. Some banks managements want the unions to agree. But agree to what is not spelt out," Venkatachalam said.

He said way back in 2002 when Indian Bank was in serious financial trouble, the union had signed an agreement to forgo some of the employee benefits-like leave travel allowance, overtime allowance and others.

The Indian Bank management had agreed that top officials will not use air travel, officers would not claim travelling allowance and such things, Venkatachalam added.

"Now there is no information as to the contents of the proposed MoU," he said.

The central government in a letter to the 10 bank heads had listed out five parameters under which the milestones would be fixed for capital infusion.

These are: (a) active management of non-performing assets (NPA), strengthening of lending and monitoring processes; (b) arranging capital from the market; (c) plan for disposal of non-core assets; (d) divesting stakes in subsidiaries, closure of loss-making domestic and international branches; (e) reduction in operational expenses including employee benefits to would be reversed once the banks turns around.

Venkatachalam said: "Going by the past experience, the banks would turnaround and then start building up bad loans calling for another turnaround with sacrifices by the employees."

The amount of capital to be infused by the government are:

Allahabad Bank (Rs 418 crore), Andhra Bank (Rs 1,100 crore), Bank of India (Rs 1,500 crore), Bank of Maharashtra (Rs 300 crore), Central Bank of India (Rs 100 crore), Dena Bank (Rs 600 crore), IDBI Bank (Rs 1,900 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 1,100 crore), UCO Bank (Rs 1,150 crore), and United Bank of India (Rs 418 crore).

--IANS

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The world will celebrate on Saturday night by switching off lights and going "dark" for one hour to encourage participation in fighting climate change.

This year the event is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The initiative is supported by 7,000 cities around the world. Landmarks will go dark, and millions of people are expected to turn off their lights as a political statement against climate change and fossil fuels, and in support of carbon cuts and renewable energy, USA Today reported.

The global event will start at 8.30 p.m.

Started by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Australia in 2007, has expanded to a global event, with public spaces going dark, and in some places, people gathering with lit candles instead.

According to the organisers, " shows how each of us can be heroes for our planet".

The WWF said Earth Hour is not a one-hour commitment to conservation but rather a symbol of something bigger.

"Participation in Earth Hour symbolises a commitment to change beyond the hour," the website reads.

Despite the terror attack in Westminster on Wednesday, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben are joining more than 270 landmarks across Britain in switching off the lights for Earth Hour.

Buckingham Palace, Blackpool Tower, Brighton Pier, the Senedd Building in Cardiff, the Kelpies sculpture in Falkirk and Edinburgh Castle are among those taking part.

Starting in Samoa and ending 24 hours later in The Cook Islands, people in 184 countries will send the message calling for action to protect the planet.

Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, New York's Empire State Building, the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow, the Egyptian Pyramids and Tokyo Tower will be switching off the lights during their Earth Hour between 8.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m.

Members of the public are also being encouraged to take part by switching off their lights for the hour.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi on Saturday said all roads in the state will be free of potholes by June 15.

The 44-year-old leader made the announcement at his first public speech here after taking oath as the Chief Minister on March 19.

"I have met the PWD (Public Works Department) officials and asked them to make all roads in the state pothole-free by June 15," the Chief Minister said.

He made several other announcements in his almost 25-minute speech in his constituency from where he has been elected to the Lok Sabha since 1998.

--IANS

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A US immigration judge granted asylum to a Singaporean teenage blogger, according to a statement by his lawyer on Saturday.

The judge on Friday ruled in favour of the 18-year-old Amos Yee who has been detained in Chicago by immigration authorities since his arrival last December after considering that he had been unfairly persecuted for his political opinions, Efe news reported.

The judge also deemed Yee's fear of future persecution by authorities in Singapore as credible and real.

The granting of asylum to the teenager will only be approved if the Department of National Security does not oppose the measure.

Yee left the city-state after serving a six-week jail sentence he received in September 2016 for inciting religious hatred on social networks by posting allegedly offensive videos against Christians and Muslims.

He had already been convicted in 2015 on similar charges, as well as for ridiculing former prime minister and founder of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, who died that same year.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), which criticised the teenager's convictions, welcomed the decision of the US judge and denounced the pressure that the Singapore government regularly exerts on dissidents who question the ruling party.

"It's clear the Singapore government saw Amos Yee as the proverbial nail sticking up that had to be hammered down", HRW's deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson, said.

He added that "ever since Amos posted his video attack on former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew just days after his passing, Amos has been a marked man in Singapore, subjected to surveillance, harassment, restrictive orders on his freedom of expression over the internet, and persecution."

--IANS

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A group of US stealth fighter planes carried out the first precision bombing drill on the Korean peninsula this week, American military officials in South Korea said on Saturday.

Aircraft from a US air base in Japan participated in the drill as part of the Korean Marine Exchange Programme developed by Washington and Seoul, which took place between Monday and Thursday, according to the officials.

The F-35B fighters carried out a precision air-to-surface bombing manoeuvre on a mountain range in Gangwon province, east of Seoul, before returning to their base in Japan.

It is the first time that F-35B fighters, which can reach a speed of Mach 1.6 (around 1,900 km per hour) and are known for being strategic bombers, have taken part in a maneuver on the Korean peninsula, Efe news reported.

The drill comes at a time of growing tension in the region, after North Korea carried out a record number of nuclear and missile tests in 2016.

The deployment of military assets for this year's drills - conducted from early this month to Friday - was the largest to date. The US allocated 10 F-35B fighters to its Japanese air base in Iwakuni in January and six more are expected to be sent by the end of the year.

In case of any contingency on the peninsula, one of the first US forces to support South Korea would depart from the Japanese base, the officials added.

--IANS

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Two senators have written letters to the Trump administration to push for the sale of F-16 fighter jets to India as well as to approve a drone sale to the country, a media report said.

Senators John Cornyn and Mark Warner sent letters this week to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary James Mattis, urging them to sign off on the F-16 production line in India and approve the export of the Guardian Remotely Piloted Aircraft, a non-lethal maritime surveillance platform, the Hill online reported on Friday.

The pair -- co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus -- said that both sales would bolster the US-India military relationship.

India has been looking to buy new fighter aircraft since 2007 and in October relaunched a competition with the F-16 and the Saab Gripen (multi-role fighter aircraft) as the two contenders, said the report.

US aerospace company Lockheed Martin has since pledged to open a production line in India for the F-16s, but the plan was yet to be approved by the new administration.

Both senators urged Mattis and Tillerson "to weigh in forcefully with the White House on the strategic significance of the deal", arguing the F-16 production line solely relies on international buys, with the last aircraft made for the US in 1999.

"Keeping the F-16 in production will help sustain a fleet of over 1,000 aircraft currently in the Air Force and help preserve thousands of American jobs. It will help maintain 800 high value design and engineering jobs in the US, and extend the only scalable single engine 4th generation fighter aircraft as a significant security cooperation tool for the US," wrote Cornyn and Warner.

The two senators also pushed for the sale of the Guardian aircraft to India in a separate letter.

India requested the Guardian in June, a request that has been pending with the US government since, reported the newspaper.

"The Guardian is exclusively manufactured in the US, and a potential sale to India is estimated to be valued at over $2 billion across the life of the programme," the second letter stated.

--IANS

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A ban on laptops and tablets in cabin baggage on flights from Turkey and some countries in the Middle East and North Africa to the US and Britain came into effect on Saturday, the media reported.

Officials said devices "larger than a smartphone" must travel in the hold because of an increased risk that they could contain explosives.

However, at least one airline was allowing devices to be used up until boarding, reported BBC.

The US ban covered eight countries, while Britain's restrictions applied to six.

Nine airlines from eight countries -- Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- were affected by the US ban. They operate about 50 flights a day to the US.

UAE airline Emirates was offering complimentary packing and shipping services at gates to enable passengers to use their electronic devices after check-in and until boarding.

Passengers flying on two-leg trips from other countries to the US through Dubai can use their laptops on the first leg of their flights, said the report.

The United Kingdom ban, meanwhile, affected all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

The British ban applied to any device, including smartphones, larger than 16cm long, 9.3cm wide or 1.5cm deep. However, most phones will be smaller than the limit.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the US and Britain to lift the bans as soon as possible, said BBC.

The US Department for Homeland Security cited attacks on planes and airports over the past two years as the reason for the ban.

European security experts will be meeting next week to discuss the electronics ban by both countries, the Guardian reported.

--IANS

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A magnificently elegant interior dotted with all things artistic -- surreal paintings, graffiti and moving quotations etched on its walls -- houses, to the wonder of many, young and enthusiastic children happily learning tidbits of art. And from whom? No, not amateur teachers but top professional artists.

Enter the recently opened, "The Art Hub" in the Greater Kailash area of south Delhi. It is an ocean of bliss and charm amidst our mundane day-to-day lives, signifying every aspect of art in its totality.

But what exactly is it? Just another art school, or a cafe with an artistic interior?

One would fall short of expressions if asked to sum up the entire studio, spread across a staggering 5,000 sq.ft of covered as well as open spaces and a view of temples and old monuments. The Art Hub is not an average art school, but a place where art comes alive before your eyes. It is also a place where art is used as a medium to relax, unwind, learn and explore.

"Have you heard of art therapy," its founder Bhavna Minocha, herself an artist as well as curator, asks me as we unwind on a luxurious sofa in one of the rooms of the studio. All around me are careful installations, paintings, graffiti and quotations tailormade to suit the ambience of the place.

There are some bookmarks drawn by kids from an earlier session in the day lying on the table, beautiful sketch works done on old pages of novels hanging beside me, and right in front are two huge windows that open up the creative world of young children before your eyes. On flat tables, kids of varying ages are engaged in learning the craft in a playful mood with the best minds in the industry. A rare sight to behold!

"Have you heard of art therapy?" Minocha repeats. "What's that?" I ask as I try to recollect myself. The ambience -- just so relaxed with out-of-this-world calmness -- casts sort of a spell on you.

"One can overcome all the tensions and tiredness of the day through art therapy. You need to engage in happy art works in a playful environment and create something beautiful. The very essence of creating something by yourself is enriching," Minocha said.

Be it a young kid or an old granny, an art enthusiast or a corporate professional, there's a tailor-made programme for each one of them.

It's a place where you can hone your artistic skills with the help of an expert team of instructors qualified from India's top art colleges, followed by a session by a famous and renowned artist, sharing their experience and advice with the students.

It offers customised art workshops in a creative environment that supports the artistic journey of each student. One can even enhance the creativity process through a study of the physical realities of painting, drawing, sketching, sculpting or photography.

The upbeat art studio is also a place for an art novice who wants to use art as a medium for fun, de-stressing and exploring the creative aspect.

More than anything else, it is a place where you can be your true self, feel inspired and express yourself in your creativity guided by the experts who specialise in drawing out the artist from within you.

The studio hosts a range of sessions and programmes, from arty parties for fun lovers to art therapies for unwinding, book-reading sessions using art as a medium to inspire kids to read, to organising art-oriented team-building workshops for corporates.

"Our mission is for you to relax, be your true self, feel inspired and express yourself in your creativity. Our expert team of instructors are qualified from India's top art colleges," added Minocha.

Looking at breaking the monotony of your life? Head to The Art Hub and allow the other side of you to take the centrestage.

(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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There are currently huge variations in use per capita in the world, stretching from over 200 gigajoules (GJ) per capita in the US and Australia, to only 20 GJ per capita in much of Africa. Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern for all is critical, but this challenge is far from being met. Some 1.1 billion people now lack access to electricity and 2.9 billion to clean cooking.
Eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi civic polls, BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the AAP alleging that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson.

Addressing BJP workers ahead of the MCD elections, Shah referred to party's victories in the recent assembly polls and said a win the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the national capital.

Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in "saffron", Delhi continues to remain a "white spot" and asked the party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the civic polls.

"After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps and so that the BJP's victory flag is unfurled in the national capital," he said.

Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.

"The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by CBI. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers, street lights.

"A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequer's money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements," Shah said.

The BJP President contrasted his party's "clean record" in governance with the AAP's "tainted" tenure, saying many of its legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and "rape".

He also dared Kejriwal to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges.

"This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls," Shah said, and appealed to party activists to work hard for the elections as it was Delhi where the then Jana Sangh, BJP's predecessor, came to power first.

Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan, Vijay Goel and Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari were present at the event.

Shah also referred to the anti-terror surgical strike undertaken last year, saying the armed forces "barged" into Pakistan to avenge the killing of soldiers in Uri last year.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has cancelled his visit to Gujarat, which is scheduled for Sunday, as he is currently busy preparing for the next month's Delhi civic body polls.

"AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal will not be attending the Gandhinagar meeting. We have been told that he is busy with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls where names of candidates are being finalised," Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Saurashtra zone convener Kanu Kalsaria told reporters here today.

"But tomorrow's programme will be held as per schedule in the presence of party's Gujarat in-charge, Gopal Rai," he said.

For tomorrow's event, volunteers from across the 182 assembly segments in the state will gather at Chhavni Maidan in the state capital to discuss strategies for the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections and plan its door-to-door campaign.

The Delhi civic body will go to polls on April 23.
On March 19, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu flew to Lucknow for the swearing-in ceremony of his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to display the bond between the two National Democratic Alliance partners.
Three persons have been arrested for their alleged involvement in supplying fake currency notes of Rs 100 denomination in various parts of the national capital and Uttar Pradesh, police said today.

Police recovered fake currency notes with face value of Rs 1.40 lakh from them and a high quality colour printing machine used for printing the notes has also been seized.

These fake notes were circulated in the weekly markets of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. The accused used to hide the fake notes in bundles of original notes so that they could be supplied easily.

It was learnt that fake currency in the denomination of Rs 100 is in circulation in Delhi. Teams were deployed to bust the syndicate operating in Delhi, said Praveer Ranjan, joint commissioner of police (crime).

Yesterday, information was received that Hakikat Chauhan and his associate Tehseen, allegedly involved in supply of fake currency notes in Delhi and UP, would be going to Meerut to circulate a huge consignment of fake notes, he said.

A trap was laid near Wazirabad flyover, Ring Road.

"Two persons were spotted in a Verna car travelling towards Kashmere Gate around 11 AM. After a short chase, the car was intercepted on the Wazirabad flyover," he said.

Police recovered Rs 90,000 in fake currency from their possession. Their third associate, Fazar was also arrested and Rs 50,000 was recovered from him.

A colour printer and scanner along with fine quality papers were also recovered from him.

Fazar allegedly used to print the fake notes with the help of the machine.

He used to procure the fine paper from Nehru Ground, Ballabhgarh (Haryana). Hakikat and Tehseen used to receive the fake currency from him and circulate it. Hakikat earned around Rs 15,000 on supply of Rs 1 lakh of fake notes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actress Kajal Aggarwal says it was great to collaborate with Tamil star Ajith for the first time in "Vivegam".

"The film has a lovely story and I'm very excited to work with Ajith sir, who is a wonderful person. He is a powerhouse of talent and I'm really happy to be associating with him in this project," Kajal told PTI.

The Siva-directed movie will revolve around the relationship of a husband and wife. It is being produced by Sathya Jyothi Films.

"I play a proper Tamilian girl. The film focuses on the husband-wife relationship and the outcome has been great so far. I'm really happy working with the entire team. I will join the sets for the final leg of the shoot in Bulgaria."



Kajal started the year on a high note with the success of megastar Chiranjeevi-starrer Telugu film "Khaidi No 150".

"It was very nice working with Chiranjeevi gaaru. He's a legend and it's a pleasure to have acted opposite him. We had already seen the film in Tamil ('Kaththi') and everyone loved Vijay's performance. So, I was happy to be part of the Telugu remake of this particular film."



The actress completed a decade in the industry and says it has been a huge learning experience.

"It's been great. It's been a huge learning experience. There have been ups and downs. I have learned from my mistakes and I'm just trying to improve in every film that I do."



Kajal is also delighted about her different role in director Atlee's "Vijay 61", where she will pair up with Tamil star Vijay for the third time in her career.

"Atlee is known for penning fabulous role for girls. His actresses have a lot of potential and good character arcs. My role has shaped very well. You will see an extremely different Kajal on screen. It is my third collaboration with Vijay after 'Thuppakki' and 'Jilla'," says Kajal.

The actress denied reports that she has signed Tamil director Deekay's next comedy to rest.

"I know Deekay is working on a script. We are good friends. But, I have neither heard the script nor has he approached me.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who also holds the education portfolio, today asserted that all is well as far as the ongoing Uttar Pradesh board examinations are concerned.

Sharma made the assertion after making surprise inspections of at least three examination centres here and in neighbouring Barabaniki district in the wake of reports of 'mass copying' in the board examinations.

"Today, I conducted surprise inspections at three colleges, where students were appearing for the UP Board examinations. As far as the conduct of examinations is concerned, I am satisfied," the minister told PTI.

Sharma said during the surprise inspections, he also had a brief interaction with some of the students taking the state board examinations and they vowed they do not resort to unfair means.

"I conducted surprise inspections at three colleges, where students were appearing for the UP Board examination, I interacted with the students too for a few seconds," the minister said.

He added that the students repeatedly sought his introduction, but he merely told them that he was a teacher.

"I told the children that I am a teacher. To this, the students told me 'Sir, hum cheating nahi karte hain' (Sir, We do not resort to unfair means in examinations)," Sharma said and added he was satisfied with the conduct of examinations at various centres which he visited.

The examination centres that the UP Dy CM made surprise inspection are Avadh Academic College located in Chinhat here, besides two others in neighbouring Barabanki.

On the occasion, Sharma also told PTI that the UP government has decided to raise the 'protsaahan raashi' (motivational money) from the existing Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 for those who get selected to the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun.

"This would encourage other youngsters from the state to join IMA," he said.

The deputy chief minister while interacting with teachers earlier in the day, laid emphasis on self-audit (of teachers).

"The results of the children would reveal the real picture," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today urged all his colleagues in the Punjab Congress to set an example for others by giving up red beacons on their vehicles, in line with their commitment to people of the state as part of the party's election manifesto.

"It is the collective responsibility of all party members to uphold the commitments made in the manifesto and fulfill their promises to the people," he said in a statement here.

"As the elected representatives of the people, it is our onerous responsibility and duty not only to fulfill our promises but also to do so in the positive spirit in which we made the same to the voters," he added.

Notably, the Congress returned to power in Punjab after a gap of 10 years. Assembly polls in the state were held in February this year.

The chief minister lauded all his ministerial colleagues and party MLAs who had already removed the red beacons and had won accolades for the same from the media as well as the public in general for arriving at the state Assembly yesterday in beaconless cars.

"The people voted for us as they trusted us to keep our promises and had faith in our ability to deliver on all counts," Amarinder said, adding "shedding VIP culture is a very small step in the direction of meeting their expectations".

Acknowledging that the shift required a major mindset change, he said he was confident that every one of his party colleagues had the strength to take this courageous step in the interest of the state and people "who see the VIP culture as a culture of alienation and isolation".

"If red beacons could raise a leader's status and ensure his/her popularity then no incumbent government, MP or MLA would ever lose an election," he said.

The chief minister said that a red beacon is, in fact a "regressive symbol which should have no place in a progressive society like ours, where accessibility is an important criterion in gauging the popularity of any leader".

Amarinder reiterated his government's commitment to implement all the poll promises and the subsequent cabinet decisions in letter and in spirit, as he called upon all MLAs, ex-MLAs and other elected leaders to support his government's efforts towards this positive transformation of Punjab.

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Veteran actor Anupam Kher will be honoured with the Kala Ratan Award by Vice President Hamid Ansari.

The 62-year-old actor took to Twitter to share the and wrote, "I Joined #IndianTheatre, @OfficialPU in 1974. Happy & Proud to share, today I get #KalaRatanAward by Hon. Vice President of India. Jai Ho."



Kher was honoured him the Padma Shri in 2004 and the Padma Bhushan in 2016 for his contribution in the field of cinema and arts.

The actor has worked mainly working in Hindi films and has also appeared in acclaimed international films like "Bend It Like Beckham", Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution", and David O. Russell's 2013 Oscar-winning "Silver Linings Playbook".

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Bangladeshi commandos today launched a military operation to flush out militants belonging to an Islamist group behind the country's worst terror attack from a building amid fears that several residents were trapped inside.

The operation was launched after a 48-hour siege by security forces failed to drive them out of a five-storey building in Sylhet, a northwestern city.

Officials and witnesses said army para-commandos led by a major general launched the crackdown assisted by police's Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, counter terrorism unit and elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

"GOC (general officer commanding) of our Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the 'Operation Twilight' there," a military spokesman told PTI.

TV channels were barred from live coverage of the operation.

Earlier reports had said at least two suspected militants, including a woman, were inside the building, but a police officer later feared a "whole lot of them" could be there.

Police said militants are believed to be the operatives of neo-Jamaatun Mujahideen Bangladesh (neo-JMB).

The neo-JMB, said to be inclined to the Islamic State, was behind the July 1 terror attack on a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed.

Officials said at least 28 families were trapped inside the building.

Some 70 people could be evacuated ahead of the full scale military assault. The police used megaphones to ask militants to surrender before launching the operation.

Military put barricades on adjacent thoroughfares including on a regional highway as joint forces took position to storm the militant hideout. Authorities overnight cut off the gas and power lines to the building.

Police asked the people in the neighbourhood to stay indoors.

The Operation Twilight was launched after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by Islamic State terrorist group.

Bangladesh witnessed a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013.

The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack.

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A man accused of attacking two young backpackers in a harrowing ordeal at a remote Australian beach has been found guilty of kidnapping and assault but cleared of attempted murder.

The 60-year-old, whose identity was suppressed by the South Australian Supreme Court, was on trial for sexually assaulting a Brazilian woman and hitting her German friend with a hammer at Salt Creek, east of Adelaide, in February last year.

He denied the charges but was found guilty of six offences including indecent assault, aggravated kidnapping and endangering life.

The court heard he met the backpackers through classifieds website Gumtree where they advertised for a ride from Adelaide to Melbourne, the capital of Victoria state.

After picking them up, they drove to the remote site in Coorong National Park where they set up camp, the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper reported.

The court was told the man and the Brazilian went looking for kangaroos in nearby sand dunes, at which point he pulled out a knife and bound her wrists with rope before cutting off her bikini and sexually assaulting her.

The German said that when she heard her friend screaming she ran to help but was hit on the head four times with a hammer.

She managed to break free but the man knocked her down several times with his car as she fled, before fishermen in the area came to their rescue and alerted police.

The man will be sentenced at a later date.

Australia is a popular destination for young backpackers, with around 600,000 touring the country every year.

They occasionally run into trouble, most recently a British woman who police earlier this month alleged was repeatedly raped, beaten and choked during a two-month hostage ordeal.

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Bajaj Auto today said it has agreed with Japan's Kawasaki to end their decade-old alliance for sales and services in India from next month.

The Pune based company is focusing on its partnership with Austrian firm KTM, under which it has been converting its Probiking outlets, where Kawasaki motorcycles were also sold, into KTM dealerships.

"Kawasaki and Bajaj have mutually arrived at an amicable decision to end their alliance in India from April 1, 2017," Bajaj Auto President (Probiking) Amit Nandi said in a statement.

Consequently, Kawasaki motorcycles will be sold by India Kawasaki Motors Pvt Ltd -- 100 per cent subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Japan -- through its dealer network. The unit was established in India in July 2010. It will also provide after sales service, including that for past customers.

"Bajaj and Kawasaki will continue to maintain their co-operative relationship across the rest of the world for current and future businesses," Nandi said.

Bajaj Auto formed an alliance with Kawasaki for the sale and after sales service of Kawasaki motorcycles through its Probiking network in 2009.

"We have progressively converted our Probiking network to be KTM dealerships," Nandi said.

The Bajaj-KTM partnership, launched its first co-developed product, the 200 Duke in 2012.

He said over the last 5 years, KTM achieved a CAGR of 48 per cent and sales volume in 2016-17 is estimated at 37, 000 units.

"Now the Duke & RC models are being offered in five SKU's through the over 300 KTM dealerships in India. Going forward, Bajaj intends to focus on the KTM brand," Nandi said.

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BJP today said the Telangana government's statement that it would take steps to get the bail granted to the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast accused Swami Aseemanand cancelled was an "insult to judiciary and legal system".

"BJP strongly condemns and disapproves Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy's statement in the Legislative Assembly yesterday in response to an AIMIM MLA's contention on the bail," party spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao told PTI.

"BJP considers it as insult to judiciary and the legal system of India, which provides bail as a fundamental right of an undertrial...The Indian Constitution and the legal system provides bail as a legal right of an undertrial," he said.

According to Rao, without even having the fundamental knowledge of legal structure of India and the rights of undertrials, Reddy has "hastily assured something which he cannot deliver".

"Law does not discriminate religion, if it were to, then all terrorist activities in the world would be attributed to one religion. The Home Minister should realise that he should not stoop down to religious appeasement while being in a constitutional position of a Home Minister of a State," Rao added.

Responding to AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi's demand that the Government exert pressure on the NIA, which is probing the case, to move court against the grant of the bail, Reddy had yesterday assured that steps would soon be taken to get it "cancelled" and ensure that "justice in done".

The court of the Fourth Metropolitan Sessions Judge here granted bail to Aseemanand and Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai, a co-accused in the case on Thursday.

In his reply to Owaisi's demand during the Zero Hour, Reddy said, "The question raised by member Akbaruddin Owaisi is a valid question. Definitely, an inquiry will be conducted on how he (Aseemanand) got the bail. Efforts will be made to get the bail cancelled. We will ensure justice is done."



Owaisi had demanded that the TRS government should "pressurise" the NIA, which is probing the case, to take steps to ensure that Aseemanand's bail gets cancelled.

"The cases were registered and the Hindutva members were arrested after the CBI inquiry. However, Swami Aseemanand was granted bail by a court," Owaisi had said.

"Whether it's Osama Bin Laden or Aseemanand, the terrorists should be dealt with sternly. I am hopeful that the government will prevail upon and pressurise the NIA to get the bail to Aseemanand cancelled and he, along with others, is sent back to jail," the MLA had said.

Swami Aseemanand was arrested on November 19, 2010, from Haridwar. The Mecca Masjid blast on May 18, 2007, left nine persons dead. On March 8 this year, Aseemanand and six others were acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer blast case by a Jaipur court. He was then brought from Jaipur and lodged in a prison here.

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Britain's charity watchdog has disqualified the trustee of a British Sikh charity and barred him from being involved in any charity in future after he was found guilty of misusing the organisation for visa fraud to bring Indian nationals to the country.

The Charity Commission had already removed the Khalsa Missionary Society from the UK's national register in February 2016 and itsstatutory inquiry concluded yesterday that 57-year-old trustee Ravinder Singh had misused the charity to facilitate immigration fraud.

The regulator had opened its statutory inquiry in 2014 after the UK Home Office began a criminal investigation into charity, set up to advance the Sikh religion in the UK through prayer meetings and lectures, and producing literature on Sikhism.

As part of the visa scam, Indian migrants paid the Khalsa Missionary Society around 4,500 pounds per head to sponsor their visa applications as religious ministers to be employed by the charity.

"The charity had been used as a conduit for the immigration fraud, which worked by the charity sponsoring individuals as ministers for religion, while funds were circulated through the charity's bank accounts to give the appearance that the charity was receiving legitimate donations," the commission said in its report yesterday.

"The inquiry concluded that there had been misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of the charity. He had breached his legal duties to protect the charity's assets by using the charity as a conduit to commit immigration fraud," it adds.

The regulator also concluded that Singh had provided false and misleading information to the commission.

The UK Home Office began investigating the charity back in 2012 and charged Singh with fraud.

He went on to plead guilty at Manchester Crown Court to three counts of assisting unlawful immigration between 2011 and 2013, and was sentenced to 27 months' imprisonment in May 2016.

Carl Mehta, Head of Investigations and Enforcement at the Charity Commission, said: "We work closely with law enforcement agencies to prevent and disrupt abuse of charities. In this case we were able to share information with the Home Office Immigration and Enforcement Criminal Investigations Team and support the successful prosecution of an individual who was benefiting from this disgraceful abuse of charitable status."



"Charity trustees must act with integrity and avoid any personal benefit or conflicts of interest. They must not misuse charity funds or assets and make decisions which are reasonable and in the best interests of the charity," Mehta said.

The Commission's inquiry had found that Singh was only one active trustee in the charity and had removed him as a trustee in January 2016.

"The prosecution case is that Khalsa was used by Ravinder Singh for an illegal purpose - for Indian migrants to either enter or remain in the UK as ministers of religion when that wasn't the case," prosecutor Joanna Rodikis had told the court during Singh's trial last year.

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China's first homegrown large passenger plane has passed a major technical assessment, bringing it closer to its maiden flight as the Communist giant seeks to challenge the dominance of western aviation giants like Boeing and Airbus in the global market.

An evaluation committee consisting 63 aviation specialists from across China has agreed that the C919 -- a twin-engine, narrow-body aircraft similar in size to the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 series of jets -- is technically ready for its maiden flight, the Shanghai-based aircraft maker Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) said.

The aircraft is designed to compete head-to-head with its Airbus and Boeing rivals.

The experts have worked in seven teams to assess the jet's design, structure and performances, which they have tested in labs, on board and during low-speed taxiing, it said.

The committee has proven the C919 is technically airworthy but the jet is still subject to electromagnetic compatibility and taxiing tests before it takes to the air, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

The jet was built in 2015 and COMAC completed the onboard systems installation as well as major static and system integration tests before the technical assessment.

The C919, with over 150 seats and a standard range of 4,075 kilometers, is expected to compete with the updated Airbus 320 and Boeing's new-generation 737, which currently dominate the market, the report said.

Both Airbus and Boeing have assembly plants in China considering the growing demand for new aircraft.

Airbus had delivered 153 aircraft to Chinese operators last year, its seventh consecutive year of more than 100 deliveries, AirbusChina said earlier this year.

A recent Boeing forecast said China will need 6,810 new aircraft in the next 20 years at an estimated cost of USD one trillion. By the end of last year, 21 customers had placed orders for more than 500 C919 aircraft, and COMAC expects to sell at least 2,000.

China's first regional commercial aircraft the ARJ21 began commercial operation in June last year.

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Chief Justice J S Khehar today rejected the suggestion of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that the government, judiciary and other stakeholders should evolve a mechanism to clear eco-sensitive projects at the outset.

Referring to the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) framed in 1991, the Attorney General said tourism industry has taken a hit as existing laws do not allow construction within the periphery of 500 metres along seashores while countries like the Maldives have constructed hotels on the beaches.

He suggested that governments, judiciary, civil society and other stakeholders should come together and evolve a mechanism to ensure that eco-sensitive projects are cleared at the start and they should not remain stuck for decades during the construction stage or after completion.

The CJI, however, said when any project is formulated by the government, it is the duty of the administration to think of environment and ecology and courts cannot interfere unless the existing environment is changed.

Justice Khehar did not agree to the suggestion that there should not be a prolonged litigation after a project is either conceived or under implementation or has been completed.

"When the Attorney General referred to the CRZ and the comparison with tourist spots in India and other countries, it seemed as if we were competing with somebody. Environment is not a matter of competition and encompasses humanity at large. When a programme is sponsored by the government it is well within the framework to draw a policy which will protect the environment. You may construct hotels, you may construct whatever you wish to, but have regulations for environmental protection and no court can ever interfere.

"The possibility of interference is when the existing environment is altered or when townships are raised without dealing with sewerage and water that is when the problem arises. The problem emerges when we allow industrialisation without any quick measures. The policy of the government in India and elsewhere has to be to allow development in industry but with by taking due care of environment. That's the way forward," the CJI said.

Rohatgi, in his address, said the world was "stressed" on



account of rapid industrialisation and "it is for us that we correct the imbalance as the threat of disaster looms large".

"In the last 25 years (since CRZ laws) what has happened is domestic and foreign tourism which would have come to India is now diverted to our neighbours in South East Asia and if you were to visit any of these countries, you have hotels on the coast, you have buildings right in the middle of the sea accessible by boat.

"I wonder as if it is not that they don't have the concern for sustainable development. If they can do it then it is time for us - the government, courts and stakeholders to see it. Some kind of audit and then they can take a call. What I would like to propose we should not see the environmental court as adversarial jurisdiction..." he said.

The top law officer complimented the National Green Tribunal for its proactive role and said the green panel has established itself as a strong court where people can knock on its doors and complain about environmental degradation.
: Chief Minister V Narayanasamy today charged Dredging Corporation of India with delaying desilting sand in the estuary off Thengaithittu coast here and said they should compensate fishermen for loss of livelihood.

Speaking to reporters here, he said the delay had resulted in hardship to the fishermen as they could not carry on their operations for the last four months.

DCI should compensate fishermen for loss of their livelihood as they could not navigate the sand mounds to put out to sea for fishing, he said.

"Fishermen are raising a banner of revolt and protesting against the government and hence DCI should announce package of relief to them", he said.

Narayanasamy said he had spoken to the DCI Chairman more than thrice on the matter.

He said DCI should have completed dredging in four months as the work was assigned to them on a request by Lt Governor Kiran Bedi to the Shipping Ministry.

He said DCI should have desilted three lakh cubic metres sand since work was taken up in October last, but had desilted only 60,000 cubic metres.

He said government had now allowed a private player join dredging operations. While DCI would dredge three lakh cubic metres, the private player would dredge one lakh cubic metres.

This decision was taken after taking into consideration the need for speedy dredging in the interest of fishermen and also to ensure the initiative to develop Puducherry port into a satellite port in association with Chennai Port Trust turned out to be successful for movement of cargo vessels.

He claimed there had been overwhelming response from a large number of overseas entrepreneurs after government unveiled its new Industrial Policy to start pharmaceutical, food processing and other non polluting industries.

He said government had introduced a single window system to process the applications and is ready with several packages of incentives and subsidies, including the capital, interest and infrastructure subsidies to attract investors.

Narayanasamy said government had taken steps to raise generation of gas based power in Pondicherry Power Corporation in Karaikal. The Energy Ministry had promised allocation of additional natural gas from GAIL to it to raise power generation from 22 MW to 100 MW.

On the recent deaths of three patients in the hemo diyalsis unit in the government medical college hospital here, he said government was awaiting reports of experts to identify the real cause of the deaths.Once the full report was received appropriate action would be taken, he said.

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Amid calls for opposition unity to halt BJP's juggernaut, a senior TMC leader today said cobbling "some package" just to defeat the saffron party was not going to work, but the credibility, which he stated, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has.

TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi praised Modi for also being energetic and he said that fact that people were convinced about the prime minister's leadership and that the youngsters were supporting him needs to be faced.

The former Union minister also hailed his party chief Mamata Banerjee for having "personal credibility" and "single-handedly" dislodging Left Front from power in West Bengal.

Stating even one week is considered as "too long" a period in politics, Trivedi, however, said (the possibility of a grand alliance in) the future was "still open".

"In order to defeat somebody, you cobble some package together, not having the kind of ideology which you have, then I don't think this is going to work.

"What is going to work today, is the credibility," Trivedi said during a panel discussion organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.

Trivedi's remarks come against the backdrop of Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and the Left parties calling for "unity" among "secular democratic" parties, particularly post BJP's emphatic victory in politically crucial Uttar Pradesh.

Banerjee, too, in a recent interview to a channel had suggested that political scenario at the national stage will change soon, if opposition parties like the SP and the BSP forget their differences and unite against the BJP.

He further added "And at the moment...The big trump card for the Prime Minister is, he has the credibility, he has the energy. And people are convinced, the youth is with him. Let's face the fact."



Trivedi though cautioned that with the opposition emaciated, the BJP has bigger responsibility as people will be expecting more from it.

Besides Trivedi, BJD leader Baijayant Panda and BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi took part in the panel discussion.

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Actor Colin Farrell is in negotiations to join Eva Green and Danny DeVito in Tim Burton's "Dumbo".

The "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" actor is expected to play the role of Holt, the widowed father of two kids from Kentucky, in the upcoming Disney live-action movie.

Green is tapped as Colette, a French trapeze artist who works for the evil Vandemere, and DeVito who will play Medici, the man who runs a smaller circus acquired by the villain who is yet to be cast.

"Dumbo" centers on a big-eared circus elephant mocked for his large ears, but he learns to use them as wings to fly.

The project will reunite Green with Tim Burton who directed her in his previous two movies "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" and "Dark Shadows".

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A first-ever conference was held here bringing together various constituencies that have an interest in India and discussing the latest developments and the best practices of doing business in India.

The two-day Houston India Conference was hosted by Asia Society Texas Center which began yesterday. The theme of the Conference is 'Make in India -The Inside Story'.

"Texas has a vibrant Indian-American population that has contributed immensely to the understanding between our two countries across business, academia, the sciences. We would like to take Texas Can do spirit back home," Consul General of India in Houston, Dr Anupam Ray said.

Indo-US relations will be the defining partnership of the 21st century, he added.

Speakers included, included Manjari Chatterjee Miller, an assistant professor of internal relations at Boston University,along with Nisha Biswal, former Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs and Nagaraj Naidu,Joint Secretary, Economic DiplomacyMinistry of External Affairs, Kalikesh Singh DeoMP, World Bank South AsiaExecutive Director SC Garg in Houston andDhruva Jaishankar, Fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution India Center, New Delhi.

The Conference brings serious dialogue on India andMake in indiato Houston, the organisers said.

"Conference was the brain child of theConsulate General of India in Houston, Dr Ray in partnership with non-profit group India House, Indo-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston," according to the conference Chair, Jiten Agarwal.

Though the sentiment among panelists, which included political commentators and Indian government officials, was positive for the future of US-India relations, they noted that there's uncertainty over how such they will evolve under President Donald Trump's administration.

Houston India Conference is designed to bring together the various constituencies that have an interest in India, and discuss with them the latest developments and the best practices of doing business in India.

The central focus of the conference is to provide a collaboration platform and share today's India story with the audience in Texas who are interested in investing in India, by the people who are playing an important role in shaping up the modern.

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Congress in Karnataka has petitioned the Election Commission against state BJP B S Yeddyurappa accusing him of asking voters to take oath in the name of god that they will vote for his party candidate in Gundlupet bypolls, in return for development once he becomes the Chief Minister.

Accusing Yeddyurappa of "corrupt practice" at the instance of party candidate Niranjan Kumar, it said they are liable for punishment as per the provisions of law, and requested the Commission to take cognizance and initiate appropriate criminal proceedings against both of them.

Congress has also sought disqualification of Niranjan Kumar from contesting the bypoll to uphold the "high principles of the democracy" and to have a free and fair election in the interest of justice.

"....He (Yeddyurappa) appealed to the voters to cast their votes in favour of BJP candidate Niranjan Kumar stating that he is going to become a Chief Minister of Karnataka and he will stick to his promises/words and he will take adoption of Gundlupet Assembly constituency for development," said the letter to the Chief Election Commissioner signed by some Congress leaders including MLC Ugrappa.

It said further he promised on an oath in the name of God that he is not going to deceive the voters of Gundlupet.

"Further Yeddyurappa demanded voters to take a oath in the name of god stating that they are going to vote in favour of BJP candidate, and on his demand the voters who were in that meeting took an oath in the name of God stating that they are going to vote in favour of the BJP candidate," it added.

Congress said this is nothing but an "undue influence" on the voters of the Gundlupet Assembly constituency to vote in favour of the BJP candidate and also "promoting enmity" between different classes of citizens.

The April 9 bypolls are being held for Gundlupet and Nanjangud constituencies respectively following the death of Cooperative Minister Mahadeva Prasad and resignation of V Srinivas Prasad as Congress MLA after he was dropped from the ministry.

While Srinivas Prasad is now the BJP candidate from the Nanjangud constituency, Congress has fielded Kalale Keshavamurthy, who had contested the 2013 assembly polls on JD(S) ticket.

In Gundlupet, Congress has fielded Mahadeva Prasad's wife Geeta Mahadeva Prasad and BJP has fielded C S Niranjan Kumar as its candidate.

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A holiday at home in Bangladesh turned tragic for a student studying in Malaysia when he was killed by a crocodile today after he poked at it.

Asaduzzaman Rony, 29, a student at a Malaysian university, had come to the Tengragiri Eco-Park in Barguna's Taltoli Upazila, about 330 kms from here, with his friends and family, bdnews24 reported.

"He and his cousin Al-Amin crossed the boundary set for visitors and poked the crocodile with a stick to get a closer look of it," a senior police officer said.

"The crocodile bit him and dragged him inside water," he said.

The body of Rony, who had come to Bangladesh for a vacation, was recovered around 4 PM, he said.

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BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha today demanded that Jinnah House, the residence of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in south Mumbai, be demolished and a cultural centre be built in its place.

Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on the budgetary demands of the Public Works Department (PWD), the MLA said, "The Jinnah residence in south Mumbai was the place from where the conspiracy of partition was hatched."



"Jinnah House is a symbol of the partition. The structure should be demolished," he said.

Lodha said after the Parliament passed the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah House was the property of the Indian government. "Demolishing the property is the only option," he said.

"The PWD is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the building and lakhs of rupees is spend over this," Lodha added.

According to the legislator, after the passage of the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah's heirs cannot stake claim to the Jinnah house.

"The structure should be demolished and a cultural centre highlighting Maharashtra's culture and pride should be built. The cultural centre should also exhibit the glorious history of India," Lodha said.

The grand house built by Jinnah is located in Malabar Hill area in south Mumbai.

The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, was passed by voice vote in the Lok Sabha on March 14, incorporating the amendments made by the Rajya Sabha last week.

As per the Act, successors of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India.

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The police today seized demonetised currency notes with the face value of Rs 30 lakh from two persons.

Police had received a tip-off that a man identified as Tushar Patel was going to arrive in Khatodara area here, carrying demonetised currency with him.

He was acting as an agent and looking to exchange the currency for 30 per cent commission, the police learnt.

Following which, Patel and his friend Champak Shah were held and the cash was seized. Further probe was on.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today lashed out again in the diplomatic row with the European Union saying it would be "easier" if the EU just rejected Turkey's bid to join the bloc.

Turkey and Europe are locked in a bitter dispute after Germany and the Netherlands blocked Turkish ministers from campaigning in the local Turkish communities for a 'yes' vote on boosting Erdogan's powers in next month's referendum.

"What? If a 'yes' comes out on April 16, they would not take us into the European Union? Oh, If only they could give this decision! They would make our work easier," Erdogan said at a rally in the southern city of Antalya.

Despite severely strained relations with Brussels, no EU leader has openly said a 'yes' vote would spell the end of Turkey's already-embattled bid to join the bloc.

But Erdogan told the rally that "April 16 would be a breaking point," referring to EU-Turkey relations if the 'yes' vote wins.

"We will put this (EU-Turkey) business on the table because Turkey is no one's whipping boy," he added, indicating that Ankara could reconsider its relationship with Brussels.

And among some European politicians, there has been discussion over what the future of Turkey's membership process would be.

Kati Piri, the European Parliament's Rapporteur for Turkey, wrote for Politico Europe earlier this week that if a majority of voters approved the constitutional changes, "the European Parliament will have to assess whether the country's new governance structure meets the EU's Copenhagen accession criteria".

In the referendum Turks will decide whether to approve constitutional changes that would create an executive presidency and would see the role of prime minister axed.

While the government argues it is necessary for political stability and would avoid fragile coalition governments, critics fear it will lead to one-man rule.

Erdogan has repeatedly accused European countries including Germany of using "Nazi measures" - comments that have been condemned by the bloc's leaders.

"For as long as you continue to call me dictator, I will continue to call you fascist, Nazi," Erdogan retorted.

Another contentious issue is the death penalty, which the Turkish president said again today he would approve if it was passed by parliament and brought to him.

"What? If the death penalty is introduced for the 249 people killed, Turkey has no place in Europe. Oh, let it not be!" he said, referring to the number of people killed during last July's failed coup.

Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 as part of its bid to join the EU.

But Brussels has repeatedly made clear that any move to bring it back would scupper Turkey's efforts to join the bloc.

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Facebook has removed a controversial poem of poet Srijato Bandyopadhyay after a Siliguri student lodged a criminal case against him for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of the Hindus.

The removal of 12-line poem 'Curse,' posted on Facebook on March 19, the day Yogi Adityanath was sworn-in as Uttar Pradesh chief minister, follows amid the poet too complaining to the police of having received threat over the poem.

"I have seen today that the Facebook authorities have removed the poem," Bandyopadhyay said here today.

He said many comments, which were on his wall after the poem was posted, were of "extremely poor taste."



Bandyopadhyay's poem 'Curse' had triggered controversy with a Siliguri college student lodging a complaint with the police there against Srijato for allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments.

The student, a member of the group Hindu Samhati, had in his complaint said Srijato's poem, particularly its last two lines, hurt the Hindus' religious sentiments.

The police had registered the case on March 22 and the charge, if proved carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and/or fine.

Early this week on Thursday, the poet went to the Kolkata police headquarters and met senior police officials over the alleged objectionable posts on his Facebook wall in reaction to the poem posted by him.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on same evening told a TV channel that "There will be no problem (for the poet) and I will take full care.

"I have asked the police to conduct an investigation into the matter and submit the report to me. Do not worry," she had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian-origin British director Gurinder Chadha has been honoured with the Sikh Jewel Award for 2017for her immense contribution to British cinema.

Chadha, whose films include "Bhaji on the Beach", "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Bride and Prejudice", received the award from UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon at the Vaisakhi Dinner organised by the British Sikh Association at the Lancaster Hotel here Thursday night.

The High Commissioner of India to the UK, Y K Sinha, who was the Guest of Honour, was also present on the dais.

Chadha's latest film, "Viceroy's House" tells the true story of the final five months of British rule in India and coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Independence of India and the founding of Pakistan.

Receiving the award, Chadha said, "Some people use religion to divide - that is the theme of my film - and also the atrocities inflicted on us. It is a fair film."



Jasminder Singh, OBE, Chairman and founder of Edwardian Hotels,Jagjeet Singh Sohal, a writer, broadcaster ad communications consultant, and Khalsa Aid founded in 1999, also receivedthe Sikh Jewel Awards.

In his address, Sinha said, "We were really touched when we sawthe films screened on the occasion depicting the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers, mostly Sikhs and Gurkhas in the two world wars, winning more laurels than others.

"Sacrifices made by Sikhs are always remembered in India. The Government of India and the people of India gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by Sikhs."



Fallon said he would be visiting India next month and "utilise the opportunity to have greater defence cooperation between Britain and India."



"Sadly, the contribution of over a million Indian soldiers in each great war is not taught in British schools and if it were, there would be a better understanding about our shared history," Dr Rami Ranger, CBE, Chairman of the British Sikh Association, said.

He urged theDefence Secretary to convey "our request to the Education Secretary that the contribution of Commonwealth countries in preserving our freedom is taught in schools, especially in the wake of Brexit when we will need to revisit and renew our tried and tested bond of friendship with these allies."



Ranger also asked Virendra Sharma, MP and Councillor Julien Bell, leader of the Ealing Council to grantthe Association the opportunity to erect a befitting memorial in Southall to pay tribute to a community for its supreme sacrifices for our freedom.

The British Sikh Association also signed the Armed Forces Covenant alongside Fallon, to formally recognise the strong ties between the Sikh community and the Armed Forces.

Fallon said "a diverse military is a strong military which



is why we're committed to making sure our forces better represent the society they serve - this Covenant signing is yet another demonstration of this.

"Sikhs have a rich history with the Armed Forces, from their unsurpassed courage at the Battle of Saragarhi, 120 years ago, to the hundreds of thousands of Sikhs, who fought for Britain during the First and Second World Wars. We will work with the Association to ensure that tradition continues," he added.

170 Sikhs currently serve in the Royal Navy, Army and the Royal Air Force, with many more around the UK serving as Reservists.

Ranger said that the "Covenant demonstrates our commitment as citizens of the United Kingdom to our illustrious Armed Forces, whilst at the same time recognising their round-the-clock, 365 days a year commitment for our freedom.
A fire broke out at Ordnance Factory, Khamaria (OFK) in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh this evening, setting off a series of explosion.

No casualty has been reported yet, District Collector Mahesh Choudhary said.

"Smoke is billowing from a section of OFK. Explosions are still taking place," Choudhary told PTI over phone from the spot at around 8 PM.

Fire brigade personnel are trying hard to put out the blaze, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a mixed pattern of trading, groundnut and mustard oil prices moved up at the wholesale oils and oilseeds market during the week due to pick up in demand from vanaspati millers and retailers.

However, sesame and cottonseed oils finished lower.

Linseed and castor oils in the non-edible section, ended higher on increased offtake by consuming industries.

Marketmen said besides pick up in demand from vanaspati millers and retailers, fall in supplies from producing regions mainly led to rise in groundnut and mustard oil prices.

They said, however, adequate stocks against muted demand kept pressure on sesame and cottonseed oil prices.

In the national capital, groundnut mill delivery (Gujarat) oil rose by Rs 200 to Rs 10,100 per quintal. Groundnut solvent refined followed suit and edged up by Rs 25 to Rs 1,825-1,925 per tin.

Mustard expeller (Dadri) oil also went up by Rs 50 at Rs 8,400 per quintal.

On the other hand, sesame mill delivery and cottonseed mill delivery (Haryana) oils declined by Rs 100 and Rs 50 to Rs 8,200 and Rs 6,650 per quintal respectively.

Meanwhile, palmolein (rbd) and palmolein (Kandla) oils moved in a narrow range in limited deals and settled at previous week's levels of Rs 5,750 and Rs 5,800 per quintal.

Soyabean refined mill delivery (Indore) and soyabean degum (Kandla) oils also maintained a steady trend at Rs 6,950 and Rs 6,650 per quintal, respectively.

In the non-edible section, linseed oil rose by Rs 50 to Rs 9,800 per quintal on pick up in paint industries demand.

Castor oil ended higher by a similar margin to Rs 9,900-10,000 per quintal on increased industrial offtake.

Grains: Prices of rice basmati and non-basmati firmed up



at the wholesale grains market during the week on the back of rising demand from retailers against restricted supplies.

However, wheat and barley eased due to reduced offtake against ample stocks position.

Marketmen said an uptick in demand from retailers against tight stocks position on fall in supplies from producing regions mainly attributed the rise in rice basmati and non-basmati prices.

In the national capital, rice basmati common and Pusa-1121 variety rose by Rs 100 each to Rs 7,800-7,900 and Rs 6,350-7,800 per quintal, respectively.

Non-basmati rice, permal raw, wand and IR-8 followed suit and finished higher at 2,300-2,350, Rs 2,450-2,500 and Rs 2,050-2,100 from previous levels of Rs 2,275-2,300, Rs 2,400-2,450 and Rs 2,025-2,050 per quintal respectively.

On the other hand, wheat dara (for mills) declined by Rs 10 to Rs 1,840-1,850 per quintal. Atta chakki delivery followed suit and traded lower by Rs 20 to Rs 1,900-1,930 per quintal.

Atta flour mills and maida also settled lower at Rs 1,000-1,010 and Rs 1,100-1,110 as compared to previous levels of Rs 1,030-1,040 and Rs 1,130-1,140 per 50 kg, respectively.

Other bold grains, like barley dropped by Rs 50 to Rs 1,500-1,520, while maize declined by Rs 25 to Rs 1,515-1,525 per quintal respectively.

Pulses: The wholesale pulses market depicted a firm trend



during the week as most of pulses led by gram prices spurted by up to Rs 850 per quintal on speculative buying by stockists, driven by rising demand from retailers amid tight stocks positions on fall in supplies from producing belts.

Traders said speculative buying by stockists, triggered by paucity of stocks in the markets on restricted arrivals from producing regions amid pick up in demand from retailers, mainly pushed up gram and other pulses prices.

Fresh enquiries from dal mills also supported the upmove, they said.

In the national capital, gram, gramdal local and best quality rallied to Rs 5,800-6,300, Rs 6,700-7,000 and Rs 7,100-7,200 from previous week's levels of Rs 5,300-5,450, Rs 6,100-6,400 and Rs 6,500-6,600 per quintal, respectively.

Kabuli gram small variety followed suit and surged by Rs 500 to Rs 9,800-10,100 per quintal.

Besan Shaktibhog and Rajdhani quoted higher at Rs 2,700 each instead of Rs 2,550 each per 35 kg bag.

Urad and its dal chilka (local) also climbed by Rs 600 each to Rs 7,100-8,000 and Rs 7,300-7,400 per quintal respectively. Its dal best quality and dhoya enquired higher by a similar margin to Rs 7,400-7,900 and Rs 7,800-8,000 per quintal, respectively.

Arhar and its dal dara variety shot up by Rs 350 and Rs 400 to Rs 4,900 and Rs 6,900-8,700 per quintal, respectively.

Moong and its dal chilka local jumped up by Rs 300 each to Rs 5,400-5,600 and Rs 5,900-6,100 per quintal, respectively.

Its dal dhoya local and best quality traded higher by the same margin to Rs 6,500-7,000 and Rs 7,000-7,200 per quintal, respectively.

Masoor small and bold edged up to Rs 4,900-5,050 and Rs 4,950-5,150 from previous levels of Rs 4,700-4,850 and Rs 4,750-4,950 per quintal. Its dal local and best quality moved up by Rs 200 each to Rs 5,300-5,800 and Rs 5,400-5,900 per quintal.

Malka local, best quality and moth were up Rs 200 each to Rs 5,500-5,700, Rs 5,600-5,800 and Rs 3,850-4,250 per quintal, respectively.

In line with overall trend, rajmah chitra traded higher by Rs 100 to Rs 7,600-10,400 per quintal.

Dryfruits: Dryfruit prices rose at the wholesale market



in the national capital during the week largely on increased buying by stockists and retailers, supported by rising domestic and export demand.

Tight stocks following restricted arrivals from producing regions and overseas markets too influenced prices.

Sentiment remained firm mostly on increased offtake by stockists and retailers, triggered by coming 'Navratras' demand, market participants said.

Almond (California) prices rose by Rs 200 to Rs 17,200-17,400 per 40 kg, while its kernel spurted to Rs 610-615 from previous closing of Rs 605-610 per kg.

Almond gurbandi and girdhi prices were up by Rs 100 each to conclude at Rs 12,100-12,300 and Rs 5,500-5,600 per 40 kg.

Cashew kernel No 180, No 210, No 240 and No 320 rose up to Rs 15 to settle at Rs 1,070-1,080, Rs 940-950, Rs 890-900 and Rs 790-800 per kg, respectively.

Its broken pieces (2, 4 and 8) edged up by Rs 10 each at Rs 710-760, Rs 700-750 and Rs 600-660 per kg, respectively.

Copra prices traded higher at Rs 8,700-11,500 as against previous closing of Rs 8,400-10,900 per quintal.

Coconut powder increased by Rs 200 to conclude at Rs 3,900-4,300 per 25 kgs.

Kishmish Indian yellow and green prices rose by Rs 600 each to finish at Rs 4,500-5,000 and Rs 5,000-8,500 per 40 kg bag, respectively.

Pistachio hairati and peshwari prices rose by Rs 10 each to conclude at Rs 1,450-1,500 and Rs 1,550-1,600 per kg, respectively.

Walnut and its kernel prices also increased by Rs 10 each to end at Rs 300-450 and Rs 810-1,460 per kg, respectively.

Sugar: Subdued tendency exhibited at the wholesale sugar



market in the national capital during the week under review following constant supplies from mills amid selective buying by stockists and bulk consumers registered a decline up to Rs 100 per quintal.

Marketmen said besides muted demand from stockist and bulk consumers including ice-cream and soft-drink makers, persistent arrivals from mills mainly brought down the sweetener prices.

Sugar ready M-30 and S-30 prices dipped by Rs 100 each to finish the week at Rs 3,850-3,910 and Rs 3,840-3,900 per quintal.

Mill delivery M-30 and S-30 prices also lost Rs 55 each during the week to settle at Rs 3,580-3,660 and Rs 3,570-3,650 as compared with previous week's close of Rs 3,620-3,715 and Rs 3,600-3,705 per quintal.

Among millgate section, sugar Sakoti weakened the most by Rs 70 to end at Rs 3,580, while Budhana dropped by Rs 65 to Rs 3,600 per quintal.

Sugar Dorala, Asmoli and Modinagar slid by Rs 60 each to finish at Rs 3,600, Rs 3,640 and Rs 3,600, followed by Mawana, Kinnoni, Thanabhavan, Simbholi, Ramala, Anupshaher and Morna by Rs 55 each to Rs 3,600, Rs 3,660, Rs 3,600, Rs 3,640, Rs 3,585, Rs 3,575 and Rs 3,585 per quintal, respectively.

Prices of Khatuli, Baghpat and Chandpur surrendered Rs 50 each to Rs 3,650, Rs 3,590 and Rs 3,580, while Nazibabad fell by Rs 40 to Rs 3,590 per quintal.

Meanwhile, sugar Dhanora moved down by Rs 35 to Rs 3,635 and Dhampur by Rs 25 to Rs 3,605 per quintal.

Jaggery: The wholesale gur (Jaggery) market revealed a



buoyant tendency during the week under review largely bolstered by the paucity of stocks amid brisk buying by stockist and retailers, recorded handsome gains up to Rs 300 per quintal.

Muzaffarnagar and Muradnagar gur markets also uncovered a firm trend on the scarcity of stocks and speculative buying, disclosed the heavy rise of Rs 350 per quintal.

Marketmen said fall in production in manufacturing belts on thin supplies of sugar-cane growing regions because of lower production estimate this year mainly zoomed up the gur prices.

Besides, speculative buying by stockists and retailers, sparked by higher advice from neighbouring states too fuelled up the prices, they quoted.

In Delhi, gur Pedi prices spurted by Rs 300 during the week to settle at Rs 3,300-3,400, while Dhayya and Shakkar prices surged up by Rs 200 each to end the week at Rs 3,400-3,500 and Rs 3,600-3,700 per quintal.

Gur Chakku prices also hardened by Rs 100 to close the week at Rs 3,200-3,300 per quintal.

At Muradnagar, gur pedi prices climbed up from last week's close of Rs 2,650-2,700 to end at Rs 2,975-3,050, showing a sharp upsurge of Rs 350 per quintal.

Gur dhayya also soared by Rs 300 to conclude the week at Rs 3,050-3,100 per quintal.

A similar trend prevailed in Muzzafarnagar gur market, prices of gur Khurpa and Laddoo shot up from previous week's close of Rs 2,500-2,550 and Rs 2,700-2,800 to end the week at Rs 2,800-2,850 and Rs 3,000-3,050, revealed a bounce of Rs 300 per quintal each.

Gur chakku prices also flared up by Rs 150 to settle the week at Rs 2,850-3,050 per quintal.

The brisk demand from beer makers and thin ready stocks position ascertained a hike of Rs 100 in gur Raskat prices at Rs 2,600-2,650 per quintal.

Kirana: In a mixed pattern of trading, pepper and jeera



prices rose in the national capital during the week on increased buying by stockists and retailers, driven by domestic and export demand while a few others remained weak owing to slackened demand against adequate stocks.

Traders said increased buying by stockists and retailers against tight arrivals from producing regions mainly pushed up pepper and jeera prices.

Adequate stocks position against lack of buying support helped other spices remained weak, they said.

Black pepper prices rose by Rs 10 to conclude at Rs 660-810 per kg on brisk buying by exporters.

Coriander prices increased by Rs 500 to settle at Rs 6,500-13,500 per quintal.

Dry ginger and kalaunji rose up to Rs 500 to finish at Rs 11,500-16,500 and Rs 13,000-13,500 per quintal, respectively.

Turmeric prices higher by Rs 200 to close at Rs 7,500-10,800 per quintal.

Jeera common and jeera best also traded higher by Rs 800 each to end at Rs 18,600-18,800 and Rs 20,300-20,800 per quintal in view of restricted arrivals from producing belts on reports of lower production estimates amid pick-up in domestic and export demand.

On the other hand, cardamom prices such as chitridar, robin, bold and extra bold drifted up to Rs 20 to settle at Rs 1,330-1,430, Rs 1,250-1,260, Rs 1,280-1,300 and Rs 1,370-1,380 per kg, respectively.

Poppyseed (Turkey, U.P and MP-RAJ) also declined by Rs 10 each to end at Rs 370-380, Rs 360-370 and Rs 380-405 per kg, respectively.
Gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot dead a Hamas official who was freed by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap, the interior ministry in the Palestinian enclave said.

Mazen Faqha was released along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years.

Iyad al-Bozum, an interior ministry spokesman in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, said that gunmen opened fire on Faqha in the Tell al-Hama neighbourhood.

"An investigation has been launched," he said, giving no further details.

Police spokesman Ayman al-Batniji said Faqha had "four bullets in his head" and said Israel and its "collaborators" were responsible for the killing.

"We know how to respond to this crime," he added.

Faqha was a senior Hamas official in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but after his release Israel transferred him to Gaza.

The Israeli army refused to comment. But Khalil al-Haya, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, said: "This assassination does not serve anybody but the occupiers (Israel), it is of no interest to the other parties.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India's Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna put up a spirited fight against top seeded Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri but couldn't avert his first defeat in the Shenzhen Longgang Chess Grand Master tournament here today.

World No. 14 Harikrishna, who started the day atop the leader board, succumbed to the precise play of the World No. 11.

"I made a basic error at the opening, with my na5," conceded Harikrishna after the loss. "I should have repeated with nf6 and nf5 instead. But Anish played well and deserved the win," he added.

The Indian star has now slipped to the fourth position, with one victory, one defeat and one draw and 1.5 points in his kitty. Anish, on the other hand, has risen to the top place.

Harikrishna will look to bounce back from this setback tomorrow, when he takes on Yangyi Yu of China. Yu also has 1.5 points, having drawn all his games so far.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress party today asked Kerala Pradesh Vice President M M Hasan to take charge of the Pradesh Congress till a regular PCC chief is appointed in the state.

"M M Hasan presently vice president of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee will hold the charge of the Pradesh Congress with immediate effect till a regular PCC president is appointed," AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said in a statement.

Kerala PCC chief V M Sudheeran had resigned earlier this month hinting at a larger organisational revamp in the party that has been struggling to find its feet after its drubbing in the last assembly polls.

Sudheeran had cited health reasons for quitting the post. However, there has been no action after his resignation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Produce Processing and Marketing Corporation (HPMC) would import chloropicrin chemical, which is very useful in combating apple diseases, an official spokesman here said.

The state government has obtained necessary permission from the Central Insecticides Board, Union Ministry of Agriculture, for import of chloropicrin chemical along with machinery and equipments, he said.

HPMC would soon import the chemical from M/s Trinity Mfg, USA, for providing it to University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni for trials, he added.

A spokesperson of the Horticulture Department said that chloropicrin chemical would be used to combat serious problems of Specific Apple Replant Disease (SARD) and would go a long way in managing soil borne pathogens affecting other fruits, vegetables and floriculture crops.

The chemicals would be extremely helpful in treating the soil in poly-houses between crop cycles.

He said chloropicrin was the best chemical world over which had been an effective combatant in the war against SARD.

The chemical was so far not registered in India and thus could not be manufactured or imported from outside for use in soil treatment.

Keeping in view the importance of the chemical, necessary steps were initiated under ambitious Rs 1,134 crore World Bank funded HP Horticulture Development Project for getting the chemical registered in the country.

He said now the Union Government has given permission for import of chloropicrin, multi-locational trials would be conducted in Shimla, Solan and Kullu districts during current year, paving way for its registration in India.

This was one of the major initiatives by the state government which would especially benefit the apple growers of Shimla, Kullu and Mandi districts where the orchards had become too old and senile and need immediate replacement with latest varieties and root stocks, he said.

The spokesperson said it had been a matter of concern for the farmers, extension officers and scientists that new plantations did not perform well owing to SARD that occurs when apple trees were planted in soil where similar species had been grown previously.

SARD was not only limited to apple trees but it also affects roses and a number of other fruit trees including cherry, citrus, peach, pear, plum and quince.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India's new envoy to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri today arrived here and would submit his letters of credence to President Bidya Devi Bhandari tomorrow.

Puri, a 1982 batch IFS officer, was on March 10 appointed as India's 24th ambassador to Nepal. His predecessor Ranjit Rae completed his term on February 28.

Puri, born in 1959, is scheduled to submit his letters of credence to President Bhandari tomorrow, according to reports.

Before being assigned to Kathmandu mission, he was India's Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Prior to Brussels, he was India's Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York from 2009 to 2013. He was also a senior member of India's Security Council team during the years 2011 and 2012, when India served on the Security Council.

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Public sector Indian Bank today said all its branches, which were authorised to take up government transactions, would function on all days till April one considering closing of financial year.

"As per the directions of RBI and Government of India, all authorised branches for government transactions would function on all days from March 25 to April one," the city-based bank said in a press release.

"We request general public to utilise the service for paying taxes on time", it said.

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Rapper Jay Z is reportedly set to produce a series about Trayvon Martin with the Weinstein Company.

The music star and the production company will make an ambitious series of film and television projects about the African American teen, who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, in Sanford, Florida in 2012.

According to Variety, Jay Z and Weinstein Company won a heated bidding war for the rights to two books, "Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It" and "Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin".

The Weinstein Company confirmed the deal, but refused to offer comment.

"Suspicion Nation" is written by Lisa Bloom and recounts her experience covering the trial for NBC, while "Rest in Power" is by Trayvon's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin.

The latter tells a more personal story, looking at Trayvon's childhood and the aftermath of his death.

Jay Z is reportedly making a six-part docu-series as part of a first-look deal he signed with the Weinstein Company last September.

The indie studio will also develop a narrative feature film.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Industrialist Sajjan Jindal on Saturday said his will invest Rs 7,000 crore more in the ports sector over next three years to create assets in the country as well as abroad.

The company is also looking at diluting up to 15 per cent stake in the ports operating company, JSW Infrastructure, to a private equity player soon, and take it public by 2019.

"We will be investing Rs 9,000 crore more in the ports sector till 2020 (including the Rs 2000 crore already invested)," he told reporters at JSW Infrastructure-run flagship port in Ratnagiri district.

The company has already invested Rs 2,000 crore in the project at Jaigad and the overall investment plan for the company includes Rs 2,000 crore for capacity expansion here, Jindal added.

Of the remaining Rs 5,000 crore of investments (excluding the Rs 4,000 crore in Jaigad), Jindal said the company is looking at putting up four berths in Paradip that will have a 50 mtpa capacity and a greenfield project in Fujairah in the UAE.

The Rs 4,000-crore Jaigad Port project has a capacity of 40 million tonnes per annum now, which will be doubled by 2020 and raised further to 125 mtpa by 2025, he said.

At the company level, total capacity target is 200 mtpa by 2020, Jindal said, adding the port now handles dry bulk cargo but has plans to enter container handling.

One of the biggest opportunities that the port is eyeing is the proposed public sector mega refinery by IOC- HPCL-BPCL in the Konkan belt of Maharashtra, even though the exact location is not finalised yet.

Jindal said JSW is "pitching" to act as a "captive port" for the proposed refinery project which will host the very large crude carriers to ferry in crude, and also ships to evacuate refined products.

The has tied up with the Hiranandani Group, which is investing up to Rs 4,000 crore to construct an LNG terminal at the Jaigad Port and then evacuate the cargo through a dedicated pipeline that will be connected with GAIL's pipeline at Dabhol.

It can be noted that the Ratnagiri Gas & Power (formerly Dabhol Power) does the same work already, but Jindal is confident that the growing market will ensure there are opportunities for all.

The is also looking at sites in the Palghar district which is north of Mumbai, to build a greenfield port, Jindal said, without specifying the details.

Jindal said the Palghar project will be independent and not a part of the Wadhawan Port being developed by the Centre and the state.

He said the company, which primarily handles captive cargo for group companies, had a turnover of Rs 4,000 crore and a pretax profit of Rs 800 crore in last financial year.

JSW Infrastructure is fully-owned by the Jindal family now and is looking at first diluting up to 15 per cent before launching an IPO, Jindal said.

It has decided on milestones before it going public, he added, specifying that a capacity of utilisation of 100 mtpa is essential before it goes public, which at present is around 30 mtpa and 100 mtpa target can be achieved by 2019 and will be jacked up further to 140 mtpa by 2020.

The total debt of the company stands at Rs 1,500 crore at present.

With a focus on port connectivity, the company has invested Rs 50 crore on a 42-km road link with the National Highway 17, which was inaugurated today.

The company also laid the foundation stone for a 34-km rail link between Jaigad and Digni on the Konkan Railway route, which includes 18-km of routes passing through tunnels.

Jindal said establishing rail connectivity between Chiplun and Karad on the Deccan Plateau being carried out by the government now will enhance the port's addressable hinterland.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today said the Kalpana Chawla Medical College in Karnal would be inaugurated next month.

The admission process to the college, which is named after Indian American astronaut late Kalpana Chawla, would start from the upcoming academic session, he said after inaugurating the Post Office Passport Seva Kendra here.

Karnal, Panipat and Jind have been linked with this passport office, Khattar said.

Passport offices are being opened in 450 districts in the country, including in three districts of Haryana, namely Faridabad, Karnal and Hisar, the Chief Minister told reporters.

To a question on the Jat agitation in the state, he said a meeting was held recently with the leaders of the community.

Khattar said they were lifting their 'dharnas' in the state gradually.

The Chief Minister hoped that this matter will be resolved in a cordial manner.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
All major edible oil manufacturers and processors have agreed to fortify cooking oil with Vitamin A & D within the next three months, the food regulator FSSAI said today.

Fortification means deliberately increasing the content of essential micronutrients in food to improve its quality.

This decision is the outcome of a meeting convened by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) recently here. Over 130 persons, including the representatives of the edible oil industry and its associations, and academia attended this meeting among others.

The FSSAI is promoting food fortification in a big way and had last year issued standards for fortification of salt with iodine and iron, of vegetable oil and milk with Vitamin A and D, wheat flour and rice with iron, folic acid, zinc, vitamin B12, vitamin A and some other micronutrients.

"All major edible oil manufacturing and processing sector decides to fortify the edible oil with vitamin A and D within the next three months," FSSAI said in a statement.

"During the deliberations industry partners, including Patanjali, resolved to adopt fortification of all their edible oil variants as an industry norm and have agreed to initiate fortification within 8-12 weeks," it added.

As per the National Institute of Nutrition, there is a high prevalence of vitamin A and D deficiencies amongst Indian population. Almost 50-90 per cent of the Indian population, across all socio-economic groups, suffers from vitamin A and D deficiencies.

FSSAI said the fortification of edible oils with vitamin A and D, offers the most feasible and cost-effective intervention, as India has a fairly high consumption of edible oils, ranging from 12-18 kg per annum per person.

The country imported 14.5 million tonnes of vegetable oils in the 2015-16 oil year (November-October) to meet its domestic demand.

"Food fortification has a great potential to enrich the nutritional quality of various foods. It is encouraging to see such a traction and commitment within the food industry to initiate fortification of foods. This would indeed help India to improve the nutritional status of millions of people, both the poor and the rich." FSSAI's CEO Pawan Agarwal said.

The regulator also discussed the issues related to the sale of loose edible oil and the industry was advised to adopt small packaging of edible oil to discourage sale of loose oil.

At the behest of governments of Rajasthan and Gujarat, entire edible oil industry is already selling only fortified edible oil across these States.

Several state and UT governments like Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, etc. Have started providing fortified oil through the public funded programmes like the PDS, ICDS and MDM.

"Edible oil processors also decided to come out with oils in small pouches in order to ensure effective ban on loose oil sale in the country," the statement said.

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Union minister Venkaiah Naidu hit out at AAP government in Delhi for "lagging development" of the city due to its non-cooperation with the Centre and urged people to support BJP in the in the capital.

The urban development minister, addressing BJP's Panch Parmeshwar booth-level workers meet at Ramleela Grounds here, said that unless the Centre, state government and municipal bodies work together, a city cannot develop.

"In each city of the country development has sped up through Smart City and AMRUT schemes after BJP came to power. But, this city (Delhi) is lagging behind because the AAP government is not ready to develop Delhi together with Modi government," he said.

The Prime Minister has given the slogan of "Team India" envisaging cooperation among Centre, state governments and municipal corporations but the AAP government is not ready to even talk to him, he alleged.

Attacking Kejriwal, he said that wherever the AAP leader went he faced defeat and the same fate awaits him in Gujarat also.

"Kejriwal needs to be given the message to roam around the country and stay away from Delhi. He went to Varanasi and Goa and was defeated there. He will be treated similarly in Gujarat also".

Dubbing the municipal elections to be held next month as "Mini India elections", Naidu said people want to strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hands because he is an "able leader" dedicated to development.

Citing BJP's victories in recent Assembly elections, he said that the party is the only "united" political party of the country while other parties are "divided".

In a lavish praise of Modi, the minister said that he is a "messiah" of poor people.

"Modi is a messiah of poor people. He is a gift of God people feel," Naidu said citing various schemes launched by the Centre.

Coining the acronym "MODI - Making of Developed India", he said that the whole country specially poor, women, youth, workers and farmers supported his demonetisation move despite a scare created by Opposition parties.

Taking a dig at critics of EVMs, Naidu asked people to support BJP in and push the button with party symbol 'Lotus' assuring them that their votes will not be changed.

Speaking on the occasion, other party leaders including Union Minister Harsh Vardhan, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, BJP organisation secretary Ram Lal, and party MPs from Delhi also attacked AAP government in Delhi and mentored workers to ensure the party's victory in elections to three municipal corporations on April 23.
The gruesome killings of an Indian IT professional and her 6-year-old son in a New Jersey town has sent shock waves in the neighbourhood with the motive behind the murders still unknown.

Sasikala Narra, 38 and her son Anish Narra were killed yesterday inside their residence at the Fox Meadow Apartments in Maple Shade in New Jersey's Burlington County.

The two were found murdered whenSasikala's husband Narra Hanumanth Rao returned from work Thursday evening.

Officers from the Maple Shade Police Department were called to the Hamilton Road residence just after 9 PM by Rao after he found the bodies of his wife and son.

Authorities said no arrests have been made and the deaths are being investigated as homicides.

Preliminary investigation revealed that both victims were "stabbed multiple times."



Narras' close family friend Mohan Nannapaneni said in a ABC6 Action report that Rao had called him shortly after finding his wife and son in a pool of blood.

"When he opened the house and he couldn't find his wife and son and then he called Anish his son and he didn't answer, so when he went to open the bedroom and then he found those two people ... Dead and blood everywhere," said Nannapaneni.

Law enforcement officials have denied the killings were hate crime or a result of bias against the Indian origin of the victims, according to a statement provided to PTI by Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

"Contrary to some media reports, at this point there is no indication that this is a hate crime connected to the fact that the victims are of Indian origin," the statement had said.

The killings have shocked the Maple Shade community, which has expressed concern and sadness over the murders.

"What kind of monster would come up and do something that scary?" said Lisa of Maple Shade in the report in ABC6 Action .

"Someone is crazy. Someone is really, really crazy. Delusional, don't know what's going on in life," said Ashante Boorden of Maple Shade.

Alfred Maugeri of Maple Shade said in the report that it is saddening to see a child's life wiped out like that.

"It's unbelievable," he said.

Neighbours said they want whoever is responsible for the crime to be found soon and prosecuted.

Neighbours who were in their homes around the time of the incident said they did not hear anything suspicious, the report added.

They described the Narras as wonderful people, especially little Anish.

"He was always happy... Smart little kid, too," said a neighbour who didn't wish to be identified.

Another neighbour Chris Davis said she heard Rao say "She's dead, she's dead! There's blood all over the place, She's dead!" as others tried to console him.

"This is sad, really said," said Iesha Zuniga, 26, a restaurant worker who had lived in the complex for more than a decade. We feel unsafe.

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Eminent jurist Fali Nariman today raised questions over the appointment of Aditya Nath Yogi as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi "if it is the beginning of a Hindu state".

Referring to the developments in UP after the polls, he said the Constitution is under "threat" and those who cannot see the motive behind appointment of Aditya Nath are either spokespersons of political parties or they must get their head and eyes examined.

"The prime minister may deny it but that is my assumption that appointing a particular person...As the chief minister is in itself an indication that he wishes to propogate a religious state," Nariman said in an interview to NDTV.

"Is this the beginning of a Hindu state, the prime minister must be asked so that the people know what they should be prepared for," he said.

Asked which citizens' rights does he worry about or are under threat, he said, "The Consitution is under threat. With the massive electoral victory in UP, a priest has been installed as the chief minister at the insistence of the prime minister... Is a signal and if you cannot see then either you are the spokespersons of political parties or you must have your head or eyes examined."



Nariman, who lauded Modi for his remarkable and fantastic energy level, however, said he does not accept all policies of the prime minister.

"You must give it to the prime minister. He is quite forthright. He does not mince words and his energy is something remarkable and fantastic. I have never seen such a man. But I do not accept all the policies of the prime minister," he said.

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Pakistan's electronic media watchdog has issued a notice to a prominent TV channel for airing "hate speech" against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) yesterday asked private ARY channel to respond to the notice by March 31.

According to the details, a guest speaker, who appeared on a programme 'The Reporter' on Thursday, termed a recent statement of Sharif as "blasphemous".

"This is a very dangerous trend. The hosts of the programme neither intervened on this occasion nor stopped him from passing such comments, which is a violation of PEMRA rules," the media watchdog said.

Airing of "any offensive, provocative or derogatory remarks falls in clear violation of PEMRA Act and various sections of the PEMRA Code of Conduct 2015," it said.

It asked the channel to explain why action should not be taken against it for airing "hate speech".

The regulator has the authority to ban the channel's programme, cancel its operating licence and impose a fine of Rs one million for the crime it committed.

Meanwhile, PEMRA has also issued show cause notices to nine TV channels -- Ab Tak TV, Waqt TV, Channel 5, Sach TV, 7 News, Aaj TV, Roze TV, One and Capital TV -- for airing "fake news" about a plane crash near Rawalpindi on Wednesday. The channels have been asked to submit a reply by March 31.

It also issued a separate notice to Dawn TV for failing to complying with its orders to suspend 'Zara Hat Kay' talk show for three days.

The host of the show on March 9 had discussed a corruption case against Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court despite the case being sub-judice in the Supreme Judicial Council, which hears cases against judges of superior courts.

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Assam Rifles has apprehended a cadre of the banned NSCN(K) during an operation in Arunchal Pradesh's Changlang district, a defence communique informed here today.

The self-styled private Nokhang Hakun was apprehended yesterday morning by the Changland division of AR and a pistol and live ammunitions were seized from his possession.

On interrogation, the rebel admitted allegiance to the outfit and divulged that he was actively involved with the outfit since 2001 and had undergone training at Myanmar.

The security forces since February this year have apprehended three NSCN (K) cadres, five NSCN (IM), three NSCN (R), two ULFA (I) and one cadre each of NSCN (U), KCP and NDFB, including five over ground workers, the communique added.

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An eight-member delegation of human rights observers from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will visit Pakistan and PoK next week to get the "first-hand understanding" of the Kashmir issue, Pakistan said today.

The delegation of the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) belonging to eight different OIC countries will be led by IPHRC Chairperson Med S Kaggwa and will visit Pakistan and PoK from March 27 to 29, Foreign Office (FO) said.

It said the delegation had plans to visit the entire Kashmir but India did not respond to a request by the OIC for the visit.

"The IPHRC requested the Indian authorities for access to Kashmir to assess the human rights situation there. However, India has not responded to the IPHRC request to date," the FO said.

India has maintained that OIC, a grouping of 57 Muslim countries, has no locus standi in the Kashmir issue.

Pakistan Foreign Office said that last year the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights offered to send a fact-finding mission to Kashmir, but the request was also denied by India.

It said the OIC delegation will visit PoK to gain firsthand understanding of the Jammu and Kashmir issue and will also visit refugee camps.

The delegation will also call on Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Adviser on Foreign Affairs and Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan.

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The outgoing chief of UN peacekeeping forces has lauded India and other South Asian countries for contributing well trained and well behaved troops to the world body's peacekeeping missions.

"The contribution of South Asian countries is very valuable in terms of numbers because usually the three or four largest contributors rotate between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Those usually are among the three or four largest contributors," Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous told reporters here yesterday during his final briefing in this post.

He will be succeeded by another French diplomat Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

He said troop contributors from the South Asian nations have given the UN large numbers of peacekeepers but also "good people, people who are well trained, well equipped and in most cases behave correctly."



He said while there have been a few cases of disciplinary nature against South Asian peacekeepers, these have not been huge numbers.

"Countries of the region, yes, they have been very active peacekeepers, they have paid the price, unfortunately, in terms of casualties. I appreciated very much their role and contribution during my tenure," he said.

India is among the largest contributor of peacekeepers to the world body.

As of February 2017, a total of 7606 Indian peacekeepers were deployed in UN missions, including 6763 troops and 782 police personnel.

It has also suffered significant casualties with 163 peacekeepers making the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty.

Indian peacekeepers have maintained a clean record as the world body investigates allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation against the Blue Helmets.

India has said it has a policy of zero tolerance against sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers.

India has also informed the UN Secretariat it had appointed a focal point to handle future paternity claims related to sexual exploitation and abuse.

The outgoing chief said UN peacekeeping is becoming more agile and capable, even as the cost for each peacekeeper fell 16 per cent in recent years, dropping the entire budget of the blue helmets worldwide to around USD 7.2 billion.

"It's a lot of money at face value, but it's 0.4 per cent of world military expenditure," he said.

"No other army has done what the United Nations has done over the past six years," he added.

The price for UN peacekeeping operations is currently USD 7.2 billion, down from USD 8.2 billion in 2011.

"We diminished the cost per peacekeeper by 16 per cent without any diminution in the level of equipment.

(Reopens FGN 12)



Despite the evolution of peacekeeping, its operations are often hampered by ongoing challenges, Ladsous noted.

These include deployments to countries where there is no political process.

"Peacekeeping is about political solutions. The visible part is the soldiers, the uniforms, the policemen, but the reality is that we're there to serve a political solution and quite often, it was the case in Mali initially, it was the case in CAR [Central African Republic] initially, there was no political solution in sight," he said.

The Security Council "is not always as supportive as it should be" in such circumstances, nor in instances where UN 'blue helmets' should be sent.

One of the greatest challenges, however, is managing expectations of UN Member States, donor countries and other actors.

"The heart of the mandate is about protection of civilians. This is an extremely difficult issue. Yet we cannot have a peacekeeper behind every single citizen in the theatre," Ladsous said.

While it is difficult to quantify, UN peacekeeping saves lives, the outgoing chief said.
Pakistan has agreed to allow former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif to head a Saudi Arabia-led 39-nation Islamic military coalition formed to combat terrorism, according to a media report.

This was disclosed by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif in a programme of private Geo TV.

Citing Asif, the channel said official documentation to issue the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) had not been done but the government has agreed in principle to issue the permission because the Saudi leadership had formally requested through a letter to let Raheel take up the command of the coalition.

Asif said he had visited Saudi Arabia for Umrah earlier this year, and had also met officials of the Saudi government.

In May, the advisory board of defense ministers of member countries will attend a meeting on the issue, he said, adding the structure of the alliance had not been decided so far.

"When General (Retd) Raheel Sharif joins he will define a structure," he said.

In January this year, the defence minister had informed the Senate that the former army chief had not sought an NOC to lead a Saudi-led military alliance.

Asif had said Raheel had returned to Pakistan after performing Umrah in Saudi Arabia and if he applies for the NOC, then it will be decided according to law.

From a few politicians to retired army officers, journalists, intellectuals - all had questioned the decision of a former Pakistani army chief to join a foreign military alliance after his retirement.

Pakistani leaders were initially taken aback when Saudi Arabia, without proper consultation with them, had announced in 2015 that Islamabad was also part of the new alliance.

Iran was not included in the grouping which appeared as a vague attempt to forge a Sunni Muslim alliance against Shiite Iran to curtail its influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and rest of the Middle East.

Pakistan was in an unenviable position as it has good ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. It was also not ready to be dragged into the politics of Middle East.

Later, Pakistan confirmed its participation in the alliance, but had said that the scope of its participation would be defined after Riyadh shared the details of the coalition it was assembling.

According to Saudi Arabia, the alliance is formed to fight ISIS and other militant outfits.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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A park in the premises of a 40-year-old government residential quarters in Lawspet area, has got a facelift thanks to the initiatives of Lt Governor Kiran Bedi.

The park, it is alleged was infested with reptiles and had become a breeding ground for mosquitoes, has been spruced up. The work was taken up after the Lt Governor visited it during her regular inspection of facilities in suburban and rural areas and ordered for a clean-up.

She who visited the quarters today in keeping with her promise to revisit the place to check the improvement work and said the residents were happy with the same.

The Lt Governor appreciated the efforts of the government staff and PWD engineers in restoring the park, which was hitherto being used as an open urinal.

Earlier, she visited the Karuvdikuppam pond in Lawspet block which was revived by volunteers of 'Global Tamil Youth and Student Organisation. Plans were also finalised to construct a walkway on its bank.

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J-K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said peace was pre-requisite for holistic and equitable development of the state and people should allow the government to work and find solutions to the problems



"The government needs time to execute its agenda of development and empowerment. People have to give peace a chance and allow the government to function efficiently so that it can find solution to every problems J and K faces," she said during election meetings in Budgam district of Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency, which is going to bypolls on April 9.

The Chief Minister said the only impediment towards ensuring growth and empowerment was "lack of peace".

"It is heartening to see that the people were asking for our report card as they believe that PDP is their own party and it will fulfil their expectations.

"This feeling makes us work harder on the ground. We are not shying away from the answers and we assure everyone that we stand by our political, economic and developmental agenda," she said.

Mehbooba said the PDP forged an alliance with the BJP for the benefit of people of all the regions of the state unlike the NC-Congress coalition, which is characterised by just lust for power.

"When we shared the government with the Congress in the past, we got a better deal for our people, and even now when we work with the BJP our motive is welfare of people," she said, adding that while the PDP-Congress alliance was based on a Common Minimum Programme (CMP), the PDP-BJP alliance is based on an Agenda of Alliance.

In both the cases, the PDP took care of the political, economic and developmental challenges confronting J&K, she said.

Referring to the PDP's contribution toward changing the political discourse in the entire subcontinent, Mehbooba said "it is the sum total of individual efforts by our workers in creating a viable political alternative that advocated peace and dialogue.

"I seek your active participation in our endeavours to address the issues related to governance, development and peace," she said adding the PDP will strive towards restoring peace and normalcy on the ground.

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Rajinikanth today cancelled his visit to Sri Lanka, where he was scheduled to give away homes for displaced Tamils, after some pro-Tamil outfits urged him to withdraw from the programme.

The "Enthiran" actor said he took the decision after founders of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), Vaiko and Thol Thirumavalavan respectively, and Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi (TVK) leader T Velmurugan asked him to consider withdrawing from the programme.

In a statement, the actor said Vaiko had spoken to him over the phone on the issue, while Thirumavalavan had made a plea through the media and Velmurugan had sent across a message through a friend.

"They placed before me various political reasons and kindly asked me not to participate in the programme. Although I could not wholeheartedly accept what they said, I avoid attending the function heeding their request," he said.

The pro-Tamil outfits had cautioned the superstar from getting "involved" in the emotive ethnic issue.

The 66-year-old actor was scheduled to hand over the homes built by Lyca Group's Gnanam Foundation for displaced Tamils in northern Jaffna on April 9-10. Lyca Productions, owned by Subashkaran Allirajah, is producing the actor's latest sci-fi movie "2.0", a sequel to his earlier "Enthiran".

In 2014 various Tamil outfits, including VCK and TVK, had opposed Lyca Productions' Tamil movie "Kaththi", alleging that Allirajah had close business ties with then Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is often criticised in Tamil Nadu for the death of civilian Tamils during the final battle against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.

Explaining the reason behind his earlier decision to take part in the programme, Rajinikanth said it was his long-time desire to "salute that brave soil."



"There was a long-time desire in me to set foot on that brave soil where lakhs of (Tamil) people gave their lives for the cause of their race. After fulfilling that, I was also eagerly waiting to meet the people and have an open talk with them," he said.

Further, he had planned to meet Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena to take up the emotive fishermen issue, the actor said.

Apparently pained at the opposition to his Lanka visit, the actor said he was "not a politician, but an artiste" whose duty was to entertain people.

He said if there were any future visits by him to the neighbouring country, it should not be politicised.

"If I get the privilege of witnessing that divine soil in the future by visiting there and entertaining the people, kindly do not politicise that visit," he said.

Rajinikanth said he should not be stopped during such future visits, adding, he was "making the plea humbly and it was his right.

The actor further said he was scheduled to hand over the



keys of houses to beneficiaries along with British MP James Berry, Chief Minister of the Northern Province, CV Vigneswaran and others on April 9.

There was also a plan to give away 'Research Building Fund' for the Jaffna University, he said.

The next day, he was supposed to participate in a sapling planting event, Rajinikanth said, adding, both events were scheduled at Vavuniya in Sri Lanka.

The popular actor said Allirajah had constructed 150 houses in memory of his mother Gnanambika.

While Thirumavalavan had asked the actor not to "get involved" in the emotive ethnic issue, TVK leader Velmurugan had alleged that the programme was an effort to paint a rosy picture of the relations between Sinhalese and Tamils.
Union minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore today praised Aditya Nath Yogi's elevation as Uttar Pradesh chief minister saying his leadership is "very good".

Talking to PTI, Rathore said, "The new leadership is very good and he has just come in and we shall wait and watch the initiatives he would be taking up".

The minister of state for information and broadcasting was addressing a gathering of young entrepreneurs here.

Rathore also said joining BJP was his choice because of its strong leadership.

"I joined BJP as it had clear leadership when I entered politics," he said.

During the interaction, Rathore shared his experiences as an army man, sportsman and politician and how he synthesised all the qualities he learnt in all those fields for best output.

"A single thread that joins all these three fields is truthfulness. We have to be truthful to what we do in order to be successful," Rathore said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In the wake of attacks on doctors in Maharashtra, security was beefed up at the civil hospital here, a senior police official said today.

"Two guards have been appointed at the civil hospital. Beat-marshals will visit the hospital after every two hours," Nashik Deputy Commissioner of Police Laxmikant Patil told reporters.

The decision to step up security was taken at a meeting between police and hospital authorities last night, said the official.

Resident doctors across Maharashtra resumed duties this morning, ending their five-day protest following directives from the Bombay High Court coupled with assurances from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

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Philanthropist and author Sudha Murthy today wondered how social changes in the past 50 years has brought a large number of women in engineering and other fields.

At present, 35-40 per cent of IT sector employees are women while she had been the only girl student doing Electrical Engineering in Karnataka decades ago.

"There have been lot of social changes in engineering sector as well as in other fields including IT since my day as the only engineering student in university," Murthy, chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, told PTI.

"And now when I visited the same place after over five decades, what a change it was! 75 cent girls in instrumentation, 75 per cent in electronics, almost 70 per cent in computer science," she said after being conferred the ICC Lifetime Achievement Award here.

Recalling her days in the university, she said there was not a single girls' toilet in the institution and when she had approached the authorities on this, they refused to build the facility on the ground that there was no guarantee a woman would pursue her studies in engineering stream.

"Today's women are more assertive, have lot more economic power and more vocal," she said.

"When I had opted for engineering, I was told by my family that no man will marry you if you go for the stream. Now can anyone say that?," she asked.

Murthy, whose Infosys Foundation is involved in philanthropic work, said her dream remained to provide three-time meal to every child in rural area, four dresses and help to study and pursue vocation.

She said that the Infosys Foundation has set up 14,000 toilets in South India and set target for 60,000 libraries.

To a question about her icon in life, Murthy, the wife of Infosys co-founder N R Narayanmurthy, said, "I never believed in icons. I always believed (that) correcting yourself is most important."



The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) said it was a great privilege to bestow lifetime honour on Murthy whose Infosys Foundation has made India proud at home and abroad.

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An 18-year-old girl, working as a nurse at a private nursing home here, was allegedly raped by two persons, who were also accused of raping her in another case three years back but were given a "clean chit" by the police.

According to the complaint lodged by the girl's father, she was raped on Wednesday evening by two persons whose names had cropped up during investigations of the previous case, police said.

However, the accused were given a clean chit in that case, the complaint alleged, they said.

Police said that last evening the girl was admitted to the local Civil Hospital following a suicide attempt by her.

Ludhiana DCP (Investigations) Bhupinder Singh today said that the two accused kidnapped the victim near Atam Nagar area here while she was going home from the nursing home.

They then took her to the parking lot of a cinema hall and allegedly raped her, he said.

Singh said a case under relevant provisions of the law has been registered against the duo.

Police said the case was registered after the victim's father's complaint.

No arrest has been made so far in this connection, however, a hunt is on to nab the accused.

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European Union leaders renewed their vows at a special summit in Rome today, celebrating the troubled bloc's 60th anniversary with a commitment to a common future without Britain.

Meeting without Britain just days before it triggers its divorce. From the EU, the other 27 countries signed a new declaration on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

With the EU facing crises including migration, a moribund economy, terrorism and populism, as well as Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk called for leadership to shore up the bloc.

"Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago," Tusk said.

"It is it a bit of a tighter squeeze in the room today" than when the original six states signed up, joked Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after welcoming the leaders to the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori for a ceremony long on pomp and short on real politics.

"We have had 60 years of peace in Europe and we owe it to the courage of the founding fathers," Gentiloni said, adding that after recent crises "we have to start again and we have the strength to do that."



The Rome Declaration that the leaders signed, followed by a round of applause, proclaims that "Europe is our common future" in a changing world.

But it also enshrines for the first time a so-called "multi-speed" Europe, in which some countries can push ahead on key issues while others sit out, an idea pushed by France and Germany but opposed by many eastern EU states.

French President Francois Hollande said the message from Rome was, "we're stronger together," while German Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed: "a great day for Europe."



European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, who signed the declaration with a pen used by representative from his native Luxembourg to sign the original Treaty of Rome, insisted the EU could ride out recent storms.

"Daunting as they are, the challenges we face today are in no way comparable to those faced by the founding fathers," he said, recalling how the new Europe was built from the ashes of World War II.

The leaders had the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears, after the pontiff warned on the eve of the summit that the crisis-ridden bloc "risks dying" without a new vision.

The White House meanwhile congratulated the EU on its 60th birthday, in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels.

Security was tight with snipers on rooftops, drones in the skies and 3,000 police officers on the streets following an attack this week in London claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

British Prime Minister Theresa May's absence, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and a row over the wording of the Rome declaration have underscored the challenges the EU faces.

Greece, currently wrangling with the eurozone over getting more cash from its latest bailout, was the key country holding up approval of the document, by insisting on a mention of social benefits.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, fresh from a bitter row over former premier Tusk's re-election as EU chief, only agreed to sign at the last minute due to objections over the reference to a "multi-speed" Europe.

In a break from the EU's vows of "ever closer union", the declaration now says that "We will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction.

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President Donald Trump has expressed disappointment as he faced a severe political defeat after Republicans abandoned their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare policy with a new healthcare bill, due to lack of votes in the US House of Representatives.

Trump's disappointment came after House Speaker Paul Ryan failed to garner enough votes for the passage of the new healthcare bill. Trump had issued an ultimatum to his fellow Republicans after his administration failed to garner enough support for it.

The US House of Representatives --- similar to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament --- has 435 members. The Republican party enjoys a simple majority in the House with 235 members.

However due to opposition from some of its own party lawmakers, in particular the one that have grouped themselves under the banner of Freedom Caucus, Ryan, who had been leading the effort on behalf of Trump, could not muster the majority 215 votes.

As a result, in an effort to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, Ryan announced that he was withdrawing the move to have a vote on Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Unlike India, the US Congress does not have an anti-defection bill, as a result of which US lawmakers are free to exercise their right to vote on a bill as per their wish and not according to dictate of the party leadership.

Blaming the opposition democrats for the failure, Trump warned that now Obamacare is going to stay, people would see a sudden rise in their insurance premium.

"It's going to happen (explode). There's not much you can do about it. Bad things are going to happen. There's not much you can do to help it. I've been saying that for a year and a half. It's not sustainable. There's no way out," Trump told reporters at the White House after the bill was withdrawn.

"As we got closer and closer everyone was talking about how wonderful (Obamacare) was. Now it will go back to real life, people will see how bad it is and it's getting much worse. When President Obama left, 2017 was going to be a very bad year for Obamacare," Trump said.

"Going to see explosive premium increases and the deductibles are so high that no one is going to be able to use it," he said.

Having fought and won the presidential elections on the platform of repealing and replacing Obamacare, Trump said he honestly believe that the Democrats will come to the Republicans and say "let's get together and get a great health care bill or plan that's really great" for the people in this country.

"I think that's going to happen," he said.

Trump said he was very close to getting enough votes in the House, but fell short of 10-15 votes.

"We were very very close. It was a very tight margin. We had no Democratic support," the President said.

"I've been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we could do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode. It's exploding right now," he said.

"We couldn't quite get there, we were a small number of votes short. There are many people who don't realise how good our bill was," he said adding that the people don't realise there were two legislative phases to go.

"If (Democrats) got together with us, and got us a real health care bill, I'd be totally okay with that. The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare. They 100 per cent own it. They have Obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future," Trump said.

"When they all become, civilised and get together, and try to work out a great health care bill for the people of this country, we're open to it," he said.

Trump told reporters that he would now focus his attention on tax reforms.

"We are going, right now, for tax reform. Which we could've done earlier but this really would've worked out better if we could've had Democrat support. Remember we had no Democrat support. So now we're going to go for tax reform,"he said.

The President replied in negative when he was asked if he felt betrayed by the Freedom caucus within the Republican Party.

"I'm not betrayed. They're friends of mine. I'm disappointed because we could've had it. So I'm disappointed. I'm a little surprised I could tell you. We really had it, it was pretty much there. But what's going to come out of it is a better bill," he said.

"Because there were things in his bill that I didn't particularly like. But both parties can get together and do real health care. Obamacare was rammed down everyone's throat. 100 per cent Democrat. Having bipartisan would be a big, big improvement. I'm disappointed but I'm friends of mine. You know this is a very hard time for them," Trump said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Donald Trump today expressed his disappointment and surprise after House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan withdrew a healthcare bill aimed at repealing and replacing the Obamacare policy from vote after his party failed to muster the votes needed to get it passed.

Trump's disappointment came after a vote on the Republican healthcare bill was scrapped due to lack of support.

The Republicans only lack little votes, and the Democrats would not contribute a vote, Trump said in a brief interaction with reporters on the sidelines of a White House event.

The US President said he is disappointed and surprised over the developments and from now on, he will move on to the next agenda - tax reform - which he said he should've done earlier.

However, he did not talk much on the fate of healthcare.

The US House of Representatives - similar to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament - has 435 members. The Republican party enjoys a simple majority in the House with 235 members.

However due to opposition from some of its own party lawmakers, in particular the one that have grouped themselves under the banner of Freedom Caucus, Ryan, who had been leading the effort on behalf of Trump, could not muster the majority 215 votes.

As a result, in an effort to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, Ryan announced that he was withdrawing the move to have a vote on Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

The White House and Trump had put up a brave face even till the last minute when they tried their best to muster support for their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

With the writing on the wall, Ryan drove to the White House to inform Trump to inform him he does not have enough votes to see the important legislation pass through the Congress.

Unlike India, the US Congress does not have an anti-defection bill, as a result of which US lawmakers are free to exercise their right to vote on a bill as per their wish and not according to dictate of the party leadership.

The White House said Trump did everything he could for the passage of the bill. "There's no question in my mind at least that the President and the team here have left everything on the field... It is now going to be up to the members of the House to decide whether or not they want to follow through on the promise to that," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.

Similarly, Spicer said, Ryan has done everything he could.

"He's worked really closely with the President. I think at the end of the day you can't force people to vote," Spicer said.

Senator Mark Warner said it has now become clear that "Trumpcare" has been rejected.

Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty said the Affordable Care Act has problems that they need to work together to fix. "The American Health Care Act would solve none of these problems, and the American people know it. Instead of lowering costs or improving the quality of care, this bill would force millions of Americans to pay more money for worse coverage," she said.

"Americans throughout the country - including the thousands of folks in my district who called and emailed me - have sent a loud and clear message to Congress that they oppose this cruel and destructive proposal. Today, their voices were heard," Esty said.

"We won't fix the problems in our healthcare system with just one party negotiating against itself," she added.

(Reopens FGN 1)



Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera said the proposed bill would have kicked millions of hardworking Americans off their health care, raised the cost of coverage for families, and imposed an age tax on our parents and grandparents.

One of just two Democratic doctors in the Congress, and practiced internal medicine, Bera hoped that after cancelling this vote, the Speaker and the majority will hear loud and clear that playing politics with peoples' health care is not going to work.

"Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to come together, because the job isn't over until every American has affordable and accessible healthcare. Real lives are at stake here and I'm ready to get to work," Bera said.

Rejoicing the development, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said ultimately the TrumpCare bill failed because of two traits that have plagued the Trump presidency since he took office: incompetence and broken promises.

"In my life, I have never seen an administration as incompetent as the one occupying the White House today," Schumer said.
Tukaram Mundhe, who was transferred as Navi Mumbai Municipal Commissioner last night has been posted as Chairman and Managing Director of Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML).

Yesterday, the Maharashtra government appointed Ramaswami N, a 2004 batch IAS officer, as the civic chief of Navi Mumbai in place of Mundhe.

The Navi Mumbai civic body had passed a no confidence motion against Mundhe late last year and the state government had overruled the decision.

P Sivasankar, a 2011 batch IAS officer, currently serving as Kolhapur Municipal Commissioner has been shifted to Parbhani as Collector, government officials said.

Yesterday, the government had replaced Sivasankar with Abhijit Chaudhary as civic chief of Kolhapur. Chaudhary was serving as Collector, Bhandara.

SK Diwase, a 2009 IAS batch officer who is the Director, Disaster Management, Revenue and Forest Department, has been posted as Collector, Bhandara.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 58-year-old British national collapsed while exercising at a gym in the beach village of Calangute in the state yesterday and died, police said.

"Paul Gerrad Atkinson, a British national, collapsed while exercising in gym last evening, possibly due to heart attack. But we are waiting for autopsy report to know the exact cause of death," inspector Jivba Dalvi told PTI.

An ambulance with doctors was summoned immediately, but by the time it arrived, he was dead, Dalvi said.

He was staying at a guest-house in Maddowado Calangute area and had joined the gym in February, Dalvi said.

Police sent the body to Goa Medical College and Hospital for autopsy.

The British High Commission was informed about the incident and it had contacted Atkinson's relatives, inspector Dalvi said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Vatican is close to proclaim nun Rani Maria Vattali, who was brutally stabbed to death in Madhya Pradesh 22 years ago, as "martyr" for beatification.

"I have come to know that Pope Francis has signed a recommendation from Congregation for Causes of Saints on March 23 for beatifying the Franciscan Clarist Nun as martyr," Archbishop Leo Cornelio, who heads Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh, told PTI today.

The beatification date of Sister Rani, who was a member of Syro-Malabar Franciscan Clarist Congregation, has not been finalised yet, said the Bhopal-based prelate.

"I hope it might be somewhere in October," he added.

Rani Maria Vattali, popularly known as Sister Rani, then 41, was stabbed around 50 times on board a bus in which she was travelling in Dewas district on February 25, 1995, the Archbishop said.

Hired assassin Samunder Singh stabbed her, as some landlords in MP's Indore region were upset with her work for landless people's uplift, a catholic faithful said.

Singh was sentenced to life in prison after he was found guilty of killing the nun. Later, his sentence was commuted due to his good conduct during imprisonment, he added.

In 2002, Sister Paul, who belongs to the same congregation of nuns to which deceased Rani belonged had visited Singh in jail to accept him as her brother, he said.

Then Indore Bishop George Anathil initiated the cause for Sister Rani's martyrdom in 2001 by setting up two panels - historical and theological, to examine her life, he said.

The two commissions submitted their findings to the three-member diocesan inquiry tribunal in June 2005 to carry forward the process, he recalled.

She was found to have led a heroic life of Christian virtue. Thereafter, her name was sent to Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which reviewed the gathered information and recommended that the Pope declare the candidate "venerable", he said.

After this, beatification takes place. In case of canonisation of sainthood, a miracle was required but it was not necessary for martyrdom, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) today recovered 420 grams of heroin from a woman from Mahadeva checkpost along Indo-Nepal border in East Champaran district today.

The woman was carrying the contraband valued at Rs 2.5 crore in a packet from Raxaul supposedly to hand it over to someone at Nepal, Commandant of SSB 47 battalion, Sonam Chhering said, adding that she was arrested.

Cherring said the woman was held when she was trying to cross the border from Mahadeva check post riding a bicycle in the wee hours.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress on Friday hit out at the Narendra Modi government over decline in job growth figures in key sectors in the third quarter, saying its claims do not match with ground realities and the economy is contracting.

Citing official figures, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said that eight key sectors including the transport, manufacturing, health, education, hotels and restaurants have seen a decline in the third quarter of this fiscal.

From the figures, he said, it is clear that there is a vast difference between Prime Minister Narendra Modis claims and reality.

"Modi promises more jobs but in the third quarter of this financial year there is an increase of 69,000 jobs against an increase of 1.7 lakh jobs in the previous quarter, which is less by about one-third.

"This is, God forbid, showing a trend of contraction and let us hope that Mr Modis jumlas and claims and the BJPs self congratulatory, self-patting on the back succeeds, otherwise the Indian economy will be prejudiced and hurt irreversibly," he said.

The third quarter figures for October to December 2016-17, Singhvi said, show that eight sectors, which form the engines of the economy, have shown half the growth as compared to the previous quarter.

"Figures show that the growth in third quarter was exactly half of the previous quarter, when only 32,000 new jobs were created against the 77,000 created in second quarter.

"Barring manufacturing and IT, other sectors have suffered a steep decline, and the four badly hit sectors are trade, construction, hotel and restaurant and education, registering an absolute decline of 18,000 jobs," he said.

The Congress leader pointed out that women employment witnessed the sharpest decline in this quarter, as 25,000 jobs have been lost.

"If you take total overall employment figures, it is even more distressing in the comparative previous quarter, addition of jobs is 1.69 lakh i.e. almost 1.70 lakh which of course is way below," he pointed out.

He said one gets clear glimpses that are indications to which way the wind is blowing, not only demonetisation but the general mismanagement of the economy.

The Congress leader also said that the third quarter figure shows there is a clear increase in Current Account Deficit (CAD) despite all the claims of deficit management to USD 7.9 billion almost USD 8 billion against just over USD 7.1 billion.

"So that is almost a billion dollar increase and connected to that in marginal decrease in net FDI to USD 9.8 billion, down from previous figures," he said.


Former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan has defended the government on GDP calculation, saying it is difficult to gather data from every nook and corner of the country.

"It is very difficult statistically to go the remotest area of the country to see what the gross domestic product (GDP) is in terms of value added. And it requires time," Jalan said while speaking at a book launch.

He was speaking at launch of From Narasimha Rao to Narendra Modi by journalist & columnist Swaminathan Aiyar. The book was unveiled by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The government came under severe criticism from various quarters, while estimating 7 per cent GDP growth for third quarter ended December, discounting affect of demonetisation on the economy.

Jalan said the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has been doing a good job in terms of conducting surveys and census by capturing real statistics of the country.

Speaking about economic reforms India has undertaken since 1991 and the ongoing transformation, Jalan said still India lacks on many counts.

"Despite India is among fastest rising country, why is that it is at the bottom when comes to human development index in terms of education, in terms of literacy and in terms of sanitation," he asked.

He stressed that more power needs to be delegated to institutions and given autonomy, adding, civil servants too need to be given autonomy take decisions to bring about systematic changes.

Despite all the industrial development, rising corporate sector and economy growing at the fastest pace in the world, India lags behind when it comes to transfer of services or benefits to 40 per cent of the population.

"That is the issue that we have to thing about. We are still not able to deliver services to the people. India is the largest democracy then why we grapple with the issue that the largest democracy in the world elect a political class that gives you what we are seeing," he wondered.

"It is the same political class that gave you industrialisation. We are proud of our democracy, then why the political class acts the way it acts," he said.


Days after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Aadhar may become the single identity card in future, the department of telecommunications (DoT) directed all mobile phone service providers to re-verify existing customers using their unique Aadhaar identity number and biometric details.

According to a report in Mint, the government has moved to make Aadhaar-based e-KYC (know your customer) mandatory for mobile phone connections.

The DoT has asked the service providers to complete the exercise by early next year. Aadhaar-based e-KYC would also be mandatory for customers procuring new SIM cards, the report said.

The DoT directive was in line with the Supreme Court orders that asked the government to link over 100 crore mobile subscribers' phone numbers to Aadhaar within a year.

"All licensees shall intimate their existing subscribers through advertisement in print/electronic media as well as SMS about the orders of the Supreme Court for re-verification activity and shall upload the complete details of this activity on their website," ET quoted a DoT notice as saying.

It will affect over 1.1 billion telecom subscribers who will soon have to go through a fresh verification exercise. According to telecom industry estimates, the entire verification process could cost at least Rs 1,000 crore.

Earlier on Wednesday, the government had proposed to make Aadhaar card mandatory for filing income tax return and also applying for permanent account number (PAN). The new proposal was made through an amendment to the Finance Bill.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the Finance Minister said that the reason to make Aadhaar number a mandatory was to get rid of those who possess multiple PAN cards for tax evasion.

"With Aadhaar, we can stop a person from creating extra PAN cards as it is backed by biometrics like finger prints and iris scans," Jaitley had said.

"We have seen some examples where people own at least five PAN cards for tax fraud purposes and because of that the government has proposed to provide Aadhaar number while filing returns. And, for those who don't have it, they can always apply for it," the Finane Minister had said.

According to him, around 98 per cent of adults in the country have Aadhaar number and more than 108 crore Aadhaar cards have been issued. The government has already made Aadhar number a mandatory document for some of the government-run schemes.
Reliance Industries on Friday said it will challenge the Sebi order in the Reliance Petroleum case before the Securities Appellate Tribunal, terming the regulator's directions as "unjustifiable sanctions".

In a 10-year-old case, Sebi banned Reliance Industries and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year and directed the Mukesh Ambani-led firm to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore for alleged fraudulent trading.

"We are in the process of consulting our legal advisors. We propose to prefer an appeal and challenge the order in the Securities Appellate Tribunal. We remain confident of fully justifying the veracity of the transactions and vindicating our stand," Reliance Industries said in a statement.

According to the company, the trades in Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL) that were examined by Sebi were genuine and bona fide transactions.

The trades were carried out keeping the best interest of the company and its shareholders in view, the statement noted.

"Sebi appears to have misconstrued the true nature of the transactions and imposed unjustifiable sanctions," the statement said.

Noting that it has "full confidence" in the judicial process, Reliance Industries said, "We propose to vigorously exercise all options available to us to challenge the untenable findings in the order."


The key economic reports this week are the third estimate of Q4 GDP, Personal Income and Outlays for February, and the Case-Shiller house price index.





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10:30 AM:for March. 9:00 AM ET:for January. Although this is the January report, it is really a 3 month average of November, December and January prices.This graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted National Index, Composite 10 and Composite 20 indexes through the December 2016 report (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000).The consensus is for a 5.7% year-over-year increase in the Comp 20 index for January.10:00 AM:for March. This is the last of the regional Fed surveys for March.12:50 PM:, At the National Community Reinvestment Coalition Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the10:00 AM:for February. The consensus is for a 1.8% increase in the index.8:30 AM ET: Thereport will be released. The consensus is for 247 thousand initial claims, down from 258 thousand the previous week.8:30 AM:(third estimate). The consensus is that real GDP increased 2.0% annualized in Q4, up from the second estimate of 1.9%.8:30 AM:for February. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.2% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.2%.9:45 AM:for March. The consensus is for a reading of 57.1, down from 57.4 in February.10:00 AM:(final for March). The consensus is for a reading of 97.6, unchanged from the preliminary reading 95.7.
Dr David Makongo W. Musa

Dear President Paul Biya, Everyone knows that the arrests of Barrister Balla and Supreme Court Lord Justice Ayah Paul were affected without due process of the law. In speaking out and leading, these lawyers did just what lawyers do best in their careers and for their communities?

Then came the summons and interrogation of Barrister Akere Muna for expressing his personal views about your end of year speech. For a country that prides itself with freedom of expression and association and respect for the rule of law, these arrests, detentions and trials have put a serious dent on national unity and national integration that you hold so near and dear to your heart.

Your Excellency, what these three men I have cited above have in common is that they all come from Southern Cameroon, they are all well respected national and international lawyers and have all expressed only views related to their profession that affect not only their lives but also the lives of millions of their English speaking communities.

But today they are being charged and or threatened to be charged with terrorism and treason. Both charges come with a death penalty looming over their heads.

Sir, people are asking where have these three lawyers gone wrong? If extraordinary men of their magnitude could be treated like puppets would, what would this regime not do to thwart and hurt the ordinary Southern Cameroonian?

It was only a few days ago that Your Excellency stated in Italy that speaking of federalism is a taboo and definitely there will be no dialogue if federalism is what Anglophones want.

Sir. The problem with this statement I'm afraid is that, 90% of the people from Southern Cameroon no longer want to stay in the union, largely because of torture and marginalization.

Due to wanton human rights abuses and Internet blackout, over 90% Anglophones at home and abroad now want separation and outright independence, (if I'm lying to you try a referendum Sir in the two English speaking Regions). Now discussing federalism around some of our people is fast also becoming a taboo.

As a leader and the father of the nation, Mr. President, you have to be fed the truth. Yet i'm worried no one around you who has your ears is willing or courageous enough to tell you this. Not even foreign friendly nations. It's rather unfortunate!

Now we have a deadlock situation where no one side is willing to shake or shift their goal post for dialogue to genuinely begin and give our people the peace, prosperity and liberty every one of us deserves.

The regime appears to be placing it's bets on the army and the courts to silent all forms of expressions by Southern Cameroonians.

On the other hand, effective ghost towns and close down of schools have persisted despite numerous trips by the PM to the regions and continues arrests. But no one seems to face the truth as to why our people have still not given up and it is your right and place Mr. President to know.

Your excellency, order the courts to stop all these trials. Authorize the prisons to release everyone and all these leaders without conditions. Command the forces of law and order to stop the arrests. Instruct CRTV to hold off on all forms of media propaganda on this issue! In so doing you will diffuse tensions.

In the higest interest of peace, liberty and freedom, Your Excellency, permit me use this opportunity to respectfully request for audience aimed at telling you the whole truth and handing you a road map for genuine dialogue as my own modest contribution towards peace and finding lasting solutions to this problem.

Respectfully,

(Dr. David Makongo USA)

By Wilson MUSA
Dear Editor:

As an avid FFA member and agriculturalist, I have come to understand the value and importance of clean water to Pennsylvanias agriculture industry. Beginning my FFA journey, I had little knowledge of the resources it takes to feed our nation. As I expanded my horizons in the program, I quickly learned about the importance of agriculture in my community and resources it required to maintain a safe food supply. Water just happens to be one of those resources.

Clean water is the key to life. Pure water is a valuable resource that the agriculture industry cannot do without. Continued support of the Farm Bill provides assistance to help farmers reduce pollution.

Pennsylvania has a history of neglecting our waterways. We state we are proud of our diverse natural history of flora and fauna, yet we fail to pay attention to the one key resource that sustains it all.

There is no such thing as Republican clean water or Democrat clean water. Clean water is clean water and there has been a failure as a nation to recognize that an unhealthy environment affects everybody, regardless of social status or political stance. I believe in the future of agriculture and stand by the roots of that industry. I also believe that conservation practices are necessary to better the environment and agriculture. I understand and sympathize with the struggles of farmers across the nation. By cutting investments in Farm Bill programs, our nation would be permanently damaging the spoon that feeds it.

Clean water is a legacy worth protecting for future generations of our commonwealth and is necessary for the future of agriculture. Reducing investments in Farm Bill programs would cripple this legacy.

Anna Pauletta

Mechanicsburg

Chesapeake Bay Foundations Pennsylvania Student Leadership Council President and FFA member. Miss Pauletta is a student at Cumberland Valley High School.
Akere Muna W. MUSA

Dated January 10, 2017 and posted on his official Facebook page, widely circulated on social media outlets, the views on Akere MUNA on the form of the state is seen by government has rebellious and a form of secession. In the article he questions what people mean by Cameroon is one and indivisible trying to analyze whether it is in form of territory or as a people.

Here is His Famous Article which raised eyebrows within Government circles.

Cameroon is One and Indivisible: Which Cameroon?

Cameroon is one and indivisible is a pronouncement that is supposed to have a solemn ring to it. However, there is so much happening in Cameroon today that such a statement now produces more questions than answers. Are we talking about a territory or a people?

As a Territory?

Cameroon as a country, or parts thereof, has been known as:

KAMERUN, SOUTHERN and NORTHERN CAMEROONS, LA REPUBLIC DU CAMEROUN, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON, WEST CAMEROON, EAST CAMEROON, THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON and the second LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN. Only the Constitution of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON of 1961 describes the territory of Cameroon. This constitution provides in Article 1 as follows:

(1) With effect from the 1st October 1961, the Federal Republic of Cameroon shall be constituted from the territory of the Republic of Cameroon, hereafter to be styled East Cameroon, and the territory of the Southern Cameroons, formerly under British trusteeship, hereafter to be styled West Cameroon.

Subsequent constitutions do not define the territories but proceed to change the name of the country. While the 1972 constitution attempts to maintain the notion of two territories getting together and forming a United Cameroon, the 1984 Constitution must be considered as the one that created the greatest confusion in the identification of the territory of the Cameroon. The 1984 Constitution states:

Article 1

1.

The United Republic of Cameroon shall, with effect from the date of entry into force of this law, be known as Republic of Cameroon (Law No 84-1 of February 4, 1984).

By reverting to the name Republic of Cameroon, already defined by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon as being East Cameroon, the perennial question has always been: What happened to Southern Cameroons or West Cameroon? So, when one affirms that the Republic of Cameroon is One and Indivisible, does this also concern Southern Cameroons or West Cameroon?

If ever there was a need to change the name of the country, it would be to revert to the German appellation KAMERUN. All the main political parties of Southern Cameroons did, in fact, use the word Kamerun, namely: KNDP (Kamerun Peoples Democratic Party), KNC (Kamerun National Party) KPP (Kamerun Peoples Part) and OK (one Kamerun). It is clear from this that, while the affirmation of the Southern Cameroonians for a genuine reconstitution of the former colonial entity, based on the two inherited cultures in the form of a federation, the intention of the Republic of Cameroon has been opaque to say the least.

The constant changing of the name is what has heightened suspicion. The Anglophone problem, as it is sadly described, is indeed a Cameroonian problem. We seem to be in denial of our history and our past. All the publications about the Independence of La Republique du Cameroon or East Cameroon commands us to face our history, once and for all, and make the necessary adjustments. Whether it is the book KAMERUN, or the recent publications La Guerre du Cameroun or La France Afrique in which East Cameroun is described as the laboratory of the France-Afrique policy, it is clear that there are issues that must be addressed.

Some of us still have traumatizing memories of human heads on sticks in roundabouts, as one travelled through the Bamileke region during the years of the fight for independence. I cannot forget seeing the burning down of entire villages of people whose only desire was freedom. UPC, a historic party, struggled through suspicion, humiliation and persecution. A very well known French actor, during this process, actually affirmed that Independence was given to those who wanted it the least.

NGOs in Namibia today are trying to sue Germany; the Kenyans sued the British for the repression in the era of the Mau Mau and obtained compensation. NGOs in Cameroon are getting ready, in light of the release of the archives of the colonial and post-colonial period by the French government, to sue for compensation. The trusteeship agreements are being re-visited by different groups to see which clauses may have been violated. There is now the whole debate about payments by francophone colonies to France, and people are agitating about the political implications of the CFA franc.

If in the complex maze of this all we can gather is that this is an Anglophone problem, which we acknowledge half-heartedly and under pressure, then I am sad for my country. This continuous denial of facing our colonial history must stop. We must discuss it, understand it, and draw the conclusions that will help us chart a future. Simply rehabilitating people and calling them national heroes, without any concrete action to right the wrongs, talking of founding fathers without naming them, is at best a game of ruse. No street names, no national heroes day, no stamps, no monuments, just words of some anonymous folks, will take us nowhere. Furthermore, when a citizen of the country pays homage to a Father of Reunification in the form a statute in Douala, it is broken, pulled down and dragged through the streets of Douala under the nose of thousands of citizens who stare in total stupefaction and bewilderment. The so-called Anglophone problem is, in fact, a result of the state of denial we are in.

As a people?

As a people, are we then one and indivisible? It is interesting to read what a reporter for LE MONDE Afrique, Yann Gwet, says in commenting on the Presidents 2017, New Year speech. He writes:

Listening to President Biya, 82 years, talking about this jungle as a democratic country and a State of law and positioning himself as the protector of the foundations of our living together solemnly referring to the Constitution, whereas he has been in power for thirty-three years, forcefully reaffirming the unity and indivisibility of Cameroon in reply to the worries of striking Teachers and Lawyers in the Anglophone part of the country who are described in the speech as manipulated and guided extremists I had the confirmation of what I already know. There are two Cameroons one official and one real.

If we want to consolidate our unity, it is the real Cameroon we must face. We must talk to one another, frankly, truthfully, and transparently. If we continue to stay in denial, then we will never be united, the divisions will continue, and we will lose the peace we so dearly cherish.

Akere MUNA January 10, 017 originally on his Facebook page.

By Wilson MUSA
Saturday, March 25, 2017 at 9:12AM

It's no secret that Samsung's cooking up a big launch for its flagship Galaxy S8 line of smartphones next week (CanadianReviewer will be on hand in NYC for the big unveiling). This anticipated device, which has already been seen in various purported leaks, now gets another photoset thanks to AndroidMX, who seems to have gotten hold of a unit.

This photo shows just how slight the bezels are and how distinct the edge-to-edge display is. The look is quite stunning and its the closest thing to a bezel-less handset we've seen so far.

This leak follows Evan Blass' massive leak of Galaxy S8 renders in various colours (see left) in black, grey and gold.

The look and design of the Galaxy S8 are just one aspect of the device.

Samsung is reportedly launching its advanced personal assistant (replacing SVoice), which is called Bixby.

Samsung purchased Viv, which was the company that developed personal assistant technology, most popular of which is Siri, rival Apple's personal assistant that was really the pioneer in the mobile space.

Samsung is billing Bixby as an entirely new way to interact with your phone.

"When an application becomes Bixby-enabled, Bixby will be able to support almost every task that the application is capable of performing using the conventional interface (ie. touch commands)," Samsung explains in their website.

Bixby isn't exclusive to smartphones and tablets. It will permeate Samsung's other smart appliances, even air conditioners and refrigerators which is something only a company like Samsung can do, since it has a wide array of product lines.

Then, there's the Desktop Experience Station, a dock that some speculate will allow the Galaxy S8 to be used like a PC.

The DeX has USB Type-C port for you to insert into the phone. This expands the device with two USB 2.0 ports, a 100 Mbps Ethernet port and an HDMI output that can power 4K monitors at up to 30 GPS.

The dock has a cooling fan to dissipate heat and keep the phone coole while it is running as a PC.

It isn't known what OS or apps are going to be available in desktop mode. Google and Samsung have worked together previously on Chromebooks that run Android apps, so there might be some synergy happening here.

There's a lot to the Samsung Galaxy S8 story and I am expecting a lot of excitement heading up to the big event on March 29.
"This is the first time we've done it [the Relay for Life]," she said. "It's just a great celebration to say we're still here, and to raise money for other people that are going through the real hard slog of the disease."
"The Government's focus over the past few years has been on ensuring international flights from Singapore and Wellington are a success, and that the ACT continues to attract international students to our tertiary education institutions," Mr Barr said.
"If we come together, like we did, people give what they can. But we are calling on the wider Australian community. They may not have the network to know what is going on at the grass-roots but someone like Dau can explain what it is like and how to help."
Dear Editor:

The war on women continues, and my new state Sen. Mike Regan has joined it.

His yes vote on SB3 is appalling. I asked him not to support this anti-abortion legislation in the name of women's health care needs and in the name of religious freedom. Many denominations, including my own, stand with women as decision-makers in regard in deciding whether or not to bear children. I guess women are just easy targets for a rush-it-through political move.

I'm stunned that he would ignore the voices of Pennsylvanians who have had abortions later in pregnancy. And it is unconscionable that he and his fellow senators would choose not to take into account opposition by medical experts. It's my understanding the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Pennsylvania Medical Society, Physicians for Reproductive Health, and many more physicians had issued statements strongly opposing this legislation. Where was extreme vetting for this important legislation?

Maternal deaths are rising across the country (according to a New York Times article in September 2016) and I wouldn't be surprised to see the commonwealth's numbers rise too.

Would that the senators could ban pre-eclampsia, hemorrhaging and cardiac events, all of which are causes of maternal deaths in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum.

Barbara (Smith) Pearce

Mechanicsburg
The police force is not organised to confront, nor seemingly very keen, competent or efficient at large-scale crime-busting, particularly where the alleged malefactors wear white collars or are powerful players in the town. Perhaps that is, of course, because the city lacks players with a larcenous or villainous eye. That local police leadership has made no effort to anticipate the function speaks volumes of the service they would deliver. Locally and nationally, the AFP is best as a postbox for receiving and recording complaints; it is not geared for taking the initiative against crime, unless it is of the magical sort, such as wars against drugs, terrorism, bikies or pornography (where the public has no means of judging effectiveness, and statistics cannot be contradicted), or flavour-of-the-month crime, such as domestic violence or child sexual assault, very serious, but showing outputs commensurate with inputs.
The regulator plans to release spectrum in the 26GHz and 28GHz bands in 2019, and in the 3.4GHz to 3.7GHz range the following year, in order to provision 5G services.

The CA also said it plans to launch a public consultation later this year looking at ways of freeing up additional spectrum. It will release 4.1GHz of mmWave spectrum in the 26GHz and 28GHz bands, but will also look at bandwidth currently being used for fixed satellite services.

This could include the 3.4GHz to 3.7GHz bands, which could be reused for mobile or mobile broadband use by 2020. The regulator said it will invite telcos to express their views on these bands before the year ends.

The CA will continue to look for suitable spectrum for releasing to the market in a timely manner to support the continued developments of the mobile industry, a CA spokesperson said. The CA will consider and decide on the most suitable arrangements in releasing the spectrum to the market.

It was an announcement welcomed by HKT, who said it could create opportunities in the Hong Kong market. HKT has lobbied the local government to release more spectrum to enable the development of 5G in the region.

We think that it is positive the government has listened to our concerns and is now moving in the right direction, the company said in a statement.
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 ...
Sahitya Akademi 2014 awardee, Konkani Writer Madhavi Sardesai passes away

Published: December 22, 2014

Eminent Konkani writer, critic and linguist Dr. Madhavi Sardesai passed away on 22nd December 2014. She was 52 years old.

She was the recipient of recently announced Sahitya Akademi award 2014 for her book Manthan an anthology, of critical essays in Konkani language.

About Dr. Madhavi Sardesai

She was well-known scholar, publisher and writer who worked mainly in the Konkani language and was niece of Gyanpeeth Awardee Konkani writer Ravindra Kelekar.

Currently, she was head of Goa Universitys Konkani Department where she was professor since 1992.

She was also the Executive Editor of the Jaag monthly and been its editor since August 2007.

monthly and been its editor since August 2007. Awards: She had received Sahitya Akademi Award for translation of her book Eka Vicharachi Jivit Katha on Gandhis Life.

She had received Sahitya Akademi Award for translation of her book Eka Vicharachi Jivit Katha on Gandhis Life. Contribution to Konkani: Bhaasaabhaas-1993, Eka Vicharachi Jivit Katha (Eternal Story of a Thought)-1993, Mankullo Raj Kunvor a translation of the childrens novelette (The Little Prince) from French into Konkani. She also had contributed to poems, essays, short-stories, research papers on the Konkani language, literature and linguistics.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2014

Topics: Eminent Konkani writer Dr. Madhavi Sardesai  Sahitya Akademi Award 2014

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Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

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V. M. Salgaocar Institute of International Hospitality Education (VMSIIHE), a hospitality education in India, announces opening of admissions for the coming academic year 2017- 18 for students who want to enhance their career in the field of hospitality.

Study in Portugal

Affiliated to the Goa University and supported by the Marriott Group, VMSIIHE offers a B.Sc. in International Hospitality Management and has recently tied up with Turismo de Portugal. 10 outstanding students keen to embark on a study abroad adventure will get a chance to visit Portugal as a part of the exchange program. The institute also offers its students an opportunity to pursue a post-graduate degree at HTMi Switzerland.

Study in Switzerland

With the strategic partnership with HTMi institute in Switzerland, students who have successfully completed the 3-year International Hospitality degree at VMSIIHE in Goa will be eligible to be enrolled at the Master's program at HTMi Switzerland.

The duration of this program comprises of one academic semester of taught modules, followed by the completion of a master's dissertation within six months of the completion of the taught modules. Upon completion students will receive 3 post graduate degrees. A Post-graduation diploma in Hospitality Management, M.Sc. in hospitality and tourism management and an MBA in hospitality Management from HTMi.

Entrance Test Date and Timing

Students who have appeared/passed the Class XII board exam in Arts/Commerce/Science/Vocational stream can walk-in for the entrance test at the Institute on any working day from Monday to Friday between 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Candidates admitted on or before 31st May, 2017 can avail of the Early Bird offer which is a 10% concession on tuition fee for all three years at the institute.

About the Course

The three year full-time program at VMSIIHE is designed to equip the students with practical training and necessary skills, with special attention to personality development, professional attitude and leadership qualities, which are essential to be a global manager of repute. The institute boosts of a unique industry-focused curriculum, dedicated and experienced faculty with international expertise, sophisticated equipment, interactions with industry experts, professional internship at starred hotels across India and abroad as well as a 100% placement assurance.

About the VMSIIHE Campus

Location

Situated approximately 22kms from the capital city Panaji, 5kms from Margao and 20kms from the airport, the campus is the perfect place for students to learn and be nurtured as hotel management professionals and hospitality leaders of the future.

Infrastructure

The well designed campus has a fully functional 5-starred training hotel on campus, with a grand lobby area and reception, well appointed guestrooms, a restaurant, kitchen area and banqueting facilities. The program provides participants with a profound exposure to various facets of the industry, departmental processes related to food & beverage planning, showmanship, front office and housekeeping practices, human resource management and food production operations. It also offers them a leadership programme which inculcates a professional attitude in a holistic learning environment. The course curriculum includes academic learning, practical sessions, an exchange program to Portugal, a visit to Switzerland and professional internships in top hotels in India and abroad.

UPES Offers B.A in Public Policy with Civil Services Coaching: Apply Now!
Online Course On Introduction to Statistical Methods for Gene Mapping is offered by Kyoto University, which helps you to learn about genetic variations and gene mapping.

To know more about gene mapping online course enroll on or before by April 1, 2017.

About Introduction to Statistical Methods for Gene Mapping course?

This data course is a primer to statistical genetics and covers an approach called linkage disequilibrium mapping, which analyzes non-familial data and has been successfully used to identify genetic variants associated with common and complex genetic traits.

We hope many students find this introductory course interesting and are motivated to study further topics in statistical genetics to understand biological variation from statistical standpoints.

Previous knowledge of molecular genetics and basic statistical concepts, such as statistical tests and estimation, is required.

Basic knowledge on genetic variations is offered at the start of the course.

What is learned in this course?

Basic terms for genetic variations and gene mapping.

Linkage disequilibrium mapping and genome-wide association studies (GWAS).

Common and rare variants and their effects on phenotypes.

Duration of the course?

Length: 4 weeks

Effort: 2-3 hours per week

Institution: KyotoUx

Subject: Data Analysis and Statistics

Languages: English

Video Transcripts: English

Price: Free Add a verified certificate for $49

Level: Advanced

Prerequisites:

Undergraduate molecular genetics knowledge.

Basic concepts of statistical tests and estimation.

For further information and to register, visit the official website.

Online Course On Computational Thinking And Data science
If you visited the 2017 Geneva Motor Show in search of the ultimate station wagon, ABT Sportslines RS6+ should have definitely made your shortlist.



In order to create some separation from the factory standard model, ABT pumped 705 PS (695 HP) and 880 Nm (649 lb-ft) of torque into this car, which pretty much makes it one of the worlds fastest wagons.

Unfortunately we still dont have any official numbers regarding performance, but any improvement on the stock models (RS6 Performance) 3.7-second zero to 100 km/h (62 mph) sprint time should be well-received.

In terms of looks, the exterior comes with carbon fiber add-on parts (skirts, front lip, mirror casings, wheel arch vents and diffuser), plus a carbon fiber tailpipe trim. You also get 22 wheels, which you can either have in gloss black or matte black.

The interior is also dripping with carbon fiber, which you can find across the dashboard, center console, steering wheel, gear knob and door panels. Theres also Alcantara present on the door panels as well as the seats  pretty much exactly what youd expect given how sporty the exterior looks.

PHOTO GALLERY
Japanese tuning company Liberty Walk will be exhibiting multiple wide-body creations during this years London Motor Show, with this McLaren 650S confirmed to be making an appearance.



This car has already turned plenty of heads in Geneva this year, mostly thanks to its unique Liberty Walk body style and special livery. Its got a new front bumper, side diffuser, rear bumper, massive elevated rear wing, and of course wide fenders.

We are delighted to welcome Liberty Walk and cant wait to see the McLaren 650S in Battersea Park in all its glory, said London Motor Show chairman, Alec Mumford.

These guys really know how to add drama to an already dramatic car, and they certainly have enough in their armory to be a star of the show. Liberty Walk will invite a new, youthful audience to the London Motor Show and we are very excited for them to set up here.

Aside from the wide-bodied 650S, the tuner will bring two more models to London, while also planning something special, which could mean that were bound to see something completely new from them.

The 2017 London Motor Show will take place in Battersea Park, from 4-7 May.

PHOTO GALLERY
McLaren has revealed that it hopes to create two to three bespoke one-off cars for customers each and every year.



Speaking with Autocar, McLaren Special Operations boss Ansar Ali said that the British company has become large enough to facilitate the creation of more bespoke products, similar to what Ferrari has done with its Special Projects division.

During the interview, Ali said that the British brand will be able to create such custom vehicles in 18-24 months but said customers will have the choice as to whether or not their vehicles will be revealed to the public.

McLaren also believes the vehicles are a useful test bed for new materials and tech and present an R&D opportunity.

The only bespoke creation from McLaren Special Operations for a customer is the X-1, built back in 2012 and based around the 12C. It features all-new body panels and included hydraulically-operated rear wheel covers.

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: The Canadian Press

This week's federal budget leaves Canada in a state of uncertainty as Ottawa waits to see what U.S. President Donald Trump will do south of the border, say Fraser Institute analysts.

The think tank called the budget status quo, saying it punts major policy decisions into the future, creating an uncertain economic climate.

In a blog post Charles Lammam accused the government of essentially deciding not to decide until President Trump decides, a tactic that leaves taxpayers, entrepreneurs and businesses guessing about what Canadas economic policies will be.

The Trump administration is hammering out details of what could be significant policy and tax changes in the U.S, including NAFTA, a border tax and others.

Lammam and Jason Clemens say those changes could make our southern neighbours a much more attractive destination for investment and skilled workers.

The budget could mean loss of competitive edge against the U.S., they warn.

Critically, the budget does not provide a definitive answer on whether some of the rumoured tax hikes, particularly with respect to capital gains, will or will not materialize in the coming year. This uncertainty impedes decisions by entrepreneurs and investors, Lamman writes.

Lammam and Clemens also point out non-residential business investment in Canada has gone down in eight of the last nine quarters, and should be cause for alarm for a government committed to encouraging innovation and economic growth since investment is a key engine powering both."
Photo: Contributed

A Calgary man who was found guilty along with his wife of murder in the death of their diabetic teenage son has joined her in filing an appeal of his conviction.

Emil and Rodica Radita of Calgary were convicted of first-degree murder last month in the death of their 15-year-old son Alexandru.

Justice Karen Horner of Court of Queen's Bench heard the trial without a jury and was told the boy was so neglected, he weighed just 37 pounds when he died in 2013 of complications from untreated diabetes and starvation.

Horner sentenced the parents to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Earlier this week, Rodica Radita filed an appeal notice and on Friday, her husband did the same.

Rodica asserted in her appeal that the judge showed bias by crying during the trial.

"I am not guilty of murdering my son and the judge finding that I am shows that she did not look at all of the evidence," she said in a handwritten from that shows her address as the federal women's prison in Edmonton.

When Horner handed down her verdict, she said the couple was in gross denial of Alexandru's disease.

"Children in Canada rarely die from diabetes, but proper treatment requires due diligence,'' the judge said.

Horner said it appeared that Alexandru had not received proper care for years, even though the Raditas were fully trained on how to look after him.
Photo: Contributed

The British Columbia Liberal Party says it has found 43 so-called indirect donations worth almost $93,000, which it plans to reimburse.

The information comes as the RCMP is already reviewing possible violations of the B.C. Elections Act related to indirect political donations and other unspecified contraventions involving political party financing in the province.

A statement from the B.C. Liberal Party on Friday said that since March 3 its staff have been reviewing contributions made to the party since 2011, as required under the Elections Act.

The statement sent by party spokesman Emile Scheffel said in all 43 cases, a personal credit card was used on behalf of an organization and that money was then paid back by the organization they represented  a violation of the Election Act.

The statement said the individuals and organizations involved in the donation claims were unaware that reimbursements were not permitted.

"Much of the confusion around these issues has taken place as more contributions and ticket purchases have moved online," the statement said.

It said the party has made changes to its online payment process to improve accuracy of the information collected and help contributors better understand the requirements.

B.C.'s chief electoral officer Keith Archer announced earlier this month that he was handing over a review of similar allegations to the Mounties to ensure fairness as Elections BC prepares for the May 9 election.

Archer had said the review referred to sections of the Election Act that outline restrictions on political contributions and requirements to record information about each contributor.

The B.C. Liberal Party said 30 additional individuals came forward to the party to report "clerical errors" where a contributor was listed as an individual instead of their employer.

The statement said the review process of the party's donations is not yet complete, but it is correcting its records and will update Elections BC regarding these recent findings.

A news release from the B.C. New Democratic Party said questions remain for B.C. Premier Christy Clark, including why her party isn't releasing the list of donors who made the prohibited donations.

The NDP said Clark needs to address the issue of lobbyists allegedly making indirection contributions to help their clients hide donations.
Photo: Contributed

Authorities say they've charged a Florida man recorded on video sitting in the street eating pancakes.

A Lakeland police news release says Kiaron Thomas was charged Thursday with placing an obstruction in the roadway and disrupting the free flow of traffic. He was not arrested but issued an April 25 court date.

Police first received a call Tuesday morning about a man sitting in the crosswalk of a busy intersection. The caller said the man had a small TV tray in front of him and was eating what appeared to be pancakes. Officers responded, but the man had already left.

A video of the incident was later posted on Facebook and shared in a message to police. Several people tagged the video to Thomas, who police say admitted pulling the prank.
Photo: Contributed People hold up a banner during a 'Unity Vigil' against racism and Islamophobia in reaction to Wednesday's attack, backdropped by the gates of Downing Street in London, Friday.

The man who killed four people outside Britain's Parliament was in Saudi Arabia three times and taught English there, the Persian Gulf country's embassy said.

Khalid Masood taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009, a Saudi Embassy statement released late Friday said.

Masood had a work visa during those times, and then he returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent, the embassy said. Saudi security services didn't track him and he didn't have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was known as Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted at least twice for violent crimes.

Masood drove his rented SUV across the crowded Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, striking pedestrians. Then he jumped out and attacked police officer Keith Palmer, who was guarding Parliament, fatally stabbing him before being shot dead by police.

In all, he killed four people and left more than two dozen hospitalized, including some with what have been described as catastrophic injuries. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

British officials said security at Parliament will be reviewed after new footage emerged that showed large gates to the complex were left open after Masood rushed onto the grounds.

There are concerns accomplices could have followed him in and killed more people. The footage shows pedestrians walking by the open gates and even a courier entering the grounds.

The new footage follows the release of earlier video showing slight delays and confusion during the evacuation of Prime Minister Theresa May from Parliament as the attack unfolded.

Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record dating to 1983. The violence came later, first in 2000 when he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account.

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine his motives and possible accomplices. Two people remain in custody for questioning. They are two men, aged 27 and 58, who were arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities haven't charged or identified the two men.

Seven others who had been arrested in connection with the investigation have been set free. A 32-year-old woman arrested in Manchester, and a 39-year-old woman arrested in east London, were released on bail.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Police in Virginia have arrested a man who was dressed as comic book villain the Joker and reportedly carrying a sword.

Winchester Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hall said in a news release that the department got several 911 calls Friday afternoon reporting a man made up as Batman's nemesis. He was wearing a cape and carrying a sword.

Thirty-one-year-old Jeremy Putman has been charged with wearing a mask in public, a felony that can result in a year in jail.

It wasn't immediately clear whether Putman has a lawyer.
Photo: File photo

Warplanes struck rebel-held parts of Syria Saturday killing and wounding scores of people amid clashes on multiple fronts between government forces and insurgent groups in some of the worst violence to hit the country in weeks, opposition activists said Saturday.

The airstrikes, of which some activists said included Russian air raids, concentrated on the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, the central province of Hama and suburbs of the capital Damascus that have come under attack by insurgent groups over the past week.

One of the airstrikes hit a main street in the Damascus suburb of Hamouriyeh killing at least 16 people and wounded more than 50, activists said. The airstrikes caused wide destruction in the area.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes killed 16, including eight women and children, and wounded more than 50. The Local Coordination said 18 were killed and dozens were wounded.

Both groups said some people are still missing, and that the death toll could rise.

"They have been hitting Hamouriyeh for days but today they struck an area packed with civilians," said Awis al-Shami of The Civil Defence search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets, via text message.

The airstrikes come as insurgent groups have been on the offensive in Damascus and the central province of Hama for the past days. Government forces and their allies launched a counteroffensive capturing some of the areas they lost in Damascus and Hama.

Opposition activists also reported airstrikes in Idlib province hitting several towns and villages as well as the provincial capital the carries the same name.

The Observatory said a Friday night attack struck a prison run by militants, killing at least 16 people including prisoners and prison staff in Idlib city. It added that women were among the dead as well.

The monitoring group, which has a network of activists around the country, said some people were killed by gunfire as prison guards chased detainees who tried to flee after the attack.

The Local Coordination Committees said five air raids struck the city without giving further details.

Idlib is a stronghold of Syrian insurgent groups and is regularly targeted by Syrian and Russian warplanes.
Photo: Contributed

The latest in a string of brutality cases against Rikers Island guards has added fuel to a growing debate on whether New York City's notoriously violent jail complex has become so dysfunctional it should be shut down.

At least 35 staff members at Rikers have faced criminal charges in the past three years, including 13 for assault or attempted assault. Federal prosecutors have also charged more than a half dozen Rikers guards with violating inmates' civil rights through excessive force, smuggling drugs and other charges since 2014.

"Rikers Island is one of these long-term injustices and abuses that every New Yorker should be outraged about," said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "The situation is intolerable."

Inmate activists have for more than a year argued that shutting down the sprawling, 10-jail complex on the East River is the only solution for a cycle of abuses that include violence by guards and gang members, mistreatment of the mentally ill and juveniles and unjustly long detention for minor offenders.

"If you are a New Yorker who cares about the soul of the criminal justice system, you know that Rikers is the belly of the beast," said Glenn Martin, founder of the non-profit group JustLeadershipUSA, which seeks to decrease the number of Americans behind bars.

Among the other arguments for closing Rikers is that the island facility near La Guardia Airport  accessible only by a narrow bridge  is too isolated, cutting off inmates from the outside world in a way that hinders oversight and rehabilitation.

Daily populations at Rikers have recently been falling below the roughly 10,000 capacity, a trend city officials attribute to reducing detention for those charged with misdemeanour drug possession. Advocates say that makes it viable to dismantle Rikers and replace it with a combination of new and expanded existing jails in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Cost estimates have reached as high as $10 billion.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has stuck to his position that reforms and improvements at Rikers are both the least costly and most practical approach.

A 2015 settlement of civil litigation over pervasive brutality at Rikers imposed various changes, including the addition of thousands of surveillance cameras, stricter policies on use of force and the appointment of a federal monitor to oversee conditions.

Cuomo, who frequently is at odds with fellow Democrat de Blasio, took an indirect jab at the mayor at a community forum earlier this month, saying his view of the city's position is that closing Rikers would be "too hard."

"Well you know what, impotence is not a defence for me," the governor said. "New York City can accomplish anything it wants to, when it wants to. It just needs the political will. It is an outrage in New York City to allow Rikers Island to exist."

The latest brutality case stems from security videotape in a maximum-security shower area that shows guard Rodiny Calypso viciously attacking an unnamed inmate in February 2014, a criminal complaint says. After the pair exchanged words  Calypso claims the inmate spit on him  the guard handcuffed the victim and punched him in the face and the head several times, it says.
Photo: Contributed

Egyptian security officials say a roadside bomb planted by suspected Islamic militants has hit a police armoured vehicle in the north of the Sinai peninsula, killing three members of the security forces.

They say the Saturday blast south of the city of el-Arish injured six other policemen.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The attack came two days after Sinai militants killed 10 army soldiers and two policemen in Sinai.

Northern Sinai, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, has long been home to an insurgency by militants, now led by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group. The insurgency expanded and grew deadlier after the 2013 ouster of an Islamist president whose one year in office proved divisive.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Salvage crews towed a corroded 6,800-ton South Korean ferry and loaded it onto a semi-submersible transport vessel Saturday, completing what was seen as the most difficult part of the massive effort to bring the ship back to shore nearly three years after it sank.

Government officials say it will take a week or two to bring the vessel to a port 90 kilometres away so investigators can search for the remains of nine missing people who were among the 304 who died when the Sewol capsized on April 16, 2014.

Most of the victims were students on a high school trip, touching off an outpouring of national grief and soul searching about long-ignored public safety and regulatory failures. Public outrage over what was seen as a botched rescue job by the government contributed to the recent ouster of Park Geun-hye as president.

"We just got over one hump ... we are trying hard to stay calm," Lee Geum-hee, the mother of a missing schoolgirl, told a television crew.

Bringing the Sewol back to the port in Mokpo would be a step toward finding closure to one of South Korea's deadliest disasters. Once the ferry reaches land, government officials say it will take about a month for the ship to be cleaned and evaluated for safety.

Investigators will then enter the wreckage and begin a three-month search for the remains of the missing victims and for clues further illuminating the cause of the sinking, which has been blamed on overloaded cargo, improper storage and other negligence.

Workers on two barges began the salvaging operation Wednesday night, rolling up 66 cables connected to a frame of metal beams divers spent months placing beneath the ferry, which had been lying on its left side under 44 metres (144 feet) of water.

Relatives of the missing victims, some of whom were watching from two fishing boats just outside the operation area, cried as the blue-and-white right side of the ferry, rusty and scratched and its painted name "SEWOL" no longer visible, emerged from the waters on Thursday morning.

By Friday evening, workers managed to raise the ship 13 metres (42 feet) above the water surface so that they could load it onto the semi-submersible, heavy lift vessel that was about 3 kilometres (2 miles) away. The timing of the move was vital because dangerous water currents were forecast to worsen Saturday.

Five towing vessels slowly pulled the two barges with the partially raised Sewol tied between them. They had placed the Sewol on the vessel's submerged dock by 4:10 a.m. Saturday, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

The ministry said Saturday evening that the Sewol had been disconnected from the barges. The transport vessel then raised the dock to fully raise the ferry from the water so that the crew can begin emptying it of water and fuel.

Victims' relatives and government officials disagree on how to proceed with the searches. The government favours cutting off the passenger cabin area and raising it upright before searching for the missing victims, while families fear that cutting into the ship might harm any victims' remains.

A group representing the victims' families has also demanded that it be part of an investigation committee that will be formed to further study the cause of the ship's sinking. Many bereaved family members and their supporters have been demanding a more thorough investigation into the government's responsibility over the sinking, questioning why higher-level officials have not been held accountable.

The ferry's captain is serving a life prison sentence for committing homicide through "wilful negligence" because he fled the ship without ordering an evacuation.

Accusations that Park was out of contact for several hours on the day of the sinking were included in the impeachment bill parliament passed in December. She was formally removed from office this month and is under criminal investigation over suspicions that she conspired with a confidante to extort money and favours from companies and allow the friend to secretly interfere with state affairs.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Tens of thousands protested Saturday under sunny skies in London against plans for Britain to withdraw from the European Union.

The Unite for Europe march, which saw many people carrying bright blue EU flags, came just days before Britain is expected to begin its formal separation from the other 27 nations in the EU.

The crowds observed a minute of silence at Parliament Square as a tribute to the four victims killed and dozens wounded in an attack Wednesday on Parliament. Many bowed their heads as Big Ben chimed and placed flowers at Parliament's gate to honour the victims.

Police did not provide a crowd estimate. Organizers said more than 25,000 people were present. There was also a smaller anti-Brexit protest march in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Organizers considered delaying the long-planned march because of the attack  in part to avoid putting extra strain on British police  but decided to go ahead.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron told the crowd that "democracy continues" despite the assault.

"We stand in defiance of that attack," he said.

Prime Minister Theresa May plans to trigger Article 50 of the EU treaty on Wednesday, setting the Brexit process in motion. Negotiations are expected to take at least two years.

Britain voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the EU.
Photo: Contributed

Authorities learned a six-year-old brought a gun to an elementary school outside Los Angeles, but parents of other students didn't learn about it for nearly two weeks.

The student's grandmother found the firearm in his backpack earlier in March. The Sun newspaper reported that the child said he received it from another student in the Cucamonga School District, about 64 kilometres east of Los Angeles.

The law enforcement investigation was interrupted by spring break, and the district's superintendent said she didn't learn of the incident until Monday. Families were informed Thursday, a delay that angered parents.

The father of the child who allegedly brought the gun to school was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment after sheriff's deputies concluded his children could access his gun safe.
Katrina is back in the city to complete some of her work commitments

Katrina Kaif left for Austria last week to begin shooting for Tiger Zinda Hai, with Salman Khan. The actress had injured her back while performing a scene in India for her film Jagga Jasoos and if sources are to believed then the actress will resume shooting for the film soon. A source says, Katrina had to take rest after her injury, so the Jagga Jasoos team could not shoot with her. Later she had to fly to Austria to begin work on Tiger Zinda Hai. Now she has returned in the country and might allot a few dates to the Jagga Jasoos team.

Reportedly Anurag Basus Jagga Jasoos, which also stars Ranbir Kapoor, was delayed because the makers were to re-shoot some portion of the film. It was said that the team needed at least a month to re-shoot the portions.

Meanwhile Katrina has been training hard to perform some stunts for her film Tiger Zinda Hai and she has already done some crucial scenes before returning in the country. She is expected to fly back and continue shoot soon.

Tiger Zinda Hai is directed by Ali Abbas Zafar and is slated to release on Christmas this year, while makers of Jagga Jasoos are yet to announce their new release date.
The Afghans celebrate New Year day, Nowruz, on 21 March. It coincides with the coming of spring and is a time of hope. This year though the celebration spirit of the Afghan government would have been greatly dampened by the Taliban moving into the Sangin district centre in the strategic south-west Helmand province a day after Nowroz. The Taliban timing of the move to take control of Sangin is not surprising for the movement considers Nowroz to be without Islamic sanction and banned its observance when it ruled Afghanistan in 1996-2001. Sangin has witnessed, in the past, heavy fighting between the Taliban and first British troops and later US forces, both of whom suffered relatively heavy casualties. The Taliban and the Afghan security forces have been locked in fighting for months. The Afghans and the US spokespersons are emphasising that government forces only retreated in good order to take better tactical positions and the district centre having suffered wide-spread destruction were currently of little value. This may be correct. However, the fact is that the news of a retreat itself would be a psychological blow to the Afghan people and one more reminder of the fragile security situation country-wide. In a report released in end January, the US Special Inspector-General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko revealed that as of November 2016 the Taliban controlled 10% of Afghan territory and contested another 22%. General Nicholson who heads NATO forces in Afghanistan told a Senate committee that Afghan security forces and the Taliban were locked in a stalemate. Through 2016 the Taliban went closer to the capitals of key Afghan provinces including Helmand, Farah, Uruzgan and Sarah-i-Pul. The security situation was graphically and accurately captured by the Sopko in a speech on 23 March. He said, During the 2016 fighting season, the Taliban did not achieve its primary goal of taking and holding a provincial capital  despite several attempts. Yet the best the 320,000 strong Afghan security forces could do was to constantly chase the Taliban around Afghanistan, retaking territory, including key provinces and cities, instead of conducting offensive operations against the insurgency in a deadly version of whack-a-mole.

Control play

While this game over control of territory is on-going the Taliban have also launched terrorist attacks through the winter in Afghan cities including Kabul. In addition to the these terrorist attacks were also carried out by the ISIS in Afghan cities.

The worst ISIS attack was on the Military Hospital on 8 March when a small group disguised as terrorists killed almost 40 persons including doctors and patients. Despite these brutal terror tactics, the ISIS are nowhere near as dangerous as the Taliban.

The ISIS in Afghanistan is strong in some areas of the south-eastern province of Nangarhar. In the Kunar province, there is a tradition of Salafism among the Orakzais who straddle the Durand line.

The Orakzais may give support to ISIS elements. However, the main body of the Taliban are the renegade Tehreek-e-Taliban elements, some Afghan Taliban who have joined the ISIS and criminal elements.

Bigger issues

What is disturbing for Afghanistans, and to an extent the regions security, is the Russian decision, backed by the Chinese, to focus on ISIS and virtually give a clean chit to the Taliban.

Russia is asserting that the ISIS is the real danger for Afghanistan. As a corollary, it wants the Talibans co-option in Afghan power structures. That is what the West, including the Americans, has also desired.

However, the Taliban has shown no real intent to negotiate with the National Unity Government led by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah. It is focussed on military success despite its own internal divisions and splintering.

The Russian move also encourages its intransigence. It is here that success, howsoever partial and temporary it may be, such as it has got in Sangin, matters. It makes it only more intransigent. This is all the more because perhaps the Iranians may be materially supporting some Taliban factions.

Pakistans support material and through the provision of sanctuaries to the Taliban continues unabated. It also continues to be its main instrument in Afghanistan. Pakistan claims that it wishes for the Afghan government and the Taliban to reconcile but it has never effectively pressured it to do so. In such a situation there is no reason for the Taliban to abandon its interest in seeking military means to achieve its goals.

The coming months will be a testing time for the Afghan security forces and the government. US support will be essential for them to hold the Taliban back. The Trump administration is still to show how it will proceed to deal with what has become Americas longest war. However, even as it emphasises reconciliation it has no alternative but to ensure that the Taliban does not gain momentum.

It is in this context that there are reports that a few thousand more US troops may be added to the around 8,500 contingent. Greater clarity will come on US policies in the coming months when Defence Secretary Mattis and NSA McMaster travel to the country.

For India, it is essential to enhance its security and intelligence cooperation with Afghanistan, continue with its general assistance programme, and also open contacts with the Taliban.

The last move will not be an endorsement of the group or a weakening of its support for the Afghan government. It will only be a timely one on the Afghan chessboard especially as the long and dangerous summer fighting season will begin in Afghanistan. Such is the way the security and diplomatic game needs to be played.
Fallon said "a diverse military is a strong military which is why we're committed to making sure our forces better represent the society they serve - this Covenant signing is yet another demonstration of this.

"Sikhs have a rich history with the Armed Forces, from their unsurpassed courage at the Battle of Saragarhi, 120 years ago, to the hundreds of thousands of Sikhs, who fought for Britain during the First and Second World Wars. We will work with the Association to ensure that tradition continues," he added.

170 Sikhs currently serve in the Royal Navy, Army and the Royal Air Force, with many more around the UK serving as Reservists.

Ranger said that the "Covenant demonstrates our commitment as citizens of the United Kingdom to our illustrious Armed Forces, whilst at the same time recognising their round-the-clock, 365 days a year commitment for our freedom."

-ANI
Chino, CA (91710)

Today

Overcast with rain showers at times. High around 65F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Showers this evening becoming a steady rain overnight. Low 56F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
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.
Words are special things. They carry weight, meaning and importance, specific to the circumstances under which they are used.

That cartoon about the insurgents, which I did way back in 2005, applies a context and a perspective to the meaning of the word. Of course, the word, as defined, is a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government. But an insurgent is also a person who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party. Think of that. Right now, we can argue that we have an insurgent president. And we've had them before. But an insurgency also just played out with a vote to get rid of a keystone of the previous administration. The result was sort of an insurgency against an insurgency, wrapped in an insurgent tactic to prevent a vote that would run counter to the insurgency. The result was failure.

But I really do not care about that at all. I'm interested in words and word usage. Just now, a newsroom conversation revolved around whether it's accurate to say "none of these students (is) or (are) a journalism major." The correct usage is is. Sound familiar? Yes. It depends on what the meaning of the word is is. Is that too much? Words are important. But more important than how they apply to politicians, or insurgents for that matter, are the words and turns of phrase that I cannot abide. One of the worst contemporary expressions is "went missing." This awful descriptor has its origins somewhere in the early 2000's. Apparently some British journalist started it, and now an unacceptable number of writers use it. "Went missing" is idiotic. Why not just say disappeared? And anyway, anyone who uses it is only using it because learned to use it. So it's my hope that you'll begin to notice this affectation, and become as irritated as I am about it.

But when I wrote that just now I used another word combination I can't stand when I said "and now an unacceptable number of writers use it." It's that one: "A number." Why in the name of all things holy is it okay to refer to "a number" of anything as an illustration of multitude? Really. One is a number. So is 7,000. It's as logical as saying, "He sent me a word of notes" when trying to illustrate there were a lot of them.

"A number" is no measurement at all. I cannot abide. But another word I will never embrace, and one used exclusively by media professionals, is Motorist.

"Motorists might notice more traffic on Thursday..." or that kind of thing. Why not just call them drivers? "Motorist" suggests some kind of austere formality, and harkens back to some turn of the last century fascination with the automobile. Again, I cannot abide.

"Jets" is another silly usage in the media. "Military jets flew missions yesterday..." or "A 747 jet landed yesterday..." Using the word "jet" to describe a plane seems like some 1950's throwback, when jet engines were new and as a result seemed very cool to mention. But calling a military plane a jet is as logical as calling a car an "internal combustion." It's nothing more than a description of the power plant for the vehicle. We might as well call propeller-driven planes props, but we don't.

Another word technique I cannot abide is alliteration. This is a parlor trick, designed to create the illusion of cleverness. I cannot abide alliteration, and it has no place in effective writing. In fact, and many who have known and worked with me over the years will corroborate this, I reject alliteration out of hand. I won't even buy ice cream that has alliteration on the packaging. If Moses appeared to me in my kitchen and handed me stone tablets that laid bare the secrets to the origins of the universe and the very meaning of life, as soon as he started to alliterate, I would stop reading.

"Sort of" is another affectation I cannot abide. I'll find myself counting the "sort of's" in public radio broadcasts. sometimes I'll count eight or nine in one broadcast. Listen for them. You'll hear them. The pretension of saying "sort of" is unbearable.

"The play is a sort of commentary..." or "A lot of musicians will sort of record..." Here's another example: "The senators are sort of debating the issue..."

Even worse, they'll say it so fast, it gets slanged into something that can only be written as "sor'f."

Come on. There is no sort of. It either is or is not. Really. listen for the sort of's. You'll hear them.

This partial list of words and word combinations I cannot abide may grow in coming weeks, and I can say with confidence that my fellow professional word users have their own lists of things they too cannot abide.

In the meantime, consider the use of the word insurgent, as it applies to what you may or may not believe.

We can live and die by these things.
Many health care leaders in Illinois cheered the demise of House Republicans' Obamacare replacement bill Friday  but it didn't take long for reality to quiet the celebration.

Despite the bill's downfall, challenges remain in Illinois and across the U.S. when it comes to health insurance, they said.

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"We can stop and take a breath and regroup, (but) I wouldn't say celebrate because I don't think the work is over," said John Peller, president and CEO of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. "I think everyone agrees, Republicans and Democrats alike, that the Affordable Care Act as it stands now is far from perfect and needs improvement."

The U.S. House of Representatives had been scheduled to vote Friday afternoon on the American Health Care Act, a bill that would have repealed and replaced large swaths of Obamacare. House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump agreed to pull the bill at the last minute because they didn't have enough votes to pass it.

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Obamacare will remain in place for the "forseeable future," Ryan said Friday.

Illinois' hospital community was pleased by the turn of events, having warned that the state could lose $40 billion over the next 10 years in federal Medicaid expansion funding, among other losses.

Starting in 2020, the bill would have effectively frozen Medicaid expansion, a program under which about 650,000 Illinois residents are covered. It also would have changed the way traditional Medicaid is funded. In all, Medicaid covers more than 3 million Illinois residents.

The bill would also have repealed Obamacare's requirement that everyone have health insurance or pay a penalty.

Hospitals feared the bill would have led to fewer people with health insurance in Illinois, putting consumers' health at risk and forcing hospitals to eat the costs of caring for more uninsured patients.

Higher costs for hospitals could have meant cuts to services and programs, the Illinois Health and Hospital Association had warned.

Still, A.J. Wilhelmi, president and CEO of the association, said the group knows there's "room for improvement" within the current system and wants to work with Illinois' congressional delegation to improve it.

Peller, with the AIDS Foundation, said Friday's events might just be "act one in a very, very long drama." The AIDS Foundation was a founding member of a coalition of Illinois organizations that fought the bill in recent weeks.

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Many Americans have embraced certain parts of Obamacare, such as its requirement that young adults be allowed to stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26; its prohibitions on insurers imposing lifetime and annual coverage caps; and its injunction against insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, among other things.

But frustration with the law peaked last fall when consumers shopping for coverage on its exchanges found higher prices and fewer options.

Protesters gather across the Chicago River from Trump Tower to rally against a Republican attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act on March 24, 2017, in Chicago. That day, President Donald Trump and GOP leaders yanked their bill off the House floor when it became clear it would fail. (Charles Rex Arbogast / AP)

Statewide, 2017 rates across all plans on the exchange increased by an average of 44 to 55 percent for the lowest-priced coverage. In Illinois, insurers Aetna and its Coventry brand, UnitedHealthcare and its subsidiary Harken Health, and Land of Lincoln all offered plans on the exchange last year, but not this year.

Consumers also often had a hard time finding exchange plans that included their doctors and preferred hospitals in-network.

"The way it stands today, the costs are too high (and) something needs to be done with the networks to help individuals in all the counties throughout Illinois," said Frank Vance, owner of EganVance Insurance in Chicago and former president of the Chicago Southland Association of Health Underwriters.

Experts agree that despite not passing a bill, the Trump administration has power to undermine the law in other ways, such as through new rules.

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Plus, questions remain about whether insurers will want to continue offering plans on Illinois' exchange next year. Insurers have until June 21 to decide whether to offer plans on the exchange in 2018.

Whether insurers stay on the exchanges will depend largely on what happens over the next few weeks, said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and an expert on the Affordable Care Act.

"Insurers don't know what to expect next, and insurers like stability," Jost said.

A spokeswoman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the state's largest insurer, said in a statement Friday that the insurer is "committed to working with lawmakers, regulators, providers and other health care professionals to ultimately achieve a sustainable and stable individual market."

Given the remaining uncertainty, the work of consumer advocates and health care leaders isn't over yet, Peller said. In recent weeks, the bill's opponents held numerous protests and events across Illinois.

"The folks who support the Affordable Care Act and the folks who are getting lifesaving insurance because of the Affordable Care Act have had an opportunity to get their voices heard and have been heard, but I don't think things are done for consumers," Peller said.

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lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
According to GoodCall, Elgin  shown here during Nightmare on Chicago Street last October  is in the Top 40 for overlooked dream cities in the U.S. (Mike Danahey / The Courier News)

I lost what little faith I had in any of those Top Ten-type lists you find online years ago.

That happened in 2014 when a survey declared that Aurora had the highest price for a six pack of beer at $13.32, which was pretty easy to disprove.

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When pressed, a spokesperson from the group that issued the survey claimed the beer chosen for the research was Heineken. If you check the website of Binny's, a 12-pack of Heineken is regularly $12.99. Case closed.

I'm a little wary of the list compiled by consumer data website GoodCall of "Overlooked Dream Cities" on which Elgin checks in at 33.

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The release for the list claimed those behind it "looked at data from cities with fewer than 300,000 people and ranked them based on walkability, crime rate, cost of living and amenities." The result is a list of "places where you'd want to, and can actually afford to, live."

The Top 10: (1) Erie, Pa.; (2) Scranton, Pa.; (3) Parma, Ohio; (4) Appleton, Wis.; (5) Allentown, Pa.; (6) Racine, Wis.; (7) Grand Rapids, Mich.; (8) Cicero; (9) East Orange, NJ; and (10) Green Bay, Wis.

Elgin checks in at 33, behind Illinois college towns Champaign ranked 20, Bloomington, 25, and Evanston, 26, and Arlington Heights, 30. Aurora is ranked 36 and Waukegan is 59. So if this were NCAA March Madness, all those towns would have made the tournament.

Elgin City Councilmember Tish Powell has lived in Kalamazoo, Mich. (37 on the list) which is about 45 minutes from 7th-ranked Grand Rapids.

What she recalls about Grand Rapids is a local saying, due to the town's roots, "If it ain't Dutch, it ain't much." That, and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is from this dreamy place.

Powell said Kalamazoo is "another cool river town," and she appreciated its diversity, which she sees as a selling point of Elgin. Powell pointed to the general quality of life, sense of family and community, hominess and the variety of homes as pluses for her current hometown.

"The choices in housing stock are top-notch," Powell said. "Elgin spans everything from fixer-uppers, historic homes, townhomes and condos to brand new homes. As former Mayor Ed Schock noted, development west of Randall Road allows people to move up, but not move out of Elgin."

Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein of Elgin's Congregation Kneseth Israel, who grew up in Grand Rapids, said what she likes about Elgin is its relative closeness to Chicago and Lake Michigan, local hiking and biking trails, cultural offerings including the symphony, Fringe Festival, theatre troupes, Elgin Community College and the great library.

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"I've been to Erie and Scranton. Elgin and Grand Rapids are way better than they are," she said with a laugh.

I asked Facebook friends if any had been to the Top 10 towns and if they were, indeed, overlooked dream cities.

Grand Rapids (7) has great restaurants, unique shops and galleries, small breweries and museums, according to two Facebook pals.

Racine (6) got mixed reviews from one former resident, while another loves Scranton (2), the town made famous as the setting for the sitcom "The Office."

All I know about Allentown (5) is Billy Joel had a song in the '80s bemoaning that town's lousy economy.

As for Illinois' top-ranked overlooked dream, another buddy noted he would be in Cicero (8) Thursday, where the Taco Bell drive-up window has bullet-proof glass. And another said, "dreamy, it ain't."

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Cicero's most infamous residents over the years have been Al Capone and former mayor and convicted felon Betty Loren-Maltese, neither of whom you would consider dreamy.

And no offense to any of the top-listed towns, which all probably do have some really nice qualities, but as Powell noted, they don't scream "You want to live here."

"What is that exactly that makes them dreamy?" Powell wondered.

As for her own dream place to live, Powell said San Diego, but for the really high cost of living. That's the thing about beautiful, dreamy places. Either they only appear every 100 years, like Brigadoon, or, they typically cost an arm and a leg and a kidney donation to afford the housing.

As for the GoodCall list, maybe from the metrics it would have been better to name it Best Kept Secrets or Overlooked Good Places to Live, Powell suggested.

But that's being practical. The "overlooked dream cities" shtick led to 24,800 news results on Google.

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Make that 24,801 now.

mdanahey@tribpub.com
The Illinois Attorney General's office is looking into whether Sleepy Hollow trustees violated the state's open meetings act when they met in two closed sessions preceding a vote to approve construction of a 125-foot cell tower on village-owned property.

Former trustee Tom Merkel asked that executive sessions in March and September 2016 be investigated on the basis of what was discussed and who attended.

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"We have determined that further action is warranted to assess whether the board's closed-session discussions of a proposed cell tower ... were fully authorized," said Josh Jones, Public Access Bureau supervising attorney, in a March 17 letter to Village President Stephan Pickett.

Pickett declined to speak about the matter, saying, "As it is an ongoing review by the AG's office, I am not making any comments about it at the moment."

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If the Attorney General's office determines a violation of the Open Meetings Act occurred in Sleepy Hollow, spokesperson Annie Thompson said the village will be advised on how they can get in compliance and avoid future violations.

Board members deliberated for two years on the cell tower proposal before voting 4-2 earlier this month to enter into a lease agreement with National Wireless Ventures LLC. The structure, which will be disguised as a windmill, is set to go in the area behind the south end of the village hall and police station building on Thorobred Lane. Trustees Dennis Fudala and Scott Finney voted against the plan.

Lease terms have just been finalized. The tower is expected to pay the village about $20,000 a year.

In his request, Merkel said board members adjourned into executive session on March 21, 2016, for the stated reason of discussing setting a price for sale or lease of property, a permitted topic. He added that National Wireless Ventures LLC representatives were improperly included in the discussion.

"A simple reading of the minutes ... reveals the board was not 'setting a price for sale or lease of property,'" Merkel said in his filing. "They were talking about everything but a lease price. Their conversations should have been in open sessions. Their actions were certainly inappropriate and taint the whole process with National Wireless, due to impropriety."

During a Sept. 6 executive session, Merkel said board members again discussed aspects of the cell tower "without ever once discussing setting a price for the lease."

Merkel could not be reached for comment on Friday.

The village has been asked to provide verbatim copies of minutes and recordings of both sessions, as well as a written explanation as to whether the board properly limited its discussions concerning the proposed cell tower ... to the setting of a price for the sale or lease of property owned by the village.

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The village also has to address whether there were other closed sessions since Sept. 6 on the proposed cell tower and if so, verbatim minutes and recordings of those are to be provided for review.

The goal of the Attorney General's Office, Thompson said, "is education and compliance."

"So that's really what we focus on in each case," she said.

"The basic cell tower lease calls for a monthly payment of $1,800 per month with an annual increase as well as additional fees when additional carriers are installed on the tower," Pickett said.

"The cell tower people have asked for a nine-month option to obtain the various permits they will need. Once permitting is received, they will begin construction," he said.

Erin Sauder is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Point Blank, an Ohio-based company, is planning to open a shooting range and gun shop near the intersection of North Aurora Road and Frontenac Court in Naperville. (Erin Hegarty / Naperville Sun)

A new indoor shooting range and gun store is to be built on North Aurora Road in a mostly industrial area of Naperville.

Point Blank Range & Gun Shop is in the process of obtaining a construction permit for the 14,000-square-foot building proposed for the corner of North Aurora Road and Frontenac Court.

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Point Blank would be the city's first indoor shooting range, although outdoor trapshooting is offered year round on Thursdays and Sundays at Sportsman's Park, which is part of the Naperville Park District.

City of Naperville staff does not have concerns with the new business, officials said.

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"The people going to that range are going to be very safe," said Bill Novack, director of Naperville's Transportation, Engineering and Development department.

"It's near an industrial area," Novack said, and while there are some subdivisions nearby, there's enough of a buffer between the homes and proposed range, Novack said.

A sign announcing the business is "coming soon" went up in the last week or so, said Allison Laff, planning services team leader for the city's Transportation, Engineering and Development Department.

The city issued a permit for site work on Feb. 16, and a foundation-only building permit was issued March 5.

A full building permit is still under review by the city, and staff review comments for the permit are due March 29.

Point Blank is based in Cincinnati, and currently has Illinois locations in Hodgkins and Mokena. The company also has locations in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana and is soon to open a range and shop in Texas, according to Point Blank's website. Officials with the company could not be reached for comment.

ehegarty@tribpub.com
Two definitions pop up in the dictionary for "snaggletooth." The first is an out-of-whack tooth, while the second is a hideously ugly deep-sea fish that uses a bioluminescent barbel to lure unsuspecting prey. Fortunately for all of us, the adorable Lakeview seafood shop, with its Instagram-ready dishes and flawlessly cured fish fillets, is named for the former.

According to co-owner Jennifer Kim, the name is a playful jab at her boyfriend and fellow owner, Bill Montagne. "He's got a slight snaggletooth, so we thought it would be funny," says Kim. "We wanted to keep things light and jovial."

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This playful atmosphere differs dramatically from their last job together. The couple met while working at C Chicago, an expensive white-tablecloth restaurant in River North, where Montagne served as executive chef. A veteran of New York's pre-eminent seafood destination, Le Bernardin, he created a menu filled with costly whole fish preparations. While Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel heaped praise on the food, he did call the restaurant an "interesting experiment" to see if Chicagoans will "buy seafood the way they buy steak." Montagne left after six months.

The O.G. tartine at Snaggletooth is trout lox, chopped scallion schmear, smoked and pickled cippolini onions. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

So you could easily say that Snaggletooth is the couple's approachable, low-key response to an extravagant expense-account restaurant. Which is partly true. But instead of a back-to-basics fish deli  perhaps a Chicago homage to New York's classic cured seafood destination, Russ & Daughters  the couple decided to use the techniques from high-end restaurants to create cured fish unlike anything currently available in Chicago.

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Take the restaurant's spin on lox. Usually, lox starts with a salmon fillet rubbed with a salt and sugar mix, cured for a day or two, and then often cold smoked. Snaggletooth doesn't do any of that. No direct cure, no smoke. It even starts with a different kind of fish  a sustainable ocean trout farmed in Scotland.

Instead, Montagne uses a method first taught to him by chef Gray Kunz at New York's Cafe Gray. He wraps the trout in cheesecloth and only then applies a mixture of salt, assorted spices and citrus. The fillets are stacked, weighed down with a pan and transferred to a fridge to cure.

According to Kim, this process is more delicate and more time-consuming: "Our process takes five days instead of one day." But this way, the cheesecloth can be cleanly removed without the need to rinse the fish. As Kim notes, "All that flavor on top of the fish isn't washed away."

I've never tasted cured fish like this. The bright, clean flavor initially reminded me of pristine slices of sashimi, before an enveloping background of intricate spice took over. It's completely at odds with the salty, smoky slices of lox I've eaten before.

Even the texture is miles away from traditional lox. According to Kim, a more aggressive cure results in a "pellicle hardness," that firm, bouncy texture of most cured fish. Smoking only adds to the stiffness, forming a layer of hardened flesh, called bark. Without either, the lox's texture hovers somewhere between raw and traditionally cured.

The fish selection changes daily, but when I visited, the shop also had pastrami trout, lime hamachi and jasmine trout. You can sample an assortment for $14 or purchase them separately by the 1/4-pound and manhandle the slices with your fingers. I won't look down at you. But just know that the couple treat the rest of the menu with just as much care as the fish.

Start with the tartines. Instead of bread, these open-faced sandwiches begin with bagels from New York Bagel & Bialy, which, along with the tea and coffee, are the only items not made from scratch at the restaurant. That even includes the schmears. According to Kim, regular cream cheese overpowered the fish, so the couple decided to use a thick and tangy Greek yogurt for the base.

The couple created a mildly pungent scallion schmear for the O.G. tartine ($8). Though the dish is labeled on the menu as "an homage to the lox n' bagel," I never experienced anything like this when I lived in New York. Each carefully arranged element played off the others, from the crunch of the toasted bagel and the creamy tang of the scallion schmear, to the supple trout lox and the pop of the cold-smoked and pickled cippolini onions. And don't expect anything traditional on the trout pastrami tartine ($8), which manages to combine a bright and piquant kimchee schmear, shaved Brussels sprouts and caraway.

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The tuna nicoise ($9) is something else entirely. Instead of canned tuna, Snaggletooth confits fresh tuna, which results in a voluptuous texture bursting with juices. This is balanced with pickled red onion, rich tomato conserva and bitter mustard greens.

On top of all of this, Snaggletooth also manages to kick out some beautiful side dishes, including an excellent shaved farm vegetable salad ($4) and a charred cauliflower ($4) with a zesty lime vinaigrette.

I realize that, at some point, all of this might seem a bit overwhelming to read about. And I haven't even mentioned the custom tea blends from Rare Tea Cellars or the cold brewed coffee from Sparrow Coffee Roastery. But it oddly doesn't feel oppressive to a customer. Perhaps the serene space or straightforward menu calms you. But Snaggletooth is managing to throw a lot of disparate menu items together and make them feel uniquely whole.

That's, sort of, by design. "We didn't try to come up with our own concept," says Kim. "We just said, 'Oh, these taste great together.'" By not attempting to fit into any kind of box, Snaggletooth created the completely untraditional fish deli Chicago didn't know it needed.

2819 N. Southport Ave., 773-899-4711, open Wednesday to Sunday, www.snaggletoothchicago.com.

nkindelsperger@tribpub.com

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Deann and Rick Bayless are pictured in Frontera Grill on March 26, 1987. The restaurant, which opened 30 years ago today, was first reviewed in the Chicago Tribune about a month later. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

On this day 30 years ago, Rick and Deann Bayless opened Frontera Grill. It's safe to say that Chicago's Mexican-dining scene has never been the same.

Calling it "already one of the best Mexican restaurants around," Paul A. Camp (the Tribune's restaurant critic then) hung two stars on Frontera within a month of its opening. The accolades have only increased since.

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Of course, there will be a big celebration, and of course, the Baylesses being who they are, the celebration will benefit someone else. On April 30, the evening before Chicago hosts the annual James Beard Foundation Awards Gala, Bayless will host a celebrity-chef-studded dinner in the Griffin Court in the Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing. Tickets are $500, and proceeds will go to FamilyFarmed and the Frontera Farmer Foundation, two organizations that promote family farming and sustainable food systems.

You can find details and buy tickets at www.frontera30.org.

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In homage to Frontera's big birthday, here's Paul Camp's original review:

This review was originally published April 24, 1987, in the Chicago Tribune.

"They make their own sour cream and a terrific guacamole," Jean Joho, the four-star French chef, raved recently. "It looks like Chicago will finally get a serious Mexican restaurant."

Joho, who heads the kitchen at the Everest Room atop One Financial Place, is in good company. Chicago's foodies have long bemoaned the fact that few, if any, truly authentic, consistently reliable Mexican restaurants exist in the area.

Now they're flocking to the new Frontera Grill. Not only Joho, but also Gordon's Michael Kornick, Amerique's Jennifer Newbury, cookbook author Abby Mandel and a host of other Chicago food luminaries have been seen checking the place out.

The Frontera Grill should satisfy their cravings for authentic Mexican food and at the same time introduce novices to the wide range of regional variations and unexpected complexities of that country's cuisine.

One whiff of the astringent air inside the restaurant singes the senses with scents of smoke, roasted peppers, mole and seasonings mingling sensually to raise expectations about the fare to come. By and large, Frontera Grill, open only five weeks, meets those expectations and sometimes exceeds them.

Run by Rick Bayless and his wife, Deann Groen Bayless, Frontera broke new ground as the first restaurant locally  perhaps anywhere  opened to coordinate with publication of a new cookbook, "Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking From the Heart of Mexico," written by the owners.

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If names like Rick and Deann Bayless inspire less than complete confidence in their ability to produce authentic Mexican cuisine, not to worry. Rick Bayless grew up around Mexican food, shuttled for eight years between Los Angeles and Mexico with his wife, and has done his homework. Bayless hosts the public television series "Cooking Mexican," and his book, published by William Morrow last month, is chalking up rave reviews around the country.

After the initial impact of the ambient aroma of the restaurant, diners face several choices. First, those so inclined must decide between the potent gold margarita  an excellent elixir of tequila, orange liqueur and lime juice  and an unusual white wine margarita variation. Although there is a wine list with some interesting possibilities at reasonable prices, this food almost cries for beer, Coke or margaritas as accompaniment.

The important decisions out of the way, diners then must pick and choose their way through a dinner menu divided into three sections: small dishes, tacos and entrees. This sounds simple, but such specialties as duck breast in green pumpkinseed mole and fish pibil will shake to attention those used to ordinary selections of boring Mexican-American vittles. The best strategy is to approach this restaurant the way many people approach Chinese: Go with a large group, order many different dishes and share.

Start with a selection of the small dishes, either one of your own choosing or one of the two samplers offered on the menu. Two of these small dishes outshine the others  the excellent fresh guacamole and the Mexico City-style quesadillas. Unlike the quesadillas at other places around town, Frontera's crescent-shaped corn-flour turnovers resemble dumplings filled with mild melted cheese and flavored with fresh herbs.

The seviche  marinated fish with olives, tomato and cilantro  that tops the crisp tortillas tasted too much of raw lime on one visit, as if it hadn't had sufficient marinating time for the flavors to blend. On another visit it was excellent. Taquitos filled with chicken recall slender Vietnamese egg rolls in shape and their crisp, flaky texture. Queso fundido lovers will relish Frontera's flavorful melted cheese flecked with chorizo, roasted peppers and onions, served with warm tortillas. The selection of sopes includes small samples of the homemade chorizo sausage, chicken in mole, plantain in sour cream and gaucamole, all on platforms made from masa corn flour.

Those whose experience in Mexican food is limited to Pepe's and Chi-Chi's will be shocked when they order Frontera Grill's tacos. The restaurant offers a choice of skirt steak, pork loin, chicken or duck breast, and catfish for the filling, all grilled over the hardwood fire. These ingredients come with hot tortillas, instead of the common crisp U-shaped shell, and roasted pepper rajas, salsa, frijoles charros (literally "cowboy beans") and guacamole. Diners then build their own tacos with as much or as little of the ingredients as they desire.

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The smoke from the hardwood coals greatly flavors all of the stuffing meats, and the cooks take care not to overcook them, preserving their moisture. Therefore, the tacos al carbon make for some of the best eating on the menu.

No meal at Frontera Grill would be complete without one of the excellent mole dishes. Mole sauce is one of the basics of Mexican cuisine and almost never well-executed in this country. Here the mix of dried chilies, fruits, nuts, seasonings and chocolate turns out exceptionally rich with no hint of bitterness. Try either the seared turkey breast or the chicken-filled enchiladas  both with a red mole. Or try the duck breast with green pumpkinseed mole, an unusual-sounding dish of unusual quality.

Other recommended entrees include the super-savory Texas chili, split game hen and carne asada (marinated and grilled beef tenderloin). Chilies rellenos, also offered "until we run out," according to the menu, had already run out on all of my visits, unfortunately.

Only one dish missed the mark by a mile  the fresh fish pibil. Red snapper marinated with achiote seasoning and baked in banana leaves had a strong ammoniated smell one night. The problem seems to be with the banana leaves, rather than the fish, but the dish definitely didn't work. Management says it is working on the dish to solve the problem.

Portions are quite generous and prices are reasonable  less than $10 per dish, with most of the "small dishes" selling for less than $5. Even so, such intriguing desserts as a somewhat-too-sweet prickly pear flan, rich and wonderful chocolate pecan pie, chocolate-bourbon bread pudding and homemade ice creams tempt beyond all reason to stretch one's limits. A more limited and somewhat less expensive selection of dishes is offered for lunch.

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Service leaves much to be desired at this point. Although well-meaning, servers need more knowledge of the food, and long waits between courses and some confusion over the orders are not unusual. Nevertheless, such impressive accomplishments from such a young restaurant hold out great promise for even better things to come.

Already Frontera Grill is one of the best Mexican restaurants around. It can easily become a great place to eat as it resolves the service problems and perfects all of the dishes.

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Frontera Grill

2 stars

445 N. Clark St.

Price range: Small dishes $1.95-$8.95, tacos al carbon $7.95-$8.95, entrees $7.95-$13.50, desserts $2.50-$3.25, dinner for two of appetizer (small dish), entrees, dessert, tax and tip: $35. Reservations: Accepted for parties of six or more.

Other: No-smoking section.






Bramwell Tovey, pianist and conductor, leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in their rendition of "Catfish Row" during "A Toast to Gershwin!" on March 24, 2017. (Brittany Sowacke / Chicago Tribune)

Danger lurks when great symphony orchestras play programs devoted to music of George Gershwin.

Not because the ensembles can't dispatch the music brilliantly, but because not all conductors can finesse the merger of classical and jazz idioms that is at the center of Gershwin's art. Worse, not every maestro approaches Gershwin's oeuvre as seriously as it deserves, regarding his work as light classical rather than as American populism at its most urbanely sophisticated.

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Which brings us to the fascinating case of Bramwell Tovey, a British-trained conductor-pianist who serves as music director of the Vancouver Symphony and led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a "Gershwin Spectacular" program Friday night in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center. Tovey was deeply persuasive as conductor and thoroughly engaging as raconteur but, alas, musically anemic and often technically unsure as pianist. By taking on multiple roles, he diminished what otherwise could have been an exemplary Gershwin program, the music sounding fresh and alive when he was on the podium but flagging when he sat at the piano.

The evening's most effective moments, by far, emerged at the end, when Tovey conducted the CSO in Gershwin's singular tone poem, "An American in Paris." Tovey was correct in referring to it as a "masterpiece" in his opening remarks, and he proved it through the telling nature of his interpretation.

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For the greatness of "An American in Paris" lies not in its tunefulness or easy accessibility but, rather, in the details of its construction. The work's meticulously layered motifs, ingenious instrumentation and internal rhythmic and harmonic tension point to Gershwin's mastery of orchestral writing, an achievement not all conductors can articulate in sound.

Tovey, to his credit, took pains to bring forth subtleties of orchestration and to illuminate the overall architecture of the piece. Yet he also captured the exuberance and melodic flow of the work, sustaining a dramatic line from start to finish.

Thus a piece that's universally beloved  partly because of the Gene Kelly film musical of the same name and subject matter  sounded rejuvenated and bristling with energy. In part, this owed to Tovey's brisk tempos and unsentimental approach. Gershwin's music, after all, fares best when it surges forward and doesn't swoon, which is precisely how Tovey proceeded.

But if there's a Gershwin work more celebrated than "An American in Paris," it's "Rhapsody in Blue," a 1924 landmark that trumpeted the rise of the Jazz Age more compellingly than any other work for piano and orchestra.

The piece poses greater challenges than many pianists realize, Gershwin's sometimes gnarly, often fleet keyboard writing easy to underestimate. Though Tovey was quite nimble at cuing the orchestra between piano statements, the music lost momentum virtually every time he applied his fingers to the keys.

Instead of the snarl and bite that drives Gershwin's piano writing, Tovey leaned on the sustaining pedal, producing blurry and sometimes messy passagework. He handled lyrical sections with characteristic sensitivity, but whenever the music became technically difficult, Tovey showed only a tenuous hold on the score.

One could forgive the occasional clinker, but not Tovey's bland dispatch of the repeated-note coda, which in the hands of great Gershwin pianists (such as Oscar Levant and Kevin Cole) is thrilling to hear. All of this slowed the momentum of the orchestral accompaniment (Tovey used the Ferde Grofe symphonic edition).

The evening opened with Don Rose's arrangement of the Overture to "Strike Up the Band," the dash and vigor of the performance indicating Tovey's innate feeling for Gershwin's distinctive musical language. Though Tovey's performance of his piano-and-orchestra version of "A Foggy Day" proved too slow for the song's good, the melancholy message could be explained by his introductory remarks: He was dedicating the performance to those who suffered in the wake of the recent terrorist attack in London.

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But Tovey brought plenty of rhythmic vigor and masterful pacing to "Catfish Row: Suite from 'Porgy and Bess.'" Unfortunately, when Tovey turned to the piano to play the famous Jazzbo Brown music, he sounded a bit square rhythmically and slipped back into overpedaling.

The piano is so central to Gershwin's music and identity that anyone who decides to take on his keyboard writing must play it with virtuosic elan or not at all. All the more when you're performing alongside an orchestra as magnificent as the CSO, which Tovey led admirably whenever he clung to his baton.

"Gershwin Spectacular" will be repeated at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; $36-$218; 312-294-3000 or www.cso.org.

Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.

hreich@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @howardreich

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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)
Mayra Hernandez and Jesse Iniguez are co-owners of a coffee roaster company and coffee house on 47th Street in the Back of the Yards. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

This is a story about artisanal coffee. Yes, another story like that, but it's about more than beans.

A year ago this March, Mayra Hernandez was hanging out with her friend Jesse Iniguez at his house in Back of the Yards, where they both grew up.

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"Why don't you give the coffee business another shot?" she asked. Iniguez had run a cafe in another neighborhood for a while, but it crashed when the housing market did.

Inspired by her own suggestion, Hernandez, who's 29, started making cold brew at home from instructions she found online. When summer came, she set up a cold-brew stand at a crafts fair in Chinatown. She sold out, and before long, she was taking orders for up to 40 gallons a week.

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"That cold brew was amazing," says Iniguez, 35. "I thought, all right, it's a sign from up above that something needs to happen."

Pretty soon, another sign arrived.

It came in the form of the housekeeper Iniguez had hired after she lost her cleaning job at a nearby bank. One day, when he and Hernandez were making coffee, the woman happened to mention that her family grew coffee in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

At their request, the next time she visited Mexico, she came back to Chicago with a sample of the family beans, which turned out to be good. Hernandez and Iniguez found a Michigan roaster that would let them roast once a week, and began selling bags of beans to subscribers.

Then came one more sign that coffee was their destiny.

They were walking down the street  lugging a door they intended to use for an art project  when they spotted a man Iniguez knew. They told him they were starting a coffee business. He said he just happened to own a building across from the neighborhood high school  perfect for a coffeehouse.

And that's the origin story of the Back of the Yards Coffee Co., an enterprise fueled by the determination of its founders to help the neighborhood.

"When you Google Back of the Yards, the first thing you see is violence and gunshots," Iniguez said Friday, sitting above the cafe that's set to open in several weeks. It's in a small wood building that once housed a bar. "We want to tell the story of Back of the Yards through our lens."

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"We want to honor the working class," Hernandez said.

"And the history in Back of the Yards of making things," said Iniguez. "For us, that's coffee."

Back of the Yards has always been an immigrant destination, first for the Europeans who came to work the city stockyards and in recent decades for Hispanics.

Iniguez's parents came from Mexico in the late 1970s, Hernandez's a couple of decades later. Their parents worked the kind of jobs that sustained the neighborhood after the slaughterhouses closed  meatpacking, welding  and earned enough money to buy a house.

"For my parents," said Hernandez, "moving on in life meant moving out of the neighborhood. For me, it's meant coming back and opening a business."

While artsy coffeehouses have flourished in other Chicago neighborhoods, good coffee remains hard to find on the city's southwest side.

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"This is a coffee shop desert," Iniguez said, "aside from Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts."

He said he's been told that "Mexicans won't drink good coffee."

His reply: "They're not drinking it because no one's serving it."

They recognize, however, that the coffee tastes in their neighborhood have been nurtured by McDonald's, Folgers and Dunkin' Donuts, so they've tailored their roasts  with names like 47th Street Blend and Butcher's Blend  to those tastes. As part of their goal to be "nutritionally responsible," they want to make coffee that feels familiar but is good enough to stand on its own.

"It's personal," Iniguez said. "My father has diabetes, and he's on dialysis. My brother drinks his coffee with six creams and nine sugars. My goal is to get him to drink black coffee."

They've been roasting since October and say subscription sales of their beans are doing well. A couple of restaurants now buy from them, and they're aiming for more.

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When the cafe opens, everything but the beans will be bought nearby. A couple of friends who work in restaurants have helped them devise a nutritious menu.

"Out here there's only burgers and tacos," Iniguez said.

Iniguez and Hernandez are part of a community of young people dedicated to improving Back of the Yards  "We're not waiting for other people to save us," he says  but their optimism is shadowed by politics.

If tariffs are imposed on imports from Mexico, the price of their beans will rise and they'll be faced with a quandary: Raise the price of their coffee? Stop donating $1 per bag to a social impact fund that helps the neighborhood?

The talk of deportations worries them.

"We feel attacked," Iniguez said. "When one of us is attacked, all of us are attacked. These are our neighbors, our customers."

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But doing something good for the neighborhood gives them courage in chaotic times, and if their ambitions for coffee seem grand, they figure that's the spirit of Chicago.

"People used to say Back of the Yards wasn't just a place, it was a smell," Hernandez said. "We want them to say that again. It's a smell  and it's coffee."

mschmich@chicagotribune.com
While many kids cant wait to get out of school on Fridays, a growing number of students at Cheldelin Middle School cant wait to get to the library.

For the last several months, librarian Dana Zachary has introduced new lunchtime Friday performances that regularly draw standing-room-only crowds to the middle schools library. Events so far have included a poetry slam, movie sing-along, book discussion groups and musical performances.

On Friday, the day before spring break, dozens of students took part in a program several months in the making: a three-act readers theater performance featuring beloved classics "The Wizard of Oz" and "Because of Winn-Dixie," along with "William Shakespeare's Star Wars," which actually is exactly what it sounds like.

Im trying to get them exposed to everything literature and literacy can be. I also try to teach them how diverse it can be  and they really showed that, Zachary said. I do anything I can think of to get the kids excited about being in here. Because if they want to be in the library, thats the first step into hooking them into wanting to read.

Zachary wasnt sure what kind of a reaction she would get when she floated the idea of readers theater to the students three months ago.

It was like lighting a fuse," Zachary said. "I gave them a kernel of an idea and they took it and ran with it. Theyve been unbelievably dedicated. For months they had to meet on their own, figure out scripts, and rehearse on their own. This was all them.

Sixth-grader Marina Freeman, 11, who played Gloria Dump in "Because of Winn-Dixie," said she cared more about performing Friday than getting to go on spring break.

Its made school more fun because we have something like this to look forward to every week, Marina said.

Classmate Viola Teglassy, 12, agreed.

Normally wed come into the library to eat lunch because the cafeteria is too loud, said Viola, who got to throw stuffed animals and perform in "Because of Winn-Dixie." This just seemed like a lot of fun. The other (programs) are independent, but here were collaborating.

Caitlyn Guillaumot, 12, said members of the group loved the freedom of readers theater and wanted to put on a good performance. The groups got to select the pieces they would be performing and whether to include props, costumes or blocking.

At first we just did it for fun, Caitlyn said, but then we became dedicated to it and we ended up really caring about it.

For 12-year-old Claudia Wen, who got to play Han Solo in "William Shakespeare's Star Wars," the readers theater allowed her to combine something she loved with something new.

We love 'Star Wars' and this sounded different but fun, Claudia said. Ive seen a couple of Shakespeare plays so I kind of knew how the dialogue worked and I wanted to try it.

For others, like 12-year-old Kate Voltz, Fridays performance allowed students to get a taste of acting without the big production of a school play.

Im interested in theater but I get stage fright and its tough to remember a whole script, said Kate, who served as narrator for "The Wizard of Oz." It was kind of perfect for me to try it out. I didnt have to know any lines, I could just act. That was so much fun.

For Zachary, the Friday performances have made kids not only interested in coming to the library, but students are staying, checking out books and asking more questions about literature.

Its pulling them away from their screens and getting them into books, Zachary said. They really do want to be in here. I think if you give kids a chance to explore and have fun, theyll love it.

Zachary said next up on the library performances will be the return of book discussion groups with Kristy Kemper Hodge, youth services librarian at Corvallis-Benton County Public Library. But Zachary is also introducing a new program after kids return from spring break.

Were going to do a 'Book Sync Battle,' where we play audiobooks and the kids act them out like a lip sync battle, Zachary said. I think theyll love it because Ive been pretty lucky so far that theyve liked whatever weve come up with before. And Im really grateful that we have so much support from other staff, the district, parents and our local library. All of this could only happen with their support.
Vote 'no' on forest preserve question

Wake up, Illinois. The state is ranked 47th in fiscal solvency and dead last for the amount of state and local taxes that come out of our pockets.

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For the third consecutive year, Illinois lost more residents than any other state. The average household in the U.S. pays about 10.7 percent of its household income in state and local taxes. In Illinois, we pay almost 15 percent. Remember, that does not include any federal taxes.

I am urging all registered voters to vote 'no' on the Kane County Forest Preserve referendum question, which asks for the ability to borrow $50 million for land acquisition. Referendums, such as this one, are generally put on the ballot during an election when there will be low voter turnout. Please turn out and vote 'no.' Fiscal responsibility has to start somewhere, and every Illinois government body needs to do its part to reduce our taxes.

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Sharon Catich, North Aurora

Irvin has vision, dedication

As a (Naperville Township) trustee, I have met many elected officials and aspiring candidates for many of our local elected offices. But there have been very few that have the strength of character, proven leadership, dedication to the people of their hometown, business and public service background, and positive vision of the future as I have found in Richard Irvin.

Irvin not only is a native and lifelong Auroran but also is a dedicated proponent of finding positive solutions for all the residents of Aurora. He will bring sensible economic solutions that benefit the long-term plans of Aurora and not just bring an abundance of quick revenue that is unsustainable.

He is a U.S. Army veteran with combat experience in Desert Storm; he's been an alderman at large for Aurora for three terms; he is a small-business owner in Aurora, a prosecuting attorney in Kane County and Aurora, and a committeeman for the township organization.

Irvin has proved as a prosecutor that he understands and has effective solutions for the crime in Aurora. As an alderman at large, he has a keen understanding of the issues of the different wards of Aurora and has the perspective of the history of Aurora that the other candidate does not have.

I am encouraging you to get out and vote in this very important election for the future of Aurora on April 4. Vote for my re-election as your trustee and vote for Richard Irvin as mayor.

Paul J. Santucci, Aurora

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Guzman tough on crime

For many years, I've mentored boys who regularly face choices about drugs, gangs and illegal activities. As a resident of Aurora's near East Side, crime is the most important issue facing our city.

Rick Guzman's record on crime is clear. In the mayor's office, he worked with the police chief to re-establish neighborhood groups and partnered with police to reduce violence.

Guzman opposed rebuilding the crime-laden Jericho Circle complex and developed an alternative solution that gave these Aurora families an opportunity to raise their kids in safer neighborhoods.

Guzman advocates for longer sentences for criminals found guilty of repeated gun violence.

Richard Irvin talks about being tough on crime, when he has spent years defending criminals and abusers. Irvin has successfully put guilty gang-bangers and violent criminals on our streets more quickly.

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His law website states he represents clients charged with violent felonies such as burglary, armed robbery and homicide. Irvin counsels drug dealers on how to get charges reduced or dropped.

Irvin has made his living putting violent criminals back on our streets. I respect the work of defense lawyers and due process, but there's a disconnect between his talk and his actions.

Aurora needs a mayor who has consistently been tough on crime. I support Rick Guzman because he has been working with our police department to reduce crime and make our streets safer. We cannot afford to go backward. Our neighborhoods and our children's lives depend on it.

Cory Whitehead, Aurora

Guzman 'right person' for Aurora

I am a proud third-generation Auroran. Born and raised here, I've seen Aurora in the good times and in the bad times. Right now, we are on the cusp of something really exciting  all we need is a leader with the conviction, the dedication, the compassion and the intelligence to move our city forward. That's why I'm supporting Rick Guzman for mayor.

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Working with Guzman on Aurora's Human Relations Commission, I was impressed with his compassion and drive for justice for all citizens. I saw his keen intelligence, leadership and problem-solving skills as we worked together on Aurora Housing Authority issues. His business acumen and development experience made it possible for the Aurora Civic Center Authority to move forward the vision of opening an educational arts center in downtown Aurora.

Guzman is the right person to lead Aurora forward at this critical time. He has the skills of a small businessman and the acumen of an attorney. He is intelligent. He has drive. And he is a genuinely nice person who loves Aurora.

Guzman is a great leader who seeks to bring out the best in people. He believes that every person has something important to contribute and wants to get each one of us involved in moving Aurora forward. I enthusiastically support Rick Guzman for mayor and hope you will join me in voting for him April 4.

R. Peter Grometer , Aurora

Guzman 'undeniable' choice

On April 4, I will cast my vote for Rick Guzman as the next mayor of Aurora. I feel so strongly about his leadership and the endorsement of his campaign that I am compelled to write this letter. Guzman believes in bringing people together to solve problems. My own years of experience in business leadership tell me that his collaborative spirit is what will bring about change to make the city of Aurora a better place. In my conversations with Guzman, his "we" versus "I" leadership style stands out as the kind that I can get behind for the city of Aurora.

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Guzman's leadership for investment in Aurora's historic downtown buildings would be enough to make me support him, but then add to that his work on the Aurora Arts Center and his desire to professionalize government, plus his years of experience that will allow him to hit the ground running to lead Aurora, these points all add up to an undeniable choice for the next mayor of the Aurora.

Alma Jones, Aurora

Re-elect 3 Oswego trustees

Thanks to Judy Sollinger, Pam Parr and Luis Perez, Oswego enjoys a balanced budget, while it grows and wins. They deserve your support April 4.

You want your leaders to love what they do and to be fully vested. Sollinger and Parr have deep Oswego roots  well over 30 years  while Perez has called Oswego home for his family since 1999. They have produced a balanced village budget and a game-changing downtown redevelopment plan, kept our property tax rate flat, taken care of our seniors, invested in our local law enforcement and budgeted for our long-term needs as a village.

They are great leaders with outstanding vision and plans for Oswego. I ask you to re-elect Judy Sollinger, Pam Parr and Luis Perez.

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Kathy Perez, Oswego

'In politics for right reasons'

We ask that the people of Aurora vote for Rick Guzman for mayor.

He is intelligent, open-minded and qualified, and he will work hard for us. He sees our diversity as a positive aspect of our community.

Guzman is in politics for the right reasons. He wants to continue all that is good in our community, and he wants to creatively bring about solutions that improve our city.

He has experience in our mayoral office, experience that will inform how he will work to the advantage of us all. He has already demonstrated visionary pragmatism in his successful efforts to repurpose the former Waubonsee Community College's downtown campus and the St. Charles Hospital building.

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He is the person to lead Aurora into our future.

Tim and Kate Reuland, Aurora

Right professional style

I have been following the many mayoral forums in your paper, and while Richard Irvin talks a lot about being a leader, I've become more and more impressed by the leadership style of Rick Guzman.

Guzman has refrained from being loud, brassy or pointedly negative. Even when falsely attacked (and there has been plenty of that), Guzman patiently and intelligently counters with the facts.

In my estimation, this is exactly the kind of professional style and demeanor that will be necessary to sustain the gains made under Mayor Weisner and successfully lead our city into the future.

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I will be voting for Richard Guzman for mayor on April 4.

Pat Swanson, Aurora

Five years' experience

I've been interested in the mayoral forums, especially the discussion about "leader vs. manager." Richard Irvin claims the title of leader  complete with "followers"  and refers to Rick Guzman as a mere "manager."

What's interesting here is that Aurora doesn't have the typical "city manager" form of government. As a result, the mayor is not only the chief executive officer but also the city's chief operating officer, responsible for day-to-day management of over 1,000 employees and a $400 million annual budget, according to the city's website.

As mayor, no one can successfully lead our city unless he can effectively manage it. Rick Guzman has five solid years in the mayor's office doing just that. He is both a proven leader and a proven manager, with the skills to move Aurora forward. We know this because he already has served as a major force in Mayor Weisner's administration.

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It is Rick Guzman who will be "ready on day one." That's why I will vote for him April 4.

Tim Brennan, Aurora

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Submit letters to the editor via email to suburbanletters@tribpub.com. Please include your name and town of residence for publication. Please include phone number and email address for confirmation. Letters should be no more than 250 words.

Election endorsements due Wednesday

Letters endorsing candidates in the April 4 election must be submitted by Wednesday to be considered for publication. Election letters submitted after that day will not appear in the paper or online.
Tax increase needed for seniors

I am writing this letter to express my support for the upcoming Elgin Township referendum measure to assist seniors in the community.

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I personally have found Elgin Senior Services a great help for my late wife and me. They helped her when she received her Medicare card and eased the transition when she became eligible for government benefits. I have used their free tax preparation service, and their information and assistance staff got me covered under Medicaid.

The tax rate increase is very small: 0.025 percent. What this means to a home assessed at $100,000 is a mere $8.33 added to the annual tax bill. And passage of the increase would bring in over $400,000 to be shared among the many senior programs and initiatives in the township, a very small price to pay for such a great cause.

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It will help seniors deal with conditions like the loss of a spouse, Alzheimer's disease, deteriorating health and the ability to remain in their home without help.

Jim Fox, Elgin

Only vote for Andresen

I ask for your support for Scott Andresen for East Dundee trustee. The election is April 4. There are three open trustee positions and five candidates, three of whom are incumbents. Although you can vote for three people, I ask that you "bullet vote" and only vote for Andresen. That will help assure his election.

I am concerned with the current direction of the Village Board and believe that Andresen will bring a new and much-needed perspective. He is a long-time resident, and his law practice is located in the downtown district. Additionally, he is a charter member of the downtown business group. I find him to be fair, a good listener and consistent in his positions regarding the growth and development of our community for business owners and residents alike.

In a separate race, Lael Miller, the incumbent village president, is running unopposed for another term. I ask, however, that you do not cast a vote for him. I do not think that he has been a good leader, and I believe that if elected by affirmation, he will continue his current attitude and positions.

One can vote early and also register to vote at the Dundee Township offices at 611 Main St. (Route 72, in the old Summit school building). Hours are 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. One needs two IDs, such as a driver's license, utility bill, Social Security card, tax bill or lease, to register.

East Dundee has seen a revival that we can all celebrate. Please vote for Scott Andresen to assure that this continues.

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Tom Roeser, OTTO Engineering, Carpentersville

Vote 'no' on forest preserve question

Wake up, Illinois. The state is ranked 47th in fiscal solvency and dead last for the amount of state and local taxes that come out of our pockets.

For the third consecutive year, Illinois lost more residents than any other state. The average household in the U.S. pays about 10.7 percent of its household income in state and local taxes. In Illinois, we pay almost 15 percent. Remember, that does not include any federal taxes.

I am urging all registered voters to vote 'no' on the Kane County Forest Preserve referendum question, which asks for the ability to borrow $50 million for land acquisition. Referendums, such as this one, are generally put on the ballot during an election when there will be low voter turnout. Please turn out and vote 'no.' Fiscal responsibility has to start somewhere, and every Illinois government body needs to do its part to reduce our taxes.

Sharon Catich, North Aurora

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Anti-immigrant sentiments offensive

I am disgusted by the anti-immigrant comments your Speak Out editor keeps publishing.

David Berkey, Elgin

Essendrop's credentials 'unassailable'

As the brother of Enoch Essendrop, a candidate for school board in U46, I have been observing the race and staying up to date on any developments.

I admire my brother both for subjecting himself to the attacks that come with entering a political race and for attempting to stay above the pettiness. However, I feel the need to set the record straight on a particularly egregious and completely irrelevant personal attack leveled against him.

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Recently, a group supporting the incumbent candidates posted a copy of the study plan for the program in which Enoch is enrolled at Providence Baptist College. This group highlighted the fact that students are not required to take algebra until their senior year. Leaving aside the fact that Bible study does not require advanced calculus, or the fact that Enoch actually completed multiple college-level calculus courses before graduating from high school, the insinuation that Enoch is somehow educationally, or specifically mathematically, unqualified to serve on the board is baseless and hypocritical.

In fact, math seems to be a topic of particular difficulty for current school board members as the district finds itself over $500 million in the red. While it is understandable that debt may occasionally be incurred in the normal operation of a governmental body, the current board members seem to have no issue with perpetual deficits and increased debt.

Enoch entered the race because he saw a need for greater discipline, responsiveness and responsibility in the administration of the school district. Rather than distract with false, petty, personal attacks, board members should focus on the problems that compelled my brother to run in the first place.

If Enoch's opponents have no substantive arguments left, they should at least attempt to ensure that their personal attacks are accurate. His educational credentials are unassailable. Such desperate, careless attacks are at least encouraging, as they are proof that Enoch is making an impact. However, candidates should be held to a higher standard.

Seth Essendrop, North Bergen, NJ

$1 a month would help seniors

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I am writing today to let people know how important the upcoming referendum in Elgin Township is to everyone in the area.

Seniors get services like free tax preparation, getting questions about government benefits answered, elder abuse intervention, free health screenings, transportation services, assistance in the completion of forms and applications for benefits, intervening with an agency on a client's behalf. The list of services and activities goes on and on. Voting "yes" on the referendum question will not only keep these going, but also help numerous other programs for seniors.

The annual cost to homeowners is minimal. For a home with a market value of $150,000, the annual cost of the increase is a mere $12.50  that's only $1 per month. That's a small price to pay for the well-being of Elgin Township seniors.

I urge everyone to vote "yes" on April 4.

Dee Connors, Elgin

Help senior services continue

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I retired in 2012. Four months later, I had a stroke where my right side became immobilized. I immediately started a rehabilitation program to regain as much of my personal strength as possible. In July 2015, I joined Senior Services Associates. I have participated in several "Fit & Strong" sessions, and I am amazed at the results. I have attended many classes throughout my career, and this program is one of the best I have participated in.

That's why I believe passing the Elgin Township referendum question April 4 is so important. It will mean a wide variety of services for seniors will continue  not just exercise programs, but also help with applying for government programs and care management.

For a minimal 0.025 percent assessment, it will enable Senior Services to continue their service to the community. The annual coast is only $16.67 per year for a home valued at $200,000. Can you find a better investment than that?

James Montalbano, Elgin

Share your views

Submit letters to the editor via email to suburbanletters@tribpub.com. Please include your name and town of residence for publication. Please include phone number and email address for confirmation. Letters should be no more than 250 words.

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Election endorsements due Wednesday

Letters endorsing candidates in the April 4 election must be submitted by Wednesday to be considered for publication. Election letters submitted after that day will not appear in the paper or online.
Puppy mills influence vote

Our family first moved to Naperville in 1969 from southern Indiana on recommendations of friends. We found it to be a nice small city with innovative ideas and citizens involved in civic affairs. In short, it was a family-friendly place and a joy to return to regardless of where business took us. We always considered Naperville to be "out front" on issues that affected all residents, including our pets.

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We are disappointed to learn that several City Council members and candidates have fallen behind the times when it comes the issue of puppy mills. Research shows that most puppies sold by pet stores are from commercial breeders who keep the mothers in inhumane conditions and breed them as frequently as possible. They, in fact, become simply a conduit of puppy production.

The City Council has been asked to pass an ordinance to ban the sale of puppies from puppy mills within Naperville. Over 230 other cities have passed such ordinances after recognizing this inhumane situation and that rescue and noncommercial breeder puppies were readily available. Some on the City Council are resisting such an ordinance. Their reasons vary, but in the end they are endorsing this inhumane puppy production system.

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We encourage voters to vote for candidates who want to eliminate such conditions in Naperville: John Krummen, Benny White, Kevin Gallaher, Mike Strick and Julie Berkowicz.

Mary Ann and Jim Thomas, Naperville

Share your views

Submit letters to the editor via email to suburbanletters@tribpub.com. Please include your name and town of residence for publication. Please include phone number and email address for confirmation. Letters should be no more than 250 words.

Election endorsements due Wednesday

Letters endorsing candidates in the April 4 election must be submitted by Wednesday to be considered for publication. Election letters submitted after that day will not appear in the paper or online.
In 3rd grade, many children learn how to connect the letters of the alphabet into loopy, flowing words. Called cursive, the writing style has been a staple in American classrooms since the pioneer days.

In recent years, however, the fortunes of the cursive style have tumbled as kids' fingers spend more time tapping texts on their smartphones. Also known as script and longhand, cursive has lost its relevance in many classrooms as schools gaze into the digital future and place more emphasis on keyboard skills.

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Call us crusty curmudgeons, but we believe there's a strong educational purpose in teaching the old-fashioned art of cursive writing as practiced by our Founding Fathers.

In 2010, when new Common Core curriculum standards dropped cursive writing in favor of keyboard skills that lend themselves to classroom testing and high-stakes accountability, Indiana also removed cursive from its requirements.

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State Sen. Jean Leising worries that cursive writing will disappear from the state's education landscape, and she's offered a bill every year since 2011 requiring schools to teach it.

Other than gaining some media attention each year, Leising's bill has failed to gain traction. This year, the bill passed the Senate handily, but stalled in the House where it's running out of time to receive a committee hearing. It's likely doomed for another year.

But educators don't need a state law requiring them to teach it. The state leaves it to the discretion of local school districts. We would like to see the Department of Education recommend students still be able to read and write in cursive.

More states are beginning to re-emphasize cursive and the art of penmanship. There's more evidence that it plays an important foundational role in early education.

Last year, Alabama and Louisiana passed laws requiring state proficiency. Twelve other states have done so recently, as well. New York City Schools, which is the largest district in the country, is urging the teaching of cursive beginning in the fall.

In defense of cursive, a 2012 study showed students who learned it gained more benefits because they developed motor movements in their hands and fingers as they processed what words they wanted to put on paper.

Other studies report that students who learn both cursive and print perform better on reading tests. One study shows cursive writing stimulates both sides of the brain, an exercise that keyboarding does not do. Some educators use cursive to help students with dyslexia. The College Board has reported that students who write their own SAT essays seem to score slightly higher than those who type them.

It's also important for young students to be able to read and understand handwriting. While politicians prattle on about threats to democracy, read the beautifully scripted Declaration of Independence. It provides not only the foundation of tenets we believe in today, but a history lesson on the courageous men, like John Hancock, who signed it.

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Cursive writing teaches us lessons about our past, and it should still be a framework for young minds preparing for the future.
A state-funded prekindergarten pilot program is playing an important role in widening accessibility for low-income children, according to advocates.

Deborah Sura, site manager of the Head Start program at Edgar L. Miller Elementary School in Merrillville, said about 13 of the program's 94 students are attending because of the program.

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"When they go into kindergarten, they can hit the ground running," she said. "A lot of these families wouldn't be able to afford private preschool. It's expensive."

The benefit of such a program is to begin to close a well-documented academic gap between lower-income children and middle- or upper-class peers, she said. Most children coming through the program learn basic literacy, mathematics and socialization skills.

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Through state funding, the Head Start class was able to expand to six hours from 3 1/2 per day.

Two years ago, the state chose Lake County and four other counties to serve as pilots for the On My Way Pre-K program, which gives low-income parents of 4-year-olds up to $6,800 to pay for preschool at a program rated Level 3 or 4 in the state's Paths to Quality program.

The program is funded through at least the next year, Sura said, and demand still remains high. Applicants are typically selected via lottery.

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Last month, the GOP-controlled state Senate voted to sharply curtail Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb's request to increase funding for the state's five-county pilot program by $10 million and instead offered a $3 million boost, according to The Associated Press.

At the same time, they moved forward on their own $1 million plan to offer a new  and cheaper  online preschool program designed by a Utah-based company, which boasts on its website that it "only takes 15 minutes a day."

Indiana lags behind most other states when it comes to preparing disadvantaged children for school, a bipartisan coalition of education advocates say. More than 40 other states offer significant preschool programs, but Indiana is not one, according to 2015 figures from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.

Instead, the five-county pilot program was created at the behest of former Gov. Mike Pence, now the vice president, though advocates say demand far outstrips available funding.

The Associated Press contributed.

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mcolias@post-trib.com

Twitter @meredithcolias
"Heroin is everywhere," says Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow, and that includes Will County. And so, Glasgow has asked the county board to formally support a bill sponsored by state Rep. Natalie Manley, D-Joliet, that steers users of heroin and other opiates toward treatment rather than incarceration.

Glasgow told the county board earlier this month that police departments in Lockport, Mokena and New Lenox already offer so-called "amnesty" programs that allow users to turn in small amounts of heroin and other outlawed addictive drugs without fear of prosecution if they agree to enter counseling or treatment programs.

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Such amnesty programs should be available throughout the state, Glasgow argued. Police departments would also be required to inventory surrendered drugs, get a court order allowing them to destroy the drugs and offer treatment help from a licensed chemical dependency professional.

Some experts say heroin abuse has reached epidemic levels, and similar misuse of opioid painkillers has also become a national problem. The scourge of such drug abuse now reaches far beyond the stereotype into middle-class families and communities where chemical addictions were once thought to be someone else's problem.

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We support Glasgow's efforts on behalf of Rep. Manley's bill. We believe treatment for drug addicts is a more thoughtful response than locking them up. We hope the county board supports their goal.

We also believe that Glasgow ought to take the advice from the office of County Executive Larry Walsh that he seek input from the police departments that offer amnesty programs for heroin users. Some of these programs make use of volunteer counselors, and Glasgow has expressed concerns that using such volunteers would open police departments to increased liability. There should be a way to make use of volunteer counselors and at the same time protect the police departments and their municipalities, and both the towns and Glasgow would benefit from an exchange of views on the subject.

Glasgow says his office currently operates a drug court that allows individuals arrested in Will County to opt for a treatment program instead of going to jail, and he claimed a 95 percent success rate for the programs. Under Manley's legislation, drug users would be able to turn themselves in and volunteer to get treatment.

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, largely because of the nation's drug policies, which clearly are not effective. Addiction is a health issue, and it should be treated as one. Thoughtful legislation aimed at curing the illness ought to be supported. Locking people up because they are ill is shortsighted and ineffective, and we applaud Glasgow and Manley for their efforts.
In the upcoming April 4 election, Frankfort residents will be voting for a mayor and three trustees.

Mayor Jim Holland is seeking his fourth term, and is opposed by former Trustee Todd Morgan.

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All incumbent trustees, Keith Ogle, Dick Trevarthan and Doug Walker are running, and hoping to unseat them are John Clavio and Sam Giordano.

Jim Holland

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Holland, a retired marketing director, said he wants another term because residents "deserve a full time mayor who is concerned about the same issues they are, who will listen to their input and make decisions based on what is best for the whole community."

During his tenure, he said, there have been many improvements including, the widening of U.S. 30, the revitalization of the historic downtown, added community policing programs, and new businesses, such as Mariano's and Emagine Theaters.

Issues that have arisen during the campaign are high property taxes, and downtown development, he said.

The village has lowered its portion of the property tax rate each year, which is only 4 percent of the total tax bill. To increase funding for local schools, and expand the village's tax base, he has worked to attract industrial development by offering a financial incentive, Holland said.

Regarding downtown development, Holland said it is in everyone's best interest "to work together" to preserve the character of the downtown for both residential and commercial projects, not just for the people who live and work downtown, but for all in the community.

While the village has enhanced the area, parking remains an issue, especially during popular events, such as the farmers market and bluegrass festival.

A village committee is now exploring several options and Holland said he will give people an opportunity to weigh in on it before any decisions are made.

On the term limits issue, a village committee voted down Morgan's suggestion earlier this year to limit the mayor to two terms. Morgan also suggested limiting trustees to two or three terms.

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Holland said the village board should not restrict the rights of voters.

"It should be initiated by the people, not politicians," he said, adding that the law allows the public to petition the board to place this issue on the ballot.

If re-elected, Holland said he would "move Frankfort forward" with quality residential and commercial development, improve roads and bike trails from Steger to St. Francis, enhance its program of community policing to control crime, and complete $60 million in improvements to the waste water treatment plant.

With a low interest loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Frankfort is closing two obsolete treatment plants and expanding one plant to handle all waste water, to comply with IEPA standards and set the course for the future.

"It is our responsibility to find the most economical ways to provide high quality planning, police protection, street maintenance and other services for the people," Holland said.

Todd Morgan

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Morgan, a trustee for 14 years before resigning in 2015, said he stepped down out of "frustration."

"Since Day One I had a vision about what the community should be," he said. "The downtown is our beating heart. It has to be special."

Morgan was involved in two downtown proposals for event venues, both opposed by residents. His "friend and neighbor" Joe Pascale proposed a banquet center on the Fox Lumber site on White Street, in which he was involved, he said.

Amid public outcry that the banquet center was not a good fit for downtown, Pascale withdrew his project, but a few months later, Morgan proposed that his wife's Bokay Floral shop expand to another site on White Street, a development that included two other retail shops and an "event center."

Morgan now says he has no intention of moving forward with that plan.

"The process the village applies to all development is so arduous, I don't see how anyone would want to develop in the downtown area," he said.

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"The village board was not able to progress in getting commercial and industrial development we needed," he said, and there were "several failed projects" in the downtown.

The village's industrial incentive is "propaganda," he said. "It is not enough. It is not realistic."

Frankfort needs to look at what other towns are doing to attract businesses like Amazon and Georgia Pacific, he said.

"Some residents want more development, others don't. We need to get them on the same page," Morgan said. "I only intend to do what the community wants."

Instead of taking a "hit or miss approach," he wants to do another downtown study-shaped by all residents, updating the study done 10 years ago, he said.

Developers need to have a "clear understanding of the process they have to follow," Morgan said. "We need to get clarity for downtown  what it should look like in the next 10 or 15 years."

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With a new plan, residents, as well as developers, will have "clear assurance of what is acceptable," he said.

Morgan also said crime has been rising in the last 18 years.

"We were a sleepy town and people were taking advantage of us," he said. Besides adding three to five new officers, Morgan was to install new technology at subdivision entrances to read license plates, to record who comes and goes.

He said he would work with homeowner associations and the police department to develop a series of "test neighborhoods" to measure the effectiveness of this technology before considering expanding it community wide.

Morgan also proposed limiting the mayor to two terms, and possibly limiting trustees to two or three terms, to eliminate concerns about favoritism, pandering to certain groups and raising campaign funds, he said.

Morgan brought a proposed resolution to the village's Land Use and Policy Committee meeting in January, to get a binding referendum on the April 4 ballot, but the resolution was never advanced.

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John Clavio

Clavio is an attorney with a practice in Frankfort who also teaches paralegal studies at Lewis University. He previously served as president of the Frankfort Chamber of Commerce, and was on its Fall Fest Committee for 16 years, and was on Frankfort's library board during its expansion project.

He is running for trustee to "make a difference in my community and to provide a fresh perspective to the current political landscape."

He wants to preserve the past and secure the future through "managed and appropriate growth," he said.

Frankfort is at a "crossroads," and needs to have both short and long term plans for its future, Clavio said.

"We should focus on recruiting and seeking the right developments that fit our vision.not the other way around," he said, adding that each proposal would be discussed in the open, with individuals who would be impacted.

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Clavio said he would foster an "open, equal, respectful and professional government that serves all people of Frankfort" by always focusing on public safety and services.

He would create opportunities for young citizens to be involved to groom them to be "qualified leaders," in the future, he said.

"It is my desire to continue to give back to this wonderful community. I provide new vision, leadership and would represent all of Frankfort residents and neighborhoods," Clavio said.

Sam Giordano

Giordano said he was encouraged to run for the village board by police, firefighters and local business owners.

He was a firefighter/paramedic for 40 years and now teaches fire science and emergency disaster preparedness at Harper College. He spent 28 years in Frankfort's fire department, and was the first to become a paramedic, he said. He also owned a video store for 10 years.

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Giordano said his areas of concern are public safety, strategic growth for residential, commercial, and industrial development, community partnerships and fiscal responsibility.

"My focus will be generated through the ideas and concerns of the citizens as well as my insight as a long time resident and public servant," he said.

"Frankfort has grown tremendously since we moved here in 1974, but the police force has not grown at same rate," he said, adding that he would put more police and a K9 unit on the street.

He also would like to see more training between police and firefighters since they often "work together," he said.

In terms of economic growth, Frankfort has a lot of areas available for quality homes and additional commercial development.

"We need some strategy behind it. We need to expand our horizons," Giordano said.

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He would like to see more commercial development along the Laraway Road corridor and said the industrial area off Center Street has "limitless potential."

Giordano wants to make Frankfort a "veteran friendly town" by urging the village and businesses to offer discounts to veterans.

He also wants to get citizens more involved in the community and would hold office hours every Friday afternoon.

Keith Ogle

Ogle was appointed to the village in 2015 when Morgan resigned, previously serving as village clerk and on the library board.

He believes the village needs experienced trustees.

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"With all that is going on in Springfield, we need people who know issues, to keep village moving forward," he said. The current village board is "really a good group of trusteesa very positive group. I like being part of this team."

The populist thinking is that change is good, but they have to be good ideas, he said.

"Experience matters. We have a good team, no hidden agendas. We're just trying to make village better," he said, explaining why the incumbents are all endorsing each other.

endorsing each other.

To help the schools and lower property taxes, Frankfort needs more commercial/industrial development, "but we don't want to lower quality," Ogle said. "People wants us to continue with responsible development, controlled growth."

There are many different aspects to the town  commercial, light industrial, the downtown business, I-57 and Stunkel Road  and each has to develop differently, he said.

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A lot of time is focused on the downtown area, because it is a "sensitive" area, he said. While that area is "so much better than it was," it needs a few more stores to "make is sustainable," to make sure they support each other and the residential area, Ogle said.

"We don't want to put just anything there. We will discuss ideas as they come forward," he said.

Ogle said he also would make sure the village staff, police and public works have the tools they need to do their jobs.

Dick Trevarthan

Trevarthan, a 50 year resident, has served on and off the board for a total of 30 years. He is seeking his seventh consecutive term, "because of my love for the village," he said.

"I want to continue to use all of my past experience to help build a community that cares about one another, is fiscally responsible, can achieve economic growth, provide all of the amenities necessary for its residents, and maintain our '1890 charm' as we continue new growth," he said.

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Trevarthan said he has knowledge and experience in working with people in all phases of village government and understands all the services the village offers to citizens and knows what is needed for continued improvement as the village grows.

His top issues are completion of the new waster water treatment facility on schedule and within budget, earmark $2.3 million for the next 14 years to repair Frankfort's 33 miles of roads, revitalize the properties the village purchased in the downtown area.

He would like to see new shops, restaurants and proper parking, he said.

Trevarthan also plans to work with all village committee and staff on new initiatives for the coming year, upgrade old underground water mains and refurbish existing water towers.

"I will continue to work for the future  the best is yet to come," Trevarthan said.

Doug Walker

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In seeking his fifth term on the village board, Walker will focus on the completion of the wastewater treatment plant, he said.

That is being financed with a low interest IEPA loan, and aside from that, the village has always managed to operate debt-free, he said.

"As I look at landscape in the future and the risks with the state, managing finances are at the top" of his list of issues, he said.

Walker also recognizes that there is a lot of "distrust" in government.

Frankfort is "very open and transparent and we're getting better at it," he said. "We let people know what we're thinking."

"We continue to think of better ways to communicate with the public," he said.

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"It's easy for leaders to talk and take positions, but we need to make sure we listen. We need to know what people are thinking, and make it a dialog. so we understand where they and we are coming from," Walker said. "We listen, but we may not agree on every development."

Regarding the development in the downtown area, Walker said the village followed its plan for that area, which said the area needs to be bigger to be viable and sustainable, he said.

The village purchased available residential lots to control its development, and Walker said they are not in a hurry to develop them.

"We need to let developers figure out how to make it work economically and fit within community," he said.

To improve downtown parking, Walker said there is enough for daily traffic, but not special event, and the village is "looking at ways to manage events better," such as timed parking in specific areas.

slafferty@tribpub.com

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Twitter @SusanLaff
A Chicago police officer stops a vehicle from drivingdown the street from the scene of a shooting in Chicago'sHegewisch neighborhood in June 2016. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Despite a dramatic drop in the number of street stops by Chicago police in the first half of 2016, officers continued to disproportionately stop African-Americans, according to a new report.

The report found that nearly 71 percent of stops were of African-Americans, though they make up only about a third of Chicago's residents.

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Those findings  released by city officials Friday afternoon  came in the first of a series of reports on the Chicago Police Department's stop-and-frisk practices commissioned as part of a 2015 agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

The ACLU of Illinois had alleged that officers' stops were too frequent and unfairly targeted minorities, and retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys is tasked with reviewing the practice.

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For years, Chicago police had performed hundreds of thousands of street stops of people they deemed suspicious, questioning them and sometimes patting them down. Police also filled out so-called contact cards with limited information, preventing the public from determining whether the stops were legal, the ACLU of Illinois alleged.

Since Jan. 1, 2016, officers have been filling out more detailed investigatory stop reports. The reports also require officers to write a more complete narrative justifying why they made the stop.

Out of 54,116 stops made by officers from Jan. 1- June 30, 2016, nearly 71 percent were of African-Americans, according to Keys' 216-page report. About 21 percent of the stops were of Hispanics and about 8 percent were of whites. (There were an additional 585 stops of other races not detailed in the report.)

The overall number of stops during the first six months of 2016 represents a dramatic dip from 2014 and 2015, when officers stopped several hundred thousand people per year. The racial breakdown of people stopped changed little between those years and 2016.

Chicago police conduct a roadside check in the 10000 block of South Halsted Street in Chicago in March2015. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

Blacks also comprised about 73 percent of the 18,364 people patted down by officers during those stops in 2016. Pat-downs were performed about 22 percent of the time on Hispanics and about 5 percent of the time on whites, the report stated.

Karen Sheley, a staff attorney for the ACLU, said the new data offers a fuller picture of racial disparities in street stops, but she was encouraged by the overall drop in stops.

"We see this as a work in progress," she said.

The city, in a press release, said the report exemplified officials' "dedication" to departmental improvements.

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"The report documents the city's dedication to fully adopting the new policies and procedures," said city Corporation Counsel Edward Siskel in the statement. "We look forward to working with the ACLU and Judge Keys as the city makes continual improvements."

In the past, police have taken issue with the ACLU's criticism of police for stopping African-Americans disproportionately. Officers have told the Tribune that street stops are based on crime patterns in certain neighborhoods that are heavily black and plagued by violence.

However, the report also noted that during the pat-downs, only 465 weapons or firearms were discovered, a finding that Sheley suggests shows street stops are far more likely to uncover petty offenses.

In 2015, an ACLU study found that Chicago police made street stops at a far higher rate than New York City cops did at the height of their controversial stop-and-frisk practices. The ACLU considered suing the Police Department over the practice, condemning it as racial profiling, but the agency agreed to changes that required officers to more thoroughly document their street stops. The changes also were incorporated in a new state law.

The department's activity on the street is fraught with political significance, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel is simultaneously trying to tamp down runaway gun violence and institute changes to a police force troubled by misconduct and excessive force. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has tried to reassure Chicagoans that he will continue to seek the types of changes initiated after the 2015 release of video of a white officer shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.

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The video sparked a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found that police are poorly trained and supervised, rarely disciplined and prone to using excessive force, often against minorities. But under President Donald Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has indicated he's unlikely to seek the court-enforced reforms to the force that were once expected, leaving Emanuel in command of change.

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Last year, the city exceeded 760 killings and 4,300 people shot, huge leaps over 2015. The violence has continued at a similar pace this year.

Some police officers and others say the violence can be blamed on cops ratcheting back activity to avoid controversial incidents that could damage their careers or lives, and they point to declining street stops as a factor.

On Friday, however, Sheley disputed the idea, citing statistics obtained by the ACLU that indicate that during the first half of 2016, Chicago police took more guns off the street than they did in the first half of 2015, when they were making more stops.

According to the statistics, officers recovered 2,575 guns through the first six months of 2016, up from 2,455 in the first six months of 2015. Neither figure includes guns recovered by police during gun "turn-in" events.

jgorner@chicagotribune.com

dhinkel@chicagotribune.com
Attorneys for the state of Illinois asked a judge Friday to dismiss an education funding lawsuit brought by Chicago Public Schools as part of the district's efforts to plug a gaping budget hole.

The state argued that CPS' complaints about pension funding and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto of a bill to send CPS $215 million are issues to be settled by the legislature, not the courts.

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The filing also addressed the district's argument that the state should be found in violation of the Illinois Civil Rights Act for maintaining a "separate and unequal" system for funding school districts and pension obligations.

The Illinois Civil Rights Act "cannot override the State's pension laws, the legislature's funding decisions, or the governor's lawful veto," the state said in its request for a dismissal. "Plaintiffs' claims fail for multiple reasons and should be dismissed."

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In a statement, CPS responded by saying "the state's thin argument hinges on its claim that pensions shouldn't be considered teachers' compensation. This is simply preposterous.

"The state's legal arguments boil down to its contention that if the State engages in racial discrimination, there is nothing in the Illinois Civil Rights Act that can stop it," said district spokeswoman Emily Bittner. "George Wallace would have been delighted to endorse the State's view that the civil rights act is meaningless and unenforceable."

CPS upped the stakes of the lawsuit early this month when it warned that the school year could end June 1  nearly three weeks early  and summer school programs could be cut without a preliminary ruling in the school board's favor from Judge Franklin Ulyses Valderrama. CPS said it wants the judge to rule on its preliminary motion by May 1.

Attorneys for the state argued CPS "will not suffer irreparable injury" if the state doesn't provide $215 million and has no grounds under state civil rights law to force through a new piece of legislation, or create a new stream of money that's not already required by law to fix its complaints about education funding.

jjperez@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @PerezJr
Luciana Sanders talks about her 14-year-old son Laquan Allen, who was shot and killed in the 4900 block of West Hubbard Street near Hubbard Park Saturday, March 25, 2017, at his home in Chicago. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune) (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Updated March 27, 4:55 a.m.  On Saturday, for the second time in less than two years, Luciana Sanders got the news that her teenage son had been shot.

Last year, Laquan Allen was shot in the thigh. He recovered.

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Saturday afternoon, someone came again for 14-year-old Laquan, who was on a sidewalk near a Chicago Park District playground in the 4900 block of West Hubbard Street.

He did not survive.

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Saturday night, Sanders, 40, cried on her mother's porch.

Laquan lived with Sanders' mother, Dieanna Ward, 65, on the 4200 block of West Augusta Boulevard, and had kissed them both on the cheek before leaving the house that morning.

He liked school at McNair Elementary, 4820 W. Walton St., but his true love was basketball and he hoped to be a professional player one day, they said.

Even last year's attack couldn't keep him from going out to the streets, Ward said.

"He wasn't no bad kid," Ward said. "He likes to do what others do and we speak to him about this. We speak to him about this every day, every month, every chance we get, 'please stop.'"

Sanders believes that her son was being pressured by his friends to join a gang. Ward said he had already gotten into trouble for stealing a car, and she believes that the shooting was targeted.

He had no reason to get in trouble, but he bowed to peer pressure, Sanders said. She started crying again as she looked at a school photo of Laquan.

"That's what he like to do, is smile," she said, her eyes watering and voice cracking.

Just after 3 p.m. on Saturday, Laquan was shot in the buttocks and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where police said his condition had been stabilized. He later was pronounced dead. Laquan was on the sidewalk when a vehicle drove by and someone inside shot him, according to police.

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Laquan is at least the fourth person fatally shot on that block since November 2011, and at least the 15th person shot on the block in that time, according to data compiled by the Tribune.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 13 A photo of 14-year-old Laquan Allen, who was shot and killed in the 4900 block of West Hubbard Street near Hubbard Park, is seen at his home Saturday, March 25, 2017, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Ward was the first to find out about Laquan  one of his teachers called her. She and Sanders started calling hospitals to find out where he was.

When they got to Mount Sinai, they were told that Laquan was dead.

"As a parent it's hard, it's very hard," Sanders said. "Whoever took my son away from my family and me, they don't know the feeling."

Ward sat next to Sanders, shaking her head.

"We want to know the reasons, what was the cause?" Ward said. "He was a good kid."

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Laquan loved to smile, loved to joke around and loved to give them kisses, Sanders said. He never missed an opportunity to play with his baby sisters or joke around with his 90-year-old great-grandmother, who also lived with them.

"It's hard," Ward said. "It's hard knowing that I won't see him come through the door tonight."

"Today we suffered a great loss," Ward said.

Ward was trying to move away from the city to protect her family from the violence. She was thinking about Mississippi or somewhere she can get a house.

"We live it every day. We know that something will happen to our babies, our children, our godchildren, the younger ones," Ward said.

Her mind has been blank since she found out about Laquan's death, she said.

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"Whoever it is that killed my son, they need to come forward," Sanders said. "Even if it was an accident, just please come forward and say that you done it ... My son did not deserve this."

Late Saturday afternoon, Kevin Davis, 49, who lives near where the shooting occurred, said he was inside watching TV with his kids when he heard three shots ring out.

"This happens on the regular," Davis said, while standing across the street from Hubbard Playlot Park. "I don't let my kids play here even though it's across the street."

Members of the Chicago Police Department work at the scene of a fatal shooting in the 4900 block of West Hubbard Street on March 25, 2017, in the Austin neighborhood. A 14-year-old boy was shot and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was later pronounced dead. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

The crime scene was adjacent to Hubbard Park, which includes a playground, and which stood out among the boarded-up windows of houses on the block. The rain did nothing to mute the bright colors of playground equipment.

Giant potholes pockmark West Hubbard Street, and the ground was covered in gravel. Police officers used a push broom to comb through the runoff that gathered in the gutter.

A boy wearing a maroon hoodie, matching pants and a black bomber jacket stood watching police officers working at the scene, tears streaming down his face. He was a friend of the victim, he said. Before leaving, he took a selfie with the crime scene in the background.

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At least 11 others were found shot, one fatally, from Saturday into early Sunday.

At 1:40 a.m., one person was killed and two others were wounded during an argument in a Gresham apartment building. They were with a group of people when they began arguing with another group in the entryway to an apartment building in the 900 block of West 76th Street, and two people pulled out guns and opened fire.

A 29-year-old man was shot in the back, and a 30-year-old woman was shot multiple times. Both were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in critical condition. Another woman, 28, was grazed in the chest and declined medical attention.

The 30-year-old woman was pronounced dead at 6:15 a.m. Sunday at Advocate Christ Medical Center. She was identified as Tanisha Jackson, of the 6200 block of South Talman Avenue, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

About 15 people were in the first-floor apartment nearby for a family party when the shooting happened. Tina, 30, was in the back room smoking when the shots rang out.

"I just hear boom boom boom boom boom and I'm down (on the floor), crawling," said Tina, who declined to give her last name.

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She crawled to the front room, calling her family members' names. That's when she saw her friend lying on the floor with gunshot wounds.

She doesn't come in from her suburban Bolingbrook home often anymore, she said. "I keep my distance from Chicago because of this."

Tina watched as police detectives drove up, got out of their car and walked across Peoria Street. She began to cry. "I just hope she didn't die."

Other shootings:

About 4:35 a.m., a 54-year-old man was shot in the left arm during an argument in the 300 block of South Pulaski Road in West Garfield Park, police said. He was taken in good condition to Stroger Hospital. The shooter remained at the scene and was taken into custody by police. Charges against the man who shot the 54-year-old man were pending.

About 2:45 a.m. Sunday, a 21-year-old man was critically wounded in a Gresham shooting. He was driving north in the 7600 block of South Winchester Avenue when another car pulled up and someone inside fired shots, hitting him in the head and right leg. The man was found in the car nine blocks north, near the corner of Wolcott and Marquette Road. From there, he was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in critical condition.

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About 12:25 a.m., a 25-year-old man was grazed by a bullet in South Austin, police said. He was in the driver's seat of a parked car in the 100 block of North Laporte Avenue when a maroon Jeep pulled up and someone inside fired several shots at him, police said. He was grazed in the right shoulder and went to an area hospital in good condition. Information about which hospital was not immediately available.

On Saturday night, two men were shot within moments of each other in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side.

A 28-year-old man was shot in the 12200 block of South Green Street about 9:06 p.m. He suffered graze wounds to the face and hand and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in good condition.

About five minutes earlier, a 32-year-old man was shot just a few blocks away, in the 12200 block of South Carpenter Street. He got himself to MetroSouth Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the hand and told authorities he was on the corner when someone on foot shot him. He was listed in good condition.

On the Near West Side two hours after Laquan was shot, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the right lower back in the 1300 block of South Racine Avenue, according to police. The boy was initially taken to UIC Medical Center, but he was later transferred to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized. The teen told investigators that he was walking when three people came up to him and one shot him.

Earlier Saturday afternoon, a 24-year-old woman was shot in a road rage incident on the Far South Side. She was in a vehicle about 1:35 p.m. in the 1500 block of East 95th Street when someone in another vehicle fired shots. The woman was struck in the right leg, police said. Police said the shooting appeared to be the result of road rage. The victim went on her own to Advocate Trinity Hospital, where she was listed in good condition.

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Another gunshot victim showed up at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center on Saturday and reported he had been shot Friday night in the Archer Heights neighborhood, police said. The 20-year-old man said he was in the 5100 block of South Kostner Avenue about 10 p.m. when a vehicle drove by and someone fired shots. The man was in good condition with wounds to the lower left side of the body, police said.
Oregon State University officials are investigating fliers, posters and stickers found on campus Thursday that reportedly promote white nationalism, racism and xenophobia.

Officials sent a notice to students, faculty and staff Friday that university offices had received copies of fliers that seemed to target particular OSU program offices and were meant to intimidate, threaten, scare and provoke faculty, staff, students and visitors.

Steve Clark, university spokesman, said the fliers and posters seem to profess that the growing diversity in America seemed like white genocide. Clark quoted one of the fliers as saying it sure looks like someone wants to get rid of us.

In the emailed message to students, faculty and staff, OSUs Office of Institutional Diversity officials said, As an institution, Oregon State unequivocally rejects racism, bigotry and discrimination in all forms. As community members, we must reject the ugliness and cowardice these messages represent.

The emailed message to students, faculty and staff came from Angela Batista, interim chief diversity officer; Susie Brubaker-Cole, vice provost for student affairs; and Susan Capalbo, senior vice provost for academic affairs.

In the message, officials added that they were working with the Department of Public Safety, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access, other OSU offices and local law enforcement to investigate the fliers.

We recognize that xenophobia is a part of Oregons past and present, officials said in the email. The messages in these materials are an extension of a legacy of racism, exclusion and ignorance. We will take concerted steps in the upcoming term to engage the Oregon State community by learning and discussing the context of this history, how it affects the present, and how it can be actively opposed today and in the future. We must stand together as a community to reject this type of hate at Oregon State University.

University officials ask that additional incidents be reported using a bias incident report form at http://biasincidentreport.oregonstate.edu.

Officials also investigated anti-Semitic fliers distributed on campus in March 2016 and a racially charged note found in a suggestion box at the Womens Center in March 2014.
The bridge at Lawrence Avenue and Lake Shore Drive in Chicago on March 2, 2017, is one of the many bridges classified as structurally deficient. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

The Illinois Department of Transportation said on Friday it will release $4.2 million to repair two Lake Shore Drive bridges that have drawn concern from residents, officials said.

Repairs to the bridges over Lawrence and Wilson avenues will cost an estimated $8.4 million, split between federal and state funds. The 1930s vintage bridges are in visible disrepair, with chunks of concrete broken off and pieces more than six inches wide littering the sidewalk. Uptown neighborhood residents have sounded alarms about the two bridges for a decade, but little has been done.

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Of the state's structurally deficient bridges, the two in Uptown are among the most-traveled, according to a recent study by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a Washington-based trade group that used Federal Highway Administration figures. Nine of the top 10 bridges in that category are in the Chicago area.

"Structurally deficient" does not mean a bridge is about to fall down, but indicates one in need of repair or rebuilding, said Alison Black, the chief economist for the Builders Association. Further deterioration could mean a bridge must be limited to certain load levels or closed.

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Structurally deficient bridges in Chicago area Deficient Total bridges 160 Cook 1,678 62 Will 634 33 Lake 249 27 Kane 302 20 McHenry 226 18 DuPage 297 Source: American Road and Transportation Builders Association @ChiTribGraphics Structurally deficient bridges in Chicago area Deficient Total bridges 160 Cook 1,678 62 Will 634 33 Lake 249 27 Kane 302 20 226 McHenry 18 DuPage 297 Source: American Road and Transportation Builders Association @ChiTribGraphics CLICK: See the data on Chicago-area bridges TAP HERE: See the data

In a statement, Illinois Transportation Secretary Randy Blankenhorn said the two bridges are "a vital connection between communities and the lakefront."

"These repairs will deliver safer travel along and under the bridges, allowing for residents to better enjoy Chicago's beautiful lakefront as they walk, bike or drive to the beach," Blankenhorn said.

The project includes removing loose concrete and making other necessary repairs, as well as repairing the concrete beams at both structures, state officials said. No timetable for the work was given.

gpratt@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @royalpratt
A man who led police on a 6-mile car chase early Saturday ran over a Chicago officer's left foot before driving away on the Eisenhower Expressway, police said.

Kerry Holoman, 22, was caught with a loaded gun after crashing into a light pole in Maywood, police said. Cook County Judge Laura Marie Sullivan ordered him held in lieu of $100,000 in a hearing midday Saturday.

Holoman, of the 1700 block of North Meade Avenue, faces felony aggravated battery to a police officer, felony unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, fleeing police and felony criminal damage charges. He also has been charged with about a dozen misdemeanor and traffic citations, including carrying open alcohol, according to a police media notification. Holoman tried to flee officers after they stopped him for a traffic violation about 1:35 a.m. near the 600 block of Kostner Avenue, as he drove a 2005 Buick Terraza, a luxury minivan, according to police.

Officers saw Holoman ignore a traffic control device as he drove in the 4400 block of West Lexington Street and stopped him on Kostner, according to police. When asked to give his driver's license or proof of insurance, Holoman refused to roll down his window and instead drove onto and over a sidewalk, hitting an officer and running over the officer's left foot in the process, police said.

Holoman ignored four red lights, then drove west on Interstate 290 into the west suburbs and tried to leave the expressway at 16th Avenue but crashed into a light pole and a fence. Holoman jumped out of the minivan and ran off, but was caught in the 1500 block of Harrison Street in Maywood, according to police. When officers searched him, they found he had a loaded .40-caliber handgun in the bottom of a pants leg, prosecutors said.

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Holoman declined to be treated for injuries, although he was taken to Loretto Hospital, police said. The officer suffered swelling to his left foot and was treated and released from Rush University Medical Center.

The Chicago Tribune's William Lee contributed.
A teenage blogger from Singapore whose online posts blasting his government landed him in jail was granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge in Chicago ruled Friday.



Amos Yee has been detained by federal immigration authorities since December when he was taken into custody at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Attorneys said the 18-year-old could be released from a Wisconsin detention center as early as Monday.



Judge Samuel Cole issued a 13-page decision more than two weeks after Yee's closed-door hearing on the asylum application.



"Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore," Cole wrote.



Yee left Singapore with the intention of seeking asylum in the U.S. after being jailed for several weeks in 2015 and 2016. He was accused of hurting the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians in the multiethnic city-state; Yee is an atheist. However, many of his blog and social media posts criticized Singapore's leaders. He created controversy in 2015 as the city-state was mourning the death of its first prime minister and he posted an expletive-laden video about Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew just after his death.



Such open criticism of political leaders is discouraged in Singapore. The case, which raised questions about free speech and censorship, has been closely watched abroad.



Cole said testimony during Yee's hearing showed that while the Singapore government's stated reason for punishing him involved religion, "its real purpose was to stifle Yee's political speech." He said Yee's prison sentence was "unusually long and harsh" especially for his age.



Officials at Singapore's embassy in Washington have not addressed the case and messages left for the government on Saturday morning in Singapore weren't immediately returned.



The ruling was praised by others.



"I think this is a major embarrassment for the government, that all along claimed Amos' persecution was not political," Kenneth Jeyaretnam, an opposition politician who gave testimony supporting Yee's asylum, told The Associated Press.



Jeyaretnam said the decision "may create waves in Singapore. It may show Singaporeans that there's nothing to be afraid about. The Singapore government is a paper tiger. We don't have to swallow the brainwashing that is constantly put out."



His father, the late J.B. Jeyaretnam, attained folklore stature in the country's politics and was bankrupted after contesting a series of lawsuits by the ruling People's Action Party.



PAP has dominated national politics since Singapore's independence in 1965 and its detractors often were taken to court on defamation or other charges.



U.S.-based Human Rights Watch applauded the asylum decision and expressed hope the decision would not be appealed.



"Singapore excels at creating a pressure cooker environment for dissidents and free thinkers who dare challenge the political, economic and social diktats from the ruling People's Action Party. It's clear the Singapore government saw Amos Yee as the proverbial nail sticking up that had to be hammered down," said a statement from Phil Robertson, HRW's deputy Asia director.



Yee's attorney Sandra Grossman said her client was elated with the news.



"He's very excited to begin new life in the United States," Grossman said.



Yee told the AP in a phone interview from jail this month that he feared returning to Singapore. But he said he'd continue to speak out and had already planned a line of T-shirts and started writing a book about his experiences.



"I have an infinite amount of ideas of what to do," he told the AP.



Department of Homeland Security attorneys had opposed the asylum bid, saying Yee's case didn't qualify as persecution based on political beliefs. It was unclear whether they'd appeal the decision or if Yee would have to remain imprisoned if they did. Attorneys have 30 days to appeal.



Officials with DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn't immediately return messages Friday. A spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees U.S. immigration courts, declined comment.



Associated Press writer Annabelle Liang in Singapore contributed.
Not everyone who has a quarrel with Russian President Vladimir Putin dies in violent or suspicious circumstances - far from it. But enough loud critics of Putin's policies have been murdered that Thursday's daylight shooting of a Russian who sought asylum in Ukraine has led to speculation of Kremlin involvement.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the shooting in Kiev of Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian Communist Party member who began sharply criticizing Putin after fleeing Russia in 2016, an "act of state terrorism by Russia."

That drew a sharp rebuke from Putin's spokesman, who called the accusation "absurd." Throughout the years, the Kremlin has always dismissed the notion of political killings with scorn.

But Putin's critics couldn't help drawing parallels with the unexplained deaths of other Kremlin foes. "I have an impression - I hope it's only an impression - that the practice of killing political opponents has started spreading in Russia," said Gennady Gudkov, a former parliamentarian and ex-security services officer, to the Moscow Times.

Here are some outspoken critics of Putin who were killed or died mysteriously.

Boris Nemtsov, 2015

In the 1990s, Nemtsov was a political star of post-Soviet Russia's "young reformers." He became deputy prime minister and was, for a while, seen as possible presidential material - but it was Putin who succeeded former president Boris Yeltsin in 2000. Nemtsov publicly supported the choice, but he grew increasingly critical as Putin rolled back civil liberties and was eventually pushed to the margins of Russian political life. Nemstov led massive street rallies in protest of the 2011 parliamentary election results and wrote reports on official corruption. He also was arrested several times as the Kremlin cracked down on opposition rallies. In Feb. 2015, just hours after urging the public to join a march against Russia's military involvement in Ukraine, Nemtsov was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. Putin took "personal control" of the investigation into Nemtsov's murder, but the killer remains at large.

Boris Berezovsky, 2013

A self-styled tycoon who become a fixture in Yeltsin's inner circle in the late 1990s, Berezovsky is believed to have been instrumental in Putin's rise to power (including a media campaign that smeared Nemtsov). But Berezovsky was unable to exert the influence under the new president he had hoped. His falling out with Putin led to his self-exile in the United Kingdom, where he vowed to bring down the president. He also accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer and whistleblower poisoned to death in 2009. Berezovsky was found dead inside a locked bathroom at his home in the United Kingdom, a noose around his neck, in what was at first deemed a suicide. However, the coroner's office could not determine the cause of death.

Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, 2009

Markelov was a human rights lawyer known for representing Chechen civilians in human rights cases again the Russian military. He also represented journalists who found themselves in legal trouble after writing articles critical of Putin, including Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was slain in 2006. Markelov was shot by a masked gunman near the Kremlin. Baburova, also a journalist from Novaya Gazeta, was fatally shot as she tried to help him. Russian authorities said a neo-Nazi group was behind the killings, and two members were convicted of the deaths.

Sergei Magnitsky, 2009

Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody in November 2009 after allegedly being brutally beaten, then denied medical care. He had been working for British-American businessman William Browder to investigate a massive tax fraud case. Magnitsky was allegedly arrested after uncovering evidence suggesting that police officials were behind the fraud. In 2012, Magnitsky was posthumously convicted of tax evasion, and Browder lobbied the U.S. government to impose sanctions on those linked to his death. The sanctions bill bears his name and has since been applied to rights abusers in other cases.





This week a lawyer for Magnitsky's family suffered severe head injures after plunging from his fourth-floor Moscow apartment. Russian news organizations reported Nikolai Gorokhov, 53, fell while helping movers carry a hot tub up to his apartment.

Natalya Estemirova, 2009

Natalya Estemirova was a journalist who investigated abductions and murders that had become commonplace in Chechnya. There, pro-Russian security forces waged a brutal crackdown to weed out Islamic militants responsible for some of the country's worst terrorist attacks. Like fellow journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Estemirova reported on civilians who often got caught between these two violent forces. Estemirova was kidnapped outside her home, shot several times - including a point-blank shot in the head - and dumped in the nearby woods. Nobody has been convicted of her murder.

Anna Politkovskaya, 2006

Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian reporter for Novaya Gazeta whose book, "Putin's Russia," accused the Kremlin leader of turning the country into a police state. She wrote extensively about abuse in Chechnya, and once or twice appeared on radio shows in Moscow with me. She was shot at point-blank range in an elevator in her building. Five men were convicted of her murder, but the judge found that it was a contract killing, with $150,000 of the fee paid by a person whose identity was never discovered. Putin denied any Kremlin involvement in Politkovskaya's killing, saying that her "death in itself is more damaging to the current authorities both in Russia and the Chechen Republic ... than her activities."

Alexander Litvinenko, 2006

Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB agent who died three weeks after drinking a cup of tea laced with deadly polonium-210 at a London hotel. A British inquiry found that Litvinenko was poisoned by Russian agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who were acting on orders that had "probably been approved by President Putin." Russia refused to extradite them, and in 2015 the Russian president granted Lugovoi a medal for "services to the motherland."

After leaving the Russian Federal Security Service, Litvinenko became a vocal critic of the agency, which was run by Putin, and later blamed the security service for orchestrating a series of apartment bombings in Russia in 1999 that left hundreds dead. Russia's invasion of Chechnya followed later that year - and with it, the rise to power of Putin. Berezovsky was suspected to be complicit in at least part of the plot to bring Putin to the Kremlin, but he later sought to implicate Putin for Litvinenko's killing. Litvinenko also accused Putin ordering the murder of Politkovskaya.

Sergei Yushenkov, 2003

The affable former army colonel was a favorite of parliamentary reporters in the early 1990s, when I was learning the trade for the Moscow Times. Sergei Yushenkov had just registered his Liberal Russia movement as a political party when he was gunned down outside his home in Moscow. Yushenkov was gathering evidence he believed proved that the Putin government was behind one of the apartment bombings in 1999.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, 2003

As a journalist and author who wrote about crime and corruption in the former Soviet Union when it was still very difficult to do so, Yuri Shchekochikhin once joined me on a police raid of crack houses in Philadelphia in 1988. He was investigating the 1999 apartment bombings for Novaya Gazeta when he contracted a mysterious illness in July 2003. He died suddenly, a few days before he was supposed to depart for the United States. His medical documents were deemed classified by Russian authorities.



David Filipov is Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post
Derrick Stafford, one of two deputies charged with second-degree murder in the death of Jeremy Mardis, a 6-year-old autistic boy. (Gerald Herbert / Associated Press)

MARKSVILLE, La.  A Louisiana law enforcement officer was convicted Friday on a lesser charge of manslaughter in a shooting that killed a 6-year-old autistic boy, a gruesome encounter captured on tape by another officer's body camera.

Jurors found Derrick Stafford guilty of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter charges, multiple news outlets reported. He had faced charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in the case.

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Stafford, 33, and another deputy city marshal opened fire on a car  killing Jeremy Mardis and critically wounding his father  after a 2-mile car chase in Marksville on the night of Nov. 3, 2015.

Video from a police officer's body camera shows the father, Christopher Few, had his hands raised inside his vehicle while the two deputies collectively fired 18 shots. At least four of those bullets tore into Jeremy, who died within minutes.

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Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement that his office is happy with the verdict,

"As we have said all along, our goal in this case was to get justice for Jeremy Mardis, his family, and the people of Louisiana. Today, that happened," the statement said.

Stafford testified Friday that he shot at the car because he feared Few was going to back up and hit the other deputy, Norris Greenhouse Jr.

"I felt I had no choice but to save Norris. That is the only reason I fired my weapon," Stafford said.

Greenhouse, 25, faces a separate trial on murder charges later this year.

Stafford cried when a prosecutor showed him photographs of the slain first-grader. He said he didn't know the boy was in the car when he fired and didn't see his father's hands in the air.

"Never in a million years would I have fired my weapon if I knew a child was in that car. I would have called off the pursuit myself," Stafford said.

Two other officers at the scene  a third deputy city marshal and a Marksville police officer  didn't fire their weapons that night. Prosecutors said the officers weren't in any danger and shot at the car from a safe distance, with none of their bullets hitting the front or back of Few's vehicle.

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Jurors heard testimony that Stafford fired 14 shots from his semi-automatic pistol. Stafford said Greenhouse stumbled and fell to the ground as he tried to back away from Few's car.

Stafford and Greenhouse are black. Few is white, and so was his son.

Defense attorneys accused investigators of rushing to judgment, arresting the officers less than a week after the shooting. One of Stafford's attorneys has questioned whether investigators would have acted more deliberately if the officers had been white.

Stafford's attorneys tried to pin the blame for the deadly confrontation on Few. They accused the 26-year-old father of leading the four officers on a dangerous, high-speed chase and ramming into Greenhouse's vehicle before the gunfire erupted.

During the trial's opening statements, defense attorney Jonathan Goins called Few "the author of that child's fate." Goins also said Few had drugs and alcohol in his system at the time of the shooting.

But prosecutors said none of the father's actions that night can justify the deadly response. Marksville Police Lt. Kenneth Parnell, whose body camera captured the shooting, testified that he didn't fire at the car because he didn't fear for his life.

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Few testified on Tuesday that he never heard any warnings before two officers fired. He said he learned of his son's death when he regained consciousness at a hospital six days after the shooting, on the day of Jeremy's funeral.

A prosecutor, Matthew Derbes, asked Few if he regrets not stopping his car when he saw the blue lights from an officer's vehicle.

"Most definitely," Few said. "Every day."

But he insisted he was driving safely and wasn't trying to escape. Few said he kept driving in hopes of catching up with a girlfriend in a van ahead of him, so that she could take care of his son if he got arrested.

"The whole reason there was even a chase was for his well-being," he said.

Stafford, a Marksville police lieutenant, and Greenhouse, a former Marksville police officer, were moonlighting on the night of the shooting.

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Before the shooting, Stafford and Greenhouse both had been sued over claims they had used excessive force or neglected their duties as police officers. The Marksville Police Department suspended Stafford after his indictment on rape charges in 2011, but reinstated him after prosecutors dismissed the charges.
INDIANAPOLIS  A convenience store chain's attempt to sell cold beer has prompted a heated reaction from Indiana lawmakers who want to keep a state law limiting carryout chilled brew sales to liquor stores.

Convenience stores in the state are able to sell warm beer or cold wine  but the sale of cold beer for carryout long has been reserved for Indiana's liquor stores, a right the industry's powerful lobbyists have fought to protect for years.

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Indiana-based convenience store chain Ricker's bypassed that restriction by obtaining a license typically reserved for restaurants, after finding its in-store eateries offering burritos and other Mexican fare qualified it for the separate liquor license, said Jay Ricker, head of the company.

The strong reaction from lawmakers  with both House Speaker Brian Bosma and GOP Senate leader David Long calling for an amendment to be offered next week that prevents operations such as Ricker's from selling cold beer  isn't quite what the store chain expected.

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"This is all about consumers wanting a product and us offering it," he said. "We're not trying to put somebody else out of business, we're just trying to offer what people want."

A spokeswoman for the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission declined to comment for this story, citing upcoming legislation on the issue. Republicans in the Statehouse haven't been shy commenting on the commission's decision.

"I think it is a misinterpretation of the law by the ATC. We want to make sure that stops right now," Long said Thursday. "I'm disappointed in the leadership in the ATC for having made these decisions. But we've got to deal with it now, and we will deal with it."

The Fort Wayne lawmaker said he expects an amendment to be introduced in a committee this week.

"We're going to change the law to what the law really is," Bosma said, adding the commission has "ignored longstanding policy" from the General Assembly, as well as past lawsuits.

Ricker's acquired the permits allowing for cold beer sales for two of its 56 locations in February. The Columbus location opened and began serving alcohol under the new license March 1, while the Sheridan location began its cold beer sales earlier this week.

Almost immediately the liquor lobby alerted lawmakers, Jay Ricker said.

A statement from the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers says the chain is "choosing to thumb their nose" at the Legislature and courts, citing a ruling that found the state could prohibit cold beer sales in convenience stores because they face fewer regulations than a liquor store.

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Ricker and Scot Imus of the Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association say they see the move to sell cold beer as a way of evolving to meet consumer's needs and survive in changing times.

Declining revenues from cigarettes and gasoline left Ricker looking for an additional source of income, he said, and a popular ask from customers at his in-store restaurants was, "Gee, I'd really like to have a cold beer with our food."

"Businesses change and they've had to change," Imus said. "I can't think of one retailer that's been able to survive and keep current that hasn't changed, except one: the package liquor store industry."
Although House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., acknowledged Friday that "Obamacare is the law of the land," its survival or collapse in practical terms now rests with decisions that are in President Donald Trump's hands.

In the coming weeks and months, the White House and a highly conservative health and human services secretary will be faced with a series of choices over whether to shore up insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act - or let them atrophy. These marketplaces are currently a conduit to health coverage for 10 million Americans, but they have been financially fragile, prompting spiking rates and defections of major insurers.

In an interview on Friday with The Washington Post, Trump made his inclinations clear: "The best thing politically is to let Obamacare explode."

The president said that the law remains "totally the property of the Democrats" and that "when people get a 200 percent increase next year or a 100 percent or 70 percent, that's their fault." Former Obama administration officials countered that Trump and congressional Republicans are responsible for what happens next.

In the seven years since a Democratic Congress passed the law, public sentiment over it has been closely divided. Support has grown slightly in recent months as Republicans tried to begin dismantling it.

There are many levers within the ACA that the administration could use to undermine the law or, instead, try to stabilize its marketplaces. In addition, federal rules could be redefined, giving the government's health policies a more conservative twist even with the law still in effect.

According to health-care experts from across the ideological spectrum, an imminent question is whether the political tumult surrounding the ACA's fate and the president's talk of explosion could further shake the confidence of consumers and insurers alike. Doing so could prompt exits from the marketplaces.

Trump's threat could become "a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the last two years of the Obama administration. " That's like inheriting an overseas war, and deciding you let your own soldiers get killed because you didn't elect to enter that war."

Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Healthcare, a small company covering about a million Americans through the ACA's insurance exchanges, said he is unsure whether it will lessen its participation. Its decision this spring will hinge on actions by the White House and GOP lawmakers, he said. "The ball's sort of in their court. The choices they make are going to determine what happens to the marketplace."

The decisions facing the administration are, in essence, a sequel to an executive order the president issued his first night in office, when he directed federal agencies to ease the regulatory burden that the ACA has placed on consumers, the health-care industry and health-care providers. So far, the main action stemming from that directive is a move by the Internal Revenue Service to process Americans' tax refunds even if they fail to submit proof that they are insured, as the ACA requires.

But there are other steps the administration could take. A major one would be to end cost-sharing subsidies the law provides to lower- and middle-income people with marketplace plans to help pay their deductibles and copays. Those subsidies, which would have been erased by the House Republicans' bill, are the subject of a federal lawsuit.

Another question is how the administration will handle the next enrollment season for ACA health plans, which will begin in November. The end of the most recent season coincided with Trump's first days in office, and the new administration yanked some advertising meant to encourage sign-ups - resulting in a small dip in enrollment by the final deadline.

And while a set of federal essential health benefits, required of health plans sold to individuals and small businesses, will now remain in law, federal health officials could narrow what they require, limiting prescription drugs, for instance, or the number of visits allowed for mental health treatment or physical therapy.

The administration also could take advantage of a part of the ACA that, starting this year, lets health officials give states broad latitude to carry out the law's goals - including more free-market approaches that conservatives favor. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and other top agency officials already have signaled they would allow states to impose work requirements on able-bodied adults to qualify for Medicaid - something Obama officials steadfastly rejected.

"The administration could do everything from actively undermining the law to trying to reshape it to moving it in a more conservative direction," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The question of whether the ACA's marketplaces can or should be strengthened is a matter of considerable debate. In comparing the House GOP bill with the ACA, congressional budget analysts concluded this month that the insurance market for people who buy coverage on their own "would probably be stable in most areas" either way.

During an afternoon news conference shortly after withdrawing the Republican legislation, Ryan reiterated his oft-stated contention that the marketplaces are beyond repair. He briefly suggested, however, that perhaps the Trump administration could improve their stability.

Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, said that policymakers must find a way to shore up the marketplaces because a broad swath of Americans rely on them. "There always has been an individual market made up of entrepreneurs who own small businesses, and farmers and ranchers, and it's sort of mandatory that there be policies available to them," Kahn said.

House Republicans were notably silent on Friday about the prospects of further work on health policy. A few senators sounded more hopeful that efforts to improve the law would continue.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said in an interview that he disagreed with Trump's assertion that letting the markets explode was the best course of action. "I hope that doesn't have to happen," said Cassidy, co-sponsor of a separate bill that would preserve the ACA but tip more latitude to the states.

Harvard University economics professor David Cutler, who helped advise the Obama White House on health care, countered Trump's argument that the ACA will always be associated with Democrats. "He owns it now," Cutler said in an email, "because he could take many steps to stabilize things."

Carolyn Y. Johnson contributed to this report.
John Darrah was a public defender, prosecutor and DuPage County circuit judge before being named to the federal bench in 2000. (Chicago Tribune photo)

John Darrah was equally conversant in the complex legal theory required in his role as a federal judge as well as less weighty topics, like the state of the White Sox or the best methods to net a largemouth bass, friends and family said.

Darrah, who served 17 years on the federal bench in Chicago, died at his Lisle residence Thursday following a yearlong illness. Until the last weeks of his life, he continued working from home, though his declining health kept him out of his courtroom, family said.

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Darrah, 78, presided over several high-profile federal cases but he particularly shone in his day-to-day professional and polite treatment of the people who appeared in his courtroom, said Ruben Castillo, chief judge of the Northern District.

"He had a tremendous amount of empathy for the everyday person," Castillo said. "I wish I could bottle that up, pass it around, and drink some of it myself.

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"Jack Darrah was an outstanding member of our court," Castillo said. "A real judge's judge."

He was born Dec. 11, 1938, on the South Side of Chicago and graduated from Mount Carmel High School. Darrah got a degree in philosophy at Loyola University, going to college at night while working days at a pipe yard to support his wife and children.

In an interview published last year in the DuPage County Bar Association journal, Darrah recalled running into a friend who said he was planning to study law

"I thought, 'My God, if he can go to law school, I can go to law school,'" Darrah said. "So I called, and this is absolutely true, there were two openings at Loyola and there were three of us applying for them. We took a test in the law library, and I finished second out of three. I was the last one in."

He received a law degree in 1969 and worked for the Federal Trade Commission, but he was eager for trial experience. So, in the early 1970s, Darrah took a position as a public defender in DuPage County and later became a prosecutor. In 1976, he went into private practice with Jim Ryan, the DuPage state's attorney who would go on to serve two terms as Illinois attorney general.

Darrah was elected a circuit judge in DuPage in 1986, a position he held for 14 years. During that time, he was active in the county bar association, and also was an adjunct law professor at Northern Illinois University and John Marshall Law School.

DuPage County Bar Association President Ted Donner said Darrah served as a mentor for many lawyers.

"You can't practice in DuPage County long without meeting former students of his, all of whom learned from him what it means to be an attorney. He will be sorely missed," Donner said.

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Darrah was nominated to the federal bench in 2000. Last year, he rebuffed efforts by Chicago to use public lakefront land for a museum proposed by "Star Wars" filmmaker George Lucas. The city wanted Darrah to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group opposed to the lake site. But Darrah let the suit stand, and the project later fizzled.

His ruling, the Chicago Tribune wrote in an editorial, showed "Darrah is focused on U.S. Supreme Court case law, not on doing favors for City Hall or a celebrity filmmaker."

Although Darrah leaves a notable public legacy, his son Paul said the family will remember the man who loved being with family, watching the White Sox or spending the day fishing.

"If my dad wasn't sitting on the bench, you'd probably find him sitting in his boat or sitting at Comiskey, watching the Sox," Paul Darrah said Friday.

Survivors include his wife, Jeannine; three daughters, Jacqueline, Nancy Leinfelder, Julie Peterson; another son, Craig; three stepdaughters, Lauren Vogley, Emily Jarrette and Hillary Nunez; two stepsons, Matthew Custardo and Justin Custardo; 19 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday at Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home, 44 S. Mill St., Naperville. Mass will be celebrated 11 a.m. Monday at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 36 N. Ellsworth St., Naperville.

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Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
The pile of past-due bills at the Illinois comptroller's office stands at more than $12.8 billion. That's money owed to struggling families, small business owners, nursing homes, community colleges  most entities that rely on the state for payment. The stack of bills has been building for a decade but now reaching heights of wretched proportion.

You've read stories of suffering, of a decimated safety net, of the state's most vulnerable citizens getting shoved to the back of the payment line. You've read about medical services getting cut because the state isn't paying health insurers on time. You've read about low-income, at-risk students losing college loans. You've read about social service providers slashing programs.

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During a recent budget hearing in Springfield, a woman who works for state government testified that her 15-month-old son nearly lost access to an oxygen tank he needs in order to breathe. The medical equipment company stopped doing business with this deadbeat state and tried to get the equipment back.

Does a more deplorable example of state government's defectiveness exist?

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Well, yes. Remember that handful of Democratic House members who, even as Illinois was burning, went to court to make sure they would get their paychecks on time? Last year, then-comptroller Leslie Munger, who wrote the state's checks, plucked lawmakers from the front of the payment line and put them in the queue like every other entity waiting for reimbursement. The lawmakers' last paycheck from Munger was in July.

On Thursday, though, the lawmakers who had sued won a court ruling. Cook County Circuit Judge Rodolfo Garcia sided with them, ruling that their pay was protected from the budget impasse. His decision was based in part on a convenient change lawmakers made to state statute several years ago that put their own paychecks ahead of other demands on state government  ahead of schools, ahead of charities, ahead of 15-month-old babies on oxygen. The Illinois Constitution also sets rules on lawmaker pay.

The six me-first Democrats who sued Munger for delaying their checks were: Emanuel "Chris" Welch of Hillside; Elizabeth Hernandez of Cicero; and Mary Flowers, Silvana Tabares and Sonya Harper, all of Chicago. Katherine Cloonen of Kankakee also sued, but she's no longer a state representative. She lost her re-election bid to Republican Lindsay Parkhurst in November.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan, opposing the legislators, is appealing Garcia's ruling. In the meantime, the new comptroller, Democrat Susana Mendoza, already has started processing the $8.6 million in back pay for lawmakers. They'll be getting paid.

It's maddening but not surprising. In Illinois, clout wins. Politicians win. Rank-and-file citizens are at the back of the line. Yet voters keep sending the same pols back to Springfield.

It's not getting better. The Democrat-controlled General Assembly is halfway through the spring session and doing little at this point to deal with the crisis. Of the roughly 50 calendar workdays since lawmakers were sworn into office in January, they've been in Springfield less than half of the time. That's the schedule set by Democratic leaders. That's how seriously they're taking the state's mayday. In other words, not. Both the House and Senate are taking a two-week spring break in April.

Legislators, grab some beach. You must be so exhausted.

We wish we could offer some measure of genuine astonishment at their behavior. But history has shown they're right on track: No balanced budget, no progress, no conscience. (A recent Reuters report noted that the fiscal year that ended last June was the 15th straight year Illinois wound up in the red.)

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Other states facing alarming financial distress have figured out ways to solve problems. See today's companion editorial here.

Not Illinois. It would be sharply inaccurate  fake news, in fact  to describe certain of this state's election winners as "public servants." To them, it's self-service. Nothing exemplifies that more than 177 lawmakers collecting their paychecks at the front of the line while children and the state's most needy wait desperately behind them.
Joe Vincent married into being involved with the United Way of Linn County.

My future wife, Claudette, was the United Way executive director when I moved here in the early 1990s, Vincent said. She later became executive director in Marion and Polk counties.

Today, Vincent is the recipient of the United Way of Linn County's top award for its volunteers: He is the 2017 winner of the Ron Loney Leadership Award.

Vincent said he didnt deserve the award, but said he is proud to work in a community that has so many volunteers.

There really is unity in this community, Vincent said.

Vincent moved to the mid-valley from Bellingham, Washington, where he had worked at Western Washington University. He is a Realtor with Re/Max Integrity.

I was involved with fundraising for the university foundation, managed a summer academic conference for children and was program developer for continuing education, Vincent said.

Vincent said he enjoys being associated with groups that provide leadership, adding that United Way is at the forefront of that.

Vincent serves on the United Way Board of Directors and has assisted with its asset-allocation panels for about 15 years.

He is president-elect of the Greater Albany Rotary Club, chaired the Linn-Benton Housing Authority, is a past president of Habitat for Humanity and served on the Landmarks Advisory Committee.

I have always enjoyed participating with other community members who want to make our community better, Vincent said. Its fun.

Vincent and others were recognized Wednesday evening during the annual United Way of Linn County banquet, held at the Linn County Fair & Expo Center.

Executive director Greg Roe said more than 100 people attended the event, which recognizes companies and individuals who help the United Way.

This years campaign raised about $900,000.

Joe is highly deserving of this honor, Roe said. It goes to the person who takes extra steps to help the United Way, as well as other groups in the community, and Joe certainly does that. He embodies the spirit of this award.

Roe said 2016-17 was a year of change for United Way.

We faced internal change, started new programs and faced new challenges, Roe told United Way supporters. Through the change we have been blessed to have you by our sides advocating and supporting us, and we cannot thank you enough. As we start a new year and a new campaign, we are excited to start our next chapter.

ATI again ran the largest campaign, generating $125,000 from employees and a corporate gift of $55,560.

Other awards included:

 Community Impact Award: Albany Public Library.

 Outstanding Board Member: Alex Patterson.

 Community Spirit: City of Albany.

 Leadership Giving Award: Georgia Pacific.

 Business of the Year: Target.

 Volunteer of the Year: Audra Baca.

 Outstanding Campaign Awards: Arauco; Lebanon Community School District; Citizens Bank; US Bank; Central Linn School District; Albany Democrat-Herald; city of Albany; Weyerhaeuser  Santiam Lumber; UPS; Samaritan Health Services; Boys & Girls Clubs of the Greater Santiam; Greater Albany Public Schools; Sweet Home School District; Bi-Mart; Oregon State Credit Union; Barenbrug; ATI/USW 6163; Weyerhaeuser Distribution Center; city of Lebanon; Pacific Power; Oregon Freeze Dry.
Do state Sen. Heather Steans and state Rep. Kelly Cassidy have no shame? The thought of legalizing marijuana for the purpose of raising revenue from the manufacture and sale of marijuana is yet one more example of stealing from the futures of our children to pay for lawmakers' pet projects today.

I have two children in high school and one in middle school. They are good kids, get good grades, and are active in scouts and the community. I hear stories from them of what some of the other students are up to at Downers Grove North. I read about the heroin epidemic and grieve for the families that have recently lost children. My children tell me they just say no, and I believe them. But I also know what I was up to when I was in high school, and there but by the grace of God go I.

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I know that Illinois has a budget problem and have been told by Democrats for many years that there is literally nowhere to cut. I have also seen with my own eyes much of the graft in city and state contracting. The Democrats' positioning is that there are no options but to raise taxes. These lawmakers want to raise taxes through drug use, and I find that despicable. For whatever reason, there has been no grand bargain on expanded gambling for expanded revenue, and that's got to hurt. Prostitution is still illegal in Illinois, however not rare. My heart goes out to the young ladies and their families whose revenue potentials will be eyed next.

Democratic leadership has already spent more money for today than our kids and grandkids could possibly pay back in their lifetimes, so that must make the politicians proud. Their idea of promoting and taxing drug use is a good one to keep money flowing in, but bodes poorly for future generations. By the time the bill comes due these two legislators will be living on their fat, taxpayer-provided pensions, so what do they care? What if there are no public taxpayers left in Illinois to pay it?

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Steans and Cassidy must think carefully about what they're doing. And in the meantime, try not to string out the kids for their comfort.

 Stephen Petersen, Downers Grove
James Carrigan (front) and Dale Betts move antique fire equipment at Elgin Fire Barn No. 5 Museum, where they are volunteer members of the nonprofit that operates the city-owned facility. (Mike Danahey / The Courier-News)

With the support of a relatively small group of volunteer members, Elgin Fire Barn No. 5 Museum remains a working piece of local history.

The City Council on Wednesday unanimously agreed to move forward updating an agreement with the nonprofit that runs the museum. The city-owned fire barn at 533 St. Charles St. was built in 1903-1904 to hold two horses and a hose wagon and at the time stood at the southernmost spot in Elgin.

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According to the agreement, the city will continue to be responsible for maintaining the building and property, pay for utilities, except telephone service, and continue to maintain insurance for the property. City officials said utilities for the building ran $4,456 last year, while the estimated property insurance cost to the city is $945 annually. The city also takes care of additional periodic maintenance and repairs to the building and plans to paint its exterior this year.

The previous five-year deal expired in 2002, but continued to operate under the old terms, including a $10-per-year lease. The terms of the updated agreement are substantially similar to the previous one, including a five-year term and rent of $10 per year.

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Revisions to the term from 2017 through 2021 include an automatic renewal provision by which the agreement is automatically renewed for additional five-year terms unless terminated by one of the parties.

The nonprofit also has to maintain and update museum records including providing an inventory of the museum collection and to make those records available to the city.

Fire Barn museum volunteer/members Dale Betts and James Carrigan on Friday noted that members try to provide for as much of the maintenance and upkeep as they can, further curbing expenses. The group spends about $200 each year fueling the three antique vehicles it has so that they can be used in parades, Carrigan said.

While one of those vehicles is on display in the Fire Barn, the other two are stored in Elgin fire stations, Carrigan said. The Fire Barn nonprofit has been trying for two years to find its own storage space.

Betts said the museum had 672 visits in 2016, which is a typical annual tally. The museum is run off of donations and the work of volunteers, and it currently has 77 dues-paying members, Betts said.

Betts, who works as a customer advocate for Comcast, has been a Fire Barn volunteer for five years, while Carrigan, an historic restoration painter and general contractor, has been involved for seven years.

"I'm a lifelong Elgin resident, and I love history," Carrigan said. "The people here are down-to-earth, and I enjoy keeping that history alive, including the stories of the guys."

"This old girl (the museum) is so cool. You can just feel (the history)," Betts said. "It's a joy to see how people enjoy this place."

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The men noted new exhibits this year include a wall dedicated to the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and a display about a fire in the winter of 1956 at the Rialto movie house in downtown Elgin in which the roof collapsed.

Carrigan said the group also has been working to put together a yearbook, of sorts, looking at the 150-year history of the Elgin Fire Department. He expects the piece will be published sometime in midsummer.

Thanks to Elgin Building Maintenance Superintendent Rich Hoke and his crew, the men said, the fountain in front of the museum, which had not been working for more than five years, will be operating again during warm weather.

Filled with fire department lore and memorabilia, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been a museum since 1993.

It is available to rent for events. The men said those have included memorial services, wakes and funerals, visits from groups such as Northern Illinois Fire Buffs, children's birthday parties and scouting organizations.

The Fire Barn also holds memories for some longtime Elgin residents, including Mayor Dave Kaptain.

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"I went to school at Gifford Elementary across the street from there in the 1950s, when it was still a firehouse," Kaptain said. "I used to walk over sometimes after school."

Since the space is run by volunteers, Betts said it is typically only open for general visiting every other Sunday afternoon, but he recommended calling 847-697-6242 or emailing efb5m@outlook.com before stopping by the museum.

Suggested admission is $2 for adults and $1 for children under the age of 7. For information, go to www.elginfiremuseum.com/.

mdanahey@tribpub.com
Plans for a Kane County food hub are moving along with 18 potential sites identified and two companies applying as operators, officials said.

Eighteen locations throughout Kane County were identified as potential sites, said Matt Tansley, a Kane County land use planner. The county received detailed building specifications for the sites, from the square footage to how much rent per square foot would be, he said.

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The county gathered all the information into summaries of each site, Tansley said. Sites range in size from 6,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet and the rental cost is $3 to $7 per square foot, he said.

Kane County has also received two applications for an operator, Tansley said. Company from Elgin and Chicago submitted applications, he said. A selection committee will be formed to look through each company's proposal, make sure each meets the county's requirements and to make a recommendation, he said.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines a food hub as a "centrally located business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution and/or marketing of locally regional procured food products," according to its website.

Kane County began a feasibility study in March 2015 and presented the results of the study last year, which recommended the county work with partners to create an 8,000 square foot food hub.

A county food hub would be a supplier for wholesale purchases available to restaurants, grocery stores and institutional buyers, like schools and hospitals, Tansley said. It would not have an onsite grocery store and would be a processing facility to promote local food, he said.

An ongoing issue is funding, said Janice Hill, Kane County executive planner. The county is looking at applying for grants through foundations and other organizations in different areas, like health equity, she said.

Ultimately, the startup costs for the food hub will likely be funded by a variety of sources, Tansley said. While the county will pursue public and foundation grants to offset the cost, the operator would have to secure startup funds, he said. "The county is supporting the development of a business plan in the hope of it being the best tool to leverage additional funding sources," he said.

Currently, the food hub project is funded by a county economic development reserve fund, Tansley said.

It also received funding in the past from the Kane County Farm Bureau, Kane County Fit for Kids Consortium, the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the American Planning Association, he said.

"These funds will be used to cover activities related to the current food hub operator search and the forthcoming business planning process," he said.

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The county is hoping to have county board authorization by August for a food hub operator and would begin the business planning stage in September, according to county documents.

Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.
A former Evanston city employee has reported to local and state officials  and asked for whistleblower protection  that stacks of undeposited cash and checks totaling an estimated $3 million to $5 million were left unsecured and scattered about a city office.

City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz said on Friday that the complaint letter, dated March 7, is authentic but declined to comment further.

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"It is a document that was filed with the state of Illinois," Bobkiewicz said. "The city was made aware."

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Evanston Review, was addressed to the Illinois Attorney General's office, along with the city of Evanston's administration and public works committee members and five aldermen.

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Eileen Boyce, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, acknowledged that office had received a copy of the letter, in which the former employee also asks for whistleblower protection under a 2004 state law.

"We have received the request and are reviewing it," she said.

The former employee who filed the complaint could not be immediately reached for comment.

The ex-worker had been employed for over a year with the city and alleges in the letter that there were "35 days of undeposited checks and cash in the collector's office (in unsecure locations) estimated at between $3-$5 million."

"The cash and checks were deposits from Feb. 5, 2016 to March 11, 2016," the letter states.

As of March 12, 2016, "none of the 35 days worth of deposited had been counted, verified or deposited," according to the letter. "Each daily deposit had envelopes of approximately $2,000 cash."

Photos showing stacks of checks and cash were attached to the letter.

Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl did not immediately return calls requesting comment.

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According to what the former employee wrote in the letter, the state Public Funds Deposit Act "requires that cash receipts be deposited within two working days of receipt."

The ex-employee said in the letter that the money was discovered in the city office around the time when "the city was experiencing cash flow problems. ... The reasons were not readily determined."

The would-be whistleblower said that city officials had been apprised of the discovery, and that the letter was sent because of a personal belief that "it was in the public interest of the residents of the city of Evanston" to know about it.

gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
Nancy Hannick of Highland Park gathers her thoughts onto a sticky note during a meeting on District 112 school reorganization March 23, 2017 at Elm Place Middle School in Highland Park. (Mark Ukena / Pioneer Press)

The daunting job facing North Shore School District 112 as it strives to build community consensus was evident March 23 as citizens offered feedback on school reorganization plans to members of the Reconfiguration 2.0 Team.

Some citizens writing comments on sticky notes favored a slow, incremental approach to upgrading the district's facilities to ease the pain on taxpayers.

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Others thought a one-shot approach to consolidating schools and upgrading facilities was the way to go.

Many agreed the district is operating too many schools for its enrollment of 4,300 students. "We need to consolidate to lower per-pupil operating costs and student-teacher and student-administrator ratios," wrote one participant.

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Another wrote, "Larger classes within reason will create better synergy for creative thought."

Even on that point, though, there was dissent. "Chicago complains about large classes. What's wrong with small classes?" asked one attendee.

The district's average class size of 17 students, as reported on the 2016 Illinois School Report Card, is considerably lower than the averages in some similarly-sized districts with six or eight buildings, according to data provided at the community engagement session.

The district's 12-school model also creates large disparities in class size among individual schools. The two first grade classes at Lincoln Elementary School, for instance, each serve 14 students. At Red Oak, Ravinia and Oak Terrace, classes have 20 or more students, according to the data.

"Our unusually small class sizes are not by design," explained Melissa Itkin, a member of the reconfiguration panel. "They are by default as we are spread very thinly across the district."

The comments showed a high degree of support for adding full-day kindergarten. A colored map showed that North Shore School District 112 is one of only a few districts in the area to still provide half-day kindergarten. Full-day kindergarten is provided at Oak Terrace Elementary School because the school qualifies for federal Title I funds.

Created in the aftermath of the failed referendum in 2016, the Reconfiguration 2.0 group has been meeting for the past nine months to come up with a new plan or plans to present to the school board. Seven new members were recently added to replace panelists who resigned or may be stepping down after the April 4 election.

Five current or former 2.0 members are among the nine candidates running for the North Shore District 112 school board.

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Nicholas Glenn, director of communications for District 112, said the two engagement sessions March 22 and March 23 were attended by about 195 people combined. The community sessions were one of several means used to gather input before the group narrows its choices to two or three options, he said.

"It started in late February with focus groups," Glenn said.

A survey was mailed in March to a random sample of constituents. The survey will be opened up to anyone who wishes to participate in early April.

"Reconfiguration 2.0 is going to take what they have learned over the nine months and the community feedback and come up with two to three options," Glenn said. "Then we will repeat the same process in May with focus groups, surveys and community events where we'll actually have options to present."

Three general models have been presented so far without mentioning specific schools. Two of the models would retain the traditional K-5, 6-8 scheme. In one, dual language students would be educated in separate academies. In the other, dual language and all-English classes would coexist in the same schools.

A third model would create three pairs of elementary schools. Students would attend one school for kindergarten through second grade, and move as a group to the other school for third through fifth grade.

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Reconfiguration 2.0 is looking to make its recommendations to the school board in June. Glenn said the school board will spend some time putting cost figures to one or more plans before possibly deciding to put a referendum on the ballot. The board would need to vote in December in order for a referendum to appear on the March, 2018 ballot.

kberkowitz@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter@KarenABerkowitz
U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, less than 24 hours after House Republicans abandoned their current plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, told more than 100 constituents in Grayslake on Saturday that public opposition was one of the reasons the effort failed.

"We saw the power of public engaging this past week," Schneider, D-Deerfield, said at his College of Lake County gathering.

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His office heard from about 3,000 people about the American Health Care Act, the bill pushed by President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan. At one point, he said, only nine of 2,500 constituents who called about the issue supported the Republican plan.

The vote on the bill was canceled Friday because Ryan didn't have enough support to get it passed. A conservative wing of the GOP thought the bill didn't go far enough in repealing the ACA, also known as Obamacare, while more moderate Republicans worried constituents would lose or be unable to afford health insurance if it was approved. Democrats, including Schneider, were united in opposition to the bill.

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Despite the political victory for the Democrats, Schneider heard from some in the audience Saturday who fear the problems with the Affordable Care Act won't be fixed as a result of the GOP defeat.

Richard Garling, of Wildwood, told Schneider he pays nearly $700 a month for health insurance and has a $7,500 deductible.

"This is silly," Garling said. "Why should I have to be paying that much?  What are we going to do to fix the problems that we do have with Obamacare? Because I can see that Ryancare and Trumpcare sure isn't the answer."

Schneider acknowledged the problems.

"My position's always been we need to build on successes within ACA, fix the problems," he said. "The problem with the Republican plan is it took the successes and literally shrunk them or took them away. It ignored all the problems, didn't address any of the real problems we were facing with ACA and was taking us backward rather than forward."

Schneider was elected to the U.S. House in November, two years after he was unseated by Republican Robert Dold. With the current bill's failure, he said he hopes Republicans and Democrats can now work together to "start to tackle the problems," such as making sure residents have more than one insurance option and that insurance companies can contract with health networks and providers close to where customers live.

The event was Schneider's fifth town hall-style forum in recent months. Schneider's 10th District encompasses most of Lake County and a northern portion of Cook County.

The crowd Saturday responded positively to Schneider's message, breaking into applause when Schneider called for an independent investigation into Russia's alleged influence in the presidential election and possible ties between Russia and Trump's campaign. He said he was concerned Trump may be in violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause, which prohibits U.S. officials from receiving payments from foreign governments or foreign government entities unless they are approved by Congress.

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Schneider also heard residents' questions on the environment, immigration, veterans affairs and education. Julie Shroka, a 30-year College of Lake County employee now running to be a school trustee, said she was concerned about U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has been criticized as being an advocate for the privatization of public education.

"I think we need to focus on public education and get that fixed," Shroka said.

Schneider said public schools "are what have distinguished us as a nation" and that every child should have access to an education that prepares them to be successful in the world, regardless of where they grow up or how much money they have.

"I'm not sure Betsy DeVos understands that or agrees with that," Schneider said.

Grayslake Mayor Rhett Taylor, who attended the forum, said later that the village has had "a good working relationship" with Schneider and that he hopes to speak with the congressman in the future about whether Lake Michigan drinking water will be affected by Trump's planned cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and about Canadian National Railway trains, which often hold up traffic in Grayslake by stopping at the point where the railroad's double tracks converge onto a single track. The village has no jurisdiction over railroads.

"If you get stopped for 10 to 15 minutes, it can shut down the town," Taylor said of the trains.

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lhammill@tribpub.com

Twitter @lucashammill
Whether the "skyrocketing" use of electronic cigarettes can help smokers quit tobacco use or lure youth and adults back to nicotine is a question up for debate locally.

Lea Bacci, an assistant addiction prevention coordinator with the Lake County Health Department, said that a Centers for Disease Control study from 2011 through 2015 found that e-cigarette use by youth had tripled during that time period. Bacci said that is discouraging, especially at a time when youth smoking has been trending downward.

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Bacci said one concern is a perception among some that electronic cigarettes don't contain nicotine. Non-nicotine e-cigarette liquid is available, but most e-liquids do have nicotine at varying levels.

"E-cigarettes may contain nicotine in unregulated quantities. There is nicotine in them," Bacci said. "The risk of addiction is one of the most important things to think about, especially with youth."

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Electronic cigarettes or vape pens are battery-powered devices, most substantially larger than cigarettes, that heat a liquid into a vapor for inhalation. The term "vaping" is commonly used to describe the use of electronic cigarettes and smoking devices.

Bacci said the practice is attractive to youth because some vapor can be essentially odorless and is often undetectable to adults. Kids who are using e-cigarettes will not arrive at school or come home smelling of cigarettes.

But some local vape-shop owners said recently that some of their customers began vaping to quit cigarettes and eliminate the harmful effects of breathing in combustible smoke.

"One of the biggest driving forces (that brings customers to vape shops) is that they are trying to quit smoking," said Steven Hayes, manager of Vape Scene in Gurnee.

Hayes said he believes the vapor that replaces smoke does not contain the stew of carcinogens connected to tobacco, and that the United States is lagging behind in studies on the issue. Doctors in the United Kingdom often advise patients to use vaping as a way to quit their cigarette habit, he said.

Bacci said that despite claims that vaping is safer than regular cigarette smoking, the number of toxic chemicals involved and their possible long-term effects remain unknown.

"It's too early. We don't know what else is in them," she said. "The Surgeon General's Office has a little information, but it takes time to do long-term assessments."

Likewise, there is not much information on any potential negative effects that second-hand vapor could have on people, Bacci said.

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Lea Bacci discusses e-cigarettes and youth in Lake County. (Jim Newton / News-Sun) (Chicago Tribune)

Nevertheless, Bacci said she is skeptical that vaping helps adults get away from addiction, and she has concerns that it may end up leading to dual use and increased nicotine intake.

'A beautiful thing'

Tom Merritt of Gurnee, a customer at Vape Scene, said he quit smoking cigarettes by turning to the electronic variety, and that the vape liquid he uses is nicotine-free.

Merritt, 32, said he had been smoking regularly since he was 15 years old. He said he tried to quit smoking numerous times, but never did until he tried vaping.

"A stick of gum and Jolly Ranchers wouldn't cut it," he said.

Merritt said he only uses non-nicotine e-liquid, and that quitting was relatively easy and quick for him. He said he believes the difference is that vaping allows him to continue his previous routine, even without nicotine.

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"The routine is something you are familiar with," Merritt said.

He said he also considers the lack of a cigarette odor that goes with smoking an advantage of vaping over smoking..

"Not smelling like cigarettes is a beautiful thing," Merritt said. "I never fully noticed it until I quit."

Hayes, who said he also used vaping to quit smoking, and Merritt both said that after quitting cigarettes for e-cigarettes, they experienced a significant increase in their sense of smell and taste.

Hayes says he has noticed subtle improvements in his health as well, such as not becoming winded after walking up stairs.

While the e-cigarette solutions sold with electronic smoking devices come in various nicotine strengths, Hayes said e-liquids containing no nicotine also are popular.

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In addition to addiction concerns, Bacci said a main concern among addiction prevention groups is that electronic smoking devices can be used for other substances as well, including marijuana in the form of hash or cannabis oil.

"That's one of the number-one things we're focusing on," she said.

Hayes said that the types of devices that can be used to vape marijuana oils are usually sold in smoke shops that also sell drug paraphernalia.

He added that while some electronic devices can be used to smoke marijuana oil and hash oil, those substances would quickly "wreck" the devices sold at his shop.

Legal use and costs

E-cigarettes are not allowed on any school campuses in Lake County, Bacci said, and some communities already have regulated where they can be used.

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Four Lake County communities  Highland Park, Deerfield, Lincolnshire and Buffalo Grove  have adopted ordinances that subject e-cigarettes to the same regulations as regular cigarettes.

Hayes said the e-smoking devices at his shop range from $20 to more than $200 and the liquid costs about $25.

Flavors range from sweet or fruity to others that are more exotic, he said.

"There are chicken and waffle flavors," he said. "You name it, you can find it."

Charlene Craft, owner of Hayze Vape in downtown Waukegan, said she has had a steadily growing customer base since opening last summer. Craft said she personally does not smoke and uses an e-cigarette device with liquid that contains no nicotine.

"I vape zero (nicotine free) because it relaxes you," she said.

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But Craft said she believes the vaping option helps some people stop smoking by providing an activity that is similar without the annoying and dangerous smoke from regular cigarettes.

Craft, who runs the store with partner Jason Friedrich, said "the majority" of her customers use liquids with some nicotine, with 3 milligrams, the lowest option, being the most popular level, followed by 6 milligrams. She said her shop also sells liquid with 0, 12, 18 and 24 milligrams of nicotine.

Starter kits range from about $20 to $40, as well as higher-level models with more power that are more expensive and that she recommends only for people who are already accustomed to vaping.

"Someone starting shouldn't start with something powerful," Craft said.

Chris Wright of New Orleans, currently stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes as a Navy corpsman, stopped into Hayze Vape recently to buy some solution for his vaping device. He said he has been vaping for about four years, and that it is gaining popularity on the base  although he added that, like cigarettes, e-cigarette use is not allowed in buildings and many other areas of the base. He said he follows those guidelines.

Wright also said vaping helped him quit his cigarette habit. He said he uses a low-level nicotine solution, and has noticed the difference physically since quitting regular cigarettes.

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"I used to get that pressure in your chest that smokers have," he said.

Research in the American Journal of Presentative Medicine, based on a team study led by a CDC cigarette specialist, shows that in 2015, a sharp decline in sales of regular cigarettes in previous years had slowed, but the sale of e-cigarettes, which the journal says also pose health hazards, was "skyrocketing."

"A majority of adult e-cigarette users report current cigarette smoking," the authors reported. "For adult smokers to benefit from e-cigarettes, they must completely quit combusted tobacco."

jrnewton@tribpub.com

Twitter @jimnewton5
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist

James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.

Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

Albert Einstein
The quick resolution of negotiations for a new teachers contract at Waukegan Unit School District 60 seems to indicate neither party wanted to go through what occurred three years ago: a rancorous strike that kept teachers and nearly 17,000 students out of the classroom for a month.

At first blush, we're happy to see the district avoid labor unrest with the tentative pact between the district and teachers. Nobody wins in an extended strike like the county's largest school district went through in October 2014. Students, parents and teachers suffer; the community becomes afflicted with anxiety over which side to support in the labor action. The lingering resentment from the strike was referenced at this week's special school board meeting where district officials announced the apparent agreement.

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As school board President Michael Rodriguez noted, there was ill will and hard feelings during and after the contentious strike. "We did not want a repetition of anything like that," he said. The 1,200 teachers allied with Local 504 of the Lake County Federal of Teachers approved the tentative contract on Friday, a district spokesman said. School board members are scheduled to vote on the deal at Tuesday's board meeting.

The proposed four-year contract calls for boosting teachers' pay. Most would see a raise next year of 3.5 or 4.5 percent, although some would be lower and some higher depending on years of service, according to figures the district released Friday. Teachers just starting out would get a 2.25 percent raise in the contract's first year, while those with 23 years would maintain their 6 percent longevity bump, according to the district.

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Compare this easily reached tentative contract with the three-year deal hammered out in 2014 with the help of mediation from the Illinois State Board of Education. In that agreement, starting salaries rose 2.5 percent in the second year and 1.25 percent in the final year. Meanwhile, teachers with between one and 22 years had raises of 5.75 percent in the contract's first year, 5 percent in the second and 2.5 percent in the third year.

School officials and teachers praised the smooth bargaining process this time around. Salary increases are addressed in the new contract, and Rodriguez said the teacher pay raises are not more than the district can afford. That's a good sign for taxpayers, although we still don't know how much these percentage increases cost in real dollars. That information might help taxpayers ascertain whether they feel like they can afford the raises.

If comments from teachers union President Kathy Schwarz earlier in the week are any indication, the tentative agreement addresses teachers' concerns. Rodriguez said the district's bargaining team made concessions, while teachers did not get everything they had proposed for the contract. That's what negotiations are all about.

School officials explain the breezy and collegial contract outcome as one of having continuity before the April 4 consolidated general election. Newly elected school board members may have different sentiments when it comes to dealing with forging a new contract. They are, after all, the ones who will have to live with the new costs. Officials also wanted a new contract before the beginning of the 2017-18 school year.

If every teachers' bargaining situation were as easy as what the District 60 parties seem to have agreed upon, teachers and administrators could get back to what their real task is: educating students.
The teaching lodge at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston includes a wigwam. (Photo courtesy of Mitchell Museum of the American Indian)

Block Museum of Art

Location: 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston

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Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday; 10 a.m-8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Cost: Free; $4-$6 special movie showings

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Information: 847-491-4000 or www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu

The museum serves as a learning and teaching resource for Northwestern University and its surrounding communities, featuring works from local, national and international artists. The Block mounts rotating exhibitions in three galleries; commissions new work; organizes lectures, symposia, and workshops; and screens classic and contemporary films at its in-house cinema. With more than 5,000 artworks, the museums' permanent collection holds prints, drawings and photography.

Dearborn Observatory

Location: 2131 Tech Drive, Evanston

Hours: 8-10 p.m. Friday, Oct-March; 9-11 p.m. Friday, April-September

Cost: Free

Information: 847-491-7650 or www.astro.northwestern.edu/observatory.php

Each Friday, the Dearborn Observatory at Northwestern opens for the public to take a peek through its historic 18.5-inch refracting telescope and view the night sky. Advanced reservations are required for those who wish to learn about and look through the telescope during the first open hour. Walk-ins are welcome the second hour.

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Deerfield Historic Village

Location: 517 Deerfield Road, Deerfield

Hours: 2-4 p.m. Sunday, June through September

Cost: Free

Information: 847-948-0680 or www.deerfieldhistoricalsociety.org

Operated and owned by the Deerfield Historical Society, this village contains five buildings dating from 1837-1905 offering a glimpse at a prairie community of the 1800s. Visitors can tour the oldest standing building in Lake County, a log cabin where Caspar Ott's wife once spun clothes on a spinning wheel.

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Des Plaines History Center

Location: 781 Pearson St., Des Plaines

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 1-4 p.m. Sunday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-391-5399 or www.desplaineshistory.org

Visitors can tour the Kinder House, a 1907 Queen Anne-style home furnished with turn-of-the century items in a parlor, dining room, kitchen, bedroom and sewing room. The exhibits and a gift shop are at the visitor center, next door to the Kinder House.

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Elk Grove Historical Farmhouse and Museum

Location: 399 Biesterfield Road, Elk Grove Village

Hours: 2:30-5:30 p.m. Wednesday and Friday; 11 a.m.  2 p.m. Saturdays in winters; noon-5 p.m. Wednesday; 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-439-3994 or www.elkgroveparks.org/museum

Owned by the Elk Grove Park District and operated by the Elk Grove Historical Society, the museum grounds feature a mid-1800s farmhouse, a horse barn and a chicken coop. Visitors also can explore McDonald's Hamburger University, which includes videos and original artifacts from the hamburger-making school that once was in Elk Grove Village.

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Evanston History Center

Location: 225 Greenwood St., Evanston

Hours: 1-4 p.m. Thursday-Sunday

Cost: $10; free for children under 10; first Thursday of month is free; $20 for walking tours

Information: 847-475-3410 or www.evanstonhistorycenter.org

Visitors can take a 45-minute docent-led tour of the Dawes House, the historic, French chateau-style lakefront mansion of former U.S. Vice President Charles Gate Dawes, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925. The home is on the list of national historic landmarks. Admission also includes entrance to a permanent exhibit on Evanston's history.

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The Grove

Location: 1420 Milwaukee Ave., Glenview

Hours: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-299-6096 or www.thegroveglenview.org

Owned by the Glenview Park District, the Grove contains 145 acres of native prairie grove and trees where educator and naturalist John Kennicott brought his family to live in the mid-1800s. Historic buildings, such as the restored 1856 Kennicott House, a log cabin and a Native American long house, are open to the public at various times of the year.

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Kohl Children's Museum

Location: 2100 Patriot Blvd., Glenview

Hours: 9:30 a.m.- 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday; 9:30 a.m.- noon Monday, open until 5 p.m. Mondays in summer

Cost: $12

Information: 847-832-6600 or www.kohlchildrenmuseum.org

Designed especially for children through age 8, the Kohl Children's Museum provides playful experiences that will spark curiosity and inspire a love of learning. Children and their parents can explore a percussion room; a miniature food market where they can learn to stock and shop for groceries; and an art studio where they can weave, create sculpture and paint. The waterworks room invites youngsters to splash, build dams and float boats.

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Lake Bluff History Museum

Location: 127 Scranton Ave., Lake Bluff

Hours: 1-4 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday; 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-482-1571 or www.facebook.com/LakeBluffHistoryMuseum/

In 1982, Elmer Vliet, a longtime Lake Bluff resident and village historian, donated his collection of photographs and artifacts to establish the Vliet Center for Lake Bluff History in two unused classrooms at Lake Bluff's East School. Its name was later changed to the Lake Bluff History Museum. The museum features permanent and temporary exhibits that trace the village's history from the arrival of the first white settlers in 1836, to the arrival of train transportation and its growth as a thriving summer resort community. The collection includes photographs, postcards, maps, architectural information and documents, as well as a 1931 Lake Bluff ice truck and a 1923 Model T Ford.

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Mitchell Museum of the American Indian

Location: 3001 Central St., Evanston

Hours: 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; 10 a.m.- 8 p.m. Thursday; noon-4 p.m. Sunday

Cost: $3-$5

Information: 847-475-1030 or www.mitchellmuseum.org/

The Mitchell Museum opened in 1977 and reveals the beauty and inspiration of Native American art as well as educates others about the culture. The child-friendly museum includes touch tables with pottery, moccasins, beadwork and a wigwam they can enter. Outdoors is a special Native American lodge built in partnership with the Ho Chunk Nation.

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Northbrook History Museum

Location: 1776 Walters Ave., Northbrook

Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday; 2 p.m.-4 p.m. Sunday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-498-3404 or www.northbrookhistory.org

The Northbrook Historical Society owns and operates the three-story museum, which contains permanent exhibits including a photograph collection and a recreation of an 1890s home. Visitors can view a sewing room, kitchen, parlor, dining room, bathroom and bedroom decorated with period furniture, and which contain clothing, toys and other artifacts from the late 1800s.

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Prehistoric Life Museum and Dave's Down to Earth Rock Shop

Location: 711 Main St., Evanston

Hours: 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Friday; 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday and Wednesday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-866-7374 or www.davesdowntoearthrockshop.com

Rocks, fossils and jewelry can be purchased at the store, but visitors will find some ancient treasures in the basement level museum where they can view the largest dinosaur egg in the world. The museum also features one of the world's largest pieces of red amber from Mexico; a 300-pound femur bone of an apatosaurus, a large plant-eating dinosaur from the Jurassic period; a cave bear skeleton; and fossils from nearly every geological time period.

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Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park

Location: McCormick Boulevard, between Dempster Street and Touhy Avenue, Skokie

Hours: Year-round

Cost: Free

Information: 847-679-4265 or www.sculpturepark.org/

A collaboration among private residents, the village of Skokie and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago resulted in a park along the north channel of the Chicago River created in 1988, with paths for biking and jogging, picnic areas and an outdoor museum of large-scale sculptures. Along a two-mile path, visitors can view more than 60 sculptures created in steel, bronze, concrete, aluminum, stone, glass, mosaic tiles and other media by local, national and international artists.

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Wagner Farm

Location: 1510 Wagner Road, Glenview

Hours: 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-657-1506 or www.glenviewparks.org/historicwagnerfarm

The 18.6-acre property, owned by the Glenview Park District, features a working dairy farm, which the Wagner Family operated from the 1850s until the late 1990s. Visitors can tour the restored farmhouse and barn, see cows, chickens, draft horses and pigs.

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Wilmette Historical Museum

Location: 609 Ridge Road, Wilmette

Hours: 1-4:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday

Cost: Free

Information: 847-835-7666 or www.wilmettehistory.org

The museum is housed in the 1896 village hall of the former Gross Point Village, designated a national and local landmark, with a 2004, David Woodhouse-designed addition. Inside, visitors can explore permanent exhibits such as "Wilmette Stories," and an old jail cell from the building's days as a village hall.

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Sheryl DeVore
A former Cedar Lake lakefront resort now serves as the Lake of the Red Cedars Museum. (Photo by Joan Dittmann) (Joan Dittmann / Post-Tribune)

Alton Goin Museum

Location: 5250 U.S. 6, Portage

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Hours: 1 to 4 p.m. weekends

Cost: Free

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Information: 219-762-1675 or www.inpchs.com/

The Portage Community Historical Society operates the museum and companion historic buildings in Countryside Park. The area includes a stocked lake for fishing, trails, picnic tables and restrooms.

Bailly Homestead and Chellberg Farm

Location: 618 N. Mineral Springs Road, Porter

Hours: 7 a.m.-sunset daily

Cost: Free

Information: 219-395-1882 or www.nps.gov/indu/planyourvisit/bcvc.htm

Located in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, the homestead and farm are surrounded by hiking trails. The homestead, built by the family of the early settler Joseph Bailly, is a National Historic Landmark. Rangers encourage visitors to call before visiting.

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Brauer Museum of Art

Location: 1709 Chapel Drive, Valparaiso

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday; 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Wednesday; noon-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; closed Monday

Cost: Free/donations welcome

Information: 219-464-5365 or www.valpo.edu/brauer-museum-of-art/

The Brauer Museum of Art, on the campus of Valparaiso University, is home to a nationally recognized collection of American art and international religious art.

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Buckley Homestead

Location: 3606 Belshaw Road, Lowell

Hours: 7 a.m.-sunset daily

Cost: Free

Information: 219-696-0769 or www.lakecountyparks.com/parks/buckley_homestead.html

Located in the Lake County Park, Buckley Homestead is a living history farm, with an old schoolhouse and 1910 barn. Historic buildings are open seasonally.

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Carmelite Shrines

Location: 1628 Ridge Road, Munster

Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Sunday; weekdays call first.

Cost: Free

Information: 219-838-7111 or www.carmelitefathers.com/shrine-visits/

The Discalced Carmelite Fathers, Polish clerics who immigrated to the U.S. after World War II, created a grotto with 12 shrines including Calvary and the Holy Sepulcher Chapel featuring statues of Carrara Marble. The monks made ingenious use of minerals and gems throughout the site but especially in the Fluorescent Altar. Shrines also recall those who died in concentration camps.

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Deep River Wood's Historic Grist Mill

Location: 9410 Old Lincoln Highway, Hobart

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, May through October

Cost: Free

Information: 219-947-1958 or www.lakecountyparks.com/parks/deep_river_park.html

Lake County Parks recreated John Wood's sawmill and gristmill from the early 1800s.

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Hesston Steam Museum

Location: 1201 East 1000 North, LaPorte

Hours: noon-5 p.m. weekends May through October

Cost: Varies based on event

Information: No calls. ted.rita@hesston.org or www.hesston.org

LaPorte County Historical Society operates a museum devoted to machines powered by steam. Visitors can ride on one of three railroads, grab a soda at Doc's vintage ice cream parlor and see a sawmill, electric plant, crane, and tractor  all powered by steam.

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Hobart Historical Society

Location: 706 E. 4th St., Hobart

Hours: 10 a.m. to noon Saturday

Cost: Free

Information: 219-942-0970 or www.facebook.com/Hobartindianahistoricalsociety/

The historical society, which houses a museum, is in the town's Carnegie Library. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Hour Glass Museum and Gallery

Location: 8 Lupine Lane, Ogden Dunes

Hours: By appointment

Cost: Free

Information: 219-763-0658 or www.odhistory.org/3701/7901.html

The Historical Society of Ogden Dunes operates the Hour Glass Museum, which serves as its gallery and exhibit space. The cottage was built in 1934 by O.D. Frank, a botanist with the University of Chicago Lab School. Frank, fascinated by the notion of the sands of time, included hour glass shapes in the construction of his home and named it, "The Hour Glass."

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Indiana Welcome Center

Location: 7770 Corinne Drive, Hammond

Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

Cost: Free

Information: 219-989-7979 or www.southshorecva.com/about-south-shore/indiana-welcome-center/

The South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority operates the Indiana Welcome Center, a unique building designed to symbolize the important elements of Northwest Indiana. It includes the W.F. Wellman Exhibit Hall and gift shop.

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Jack and Shirley Lubeznik Center for the Arts

Location: 1101 W. 2nd St., Michigan City

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. weekends

Cost: Free/$3 donation appreciated.

Information: 219-874-4900 or www.lubeznikcenter.org

The center, once known as the John G. Blank Art Center, is on the lakefront in Michigan City. It features galleries and an outdoor art collection.

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Lake County Historical Museum

Location: Courthouse Square Suite 205, Crown Point

Hours: 1-4 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, May through October

Cost: $1 adults, 50 cents children

Information: 219-662-3975 or www.cpcourthouse.com/

The society operates the museum on the second floor of the Old Lake Courthouse. Visitors can learn about celebrities who stopped by the "Marriage Mill," the Cobe Cup auto race and view the extensive military collection.

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Lake of the Red Cedars Museum

Location: 7408 Constitution Ave., Cedar Lake

Hours: 3-6 p.m. Thursday-Friday and 2-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, May through September

Cost: $2 adults, $1 children

Information: 219-390-9423 or www.cedarlakehistory.org

The Cedar Lake Historical Society maintains the 60-room building that dates back to its use as a boarding house for the Armour brothers' "ice farm" employees. It became the popular Lassen Resort in 1919 when Cedar Lake attracted huge crowds.

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LaPorte County Historical Society Museum

Location: 2405 Indiana Ave., LaPorte

Hours: 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Cost: $5 adults, $4 seniors, free under 18

Information: 219-324-6767 or www.laportecountyhistory.org/

The museum was founded in 1906 and features items donated by LaPorte County families. The Kesling Automobile Collection features 40 antique cars. The W.A. Jones Collection of Ancient Weapons features 1,000 guns and other weapons. The natural history display includes mastodon bones found in the county. There are 14 period rooms dating back to the beginning of the county's 19th century history.

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Merrillville Community Planetarium

Location: 199 E. 70th Ave., Merrillville

Hours: Seasonal

Cost: $4 adults, $2 students, children

Information: 219-650-5486 or www.mcpstars.org

Merrillville Community Schools owns and operates the planetarium inside the Clifford Pierce Middle School, and presents programs for students and the public. Its theme is "Bringing the Universe to the Merrillville Schools and Northwest Indiana."

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Merrillville Ross-Township Historical Society

Location: 13 W. 73rd Ave., Merrillville

Hours: 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays, May-October

Cost: Free

Information: 219-756-2042 or www.merrillvillehistory.org

The Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society is in the town's former town hall.

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National Mascot Hall of Fame

Location: 1907 Front St., Whiting

Information: www.discoverwhiting.com/mascot-hall-of-fame/

The Mascot Hall of Fame is expected to open in the fall of 2017. The projected 25,000-square-feet facility will include interactive exhibits and family-friendly activities.

Porter County Museum

Location: 153 S. Franklin St., Valparaiso

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Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday

Cost: Free/donations accepted

Information: www.pocomuse.org/

The museum's exhibits cover a range of topics from Prehistoric Porter through World War II. The museum also presents contemporary exhibits including its Central Stories Project and Ogden Dunes Stories Project, a series of collaborate oral histories.

Shrine of Christ's Passion

Location: 10630 Wicker Ave., St. John

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Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Sunday

Cost: Free/donations accepted

Information: 219-365-6010 or www.shrineofchristspassion.org/

The half-mile prayer trail depicts the last days of the life of Jesus Christ. There are 40 bronze sculptures at 18 scenes depicting key moments from the Last Supper to Ascension. Visitors can choose a self-guided tour and listen to Bill Kurtis' narrations at each scene. In addition, a separate area includes a scene of Moses at Mount Sinai.

South Shore Arts Gallery

Location: 1040 Ridge Road, Munster

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Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, noon-4 p.m. Sunday

Cost: Atrium exhibits are free. Gallery exhibits are $2 for adults, students free.

Information: 219-836-1839 ext. 102 or www.southshoreartsonline.org

South Shore Arts is inside the Center for Visual and Performing Arts and includes the William J. Bachman Gallery, the Atrium, a gift shop and studios.

Westchester Township History Museum

Location: 700 W. Porter Ave., Chesterton

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Hours: 1-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday

Cost: Free

Information: 219-983-9715 or www.wpl.lib.in.us/museum/

The museum is a service of the Westchester Public Library. It is in the Brown Mansion, a 16-room Queen Anne Victorian brick home built in 1885 for George and Charity Brown.

Nancy Coltun Webster

(All locations are in Indiana.)
Exhibit curator Dr. Audrius Piloplys stands in the entrance of an exhibit called Hope & Spirit at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, Friday, September 16, 2011. (Alex Garcia / Chicago Tribune)

Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture

Location: 6500 S. Pulaski Road, Chicago

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Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. daily

Cost: $9; $7 students and seniors; $5 kids ages 2-12

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Information: 773-582-6500 or www.balzekasmuseum.org

Founded in 1966, the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture is dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of Lithuanian culture. Exhibits celebrate the achievements of Lithuanians worldwide. "Lithuania through the Ages" is the main exhibit and consists of artifacts from pre-history to present-day Lithuania. In the Women's Guild Room, you'll find displays of Lithuanian folk art, jewelry, Easter eggs and traditional costumes and textiles.

Blue Island Historical Society Museum

Location: 2433 York St., Blue Island

Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Cost: Free

The museum's artifacts are in a conference room and in the lower level of the Blue Island Public Library.

Exploration Station

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Location: 1095 Perry St., Bourbonnais

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday (and Mondays in the summer); 1-5 p.m. Sunday

Cost: $7; seniors $6; 12 months and younger free

Information: 815-933-9905 or www.btpd.org/exploration_station.php

Operated by the Bourbonnais Park District, Exploration Station is a hands-on discovery museum for children ages 2-8. Exhibits include Explorealot Castle with a dress-up room and musical instruments; Illumination with a light table and light writing wall; Shopalot Market; Paleontology with fossil display and dig site; and pet clinic.

Gladys Fox Museum

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Location: 231 E. 9th St., Lockport

Hours: By appointment

Cost: Free

Information: 815-838-0803 or www.cityoflockport.net/facilities/facility/details/Gladys-Fox-Museum-4

This museum, maintained by the Lockport Township Park District, is in the 1839 Old Congregational Church and houses a collection of historical photographs and memorabilia celebrating Lockport, Dellwood Park and the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

Homewood Science Center

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Location: 18022 Dixie Highway, Homewood

Information: 708-206-3369 or www.homewoodsciencecenter.org

Until the building is ready, Homewood Science Center strives to provide opportunities for learning about science in a unique, interactive setting through free, community-led PopUp Science programs.

John Humphrey House

Location: 9830 W. 144th Place, Orland Park

Hours: 2-4 p.m. second Sunday of the month

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Cost: Free

Information: 708-349-0065 or www.orlandhistory.org

Headquarters of the Orland Historical Society, the John Humphrey House was the second permanent house built in Orland Park in 1881 and was home to Illinois Sen. John Humphrey. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, it is home to pictures and exhibits of Orland Park's history.

Joliet Area Historical Society

Location: 204 N. Ottawa St., Joliet

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday

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Cost: $7; $6 seniors and students with ID; $4 for kids 4-12

Information: 815-723-5201 or www.jolietmuseum.org

The Joliet Area Historical Museum honors the history of Joliet and surrounding Will County. A must-see exhibit is the Apollo/Houbolt Exhibit, which "celebrates the historic 1969 moon landing and honors former Joliet resident and key proponent of the lunar orbit rendezvous concept, Dr. John C. Houbolt," according to the website.

Landmark Church, Museum and Schoolhouse

Location: 6727 W. 174th St., Tinley Park

Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesdays, 1-3 p.m. second Sunday of the month and 6-8 p.m. second Thursday of the month or by appointment

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Cost: Free

Information: 708-429-4210 or www.tinleyparkdistrict.org/location/landmark-church-museum-and-schoolhouse

The Landmark Church and Museum are owned and maintained by the Tinley Park Park District with the Tinley Park Historical Society overseeing the museum and offering tours of the facilities. A museum in the back of the church features information, photographs and artifacts of New Bremen/Tinley Park history.

Lemont Historical Society and Museum

Location: 306 Lemont St., Lemont

Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday and Friday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, 1-4 p.m. Sunday

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Cost: $2; $1 ages 12-17

Information: 630-257-2972 or www.lemonthistorical.org

With a mission to preserve the heritage and folklore of Lemont, the museum is in the Old Stone Church, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors will find a collection of artifacts and memorabilia.

Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park

Location: 1 University Parkway, University Park

Cost: Free

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Information: 708-534-4486 or www.govst.edu/Nathan_manilow_Sculpture_Park

This volunteer-supported outdoor park consists of large-scale contemporary sculpture, including Clement Meadmore's "Spiral" donated by the Art Institute of Chicago; "Windwaves," "Upside Down, Kneeling" and "Horizons" by Icelandic sculptor Steinunn Thorarinsdottir. Public programs and private events are held throughout the year.

Orland Park History Museum

Location: 14415 Beacon Ave., Orland Park

Hours: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday and Saturday and noon-3 p.m. the second Sunday

Cost: Free (some exhibits may be extra)

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Information: 708-873-1622, www.orland-park.il.us or www.facebook.com/pg/OrlandParkHistoryMuseum

The village of Orland Park History Museum opened its doors in April 2016 with the intent to preserve and celebrate the village's past.

Ridge Historical Society

Location: 10621 S. Seeley Ave., Chicago

Hours: 9 a.m.-noon Tuesday-Wednesday, 1-4 p.m. Friday and by appointment

Cost: Free

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Information: 773-881-1675 or www.ridgehistoricalsociety.org

Ridge Historical Society's mission is to preserve and interpret the history of the Beverly Hills, Morgan Park, Washington Heights and Mount Greenwood communities.

South Holland Historical Society Museum

Location: 16250 Wausau Ave., South Holland

Hours: 1-4 p.m. Saturdays

Cost: Donations accepted

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Information: 708-596-2722 or www.facebook.com/South-Holland-Historical-Society

The Society is dedicated to preserving the history of South Holland.

Will County Historical Museum and Research Center

Location: 803 S. State St., Lockport

Hours: Noon-4 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday March-October

Cost: $3; $2 seniors and students and military personnel with ID, $1 children 6-17

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Information: 815-838-5080 or www.willcohistory.org

Exhibits include The Weird of Will County, Weapons and Warfare of Will County, Dr. Dougall's Office and Fiber Arts. The Will County Historical Society also maintains Heritage Village, a collection of historic buildings from throughout the county.

Annie Alleman

(All locations are in Illinois.)
A group of U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam's constituents finally had the one-on-one meeting they've been seeking for weeks with the congressman, but not all were satisfied Saturday with his responses to their questions on the future of health care.

"I am frustrated with all that we had been through in trying to make our voices heard," said Sandra Alexander, of Glen Ellyn.

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The group was made up of residents from Naperville, Carol Stream, Glen Ellyn, St. Charles, Lisle, Warrenville, Wayne and Wheaton, who had been trying for weeks to set up a meeting with Roskam, R-Wheaton, to discuss the Affordable Care Act, known as ACA, which Republicans have been trying to repeal and replace with a new plan.

The hour-long session was held at Roskam's West Chicago district office one day after GOP leaders canceled a vote on President Donald Trump's American Health Care Act. The media was not allowed to attend the Saturday gathering.

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Group members said they're worried millions of people will lose their health insurance coverage, premiums will increase, and the poor and elderly will be disproportionately affected by the Republican plan. They're also concerned the GOP bill could devastate Illinois' finances because of changes to Medicaid.

"We would like to see a fix of what is not working under the ACA. There is no reason to repeal the entire measure," Alexander said.

The six-term congressman is on record as saying he would vote to repeal and replace the ACA, so they asked him if this was still his position, she said.

"His answer was unequivocally yes," Alexander said.

Group members said they didn't really expect he would say anything different from what he's said in the past.

"The bottom line there is no change. We have not had an impact on Peter Roskam," Alexander said.

Roskam was not available to comment on his response to the meeting.

Alexander said she was surprised to hear Roskam still supports "high-risk pools."

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"He believes the government can fully fund a high-risk pool for people who have catastrophic high-risk needs," Alexander said. "Many of them historically have not done well and go bankrupt. I was shocked that he believes the federal government can fund such a thing."

"The Republicans appear bent on repeal and replace," said Sheila Rutledge, of Warrenville. "It's interesting that (the new plan) didn't go to a vote. Apparently it wasn't draconian enough."

Rutledge said "the biggest groan" from the group came when Roskam said he believed the United States has the best health care system.

"If you can afford it, it's pretty good," she said.

Dub Rutledge, who said is buying insurance through the ACA and also in on Medicaid, said he asked the congressman several times if he would work Democrats to develop fixes for the existing health care program.

"I don't feel I got a clear answer from him," he said.

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The group's effort to get their position to Roskam began in December, when they set up a Feb. 1 meeting with his staff members. That meeting was abruptly canceled after staff found out a reporter was among those in the group. Staff members would not change their position despite the reporter agreeing to leave.

Ever since then, the group has been working with Roskam's scheduler, saying they wanted to meet directly with the congressman instead of his representatives.

Despite their disappointment with Roskam's position on health care changes, group members said they'd like to keep speaking with him, Alexander said.

"We expressed that we would like to meet with him on other issues but he didn't make any guarantees," she said.

Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
East Chicago residents Friday protested the emergency transfer of the residents remaining at the West Calumet Housing Complex. March 24, 2017. (Craig Lyons / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)

Two letters demanding East Chicago city officials to delay the emergency transfer of West Calumet residents were prepared for delivery Friday.

One found its hands into Mayor Anthony Copeland's assistant after protesters rallied outside his City Hall office.

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The second was left on the ground behind the East Chicago Housing Authority's Office  dropped after protesters slipped it into Executive Director Tia Cauley's window as her car pulled out of the parking lot and through a throng of protesters and West Calumet residents.

"There is injustice here," said the Rev. Cheryl Rivera, who attempted to pass Cauley the letter, and said the executive director's act further characterized "callousness" and "disrespect" shown to the residents forced to relocate because of lead and arsenic contamination.

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East Chicago residents and activist groups protested the decision to start emergency transfers of the remaining residents at the West Calumet Housing Complex, which are set to start next week. Advocates have decried the process as it will upset the lives of the residents affected by lead and arsenic contamination, while officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are assuring people the process will be smoother than it appears.

"They want out. But they want housing that is safe and comparable," Rivera said.

West Calumet resident Demetra Turner said she moved into the complex in May 2016 and by the time she finally settled in, she received the mayor's letter telling residents they had to move because of high levels of lead and arsenic in the soil.

The Rev. Cheryl Rivera attempts to present a letter Friday to East Chicago Housing Authority Executive Director Tia Cawley during a protest. (Craig Lyons / Post-Tribune)

On Tuesday, Turner received a letter saying that she'd be moved to an available unit in Chicago, a city she left more than 10 years ago because of violence.

"The violence in Chicago is staggering," Turner said. "That was 10 years ago. It's three times as bad now."

Turner and other West Calumet residents were told they'd be relocated to Chicago at the end of the month, but HUD officials said it's likely units will become available in East Chicago so people wanting to stay in Indiana won't have to leave the state.

HUD said 60 families received emergency transfer notices, with 30 families getting units in East Chicago and others in Illinois.

Since those notices went out, the 13 families slated to be transferred to Illinois could likely get a unit in East Chicago as other residents find permanent housing. Eight of those 13 will get a temporary unit elsewhere in East Chicago, according to HUD, but the remaining five might have to take a short-term unit in Illinois unless others open up.

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"HUD's desire is that these families do not have to cross state lines if at all possible, but it will ultimately depend on how many units are available in East Chicago and how many families still remain onsite as we move closer to March 31," HUD said in a statement.

Residents can also appeal the unit they were assigned, HUD said.

For residents, it's not just where they'll get moved but a desire to keep their children in East Chicago schools with nearly two months left for the year.

"All we are asking is to allow us to be here until the end of the school year," Turner said.

Akeeshea Daniels discusses the fallout from an announcement during the summer of 2016 that lead and arsenic contamination were discovered in the soil of the West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago. She and her neighbors had to move. Dec. 8, 2016. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Resident Akeeshea Daniels said she has one son in school and moving him at this point in the year would be detrimental to his education.

HUD said if families must temporarily relocate to Illinois, the East Chicago Housing Authority will provide free transportation so children can stay in their current schools.

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"These people know they have to go," said Sherry Hunter, an activist with Calumet Lives Matter. "But it's all about their children."

HUD gave its approval for the East Chicago Housing Authority to begin emergency relocation by the end of March of the remaining families because of the high levels of lead and arsenic contamination at the complex, which is within the USS Lead Superfund site.

Officials agreed that the housing authority lacks the ability to keep the complex secure as residents move out, according to HUD, and that an adequate number of housing units were available to move people out of West Calumet.

The approval would give the East Chicago Housing Authority the ability to transfer West Calumet residents to other properties in East Chicago, Chicago and suburban Cook County, starting April 1, according to HUD officials.

HUD said after March 31, the East Chicago Housing Authority will begin moving residents to their new units. Contractors will move people's belongings the week of April 3.

"We want this policy rescinded," Rivera said.

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The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority on Thursday approved $2 million to assist with the demolition of the West Calumet Housing Complex.

"Our primary concern is the health and well-being of the individuals and families living at the West Calumet Housing Complex," said Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch, who serves as board chair of IHCDA, in a statement. "Once they have each been safely relocated, these funds will go toward boarding up windows and doors, securing the propertyand demolition once it can begin."

Rivera said that $2 million isn't enough to demolish the complex and safeguard the neighborhood.

"So what's the urgency?" Rivera asked.

clyons@post-trib.com

Twitter @craigalyons
Structures on the Loretto Convent property in Wheaton, including the historic House of Seven Gables mansion at left, would be demolished under a proposed housing development. (Bob Goldsborough / Chicago Tribune)

Preservationists are trying to save a 120-year-old brick mansion that would be demolished as part of a proposed residential development in Wheaton.

The mansion, called House of Seven Gables, was designed by architect Jarvis Hunt and built in 1897 by steel magnate Jay C. Morse for his daughter, Caroline Ely, and her then-husband, Arthur C. Ely.

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The developer, Pulte Homes, has declined suggestions from historic preservationists to save the House of Seven Gables by redrawing its development. Wheaton Historic Commission Chairwoman Nancy Flannery said Pulte could give up just two lots in its development to keep the mansion.

"I think we could work together to try to save the Jarvis Hunt house," Flannery told the Wheaton City Council. "I believe that every single one of you up there wants to save this house. I don't doubt that. I'm asking for a chance to work with Pulte."

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Pulte officials have offered to donate the mansion to anyone willing to relocate it from the property. Pulte's lawyer, Vince Rosanova, said Monday that no takers have stepped up yet. However, Flannery told the council that she received more than 40 responses to an ad she posted on Craigslist to give away the mansion.

"Maybe there's someone in this stack who can make me a happy person and save Seven Gables," she said.

On Monday, the council unanimously directed its attorneys to draft a resolution approving preliminary plans for the 48-house subdivision targeting senior citizens.

The council is expected to take a final vote April 3 to formally approve the preliminary plans for Pulte Homes' proposed Loretto Club subdivision. Pulte has a contract to buy the 15.7-acre Loretto Convent property at 1600 Somerset Lane in Wheaton from the Institute for the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The order has owned the property since 1946 and previously operated a preschool and other activities at the site. Today, Loretto Convent largely is used as a retirement home for the nine nuns who live there.

City Council candidate Bobby McNeily urged the council to "marry a pro-growth agenda and also our history.

"I have been a big advocate for history in Wheaton, and other than our public safety concerns (and) our education concerns, which also draw people to the community, I think history does draw people to this community," he said. "History provides a foundation upon which progress can be had."

Councilwoman Suzanne Fitch said she would like to see more city-led initiatives to preserve the city's history, noting that Wheaton does not have a historic preservation ordinance on its books.

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Councilman Todd Scalzo told his colleagues that "I would love nothing more than to see the Jarvis Hunt (mansion) preserved.

"A lot of the ideas are great, but somebody has to step up, and I have not heard that proposal yet."

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
2022 election guide: Here are Pueblo County's top races, ballot issues

Here's what you need to know about the local candidates and ballot questions in the 2022 election, as well as how to vote in Pueblo, Colorado.
President Xi Jinping urged major officials on Friday to play a leading and responsible role in pushing forward the deepening of reform to ensure that the people will benefit.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while presiding over the 33rd meeting of the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform.

Major officials at all levels should map out and push forward reform, be realistic and persistent, aim in the right direction, be courageous in taking responsibility and do a solid job in a hands-on manner, Xi said.

During the meeting, some officials, including leaders of special groups of overall reform deepening and chief officials of provincial Party authorities, reported on their work in deepening reform.

Vice-Premier Ma Kai reported about research on the reform of State-owned enterprises, while State Councilor Meng Jianzhu reported on the implementation of judicial system reform and Han Zheng, Party secretary of Shanghai, reported on the reform of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone.

Some ministers and provincial Party secretaries also reported on reforms in areas including environmental protection, agriculture, medical care, poverty reduction and the deepening of supply-side structural reform in scientific innovation.

Those in attendance reviewed and passed the plan for overall deepening of reform and further opening-up of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and the plan for deepening reform in the science and technology award system. They also reviewed reports on such issues as improving education in poverty-stricken regions and the registration of people without hukou, or household registration.

During the meeting, leading officials were urged to keep in mind the overall situation while pushing forward reform.

They are now required to take a leading and responsible role in reforms that are closely related to the people.

Major officials were encouraged at the meeting to be bold in pilot projects while deepening reform. Those who fail to fulfill their reform duties will face punishment.

Leading officials are also required to take specific measures to push forward reform, focus on key issues and implement reform tasks in a flexible manner. Chief officials are urged to pay more attention to reform tasks that could enhance the people's sense of gain.

Meeting participants noted that in past years, the CPC Central Committee has put forward a number of reform measures to improve the people's livelihood, which have been welcomed by the people. They urged implementation of such measures to benefit the people.
It's not often when you can see a perfect break in policy, other than during a conflict. Usually a policy is slowly phased out. However, American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to South Korea, as part of his Asia tour, proved different.

"The policy of strategic patience has ended," Mr. Tillerson was quoted as saying, in reference to the policy widely practiced under President Obama. It was a policy of waiting out North Korean nuclear programs, and waiting for the regime to feel the uselessness of its program under serious economic pressure.

That policy became controversial due to the fact that it couldn't be implemented properly, amid the rapid development of North Korean nuclear weapons.

Negotiations "can only be achieved by denuclearizing, giving up their weapons of mass destruction," Tillerson was further quoted as saying by New York Times. "Only then will we be prepared to engage them in talks."

He then visited China and met with President Xi Jinping, being told that, "The China-U.S. relationship can only be defined by cooperation and friendship." The resultant meeting was a welcome break from the troubling news cycle about China and U.S. and provides a more normal regular meeting than we've been accustomed to during the last couple of administrations.

Mr. Tillerson even states that U.S. would abide by the tenets of "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation," a phrase more often used by Chinese than American speakers, raising many eyebrows in the West.

His president, of course, was not as diplomatic or oratorical. He tweeted: "North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been 'playing' the United States for years. China has done little to help!"

How important is the Tillerson statement and his visits? The answer is not clear, and a lot depends on future actions. Prima facie, there's nothing new. The statement from Tillerson is a sign of vocal commitment that the region and American allies were expecting from United States, after a troubling few months.

Let's for a second forget about Trump's tweets. No sane person in Washington DC believes anything in the Far East could happen with keeping Chinese considerations in mind. Tillerson et. al. are astute enough to know that. The United States would be foolish to start a preemptive conflict in such a volatile region that might have such dire consequences.

Second, South Koreans are divided when it comes to brinkmanship and there is a serious opposition to THAAD even within Seoul, as any conflict would lead to a flattening of the southern capital by North Korean artillery regardless of the actual outcome of a war.

The question for the Americans to consider, therefore, is this: Are they willing to take the risk of an open ended pre-emptive intervention in a nominally nuclear armed state, with a geopolitical competitor and great power trade partner, right across the border, and a prospect of almost inevitable escalation?

I wouldn't think that's logical, given American experience in the last couple of decades with pre-emptive interventions.

The second question for Americans to consider is: Are they willing to enter into a grand bargain with China with regards to North Korea? If yes, then what are they willing to offer? Thoughts prevalent in the DC Foreign policy circles tend to revolve around the idea that the era of great power rivalry is back, and with it, comes an era of great power bargaining.

This brings us to the question for Chinese policy makers that is relatively straightforward, like Game Theory. What Chinese policymakers need to think of is where their best interests lie. On the one hand an erratic North Korea might lead China to war, and the prospect of a conflict right next door is, of course, hardly appealing.

However, given the unlikely event of a conflict, what happens then? What happens with the refugees, the escalation, and the fall of the North Korean capital? Will U.S. forces be then stationed in entire Korea right up to China's border?

Or without the threat of North Korea, will there be no U.S. forces in the peninsula or in Japan at all? These are of course all theoretical debates, and no one is advocating a conflict, but these are logical questions to ponder for any policy makers, given how volatile global politics is.

Finally, one needs to understand that not all of North Korean actions are erratic and irrational. North Koreans saw what happened to Gaddafi when he gave up his WMDs, and one can therefore understand the calculation they are making. In an ironic way, U.S. interference in Middle East has led to further militarization in other parts of the World.

One thing is for certain, nothing will happen in the region without Beijing and Washington jointly deciding the future. If any country, regardless of which side they are, acts too cavalier, or pre-empts anything, it would lead to disaster.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) delivers a speech at the China-Australia Cooperation on Economy and Trade Forum in Sydney, Australia, March 24, 2017. Li attended the forum together with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

Visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday attended the China-Australia Cooperation on Economy and Trade Forum with his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull, during which they agreed to promote trade facilitation and liberalization.

China is ready to work with Australia to further open markets to each other while following the spirit of fair trade, said Li at the forum.

Li also expressed the will to push forward negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the construction of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific.

Turnbull said that protectionism is "not a ladder to get out of the low-growth trap," but "a shovel to dig it deeper."

Turnbull agreed to work with the Chinese side to tap the potential of bilateral cooperation in service trade and investment, and advance innovation and research cooperation.

Noting the two countries enjoy different resources endowment and their industries are highly complementary to each other, Li agreed to work with the Australian side to further relax investment access, and stimulate two-way investment.

Li also briefed the forum on China's economy, saying that China will guide all sectors to focus more on promoting the supply-side structural reform and advancing the open-up, while working to shape a fair, transparent and standardized business environment, and attract more foreign investment.

Li said China, the world's biggest developing country, regards it a priority to promote healthy development and improve people's living standards.

Moreover, China is willing to work with Australia for promoting the concept of the community of shared future and to serve as the bedrock of the Asia-Pacific security and the propeller for world peace, he added.

China is Australia's largest trading partner. A free trade agreement between the two countries, known as ChAFTA, took effect in December 2015.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin urged joint international efforts to fight terrorism on Friday at a meeting in Moscow with French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

"We all live in very difficult conditions. We must realize the reality of this danger and unite efforts in the fight against terrorism," Putin told the French right-wing leader, according to an official Kremlin transcript.

Putin said Russia has no intention of influencing domestic affairs in France but reserves the right to maintain contacts with representatives of all political forces in that country.

"I know that you represent a fairly rapidly developing range of European political forces," Putin told the presidential hopeful, adding that Russian officials are interested in exchanging opinions with her on bilateral relations and the situation in Europe.

"I have long advocated that Russia and France should restore cultural, economic and strategic ties, especially at the moment when a serious terrorist threat looms over us," Le Pen said at the meeting.

Earlier on Friday, she said that she opposes a European Union blacklist banning several Russian nationals, including lawmakers, from entering its member countries.

"I have always called for lifting the sanctions, which are counterproductive. Prohibiting lawmakers from talking with each other is an abuse of democratic rights," Le Pen was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

Le Pen is now running for the French presidency on behalf of the far-right National Front party. The first round of presidential elections in France is scheduled for April 23.

Le Pen is visiting Russia at the invitation of the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament.
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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Friday that it will not participate in the upcoming United Nations conference on negotiating a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.

"The question is whether the conference can produce a result reflective of this desire and wish (for total elimination of nuclear weapons)," said an unnamed spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry.

It is "an immediate vital requirement" for the DPRK to further bolster self-defensive capabilities with a nuclear force as a pivot given that the United States is carrying out joint military exercises with South Korea after introducing the largest-ever strategic weapons into the Korean Peninsula, the spokesman said.

But the DPRK will continue to support the idea of the non-aligned movement for the total dismantlement of nuclear weapons and the worldwide efforts for it, he said.

Last year at a UN committee meeting, the DPRK voted in favor of the resolution proposing to convene a conference on negotiations of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

The conference will convene its first substantive session from March 27 to March 31 at the UN headquarters.
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Bangladesh's elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members guard around the site of a blast in Dhaka, Bangladesh on March 24, 2017. A suspected suicide bomber died after blowing himself up near Bangladesh's principal airport in capital Dhaka on Friday night, a police official said. No others were injured in the blast. (Xinhua/Jibon Ashan)

A suspected suicide bomber died after blowing himself up near Bangladesh's principal airport in capital Dhaka on Friday night, a police official said.

"A youth (aged about 25) blew himself up with a bomb inside his bag," a Dhaka Metropolitan Police official said, on condition of anonymity.

No others were injured in the blast.

No one has yet to claim responsibility for the attack.

A high alert was put on strategically important places including airports and prisons in Bangladesh last Friday, following a "suicide blast" at the proposed headquarters of the country's elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in capital Dhaka.

The suicide bomber died and two cops were injured in last Friday's blast, as the bomb the suspected militant was carrying exploded at the proposed headquarters of Bangladesh's elite force RAB near Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka.

Last Friday's incident took place a day after Bangladesh police stormed a militant hideout at Sitakunda on the outskirts of the country's seaport city Chittagong, some 242 km southeast of Dhaka.

Five including four militants of Neo-JMB, an offshoot of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, were killed during the raid.

At least two of them reportedly blew themselves up in suicide explosions and two others were shot by the police.

Neo-JMB has been blamed for an attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter last July, in which 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, were killed.

In the wake of the Dhaka cafe attack, Bangladesh police have conducted series of large-scale operations against militants.
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) [File photo]

Japan's major opposition parties agreed on Friday to seek the summoning of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife, Akie, and Osaka Governor Ichiro Matsui to give sworn testimony in parliament.

The move came after Yasunori Kagoike, the head of the Osaka-based education institution Moritomo Gakuen, stood by his claim in testimony on Thursday that Akie Abe had given hima donation of 1 million yen ($9,000) on Abe's behalf.

"The curtain did not close on the problem (with Kagoike's testimony in the parliament), but rather just opened," said Renho Murata, leader of the Democratic Party, Japan's largest opposition party, on Thursday.

Opposition parties are questioning Kagoike's ties with the Abes, which are believed to be part of the political power that helped Kagoike win a favorable land deal for Moritomo Gakuen, a private school.

Kagoike said in his testimony on Thursday that Akie Abe's aide, Saeko Tani, made inquiries for him in 2015 to Japan's Finance Ministry about the land.

The Abe administration has described Akie Abe as a "private citizen" and said she had nothing to do with the land deal.

The newspaper Asahi Shimbun called Akie Abe a public figure and said she has the responsibility to answer questions.

Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial that to uncover the truth, the prime minister's wife should be summoned to testify in parliament to answer questions raised by Kagoike's allegations, amid the growing scandal.

The summoning of Akie Abe would require the approval of the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito party, which now refuse.

On Friday, Abe and his wife again denied making the donation, which was said to have helped Moritomo Gakuen build an elementary school on land purchased at a discount.

Abe has said he would resign not only as prime minister but also as a parliament member if he or his wife were involved in the land deal or certification of the school.

Asahi Shimbun said Abe needs to offer convincing answers to the parliament on questions about Akie's actions and other issues.

The upper house of the parliament summoned two key government officials who oversaw negotiations over the land sale as unsworn witnesses on Friday. All the emails Akie Abe and Kagoike's wife, Junko, sent to each other in the past two months were made public on Friday.
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Indian government Friday said it was going to conduct joint military exercises with several countries including China, United Kingdom, Russia and United States this year to boost military ties and enhance bilateral defence cooperation.

The information was given India's junior minister for Defense Subhash Bhamre in the parliament.

"Military exercises are to be conducted with Australia, Bangladesh, China, France, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States of America during the year 2017," Bhamre told parliament.

According to Bhamre to boost the military co-operation with other countries, a number of activities like, high level official visits, exchange of military experiences, participation in each others' military courses, trainings, seminars, workshops, visit to each other's military establishments are undertaken.

This month Indian military conducted joint military exercises with Oman and Nepal in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand respectively.

Defense analysts say such programmes enable participating military personnel to learn and adopt best practices of their counterparts.
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Brazilian President Michel Temer defended his country's meat on Friday amid scandal, saying "it is the best in the world."

In a ceremony to mark the opening of new home under the government's housing program, the president said Brazilian meat was "not weak" in an allusion to "Weak Flesh," the name of the Federal Police operation to uncover the scheme.

"Brazil's meat is not weak. It is the best in the world," he said.

Brazil is having difficulties in exporting its meat products following a scandal involving several meatpacking companies accused of adulterating expired food and paying hefty bribes to government inspectors to turn a blind eye.

Uproar has erupted after the fallout, as some of the companies accused are part of the largest processed meat brands in Brazil. The European Union and some other countries suspended imports of all Brazilian meat.

Temer also said the losses suffered by the sector are being mitigated, thanks to the quick action of a government team handling the issue, including Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi and Foreign Relations Minister Aloysio Nunes.
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Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen sharply criticized Britain's approach to Brexit under Prime Minister Theresa May.

In an interview with the Austria Press Agency published on Friday, Alexander Van der Bellen said, there presently exist "100,000 open questions to clarify."

He pointed out that numerous issues concerning personal profit, such as the pensions of British citizens living in the European Union (EU), have not yet been answered. There has "not one single compromisable proposal" from the May administration, he said.

The president added the Brexit is nonetheless to be accepted, though it serves as a "wake-up call" to the rest of the EU.

He also referred to the nationalist rhetoric of far-right politicians such as Geert Wilders of the PVV party in Holland and Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Front in France, as "completely unrealistic."

Earlier this month, Britain's EU envoy Tim Barrow informed the office of European Council President Donald Tusk of Britain's intention to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on March 29, nine months after the country voted to leave the bloc.

However, except for finally settling on the date to formally start the Brexit negotiations and that Britain wants a "hard Brexit," the British government has so far given little clue about how it will proceed with what could be more than two years of talks.
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Myanmar has rejected a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to send a fact-finding mission to the country to investigate alleged human rights abuse by security forces against Muslims in northern Rakhine state.

"The establishment of an international fact-finding mission would do more to inflame rather than resolve the issues at this time," the Myanmar Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late Friday night.

The resolution, tabled by the European Union, was adopted without a vote at the 34th session of the HRC held in Geneva on Friday.

A number of HRC member countries have dissociated themselves from the resolution or voiced their opposition to the establishment of such mission.

The statement said the HRC's move is not in accord with the situation on ground and the Myanmar government voices full commitment to promote and protect human rights for the benefit of the people of Myanmar.

Myanmar would unveil an action plan to promptly implement the recommendations made by the government-assigned Advisory Commission on Rakhine state.
The Belt and Road Initiative will fuel momentum for Eurasian Resources Group - the Kazakhstan government-controlled and diversified international mining company - to push ahead with several key projects in which Chinese companies play a critical role, its Chief Executive Officer Benedikt Sobotka said.

Benedikt Sobotka, CEO of Eurasian Resources Group. [Photo provided to China Daily]

These include doubling the capacity of an aluminum plant in Kazakhstan, where the company started its business, building an integrated logistics network for an iron ore mine in Brazil and expanding cobalt production assets in Africa, Sobotka said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia 2017, Sobotka said Beijing's initiative to strengthen ties among Eurasian economies was not just a political idea but a substantial business opportunity that has been put into reality.

"We have been working closely with Chinese partners on a number of high-priority projects. Our company is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this win-win initiative," he said.

Some $3 billion of new projects in Kazakhstan will also include the expansion of its iron ore and chrome businesses, which are mainly focused on supporting the development of China's steel, white goods and oil gas sectors, said Sobotka.

He said the cobalt mining project in Africa will make ERG the single largest supplier of cobalt to China by 2018, a key raw material for making electric vehicles that are needed by Beijing to meet its vision to make the economy and environment cleaner.

"In these cases, the Belt and Road Initiative will make a real difference to global development, because without Chinese partners we wouldn't be able to secure such a sizable deal," he said. "In turn, China could not achieve its goal to electrify its automobiles."

China already accounts for around 30 percent of the total business of Luxembourg-headquartered ERG, whose largest shareholder is the Kazakhstan government.

In the past two years, ERG secured more than $2.5 billion in financing from Chinese banks for new projects in Africa and Kazakhstan.

But China's role is not confined to just financing, but to sharing its knowledge on building plants and developing technologies.

The ERG leader said these projects, which are aimed at fueling industrialization and infrastructural growth and improving the livelihood of local communities, were great examples of the success of the Belt and Road Initiative.

One advantage of the initiative for Central Asian nations lies in the complementarity of natural resources and economic structures for economic and trade cooperation with China, said Li Tao, executive deputy director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at Sichuan University.

Meanwhile, ERG's Sobotka said China would not just be one of the largest consumers of natural resources but an influential owner and investor that is looking into equity investments.

"Over time, China will liberalize its currency and financial market, so we may expect raw materials to be traded not just in US dollars but in Chinese yuan in the future," he said.
Li Ruogu (right), former chairman of the Export-Import Bank of China, shakes hands with Ryozo Himino, vice-minister for international affairs of the Financial Services Agency of Japan, after a seminar of the Boao Forum for Asia, March 24, 2017. [Photo/China Daily]

Speakers at the Boao Forum for Asia on Friday called for a more adaptive Chinese financial system, as the economy embraces a new structure and focus.

The credit-dominant financial landscape will have to end, together with the investment-driven model, said Ba Shu-song, chief economist at the China Banking Association, in a panel discussion.

Citing an example of the existing anachronistic system, Ba said: "Given their collaterals, traditional sectors or even those plagued by overcapacity stand a better chance to locate loans compared to the new economy such as movie production."

With China seeking growth also from innovation and services rather than just manufacturing-led exports, the country should make greater efforts to encourage diverse financing channels, including stock offerings and funding by private equity and venture capital firms, he said.

The market participants would rely on new measures other than commercial banks' loans to assess and price in risks, he said.

Ba's remarks come amid proposals to reduce leverage in the country. Chinese banks extended 3.2 trillion yuan ($464.9 billion) in new yuan-denominated loans in the first two months of this year, which is comparable to the same period last year.

The country's banking assets totaled 228 trillion yuan at the end of January, up 14.4 percent year-on-year, according to the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

"China needs to accelerate the development of a multi-layered capital market to help diversify risks," said Wu Xiaoling, former deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, at the event.

Wu said a coordinated regulatory system should be in place to ensure unified disclosure standards and transparency.

Li Ruogu, former chairman of the Export-Import Bank of China, said: "We hope regulations in general will be more 'user-friendly', guiding financial institutions to better support the real economy."

Just as in the United States, financial institutions elsewhere tend to seek more leverage in profit-seeking, said Jim Stone, chairman of Plymouth Rock Assurance and former chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The central theme of regulation, therefore, should be targeting and control of excessive leverage and maximizing disclosure, in order to have a sensible financial system, Stone said.
Workers maintain mining machinery at the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine, jointly owned by Rio Tinto Group and Erdenes Oyu Tolgoi LLC, in Khanbogd, Mongolia. [Photo/Agencies]

The head of global mining giant Rio Tinto Group Plc said China's move to trim overcapacity in its steel industry would benefit his group and others like it, instead of hurting their business interests.

CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques said in Beijing that China's plans to cut more overcapacity was a good opportunity for the company because steel plants would resort to utilizing high-quality assets and higher-quality raw materials.

Jacques, head of the world's second-biggest mining company, said the government would shut down smaller and more polluting blast furnaces while switching to using the newest, largest blast furnaces.

"It could be a very good piece of news, with lots of opportunities and the reason why is that in order for them to produce exactly the same output, they will have to buy higher quality raw materials," he said.

China sees massive overcapacity in its iron and steel sector and has vowed to continue with its overcapacity reduction this year, with a target of cutting 50 million metric tons of steel production.

While some commentators and analysts have portrayed the initiative as being a potential drag on iron demand in the world's second-biggest economy, Jacques said he was not concerned.

"I believe China's restructuring of its steel industry will help reduce pollution, but will not lead to a drastic reduction of steel output," he said.

China's economic growth target for this year has been set at around 6.5 percent, lower than the 2016 band of 6.5 percent to 7 percent. Jacques said, however, he was as confident as ever about the company's business in the country and on China's economy.

The CEO said that considering the size of China's economy, a 6.5 percent of economic growth target still meant a lot of demand for iron ore, steel and copper ore and "we believe we will be selling more of our products in the country".

Jacques said the mining group welcomes the Belt and Road Initiative, which would lead to infrastructure improvements and provide a boost for companies in related sectors.

"For mining companies like us, there will be demand for iron ore and copper, both of which might be the best investments for growth," he said.

Jacques said China has been the company's biggest customer and Rio Tinto generates 43 percent of its global revenue from the country, supplying lots of products including copper and iron ore for steel, bauxite for aluminum and diamonds.
Li is confident their cooperation will 'flourish as glowingly as the flowers'

China and Australia have started in-depth negotiations to further expand their free trade agreement to other fields, especially the service and investment industries, Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday in a keynote speech in Sydney to more than 500 CEOs from both countries.

It was part of the premier's speech at the Australia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum in Sydney. Li and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull met with the CEOs.

Li is on a four-day visit to Australia before heading for New Zealand on Sunday.

He said at the forum that the increase in trade between the two countries is one benefit of free trade.

The 9 percent increase in China-Australia trade last year exemplified the importance of free trade, which in part contributed to Australia's economic growth for 26 consecutive years, Li said.

"I am confident that we have the wisdom to tackle challenges resulting from protectionism. .... And I hope the economic and trade cooperation between the two partners will flourish as glowingly as the flowers in the meeting room," Li said. "Australian entrepreneurs are welcome to make investments in China, as we will lower the market access threshold."

Jiang Zengwei, president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said the China-Australia FTA has expanded cooperation in infrastructure, agriculture, the information industry, environmental protection and other areas.

Before the forum, both leaders also attended the sixth Australia-China CEO Roundtable Meeting and the second Australia-China State and Provincial Leaders Forum in Sydney.

Li said at the roundtable that it served not only as a channel for communication for businesspeople from both countries but also as a significant way to boost governmental exchanges. Businesspeople are expected to promote trade liberalization and the further opening-up of more fields for both countries, he said.

Before the events in Sydney, Li and Turnbull engaged in the fifth Annual Meeting between Chinese and Australian Prime Ministers in Canberra.

Both countries should fully review the existing free trade agreement and conduct free trade policies in more areas to promote globalization and oppose trade protectionism for open markets, Premier Li said.

Turnbull said that the two nations' economies can complement each other and that they face the challenges of economic transformation and trade protectionism.

Then Li and Turnbull witnessed the signing of a number of agreements between the two countries to boost cooperation in fields such as agriculture and food.

Both leaders agreed to strengthen people-to-people exchanges.

Turnbull announced in Canberra that Australia would open a new consulate general next year in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province - it is expected to ease visa applications from Northeast China. Shenyang will be the host of the fifth Australian consulate in China, following Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing and Hong Kong.

huyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn
Asian economies are looking forward to promoting a more dynamic and sustainable course of globalization, President Xi Jinping said in a letter to the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) on Saturday.

President Xi said this year's conference, themed "Globalization & Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives," shows a collective focus on the issue.

Sixteen years since its founding, Xi applauded efforts made by the Boao forum in terms of building consensus, advancing cooperation and bolstering Asian influence.

Zeng Peiyan, vice-chairman of BFA, read the letter during the opening ceremony of the annual event on Saturday.

Yasuo Fukuda, chairman of BFA, said globalization is important to both developing countries and developed countries.

"We look forward to exchanging views among attendants of the forum," Fukuda said.

Boao, Hainan province, is the permanent location of the event. President Xi said China is pleased to see the forum's achievements as the host country.

The four-day conference kicked off on Thursday and is dedicated to championing a more inclusive globalization process through cooperation and dialogue.
Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the BFA Annual Conference 2017 in Boao, South China's Hainan province, March 25, 2017. [Photo by Feng Yongbin / China Daily]

Asian economies should work to restore and enhance trade and investment as a driver of global economic growth, Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli said on Saturday.

At the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province, Zhang said during his keynote speech that Asian economies should firmly support the multilateral free trade system such as the World Trade Organization, and jointly increase inclusiveness of global free trade arrangements.

"We should work together and stick to the principle of opening up and development... and to promote the establishment of the global value chain with the emphasis on shared benefits," Zhang told participants of the forum.

The vice-premier acknowledged the positive role Asian economies maintain in driving global growth and free trade as active participants in the process of globalization.

Zhang said that Asian economies should advance the process of regional cooperation under frameworks such as China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Free Trade Area and promote cooperation among ASEAN countries and China, Japan and South Korea as well as the Lancang-Mekong sub-region cooperation.

Zhang added that the Asian economies should continue to actively promote the establishment of a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific region.
China will keep its doors open to global investors while ensuring steady economic growth, Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli said on Saturday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of Boao Forum for Asia, Zhang said China will continue to improve the environment for overseas investors and allow them wider access to industries such as service, manufacturing and mining.

China will also encourage overseas companies to list domestically and issue bonds in the domestic market, Zhang said.

"They will be treated equally [as domestic enterprises] in areas such as government procurement and enjoying policies related to the Made in China 2025 strategy," Zhang said.

"We will always keep the door open and open ever wider," the vice-premier said.

While sticking to the opening up process, China wants to step up efforts in ensuring balanced and healthy growth, Zhang said.

The Chinese economy achieved 6.7 percent growth last year, contributing more than 30 percent of global economic growth.

Zhang expected the nation to continue to play a significant role in driving global economic growth.

"China is well capable to achieve the 6.5 percent growth target," Zhang said.
Whether it's welcome or not, globalization has already happened and can't be avoided, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China's central bank, said on Saturday.

The governor called on all parties to face the new reality at a plenary session during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference.

Protecting the manufacturing sector, for example, is not sensible economically if a country has comparative advantages in other sectors, which may come at the cost of hurting other sectors, he warned.

Zhou said that export producers have to be allowed the freedom in choosing component and technology inputs. "If there's restriction on the import side, you may lose competitiveness," Zhou said.

The negative influence of globalization mainly comes from employment, he said, adding that countries should focus on retraining workers in other areas to improve their knowledge and skill set.
By Dai Tian and He Wei in Boao, Hainan | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-03-25 15:25

Singapore is ready to play an active role in the Belt and Road Initiative, a senior government official said at the annual Boao Forum for Asia on Saturday.

"The initiative is an encouraging vision of connectivity and regional integration," Sim Ann, Singapore's senior minister of state (trade & industry and culture, community & youth), said at a panel discussion.

She cited the Suzhou industrial park and the Tianjin eco-city as demonstrations of support, adding that the one in Chongqing would be the third project between the two countries.

The inland city of Chongqing launched the connectivity project earlier last year, aiming to transform Guoyuan Port of Chongqing into a demonstration base for Sino-Singapore multimodal transport.

Connectivity between the two countries involves aviation, logistics, information technologies and finance, Sim said.

She added that more companies from both countries are expected to form partnerships under the initiative.
The relationship between China and Pakistan has stood the test of time and the two countries are looking to deepen that relationship through the Belt and Road Initiative, said former Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz.

Aziz said the two countries have maintained a close friendship based on mutual respect, peace and harmony and the relationship is not against any third country.

The two countries already have cooperated closely on multiple infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative and will on more projects that will take place in the future, Aziz said on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province.

The former prime minister said the Belt and Road Initiative has strengthened the links between China and Pakistan in the areas of telecommunication, transport and digitalization.

Aziz also expressed high expectations of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who he sees as a "great leader" and "man of peace" who is doing what it takes to move China forward.

Video recording and editing: Huang Zeyuan
Chinese home-sharing company Xiaozhu Inc denied a media report that it was in acquisition talks with its US counterpart, Airbnb Inc.

Chen Chi, CEO of Xiaozhu, said on Saturday the two sides are in discussions for possible cooperation, but the talks never extended to the capital area.

"We want to operate independently. After all, the Chinese market is so huge and we want to get deeply involved in the industry and come up with new innovations," Chen said at the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia.
China's securities regulator is considering expanding the mandatory information disclosure of pollution discharge to all listed companies, Fang Xinghai, vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commissionsaid on Saturday.

The securities regulator issued guidelines last year to require companies in targeted industries, usually high-pollution sectors, to disclose environment-related information.

Fang, speaking at a panel discussion at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province, said the regulator also hopes to require mutual funds and pension funds to disclose the carbon emission information of the financial products they invest in.

This is "so that investors will know how these institutions are supporting the development of green finance," Fang said.
Cooperation in maritime industries, scientific research and environmental protection will be further enhanced between Hainan and other maritime economies, officials said on Saturday during the Boao Forum for Asia.

The island province of Hainan, with abundant maritime resources, will promote cooperative development in 10 key industries, including travel, logistics, information services and maritime equipment manufacturing, with economies in the Pacific Ocean area, Liu Cigui, governor of Hainan province, said at a panel discussion.

As China's southernmost province, Hainan is of great strategic significance to the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, part of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping three years ago.

This initiative provided various opportunities for surrounding maritime economies to integrate into the global economy, said Peter M. Christian, president of the Federated States of Micronesia. He described these economies as "brothers and sisters".
Delegates speak at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan Province on March 24, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

BOAO, Hainan - Economic globalization, not isolation, will ensure a better future for Asia and the world, according to the ongoing Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in Hainan Province.

The theme of the conference - "Globalization and Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives" - reflects the attention to economic globalization paid by the international community, especially Asian countries, said Chinese President Xi Jinping in a congratulatory letter to the conference's opening session on Saturday.

Xi called upon attendees at the conference to pool their wisdom on solving the major problems facing the world and regional economy, and push forward a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economic globalization process.

The conference, which concludes on March 26, chimes with China's stance and efforts on globalization despite increasing anti-globalization sentiment.

In his January speech during the World Economic Forum at Davos, Xi said protectionism is like "locking oneself in a dark room."

In a speech at the opening ceremony at Boao, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli asked Asian countries to promote economic globalization and free trade, and forge a community of common destiny for Asia and mankind.

To achieve that goal, Asia needs peace, innovation, openness, sharing and fairness, said Zhang.

GLOBALIZATION WINS GLOBAL OVATION

China's confidence resonates with international community.

Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and CFO of the New Development Bank, said the world is in the midst of a transition where questions are being raised about the downside of globalization.

Maasdorp said that Xi's letter and the address from the vice premier cemented the view that China sees globalization as a positive force for the world and will defend free trade.

"We are pleased to hear some of the key words such as openness and inclusiveness that China is reaffirming to support the next phase development of globalization," said Peder Holk Nielsen, CEO of Denmark-based biotech firm Novozymes.

"Innovation is regarded as a prominent impetus to global economic vitality through new technologies and new development models," Nielsen said.

Elaborating on innovation, Zhang Gaoli called for economic structural reform, utilization of new technology and development of a new economy.

David Morris, chief representative of the Pacific Islands Forum, said, "The Pacific Islands region has vast resources but is remote from major economies, so we look forward to more open markets, better connectivity and international cooperation to support sustainable development."

In his speech, Zhang reaffirmed China's commitment to further opening up its market, saying that the country is expected to import goods worth 8 trillion U.S. dollars in the next five years.

During the period, China will attract 600 billion dollars of foreign investment, with outbound investment reaching 750 billion dollars, he said.

BELT AND ROAD: THE WAY FORWARD

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013 with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa, is part of the Chinese answer to globalization.

The initiative, which has seen the participation of more than 100 countries and international organizations, has helped stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and improve quality of life, said the vice premier.

The scheme has promoted economic and trade cooperation and offered a new way to curb the anti-globalization trend, according to BFA's annual report on the development of emerging economies.

Hans-Paul Burkner, chairman of the Boston Consulting Group, said, "The Belt and Road Initiative is very important to connecting countries and creating more opportunities for exchanges of goods and services."

Burkner believes the initiative can push globalization to a new level, as it can connect more countries in Asia and beyond to the world economy.

Vice president of Asian Development Bank Stephen Groff said, "It is an ambitious plan for the region as a whole, and we are strong supporters for the notion of regional cooperation and integration."

Future strong growth for Asia is dependent on the ability of Asian economies to further integrate, Groff said.

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz said the initiative strengthens the links between Pakistan and China.

"We have started working on several projects, and more would happen," he said. "Once you improve connectivity, you create interdependence, which puts friendship and relationships on a solid footing."

"The initiative will carry much of the hopes of a new round of globalization," said Chi Fulin, head of the China Institute for Reform and Development.

NO MORE LOSING OUT

The BFA also addresses the challenges of economic globalization, including the feared gap between winners and losers.

Prime Minister of Nepal Pushpa Kamal Dahal said that there has been a critical asymmetry in sharing the benefits of globalization, which has led to apprehensions in various parts of the world.

Zhou Wenzhong, BFA's secretary general, said though globalization has driven the world economy and poverty alleviation over the past decades, it has also accentuated the imbalance between growth and distribution, capital and labor, efficiency and fairness.

How a country accommodates people and industries which are on the losing end of globalization determines its integration with others, said Yao Zhizhong, deputy director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Generally speaking, globalization is beneficial to emerging economies, and its progress hinges on the management of negative effects, he said.

There are no losers in globalization, said Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

"Blaming globalization works in nobody's interests," Jin said. Although the extent of benefits may vary, an open dialogue can enhance mutual understanding.

Globalization is a natural process but countries have to improve domestic policies, Jin said.
The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region saw worsening air quality in the first two months of the year, and pollutants from more active industrial production is a major reason, the national environment authority said.

The region and neighboring provinces, including Henan, have been blanketed with air pollution since Tuesday, though air quality in Beijing was improving on Friday.

The region is forecast to have good air quality until at least Monday, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said.

But in January and February, only 44.7 percent of days in the region had good air quality, down 19 percentage points from the same period last year, said Liu Zhiquan, head of the ministry's environmental monitoring department.

Data released on Thursday also showed that indexes for major pollutants in the region soared in the first two months. The average PM2.5 concentration climbed to 111 micrograms per cubic meter, up 48 percent year-on-year.

The national standard for concentrations of PM2.5 - hazardous particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 microns - is 35 micrograms per cubic meter.

Nationally, among the top 10 cities with severe air pollution, six cities were in Hebei. Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, ranked worst of all 74 cities.

Compared with pollution levels in January, air pollution eased slightly in February, with a reduction in PM2.5 concentration, data from the ministry showed.

For example, Beijing saw PM2.5 levels dropping from 116 in January to 71 in February. However, both figures were higher than the same period last year.

"The worsening air quality in some northern regions was mainly because of the disadvantageous weather and growing emissions from industrial production," said Chai Fahe, a researcher at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.

In the first two months of the year, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has had more windless days and higher humidity, he said, adding that another major reason was more active industrial production, especially thermal power generation, iron and steel, and glass.

"Data showed nitrogen oxide readings in major zones including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region stayed at a high level, indicating there were high emissions," Chai said.

zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, speak at joint press conference after their annual talks in Canberra in Australia on March 24, 2017. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Asia-Pacific region is facing a host of unprecedented economic and security challenges which, ironically, also provide an opportunity for China and Australia to build a stronger partnership.

Premier Li Keqiang is on a visit to Australia at a time when the world's most economically vibrant region is encountering continuous economic uncertainties, and the rising trend of protectionism and anti-globalization.

In recent years, China and Australia have maintained strong economic ties and reaped the benefits of flourishing bilateral trade and investment. China has remained Australia's largest trading partner for the past eight years, with the bilateral trade volume last year reaching $108 billion, according to China's Foreign Ministry. After the Beijing-Canberra free trade agreement came into force in December 2015, Australia's exports of health and dairy products as well as wine to China have seen a sharp rise.

China, on its part, has been trying to broaden the focus of its investment, creating more business opportunities for Australian enterprises and bringing benefits to the local people. A recent study by the global consulting firm KPMG showed Chinese investment, which earlier flowed mainly into Australia's mining industry, is now spread across sectors such as real estate, renewable energy, healthcare and agriculture.

However, amid rising Chinese investment into the country, the Australian government has set up the Critical Infrastructure Center to "protect" its sensitive assets and rejected a number of acquisition bids by Chinese companies on the grounds of national security. Although Canberra has the right to carefully vet foreign investments that could flow into its sensitive infrastructure sectors, blocking foreign financing over unfounded concerns would be both a mistake and loss for Australia.

Deeper China-Australia economic and trade cooperation goes beyond bilateral relations. Earlier this month, China sent its representatives to Chile's seaside resort of Vina del Mar to attend a two-day meeting on economic integration in the Asia-Pacific, which was also attended by representatives from 15 Pacific-rim countries. By participating in the conference, China showed that it is open to any multilateral trade pacts so long as they honor the spirit of free trade, give all parties equal say to write the rules, and ensure trade benefits can be shared by all the participants.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is also an ardent advocate of a robust free trade system and greater economic integration in the Asia-Pacific. And during his visit to Australia, Premier Li joined Turnbull in exploring more possibilities to further realize the potential of bilateral economic exchanges.

The two economies also share vital interests in jointly taking the lead to revive the world's wilting confidence in free trade and economic globalization. And pushing forward negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific is the most effective means to achieve that end.

Besides, China and Australia also have huge stakes in maintaining regional peace and stability, and in combating non-conventional threats such as climate change and terrorism.

The author is a writer with Xinhua News Agency.

(China Daily 03/25/2017 page5)
"A community of shared future for all humankind", a Chinese concept that has won recognition of the United Nations, can be a guide for the world in the 21st century.

The concept of building "a community of shared future for all humankind" was incorporated into a UN Security Council resolution on March 17 in New York, reflecting the relevance of the concept to today's world, as well as the appreciation of China's contribution to global governance.

The Security Council's acceptance and incorporation of the Chinese concept into its resolution is of great significance and will greatly influence the world.

On the sidelines of the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council earlier this month, Ma Zhaoxu, head of China's mission to the UN in Geneva, gave a call to protect human rights and build a global community of shared future, which struck a chord with the representatives of other countries.

The world today faces many challenges including the rising trend of anti-globalization and terrorism, and the refugee crisis. With the global economic recovery still weak, instability and uncertainties have become a normal phenomenon. Hence, how to lead the world out of the troubles has become a key question for politicians, strategists and scholars alike.

Western countries' outlandish strategies to meet the global challenges have further complicated matters. While some countries have chosen to isolate themselves to overcome the problems, others have resorted to protectionism and adopted narrow-minded "nation-first" policies, prompting more and more countries to look East for an answer.

The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in November 2012 first proposed the concept of "a community of shared future for all humankind".

Since then President Xi Jinping has highlighted it on many occasions, proposing the road map for building "a community of shared future for all humankind" at a UN meeting in September 2015.

The concept, aimed at helping solve the major problems facing humankind, reflects China's global view and responsibility as a big power, and is bound to leave its mark in international relations.

Philipp Charwath, chair of the 55th session of the UN Commission for Social Development, said the concept offers inspiration to a world beset by rising challenges and risks. "In the long run, it profits us all," Charwath said. "I think ... that's how the UN work can profit from the concept." The commission first used the concept of a shared future based upon our common destiny in a resolution on African development in February.

The concept of "a community of shared future for all humankind" is an integral part of China's 5,000-year-old civilization. It is a creative development of the traditional spirit in the new era of globalization, where all countries are intercon-nected and joint cooperation is an effective way of promoting development.

According to Martin Jacques, a professor at Cambridge University, China has provided a new possibility by abandoning the law of the jungle, hegemonism, power politics and the zero-sum game and replacing them with win-win cooperation and co-construction and sharing. This pioneering work has great potential to change the world.

The "shared community" concept is a new idea - a combination of Chinese characteristics and the spirit of the times - to reform and rebuild the world order, and lead global governance.

According to Ross Terrill, a research associate at Harvard University's Fairbank Center, China's global governance idea, based on the concept of "shared future", mirrors its strategic thoughts on the long-term development of relations between China and other countries, and the establishment of a new world order.

The concept of a "community of shared future" has been helpful while dealing with burning issues such as the Iran nuclear issue and the Korean Peninsula issue, because it calls for consultation and coordination to resolve international issues.

An integral part of that concept is the Belt and Road Initiative (the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road). The initiative, proposed by Xi in 2013, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the two ancient trade routes.

As such, building "a community of shared future for all humankind" is the essence of major-country diplomacy enriched by Chinese characteristics.

(China Daily 03/25/2017 page5)
Color Edu's Study Tour took students to Florence, Italy. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A bowl of noodles or a piece of cloth draped over a bicycle shed are the simple kinds of things that can get the creative juices flowing

"Held high up against the sun, the violet bead of grape melts into a purple sea". Guan Yanfei wrote the lines when she was 12, for the thick album of paintings published in memory of art, in the way she saw it, as her first love.

Two years have passed since then. Today Yanfei is still fond of using sunlight as a metaphor, in an effort to describe the thrill and enchantment of a creative process, feelings that are almost beyond words.

"I felt like water, blended with the oil that was my paint," she says. "Together we rolled down the canvass in large drops, reflective of the sunlight that fills the room."

Indeed, oil is her favorite medium, as the collection of her light-soaked works demonstrate. The colors are heaped onto the canvass, probably by a paint knife, to create a matte surface full of tension, texture and a creative maelstrom. In short, they are mood paintings.

And it is this mood-recording process of art making that Wang Wei, founder of Color Edu, is determined to show to his young students. "Strokes and sentiments - they are inseparable," says the 34-year-old, who founded his own children's art education center after spending a decade in the industry.

"I chose gouache for my youngest students - four or five-year-olds - instead of the more commonly used watercolor or Chinese ink because gouache is less free-flowing and so is easier to control for a child. Its quality also means that it is more capable of documenting the entire creative process than many other media. Every stroke and every dab is visible from the final work, even those first painted and later regretted. I want the connection between a child and what he or she paints to be more visceral and palpable. In this way the child learns to express him or herself through art." (The oil classes are available for children aged 8 and above.)
A project organized by Today Art Museum that required the participating pairs to embrace each other for 13 minutes 14 seconds. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Art museums and galleries in China, once regarded by many as meeting places for the elite, are now attracting the masses

Gao Peng, a curator, says the most difficult yet moving embrace he has ever seen took place between a man and his daughter in the gallery of Today Art Museum in Beijing, where Gao has been director for the past four years.

"Twice the man tried to hold his daughter in his embrace and twice the teenage girl broke away, feeling uncomfortable, I guess. Then, the third and final time, they clung to one another for 13 minutes and 14 seconds. After they parted, the father said to his daughter: 'The day will soon come when you'll grow up and get married. ... But you know what? Dad really wants to hold you for as long as I can, in the same way as I held you when you were an infant.

"On hearing that the girl allowed tears to stream down her face," Gao says.

The father and daughter were among about 200 pairs who turned up at Today Art Museum three years ago to take part in an art program that required each pair taking part to give each other a long embrace, an embrace that had to last for 13 minutes and 14 seconds.

"In Chinese, the number sequence 1, 3, 1, 4 enunciated as single digits sounds like 'a lifetime'," Gao says. "Of all things, I'm sure that the memory of that experience will last for a lifetime for all who took part."

Yet the purpose of this program was more about bringing people to see someone they thought they knew, than about simply expressing love, he says.
From hotels with segregated swimming pools to jelly made from seaweed instead of pig bones, Buddhist Thailand is chasing halal gold as it welcomes Muslim visitors and touts its wares to the Islamic world. [Photo/Agencies]

Tourist paradise works hard to tap Islamic market.

From hotels with segregated swimming pools to jelly made from seaweed instead of pig bones, Buddhist Thailand is chasing halal gold as it welcomes Muslim visitors and touts its wares to the Islamic world.

Inside the cavernous dining hall of the five-star Al Meroz hotel in a Muslim suburb of Bangkok, an elderly man with a wispy beard recites verses of the Quran as a nervous-looking groom awaits the arrival of his bride.

The young man bursts into a smile as his soon-to-be wife appears, clad in a brilliant white dress with matching headscarf.

The ceremony is one of dozens of marriages held over the last few months at the Al Meroz - the city's first entirely halal hotel.

Thailand has long been a draw for the world's sun-seekers and hedonists, drawn to its parties, red-light districts, cheap booze and tropical beaches.
Participants push their way through a course of up to 13 kilometres in the first Mud Day Israel obstacle course race in Tel Aviv, Israel March 24, 2017. Around 5,000 people took part in the event held in the main park of Tel Aviv, organisers said. Founded in Paris in 2013, the Mud Day phenomena has now spread to Spain, Belgium and Switzerland as well as Israel.[Photo/VCG]
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga walks past Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after answering questions during a budget committee session in Tokyo on Friday. Kazuhiro Nogi / AFP

Japan's major opposition parties agreed on Friday to seek the summoning of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife, Akie, and Osaka Governor Ichiro Matsui to give sworn testimony in parliament.

The move came after Yasunori Kagoike, the head of the Osaka-based education institution Moritomo Gakuen, stood by his claim in testimony on Thursday that Akie Abe had given hima donation of 1 million yen ($9,000) on Abe's behalf.

"The curtain did not close on the problem (with Kagoike's testimony in the parliament), but rather just opened," said Renho Murata, leader of the Democratic Party, Japan's largest opposition party, on Thursday.

Opposition parties are questioning Kagoike's ties with the Abes, which are believed to be part of the political power that helped Kagoike win a favorable land deal for Moritomo Gakuen, a private school.

Kagoike said in his testimony on Thursday that Akie Abe's aide, Saeko Tani, made inquiries for him in 2015 to Japan's Finance Ministry about the land.

The Abe administration has described Akie Abe as a "private citizen" and said she had nothing to do with the land deal.

The newspaper Asahi Shimbun called Akie Abe a public figure and said she has the responsibility to answer questions.

Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial that to uncover the truth, the prime minister's wife should be summoned to testify in parliament to answer questions raised by Kagoike's allegations, amid the growing scandal.

The summoning of Akie Abe would require the approval of the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito party, which now refuse.

On Friday, Abe and his wife again denied making the donation, which was said to have helped Moritomo Gakuen build an elementary school on land purchased at a discount.

Abe has said he would resign not only as prime minister but also as a parliament member if he or his wife were involved in the land deal or certification of the school.

Asahi Shimbun said Abe needs to offer convincing answers to the parliament on questions about Akie's actions and other issues.

The upper house of the parliament summoned two key government officials who oversaw negotiations over the land sale as unsworn witnesses on Friday. All the emails Akie Abe and Kagoike's wife, Junko, sent to each other in the past two months were made public on Friday.

caihong@chinadaily.com.cn
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) holds a news conference after Republicans pulled the American Health Care Act bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act act known as Obamacare, prior to a vote at the US Capitol in Washington, March 24, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON -- A GOP-sponsored health care bill was pulled from the floor of the House of Representatives ahead of a vote at US President Donald Trump's request, because not enough votes have been secured for its passing, US media reported Friday.

"We couldn't get on Democratic vote and we were a little bit shy, very little, but it was still a little bit shy, so we pulled it," Trump was quoted by The Washington Post as saying.

Trump said Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, was not to be blamed.

The bill, named American Health Care Act, was rolled out by House Republicans in a bid to fulfill Trump's campaign promise of "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act, a signature legislation of the Obama administration that is also known as Obamacare.

But the bill faced objection from factions within the Republican Party, as a group of conservative House members, known as the Freedom Caucus, refused to back the legislation that they said included too much regulations.

Efforts from Ryan and the White House on Thursday yielded no results, leading to the delay of the vote originally planned on Thursday to Friday.

After deciding to pull the bill from voting, Trump signaled that he would not ask Republican leaders to work on the bill in the coming weeks, but will wait until what he expect will be a doomed fate of Obamacare.

"As you know, I've been saying for years that the best thing is to let Obamacare explode and then go make a deal with the Democrats and have on unified deal. And they will come to us," he said.

"I never said I was going to repeal and replace in the first 61 days," he said.

Failing to secure enough votes for the bill came as the second major policy setback for the Trump administration, after repeated efforts to curb immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries was thwarted by federal courts.

The episode also revealed a deepening rift among GOP's own ranks which the White House and Republican leaders found themselves struggling to contain.
Displaced Iraqis flee their homes as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 25, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi forces will mainly pursue street-to-street battles to dislodge Islamic State (IS) militants from the heavily-populated western Mosul rather than by heavy shelling and airstrikes in order to minimize civilian casualties, state-run al-Sabah newspaper reported Saturday.

The military decision came "to refute the lies claimed by the terrorist gangs of Daesh (IS militant group) after it portrayed the innocents whom they killed as victims of the bombing of the heroic Iraqi forces in order to mislead public opinion," al-Sabah quoted sources from the Iraqi military command as saying.

The remaining IS-held neighborhoods in western Mosul will be liberated mainly by fighters highly trained on fighting in populated neighborhoods to "protect the unarmed civilians, who are used by terrorists as human shields in order to slow down the advance of the security forces," the newspaper said.

Media reports said hundreds of civilians were buried under the debris of their houses by heavy bombardments of US-led coalition and Iraqi aircraft during the past few days.

Mohammed Abd-Rabbah, a member of parliament from Mosul, told Xinhua that many families would shelter in a basement at a big house in the neighborhood of Mosul al-Jadida, or New Mosul in English, but the house and its surroundings were bombed by warplanes, killing some 137 civilians, most of them women and children.

After recapturing the neighborhood, civil defense teams pulled out some 200 bodies of civilians after clearing the demolished houses in only two streets in the densely-populated Mosul al-Jadida, according to the lawmaker.

Abd-Rabbah also said IS militants prevent civilians from leaving their homes, using them as human shields and their houses to fight security forces.

Late on Friday night, the United Nations expressed concerns about reports of civilian casualties in Mosul, and urged the parties of the conflict to avoid such casualties.

"We are stunned by this terrible loss of life and wish to express our deepest condolences to the many families who have reportedly been impacted by this tragedy," a UN statement quoted Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, as saying.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) delivers a speech at the Australia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum in Sydney, Australia March 24, 2017. Li attended the forum together with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. [PhotoXinhua]

China and Australia have started in-depth negotiations to further expand their free trade agreement to other fields, especially the service and investment industries, Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday in a keynote speech in Sydney to more than 500 CEOs from both countries.

It was part of the premier's speech at the Australia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum in Sydney. Li and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull met with the CEOs.

Li is on a four-day visit to Australia before heading for New Zealand on Sunday.

He said at the forum that the increase in trade between the two countries is one benefit of free trade.

The 9 percent increase in China-Australia trade last year exemplified the importance of free trade, which in part contributed to Australia's economic growth for 26 consecutive years, Li said.

"I am confident that we have the wisdom to tackle challenges resulting from protectionism. .... And I hope the economic and trade cooperation between the two partners will flourish as glowingly as the flowers in the meeting room," Li said. "Australian entrepreneurs are welcome to make investments in China, as we will lower the market access threshold."

Jiang Zengwei, president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said the China-Australia FTA has expanded cooperation in infrastructure, agriculture, the information industry, environmental protection and other areas.

Before the forum, both leaders also attended the sixth Australia-China CEO Roundtable Meeting and the second Australia-China State and Provincial Leaders Forum in Sydney.

Li said at the roundtable that it served not only as a channel for communication for businesspeople from both countries but also as a significant way to boost governmental exchanges. Businesspeople are expected to promote trade liberalization and the further opening-up of more fields for both countries, he said.

Before the events in Sydney, Li and Turnbull engaged in the fifth Annual Meeting between Chinese and Australian Prime Ministers in Canberra.

Both countries should fully review the existing free trade agreement and conduct free trade policies in more areas to promote globalization and oppose trade protectionism for open markets, Premier Li said.

Turnbull said that the two nations' economies can complement each other and that they face the challenges of economic transformation and trade protectionism.

Then Li and Turnbull witnessed the signing of a number of agreements between the two countries to boost cooperation in fields such as agriculture and food.

Both leaders agreed to strengthen people-to-people exchanges.

Turnbull announced in Canberra that Australia would open a new consulate general next year in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province - it is expected to ease visa applications from Northeast China. Shenyang will be the host of the fifth Australian consulate in China, following Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing and Hong Kong.

huyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang addresses the 2nd Australia-China State/Provincial Leaders Forum in Sydney, Australia, March 24, 2017. Li attended the forum together with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. [Photo/Xinhua]

SYDNEY -- Visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday called on more Australian states and territories to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with China's central and western regions, so as to benefit from China's grand development drive of the western region.

Li made the remarks when attending the second Australia-China State/Provincial Leaders Forum together with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Li said that local-level cooperation is an inseparable part of China-Australia relations, about 100 pairs of cities of the two countries have cemented friendly ties, and the fruitful local-level cooperation ushered the bilateral ties into a new realm.

The Chinese premier hoped the two sides will expand cooperation to explore business opportunities in more areas such as agriculture, science and technology, education, logistics and some new businesses.

Li said that the China-Australia friendship is based on people-to-people and regional exchanges.

Noting that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, as well as the China-Australia Year of Tourism, Li called on the two countries' local regions to enhance cooperation in education, culture, science and technology, tourism, youth and media, and organize more friendly activities at the local level, so as to make the friendship deeply rooted in the hearts of the two peoples.

Turnbull said that Australia and China enjoy a long history of local-level exchanges as well as close cooperation in various areas, which have brought concrete benefits to the two peoples.

Noting that Australia and China are reliable partners, and the bilateral relations cannot go ahead without the participation by each country's local regions, Turnbull called for joint efforts to promote local-level exchanges and cooperation between the two countries to make new contributions to the two countries' prosperity and free trade in the Asia-Pacific region.

Officials from Australia's six states and two territories, and those from Chinese provinces of Jiangsu, Henan, Hubei, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Shanxi and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as well as the municipality of Chongqing, attended the forum.
"The film is praiseworthy for the extraordinary dissemination process it provides in bringing to the silver screen the many sides of one of cinemas greatest icons."

Excerpts from Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi's film review

Cinema Daily

Raindance, the largest independent film festival in the U.K., serves as platform for the international premiere of Jean Seberg: Actress Activist Icon. This documentary  produced by Emmy nominated and award-winning filmmakers Garry McGee, Kelly Rundle, and Tammy Rundle  is the first in its kind to delve into the private side of the Marshalltown, Iowa native.

The motion picture is very dutiful in retracing the biography of the most beautiful and preyed upon actress in film history. Jeans professional journey began when she was just a teenager, in a tiny unknown American town, and was selected among 18,000 applicants at the age of 17 for Otto Premingers 1957 Saint Joan...

Throughout the documentary, footage of her interviews and most notable performances are intertwined within the narrative, and include scenes from Hollywood movies such as Lilith, Paint Your Wagon and Airport. Needless to say that there is also Jean-Luc Godards French New Wave film Breathless (A bout de souffle)  since it was a career changer for the stars and stripes ingenue, who eventually became the darling of European cinema.

Besides her extraordinary career as an actress and unbridled personal life, the film highlights Sebergs off-screen civil rights activism and how her support of the Black Panther Party made her a target of the F.B.I.s COINTELPRO, through a media defamation strategy that was ordered by J. Edgar Hoover to neutralise Seberg. The secret service instigated the rumour that the father of Jeans second unborn child was a black militant, with whom the actress had had an affair despite being married to her second husband. The story that broke out on Newsweek magazine and multiple newspapers, across the United States, caused such a shock to Seberg that it sent her into premature labour three months early. The child, Nina Hart Gary, lived for two days before dying; her mother took her dead daughter to her hometown for a funeral with an open coffin service, to prove that her infant was white and the press accusation was slander. This circumstance affected Sebergs emotional, psychological, and social well-being, initiating a downward spiral that lead to her mysterious and untimely death in Paris...

The archival research behind this cinematic chronicle is impressive, as much as the on-camera interviews with Jeans family, like her sister Mary Ann Seberg and former husband Francois Moreuil; friends and film colleagues, such as Mylene Demongeot and director Nicolas Gessner; film historians and civil rights scholars, including former Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown.

...The film is praiseworthy for the extraordinary dissemination process it provides in bringing to the silver screen the many sides of one of cinemas greatest icons.

~ ~ ~

Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi works as film critic and journalist who covers stories about culture and sustainability. With a degree in Political Sciences, a Masters in Screenwriting & Film Production, and studies at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, Chiara has been working in the press since 2003. Italian by blood, British by upbringing, fond of Japanese culture since the age of 7, once a New Yorker always a New Yorker, and an avid traveller, Chiara collaborates with international magazines and radio-television networks. She is also a visual artist, whose eco-works connect to her use of language: the title of each painting is inspired by the materials she upcycles on canvas. Her Material Puns have so far been exhibited in four continents, across ten countries. She is a dedicated ARTivist, donating her works to the causes and humanitarians she supports, and is Professor of Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts at Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan.
(Photo : USAF) Northrop Grumman's concept for Penetrating Counter Air.

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The next generation U.S. air superiority fighter jet that succeeds the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor will possess stealth in abundance and a new attribute -- electronic warfare (EW) systems directed by artificial intelligence (AI) that automatically negate digital radars.



The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Air Force acknowledge the immense advantages offered by stealth technology are being whittled away by advances in radar technology. Chief among these threats to stealth are digitally programmable or adaptive radars such as those being developed by Russia and China as parts of their integrated air defense systems.



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Adaptive radars are the greatest threat to U.S. warplanes. These modern radar systems can detect and characterize sources of electronic noise such as radio frequency jamming or co-location antenna interference, and adapt the radar's performance to compensate.



DARPA and the Air Force now plan to leverage advances in signal processing and AI to develop intelligent algorithms that detect and counter adaptive radars and other emerging radar threats.



This fusion of stealth and electronic warfare capabilities will be present in the Air Force's successor to the F-22, which will be a jet called Penetrating Counter Air (PCA). PCA will make extensive use of electronic warfare and new electronic warfare systems that use AI to automatically jam a new radar signal.



To ensure mission success in future anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environments, EW systems will need to isolate unknown hostile radar signals in dense electromagnetic environments, and then rapidly generate effective electronic countermeasures.



In November 2016, DARPA awarded BAE Systems a $13.3 million contract modification to extend its work on the Adaptive Radar Countermeasures (ARC) project. The ARC program's goal is to enable airborne electronic warfare systems to defeat adaptive radars in real time.



Currently, only dedicated electronic attack aircraft such as the Boeing EA-18G Growler can identify and jam an unknown threat emitter. The F-22 Raptor relies on preprogrammed threat libraries that must be periodically updated to counter hostile radars.



The cognitive EW technologies developed for the ARC program employ advanced digital signal processing, intelligent algorithms and machine learning techniques.



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TagsLockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, stealth, Electronic Warfare, digital radars, digitally programmable or adaptive radars, Penetrating Counter Air
(Photo : USAF) SkyNet Mi-5 12-gauge, anti-drone shotgun shells.

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The U.S. Air Force is field testing a special shotgun shell designed to destroy aerial drones by ensnaring them in a metal net.



Being evaluated are 12-gauge SkyNet Mi-5 anti-drone shotgun shells supplied by AMTEC Less Lethal Systems (ALS), a Florida-based firm that develops weapons and products for tactical, operational and training needs. The Air Force has acquired 600 of these anti-drone rounds for testing.



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ALS describes the Mi-5 as a 12 gauge anti-drone round "designed to be rapidly deployed against commercially available drones being utilized for illegal purposes" such as illegal surveillance and contraband delivery.



Upon firing through a 12 gauge rifled choke barrel, centrifugal force separates the five tethered segments separate and creates a five foot-wide capture net that effectively traps the drone's propellers, causing it to fail and fall to the ground.



The shells are quite effective against drones classified as Category 1 and Category 2 by the Pentagon. Category 1 drones have a maximum take-off of up to 20 lbs while Category 2 drones have a maximum take-off ranging from 21 lbs. to 55 lbs.



The Air Force will use these anti-drone rounds with its Remington Model 870 shotguns after modifying them with a choke tube on the muzzle, which will allow the shell to spin and extend the net properly.



If the Air Force's test with these initial 600 shells is successful, the Air Force can buy 6,400 rounds for operational deployment.



Each round costs some $20.



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TagsU.S. Air Force, shotgun shell, aerial drones, SkyNet Mi-5 anti-drone shotgun shell, AMTEC Less Lethal Systems, capture net




Don't expect the video above to be played at the "left-leaning" (NOT) Democratic Party conference today. "Voters," wrote Will Bunch (more below), "understood that a vote for Bernie was no guarantee they'd actually get single-payer health care or free public tuition the day after inauguration, but that really wasn't the point. The point was that someone understood their problems with seeing a doctor, or getting their 21-year-old son out of the basement. Somebody listened...and understood."





DWT disdain contempt for the DCCC and the DSCC you must be new to the blog. Welcome! With a caveat: if you're a yellow dog Democrat-- much less a Blue Dog or a New Dem-- you may not like what you find here. We've been enthusiastic about helping heal the wounds left over between Hillary and Bernie factions from last year's campaign. We have been urging wary Bernie activists to not act vindictively towards Hillary supporters who have adopted Bernie's platform. In fact, If you're unaware ofcontempt for the DCCC and the DSCC you must be new to the blog. Welcome! With a caveat: if you're a yellow dog Democrat-- much less a Blue Dog or a New Dem-- you may not like what you find here. We've been enthusiastic about helping heal the wounds left over between Hillary and Bernie factions from last year's campaign. We have been urging wary Bernie activists to not act vindictively towards Hillary supporters who have adopted Bernie's platform. In fact, Blue America has been endorsing congressional candidates who backed Hillary in 2016 and are campaigning-- sincerely campaigning-- on Bernie's issues now. We've found examples of candidates who endorsed Hillary in 2016 being much better qualified to run than candidates who backed Bernie. Of course, there are plenty of candidates who endorsed Bernie who are much better than candidates who were the Hillary backers. Examples: in TX-21, Berniecrat Tom Wakely is a million times better than the creeps from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who supported Hillary. Ditto down in CA-49, where Doug Applegate is far and away the better progressive candidate than Hillary bundler and establishment puppet Mike Levin. Here in CA-34, Jimmy Gomez backed Hillary and not only campaigned on Bernie issues, but wrote and passed cutting edge type legislation in the state Assembly that was enacted it into law-- probably why he's been endorsed by so many Bernie delegates over several well-meaning-but unaccomplished Bernie volunteers in the race. In IL-13 and OK-05 we're behind Berniecrats David Gill and Tom Guild and we feel just as strongly about Kim Weaver, who backed Hillary and who is running against Steve King in IA-04 on an aggressively populist and progressive platform. As Brianna Wu said when she jumped into a primary race against conservaDem Stephen Lynch in Boston, "[T]he contentious primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton revealed a deep divide that must be reconciled. There is a disconnect between those marginalized and our party leaders who vote too often as moderate Republicans. I personally supported Hillary Clinton in the primary, but today I see the vision of Bernie Sanders for America is one we must bring to pass. I believe todays Democratic party is ill-equipped to fight the Trump administrations assault on women, on people of color, on the poor, and on the LGBT community. We do have true progressives, but too often they dont have the support of the party establishment."





I was surprised this past week at the vitriol on line from the Clinton die-hards towards Bernie. (Or maybe what I'm seeing online are the left-over Putin-bots from Albania and Macedonia.) But when Bernie was in the heart of Hillary country a few days ago (Maddow's MSNBC show) and explained the inability of progressives to effectively take on and defeat reactionaries like Mitch McConnell-- although he could have easily been referring to Devin Nunes-- by saying that "The Democratic Party is feeble and unable to fight back," clueless Hillary supporters exploded into a frenzied rage on twitter





Newsweek's Lachlan Markay that actual moderates "left-wing." One of the things they will discuss-- and excuse me if I doubt that many "activists" will be among the throng of scumbag lobbyists and fat-cats-- is "laying the groundwork for Democratic campaigns in next years midterm elections." That could-- as it has over the past decade-- spell DOOM. Let me give you an example. One of the worst and slimiest of the fat cats is a rich slob from Virginia, now living in San Diego, Ira Lechner. He's a huge donor and Pelosi basically lives up his ass. Lechner decided that the only candidate who ever took on Darrell Issa and nearly won-- Doug Applegate-- should be "pushed" out of the race by Pelosi to make room for a Hillary fundraiser and crony of Lechner's, some Orange County attorney named Mike Levin. Pelosi's response was, "leave it to me; I'll push him out of the race." Sure... The context to see this in is a report from's Lachlan Markay that Democratic donors are gathering in DC this week to plot their version of the Resistance, a version, it's safe to assume, is shared with the Clinton Machine, with Schumer and with Pelosi (all of whom worship at their alter).He reports that the heads of the DNC, DCCC and DSCC "will huddle with activists, operatives, and deep-pocketed Democratic financiers at a biannual conference hosted by the Democracy Alliance, a leading left-wing donor collaborative at Washingtons ritzy Mandarin Oriental hotel." You know how the media refers to arch-conservatives as "moderates?" They callmoderates "left-wing." One of the things they will discuss-- and excuse me if I doubt that many "activists" will be among the throng of scumbag lobbyists and fat-cats-- is "laying the groundwork for Democratic campaigns in next years midterm elections." That could-- as it has over the past decade-- spell DOOM. Let me give you an example. One of the worst and slimiest of the fat cats is a rich slob from Virginia, now living in San Diego, Ira Lechner. He's a huge donor and Pelosi basically lives up his ass. Lechner decided that the only candidate who ever took on Darrell Issa and nearly won-- Doug Applegate-- should be "pushed" out of the race by Pelosi to make room for a Hillary fundraiser and crony of Lechner's, some Orange County attorney named Mike Levin. Pelosi's response was, "leave it to me; I'll push him out of the race." Sure...

The Alliance brings together high-dollar liberal donorsindividuals, labor unions, and charitable foundationsthat pledge to give at least $200,000 annually to a suite of left-wing organizations. Through its partners, as the donors are known internally, the Alliance in 2015 raised $75 million for its supported organizations, an annual record for the group.



...On Wednesday, conference attendees will mingle at a welcome reception with Rep. Keith Ellison, the new vice-chairman of the DNC, and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.



At a reception the following day, attendees will hear from former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, the DNCs new chairman.



And on Friday, the Alliance will host what it describes as the first in a regular series of off-the-record dialogues between progressive political donors and Democratic Party officials about the future.



That event will feature the chairs of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign CommitteeSen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, respectivelyand the executive directors of both groups.



Those officials will be on hand to answer donors questions about the Democratic Partys plans for winning in 2018 and beyond, according to the conference agenda.



Donors in attendance will include Michael Vachon, a top aide to billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros; health care technology mogul Paul Egerman; Dallas philanthropist Naomi Aberly; Susan Sandler, the daughter of subprime mortgage pioneer Herb Sandler; and Ian Simmons, the husband of Hyatt hotel fortune heiress Liesel Pritzker Simmons.

Daily News columnist Will Bunch offered a good antidote to the DC shillery this week in a column entitled Just what the Democratic Party needs to appear even worse than Trump-- more children of subprime mortgage pioneers and more Pritzkers! Philadelphiacolumnist Will Bunch offered a good antidote to the DC shillery this week in a column entitled He's America's most popular politician. Why won't they listen? "While the grand poobahs of a Democratic Party that Sanders has circled but never joined during his long unconventional life in America," he wrote, "were back in Washington, still clucking about Hillary's loss, headless chickens in a topless organization-- the Vermont senator ventured into the belly of the political beast for a remarkable town hall that was broadcast that evening on MSNBC."
(Photo : Getty Images. ) Brazilian Agriculture minister Blairo Maggi told Reuters on Saturday that China has fully lifted the import ban on Brazilian meat after receiving assurance over quality of meat.

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China on Saturday lifted a ban on the import of Brazilin meat after receiving full assurance over the quality of meat, Brazil's agriculture minister said. The reprieve will come as a big relief for the meat industry in the Latin American country which annually exports meat worth billions of dollar to China.



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"China has accepted our explanations and we will continue sending products there without restrictions except for the plants that we ourselves decided to suspend," Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi told Reuters.



Maggi claimed that the suspension was lifted only after the Brazilian government carried out a gigantic exercise to explain Chinese authorities that the "investigation targeted the conduct of individuals and not the quality of the meat."



The minister did not offer any timeline as to when will China resume the import of Brazilian meat. However, some sources in China claim that the Brazilian meat has already started being cleared in Shanghai.



Brazil President Michel Temer reportedly plans to call Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the suspension of meat import and also probably to assure him about the quality of Brazilin meat.



China Imposes Ban on Brazilian Meat over Bribery Scandal



China suspended the import of Brazilian meat on Monday after reports emerged that several health ministers were bribed to allow the export of tainted meat products. Following the report, Brasilia ordered 21 meat processing plants to halt the export of meat products. Only Seara Alimentos Ltd, which is the world's biggest meatpacking company, was allowed to carry on their export operation.



The Asian giant happens to be one of the top importers of meat from the South American country. The middle kingdom accounted for nearly 31 percent of Brazilian import during thefirst half of the last year. On a full year basis, China imported more than $703 million of meat from Brazil last year.



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When a first-time guest comes to a church, they should see our faith at its deepest and best.

4 Reasons Our Church Stopped Doing 'Come and Watch' Events (And 5 Alternatives)

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Many churches have experienced great success and growth doing big come and watch events.

Even if choir cantatas on Christmas and Easter have been replaced by an illustrated message with stage design, lighting and video, the idea is the same  to draw people in so we can present the gospel to them.

The big come and watch event may still work in some places, but many church leaders (like Carey Nieuwhof, in a recent helpful post) have found that they work less well than they used to  or we thought they did.

Several years ago, our church stopped doing come and watch events on special Sundays, like Christmas and Easter. Then we stopped doing them altogether.

Heres why:

Why We Stopped Come and Watch Events

1. It Encourages Passivity

A persons first encounter with a church sets the stage for everything to follow  including what they think is most important to us.

A persons first encounter with a church sets the stage for everything to follow  including what they think is most important to us.

When that first encounter is enjoy the show were putting on for you, they have every right to expect that this is what were about  a weekly show for passive consumers of religion.

As I mentioned in a previous post, an attitude of 'Sit Back, Relax and Enjoy the Service is probably hurting more churches than its helping  even if the crowds are getting bigger.

2. They Cost More Than Theyre Worth

Ive been a volunteer and a staff member at churches that did the all-hands-on-deck push for three to four months for our Christmas and Easter musical spectaculars. We often did very good work, and it was something I enjoyed.

But not once, after one was over, did we say Wow! So many people came to Christ! That was so worth all the time, energy and money!

Mostly, we were just one stop for Christians on the holiday church tour. And that cost us more than the time, money and energy we expended. It often made the walls of the Christian bubble even thicker.

3. We Cant (and Shouldnt) Compete

I live and minister in Orange County, California. Not only are we just eight miles from Disneyland and 40 miles from Hollywood, were less than a half-hour drive from the original Calvary Chapel and Vineyard churches, Saddleback church, Mosaic, Hillsong LA and more.

For decades, the Crystal Cathedral, mounted Easter and Christmas spectacles that people literally traveled from all over the world to see. And theyre just 8 miles from us.
Archaeologists shed light on Jesus' life and times with discovery of crucifixion nails, other clues

Archaeologists are discovering more clues that are shedding more light on the life and times of Jesus Christ.

Among their recent finds were the nails used in crucifixions in and around Jerusalem and the Galilee during the first century C.E., according to Gideon Avni, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority's archaeology division.

Speaking to Agence France Presse, Avni said they have been discovering new elements "every week."

"Over the past 20 years we have made a great leap in understanding the way of life of Jesus and his contemporaries," he said.

Avni said aside from crucifixion nails, Israeli archaeologists have found vases, cooking utensils, a wine press, jewellery and other items that reveal information on how people lived at the time.

"Nowadays we can restore in a very clear way the daily life during that period, from the moment of birth, through the person's life, his dining customs, where he traveled across the land, and until his day of death including his burial," Avni said.

The Israel Antiquities Authority released its latest findings a few weeks before Christendom's celebration of Easter, which marks the resurrection of Jesus following His crucifixion.

The Authority said it has gathered over a million relevant objects and is getting some 40,000 new finds from about 300 archaeological sites each year.

Also in time for Easter on April 16, CNN is airing "Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery," a documentary series that seeks to examine the historical Jesus using the latest scientific techniques and archaeological research.

CNN has drawn mixed reaction from the Christian community regarding the series.

Christian author John Stonestreet, co-host of BreakPoint, said CNN is only looking to question Christ's existence, The Christian Post reported..

"This is the very definition of fake news: No credible historian believes Jesus is a myth. Even among skeptics of religion, that theory has been abandoned," Stonestreet wrote.

However, Pastor A.R. Bernard, who contributes analysis on the CNN series, is defending the show, saying it examines a legitimate question.

"There are a lot of people who are still seeking Jesus," Bernard said in an interview with Townhall earlier this month. "He is the most debated figure in the last 2,000 years. And people are still trying to make sense of it and the Christian religion."
Israel 'ignores' UN demand to end settlement building in occupied territories

Israel has ignored a demand by the United Nations Security Council to halt settlement building and some Palestinian groups are continuing to incite violence against Jews, UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the 15-member body on Friday.

It was Mladenov's first report on the implementation a December 23 resolution adopted by the council with 14 votes in favour and a US abstention. Then President-elect Donald Trump and Israel had urged Washington to wield its veto.

'The resolution calls on Israel to take steps 'to cease all settlements activities in the occupied Palestinian territory including east Jerusalem'. No such steps have been taken during the reporting period,' Mladenov told the council.

Israel for decades has pursued a policy of constructing Jewish settlements on territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbours. Most countries view Israeli settlement activity as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees.

The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

'Many of the advancements that were made in the past three months will further sever the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state and accelerate the fragmentation of the West Bank,' said Mladenov of settlements, adding that they were 'one of the main obstacles to peace'.

Mladenov also said an increase in rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel was a 'worrying development' and described it as regrettable that Palestinian Authority officials had not condemned attacks against Israelis.

'The continued incitement to violence against Jews emanating from Hamas extremists and some Palestinian groups is unacceptable and undermines trust and the prospects for peace,' he said.

'Reactions by Hamas officials to terror attacks against Israelis have been particularly reprehensible and deserve condemnation.'

The United States traditionally shields Israel, Washington's long-time ally that receives more than $3 billion in annual US military aid, from council action. The five council veto powers are the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China.

The resolution, put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and Trump, was the first adopted by the council on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years.

Retired US Army Lieutenant Michael Flynn, who at the time had been chosen by Trump to be his national security adviser, called the UN missions of Malaysia and Uruguay before the vote in a bid to stop council action, UN diplomats said.

Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Friday: 'There can be no moral equivalency between the building of homes and murderous terrorism. The only impediment to peace is Palestinian violence and incitement.'

Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour told reporters: 'Settlements need to be stopped, not only because they are illegal, but they are the main obstacle in the path of the two-state solution.'
Pope Francis warns EU risks dying, faces 'vacuum of values'

Pope Francis told Europe's leaders on Friday the continent faced a 'vacuum of values' as they marked the EU's 60th birthday, condemning anti-immigrant populism and extremism that he said posed a mortal threat to the bloc.

Prime ministers and presidents from 27 EU member states have descended on Italy to mark the 1957 founding Treaty of Rome, receiving a papal blessing on the eve of the anniversary.

However, celebrations have been tempered by a string of crises, including prolonged economic turmoil, an influx of migrants and Britain's decision to leave the bloc, that have raised fears for the future of the union.

'When a body loses its sense of direction and is no longer able to look ahead, it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying,' Francis told the leaders gathered in an ornate, frescoed chamber in the heart of the Vatican.

Just six nations signed the original treaty in 1957 and on many levels the EU can be viewed as a success, swelling to embrace 28 countries gathered in the world's largest trading bloc and blessed with rising life expectancy and solid prosperity.

But with anti-European parties gaining support, the pope warned of a growing split between EU citizens and their institutions and said greater solidarity was the 'most effective antidote to modern forms of populism'.

The Argentinian-born pontiff told the leaders they needed to promote Europe's 'patrimony of ideals and spiritual values' with greater passion and vigour.

'For it is the best antidote against the vacuum of values of our time, which provides a fertile terrain for every form of extremism,' he said, mentioning the attack in London this week by a British-born convert to Islam, who killed four people.

The Pope has repeatedly criticised Europe over the past five years for its perceived lack of vision, drawing the ire of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2014 when he described the EU as an elderly woman who was 'no longer fertile and vibrant'.

He adopted a less hostile tone on Friday, but urged the continent not to close in on itself and resurrect walls  a message aimed as much at US President Donald Trump as at EU leaders struggling to deal with mass immigration.

Some 1.6 million refugees and migrants reached the European Union between 2014 and 2016 and how to handle them has been a major point of contention between member states.

'It is not enough to handle the grave crisis of immigration of recent years as if it were a mere numerical or economic problem, or a question of security,' the Pope said.

He decried a worrying 'lapse of memory' where people see today's immigrants fleeing war and hunger as a threat to a comfortable lifestyle, forgetting that modern Europe sprang from the ashes of World War Two and mass migration.

Thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets of Rome on Saturday in at least six different rallies called by numerous groups across the political spectrum to protest against various aspects of EU rule.

Some 5,000 police have been called up to patrol the streets and the interior ministry has warned it will crack down swiftly on any violence.

Anti-migrant posters have been plastered on boards across the city, calling people to join one of the many marches to put pressure on the EU to turn back the newcomers.
Religious people are less afraid of death, say researchers  but so are atheists

Very religious people are among those least afraid of dying, according to a team of researchers  but so are atheists.

The researchers from Oxford, Coventry, Royal Holloway, Gordon College, Melbourne University and Otago University performed a 'meta-analysis', comparing the results of 100 different studies into fear of dying.

They found higher levels of religiosity, like going to church, praying and belief in God were linked with lower levels of fear of death.

However, according to the Daily Mail, they also found the results were mixed, with 18 per cent of people who say they are religious more afraid of 'the end' than non-religious people.

More than half of the research showed no link between the fear of death and religiosity at all.

The researchers said this shows the relationship between religiosity and death anxiety may not be fixed, but may vary in different contexts.

Some researchers say the finding show both strong believers and strong disbelievers aren't worried about dying, with those in between showing most anxiety.

Research leader Dr Jonathan Jong told the Mail: 'This definitely complicates the old view, that religious people are less afraid of death than nonreligious people.

'It may well be that atheism also provides comfort from death, or that people who are just not afraid of death aren't compelled to seek religion.'
Houstonians know to take advantage of this city's short-lived pleasant temperatures. And who better to invite for dinner and drinks than your dog?

Although there are still several Houston restaurants that won't invite pets onto their patios, plenty have officially been granted the city's permission to do so.
Browsing the fridge during a late night snack run doesn't always cut it, sometimes only the work of a professional can satisfy the midnight munchies.

Luckily, there are several Houston eateries that have no problem trekking to deliver customers their food past regular business hours.
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Millennials recently surpassed baby boomers as the largest generation in America. Now, they're entering the work force in droves and on the job hunt.

According to the popular job search site Indeed.com, the youngest generation of workers have their sights set on the Lone Star State.

Of the top 10 cities where millennials show increased interest in working for small businesses, three are in Texas: Houston at number 3, Austin at number 6, and Dallas-Fort Worth at number 7.

GOOD NEWS: Texas gained 6,700 jobs in February

"We know that millennials are the largest age group in the workforce today," Indeed Vice President Paul Wolfe told Small Business Trends. "Recent findings suggest that millennials are desired by small business employers because of the generation's fresh perspective and technical skills. Additionally, millennials may be attracted to smaller business so they can more directly see the impact that their work contribution has on the company's success."

Overall, it's not just millennials that are moving to Texas. Five of the nation's top 10 fasting growing cities are in Texas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In Houston in particular, Harris County gained 56,587 people last year, the second highest figure in the nation.

LINKEDIN: Cities that Houston has lost the most workers to

Texas' population boom is in part thanks to the state's growing Hispanic population, which is expected to jump from 10 million in 2010 to 20 million by 2035, according to the Houston Chronicle and state demographer Lloyd Potter.

Click through above to see the best Texas cities for job seekers in 2017.
Plus-size retailer, Ashley Stewart, will be in Houston for a two-day event for its national search for 'Finding Ashley Stewart 2017'.

The event will feature an audition process, in-store Sip & Shop, a fashion show, exciting giveaways such as Ashley Stewart swag bags and a total of 500 Creme of Nature gift bags, a raffle for a Creme of Nature VIP gift basket and much more. The contest, sponsored by Creme of Nature, also features celebrity hairstylist and educator Tasheara Neshell.
Former Drug Enforcement Administration agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena, who were instrumental in bringing down Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, spoke Wednesday night before a packed house at Laredo Community College.

Murphy and Pena shared their experience to a crowd of over 700 people of how they, along with the Colombian National Police, participated in the manhunt. But before they were at the center of a high-profile investigation into the Medellin Cartel, Pena began his career in law enforcement with the Webb County Sheriffs Office.

This has been great, Pena said. When I heard it was Laredo Community College, I was very excited. Of course we said yes. I used to work here at the junior college with the sheriffs office. Ive been seeing old friends so its been great for me. Im having fun and this is the best one were going to do.

RELATED: Laredo woman in critical condition after 18-wheeler collides with SUV

Originally from Hebbronville, Pena and Murphy, from West Virginia, would later become partners in the investigation that led to the dismantling of the Medellin Cartel. Since then, they have remained friends and travel around the world giving speeches. Their story has been widely depicted in movies and shows. Most recently, the popular Netflix show Narcos depicts their experience. Murphy said the show is one-third truth, one-third loosely based on truth and one-third Hollywood.

Nobodys more surprised than Javier and I are about the popularity of this, Murphy said. Because this is something that happened 20 to 25 years ago and honestly we didnt think anybody would ever be interested.

Murphy said the pair turned down a couple of producers before Netflix came along. They were hesitant to turn the downfall of Escobar into a television show because they feared he would be glorified.

RELATED: Laredo man shot twice, but refuses to help police

The last thing we want is for anybody to glorify this mass murderer, Murphy said. Hes the worlds first narco terrorist. He was the worlds most wanted criminal and Eric Newman (the producer) said, thats the last thing Ill ever do is glorify him and hes lived up to his word.

With a $300,000 bounty placed on each of their heads, Murphy attributed three factors to their safety: the grace of God, their law enforcement experience and the Colombian National Police going out of their way to protect them.

The pair have traveled back to Colombia to assist with the locations and technical aspects in the filming for Narcos.

Colombia is a beautiful country, Pena said. Its changed. Its changed for the best, so we encourage people to go back.
Submitted

The Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center, part of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, held an open house on March 18, inviting area residents to donate items of historical importance to be included in the soon-to-be updated museum space detailing the narrative of the Atascosito District of Southeast Texas.

Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center staff welcomed visitors for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Center's archival holdings. Attendees had the opportunity to bring their own items to a preservation advice station manned by Texas State Archivist, Jelain Chubb. Select rare archival items were on display and a work in progress table was on hand where people could observe a collection of archival materials being processed.
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The day after a President Donald Trump's health reform bill was pulled from House consideration, hundreds of Republican U.S. Rep. John Culberson's constituents crowded into a Houston middle school auditorium for a raucous town hall.

Police estimated about 500 people stood in a line that snaked around the building when the room reached its capacity of 700. Some of those refused admittance were frustrated, shouting, "Let us in! Let us in!"

"What makes Houston so beautiful is the diversity of the people here, and our voices aren't being heard," said protester Tara Johnson, 43.

Inside, Culberson struggled to answer questions over the sounds of shouting from the crowd.

"You know what, folks? I'm either going to answer the question, or we're just going to spend the time yelling," Culberson said.

In response to a question about proposals to cut federal funding for public broadcasting, Culberson drew boos from the crowd when he said he wanted support to continue for now but would like to see the service "ultimately" be self-supporting.

Concern about immigration issues was evident among those participating in the town hall as well as those who couldn't get in.

The latter group included Abraham Espinosa, 26, whose family brought him as a baby to Texas from Mexico City. Espinosa has lived in Culberson's district most of his life.

As he waited in line Saturday afternoon, Espinosa cited Hillary Clinton's victory among voters in Culberson's district in November's presidential election.

"The ideology amongst the constituents is changing, and he's still very hard-line Republican," he said.

Espinosa, who became a U.S. citizen in November, hopes Culberson will listen to the needs of his changing electorate.

"I'll be able to vote soon," Espinosa said, "and my voice is obviously something that should matter."

SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter reacts to GOP ending 'Obamacare' repeal for now

Only residents of Culberson's 7th congressional district were seated due to limited capacity. Admission required picture identification and proof of residency, such as a utility bill. Signs, banners, noisemakers and bullhorns were prohibited. To address the congressman, constituents may "submit written questions, which will be randomly drawn for response."

The 7th Congressional district covers a small part of western Harris County and several high-income enclaves including Bellaire and the villages in west Houston.

Culberson has represented the area since 2001.

Demonstrators who protested outside the Lakeside Country Club in west Houston as the congressman delivered an invitation-only speech hoped for an audience with him during the February recess.

>>>Scroll through the gallery above to see who in the Texas delegation has been an ardent supporter of Donald Trump's agenda
At the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council, the United States refused to participate in the debate session devoted to human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.

The discussion took place in accordance with Agenda Item 7, which makes Israel -- and only Israel -- a permanent target of examination and discussion at each of the three yearly meetings of the Human Rights Council. Traditionally, countries with deplorable human rights records have blasted Israel during these sessions.

In a written statement, U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Nikki Haley criticized the fact that Israel is the only country permanently on the Human Rights Councils agenda.

It is not Syria, where the regime has systematically slaughtered and tortured its own people. It is not Iran, where public hangings are a regular occurrence. It is not North Korea, where the regime uses forced labor camps to crush its people into submission. It is Israel.

Israel is a strong and long standing democracy in the Middle East.

Ambassador Haley noted that the so-called Agenda Item 7 discredits the standing of the only UN body designed to address the state of global human rights by allowing actions to distract from their own abuses back home by churning out anti-Israel propaganda.

In a separate statement, Acting State Department Spokesperson Mark Toner said that the continued existence of this agenda item is among the largest threat to the credibility of the [Human Rights] Council.

He called the U.S. decision not to attend the Councils Item 7 General Debate session, an expression of our deeply-held conviction that this bias must be addressed in order for the Council to realize its legitimate purpose.

Mr. Toner emphasized that it does not serve the interests of the Council to single out one country in an unbalanced matter, and that the U.S. will vote against every resolution put forth under this agenda item and is encouraging other countries to do the same.

The U.S., said Spokesperson Toner, is dedicated to the pursuit of respect for international human rights by all countries in the world, and we call on all member states and international partners who are committed to human rights to work with us to pursue much needed reforms in the UN Human Rights Council.
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A 15-year-old girl who authorities say was kidnapped by her teacher in Tennessee may have been spotted on the Texas coast, Corpus Christi police said this week.

Elizabeth Thomas was last seen March 13 and Tennessee authorities believe she was taken by Tad Cummins, 50, her former teacher. Cummins was terminated from Thomas' school earlier this year for allegedly making inappropriate contact with the 15-year-old, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said.
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More than 100 warring opponents and supporters of President Donald Trump hurled obscenities, insults and sexual slurs at one another for more than three hours during a vociferous pair of Saturday rallies outside Houston's City Hall.

Toting #ResistTrump signs, protesters shouted "F--- Trump" as a smaller group of opposing demonstrators tried to drown them out with chants of "USA, USA" and "We won. We won."

Dressed head to toe in neon pink, one supporter of the new administration held "Princess" and "You're #1" balloons as she danced on top of a wall. Nearby, a woman wrapped herself in a Texas flag with an image of a gun on it and shrieked "racist, racist, racist!" at Trump opponents across the street, who were inexplicably joined by a dancing red Power Ranger.

MEETING TIME: Hundreds pack into Texas congressman's town hall

The mid-day demonstration was initially planned as a pro-Trump event, although anti-Trump crowds showed up an hour earlier to preempt their opponents' arrival.

"I'm just here to celebrate," said Trump supporter Cooper Jackson. "It's important for Trump supporters in Houston to join together because Houston is such an estranged place for a Trump supporter."

David Michael Smith said he and his fellow Trump protesters showed up to push back.

"Every time they come out we will be here, opposing his racism and anti-immigrant policies," he said.

Masked Trump protesters who said they did not identify with any particular group showed up early on. Though most declined to explain their reasons for concealing their identities, one said it was "for our own protection."

SOCIAL MEDIA: #TrumpTruck memes take over the internet for a day

As the event wore on, many of the masked demonstrators disbanded and the event migrated from the Hermann Square side of City Hall to the Bagby Street side.

"F--- Trump, f--- Pence, f--- your wall, f--- your fence," rally opponents shouted as the crowd grew rowdier. Eventually, Trump foes and supporters started trading insults and seemingly irrelevant sexual slurs, along with various creative and obscene gestures.

"They don't believe in our country," Jackson said of the Trump opponents. "They don't believe in the USA. They believe they are victims, and that kind of victimhood is lethal. It ruins your life -- almost like modern-day feminism."

Gina Nelms, a Houstonian who helped organize the pro-Trump event, said she wanted to show solidarity with a president "who has gotten so much done in such a short amount of time."

Sitting on the Hermann Square side of the building, demonstrators with Indivisible Houston were not impressed with the raucous goings-on.

ON CAMPUS: Rick Perry stirs debate over Texas A&M student elections

"We don't like the intimidating stance they have," said Cindy Stinson, gesturing to the masked protesters, "but we have the same agenda."

Stinson said the newly formed group is non-partisan, and welcomes anyone.

"We just don't like Trump," offered Patricia Gallini.

In all, the president's detractors far outnumbered his fans.

"It is always harder when your guy is in office," said Trump supporter Rolando Garcia. "It's always easier for the people out of office to get riled up so I think we're seeing that."

Despite the animosity of the day, Nelms offered hope for the future.

"At some point everyone can find some type of common ground," she said. "If we could all just sit down and have one conversation, we can start breaking down these barriers and coming together as a nation."

As the event started winding down, an elderly man on tandem bike slowly rode by and flashed a sly smile as he flipped off the thinning crowd of Trump supporters.

>>>Scroll through the above gallery to see scenes from the protests as well as who in the Texas delegation backs Donald Trumps agenda
A local tax return preparer was sentenced Friday to federal prison for the second time, after preparing false tax returns, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez and D. Richard Goss, special agent in charge of Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation.

Cedric Oliphant was issued a 36- month sentence by U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison to federal prison . He was and also ordered to pay $400,457 in restitution to the IRS. He plead guilty to the crime last December.

Prior to this case, the man was convicted and charged with preparing dozens of false 2006-2008 client tax returns through his business Oliphant Tax Services in Huntsville.

As part of his condition to be released on bond in that case, he was asked to not prepare any more tax returns for anyone beside himself.

However, the defendant continued and changed his company's name to "Tax Services," and also made it seem as if there was a new owner of his business. Oliphant established a series of bank accounts with others names listed, in which fees generated from his business were deposited.

He then transferred those fees to accounts with his own name. He used this practice to hide his own personal use of the fees generated by his tax business. The defendant was able to make $2 million in fees, causing the IRS to lose $400,457.

When Oliphant was charged the first time, he was sentenced to 33 months and released from prison on Aug. 26, 2016.

For the current case, he was denied bond on Sept. 2, 2016 and remains in custody as he awaits transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility.

As part of his plea agreement, he has to surrender $205,000 in bank accounts used in the crime, his personal residence and three vehicles valued at $32,600 as restitution to the IRS for both cases.
A private investigator says foul play may be the reason a man went missing from a small Texas Panhandle town five months ago.

Phillip R. Klein, who was hired by the family of 18-year-old Thomas Brown of Canadian, Texas, told KAMR-TV that four months of interviews and investigation led to the conclusion that Brown did not leave the area on his own.
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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The GOPs decision to pull the American Health Care Act, which would have repealed most of the major provisions of Obamacare, reflects in no small measure the groundswell of opposition from local news outlets. The bill would have substantially increased the number of uninsured, including the 13 million or so that gained coverage under Obamacares Medicaid expansion, and would have eliminated the ACAs essential benefits package, which included coverage for maternity care, mental health services, emergency room visits, and prescription drugs.

Editorials and news coverage in numerous American communities responded with a clear message that such measures simply didnt pass muster for their communities. Many in their audiences agreed: A Quinnipiac Poll released yesterday found that only 17 percent of American voters approved of the Republicans bill, while 56 percent didnt. Many editorials found ways to ask the same questionIs this bill good policy?and then answer, conclusively, No.

There are so many things wrong with this plan that its hard to know where to begin, wrote the St. Louis Post Dispatchs editorial board. The Star-Ledger in New Jersey attacked the GOPs plan for Medicaid, calling the $880 billion spending reduction over the next decade a savage cut that will gut the program no matter how they spin it. The Akron Beacon Journals editorial board described the structure of the Obamacare exchanges as sound enough. By comparison, the board noted, Trump, Ryan and the rest are misrepresenting things mostly to justify their ill-conceived intervention.

The Lincoln Journal Star told readers that the AHCA fell far short of Trumps pledge to come up with a new plan thats going to be better health care for more people at a lesser cost. The Virginian-Pilot declared the Republican plan would make things worse for low-income Americans who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to benefit from subsidies. (There are hundreds of thousands of those folks in Virginia alone, the paper noted.) Two papers in Florida whose coverage areas are represented by GOP congressmen spared no criticism of the proposals; the Gainsville Sun recommended that Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Ted Yoho reject the plan in favor of something that fixes problems with Obamacare and not make things worse.

News coverage in many states hinged on similarly blunt statements from sources. The Boston Globe covered a legislative committee meeting where the states Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary, Marylou Sudders, discussed how cutting Medicaid payments would affect Massachusetts residents who relied on Medicaid to pay for nursing home care. (The Ryan plan would force the state to make its requirements to qualify for nursing home assistance even more onerous.) Sudders simply said, The bill, as currently presented, is not good for us.

As editorial boards delivered blunt critiques, many newsrooms delivered sharp stories that brought the impact of the Republican health proposal home. In Montana, Lee Enterprises newspapers like the Billings Gazette and The Missoulian published stories that examined how the loss of Medicaid coverage would affect Native Americans; nearly 10,000 of them had signed up for coverage under Montanas Medicaid expansion. It was really a game-changer, said Dr. David Mark, the CEO of Bighorn Valley Health Center in Hardin, Montana. Its really allowed people to access care in a whole new way.

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In Louisiana, the Times-Picayune brought home the point that many older people would pay more for insurance under the AHCA. Last year, Jefferson Parisha Republican strongholdhad the states greatest number of residents enrolled in Obamacare policies. One of every four people enrolled was between 55 and 64 years old, and the Times-Picayune explained how many of those people would receive less in tax credits under the AHCA:

A 60-year-old resident in Jefferson and Orleans parishes who earns $30,000 a year, for example, stands to lose $4,730 a year in tax credits for health coverage under the GOP plan By contrast, higher-income earners would see their tax credits rise under the GOP plan. A 60-year-old in Jefferson and Orleans parishes who makes $75,000-per-year would see $4,000 more in tax credits under the proposed plan.

Some newsrooms used the opposition from their states Republican officials to strengthen their critical coverage. Earlier this week, Michigan Republican Governor Rick Synder sent letters to each member of the states congressional delegation. Snyders letters all warned that the legislation would reduce federal resources that currently assist 2.4 million Michigandersnearly one-quarter of the states population. For each House member, Snyder provided the number of children, seniors, pregnant women and disabled individuals who are served by traditional Medicare in their districts. As you know, the governor said, these our states most vulnerable citizens, friends and neighbors. The proposed AHCA will adversely impact them.

Michigans news outlets used Snyders letter to cinch their coverage of the AHCAs impact. TV stations in Lansing and Kalamazoo carried the story. So did the Detroit Free Press and Mlive.com, which also provided readers with a map and a search tool so they could learn how many people in each of the states congressional districts would be affected. At the Detroit News, health reporter Karen Bouffard noted the impact of Medicaid reductions on the state and then pushed beyond the numbers to show how one Detroit mother who frequents a family health center would get less care, if any at all. Bouffard also interviewed the executive director of the Michigan Health Policy Forum, who told her:

States are going to have less money to treat more people, and once youre in that situation, there are only a couple things you can do. You can cut the number of eligibles, you can cut the benefits, you can cut provider reimbursements, or you can use state funds to replace where federal funds have fallen short. And none of those options are going to be popular.

That quoteobtained by a dedicated health reporter at a time when we have far too fewgets at the hard truth of the American Health Care Act debacle, a truth that many local newsrooms seized on, too.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Trudy Lieberman is a longtime contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. She is the lead writer for CJR's Covering the Health Care Fight. She also blogs for Health News Review and the Center for Health Journalism. Follow her on Twitter @Trudy_Lieberman.
A problem that Afghanistan and international governments have tried to eradicate for decades is only getting worse, and China is a big reason why.

Last week, Afghanistan released new data showing opium production is surging, information that dovetailed with a widely circulated 2016 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report that showed similar findings. The primary problem is a new strain of genetically modified seed that comes from China, which allows poppies to be grown year round. The so-called Chinese seeds began appearing in 2015, according to the UNODC, leading to a massive 43 percent surge in production last year.

According to a separate report from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the growth cycle of opium in Afghanistan is now around two months, when it used to take three times as long to grow the crop and process it into heroin. That means heroin can now be cultivated on a year-round basis, the report noted.

"We are aware of the new seed in town," Afghan government spokesperson Javid Faisal told CNBC in an interview. The war-torn country is working to gather more information about the new opium seed, and the government is in "search to find ways to avoid its traffic," Faisal added.

Although the plants are farmed legally for pharmaceutical purposes in China, the appearance across the border in Afghanistan has exacerbated a long-running headache for Afghan officials. For years, the country and international organizations have struggled to contain the ceaseless cultivation and multi-billion dollar sales of opium, widely considered to be Afghanistan's biggest source of economic activity.

The Afghan government said most of the opiate produced within the country is being sold in the global drug market, with Russia and Pakistan absorbing much of those exports. Europe is also a prime destination, as is North America. More than 47,000 people died from prescription and illegal opioids overdoses last year, according to the CDC report.
Global uncertainty and the effects of President Donald Trump's immigration policy may be suppressing bookings from abroad, slashing costs for U.S. travelers seeking the best international deals.

Trump's hardline stance on immigration has led to a decrease in total bookings to the United States, according to data from travel intelligence company ForwardKeys, with flights from the seven countries listed in the president's original travel ban down 80 percent.

Fewer Americans are looking to head abroad, as well. Searches for international flights from the U.S. have decreased since Trump's January inauguration, according to data that price-tracking site Hopper collected for CNBC. This time last year, searches were on an upswing, the site said, which suggests the change is more than seasonal.

Experts say the decline in travel has contributed to better deals for consumers looking to venture abroad.

Flights to destinations in Western and Northern Europe are 15 percent cheaper compared to last year. France, the United Kingdom, and Nordic countries like Sweden, Finland, and Norway can now be visited for a fraction of the usual airfare, according to Hopper.

The app found deals including $388 on a round-trip flight between New York and Stockholm, Sweden, and a $738 round-trip flight between Atlanta and London runs $735.
Some Uber employees are frustrated by board member Arianna Huffington's role overseeing the ride-hail giant's internal investigation into sexism allegations, citing her close relationship with CEO Travis Kalanick and recent comments to the media.

Huffington, who joined Uber's board last year, will on Friday afternoon meet with a group of female engineers who plan to raise concerns about whether she can lead an impartial review of the company's workplace practices, particularly after remarks she made on CNN. CNN posted an interview on Monday that quoted Huffington saying sexism was not a "systemic problem" at Uber. On a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Huffington said she was referring to sexual harassment, rather than sexism broadly, and that CNN had updated its story accordingly. Still, the interview unnerved some Uber employees, who told BuzzFeed News they were already concerned about whether Huffington could help lead an independent investigation into Uber's workplace culture, given her relationship to the company and friendship with Kalanick.

"Everyone is mad with her. There is no way she is independent," one employee told BuzzFeed. "Sexism versus sexual harassment  both are really demoralizing. Her correction doesn't matter. Giving an interview without the investigation finishing was incredibly unprofessional and careless."

Huffington told Uber employees in an email after her call with press Tuesday that "I want to assure you that whether sexism or sexual harassment is a systemic problem at Uber will ultimately be determined by the investigation that Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran are conducting. And that the board and management team will act upon whatever their investigation finds so that we can create a completely equitable workplace where there is zero tolerance for both sexual harassment and sexism."

"She's on the board. She's qualified. But she needs to be honest about her conflicts here," another employee said. Referring to the interview with CNN, the employee said sexism and sexual harassment could be considered on "the same spectrum," and also noted that it's troubling she made comments while the investigation is ongoing.

"Arianna made this huge fuss over pedantics," the employee said. "Before this, people internally were already definitely worried about her not being impartial."

After Susan Fowler Rigetti published a viral blog post alleging systemic sexism at the ride-hail giant on Feb. 19, Uber hired former attorney general Eric Holder to lead an internal investigation into its workplace environment. Huffington was named to a board subcommittee that will receive and push to implement the results of the investigation, and has become a public face for Uber as it weathers this particular public relations crisis. She appeared alongside Kalanick at the company's first all-hands meeting after the sexism allegations became public.

On a call with reporters on Tuesday, Huffington said the investigation  which is being conducted with the help of Tammy Albarran, a partner at Holder's law firm  will be "completely thorough, completely independent," and presented to a board subcommittee she sits on. "I am not conducting the investigation," she said. Earlier in the call, Huffington noted that she had spoken to "hundreds of employees either personally or on the phone" in recent weeks.

Several Uber employees told BuzzFeed News that Kalanick's handling of Uber's recent scandals has shaken their confidence in him as a leader, noting that they've been frustrated by his apologies. "I'm extremely unhappy and disappointed in the leadership," said one. Other employees raised an eyebrow over Huffington's recent comments, noting that she publicly described Kalanick as "a close friend" in a post announcing her decision to join Uber's board and told employees at an all-hands meeting that the Uber CEO had been so upset by allegations of sexism at the company that she had to cook him an omelet. (Huffington also referenced making Kalanick an omelet in her "Why I'm Joining Uber's Board" post.) "Glad she is taking precious care of the CEO while there is a serious disconnect going on," one employee said of Huffington.

Huffington declined comment.

This isn't the first time Uber employees have raised concerns about Huffington. In the winter of 2016, sources say, a T-shirt for Huffington's Thrive Global health and wellness company with the slogan "#SLEEPYOURWAYTOTHETOP" sparked outrage among women at Uber, some of whom believed it was available only in women's sizes. A number of Uber employees, complained to Huffington and Uber senior vice president Ryan Graves. The shirt was ultimately removed from the Thrive website.

Reached for comment, Thrive sent BuzzFeed News a screenshot indicating the company also sold the shirt in men's sizes.
BOAO, China  China sought to expand its influence and clout over a four-day conference this week as it promised world and business leaders that it will keep its doors open even as the world's second-largest economy undertakes its own market and financial reform. "China's door to the world is always open and will become increasingly open with progress," Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli said at the opening of the Boao Forum on Saturday. He also stated China's commitment to opening up access to foreign investment and various industries while remaining a force for peace and stability in the world. People's Bank of China's Governor Zhou Xiaochuan meanwhile said globalization is a reality and not a choice for nations.

China's President Xi Jinping Peter Klaunzer | AFP | Getty Images

Zhang and Zhou's comments come amid concerns about increasing protectionist sentiments among some nations after the U.K.'s Brexit vote and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump. With China still championing globalization and free trade, leaders around the world are looking toward the East Asian giant for direction, clarity and support, underscoring a shift in global trade and power relations. This is reflected through its aggressive push in Asia through Europe with its One Belt, One Road project which is presenting new opportunities for countries which may have previously struggled to attract investors and funding. The landlocked Central Asian country of Kazakhstan is one. "When the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90s, everyone (said) that Kazakhstan would struggle because it does not have access to the ocean, but it turned out that we didn't need to have an ocean because China was going to be the ocean of Kazakhstan," said Eurasian Resources Group CEO Benedikt Sobotka on Thursday. Other developing nations' leaders from Pakistan to Madagascar also paid homage to China at the event. Indeed, China made clear its intention to push its influence beyond its familiar sphere.

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At the forum's opening, leaders from countries that are usually under-represented on the world stage such as Madagascar, Micronesia and Nepal addressed the floor, championing globalization and partnership. While hopeful nations are eyeing the investment and growth that China is bringing to the table, concerns over its domestic economy dominated panels and discussion, underscoring the many challenges that the major but still emerging economy face. Key issues include high debt levels and financial regulation, as officials took pains to reassure markets about the country's economy, affirm its commitment to economic and market reforms, while explaining some difficulties it was facing. On Friday, Vice Finance Minister Liu Wei said China's debt risks are "very much under control" and that the issue is of "great importance" to the authorities. At a separate panel, former vice president of the China Academy of Social Sciences Li Yang sought to explain the long-drawn process in restructuring debt-laden state-owned enterprises, which also has social responsibility to tens of millions of employees.

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Alex Wong | Getty Images

"I know maybe the president is watching." So said Brian Kilmeade, co-host of "Fox and Friends," on Thursday morning's show. It was no mere boast, since President Trump has publicly stated his affection for the show and for Fox News , the channel on which it airs. If Mr. Trump was indeed tuning in, he was far from alone. Fox News has been the most-watched cable news network for 15 years, but depending on the hour, the news narrative it presents to its large and loyal conservative audience can sharply diverge from what consumers of other media outlets may be seeing. More from The New York Times: They adopted refugee families for 12 months. Then came 'month 13.' In major defeat for Trump, push to repeal health law fails In dropping health vote, Trump swallowed need for a showdown We watched Fox News from 6 a.m. until midnight on Thursday to see how its coverage varied from that of its rivals on a day when cable news was largely dominated by the health care debate in Congress, the terrorist attack in London and the investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election. One notable way Fox News stood apart from its competition, as it has been known to do for years, was in the stories it chose to highlight and the tone  in some of its opinion shows, unapologetically supportive of Mr. Trump and his agenda  with which it covered them. There was extensive coverage of the health care vote, for example, but there was also considerable time given to topics, like a rape case in Maryland, that viewers would not have heard about if they had turned to CNN or MSNBC. The rape case, which involved an undocumented immigrant and went virtually uncovered on most networks, received almost hourly updates on Fox, and at times was used as proof that Mr. Trump's calls for tighter borders and a crackdown on immigration were justified. During coverage of the London terrorist attack, in a break from the rather muted coverage on CNN, "Fox and Friends" veered into discussing the faith of the "Muslim mayor" of London. A morning news show noted that most British police officers did not carry guns (a fact that a guest labeled "lunacy") and considered how the attack represented the broader terrorist threat. And while other networks were devoting time to the apology made by Representative Devin Nunes of California, the Republican chairman of the House committee investigating Russian interference in the election, for not sharing information about intelligence with the committee's top Democrat before giving it to Mr. Trump, Fox was touting a report about "potential" evidence that Mr. Trump's team may indeed have been surveilled by the Obama administration. It was presented as vindication of Mr. Trump's earlier assertions that his phones had been wiretapped. Still, while people who do not watch Fox News may think it presents a uniform voice from morning to night, the network's content varies plenty. It offers a heavy dose of opinionated fare  "Fox and Friends" and its entire prime-time lineup  and has something closer to a more traditional news format for much of the afternoon. And just like any cable news network, when news breaks, it can find itself scrambling. With all that in mind, if you weren't watching Fox News on Thursday, this is how the news played out through its distinctive lens.

A dangerous world

It promised to be an eventful day in Washington, with the debate over the health care bill providing the twists, turns and last-minute negotiations that cable news channels love. But when "Fox and Friends" began at 6 a.m. the co-host Ainsley Earhardt was holding up the gruesome front page of The New York Post. "Anguish, terror strikes in the shadow of Big Ben," she said, reading the paper's headline, as the camera zoomed in on a photograph of a bloodied victim. "It's like she's looking at us," added Mr. Kilmeade of the cover photo. The crew of "Fox and Friends" spent a large chunk of the morning focusing on the London terrorist attack, and updates on the situation kept coming through the morning on the shows "America's Newsroom" and "Happening Now." Many of these updates often came with an underlying message: that the world can be a dark and often dangerous place, and that it is under the threat of "radical Islamic terror," as was said with emphasis on "Fox and Friends." (That phrase is one that Mr. Trump proudly and frequently uses.) The message of fear would resonate throughout the day, in the London coverage and later in segments on the Maryland rape case. "Police say the attacker was British-born, but many say this attack highlights the importance of properly vetting immigrants and refugees," said Ed Henry, a substitute host on "America's Newsroom." Mr. Henry later said to a panel of guests, "It seems to me that it's harder and harder for Democrats to say that the travel ban doesn't make sense." On "Happening Now," an interview with Danny Coulson, a former deputy assistant director at the F.B.I., centered on the "lunacy" of not equipping police officers with guns, words that echoed Mr. Trump's comments about security guards after the nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla. Mr. Kilmeade repeatedly turned his focus to London's "Muslim mayor," Sadiq Khan, calling on him to discuss the difference between his faith and that of the attacker. "Fox and Friends" also spent time on comments that Mr. Khan made in 2016 about how terrorism preparedness was "part and parcel" of living in a big city. After the attack this week, Donald Trump Jr. wrote a Twitter post about Mr. Khan's comments and was roundly criticized for taking them out of context. "Fox and Friends" did not note that.

In other news, the Wall

How networks covered the day: noon "Judgment Day"  Health Care Coverage, MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports "A Make-or-Break Meeting"  Health Care Coverage CNN Inside Politics "I Think They're Doing the Right Things"  Health Care Coverage FOX NEWS Outnumbered The 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. editions of the news show "Special Report," hosted by Bret Baier, along with "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Hannity," spent significant portions of their broadcasts discussing the bill and its fate. But with the bill in trouble, there were several conspicuous stretches when health care, seemingly the top news story of the day, disappeared from the Fox News airwaves. The vote on the bill, which had been scheduled for Thursday, was postponed around 3:30 p.m. Still, it took Tucker Carlson, whose show comes on at 9 p.m., 45 minutes to address it. On Fox News's 7 p.m. show, "The First 100 Days," which is supposed to focus on, well, the president's first 100 days, the bill barely registered 10 minutes of airtime. The panel of the 5 p.m. round-table show "The Five" discussed the bill and the vote in the program's first 10 minutes before moving on to topics like surveillance, the London attack and a segment on Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York (one panelist, Kimberly Guilfoyle, complained that "all the garbage isn't collected" in her neighborhood). Mr. Carlson's attention was on immigration, and his guest, Ann Coulter, opined that Mr. Trump should focus on immigration and a border wall. It wasn't the first time the wall was mentioned. "America's Newsroom," Fox's midmorning show, devoted an entire segment to the wall Mr. Trump says will be built along the Mexican border. The coverage featured graphics, talk about how companies would bid for the chance to build the wall and a discussion about potential requirements for the structure, like "withstand assault," "unclimbable" and "aesthetically pleasing on the U.S. side."

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump participates in a debate sponsored by Fox News at the Fox Theatre on March 3, 2016 in Detroit, Michigan. Getty Images

Where's the 'outrage'?

"Since other networks are determined to ignore it, we open tonight with more coverage of the horrific alleged rape in Rockville, Maryland," Mr. Carlson said at the start of his show. All week, Fox News had been covering a story of a 14-year-old Maryland girl who said she was raped by two of her high school classmates, one of whom is an undocumented immigrant.



The way the story was discussed throughout the day on the network was not unlike a Trump campaign speech: criticism of the mainstream media, accusing it of having a liberal agenda that prioritizes identity politics over safety; proclamations that sanctuary cities and states are rife with danger from illegal immigration; mentions of Kathryn Steinle, the woman killed by an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco in 2015 who was often invoked on the campaign trail by Mr. Trump, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and other conservatives; and descriptions of a border so porous that there are "waves of unaccompanied children coming across." The Maryland case was a topic on Fox News from the morning to almost midnight. The coverage was also laced with critical comments aimed at other networks for not giving the case enough attention. "In my mind, they're telling our little girls that this little girl's life doesn't matter as much as these illegal immigrants' lives matter because they don't want to spread a negative story," Ms. Earhardt, referring to other news outlets, said on "Fox and Friends." (Howard Kurtz, the network's media analyst, said that Fox's prime-time shows had dedicated more than 53 minutes of attention to the case  and that rival morning shows and evening newscasts had virtually ignored it.) The "Fox and Friends" co-host Steve Doocy introduced a segment on the case by saying: "Where's the mainstream media's outrage? Hmm, we couldn't find it." On "The Five," the panelist Greg Gutfeld said the case wasn't being covered sufficiently because it didn't fit the media's "liberal feminist narrative." Ms. Guilfoyle deemed it a "shameful blackout." A guest on "America's Newsroom," Ed Martin, bluntly stated that "they're raping and killing our people, and that's what Trump won on."

A decidedly different tone

Even as Fox latched on to stories on Thursday that were not being emphasized on other networks, its afternoon hours hewed closer to traditional news coverage. For instance, Fox showed all 50 minutes of Sean Spicer's White House press briefing, just like CNN and MSNBC. How networks covered the day: 5 p.m. "The President and His White House Team Are Reeling"  Health Care Coverage MSNBC MTP Daily "The Art of No Deal"  Health Care Coverage CNN The Situation Room "Leaving Their Party Short of the Votes Needed"  Health Care Coverage FOX NEWS The Five And when Fox's 3 p.m. anchor, Shepard Smith, came on, skepticism of the president ramped up. Mr. Smith has an evenhanded reputation that sets him somewhat apart from his colleagues in the minds of some, but the unpopularity of the health care bill was mentioned throughout the afternoon. During Fox's 2 p.m. hour, a National Journal editor, Josh Kraushaar, said that Mr. Trump's brand would be "undermined somewhat" if he could not get the votes for the bill. On Neil Cavuto's 4 p.m. slot, after the vote had been postponed, The Post's Daniel Halper said that Mr. Trump's low approval ratings gave him "a lot less leeway" with members of the House. Mr. Smith called Mr. Trump's claim that he had been wiretapped by the Obama administration "unfounded." He even asked a guest, "Is there a longtime danger from this that maybe his followers don't understand or haven't thought about?" While Mr. Smith was on the air, the House decided to delay its vote on the health care bill until Friday, prompting Mr. Smith to say, "For this to go down in flames, according to analysts on both sides of the political aisle, would be very bad for this White House."

Under investigation but not questioned

The ability for different Fox News programs to lurch between news and opinion was demonstrated clearly when it came to Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California. On "Special Report," Mr. Baier said that Mr. Hunter was under investigation by the Justice Department for misspending campaign funds. Less than two hours later, Mr. Hunter, along with Representative Chris Collins, Republican of New York, appeared live on "The O'Reilly Factor" to discuss the health care bill. Mr. Hunter argued that the bill would "save America." Eric Bolling, who was filling in for the host, Bill O'Reilly, did not raise the investigation with the congressman.

Hail to the Chief

While the London attack, the Maryland rape case and critiques of the media moved to the fore during certain stretches, an implicit defense of Mr. Trump was also a consistent theme. Mr. Cavuto dinged the media for being too harsh on Mr. Trump. "If you want to be liked by the media, you better be like the media, which means these days you better not like Donald Trump," Mr. Cavuto said, noting that the president had boycotted his show. He added of the media, "I'm not saying it's time to get over Trump  I'm saying it's time to get over yourselves." And even though Mr. Trump's first push for major legislation was in peril by the end of Thursday night, the mantra from numerous Fox hosts and analysts was: Don't blame him. Mr. Hannity started his 10 p.m. show by denouncing Republicans in the House, saying they were "ill prepared for this moment to lead, and now they failed the president."
Rest in peace, Trump agenda?

After the stinging defeat of the GOP's bill to reform Obamacare, the White House and Congress were left reeling amid finger-pointing over who shouldered the blame. Meanwhile, a number of political veterans say President Donald Trump's entire economic agenda could be imperiled by the failure to pass an Obamacare replacement  which could also mean the market may have to lower its expectations.

Now that Obamacare will remain in place, analysts say there are numerous risks building to Trump's ambitious plans for the economy. The health care bill's failure also creates a budget crunch that could make tax reform much more difficult to accomplish.

Although many observers also lashed out at House Speaker Paul Ryan for a plan that was largely authored by him, "The big loser is going to be the president," Larry Lindsey, former economic adviser for George W. Bush, told CNBC's "Power Lunch" Friday.



"Yes, this makes tax reform more difficult but not impossible," Speaker Ryan said in a briefing Friday evening. "We will proceed, and we will continue with tax reform."

However, Lindsey said one of the "silliest" things he's heard from people is that the health-care proposal not passing will be good for Trump's tax reform. "Absolutely not," he added.



"They might move on to [tax reform] next, but when you have a president who can't deliver his own caucus, then the president's position will be weakened on all issues," Lindsey said. "If you're in Congress and you don't like something, you now have an example of how you can 'roll' the president."



During a briefing with reporters on Friday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer acknowledged Friday the budgetary conundrum that could arise, but said there was "huge appetite for tax reform."



Nevertheless, Trump has now been dealt humbling defeats on several fronts, and his opponents sense blood in the water. Meanwhile, expectations for tax reform, the linchpin of a brisk rally that has carried major stock market indexes to new highs, are dwindling.



A replacement for Obamacare "was necessary for budgetary reasons, for tax reform, because it was a revenue gainer," said Lindsey. Trump's goals for economic growth should also be questioned now, he warned.

'Intimately connected'
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will attend a NATO meeting at the end of the month, the State Department announced Friday, after previous mixed signals on whether he would attend sparked alarm among some allies.

Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tillerson will meet with NATO in Brussels on March 31.

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Monday night State Department officials said he would skip what would have been his first official meeting of NATO countries' diplomats which had been scheduled for April 5-6. The Secretary's trip to Russia later in April was also confirmed.

By Tuesday afternoon, the State Department left open the possibility of his attendance, saying Tillerson had a scheduling conflict and suggested alternative dates. NATO has said it was in contact with the State Department on scheduling.

A NATO official on Friday confirmed it is currently planning to hold the meeting of NATO foreign ministers on March 31 but added "consultations on scheduling among allies are ongoing."

Changing the date of the NATO Foreign Ministerial requires a consensus among all 28 member countries.

The State Department said Tillerson on March 30 will travel to Turkey to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other government officials, where he will discuss strategies to defeat the terror group ISIS.

President Donald Trump will attend a meeting of NATO heads of state and government in May, something White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer repeated on Twitter this week after news broke that Tillerson could skip the April meeting.

Trump has in the past called NATO "obsolete" and suggested he would not protect allies unless they upped their military spending.

Trump has recently spoken in more reassuring terms toward NATO, but many analysts say that even the suggestion that the U.S. might not respond to an aggression might leave allies vulnerable.

At a press briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House last week, Trump said he "reiterated to Chancellor Merkel my strong support for NATO, as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost of defense."

But Trump created new controversy when he said on Twitter a day after that meeting that Germany "owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!"

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen rejected Trump's claim in a statement on Sunday, saying that "there is no debt account at NATO." Von der Leyen added that it was "wrong" to link the alliance's bar for member nations to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024 to NATO alone.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. NATO ambassador, also dismissed Trump's characterization, saying in a Tweet "that's not how NATO works" and the United States decides how much it contributes to defending NATO countries.
BOAO, China  The U.K.'s exit from the European Union (EU) will present new opportunities for free trade with the world's second-largest economy, a former Chinese banker said Saturday.

"Brexit will pave a new path for free trade between China and the U.K.," Li Ruogu, former chairman of the Export-Import Bank of China, said at the Boao Forum held in the Hainan province of China.

Despite fears about rising protectionism and anti-free trade forces in the current global environment, Li said the U.K. may already be a more open market than the EU. He cited inefficiencies in EU agricultural policies and its disputes with China regarding the steel trade as examples of protectionism in the EU.

"After Brexit, China and U.K. trade may get freer, especially in financial services," said Li, who was speaking in a panel moderated by CNBC anchor Geoff Cutmore.
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Is a guaranteed paycheck from the government, with no strings attached, the answer to the relentless rise of automation? The concept might sound far-fetched, but a so-called universal basic income (UBI), is currently one of the most hotly debated policy topics being floated as a means to address income inequality and the disruption that technology poses to the workforce. UBI is being tested in Finland and other international markets, but has received decidedly mixed reactions.

Meanwhile, developments in robotics and artificial intelligence have grave implications for the labor force. A report issued this week from consulting firm PwC found that more than a third of U.S. jobs were at risk from automation, upping the ante for policy makers to cushion the blow to workers. Advocates for UBI argue that a guaranteed paycheck could serve as a way to fight poverty and uncertainty in an evolving U.S. economy, and encourage workers to take more risks in the job market if they had some extra money as a cushion.

The idea has gained prominent backers such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who recently told CNBC he supported UBI  joining a growing list of tech execs who've voiced support for the concept as a solution to unemployment that will be caused by future automation  the rise of the robots. Silicon Valley's Y Combinator President Sam Altman and eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar have also expressed support for a universal income.

A homeless man sleeps under an American Flag blanket on a park bench on September 10, 2013 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Skeptics, however, insist that a guaranteed paycheck would actually reduce the incentive to work. In their view, a UBI would accomplish little other than wasting money on those who don't need it, and may even crowd out programs like Social Security and Medicare. The increasingly polarizing concept was on full display this week, as UBI backers and antagonists sparred at a debate hosted by Intelligence Squared U.S. in New York City. The debate made for strange bedfellows, as a well-known labor organizer teamed up with an economic libertarian to argue in favor of UBI, while two aides to former president Barack Obama and vice president Joe Biden pushed back on the idea. "Despite job growth, the November election is a shocking warning that the economy is off to a bad start, and many people are stuck in minimum wage jobs," said Andrew Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, one of the largest and most organized labor unions in the country.

With a turbulent economy giving rise to populism, Stern said the economic environment was creating a "U.S. of anxiety" over money. A universal income would be "humane, flexible, it promotes choice and freedom, and offers security to individuals," Stern added.



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Well-known libertarian Charles Murray agreed, saying that by the government eliminating spending on some programs, thereby generating revenue to spend elsewhere, "we can afford to do this in America."

However, Jason Furman, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama, rejected the suggestion, saying it would do more harm than good. "If you give someone a dollar, [that dollar] has to come from somewhere," said Furman, arguing that a universal income would actually take America in the wrong direction and worsen economic conditions. UBI boosters "argue that [government] money sent to the elderly today doesn't work  that the welfare state today doesn't work, but these claims are false," Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Biden, told the debate's participants. Myriad welfare programs currently employed by the government "lift more than 40 percent of Americans out of poverty, and instituting a universal income in our country would undermine that progress," he said. A guaranteed paycheck would be an expensive proposition. In the U.S. alone, it could cost more than $3 trillion to distribute just a $10,000 annual income to all citizens, science and technology website Futurism said in a report recently. Stern and Murray suggested that cutting spending on defense and curbing tax credits could pay for UBI. Yet both Furman and Bernstein warned about the cost to the federal government, with the latter calling UBI little more than "bad math." 'A huge mistake'

A robot delivers meals in a restaurant. Photo by VCG

WATCH: Elon Musk: Robots will take your jobs, government will have to pay your wage

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ALBANY, N.Y.  New York realtors completed the sale of 7,391 previously owned homes in February, down 6.7 percent from 7,925 in the year-ago month, the New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR) reported Wednesday.

In February, both the number of homes for sale and the number of new listings declined. As we move closer to the typically active spring and summer months, low inventory may apply a braking action to an otherwise strong housing market, Duncan MacKenzie, CEO of NYSAR, said in a news release.

The February statewide median sales price was $242,000, up 4.3 percent from the February 2016 median of $232,000, NYSAR said.

Pending sales from the years second month increased 3 percent from a year ago to 9,410.

The months supply of homes for sale dropped 23.9 percent at the end of February to 5.4 months supply. It stood at 7.1 months at the end of February 2016.

A 6 month to 6.5 month supply is considered to be a balanced market. Inventory stood at 60,570, a decrease of nearly 19 percent compared to February 2016.

Central New York data

Realtors in Broome County sold 85 existing homes in February, down more than 10 percent from 95 a year ago, according to the NYSAR report. The median sales price fell more than 3 percent to nearly $99,000 from $102,500 a year ago.

In Jefferson County, realtors closed on 51 homes in February, up more than 41 percent from 36 a year ago, and the median sales price fell nearly 3 percent to more than $116,000 from $120,000 in February 2016, according to the NYSAR data.

NYSAR also reports that realtors sold 115 homes in Oneida County last month, compared to 116 in February 2016. The median sales price rose more than 12 percent to more than $116,000 from nearly $104,000 a year ago.

Onondaga Countys sales of previously owned homes rose more than 7 percent to 287 in February from 268 a year earlier, and the median sales price fell nearly 8 percent to nearly than $120,000 from $130,000 a year ago, per the NYSAR report.

All home-sales data is compiled from multiple-listing services in New York state and it includes townhomes and condominiums in addition to existing single-family homes, according to NYSAR.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
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The police in Hialeah, Florida are investigating Eres Plastic Surgery in connection to the death of Ranika Hall while undergoing a Brazilian butt lift. This is also the same clinic where another patient died while undergoing the same procedure in just under a year.

Hall, from Kansas City, Missouri, traveled to Florida to have the procedure done despite her family's objections. The police disclosed that the clinic called 911 when Hall stopped breathing after several hours in surgery and was rushed to an emergency room where she died after an hour.

Eres Plastic Surgery: Facts About Us: https://t.co/apmMdUzeBJ via @YouTube  Eres Plastic Surgery (@eresmiami) March 22, 2017

The medical examiner ruled that the death in the plastic surgery gone wrong was caused by a fat embolism, where the fat had been injected into her bloodstream and stopped the absorption of oxygen after getting lodged in her lung area, reported the Chicago Tribune.

This is the fourth death connected to the network of clinics that operate Eres since 2013. Just last September, an Ecuadorian woman died during a tummy tuck when her heart stopped while Heather Meadows succumbed to complications after getting a Brazilian butt lift in May.

The clinic's first death connected to plastic surgery gone wrong was when a patient suffered from a lung embolism after undergoing a procedure in 2013, the Miami Herald reported.

The Florida Health Department has already conducted an investigation even before Meadows died in 2016. The results showed that the clinic's surgeons may have allowed staffers to do pre-operation screenings as signed documents do not show the doctors actually performed them. Aside from the deaths arising from plastic surgery gone wrong, there have also been complaints of major injuries following procedures done in the clinic.

A Brazilian butt lift is generally safe. Liposuction removes unwanted fats from other parts of the body and then injected into the buttocks, thereby avoiding the need for foreign materials or implants.

The procedure, however, is not without complications. These include excessive bleeding, blood clots, infection, contour irregularities, and fat embolism.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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Sepsis is a silent killer. This condition has been the the reason for deaths in hospitals more than any other disease. But critical care doctor, Paul Marik of the East Virginia Medical School, believes he has found a cure for the deadly condition.

Scepticemia, as it is formally known, occurs when the body is trying to fight off a severe infection. When bacterial poisons enter the bloodstream the body's immune system goes into overdrive and causes severe inflammation of the organs.

Dr. Marik claims that he was inspired by the study published by researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University. He first combined Vitamin C and steroids when he ran out of options to treat patients in the ICU of a hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, the 9 News reported.

He injected the cocktail to patients who responded positively from the treatment. He has since administered the infusion of Vitamin C, thiamine and a low dose of steroids to 150 patients who had sepsis.

While Dr. Marik's treatment only had one casualty, other experts have cautioned healthcare workers from using or replicating the treatment. The results in larger samples may have a very different outcome than what have been seen in the study done by Dr. Marik.

There needs to be further testing because the study Dr. Marik and Old Dominion University have done has a very small population sample to draw conclusive results, The Independent reported.

While the experts frown upon the way Dr. Marik had pieced together small pieces of researches together to come up with a conclusion, they believe that it can help greatly in the future if proven effective. The ways that hospitals handle sepsis treatment will change significantly because the materials are readily available and affordable.

The National Institutes of health have also started looking into the effectiveness of other treatments of the condition. The NIH has released a $3.2 million grant to a different group of researchers to conduct a carefully controlled study of vitamin C to treat it. This study may once and for all end the skepticism or the reliance on vitamin C in treating the deadly inflammatory condition.

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It's a weird process, to be sure, but it doesn't seem like that much to ask for strangers not be total dicks about your ... penis.

"The internet's full of people who feel I did the whole thing wrong," Gerbil says. "That I didn't go far enough. That I need to get my boobs removed instead of continuing to bind them down before I can be a 'real' man. That I needed to take hormones first, even though I can't actually process testosterone thanks to a personal medical quirk. Or that I didn't need to bother with phalloplasty at all."

"The question I hear most often is 'But why would you stop there?'" he continues. "To which I have no better response than, 'Because all I needed to feel like the person I need to be was to be able to pee standing up, using body parts that are my own.'" After all, "to be honest, a lot of folks can't say that about their bodies. I know lots of female-to-male transexuals who need to get hysterectomies, who can't feel themselves unless any organs seen as 'female' are out of their body. I can only speak for myself."

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If you're already taking the risk of surgery, why not get exactly what you want?

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As far as that goes, it's been a pretty smashing success:

"Right now, I'm just enjoying not feeling like I have to distance myself from my own body to have sex," Gerbil says. "I used to only be able to perform if I ignored my body, thinking of it as this abstract meat that was attached to me. And now, finally, I don't feel that way anymore ... Before, I can't explain very well what it felt like, but not having something down there felt seriously wrong, even back when I was a kid and I'd never seen a dick before ... I'd shove folks I was dating away from my crotch if they went exploring, because the way it looked down there was not right to me. And now, that feeling is completely gone!"
MotoGP Safety Commission representative Loris Capirossi says the cancellation of qualifying on Saturday in Qatar was unavoidable.

The decision was made due to standing water on the track and grid positions for Sunday's season-opening race will be decided by combined free practice lap times, meaning a front row of Maverick Vinales, Andrea Iannone and Marc Marquez.

With more rain forecast in the morning, a question mark remains over tomorrow's schedule and Capirossi revealed a lack of drainage at the Losail International Circuit is posing the biggest problem.

The former 250cc world champion tested on a wet track in February and said in his opinion, it could be possible to race in the wet. However, Capirossi reiterated that any final decision over whether not racing goes ahead in wet conditions would be left to the riders.

"We decided to come here in February to understand the situation because never did anyone test on the night time with rain. But like I want to explain, I tested when the full track was wet, it is different the conditions [today]," he said at a press conference on Saturday evening.

"I say all the time when I test it was not too bad but we have to give the opportunity to all riders to test. But the decision always is coming from the riders and they decide if it is safe or not - I don't decide that. This is why we give the opportunity to riders to test and check the conditions.

"Secondly after the experience we had today, day or night, it's impossible to race on rain without drainage and it's not different, day or night. Also during the day when we have a lot of water, no drainage, and the track is difficult to ride. But this is not because we are in Qatar: we have the same problem in Malaysia, or Jerez or Misano. Every track is the same, when we have a lot of water we have to cancel."

The 44-year-old Italian said the only decision available in the circumstances on Saturday was to call off qualifying due to safety concerns.

"For us as well it was not really an easy day. We tried to do the practice tonight and postpone always to try to understand the situation of the track," he said.

"We were thinking we could resolve but in the end we understand that the problem is bigger than what we thought and we decided to cancel everything.

"I think the main problem of the track is that we don't have any drainage because normally we don't expect the rain in Qatar. We discovered [this], especially during the Moto2 and Moto3 test and especially today with the conditions. For sure we are thinking about doing some work for next season but until now the situation is like that," Capirossi added.

"Regarding tomorrow we decided to increase a little bit the warm-up for all three classes, 30 minutes for each class, and we really hope to have good weather because tonight we still want to work and try to resolve the problem."

Capirossi said any prospect of running qualifying in the morning on Sunday was ruled out in order to give the organisers the best possible chance of preparing the circuit for the possibility of racing later in the evening.

"We can monitor that [weather] but unfortunately it is not really good for the morning and it looks like tomorrow morning we have some rain. From 11am it looks like stopping and for all afternoon it may be good, we hope, but we can't control the weather," he said.

"Tomorrow morning we didn't decide to have the qualifying because we need to work all day to try to have the best conditions for the track for late afternoon and night.

"In the run-off area of turn 8 we have a mini-lake; the problem is without drainage the water is coming up from the bottom. We tried to take off the water with a pump but when we think it is good, after ten minutes it is the same. This is why we never resolved the problem. Now the situation is a little bit better but still now the track is not ready.

"For sure, next year we want to do some work for drainage and we want to organise, especially on the last day of testing, the last half hour or 40 minutes, we will again we the track and give the opportunity to everybody to test it."

Capirossi also admitted that moving the race to Monday could be an option if racing is not possible on Sunday.

"In case tomorrow we don't have a lot of water on the track at night time we can send a rider out to try to understand the situation. You can imagine we have a spray of rain and the rider goes out and says it is acceptable, we can race and do everything as normal," he said.

"In case we have a lot of rain, for me it is impossible and if we have a disaster like today, we can find different solutions. [If] we cancel, normally we don't want to, but maybe we can go on Monday like 2009."
Security News

Tanium Steals Former Veritas Americas Channel Chief To Lead Channels

Sarah Kuranda

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Tanium has appointed former Veritas channel executive Rick Kramer to lead its channel efforts as vice president of channel sales, CRN has learned.

Kramer previously served as vice president, Americas channel and commercial sales at Veritas, a role he held since April 2015. Before that, he held a variety of channel roles at Symantec (which previously owned Veritas), including vice president of channel sales for North America.

Kramer starts in the new role on April 3, according to a post on LinkedIn announcing his upcoming departure from Veritas by saying a "new journey" was beginning on that date. The post did not specify Tanium as the next step, though sources and the company have both confirmed his appointment.

[Related: Sources: Tanium COO-CFO Leaves Company Suddenly, Despite IPO Plans On Horizon]

Kramer fills the open channel chief role at Emeryville, Calif.-based Tanium which has been vacant since the departure of Michael Rogers, VP of global VAR, consulting and system integrator partners, in July. Rogers took a position at New York City-based SecurityScorecard as VP of strategic alliances and channel sales.

In a statement to CRN, Veritas confirmed Kramer's departure and said Rick Fairweather had replaced him as vice president of Americas channels. Fairweather has been with Veritas since 2015, previously holding the title of vice president, global and strategic partner organization.

"Fairweather is committed to helping Veritas channel partners in the Americas grow revenues and serve as trusted advisors to customers looking to collect, protect, analyze and optimize their data, even in the most demanding environments. He has a proven track record of developing, leading, and executing winning partner strategies ... Veritas is dedicated to accelerating digital transformations for organizations around the world. The Veritas Partner Program is a critical component of the companys mission to help customers solve their most complex information management challenges," a Veritas spokesperson said.

Brian Casey, general manager and COO at Lexington, Mass.-based Daymark Solutions, said he sits on Veritas Partner Advisory Council and has known Kramer for three or four years. He said Kramer is rock solid, listens to partners, and is very engaging when it comes to the channel.

"He brings a great blend of energy, experience and willingness to listen and take action. Rick has always been very approachable, and genuinely interested in feedback. He holds himself and you accountable for making relationships mutually beneficial," Casey said.

In an email to CRN, Kramer said he decided to join Tanium because of the "vision of the company" and the "market opportunity."

"Taniums platform is unlike any other Ive seen: it has the ability to solve very large customer problems by allowing them to control and become proactive  rather than reactive  to their risk. In my evaluation of the market there are few, if any, companies that have such a promising future," Kramer said.

Kramer said his strategic goals for the company include helping it stay focused on its investments as it looks to hit high-growth goals, as well as further integrating the company's sales and channel teams. Sources said Tanium executives said on an internal conference call about Kramer's appointment that the company intends to pursue a 50-50 channel and direct model.

"Today, Tanium's balance leans a bit more heavily towards direct business, which isn't uncommon for a company of its size. As we continue to scale, the indirect part of the business will increase. Still, overall percentages are not as important as making the right investments with two-way accountability," Kramer said.

Kramer said he would also plan to "prioritize" the firm's focus on moving beyond its high-end enterprise customer base with goals to grow in different segments of the market. He said "partners play a key role in this segmentation plan." He said Tanium also offers partners the opportunity to be "top of mind to their customers" and "solve large and difficult problems" in security.

"We will be transparent on our directions, investments, and plans, and ask for them to participate in these discussions. Tanium is poised to be the next great enterprise software company and we welcome everyone who wants to join us for this journey," Kramer said.

Kramer said he plans to focus Tanium's partner program around rewarding commitment and long-term investments with the company.

"We want partners that recognize the opportunity, invest appropriately, and solve big customer security and operations problems. We will be very targeted in rewarding around these principles," Kramer said.
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A cocktail bar where drinks will be prepared with dry ice and fire is opening in Croydon town centre and the venue will open from early morning as well serving breakfast and traditional English dishes.

Memory Box is opening in the former home of Caffe del Ponte on the High Street, next to Club 88 Degrees.

The new bar is being designed to have a retro theme with images of Snow White and Jessica Rabbit hand drawn on the walls and is launching on Friday, April 7, at 6pm with a team of cocktail mixologists creating cocktails with real fruit.

Co-owner Louise Sainsbury has experience of running a successful venue in the borough and wants to restore Croydon's late night economy.

Miss Sainsbury said: "Croydon used to be a destination for people to head to after work and when I ran Tiger Tiger there was a massive corporate business with office workers looking for somewhere to go between 5pm and 11pm.

"Since Tiger Tiger closed there hasn't been a stand out bar in this area of Croydon for people to go straight after work. We have Boxpark and Playground, in South Croydon, but there has been a gap in the centre of town.

"We've found that people tend to go straight into central London or to places like Clapham or Wimbledon at the end of their working day, rather than go out in Croydon.

"Sadly the town's nightlife has been impacted and we are trying to do something about that because I know there is a desire from people still wanting to go out here."

Opening hours will be from 7am when breakfasts will be served, including full English breakfast, cereals, porridge and pop tarts.

Throughout the day milkshakes made from ice cream and sweet treats of your choice such as types of chocolate will be on the menu, as well as platters of food and British dishes including fish and chips, pie and mash, sausage and mash and bread and butter pudding.

The bar, which will have a 200-capacity, will offer 2 - 4 -1 drinks between 3pm and 9pm daily. It will close at 2am.

Miss Sainsbury added: "We want it to be an experience when people come to the bar so our cocktail mixologists will be flairing [performing tricks] and there will be dry ice and fire involved.

"We are still working on the final list of cocktails but one we have lined up is going to be called the Snow White and it will be served in an apple.

"We are going for a very retro theme. An artist is hand drawing characters like Snow White and Jessica Rabbit on the walls inside.

"As the name of our new bar suggests we want to be a place where people go to make memories. People who come here for special occasions, such as birthdays or hen parties, will actually get a box at the end of their night filled with photos and corks.

"The team who ran Caffe del Ponte did a brilliant job and built up a great relationship with regular customers, who they are popular with, so they will continue to run the new bar during the day when we are focused on selling food."
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Desperate for any chance to try to redeem his indelibly tarnished reputation, Tony Blair jumped at the opportunity of Martin McGuinnesss death to remind people of his own role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

This is perhaps understandable. Mr Blair cannot remove the catastrophe of the Iraq War, with all its terrible consequences  the deaths of 179 British service men and women as well as continuing toxic instability across the Middle East  from his legacy as prime minister.

Likewise, his sordid dealings with a long list of international dictators since leaving Downing Street irrevocably stain his record.

'Desperate for any chance to try to redeem his indelibly tarnished reputation, Tony Blair jumped at the opportunity of Martin McGuinnesss death to remind people of his own role in the Northern Ireland peace process'

The public are nauseated, too, by his obscene obsession with making huge sums of money.

However, it is undeniably the case that Northern Ireland is a much happier and safer place now than it was 25 years ago  and we can all agree that Mr Blair played a leading role in the peace process culminating in the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998.

But for his supporters to claim that his achievements are worthy of a global accolade is a travesty of the truth.

The fact is Mr Blair merely completed a process that involved many other politicians. I was particularly disturbed by the way his former henchman, Jonathan Powell, went on BBC2s Newsnight to eulogise over his bosss role, after the death of the one-time IRA commander-in-chief McGuinness.

His account was accurate so far as it went, but suffered from one very serious omission. He completely failed to mention the role of Sir John Major  Mr Blairs Tory predecessor as prime minister  who negotiated the first ceasefire with the IRA.

In the early Nineties, McGuinness and his fellow IRA godfathers knew they were losing the war against the British and that their bloody armed struggle was going nowhere.

Cynically, they put out feelers to the London government for a negotiated peace. After the dreadful carnage and killings they had inflicted over the years, it took huge moral courage for Major to begin talks with them.

Indeed, I would argue it was far more difficult for Major in 1994, than it was for Blair three years later, to negotiate with McGuinness and the IRA.

Never forget that IRA terrorists tried to kill Major with a mortar attack on Downing Street in 1991 during a Cabinet meeting.

Irish terrorists very nearly murdered his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, with the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1984, which killed five people and left Norman Tebbits wife Margaret paralysed for life.

'In the early Nineties, McGuinness (pictured centre) and his fellow IRA godfathers knew they were losing the war against the British and that their bloody armed struggle was going nowhere. Cynically, they put out feelers to the London government for a negotiated peace'

Nor should it be forgotten that Majors political position was extremely precarious when he entered into negotiations with the IRA. He had only a small Commons majority and relied on Ulster Unionist MPs  who had a visceral hatred of the Irish Republicans to keep his government afloat. But Major was ready to anger these parliamentary allies by supping with people they equated with the devil, and thus put his own political survival at risk.

Significantly, former cabinet secretary Lord Butler has said Major took greater risks to secure peace in Northern Ireland than Blair  adding that his record has been unfairly overlooked.

The mandarin praised the Tory PM for facing down Cabinet sceptics worried about the secret talks Major initiated with Sinn Fein.

Lord Butler said: One has got to remember that in terms of the politics, John Major took the bigger risk because there were more people in his party who were, because of their link to the unionists, and because they felt that youd never get anywhere with these people [republicans], very willing to criticise it if it went wrong. Mr Major courageously laid the basis for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement by securing the 1993 Downing Street Declaration with his Irish counterpart, Albert Reynolds. It enshrined the principle of consent  seen as the foundation of the peace process  which stipulated that Northern Irelands future could only be decided by its people.

'Admittedly, Mr Blair deserves credit, too. But he merely continued his predecessors engagement with McGuinness and Gerry Adams. Indeed, I am convinced that  while there are many grave negatives on his record as PM bringing peace to Northern Ireland was Mr Blairs greatest achievement in No. 10'

Admittedly, Mr Blair deserves credit, too. But he merely continued his predecessors engagement with McGuinness and Gerry Adams. Indeed, I am convinced that  while there are many grave negatives on his record as PM bringing peace to Northern Ireland was Mr Blairs greatest achievement in No. 10.

Yet, this week, he and his acolytes  with characteristic dishonesty  failed to properly acknowledge the groundwork done by Majors government. This is not just ungracious, it is also a distortion of the historical record. This emphasis on the endgame and the sidelining of the work that had gone on before, has, most egregiously, also led Blairites to misunderstand the true nature of Martin McGuinness.

The truth about McGuinness is much darker than Blair seems prepared to accept. He was a sadist and a mass murderer, responsible for the destruction of countless lives, including children. He used violence to achieve his political ends and he had no scruples about how he set about it.

In fact, many other brave and honourable Catholic politicians were just as committed to the cause of Irish nationalism as McGuinness and his IRA killers, but never turned away from the path of peace.

'The truth about McGuinness (pictured centre) is much darker than Blair seems prepared to accept. He was a sadist and a mass murderer, responsible for the destruction of countless lives, including children. He used violence to achieve his political ends and he had no scruples about how he set about it'

Consider John Hume, the then leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. He proudly eschewed violence. Mr Hume and his Ulster Unionist counterpart, David Trimble, are the heroes of the Ulster peace process. Along with the British Army, the Intelligence Services and countless ordinary Irishmen from all sides of the sectarian divide who refused to join the armed struggle.

It is telling to compare the reactions of Tony Blair and Sir John Major to the news of McGuinnesss death. Blair dashed on to the airwaves to hail the IRA thug and murderer as a great peacemaker.

Major spoke more soberly, and was careful to highlight the atrocities for which McGuinness never once apologised  adding: He had a lot of blood on his hands.

Blairs glorification of McGuinness was not just deeply offensive to the thousands who were killed or maimed by IRA thugs but sent out the very terrifying message that terrorists can bomb and murder their way to power.

Modern-day Brutus ruining Labour

'Serial traitor Tom Watson is at it again. It is more than a decade since the current Deputy Labour Leader masterminded a plot to try to oust Tony Blair as Prime Minister and replace him with Gordon Brown'

Serial traitor Tom Watson is at it again. It is more than a decade since the current Deputy Labour Leader masterminded a plot to try to oust Tony Blair as Prime Minister and replace him with Gordon Brown.

Watson, who was defence minister at the time, orchestrated a letter signed by Labour colleagues calling for Blair to quit, saying that his premiership was not in the interest of either the party or the country. He failed, in the short term. Now Labours modern-day Brutus is wielding his knife again  this time towards his boss, Jeremy Corbyn.

Shamelessly, Watson appears to feel no allegiance to the Labour Leader, even though Corbyn has been elected twice with massive majorities.

By rights, Corbyn should sack his duplicitous deputy but that is against party rules. Instead, he should make life difficult for him by encouraging his supporters to put up a challenger to topple Watson. In the meantime, Watsons childish antics make the Labour party ungovernable.

Sir Patrick's silence is a mistake

The reaction of Tory chairman Patrick McLoughlin to the Electoral Commissions record fine on the Conservatives for breaking election spending rules has been disgraceful.

By remaining silent on the issue and ignoring valid criticism, he clearly thinks the controversy will blow over. This is a big mistake. McLoughlins failure to react properly sends a message that the Government has something to hide. It also risks damaging Theresa May. For although the election expenses scandal occurred under David Camerons leadership, it will erode her hard-won reputation for probity if the Tories now fail to clean it up.
Of all the images from Wednesday, the day an Islamist terrorist brought tragedy to Westminster, the most poignant for me was of a blonde woman cradling the head of a bloodied man mowed down on the bridge.

Smartly suited, she had her head bowed over the man as he lay in the road. Who knows what she said to him or what drove her to this act of compassion when her own life may have been in danger?

Perhaps I feel more strongly about this than most. Because a selfless stranger once came to my rescue when I was lying stricken in the road. I was 17 and we were on our way home from a party when a drunk driver smashed head-on into our car.

We live in a world where selflessness is often seen as a rare commodity. But the response to Wednesdays attack showed it in abundance as passers-by rushed to help

My brother Michael, who was driving, dragged me from the back seat and laid me at the roadside.

He later told me I was unconscious. Yet I felt my head being cradled in the lap of a woman. She had come from her home nearby in her dressing gown to comfort me.

I remember she stroked my hair, repeatedly asked me to squeeze her hand to show I still had cognitive function and said everything would be all right. I am a nurse, she said. Trust me. And I did.

We should applaud the courage of Good Samaritans for they can suffer terrible trauma, too. And I have a heartfelt message for them

I had sustained what these days they call catastrophic internal injuries  for a while I was not expected to live. But despite being apparently unconscious, I had heard her words and felt her comfort me, and it gave me strength.

I spent weeks in hospital and throughout I remembered this strangers kindness.

We live in a world where selflessness is often seen as a rare commodity. But the response to Wednesdays attack showed it in abundance as passers-by rushed to help.

It was on display, too, when Fusilier Lee Rigby was butchered near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich in 2013  two women went to comfort him and another remonstrated with his murderers.

The trio became known as the Angels of Woolwich and all three put their lives in danger.

We should applaud the courage of Good Samaritans for they can suffer terrible trauma, too. And I have a heartfelt message for them.

That whether the person they comforted was conscious or not or lived or died, they should rest assured that their kindly face, soothing words and comforting hand will have done more good than they could ever have imagined  and, in the midst of evil and tragedy, it restores our faith in humanity.

Gwyneth Paltrow refuses to eat octopuses saying theyre too smart to be food

No Brainer Gwynnie

Gwyneth Paltrow refuses to eat octopuses saying theyre too smart to be food. She claims octopuses have more neurons in their brains than we do.

Experts says thats rubbish  but in Gwynnies case, it may just be true.

BBC's chorus of complaints

More than 70 MPs complained about BBC bias as Countryfile viewers threatened a boycott over its anti-Brexit agenda.

Look at Songs Of Praise, though. Its theme has been the lack of affordable housing  caused, youve guessed it, by the beastly Tory government.

This follows a preposterous episode at a makeshift church in the Calais Jungle with precisely no hymns.

Oh, for the days when we just tuned in to watch them belt out Jerusalem!

The wife of the former financial adviser of the Rolling Stones reveals Jerry Hall got Jagger off drugs.

She convinced the absurdly vain rocker theyd ruin his looks. Given he has more wrinkles than an elephants behind, imagine what hed look like if hed ignored her.

Kates latest foray into the ordeals of motherhood strikes a discordant note

Don't make it all about you, Kate

Her hearts in the right place, championing charities dealing with maternal mental health, but Kates latest foray into the ordeals of motherhood strikes a discordant note.

The Duchess of Cambridge  right, with daughter Charlotte  said she found the pressure to be a perfect parent overwhelming.

Asking for help should not be seen as a sign of weakness, she added.

As I said, she means well. But given she has nannies and staff on tap, dont you think that Kate should have kept quiet about her own struggles  and concentrated on those of others?

Hes believed to have amassed 20 million during his career, yet Terry Wogan left just 1 million in his will.

Its thought he passed on substantial amounts to his children before his death from cancer. And who can blame him?

Terry worked non-stop all his life, cheered up the nation for decades and paid all his taxes. So why should he be taxed again on his death?

Angelina Jolie has had to sack her brother, James Haven.

He was head nanny to the six nannies she employs for her six children.

He was virtually running the household and it became very draining, a friend said. It was his job to be there if any of the kids woke up during the night and deal with the nannies.

Perhaps if she spent less time trying to destroy the reputation of husband Brad Pitt and stopped parading as a humanitarian, Angelina wouldnt need seven people to care for her children.

I have sent flowers to my mother with the message I always write on Mothers Day: Thank you to the most wonderful mum in the world, your adoring daughter, Mandy xxx.

In the advanced stages of Alzheimers, Mum wont be able to read the card or know who Mandy is  which is a timely reminder for all of us to cherish our mothers while we can.

Westminster wars

Much fawning over Theresa Mays choice of the humble High Street LK Bennett frock and matching coat draped over her shoulders in her Annie Leibovitz shoot for U.S. Vogue.

It turns out she was shrobing, which is fashionistas talk for shoulder robing.

The only other woman in the country who shrobes is the Queen when she wears her ermine Robe of State at the Opening Of Parliament. Illusions of grandeur, Mrs May?

Meanwhile, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd is quizzed by fashion magazine Glamour about her politics and the PMs 1,000 leather Amanda Wakeley trousers.

I dont think women should ever comment on each others clothes. Women should support each other by not commenting.

Indeed, given Ms Rudd always looks as if shes dressed from an Oxfam shop, the less said the better.

Having disappeared from the world of politics, the former Shadow Chancellor and Strictly Come Dancing star Ed Balls appeared last night on Red Nose Day dancing Gangnam Style.

What next: a starring role in Moneysupermarkets revolting TV ads  in stilettos and hotpants?

Cringing at Kidman?

TV used to be the dustbin of actors careers. No longer.

The new Sky Atlantic hit series Big Little Lies  starring a breast-baring Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern  launched with double the audience figures for Game Of Thrones.

Slightly disturbingly, one of the storylines involves Kidman, her husband and a physically abusive relationship.

On the surface, theyre the most loved-up couple, but in private, they get their erotic kicks by slapping each other around and indulging in very explicit Skype sex while hes away.

Watching it, I have to admit I had my Eyes Wide Shut  to coin the title of the film in which we also saw Nicole in the altogether.
The pain was getting worse. The tips of my son Deryns fingers were hard and black from a superbug infection. His nails were peeling away and any remaining live flesh was covered in weeping sores.

Every day, he begged me: Please tell them to cut my hand off, Mum. I cant take this any more.

Deryn was nauseous and, worse, had become addicted to his anti-sickness drugs. He was allowed a dose every seven to eight hours but within an hour of being given some, he would press the buzzer to call the nurses back in.

One in 7 Billion: Deryn Blackwell begins his hospital ordeal aged 10

When can I have my cyclizine? he would ask. Its the only thing that helps with the pain. It makes me feel safe. It doesnt hurt for a little while, just long enough to forget about it. Then it all comes back again.

If he was told to wait, Deryn would get angry and aggressive, like someone hooked on heroin. I had known drug addicts and, just weeks short of his 14th birthday, my son was ticking all the same boxes.

We couldnt sit by and watch him spend his last days in a morphine fog. Enough was enough. So I went into the city and purchased a vaporiser pen  specialist equipment for inhaling an illegal drug

Deryn had suffered enough. In 2010, when he was just ten years old, he had been diagnosed with leukaemia.

Eighteen months later, he was told he had a secondary cancer, the extremely rare Langerhans cell sarcoma. Only 50 cases have ever been recorded and only five people in the world currently have it. But no one had ever been found to have the two cancers combined, making Deryn unique. One boy in seven billion people.

By 2013, after nearly four years of hospital treatment, it seemed that the only thing left for him were opiate drugs to ease the pain as he reached the end of his life.

Like any mother would be, I was desperate to find something to alleviate his suffering.

I spent hour after hour researching on the internet, and thats where I came across reports of a substance called Bedrocan, a cannabis-based painkiller that wasnt available in the UK. Surely Bedrocan had to be a better option than mind-numbing morphine?

But the doctor told me that while it was effective, it had not been tested on children and she couldnt prescribe it.

And so we took a decision that will horrify many parents reading this  and horrified me, too.

After all, Id never seen anything positive come of smoking cannabis, and in my days working in nightclubs, illegal drugs had been my enemy. But if it could help my darling boy escape his daily torment, I was willing to try it.

Now we had to find some cannabis and then work out how to make the liquid that could ease Deryns pain.

Simon, my husband, arranged to meet someone at a nearby service station to collect some. The whole experience was frightening.

Cannabis was a class B drug, which carried a sentence of up to five years imprisonment for possession, and up to 14 years for supplying to another person.

We had seen news reports on TV about parents who had had their children taken away from them after trying alternatives such as cannabis. I hadnt forgotten one doctors words to me about my child being made a ward of court if we went against traditional treatment methods.

If either of us were to get into trouble over this, Simon wanted it to be him. And he took responsibility for the operation. He wasnt going to allow anyone to take me away from the children just for alleviating Deryns suffering.

Deryn smiles with his mother Callie and father Simon in 2013

Back at the hospital, meanwhile, our sons latest bone marrow transplant had failed. Staff were giving up on him. It seemed Deryns death was a done deal and now all we could do was wait until he drew his final breath. If there was no improvement in two weeks, he would be placed in palliative care.

If ever I needed a sign to get a grip on myself, this was it. I had to remain positive, no matter what the doctors were telling me.

After further research, I discovered we needed to buy a rice cooker and vegetable glycerine to make the tincture suitable for the vaporiser pen. The house stank to the heavens as Simon experimented with the infusion.

Deryn, of course, was excited to be trying it with the blessing of his mum and dad, but I felt anxious at the prospect of my sons underage and illegal drug use, especially as we were in hospital.

After drawing the curtains so that no one could see through the window, Simon handed the filled pen over to Deryn. We felt like naughty schoolkids who were having a sneaky cigarette around the back of the bike sheds.

Deryn sucked on the pen, breathed in and blew out a massive cloud of vapour  and we frantically waved our hands around trying to disperse it, although there wasnt the smell of cannabis. It smelt more like popcorn. After ten minutes, Deryn said that the pain had decreased a little and he felt more relaxed  the words we had been longing to hear.

He took the honey-like liquid - and the pain stopped

Alas, his condition continued to worsen. By December 2013, Deryn had moved out of hospital and into a hospice, where he planned his own funeral. His bravery attracted national attention and some of his favourite celebrities, including Paul Hollywood, Pauline Quirk and Linda Robson came to meet him.

Deryn was actually looking forward to dying and considered it his next adventure. But one night, he woke up in the early hours of the morning, sobbing. After staying so strong for so long, he was begging for me to end it all.

I dont want any more morphine, Mum. It makes me feel like Im not here, he cried.

I was sitting next to him, a nightly vigil, and held his hand. Once again, the situation seemed quite desperate. What would happen, I wondered, if I gave Deryn a small amount of golden cannabis tincture directly in his mouth? The vaporiser had brought him some relief but could a higher dose have better results?

I took a small, empty syringe from the medicine cupboard in the hospice and quickly checked that there was no one outside. It was New Years Eve so staff levels were minimal. I drew up 5ml of the honey-like substance, which had a sweet, floral flavour.

Still sobbing uncontrollably, Deryn opened his mouth and I popped the syringe underneath his tongue. Deryn held it for a minute before swallowing. Half an hour passed. He was no longer having a panic attack. He looked peaceful. I asked him how he was feeling.

I feel relaxed, he told me. Im aware of everything. I just feel at peace, Mum. Its beautiful.

Moments later, the nurse came back in with his dose of cyclizine, the powerful anti-sickness drug to which Deryn had grown addicted.

I panicked. There was no way he would turn that drug away and I was worried about the effect the cannabis tincture could have on it. Then I heard Deryn tell the nurse he didnt want it. She was flabbergasted. Everyone knew how much he relied on it to help him.

Amazing... but this could be a one-off By Dr Ellie Cannon, MoS Resident GP It is baffling to hear about Deryns story. Any parent in Callies situation would have felt the desperation she felt and compulsion to help her son who was suffering so badly. Families do turn to alternative therapies, internet-based solutions and even outlandish claims that could help their child become pain-free and survive. At the end of life particularly, it is understandable to feel that conventional medicine may have failed and look elsewhere. This truly sounds like a miracle story: remission of cancer spontaneously is not a common occurrence. But I would be cautious for anyone to conclude that cannabis cured Deryns cancer or his infection. This is a true anecdote, and, admittedly, an astounding one, that happened involving one patient and therefore does not prove anything scientifically. Until the results are repeated in numerous patients, it could simply be the case that the use of cannabis coincided with the natural progression of his disease. I would warn others against trying anything similar. Advertisement

I dont feel like I need it any more, thanks, he said, before rolling over and going to sleep.

Over the coming days, my priority was allowing him to die with his faculties intact, so whenever Deryn felt a twinge somewhere, I would put another 5ml of the tincture underneath his tongue and, within a few minutes, he felt good again.

Deryns mouth, fingers, stomach, gums, tongue, hips, knees, legs and back had been constantly painful for as long as I could remember, so this was nothing short of fantastic.

One evening, I heard Deryn yell: Mum  look! The bandage on his middle finger had worked its way loose and completely come off, showing his third finger  which had been blackened and dead  had now healed. How on earth had a child with no immune system and no way of fighting infection managed to heal himself after being off medication for more than three weeks?

I called Deryns team to tell them what had happened. Not one of them could give me any answers.

We knew his bone marrow wasnt functioning and it was not scientifically possible for his wounds to heal. Deryn had spent months in isolation because a common cold could be fatal  yet, somehow, he had overcome three catastrophic infections.

Hundreds of people had been praying for Deryn, blessing him in their own ways. Was this a miracle?

Later that evening, the hospice doctor arrived. Were no longer sure Deryn is dying, she admitted.

The doctors were not sure whether or not the hospice was now the best place for us.

When wed arrived four weeks earlier, hed been given three days to live. Now here he was a month later, in far better health than when hed left his hospital room. They had no idea how this was possible.

Then it dawned on me. Only one thing had changed since Deryn started to recover: the cannabis tincture. I couldnt tell the doctors what wed done.

I was sure the authorities wouldnt see it the same way as we did but if there was even a minuscule chance that the cannabis tincture was responsible for my son still being alive, I wasnt willing to risk stopping it.

Deryn, centre right, with his parents and brother Dylan in 2013

I wanted to tell the world, share it with everyone, including the doctors so that they could help others, but I knew it was too dangerous to breathe a word to anyone in a position of authority.

Yet there was a direct correlation between Deryn having the cannabis tincture and his improved blood counts. Whenever he didnt have it, they dropped. It was enough hard evidence to suggest that cannabis tincture was playing a vital role in his recovery. I hadnt imagined in my wildest dreams that it could have saved Deryns life.

Since then, Deryn has gone from strength to strength. His unique story has led to me being contacted every week by parents who are desperate for a miracle similar to the one we were granted.

I have trusted many of them with the truth and pointed people towards the same path we took. Deryn went back to school in Norfolk where he thrived among his friends and peer group and, following just nine months of schooling in the space of four years, he left in June 2016 with seven GCSEs.

Now 17, his weight is no longer a problem and he has decided to pursue a career as a vegan chef.

That irony is not lost on us, but maybe years of eating bland hospital food gave him a passion for more flavoursome and exotic dishes. Hes good at creating them too.

As each day passes, the prospect of cancer returning decreases.

Ill probably never be totally free of that fear, and if he so much as coughs my hair stands up on end.

I am reminded of my miracle boy every time I look at Deryn and I know deep in my heart that whatever the future may throw at us, we can cope.

We always do.

 Callie Blackwell, 2017

Extracted from The Boy In 7 Billion, by Callie Blackwell with Karen Hockney. It is published on April 6 by Mirror Books, priced 12.99. Offer price 9.74 (25 per cent discount) until April 2. Pre-order at www.mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640  p&p is free on orders over 15.
Marissa Hermer (pictured) is the star of reality television series Ladies of London

A rush of love a sense of completeness that is almost indescribable. Words so often used by mothers to sum up the moment their newborn is handed to them. But when Marissa Hermer gave birth to her longed-for third child last year, these feelings were overwhelmed by a crippling fear that this precious gift would be snatched away.

The 35-year-old star of reality television series Ladies of London says: 'While I had that overwhelming love, I didn't want to let myself connect with her. I thought at any moment I could lose her.'

The pregnancy had been fraught with difficulty. Marissa developed a rare, life-threatening complication in which the placenta, which normally attaches to the inside surface of womb, can instead grow through the uterus wall into the surrounding organs and muscles of the abdomen.

Women suffering the condition are at high risk of catastrophic bleeding during labour, and almost two-thirds must have a hysterectomy after the birth, as was the case for Marissa.

Because of the inevitable blood loss, delivery of such babies is always a complicated process and fortunately for Marissa, renowned war surgeon David Nott, who has operated in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, was on hand throughout the operation.

Her daughter Sadie was delivered two months early by caesarean section, under general anaesthetic.

Marissa then suffered life-threatening bleeding and had to undergo further surgery. It was not until five days after the birth that she even saw her baby.

Following a stint in intensive care, and two weeks at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Marissa admits she felt 'grateful' to be alive.

And yet, there was still not a shred of the kind of happiness promised in all the baby books.

'All new mothers are tired, but this was different,' says Marissa, who is also a food writer and is married to British restaurateur Matt Hermer, former owner of Boujis, the London club that was once a favourite of Princes Harry and William.

She adds: 'Initially I was so grateful to have got through it all, but then it hit me. I was lethargic. I wasn't excited about anything, I was numb. I cried a lot. I even wrote letters to my family in case I didn't get through it.

'I think it might be something a lot of women with difficult pregnancies do: you stop yourself connecting with your child because you've been told this whole time that you might lose the baby. I didn't want to fall in love with her because I was scared of losing her.

'I had survived the operation and Sadie had survived, but I was still crying and crying. I was constantly afraid she was going to be taken from me. I just didn't have that joy I should have as a new mother.'

Marissa is married to British restaurateur Matt Hermer (pictured with their baby daughter, Sadie)

Sadie is Marissa and Matt's third child and her previous pregnancies  with sons Max, five, and Jake, three  had been comparatively uneventful.

Abnormal placental growth occurs in about two in every 10,000 pregnancies. However, it is 50 times more likely if a mother has had a previous caesarean section  which Marissa had with Max  or has had other more common problems with the placenta.

Marissa's condition was placenta increta, which occurs when the placenta attaches so deep into the uterine wall that it penetrates the uterine muscle.

She recalls: 'At about nine weeks, my obstetrician saw something that concerned him. He sent me to two different experts to get further clarification. They mistakenly said it was not placenta increta.'

She says: 'They got it wrong  and thank goodness they did, as women who have this condition are often recommended to terminate their pregnancy.'

Throughout the pregnancy, Marissa was ordered to take bed rest. She reveals: 'I had suffered three miscarriages after Max and Jake, and there was a lot of bleeding on and off with Sadie.

'I was told not to be further than 20 minutes from the hospital.'

At 23 weeks, Marissa and Matt were told they were to have a daughter. 'But in the same breath, we were also told that I did indeed have placenta increta,' Marissa says. 'I was put under house arrest again and told that if I started bleeding, I would need to get straight to hospital.

'It was a very emotional and difficult time. I felt very isolated, not being able to be active and play with my sons. We would have lots of breakfasts in bed, and we'd read books in bed and have family time from my bed rest, but it's not the same.

'Matt and I didn't truly realise how horrible and anxious my pregnancy had been for both of us until we came out on the other side. I remember how each time I went to the bathroom, I was thinking I might have a life-threatening bleed.'

For the remainder of her pregnancy, Marissa had twice-weekly scans to monitor the growth of the placenta. A natural birth for women with the condition is almost impossible, so doctors decided that Marissa would have her baby at 32 weeks.

HEALTH COMMENT: CAESAREANS CAN INCREASE RISK OF RARE CONDITION By Clive Spence-Jones, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Marissa s story is moving, but unfortunately not unheard of. Abnormal placenta growth can be extremely difficult surgically, so mothers and their families who have been through this need a longer time to recover physically and emotionally, and with skilled support. The placenta normally attaches to the inside of the uterus and separates after delivery of the baby, but in rare cases it can invade into the wall or through the wall or the uterus. This most commonly happens if there is an area of the uterus that has had previous surgery, such as in Marissas case where she had undergone two caesarean sections. The most important aspect of care, as with Marissa, is to involve a multi-disciplinary team in a specialist centre. Almost all placenta abnormalities are picked up at the 20-week scan. However, it is not normal to experience bleeding during the second or third trimester, so should a patient experience this, it needs to be discussed with a doctor and investigated. The good news is that while Marissa had a hysterectomy, obstetricians have begun to develop new approaches to the surgery, which may avoid this for future patients. Advertisement

She says: 'It was early but it was a balancing act of trying to let the baby stay in the womb for as long as possible, but not letting the placenta grow too far into the abdomen.

'They said [that the date proposed] would give us both the best possible chance.'

Surgery took five hours and involved a full hysterectomy and other internal-organ reconstruction after the baby was born.

The next day, while Marissa was in ICU, she began to haemorrhage and was wheeled back to theatre for a further two-hour operation to stop the bleeding.

She recalls: 'In the first few days after Sadie was born, there was only pain, so there was no longing for her. I was on morphine, which knocks you out.

'I had a fleeting moment when I came out of the morphine fog when I thought 'I want my baby', but that was immediately drowned out by the pain.'

Luckily, surgery was a success and after five days, Marissa was finally able to hold her baby girl.

She says: 'I had that maternal experience but the hard thing was that I couldn't be with her. It's very difficult to have to hold your baby and then give her back to a nurse.'

After two weeks in hospital, mother and baby were allowed home. But Marissa was still struggling to get that final piece of the new mother puzzle to fit.

'I ended up having to go through it all while filming for TV, which was surreal,' she says. 'I already knew I was in a risk group because post-natal depression is more common in mothers who have a traumatic pregnancy and birth like I did, and it's also more common if you are working a lot, which I was  on deadline for my cookbook and filming Ladies Of London.'

Marissa, who is American by birth, was helped by a much-needed break in California. 'That enabled me to take my foot off the pedal and I was finally able to nest with Sadie. I was able to get out of that dark hole  without taking any medication.'

Marissa and Matt are still in the US while she continues to recuperate. She says: 'We are lucky that we have had the same maternity nurse for all our three children, so we had hands-on help throughout.

'There's no one experience of post-natal depression that is right or wrong  it can come in many forms, and it's important to acknowledge. While I had the instant love for Sadie, I did struggle to get that connection, and it took time.'

Almost a year after the trauma of Sadie's birth, she is finally beginning to feel some joy in motherhood again.

'Sadie is absolutely thriving. She's so chubby and chunky and is passing all her milestones. It's so comforting that she so big and healthy.

'Now, I've recovered physically and emotionally and just happy to be alive with a happy baby girl.'
THE MAIN EVENT

THE MUSICAL An American In Paris

Ravishing sets, sparkling costumes and a captivating dancing cast. Who could ask for anything more? Until Sep 30, Dominion Theatre, London

The play The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia

Damian Lewis is the man who  to the dismay of his wife (Sophie Okonedo)  embarks on an extraordinary affair in Edward Albees darkly comic play. Until Jun 24, Theatre Royal Haymarket, London

The TV show Line of Duty

The BBCs addictive police corruption drama is back. Thandie Newton joins series regulars Vicky McClure and Martin Compston as a DI searching for a serial killer. Tonight, BBC1, 9pm

The exhibition America After All

Grant Woods iconic painting, American Gothic (above) from 1930 is the highlight of the Royal Academys terrific show. Until Jun 4

The film Get Out

Jordan Peele lampoons racist liberal America in this cross between Guess Whos Coming To Dinner and Scary Movie, which stars Daniel Kaluuya (pictured) as the boyfriend meeting his white girlfriends family for the first time. Out now

The CD Take That

Wonderland, the second album by the remaining trio, is a mix of Coldplaystyle anthems, 80s funk and throbbing dance rock. Out now

The comedy gig Russell Howard
Mstislav Rostropovich

Complete Recordings On Deutsche Grammophon 38 CDs, out now

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Cellist Of The Century - The Complete Warner Recordings 40 CDs plus three DVDs, out now

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These two boxes commemorate the tenth anniversary next month of Rostropovichs death, and what would have been his 90th birthday tomorrow.

Just as the Spanish cellist Pablo Casals dominated the first half of the 20th century, Rostropovich dominated the second.

And, like Casals, Rostropovich did it as much by the force of his personality, and his courage in non-musical matters, as he did by his virtuosity as a cellist.

Mstislav Rostropovich - who would have been 90 tomorrow - was much more than a cellist; he was also an exceptional pianist and a heart-on-sleeve conductor

Rostropovich was more than a cellist; he was also an exceptional pianist and a heart-on-sleeve conductor.

Deutsche Grammophons Complete Recordings box has 38 CDS in all, a dozen featuring him on the podium, including two operas, Tosca and Eugene Onegin, both starring his wife Galina Vishnevskaya.

Casals spoke out against the Franco dictatorship in Spain and Rostropovich publicly supported the persecuted writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Casals never returned to Spain after the civil war. Rostropovich was finally allowed to leave the Soviet Union in 1974 but was stripped of his citizenship.

The DG box also contains most of the popular concertos for cello, plus some chamber music drawn from the Philips catalogue, including a fine set of the Beethoven Cello Sonatas from 1961 with Sviatoslav Richter.

Then theres the finest-ever recording of Dvoraks Cello Concerto, with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. At about 70 for 38 CDs, this is a fine bargain.

The remastered Warners 40-CD plus three-DVD box, Cellist Of The Century  The Complete Warner Recordings, comes with a 200-page book and costs about 130.

Theres much to admire, including two performances of the Dvorak Cello Concerto (with Adrian Boult and Carlo Maria Giulini), plus two of the most famous concerto recordings ever made: the Beethoven Triple with the pianist Richter and violinist David Oistrakh, also conducted by Karajan, and the Brahms Double with Oistrakh and the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell.

Rostropovich was a great inspiration to contemporary Soviet composers, such as the giants Shostakovich and Prokofiev, but also to lesser lights like Knipper, Weinberg and Schnittke. This more obscure music lowers the appeal of this set to the general listener. The modern composer who was most inspired by Rostropovich was Benjamin Britten.

The DG box contains recordings of all the music Britten composed for Rostropovich, plus recordings of others with Britten as conductor or pianist. If forced to choose, this is the box to have.

ALBUMS OF THE WEEK

Vanessa Benelli Mosell

Rachmaninovs Piano Concerto No 2 Decca, Out Now

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London Philharmonic Orchestra

Rachmaninovs Piano Concerto No 3 Hyperion, Out Now

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The pouting sex-kitten pic of Italian pianist Vanessa Benelli Mosell on the cover of her new Decca album of Rachmaninovs Piano Concerto No 2 turns out to be the best thing about it.

Her playing of Rach 2 is too ordinary to deserve perpetuation on CD. And the coupling  Rachmaninovs Corelli Variations  is short weight.

The pouting sex-kitten pic of Italian pianist Vanessa Benelli Mosell on the cover of her new Decca album of Rachmaninovs Piano Concerto No 2 turns out to be the best thing about it

The piano is also very closely balanced, as if you are sitting in the pianists lap, which makes for unsettling listening.

The London Philharmonic sound much better on Hyperions new recording of Rachmaninovs Piano Concerto No 3, with the Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin.

Though no slab of photogenic cheesecake, hes one of the finest Rachmaninov pianists around. His playing, if not his face, is hot stuff.
The motive of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots is set to take centre stage ahead of next month's Delhi civic polls and once again will haunt the Congress, some of whose leaders have been accused of instigating the riots.

The Supreme Court said it will re-examine 199 cases recently closed by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Narendra Modi government two years ago.

The riots in the capital, among India's bloodiest in modern times, followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

People from Sikh community and other communities hold a protest against 1984 anti-Sikh riots on its 31st anniversary and protesting against violence, at Jantar Mantar

An effigy of Congress leader Jagdish Tytler is burned by Sikhs who are protesting the clean slate he was given in 2015 after being accused of crimes during the 1984 riots

Sikh victims protest against the clean chit given by CBI to 1984 anti-Sikh riots accused Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in 2015

About 3,000 people died, 350 of them in a single block of east Delhi's Trilokpuri area.

The probe into these cases had reached a dead end as either there were no case files, or the victims and witnesses could not be traced.

The SIT was investigating a total of 293 cases and it has questioned Congress leader Sajjan Kumar at least three times over allegations that he instigated a mob in Janakpuri on November 1, 1984, which led to the killing of two Sikhs.

The case was closed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, citing lack of evidence.

While Congress maintains it had nothing to do with the closure of the cases as it was done by the probe team constituted by the Modi government, the BJP accuses successive Congress governments at the Centre and Delhi of colluding with several accused and destroying evidence.

Former Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru poses with his daughter Indira Gandhi in New Delhi in 1961. It was her 1984 assassination that sparked anti-Sikh riots in which more than 3,000 people died. Indians stood by while the businesses of Sikhs were destroyed (right)

A bench headed by justice Dipak Misra directed the home ministry to produce the files pertaining to the closed cases. The matter will be next heard on April 25.

The bench said: 'We intend to focus on these 199 cases in respect of which a decision has been taken by the SIT to close and not to launch any prosecution in these matters.

'We direct the Union of India to produce the files pertaining to these 199 cases within three weeks.'

This placard as the motorbike's licence plate reminds the public never to forget the massacres of 1984 during a rally seeking justice for the victims

The court was also unhappy as the SIT has filed charge sheets only in four of the 59 cases taken up for further probe.

Last month, in the latest status report the Ministry of Home Affairs said 38 of the cases taken up for fresh probe have been closed while 17 were still under probe.

On Friday, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi told the top court that four more cases have since been closed and now only 13 remain under probe.

Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards 31 October 1984 after the Indian army raided the Golden Temple, Sikhdom's holist shrine

The closure of a whopping 199 out of the total 293 cases has put question mark on the SIT's assurance that it is 'determined to render speedy justice to affected families'.

The Home Ministry affidavit reads: 'The Government has all the right intention to render justice to the victims of riots as early as possible.'

Indira Gandhi's son Rajiv, his wife Sonia, and their daughter Priyana watch the coffin of the slain Prime Minister during the cremation ceremony following her assassination

Explaining the 'inordinate delay' alleged by the petitioner and consequent weakening of the case, the ministry had earlier admitted lapse of 32-years was taking a toll on collection of relevant documents and case files from police stations and courts.

In many cases, documents were in Urdu or Gurmukhi and this was further delaying their scrutiny.

The ministry said: 'With the cases being very old, there has been difficulty in collating and scrutinising records.

Delhi High Court Chief Justice Dipak Misra is heading the bench at the Supreme Court in Delhi

'It is also ensured that the cases are properly examined before any decision is taken.'

In another affidavit filed recently, the ministry added: 'Notwithstanding the difficulties, the SIT has taken up the challenge and all efforts are being made to examine the cases minutely and due care is being taken to scrutinise the cases with a view to render speedy justice to affected families.'

The government said the home ministry was monitoring the progress in SIT probe into the cases every fortnight.

However, the report had said: 'It is being ensured that investigation is carried out expeditiously and thoroughly. No stone is will be left unturned to ensure a detailed and comprehensive probe.'

People from Sikh community and other communities hold a protest against 1984 anti-Sikh riots on its 31st anniversary and protesting against violence

The Centre had constituted a committee headed by GP Mathur on December 23, 2014 and the panel on January 22, 2015 had recommended setting up of an SIT.

On the basis of the recommendation, the government set up the Special Investigation Team on February 12, 2015 comprising Indian Police Service officer Pramod Asthana as its chairman.

Members of the SIT are ex-district judge Rakesh Kapoor and additional DCP Kumar Gyanesh.
Around 7.30 pm on March 17, the driver of the Andaman Express travelling from Chennai to Jammu spotted a boulder on the train tracks near Agra.

He slammed the emergency brakes on but unfortunately the locomotive's cattle guard was damaged after it crashed into the rock.

A senior official told the Mail Today: 'The driver got down and removed the stone from the tracks. Underneath, he found a piece of paper with a letter written in Hindi.

PM Narendra Modi during the road show for final phase of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh

'It was a threat to target Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Rajnath Singh.'

Authorities ordered a sweeping security review following the threat.

The incident has left agencies searching for the writer who identifies himself as Mohammad Mirza.

A police man collects samples from the railway tracks after a blast near Buxar railway station in February (file pic)

Officials say a similar threat was sent using the same name ina letter at Cantt station in Agra last year.

Mirza claims to be an ISI commandant and the mastermind behind several terror attacks in the country.

The GRP registered a case and is taking the help of several security agencies including the UP anti-terrorism squad (ATS) to investigate the case.

There have been a series of apparent attacks on trains lately which have plagued India's railways.

Over 150 people died on November 21 when the Indore-Patna Express flew off the tracks while just a month later, 50 people were injured when the Ajmer-Sealdah Express derailed.

Authorities are probing the possibility of sabotage in these and a clutch of other train crashes.

The Agra incident has worried officials because two low-intensity blasts were reported near the Cantt railway station within the same week as the boulder was found on the tracks.

The first explosion took place when municipality staff was collecting garbage from a dumping site.

An hour later, there was another blast in a locality near the station.

The National Investigation Agency officials investigate the tracks at Motihari, Bihar, following the placement of a bomb in a cooker in December (file pic)

No casualties or damage were reported but a forensic team found traces of explosives in the second incident.

A senior police officer said: 'Out of the two blasts, one appears to be a mere tyre burst of a tractor trolley, while the other one was likely a crude bomb thrown on the tin roof a house.'

However, central security agencies have been instructed to review and redraw arrangements based on the threatening letter.

A special security provision should be made for the Prime Minister and Parliament building, suggested sources.

Intelligence channels have been alerted to collect information pertaining to VIP security in Delhi and closely monitor possible movement of 'inimical elements' towards the Capitals.

Several attempts have been made to attack Modi who is on the top of terror outfits' hit lists.

Alleged ISIS terrorist Saifullah, who was gunned down this month by Uttar Pradesh ATS in Lucknow, was behind a blast that took place just 200 metres away from the PM's rally in the state capital on October 11, 2016.

ATS officers said it was a trial explosion and went unnoticed due to the loud noise of burning of effigies and crackers on Dussehra.

Officials said Saifullah was behind the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train blast in Madhya Pradesh on March 7 in which nearly 10 people were injured.
The distance between Malda, a small district town of West Bengal, and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu is 2,464 km.

But this week, Malda resonated in the southern town at the RSS' three-day long convention called Akhil Bhartiya Pratinidhi Sabha (AVPS).

The Sangh passed a resolution against alleged atrocities on Hindus and the alleged appeasement of minorities by West Bengal Government.

This January RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat held a rally at Kolkata's iconic Brigade Parade Ground

The Malda riots featured prominently in that as did mention of places like Burdwan, Kaliachak, Dhulagarh.

Burdwan bomb factory turned out to be a terror incident, Kaliachak a communal incident where one community gathered and burnt down a police station and Dhulagarh where riots and arson were reported but Mamata Banerjee government rubbished it as a 'small incident blown out of proportion'.

The message from Coimbatore was clear: Sangh has decided its next target, West Bengal. And not without reason.

Right wing Hindutva ideology is increasingly gaining foothold in the traditionally 'communist' West Bengal.

And with each passing month there's not only growing acceptance but a reasonable surge from Kolkata to the district and down to block level.

Ask Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta and he will explain, 'There's a perceived sense that the government of the day is moving backwards to accommodate these sectarian forces.

'The aggressive Muslim appeasement by left and even more now by Mamata government be it in Education or in jobs has left hindus disillusioned.

'That's why you see the surge in Bengal of such right-wing forces. These groups are working as a support group who stand up for their rights. It's natural that they get support from them in return. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement.'

This January RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat held a rally at Kolkata's iconic Brigade Parade Ground.

Those who observed politics up close in Bengal will agree that till five years back no one could imagine such a Sangh rally in the heart of Kolkata with thousands of saffron flags aflutter.

More recently, on 2nd march the Sanghs' students wing ABVP held a protest march in Kolkata where they torched effigy of what they perceived as 'anti nationals breeding in campuses', in the light of Ramjas College controversy in Delhi University where JNU scholar Umar Khalid wasn't allowed to speak.

Student politics in Bengal has always been dominated by Left's SFI or DSO and more recently Trinamool Congress' TMCP.

ABVP has always been an invisible force.

Purulia, a southern district of West Bengal known for its unique dance form Chhou, in February witnessed for the first time a protest by Bajrang Dal, the ultra right youth organisation of Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

On Valentine's day, Bajrang Dal chose to celebrate it as Martyrdom day with photos of Independence movement icons.

These incidents cannot be seen separately from the big picture that is emerging in the state, as Swapan Dasputa pointed out.

Students learning in a class at Madrasa school in West Bengal

The budgetary allocation this year for Minority Affairs and Madrasa education is a whopping Rs 2815 cr.

The allocation is higher than allocations for Tribal Welfare and Paschimanchal Unnayan.

Paschimanchal is the same area that was once severely Maoist dominated and incidents like lalgarh helped Mamata come to power. The allocation is also higher than large scale industries, textiles and IT put together.

And we are talking about a state that is craving for Industries. Ever since Tatas shut shop at Singur, all the state has seen or heard of is signing MoUs.

The amount set aside for Madrasas is also higher than the money set aside for Irrigation.

'Its a signal that Mamata Banerjee government is sending, that for her government, Madrasas are more important than irrigation, heavy industries, textiles, Information technology, tourism or for that matter even Tribal welfare', alleges Sourish Mukherjee, Bengal Spokesperson of VHP.

Recently CPI(M) lawmaker raised the issue in Assembly about Sangh-affiliated schools allegedly teaching religious intolerance.

In rare reciprocity, the Bengal government went cracking in no time and issued show cause notice to 125 schools as why they should not be shut as they did not have No-Objection certificates.

TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee

There are hundreds of schools that are run by trusts like Sarada Shishu Tirtha, Saraswati Shishu Mandir and Vivekanada Vidya Vikas Parishad.

The closure threat hasn't gone down well with many parents who are mostly from tribal belts of Western Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia district.

State education Minister Partha Chatterjee out rightly calls them breeding ground of hatred.

He is quoted to be saying, 'This is a genuine complaint and the school education department is inquiring into the charges against those schools.'

He hasn't ruled out options of shutting them down. But state BJP President Dilip Ghosh hits back saying, 'What about the madrasas that breed real hatred? These are ways to defame Hindus and appease Mamatas core vote bank'.

However, there's no evidence yet of its teaching religious hatred. RSS Sah Sarkaryavah Shri Bhaiyah Ji Joshi on the sidelines of the National Council Meet in Coimbatore during an interaction with the media focused primarily on Bengal.

This shows how Bengal is on top on its agenda after Uttar Pradesh. He said that the situation in Bengal for Hindus is 'alarming'.

The Mamata government also went ahead with a stipend system whose legality can be debated.

State Minority Development and Finance Organisation issued advertisements in leading dailies stating that minority students securing less than 50 per cent marks in last board or academic examination will be given a stipend to continue their studies.

Contrast this with a student from non-minority background who can be equally if not more economically weak fighting to get an admission even after obtaining extra ordinary numbers in his or her boards.

Ask TMCs Muslim face in parliament Idrees Ali whether it's a religious favouritism or not and pat comes the reply, 'Certainly it's not.

It is a way to help poor students from minority so that they can continue their studies.'

And if you are a student who couldn't make it to a college of his choice and this justification fails to convince you, comes organisations like Hindu Jagran Manch to make sure the favouritism yields political dividend.

Hindu Jagran Manch is a new organisation but has grown phenomenally in last two years. They not only have a chief but district heads and even zonal heads.

From time to time the Sangh hot shots give the 'leaders' audience to make sure the macro ideology of this organisation is in sync with that of the Sangh. In Birbhum construction of a new mosque became a flashpoint.

In Nadia 'Love Jihad', a term coined by then BJP MP and now Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath became an issue.

'Both the red (CPIM led left front) and Green (TMC) catered to them (minorities). Who would stand up for Hindus? So we did,' says Pankaj Mandal Of HJM.

Then there are initiatives that have no formal office or post bearers but has a sizeable following.

RSS on parade: This week, Malda resonated in the southern town at the RSS' three-day long convention called Akhil Bhartiya Pratinidhi Sabha (AVPS)

They function off the social media. 'Hindu Samhati' is one such platform that is just a blog. But it attracts traffic more than a small website. Another website that's quite a hit with Bengals right leaning young and restless lot is www.hinduexistence.org.

It talks about issues like shutting down threat to Sangh linked schools or Dhulagarh riots. Needless to say the presentation is provocative and works more like a propaganda. But propaganda has its own takers as well.

As many as 5040 people regularly follow articles on this website and many contribute to it. Interestingly they have Twitter handle and Facebook page as well where they try to create a discussion, to put it mildly.

When the 'Ma, Mati, Manush' government came to being, the chief minister announced 'Imam Bhata' or a fixed stipend for Imams. An outright appeasement policy that many from even within TMC accepts off record.

The disgruntled priests found a friend in Vishwa Hindu Parishad and year after year continue to sell this point and successfully.

On 6th April VHP is organising 'Barasat Chalo' (Let's go to Barasat) where they will congregate demanding a Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Just a day before on 5th April, VHP is holding a procession in Uluberia to commemorate Ram Navami, something that never held any significance in West Bengal.

So what's working for them? 'It's a land of Hindus. Hindus are always rising. Whether at odds or not, in Bengal or Gujrat, Hindus are always on rise', comes a cryptic answer from Pravin Togadia, the top man of VHP with a smirk.

CPIM Polit Bureau Member Mohammed d Salim told Mail Today,'RSS in Bengal is due to Mamata. They are supplementing and complimenting each other'.

Ask Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, Bengal PCC Chief and he will give a similar answer,'When TMC came to power there were 400-450 sakhas in Bengal. Today there are 1600-1700 sakhas in Bengal. Need I say more?'
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Addressing party workers, he said the polls were a chance to uproot the AAP

Shah accused the AAP of corruption over onions, water tankers and street lights

Following a wave of BJP success the chief is looking for support in the Capital

BJP chief Amit Shah shows the victory sign at the recent swearing in of UP's new CM

Eyeing a hat-trick in city civic polls, BJP chief Amit Shah launched a blistering attack on the AAP alleging that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson.

Addressing BJP workers ahead of the MCD polls, he referred to party's victories in the recent Assembly polls, saying a win in the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the Capital.

Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in saffron, Delhi continues to remain a white spot and asked the party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the civic polls.

He said: 'After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar.

'Today, BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps, so that the BJP's victory flag is unfurled in the national Capital.'

Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.

Shah said: 'AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party in such a short time. His principal secretary was arrested by CBI.

'There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers, street lights.

'A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in Waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequer's money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out ads.'

Delhi's chief minister denies allegations of corruption within the AAP government in the Captial

Shah also said many of AAP legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and rape.

Indian Money Rs 100 = 1.19 1 Lakh = 100,000 (hundred thousand) 10 Lakh = 1,000,000 (a million) 1 Crore = 10,000,000 (ten million) Advertisement

He also dared the CM to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges.

'This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls,' he said.

Kejirwal responded to the criticism by accusing BJP councillors of abandoning the humble mopeds they rode at the time of the last MCD polls and 'zooming around in expensive cars' ahead of the upcoming civic election.

He said: 'Before Assembly polls, we had promised to halve power tariff besides making water free.

'We fulfilled all these promises. We are not lying.

'We are saving from Rs 100 cr to Rs 200 cr in construction of every flyover and spending them on public welfare schemes. What is wrong in it?'

Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel as well as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari were present at the workers' event with Shah.
In a major crackdown on turtle poaching, the West Bengal CID has arrested a 65-year-old man known as one of the 'top three traders'

In a major crackdown on turtle poaching, the West Bengal CID has arrested Khokon Saha, a 65-year-old man who is one of the 'top three traders' involved in the smuggling of endangered species in the state.

According to the police, the accused dealt with two species of turtles - Indian Flapshell and Softshell - both endangered and protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972.

The two species are caught from the tributaries of Ganges - Ghagra, Gomti and Chambal - in Uttar Pradesh and then smuggled to over 1,000 km to the south of West Bengal.

In India, the turtle meat is eaten as a delicacy by both Hindus and Muslims, mostly in the villages of Bongaon, Barasat, Chandpara, Gobordanga and Basirhat that fall along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

It is consumed mostly by immigrants from Bangladesh, fisher folk and the poor, said the police.

'The rest, over 40 per cent, is sent to Bangladesh through the Petrapole-Benapole border checkpoint by train, as hand carry and head-loads.

'Here the soft flesh is consumed and dried shells are powdered for medicinal use. The smaller Indian Star Tortoise is routed to Hong Kong and Thailand to be sold as pets,' said Dr. Shailendra Singh, Turtle Survival Alliance.

Police said that Saha was picked up from Chandpara, Police Station Gai Ghata of North 24 Parganas, where he was hiding at a relative's shanty.

The elderly man, who police say has been in the trade for more than a decade, is suffering from very high blood sugar, rotten feet and gangrene.

In India, the turtle meat is eaten as a delicacy by both Hindus and Muslims

As a result, he did not offer much resistance. He was produced in Kalyani Court, Nadia District, and has been sent to five days police custody.

A senior officer in the Special Operation Group, West Bengal CID, who did not wish to be named said, 'We were keeping an eye on Khokon since winters last year.

'That's the time when turtles arrive at the beach to lay eggs, and the mothers are most vulnerable. We received a lot of inputs regarding hauls of thousands of turtles arriving at Khokon's behest.'

The officer added, 'He distributed them among retailers who would sell them in small markets.'

While near Chambal River in UP, a turtle would sell for Rs 60-100 per kg, in Bengal the price could be as high as Rs 400-500 per kg. In Bangladesh, these turtles fetch anywhere between Rs 700 and 800 per kg.

A senior officer in the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, east region, said that with Khokon's arrest, almost the entire network of turtle receivers and sellers in Bengal has been killed. 'After Khokon, two other prominent names are Tarok Ghosh and Bhola Ghosh. The former is absconding while the latter was caught 15 days ago.'
Against the backdrop of controversy over using combat soldiers as buddies, the Indian Army is now planning to employ 10,000 civilians to be provided as sahayaks (buddies) for officers and JCOs posted in peaceful areas for helping them in their official work.

The move being undertaken by the Army headquarters - in consultations with the defence ministry - will help in freeing an equal number of combat soldiers from performing tasks of sahayaks, which have been under the scanner after a number of jawans made videos criticising the system, before posting them on social media.

'We are going to employ around 10,000 civilians who would be helping officers and JCOs in pace stations by performing the roles of sahayaks,' Army sources told Mail Today.

Against the backdrop of controversy over using combat soldiers as buddies , the Indian Army is now planning to employ 10,000 civilians

At the moment, the Army uses around 40,000 combat soldiers who perform sahayak duties in their respective units and regiments.

In the peace stations also, the civilians would be provided to officers from static formations such as the Army headquarters in New Delhi or the seven command headquarters in different locations in the country who don't have to move out in field areas during their posting there, they said.

At the moment, the Army uses around 40,000 combat soldiers who perform sahayak duties in their respective units and regiments

The Army added that units which are deployed in places like Delhi but are part of a fighting formation like the infantry battalions here would continue to use combat soldiers as sahayaks as they have to move into field areas for months during exercises in Rajasthan and Punjab at regular intervals.

Soon after he took over, Army chief General Bipin Rawat had said the Army Headquarters had submitted a proposal to the government that 'sahayaks' could be scrapped in peaceful locations.

But Rawat maintained that the buddy system is important for functioning of the Army in times of wars and for deployment of forces in field areas.

The 'buddy' system is a colonial system where combat soldiers are used as orderlies or sahayaks to polish boots and maintain the uniform of the officers and junior commissioned officers.

However, there have been several complaints of misuse in the recent times.

General Bipin Rawat: The 'buddy' system is a colonial system where combat soldiers are used as orderlies or sahayaks to polish boots and maintain the uniform of the officers and junior commissioned officers

After controversies over misuse of sahayaks, Army formations have asked officers to ensure that dignity of jawans is maintained and they are not used for looking after pets and children of officers and washing private cars.

'Please refer to social media outburst by serving soldier and media statement issued by the Chief of Army Staff thereto.

'All formations and unit are requested to ensure that dignity of serving soldier be maintained and employment of buddies should be restricted to entitled duties only,' an instruction letter from a formation in Eastern Command had said.
A New York movie producer has filed a lawsuit against a woman whom he says conned him into paying for more than a million dollars' worth of luxury items she claimed to need in order to have sex with him.

Producer Dean Bivins said he spent $1.2million on a Central Park apartment, lingerie, designer shoes and ritzy hotels for Naza Ziva Shapiro during their six-month relationship because she claimed that her Orthodox Jewish upbringing otherwise prevented her from being intimate with him.

The 48-year-old vixen also talked him into spending $5,000 for weekly massages to help alleviate back pain caused by her breast implants, Bivins said.

Nava Ziva Shapiro (above) allegedly conned movie producer Dean Bivins out of $1.2million

Bivins, president of the New York City-based Groovy Boots Productions, admitted that he was an 'easy target' because he 'had not been in a romantic relationship with a woman for over 10 years'.

So, Bivins jumped at the chance to work with Shapiro, posing as a movie industry consultant and Wall Street broker, when she offered to promote his works when the two met on May 17, 2016, during the release party for the movie Back In The Day.

Instead of a partnership, Shapiro, who also goes under the aliases Nicola Shapiro, Nicole Shapiro, Katie Shapiro and Katie Gates, lured the 53 year old into a 'fraudulent romantic relationship', the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleges.

The 48 year old (left) allegedly told Bivins she needed luxury goods to have sex with him

By pretending to be in love with Bivin, Shapiro caused him to break all ties with his family, tracked his whereabouts and stole his credit information, according to the suit.

Shapiro had told him she 'had recently fallen on some hard times, but with Bivins help, she could get back on her feet again', the New York Post reports.

But, alas, Shapiro and Bivins weren't meant to be.

When Bivins tried to break up with Shapiro she suddenly introduced him to her family, who when once left alone with them at a synagogue refused to sit next to him.

Bivins realized he was being scammed when he went to the Central Park South apartment he had bought for Shapiro to change the locks and found all the gifts he had given her unwrapped.

Shapiro pleaded with him not to evict her because she would have to move back in with her 'Uncle Joel' - who Bivins later discovered was her 83-year-old lover.

After Bivins became hip to Shapiro's scheme, he booted her out of the apartment in December and changed the locks, but in retaliation she told the cops he assaulted her, leading to his arrest and a night in jail on December 8, 2016. The case is pending.

Shapiro (right) filed a $25million lawsuit against Bivins for alleged battery, assault and distress

Bivins, president of the New York City-based Groovy Boots Productions (above), is suing Shapiro for $10million

On January 12, Shapiro filed an anonymous $25million sealed lawsuit against Bivins, allegedly claiming battery, assault and emotional distress.

Over the course of their relationship, which lasted from May to December, Shapiro spent $260,000 on designer clothes to 'look the part' of a movie industry consultant, $408,640.94 on furniture and $130,700 on home accessories 'in order to entertain potential investors', the suit states.

Bivins is suing Shapiro for $10million, claiming breach of contract, conspiracy to commit fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
As one of Australia's most notorious prison inmates, Belinda Van Krevel spent many long, lonely days in isolation ('segro', she calls it) where she talked to no one and was barely allowed to exercise in her own prison yard.

Life is very different now. Long ago branded the country's 'most evil woman', the 36-year-old now lives a quiet suburban existence, spending her days hanging out with friends, snacking on Burger Rings and talking about 'getting fit'.

But the criminal fiend who masterminded the murder of her own father has sensationally revealed she would swap her new free life in for a jail cell... if only her beloved serial killer brother could take her place.

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One of Australia's most notorious prison inmates, Belinda Van Krevel, 36, (pictured) has sensationally revealed to Daily Mail Australia that she would swap her freedom for a jail cell if her beloved serial killer brother could take her place

Van Krevel's brother Mark Valera, (pictured) is serving two life sentences with no possibility of parole for brutally murdering two men, David O'Hearn and Wollongong Mayor Frank Arkell, in the late 1990s

The 36-year-old now lives a quiet suburban existence, spending her days hanging out with friends, snacking on Burger Rings and talking about 'getting fit'

Van Krevel says her serial killer brother, Mark Valera, is 'a better person than me' and stridently defends her never-to-be-released sibling

'He is a better person than me,' Van Krevel said in an exclusive sit-down interview with Daily Mail Australia this week, as she sipped Woodstock Bourbon and Cola and refused to take off her dark sunglasses.

Her sibling, Mark Valera, is serving two life sentences with no possibility of parole for brutally murdering two men, David O'Hearn and Wollongong Mayor Frank Arkell, in the late 1990s.

They were heinous crimes. Arkell's head was smashed with a lamp and tie pins were found stuck in his eyes and cheeks. Meantime, O'Hearn was decapitated and his body mutilated.

But despite the depravity of his actions and her own years in jail, Van Krevel still stridently defends her never-to-be-released sibling.

That's even despite revelations on the Nine Network's 60 Minutes program last year, which alleged police had found Belinda's name on a list of people Mark was planning to kill.

'My brother protected me my whole life,' Van Krevel said, as she sat on the front porch of her Wollongong home. 'If he wasn't here I wouldn't be here anymore. I live for my brother.'

Her beloved brother's name is seen tattooed on her arm. Van Krevel says 'if he wasn't here I wouldn't be here anymore. I live for my brother'

Van Krevel says she thinks about her brother 'every day' but admits she hasn't gone to visit her sibling in years

Van Krevel was also found guilty of stabbing her lover Marshall Gould five times. The pair are pictured together above

Van Krevel served four years in prison for masterminding her father Jack's slaying in August 2000. He was hacked to death by her then boyfriend as she sat in the next room with a child

She thinks about him 'every day'. (The pair have both claimed in court to have been sexually abused as children.)

'He doesn't like to talk about (the killings). It's not something to be proud of,' Van Krevel said.

'I'm sure no 19-year-old wants to be abused their whole lives and be able to commit an offence to what my brother committed.'

The interview - where she hit out against the media's description of her as 'Belinda Van Evil' as sensationalism used to 'make money' - came more than 18 months since Van Krevel was released from her most recent jail stint.

Then, she was found guilty of stabbing her lover Marshall Gould five times in the neck, arm and leg in an attack she claims not to remember.

'It was completely out of character for me to do that,' she said. 'It is! I'm not a violent person at all'.

She earlier served four years in prison for masterminding her father Jack's slaying in August 2000.

He was hacked to death by her then boyfriend as she sat in the next room with a child. She describes her father as a 'monster'.

Van Krevel seemed to be keeping out of trouble recently, at least until last Friday, when she is allegedly stole a red handbag from an elderly woman

Images taken at a crime scene following a brutal murder of David O'Hearn

Mark Valera had mutilated decapitating one of victim's head to keep it as a trophy before deciding against it

Revelations on the Nine Network's 60 Minutes program last year alleged police had found Van Krevel's name on a list of people her brother was planning to kill

The word 'Satan' and a pentagram drawn in his victim's blood by Mark Valera before he handed himself in to police

The criminal fiend says being out of prison makes her feel 'guilty' as she 'likes to have a little bit of fun'

Speaking generally about her life, Van Krevel insisted everything is on track and she is 'doing something right'. She is unemployed and lives a 'pretty quiet' life

Marshall Gould speaking on 60 Minutes about the frenzied attack by Belinda Van Krevel when he was stabbed at least five times on a night in 2013

'JEEZ THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY': BELINDA VAN KREVEL ACCUSED OF STEALING A HANDBAG Belinda Van Krevel is accused of stealing a red handbag from an elderly woman in the middle of the day one Friday this month. Police allege the bag contained about $160 cash and the woman's car keys, with the matter set to return to court this month. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Ms Van Krevel said she had already admitted to grabbing the handbag after thinking it was an 'opportunity'. 'Look I didn't take it from a person,' she said. 'It was sitting on the back of a table in a cafe. 'It was something that even the most innocent of people would have looked at twice and thought, jeez this is an opportunity.' 'I didn't hurt anyone. And I wouldn't, because I don't do that sort of thing.' Van Krevel said she had already admitted she had taken the bag. 'I remember I jumped in the car that I hit my head that hard that I was seeing birds'. 'If you're so concerned about your belongings... It's like leaving a car in the middle of Redfern.' Advertisement

Van Krevel seemed to be keeping out of trouble recently, at least until last Friday, when she is allegedly stole a red handbag from an elderly woman. The matter will see her return to court next month.

In the interview with Daily Mail Australia, she said she had already admitted stealing the bag and said it was like 'leaving a car in the middle of Redfern'.

Speaking generally about her life, Van Krevel insisted everything is on track and she is 'doing something right'. She is unemployed and lives a 'pretty quiet' life.

'I'm not working at the moment. I know that I can (do) what I've always done, waitressing, catering...' she said.

After her first stint in prison, she worked a news agency in Brookvale, on Sydney's northern beaches. Her customers included a prominent Channel 10 TV weatherman.

'I had what's his name, short fella, the one who does the weather - Tim Bailey! He used to come in He might've recognised me.

'I think they treat you the way you treat them. I always get a job the way I present myself. Never by what I've been through.

'And I've always been successful. And I'm a people person!'

Being out of jail makes her feel 'guilty' sometimes.

'I like to have a little bit of fun but it also makes me feel a little bit guilty at the same time,' she said.

'Because there's good, very good people out there who are locked up.

'Why should I be out there having fun?

After her first stint in prison, she worked a news agency in Brookvale, on Sydney's northern beaches. Her customers included a prominent Channel 10 TV weatherman

A self proclaimed 'people person', Van Krevel says she has always been 'successful'

Van Krevel and her brother have both claimed in court to have been sexually abused as children

'But then I think to myself, my brother wants me to be happy.'

But she hasn't gone to visit her sibling in years. She just couldn't bear it anymore, she said.

The once a week, 45 minute meetings were 'too repetitive', she said. And it was becoming 'harder and harder' each time.

'You don't want to leave,' she said.
An elderly refugee advocate has wed an asylum seeker half her age - but both insist it's not just to get him a visa.

Dianne Baumann, who refused to give her age, married Manus Island detainee Mohsen Norozi late last year, and has vowed that they will live together for 'a long time in the future'.

'I want to look after her in the future. I care about her. Is that a problem?' the 31-year-old, who wouldn't say where he was from, told the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Norozi lived at the facility in Papua New Guinea for four years, after being transferred from Christmas Island, before the couple married.

Elderly Australian refugee advocate Dianne Baumann (right) married asylum seeker Mohsen Norozi (left), 31, on Manus Island

Mr Norozi also refused to say if their pair were in love, and questioned why the couple were singled out from other marriages on the island

Their wedding was around the same time as other activists married asylum seekers on Manus Island to get around the government's policy of not resettling them in Australia.

Those deemed to be genuine refugees are instead allowed to stay in PNG and those whose claims are rejected are deported to their country of origin.

Ms Baumann denied the pair married for a visa, but would not profess her love to her husband, saying it was 'personal'.

'I dont think that anyone would get married for a visa because thats ridiculous. I dont care what anyone else thinks. Mohsen and I know what we think. You dont know me,' she said.

Mr Norozi also refused to say if their pair were in love, and questioned why the couple were singled out from other marriages on the island.

They appear to have been dating for about two years, according to social media activity, and shared romantic messages and photos on Facebook.

One post shows Mr Norozi commenting 'oh so nice my love' followed by a heart emoticon on a post with a photo of Ms Baumann eating.

The couple were banking on the controversial refugee exchange deal with the U.S. being honoured by President Donald Trump, and planed to live there together.

Ms Baumann, who wouldn't give her age, claimed they planned to live together, but would not profess her love to her husband, saying it was 'personal'

Their wedding was around the same time as other activists married Manus Island (pictured) asylum seekers to get around the policy of not resettling refugees there in Australia

'Were hoping the American deal comes through very soon for everybody. We plan to live in America by the looks of it,' Ms Baumann said.

This plan appeared to be lost on the Weekend Today panel, who assumed the couple planned to move to Australia where the elderly activist usually lives.

'For all those people freaking out thinking "oh my god we will have someone who is jumping the queue" he still has to go through the processes to come and live in Australia,' one said.

'A lot of people are getting married over there.'
Dozens of teenage students are reportedly under investigation after receiving a video that depicts an unconscious 15-year-old girl being raped at a house party in an exclusive Sydney suburb.

A 15-year-old boy allegedly sexually assaulted the girl earlier this month, and another boy his age allegedly filmed the attack at a house party, police said.

The footage of the alleged rape, which was shot at a Mardi Gras-themed party in Sydney's eastern suburbs after the victim became unconscious, was shared among more than 50 teenagers who are now being investigated by NSW Police, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Dozens of teenage students are reportedly under investigation after receiving a video that depicts an unconscious 15-year-old girl being raped. Pictured, Cranbrook School

The newspaper has previously reported the victim didn't realise she had been assaulted until she saw the footage on social media.

Teachers at Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill reportedly alerted police to the video's existence after hearing students discuss it.

The boy who allegedly shot the film has been charged with offences related to filming and disseminating child abuse material, police said.

He reportedly pleaded not guilty this week at Bidura Children's Court.

The other boy was charged with aggravated sexual assault and is due to appear in a children's court on April 4, police said.

Costs for senior students at Cranbrook School exceed $35,000 per year.
The run-up to Christmas 2015 was hectic for David Cameron and George Osborne. It involved a tense Commons vote on Syrian air-strikes, crucial pre-referendum negotiations with EU leaders and a state visit by the President of China.

Behind the scenes at Downing Street, however, something very different was providing them with food for thought; and it had nothing much to do with the usual day-to-day business of British government.

In late September that year, Boris Johnson, then the Mayor of London, had threatened to curtail the activities of modish Californian internet company Uber.

When Boris Johnson moved to regulate Uber in 2015, accusing them of being bumptious and breaking taxi licensing laws in lots of minor ways, he was bombarded with angry messages from Downing Street. George Osborne (pictured getting out of an Uber cab) and David Cameron are believed to have sent forthright texts to the Mayors mobile phone

The firm runs a smartphone app that allows users to hail a minicab at the click of a button. It then sends a named nearby driver to their exact location using GPS (usually in minutes), calculates the cost of the subsequent journey using an algorithm so you have a good idea of what it will cost before you start and collects payment via the users credit card.

Uber tends to be between 30 and 40 per cent cheaper than traditional black cabs. But its drivers are relatively unqualified, and unlike their counterparts, have not acquired the Knowledge of Londons streets, relying instead on satnav directions.

So although the firm achieved huge success after launching in our capital in 2012 (hundreds of thousands of users swiftly signed up, and by 2015 London had more Uber drivers than black cabbies), there were growing fears that its ultra-cheap fares were putting traditional taxis out of business.

Uber was also being blamed for an explosion in the number of minicabs on Londons streets from 55,000 to 89,000, which critics believed was increasing congestion, air pollution, illegal parking, and accidents.

Whats more, the conviction of Samson Haile, an Uber driver from Brentford in West London, who was jailed for eight months for sexually assaulting a woman in his vehicle, had also crystallised public concern about the firms ability to keep passengers safe.

Police figures showed that rape or assault claims were being made against Ubers London drivers at a rate of one every 11 days.

With these issues in mind, Johnson launched a Private Hire Regulations Review which would consider new policies to curb the web giants aggressive business model.

They included limiting the total number of mini-cabs in the city, and requiring all drivers  many of Ubers operators are foreign-born  to pass a written English test.

Crucially, the Mayor also wanted to force all private hire firms, including Uber, to wait at least five minutes between accepting a booking and picking up a customer.

That would render the internet company, which prided itself on fulfilling requests in an average of three minutes, significantly less attractive to customers.

Uber achieved enormous success in London in 2012, with a business model that allowed journeys to be up around 30 and 40 per cent cheaper than traditional black cabs. Its drivers are relatively unqualified, and unlike their counterparts, have not acquired the Knowledge

Johnson said the move to regulate what he called the bumptious Uber was justified because, in his words, it had been breaking taxi licensing laws in lots of minor ways.

Clearly feeling threatened, Uber swiftly launched a petition, claiming that Johnsons bureaucratic proposals would make it harder, and more expensive, to travel around the capital.

Then something very unusual happened. Within hours of the petition being announced, the Mayor and senior aides began to be bombarded with angry messages from Downing Street.

Some came straight from the top. George Osborne and David Cameron are believed to have sent forthright texts to the Mayors mobile phone.

Others came via special advisers and senior members of the No 10 policy unit, who began writing stern emails and making shouty telephone calls. Still more originated from the offices of Cabinet ministers, including Business Secretary Sajid Javid.

Strangely, all of these extremely powerful figures from the top of Britains Government were demanding exactly the same thing: that the Mayor drop each and every policy that might threaten the finances of Uber.

Messages came to Boris Johnson from special advisers and senior members of the No 10 policy unit, who began writing stern emails and making shouty telephone calls. Still more originated from the offices of Cabinet ministers, including Business Secretary Sajid Javid

It was extraordinary, says a senior City Hall source. Boris was at the time quite chummy with Cameron and Osborne, and theyd occasionally text him about stuff. But on this, they were basically ordering him about.

A second source close to Johnson adds: In politics, you get used to people shouting and throwing their weight around, but this was something else.

We had special advisers screaming at us, ministers and their aides issuing threats. It was particularly outrageous because transport in London is the Mayors responsibility, and nothing to do with Downing Street or Westminster.

Within days, I can reveal, the Deputy Head of Camerons policy unit, Daniel Korski, had been assigned to lead secret crisis talks between the Mayor and his senior staff, and a range of ministers and Downing Street figures.

Korski orchestrated a series of meetings about Uber during October, November and December, according to emails and other documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained by the Mail this week.

At least one, on December 16, 2015, involved Johnson being hauled before Javid and top Cameron ally Oliver Letwin (Daniel Korski sat in). An official note of proceedings records, with notable understatement, that different views were exchanged.

In January 2016, the Mayor announced that he was dropping almost all the plans that Uber disliked, saying we cant turn our back on technological progress.The U-turn was hailed by the Californian web giant as a victory for common sense

Ive never seen lobbying like it, adds the source. Downing Street wanted to make absolutely sure that nothing was done to even vaguely upset Uber. And whats more, the campaign worked.

For in January 2016, the Mayor announced that he was dropping almost all the plans that Uber disliked, saying we cant turn our back on technological progress.

The U-turn was hailed by the Californian web giant as a victory for common sense. But black cab drivers see things differently.

Steve McNamara, head of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, which represents Londons 24,000 traditional cabbies said: The outcome of this so-called review was decided by Downing Street, who behaved like paid-up lobbyists for Uber.

They leaned on Boris and Transport for London, and ended up getting exactly what they wanted. Its a disgrace, a scandal.

The U-turn also remains a huge bone of contention with Johnsons political rivals.

The regulation of private hire vehicles must be transparent, I was told by Caroline Pidgeon, the Lib Dem chair of the London Assemblys transport committee.

Sadly all the evidence from these freedom of information disclosures suggests key decisions were, in fact, made on the basis of personal connections and behind-the-scenes lobbying, carried out by key Downing Street staff.

Steve McNamara, head of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, which represents Londons 24,000 traditional cabbies said: They leaned on Boris and Transport for London, and ended up getting exactly what they wanted. Its a disgrace, a scandal.

Today, as a direct result, there are roughly 120,000 mini-cabs on the streets of London, and Ubers business model has been rolled out to 17 British cities, transporting customers on well over a billion journeys in the process. Traffic on main roads in the centre of the capital now moves at an average of just 7.8mph, one of the lowest recorded figures in a decade.

Uber is, for want of a better phrase, taking over the nations streets, with the Toyota Prius models favoured by its drivers now a ubiquitous sight.

The firms trick has been repeated across the world, too. For though its public image is increasingly tarnished (for reasons we shall explore later), the Silicon Valley firm now boasts operations in every continent apart from Antarctica, and is thought to be worth an astonishing 56 billion.

Yet behind this fairy tale of modern capitalism lie a number of troubling questions.

Among them: why did David Cameron, George Osborne, and a host of their most senior aides and ministers decide, in late 2015, to lobby Boris Johnson so extraordinarily hard on behalf of Uber  a controversial U.S. company squeezing the incomes of highly-qualified black cab drivers?

49-year-old PR executive Rachel Whetstone is accused of being part of the 'chum-ocracy' - a close friend of the Camerson's she moved to Uber is 2015, after a stint at Google

The answer, if it lies anywhere, may very well be found at the heart of the chum-ocracy that defined their Downing Street machine. Specifically, it would appear to revolve around a woman called Rachel Whetstone.

A 49-year-old PR executive, she worked with Cameron at Carlton, and also with him and Osborne at Conservative HQ in the Nineties. Subsequently, she became an adviser to former party leader Michael Howard. She is also the wife of Steve Hilton, the flip-flop-wearing Downing Street Director of Strategy during the early Cameron years in office.

Being a personal friend of both Cameron and Osborne, she was also godmother of the former PMs late son, Ivan. She and Hilton even bought a holiday home near the Camerons in the Cotswolds.

Why does this matter? Well, after leaving politics in 2005, Whetstone joined Google as its vice-president of global communications. During her stewardship, the tax-dodging web giant enjoyed what critics called revolving door access to Camerons Downing Street.

Then, in early 2015, it was announced that she was moving to  you guessed it!  Uber.

Her salary is believed to be gargantuan. Pretty soon, the company began to benefit, with top executives granted privileged access to senior government figures.

In 2015 and 2016, Osborne met them twice to discuss the UK economy and developments in technology, according to government records.

Then, in December 2015, at the exact time Cameron and Osborne were secretly lobbying Johnson on behalf of Uber, the duo and their wives attended an intimate Christmas party thrown by Rachel Whetstone at Sexy Fish, an exclusive sushi restaurant in Mayfair

Matthew Hancock, a business minister, had a separate meeting.

In his 2015 Budget, the then Chancellor declared that Government staff would be required to use car-sharing apps (of which Uber is the largest) to cut costs. Hancock declared that the Government is getting behind new online businesses.

Then, in December 2015, at the exact time Cameron and Osborne were secretly lobbying Johnson on behalf of Uber, the duo and their wives attended an intimate Christmas party thrown by Rachel Whetstone at Sexy Fish, an exclusive sushi restaurant in Mayfair.

Also on the guest list was Tim Allan, a former PR man who now runs the lobbying firm Portland Communications.

At the time, Portland had as one of its most high-profile clients a firm called  you guessed it!  Uber.

As ever, when politics meets serious money, there are further wheels within wheels.

Fast-forward to last month and, after Osborne had been booted out of the Treasury, he took a job at the U.S. investment firm BlackRock, with a salary of 650,000 for 48 days of work per year.

So why did Cameron and Osborne grant such extraordinary favours to the taxi firm? Well, one way they may seek to justify them would be to argue that like any growing, entrepreneurial business, it helps to oil the wheels of the British economy

By rum coincidence, Blackrock invested a reported 124 million in Uber in 2014, giving it a stake which is now worth nearly 500 million. Undoubtedly, it is in its interests for Uber to succeed.

Elsewhere, the architect of much of Downing Streets Uber lobbying campaign, Daniel Korski, was made a CBE in Camerons controversial resignation honours.

So why did Cameron and Osborne grant such extraordinary favours to the taxi firm?

Well, one way they may seek to justify them would be to argue that like any growing, entrepreneurial business, it helps to oil the wheels of the British economy.

That would be a fair point, were it not for the fact that, like so many rapacious internet firms, Uber pays almost no tax in the UK.

Instead, its finances are organised via a legal but morally wonky device known as a double Dutch structure. This sees all revenues from fares paid by British customers routed to a firm in Holland called Uber BV.

Around 70 per cent is forwarded to individual Uber drivers. Almost all the remainder, totalling billions of pounds, ends up in the coffers of a related entity called Uber International CV, which has no employees and lists its HQ as the offices of a law firm in Bermuda.

That would be a fair point, were it not for the fact that, like so many rapacious internet firms, Uber pays almost no tax in the UK. Instead, its finances are organised via a legal but morally wonky device known as a double Dutch structure. This sees all revenues from fares paid by British customers routed to a firm in Holland called Uber BV

The net result of this complex structure is Uber pays an effective tax rate of around 1 per cent on income from UK passengers. Its only official corporate presence in the UK revolves around two companies, Uber London and Uber Britannia. Based in swanky offices in Aldwych, central London, they employ around 100 people, and in the last year for which records are available paid a mere 400,000 in corporation tax.

So it goes that during an era of supposed austerity, Cameron and Osborne were advancing the agenda of a firm which goes out of its way to avoid paying its fair share to support the roads its business model depends upon.

At this point, some might also argue that Ubers tens of thousands of self-employed drivers are contributing to the treasury via income tax.

But thats by no means entirely true, either. Indeed, critics have argued that most earn such a paltry sum, they are reliant on tax credits and other benefits.

At present, all are classified as self-employed. Depressingly, this made them targets of the failed tax grab in Chancellor Philip Hammonds recent Budget which, while targeting modestly paid self-employed people, did nothing to curtail tax-dodging by rapacious multinationals.

At present, all are classified as self-employed. Depressingly, this made them targets of the failed tax grab in Chancellor Philip Hammonds recent Budget which, while targeting modestly paid self-employed people, did nothing to curtail tax-dodging by rapacious multinationals

The circumstances of Uber drivers (many of whom earn so little that, according to a recent Bloomberg report, they are forced to sleep in their cars) was explored at an employment tribunal in London in October.

Nineteen British drivers successfully claimed they should be regarded as employees, rather than contractors, and paid the national living wage, sick pay, holiday pay and overtime.

The drivers said they earned as little as 5 an hour. Finding in their favour, the judges accused Uber of resorting . . . to fictions [and] twisted language in court.

Uber is appealing the decision.

Meanwhile its tax affairs face a separate legal challenge from a campaigning group called The Good Law Project, which says it ought to charge 20 per cent VAT on fares  money that would go to the Treasury.

Uber dodges VAT by claiming it doesnt actually provide taxable transportation services booked via its website. It says the provider is the self-employed driver.

Thats not the only ugly litigation that the firm so beloved of our former PM and Chancellor is embroiled in.

Uber dodges VAT by claiming it doesnt actually provide taxable transportation services booked via its website. It says the provider is the self-employed driver. Thats not the only ugly litigation that the firm so beloved of our former PM and Chancellor is embroiled in

In January, for example, Uber paid 16 million to Americas Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations it was luring people to become drivers with false claims about prospective earnings.

The case revolved around complaints that drivers would lease or buy new vehicles to drive while working for Uber, only to find that the company would then cut fares in a bid to cement its market dominance.

Many drivers have been forced deep into debt by such cuts, and believe Uber (which has never made a profit) is keeping fares artificially low in a bid to drive rivals out of business and so create a monopoly.

This issue sparked a PR disaster last month when the firms chief executive Travis Kalanik (net worth around 5 billion) was filmed arguing with an Uber driver whod complained the firms pricing policies were bankrupting him.

Some people dont like to take responsibility for their own s**t. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!he told his less fortunate driver.

In January, for example, Uber paid 16 million to Americas Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations it was luring people to become drivers with false claims about prospective earnings

After the video became public, he emailed the firms staff, telling them: To say that Im ashamed is an extreme understatement . . . I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up.

Some would argue this admission was too long coming. Indeed, the corporate culture at Uber (which 40-year-old bachelor Kalanik once joked should be renamed Boober because it improved his romantic prospects) is widely regarded as toxic.

A month ago, for example, a former engineer at the firm called Susan Fowler went public with multiple claims of rampant sexism and harassment inside the firm.

They included the observation that on her first day in the job, her boss used the company messaging system to tell her he was in an open relationship and looking for women to have sex with.

Uber boss Kalanick said her experience was abhorrent and goes against everything Uber stands for. He launched an urgent investigation into claims of harassment at his company.

As for Mr Osborne, his new role as editor of the Evening Standard means he will have to make the journey from his West London home to the newspapers Kensington offices in the early morning rush hour. So will he take the Tube to beat the jams  or just call an Uber?

And this week, there was a dramatic new development when Ubers president, a respected corporate figure called Jeff Jones, quit, saying: The beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber.

These, remember, are the beliefs and approach of a firm which David Cameron and the most senior figures in his government chose to proactively support.

And it is a firm which continues to affect the lives of millions of Londoners who struggle through gridlocked traffic virtually 24 hours a day.

As for Mr Osborne, his new role as editor of the Evening Standard means he will have to make the journey from his West London home to the newspapers Kensington offices in the early morning rush hour.

So will he take the Tube to beat the jams  or just call an Uber?
Shailene Woodley has taken a plea deal and is admitting that she was guilty of disorderly conduct during her peaceful North Dakota Access Pipeline protesting activities last year.

On October 10, the young Hollywood star made headlines when she was arrested and charged with one count of misdemeanor criminal trespass and one count of misdemeanor engaging in a riot while she was leaving a North Dakota pipeline construction site she and others were protesting at.

Woodley's lawyer entered a not guilty plea to those charges on her behalf in court on October 19.

The 24-year-old actress has just pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge after being arrested while protesting the controversial construction of the North Dakota oil pipeline

Now, Woodley is said to have reached a deal with prosecutors and is agreeing to plead guilty to one count of disorderly conduct, according to legal documents procured by TMZ.

The Class B misdemeanor charge amends her original criminal trespass charge, according to The Bismarck Tribune.

Under the plea deal, she will receive one year of unsupervised probation, the previous riot charge will be dropped and she would forfeit the $500 bond she put up after she was arrested.

The plea deal document Woodley reportedly signed sees her admitting that, while protesting, she acted with 'intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person or in reckless disregard of the fact that the other person was harassed, annoyed or alarmed' by her activities.

It's believed that if Woodley does not land in any additional trouble over the course of the year, the case will be considered closed, says Gossip Cop.

Woodley and 27 others were arrested on October 10, while protesting the controversial North Dakota Access Pipeline project.

The actress was arrested while peacefully protesting at a construction site on October 10

The 24-year-old actress was livestreaming the protest on Facebook when she was arrested

She was among about 100 protesters who'd turned up to a construction site that day for a peaceful protest against the proposed pipeline plans, amid concerns the transportation of crude oil across the Missouri river could potentially cause irreversible harm to drinking water as well as the river's ecosystem.

Woodley's arrest made waves in part because she had been livestreaming the protest on Facebook when cops approached her, so her arrest was captured and broadcast in real time.

The video showing what appeared to be a peaceful protest has been viewed more than three million times.

She was released from jail the next morning, at 11.00am ET, after spending the night behind bars.

Woodley, pictured last month, while promoting her new HBO miniseries, 'Big Little Lies'

Had she not taken a plea deal, Woodley could have received as much as two months in jail as well as a $3,000 fine if found guilty of the misdemeanor charges she was initially faced with, according to reports.
Keith Palmer was stabbed to death outside Parliament by Khalid Masood on Wednesday

The JustGiving charity website will take tens of thousands of pounds from money donated by members of the public to the family of murdered PC Keith Palmer.

Well-wishers had last night given more than 698,841 to the wife and daughter of the 48-year-old officer who lost his life guarding Parliament.

But the money has been raised through JustGiving, which takes a cut of at least 5 per cent from all donations.

As it stood last night, the sites administration fee for PC Palmers fund was more than 34,000. But this was set to rise substantially as more money comes in.

JustGiving is refusing to waive its fee. It said it donated 10,000 to the fund when it started  however, that still gives it a profit of more than 21,000 so far.

The controversy comes after the Mail Investigations Unit revealed last month how JustGiving takes more than 20million a year from fundraisers.

While some of this is used to keep the site working and find new ways of raising money, more than 10million last year went on staff, who earn an average of more than 60,000, while their boss earned a pay package of 198,000.

The news led to criticism, with JustGiving accused of greed and labelled JustTaking.

The page has raised much more than its initial target of 100,000, changing it to 250,000, only to find it raised more still

Last night, more than 30,000 donors had raised more than 657,000 for PC Palmers 34-year-old widow Michelle and the couples five-year-old daughter Amy.

The fundraising page was set up on Thursday morning and the money raised was still rising rapidly by the hour last night.

Hundreds of tributes were posted hailing PC Palmer, who was knifed to death in the grounds of Parliament by terrorist Khalid Masood on Wednesday afternoon.

A donor who gave 30 wrote: You gave your life serving your country and its people. I am one person in a sea of grateful individuals.

Pc Palmer took this picture with a tourist just 45 minutes before he was stabbed to death

Tony Beecher said: As a recently retired cop, you have given the ultimate sacrifice. RIP Keith, your memory will never be forgotten. The Metropolitan Police Federation set up the page, writing on it: Every day, all over London and the rest of the UK, Police Officers risk their lives to protect and defend us. In the wake of this tragedy our thoughts are with Keiths family and all the people who are injured or have lost their lives.

A spokesman said he was not happy about the cash going to JustGiving. He said the firm may be asked for a further contribution when the campaign ends, adding: There is no other way of doing it other than asking people to go to a bank and pay the money in over the counter.

Lord Paddick, a former Met Police officer, said: Bearing in mind the bravery of the officer  an unarmed man tackling a violent knifeman leaving a distraught family behind  surely JustGiving can in these exceptional circumstances waive their fee?

But JustGiving said it never broke its rule of not waiving fees because all causes on its website were worthy. A spokesman added: We take a small charge, which enables us to provide the most robust and always-on platform that can handle high levels of traffic and meet the highest international security standards.

JustGiving was launched in 2001 by former lawyer Zarine Kharas and charity director Anne-Marie Huby. Recent accounts showed the highest paid director received a salary of 152,000 in 2015 and pension contributions of 46,600.

Its fees appear far higher than those charged by competitors, such as BTs MyDonate website and Virgin Money Giving.

Pages set up to raise funds for individuals, rather than charities, are not eligible for Gift Aid. JustGiving takes 5 per cent of all money raised on these pages.

But if 10 is donated to a charity on JustGiving, it is eligible for Gift Aid and the taxman tops it up to 12.50. The website then takes its 5 per cent from the total of 12.50  which works out as 63p, or 6.3 per cent of the original 10 donation. It also charges a credit card fee.

Virgin Money Giving takes 2 per cent for administration, plus a credit card fee. BTs MyDonate only charges a credit card fee.

In addition to the Police Federations donation drive for PC Palmers loved-ones, Muslims United for London, a group that came together after the attack, had last night raised more than 25,000 for the victims and their families.
Sammy Woodhouse, 31, was raised in a close-knit and loving family and, until this week, the anonymous voice of the Rotherham sexual grooming scandal

Sammy Woodhouse is a pretty, fine-boned woman whose tiny frame belies the robust resilience of her character. It is hard to imagine the depravity of the man who, when she was no more than a child herself, abused her and twice made her pregnant.

The litany of sexual exploitation, violence and emotional cruelty she endured as an adolescent is chilling.

Equally disturbing is the fact that the authorities  the police and the council-appointed carers who should have protected her  seemed to her, by failing to deal with the abuse, almost to condone it.

Sammy, 31, who was raised in a close-knit and loving family, is the fiercely eloquent  but until this week anonymous  voice of the victims of the Rotherham sexual grooming scandal.

She has now chosen to let the public know her identity and speaks in full for the first time about the harrowing two years she spent in thrall to the manipulative Arshid Hussain, a drug dealer ten years her senior from a notorious family of criminals.

Hussain, 42  who uses a wheelchair since a gangland shooting in 2005  is now serving 35 years in prison for 23 offences, including rape and indecent assault, involving nine victims, and it is thanks in large part to Sammys compelling evidence that he was brought to justice.

But failures in the system were endemic. In 2015, Rotherham Council was declared not fit for purpose because it had failed so parlously in its handling of child sexual exploitation. A damning report estimated 1,400 girls had been abused in the town by men of predominantly Pakistani heritage during a 16-year period until 2013.

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She spent two years in thrall to the manipulative Arshid Hussain, a drug dealer ten years her senior from a notorious family of criminals. Hussein is serving 35 years in prison. Pictured, aged three (left) and four (right)

Arshid destroyed me emotionally, says Sammy today. He took everything from me: my loving family, my future, my friends.

Id just turned 14 when he started grooming me, and at the time I was smitten. Besotted.

The grooming process is fun for the victim. He took me to nice restaurants; he told me I was pretty, intelligent, amazing.

I was too young, too naive, to recognise that I was actually being manipulated by a paedophile, because he was nothing like my image of a man who abused under-age girls. I thought they were strangers who hung around school gates offering sweets.

It wasnt until I was in my mid-20s that the realisation hit me like a ton of bricks. He hadnt been my boyfriend. I was just one of dozens of girls hed exploited and viewed as white trash. It was like an explosion going off in my head.

She started being groomed by Hussein when she was 14. She said: 'I felt disgusting, dirty. He destroyed my self esteem.' Pictured winning a pageant on holiday aged six

I felt disgusting, dirty  as if I belonged to a part of society beneath everyone else. I had no hope, no life and I felt as if my whole life had been a lie.

He became controlling, possessive and hed batter me. But the scars of the mental abuse took longer to fade than the bruises. He used to tell me that without him I was nothing and nobody.

He destroyed my self-esteem, and thats as much a form of abuse as the beatings he gave me.

For four or five years, there were times I was so depressed I couldnt get out of bed. At my lowest point, I wanted to take my own life.

Justice has been done now. It wont make up for the lost years, but at least other girls are safe from him, and he has 35 years to think about what hes done.

Ive gone through the worst. I was a victim, then a survivor, and now Im thriving. My focus now is on my children, and campaigning.

Sammy, who endured an abortion at 14 and gave birth to a son by Hussain at 15, is now a single mum. She has a second son, aged 11, from a subsequent relationship.

She is also a powerful advocate for the victims of sexual abuse, and her education campaign has won a 3.1 million grant for the childrens charity Barnardos.

That Sammy is both intelligent and articulate is clear. The fact that she was raised in a stable nuclear family by hard-working, loving parents explodes the myth that it is children in care  or those in dysfunctional families  who are the most vulnerable to abuse. Everyone thinks abused children come from damaged homes, she says. Its just not true.

Sammy, who endured an abortion at 14 and gave birth to a son by Hussain at 15, is now a single mum. She has a second son, aged 11, from a subsequent relationship. Pictured, Sammy aged six (left) and four (right)

All the girls in Rotherham who were sexually exploited, as I was, had very good, secure homes. I always say anyone can be a victim, and anyone can be a perpetrator.

Sammy, the youngest of Mel and Julie Woodhouses three daughters, remembers the happy community in which she grew up: the cheerful camaraderie of neighbours, trips in the familys caravan to the coast at Cleethorpes, and the enveloping love of an extended family of aunts and cousins who lived near her familys three-bedroom home.

Her father, a painter and decorator, also owned a pool hall.

Hes always been a grafter, says Sammy. He doesnt smoke or drink. Hes a keen cyclist. Dad was the disciplinarian.

Her father, a painter and decorator, also owned a pool hall. Her mother died 11 years ago of a brain haemorrhage and did not live to see her daughter's abuser brought to justice. Pictured aged 12

She describes her mother, who died 11 years ago of a brain haemorrhage and did not live to see her daughters abuser brought to justice, as my best friend.

I was very loved, mischievous and full of energy. School reports described me as promising and a pleasure to teach. I was set for five good GCSE grades.

And Mum and Dad took me all over the country with the dance/aerobics squad I belonged to. My ambition was to be a dancer.

However, shortly before she turned 13, her parents decided that Sammy should give up the competitive dancing to concentrate on her school work. It seemed to mark the start of a decline.

By now at secondary school, she started meeting school friends on the local green  which had already become a hunting ground for the predatory Arshid Hussain and his younger brother, Basharat.

Just after my 14th birthday, I was on the green with a friend when Ash (Arshid) pulled up in his silver Astra, she recalls. I already knew his brother, Basharat. Everyone knew each other. So Ash didnt feel like a complete stranger. He was very well-dressed, good-looking and muscular.

He asked a friend and me to go for a ride in his car. Then he asked how old I was. I lied that I was 16. He stroked my face and said: Youre not really, are you? So I admitted I was 14.

Each day after school, Hussain, then 24, began taking Sammy out. They went to several of the many properties his family owned. She even met his mother and sisters.

His cynical grooming campaign  the smooth talking and false affection  could not have failed to reel in an impressionable adolescent girl.

At secondary school, she started meeting school friends on the local green  which had already become a hunting ground for the predatory Arshid Hussain and his younger brother, Basharat. Pictured right aged 13 with sister Rachel

He seemed respectful of me, recalls Sammy. He paid me compliments; he was amusing. I was just mesmerised by him.

People viewed him with a mix of fear and awe, and I was flattered he was interested in me. He made me feel grown-up and special.

Not for one second did I think: Im at risk, in danger. I was intrigued, too, and there was the attraction of the forbidden. But I knew, instinctively, that Mum and Dad would disapprove.

Within days, Mel and Julie, conscientious parents that they were, realised what was happening.

Dad was like an FBI agent, Sammy recalls. He found out everything. He said he wanted Ash charged. The police were involved, but I refused to make a statement and they said there was nothing they could do.

Parents Mel and Julie realised within days what was happening and wanted Hussain to be charged. But Sammy refused to make a statement. Pictured aged 15

In fact, Hussain had not yet had sex with Sammy. It was a month before he did  and by then she was smitten. Her parents had grounded her, but Hussain had begun collecting her from school at lunchtime.

The first time we had sex was one lunchtime at his family home, she says. I thought: Hes my boyfriend  this is what you do. I had such strong feelings for him. I loved him. And he was clever and manipulative. He said: Your dad just doesnt like me because hes a racist.

It wasnt long before Sammy began skipping lessons.

Sammy had sex with Hussein for the first time at his family home. Soon after, Sammy started skipping lessons. Six months on, Sammy discovered she was pregnant

Ash was taking me to the cinema and to nice restaurants. He was like a walking cash card. He paid for everything.

He bought me a mobile phone  which my parents had refused me because I was too young  and an engagement ring, which I later discovered was stolen.

He didnt seem like an evil monster. To me then, he was Prince Charming.

The relationship escalated with Sammy disappearing for days or weeks at a time, moving between flats and B&Bs, many apparently owned by the Hussain family. Her parents were at their wits end.

Dad scoured the streets looking for me. He took my photo to every B&B and hotel in the area, asking if anyone had seen me. Mum would cry herself to sleep. It ripped our family apart.

Six months on, Sammy discovered she was pregnant. While her parents distress was unimaginable, she was ecstatic.

Her father confronted Hussain at his family home. There was an altercation and Mel was hit in the face.

Sammy persisted in her naive belief that once her baby was born, she and Hussain would get married and live happily ever after in a nice little house.

But she had no idea of the monstrous scale of his deceit. He already had a wife, and she was just one of a string of girls he was abusing.

When Sammy's family found out she was pregnant, her father confronted Hussain and Mel was hit in the face. She still believed she would marry Hussain when the baby was born. Pictured aged 19

Sammys parents were determined to secure his conviction for having sex with an under-age girl. They believed the babys DNA would provide the proof.

As a result, Hussain insisted Sammy have an abortion. He said hed go to prison if I didnt, she recalls.

Afterwards, I lay sobbing. I felt as if Id murdered my baby. I was going through puberty, I was pregnant and being abused. It was my lowest point.

By then, she was also scared of Hussains violent temper.

Hed become possessive and controlling. He didnt want me even to talk to boys at my school. He started to hit me, drag me round by my hair. Once, he gave me a bloody nose.

Afterwards, hed say: Its only because I love you. You make me do it. He was like a drug. I knew I hurt all the time and that he was bad for me, but I felt I couldnt live without him.

Hussain forced Sammy to have an abortion as it he would be charged for having sex with an under-age girl. Sammy didn't realise he already had a wife, and she was just one of a string of girls he was abusing. Pictured aged 19 with her son

Unable to control their daughter, Mel and Julie put her into the care of social services, believing she would be safe.

In fact, her foster placement proved catastrophically destructive: she was allowed to go out and she would meet Hussain.

It was insane, she says. He was known as a serial abuser and Rotherham Council were sanctioning my abuse by letting me see him. They failed me massively. I was betrayed by them.

Im taking legal action against them, but the social worker who was charged with my care has retired, so Ive no redress.

Mum and Dad were distraught but powerless. The police were scared to be perceived as racist. Nothing was done.

When Sammy was put into care by social services, she was allowed out to see Hussain. She said: 'Rotherham Council were sanctioning my abuse by letting me see him. They failed me massively'

Meanwhile, I was being sexually abused on a daily basis. Sometimes it was as if I was a dead body lying on a slab. Id become emotionless. I weighed 7st  I was like a rag doll.

I started to hear rumours that he was sleeping with my friends, and whenever I confronted him hed kick off and hit me.

I felt guilty about how devastated my family was, but it was as if he had me under a spell. I cant remember when I discovered that he was a heroin dealer, but it just became part of my life. He was always against me taking it, but once he spiked my drink with ecstasy. When I started hallucinating, he thought it was funny.

Then, at the end of 2000, Sammy fell pregnant again, and resolved to keep the baby.

During her pregnancy, Hussains violence escalated. During one row, he sped off with her in his car, crashing it into a wall. Although police charged him with having no tax or insurance, they failed to do anything about the battered, pregnant 15-year-old with him in the car.

Then, several months into her pregnancy, Hussain was jailed for six months for assault on a fellow drug dealer. It gave Sammy her chance to escape.

I started spending time at home with my parents again, she recalls. Theyd never stopped loving me.

We didnt talk about him  they didnt want to do anything to rock the boat  but you could see the concern and sadness in their eyes. Finally, I moved back in with them and my whole focus was on my baby. I was in constant emotional pain and it was like a stabbing in my heart, but I didnt want my parents to know the depths of it.

Sammys son was born in the summer of 2001. Her mum was at her side.

I didnt recognise him as the product of abuse and rape, says Sammy. He was just my baby. It didnt matter where he came from. I loved him.

Hussains destructive power over her had ended. But it was not until February last year that he was jailed for his crimes against her.

She became pregnant again in the summer of 2000 and decided to keep the baby. She has had one serious relationship since Hussain, and her second son is the product of it

Sammy has had one serious relationship since Hussain, and her second son is the product of it. Now single, she lives in a pin-neat home on a pleasant modern estate in Rotherham, with her sons and her campaigning the focus of her life.

Thanks in part to that campaigning, Rotherhams record on the care of victims of sexual exploitation is now unparalleled nationally.

Today, Sammy is seeking support from the Prime Minister and the Duchess of Cornwall for her Sammys Law campaign.

She believes the victims of sexual exploitation are often coerced into committing crimes by their abusers  she herself was  and she is hoping a new law will wipe clean their records, enabling such victims to secure jobs more easily.

The questions have to be asked, she says: How and why were they convicted? Are they likely to re-offend, and are they a risk to society?

She describes how, as a 14-year-old, police found her half-naked at one of Hussains properties, hiding under the bed. Unconcerned that she was an under-age girl, they cautioned her for possession of an offensive weapon after discovering a truncheon  which belonged to Hussain  in her handbag.

Today, I realise the police failed me. Its disgraceful that they did not even question Ash, who was 25, about why he was with a girl as young as me.

He had given me the truncheon so Id get into trouble, not him, she remembers. Such circumstances should be taken into account, so victims like me can move on with their lives.

She was also cautioned for an assault, and put on a probation order for another.

Both offences, she says, happened when other girls taunted her because they were also having sex with Hussain.

I ask what she feels about him today. There are times when I hate him  but I try not to feel hatred because I dont want to be destroyed by it.

My real regret is that my Mum died thinking hed got away with destroying our family. I know shed be proud of me for helping to get justice.

There are a lot of children still out there who need me to keep fighting for them.
Heidi McKinney, 27, (pictured in a mug shot) pleaded guilty Friday to a felony assault charge that was filed after a female passenger complained that she had been groped during a flight on May 8, 2016

An Oregon woman pleaded guilty on Friday to a felony assault charge that was filed after a female passenger complained that she had been groped during a flight from Las Vegas to Portland.

Heidi McKinney, 27, of Sherwood, Oregon, a Portland suburb, was arrested May 8, 2016, after the Alaska Airlines Flight 621 landed at Portland International Airport.

The former Portland Community College student was booked into the Multnomah County Jail and released on $2,500 bail the following day.

She told Fox 12 on her release from jail: 'Don't believe everything you hear.'

The unidentified victim told authorities she had been touched on the breast and genitals without consent by another female passenger.

'Miss McKinney did so with the intent to humiliate and harass the victim,' said Assistant US Attorney Ravi Sinha at US District Court in Portland. '(She) both made contact with victim's body, including her inner thigh, and made a series of profane and lewd statements to the victim.'

A federal grand jury originally indicted McKinney on a charge of abusive sexual contact. She ultimately pleaded guilty to assault with the intent to commit a felony.

The unidentified victim told authorities McKinney had touched her on the breast and genitals without her consent on an Alaska Airlines flight (file picture) from Las Vegas to Portland

The maximum penalty is 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. However, Sinha and defense attorney Lisa Ludwig plan to jointly recommend a sentence of three years on probation.

The judge does not have to accept the recommendation.

McKinney answered a series of yes-or-no questions from US District Judge Michael Simon, and she made no lengthy statements Friday.

McKinney will be sentenced on June 19 and faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. She is pictured above in Facebook photos taken during a prior trip to Hawaii

It is unclear whether alcohol was a factor in the alleged incident, but McKinney said she recently completed alcohol treatment at a facility near Portland.

A fellow passenger on the Alaska Airlines flight wrote on Twitter that the incident involving McKinney caused passengers to remain on the plane after it had landed.

'So thats why we were stuck in the sweltering plane. She was DRUNK when Portland PD escorted her off the plane,' the passenger wrote, linking to a story about McKinney's arrest.

Court documents show McKinney was convicted of drunken driving in 2008 and 2015.

Her fiance told jail officers after the plane incident that McKinney does not metabolize alcohol like most people and 'this is what happens', records show.

Simon scheduled sentencing for June 19. In the meantime, McKinney remains out of custody under a set of pretrial conditions, including that she not use drugs or alcohol.
The last picture taken of PC Palmer, just 45 minutes before his death, with tourist Staci Martin from Florida

A former head of Scotland Yard has led calls for Keith Palmer to receive a posthumous honour for his exceptional bravery.

The remarks by Lord Stevens, Met boss from 2000 to 2005, were joined by those of the police union chairman and the father of an officer who was stabbed to death.

They attacked how the Government-appointed honours committee had handed out gongs to tinpot celebrities, while snubbing courageous public servants.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Theresa May, who has vowed to clean up the honours system, said PC Palmer would be considered for an accolade after his ultimate sacrifice.

The top honour available to police is the George Cross, for gallantry of the greatest heroism or conspicuous courage in the face of extreme danger.

Sources believe the most likely accolade, if approved, would be a George Medal or Queens Gallantry Medal  the second and third highest.

But senior officers fear PC Palmer could be snubbed by the honours committee. In 2006, the Daily Mail revealed Special Branch detective Stephen Oake, killed by an Al Qaeda terrorist three years earlier, had been overlooked for a George Cross. Three years later, he was awarded the Queens Gallantry Medal.

At least five people were killed in the terrorist attack on Westminster on Wednesday (above)

Yesterday Lord Stevens, patron of the Police Arboretum Memorial Trust, said: I think Keith Palmer was the epitome of a really outstanding police officer. He stood in the way of a terrorist to protect the Houses of Parliament. He gave his life for that.

Lord Stevens, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner is leading the calls for the award

His call was echoed by the father of WPC Nina Mackay, 25, who was fatally stabbed during a police raid 20 years ago. Sidney Mackay, a retired Met chief superintendent, said: Keith Palmers outstanding bravery must be recognised at a very high level.

The Police Federations Steve White said: It would be entirely appropriate for Keith and his family to be recognised  a reflection of how grateful we are for what he did.

The priority of the honours system should be to recognise people who serve the public and put their lives at risk.

n Hero MP Tobias Ellwood, who battled to save PC Keith Palmers life, and security minister Ben Wallace, who helped co-ordinate the Governments response, have been honoured for their actions on Wednesday.

The Queen has approved their appointment to the Privy Council, which means the pair will now be referred to as Right Honourable and receive top-secret security briefings.
Children as young as 10 are addicted to smoking the deadly drug ice, with experts saying 'it's a matter of time before they shoot it up.'

During an inquiry into the impact of ice, also known as crystal methamphetamine, at the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement in Canberra, evidence was given about the effect the devastating drug is having on Tasmanian children.

Holyoake Tasmania, a non-profit organisation which provides counselling for addictions, warns too many hospitality workers in Tasmania's south were taking ice, often manufactured in a 'significant number of backyard kitchens', The Mercury reports.

Tasmanian children as young as 10 are addicted to smoking the deadly drug ice, with experts saying 'it's a matter of time before they shoot it up' (stock image)

'Disturbingly, we've had an increase in the number of younger people and, to date, the youngest child we've had was 10-years-old who is regularly using ice and his friend is 12 who is also using ice,' Holyoake Tasmania's Chief executive Sarah Charlton told the inquiry.

'At the moment they're smoking it, but it's a matter of time before they shoot it up.'

Tasmania Police and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Council of Tasmania also presented evidence at the enquiry.

Ms Charlton added there was a waiting list of up to eight weeks for a Hobart public detox facility that operates at only 50 percent

Deputy chairwoman of the parliamentary committee Tasmanian senator Lisa Singh said she was deeply concerned and said the likelihood of success diminished because of the waiting period.

'To succeed in the battle against ice, we must have strong investment in drug prevention, treatment and support services, and harm minimisation.'

Evidence was given about the effect the devastating drug is having on Tasmanian children at an inquiry at the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement in Canberra

Holyoake Tasmania's Chief executive Sarah Charlton told the inquiry they've seen an increase in the number of younger people using the drug, the youngest being 10-years-old (stock image)

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The four-metre crocodile that mauled a teenager in far north Queensland last weekend will be relocated to a croc farm or zoo.

Wildlife rangers trapped the crocodile in Innisfail's Johnstone River on Friday morning only metres away from where 18-year-old Lee De Paauw had been mauled on Sunday morning.

The animal is being kept at a holding facility until it can be properly relocated.

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The four-metre crocodile, pictured, that mauled a teenager in far north Queensland last weekend has been caught

Lee De Paauw, 18, was injured in his arm after jumping into croc-infested water to impress a young British backpacker

Sophie Paterson was moderately impressed by the stunt - but did agree to a movie date, claims De Paauw

Mr De Paauw was lucky to escape with his life after jumping into the river in an attempt to impress young British backpacker Sophie Paterson.

He almost lost his left arm but boasted that at least had got a date out of it.

'She said she would go out with me to the movies, yeah,' he told the Nine Network on Tuesday.

Claiming that he took the plunge for 'that beautiful backpacker', Mr De Paauw was quick to add that she was 'just another girl' when asked what was so special about her.

'[She's not really special] just another girl but she is really good-looking and she was kind to me the night before,' Mr De Pauuw said.

But Ms Paterson told NOVA he was 'too young for me'.

Appearing on Channel 7, Ms Paterson said that she would have to be 'quite twisty' to be impressed by Mr De Pauuw's efforts.

'Risking your life, there is nothing funny about that,' she said.

'She said she would go out with me to the movies,' De Paauw, left, said of Ms Paterson, right

It's a drastic change of tone compared to Monday when Mr De Pauuw claimed to be head over hills for the British backpacker.

'I did not know there was a crocodile there. I just done it for Sophie,' he said.

'She is beautiful, caring, and kind.'

Miss Paterson, 24, was having drinks with Mr De Paauw in the early hours of Sunday morning when she dared him to jump into the far north Queensland river.

The teenager, who lives nearby, foolishly went for it after drinking 'ten cups of goon' - only to be attacked by a huge saltwater crocodile that was lurking in the creek.

The foolhardy teenager was lucky to get away with his life, punching the huge reptile in the face after it sunk its jaws into his arm and tried to drown him in a 'death roll'.
Gleeful Democrats couldn't resist celebrating as House Republicans and President Donald Trump failed to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Trump blamed Democrats in Congress for the embarrassing defeat on Friday after Republicans were forced to cancel a vote on their health care bill, forcing Twitter to bring out the memes.

The president warned the opposition party that they will continue to 'own Obamacare' as it spins in a death spiral.

Shortly after the vote was called off, House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters that Obamacare was still 'the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced'.

But one thing is for certain, the Twitterverse has no chill.

The Trump administration faced an embarrassing defeat on Friday after House Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare - forcing Twitter to bring out the memes

Shortly after the vote was called off, House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters that Obamacare was still 'the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced'. And that really sent Twitter into a frenzy

The Speaker Ryan press conference lasted about as long as his health plan #Obamacare is here to stay



God bless the #ACA#KillTheBill pic.twitter.com/aZltOV5wvP  CaptainsLog2017  (@CaptainsLog2017) March 24, 2017

Twitter users brought out the hilarious crying Michael Jordan meme, particularly for Speaker Ryan, but one can't forget the Trump in a truck memes from Thursday.

But several users illustrated the Republican's defeat with former President Barack Obama's unforgettable mic drop, his quirky Buzzfeed video and photos of him with Hillary Clinton.

Let's not forget Obama's bestie and former Vice-President, Joe Biden, was also used to poke fun at Republicans.

Barack Obama's spokesman Kevin Lewis shared this photo, posted on Instagram by Obama's White House photographer Pete Souza, from the day ObamaCare was passed seven years ago

Twitter users brought out the hilarious crying Michael Jordan meme, particularly for Speaker Ryan, but one can't forget the Trump in a truck memes from Thursday

But several users illustrated the Republican's defeat with former President Barack Obama's unforgettable mic drop, his quirky Buzzfeed video and photos of him with Hillary Clinton

Although it was GOP infighting that caused the legislative crisis, the president predicted that Obamacare will ultimately crash and burn  forcing Democrats to come crawling to the White House for his help in crafting a workable replacement 'when it explodes  which it will soon'.

'The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,' Trump claimed, naming the Democratic Party's leaders in the House and Senate, 'because now they own Obamacare. They own it. One hundred per cent own it.'

'They have Obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.'

'And just remember,' Trump warned: 'This is not our bill. This is their bill. Now when they all become civilized and get together and try to work out a great health care bill for the people of this country, we're open to it.'

Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for former president Obama, said he had 'no comment' on the situation after Ryan declared that the architects of Obamacare must be pleased. And Twitter users felt the same way

Republican leaders took the extraordinary step of canceling a vote on their American Health Care Act, which was to be a replacement for the seven-year-old Affordable Care Act.

Ryan yanked the major Trump priority because it didn't have enough Republican votes to pass, and no Democrats were willing to sign on.

A White House source told DailyMail.com that the decision was ultimately the president's.

The result leaves Obama's signature legislative achievement in place  at least for now.

'I don't know how long it will take us to replace this law,' Ryan said. 'My worry is Obamacare is going to be getting even worse.'

HOLLYWOOD GLOATS: HOW RICH AND FAMOUS CELEBRITIES REACT TO TRUMP'S HEALTHCARE FAIL Celebrities didn't hold back either as they mocked the House Republicans and Trump following their humiliating healthcare defeat on Twitter. Celebrities didn't hold back either as they mocked the House Republicans and Trump following their humiliating healthcare defeat on Twitter Advertisement

Ryan needed the support of 216 out of the 241 Republicans. Trump said he 'came close' but couldn't seal the deal.

'We had no Democrat support; we had no votes from the Democrats. They weren't going to give us a single vote,' Trump complained.

The Obamacare law was passed without a single Republican 'yes' in March 2010  almost exactly seven years ago.

At the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Nancy Pelosi could hardly contain her glee.

'Today is a great day for our country. It's a victory,' she said. 'What happened on the [House] floor is a victory for the American people, for our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children, for our veterans.'

Trump appeared in public at a celebration of Greek Independence Day just before it was announced that the Obamacare repeal and replace bill was being abandoned

Humiliated: Paul Ryan had to admit that Obamacare is now 'the law of the land' for the foreseeable future

On the other side of the Capitol, Chuck Schumer openly mocked Trump for failing to make the entire House Republican Conference fall in line.

'The TrumpCare bill failed because of two traits that have plagued the Trump presidency since he took office: incompetence and broken promises. In my life, I have never seen an administration as incompetent as the one occupying the White House today,' he said.

'Today weve learned that they cant close a deal, and they cant count votes. So much for the Art of the Deal.'

Ryan's failure to bring the American Health Care Act across the first of many finish lines exposed fractures in the House GOP at the same time it brought into sharp relief the 47-year-old speaker's lack of governing experience.

'I will not sugar-coat this. This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard,' Ryan added.

The vote had been set for Thursday, but was rescheduled when the bill's nuts and bolts became a tougher and tougher sell for both moderates and right-wingers.

Trump had threatened that the Friday vote would be their only chance. But when the dust settled he seemed willing to see a new plan take shape.

Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for former president Obama, said he had 'no comment' on the situation after Ryan declared that the architects of Obamacare must be pleased.
A star University of California, Berkeley, philosophy professor has been accused of groping his female research assistant.

Joanna Ong, 24, has filed a bombshell lawsuit against John Searle and the Regents of the University of California.

Searle, 84, groped Ong, a 2014 Berkeley graduate, in his office in July 2016, the suit, a copy of which was obtained by BuzzFeed News, claims.

Philosophy professor John Searle, left, allegedly groped Joanna Ong in July 2016

Ong was in one of Searle's classes when she was an undergraduate, and her graduate student instructor was Jennifer Hudin, who became 'something of a trusted adviser,' the suit says.

The suit says that in summer 2016, 'Ong expressed to Hudin an interest in gaining work experience in academia prior to attending graduate school in the fall of 2017.

'Hudin offered Ong a dual position working at U.C. Berkeley as a consultant for the John Searle Center for Social Ontology for a salary of $1,000 a month, and as a research associate for Searle himself to help Ong cover her living expenses.

'Searle promised to pay Ong $3,000 a month to cover her living expenses.'

Ong began working for Searle in July 2016, and transcribed his notes and answered his emails, the lawsuit says.

It says that Ong was sexually assaulted by the professor 'after only a week of working together,' and that he locked the door 'then went directly to Ong to grope her'.

It says: 'Professor Searle slid his hands down the back of her spine to her buttocks and told Ong that "they were going to be lovers," that he had an "emotional commitment to making her a public intellectual" and that he was "going to love her for a long time."'

However, the complaint says that Ong 'immediately' turned him down.

Searle apologized and said Ong should 'forget it,' and Ong received $3,000 for working with Searle that month, according to the suit.

Ong was in one of Searle's classes when she was an undergraduate. She graduated from UC Berkeley (pictured) in 2014

The lawsuit says Searle went on vacation the next month and Ong reported the assault to Hudin, the director of the John Searle Center for Social Ontology, who allegedly 'told Ong that she would protect Ong from Searle's advances.

'Hudin also acknowledged that Professor Searle has had sexual relationships with his students and others in the past in exchange for academic, monetary or other benefits.'

Searle came back in late August, the suit says, and 'Ong's work environment became increasingly hostile and awkward'.

Searle, it alleged, 'acted as if the assault had never happened' and reduced her salary by more than fifty per cent without an explanation.

The suit claims Searle behaved inappropriately and 'would occasionally ask Ong to log into a "Sugar Baby, Sugar Daddy" website for him, which she refused to do'.

Ong once allegedly brought up American Imperialism. Searle, the suit says, responded: 'American Imperialism? Oh boy, that sounds great honey! Let's go to bed and do that right now!'

The professor watched pornography on his laptop computer in front of Ong with the volume on, the suit also claims.

Searle asked Ong to read and answer his emails 'that would include Searle corresponding flirtatiously with several young women, including U.C. Berkeley students and foreign students from Europe, who sought to work as his research assistant, the same position she currently held,' the suit says.

Searle 'abruptly' stopped teaching an undergraduate philosophy class this month and retains emeritus status, it's been reported

Ong spoke to Hudin in September 2016 about the behavior and pay cut, with Hudin telling her 'she would address these issues with Searle and upper management,' the suit says.

However, it claims that Hudin 'later admitted that she was not going to address these issues with upper management out of her respect and loyalty to Professor Searle because she needed to "protect him."'

She told Ong on September 23, 2016 'that she would not be retained as a consultant with the Center', according to the suit.

Ong seeks damages for assault, a hostile work environment, sexual harassment, and wrongful termination, BuzzFeed reports.

A spokeswoman for the University of California, Berkeley, told the website that its policy is to not comment on individual cases.

Searle 'abruptly' stopped teaching an undergraduate philosophy class this month and retains emeritus status, BuzzFeed writes.

Hudin and Searle did not immediately respond to email messages sent Friday evening by DailyMail.com seeking comment.
A cyclone brewing off the far north Queensland coast could intensify into a Category 5 sparking locals to rush for the tip and clear supermarket shelves.

The low pressure system in the Coral Sea is expected to develop into tropical cyclone Debbie on Saturday and is predicted to intensify into a category 4.

But BoM Queensland regional director Bruce Gunn would not rule out the possibility it could intensify into a Category 5.

In preparation for the carnage - expected to hit on Tuesday - locals have lined up for hours for the rubbish tip and have been warned to have enough food to last three days, 9 News reported.

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North Queensland residents are preparing for a possible category 4 cyclone

Supermarket shelves have been cleared in preparation for the cyclone

A cyclone brewing off the far north Queensland coast is now predicted to intensify into a Category 4

The Bureau of Meteorology said there was a 'high chance' a low pressure system off Papua New Guinea would develop into a cyclone in the Coral Sea on Sunday

It is then expected to start making its way west towards the coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology released its updated forecast early on Saturday.

It predicted the cyclone would develop into a Category 4 before it made landfall on Tuesday morning, bringing wind gusts of between 225km and 279km per hour.

The bureau has issued a cyclone watch zone for residents living along the 1000km stretch of coast between Cape Tribulation and St Lawrence.

It includes the Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Whitsunday Islands regions.

A flood watch is also in place for coastal areas between Cooktown and Mackay.

Bottled water and milk is fast disappearing from Coles in Townsville

A Townsville Woolworths cleared of bottled water in preparation for cyclone Debbie

Queensland residents told to start making emergency plans in preparation

In preparation for the carnage locals have been warned to have enough food to last three days

It will be named Cyclone Caleb or Cyclone Debbie depending on whether another tropical low brews up first off Western Australia

BoM confirmed circulation was already evident on Willis Island, which lies about 450 kilometres east of Cairns, Queensland

Residents are being urged to develop an emergency plan and stay up to date with the changing weather.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will also convene the Queensland Disaster Management Committee in Brisbane on Saturday.

It will be briefed by the weather bureau, Queensland Police Service and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.

'People should be making preparations now. The wind and rainfall is increasing and it means wind gusts exceeding 90km/h over a large area,' Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke told 9 News.

Mackay will be hit with up to 200mm of rain, and possible flash flooding.

Flash flooding is also possible in Charters Towers, Mr Dutschke said.

Crisis briefings are being held by disaster teams in Queensland as the state prepares for its first cyclone in two year

Destroyed trees and fruit on the Hopevale Banana Farm, an indigenous venture that has just recovered from total destruction

He said strong winds could also cause 'dangerous' waves and urged people to stay away from the water.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) confirmed the cyclone would most likely threaten the north Queensland coastline on Sunday.

In an updated release issued on Friday, BoM confirmed circulation was already evident on Willis Island, which lies about 450 kilometres east of Cairns, Queensland.

On Thursday afternoon the Bureau said it could make landfall anywhere between Cooktown and Mackay.

'It's too early to speculate about the cyclone's intensity, forecast path and where it will make landfall, however, we will get a clearer picture in the coming days,' BoM Queensland regional director Bruce Gunn said in a statement on Thursday.

'Communities in north Queensland should begin their preparations now, stay tuned for the latest official forecasts and warnings from the Bureau and follow the advice of local emergency services.'

Fallen trees in the community of Ski Beach near Nhulunbuy in April 2015 - one month after Cyclone Nathan

In an updated release issued on Friday, BoM confirmed circulation was already evident on Willis Island, which lies about 450 kilometres east of Cairns, Queensland

Cairns Mayor Bob Manning said disaster crews and local residents were ready and were planning to hold briefings on Friday to assess the threat, reported the Courier Mail.

Australia has been hit by three tropical cyclones this season but the last one to cross the Queensland coast was Cyclone Nathan in March 2015.

Meanwhile, a tropical cyclone is developing off the Western Australian coast and forecast to intensify slowly over coming days.

However it is expected to remain over open water.

The category one system, which was named Caleb on Thursday afternoon, was about 400km east of Cocos Island and moving at 13km/h in a south-southeasterly direction during the evening.

There have been three tropical cyclones this season - Yvette in December, Alfred in February and Blanche in March.

A portable gas stove, canned beans and bottled water for the cyclone

Residents clear out their garage to prepare for cyclone Debbie
Prince Harry may have to up his dating game with Meghan Markle.

Soho Farmhouse  the exclusive members club near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire where he has enjoyed intimate soirees with the American actress  has been slapped on the wrist and told to clean up its act by hygiene inspectors over cold food and dirty surfaces.

The report says: Temperatures of macaroni cheese and chicken in the hot hold were 44c and 43c  hot food should be kept above 63c.

Burger buns were being stored adjacent to cleaning products  proper segregation should be maintained.

Harry, left, has taken Meghan Markle, right, to the Oxfordshire club but may have to rethink his date locations after the latest food hygiene report

Soho Farmhouse was told to clean up its act over food storage in the hot hold, which was 20 degrees lower than it should have been

Free offer turns sour for Middleton marshmallows

James Middleton and Boomf marshmallows

James Middletons attempts to put the oomph into Boomf, his personalised marshmallow company, have suffered another blow.

This week a customer cheekily shared a promotional code given to him by the Duchess of Cambridges brother entitling him to free confetti after he had received the wrong order.

After they posted the freebie offer on the internet, Middleton found himself inundated with more than 6,000 claims for free confetti, which he has declined to honour.

The code was snuck out from under our radar by a person posting onto a generic voucher site, who was not authorised to do so, says a spokesman. While we were all thrilled with the very high interest over the past three days, if we had honoured all 6,030 of the unsolicited free orders placed we would have to cancel the factorys tea and biscuit budget and face a marshmallow strike right before Mothers Day.

Beleaguered Boomf suffered losses of 930,000 in 2015 and things became so tight that the company took out a 500,000 loan from Barclays in May last year.

One backer of Boomf is Jamess sister Pippas hedge fund manager fiance James Matthews, who recently paid more than 100,000 to buy a stake of more than 12,800 shares.

Despite being old enough to be his grandmother, the Duchess of York is a fan of Justin Bieber  the Canadian pop star was one of the first people Fergie followed when she joined Instagram.

And now shes gone into business with his half-sister.

Eight-year-old Jazmyn Bieber is the Kids Ambassador for a Canada-based internet safety firm called KidsWifi  and Sarah Ferguson has come on board to introduce the company to strategic influencers in the UK. Cash-for-access Fergie certainly knows all about connections.

Irrespressible socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was reinventing herself as a businesswoman before her death last month, aged just 45.

But her family have decided not to continue her fledgling fashion company, Desiderata.

Taras sister, the novelist Santa Montefiore, has become a director of the firm in order to close it down.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was reinventing herself as a businesswoman before her death last month, aged just 45

Its very sad for everyone involved, but we have decided to wind up Desiderata on March 31, she says. Tara was the creative force behind it, but now she is gone. I could never replace her.

Desiderata sells Taras invention, The Kubbi  a cross between a mans shirt and a stretch body designed to banish creases and crumples, with a 195 price tag.

Tara ploughed more than 380,000 into the company after launching it last year, but it had debts of almost 200,000 when she died.
According to an article written by the Geological Society of Nevada, Dave Knight, the owner of Carlin Trend Mining Supplies & Services, had always seemed destined to be a geologist or miner from birth. Both of his fathers parents were from mining families and there was not a dinner or family event that mining or prospecting stories werent told.

Dave was born and raised in the historic mining town of Prescott, Arizona and with school studies and summer jobs centered on geology, he had the geological fire in his gut. Dave then obtained a BS from the University of Arizona and a MS from the University of Manitoba, and then went to work with Texasgulf Inc. in 1981.

After working for a number of companies through the 1980s, Dave moved to Elko in late 1991 to work with the team that exploration geologist, Bruce Harvey had assembled to systematically evaluate and explore the Carlin Trend. Dave played an early and major role in the discovery of the Leeville gold deposit by recognizing the importance of wispy-laminated textural characteristics within the upper Roberts Mountains Formation host rock in combination with the presence of Carlin replacement-style mineralization in some of the first drill holes.

Dave has always believed that successful exploration comes from individuals who are focused and have dedicated their professional life to understanding ore deposits, deposit settings, and how to go about the discovery process. This passion for geology led Dave and his wife, Debby, to the opening of Carlin Trend Mining Supplies & Services, based in downtown Elko, in 1995. They have been aiding Elkoans in the discovery and exploration process of mining by supplying everything from field tools to prospecting gear for geologists and miners alike, ever since.

Inside the store one will find an unexpected treat, the Rolling Rock Gallery! This is where some of the most unique gifts for the entire family can be found. From kids boutique clothing to classic childrens books with matching plush characters, as well as journals, home decor items, wind chimes and sundials, just to name a few; there is something for everyone! Stop by the store today and have a look for yourself.

Go check out where art meets science, you wont be sorry.
Eating out has become a health lottery in some parts of the country.

As many as one in three food businesses do not meet hygiene standards  and in the worst areas, this rises to two in three.

The Which? consumer group found the worrying results after looking at hygiene reports across 386 local councils.

Hyndburn, Lancashire, is the worst place to eat out as nearly two in three eateries aren't meeting hygiene regulations (file photo)

In 20 local authority areas the chances of someone buying from a food business that isnt meeting hygiene requirements was as high as one in three, it said. In the lowest-rated area, Hyndburn, this rose to nearly two in every three outlets.

Hyndburn in Lancashire has a population of more than 80,000 and includes Accrington, Oswaldtwistle and Great Harwood.

This was the area where Megan Lee, 15, died on New Years Day when she suffered severe anaphylactic shock after eating a takeaway from the Royal Spice curry house in Oswaldtwistle. It was shut down days later over an infestation of mice.

Two men associated with the restaurant have been arrested on suspicion of causing manslaughter as a result of gross negligence.

The Which? research named Birmingham the second worst area for hygiene. It said that of 8,071 food outlets in the city, only 59 per cent of medium to high-risk businesses were found to be broadly compliant with hygiene rules.

Four London areas  Newham, Ealing, Lewisham and Camden  were in the bottom ten.

Four London areas  Newham, Ealing, Lewisham and Camden  were in the bottom ten

The highest-ranking local authority areas included Erewash in Derbyshire, Eden, centred on Penrith, Cumbria, Brentwood in Essex, West Dorset and Sunderland.

The Food Standards Agency and councils rate food businesses from 0, which means urgent improvement is necessary, to 5, which is very good. But outlets are not required to display these ratings, keeping customers in the dark about risks.

Public spending cuts mean many councils do not have the inspectors needed to carry out hygiene checks.

The Which? research named Birmingham the second worst area for hygiene. It said that of 8,071 food outlets in the city, only 59 per cent of medium to high-risk businesses' were in keeping with hygiene regulations

As a result, the work is being passed to private contractors paid by the businesses they are inspecting. Which? fears this could put the commercial interests of food businesses ahead of protecting the public.

Alex Neill, of Which?, said: People expect their food to be safe, but there is clearly work to be done.

The Government and regulators need to ensure there is a robust, independent system of enforcement.

The Local Government Association, which speaks for councils, said the responsibility for keeping people safe lies with food businesses.

But its spokesman, Councillor Simon Blackburn, added: Despite significant funding pressures, councils are doing everything possible to maintain checks in this area.
Khalid Masood's background in the heart of Middle England was as far removed from the stereotype image of an Islamic State 'soldier' as it is possible to imagine

A scaffolder revealed how Westminster terrorist plunged a kitchen knife into his face as friends recounted Khalid Masood's history of violence.

Danny Smith, 35, was left with horrific facial injuries following the savage attack in 2003 in Eastbourne.

The blade sliced his nose in half and ripped through his tongue.

Recalling the horrific ordeal, the father-of-two told the Sun: 'I only knew him three days and he tried to kill me.

'We'd met in the pub and we got on really well. But we had a small falling-out. He came back out with the knife and punched me.'

He added: 'The handle hit my forehead and the knife went straight through my nose, my mouth and my tongue. I fell down and I'm trying to get up but he's trying to stab me in the back four times.

'I thought the knife was going in my body. But a part of it had already snapped off in my face and luckily I was wearing a thick jacket which saved my life.

'He was still behind me shouting "I'm going to f***ing kill you". But I ran and ran and he eventually stopped following.'

Despite the brutal assault Masood - or Adrian Elms as he was known at the time of the attack - was acquitted of attempted murder but it is believed he was given six months for possession of a knife.

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Muslim convert Masood killed three people - Londoner Leslie Rhodes, 75, US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, and mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 43 - with his hired 4x4 on Wednesday before his assault on Parliament.

He had a violent streak and between 1983 and 2003 he racked up convictions for grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.

Other friends recounted Masood's murderous rage and the fact he always carried a knife with him.

One of his friends from the time, Lee Lawrence revealed that Masood spoke of having a 'blood' lust and desire to 'kill' after he slashed pub landlord Piers Mott, 22, with a knife. Mott was left needing 20 stitches to a gaping wound in his cheek.

This is Westminster ISIS-inspired jihadi Khalid Masood (circled in 1980) when he was a student at Huntleys Secondary School in Kent, which would later close and is now a housing estate

Mr Lawrence was driving past in his truck and managed to restrain and calm Masood after the attack in Northiam, East Sussex in 2000.

He told the Sun: 'His eyes had rolled and he was out of this world. Once outside the pub, he also began slashing Mr Mott's car seats.'

As Mr Lawrence tried to calm Masood, his friend went for him.

'He had the knife against my throat and he is going, 'I want some blood, I want some f***ing blood, I want to kill someone'.

'After he calmed down he was saying, 'What have I done? What am I doing? I am going for help. I just want blood or I want to kill someone'. He said he was having anger management.'

Mr Lawrence also told how furious Masood was after his partner was banned from the village netball team because of his violent outbursts.

In revenge, he slashed the tyres of some of the players' cars.

Schoolboys: This photograph of Ajao was of the Huntleys Secondary School for Boys football team in around 1979 or 1980 when he was 15 or 16 years old during a 24-hour charity event

At other times, he had told Mr Lawrence: 'I dream about blood. I dream about killing someone.'

Mr Lawrence told the newspaper: 'The knife was in his pocket all the time. He would never be without his knife. He loved scaring people. He got off on being the hard man.

'He was very articulate and intelligent, but when he got angry he would just snap and become a different person. It was terrifying. There was something inside his brain he just couldn't control'.

When the case came to trail for the attack, Masood told Hove Crown Court he snapped because of racism in the village and claimed he had been ostracised because villagers had a 'view of black people'.

Neighbours said he was radicalised during that two-year jail sentence, and abandoned his old life after his release from prison, including his partner Jane Harvey and their two young daughters.

He had lived with Miss Harvey at her 700,000 home in the well-to-do village of Northiam, near Rye in East Sussex.

Revealed: He was known at Adrian Ajao while at school in Tunbridge Wells - after several spells in prison he became radicalised (right after being gunned down outside Parliament on Wednesday)

Mark Ashdown, 52, a friend of Masood from Huntley School for Boys in Tunbridge Wells, said he noticed a change when he first came out of prison.

He told the Sun: 'He was certainly not a Muslim when I knew him.

'He was Jack the lad. We grew up together, partying all night  drink, drugs, sex, the lot. We lived for weekend raves.'

After he moved to the village of Northiam, Mr Ashdown didn't see his friend as much.

He recalled him getting in a pub fight where he was 'slashed in the face'.

'It really affected him  some kind of switch must have flipped', he added.

After he was released from prison for the Mott attack, he recalled: 'When he first came out he told me he'd become a Muslim in prison and I thought he was joking.'

Masood was then jailed for a slashing another victim in the face.

Mark said: 'I last saw him before his second stint in prison. Obviously he never came out for a drink with the lads.

'There were still flashes of the old Ade, but they were few and far between.

'I heard he'd split from his partner and got even more deeply into religion.'

Mourners have continued to lay floral tributes in Parliament Square to remember the victims of the heinous attack

After his second release from jail, he married Muslim Farzana Malik in 2004 after converting to Islam.

She was granted a divorce after three months of marriage, the Daily Mirror reported.

On her Facebook page 'Soul Searchers', she describes Islamic fanaticism as 'nonsensical', in a lengthy tirade which calls on her fellow Muslims to heed their true faith, concluding 'unless they do that, radicalism will continue to plague the world.'

Yesterday, Mrs Malik was being comforted by her family, including her second husband, at her home in Oldham.

Relative of Farzana Malik told the Daily Mirror: 'She was scared of him. She went to the other end of the country.

'He was very violent towards her, controlling in every aspect of her life - what she wore, where she went everything. He was a psychopath and I mean that in the very medical definition of the word.

'She got out with a suitcase, just her clothes. She went to the other end of the country, she was scared of him.'

Masood moved to Luton, when radical preacher Anjem Choudary was a frequent visitor to the town, and according to an online CV began working as an English tutor.

His next long term relationship was with Rohey Hydara, 39, with whom he shared a series of short-term homes in London and Luton.

Last night, the Met said Masood's partner Rohey Hydara, 39, was released on bail pending further inquiries. She was arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.

After his release from prison, he became estranged from his Christian mother Janet, now 69, who moved to rural Wales to build a new life away from her oldest son.

He claims to have taught in Saudi Arabia before setting up his own teaching firm in Birmingham, where he was said to be living with a woman and her family in Winson Green.

At some point he was investigated by MI5 over links to violent extremism but was considered too minor to monitor, and did not feature on a 3,000-strong list of suspects feared to be capable of mounting an attack.
The crisp manufacturer behind Hula Hoops has reportedly shrunk the size of the snack - and they're now too big to fit on your fingers.

The crisp packet, which weighed 35g five years ago, is now just 34g and the price has increased from 42p to 60p.

Walkers is also about to increase the price of its 34g bag from 50p to 55p.

The crisp manufacturer behind Hula Hoops has reportedly shrunk the size of the snack - and they're now too big to fit on your fingers (stock image)

Walkers blames 'fluctuating exchange rates' since the Brexit vote for its price hike, according to The Sun.

Chocolate manufacturer Cadbury has also signalled that famous name products are set to shrink again in response to rising costs.

The company has come under fire for cutting the amount of chocolate in some Toblerone bars and the number of creme eggs in a multi-pack from six to five.

However, the tactic is likely to be repeated as the confectionery giants American owner, Mondelez, looks to cut costs.

Cadbury's chocolate bars could face further cuts to their size in another cost-saving exercises conducted by new American owners Mondelez

Where the firm cannot get away with shrinking products, price rises are in the pipeline.

For example, the company is increasing the price on its already tiny 18g Freddo bars by 20 per cent, taking them up from 25p to 30p.

Meanwhile, sweets company Mars is shrinking the pack size of beloved treats including Maltesers, M&Ms and Minstrels by up to 15 per cent, according to The Observer.

Mars has reduced the number of Maltesers in its sharing bags - since last autumn packs of Maltesers have shrunk from 121g to 93g.

Mars has reduced the number of Maltesers in its sharing bags - since last autumn packs of Maltesers have shrunk from 121g to 93g (stock image)

Family packs of M&M's have also shrunk from 165g to just 140g.

Glenn Caton, who is in charge of Cadbury in Britain, said the company will have to make changes if it faces higher costs due to the Brexit vote and the fall in the value of the pound, which has had raw material costs more expensive.

He told the Guardian there are looming challenges on cost and commodities  not all linked to Brexit  and that the company would have to take action, first by trying to boost productivity and then other things including pricing and adapting products to make sure that you can still offer them at good value.

Historically, these adaptations have centred on so-called shrinkflation, which involves cutting the size and keeping the price the same.

Family packs of Mars M&M's have also shrunk from 165g to just 140g (stock image)

Last year, the firm reduced the size of some Toblerone bars from 400g bars to 360g by increasing the gap between the chocolate triangles.

Also last year, the firms Terrys Chocolate Orange was reduced in weight by 10per cent  down from 175g to 157g.

In 2015, the number of Cadbury's creme eggs in a multi-pack was cut from six to five.

In the same year, the recipe of the Cadburys Fruit and Nut bar changed to include cheap sultanas alongside raisins.
Two days ago, as the shell-shocked families of PC Keith Palmer, Aysha Frade, Kurt Cochran and Leslie Rhodes mourned their loved ones deaths at the hands of one terrorist, another was laid to rest in Londonderry.

You wouldnt have known it from the tributes, though.

To Tony Blair, Martin McGuinness was a formidable peacemaker. To Alastair Campbell, he was a great guy, a good guy. To Alex Salmond, a friend of Scotland.

To members of the liberal elite like Tony Blair McGuinness was a 'formidable peacemaker'

To Channel Fours Jon Snow, patron saint of the bien-pensant Left, McGuinness led an extraordinary life that culminated in great service. And for Bill Clinton, who told the congregation in Londonderry that he came to treasure every encounter with his old friend, McGuinness had earned the right to ask us to honour his legacy.

At any time, such risibly one-sided effusions would have been pretty tasteless. But coming as they did in the week that a man attacked the Palace of Westminster, a building once bombed by the very organisation that McGuinness led, they struck me as shocking beyond belief.

To my mind, those politicians who heap praise on such a man, especially at a time when we have been reminded of the costs of terrorist violence, have completely lost touch with public morality.

Yes, we were relieved when McGuinness put down his guns. But does that mean we forget everything he did beforehand?

Even the tone of McGuinnesss funeral on Thursday seemed wildly at variance with the reality of his life. Indeed, it was more of a beatification than a terrorists funeral.

According to Father Michael Cannys address, he was a remarkable man . . . a person who came to be a widely respected leader of this community. We heard about him fishing, walking, even eating cabbage and bacon. He was a man of simple tastes who ascended to the political summit, said Father Canny.

What a shame that, as the priest put it, many people struggled with his IRA past. Still, the values he had, the principles he championed, are still very much alive.

I dont know about you, but I find that a chilling thought.

For whatever the Blairs and Clintons of this world might say, the single defining fact of Martin McGuinnesss life was not his commitment to peace. After all, the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland never picked up a gun, never handled a bomb, never ordered an assassination and never called for a kneecapping.

Alastair Campbell (left) described the former IRA commander as a great guy, a good guy' while Bill Clinton (right) said he came to 'treasure every encounter' with McGuinness

If hed always been committed to peace, nobody would ever have heard of him. And some of the men and women who died in The Troubles might still be with us today.

The salient fact about Martin McGuinness, the thing that really defined him, was that for decades he waded in blood. He was second-in-command of Londonderrys Provisional IRA on Bloody Sunday, where he carried a sub-machine gun.

Later, he reportedly rose to become the IRAs chief of staff, though he always denied it.

Under his leadership the IRA carried out some of the most appalling terrorist atrocities ever seen on our soil. Between the late-1960s and the late-1990s, Republican paramilitaries killed more than 2,000 people. Many of those victims were not soldiers or policemen: indeed, more than 700 were ordinary men, women and children.

They were people such as Patsy Gillespie, a working-class Catholic canteen worker, a man from the very community McGuinness claimed to be defending. In October 1990, Gillespie was kidnapped, strapped into a van loaded with explosives and ordered to drive towards a border checkpoint run by the British Army.

Under McGuinness' leadership the IRA carried out some of the most appalling terrorist atrocities ever seen on British soil

When he got there, the bomb was detonated and Gillespie was killed instantly. It was his sons 18th birthday.

His crime, according to McGuinness and his comrades, was to have served meals in a British base. But the truth is he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Like the American tourist Kurt Cochran, who came to London last week with his wife to celebrate 25 years of marriage only to be mown down by a madman on Westminster Bridge, Patsy Gillespie was an innocent victim of men who believed their political prejudices were more important than other peoples lives.

The IRA always claimed that they were freedom fighters. But like Aysha Frade, who was on her way to pick up her children when she was killed on the Thames bridge on Wednesday, hundreds of their victims were blameless civilians. One moment they were looking forward to the rest of their lives; the next, their horizons came crashing down.

To McGuinness and the IRA, however, they were expendable. It was a shame that they had to die, they would say, but it was a price worth paying for the long march towards a united Ireland.

It is telling that McGuinness never really apologised for that belief, or for his blood-drenched past.

McGuinness never apologised for his belief in the IRA or his blood-drenched past

Even after he had put aside the gun and transformed himself into a power-sharing politician  not because of some Damascene conversion, but because the IRA was close to defeat, and because funds from America were drying up  he never showed the slightest contrition. Not once did he even pretend to feel guilty about his crimes.

As the Belfast-born writer Jenny McCartney pointed out in this weeks Spectator magazine, even his parting statement, issued from his sickbed in January, did not include a single word of remorse for the IRAs victims.

I completely understand, by the way, why many Northern Irish politicians, such as the former Unionist leader David Trimble, went out of their way to emphasise McGuinnesss makeover as a peaceful, constructive politician. But the rest of us cannot pretend that the previous three decades never happened.

The real question, though, is why so many supposedly civilised, liberal-minded, Left-leaning people have rushed to hail him as one of the great heroes of our time.

Veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson even suggested that McGuinness can somehow be bracketed with Nelson Mandela in the peacemakers pantheon  much to the horror, it must be said, of many Radio 4 listeners.

Even on the Left, a few sensible observers have admitted feeling queasy about all this. In this weeks New Statesman magazine, Peter Wilby writes that he found it impossible to accept McGuinness as a government minister and man of peace. Whatever he said, he did not renounce violence. He just had no further use for it, a decision that was reversible.

The Omagh bombing in 1998. McGuinness never uttered a single word of remorse for the IRA's victims

Who could disagree with that? After all, just remember what happened to Patsy Gillespie, and then look at those tributes again. Alastair Campbell wasted no time before rushing to Twitter and calling McGuinness a great guy.

Now, I know Mr Campbells moral compass is unlikely to be remembered as one of the most reliable instruments of our time, but even by his standards this surely marks a new low.

Or take Jon Snows remark that McGuinnesss life will be remembered for his great service. Service to what? The Derry Gravediggers Guild? But we have, of course, been here before.

It is only four months since the death of Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator who executed thousands, threw dissidents into re-education camps and was a hero to the butchers of the IRA.

To many on the Left, his death was one of the great tragedies of our age. In Jeremy Corbyns words, Castros achievements were many . . . He will be remembered both as an internationalist and a champion of social justice. Not a mention of the crimes and the casualties. Not a word.

The truth, I fear, is that many of our political elite have an adolescent infatuation with the supposed glamour of violence. It is as though their moral standards have been slowly corroded so that they simply cannot see the difference between right and wrong.

McGuinness grew up in a city scarred by sectarianism but plenty of other Catholics in the same environment chose a different path

McGuinnesss case is a particularly flagrant example. It is true that he grew up in a city scarred by dreadful sectarian bigotry.

But plenty of other Catholic men and women, growing up in the same environment, took a different path. They joined civil rights marches, non-sectarian protest groups and democratic parties such as the nationalist SDLP. The obvious example is Nobel Peace Prize-winner John Hume, another Derry Catholic, who abhorred violence and loathed the IRA.

Nobody forced McGuinness to turn away from peaceful politics, to pick up a gun or to handle a bomb. He took that decision himself  one that set him apart not just from Hume, but the vast majority of his fellow Northern Irishmen, Catholic or Protestant.

In that moment, he crossed the line that, for most of us, divides good from evil. And it is this that makes the Mandela comparison so grotesquely inappropriate.

Not only did Mandela grow up under a far more brutal, undemocratic regime, but his activities were limited to sabotage. He never targeted ordinary South Africans; indeed, he went out of his way to avoid hurting civilians. He never put explosives in pubs, never snatched men from their families, and never bombed hotels or department stores.

In that sense, McGuinness was much closer to Khalid Masood, the man who attacked Westminster this week. His apologists will bridle at the comparison, but the truth is that when he deliberately set out to target civilians, McGuinness stepped across the line that divides men from monsters.

As the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, said this week about the London attack, a terrorist atrocity is an abomination against the name of God. No creed, no ideology, no political platform can justify the violence we saw on Wednesday, nor the murders that were everyday occasions when McGuinness was in his IRA pomp.

Yet in a society where, at least among the metropolitan intelligentsia, concepts of absolute good and evil have become painfully unfashionable, it is considered bad form to point this out.

What this represents, I think, is a devaluing of our public discourse. I appreciate that many people are keen to avoid sounding censorious, but if our leaders refuse to talk about right and wrong, then there is surely something amiss in our political culture. Similarly, if the men and women at the top of public life cannot tell the difference between a genuine man of peace, like Mandela or Hume, and an unapologetic murderer, like McGuinness, I think they have lost any moral sense.

A detachment of the Queen's Household Cavalry after an IRA bomb. No creed could justify the violence that McGuinness allowed in his IRA pomp

No wonder, then, that so many people simply do not listen when our politicians open their mouths. For if they cannot tell a peacemaker from a terrorist, and if they refuse to acknowledge what the rest of us can see perfectly well, why should we bother listening?

Even Tony Blair, supposedly a God-fearing Catholic, cannot bring himself to acknowledge the fact that McGuinness repeatedly broke one of the most sacred commandments: Thou shalt not kill.

What this points to, of course, is a deeper truth. Too many of our politicians no longer feel bound by the stark moral conventions observed by their predecessors.

Just contemplate the alacrity with which Mr Blair has embraced authoritarian rulers such as Kazakhstans Nursultan Nazarbayev, who paid him millions to advise on damage limitation after his police killed 14 protesters in 2011.

Mr Blair, of course, is yesterdays man. But if you want an appalling example of the moral collapse at the heart of his party, you have only to look to his successor as leader. For Jeremy Corbyn, Martin was a great family man who played a huge role in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland. And that was it: not even a hint of another side to McGuinness.

While Clinton will remember McGuinness as a 'family man' the rest of us will remember a man of violence

But Mr Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, have form in this department.

It was Mr Corbyn who in 1984 invited Gerry Adams and his friends in the IRAs political wing, Sinn Fein, to the House of Commons only weeks after the IRA had killed five people in Brighton, one of them a sitting MP.

It was Mr McDonnell, meanwhile, who told an audience in 2003 that it was about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle, claiming that it was only the bombs and bullets of the IRA that had brought peace to Northern Ireland.

Put aside that the Army had been sent to Ulster by a Labour government to protect the Catholics from the Protestants. No, to my mind, McDonnells words  which are not just repellent but flat-out untrue  should disqualify him from being an MP, let alone Shadow Chancellor. But they are also a vivid reminder of the vast gulf, the moral chasm, that separates the current Labour leadership from the British people.

Well, let Corbyn and McDonnell, backed by the unlovely quartet of Blair, Clinton, Salmond and Campbell, remember the great guy and the family man.

The rest of us remember the hard man, a man of violence with bloodstained hands, who, when the IRA was failing, turned to peaceful politics late in his life, but never apologised for what hed done.

For as the terrible scenes at Westminster reminded us on Wednesday, some things are too serious to be brushed aside. Whatever Corbyn, Clinton and Campbell may tell you, there is a difference between right and wrong.

A man who picks up a gun or a bomb, like one who ploughs a car into pedestrians and plunges a knife into a policeman, walks on the wrong side of that line. Many politicians may not understand that. But I suspect most decent people see things very differently.
Masood married Muslim Farzana Malik in 2004 after his second release from jail, following his frenzied knife attack on scaffolder Danny Smith, 35

Relatives of the Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood's first wife have said he was a 'psychopath' and they divorced after only three months of marriage.

Masood married Muslim Farzana Malik in 2004 after his second release from jail, following his frenzied knife attack on scaffolder Danny Smith, 35, in Eastbourne.

However he was 'controlling' and 'violent' towards her and she ended up fleeing to friends in Middlesbrough from their home in Crawley, West Sussex, to escape him.

On her Facebook page 'Soul Searchers', she describes Islamic fanaticism as 'nonsensical', in a lengthy tirade which calls on her fellow Muslims to heed their true faith, concluding 'unless they do that, radicalism will continue to plague the world.'

Yesterday, Mrs Malik, now 38, was being comforted by her family, including her second husband, at her home in Oldham.

Relative of Farzana Malik told the Daily Mirror: 'She was scared of him. She went to the other end of the country.

'He was very violent towards her, controlling in every aspect of her life - what she wore, where she went everything. He was a psychopath and I mean that in the very medical definition of the word.

'She got out with a suitcase, just her clothes. She went to the other end of the country, she was scared of him.'

Masood reportedly tracked his wife down, but Farzana insisted on a divorce.

He was known at Adrian Ajao while at school in Tunbridge Wells - after several spells in prison he became radicalised (right after being gunned down outside Parliament on Wednesday)

Muslim convert Masood killed three people - Londoner Leslie Rhodes, 75, US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, and mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 43 - with his hired 4x4 on Wednesday before his assault on Parliament.

Of the more than 50 people injured in his murderous rampage, 17 were still being treated last night.

Doctors said two were in a critical state, with one in a life-threatening condition.

One of those hurt was Met police officer Kris Aves, 35, who suffered life-changing injuries.

This is Westminster ISIS-inspired jihadi Khalid Masood (circled in 1980) when he was a student at Huntleys Secondary School in Kent, which would later close and is now a housing estate

Masood, 52, had grown up in comfort in Kent and Sussex before turning his back on his well-to-do background after he was radicalised in jail.

At 19 he received his first court conviction, for criminal damage in 1983, and he became increasingly involved in petty and violent crime.

Over the next two decades the burly bodybuilder was to be convicted of a catalogue of offences including assaults, grievous bodily harm, possession of weapons and public order offences, and was jailed twice.

At some point he was investigated by MI5 over links to violent extremism but was considered too minor to monitor, and did not feature on a 3,000-strong list of suspects feared to be capable of mounting an attack.
The Welsh-born woman who hopes to become France's next First Lady helped her husband forge documents during a major corruption inquiry, it was claimed today.

Penelope Fillon, 62, and her husband Francois Fillon, 63, both face prison for a variety of criminal charges including embezzlement and hiding assets.

It is all related to Mr Fillon allegedly setting up lucrative fake jobs for Ms Fillon, including parliamentary assistant, so the couple could rake in thousands of pounds for no work.

Despite this, both believe they can emerge as a presidential couple following two-round elections in April and May.

Welsh-born Penelope Fillon, left, and French Presidential candidate husband Francois, right, are accused of forging documents to claim thousands of pounds in a 'fake jobs scam'

Now prosecutors have widened the inquiry to include 'aggravated fraud, forgery and the use of forgeries'.

It is suspected that Bristol University graduate Ms Fillon signed freshly created papers that made it look like she had indeed been working for her husband over decades.

In fact, the mother-of-five often in the past admitted in media interviews that she had no formal job at all, and she never once visited the Paris parliament.

Mr Fillon has already been indicted, and faces trial, while Ms Fillon is expected to be charged next week following a meeting with a judge.

Fictional jobs were also set up for the couple's two eldest children, Charles and Marie, while they were still students, it is alleged.

Mr Fillon, the Republican party candidate to become head of state, is also accused of being paid 40,000 to set up meetings between Lebanese billionaire Fouad Makhzoumi and Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to the Canard Enchaine investigative weekly.

Mr Fillon became extremely close to Mr Putin during his time as prime minister, and a spokesman for his campaign said 'the suspicions of conflict of interest are totally unfounded.'

He also denied the new accusations about forgery saying the Fillons were 'being victimised'.

Bristol University graduate Ms Fillon, left, is accused of signing freshly created papers that made it look like she had been working for her husband, right, over decades

Such scandals have been a disaster for Mr Fillon, whose poll ratings are dropping every day.

He is currently expected to be ejected after the first round of voting on April 23rd, according to polls.

The current favourite to become the new president is independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, a former merchant banker who served as economy minister last year.

On Tuesday, the Socialist Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux resigned after being caught up in a fake jobs scandal.

He admitted paying 50,000 to his two schoolgirl daughters to work as his parliamentary assistants during their holidays.
The owners of a Vietnamese sandwich shop tried spicing up their menu but wound up getting roasted online for using 'homophobic' terms.

The Bun Mee Kiwi outlet in New Zealand's Auckland opened doors last week with a menu that urges customers to order spicy foods - 'unless you are a poof'.

The message has been slammed on social media and by gay pride groups for being in bad taste, but the owners insist they never meant to offend anyone.

The Vietnamese sandwich store's menu urges customers to order spicy foods - 'unless you are a poof'

The Bun Mee Kiwi outlet in New Zealand's Auckland opened doors last week

'This is highly offensiveFor someone like myself who has been called a poof during childhood and adulthood, this is really not on' OUTline spokesperson Trevor Easton told NZHerald.

Social media users also weighed in on what they deemed to be a crumby joke at the expense of others.

'On what planet and in what century do you think it would be any kind of good idea for your new business to put a homophobic slur on your menu?' wrote one commenter.

'Shameful. This sort of attitude puts us back decades' wrote another.

But the owners, who only gave their names as Mark and Saffron, said the term has a different meaning in their Pacific Islands culture.

'We have many gay friends and it is not a homophobic slur where we come from in the Pacific Islands,' they said. 'If we have offended anyone, we apologise.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Bun Mee Kiwi but they refused to comment.

The owners, who only gave their names as Mark and Saffron, said the term has a different meaning in Pacific Islands culture

But that didn't stop social media users from slamming the restaurant for the 'homophobic' terminology




Federal investigators have recovered a bright orange data recorder, often referred to as a "black box," after the fiery crash of a small plane into a suburban Atlanta subdivision.

WSB-TV reports that federal investigators said at a Saturday briefing that the pilot told air traffic controllers before the crash that he was having an issue with the airplane's autopilot feature.

The Cessna Citation I crashed Friday evening, killing the pilot and setting a house ablaze.

FAA spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said it happened about 3 miles from an airport in Cobb County, just northwest of Atlanta.

Cobb County Fire Department spokeswoman Denell Boyd said the plane was on its way to Fulton County Airport when it crashed next to a house and exploded.

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A Cessna plane (pictured) crashed near a house in Marietta, Georgia, and exploded Friday

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board and FAA investigate the cause of the crash

FAA spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said a Cessna Citation I crashed on Vistawood Drive in Marietta, Georgia

An unidentified pilot, coming from Wilmington, Delaware, en route to Fulton County Airport, is the only known victim of Friday's plane crash (pictured)

The house next door caught on fire from the radiant heat and was fully engulfed when the Cobb County Fire Department arrived on the scene, authorities said.

Everyone in both houses got out safely and no injuries were reported.

Some neighborhood residents witnessed the plane crash.

'I noticed they were looking up in the sky and I see a plane going straight down, it was going down in a corkscrew fashion, it was really slow, I couldn't hear an engine,' resident John Perry told Fox 5.

The plane en route to Fulton County Airport, crashed next to a house and exploded

Officials said the pilot issued a distress call from the Cessna Citation I before the crash

A house near the crash caught on fire from the radiant heat and was fully engulfed when the Cobb County Fire Department arrived on the scene (pictured)

Resident Duncan Elrod was working on his roof nearby and filmed the immediate aftermath of the crash.

Elrod thought the pilot may have been trying to land on the street, but the angle was too sharp and they could not make it.

'And I heard a plane and it sounded like it was flying really, really low and about the time I started to look and see where it was, there was a boom and huge explosion, and a large fireball,' said Elrod of the crash.

A large black plume of smoke could be seen for miles in the area of the crash Friday night.

Officials said the pilot issued a distress call from the Cessna Citation I - a small-sized business jet that can hold five passengers and two crew members.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
The 15-year-old Chicago girl who was gang-raped while about 40 people viewed the assault live on Facebook has moved to a safe place after being the subject of jokes and bullying after her ordeal.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the Cook County State Attorney's Office offered the teen and her family relocation services and she is now in a 'safe space,' The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The mother told The Associated Press on Wednesday that her daughter was scared to return home and that the family has been harassed by neighborhood kids.

Stacey Elkins said neighborhood children have been threatening the teen and have been ringing the family's doorbell looking for her.

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Stacey Elkins (pictured), the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was gang-raped in an attack that was live streamed on Facebook said neighborhood kids have been joking about the incident and harassing her family

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) said the teenager (above) was found on Tuesday and the family has been relocated. Police are now searching for the five or six men or boys suspected of sexually assaulting her. No suspects have been named in the case

During a press conference on Friday, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the harassment the family has been receiving is unsettling, Fox 32 reported.

'It's sickening. It's disgusting. You know, she's been victimized once, now we're going to continue to keep victimizing her,' he said.

The girl's mother also voiced her disappointment on how her daughter's been treated on Wednesday.

'This is just disturbing and to think the kids think it is funny,' Elkins said. She was reunited with her daughter Tuesday, two days after the girl went missing.

Elkins's daughter went out to a store in Chicago's Lawndale neighborhood on Sunday afternoon but failed to return home.

She later learned her daughter was the subject of the 'disgusting' Facebook Live video after family members and friends contacted her.

Police learned of the sexual assault when her mother approached Johnson on Monday with images of her daughter being raped by a group of five to six boys.

During a press conference on Friday, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the harassment the family has been receiving is unsettling

The footage showed the girl in various stages of undress with a group of males, the mom told CBS. She said her daughter looked scared and the men or boys were being abusive toward her.

The footage was removed from Facebook after police contacted the social media website. Elkins said none of the 40 people who watched the live stream reported the video.

The teen was finally located around 7.45am Tuesday morning and she was taken to Comer Childrens Hospital.

Since the attack, people have posted threats on Facebook. Chicago police officials say investigators are looking into the threats.

No arrests have been made in the case. Authorities say the investigation is making progress.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that the defeat of the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare was 'a victory for all Americans.'

The Democrat, who lost to President Donald Trump in the November 8 election, tweeted: 'Today was a victory for the 24,000,000 people at risk of losing their health insurance, for seniors, for families battling the quiet epidemic of addiction, for new moms and women everywhere.'

'Most of all, it's a victory for anyone who believes affordable health care is a human right.'

'We cannot forget: This victory happened because people in every corner of our country committed their time and energy to calling their representatives, showing up at town hall meetings, and making their voices heard.'

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took to Twitter on Friday, saying that the defeat of the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare was 'a victory for all Americans'

'Today was a victory for the 24,000,000 people at risk of losing their health insurance, for seniors, for families battling the quiet epidemic of addiction, for new moms and women everywhere,' tweeted Clinton (seen above during a campaign stop in New York in April 2016)

'The fight isn't over yet  we will have to push back on future bad ideas and embrace good ones to make health care more affordable  but we are reminded today that there is no substitute for standing up and defending our values.'

Clinton then posted a number of additional tweets about stories of people who have benefited from Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act.

'But this fight isn't over yet and we can't forget who it's about,' Clinton tweeted.

'Let's not be distracted. Let's continue to stand up, organize, resist, put forth good ideas to improve the existing system & peoples' lives.'

Just hours after he had hoped to have a bill to repeal Obamacare once and for all on the House floor, speaker Paul Ryan admitted President Obama's signature achievement will remain the 'law of the land.'

Clinton then posted a number of additional tweets about stories of people who have benefited from Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act

Clinton told the story of a man named Keith, 'who brings his mother with Alzheimer's to work with him because he can't afford care for her during the day'

She also tweeted about Pam, 'who is raising her grandson because his parents are struggling with opioid addiction - a silent epidemic in so many communities'

Clinton also told the story of Angelina, 'a young woman with autism who is already worrying who will take care of her when her parents are gone'

Clinton also posted this image of her in the 1990s. She is seen here with Ryan, 'who was born with a disability and with the support of his family and world-class health care has had a lifetime of opportunities'

'Let's not be distracted,' she tweeted. 'Let's continue to stand up, organize, resist, put forth good ideas to improve the existing system & people's lives'

Ryan made his admission despite Republicans having seized unified control of government, after House leaders couldn't fasten a majority to repeal and replace the law, even with urgings and pressure from President Donald Trump.

'I don't know what else to say other than Obamacare is the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced,' Ryan told reporters at a press conference Friday after he says he told President Trump the bill had to be pulled.

The sinking of the bill was the first major defeat for President Donald Trump (seen above on the left with Vice President Mike Pence)

Just hours after he had hoped to have a bill to repeal Obamacare once and for all on the House floor, speaker Paul Ryan (above) admitted President Obama's signature achievement will remain the 'law of the land'

Ryan said the health system was in a 'death spiral,' but acknowledged the Republicans didn't have the votes to do anything about it.

Clinton's active presence on Twitter suggest that she has no intention to completely bow out of public life. Earlier this month, she met with a number of political associates to gauge the interest level in a possible run for mayor of New York.

So far, Clinton has not shot down rumors that she is considering a bid to replace Democratic incumbent Bill de Blasio.
125 YEARS AGO

March 19, 1892:

Geo. Williamson, who has been clerking at the Depot Hotel during the winter, returned to Bullion Wednesday morning to begin work on his mines. He has a number of promising claims in Bullion.



In consequences of an arbitrary decision of the telegraph company regarding their monthly reports, the receipt of stock quotations at the Tuscarora telegraph office has been discontinued, certainly not much loss considering the state of the market.



The alarm of fire Thursday afternoon was caused by a defective stove pipe at Joe Langs.



Sam Neuschwander has finished cleaning his jewelry store and it is now one of the prettiest places in town. The show window contains a handsome display of jewelry.

100 YEARS AGO

March 19, 1917: Naturalization Agent F.N. Littleton is here today holding examinations of a number of men who what to become citizens. Among those who successfully passed the ordeal this forenoon were John Anley, F.T. Schnackenberg, Rafael Figueras and Pioline Giuspi, and Thomas King was continued until the next trip of the agent.



John Grovoff, a Russian, started in Saturday to celebrate the downfall of the Czar, but got too hilarious, and was picked up and lodged in jail. This morning he told Judge Doughty of the reason for his actions, and the court let him off with a fine of $2.50, which he paid.

March 20, 1917: Chas. Glider, who has charge of the property at the shale beds south of town, tells us that Mr. Catlin will be here April 1st, when the work of installing the machinery will be resumed. All of the supplies and machinery have been purchased and is now enroute to Elko. The work will be in charge of Mr. Catlin, who expects to remain here permanently.

March 21, 1917: Jim Brown, who has been employed at the Elko Mercantile company, and who last summer drove the motor truck between Bullion and Elko, has enlisted in the American Aviation Corps, and has been assigned to duty.

75 YEARS AGO

March 19, 1942: An agreement has been reached between the city of Elko and the Southern Pacific company for the installation of crossing signals at Third, Fifth and Ninth streets, over the S.P. tracks. Actual installation of these crossing signals may be delayed because of the war, it was pointed out here today, although this is not definitely known. Approval may have to be secured from the war department and priorities may enter into the picture, unless the signals are available for immediate installation.

March 20, 1942: Today is cake day again for the soldiers stationed in Elko. Ladies who baked for the soldiers this week include the following: Mesdames J.M. Swander, M.C. Smith, Frank Walters, Clarence Swett, E.E. Franklin, M.B. Badt, Isabelle Williams, John Hunter, Edith Johnson, Kate Cicala, Donald Bates, Robert Best, Edgar Reinhart; Miss Thelma Hagerman.

March 21, 1942: Two Elko county high schools, Wells and Elko, emerged winners in the annual district public speaking and parliamentary contests held for high school students in agriculture at Wells yesterday. Clair Knudsen, senior student at Wells high was judged the winner in the public speaking contest, while the team of George Plunkett, BenTrento, Alfred Salicchi, George Smiraldo and Bob Gregory of Elko high took top honors in parliamentary procedure.

50 YEARS AGO

March 21, 1967: News that the State Highway Department had rejected the Carlin proposal to move the Emigrant Pass maintenance station to Carlin, thereby eliminating an elaborate interchange in connection with the construction of I-80, was revealed at the March meeting of the Carlin Board of Commissioners. The department based its decision on a belief that the station could be operated more efficiently from its present location than from Carlin, where a parcel of land had been offered as a site for the facility.



Newly elected directors of the Elko Rotary Club are Bob Burns Jr., Charles Ballew, Dr. Harry Jevas, Ted Lundsford, Carl Shuck and Frank Weinrauch. President Mile Taber automatically becomes a member of the board.

March 24, 1967: Gov. Paul A. Laxalt, signed a bill repealing the law against sales of liquor on election days, but that doesnt necessarily mean liquor will be on sale in Elko on May 2, the day of the municipal elections. The Elko City Code, like the repealed state law, forbids sale of liquor on election days, and it has not been repealed. The Elko City Board of Supervisors has sufficient time to repeal the city ordinance before the May 2 election.

25 YEARS AGO

March 19, 1992: Monstrous growth eventually would force Elko to build a new fire station even if it werent needed to meet the demands of the citys ever-busier airport, said Elko Fire Chief O.P. Cash. In response to that growth, and as part of the airport renovation, the fire department is planning to set up a permanent station near the Elko air terminal. Cash said negotiations are under way to acquire land at the corner of Idaho Street and Mountain City Highway. The chief said he hopes to see the new station operating within two or three years.

March 21, 1992: Western Folklife Center has been awarded a $75,000 grant from the Nevada Commission for Cultural Affairs to do essential repair work to the Pioneer Hotel and to begin rehabilitation planning to convert the historic hotel into offices and a cultural center.

March 23, 1992: At last, Elko residents have somewhere to go to get rid of their old, used dinosaurs. Earlier this month, the city set up a waste-oil depository. Located at the Elko landfill gate is a 1,000-gallon tank into which private individuals can pour their used motor oil free of charge. This is targeted for do-it-yourself individuals, not commercial users, said Public Works Director Charlie Williams.
A Virginia man was arrested Friday for walking around dressed as Heath Ledger's 'Joker' from the Batman comics while carrying a sword.

Winchester Police officers arrested the man, Jeremy Putman, 31, and charged him with wearing a mask in public Friday afternoon.

Putman is being held at the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center on a $2,000 bond.

Jeremy Putman, 31, (pictured in this mug shot) was arrested in Winchester, Virginia, Friday on a felony charge of wearing a mask in public while dressed as 'The Joker'

Police received several calls around 2pm Friday that Putman (above) was dressed as the villain

Officers arrested Putman in the 2600 block of South Pleasant Valley Road (pictured)

Wearing a mask, hood or any other type of device that covers or hides the face of a person over 16 years of age in public is a felony crime in Virginia and is punishable by up to five years in jail.

Virginia's mask law was enacted in the 1940s to curb Ku Klux Klan activities.

The law allows exceptions for Halloween costumes, protective masks for physical safety, health issues, theatrical productions and masquerade balls.

Police received several calls around 2pm Friday that Putman was walking along Papermill Road and South Pleasant Valley Road dressed as the villain, reports WHSV.

Officers arrested him in the 2600 block of South Pleasant Valley Road.

The department received similar reports earlier this week and believe Putman was also the culprit.
A man has been found guilty of a sexually assaulting a Brazilian backpacker and hitting her German friend four times with a hammer.

The 60-year-old, who can't be named, was on trial for the attacks on the sand dunes of a remote beach in Salt Creek, east of Adelaide, in February 2016.

The SA Supreme Court jury on Saturday found the man guilty of six charges including indecent assault, aggravated kidnapping and endangering life.

A 60-year-old man was found guilty of sexually assaulting a Brazilian backpacker, then hitting a German woman over the head with a hammer

The campsite at Salt Creek in South Australia where the pair were set upon

However, he was found not guilty of attempted murder after 12 hours of deliberations by the jury after the trial ended on Friday.

The accused met the backpackers through classifieds website Gumtree, where they advertised for a ride from Adelaide to Melbourne.

He picked them up from a train station and drove them to the remote spot in SA's Coorong National Park where he attacked them.

The man hit the German woman over the head with a hammer several times, inflicting four deep lacerations on her scalp that left her drenched in blood.

Pictured are photographs of evidence presented to the court, showing the bikini that was cut from her body before she was sexually assaulted

The SA Supreme Court jury on Saturday found the man guilty of six charges including indecent assault, aggravated kidnapping and endangering life

He picked them up from a train station and drove them to the remote spot in SA's Coorong National Park where he attacked them

She fought back and broke free but she was then repeatedly rammed by the man in his 4WD as she fled across the sand.

Moments earlier the man dragged the Brazilian woman to the ground, tied her up with rope, cut off her bikini and sexually assaulted her, the jury found.

The women, both 24, managed to escape the attack and the man was arrested in his car on the beach.

The man pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The trial heard evidence from both victims, police officers, fishermen who were at Salt Creek that day, a roadhouse owner, and several forensics experts and doctors.

the man dragged the Brazilian woman to the ground, tied her up with rope, cut off her bikini and sexually assaulted her, the jury found

However, he was found not guilty of attempted murder after 12 hours of deliberations by the jury after the trial ended on Friday

Prosecutor Jim Pearce QC delivered his closing submissions in the trial on Thursday, saying the two backpackers were reliable and honest and the jury should accept their accounts.

'There is no mystery here about what happened. There is no mystery because the two women told you,' he said.

'These two women were very brave. Their conduct on the beach reveals that.

'You saw two very impressive young women who sat in the witness box and did their best to describe to you a very harrowing ordeal.'

The man hit the German woman over the head with a hammer several times, inflicting four deep lacerations on her scalp that left her drenched in blood
A mother has told of her horror after a 'creepy' stranger exposed himself to her six-year-old daughter and her in broad daylight.

Images have been released of the man who police believe flashed the mother and daughter near a park at Footscray, in Melbourne's west earlier this month, reports 7News.

The mother managed to take a photo of the man, with police releasing the image along with a CCTV image in a bid for public assistance.

A man caught on camera exposed himself to a six-year-old-girl and her mother

'My daughter all of a sudden gasped. I turned around and there was a man standing there exposing himself to her,' said the mother, who wished to remain anonymous.

'It was just really creepy.'

The mother was calling triple-zero when the man dropped his pants a third time, whereupon she caught him on camera.

'You don't do that sort of thing - your private parts are your private parts and that's why we had to call police.'

Police released the image along with a CCTV image in a bid for public assistance.

Anyone with information about the incident or the man's identity is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000

The mother managed to take a photo of the man, with police releasing the image along with a CCTV image in a bid for public assistance
President Donald Trump met with some of America's most distinguished and decorated war heroes at the White House on Friday afternoon, ahead of Saturday's official Medal of Honor Day commemoration day.

Twenty five Medal of Honor recipients  a third of the living recipients  met with Trump in the Oval Office as he recognized their acts of selfless heroics on the battlefield during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan.

'Each of you has risen above and beyond the call of duty in defense of our country, our people, and our flag,' Trump said.

President Trump welcomes 25 Medal of Honor recipients  a third of those still living  to the White House a day in advance of the official Medal of Honor Day commemoration day

'You have poured out your hearts, your sweat, and your tears like few others, and your blood  most importantly your blood for the United States of America. We thank you, very much thank you.

'You are the soul of our nation, and a grateful republic salutes you. Constantly we're saluting you. We have great admiration and respect, believe me. I know what you've been through.'

Among the men in the room with Trump was US Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta.

He saved the lives of several of his squad during an ambush in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley in 2007, when he and his team were ambushed by a heavily-armed insurgent force. While rushing to aid his fallen squad leader, Guinta's body armor and secondary weapon were hit by enemy fire, but he still managed to throw grenades to cover his position. During the fight, he realized that two insurgents were trying to carry away a wounded soldier, so Guinta killed one and wounded the other to rescue the soldier.

US Army 1st Lieutenant Harold Fritz was also present. He saved his men during an attack in Vietnam, despite being seriously wounded during its onset. During the engagement, Fritz directed his med from the top of his burning vehicle, manned a machine gun, inspiring his men to deliver deadly fire to break the assault and route the attackers and successfully led an assault while armed only with a pistol and a bayonet.

Also in the room was US Navy Petty Officer Michael Edwin Thornton, who ran through gunfire to reach his seriously wounded lieutenant during an intelligence gathering and prisoner capture operation in Vietnam. Thornton then inflated the lieutenant's life jacket and towed him out to sea for two hours until they were both rescued.

US Army Major Patrick Brady was there as well. He flew three different ambulance helicopters, each under heavy fire, to evacuate 51 seriously wounded men during one day of action in Vietnam.

US President Barack Obama presents the Medal of Honor to Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta of the US Army on November 16, 2010

President Barack Obama presents a Medal of Honor to Army Captain Florent A. Groberg on November 12, 2015

President Richard Nixon presents US Army 1st Lieutenant Harold Fritz with the Medal of Honor

And, standing directly behind Trump, was US Army Captain Florent A. Groberg  who spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention  who received the Medal of Honor for using his body to push a suicide bomber away from a formation in Afghanistan that included several senior military officers, thus saving the lives of many soldiers when the suicide bomber's vest went off, triggering a second bomber's vest, as well.

'To all of those gathered here today, and to all of those warriors who could not be with us, we thank you,' Trump said.

'Your acts of valor inspire us  and they show us that there is always someone on the night watch to ensure a bright sun rises on America each and every morning.'

Before leaving, the Medal of Honor recipients presented Trump with a signed copy of the book, 'Portraits of Valor,' which profiles all the medal recipients.

Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin were also present at the meeting.

Medal of Honor recipients gave President Trump a signed copy of the book 'Medal of Honor'

The Medal of Honor is the highest decoration given out by the US Military. It is so significant an award, that even higher-ranking officers will salute those who sport the medals.

In inviting the Medal of Honor recipients to the White House, Trump resurrected a holiday that had only been officially observed once  on 25 March 1991  since the day was designated by Congress in 1990, according to USA Today.

With the exception of President Barack Obama visiting Arlington National Cemetery in 2009, most recent presidents have let the day go by without commemorating the Medal of Honor recipients actions.

During his campaign, Trump was publicly endorsed by at least 14 Medal of Honor recipients, several of who were in the room with him on Friday, including Michael Thornton and Patrick Brady.
A convicted serial rapist and diagnosed sexual sadist with decades of criminal history is accused of blackmailing women from inside prison.

Graham Harrison, 48, spent most of his adult life behind bars for committing horrific acts against women and underage girls.

During a brief period in the outside world in 2012 and 2013, he managed to run a brothel and commit 36 crimes despite wearing a GPS tracker.

One of his favourite tricks was to use secretly recorded sex tapes of lonely middle-aged women he found online to demand they hand over their daughters for sex.

Harrison is now accused of writing letters from Silverwater jail to two women claiming to have compromising material of them, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Serial rapist and sexual sadist Graham Harrison is accused of blackmailing two women from inside Sydney's Silverwater prison using compromising photos and videos of them

It was straight out of his old playbook where he would use secretly recorded sex tapes of lonely middle-aged women he found online to demand they hand over their daughters for sex

He allegedly told one woman he had 'photos and video of her at his brothel and his flat, and 'video taken secretly of us fooling around at Top Ryde'.

'I hope to help stop a very bad viral issue, so I hope you understand,' he wrote in the letter dated October 11 last year.

A letter on July 1 the same year made more vague references to potentially damaging allegations against a woman that he offered to sort out.

'There are a number of potentially scandalous and problematic issues that are all connected and one way or another involve you,' he wrote.

'All sorts of allegations are floating around and could get much worse soon.'

He is accused of writing letters from Silverwater jail to two women claiming to have compromising material of them

Harrison asked both women to visit him in prison to resolve the issue but they instead took the letters straight to police. He has not been charged.

Crown Prosecutor Gareth Christofi told Daily Telegraph the letters were 'consistent with the methodology' he used earlier and were obviously attempts at blackmail.

Harrison committed his first sex offence in his teens and is most infamous for abducting and raping four backpackers in the early 1990s, earning a 16-year jail sentence.

He was considered such a high risk that authorities placed him on an Extended Supervision Order with a 24-hour GPS ankle tracker.

This was little deterrent as he racked up 36 sex offences in two years in 2012-13 after going off his anti-libido medication.

They included raping two women nine times, molesting an eight-year-old girl, and turning two underage girls into prostitutes at his brothel.

Harrison will be sentenced for the 36 convictions on May 19.
A rural WA undertaker has told of the tragedy of having to bury his own son - the sixth young life lost to suicide in the town of Leonora in the past 18 months.

Matt Taylor spoke to ABC News after the somber ceremony for his son.

'Having to bury my own son today, if I compartmentalise it into the role as an undertaker, I'm somewhat desensitised to that. That happens,' Mr Taylor said.

'But as a father, it's not nice.'

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Matt Taylor, a rural WA undertaker, has told of the tragedy of having to bury his own son - the sixth young life lost to suicide in the town of Leonora in the past 18 months

Every day, a Western Australian life is lost to suicide, according to 2012 statistics.

Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the suicide rate is more than double the national rate, according to Lifeline.

Leonora residents told ABC they believe lack of opportunity and alcoholism are important factors behind the suicide problem in the community.

'Alcohol plays a big role, alcohol's the one that's pushing them to do it,' said Brendon Anderson, whose son died in an accident.

'Having to bury my own son today, if I compartmentalise it into the role as an undertaker, I'm somewhat desensitised to that. That happens,' Mr Taylor said. 'But as a father, it's not nice.'

'If we had more things here for them to do, maybe they wouldn't be drinking as much as they are, instead we've got nothing in Leonora at the moment for them,' he said of the town's youth.

Mr Taylor and others also said mental health services need to made available to rural residents.

Leonora's nearest full-time drug, alcohol and mental health counselors are located in Kalgoorlie, a 230km drive from the town, ABC reported.

For confidential support, call the Lifeline 24-hour service on 13 11 14 or beyondblue 1300 22 4636.
A mother-of seven is considering welcoming another child into the world  despite having her fallopian tubes tied.

Delveen Poland, from Queensland's Sunshine Coast, was told by doctors she would never give birth despite bearing seven children in 14 years.

Now the 35-year-old has set her sights on working in a law firm  but said she hasn't ruled out bringing another member into the family, she told Sunshine Coast Daily.

Delveen Poland, posing with two of her daughters, is considering welcoming another child into the world

The family already includes Rylee, 14, Logan, 13, Phoenix, 11, Karisma, 9, Briahne, 7, Corbin, 5 and Dominique, 4

'If I could, I'd definitely go again,' Mrs Poland told the publication.

Images show Delveen with her children, Rylee, 14, Logan, 13, Phoenix, 11, Karisma, 9, Briahne, 7, Corbin, 5 and Dominique, 4.

She said it was hard not to consider giving birth again because children have been the light of her life.

She recalled the memorable day she gave birth to her first beloved first-born.

'When he was placed in my arms, (that) was the most memorable thing in my life.'

Her eldest, Rylee, is now 14 and in Year 11 at Mountain Creek State High School.

'I've got my own little army  It's busy but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Delveen and Scott Poland say children are the light of their life

The mother was told by doctors that she would never give birth despite bearing seven children in 14 years
A new report claims General Michael Flynn floated the idea of 'whisking' away an exiled Turkish cleric during a September meeting.

The Wall Street Journal reports former CIA Director James Woolsey allegedly plotted 'a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy [Fethullah Gulen] away.'

A spokesperson for Flynn denied the accusations of plotting to remove the cleric who was exiled from Turkey in 1999.

General Michael Flynn allegedly had the plan to 'whisk' away Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen from Pennsylvania and send him back to the mid east

Former CIA Director James Woolsey said Flynn plotted to remove Fethullah Gulen (pictured) from the US

The discussion reportedly did not detail exactly how to get Fethullah Gulen, who is a legal US resident, from where he was living in the Pennsylvania Poconos. Flynn allegedly wanted to avoid the US extradition process.

Turkey has accused Gulen - a former ally who has turned into Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's top foe - of trying to destabilize Turkey and says his movement is behind a failed military coup in July aimed at toppling the Turkish leader.

One of the people in the meeting with Flynn was reportedly Erdogans son-in-law.

Gulen has denied any involvement in the coup. His movement also condemned 'in the strongest terms' the ambassador's assassination.

The government however, has labeled the movement 'the FETO terror organization' and has cracked down on Gulen's followers, arresting tens of thousands of people for their alleged link to the coup and purging more than 100,000 suspected supporters from government jobs.

Earlier this month, Michael Flynn admitted that his lobbying firm was paid $530,000 for work that could have benefited the Turkish government, just two months before he was appointed to the White House.

Erdogan accused Gulen of organizing a deadly coup in July 2016 against Turkey

Flynn's consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, was lobbying for a Dutch consulting firm with ties to Erdogan before and immediately after the US election.

The military veteran stepped down in February less than a month into President Donald Trump's administration amid mounting questions over his future and his close links with the Kremlin.

His stunning announcement, first reported by CNN, came just hours after sources close to the government revealed that the Justice Department had warned the new administration that his links with the Kremlin had put him in a compromising position and left him open to blackmail.

Flynn made numerous phone calls to the Russian Ambassador to the US before Trump took office, and later hinted he may have gone against diplomatic protocol by discussing the rollback of sanctions.
A young girl, 11, has penned a touching tribute to the British officer killed in the Westminster terror attack, saying she will remember him as a 'friendly policeman.'

Georgia Thorogood and her family travelled from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory to London in October and asked PC Keith Palmer to pose for a photo with them at the gates of the Houses of Parliament.

The photograph was taken in the same spot where Mr Palmer was stabbed to death by Khalid Masood after the 'lone wolf' terrorist ploughed his car into crowds of people on Westminster Bridge on Wednesday.

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An Australian family have shared a tribute to the British police officer killed in the Westminster terror attack, saying he was a 'genuinely nice bloke' after they met him at Houses of Parliament in October (pictured)

Georgia wrote a heartfelt letter to Mr Palmer, thanking him for taking time to pose with her family

A young girl, 11, has penned a touching tribute to the British officer killed in the Westminster terror attack, saying she will remember him as a 'friendly policeman'

An Australian family have shared a tribute to the British police officer killed in the Westminster terror attack (From left Claire Thorogood, Andrew Thorogood, Alex Thorogood, Georgia Thorogood)

Georgia wrote a heartfelt letter to Mr Palmer, thanking him for taking time to pose with her family.

'Hi, my name is Georgia and I would like to share this photograph of me, my sister Alex, my dad and Keith Palmer,' she wrote.

'Keith was a police officer patrolling the gates of the Houses of Parliament in London. This picture was taken last October whilst on holiday.

'Keith tragically lost his life defending the people inside parliament. I will always remember him as a nice friendly policeman who took the time to pose for a photograph with us and talk to us.'

On Thursday Georgia's father Andrew posted the picture to Facebook.

'With everyone so suspicious of everyone else these days, he was happy to chat and smile for a photo with a bunch of Territorians on holiday,' Mr Thorogood wrote on Facebook alongside the picture.

The Thorogood family pictured at their home in Mount Johns, Alice Springs

The Thorogood family shared a tribute to the officer after meeting him in October

The photo, posted to Facebook by the Thorogood family, shows Mr Palmer in his uniform with his arms around the Alice Springs father and his two daughters smiling at the entrance to the Houses of Parliament

'It sent a shiver down my spine when I realised Keith was the officer who was killed in the London terror attack,' Mr Thorogood wrote.

He said after Mr Palmer told them he would love to visit Australia, his daughters offered to show him how 'special' their home town Alice Springs is.

'That will never happen now, all because he was doing his job and trying to keep people safe in the face of yet another crazy terror attack,' Mr Thorogood said.

'Our thoughts are with his wife and family'.

The photo shows Mr Palmer in his uniform with his arms around the Alice Springs father and his two daughters smiling at the entrance to the Houses of Parliament.

A total of four people were killed by Masood, 52, in the horrific attack, before he was shot dead by police near where Mr Thorogood's photo was taken.

Mr Palmer's family gave their own tribute to the 'courageous' policeman on Thursday, saying he was a 'wonderful dad and husband'.

Police officer Keith Palmer was killed by a knifeman before the attacker was shot by other officers outside Parliament. Emergency services desperately tried to save him, pictured, but he succumbed to his wounds

'With everyone so suspicious of everyone else these days, he was happy to chat and smile for a photo with a bunch of Territorians on holiday,' Mr Thorogood wrote on Facebook alongside the picture

'Keith will be remembered as a wonderful dad and husband. A loving son, brother and uncle. A long-time supporter of Charlton FC,' a statement released by his wife Michelle (both pictured) read

A police officer places flowers and a photo of Pc Keith Palmer on Whitehall near the closed-off Houses of Parliament in London after the horrific attack

'Keith will be remembered as a wonderful dad and husband. A loving son, brother and uncle. A long-time supporter of Charlton FC,' a statement released by his wife Michelle and his five-year-old daughter read.

Keith Palmer poses for a selfie with Parliament visitors

'Dedicated to his job and proud to be a police officer, brave and courageous. A friend to everyone who knew him. He will be deeply missed. We love him so much'.

Mr Palmer's colleagues revealed he was nominated for the best thief taker in the Commissioner's Excellence Awards in 2015, after making over 15 arrests in 12 months.

He has also been credited with saving the life of former Met officer Nina Whitehead who was involved in a car crash when she was in the passenger seat of a patrol car.

Ms Whitehead said Mr Palmer kept her alive until paramedics arrived.

'He was already a hero. In my eyes he always will be. I literally owe him my life,' she said.
Coles has been accused of short-changing dairies with its cartons of Farmers' Fund milk, but the supermarket giant says leftover money is still directed to farmers.

The Farmers' Fund milk costs 50c more than 2L of standard Coles cartons, but labels stipulate only 40c goes towards supporting dairy farmers.

A photo of the labels was posted to social media site Reddit on Saturday, and customers speculated the leftover 10c was pocketed by the supermarket.

But a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the 10c is passed onto the Victorian Farmer's Federation for promotion and administration.

Coles has been accused of short-changing farmers with bottles of Farmer's Fund milk, which cost an extra 50c, but the supermarket says extra money goes to Victorian Farmers Federation

Coles announced in May 2016 the Farmers' Fund Milk would be exclusively sold in Victoria stores, to provide customers with a choice to help dairy farmers.

The Farmer's Fund Milk costs an extra 50c, making 2L bottles $2.50 instead of $2.00.

Coles has continued to sell the cheaper milk, leaving it up to customers to decide whether or not to buy from the more expensive range.

While a label on the shelves in the supermarket explains that 40c from the extra 50c goes directly to farmers, customers questioned where the extra 10c went.

One person speculated the money went to the Coles marketing department.

The supermarket introduced Farmer's Fund Milk to its shelves in May 2016, which cost an extra 50c, pushing the price of milk up to $2.50. While a label on the shelves explained 40c from the goes directly to farmers, customers questioned where the extra 10c went

Another accused Coles of 'creating the problem and then selling the solution'.

But a Coles spokesperson said: 'An extra 10 cents from every two litre bottle sold is directed to the Victorian Farmer's Federation for promotion and administration.

'Any unused funds left over from this 10 cents are directed into the pool for distribution to dairy farmers.

In a statement Coles said the 40c from the Farmer's Fund milk given directly to the dairy farmers fund was over and above the price paid to farmers for their milk.

Farmers Fund Milk is owned by the Victorian Farmers Federation and produced under license by Murray Goulburn and Coles.

A spokesperson from Coles clarified that the 10c goes to the Victorian Farmers Federation for for promotion and administration
ELKO  A degree in administration of criminal justice and a former career in the Air Force as an information manager gave Deborah Barnhart a love of order. Now she has taken this skill to a new level by creating her new business, DPS of Northern Nevada, a document preparation service.

Barnhart basically helps clients with many of the same legal changes in life as attorneys at a fraction of the costs.

Forms just dont intimidate me, said Barnhart.

Barnhart is certified in document preparation services through the state of Nevada.

A divorce involving children often begins with a paper trail of 31 pages. Barnhart knows how to sort through all of the legal jargon, file court documents, submit the notice to the newspaper and all of the other details that come with such an immense life change.

She got started helping others with documentation issues while she and her family were stationed in Alaska in the 90s.

I told a friend and my sister who were struggling with bills and seeing an attorney they could save a lot of money if they did it themselves, said Barnhart.

She began looking into it.

I literally did their bankruptcies on a Selectric typewriter, she said.

Barnhart provides a variety of services including divorce, wills and living trusts, power of attorney, citizenship, step-parent adoption, prenuptial agreements, paternity, guardianship, custom forms, name changes, and more.

Barnharts motto is If you dont need an attorneys advice, dont pay an attorneys price.

According to Barnhart, a joint divorce with no children can cost upwards of $900. DPS of Northern Nevada charges $199. A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy starts at $1,300 with an attorney but she charges just $150. There are court fees that also accompany many of the charges but the complete cost is still significantly lower than using a lawyers services.

Unlike attorneys Barnhart is not able to go to court with her clients and therefore she does not do contested divorces.

A lot of the divorces I handle involve people who are separated and living in separate states for five or six years, but the reason they have not gotten divorced is because they dont have the money.

Much of her work is very gratifying as she sees the new beginnings people start when they get finished with the paperwork necessary for starting over.

The most rewarding service I provide is stepparent adoptions, said Barnhart.

According to Barnhart, she is the only document preparation service in town. She opened her business in January.

Barnhart has facilitated a number of name changes for which she charges only $99.

I had a guy actually get tears in his eyes when he saw his name on the court documents, said Barnhart. He wanted to honor the gentleman who raised him. His mother remarried when he was just 3 and he wanted to honor his stepfather.

Barnhart typically offers a turnaround service of about 48 hours during business days.

In addition to document services Barnhart is also a legal officiate who can perform weddings.

I am looking forward to any type of marriage ceremony, she said.

Barnhart is up for anything including performing marriages in a hot air balloon or underwater. She recently performed her first same sex marriage.
A man has grabbed the arm of a woman while she was walking down a street in suburban Adelaide.

A man has grabbed a girl's arm in Adelaide on Friday morning. Pictured is an image of man police want to speak to in relation to the incident

SA Police are investigating the incident in Kensington Park which took place on Friday morning about 8.10am.

A teenage girl was walking along Uxbridge Street in the suburb when a man grabbed her by the arm, but she was able to break free before running off.

She was not physically harmed during the incident.

The man is described as of Caucasian appearance, about 60-70 years old, grey hair, unshaven, wearing a blue t-shirt, black shorts and black shoes. He was last seen heading toward Kensington Road.

Police have released a computer-generated image of the man involved in the alleged attack.

Anyone who may have witnessed this incident or has any information that may help police to identify the man is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Terrorist Khalid Masood dreamed of murdering someone and once held a knife to a friend's throat.

Lee Lawrence, 47, knew Masood by his birth name, Adrian Elms, and before he is believed to have converted to Islam in prison. He gave him his first job as a woodcutter in Northiam East Sussex.

He said he remembers Masood's lust for 'blood' and recalls him having a desire to 'kill'.

Terrorist Khalid Masood (pictured) dreamed of murdering someone and once held a knife to a friend's throat.

Masood's disturbing history of violence was revealed following his attack in Westminster on Wednesday.

He killed three people - Londoner Leslie Rhodes, 75, US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, and mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 43 - with a hired 4x4 before stabbing PC Keith Palmer to death during his assault on Parliament.

Mr Lawrence told the Sun that the terrorist once held a knife to his throat after slashing the face of pub landlord Piers Mott in 2000.

He said: 'He had the knife against my throat and he is going, "I want some blood, I want some f***ing blood, I want to kill someone".

This is Westminster IS-inspired jihadi Khalid Masood (circled in 1980) when he was a student at Huntleys Secondary School in Kent. The school is now closed and a housing estate built on the land

'After he calmed down he was saying, "What have I done? What am I doing? I am going for help. I just want blood or I want to kill someone".'

Mott needed 20 stitches to a gaping wound in his cheek after the attack.

Mr Lawrence added: 'His eyes had rolled and he was out of this world. Once outside the pub, he also began slashing Mr Mott's car seats.'

Masood was jailed for two years for the assault.

Mr Lawrence, who still lives in Northiam, said he only saw Masood once after he got out of prison and converted to Islam.

While driving through the village Masood put his fingers to his throat and 'made a slashing gesture' at his former friend.

'He loved scaring people. He got off on being the hard man,' added Mr Lawrence.

A scaffolder also revealed how the Westminster terrorist plunged a kitchen knife into his face just three years after the attack on his local pub landlord.

Danny Smith, 35, was left with horrific facial injuries following the fight in Eastbourne in 2003.

The blade sliced his nose in half and ripped through his tongue.

This photograph of Masood (circled), also konwn as Adrian Elms or Adrian Ajao, is from the Huntleys Secondary School for Boys football team in 1979 or 1980 when he was 15 or 16 years old

Recalling the horrific ordeal, the father-of-two told the Sun: 'I only knew him three days and he tried to kill me.

'The knife went straight through my nose, my mouth and my tongue. I fell down and I'm trying to get up but he's trying to stab me in the back four times.'

Mr Smith managed to escape and said that as he was running away he could hear Masood shouting: 'I'm going to f***ing kill you.'

Despite this assault and his history of violence, Masood was acquitted of attempted murder but it is believed he was sentenced to six months for possession of a knife.

Revealed: He was known at Adrian Ajao while at school in Tunbridge Wells - after several spells in prison he became radicalised (right after being gunned down outside Parliament on Wednesday)

He had a violent streak and between 1983 and 2003 racked up convictions for grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.

When the case came to trial, Masood told Hove Crown Court he snapped because of racism in the village and claimed he had been ostracised because villagers had a 'view of black people'.

Neighbours said he was radicalised during that two-year jail sentence, and abandoned his old life after his release from prison, including his partner Jane Harvey and their two young daughters.

He had lived with Miss Harvey at her 700,000 home in Northiam, near Rye.

Mourners have continued to lay floral tributes in Parliament Square to remember the victims of the heinous attack

Mark Ashdown, 52, a friend of Masood from Huntley School for Boys in Tunbridge Wells, said he noticed a change when he first came out of prison.

He said: 'He was certainly not a Muslim when I knew him. He was Jack the lad. We grew up together, partying all night  drink, drugs, sex, the lot. We lived for weekend raves.'

After he moved to the village of Northiam, Mr Ashdown didn't see his friend as much.

He recalled him getting in a pub fight where he was 'slashed in the face'.

Neighbours said Masood was radicalised during a two-year jail sentence

After he was released from prison for the attack on the landlord friends say he told them he had 'become a Muslim in prison'.

Masood was then jailed again for possessing a knife.

After his second release from jail, he married Muslim Farzana Malik in 2004 after converting to Islam.

She was granted a divorce after three months of marriage, the Daily Mirror reported.

On her Facebook page 'Soul Searchers', she describes Islamic fanaticism as 'nonsensical', in a lengthy tirade which calls on her fellow Muslims to heed their true faith, concluding 'unless they do that, radicalism will continue to plague the world.'

Yesterday, Mrs Malik was being comforted by her family, including her second husband, at her home in Oldham.

His next long term relationship was with Rohey Hydara, 39, with whom he shared a series of short-term homes in London and Luton.

Last night, the Met said Masood's partner Ms Hydara, 39, was released on bail pending further inquiries. She was arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.
A brave meningococcal survivor who lost both her hands to the disease asks her mother a heartbreaking question every day.

Doctors worked tirelessly to save three-year-old Jenna Hansford's limbs after she developed the deadly B strain of the disease in Adelaide in 2015.

But Jenna's right arm had to be amputated below the elbow and most of her left hand was removed - procedures which ultimately saved her life.

'Mum, why don't I have a hand? Why don't I have fingers?' Jenna asks her mother Karen Hansford every day, The Advertiser reported.

Doctors worked tirelessly to save three-year-old Jenna Hansford's (pictured) limbs after she developed the deadly B strain of the disease in Adelaide in 2015

Jenna's right arm had to be amputated below the elbow and most of her left hand was removed. Pictured, Jenna and her mother Karen Hansford pose for a photo

'I just say to her she got really, really sick, so when her friends ask her she tells them she got really, really sick and had to go to hospital,' Ms Hansford said.

Ms Hansford said she thought Jenna simply had a case of the flu when she fell ill in August in 2015 - before a rash quickly spread all over her tiny body.

Not long after, Jenna was fighting for her life on dialysis and covered in a rash, according to a GoFundMe page set up for the youngster.

Ms Hansford was shocked to find her daughter had contracted the disease, believing she had been protected against it on the publicly-funded vaccination program.

'Mum, why don't I have a hand? Why don't I have fingers?' Jenna asks her mother every day

Ms Hansford said Jenna fell ill in August in 2015 before a rash quickly spread all over her tiny body

But she wasn't aware that there are several types of meningococcal disease and that Jenna didn't receive the vaccine for the strand she contracted.

Meningococcal B is preventable, but the vaccine isn't available on the national children's immunisation program and can only be bought on the private market.

The Federal government is now moving to include the vaccination on the public scheme.

After countless surgeries and months in hospital, Jenna is now back at home and in good health, but will need treatment for years to come.

Ms Hansford said: 'There was no sign at all that Jenna was sick. She got a fever, she started vomiting and had diarrhoea, but we just thought it was the flu'
An inmate and his visitor have been involved in a violent brawl at a maximum security prison.

Port Phillip Prison in Truganina, west of Melbourne, went into lockdown when six staff members were taken to hospital after the brawl about 11.30am on Saturday.

Herald Sun reports the fight broke out when prison officers suddenly ended an inmate's time with his visitor.

Six staff members were taken to hospital following a brawl at Port Philip Prison (stock image)

It's the second violent clash at the prison (pictured) within a week after a gang altercation

Eight people were treated at the scene, with six of those taken to hospital for treatment, a Ambulance Victoria spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.

The prisoner and his visitor were injured but did not require hospital attention.

Police attended the scene following reports of injured staff, a spokesperson said.

Both males and females were assaulted by the culprit prisoner and his friend.

Reports suggest the incident erupted after an inmate's visitor time was cut short (stock image)

Police are investigating what led to the brawl.

Dennis Roach, managing director of G4S Australia and New Zealand who operate the corrections facility said in a statement: 'Our thoughts are with our staff who were injured in the incident.'

The brawl was the second breakout of violence within a week, following an incident where members of the Comanchero and Bandido motorcycle gangs clashed in the prison's gym on Wednesday.

Two inmates required hospital attention with stab wounds following the event.


Firefighters were called on a rescue mission - to save a Harris hawk stuck in a tree.

The bird of prey was trapped by a thin leather strap on its ankle and was left hanging upside down.

So firefighters clambered up ladders and untangled the hawk from between the branches in Cockett, Swansea.

Firefighters were called on a rescue mission - to save a Harris hawk stuck in a tree

The bird was then handed over to RSPCA officials who are nursing it back to health.

The Harris hawk can be found in the wild in the southwestern United States down to Chile and central Argentina.

Firefighters clambered up ladders and untangled the hawk from between the branches in Cockett, Swansea. Pictured (right), stock image of a Harris hawk

They are medium to large birds of prey with dark brown and chestnut plumage and a white-tipped tail.

Some individuals are sighted in Britain; however these are likely to be escapees from a falconry.

They are one of the most popular hawks among falconry enthusiasts.
Tillman Freeman (pictured), 30, has been charged with murder after a four-day-old and a two-year-old were found stabbed to death

A man has been charged with murder after a four-day-old baby and the newborn's two-year-old sister were found stabbed to death.

Tillman Freeman, 30, faces two counts of murder in the death of the children, whose bodies were found early Saturday inside a car near Raeford, North Carolina.

Freeman, whom authorities first named as the father, claimed his wife had been seeing someone else and that the children weren't his, Sheriff Hubert Peterkin told WRAL.

Serenity Freeman, the toddler, and Genesis, the newborn, were reported missing late Friday.

Freeman was first apprehended and charged after police said he refused to tell authorities where the children were.

Both were stabbed multiple times, according to Peterkin.

Genesis Freeman (left), four days old, and the newborn's two-year-old sister Serenity (right) went missing Friday. Authorities found they bodies Saturday near Raeford, North Carolina

The man's wife was at a hospital when Genesis and Serenity went missing, prompting a frantic search.

Authorities believe Freeman and his wife got into a fight, after which Freeman took the children.

He originally faced charges of child abuse and child endangerment, which were later changed to murder.

Freeman was taken into custody Friday afternoon after someone alerted authorities about a suspicious person near a doctor's office in Raeford.

The man's wife was at a hospital when Genesis and Serenity went missing, prompting a frantic search. Authorities located their bodies around this area on Saturday morning
The Westminster attacker's online communications have now become the core of the investigation around the terror raid with security forces keen to ascertain if he was receiving instructions from a jihadist master moments before he unleashed carnage.

Khalid Massod was on WhatsApp at 2.37pm on Wednesday, approximately two minutes before ploughing into people on Westminster Bridge and four minutes before he was shot dead by armed officers outside the Palaces of Westminster, the MailOnline exclusively revealed yesterday.

Now, Masood's messages with others on the encrypted messaging service have prompted police to up their search for jihadist associates of the killer.

Pictured: A screengrab of Khalid Masood's WhatsApp profile taken on Thursday by MailOnline shows the attacker was active in the app on his iPhone moments before he ploughed into innocent people on Westminster Bridge

Masood being lifted into an ambulance after being shot, moments after messasing Whatsapp contacts. His communications have now become the core of the investigation around the attack

Theories include that the 52-year-old was receiving a final bit of advice from a terror master, seeking religious authority for the attack or saying goodbye to his associates.

On Friday, Metropolitan Police Assistant Deputy Commissioner Mark Rowley said the investigation would look at whether Masood 'acted totally alone inspired by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him'.

However investigators will not be able to access the messages without breaking into his phone as WhatsApp is an 'end-to-end' encryption messaging service.

WHAT IS END-TO-END ENCRYPTION? With 'end-to-end' encryption, messages are visible only to the person who has sent them and the individuals that were meant to receive. The system works by using a 'lock' to secure messages between individuals or in a group chat. This lock is paired with a distinct 'key,' which only the sender and the recipients will have. This will will lock out cybercriminals, hackers, 'oppressive regimes,' and even WhatsApp officials to keep your data private, the blog says. Advertisement

This means communications sent on the Facebook owned app are visible only to the person who has sent them and the individuals that were meant to receive.

The system works by using a 'lock' to secure messages between individuals or in a group chat.

This lock is paired with a distinct 'key,' which only the sender and the recipients will have.

The California based company updated the app in April last year with 'end-to-end' encryption amid a heightened international debate over how much access law enforcement should have to digital communications.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg hailed the addition as an 'important milestone for the WhatsApp community' however cyber law expert Pavan Duggal said the feature can only benefit terrorists.

Duggal told The Quint: 'WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption provides more encouragement to terror groups to be more bold in their communications in coded languages which can then be transmitted without the fear of being cracked on the way. '

The man police believe to be responsible for the terrorist attack in Westminster has been identified as Khalid Masood, 52. It also emerged yesterday the attacker was known to MI5 after an investigation many years ago, but was considered 'peripheral'

Apple and U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were involved in a high-profile legal tussle after authorities announced they accessed an iPhone used by a shooter in the 2015 San Bernardino terror attacks.

The phone in contact with Masood has been linked to a flat above a curry house in Hagley Road, Birmingham where police arrested a woman, 21, and a man 23, hours after the attack.

THE 11 ARRESTS MADE SINCE THE ATTACK A 39-year-old woman was arrested at an address in east London. She has since been put on bail until late March. A 21-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man were arrested at an address in Birmingham but have been released without charge. A 26-year-old woman and three men aged 28, 27 and 26 years old were arrested at a separate address in Birmingham. Further, a 58-year-old man was arrested on Thursday morning at a separate address in Birmingham and remains in custody. Another 27-year-old man was arrested in Birmingham late on Thursday and remains in custody. Two more people, a 32-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man in Greater Manchester, were arrested early Friday morning. The woman has been bailed pending further inquiries. All of the arrests have been made on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts. Searches were also carried out in Carmathanshire, Wales, and Brighton, Sussex. Advertisement

Since the attack, police have arrested 11 people on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.

However on Friday they released eight without charge, having eliminated them from their inquiries, and one woman was released on Thursday on bail.

Those still in custody are: A 58-year-old man from Birmingham and a 27-year-old man also from Birmingham.

Those who were released included six from Birmingham who were freed after they fully co-operated with the investigation and found they had no connection with the atrocity.

Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, who leads the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, said: 'As a result of their co-operation and our enquiries we are completely satisfied that they are not connected in any way to the terrorist attack in Westminster on Wednesday.

'We are very appreciative of their co-operation and support.'

Investigators believe Masood was inspired by Islamist terrorism and ISIS have claimed responsibility for the massacre that left four victims dead, describing him as a 'soldier' of theirs.

However the extent of the group's involvement is not yet known by authorities.

The Dartford, Kent born 'lone wolf' terror killer mowed into pedestrians while driving a Hyundai 4x4 along Westminster Bridge before attacking Pc Keith Palmer, fatally stabbing him in the head, arm and side of his ribs.

Masood was also said to be 'joking around' and being 'very friendly' by the manager of Brighton's Preston Park Hotel, where he stayed the night before the atrocity, Sky News reported.

Masood had never been convicted of terror offences, although Theresa May revealed yesterday that he had been on MI5's radar a number of years ago.

Police insist there was no intelligence suggesting he was about to unleash a terror attack.

The policeman who shot the attacker on the parliamentary estate is believed to have been a close protection officer for Defence Secretary Michael Fallon rather than a member of the gate team.

Masood was a married father-of-three, former English teacher and a religious convert who was into bodybuilding, according to Sky News.

Metropolitan policeman Keith Palmer (left), Mother-of-two Aysha Frade (centre) and US tourist Kurt Cochran (right) have been named as victims of the attack

A Scotland Yard spokesman said yesterday: 'Masood was also known by a number of aliases. He was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack.

'However, he was known to police and has a range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.

'His first conviction was in November 1983 for criminal damage and his last conviction was in December 2003 for possession of a knife. He has not been convicted for any terrorism offences.'

Masood stabbed PC Keith Palmer to death with two knives outside parliament after killing 43-year-old mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 75-year-old Londoner Leslie Rhodes, and US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, as he ploughed along a crowded pavement on Westminster Bridge.

A 75-year-old man, named as Leslie Rhodes from south London, who was injured in the attack, died on Thursday night after his life support was switched off.

Meanwhile, hundreds of police swooped in dramatic raids across the nation making eight arrests on Thursday.

Theresa May revealed MI5 knew of the attacker but considered him a 'peripheral' figure who was 'not part of the current intelligence picture'

On Thursday evening police were searching a flat close to the Olympic village, in East London, where a woman named locally as Rohey Hydara lived.

She had lived with Masood in at least two separate addresses but it was unclear what their relationship was.

Giving details of the attacker's background in Parliament yesterday, Prime Minister Theresa May said: 'The man was British-born and - some years ago - he was once investigated in relation to concerns about violent extremism. He was a peripheral figure.

'The case is historic - he was not part of the current intelligence picture. There was no prior intelligence of his intent - or of the plot. Intensive investigations continue.'
Colonel Percy Fawcett is the subject of a new Hollywood film

He was the legendary British explorer who is said to have been the inspiration for movie hero Indiana Jones, and now Colonel Percy Fawcett is the subject of a new Hollywood film.

The Lost City of Z is based on US writer David Grann's 2009 book about the explorer, who first embarked on a Royal Geographical Society expedition in 1906, and went on to become a national hero.

After returning to Britain to join the First World War effort, the horrors he saw during the Battle of the Somme inspired him to return to South America to search for a fabled lost paradise city in the Brazilian Amazon, which he dubbed Z.

He set out on his final expedition in 1925, but vanished in the rainforest alongside his 21-year-old son Jack, and was never heard from again.

The explorer's body has never been found, and more than 200 would-be rescuers who set out after him also perished, falling victim to disease, dangerous wildlife, Amazon tribes, or simply getting lost in the dense jungle.

Born in Devon in 1867, Fawcett joined the army at the age of 18, and served in Ceylon, where he met his wife, Nina.

The couple married in 1901, and Fawcett joined the RGS to study surveying and map making.

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Charlie Hunnam plays the explorer in the new film, The Lost City of Z, produced by Brad Pitt

His father Edward had also been a member of the Royal Geographical Society, and a writer of adventure books.

He got his first taste for South America five years later, when the society sent him on his first expedition - to map the previously uncharted border between Bolivia and Brazil.

The trip whet his appetite for the continent, and he returned several times over the next eight years.

During his expeditions into the Amazon jungle he reported sighting of strange peoples and unheard of creatures, including an enormous anaconda snake 65 feet long.

His reputation grew, and he became an incredibly famous figure in Victorian society, with people even singing songs about him.

At the time he was famous as fellow explorer Scott of the Antarctic, a fellow military man, born nine months after Fawcett, who also set out to explore uncharted wildernesses.

Colonel Fawcett is believed to have been the inspiration for Indiana Jones, pictured here played by Harrison Ford in a scene from the film 'Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom'

Fawcett is believed to have been the inspiration for adventure book The Lost World, written by his friend and Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1912, and is even also believed to have been the inspiration for movie hero Indiana Jones.

His expeditions came to an abrupt halt with the outbreak of the First World War, when Fawcett was almost 50-years-old.

He returned to the army and served in Belgium, where he was gassed on the fields of Flanders, and spent time in hospital recovering.

Fawcett sits atop the horse which he rode to the edge of the jungle at which point he said goodbye to his local guides, who refused to go any further

During the conflict he was promoted from major to Lieutenant-Colonel, and went on to win the Distinguished Service Order.

But he went from being a national treasure to being seen as something of a crackpot figure when he disappeared in the Amazon jungle on his final expedition in 1925.

US writer David Grann told The Sun: 'Its important to look at Fawcett after the Battle of the Somme, when he had seen all these men perish and the society suddenly implode around him.

'At that point, Z became something else in his mind, a way to find some transcendence and meaning and search for the sublime.'

After the end of the conflict, and with the encouragement of his son Jack, 21, he decided to make one last trip.

Fawcett, who was now 57, had set out to try to find the fabled city of El Dorado - an ancient civilisation that was said to glisten with gold.

The father-and-son set out with their friend, Raleigh Rimmell, and Jack even managed to convince his mother to give them her blessing.

The legend of El Dorado was long talked about in the Americas and had captured the imaginations of European colonialists since they first crossed the Atlantic in the 1500s.

Although Fawcett was not entirely convinced by the legend of a golden city, he believed an ancient city existed that was filled with archaeological riches.

Although his theories were mocked by his contemporaries at the RGS, he was determined to find lost city in the Brazilian jungle, which he referred to simply as 'Z'.

Charlie Hunnam plays the explorer in the film, which suggests the explorers were sacrificed by an Amazon tribe

Robert Pattinson star as his fellow explorer Henry Costin in the film

The trio arrived in Brazil in April, 1926, but a month later they vanished in the central state of Mato Grosso, and were never heard from again.

As time passed, Fawcett's legend faded, and he was soon forgotten.

But modern historians believe his theories may have been correct, and generally believe that an ancient civilisation did exist in the Amazon.

And now his legend has been resurrected in a new film, The Lost City of Z, produced by Brad Pitt, and starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller.

Fawcett was once incredibly famous, but over time his legend faded, and he was soon forgotten

Author David Grann told The Mirror: 'One of the reasons why Fawcett was forgotten by history was that he ended up being seen as a bit of a crank.

'He'd started off being one of the world's first worldwide media sensations. Before and after he left on his last expedition he was incredibly famous. People sang songs about him.

'When he went missing the press called it: 'The Greatest Exploration Mystery of the 20th Century.' It captured so many people's imaginations. They'd literally been following his expedition in every continent.

'And after the disappearance, countless people went to try and rescue him and see if they could find the city themselves. Literally thousands volunteered. What started off as the legend of El Dorado, became the legend of Colonel Percy Fawcett.'

Since their disappearance, people throughout history have speculated as to how and why they vanished.

Some have suggested they were killed by rubber traders in the area, or were sacrificed by a local tribe, while others have even suggested that they decided to make a new life for themselves in the Amazon, with Fawcett becoming king of cannibals.

Theatre director Misha Williams, who has looked through the familys documents, found that both Fawcett and his wife had unconventional beliefs, and she believes the explorer wanted to create a commune in the Amazon and thought he would find a female spirit there.
Shamed lawyer Phil Shiner pretended he was ill in an attempt to avoid the tribunal that struck him off for hounding British troops

Shamed lawyer Phil Shiner pretended he was ill in an attempt to avoid the tribunal that struck him off for hounding British troops.

Shiner, the Birmingham lawyer who pursued false claims of war crimes in Iraq, said he was too unwell to face the panel and falsely said he was not able to afford a lawyer.

But the tribunal went ahead without him, leaving him with a costs bill of up to 722,000, reports The Sun.

A 78-page official judgment document exposed Shiner as a scoundrel and condemned the 60-year-old.

It said: 'The tribunal was not satisfied that the respondent was too unwell to attend or unfit to participate.

'Not only did the medical evidence not support the respondent's assertion, it tended to point in the other direction.'

The panel were also 'not persuaded that he had insufficient funds to pay for representation at a relatively short hearing'.

Shiner's firm, Public Interest Lawyers, made millions as veterans were smeared with false claims of war crimes.

The judgment slammed his firm's lust for 'financial reward' at any cost and added that the allegations made against the British Army, which were found to be false, had a 'significant impact' on those accused of atrocities.

Shiner's 'elaborate strategies' for misleading the Solicitors Regulation Authority were also criticised.

Last month the shamed lawyer was declared bankrupt in a move that could mean he avoids an estimated bill of at least 4million for bringing baseless war crimes claims against British troops.

A 78-page official judgment document exposed Shiner, the Birmingham lawyer who pursued false claims of war crimes in Iraq as a scoundrel and condemned the 60-year-old

It has also emerged that his house, worth around 330,000, was transferred to his daughters before he was struck off the roll of solicitors for misconduct.

Shiner's firm made more than 1.6million pursuing unfounded torture and murder claims that cost the public purse 31million to investigate.

After he was struck off, the Government pledged to pursue him for the 3million in legal aid his firm was paid to support the claims.

The Ministry of Defence was also poised to claim for the millions it spent defending its soldiers in court.

In addition, his four-bedroom Edwardian home in Birmingham has been transferred to two of his daughters, Leisha, 27, and Bethany, 29, who both worked for his firm.
EU President Donald Tusk has warned that the European Union could break down completely after Brexit, at a summit to mark the organisation's 60th anniversary.

Tusk called for leadership to steer Europe out of crisis at the special summit in Rome, which is being held today to mark the anniversary of the bloc's founding treaties.

'Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago,' former Polish prime minister Tusk said in a speech.

'Europe as a political entity will either be united, or will not be at all.'

European Council President Donald Tusk warned that the European Union is in danger of completely disintegrating

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for an EU summit at the Palazzo dei Conservatori

The leaders had the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears, after the pontiff warned on the eve of the summit that the crisis-ridden bloc 'risks dying' without a new vision.

Twenty-seven leaders are meeting without British Prime Minister Theresa May to celebrate the signing of the European Union's founding Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

Britain's decision to leave the bloc is one of a host of crises facing an increasingly divided EU, along with migration, the economy, terrorism and the rise of populist and nationalist parties.

Tusk said the bloc should look back to its founding principles, rather than get distracted by controversial plans to let EU countries integrate at different speeds.

The controversial measures are set to be endorsed by leaders in a special declaration in Rome.

From left: Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, left, greets German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they arrive for the summit in Rome

The new Rome declaration to commit to a united future and deal with the myriad crises which has beset the EU over the past decade is likely to be adopted without any problems after both Poland and Greece lifted their objections on the eve of the summit.

'Today in Rome we are renewing the unique alliance of free nations that was initiated 60 years ago by our great predecessors,' Tusk said.

'At that time they did not discuss multiple speeds, they did not devise exits, but despite all the tragic circumstances of the recent history, they placed all their faith in the unity of Europe.'

He added: 'The union after Rome should be, more than before, a union of the same principles, a union of external sovereignty, a union of political unity.'

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said to have such a festive meeting without British participation is 'a very sad moment'

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, left, greets European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker; while German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with the two men, right

Police cars station in front of St. Peter Square as Pope Francis met with European Union leaders at the Vatican ahead of the summit

Tusk struck a personal note as in his speech, saying that 'I was born exactly 60 years ago, so I am the same age as the European Community.'

He said the EU stood for values of freedom and democracy that he had seen in the West as a young man growing up in communist-ruled Poland.

'At that time we all looked to the West, towards a free and unifying Europe, instinctively feeling that this was the very future we were dreaming about. And although tanks and troops were sent against us, those dreams lived on,' he said.

'I lived behind the Iron Curtain for more than half of my life, where it was forbidden to even dream about those values. Back then, that really was a two-speed Europe,' he said.

Pope Francis poses in the Sistine chapel during a meeting with EU leaders at the Vatican

French President Francois Hollande signs a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said to have such a festive meeting like the 60th anniversary of the European Union founding treaty without British participation is 'a very sad moment.'

Juncker said that 'Brexit, the exit of Britain, is a tragedy' for the 27 other nations meeting in Rome.

The leaders had the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears, after the pontiff warned on the eve of the summit that the crisis-ridden bloc 'risks dying' without a new vision.

At the Vatican on Friday, Pope Francis told EU leaders that their Union had achieved much in 60 years but that Europe faced a 'vacuum of values'.

At the Vatican on Friday, Pope Francis told EU leaders that their Union had achieved much in 60 years but that Europe faced a 'vacuum of values'

From left, Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni arrive ahead of the summit

He condemned anti-immigrant populism and extremism that he said posed a mortal threat to the bloc.

The UK will trigger the negotiations to leave the EU on March 29, only days after the summit.

Residents of Rome are avoiding the city center as authorities brace for the possibility of violent protests during a European Union summit.

Some subway stops are closed, and buses have been rerouted away from the historic heart of the Italian capital hours before several planned marches.

Authorities fear anarchists might infiltrate anti-EU protests set for the afternoon.

One march is organized by far-right opponents to the EU, while another is organized by far-left opponents.

Also scheduled is a pro-EU march, which could draw hundreds of Britons who live in EU countries and fear complications from Britain's exit from the union.
ELKO  Its nearly time for Elkos 16th Annual Take Pride, Clean Up  Green Up Day and annual Prescription Drug Roundup.

On Saturday, April 22, the public is invited to help clean up their communities and help keep unused prescription drugs out of the wrong hands and out of the water supply.

Volunteers should gather at 7:30 a.m. in the parking lot by the City of Elko office building, 1751 College Ave., or at the Spring Creek Community Center, 401 Fairway Blvd.

Volunteers will be eligible for a raffle to be held on April 28 and will receive a one-day Elko Landfill pass. Volunteer appreciation barbecues will be provided at 11:30 a.m. at Elko Main City Parks Barbecue Pit No. 1, and at the Spring Creek Community Center.

New this year is a Grow a Tree workshop from 10:30-11:30 a.m. in Elko Main Park City Park. Traditional features will continue with Elko Landfill fees waived on April 22, prescription drug collection barrels from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Elko Main City Park and at the Spring Creek Community Center, E-waste collection in the park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. by Nevada I.T., and shredding at Ruby Mountain Resource Center from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Limited to one box per customer.)

Volunteer teams can pre-register online at www.elkocity.com and at www.pacecoalition.com, or by calling 777-7210 or by fax at 777-7219, or by emailing s.petersen@elkocitynv.gov.
A hospital is encouraging young men to 'change lives' and donate sperm - and could sell it on for 80 times the amount paid to the donor.

Whittington Hospital in Highgate, north London, is calling on 'altruistic men' aged between 18 and 45 to give samples in London's first 'not for profit' sperm bank.

Staff, who will sell the sperm to infertile couples, insisted it was time to shake off the notion that sperm donation is 'kind of weird and seedy'.

Bosses reckon they can get 'three vials' from 'one sperm donation' - and could sell each vial for 900.

Whittington Hospital in Highgate, north London, is encouraging young men to 'change lives' and donate sperm - and could sell it on for 80 times the amount paid to the donor

That means a single sperm donation, for which the donor is paid up to 35 in 'expenses', can be sold in three vials for a staggering 2,700.

In percentage terms, that's a huge 7,614 per cent increase for Whittington, which has a budget deficit of millions of pounds.

All money raised would go straight into the coffers of the hospital, which is planning on selling sperm to infertile couples.

Hospitals are not allowed to provide sperm free on the NHS, meaning many infertile couples have to resort to buying sperm from private clinics or online - but bosses at the hospital said they could offer sperm for sale to 'cut out the middle man'.

Erica Foster, an embryologist at the Whittington Hospital, said this week: 'This could make serious money for the hospital.

'You can sell donor sperm for around 900 a vial. I can get three vials from one ejaculate (although) of course, we'll do it for a bit less, as it is a NHS hospital.'

'Sperm donation is the most magical thing, the most selfless act that transforms lives,' She told the Camden New Journal.

Staff, who will sell the sperm to infertile couples, insisted it was time to shake off the notion that sperm donation is 'kind of weird and seedy'

'It's a special type of person who's going to do this. You can change people's lives for relatively little effort.

'But in this country so few people do it. In this country it's seen as a kind of weird and seedy thing to do.'

Consultant gynaecologist Gidon Liebermann, who is also heading up the sperm bank, said: 'We wanted to take out the whole profiteering element of selling sperm.

'I'm not a hard left-winger who is anti-private practice. I do private work myself, but I think people should have a choice to stay within the NHS framework.'

Local resident Graham Harrison, 34, said: 'I would be happy to donate some sperm, although I wouldn't mind a cut in the profits!

'Seriously though, it's crazy that men don't donate sperm - it's not exactly a difficult thing to do and could change a couple's lives - and make some money for a good hospital.'

The Whittington Hospital website states: 'For some people, the only way that they can start a family is through the use of donor sperm.

'We are always seeking to recruit altruistic men onto our donor sperm programme. If you meet the criteria below, and would be able to visit our centre once or twice per week for 6 to 12 weeks, then you may be eligible to donate.

'According to UK law, sperm donors must be aged between 18 and 45, be generally healthy and free from diseases which are known to be hereditary, understand that they cannot receive payment for sperm donation (although reimbursement for expenses of up to 35 per visit may be offered) and be willing for their identifying information to be disclosed to any biological children born as a result of their donation once that child reaches the age of 18 (a maximum of ten families can be helped by a single sperm donor).

Potential donors should contact donorbank.whittington@nhs.net
Calls to close New York City's Rikers Island jail complex have intensified over the latest in a string of brutality cases.

At least 35 staff members at Rikers have faced criminal charges in the past three years, including 13 for assault or attempted assault. Federal prosecutors have also charged more than a half dozen Rikers guards with violating inmates' civil rights through excessive force, smuggling drugs and other charges since 2014.

The newest case stems from security videotape in a maximum-security shower area that shows guard Rodiny Calypso viciously attacking an unnamed inmate in February 2014, a criminal complaint says. After the pair exchanged words - Calypso claims the inmate spit on him - the guard handcuffed the victim and punched him in the face and the head several times, it says.

Calypso, 38, was released on $150,000 bond. His attorney, Joey Jackson, said Tuesday his client looks forward to his chance to address the allegations in court.

Calls to close the Rikers Island jail complex (pictured) have intensified in a string of brutality cases. At least 35 staff members at Rikers have faced criminal charges in the past three years

An independent commission headed by the state's former chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, is close to announcing recommendations for reforms in the city's criminal justice system, including whether to shut Rikers for good.

The challenge, Lippman has said, is 'to imagine a state-of-the-art criminal justice system in New York City that does not rely on a de facto penal colony on the outskirts of town.'

There has been a growing debate on whether New York City's notoriously violent jail complex has become so dysfunctional it should be shut down.

'Rikers Island is one of these long-term injustices and abuses that every New Yorker should be outraged about,' said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. 'The situation is intolerable.'

Inmate activists have for more than a year argued that shutting down the sprawling, 10-jail complex on the East River is the only solution for a cycle of abuses that include violence by guards and gang members, mistreatment of the mentally ill and juveniles and unjustly long detention for minor offenders.

'If you are a New Yorker who cares about the soul of the criminal justice system, you know that Rikers is the belly of the beast,' said Glenn Martin, founder of the nonprofit group JustLeadershipUSA, which seeks to decrease the number of Americans behind bars.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, who frequently is at odds with Bill de Blasio, took an indirect jab at the mayor, saying his view of the city's position is that closing Rikers would be 'too hard'

Among the other arguments for closing Rikers is that the island facility near La Guardia Airport - accessible only by a narrow bridge - is too isolated, cutting off inmates from the outside world in a way that hinders oversight and rehabilitation.

Daily populations at Rikers have recently been falling below the 15,000 capacity listed on a city website - averaging less than 10,000 - a trend city officials attribute to reducing detention for those charged with misdemeanor drug possession.

Advocates say that makes it viable to dismantle Rikers and replace it with a combination of new and expanded existing jails in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Cost estimates have reached as high as $10 billion.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has stuck to his position that reforms and improvements at Rikers are both the least costly and most practical approach.

A 2015 settlement of civil litigation over pervasive brutality at Rikers imposed various changes, including the addition of thousands of surveillance cameras, stricter policies on use of force and the appointment of a federal monitor to oversee conditions.

Cuomo, who frequently is at odds with fellow Democrat de Blasio, took an indirect jab at the mayor at a community forum earlier this month, saying his view of the city's position is that closing Rikers would be 'too hard.'

'Well you know what, impotence is not a defense for me,' the governor said. 'New York City can accomplish anything it wants to, when it wants to. It just needs the political will. It is an outrage in New York City to allow Rikers Island to exist.'
The 75-year-old victim of the Westminster terror attack was Winston Churchill's window cleaner and a kind and gentle man, say friends.

Leslie Rhodes was mown down as he left St Thomas's hospital where he was being treated for glaucoma.

The elderly man, who lived in Clapham, South London, suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung and passed away after falling into a coma.

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The 75-year-old victim of the Westminster terror attack was Winston Churchill's window cleaner and a kind and gentle man, say friends

Having never married Mr Rhodes only had a nephew and niece for family and was joined on his deathbed by his neighbours Christine and Michael Carney.

Mr Rhodes was worked for a window cleaning firm in Croydon before setting up his own business.

A client and friend of his Janine Roebuck told MailOnline: 'Les was my much loved window cleaner for 20 years.

'You couldn't wish to meet a kinder, gentler man.

'He cleaned the windows of Chartwell - Winston Churchill's home - for many years.

Window cleaner Mr Rhodes kept the glass sparkling at Chartwell, the home of Winston Churchill

'It was something he was so proud of.

'He told me it was a lovely place to visit and gave me a brochure one time so I took my mum there.'

Despite being 75 and retired Mr Rhodes would still clean the windows of clients he had bonded with.

He was due to be at Mrs Roebuck's house in Vauxhall on Saturday.

'He was retired but would still do a few favours for people I suppose.

'He was more of a friend.

'It's tragic,' she said. 'I'm very sorrowful not to see him again and that such a sweet soul met such a horrible death.

'He was a very gentle and shy person. He was warm and always smiling and it was a joy to see him on a monthly basis.

'I would always make him a cup of tea and we'd have a chat.

'He was a gentleman in every sense of the word.'

Mrs Roebuck said Mr Rhodes, who died in hospital from his substantial injuries, was exceptionally fit and full of energy.

The scene outside the Palace of Westminster after Khalid Masood drove into crowds on the bridge and stabbed a police officer

'I thought he was 60 instead of 75,' she said.

'He would shimmy up that ladder like a 20-year-old. He was extremely punctual, reliable and very professional.'

Mrs Roebuck was on holiday in Sri Lanka when news of the attack broke.

'I saw the news and I said 'oh gosh'. When I heard the victim was a window cleaner I was worried and then I found out it was my window cleaner.

'It was terrible.'

Rhodes had moved to Clapham from Battersea with his family in the 1970s but had lived alone since his parents and brother died some years ago.

His nextdoor neighbour Michael Carney, 74, who had known Rhodes for about 40 years, was there when he died.

'You couldn't let someone like that die alone,' he told the Guardian. 'I couldn't get out, but my wife, Christine, and my two daughters went up there and stayed with him.'

Philip Williams, a former neighbour, said: 'He would do anything for anybody. It's such a shock.'

Williams said: 'I've been told he was hit in the midriff. He had many broken bones. Apparently he went into a coma straight away.'
UKIP's only MP Douglas Carswell has quit the party to become an independent amid claims he 'jumped before he was pushed'.

Announcing his departure on his website, Clacton MP Mr Carswell said UKIP has 'achieved what it was established to do' and described the party as the 'most successful in Britain ever'.

He added that he is leaving 'amicably' and that 'Brexit is in good hands'.

However, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage told Sky News that Mr Carswell 'should have gone some time ago'.

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UKIP's Douglas Carswell will quit the party and stand as independent candidate for Clacton. He is pictured with former UKIP leader Nigel Farage (left) on the general election campaign trail in 2015

He added that the party 'will be a lot happier and more united without him'.

Mr Farage's words were echoed by current UKIP leader Paul Nuttell, who failed in his bid in February to win a by-election in Stoke.

He said: 'Douglas Carswell has announced that he is resigning from UKIP, to sit as an independent MP. He has said that he is doing this 'cheerfully and amicably'.

'This is not a surprise. I was elected on a pledge to forge unity in the party, and have had many discussions with key players to try and make that happen, but it had become increasingly clear to me that some things were simply beyond reach.

'Douglas was genuinely committed to Brexit, but was never a comfortable Ukipper.

'We now have an opportunity to put behind us the most damaging internal conflict which has dogged us over the past year.'

Mr Carswell sensationally defected to UKIP from the Conservatives in August 2014 and was the party's only MP.

Last month, it was claimed Mr Carswell had held secret talks with the Tories about re-joining the party ahead of the next election after a bitter falling out with Mr Farage.

In February Mr Carswell announced he would feel 'honour bound' to resign and trigger a new by-election if he switched parties again.

Today he said that as an independent he would not call a new by-election in the Essex constituency.

In a statement Mr Carswell said: 'Our party has prevailed thanks to the heroic efforts of UKIP party members and supporters. You ensured we got a referendum.

Mr Carswell said he will not call a by-election in the Clacton constituency after becoming an independent.

'With your street stalls and leafleting, you helped Vote Leave win the referendum.

'You should all be given medals for what you helped make happen  and face the future with optimism.

'Like many of you, I switched to UKIP because I desperately wanted us to leave the EU. Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving UKIP.

Earlier this month Mr Farage called for Mr Carswell to be kicked out of UKIP amid claims the MP blocked a bid for the Brexit champion to get a knighthood

'I will not be switching parties, nor crossing the floor to the Conservatives, so do not need to call a by election, as I did when switching from the Conservatives to UKIP.

'I will simply be the Member of Parliament for Clacton, sitting as an independent.'

Mr Carswell's departure could have serious financial implications for UKIP.

As the party's only MP it is believed he will take around 600,000 of opposition funding, known as short money, with him when he leaves.

However Mr Nuttall claimed the party has not 'benefited financially or organisationally from having Douglas in Westminster'.

Earlier this month it was claimed Mr Carswell held secret talks with the Tories about rejoining the party ahead of the next election

The departure appears to have pleased UKIP's biggest financial backer Arron Banks, a close ally of Mr Farage, who had a public spat with the MP this month.

Mr Banks said he could trigger a by-election in Clacton using a recall petition and stand against Mr Carswell.

Today he tweeted a simple smiley face and tick with a link to the news.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: 'I always thought Carswell was far too human to be in UKIP.

The departure seems to have pleased UKIP's biggest financial backer Arron Banks, a close ally of Mr Farage, who had a public spat with the MP this month. Today he tweeted a simple smiley face and tick with a link to the news

'He is someone I think you would count as a libertarian and UKIP are a party you would count as authoritarian.'

Mr Farage called for Mr Carswell to be kicked out of UKIP amid claims the MP blocked a bid for the Brexit champion to get a knighthood.

Referencing reports at the time that Mr Carswell was in talks with the Tories, Mr Farage said: 'Did he ever leave the Conservatives? He was certainly representing them during the referendum campaign.'

He added that the MP had to go because, 'I don't want my successor to have to put up with the same sabotage and division that I did'.
The president of the National Union of Students has caused fury among many after laying out her concerns on Islamophobia in the UK without mentioning the policeman who was murdered in the Westminster attack, in a statement on Wednesday's bloodshed.

In a press release on Friday Malia Bouattia, who was elected as the NUS leader in 2016, paid a brief tribute to the four victims of the terror raid at the beginning of the statement.

However she used the bulk of the letter to urge students to 'be aware of the concerns of Muslim, migrant and racialised students in the days and weeks ahead.'

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The president of the National Union of Students Malia Bouattia

The 30-year-old wrote: 'I also want to extend our solidarity to the many Muslims and migrants who at this time will be especially fearful of racism and abuse.

'We must stand firm against all attempts to stoke up Islamophobia or intolerance against migrants of any nationality, especially at a time of increased hate crime against many communities across society.'

Colonel Richard Kemp, who served in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans and Northern Ireland and now works as a writer and media commentator, said Ms Bouattia has an 'anti-British agenda.'

Col. Kemp told MailOnline: 'This statement could easily be a parody. Instead of any acknowledgement of the police officers who ended the jihadist rampage that otherwise could have killed or wounded more students, Malia Bouattia predictably uses this horrific event to attack the government's counter-terrorist strategy.

'The very strategy that seeks to prevent such atrocities. She prefers to pontificate about a non-existent 'islamophobic' response than to condemn the attack itself.

'Her statement almost seems to be trying to justify Khalid Masood's actions as a defence of her fantasies about racism and xenophobia.

'All intelligent students who do not share her anti-British agenda should reject this self-serving and misleading statement.'

The Algerian-born graduate also used the statement to underline her political beliefs, stating that such incidents shouldn't encourage politicians to curb immigration numbers and that students must fight against any policy changes that could be forthcoming regarding migration.

She wrote: 'We must also continue to oppose attempts to utilise such events to undermine civil liberties, extend surveillance policies such as Prevent, or to tighten border controls.'

Ms Bouattia concluded her statement, which was published on the NUS website, by urging readers to 'recommit ourselves to building a movement that stands firm against racism and xenophobia.'

Also included in the letter was an apparent step-by-step plan to inform students as to how they can show solidarity with Muslims in the UK and stand-up against racism.

Pedestrians see to an injured person in the aftermath of the attack on Westminster Bridge

Pc Keith Palmer with his wife Michelle. He was murdered by Khalid Masood during the terror attack

She encouraged students to attend vigils 'for unity against division' that are set to be held across the country in the coming days.

The Birmingham University graduated also asked for students to offer support to 'Muslim, migrant and racialised students in the days and weeks ahead' and wrote that 'if you see someone being subject to abuse, please stand with them and intervene if you feel safe to do so.'

Jihadist Khalid Masood mowed into pedestrians while driving a Hyundai 4x4 along Westminster Bridge before attacking Pc Keith Palmer, fatally stabbing him in the head, arm and side of his ribs in Wednesday's attack.

Masood's raid claimed the lives of four people and injured fifty more, with 31 receiving hospital treatment.

Ms Bouattia courted controversy in September 2016 when she refused to apologize for describing Birmingham University as 'something of a Zionist outpost' in an article she co-authored five years ago.

When challenged over the remarks on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme she refused to apologise for them.

Ms Bouattia also defended 'safe space' and 'no-platform' policies in universities amid widespread concerns they are curtailing free speech.

Her election to head of the NUS was met with throngs of objection. The University of Lincoln, Newcastle University, Hull University and Loughborough University all disaffiliated with the body soon after the vote.

Despite malcontent among a section of students the likes of Nottingham, Oxford, Surrey, Exeter, Warwick, Cambridge and Durham universities voted to remain affiliated to the NUS after her election victory.
A man from Boston who has been dubbed the 'Incognito Bandit' was arrested on Friday as he tried to flee on a flight bound for South Africa.

Albert Taderera, 36, of Brighton, Massachusetts, is believed to be behind 16 bank robberies in the state between February 2015 and March 2017.

In each of the heists, Taderera allegedly disguised himself so as not to be recognized.

Albert Taderera, 36, of Brighton, is believed the be the 'incognito bandit' who robbed 16 banks in the Boston area while wearing a dark hoodie, dark gloves, and a face mask or sunglasses

The robberies began in February of 2015 and continued until this month

A sketch was drawn as to what the 'Incognito Bandi' may look like, however no mugshot has been released

In most of the cases the the 'Incognito Bandit' would be wearing a dark hoodie along with a face mask, sunglasses and gloves.

The robber would always make verbal demands for the money and then threaten tellers with a black semi-automatic handgun.

There was also something else in common with the robberies in that the banks would all be located in the suburbs, near wooded areas through which the robber could come and then make his escape.

Taderera was apprehended at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Friday morning as he was about to leave the country.

Suspected of carrying out more than a dozen bank robberies in the past two years, he was arrested as he was trying to leave the country on Friday night

The crook would display to tellers what looked like a black semi-automatic handgun. Police got a break in the case when they saw a car that looked like one involved in several of the robberies

The FBI had to act fast. They only learned of Taderera's imminent departure on Thursday night.

Initially he was supposed to take a morning flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but then it became clear he had switched his ticket to take an evening plane to Johannesburg, South Africa.

Just as he was about to board the flight, Taderera was arrested.

Last year, the FBI doubled the reward leading to the bandit's capture to $20,000 after becoming concerned about his 'increasingly brazen and violent behavior.'

The net finally began to close in on Taderera when earlier this month Concord, Massachusetts Police saw a black BMW sedan outside a local bank, noting that it matched the description of the person responsible for the 16 robberies.

Police saw the BMW's registration was revoked and had it was towed.

When Taderera called the tow company one week later, he was informed that his car was now in police custody.
Lynette Williamson died on March 18 at her home in Monte Rio, California, surrounded by family

An inspirational high school teacher died at the age of 55 after coping with ALS for 18 months, but not before writing one last essay to her students reflecting on her journey.

Lynette Williamson died on March 18 at her home in Monte Rio, California, surrounded by family.

Just three days before her death, she penned an essay that reflected on her battle with ALS, which she typed with the thumb on her non-dominant hand at a rate of three words per minute.

Despite her slow speed, the inspirational essay was full of literary quotes and sharp thoughts.

'Do not seek to be master of all...' she wrote, before recalling where she had read the statement.

Just three days before her death, she penned an essay that reflected on her battle with ALS, which she typed with the thumb on her non-dominant hand at a rate of three words per minute

'At first I assumed those words hearkened from the New Testament or possibly the humanist Shakespeare.

'But when Google insisted Sophocles quilled those lines, I found myself sharing the tragic stage with Oedipus as his brother in law Creon admonishes him for failing to learn that fate cannot be circumvented,' she wrote in the essay, published on Salon.com.

Williamson was an English teacher and mentor for thousands of students in her classroom and on her debate team at Analy High School in Sebastopol for over 30 years, according to thePress Democrat.

Williamson was an English teacher and mentor for thousands of students in her classroom and on her debate team at Analy High School (pictured) in Sebastopol for over 30 years

In her essay titled 'Dying, with a lifetime of literature,' Williamson wrote: 'I was diagnosed with ALS in August 2015 - on the Friday before school was to resume. I slipped into my classroom that weekend and filled a box with momentos, leaving behind my personal copies of literary masterpieces and cabinets filled with curricula - at least I thought I was abandoning a lifetime of literature.

'I despaired having no control over my life. I strove to focus on the moments of the day and when I was warmed by a kind word of image of natural beauty. When I did pause to appreciate these instances, I'd hear the words "This one I warmed..."

'I too was nearly at my last stop - death - but pausing to appreciate the moments that were warmed by small gestures and glimpses of natural beauty dulled the pangs of despair.'

Marie Pinna, 21, explained that her no-nonsense influence helped push the 2014 graduate through finals week at UC Davis.

Williamson inspired a number of students during her time as a teacher and debate-team leader

Pinna described her former teacher's poise under stress, saying: 'Even in the most crowded, sweaty room with hundreds of annoying teachers and parents, she'd be standing there and would look like she was in a bubble of comfort, totally Zen'.

Her influence also helped show Nate Robinson how to use his hyperactive mind as a tool rather than a distraction, and Robin Sheehan how to shed a cloak of shyness and craft arguments on the debate stage, eventually propelling her through law school in San Francisco.

'From the time we hired Lynette, you could tell she was something special,' Martin Webb told Press Democrat.

Webb retired as Analy's principal in 2008 after 36 years at the school, and said: 'She took that debate program over and ran with it'.

Williamson was born Lynette Marie Kay in 1961 to Jeanette and Daniel Kay in San Francisco. She grew up in Novato, and had a younger sister, Nadine Finn.

She met her husband, Don Williamson, when they were both students at Fresno State University and taking the same seminar on the history of jazz and rock and roll.

Lynette Williamson met her husband Don while they were both at school at Fresno State University. They had two children together, Eric and Gabrielle

Williamson is survived by her husband, her two children, her sister, and her mother - and insisted that her obituary also list as survivors her favorite authors, Don DeLillo and Toni Morrison

At 18 and 19 they fell in love, and married two years later in 1981. They have two children, Eric, 29, and Gabrielle, 25.

Williamson got her first teaching job at St Vincent in Petaluma, then moved to Analy High School a few years later.

She retired from teaching in 2015 after a decades-long career during which she showed students how the world's great writers dealt with loss, ambition and joy.

'She made me so proud to be a teacher,' said Betsy Amirkhan, 60, of Cloverdale.

In her final years, she kept a card identifying herself as having ALS in her wallet with a hand-crafted message on the back: 'I'm smarter than I sound. If you can't understand me, give me a pen and paper.'

She is survived by her husband, her two children, her sister, and her mother - and insisted that her obituary also list as survivors her favorite authors, Don DeLillo and Toni Morrison.

A profile on YouCaring was set up to help her family with expenses from her disease and for her funeral.
A fiery tempered kangaroo has been captured on video attacking a Canberra man's car.

The car is seen to be following behind the bouncy marsupial until the animal abruptly stops, turns around and sizes up the vehicle before landing a series of hits to the top of the bonnet.

Social media users were quick to make hilarious comments about the confrontational roo.

The kangaroo was captured by a Canberra man attacking his vehicle

One Facebook user wrote 'Haha skippy wanna have a go'.

Another commented: 'What a beast'.

The kangaroo had grass in his mouth, and some joked he appeared to be smoking a cigarette.

It's not the first time a kangaroo has shown its tough side.

A man famously punched a kangaroo in the face to save his pet dog from being strangled last year.
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Hundreds of floral tributes have been laid outside a solemn Houses of Parliament for the victims of Wednesday's terror attack including dozens of messages honouring the bravery of Pc Keith Palmer.

The raid claimed the lives of four innocent people and injured 50 more. Pc Keith Palmer was fatally stabbed by the assailant, Khalid Masood, after he mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and crashed into parliament's gates.

Scores of well-wishers are continuing to place flowers with handwritten notes on Parliament Square in Westminster, a place usually filled with visitors posing for photos with Big Ben in background.

On the south side of nearby Westminster Bridge dozens of flowers have been laid on the pavement and on the bridge's ledge.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan visited the bridge where the so-called 'soldier' of ISIS began his attack leaving his own floral tribute to those who died in the terror raid on Friday.

Khan's note with his floral tribute said: 'You will always be in our hearts. Londoners will never forget the innocent people who lost their lives.'

A note left by British Transport Police officers from Lambeth, South London poignantly read: 'For Pc Keith Palmer. HERO. Never forgotten.'

A message from Hertfordshire Police officers from St Albans said: 'Keith, one of our own, forever in our thoughts.'

The British Transport Police Specialist Response Unit also left a touching message for Pc Palmer that said that 'another member of the police family has been taken too early giving their life for the protection of others.'

While one colourful note, that was kept on the ground by candles, read: 'Those who engage in terrorism in the name of Islam are not Muslim. Their only link to Islam is the pretext that they use to justify their crimes and their folly.'

A police officer looks at tributes in Parliament Square following the terror attack in Westminster which saw four people die

A message from Hertfordshire Police officers from St Albans said: 'Keith, one of our own, forever in our thoughts.'

Police officers were overcome with emotion as they looked at the hundreds of floral tributes in parliament square

A police officer moves floral tributes from outside the Houses of Parliament to Parliament Square following Wednesday's attack on Westminster on March 24

Poignant: A man places the Union Jack in between bouquets of flowers outside the Houses of Parliament

Flame: 'Those who engage in terrorism in the name of Islam are not Muslim. Their only link to Islam is the pretext that they use to justify their crimes and their folly,' the note read

Solemn: Floral tributes have distracted visitors from taking in the famous landmark behind them

Metropolitan policeman Keith Palmer (left), Mother-of-two Aysha Frade (centre) and US tourist Kurt Cochran (right) have been named as victims of the attack. A fourth victim, 75-year-old man Leslie Rhodes (not pictured) from south London, was named on Friday

Endless: Scores of flowers are continuing to be placed for the victims of Wednesday's terror attack

Unity: The British Transport also left a touching message for Pc Palmer along with Police forces from across the UK

Respect: A man walks to place a bouquet of flowers on Westminster Bridge where the gruesome attack began

Tribute: A poem from American poet Walt Whitman stands next to a photo of the fallen police officer

Diverse: Locals and visitors alike laid flowers for the murdered. Foreigners, including a group of French students, were caught up in the attack

Charlton Athletic: A flag of Charlton Athletic Football Club is placed with the flowers, paying homage to Pc Keith Palmer, who supported the London club

Shock: London Mayor Sadiq Khan visited the bridge where the so-called 'soldier' of ISIS began his attack leaving his own floral tribute to those who died in the terror raid on Friday

Hero: MP Tobias Ellwood attempted to resuscitate Pc Palamer after his stabbing. The Foreign Office minster has since appointed to the privy council as recognition for his heroism

Tears: An emotional well-wisher weeps as she reads the words with the flowers




A fossicker has given his wife an almighty shock when he returned home with an old military mortar and placing it on the kitchen bench.

The man found the old grey mortar in a bush when he was looking for precious minerals and metals north of Alice Springs.

The man returned home and laid the two to three kilogram mortar on the kitchen bench to show his wife, before the couple called the police.

A fossicker found this mortar and brought it home in Alice Springs

The police quickly summoned army experts in to examine the bomb, while they set up a perimeter around the house.

While the old mortar turned out to be deactivated the police said any suspicious objects should not be handled in case of an incident.

'Should it not have been spent  it could be extremely unpredictable in terms of what could trigger it,' Watch Commander Darren Keenan told the ABC.

'Whether it be a rusted firing pin or anything to that effect. Moving old things like that can actually see a detonation of sorts.'

The police said the army would be retrieving the mortar from the station.
Trump and a tense St. Patricks Day

Editor:

I read with interest the commentary by Mr. David Brundage entitled Donald Trump and Enda Kenny Celebrate A Tense St. Patricks Day.

Enda Kenny was a critic of Trumps rhetoric during the election campaign. When Donald Trump won the election Kenny praised Trump. Questioned on this reversal he replied my criticisms of Trump were said in the heat of the moment.

It has long been a custom for the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland to come to Washington to present a bowl of Shamrocks to the President on St. Patricks Day. One wonders if Endas tenseness was due not to politics, but to the possibility that President Trump would, in the heat of the moment, place Endas bowl of Shamrocks where the sun doesnt shine?

Mr. Brundages analysis on the possible effects on the Irish economy and the Good Friday Peace Agreement when Britain exits the European Community has merit. The majority in Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU, but the overall majority of Great Britain voted to leave the EU.

However, if things go tough for the Northern Ireland producers they may consider a confederation with the Republic  like the United States of America, united in general purpose while keeping their state assemblies Wouldnt that be a great wonder? Unity for the island of Ireland for the first time since 1169.

A plus for the Republic is that it will be the only English speaking country with a common law practice in the EU compatible with the USA. The great driving force behind all this would be the inescapable money  someone once said Money isnt the answer, but it will have to do until we find something better.

Kathy Mosses

Montello
A teenager lost his life after attempting to leap between the rooftops of two buildings in Brooklyn.

Rame Pierre-Louis, 13, was killed and his 15-year-old friend was critically injured as they tried to leap over a seven-foot gap at 57 Grove Street in Bushwick.

Both boys fell short and plummeted four stories, about 40 feet, into an alleyway below.

The 13-year-old was rushed him to Kings County Hospital but died.

Rame Pierre-Louis, 13, was killed after he attempted to leap between rooftops but misjudged

The teenager would often be seen frequenting rooftops in the area with his friends

Rame Pierre-Louis died and his friend was critically injured after jumping from one rooftop to another at 57 Grove Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn

The teens fell into the seven foot gap that exists between the two roof tops - a drop of 40 feet

The older teen managed to survive the fall but is in serious condition in hospital with injuries to his pelvis.

A witness said he believed the 15-year-old boy fell on top of the younger boy, crushing him.

'It was boom, boom, the whole building shook,' said a cab driver named Luis who lives next door. 'It looked like both fell face first,' he told the New York Daily News.

'We didn't hear anything except for the thud. I was talking to my roommate and out of nowhere just loud thuds. No screams, no conversations, no loud voices. Just thuds. Just the impacts,' a witness told ABC7.

A number of residents who were outside say they were shocked by the accident but said youngsters gather on the roof all the day

Residents who were standing nearby at the time ended up seeing the boys stretchered into an ambulance.

Medics had to cut off the clothes of the older teen in order to provide him with medical assistance.

Detectives were then tasked with trying to track down the teen's families as neither boy lived in the building they fell from.

The rooftops are apparently a common spot for teenagers to hang out. The Daily News reports that a couch was set up on the rooftop at the time of the tragedy.

'Kids play on the roof. That's a normal thing. It's been going on for years. I did it when I was young. I did it too. I used to jump across the gap and stuff to see if I could do it,' said resident Steve Somerville to ABC News.
Two children and more than 30 animals were found living with four adults in a 'deplorable' Georgia home which was covered in trash and feces, authorities said.

Brandi Pybus-McCoy, 41, Nicholas Luciano, 29, Samantha Crain, 22, and Zachariah McCoy, 22, were arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree cruelty to children, two counts of deprivation of a minor, and one charge of unlawful dumping of human waste, 11 Alive reported.

Police arrived at the Hogansville home in the 4700 block of Mountville-Hogansville Road earlier this month after receiving an anonymous tip complaining about animals and 'unsafe conditions.'

One potbelly pig, 30 cats and dogs, and two children aged seven months and two, were rescued from the squalid home. Conditions were so severe authorities had to request back up from Hogansville Public Works, Animal Control, and Troup County Marshals and Fire Department.

Brandi Pybus-McCoy (left) 41, Nicholas Luciano (right) 29, were arrested on cruelty charges

Samantha Crain (left) 22, and Zachariah McCoy (right) 22, were two of the four adults living in squalor with their two children

Worst case they've seen: Authorities arrived at the Hogansville, Georgia home earlier this month to find it was covered in feces, trash, and vomit

The home was deemed 'deplorable' and unsafe to live in

Police Sergeant Jeff Sheppard called the home 'deplorable' and 'completely unsafe for habitation.'

'I've been in public service for 20 years, and I've been in all aspectsfire, EMS, the prison system and police, combined with 13 years of military.

'This is the worst house I've ever walked in. Ever. I cannot describe to you the smell, the condition of this home,' Jeff Sheppard said.

Investigators even needed air tanks and protective gear while searching the home, Sheppard added.

Floors in the house were littered with trash, vomit, and feces, and a toilet was found strewn across the porch. The walls of the hallway were coated in spiders and webs and were even found in the room where the two babies slept.

In addition to the cats and dogs, chickens, rabbits, hamsters, and rats were removed from the filthy house. Authorities arrived at the home around 6pm, but were only able to clear all the animals off by midnight.

Investigators were forced to wear protective gear while searching the filthy house, where they found dozens of cats, dogs, chickens, rats, and other animals

Filth: Sergeant Jeff Sheppard said the home did not have adequate food and had open containers of alcohol within reach of the two children

A couch and toilet were found strewn across the porch among other trash. Police arrived at the home after receiving an anonymous tip complaining about the hazardous conditions

Walls were covered in spiders and webs, and authorities could not tell where the floor ended and feces began

Police said it was difficult to tell where the 'floor ended and feces began.'

The property was deemed a major threat to the young children as open containers of alcohol were found within their reach and a baby's high chair was found among all the filth. A five-gallon bucket was found filled with human feces.

The home and a camper trailer in the driveway where Crain and McCoy were living with their two children, were condemned and wrapped in yellow 'caution' tape.

During a court hearing on Thursday, Crain and McCoy's attorney Rod Skiff, argued that the conditions were a result of 'extreme poverty,' and felt the cruelty charges were unwarranted.

Animal cages and feces were found in the mess. In addition to the cats and dogs found, chickens, rabbits, hamsters, and rats were removed from the filthy house

Crain and McCoy had been living with their two children in a camper outside of the home, which was also condemned

Police found a five-gallon bucket filled with human feces and maggots

'Its very clear that the resources that these people had were not there. With regard to that, I dont believe these people picked their condition.

'I dont think that they picked for these two children to live there. So, going back to the evidence of willful and malicious intent, I think its a stretch,' Skiff said.

But Sergeant Jeff Sheppard said Skiff's statements were flawed because being poor and filthy 'are two different things.'

The four defendants were jailed on $13,000 bond. The two children are now in custody of Family and Children services.
The mother of a domestic violence victim has hit out at the behaviour of politicians while her daughter's harrowing story was read out in parliament.

Teresa Bradford, 40, was stabbed to death on the Gold Coast in January by her estranged husband David, 52.

Her mother Dale Shales, 62, says she deserves after an apology after watching MPs in the Queensland state parliament last week.

She claimed Deputy Premier Jackie Trad was falling asleep while the graphic details of her daughter's brutal murder were being read out, according to The Courier Mail.

Dale Shales (pictured middle), mother of her murdered daughter Teresa Bradford, was angry at politicians over the way they were claimed to have behaved during State Parliament last week when new laws over domestic violence were passed

Gold Coast mother-of-four Teresa Bradford (pictured)

She also claimed another politician was playing solitaire and another was watching a movie on his laptop while the new laws were being successfully passed.

'It was like watching a bunch of naughty kids not listening to their teacher,' she told the publication.

'Except it was a critical meeting passing new laws that will help keep our daughters safe.

David Bradford (pictured) murdered Teresa before killing himself

Teresa Bradford was stabbed to death by her estranged husband David, 52, on the Gold Coast in January

Teresa Bradford's family have been strongly advocating for a greater change to stop domestic violence since her death.

Mrs Bradford was murdered by David Bradford with their three children in the house.

Ms Shales was joined in parliament by other mothers who had lost a daughter to domestic violence.

She was joined by Bonnie Mobbs, whose daughter Shelsea Schilling was murdered on the Gold Coast by Bronson Ellery last year.

She was also accompanied by Sonia Anderson, who daughter Bianca Girvin, 22, was choked to death by her boyfriend Rhys Austin in Brisbane's south in 2010.

Ms Shales said all three of them deserve an apology.

The laws that were passed included reversing the onus of proof and introducing urgent appeal rights for victims.

Teresa Bradford's (pictured) family have been advocating for stronger laws to stamp out domestic violence since her death
President Donald Trump has said ObamaCare 'will explode' and a new healthcare plan will eventually be pieced together after House Republicans were forced to cancel a vote on their bill.

'ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!' he tweeted Saturday morning. He then promptly went to play golf, and his motorcade was pictured at Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia.

The reaction came hours after House Republicans decided to cancel a vote on a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare - one of Trump's major campaign promises - on Friday.

Although it was GOP infighting that caused the legislative crisis, Trump blamed the Democrats after the vote fiasco, warning the opposition party that they will continue to 'own Obamacare' as it spins in a death spiral.

President Donald Trump said Saturday morning ObamaCare 'will explode' and a new healthcare plan will eventually be pieced together

The president's reaction came hours after House Republicans decided to cancel a vote on a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare - one of Trump's major campaign promises - on Friday

Trump then promptly went golfing, and his motorcade was pictured at Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia later on Saturday

Don't blame me! 'The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,' Trump claimed, naming the Democratic Party's leaders in the House and Senate, 'because now they own Obamacare. They own it. One hundred per cent own it.' He was flanked by Tom Price, the health secretary, and Vice President Mike Pence in the Oval Office

It's over: Trump appeared in public at a celebration of Greek Independence Day just before it was announced that the Obamacare repeal and replace bill was being abandoned

Gleeful and giggly: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the canceled vote 'a victory' for America

Mocking and triumphant: Senate Minority Leader chuck Schumer said Trump's 'incompetence and broken promises' were to blame

Humiliated: Paul Ryan had to admit that Obamacare is now 'the law of the land' for the foreseeable future

Shortly after the vote was called off, a resigned House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters that Obamacare was still 'the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced.'

The president predicted that Obamacare will ultimately crash and burn  forcing Democrats to come crawling to the White House for his help in crafting a workable replacement 'when it explodes  which it will soon.'

'The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,' Trump claimed, naming the Democratic Party's leaders in the House and Senate, 'because now they own Obamacare. They own it. One hundred per cent own it.'

'They have Obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.'

'And just remember,' Trump warned: 'This is not our bill. This is their bill. Now when they all become civilized and get together and try to work out a great health care bill for the people of this country, we're open to it.'

Republican leaders took the extraordinary step of canceling a vote on their American Health Care Act, which was to be a replacement for the seven-year-old Affordable Care Act.

Ryan yanked the major Trump priority because it didn't have enough Republican votes to pass, and no Democrats were willing to sign on.

A White House source told DailyMail.com that the decision was ultimately the president's.

The result leaves former president Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement in place  at least for now.

'I don't know how long it will take us to replace this law,' Ryan said. 'My worry is Obamacare is going to be getting even worse.'

'Actually I think we were probably doing the Democrats a favor,' he said, describing how Republican action might have removed an albatross from their necks.

Asked if Republicans would be left with no choice but to 'prop up' te Obamacare system, Ryan called it 'so fundamentally flawed [that] I don't know that that is possible.'

'What we're really worried about is ... the coming premium increases that are coming with this death-spiraling health care system.'

I think the losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Because now they own Obamacare. They own it. One hundred per cent own it. ... They have Obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future. And just remember: This is not our bill. This is their bill. Now when they all become civilized and get together and try to work out a great healthcare bill for the people of this country, we're open to it. We're totally open to it. President Donald J. Trump

But he recognized that not being able to marshal the GOP's collective forces to pass a biss was 'a setback, no two ways about it.'

Ryan needed the support of 216 out of the 241 Republicans. Trump said he 'came close' but couldn't seal the deal.

'We had no Democrat support; we had no votes from the Democrats. They weren't going to give us a single vote,' Trump complained.

The Obamacare law was passed without a single Republican 'yes' in March 2010  almost exactly seven years ago.

Trump returned over and over to his gloomy prediction of an epic collapse for medical insurance markets under the system the U.S. will return to by default.

'I think what will happen is Obamacare unfortunately will explode,' he told reporters. 'It's going to have a very bad year. Last year you had over 100 per cent [premium] increases in various places.'

Trump said he was content 'to let Obamacare go its way for a little while, and we'll see how things go' while he prepares to tackle infrastructure spending and tax reform.

'I'd like to see it do well. But it can't. ... It can't do well,' he said.

'It's imploding and soon will explode. And it's not going to be pretty.'

'Eventually it's not sustainable,' the businessman-president insisted. 'The insurance companies are leaving. You know that. They're leaving one by one as quick as you can leave.'

'And you have states  in some cases soon will not be covered. so there's no way out of that.'

He predicted that 2017 'is going to be a very, very bad year for Obamacare. Very, very bad. You're going to have explosive premium increases. And your deductibles are so high people don't even get to use it.'

At the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Nancy Pelosi could hardly contain her glee.

Over and out: Paul Ryan looked disconsolate as he left the White House after telling Trump he could not get enough votes to pass Obamacare repeal and replace

'Today is a great day for our country. It's a victory,' she said. 'What happened on the [House] floor is a victory for the American people, for our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children, for our veterans.'

'It's pretty exciting for us,' Pelosi said with a partisan cluck.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump was 'working the phones ... He's left everything on the field when it comes to this bill'

On the other side of the Capitol, Chuck Schumer openly mocked Trump for failing to make the entire House Republican Conference fall in line.

'The TrumpCare bill failed because of two traits that have plagued the Trump presidency since he took office: incompetence and broken promises. In my life, I have never seen an administration as incompetent as the one occupying the White House today,' he said.

'Today weve learned that they cant close a deal, and they cant count votes. So much for the Art of the Deal.'

Ryan's failure to bring the American Health Care Act across the first of many finish lines exposed fractures in the House GOP at the same time it brought into sharp relief the 47-year-old speaker's lack of governing experience.

'Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with some growing pains,' Ryan said. 'Well, we're feeling those growing pains today. We came really close today. But we came up short.'

'I will not sugar-coat this. This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard,' Ryan added.

'We just didn't quite get consensus today. ... We came very close. That's why I thought the wise thing to do is not proceed with a vote  to pull the bill and see what we can do.'

The 180-degree turn happened after House leaders met in Ryan's office to make a plan following his White House visit.

President Trump had demanded the House hold the vote or admit defeat.

Finished: Paul Ryan spoke after the decision to pull the bill and said it was 'a disappointing day'

Humiliation: The failure of the Obamacare repeal and replacement plan is a dark day for Paul Ryan and the White House which had claimed just two hours earlier that the vote was happening

STARING AT DEFEAT: President Trump said 'we'll have to see' when he was asked in the Oval Office if the House would vote for his repeal and replace plan on Friday afternoon

About an hour before the decision, Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole was still justifying a plan to forge ahead with a vote.

'Its time to put up or shut up,' Cole told DailyMail.com.

The vote had been set for Thursday, but was rescheduled when the bill's nuts and bolts became a tougher and tougher sell for both moderates and right-wingers.

Trump had threatened that the Friday vote would be their only chance. But when the dust settled he seemed willing to see a new plan take shape.

'I guess I'm here, what? Sixty-four days?' he asked reporters

'I never said repeal it and replace it within 64 days. I have a long time.'

The short-lived Republican plan to forge ahead was a high-risk proposition that the president was demanding  underlined with a threat that if they didn't take the Obamacare vote Friday, he would leave the plan in place, despite Trump and congressional Republicans having run against it.

More moderate Republicans had been peeling away from the bill Friday, a sign they were wary to be tagged as backing the effort, which had been brought to the right in an effort to bring on board conservative members. Among the recent changes was taking away a list of health conditions that health plans must cover.

The White House kept up a drumbeat of pressure. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at his afternoon briefing the House would vote Friday afternoon on the bill, even as he offered no assurances it would pass and admonished reporters for presuming the bill would go down.

He said this week it was the only 'train leaving the station' and that there was no 'Plan B.'

Trump's health care plan was on the verge of collapse Friday as dozens of Republicans say they will not vote for a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare on Friday afternoon.

Trump was 'working the phones,' Spicer said, adding: 'He's left everything on the field when it comes to this bill.'

Even as he spoke, House Speaker Paul Ryan was delivering the bad news to Trump, having rushed to the White House to meet with the president.

'WE'LL HAVE TO SEE': President Trump shrugged when he got asked a question about what happens if the bill fails, with a vote set for Friday afternoon

Despite all the pressure and another night to let last-minute changes to the bill sink in, more than 30 Republicans were registering opposition.

Spicer was fatalistic in his comments in advance of a vote he said was likely at 3:30 pm in the Capitol. 'We had this opportunity to change the trajectory ... The question is, do members realize this opportunity?' he asked.

'We continue to pick up votes,' he said. He said by the White House count 120 members had gotten phone calls, personal contact, or White House meetings.

'You guys are so negative!' he said, when asked whether there was consideration of pulling the bill.

When a reporter asked what was the purpose of holding a vote if the bill might go down, Spicer responded: 'I'm just not going to discuss that strategy.'

'He's left everything on the field when it comes to this bill,' White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, referencing President Trump's efforts to pass an Obamacare repeal, having earlier touted his skills as a 'closer'

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) departs from the White House after meeting with President Donald Trump

Even the promotion-savvy president wouldn't proclaim victory. 'We'll have to see,' he said, asked Friday whether the bill would pass.

Spicer said this week that he 'absolutely' embraces Trump's role as the 'closer' who would get a deal done.

He said Friday: 'Every Republican with the exception of probably a handful has campaigned from dogcatcher on up that they would do everything they could to repeal and replace Obamacare. I think to get in and say, 'Hey, you should have done something else' wouldn't be fair to the American people who said, 'Okay, I'll vote for you, but I want you to fulfill this pledge.'

He continued: 'Like I said earlier, you can't force someone to vote a certain way ... Has he done every single thing, has he pulled out every stop, has he called every member, has he tweaked every tweak, has he done every single thing he can possibly and used every minute of every day to get this thing through? Then the answer is yes. Has the team put everything out there? Have we left everything on the field? Absolutely.'

'WE'LL HAVE TO SEE': President Trump shrugged when he got asked a question about what happens if the bill fails, with a vote set for Friday afternoon

CHECK IF YOUR PARKING BRAKE'S STILL ON: House leaders yanked the Obamacare repeal and replacement off the floor voting schedule Thursday after a White House meeting and concessions to conservatives failed to deliver support  with dozens still in oppositon

'But at the end of the day this isn't a dictatorship, and we've got to expect members to ultimately vote, you know, how they will, according to what they think. But as the president made clear, they're the ones who have to go back and answer to their constituents why they didn't fulfill a pledge that they made.'

Hours after the White House brought down the hammer and demanded a Friday vote on the bill, a block of conservative Freedom Caucus members had yet to back the bill, while more centrist Republicans were backing away because of last minute changes that stripped away Obamacare's 'essential health benefits' requirements for conditions insurance companies must cover.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a Freedom Caucus member who backs the bill, said it could still pass if three-quarters of undecided members decided to vote for it.

'If it fails, it's not going to be the president that's blamed. It's not going to be the moderates. It's going to be the conservatives,' he told DailyMail.com.

The president is already being urged to take names of those who defy him. White House chief strategist Steve Bannon 'has told the president to keep a s*** list on this,' an official told The Daily Beast.

'Some of our moderates who are saying "I'm in a swing state and if I vote yes, I'm not coming back"  I've said, "If this doesn't pass, I know you're not coming back",' said New York Rep Chris Collins, a Trump loyalist.

Only 17 per cent of Americans backed the bill in a Thursday Quinnipiac University poll.

Trump blasted right-wing House Freedom Caucus members on Friday morning for standing in the way of his Obamacare replacement legislation, after warning them Thursday night that they would have just one day to vote on the bill.

'After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!' Trump wrote on Twitter.

Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for former president Obama, said he had 'no comment' on the situation after Ryan declared that the architects of Obamacare must be pleased.
Hollywood couldn't resist celebrating as House Republicans and the President failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, one of Trump's campaign promises.

Trump blamed Democrats in Congress for the embarrassing defeat on Friday after Republicans were forced to cancel a vote on their health care bill, and Twitter essentially exploded.

With an array of tweets from Hollywood's elite, celebrities pointed out that it seems like Trump isn't very good at his job, and for someone who wins so much, he hasn't h in his first few months in the White House.

Hollywood couldn't resist celebrating as House Republicans and the President failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, one of Trump's campaign promises

Bette Midler was one of the first to tweet about the fail - posting a picture of a rubber glove which appears to be giving the middle finger and writing: 'Found outside Trump Tower'

Shortly after the vote was called off, House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters that Obamacare was still 'the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced'.

But one thing is for certain, celebrities had absolutely no chill.

Bette Midler, who starred in the First Wives Club, was one of the first to tweet about the fail - posting a picture of a rubber glove which appears to be giving the middle finger and writing: 'Found outside Trump Tower!'

Some of the internet's favorite meme involving the president were also emphatically shared.

Samantha Bee posted a picture from Schoolhouse Rock - 'I'm just a bill' - saying 'Bye, Bill'

Keith Olbermann posted a meme that's been circling the 'twittersphere' for a few days now - a cutout of President Trump driving a toy car.

He also congratulated the president on his 'complete and utter failure on repealing Obamacare', and called him a loser.

On a more serious note, Billy Baldwin, the Trump-impersonator's younger brother, tweeted that: 'seniors, women, working class, poor, children, mentally ill & addicted.. won.'

He also pointed out that the only 'losers' were the rich and the healthcare companies.

Samantha Bee, host of Full Frontal on TBS, tweeted 'Bye, Bill!' with a photo of the bill from the Schoolhouse Rock! 'I'm just a bill' children's video that shares the difficult process of getting something turned into law.

Kal Penn, on the other hand, simply tweeted a photo of himself dancing in celebration.

After the failing of both of Trump's travel bans, his investigation by the FBI, and now his failure to introduce new legislature, many people pointed out that for a president who claims to 'win,' he's having some trouble doing so.

Kal Penn, on the other hand, simply tweeted a photo of himself dancing in celebration

However, Trump has warned the opposition party that they will continue to 'own Obamacare' as it spins in a death spiral.

Although it was GOP infighting that caused the legislative crisis, the president predicted that Obamacare will ultimately crash and burn  forcing Democrats to come crawling to the White House for his help in crafting a workable replacement 'when it explodes  which it will soon'.

'The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,' Trump claimed, naming the Democratic Party's leaders in the House and Senate, 'because now they own Obamacare. They own it. One hundred per cent own it.

'They have Obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.'

'And just remember,' Trump warned: 'This is not our bill. This is their bill. Now when they all become civilized and get together and try to work out a great health care bill for the people of this country, we're open to it.'

Keith Olbermann posted a meme that's been circling the 'twittersphere' for a few days now - a cutout of President Trump driving a toy car. He also congratulated the president on his 'complete and utter failure on repealing ObamaCare', and called him a loser

 Slide me  One meme has been particularly popular on Twitter in the last few days. After President Trump posed for a photo pretending to drive a semi-truck, someone thought it would be funny to put it on top of a toy-car

Ryan yanked the major Trump priority because it didn't have enough Republican votes to pass, and no Democrats were willing to sign on.

A White House source told DailyMail.com that the decision was ultimately the president's.

The result leaves Obama's signature legislative achievement in place  at least for now.

'I don't know how long it will take us to replace this law,' Ryan said. 'My worry is Obamacare is going to be getting even worse.'

Ryan needed the support of 216 out of the 241 Republicans. Trump said he 'came close' but couldn't seal the deal.

'We had no Democrat support; we had no votes from the Democrats. They weren't going to give us a single vote,' Trump complained.

The Obamacare law was passed without a single Republican 'yes' in March 2010  almost exactly seven years ago.

On a more serious note, Billy Baldwin, the Trump-impersonator's younger brother, tweeted that: 'seniors, women, working class, poor, children, mentally ill & addicted.. won'

At the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Nancy Pelosi could hardly contain her glee.

'Today is a great day for our country. It's a victory,' she said. 'What happened on the [House] floor is a victory for the American people, for our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children, for our veterans.'

On the other side of the Capitol, Chuck Schumer openly mocked Trump for failing to make the entire House Republican Conference fall in line.

'The TrumpCare bill failed because of two traits that have plagued the Trump presidency since he took office: incompetence and broken promises. In my life, I have never seen an administration as incompetent as the one occupying the White House today,' he said.

'Today weve learned that they cant close a deal, and they cant count votes. So much for the Art of the Deal.'

Carl Reiner, star of the Van Dyke show, wrote 'Aww I just learned that Rob and my appearance on THE TALK was usurped by Trump who informed us that he doesn't know what he's doing'

Ryan's failure to bring the American Health Care Act across the first of many finish lines exposed fractures in the House GOP and at the same time it brought into sharp relief the 47-year-old speaker's lack of governing experience.

'I will not sugar-coat this. This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard,' Ryan added.

Trump had threatened that the Friday vote would be their only chance. But when the dust settled he seemed willing to see a new plan take shape.
A man is in a critical condition in hospital after he was repeatedly stabbed at a motel in a coastal town in Western Australia.

Busselton Police said the incident took place about 9.10pm on Friday night at the residence on Dunn Bay Road.

Police said said the men know each other and it's alleged the younger man was attacked as he sat at a table at the motel.

A 33-year-old man is in a critical condition in hospital after he was repeatedly stabbed at a motel in on Dunns Bay Road (pictured) in Dunsborough, Western Australia

The man was stabbed several times before the other man ran from the scene.

The victim was taken to Busselton Hospital in a critical condition, before being airlifted to Royal Perth Hospital by the RAC Rescue Helicopter.

A 37-year-old man from Dunsborough was apprehended by police outside a restaurant a short time later.

He was charged with grievous bodily harm and faced Bunbury Magistrates Court on Saturday.
The bodies of two 17-year-old boys have been found at the bottom of a cliff.

The teenagers, who have not yet been named, were discovered at Huntcliff in Saltburn, North Yorkshire, at about 7pm on Friday.

Police and coastguard officials rushed to the scene. The families of the boys are now being 'supported by specialist officers'.

Two 17-year-olds, who have not yet been named, were found at Huntcliff (pictured) in Saltburn, North Yorkshire, at about 7pm on Friday

Enquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances of exactly what happened.

Cleveland Police said: 'The families of the boys are being supported by specialist officers and our thoughts remain with them at this difficult time.

Well-wishers expressed their condolences to the families on social media.

'Heartbreaking. Thoughts and prayers are with their families xxx' one wrote.

Any witnesses are asked to contact Detective Sergeant Paul Hodgson from Cleveland Police Major Crime Team on the non-emergency number 101.

A coastguard helicopter was also dispatched from its base in East Yorkshire to join the search (file photo)

A Humber Coastguard spokesman said teams from Redcar, Skinningrove and Staithes responded to the incident at around at around 7.05pm on Friday.

A helicopter was also scrambled for its base East Yorkshire and arrived on the scene at around 8pm.

It winched two casualties onboard and took them to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

It comes after a woman was rescued from the sea near Saltburn Pier the same day.

The 58-year-old was spotted struggling 'up to her neck' in the surf, with sea breaking over her.

It comes after a woman was rescued from the sea near Saltburn Pier on Friday afternoon after being spotted struggling in the water

RNLI helmsman Mark Reeves told the Northern Echo: 'We found the lady in a very difficult position.

'She was up to her neck in water and the sea was breaking over her.

'We decided the best option was for my two crew members to jump in and get her straight to the beach.'
BBC Breakfast presenter Rachel Burden has been hailed 'The Baby Whisperer' after soothing an infant who burst into tears while live on air.

Five-month-old Lily May suddenly started crying while her mother Emma Blinkhorn spoke about breastfeeding alongside expert Jackie Hall.

As she burst into tears co-host Charlie Stayt joked: 'Something tells me that Lily's got something on her mind right now.'

Despite her mother's best efforts the infant would not stop crying and Stayt was even forced to ask directors if the interview could be heard over the noise.

But quick-thinking presenter Burden, 42, who has four children, swooped in and gently rocked little Lily May which made the infant's tears stop almost immediately.

Stayt, himself a dad-of-two, then held the baby for a cuddle to finish the segment which was broadcast from the corporation's studios in Salford.

Lily May even tried her hand at presenting as she made a grab for the 54-year-old's script.

Stayt then joked: 'I promise we're listening to what you're saying but I'm afraid your daughter is fast taking my job including my script.

Burden quipped back: 'Probably better than you Charlie.'

BBC Breakfast presenter Rachel Burden, pictured above right, has been hailed 'The Baby Whisperer' after her quick on-air thinking stopped a baby from crying during a live TV interview

Five-month-old Lily May suddenly started crying while her mother Emma Blinkhorn, above left, spoke about breastfeeding

Five-month-old Lily May, pictured right, suddenly started crying while her young mother, pictured second left, spoke about breastfeeding alongside expert Lynne Hall, pictured left

Burden, 42, pictured above left, who has four children, quickly swooped in and gently rocked the little baby which made the infant's tears stop almost immediately. Co-host Charlie Stayt also had a cuddle with Lily May

Lily May even tried her hand at presenting as she made a grab for 54-year-old Stayt's script

Now viewers have praised the BBC presenter for her 'Baby Whisperer' skills with some branding her a 'national heroine'.

June Jeffreys said: 'Well done Rachel you were a natural with that baby, so was Charlie.'

Jane-Claire Judson added: 'A great item and fab response to upset baby - lovely to see that you and Charlie responded so positively!'

But other mothers said Burden should have let the guest breastfeed live on the Breakfast sofa.

Now viewers have praised the BBC presenter for her 'Baby Whisperer' skills with some branding her a 'national heroine' after the on-air incident

Other mothers said Burden, pictured second right, should have let the guest breastfeed live on the Breakfast sofa

Tina Trotter tweeted: 'What a shame @BBCBreakfast didn't use the opportunity to allow a mum to breastfeed when her baby got agitated during promo on breastfeeding.'

Joanne Brearton added: 'Fab promotion of breastfeeding! Well done! But please encourage your guest mum to feed her baby on air. Baby is distressed!'

As the segment finished Burden said: 'She's been brilliant, well done you, she's been absolutely lovely.'

It comes just days after South Korean politics expert had his BBC interview gatecrashed by his two adorable children.

Professor Robert E Kelly was live on air when his four-year-old daughter Marion, son James and wife Jung-a appeared like a 'comedy of errors'.

His interview was eclipsed by Marion's comical dance in the background.

She was followed by little brother James, aged just nine months, who swept in to the study in a fast-moving baby walker.

Moments later a stressed-out Jung-a skidded into the room and grappled the children out of shot.

Professor Kelly revealed they had initially been overwhelmed by the 'blooper' but were now able to laugh at it.

He said: 'My wife and I did not fight after the blooper, we did not punish our children. In fact, we thought that no television network would ever call us again.'

'We thought it was just a disaster,' said Kelly.

'I communicated with the BBC immediately afterward and I apologised to them. I said that if they never called us back or never asked me to be on television again, I would understand.'
The skeleton of a German WWII pilot dug up by a Danish schoolboy has been identified as a 19-year-old soldier by a soldier's log book and the initials etched onto a watch found in the wreckage.

Pilot Hans Wunderlich, whose remains were found by 14-year-old Daniel Rom Kristiansen earlier this month, crashed over the Danish village of Birkelse in 1944.

Daniel found the German Messerschmitt plane, and its pilot, after he searched the field of his family farm as part of a homework project.

Danish teenager, Daniel Rom Kristiansen, holds up a piece of the wreckage from a World War II airplane that likely crashed in a northern Denmark 72 years ago

German information office Deutsche Dienststelle was able to identify the remains using a soldier's log book and a hand-written name on the cover of a food coupon booklet

The pilot's initials were also etched on the back of a watch found at the crash site

His father Klaus Kristiansen jokingly suggested that Daniel search the field after he remembered a comment his grandfather had made about a plane crashing there in November 1944.

German information office Deutsche Dienststelle was able to identify the remains using a soldier's log book and a hand-written name on the cover of a food coupon booklet, according to The Local.

A watch etched with the soldier's initials was also found at the scene.

Hans Wunderlich was born in Neusorg, a small town in the state of Bavaria, around 200km north of Munich, in 1925.

The crash happened on October 10 1944, according to German archives, which record a 'deadly crash in marshy terrain. Excavation work was postponed, since this was in vain.'

Daniel found the German Messerschmitt plane (stock image), and its pilot, after he searched the field of his family farm

Members of the Danish military check for wreckage from a World War II airplane which was found by the schoolboy

The pilots death was officially recorded on March 5, 1945, at Holenbrunn City Hall.

Daniel and his father decided to take a metal detector out and see what they could discover on their farm in Birkelse - but never really expected to find anything.

He told Danish news station DR P4 Nordjylland: 'When my son Daniel was recently given homework about World War Two, I jokingly told him to go out and find the plane that is supposed to have crashed out in the field.'

When the machine started beeping over a patch of boggy ground the pair started digging - but realised they would need to go deeper.

They borrowed an excavator from a neighbour, and around four to six metres down, they discovered the remains of the plane.

Debris from the wreck of a World War II era fighter plane included the aircraft's engine

Daniel Rom Kristiansen, 14, found the German Messerschmitt plane, and its pilot, after he searched a field as part of a homework project

The father and son found an engine from the ME 109 Messerschmitt plane, Luftwaffe munitions, and the remains of the aircraft's pilot.

'In the first moment it was not a plane,' Mr Kristiansen told the BBC. 'It was maybe 2,000 - 5,000 pieces of a plane. And we found a motor... then suddenly we found parts of bones, and parts from [the pilot's] clothes.

'And then we found some personal things - books, a wallet with money... Either it was a little Bible or it was Mein Kampf - a book in his pocket. We didn't touch it, we just put it in some bags. A museum is now taking care of it. I think there's a lot of information in those papers.'

The farmer said he contacted World War Two historians and the Danish authorities after making the discovery, North Jutland Police have now closed the site for investigation.

The plane will have to be removed by bomb disposal experts, as it crashed with ammunition on board.

Members of the Danish military check for wreckage from a World War II airplane

The wreckage of the plane was discovered on the family's farm in Birkelse, Denmark

Forensic police are working to recover the dead pilot's remains, and he will likely be buried in Germany afterwards.

The field is currently used to graze cattle, and Mr Kristiansen said that his family has worked on the land where the plane was buried for decades.

He added that he has lived there for 40 years, oblivious as to what was hidden just beneath the surface.

'We had never seen anything on the surface,' he said.

'Not a single bit of metal. He was telling a lot of stories, my grandfather. Some of them were not true, and some of them were true - but this one was true. Maybe I should have listened to him a bit more when he was alive!'

The father and son found Luftwaffe munitions among the debris from the ME 109 Messerschmitt plane
A Jordanian imam has prompted outrage by quoting an anti-Semitic verse that calls for Jewish people to be killed during a sermon at a Montreal mosque, a report said Thursday.

The cleric, Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr, is believed to have been invited as a guest to the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque in the Canadian city's Saint-Michel neighborhood in December, CBC reported.

A Jewish advocacy group lodged a police complaint Monday against the imam, who quoted a verse stating: 'O Muslim, O servant of Allah, O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' according to a translation verified by the outlet.

The larger Muslim community has condemned the use of the verse and has called on the mosque to apologize.

Jordanian imam Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr (pictured) has prompted outrage by quoting an anti-Semitic verse during a sermon at a Montreal mosque, a report said Thursday

Bin Musa Al Nasr visited the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque on December 23, the network reported, and quoted the verse from a hadith, a religious text that recounts and interprets the Prophet Muhammad's actions.

Muslim scholars hold hadiths as second to the Quran.

This particular verse refers to the end of times and describes how trees and stones will ask Muslims to kill Jewish people hidden behind them.

Jewish advocacy group B'nai Brith Canada filed a police complaint with the hate crimes unit Monday in Montreal.

'This is inciting violence, and this is inciting radicalization,' regional director Harvey Levine told CBC.

Meanwhile, the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, questioned why the cleric was invited and has urged the mosque to apologize, pointing out that it was not represented by his organization.

The cleric, Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr, is believed to have been invited as a guest to the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque in Montreal (pictured) in December

Another imam, Ziad Asali, firmly condemned the use of the verse.

'I do not understand how this person was invited to come and give a sermon and spread this hatred in Montreal against any community,' he told CBC.

'To use the themes of the Prophet to spread hatred is actually something that is disrespectful towards the Prophet himself.'

Asali also spoke out against any mosque spreading extremist messages.

'These people, not only do they show hatred towards non-Muslims, they even show hatred to us Muslims,' he added.
Bullfighter David Mora is gored in the ring on Tuesday in Las Ventas. Santi Burgos

At 8pm on Tuesday, when the second bull of the evening had been dragged away, an announcement was made over the loudspeakers of Madrids Las Ventas bullring. The event was to be suspended, given that all three of the bullfighters on the days bill had been injured. It was the final nail in the coffin of barely an hour of action, dominated by the drama, blood and shock of a gory spectacle that left three bullfighters in the infirmary after suffering horrific injuries.

The worst victim, without a doubt, was David Mora. To the sound of the bugles and drums that announced the first bull of the evening, the matador made his way to the door of the bull pen. He stopped halfway, knelt down in the sand, and waited for the bull to appear.

Antonio Nazare is injured by the bull. Santi Burgos

Deslio emerged, looking around furtively until he made out the bullfighter, and then began his charge toward him. Still on his knees, Mora was violently trampled by the bull, which pivoted around his prey, flipping him over in the sand with his horns. The matador was left helpless in the arena, blood flowing out of his left leg, and desperately awaiting the arrival of assistance to distract the animal.

The doctors report left no doubts about the severity of the incident: Two wounds, one in the inside of the left thigh, measuring around 30 centimeters, which has pulled the femoral artery out of place, with damage to the quadriceps muscle; another in the left armpit measuring 10 centimeters, which has damaged the vascular nerve bundle and reached the humerus. Prognosis: very serious.

Jimenez Fortes is flipped over by the bull. Santi Burgos

With Mora injured, the bull was dispatched by bullfighter Antonio Nazare. And then, with a murmur of concern still audible in the ring, the second bull of the evening  the first for matador Saul Jimenez Fortes  was released. Within seconds Jimenez was flipped into the air as he passed his cape over the bull. He fell to the floor, but appeared to have emerged unscathed. Nazare was still in the ring, and was also caught by the bull, which made contact with his left leg. The medical report later stated that Nazare had suffered trauma to his right knee, with likely damage to his ligaments. He was taken to the infirmary and not seen again.

But there were more surprises in store. Jimenez Fortes managed to slip as the bull passed him, falling to the floor and ending up at the mercy of the animal, who bounced him along the ground before Fortes could roll to safety. With the crowd now more nervous than ever, Fortes suffered yet another setback. As he raised his sword, ready for the kill, the bull caught his chest with its head, bouncing him up in the air for moments that felt like an eternity. He was able to walk out of the plaza, but with his breeches ripped apart, and a visibly limp. He was taken to the infirmary, but his medical prognosis was less serious than those of his colleagues: Two injuries; one in the exterior of the right thigh, of 10cms upward, reaching the femur, and another of 10cms, which has damaged the vastus medialis. The other injury, measuring 10 centimeters, reached the pelvis.

After that, there was nothing left to do but suspend the bullfight due to the injuries to all three toreros  the first time that had happened at Ventas in 35 years.

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A former National Trust director hanged himself at home after he left a new job following a dispute with his boss which left him 'shaken'.

Adam Ellis-Jones, 47, took his own life a month after taking a settlement and leaving his role as a heritage manager of a large Scottish 19th century mansion.

His worried partner Katherine Cartwright found him dead at his Henley-on-Thames home when she went to check up on him after he sounded 'negative' and 'lonely' in a phone call.

National Trust director Adam Ellis-Jones (pictured), 47, hanged himself in his Henley-on-Thames home after he left a new job following a dispute with his boss which left him 'shaken'

Mr Ellis-Jones had managed Mount Stuart, a mansion and its vast landscaped grounds on the Isle of Bute, Scotland, after joining in March 2015, the Oxfordshire coroner heard.

Not long after he began his job in Scotland, Mr Ellis-Jones got into a dispute with his employer - which led him to step down in November 2016 and move to England.

'The experience left him shaken,' his partner Joanna Cartwright said. 'The fact he had lost his home was a major issue for him.'

Mr Ellis-Jones had tried to take his own life before his marriage broke down and the inquest heard his first suicide attempt was when he was just 15-years-old.

Before his death in December she spent time at his home, before leaving to work in Sussex.

Eventually she became concerned about him after an unusual phone call.

'He was feeling negative and lonely and sounded like he had been drinking,' she said.

'He sounded different and not like himself.'

Mr Ellis-Jones had managed Mount Stuart, a mansion and its vast landscaped grounds on the Isle of Bute, Scotland, after joining in March 2015

She went to the house to check on him but discovered him hanged inside and dialled 999 but paramedics pronounced his death on arrival.

A post-mortem examination found the medical cause of death was hanging.

He had struggled with mental health issues for which he took anti-depressants and was in regular contact with clinical psychologist Dr Katherine Ferdenzi.

She told in the inquest in Oxford on Thursday: 'Sadly he started to struggle with a relationship with his boss.

'He said there was a dramatic end to his work in Bute. Despite the challenges he was facing he appeared to be doing well.'

The psychologist spoke to him over the phone on December 19, the day before his death, but did not notice anything untoward.

At his old job in Wales he had responsibility for high-profile National Trust attractions including Powys Castle (pictured), Plas Newydd mansion and Penrhyn Castle

'He had an interview for a job he felt would suit him very well for an interim position,' she said.

'He showed no intent to end his life during this call. In my opinion he decided to end his life on impulse and did not plan it. I don't think anyone could have known.'

In his conclusions, coroner Mr Salter said: 'There was some evidence of suicidal ideation.'

However his own therapist didn't pick up any signs the day before and thought it was very much an impulsive act and that's what it seems like it was.

'He was 47-years-old, a heritage manager and he was found deceased on December 20 with a medical cause of death as hanging.

'I'm satisfied on the evidence available to me that on December 20, 2016, Adam Ellis-Jones hanged himself from a bannister at his home address.'

The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide.

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116 123, or visit a local Samaritans branch - see www.samaritans.org for details.
Petrus Willemse hung himself when he was made redundant

A respected librarian killed himself after he was made redundant on his 60th birthday because his library's budget had been slashed by council cuts, a coroner heard.

Petrus Willemse was a former Buddhist monk who worked as a part-time librarian for three years at the Oxford Central Library.

However, when the budget was cut for Oxford's library service, leading to him losing his librarian job, friends and colleagues said the talented musician and concert pianist could not cope with the loss of work which 'meant more to him than could have been imagined.'

Mr Willemse, who was also a volunteer at Oxford Gay Pride in his spare time, had two roles with the library. The 60-year-old worked as a lead assistant in Oxford's music library along with his librarian duties where he went 'above and beyond' to help customers.

In October last year, news was broken to staff about cuts to the library budget which would mean some librarians would lose their jobs, the inquest in Oxford was told.

In 2016 Oxfordshire County Council announced 69 million of spending cuts and libraries was one service set to have its budget reduced.

In November Mr Willemse, along with other staff applied for one the new, reduced number of roles. However on December 9, his 60th birthday, he was told he was unsuccessful and had lost his job.

Jillian Southwell, his superior at the library, said: 'He appeared disappointed but not distressed. He also explained it was his 60th birthday but we were unaware of that.

'He was well liked, had a keen interest in music and was very knowledgable about it. He was the sort of person who would go above and beyond for the customers.'

The Oxfordshire coroner heard on Wednesday it was explained to him he would not lose the part-time librarian role until April and he would still be able to work as a lead assistant but Mr Willemse told staff he would struggle to live with the reduction in salary.

However, the former monk, who had practiced his religion in Burma after leaving his native Zimbabwe, was found dead by one of his housemates on December 12.

Catherine Quinn described the moment she came home to Western Road, Oxford, and discovered her housemate hanged above the stairway.

'Our rooms are opposite each other and when I got in I went straight upstairs to my room, she said.

'When I saw Petrus hanging over the stairs I shouted for the landlord and he came out.

'I did not know him very well as he was very private and quiet, I had not noticed any change in his behaviour as he was very reserved.'

Nicholas Hardie, the landlord, said some of Mr Willemse's colleagues had come looking for him at the house because they were worried about him after his redundancy.

'I heard a knock at my front door and a male and female were stood outside,' he told the inquest.

'The female stated she was from he library and said they were concerned for him. His room was unlocked which was unusual and Petrus was not there. I was worried I would find him dead after what his boss had said.

'He was not in the bathroom and I went downstairs and told his boss and they left.

'I knocked again later and he answered. I spoke to him and told him his boss was at the house earlier looking for him he sad he emailed them.

'There didn't appear to be anything out of place in his room, although his demeanour was slightly different from usual.

The librarian worked at the Oxford Central Library for three years

'At around 5.15pm I then heard Catherine in a shocked voice stating Petrus had hung himself. I went out at this point and I could see Petrus' body hanging.

'At this point I was shocked and was breathing deeply. I touched his hand and it was cold. Then I dialled 999 and told them there was a suicide.

'After speaking to his boss the thought of him committing suicide crossed my mind. He must have been desperate to do what he did.'

In his conclusions, senior coroner for Oxfordshire Darren Salter said: 'There isn't a note that was left but I am satisfied on the evidence the act itself was a final act.

'It does not appear to be a cry for help or anything of that nature. It was a determined attempt to take his own life which he did, I am satisfied he attempted to take his own life.'

The coroner recorded a conclusion of suicide.

After the inquest, friends and colleagues of Mr Willemse paid tribute to him. John Grandy, who worked with him and considered him a good friend said: 'He was the most wonderful man. Everyone who worked with him adored him.

'After he was made redundant the people around him tried to console him but he clearly wasn't able to cope with the loss of his job.

'I think it meant more to him than we could have imagined. He was the most helpful of men and was a kind, gentle man.

'He was a lot of fun and a talented musician and that is how we will remember him.'

One of the Buddhists who had spent time with Mr Willemse, who they knew as Aloka, shared memories of him from his days as a monk.

'I got sad news from a friend in Oxford that former monk Aloka committed suicide,' they said.

'Although I have not had contact with Aloka for many years. I very much appreciated his support when I was a monk. He had a gentle heart whilst suffering greatly.'
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The co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe is selling her Washington, D.C. pied-a-terre for just under $1million.

Mika Brzezinski, the colorful co-host of the cable channel's morning show, bought the condo in the trendy Georgetown area of the capital for $925,000 in 2014.

Three years on, Zillow states Ms Brzezinski is selling it for $985,000.

The co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe is selling her Washington, D.C. pied-a-terre for just under $1million

Mika Brzezinski bought the condo in the trendy Georgetown area of the capital for $925,000 in 2014

The house was converted in 2002 from a 19th Century School House, with soaring ceilings, massive windows and abundant light all day

The home was bought in 2014 for $925,000 but it has since gained in price over the last three years

The home comes with 16 Foot ceilings and enormous windows which help keep the space bright & airy

Ms. Brzezinski, 49, bought the home because she was spending so much time in the nation's capital while working

Ms. Brzezinski has co-hosted Morning Joe since its inception in 2007 and is the author of several best-selling books

'We do the show so much in Washington that it made sense for me to have a place there,' she said to the Wall Street Journal, adding: 'The luxury of it was to have a big beautiful closet with my clothes there so I don't have to pack.'

The home is in a 19th-century school building that was converted to condos in 2002.

Complete with two bedrooms and two bathrooms the apartment even comes with its own parking space 'which is a big deal in Georgetown,' according to the realtor.

Ms. Brzezinski, 49, is selling the home because she is looking for a larger home in the city.

Features include hardwood floors and a gourmet kitchen with professional grade appliances

The stainless steel appliances stand out against the dark wood cabinets. It comes complete with a nice big American fridge

The roughly 1,100-square foot apartment has two bedrooms and two bathrooms

Brzezinski split from her husband, fellow journalist Jim Hoffer last year. She claims she is moving to find somewhere larger

Brzezinski hopes that her daughter who is currently studying in Baltimore may decide to join her and 'come home'

Her daughter is currently studying at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and she figures will be able to 'come home' on the weekends.

Ms. Brzezinski has co-hosted Morning Joe for ten years. She recently made headlines for saying that White House counselor Kellyanne Conway would no longer be booked onto her MSNBC the show.

Last year she divorced local ABC journalist Jim Hoffer after 22 years of marriage. The couple have two teenage daughters.

The entire house has an extremely relaxing feel about the place thanks to the soothing color scheme

The home comes with two large bathrooms clad in limestone tiles. It makes for a bright and breezy place to ablute
A drunk man died after falling four stories after leaning against an apartment window screen in Brooklyn.

Wyatt Tyler, 21, was believed to have been drinking while attending a house party in Williamsburg when he fell to his death early Saturday morning, according to New York police.

When officials arrived to the scene, he was found sprawled out on the pavement, unconscious and unresponsive. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Less than 12 hours before Tyler died, a teenager also fell to his death in Brooklyn on Friday night, according to local reports.

Wyatt Tyler, 21 , died after falling four stories after leaning against an apartment window screen in Brooklyn, New York, early Saturday morning

Tyler (center) is believed to have been drinking while he was attending the house party. According to his social media, he was from New Orleans and attended NYU

When officials arrived to the scene on Metropolitan Avenue in East Williamsburg (pictured) Tyler was found sprawled out on the pavement, unconscious and unresponsive

The 13-year-old may have been trying to jump from one building's rooftop to another with his friend when he fell 40 feet into an alleyway in Bushwick, the NY Daily News reported.

Tyler lived only a few doors down from the party he was attending on Metropolitan Avenue in East Williamsburg.

According to his social media profiles, he was from New Orleans and attended NYU.

The second boy involved in the Bushwick accident also fell from the rooftop, but survived and sustained injuries to his pelvis.

The 15-year-old is conscious and alert at Kings County Hospital, the New York Times reported.

The names of the boys were not immediately released.

A teenager died and his friend was critically injured after jumping from one rooftop to another at 57 Grove Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn, just hours before Wyatt's death

The teens fell into the seven foot gap that exists between the two roof tops - a drop of 40 feet

A witness said he believed the 15-year-old boy fell on top of the younger boy, crushing him.

'It was boom, boom, the whole building shook,' said a cab driver named Luis who lives next door. 'It looked like both fell face first,' he told the New York Daily News.

'We didn't hear anything except for the thud. I was talking to my roommate and out of nowhere just loud thuds. No screams, no conversations, no loud voices. Just thuds. Just the impacts,' a witness told ABC7.

Detectives were then tasked with trying to track down the teen's families as neither boy lived in the building they fell from.
Oliver Sayer, ten, from Epsom, Surrey, went missing when he was shopping with his family in the town centre

A young schoolboy who disappeared after becoming separated from his family during a family shopping trip has been found safe and well.

Oliver Sayer, ten, from Epsom, Surrey, went missing at around 12.30pm today.

Police flooded the town centre with officers and contacted scores of shop staff after he was reported missing.

Officers confirmed he has been found.

Temporary Inspector Simon Ward, said: 'We are thrilled and very relieved that Oliver has been found safe and well.

'Our witness appeal was widely shared through social media and we had numerous calls from members of the public of possible sightings and as a result of this information Oliver was successfully located by our officers.'

'I would like to extend our thanks to everyone who assisted in our efforts to get Oliver home safe and sound.

The primary school pupil has never gone missing before and detectives said they were very concerned about his disappearance because of very young age.

Police appealed for the public to look out for him in case he had wandered to the borders of the town centre.

Police were quickly contacted when no immediate sign could be found of the youngster and reinforcements were drafted into the upmarket Surrey town as time moved.
A dog hit by a drought has been breaking hearts after being filmed running around a town begging for water with a bucket in his mouth.

The hound has found himself a victim of the latest shortage of water to hit Lima, the capital of Peru.

And the unnamed dog has been pulling on the heartstrings of residents by touring the area with a bowl. in the district of Chorrillos, in the western Peruvian province of Lima.

Desperate: The clever dog (pictured) has found a way to try and beat the drought by running around the capital of Peru with a bowl in his mouth begging for water

Heartbreaking: The video has since gone viral in Peru and has been watched 250,000 times in just a few hours after being uploaded

Help! Water supplies have been turned off in Lima, Peru due to mud contamination, leaving animals like this poor dog (pictured) desperate for a drink

Water company Sedapal has been forced to suspend the supply of drinking water in the Peruvian capital because the water was contaminated with mud.

The aftermath of the severe floods are still being felt in Peruvian towns.

Water is scarce and a total of 75 people have been confirmed dead.

More than one million people were forced to abandon their homes.

The company is working to rectify the problem and has been dumping huge containers of water in different parts of the city for people to share.

And the adorable pooch decided to join in by bringing his own bucket to be filled.

The images of him have gone viral and have been shared thousands of times within the first few hours of being uploaded.

It is believed the pooch was given a drink and locals are lining up to say how adorable the dog is.

Josselyn Ortiz said: 'Look at this face when he is stroked, it is like he is thinking: Do not think about cheating me with your tricks, because I am not going to give you the bucket.'

Donova Sba added: 'It is like he is searching for his owner in order to show him, look, I have water, where are you?'
It looks like Cracker Barrel has a public relations nightmare on its hands.

Bradley Reid left a one-star review on the Croydon, Indiana, Cracker Barrel Facebook page earlier this month, asking why his wife Nanette had been fired after 11 years.

Reid's plight soon snowballed online with thousands demanding justice on her behalf as the hashtag #BradsWife began trending.

Bradley Reid left a one-star review on the Croydon, Indiana, Cracker Barrel Facebook page earlier this month, asking why his wife Nanette had been fired after 11 years

Brad's plight was shared online by YouTube comedian Amiri King, and online trolls flooded the restaurant and country store's Facebook page demanding answers

Social media posting on the Cracker Barrel Facebook page has continued without an acknowledgement of Brad's wife, but trolls won't let it go

Bradley Reid first posted a rant on his on Facebook page in late February, saying he was 'p***ed off' that his wife had been fired after 11 years.

He wrote: 'I would really like to know why and those of you who know me these days, know that I WILL find out.

'In the mean time, if any of you would like to know also, please go to their Facebook page and ask them. I would really appreciate it.'

He wrote a few additional posts in the following days, and posted a brief review on the restaurant's Facebook page on March 6.

It read: 'You fired my wife after 11 years. That was not very nice. She is a good person and it really makes me sad that she is hurt.'

YouTube comedian Amiri King shared the posts online, writing: 'There is an absolute s***show going on at the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store facebook page.'

King also claimed Nanette was fired on her husband's birthday - which Brad later said was false - and the story went viral.

King's post has been shared more than 123,000 times, and the hashtags #BradsWife and #JusticeforBradsWife began trending.

The Cracker Barrel page was flooded with poor reviews from people demanding an explanation. Others announced hey were boycotting the chain restaurant and store

The Cracker Barrel page was flooded with poor reviews from people demanding an explanation. Others announced hey were boycotting the chain restaurant and store.

Social media posting on the Cracker Barrel Facebook page has continued without an acknowledgement of Brad's wife.

But internet trolls won't let the issue go, posting comments underneath posts about pancakes or bacon, insisting things have gone downhill at the restaurant since Brad's wife was fired.

A petition on Change.org received more than 21,000 signatures and the Cracker Barrel Wikipedia page was briefly edited to say '70,000 minus brad's wife' under 'Number of employees'.

Brad still has not heard from the company nearly a month since his first post, but has expressed his gratitude for the support he found online.

The Cracker Barrel Wikipedia page was briefly edited to say '70,000 minus brad's wife' under 'Number of employees'.
Gunshots rung out around Monte Carlo as armed robbers raided a Cartier jewellery store, after starting a fire in a nearby tunnel to distract emergency services.

At least one robber was wounded by police, a second was also arrested, while another was on the run following the spectacular afternoon heist.

Police have launched a massive manhunt for the third man who was last spotted fleeing nearby the flame engulfed tunnel on Casino square.

Gangsters made off with jewellery from a Cartier store in Monte Carlo, after starting a fire in a nearby tunnel to distract emergency services

As emergency services rushed to put out the fire, at least three gangsters entered the Cartier store premises making off with thousands of euros worth of jewellery

Hundreds of tourists looked on in horror as a gang started a fire the tunnel well-known for featuring in Monaco's annual grand prix.

As emergency services rushed to put it out, at least three gangsters rushed into the Cartier shop on the square where the casino is situated and made off with a haul of high-value goods.

Two years ago, in May 2015, the Cartier boutique in Cannes was attacked by robbers, who got away with around 15million worth of goods.

Well organised gangs have long targeted the lucrative region.

Guests in the surrounding cafes and shops were trapped indoors.

One woman, at the Cafe de Monaco, located opposite the jewellery store, said: 'I asked what was going on, then we had to stay inside for half an hour. In the lobby where there were security guards,' according to Nicematin.

'It was when they tried to make off in car that police intervened,' said a source in the Mediterranean principality, on the French Riviera near Nice.

The high-end jewellery store sits on the corner of the famous casino square catering to the rich and famous in the Mediterranean principality, on the French Riviera near Nice

As police rushed to the store a shoot-out ensued leaving one robber injured and arrested, along with one other. A third man escaped and remains on the run

Monte Carlo - the central part of Monaco - then went into lockdown, with the casino shut, and shops pulling down their security screens

In recent years one criminal group called the Pink Panthers - made up of mainly ex-soldiers from Balkans countries such as Serbia - have regularly struck Monaco, attracted to its abundant wealth

'At least one person was wounded by gunfire. He was arrested along with another suspect. A third is still on the run. He was last seen in an underground car park opposite the casino.'

Police received a call soon after 4pm, and an armed intervention squad was on the scenes within minutes, said the source.

Monte Carlo - the central part of Monaco - then went into lockdown, with the casino shut, and shops pulling down their security screens.

Nobody was hurt beyond the robber, said the source, who said there was no initial estimate for the value of the jewellery taken.

A car was later found burnt in a tunnel on the highway leading from the Portier to Grimaldi Street.

The Monte Carlo Casino has been used as a set to film several movies, including Grace of Monaco, a biographical drama about Grace Kelly starring Nicole Kidman, and comedy heist film Oceans Twelve.

The Monte Carlo Casino (pictured above) has been used as a set to film several movies, including the 2004 comedy heist film Oceans Twelve

In December, a Serbian armed robber got into the casino's own jewellery store and took a member of staff hostage before trying to escape.

The shop had only recently relocated from the Hotel de Paris to the casino because the hotel was being renovated.

The Serb was soon arrested in the main square with millions of pounds worth of jewels, and is currently awaiting trial.

Security was meant to have been stepped up since then, with the number of guards in the area increased.

In recent years one criminal group called the Pink Panthers - made up of mainly ex-soldiers from Balkans countries such as Serbia - have regularly struck there.

The Panthers got their nickname after hiding a 500,000 diamond stolen during a London raid in a jar of face cream.

This was a tactic used in the original 1963 Pink Panther film, starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.

The 2014 Grace Kelly biographical drama Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman (pictured above as Kelly), was filmed at the Monte Carlo Casino

Pictured: Monica Bellucci (left) at a Cartier party in Monte Carlo, also attended by Demi Moore (right)
A six-year-old boy brought a gun to a California elementary school authorities learned -- yet parents of other students didn't learn about it for nearly two weeks.

A grandmother found the gun in her six-year-old grandson's backpack on March 10.

That boy had gotten it from a different six-year-old at Los Amigos Elementary School in Rancho Cucamonga, according to Cucamonga School District superintendent Janet Temkin.

A grandmother found the gun in her six-year-old grandson's backpack on March 10. He had gotten it from a different six-year-old at Los Amigos Elementary School (pictured) in Rancho Cucamonga

The law enforcement investigation was interrupted by spring break, and families were informed Thursday, a delay that upset parents.

Temkin said in a Thursday letter to parents obtained by The Sun: 'On March 10th, 207, deputies from the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department responded to a Los Amigos Elementary School student's residence after they received a call from a grandmother who located a firearm in her 6-year-old grandson's backpack.

'Law enforcement discovered the student took possession of the handgun from another 6-year-old student at Los Amigos Elementary School earlier in the day.'

Temkin wrote: 'During the preliminary investigation, the student could not provide deputies with the other child's name or any identifying information to locate the other child involved.

'Deputies took possession of the firearm and when school resumed this week from spring break, continued their investigation to determine the identity of the other child involved.'

She added: 'In order to not compromise the investigation, the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department directed the District to hold correspondence to our school district community until the completion of the investigation.'

Los Amigos officials were made aware of the incident on Monday, Temkin told The Sun. She also revealed the two boys are no longer going to district schools.

Temkin said in a Thursday letter to parents that police 'directed the District to hold correspondence to our school district community until the completion of the investigation'

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday that School Resource Officer Deputy Del Rio 'used school resources to identify the child who initially brought the firearm to school.

'DelRio determined the child acquired the firearm from his parents safe at their home. The child's parents were identified as Charles Neazer and Nikki Horseman.

A search warrant was executed and deputies said 'DelRio was able to locate Neazer's safe during the search warrant, which was found to have additional firearms.'

They said: 'Deputy DelRio identified that the Neazer's safe was accessible to his children, however, Neazer was unaware any of this children had accessed the contents of the safe.'

Neazer, 30, was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment.

Four children who live at the home were taken into custody by child family services, deputies said.

Father Efren Velasquez told The Sun: 'You send them to school because you think it's safe and secure. In my opinion, they should have told us right away, the day it occurred.'

Andre Verastegui told the newspaper via email: 'I do not feel my child is safe if the information is not being given to us immediately.

'I would not have sent my child to school until this was fully resolved.'
Trump has come under fire for claiming he never said he would reverse Obamacare in 64 days, despite the 68 times times he promised he would repeal the act.

When Trump's election vow of replacing Obama's healthcare plan came to a crashing halt on Friday, the president deflected the shortcoming and claimed he never said it would happen quickly.

From his Oval Office desk, he told reporters: 'I never said "repeal and replace Obamacare," you've all heard my speeches. I never said, "repeal it and replace it within 64 days."'

The bold statement was met with backlash after the president has been quoted 68 times saying he would be able to dismantle Obamacare successfully, four of those instances he swore he could do it immediately.

When Trump's election vow of replacing Obama's healthcare plan came to a crashing halt, the president deflected the shortcoming and claimed that he never said it would happen quickly, he told reporters on Friday

Trump has been quoted 68 times saying he would be able to dismantle Obamacare, at least four of which, he swore he could do it immediately. In a tweet from February 2016, he said he would 'immediately repeal and replace Obamacare'

Republicans were forced to call off a vote on their healthcare bill and a defeated-looking Paul Ryan announced Obamacare was still 'the law of the land' and would 'remain the law of the land until it's replaced'.

Trump blamed the shortcoming on Democrats in Congress and predicted the healthcare act would 'explode  which it will soon' on Friday.

President Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday that a new healthcare plan will eventually be pieced together.

After blaming the opposition party on Friday, Trump defended himself on the failed bill, which was a pillar of his election campaign, saying he never said he could repeal and replace it, much alone in a time frame of 64 days.

However, Trump promised his voters dozens of times that he would be able to get rid of the 'disastrous' healthcare plan and several times said he would do it 'immediately'.

ThinkProgress listed the 68 times Trump vowed that he would repeal the act on Friday.

President Donald Trump said Saturday morning Obamacare 'will explode' and a new healthcare plan will eventually be pieced together

Humiliated: Paul Ryan had to admit that Obamacare is now 'the law of the land' for the foreseeable future on Friday

The claims go all the way back to when Trump first announced he was running for president in his speech on June 16, 2015.

He told his crowd of 'thousands': 'So, just to sum up, I would do various things very quickly. I would repeal and replace the big lie, Obamacare.'

In February 2016, he tweeted: 'We will immediately repeal and replace ObamaCare - and nobody can do that like me.'

Right before Trump's win in November he told voters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: 'When we win on November 8th and elect a Republican congress, we will be able to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare.

'Have to do it. I will ask Congress to convene a special session so we can repeal and replace, and it will be such an honor for me, for you, and for everybody in this country because Obamacare has to be replaced and we will do it and we will do it very, very quickly.'
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

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

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The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan

Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement

With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building

OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh
WHEN pop star Gary Glitter was arrested on child porn charges in 1999, there was only one member of his family to stand by him: his cousin Jo Gadd.

She even supported him when Glitter  born Paul Gadd  was jailed over historic child sex crimes more than a decade later.

But today, in a courageous confession, the 46-year-old mother-of-two reveals Glitters greatest betrayal: he abused her too when she was just 12 years old.

I WAS just 12 when Gary Glitter appeared at my bedside carrying a bottle of champagne and a crystal glass. I was secretly thrilled.

He was, back then, the Leader of the Gang, the silver-suited and platform-booted showman whose Glitter Band rocked Top Of The Pops.

His massive black quiff and smiley eyes looked down from posters on the walls of hundreds of thousands of fans.

For me he was not just a heart-throb  he was also my cousin. It was my dad John who taught him to play the guitar, and Gary always credited him  along with Elvis  as his biggest musical influence.

Close: Jo Gadd had previously stood by Gary Glitter throughout the allegations but is speaking out now for the first time about the abuse she faced by her cousin

I decided our family ties must be the reason hed crept away from the grown-ups partying downstairs to come and see me. I felt so cool, almost overawed, enjoying the slipstream of his fame.

That was the first lie I told myself about Gary. It would prove to be the first of many over the 35 years that I stood by him.

Gary had been tactile with me since I was tiny. He loved to touch me and hold me close, but that night was different. I could sense it even though I did not have a name for it. He lay on the mattresses strewn across the floor, chatting and laughing with the other half- a-dozen girls also sleeping at his girlfriends home in Somerset.

Then slowly, deliberately, he made his way over to me. I lay still, pretending to be asleep, but he got into bed with me and touched me between the legs and on my chest.

I was almost scared to death. I longed for him to stop but I was frozen, unable to tell him to leave me alone or wriggle from his grasp.

His assault must have lasted just a few minutes but it felt like for ever.

I felt sick and angry and but what could I do? He had abused me in front of a room full of girls who were, like the adults nearby, in thrall to his celebrity.

Afterwards he just got up and left without saying a word. In truth, I didnt know exactly what had happened  I didnt know men did that to children. I asked myself what Id done to deserve it.

The next morning, Gary was his usual flamboyant self. Everyone in the house seemed to be talking and reliving the party from the night before. I was mortified.

I just wanted to go home to Oxfordshire, to be somewhere familiar that would make me feel safe again. In my head, I was pleading to Mum and Dad: Come on, come on. I want to go.

But I could not tell them because I knew they would not have believed me.

Family portrait: Jo Gadd said her father, pictured above left next to nephew Gary Glitter, said he idolised him. But the pop star assaulted his younger cousin, above bottom right, when she was just twelve

My father idolised Gary, treating him as a son because Gary had never known his own dad.

Many of the best bits of my childhood  the parties and the backstage passes and the posh meals  had Gary at the heart of them.

So I decided I would wipe it from my memory. I would forget about it. I would pretend to everyone, most of all myself, that Gary Glitter was not a paedophile and I was not his victim. It was 1982 and for a time my strategy worked. Then Gary moved to a village nearby and became even more deeply entwined in our lives.

Hed been in Oxfordshire for a year when he again came upstairs and got in bed with me and a friend who was having a sleepover. He moved closer to her and whispered: Hey, Ill keep you warm.

As he uttered those toxic words, my dad burst in and yanked Gary out of bed. What the hell do you think youre doing? he yelled, enraged and appalled. Gary, ever the world-class performer, laughed it off and pretended it had all been a big joke.

Another time, I remember waiting at the village bus stop when Gary pulled up in his big Rover and wound down the window. Hey, Jo! he shouted. When are your school friends coming around? Let me know and Ill be there!

For a fleeting moment, I thought Oh, he just wants to see us all, and, of course, my friends still flocked to our house in the hope of hanging out with him. But underneath I knew that this was all very, very wrong.

The parties stopped with the death of my father from lung cancer in 1992. I was 22 and devastated. My mother was heartbroken too and took her own life five difficult years later, unable to cope.

My father  whom everyone adored and called Uncle John  had been the rock of our family, and his death drove a wedge between the children from his first and second marriages. As a family we were fragmented by grief, not united by it. Gary saw that and turned himself into a father figure to me. I was blindly grateful: he was the only family I had left.

I had always denied to myself what hed done to me that night in Somerset. If I didnt acknowledge it then I didnt have to admit it to other people either. Gary must have known that and the closer we became, the more my loyalty was assured  the classic strategy of a predatory paedophile. I told myself he was protecting me; now I understand he was only protecting himself. This self-delusion explains all that happened next.

In 1999, Gary was jailed for four months for possessing child porn. Dozens of indecent images had been discovered on a laptop he put in for repair.

It was harrowing for his family and friends and also his fans, who included the super-band Oasis  theyd paid tribute to him on their second album and hed bought a yacht with the royalties.

Overnight almost everyone faded away. No one can forgive child porn. I jumped to Garys support. I lost a lot of friends.

People said: Its disgusting. How could he? I just said: Hes my family. The truth was that if I accepted his guilt over the computer porn, I had to admit the truth of what he had done to me.

After his release from prison in January 2000, Gary appeared at a perfectly stage-managed press call  dark glasses, red Mercedes, an admission of regret  and then fled abroad.

Hed email me from Spain, then Cuba and then Cambodia. I was at home in Somerset with my husband and our two young daughters in 2005 when we heard he had been arrested in Vietnam, accused of molesting two girls aged ten and 11.

News reports said he might face death by firing squad  the penalty for child rape. I contacted the British Embassy and we flew straight out. My husband stayed in a resort while I was driven to a rural prison, where I met Gary in what can only be described as a hut.

Despite this extraordinary fall for someone who had been a rock institution for three decades, Gary was full of joy. He literally danced in to meet me. Dont worry. Everything will be fine, he said. I just sat there crying.

At that point, I thought about walking away from it all, but I didnt have anyone else. All my family and most of my friends had disappeared since his first arrest.

Only a handful, to whom Im tremendously grateful, stood by me. Gary may have built a trap for me, but by supporting him in those early days, Id closed the door on it myself.

Gary was convicted of kissing, fondling and engaging in sex acts with the girls at his beach home on the south coast. He was jailed for three years.

We were living in Australia when he was released. He phoned in the middle of the night from England to say: Hi Jo, Im back.

We flew to the UK as a family to see him and spent three weeks helping get his life back on track. Hed had people doing things for him for years so he couldnt even pay a bill himself. We helped him rent a house in Kent and prepared his flat in London. My husband went back to Vietnam and Cambodia to sort out his affairs.

Gary had a friend called Song in Vietnam. Hed taught her English, he said. He wanted her to come to England but when my husband took her to Hanoi to apply for a visa, it was declined. I wasnt suspicious of her role in his life  to me she was just another tick on my administrative to-do list.

Gary couldnt get a UK bank account  at least thats what he claimed  so we agreed to handle his money through one of our accounts in England.

Once we were back in Australia, Gary and I were on Skype to each other virtually every day. There was always something he wanted me to do  paying bills, sorting out parking permits and sending increasingly large sums of money to Song. Later, I discovered the truth about Song when pictures of her and Gary appeared in a Sunday newspaper. In reality, she was a former prostitute who had fixed Gary up with young girls in Vietnam. I was appalled.

That knowledge, and the fact that Id been made complicit in their relationship, was crucial to me. While I still couldnt admit the real truth, I did recognise that he was capable of lying to me, and of betraying my love and trust.

But it was a new and devastating set of allegations of historic child sex abuse that made me confront what had happened in my own childhood.

In February 2015, Gary was jailed for 16 years for sexually abusing three girls between 1975 and 1980. He was found guilty of rape, unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 13, and four counts of indecent assault.

His lawyer had asked me to be a character witness and I had agreed. I said Gary was innocent. I was still lying for him, unconsciously of course, but the veneer was almost worn through. The evidence was irrefutable: he was a serial abuser. My statement, which I will regret for ever, wasnt used.

After the trial, I spoke more frequently to Garys only remaining friend. We traded stories and confided in each other and I finally told him what Id never confessed to my parents or my husband. After keeping it secret for so many years, it was a huge relief.

When Gary found out what Id told his friend, he said just two things. The first was: Shes lying. The second: I was just tucking her up in bed.

But he wasnt. Gary Glitter, my cousin, abused me when I was 12 with my mum and dad downstairs. I have to live with that knowledge and also the fact that in not telling anyone, not being able to tell anyone, I let him do the same to an unknown number of girls over the decades.

I feel shame and guilt and pity but also relief at unburdening myself and being released from the need to support him. I am having counselling and I am considering going to the police.

The hardest thing for me, however, is that telling the truth has made a mockery of my whole childhood. It makes me feel that my family life was built on lies. Gary is in prison. One day he will come out. But I will never be free of my past.

As told to Simon Parry.
Douglas Carswell pledged his support for Ukip just hours after he quit the party to be an independent MP.

In an embarrassing gaffe, the MP for Clacton told an ITV reporter: 'I am absolutely, 100 per cent Ukip. Sorry, the Member of Parliament for Clacton, in Essex.

'Being Ukip or Conservative has always come a very distant second for me.'

Earlier today, Carswell left Ukip, saying the party has 'achieved what it was established to do'.

He was the political party's only MP after he left the Conservatives in 2014.

In a statement on his website, he wrote: 'We have changed the course of our country's history for the better.

'Make no mistake; we would not be leaving the EU if it was not for UKIP  and for those remarkable people who founded, supported and sustained our party over that period.

In an embarrassing gaffe, Douglas Carswell told an ITV reporter, 'I am absolutely, 100 per cent Ukip. Sorry, the Member of Parliament for Clacton, in Essex', hours after he quit the party

Mr Carswell was the political party's only MP after he left the Conservatives in 2014. Pictured, the MP squirms on camera after he made the mistake on television

'Like many of you, I switched to UKIP because I desperately wanted us to leave the EU. Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving UKIP.

'I will simply be the Member of Parliament for Clacton, sitting as an independent.'

But former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said Mr Carswell 'jumped before he was pushed'.

He tweeted: 'Carswell has jumped before he was pushed. He was never UKIP and sought to undermine us. He should have gone some time ago.'

Carswell's abrupt departure will cost the party more than 200,000, which represents its share of public funding distributed among all parties with members in the House of Commons.

The party still has members in the European Parliament in Brussels, including Farage.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said Mr Carswell 'jumped before he was pushed'. His departure will cost the party more than 200,000, which represents its share of public funding distributed among all parties with MPs

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said the party has not benefited 'financially or organisationally' from Mr Carswell's presence in the House of Commons and so his departure would make 'no difference' to his reform agenda.

'Douglas was genuinely committed to Brexit, but was never a comfortable Ukipper,' said Mr Nuttall, who in February failed to get elected as an MP in what he called the 'capital of Brexit' in Stoke-on-Trent Central.

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said the party has not benefited 'financially or organisationally' from Mr Carswell's presence in the House of Commons. Mr Carswell said being Tory or Ukip always came second to him

He went on: 'As we redefine our mission and take up the next phase of our campaign to rebuild a confident, independent nation, Douglas would have been increasingly out-of-kilter with our members' aspirations.

'We now have an opportunity to put behind us the most damaging internal conflict which has dogged us over the past year, and look forward with optimism and unity of purpose to the very real challenges of policing Brexit and further reforming the vigorous democracy of the UK.'

Mr Carswell immediately faced calls to trigger a by-election from Ukip's biggest financial backer, Arron Banks, a close ally of Mr Farage.

Mr Banks first threatened to stand against Mr Carswell when his feud with Mr Farage blew up earlier this month over claims that the MP played a role in blocking a knighthood for the former leader.

But it is unclear whether Mr Banks would be able to do fight an election under Ukip's banner as he is no longer a member of the party, and said earlier this month that he would concentrate on a new political movement.
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Hundreds of fans gathered for a public memorial honoring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds in Hollywood as the Star Wars actress's brother Todd revealed the last thing his mother said to him.

The famous mother and daughter, who died just a day apart in December, were remembered Saturday at Forest Lawn Cemetery, where they were buried together earlier this year.

The service inside a 1,200-seat auditorium is also being shown on big screens at the cemetery and live-streamed on the internet.

During the service, Todd Fisher revealed his mother's heartbreak when Carrie passed away and how she was ready to go herself the next day.

'When Carrie died, my mother decided to change her plans a bit,' he told the crowd. 'My mother always said to me, "I never want to go to my daughter's funeral service. I would like to be buried with Carrie." I didn't know she was going to leave us that very next day and when she looked at me to ask permission to leave, she said she wanted to be with Carrie, and she closed her eyes and went to sleep. It was a beautiful exit.'

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Carrie Fisher kisses her mother, Debbie Reynolds, in this September 2011 photo. The famous duo are being honored in Hollywood

Mourners visit the joint gravesite of Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds following the public memorial Saturday

Actress Ruta Lee speaks onstage at Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher Memorial at Forest Lawn Cemetery

Hundreds of people have gathered inside the auditorium to pay tribute to the talented duo who died just a day apart in December

Tributes to Debbie Reynolds included a 'Singing in the Rain' hip hop remix at the duo's public sendoff Friday

R2-D2 attended Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher Memorial on March 25 at the public memorial to the mother daughter duo

Catherine Hickland and Todd Fisher attend Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher memorial at Forest Lawn Cemetery

The service inside a 1,200-seat auditorium is also being shown on big screens at the cemetery

Todd Fisher - Carrie's brother- spoke at the public memorial which was attended by hundreds while thousands watched online

Hundreds of fans, friends and family lined up outside of the Forest Lawn Cemetery on Saturday

Grace Farenbaugh from Burbank, California, was the first fan to arrive outside the Hall of Liberty at 5.30am.

'I'm a huge fan of both of them,' she said. 'I feel they are part of my family.

'I knew Carrie for a short while. She was helping me with a book.

'She was as funny and genuine as anyone can imagine.'

Liza Rios-Proprofsky from Orange County, California, said she was a huge fan of Star Wars actress Fisher and she wanted to honor her with 'like-minded people'.

'Star Wars has been a part of our child narrative,' she said. 'When Carrie Fisher passed, it actually like a member of the family had left.

Todd Fisher hugs R2-D2 on stage at his 'sister' Carrie and mother Debbie's memorial on Saturday in Los Angeles

People line up outside of the auditorium to honor Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds on Saturday

Celebrities and family members gather to honor Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds on Saturday. Catherine Hickland hugs Fisher Stevens (left) and Shari Wilson, performer and friend of Debbie Reynolds, visits the joint gravesite of Carrie Fisher and her mother (right)

The memorial is paying tribute to Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds who died just a day apart in December

Musician Peter Asher attends Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher's memorial at Forest Lawn Cemetery

Dan Ackroyd arrives to the memorial for Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher on Saturday. He used to be engaged to Fisher

'When I was a little girl, here was this strong woman who was a princess who could take charge.

'We knew that if we came here we would be with people who are like-minded, that would understand how we felt.'

Fisher, who shot to fame as Princess Leia in Star Wars, died aged 60 on December 27 after suffering a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles.

A day later her mother, Singin' In The Rain star Reynolds, 84, died after a suspected stroke.

Todd Fisher and Ben Mankiewicz spoke during the ceremony and pointed out that many of Carrie and Debbie's friends and family members attended the service.

The memorial featured a tribute song from Fisher's close friend James Blunt, which was be unveiled during a photo montage. His hit song 'You're Beautiful' also played during the celebration of their life. Blunt wrote his most famous song in Fisher's bathroom.

Dan Aykroyd remembered his relationship with Carrie Fisher and talked about her 'frank and fiery' personality.

Her former high school classmate author Gavin de Becker spoke about how she was as a student. He said everyone in the school had a crush on Carrie.

Catherine Hickland spoke about how Debbie Reynolds' last show in Vegas was at age of 84. Then, a clip of Billie Lourd, Carrie and Debbie singing played on the big screen.

Her daughter Billie Lourd attended but was not expected to make a speech, while Fisher's beloved dog Gary will also feature, TMZ said.

The theater for Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher's funeral held 1,200 seats. Thousands more watched the stream online

Dancers from the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio performed a remix tribute of 'Singing in the Rain' Saturday

Fisher, who shot to fame as Princess Leia in Star Wars, died aged 60 on December 27. Her mother Debbie died the next day from an apparent stroke

Carrie Fisher and her mother were buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood earlier this year

Fisher died aged 60 on December 27 after suffering a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles, and a day later her mother, Singin' In The Rain star Reynolds, 84, passed away

The Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles performed as photos from Carrie's youth played on a slideshow in the background. Dancers from the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio also paid tribute with a 'Singing in the Rain' remix and closed the ceremony.

Costumes and memorabilia from the careers of Reynolds and Fisher will also be on display.

The two actresses were laid to rest at a funeral on January 6, where the ashes of Fisher were carried in an urn shaped like a Prozac pill.

Fisher had spoken publicly about her battle with bipolar disorder and drug problems during her life.
Rob Brydon, pictured with second wife television producer Clare, has spoken out about his traumatic divorce

Comedian Rob Brydon has opened up about the pain of divorce after admitting he 'lost excitement' with his first marriage.

He may have once described it as the 'nicest divorce ever' but candidly Brydon has confessed splitting up with his first wife Martina Fitchie in 2001 was a traumatic experience.

The 51-year-old father-of-five left the subject of his split with Martina out of his autobiography entirely in and has often refused to discuss the matter in interviews since the relationship broke down.

But in a new interview, the Gavin and Stacey star has spoken of the pain and trauma left behind after his split with Martina.

The pair first met in a pub in Cardiff while Brydon was working at Radio Wales, where at the time Martina's sister worked as a producer.

They moved to London where Martina worked as a nanny and then the pair got married before having three children. Sadly in 2001, they decided to go their separate ways.

And now 16 years on, Brydon has spoken frankly about the break-up. In an interview with The Times he said: 'You lose excitement with marriage. You can't have everything though.'

He said their breakdown was downplayed mainly to stop journalists 'asking awkward questions'.

The Marion & Geoff star said he had learned to live with it but it was still upsetting.

He said: 'I'd love to know what could be more traumatic than that.

'It doesn't change what it was. You learn to live with it, but you don't say, 'I broke my leg on the ski slope, and while I was waiting for them to come, it wasn't the most painful thing.' The pain is still the same.'

Brydon told the reporter it wasn't their concern when he was asked whether he got on with his first wife's new partner.

He said: 'Mind your own business, but everything is fine. Thanks for your concern.'

But he revealed she had joined him in Australia a few years ago with all the children while he was doing a show.

Emotional: Rob Brydon, pictured above at the funeral of close friend Ronnie Corbett, described the divorce

Moving on: Rob Brydon pictured above with second wife Clare. The pair have two children together and live in the Strawberry Hill area of Twickenham

Speaking previously, Brydon said the relationship had 'just come to an end' as it wasn't working.

He said: We both wanted it to happen. We had three children, so of course I looked on it as a bloody failure, but I have friends whove been through divorces that make my miraculous hair curl.

My experience, while at times hugely upsetting, was nothing like that  its amicable, it flows.

'Our kids are older now and all my kids love each other and think of themselves as brothers and sisters.'

'I wouldn't wish divorce on anybody': Brydon said the pain of separation was traumatic but said he finds happiness these days enjoying the company of his five children at family events

But despite the civilised manner in which the pair separated, Brydon told how the experience has left him deeply scarred.

'When I hear of contemporaries getting divorced, I'm broken-hearted,' he told The Sunday Times.

'They'll often talk to me at the relief stage  the stage of having decided to separate.

'I'll think, you've no idea. You. Have. No. Idea.

'I wouldn't wish divorce on anybody.'

Brydon has never shied away from speaking about his love for his family.

He has three older children: Katie, 22, Harry, 20, and Amy, 17, from his first marriage, and two young sons  George, five, and Tom, eight with his second wife, TV producer Clare Holland.

Speaking to the Mail earlier this year, he said: 'I've got five kids, aged between 18 and two.

'As they get older and start going off and doing their own thing, I find I'm happiest at big family occasions when everyone is there.

'Either that or when I've been drinking heavily. I didn't start drinking until my mid-30s, so I get drunk remarkably quickly.

Brydon married his second wife Clare, in 2006 after meeting at the South Bank Awards in 2002.

Brydon's TV career has made him a comfortably wealthy man.

He is estimated to be worth upwards of 4 million and lives in the fashionable Strawberry Hill enclave of Twickenham, London, but he stresses that 'it has been a struggle, emotionally, financially, sometimes mentally'.

The father of five will be back on television screens next month in a new series of The Trip with his close friend Steve Coogan.

The new series on SkyAtlantic from April 6 sees the comic pair eat their way round Spain this time.
Last month the CEO of Uber announced an investigation into claims of sexual harassment and discrimination within his company.

Now, according to The Information group of senior employees at Uber visited an 'escort-karaoke bar' in 2014.

Gabi Holzwarth, a professional violinist and business development manager, said she was dating Uber CEO Travis Kalanick when they went on a trip with a group of his coworkers to Seoul.

Gabi Holzwarth (left) said she was dating Uber CEO Travis Kalanick (right) when she went to on a trip with him and a group of his coworkers to Seoul

Holzworth, a professional violinist, said that four men in the group picked out their favorite women out of a numbered group before heading downstairs to sing karaoke

She told The Information that one night four men in the group, including senior VP of business Emil Michael, picked out their favorite women from a numbered group before heading downstairs to sing karaoke.

After about 45 minutes, she and Kalanick left the group, and another female manager was 'visibly unhappy' and left quickly

After about 45 minutes, she and Kalanick left them, along with another female manager was 'visibly unhappy'.

That female manager reported the incident to HR about a year later.

Then, in the last month, Michael contacted Holzwarth in attempt to stop her from telling anyone about the trip.

He allegedly told her to say that they went to karaoke and had a good time.

His statement, which is in The Information's article, reads: 'Given the intense news cycle I thought it was the right thing to do to reach out and let her know that reporters may try to contact her directly.

'I have known her for a long time, consider her a friend, and did not want her to be taken by surprise.

'Her recollection of this conversation was different form mine and I am very sorry if the purpose of my call was misunderstood.'

One of the men who was with them was Emil Michael, who Holzwarth later said contacted her to ask her not to tell anyone about the incident

Uber has released a statement that says: 'This all happened about three years ago and was previously reported to human resources.

'In early march it was referred to Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran as part of their review.'

All of this information was published on The Information on Saturday afternoon, just hours before one of Uber's self-driving cars was in an accident in Tempe, Arizona.
A man who allegedly shot one person dead and wounded another on a Las Vegas transit bus has surrendered to police following a four-hour standoff.

A police spokesperson was quoted as saying that the alleged gunman surrendered without incident.

The other shooting victim who survived was reported to have minor injuries and was rushed to hospital.

There was nobody else on the bus at the time that the gunman surrendered, police said.

Police have ruled out terrorism as a possible motive for the shooting.

The standoff began about 11 a.m. Saturday with a shooting that killed one person and injured another.

It happened on a double-decker bus stopped on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Cosmopolitan hotel-casino.

'He was on the bus. He was shooting people on the bus. He was just contained to that location. He never exited the bus,' Clark County Assistant Sheriff Tom Roberts said.

The city was in a state of terror Saturday as the Cosmopolitan hotel was evacuated following the shooting.

For hours, crisis negotiators, robots and armored vehicles surrounded the bus with authorities uncertain if there were any more victims inside the bus.

Meanwhile, officers swept into the casinos to warn tourists to bunker down until further notice, leaving these normally bustling pedestrian areas and a road notorious for taxi-to-taxi traffic completely empty.

The Strip, normally crowded with cars and people, was shut down for blocks in both directions.

Around 1.45pm, local time, a loud bang occurred near the bus, as some reports indicate the SWAT team detonated the side of the vehicle.

There was a flash of light and smoke appeared to come from the bus, which was stopped on Las Vegas Boulevard.

A suspect surrenders to SWAT officers after being barricaded for many hours on a bus after a fatal shooting in the vehicle earlier Saturday in Las Vegas

The suspect is then taken away after surrendering to the SWAT officers. A police spokesperson said that authorities have ruled out terrorism

Local police and SWAT take up position as they surround a the suspect after the tense, four-hours standoff

The suspect is seen putting his hands up in surrender in front of the bus following his standoff with SWAT officers

Las Vegas SWAT officers leave the scene of a stand-off in a bus along Las Vegas Boulevard on Saturday. One person was killed and another suffered moderate injuries in the shooting

Earlier in the day, Las Vegas was in a state of terror as the Cosmopolitan hotel was evacuated following the shooting. SWAT team members appeared to blow a side in the bus where the suspect is barricaded around 1.45pm local time (pictured)

Police investigate the scene of the stand-off on Las Vegas Boulevard just moments after the gunman surrendered peacefully

Local police had been in a standoff (pictured) with a suspect for hours who barricaded himself on a two-story transit bus after the fatal shooting that occurred on the bus

A loud bang occurred near the bus, as some reports indicate the SWAT team detonated the side of the vehicle. There was a flash of light and smoke appearing to come from the bus

The boulevard was sealed between Flamingo Road and Tropicana Boulevard as the standoff was unfolding.

No information has been made available as of early Saturday evening regarding the identities of the suspect or the victims.

Former NBA player Scot Pollard, who is staying at the Cosmopolitan, told The Associated Press by phone that he was at a bar at the hotel-casino around 11am when he saw several people, including staff, running through the area toward the casino and repeatedly screaming 'get out of the way.'

'We can hear them negotiating. We can hear them saying things like "No one else needs to get hurt," "Come out with your hands up. We are not going anywhere. We are not leaving."'

After he was told that the area would be closed, he went back to his room, which oversees the Strip.

The bus is operated by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.

It's unknown how many people were on the bus at the time of the shooting but it appears that those who were there were able to flee.

Police have started a hotline in search of those passengers to report what they witnessed.

This is the second shooting incident to occur in less than 24 hours in Sin City, as a gunman in a pig mask opened fire during an armed robbery at the iconic Bellagio hotel earlier in the day.

A police spokesperson said the bus shooting was unrelated to the incident at the Bellagio.

That shooting prompted terrified tourists to seek shelter amid a chaotic scene.

At least three people entered a high-end store, which is believed to be a Rolex store, inside the resort, including one who fired gunshots, police said.

This is the second gunman incident to occur in less than 24 hours in Sin City, as a gunman in a pig mask opened fire during an armed robbery at the iconic Bellagio hotel early Saturday, (pictured)

Larry Hadfield, a spokesman with Las Vegas Metro police, said of the bus situation to USA Today: 'The shooting incident happened on the bus. We had one single shooting incident with two victims. Both were transported to the trauma center and one is deceased.'

Hadfield added that SWAT and hostage negotiation personnel were on site but wouldn't confirm if there were passengers still on the regional transit bus.

Witnesses and photos suggest the day's earlier armed burglary took place at the Bellagio's Rolex store, and show a person in a pig mask with a gun in hand.

One suspect has been taken into custody.

Guests and tourists had to flee the hotel and head out to the strip amid report of the armed robbery.

Panicked people have tweeted their shock, with one woman saying she had to hide under a table.

No one was injured, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department later confirmed. Parts of the casino property remain closed as authorities investigate.

Both gunman incidents occurred less than a mile away from each other. Pictured: The Bellagio hotel (left) and Cosmopolitan hotel (right)

Terrified tourists fled onto the strip as the armed robbery took place at the Bellagio Hotel

Officers received a call about the incident at the Bellagio (pictured during the incident) at 12:50am, and has apprehended one suspect by 2:15am

Officers received a call about the incident at the Bellagio at 12:50 am, and has apprehended one suspect by 2:15 am, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

One woman who was at the hotel when the robbery unfolded described the atmosphere as one of 'mass panic'.

'Everyone running. I'm currently ducked on the floor under a table,' she wrote.

The store was closed when the armed robbers got in and all shots were fired inside, police said.

Some witnesses said the burglars used sledgehammers to break into the store, although police have not confirmed it so far.

Authorities used crime scene tape to keep the public out of an area inside the resort as they carried on investigating the armed robbery

Guests and tourists had to flee the hotel and head out to the strip amid report of the armed robbery. Pictured is the chaotic scene outside the Las Vegas hotel

One woman who was at the hotel when the robbery unfolded described the atmosphere as one of 'mass panic'

Panicked guests had to flee the famous hotel and were confused about what was going on. Some reports suggested the robbers used sledgehammers to get into the store

No one was injured, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department later confirmed. Parts of the casino property remain closed as authorities investigate
Schools in rural areas are beginning to shift towards a four-day week in order to cut down on costs.

Across the Mountain West, districts in Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Oregon have amended the school week to last Monday through Thursday, turning Fridays into the start of student's weekends.

The change from traditional schedules was done in part to save money on transportation, heating, janitorial, and clerical costs, but also to allow for educators to collaborate more and additional extracurricular time for students.

While some districts have had this in place for the past 10 years, more and more schools are incorporating the system into its curriculum, according to a study unveiled earlier this month.

Already in Montana, nearly half of districts in the state have students attend school four days a week, including 88 districts in Colorado, 43 in Idaho and 30 in Oregon.

Districts in Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Oregon have shorted the school week to four days to save money on transportation, heating, janitorial, and clerical costs, according to a study unveiled earlier in March

But the shorter working week doesn't necessarily mean less time spent in class, as days are extended around 30 to 90 minutes to each day that students are in school, according to a study by Brookings.

Although the switch is said to be done for both the benefit of the school and student, reports are inconclusive if actually helps either party, reported the Atlantic.

Even still, schools are switching over to the shorter weeks in hopes that time spent outside the classroom, for both teachers and students, will overall be seen as a positive.

The idea has steamrolled the region because almost all parties, teachers, parents and students, can benefit from essentially having an extra day off.

Teachers are still paid the same for less work, parents can use the free day to run errands, such as doctor appointments, and few students would protest a three-day weekend every week.

Superintendent Gary Pflueger of Boundary County School in Idaho, said his district has had four day weeks for the past 10 years but is personally concerned if the system is actually better.

Superintendent Gary Pflueger of Boundary County School in Idaho, said his district has had four day weeks for the past 10 years but the longer school hours can be tough on young students

He told Fox News that the longer days, 8am to 4pm, can be grueling on students, especially young kindergartners.

Pflueger added: 'There has been a substantial cost savings, but this mostly fell on the backs of our classified employees [lunch, bus, custodial].

'Standardized test scores have not shown a significant change due to the change.'

'The four-day plan is great for the good old-fashioned traditional families who can spend an enjoyable day together, though these are the minority home environments.

'I do not feel it is so for families of poverty who lose a free breakfast and lunch, a heated and controlled environment and for some positive interaction.'
Prince Williams air ambulance has come within half a second of a catastrophic mid-air collision with a remote-controlled drone

Prince Williams air ambulance has come within half a second of a catastrophic mid-air collision with a remote-controlled drone.

Medics on board reacted with horror when they spotted the device within feet of potentially downing their helicopter.

An official report, seen by The Mail on Sunday, said that a collision had only been narrowly avoided and disaster was averted by pure chance.

Last night aviation experts said the drone could have downed the helicopter, killing those on board and potentially causing more casualties on the ground.

The report reveals that the terrifying near-miss happened at 1,900ft when the helicopter, with three medical staff and two pilots on board, was flying almost directly over a McDonalds restaurant filled with families.

It was flying at 138mph, covering 200ft a second, and the drone was less than 100ft away  making it half a second from impact.

The Duke of Cambridge regularly pilots the helicopter, codenamed Anglia Two, but it was only by fluke that he was not on board at the time. He was at the controls of the aircraft just days later.

Police on the ground were alerted, but failed to capture the operator of the drone, which was flying well above the legal height.

It is not known if the near-miss was a reckless mistake or a deliberate act.

A Mail on Sunday investigation previously revealed how terrorists could use a 2.99 mobile phone app to monitor the exact movement of Williams East Anglia Air Ambulance in real time.

The Anglia Two lands so that a medic could attend to a boy, who had been injured in a road accident. The helicopter then drops the patient at the Royal London Hospital. Nine miles back to its Cambridge base, the helicopter comes dangerously close to a drone

The aircraft was removed from the app after our revelations.

The Eurocopter 145 narrowly missed the drone when it was flying over Brimsdown on the outskirts of Enfield, North London, while returning to its base at Cambridge airport.

The device is thought to be about eight inches across  too small to be picked up by air traffic control radar but large enough to cause serious damage in a collision.

A report by the UK Airprox Board, which investigates near-collisions in UK airspace, rated it as a Category A incident due to there being a serious risk of collision.

The report said that the drone was flown into conflict with the helicopter over a built-up area without Civil Aviation Authority permission at 7.45pm on August 26 last year, effectively endangering the EC145 and its crew.

Hours after the near-miss, Casualty imagined the horror of a drone hitting an air ambulance. The helicopter smashes into an ambulance after being drowned by a drone hitting its tall rotar, then ends up crashed on its side in the hospital car park, causing multiple injuries

The drone, a four-bladed quadcopter with two red lights, was spotted by medical personnel in the back of the helicopter.

The shocked medics yelled at the male pilot after seeing the drone appearing to be in a turn away from the aircraft on the right hand side just 98ft away.

The pilot, who rated the chance of a collision as high, immediately informed air traffic controllers and ambulance control staff, telling them to alert police on the ground.

The report said: The board considered that the reported range was such that this was a situation where a collision had only been narrowly avoided and chance had played a major part.

The Duke of Cambridge regularly pilots the helicopter, codenamed Anglia Two, but it was only by fluke that he was not on board at the time. He was at the controls of the aircraft just days later

The helicopter had earlier been flown to help an 11-year-old boy who had suffered serious leg injuries after being hit by a double decker bus in Wickford, near Basildon, Essex. The crew flew the boy to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

They were heading back to Cambridge when they experienced the near-miss, around nine miles into the 40-mile flight.

Aviation consultant Paul Beaver, a former Army helicopter pilot, said: A collision between even a small drone used for taking photographs and a helicopter could be catastrophic.

A drone would be big enough and heavy enough to penetrate the Plexiglas screen of the cockpit, which is only designed to withstand rain, sleet and hail or a collision with a small bird.

It would be catastrophic if it hit the tail rotor system and a potential serious danger if it hit the main rotor. This highlights the problem with drones.

They can be bought cheaply and are simple enough to fly, but they have a capability which ten years ago would only have been in the hands of the military.

Dai Whittingham, chief executive of the UK Flight Safety Committee, said: A collision between a helicopter and a drone could have very serious consequences.

It would be made potentially worse by the fact that drones have lithium batteries which can explode on impact.

Helicopters are at more risk than fixed wing aircraft, partly because their windscreen canopies are larger and not as strong, due to weight having to be kept down.

A drone would be quite likely to go through the screen at the speed this helicopter was flying, depending on the angle of impact and where it hit. It could be fatal for the pilots.

The rotating parts of a helicopter, especially the tail rotor, are also very vulnerable. A drone strike in the tail rotor could cause a catastrophic loss of control.

A helicopter could easily become uncontrollable and start to tumble with the cab rotating around the rotor.

You wouldnt know where it was going to go. A drone could also sever hydraulic lines or interfere with the gearbox.

William is thought to have been concerned for many years about drones being used by paparazzi photographers to take pictures or potentially by terrorists to deliver bombs or chemical weapons

Drones cost as little as 25 and can travel at up to 50mph, but do not require a licence to operate. Tens of thousands of the devices have been sold in Britain since they have become affordable for consumers.

The near-miss happened just a day before BBC1 screened an episode of Casualty that featured a dramatic storyline about an air ambulance crashing after hitting a drone flown by a small boy.

Millions of viewers saw the helicopter spin out of control and smash into fictional Holby City Hospital, sending debris flying and causing multiple casualties in a special episode to mark the shows 30th anniversary.

The increasing popularity of drones has led to growing numbers of near-misses. The UK Airprox Board conducted just six investigations into incidents involving drones in 2014, compared to 56 in the first ten months of last year.

The Duke of Cambridge is believed to have been instrumental in getting the Government to introduce special rules in December 2015, banning any aircraft, including drones, from being flown within a mile and a half of Anmer Hall

Last month it was revealed that a twin-rotor RAF Chinook flying at nearly 140mph came within 130ft of crashing into a drone at 2,100ft while it was coming into land at RAF Odiham, Hampshire, on August 15 last year.

A UK Airprox Board report stated that the Chinook pilot believed the drone could have caused the loss of the helicopter if it hit a vulnerable spot.

A suspected drone was reported to have collided with British Airways jet carrying 120 passengers and five crew at 1,700ft as it was preparing to land at Heathrow after flying from Geneva last April.

But Transport Minister Robert Goodwill later said that the Airbus 320 might only have collided with a plastic bag.

The Government started a consultation in December over possible new rules for drones following mounting concern about their misuse.

The crackdown will potentially include the mandatory registration of new drones, tougher penalties for illegal flying, new signs at no-fly zones such as airports and prisons and making drones electronically identifiable so owners details can be passed to police if they are seen breaking the law.

Drones are usually limited to flying beneath 400ft. They can fly higher if they weigh less than 3.5kg and have an on-board camera with a live feed and an observer overseeing the operator.

The near-miss happened just a day before BBC1 screened an episode of Casualty that featured a story about an air ambulance that crashed into a drone. Drones are restricted to flying at 1,000ft

Even then, the flying height is restricted to 1,000ft so the drone which nearly hit the air ambulance would still have been nearly twice its permitted limit.

Anyone breaking the rules faces a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment for endangering an aircraft.

William has been working around 20 hours a week as a pilot in the last 20 months, flying scores of missions and helping save numerous lives.

He has announced that he will be quitting in the summer and moving his familys main home from Anmer Hall, Norfolk, to Kensington Palace to spend more time on Royal duties  but until then he will continue to fly the air ambulance.

Millions of viewers saw the helicopter spin out of control and smash into fictional Holby City Hospital. The Government started a consultation in December over possible new rules for drones following mounting concern about their misuse

William is thought to have been concerned for many years about drones being used by paparazzi photographers to take pictures or potentially by terrorists to deliver bombs or chemical weapons.

He is believed to have been instrumental in getting the Government to introduce special rules in December 2015, banning any aircraft, including drones, from being flown within a mile and a half of Anmer Hall.

A spokeswoman for the East Anglian Air Ambulance said: We can confirm that, in accordance with aviation regulations and procedures, a pilot reported a drone in his proximity on August 26, 2016.

The Duke of Cambridge was not on shift when the drone incident took place. There are strict rules that drone operators must follow and it is important they are aware of their responsibilities for safe operations at all times.

Kensington Palace refused to comment.
A number of odd yellow metal structures have appeared around tourist hotspots in London after Wednesday's terror attack.

The bright yellow barriers are wide enough for people to walk through, but could have been erected to protect pedestrians from cars.

The 'ring of steel' has been put up outside the Houses of Parliament, the Mall, Green Park and Constitution Hill, near Buckingham Palace.

Bizarre yellow security arches have been installed outside popular tourist destination as security in London is tightened after Wednesday's terror attack

The arches have been put up on the Mall, Green Park and Constitution Hill. A Met Police spokesman said it is not in response to another terror threat

It comes after Khalid Masood, 52, killed five people by driving a 4x4 on the pavement of Westminster Bridge and stabbing a police officer.

A Met Police spokesman told the Telegraph: 'There is no intelligence to suggest a threat to these spots.

Where have the structures been erected? The Houses of Parliament The Mall Green Park Constitution Hill Advertisement

'It's security measures put in place but not in response to any threat. Buckingham Palace is obviously a high profile area that is going to benefit from them.'

As well as the huge arches, police have installed a steel barrier along the Mall, leading up to Buckingham Palace.

Since Wednesday's attack, armoured cars which are bomb proof were deployed on the streets of London.

The fleet of cars, known as 'the Guardians' cost as much as 100,000 to make.

They have bullet-proof tyres, a blast-resistant floor and can withstand bullets from AK47s, grenades and bombs and can carry up to eight men.

Two of the imposing cars were seen parked outside Parliament Square yesterday in the aftermath of the terror attack.

Armoured cars, known as 'the guardians' have been deployed on the streets of London. The cars, which cost as much as 100,000 are bomb and bullet proof and can break through barricades

Hundreds of police officers from around the country have been put on patrol as police mount a large-scale security operation

London police officers are operating at near double strength, while forces around the country have an increased strength of up to a third

The Jankel Guardian is based on a 4x4 Ford F-450 Super Duty truck and is equipped with a 6.0-litre V8 turbodiesel 129bhp 4,164cc diesel engine.

There are bars on the front of the car to punch through barricades.

It weighs 6,804kg and has bullet-proof glass and tyres and a blast-resistant floor.

Hundreds of police officers from around the country have been put on patrol as police mount a large-scale security operation.

Met anti-terror head Mr Rowley said yesterday: 'The police service will sustain an enhanced armed and unarmed presence over the next few days'

Armed police around the country has been boosed by 1,500 officers. The UK has seen a step-up in security after Wednesday's terror attack

Yesterday, London police were operating at near double strength, while forces around the country were increased by up to a third.

Met anti-terror head Mr Rowley said yesterday: 'The police service will sustain an enhanced armed and unarmed presence over the next few days.

'London, and the UK, are open for business, and we are out there in greater numbers to make sure that the public see a highly visible presence to help reassure them as they go about their daily lives.'

Pictured, an armed policeman stands guard the day after Khalid Masood killed five in Wednesday's terror attack in Westminster. He ploughed into tourists on Wesminster Bridge and stabbed hero policeman Keith Palmer

50 people were injured in the attack, with victims from 11 countries including Greece, Romania and the U.S. Pictured, well wishers lay tributes to the victims beside the Houses of Parliament

Armed police has been boosted nationally by 1,500 officers.

On Wednesday Khalid Masood, who was born Adrian Elms, fatally stabbed hero police officer Keith Palmer after he mowed into locals and tourists on Westminster Bridge.

He killed five people including PC palmer, 75-year-old Leslie Rhodes, from Clapham, Aysha Frade, from London, and Kurt Cochran, from Utah.

50 people were injured in the attack, with victims from 11 countries including Greece, Romania and the U.S.
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When American surgeon Jay Morris posed for a classic London holiday photograph with his niece Zoe on Wednesday outside Westminster Abbey, the hands of Big Ben in the background said 2.39pm.

Amid the traffic and tourist hubbub of Parliament Square, they could not hear a 4x4 revving up half a mile away on the far side of Westminster Bridge at exactly the same moment.

It took barely a minute for their very different paths to meet. For Dr Morriss family it was a gentle stroll across Parliament Square; for Khalid Masood, it was a frenzied drive across Westminster Bridge, leaving a bloody trail of death and destruction.

By the time Big Bens hands had moved to 2.41pm, Dr Morriss wife, Jilan Liu, and Zoe had seen PC Keith Palmer stabbed to death right in front of them from INSIDE the Commons gates.

They say they were beckoned inside the parliamentary secure zone by a policeman who was trying to protect them  and were followed in through the opened gates by knife-wielding Masood. More-over, they believe that policeman may well have been PC Keith Palmer.

Meanwhile, a despairing and brave Dr Morris looked on from outside the Commons gates shouting Shoot the f*****! in disbelief at the failure of police to provide armed support for their fatally wounded colleague.

He says there was a significant delay before Masood was shot dead.

A horrifying timeline of events: American surgeon Jay Morris (pictured with wife Jilan Lui, top left) said they were beckoned inside the parliamentary secure zone by a policeman who was trying to protect them  and were followed in through the opened gates by knife-wielding Masood. Seconds later, PC Palmer was brutally stabbed to death

He also maintains the policeman who sheltered his family was PC Palmer: If I was giving evidence in a trial, I would say it was more probably him than not. I think its the same guy.

All three family members stress they cannot be sure. But if they are right, it would have significant security implications for the police investigation  and could shed vital new light on how PC Palmer died. Their account is bound to be taken seriously: Dr Morris served as a US medic in the Afghanistan-Russian war in the 1980s; his wife is an internationally acclaimed hospital consultant.

Even when I first spoke to them barely ten minutes after they witnessed the attack, they were calm and rational  as was super-bright, Chinese-born 17-year- old New York student Zoe. Furthermore, they believe they were closer to the attack than any other public eyewitness.

Tragic: Dr Morris believes it could have been PC Keith Palmer, pictured above, who fatally lead them to safety. He said: He saw these people rushing at him and he was trying to give them some protection because he knew something was going on; hed heard a car crash, screaming people running by'

If it was PC Palmer  renowned for his friendly manner towards Westminster tourists and visitors  who tried to help Dr Morriss family, it could shed new light on the death of the fearless public spirited constable.

Dr Morris explained his theory: He saw these people rushing at him and he was trying to give them some protection because he knew something was going on; hed heard a car crash, screaming people running by.

He opened the little gate to let people in. He was not on guard for anything violent because he was helping people and it [would have] made him more vulnerable to attack because he was the first uniform the attacker saw when he came round the corner. He ran in a few seconds after Jilan and Zoe.

If police had slammed the gate shut and kept bystanders out, Masood could have turned on them instead of PC Palmer, said Dr Morris. There would have been no place to go and he would have started hurting [other] people.

The first Dr Morris and wife, who live in Seattle, knew about the terror attack was when they heard a crash round the corner from where they were standing near Parliaments black, wrought-iron gates. He said: A dozen people came round the corner with wild looks in their eyes. This large guy came by with a large butchers knife in his right hand running as fast as he could. He was about five feet from me.

They didnt know what the crowd was fleeing from but they joined the rush to get away. But where to?

Dr Liu took up the story: We saw horrified people running. We didnt know what they were running from. We followed the crowd and ran into Parliament. Initially, I ran past the gate, but then I thought its easier to go inside. It opened up to allow us in. I almost had to turn back to get in.

She is convinced the policeman who urged them to take shelter inside Parliament was trying to protect them, not knowing he was endangering himself. Exactly, she affirms. He waved us in. Zoe added: He said, Come in. 

Dr Liu believes the gate was opened for them, but again says she cannot be 100 per cent certain because of the mayhem.

Delayed response: Dr Jay Morris, who watched the tragic events unfold, said there was a 'significant delay' before Masood was stopped. He said he was shouting Shoot the f*****! in disbelief at the failure of police to provide armed support for their fatally wounded colleague

Helpless: Dr Morris said: [Masood] was larger than the policeman and over- powered him before stabbing him around the neck and chest. He had his arm round him and was pumping him with his right arm. He said he was frustrated because he would die if he wasn't helped. Above, MP Tobias Ellwood tried in vain to save the life of PC Keith Palmer

(Other reports say police at the Commons gates had been told to open them to allow a limousine carrying acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Craig Mackey, who coincidentally had visited the Commons that day, to leave.)

Dr Liu was alarmed to notice that her husband had not got inside the gates. We werent sure whether to stay in or come out because my husband was outside. Then the guy ran in through the gate and stabbed the policeman. We were the only people right there. We were the closest, she said. She and Zoe were about ten to 20 feet from the fatal stabbing. Zoe says she saw Masood stab PC Palmer in the heart, holding him with one hand while stabbing him with the other.

Dr Morris said: [Masood] was larger than the policeman and over- powered him before stabbing him around the neck and chest. He had his arm round him and was pumping him with his right arm.

Dr Morris added: During the attack I did not hear either the knifeman or the victim say anything. It remained weirdly silent.

I was frustrated because I knew he would die if they didnt help him. Thats why I said, Shoot the f***** as loud as I could. There was a significant delay between his being stabbed multiple times and the shots. (from) when I was yelling Shoot the f*****. I was frustrated at the delay as I was not sure anyone in the area was armed. There were no other policemen around the victim.

When I yelled for them to shoot him it was not obvious who could hear me. I moved out of the way behind the fence as the shots were fired. All hell broke loose and people started running around with semi-automatic assault weapons. I saw [Masood] on the ground.

The couples detailed account is borne out by a grainy internet video of the incident, including the gunshots. Dr Morris can be seen in front of the gates in a yellow jacket raising his arms in despair at the lack of help for PC Palmer. Four seconds after his gesture, the shots ring out. Another 20 seconds later, Mr Mackeys limousine exits. By this stage, Dr Morriss family are peering in through the railings at belated and fruitless attempts to save PC Palmer. The surgeon contemplated offering to help treat him, but decided against, saying: I was in shock too.

Despite criticising the slow police response, Dr Morris does not believe it cost the constable his life. Nor does he think PC Palmer would have survived if armed.

Throughout my conversations with the couple, they stressed their keenness to establish facts, while avoiding being accused of prejudging the police inquiry. Dr Liu urged: Please make it clear there was a lot of confusion and it all happened so quickly, it is impossible to be certain about some things.
The distraught boyfriend of the woman thrown into the Thames during the Westminster attack screamed in anguish down the phone to his mother in Romania during the desperate search for his missing girlfriend.

After being knocked down when Khalid Masoods car mounted the pavement, Andrei Burnaz got to his feet and staggered around the bridge looking for his architect girlfriend Andreea Cristea  unaware that she was 20ft below him, face-down in the water.

Rescuers pulled her out  unconscious but alive  and she remains seriously ill in a London hospital. The couple, both 29, were on holiday in England and Mr Burnaz was planning to propose later that day.

The distraught boyfriend of the woman thrown into the Thames during the Westminster attack screamed in anguish to his mother in Romania during the desperate search for Andreea Cristea

We rang him as soon as we heard the news, Mr Burnazs mother Violeta told The Mail on Sunday.

Speaking from her home in the Romanian coastal city of Constanta, she added: He was still on the bridge, screaming that he couldnt find Andreea, that he didnt know where she was.

Last night Mr Burnaz, who suffered a broken foot, was at Andreeas bedside.

I want him to come home but he wont be torn from her  he isnt emotionally able to return, said Mrs Burnaz tearfully.

He wont leave her there, and that is normal. Andreea is an extraordinary person and we are praying for them both.

Andrei Burnaz was on the phone to his mother Violeta after the attack. Mr Burnaz, who suffered a broken foot, was at Andreea's bedside last night

One of Mr Burnazs friends said he would be feeling destroyed by what happened.

Others described the couple as deeply in love and a perfect match for each other.

The friends revealed that they had been renovating a new apartment and were planning to move in together.

The couple have been together for more than a year and are said to be hard-working and driven.

One friend, Florin Razvan Macoci, 37, a personal trainer, said: I cannot explain how I felt when I heard the news. They were just a really normal couple and the chances of this happening to them were one in a million.

They were both young, free and doing very well in their careers. Andreea is a very nice girl and was in fantastic shape physically.

Rescuers pulled her out  unconscious but alive  and she remains seriously ill in a London hospital. Pictured, when Andreea was pulled from the Thames

It proves you just have to live your life and be afraid of nothing. It must be very hard for Andrei  he must be feeling destroyed. I have been trying to call him but he has not answered his phone.

He is hardly talking to anybody. I think he may be having problems mentally, even if he is physically better. One of our friends who has spoken to Andrei said he has been feeling very bad. Anybody in his place would be feeling damaged.

Andreea comes from an upmarket district of Constanta. Her father, who was a successful surgeon, died when she was young. She remained at the family home after her mother, retired pharmacist Elena, and elder sister, Magda, moved to Bucharest. Neighbours filled the local church at 6am the day after the attack to light candles and pray for her recovery.

Andreea comes from an upmarket district of Constanta. Her father, who was a successful surgeon, died when she was young. Pictured, well wishers lay tributes to the victims of the Westminster attack

Long-standing family friend Ion Sarbu, 70, said he felt like an uncle to Andreea, having known her all her life. He said: I was shocked when I heard the news that two Romanians had been involved but when I heard they were from Constanta I got goosebumps.

Then I found out it was Andreea, and I just could not believe it was real. It was very hard to imagine her suffering after we saw the pictures.

He added: We see Andrei here a lot. He is a lovely guy. They are deeply in love and happy  like they are a great fit for each other. He must now be extremely worried and suffering a lot. With my neighbours I lit a candle for both of them in the church and prayed.

Meanwhile, it emerged last night that the fourth victim to die as a result of Masoods rampage used to be the window cleaner at Sir Winston Churchills former country retreat. Pictured, police officers in forensic suits work outside the Houses of Parliament

Im sure Andreea will recover because she is a fighter. Her father was a fighter as well  and she is like him. We cannot wait for her to arrive home healthy.

Most of Andreeas family, including her mother and sister, are believed to have flown to England.

Meanwhile, it emerged last night that the fourth victim to die as a result of Masoods rampage used to be the window cleaner at Sir Winston Churchills former country retreat. Pensioner Leslie Rhodes, 75, worked regularly at Chartwell in Kent, said friend Janine Roebuck.

Ms Roebuck, 62, from Vauxhall in South London, said: Les was my much-loved window cleaner for 20 years.

You couldnt wish to meet a kinder, gentler man. He cleaned the windows of Chartwell for many years. It was something he was so proud of.

Mr Rhodes died on Thursday, after being mown down on the bridge by Masoods 4x4 hire car.

Neighbours left flowers by the door of his flat yesterday, describing him as a proper gentleman

He suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and a serious head injury, and was taken to Kings College Hospital in Denmark Hill, South London.

Michael and Christine Carney, the victims next-door neighbours in Clapham Common, South London, went to be with him after doctors told them there was no hope for Mr Rhodes, who was in a coma. As doctors switched off his life support machine, Mr and Mrs Carney played his favourite song, Queens These Are The Days Of Our Lives.

Their daughter Rachel ODonovan, 47, who was also present, said: Les was a very private man but would do anything for anyone. He was an old-school gentleman with a big heart. He was still up washing windows at 75 and rode a push-bike. He still had years left in him.

Ten people injured in Wednesdays attack remain in hospitals across the capital. As well as Andreea they include PC Kris Aves, 35, who has experienced life changing injuries

Mr Rhodes had been returning from a hospital appointment to treat glaucoma when he was hit.

Neighbours left flowers by the door of his flat yesterday, describing him as a proper gentleman. A JustGiving page in tribute to Mr Rhodes was being set up last night to raise funds for Kings College Hospitals Critical Care Unit, where he died.

Ten people injured in Wednesdays attack remain in hospitals across the capital.

As well as Andreea they include PC Kris Aves, 35, who has experienced life changing injuries, and American Melissa Cochran, 46, whose husband Kurt, 54, was one of the four people killed.

More than 50 people from at least 13 countries were injured in the attack.
A Fox News commentator known for her avowedly pro-Trump views called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to step down for the Republican health care debacle, hours after the President himself urged his Twitter followers to watch the show.

Jeanine Pirro, the right-leaning cable channel's legal analyst and former judge and prosecutor, began her weekly show on Saturday evening with a 10-minute monologue blasting Ryan for 'complete and total failure' in getting Republican House members to support the repeal of Obamacare.

Pirro said Ryan must shoulder the blame, not President Donald Trump, because the Wisconsin congressman has more experience in politics than 'the outsider' Trump.

'How could you possibly misjudge this,' an angry Pirro said of Ryan.

'I certainly have not spoken to the president about any of this, but I can only imagine that he and his aides took on healthcare because they believed you had his back, and you didn't! They didn't even test the waters.'

Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News commentator known for her avowedly pro-Trump views, called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to step down on Saturday for the Republican health care debacle

Pirro said Ryan must shoulder the blame, not President Donald Trump, because the Wisconsin congressman has more experience in politics than 'the outsider' Trump

Ryan is seen above on the left answering questions at press conference at the US Capitol after the Republican health care bill was pulled from the floor of the House on Friday. Pirro said on her Fox News show on Saturday that Ryan 'didn't have President Donald Trump's (right) back'

Pirro said that Ryan 'has got to go' because

'The American people won't forget this and neither should the president,' she said.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump tweeted a teaser, urging his Twitter followers to watch Pirro's show. It had been suggested the show may air information about the Obama administration's alleged spying on his campaign.

That did not happen.

President Donald Trump, fresh off of his failure to convince Republicans in the House to pass a repeal of Obamacare, plugged the Justice with Judge Jenine Pirro show, which airs weekly on Saturday at 9pm

Trump was likely plugging an earlier plug of Pirro's show by Fox & Friends, which promised 'stunning new details' on Trump's wiretapping claims, according to Business Insider reported Oliver Darcy

Pirro denied on the air that she spoke with the president before the show. Nonetheless, her anti-Ryan rant could fuel speculation that Trump is asking his close associates who appear on the sympathetic Fox News channel to make statements that reflect the president's thinking.

Publicly, Trump refused to blame Ryan for the failure of the American Health Care Act.

The president praised the House speaker for 'working very, very hard.'

But privately aides to the president did blame Ryan, according to Bloomberg.

Trump's motorcade was seen driving down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington on Saturday night

The president was apparently headed to the Trump International Hotel (seen on the right), where he was set to have dinner

Trump's tweet plugging Pirro's show on Saturday was unusual given that Trump on Saturday tweeted about what he believes is the imminent 'explosion' of Obamacare.

But a reporter for Business Insider noted that Trump was likely plugging an earlier plug of Pirro's show by Fox & Friends, which promised 'stunning new details' on Trump's wiretapping claims.

Trump has often cited Fox News and its commentators as his preferred sources of information - most famously when his White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, noted that Judge Andrew Napolitano claimed that British intelligence helped Obama spy on Trump.

That claim has been denied, and Fox News acknowledged it had no information to support Napolitano's claim. Napolitano was pulled off the air by the network.

Pirro is a former judge and district attorney of Westchester County, New York.

She also made unsuccessful bids to run for the Senate and New York state attorney general as a Republican.

Pirro (seen left at Trump Tower on November 17) is an avid supporter of Trump (right) and was rumored to be in line for a cabinet position during the transition. Trump is apparently hoping that Pirro will unearth revelations to support claims that he was spied on by Barack Obama

Pirro is an avid supporter of Trump and was rumored to be in line for a cabinet position during the transition.

Trump may have been hoping that Pirro would unearth new revelations to support claims that he was spied on by the Obama administration.

The president initially made the allegation on March 4, when he tweeted: 'Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!'

Thus far, the president has provided no evidence to substantiate the allegation, which is explosive given that it is illegal for a sitting president to order a wiretap on a US citizen.

Thus far, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers say there is no evidence to support the claim.

The FBI and both current and former heads of US intelligence also say the allegation has no merit.

But Trump and his supporters seized on a revelation by House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes, a California Republican, who said earlier this week that the Obama administration may have 'incidentally' collected communications by Trump team members as part of a legal investigation.

But Nunes reversed himself on Friday, according to NBC News, saying that he is not certain that Trump and his aides were 'monitored' by US intelligence.

Nunes has not given specific evidence to support his earlier claim.
Residents are battening down the hatches as a cyclone brewing off far north Queensland coast could intensify into a category 5.

Tropical Cyclone Debbie is expected to pick up pace on Sunday before becoming Category 3 by the afternoon - as the system moves towards Ayr.

The Bureau of Meteorology said Debbie is expected to cross the state's north coast early on Tuesday morning as a category 4 cyclone, bringing wind gusts of up to 260km/h.

Schools between Ayr and Proserpine will be closed from Monday as residents are urged to prepare their properties on Sunday and stock up on food to last three days.

'Today is the day to finalise your preparations. Tomorrow will be too late. So the decisions need to be made today,' Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said.

Meanwhile, supermarket shelves have been cleared as locals lined up for hours at the rubbish tip to get rid of garbage and loose debris at their property.

Meteorologists have not ruled out the possibility the storm could develop into an 'extremely dangerous' Category 5 - as the state braces for its first tropical cyclone in two years.

Scroll down for video

Near empty supermarket shelves are seen as Townsville residents prepare for Cyclone Debbie

Windows are boarded up with plywood for protection at a funeral home ahead of the cyclone

Townsville residents are filling up sandbags in preparation for the cyclone on Sunday

TROPICAL CYCLONE CATEGORY SYSTEM CATEGORY 5 (severe tropical cyclone) Extremely dangerous with widespread destruction. A Category 5 cyclone's strongest winds are VERY DESTRUCTIVE winds with typical gusts over open flat land of more than 280 km/h. These winds correspond to the highest category on the Beaufort scale, Beaufort 12 (Hurricane). CATEGORY 4 (severe tropical cyclone) Significant roofing loss and structural damage. Many caravans destroyed and blown away. Dangerous airborne debris. Widespread power failures. A Category 4 cyclone's strongest winds are VERY DESTRUCTIVE winds with typical gusts over open flat land of 225 - 279 km/h. These winds correspond to the highest category on the Beaufort scale, Beaufort 12 (Hurricane). CATEGORY 3 (severe tropical cyclone) Some roof and structural damage. Some caravans destroyed. Power failures likely. A Category 3 cyclone's strongest winds are VERY DESTRUCTIVE winds with typical gusts over open flat land of 165 - 224 km/h. These winds correspond to the highest category on the Beaufort scale, Beaufort 12 (Hurricane). Advertisement

But despite severe weather warnings, up 15 backpackers are planning to head north, The Brisbane Times reported.

A staff member at a backpackers, who wished to remain anonymous, said the backpackers were not convinced about the coming cyclone.

'The backpackers don't believe it,' she said.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has urged people not to wait until Sunday night or Monday to prepare because it could 'be too late'.

'This is the time that you should now be preparing,' she said.

'Make sure that properties are secured, gutters are cleaned. Use this time to make sure that you have your emergency kits ready.'

The weather bureau has declared the areas between St Lawrence and Ayr, including Bowen, Mackay, and the Whitsunday Islands, a 'warning zone'.

The BoM predicts the cyclone to make landfall between Cardwell and Hamilton Island either on Monday night or Tuesday morning.

BoM meteorologist Andrea Peace said a Category 4 would cause 'significant structural damage, dangerous airborne debris and also power failures'.

Tropical Cyclone Debbie is expected to pick up pace on Sunday before becoming Category 3 by the afternoon

The main entrance of a funeral home has been guarded with several sandbags amid cyclone

Sandbags are seen in the back of a ute in preparation for Cyclone Debbie on Sunday

The window of a funeral home in Townsville has been boarded up with plywood for protection

Queensland residents have cleared out shelves at supermarkets amid tropical cyclone Debbie

A Townsville Woolworths cleared of bottled water in preparation for cyclone Debbie

Queensland's first tropical cylone in two years is threatening to deliver a major impact on the state's northern coast (pictured: Hinchinbrook Channel in Far North Queensland)

Ms Peace said heavy rain in excess of 200mm per day was expected to develop on Sunday along the far north and central Queensland coast, as well as in adjacent inland areas.

'Abnormally high tides are also expected to occur between at least Lucinda and Mackay as the cyclone approaches the coast,' she said.

'Large waves may also develop along the beachfront so coastal inundation is likely and those highest waves will be on the southern side of the cyclone.'

A cyclone watch zone for residents living between Ayr and St Lawrence - including Bowen, Mackay and the Whitsunday Islands - remains in place.

A young family working together to fill their sandbags in preparation for Cyclone Debbie

Residents are stocking up with sandbags to protect them home as the cyclone approaches

Dark clouds fill the sky above Townsville as Cyclone Debbie is set to pick up pace on Sunday

A young girl and boy look out to sea as residents prepare and wait for Cyclone Debbie

Empty supermarket shelves are seen as residents prepare for the cyclone on Sunday

Queensland residents have cleared out shelves at supermarkets amid tropical cyclone Debbie while forecasters have not ruled out the possibility the storm could develop into Category 5

A decision about school closures will be made on Sunday following the second meeting of the Queensland Disaster Management Committee.

Coordination centres in Cairns, Innisfail, Townsville and Mackay have also been activated.

The Queensland Fire and Emergency Services have deployed 50 staff from its Disaster Assistance and Response Team to Cairns to bolster local crews.

Canadians Tom and Laura Britton were among dozens of people queuing at the Hertz car hire centre on Sunday desperately trying to secure the last pair of wheels out of town.

The couple were yachting around the Whitsundays but were forced to return to the mainland on Saturday.

Their Jetstar flight out of Proserpine Airport was scheduled for Monday morning, but has been cancelled and the couple now hope to drive to Brisbane to fly onwards to Melbourne form there.

Near empty supermarket shelves are seen as Townsville residents prepare for Cyclone Debbie

A Townsville resident puts sandbags in the back of his ute in preparation for Cyclone Debbie

Residents have been urged to plan ahead as Cyclone Debbie could increase to a Category Four by the time it hits the north Queensland Coast on Tuesday

'It's an interesting turn of events,' Mrs Britton said.

'We really enjoyed being on the boat so we are a little bummed.'

Local businesswoman Tracey Lord was one of the first people through the door at Woolworths as the doors opened on Sunday.

Ms Lord said Debbie would be her 28th cyclone but the worst she had experienced was a Category 4.

She said her last minute supplies were for her food truck Cosmos within which she planned to hit the street once she got the all clear.

'We've got generators ready,' Ms Lord said.

'If we lose power we will be able to feed people.'

Despite the impending danger, a handful of backpackers are still heading north to Townsville and Cairns.

A local tour operator, who asked not to be named, said they did not appreciate the risk.

A cyclone brewing off far north Queensland coast could intensify into a Category 5 (pictured: Whitehaven Beach along Whitsunday Island)
Prince Davit (pictured) who claims to be the heir to the Georgian throne and a member of the oldest royal dynasty in Europe, 'blagged' his way into Kensington Palace and presented a gift to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester on behalf of the Queen

It is  on the face of it  a generous gift from one great royal house to another. But the presentation of a dazzling golden ceremonial chain to the Queen has emerged as an unprecedented breach of centuries of protocol, sparking concerns among courtiers.

The gift was presented not by a foreign head of state  as tradition dictates  but by Crown Prince Davit, a man who lays claim to the throne of Georgia. The nation has not had its own monarch since 1810, and his legitimacy is disputed by a rival Crown Prince.

Prince Davit visited Kensington Palace earlier this month to hand over the gift  formally called he Grand Collar of the Eagle of Georgia and the Seamless Tunic of Our Lord Jesus Christ  to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, who accepted it on behalf of the Queen.

Buckingham Palace and the Foreign Office insisted there was nothing irregular about the award, but one insider said it was extraordinary to break with tradition, and eminent historian Hugo Vickers spoke of his concern.

Prince Davit describes himself as rightful heir to the throne of Georgia and a member of the oldest royal dynasty in Europe, dating back to the Biblical King David.

He is also sovereign head and grand master of the royal order of chivalry, from which the Grand Collar comes. The order is said to date from the 13th Century, but was revived only in 1939 by Prince Davits grandfather.

Davit, who has been romantically linked to Playboy model and erotic TV host Shorena Begashvili, has bestowed his honours to scores of pretenders to thrones across Europe, as well as members of the aristocracy and religious figures. He even awarded it to former NCP car parks chairman Sir Donald Gosling.

But Davits claim to his title has been disputed by Prince Nugzar, who claims Davits ancestors were servants not rulers and stated that handing out orders damaged the good name of Georgian royalty. Mr Vickers said: As far as I know, the Queen normally only accepts orders and decorations from heads of state, be it a king or a president, and it is usually in connection with a visit.

Mr Vickers said that, as he was unaware of any planned trip by the Queen to Georgia, I cant see any reason for this order to be given.

He also warned that it could trigger an avalanche of royal pretenders wishing to adorn the Queen.

The presentation of a dazzling golden ceremonial chain to the Queen has emerged as an unprecedented breach of centuries of protocol as he is not an official head of state - while Davits claim to his title has been disputed by Prince Nugzar, who claims Davits ancestors were servants not rulers

There are many reasons for honouring the Queen but usually these people are doing it for their purposes, not her purposes. I would say certainly there would be cause for a certain amount of concern about all this. I dont think it is of huge importance, but unless there is very good reason why she should accept it I think it is a shame.

Buckingham Palace said the award was received following consultation with the Foreign Office, which added it was received in line with normal process and supported by the Georgian government.

A spokesman added: The offer was accepted in the spirit of the good relations between two close allies.
The terror attack in Westminster was over in just 82 seconds, Scotland Yard revealed last night.

In that time, crazed Islamist Khalid Masood killed three pedestrians and injured dozens more, crashed his car, ran through the gates into Parliament and stabbed a brave policemen to death before being shot dead by an armed officer.

The Metropolitan Police released the first detailed timings of Wednesdays atrocity after piecing them together from eyewitness accounts, CCTV footage and 999 calls  but they admitted they are still trying to establish if the killer had accomplices.

Gunned down: Police surround Khalid Masood moments after he was shot

It is believed Masood was using the WhatsApp messaging service on his mobile phone seconds before he struck, strengthening suspicions he was not a lone wolf.

Last night Mahoods girlfriend, 39-year-old Rohey Hydara, was told she faces no further action after being released on bail and only one of the 11 people arrested in the wake of the attack remains in custody.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Masood, 52, had links to Britains most notorious Islamist group, the banned Al-Muhajiroun, and worshipped at a mosque frequented by its leader Anjem Choudary, who is now in jail for inciting support for Islamic State.

This newspaper has also established that police found a document in his pocket that led them to the Birmingham bedsit where he was holed up before the attack.

In a statement last night, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the Senior National Coordinator for UK Counter Terrorism Policing, said: We still believe that Masood acted alone on the day and there is no information or intelligence to suggest there are further attacks planned.

'Nevertheless, we are determined to understand if Masood was a lone actor inspired by terrorist propaganda or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him.

Impact scene: A passerby injured where Masood crashed his car is treated by paramedics

The timings revealed by the Met show that Masood, driving a grey Hyundai 4x4, mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge at 14:40:08 on Wednesday. He careered into bystanders on Bridge Street and just 30 seconds later smashed the hired car into the perimeter fence of the Palace of Westminster.

Seconds later the first calls were made to the emergency services as Muslim convert Masood abandoned the car, sprinted through the open Carriage Gates and fatally wounded PC Keith Palmer even though he was wearing a stab vest. By 14:41:30 the terrorist had been gunned down by an armed officer.

Attack on Westminster timeline 14:40:08 - Khalid Masood begins the attack crashing into pedestrians along Westminster Bridge footpath. 14:40:38 - Masood crashes car into the perimeter fence at the Palace of Westminster 14:40:51 - Masood exits his vehicle and runs toward the Palace of Westminster 14:40:59 - First 999 call received by police 14:41:30 - Masood is shot by police inside the grounds of the Palace of Westminster Advertisement

In the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in Britain since 7/7, it emerged that Masood had been born Adrian Russell Elms to an unmarried teenage single mother and had drifted into drugs and crime while still a teenager.

After being imprisoned for violence, it is believed he converted to Islam while in jail and may have become more hardline after working in Saudi Arabia as an English teacher.

But today it can be revealed that he was investigated by MI5 for alleged links to Al-Muhajiroun (ALM). One source said the security services were alerted to Masood in the aftermath of the 2005 terror attacks on London because he was an associate of a leading figure in ALM later jailed for preparing acts of terrorism.

Another source said Masood was photographed by the security services after he attended meetings hosted by Choudary.

MI5 opened a file on him and a source said: For us it was like, whos the new guy on the block? He must be pretty well connected.

But following more surveillance, he was not considered to be a significant suspect.

Pictured: Masood is treated by paramedics after he was shot by police outside Parliament

Neighbours say he used to worship at the Al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton, East London, which has been linked to former members of ALM.

The mosque practises a hardline brand of Islam known as Wahhabism that is considered a conveyor belt to terrorism. Choudary used to worship there, as did Trevor Brooks, who adopted the Islamic name Abu Izzadeen.

Brooks was jailed last year for two years for flouting a travel ban as he tried to make his way to fight in Syria, and was wrongly suspected at first of being the Westminster killer.

Mosque Link: Hate preacher Choudary

A recent study showed that since 2000, 23 out of 51 terrorist plots foiled by British police have been linked to ALM.

Last night the owner of a corner shop close to Masoods last known address told how police had tracked it down.

Raviyar Sedighi, 36, who owns Hagley Supermarket two doors down from Masoods bedsit in Birmingham, said a plain-clothed policeman told him on Thursday morning that the terrorist had been found with a document on him with the address of the property on it.

He also told Mr Sedighi that his mobile phone was linked to the property.

Mr Sedighi described keen bodybuilder Masood as a normal customer, adding: He bought Red Bull, cashew nuts, pistachios and almonds. He paid cash.

He said he sometimes wore Islamic dress but on other occasions would wear trousers and a shirt.

Additional reporting by Nick Craven, Mark Nicol and Simon Murphy.
Sydney has been named the cocaine capital of Australia in a groundbreaking report that analysed raw sewage to reveal shocking drug trends across the country.

Hillbilly heroin and the deadly opioid fentanyl were at 'concerning' levels of use, while alcohol and tobacco consumption was highest in the Northern Territory.

The report also revealed the extent of ice use across the country, particularly in rural cities, with the nation consuming on average one hit of the drug per 28 people.

Australia ranked second in the world for methamphetamine use - behind only Slovakia - based on data available from comparable sewage testing.

Sydney has been named the cocaine capital of Australia in a groundbreaking report

The report analysed raw sewage to reveal shocking drug trends across the country

The report took samples from 51 sewage treatment plants across Australia to get a snapshot of over half the population and was released on Sunday morning.

It was compiled by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) as part of a federal government initiative to tackle the growing problem of drug abuse.

Sydney snorted double the amount of cocaine of any other capital city, equating to 30 cocaine hits a day per 1000 people compared to the national average of just three per 1000.

'Cocaine consumption in capital city sites in New South Wales dominated the national landscape, being almost double the next highest region in terms of doses consumed per day,' the report said.

MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy or molly, was 'consistently low across the country compared to methylamphetamine.'

Australia ranked second in the world for methamphetamine use - behind only Slovakia

The report revealed ice use in Western Australia was at a 'historic high', with one undisclosed regional sewage site testing one hit of the drug per 11 people a day (AFP drug bust of MDMA and crystal meth in 2014 pictured)

The report revealed ice use in Western Australia was at a 'historic high', with one undisclosed regional sewage site testing one hit of the drug per 11 people a day.

'From an international perspective, methylamphetamine levels in Australia rank high compared to countries in Europe where waste-water analysis is routinely conducted,' the report said.

ACIC chief executive Chris Dawson said the report would help police tackle the nation's 'scourge of ice.'

'The results provide us with the greatest ever insight into what drugs are being consumed and where, with the covert testing covering 58 per cent of Australia's population  about 14 million people,' he told the Herald Sun.
A depraved guide to stabbing police and military personnel was disseminated by Islamic State three months ago  and is still available on the internet.

It was issued to potential lone wolf terrorists by the terror groups recruiters based in Syria, and could well have been seen by Khalid Masood in the weeks before he planned his attack.

Sickeningly, the image offers detailed instructions for where to stab someone if they are wearing body armour.

A guide to stabbing police and military personnel was released by Islamic State three months ago and was issued to potential 'lone wolf' terrorists by recruiters based in Syria

Scotland Yard revealed last night that PC Keith Palmer was wearing a protective vest at the time of the attack.

It declined to go into any detail about his wounds, or confirm the provisional cause of death, but said a pathologist could find no obvious evidence of damage or penetration to the vest.

The video originally appeared on the Telegram messaging service, increasingly favoured by extremist groups.

Initially, it was available to 250 private members, many of whom are IS recruiters, who then spread it on social media, where it has been seen by thousands. It remains on a website easily accessible on the open web.

Last week it emerged that guides to mounting a car terror attack were also available on Google and Twitter.

The vile manuals remained online despite widespread warnings that UK jihadis use them for training. Fanatics are urged to deploy large vehicles as tools of war before going on a stabbing rampage  the template for last Wednesdays atrocity in Westminster.

The video originally appeared on the Telegram messaging service, increasingly favoured by extremist groups and was initially available to 250 private members

The details came days after Boris Johnson accused social media sites of inciting terrorism.

It has also emerged that Google is allowing hate preachers to post extremist videos on YouTube, including some calling on British Muslims to martyr themselves.

They are freely available on Googles video platform and have attracted tens of thousands of views.
The Government last night faced new demands to crack down on jihadis returning from Syria in the wake of the Westminster attack.

Although there is no suggestion that British-born Muslim convert Khalid Masood travelled to Syria to fight for Islamic State, thousands of home-grown jihadis have  and an estimated 400 have returned to UK.

With IS rapidly losing ground in Syria and Iraq, the number of British returnees is likely to swell further, raising the question of what should be done about them.

An estimated 400 jihadis have returned to the UK after travelling to Syria to fight for Islamic State. Pictured, extremist Abu Rayah was twice allowed to leave the UK for Europe

Of the 400 who have come back, figures released last year showed only 54 individuals had been prosecuted. A further 30 faced charges.

A Mail on Sunday investigation discovered a number of returned jihadis roaming free on the streets of Britain.

One solution is wider use of Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs), which involve electronic tagging and can include restrictions on movement, financial activity and communication.

Currently, there are only seven in operation.

Terrorism expert Professor Anthony Glees said last weeks attack demonstrated all too clearly the scale of threat which a lone man can pose, let alone hundreds.

Prof Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, said: These people need to be taken seriously.

While internment wouldnt be acceptable, we need to use more TPIMs.

Of the estimated 400 who have returned, only 54 individuals have been prosecuted and a further 30 face charges. Pictured left, Gianluca Tomaselli, 27, joined an IS sub-group but by 2016 was working as a car park attendant in east London. Pictured right, Maarg Kahsay was never charged for going to Syria

Among the cases, The Mail on Sunday has highlighted:

Maarg Kahsay, from North London, spent months in Syria in 2014, after having fled a rape trial while on bail. He returned and was acquitted of the rape charge, but has never been charged with going to Syria. His name was on IS files obtained by the MoS.

Gianluca Tomaselli, 27, joined an IS sub-group called Rayat Al Tawhid, led by British jihadis in Syria. He fled there in 2013, and returned two years later. By 2016, he wasfound to be working as a car park attendant at Whipps Cross Hospital in East London.

Waheed Ahmed, 22, a Labour councillors son, was arrested with nine family members in Turkey, heading for Syria. The family returned and no one was charged.
Advertisement

Things dont get much more Ernest Hemingway than this. Im standing in the back of a fishing boat, chugging around the island of Alphonse in the Seychelles.

I have just heard the reel on my fishing rod click round one notch. I clip the rod into my holster and start psyching up for the man-versus-fish struggle ahead.

It is a mighty beast. Our fishing guide, Josh, reckons it is a wahoo weighing up to 30lb, and my first thought is: I wish I hadnt seen Jaws.

Easy does it: At only three-and-a-half miles around, Alphonse Island is simple for visitors to navigate - and totally car-free

We have no intention of keeping the great fish  but we have to reel it in, in order to release it.

After ten minutes of intense effort  during which I feel like The Old Mant battling against The Sea  I am sent flying on to my back as the fish snaps my line and makes a dash for it. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory and all that.

Alphonse has long been a haven for fishermen, but now its only hotel, known simply as Alphonse Island, caters just as well for families. After a huge refurbishment it has 21 freshly redecorated beach bungalows and five beach suites.

It is a sparsely populated island; the census in 2014 recorded a population of just 82, most of whom work at the hotel.

There are no shops  everything revolves around Alphonse Island, which offers a wealth of activities.

You can snorkel across a coral reef with a Finding Nemo-esque array of fish, kayak in a glass-bottomed boat, scuba-dive, whale-watch, enjoy a variety of nature walks and take a Flats Lunch, served to you ankle-deep in warm water on a deserted sand-bar.

Home alone: James stayed at the island's only hotel - which has 21 freshly redecorated beach bungalows and five beach suites

You cant help coming nose to snout with nature. Fifty giant tortoises wander freely. Only one, called Grumpy Ivan, is aggressive.

I am disturbed one night by a strange beating sound. I rush down to the beach, where I am met by a giant hawksbill turtle striking her fins against the sand as she gives birth to around 150 eggs on the beach outside my bungalow. If she looks shocked, I look awed.

On another day, we take a walk around the uninhabited neighbouring island of St Francois and learn that after mating, the female palm spider habitually eats the male.

Guests are given a bike for pootling around the palm-tree-fringed orbital pathway

We travel there on Air Seychelles from London via Paris, landing first in the Seychelles capital of Victoria, where we overnight in the Eden Bleu, an airy new hotel overlooking a marina full of gleaming super-yachts. Then we fly in a 14-seat propeller plane for an hour to Alphonse.

There are no cars on the island  circumference just 3.42 miles. Guests are given a bike for pootling around the palm-tree-fringed orbital pathway.

Every evening, the bar at the Alphonse Island is crammed with fisherfolk, arms open wide to indicate the size of the ones that got away.

I am one of them. Lacking a mobile signal, Alphonse is ideal for a digital detox. It would suit anyone from rugged anglers to romantic honeymooners.
The bright white speck on the deserted beach below doesnt look like a human. But it is, albeit a naked one. The blackness of the volcanic sand on which hes frolicking makes him stand out.

No one seems bothered. But, then, La Palma has long been one of the Canaries quirkier islands.

This is evident at the observation point near the town of Tijarafe, where an enormous statue celebrates the dexterity of shepherds who once navigated La Palmas volcanic valleys and forested ravines on foot.

Away from the crowds: La Palma offers a quieter take on the Canaries than other islands

They did this by lowering 10ft poles over steep drops before sliding down, fireman-style, or wedging poles against boulders and shimmying up.

The practice, known as salto del pastor (or shepherds leap), still happens at inter-island competitions.

La Palma is the size of Anglesey, but with two Ben Nevises on top, explains a local. But its the Caribbean which comes to mind.

The water is clear, the beaches wide and empty. The sand might be black, but thats not a bad thing. Its partly why the island, home to just under 100,000 people, hasnt been taken over by the sun-lounging masses  although easyJets new Gatwick to La Palma route could see it become a hotspot.

The tourist board proudly describes it as a slow island, but I suspect locals reacted quickly when the Teneguia volcano erupted in 1971.

We look down on its blackened interior as we wander around the pencil-thin rim of the nearby San Antonio caldera, part of the crater-studded Cumbre Vieja ridge.

Acquired taste: Its black sand beaches are one reason La Palma is not overrun with tourists

La Palma is popular with hikers, with a vast number of well-marked trails.

Then, there are dolphin-watching excursions, when we gawp at colourful fish through the boats glass floor before the dolphins burst out of the water.

Back at our hotel, the Hacienda San Jorge, the manager produces a piece of Mars which landed after a meteorite hit the red planet and spat chunks of rock towards Earth.

Soon I hope to buy a bit of the Moon, he says. But itll take a while.

Not a problem. La Palma, shaped by thousands of years of volcanic activity, is a reminder that good things come to those who wait.
Donald Trump threatened to cause a diplomatic rift with China when he received a phone call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen shortly after his election victory.

And if the new US President went a step further and decided to visit the island  which China claims as its own territory  he would find a sultry, welcoming place.

For a start it has the perfect place for him to stay  the Grand Hotel in the capital Taipei is even more ostentatious than the Presidents own Trump Tower.

According to Lesley, the Grand Hotel in the capital Taipei (pictured) is even more ostentatious than the Presidents own Trump Tower

Founded by Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the glamorous wife of the Nationalist leader who fled China in 1949, the hotel boasts an ornate golden archway, a lobby three storeys high, a fountain with a golden dragon spouting water, musicians playing Chinese music, and a staircase designed for Hollywood stars to sweep down.

Trump would enjoy the displays of photographs of fellow leaders who have stayed there, from Eisenhower and the Shah of Iran to Thatcher, Nixon and Mandela.

From his balcony he could admire the bamboo-shaped 101-storey-high Taipei 101, once the worlds tallest building.

In Taipei he could also feast his eyes on the treasures of the Palace Museum, the greatest collection of Chinese art in the world, with priceless jade carvings and 5,000-year-old bronzes liberated from the Forbidden City in Beijing.

If Trump and First Lady Melania fancy some pampering, they could take the presidential limousine to the hot springs of Xinbeitou (30 minutes by subway from Taipei) to enjoy a soak in steaming sulphur-filled waters.

Trump will feel at home at beautiful Sun Moon Lake, where Chiang Kai-shek entertained foreign leaders while plotting his takeover of mainland China in the 1920s.

The Kaitai Matzu Temple, just one of the many cultural delights on offer in Tainan, Taiwans southern city

From here he could take the presidential limo to Taroko Gorge to gaze up at the towering cliffs and green hills of the east coast, and find out why Portuguese sailors named Taiwan Ilha Formosa  the Beautiful Isle.

But it might be more his style to glide on Taiwans smooth high-speed railway down to the southernmost tip where he can top up his tan on some of the best  and least crowded  beaches in the world.

He could then end his visit at the temples swarming with dragons and bearded gods in Tainan, Taiwans southern city.

And while at the venerable Confucian temple there, he might ponder the words that embody the Confucian philosophy: With great power comes great responsibility.
'I dont have time to peel oranges in London, an English solicitor told me over breakfast beside the Mediterranean.

And I knew what she meant  life can feel so hectic at times. Thats why Id given myself a week to discover Sicily with my wife Katrin and son Finn without the need to rush.

On our first morning we didnt want to venture any further than the sunny balcony at our hotel in the resort of Giardini Naxos.

Mount Etna, located on the island of Sicily, is Europes highest active volcano and one of the liveliest

In Sicily one must adopt a relaxed attitude to time: buses are almost always late, trains often cancelled, and ancient sites closed for reasons best known to the gods.

Days can slip away unnoticed thanks to the islanders love of the sweet life.

Giardini Naxos, south of Taormina on the west coast, was where Sicily began, for us and the ancient Greeks. They had landed in the wide bay, creating the islands first timeless paradise.

Romans, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards followed. Like them, I also lost my heart to its dark-leaved, many-fruited lemon groves, its exuberant and colourful cuisine, and to its resplendent living history.

You just have to dig with your nails to find amazing things here, said Caterina Valentino, owner of the Palladio Hotel in Giardini Naxos.

Despite our late arrival, she had welcomed us with a spread of raw tuna, smoked swordfish, and orange and fennel salad with pistachios.

Syracuse, the islands most handsome town, with its ceramic shops and white marble piazzas

Now she wanted to entice us off the balcony for a tour of Sicily, including a stop-off at a fishmonger to choose the catch of the day and a visit to her beloved Naxos Archaeological Park.

Caterina also told us of her determination to preserve the best of Sicily, by resisting a mafia plan to build a concrete shopping centre at Giardini Naxoss ancient harbour, and by refining her hotel.

Every night in her superb restaurant, Cucina del Palladio, her chefs prove her commitment to the islands heritage by conjuring up Sicilian banquets: langoustines au gratin, Palamita tuna tartare with capers, ricotta ravioli with wild fennel pesto, ceviche of squid and baked bream on Sicilian ceramic platters dotted with real  and painted  tomatoes.

No matter where you start a visit in Sicily youll always find good people, good food and a warm welcome, said Caterina. So why not come back at the end of your week for my special Etna risotto?

The glorious view from the Palladio Hotel in Giardini Naxos, where Rory was served a succession of delicious Sicilian dishes

How could we say no?

But first we had to check out the real thing.

Etna is Europes highest active volcano and one of the liveliest. Over the past few weeks she has put on a fiery show, launching lava fountains and an ash plume hundreds of feet into the air, sending a BBC camera crew running for their lives, and forcing nearby Catania airport to close. Her next major eruption could happen at any time.

Etna is a woman, said Lara Mansfeld, of Etna Trekking, an official volcano guide. She is beautiful and fertile. You are drawn to her. You want to touch her. But like any lady she can be capricious. You must never take her for granted. For when you do, shell erupt  and change everything.

Together we walked up the north flank of the mountain, surrounded by soot-black pumice mottled with spreading clumps of low cactus and bone-white birch trees. Overhead, smoke rose from one of the four active summit craters.

Next we made tracks for Palermo for its baroque palazzos and cultural gems such as the Cappella Palatina  a masterpiece of Norman art  Monreale Cathedral, and the Capuchin catacombs.

The Cappella Palatina  a masterpiece of Norman art  located in the Palazzo Reale in Palermo

With only a few days left, we could fit in neither Erice, a town of sweeping sea views, nor Agrigentos Valley of Temples.

Even the fishing villages of Punta Secca and Sampieri, which feature in BBC4s Italian crime drama Inspector Montalbano, sadly had to go by the wayside.

Instead we focused on Syracuse, the islands most handsome town, with its ceramic shops and white marble piazzas. The Greek theatre dates from the time when Syracuse was one of the worlds major cities.

Finally, we headed back to Giardini Naxos to sample Caterinas Etna risotto  a squid-ink volcano exploding with tomato sauce lava and dotted with white flecks of ricotta.

It was unforgettable and never to be taken for granted  just like Etna itself.
She gave an impassioned plea for Australia to help her on last week's episode of Sunday night, amid domestic violence allegations with her French partner.

And after the emotional interview, Australian actress Melissa George received mixed reception from fans on social media.

Now, relationship expert Nikki Goldstein has weighed in on the situation, claiming that there are three lenses members of the public may be seeing her through.

Sexologist: Relationship expert Nikki Goldstein has weighed in on Melissa's situation, claiming that there are three lenses members of the public may be seeing her through

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the sexologist said the first way people may be approaching the actor is by thinking her a 'tall poppy'.

'The ones that snub off Australia because they feel like they could never make it,' she clarified.

She said that these celebrities often 'make it more difficult for themselves,' because of their comments about their home country.

Slammed for her 'hypocrisy': Australian actress Melissa George received mixed reception from fans on social media after her interview on Sunday Night

'Hollywood relationships are not perfect': Nikki pointed out that people may be looking at Melissa under lenses like 'privilege'

The second lens people may view Melissa through according to Nikki, was one of privilege, with members of the public less likely to sympathise with her due to her wealth.

'She is an actress living in France with a very wealthy guy. It's like poor little rich girl,' she said.

'If she was struggling would we give her more pity?'

'It seems as though we have accepted domestic violence for the lower socio-economic, but don't take it as seriously for the wealthy.'

Tall poppy syndrome: Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Nikki said the first way people may be approaching the actor is by thinking her a 'tall poppy'

Privilege: The relationship expert said the second lens people may view Melissa through was one of privilege, with members of the public less likely to sympathise with her due to her wealth

Describing the last way people may be reacting to Melissa's situation, the relationship expert focused on idealising the lives of celebrity couples.

'Hollywood relationships are not perfect and should not be our basis for role model,' Nikki said.

'We tend to look up to Hollywood stars and their lives, but really a lot of it is just as fake as their movies.'

'Did Melissa George post any mushy series with her husband whilst this was going on, or close to it?'

Celebrities as role-models: Describing the last way people may be reacting to Melissa's situation, the sexologist focused on idealising the lives of celebrity couples

Revealing: During the interview Ms George said she had marks around her wrists, bruising on her back (right) and hip (left), a broken inner lip and a huge lump above her eye as a result of the alleged attack

The comments come after some social media users slammed the Hunted star for what they see as her 'hypocrisy' in asking Australia to help her despite remarks she had previously made about not needing recognition from her country.

The quote in question came after the star was asked about her role on Home And Away role in an interview on Sunrise five years ago.

Speaking with journalist Christine Sams after the interview, Melissa infamously said: 'I'd rather be having a croissant and a little espresso in Paris or walking my French bulldog in New York City.'

The journalist came out in defence of the actress earlier this week, claiming she was 'horrified' Australians had used the comment against Melissa.

Custody battle: Melissa and her former lover are embroiled in a custody battle, with the French entrepreneur refusing to allow the pair's son Raphael and Solal to leave France

Allegations: Melissa's ex-partner Jean firmly denies the allegations of violence, with both he and Melissa convicted of assault over the incident last month

After the Sunday Night episode aired on Channel Seven, negative comments about Melissa flooded Facebook and Twitter.

'Melissa George wanted Oz to 'shut up' now she needs out help? Domestic violence is unacceptable. So's hypocrisy. SHE is an accomplished actor with international acclaim. Just don't mention the other 'a' word 'Angel from Home and Away,' one user commented.

Another wrote: 'I'm sorry Melissa George has been a victim of DV but I stopped caring about her years ago after she behaved like a spoilt brat.'

Melissa's ex-partner Jean firmly denies the allegations of violence, with both he and Melissa convicted of assault over the incident last month.

The couple first met in 2011 at a BAFTA after-party and welcomed their first son Raphael in February 2014 and their second son Solal in November 2015.
Earlier in the month, reports surfaced Nicole Kidman and her family were planning on returning to Australia permanently.

And on Friday, the Hollywood star stopped by her mother's house in Sydney with her husband Keith and their daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret.

The 49-year-old Moulin Rouge! actress looked stylish in a light pink shirt and trousers as she styled her blonde hair in curls for the visit.

Stopping by! On Friday, Nicole Kidman stopped by her mother's house in Sydney with her husband Keith and their daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret

Nicole was photographed smiling as she left her mother Janelle's house and getting into a car.

The Oscar winner looked in good spirits, opting for a make-up free complexion for the casual outing.

Meanwhile, husband Keith rocked a simple Navy T-shirt, exposing his tribal tattoos as he smiled enthusiastically.

Daddy duties! Meanwhile, husband Keith rocked a simple Navy T-shirt, exposing his tribal tattoos as he smiled enthusiastically

Family visit: The Moulin Rouge! actress, 49, looked stylish in a light pink shirt and trousers

Back for good? The visit comes after sources told Dailymail.com the high-profile couple are 'planning to return to Australia permanently'

The visit comes after sources told Dailymail.com the high-profile couple are 'planning to return to Australia permanently'.

It has been claimed Nicole and Keith are hunting for a stunning bush property in Caboolture, Queensland.

It is believed the pair are eyeing up two of the grandest properties within the same ultra-private gated community, Thornhill Estates.

New home? It has been claimed Nicole and Keith are hunting for a stunning bush property in Caboolture, Queensland

Re/max Legacy real estate director Matthew Thomson confirmed that there were interested buyers 'from all over the globe'.

'If Nic and Keith buy this place, I think they'll renovate the gym and split it into a recording studio for him and a small home cinema for her,' reveals a family insider.

'It's perfect for Sunday and Faith, too. They're showing a healthy interest in farm animals and Nicole loves the idea of them taking care of their own cattle.'
One is her constant companion and the other is both a colleague and a confidant, so having them both together ensured a work day was a lot more fun than usual for this star.

Jane Fonda could not stop smiling as she spent her Friday promoting the new season of her show with Lily Tomlin and her pooch Tulea came along for the ride.

The two actress and one dog stopped by the SiriusXM studio in New York to talk Frankie And Grace which is back for its third season on Netflix.

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Fri-yay: Jane Fonda could not stop smiling as she spent her Friday promoting the new season of her show with Lily Tomlin and her pooch Tulea at the SiriusXM studio in New York

Jane and Lily - who are best friends on and off screen - posed up for snaps with Lily popping her arm around her pal.

Jane meanwhile made sure her pampered pooch was also ready for her close up, cradling the Coton de Tulear in her arms.

But the 79-year-old star need not have worried too much as clearly the fluffy white dog is an old hat at attending such events.

As Jane talked about the third season of her show to host Craig Ferguson, the pooch fell asleep on the chair next to her owner.

Red carpet expert: Clearly the fluffy white dog is an old hat at attending such events

Nap time: As Jane talked about the third season of her show to host Craig Ferguson, the pooch fell asleep on the chair next to her owner

Simple style: Lily wore black slacks with a balk and white patterned top for the interview

For the radio appearance, Jane wore a pair of slightly flared tailored trousers with an off white blouse.

While Lily, 77, wore similar slacks in black with a black and white patterned shirt.

As they chatted, actor Bob Saget also stopped by the studio and the actresses in fits of laughter.

Follow suit: For the radio appearance, Jane wore a pair of slightly flared tailored trousers with an off white blouse

Full house: As they chatted, actor Bob Saget also stopped by the studio and the actresses in fits of laughter

The new odd couple: In Grace and Frankie, Jane and Lily's characters who are very different but find themselves living together after their husbands have an affair with each other, fall in love and get married

Grace And Frankie returns to Netflix on Friday with the entire third season available to stream.

The show follows Jane and Lily's characters who are very different but find themselves living together after their husbands have an affair with each other, fall in love and get married.

This season the pair try to work together to get a vibrator business up and running.
She came to prominence after enjoying an fling with Tyga during his break from girlfriend Kylie Jenner.

But Demi Rose Mawby is certainly making a name for herself in her own right, having recently stepped out in a series of stunning and revealing ensembles.

And the 21-year-old was back flashing the flesh yet again on Friday, arriving at Chino Latino restaurant in Los Angeles in an extremely revealing dress.

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Busting out: Demi Rose Mawby flashed the flesh in a typically revealing number as she stepped out in London on Friday night

Gaping at the front, the flimsy satin material only just protected the stunning brunette's modesty as she left the restaurant.

With her curves only just kept in place, Demi's frock stretched across her hips and skimmed the top of her thighs showing off her long slim legs to the maximum.

The teal number was also completely backless and held up with a halterneck feature.

Backless wonder: Demi Rose's frock was completely backless, held up with a halterneck

Matchy matchy: A pair of matching platform peep toe heels with delicate floral ankle straps added to the look

The model's hair was worn in loose brunette curls while a slick of eyeliner and pale lipstick added to the glamour.

A pair of matching platform peep toe heels with delicate floral ankle straps added to the look.

Aside from her racy modelling work, Demi is still best known as the curvy British star thought to have shared a fling with rapper Tyga during his break from Kylie Jenner.

Backless wonder: Demi showed off her toned frame and slim pins in the outfit

Friends in low cut places: Demi posed with her pal outside the eatery

It was in SIXTY6 magazine's inaugural issue that Demi gave an insight into the fleeting romance, which happened in May 2016.

She told the title: 'He had been messaging me then I went to a party in Cannes and bumped into him. We ended up spending the rest of our time there together.'

Demi, who is the daughter of a bank manager, added: 'He was quirky, funny, genuine, thats what I liked about him.'
She's the Married At First Sight 'bride' known to enjoy the Gold Coast's nightlife.

And on Friday, Cheryl Maitland flaunted her surgically-enhanced assets in a skimpy satin frock while enjoying dinner with a friend.

The reality TV star, 25, shared a photo on Instagram while enjoying a date night at a restaurant with busty roommate Raquel Petit.

Breast friends! Married At First Sight's Cheryl Maitland (pictured) shared a photo on Instagram on Friday while enjoying a date night at a restaurant with busty roommate Raquel Petit

Cheryl made a bold statement in her choice of attire during the night out.

A plunging frock left very little to the imagination, showing off her shapely breasts.

Cheryl held onto a glass of red wine and was seated in front of a tray of oysters while posing for the photo.

He brunette hair was styled straight and in a middle parting, and a slick of nude lipstick over her plump pout finished off the look.

'My hot date': Cheryl's Instagram Story also featured her close friend, Raquel Petit

Busty pals! The notorious Gold Coast identities have previously been spotted together on their respective social media accounts

Cheryl's Instagram Story also featured her close friend, socialite Raquel Petit.

The notorious Gold Coast identities have previously been spotted together on their respective social media accounts.

While she is known for showing off her cleavage, Raquel instead covered up her curves in a strapless frock.

What's going on here? The date night comes after Cheryl made headlines when yet another topless photo of her emerged - the third to be leaked in a matter of weeks

'That's now well and truly in my past': Cheryl previously told the Herald Sun she once worked as a topless waitress, but insisted she no longer works in that industry

Her dark locks fell gracefully over one shoulder, her head tilted down to show off her very long lashes and plump lips.

The date night comes after Cheryl made headlines when yet another topless photo of her emerged - the third to be leaked in a matter of weeks.

In the latest image, the brunette sat outdoors with her curvy chest fully exposed as she took part in a conversation.

In the past? Cheryl said her career as a topless waitress was 'well and truly' behind her - but there have been reports these photos were taken just a few months ago

Cheryl wore heavy make-up at what appeared to be a social gathering, with drinks and a packet of cigarettes on the table.

Cheryl previously told the Herald Sun she once worked as a topless waitress, but insisted she no longer works in that industry.

'For a brief time I was a topless waitress but that's now well and truly in my past,' she said, despite reports the topless images were taken just a few months ago.

Another scandal! Meanwhile, video footage has surfaced of Cheryl snorting white powder off her breasts. She later described the video as a regrettable 'joke'

Cheryl frequently shares racy images to Instagram which show her flaunting her curvy physique and heaving bosom.

She previously told NW Magazine she had a breast enlargement as a teenager, after being teased at school.

'I hit puberty really late, and as a result, I was teased for many years for my lack of bust,' Cheryl told the publication.

She's not shy! Cheryl frequently shares racy images to Instagram which show her flaunting her curvy physique and heaving bosom

'So when I finished school I thought, I want to do this for myself and feel more comfortable in my skin, so I had a breast augmentation,' she explained.

In the tell-all interview, Cheryl also addressed her suspiciously plump pout.

'I love full lips, it's a look I like and I think it looks good. I don't do it for anyone else but myself. It's my body, I can do what I want with it as long as it makes me feel good,' Cheryl said defiantly.
Fans have praised Love Actually's Red Nose Day special after Hugh Grant's character delivered a 'poignant' speech that touched many following this week's Westminster attacks.

Undertaking the role of Prime Minister in the much-loved classic, many have shared their heart-felt thoughts on social media commending his stirring words.

Although proving to be a hit across the board, it was the 56-year-old's speech as the one-off came to a close that rang true with the nation as he uttered the words 'good's going to win'.

Entering a press conference with his broken arm strapped, Hugh's character was fired a number of question including how he injured himself - dropping Drake's Hotline Bling into the mix.

Yet, it is the last question he is asked that proved most moving and defiant, tugging on the heartstrings of the nation in the devastating week that was in London.

One member of the press asks: 'When you came to power the first time you were very optimistic. You said the power of good would finally win that love was actually all around. 14 years later, do you still feel as upbeat?'

Taking a pause, he began: 'Well, interesting obviously times have got harder and people are nervous and fearful. And it's not just in politics that things are tough, Usain Bolt has run his last Olympics, the Harry Potter films are finished, Piers Morgan is still alive.

'Good's going to win': It was the 56-year-old's speech as the one-off came to a close that rang true with the nation as he uttered the words 'good's going to win

Strength: Hugh's character was fired a number of question including how he injured himself - which he told with complete hilarity, dropping Drake's Hotline Bling into the mix while Martine's character Natalie looked on

Question time: Yet, it is the last question he is asked that proved most moving and defiant, tugging on the heartstrings of the nation in the devastating week that was in London

'But let's look at the other side of the coin, Metallica's album is an absolute cracker and on a deeper level I'm optimistic wherever you see tragedy, you see bravery too. Wherever you see ordinary people in need, you see extraordinary people come to their aid.

He added: 'Today is Red Nose Day and people who are giving their hard earned cash to people they'll never meet, who's pain and fear they'll never feel and want to fight.

'So it's not romantic love that is all round, most people still everyday, everywhere have enough love in their hearts to help human beings in trouble.

'Good's going to win, I'm actually sure of it'.

Positive: One member of the press asked if he still felt as 'upbeat' about the future as he did in the past

'Nervous and fearful': Taking a pause, he began: 'Well, interesting obviously times have got harder and people are nervous and fearful'

Support: He added: 'So it's not romantic love that is all round, most people still everyday, everywhere have enough love in their hearts to help human beings in trouble'

'Sure of it': He finished his poignant speech by insisting: ''Good's going to win, I'm actually sure of it'

Upon uttering his final nine words, Twitter was set alight as many commended his words.

'The Love Actually speech was so fitting after this week #RedNoseDay,' one said. Before another added: 'Very appropriate PM speech from Hugh Grant.'

While one shared: '"Love Actually" skit for #RedNoseDay was brill. Poignant speech after the Westminster attack.'

As an user echoed manys sentiments: 'That speech by Hugh Grant was great #RedNoseDay #loveactually'.

Emotional: Upon uttering his final nine words, Twitter was set alight as many commented that his speech was exactly what people needed right now

While many rushed to herald the speech, many jumped onto social media to congratulate everyone involved with the TV sequel.

A user posted: 'This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen @comicrelief #loveactually #RedNoseDay'.

While one other wrote: '#RedNoseDay ok...love actually. Well done folks, well done'.

'Bawling my eyes out at Red Nose Day Actually, that was so worth the 14 year wait. Thank you', one added online.

Thrilled: While many rushed to herald the speech, many jumped onto social media to congratulate everyone involved with the TV sequel

Before one called for a full feature: 'Love Actually 2 is iconic. I want a full movie #RedNoseDay'.

Earlier in the short sequel his character David was re-elected as Prime Minister and managed to showcase his infamous moves once more.

Although he shuffled across Number 10 to The Pointer Sisters eighties classic Jump in 2003, this time round he had a very modern makeover, showcasing his dad dancing to Drake's Hotline Bling.

While throwing some shapes around the halls, it all went suddenly wrong for the PM as he tumbled down the stairs, breaking his arm.

Work it out: Elsewhere, Hugh Grant's character David has been re-elected as Prime Minister and managed to showcase his infamous moves once more

Shuffle: Although he shuffled across Number 10 to The Pointer Sisters eighties classic Jump in 2003, this time round he had a very modern makeover, showcasing his dad dancing to Drake's Hotline Bling

Oh no! While throwing some shapes around the halls, it all went suddenly wrong for the PM as he tumbled down the stairs, breaking his arm

Taking a tumble: Hugh's character rolled down the stairs and broke his arm as he got caught up dancing

As he searched for help, a knowing wife Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) emerged from a sitting room as he uttered: 'That really hurts, very undignified...oh Lord'.

Ribbing him as he hobbled towards her, she said: 'Let me guess, hotline bling again...'.

Directed by Richard Curtis, the short film was the most anticipated segment of the charity broadcast which caught up with a host of the film's characters over 13 years since the original.

Viewers learnt that Andrew Lincoln's character Mark is happily married to model Kate Moss, Colin Firth's Jamie has three children with former Portuguese waitress Aurelia with another on the way and that Liam Neeson's step-son in the film Sam is engaged to childhood sweetheart Joanna.

Help:As he searched for help, a knowing wife Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) emerged from a sitting room as he uttered: 'That really hurts, very undignified...oh Lord'
She has numerous men vying for her love on the upcoming season of The Bachelorette.

And star of the reality series Rachel Lindsay sure seemed to be enjoying the attention as she was spotted filming season 13 of the ABC show on Friday in California.

The 31-year-old attorney didn't even appear to mind the reunion of her former Bachelor rivals as they also made an appearance on set.

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Yipee! Rachel Lindsay was spotted having fun on set on Friday as she filmed an episode of season 13 of The Bachelorette

Rachel looked casual chic in a fitted white blouse that she paired with denim skinny jeans and leather black booties.

Her sleek black hair was parted down in the middle as she accessorized in chunky necklaces and bracelets.

The Dallas-based civil defense litigator made history as the first African-American selected to front the popular dating competition.

Chic: The 31-year-old attorney looked casual and cute in a white buttoned blouse, blue denim jeans and chunky jewelry

History: The Dallas-based civil defense litigator made history as the first African-American selected to front the popular dating competition

And although she was involved in the huge upset by not taking the rose from Bachelor Nick Viall, it seems things are looking up for the reality star.

Making a visit on set were former competitors Corinne Olympios, Jasmine Goode, Raven Gates and Alexis Waters.

Three out of of the six potential suitors were also spotted on set looking pumped to film - which kicked off on March 16.

Here they come! Rachel was welcomed with a surprise visit from her former Bachelor rivals; pictured here is Corinne Olympios who looked fab in a cropped white tee and skinny jeans

Reunited! Jasmine Goode also made an appearance wearing a cream-colored romper

Pictured from left: Raven Gates and Alexis Waters made an appearance as they showed off their flawless figure in cut-out tops tucked into denim skinny jeans

Recently, Rachel appeared on Wednesday's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show alongside six of the suitors including Fred Johnson, Alex Bordyukov, Jonathan Treece, Dr. Bryan Abasolo, Will Gaskins, and Peter Kraus.

'I'm super skeptical, but I will honestly say that I am so hopeful,' the Marquette University grad told the talk show host.

'I have an amazing group of men, I see a lot of potential, and I'm really excited to see where this goes. I feel good!'

Suitors revealed: On Wednesday, the reality star introduced the world to six more potential husbands-to-be on the popular talk show

One suitor has already seen potential in Rachel, as she also confessed she has kissed someone.

'He initiated. It was completely unexpected and I know it's a cliche but it completely swept me off me feet. It was good.'

Catch Rachel on the Bachelorette's 13th season, which premieres May 22 on ABC.

Getting pumped: Two of the suitors looked ready to film some scenes
She was a wartime Hollywood sex symbol and the ultimate on-screen femme fatale.

But Lana Turners acting roles, which included a murderous adulteress, may not have been so far from her real life.

According to one film historian the star, who died in 1995 aged 74, could have murdered her violent lover and let her daughter take the blame.

According to a film historian, Lana Turner could have murdered her violent lover and let her daughter take the blame. She was well known for her tumultuous personal life, marrying eight times

Miss Turner achieved fame as an actress in films such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Peyton Place, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.

She also played a wife who plots to kill her husband in 1946s The Postman Always Rings Twice.

But Miss Turner was just as well-known for her tumultuous personal life, marrying eight times and dating stars such as Clark Gable, Rex Harrison and reportedly Frank Sinatra.

Daughter Cheryl Crane killed Johnny Stompanato, a Mafia mobster, after he ran into a kitchen knife that she had grabbed to defend her mother

Cheryl, who remained in juvenile detention during the inquest and did not testify, was made a ward of court and transferred to the custody of Miss Turners mother. Pictured, the body in Turner's bedroom

Now historian Darwin Porter says he has evidence which makes her the prime suspect in the fatal stabbing of Johnny Stompanato, a Mafia mobster, after she found him in bed with her 14-year-old daughter at her home in Beverly Hills.

An inquest accepted that Stompanato was killed in April 1958 by Miss Turners daughter, Cheryl Crane, after he ran into a kitchen knife that she had grabbed to defend her mother.

Cheryl, who remained in juvenile detention during the inquest and did not testify, was made a ward of court and transferred to the custody of Miss Turners mother.

Miss Turner told the coroners jury she had been arguing with Stompanato (pictured) and that he had threatened to cripple her and kill her daughter

Miss Turner told the coroners jury she had been arguing with Stompanato and that he had threatened to cripple her and kill her daughter. The jury found that the teenager committed justifiable homicide, meaning she acted in defence of her mother.

But in his upcoming book, Lana Turner: Hearts and Diamonds Take All, Mr Porter reveals interviews with some of the cases key figures, including detective Fred Otash, which tell a different story.

Before his death in 1992, Mr Otash apparently admitted rearranging the crime scene with Miss Turners lawyer, Jerry Giesler. He also said Mr Giesler  whom Miss Turner called before police  urged his client to let her daughter take the blame because, as a minor, she would not face a trial. The book claims Mr Otash said: I was the one who wiped the fingerprints off the knife in Lanas bathroom sink. I was a naughty boy doing what Im not supposed to do.

Some of Miss Turners close friends also confided to Mr Porter that she had confessed privately to the murder. The evidence is overwhelming, he told the Daily Mail.

Mr Otash recalled that he had received a desperate call for help from Mr Giesler. Giesler told me what had happened ... Get ... right over here. Stompanatos on Lanas bed, which looks like a hog was butchered, he said.

From what I gathered, Lana had walked in on Johnny in bed with Cheryl. Both of them were in a post-coital sleep. Lana confessed to Giesler that shed bought the kitchen knife the day before to protect herself against Johnny, who was threatening her.

Some of Miss Turners close friends also confided to Mr Porter that she had confessed privately to the murder. The evidence is overwhelming, a friend told the Daily Mail

When shed assumed hed seduced her daughter, she went for the knife in a drawer in her nightstand, and plunged it into his stomach. Stories were reportedly rehearsed, and Cheryl was crying that she didnt mean to kill him when police chief Clinton Anderson arrived. But he was suspicious about the absence of blood and fingerprints.

Mr Otash and Mr Giesler were eventually rumbled for trying to cover up the crime, Mr Porter claims, but the case against them was closed after they told the police chief they had a dossier on him which could end his career.

Miss Turners affair with Stompanato began after he pursued her in 1957, bombarding her with flowers and a diamond bracelet

Miss Turners affair with Stompanato began after he pursued her in 1957, bombarding her with flowers and a diamond bracelet. He was linked to LA mob boss Mickey Cohen and reportedly made money from scams, including blackmailing Hollywood stars.

But he was violent towards the actress, allegedly raping her and holding a gun to her head as a reminder that youre mine. She had repeatedly tried to end the relationship.

On the night of the killing, he is said to have threatened to carve up Miss Turners face, or worse.

Another of her lovers, Rat Pack star Peter Lawford, claimed she called Sinatra to the murder house, but that he slipped out before the police arrived.

Mr Porter said: The Rat Packers knew that Lana did it.

His book, co-written with Danforth Prince, will be released by US publishers Blood Moon Productions next month.

Mr Porter said: Lana seduced more Hollywood legends than any movie star who ever lived.

She was nicknamed The Sweater Girl after wearing a tight-fitting top in the 1937 film They Wont Forget.
Its been almost three decades since they struck up one of the most beloved TV partnerships of all time.

And on Friday Regis Philbin and Kathy Lee Gifford reunited once more to co-host Today.

The 85-year-old was drafted as part of the rotating replacements for Hoda Kotb, who is currently on maternity leave.

Regis fill-in! Kathy Lee Gifford and Regis Philbin reunited on Friday's Today 17 years after co-hosting Live

'Look whos in for Hoda-momma. Im happy youre back  we can have some laughs now,' Kathie declared as she introduced her old partner.

Cosying up together for an Instagram snap, she wrote: 'Spending #TryDayFriday with the one and only Regis'.

The duo were the first hosts when local New York The Morning show went national in 1988, rebranding as Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.

They shared a desk for 12 years, until Kathy's departure in 2000.

Three decades back: The duo were the first hosts when local New York The Morning show went national in 1988, rebranding as Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.

And they picked up right were they left off on Friday, meeting a baby goat and a red kangaroo, trying yoga moves, and competing together in the Newlywed Game- esque Dynamic Duo Duel.

After Kathy Lee left Live she was replaced by current host Kelly Ripa, who partnered Regis for another ten years.

Last month, Philbin told Larry King that since his departure in 2011, his relationship with Ripa had become strained.

Mom duty: The 85-year-old was drafted as part of the rotating replacements for Hoda Kotb, who is currently on maternity leave

He claimed he was never asked to return as a guest, and that Ripa took him quitting personally.

'She got very offended when I left. She thought I was leaving because of her. I was leaving because I was getting older and that wasn't right for me anymore,' he said on Larry King Now.

However WABC President Dave Davis subsequently insisted Regis had been invited back several times.

Things appeared to be similarly strained between Ripa and Philbin's replacement Michael Strahan last year, when he left for GMA after four years on Live.
Malin Akerman reunited with her former Entourage castmate Emmanuelle Chriqui during the Environmental Media Association's Impact Summit on Friday.

It's hard to believe it's been over a decade since the Canadian-raised duo enjoyed a threesome with Eric 'E' Murphy (Kevin Connolly) on the hit HBO series.

The 41-year-old Shut Eye actress - who also acted with Malin in the 2010 porn comedy Elektra Luxx - rocked thigh-high leather boots with her all-black ensemble to speak at the event.

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Hey girl! Malin Akerman (L) reunited with her former Entourage castmate Emmanuelle Chriqui (R) during the Environmental Media Association's Impact Summit on Friday

Sloan and Tori: It's hard to believe it's been over a decade since the Canadian-raised duo enjoyed a threesome with Eric 'E' Murphy (Kevin Connolly) on the hit HBO series

Middle-parted bun: The 41-year-old Shut Eye actress rocked thigh-high leather boots with her all- black ensemble to speak at the event

The Swedish-born 38-year-old matched Emmanuelle in a dotted black blouse, matching skinny pants, and clogs selected by stylist Molly Fishkin-Levin.

The Women's Marcher served as board member of the two-day conference, which took place at Montage Beverly Hills.

Akerman spoke onstage during the 'How VCs have Shaped Our World Today, Tomorrow, and How' panel as well as the 'How Entrepreneurs are Our New Rock Stars' panel.

Missing from Malin's side was her cherubic son Sebastian - who turns 4 next month - with ex-husband, drummer Roberto Zincone.

Statuesque: The Swedish-born 38-year-old matched Emmanuelle in a dotted black blouse, matching skinny pants, and clogs selected by stylist Molly Fishkin-Levin

Middle-parted bun: The Women's Marcher served as board member of the two-day conference, which took place at Montage Beverly Hills

Heading inside: Akerman spoke onstage during the 'How VCs have Shaped Our World Today, Tomorrow, and How' panel as well as the 'How Entrepreneurs are Our New Rock Stars' panel

'Being a mother myself and raising a child in a different world than I grew up in - I grew up in Toronto and we didn't have much growing up - and now my son is here in Hollywood,' the blonde bombshell told Parade last month.

'I'm very aware of it and I want to make sure that he's raised properly with a good head on his shoulder and his feet on the ground.'

The 5ft8in stunner has been romantically linked with A Royal Winter's Jack Donnelly ever since she was spotted kissing the 31-year-old Englishman in Puerto Rico on March 10 - according to People.

Fans can currently catch Akerman as Lara Axelrod in the second season of political drama Billions, which airs Sundays on Showtime.

Blond duo: Missing from Malin's side was her cherubic son Sebastian - who turns 4 next month - with ex-husband, drummer Roberto Zincone

Airing Sundays on Showtime! Fans can currently catch the blonde bombshell as Lara Axelrod in the second season of political drama Billions

Hitting US theaters/VOD on April 7! Malin will also play Sam in Ido Fluk's The Ticket alongside Dan Stevens (R) and Oliver Platt

Malin will also play Sam in Ido Fluk's The Ticket - hitting US theaters/VOD on April 7 - alongside Dan Stevens and Oliver Platt.

Also speaking onstage at the summit was The Get Down star Jaden Smith.

The 18-year-old son of Will & Jada Pinkett Smith showcased his eccentric, gender-neutral style in a maroon shearling jacket, Harley Davidson T-shirt, and grey patched skinny jeans.

Home-schooled millennial: Also speaking onstage at the summit was The Get Down star Jaden Smith

Nepotistically-privileged: The 18-year-old son of Will & Jada Pinkett Smith rocked a maroon shearling jacket, Harley Davidson T-shirt, and grey patched skinny jeans

Enterprising: Last October, the MSFTSrep designer received EMA's Male Futures Award for his work as brand ambassador of boxed JUST Water

Eccentric: Jaden also shared a shirtless b&w snap on Friday for his captive combined 21.9M social media followers

Last October, the MSFTSrep designer received EMA's Male Futures Award for his work as brand ambassador of boxed JUST Water.

Jaden also shared a shirtless b&w snap on Friday for his captive combined 21.9M social media followers.

Meanwhile, Golden Globe-nominated duo Ed Begley Jr. and Wendie Malick took a seat beside EMA CEO Debbie Levin.
They're the Bachelorette couple with a penchant for flaunting their relationship with loved-up social snaps.

And Georgia Love and Lee Elliott appear happier than ever, having this shared yet another romantic update this Saturday.

The 27-year-old journalist took to Instagram to share a snap from their festival-going getaway in Victoria's Yarra Valley, where the pair attended a music festival at a wine estate.

Drunk in love! The Bachelorette's Georgia Love and Lee Elliott dance the afternoon away at the Hot Dub Wine Machine in Victoria's Yarra Valley on Saturday

In the party-going snap, Georgia and Lee are seen dancing at the Hot Dub Wine Machine music festival.

Georgia showcased her curves in a plunging black romper with frill detailing around the bust.

Meanwhile, Lee kept his look casual in a pair of faded jeans, a white T-shirt and sunglasses.

Stronger than ever: The 27-year-old journalist and 35-year-old plumber recently hit back at rumors they have called it quits on their relationship

Dancing the afternoon away: The couple groved to musical acts such as PNAU and Miami Horror

Both appeared to enjoy dancing the afternoon away grooving to acts such as PNAU and Miami Horror.

'Hands up if you like to chardy! #hotdubwinemachine #bestchardyever #iwannadancewithsomebody,' Georgia captioned one update.

Fans of the the couple loved the post, with many of them commenting on how happy they looked.

'Hands up if you like to chardy!': Georgia looked every bit the stylish festival queen and in her black play-suit (the couple pictured a different event earlier in the week)

One delighted fan commented: 'OMG you two are so damn cute!!!'

Meanwhile, another follower said: 'Dynamic dancing duo.'

'So good to see u two having so much fun,' cooed another.
She's hot on the heels of her supermodel half-sister Kate Moss in terms of rising to the top of the fashion pack.

And Lottie Moss certainly looked sartorially savvy as she stepped out for a night out at Jak's Bar in Chelsea, London on Friday night.

The 19-year-old rising star injected a subtle sex appeal into her look by flashing a peek of her toned tum in a semi-sheer cropped bralet.

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Hottie! Lottie Moss, 19, certainly looked sartorially savvy as she stepped out for a night out at Jak's Bar in Chelsea, London on Friday night

The skimpy number plunged down the middle and teased at her perky assets as she sashayed down the road.

The beauty, who is dating MIC's Alex Mytton, paired the ab-flashing number with a pair of high-waisted pastel pink tapered trousers, which fell at a stylish cropped length.

A pair of strappy black stilettos bolstered her height as she practised her catwalk on the streets of London with her pal.

Lottie, who was also wearing a stylish nineties inspired choker, wore her centre parted blonde tresses straight.

Stylish: The rising star injected a subtle sex appeal into her look by flashing a peek of her toned tum in a semi-sheer cropped bralet

Sartorial: The skimpy number plunged down the middle and teased at her perky assets as she sashayed down the road

Trendy: The beauty, who is dating MIC's Alex Mytton, paired the ab-flashing number with a pair of high-waisted pastel pink tapered trousers, which fell at a stylish cropped length

Walk this way: A pair of strappy black stilettos bolstered her height as she practised her catwalk on the streets of London with her pal

She opted for heavily smoked out eyes, with a line of gold glitter, while sporting a plump pink pout.

The photogenic beauty was joined by a male pal who looked super stylish in a black top, leather jacket and ripped blue jeans.

Lottie's pal Emily Blackwell was also on hand to put on a sartorial show in skin-tight leather trousers and a shiny khaki bomber jacket.

The Made In Chelsea star teamed it with a pair of open-toe grey heeled mules.

Looking good: The photogenic beauty was joined by a male pal who looked super stylish in a black top, leather jacket and ripped blue jeans

Fashionista: Lottie's pal Emily Blackwell was also on hand to put on a sartorial show in skin-tight leather trousers and a shiny khaki bomber jacket

Lottie, who shares her dad Peter Edward Moss with Kate from Peter's first marriage to Linda Rosina, hadn't always planned to follow in the footsteps of her older half-sister.

The now catwalk queen bagged a test shoot with Storm Management, the agency who kick started Kate's career.

She told The Telegraph: 'I never really wanted to be a model when I was younger.

'It was something I didn't think I could do  until I was scouted at my sister's wedding. I remember thinking, Yeah, that actually sounds fun.'
She's been enjoying a sun-filled getaway in Dubai.

But Millie Mackintosh has sparked concern among fans who say she has lost too much weight after posting an Instagram snap of herself with boyfriend Hugo Taylor.

The Made In Chelsea star, 27, looked elegant in a pale pink embroidered dress from her upcoming fashion range, as she headed out for a date night on Thursday.

'That can't be healthy': Millie Mackintosh has sparked concern among fans who say she has lost too much weight after posting an Instagram snap of herself with boyfriend Hugo Taylor

However, fans took to Instagram to comment that her legs looked 'painfully thin' in the snap.

One fan, posting under the username @helen19841I, wrote: 'Never comment on people's weight but goodness me that can't be healthy!'

Instagram user @naomigriffiths321 added: 'Oh my gosh Millie , please stop loosing weight . You are absolutely stunning [sic].'

Date night: Millie surprised Hugo, 30, earlier this week by arriving in Dubai to brighten up his work trip and was seen cosying up to him ahead of a romantic dinner on Friday night

Another fan encouraged Millie, who often shares snaps of herself working out, not to 'take the fitness thing too far', while one added: 'I hope you are okay.'

But others suggested it might just be the angle of the photograph, while some claimed that the snap looked like it had been photoshopped.

Instagram user @hannahlockxx wrote 'Omg she looks so thin but saying that it's probably the angle of the photo', while @lesley4ramones added: 'Your legs look photo shopped.... they cannot seriously be so thin!!'

A number of fans defended Millie, saying that 'some people are naturally thin'.

Soaking up the sun: Millie was seen posing up a storm in an unusual off-the-shoulder ruffled bikini on Friday

Pals: She ditched her sunglasses entrepreneur beau to enjoy the sun with one of her girlfriends

One, posting under urban_heels, wrote: 'People get a life, hers legs are nobody's business. She looks great you are all just jealous.'

@willowkathy_ added: 'Every body is different, some people have naturally thin legs and some people don't.'

Millie surprised Hugo, 30, earlier this week by arriving in Dubai to brighten up his work trip.

Clearly delighted that she's been reunited with her beau, she has been posting a series of snaps of the break on her Instagram page.

Jumping for joy: The fashion designer wasted no time hitting the beach on her fifth trip of the year as she slipped into a white bikini for an Instagram snap on Thursday

Millie was seen cosying up to Hugo in a printed orange mini dress ahead of another dinner date on Friday night.

Earlier in the day, she had been posing up a storm with a gal pal as they soaked up the Middle Eastern sun at the luxurious Burj Al Arab Hotel.

In an earlier snap, Millie can be seen jumping for joy in a cream Bahimi bikini top with a black trim.

Millie is undoubtedly a pro at beach photo shoots, having already jetted off on five holidays in the first three months of 2017.

Surprise! Millie flew to Dubai on Tuesday to surprise her boyfriend Hugo on his business trip

In January she kicked off the year with a trip to South Africa, before heading to Paris in both February and March.

March has been a particularly busy time for the starlet, jetting not just to the French capital but Los Angeles and now Dubai.

She had good reason for jetting to the United Arab Emirates this month, as she was surprising her boyfriend Hugo whilst he worked.

Giggling in an Instagram Stories video, the model uploaded the moment she caught her businessman boyfriend off-guard at the Jumeirah Al Naseem hotel.

Hugo is currently in Dubai showcasing his newest Taylor Morris collection as part of the #TaylorMorrisTravels series, which recently took him to Beachcomber's luxury Trou Aux Biches resort in Mauritius.
He's the Australian male-model known for his hard-partying lifestyle.

And as reports of his late nights continue to make headlines, Jordan Barrett confessed to Stellar that his mother is worried about him.

It comes after industry insiders allegedly warned earlier this year that the 20-year-old model could have his career cut short by partying.

Mum's the word: Male model Jordan Barrett reveals his mother worries about his party lifestyle as insiders say it could cut his career short

Jordan, who was discovered aged 13 after stealing matches from a shop, claimed he felt in control of his life despite allegations of hard partying.

But he did admit his mum Julie was still concerned about his lifestyle for reasons unbeknownst to him.

'I think Ive proved to them theres not a lot to be worried about,' Jordan told News Corp Australia.

Worse for wear: In September, Jordan was pictured slumped against a wall looking worse for wear during a wild night out in Croatia

That's one long party: In January it was claimed that Jordan had partied for three days straight over the new year.

'She knows I have my head on. Shes always making sure Im healthy and eating. I actually feel very together, in this situation.'

Jordan also confessed that he sometimes regretted his impressive ink collection, which includes the words 'Monica Lewinsky' and '0% INTEREST' etched into his skin.

'Some days I wake up and I look at [the tattoos] and think maybe I shouldnt have them. And then ' he said, gesturing to another tattoo that says 'WHY NOT', the publication reported.

In good company: Besides modelling for big name brands such as Tom Ford and Versace, Jordan is also known for spending time with a string of beautiful women

Besides modelling for big name brands such as Tom Ford and Versace, Jordan is also known for spending time with a string of beautiful women such as Paris Hilton, Lara Stone, Hailey Baldwin and Megan Blake Irwin.

But recently his late nights have been called into question, with The Daily Telegraph reporting in January that Jordan had partied for three days straight over the new year.

Insiders told the publication that Jordan's partying could see his stellar career end prematurely.

Concern: Insiders told the publication that Jordan's partying could see his stellar career end prematurely

'It has been noted by some in the industry already that he is partying a bit too hard,' a source said.

'This type of behaviour may have been cool back in the day, but now no one puts up with it.'

In September, Jordan was pictured slumped against a wall looking worse for wear during a wild night out in Croatia.

The picture was shared to his Instagram page, however, was deleted not long after being posted.
Married At First Sight's Michelle Marsh and Jono Pitman have made their first public appearance together amid romance rumours.

The pair, who are said to have struck up a relationship in the last few months, were spotted getting cosy at the Johnnie Walker Grand Prix Penthouse Party in Melbourne on Saturday night.

A beaming Michelle was seen sitting on Jono's lap as the pair posed for a photo on the couch alongside Michelle's twin sister Sharon and her TV husband Nick.

Date night? Married At First Sight's Michelle Marsh and Jono Pitman have made their first public appearance together amid romance rumours, having been spotted getting cosy at the Johnnie Walker Grand Prix Penthouse Party in Melbourne on Saturday night

Jono appeared to have one arm slung behind Michelle as they cuddled up comfortably on the couch.

On Friday, Jono Pitman has all but confirmed he has been spending time with this season's glamour Michelle Marsh.

After the couple were reportedly were seen 'flirting' together by the Daily Telegraph, Jono has spoken about their relationship, revealing the pair got on 'really well'.

Cosy: A beaming Michelle was seen sitting on Jono's lap as the pair posed for a photo on the couch alongside Michelle's twin sister Sharon and her TV husband Nick

Making himself comfortable: Jono appeared to have one arm slung behind Michelle as they cuddled up comfortably on the couch

Going 'really well': Former Married At First Sight star Jono Pitman (left) has revealed he's caught up with Michelle Marsh (right) after the pair were rumoured to be seeing each other

Just days after Michelle left her friend-zoned 'husband' Jesse Konstantinoff heartbroken on national TV, it appears she has moved on.

'Michelle and I got in contact with each other a little while ago as we both had similar situations on the show,' Jono told The Daily Telegraph.

'I had the pleasure of meeting Michelle not long ago.

Split: Just days after Michelle left her friend-zoned 'husband' Jesse Konstantinoff (left) heartbroken on national TV, it appears she has moved on

'We spoke about experiences on the show and got along really well. It was great to meet her,' he added.

The revelations come after the pair were reportedly spotted out on a double date with Michelle's twin sister Sharon and her boyfriend Nick Furphy in Melbourne.

Melbourne resident Ashley Roberts spoke to the publication, claiming the reality TV stars looked cosy and comfortable around one another.

Twinning: The revelation came after the duo were reportedly sighted on a double date with Michelle's twin sister Sharon and her MAFS 'husband' Nick

'They were on Southbank for drinks, and walking outside Crown. I think that he (Jono) is friends with Nick, Michelle's twin's partner,' she said.

'They were really flirty and all over each other... it definitely looked like a double date.'

In the previous report, Jono had refused to comment on the 'date', telling News Corp Australia at the time: 'I don't really like being in the spotlight much.'

The tradie, dubbed a 'villain' on the second series, once infamously said, 'She's not what I ordered' as his beaming TV 'wife' Clare Verrall walked down the aisle.

Villain: Tradie Jono, dubbed a 'villain' on the second series, once infamously said, 'She's not what I ordered' as his beaming TV 'wife' Clare Verrall (left) walked down the aisle

After the couple could not resolve their differences, the controversial groom moved out and quickly picked things up with a former flame.

Clare spoke to Daily Mail Australia on Friday about the romance rumours surrounding Jono and Michelle.

'If Michelle and Jono are newly together that's great and I hope they find happiness in one another,' she said.

'I genuinely wish nothing but happiness for Jono. We were not a good match, however he certainly deserves to find love.'

'I hope they find happiness in one another': Clare spoke to Daily Mail Australia on Friday about the romance rumours surrounding Jono and Michelle (pictured)

It comes just days after Michelle was romantically linked to one of her own season's villains, Andrew 'Jonesy' Jones.

However, she later insisted they had actually known each other for years and are just friends.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Jono and Michelle for comment.
They declared their love for each on Married At First Sight this week.

And it looks like there is no love lost between Sharon Marsh and her 'husband' Nick Furphy, with the couple packing on the PDA during a red carpet appearance on Saturday night.

The scientifically-matched pair did little to dampen rumours they are expecting their first child at the Grand Prix penthouse party, with Nick appearing to glance at Sharon's stomach knowingly during photographs.

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Something to smile about? Married At First Sight's Sharon Marsh and Nick Furphy pack on the PDA at Grand Prix party amid pregnancy rumours

The flashy couple were dressed to the nines for the race car event, with Nick wearing an all black suit ensemble.

His lady love Sharon wore a stomach hugging blue pencil skirt, pairing it with a sheer lace crop top.

The 32-year-old twin wore her blonde locks out in waves, accessorising with lace up nude heels.

Dressed to impress: The flashy couple were dressed to the nines for the race car event, with Nick wearing an all black suit ensemble

All dressed up: Sharon wore a stomach hugging blue pencil skirt, pairing it with a sheer lace crop top

Twinning! The sisters made sure to pose together at the party

The couple couldn't keep their hands off each other while posing for photographs, hugging each other close.

The reality TV stars made sure to lean in for a passionate kiss in front of the cameras.

Nick's larrikin personality was also on full display during the media call, pulling his lady in close while doing a mock dance and throwing up a peach sign.

The loved up appearance comes as speculation grows the couple is expecting a child together.

Cosy: The couple couldn't keep their hands off each other as the party continued into the night

Sealed with a kiss! Oblivious to the cameras surrounding them, the reality TV stars leaned in for a passionate kiss

Joking around: Nick's larrikin personality was also on full display during the media call, pulling his lady close in mock dance and throwing up a peach sign

This week, New Idea magazine published photos of Sharon shopping for baby wares in Perth.

Captured looking at baby bibs in what appears to be a supermarket, the blonde beauty is seen beaming at her redhead friend.

While neither have confirmed the news officially, Sharon cryptically gushed to OK! magazine that she was looking forward to settling down with Nick.

'I'm definitely at that stage in my life [where] I would like to start a family and have a legal marriage soon,' she said.
Katy Perry was spotted out and about in West Hollywood this week, having slipped into a casual black and white Adidas tracksuit.

The trousers tightened about her svelte legs, and she'd complemented the clothes with a pair of black and silver platform slippers.

A Starbucks cup in hand, she'd slung on a stylish black purse and slicked her platinum blonde hair back under a colorful headband.

Keeping it relaxed: Katy Perry was spotted out and about in West Hollywood this week, having slipped into a casual black and white Adidas tracksuit

After weeks of speculation, her ex John Mayer revealed that his new song Still Feel Like Your Man was in fact about his relationship with Katy.

The 39-year-old confirmed as much in an interview the New York Times ran on Thursday, saying: 'Who else would I be thinking about?'

The pair had dated for over a year, with relationship rumors kicking off in August 2012 and breakup news emerging in February 2014.

Showing what she's got: The trousers tightened about her svelte legs, and she'd complemented the clothes with a pair of black and silver platform slippers

In the song, he croons that 'I still keep your shampoo in my shower / In case you wanna wash your hair' despite knowing 'you probably found yourself someone'.

John told the New York Times that writing the song about Katy was 'a testament to the fact that I have not dated a lot of people in the last five, six years. That was my only relationship. So its like, give me this, people.'

Meanwhile, Katy, 32, spent part of the interim in a feverishly publicized relationship with 40-year-old Orlando Bloom that began sometime last year.

The way they were: After weeks of speculation, her ex John Mayer revealed that his new song Still Feel Like Your Man was in fact about his relationship with Perry

Their romance hit peak notoriety when photos emerged last August of them paddle-boarding off the Sardinian coast - he stark naked.

By earlier this month, though, their representatives were telling Us Weekly: 'Before rumors or falsifications get out of hand we can confirm that Orlando and Katy are taking respectful, loving space at this time.'

Orly's been spotted this week holidaying in St Barts with 37-year-old model Kristy Hinze, her 72-year-old billionaire husband Jim Clark and their two daughters.
He delighted fans after returning to his role as Prime Minister in the Love Actually Red Nose Day special.

And Hugh Grant was spotted out in London with Swedish girlfriend Anna Eberstein and their baby daughter on Saturday following the success of the 10-minute sequel.

The actor, 56, looked relaxed as he enjoyed a family day out in the spring sunshine.

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Family day: Hugh Grant was spotted out in London with Swedish girlfriend Anna Eberstein and their baby daughter on Saturday following the success of the 10-minute sequel

The Florence Foster Jenkins star covered up in light-weight black coat, teamed with smart black trousers and brown suede shoes.

TV producer Anna, 34, looked chic in a similarly all-black ensemble, pairing a structured jacket with a pair of black jeans and suede boots.

Wearing her caramel tresses down over her shoulders, the mother-of-two showed off her glowing complexion with minimal make-up.

Relaxed: The actor, 56, covered up in light-weight black coat, teamed with smart black trousers and brown suede shoes

Coffee stop: The pair were seen popping into a Pret A Manger with their daughter as they enjoyed downtime together in the capital

The pair were seen popping into a Pret A Manger with their 15-month-old daughter as they enjoyed downtime together in the capital.

Hugh and Anna have two young children together - a son John, born in 2012, and a second child welcomed in December 2015.

The name of the baby remains a mystery, but the birth was confirmed by Anna's mother to a Swedish newspaper.

Enjoying the sunshine: TV producer Anna, 34, looked chic in a similarly all-black ensemble, pairing a structured jacket with a pair of black jeans and suede boots

Downtime: Hugh and Anna have two young children together - a son John, born in 2012, and a second child, born in December 2015

Hugh also has two other children - a daughter Tabitha, four, and son Felix, two, with Chinese beauty Tinglan Hong.

Fans praised Love Actually's Red Nose Day special after Hugh's character delivered a 'poignant' speech that touched many following this week's Westminster attacks.

His speech as prime minister in the one-off took on an extra significance with viewers as he uttered the words 'good's going to win'.

Devoted parents: The name of the baby remains a mystery, but the birth was confirmed by Anna's mother to a Swedish newspaper

Love actually: The pair looked relaxed during the family outing, following Hugh's appearance in the 10-minute sequel entitled Red Nose Day Actually

During a press conference in the special, he said: 'Today is Red Nose Day and people who are giving their hard earned cash to people they'll never meet, who's pain and fear they'll never feel and want to fight.

'So it's not romantic love that is all round, most people still everyday, everywhere have enough love in their hearts to help human beings in trouble.

'Good's going to win, I'm actually sure of it'.
She's just debuted her new YouTube channel and is soon to star in yet another reality series based on her life.

But Katie Price took some time out from her packed schedule to jet off on a family holiday to the tropical island of Maldives.

The 38-year-old former glamour model showed no hesitation in lining her Instagram with a number of envy-inducing snaps - including one where she saucily flaunted her surgically-enhanced cleavage in skimpy pink beachwear.

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She shore looks good! Katie Price, 38, shared a very risque snap from her Maldives getaway where she saucily flaunted her surgically-enhanced cleavage in skimpy pink beachwear

The very risque snap saw the entrepreneur laying on the floor, as someone snapped away from above - giving the illusion that she was upside down.

Katie, who forewent make-up, looked every inch the beach babe in a barely-there bikini top, which featured a saucy halterneck design.

She teamed the look with a semi-sheer lace kaftan, which was gently knotted at the front, paving way for her impossibly trim stomach.

Completely the racy look was a matching pair of bikini bottoms, which boasted skimpy tie-up detailing on the side, which served to accentuate her bronzed inked legs as she placed it across her other leg.

'Incredible place': Despite recently jetting in, Katie ensured to make full use of her time in the sunny surroundings as she took her daughter Bunny for a walk on the beach

'My kind of place': She also induced further jealousy to her 1.4 million Instagram followers with a snap of her sparkling blue pool

Despite recently jetting in, Katie ensured to make full use of her time in the sunny surroundings as she took her daughter Bunny for a walk on the beach.

Katie opted for a bright green bandeau style bikini top, which she paired with a stunning sheer kaftan style skirt.

Her two-year-old, who she shares with beau Kieran Hayler, looked sweet in a yellow bathing suit.

She also induced further jealousy to her 1.4 million Instagram followers with a snap of her sparkling blue pool.

She captioned it: 'This place is incredible  @kandima_maldives Junior is in the 100ft infinity pool #MyKindOfPlace.'

Behind the scenes: Meanwhile, Katie shared a teaser of what was to expect in her new YouTube series, which saw the hilarious moment she got caught up in a stack full of garments

Off the rails! The stunner was crushed by her mammoth wardrobe after it toppled over without warning

Meanwhile, the beauty recently shared a teaser of what was to expect in her new YouTube series, which saw her getting awkwardly caught up in a stack full of garments.

Katie is no stranger to reality television, having appeared on Katie & Peter in 2007, which documented her marriage to Andre.

The Loose Women star also welcomed the cameras back into her life for What Katie Did Next, which aired from 2009 to 2010.

Clearly keen on exposing her familial life, Katie recently gushed about her new show Katie Price: My Crazy Life in a fan video: 'I absolutely love the fact that Im doing reality again.

'I adore reality': Katie, who first appeared on reality attention with the series Katie & Peter in 2007, recently gushed about her new show Katie Price: My Crazy Life

'Its been absolute years. Theres so much youre going to see! I cant wait!',' she spoke of the show which will be based in her West Sussex family home.

The fly-on-the-wall series will air on a new channel Quest Red this upcoming summer and will see Katie balancing her family duties, as well her glamorous TV and media personality schedule.

'Im so excited to be the first commissioned show on Quest Red. Putting my pony club together last year was such a fun return to reality TV - I loved it,' the reality star spoke about the news recently.

'Now I cant wait to show everyone what goes on in the Pricey household. Weve got over 100 animals and five children so expect lots of noise, mayhem and plenty of drama!'

Look at her life: The fly-on-the-wall series will air on a new channel Quest Red this upcoming summer and will see Katie balancing her family duties, as well her glamorous TV and media personality schedule




Former TOWIE star Ferne McCann looked to be having the time of her life with new old-flame Arthur 'Art' Collins on a Middle East mini break on Saturday.

The popular This Morning showbiz reporter, 26, has been showing off her top notch fashion credentials during the romantic luxury holiday in Dubai.

Ferne looked incredible in a slinky green silk dress with a thigh high slit in the picture as she posed with her man.

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Vintage glamour: Former TOWIE star Ferne McCann looked to be having the time of her life with new old-flame Arthur 'Art' Collins on a Middle East mini break on Saturday

The former TOWIE star can be seen leaning against a plush open car door and showing off her toned, slender legs in sky-high heels in the old-school movie star style shot.

Ferne captioned the sexy picture: 'Dubai Nights with my love @arthurjuniorcollins, riding in the rolls - @limitlesscarhire wearing @neverfullydressed.'

Her old flame Arthur 'Art' Collins has appeared back on the scene after Ferne failed to find love on Celebs Go Dating.

Fashionista: Ferne flaunted her tasteful individual style and flawless figure in a plunging crop top with sleeves and star-patterned flared trousers while enjoying her time away

The pair were rumoured to be dating last summer for several months, but, if so, the relationship was kept private.

But now the reality star has been updating fans on Snapchat and Instagram about her rekindled romance, posting several images of the the couple together - holding hands, kissing and even a flirty shot from her bed.

Arthur, a businessman from Essex, looked thrilled to be on the trip with his new girlfriend.

The stubbly hunk is not Ferne's first publicised relationship. The former TOWIE star first joined the drama-laden show with then-boyfriend Charlie Sims, before going on to date co-star Dan Osborne.

Ferne even had a rumoured fling with comedian Russell Brand.

Love you! Ferne made sure not to forget to make her mum feel special for Mother's Day back home in England as she basked in the sun, sharing an adoring shot of the pair together

And Ferne made sure not to forget to make her mum feel special back home in England as she basked in the sun.

The loving daughter posted a mum and daughter snap to Instagram on Saturday evening ahead of Mothering Sunday in the UK, captioning the image: 'Me and my Mama.'

In the adorable picture, Ferne and her mum wear coordinating black outfits.

The good life: Presenting duties were put to one side on Thursday afternoon as Ferne McCann made the most of her current stay in Dubai

And on Thursday the presenter treated fans to a bikini snap from her fabulous trip as she soaked up the sun during a relaxing day on the beach close to the Arab playgrounds luxurious Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel.

Stripping down to a midnight blue bikini from online brand Annalous, Ferne casually sipped a fruity beverage.

With the five-star Burj providing a stunning backdrop, Ferne later shared a snap of her idyllic holiday destination with Instagram followers.

Captioning the shot, she wrote: Beach Life.

Dubai appears to be just the tonic for the TV personality, who announced last Friday that she would no longer be endorsing her Ferne Beauty products because the manufacturer owes her money.

Testing times: Dubai appears to be just the tonic for the TV personality, who announced last Friday that she would no longer be endorsing her Ferne Beauty products because the manufacturer owes her money

Addressing the situation for her 798,000 followers, the former TOWIE star announced: 'I am not working with Ferne Beauty going forward and no longer endorse their products.'

Elaborating on the drama, the brunette then went on to reveal that she was working with the same company Lauren Goodger had allegedly been duped by over her own range of products.

She continued: 'They are the same company that Lauren Goodger has recently talked about and I am still waiting payment from them.'
She donned a massive false baby bump as she continued shooting scenes for her new movie Life Itself in Lower Manhattan on Saturday.

And Olivia Wilde took a break for her mother-to-be alter-ego as she was paid a sweet visit by her son Otis and fiance Jason Sudeikis.

The 33-year-old American actress looked thrilled as she spent some quality time with her two-year-old son and handsome other half - all while sporting her prosthetic bump.

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Working mumma! Olivia Wilde - who sported a fake baby bump - took a break for her mother-to-be alter-ego as she was paid a sweet visit by her son Otis and fiance Jason Sudeikis

Olivia, who was also wearing the same outfit during her shoot on Monday, couldn't contain her smiles as she picked up the adorable youngster.

After a quick hug from mother, Jason took over and held onto Otis as they watched the blonde beauty shoot further scenes.

The talented star, who in reality delivered her second child - a girl named Daisy 0 last October, starred in a shot where she flung her arms wide and threw her head back while in a crosswalk.

While still standing in the crosswalk, she bent her legs and clutched the baby bump, looking as though she were roaring with laughter.

Happy: The 33-year-old American actress looked thrilled as she spent some quality time with her two-year-old son - all while sporting her prosthetic bump

Family girl: Olivia, who was also wearing the same outfit during her shoot on Monday, couldn't contain her smiles as she picked up the adorable youngster

What's this? Otis - who is the older brother to Daisy, 5 months - seemed fascinated by his mummy's fake bump

Multi-tasker: Jason looked casual and carried his son, a camera and a colourful umbrella as they watched Olivia shoot for the flick

While still standing in the crosswalk, she bent her legs and clutched the baby bump, looking as though she were roaring with laughter.

A wide smile was on her face once she sauntered across the street to her co-star Oscar Isaac, who put an arm about her as they trod the pavement.

Olivia, who's only just finished filming A Vigilante, wore a white maternity top that'd got a colourful picture of a sunlit river splashed across the front of it.

Feeling free: Shooting continued on Life Itself in Lower Manhattan on Saturday, and Olivia Wilde was spotted with a massive false baby bump under her T-shirt

Sunny disposition: Olivia, who's only just finished filming A Vigilante, wore a white maternity top that'd got a colorful picture of a sunlit river splashed across the front of it

Overcome: While still standing in the crosswalk, she bent her legs and clutched the baby bump, looking as though she were roaring with laughter

Affectionate: A wide smile was on her face once she sauntered across the street to her co-star Oscar Isaac, who put an arm about her as they trod the pavement

Skintight charcoal jeans clashed artfully against a faded pair of off-white shoes, and she held a phone in her hand as she ambled smiling up the pavement.

Meanwhile, Annette Bening, 58, was seen filming what appeared to be a rather eventful scene of her own while standing in the middle of a crosswalk.

A large pair of spectacles on her face, she'd worn a pale brown coat with a turned-up collar, as well as black slacks and matching high-heeled boots.

Behind the camera: Dan Fogelman, creator of the smash hit NBC sitcom This Is Us, is writing and directing Life Itself, which is set to shoot in Seville as well as New York

Fine company: The impressive cast list features such names as Antonio Banderas, Samuel L. Jackson, Olivia Cooke and Laia Costa, and the film's due out in 2018

Her mouth was open in what looked as though it could be a cry of fright, and she flung up her hands in a pose that suggested a vehicle might be headed for her.

What was, in fact, headed for her was a man who seemed to be a member of the crew and was holding a large frayed sofa cushion between them.

In a moment of comparative repose, she was seen standing on the pavement and enjoying a cigarette as a relaxed-looking Oscar stood next to her.

Harm's way? Meanwhile, Annette Bening, 58, was seen filming what appeared to be a rather eventful scene of her own while standing in the middle of a crosswalk

Major moment: Her mouth was open in what looked as though it could be a cry of fright, and she flung up her hands in a pose that suggested a vehicle might be headed for her

Tricks of the trade: What was, in fact, headed for her was a man who seemed to be a member of the crew and was holding a large frayed sofa cushion between them

Oscar, whose character according to The Hollywood Reporter is in a relationship with Wilde's, had allowed a bit of scruff to sprout over his sculpted jawline.

His hair had been coiffed up, and he'd popped on a black blazer over a matching sweater, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans.

The hems of his trousers had been folded up over a camel-colored pair of shoes, and the denim had been torn over one of the 38-year-old's knees.

The look: A large pair of spectacles on her face, she'd worn a pale brown coat with a turned-up collar, as well as black slacks and matching high-heeled boots

Dressed for the cold: The man with the cushion wore a black anorak vest over a grey sweater, teaming dark jeans with black leather shoes

Winding down: In a moment of comparative repose, she was seen standing on the pavement and enjoying a cigarette as a relaxed-looking Oscar stood next to her

Oscar, like his baby-bump-toting co-star Olivia, had been seen wearing his Saturday costume not only this past Monday, but on Friday as well.

Dan Fogelman, creator of the smash hit NBC sitcom This Is Us, is writing and directing Life Itself, which is set to shoot in Seville as well as New York.

The impressive cast list features such names as Antonio Banderas, Samuel L. Jackson, Olivia Cooke and Laia Costa, and the film's due out in 2018.
He's set to wed his Channel Nine colleague Sylvia Jeffreys in coming days.

And Peter Stefanovic, 33, celebrated his last days of singledom with a bucks party thrown by his brother Karl, 42, and several close friends.

The media personality reportedly partied alongside his Today host sibling and some mates including radio host Ben Fordham just outside of Sydney on Saturday, according toThe Sunday Telegraph.

Celebration: Karl Stefanovic (R) hosted a bucks party for his little brother Peter (L) on Saturday

Last year, Peter remained tight-lipped about details surrounding his bucks night when asked byFitzy and Wippa where his bucks party would be.

'We just got to keep the people guessing!' he laughed.

'Sporting Bet came out with the odds, Thailand is coming in at 2-1 3-1 to Las Vegas in 3 or 4-1.

Wedding countdown: The media personality reportedly partied alongside his Today host sibling and some mates just outside of Sydney on Saturday, according to The Sunday Telegraph

He finished: 'Yes odds have come out!'

Weeks prior, Sylvia told the radio hosts that she had to put a stop to some of her future brother-in-law Karl's wild bachelor party plans for his brother Peter.

Sylvia explained: 'I think Karl is much more excited about the bucks which probably doesnt surprise you than he is about the wedding. He floated the idea of a week in Thailand for the bucks which I have already shut down.'

Coy: Last year, Peter remained coy about details surrounding his bucks night when asked by Fitzy and Wippa where his bucks party would be.

The radio duo laughed and Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli quipped back: 'My god, He wouldnt come home alive.'

Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald echoed the thoughts and exclaimed: 'A bucks week in Thailand!?'

Hearing their shocked responses Sylvia was quick to say: 'I can't tell you how glad I am that you think that's outrageous too.'

Tight-lipped: 'We just got to keep the people guessing!' he laughed

Still shocked about the week long party plans, Wippa added: 'It's ridiculous. I mean if it was a quiet group of guys maybe, but the Stefanovics i'm concerned about!'

The bucks news comes days after sources told Daily Mail Australia that 33-year-old Sylvia will wear a bridal gown by Australian designer Rebecca Vallance on her big day.

The TV presenter is a longtime fan of the dressmaker, whose flagship boutique is situated in the upscale suburb of Mosman.

Match made in heaven! Sylvia (pictured) will wear a bridal gown by Australian designer Rebecca Vallance for her wedding day, sources told Daily Mail Australia this week

The blonde TV personality was first seen wearing a gorgeous piece by the brand over two years ago for Melbourne Cup celebrations.

Sylvia tagged the designer in a photo on Instagram, who then wrote back in the comments section: 'Stunning! You look so gorgeous'.

The dress was a knee-length fitted frock with a sheer animal print overlay hugging her slim curves.

Va-va-voom! The 33-year-old Nine journalist is a longtime fan of the dressmaker, whose flagship boutique is situated in the upscale suburb of Mosman

Another time, she was spotted in an elegant red dress by the brand - a sheer ensemble worn over a black slip and paired with black strappy heels.

'Thank you @rebeccavallance for the fabulous party frock,' the newsreader wrote.

'My pleasure,' the designer happily responded on Instagram.

Nuptials: The popular Today host announced her engagement to Channel Nine colleague Peter Stefanovic in July last year

In a recent snap, she posed in a polka dot knee-length piece that buttoned at the neck to reveal a hint of cleavage.

Several fans requested the details of the dress in the Instagram comments, to which Sylvia replied: 'It is @rebeccavallance, my fave'.

The Sydney-based brand has even been worn by international celebrities like Chrissy Teigen, Chanel Iman, Halle Berry and Sofia Vergara.

'It's this great sense of anticipation': The Brisbane-born beauty told The Sydney Morning Herald last year she is excited to start her new life as a married woman

Sylvia began dating Peter Stefanovic at the end of 2013 after they presented the weekend edition of the Today show.

The Brisbane-born beauty told The Sydney Morning Herald last year she is excited to start her new life as a married woman.

'It's this great sense of anticipation about everything at the moment It feels like now we're sort of moving forward at a pretty quick rate,' she said.

'But I look forward to slowing down and just easing into life together and navigating everything that comes our way together.'
Her parents are Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, so it was expected Frances Bean Cobain would turn out to be a creative force to be reckoned with.

The 24-year-old made headlines on Saturday after defacing her own Marc Jacobs billboard in LA.

Armed with some rollers and a group of friends, the artist scaled to the top of her billboard on Melrose Avenue, right above the brand's flagship store, where she painted over her own face.

Art in progress: Frances Bean Cobain got to work defacing her own Marc Jacobs billboard in LA on Saturday

The brunette beauty covered her own face with a surreal version and wrote the words, 'WITCH WITCH SHE'S A WITCH' over her body.

She also adorned the billboard with a pink, blue and yellow sheriff's badge, and had a series of smaller painted faces floating across the white background.

Dressed in printed yellow pants, brown shoes and a loose white tank top, which showed off her black bra and tattoos, the one-time model then smiled and puffed on a cigarette as she stood back and admired her handiwork.

Her long brown hair hung loose around her face, and she wore rose-tinted sunglasses.

Face it: The artist was joined by friends, who helped her cover up her own face with a surreal one she'd painted

On a roll: 'Defacing my face,' she captioned this photo of herself covering her own beautiful face with a slightly grotesque one

Taking a break: The 24-year-old was seen puffing on a cigarette as she admired her handiwork with friends

'Covered in tattoos glue and spray paint,' she captioned a photo of herself sticking down one of her artworks.

'Defacing my face,' she wrote on another.

Seemingly totally approving of the stunt the man himself Marc Jacobs commented on one of the snaps: 'So cool... I love you' along with several heart emojis.

Frances is the face of the Marc Jacob's 2017 spring campaign, and the label actually invited her to paint over the imposing billboard.

Badge of honor: The one-time model was seen gluing a sheriff's badge onto her billboard on Melrose Avenue in LA

Before: Frances had full approval from the brand before taking to her billboard above the Marc Jacobs store in LA

After: The label shared this photo of the completed artwork after the up-and-coming talent had given it a makeover with her friends

Smoking: The star puffed on a cigarette after completing work on her billboard for the Marc Jacobs 2017 spring campaign

'Frances Bean Cobain by Frances Bean Cobain on top of our flagship store on 8400 Melrose Place, LA,' the brand wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of the updated billboard.

The original billboard showed the rising talent in a Victorian-inspired lace dress, her tousled dark hair partially covering her face, and dark makeup giving her a slightly goth look.

'I dont think Ill be modeling for anybody else for a very long time - this is 100 percent outside my comfort zone,' she told Vogue in January. 'I wouldnt have done it with anyone other than Marc.'

Squad goals: 'Just a couple of bandits leaving their mark,' the brunette beauty captioned this photo

Finishing touches: Frances and her friends celebrated their accomplishments by jumping and high-fiving each other

Cool kid: 'I dont model unless I think the project is cool, and I dont put my name behind something that I dont genuinely believe in,' she confessed

And despite landing such a coveted campaign, Frances says she has no aspirations to become America's next top model.

'I dont model unless I think the project is cool, and I dont put my name behind something that I dont genuinely believe in,' she confessed.

'Im not representing the beautiful top models of the world. Im representing what a general, standard, average human girl would look like wearing these clothes. I think thats why Marc picked me for this.'
Its a sacred cow. Untouchable. But hours before Comic Relief aired on Friday evening, one brave soul described it thus: A biennial guilt trip that is tired, and patronising to Africans. This year, things must be different.

Some right-wing troll? No, that was David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham. But Ive long been of the same mind.

So, was Friday nights outing any different? Did it get across the complexity of poverty or were Africans, yet again, portrayed as helpless victims while loutish celebrities indulged in an orgy of virtue-signalling?

For a while Red Nose Day made us laugh hard enough that we'd dig into our pockets - but not this year

Red Nose Day has, for 32 years, been irreverent and shocking, but for a while it made us laugh hard enough that wed dig into our pockets.

Sorry to say, this years offering was merely embarrassing.

First up, a La La Land spoof, with Lenny Henry, Miranda Hart and Ed Balls. So far, so-so. Jonathan Ross was host; my God, we missed Terry telethon Wogans quiet humility. On came all those smug, male panel-show guests. Ten minutes in, a starving black baby. Your money saves lives, said another rich male stand-up. Perhaps. But I wonder what mothers in Somalia would make of Take That and James Corden in a car, doing out-of-tune karaoke.

Graham Norton's outsize sofa experiment was particularly cringeworthy

The pleas to give money to child carers and old people in the UK obscured the fact that our taxes should support them  taxes some comedians and musicians try their very best to avoid, or minimise. I aint bovvered, said Catherine Tate. Viewers could be forgiven for feeling likewise.

I hated the constant plugs for phone companies and corporate sponsors. But then they must have their pound of publicity, along with the saintly celebs who, by happy coincidence, often have plays and films to plug.

Graham Nortons outsize sofa experiment was particularly cringeworthy.

High points? Seeing the cast of Love Actually back together was like looking at London house prices: havent they all done well? But at least the film was nicely done. Poignant in parts, too.

In a world of online activism the format of Red Nose Night seems clunky and old fashioned

Far more moving, though, was the child on a rubbish tip in Nairobi saying simply, this shouldnt be my life? Or Peaches, the little slum girl who sang to Ed Sheeran (fancy that, hes got a new album out). She stopped, and water ran down her face. Shed lost her dad to Ebola. I reached for my phone. You cant watch stories like this and not want to help. Lets tune out the stars, and listen to these little ones.

For like Hugh Grant in Love Actually, Red Nose Night seemed past its prime. In a world of online activism, its format seemed clunky and old-fashioned.

Have the millions Comic Relief has raised made a difference? Of course. But it has also reinforced the notion that charity is the answer, when really its political will, jobs, trade and peace. Not self-serving celebs who will scurry back to their mansions, and lock the door.
On Friday, Candice Swanepoel was spotted making the streets of New York her runway as she strutted about pricey Madison Avenue.

The 28-year-old Victoria's Secret Angel looked casual-cool in a trendy ensemble while walking arm-in-arm with a friend.

The duo stopped by Givenchy to peruse the shelves of the luxury retailer.

Street style queen: On Friday, Candice Swanepoel was spotted making the streets of New York her runway as she strutted about pricey Madison Avenue, arm-in-arm with a friend

The South African beauty wore high-waist, light-blue denim jeans with distressed knee detailing.

She paired the jeans with a heather gray sweatshirt and threw on a black quarter-sleeve blazer on top.

Candice included a black scarf around her neck for added warmth, and chose black suede pointed-toe wedge ankle boots for comfy, yet chic, footwear.

Friends with good taste! Her equally fashion-forward companion rocked a pair of Fenty Creepers in a gray suede color

She pulled her golden tresses into a low-maintenace high ponytail.

The international supermodel accessorized with a $4,000 Givenchy Antigona python leather cross-body bag, silver reflective sunglasses, and drop earrings featuring a cross on either ear.

The look was completed with Candice's ever-present engagement ring, which she received in 2015 when her longtime partner and model Hermann Nicoli, 34, proposed - after nearly a decade of dating.

Longtime lovers: Candice posted a throwback photo of herself and Hermann Nicoli, 34. She stated this photo was taken in 2007 'before selfies'

Candice and Hermann welcomed their first child in October of last year.

Swanepoel's beauty is only surpassed by her brains - the model can speak Portuguese, Afrikaans, and English.

She chose to name her son after the Brazilian word for 'bird' - or more specifically, 'red parrot.'

Baby Anaca turned half a year old earlier this month.
Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya (C) leaves a hospital morgue in Gaza City on March 24, 2017 after gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot dead a Hamas official who was freed by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap

Gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Friday shot dead a Hamas official who was freed by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap, the interior ministry in the Palestinian enclave said.

Mazen Faqha was released along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years.

Iyad al-Bozum, an interior ministry spokesman in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, said that gunmen opened fire on Faqha in the Tell al-Hama neighbourhood.

"An investigation has been launched," he said, giving no further details.

Police spokesman Ayman al-Batniji said Faqha had "four bullets in his head" and said Israel and its "collaborators" were responsible for the killing.

"We know how to respond to this crime," he added.

Faqha was a senior Hamas official in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but after his release Israel transferred him to Gaza.

The Israeli army refused to comment. But Khalil al-Haya, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, said: "This assassination does not serve anybody but the occupiers (Israel), it is of no interest to the other parties."
Lebanese protesters rally in front of the Supreme Shiite Council in Beirut to demand clerics increase the age at which the custody of children in divorce cases can be awarded to the mother

Every week, young divorcee Rita Choukeir looks forward to the three precious hours she gets with her young son in Lebanon, where child custody is awarded according to religious rulings.

Typically hailed as one of the region's most liberal countries, Lebanon's so-called personal status issues -- including marriage, divorce, and child custody -- are still determined by authorities of its 18 religious sects.

Shiite religious courts have ruled that divorced mothers must turn over custody of their sons when they reach two, and daughters aged seven, when custody goes de facto to the father.

But hundreds of mothers, including 24-year-old Choukeir, are fighting back.

"As a mother, you have the biggest right to rebel, to take on the whole world to protect your son," said Choukeir, who has been fighting for custody of her four-year-old son Adam since her divorce in 2015.

Her struggle is familiar and traumatic: Choukeir grew up seeing her own divorced mother just eight hours a week because of a ruling by a religious court.

Barely holding back her tears, she told AFP: "I've seen the pain of both experiences: my own as a child raised far away from her mother, and a mother kept from her son."

Adam has been living with his father since shortly after the divorce, but Choukeir is now appealing to the country's top Shiite Muslim court for full custody.

- 'Not open for discussion' -

Choukeir told AFP she was not expecting the court to rule in her favour, but that she would not stop fighting for custody "until the last of my days".

A Lebanese woman kisses her daughter as protesters gather outside the Supreme Shiite Council in Beiruit to demand a change in child custody laws that favour fathers over mothers in divorce cases

"I don't trust the (religious) court, I'm afraid of it," Choukeir said.

"How can someone like me, who was deprived of her mother at three years old because of this court, trust it today?"

According to Shiite scholars, the custody rule is an interpretation of the hadith (words and practices of the Prophet Mohammed) and the Koran, which stipulate that fathers are responsible for child-rearing.

Ali Makki, who heads the religious court at Lebanon's Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, told AFP: "The Shiite sect relies primarily on interpretation, but the highest point of reference for the council is in Najaf," a Shiite shrine city in Iraq.

"Amending the issue (of custody) is not easy for the Shiite sect."

A similar custody rule once applied to Lebanon's Sunni population, but after widespread pushback, clerics amended it and Sunni divorcees were granted full custody until their children turned 12.

Now, Shiite mothers in Lebanon are waging their own protest campaign, with Choukeir's case as a rallying cry.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, dozens of mothers gathered with their children at the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council headquarters in Beirut.

Organised by the "Protecting Lebanese Women" campaign, protesters held banners that read, "Custody is a right for Rita and every mother!"

"We have been waging this battle for four years without any positive response from the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, which insists that this issue is not open for discussion," said campaign head Zeina Ibrahim.

- 'Stood my ground' -

In some cases, divorcees offer to give up their alimony in exchange for full custody. But sometimes, Shiite women who resist lose their visitation rights, or are even jailed.

In early November, Fatima Hamza, 32, spent six days behind bars after refusing to hand over her four-year-old son Ali to his father.

The top Shiite court had ruled that since her son was older than two, full custody would be awarded to his father.

"The court didn't even listen to me. Instead, they added to the injustice against me," she told AFP.

While Hamza was imprisoned, Ali stayed with a relative and later returned to his mother's care -- although his father is still pressing the legal battle for full custody.

"They renewed their demands that I be imprisoned again but I stood my ground. I told the judge that I was ready to go to jail again, but I would not implement this unjust and unfair decision," she said.

Surrounded by women outside the Shiite Council's headquarters, Hamza said Lebanese "mothers are becoming more daring after breaking down the walls of fear".

Last year, Darine Salman was jailed for 27 days when she refused to hand over custody of her six-year-old son to her Kuwaiti husband.

By the time she was released, Salman's husband had taken custody of their son.

"The religious judge ruled in favour of the father, as expected. He refused to listen to me or let me defend myself," Salman, 36, told AFP.

"I don't want my rights. I just want to see my son."
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (L) said a state immigrant legal defense initiative would ensure the state lived up to the values embodied by "the Lady in our Harbor"

New York state launched an immigrant legal defense initiative with more than $1 million in public and private funding in response to "overwhelming" demand for help from non-profit organizations.

A statewide coalition of 182 advocacy organization and legal entities, as well as a network of pro bono attorneys, law students and legal professionals will provide legal assistance and representation to immigrants "threatened by recent changes in immigration policies," a statement read.

The move follows actions under President Donald Trump, who has twice issue a travel ban on refugees, as well as other travelers from certain predominantly Muslim countries. Both have been suspended by courts.

"New York is a beacon of hope and opportunity for all, and immigrants have always been part of the fabric of this great state," Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

"During these stormy times, it's critical all New Yorkers have access to their full rights under the law."

The state's Office for New Americans will coordinate the legal aid for immigrants -- including for deportation proceedings and applying for lawful permanent residence and work permits -- "regardless of their residency status," the statement read.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Foundation are also partnering in the project.

Under the initiative, more than 200 seasoned attorneys and paralegals will volunteer their time so "immigrants are better aware of their legal options and are provided greater access to representation," Cuomo's office said.

Under the "know-your-rights" campaign, pro bono attorneys will travel across the state to reach out to immigrants.

The project, which Cuomo describes as the first of its kind in the country, will "ensure this state is living up to the values embodied by the Lady in our Harbor," he said, referring to the Statue of Liberty.

The minority rights group Make the Road New York welcomed the initiative but warned that it falls short of generating the $19.1 million experts believe is needed to provide "adequate" immigration-related legal services for all detained immigrants.
Amos Yee was detained by US authorities after he arrived in Chicago airport in December

A Singaporean teenager who was jailed twice after insulting the island's late leader Lee Kuan Yew and religious groups has been granted political asylum in the United States, his US lawyer said Saturday.

Amos Yee, 18, shocked Singaporeans in March 2015 after posting an expletive-laden video attacking Lee as the founding prime minister's death triggered a massive outpouring of grief in the city-state.

He was jailed for four weeks for hurting the religious feelings of Christians and posting an obscene image as part of his attacks on Lee -- whose son Lee Hsien Loong is now the prime minister -- but served 50 days including penalties for violating bail conditions.

He was jailed again in 2016 for six weeks for insulting Muslims and Christians in a series of videos posted online, but critics claim the real reason was to silence him.

The Singapore government had no immediate reaction to the ruling, which is still open to an appeal by the US government.

Yee's lawyer Sandra Grossman of Maryland-based Grossman Law LLC told AFP by telephone that US immigration judge Samuel B. Cole had granted her client's application for asylum.

"Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore," the judge said in the decision, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

"Accordingly, this court grants his application for asylum."

The judge said evidence presented during the hearing "demonstrates Singapore's persecution of Yee was a pretext to silence his political opinions critical of the Singapore government".

He also described Yee as a "young political dissident".

Singapore, an island republic of 5.6 million which has long been been criticised for strict controls on dissent, takes pride in its racial and social cohesion, which it regards as essential for stability in a volatile region.

The US Department of Homeland Security had opposed Yee's asylum application, saying he was legally prosecuted by the Singapore government.

Yee, a filmmaker-turned-activist, was detained by US authorities after he arrived in Chicago airport in December.

Speaking by telephone from Maryland, lawyer Grossman, who has represented Yee for free, said the US government "has the right to appeal this decision" within the next 30 days.

"The law agrees that he is eligible for immediate release," Grossman said.

-- 'Quintessential political dissident' --

The lawyer said she contacted the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office on Friday and was told Yee will be transferred to an ICE detention facility in Chicago on Monday and will be considered for release.

Phil Robertson, campaign group Human Rights Watch's deputy Asia director, lauded the US judge's asylum decision.

"There was never any doubt that Amos Yee is the quintessential political dissident, escaping from the sort of a pressure cooker environment that city-state Singapore excels in devising for dissidents who challenge its prerogatives," Robertson told AFP.

"It's clear the Singapore government saw Amos Yee as the proverbial nail sticking up that had to be hammered down."

Activist Shelley Thio, of the rights group Community Action Network Singapore, said Yee's mother, Mary, received the news of the decision "with much relief".

"Grossman Law is now trying to secure Amos' release and we are hopeful that Amos will be released soon," Thio said.

In Yee's video attacking Lee, he compared the late leader, who was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, to Jesus, saying "they are both power-hungry and malicious but deceive others into thinking they are compassionate and kind".

It was watched hundreds of thousands of times before being taken down from Yee's YouTube page.
US President Donald Trump was forced to withdraw a health care bill, leaving his major campaign pledge to dismantle his predecessor's health care reforms unfulfilled

President Donald Trump suffered a bitter defeat in his first major legislative challenge as Republican lawmakers shot down his effort to repeal Obamacare. It was the latest in a string of major setbacks to have hit his two-month-old presidency.

- Travel bans -

Just one week after his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order banning travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries and all refugees. Unveiled with no prior warning, it sowed travel chaos and confusion, and ignited worldwide outrage.

However, in a humiliating setback for the president, a court in Washington state blocked the order on the grounds that it violated the constitution's prohibition of religious discrimination.

After the block was upheld on appeal, the administration issued a revised ban it said would better adhere to the law. It would close US borders to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, and all refugees for at least 120 days. Iraq was on the original ban but removed in the revision.

Still, courts in Maryland Hawaii dealt the White House a new blow this month, ruling that the second ban also discriminated against Muslims.

Although it does not mention Muslims, the courts have accepted arguments that Trump's statements while he was running for president last year -- that he would open his White House term with a ban on Muslim arrivals -- effectively defined his approach.

The case will next be heard in a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia.

- Russia -

Since US intelligence agencies last year took the unprecedented step of publicly accusing Russia of trying to swing November's presidential election in Trump's favor, questions have swirled about whether some in his campaign colluded with Moscow.

At least four separate congressional investigations are underway into Moscow's election meddling. Democrats argue that the interference, in which the Kremlin oversaw a campaign to hack Democratic Party emails that were later leaked, contributed to Hillary Clinton's defeat.

The cloud hanging over the White House mushroomed last month when Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned after it emerged that he had misled the White House over meeting Russia's Ambassador in Washington Sergey Kislyak before taking office.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any Russia-related inquiries soon after, following the revelation that he also met Kislyak before Trump took office, contrary to Sessions's testimony during his confirmation hearing.

In a high-stakes public hearing in Congress on Monday, FBI Director James Comey took the extraordinary step of confirming the agency is investigating whether Trump campaign aides colluded with the Russian effort to influence the election. He also repudiated the president's claim that he was wiretapped by Barack Obama.

Both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees will hold more public hearings in the coming weeks.

- Health care -

On Friday, Trump was forced to withdraw an embattled Republican health care bill moments before a vote, leaving his major campaign pledge to dismantle his predecessor's health care reforms unfulfilled.

The plan, intended to bring free-market competition to the insurance industry and lower the cost of premiums for most Americans, would have slashed public assistance to people with no health coverage through their employers. Some 14 million people stood to lose their coverage starting next year, forecasts said.

Trump had thrown his full political weight behind the measure, spending days arm-twisting recalcitrant Republicans.

The billionaire real estate tycoon -- who entered the White House with no experience of politics or government -- had put his reputation as a dealmaker on the line with the high-risk vote.

But the bill now appears dead, with Republican lawmakers urging a return to the drawing board.

Trump said he would shift quickly toward tax reform, another longstanding Republican goal.
US photographer James Balog speaks about his images at the "Extreme Ice" exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

For the last decade, American photographer James Balog has been on a mission to document climate change through his camera lens.

His effort has taken him to the farthest reaches of the world, from Antarctica to the northern ends of Greenland, where he has captured the movements and melts of immense glaciers.

The results of his work were on display at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, which on Thursday opened the exhibit "Extreme Ice."

"I want people to understand the ice," Balog told AFP in an interview at the show opening. "Ice is the manifestation of climate change in action."

That change, often imperceptibly slow, is invisible to the eye. But, through time lapse photography, Balog reveals how 24 glaciers around the world are evolving -- showing giant bodies of ice moving in currents, and crystal blue or green water pooling as melting accelerates.

A scientist by training, Balog's work has already garnered attention and been the subject of two documentaries.

A boy touches one of the photos displayed at the "Extreme Ice" exhibit by US photographer James Balog at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

This latest exhibit in Chicago, which juxtaposes photographs of glaciers taken years apart to show their rapid decline, offers updated images and new locations, such as Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

"(The images) make this subject alive and resonant in people's hearts and minds, in a way that just pure art or pure science wouldn't do alone," Balog said.

- 'Climate change is happening' -

More than 90 percent of the world's glaciers are melting, with 75 billion tons of ice lost in Alaska alone every year. The scale of the problem can be hard to comprehend, but Balog's photographs make it more understandable.

Two juxtaposed images of the Bridge Glacier in Canada -- a thick sheet of ice covering a vast valley -- show its substantial retreat over a period of just three years.

A section of the Trift Glacier in Switzerland, the height of a mid-rise building with beautiful white, blue and brown hues, appears shriveled to almost nothing over a nine-year period.

"People (who) don't believe in global warming and climate change, they need to see this exhibit. Because it's real," said Sharonya Simon, who appeared stunned while viewing the photographs.

Students on a field trip place their hands on a ice glacier replica during the "Extreme Ice" exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

Simon, a teacher, brought her elementary school class to the museum on a field trip. The children were enthralled by the photos and the giant wall of man-made ice which they could touch.

"These photographs, these films, these interactives, these are bringing people closer to the science," said Patricia Ward, director of science and technology at the museum.

"It's about making people more aware. People understand that climate change is happening, but it may not always be front and center in their mind," she said.

- 'Suddenly you're stunned' -

Balog's images surprised even him back in 2007, when he first started placing specially outfitted time-lapse cameras in remote parts of the world.

"When you stand out there, you don't see any of these changes," Balog said. "When you string together a whole set of those images, suddenly you're stunned."

In the works for more than two years, the exhibit comes as President Donald Trump's administration moves to roll back US regulations aimed at curbing climate change.

People attend the "Extreme Ice" exhibit by US photographer James Balog at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

Trump has threatened to pull the US out of the Paris accord on global warming, and proposed funding cuts to climate change research at home. The White House's budget director Mick Mulvaney has called such funding "a waste of money."

Through the exhibit, Balog and the museum in the United States' de facto Midwest capital, are putting a stake in the ground on the side of climate science.

"I see this as being a broad, broad issue that applies to everyone regardless of their partisan political interest. So, I find this intense politicization of the issue right now, in the current administration, to be a real problem," Balog said.

He is now embarking on his second decade of gathering images of the world's glaciers.
Lebanese students of the American University in Beirut (AUB) gather at their university campus, 25 October 2007

A Lebanese university will pay $700,000 to settle a US lawsuit over allegations it provided "material support" to entities linked to Hezbollah, US officials said.

The American University of Beirut confirmed in a statement Friday it was settling the lawsuit, which charged it had violated the terms of grants it received from US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The US Attorney's Office in Manhattan announced the deal on Thursday, saying AUB would be required to pay the US government $700,000 (650,000 euros) and revise its internal policies to ensure future compliance with US law.

"For years, the American University of Beirut accepted grant money from USAID, but failed to take reasonable steps to ensure against providing material support to entities on the Treasury Department's prohibited list," said Acting Manhattan US Attorney Joon H. Kim said.

"With today's settlement, the University is being made to pay a financial penalty for its conduct, and importantly, it has admitted to its conduct and agreed to put proper precautions in place to ensure that it does not happen again."

The civil lawsuit charged that AUB violated US law by providing media training between 2007-2009 to representatives of two media outlets -- Al-Nour Radio and Al-Manar television -- under US sanctions for their ties to Hezbollah.

It also accused AUB of listing the Hezbollah-linked Jihad al-Binaa, also under US sanctions, on the university's NGO database.

Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite political and military organisation, is listed as a "terrorist" group in the United States and entities linked to it are also under sanctions.

In its statement, AUB said it acknowledged the accusations.

But it insisted "AUB does not agree that its conduct was knowing, intentional or reckless."

It welcomed the settlement and said it would conduct additional training of faculty and staff on US law going forward.

AUB was founded in 1866 and is considered one of Lebanon's leading universities.
The body of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas' official Mazen Faqha is carried by members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, during his funeral in Gaza city on March 25, 2017

Thousands of Hamas supporters on Saturday called for "revenge" during the Gaza funeral of an official from the Palestinian Islamist movement gunned down the previous day.

"Revenge, revenge!" called participants at the procession for Mazen Faqha, 38, who was shot dead by unknown gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Friday.

Hamas-nominated attorney general Ismail Jaber on Saturday blamed Israel for the killing.

"This assassination has the clear marks of Mossad," he said, referring to the Jewish state's spy agency.

According to Israeli media, Faqha was responsible for cells of Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel arrested Faqha and sentenced him to prison over suicide attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis during the second intifada, or uprising, between 2000 and 2005.

He was released in 2011 along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years, and transferred to Gaza.

Prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, headed the procession from the Shifa morgue to the Omari mosque, an AFP photographer said.

Khalil al-Haya, a deputy to Sinwar, promised retaliation.

"If the enemy thinks that this assassination will change the power balance, then it should know the minds of Qassam will be able to retaliate in kind," he said.

Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip for 10 years.
The ferris wheel at Luna Park and Sydney Harbour Bridge before and after being plunged into darkness for the Earth Hour environmental campaign to highlight global warming

The Empire State Building and United Nations headquarters in New York joined other iconic buildings and monuments around the world plunging into darkness for sixty minutes on Saturday to mark Earth Hour and draw attention to climate change.

The Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin, the Acropolis in Athens and Sydney's Opera House also dimmed their lights as millions of people from some 170 countries and territories were expected to take part in Earth Hour, the annual bid to highlight global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas to drive cars and power plants.

The event, which originated in Sydney, has grown to become a worldwide environmental campaign, celebrated across all continents.

The World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) conservation group, which organizes the event, said great strides had been made in highlighting the dire state of the planet.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris shown before and after it went dark for Earth Hour

"We started Earth Hour in 2007 to show leaders that climate change was an issue people cared about," coordinator Siddarth Das said.

"For that symbolic moment to turn into the global movement it is today, is really humbling and speaks volumes about the powerful role of people in issues that affect their lives."

In Sydney, many harborside buildings switched off their lights for an hour from 8:30 pm local time as the call for action began rolling out across the world.

"I agree with the concept, 100 percent," said student Ed Gellert, 24, in Sydney.

"I think people probably avoid the fact that climate change is happening, so it's good to see the city grouping together to support Earth Hour."

The statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro shown before and after being plunged into darkness for Earth Hour

From Australia, it moved westward through Asia, with many of the skyscrapers ringing Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour going dark in solidarity, while at Myanmar's most sacred pagoda, the Shwedagon, 10,000 oil lamps were lit to shine a light on climate action.

The lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France's best-known symbol, were switched off for five minutes at 1930 GMT and the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, the world's tallest building, went dark for an hour.

London's Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and London Eye giant wheel followed suit, among 270 British landmarks that switched off.

Berlin's famed Brandenburg Gate and its City Hall also plunged into darkness as some 300 other German cities took part in the event.

In Singapore, around 200 organizations, including buildings along the city-state's iconic skyline, went black to mark the occasion. Organizers said around 35,000 people watched performances and participated in a "carbon-neutral run" that saw some runners in panda and tiger costumes to raise awareness of wildlife protection.

And in Japan, Tokyo's famed Sony Building in Ginza extinguished its bright lights to honor the occasion.

Homes and businesses were also asked to join, and individuals could commit to the cause on Facebook.

WWF said teams around the world would use Earth Hour this year to highlight climate issues most relevant to individual countries.

In South Africa, the focus was on renewable energy, while in China, WWF said it was working with businesses to encourage a shift toward more sustainable lifestyles.

- Visible proof -

Last year, scientists recorded the Earth's hottest temperatures in modern times for the third year in a row.

Nations agreed in Paris in 2015 to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial temperatures.

People attend a candle light vigil at the Vilnius Cathedral as it stands unlit during Earth Hour

That is the level at which many scientists say humankind can still avoid worst-case climate outcomes in terms of rising sea levels, worsening droughts and floods, and increasingly violent superstorms.

"Climate change is visible proof that our actions can have a ripple effect beyond physical borders," Das said.

"It is up to each of us to ensure the impact we create helps instead to improve the lives of those around us and elsewhere, at present and in the future."

The lights on the Burj Khalifa tower, the world's tallest building, are switched off for an hour in Dubai

Earth Hour does not collect global statistics about the energy conserved during the 60-minute blackout, chiefly a symbolic event.

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Civilians flee Mosul as Iraqi forces advance in their operation to retake the city from the Islamic State group on March 23, 2017

More than 200,000 people have fled fighting in west Mosul since the operation to retake the area from jihadists was launched last month, Iraq's ministry of migration and displaced said Saturday.

The battle for west Mosul -- the most populated urban area still held by the Islamic State group -- was launched on February 19, and Iraqi forces have since recaptured a series of neighbourhoods from the jihadists.

"The number of displaced from the areas of the right bank (west side) of the city of Mosul has risen to 201,275 people," the ministry said in a statement.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since retaken most of the territory they lost.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to recapture Mosul in October, retaking the east of the city before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely populated west.

The United Nations said Thursday that there were some 600,000 people still in west Mosul, 400,000 of whom are "trapped" in the Old City area under siege-like conditions.
A Syrian man carries two injured children after a reported air strike in the rebel-controlled town of Hammuriyeh, on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, on March 25, 2017

At least 16 civilians were killed and dozens wounded on Saturday in an air strike on a rebel-held area outside Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

It said it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strike on the town Hammuriyeh in the opposition bastion of Eastern Ghouta, which has been targeted by both the government and its ally Russia in the past.

"Sixteen civilians, including a child, were killed and around 50 others wounded in an air strike on the main street in the town of Hammuriyeh," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

He could not immediately confirm if all the wounded were civilians, or if some were rebel fighters.

The death toll could rise further because a number of the injured were in serious condition, he added.

An AFP photographer saw members of the White Helmets rescue organisation removing survivors from the aftermath of the street, including a man whose face was coated in blood.

Other White Helmet volunteers sprayed water from hoses onto smoking rubble including overturned and mangled cars.

Elsewhere, a man carried two children, a girl in yellow fluffy pyjamas, her hair stiff with dust, and a smaller child whose head was haphazardly bandaged.

Another carried the lifeless body of a child, half its head missing below a crop of black curls.

The Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus has been under a devastating government siege since 2012, and is also the regular target of regime air strikes and artillery fire.

It is the last remaining opposition stronghold near Damascus, where a string of local "reconciliation deals" have seen villages and towns brought back under the control of President Bashar al-Assad's government.

An injured Syrian breathes through an oxygen mask after a reported air strike in the rebel-controlled town of Hammuriyeh, on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, on March 25, 2017

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

Government ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey brokered a nationwide truce in December, but violence has continued across the country.
Civilians gather at the site of Saudi-led air strikes in the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hodeida late on September 21, 2016

Sixteen rebels have been killed and 24 wounded in 24 hours of air raids by a Saudi-led coalition targeting the insurgents in Yemen, a military official and medics said Saturday.

The Huthi rebels were killed in air strikes on an air base and arms depot in the east of the rebel-held Hodeida province since Friday, the official said.

A source in the coalition supporting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government said Hodeida was one of the areas being targeted since Friday as part of ongoing military operations on areas under rebel control.

The dead and wounded were transferred to Al-Alfi military hospital and Al-Thawra hospital in the Huthi-controlled city of Hodeida, medics at the hospitals said.

The Red Sea port city is a key transit point for desperately needed imports into war-torn Yemen, where fighting has escalated since the March 2015 military intervention of the coalition against the Shiite rebels.

A boat carrying refugees was hit by an air strike earlier this month off the Hodeida port. Forty-two people were killed, most of them Somali refugees.

The coalition denied accusations it was involved in the attack and called on the United Nations to supervise the Hodeida port.

Map and factfile on Yemen's war that has left around 7,700 people killed and 18.8 million in need of aid

The UN has rejected the request on the grounds that parties involved in the Yemen war have a responsibility to protect civilians.

Yemen's conflict has steadily worsened since 2011, after protests led to the resignation of then president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Saleh is now allied with the Iran-backed Huthis, who control strategic points along the Red Sea coast and the capital Sanaa.

More than 7,700 people have been killed and 40,000 wounded since March 2015, according to the United Nations.
Nigerian migrants in jubilant mood as they returned home after months stuck in Libya

More than 150 Nigerians, some of them in tears, broke out in song as they touched down on home soil, after months stuck in Libya waiting to try to get to Europe.

"I don't leave Nigeria again-o! I will never forget my home!" they sang.

The rain fell heavily on the runway at Lagos international airport and night was drawing in but the atmosphere on the small bus taking the new arrivals to immigration control was almost hysterical.

They broke out in loud applause, waving at onlookers curious to see who had emerged from the chartered jet that had flown in from the Libyan capital.

"I'm so happy, it's like winning the lottery," said Osapolor Osahor.

The 24-year-old tailor said life was hellish in Tripoli: the sound of gunfire was everywhere and there was a mounting toll of deaths, particularly of black Africans.

"Some are in prison for so long, six months, seven months... I was put in a cell, like four, five months before I came back," he told AFP.

- Increasing numbers -

Four plane-loads of Nigerian migrants have now flown back from Libya in less than two months. Since the start of the year, 660 people in total have been helped to return voluntarily.

That compares with 867 for the whole of last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is running the repatriation scheme.

Most of the Nigerians are economic migrants who want to try their luck in Europe and travelled up to the Mediterranean coast via northern neighbour Niger and the treacherous route through the Sahara desert.

But with Libya in turmoil, many found themselves trapped by violence while others were arrested and held by militia even before they had tried to make the sea crossing.

Ozoa, a mechanic, was among the 155 people who arrived back in Nigeria on Thursday. Lying on a stretcher, he didn't sing or smile.

Last year he managed to get to the port of Zawiya -- one of the main departure points for migrants -- some 45 kilometres (30 miles) west of Tripoli.

The 30-year-old had a blank look and refused to speak to reporters. He knows he won't walk again.

"He was caught in the crossfire and he was shot in his back, in the middle of the vertebrae," said Aladin Abokhsoom, a doctor who made the journey with him from the Libyan capital.

Ozoa was scheduled to be transferred to a Lagos hospital to have an operation to remove the bullet from his spine.

For him and his family who made the trip from the southern state of Edo to welcome him home, the future is now on hold.

"We sold everything we had to pay his travel to Europe. I sold my land, I spent 950,000 naira ($3,000, 2,800 euros) in total," his older brother Abu Zika explained.

"What are we going to do?"

- Reintegration -

The IOM gives 20,000 naira to each voluntary "returnee" to help them go home. Most are originally from southern Nigeria.

Health officials checked the returning migrants as they came off the plane from Libya

Ozoa and about 20 other people considered vulnerable -- unaccompanied minors and pregnant women for example -- will also get "in-kind" support the equivalent of 1,000 British pounds ($1,250, 1,150 euros).

According to Julia Burpee, from the IOM in Nigeria, the aim is for them to use the cash to set up a small business such as a barber's, small kiosk or some other way to reintegrate into society.

Abdulahi Bandele Onimode, from Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said those who returned were driven by a sense that the grass was greener elsewhere.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and one of the continent's main oil exporters but most of its 180 million people live in poverty: the economy is in currently in recession and unemployment is high.

Onimode said those looking to leave should stay to help the recovery "because we can build a stronger Nigeria so that those countries will now envy our own economy when we join hands to build it".

Those whose dreams have been shattered in Libya and who have returned to Nigeria may be increasing but they represent only a minority of migrants who have left for good.

Humanitarian agencies fear many will try again in other ways.

In 2016, a total of 37,551 Nigerians managed to get to the Italian coast, according to the IOM, more than those from Eritrea, Ivory Coast and The Gambia.

That figure has quadrupled since 2014, when 9,000 arrived in Italy.
Smoke rises from Jobar after an air strike on the rebel-held district on the eastern outskirts of Damascus on March 24, 2017

Russia's army on Saturday dismissed a French claim that Raqa, the Islamic State's stronghold in Syria, was surrounded by troops who were poised to storm it, saying it had "no relation to reality."

Russia's curt dismissal came a day after French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the jihadist group's de facto capital was "surrounded" and that the battle to prise it from IS control "will begin in the coming days."

"This will be a very hard battle but essential," he told France's CNEWS television, drawing a sceptical response from Russia.

A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance has reached the entrance of the strategic Tabqa Dam

"The optimism of the French defence minister, who said the encirclement of Raqa was complete... has no relation to reality or the situation on the ground," military spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

"It is clear to any military specialist that the liberation of Raqa will not be a walk in the park for the international coalition," he said.

The duration of the operation and the measure of its success would depend on the ability of the players to "coordinate their action with all the forces fighting international terrorism in Syria," he said.

Konashenkov also drew a parallel with the US-backed ground offensive targeting Mosul, the jihadists' other stronghold in Iraq: "Even the most optimistic no longer believe Mosul will be completely liberated from IS this year."

The US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance spearheading the fight in Syria, which has been working for months to encircle Raqa, also expressed caution about how soon the battle would begin.

Speaking to AFP on Friday, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said there was still work to do.

"The operation to besiege Raqa will take several weeks and that will then lead to the official launch of the operation," Talal Sello said.

And a European diplomat, who did not want to be named, said the situation surrounding the Raqa offensive remained "complex".

The anti-IS coalition estimates that between 3,000 and 4,000 jihadists are in Raqa, a city of about 300,000.
A visitor looks at a statue in brass representing a horn player (L, Benin, South of Nigeria, XVIth and XVIIth Century) during an exhibition focused on refined Art in Benin in 2007 at the Quai Branly museum in Paris

Benin is asking for the return of treasures that were taken during French colonial rule from the end of the 19th century, re-opening a thorny diplomatic issue that resonates across Africa.

Lawmakers and civil society groups from both countries have written to French President Francois Hollande, calling for the return of "colonial treasures", including royal thrones and swords.

Many are now on display in French museums, including the Quai Branly in Paris, which exhibits indigenous art from across the world.

Signatories to the open letter, which was published this week, described the objects as having "an exceptional spiritual and proprietary value for the Benin people".

France ruled Dahomey until 1960, when it was granted independence and changed its name to Benin. Dahomey included the kingdom of the same name that dates back to about 1600.

Most of the artefacts have not been documented but Benin's ambassador to the UN cultural body UNESCO in Paris, Irenee Zevounou, believes some 4,500 to 6,000 are in France, including in private collections.

France's stockpiling of treasures from Dahomey happened during colonial fighting between 1892 and 1894 but also by missionaries who "robbed communities of what they considered to be charms", said Zevounou.

"The negotiations are both with the French state and the French church", he added.

- 'Historic assets' -

Modern-day Benin's President Patrice Talon railed against French influence in its former colony during the election campaign that brought him to power last year.

He said the repatriation of such treasures would allow people "to get to know better our cultural and historic assets" and also allow the tiny west African nation to develop tourism.

"We don't have oil, we don't have gold but we do have these treasures which aren't kept here," one of the letter's signatories, Beninese lawmaker Orden Alladatin, told AFP.

"That's crucial for the history of the country and the continent."

Benin first called for the return of its treasures in July last year, then in September it made a formal request to France's foreign ministry.

This month, Benin's foreign affairs and culture ministers travelled to the French capital. Another delegation is expected to follow suit.

In the letter, Hollande is asked to make "a gesture for history, a gesture for the future, a gesture for the friendship between peoples" in his last weeks in power before two-round presidential polls in April and May.

But the problem may not be as simple and as easily resolvable as it first appears.

For one, Benin has not drawn up a list of objects that it wishes to reclaim. But the main stumbling block is legal.

- Diplomatic route -

Benin's government stated earlier this month that it intended to rely on the UNESCO convention of 1970, which provides for "the transfer to cultural assets to their countries of origin or for their restitution in case of illegal appropriation".

But the convention, to which France and Benin are both signatories, is not retroactive: it only applies to the transfer of objects since it came into force.

France's foreign ministry is pushing this line and relying on "the legal principles of inalienability and imprescriptibility... of public collections", one official told AFP in an email.

"Since the works have been in museum collections often for more than a century, they are inalienable," added lawyer Yves-Bernard Debie, who specialises in art sales law.

"The other legal problem which is raised here is the actual origin of the objects. The Kingdom of Dahomey stretched across what is now Benin and Nigeria. Is Benin justified in making this request?

"In a personal capacity I understand... it's a painful and sensitive issue in Africa. But legally, there's nothing."

Benin's only recourse is therefore the diplomatic route, the same that its giant neighbour to the east, Nigeria, has used to try to get back artefacts taken by British colonialists in the same period.

"Talks are ongoing and have not stopped," said one member of the Benin delegation to UNESCO.

"It will perhaps be lengthy, because the process is difficult," added Zevounou. "But in diplomacy, you always end up by finding common ground."
Meat products are seen in a cold storage room at a supermarket in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during an inspection by the state's consumer protection agency, PROCON, on March 24, 2017

Brazil won a major victory Saturday in the fight to restore credibility amid a tainted meat scandal, with key markets China, Egypt and Chile lifting their bans on its products.

The three countries, which had totally closed their markets to Brazilian meat at the beginning of the week, said they would open them to all but imports from the 21 Brazilian processing plants under investigation.

Brazil, South America's largest economy and the world's largest meat exporter, has been reeling since March 17, when Brazilian police announced "Operation Weak Flesh."

The two-year investigation revealed that some meatpackers had paid crooked inspectors to pass off rotten and adulterated meat as safe.

About 20 countries this week -- including the European Union, Japan and Mexico -- closed fully or partially their doors to Brazilian meat imports, whose sales brought in more than $13 billion to the Brazilian economy in 2016.

China quickly suspended the imports on Monday, and Hong Kong followed suit the next day.

China is the second-largest importer of Brazilian beef, after Hong Kong, with more than $703 million in imports in 2016. For both meat and poultry, China also was in second place with nearly $859.5 million in imports.

The Brazilian agriculture minister, Blairo Maggi, said that China's decision "attests to the rigor and quality of the Brazilian sanitary system."

He later told TV Globo that China will lift its embargo "beginning Monday."

President Michel Temer, in a statement, welcomed China's move as an "acknowledgement of reliability" and expressed his "total confidence" that other countries will follow suit.

Egypt, the third-largest importer of Brazilian beef, with $551.2 million in imports last year, also lifted its ban Saturday. So did Chile, which is Brazil's sixth-largest customer with more than $300 million in annual imports.

- Damage control -

Officials have been scrambling to contain the damage, both domestically and with trade partners. Police have arrested more than 30 people and three plants have been closed.

The scandal has rocked one of the strongest sectors in Brazil, whose economy has been grappling with its worst recession for more than two years.

Brazilian meat is exported to more than 150 countries, with principal markets as far apart as Saudi Arabia, China, Singapore, Japan, Russia, the Netherlands and Italy.

On Wednesday, the government appealed to the World Trade Organization's 163 other members not to impose "arbitrary" bans on the country's more than $13 billion meat export industry.

In its letter to the WTO, Brazil pressed its message that a few bad apples are at fault for the scandal and that the Brazilian food industry itself is in good health.

It pointed out that of 11,000 employees at the agriculture ministry, 2,300 work as inspectors on animal products and "only 33 individuals are being investigated for improper conduct."

The president several times has pointed out that only 184 consignments of meat were deemed by importers to be in violation of standards, among the 853,000 consignments exported in 2016.
The pro-Trump rally in southern California was one of dozens planned nationwide

Violence broke out at a pro-Donald Trump rally in southern California on Saturday when a masked man pepper-sprayed the female organizer before demonstrators tackled him to the ground.

Video posted on Facebook from the fracas at Bolsa Chica State Beach, near Los Angeles, shows a man punching the assailant before being pulled away as the masked man runs off.

"It was a quick reaction, there was about 12 of them," organizer Jennifer Sterling told the Los Angeles Times of her defenders.

No one was wounded in the altercation, according to a dispatcher for the Huntington Beach Fire Department.

Local police reported no arrests among the protesters, although the Times said the California Highway Patrol picked up the masked man shortly after he ran off.

Organizers were not immediately available for comment following the rally, attended by several hundred people supporting Trump, first responders and veterans.

The march was one of dozens planned nationwide.

The president tweeted his thanks "for all of the Trump Rallies today."

"Amazing support," he added. "We will all MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
NYON, Switzerland (AP) - Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Dele Alli was banned for three European games by UEFA on Friday for being sent off against Gent in the Europa League.

The England international was shown a straight red card for his tackle on Brecht Dejaegere during the 2-2 draw at Wembley last month.

Spurs is out of Europe having lost to the Belgian side 3-2 on aggregate in the last 32.

Alli will serve the ban next season with Spurs, which sits second in the Premier League, on course to secure an automatic place in the group stage of the Champions League.

Alli has been in superb form this season, scoring 17 goals in all competitions.
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Foxconn to become biggest shareholder in Lordstown Motors with up to $170 mln investment

Nov 7 (Reuters) - Lordstown Motors Corp said on Monday it had entered into a deal under which Foxconn Ventures Pte Ltd, an affiliate of Foxconn, would...
MOSCOW (AP) - A Ukrainian official said Friday that the killer of renegade Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov, who was gunned down in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, was a Russian agent, a claim quickly rejected by the Kremlin.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, identified the man who shot Voronenkov on Thursday as 28-year-old Pavel Parshov and said he had been trained in Russia by Russian security services. Parshov was badly wounded in the attack and died shortly after in a hospital without regaining consciousness.

"He underwent a special course at a school for saboteurs," Gerashchenko wrote Friday in a Facebook post without explaining how that information was obtained.

In this photo taken on Monday, Feb. 27, 2017, Denis Voronenkov visits a movie theater in Kiev, Ukraine. Ukrainian police said Voronenkov was shot dead Thursday by an unidentified gunman at the entrance of an upscale hotel in the Ukrainian capital. Voronenkov, 45, a former member of the communist faction in the lower house of Russian parliament, had moved to Ukraine last fall and had been granted Ukrainian citizenship. (AP Photo/Oleksandr Synytsia)

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters that Gerashchenko's allegation was "absurd."

Ukraine's National Guard said in a statement that the 28-year old Parshov served in its ranks in 2015-2016 until being dismissed for an unspecified breach of contract.

Ukraine's chief prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, said Voronenkov was killed shortly before meeting with another fugitive Russian lawmaker, Ilya Ponomaryov. Both men were scheduled to give testimony later Thursday at Ukraine's Military Prosecutor's Office. The purpose of the testimony was not immediately clear.

Voronenkov, who had toed the Kremlin line while serving as Russian lawmaker but turned a Kremlin critic after his move to Ukraine last fall, was shot dead near the entrance to an upscale hotel in the center of Kiev.

Ukrainian media on Friday published leaked CCTV footage of the attack. It shows the killer shooting Voronenkov from behind as he was walking down the street with his bodyguard.

When the bodyguard tries to intervene, he, too, is shot, leaving the killer free to shoot Voronenkov again as he is lying on the floor. The injured bodyguard then pulls out his gun and, while lying on the floor, fires on the killer.

The slaying has added to the strain in Russia-Ukraine ties that have soured badly following Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and its support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko immediately called the killing an "act of state terrorism" by Russia even as Ukrainian police were still inspecting the scene. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded by describing Ukraine as the "killer state" and senior Russian lawmakers suggested that the Ukrainian spy agency staged the killing to blame Moscow.

Voronenkov, who had prized real estate in Moscow, was reportedly involved in business disputes, but saw off attempts to lift his parliamentary immunity amid criminal charges while in Russia. Russian investigators have filed fraud charges against him in connection with his business activities after his move to Ukraine.

Forensic experts and police officers examine the scene following the killing of Denis Voronenkov in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, March 23, 2017. Ukrainian police said Voronenkov was shot dead Thursday by an unidentified gunman at the entrance of an upscale hotel in the Ukrainian capital. Voronenkov, 45, a former member of the communist faction in the lower house of Russian parliament, had moved to Ukraine last fall and had been granted Ukrainian citizenship. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT Forensic experts and police officers work at the place of killing of former Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, March 23, 2017. Denis Voronenkov was shot and killed in Kiev Thursday in what the Ukrainian president described as an "act of state terrorism" by Russia, an accusation the Kremlin quickly rejected. Voronenkov, who testified to Ukrainian investigators and criticized Russian policies after his move to Kiev last fall, was shot dead by an unidentified gunman. (AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko)

Maria Maksakova is assisted from the place where her husband Denis Voronenkov was killed, in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, March 23, 2017. Former Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov was shot and killed in Kiev Thursday in what the Ukrainian president described as an "act of state terrorism" by Russia, an accusation the Kremlin quickly rejected. (AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko)

Forensic experts and police officers work at the scene following the killing of Denis Voronenkov in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, March 23, 2017. Ukrainian police said Voronenkov was shot dead Thursday by an unidentified gunman at the entrance of an upscale hotel in the Ukrainian capital. Voronenkov, 45, a former member of the communist faction in the lower house of Russian parliament, had moved to Ukraine last fall and had been granted Ukrainian citizenship. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)
MURRIETA, Calif. (AP) - An Army veteran was awarded the Bronze Star this week for his heroism in a Vietnam War battle that left more than 50 fellow U.S. soldiers dead and close to 200 injured.

Retired Sgt. Joseph Engles was presented with the military distinction on Monday during a ceremony in his hometown of Murrieta, in Southern California, for gallantry in the face of the enemy during the Battle of Suoi Tre in March 1967.

Former Army Maj. Gen. Juilian Burns, who presented the award, said Engles was seriously wounded on the battlefield but continued to man his gun and return fire at the enemy. Burns said that when military officials spoke to those who witnessed the battle, "we came to realize Joe was more than just a gunner."

In this Monday, March 20, 2017, photo provided by the California Army National Guard, former Army Maj. Gen. Juilian Burns, left, presents retired U.S. Army Sgt. Joseph Engles with the Bronze Star during a ceremony in his hometown of Murrieta, Calif. Engles received the honor for gallantry in the face of the enemy during the Battle of Suoi Tre, Vietnam in March 1967. (Capt. Will Martin/California Army National Guard via AP)

Engles was seriously wounded during the battle, but he continued to man his gun and return fire, Burns said in a statement.

"As the battle commenced with intense rocket and grenade and sniper fire, he (Engles) manned the gun and commanded his team to return fire," the statement said. "When a rocket landed close, without regard for his personal safety he neutralized the enemy ordnance and continued the mission."

After battlefield medics removed shrapnel from Engles' arm, he immediately returned to his gun to continue fighting, Burns said.
NEW YORK (AP) - Some Americans breathed a sigh of relief, others bubbled with frustration, and nearly all resigned themselves to the prospect that the latest chapter in the never-ending national debate over health care would not be the last.

The withdrawal of the Republican-sponsored health bill in the face of likely defeat Friday in the U.S. House seemed to ensure that the deep divisions over the Affordable Care Act and its possible replacement will continue to simmer.

As news spread, Americans fell into familiar camps, either happy to see a Democratic effort live another day, or eager to see Republicans regroup and follow through with their "repeal Obamacare" promises.

Janella Williams watches television for news on the healthcare vote while receiving treatment at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Lawrence, Kan., Friday, March 24, 2017. The 45-year-old graphic designer receives medication from an intravenous drip for a neurological disorder, getting the drugs that she says allow her to walk. Under her Affordable Care Act plan, she pays $480 a month for coverage and has an out-of-pocket maximum of $3,500 a year. If she were to lose it, she wouldn't be able to afford the $13,000-a-year out-of-pocket maximum under her husband's insurance. Her treatments cost about $90,000 every seven weeks. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

"Yessssss," an elated 27-year-old artist, Alysa Diebolt of Eastpointe, Michigan, typed on Facebook in response to the news, saying she was relieved those she knows on Affordable Care Act plans won't lose their coverage. "I'm excited, I think it's a good thing," she said.

Millions more shared her view, and #KillTheBill was a top trending topic on Twitter on Friday afternoon. Among those who have long sought to see Obama's health law dismantled, though, there was disappointment or chin-up resolve that they still could prevail.

"Hopefully they'll get it right next time," said Anthony Canamucio, the 50-year-old owner of a barbershop in Middletown Township, Pennsylvania. He gave his vote to Trump in November and wanted to see Obama's health law repealed, but found himself rooting for the GOP replacement bill to fail. He is insured through his wife's employer, and laments the growing deductibles and out-of-pocket costs, blaming Obama's law even as health economists say those trends in employer-provided health coverage preceded the legislation.

For Canamucio, the Republicans' bill didn't go far enough in dismantling the ACA. But he remains steadfast behind Trump and said he believes the president will still deliver.

Cliff Rouse, a 34-year-old banker from Kinston, North Carolina, likewise was willing to give the president he helped elect a chance to make good on his promise. He sees Obama's law as government overreach, even as he knows it could help people like his 64-year-old father, who was recently diagnosed with dementia but refused to buy coverage under a law he disagreed with. Rouse sees Trump's moves on health care as hasty, but believes the GOP will eventually come around with better legislation.

"They've not had enough time to develop a good plan," Rouse said. "They should keep going until they have a good plan that Americans can feel confident in."

It remained far more than a petty political debate, though, and some like Janella Williams, framed the issue as a question of life and death.

The 45-year-old graphic designer from Lawrence, Kansas, spent Friday in the hospital hooked up to an intravenous drip for a neurological disorder, getting the drugs that she says allow her to walk. Under her Affordable Care Act plan, she pays $480 a month for coverage and has an out-of-pocket maximum of $3,500 a year. If she were to lose it, she wouldn't be able to afford the $13,000-a-year out-of-pocket maximum under her husband's insurance. Her treatments cost about $90,000 every seven weeks.

As she followed the efforts to undo Obama's law, Williams found herself yelling at the TV a lot. She wrote her senators, telling how she felt "helpless and out of control," and how her hope was dwindling.

After watching coverage on Friday while tethered to a port in an outpatient area, she said when the bill was withdrawn, "I am thankful. I hope that this makes Trump the earliest lame duck ever."

Whatever comes of the developments, they became the latest chapter in a long-running policy debate - from Teddy Roosevelt's call for national health insurance in 1912, through waves of New Deal and Great Society legislation that brought Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but no comprehensive health system for all, to an unsuccessful attempt at universal coverage at the start of Bill Clinton's administration. For now at least, Trump joins a list of American presidents who sought but failed to bring major health reform.

Trump has railed against the 2010 ACA since the start, and GOP leaders in Congress have rallied for its repeal with dozens of votes during the Obama years. Republicans won the chance to replace the health law with Trump's win and control of both chambers of Congress.

"This is our opportunity to do it," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Friday. "We've talked about this thing since 2010. Every Republican ... has campaigned, from dogcatcher on up, that they would do everything they could to repeal and replace 'Obamacare.'"

Meantime, the Affordable Care Act has enjoyed growing approval with Obama's departure from the White House and the emergence of details of Trump's plan. For the first time, the law drew majority approval in a Pew Research Center poll last month, with 54 percent of Americans in favor.

Even some of Trump's voters have come around to supporting the Obama law, or to a late realization that their coverage was made possible by it.

Walt Whitlow, a 57-year-old carpenter from Volente, Texas, gave Trump his vote even as he came to view Obama's law as "an unbelievable godsend." He went without health coverage for nearly 20 years, but after the ACA passed, he signed up. Two months later, he was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He proclaims himself opposed to government handouts that he thinks people grow too dependent on, though he wouldn't say what he hoped would happen with the GOP bill. Still, its withdrawal brought relief for a man who says his ACA coverage kept him from massive debt and maybe worse.

"It saved my life," he said. "I really don't know what to say."

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers David Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri; Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; P. Solomon Banda in Broomfield, Colorado; Mike Householder in Detroit; Rachel D'Oro in Anchorage, Alaska; and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago.

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Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org or https://twitter.com/sedensky

Janella Williams receives treatment at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Lawrence, Kan., Friday, March 24, 2017. The 45-year-old graphic designer receives medication from an intravenous drip for a neurological disorder, getting the drugs that she says allow her to walk. Under her Affordable Care Act plan, she pays $480 a month for coverage and has an out-of-pocket maximum of $3,500 a year. If she were to lose it, she wouldn't be able to afford the $13,000-a-year out-of-pocket maximum under her husband's insurance. Her treatments cost about $90,000 every seven weeks. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
HAMILTON, New Zealand (AP) - After a half century by Hashim Amla, South Africa looked to captain Faf du Plessis to play an innings which backed his decision to bat on the first day of the third test against New Zealand on Saturday.

Du Plessis made an appropriate start, reaching 33 not out, before the rain which had plagued the first two sessions forced players to take an early tea. With Temba Bavuma 12 not out, South Africa was 123-4.

New Zealand's severely depleted bowling attack continued to make life difficult for the Proteas' batsmen and du Plessis faced some pressure to play the anchor innings that South Africa so far had lacked.

For the first time in five years, New Zealand went into a test without both of its senior fast bowlers, Tim Southee and Trent Boult, who are injured. In their absence, Matt Henry, playing in the three-match series for the first time, shared the new ball with medium pacer Colin de Grandhomme and Neil Wagner reverted to the role of third seamer.

The trio toiled hard, bowling all but two of the 41 overs sent down by New Zealand in the first two sessions, while claiming regular wickets to prevent the Proteas striking up a major partnership.

Henry and de Grandhomme both struck early, dismissing openers Theunis de Bruyn, on debut, for 0 and Dean Elgar for 5 to leave South Africa 5-2.

After a 59-run stand between Amla and J.P. Duminy for the third wicket, Henry returned to remove Duminy for 20 shortly before lunch, at which stage it was 71-3.

Amla's was the only wicket to fall between lunch and tea but in a session truncated by rain it was a vital one and kept the contest evenly balanced.

Amla had just posted his 32nd test century - his first of the series - when he misjudged a ball from de Grandhomme and was bowled. South Africa was 97-4 but du Plessis and Bavuma saw the tourists to 123-4 before rain intervened around drinks.

New Zealand had enough opportunity in the 41 overs bowled by tea to show again their complete failure to master the Decision Review System.

They first made the decision, when South Africa was 28-2, not to review an lbw appeal against Duminy, then 7, which had been given not out. Replays showed the ball hitting leg stump and that a review would have gone in New Zealand's favor.

New Zealand then frittered away its two reviews in pursuing another lbw decision against Duminy when the ball had pitched outside leg. It's most egregious error was to review a rejected lbw appeal against du Plessis when he was 15 and South Africa 84-3. Replays showed the ball entirely missed the pad and was the met with the full face of du Plessis' bat.

The error was made more costly shortly afterwards when du Plessis, on 16, edged a ball from Wagner to wicketkeeper B.J. Watling. New Zealand's appeal was turned down and though the Snickometer on the television replay showed a faint edge, the home side's reviews were exhausted.
HONG KONG (AP) - Hong Kong's next leader will be chosen Sunday by an election committee stacked with pro-Beijing elites who heed the wishes of China's communist leaders rather than the semiautonomous region's voters.

The candidates are front-runner Carrie Lam, a career civil servant who is widely seen as Beijing's favorite, chief rival John Tsang and retired judge Woo Kwok-hing. A closer look at each potential replacement to unpopular incumbent Leung Chun-ying, whose term ends in June:

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FILE - In this March 23, 2017, file photo, Hong Kong chief executive candidate, former Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, waves to supporters at an election campaign in Hong Kong. She's seen as loyal to China's Communist leaders yet without the polarizing persona of her former boss Leung Chun-ying, whose initials inspired Lam's nickname of C.Y. 2.0. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

THE FRONTRUNNER - A lifelong civil servant who rose to Hong Kong's second-highest office, former Chief Secretary Carrie Lam is Beijing's preference. She's seen as loyal to China's Communist leaders yet without the polarizing persona of her former boss Leung, whose initials inspired Lam's nickname of C.Y. 2.0. During the 2014 pro-democracy protests, Lam led the government debaters who faced off on television against the movement's student-activist leaders.

Lam, 59 and a devout Catholic, was once one of Hong Kong's most popular government officials but her attempts to connect with ordinary people have reduced her support in opinion polls. She was the last candidate to set up an official Facebook page, which then drew a flood of angry emojis. She burnished her pro-Beijing credentials with one of her final acts as chief secretary in December, when she suddenly announced that Hong Kong's new arts hub would include a branch of Beijing's palace museum, a decision that lacked public input.

THE PEOPLES' CHOICE - John Tsang, 65, has been dubbed "Mr. Pringles" or "Uncle Chips" in Cantonese because his signature moustache lends him a resemblance to the snack food mascot. In turn, his fans call themselves "small potatoes." He was Hong Kong's financial secretary before quitting in December to campaign for the leadership, but Beijing didn't approve his resignation for weeks, a sign taken by observers that he wasn't in favor. Lam's resignation, in contrast, was approved in days.

Tsang, a fencing and martial arts enthusiast, moved to the U.S. when he was 13 and earned degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard before returning to Hong Kong. He's one of Hong Kong's most popular officials, thanks to his easygoing persona; a few years ago he was hit on the head by an egg thrown by a protester aiming for Leung but merely shrugged it off, joking that he wasn't wearing a good suit. His detractors have criticized him for vastly underestimating Hong Kong's budget surplus for most of the nine years he was budget secretary as well as failing to use the Asian financial hub's massive stash of capital reserves effectively.

THE THIRD OPTION - Woo Kwok-hing is a retired High Court judge who was unknown to most Hong Kongers until he declared his candidacy. Woo, 71, has little experience in politics and public administration aside from 13 years as chairman of the Hong Kong commission overseeing election affairs. He's not seen as having Beijing's support because he has spoken about his plan to revamp Hong Kong's election system to give every resident the chance to vote for its leader.

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Follow Kelvin Chan on Twitter at twitter.com/chanman

Find his stories at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/kelvin-chan

FILE - In this March 24, 2017, file photo, Chief Executive candidate, Hong Kong's former Financial Secretary John Tsang gives a thumbs-up to supporters at an election campaign in Hong Kong. Tsang, 65, has been dubbed "Mr. Pringles" or "Uncle Chips" in Cantonese because his signature moustache lends him a resemblance to the snack food mascot. In turn, his fans call themselves "small potatoes." (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - In this March 14, 2017, file photo, Hong Kong chief executive candidate, former judge Woo Kwok-hing, listens to questions during a chief executive election debate in Hong Kong. Woo is a retired High Court judge who was unknown to most Hong Kongers until he declared his candidacy. Woo, 71, has little experience in politics and public administration aside from 13 years as chairman of the Hong Kong commission overseeing election affairs. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)
DHARAMSALA, India (AP) - Steve Smith and David Warner put on 121 runs for the second wicket as Australia reached 131/1 at lunch on day one of the fourth test here on Saturday.

At the break, Smith was unbeaten on 72 runs, while Warner was 54 not out, after Australia won the toss and opted to bat.

In a major blow for the hosts, Virat Kohli was ruled out of this match as he hadn't recovered fully from his shoulder injury, sustained on day one of the third test in Ranchi.

Australia's captain Steven Smith, right, and David Warner run between the wickets during the first day of their fourth test cricket match against India in Dharmsala, India, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)

Warner had what might prove a valuable reprieve when dropped by third slip Karun Nair off Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0-37) on the very first ball of the match.

At the other end, Umesh Yadav (1-29) bowled Matt Renshaw (1) in the second over. It brought Smith and Warner together as they built the highest second-wicket partnership of this series.

Australia scored at nearly five per over as 59 runs came in the first hour of play. Warner and Smith put on 50 runs off just 59 balls, and thereafter extended their stand with 100 coming off 146 balls.

Smith carried on his superb form and reached his 21st test half-century off 67 balls. In doing so, he crossed 400 runs for the series. Later, Warner scored his 24th test half-century off 72 balls.

Australia reached 100 in the 25th over as they dominated this morning session.

The four-match series is level at 1-1. Australia won the first test in Pune by 333 runs, while India won the second test in Bengaluru by 75 runs. The third test in Pune was drawn.

Australia's David Warner raises his bat after scoring half century during the first day of their fourth test cricket match against India in Dharmsala, India, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)

Australia's David Warner, center, raises his bat after scoring half century during the first day of their fourth test cricket match against India in Dharmsala, India, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)

Australia's David Warner plays a shot during the first day of the fourth test cricket match against India in Dharmsala, India , Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)

Australia's captain Steven Smith plays a shot during the first day of their fourth test cricket match against India in Dharmsala, India, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)

Australia's Matt Renshaw leaves the ground after dismissal by India's Umesh Yadav during the first day of their fourth test cricket match against in Dharmsala, India , Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
LONDON (AP) - The British man who killed four people during a London rampage had made three trips to Saudi Arabia: He taught English there twice on a work visa and returned on a visa usually granted to those going on a religious pilgrimage.

More details about attacker Khalid Masood's travels, confirmed by the Saudi Arabian embassy in Britain, emerged Saturday amid a massive British police effort to discover how a homegrown ex-con with a violent streak became radicalized and why he launched a deadly attack Wednesday on Westminster Bridge.

The embassy said he taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009, with a legitimate work visa both times. He then returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent and made on an "Umra" visa, usually granted to those on a religious pilgrimage to the country's Islamic holy sites.

FILE- In this March 22, 2017 file photo, the attacker Khalid Masood is treated by emergency services outside the Houses of Parliament London. British Police named on Thursday March 23, 2017, Khalid Masood as The Houses of Parliament attacker. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP, File).

The embassy said Saudi security services didn't track Masood and he didn't have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was called Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted at least twice for violent crimes.

Masood drove his rented SUV across London's crowded Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, striking pedestrians. Then he jumped out and stabbed to death police officer Keith Palmer, who was guarding Parliament, before being shot dead by police.

In all, he killed four people and left more than two dozen hospitalized, including some with what have been described as catastrophic injuries. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, calling him a "solider" who responded to its demands that followers attack countries in the coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

British officials said security at Parliament will be reviewed after new footage emerged that showed the large gates to the complex were left open after Masood rushed onto the grounds. There are concerns that accomplices could have followed him in and killed even more people. The footage from that day shows pedestrians walking by the open gates and even a courier entering the grounds.

Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair told the BBC that changes to the "outer soft ring" of Parliament's security plan are likely in the aftermath of Masood's attack.

The new footage follows earlier video that showed slight delays and confusion during the evacuation of Prime Minister Theresa May from Parliament as the attack unfolded.

Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record in Britain dating to 1983. In 2000, he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account. Masood's last conviction, in 2003, also involved a knife attack.

The British press quoted people who had contact with Masood over the years describing him as a man who seemed to lose control at a moment's notice. One victim, Danny Smith, told The Sun newspaper that Masood had stabbed him in the face with a kitchen knife after an argument just three days after they met.

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine his motives and if he had any possible accomplices. Two men, aged 27 and 58, remain in custody for questioning after being arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities haven't charged or identified the men.

Seven others who had been arrested in connection with the investigation have been set free. A 32-year-old woman arrested in Manchester and a 39-year-old woman arrested in east London have been released on bail.

Police are scouring Masood's communications systems, including his possible use of the encrypted WhatsApp device, to help determine if he had any accomplices in the attack.

Details about how he became radicalized aren't clear, although he may have become exposed to radical views while an inmate in Britain or while working in conservative Saudi Arabia. It's also not clear when he took the name Masood, suggesting a conversion to Islam.

This is an undated photo released by the Metropolitan Police of Khalid Masood. Authorities identified Masood, a 52-year-old Briton as the man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament in London, saying he had a long criminal record and once was investigated for extremism - but was not currently on a terrorism watch list. (Metropolitan Police via AP)

A police officer places flowers as a man gestures beside floral tributes to victims of Wednesday's attack, on Parliament Square outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Friday March 24, 2017. On Thursday authorities identified a 52-year-old Briton as the man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament in London, saying he had a long criminal record and once was investigated for extremism - but was not currently on a terrorism watch list. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Thousands of Hamas supporters waving the movement's green flag marched through the streets of Gaza Saturday for the funeral of a militant leader and high-profile former prisoner who was mysteriously shot dead, as the group's leaders pledged retribution.

Senior Hamas member Mazen Faqha was found shot dead at the entrance of his house in Gaza City late Friday. Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, said Faqha was shot four times in the head with a silenced gun and blamed Israel for "assassinating" him, but provided no proof to support the accusation.

Faqha was sentenced to nine terms of life imprisonment for directing suicide bombing attacks against Israelis. He was freed along with more than 1,000 other prisoners as part of an exchange in 2011 that released captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. Faqha was among dozens of West Bank residents Israel deported to Gaza or elsewhere because of the severity of their crimes.

Masked gunmen from the Qassam brigade, the militia wing of Hamas, carry the body of Mazen Faqha, during his funeral in Gaza City, Saturday, March, 25, 2017. The former Palestinian prisoner whom Israel sent to Gaza after his release was found shot dead at the entrance of his house in Gaza City. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

The funeral included many Hamas militants and leaders who vowed revenge for the killing.

Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar called for a crackdown on collaborators, whom Hamas suspects did Israel's bidding.

"Certainly, they (Israel) have collaborating hands. We will cut these hands and necks," he said. "Our means of revenge are multiple, our means of deterrence are multiple and we know very well the means of restoring rights."

Hamas typically executes those convicted of collaborating with Israel. The Israeli military had no comment.

Masked gunmen from the Qassam brigade, the militia wing of Hamas, attend the funeral of Mazen Faqha, in Gaza City, Saturday, March, 25, 2017. The former Palestinian prisoner whom Israel sent to Gaza after his release was found shot dead at the entrance of his house in Gaza City. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Masked gunmen from the Qassam brigade, the militia wing of Hamas, attend the funeral of Mazen Faqha in Gaza City, Saturday, March, 25, 2017. The former Palestinian prisoner whom Israel sent to Gaza after his release was found shot dead at the entrance of his house in Gaza City. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Masked gunmen from the Qassam brigade, the militia wing of Hamas, carry the body of Mazen Faqha, during his funeral in Gaza City, Saturday, March, 25, 2017. The former Palestinian prisoner whom Israel sent to Gaza after his release was found shot dead at the entrance of his house in Gaza City. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Masked gunmen from the Qassam brigade, the militia wing of Hamas, surround the body of Mazen Faqha, during his funeral in Gaza City, Saturday, March, 25, 2017. The former Palestinian prisoner whom Israel sent to Gaza after his release was found shot dead at the entrance of his house in Gaza City. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Masked gunmen from the Qassam brigade, the militia wing of Hamas, surround the body of Mazen Faqha, during his funeral in Gaza City, Saturday, March, 25, 2017. The former Palestinian prisoner whom Israel sent to Gaza after his release was found shot dead at the entrance of his house in Gaza City. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
NEW DELHI (AP) - India's markets regulator has barred Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries and 12 others from trading in equity derivatives for a year for allegedly fraudulent trades made 10 years ago.

The multibillion-dollar Reliance Industries rejected the ruling by the Securities and Exchange Board of India and said it would appeal the order.

In its ruling late Friday, the securities regulator said that the fraud is related to the 2007 sale of a 5 percent stake in subsidiary Reliance Petroleum when it was a separately listed company. The company used unlawful trade practices to profit from that sale, the ruling said.

The regulator said Reliance made about 5 billion rupees ($76 million) in profits from that and has asked it to give up nearly 4.5 billion rupees along with 12 percent interest within 45 days.

According to the Press Trust of India, SEBI official G. Mahalingam said that that he passed the order "in order to protect the interest of the investors" and make them trust the regulatory system.

"The noticees may, however, square off or close out their existing open positions," the order said.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, has deep business and personal ties to Israel that could raise questions about his ability to serve as an honest broker as he oversees the White House's Mideast peace efforts.

But some say these ties, which include a previously undisclosed real estate deal in New Jersey with a major Israeli insurer, may give Kushner a surprising advantage as he is expected to launch the first peace talks of the Trump era. Having the trust of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the thinking goes, could make Kushner well positioned to extract concessions from the hard-line Israeli leader.

Kushner's family real estate company has longstanding and ongoing deals with major Israeli financial institutions. These relationships, along with a personal friendship with Netanyahu and past links to the West Bank settler movement, could emerge as potential stumbling blocks by creating an appearance of bias.

FILE - In this Jan. 24, 2017 file photo, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner arrives for a meeting between President Donald Trump and automobile leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. confirmed that it shares ownership and profits on a New Jersey apartment building with the Kushner Companies. Harel informed The Associated Press of the joint investment and said it had not previously announced it publicly. In addition, the Kushner Companies confirmed longstanding relationships with two major Israeli banks that have been investigated by U.S. authorities for allegedly helping wealthy clients evade U.S. taxes.

"Financial investments in Israel would seem to only further complicate conflicts of interest issues," said Larry Noble, senior director of regulatory programs and general counsel at Campaign Legal Center, a group that advocates for strong enforcement of campaign finance laws.

Jared Kushner headed the billion-dollar family firm before joining the White House as a senior adviser in January. As a condition to taking the job, Kushner has agreed to file a financial disclosure report and divest some holdings that could create a conflict of interest.

The Trump administration has faced repeated conflict of interest accusations since taking office. Although the billionaire real estate magnate says he's no longer managing his global financial interests, critics say these businesses still stand to profit from the prestige or policy decisions of the presidency. In addition, they note that Trump's children continue to manage many of these ventures, opening the door for the president to continue to wield his clout behind the scenes.

While Kushner's role in Mideast diplomacy remains unclear, Trump has said his son-in-law will work to "broker a Middle East peace deal."

Last week, Jason Greenblatt, a White House envoy who reports to Kushner, paid his first official visit to the region, holding a series of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials on what was billed as a listening tour to sound out the sides.

As the U.S. pushes forward, Kushner's family's business and personal ties to Israel have raised questions over his ability to mediate.

"Of course the Palestinians are not happy dealing with Jared Kushner ... but they have no other options," said Palestinian political analyst Jehad Harb. "Kushner and the whole new American team assigned to handle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ... have very close ties with settlements (and) it's unlikely they are going to understand the Palestinian demand of dismantling most of the Jewish settlements, but the Palestinian Authority cannot say no at this stage."

Indeed, Palestinian officials appear very mindful about alienating the new U.S. administration with going public with grievances about a feared bias. And they seem genuinely relieved in recent weeks to be in contact with various U.S. envoys and at signs the administration is moving away from early positions that pleased Israeli nationalists, such as the notion of moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The newly disclosed deal with Harel, one of Israel's biggest financial groups, was for a multifamily residential building in New Jersey with Kushner, the Israeli insurer said, adding that both companies continue to collect tenants' rent payments.

Harel would not say when the property was purchased, how much it cost or even give its address, though it said it was a "relatively small" investment. The company, which trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, managed some $50 billion in assets as of the end of 2015, according to its website.

Harel said it has also partnered with Kushner on a much larger deal: A consortium of lenders that provided some $50 million to the Chetrit Group and JDS Development, two New York real estate firms that are trying to build a 73-story residential tower that aims to be Brooklyn's tallest. The loan was repaid and "yielded a handsome profit," Harel said in a statement.

"As is known, Kushner (Companies) are experienced and knowledgeable with proven ability in deals in the rental property sector in general and in New Jersey specifically," Harel said.

A Kushner Companies spokeswoman, Risa Heller, said the loan for the Brooklyn project was paid off, but she declined to say if Jared Kushner has sold his interest in the New Jersey property. Jamie Gorelick, an attorney who has advised Kushner on conflict of interest matters, referred questions to Heller.

The Kushner Companies also confirmed having a "longstanding relationship" with two major Israeli banks, Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi, but wouldn't elaborate. Both banks declined to comment.

The Trump administration has inherited a Justice Department investigation into allegations that Bank Hapoalim helped American clients evade taxes, and the bank could reach a settlement in the case as early as this year. Bank Leumi also allegedly helped U.S. customers evade U.S. taxes from 2002-2010, and reached a settlement with the Justice Department in 2014 to pay $400 million to the U.S. government.

There is no evidence that Kushner Companies was connected to either investigation, and the Justice Department declined to comment.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not answer specific questions about Jared Kushner's ties to Israeli business partners. "Mr. Kushner will comply with financial disclosure and ethics requirements, including the obligation to recuse from particular matters involving specific parties if a reasonable person would question his impartiality," she said in an email statement.

Kushner is covered by government conflict of interest laws, so he is required to divest himself of any financial interests that may present a conflict and must not participate in any matter that has a direct effect on his financial holdings.

While Kushner has divested himself of some financial interests, the assets were put in a trust run by relatives, presenting the potential for a conflict of interest, said Noble, the campaign finance advocate.

He said the Justice Department investigation into Bank Hapoalim is "especially problematic" if Kushner or the White House in any way influence the inquiry.

Kushner's business ties are just one of the potential pitfalls to his diplomatic career.

Trump's son-in-law was also co-director of a family foundation that donated tens of thousands of dollars to Jewish settlement groups in the West Bank, according to U.S. tax records. The family also donated at least $298,600 to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, an organization that runs educational and cultural programs for Israeli soldiers, between 2010 and 2012, according to the tax records.

Palestinians and most of the international community consider Jewish settlements to be obstacles to peace because they are built on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war that Palestinians want for a future state. The Palestinians also revile the Israeli military after decades of bloodshed.

Kushner and his family also have longstanding personal ties to Netanyahu. At a White House news conference last month, Netanyahu joked that he has known Kushner since he was a boy.

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and co-chairman of an Israeli real estate fund that counts Kushner's father, Charles, among its backers, said he doesn't know Jared Kushner personally but thinks his affiliations to Israel will be helpful in peace negotiations.

"There's trust. When there's trust on one side, there can also be a more conciliatory attitude on that side," Shoval said.

Prominent Palestinian politician Jibril Rajoub told foreign reporters that Trump made clear to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a recent phone call that he was his "strategic partner" in making a "real and serious" peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

"There is very, very positive progress," Rajoub said.

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Follow Daniel Estrin at

www.twitter.com/danielestrin

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Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
ROME (AP) - The Latest on the European Union summit (all times local):

8:40 p.m.

Scores of Spaniards and British citizens have demonstrated in Madrid to urge lawmakers to protect the rights of citizens during the U.K.'s exit from the European Union.

Demonstrators march in a protest the day European Union leaders gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc, in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

They made their case as part of a gathering to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Union. Several people held signs in English, including ones that read "We Have Rights" and "I Am Not A Bargaining Chip."

The EU anniversary comes four days before the British government plans to trigger negotiations to break with the 28-nation bloc after Britons voted to leave in a referendum in June.

On Wednesday, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator said a failure to reach an orderly agreement on the U.K.'s exit could leave 4 million European and British citizens uncertain about their rights and future.

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8:10 p.m.

Rome police say officers seized sharpened iron bars, clubs and knives in a crackdown aimed at preventing violence during anti-EU marches.

Hours before the marches' started Saturday, police checked the occupants of cars, trucks and chartered buses heading to Rome, which also hosted an EU summit Saturday.

Police said one van inspected at a highway toll had both knives and gas masks. In Rome, not far from one of the marches' route, traffic police found a bag filled with sharpened iron bars.

By early evening, the marches, while tense at times, were finished. Most of several thousand participants were dispersing.

One protest banner read: "Politicians, bankers and eurocrats, our patience is over."

Monuments and museums closed down as a precaution, and central Rome streets were largely deserted except for the marchers.

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7:10 p.m.

European Union chief Jean-Claude Juncker says he signed a Rome summit unity declaration with one of the pens used to ink the 1957 founding treaties.

Earlier, the European Commission President had made a point at the summit of showing he wasn't using the same pen leaders of 27 EU nations used to sign the declaration pledging to work together to ensure survival of the crisis-beset union.

In a tweet, Juncker revealed that the pen he drew out of his pocket with a flourish at the ceremony was used in 1957 by the Luxembourg delegate exactly 60 years ago in Rome when six founding fathers approved the treaty.

After a celebratory lunch, the EU leaders started departing from Rome later Saturday as anti-EU marches geared up.

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5:50 p.m.

Twin anti-EU protest marches have moved through a tense Rome, escorted by slowly-moving police vans and monitored by riot police, following a European Union summit to push for more vigor and unity.

Italian state TV RaiNew24 reported that police stopped dozens of protesters from reaching the marches Saturday. One protest leader, Tommaso Cacciari, complained that 150 protesters, arriving on buses from northeast Italy, were prevented from joining the marchers.

One anti-EU march moved past the iconic Mouth of Truth monument while another march route flanked the Tiber River. The protests grouped opponents to the EU, NATO and the high-speed rail project in northern Italy.

The Colosseum was closed and museums and many shops closed up, fearing clashes.

Earlier, pro-EU marches went off peacefully in Rome.

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4:20 p.m.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo called the declaration signed Saturday by European Union leaders in Rome a "first step toward renewing the unity of the EU."

Szydlo spoke at a news conference in Rome after she and 26 other European leaders signed the document, which enshrines a pledge to give member nations more freedom to form partial alliances and set policy when unanimity is out of reach.

Szydlo had initially threatened not to endorse the declaration backed away but from that on the eve of the summit and signed it Saturday.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, told Poland's private TVN24 broadcaster that changes were made to the document to accommodate Poland and other countries in central Europe, which seek to maintain greater national sovereignty.

Szydlo also expressed regret that the ceremonies Saturday took place "in the shadow" of Britain's decision to leave the bloc.

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3:40 p.m.

Denmark's prime minister says the European Union is a success and singled out one example: roaming costs.

Lars Loekke Rasmussen said in Rome that Europeans abroad can call home "or be streaming films at affordable prices because the EU has removed the roaming costs. Until then we were lacerated by roaming costs."

He added Saturday, "That is one concrete example that it works."

In February, the EU reached a deal on how much operators may charge each other for using their networks to provide roaming services, which should cut costs substantially. Until then, EU citizens had to pay hefty costs to use roaming facilities when visiting or working in other member states. It was long seen as an impediment to creating a seamless market among the member states.

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2:45 p.m.

The leaders of the European Union's 27 remaining countries have toasted Europe and its united people.

At a Quirinal Palace luncheon in Rome, Italian President Sergio Mattarella lifted his crystal wine glass and invited guests who had just finished an EU summit in Rome to join him in a toast to "our Europe, to the union of our peoples."

The 60th anniversary of the signing in Rome of EU's founding treaty comes days before Britain formally signals the beginning of its exit.

EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker used his own pen instead of a summit-supplied pen to sign a summit declaration committing the 27 countries to build the bloc's future through a united front.

Later, the European Commission president pulled the pen out of his jacket pocket and showed it off with a flourish, saying "I'm keeping it."

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2:30 p.m.

Several thousand people have demonstrated in Berlin in favor of European unity, and organizers have symbolically demolished a wall made from cardboard boxes at the spot where the city was once divided.

Demonstrators on Saturday marched from the Bebelplatz square at one end of the central Unter den Linden boulevard to the Brandenburg Gate, once a symbol of Germany's divisions and now of its unity.

They carried placards with slogans such as "Europe United in Solidarity" and "Happy Birthday EU."

Participants released balloons in the colors of the European Union's flag at the Brandenburg Gate. Organizers put the turnout at 6,000.

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2:15 p.m.

A few dozen Britons have marched in support of the European Union near a summit in Rome as they protested Britain's vote to leave the bloc.

Some 50 British citizens living in Italy joined the "March for Europe," one of several pro- and anti-EU rallies organized for Saturday.

The Britons expressed dismay at what they deemed Britain's mistake to leave the EU, with exit negotiations to be formally triggered next week.

Jackie Chamberlain, who lives in Rome, said she was "very ashamed for Britain." She said: "I think Britain is doing the most dreadful mistake to pull out of it."

Another Briton living in Rome, Annabelle Bedini, contended that Britain belongs spiritually, cultural, politically and economically in the European Union.

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2:10 p.m.

The European Commission's president has advised French voters to remember the key role their country plays, together with the European Union, when they cast ballots in next month's presidential election.

The populist, anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen is a strong contender.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was asked at an EU summit in Rome about Le Pen's antagonism toward the EU.

He said "the role of France, together with the EU, is a central role" and must remain so. He added: "I'd tell the French, don't forget to be France, which knows how to speak to the rest of the world." He added: "I'd tell the French, stay French."

The leaders of the 27 EU countries remaining after Britain's exit used the summit to try to appear united.

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12:55 p.m.

Thousands of Poles are rallying in Warsaw, waving European Union and Polish flags in a show of support for the union as leaders in Rome mark the 60th anniversary of its founding treaty.

The rally in Warsaw, which is being held under the slogan "I Love You, Europe," also comes as an expression of disapproval for the nationalist government in Warsaw.

The government critics fear that a recent euroskeptic stance taken by the government could ultimately result in Poland leaving the EU. The Polish government denies that that is its aim.

Thousands of people began their demonstration by singing the European anthem, "Ode to Joy" followed by the Polish national anthem. They planned to march later to the Royal Castle in historic town center.

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12:30 p.m.

The head of the European Commission says the bloc's 60th birthday declaration sets the scene for a growing mood of optimism.

Jean-Claude Juncker said after the leaders of 27 EU nations met that their Rome declaration is a good beginning for a wide-ranging discussion on the future of the bloc after Britain's departure. He added: "The atmosphere is now such that we can approach this with confidence."

Juncker said: "What we achieved in the days before Rome, and in the last few hours here in Rome, conveys something of an incipient optimistic mood - because, contrary to what was assumed, there was no clash, no big dispute between several conceivable paths."

The Rome declaration enshrines the principle of a multi-speed EU.

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12 p.m.

European Union leaders have signed the Rome declaration which has enshrined the principle of a multi-speed bloc, where some nations can move ahead while others stay on the sidelines on specific issues.

The declaration signed by 27 nations said that "we will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction."

The EU has often done that in practice in the past, with only 19 nations in the eurozone and not all members participating in the Schengen zone of borderless travel.

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11:35 a.m.

European Council President Donald Tusk has said on the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaty that continued unity for the 27 nations remaining following the planned departure of Britain is the only way to ensure the bloc's survival.

Tusk told 27 EU leaders that "Europe as a political entity will either be united, or will not be at all" He spoke during a solemn session in Rome to mark the 1957 signing of the Treaty of Rome.

Tusk said that "only a united Europe can be a sovereign Europe in relation to the rest of the world. Only a sovereign Europe guarantees independence for its nations, guarantees freedom for its citizens."

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11:20 a.m.

Italy's premier says that European Union leaders must earn the support of their half-billion citizens and fend off rising nationalism on the continent by creating jobs and eliminating social inequality.

Paolo Gentiloni opened a summit in Rome marking the signing of the EU's founding treaty 60 years ago in precisely the same ornate hall on Rome's Capitoline Hill.

He observed: "We are a little more crowded in this hall," referring to the 27 EU members remaining after Britain plans to depart the union. Italy was one of the six founding members in 1957.

Gentiloni chastised the EU for being late on handling the migrant crisis and responding to demands to create jobs.

He said: "We must restore the trust of our citizens" through stimulating growth, reducing poverty and social inequality.

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11:10 a.m.

The European Union's trade commissioner says that she sees "a Europe that stands up for liberty, democracy and the rule of law," but adds that "the European project has many challenges and shortcomings."

Cecilia Malmstrom, a Swede, said Saturday on her blog that people need to discuss what they want and on the 60th anniversary of the EU, "we want to celebrate with dialogue instead of conflict, to create a future that we in good conscience can hand over to future generations."

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary-general and Danish prime minister, tweeted that "greater unity must come from more flexibility toward member states' visions."

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10:40 a.m.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says to have such a festive meeting like the 60th anniversary of the European Union founding treaty without British participation is "a very sad moment."

Juncker said that "Brexit, the exit of Britain, is a tragedy" for the 27 other nations meeting in Rome.

Britain voted last year to leave the bloc and is set to trigger the two years of divorce proceedings next Wednesday.

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10:20 a.m.

Germany's foreign minister says that his country must be careful not to be seen as lecturing smaller European Union countries, despite calls for a German leadership role.

Sigmar Gabriel wrote in an article for weekly Der Spiegel's online edition Saturday that "Europe is more than and above all often different from Germany." He added that smaller EU countries should view Germany, the bloc's most populous nation and its biggest economic power, as being interested in them rather than lecturing them.

Gabriel wrote: "We should counter temptations from Beijing, Moscow and Washington, which always want just to speak to us Germans, by noting that we are happy to play an important role and want to take responsibility - but that Europe is far bigger than Germany, and they can only have us together.

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10 a.m.

Residents of Rome are avoiding the city center as authorities brace for the possibility of violent protests during a European Union summit.

Some subway stops are closed, and buses have been rerouted away from the historic heart of the Italian capital hours before several planned marches.

Authorities fear anarchists might infiltrate anti-EU protests set for the afternoon.

Leaders from 27 EU nations gathered on the ancient Capitoline Hill on the 60th anniversary of the founding treaty of the EU, whose unity is now being sorely tested.

One march is organized by far-right opponents to the EU, while another is organized by far-left opponents.

Also scheduled is a pro-EU march, which could draw hundreds of Britons who live in EU countries and fear complications from Britain's exit from the union.

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9:25 a.m.

European Union leaders are gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc.

On a day of ceremonies Saturday, the 27 leaders are set to approve a Rome declaration to commit to a united future and see how to deal with the myriad crises which has beset them over the past decade.

It looks like the blueprint will be adopted without any problems after both Poland and Greece lifted their objections on the eve of the summit.

Britain says that it will trigger the negotiations to leave the bloc on March 29, only days after the summit.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker signs a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydto gestures after signing a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Supporters of the European Union crack down a symbolic wall during a rally marking the 60th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Rome, in Berlin, Saturday, March 25, 2017. The posterat center reads 'More heart for Europe' and and at center left 'With more courage for a solitary and sustainable Europe'. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Members of the British In Italy group display the Union Jack flag as they prepare to take part into a demonstration in support of the European Union in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017, the day leaders of the European Union gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

European Union heads of state pose for a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

From left, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and European Council President Donald Tusk wait for the start of a meeting in the Orazi and Curiazi Hall at the Palazzo dei Conservatori during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

From left, Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni during arrivals for an EU summit at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders gather in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the EU's founding treaty. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, left, greets German Chancellor Angela Merkel during arrivals for an EU summit at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders gather in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the EU's founding treaty. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, right, speaks with European Council President Donald Tusk during arrivals for an EU summit at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders gather in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the EU's founding treaty. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Italian paramilitary police patrol in front of the Monument of the Unknown Soldier in Rome's Piazza Venezia Square, on Friday, March 24, 2017 a day ahead of a European Union summit commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. EU leaders are gathering in Rome for a summit to mark the EU's 60th anniversary and to outline its future after Britain leaves. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

The Rome declaration, signed by EU leaders, during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to sign a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev signs a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, center left, speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, second right, prior to a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Members of the British In Italy group take part into a demonstration in support of the European Union in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017, the day leaders of the European Union gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Members of the British In Italy group take part into a demonstration in support of the European Union in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017, the day leaders of the European Union gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

A sarcastic placard showing caricatures of British Prime Minister Theresa May, top left, and some populist European leaders, is displayed during a demonstration in support of the European Union in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017, the day leaders of the European Union gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Members of the British In Italy group take part into a demonstration in support of the European Union in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017, the day leaders of the European Union gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

French President Francois Hollande, center, gathers with other EU leaders after signing a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, right, receives a pen from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, left, after signing a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

French President Francois Hollande, front second right, speaks with Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, second left, and European Council President Donald Tusk, left, during a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, speaks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, right, after a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, speaks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, second right, during a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, speaks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte after a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. In the background the remaining marble right hand of the Colossus of Constantine (312-315 AD). (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker gets ink on his hands as he signs a declaration with the original 1957 pen of the Rome Treaty during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. European Union leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

French President Francois Hollande, center left, speaks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, center right, prior to a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. EU leaders were gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty and chart a way ahead following the decision of Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. In the background the remaining marble head of the Colossus of Constantine (312-315 AD). (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Supporters wave European flags during a rally marking the 60th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Rome, in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Supporters wave European flags during a rally marking the 60th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Rome, in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Supporters hold a poster reading 'I'm Europe' during a rally marking the 60th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Rome, in Berlin, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Supporters wave European flags during a rally marking the 60th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Rome, in Berlin, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Demonstrators march in a protest the day European Union leaders gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc, in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) - In the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State group became infamous for its spectacular variations on explosive vehicles. For attacks in the West, it has suggested a simpler method, encouraging followers to use regular vehicles to kill people on foot.

Experts say attacks in which cars or trucks are driven into popular pedestrian areas present a unique challenge for law enforcement officials as they are nearly impossible to predict and easy to pull off. They require no advanced training, no specialized materials. Almost anyone can own or rent a vehicle.

Some feel that these low-tech, lone wolf operations can have the same psychological impact as larger, more sensational attacks.

FILE - In this March 22, 2017 file photo, emergency personnel tend to an injured person outside Britain's Parliament after an attack by a British-born man. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, which is encouraging its followers to use vehicles to achieve bloodshed. (Yui Mok/PA via AP, File)

Four people were killed and dozens wounded Wednesday in London with this tactic - the worst attack on British soil since the transport network bombings on July 7, 2005.

Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, says what makes such attacks so frightening is the relatively low barriers to entry. The method was embraced by al-Qaida before being revitalized by IS.

"It makes for a very effective unsophisticated high impact, very frightening form of an operation," he said. "You don't need to know someone who can make you a bomb or buy you a gun in order to carry out an attack. It's a very difficult thing to fight against. There is no quick fix."

British authorities on Thursday identified Khalid Masood as the man who mowed down pedestrians with an SUV and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament. The British citizen wasn't on a terrorism watch list although he was once investigated for extremism. IS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying he was a "soldier" that answered its call to attack nations in the coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence group, says it is almost impossible for law enforcement agencies to stop IS-inspired attacks, especially vehicular-style ones like the one in London. Since 2014, this simple but effective attack has been promoted in IS propaganda online.

"It's not a style of attack that you can monitor by increasing security and intel on who has weapons or other attention-grabbing variables," Katz told The Associated Press. "Every car suddenly turns into a possible weapon, so it's really very difficult to stop."

Vehicle attacks, like knife attacks, are aggressively promoted by IS and its online supporters. In its November issue of its online magazine Rumiyah, IS extolled the virtues of the car as a weapon and suggested the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York as a possible target.

"Vehicles are like knives, as they are extremely easy to acquire," points out the online magazine issue. "But unlike knives, which if found in one's possession can be a cause for suspicion, vehicles arouse absolutely no doubts due to their widespread use. "

Two weeks later, an Ohio State University student rammed his car into pedestrians on campus and then got out and started stabbing people with a butcher knife before being gunned down by a police officer. IS claimed the attack, which left 11 people wounded.

The devastating potential of such violence was dramatically illustrated last summer in the French beach town of Nice when a cargo truck took to the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in an attack that left 86 people dead and hundreds wounded. A truck was also used in last year's Christmas market attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, including the driver of the truck that was commandeered.

In the London attack on Wednesday, the weapon of choice was an SUV. Katz sees the similarities between these attacks as evidence that IS propaganda is taking hold and that more needs to be done to counter it. Winter says the copycat effect is also a factor.

Omar Ashour says these attacks are gaining traction precisely because authorities have their defenses up. The IS leadership began urging attacks on the West after the U.S-led coalition launched airstrikes on the group.

IS may provide "very detailed tactical information that helps the attackers to create more damage but there is a ceiling to that. They could not do as much damage as firearms or bombs would do," says Ashour, a lecturer in security at the University of Exeter.

Anne Giudicelli, director of the security risk consultancy firm Terrorisc, says such attacks are becoming a signature approach for IS in Europe. She says more can be done to fight the spread of IS ideology online and European countries could better cooperated in confronting this threat.

"At the level of strict security, the maximum is done," she told the AP. "The authorities are confronting the fact that all the outward signs - what we call indicators, the criteria for surveillance - are today very volatile because individuals adapt, they know what will get them detected."

FILE - In this July 14, 2016 file photo, authorities investigate a truck after it plowed through Bastille Day revelers in the French resort city of Nice, France, killing 86 people. In Britain, a man drove a car into pedestrians in London on March 22, 2017, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. The extremist group is encouraging its followers to use vehicles to achieve bloodshed. (Sasha Goldsmith via AP, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 20, 2016 file photo, Christmas decoration are stuck in the smashed window of the cabin of a truck which ran into a crowded Christmas market. The death toll from the attack was 12. In Britain, a man drove a car into pedestrians in London on March 22, 2017, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. The extremist group is encouraging its followers to use vehicles to achieve bloodshed. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Police in Belarus cracked down hard Saturday on opposition protesters who tried to hold a forbidden demonstration in the capital - a human rights group said more than 400 people were arrested and many were beaten.

The demonstrators had hoped to build on a rising wave of defiance of the former Soviet republic's authoritarian government, led by President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994.

About 700 people had tried to march Saturday along Minsk's main avenue, but were blocked by a cordon of riot police wielding clubs and holding shields. After a standoff, the arrests began.

Belarus police push a woman down while detaining an activist during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

"They're beating the participants, dragging women by the hair to buses. I was able to run to a nearby courtyard," demonstrator Alexander Ponomarev said.

Tatiana Revyako of the human rights group Vesna told The Associated Press that more than 400 people were arrested, saying "many of the arrested were beaten and are in need of medical help."

Police declined to comment on the arrests or the beatings.

Among those arrested were about 20 journalists, according to the Belarusian Journalists' Association.

"They grabbed everybody indiscriminately, both young and old. We were treated very harshly," BBC Belarus correspondent Sergei Kozlovsky told the AP.

Even before the protesters gathered, police raided Vesna's office and detained more than 50 people.

In the days preceding Saturday's demonstration, more than 100 opposition supporters were sentenced to jail terms of three to 15 days, Vesna reported before the raid. Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Neklayev reportedly was pulled off a train by police overnight while trying to travel to Minsk.

The anti-government protests also attracted hundreds of people Saturday in Brest and Grodno, two other large cities. No arrests there were immediately reported.

Belarus has seen an unusually persistent wave of protests over the past two months against Lukashenko, who recently claimed that a "fifth column" of foreign-supported agitators was trying to bring him down.

Saturday's demonstrators shouted slogans including "Shame!" and "Basta! (Enough!)" and deployed the red-and-white flag that is the opposition's symbol. The flag was first used by the short-lived independent Belarusian People's Republic in 1918 and again after the country's independence from the Soviet Union, but was replaced in 1995 after Lukashenko gained power.

In his 23 years as president, Lukashenko has stifled dissent and free media and retained much of the Soviet-style command economy.

The protests this year initially focused on his unpopular "anti-parasite" law that calls for a $250 tax on anyone who works less than six months a year but doesn't register with the state labor exchange. But the protests have broadened into general dissatisfaction with his rule, which some critics have characterized as Europe's last dictatorship.

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Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.

Belarus police detain a woman during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police walk to block a street during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain protesters during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain a man, as a woman tries to defend him during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain an activist during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain a woman prior to an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Over the past two months, protests have broken out across the country of 9.5 million, sometimes attracting thousands - initially they were focused on the labor law but have grown to encompass calls for the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, whom critics call Europe's last dictator. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain an activist prior to an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Over the past two months, protests have broken out across the country of 9.5 million, sometimes attracting thousands - initially they were focused on the labor law but have grown to encompass calls for the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, whom critics call Europe's last dictator. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain a man prior to an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Over the past two months, protests have broken out across the country of 9.5 million, sometimes attracting thousands - initially they were focused on the labor law but have grown to encompass calls for the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, whom critics call Europe's last dictator. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A Belarus policeman runs with an opposition flag as other detain a protester during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A Belarus policeman tries to crumple an opposition flag as other detain a protester during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A woman runs out as Belarus police block a street during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A Belarus policeman carries an opposition flag as other detain a protester during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain a protester with an opposition flag during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain a woman during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A Belarus policeman carries an opposition flag as other detain a protester during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain an activist during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain an activist during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A woman argues as Belarus police block a street during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police block a street during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A woman, pushed to the ground by Belarus police tries to defends herself as the police detain an activist during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain an activist during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. A cordon of club-wielding police blocked the demonstrators' movement along Minsk's main avenue near the Academy of Science. Hulking police detention trucks were deployed in the city center. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Belarus police detain an activist during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Police in the Belarusian capital have begun wide-scale arrests protesters who had gathered for a forbidden demonstration that they hoped would build on a rising wave of defiance of the former Soviet republic's authoritarian government. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Two women are detained by police during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Police in the Belarusian capital have begun wide-scale arrests protesters who had gathered for a forbidden demonstration that they hoped would build on a rising wave of defiance of the former Soviet republic's authoritarian government. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
LONDON (AP) - The UK Independence Party is losing its only member of the British Parliament in a blow to the upstart anti-Europe party, which has seen bitter feuding between its top figures.

Douglas Carswell said Saturday that he's leaving UKIP and will serve in Parliament as an independent. He said his departure won't trigger a new election because he isn't joining another party.

Carswell has been in direct conflict with former party leader Nigel Farage, who played a key role in the successful Brexit campaign, and Arron Banks, the party's most generous donor.

FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 13, 2014 file photo, newly-elected U.K. Independence Party member of Parliament Douglas Carswell gives a double thumbs-up as he poses for the media upon his arrival to take his seat at the Houses of Parliament in London. Carswell said Saturday. March 25, 2017 that he's leaving UKIP and will serve in Parliament as an independent. He said his departure won't trigger a new election because he isn't joining another party. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

Carswell downplayed these differences. He said the party's main goal of winning Britain's exit from the European Union had been achieved now that Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May is set to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday to begin the EU divorce negotiations.

UKIP had campaigned fiercely for more than two decades to convince Britons to leave the EU. That goal was met in a June referendum.

"By April 2019, Britain will no longer be a member of the EU," Carswell said. "After 24 years, we have done it. Brexit is in good hands."

Carswell, a former Conservative Party member, was the only UKIP candidate to win a seat in the 2015 general election. The more high-profile Farage lost his bid for a place in Britain's Parliament.

Farage, who recently left the party leadership and has spent time in the U.S. cultivating a friendship with President Donald Trump, had only harsh words about Carswell's departure.

He said Carswell "jumped before he was pushed" and should have left UKIP some time ago. He accused Carswell of trying to undermine the party.

Carswell, however, put a positive spin on his departure: "I will leave UKIP amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won," he said.

He said without UKIP's long-term battle against the EU, Britain would never have voted to leave the 28-nation bloc. UKIP had argued that EU regulations were stifling British businesses and that Europe's commitment to freedom of movement had brought unwanted immigration into Britain.

Carswell's abrupt departure will cost the party more than 200,000 pounds ($250,000), which represents its share of public funding distributed among all parties with members in the House of Commons.

The party still has members in the European Parliament in Brussels, including Farage.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Senior Minister Meg Barnhouse knows she'll need beds, a dresser, chairs and a mirror to make the classroom at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin feel more like a home for a mother and her young daughter who are still deciding whether they will become the latest immigrants seeking sanctuary from deportation by moving into a church.

It would be the second time Barnhouse's congregation had offered sanctuary. She was hesitant in 2015 because of the unknown legal and insurance risks, but this time she agreed immediately.

There is growing fear in the city's immigrant community as President Donald Trump's immigration and executive orders go into effect. And as more than 50 Austin area residents were detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation raids last month, a growing number of churches in the Austin Sanctuary Network are volunteering to offer physical shelter or support to churches that do.

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Hilda Ramirez, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, sits in the sanctuary at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church as she waits to talk to a reporter, Wednesday, in Austin, Texas. Ramirez, from Guatemala, and her son have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

The Austin Sanctuary Network has broadened in the last year from a handful of churches and advocates to more than two dozen congregations and religious groups, three labor unions, several nonprofit groups and dozens of individual volunteers. This mirrors the loosely organized national sanctuary movement that has grown to more than 800 churches and congregations, with a good portion of those joining since Trump was elected.

"It's bewildering for people at this point. It's like trying to repair furniture when the house is on fire," said Pastor Jim Rigby, whose congregation at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin has provided sanctuary to Guatemalan immigrant Hilda Ramirez and her 10-year-old son, Ivan, for more than a year . "Opening our arms to our neighbors goes without question."

Pastor Laura Walter's small Presbyterian congregation in Bee Cave, 12 miles west of Austin, hopes her church can expand the network to reach immigrant communities outside city limits. They are still discussing whether the small church has room to offer shelter or whether they could get a permit to build a temporary shower.

"Our faith calls us to live this out," Walters said. "In the near future we'll be at the very least helping support refugees and asylum seekers."

The churches are relying on a 2011 ICE policy directive telling agents to avoid "sensitive areas" such as churches, hospitals and schools when conducting deportation actions under most circumstances. Federal immigration officials said that policy is still in effect, but recent immigration arrests around the U.S., including inside courthouses, are increasing fears.

Austin, a liberal enclave in a conservative state, has had a strong base of immigration activists for years in opposition to a previous sheriff, who cooperated with ICE requests to hold inmates for possible deportation. During the city's involvement in the Secure Communities Program 7/87/8- a federal-local partnership on deportation ended in 2014 by the Obama administration - an average of 19 people were deported from Travis County each week. Trump has revived the program.

Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who took office in January, has decreased cooperation with immigration officials by not automatically granting requests to hold immigrants for possible deportation. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has withheld nearly $1.5 million in state grant funds from Travis County in response.

A Department of Homeland Security report this week singled out Travis County and a handful of other counties for denying immigrant detention requests, although local officials pushed back against some of the information in the report.

Many of the pastors say they are teaching civil disobedience when necessary, but because the immigrants are openly declaring sanctuary and letting immigration officials know where they are, they don't believe they are violating the law. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials declined to discuss the legality of sanctuary, but pointed to the sensitive areas policy.

The increased membership in the Austin network has meant more resources for outreach, including seminars on preparing deportation defense packets that designate who should take custody of children if a parent is detained for deportation proceedings.

The network has also partnered with local and national activists to teach more than 250 volunteers tactics called Sanctuary in the Streets designed to bring a church service to areas where deportation raids are happening to create a barrier between agents and immigrants. The volunteers also go with immigrants fearing deportation to court visits or immigration appointments.

Volunteers often go with Ramirez to appointments as she makes her case for asylum. For eight months, she never left the church grounds. The congregation built a green plastic barrier around a small outdoor space so she and Ivan could go outside without worrying about immigration officials.

Ramirez was granted a deportation deferment through October, meaning she can go to the store or do her own laundry, but she told pastors that with the aggressive immigration enforcement actions in recent months, she wants to stay.

The pastors have said the pair is welcome for as long as they want. At the Unitarian Church, Barnhouse and her congregation are also prepared to offer sanctuary for as long as the mother and daughter may need. Network volunteers declined to offer details about the mother until she makes her decision.

"It's very grounding and exciting for a church to be able to live out its mission this tangibly," Barnhouse said. "We gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives and do justice. That is our mission. ... This feels like all of it."

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For a related video go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5LCtjK2Tbg

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Ivan Ramirez, an immigrant from Guatemala plays outside St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas, where he and his mother, Hilda, have taken refuge for more than a year. There is growing fear in the city's immigrant community as President Donald Trump's immigration policies and executive orders go into effect. And as more than 50 Austin area residents were detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation raids last month, a growing number of churches in the Austin Sanctuary Network are volunteering to offer physical sanctuary or support to the churches that do. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Hilda Ramirez, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, walks through the halls at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas. Ramirez, from Guatemala, and her son have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Hilda Ramirez, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, reaches out to her son Ivan as she sits for an interview in the sanctuary at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas. Ramirez, from Guatemala, and Ivan have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Hilda Ramirez, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, and her son Ivan talk to a reporter in the at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas. Hilda and Ian, from Guatemala, have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Hilda Ramirez, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, uses the kitchen at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas. Ramirez, from Guatemala, and her son have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Ivan Ramirez looks on as his mother, Hilda, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, talks to a reporter at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas. Hilda and Ivan have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

An image of Frida Kahlo is seen on a light switch cover in a class room at the First Unitarian Universalist Church that has also been used as a living area, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Austin, Texas. Close to two dozen churches and religious groups and three unions in and around Austin, Texas have joined the Austin Sanctuary Network, agreeing to offer food, clothing, funding, volunteer time or a physical sanctuary for people who entered the country illegally and are fighting deportation. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Hilda Ramirez, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, and her son Ivan walk past the their living area at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas. Hilda and Ivan, from Guatemala, have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In this Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 photo, Hilda Ramirez, an immigrant living illegally in the U.S, and her son Ivan enter St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Austin, Texas. Hilda and Ivan, from Guatemala, have taken refuge at the church for more than a year. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Senior Minister Meg Barnhouse poses for a photo in a classroom that can be converted to a living area at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Austin, Texas. Close to two dozen churches and religious groups and three unions in and around Austin have joined the Austin Sanctuary Network, agreeing to offer food, clothing, funding, volunteer time or a physical sanctuary for people who entered the country illegally and are fighting deportation. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Senior Minister Meg Barnhouse poses for a photo in a classroom that can be converted to a living area at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Austin, Texas. Close to two dozen churches and religious groups and three unions in and around Austin have joined the Austin Sanctuary Network, agreeing to offer food, clothing, funding, volunteer time or a physical sanctuary for people who entered the country illegally and are fighting deportation. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - The shroud has been lifted from a University of Kentucky mural that had drawn complaints from some students due to its depiction of black workers.

The Lexington Herald-Leader (http://bit.ly/2n4mgJt ) reports that when the cover was removed from the Memorial Hall mural, it revealed a new sign providing context for the painting.

The sign describes the mural's history, its format and concerns voiced about it over the years. In a blog post, UK President Eli Capilouto says the mural is now viewed through a modern prism.

Capilouto ordered the mural covered in November 2015 after a group of black students told him the piece was demeaning because of scenes of black workers - possibly slaves - planting tobacco, black musicians playing for white dancers and a Native American with a tomahawk.
NEW DELHI (AP) - Two civilians and a policeman were killed in explosions in Bangladesh on Saturday as troops raided a suspected military hideout in the country's east, police said.

Golam Kibria, a senior police official in Sylhet city, said 25 people were also wounded in the explosions, which took place on a road near an Islamic religious school.

Since Friday, paramilitary troops have been engaged in an operation to flush out a group of Islamist radicals holed up in a nearby building with a large cache of ammunition.

Police said that earlier Saturday, 78 civilians were rescued from the building as troops broke through a boundary wall.

Troops and militants continued to exchange gunfire late Saturday.

The gunbattle with suspected militants comes a day after a man detonated himself near a police post on a busy road near the airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. No one other than the attacker was killed or injured in that explosion.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence group, citing the Islamic State news agency Amaq. SITE monitors terror group activity online.

The blast was the second suicide attack in a week in the Dhaka area. On March 17, a suspected bomber died in a blast near barracks of the elite Rapid Action Battalion anti-terror police force.
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - The outgoing leader of the University of California's Berkeley campus improperly accepted free benefits, mostly related to personal fitness, an investigation found.

A report released Friday was heavily blacked out, but the readable portions said Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks didn't pay for $5,000 worth of a gym membership and 48 personal training sessions. He also had an elliptical exercise machine worth at least $3,500 installed at home, the Los Angeles Times reported (goo.gl/meb7Mh).

The investigation concluded in September, but the report was kept private for six months.

FILE - In this Nov. 27, 2012 file photo, University of California, Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks speaks to students, staff and alumni at a ceremony welcoming Dirks to the campus in Berkeley. The outgoing leader of the University of California's Berkeley campus improperly accepted free benefits, mostly related to personal fitness, an investigation found. A report released Friday, March 24, 2017, was heavily blacked out, but the readable portions said Dirks didn't pay for $5,000 worth of a gym membership and 48 personal training sessions. (D. Ross Cameron /The Contra Costa Times via AP, File)

UC ethics rules bar employees from the unauthorized use of campus resources or facilities or the "entanglement" of private interests with UC obligations.

UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said Dirks has apologized and repaid the money.

Dirks, who declined to comment, will step down June 30.

Dirks took office as UC Berkeley's 10th chancellor on June 1, 2013, and during his tenure launched major initiatives to strengthen undergraduate education and to optimize fundraising. But he came under fire for allegedly being too lenient when handling sexual harassment cases involving high-profile faculty.

In one case, Sujit Choudhry, the former dean of the law school, received only a temporary pay cut and orders to undergo counseling as punishment after an investigation substantiated claims that he repeatedly kissed and touched a subordinate.

Dirks has said he plans to become a full-time professor at the university.

Last week, Carol T. Christ, a scholar of Victorian literature and former president of Smith College, was named the next chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley by the UC Board of Regents.

She will be the first woman in the school's 149-year history to hold the position.
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - Jamaican police say a 37-year-old officer has been shot to death while attempting to stop the robbery of two Chinese citizens.

They say Corporal Kevin McLean was going home at 7:40 p.m. Friday when he encountered gunmen robbing the two Chinese in the town of Frankfield in central Jamaica.

They said the gunmen shot McLean multiple times and he was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Police say they are seeking the killers, but gave no further details.

Police also reported that another officer was injured during a Thursday night grenade attack on a police team attempting to arrest suspects of a March 17 quadruple killing.

Gunmen also killed a police officer last month outside a house party.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - East Africa's regional bloc said Saturday it gradually will allow the hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees sheltering in its countries to work and will include them in planning efforts.

It is a step forward for nations like Kenya, which hosts the world's largest refugee camp and where refugees are not allowed to work, but it's not enough, said an Amnesty International expert on refugees, Victor Nyamori.

"It must be backed up by concrete action," he said. East African countries already are signatories of U.N. treaties that say refugees should be allowed to work but that has not been put into practice, he said. Only Uganda seems to have progressive legislation to let refugees work and settle, he said.

Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, centre listens to speeches during the special summit, at Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Saturday, March 25, 2017 in Nairobi, Kenya. The summit brings together members of states from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the international community and other stakeholders to marshal a comprehensive regional approach to deliver durable solutions for Somali refugees, whilst promoting sustainable reintegration of returnees in Somalia. (AP Photo/Sayyid Abdul Azim)

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development summit on Somali refugees comes as Somalia again faces the threat of famine, with about half its estimated 12 million population threatened. Droughts and instability already have displaced more than 2 million Somalis in recent decades, with about 900,000 sheltering in regional countries.

Even as the region faces the prospect of a fresh wave of Somali refugees, there have been efforts to urge existing ones to return home.

The summit comes weeks after a court blocked Kenya's plan to close the world's largest refugee camp in May. The camp, Dadaab, shelters more than 200,000 Somalis.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday repeated his government's allegation that Dadaab has become a training ground for al-Shabab extremists, though authorities have not provided proof. The Somalia-based al-Shabab group has launched more than 100 attacks on Kenya as retribution after it sent troops to Somalia to fight the extremists.

The U.N. refugee agency has urged Kenya to look alternative means of settlement, while human rights groups have accused Kenya of pressuring the Somalis to return home.

"Countries hosting Somali refugees have to find alternative solutions for them locally, focusing on the socio-economic inclusion of refugees," said George Okoth-Obbo, the U.N. refugee agency's assistant high commissioner for operations. Though voluntary returns to Somalia continue, insecurity and other constraints are restricting their number, he said.

The regional bloc on Saturday committed to finding alternative means of settling refugees, but it did not say when any changes would take effect.

"For far too long, we have been investing in the management of refugees and (internally displaced people). Time has come for us to invest in their God-given ability to manage themselves," said Somalia's President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

East Africa also faces the world's fastest-growing refugee crisis in Uganda, where hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have fled in recent months.

The regional bloc also includes Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta, right, and Ethiopia's Prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn and the Chairman of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government, left, listen to speeches during the special summit, at Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Saturday, March 25, 2017 in Nairobi, Kenya. The summit brings together members of states from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the international community and other stakeholders. (AP Photo/Sayyid Abdul Azim)
NEW YORK (AP) - Emergency medic Yadira Arroyo was beloved - by her colleagues, by patients she transported to the hospital, by the store owner she spoke to on her way to work and by children who walked by her Bronx station house.

The 14-year veteran of the New York Fire Department and mother of five sons, killed March 16 when she was struck by her own ambulance that had been stolen, was remembered Saturday by thousands of mourners who packed a Bronx church and poured into the streets.

"Most of all, she was a hero," said Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro. "She died as one, but most importantly, she lived as one."

Hundreds of uniformed firefighters fill the street as an ambulance carrying the body of fallen New York Fire Department Emergency Medical Technician Yadira Arroyo proceeds toward St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church in the Bronx borough of New York, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Arroyo died in the line of duty on Thursday, March 16, 2017 when she tried to stop a man from stealing her ambulance and was pulled beneath the vehicle's wheels. (Michael Appleton/New York City Mayor's Office via AP)

Arroyo, 44, and her partner, Monique Williams, were responding to a call of a pregnant woman in distress when they were flagged down by a pedestrian about a theft, authorities say. Arroyo got out of the vehicle and a man darted into the driver's seat and ran her down before crashing into parked cars. The horrific scene was captured on bystander video and shows Williams sobbing in the street over her fallen partner.

Nigro said emergency medical technicians do a dangerous job, but Arroyo did it time and time again, even during asthma attacks. She took her job very seriously.

Arroyo's partner attempted to give a reading, but could only cry at the lectern while another read in her place. Arroyo's aunt and 23-year-old son Jose Montes delivered eulogies, telling of a kind, brave and resilient woman who loved her job and loved her family.

"My mother wasn't perfect, she was excellent," Montes said. "The way she inspired me, the way she lights up the whole room with her wonderful laugh. On top of any other lessons she showed me to make me as tough and as gentle, as wise and a curious as I am now, she taught me how to listen. Because she listened."

Montes said that he missed her, but that he and his family would endure.

"Mommy's OK guys, and we're all OK," he said to his brothers, the youngest of whom is 7. "Because we all have each other."

Twenty-five-year-old Jose Gonzalez has been charged with murder in Arroyo's death. Authorities say Gonzalez hopped on the back of the ambulance, then darted into the driver's seat and ran Arroyo down after a man on the street flagged the vehicle down to say Gonzalez had stolen his backpack. Gonzalez told reporters he is innocent, while his lawyer said he's mentally ill and didn't act intentionally.

The streets outside of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Roman Catholic Church were crowded, where a large viewing large screen was set. Fire officials said first responders from Boston, Baltimore and Canada attended the funeral.

"The hearts of our city are broken today," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

In this photo provided by the New York City Mayor's Office, pallbearer from the New York City Fire Department carry the casket of fallen FDNY EMT Yadira Arroyo into St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church in the Bronx borough of New York, Saturday, March 25, 2017. The 14-year veteran of the New York Fire Department and a mother of five sons, was killed on Thursday, March 16 when she tried to stop a man stealing her ambulance and was pulled under the vehicle's wheels. In the background are New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, third right, his wife, Chirlane McCray, fourth from right and New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro, fifth from right. (Michael Appleton/New York City Mayor's Office via AP)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Latest on a public memorial honoring late actress Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, the mother-daughter duo who died one day apart in December. (all times local):

1:10 p.m.

Hundreds of fans and friends of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher are packing an auditorium for a public memorial honoring the celebrated mother and daughter.

FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2011 file photo, Carrie Fisher kisses her mother, Debbie Reynolds, as they arrive at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. The mother-daughter actresses will be honored at a public memorial on Saturday, March 25, 2017, at the storied Hollywood Hills cemetery where both have been laid to rest. Fisher and Reynolds died one day apart in late December 2016. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

The ceremony honors the mother-daughter duo's careers at the storied Hollywood Hills cemetery that is their final resting place. Actresses Renee Russo, Anne Blythe and Beverly D'Angelo were among the stars who arrived before the ceremony's start. It will be livestreamed on www.debbiereynolds.com.

The ceremony's program featured a photo of Fisher as a young girl holding her mother's hand on stage. A drawing of Fisher in a Princess Leia gown and Reynolds in a rain slicker hugging each other was on a giant projector before the ceremony, and a pair of directors' chairs with the actresses' names on them were on stage. It was also being sold on pins worn by many guests, with the proceeds benefiting The Thalians, a charitable mental health group that Reynolds supported throughout her life.

Reynolds' son, Todd Fisher, wrote in a message included in the program that his mother and sister loved a good party, and Saturday's ceremony was intended to be a be a celebration they would like.

The afternoon was billed as a celebration of their careers, and it included a memorabilia display of a dress worn by Fisher in the original "Star Wars" and a life-size R2D2 unit that lights up and occasionally beeps.

Two of Reynolds' dresses that she wore onscreen and her honorary Oscar were also on display.

Other stars attending Saturday's ceremony were "Dallas" actress Morgan Brittany, actor Todd Stevens and "Brady Bunch" actress Susan Olsen.

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12 a.m.

Stars and fans will gather Saturday for a public memorial to honor late actresses Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher.

The ceremony honoring the lives of the mother-daughter duo will be held at the Hollywood Hills cemetery that is their final resting place. People will be granted attendance at the event on a first-come, first-served basis and it will also be live-streamed on www.debbiereynolds.com beginning at 1 p.m. Pacific.

The ceremony is expected to feature music by James Blunt and "Star Wars" composer John Williams.

Fisher and Reynolds died one day apart in late December. Fisher died several days after falling ill on an international flight, and Reynolds died of a stroke.

Stars including Meryl Streep, Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry mourned the actresses at a private memorial in January.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
Police in Massachusetts served a sixth-grader with no-trespass orders after neighbors grew wary of the girl cutting through their properties to get to and from her school bus stop.

The mother of 11-year-old Autumn Blanchard told the Cape Cod Times her daughter received three pink no-trespass notices from the Harwich Police Department on March 2.

Krystal Blanchard said she was unaware neighbors had an issue until the police arrived at her door.

She questioned why she wasn't informed by the neighbors or school officials, who also knew about the problem.

'I am beyond distressed by this situation,' she said. 'I can't imagine why it had to go to this level. Someone should have spoken to me.'

Autumn Blanchard, 11, holds the no-trespass orders that she was served recently for crossing into a couple of neighbors' yards to get to and from her school bus stop

Blanchard said she wonders if the fact her family is new to the area and she and her daughter have brightly colored hair may be causing neighbors to discriminate against them.

The mother has pink hair and piercings while her daughter's hair has multiple colors.

'That's the only thing I can think of, which I think is ridiculous,' said Blanchard, who contends Autumn is a 'nice, polite kid.'

Harwich Police Chief David Guillemette blamed a 'breakdown in communication' for the situation. He said police should have met first with the mother to discuss her daughter's trespassing.

'I would have preferred it would have been handled with more tact,' he said.

Mom, Krystal Blanchard talks with her daughter, Autumn, who could be arrested and fined up to $100, imprisoned up to 30 days or both

Autumn said the cut-through shortened her walk to and from the bus stop, adding how she 'just wanted to get home and be warm inside my house.'

But one neighbor said she was previously sued because a girl fell in her yard and became concerned when she saw Autumn climbing over debris from a fallen tree.

A police report noted how neighbors asked Autumn to 'walk around on the street and she ignores their wishes.' The report also referred to a school resource officer and principal talking with Autumn, conversations her mother said she wasn't told about.

According to the notices, Autumn could be arrested and fined up to $100, imprisoned up to 30 days or both, if she steps onto the properties listed in the no-trespass orders.
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on violence at a pro-Trump rally in Southern California (all times local):

2:35 p.m.

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of illegal use of pepper spray following a scuffle at a rally to support President Donald Trump at a Southern California beach.

Capt. Kevin Pearsall of California State Parks Police says the arrests happened when counter-protesters sprayed pro-Trump supporters.

He says the march of about 2,000 people had started around noon Saturday when its leaders reached a group of about 30 counter-protesters, some of whom began spraying the irritant.

The Los Angeles Times reports (goo.gl/3C88wT) that an anti-Trump protester allegedly doused the event's organizer and was set upon in the sand at Bolsa Chica State Beach by a group of Trump supporters.

Pearsall says there were several other arrests and two people suffered minor injuries.

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1:50 p.m.

KCBS-TV reports that people were arrested after fights broke out during a rally to support President Donald Trump at a Southern California beach.

The TV station says that about 12:30 p.m. Saturday fights broke out between pro-Trump and anti-Trump protesters. KCBS reports that one person was pepper-sprayed by a demonstrator and another was punched.

The Los Angeles Times reports that an anti-Trump protester allegedly doused the organizer of the event with pepper spray and was set upon by a group of Trump supporters.

Huntington Beach police did not confirm the number of arrests, the TV station reported.

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1:30 p.m.

Violence broke out Saturday at a rally on a Southern California beach where supporters of President Donald Trump had gathered to march.

The extent of the clashes between Trump supporters and counter-protesters was not immediately clear.

The Orange County Register reports (goo.gl/dDSHZB) that hundreds of people were at Bolsa Chica State Beach for the event.

Counter-protesters said before the march began that they planned to try to stop its progress with a "human wall."

Authorities could not immediately be reached for details about any arrests.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - About 100 journalists and free-speech supporters demonstrated Saturday to protest the killing of a Mexican reporter gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua on Thursday.

Miroslava Breach was the third journalist to be killed this month in one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. Those present held up signs with slogans like "Killing reporters doesn't kill the truth."

Breach worked for the newspaper La Jornada.

A woman lights a candle next to photos of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua on Thursday, in an improvised altar during a demonstration in Mexico City, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Breach was the third journalist to be killed this month in one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Judith Calderon of the La Jornada employees' union said her colleagues want an investigation into the killing.

The killers haven't been identified, but Calderon said: "The attacks come from many sides."

On March 19, newspaper columnist Ricardo Monlui was shot in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. On March 2, Cecilio Pineda Birto, a freelancer, was slain in Guerrero state.

A message that reads in Spanish: "No More Deaths" is written in red paint on newspapers placed in front of photos of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, who was gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua on Thursday, at headquarters of Mexico's General Attorney's Office in Mexico City, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Breach was the third journalist to be killed this month in one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A woman shouts slogans holding a photo of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua on Thursday, and a sign that reads in Spanish: "the impunity kills freedom of speech, justice," during a demonstration in Mexico City, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Breach was the third journalist to be killed this month in one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A woman holds a photo of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua on Thursday, during a march in Mexico City, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Breach was the third journalist to be killed this month in one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A man holds up a photo of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua on Thursday, during a march in Mexico City, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Breach was the third journalist to be killed this month in one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
The last time Norway visited Windsor Park five years ago Michael ONeill was beginning a Northern Ireland tenure which would transform the countrys fortunes.

A 3-0 loss to the Norwegians in Belfast on leap year day in 2012 did not prove to be an indication of what was to come during ONeills reign, which has so far encompassed passage to the Euro 2016 knockout stages, a record 12-match unbeaten streak and a draw in Portugal.

How Northern Ireland's FIFA ranking has changed under Michael O'Neill

Northern Ireland were 86th in the world rankings when ONeill arrived, though they would plummet to new depths before their upturn began.

Five games in and he was still waiting for his first victory, with a draw against Luxembourg in September 2012 dropping them to an all-time low of 129th in the world rankings, and ONeill fearing his team had forgotten how to win.

He had admitted: There was a bit of anxiety in our play, and that comes from results. The only way to change it is to win games and get results and thats going to take a bit of time.

Even with a draw in Portugal on the night Cristiano Ronaldo earned his 100th cap, they would not experience victory until August 2013 when Martin Patersons goal against Russia earned them the only victory in ONeills first 18 games in charge.

Martin Paterson celebrates his goal against Russia (Paul Faith/PA)

Ranked just inside the top 100 in the world prior to their Euro 2016 qualification campaign, ONeills men became the first in history to win a European group despite being seeded in the fifth pot.

By the time they punched their ticket to France, Northern Ireland were up to 29th in the world and they would climb higher still to 25th before the tournament began thanks to a 12-game unbeaten run which was longer than any of the teams at the Euros.

Now ONeills team currently stand 35th, 46 spots above a Norwegian outfit who will be the opponents for his 45th game in charge.

ONeill has guided his nation to 13 wins, 14 draws and 17 defeats in that time, with Northern Ireland having scored 45 times and conceded 52.

Michael O'Neill got thrown in the air after Euro 2016 qualification was secured ( Niall Carson/PA)

Shane Ferguson scored the first goal of the ONeill era in a 3-3 draw with Finland in the summer of 2012 and he is one 16 players to have scored for the current international boss, with Kyle Laffertys 12 strikes leading the way ahead of Gareth McAuleys seven and Steven Davis five.

Of the XI who ONeill first picked against Norway, McAuley, Davis, Aaron Hughes, Jonny Evans and Corry Evans are in this squad, and Ferguson would have been too were he not suspended.

And from the starting line-up that ONeill selected against Russia in his first competitive fixture, only the retired Chris Baird is not in the current squad five years on.

In that way, so little has changed, but as the Norwegians prepare for another encounter in Belfast they know they will meet a team that has since been revolutionised in ONeills five years at the helm.
Johanna Konta survived a scare against qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich to reach the third round of the Miami Open.

The British number one raced through the opening set but lost the second on the tie-break before she recovered her composure to close out a 6-2 6-7 (5/7) 6-4 victory in two hours and 40 minutes.

The Belarusian was broken in the fifth game of the opening set and the 10th-seeded Konta then went on to win five games in a row on her way to comfortably wrapping up the first set.

Johanna Konta, of Britain, returns the ball to Aliaksandra Sasnovich, of Belarus, during the Miami Open (Luis M. Alvarez/AP)

And she broke again after a brief rain delay to lead 4-2 and appeared to be set for a relatively straightforward passage into round three.

But Konta lost her concentration and was broken back and then had to save more break points as Sasnovich rallied strongly.

The rain returned in the tie-break with Sasnovich 4-2 up and after a 30-minute break the Belarussian closed out the tie-break 7-5 to level the match.

Konta broke in the deciding set for a 3-2 lead and served out to wrap up victory in a testing encounter.
MPs have expressed concern about human rights and democracy in Turkey.

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has said the country is at a crossroads and must now choose between recovery or repression.

The committee said the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) seemed to be unable to provide independent analysis of last Julys coup attempt, and so took the Turkish governments account of events after Ankara blamed it on a plot by the Gulenist movement.

I strongly condemn the terror attack in London. The Turkish people share the pain of the United Kingdom.  Recep Tayyip Erdogan (@RTErdogan) March 22, 2017

We stand in solidarity with the UK, our friend and ally, against terrorism, the greatest threat to global peace and security.  Recep Tayyip Erdogan (@RTErdogan) March 22, 2017

MPs warn that in pushing wider British interests, the FCO could be perceived as not giving enough priority to UK values on human rights in Turkey.

The warning came as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was pictured shaking hands with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan before a meeting in Antalya, Turkey, late on on Friday.

Committee chairman Crispin Blunt said: Turkey is an important strategic partner facing a volatile period.

It needs and deserves our support, but that support needs to include our critique where Turkish policy is not in its own, or our, joint long-term interests: these are regional security and stability as well as strong and accountable institutions in Turkey.

A poster of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the upcoming referendum is seen backdropped by the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, The banner reads in Turkish: 'Yes, the words and Decision belongs to nation' (Emrah Gurel/AP)

The current purges by the Turkish government amount to a root-and-branch attempt to eradicate the Gulenist movement from positions of public influence, but they have also extended beyond that to affect opposition and pro-Kurdish activists.

Large numbers have been punished on the basis of a broad and vague definition of terrorism and a worryingly low threshold of evidence. Many of those dismissed and detained have been punished without trial or access to the evidence against them. There are alarmingly inadequate avenues for redress.

These purges risk undermining Turkeys reputation, its economy, the UKs ability to trade there, and the capabilities of the Turkish military against shared enemies such as Isil (another term for Islamic State).

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, left (STR/AP)

We met President Erdogan during our visit, and he has made himself as central to 21st century Turkey as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was in the 20th century.

But now is a profound moment of decision for him and his divided country. Whether he secures an executive presidency or not, the choices that President Erdogan now makes will determine whether Turkey will be a repressive or a recovering state.

The FCO must help Turkey reinforce accountable state institutions, while also developing ties far beyond them: the UK needs a deeper and therefore more durable relationship with the Turkish people, whichever background they hold, while working to uphold the values of human rights and democracy that benefit them all.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said Turkey is a vital ally, partner and friend to the UK and so it is essential for the Foreign Office to properly understand the country.

An FCO spokesman said: We welcome this report on the UKs relations with Turkey and its praise for the UKs approach.
Motorists could soon be banned from parking on kerbs in a bid by local councils to encourage more people to walk.

The Local Government Association said kerb mounting forces pedestrians - including the blind and parents with prams - to walk in the road, which puts their lives at risk.

Outside of London, which banned pavement parking in 1974, kerb parking is generally allowed on roads without other restrictions such as double yellow lines.

Martin Tett, transport spokesman at the LGA, which represents more than 370 councils in England and Wales, said it 'seems nonsense' that those outside the capital do not have more control to stop pavement parking.

Council leaders said kerb mounting forces pedestrians to risk their lives walking in the road

He said: 'Local authorities need this power to respond to concerns raised by their communities, for example if a street is becoming dangerously congested or pedestrians are being forced to step out into the street to get round parked vehicles.

'This is particularly dangerous for blind or partially sighted people and mums and dads with prams.

The LGA warned that local authorities have limited funds to repair pavements damaged by vehicle tyres and said this money would be better used to help plug a 12 billion roads repair bill.

Kerb parking is allowed on roads without restrictions such as double yellow lines

But AA president Edmund King warned that a blanket ban 'simply won't work' as certain roads would become blocked if drivers cannot partially park on the pavement.

He said: 'Some drivers think they are helping the flow of traffic by parking on the pavement, but too often little to no consideration is given to how someone in a wheelchair or a parent with a child in a buggy will pass their vehicle.

'The AA cautiously welcomes this measure, but a thorough investigation of roads must happen before any implementation takes place.'

We had to stop 100 mtrs short of a fire in Santry due to tight parking. Crew con't on foot. Friendly reminder, leave space for 999 vehicles pic.twitter.com/9eDc0m4Daw  Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) March 24, 2017

RAC spokesman Simon Williams said their research found that nearly three-quarters of motorists say that parked vehicles end up blocking pavements in their neighbourhood.

But motorists are also split on whether it is acceptable to park on the pavements. Most (48%) believe it is acceptable to park on a pavement with one or two wheels, but a sizeable minority (37%) think the remedy is an outright ban on all parking on pavements.'

Mr Tett said councils would 'carefully consult with communities' before bans were implemented.
Lewis Hamilton is predicting a tight championship battle, despite clearing the first hurdle to victory at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix by securing a brilliant pole position.

Hamilton will be joined on the front row by Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel, who at this very early stage of Formula Ones new-look era would appear to be the Britons closest rival for a fourth title.

But while Vettel, Ferrari and indeed the sport  which is desperately relying on another constructor to take the challenge to Hamiltons all-conquering Mercedes team  will be pleased they are in contention, it is the 32-year-old Briton who is revelling in yet another qualifying masterclass.

Winner of qualifying session Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, centre, of Britain stands with second placed Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel, right, of Germany and third placed teammate Valtteri Bottas of Finland (Rick Rycroft/AP)

Hamiltons latest one-lap triumph marked the 62nd pole of his career, which leaves him only three behind Ayrton Senna and six adrift of Michael Schumacher in the all-time list. There is every chance he could be crowned Formula Ones pole king by the time of Julys British Grand Prix.

But for now Hamiltons only focus will be negotiating the short drag down to turn one to win in Australia.

He has secured pole here for the past four years, but converted just one to victory. Last season he fell to sixth by turn one after a sluggish start.

It is close between us all and as you can see it is going to be a tight race this year, said Hamilton, who finished 0.268 seconds clear of Vettel after setting the fastest lap ever recorded at Melbournes Albert Park.

HAM:The rule change has been huge - the guys worked so hard. I'm looking forward to the race - I think it'll be tight #Quali #AusGP  #F1 pic.twitter.com/Qa1w6usowO  Formula 1 (@F1) March 25, 2017

It definitely did not start out as the best day for me. I had been feeling great all week and it was feeling like a bit of an off-day, but as it got to qualifying it got a lot better.

I am going to make sure that I get a good nights sleep and come back tomorrow stronger than ever.

Hamilton has been on it from the get-go this weekend and he looks like a man enjoying his de facto number one status at Mercedes following Nico Rosbergs retirement. The driver who replaced the world champion, Valtteri Bottas, lines up in third.

Third position is not ideal and I am not happy for the result, he said. I didnt quite get any perfect laps in so I am not that satisfied. What we dont want is to have another car from another team in between us.

VET: "We are fired up about tomorrow's race. The confidence was there from Testing and it has been a big winter for us" #AusGP  #Quali pic.twitter.com/6eDlzadn0N  Formula 1 (@F1) March 25, 2017

That team, Ferrari, have carried their strong pre-season form to the first race here they are half-a-second closer to Mercedes than they were at this stage in 2016.

I would have loved to, but I dont think pole was up for grabs, Vettel, the four-time champion, said. But tomorrow we can do something in the race.

The car feels good, we have improved, and it has been a big winter for us. The team is getting stronger, people are fired up, and we are motivated for tomorrow and the start is the first good opportunity.

Kimi Raikkonen will lead the supporting cast as he starts from fourth for Ferrari, with Red Bulls Max Verstappen fifth. His team-mate and home favourite Daniel Ricciardo crashed out and is set to start from 10th.

Jolyon Palmer, Britains only other representative on the grid following Jenson Buttons retirement, has endured a deeply troubling weekend and posted the slowest time of all 20 runners.

Fernando Alonso put McLarens awful pre-season campaign to one side to qualify a mildly encouraging 13th.
UK travellers wanting a bargain city break should head to Cyprus, a study has found.

Paphos, on the south-west coast of the Mediterranean island, is the cheapest out of 36 European cities included in the Post Office Travel Money report.

The research took into account a dozen typical city break costs including accommodation for two nights, transport between the airport and the city centre, an evening meal for two and entrance fees for top attractions.

This totalled just 138 in Paphos, which was followed by Vilnius, Lithuania (139); Riga, Latvia (150) and Warsaw, Poland (154).

Paphos is one of four sunshine destinations to make it into the top 10.

Lisbon in Portugal, western Europes cheapest capital city, is at number seven (162), while Athens, Greece, is at nine (191) followed by Palma, Majorca (196).

Lisbon

Andrew Brown, of Post Office Travel Money, said: This is the first time since we started surveying tourist costs in European cities eight years ago that we have seen so many Western capitals provide the low prices usually associated with Prague, Budapest and other eastern European cities.

City breaks have emerged as the most popular type of holiday for UK tourists in the past three years and, with ongoing uncertainty about sterling, there is good reason for people planning trips to do their homework carefully and check where the pound will give them more for their money.

This year the sunshine cities that have made it into our top 10 look great value, with the promise of a sunny climate as well as low prices.

Here are the top 10 cheapest European city break destinations for UK travellers, according to Post Office Travel Money:

2. Vilnius, Lithuania

4. Warsaw, Poland

6. Krakow, Poland

8. Prague, Czech Republic

10. Palma, Majorca
A blogger from Singapore who was jailed for online posts criticising his government has been granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge ruled.

Amos Yee, 18, has been detained by US federal immigration authorities since December when he was taken into custody at Chicagos OHare International Airport.

Attorneys said he could be released from a Wisconsin detention centre as early as Monday.

Judge Samuel Cole issued a 13-page decision on Friday, more than two weeks after Yees closed-door hearing on the asylum application.

(Wong Maye-E/AP)

Judge Cole wrote: Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore.

Mr Yee left Singapore with the intention of seeking asylum in the US after being jailed for several weeks in 2015 and 2016. He was accused of hurting the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians in the multi-ethnic city-state. Yee is an atheist.

Many of his blog and social media posts criticised Singapores leaders. He created controversy in 2015 as the city-state was mourning the death of its first prime minister when he posted an expletive-laden video about prime minister Lee Kuan Yew just after his death.

Such open criticism of political leaders is discouraged in Singapore. The case raised questions about free speech and censorship and has been closely watched abroad.

Judge Cole said testimony during Mr Yees hearing showed that while the Singapore governments stated reason for punishing him involved religion, its real purpose was to stifle Yees political speech. He said Mr Yees prison sentence was unusually long and harsh, especially for his age.

Officials at Singapores embassy in Washington DC have not addressed the case and messages left for the government on Saturday morning in Singapore were not immediately returned.

Human Rights Watch applauded the decision. Phil Robertson, the bodys deputy Asia director, said: Singapore excels at creating a pressure cooker environment for dissidents and free thinkers who dare challenge the political, economic and social diktats from the ruling Peoples Action Party. Its clear the Singapore government saw Amos Yee as the proverbial nail sticking up that had to be hammered down.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (L) welcomes President of the Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust (Photo: VNA)



Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc made the remark at a reception for President of the Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust in Hanoi on March 24.He took this occasion to thank Harvard for supporting and coordinating with Vietnam to successfully organize the Vietnam Executive Leadership Program (VELP).The PM underlined educational reform and improvements to education-training quality as one of the crucial factors to develop a country.He, therefore, asked the Harvard University to continue supporting Vietnam with leadership training and tertiary administration, and opening training courses for Vietnams senior officials.Regarding the VELP, the PM proposed Harvard provide more support and strengthen coordination with Vietnam to seek financial resources to maintain the program, while increasing the number of Vietnamese students to pursue learning at the university in the time ahead.Faust said she hoped the curriculum at the Fulbright University Vietnam (FUV) will become a cooperation model connecting Vietnamese and US scholars and researchers.Both Vietnam and the US pay much attention to education, which could help the two countries deal with challenges that they are encountering, she said, stressing that there are numerous cooperation opportunities for Vietnam and Harvard.She said the university is expanding collaboration activities with Vietnamese peers, including medical ones, and pledged to support and promote the implementation of the FUV project in Vietnam./.
A deeply frustrated Jolyon Palmer believes everything has conspired against him this weekend  and described his Renault as awful  after finishing last in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Palmer, the 26-year-old from Sussex, is embarking on his second campaign in Formula One after defying the odds to secure another year with Renault.

But the Englishman has endured a weekend to forget in Melbourne. He crashed in practice on Friday and was then the slowest here in qualifying.

Renault driver Jolyon Palmer of Britain steers his car during qualifying for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne (Rick Rycroft/AP)

So what did @JolyonPalmer tell the media? Well, we asked him to tell you! #AusGP #Quali pic.twitter.com/l5N2As6ZqF  BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) March 25, 2017

Palmer was an eye-watering 3.3 seconds adrift of his new team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, but pointed the finger of blame at his Renault machinery.

To be honest the car was awful, Palmer, who will be promoted one spot on the grid after rookie Lance Stroll served a five-place penalty for a gearbox change, said. I have had tough weekends before but this one is strange. Everything has conspired against me.

I have made my own bad luck with my crash in FP2  I am the first to say that  but for some reason we have turned up today and I thought I could salvage it. We are missing something and we are really struggling.

Today the car was put back together, and I have to thank the guys for that, but its actually a disaster. Im a second off what I did on my second lap in FP1 which is pretty terrible. The brakes are terrible, the balance is pretty horrible and the traction is terrible.

The fun never stops; pitstop practice next!#AusGP pic.twitter.com/q88eljGrOR  BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) March 25, 2017

Palmers team-mate Hulkenberg qualified 12th which would suggest that Renault, who struggled last season, have made gains over the winter.

And Palmer is taking some satisfaction from Hulkenbergs display that he will be back on song in China in a fortnights time.

It is a shame but the positive is the car is much more competitive, he added.

Tomorrow will be tough but the positive is that from China onwards we can reset and I have the confidence we can then start back on a normal footing and be in a more competitive space. Of course this weekend is a bad start to my season, but I have a lot of confidence for the future.
Douglas Carswell is facing calls to trigger a by-election after quitting as Ukips only MP and plunging the party into fresh turmoil.

The Brexit-supporting MP insisted he does not need to call a fresh vote because he is not rejoining the Conservatives or switching allegiances to another party.

But Ukips biggest financial backer, Arron Banks, has urged the MP to call a by-election in his Clacton constituency so he can stand against him.

The insurance tycoon drew attention to a November 2015 blog post by Mr Carswell, entitled how to resign and spark a tricky by-election  my guide for rebellious MPs.

Carswell has jumped before he was pushed. He was never UKIP and sought to undermine us. He should have gone some time ago.  Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) March 25, 2017

Mr Carswell, who defected to Ukip from the Tories in 2014, told Labour MPs exasperated with Jeremy Corbyns leadership and thinking of jumping ship that they should insist on a by-election if they quit.

Between 1701 and 1918, a by-election had to be called every time an MP was invited to join the government, he wrote.

Look at what Carswell wrote in 2015:



"Insist on a by-election to confirm your move with the electorate. It's the only honourable way"... pic.twitter.com/PufmvKXZBF  Leave.EU (@LeaveEUOfficial) March 25, 2017

Think of it as a sort of confirmation hearing. Insist on a by-election to confirm your move with the electorate.

Mr Banks said the people of Clacton deserve a say on Mr Carswells future as their MP, claiming he acted in self-interest when he defected from the Tories.

Douglas Carswells departure is a rare piece of good news for Ukip, Mr Banks said.

Carswell has been nothing but a source of division for the party since he joined - a point which Nigel (Farage) and I have stressed constantly for months now.

His resignation is a good first step, but Ukip will remain in a state of constant dysfunction until the rest of Carswells Tory cabal follows him out of the door.

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said Douglas Carswell's decision to quit the party had not come as a surprise

Amid claims that he only defected from the Tories as part of a plot to marginalise Nigel Farages role in referendum, Mr Carswell admitted he wanted the Brexit campaign to be more positive, apparently referring to the former leaders controversial views on immigration.

He also revealed he had not spoken to Mr Farage since around December and urged him to be more positive about the fact that on Wednesday, we win  referring to the Theresa Mays intention to invoke Article 50 to begin the UKs withdrawal from the EU on March 29.

Mr Carswells departure follows a long-running feud with the former leader, who claimed the MP was never Ukip and had sought to undermine us.

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall, who reportedly only found out about Mr Carswells resignation via a text from a friend, said the party has not benefited financially or organisationally from the MPs presence in Westminster and so his departure would make no difference to his reform agenda.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats seized on the row, both declaring that Ukip has no purpose and no future.
Spains Jon Rahm stormed into the semi-finals of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.

After beating American Charles Howell III 6&4 in their last-16 clash on Saturday morning, Rahm thrashed Denmarks Soren Kjeldsen 7&5 in the quarter-finals to book his place in the last four.

The 22-year-old, who was the worlds top ranked amateur while studying at Arizona State University, is currently 25th in the world after winning his first PGA Tour title in the Farmers Insurance Open in January.

(Eric Gay/AP)

He could rise as high as 10th in the standings with victory in his just his second World Golf Championships event, having finished tied third in the WGC-Mexico Championship earlier this month.

Rahm has not trailed at any point in his five matches this week at Austin Country Club and was three up on Kjeldsen after six holes, aided by an eagle from just four feet on the par-five sixth.

A par was good enough to win the eighth and birdies on the 10th and 12th helped Rahm seal another emphatic victory in the 7.8million event.

By joining the European Tour on March 1 as an affiliate member for the 2017 season, Rahm is eligible to earn Ryder Cup points when qualifying begins on August 31.

The perfect round.



That's how Jon Rahm described his quarterfinal match against Soren Kjeldsen. pic.twitter.com/Omglco0ZX9  PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 25, 2017

Rahm, who will face Bill Haas in Sundays semi-final after the American beat compatriot Phil Mickelson 2&1, told PGA Tour Live: The only thing I could have done better is maybe make that putt on 11 and thats about it.

Theres not many rounds of golf where a player looks back and says I cannot play any better and today was one of those.

Last time I said that was Torrey Pines (scene of his win in the Farmers Insurance Open). Today it was the exact same way. I did a really good job.

Phil's run @DellMatchPlay comes to an end.



Bill Haas has a semifinal date with Jon Rahm. pic.twitter.com/6cweT91TW6  PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 25, 2017

Mickelson had never trailed in any of his first four matches and led for 54 of the 57 holes he had played but immediately fell behind in the quarter-finals when Haas birdied the opening hole.

Although Mickelson got back on level terms at the next, Haas won the third, fifth and sixth and responded to Mickelson reducing his deficit on the seventh by making a birdie on the ninth to move three up at the turn.

Mickelson won the 10th and 12th to get back to one down, only for Haas to birdie the 15th and halve the next two holes to seal victory.

Dustin Johnson vs. Hideto Tanihara



Jon Rahm vs. Bill Haas



The semifinals of the @DellMatchPlay are set. pic.twitter.com/CHYWyvEnwM  PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 25, 2017

In the other half of the draw, world number one Dustin Johnson overcame spirited resistance from Swedens Alex Noren to remain on course to become the first player to win all four WGC titles.

Johnson won the first three holes against Noren and was still ahead by the same margin at the turn, only to bogey the 10th and 11th and lose the next to a birdie.

However, the US Open champion  who is seeking a third straight tournament victory  bounced back to birdie the 13th, 15th and 16th to complete a hard-fought 3&2 win.

3&2.



Dustin Johnson advances to the semifinals at the @DellMatchPlay where he will meet Hideto Tanihara. pic.twitter.com/LgPCvNv1Cy  PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 25, 2017

Johnson will face Japans Hideto Tanihara in the semi-finals after the 54th seed beat Englands Ross Fisher 4&2, although the latters last-16 victory over Bubba Watson is expected to take him into the worlds top 50 on Monday and secure a first appearance in the Masters since 2012.

I tried to put it to the back of my mind at the start of the week, Fisher said. I thought I was in after finishing second in my group but I wanted to focus on getting past Louis (Oosthuizen).

I beat Louis (in a play-off) and then you hear some people say Congratulations, Fish, well done, youre in the Masters. Then you see other people saying theyre not quite sure if Ross is in yet. Hopefully it will be good enough.
Englands Andrew Johnston is two shots off the lead heading into the final day of the Puerto Rico Open after a superb third round of 66.

Johnston carded six birdies and no bogeys at Coco Beach to reach 13 under par on a congested leaderboard which sees the top 25 players separated by just five strokes.

American Chris Stroud also did not drop a shot in his 67 to set the pace on 15 under, a shot ahead of compatriots DA Points and Bill Lunde.

Picture

Johnston was part of a six-way tie for fourth which includes former US Amateur champion Bryson DeChambeau and Puerto Ricos Rafael Campos, who delighted the home fans with four birdies in a row in his 69.

Johnston hit the headlines in April last year by winning his first European Tour title in the Spanish Open and admitting he could not wait to get home afterwards to get hammered with friends and family.

The 28-year-old Londoner has since become better known by his nickname Beef and exploited being flavour of the month by signing an endorsement deal with fast food chain Arbys.

However, the world number 100 insists he wants to remain famous for his exploits on the course rather than his facial hair and popularity with spectators, something which a first PGA Tour victory would go a long way to achieving.
By Zoe Tabary

LONDON, March 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Scientists in Germany are testing what they describe as "the world's largest artificial sun," which they hope could pave the way toward creating hydrogen to use as a green fuel.

The system called Synlight - being developed at the German Aerospace Center near Cologne - is an array of 149 bright film projector spotlights. They produce light about 10,000 times stronger than typical sunlight.

The test aims to find new ways to create hydrogen to fuel vehicles such as cars and planes, explained Bernhard Hoffschmidt, the director of the Center's Institute for Solar Research.

"We're essentially bringing the sun to the Earth, by re-creating its radiation in a lab," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

"We orientate all lamps to focus on one point, which can generate temperatures of over 3,000 degrees Celsius."

The operation produces water vapour that can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, Hoffschmidt said.

"The hydrogen created can then be used to power airplanes and cars (with) carbon-dioxide-free fuel," he said.

Countries are under increasing pressure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and hope to use excess power generated by renewable sources such as wind or solar to create hydrogen from water through a process called electrolysis.

Synlight itself consumes a large amount of energy, however, Hoffschmidt said.

"In four hours the system uses about as much electricity as a four-person household in a year. Our goal is to eventually use actual sunlight to make hydrogen, rather than artificial light."

He also acknowledged there was "a long way to go" before the method could be scaled up for commercial use, which he said would require billions of tonnes of hydrogen.

"I think commercial use will only really be possible when societies and governments realise that we cannot burn any more fossil fuels," Hoffschmidt said.

He added, however, that global events like recent U.N. climate talks in Morocco in November provided welcome momentum in the fight against climate change, and were a sign that "things are starting to change". (Reporting by Zoe Tabary @zoetabary, editing by Laurie Goering. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, resilience and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - Hundreds of people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square on Thursday evening in a vigil to remember the victims of this week's attack near parliament in which four people died and some 40 were injured.

With traffic diverted, the landmark square was eerily quiet as dusk fell and volunteers handed out candles.

The attacker, who was among the dead, has been named as British-born Khalid Masood, 52, who was once investigated by intelligence officers over concerns about violent extremism.

In all, people of 11 nationalities were caught up in the violence as Masood ploughed into pedestrians before running through the gates of the parliament building and fatally stabbing unarmed policeman Keith Palmer.

A group of Muslim men held up a sign saying "love for all, hatred for none."

"These events have nothing to do with religion ... this is pure terrorism," one of them, Ali Raza, a 23-year-old student from London told Reuters.

Gary Hunnam, 28, lives in London, and his partner is a police officer. "It really touched us yesterday when I heard that one of them had been attacked so I thought it was good to come out and show solidarity to everyone who was involved," he said.

Helen Pallot, 26, from just outside London, was holding a bunch of flowers she planned to lay nearby.

"I have got a lot of friends and family that work five minutes away from there so it just makes you think," she said. "It made me angry and sad and I wanted to come here and show that we can still all be here together."

Another man held up a handwritten sign saying "London will never be beaten. We stand as one and united."

The mourners, who were addressed by interior minister Amber Rudd and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, held a minute's silence before the event ended.

Wednesday's attack was the deadliest in Britain since 2005, when 52 people were killed by Islamist suicide bombers on London's public transport system.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stehen Addison)
By Huw Jones

LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) - The Bank of England is to increase the fees it levies on the banks it regulates to meet additional costs resulting from Britain's move to leave the European Union - and may have to ask for more cash later on.

The central bank's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published a consultation paper on Friday on its annual funding requirement (AFR) for the financial year starting in April.

The proposed total requirement is 266.5 million pounds ($332.8 million), up 9.2 million on the current year, a rise of 4 percent.

Brexit is expected to reshape Britain's financial markets, Europe's biggest, given that banks based in London are likely to lose their unfettered access to the bloc's single market.

Central bankers across the EU want to contain any threats to financial stability, such as from ruptures in cross-border customer links.

"A new element of the PRA AFR is being proposed for 2017/18 for the recovery of certain costs associated with EU withdrawal," the PRA said in its consultation paper.

The extra costs are due to its work on regulatory issues concerning Brexit and reviewing current rules to ensure they still work after withdrawal,.

"The PRAs estimated costs associated with EU withdrawal activity in 2017/18 are 5.4 million pounds."

Activity in relation to Brexit "will require a significant amount of work to be undertaken by the PRA over a number of years".

And due to "uncertainty" surrounding the terms of withdrawal, the PRA said it may have to ask for more money from firms.

Other changes are also making demands on the PRA purse.

From 2019 banks in Britain must turn their retail arms into legally separate units with their own capital buffers. The aim is to shield customers and avoid taxpayer bailouts if a bank's riskier investment operations go bust.

The PRA said it wants to increase its "ring-fencing implementation fee" as supervisory costs are set to increase to 23.6 million pounds in the next financial year, compared with 7.9 million pounds this year.

It is also proposing a new fee to cover the 3.6 million-pound cost of implementing a new accounting standards rule, known as IFRS9, which forces banks to recognise bad loans in their provisioning far earlier than at present.

Banks in the past have been too slow in reserving for soured loans, forcing taxpayers to bail out lenders during the 2007-09 financial crisis. From January they will have to set aside some capital on the first day of the loan. "Increasing levels of preparation work mean that it is now appropriate to move to an implementation fee," the PRA said. ($1 = 0.8009 pounds) (Editing by Greg Mahlich)
MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday that six of its soldiers had been killed after successfully repelling an assault on a military facility in Chechnya, an attack the Islamic State militant group said it had carried out.

The National Guard of Russia said in a statement that a group of what it called "armed bandits" had launched an attack under the cover of fog in the early hours of Friday morning on an unnamed military facility.

It said a gun battle had ensued and that a number of Russian troops had been wounded in addition to the six who had been killed. It said six of the attackers had also been killed.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated online. It said six of its militants had targeted a military base at Naurskaya, north-west of Grozny, the Chechen capital, and that all six had been killed in a battle which it said lasted several hours.

Moscow has fought two wars with separatists in the mainly Muslim internal republic since the 1991 Soviet collapse, but such shoot-outs have become relatively rare in Chechnya.

The wider North Caucasus region remains volatile however with unemployment and corruption pushing some young men to embrace radical Islam. (Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Katya Golubkova and Polina Devitt)
By Chris Prentice

NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. oil refining executives met with a senior official in President Donald Trump's administration at the White House last week to argue their position for an overhaul of the nation's biofuels program, two people in the meeting told Reuters.

While it is not unusual for the White House to meet with stakeholders on key issues, the meeting is a sign the Trump administration is actively considering possible changes to the wide-reaching program.

Executives from Valero Energy Corp, Delta Airlines' refiner Monroe Energy, CVR Energy Inc. and several others met with Michael Catanzaro, Trump's senior energy policy aide, on March 16, the two attendees said.

The executives argued that Trump should change the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program to lift the onus of blending biofuels into gasoline away from refiners, placing it instead further down the supply chain to gasoline marketers. They said the program was costing the oil refining industry money and jobs.

"The policy needs to adapt to a changing market," said Roy Houseman, a legislative representative for the United Steelworkers union, who was in the meeting. "We wanted to highlight the larger issue: We represent 30,000 workers in the refining industry."

It was not clear who initiated the meeting.

The RFS, a 2005 policy ushered in by former Republican President George W. Bush, requires that energy companies use increasing volumes of biofuels like ethanol each year with gasoline and diesel. It was designed to boost the use of ethanol and other renewables in gasoline and diesel in a bid to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The policy is a boon for the agriculture industry, particularly corn growers that produce the feedstock for biofuels like ethanol, but some independent oil refiners have said it is threatening their operations.

The debate over shifting the point of obligation for blending fuels intensified in recent weeks after Trump's informal adviser on regulatory issues, billionaire Carl Icahn, said in February that he believed Trump would issue an order revamping the biofuels policy. The White House has denied that any executive order on biofuels is in the works.

Icahn owns a majority stake in CVR Energy.

Bill Douglass, head of the Small Retailers Coalition, who was also at the meeting, said Catanzaro spoke with the group for about 40 minutes and spent half that time asking how fuel retailers are being affected by the biofuels program.

Douglass, whose trade group represents small, independent petroleum retailers and convenience stores, said Catanzaro did not say what the White House was planning to do with the policy.

Catanzaro could not be reached for comment.

Other companies represented in the meeting included HollyFrontier Corp, Philadelphia Energy Solutions , PBF Energy, Douglass said.

A spokeswoman for Philadelphia Energy Solutions declined to comment while the review process is underway. Officials for the other companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Biofuels advocates, including ethanol producers and Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa - the country's biggest corn-producing state - oppose changes to the program, saying they could overcomplicate it. Large, integrated oil companies also oppose the change, saying it would be more effective to reform or repeal the legislation. (Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Leslie Adler)
ISTANBUL, March 25 (Reuters) - Turkey's foreign ministry summoned Switzerland's charge d'affairs in Ankara on Saturday to complain about a protest in Bern that it said supported terrorism and included a poster calling for the assassination of President Tayyip Erdogan.

Earlier on Saturday several thousand people including Kurdish protesters joined a rally in the Swiss capital calling for a 'No' vote in Turkey's April 16 referendum that could give sweeping powers to Erdogan under a constitutional overhaul.

The referendum issue has already badly strained relations between Turkey and several European countries, including Germany, after they banned Turkish ministers from campaigning on their territory for a 'Yes' vote in the referendum.

The Turkish foreign ministry said it expected Swiss authorities to launch a criminal investigation into Saturday's demonstration in Bern.

"The judicial and administrative steps that will be taken by Swiss federal and local authorities will be closely followed by our ministry and our efforts on this will continue," it said in a statement.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also phoned his Swiss counterpart to express Ankara's anger, the ministry said.

A spokesman for the Swiss foreign ministry confirmed Ankara had summoned its envoy and said the incident would be investigated.

"The competent authorities will have to check whether the organisers of the rally have violated the permit requirements or if there are other criminal offences," he said.

Organisers and Bern police said the rally had passed peacefully.

Michael Sorg, a spokesman for Switzerlands Social Democrats, one of the organisers of the rally, confirmed the anti-Erdogan poster.

"This was the only poster which fell below the limits of decency. All other posters were decent," he said.

On Saturday, Erdogan also slammed Switzerland over the demonstration and said the crowd had included supporters of terrorist groups.

Referring to the poster of him with a gun pointed to his head, Erdogan said: "Could there be such a mentality, such an understanding?"

Ankara has accused some European countries of allowing 'No' supporters to campaign freely ahead of the Turkish referendum while deliberately banning rallies planned by the 'Yes' camp.

Germany and the Netherlands, both home to many expatriate Turks with the right to vote in the referendum, have said the decision to ban several planned rallies was taken on security grounds and was not politically motivated. (Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara; Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Kirsti Knolle in Vienna; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Singapores Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (L) meets with Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (Photo: VNA)



During his four-day visit, the Singaporean PM held talks with his Vietnamese counterpart, during which the two sides witnessed the signing of several cooperation documents, including the hand-over of an approval letter of the State Bank of Vietnam to Singapores United Overseas Bank on establishing a branch in Vietnam; and Memoranda of Understanding on developing a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project on gas turbines at Dung Quat 2; on developing a software park in Da Nang, and on the building of a Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park in Quang Tri, among others.

During separate meetings between PM Lee Hsien Loong and Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, State President Tran Dai Quang, and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, the two sides highly valued the growing bilateral relations thanks to regular high-level delegation exchanges.

Both nations agreed to consider legislative collaboration a key pillar in the bilateral strategic partnership and called on the competent agencies to enhance coordination in providing technical assistance and verifying criteria for farm produce, seafood and foodstuff.

Singapore pledged to continue supporting Vietnam to increase capacity and facilitate foreign direct investment and trade between Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.

The two sides stressed the need to further collaboration in urban city development and modernisation through the application of information-technology and telecommunication in urban management, transport, and environment, while tightening ties between Singapore and Vietnams major cities.

PM Lee Hsien Loong recognised Vietnams proposal on supporting waste treatment and environmental protection at coastal tourism areas, and signing a MoU on labour cooperation, foreign languages training, and sharpening skills for Vietnamese workers.

The two countries hoped to boost cooperation in aviation and within the framework of ASEAN.

They reiterated their commitments to strengthening defence partnership via high-level visits and bilateral activities to cement the bilateral friendship and mutual trust, especially at ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM , as well as continue joining hands to address common security challenges such as marine security, piracy, terrorism and cross-border crime.

The two sides vowed to fully and effectively implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and soon complete the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

While stay in Vietnam, PM Lee Hsien Loong and his spouse had a working session with authorities from Ho Chi Minh City, met with Singaporean businesses in the city, and attended a ceremony to launch the Mapletree business centre - a leading Singaporean investor in the Vietnams southern economic hub.

On the occasion, Vietnams Omega Books along with the Singaporean Embassy in Vietnam and the Vietnam Intellectual Cooperation Centre jointly launched a book The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew./.
Republicans in the US House of Representatives, short of support from their own party, have withdrawn a healthcare bill drafted to repeal and replace "Obamacare".

House Speaker Paul Ryan said he recommended that it be withdrawn because he did not have the votes to pass it, and President Donald Trump agreed.

Just a day earlier, Trump had demanded a House vote and said if the measure lost, he would move on to other issues.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that "we were very close" and tried to blame Democrats for the failure to pass the legislation - even though his Republican Party controls both the House and the Senate.

"We were just probably anywhere from 10 to 15 votes short," Trump said. "With no Democrat support we couldn't quite get there."

He also said he was surprised and disappointed by the opposition from the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans who led the resistance against the legislation.

Ryan told reporters that Obamacare will now stay in place for the foreseeable future.

Pulling the bill he had promoted was "a setback, no two ways about it," he said, calling it a "disappointing day".

Democrats, on the other hand, called it a "victory" for the American people.

Scrapping former president Barack Obama's healthcare law was one of Trump's major campaign promises.

The failure to get the bill approved called into question his ability to get other key parts of his agenda, including tax cuts and a boost in infrastructure spending, through Congress.

Public policy professor Bill Schneider said that during the president's first 100 days, his impact is supposed to be at its peak.

"Here, the president was handed a huge setback, by his own party, which was also committed to repealing Obamacare," he told Al Jazeera.

"Trump is defeated and he learned something: you cannot deal with members of Congress as if they were building contractors...He said if you don't give me what I want, I'll walk out. Maybe that works with building contractors but it doesn't work with politicians, each of whom has his or her own constituency."

Conservatives had condemned the Republican-drafted bill because it would scrap Obamacare, but put another government plan in its place. They believe healthcare should be left to the free market.

Democrats and moderate Republicans, meanwhile, feared the withdrawn bill would take insurance away from millions of people.

"What happened on the floor is a victory for the American people," Nancy Pelosi, leader of the minority Democrats in the House, said.

She said the message became "very clear" to Republicans that people across the country still support Obamacare.

A Quinnipiac University poll indicated only 17 percent of Americans support the Republican plan known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA).
The Neville Fernando-Sri Lanka Russian Friendship Hospital in Malabe is not a teaching hospital sanctioned by the Health Ministry, Parliament was informed yesterday .

A teaching hospital is one which provides practical training to medical students.

This was revealed by Deputy Minister Faizal Cassim in response to a question asked by Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) MP Nalinda Jayatissa in the House yesterday.

Dr. Jayatissa asked why the Health Ministry had failed to take action against this hospital which has gone to the extent of illegally holding to some of the body parts of the slain of former rugby captain Wasim Thajudeen.

The deputy minister said he would inform Dr. Jayatissa on what action the government intended taking with regard to this hospital. (Yohan Perera)
I, like ten million others, follow JK Rowling on Twitter. A steadfast mainstream liberal, her feed is a litmus-test of just how tired and clueless Britain is on any given day.

I read her tweets with interest in the wake of the multiple murders committed last week by the British jihadi Khalid Masood, who drove an SUV into crowds of pedestrians near Westminster before stabbing a policeman to death.

It reliably consisted of platitudes about how London is not cowed by terrorists and cannot be defeated. She even posted a letter by the US ambassador to Britain reporting on its terminal condition to Washington in 1940, when it faced the Nazis alone, as proof of how no one should underestimate the British  oblivious to the irony of how they ultimately needed America to save them from annihilation.

Photo: Indiatoday.in

She also tweeted a film made by the historian Dan Snow of himself ambling around London to prove how courageous and uncowed he and the British are by jihadism, notably outside Buckingham Palace, one of the most heavily policed areas of the city  an act of defiance that required balls of steel, I'm sure you'll agree.

The other inane rubbish doing the rounds on British Twitter has included the declaration, mocked-up to look like a London Underground statement: "All terrorists are politely reminded that THIS IS LONDON and whatever you do to us we will drink tea and jolly well carry on." This inspired Piers Morgan  the closest thing the Anglotariat has produced to a public intellectual  to write a very predictable column in which he shrilled, "Londoners won't cow to callous bastards  Britain won't buckle".

The real message implied within all this bogus righteousness is clear: "Kill us all you like, Jihadi Sahib, we Britishers can do nothing." It is an invitation that will be gladly taken up. After which, the British will again declare how uncowed and undefeated they are, before they are killed some more  and that is how this gory show shall continue.

I've drawn attention to JK Rowling because I think she is the most important British writer since Shakespeare, making a vital contribution to the suicidal impasse the British find themselves in. While Shakespeare's work expressed the first inklings the British had of themselves as a people of talent and destiny who would go out into the world and irreversibly change it, the Harry Potter books mark the moment when, addled by the over-complexity of the modern world, they retreated into childish fantasy.

Her first in the series was published in June 1997, the month after Tony Blair came to power. Both succeeded in peddling the same ridiculous fairytale: of plucky, pure-hearted little Britishers who are born to defeat evil and save the world. Rowling and Blair clearly believe they belong to a unique people: indeed, she resisted all Hollywood attempts to dilute the Britishness of her characters in the subsequent films. As such, Harry Potter is as much a work of deluded national propaganda as the James Bond franchise.

And now, twenty-years on, Blair is fantastically rich, having stirred up a hornets' nest in the Islamic world that his country can do nothing to control, and Rowling is fantastically rich too, tweeting insipid declarations of invincibility in the wake of a jihadi atrocity.

Photo: Reuters

Like so many Brits, she has invoked the "spirit of the Blitz", harking back to that other moment of national passivity in the face of mass murder, when they sat drinking tea in bunkers as the German rained bombs on them at will before crazily deciding to invade the Soviet Union instead  sealing their own fate in the process.

Rowling seems oblivious that the Blitz, though a critical moment in London's history, means nothing to modern-day Londoners. The overwhelming bulk of this city was either born abroad or is the offspring of those who were, and their general view of the British-German conflict of the Second World War is of two sets of racist imperialists fighting over who gets to own the darkies. Thankfully, both sides lost.

London is nothing to do with the British now. It culturally and economically seceded from the UK years ago. Indeed, many Brits despise the city for its avaricious globalised condition: a teeming pit of ambitious foreigners with no concern for the country around them.

But while London is no longer a British city, it certainly is a Muslim one, and that is why it is a target for jihadis. Had Khalid Masood killed ten times as many people in his home-town of Birmingham, the world would not have cared as much. Like the other provincial British jihadis who blew themselves up on the transport system ten years before, he struck at London because it is the commercial and cultural capital of the Islamic world.

In time, London will be recognised as the greatest Muslim city in history  of greater importance and stature than Baghdad or Istanbul ever were. In no other city do Muslims of every creed, from every country, convene as easily as they do here: Indonesians, Ahmadis, Egyptians, Sunnis, Nigerians and Shia  every variety is here. Not only is 13 per cent of the population Muslim, but the mayor, Sadiq Khan, also is. An urbane Pakistani Ismaili, he is in his element in the Islamic cosmopolis he oversees.

London is fast becoming the global capital of the multi-trillion-dollar Sharia-banking market, and the city is awash with Muslim money. Great stretches of its prime real-estate is owned by Arabs, Central Asians and Muslims from further east. Areas like Knightsbridge and Kensington  once the preserve of the British elite  now have the elegant ambience of Beirut or Marrakesh, filled with beautiful, cultured and fashion-conscious people from as far afield as Tripoli and Mumbai.

The city's tallest, most eye-catching and expensive building, the $2.2billion 95-storey glass construct known as The Shard, is owned by the State of Qatar. It is the Qutb Minar of modern London, stating the pre-eminence of Islamic power and wealth in the city, just as the Mamluks declared theirs in Delhi almost a thousand years before.

The Muslim cosmopolitanism of London is quite wonderful. Summer evenings spent smoking hookahs, inhaling the scent of attar and spices outside an Edgware Road cafe while watching gorgeous long-lashed hijabis walk by bring heady memories of equally blissful nights in Nizamuddin.

The most surprising thing in the wake of a jihadi attack in London is how pompous and out of touch the British response is. Right-wing Brits shout that more must be done to combat extremism and to integrate Muslims into British life, while liberals declaim the resilience and tolerance of their country. Both opinions are wholly irrelevant.

Europe is bordered to the east and south by a Muslim population of approximately a billion that cannot be defeated by war nor kept at bay. An accommodation with these people will be found that meets their needs. Britain, the most open of European countries, is making this accommodation more than any other: a process that will deepen and accelerate as it relies even more on Arab money in the wake of Brexit.
Secretary of the Da Nang municipal Party Committee Nguyen Xuan Anh (L) and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (Source: VNA)



Briefing the guest of the capital citys socio-economic development, Chung said the municipal authorities are looking towards developing Hanoi into a smart city with a system of modern infrastructure, e-government and technological advances.

The city also wants to cooperate with Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy to enroll local officials for training courses on administrative management, he added.

Lee, for his part, expressed his delight at the growing ties between Singapore and Vietnam, and between Singapore and Hanoi in particular, thereby enhancing economic and trade ties.

The guest lauded the results of bilateral cooperation projects underway in Hanoi and asked the municipal authorities to continue providing support for Singaporean investors in Vietnam.

He assured the host that Singapore wants to partner with Hanoi to build hi-tech and software industrial parks, as well as develop smart city model.

Singapore is currently the top investor in Hanoi with 280 projects worth USD5.33 billion as of March 20, 2017. Up to 28 projects registered by entities and individuals in the city have also been licensed by Singapore with a total registered capital of nearly USD42.7 million.

Meeting Secretary of the Da Nang municipal Party Committee Nguyen Xuan Anh in Hanoi the same day, Lee said he is looking forward to attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) High-level Week slated for this November in Da Nang.

He added that direct flights between Singapore and Da Nang have facilitated tourism and two-way trade over the past years.

Lee underscored the importance of the municipal authorities strong support for the software park project by Singapores Sembcorp, which has been approved, saying that it is a crucial factor for its success, given the past example of the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) currently available in seven Vietnamese localities.

According to him, Vietnam has many information technology talents so that an ecological system to nurture them is needed.

Anh, in reply, said Da Nang lies in the hub of the central region and shares similarities with Singapore in land coverage, sea climate and orientations to common development.

More than 20 Singaporean projects worth in excess of USD230 million are underway in the city, he said.

The citys leader hoped that education will be a priority field in ties between Da Nang and Singapore, and believed that the Singaporean leader will witness progresses of Da Nang  one of the countrys most vibrant cities, during his stay this November./.
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Poroshenko and Tusk will hold bilateral meeting in Malta on March 30

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and President of the European Council Donald Tusk will hold a meeting within the summit of the European People's Party (EPP) in Malta on March 30.

According to the weekly schedule of Tusk, posted on the official website of the European Council, a bilateral meeting with Poroshenko will take place at the EPP summit in Malta at 10:45 (local time) on Thursday, March 30.

On the same day at 12:30, Tusk will deliver a speech at the EPP summit.
Final part of a three-part series.

As Henry Brown watched his wife and children being led away by slavers, he was overcome with despair.

Having lost his entire family, the only thing that kept him going was his dream of freedom. He became so desperate to escape his life of bondage that he asked two free men he trusted to help him escape.

The men agreed to help if Brown could come up with a feasible plan. One day, while toiling in the tobacco factory, Brown started to pray to God for help.

It was then that the idea suddenly flashed across his mind to shut himself inside a box and have it shipped north to a free state. After hearing Browns idea, one of the men arranged for abolitionists in Philadelphia to receive the box.

Brown paid a carpenter to build a wooden box that was 3 feet long, 2-feet-6-inches deep and 2 feet wide. After having the box built, Brown was left with $166 in savings. He paid Smith half of that to cover his expenses and also the shipping cost.

Three small holes were drilled in the box to provide Brown with air. It was lined with rough, woolen cloth and offered just enough room for the stowaway, a bladder of water and a handful of biscuits.

Brown fully realized he was risking his life, but he had one thing in his favor. The shipping outfit that would be handling the box during its travels, Adams Express Company, had a reputation for getting freight to its destination quickly.

In order for Brown to get a good head start before his absence from work was noticed, he had to figure out an excuse. His solution was to put a few drops of sulfuric acid on an injured finger.

Being in a rush, and likely trembling with nervousness, Brown poured much more than a drop of acid on the finger. In no time, the liquid burned to the bone.

The injury was so bad that the overseer immediately told Brown to go home and put a poultice of flax-meal on the wound. Early the following morning  March 29, 1849  Brown went into the box, and it was nailed and strapped shut.

The escaping slave wisely brought a small hand drill with him in case he needed more air holes. Although handle with care and this side up were printed on the box, he quickly learned that the orders largely would be ignored.

Brown traveled comfortably for about a mile as the box was carried in a wagon to the shipping companys office. No sooner had the box been delivered then it was turned wrong side up, and the man inside found himself on his head.

Brown remained in this position until the box reached the railroad depot. Then the box was tumbled into a baggage car, and it fortunately landed right side up.

When the box was transferred from the train to a steamship at Potomac Creek, Brown was upended again. As blood rushed to his head, he began to suffer.

I felt my eyes swelling as if they would burst from their sockets; and the veins on my temples were dreadfully distended with pressure of blood upon my head, Brown wrote in his memoir. In this position I attempted to lift my hand to my face, but I had no power to move it.

I felt a cold sweat coming over me which seemed to be a warning that death was about to terminate my earthly miseries. I lifted up my soul in prayer to God, who alone was able to deliver me.

Once again, Browns prayers were answered nearly as quickly as he offered them up. Two men looking for a place to sit spotted the box that was standing on end and lowered it to serve as a bench.

The box was taken from the steamship in Washington, D.C., and placed on a wagon. The conscientious wagon driver handled the box with care and ensured it was positioned correctly.

When the driver reached the railroad depot, Brown heard him yell to a coworker for help unloading the box. The response was to throw the box off the wagon, and if anything was broken, the railroad company could afford to pay for it.

No sooner were these words spoken than I began to tumble from the wagon, and falling on the end where my head was, I could hear my neck give a crack, as if it had been snapped asunder, and I was knocked completely insensible, Brown wrote.

When Brown regained consciousness, the first thing he heard was a person saying that there was no room on the train for the box. It would have to be left behind  and put on another train the following day.

Brown started praying again. One can imagine his relief when he heard another person say that the box was marked express and had to go out.

The box was pitched into the baggage car, and, once again, Brown found himself on his head. Fortunately, it soon was shifted about and placed properly.

By the time the box arrived in Philadelphia, Brown had been in it for 27 hours and had traveled 350 miles. The box was transported by wagon to the proper address and taken inside.

Brown stayed quiet, because he didnt know what was going on. He heard a person say, Let us rap upon the box and see if he is alive.

A rap quickly followed with the words, Is all right within? Brown replied, All right.

The box was quickly opened, and Brown rose to his feet a free man. But the ordeal had taken much from him, and he passed out.

As soon as Brown recovered, he began to sing a hymn of thanks to God. He later said that his deliverance from the box and slavery was like rising from the grave.

Brown became a speaker for the Anti-Slavery Society. In May 1849, while attending an antislavery convention in Boston, he was given the nickname Box, which he kept for the rest of his life.

To ensure he would never be a slave again, Brown moved to England in 1850. He continued to perform an antislavery panorama he developed for a number of years.

In 1851, Brown published his memoir, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself. In later years, he performed as a magician and mesmerist.

Brown returned to the U.S. in 1875, but spent the last decade of his life in Toronto, Canada. He died there on June 15, 1897.

Those traveling on U.S. 33 near Mineral can see a historical marker dedicated to Brown. It remembers a man who was born a slave in Louisa County, but ultimately risked everything to live in freedom.

David A. Maurer can be reached at dmaurer@dailyprogress.com or (434) 978-7244.
Changes in Ukrainian law on e-declaration need to be revised  Hahn

European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn at a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze condemned the amendments to the law on electronic declaration made by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on March 23.

"A good exchange of views with Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze on difficult challenges Ukraine is facing and impressive reform efforts achieved. Changes to the law on e-declaration are a step back, not forward, and should be reconsidered," Hahn wrote on his Twitter page.

"E-declarations should target corruption in public administration - not hamper work of the civil society. Civil society organizations fighting corruption play crucial role in this regard," Hahn noted, commenting on the situation with the law on e-declaration.
In the keynote presentation of the first symposium for the University of Virginias Center for Cultural Landscapes, architectural historian Dell Upton said it may be time for Richmond to consider removing the Confederate memorials that line the citys Monument Avenue.

Uptons lecture on Friday, a partner event to the Virginia Festival of the Book, marked the start of Race and Public Space: Commemorative Practices in the American South, a two-day symposium that professors in the universitys School of Architecture started planning last spring.

It depends on what people in Richmond want, Upton, a former UVa professor who now teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, said following his presentation Friday evening.

Upton referenced a report from the Richmond Planet, a historic African-American newspaper, in which an African-American worker who helped construct the monuments toward the end of the 19th century said, We put it up, but when the time comes, well take it down.

Maybe the time has come, Upton said.

In an interview before his presentation, Upton affirmed his belief that memorials to the Confederacy should be moved from public landscapes to privately owned places.

Because the Civil War was fought to maintain slavery and uphold white supremacy, he said, those memorials, most of which were built during a time of resistance to African-American freedom, should be removed.

 Its not appropriate for a multiracial society to display monuments that promote white supremacy, he said.

The hour-long lecture featured Uptons presentation of various Confederate and African-American monuments in the South, such as the Confederate Memorial Monument in Montgomery, Alabama, and the African-American History Monument in Columbia, South Carolina.

Illustrating his point about attempts to continue white supremacy after the Civil War, Upton spoke about the Liberty Place Monument in New Orleans, which commemorates the Crescent City White League insurrection against the city government in 1872.

Saying that there are dueling ideas of Southern identity  one that is specific to whites and another to African-Americans  Upton pointed out a strange characteristic of monuments that that seems to reflect that conflict.

What it reveals is the underlying assumption that the Confederacy is the heritage of white people, that it is a separate, equally honorable heritage to African-Americans, whose heritage was the civil rights movement, Upton said.

The lecture Friday came just days after a coalition of mostly Charlottesville-area residents filed a lawsuit against the city after the City Council voted to relocate a statue of Robert E. Lee from a downtown park named for the Confederate general.

The plaintiffs in the case are arguing that the city would violate a state law that prohibits localities from disturbing war memorials if Charlottesville were to go through with moving the Lee statue.

School of Architecture professor Beth Meyer said the idea for the symposium came up shortly before the council called for the creation of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces.

The commission worked through the latter half of last year to study and deliberate on what should be done with the citys Confederate monuments.

In addition to that goal, the commission, which ultimately provided multiple recommendations to the council, was tasked with finding other ways for the city to celebrate and honor other narratives in the citys history.

The interesting thing about Charlottesville is that, while were a small town, many of the issues that were concerned about are happening in other communities on other scales, said Meyer, the director of the Center for Cultural Landscapes.

I think its timely, given national events and trying to understand more completely the multiple narratives that are part of our national history.

She added: With the recent challenge with the court case and City Council, these issues are still in play, and I think the conversation here over the weekend is going to be really helpful in terms of thinking about the pros and cons, as well as the messy middle and strategies in between.

The symposium will continue Saturday with keynote speeches by scholars and architects, including current and former city officials and former members of the blue ribbon commission.
The Virginia Festival of the Book, which wraps up Sunday, draws tens of thousands of people to Charlottesville each year. Organizers say proposed cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities wouldnt affect next years festival, but could leave them scrambling for new sources of income.

President Donald Trump proposed budget doesnt include any funding for the NEH or the National Endowment for the Arts. Staff members at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, which organizes the book festival, said theyre not too worried yet, but are looking for contingency plans.

About 21 percent of the Virginia foundations $6.2 million budget last year came from NEH, according to its annual report. The foundation uses its association with NEH to leverage more funding from outside donors, who help support the Festival of the Book.

Jane Kulow, director of the festival, estimates that every $1 of NEH funding helps the foundation secure $5 from other sources  state, philanthropic and corporate.

The funding is important to us in terms of credibility, Kulow said. When I talk to local companies about what we do, [the NEH association] gives an idea of who we are and why we are good at what we do.

Maggie Guggenheimer, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said the organization is committed to carrying through with all planned programs next year  including the festival  but it may have to find some alternate sources of funding.

She said she couldnt go into any more detail at this early point.

Were always trying to diversify our revenue, Guggenheimer said. However, NEH is a really critical piece of the puzzle.

The NEH funds research, lectures, museum exhibits and documentary filmmaking across the country. The Charlottesville area has benefitted from NEH thanks to the presence of the University of Virginia and its status as the historic home of Thomas Jefferson.

The area has benefitted from about $1.5 million in NEH grants since the beginning of 2016. Among the projects currently funded by the agency is an interactive online map of Yoknapatawpha County  the fictional setting of most of William Faulkners novels  that would be used as a resource for students and teachers.

The NEH also hosted its four-day 50th anniversary bash in Charlottesville last September, bringing Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, and television writer and director David Simon to town for panel discussions.

One of the driving forces behind last years NEH anniversary event, titled Human/Ties, was the fear that the agency could face attacks on its funding by politicians eager to find ways to save taxpayer money.

In the lead-up to Human/Ties, NEHs director, William Adams, said the humanities are misunderstood by much of the general public. Although many people see humanities as superfluous, most Americans do enjoy the benefits of well-funded humanities programs, including popular historical documentaries and new museum exhibits.

I think, culturally, theres a disconnect in part because of a deep tendency in American culture to lean hard in the direction of technical disciplines and technical knowledge, Adams said.

The Trump administration has quickly moved to try to defund the agency, as well as its sister agency, the NEA. Its not clear whether this will translate to any major cuts, as Trump struggles to find common ground with many rank-and-file Republicans.

The state foundation is staying positive, Guggenheimer said. Historically, the humanities have received bipartisan support, and theres no reason to believe the shift by the Trump administration will be supported by Congress, she said.

The foundations focus will be on bringing attention to the importance of the humanities to Virginia.

Were staying positive but its important to get the message out, Guggenheimer said. The humanities are an important part of what makes life in our state so rich.
Students at the University of Virginia School of Law have been granted a new opportunity for hands-on experience in the world of civil rights litigation.

The Jesse Ball DuPont Fund recently awarded an $80,000 grant to the Civil Rights Litigation Pro Bono Clinic, the latest clinic to sprout from a partnership between UVas law school and the Charlottesville-based Legal Aid Justice Center.

The cadre of students  each giving their time without being paid or given course credit  will be performing research, writing memos and diving deep into a variety of cases that involve civil rights, from the criminalization of poverty to housing discrimination, according to Angela Ciolfi of the LAJC.

The goal of the clinic really is to achieve good outcomes for our clients, but also to teach the students about the role of race and poverty in American life, Ciolfi said.

Ciolfi is leading the clinic alongside Adeola Ogunkeyede, who recently was hired to lead the centers Civil Rights and Racial Justice Program. According to Ogunkeyede, who previously worked for the Bronx Defenders in New York, the new clinic will take on cases that challenge policies and practices with widespread negative impacts.

The LAJC is unique in terms of its focus on systemic work in Virginia, she said. The organization has used that in connecting to the law school to then have students think broadly about impact and work that can benefit a large swath of communities and populations.

This clinic is different from some of the other clinics we offer in that we are really looking to bring cases that will have an impact beyond the individual clients, Ciolfi said.

Already, the clinic is looking at two cases of local significance. One is the case of Stinnie v. Holcomb, a class-action lawsuit filed in Charlottesvilles federal court that took aim at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles policy of automatically suspending the drivers licenses of individuals who are unable to pay their court costs. While the case was recently dropped from federal court for jurisdictional reasons, it may be filed again in the states appellate court, the ruling judge wrote.

While that case involves an indigent Charlottesville man and potentially could affect more than 900,000 other Virginians, students also are looking into another class-action case filed on behalf of inmates at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.

Filed in 2012, that lawsuit contended that the inmates were being provided constitutionally inadequate medical care. A settlement, reached in 2014, required ongoing evaluations and quarterly reports by an expert monitor, Ciolfi said. Students and attorneys in the clinic are actively monitoring the delivery of health care services to inmates and still have grave concerns that the health of the women living there continues to be placed in jeopardy.

In each case, the participating students work alongside practicing attorneys, giving them a practical understanding of litigation thats harder to replicate inside a classroom. Many of the LAJCs world-class attorneys are themselves graduates of UVas law school, so their willingness to guide fledgling litigators is understandable, said Kimberly Emery, assistant dean for pro bono and public interest programs at the law school.

Not all lawyers love to have students; students bring a lot to the table, but they also require a lot of upkeep and maintenance and teaching, Emery said. But I think here, the goal is to really nurture that next generation of lawyers for justice, which is a huge advantage to our students.

Still in its early stages, the clinic does not yet provide course credit for the law students, although that could come later, Ciolfi said. For now, the 11 students enrolled in the clinic are volunteering their time because they are passionate about the work, she said. Those students were asked to commit five to eight hours per week to their clinical work but are invited to participate as their schedule and interest permits, Ogunkeyede said.

Unsurprisingly, that flexibility has led some students to exceed eight hours of service, especially if their casework enflames a deeper-seated passion for civil justice.

Thats been the case for second-year law student Emily Mordecai, who currently is working on the Fluvanna womens prison case. In her final year as a UVa undergrad, Mordecai participated in the UVa course Books Behind Bars, which connects students with inmates at a juvenile correctional facility in a community learning environment to discuss and analyze literature.

Being inside that setting and meeting with the residents of that facility every week made me really interested in prison work and making sure prisoners have the full rights afforded to them, Mordecai said. Ive gotten a taste of that here.

Mordecai said her short time with the clinic already has afforded her an opportunity to apply her working knowledge of class action and complex litigation into practice, with real-world consequences.

Ive found so far that the attorneys are great and really open to handing us a lot of substantive work, she said. Ive written research memos for things that attorneys will be looking at and then putting in their different filings or motions or things like that. Its been a lot of cool, hands-on work.
WASHINGTON  Although House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., acknowledged Friday that "Obamacare is the law of the land," its survival or collapse in practical terms now rests with decisions that are in President Donald Trump's hands.

In the coming weeks and months, the White House and a highly conservative health and human services secretary will be faced with a series of choices over whether to shore up insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act - or let them atrophy. These marketplaces are currently a conduit to health coverage for 10 million Americans, but they have been financially fragile, prompting spiking rates and defections of major insurers.

In an interview on Friday with The Washington Post, Trump made his inclinations clear: "The best thing politically is to let Obamacare explode."

The president said that the law remains "totally the property of the Democrats" and that "when people get a 200 percent increase next year or a 100 percent or 70 percent, that's their fault." Former Obama administration officials countered that Trump and congressional Republicans are responsible for what happens next.

In the seven years since a Democratic Congress passed the law, public sentiment over it has been closely divided. Support has grown slightly in recent months as Republicans tried to begin dismantling it.

There are many levers within the ACA that the administration could use to undermine the law or, instead, try to stabilize its marketplaces. In addition, federal rules could be redefined, giving the government's health policies a more conservative twist even with the law still in effect.

According to health-care experts from across the ideological spectrum, an imminent question is whether the political tumult surrounding the ACA's fate and the president's talk of explosion could further shake the confidence of consumers and insurers alike. Doing so could prompt exits from the marketplaces.

Trump's threat could become "a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the last two years of the Obama administration." That's like inheriting an overseas war, and deciding you let your own soldiers get killed because you didn't elect to enter that war."

Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Healthcare, a small company covering about a million Americans through the ACA's insurance exchanges, said he is unsure whether it will lessen its participation. Its decision this spring will hinge on actions by the White House and GOP lawmakers, he said. "The ball's sort of in their court. The choices they make are going to determine what happens to the marketplace."

The decisions facing the administration are, in essence, a sequel to an executive order the president issued his first night in office, when he directed federal agencies to ease the regulatory burden that the ACA has placed on consumers, the health-care industry and health-care providers. So far, the main action stemming from that directive is a move by the Internal Revenue Service to process Americans' tax refunds even if they fail to submit proof that they are insured, as the ACA requires.

But there are other steps the administration could take. A major one would be to end cost-sharing subsidies the law provides to lower- and middle-income people with marketplace plans to help pay their deductibles and copays. Those subsidies, which would have been erased by the House Republicans' bill, are the subject of a federal lawsuit.

Another question is how the administration will handle the next enrollment season for ACA health plans, which will begin in November. The end of the most recent season coincided with Trump's first days in office, and the new administration yanked some advertising meant to encourage sign-ups - resulting in a small dip in enrollment by the final deadline.

And while a set of federal essential health benefits, required of health plans sold to individuals and small businesses, will now remain in law, federal health officials could narrow what they require, limiting prescription drugs, for instance, or the number of visits allowed for mental health treatment or physical therapy.

The administration also could take advantage of a part of the ACA that, starting this year, lets health officials give states broad latitude to carry out the law's goals - including more free-market approaches that conservatives favor. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and other top agency officials already have signaled they would allow states to impose work requirements on able-bodied adults to qualify for Medicaid - something Obama officials steadfastly rejected.

"The administration could do everything from actively undermining the law to trying to reshape it to moving it in a more conservative direction," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The question of whether the ACA's marketplaces can or should be strengthened is a matter of considerable debate. In comparing the House GOP bill with the ACA, congressional budget analysts concluded this month that the insurance market for people who buy coverage on their own "would probably be stable in most areas" either way.

During an afternoon news conference shortly after withdrawing the Republican legislation, Ryan reiterated his oft-stated contention that the marketplaces are beyond repair. He briefly suggested, however, that perhaps the Trump administration could improve their stability.

Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, said that policymakers must find a way to shore up the marketplaces because a broad swath of Americans rely on them. "There always has been an individual market made up of entrepreneurs who own small businesses, and farmers and ranchers, and it's sort of mandatory that there be policies available to them," Kahn said.

House Republicans were notably silent on Friday about the prospects of further work on health policy. A few senators sounded more hopeful that efforts to improve the law would continue.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said in an interview that he disagreed with Trump's assertion that letting the markets explode was the best course of action. "I hope that doesn't have to happen," said Cassidy, co-sponsor of a separate bill that would preserve the ACA but tip more latitude to the states.

Harvard University economics professor David Cutler, who helped advise the Obama White House on health care, countered Trump's argument that the ACA will always be associated with Democrats. "He owns it now," Cutler said in an email, "because he could take many steps to stabilize things."
ROANOKE  A deer attack near Pearisburg hospitalized a veteran member of the Giles County Board of Supervisors, according to an official with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Paul Chappy Baker was attacked Monday by a nine-point buck outside his home on Riverbend Drive, according to Lee Walker, VDGIFs outreach director.

The incident, said to have lasted about 10 minutes, ended when the supervisors wife, Tammie Baker, shot and killed the buck with a pistol, Walker said.

VDGIF collected a brain sample from the dead deer to determine if it had rabies, but Walker confirmed Friday that the deer was not rabid. Walker also said the Bakers had raised the buck since it was a fawn.

The buck, which Baker grabbed by the antlers during the struggle, gored his lower legs and arms and caused bruises, cuts and lacerations, Walker said.

Walker said the deer had been around the home for four years. He said hes unsure what caused the attack.

VDGIF was notified of the attack just before 5 p.m. Monday, but the call reporting the incident came in at 4:20 p.m., Walker said.

Baker did not return calls seeking comment on the incident.

He was taken to Carilion Giles Community Hospital for his injuries, Walker said.

No additional information was available but Walker said the injuries were not life-threatening.
Sporadic ammunition blasts of a varying intensity were observed in the territory of the military arsenal in Kharkiv region's Balaklia as of 07:00 a.m. local time on Saturday, the press service for the Ukrainian State Emergencies Service has said.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's two fire-fighter tanks are involved in containing and extinguishing fire outbreaks, the Ukrainian State Emergencies Service's three fire trucks are used to supply water and fill the tanks with it. Ukrzaliznytsia's two fire-fighter trains are on duty at Shebelynka railway station.

A total of 1,465 people and 234 pieces of equipment, including 410 people and 107 pieces of equipment from the Ukrainian State Emergencies Service, are involved in response and recovery of the emergency situation, 15 pyrotechnic units (75 employees and 27 pieces of equipment) are working on the scene, the press service said.

Sporadic detonations of ammunition are occurring in the arsenal's open areas, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.

The fire at depots in Balaklia was extinguished, however, separate smoldering spots still remain as of Saturday morning, the ministry said.

Measures to prevent re-ignition are being taken, it said.

"Military bomb disposal experts together with the Ukrainian State Emergencies Service's experts are checking the territory for unexploded ordnances and give an operative response to reports from residents of dangerous discoveries. Operational teams are arriving at the site at once and they take the discovered ordnances to the areas prepared beforehand," the ministry said.

Work on further recovery of consequences of the fire is underway.

As reported, a fire and explosions started at ammunition deports near the city of Balaklia, Kharkiv region, in the early hours of March 23.

About 20,000 people were evacuated from the potential impact zone, essential services were provided to them: facilities to accommodate them were opened, hot meals, water supply and medical services were arranged. Work of potentially dangerous facilities was suspended.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that explosions continued on nearly half of the depots' area and the emergency might last from three to seven days.
Every so often, we run across one of these sorts of stories  and they never fail to amuse.

They involve suspected criminals accidentally running across law enforcement officials  a very un amusing situation if youre trying to avoid getting caught.

The latest iteration of this theme comes from Edwardsville, Pennsylvania.

There, authorities say a man sent a text indicating he wanted to trade marijuana for heroin. The text was followed up with a photo of a green substance on a scale.

However, he sent the messages to  wait for it  the assistant district attorney.

You know what happened next. The assistant DA played along, the police showed up at the swap spot, and the texter was arrested.

This all happened back in November.

Fast forward to today, and its the suspect who might be having the last laugh after all.

You see, he wasnt jailed for the duration, but was released and told to appear at a future court date.

Which he has now missed.

Police are searching for the man, but it may be that they blew their chance.

Crime-solving opportunities like texts from miscreants dont drop into your lap just every day.
As a constituent of Rep. Thomas A. Garrett Jr., 5th District, Republican, I am disappointed in his failure to hold an adequate in-person town hall meeting.

He recently cancelled what was to be his first face-to-face town hall meeting in Charlottesville on March 13 and announced plans to hold a meeting on March 31 instead, in a venue much too small to accommodate anticipated numbers of participants (despite recently added seating).

As a voter and a concerned citizen, I have attempted to contact Rep. Garrett for weeks now to express my alarm about his recent votes to overturn environmental protections which work to keep toxins and carcinogens out of our water sources and the air we breathe.

For example, Rep. Garrett co-sponsored H.R. 637, a bill that "amends the Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride pollution from the scope of that Act."

He also voted for H.J. Resolution 38, which nullifies the Stream Protection Rule. Basically this means that he voted to remove protections from "the impacts of surface coal mining operations on surface water, groundwater... ."

I have also called his Charlottesville and D.C. offices numerous times to ask about his position regarding the mission of, and funding for, the Environmental Protection Agency, but as of this writing I have not received a reply. His staffers have been unable to tell me his position on this issue, directing me to his website.

His website does not have any information about his views on the environment. When I click on his "Energy" link, a photo of an oil platform appears, with text saying "for more information concerning work and views related to Energy, please contact our office." Similar text appears on the "Health" link.

Mr. Garrett ran for office. He actively campaigned for the job to be our representative to Congress. We are paying his salary with our tax dollars. He is failing in his job, both in terms of protecting the health of his constituents, and also in communicating with us.

Lillian Mezey, Albemarle County

References:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has congratulated his European colleagues on the 60th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Rome.

"Sixty years ago, the history of the most successful integration project - the European Union  started with the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Its success is adherence to common values, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and most importantly respect for human dignity. This is what became the basis of peace in Europe. This is what laid the foundation for economic prosperity. This is what has always united Ukraine with the EU," Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page.

According to the head of state, this day reminds once again of the importance of preserving unity and determination to repulse all the attempts to destroy the European idea.

"Today, when the European future is protected in the eastern Ukrainian border, we appreciate European solidarity and support. I congratulate our partners and I am confident of our common victory," Poroshenko added.
The vulpeper County Volunteer Rescue Squad was formed in 1943-44 as part of the volunteer fire department.

The rescue squad was originally housed in the Municipal Building on West Davis Street along with the Fire Department and moved into the present firehouse with the fire company about 1960.

Originally, many members of the rescue squad were also firefighters.

In 1987, the rescue squad (Company 11) split from the fire department and moved into the old Nehi bottling plant building on North Main Street.

Over the years, other Culpeper County fire departments also developed rescue squads, beginning with Brandy in the early 1950s (that company no longer has a transport unit).

In addition to Culpeper, Reva, Salem, Richardsville and Little Fork now have rescue squads.

Culpeper County hired its first two professional EMTs in 1999 and now has 20 paid responders, plus three administrative officers, who provide countywide rescue service 24 hours a day.
SYDNEY, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday attended the China-Australia Cooperation on Economy and Trade Forum with his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull, during which they agreed to promote trade facilitation and liberalization.

China is ready to work with Australia to further open markets to each other while following the spirit of fair trade, said Li at the forum.

Li also expressed the will to push forward negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the construction of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific.

Turnbull said that protectionism is "not a ladder to get out of the low-growth trap," but "a shovel to dig it deeper."

Turnbull agreed to work with the Chinese side to tap the potential of bilateral cooperation in service trade and investment, and advance innovation and research cooperation.

Noting the two countries enjoy different resources endowment and their industries are highly complementary to each other, Li agreed to work with the Australian side to further relax investment access, and stimulate two-way investment.

Li also briefed the forum on China's economy, saying that China will guide all sectors to focus more on promoting the supply-side structural reform and advancing the open-up, while working to shape a fair, transparent and standardized business environment, and attract more foreign investment.

Li said China, the world's biggest developing country, regards it a priority to promote healthy development and improve people's living standards.

Moreover, China is willing to work with Australia for promoting the concept of the community of shared future and to serve as the bedrock of the Asia-Pacific security and the propeller for world peace, he added.

China is Australia's largest trading partner. A free trade agreement between the two countries, known as ChAFTA, took effect in December 2015.
SYDNEY, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday that the Chinese and Australian governments should create a better trade and investment environment in order to expand two-way open-up in services and investment.

Chinese enterprises, said Li, are ready to participate in infrastructure construction in Australia, expand investment in the country and encourage Australian firms to invest in China, adding that he hopes the Oceanic country will work in the same direction and achieve a win-win outcome.

Li, who is on an official visit to Australia from Wednesday through Sunday, made the remarks during the sixth Australia-China CEO roundtable meeting held here in the economic hub of the Oceanian country.

The CEO roundtable has served as a platform for communication not only within the business community, but also between the business community and the government, Li told more than 100 business leaders from both countries.

Noting that bilateral trade has grown at an annual rate of 9 percent in the past decade, surpassing that of economic output, Li stressed that removing trade barriers and promoting two-way open-up would stimulate economic growth and improve people's livelihood.

The Chinese premier reaffirmed that his country stands ready to work with other parties, including Australia, to uphold trade liberalization and promote fairer, more transparent and sustainable international trade.

For his part, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that in the context of significant changes in the global economy, free trade has promoted not only goods and capital exchanges, but also that of technology and culture.

In the face of new opportunities, the two countries must work to benefit from open markets and global trade, actively expand free trade, and encourage the participation of small businesses, said Turnbull, adding that innovation and investment are also paramount to create new jobs and lift growth to benefit the two peoples.

The Chinese premier will pay an official visit to New Zealand after wrapping up his tour to Australia. Li's visits to the two Oceanian countries are the first by a Chinese premier in 11 years.
The JSW group has tied up with the Hiranandani Group, which is investing up to Rs 4,000 crore to construct an LNG terminal at the Jaigad Port

Jaigad: Industrialist Sajjan Jindal today said his JSW Group will invest Rs 7,000 crore more in the ports sector over next three years to create assets in the country as well as abroad.

The company is also looking at diluting up to 15 per cent stake in the ports operating company, JSW Infrastructure, to a private equity player soon, and take it public by 2019.

"We will be investing Rs 9,000 crore more in the ports sector till 2020 (including the Rs 2000 crore already invested)," he told reporters at JSW Infrastructure-run flagship port here in Ratnagiri district.

The company has already invested Rs 2,000 crore in the project at Jaigad and the overall investment plan for the company includes Rs 2,000 crore for capacity expansion here, Jindal added.

Of the remaining Rs 5,000 crore of investments (excluding the Rs 4,000 crore in Jaigad), Jindal said the company is looking at putting up four berths in Paradip that will have a 50 mtpa capacity and a greenfield project in Fujairah in the UAE.

The Rs 4,000-crore Jaigad Port project has a capacity of 40 million tonnes per annum now, which will be doubled by 2020 and raised further to 125 mtpa by 2025, he said. At the company level, total capacity target is 200 mtpa by 2020, Jindal said, adding the port now handles dry bulk cargo but has plans to enter container handling.

One of the biggest opportunities that the port is eyeing is the proposed public sector mega refinery by IOC- HPCL-BPCL in the Konkan belt of Maharashtra, even though the exact location is not finalised yet.

Jindal said JSW is "pitching" to act as a "captive port" for the proposed refinery project which will host the very large crude carriers to ferry in crude, and also ships to evacuate refined products.

The JSW group has tied up with the Hiranandani Group, which is investing up to Rs 4,000 crore to construct an LNG terminal at the Jaigad Port and then evacuate the cargo through a dedicated pipeline that will be connected with GAIL's pipeline at Dabhol.

It can be noted that the Ratnagiri Gas and Power (formerly Dabhol Power) does the same work already, but Jindal is confident that the growing market will ensure there are opportunities for all.

The JSW Group is also looking at sites in the Palghar district which is north of Mumbai, to build a greenfield port, Jindal said, without specifying the details. Jindal said the Palghar project will be independent and not a part of the Wadhawan Port being developed by the Centre and the state.

He said the company, which primarily handles captive cargo for group companies, had a turnover of Rs 4,000 crore and a pretax profit of Rs 800 crore in last financial year.

JSW Infrastructure is fully-owned by the Jindal family now and is looking at first diluting up to 15 per cent before launching an IPO, Jindal said.

It has decided on milestones before it going public, he added, specifying that a capacity of utilisation of 100 mtpa is essential before it goes public, which at present is around 30 mtpa and 100 mtpa target can be achieved by 2019 and will be jacked up further to 140 mtpa by 2020.

The total debt of the company stands at Rs 1,500 crore at present. With a focus on port connectivity, the company has invested Rs 50 crore on a 42-km road link with the National Highway 17, which was inaugurated today.

The company also laid the foundation stone for a 34-km rail link between Jaigad and Digni on the Konkan Railway route, which includes 18-km of routes passing through tunnels. Jindal said establishing rail connectivity between Chiplun and Karad on the Deccan Plateau being carried out by the government now will enhance the port's addressable hinterland.
New Delhi: Digital wallet company MobiKwik today announced the launch of a product that will allow companies to automate their employee reimbursements.

The employee reimbursement management product 'ReMP', will allow companies to automate HR reimbursements like food, travel and medical expenses quickly and easily with the wallet, a company statement said.

"ReMP is a win-win feature for both employees and corporates as this saves admin cost and processing time for the organisation and enables employees to manage the usage of their reimbursements since they need not carry an extra card or paper voucher as smartphones double up as their wallets," Vineet K Singh, Chief Business Officer at MobiKwik, said.
New Delhi: The country's largest lender SBI today said it will raise USD 1.5 billion from overseas bonds in one or more tranches to fund business expansion.

The Executive Committee of Central board approved "the issuance of Reg-S/ stand alone rule 144A senior unsecured debt up to USD 1.5 billion in multiple tranches or currencies with tenor not exceeding 5.5 years during current year and 2017-18," SBI said in a regulatory filing to stock exchanges.

It also cleared proposal to issue and allot 13.63 crore shares of the SBI to eligible shareholders of SBBJ, SBM and SBT and to the Government of India for shareholding in Bhartiya Mahila Bank in terms of orders issued by Government of India, it said.

The merger process of the associates banks -- State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of Travancore (SBT), State Bank of Patiala (SBP) and State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) -- will take effect from April 1.

The executive committee of the central board of SBI fixed March 17 as the record date for determining the eligible minority shareholder of SBBJ, SBM and SBT. The government has also approved merger of Bhartiya Mahila Bank with SBI.
UNITED NATIONS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Friday urged the international community to scale up cooperation to better protect cultural heritage in conflict areas.

Addressing an open meeting of the UN Security Council on the protection against destruction and trafficking of cultural heritage by terrorist groups in situations of armed conflicts, Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, emphasized the importance of international cooperation in this regard.

"The international community needs to scale up its support for countries in conflict areas, cut off the channels for terrorist groups smuggling and trafficking cultural heritage" in a joint effort to prevent cultural heritage from harms of conflicts, said the ambassador.

Efforts should be stepped up to support conflict areas to build up their national capacity of protection, said the ambassador, calling on countries in conflict areas to formulate relevant protection policies, establish early warning mechanisms, and enhance capacity building for the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflict.

"The international community, while respecting the sovereignty of countries in conflict areas, needs to provide constructive support, and fully respect the ownership of all cultural heritage," Liu said.

"Terrorism has become the main threat to cultural heritage in conflict areas," he noted, urging the international community to implement Resolution 2347, maximize the role of relevant Council mechanisms, build an information network, and resolutely crack down on terrorist activities to destroy their smuggling and trafficking of cultural heritage.

"International cooperation should be further strengthened," he said.

All countries should strengthen cooperation in information sharing and law enforcement in the fight against destruction and trafficking of cultural heritage by terrorist groups, said the ambassador.
New Delhi: The World Bank has approved a USD100-million loan for a health project in Uttarakhand to provide medical services in the state.

The financing agreement from World Bank's arm International Development Assistance (IDA) for 'Uttarakhand Health Systems Development Project' was signed here, an official statement said.

One of the components of the project would entail engaging private sector for health services in these regions while the other on stewardship and system improvement.

Total cost of the project is USD 125 million, of which USD 25 million will be funded by the state government. Under the project, there will be multiple self-contained clusters of clinical services from operators on a PPP model. They will provide services for free or at nominal charges, the statement said.

Health services under the project will have a robust oversight and monitoring mechanism that will be fully integrated with the expanded health insurance programme in Uttarakhand.

"This will be concurrent with strengthening the state's capacity to implement the project," it said. The project is slated to be completed by 2023.
Mumbai: Kabir Khan, who directed Ek Tha Tiger, says the film's sequel will be as exciting as the first part.

The sequel to hit 2012 action-thriller, titled Tiger Zinda Hai, is being directed by Ali Abbas Zafar of Sultan. fame. Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif are reprising their roles for the sequel.

"I am very happy that the second journey of 'Tiger' has started. It is good to see Salman and Katrina together. And Ali Abbas Zafar has chosen some beautiful locations to continue with what we had done. It will be as exciting if not more (than the first part)," Kabir says.

The story of Ek Tha Tiger revolved around an Indian spy code-named Tiger, who falls in love with a Pakistani spy during an investigation and how Tiger's ideology and principles change over the time.

Meanwhile, the Bajrangi Bhaijaan director is busy working on his next directorial venture Tubelight with Salman in the lead.

"We are editing the film. We will very soon release the look and trailer of the film," he says.
The actress denied reports that she has signed Tamil director Deekay's next comedy to rest.

Mumbai: Actress Kajal Aggarwal says it was great to collaborate with Tamil star Ajith for the first time in Vivegam.

"The film has a lovely story and I'm very excited to work with Ajith sir, who is a wonderful person. He is a powerhouse of talent and I'm really happy to be associating with him in this project," Kajal told PTI.

The Siva-directed movie will revolve around the relationship of a husband and wife. It is being produced by Sathya Jyothi Films.

"I play a proper Tamilian girl. The film focuses on the husband-wife relationship and the outcome has been great so far. I'm really happy working with the entire team. I will join the sets for the final leg of the shoot in Bulgaria."

Kajal started the year on a high note with the success of megastar Chiranjeevi-starrer Telugu film Khaidi No 150.

"It was very nice working with Chiranjeevi gaaru. He's a legend and it's a pleasure to have acted opposite him. We had already seen the film in Tamil ('Kaththi') and everyone loved Vijay's performance. So, I was happy to be part of the Telugu remake of this particular film."

The actress completed a decade in the industry and says it has been a huge learning experience.

"It's been great. It's been a huge learning experience.

There have been ups and downs. I have learned from my mistakes and I'm just trying to improve in every film that I do."

Kajal is also delighted about her different role in director Atlee's "Vijay 61", where she will pair up with Tamil star Vijay for the third time in her career.

"Atlee is known for penning fabulous role for girls. His actresses have a lot of potential and good character arcs. My role has shaped very well. You will see an extremely different Kajal on screen. It is my third collaboration with Vijay after 'Thuppakki' and 'Jilla'," says Kajal.

The actress denied reports that she has signed Tamil director Deekay's next comedy to rest.

"I know Deekay is working on a script. We are good friends. But, I have neither heard the script nor has he approached me."
Rajinikanth will next be seen in Shankar's '2.0'.

Mumbai: In a curious turn of events, Rajinikanth has decided to cancel his visit to Sri Lanka.

"VCK chief Thirumavalavan & MDMK chief Vaiko urged me not to visit Sri Lanka, accepted their request because of cordial relationship," ANI quoted Rajini as saying.

Rajinikanth also sent out an official statement regarding his decision.

"I had wanted to attend the event as I wanted to be on the land where several had lost their lives to live there. I also wanted to meet President Maithripala Sirisena and request him for a peaceful consensus regarding the firshermen dispute, an issue that had deeply troubled me.

But however, Thol. Thirumavalavan and Vaiko had requested me not to attend the event, citing many political reasons. While I will able to agree with all their reasons, I accept their request and have decided not to attend the event.

I would like to say that I am not a politican. I am an actor. Making people happy is my job and if i get an opportunity to go and meet the Srilankan Tamils in the future, I request you to please not politicise the visit and allow me to meet them and entertain them," Rajini writes in the letter.

TNCC president S Thirunavukkarasar added, "Decision taken by Rajinikanth is right, he always takes right decisions."

Rajinikanth was supposed to present 150 homes to displaced Tamils in a two-day-long event organized by Gnanam Foundation in Jaffna, Sri Lanka on April 9.

When we approached Rajinikanth to grace the event as the chief guest, he readily agreed to be part of the function," Raju Mahalingam, Creative Head of Lyca Productions, had said in a statement.

Rajinikanth will next be seen in Shankar's '2.0'.
Anjena Kirti, the model-turned-actress, who was last seen as Vijay Vasanths pair in Chennai-28: Second Innings, has been roped in for a new film, Yaagan, directed by Vinodh Thangavel. The film touches upon the topical issue of farmers. Playing her romantic interest is debutant actor, Sajan.

Talking to DC, an excited Anjena says, It is a very unusual character. I play an agri-student and have been portrayed as an ideal girl, who is interested in farming and agriculture. She is simple, yet assertive.

Heaping praise on the music composer Niro Pirabhakaran, she quips, Even as the director narrated the script, the songs were all composed and they were fascinating. That was also one of the main reasons for me to accept the project.

Though she has done a few films earlier as the lead heroine, it was Chennai 28 II which gave her the right recognition. I was one of the heroines in that film, and shot almost throughout the entire schedules. But, due to the length, my role got edited. Nevertheless, when the movie got released, the reach of my saettu ponnu character was enormous! I was overwhelmed with the response. I got offers from Telugu and Kannada as well. I am listening to a few scripts  but, as of now, my concentration is only in Tamil.

Her future projects in Tamil include Thani Mugam with R.K. Suresh, directed by Sajith. It is a thriller and the story happens during the course of a day. She added that theres another film with a n accomplished director and that she is not allowed to talk about it currently.
Nayanthara is one of the few actresses down South who can pull in the crowds on her own. Now, the actress is coming up with Dora that is releasing both in Telugu and Tamil on March 31. Doss Ramaswamy is the director and Malkapuram Sivakumar, who has bought several dubbed films earlier, has brought the rights for this film too.

It is a thriller and you can see Nayanthara give one of her best performances, says Sivakumar. He added that the film revolves around a car which also plays an important role. The film also has a few horror moments that revolve around this car, he adds.
Mahesh Babu and director Murugadosss film is moving at a brisk pace. The actor and the unit is busy travelling from one city to another and in the last few days, they have shot in Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Now, the team is leaving to Vietnam for another big schedule. With this foreign schedule, the films shoot will almost be completed and then they will concentrate on the post-production work, says a source.

Rakul Preet Singh plays the female lead in this action-entertainer that will be made in both Telugu and Tamil. Mahesh Babu plays an intelligence officer in the film. Tagore Madhu and N.V. Prasad are producing this film together and are happy with the output so far. Everyone is happy with the way the film is shaping up, says the source.
It is most effective in men who have just had intercourse after prostate surgery. (Photo: Pixabay)

Paris: Men unable to have an erection after prostate surgery enjoyed normal intercourse thanks to stem cell therapy, scientists are to report Saturday at a medical conference in London.

In first-phase clinical trials, eight out of 15 continent men suffering from erectile dysfunction had sex six months after the one-time treatment, without recourse to drugs or penile implants.The positive result showed no signs of flagging during a subsequent year-long monitoring period.

"As far as we know, this is the first time that a human study with a 12-month follow up shows that the treatment is lasting and safe," said Lars Lund, a professor at Odense University Hospital in Denmark who took part in the trials.

"That is much better than taking a pill every time you want to have intercourse," he told AFP.The results were promising enough to convince Danish health authorities to authorise so-called phase III "double-blind" randomised trials in which one group of men is given stem cell therapy and another placebos.

Only men recovering from prostate cancer and able to control their bladders will be enrolled in the new experiments, Lund explained by phone.

All-purpose stem cells

To perform the procedure, doctors remove fat cells from a patient's abdomen via liposuction.The cells undergo a brief treatment and emerge as all-purpose stem cells, meaning they can mutate into almost any specialised cell in the body.

"We do not cultivate the cells or change them in any way," said Lund's colleague Martha Haahr, head researcher and lead author of a study detailing preliminary results, published last year in EBioMedicine.The stem cells are then injected with a syringe into the penis, where they spontaneously begin to change in to nerve and muscle cells, as well as the endothelial cells that line blood vessels.

Men are under general anaesthesia while all of this happens, and are discharged from hospital the same day. Prostate surgery is responsible for about 13 percent of erectile dysfunction cases. Up to 80 percent of men experience difficulty having sex immediately after an operation, previous research has shown.

Diabetes accounts for 40 percent of erectile dysfunction cases, and vascular disease another 30 percent.Men with diabetes would be the next target group for clinical trials, Lund said.The results reported at the European Association of Urology conference could be an effective "therapeutic option for patients suffering erectile dysfunction from other causes," Haahr said.

It is estimated that nearly half of men between the ages of 40 and 70 experience erectile dysfunction to some degree.The global market for drugs treating the disorder is expected to top $3.4 billion (3.15 billion euros) by 2019.

Failure to perform sexually can also, in some men, result from relationship problems, performance anxiety or repressed homosexuality, Haahr said.
Hyderabad: Two days after a 40-year-old woman techie from Andhra Pradesh and her seven-year-old son were found murdered in an apartment in New Jersey, United States, officials there denied reports that had claimed the husband had been detained.

The Burlington county Prosecutors office said N. Hanumantha Rao had not been detained (as of Friday night, US time).

Officials said the homicide investigation was still being carried out by the detectives from the county prosecutors office. Much of the details remained secret as authorities were tight-lipped when asked if Rao was facing homicide charges.

However, county officials did reveal that they have not yet zeroed in on any other suspects in the double murder investigation.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Hood, medical examiner for Burlington County, who on Friday performed autopsies on the bodies said both victims had suffered multiple stab wounds. The bodies still remain in the morgue because of the ongoing investigation.

Representatives from the Telugu Association of North America or TANA, who have been making arrangements for the bodies to be brought back to India were also not sure if Rao was facing charges.

An official statement from the Burlington County Prosecutors Office had earlier revealed that police at Maple Shade were called to the Hamilton Road residence, where the bodies of N. Sasikala and her son, Anish Sai were found. Rao was there in the house when police arrived.

As the investigation officials did not find any sign of a break-in, Rao was later interrogated by the cops.

Neighbors in the apartment building told local media that Rao kept screaming, My wife is gone, my wife is gone.

When he opened the house he couldnt find his wife and son. When he went to open the bedroom he found those people, like dead  and blood everywhere, Mohan Nannapaneni who identified himself as a family friend told reporters in the US.

Back home in India, Sasikala parents had on Friday alleged that Rao had had an extramarital affair with another woman in the US and said that it couldve led to their daughters murder. They also alleged Rao had also accepted nearly `1crore in dowry.

Hanumantha Rao and wife Sasikala had moved to the US nearly a decade ago. The mother and childs killing had sparked fears of another round of hate crimes in the United States but cops and higher officials were quick to report that the two murders were not hate crimes or the result of a targeted attack due to their Indian heritage.
The corporation said walls should not be painted with commercials. Any kind of scribbling on walls, graffiti, painting or staining public space would invite fines ranging between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000,the GHMC has warned.

Hyderabad: Officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation fined a man Rs 1,000 for painting an advertisement on a wall at Habsiguda crossroads on Saturday morning. He was fined for defacing property and instructed to wipe out the advertisement.

The corporation said walls should not be painted with commercials. Any kind of scribbling on walls, graffiti, painting or staining public space would invite fines ranging between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000,the GHMC has warned.

Thousands of the citys walls are defaced by small businesses which paint their advertisements, and political parties their slogans.

Defacing of walls will not be allowed. Illegal hoardings, flex boards, cutouts of political leaders and banners are prohibited. We have decided to put an end to them, GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy said.

The rule against defacing public and private properties came into effect on January 1. The state government is mulling according magisterial powers to commissioners of urban local bodies to penalise those who urinate or defecate in public, throw garbage or construction debris and deface property.

Elsewhere, the Love HYD typographical structure on Tank Bund has spit stains and shoe prints. The GHMC has still not been able to find a way to protect it.
SYDNEY, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday called on more Australian states and territories to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with China's central and western regions, so as to benefit from China's grand development drive of the western region.

Li made the remarks when attending the second Australia-China State/Provincial Leaders Forum together with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Li said that local-level cooperation is an inseparable part of China-Australia relations, about 100 pairs of cities of the two countries have cemented friendly ties, and the fruitful local-level cooperation ushered the bilateral ties into a new realm.

The Chinese premier hoped the two sides will expand cooperation to explore business opportunities in more areas such as agriculture, science and technology, education, logistics and some new businesses.

Li said that the China-Australia friendship is based on people-to-people and regional exchanges.

Noting that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, as well as the China-Australia Year of Tourism, Li called on the two countries' local regions to enhance cooperation in education, culture, science and technology, tourism, youth and media, and organize more friendly activities at the local level, so as to make the friendship deeply rooted in the hearts of the two peoples.

Turnbull said that Australia and China enjoy a long history of local-level exchanges as well as close cooperation in various areas, which have brought concrete benefits to the two peoples.

Noting that Australia and China are reliable partners, and the bilateral relations cannot go ahead without the participation by each country's local regions, Turnbull called for joint efforts to promote local-level exchanges and cooperation between the two countries to make new contributions to the two countries' prosperity and free trade in the Asia-Pacific region.

Officials from Australia's six states and two territories, and those from Chinese provinces of Jiangsu, Henan, Hubei, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Shanxi and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as well as the municipality of Chongqing, attended the forum.
Mumbai: Television actress Shilpa Shinde, who portrayed the role of Angoori Devi in the popular show, Bhabhi Ji Ghar Par Hai has officially filed a sexual harassment complaint against the shows producer Sanjay Kohli, according to a report by a daily.

The report filed at the Waliv police station in Vasai has Shilpa alleging that Sanjay had often tried to take advantage of her. She also claims that he would often called her sexy.

She further goes on to allege that Sanjay threatened to sack her from the show, if she refused to get physically intimate with him. The FIR reads, In the past year, I battled depression and medical issues. I spoke out since it was getting to me. I know many women from the industry are afraid to speak up, but I want to, on their behalf. Once make-up man Pinku Patwa saw him harassing me. Pinku was sacked the next day. When I spurned his advances, he sacked me from the show.

I went to the police station thrice this week with my lawyer. The cop, Mahesh Patil, was indifferent and insensitive, the actor is quoted as telling the daily.

The actress had accused the makers of mentally harassing her in 2016. Shilpa had ended up abruptly quitting the show, following which a legal notice had been sent to her.
Lucknow: After receiving complaints of negligence towards a gang rape and acid attack victim, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday summoned King George's Medical University (KGMU) vice-chancellor Ravi Kant.

The victim whom Adityanath met on Friday complained about negligence shown towards her by the KGMU.

Adityanath also gave a cheque of Rs. 1 lakh as compensation to the victim's husband.

The gang rape survivor was made to drink acid earlier on Thursday near the Lucknow railway station.

The incident was reported few days after the debut of the Anti-Romeo squads in the state which have been constituted to safeguard the women from the miscreants.

Meanwhile, three women constables were suspended yesterday for allegedly taking a selfie in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) while on duty with a gang-rape and acid attack victim.

The selfie of those three constables went viral and the police department had to call for suspension and order a probe.

The Dalit victim was gang-raped earlier in 2009 and a case was registered in this regard in Unchahar town of Raebareli district.

She was first acid attacked in 2011 followed by other serious attacks again in 2011, twice in 2012 and another in 2013.
Hyderabad: The BJP on Saturday said the Telangana government's statement that it would take steps to get the bail granted to the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast accused Swami Aseemanand cancelled was an "insult to judiciary and legal system".

"BJP strongly condemns and disapproves Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy's statement in the Legislative Assembly yesterday in response to an AIMIM MLA's contention on the bail," party spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao told PTI.

"BJP considers it as insult to judiciary and the legal system of India, which provides bail as a fundamental right of an undertrial...The Indian Constitution and the legal system provides bail as a legal right of an undertrial," he said.

According to Rao, without even having the fundamental knowledge of legal structure of India and the rights of undertrials, Reddy has "hastily assured something which he cannot deliver".

"Law does not discriminate religion, if it were to, then all terrorist activities in the world would be attributed to one religion. The Home Minister should realise that he should not stoop down to religious appeasement while being in a constitutional position of a Home Minister of a State," Rao added.

Responding to AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi's demand that the Government exert pressure on the NIA, which is probing the case, to move court against the grant of the bail, Reddy had yesterday assured that steps would soon be taken to get it "cancelled" and ensure that "justice in done".

The court of the Fourth Metropolitan Sessions Judge here granted bail to Aseemanand and Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai, a co-accused in the case on Thursday.

In his reply to Owaisi's demand during the Zero Hour, Reddy said, "The question raised by member Akbaruddin Owaisi is a valid question. Definitely, an inquiry will be conducted on how he (Aseemanand) got the bail. Efforts will be made to get the bail cancelled. We will ensure justice is done."

Owaisi had demanded that the TRS government should "pressurise" the NIA, which is probing the case, to take steps to ensure that Aseemanand's bail gets cancelled.

"The cases were registered and the Hindutva members were arrested after the CBI inquiry. However, Swami Aseemanand was granted bail by a court," Owaisi had said.

"Whether it's Osama Bin Laden or Aseemanand, the terrorists should be dealt with sternly. I am hopeful that the government will prevail upon and pressurise the NIA to get the bail to Aseemanand cancelled and he, along with others, is sent back to jail," the MLA had said.

Swami Aseemanand was arrested on November 19, 2010, from Haridwar. The Mecca Masjid blast on May 18, 2007, left nine persons dead. On March 8 this year, Aseemanand and six others were acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer blast case by a Jaipur court. He was then brought from Jaipur and lodged in a prison in Hyderabad.
New Delhi: Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who had been abroad for medical check-up, returned home late last night accompanied by her son Rahul Gandhi at a time when there is growing clamour for structural changes in the party.

The 70-year-old leader is doing fine, according to party sources.

She had left the country earlier this month for an undisclosed destination, which the Congress said was for a "routine medical check-up".

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had left to join her on March 16, soon after attending the swearing-in ceremony of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

The Congress President had for the first time in many years not campaigned for her party in the just concluded assembly elections.

The two leaders have returned to the country amid growing clamour for structural changes within the party after its debacle in the crucial Uttar Pradesh polls. A section of leaders has also been demanding Rahul's elevation as Congress president.

"Both of them are back. As far as Sonia Gandhi is concerned, she is hale and hearty," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters when asked about their return.

Asked about when the much talked about organizational changes would be made since the two are back, Singhvi told an AICC briefing "it is definitely on the cards but you do not have to put a timer switch to it like a race timer, they have come back."

As to whether there could be a brainstorming session to bring about such organisational changes, he said, "I think you should be fair enough to give us all a chance to breathe, especially those who have returned yesterday."

Sonia has not been keeping well for quite some time and has entrusted all party work to Rahul for a few months now.

Party sources had said that Sonia had gone abroad for a "routine" medical check-up but did not disclose her destination. However, there was speculation that she was in the United States where she had been treated for an undisclosed ailment earlier.

Sonia has been mostly out of action after she was taken ill during a roadshow in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency, on August 2 last and was hospitalised.

When asked about the appointment of a new Kerala Congress chief following the recent resignation of V M Sudheeran, Singhvi said, "I do not think that two weeks is such an alarming period of time you are making it sound."

"I can assure you that we had a very active Kerala PCC for all these years and you will have no less an active Kerala PCC soon. Just give it a reasonable time," he said.
New Delhi: Eminent jurist Fali S Nariman on Saturday raised questions over the appointment of Aditya Nath Yogi as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi "if it is the beginning of a Hindu state".

Referring to the developments in UP after the polls, he said the Constitution is under "threat" and those who cannot see the motive behind appointment of Aditya Nath are either spokespersons of political parties or they must get their head and eyes examined.

"The prime minister may deny it but that is my assumption that appointing a particular person...as the chief minister is in itself an indication that he wishes to propogate a religious state," Nariman said in an interview to NDTV.

"Is this the beginning of a Hindu state, the prime minister must be asked so that the people know what they should be prepared for," he said.

Asked which citizens' rights does he worry about or are under threat, he said, "The Consitution is under threat. With the massive electoral victory in UP, a priest has been installed as the chief minister at the insistence of the prime minister... is a signal and if you cannot see then either you are the spokespersons of political parties or you must have your head or eyes examined."

Nariman, who lauded Modi for his remarkable and fantastic energy level, however, said he does not accept all policies of the prime minister.

"You must give it to the prime minister. He is quite forthright. He does not mince words and his energy is something remarkable and fantastic. I have never seen such a man. But I do not accept all the policies of the prime minister," he said.
Chandigarh: Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari on Saturday said there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to the people.

He was delivering the 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University in Chandigarh.

Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Panjab University vice chancellor A.K. Grover and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

Sharing his thoughts on the importance of universities in our society the Vice-President talked about the idea of a university and how it distinguishes itself from other institutions where instructions are imparted focused on catering to requirements of daily life.

"The need for them to teach its members to think, to go beyond the obvious in learning for examination purposes, and to acquire the capacity and habit to question; the necessity for them to focus on research, to produce new knowledge that may be beneficial to society and the economy; the need to undertake social research, given the diversity and complexity of all societies in a fast changing world; and the imperative need for academic freedom so that the thought process and its expression is untrammelled by official or societal constraints," he added.

The Vice-President said that a University has to be more than a mere polytechnic.

"Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections, the university should first aim to build a profound understanding of the discipline," he added.

The Vice President said that a University has the twin responsibility of providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those very matters.

He also underlined the important role of social research in questioning and deconstructing 'social and cultural mythologies' that circulate and proliferate in any society, especially during phases of change and uncertainty.

The Vice President said that the recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be.

"The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be 'public good'," he added.

The Vice-President said that the right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under the Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms.

"A University must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom," he added.
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena does not support Ravindra Gaikwad's behaviour but party leaders would "raise their hand" wherever needed, its Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said here on Friday.

He was responding to a question at a press conference here about the party's stand on Gaikwad hitting an Air India employee with a slipper on Thursday.

"The Shiv Sena can never support Ravindra Gaikwad's behaviour. But there should be an inquiry to find out why our MP was forced to behave this way," Raut said.

"Hitting anybody can never be the culture of the Sena, but we will surely raise our hand wherever required," Raut said.

It is not about a single MP but thousands of passengers who have to face numerous troubles due to Air India's poor service, he said.

"It would have been better had Air India been as quick in improving its service as it was in banning our MP from flying on its aircraft. Passengers are fleeced at airports like Mumbai and Delhi. What happens to their (AI's) quick decision-making then?" he asked.

Before the party take any action against Gaikwad, the MP will have to face action as per the law, Raut said.

All the airlines have banned the Shiv Sena MP from boarding their flights a day after he beat an Air India staff with his slipper. IndiGo cancelled Gaikwad's ticket for the Delhi-Pune flight, which he had booked for Friday. Later, another airline Vistara too banned the 56-year-old MP from boarding its flight.

Earlier in the day, the MP from Osmanabad in Maharashtra downplayed reports suggesting that Air India is considering banning him from boarding its flights. "I have the tickets, they can't blacklist me. I will board the Delhi-Pune Air India flight this evening. How can they not allow me?" he said.

"I will not apologise. It was not my fault, it was his fault. He should apologise. First ask him to apologise then we will see," Gaikwad told the media.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has sought a report to determine the facts before he decides on what happens next for Gaikwad.

Air India Duty Manager Sukumar, who was assaulted by Gaikwad, today asserted that the elected representatives need to behave in a decent manner. "I am not scared at all, either with Gaikwad or with the Shiv Sena. I have been serving public and have also faced many who get irritated on such issues. It's a common thing for me," he added.

Sukumar further said that he had requested Gaikwad to deboard the aircraft as cleaning staff had to complete their work following which he got angry. "I had requested him (Gaikwad) to de-board the aircraft as the cleaning staff had to complete their work. On which he got furious and raised his hands," said Sukumar.

Earlier, the Centre also took cognizance of the incident and assured a thorough probe into the matter.
Policemen on patrol got suspicious because the van was parked there for a very long time.

Chennai: Chennai police on Saturday seized Rs 3.42 crore worth old banned notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations from a van parked in posh JJ Lakshmi avenue in Manapakkam near Na-ndambakkam.

Police managed to detain two of the three occupants of the van. This is the biggest seizure of banned notes in Chennai since December 31, the day after which any type of transaction using old banned notes became illegal.

The two, identified as Kannan, 42, of Besant Nagar who works as a transport manager of a private hospital and Krishna Mohan, 53, a sub-contractor, told police that they were waiting for a person living in the locality to hand over the money.

Policemen on patrol got suspicious because the van was parked there for a very long time. And when the policemen went near the vehicle the three occupants tried to escape. Cops could only catch Kannan and Krishna Mohan while Prasad of Hyderabad managed to flee.

During vehicle check, police found the cash bundles wrapped in blue polythene cover and hidden under the seats.

The duo further told the police that the money was given to them by a doctor for exchanging new valid notes at 30 per cent commission. A man residing in JJ Lakshmi avenue was supposed to collect the money and give the new notes over a period of one month.

The two also said the man living in the area was a contact of Prasad. The two were taken for questioning and police are on the look-out for Prasad. Police believe that at least two more persons are involved in the case.
His only duty is to entertain people, while appealing people not to politicise his any future visits to the neighbouring country.

Chennai: Heeding to the calls of political parties, superstar Rajinikanth on Saturday cancelled his scheduled visit to Jaffna in Sri Lanka to distribute houses to displaced Tamils and appealed to everyone concerned not to politicise the issue.

In a statement here, Rajinikanth said though he was not wholeheartedly convinced with the arguments placed by those opposing his visit to Sri Lanka next month, he decided to cancel the visit organised by Lyca Productions bowing to their request.

The actor stressed he was not a politician, but an artiste and his only duty is to entertain people, while appealing people not to politicise his any future visits to the neighbouring country.

He said he took the decision after MDMK leader Vaiko, VCKs Thol Thirumavalavan and TVK leader T. Velmurugan asked him to consider withdrawing from the programme. Justifying his decision to accept invitation from Lyca, Rajinikanth said he thought the visit to Jaffna would fulfill long-time desire of visiting the "brave soil" and saluting the "warriors." "I wanted to attend the function for two reasons. It was my longtime desire to set my foot on the brave soil and inhale the air breathed by those lakhs and lakhs of martyrs who gave their lives for their rights and the bhoomi and for the cause of their race and salute them. I was also eager to meet lakhs of Tamils (because of whom I am here) and have an open talk with them. The second was to meet President Maithripala Sirisena," Rajinikanth said.
Chennai: A childless couple from Villivakkam was taken in for questioning by the City Police after the couple admitted that they had purchased a newborn baby boy from the Government Hospital for Women and Children, Egmore on Thursday.

The couple was identified as Makesh (45), who works in a private firm and Vidya (42), who is a maternity assistant in a Primary Health Centre in Madhavaram. Armed with a sick newborn baby, the Villivakkam residents turned up at the Outpatients counter at the Government Children's Hospital, and the baby boy was admitted. The doctor who saw the child grew suspicious as the child's mother did not bear any signs of maternity and was not able to account for the birth either by C-Section or by normal delivery.

The doctor alerted the Outpost in the Hospital premises, and a preliminary enquiry revealed the child had been purchased. The case was referred to Rajamangal-am police station, which has jurisdiction over where the infant changed hands.

Sources said that the child was born on March 18 in a hospital in Pattalam near Otteri. The couple got in touch with the child's mother and convinced her to sell the baby. We are probing into the incident. The couple initially claimed that they bought the child from a doctor working in a hospital in Pulianthope. The claim turned out to be bogus, and the doctor whom they named, refused that he had played any role in it. The childs biological mother was traced and she hinted that she had voluntarily handed over the child to the childless couple due to her poor financial status. We have registered a case and are pursuing the investigation, Rajamangalam (law & order) Inspector V. Gopinath told DC.
BOAO, Hainan, March 25 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the opening ceremony of the 2017 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, held in south China's Hainan Province Saturday morning.

Since its establishment 16 years ago, the Boao Forum for Asia has played an important role in building Asian consensus, promoting Asian cooperation and upgrading Asian influence, Xi noted.

The theme for this year's conference is "Globalization and Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives."

Xi said the theme reflected the attention on economic globalization paid by the international community, especially the Asian countries.

The president called upon attendees of the conference to pool their wisdom on solving the major problems faced by the world and regional economy, and jointly push forward a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economic globalization process.
Calangute: A 58-year old British national was found dead after he collapsed while exercising in a gym at Goa's Calangute yesterday.

The Calangute Police have registered the unnatural death of the British national named Paul Gerrard Atkinson.

The ambulance was called but Atkinson died on the way to hospital.

The enquiry conducted by the police so far has revealed that the deceased foreigner was staying in a guest house in Maddowado, Calangute and had joined the gym in February and was a regular visitor there.

The police shifted the body in GMC Morgue for preservation and to perform post mortem examination.

The British embassy has also been informed to contact the relatives of the deceased.

Further enquiry is in progress.
Lucknow: Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday triggered a speculation of him stepping down from the post of the Samajwadi Party president.

"The Samajwadi Party will choose its next national president before September 30, and I assure we will also work on our flaws," said Yadav at a meeting organised for the review of the party's defeat in the recent Assembly elections.

Akhilesh further stated that he and his party have reviewed the drubbing and will also work on it soon.

"My party people and I have reviewed the defeat and the work on resolving issues is underway. Our membership campaign will start from April 15 and take place in the whole of Uttar Pradesh, only after that the National President will be elected by September 30," said Yadav.

Yadav had fought the recently held assembly elections in alliance with the Congress President Rahul Gandhi, where they suffered a defeat at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which came to power in the politically crucial state with a brute majority.

Earlier in the day, Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and companion brother Shivpal Yadav were not part of party's deliberations meet.
Ahmedabad: Gujarat Congress on Friday said that it will not give tickets for the upcoming Assembly polls to those candidates who have earlier lost elections twice.

Besides, tickets will also not be given to those who have lost by a margin of over 20,000 votes last time.

These decisions were taken in a core committee meeting of the state Congress party that was held here today.

"From next week the party will start forming panels of names for each of 182 assembly seats in the state," state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki said after the meeting.

As per the Congress party candidate selection process, the panel of names is sent to central leadership, which picks up the final name of candidate.

The panel might have two to three names per seat. "We have decided not to give tickets to those claimants who have lost two assembly elections in the past," Solanki said.

"We have also decided not to give tickets to those who have lost by a margin of 20,000 or more votes in the last assembly polls," Solanki said adding that winnability is the criteria.

The opposition party, anticipating early polls has decided to prepare the lists of candidates to ensure that they are not caught unaware. The Congress is out of power in the state since last 25 years. "The party has also decided to give at least one ticket to woman in each district of the state," Solanki said.

Earlier, the Congress had invited applications from party workers who are interested in the contesting the polls.

Party sources said that it was decided that sitting MLAs of the party will not be allowed to change their constituencies.

Meanwhile, the party has also decided not to take out Yatra in the tribal belt of the state, which it had announced earlier.

"We have decided to postpone Adivasi Vikas Yatra, which was to start in April due to ongoing exams of class 10th and 12th. Instead we will organise five mega rallies in places dominated by tribal people between April 3 to 13," he said.

Elections are scheduled by held in later part of the year, however, the party expects that BJP may call for early election.
New Delhi: Eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi civic polls, BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the AAP alleging that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson.

Addressing BJP workers ahead of the MCD elections, Shah referred to party's victories in the recent assembly polls and said a win the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the national capital.

Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in "saffron", Delhi continues to remain a "white spot" and asked the party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the civic polls.

"After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps and so that the BJP's victory flag is unfurled in the national capital," he said.

Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.

"The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by CBI. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers, street lights.

"A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequer's money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements," Shah said.

The BJP President contrasted his party's "clean record" in governance with the AAP's "tainted" tenure, saying many of its legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and "rape".

He also dared Kejriwal to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges.

"This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls," Shah said, and appealed to party activists to work hard for the elections as it was Delhi where the then Jana Sangh, BJP's predecessor, came to power first.

Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel as well as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari were present at the event.

Shah also referred to the anti-terror surgical strike undertaken last year, saying the armed forces "barged" into Pakistan to avenge the killing of soldiers in Uri last year.
Mumbai: Ravindra Gaikwad, the Shiv Sena Member of Parliament who made headlines for beating up an Air India staffer with his sandals, travelled as a silent, sullen commuter in the August Kranti Express from Delhi after many airlines refused to ply him.

Though he had a booking till Mumbai Central, got off at Vapi on Saturday. However, sloganeering at the station made the fellow commuters aware about his presence.

The attendant in the train who served the Sena leader claimed that Mr Gaikwad had no food, only asked for tea and remained silent. Sources said Mr Gaikwad alighted from the train at Vapi to escape the media attention he would attract otherwise.

One of the pantry assistants, Abhishek Singh, said that although he knew Mr Gaikwads identity and that they have to take care of public officials while they are travelling according to railways protocol, the MP helped himself to a few cups of tea and was mostly sullen while he sat in his corner seat.

Mr Singh said, We are usually told by the ticket collector to make sure that when an MP or an MLA is travelling, we have to take extra care but he didnt take the evening meal and mostly seemed to be unusually quiet in the corner of the compartment.

An unidentified man accompanying Mr Gaikwad on the train journey was said to have suffered chest pain near Mathura and was declared fit to travel after being examined by a railway doctor. Mr Gaikwad chose to travel by train after five airlines barred him from flying.
Mr Rao announced that every home in 6,200 villages would get tap water by December-end and 95 per cent of Mission Bhagiratha will be implemented by December 2017.

Hyderabad: At a mammoth public meeting marking the conclusion of the TRS 15th plenary session in Khammam on Wednesday, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said that the party would not seek votes in 2019 elections if his government was not able to provide tap water at every home by then.

He said that he dreamt of implemented the TRS election manifesto 100 per cent and had set his eyes on making TS the No. 1 state in the country in all spheres and a big win in the 2019 polls. He asked voters to ensure a victory for minister Tummala Nageswara Rao in the Palair Assembly bypoll.

Spelling out his governments priorities in welfare and developmental schemes, the CM said, Telangana is reeling under severe drought. We are facing droughts every two-three 3 years. The water crisis should go away foreverMission Bhagiratha is the only solution. I am putting the MPs and legislators careers at stake by saying that the TRS will not seek votes if we dont provide tap water to every home this term. Some are trying to put up obstacles, but they wont succeed, he said.

Read: Telangana to get Rs 1 lakh-crore from Centre

Mr Rao announced that every home in 6,200 villages would get tap water by December-end and 95 per cent of Mission Bhagiratha will be implemented by December 2017. He also promised that the government would ensure 24 hour three-phase power by 2019.

Of the three issues we focused on during the Telangana movement, Neellu, Nidhulu and Nimakalu (water, funds and jobs), the funds and jobs issues have been solved. Telangana is now a free state and all funds and jobs are its own. Water is pending. We will ensure drinking water to every home, and to one crore acres. We have earmarked Rs 25,000 crore for the irrigation sector this year, he said.

Mr Rao added, My dream is to see a haritha (green) Telangana, smile on every childs face, uplift of weaker sections, 24-hour power supply, KG-to-PG to all etc. KCR will not sleep till these goals are achieved. We earmarked Rs 35,000 crore for welfare. TS is the only state providing double bedroom housing, Rs 1,000 old-age and other pensions. As long as I have your blessings, I will do what you want. I dont have a high command. People are my boss, he said.

Earlier at the plenary, he had said: We are No. 1 in welfare and have allocated Rs 35,000 crore. We are No. 1 in the IT sector with Rs 60,000 crore IT exports. Economy is vibrant with 15 per cent growth. We may go for a Rs 2-lakh crore Budget in 2019-2020. He added, Power woes are gone. We will get power from Chhattisgarh in October.

Mr Rao asked all MPs, legislators and senior party leaders to complete the laying of pipelines passing through farmers fields under Mission Bhagiratha before May 30. He even recited a couplet of famous poet Enugu Lakshmana Kavi in Telugu: Aarambhincharu Neecha Manavulu... (Some people are scared to start work, some start and leave it midway while some with conviction and commitment complete the task).

For those gunning for MLA tickets and nominated posts, he said that delimitation would increase Assembly seats from 119 to 153, 50 Legislative Council seats from the existing 40, 3,500 to 4,000 posts in market committees, temple committees, corporation, grandhalaya samasthas etc.

He said party, village to state level committees would be constituted, training classes conducted for all sections of party workers and leaders and nominated posts would be filled in a phased manner. Party and government should work in tandem, he added.
The British seized one of the richest countries in the world and, over 200 years of colonial rule, reduced it to one of the poorest, most diseased and most illiterate countries on earth.

Corrective justice. What is it and how often does it occur? The apology and setting up of a $8.5-million fund by Japan for using young women as sex slaves during World War II marks a watershed moment. The UK apologised for the torture of Kenyans and paid compensation. The US has apologised for injecting Guatemalans with the syphilis virus to test antibiotics, but reparation was not forthcoming. Apologies and reparations may be symbolic but admittance of guilt is necessary if we are to call ourselves a civilisation. Shashi Tharoor is seeking precisely this when he demands that Britain apologise and compensate India for its outrageous plunder. But let us pause a moment. What about our attitude towards our own people  the Dalits? Atrocities against them continue to date. Who is going to say sorry and when?

Most of us Indians have tended not to dwell on the countrys colonial past. Britains shambolic withdrawal from India in 1947 after two centuries of imperial rule was curiously without rancour, even though that original Brexit savagely partitioned the country and left it to tear itself apart. Indeed India chose to remain in the Commonwealth as a Republic and maintained cordial relations with the former imperial overlords. When Winston Churchill, some years after Indian Independence, asked Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who had spent more than a decade of his life in British jails, how he was so devoid of bitterness, Nehru replied: We were taught by a great man [Mahatma Gandhi] never to fear and never to hate.

Whether this was a national strength or a civilisational weakness, India has long refused to bear any grudge against Britain for 200 years of imperial enslavement, plunder and exploitation. It was therefore something of a surprise for me when a speech I made at the Oxford Union in the summer of 2015 decrying the iniquities of British colonialism went viral, with one post racking up more than 3 million hits in 48 hours and the speech being replicated on multiple other sites across the globe.

Right-wing critics of my politics suspended their trolling of me on social media to hail my speech. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Sumitra Mahajan, went out of her way to laud me at a function attended by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who then congratulated me publicly for having said the right things at the right place. Schools and colleges played the speech to their students; one university, the Central University of Jammu, organised a daylong seminar at which eminent scholars addressed specific points I had raised. Hundreds of articles were written, for and against what I had said.

Two years later, I still keep meeting strangers who come up to me in public places to praise my Oxford speech. My book on the same theme, An Era of Darkness, has stayed on Indian bestseller lists since its publication three months ago. This month, its British edition, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India has entered the bookstores in the colonial capital. The simple truth is that the British seized one of the richest countries in the world (accounting for 27% of global GDP in 1700) and, over 200 years of colonial rule, reduced it to one of the poorest, most diseased and most illiterate countries on earth by the time they left in 1947. They did so through practices of loot, expropriation, and outright theft, enforced by the ruthless wielding of brute power, conducted in a spirit of deep racism and amoral cynicism, and justified by a staggering level of hypocrisy and cant. Whether or not you agree with the American historian Will Durant that this was the greatest crime in all human history, it was certainly no exercise in benign altruism, as some disingenuous British apologists have described it.

I recently wrote to the Government of India to propose that one of India's most renowned heritage buildings, the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, be converted into a museum that displays the truth of the British Raj - a museum, in other words, to colonial atrocities. This famous monument, built between 1906 and 1921, stands testimony to the glorification of the British Raj in India. It is time, I argued, that it be converted to serve as a reminder of what was done to India by the British.

It is curious that there is, neither in India nor in Britain, any museum to the colonial experience. London is dotted with museums that reflect its imperial conquests, from the Imperial War Museum to the India collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum itself. But none says anything about the colonial experience itself, the destruction of India's textile industry and the depopulation of the great weaving centres of Bengal, the systematic collapse of shipbuilding, or the extinction of India's fabled wootz steel. Nor is there any memorial to the massacres of the Raj, from Delhi in 1858 to Amritsar in 1919, the deaths of 35 million Indians in totally unnecessary famines caused by British policy, or the divide and rule policy that culminated in the horrors of Partition in 1947 when the British made their shambolic and tragic Brexit from the subcontinent. The lack of such a museum is striking.

Britain has been suffering from a kind of historical amnesia about colonialism. As my book emerged in India, an article by a Pakistani writer in The Guardian pointed out that the British simply don't teach their own schoolchildren the truth about their colonial past. (She had raised two children in one of the best schools in London; they had studied history and never been taught a word about colonial history). Londoners look at the magnificence of their city with no idea of the loot and rapacity that paid for it. Many Brits are genuinely unaware of the atrocities committed by their ancestors, and some live in the blissful illusion that the Empire was some sort of civilising mission to uplift the ignorant natives.

The British tendency to brush colonial history under the carpet has been compounded by the gauzy romanticisation of Empire in assorted television soap operas that provide a rose-tinted view of the colonial era, glossing over the atrocities, exploitation, plunder and racism that were integral to the imperial enterprise.

Astonishingly, several British historians have written hugely successful books extolling what they see as the virtues of Empire. Many of the popular histories of the British Empire in the last decade or two, by the likes of Niall Ferguson and Lawrence James, have painted it in glowing colours. All this explains Britons' ignorance - but does not excuse it.

I'm not a fan of simple historical analogies, given the very different times we live in, but history always offers instructive lessons  as well as perspectives. As I say to young people in both Britain and India: if you dont know where you've come from, how will you appreciate where you're going?

As for my fellow Indians, they have an admirable quality of being able to forgive and forget. I do want them to forgive  but not to forget.

My book is not intended to have any bearing on today's Indo-British relationship. That is now between two sovereign and equal nations, not between an imperial overlord and oppressed subjects. Indeed, when my book appeared in Delhi British Prime Minister Theresa May was days away from a visit to India seeking investment from India in her post-Brexit economy. As Ive often argued, you dont need to seek revenge upon history. History is its own revenge.
Hyderabad: Osmania University, which will be celebrating its centenary in April, is the only university to have observatories. The Nizamia and Rangapur observatories have catalogued nearly three lakh stars, besides charting a large segment of sky. While the Nizamia observatory, which contributed to astronomical research for decades, is not in use now, the one at Rangapur is being used for outreach activities with negligible research work.

The research work that is being done is limited to collection of data obtained from a few observatories from research institutes in other states.

The Nizams had the foresight to establish an observatory for astronomy- related studies back in 1908 when it was considered a rarity. Its founder was the England-educated Nawab Zafar Yar Jung Bahadur, youngest son of Sir Khursheed Jah Bahadur, then the defence minister.

Until the end of the 19th Century, British India had only two observatories; one at what was Ootacamund and the other at Nainital. In 1908, Nawab Zafar Jung returned to Hyderabad along with two telescopes (a Grubb refracting 15-inch diameter telescope and an eight-inch Cooke astrographic camera) and pursued the Nizam government for the observatory, which initially was set up at Philasbanda but later moved to Begumpet.

In 1919, Nizamia Observ-atorys control was given over to Osmania Univer-sity. In 1923, the equatorial telescope by G. Rubb was erected and a seismograph was installed for the study of earthquakes.

The observatory participated in an international program called the Carte-Du-Ciel or Astrographic Sky Survey. The aim of the programme was to map the entire sky photographically by assigning various Celestial Zones to 18 different observatories around the world. The zone covering from 17 to 23 degrees South and 36 to 39 degrees North was assigned to Nizamia Observatory.

Positions of stars were measured and published in 12 volumes of the Astrographic Catalogue. These measurements are being used by astronomers all over the world to estimate the proper movement of various types of stars. The Nizamia observatory also maintained records of earthquakes and rainfall in the Nizams state.

Astronomy department head at Osmania, Dr Shanti Priya said the Nizamia contributed a lot towards cataloguing of stars. From 1909 to 1928, the observatory catalogued a total of 1,260 photograph plates and over 3 lakh stars. It also helped in preparing government calendars in both Urdu and English, she said.

Meanwhile, Prof. Najam Hussain, who worked in the astronomy department at OU for nearly two decades before shifting to the Maulana Urdu University, said even Nasa took data from Nizamia for research activities.

With the expansion of Hyderabad and new colo-nies emerging, stargazing, which can be troubled by light pollution, had become difficult in Begu-mpet and thats when Os-mania started scouting for new locations far away from the city. That is how the Japal-Rangapur Obser-vatory came up (10 km from Ibrahimpatnam and 50 km from the OU campus). Dr.K.D.Abhayankar, the then-Director of Nizamia Observatory, was credited with selection of the site. Although the project was proposed in the mid 1950s, it came into operation fully in 1968-69. A 48-inch telescope was installed at Rangapur and it was used for photo-electric observations of binary stars, peculiar stars, pulsating stars, star clusters and also for the spectroscopic study of binary stars and peculiar stars.

The telescope was used for obtaining scientific information on comets, planetary atmospheres and near-Earth Asteroids. The department obtained two 12-inch telescopes later.

In addition, a 10 feet radio telescope operating at 10GHZ was installed at Japal-Rangapur Observatory. Dr Shanti Priya said national and international collaborations would took place at JRO - including the successful monitoring of the Total Solar Eclipse on February 16, 1980; the International Comet Halley Watch between 1984 and 86 and observing Comet Shoemaker-Levys impact in the July of 1994. Almost 122 research publications were released using JRO data alone, she said.

However, hardcore research work came to a grinding halt at the JRO from 2004 because it could upgrade its technology. Currently, only outreach activities are carried out. PG students from OU visit the JRO for practicals and sometimes, on holidays. High school, plus-two students and amateur astronomers too visit the observatory for some stargazing. These observatories are a shadow of their former selves and are keenly looking for government support to regain their lost glory.

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Google is pushing Android Messages app as its primary SMS client. The company is already in talks with carriers to add RCS to the Android Messages.

Google has outlined numerous changes to its messaging services, including alterations in Hangouts. Google Hangouts no longer support SMS for text messaging between phones.

The service will continue to work as a messaging client, but cannot be used to send SMS. Google earlier said that it plans to refocus Hangouts on enterprise communications. Google is pushing Android Messages app as its primary SMS client. The company is already in talks with carriers to add RCS to the Android Messages.

RCS in Android Messages will support features like read receipts, group chat, hi-res photo sharing, and more. Also, Google Voice and Project Fi customers will continue to be able to use Hangouts for SMS in the future.

Google also plans to get rid of Google Talk within Gmail and replace it with Google Hangouts. All Google Talk users should expect to use Google Hangouts moving forward. The company will also be retiring a number of Gmail features, including Authentication Icon, Google Voice Player, Picasa previews, Pictures in chat, Quick Links, Quote Selected Text, Smartlabels, and Yelp previews. Lastly, Google will remove some Google+ functionality from Gmail, including the ability to email Google+ profiles and the use of Google+ Circles.

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ZHENGZHOU, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A pair of accidents at two neighboring gold mines in central China's Henan Province killed 10 people Friday, local authorities said early Saturday.

Thick smoke engulfed a pit at Qinling gold mine of China National Gold Group in Lingbao City at 10:36 a.m. Friday, trapping 12 workers and six management staff, the press office of the city committee of the Communist Party of China said in a statement.

It said rescuers retrieved seven dead bodies in the pit Friday night. Of the 10 people who were found and sent to hospital, one failed to respond to emergency treatment and the other nine were recuperating.

One of the trapped workers remained missing as of Saturday morning. But search and rescue had to be halted in the pit, where carbon monoxide density was extremely high and visibility was less than 1 meter, the city's emergency response office said.

It said rescuers would use high-tech devices to locate the missing worker before search and rescue resumed.

A similar accident was reported in a neighboring gold pit at 3 p.m. Friday, the provincial work safety administration said Saturday.

Of the six workers trapped, four were rescued at 5:30 p.m. and the other two were found dead later in the evening.

The administration has launched an investigation.
New York: The gruesome killings of an Indian IT professional and her 6-year-old son in a New Jersey town has sent shock waves in the neighbourhood with the motive behind the murders still unknown.

Sasikala Narra, 38 and her son Anish Narra were killed on Friday inside their residence at the Fox Meadow Apartments in Maple Shade in New Jersey's Burlington County.

The two were found murdered when Sasikala's husband Narra Hanumanth Rao returned from work Thursday evening.

Officers from the Maple Shade Police Department were called to the Hamilton Road residence just after 9 pm by Rao after he found the bodies of his wife and son.

Authorities said no arrests have been made and the deaths are being investigated as homicides.

Preliminary investigation revealed that both victims were "stabbed multiple times."

Narras' close family friend Mohan Nannapaneni said in an ABC6 Action News report that Rao had called him shortly after finding his wife and son in a pool of blood.

"When he opened the house and he couldn't find his wife and son and then he called Anish his son and he didn't answer, so when he went to open the bedroom and then he found those two people ... dead and blood everywhere," said Nannapaneni.

Law enforcement officials have denied the killings were hate crime or a result of bias against the Indian origin of the victims, according to a statement provided to PTI by Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

"Contrary to some media reports, at this point there is no indication that this is a hate crime connected to the fact that the victims are of Indian origin," the statement had said.

The killings have shocked the Maple Shade community, which has expressed concern and sadness over the murders.

"What kind of monster would come up and do something that scary?" said Lisa of Maple Shade in the report in ABC6 Action News.

"Someone is crazy. Someone is really, really crazy. Delusional, don't know what's going on in life," said Ashante Boorden of Maple Shade.

Alfred Maugeri of Maple Shade said in the report that it is saddening to see a child's life wiped out like that. "It's unbelievable," he said.

Neighbours said they want whoever is responsible for the crime to be found soon and prosecuted.

Neighbours who were in their homes around the time of the incident said they did not hear anything suspicious, the report added.

They described the Narras as wonderful people, especially little Anish.

"He was always happy... Smart little kid, too," said a neighbour who didn't wish to be identified.

Another neighbour Chris Davis said she heard Rao say "She's dead, she's dead! There's blood all over the place, She's dead!" as others tried to console him.

"This is sad, really said," said Iesha Zuniga, 26, a restaurant worker who had lived in the complex for more than a decade. We feel unsafe."
Donald Trump told the healthcare bill would not be coming up again in the near future. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: Republican leaders of the House of Representatives pulled legislation to overhaul the US healthcare system from consideration on Friday due to a shortage of votes despite desperate lobbying by the White House and its allies in Congress, dealing a stiff setback to President Donald Trump.

Republican leaders had planned a vote on the measure after Trump cut off negotiations with Republicans who had balked at the plan and issued an ultimatum to vote on Friday, win or lose.

Republican moderates as well as the most conservative lawmakers had objected to the legislation. The White House and House leaders were unable to come up with a plan that satisfied both moderates and conservatives.

Trump told the Washington Post: "We just pulled it."

Amid a chaotic scramble for votes, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who has championed the bill, met with Trump at the White House before the bill was pulled from the House floor after hours of debate.

Trump told the Post the healthcare bill would not be coming up again in the near future and that he wanted to see if Democrats who uniformly objected to the Republican plan would come to him to work on healthcare legislation, a Washington Post reporter said on MSNBC.

Without the bill's passage in Congress, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, the 2010 Affordable Care Act - known as Obamacare - would remain in place despite seven years of Republican promises to dismantle it.

Repealing and replacing Obamacare was a top campaign promise by Trump in the 2016 presidential election, as well as by most Republican candidates, "from dog-catcher on up," as White House spokesman Sean Spicer put it during a briefing on Friday.

The House failure to pass the measure called into question Trump's ability to get other key parts of his agenda, including tax cuts and a boost in infrastructure spending, through a Congress controlled by his own party.

"There's nobody that objectively can look at this effort and say the president didn't do every single thing he possibly could with this team to get every vote possible," Spicer told reporters before the legislation was pulled.

Trump already has been stymied by federal courts that blocked his executive actions barring entry into the United States of people from several Muslim-majority nations. Some Republicans worry a defeat on the healthcare legislation could cripple his presidency just two months after the wealthy New York real estate mogul took office.

In a blow to the bill's prospects, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen announced his opposition, expressing concern about reductions in coverage under the Medicaid insurance programme for the poor and the retraction of "essential" health benefits that insurers must cover.

"We need to get this right for all Americans," Frelinghuysen said.
Washington: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with NATO members next week in Brussels, officials said Friday, as alliance diplomats worked to nail down the date.

"We are currently planning to hold the meeting of NATO foreign ministers on 31 March. Consultations on scheduling among Allies are ongoing," a NATO official in Brussels said.

The NATO foreign ministers meeting had been planned for April 5-6, but that was thrown into chaos on Tuesday when Tillerson revealed he would not be attending.

Skipping the meeting was especially awkward because the former Exxon-Mobil CEO is to travel later in April to Russia, which has had fraught relations with NATO since the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2014.

So Tillerson will head to Brussels on Friday next week, a day after meeting in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to "discuss the way forward with our campaign to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq," acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Long-planned talks:

Officials suggested that a complicating factor for the NATO meeting might be the agenda of Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who might not be able to make it to Brussels on March 31.

"The date is almost certain. It's now mainly a question of timing," a diplomat in Brussels said Saturday.

The alliance's 28 member states have until Monday to work out the details of their plans.

The last minute preparations are not typical for NATO which normally has plans in place weeks ahead of time for these highly orchestrated meetings.

"The allies are trying to find a solution. It is understood that there are substantive reasons why Tillerson cannot come April 5 and 6," a diplomat told AFP.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit President Donald Trump in the United States in early April, and Tillerson would be expected to attend their meetings.

But his office has not confirmed that engagement, and word that Tillerson would stay away from the NATO talks stirred doubt about US commitment to its allies.

"Everyone is aware that this would send a bad message and people were not eager to have a meeting with a downgraded (US) representation," said the diplomat, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.

After almost two months in the job, Tillerson has yet to appoint a deputy or any assistant secretaries, has largely avoided the media and works with a small inner circle of advisers.

The administration, meanwhile, has been scrambling to reaffirm its commitment to US military alliances after Trump called into question their usefulness during the presidential campaign.

Last week, after meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump claimed Germany owes "vast sums of money to NATO and the United States," reviving his charge that allies do not pay their way.

Obsolete alliance?

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine general, has declared US support for NATO, and last week Tillerson reaffirmed ties with Asian allies Japan and South Korea.

The United States has worked with NATO to shore up support for the pro-western government in Kiev after Russia's annexation of Crimea and its support for a bloody uprising in eastern Ukraine.

Combined with economic sanctions, the deployment of more NATO troops from Western members to frontline Eastern allies in the Baltics and Poland was intended to send a signal to Moscow.

But during his presidential campaign, Trump raised eyebrows by expressing admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and dismissing NATO as "obsolete".
The woman and her toddler son were playing in a park on March 17 when Ruano approached her and made anti-Muslim comments and threatened to shoot her. (Photo: Representational Image)

San Francisco: A man was arrested on suspicion of threatening to shoot a woman wearing a hijab, police said. Joshua Ruano, 27, is being held on suspicion of making a criminal threat with a hate-crime enhancement, The Los Angeles Times reported. The woman and her toddler son were playing in a park on March 17 when Ruano approached her and made anti-Muslim comments and threatened to shoot her.
At least 16 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in an air strike on a rebel-held area outside Syrias capital Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.(Photo: Representational Image)

At least 16 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in an air strike on a rebel-held area outside Syrias capital Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

It said it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strike on the town Hammuriyeh in the opposition bastion of Eastern Ghouta.

Sixteen civilians, including a child, were killed and around 50 others wounded in an air strike on the main street in the town of Hammuriyeh, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

It was not immediately clear if all the wounded were civilians or if some were rebel fighters, he said, adding the death toll could rise further because a number of the injured were in serious condition.

White Helmets rescue organisation were seen removing survivors from the aftermath of the street, including a man whose face was coated in blood.

The Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus has been under a devastating government siege since 2012, and is also the regular target of regime air strikes and artillery fire.
European Union heads of state pose for a group photo in the Cortile di Michelangelo during an EU summit in Rome on Saturday. (Photo: AP)

Rome: European Union leaders renewed their vows at a special summit in Rome on Saturday, celebrating the bloc's 60th anniversary with a commitment to a common future without Britain.

Meeting without British Prime Minister Theresa May, the other 27 member countries signed a declaration of unity on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

With the EU facing crises including migration, a moribund economy, terrorism and populism, as well as Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk called for leadership to shore up the bloc.

"Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago," Tusk said in a speech.

The Rome Declaration that the leaders signed proclaims that "Europe is our common future", and sets out the path for the next decade in a rapidly changing world.

"It is it a bit of a tighter squeeze in the room today" than when the original six states signed up, joked Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after welcoming the leaders to the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori for a ceremony long on pomp and short on real politics.

"We have had 60 years of peace in Europe and we owe it to the courage of the founding fathers," Gentiloni said, acknowledging that a string of crises had combined to bring the process of European integration to a standstill.

"When the iron curtain fell in 1989 we thought their dream had been realised but (recent crises) have shown us that history is anything but finished.

"We have to start again and we have the strength to do that."

Shoulders of giants:

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker also insisted the EU could ride out recent storms.

"Daunting as they are, the challenges we face today are in no way comparable to those faced by the founding fathers," he said, recalling how the new Europe was built from the ashes of World War II.

"We are standing on the shoulders of giants," Juncker said, voicing confidence that the EU would still be around to celebrate its 100th birthday.

The leaders had the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears, after the pontiff warned on the eve of the summit that the crisis-ridden bloc "risks dying" without a new vision.

The White House meanwhile congratulated the EU overnight on its 60th birthday, in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels.

"Our two continents share the same values and, above all, the same commitment to promote peace and prosperity through freedom, democracy, and the rule of law," the White House said in a statement.

Security was tight with snipers on rooftops, drones in the skies and 3,000 police officers on the streets following an attack this week in London claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

May's absence, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and a row over the wording of the Rome declaration have underscored the challenges the EU faces.

Protests planned:

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo only agreed to sign the declaration at the last minute, after bitterly opposing a reference to a "multi-speed" Europe favoured by powerhouse states France and Germany.

Poland, central Europe's largest economy, is concerned that as one of nine of the EU's current 28 members outside the eurozone, it could be left behind should countries sharing the single currency push ahead with integration.

The aim of the summit was to channel the spirit of the Treaty of Rome that Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany signed six decades ago to create the European Economic Community (EEC).

The treaty was signed in the Horatii and Curiatii hall of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, one of the Renaissance palaces that line the Michelangelo-designed Capitoline Square, and the political and religious heart of the Roman Empire in ancient times.

Police in the Eternal City were on alert not only for lone wolf attackers in the wake of the British parliament attack on Wednesday, but also violent anti-Europe demonstrators.

Around 30,000 protesters are expected to take part in four separate marches -- both pro- and anti-Europe -- throughout the day.
Dubai: Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US from Saturday, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through the world's busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai.

Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban, including Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport and Qatar's Hamad International Airport.

And while the ban has sparked anger across the region for again targeting majority-Muslim countries, some increasingly wary travellers shrugged off the latest restriction.

"It's a rule. I follow the rules," said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year.

"The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours."
The United Nations said Thursday that there were some 600,000 people still in west Mosul. (Photo: Representational/AP)

Baghdad: More than 200,000 people have fled fighting in west Mosul since the operation to retake the area from jihadists was launched last month, Iraq's ministry of migration and displaced said Saturday.

The battle for west Mosul -- the most populated urban area still held by the Islamic State group -- was launched on February 19, and Iraqi forces have since recaptured a series of neighbourhoods from the jihadists.

"The number of displaced from the areas of the right bank (west side) of the city of Mosul has risen to 201,275 people," the ministry said in a statement.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since retaken most of the territory they lost.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to recapture Mosul in October, retaking the east of the city before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely populated west.

The United Nations said Thursday that there were some 600,000 people still in west Mosul, 400,000 of whom are "trapped" in the Old City area under siege-like conditions.
In a sweeping affirmation of presidential authority, a federal judge in Virginia ruled against a Muslim civil rights group that sought to block the Trump administration's proposed travel ban.



The ruling today by U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga is at odds with rulings from federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland who have issued orders preventing the bulk of the executive order from taking effect.



Trenga had questioned at a hearing this week whether the injunction sought by the civil rights group is necessary, given the orders already in place from the Hawaii and Maryland judges.



But his 32-page decision goes far beyond that technical question, giving a major victory to the Trump administration and its authority to issue the order, which would temporarily ban immigration from six Muslim-majority countries and suspend the U.S. refugee program.



The legal issue, Trenga wrote, is not to determine whether the executive order "is wise, necessary, under- or over-inclusive, or even fair."



The judge, a George W. Bush appointee, said his job is simply to determine whether the order "falls within the bounds of the President's statutory authority or whether the President has exercised that authority in violation of constitutional restraints."



At this stage of the lawsuit, Trenga concluded, the plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood to succeed on the merits.



A lawyer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which brought the Virginia case on behalf of multiple clients, said he will appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. That court is already scheduled to hear the government's appeal from the Maryland case on May 8.



Trenga wrote that the current executive order is substantially different from the first travel ban sought by the Trump administration, which also was blocked by multiple judges before it was rescinded in favor of the current order.



This revised order no longer carves out an exception favoring Christians and other religious minorities from Muslim-majority nations included in the ban.



It also spells out the administration's justification for the ban and does not seek cancellation of existing visas, as the original order did. The council's lawyers described it as just a gussied-up version of the "Muslim ban" Trump proposed during his campaign.



They urged the judge to look beyond the text and consider its intent in the context of Trump's public statements, which they say reveal an anti-Muslim bias.
Billionaire business magnate Bill Gates (L) shakes hands with Liu Yongfu, head of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, after they sign a memorandum of understanding on Friday to deepen cooperation in China's ongoing nationwide campaign of poverty relief.

Billionaire business magnate Bill Gates signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government on Friday to deepen cooperation in the country's ongoing nationwide campaign of poverty relief.

The memo indicated that there will be further collaboration between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development on sharing China's poverty alleviation gains with others, making better anti-poverty strategies and training new talent.

Liu Yongfu, head of the poverty alleviation office, said at the document signing that China welcomes international support and is willing to share its poverty alleviation experience with the world.

Gates noted that of all the people lifted out of poverty between 1990 and 2010, 75.7 percent were in China, applauding the country for being the biggest contributor to the United Nation's Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty.

In addition to poverty alleviation, Gates' foundation also plans to work with the Chinese government to improve health services in rural areas, provide better food for children living in poor regions and provide impoverished people with financial assistance.

China still has 43.35 million people living in poverty, defined in 2010 as those earning less than 2,300 yuan ($334) per year, but has vowed to eradicate poverty by 2020.
Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.



1.1 million people are expected to pass through the busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports' senior vice president for communications Anita Mehra said.



An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.



The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Dubai-based Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.



Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.



Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai. In an attempt to appease its customers, the airline announced it would be offering complimentary packing and shipping services at gates to enable passengers to use their electronic devices after check-in and until boarding.



Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.



The US ban affects nine airlines from eight countries: Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.



Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.



Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.



"All Etihad Airways guests travelling to the United States clear US Immigration and Customs at the US Preclearance facility in Terminal 3, the only one of its kind in the Middle East," read a statement emailed to AFP.



"When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again."



The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.



The United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.
The CBI today lodged a case against two former AGMs, two ex-chief managers of Syndicate Bank's Jaipur and Udaipur branch, and six others for allegedly causing loss of nearly Rs 209 crore to the bank.



Searches were underway at the residences of the accused including in Jaipur and Ajmer, a senior CBI official said.



The accused were identified as former Assistant General Managers -- A K Tiwari and AGM Adarsh Manchanda, Chief Managers -- Santosh Gupta and Deshraj Meena who worked at the bank's Udaipur and Jaipur branch, the official said.



Udaipur-based Chartered Accountant Bharat Bomb, his builder brother-in-law Pavitra Kothari, Kothari's employees - Piyush Jain and Vineet Jain, and builders Shankar Lal Khandelwal and Anoop Bartaria were also booked for the alleged fraud.



A complaint was lodged that the accused hatched a criminal conspiracy to avail home loans/credit facilities from the bank by submitting forged and fabricated documents.



The funds then disbursed by the bank's two branches were diverted and fraudulently siphoned off to the companies owned by the accused, allegedly causing loss of approximately Rs 209 crore to the bank, the official said.



The case has been registered under sections 420 (cheating) 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 467, 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the official added.



"It was alleged in the complaint that the said accused in criminal conspiracy with each other availed home loans and credit facilities from Jaipur and Udaipur branches of Syndicate Bank on the basis of forged and fabricated documents," CBI spokesperson RK Gaur said here.



"Searches are being conducted today at four places including Jaipur, Ajmer at the residential and official premises of accused persons," he said.



Bomb who is considered the mastermind of the alleged cheating is facing CBI probe in another case as well and has been in judicial custody since March last year.
West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury today said the state unit will not invite senior party leaders Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singvi in future programmes as they had represented the TMC government in the Narada sting case in the Supreme Court.

"We will not invite Sibal and Singhvi for any future prgramme of the party," he told reporters here.



"Sibal had told us that it was a professional matter but WBPCC will not invite them for any future programme," he added.



Chowdhury said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should ask the ministers and TMC MPs whose names figured in Narada sting operation to resign from their posts.



Before flagging off a Congress rally to press for the demand he said, "If the CM has an iota of honesty, let her set an example and ask those leaders to step down from their respective posts till they are absolved of the charges by the investigating agency."



On Banerjee's recent statement that she had made K D Singh a Rajya Sabha MP on good faith, Chowdhury said, "Is it believable that you give nomination to someone without knowing his antecedents?"



Singh's name had surfaced with regard to the funding of the Narada sting operation.

Chowdhury also accused Banerjee of warming up to the BJP to save her party leaders.

"One day she declares to wage all out war against the BJP and the very day she moots the name of L K Advani for the post President of India. Where is her secular credibility?" he said.



"In fact Banerjee wants to keep BJP and Advani in good humour as the latter is the chairman of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee", he claimed.



The state Congress chief said the party would soon organise a big rally in the state to protest against the "misrule" of TMC and BJP's "dangerous game plan" in the state.



He cautioned against any attempt to polarise the Bengal politics along saffron lines and blamed the TMC for paving the way for the BJP to make inroads in the state.



"BJP has brought a new political culture in the state which is against the tradition of Bengal. TMC is responsible for such a situation", he alleged.



"I have asked Congress workers to campaign for maintaining Bengal's secular tradition," Chowdhury said.
Organic farmers in Surathkal hobli, coming under Subhiksha Savayava Krishikara Sangha, have demanded marketing for organic farm produce. The Sangha, under Savayava Bhagya Yojane of the State government, comprises 81 farmers at Soorinje and Chelyaru villages in Surathkal.



Speaking at Mevu Kshe-throtsava organised by agriculture department at the field of Ananthapadmanabha Bhat at Kullangalu in Soorinje, the farmers said they have adopted organic farming for sustainable development. However, the produce lacks marketing facilities, they regretted.



Geetha Shetty, an organic woman farmer, said, The employment in farming sector is permanent. Without proper marketing of the produce, we have not been able to reap the success. I have started growing the agriculture produce organically for the last three years.I cultivate paddy, papaya, pineapple, brinjal, long yard beans and other crops. Last year, I could get only Rs 15 per kg of pineapple. But the shopkeeper sold it for Rs 25 per kg. She also urged the officials to help the farmers in arresting peacock menace. The peacocks are damaging crops in the region, she added.



Livelihood woes

Sundar Sherigar, another organic farmer, said, The farmers will never incur loss in agriculture. The land where we sow will ensure that we earn our livelihood. Organic farming was the order of the day in the past. Over a period of time, farmers switched to chemical fertilisers to increase the production, which in turn affected the fertility of the soil. There is no market for the organically cultivated produce here in Surathkal. We have to go all the way to Mangaluru to sell the produce.



Surathkal veterinary hospital assistant director Dr Suresh called upon farmers to move towards nature and thereby increase the fertility of the soil. Rural Development Organisation Trust, Doddaballapur, implementing agency of Savayava Bhagya Yojane field officer Ashalatha Suvarna said 100 hectares of land in four villages of Surathkal hobli --- Chelyaru, Madya, Soorinje and Delanthabettu --- are into organic farming since the inception of Savaya Bhagya Yojane in 2013-14.



The government had released a grant of Rs 13 lakh under the scheme to Sangha for its activities. Out of 81 farmers, 54 farmers have received certification from the department for their organic produce, Ashalatha added. Assistant agriculture officer Absul Basheer, agriculture department deputy director Dr Mune Gowda and others were present. Organic farmers Chandrashekar Shetty, Vidya Shetty and Dayanand Banjan were felicitated on the occasion.


A sharp decline in the supply of buffalo meat following a statewide crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses has hit the inmates of the zoos hard, forcing the big cats and other carnivores to survive on chicken. Though the zoo officials in Lucknow, Kanpur and Etawah claimed they had arranged meat from other parts of the state and that there was no shortage, a source said the animals were being fed mutton and chicken along with buffalo meat.



There was some shortage initially, but now the supply is back to normal... We have arranged for meat from other places for the animals, said Anupam Gupta, director, Lucknow Zoo. The contractor who supplies meat to the Lucknow Zoo, however, said that he was unable to deliver buffalo meat as there was no legally operated slaughterhouse in the state capital. Zoo officials had approached the municipal corporation, which expressed its inability to do anything in this regard. State Forest Minister Dara Singh Chauhan visited the Lucknow Zoo on Friday and met the officials to enquire about the availability of meat for the animals.



There may be some problems in the initial days, but the situation will be normal over the next few days, said an official of the Lucknow Zoo. It seems to be the same situation at the Kanpur Zoo and Etawah Lion Safari. Another source said buffalo meat was being arranged for the lion safari from Agra. Officials said that new tenders would soon be floated for the supply of buffalo meat from abattoirs with valid licences.



There are 19 tigers and 16 lions, besides other meat -eating animals in different zoos in the state. Around 500 kg of meat is required to feed them daily. Hundreds of illegal abattoirs and meat shops have been sealed across the state since the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government took over.


Flummoxed with queer abbreviations like Acc, Pro & RE for words accused, produced and remand extended, the Madras High Court has said the court orders and the abbreviations used in them must be clear to common people.



We find it difficult to understand, remarked a bewildered bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and M Sathyanarayanan after coming across similar abbreviations in a judicial order of a the special judge of an NIA court in Puducherry.



This practice of using unfamiliar abbreviations needs to be necessarily deprecated, said the bench, scoffing at the unique acronyms, even as standing counsel R Muthukumarasamy took pains to explain that they stood for expressions like accused, produced and remand extended.



Orders passed by the courts should be understandable and legible to common man and the petitioners, the court said. The bench made the remark while hearing a batch of habeas corpus pleas.


Army Chief General Bipin Rawat called upon the industry to respond to problems faced by the defence forces in terms of adoption of new technology to counter wars. Can you give us what we need? he asked, releasing the second volume of Compendium of Problem Statements, which has been prepared by the Army Design Bureau (ADB) after a detailed interaction with all stakeholders, including soldiers deployed in the field. The army chief asked the industry and the academia to align technology solutions to the stated problems.



We want to fight the next war with technology on our side and not like the past, he said. Pointing to the drawbacks in trial equipment, Gen Rawat asked the industry and academia to focus on the fact that the Indian Army will fight its wars in varied terrain and weather conditions. He nudged them to come up with robust, rugged, miniaturised yet technologically compatible solutions.



Since the launch of the Make in India initiative in 2014, several measures have been taken by the government to promote indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence and aerospace equipment in the country by harnessing the capabilities of the public and private sectors.



The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) was revised and brought into effect from April 2016. A new category of procurement  Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)  has been introduced in DPP 2016, which has been accorded the topmost priority for the procurement of capital equipment. Besides this, preference has been accorded to Buy (Indian) and Buy and Make (Indian) categories of capital acquisition over Buy (Global) and Buy and Make (Global) categories, according to a defence ministry official.



The Make procedure has been simplified with provisions for funding 90% of the development cost by the government for the Indian industry and reserving projects not exceeding development cost of Rs 10 crore (government-funded) and Rs 3 crore (industry-funded) for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Under the revised policy, Foreign Direct Investment up to 49% is allowed through automatic route and beyond 49% under government approval route wherever it is likely to result in access to modern technology.
Smarting under his partys massive defeat in the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was at his sarcastic best. Speaking to reporters after the SP national executive meet here on Saturday, Akhilesh refrained from commenting on the performance of the Yogi Adityanath government, but said all that the BJP regime had done so far was brooming and nothing else.



Had I known the officers broom so well, I, too, would have given them brooms, said. He also took a dig at Chief Minister Adityanath for getting his official residence purified with cow urine and Gangajal during housewarming rituals.



I will bring Gangajal with the help of the fire brigade to get my official residence purified when my party comes to power after the 2022 Assembly elections, Akhilesh said. A group of priests had arrived at the 5 Kalidas Marg official residence of the chief minister and performed a series of rituals, amid chanting of vedic mantras.


Kicking off the BJPs poll campaign in the national capital, Shah accused Kejriwal of picking up fights with the Modi government for political reasons. The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by the CBI. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers and street lights.



A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequers money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements, Shah said in his address to party workers at the Ramlila ground.



He referred to saffron surge as the BJP formed governments in four  Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa  of the five states that went to polls and urged party workers to work hard to ensure hat-trick in civic polls and uproot AAP from Delhi. After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today, BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps so that the BJPs victory flag is unfurled in the national capital, he pointed out.



Shah compared what he called BJPs clean record against AAPs tainted regime and pointed out that many of Delhi ruling partys ministers and legislators were booked on charges of corruption and rape. Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu charged the Delhi government of non-cooperation with the Centre due to which the city was lagging behind in development.

The BJP has taken a plunge for the next big challenge in Delhi where civic elections in April are giving saffron corporators jitters as they face huge anti-incumbency and performance issues.BJP president Amit Shahs strategy, as outlined in his first rally on Saturday, is to highlight corruption that, he said, has flourished in the Delhi government under AAP. To beat anti-incumbency against its own corporators, the party has decided to field new faces as it attempts to aim at power in the three bodies for third time in a row.Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal launched a counter punch and said on Saturday that AAP will waive off house tax which was a source of corruption in the BJP-ruled corporation if it is voted to power in the April 23 polls. The civic polls will be the first test of the AAP governments popularity since it did not do well in Goa and Punjab.
The Shiv Sena seems to be in a fix over its MP Ravindra Gaikwad beating up an Air India staffer and then getting himself put on a no-fly list by the Federation of Indian Airlines, even as he and his party became a punching bag on social media. In fact, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had expressed displeasure over the incident and sought a report from Gaikwad.



On Friday, Gaikwad had left New Delhi by train to arrive in Mumbai and head to Matoshree, the bungalow of the Thackerays. But he did not turn up. The whereabouts of Gaikwad are not yet known. Television reports indicated he got down in Gujarat and was travelling to his hometown Osmanabad by road. However, the reports could not be independently confirmed. Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande confirmed that the MP was to meet Uddhav. He is expected to meet Uddhav Thackeray the party has taken the incident seriously, she said, indicating that the party did not approve of such behaviour.



The Shiv Sena can never support Ravindra Gaikwads behaviour. But there should be an inquiry to find out why our MP was forced to behave this way. Hitting anybody can never be the culture of the Sena, but we will surely raise our hand wherever required, MP Sanjay Raut was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, the Congress demanded Gaikwads arrest. Trivial to equate Shiv Senas violence with VIP arrogance. Ravindra Gaikwads confession should result in his arrest and expulsion from Lok Sabha, former Congress MP Milind Deora tweeted.



Writer Shobhaa De tweeted: So with all airlines banning Ravindra Gaikwad, shouldnt Indian Railways follow suit? Let Gaikwad cycle back to Mumbai. What if @RailMinIndia also decides to not allow #RavindraGaikwad to travel by trains? #JustAsking, filmmaker Ashoke Pandit tweeted.
The Law Commission has asked the Centre to make bring an amendment to the Advocates Act to regulate the legal profession and enable litigants, who suffer on account of lawyers misconducts and strikes, to seek compensation. In its 266th report to the Ministry of Law and Justice, the commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice B S Chauhan, said that there should also be a provision to award punishment to errant lawyers.



The panel, which gave a slew of suggestions to make advocacy a litigant-friendly affair, also sought punishment for advocates for going on strike and jeopardising the judicial business in courts. The commission also said that if a person suffers a loss due to the misconduct of an advocate or due to his/her participation in a strike, the victim should be able to claim compensation from the lawyer in question.



And the non-payment of fees by the claimant should not be a defence for the advocate against the claim of compensation, it added. The report has suggested a fine which may extend up to Rs 3 lakh, along with the cost of proceedings, as punishment for the misconduct. The report also sought to add in the functions of the Bar Council of India (BCI) the clause to make rules to deal with strikes, boycotts or abstentions from courts by advocates, provide for suitable measures in this regard and to provide for punishments, including the punishment of disqualification from contesting any election of bar councils or of bar associations for a period of six years.
Bengaluru got an exclusive cyber crime police station on Saturday. Located at the police commissioners office on Infantry Road, the cyber crime police station will be part of the Central Crime Branch (CCB).



Till now, the city was served by the cyber crime police station that had jurisdiction over the central police range which covers Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Tumakuru, Kolar, Chikkaballapur and Ramanagaram districts. Similar cyber crime police stations were set up in Belagavi, Kalaburagi, Davangere, Mysuru and Mangaluru with jurisdiction over the respective police ranges. These police stations can investigate cyber frauds to the tune of Rs 5 lakh and above. Online frauds to the tune of Rs 50 lakh are investigated by the cyber crime police station which is part of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).



Bengalurus cyber crime police station, however, will not have such restrictions and it can investigate online frauds of any sum. People can file complaints at the cyber crime police station or approach the jurisdictional police station. Cyber crimes registered at other police stations in the city will be transferred to the cyber crime police station for investigation, if needed, Bengaluru Police Commissioner Praveen Sood told DH.



The cyber crime police station in Bengaluru will be staffed by two teams headed by inspectors and consist of two sub-inspectors and 16 constables, who will be trained by experts.




Police conducted mock drills for the first time at Metro stations across the city on Saturday to assess their preparedness for untoward incidents and catastrophic events. Hoax bomb calls, terrorist infiltration or attacks are some of the situations that could arise without any warning and we wanted to know for ourselves how prepared we are, a senior police officer said.



The drills were conducted in the morning peak hour without any intimation. Even the officials of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd were caught unawares as they had been kept out of the loop. Saturday was chosen because the crowd is bigger and the challenge for police stiffer, a source said. Metro was chosen for the drill because of its visibility exposure and connectivity to prominent places in the city. Sniffer dogs, bomb detection and disposal squad, anti-sabotage squad and Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs) were part of the drill.



Many passengers were taken aback by the drill which they thought was either a police operation or an emergency. Some of them even alerted television channels and newspapers to the breaking news. Some passengers panicked initially, but when police reassured them that it was a drill, they were excited and offered to cooperate, the source said, adding that nobody was put to inconvenience.



Different police divisions carried out the drill at Metro stations in their jurisdiction. There are eight Metro stations in the western division alone and we are now confident about our preparedness, an officer who was part of the drill told DH. It was a different experience to check through the entire line, columns, piers and supporting structures in a limited time.



A senior police officer said that while general mock drills were conducted regularly at bus stations and railway stations  the last one being in January  it was the first time that detailed drills were conducted at Metro stations. We will conduct many more such drills in the future to assess our preparedness, he added.


The post-mortem and inquest on Nduku Ifeanyi Christian, a Nigerian who died mysteriously on March 13, were carried out at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital on Saturday in the presence of two officials, police and a member of the African community.



Africans living in Bengaluru stayed put around the morgue as the post-mortem began around 11 am and went on till 3.30 pm. Only after the reports emerge will we be able to know the exact cause of death, said Renuka K Sukumar, DCP (Traffic-North). The body has been kept at the hospital as the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) had closed by then. Members of the African community have obtained clearance from police and will decide on Monday on sending the body to Nigeria or burying it in Bengaluru.



Home Minister G Parameshwara reiterated that there was no racism angle in the Nigerians death. The Ministry of External Affairs and the FRRO monitor visas. They do not share information with us. In each police station, during their (foreigners) entry into the city or state, or admissions to college/institutions, they should inform the nearest police station about foreign nationals. The police will go there and verify and create a database. The process has started. The one who is dead did not have a passport. It expired in 2012. We have deported about 70 people. We need to simplify norms related to deporting foreign nationals, he said in a statement.


The traffic police will not immediately tow away your vehicles for violating the no-parking rule. They will instead issue a public warning to tow away the vehicle if the owner doesnt turn up in five minutes, Bengaluru Police Commissioner Praveen Sood has said. If the vehicle owner turns up by then, they can take back the vehicle by paying a fine of Rs 100 and collecting the receipt.



But if they doesnt show up in the stipulated time, the vehicle will be towed away and they will have to pay the fine as well as the towing charge. Sood said the decision followed public complaints that police were towing away vehicles without any warning or sometimes in places without no-parking boards.



He said the decision had been conveyed to senior traffic police officers who would start enforcing it in the coming days. Additionally, police are circulating a short film on What to do and what not to do when your vehicle is towed on social media, the police commissioner added.




Schoolchildren, officials, WaterAid India organisation and volunteers from like-minded civic groups marked World Water Day by taking out a rally from BBMP office in Bellandur to Yemalur to build awareness about issues related to water with tableaux, placards and by raising slogans on conservation methods.



Organised by Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), a non-profit organisation that works on water, sanitation, and hygiene education in parts of Bengaluru, the rally saw the participation of over 200 people. One of the directors from SVYM, Kumaraswamy said, With water crisis looming large over the state, saving water is the need of the hour.



Water warriors

Similarly, a group of activists from Bangalore Civic Leadership Incubation Programme (B.Clip) team launched a water conservation campaign under the banner Bengaluru Water Warriors by taking out a walkathon from Kanteerava Stadium to the Queens statue in Cubbon Park. A short video made by Beautiful Bengaluru citizens group on water preservation was released on the occasion. The video would be circulated on social media to reach out to a large number of people.



Jal Utsav

A core volunteer of the campaign and B.Clip member Meenakshi Ravikrishna said they are in talks with the BBMP to hold 'Jal Utsav' with Compost Santhe conducted by the civic agency, every week. Jal Utsav will see the participation of rainwater harvesting (RWH) experts and RWH-trained plumbers where information on RWH, stopping of water leaks and other useful details will be disseminated. To start with, we will hold the first workshop at BTM Layout in the first week of April and will tie up with apartment complexes, added Meenakshi.


The Home department has requested the Transport department to ban the movement of vehicles which are more than 15 years old to prevent accidents and check pollution in the city. The police have observed that old vehicles are involved in more accidents due to mechanical faults. These vehicles are also contributing to increasing pollution, Home Minister G Parameshwara told reporters on Saturday.



The minister has made a request to his Cabinet colleague, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy to ban vehicles which are over 15 years old, in Bengaluru. Soon, officials of the Home and Transport departments will deliberate on banning such vehicles. Replying to a question on traffic jams due to protests at the Freedom Park, the minister said that the government has not yet taken any decision to identify a separate venue for protests outside the heart of the city.



Murder cases

Regarding the murder attempt on Kadabagere Srinivas, Parameshwara said that there was no political pressure on the police. The police have arrested a few suspects, while some others are at large who would be arrested soon, he said. Some important cases require more time for the arrests of suspects. Maximum number of police officers are working on cracking the murder case of Prof M M Kalaburagi, but the police are still clueless.



The home minister, who took part in the property parade at the police commissioners office, handed over stolen vehicles to the owners. In the past few months, the city police have recovered stolen properties worth Rs 2.97 crore. Parameshwara said the government will organise property parades every month to return the stolen properties to their owners.


A history sheeter and his accomplices stabbed a mobile shop owner and ransacked his shop at Vinayaka Nagar in Hebbagodi on Friday. The victim, Vikas Mishra, who sustained multiple stab injuries, has been admitted to a private hospital.



The accused Manju, a history-sheeter, and his gang were doing bike stunts in front of Mishras shop. Mishra's friend objected to this and arguments ensued. With the intervention of a few passersby, the gang went away, but returned later looking for Mishras friend.



Armed with lethal weapons, the gang ransacked the shop, robbed valuables and stabbed Mishra who tried to resist. The gang fled with the loot after Mishra, who sustained injuries, raised an alarm. Neighbours rushed to his help and admitted him to a private hospital. They also informed the police.
The Bengaluru police will go the London police way and upgrade the dial 100 control room system for quickest response. During a recent visit to London, city police commissioner Praveen Sood obtained information from the London police about the use of technology in control rooms for quickest response.



The police have obtained Rs 20 crore funding under the mega city plan and procured equipment. The new control room will be up and running in about 45 days. Once operational, Bengaluru will become the first South Indian city to have upgraded control room. Currently, the system is functional in Jaipur and Delhi in India. The response time for reaching the spot in London is 15 minutes, while it is 25 minutes in Bengaluru. After upgrading, the police hope to set 15 minutes as response time.



There are only 15 lines in the control room for over one crore population in the city. Often blank calls, mysterious calls and calls seeking information are received. Hence, lines are always engaged or much time is taken to attend calls.



More lines

We will shortly add 100 lines in two months. We have set 15 seconds to attend a call, one minute for dispatch section and 15 minutes for vehicle to be dispatched, Sood told DH. The dispatch section decides if a vehicle needs be sent or the intervention of police inspectors, ACPs or DCPs is needed. Hence, one-minute deadline is set for the section, he said. In London, there are 80 desks at the control room to answer in 80 languages. Bengaluru police propose to set up three language desks.



We will set up regional language desks in addition to Kannada, English and Hindi, Sood added. The police are yet to take a call on which regional languages should be selected. The new system has a feedback mechanism to ascertain if the staff satisfactorily answered a call. For missed calls, the staff will call back to get information.



The police will shortly add 679 CCTV cameras with analysis and scanning facility across the city. The cameras will be connected to the control room. The staff automatically get footage from cameras installed in nearby areas from where calls originate. This helps the control room study the situation and take a decision. We have invited tenders to outsource the initiative. About 350 civilians will be recruited for the control room as we dont want to waste police resources, Sood said.


Bengalureans are all for increasing CCTV coverage of the city and many Residents Welfare Associations (RWAs) have already reaped benefits from getting watchful electronic eyes in their neighbourhood.

Jyothi Prasad, a civic leader in Govindarajanagar, vouched for the technology, giving the example of her area. "More than 30 cameras were installed about three or four months ago. Earlier, we used to have incidents of chain-snatching, garbage dumping and vehicle thefts but now the frequency has come down drastically," she said.



The RWA of her area worked with the corporator to identify spots where the infrastructure was most required. Jyothi said that residents are making use of the facility and asking for copies of the tapes. An incident of eve-teasing was also caught on tape and the perpetrators were arrested within 24 hours by identifying the vehicle registration paper, Jyothi said.



Surveillance cameras not only fight crime but if installed near black spots, they prevent garbage dumping, too. Mohammed Saleh, founder secretary of Active Resident Welfare Association of Infantry road, said, "On Park Road, there was a spot in front of a temple and mosque, where people from nearby shops and homes would dump garbage.



The temple and mosque installed cameras and put up a sign that the area was under surveillance. Just like that, the garbage dumping stopped, he recalled. This was the case in Jyothi's area too, where people stopped littering and gave the garbage to pourakarmikas instead.

Saleh said apartments should also supplement the machinery by installing cameras in their property as they fill in blind spots. He gave the example of a grocery store robbery in his area, which was captured on a camera installed in the apartment building opposite the store. He stressed that the cameras, well-lit streets and night patrolling in risky areas, have made his neighbourhood more secure and the residents now sleep peacefully at night.



Dr A Ravindra, former chief secretary of Karnataka and a resident of Indiranagar, said that while CCTV cameras will certainly help track criminals, there should be a system in place to support it. "There should be a mechanism of mobile squads so that the police viewing live footage can immediately get into action if they see any crime. They should be able to reach the spot immediately," he said.



It may not be feasible to instal cameras except in high risk areas, so brightly lit streets are important to make the city safe, he said. "Many streets in Bengaluru have poor streetlights or they are don't work at all. Good lighting will deter criminals and will make the streets safer for women," Dr Ravindra said.



Realising the benefits of CCTV cameras in making the neighbourhood safer, the HAL 2nd stage Residents Welfare Association (RWA) is now asking its local representatives to instal them from their funds. "Rather than having individual houses installing cameras, we have placed a formal request with our local MLAs to work with us and use their fund for the purpose," said Aruna Newton, president of the RWA.



She said that CCTV cameras are essential for a city like Bengaluru, but they need to be supported by an ecosystem. "We need a good command centre through which we can alert the police and we need a quick response team. Proper lighting is also a necessity," Newton said. BBMP should work towards creating this ecosystem and instal cameras in public places like bus stations and parks, she said.








Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 25

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Such strategic initiatives as the Southern Gas Corridor, as well as the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, have the potential to deepen the participation of the South Caucasus countries in global supply chains, reads an article posted on the website of The Jamestown Foundation.

In Armenia, there is a growing realization that the protracted conflict with Azerbaijan and its quasi-colonial dependence on Russia are the only factors keeping the country from seizing these opportunities, according to the article.

Europes longest running conflict was reactivated in Karabakh on Feb. 25, with ceasefire violations along the line of contact. The skirmishes lasted a few days and left several soldiers dead. Azerbaijans Ministry of Defense stated its forces had suffered losses while repelling the large-scale Armenian assault. By a suspicious coincidence, the fighting erupted on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the tragic and deadly events in Khojaly, reads the article.

Azerbaijani diplomats believe the recent Armenian provocation was aimed at disrupting the negotiation process over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts peaceful settlement, according to the article.

In recent years, Baku has perceived what appears to be Armenian preparations for a new assault. Thus, of particular note was news of the supply of MiG-29 fighters and other sophisticated aircraft from Russia to Armenia in February 2016. The Kremlin also extended to the Armenian authorities a $200 million loan for arms purchases. And in the autumn of last year, media reported the transfer of Iskander ballistic missiles to Armenia, the article said.

A significant development in recent months has been the formation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform, the first-ever attempt at independent peoples diplomacy, whereby a number of Armenian public figures openly voiced their support for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Some of them even visited Baku while intergovernmental contacts were at perhaps a historic low, according to the article.

A few days prior to the February violence around Karabakh, Baku hosted the Third Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) Advisory Council. It was attended not only by high-ranking officials of the countries involved in the SGC, but also senior representatives from the European Union and United Kingdom, read the article.

It also states that oil production in Azerbaijan is already gradually declining.

Thus, if Baku wishes to make the most of its limited oil wealth, it has to commit to a wider engagement in Westward transportation networks, of which the SGC is a key part. At the same time, the European Unions interest in diversifying its energy sources means that Europe has a real stake in the latest energy contest for Caspian energy resources.

The Southern Gas Corridor project encroaches on Russian interests as a near-monopoly supplier to Southeastern Europe, said the article.

Thus, Moscow has and will continue to try to prevent the completion of the SGC using both carrots (by proposing allegedly more efficient alternative projects, such as South Stream and later Turkish Stream) and sticks (efforts to sabotage projects viewed in Moscow as hostile).

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 25

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Azerbaijan is in a strategic partnership with the US, said Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijans ambassador to the US, in an interview posted on the kgou.org website.

We're allies in many ways. We have common goals, common visions, the envoy said, adding he believes that focusing on small irregularities is a mistake.

Suleymanov, speaking of Azerbaijans history and culture, noted that geography plays a key role in understanding the country.

He said Azerbaijan is a bridge connecting cultures as it borders Russia, Iran, Turkey, Middle East.

Influence of different cultures provides for a very secular, very modern and extremely diverse and inclusive society, according to him.

The diplomat noted that Azerbaijan has an excellent relationship with the neighbors, excluding Armenia.

Unfortunately, as a result of the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the occupation of Azerbaijani territories, the relationship between Azerbaijan and Armenia is non-existent. I am hoping that we will see an improvement in this area. But, of course, that conflict needs to be resolved.

Speaking about development of the oil industry in Azerbaijan, the envoy noted that oil helped to make the countrys capital Baku a cosmopolitan international city and Azerbaijan invests in infrastructure development.

He said Azerbaijan is considered to be among the best countries for investments by the World Bank.

The countrys economy grew enormously and the GDP growth in 2008-2009 was the fastest in the world, which is certainly energy related, the envoy said, adding energy resources cannot solve everything and it is necessary to invest in infrastructure.

Suleymanov noted that the oil price falling decreased Azerbaijani revenue significantly.

At the same time, I think, overall, we managed to maintain normalcy, the social payments, maintain the salaries. People are understanding that there is a difficulty but it is difficult to relate it to the global shocks.

The envoy further noted that peoples attempts to impose their own vision of what democracy should look like are a mistake, he said, adding that democracy is different everywhere.

I would say Azerbaijan is an emerging democracy, but it's a democracy which takes into account its own pace of development. It focuses on the building blocks of democracy. I would even say civil society, Suleymanov said.

Inclusiveness, diversity, and respect for women, respect for minorities  those are important factors and without that there can be no democracy, he added.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25

Trend:

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Bangladesh's President Abdul Hamid.

"On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my most sincere congratulations to you and your people on the occasion of the public holiday of the People's Republic of Bangladesh  Independence Day.

On this remarkable day, I wish you robust health, success in your work, and the friendly people of Bangladesh peace and prosperity" said the congratulatory letter.
California defies Trump; upholds own strict auto emissions standards

In defiance of the Trump administration, California's environmental regulator will continue to maintain the state's cleaner-car standards till 2025 and follow it up with formal efforts to tighten rules for the nest five years.

The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to maintain the state's 2025 limits on tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions and started drafting stricter goals for zero-emission vehicle sales through 2030.

Targets for sales of cars that needed to be powered by battery, fuel cell or plug-in hybrid powertrains were set for 15 per cent by 2025, from about 3 per cent currently.

According to commentators, the California Air Resources Board's (CARB's) vote to pursue stricter emissions rules could lead to conflict with President Donald Trump, who described environmental regulations in the US as ''out of control'' when meeting the chief executive officers of General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV in January.

CARB's chairman questioned the industry for seeking a review of federal standards that Trump agreed to reopen.

''What were you thinking when you threw yourselves on the mercy of the Trump administration to solve your problems?'' chairman Mary Nichols said during a hearing Friday. ''What did you mean when you said you don't want to question the overall thrust of the standards? Why do another review if the current program is basically okay?''

According to commentators, the vote by CARB pointed to the state's plan to stand up to president Trump's agenda. Leading politicians in the state, from the governor down to many mayors, had promised to lead the resistance to Trump's policies.

California could set its own standards thanks to a longstanding waiver granted under the Clean Air Act, which gave the state a significant hold over the auto industry. Twelve other states, including New York and Pennsylvania, Washington DC, follow California's standards, a coalition that covered over 130 million residents and more than a third of the vehicle market in the US.
Cinven in exclusive talks to buy French chemicals group Chryso from LBO France

European private equity firm Cinven is in exclusive talks to buy French chemicals group Chryso, from LBO France, the companies said in a statement.

Cinven which has also recently bid for German drugmaker Stada, said that the proposed acquisition would follow its 2015 purchase of France-based Labco, one of the largest European operators of medical diagnostics laboratories, which it subsequently merged with Germany's Synlab, to create the largest clinical laboratory services company in Europe.

Chryso is a leading international producer of additives and admixtures, which improve the performance of concrete and cement, and construction systems for the repair and maintenance of buildings.

The company operates across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the US, with sales in more than 100 countries worldwide.

It has 29 manufacturing facilities globally and four R&D centres, and employs 1,130 people.

Cinven said that it has identified Chryso as an attractive investment opportunity based on the company's strong market position in an attractive market segment across both developed and emerging geographies and the strong growth in infrastructure spending, increasing housing demands in emerging economies, and a housing market recovery in Europe and the US.

Commenting on the proposed Chryso investment, Xavier Geismar, partner at Cinven, said, ''We had identified CHRYSO as a strong business operating in the highly attractive building chemistry industry and have been following the company closely. Cinven is delighted to have this opportunity to invest in the business, backing the excellent management team.''

Thierry Bernard, president and CEO of Chryso Group, said, ''Chryso is extremely well positioned to benefit from several attractive market drivers including increasing concrete consumption for infrastructure and housing globally; the greater complexity and scale of construction projects  with tougher requirements on building materials performance; and a growing focus on sustainable development.''


 Sepka architekti designed a wooden single family house in Prague with reinforced concrete foundation, which is minimalized on the steep slope only to a concrete foot.



 Czech studio Dvorak & partners realised a giant wooden construction suspended above the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, which is inspired by the shapes of the giant airships.



 SMLXL studio renovated an apartment loft in central Prague that had to appear clean, light and industrial at the same time, whith swings as chairs.



 The owners of a plot in Dobris, Czech Republic, wanted a house with no angles and in solidarity with the forest behind its back, so Mimosa Architekti built a fluid building covered with larch shakes.



 Postnaturalia is a complex sculptural installation made by Kristof Kintera, with the collaboration of Richard Wiesner and Rastislav Juhas, for Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia.



 The ground floor of an Art Deco building in Czech Republic was renovated by studio Mjolk to host a burger restaurant inspired by underground Chicago.



 Located on top of a hill in Velke Mezirici, Czech Republic, Studio Acht designed a steel observation tower on the picturesque landscapes of the Czech-Moravian Highlands.



 Studio OOOOX designed the interiors of Tony Adams new barber shop in Prague, introducing a bar next to the shaving area, with vintage furniture and wood.



Top: Mimosa Architekti, Casa a Dobris, Reppublica Ceca, 2017


There was an eerie silence in the city of Derry in the early hours of Thursday morning last as thousands of people from every corner of the country and far beyond converged on the city to bid farewell to a friend, leader, comrade and inspiration.

There was a stillness in the air as a piper playing Amazing Grace, led the funeral cortege along the streets of the Bogside to St. Columbas Church which had already hosted two funerals earlier in the morning.

Many made their way to the McGuinness home in the Bogside simply to stand in dignified silence paying their last respect to a man they all regarded as one of their own.

His remains were carried from his home in the heart of the Bogside, down Westland Street, where the past loomed on murals of Sands and Mandela and hunger strikers, past a pole with a faded poster demanding Brits out now IRA, beneath a tattered flag.

The cortege continued around Free Derry corner, where the ghosts of Bloody Sunday serve to remind of how once strife had prevailed but more importantly just how far everybody has come. Along the route dignified applause rose and fell as they carried his body along, all the way up to the Long Tower church, inside which the likes of Bill Clinton, Enda Kenny, Michael D Higgins, Mary McAleese, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen, Arlene Foster and Peter Robinson had gathered. Leaders past and present were sitting there patiently for a man, even in death, who had brought a lasting legacy of peace to the maiden city.

This was not a day for political flag waving or recriminations - this was a day when the people of Derry and indeed Ireland said goodbye to a man they all really did love so well. Outside the church they stood in silence with many grown up men and women visibly shedding tears.

Among them was John Hume, refusing to allow ill heath keep him from saluting a man who had taken a very different path to his.

When McGuinness had been a teenager, Hume had been asked to persuade him not to go the way of the gun, but McGuinness paid Hume no heed and went in his own direction.Humes presence was also a reminder that initial the path followed by McGuinness was not the only route to fight the injustices of a sectarian state. This path to peace was indeed fully embraced by McGuinness as one who succeeded in taking the gun out of politics with many of his comrades. Paying tribute to the late McGuinness, former President Bill Clinton said, "He persevered and he prevailed. He risked the wrath of his comrades and the rejection of his adversaries.

"He made honourable compromises and was strong enough to keep them and came to be trusted because his word was good. "And he never stopped being who he was. A good husband, a good father, a follower of the faith of his father and mother and a passionate believer in a free, secure, self-governing Ireland.

Clinton also paid tribute to Taoiseach Enda Kenny for the impact he had made in Washington last week when he spoke out on immigration. The former president also thanked DUP leader Arlene Foster, who received a standing ovation from the congregation for her attendance and urged all politicians to finish the work of creating a lasting peace.

We must finish Martins work, he said.

Rev David Latimer, who was one of Martins closest friends, spoke with genuine affection about the Martin McGuinness who he regarded as a dear friend. "At some point in future I'm looking forward ... to praising God with him in Heaven," he said - with a cleric's assurance in his own afterlife.

Speaking to the Democrat he said that even in death Martin McGuinness had helped bolster the peace process by bringing old foes together under the one roof. I told Arlene Foster Look around, we are all here together under the same roof today - there is no difference, we are all the same. Lets us now stay under that same roof and work together for a lasting peace.
Don't forget to put your clocks forward by one hour as we move into what officially is the start of British Summer Time (BST). The change takes place this Sunday March 26 at 1am, the clocks will go forward one hour signalling the start of British Summer Time (BST).

This will mean getting an hour less in bed but the plus side is there will be more daylight in the evenings. BST will remain until October 29  when clocks go back by one hour at 2am and GMT resumes.

The idea of British Summer Time was first proposed in the UK by William Willett. He felt that valuable daylight was being wasted in the mornings during the summer months because people were still in bed.

In 1907 he published a pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight, in which he outlined his plans to change the time of the nations clocks. But when he died in 1915 the Government still refused to back BST.

However, a year later, in May 1916, Britain passed the Summer Time Act and started changing its clocks twice a year. Ireland followed suit.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Mar. 25

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is expected to pay an official visit to Turkmenistan on Mar. 29-31, the Turkmen government said in a message.

"The upcoming official visit of the Belarus president will give a new impetus to the traditional multifaceted partnership," reads the message.

It was also noted that regular mutual visits and summit meetings contribute to a high level of the Turkmenistan-Belarus relations, which are actively developing both in bilateral and multilateral formats within authoritative international organizations

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1993.
The death of Bridie McGivern, 40 Fatima Court, Dundalk, has left a huge void in her loving family. She passed away peacefully in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, on February 4, 2017, the day before her 87th birthday

Bridie was born in 1930, and was the daughter of Thomas and Catherine Moore from Toberona.

Bridie met Hugh James (Jimmy) McGivern from Pearse Park, and the two married in 1954. Together they had four adoring children, Katrina, Patrick, Seamus and Thomas.

Bridie and Jimmy were soul mates and it was seldom you would see one without the other.

She worked in both Rawsons and ECCO, before leaving work to concentrate on raising her family.

She took a great pride in her family home and local area, and was a founder member of the Eimear Ladies, Fatima Residents Group, which organised many local events, including social gatherings and Christmas parties and trips away for local children.

She had a great devotion to Saint Brigid and often made the trip to the shrine at Faughart, bringing members of her family along for the outing.

She was first and foremost a family person who took pride in the family members achievements and watched with keen interest their development through school, work and sport.

Bridie will be remembered as a smiling, caring lady, a friend to all, a wonderful neighbour and a pleasure to be around.

She was predeceased by her husband, Jimmy in 2008, by her brothers, Sonny and Michael, her sisters Christina Myles, Kathleen Doris and Maggie McArdle and her parents.

She will be greatly missed by her daughter, Katrina, sons, Patrick, Seamus, Thomas, brother, Brendan, son-in-law, Sean, daughter-in-law, Geraldine, Seamus partner, Angela, her grandchildren, Denise, Louise, Sean, Gemma, Tara, Jamie and Michelle, great-grandchildren, Lucy, Liam and Jack, nephews, nieces, extended relatives, neighbours and friends.

Bridie reposed at the family home in Fatima before her removal on Tuesday morning to St Josephs Church, Castletown, where her funeral Mass was celebrated by Father Vinod Thennattil Kuria.

Items symbolising her life including family photographs, scratch cards, a copy of Irelands Own and bingo books were presented at the altar at the beginning of the Mass by her children, with narration by eldest grandchild, Denise.

The Readings were given by her grandchildren, Gemma and Jamie, while the Offertory Gifts were presented by Geraldine and Mark.

The Prayers of the Faithful were read by her grand-daughters, Louise, Tara, Michelle, niece, Mary, grandniece, Michelle and nephew, Francis, while the Communion Reflection was delivered by her eldest grandson, Sean.

She was taken from the church to her final resting place in the adjoining graveyard with her husband, Jimmy.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Mar. 25

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

Prime ministers of Uzbekistan and Russia Abdulla Aripov and Dmitry Medvedev will mull economic cooperation between the two countries in Moscow Mar. 28, a representative of the Uzbek government told Trend.

The sides will discuss expansion of trade and economic cooperation, increasing supplies of marketable products, implementation of joint projects in energy, transportation and agriculture, as well as cooperation in the cultural and humanitarian spheres, according to the government representative.

It was noted that the PMs meeting will precede the state visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Russia, scheduled for early April.

Russia is one of Uzbekistans leading trading partners  about 20 percent of the Uzbek foreign trade turnover accounts for this country. The Uzbekistan-Russia trade turnover exceeded $4 billion in 2016. Russia invested more than $6 billion in the Uzbek economy.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 18

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran expects increase in its crude oil exports to the European countries during the next two months, Ali Kardor, the countrys deputy oil minister, said.

Iran currently exports over 500,000 barrels of oil to Europe on a daily basis, Kardor said, IRNA news agency reported March 18.

Kardor, who heads the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said that his company aims to increase the figure to 800,000 barrels per day within the next two months.

Iran exported 2.298 billion barrels of crude oil per day in February, he said, adding that the countrys condensate exports reached 700,000 barrels per day in the period.

Kardor said that Irans crude oil output will reach 4 million barrels per day by May.

Europes share of Iranian oil exports was 767,000 barrels per day (bpd) in December 2016, up by 10 percent from November, and very close to pre-sanction export levels that averaged 800,000 bpd.
Theres been some finger-wagging that liberals shouldnt be cheering the Republicans huge defeat on Trumpcare.

As everyone knows, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) didnt actually put the bill up to a vote because it was doomed by defections from moderate Republicans and Freedom Caucus members alike. And President Trump didnt know the bill well enough to whip votes, Politico Magazine embarrassingly reports.

Yes, there are many other fights ahead on the debt ceiling, tax policy, Russian interference in our election, etc. And I dont think Trump and Ryan are giving up the ghost of killing Obamacare, no matter what they say.

So if Democrats want to take the opportunity to craft some fixes for the Affordable Care Act, I think thats great.

But for the time being, its OK to celebrate that a bad policy died. Because that means:

24 million people get to keep their health insurance.

People wont see massive insurance rate increases.

People with pre-existing conditions wont be priced out of care.

Essential health benefits, like prenatal and post-natal care, are still protected.

Seniors wont be targeted for rate increases.

The more than 650,000 people who gained insurance through the Medicaid expansion in Michigan are safe.

Small business owners and the self-employed can get better rates on policies through competition afforded by the health care exchange.

And theres a whole lot more. So go ahead and revel in the fact that Republicans failed to do what theyve promised for seven long years. Go ahead and celebrate that peoples lives will be better without Trumpcare. After all, there havent been a lot of reasons to smile since November 8.
Privacy advocates and consumer groups are fighting back against the U.S. Senates Thursday vote to undo privacy restrictions on Internet service providers.

In a 50-48 party line vote, the Senate approved the Congressional Review Act, S.J. Res. 34. If the House of Representatives gives it the green light, it then will go to the president to be signed into law.

Were working actively with a coalition of other consumer groups pushing to defeat the resolution in the House, said John Simpson, director of the Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project.

If the consumer groups dont succeed in the House, we will remind President Trump that he has expressed concerns about invasions of his own privacy, and call upon him to veto the resolution to protect consumers, Simpson told the E-Commerce Times.

Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has put up a Web page urging consumers to call their members of Congress about the resolution.

The Center for Democracy & Technology also has pledged to fight the resolution.

Without the FCC rule, Americans will have no real privacy protections online because of current limitations placed on the Federal Trade Commission by Congress and the courts, said Katharina Kopp, policy director at the Center for Digital Democracy.

For example, an ISP could infer a subscriber was unemployed, based on online usage patterns, and sell this information to predatory financial vendors, which can have unforeseen consequences, Kopp told the E-Commerce Times.

What the Legislation Provides

The Senate resolution lifts the FCC privacy rules adopted last fall.

The rules require, among other things, that ISPs get opt-in consent from consumers before sharing such sensitive information as geolocation data; financial data; health data; childrens personal information; Social Security numbers; Web browsing and app usage history; and the content of communications.

The resolution enables ISPs to profit by collecting and selling consumer information without prior consent or notification, said James Scott, senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

Further, ISPs will continue to operate without associated liability, culpability, and accountability for the irresponsible collection, dissemination and exposure of consumer data the resolution will enable, Scott told the E-Commerce Times.

Redlining and other discriminatory practices in housing and loan pricing could be facilitated, noted Consumer Watchdogs Simpson, and drug companies could assemble extremely personal health information and use it to target consumers without running afoul of HIPAA.

Psychographic big data algorithms are powerful enough to precision-target and leverage pretty much anyone being targeted, ICITs Scott warned. Get ready for turnkey nation state perception steering and psychographically targeted propaganda unlike anything weve seen before.

Can Consumers Protect Themselves?

Consumers will have to encrypt all their traffic, using either a virtual private network or Tor, advised EFF Senior Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula.

You cant just install Privacy Badger or browse in incognito or private mode, he told the E-Commerce Times.

However, VPNs usually cost money, and you have to trust your VPN provider not to spy on you instead, Gillula pointed out, while Tor users frequently encounter excessive CAPTCHAs and other impediments to browsing freely since websites often treat Tor users differently.

Forever and Ever, Oh Man!

The FCC cant do anything if the Congressional Review Act is signed into law, because CRAs prohibit an agency from passing a new regulation in the same form or one that is substantially the same, Simpson observed.

Further, because the FCC reclassified broadband access providers as common carriers to enact Net neutrality, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission would have no jurisdiction, he noted.

There would be no privacy rules, said Simpson, and nobody could enact them.
The United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has come under increasing fire from Republican lawmakers who now have the Trump administration to back their efforts.

Long-time critic Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, compared the bureau to a tyranny in a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News.

Hensarling reportedly is preparing a new version of the Financial Choice Act  the Republican-led effort to repeal and replace the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act  that would include CFPB reforms.

Among other things, Choice Act 2.0 reportedly will seek to restructure the CFPB as a civil law enforcement agency with additional restrictions on its authority.

Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. John Ratcliffe, also of Texas, last week introduced legislation S. 370 and H.R. 1031 to reverse what they consider unaccountable overreach at the CFPB.

In addition, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, along with several Republican cosponsors, last week introduced the Consumer Financial Bureau Accountability Act, which aims to limit the bureaus power.

Consumer Protection or Business Burden?

The CFPB has come down hard on businesses for defrauding consumers, including in the Wells Fargo scandal. In that case, the banks employees fraudulently opened more than 2 million accounts for customers and then tried to force victims into arbitration.

The bureau last spring proposed a new oversight rule prohibiting mandatory arbitration clauses.

A coalition of consumer protection and other groups later last year wrote the House Financial Services Committee to oppose Choice Act amendments that would impact the CFPB.

Those amendments included the dismantling of needed consumer protections, the Center for Responsible Lending said earlier this month.

Further, President Trumps executive order on revising Dodd-Frank might lead to a repeat of the 2008 economic crisis, the CRL cautioned.

The CFPB  as was demonstrated with the Wells Fargo scandal  is an important guardian for consumers against the worst abuses by business, John Simpson, the privacy policy director at Consumer Watchdog, told CRM Buyer.

On the other hand, the CFPB is perceived by many  small businesses, especially  as inappropriate overreach by the federal government into the affairs of business, said Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

Anything that reduces the burden on small banks will free up capital and provide relief to small employers, increasing jobs and providing new services and products to customers, he told CRM Buyer.

Under the Gun

Bureau opponents object to what they claim is an autocratic structure. The director, currently Robert Cordray, is appointed by the president and can be dismissed only for cause.

Cordray, who initiates proceedings against targets before a CFPB-appointed administrative law judge, also hears appeals arising from the proceedings and can overturn the judges rulings.

An appellate court last year ruled that the CFPB was unconstitutionally structured because it is an independent agency headed by a single director. It voided the directors for-cause employment clause, but it rejected calls to dismantle the bureau.

It appears that this agency is uniquely powerful and lacks the normal separation of duties and limitations of power other agencies work under, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

The agencys duties and funding should be folded into law enforcement again to ensure due process and eliminate the lack of separation of duties that has put its existence at risk, he told CRM Buyer. This should be done with built-in assurances and an auditable process.
By Jeremy Symons

While running for president, Donald Trump threatened to virtually eliminate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), leaving only little tidbits.

Scott Pruitt, Trumps EPA administrator, has been tasked with the job of tearing down the agency from within. This is the man who sued the EPA 14 timeswith strong financial backing from companies seeking to weaken clean air and clean water standardswhen serving as Oklahomas Attorney General.

The president has used deception to reassure the general public that critical environmental laws will continue to protect public health and he is now taking our country in a dangerous direction.

Here are five ways he and Pruitt will go about weakening the agency responsible for keeping our air clean, drinking water safe and toxic chemicals from harming our families:

1. Gut the EPAs Budget

Deep budget cuts at the EPA are being proposed under the guise of fixing budget issues.

In reality, the agency accounts for a mere two-tenths of one percent of federal spending. Any claim that major budget issues can be dealt with on the back of such a small sliver of the budget is false.

Instead, the proposed budget cuts are a clear signal to a narrow group of special interests and supporters who share Trumps disdain for the EPA because environmental regulations dont serve their agenda.

2. Relax Enforcement Against Illegal Pollution

Leaked budget documents show that Trump has already directed the EPA to curtail pollution-monitoring and get states to assume more active enforcement roles. But this isnt about states rights; its merely a convenient cover for gutting federal enforcement responsibility without any assurance that states will pick up the slack.

In fact, Pruitt took Oklahoma in the opposite direction as attorney general by shutting down the states environmental enforcement unit.

Meanwhile, delegating enforcement to states puts everyone at the mercy of neighboring states enforcement. Almost every state has communities that are downwind or downstream from polluters across state boundaries.

3. Roll Back Pollution Standards

The future aint what it used to be at the EPA, Pruitt explained in a fiery speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington shortly after his contentious and narrow confirmation by the Senate. He went on to pledge he would roll back the regulatory state.

President Trump has already issued an executive order seeking to weaken Clean Water Act protections for American rivers and streams. With Pruitt now at his side, he is expected to next take aim at rolling back standards that reduce toxic emissions from cars and power plants.

Trump says he is slashing federal clean air and water standards to ease what he calls job-crushing regulations. Of course, increasing pollution does not grow the economy.

https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/837059985637064704

4. Use Misinformation to Justify Political Agenda

During his confirmation hearing, Pruitt ran away from his anti-environmental record and assured senators that he was concerned about pollution contributing to climate change, that mercury should be regulated and that ground-level ozone is a dangerous pollutant.

Once he had been confirmed as EPA administrator, his tone changed back to his roots. Pruitt is already a ready partner to Trump when it comes to spreading misinformation and denying climate change.

Political interference in science will come in many forms, but the most dangerous may be an effort to permanently meddle with the EPAs scientific capacity under the guise of reforming the scientific process. Such meddling is a top Trump transition goal, according to Myron Ebell, the head of Trumps EPA transition team.

Ebell makes no bones about it: The objective, hes said, is to permanently cripple the agencys capacity to bounce back under future presidents.

5. Surrender to Allow Sue and Pollute Lawsuits

We expect Pruitt and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to take up a new practice of surrendering to sue and pollute lawsuits in court. That would abandon the legal defense of EPA rules against suits brought by some polluters who would rather fight in court than invest in cleaner technology.

Pruitt may even take the unprecedented step to refuse to recuse himself from overseeing decisions about lawsuits that he himself brought against the EPA as Oklahomas attorney generalconveniently switching sides from plaintiff to defendant.

The question now is how Pruitt and Trump will contend with growing opposition as they walk the tightrope between broad public support for the EPAs mission while serving the narrow interests of those who want to permanently weaken the agency.

If we remain vigilant and demand accountability from our elected officials, we can make every step they take along that tightrope more strenuous than the last.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 25

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

Iran says it expects the third new Airbus aircraft from a batch of 100 planes purchased from the European aviation giant to land at an airport in Tehran this evening.

Farhad Parvaresh, the managing director of Irans national flag carrier Iran Air, arrived in French City of Toulouse on March 24 to take delivery of the third plane, IRNA news agency reported.

Last January, Iran signed a deal worth $18 billion with Airbus to purchase 100 new planes including 46 A320 Family, 38 A330 Family, and 16 A350 XWB aircraft. Iran received its first Airbus (A320) in January.

Following years of sanctions, Irans aviation industry has become aged and remains underdeveloped. The country plans to buy about 500 new aircraft in future.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 25

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, by announcing a new EU-Armenia agreement, wants to soothe popular anger over the worsening domestic socio-economic situation, reads an article posted on the website of The Jamestown Foundation.

On Feb. 27, Armenia concluded negotiations with the EU on a comprehensive and expanded partnership agreement, which is expected to be signed this year, possibly as early as May, said the article.

The government is also trying to change the narrative that Armenia has become Russias vassal, which has completely distanced itself from the West.

The elections will be the first since the constitutional amendments of 2017 that have restructured the country from a presidential to a parliamentary republic. The amendments are viewed as serving incumbent President Sargsyans plan to maintain power as prime minister. In the meantime, domestic tensions in Armenia are rising. Recent armed incidents involving parliamentary candidates of the ruling and opposition parties are just a case in point, according to the article.

Over the past year, particularly after the deadly April 2016 clashes with Azerbaijan in Karabakh, significant swathes of Armenian society have become disillusioned with Russia.

Furthermore, Armenias diplomatic failure to rally support from its allies within the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), particularly from Belarus and Kazakhstan, is another factor driving Yerevan to upgrade its relations with the EU, read the article.

The article stated that Sargsyan publicly criticized the CSTO during his recent visit to Russia, where he met with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

It was following a meeting with Putin on September 3, 2013, that President Sargsyan initially abandoned the AA [Association Agreement] to join the Russia-led Customs Union and then the EEU. He recently stated that the 2013 decision was motivated by the fact that otherwise Armenia would pay for Russian energy supplies at world market prices.

President Sargsyan has suggested that the new agreement is not much different from the 2013 agreement, the article said.

But in fact, the agreement is drastically different because it lacks any free-trade component due to Armenias obligations under the EEU. Moreover, the countrys memberships in the EEU and CSTO effectively bar serious European integration perspectives for Armenia, according to the article.

It was also noted that the full text of the agreement has not yet been made public, and the details remain unspecified.

This allows Yerevan, in the meantime, to sell the domestic audience on the importance of the new agreement, which is likely to be little more than a rhetorical upgrade of existing Armenian-EU relations.
A senior Hamas official identified as Mazen Faqha was killed in the Gaza Strip, Sputnik reported.

Faqha was shot dead by gunmen in Gaza on Friday and Hamas has accused Israel of being behind the shooting, the Arutz Sheva news agency said on Saturday.

Mazen Faqha was released by Israel in exchange for a kidnapped soldier in 2011. He was reportedly a senior member of the Hamas military wing.

Hamas, an Islamist political and militant group, seeks the creation of an independent state of Palestine and wants Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories. Hamas has been the governing authority of the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Israel classifies Hamas as a terrorist movement, accusing it of attacking the country's territory.
At least 50 people were killed and dozens others were injured this week in the Central African Republic (CAR) in attacks on three villages in the central Bambari region, Sputnik reported.

Gunmen have carried out several attacks on Agoudou Manga, Yasseneme and Ngouyanza in Bambari starting Tuesday, Le Figaro said on Friday, citing local residents.

The Central African Republic has been suffering from sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians since the 2013 coup, when Muslim Seleka rebels seized control in the majority-Christian nation, overthrowing president Francois Bozize, who had ruled the country since 2003.

According to the United Nations, around 70,000 people have been displaced in the CAR since September 2016.
CityWing owes creditors 1.8m

A travel company that went into liquidation earlier this month owes its creditors more than 1.8m.

Virtual airline CityWing collapsed after the airline operating its flights was grounded following an incident on a flight between the Island and Belfast.

At a creditors meeting, the company outlined its debts, which includes 42,000 owed to the Manx Government.

CityWing revealed it has over 750,000 in the company's accounts, but still expects to have a shortfall of around 440,000 once it sells off its assets.
Two more people arrested following the deadly Wednesday terror act in London have been released, one of them on bail, the Metropolitan Police announced in a statement, Sputnik reported.

"Two people arrested as part of the investigation into the terrorist attack in Westminster have now been released from police custody. [J] a 35-year-old-man has been released with no further police action; [K] a 32-year-old woman has been bailed pending further enquiries to a date in late March. Both were arrested in Manchester," the Friday statement says.

According to the release, two other men remain in custody.

Earlier on Friday, police announced that six people detained after the Wednesday terror act in London had been released.

On Wednesday, an attacker, later identified by police as Khalid Masood, 52, hit several people while driving on Westminster Bridge. He then tried to enter the Houses of Parliament, armed with a knife. After stabbing a police officer, who was later confirmed dead at the scene, the attacker was shot.

Several people were arrested by London police on Thursday in connection with the attack.

The identified perpetrator, Khalid Masood, was born in Kent and lived in West Midlands, according to Metropolitan Police. He had several previous convictions for assaults and possession of offensive weapons.
"Shots Fired" is a drama which explores the racial issues in America. Show runners revealed truths surrounding the Fox series.

"Shots Fired's" first episode started in a small town in North Carolina where a black police officer kills a white college student. During the course of the investigation, a murder of a black teen in the past was brought back to the open.

Joshua Beck (Mack Wilds) shoots an unarmed college student during a traffic stop. The police officer profiled that the white man in a black neighborhood was there to buy drugs according to a review by The New York Times. The Department of Justice then sends two investigators, Ashe Akino (Sanaa Lathan) and Preston Terry (Stephan James) who are both African-American. The duo soon finds out that another young black man was shot a police, but his death was kept in secret.

Husband and wife, Reggie Bythewood and Gina Prince-Bythewood, are the creators and writers of "Shots Fired." According to Mashable, the television show aims to explore the racial concerns in every angle in America's justice system.

During the Television Critics Association press tour, Bythewood said that they wanted to do "Shots Fired" in a small southern town. "During our research, we looked at Ferguson, and we didn't want to set in Ferguson, but, in many ways... we wanted to do an autopsy of a town like Ferguson," he explained.

The opening scenario of "Shots Fired," black cop killing a white student, is intentional to challenge audience's preconceptions according to Prince-Bythewood. "It's very easy for people to watch the news and see a piece about a shooting, and if you don't identify with who's on the screen, you turn it off," she said. Prince-Bythewood said that "Shots Fired" will allow folks who do not normally identify with the characters to empathize and bring change in their lives.
Why were people so shocked when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided that the most appropriate person to lead Uttar Pradesh (UP), after its victory in the recent elections, was the Hindutva firebrand Yogi Adityanath? Surely, given the stated aim of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that mentors the BJP to push India towards becoming a Hindu rashtra, appointing a man like Adityanath to head the countrys most populous state makes perfect sense. It declares in no uncertain terms that regardless of the public rhetoric about inclusiveness, there is no dilution in the partys long-term aim. Therefore, if a hardline religious head of the Gorakhnath Math like Adityanath is able to consolidate further the Hindu vote before the next general elections in 2019, making the BJPs victory a virtual certainty, then why not?

The problem lies not in the logic of the BJPs choice but the fact that many people, including the majority in the media, had been seduced to believe that Narendra Modi had mellowed with power; that having been elected prime minister of the whole country, and not just chief minister of one state, he had prioritised development over a divisive Hindutva agenda. Those who fell for this disingenuous message were clearly delusional. For there is nothing that Modi has done in close to three years in office that establishes that his fundamental views have changed. If indeed he had concluded that both he and his party had to move somewhat to the centre to be acceptable to all Indians, he would have firmly controlled people like Adityanath who have been spewing hatred towards Muslims. Yet he has done nothing of the sort. His silence in the face of such vitriol confirms the obvious, that these so-called fringe elements are as integral to the party as is the peel to an apple. They derive their purpose, their power and their legitimacy from people like Modi and in turn help him and the party in achieving their political goals.
Recent developments proved that Europe can suceed to overcome challenges by aiming at great objectives, and this is needed also in 2009, said EU chairman, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.



- "It's in the name of Great Ideas, Projects, Ambition and Ideals, that EU can overcome" challenges, stressed Sarkozy at EU Parliament in Strasbourg, in conclusion of a dense 7 months EU Chairmanship. "It's even easier for Europe to have Great projects, able to overcome national egoism, instead of limiting itself only to small projects" (unable to do alike), he observed.

- "Europe must remain Ambitious and understand that the World needs her to take Decisions". "The World needs a Strong Europe", which "thinks on its own, has convictions, its own responses, its imagination" : "A Europe which does not limit itself into following" others, (as it did in the Past, when it followed USA, f.ex. on Bosnia). On the contrary, "Europe should undertake its own responsibilities", he said, after a series of succes in stopping the War between Russia and Georgia, and organizing the 1st EuroZone's Summit in Paris, which incited the Washington DC G-20 Summit to extend similar decisions World-wide.



- "When you sweep it all under the carpet, prepare yourself for hard tomorrows", he warned. "What hinders decisions is the lack of Courage and Will, the fading away of Ideals", he stressed before EU Parliament's 2008 debate on Human Rights and Sakharov prize on Freedom of thought attributed by MEPs to Chinese cyber-dissident Hu Jia, followed by an EU - Turkey meeting on Friday.



- "I don't abandon my convictions" and "I will take initiatives" on EU level also in 2009, Sarkozy announced later. "France will not stop having convictions and taking initiatives" on Europe. + "It's an Error to wish to pass over the Heads of those who are elected in their Countries" : "It's an integrism I always fought against"', he warned.

---------------------

French EU Presidency faced 4 unexpected Crisis :



- An institutional crisis, with the Irish "No" to EU Lisbon Treaty, just before it started. A geopolitical crisis, wth the threat of War between Russia and Georgia risking to throw Europe back to Cold-war divisions, on August. A World-wide Financial and Economic crisis, arriving at a bad moment before crucial 2009 EU elections. And even a Strasbourg's mini-crisis, with EU Parliament's roof curiously falling down, from unknown reasons, in a brand new building on August, provoking an unprecedented transfert of the 2 September Plenary Sessions...



But it wasn't enough to stop Sarkozy ! On the contrary, it stimulated him...

---------------------------------------



- "The better way to deal with the recent problems of EU institutions (as the "3 NO" by France, the Netherlands and Ireland) is to take them as a "Test" in order to find solutions closer to Citizens' concerns", said later in Strasbourg Sarkozy's new choice as Ministe for EU affairs, Bruno Le Maire.



- On the Institutional front, Sarkozy gave Time to the Irish to think about it, and stroke on December a deal including a New Referendum after the June 2009 EU Elections, in exchange of a promise to keep the rule of "one EU Commissioner for each EU Member Country", and some opt-outs on Defence and Fiscal EU policies, Abortion, etc. If the Irish get a "Yes" Majority, then the institutional package could be completed in 2010 or 2011 on the occasion of Croatia's probable EU accession.



He was accused in Strasbourg to upgrade EU Council and downgrade EU Commision, but he replied that "strong Political initiatives by EU Council reinforce also the more technical role of EU Commission, under the political-technical leadership of its President", all 3 "working together with EU Parliament".





- But, meanwhile, Sarkozy energetically spearheaded an Historic 1st Summit of EuroZone's 15 Heads of State and Government at EU's core, exceptionally enlarged to a partial participation of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on October 12 in Paris' Elysee palace, which started to tackle succesfully the growing world Financial crisis.



It also paved the way for its endorsement by a subsequent Brussels' 27 EU Member States' gathering, before it all come to Washington's G-20 Summit. And "Europe was united, it asked for the 1st G-20 Summit, and it will also organise the next G-20 Summit on April in London", he observed.

But a Conference with EU, Russia, African and other Developing Countries, hosted in Strasbourg shortly after Washington G-20 Summit by the French EU Presidency, took a Resolution asking to enlarge participation to Global Economic Governance. Many found, indeed, illogic and unacceptable that f.ex. states as Turkey were given a seat at G-20 level, while all African Countries, and even the African Union itself, representing the greatest Continent on Earth, were excluded...



Meanwhile, even USA''s "Paulson No 3" Plan, was, in fact, inspired by Europe's No 1 Plan", Sarkozy observed, largelly applauded by MEPs.



And "Europe showed Solidarity" by mobilizing some 22 Billion credit for Hungary, 1,7 billion for Ukraine, as we do nowadays for Baltic States, etc., he added.



The move on Economy was extended on December by an EU stimulus' plan totalling some 200 billion Euros, including 5 Billions released by EU Commission for big Projects, as well as various parallel National plans for Economic revival, (fex. 26 billions in France alone). They might appear limited, compared to USA President-elect Obama's reported plan to boost the American economy with 800 billion $, but at least succeded to overcome Europe's divisions for the first time on Economic governance, opening new horizons.



- The French President stressed even harder the unique role of an active EU Council's chairmanship, when he moved swiftly and efficiently, at the beginning of August, to succesfully stop War between Russia and Georgia, at the last minute, which threatened to bring Europe back to Cold War division.



"We (EU) also wanted to avoid a situation like in Bosnia, in the Past, when EU was absent, so that our American friends took their responsibilitues, and EU only followed", despite the fact that the conflict took place in Europe. Now, it was the EU who took its responsibilities".



A roadmap towards a new PanEuropean Security policy, before which all unilateral moves to place new Missiles (from USA or Russia) would be freezed, was proposed by Sarkozy after a meeting with Russian president Medvedev, at the eve of Washington DC's G-20 Summit.



Ukraine's "European" character was stressed at a Sarkozy - Jushenko Summit, September in Paris, while EU adopted on December an "Eastern policy", in which, "I'm convinced that our (EU's) future is to find with our Neighbours the conditions for Economic Development. Peace and Security, by explaining them that.. they must respect (Human Rights') Values, and adopt behaviors different from the Past", explained Sarkozy in Strasbourg.



Meanwhile, the "Union for the Mediterranean" was created, since July's Summit if 45 Heads of State and Government in Paris, as "an organisation for a permanent Dialogue, that we need", mainly in order to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by bringing together, for the 1st time, Israelis and Arabs, where "Europe must be present, in order to avoid a frontal clash".



- "If Europe doesn't take its part for Peace in the Middle-East, nobody else will do that in our place", Sarkozy stressed.

-----------------------

Meanwhile, other EU Agreements were brokered during the French EU Presidency on Immigration, (fex. common Asylum rules, etc), and Climat- Energy :



- On Climat-Energy, the 2007 German EU Presidency had fixed a triple 20% aim for 2020 (20% renewable Energies, 20% reduction of CO2 emmission, 20% energy efficience/economies), and the 2008 French EU Presidecny realized that, making the necessary compromises in order to modernize EU's industry, but without throwing some former Central-Eastern European Countries into abrupt Economic break down risking "social explosion".



- Defence-Security EU policy was mainly postponed for April 2009, since both German chancellor Merkel and French president Sarkozy want to strike a deal with the new American president Obama in Strasbourg's NATO Summit.



However, with all these 4 unexpected Crisis diverting attention to other urgencies, People wil wonder now, what happened to the famous deal proposed by freshly-elected French President Sarkozy on Turkey's controversial EU bid, back on August 2007, to continue EU - Turkey negotiations, but on the double condition that core chapters, intrinsequally linked with EU Membership, will be excluded, and that a collective Reflexion and Debate on Europe's future would start before the end of 2008.



It was meant to reply to the crucial question : What kind of Europe do we want in 10 or 20 Years from now : A large Market, or a Political Europe, with a popular identity ? In Sarkozy's thinking, presented in his 2 landmark speeches on Europe in Strasbourg, shortly before and after the 2007 Elections, (on February and July 2007), Turkey's controversial EU bid would be incompatible with the second choice.



It's true that EU Commision's Chairman, Jose Barroso, (who had notoriously declared, as former Portuguese Prime Minister, that he found "nonsense" the idea that Europe might become equal to the US), had repeatedly tried to avoid that Sarkozy's criticism on Turkey might start winning a larger audience in Europe, preferring a discrete "wismens' committee" work. And that most of the personalities later chosen in order to participate in a Committee on Europe's Future, are too much linked with Socialist parties and/or American policies, to be really critical of USA's notorious wish to impose Turkey to the EU, as Sarkozy had noted himself since March 2007..



- "It's on EU Council's presidency to take political initiatives. EU Commission has other competences", stressed Sarkozy. The "European Ideal" is to "build Europe with the States, not against them". "Ask Europeans to chose between their countries and Europe won't work. You don't choose between your two parents : We must add them together".



"France and Germany have an Historic Duty to work together, precisely because of what happened to the Past. We have to work hand by hand. We cannot be separated.It goes beyond me and Mrs Merkel today, Mr Schroeder and Mr. Chirac yesterday. It's not a choice, it's a duty to Europe and to the World". "We need Germany, as Germany needs Europe". Compromise is inevitable, here as everywhere, and each one made some steps towards eachother's positions.



But "it's true that Mrs Merkel didn't chose her Socialist partners, while I chose mine", Sarkozy said, in an indirect hint that the Socialist Minister of Finance in Germany might be a cause of minor past disagreements in Economy, which were overcome in recent negotiations.



"We (France and Germany) have particular duties in Europe", but "in a Europe of 27 Member States, it's not enough for France and Germany to agree between them.



"I always thought that Great Britain has a special role to play in Europe. ... Now, everybody "saw what it cost payed the UK for having been too exclusively open towards the US (and) Financial services. Europe needs the UK, but also the UK needs Europe" :- "We were able to face the hardest moment of the Financial crisis because the UK clearly chose Europe", stressed Sarkozy, reminding Gordon Brown's exceptional participation to the Historic 1st Heads of State/Government Summit of EuroZone, October 12 in Paris (See EuroFora's Reportage from Elysee Palace then).



- "Some look at Europe with old glasses aged 30 years ago. While we must look at her in relation to what it will be in 30 years" in the Future, Sarkozy concluded.




Iraqi government forces paused in their push to recapture western Mosul from Islamic State militants on Saturday because of the high rate of civilian casualties, a security forces spokesman said, Reuters reported.

The halt was called as the United Nations expressed its profound concern over reports of an incident during the battle on March 17 that killed or wounded dozens of people in the Islamic State-held al-Jadidah district of Mosul, apparently involving air strikes by Iraqi or U.S.-led coalition forces.

"We are stunned by this terrible loss of life," Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement.

The U.S. military said on Saturday that a review determined that at the request of Iraqi security forces, U.S.-led coalition struck Islamic State fighters and equipment "at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties."

U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement that it took the allegation seriously and that it is conducting a formal investigation "to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties."

Civil defense officials and residents have said many people lay buried in collapsed buildings after air strikes against Islamic State insurgents triggered a big explosion.

The exact cause of the collapses was not clear but a local lawmaker and two residents said the air strikes may have detonated an IS truck filled with explosives, destroying buildings in the heavily-populated area.

Reports on the numbers of civilian casualties have varied but Civil Defence chief Brigadier Mohammed Al-Jawari told reporters on Thursday that rescue teams had recovered 40 bodies from collapsed buildings.

Residents escaping besieged western Mosul have told of Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition air strikes demolishing buildings and killing civilians in several cases.

The insurgents have also used civilians as human shields and opened fire on them as they try to escape Islamic State-held neighborhoods, fleeing residents said.

"The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans," a Federal Police spokesman said on Saturday. "It's a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on."

The U.S.-backed offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured the entire eastern side of Mosul and about half of the west.

But advances have stuttered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the narrow alleys of the Old City, home to the al-Nuri mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

"We need to make sure that taking out Daesh (Islamic State) from the Old City will not cost unwanted high casualties among civilians. We need surgical accurate operations to target terrorists without causing collateral damage among residents," the Federal Police spokesman said.

An army statement published in the al-Sabah state newspaper said that future operations would be carried out by ground troops highly trained for urban combat.

"Our heroic forces are committed to the rules of engagement which ensure protection of civilians" the statement said.
In his bid for a second full term in office, District 2 Councilman Alan Warrick has tried to portray himself as a forward-thinking leader who can up the pace of redevelopment in his East Side district.

But the councilmans three challengers  Dori Lee Brown, William Cruz Shaw and Keith Toney, all of whom have had run-ins with Warrick  say he is difficult to reach and disconnected from his constituents.

In particular, they point to his bungled handling of his 2015 proposal to change the route of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. march. The 30-year-old march, which is held on MLK Day and draws crowds estimated at more than 100,000 people, starts and ends on the East Side. Warrick suggested that it begin at several points across the city and converge downtown.

The councilman later apologized for the idea, saying it was only a proposal.

More Information District 2 candidates Alan Warrick Age: 36 Education: Bachelor's degree, Florida A&M University Occupation: CEO, World Technical Services Family: Married; two children (second child due this spring) Offices held: District 2 city councilman, December 2014-present Dori Lee Brown Age: 48 Education: Bachelor's degree, Our Lady of the Lake University Occupation: Office manager and tax preparer; part-time gospel disc jockey Family: Divorced; one son Offices held: Former commissioner with San Antonio's MLK Jr. Commission William "Cruz" Shaw Age: 39 Education: Bachelor's degree, University of Texas at San Antonio; law degree, Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University Occupation: Attorney Family: Married Offices held: Former San Antonio Zoning Commission chairman Keith Toney Age: 65 Education: Associate degree, Monterey Peninsula College; bachelor's degree, Chapman University; master's degree, Pepperdine University Occupation: School liaison officer, Fort Sam Houston Independent School District Family: Married, four grown children. Offices held: District 2 City Councilman, August-December 2014 (appointment); former Fort Sam ISD board president A closer look The second in a series looking at City Council candidates in the May 6 municipal election. See More Collapse

Warrick has twice faced off against and twice defeated Toney, a former board president of the Fort Sam Houston Independent School District who was appointed District 2 councilman in 2014 but has never been elected to the seat.

Last year, Warrick sparred with Shaw, an attorney and former chairman of the citys zoning commission. Warrick called for his resignation from the commission once he learned that Shaw might challenge him for office.

Brown, a tax preparer, served on the citys MLK Commission for a decade but was ousted by the man Warrick selected to be chairman of that board.

Whoever wins the seat will represent a district facing a wide spectrum of challenges, including the most homicides in the city last year and chronic poverty. But District 2 neighborhoods just east of downtown are experiencing a revival, as new residents and investors snatch up historic properties. Thats raised hope that economic development is finally happening but also sparked concerns about gentrification, as property values soar.

Alan Warrick

Warrick focuses on the fact that hes the only candidate born in District 2 as a sign of his roots and commitment to the area.

I think the people of District 2 know the work that I have done, and Im so proud and glad to have served them for these two years, he said.

Warrick touts funding for ShotSpotter, a $280,000 gunshot-detection system he says has significantly reduced police response times. But his opponents repeatedly question ShotSpotters cost and effectiveness.

The councilman said hes helped jump-start development in the district, giving more money to San Antonio for Growth on the East Side to help small businesses with facade improvements. He says the number of vacant lots in his district has gone from about 2,700 to 1,900 since hes been in office.

But Warrick has had missteps, too. Recently, it was discovered that his campaign lent $15,000 to his nonprofit business, World Technical Services, in 2015. Warrick said the money was bridge funding so the company, which employs people with disabilities, could pay back vendors. The money has since been returned.

There is currently a lien on the nonprofit, Warrick said, because his grandfather, who started the company, failed to pay taxes for many years, a debt that is gradually being paid off.

Warrick also recently got into hot water over his suggestion that the Ella Austin Community Center, operating out of a historic property in District 2, might have to relocate because the nonprofit cant afford to pay for needed building upgrades.

Warrick pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated twice, in 2002 and 2004, while living in Tallahassee, Florida, where he went to college. A police report detailing the 2004 incident said Warrick fled the crash scene. (No one was hurt.) The councilman said he does not recall leaving.

A Bexar County jury found him not guilty of DWI in 2007. Warrick says he was diagnosed with a sleep disorder called upper airway restrictive syndrome that causes him to fall asleep at the wheel and is exacerbated by alcohol.

Dori Lee Brown

Brown moved with her family to San Antonio at age 10 but moved to District 2 in 1995, to the Lakeside neighborhood on the far eastern edge of the district.

A tax preparer and office manager, Brown has worked for former state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon and former District 2 Councilwoman Sheila McNeil.

If elected, Brown wants to try to bring more attention to the outer edges of the district, around Loop 410. She wants to focus on programs for young people and has suggested that the city work with area school districts to create magnet programs for high school students in District 2 aimed at careers in law enforcement or emergency services.

I just want to be of service to the community, Brown said.

She is the only District 2 candidate who indicated that she might support Texas Senate Bill 6, the so-called bathroom bill, which would force transgender people to use bathrooms in government buildings that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates. Brown, in a San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board meeting, said she has nothing against the LGBT community but feels that people could try to identify as a different gender for nefarious reasons, such as abusing children.

Brown has continued to work with the MLK Jr. Commission, even after Brandon Logan, whom Warrick selected as chairman, abruptly dismissed her and several other sitting chairs.

She has previously filed for bankruptcy and had tax liens on her business, but those have been paid.

William Cruz Shaw

Shaw was raised in Houston but while growing up visited San Antonio, where his mother was born. (Cruz is her maiden name.) He graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1999 and later law school in Houston.

Shaw returned to San Antonio and opened his law practice in District 2 in 2010.

In 2013, then-Councilwoman Ivy Taylor appointed Shaw to represent District 2 on the zoning commission, and he later became chairman.

If elected, Shaw says his office will have a policy that all constituent calls and emails must be answered within 24 to 48 hours. To ensure that people arent pushed out of their homes, hes proposed providing grant money to elderly residents so they can better maintain them.

He thinks the city needs to focus on education and economic development opportunities to combat crime, and he hopes to develop an entrepreneur incubator in the district. He also wants to implement a strong community policing strategy and organize Cellular on Patrol, in which residents monitor their neighborhoods. He has concerns about the new police union contract that Warrick voted to support last year, saying the community wanted more officer accountability.

Shaw and his wife currently rent in Mahncke Park, on the northern end of the district, but are building a home on a lot in Dignowity Hill, closer to the East Sides historic center.

Shaw was arrested for a DWI in Houston in 1999, while he was home from college. He was convicted and given probation.

Keith Toney

Toney moved to San Antonio about 25 years ago and has lived in District 2 since 2004.

He will retire by the end of April, which he says makes him more equipped than his opponents to serve on the council, because all three of them work.

My fixation will be on District 2, said Toney, who has called himself the most experienced of the bunch.

He said the districts biggest concerns are crime and gentrification. Hed like to see a program developed so single parents who are receiving some kind of government aid can attend St. Philips College, in District 2, at no cost. Hed also like to see more help for the formerly incarcerated so they can develop a trade.

He has run for the City Council several times over the years but has never won an election. The council appointed him to the District 2 seat in August 2014, after Taylor was selected to finish Julian Castros term as mayor.

Toney lost to Warrick in a December 2014 special election and again in the regular election in May 2015. While in office, he supported an ordinance to regulate ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft, while he received contributions from the taxi industry. Toney said he is proud of fighting acquiescence to Uber and Lyft.

Of the candidates, Toney is the most combative in his criticism of Warrick, portraying the sitting councilman as too young and naive for the job. At a District 2 candidates forum, Toney threw repeated verbal punches at Warrick, calling the councilman a kitten in office.

vdavila@express-news.net
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WASHINGTON  On the 64th day of Donald Trumps presidency, the art of the deal didnt work.

Facing a revolt by rank-and-file lawmakers from their partys right and center, Republican leaders Friday were forced to cancel a vote on long-promised legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, leaving uncertain, at least for now, the GOPs future plans for health care.

The move spelled the first major tactical and political defeat for Trump, who had presented himself to the nation as a winner, spent weeks trying to woo recalcitrant Republicans and issued an ultimatum the night before: Take a vote, he said, regardless of the outcome, or he would move on, likely to push the Republican tax reform agenda.

It was a tactic straight out of his 1987 best-seller, The Art of the Deal, one designed to put pressure on adversaries by showing a willingness to walk away. But this time, it was the lawmakers who walked.

It also was a stinging setback for House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, a Republican from The Woodlands and one of the central architects of the Obamacare replacement legislation.

Ryan, unshaven and showing the wear of a days-long drama, conceded defeat.

Obamacare is the law of the land, and its going to remain the law of the land until its replaced, he said.

Trump, for his part, suggested that Obamacare might be left to die a natural death, something Republican critics of the 2010 law have long predicted.

The best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode, Trump said. He also invited Democrats, somewhat whimsically, to join in a bipartisan effort to forge a better health care plan.

Sounding uncharacteristically chastened, Trump also chalked up the defeat as a learning experience. We learned a lot about loyalty, he said. We learned a lot about the vote-getting process.

Forced to postpone the bill for the second day running amid frantic negotiations to save it from defeat, Republican leaders faced a wave of internal recrimination over one of the most consequential GOP promises of the 2016 elections: Repeal and replace Obamacare.

While canceling the vote was a humiliation for Republicans, it might have been even worse to force members to publicly support or oppose the bill. That could have exposed Republican moderates to far-right primary challenges, potentially risking GOP control of the chamber.

The turn proved to be a stunning reversal from the heady days of Trumps November election victory, when tea party activists looked forward to repealing Obamacare on day one of his presidency.

The failure also feeds a perception that fractious Republicans cant govern and suggests difficulties ahead for other goals, especially tax reform.

Brady, in a final floor speech to rally support, warned his party of the stakes involved.

Today, we have a choice to make, he said. Will we answer the presidents call to action and pass this legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare? Or, will we allow the law to remain fully in place and deny our constituents the relief they urgently need?

Democrats, who remained uniformly opposed to rollbacks, said Republicans failed to take into account the political perils of a plan that would leave 24 million more Americans without insurance, even as hard-right lawmakers said it didnt go far enough to repeal Obamacare.

Theyve spent eight years in contempt of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, said Houston Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee. It really clouded their judgment about which way to go.

In the end, Ryan acknowledged that Republicans could not form a consensus around replacement legislation, caught between conservative critics pressing for total repeal and moderates who wanted to preserve but trim back some of the more popular provisions of Obamacare.

Among the major sticking points were planned GOP cuts to Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, disabled and elderly, and a passel of Obamacare insurance mandates that Republicans said were too costly.

While Republicans unified against the central tenet of Obamacare  the individual mandate that everyone buy insurance  they split on what should replace it to ensure sufficiently large risk pools of healthy adults to make the insurance market work.

The central architecture of the GOP bill, called the American Health Care Act, would have replaced the individual mandate with a 30 percent continuous coverage penalty, aided by age-based tax credits to buy insurance. Republicans said their plan would reduce the deficit and save $1 trillion dollars in taxes, which Democrats said would disproportionately go to the rich while cutting aid to the poor.

Democrats also fought back against the GOP plan to defund Planned Parenthood, the womens health network that provides abortions.

But the real legislative fistfight was among Republicans themselves.

Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains, Ryan said. While were feeling those growing pains today, we came really close today but came up short.

Ryan, owning the retreat on the GOP bill, said he told Trump it was the best thing to do and that the president agreed.

I will not sugarcoat this, Ryan said. This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard.

With the outcome in severe doubt early in the day, Ryan found himself rushing to the White House to confer with the president, who kept up a full-court press of tweets and phone calls.

Republicans knew full well the stakes for them. Pulling the bill from consideration might not have seemed as ignominious a defeat as losing the vote outright. But both scenarios spelled humiliation for a party that has been railing against the law since Obama signed it seven years ago Thursday.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that since 2010, every Republican from dogcatcher on up has campaigned on repealing Obamacare, a main reason congressional Republicans and the White House chose to take it up first, before tax reform. He added that the budget savings from repealing the Affordable Care Act could have gone to tax reform.

Depending on how many Democrats would be present, Republicans could afford only 21 or 22 defections. By Trumps estimate, they were still about 10 or 15 short by the end of the day.

Among the possible defectors were two Texans: Reps. Louie Gohmert of Tyler, a Freedom Caucus critic, and Randy Weber of Friendswood, who had tweeted the night before that the bill needed more vetting.

Gohmert, one of the bills most outspoken conservative critics, said Republican leaders had oversold their legislation to win votes. We have been lied to, he said on Fox. This bill keeps Obamacare in place in perpetuity.

But conservatives, who said the bill fell short of the promise of repealing Obamacare, werent the only ones standing in the way. A group of moderates, including New Jersey Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, raised many of the same concerns as Democrats.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a San Antonio Democrat who helped write the Affordable Care Act, was scheduled to hold a town hall on health care at 1 p.m. today in San Antonio at La Trinidad United Methodist Church.

Doggett warned after the fate of the legislation became known that Republicans may seek to further sabotage the Affordable Care Act. This is a victory for the resistance, but the empire will strike back, he said. Republicans bet on blitzkrieg and lost.

Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, who had declined to take a public position on the bill, said after it collapsed that hes hopeful that we can go back to the drawing board and fix our broken health care system. We must get this right.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said afterward that members of Congress from across the country realized that this bill would hurt their constituents. Millions of people would have lost their coverage, including more than 660,000 Texans.

Now, Castro added, Congress should work in bipartisan fashion to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act.

But with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress, it is likely that party leaders have not heard the last calls for repeal.

Said Trump: I never said repeal and replace it in 64 days.
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The arrests of two Central American teenagers, one of whom had been detained by the Border Patrol in South Texas before being released, on rape charges in Maryland has again put a spotlight on crimes committed by immigrants.

Both House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, and White House spokesman Sean Spicer have used the arrests as examples of the need to tighten immigration regulations.

In Maryland, Montgomery County police said they arrested 18-year-old Henry E. Sanchez Millan, an immigrant from Guatemala, in the March 16 rape of a 14-year-old girl at a high school. The Homeland Security Department says Border Patrol agents had detained Sanchez in August in the Rio Grande Valley but released him with a notice to appear in immigration court.

Another boy, a 17-year-old from El Salvador, also was arrested. But because he is a minor, his immigration status was not available.

Of the rape allegations, Sanchezs lawyer Andrew Jezic said, This was a consensual encounter, and it had nothing to do with force whatsoever.

While studies have found that crime rates by immigrants are lower than for native-born citizens, the alleged rape nevertheless is fodder for those who want to restrict immigration. President Donald Trump began his campaign almost two years ago by labeling undocumented Mexican immigrants as rapists, and he has highlighted crimes against U.S. citizens by immigrants. The president has vowed to build a wall on the southern border and deport millions of immigrants here illegally.

The Maryland case raises several questions about the suspect and whether he slipped through the cracks.

Why was Sanchez released?

Sanchez was 17 when he crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S.

Under the 2008 Trafficking Victims Prevention Reauthorization Act, unaccompanied immigrant children cannot be held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and instead must be released to the Health and Human Services Department and placed in the least restrictive setting.

This often means releasing them to family members in the U.S. In Sanchezs case, he was released to his father in Maryland.

In a memo last month, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told immigration officers to begin deportation proceedings against, or to refer to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, any individual who directly or indirectly facilitates the illegal smuggling or trafficking of an alien child into the United States.

Thats been widely seen as a directive to deport or prosecute parents who pay to have their children smuggled into the U.S.

Its a crime to pay a smuggler to bring anyone into the country, and its a crime to endanger your child the way they are endangered when theyre turned over to a smuggler, said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for restricting immigration to the U.S.

Maryland immigration attorney Alexandra Monroy said many Central Americans who left their children years ago to come to the U.S. have no way to get legal status here and cant legally bring their children to the U.S. Theyre faced with hiring a smuggler or leaving their children in dangerous conditions.

They do it because they are desperate, Monroy said. Either they do that or the children, they will be killed, or they will continue being abused by their caretaker.

Did Sanchez appear in immigration court?

Last year, nearly 60,000 unaccompanied children and more than 77,000 immigrants traveling in families were apprehended by Border Patrol agents, the vast majority of them in South Texas. Most surrender to the first law enforcement official they see, then request asylum.

Because children cant be detained and space to hold families is limited, many were released with notices to appear in immigration court.

Children and families apprehended near the border and released are put on a docket that gives them priority over other immigrants who arent in detention. Immigration courts nationwide are dealing with backlogs, but in Maryland and Virginia, where there are large populations of immigrants from Guatemala and Honduras, unaccompanied children see their cases facing long delays, Monroy said.

At the time of his initial encounter, Sanchez was issued a notice to appear in front of an immigration judge, the Homeland Security Department said in a statement. Because this individual had no previous encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and no record of any criminal history, his case was not immediately scheduled for a hearing with (the Justice Departments) Executive Office for Immigration Review due to their extensive case backlog. Given his recent criminal arrest, ICE is filing charging documents in immigration court this week.

Do immigrants commit more crimes?

A number of studies have found that crime rates are lower among immigrants than those born in the U.S.

A study by the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute released this month looked at the Census Bureaus American Community Survey of inmates and found low incarceration rates among immigrants. Those in the country illegally were more likely to be in prison than legal immigrants but less likely than those born in the U.S., the study found. When those serving time for immigration crimes such as illegal entry were removed from the equation, the crime rate between immigrants here legally and illegally was almost equal.

The study didnt look at why this was the case, but co-author Alex Nowrasteh floated a couple of theories about why crime rates tend to be low among immigrants.

One prominent theory on that is an immigrant whos incarcerated faces more punishment because theyre likely to be deported afterward, so punishment for committing a crime is much greater than that of a native, Nowrasteh said.

He also said that because immigrants tend to be people who have made decisions to improve their long-term outlook, i.e. moving to the U.S., where the economy and security tend to be better, theyre less likely to commit crimes.

People who think about the long run more typically dont commit crimes, he said.

Vaughan, from the Center for Immigration Studies, said incarceration rates dont necessarily show crime rates.

Theres no evidence that immigrants or illegal immigrants are any more or less likely to commit crimes than anyone else, she said.

Nowrasteh cautioned that making policy decisions based on a handful of high-profile crimes by immigrants doesnt make sense.

What can be learned is there is no immigrant crime wave in the United States, he said. While the government should focus its resources on removing criminal immigrants, its not a crisis like its being portrayed by this administration, and we should not overreact to a noncrisis.
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A 27-year-old woman heard crying for help was found dead in her apartment hours later Friday night on the East Side.

Its pretty horrific, said San Antonio Police Department Lt. Dave Berrigan.

The womans boyfriend found her dead in the living room at about 9:45 p.m. in the Palms apartment complex, 3735 E. Commerce St., Berrigan said.

Her throat was slashed, Berrigan said.

RELATED: Police: Man arrested in fatal Converse stabbing slashed woman's throat after sex

The boyfriend realized she was dead when he called 911, who instructed him to check her pulse, police said.

Neighbors told investigators they heard a woman yelling for help at about 7 p.m. but did not call police.

I just cant fathom how people cannot call the police when theyre hearing someone screaming, Berrigan said. I just can't fathom it.

The boyfriend had left the apartment to fix a vehicle three hours before the discovery, police said.

The crime scene looks like it was a couple hours old, Berrigan said.

Both neighbors and police said the couple only recently moved in.

RELATED: Police expect more arrests in La Vernia High School hazing incident

Neighbor Adrian Sheffield was in tears upon hearing the news.

Everything keeps getting worse and worse, she said, adding that this is the second person who has died in the complex.

The manager doesn't have any control out here at all, Sheffield said angrily. Theres supposed to be security out here but I've but only seen them twice.

Berrigan said there was no information on a suspect for police to go on.

On Jan. 16, a 42-year-old man was found shot in the abdomen outside his apartment in the complex. At the time, police said the man was uncooperative when they asked him about the attack.

jbeltran@express-news.net

Twitter: @JBfromSA
The judges of the San Antonio Municipal Court have issued a standing order that prevents any photography or audio/video recording anywhere in the Municipal Court Building without prior approval.

The sweeping move appears to be a response to a series of videos recently made by two self-described rebels (who have dubbed themselves TX Sheepdog 72 and Southside Slacker). The two men have entered the Municipal Court Building several times in recent weeks with cameras  in an effort to make some kind of statement about what they see as the stupidity (or unfairness) of the courts handling of warrants  and verbally harassed security officers. They have posted four videos of these encounters on YouTube.

The new order offers no exception for journalists who would attempt to record interviews in the building, before or after a court proceeding.

The three-page order, which was issued on March 20, states that Municipal Court judges wish to protect the privacy of parties, observers and court personnel conducting business from unwanted conduct and intrusion from others in the courthouse.

It goes on to say that photographing, recording, broadcasting or televising of any person, object or proceeding inside the Frank Wing Municipal Court Building is not permitted, unless previously authorized by the Court.

Violations of the policy will result in recording devices being temporarily confiscated.

While its common for courts to ban the use of recording devices inside a courtroom, its unusual to see such a ban extended to cover an entire court building.

Jim Deegear, a San Antonio attorney with a background in constitutional law, pointed out, however, that federal courthouses employ similar bans. He views that as an indication that Presiding Judge John Bull and the other municipal-court judges are on safe constitutional ground with their recording ban. But he suggested that the new policy  while probably legal  is an overreaction.

I dont think its illegal to do it, Deegear said. I just dont think its good policy.

Deegear added that a municipal court should be a peoples court because its the first level that most people ever have interaction with the court system. To have a rule like that seems a bit over-the-top.

City Attorney Andrew Segovia defended the policy, saying in a statement that it is not an absolute recording ban and added that it does not impact the current practice with respect to media, because each individual judge has the discretion to determine whether filming is allowed in their courtroom.

Segovia confirmed that the new policy was prompted by some recent disruptions caused by overt recording and videotaping of Court personnel.

Trump v. Nixon on health care

Its not often that I feel compelled to invoke Richard Nixon as an admirable example for other presidents to follow, but Fridays implosion of the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare had me feeling wistful about our 37th president.

When Nixon sought the presidency in 1968, Lyndon Johnsons Medicare program had been in effect for only two years. That massive expansion of government involvement in the health-care system had been bitterly opposed by Republicans, much as Obamacare would be nearly half a century later.

But Nixon understood that dismantling an in-place program that provided health insurance to the elderly would not only make for difficult politics but foolish policy. So, unlike Trump, he never called for a repeal.

In fact, Nixons Democratic opponent, Hubert Humphrey, tried to score political points by contending  without any proof to back him up  that Nixon opposed Medicare and considered it a socialist scheme. Nixon immediately pushed back, and denied the charge.

In October of 1968, Nixons campaign put out a volume with the GOP nominees policy positions, including this statement on Medicare: Although the program has been plagued by administrative problems, it offers good potential if wisely administered.

Nixon thought Medicares reimbursement formulas and financial incentives could be tweaked to make the program less expensive, but he realized that destroying it altogether, purely to rub Lyndon Johnsons nose in the dirt, wouldnt make any sense.

If Trump had not been so obsessed with trying to one-up Barack Obama, he might have grasped what Nixon so easily understood.

ggarcia@express-news.net

Twitter: @gilgamesh470
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Two local developers are piecing together properties outside the main gate to Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston for a potential mixed-use development, five years after they failed to persuade local officials to build a childrens hospital there.

Michael Westheimer, who is known for fixing up houses on the East Side, and Larry Baumgardner of the Dominion Advisory Group commercial real estate firm have bought 10.1 acres of land over the last five years along Walters Street between Interstate 35 and the military base, property records show. They still need to purchase another 2.7 acres on the site of the tentative development in the historic neighborhood of Government Hill.

They expect to draw up plans soon for a mixed-use project with apartments, townhomes and up to 60,000 square feet of office space, Westheimer said. Then they will market the property to potential joint venture partners or possibly build it themselves, he said. They have yet to raise any financing.

Westheimer said he expects the projects residential portion to be popular among military officers from Fort Sam Houston and that the office space will appeal to defense contractors. The site benefits from being a mile and a half east of the Pearl and highly visible from I-35, he said.

Its strategically placed there, Westheimer said. It sits at the center of a lot of really interesting infrastructure.

The developers have been tearing down vacant homes to pursue their goal of getting a portion of the site development-ready in the next six months, he said. They plan to start construction of a first phase while they finish purchasing the properties.

Government Hill is rundown in some areas but has a strengthening housing market thanks to its historic homes and its proximity to the Pearl and downtown. Its western border runs along Broadway, where developers have built numerous midrise apartment complexes. The stretch of Grayson Street running through the neighborhood has become a foodie destination, home to restaurants such as Grayze and Shuck Shack.

Westheimer owns 7 acres at the site through Walters Street Real Partners LLC, a company that is co-owned by personal injury lawyer Mikal Watts of Watts Guerra LLP, according to corporate filings and the Bexar Appraisal District. Baumgardner owns 3.1 acres through a partnership, Dominion Holdings.

Westheimer and Baumgardner have tried twice to develop the site with medical facilities. Five years ago, they failed to get local to build a childrens hospital there. A later effort to get the University of the Incarnate Word to put a medical school on the site also fell through.

rwebner@express-news.net
Six PKK terrorists were killed during a Turkish military operation in northern Iraq, Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement on Saturday, Anadolu reported.

The military said the operation took place on Friday in northern Iraq's Derecik region.

According to the statement, two other terrorists were captured Friday in Turkey's southeastern Hakkari and Batman provinces during the ongoing operations and road checks in the region.

Another terrorist was captured Thursday in southeastern Gaziantep province -- situated on the border with Syria -- while attempting to enter the country illegally, the statement added.

More than 1,200 people, including security force personnel and civilians, have lost their lives since the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and EU -- resumed its decades-old armed campaign in July 2015.
Shia LaBeouf's anti-Donald Trump project has been shut down in Liverpool.

Shia LaBeouf

A flag with the words - 'HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US' - was installed outside the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in the northern England city but it has been taken down just one day after it was installed following reports of "dangerous [and] illegal trespassing".

In a statement on Twitter, FACT said: "On police advice, FACT and LaBeouf, Ronkko & Turner have removed the installation HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US due to dangerous, illegal trespassing. (sic)"

Whilst cops added in a statement to the BBC: "[There were reports] that a group of men were believed to be trying to get to a flag on the roof of the building. The males had left the area when patrols arrived. Advice was given to staff at the venue about the location of the flag which has since been removed."

FACT had previously agreed to display the flag for the next four years or for the duration of the 45th Presidency of the United States.

In a statement made at the time, Shia, Nastja Sad Ronkko & Luke Turner said: "Events have shown that America is simply not safe enough for this artwork to exist."

Whilst Turner - who grew up in the north of England - added: "We are proud to be continuing the project at FACT, an arts centre at the heart of the community."

The project has been shut down a number of times in the past since it was first unveiled at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens, New York.

From there, it moved to the El Rey Theatre in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but had to be taken away after there were reports of gunshots in the area.

Since early March, the flag had been flying at an unknown location in the United States before being moved to Liverpool.

It is not known where, or if, the project will be installed next.
Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.

Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.#

As high as 80 per cent people follow a business account and there is a global community of over 600 million instagrammers.

Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.#

Explaining about the new feature, Instagram business team said the aim was to create something that was less transactional and more immersive, that gave people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The solution was not as simple as just adding a buy button.

Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.#

The testing of the feature which made it easier for people to find, evaluate and track relevant products on Instagram began last November. Posts with tags had an icon that made discovery simple. If a product caught a user's eye, there was a space to explore, where she could easily tap to see more details from products featured in posts, and even click to a business's website if intention was to buy.

Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.#

"Based on encouraging early results, we're rolling out these shopping features to thousands of businesses that sell apparel, jewelry or beauty products in the coming weeks. Instagrammers in the US will soon be able shop and browse products from these businesses from posts in feed, on profile and in explore," the team announced.

Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.#

The feature also gives businesses the power to create and tag a post with products directly from their iOS mobile phone. Once a business has a product catalog connected to their account, tagging a product is as simple as tagging a person in a post.

Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.#

Retailer Kate Spade New York has been using shopping on Instagram since November. "Our partnership with Instagram has been very successful. Traditionally, our customer had turned to Instagram for inspiration, and we're seeing that she's reacting positively to the new shopping experience, which allows her to seamlessly tap and shop the product - going from inspiration to information to purchase in just a few steps - we're excited to see where the feature continues to take us," Mary Beech, EVP and chief marketing officer of Kate Spade New York, says.

Soon you will be able to shop on Instagram. The feature gives people more time and space to browse and evaluate products, making mobile shopping feel just like shopping. The feature is built on the understanding that instagrammers want to find new things from brands they love and businesses want more opportunities to build relationships with these customers.#

Businesses will also soon be able to get insights around the metrics that matter to them, like how many people tapped to see more product details or clicked on 'shop now'. By telling businesses more about their audience and which posts are performing well, they can create more relevant content, the team said. (SV)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Maverick director Puri Jagannadh's comeback Kannada film Rogue introducing CV Ishan as hero, was censored yesterday. Film has been made simultaneously in Kannada and Telugu. Both the versions were awarded with U/A Certificate.

With censor formalities being completed, team has announced that film will be releasing worldwide on March 31, 2017. Makers have revealed that film will be releasing in over 1000 theaters across the globe.

Film had grand audio launch earlier this month in Bangalore in the presence of Industry bigwigs Kiccha Sudeep, Srikanth, Prem, Rakshitha and others. Trailer was also released along with the music.

Telugu version had even bigger launch in Hyderabad recently wherein Bollywood beauty Sunny Leone entertained the audience with special performance. This specially designed music launch got the good mileage for movie.

Trailer released has got decent response. Sleazy songs and Puri Jagannadh's trademark taking has mostly received mixed response. Songs composed by Sunil Kashyap and penned by V Nagendra Prasad is garnering good response.

Jayanna Films is releasing the film in over 180 theaters throughout Karnataka. The theatre count is certainly good for a debutant film but this will be only second best after Jaguar, which was released in over 220 theaters.

CR Manohar and CR Gopi have produced the film under their banner Tanvi films introducing their nephew CV Ishan to Kannada and Telugu Film Industry. V Nagendra Prasad has penned the lyrics for all the songs and written dialogues as well.

Puri Jagannadh has written the story, screenplay and directed the film. His venture Puri Connects has managed the production for Tanvi Films. Mukhesh G has cranked the camera and Junaid Siddique has edited the film.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/24/17 -- Entree Gold Inc. ("Entree or the "Company") (TSX: ETG)(NYSE MKT: EGI)(FRANKFURT: EKA) is pleased to report that further to its news release of February 28, 2017, the Company has today filed and mailed the materials for its Annual General and Special Meeting (the "Meeting") of shareholders, optionholders and warrantholders (collectively, the "Securityholders") which describe, among other things, the proposed strategic reorganization of the Company's business (the "Arrangement"). The Company's Information Circular (the "Circular") and other Meeting materials are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.entreegold.com.

The Arrangement

At the Meeting, among other items of business including the annual election of directors, shareholders of Entree ("Shareholders"), as well as Securityholders voting together as a single class, will be asked to consider and, if thought fit, to pass, with or without variation, a special resolution to approve a statutory plan of arrangement (the "Plan of Arrangement") under Section 288 of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia). It is intended that, as part of the Arrangement, Shareholders will receive common shares of newly incorporated Mason Resources Corp. ("Mason Resources") by way of a share exchange, pursuant to which each existing share of Entree is exchanged for one "new" share of Entree and 0.45 of a Mason Resources common share (the "Consideration"). Entree will transfer to Mason Resources all of the issued and outstanding shares of Entree U.S. Holdings Inc., which indirectly holds the Ann Mason copper-molybdenum project in Nevada (the "Ann Mason Project") and the Lordsburg copper-gold property in New Mexico, along with US$8.75 million in cash.

There will be no change to Shareholders' existing interests in Entree.

The Plan of Arrangement calls for Entree warrantholders to exchange their warrants for replacement warrants to acquire the same number of Entree shares and 45% of that number of Mason Resources shares. Similarly, Entree optionholders will exchange their options for replacement options to acquire the same number of Entree shares and 45% of that number of Mason Resources shares. The exercise prices of the replacement warrants and options will be determined in accordance with the Plan of Arrangement.

The board of directors of Entree (the "Board") has unanimously determined that the Plan of Arrangement is fair and in the best interests of Entree and its Securityholders and recommends that Securityholders vote FOR the Plan of Arrangement.

The Meeting

Entree Shareholders, warrantholders and optionholders as of the record date of March 16, 2017 have the right to vote by proxy or in person at the Meeting to be held May 1, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. PDT at the offices of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, 1200 Waterfront Centre, 200 Burrard Street, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Benefits of the Arrangement

The Arrangement is expected to provide Securityholders with the following benefits, among others:

(a) The Plan of Arrangement is expected to result in two, separate and focused, well-capitalized, debt-free entities, each with a high quality advanced project providing new and existing shareholders with optionality as to investment strategy and risk profile:

-- Mason Resources: The 100% owned Ann Mason deposit is currently the fourth largest undeveloped porphyry deposit in Canada and the U.S. by contained copper resources. Located in the historic Yerington mining district in Nevada, the Ann Mason Project has excellent access to infrastructure and strong community support. Pre-Feasibility level metallurgical test work has been completed and the current mineral resource estimate constrained within the PEA-pit is classified 95% as Measured plus Indicated, with only 5% remaining as Inferred. Tremendous upside potential exists on the project through several earlier-stage copper-oxide and sulphide zones and numberous untested targets. An updated Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") was recently filed summarizing these results. -- Entree: The Company will continue to hold its carried joint venture interest in a substantial prospective land package in Mongolia which includes two of the world class Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold deposits, Hugo North Extension and Heruga. The resources at Hugo North Extension include a Probable reserve, which is included in the fully financed $4.4 billion underground block cave currently under construction. Rio Tinto is the project operator for the entire Oyu Tolgoi project, including the underground block cave mine.

(b) The Plan of Arrangement is expected to give scope to potential value accretive and synergistic acquisitions by each entity.

(c) The Plan of Arrangement is expected to maximize Shareholder value by allowing the market to value Entree's Mongolian assets independently of the U.S. based assets, including the Ann Mason Project.

(d) It is expected that transferring the Ann Mason Project and Lordsburg property from Entree to Mason Resources will accelerate development of the projects.

It is a condition of closing to the Arrangement that the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") has given conditional acceptance to the listing of the Mason Resources common shares. Listing will be subject to Mason Resources fulfilling all the listing requirements of the TSX. Mason Resources does not have any of its securities listed or quoted, and has not applied to list or quote any of its securities, on a U.S. marketplace.

The Circular

The Circular contains, among other things, details concerning the Arrangement, reasons the Board has recommended the Arrangement, requirements for completion of the Arrangement, the procedure for receiving the Consideration under the Arrangement, how registered Shareholders may exercise their dissent rights, procedures for voting at the Meeting and other matters. Securityholders are urged to carefully review the Circular and accompanying materials as they contain important information regarding the Arrangement and its consequences to Securityholders.

YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

How to Vote

A proxy or voting instruction form will accompany the Meeting materials you receive by mail (or electronically if you have enrolled for this service with Computershare). Instructions on how to vote, which vary depending on whether you are a Shareholder, an optionholder or a warrantholder, are provided in the Circular and the accompanying materials.

Securityholders are encouraged to vote before 10:30 a.m. PDT on April 27, 2017.

How to Receive the Consideration

If you are a registered Shareholder, we also encourage you to complete and return the letter of transmittal included in the Meeting materials ("Letter of Transmittal") together with the certificate(s) (if any) representing your existing Entree shares and any other required documents and instruments, to the depositary, Computershare. If you are a registered Shareholder, the Letter of Transmittal must be completed and returned to Computershare (regardless of whether your shares are represented by physical share certificates or held in a Direct Registration System ("DRS") account) in order for you to exchange your existing shares for new Entree shares and Mason Resources shares. Provided you have completed and returned the Letter of Transmittal to Computershare in accordance with its instructions, once the Plan of Arrangement is completed new Entree shares and Mason Resources shares will be issued and DRS statements representing such shares will be distributed to you. If you hold your Entree shares through a broker or other intermediary, please contact that broker or other intermediary for instructions and assistance in receiving the Consideration in exchange for your Entree shares. Assuming that all conditions to completion of the Plan of Arrangement are satisfied, it is anticipated that the Plan of Arrangement will become effective on or about May 9, 2017.

QUALIFIED PERSON

Robert Cinits, P.Geo., Entree's Vice President, Corporate Development, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has approved the technical information in this release. For further information on the Entree/Oyu Tolgoi LLC joint venture property, see the Company's technical report, titled "Lookout Hill Feasibility Study Update", with an effective date of March 29, 2016, available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website. For further information on the Ann Mason Project, see the technical report titled "2017 Updated Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ann Mason Project, Nevada, U.S.A.", with an effective date of March 3, 2017 available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website.

ABOUT ENTREE GOLD INC.

Entree Gold Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company balancing opportunity and risk with key assets in Mongolia and Nevada. As a joint venture partner with a carried interest on a portion of the Oyu Tolgoi mining project in Mongolia, Entree has a unique opportunity to participate in one of the world's largest copper-gold projects managed by one of the premier mining companies - Rio Tinto. Oyu Tolgoi, with its series of deposits containing copper, gold and molybdenum, has been under exploration and development since the late 1990s. Additionally, Entree has also been advancing its Ann Mason Project in one of the world's most favourable mining jurisdictions, Nevada. The Ann Mason Project hosts the Ann Mason copper-molybdenum deposit as well as the Blue Hill copper deposit within the rejuvenated Yerington copper camp.

Sandstorm Gold, Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill Resources are major Shareholders, holding approximately 14%, 10% and 8% of issued and outstanding shares, respectively.

This News Release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to corporate strategies and plans; uses of funds; the value and potential value of assets and the ability of Entree to maximize returns to Shareholders; potential financial and other benefits of spinning-out the U.S. projects; timing and approval for a spin-out of the U.S. projects; the estimation of mineral reserves and resources; the realization of mineral reserve and resource estimates; the potential development of Ann Mason; construction and continued development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; potential discovery of new mineralized zones; plans for future exploration and development programs and budgets; permitting time lines; anticipated business activities; proposed acquisitions and dispositions of assets; and future financial performance.

While the Company has based these forward-looking statements on its expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee of Entree's future performance and are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies, local and global economic conditions, legal proceedings and negotiations and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the status of the Company's relationship and interaction with the Government of Mongolia, Oyu Tolgoi LLC, Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill. With respect to the construction and continued development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine, important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, the timing and cost of the construction and expansion of mining and processing facilities; the timing and availability of a long term power source for the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; the impact of the delay in the funding and development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; delays, and the costs which would result from delays, in the development of the underground mine; and production estimates and the anticipated yearly production of copper, gold and silver at the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine.

Other uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, Entree not obtaining Shareholder, Securityholder, court or regulatory approval of the Arrangement; the market valuing Entree and Mason Resources in a manner not anticipated by Entree; unanticipated costs, expenses or liabilities; all conditions precedent to the Plan of Arrangement not being satisfied or waived and the Plan of Arrangement not becoming effective; the size, grade and continuity of deposits and resource and reserve estimates not being interpreted correctly from exploration results; the results of preliminary test work not being indicative of the results of future test work; fluctuations in commodity prices and demand; changing foreign exchange rates; actions by Rio Tinto, Turquoise Hill and/or Oyu Tolgoi LLC and by government authorities including the Government of Mongolia; the availability of funding on reasonable terms; the impact of changes in interpretation to or changes in enforcement of, laws, regulations and government practices, including laws, regulations and government practices with respect to mining, foreign investment, royalties and taxation; the terms and timing of obtaining necessary environmental and other government approvals, consents and permits; the availability and cost of necessary items such as power, water, skilled labour, transportation and appropriate smelting and refining arrangements; and misjudgments in the course of preparing forward-looking statements. In addition, there are also known and unknown risk factors which may cause the actual results, performances or achievements of Entree to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information.

Such factors include, among others, risks related to international operations, including legal and political risk in Mongolia; risks associated with changes in the attitudes of governments to foreign investment; risks associated with the conduct of joint ventures; discrepancies between actual and anticipated production, mineral reserves and resources and metallurgical recoveries; global financial conditions; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; inability to upgrade Inferred mineral resources to Indicated or Measured mineral resources; inability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; conclusions of economic evaluations; future prices of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining government approvals, permits or licences or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; environmental risks; title disputes; limitations on insurance coverage; as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk" in Entree's most recently filed Management's Discussion & Analysis and in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Entree's Annual Information Form for the financial year ended December 31, 2016, dated March 10, 2017 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.

Contacts:

Monica Hamm, Senior Manager, Investor Relations &

Corporate Communications

Entree Gold Inc.

Tel: 604-687-4777

604-687-4770 (FAX)

Toll Free: 866-368-7330

E-mail: mhamm@entreegold.com




If Ant Financial is successful in acquiring MoneyGram, the company will be able to bypass all the legal and regulatory work required in establishing Mas global payments business. (Photo : Getty Images)

Keen on building a global payments empire, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma might be drawn into joining a bidding war for money transfer company MoneyGram, according to an article by Yahoo Finance.



Advertisement

Ma, the man behind e-commerce giant Alibaba, has already struck an $800 million deal to buy the company through Ant Financial, Alibabas financial services company, back in January.



If Ant Financial is successful in acquiring MoneyGram, the company will be able to bypass all the legal and regulatory work required in establishing Mas global payments business, Yahoo Finance reported.



As of the moment, Ant Financial has a mobile wallet application called Alipay, which is used to pay for purchases and services online or in stores.



Although Alipay has expanded into other parts of Asia and India, the acquisition of MoneyGram by Ant will enable Alipay users, mostly based in China, to transfer money across the globe.



If Ma is unsuccessful, hell have to bring his global payments business from the ground up. This will involve establishing connections and partnerships with businesses and local banks from different countries.



Ma is not the only one interested in purchasing MoneyGram, however. Last week, Euronet, an e-payment services company based in Kansas, made a counter-offer of over $1 billion. According to a report by Reuters, MoneyGram has offered to open up its books to the US company so it can firm up its acquisition offer.



MoneyGram is one of the very few players in the global money-transfer industry. Its shares have opened for trading on March 20 at $16.29, 7 percent higher than Euronets bid and 23 percent above Ant Financials offer.



Ant Financial has been conjuring a plan for global expansion since last year. Doug Feagin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, was appointed as Ants Head of International Operations to lead the companys expansion. Euronets offer, however, poses a serious threat to Ants, and Mas, plans.


NEW ORLEANS, LA--(Marketwired - March 24, 2017) - Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, the former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until May 15, 2017 to file lead plaintiff applications in securities class action lawsuits against Walter Investment Management Corporation (NYSE: WAC), if they purchased the Company's securities between February 29, 2016 and March 13, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period"). These actions are pending in the United States District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida.

What You May Do

If you purchased securities of Walter Investment and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com). If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by May 15, 2017.

About the Lawsuit

Walter Investment and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

On March 14, 2017, Walter Investment disclosed that "[a]s of December 31, 2016, we identified a material weakness in internal controls over operational processes within the transaction level processing of" its subsidiary "Ditech Financial['s] default servicing activities."

On this news, the price of Walter Investment's shares plummeted by over 38%.

About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana.

To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com.

Contact:



Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

Lewis Kahn

Managing Partner

lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com

1-877-515-1850

206 Covington St.

Madisonville, LA 70447
Indi.com, an Irvine, CA-based engagement commerce video platform for brands of all sizes, completed its initial funding.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

Backers included strategic investors such as John Elway, Anil Kapoor and Hans Zimmer.

Led by Neel Grover, Founder and CEO, Indi provides an engagement commerce platform for retailers and brands to turn their customers into incentivized microinfluencers. Retailers can use Indi to gather new user-generated content (product photo & video reviews) and repurpose it. Customers become content creators who share those reviews across social media while earning commissions managed by Indi. Indi channels allow ads to be turned on or off, to pre-review user content prior to running ads, no comment sections to moderate and no content from competing brands.

Proprietary analytics tools track the contents reach across social media all the way through resulting ecommerce transactions.

Clients include brands such as the Denver Broncos, Elite Model Management, the Sacramento Kings, and Americas Got Talent.

FinSMEs

25/03/2017
Ottonova, a Munich, Germany-based digital health insurer, raised a multi million euro amount of funding.

According to reports, the funding could amount approx. 15m, which brought the total amount raised to 20m. Backers in this latest round included Tengelmann Ventures, B-to-V Partners and STS Ventures, which joined previous investors Holtzbrinck Ventures and Vorwerk Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop and launch the platform.

Co-founded by Dr. Med. Roman Rittweger, Sebastian Scheerer and Frank Birzle, ottonova is building a digital platform offering private health insurance products. The company, aims to receive formal approval from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) within 2017, currently employs approx. 50 people and is continuing to hire in different business areas.

FinSMEs

25/03/2017
Increased share of higher risk purchase transactions and the potential for more adjustable rate mortgages amid the expected strong spring market means mortgage lenders should remain watchful for defect and fraud risk, says Chief Economist Mark Fleming

First American Financial Corporation (NYSE: FAF), a leading global provider of title insurance, settlement services and risk solutions for real estate transactions, today released the First American Loan Application Defect Index for February 2017, which estimates the frequency of defects, fraudulence and misrepresentation in the information submitted in mortgage loan applications. The Defect Index reflects estimated mortgage loan defect rates over time, by geography and by loan type. Its available as an interactive tool that can be tailored to showcase trends by category, including amortization type, lien position, loan purpose, property and transaction types, as well as state and market comparisons of mortgage loan defect levels.

February 2017 Loan Application Defect Index

The frequency of defects, fraudulence and misrepresentation in the information submitted in mortgage loan applications increased 4.1 percent in February 2017 as compared with the previous month.

Compared to February 2016, the Defect Index increased by 1.3 percent.

The Defect Index is down 25.5 percent from the high point of risk in October 2013.

The Defect Index for refinance transactions increased 3.4 percent month-over-month, and is 6.2 percent lower than a year ago.

The Defect Index for purchase transactions increased 2.4 percent compared to last month, and is up 2.4 percent compared to a year ago.

Chief Economist Analysis: Rising Rates Spurs Demand for Historically Riskier Loan Products

This month, the Loan Application Defect Index surged higher as rising mortgage rates continue to put downward pressure on lower risk mortgage refinance activity. The March rate increase by the Federal Open Market Committee and strong economic performance will continue to pressure rates upward, said Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American.

Defect, fraud and misrepresentation risk continues to respond to the shift in market composition. Rising mortgage rates continue to increase the share of higher risk purchase loan applications, but they are also incenting more borrowers to apply for ARMs. The savings for the consumer can be significant, but ARM loan applications have historically had higher defect, misrepresentation and fraud risk, said Fleming. The increasing popularity of adjustable rate mortgages is something to keep an eye on as the spring home buying season warms up.

As the spring home buying season gets underway in earnest, the volume of higher risk purchase applications will grow and further increase loan application defect and fraud risk. The increased share of higher risk purchase transactions and the potential for more adjustable rate mortgages amid the expected strong spring market means mortgage lenders should remain watchful for defect and fraud risk, said Fleming.

Additional Quotes from Chief Economist Mark Fleming

The average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 4.15 percent in February, which continued to put downward pressure on the volume of lower risk mortgage refinances.

As mortgage rates increase, some borrowers will seek affordability by switching from 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages to less expensive adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).

The 5/1 ARM averaged 3.2 percent in February, almost a full percentage point less than the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association Application survey, the share of ARM applications reached its highest level in over a year at 7.5 percent of total applications.

Over the last three months, loan application, defect and fraud risk has increased by 5.6 percent on ARM loan applications.

While there is no significant difference in risk between ARMs and fixed-rate mortgages today, historically ARM loan applications have been the riskier loan product type.

February 2017 State Highlights

The five states with the greatest year-over-year increase in defect frequency are: Wyoming (+43.1 percent), North Dakota (+38.2 percent), Mississippi (+31.8 percent), South Dakota (+31.5 percent), and Montana (+26.5 percent).

in defect frequency are: Wyoming (+43.1 percent), North Dakota (+38.2 percent), Mississippi (+31.8 percent), South Dakota (+31.5 percent), and Montana (+26.5 percent). The five states with the greatest year-over-year decrease in defect frequency are: Michigan (-9.6 percent), Connecticut (-9.0 percent), New York (-7.4 percent), Maryland (-5.4 percent), and California (-5.4 percent). February 2017 Local Market Highlights

Among the largest 50 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs), the five markets with the greatest year-over-year increase in defect frequency is: Raleigh, N.C. (+27.7 percent); Birmingham, Ala. (+11.4 percent); St. Louis (+11.3 percent); Minneapolis (+11.1 percent); and Jacksonville, Fla. (+9.6 percent).

in defect frequency is: Raleigh, N.C. (+27.7 percent); Birmingham, Ala. (+11.4 percent); St. Louis (+11.3 percent); Minneapolis (+11.1 percent); and Jacksonville, Fla. (+9.6 percent). Among the largest 50 CBSAs, the five markets with the greatest year-over-year decrease in defect frequency are: Detroit (-16.9 percent); Louisville/Jefferson, Ky. (-14.8 percent); Milwaukee (-14.1 percent); Austin, Texas (-12.0 percent); and Oklahoma City (-11.8 percent). Next Release The next release of the First American Loan Application Defect Index will be posted the week of April 24, 2017. Methodology The methodology statement for the First American Loan Application Defect Index is available at http://www.firstam.com/economics/defect-index. Disclaimer Opinions, estimates, forecasts and other views contained in this page are those of First Americans Chief Economist, do not necessarily represent the views of First American or its management, should not be construed as indicating First Americans business prospects or expected results, and are subject to change without notice. Although the First American Economics team attempts to provide reliable, useful information, it does not guarantee that the information is accurate, current or suitable for any particular purpose.  2017 by First American. Information from this page may be used with proper attribution.

About First American

First American Financial Corporation (NYSE: FAF) is a leading provider of title insurance, settlement services and risk solutions for real estate transactions that traces its heritage back to 1889. First American also provides title plant management services; title and other real property records and images; valuation products and services; home warranty products; property and casualty insurance; and banking, trust and investment advisory services. With revenues of $5.6 billion in 2016, the company offers its products and services directly and through its agents throughout the United States and abroad. In both 2016 and 2017, First American was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. More information about the company can be found at www.firstam.com.
The Devil Wears Prada is a film that many of us grew up watching. It gave us a glimpse of the glamourous fashion world, taught us about how to deal with colleagues at work and reminded us that we should stand for something bigger. It also featured Meryl Streep in one of her most iconic roles, as well as Anne Hathaway, whose character we would relate to for years to come.

Anne Hathaway and Alia Bhatt. Images from Facebook

In an interview to Scoopwhoop, Alia Bhatt said that she would love to be part of the Bollywood remake of The Devil Wears Prada, and that she'd like Karan Johar to direct it. Bhatt is a go-getter and a hardworking actor, so she should naturally play Andy, Anne Hathaway's character. But who should be her co-stars?

Here's who we think should star in the Indian re-make of this Hollywood film.

Shabana Azmi as Miranda Priestly

Meryl Streep and Shabana Azmi. Images from Facebook and Twitter

Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly is icy and has no qualms about humiliating and belittling her subordinates. She also has an air about her and can command the attention of a room simply by walking into it. It takes the acting chops of a veteran like Shabana Azmi to pull off such a mix of characteristics. We can even picture her character sporting a hairstyle similar to Streep's in the film.

Sonam Kapoor as Emily

Emily Blunt and Sonam Kapoor. Images from Facebook

Emily, played by Emily Blunt, is fashion-conscious and ambitious. When Andy first arrives at Runway, she does not go out of her way to make her feel at home. She dreams of attending the Paris fashion show with Miranda, but is replaced by Andy, who outperforms her. Sonam's natural fashion sense will make her the right fit for this role.

Sidharth Malhotra as Nate

Adrian Grenier and Sidharth Malhotra. Images from Facebook

Adrian Grenier plays Nate, Andy's boyfriend with whom she shares a live-in relationship. Nate is a stereotypical good guy but he's not a door mat; he breaks up with Andy when she refuses to accept that she has turned into what she once looked down upon. But the couple does give it a shot again once Andy quits Runway. Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt share the kind of on-screen chemistry that is required for such an equation.

Rahul Khanna as Christian

Simon Baker and Rahul Khanna. Images from Facebook and Twitter

Christian is a an attractive, famous writer who helps Andy. Eventually, she falls for his charms and they spend a night together. We've already seen Rahul Khanna play a handsome editor in Wake Up Sid! He seems like a natural fit for this character.

Arshad Warsi as Nigel

Stanley Tucci and Arshad Warsi. Screengrab from Youtube and image from Twitter

Stanley Tucci's Nigel is the first person to treat Andy with any compassion at the Runway office; the art director lets her borrow designer clothes so that she can fit in better with the rest of the team. But he's also an underdog who continues to have faith in Miranda despite the fact that she takes away an opportunity from him. Nigel is a challenging character to play, and we believe Warsi will do it with aplomb.

Since this film will be directed by Karan Johar as per Bhatt's wishes, you can expect dance sequences in the conference room, a song about living it up in Paris and plenty of drama.
Television actor Shilpa Shinde, who used to play the role of Angoori Bhabhi on the television show Bhabhi Ji Ghar Par Hai, has filed charges of sexual harassment against the producer of the show, Sanjay Kohli.

Hindustan Times reports that Shinde had invited attention when she quit the show last year, complaining that the makers were forcing her to sign an agreement that would prevent her from doing other television shows. India Times also reports overtime and torture by Sanjay's wife Binaifer, as other reasons of Shinde calling it quits.

Back then, the makers had sued her for Rs 12.50 crore for breach of contract. While the trial is pending, Shinde had alleged that the producers still owe her a sum of Rs 32 lakh, as reported by India Today.

Now, Shinde has upped the ante with some fresh allegations. The Indian Express reports that she has accused Sanjay of sexual harassment at workplace. She alleges that Sanjay used to often get intimate with her and threatened to fire her from the show if she does not reciprocate. She also alleges that Sanjay touched her inappropriately on her breasts and waist and used to hug her forcefully.

Mid-Day quotes the FIR that she file against Sanjay, "In the past year, I battled depression and medical issues. I spoke out since it was getting to me. I know many women from the industry are afraid to speak up, but I want to, on their behalf. I went to the police station thrice this week with my lawyer. The cop, Mahesh Patil, was indifferent and insensitive."

However, Binaifer has rubbished the allegations made by Shinde by issuing the following statement, as reported by all the publications mentioned above, "All we can say is that matter is subjudice, we have full faith in the judiciary. We will see her in court. We dont want to give her unnecessary importance for her obvious false allegations."
There are few mood killers more effective than a person who is overly aware of their good looks and a film that is conscious of being cool. In the case of the new Mollywood release Honey Bee 2: Celebrations, the self-consciousness is misplaced since there is nothing cool about this decidedly dull sequel to the 2013 hit Honey Bee.

Writer-director Lal Jrs Honey Bee 2 takes off where the first film left off, recounting the suicide bid by Sebastian aka Seban (played by Asif Ali) and Angel (Bhavana). Saved from watery doom, the two become part of a witless scheme featuring their friends Ferno (Baburaj), Abu (Sreenath Bhasi) and Ambrose (Balu Varghese) and Angels tempestuous brothers who are now reconciled to their romance.

The goal: to get Sebans parents approval for his marriage to Angel. The catch: he is afraid they may feel hurt that their son chose his bride while they were estranged. Pretending that Seban and Angel do not know each other, Mikhail (Lal) and Angels remaining siblings propose the alliance to Sebans Mum and Dad, Ruby (Lena) and Thampi Anthony (Sreenivasan).

Far from being the buddy flick that the first one was, this one ends up being a strained, over-stretched family drama with the plot centering around Sebans love for his parents, his desire not to cause them pain and his highly contrived actions as a result. The film falls flat in its bid to be emotional, and the effort dilutes its comedic elements which, in any case, are repetitive, loud and too often crass.

Is it really funny that a bunch of people shout a lot or down litres of alcohol? How juvenile must you be to enjoy the use of crude words and gestures to indicate human body parts?

The early scenes hold out promise if you have a taste for slapstick humour. Fernos English remains amusing, but how long can he sustain himself on that prop? Like actor Baburaj playing Ferno, Sreenath Bhasi too retains his comic timing as Abu, but all three friends are poorly developed in the script and relegated to the sidelines.

With Lal Jr undecided about what he wants the film to be, the second hour of Honey Bee 2 goes round and round in circles, with a multiplicity of characters adding to the consequent confusion.

The confusion becomes irrelevant though, because Seban is an unlikeable bore, and frankly, it is hard to care beyond a point whether he loves Angel, why he wants to be with her and whether they will end up together.

In fact, it is impossible to imagine why this vivacious, intelligent woman would want to be with this charmless fellow, or why the film revolves around him and not her. Equally, what does it say about the choices available to female artistes in Malayalam cinema, that an interesting, beautiful actress like Bhavana agreed to play a supporting character in such an ordinary film focused on a male star with far less charisma than she possesses?

Low-brow humour is bad enough, but what is a viewer to do with lack of energy and lack of purpose? The most fun I had with Honey Bee 2: Celebrations came from wondering where I might source that lovely modernised adaptation of the settu mundu Angel wears at her engagement ceremony; and from the foot-tapping songs 'Jillam jillala' and 'Nummada Kochi', their music by Deepak Dev, the choreography, and in particular Lals uninhibited dancing to both.

Yes I do want to check out that chicken-laden kaayika biriyaaniyude ruji but macha, before that I must have a cup of coffee to jolt myself out of the boredom emanating from this film.
By Lisandra Paraguassu and Dominique Patton

| BRASILIA/BEIJING

BRASILIA/BEIJING China lifted a ban on imports of meat from Brazil on Saturday after Brazilian authorities clarified details of a police investigation into alleged bribery of health inspectors, in a victory for President Michel Temer's efforts to stem damage from the probe.The move by China, the biggest national consumer of Brazilian meat, was accompanied on Saturday by the lifting of import bans in Egypt and Chile, bringing hope of an end to a crisis that saw one-fifth wiped off the value of Brazilian pork and poultry exports last week. A slew of major meat importers issued bans after Brazilian federal police unveiled on March 17 an investigation into alleged payments to government health officials by meat processing companies to forego inspections and ignore abuses, codenamed "Operation Weak Flesh".Temer's government, alarmed the scandal could damage one of the few sectors that has defied a deep recession in Latin America's largest economy, launched a campaign to convince trade partners that any abuses were limited in scope.Meat is Brazil's third-largest export, after soy and iron ore. The country sold around $13.5 billion in chicken, beef and pork products last year.Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi welcomed China's decision and said the government retained a ban on exports from 21 processing plants directly linked to the federal police investigation as it carried out its own inspections. Lifting this suspension was the result of a giant effort by Brazil to explain that the investigation targeted the conduct of individuals and not the quality of the meat," Maggi told Reuters.

Officials said that the only one of the 21 plants that exported to China is owned by Seara Alimentos Ltda, a unit of Brazil's JBS SA, the world's biggest meatpacking company. JBS has strongly denied any wrongdoing and said it upholds strict quality standards. Two sources in China confirmed that a ban remained in place on imports from the Seara plant, as well as any meat approved by seven Brazilian veterinary experts linked to the police investigation.Brazilian meat imports have already started being cleared in Shanghai, one of the sources said.

China had suspended imports of all meat products from Brazil, the world's top beef exporter, on March 20 as a precautionary measure.An aide to President Temer told Reuters that he planned to call Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the coming days. In a statement, Temer voiced confidence that other countries would follow China's example in lifting restrictions. Chile on Saturday said it was ending a ban on meat purchases from Brazil, except for the 21 suspended plants, while Egypt also resumed imports after a two day-suspension.South Korea had already called off a short-lived ban on chicken imports from Brazil's BRF SA on Tuesday, after just one day.

BRF, the world's largest poultry producer, has denied selling rotten meat and taking part in any corrupt activities. The decision by China was crucial because of its size: it consumed some $1.75 billion in Brazilian meat imports last year.In part, Brazil has been fortunate that rivals were ill-placed to fill the gap.With China's second-largest beef supplier, Australia, still rebuilding its herd after drought, it could not meet fast-growing Chinese demand.In the poultry sector, where Brazil supplies more than 85 percent of China's imports, other major producers, such as the United States and some smaller European markets, are banned from supplying to China due to bird flu outbreaks.Despite the government's success in containing the damage from the scandal, sources familiar with the investigation said there was a large amount of unpublished evidence pointing to widespread fraud and not just isolated abuses in the meat industry, sources told Reuters on Friday. (Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia, Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo and Dominique Patton in Beijing; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Bernard Orr)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
LONDON Europe's medicines regulator has recommended the suspension of more than 300 generic drug approvals and drug applications due to "unreliable" tests conducted by Indian contract research firm Micro Therapeutic Research Labs.The decision, announced by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on its website, is the latest blow for India's drug-testing industry, which has run into a series of problems with international regulators in recent years.Nobody at the Chennai-based company was immediately available to comment.

The EMA said European officials had been investigating Micro Therapeutic's compliance with good clinical practice after Austrian and Dutch authorities raised concerns in February 2016."The inspections identified several concerns at the companys sites regarding misrepresentation of study data and deficiencies in documentation and data handling," the agency said.

However, there is no evidence of harm or lack of effectiveness of the medicines, which include generic versions of many common prescription pharmaceuticals, including blood pressure tablets and painkillers.The EMA's recommendation on the suspension of the medicines tested by Micro Therapeutic will now be sent to the European Commission for a legally binding decision valid throughout the European Union.

Drug tests carried out at Indian contract research organisations (CROs) have been key in getting a huge array of generic medicines approved for sale around the world over many years.In 2015, Europe banned around 700 medicines that had been approved based on clinical trial data provided by GVK Biosciences, then Indias largest CRO. Other smaller Indian CROs have also been found to have fallen short of required standards.In the wake of such trial data scandals, many large drugmakers have been shifting more critical trials back to the United States and Europe over the last three years, according to consultants and industry executives. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Dale Hudson)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Yehia Kalash recently lost his bid to be re-elected as syndicate head

Cairo's Qasr Al-Nil Appeals Court issued a one-year suspended prison sentence against former head of Egypts Press Syndicate Yehia Kalash and two board members for harbouring fugitives inside the syndicate's headquarters.

This is a lessened prison sentence compared to the original verdict issued in November by a Cairo misdemeanour court of two years in prison for Kalash and board members Gamal Abdel-Reheem and Khaled El-Balshy.

This suspended sentence means Kalash, Abdel-Reheem and El-Balshy will not serve jail time. However, if the any one in the trio commits a similar offence within the next three years, as mandated by the appeals court, they would have to serve the one-year prison sentence.

The verdict can still be appealed in front of the Court of Cassation.

Dozens of journalists, who gathered inside the press syndicate after the ruling, organised a protest in front of the Syndicate Saturday noon, protesting the verdict against Kalash, El-Balshy, and Abdel-Rehim.

A number of members of the newly-elected Syndicate board attended the protest, such as Amr Badr, Mohamed Saad Abdel Hafiz, and Mahmoud Kamel.

Kamel announced that the board will hold a meeting on Sunday noon to discuss legal and other procedures to be taken, following the ruling, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

The trio were accused in April 2016 of harbouring journalists Mahmoud El-Sakka and Amr Badr.

Journalists El-Sakka and Badr were among many wanted on arrest warrants ahead of 25 April 2016 protests against the Egyptian-Saudi Red Sea island maritime border agreement.

Badr and El-Sakka were arrested inside the Press Syndicate premises. They were later released on bail pending trial.

Kalash lost the elections for the head of journalists syndicate this month receiving 1,890 votes compared to 2,457 votes for new syndicate head,, journalist Abdel-Mohsen Salama.

Similarly, El-Balshy lost his seat on the syndicates high board, but Abdel-Reheem was re-elected to his seat.

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By Marianna Parraga and Alexandra Ulmer

| HOUSTON/CARACAS

HOUSTON/CARACAS A gasoline shortage in OPEC member Venezuela was exacerbated by an increase in fuel exports to foreign allies such as Cuba and Nicaragua and an exodus of crucial personnel from state-run energy company PDVSA, according to internal PDVSA documents and sources familiar with its operations.Leftist-run Venezuela sells its citizens the world's cheapest gasoline. Fuel supplies have continued flowing despite a domestic oil industry in turmoil and a deepening economic crisis under President Nicolas Maduro that has left the South American country with scant supplies of many basic necessities.That changed on Wednesday, when Venezuelans faced their first nationwide shortage of motor fuel since an explosion ripped through one of the world's largest refineries five years ago. At the time, the government of then-President Hugo Chavez curbed exports to guarantee there was enough fuel at home.This week's shortage was also mainly due to problems at refineries, as a mix of plant glitches and maintenance cut fuel production in half.Unlike five years ago, Caracas has continued exporting fuel to political allies and even raised the volume of shipments last month despite warnings within the government-run company that doing so could trigger a domestic supply crunch.Shipments from refineries to the domestic market needed to be redirected to meet those export commitments, the internal documents showed."Should this additional volume ... be exported, it would impact a cargo scheduled for the local market," read one email sent from an official in the company's domestic marketing department to its international trade unit.Venezuela last month exported 88,000 barrels per day (bpd) of fuels - equivalent to a fifth of its domestic consumption - to Cuba, Nicaragua and other countries, according to internal PDVSA documents seen by Reuters.That was up 22,000 bpd on the volumes Venezuela had been shipping to those two countries under accords struck by Chavez to expand his diplomatic clout by lowering their fuel costs through cheap supplies of crude and fuel.The order to increase exports came from PDVSA's top executives, according to the internal emails seen by Reuters.Venezuela's oil ministry and state-run PDVSA, formally known as Petroleos de Venezuela SA, did not reply to requests for comment for this story.

FUEL STRAIN, BRAIN DRAIN

The strain on the country's fuel system has been worsened by the departure of staff in PDVSA's trade and supply unit who are key to ensuring fuel gets to where it is needed and making payments for imports, three sources close to the company said.The unit has seen around a dozen key staffers depart since Maduro shook up PDVSA's top management in January. Among those who left was the head of budget and payments, two sources said."Every week someone leaves for one reason or another," said a PDVSA source familiar with the unit's operations. Some have been fired, while others have left since the shake-up inserted political and military officials into top positions and bolstered Maduro's grip on the company that powers the nation's economy.The imposition of leaders with little or no experience in the industry has further disillusioned some of the company's experienced professionals and accelerated an exodus that had already taken hold as economic and social conditions in Venezuela worsened.

A recent internal PDVSA report seen by Reuters mentioned "a low capacity to retain key personnel," amid salaries of a few dozen dollars a month at the black market rate.UNPAID BILLS

The departure of staff responsible for paying suppliers, as well as a cash crunch in the company and the country, have led to an accumulation of unpaid bills for fuel imports into Venezuela.Had those bills been paid, the supply crunch would have been less acute, the company sources said.About 10 tankers are waiting near PDVSA ports in Venezuela and the Caribbean to discharge fuel for domestic consumption and for oil blending.

Only one vessel bringing fuel imports has been discharged since the beginning of the week, shipping data showed.PDVSA ordered some of the cargoes as it prepared alternative supplies while refineries undergo maintenance.The tankers sitting offshore will not unload until PDVSA pays for their cargoes, said shippers and the company sources.Should PDVSA pay - up to $20 million per cargo - shortages could blow over relatively soon. The cash-strapped company has struggled since the global oil price crash that began in 2014 cut revenue for its crude exports. PDVSA is tight on cash as it prepares for some $2.5 billion in bond payments due next month. While the vessels sit offshore, lines of dozens of cars waited at gas stations in central Venezuela on Wednesday and Thursday. The shortages angered Venezuelans who already face long lines for scarce food and drugs.PDVSA blamed the supply crunch on unspecified problems for shipping fuel from domestic refineries to distribution centers. The company said it was working hard to solve the gasoline situation by boosting deliveries to the worst-hit regions. A shortage of trucks to move refined products has also caused bottlenecks, oil workers told PDVSA President Eulogio Del Pino during a visit to a fuel facility this week, asking for help. Trucks are in short supply because the country does not have enough funds to pay for imports of spare parts.It was unclear when fuel supplies would return to normal, although by late Thursday PDVSA appeared to have distributed some fuel from storage to Caracas and the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz. Lines to fill up at gasoline stations shortened in both cities, according to Reuters witnesses.Workers at the 335,000-bpd Isla refinery on the nearby island of Curacao operated by PDVSA said on Friday that the refinery had begun restarting its catalytic cracking unit, which could boost fuel supplies in the coming days. (Additional reporting by Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo and Maria Ramirez in Puerto Ordaz; Editing by Simon Webb and Marguerita Choy)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Anthony Esposito, Dan Freed and Noe Torres

| ACAPULCO, Mexico

ACAPULCO, Mexico U.S. President Donald Trump's push to force U.S. industry to bring jobs home is opening investment avenues for Chinese companies in Mexico, an executive with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's largest lender, said on Friday.Fears of a hit to foreign investment ran high when Ford Motor Co (F.N) cancelled a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico's central state of San Luis Potosi in January. Trump, who had railed against U.S. manufacturers investing in Mexico, hailed the decision as a major victory, but Ford put it down to declining demand for small cars.Yaogang Chen, head of ICBC's (601398.SS)(1398.HK) Mexico unit, said U.S. industry's loss could be China's gain."If some U.S. investment projects don't (happen), there has to be somebody to invest. ... If Chinese companies think it is profitable, they will invest," he said in an interview on the sidelines of a banking conference in the resort of Acapulco.

In February, China's Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co Ltd (JAC Motor) (600418.SS) and Mexico's Giant Motors, along with distributor Chori Co Ltd (8014.T), said they would invest over $210 million in an existing plant to build SUVs in the central state of Hidalgo.Prior to Trump's campaign against U.S. manufacturers shipping jobs overseas, Chinese companies were making tentative inroads into Mexico.China's BAIC Motor Corp Ltd (1958.HK) in June 2016 started selling in Mexico its own cars imported from China and has said that it will look into building an industrial plant in Mexico to produce cars and electric vehicles.

BAIC is already a client of ICBC's in Mexico.ICBC, one of the world's top banks by market capitalisation and assets, received its banking license in Mexico in 2014 and started operations there in mid-2016.

"JAC, we think, will be a client of ours in Mexico too," Chen said.Still, Chinese foreign direct investment in Mexico is a tiny fraction of what U.S. firms have plowed in over the years.State-controlled ICBC expects to grow its assets and loan portfolio in Mexico tenfold over the next three years to some 10 billion pesos ($533 million), Chen said.The executive said ICBC aims to offer a service to allow clients to convert Mexican pesos to Chinese renminbi and vice versa, and make cross-border transactions cheaper. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito, Dan Freed and Noe Torres; Editing by Richard Chang)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Bandhopadhyay, who once hobnobbed with Marxists and later wrote songs for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), has created a furore with his 12 liner that many claim was instigated by the TMC and - indirectly - mocked the new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Much before he became the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Adityanath had once attended a public rally where radical speakers had exhorted the crowds to have sex with dead women of a particular community by digging bodies up from graves.

The objection revolved around the last couple of lines of the poem, titled The Curse (it translates into Abhishapto in regional Bengali language), which read: I am the woman and the death are hunting. When you will rape me after taking me from burial ground, your religious trident will be covered with a condom.

The condom on trident comment was seen by the students as a trigger of insult from Bandhopadhyay.

News that Bandhopadhyay could be soon arrested for allegedly allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments has triggered outrage in Kolkata which, interestingly, publishes Indias largest number of annual poetry collections and grants its poets celebrity status at public functions.

Mamata Banerjee has, expectedly, jumped into the fray, saying the move to book Bandhopadhyay was political. Srijato has nothing to worry, he will remain untouched, this is BJPs game to tarnish our government, Banerjee told reporters. She even encouraged her supporters to jam streets in case cops would arrest the poet in the sleepy north Bengal town.

Those on the side of Bandhopadhyay are arguing for free speech and saying they have their doubts if such words can be genuinely be considered totally blasphemous and the poet hauled over coals. They have raised previous instances of the late Promode Dasgupta, counted among Indias foremost Marxist leaders, once using the following lines in a public rally, I will put Nirodh (a brand of condoms) to silence the guns.

Some have taken to Facebook to say Bandhopadhyay deserved a special hearing only because he lives and works in Kolkata, where once a bus driver drove a double decker into a narrow lane to drop home a drunk Shakti Chattopadhyay, a celebrated poet.

Kolkata is a city of poets, we adore their work. Srijato is a poet, not a politician, lets not paint him in the black. Lets read his poem, understand its importance in the times we are living, remarked Bengals IT minister Bratya Basu, himself an actor. The BJP is trying to spread communal hatred but it will not work in Bengal.

He found support from CPM's Sujan Chakravarty who said the attack against the poet was the handiwork of the rival BJP to forment trouble in Bengal. "The poem is an excuse to attack."

But the cops in Siliguri, a sleepy North Bengal town considered the gateway to Indias northeastern states, said the law will take its own course because two cases have been filed against the poet. CS Lepcha, Siliguri Police Commissioner, said he was indisposed and would not like to offer comments on the case. The matter will now be heard in the court, Lepcha said in a telephonic interview.

Arnab Sarkar, an accountancy student of Bagdogra College, who had filed the first complaint in the Siliguri Police crime cell office, said he is an active member of Hindu Samhati, a Kolkata-based radical, right-wing organisation, and alleged the poet had hurt his sentiments by using words like condom on a trident. A day after Sarkar filed his complaint on March 21, 2017, another student, Jayajeet Bhattacharya, filed another complaint citing identical reasons on March 23, 2017, in another police station, Ghola, in Siliguri district.

Trident (or trishul) is a very religious instrument for the Hindus and no one can get away by writing gibberish, Sarkar said in a telephonic interview from Siliguri. He said he hoped cops would interrogate Bandhopadhyay in Siliguri. We will move to court is the cops slow down the case and don't take any action, said Sarkar. The other complainant, Jayajeet Bhattacharya, was not available for comments.

Tapan Ghosh, president of Hindu Samhiti, said they will fight till the last. "There's a growing tendency to ridicule Hinduism in India, Srijato must be asked on whose insistence he wrote such derogatory lines," Ghosh said in an interview.

Bandhopadhyay himself said he was unfazed and will defend his right to pen rebellious poems. He said poets are free-minded people and their works should be seen in the right spirit. I do not think I have written anything blasphemous, its my expressions of the current times, Bandhopadhyay said in a brief interview.

I am merely protesting against something that I think has gone amiss in society, there is a growing divide between Hindus and Muslims and as a poet, I have expressed my concern, said Bandhopadhyay who argued that he had also written poems when independent bloggers - many of them Hindus - were hacked to death in neighbouring Bangladesh by Muslim fanatics and received death threats. My poetry is my life, my medium, my words to the society at large. I am not worried, said Bandhopadhyay.

But the posting of the poem on Facebook on 19 March at 20:25 hours, a day when Adityanath was sworn in as the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister after BJPs landslide victory, added twists and colours in a politically-sensitive state like West Bengal. By 23 March, 1800 hours, the post had received over 17,000 likes, 4500 plus shares and a barrage of high voltage comments.

Kolkatas seasoned corporate honcho Roopendra Narayan Ray says the argument needs to be viewed with both seriousness and sensitivity. Poets are free to write but they must be sensitive (to the cause). This poem has suddenly become a needless controversy.

In Narada-washed Kolkata, many - mostly TMC and Left supporters - are getting ready to march through the streets in solidarity for the poet, their move totally political. Lost in the brouhaha is a poets freedom, and whether its time for verse writers in India to be extremely sensitive (read apolitical) in their writings.
The Indian Coast Guard on Saturday apprehended a Pakistani fishing boat with nine crew members in Indian waters off Gujarat coast, in the Arabian Sea officials said. "A Pakistani boat with nine crew members, which had entered the Indian waters, was seized by a Coast Guard vessel off Jakhau coast of Kutch district today (on Saturday)," the Coast Guard officials said.

"The boat and and the Pakistani crew members have been brought to Jakhau port and the crew members are being interrogated by the security agencies," they added.

The boat 'Karachi Pakistan', with around 30 kg of fish on board, had originated from Shah Bunder in Pakistan.

Last month, the BSF had apprehended four abandoned Pakistani fishing boats near Sir Creek in Kutch district on the Indo-Pak border during an extensive search operation in that area.

With inputs from agencies
New Delhi: Incitement of violence cannot be the sole criterion for determining hate speech, the Law Commission said on Friday, recommending that efforts to create hatred and fear should also be brought under its ambit.

Even a speech that does not incite violence has the potential of marginalising a section of the society, it asserted while seeking enhanced penal provisions to check hate speech.

In the report 'Hate Speech' submitted to the Law Ministry, the panel said there is a need to amend provisions of the Indian Penal Code to insert new provisions on 'prohibiting incitement to hatred' and 'causing fear, alarm, or provocation of violence in certain cases'.

"Incitement to violence cannot be the sole test for determining whether a speech amounts to hate speech or not. Even speech that does not incite violence has the potential of marginalising a certain section of the society or individual," the report said.

It pointed out that in the age of technology, the anonymity of internet allows a miscreant to easily spread false and offensive ideas. "These ideas need not always incite violence but they might perpetuate the discriminatory attitudes prevalent in the society. Thus, incitement to discrimination is also a significant factor that contributes to the identification of hate speech," it said.

But what actually constitutes a hate speech?

According to the Commission, "hate speech generally is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief and the like.

"Thus, hate speech is any word written or spoken, signs, visible representations within the hearing or sight of a person with the intention to cause fear or alarm, or

incitement to violence."

The Commission also submitted the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2017 along with the report recommending changes in the IPC and the Code or Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

According to the draft bill, a new section, 153C, should be inserted in the IPC to prohibit incitement to hatred. "Who ever, on grounds of religion, race, caste or

community, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, place of birth, residence, language, disability or tribe  "a) uses gravely threatening words either spoken or

written, signs, visible representations within the hearing or sight of a person with the intention to cause, fear or alarm; or "(b) advocates hatred by words either spoken or written, signs, visible representations, that causes incitement to violence," will be punishable with imprisonment of up to two years, and fine of up to Rs 5000, or with both.

The law panel also recommended inserting section 505 A in the IPC about causing fear, alarm, or provocation of violence in certain cases.

"Whoever in public intentionally on grounds of religion, race, caste or community, sex, gender, sexual orientation, place of birth, residence, language, disability or tribe  uses words, or displays any writing, sign, or other visible representation which is gravely threatening, or derogatory; "(i) within the hearing or sight of a person, causing fear or alarm, or;

"(ii) with the intent to provoke the use of unlawful violence, against that person or another", will be punished with imprisonment of up to one year or fine up to Rs 5000, or both.

The issue was referred to it by the Supreme Court.
Chants of death to the dictator grow louder as Iran protests intensify The protests in Iran that were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini have now entered the 42nd day. The demonstrations are more powerful than ever and so is the crackdown by Iranian authorities. Thousands of mourners defied heightened security measures as they made their way to Aminis burial site in
Even as 4,500 resident doctors in Maharashtra continue to protest against the recent string of assaults on their colleagues, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Friday ended its agitation after state chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, assured better security in government hospitals.

Resident doctors across the state are protesting in the wake of a string of attacks on their colleagues by patients' relatives at government hospitals. The issue came to light when Rohan Mhamunkar, an orthopaedic resident doctor in Dhule, was allegedly assaulted by the relatives of a patient. He sustained serious head and soft tissue injuries, that nearly cost him his left eye.

Following the incident in Dhule, reports of similar attacks surfaced all across Maharashtra. The resident doctors' strike, backed by IMA and Association of Medical Teachers, ultimately led to a series of written announcements by the state government, aimed to improve security in government hospitals.

The government proposed that security audits of all public hospitals will be conducted by an expert within the next fifteen days. To start with, 1,100 new armed guards will be posted at public hospitals across the state. Measures like CCTV monitoring, restriction on number of visitors, special security measures at sensitive places like the Intensive Care Unit, Operation Theatre, Emergency Care or Casualty department etc will be put in place immediately. It is pertinent to note here that the Bombay High Court will periodically monitor the implementation of these measures  every 15 days, till the process is complete.

But violence is not new to the medical profession. In medieval times, the treating physician was buried alive alongside the royal deceased. A similar practice prevailed in certain European Kingdoms until a few hundreds years ago. That the doctor is held responsible for every adverse outcome or death and is assaulted in India even today, in the 21st century, is preposterous.

It seems that people in India dont understand that not every complication or death is a result of the doctor's negligence. They need to understand that the doctor can only promise standard and committed care; he can not always ensure a cure.

For redressal of grievances, the aggrieved patient has many avenues  Medical Councils, Civil Courts, Criminal Courts and Consumer Courts. But how can one ever justify an assault on the treating doctor's life or damage to hospital property? If we are going to resolve our differences in this manner, then what is the need for courts of law?

In January 2001, a doctor, Vasant Jaykar, was murdered in Knar, Mumbai, because a patient ailing with terminal liver cirrhosis had died under his care. He was known to be an extremely ethical, mild mannered and helping physician, who lived only for his patients. His murder, incidentally, was not an isolated incident. Many more doctors have lost their limbs or even their lives in similar incidents due to mindless violence of patients or their relatives.

It appears that treating serious or terminal cases has become particularly risky these days. The immediate threat to life, it seems, is not to patient but rather to the treating doctor. Then there is also the possibility of vandals destroying hospital property. The destruction of property at Thane's Singhania Hospital in 2001 serves as an example. This prime medical facility had to shut down post the extensive ravaging.

The doctor, unfortunately, is the perceived face of the healthcare system. No matter what the infrastructural deficiency is, he has to bear the brunt of the problem. Be it a shortage of qualified nurses, lack of blood in the blood bank, scarce ambulance services, shortage of medicines and equipment;it is seen as the doctor's problem, who ends up taking the blame and the occasional thrashing. Even in the Dhule case, since no neurosurgeon was available to take care of the patient's head injury, Mhamunkar ended up sustaining life-threatening injuries.

The frenzy whipped up against the medical profession has reached a point where every doctor is considered guilty unless proved innocent. Campaigns to educate the consumer (read patient) have swung the pendulum to the other extreme  now every action of the treating doctor is seen with extreme doubt and suspicion.

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in medicine  it is an inexact science. Here, unlike mathematics, two and two do not always add up to four.

The problem arises when some doctors or institutions, in their zeal to promote their services, start offering bogus guarantees. State-of-the-art gizmos, too, have raised the expectations of the patient to the point where he presumes a hundred percent favourable result.

Add to that the poor bedside manner, lack of proper communication skills and the doctor's packed schedule, who has multiple attachments and many patients to look after. Thankfully, some medical schools have now introduced courses in medical ethics and communication skills.

Such incidents are setting a sense of despondency in medical profession. The doctor feels harassed and demoralised, he is beginning to treat almost every patient as a potential aggressor or litigant. He is becoming defensive in practice and paranoid in his outlook, which can not be good for anyone. A fearful mind or a trembling hand can never give efficient service to the patient.

The Maharashtra Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage or Loss to Property) Act was enacted in 2010. The Act made offences against doctors non-bailable, with imprisonment up to three years and fine up to Rs 50,000. The offender is also required to pay twice the amount of damage or loss caused to property as compensation.

The problem is not in the act but rather in its implementation.The police is not sensitised to the Act and thus does not invoke it in cases of violence against doctors. Even filing an FIR in such cases at the local police station becomes a Herculean task. Post the promulgation of this Act, there have been 72 recorded cases of violence against doctors  most of them being tried under IPC sections and not this Act  but not one has reached sentencing till date.

The doctor-patient relationship is under severe strain at this point. And unless both, the doctor as well as the patient, understand and learn to honour the finer point of their relationship, the healing process will not be complete.

The author is consulting surgeon and trustee, IMA, Mumbai West.
New Delhi: Naga insurgent group NSCN(IM) general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah, announced earlier this week that the government of India has accepted the demand for greater Nagaland, creating ripples in Manipur, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh.

The announcement comes a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the framework of agreement signed between the government of India and NSCN(IM) contains nothing against the interest of Manipur.

However, the Centre on Friday strongly refuted as "erroneous" the reports that it has agreed to carve out a larger Nagaland state, saying no such decision has been taken.

A home ministry spokesperson said some reports have appeared recently to the effect that the government of India

has agreed to carve out a larger Nagaland state by taking away territories of states contiguous to Nagaland.

"Such reports are erroneous. It is clarified that there is no such agreement or decision by the government of India," the spokesperson said.

While addressing his cadres on 38th Republic Day held on Wednesday, Muivah said, "The historic Framework of Agreement recognises the unique history, the identity, the sovereignty, the territories of the Nagas. It also recognises the legitimate right of the Nagas to the integration of all Naga territories."

Muivahs statement has hit the realm of discord in the region which rises from the demand of the NSCN(IM) to integrate vast areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to create a greater Nagaland.

The framework of agreement, that is kept a closely guarded secret by the Centre has been one of the major talking point among the political parties and the people in Manipur in the last assembly election.

The Congress played upon the fear in Manipur by claiming that the BJP-led NDA at the Centre has compromised the territorial integrity of Manipur in its pact with NSCN(IM).

On the other hand, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a rally ruled out such fear raised and counterclaimed that the ruling Congress in the state has paid money to the United Naga Council to impose economic blockade and thus create tension to reap political benefit.

But the recent claim made by Muivah is seen as a turnaround of the vexed Naga issue and has resulted in protests on the streets of Assam.

The Pioneer reported that many organisations in Assam, especially in the districts adjacent to Nagaland on Friday protested on the streets.

Several students organisations took to the streets in Golaghat and Charaideu district on Friday and burnt effigies of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal demanding to make his stand clear on the bilateral framework agreement between NSCN(IM) and government of India," the report said.

Talking to Firstpost, the All Assam Students' Union leader Dipankar Nath told Firstpost, "We want a peaceful solution to the problems faced by the Nagas, but that cannot be at the cost of the territorial integrity of Assam. We will not leave an inch of our land."

He also demanded that the Centre should make the framework of agreement public.

On the other hand, many in Manipur take the statement issued by Muivah as provocative.

Elangbam Johnson, president of United Council of Manipur told Firstpost, "He may not find his view provocative, but for us it is. He has been issuing such statements for a long time. But the government of India has maintained silence on this issue. So we do not find any reason to react."

He also said that Muivahs views may be aimed at re-asserting his position as the leader of the NSCN(IM). Muivah was recently re-elected as the General Secretary of the NSCN(IM).

The issue of the Naga peace talks gained momentum after BJP attained power in Manipur, as it was the last stakeholder state of the Naga peace talks, where BJP formed the government after Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

KJ Singh, former Western Army commander wrote in an article published in The Indian Express that new BJP-led state governments in the northeastern states provide the Centre with the opportunity to solve the vexed Naga issue.

"There is a BJP government in Assam, Arunachal and now in Manipur. There is a friendly dispensation in Nagaland. Contrast this with the times when the first Naga peace interlocutor preferred Bangkok to Kohima; he first visited Nagaland while he accompanied Isak Swu and T Muivah on their return from exile," he said.

Adding that there can be no better alignment than the present to unravel this knotty problem, Singh said, "The requirement is to convince the group to modify its demand for sovereignty and Nagalim by accepting the existing state boundaries in the region. A statutory Naga Tribal Council could be considered to safeguard the interests of Nagas outside Nagaland."

The framework agreement was signed on 3 August 2015 by Muivah and the government's interlocutor RN Ravi in presence of Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The agreement came after over 80 rounds of negotiations spanning 18 years with the first breakthrough in 1997 when the ceasefire agreement was sealed.

"The pact had set the political parameters of the final solution," officials said.

With inputs from PTI
London: A motion has been tabled in the UK Parliament condemning Pakistan's "arbitrary" move to declare the strategic Gilgit-Baltistan region, bordering disputed PoK, as its fifth province.

Bob Blackman, a Conservative party MP, who regularly speaks out in support of rights of Kashmiri Hindus in the House of Commons, tabled the Early Day Motion (EDM) titled 'Annexation of Gilgit-Baltistan as by Pakistan as its fifth frontier' on 23 March.

EDMs are formal motions tabled in the House of Commons as a means of drawing attention to a particular issue or cause. The motion said that Gilgit-Baltistan has been illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947 and the country is attempting to annex the already disputed area.

The EDM reads, "That this House condemns the arbitrary announcement by Pakistan declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as its Fifth Frontier, implying its attempt to annex the already disputed area. Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression."

It further said that the attempts to change the demography of the region in violation of State Subject Ordinance and forcibly and illegally to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which further aggravates and interferes with the disputed territory.

Other British MPs are expected to sign the EDM during the course of this week as a show of support to the motion. A spokesperson for Blackman's office indicated that a formal debate on the issue is also likely to be proposed in the coming weeks.

Pakistan's minister for inter-provincial coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada had told Pakistani media on 14 March that a committee headed by advisor of foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz had proposed giving the status of a province to Gilgit-Baltistan. He also said that a constitutional amendment would be made to change the status of the region, through which the $46 billion CPEC passes.

India has termed as "entirely unacceptable" any possible attempt by Pakistan to declare the Gilgit-Baltistan region, bordering disputed PoK, as the fifth province.

An External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said any such step would not be able to hide the illegality of Pakistan's occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir which it must vacate forthwith.

Gilgit-Baltistan is treated as a separate geographical entity by Pakistan. It has a regional assembly and an elected chief minister. The other four provinces in Pakistan are Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh.

It is believed that China's concerns about the unsettled status of Gilgit-Baltistan prompted Pakistan to change its status.
Bhuj (Guj): The Indian Coast Guard, on Friday, apprehended a Pakistani boat with nine crew members from the Arabian Sea off Gujarat coast, officials said.

"A Pakistani boat with nine crew members, which had entered the Indian waters, was seized by a Coast Guard vessel off Jakhau coast of Kutch district today," the Coast Guard officials said.

"The boat and and the Pakistani crew members have been brought to Jakhau port and the crew members are being interrogated by the security agencies," they added.

Last month, the BSF had apprehended four abandoned Pakistani fishing boats near Sir Creek in Kutch district on the Indo-Pak border during an extensive search operation in that area.
Gwalior: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said a new roadmap is afoot to strengthen the border security and seal firmly the International Border with Bangladesh and Pakistan.

"The Centre has chalked out a new roadmap to strengthen the border security and plans to seal the International Borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan," Singh said, addressing the Passing Out Parade of the BSF assistant commandants at the BSF Academy at Tekanpur near Gwalior.

The parade also saw the first woman assistant commandant of India's border guarding force, Tanushree Pareek, passing out with Home Minister Singh registering his praise for the BSF's first woman field officer.

An official release here quoted the Union Home Minister Singh as saying that the BSF had changed the rules of engagement on the International Border and now it was a "known force" even in the neighbouring countries.

The BSF built 73 Border Out Posts (BOPs) recently, and three more will be added soon, he added. "We are also planning an effective grievance redressal mechanism in the forces," the Home Minister said.

The Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) were setting up such a mechanism, the release added. BSF was the only force after the Indian Army to operate on land, water and air, he said.

It is not only the "first line of defence" but also the "first wall of defence," he added. "Display courage in the face of professional challenges, (show) compassion to the troops under command and (observe) integrity of highest order," Singh said while addressing the passing out Assistant Commandants, according to the release.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh was in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, on Saturday to visit the BSF Academy in Tekanpur district. He was there to attend the passing out parade of the BSF assistant commandants graduating from the academy.

Attended passing out parade of BSF Assistant Commandants and witnessed several demonstrations given by BSF units in Tekanpur today pic.twitter.com/7p71uZKfnE  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) March 25, 2017

But in addition to his official engagements, the BJP leader took time out to pay a visit to visually impaired BSF officer Sandeep Mishra. Mishra, an assistant commandant of the Border Security Force Academy at Tekanpur, had lost his eyesight in a clash with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) militants in Assam's Tinsukia district in 2000.

Met the family of visually challenged BSF Assistant Commandant Shri Sandip Mishra who lost his eye sight during an ambush in 2000 pic.twitter.com/dOPQLBYnTD  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) March 25, 2017

Rajnath lauded the decorated officer and paid homage to his wife, Indrakshi, for her dedication to her husband. He said in a tweet that, Sandip Mishra derives strength from his wife Indrakshi, who decided to marry him in spite of him being specially abled.

The Union minister had lunch at their residence, adding that it was a delight to be in their presence.

It is their love for the country which binds Sandip and Indrakshi together. It was a delight to have Lunch at their house in Tekanpur. pic.twitter.com/YAgxidKcqo  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) March 25, 2017

Mishra was commended with a gallantry award and a Police medal in 2004 for his service to the nation.
If you answer to the name of Ravindra Gaikwad, are not the (in)famous Member of Parliament from Osmanabad, and intend to take a domestic flight, beware. With no specific mechanism in place to bar an individual from flights, Indias airlines seem to have played to the gallery, never mind the legalities or even the practical difficulties in implementing the ban on the MP. Shiv Senas Ravindra Gaikwad was banned from all domestic flights on Friday, after Air India and private airlines united and barred him from coming on board. The MP had to finally leave for Pune on a Rajdhani. The airlines were reacting to Gaikwad hitting an Air India staffer with his sandal on Thursday, after refusing to disembark from a flight at Delhi. The MP was travelling on an open ticket from Pune and was miffed at not being allotted a business-class seat on the all-economy flight.

First, it is not clear if the ban is restricted to Gaikwads domestic air travel or will also apply to overseas flights by Indian airlines. Second, is it indefinite?

On the very day that airlines decided to ban Gaikwad from flying, a peculiar situation developed. The crew of a leading airline was on pins and needles yesterday evening as there were clear instructions to stop the MP from boarding this flight to Pune and their checklist showed an 'R Gaikwad' booked on this flight. Imagine the crews relief when the gentleman in question actually turned out to be an old man travelling with family, said a person close to developments. This person said the crew allowed this individual on the flight before confirming he was not the barred MP since the photo of the MP had been circulated beforehand. But how will Air India or any private airline actually implement this decision for other such bans in future?

The violence unleashed by Gaikwad is condemnable in the strongest possible manner but now, after the airlines unilateral decision to bar him from flying, countless other men christened Ravindra Gaikwad could well face harassment when they want to next take a flight to anywhere in this country. There is no fool proof mechanism in place to implement such a ban, how does only the intended Ravindra Gaikwad get barred from boarding a flight?

An airline veteran spoke of the need to make some sort of identification mandatory while booking domestic tickets, saying linking the process to Aadhar or a passport identification could be a possible solution. If this happens, it is feasible to just block a particular Aadhar number from booking an airline ticket, otherwise the process will remain arbitrary.

One airline industry veteran described this as an instance of a kangaroo court ruling, saying though it has been hailed by the public and the MP needed to taught how to behave in public, a ban is bad in law as it stands now.

This Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) issued by the DGCA in 2014 speaks to barring individuals who are unruly and disruptive but does not mandate any mechanism for screening such passengers. It merely says Passengers who are likely to be unruly and disruptive must be carefully monitored, and if necessary, refused embarkation or off-loaded, if deemed to pose a threat to the safety and security of the flight, fellow passengers or staff while on board aircraft.

The CAR also says that in case unruly behaviour happens while the aircraft is on the ground, such cases shall be reported immediately and an FIR lodged with security agency at the aerodrome for assistance. And then goes on to advise use of restraining devices on the errant flyer. Crew members must attempt to defuse a critical situation until it becomes clear that there is no way to resolve through verbal communication and written notice to passenger. Applying restraining devices should be used when all conciliatory approaches have been exhausted.

There already seems to be a divide between airlines on the move, though they have put up a united front in public. At least one major airline had preferred to remain mum on the ban, signaling its indecision on any future course of action in this matter. One airline veteran said the coming together of bitter airline rivals in this instance was a good public relations move but also aimed at pressurizing the aviation regulator DGCA to come out with a no-fly list.

We want the government to get serious about a no-fly list. Otherwise, this instance will become a flash in the pan, forgotten soon. Also, there are numerous instances of threat to passenger safety in Indian skies daily by unruly passengers but the government doesnt seem keen to build a no-fly database. We want such a list prepared, this person added.

Air India, which was the first airline to bar Gaikwad from its flights, did not respond for this story and text messages to CMD Ashwani Lohani as well as airline spokespersons remained unanswered. Private airlines also did not want to come on record and some of their chiefs too did not respond to queries on how will such a ban on any individual be implemented.

This piece quotes MoS Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha saying incidents like this "just accelerate" the process of preparing a No-Fly list. It says Sinha has been working on such a list. Countries like the US that have no-fly lists bar passengers from an airline as they are alerted the moment a person who is not supposed to fly books a ticket. And Civil Aviation Minister A Gajapathi Raju tweeted We are also working on creating institutional mechanisms to check undesirable flight behaviour or unruly passengers.

The sooner such mechanisms are put in place, the better it would be for Indias flyers. Till then, they seem to be at the mercy of airlines.
Rajinikanth has blinked. He has cancelled his visit to Sri Lanka scheduled on 9 and 10 April. This after groups like Vaiko's MDMK and Thirumavalavan's VCK opposed his trip.

The opposition to Rajini reeks of intolerance and hypocrisy. Because Rajinikanth was to travel to Jaffna and Vavuniya to hand over to Sri Lankan Tamils, the keys to 150 homes built for them by a foundation promoted by Lyca Productions, that is producing the superstar's next release '2.0'. The homes were constructed at a cost of Rs 22 crore by the foundation that has been working to rebuild schools that were destroyed during the anti-LTTE civil war in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. Rajinikanth was also to speak at a public meeting in Jaffna and unveil the homes in the presence of CV Vigneswaran, the chief minister of the Northern Province and other Tamil leaders.

It is bizarre for Vaiko and company to oppose a move that is going to benefit the Lankan Tamils. Their apprehension is that Rajini's presence will be used to gloss over the refusal to probe war crimes and paint a rosy picture of Sinhala-Tamil relations.

Rajini in a three-page statement politely rubbishes the opposition to his visit. He says he does not agree with the criticism leveled at him, particularly because he wanted to use this visit to meet Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena to convey to him the problems being faced by Indian fishermen in the deep waters between India and Sri Lanka. Emphatically, Rajini points out that he is not a politician but an actor and that his job is to make people happy.

By forcing Rajini, not known for a thick skin, to cancel his trip, the likes of Vaiko and Thirumavalavan have conveyed that the healing process should not take place. They do not understand that a legend like Rajini with his sheer presence can reach out to people in Lanka at large. Conversations with the leader of another country need not happen only at a government to government level. You cannot ask for a better ambassador and spokesperson of Tamil interests than Rajinikanth. By insisting on a closed-door policy, the groups have frittered away an opportunity and what's worse, demonstrated that they can get their way.

That Rajinikanth chose to chicken out reflects poorly on him. If he did not agree with the reasons why he should cancel the visit, he should have stood his ground. If he believes in the cause, opting out in the face of opposition is not what one expects from a legend. Merely saying that the next time he gets a similar opportunity to visit the Tamil areas in Lanka, it should not be politicised and he prevented from going, means little. In fact, to ask for a rain cheque of this kind means nothing. Tamil cinema's biggest on-screen hero has capitulated without a fight in real life.

As far as the usual bleeding hearts for the Tamil cause are concerned, this is not the first time they have targeted Lyca Productions. In 2014, the production house had faced opposition when pro-Tamil outfits opposed its production of the Vijay-starrer 'Kaththi'. This was because they suspected that Lyca had business links with then Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa. The movie was released subsequently and went to become a huge success. That makes one wonder what was the real purpose of the opposition.

But to see this solely through the prism of Sri Lanka would be to read it wrongly. The political system of Tamil Nadu has used this opportunity to test Rajinikanth, to try and push him back and check if he does take a step back. That Rajini buckled, has made them and Tamil Nadu realise that the actor is not political material.

Make no mistake about it. The possibility of Rajini entering politics has made several politicians nervous. Which is why actor-turned-politician Sarath Kumar fired a salvo two months back, saying if Rajinikanth entered politics, he would be the first person to oppose him.

That Rajinikanth is uneasy with politics is well known. Which is why despite enormous pressure, he has stayed away. In his statement, he does not flinch from expressing his dismay at the politicking over his proposed Lanka visit.

The actor is said to be miffed with the manner in which his photograph with music composer Gangai Amaran, who is the BJP candidate from RK Nagar, was sought to be used almost as campaign material over social media. An impression was sought to be given that Rajinikanth was backing the BJP in the by-poll. That upset Rajini since he does not wear his political preferences on his sleeve.

Which is why in an uncharacteristically blunt tweet, Rajinikanth made it clear he is not supporting anyone in the election. That tweet provoked jokes that Rajini's message may prompt many to press NOTA inside the booth.

Rajinikanth is now planning to travel to his favorite haunt - the Himalayas for ten days, perhaps fed up with the events of the past week. That journey would any day be preferable to the political heat of Chennai.
An Indian Police Service (IPS) officer was suspended on Saturday for alleging that senior police officers were targeting subordinates of the Yadav caste after the Yogi Adityanath government came to power in Uttar Pradesh.

Himanshu Kumar, an IPS officer of 2010 batch, had made the allegations on Twitter.

@brajeshlive @cmofficeup Why is DGP office forcing officers to punish people in the name of caste?  Himanshu Kumar IPS (@Himanshu_IPS) March 22, 2017

India Today further reported that the UP Police had ordered a probe based on the allegations. The report further said that Kumar had later on deleted a tweet which had said, "There is now a rush among senior officers to suspend/send to reserve lines all police personnel who have 'Yadav' surname." After deleting the tweets, Kumar issued a clarification, saying that his earlier tweets had been "misunderstood".

Some people have misunderstood my tweet. I support the initiative of the Government.  Himanshu Kumar IPS (@Himanshu_IPS) March 22, 2017

Another report in Hindustan Times said that according to a senior home department official in the state, the suspension of Kumar was a disciplinary action following a fact-finding report.

It also said that Kumar was removed as superintendent of police, Firozabad, after the recently concluded UP Assembly election. Kumar had also filed a case against his estranged wife in July. He had alleged that his wife had hacked into his email accounts to get his bank statements and other personal details.
New Delhi: Eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi civic polls, BJP chief Amit Shah today launched a blistering attack on the AAP alleging that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson.

Addressing BJP workers ahead of the MCD elections, Shah referred to party's victories in the recent assembly polls and said a win the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the national capital.

Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in "saffron", Delhi continues to remain a "white spot" and asked the party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the civic polls.

"After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps and so that the BJP's victory flag is unfurled in the national capital," he said.

Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.

"The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by CBI. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers, street lights.

"A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequer's money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements," Shah said. The BJP President contrasted his party's "clean record" in governance with the AAP's "tainted" tenure, saying many of its legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and "rape".

He also dared Kejriwal to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges.

"This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls," Shah said, and appealed to party activists to work hard for the elections as it was Delhi where the then Jana Sangh, BJP's predecessor, came to power first.

Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel as well as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari were present at the event.

Shah also referred to the anti-terror surgical strike undertaken last year, saying the armed forces "barged" into Pakistan to avenge the killing of soldiers in Uri last year.

Shah hailed the contribution of booth-level workers in the BJP's spate of electoral success across the country. He was addressing a convention of booth in-charges at the Ramlila Ground, where around 60,000 workers had gathered.

The BJP has dubbed the group of five booth in-charges as 'Panch Parmeshwar', saying these "workers will work like 'panchs' towards getting administrative justice for people".

Shah said AAP had promised improved law and order in the city but "Kejriwal would do a big favour by reining in his MLAs".

"I would urge him to keep his MLAs in control. That will be a big favour for the people of Delhi. Criminal allegations have cropped up against 13 MLAs of the party that spoke of bringing change in politics," he said.

He advised Kejriwal "not to worry" about the BJP's poll promises in Uttar Pradesh and instead focus on bringing in the reforms in the areas of education and health.

"We will fulfil all our promises in Uttar Pradesh. You don't have to worry. Kejriwal makes a slew of promises ahead of polls but after the elections he is found in Punjab, Goa, Gujarat.

"If you (Kejriwal) have the slightest shame left then he should remember that he is answerable to the people of Delhi on these tainted MLAs. He should do so before canvassing for votes ahead for the municipal polls," Shah said.
Lucknow:The Samajwadi Party (SP) held its national executive meeting here on Saturday, presided over by party president Akhilesh Yadav, to take stock of the drubbing in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, but SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav chose to skip it.

According to sources, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was extended an invitation but he chose not to turn up.

At the meeting, the party took stock of its massive defeat in the just-concluded assembly elections and decided that the results would be dissected threadbare at the district unit level.

Later briefing the media, former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that elections would be held for various party posts soon and the election of the national president would be completed by September 30 this year.

Meanwhile, Akhilesh also took a dig at the new state government, saying only "anti-Romeo squads and clean-up drives" have been witnessed so far.

The Samajwadi Party leader accused the new government of targeting officials of a certain caste. "I am waiting for the new Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Yogi Adityanath to come up with something concrete," the Samajwadi Party President told the media here after its National Executive meeting.

"As of now, all we are seeing on television are cleanliness drives in government offices and the anti-Romeo campaign (against eve-teasing)," he said.

He also took a dig at state government officials who he said were in an overdrive to ensure cleanliness after a directive from Yogi Adityanath.

"I never knew these officials are so good at wielding brooms; or else, I would have given them this charge long back," he quipped.

He said so far not even the first state Cabinet meeting had taken place and the SP was awaiting its outcome.

Akhilesh Yadav was apparently referring to the BJP's poll promise that the loans of small and medium farmers will be waived in the very first Cabinet meeting if the party was voted to power in Uttar Pradesh.

Sources told IANS that in the high-level meeting it was discussed and decided that the party spruce up its organizational structure.

It was also decided that the party would undertake a membership drive afresh from 15 April.

Senior leaders of the party turned up at the meeting but the mood was subdued, apparently owing to its defeat at the hustings.

The Samajwadi Party had 224 members in the 16th assembly but has been reduced to just 47 seats now after the elections held last month.
If you think that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has cast a slur on Shakespeares Romeo by naming the police teams he formed to stop harassment of women, "anti-Romeo" squads, then think again.

The word Romeo had acquired evil overtones by mid-eighteenth century, by which time, no doubt, Adityanath had not set foot on this planet.

In Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, Romeo suddenly shifts his love from Juliets cousin Rosaline to Juliet. This was considered by literary critics and social commentators in later years to be a blemish of his character. For a long time after Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet (between 1591 and 1595), readers and audiences of the play too thought of Romeo as an impulsive, fickle and reckless lover.

Falling in love a second time may be no grave crime in modern days, but English dictionaries thesauri rendered the word 'Romeo' the meaning of a philanderer centuries ago and it stuck. For example, Collins Dictionary assures you that you can describe a man as a 'Romeo' if he frequently has sexual relationships with different women.

To please audiences, several 18th century writers dished out their own bowdlerized versions of Romeo and Juliet to 'purify' Romeos 'blemish'. Celebrated English actor and playwright David Garrick was one of them. He purged all references to Rosaline, (Romeos first love in the original play) in his version, published in 1750.

In her 2008 book Shakespeare and Garrick, author Vanessa Cunningham notes: ...Garrick revised the text ... either excising all references to Romeos prior attachment to Rosaline, or else altering them to make them apply to Juliet. Like (Thomas) Otways and (Theophilus) Cibbers, his revised version now had Romeo already in love with Juliet at the start of the play, and he composed new lines in very fair pastiche to make this clear.

There are some others like writer Glen Tickle, who still believe that Romeo is a bad chap. He says, Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet is a classic love story, but its one that may be misunderstood. Its not the story of a young couple rebelling against their parents. Its the story of Juliet falling victim to Romeo. Its a tragedy because of what happens to Juliet, not because their relationship doesnt work out. Were supposed to hate Romeo.

And feminist critics take objection to Romeos use of the word effeminate in Act 3 of the play, where the hero (or villain?) says,

....O sweet Juliet,

Thy beauty hath made me effeminate

And in my temper softened valors steel!

Whether Romeo was hero or the villain, nobody really cares. Whatever he is, Romeo and Juliet is one of the most popular of Shakespeares plays and one of the greatest tales of romance the world has ever seen, known not only for its poignant story but also its dramatic structure.

Some might argue that the Adityanath governments appellation of 'anti-Romeo squads' is inappropriate. Some could argue that Adityanath is bang on. But whats in a name?

To quote Juliets words from the same play:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet

Does it really matter what name Adityanath gives his squads as long as they stop eve-teasing?

Eve-teasing? Wait a minute.

Eve-teasing, not an appropriate word?

The words eve-teasing  used in South Asian countries  does not go down very well with feminists and some writers. They believe that the term calls to mind the temptress nature of Eve, the first woman of the Biblical creation story, and so doesnt put the girl being teased in a very good light.

Delhi-based writer Ranjani Iyer Mohanty demands that the term eve-teasing must die.

She argues, In the Indian term eve-teasing, the word eve alludes to the biblical story of Eve tempting Adam to stray from the path of righteousness. An Oxford English Dictionary definition for teasing is to tempt someone sexually with no intention of satisfying the desire aroused. Both parts of the term put the blame on the woman; she is the temptress who isnt providing something she has promised. The man is therefore fully within his rights to take it forcibly; or at least, his actions or reactions are understandable.

I am tempted to return to Juliets words: What's in a name? that which...

In parts of Telangana, the anti-women-harassment squads formed in December last year were called SHE teams. They were equipped with spy cameras. In March last year, the police in Karnatakas Shivamogga district formed an obavva troupe, named after 18th century woman Onake Obavva who fought Hyder Alis soldiers with a pestle. The counterparts of Yogi Adityanaths "anti-Romeo" squads in other states have other namesor no names.

In the end, does it really matter what we call the goons and their female victims, as long as harassment of women stops, or protectors dont turn predators, as one of them did in Gujarat last year, or we dont have officers like the one in Kerala who said that men who stared at women for more than 14 seconds could be booked for harassment by law.
Washington: The world will celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday night by switching off lights and going "dark" for one hour to encourage participation in fighting climate change.

This year the event is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The initiative is supported by 7,000 cities around the world. Landmarks will go dark, and millions of people are expected to turn off their lights as a political statement against climate change and fossil fuels, and in support of carbon cuts and renewable energy, USA Today reported.

The global event will start at 8.30 pm

Started by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Australia in 2007, Earth Hour has expanded to a global event, with public spaces going dark, and in some places, people gathering with lit candles instead.

According to the organisers, "Earth Hour shows how each of us can be heroes for our planet".

The WWF said Earth Hour is not a one-hour commitment to conservation but rather a symbol of something bigger.

"Participation in Earth Hour symbolises a commitment to change beyond the hour," the website reads.

Despite the terror attack in Westminster on Wednesday, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben are joining more than 270 landmarks across Britain in switching off the lights for Earth Hour.

Buckingham Palace, Blackpool Tower, Brighton Pier, the Senedd Building in Cardiff, the Kelpies sculpture in Falkirk and Edinburgh Castle are among those taking part.

Starting in Samoa and ending 24 hours later in The Cook Islands, people in 184 countries will send the message calling for action to protect the planet.

Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, New York's Empire State Building, the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow, the Egyptian Pyramids and Tokyo Tower will be switching off the lights during their Earth Hour between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm.

Members of the public are also being encouraged to take part by switching off their lights for the hour.
Washington: The Trump Administration is seeking to deepen its counter-terrorism cooperation with India and expand it further, sources said in Washington after National Security Advisor Ajit K Doval's high profile meetings with top US officials.

Doval during his US visit this week met US Defence Secretary General (rtd) James Mattis, Secretary of Homeland Security General (rtd) John Kelly and National Security Advisor Lt Gen H R McMaster.

In all these meetings, the common thread was expansion and deepening of India-US co-operation in collectively addressing the challenge posed by terrorism in South Asia.

He also met Senator John McCain, Chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee and Senator Richard Burr, Chairman of the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"Mattis specifically applauded India's efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region. Both leaders reaffirmed building upon the significant defence cooperation progress made in recent years," Pentagon Spokesperson Capt Jeff Davis said in a read out of the meeting, adding that the two leaders discussed their role in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles.

"Secretary Mattis and NSA Doval further discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters including maritime security and counter terrorism. The two pledged to continue the strong defence partnership between both nations," Davis said.

Doval and McMaster during their meeting at the White House on Thursday "committed" to work together as partners to "combat the full spectrum" of terrorist threats, affirming that both great democracies stand together in the fight against terrorism, a senior Trump Administration official said.

USA: NSA Ajit Doval met US Defense Secretary James N. Mattis at Pentagon in Washington DC pic.twitter.com/837QKnzSSE  ANI (@ANI_news) March 25, 2017

"All the meetings were very warm, very positive, very constructive. I think there is an open approach to India," Indian sources said as Doval concluded his meetings in Washington DC on Friday.

This was Doval's second trip to the US after Trump won the presidential elections in November.

In December, Doval had met NSA-designate Gen (rtd) Michael Flynn, who resigned a few weeks after he took over the job due to the controversy surrounding Russian diplomats during the transition and election campaign.

Flynn was quickly replaced by McMaster, who according to the officials, has a very positive view about India.

"The discussions (in all these meetings) covered India's economic plans, reforms, growth. They covered our core security concerns, regional concerns, defence and security aspect of the India-US engagement," the senior official said on condition of anonymity.

For instance, the meeting at the Pentagon covered India-US defence relationship, issues like maritime security.

"Naturally the challenge, nature and manifestation of terrorism and co-operation with regard," the official said, adding that the sense from these meetings came out that the Trump Administration seeks to take forward the upward trajectory of this bilateral relationship.

With Homeland security, issues of radicalisation, cooperation in border controls, issues of information sharing which can help fight terrorist sides popped up.

The Trump Administration officials were interested in hearing from Doval on New Delhi's views in the region, in particular Afghanistan and vice versa, informed sources said.

In some of the conversations, issues like demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) also popped up, reflecting the close interest that the US has in the economic growth of India.

There was no specific discussion on Pakistan, but it figured in the context of terrorism in the region.

Inside the Trump Administration leadership, it is clear how this Indian neighbour is closely associated with terrorism, the official said.
The session will also discuss a draft law aimed at forming a 10-member commission to supervise all national elections and referendums

Egypt's parliament is scheduled to discuss on Sunday an amended version of the country's controversial protest law after one of its articles was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Constitutional Court

According to a joint report prepared by parliament's committee on legislative and constitutional affairs and the committee on defence and national security, the government-drafted 25-article bill amends Egypt's 2013 law on the "regulation of public assemblies, processions and peaceful protests."

The amendment comes after the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled in December that Article 10 of the protest law is unconstitutional as it "grants the interior minister and security chiefs an absolute right to violate a basic freedom that is guaranteed by the new constitution," as stated in the committees' report.

"As a result, the amendment submitted by the government changes Article 10 to be in line with the Supreme Constitutional Court ruling and make sure that citizens have the right to organise street protests," the report said, adding that the amendment gives judicial authorities the final say over whether protests would be allowed.

The report said the new amended text states that "if the interior minister or security chiefs decide that a certain street protest would disrupt public peace... they should inform judicial authorities in advance so that they can decide whether the street protest should be banned, postponed or allowed."

"As a result, administrative authorities (the interior ministry and security directorates) will no longer under this amendment have the prerogative of deciding whether a street protest should be banned," said the report, "because administrative authorities  as decided by the Supreme Constitutional Court  cannot be neutral in this respect, [the matter] should be supervised and regulated by judges, who are more objective and unbiased."

Judges affiliated with first circuit courts will be entrusted with upholding the constitutional right to public protest, according to the report.

"The judges will be more objective and will make sure that this constitutional right is observed by the interior ministry and that it is exercised in line with national security and public peace considerations," the report said.

If a first circuit court judge decides that a street protest should be banned, the protest organisers will still have the right to appeal the decision.

The report argues that the amendment aims at satisfying two objectives: guaranteeing the right of citizens to organise peaceful public protests while observing national security and public order considerations.

"Many citizens have complained that street protests lead to disrupting public peace and even lead to national disasters and catastrophes," said the report, adding that "the amendment comes to secure a balance between the two rights."

Alaa Abed, head of parliament's human rights committee, said "the amended protest law aims to ensure that citizens exercise the right to protest without disrupting public life."

"Not only does this go in line with the Supreme Constitutional Court's ruling, but it also reflects what happens in most countries," said Abed.

"We have just seen how police in many countries  especially in the United States and Western Europe  imposed bans on certain protests and even move to disperse them by use of tear gas."

"We saw this after the election of Donald Trump as the new US president, as well as in France and Germany," said Abed.

Abed added that parliament's human rights committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the US State Department's recently released annual report on the human rights situation in Egypt, which was critical of the state of human rights in the country.

"This report is rife with lies and flawed statements about Egypt's protest law, torture in Egyptian prisons, and the exercise of religious rights," said Abed, adding that "the committee will also discuss a report that was submitted by foreign minister Sameh Shoukri to the UN Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in Egypt."

Parliament will also discuss on Sunday a long-awaited law aimed at creating a "national election commission."

According to a report prepared by the parliament committees on legislative and constitutional affairs, labour force and the budget, the 37-article draft law aims to implement Article 208 of Egypt's 2014 constitution.

"This article states that an independent national election commission is to be formed to exercise the exclusive right of supervising all public referendums, presidential elections, parliamentary elections and municipal elections," the report said.

According to the report, the National Election Commission will be formed of 10 senior judges; two senior deputies of the head of the Court of Cassation, heads of two appeal courts, two deputies of the head of the State Council, two senior judges affiliated with the State Cases Authority, and two with the Administrative Prosecution Authority.

These judges will be selected by the Supreme Council of Judges and half of them are to be changed every three years.

The delay in presenting a law on the National Election Commission has led to the government postponing local council elections more than once.

While local council elections were scheduled to be held at the end of 2016, MPs said the discussion of the law and the formation of the commission could again make the holding of local council elections in 2017 impossible.

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Islamabad: Pakistan has agreed to allow former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif to head a Saudi Arabia-led 39-nation Islamic military coalition formed to combat terrorism, according to a media report.

This was disclosed by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif in a programme of private Geo TV.

Citing Asif, the channel said official documentation to issue the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) had not been done but the government has agreed in principle to issue the permission because the Saudi leadership had formally requested through a letter to let Raheel take up the command of the coalition.

Asif said he had visited Saudi Arabia for Umrah earlier this year, and had also met officials of the Saudi government.

In May, the advisory board of defense ministers of member countries will attend a meeting on the issue, he said, adding the structure of the alliance had not been decided so far.

"When General (Retd) Raheel Sharif joins he will define a structure," he said.

In January this year, the defence minister had informed the Senate that the former army chief had not sought an NOC to lead a Saudi-led military alliance.

Asif had said Raheel had returned to Pakistan after performing Umrah in Saudi Arabia and if he applies for the NOC, then it will be decided according to law.

From a few politicians to retired army officers, journalists, intellectuals  all had questioned the decision of a former Pakistani army chief to join a foreign military alliance after his retirement.

Pakistani leaders were initially taken aback when Saudi Arabia, without proper consultation with them, had announced in 2015 that Islamabad was also part of the new alliance.

Iran was not included in the grouping which appeared as a vague attempt to forge a Sunni Muslim alliance against Shiite Iran to curtail its influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and rest of the Middle East.

Pakistan was in an unenviable position as it has good ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. It was also not ready to be dragged into the politics of Middle East.

Later, Pakistan confirmed its participation in the alliance, but had said that the scope of its participation would be defined after Riyadh shared the details of the coalition it was assembling.

According to Saudi Arabia, the alliance is formed to fight Islamic State and other militant outfits.
By William James

| LONDON

LONDON Britain risks looking as though it has put defence and trade ties with Turkey ahead of human rights concerns as it pushes to secure a closer relationship with Ankara, a committee of lawmakers said on Saturday.The warning comes as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to begin negotiating Britain's exit from the European Union - enacting a decision made at a referendum last year which has forced the government to seek new allies and trading partners.May and senior minister have visited Turkey this year to discuss tightening security cooperation to prevent Islamic State militants in neighbouring Syria reaching Europe, and how to boost lucrative sales of defence systems to Ankara.But a committee of British lawmakers who visited Turkey to investigate bilateral relations, expressed concern at the direction of the diplomatic push. "Our impression has been of two countries that share interests more than they share values, and the UK risks being perceived as de-prioritising its concern for human rights in its drive to establish a 'strategic' relationship with Turkey," the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee said.

Turkey's own relationship with the EU, a bloc it has been moving at a snail's pace towards joining for decades, hangs in the balance. A referendum on handing President Tayyip Erdogan more executive powers has unnerved EU states, and Erdogan has said he wants to review political ties with the bloc.The committee criticised the British Foreign Office's (FCO) understanding of Turkish domestic politics following a failed coup last July and said diplomatic funding cuts could undermine its ability to make the most of post-Brexit trade opportunities.

"The FCO knows too little for itself about who was responsible for the coup attempt in Turkey," the report said. Turkish authorities have accused Fethullah Gulen of orchestrating the coup attempt. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement.The committee, which took evidence from Gulenist groups, concluded that while individual Gulenists were involved in the coup attempt, evidence was so far inconclusive about the movement as a whole, or its leader, being responsible for it.

Rights groups and some of Turkey's Western allies fear Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to stifle dissent, but he says mass sackings and arrests in the police army and judiciary are needed to protect democracy and root out Gulen supporters."These purges risk undermining Turkey's reputation, its economy, the UK's ability to trade there and the capabilities of the Turkish military against shared enemies such as ISIL (Islamic State)," said committee chairman Crispin Blunt. "More fundamentally, they undermine the values of human rights and democracy in Turkey, already significantly weakened before the coup." (Editing by Stephen Addison)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
British foreign affairs minister Tobias Ellwood who tried to resuscitate a police officer stabbed to death in the attack on Britain's parliament has been honoured by Queen Elizabeth, the prime minister's office said on Friday.Ellwood and security minister Ben Wallace, who helped coordinate the government's response to Wednesday's attack, were appointed to the Privy Council, which has advised the monarch since the Norman era and is comprised of senior politicians, judges and bishops.

Ellwood, a former captain in the British army, received widespread public attention when he was pictured with blood on his face and hands after joining unsuccessful attempts to revive PC Keith Palmer, one of four people killed by Khalid Masood who ploughed a vehicle into pedestrians on a bridge and than ran through the gates of parliament armed with a knife. The attacker was shot dead by armed police officers. [nL5N1H03TT]

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, although it was unclear what links, if any, Masood had with the militant group.

The attack was the deadliest in Britain since 2005, when 52 people were killed by Islamist suicide bombers on London's public transport system. [nL5N1H05C9] (Reporting by Vishal Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Russia and China have proposed that a United Nations panel investigating chemical weapons use in Syria be extended to Iraq, a proposal Britain immediately rejected.

The two countries raised the prospect of broadening the scope of the Joint Investigative Mechanism during a council discussion about the battle of Mosul, where Iraqi forces are fighting Islamic State group jihadists.

Security Council members expressed "unanimous concern" about the latest information concerning IS's use of chemical weapons, according to British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, who chaired the talks.

Russia and China then presented a draft resolution that "seeks to expand the work of the Joint Investigative Mechanism to Iraq," Rycroft said, adding that Britain opposes the measure.

"The UK pointed out that there were many differences between the situation in Iraq and Syria," he said.

Unlike the Syrian government, the Iraqi government "is fully cooperating with the OPCW," Rycroft added, referring to the intergovernmental Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which works with the UN to implement the Joint Investigative Mechanism.

"There are no allegations" the Iraqi government is using chemical weapons, he said.

The council took no decision over the draft on Friday, Rycroft said. He did not indicate whether Russia and China would submit their resolution to a vote in the future.

The dispute highlighted a fundamental disagreement over Syria between Western countries and Russia.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism  which Moscow helped establish as a Security Council member  found that the Syrian government, a Russian ally, had used chemical weapons at least three times.

But in February, Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution that would have sanctioned the Syrian government for its use of chemical weapons.
By Tom Perry and Ellen Francis

| BEIRUT

BEIRUT The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State is helping to train a police force for the Syrian city of Raqqa in anticipation of its capture from the militants, two Kurdish officials said on Friday.They said the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, also had advanced plans to install a civilian council in the city once it falls. It would consist mainly of Arabs, in line with Raqqa's demography, but also include Kurds and other ethnic groups.The extent of Kurdish influence in the future running of the city is sensitive both for residents and for NATO member Turkey, which has fought its own Kurdish insurgency for three decades and fears growing Kurdish ascendancy just over the border in northern Syria.The United States, which backs the SDF, says a final decision has yet to be taken on how and when Raqqa - the de facto capital of Islamic State in Syria - will be captured.But the SDF's campaign near the city is continuing apace, and the plans for civilian rule indicate its determination to take Raqqa regardless.The U.S. military declined to comment on any specific police training activities. One U.S. official, however, said the United States believed that whoever provides internal security should reflect the ethnic make-up of the population.

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE

Kurdish official Awas Ali, who comes from Raqqa province, said the city council, of which he will be a member, would be unveiled in April. It would include local tribal sheikhs and people currently living in the city who would be identified when it was safe to do so.The establishment of a local government allied to the SDF in Raqqa would expand the sphere of Kurdish influence in northern Syria, mirroring governing arrangements put in place in the city of Manbij after its capture by the SDF last year. Ali said hundreds of people had already been trained at Ain Issa, north of Raqqa, to join the Raqqa police, which he described as a purely civilian force with no paramilitary role.

The training was being carried out with help from SDF-allied security forces from Manbij and other areas in northern Syria, and from the U.S.-led coalition."There will be a department of internal security for Raqqa ... and there are also people from the international coalition overseeing the training," he told Reuters from the Kurdish-controlled town of Kobani.Senior Kurdish politician Ilham Ahmed, speaking separately to Reuters, confirmed the police training at Ain Issa.

"As for preparing the local council to run the city, it is almost complete," said Ahmed, who co-chairs the SDF's political arm, the Syrian Democratic Council. "They are ready to run the city until it is completely liberated," she told Reuters. Local authorities would expand the council after Raqqa's capture, as happened in Manbij, she added. The head of the Kurdish YPG militia, which is a major part of the SDF, told Reuters last week the final assault on Raqqa would start in early April. The French defence minister said on Friday that it was expected to start in days.Ali said that he is one of two Kurds on a 10-person committee setting up the Raqqa council, and that invitations to join the council had been sent to around 100 notable figures from Raqqa. "The most important thing is that they have no ties to the regime and that the people who have been picked are socially acceptable," he said. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
A Cairo criminal court renewed on Saturday the detention of Egyptan journalist and researcher Ismail Eskandrani for 45 days pending investigation into allegations of being a member of a terrorist group and spreading false news.

In November 2016, the court ordered the release of Eskandrani. Two days later, however, the court accepted an appeal by Egypt's High State Security Prosecution against his release.

The 32-year-old Eskandrani, a freelance investigative journalist who specialises in Sinai affairs, has been in custody without trial since his arrest in December 2015 at Hurghada Airport upon arrival from Germany.

According to his family, Eskandrani was giving lectures in Europe about the political situation in Egypt prior to his return in December.

Several Egyptian and international rights groups have condemned Eskandrani's arrest and detention.

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Google is streamlining Hangouts experience for users. The company has announced that it will shut down Google Talks aka Gtalk/GChat feature in Gmail on June 26 and it will be replaced with Hangouts. Users will be will automatically be transitioned to Hangouts.



Gtalk launched in 2005 as an official chat client for Gmail users. In 2013, the company began replacing Google Talk with Hangouts, while still giving users the option to continue using Google Talk. If you are still using the old Google Talk Android app, which was replaced with Hangouts in 2013 in the Google Play Store, that app will now stop working.

Moreover, as reported earlier this week, Google is officially killing SMS support for Hangouts for Android on May 22. The company is encouraging Android users to switch over to the newly renamed Android Messages app. After Google removed messaging app on Nexus devices and released an updated Hangouts app that combined SMS and Hangouts conversation at the end of 2014, it released a standalone Messenger app in November 2014, which was recently renamed as Android Messages.

Finally, Google is also retiring a number of Gmail Lab add-ons on or around April 24. They include Authentication Icon, Google Voice Player, Picasa previews, Pictures in chat, Quick Links, Quote Selected Text, Smartlabels, and Yelp previews. Finally, two legacy Google+ features in Gmail, the ability to email Google+ profiles and the use of Google+ Circles, will also be retired on April 24.

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Google is working on a social app that will allow users to edit and share photos in small groups, according to a latest report from TechCrunch. Earlier this week, Apple launched Clips video creation and sharing app for iPhone and iPad. The report says Googles new app will come with some of the same features as Clips.

With Googles new app, users can reportedly collaborate and create groups to share and edit photos. The app is said to come with Googles artificial intelligence capabilities that will help users to tag and organize photos. It would also be able to identify objects in a photograph and then group them. The report did not share any other details of the new app but it will be interesting to see what Google has to offer. Last year, Google launched Allo and Duo apps which have been updated regularly with new features and improvements.

It is not known when Google is planning to release the new photo editing app.

Source
Had a Fubar with the '83

Okay folks -

last night after leaving work I lost all my parking lights, gauge lights and tail lights; AND had a lovely encounter with a local police officer who told me about it ha!



Changed out all of the fuses and nothing was cooked, swapped headlight switches and that didn't do it either - still no lights.



The headlights work perfectly fine, and when ya smash the bright light switch on the floor it does illuminate the light bulb on the dash...SO, Something else has gone wonky and I'm about clueless where to start so I figured I'd see if anyone else may have had or is currently having the same issue.

Nate
As the weather warms up, you and your family will probably be spending more time enjoying the great outdoors. After all, the summer brings more opportunities for you to camp, hike, swim, and bike. Before going outside, though, be sure to protect yourself from both the Zika virus and Lyme disease this summer.

Although there have not been ongoing outbreaks of Zika recently, you should still take precautions against it. This virus is spread easily through infected mosquitoes, and some people dont realize its effects for months. During the summer months, the mosquitoes can breed and multiply quickly, increasing the chances of spreading disease.

According to recent research, the CDC has also linked the Zika virus to an increase in birth defects, especially microcephaly. In fact, birth defects were 20 times more likely in pregnant women who had contracted the virus. If youre pregnant and living in affected areas, youll need to take extra precautions.

Since Zika spreads through mosquitoes, areas that have high humidity and warmer temperatures are the most at-risk. The US has seen the virus primarily in Florida and Texas. Especially if youre pregnant, you should avoid traveling to these areas, specifically to Miami and Brownsville.

According to the World Health Organization, those infected with Zika will need plenty of rest and fluids. Since there are no treatments or vaccines for the virus, patients simply have to treat the symptoms and relieve pain.

On the other hand, you can prevent from getting the virus. Wear light clothing that covers much of your skin and use insect repellant during the summer months. You should also keep doors closed or use window screens to keep mosquitoes out of your home.

Zika can also be transmitted sexually. In high-risk areas, you should take care to use contraceptives and ask for medical counsel when choosing whether to get pregnant.

During summer months, you and your family have a greater risk of getting Lyme disease because it is transmitted through small ticks. Typically, a person who has contracted the disease will have fever, fatigue, and a rash, among other flu-like symptoms.

Last year, the CDC reported a new species of bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Up until then, researchers only recognized one bacteria species that carried the disease. While the new species causes most of the same symptoms as the old one, it also adds nausea and vomiting to the list. At the same time, it produces a rash that spreads out more rather than resembling a bullseye.

In 2017, professionals expect cases of Lyme disease to rise, partially because of an increase in disease-carrying mice. This projection calls for heightened awareness about the problem in the US.

Most cases of Lyme disease come from states in the Northeast and Midwest. These states include Maine, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, although this list is not comprehensive. Be sure to check for the risk in your area and follow prevention guidelines set forth by the CDC.

To prevent from getting Lyme disease, you should take care to keep ticks off you and your pets. First, apply insect repellant with DEET before going outside. Then, avoid areas where ticks are likely to live, such as in tall grass and woods. When you do come inside for the day, look for ticks on your body and clothing and remove any that you find immediately. The CDC also recommends throwing your clothes into the dryer for 10 minutes to kill any hidden ticks.

If you suspect that you have Lyme disease, you should see your doctor right away. Since the disease will progress, you could suffer from damage to the nervous system or the heart if not treated quickly. Caught early, youll receive antibiotics to combat the effects of the disease and should have few repercussions.

The key to protecting you and your family from Zika and Lyme disease is prevention. Especially in high-risk areas, you should take proper precautions, such as using insect repellant and avoiding tall grass or standing water. Then, you can enjoy the outdoor sunshine without much concern for these diseases.
The price increase is aimed at addressing the financial woes of Cairo's underground service

An increase in the price of Egypt's standard single-fare Metro ticket went into effect Friday, doubling the cost to EGP 2.

In comments to state-run news agency MENA, Minister of Transport Hisham Arafat announced the increase on Thursday but did not set a date for its implementation.

Earlier Thursday, a source at the ministry told Al-Ahram that special needs passengers and "other categories" will have their tickets priced at EGP 1 and EGP 1.5, respectively. It's unclear who will be exempted from the EGP 2 pricing.

The move follows a series of proposals by officials in recent years to increase ticket prices in order to fix the financial woes of Cairo's vital Metro underground service.

A lawsuit was filed Saturday in an administrative court to halt the price increase decision.

Over 3.5 million of Greater Cairo's 21 million inhabitants rely on the Metro for their daily travel, as it is considered the one of the cheapest means of transportation, according to estimates by the country's national tunnels authority.

On Wednesday, Egypt's Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said the government is seeking to address the financial troubles of the Metro, which is struggling with a EGP 500 million debt.

Cairos underground system, launched in 1987, is one of the oldest in the Middle East and Africa.

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It is hard to overestimate the damage the Freedom Caucus has done to the fledgling presidency of Donald Trump, and to the country. By blocking the American Health Care Act of 2017, the conservative group has guaranteed that Americans will struggle forward under the burden of Obamacare. In the next few months insurers will announce their premium hikes for the coming year; chances are, given the continuing withdrawal of major companies from the marketplaces and the ongoing failure of the bill to attract enough young and healthy participants, the new rates will not be pretty. Last year premiums went up 25%; its likely the increases will be higher this year.

Republicans will own those higher rates. Their failure to repeal the financial underpinnings of Obamacare and start replacing that failing program with an approach that encourages competition and that embodies numerous other common sense reforms will mean that families hit by ever-higher costs will blame the GOP. Voters elected Donald Trump and a GOP Congress to get this job done  the number one promise of every Republican campaign since 2010.

Now the Republican Party inherits the Sisyphean task of managing Obamacares inevitable decline. They are no longer critics; they are now the producers of the show. It is unlikely that House Speaker Paul Ryan or Trump will have the political will and patience to return to the drawing board and attempt to craft a brand new bill. They have made other commitments to voters, and so Obamacare, as a defeated Paul Ryan admitted after withdrawing the AHCA, is the law of the land. Live with it.

Of course, the damage is not limited to healthcare reform. The undermining of the House leadership is profound and clouds prospects of tax reform, infrastructure spending and other important jobs to be done. If Ryan cannot be counted on to herd the cats on healthcare, how do we know he can round up votes on tax reform?

It is the young Trump presidency, however, that takes the biggest hit here. Trump was elected because people across the political spectrum thought he could fix some of our problems. He was the businessman who could import common sense to Washington, and the deal maker who could bring people together. He made big promises; a country tired of stalemate and disappointment believed that he could bring back jobs, reduce our debt, build the wall, find a better healthcare solution.

His credibility and credentials now lie in tatters. All that optimism that has stoked the stock market and boosted investment plans  all that may fade.

Who is to blame? House Speaker Paul Ryan will be dragged through the mud for failing to win enough votes. He will also be criticized for concocting an arguably complicated and overly cerebral approach to the mission at hand. The AHCA was only part of the solution; Ryan vowed to press forward with more changes  like allowing insurers to compete across state lines, expanded health savings accounts and Medicaid reforms  in future legislation. It was a complex three-step approach; framing a sales pitch was all but impossible.

He was hemmed in by the strictures of reconciliation, through which Obamacare was to be dismantled but even so, it was a hard story to tell. Once the CBO published their score, showing that 24 million would lose coverage by 2026, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues were off to the races, souring the country on Ryans bill. Few noted that subsequent measures would make the numbers significantly more appealing. Negative polling encouraged those keen to defeat it, and defeat it they did.

Nancy Pelosi mocked Trump for bringing the bill to the floor before he had the votes; that wont sit well with a president who likes winning. So far, he is blaming Democrats, but he will doubtless find others  including perhaps the Speaker  to chastise for the loss. That will be unfortunate. As an outsider, President Trump has to rely on some seasoned hands to move bills through Congress; notwithstanding this recent defeat, Vice President Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan are an excellent and necessary team. Relying on executive orders, as Obama did, produces unsustainable measures easily overturned by the courts.

Outraged Republicans should save most of their ire for the Freedom Caucus. The group of 30-odd conservatives are patting themselves on the backs this evening; joining their celebration are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Hillary Clinton declared the failure a victory, while disgusted Republicans across the country wonder how it went so wrong.

Caucus leader Mark Meadows, who hails from western North Carolina, may find himself under scrutiny. People may wonder why the American Society of Anesthesiologists was one of the top five funders of Meadows campaign and why health professionals were among the top five industries donating to his reelection in 2016. Medical groups typically like Obamacare, which provides healthcare services to an expanded population. Did they count on Meadows undermining Obamacare repeal? Did they know that thanks to his efforts, Obamacare would carry on?

Meadows could well find himself with a primary challenger in 2018 who promises to support Donald Trump. After all, Trump carried North Carolina, and especially the western regions.

And Meadows may not be alone. The National Republican Congressional Committee has been hauling in record amounts of money these past few months  money that can go to fielding candidates that support the White House. The Chair of the NRCC is Ohios Steve Stivers, who was a yes vote for the AHCA. His predecessor at the NRCC was Oregon Representative Greg Walden, who campaigned all-out for the AHCA. It unlikely either Stivers or Walden will champion the reelection of Meadows or his colleagues.

The Trump White House is apparently going to move on to the other items on the agenda. The country will watch to see if the administration can bring tax reform about. With Democrats obstructing every move, nothing will be easy. But with Democrats and the Freedom Caucus standing in the way of the Trump agenda, nearly everything becomes impossible.
Retired Army Lt. Mike Flynn, President Trumps former national security adviser, met last summer with top Turkish officials to discuss removing the cleric Turkey blamed for last years failed coup and delivering him to Ankara, a former Central Intelligence Agency director told The Wall Street Journal.

James Woolsey said the meeting occurred in September inside the Essex House hotel in New York. Woolsey told the paper that he arrived in the middle of the conversation, but said the basic idea was a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away. The group as reportedly refering to Fethullah Gulen.

Woolsey told the paper he found the conversation startling and possibly illegal. But he did not say anything because there were no specifics. Woolsey said he notified Vice President Biden through a mutual friend.

People briefed on the meeting told The Journal that the ideas were raised hypothetically. Woolsey, who served under President Clinton, told The Journal that the conversation seemed to be naive.

I didnt put a lot of credibility in it," he said. "This is a country of legal process and a Constitution, and you dont send out folks to haul somebody overseas.

A spokesman for Flynn told the paper that at no time did Gen. Flynn discuss any illegal actions, nonjudicial physical removal or any other such activities. The spokesman said Flynn talked about his company's work for Inovo that included gathering information that could lead to a legal case against Mr. Gulen.

Gulen has denied involvement in the uprising. The Turkish government has demanded his extradition.

Flynn, who resigned from his prominent White House job last month, has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for $530,000 worth of lobbying work before Election Day that may have aided the Turkish government.

Trump was unaware Flynn was consulting on behalf of the Turkish government, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary said earlier this month.

Flynn wrote an op-ed in The Hill published in November about the U.S. relationship with Turkey. He called Turkey our strongest ally against the Islamic State.

He said the primary bone of contention between Washington and Ankara is Gulen, a shady Islamic mullah residing in Pennsylvania.

Gulen portrays himself as a moderate, but he is in fact a radical Islamist. He has publicly boasted about his soldiers waiting for his orders to do whatever he directs them to do. If he were in reality a moderate, he would not be in exile, nor would he excite the animus of (Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government, he wrote.

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Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday that Judge Neil Gorsuch did little to win over Democrats and predicted that Republicans will not get the votes needed to avoid a filibuster

Schumer was among five senators to declare their opposition to Gorsuch Thursday, even before the Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination had ended.

Schumer said he would lead a filibuster against Gorsuch, criticizing him as a judge who almost instinctively favors the powerful over the weak. Schumer said the 49-year-old Coloradan would not serve as a check on Trump or be a mainstream justice.

Theres been an almost seismic shift in the caucus [against Gorsuch], he told Politico. He did not win anybody over with his testimony.

The vote is expected in early April. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not indicated whether he will employ the option.

Democrats may have some momentum after the Republican-backed ObamaCare replacement died before a vote on Friday.

Senate Democrats vowed Thursday to impede Gorsuchs path to the Supreme Court, setting up a political showdown with implications for future openings on the high court.

Still irate that Republicans blocked President Obamas nominee, Democrats consider Gorsuch a threat to a wide range of civil rights and think he was too evasive during 20 hours of questioning. Whatever the objections, Republicans who control the Senate are expected to ensure that President Donald Trumps pick reaches the bench, perhaps before the middle of April.

A Supreme Court seat has been open for more than 13 months, since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Like Scalia, Gorsuch has a mainly conservative record in more than 10 years as a federal appellate judge.

Shortly before Schumers announcement, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, who faces re-election next year in a state Trump won, also announced his opposition. Casey said he had serious concerns about Judge Gorsuchs rigid and restrictive judicial philosophy, manifest in a number of opinions he has written on the 10th Circuit.

Democratic Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, also said they would vote against Trumps nominee, among at least 11 senators who say they will oppose Gorsuch in the face of pressure from liberals to resist all things Trump, including his nominees.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
There was supposed to be a death panel when it came to ObamaCare: Congressional Republicans.

Starting in 2009, Republicans in Congress promised to euthanize the then-bill, later law. Theyd kill it. Repeal and replace was the GOP mantra as the party stormed the House in the 2010 midterm elections.

Republicans echoed the incantation in 2012 and 2014. The repeal and replace declaration even helped Republicans capture the Senate in 2014. The House and Senate voted on a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare in 2015-16. But President Obama vetoed it.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., argued thats why it was essential that voters reward the party with unified government.

Im tired of divided government, Ryan said. It doesnt work very well.

The speaker never thought President Trump would make it to the White House. He feared Trumps lewd, Access Hollywood tape wound sandbag GOP House and Senate candidates across the country. Trump was the GOP presidential nominee and slated to speak at a political rally in the battleground state of Wisconsin the day after the tape materialized.

Ryan fretted about what Trumps appearance on the stage would mean for himself and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., locked in a competitive re-election campaign, as control of the Senate swung in the balance.

The speaker disinvited candidate Trump.

But Ryan is a pragmatist. When Trump captured the White House, the GOP maintained control of the Senate and Democrats barely dented the Republican majority in the House.

Ryans vision of unified government became a reality. With unified government, Republicans could repeal and replace ObamaCare, undo dozens of Obama-era policies and finally retrench the tax code.

It was easy to vote dozens of times to repeal ObamaCare when Republicans used dummy ammunition on a target practice range that doubles as the House floor. But as soon as the ordnance went live, it blew up in their faces.

Republicans have never held a roll call vote in the House to replace the 2010 health care law known since the party took control in 2011. The Senate never held a roll call vote on an ObamaCare replacement plan since taking the majority in that chamber in 2015.

That streak remains intact today. Republicans have never agreed on any health care replacement plan that would pass the House and Senate.

Its not hard to decipher the code around Capitol Hill if you know what to look for.

The House Rules Committee -- the gateway for legislation to the House floor -- met for nearly 13 hours Wednesday without setting the groundwork for the chamber to consider the GOP health care bill for debate Thursday.

The deal hasnt been cut yet, bemoaned committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, just before midnight Wednesday.

Ryan and the rest of his leadership team conducted a lengthy conclave in his office Wednesday night with members of the Tuesday Group, an amalgam of 54 moderate Republicans led by Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent.

Most everyone then escaped out a back exit to elude a throng of press waiting in the hallway. Dents office quickly published a statement declaring his opposition to the health care package. The usually-genial Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, speed-walked out the front, ignoring reporters questions and not even making eye contact.

But the reticence spoke volumes. Many moderates were disgusted.

Its a terrible deal. Leadership is asking the Tuesday Group to vote for it so leadership doesnt look bad for pulling the bill, lamented one member who requested anonymity. Members are asked to walk the plank.

Moderate Republicans faced the most exposure on this bill and could pay with their seats if they voted yea.

Meantime, negotiations continued with the conservative House Freedom Caucus. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, top adviser Steve Bannon and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney (who co-founded the caucus when he served in Congress) descended on Capitol Hill for a short meeting Thursday night with all House Republicans.

Their message?

Lets vote, Bannon said.

Its up to those guys in there, said Mulvaney, jerking his head over his right shoulder toward Republicans huddled in a conference room in the basement of the Capitol.

You heard a lot of members tonight express their passion about getting this done, said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., afterwards. When asked if he was still whipping the vote, Scalise replied, We will have more conversations tonight.

Several senior House GOP sources made clear that the administration was responsible for converting nays to yeas. Some House Republican leadership figures and White House sources openly lit into the Freedom Caucus, saying there was an effort to isolate those members for never budging.

Nothings changed, sighed exhausted caucus leader Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., after the meeting. Im not confident in anything right now. All Im confident in is Im going home to go to bed.

People werent home in bed very long. Updated bill text arrived just before midnight Thursday, courting the likes of some moderates.

GOP Reps. Tom MacArthur, N.J.; Martha McSally, Ariz.; Elise Stefanik, N.Y.; and Tim Murphy, Pennsylvania, all applauded the changes. The Rules Committee scheduled a 7 a.m. meeting to prepare the updated bill for the floor Friday.

The directive to us last night was to put our pencils down and turn our papers in, said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, as the House GOP prepared the health care bill for debate.

But something was amiss.

Vice President Pence was slated to head to Little Rock, Ark., and Memphis, Tenn., on Friday morning.

But the vice president cancelled the trip on little notice, and motored to the GOPs Capitol Hill Club, a hangout just behind the Cannon House Office Building. A secretive huddle with members of the Freedom Caucus at the Capitol Hill Club would avoid reporters streaming through the Capitol.

Ryan then dashed off to the White House to meet with the president.

There would be no need for either event if the vote count was solid.

The magic number to pass a bill in the House was 216, with 430 sitting members and five vacancies. The number necessary for passage was expected to be a little lower as there are always absences. (Hey, you try getting 430 people in the same room at the same time). Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., was out because his wife passed away.

The House usually conducts a series of bed check votes ahead of major issues on the floor. Such votes are often on parliamentary issues or non-controversial bills.

The checks enable leaders to determine how many members are actually present that day and also do final assessments of where members stand on an issue. On those roll calls, the total of members voting ranged between 422, 424 and 420. That meant the threshold to pass the health care bill could be 212, 213 or 211 yeas.

But the House was never within striking distance. If Republicans were within a vote or two, the GOP brass might be able to lug it across the finish line. But this bill was going to fail. Forging ahead with a roll call vote would put a lot of members on the record on a bill destined for the dust heap.

It is going to be tattooed to you, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., warned Republicans on Wednesday night at the Rules Committee, looking in the GOP direction of the dais.

Everyone knew the gig was up around 3:30 p.m. et Friday. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., presided over the House and recessed the chamber subject to the call of the chair.

The term means the House is out but will meet again at an undetermined time. If everything was set, theyd hold the vote.

TV monitors all around the Capitol flipped onto a graphic known as the screen of death. The picture shows the Capitol Dome with a waving U.S. flag. The words The House is in recess subject to the call of the chair are emblazoned across the top.

Republicans failed.

The exercise underscored that the internecine schisms that divided Republicans during the presidential election and under the tutelage of former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, still remain.

Some members think Boehner was no longer effective. Members of the Freedom Caucus helped nudge his departure in October 2015. Would things be different under Ryan?

Maybe. But not really. New speaker. Same membership.

Boehner often engineered a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to pass major legislation. Avoiding a government shutdown. Wrestling with the debt ceiling. But no Democrat was going to vote to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Republicans were on their own. And without help from the other side of the aisle, Ryan could never get to 216, 213, 212 or even 211 yeas.

We had roughly 200 votes, said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Oregon, one of the authors of the GOP health care bill.

The question now is how much political capital did Republicans exhaust in this effort? They have to fund the government by April 28. A fight over the debt ceiling looms. Trump, Ryan and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, say now its on to tax reform.

Damage for Ryan?

When Boehner resigned, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., surfaced at the Capitol one day and spoke of what led to Boehners exit.

In the leadership, you take on barnacles like a ship at sea and they start to weight you down after battle, said Lott, bounced from his post in 2002. Once you get in the leadership, there aint no such thing as purity.

Ryans ship certainly accumulated major barnacles in this fight.

And ObamaCare remains.

Thats because Republicans have divided government. Yes, they have the House, Senate and White House. But the GOP remains fractured and fratricidal.

So why was repeal and replace such an effective campaign tool for Republicans?

Perhaps its just that. A great campaign tool. Kind of like tax reform. What lawmaker doesnt campaign on lowering taxes? Yet no major updates to the tax code in decades. How about abortion? Settled law. But both sides campaign on the issue and little changes.

Gun control? Democrats invoke the Columbine, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino and Orlando shooting massacres. A crazed gunman shot former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., in the head -- ironically delaying the House GOPs first vote to repeal ObamaCare in January 2011. Yet the firearms issue hasnt evolved much since 1994. Both sides deploy guns as a campaign issue.

And so here we are with repealing and replacing ObamaCare.

The screen of death flashed on TV monitors all over the Capitol Friday afternoon. Repealing and replacing Obamacare was dead. And by nightfall, some Republican lawmakers were blasting out statements, pledging to continue the repeal and replace fight.

Campaign 2018 had begun.
One of the world's biggest cruise lines has pulled a popular resort city from its itineraries because of concerns about violent crime in the area.

Carnival Corporations Holland America line runs eight different cruises that stop in Mexican locations, but it has now scrapped Acapulco from its itineraries for both 2017 and 2018 due to rising security fears.

Holland America released a statement Wednesday which read, Due to recent security concerns, Holland America Line has replaced calls at Acapulco, Mexico, with alternative Mexican ports on eight scheduled 2017/2018 cruises.

Itineraries include seven Panama Canal [sailings] and one South America cruise.

Guests on affected cruises have been notified of the change. At Holland America Line, the safety of our guests is our top priority.

Acapulco is a major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast of Mexico that has long been popular with vacationers within Mexico and from around the world.

It became famous as a luxury destination in the 1950s for Hollywood stars. It was later immortalized in the 1988 hit song by the Four Tops, that was written and produced by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier for the soundtrack to the film "Buster."

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

In the film, Buster, played by Collins, flees to Acapulco after taking part in a robbery in London.

Since then, million the world over have flocked to beautiful rocky beaches of Pacific town.

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But the area in Mexico has been marred by violence in recent years.

A message on the UKs Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) reads: Due to an increase in violent crime in recent months, you should exercise a high degree of caution in Acapulco and surrounding areas.

Although Carnival has dropped Acapulco from its itinerary, other cruise companies including Norwegian Cruise Line Holding and Silversea Cruises are currently continuing to operate in the area.

This article originally appeared on The Sun.
Decorated Marine fighter pilot Maj. Richard "Sterling" Norton was still pulling the trigger when his F/A-18 Hornet collided with the ground during a California training exercise, a command investigation into the incident revealed.

Norton, 36, was killed July 28, 2016, when his F/A-18C Hornet crashed during night training at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center 29 Palms, California.

The tragic mishap, the second deadly crash for the Miramar-based Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232 in less than a year, appeared to be the result of a CFIT, or controlled flight into terrain, indicating that Norton, an experienced 20-year pilot and a strike fighter tactics instructor, did not realize a lower-than-usual dive had set him in a collision course with the ground.

The tragedy highlights the danger inherent in military fighter training -- nighttime strafing maneuvers, which Norton was performing at the time of the crash, are among the most risky -- and the many demands on a pilot's attention in the cockpit.

Marine pilots on every aviation platform have struggled to meet monthly flight-hour goals as the service engages in a well-documented effort to recapitalize its airframes, and Norton was no exception, according to the command investigation obtained by Military.com.

He had flown 11.4 hours in the previous 30 days; 28.3 hours in the previous 60 days; and 40.5 hours in the previous 90 days. The Marine Corps' aviation campaign plan recommends that F/A-18 Hornet pilots complete 15.7, 31.4 and 47.1 hours of flight for each respective time period.

He began the July 28 strafing exercise with eight hours of night flight in the previous six months, according to the investigation.

In an endorsement of the investigation, Marine Aircraft Group 11 commanding officer Col. William H. Swan said officials may never fully know what caused Norton's crash. He spoke of Norton as a peer in the aviation community.

"Having had the honor of serving alongside Major Norton, I saw first-hand his professional acumen," Swan wrote. "I can tell you he was a quiet professional whose strength of character, gifted ability, and natural leadership epitomized what we all aspire to be as Marine officers and aviators. This is now shallow praise; but a testament to the man, his family and his friends that enabled him to have such a positive influence on those around him."

On the night of the crash, the training mission profile required Norton to conduct diving attacks, including bomb delivery and strafing runs, on targets in the desert designated by two AH-1Z Cobra helicopters providing support. His Hornet was armed with 250 rounds of PGU-48 20mm high-incendiary ammunition; one GBU-16 1,000-pound Paveway II bomb; and two 500-pound BDU-45 practice bombs.

Having completed one bombing dive and one strafing run, Norton had initiated another dive for a strafing run. About 90 seconds later, his aircraft crashed, creating a fireball in the desert.

"Maj. Norton  had already begun planning how he intended to complete this dive and then return to Miramar with the gas remaining," the investigating officer found. "Additionally, he would have also been calculating how long he would need to pull the trigger to expend his remaining rounds. These mental calculations, while not causal, became the first of several distractors during Dive #3 that led to Maj. Norton being cognitively saturated."

Norton dived lower and faster on the third dive than he had on the second, investigators found. He began pulling the trigger some 1,100 feet lower to the ground, focusing on engaging his targets at his current speed of more than 550 miles per hour as pre-set voice warnings began to kick in.

A voice warning in the cockpit began to blare "altitude, altitude," as it had on the previous two dives, when he came within 1,900 feet of the ground. But as Norton dove lower, he apparently missed another warning sign: a visual "up" arrow indicating a need to gain altitude immediately.

A third warning, a verbal "pull up, pull up," command came on late, just a second before impact, because the system was programmed not to allow one verbal warning to interrupt another.

Norton responded to this third warning with a reaction time of .6 seconds, not fast enough to pull the aircraft out of danger.

By the time the fourth and most urgent warning, a siren, began, there was only a third of a second remaining before impact.

The investigating officer made few recommendations in light of the crash, but did suggest that the hard radio altimeter warning, the third to kick in, did not offer the pilot enough reaction time at its recommended setting of 800 feet.

The impact of the loss of Norton, a graduate of the Navy's elite TOPGUN fighter school, and a veteran of Afghanistan, is evident in Swan's statement in the investigation endorsement.

"I have no doubt his legacy of tactical expertise, dedication, humor, humility, and friendship will be felt in perpetuity," Swan wrote. "He certainly will be missed by all who knew him."

Norton's mother, Mary Vanderhoof, told The Santa Cruz Sentinel last September that he would be buried next to Maj. Taj Sareen, a squadron mate, friend, and fellow pilot who died in a Hornet crash near Royal Air Field Lakenheath, England, in October 2015.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
A former CIA director has accused former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn of participating in a discussion with Turkish officials about possibly subverting the U.S. extradition process to remove a Turkish cleric from the United States.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the allegations made by former CIA Director James Woolsey. A Flynn spokesman says that Woolsey's claims are false and that "no such discussion occurred."

Woolsey said the discussion generally involved removing cleric Fethullah Gulen from the U.S. without going through the lengthy extradition process. The Turkish government has sought Gulen's extradition after accusing the cleric of directing a failed coup last summer. The U.S. government has rebuffed that request. Gulen, who has a green card and lives in Pennsylvania, has denied involvement.
A Massachusetts man dubbed the "Incognito Bandit" in connection with 16 bank robberies in the Boston suburbs was nabbed Friday trying to board a flight to South Africa.

Albert Taderera, 36, of Brighton, is believed to have carried out the bank heists while wearing a dark hoodie, dark gloves, a facemask or sunglasses and displaying a black semi-automatic handgun, Fox 25 Boston and the Associated Press reported, citing authorities.

The bank robberies began in February 2015, Fox 25 reported. The most recent occurred this month.

AMERICAN GUILTY OF ATTACKING JAPANESE TOURIST GETS 22 YEARS

Taderera was arrested on an armed bank robbery charge at Dulles International Airport Friday evening, according to reports. A criminal complaint charges him with holding up a TD Bank branch in Wayland on Oct. 7, 2016, according to Boston federal prosecutors.

Concord Police on March 16 towed a black BMW with an expired registration that was parked outside a local bank, the prosecutors said. The BMW matched the description of the Incognito Bandits getaway vehicle.

Six days later an individual identifying himself as Taderera called the tow company and was told that the vehicle was in police custody, the prosecutors said.

The next day the FBI learned that Taderera booked a flight for Friday to Ethiopa from Dulles.

He flew to Dulles from Boston Friday morning, prosecutors said.

The FBI later learned that Taderera rebooked his flight and planned to leave from Dulles to Johannesburg at 5:45 p.m. Friday, they said.

He was arrested before he boarded the plane, according to the prosecutors.

Taderera is scheduled to appear Monday in a Virginia federal court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Long Island man who served in the Marines and lost both legs below the knees after stepping on a bomb in Afghanistan was sworn in Friday as possibly the first fully active duty double amputee police officer in the country.

Matias Ferreira, 28, graduated from the Suffolk County Police Academy in Brentwood, L.I. His first assignment as a precinct patrol officer begins next week. He told Fox 5 New York he isnt worried if he breaks a leg on the job.

VIETNAM VET AWARDED BRONZE STAR FOR BRAVERY IN BATTLE

If I break my leg I go the trunk of my car and put on a new one and Im back on duty, he told the station.

The 2011 blast in Afghanistan shattered his legs, forcing doctors to amputate. The machine-gunner spent nearly a year recovering in a hospital outside Washington.

Ferreira stands on titanium prosthetics, Newsday reported. He dreamed of being a cop as a kid.

Ferreira completed 29-weeks of training at the academy, passing the same rigorous challenges as other recruits.

VETERAN WHO HELPS HOMELESS VETS AIMS TO MAKE IT A NATIONWIDE MOVEMENT

He was born in Uruguay and moved to the U.S. when he was 6, Fox 5 reported.

Tiffiany Ferreira said she was proud of her husband.

To watch my husband achieve his dream that I think most people would thing wasnt even possible is really special, she told the station.
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Emergency medic Yadira Arroyo was beloved  by her colleagues, by patients she transported to the hospital, by the store owner she spoke to on her way to work and by children who walked by her Bronx station house.

The 14-year veteran of the New York Fire Department and mother of five sons, killed March 16 when she was struck by her own ambulance that had been stolen, was remembered Saturday by thousands of mourners who packed a Bronx church and poured into the streets.

"Most of all, she was a hero," said Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro. "She died as one, but most importantly, she lived as one."

Arroyo, 44, and her partner, Monique Williams, were responding to a call of a pregnant woman in distress when they were flagged down by a pedestrian about a theft, authorities say. Arroyo got out of the vehicle and a man darted into the driver's seat and ran her down before crashing into parked cars. The horrific scene was captured on bystander video and shows Williams sobbing in the street over her fallen partner.

Nigro said emergency medical technicians do a dangerous job, but Arroyo did it time and time again, even during asthma attacks. She took her job very seriously.

Arroyo's partner attempted to give a reading, but could only cry at the lectern while another read in her place. Arroyo's aunt and 23-year-old son Jose Montes delivered eulogies, telling of a kind, brave and resilient woman who loved her job and loved her family.

"My mother wasn't perfect, she was excellent," Montes said. "The way she inspired me, the way she lights up the whole room with her wonderful laugh. On top of any other lessons she showed me to make me as tough and as gentle, as wise and a curious as I am now, she taught me how to listen. Because she listened."

Montes said that he missed her, but that he and his family would endure.

"Mommy's OK guys, and we're all OK," he said to his brothers, the youngest of whom is 7. "Because we all have each other."

Twenty-five-year-old Jose Gonzalez has been charged with murder in Arroyo's death. Authorities say Gonzalez hopped on the back of the ambulance, then darted into the driver's seat and ran Arroyo down after a man on the street flagged the vehicle down to say Gonzalez had stolen his backpack. Gonzalez told reporters he is innocent, while his lawyer said he's mentally ill and didn't act intentionally.

The streets outside of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Roman Catholic Church were crowded, where a large viewing large screen was set. Fire officials said first responders from Boston, Baltimore and Canada attended the funeral.

"The hearts of our city are broken today," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
A senior Hamas leader was shot dead near his home in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the group said, blaming Israel for the killing.

An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the incident in the Hamas-run Palestinian coastal enclave.

Mazen Fuqaha, a leader from the occupied West Bank whom Israel released in a prisoner swap in 2011 and exiled to the Gaza Strip, was shot several times, said Hamas police.

Another senior Hamas official, Izzat El-Reshiq, said the killers used silencers.

Thousands of people were expected to turn out for Fuqaha's funeral on Saturday.

"Hamas and its (military wing) hold (Israel) and its collaborators responsible for this despicable crime... (Israel) knows that the blood of fighters is not spilled in vain and Hamas will know how to act," the group said in a statement.

Khalil al-Haya, Hamas's deputy chief in the Gaza Strip said only Israel would have had something to gain from the death.

Fuqaha, 38, was one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners that Israel released in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit whom Gaza militants had held captive in the coastal enclave after abducting him in a cross-border raid in 2006.

Israel jailed Fuqaha in 2003 for planning attacks against Israelis and sentenced him to nine life terms. Israeli media said that after his release while in exile in Gaza, he continued to plan attacks by West Bank militants.

Cross-border violence between Gaza militants and Israel has largely died down since a 2014 war in which militants launched thousands of rockets into Israel.

According to Gaza health officials, more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in 50 days of fighting. Israel put its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

Militants from small Jihadist Salafi groups have continued to fire an occasional rocket into Israel from Gaza despite Hamas's efforts to rein them in but Israel says it holds Hamas responsible and responds with air strikes and tank fire.

Hamas has recently said it is becoming impatient with Israel's bombing of its facilities and has hinted that it may end the current state of relative calm.

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The Joker is behind bars. Its a storyline that could be straight out of the comic books.

Yet in Winchester, Virginia, it's a true story.

Local police said they arrested a man dressed like the famous comic book villain  decked out in a cape and carrying a sword.

Police spokesperson Jennifer Hall said the department received several 911 calls Friday afternoon reporting a man made up as Batmans nemesis.

Thirty-one-year-old Jeremy Putman was arrested and charged with wearing a mask in public, a felony in the state of Virginia that can result in a year in jail.

It wasnt immediately clear whether Putman has a lawyer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An American military plane made an emergency landing at an airport in Indonesia's Aceh province, an Indonesian air force spokesman said Saturday. There were no injuries.

The U.S. Air Force Boeing 707 requested permission to land Friday after one of its four engines failed, said Air Vice Marshall Jemi Trisonjaya.

He said permission for an emergency landing was granted and several fire trucks and ambulances were deployed to the airport's runway. The plane successfully landed at Sultan Iskandar Muda airport in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province.

The plane was carrying 20 American military personnel to Kadena Air Base, a U.S. military base in Japan, from a base in Diego Garcia in the central Indian Ocean. The cause of the plane's engine failure was unclear.

Trisonjaya said no one aboard the plane was injured.
Two civilians and a policeman were killed in explosions in Bangladesh on Saturday as troops raided a suspected military hideout in the country's east, police said.

Golam Kibria, a senior police official in Sylhet city, said 25 people were also wounded in the explosions, which took place on a road near an Islamic religious school.

Since Friday, paramilitary troops have been engaged in an operation to flush out a group of Islamist radicals holed up in a nearby building with a large cache of ammunition.

Police said that earlier Saturday, 78 civilians were rescued from the building as troops broke through a boundary wall.

Troops and militants continued to exchange gunfire late Saturday.

The gunbattle with suspected militants comes a day after a man detonated himself near a police post on a busy road near the airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. No one other than the attacker was killed or injured in that explosion.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence group, citing the Islamic State news agency Amaq. SITE monitors terror group activity online.

The blast was the second suicide attack in a week in the Dhaka area. On March 17, a suspected bomber died in a blast near barracks of the elite Rapid Action Battalion anti-terror police force.
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Riot police in the Belarusian capital have raided the office of a human-rights group hours ahead of an attempt by opposition activists to mount a large protest march.

Authorities banned the demonstration planned for Saturday afternoon and dozens of police detention trucks were deployed in the center of Minsk.

The authoritarian former Soviet republic has seen an unusually persistent wave of protests over the past two months against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994. After tolerating the initial protests, authorities cracked down. Lukashenko this week alleged that a "fifth column" of foreign-supported agitators was trying to bring him down.

About midday Saturday, police raided the office of the Vesna human rights group. About 30 people were detained, said Oleg Gulak of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, another rights organization.
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Congo's government must cooperate with United Nations efforts to locate experts who have been missing in the violent Kasai region for nearly two weeks, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.

Uruguayan peacekeepers and Tanzanian special forces who deployed to find the six people, including ones from the United States and Sweden, have faced a lack of cooperation, the rights group said. The U.N. mission in Congo said its movements have been restricted by security forces in Kananga, the provincial capital of Kasai Central.

Saturday's statement comes after the U.N. reported the discovery since January of more than two dozen mass graves in three Kasai provinces. And five videos have emerged in recent weeks that appear to show Congolese soldiers firing on militia members  a spike in deadly violence in recent months in the formerly quiet region.

"The missing U.N. team reflects a bigger picture of violence and abuse in the Kasai region," said Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. She called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry into abuses there.

Michael Sharp of the U.S., Zaida Catalan of Sweden, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 near a remote village south of Kananga. They were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

Their disappearance is the first time U.N. experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.

But the Kasai Central province where the U.N. experts were abducted represents a new expansion of tensions.

Large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August when security forces killed the leader of the Kamwina Nsapu militia. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the U.N.

Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of scores of people killed in recent weeks.

While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to Congo's political crisis, according to Human Rights Watch. Anger has been growing in the country at long-delayed presidential elections, and dozens were killed in December amid protests as President Joseph Kabila stayed on past the end of his mandate. A deal reached between the ruling party and opposition to hold elections by the end of this year, without Kabila, remains fragile as the U.N. urges its implementation.

The rights group said security forces have been known to back local leaders seen as loyal to Kabila. Meanwhile, militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition.

Militia members have recruited large numbers of children, and using crude weapons have attacked security forces and some government buildings in Kasai, Kasai Central, Kasai Oriental, Sankuru, and Lomami provinces, Human Rights Watch said.
A local official says a Congolese militia group has decapitated 42 policemen after ambushing them in Central Kasai province, which has seen a spike in deadly violence in recent months.

Kasai Assembly President Francois Kalamba said Saturday that members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia staged Friday's attack between the cities of Tshikapa and Kananga.

Kalamba says the militia members freed six policemen because they spoke the local Tshiluba language.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia has been fighting Congolese forces since August, when security forces killed their leader. The violence has left some 400 people dead. The U.N. and rights groups have warned Congo's military against excessive use of force.

Kasai Gov. Alexis Nkande Myopompa says investigations are underway into the decapitations.
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Supporters of a jailed former lawmaker tried to break through a police cordon outside the national security agency's headquarters in Kyrgyzstan's capital, but police turned them back with flash grenades. Dozens were arrested.

About 250 people had gathered Saturday in Bishkek, the Central Asian nation's capital, to demand the release of Sadyr Jarapov, who was arrested when trying to enter the country earlier in the day. It was not clear why he was arrested.

Japarov had lived the past few years in Cyprus after serving a prison sentence for organizing a 2013 protest that turned violent. The protest was connected to disputes over the Canadian-owned Kumtor gold mine that is one of the country's main industries.

Police spokesman Bakyt Seitov said more than 30 people were arrested Saturday, the Interfax news agency reported.
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Turkey's president says the country might pursue a Brexit-like referendum on whether to pursue European Union membership.

Speaking Saturday at a Turkish-U.K. forum in the southern city of Antalya, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the proposal as tensions are escalating between Ankara and European governments ahead of an April 16 referendum to expand the powers of the Turkish presidency.

Bringing up Brexit  the British departure from the EU  Erdogan said a similar referendum "might" be held after the April 16 vote, adding that he would respect whatever the people decided.

At a rally earlier Saturday, Erdogan lashed out those who claimed Turkey would not be let into the EU if the referendum passed.

He says "Turkey is no one's whipping boy."
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Pope Francis has arrived in Milan on a one-day visit to the world's largest diocese and the home base of his main competition for the papacy, Cardinal Angelo Scola.

The pope's first stop Saturday is a housing project on the outskirts of Italy's fashion and finance capital, a stop that underlines the pope's view that the peripheries offer a better view of reality than well-tended and prosperous city centers.

Francis will also visit the city's main prison, offer a blessing at the Gothic-era Duomo cathedral and say an open-air Mass.

It is the fifth papal visit to Milan, the world's largest parish with 5 million faithful, including two by Pope John Paul II and one by Pope Benedict the XVI.
Prisoners who attempted to flee from a Syrian prison that had just been struck in an air strike Friday night were fatally shot while they tried to level the facility, a Britain-based war monitor told Reuters.

The prison is located in the rebel-held Idlib province. At least 16 peopleboth prisoners and staffwere killed in the strike, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Last week, a UN investigative commission said it believes government forces deliberately bombed a school complex in the countrys northern countryside in October, killing 21 children, in a scathing report on crimes committed over the last seven months of the Syrian war.

The UNs Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said government forces and their allies had shown a complete disregard for civilian life and international law through continued use of cluster munitions, incendiary weapons and chlorine gas as weapons of war.
Air strikes carried out in recent days have killed dozens of civilians in west Mosul, where Iraqi forces are battling the Islamist militants, officials said on Saturday.

Bashar al-Kiki, the head of the Nineveh provincial council, said that "dozens" of bodies were still buried under rubble in the city, while provincial governor Nawfal Hammadi said that more than 130 civilians had been killed.

It was not possible to independently confirm the tolls from the strikes in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province and Iraq's second city.

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After months of being raped by her rebel captors in the middle of South Sudan's civil war, the young woman became pregnant. Held in a muddy pit, sometimes chained to other prisoners, she later watched her hair fall out and her weight plummet. But the child was a spark of life.

And so she named him Barack Obama, she explains, now free. "I still have hope," she says, caressing the baby's cheek with a finger. "I just don't even know where to start."

The slender 23-year-old is one of thousands of rape victims in South Sudan's three-year-old conflict, which has created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises. Sexual violence has reached "epic proportions," says the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.

Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60 percent last year. Seventy percent of women sheltering in U.N. camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began, according to a U.N. humanitarian survey conducted in December.

Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicenter of the problem. Aid organizations blame it on the recent increase in fighting here between rebels and government troops, the latest shift of the war in an already devastated nation.

The young woman didn't expect to become embroiled in South Sudan's conflict.

"I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams," she said in an interview earlier this month. "If I talk about it, I just cry."

She had been visiting her family in the summer of 2015, with plans to return to school in the capital, Juba. She never made it back.

Instead, she was abducted by rebels loyal to an opposition group calling itself MTN, after a popular African telephone company. Their catch phrase riffs on the company's slogan, taunting: "We're everywhere you go."

The rebels burst through the door of her mother's hut, firing their weapons and shouting, she said. They were searching for her uncle, who'd been accused of conspiring with government forces.

"They beat my grandfather and aunt and then said if they couldn't find my uncle they'll take me instead," she said. "I told them I'd rather die than go with them."

But the rebels dragged her into the bush and brought her to their headquarters, where she was charged, tried and convicted for her uncle's "crimes."

For the next 16 months, she was forced to live in large, muddy pits infested with snakes, she said. Subsisting on only vegetables, she wasted away.

"I'm not attractive anymore," she says now, tugging at the waistband of her baggy pants. Shifting around in a plastic chair outside a coffee shop, she shyly adjusted her headscarf, covering what little hair she has left.

She said she was released in December because she became ill.

"They told me to get medicine and then changed their minds and told me to leave and never come back," she said.

Mundri has many such stories. According to a recent Inter-Agency assessment by international and local organizations focused on gender-based violence, 29 rape cases were reported in Mundri between August and October.

Local organizations say the number is likely double that, but most incidents go unreported because of stigma surrounding rape.

"Realistically, it's more like over 50 cases," said James Labadia, founder of MAYA, a local aid organization that focuses on women's empowerment. He has been working with rape survivors for several years but said things have never been so dire.

"The end of 2016 was the worst quarter I've ever seen," he said.

The group received funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development last year and Labadia plans to seek more, a possibility which may be clouded by President Donald Trump's proposed budget cuts.

Reports of rape and abduction are rampant on both sides in Mundri, which is under government control while neighboring villages are held by the opposition.

"They stuck their fingers in my daughter's underwear," said another resident, a 26-year-old mother.

In September, two soldiers broke into her house and tried to assault her mother and 9-year-old child, she said. She begged to be raped instead. "If they touched my daughter I would have died."

The soldiers left her daughter and mother alone and gang-raped her instead, while her family was forced to listen in the adjacent room, she said.

She reported the case to the county commissioner but said no one was ever arrested. She lives in fear it will happen again.

South Sudanese officials insist they are taking steps to counter sexual violence. Things in Mundri are slowly improving, said Abokato Kenyi, the minister of education, gender and social welfare in Amadi state.

"The government has put out a new law that any soldier who misbehaves will now be punished," Kenyi said. As of January, he said, anyone convicted of rape will be sentenced to prison.

During the town's first International Women's Day celebration since 2014 earlier this month, Kenyi called on men and women to work together to combat sexual assault.

"Come out from the fear," he said.

But survivors say what they really want is to rebuild their lives.

Since returning to the community, the 23-year-old rape victim has received psychosocial support from MAYA's staff and joined a women's empowerment group. They're launching business initiatives such as selling soap and baked goods in hopes of helping women become self-sufficient.

Ultimately, her dream is to return to school and become a nurse.

"I can't give up," she said. "I need to continue going to school and fighting for my rights. When you get the woman, you get the nation."
Somalia's parliament speaker is urging the new prime minister to review his proposed cabinet after 105 lawmakers presented a petition calling for changes.

The fragile central government is trying to assert itself in this long-chaotic country after the election of Somali-American President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed last month.

But Saturday's comments by parliament speaker Mohamed Osman Jawari are a warning that the cabinet lineup could be rejected if it isn't changed to allow more power-sharing by Somalia's powerful clans.

Jawari says the lineup goes against the power-sharing formula that clans agreed on previously.

The prime minister was expected to present his proposed cabinet to parliament for approval next week.

The international community has poured in hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years for Somalia's political and economic recovery.
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Thousands of demonstrators are gathering under sunny skies in central London to protest plans for Britain to withdraw from the European Union.

The Unite for Europe march included many carrying EU flags just days before Britain is expected to begin its formal divorce from the EU.

Prime Minister Theresa May plans to trigger Article 50 Wednesday, setting the process in motion. Negotiations are expected to take at least two years.

The substantial march follows by three days an attack on Parliament. Organizers considered delaying the march but decided to go ahead.

Organizers said in a statement that "we will not be intimidated. We will stand in unity and solidarity."

Britain voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the EU.
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The UK Independence Party is losing its only member of the British Parliament in a blow to the upstart anti-Europe party's future.

Douglas Carswell said Saturday that he's leaving UKIP and will serve in Parliament as an independent. He said his departure is amicable and won't trigger a new election because he isn't joining another party.

Carswell had recently clashed with the party's most generous financial donor, Arron Banks, who is allied with former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

Carswell said UKIP has achieved its goal of getting Britain out of the European Union, making the party successful even though it hasn't fared well in parliamentary elections.

The party had campaigned fiercely for years to convince Britons to leave the EU. That goal was met in the June referendum.
The U.S-led coalition in Iraq said Saturday that one of its airstrikes struck fighters and equipment of the ISIS terror group in West Mosul on March 17 at the location where there were reports of more than 100 civilian casualties.

The airstrike was carried out at the request of Iraqi forces, the coalition said in a statement.

The coalition came up with the date after an initial review of airstrike data for the week ending March 23.

Reports have indicated that the airstrike may have allegedly killed more than 100 civilians in western Mosul where U.S.-backed government troops are battling ISIS extremists in fierce fighting.

The coalition said that it takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously and a formal Civilian Casualty Credibility Assessment has been opened to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties.

The coalition respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from ISIS brutality, the statement said. Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the Coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISIS's inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods.

Residents reported two airstrikes hitting a residential area on March 13 and 17. The Iraqi Defense Ministry has provided no immediate comment.

In tweets published on his official account, Iraqi parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri said "we realize the huge responsibility the liberating forces shoulder" and call on them to "spare no effort to save the civilians."

In a statement issued on his website, Iraq Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi, himself from Mosul, described the incident as a "humanitarian catastrophe," blaming the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and excessive use of force by militarized Federal Police forces. Al-Nujaifi put the number of civilians killed at "hundreds."

He called for an emergency parliament session and an immediate investigation into the incident.

Residents of the neighborhood known as Mosul Jidideh told The Associated Press on Friday that scores of residents were believed to have been killed by two airstrikes that hit a cluster of homes in the area. Resident Ahmed Ahmed said there were over a hundred people within the cluster taking refuge from the missiles.

AP reporters saw on Friday at least 50 bodies being recovered from the wreckage of the buildings.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Greg Minor is such a humble person that when co-workers held a Mr. Greg Day recently at the Massad Family YMCA, they were afraid hed take one look at the fuss made over himand leave.

Ive never met a more humble person, and generous and compassionate, said Carrie Evans, executive director of Stafford Junction. He doesnt bring any attention to himself.

But attention found him recently, and instead of bolting, Minor took a deep breath and smiled.

He received the YMCAs community leader award for his work at Stafford Junction, a faith-based organization that helps children in need. As part of the March 9 celebration, preschoolers held signs, declaring the many reasons hes their friend, and paraded throughout the YMCA where they attend class, chanting, We love Mr. Greg.

Minor lives in Olde Forge, an impoverished neighborhood off U.S. 17, with many of the families he serves. In the mornings, he helps chatty 3- and 4-year-olds onto the Stafford Junction van with their Elsa bookbags and Barbie dolls.

In the evenings, he hangs out with middle-school students who need extra help with their classes or want to shoot some hoops.

In between, he works on various service projects, such as picking up donated food so the children of low-income families will have mid-morning snacks.

The kids are great, Minor said, joking that trying to get preschoolers from one point to anotherin any sort of timely fashioncan be like herding cats.

But he loves their energy and enthusiasm, traits that middle-school students dont let surface when theyre being tutored in math or English.

Theyre not always fun, he said.

DOES SO MUCH FOR THEM

Minor grew up in Olde Forge and later graduated from James Monroe High School. He said hed rather not give his age because kids are always asking him how old he is, and he likes to joke that hes 18.

Or maybe 21.

He spent three years in the Army and lived in Alabama for a while before he came back to Stafford County. When his niece and nephew started in the preschool program at the YMCA about six years ago, he became a volunteer. Before long, Stafford Junction, which serves the Olde Forge community, offered him a part-time job.

But hes way more than a bus driver.

What you have to realize is some days, he has to go in the house and fix breakfast for the kids or get them ready, said Evans, the Stafford Junction director. He does so much for them, you couldnt even imagine.

During the three hours of preschool, Minor splits his time between classrooms for 3- and 4-year-olds, where little ones cling to him. Sometimes, he doesnt have enough hands to hold the youngsters who think hes a piece of playground equipment, said teacher Karla Edwards.

When she announced that O is the letter of the day, and that O is for Ollie Octopus, Minor did his best imitation of a squiggly squid. He waved his tentacles and chanted along with the children.

He is a great role model, said Edwards, adding he could teach the class. He knows about the children because he makes it a point to get to know each and every one of them.

GOOD WITH THE KIDS

Isabel Stanley, 4, is shy and prefers to hide under the table outside her classroom until Minor coaxes her into coming into class.

Everybody loves Mr. Greg, said Crystal Stanley, Isabels mother. Hes really good with the kids. He helps them eat, helps them with everything.

Karimae Hoffman likes the fact Minor is a role model for her son, Jeremiah, and other boys in class. It kind of balances everything out, having a male teacher, she said.

Minor is the only man in the YMCA preschooland realizes he may be the only one in the lives of some children.

A lot of them dont have that male figure at home, so they need it somewhere else, he said.
Bessida White cant pick a favorite.

The Dunnsville resident has been well acquainted with the 370 recipes that she and co-editor Michael Gresham compiled into a cookbook, Gather at the Welcome Table, published in December.

The cookbook, created by current and past members of Angel Visit Baptist Church, includes recipes for appetizers, main courses and desserts, spanning the churchs 150-year history and the generations before its founding.

Its publication corresponded with the 150th anniversary of the churchs founding and the 13th anniversary of its most recent pastor, the Rev. Carol Lightfoot. During a celebration held in December, members cooked many of the desserts that were in the cookbook.

It was a good marriage, White said about the cookbook and the two anniversaries coinciding. It went well together.

The title of the cookbook, Gather at the Welcome Table, was inspired by the spiritual, Im Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table, expressing the promise of rest, a feast, after suffering.

Im gonna sit at the Welcome Table, one of these days, Hallelujah. Im gonna feast on milk and honey, one of these days, Hallelujah. Im gonna sing and never get tired, one of these days, Hallelujah.

The forward was written by A. Peter Bailey, journalist and author who was friends with Malcolm X and wrote a book and edited two biographies about the civil rights activist.

It also includes a letter from former President Barack Obama, who sent a letter to Angel Visit in October congratulating the church for its 150th year anniversary.

The cookbook has been way to record the churchs history and the memories of people in the congregation and community.

It allows us to document a part of our collective history, of the church and individual families, White said.

The cookbook has also exposed a new generation to recipes enjoyed in years past.

White described one recipe most likely less known or even not quite to the taste of the younger generation for Cheese Souse, or Head Cheese, which includes pigs feet and pigs ears.

SHROUDS DONT

HAVE POCKETS

The response from White and Greshmans call to send recipes was overwhelming. Friends, family and congregation members near and far sent more than 350 recipes.

White and Greshman made good work of gathering the recipes and proofreading them for publication, though it was also time-consuming and required a sharp eye.

White said a colleague had told her Whatever amount of time you think it will take, multiply that by four. They were not wrong. White remembers recording a recipe for cream cheese balls that had inadvertently left out cream cheese as an ingredient.

White has edited two cookbooks previously for her mother and fathers side of the family. She asked people who submitted recipes to this cookbook to include memories they have of the dish.

The anecdotes are as important as the recipes themselves, White said.

There were some unique challenges to getting recipes from Whites family. Her mother, Gladys, whips up a beautiful pie crust. However, she had never put the recipe to writing, or used exact measurements. Instead, White said, she measures the flour by filling a specific container, going by the way it speaks to her fingers. She goes by feel, White said.

White and her daughter, Lauren, watched Gladys add the ingredients, and calculated the cup size of the container, to make sure the measurements were perfect to put into writing.

The cookbook, White said, has been a solution to a pressing question she and others have had: How can I preserve my own familys story?

It also gives a way to preserve the legacy of skilled cooks and bakers. She used the phrase, shrouds dont have pockets, shrouds being garments used to wrap the dead for burial. Since Whites previous cookbook was published 17 years ago, many of the people who contributed recipes had passed away.

It shows the value of doing this, White said.

A SNAPSHOT OF LIFE

Michael Gresham has attended Angel Visit Baptist Church pretty much my whole life. He remembers when he was baptized at 8 years old in 1979.

Editing the cookbook with White brought back memories of what he ate as a child, and what he cooked for himself and his parents in adulthood. A few of the recipes he submitted himself.

He talks about his first memory of his mother making fish cakes, and remembers when she would give him a piece of salmon as a treat. He also included a recipe for boiled cabbage his father taught him as a simple side dish for family dinners, and has fond memories of having sweet potato pie and pound cake as a child.

Gresham likes the recipes in the cookbook that are less familiar to him, including a recipe submitted by a 16-year-old in Henrico for Kool Aid Pie, and another for Ice Cream in a Bag.

Old or new, Gresham believes the cookbook allows people to share memories and stories that had been integral to the churchs 150-year history.

Not only is it preserving the recipes that have been made for [generations, but] several of the recipes have anecdotes that tell fascinating stories, Gresham said. Taking a snapshot of life.

Retaining the memory of the recipes from Angel Visit is particularly important to Gresham, as his mother has late stage dementia and is often unable to remember her recipes. For him, preserving her skills, this extension of herself, is personal.

The cookbook has been a great way to keep the recipes alive, Gresham said.
One of the two men indicted on a murder charge this week in the killing of 21-year-old Heather Ciccone got some good legal news Friday in Spotsylvania Circuit Court.

Joshua Christopher Williams, 29, of Spotsylvania was cleared of a felony domestic assault charge. Judge Ricardo Rigual granted defense attorney Matthew Muggeridges request to have the charge dismissed after the prosecution rested its case.

But Fridays acquittal did nothing to help Williams get out of jail. He is still facing charges of first-degree murder, using a firearm in the commission of a felony and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the Dec. 6, 2015, slaying of Ciccone. Ciccone was shot in the back of the head while sitting in her car parked at the end of a driveway on Piney Branch Road in Spotsylvania.

Muggeridge was appointed Friday to represent Williams in the murder case as well. An arraignment was set for April 18 in Circuit Court, at which time a date for a trial is expected to be set.

The second suspect in the Ciccone slaying, 28-year-old Jonathan Julian Vejarano, also had his initial court hearing in the murder case Friday. Appearing by video, Vejarano said he would hire his own attorney. His case will also be back on the docket April 18 for a judge to learn who Vejarano has hired.

Williams trial Friday stemmed from a May 4 incident that resulted in an Amber Alert. A woman who has two children with Williams told police he had assaulted her and taken their then 3-year-old son. The child was recovered unharmed.

The woman, Danielle Long, had a blackened eye and other marks. The charge against Williams was a felony because he has at least two prior convictions for domestic assault.

But prosecutor Amanda Sweeneys case was hindered by the absence of Long. Sweeney said authorities had tried to compel Long to return from her new residence in New Jersey to testify, but were unable to do so. Sweeney said Long had no interest in assisting in the prosecution.

Muggeridge successfully argued that prosecution witnesses could not testify to what Long told them at the time, saying it was heresay evidence and not admissible in court.
Commercial watermen who fish Potomac River waters were dealt a blow this week when the MarylandVirginia authority that regulates them took no action on federal plans to create a Mallows Bay Marine Sanctuary.

The watermens main worry is several options within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposal that could extend the sanctuary on the Maryland side of the Potomac across from Stafford Countys Widewater peninsula out into the main stem of the river.

Those waters fall into the jurisdiction of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission and any changes to fisheries would have to be approved by Marylands Department of Natural Resources and the Maryland governor, leaving Virginia fishermen asking, What about us?

Martin Gary, executive secretary for the commission, said the biggest concern for watermen and some of the commissioners is whether NOAA will ever use the powers Congress gave it to manage fisheries in marine sanctuaries such as Mallows Bay.

When reviews occur every five years, its possible that something could change that would impact fishing, Gary said. The big debate is, how likely is that?

Watermen dont want to take any chances with their livelihoods, which many say is already under heavy regulation.

Ida Hall is a Virginia crabber and a commissioner. She and two others supported a motion to ensure the sanctuary would not interfere with PRFC jurisdictional waters. It was defeated at Mondays quarterly meeting in a 53 vote.

My concern is there was no guarantee in the future this might not change, Hall said in an interview later. They have the right to change the management plan, and it could change, and thats what scares me.

That perceived threat has unified watermen on both sides of the Potomac.

PRFCs fishing constituents came into this meeting unified in opposition in a way that Ive only experienced a few times in my 30-plus-year career, Gary said. And as Ive heard from many of them since the meeting. They are puzzled and disappointed that the commission took no action. Many are trying to digest what that means.

Monica Schenemann, a Virginia waterman who fishes and crabs, has been paying close attention to the proposed sanctuary and has attended PRFC meetings since January. She said Virginia has been left out of the sanctuary process, which began in 2015.

As a Virginia resident, that was an intrusion on my state sovereignty, she said. It was such a limited amount of time to know what was going on compared to the state of Maryland, and that was very unfair.

As a result, she is joining other Virginia and Maryland watermen to form the Potomac River Working Watermans Association.

Richard Rich, a waterman from St. Marys County in Maryland, is also a member. He, too, has been been closely following the sanctuary proposals and said hes not sure he understands how to interpret NOAA documents associated with sanctuaries.

NOAA keeps assuring us that this is not going to affect the commercial or recreational fishing in this sanctuary, yet theres pages and pages of documents that have all kinds of rules, he said.

For example, a large anchor cant be used. Well, whos to determine that large anchor? In my eyes, I use some pretty large anchors in my fishing gear and to some people these might be gigantic anchors. To me, theyre just big anchors.

Both Virginia and Marylands attorneys general said Marylands governor could veto any attempt by NOAA to regulate fishing.

While NOAA has the authority to regulate fishing in a sanctuary, it has not proposed to exercise that authority in the Potomac Sanctuary, Virginias Attorney General Mark Herring said in a letter to the head of Virginia Marine Resources Commission, John Bull.

NOAA is taking public comments on the size and scope of the sanctuary until March 31. One option is no sanctuary at all.

Del. Margaret Ransone, who works at her family-owned Bevans Oyster Co., sent NOAA a letter opposing the sanctuary due to uncertain impacts on the commonwealth. She said proposals to extend the sanctuary frther up and down the Potomac could negatively impact not only Virginia-based watermen and seafood businesses, but also operations of the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division in King George County.

Congress created the National Marine Sanctuaries Act in 1972 and has amended it over the years.

U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, a Republican whose 1st District includes Virginias Northern Neck, met with about a dozen Virginia and Maryland watermen March 17, including Rich. Rich and others at the meeting said Wittman told them he was opposed to the sanctuary.

Wittman, who sits on the House Committee on Natural Resources and worked as a field director for shellfish sanitation for the state before being elected to Congress, has not formally opposed the sanctuary. But his website includes a post outlining doubts that he strongly expressed during a Tuesday hearing, during which he attacked NOAA for its lack of local input, transparency and scientific scrutiny in the marine monument designation process.

In an email, his spokesman said, Mr. Wittman is concerned about the proposal as it relates to local fishing management decisions. He is currently engaged in meeting with and listening to stakeholders on both sides of this issue about what the impacts of making the area a sanctuary would be.
Did the resignation of ESCWAs chief over a UN report describing Israel as an apartheid state let the genie out of the bottle?

After a career of 17 years in the United Nations, Rima Khalaf, director of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), announced her resignation in order to save a UN report describing Israel as an apartheid state from being buried and silenced.

The report, Israeli Practices Towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, was published on ESCWAs website late afternoon Wednesday 15 March. Its findings are unprecedented in the history of the UN.

It proclaimed that the Israeli regime was designed for the core purpose of apartheid, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and concluded that the two-state solution, or any other arrangement, is no solution unless the Israeli apartheid regime is deconstructed.

The reports lifespan on ESCWAs website was short, lasting less than 48 hours before it was removed as news of Khalafs resignation broke from Beirut, where she is based.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterras has instructed me to withdraw the report yesterday, Khalaf said in a presser Thursday. I asked him to reconsider but he insisted. Accordingly, I submitted my resignation from the UN.

In her written resignation, Khalaf, a Jordanian politician, economist and former minister, said she was aware of the pressure, threats and fear mongering Guterras and the UN were subject to by states with authority and influence because of the reports publication.

It makes sense that a criminal would attack those who defend the cause of his victims, she wrote, but I find myself incapable of bowing to such pressures, and not because of my role as an employee of the United Nations, but simply as a sane human being.

Khalaf said that over the course of two months, Guterras instructed her to withdraw two reports published by ESCWA because of political pressure. Given that the evidence provided in the latest report of Israels apartheid regime is incontrovertible, she felt it was her obligation to shine a light on the truth and not to hide it or obscure the testimony and evidence it provides.

The painful truth is that an apartheid regime still exists in the 21st century, and this is unacceptable under any law and is morally unjustifiable, Khalaf added. I cannot withdraw, once again, a United Nations report.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines apartheid is a crime against humanity, second only to genocide.

The 60-page report was authored by Richard Falk, a former UN human rights investigator for the occupied Palestinian territories, and Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University. It concluded that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law.

It relied for its definition of apartheid on Article II of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. It stipulates that the term the crime of apartheid includes similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in South Africa and applies to inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.

The report found that the strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people is the principal method by which Israel imposes an apartheid regime.

Since 1967, the Palestinians have lived in what the report refers to as four domains, in which the fragments of the Palestinian population are ostensibly treated differently but share in common the racial oppression that results from the apartheid regime.

Those domains are: Civil law, with special restrictions, governing Palestinians who live as citizens of Israel; permanent residency law governing Palestinians living in the city of Jerusalem; military law governing Palestinians, including those in refugee camps, living since 1967 under conditions of belligerent occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and policy to preclude the return of Palestinians, whether refugees or exiles, living outside territory under Israels control.

According to UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, the UN secretary-general did not authorise the reports publication under the UN name and logo. He said that it was published without his consultation or that of competent departments.

But a UN source who requested anonymity told Al-Ahram Weekly that the process inside the international organisation does not require the UNSGs authorization for a report to be published.

It might have been more sensitive of her to seek Guterrass authorisation given the sensitivity of the topic, but not doing so is not a violation of the UN system, the source explained.

The report was commissioned during the 29th meeting of ESCWAs Ministerial Session on 13-15 December 2016. Documents on ESCWAs website show that item nine of that meetings provisional agenda stated that ESCWA is preparing a study aimed at examining whether the policies and practices of Israel affecting the Palestinian people amount to apartheid.

In a column published by The New Arab paper, Beirut-based Palestinian writer Mueen Taher wrote that Khalaf was the constant target of both Israeli and US representatives in the UN, with the support of Arab states who do not want a discussion on the negative impact of the counter revolution, authoritarianism, corruption and oppression, and who filed complaints with former UN chief Ban Ki-Moon to fire her.

At one point, Khalaf submitted her resignation to Ban Ki-Moon after the former secretary-general came under a lot of pressure and threats to discontinue financial assistance to the UN, but her resignation was rejected, wrote Taher.

The new secretary-general assumed his post earlier this year only a few weeks before US President Donald Trump took office. The appointment of Guterras  a respected Portuguese socialist politician and former UN high commissioner for refugees  was welcome news in rights activist circles.

But the impact of the Trump administrations sensitivities towards any criticism of Israel appears to have been stronger than Guterras. US threats to cut funding to the UN could dramatically affect the international institutions work.

The fact that a UN secretary-general has bowed to threats and intimidation from the Trump administration to protect Israel from accountability, yet again, is hardly news, said Mahmoud Nawajaa, general coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The real news is that this time around, Israel, with all its influence in Washington, cannot put the genie back into the bottle.

The conclusion might be debatable. While Khalafs resignation drew massive attention to the report and its findings, which would not have happened had it been withdrawn or even published quietly, questions remain about the impact of a report that was commissioned by the UN, and then rejected by its top echelons.

Technically, any of ESCWAs 18 member states can present the reports findings to the UNs general assembly and request a resolution that condemns Israels apartheid. UN sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that the system also allows non-ESCWA members to take that step.

The incident has drawn attention to the power of politics inside the UN and how that compromises the international bodys raison detre.

Bahgat Korani, professor of international relations and political economy at the American University in Cairo, was commissioned by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to edit a book marking the 10th anniversary of the Arab Human Development Report. The publications launch was officially announced in May 2013 in Tunis, but was abruptly cancelled and the report withdrawn due to political pressure.

After some negotiating, a compromise was reached between Korani and the UN: the report could be published, but without the UN logo.

I called this a friendly divorce, Korani told Al-Ahram Weekly. It was published as a book titled Arab Human Development in the Twenty-first Century, with mention in its introduction that it was commissioned by the UN.

I often tell my students to be less idealistic in their perceptions of the UN, he said. The UN is not an institution of conscience, but an institution of state interests.

*This article was first published in Al Ahram Weekly

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William Atkinson follows the news about various developments planned near his home, which is 3 miles from Spotsylvania Countys Virginia Railway Express station.

Hes already seen the impact the countys only train station had on his property value. His real estate tax bill went up 11 percent in December, and Atkinson and his wife, Juanita, were late paying it because they had to wait for their state tax refund.

He worries how much their bills will rise when services are needed for the 3,000 new homes planned within a 10-mile radius of his house.

Its a hard time for old folks on fixed incomes, he said.

The Atkinsons have been married for 54 years and live in a modest two-bedroom home he finished in 2010. Each gets Social Security, and he draws a small pension from an iron workers union. They also help their disabled son with rent and utility bills.

Their monthly income is $1,736.

The Atkinsons are among 1,080 households in Spotsylvania that qualified in 2016 for a program designed to help those on fixed incomes: tax relief for the elderly and disabled. The couple gets the highest exemption allowed: $1,200 a year.

With the exemption, their most recent real estate tax bill was $514, up from $333 for the previous bill. In Spotsylvania, residents bills are split into two payments, which are due in June and December.

William Atkinson believes Spotsylvanias exemption should be more in line with what Stafford County offers: $3,000. He circulated a petition on Election Day, asking that Spotsylvanias tax relief be increased.

Everybody who read it was more than willing to sign it, William Atkinson said. If youve lived in this county for 70 years, from your work age on, youve paid a lot of taxes into this county.

LIMITS VARY GREATLY

For decades, most cities, counties and towns in Virginia have offered some sort of tax relief to residents who are 65 and older and those totally disabled, according to the Virginia Department of Taxation.

A constitutional amendment approved in 2010 allowed local officials to set their own limits for qualification.

As a result, the program varies greatly from one locality to another in the Fredericksburg area. All have different limits on how much annual income a household can have to qualify, just as all set different amounts for how much net worth is allowed. Typically, the applicants net worth does not include a home and a certain amount of acreage.

Each locality also offers a different amount of tax relief.

As William Atkinson suggested, Stafford is on the high end. Residents there can have an annual income up to $35,000 and a net worth up to $300,000, excluding their home and up to 20 acres. They get a $3,000 tax break, which may cover the entire tax bill for some.

Stafford also offers a partial exemption for those with more income or net worth.

Program limits are even higher in Fauquier County, the next locality to the northwest.

Those who qualifywith incomes up to $58,000 and net worth up to $440,000dont have to pay taxes on their home, garage, driveway and up to 5 acres.

Theres no maximum amount exempted, either.

We do not have a sliding scale. Either you qualify or you dont, said Elaine Watkins, a real estate technician in the Commissioner of Revenues office. Everyone has the same items removed from taxation.

LESS IN RURAL AREAS

On the other end of the spectrum is the areas most rural county, Westmoreland. Its program allows the lowest annual income, $20,000, and the lowest net worth, $60,000.

Westmoreland also offers the smallest tax exemption: $300.

King George County is close behind with its limits of $25,000 for income and $60,000 for net worth. The difference is it offers full exemption of real estate taxes for those who qualify.

King George Commissioner of Revenue Judy Hart said county officials try to get the word out about the program. Information is printed on tax bills and mentioned in newspaper ads. Hart also gave a presentation on the tax relief program at a meeting for Love Thy Neighbor, a county food pantry.

In Spotsylvania, Commissioner of Revenue Deborah Williams believes the county is proactive in trying to help the senior citizens, and that its program is aimed at assisting as many as possible.

She knows some who qualify dont take advantage of it.

Some seniors are very proud people, and they feel like theyre taking away from the county, so they dont come in and apply, she said.

All localities require certain documentation, and applicants must renew annually.

In Orange County, some of the elderly and disabled people in the 300 households that get the tax relief are bedridden. Commissioner of Revenue Renee Pope takes the forms to them and helps them with the paperwork.

HOW THEY SURVIVE

In 2016, there were 4,445 households in the region that received tax relief, according to information gathered by The Free LanceStar. Localities include Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, Culpeper, Fauquier, King George, Orange, Spotsylvania, Stafford and Westmoreland.

In Stafford, the numbers have more than doubled since the turn of the century.

In 2000, there were 433 households in the program; in 2016, there were 916, said Commissioner of Revenue Scott Mayausky.

Mayausky likes the relief program because real estate tax differs from income tax. The latter is based on what a person makes, and if the total drops, so does the tax.

That doesnt happen with real estate taxes. He said the relief program gives the county some means to help those who worked hard all their lives to pay for their home and property, then retired on fixed incomes.

The relief helps a lot of people, said Pope in Orange County.

We have quite a few folks who are struggling, as a lot of people are these days, she said, so its a wonderful program.

Jonathan Middleton wonders how some seniors and disabled people pay their bills with the limited amount they earn.

It boggles my mind, said Middleton, a real estate technician in the Fredericksburg Commissioner of Revenue office. I cant understand how somebody can survive on that, whether theyre paying real estate taxes or not.
BRISTOLVirginia gubernatorial hopeful Ed Gillespie wrapped up a week of travel with multiple stops Friday in Bristol and Abingdon.

Gillespie, one of three men seeking the Republican nomination in Virginia, met with veterans at the Bristol Public Library, visited a number of local businesses and promoted a plan to cut taxes. Corey Stewart and Frank Wagner are also running for the GOP nod, while Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and Tom Perriello are running on the Democratic side.

The Republican primary election is June 13.

Gillespie said it was productive to speak with veterans.

We had a mix of discussions. Some about policy and what we can be doing better in Virginia to meet the needs of our veteranssome job training in transition from active duty to retirement status and making sure were issuing the certificates that make it easy to transfer from active duty to integrate their skills into the private sector, Gillespie said. We also had a very moving conversation with a couple who went through a very difficult time dealing with our National Guard and the VA [Veterans Administration] and didnt get the help they needed  We need to be meeting the needs our veterans.

Roundtable participants also talked about health care for veterans and some economic opportunities for the region.

I was impressed. I feel like he understands what is going on, said attendee Travis Stanley, of Abingdon. He touched on the Southwest Virginia Recreation Authority and how Southwest Virginia is kind of small ball with the economy. I thought he was a very good listener.

Asked about current Republican efforts to replace Obamacare with a revised health care program, Gillespie said he has mixed feelings.

I have a lot of concerns. It punishes states like Virginia that were fiscally responsible and did not take the Medicaid expansion and rewards states that did, the candidate said. It rewards states like California, Illinois and New York that are profligates and big spending states while punishing states like Virginia that are fiscally responsible. I hope they fix that. I do think we have to repeal Obamacare. Its not good for us here in Virginia, but the replacement should reward states that have been responsible.

Gillespie also touted the benefits of his plan to cut taxes and how that could help small business owners, including veterans.

I think people understand were stuck, Gillespie said. In Southwest Virginia, weve been particularly hard hit over the past decade. I think were going to find economic growth through small business creation and small business expansion.

Gillespie claims the plan would generate 53,000 full-time jobs and save the average resident $1,300.

Asked his view about prospects for the coal industry, Gillespie said he met with some coal industry leaders Thursday night in the Twin City.

They said theyve felt some relief. The stream rule and clean power plant rule to be repealed would provide some much needed breathing room, Gillespie said. ... we need to diversify from our reliance on the coal sector in Southwest Virginia. We need to be less reliant on federal contracts in northern Virginia and less reliant on military spending in Hampton Roads.
Rep. Rob Wittman is listed as one of the speakers at a town hall Tuesday hosted by King George County officials, but its not clear if the Republican Congressman will make it to the meeting.

The town hall is being held from 6 to 8 p.m. at Shiloh Baptist Church, 13457 Kings Highway, and hosted by Supervisors Cedell Brooks Jr. and Ruby Brabo and School Board member Mike Rose.

Brooks and Rose both represent the Shiloh District, where the meeting will be held. Brooks recently announced at a Board of Supervisors meeting that Wittman would be among the guests at the town hall.

But Wittmans spokesman said its more likely that a staff member will be there instead. Wittman will try to attend himself, but will be late if he makes it at all, said Gregory Lemon.

Wittman has to be in Washington Tuesday to vote on several issues, and Lemon said its hard to estimate what time hell be finished. The staff member who attends the town hall wont make a presentation but will be available to answer questions, Lemon said.

A month ago, residents throughout the 1st District, which includes much of the Fredericksburg area, were clamoring for Wittman and other GOP congressmen to hold a town hall. Constituents wanted to know where their local representatives stood on some of the issues on President Donald Trumps agenda, including health care.

Tuesdays town hall in King George also will include presentations from Rose; David Coman of the King George Department of Social Services; and a representative from Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center.
Examining health care in U.S. and Canada

As a recently retired businessman who has spent most of the past 25 years working for an American company in Canada, I have been watching the health-care debate here with great concern.

The Canadian system, which has often been referred to as free health care during interviews and debates, is far from free. It is funded by a broad tax base.

The more accurate term would be universal health care, which means it is a right of all meeting certain residence requirements. It is a single-payer system through the government. All doctors must accept this plan, and there is no deductible or co-pay.

The doctor does not need to get approval from the government to prescribe treatment or surgical procedures. This being said, the system is not without its problems.

Highest on the list would be the waiting times for some diagnostic tests and elective surgeries, such as joint replacements. Since no money is exchanged at all for doctor appointments, emergency room or hospital procedures, the system is subject to abuse. Or perhaps overuse is the correct word.

Another very important factor in the health-care equation is that the government sets the fees that the doctors will be paid for every procedure. I cant imagine this system working in the United States.

There have certainly been problems with the ACA program here and calls for voluntary subscription, which is contrary to the very principles of insurance and spreading the risk between healthy and not-so healthy individuals.

The current administration has many lofty goals relating to defense, infrastructure and health care for all while trying to fund them with a tax cut. I wish elected leaders would be upfront about these programs and propose a realistic way to pay for them.

Gilbert Carlson

Falmouth
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If the import does not meet safety standards, the shipment is either destroyed or returned to the exporter at the expense of the importing company

Egypts agriculture ministry announced on Saturday the resumption of meat and poultry imports from Brazil days after they were suspended over a Brazilian probe into the export of spoiled meat from the Latin American country.

In an e-mailed statement, the ministry said that imports have been resumed from meatpackers certified by the Brazilian public body for veterinary services, ensuring safety standards and making sure the animals are slaughtered in a way that is compatible with Islamic law.

The ministry added that imports undergo safety inspections at both the country of origin and the importing country. If the import does not meet safety standards, the shipment is either destroyed or returned to the exporter at the expense of the importing company.

Egyptian agriculture ministry spokesperson Hamed Abdel-Dayem told Ahram Online last week, We are sure that all meat and poultry imported from Brazil and already in [Egyptian] markets is safe because three different state bodies have checked these imports."

Egypt is among the worlds main importers of meat and poultry from Brazil.

Brazilian authorities have launched an investigation into the alleged sale and export of expired meat by the countrys major meat and poultry suppliers, according to the Associated Press.

Thirty-eight arrest warrants have been issued in the country in connection with the probe, naming several companies including giant meatpackers JBS and BRF. Both companies have denied any wrongdoing.

Last week, China and the EU declared a suspension of all meat imports from Brazil.

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The information to be updated includes citizens' names, addresses, IDs and the number of family members registered on each card

The personal information of 19 million beneficiaries of Egypt's food subsidy card system is being revised and updated, supply minister Ali Moselhi announced on Saturday according to state news agency MENA.

The 19 million beneficiaries hold 5.5 million subsidy cards out of a total 18 million smart cards benefitting 74.5 million people.

The information to be updated includes citizens' names, addresses, IDs and the number of family members registered on each card.

The minister said that the registered information for the remaining 55 million beneficiaries is accurate and up to date.

Moselhi said that some 4.5 million forms have been printed for distribution to groceries in governorates throughout the country for citizens to update their personal details.

Card holder have 60 days to update their information, which they can also do through the ministrys website, Moselhy said.

The supply minister said that the subsidy includes sugar, cooking oil and rice, while tomato sauce, chicken, lentil and cheese are not included.

Moselhi added that each holder of the smart card will receive one kilo of rice, one kilo of sugar and one bottle of cooking oil. He added that the holder can opt for something else if they do not want sugar or oil.

In mid 2014, Egypt introduced the food subsidy system, which entitles citizens provided with smart cards to a monthly ration.

Egypts total subsidy bill in the coming fiscal year (2017/18) is estimated at EGP 385 billion, up from EGP 285 billion in the current fiscal year, finance minister Amr El-Garhy told Al-Ahram daily in an interview published last Tuesday.

Egypt started a fiscal reform programme in July 2014 in an attempt to curb the growing state budget deficit through cutting subsidies, introducing new taxes and floating the Egyptian pound, which took place last November.

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A rise in the number of anaerobic digestion (AD) and biogas plants could put food security at risk, a Moray hill farmer has warned.

Tenant farmer Alistair Nairn, from Glenlivet, questioned the sense in taking so much land out of food production and growing crops specifically for energy production.

Mr Nairn, environment spokesman for the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association (STFA), said the Scottish governments energy policy was strangling domestic livestock feed supplies, which could impact Scotlands ability to be self-sufficient.

See also: Number of AD plants in UK grows to 540

He said the recent Brazilian beef scandal and the subsequent call from farm leaders to Buy British was a wake-up call that the UK needed to continue producing more of its own food.

Brazil has been caught selling rotten meat. We should be producing meat at home, he added.

However, the Scottish livestock industry is increasingly being forced to import protein from South America as farmers are being priced out of their traditional markets by AD plants.

Mr Nairn said Scottish farmers have been using draft from distilleries for the past 200 years, and buying dark grain pellets for 40 years, but AD plants have sent prices of this so-called waste product soaring and monopolised supplies.

They are not waste products, they are a valuable source of GM-free protein. Now we have to go to South America, and this is on our doorstep, he added.

The most environmentally friendly thing you can do with draft is feed it to cattle as close to the distillery as possible, it comes out as muck and you spread it on the fields.

More plants in pipeline

The problem is only set to increase, Mr Nairn warned, as the existing industry of 27 AD and biogas plants in Scotland could be joined by another 56 plants, which are in the pipeline.

Of these new plants, 45 will be fuelled by energy crops. The STFA said this will take 10,117ha of Scotlands best arable land out of production for the agricultural industry, threatening supplies of straw.

Scotland imports more than 50% of its food, its crazy to be taking land out of production.

The Scottish government is due to report in the summer on an investigation into the long-term impact renewable energy production from distillery by-products will have on livestock production.

But Mr Nairn said AD plants were likely to have signed long-term contracts with distilleries so there was little the government could do in the short term.
The seventh edition of the Hakawy International Arts Festival for Children (7-16 March) brought plays and creative activities from Egypt, Germany, the UK and the USA. As is the case each year, while the plays gave the young audience a lot of fun, they also opened their eyes to many issues, triggering thoughts and igniting the imagination. Each play offered something wonderful and unique in its own way, and The Curious Scrapbook of Josephine Bean from the UK was no exception.

The award-winning performance was created in 2011 by Shona Reppe, who is also the only actress on stage. Reppe was born to an English mother and a Norwegian father, and she lives close to Edinburgh, Scotland. Though her family had no artists in it, she developed a passion for theatre, particularly childrens theatre.

Reppe studied theatre, history of art and English at Glasgow University (1991), earning a postgraduate diploma in stage design at the Welsh College of Drama in Cardiff (1992) and doing summer studies at the London School of Puppetry. In 1996, she founded Shona Reppe Puppets, now known simply as Shona Reppe. The artists online biography goes on to enumerate the many shows she has created, most of them  including this one  based on her own original stories.

My educational background lies in theatre design and I started off as a puppeteer. Through the years as I began creating my own world, I started using the puppets less, relying on a character more. I like to be on a stage, yet I often take elements of the puppetry with me. I am also interested in an object and stories around objects, she explains.

As the plays title indicates, the scrapbook is the main object and a protagonist in its own right. The scrapbook is also a nucleus of extremely imaginative developments. Researcher and scrapologist Dr Patricia Baker (Shona Reppe), founder of the Society for the Care, Repair and Analytical Probing of Scrapbooks (abbreviated as SCRAPS) is on a quest to uncover the story behind the scrapbook on her desk, something she does in front of the young audience whom she refers to as scrapets.

And since a scrapbook can be a very straightforward and flat object for theatre  a kiss of death, as Reppe puts it  she had to find a formula that would help her infuse the episodic experience of turning the books pages into a vibrant and thought-provoking performance. To do so, the technical side of the story is as impressive as it is complicated.

Reppe reveals that the performances technical manager, Tamlin Wiltshire, used QLab software to make rapid shifts between the many elements of the show: moving across the soundscape, short animations that reflect Dr. Bakers study of tiny objects emerging from the scrapbook, lighting that includes the theatre projectors and a table lamp, and even elements of shadow theatre in one scene and a short movie in the final scene.

On the investigation table lies a scrapbook, a big, outstanding prop whose magnificence creates is in contrast with the rest of the simple -- and obviously easy to transport -- scenography representing the laboratory.

I have always been interested in scrapbooks; there is a big culture of scrapbooks particularly in the USA and UK. All the elements that we find in any scrapbook are close to the person who collected them, they all tell his or her unique story. In this story, we learn that the scrapbooks owner, Artemis J Mood, is an old man from the Victorian era. The fact that he was a watchmaker was probably behind his particular interest in small things and ability to spot them.

Dr. Bakers investigation also unveils that Artemis traveled a lot to the sea where he collected different kind of seaweeds that he dried and kept in the scrapbook; he smoked a pipe, enjoyed ballet and good food. Not without significance is Artemiss special heart-shaped sea bean, Fava de Colom or a Columbus Bean, known to bring luck to its owner, or one that can become a foundation for the fantastical developments we find in the play.

Most importantly, however, as Dr. Baker keeps turning the scrapbooks pages, she discovers that Artemis was in love with a very special, somehow magical woman, Josephine Bean. Revealing more details about Miss Bean would be a huge spoiler so let us stop here.

In the theatre, Dr. Baker walks the audience through her consecutive discoveries. Making this show was quite complicated, Reppe says. I wanted to be able to lay down some clues without giving too much away. It was a challenge to perform it the way that children would not lose interest. This is why it is mainly for children aged seven and above; they have to be able to remember different elements, connect facts and discoveries. It is like a detective story. When I was writing the script, it was like writing a crime novel. In fact, as I was collecting bits and pieces for the show, I also created my own scrapbook for the show. This helped me create this specific scrapbook that you see on stage, Reppe explains with her hallmark enthusiasm, the same one she projects as Dr. Baker.

The Curious Scrapbook of Josephine Bean delivers many values besides being fun, visually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing. It ignites the imagination and invites children to think. In her investigation, children are not reduced to spectators, they are the scrapets whom Dr. Baker expects to be active participants and follow her path of thought. Throughout the show, Dr. Baker repeatedly addresses the audience, explains her scientific procedure of scrapology but also awaits the scrapets ideas. It was a bit of a challenge in Cairo since English is not the native language of the audience. In the UK, I can talk more and go deeper into Artemis, Josephine as well as Dr. Bakers characters. In Cairo, we had to have a translator. However, in order to avoid a dry translation that would only kill the show, Reppe introduced Dr. Bakers assistant: Isra Ghazali, an Egyptian actress seated on the stage.

While translating the text, Isra also asked Dr. Baker and the young audience questions, raised her eyebrows at some discoveries and rejoiced in others. I could see the children were very involved. At times they talked in the audience, which I dont mind, as long as they talk about the performance, which as Isra told me was the case. If my audience talks about something else, this is when I feel I failed to attract them, Reppe says. Yet with her skills, experience, creativity and captivating disposition on stage, it is no surprise that she kept the audience focused.

Among the elements that contribute to the great success of the story is Reppes approach to children as equal partners on the journey of discovery. The actress and the children think together, while the intimate setting (a maximum of 100 viewers) helps to develop close contact with the children. I prefer this kind of setting; it allows me to see everyone. There is a contract between me and children. Im here and we have a good time but we have to work together. This way children understand that they also have a responsibility, Reppe explains, adding that the shows for children she likes the most are those that are set within intimate settings, created for a smaller audience.

The intimate setting helps Reppe develop closeness and build trust with the audience, something that is not necessarily a standard procedure in theatre for children.

There are many theatre-makers who create barriers simply because they do not trust the childrens abilities to absorb information and emotions. Because they often address children with an abnormal tonality, unnatural sentences, their performances are filled with preaching and direct instructive educational elements (as they believe), among many other procedures that render the childrens plays awkward for the adult viewer. There are performances that attract the audience with their big Hollywood-style elements, loud and vibrant, definitely enjoyable in their own way, even if they dont create a strong and intimate bond with the audience. There are also theatre-makers and audiences who judge their success based on the childrens laughter during the show.

Reppe believes that aiming for the show to be funny is the trap that some performers fall into. Children are very generous, they want to have a good time and they want to laugh. But it is also important to challenge them, to make them think. They do not have to laugh all the time; they need to concentrate as well. The fact that children do not laugh during some segments of the play does not mean that they are not enjoying it.

The Curious Scrapbook of Josephine Bean provides a whole range of emotional experience for children. There is time for reflection, for questions and curiosity, time for attentive listening and time for laughter, since the story does include numerous funny moments too. It is the artistic voyage through a story which, just like any life story, includes all shades and colours of emotions and actions.

It is not easy to create this captivating equation, this balance between being engaging, moving and yet very human and as a result creating an inspiring work. Skill, experience, knowledge, creativity and intelligence are factors that allow any artist to make a good performance for an audience of children. However, what makes this performance truly great is that those factors are coupled by Reppes perfectionism, her honest passion for theatre and her boundless respect for children who, as she says, are people who only happen to be younger. They understand love, pain, sadness, anger, and all other emotions. You should only be careful how you present those emotions as you do not want to frighten or upset your audience of children. Children are very clever. In the performances I like to give them space, create gaps around the information so they can work things out for themselves. I never tell them directly what to do. If you keep instructing the children, they shut off.

This does not mean that Reppe aims for education through theatre, however. This is not my primary goal and its not about training the audience. But if you want to find educational values, you will probably find them in my plays. My primary goal is always in the performances standard. It has to be as high as I can make it. Reppe believes that children deserve good theatre and is saddened that many artists and artistic institutions consider theatre for children a lesser form.

Good theatre for children is essential, she comments, pointing to the Hakawy International Arts Festival for Children as an important platform for such practices. She also commends Mohamed El Ghawy, the festivals founder and artistic director, for having the ability to link the many experiences he acquired by traveling around the world and attending plays and festivals for children with the understanding of the needs of young Egyptians. The world is getting smaller but there are still many gaps and many things children around the world must see. We can fill those gaps. I am also taking a piece of Cairo with me back to the UK. This is such a fascinating city, very vibrant. I can see many stories that are hidden here, many inspirations.

This article was first published in Al Ahram Weekly

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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Planning to watch the eclipse from the top of Marys Peak? Better make a reservation.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors are expected to converge on Oregon for a total eclipse of the sun on Aug. 21, and prime viewing spots in the "path of totality" will be at a premium.

In the Corvallis area, one of the best places to observe the rare celestial phenomenon will be Marys Peak, the highest point in the Oregon Coast Range at 4,097 feet.

With the expected onslaught of sky-watching tourists, land managers are taking steps to manage access to keep the mountain from being overrun  and entrepreneurs are lining up to cash in on demand for viewing opportunities.

On the day of the eclipse, private vehicle access to the mountain will be by permit only. Only three of the mountain's parking lots will be open, and permits will be required to park there. Permits can be purchased online  on a first-come, first-served basis  starting at 7 a.m. Thursday at www.recreation.gov for a $1.50 processing fee.

Only 89 vehicle permits will be issued.

Were going to permit only as many vehicles up the Marys Peak Road as we can provide parking spaces for, said Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor Jerry Ingersoll, whose agency manages the peak's upper slopes. Our infrastructure is only able to accommodate a certain number of vehicles.

No permit will be required for bicyclists, but its a steep, narrow road and vehicular traffic is expected to be heavy.

For those who dont win the permit lottery, there will be some other options.

The details are still being worked out, but Mudslinger Events and Cascadia Expeditions are negotiating with Siuslaw officials for a special use permit to provide shuttle bus service and camping on the peak.

Were going to be shuttling 1,000 people from the Corvallis area, said Mike Ripley, owner of Mudslinger Events.

The partners will arrange for a variety of visitor services on the peak, from food trucks to Porta-Potties, Ripley said. Staff and volunteers from organizations such as the Alliance for Recreation and Natural Areas and the Heart of the Valley Astronomers will be on hand to help visitors view the eclipse safely while protecting the wildflowers and other sensitive vegetation of the summit meadows.

Shuttle bus tickets are priced at $85, including viewing glasses and a commemorative T-shirt, and will be available starting at 6 a.m. April 4 through the event website, www.totaleclipsemaryspeak.com.

The mountains lone campground, a six-tent site facility with no RV hookups just below the upper parking lot, will be closed to the public because it will be needed for Forest Service employees, emergency services personnel and volunteers, Ingersoll said.

A dozen or so tent-camping spots will be available elsewhere on the mountain, however, probably at the Conners Camp picnic area. Those, too, will require a special permit from www.totaleclipsemaryspeak.com at a cost of $5 per site.

And for people who want a high-end eclipse experience, theres another option as well: a deluxe camping package near the summit with a catered farm-to-table dinner, stargazing and a professionally guided viewing of the eclipse. That package, also available through the event website, will be limited to 30 people and will likely be priced in the range of $750 per person, according to Ripley.

Ingersoll said planning for the eclipse has been a challenge, but hes looking forward to giving visitors a chance to discover the mid-valleys many attractions.

I also see it as a tremendous opportunity to introduce people who will be coming from all over the world to Corvallis, to the area and to the Siuslaw, he said. Thats our focus.

Of course, there will be plenty of other places to watch the solar spectacle. Mary Pat Parker of Visit Corvallis, the citys tourism office, said she expects there will be viewing opportunities at city and county parks, the Benton County Fairgrounds, Oregon State University and a host of other locations, from urban backyards to farmers fields.

Were working with the local astronomy group also to send people out to train people how to safely watch the eclipse, she added. You cant just watch it  youll do permanent damage to your eyes.

Parker has been meeting with federal and local land managers, public safety officers and state transportation officials to plan for the deluge of visitors expected to descend on the area. Shes also been talking to area business owners about ways they could keep eclipse watchers entertained  and off the roads  after the celestial show is over.

The idea, she said, is to create fun events so everybody doesnt get in their cars and say, Oh, its over, and try to get out of town at the same time.
To make a deal, you have to know when it's time to walk.

President Donald Trump ripped that classic move from his boardroom playbook Thursday night, seeking to splinter the resistance of House Republicans refusing to pass the health care bill that has left his new administration in limbo.

After days of trying to charm members of Congress, Trump gave them an ultimatum: If they don't vote yes Friday, he will move on and saddle them with the shame of failing to repeal Obamacare, a cherished GOP goal.

If Trump's decision to call the lawmakers' bluff delivers victory on Friday, he will establish his authority over the GOP on Capitol Hill and deliver a much-needed victory for a White House under siege.

But if his gamble fails, he will taste a humiliating defeat that suggests that the same GOP infighting that handicapped the party while Democrats held the White House is immune to the outsider shakeup he promised for Washington.

Trump's bet represents his most audacious risk yet in a presidency built on his own conviction that his superior negotiating skills can unlock an era of congressional inertia and pass laws that will reshape the nation.

Since its supporters still don't have the votes to pass the bill, it also amounted to the first and perhaps most crucial test of the idea that his "Art of the Deal" business approach can translate to politics.

Repeatedly on the campaign trail, Trump boasted that he makes "great deals" and lambasted the negotiating skills of his predecessor President Barack Obama -- for instance over the Iran nuclear deal, as he argued he would have driven a much harder bargain.

"In negotiation, you must be willing to walk," Trump said in a major foreign policy speech in April 2016.

"The Iran deal, like so many of our worst agreements, is the result of not being willing to leave the table."

On Thursday night, Trump turned those tactics on his own side.

But the scale of his wager was clear when House Speaker Paul Ryan could not say whether the bill would pass or fail.

"We have been promising the American people that we will repeal and replace this broken law, and tomorrow we're proceeding," a terse Ryan told reporters.

Winning is easy, governing is harder

The high-stakes meeting of Republicans Thursday night, including dueling factions of Freedom Caucus conservatives and Tuesday Group moderates, followed days of intense political intrigue as the bill's fate hung in the balance, and came after repeated changes to the legislation designed to win over holdouts.

This was not how the new Republican order was supposed to dawn. Instead of a united push towards a GOP holy grail, repealing Obamacare, the drama exposed a dangerous fault line in the party.

The desperate scramble for votes, conflicting signals, factional intra-party warfare, and the defiance shown by rank-and-file members to their leaders signaled that one-party rule may turn out to be just as complicated as life in a Congress where Democrats and Republicans share power.

But really, it shouldn't have been this hard.

The idea of repealing Obamacare has galvanized the GOP for years, is demanded by the party's raucous base and looked certain to be one of the easiest lifts for the new White House and its Republican majorities.

After all, the GOP voted more than 50 times to repeal Obamacare or parts of it -- though always knew it would ultimately be thwarted by the Senate or Obama's veto.

But Trump and Republicans are learning that votes cast by a governing party are tougher than those made in futile protest.

Until a vote occurs, Ryan is in a position familiar to his often infuriated predecessor John Boehner -- who endured political and fiscal cliffs and running showdowns with the ultra conservative Freedom Caucus while he was speaker.

Boehner predicted last month that Republicans would never repeal Obamacare, but would end up fixing it -- because they would "never ever agree what the bill should be."

"Perfect always becomes the enemy of the good," he said, prophetically.

Ryan's difficulty in changing the equation that often frustrated Boehner suggests that his caucus remains as unsuited to governing as the one that eventually brought Boehner down.

Not everyone charmed by Trump

All day on Thursday, there came word of increasing frustration among party leaders on the Hill and the President's associates in the White House at the malcontents of the ultra-right Freedom Caucus.

"It's fairly amazing that even after meeting with President Trump, they are holding out for removing health care from people with preexisting conditions, something they know could never pass and goes against everything President Trump promised during the campaign," one GOP aide told CNN's Lauren Fox.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows diagnosed the problem: "We have not gotten enough of our members to get to yes at this point."

The situation placed the political interests of Freedom Caucus members, who fear primary challenges from their right, and Tuesday Group members who fear the price to be paid if the bill ejects millions from health care rolls, against those of the new President.

It may be that repealing Obamacare will come back to haunt Trump in the long term. But for now, the President needs a political win to steady his administration, which is reeling from speculation about his campaign's ties to Russia, the double failure of his travel ban and his own penchant for setting off self-defeating political controversies.

The high stakes for Trump were evident on Thursday night, when top aides including Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway were spotted heading into the meetings with Republican lawmakers.

His budget director, former Rep. Mick Mulvaney, delivered the threat: Vote for the bill or be "stuck with Obamacare."

Trump has hosted multiple meetings at the White House and blitzed lawmakers with charm and persuasion.

But every concession Ryan and Trump mooted to members of the most conservative faction, they risked ebbing support from moderates.

And it looked for hours on Thursday that the White House was oblivious to the ebbing support for the bill.

The tug-of-war between the factions angered some other Republicans who are not part of either faction and resent their influence, like Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne.

But Byrne predicted that when the bill finally came to the floor, political reality would kick in.

"If you are a Republican you have one choice. You're either going to vote with Donald Trump to repeal and replace Obamacare or you're going to vote with Nancy Pelosi to defeat the only bill that will repeal and replace Obamacare. And if you're a Republican, that's a pretty simple choice."
Sunday shopping : Off to the Netherlands

DUSSELDORF While labor unions here complain about weekend shopping, NRW residents drive to the neighbors to go shopping. Venlo is a popular destination in the Netherlands.

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Every Sunday, when Gert Reitsma leaves the Joris Church in the center of Venlo, he sees a long queue of vehicles. There they are again, the Germans, coming to shop on the other side of the border. A court prohibiting Sunday shopping hours, like this week in Dusseldorf, would not be thinkable in the Netherlands. While there is much resistance to Sunday shopping in Germany from the part of labor unions, the question has long been settled in the Netherlands.

The first Koopzondag (Sunday shopping) began in 1984 in the Netherlands and was initially limited to four Sundays a year. Thirty years later, every community can decide for itself when and for how long shops are allowed to be open. There are no more limits. It explains why some Dutch tourists in Germany are astonished to see shops closed on a Sunday. Sunday shopping has long become common in the Netherlands, even if there are some complaints from shop owners in smaller towns that they dont get enough customers on Sundays.

In Venlo, a neighboring town in the Netherlands, it was decided six years ago to remove any limitations on opening hours. So all residents of NRW can come to us to shop on Sundays, says Ruud Stikkelbroeck with a smile. He is from Venlo Partners, the organization for city marketing. Theres lots going on here on Sundays - also because of the Germans. Although, I might actually say - above all because of the Germans, quips Stikkelbroeck.
Step 1:

Head to Google Play Store and download a free app by name Siftr Magic Cleaner'. Once done with the installation, open the app from your device and allow it to access your photos. The best part of this app is, one can also remove junk pictures in other folders as well.

Step 2:

After allowing it to use your phone's gallery, it opens a new window which displays the information regarding the total number of photos present in Whatsapp folder. A single tap on the button present on this page will do all the required magic. Confused where the button is?

Just below those photo information, you can find an image of a person having magnifier in his pocket. Tap on that image. It takes you to the next step.

Also Read: Top 6 features you should know about Whatsapp

Step 3:

Now it begins with analyzing the photos. All the similar looking images and junk ones will be spotted and shown below. The time required to complete this process completely depends on your folder size.

If it takes more time than required, you don't have to worry. It displays the progress of analysis in the notification bar of your phone. So you can close the app and use your phone for some other work.

Also Read: How to recover lost photos on your android smartphone with Dr. Fone application

Step 4:

Once done with analysis, it lists all the junk images found and prompts you to delete it. One can either delete everything selected by this app or can also deselect few if they don't want that to be removed.
Google India joins hands with Ministry of IT to boost PM Modis New India initiative News oi -Rohit Google India and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) announced a set of initiatives aimed at empowering citizens of India

Google India and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) have announced a set of new initiatives to empower Indian citizens and creating abundant opportunities for all. The initiatives are taken in keeping with the Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a 'New India'.

The key areas outlined as part of this initiative include enabling a safe and secure digital payments experience, imparting digital skills for artisans and Android skills training for students and developers.

Google India and MEITY will support the launch of a 'Digital Payments Security Alliance' in collaboration with the Data Security Council of India (DSCI). For Digital Payments:

1) The Alliance will bring together several stakeholders from the ecosystem including Banks, Fintech Companies and Government.

2) The Alliance will enable key initiatives to make security a foundation for India's twin pronged Digital and Financial Inclusion Programs.

3) A campaign to create community awareness on safe and secure practices, as users adopt digital/mobile payments, capacity building through appropriate Train the Trainer Programs for CSCs, Financial Inclusion Agencies, will be some of the key priorities.

Under the Digital Unlocked for Artisans

1) Google India which had announced Digital Unlocked, a program to impart training to SMBs earlier this year will extend this training in partnership with MEITY to over 100,000 artisans per year across India.

The aim is to enable them to tap into newer markets through improved visibility and discoverability of their products through the internet.

2) The training will be delivered by National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT). Google India will equip the National Institute trainers with training modules and content.

And they will in turn do the outreach by leveraging the 10,000 NIELIT centres across the country.

3) Google India will also provide mobile training labs to reach artisan clusters across India.

Under the Skills development

1) As the majority of India's Internet user base today access the Internet from their mobile phones and almost all the future Internet users in India and many of the world's emerging countries will be mobile only. There is a huge opportunity for India to become a global leader in mobile app development.

That said, Google had announced the launch of its Android Skilling program with an aim of training two million developers in India. This included developing a specially designed instructor-led training program course curriculum.

2) Google will extend this course curriculum to the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) who will in turn train over 100K developers and students through its network of centres.

Other initiatives that Google India and MEITY will undertake in India include: proliferating the Indic web; enhancing government's online presence especially on mobile platforms to enable citizen engagement and training and capacity building programs on digital tools.

SEE ALSO: Google join hands with MeitY to create digital awareness

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House Panel Wants More Details From NSA, FBI on Russia Hacking

By VOA News March 24, 2017

The U.S. congressional committee tasked with investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign has asked the heads of the FBI and National Security Agency to testify again about the matter, the head of the committee said Friday.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes told reporters the follow-up testimony from FBI director James Comey and NSA chief Michael Rogers will take place Tuesday in a closed session.

In order to make time for the new closed hearing, Nunes said a previously scheduled hearing with several senior Obama administration officials, including the former CIA director, would need to be canceled.

Top Democrat protests

Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the panel, immediately accused Nunes of trying to "choke off public info" with the move.

"We don't welcome cutting off public access to information," Schiff told reporters in a briefing held directly after Nunes's.

Nunes insisted the cancellation of the public hearing was not political.

Nunes also said the former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort volunteered to appear before the committee to answer any questions regarding his ties to Russia's government.

Nunes said government lawyers are working with Manafort's lawyers to schedule the testimony, which could be open or closed, depending on Manafort's preference.

"If he wants to come out in public and have a public hearing, he's more than welcome to do that. If he wants to do it in a closed setting, that's also fine with me," Nunes said.

Manafort's offer to testify came after news reports claimed he agreed more than a decade ago to run a political-influence campaign on behalf of a Russian oligarch.

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Key Resolve reaffirms strategic US, South Korea alliance

By Staff Sgt. Benjamin W. Stratton, 7th Air Force Public Affairs / Published March 24, 2017

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea (AFNS) -- South Korea and U.S. military forces participated in an annual command and control exercise called Key Resolve (KR17) held across the Korean Peninsula March 8 to 23, 2017.

From its start, the exercise highlights the longstanding and enduring partnership and friendship between the two nations and their combined commitment to the defense of South Korea and regional stability.

Approximately 12,800 U.S. forces along with 10,000 South Korean military personnel joined dozens of augmentation forces and multinational representatives from the United Nations Command including Australia, Canada, Denmark, France and Great Britain.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Bergeson, the Air Component Command, South Korea/U.S. Combined Forces Command and 7th Air Force commander, explained the significance of exercises like Key Resolve and the combined U.S. and U.N. commitment to South Korea.

"Our mission is first and foremost to deter any aggression from North Korea," he said. "If that deterrence fails then we are in a position to defend the Republic of Korea. And if we defend, we are going to defeat the enemy and win."

The general went on to explain how vitally important this region of the world is to all nations.

"Over 20 percent of the world's economic output comes from Northeast Asia," he continued. "This is a very vital portion of the world and so it's extremely important not just to the United States but to the rest of the world as well."

KR17 is conducted in accordance with the South Korean-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty, signed Oct. 1, 1953. The exercise strengthens the two nation's regional security cooperation essential for addressing the growing threat from North Korea. A strong defense relationship among the U.S., CFC and South Korea serves as the anchor of stability in the region.

"Allies are critical to the United States," Bergeson said. "Our friends and our allies, we share common values: democracy, respect for human rights and laws, and so we want to work together to try to retain peace and security throughout this region."

The defense treaty further emboldens Koreans and Americans alike in their collective desire "to strengthen the fabric of peace in the Pacific area."

Exercises like KR17 afford both U.S. and South Korean service members an opportunity to work side-by-side in the same way they would operate if actually going to war. Senior Airman Ivan Cooper, with the 15th Operations Support Squadron at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, explains how this experience not only makes him a better Airman, but a more effective weather forecaster.

"Key Resolve has really opened my eyes to new ways of handling difficult situations," he said. "It helps improve our communication skills not only internally with other Americans, but especially with the Koreans as well."

Cooper's weather forecast counterpart in the South Korean air force, 1st Lt. Jaewon Yoo with the Osan Weather Squadron, echoed his partner's sentiment saying the opportunity to work side-by-side with U.S. forecasters has been an extremely enriching experience.

"This is very important because the way we forecast is different from the way the Americans forecast," Yoo explained. "Key Resolve has brought us closer together and helped us understand how we can work as a unified team to deter the enemy and make a difference."

That feeling reaches up and down the ranks, from airman basic through the general officers, and only emboldens U.S. and South Korean forces in their deterrence mission as the common ground.

"We're not going to fight wars alone," said Capt. Abi Oilar, an air battle manager with the 612th Air Operations Center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. "Back at home station, I'm used to operating at the tactical level, whereas here, I've had to do more critical thinking and approach the scenarios from a different perspective. Working alongside the (South Korean air force) has opened my eyes to new ways of approaching the situations that I'll be able to take back with me and share with others in my home command."

But it takes more than air power to win a war and according to Bergeson, the Korean Air Power Team is made up of the U.S. Air Force, the South Korean air force as well as the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade and U.S. Army and liaisons from the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy that all bring together their air components into what the general calls the Korean Air Power Team.

"The Air Component is responsible for any of the operations in air, space and cyberspace," the general said. "The other components are responsible for operations in their domains, whether on land or in the sea, or with the Marines who are doing amphibious operations. So we coordinate with them every day by having liaison officers who work in all different command centers."

One such liaison officer, U.S. Army Maj. Tony Wrice, with the 3rd Battlefield Coordination Detachment at Osan AB, said it's "amazing what we can do when we come together as one unified team."

"This exercise has been a really great experience working together with our Air Force, the (South Korean air force) and (South Korean) army, and all the UNCs," Wrice said. "I'm responsible for ensuring our artillery and other ground forces don't conflict with the needs and operations of the air component. Every day I'm working with (South Korean air force) and (South Korean) army counterparts to make sure we can communicate each component's needs, de-conflict any issues and meet objectives."

Although Army personnel are greatly outnumbered in this exercise, their necessity to mission success remains as evident today as during the Korean War nearly 70 years ago.

"To be able to bring all our resources together and really focus on winning the fight is incredible," Wrice continued. "Key Resolve makes it all happen."

The exercise is about more than sharpening South Korea's defense, it's about assembling a team by building on old friendships with a renewed focus on freedom and prosperity across the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

"The team has done extraordinarily well," the general said. "This is a difficult exercise, we want it to be difficult, and so we are learning lessons as we go along. Some things we're not doing perfectly but that's why you do it; that's why you practice. You practice to make it very difficult so that if you were ever to have to do this for real, you're prepared for it."

Similarly, South Korean air force Lt. Gen. Won In Choul, the Air Component Command deputy commander, said he couldn't be prouder of the brave men and women who daily put their lives on the line in defense of South Korea.

"Forged in the blood spilled by the Korean War, six decades of ROK-U.S. alliance has developed and fortified each nation's military, economy and diplomacy," he said. "(Our combined) planning and preparation allowed this to be the most realistic exercise in history. I'm grateful for the dedication and passion of not only ROK and U.S. Airmen but also Soldiers, Sailors and Marines."

"I wish safe travels for the augmentees who participated in the exercise from outside the Korean theater of operations," Choul added. "Thank you."

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Military Strikes Continue Against ISIS Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, March 24, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

U.S. Central Command continues to work with partner nations to conduct targeted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as part of the comprehensive strategy to degrade and defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

Near Raqqa in Syria, coalition military forces conducted 22 strikes consisting of 44 engagements against ISIS targets.

The strikes engaged eight ISIS tactical units; destroyed seven fighting positions, five vehicles, three improvised bombs, two tunnels, and a vehicle bomb; damaged five supply routes and a bridge; and suppressed an ISIS tactical unit.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted 13 strikes consisting of 45 engagements against ISIS targets, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Kisik, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a command-and-control node.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes engaged four ISIS tactical units and an ISIS sniper team; destroyed 11 fighting positions, two rocket-propelled grenade systems and an artillery system; damaged nine supply routes and a fighting position; and suppressed two ISIS tactical units and an ISIS mortar team.

-- Near Rawah, five strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit; destroyed two ISIS-held buildings, a weapons storage facility and an ISIS headquarters.

-- Near Sinjar, two strikes engaged a vehicle staging area and destroyed a vehicle bomb-making facility.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike engaged a vehicle bomb staging area.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect. For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

The task force does 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.

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U.S. thanks Taiwan for humanitarian assistance in IS fight

ROC Central News Agency

2017/03/24 13:00:44

Washington, March 23 (CNA) The U.S. State Department said on Thursday it appreciates Taiwan's commitment to providing humanitarian assistance as part of the U.S-led coalition to counter the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

"We certainly appreciate those contributions as we appreciate the contributions of all coalition members," acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a regular press briefing.

He was asked to comment on the attendance of a Taiwan envoy at a meeting of the coalition in Washington on Wednesday, and Taiwan's pledge to continue to provide humanitarian assistance in Iraq and Syria.

"I think an important thing to emphasize is that big or small, whatever role any coalition member can play and partner can play, we appreciate it," Toner said. "I think what the message yesterday was we all need to see how we can do more to finish this."

Taiwan's top envoy to the United States Stanley Kao () attended the Wednesday meeting along with officials representing 67 other members of the coalition. The meeting of the coalition, presided over by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was the first since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.

Kao not only attended the meeting, but was also invited to pose for a group photo with Tillerson and other officials. It is rare for a Taiwan official to attend a public event in a U.S. government building because of a lack of official ties between the two countries.

At the press conference on Thursday, Toner said Tillerson also noted the more than US$2 billion identified by coalition partners for humanitarian, stabilization, and de-mining needs and "called on all partners to rapidly fulfill their commitments."

Coalition members have pledged more than US$2 billion in assistance for Iraq and Syria this year. It is not known how much Taiwan has pledged to contribute in total.

The coalition, which was established in 2014 under the administration of former President Barack Obama, has 68 members. In addition to Taiwan, other coalition partners from the Asia-Pacific region include Afghanistan, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.

Taiwan's participation in the coalition has been in the area of humanitarian assistance. Such efforts include the donation of 350 temporary housing units for refugees in Iraq displaced by IS in 2014, after donating US$100,000 to help provide shelter for refugees in that area.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen () said recently that Taiwan donated funds in January to help set up mobile hospitals in Iraq and will continue to offer humanitarian assistance in the region, as well as help clear mines in the aftermath of the fighting.

(By Rita Cheng and Christie Chen)

ENDITEM/AW/

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Scarlet Response begins, CBIRF responds to the call

US Marine Corps News

By Sgt. Terence Brady | March 24, 2017

Marines and sailors with Chemical Biological Incident Response Force traveled to Guardian Centers, a training facility in Perry, Georgia, to participate and conduct Exercise Scarlet Response 2017.

Scarlet Response is an annual exercise with a focus on developing the skills of the elements of CBIRF while integrating with each other in simulated disaster scenarios. The exercise, which goes from March 20  25, is the largest annual event for CBIRF, and it tests the unit's capabilities to react and respond to threats and disasters such as nuclear detonations.

During the first two days of the exercise, the Marines from CBIRF trained in their specific jobs, such as decontamination, with sources available at the training facility.

"The way we prepare for events like Scarlet Response and real world incidents is we set up our full site, which is two tents; one ambulatory, one none ambulatory and a force protection line for CBIRF responders and first responders alike," said Sgt. Robert Grodzicki, a decontamination section leader with CBIRF. "We also just finished the advanced decontamination course at guardian centers.

"They threw all kinds of wound patterns and stuff like that so that we can provide better care to the casualties that we receive."

After they completed the job-specific training, they began to rotate into different specialties in CBIRF, and eventually integrate each other's skills.

"The way we work with the other sections hand in hand in CBIRF is the extraction platoon brings us casualties, the identification detection platoon provides us with information so that we understand how to appropriately decontaminate casualties that we received," said Grodzicki. "Medical is with us to provide what help we need with the casualties we're presented with upon completion of decontamination to the medical tent."

The Marines develop a better understanding and appreciation for each other's skills, according to Cpl. Gerardo Cuevas, an extractor with CBIRF.

"We got Marines who are not extractors and we brought them into our world and showed them what to do," said Cuevas. "It's important because I get to appreciate [the units] more than before and I get to assist the unit and be a better tool for the unit. Instead of just picking up a casualty I can make ways for other Marines to pick up other casualties and support them."

Guardian Centers provides CBIRF with resources and a site that allows them to test their skills in ways not available to them normally, according to Sgt. Cody Bennett, a Marine with Technical Rescue Platoon.

"This week we're doing deep trench [training], which we don't have the opportunity to do that often because our trenches in Maryland are eight-feet deep instead of 12 feet," said Bennett. "It allows us to go off our own baseline and exceed what were used to working with and what were capable of doing."

Grodzicki added that the exercise presents the unit an opportunity to train in large sustained operations with role players to act as casualties.

"Some of them have small acting backgrounds so they can make it as realistic for my marines as possible so when something happens in real life we're better prepared," said Grodzicki.

The Marines will apply the cross training and lane training they performed in the preliminary days to conduct a 12-hour field op, testing their skills further in realistic scenarios.

"The way I see cross training is the way I see the Marine Corps in general: every Marine is a rifleman," said Cuevas. "Every Marine is [expected] to pick up a rifle and go into combat. It's the same way with CBIRF. At the end of the day, we all have to be able to pick up the job."

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US Naval War College Strengthens Latin America, Caribbean Partnerships

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170324-11

Release Date: 3/24/2017 10:14:00 AM

By Daniel S. Marciniak, U.S. Naval War College Public Affairs

LA PUNTA-CALLAO, Peru (NNS) -- U.S. Naval War College (NWC) kicked off its 14th Regional Alumni Symposium at the Peruvian Naval Academy, March 21.

The three-day event, hosted in partnership with the Peruvian Naval War College, brings together 65 NWC alumni from 21 North American, Latin American and Caribbean nations to discuss common challenges in the regions.

Established in 2005, the goal of the symposia is to leverage the professional linkages among alumni and further the exchange of ideas about how regional nations can overcome challenges together.

The theme of this event is "Strengthening Global Maritime Partnerships."

"We recognize the need to be active around the world, and to seek out the knowledge and expertise of our allies where they live," said Rear Adm. Jeffrey A. Harley, president, NWC. "The aim of these events is to take advantage of our alumni's 'Newport connection' to further enhance trust and confidence and to facilitate ongoing cooperation."

A number of U.S. and international flag officers and diplomats are participating in the event, to include chiefs of the Ecuadorian, El Salvadoran, Honduran and Peruvian navies; commandants of the Belize, Guyana, Haitian and Jamaican coast guards; presidents of the Argentinian, Brazilian, Peruvian and U.S. naval war colleges; the U.S. ambassador to Peru; and the commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet (USNAVSO/FOURTHFLT).

"I am tremendously proud to be representing 4th Fleet in this year's Regional Alumni Symposium," said Rear Adm. Sean S. Buck, commander, USNAVSO/FOURTHFLT. "This setting, which annually brings together some of the greatest military minds in the Western Hemisphere, is the best forum we have to connect as partner nations in developing innovative solutions to our most pressing mutual concern of ensuring the security and prosperity in the region."

Since creating a program for international officers in 1956, NWC now has more than 4,500 international alumni from 137 countries worldwide. More than 450 of these alumni are from 29 Latin American and Caribbean nations.

A total of 455, or roughly 10 percent of all international alumni, have become their country's chief of navy -- 40 of whom are from Latin America or the Caribbean.

Nations with alumni attending the event include Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and the United States.

Over the course of the event, keynote addresses by prominent military leaders and panel discussions moderated by NWC faculty will examine a variety of topics, such as cyber, defense economics, narco-terror, fighting international crime, hostage crisis, naval operations in complex environments, China's maritime strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, the Pentagon's "third offset strategy," and maritime regional threats and challenges for international cooperation.

"World events continue to confirm the value of working with partners and friends," said Julia A. Gage, NWC professor and director of alumni programs. "These symposia are real opportunities for naval leaders to come together and collectively ensure that the issues are being addressed and the relationships are being established and maintained."

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US Navy Visits Republic of Korea Island for First Time

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170324-07

Release Date: 3/24/2017 9:13:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan Harper, USS Stethem (DDG 63) Public Affairs

JEJU-DO, Republic of Korea (NNS) -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) is scheduled to arrive in Jeju-do, Republic of Korea (ROK), March 25. This will mark the first visit by any U.S. Navy ship since the ROK Joint Civil-Military Complex opened, Feb. 26.

Rear Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Korea, will greet the ship along with Rear Adm. Kim, Jeongsu, commander of Maritime Task Force Flotilla 7, as more than 100 ROK sailors welcome Stethem to the southern island.

"This may the first time we [U.S. Navy] will visit Jeju, but he have a long history of visiting the Republic of Korea at ports in Pyeongtaek, Donghae, Mokpo, and Busan," said Cooper. "So, while the location may be new, our commitment to being good guests, respectful partners, and strong allies is as firm as ever."

The ship is going to Jeju as part of a routine port visit following the ship's participation in Foal Eagle 17, a joint exercise between the Republic of Korea Navy and U.S. Navy.

"We enjoy any time we get to train with our ROK partners because with each engagement we improve our cooperation, and through that we enhance our combined defensive capabilities," said Cmdr. Douglas Pegher, Stethem's commanding officer. "We have trained with them at-sea and look forward to strengthening our relationship here in Jeju."

While in Jeju, Stethem Sailors will have the opportunity to participate in various Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) activities and sporting events, and participate in community relations projects to give back to the local Jeju community.

"We are honored to be here and develop new friendships and strengthen existing relationships through team building exercise, combined sporting events, and by giving back to the island through a community relations event," said Cmdr. Jeff W. Benson, Stethem's executive officer.

Stethem is on 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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Carl Vinson, Republic of Korea Navy Complete PHOTOEX

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170324-02

Release Date: 3/24/2017 8:49:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Zackary Alan Landers, USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) Public Affairs

U.S. 7TH FLEET AREA OF OPERATIONS (NNS) -- Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) teamed up with the Republic of Korea navy and various assets of Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 1 to complete a photographic exercise (PHOTOEX), March 22.

The event brought together four U.S. Navy surface vessels, four Republic of Korea navy surface vessels, two MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopters and one submarine from each nation.

Carl Vinson Navigation Department Leading Chief Petty Officer, Senior Chief Quartermaster Sara Page, said events like this allow the strike group to use international signals with a partner nation and practice steaming as a group.

According to Page, international call signs were used to visually identify each ship during the PHOTOEX.

"Before the exercise, Carl Vinson hauled up our international call sign," said Page. "Our call sign, in flags, reads 'November-Charlie-Victor-Victor.' All other ships in the formation did likewise with their call signs. It's important to practice quickly recognizing these call signs, especially with a partner force like the Republic of Korea navy."

Page said Carl Vinson also broke her battle ensign from the port yardarm, which allowed the ship to display the national colors on a much larger scale than normal.

"Using the battle ensign for the PHOTOEX really makes the colors stand out," said Page. "It shows we're proud to be operating with our partners from the Republic of Korea navy."

U.S. Navy assets which participated in the exercise were Carl Vinson, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain (CG 57), Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) and USS Stethem (DDG 63), and Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Alexandria (SSN 757). Republic of Korea navy assets participating were Gwanggaeto the Great-class destroyer ROKS Gwanggaeto the Great (DDH 971), Chungmugong Yi Sun-shin-class destroyer ROKS Wanggun (DDH 978), Incheon-class frigate ROKS Gangwon (FFG 815), Pohang-class corvette ROKS Won Ju (PCC 769) and Chang Bogo-class submarine ROKS Lee Jong Mu (SSK 066).

For more than 70 years, the U.S. Navy has maintained a persistent naval presence in the Indo-Asia-Pacific. The U.S. Navy is committed to continuing this forward presence, which is focused on stability, regional cooperation and economic prosperity for all nations.

Carl Vinson has deployed to the region several times, starting with a deployment to the western Pacific in 1983 one year after commissioning. Most recently in 2015, Carl Vinson conducted port visits and exercises with regional navies in the South China Sea.

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UN says 106 civilians killed in Yemen in one month alone

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 5:41PM

The United Nations human rights office says 106 civilians have been killed in Yemen, mostly by airstrikes and shelling by the Saudi regime and its allies, during the past month alone.

In a statement marking the second anniversary of the Saudi war, which was launched on March 26, 2015, the UN human rights office said 4,773 civilians had been killed and 8,272 wounded in the two years of the Saudi campaign.

Local Yemeni sources put the death toll at over 12,000, including many women and children.

Saudi Arabia has been leading the destructive campaign against Yemen in an attempt to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the president who has resigned and is a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement. The campaign has seriously damaged Yemen's infrastructure.

Saudi jets continue to claim more lives in Yemen

According to Yemen's al-Masirah television, Saudi warplanes pounded a market in the center of the city of Sa'ada on Friday, killing three civilians and injuring three others.

Earlier on Friday, a man and a child were killed in a Saudi air raid on a residential building in the district of Majz in Sa'ada province. A woman was also wounded in the attack.

In retaliation for the deadly attacks, snipers of the Yemeni army and popular committees shot dead two Saudi soldiers in the military bases of al-Shabakeh and al-Faridah in the kingdom's southwestern region of Jizan on Friday.

Also in Jizan, Yemeni artillery shells hit the military bases of Marbah and al-Dukhan.

Yemeni troops also fired Grad rockets at several military positions in the kingdom's region of Asir.

There were no immediate reports of possible casualties among the Saudi military men.

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Russia rejects US claim of giving supplies to Taliban in Afghanistan

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 12:9PM

Russia has dismissed as "false" the recent allegation by a US general that Moscow may be providing supplies to Taliban militants in Afghanistan, saying the charge was an attempt by Washington to cover up its failed policies in the war-torn country.

"These claims are absolutely false," Zamir Kabulov, the head of the Russian foreign ministry's department responsible for Afghanistan and the Kremlin's special envoy in the country, told RIA Novosti state news agency on Friday.

"These fabrications are designed, as we have repeatedly underlined, to justify the failure of the US military and politicians in the Afghan campaign. There is no other explanation," he added.

The official made the comments after General Curtis Scaparrotti, the head of the US military's European Command, told lawmakers in Washington on Thursday that he had witnessed Russia's influence grow in many regions, including in Afghanistan, and claimed that Moscow is "perhaps" providing supplies to Taliban militants.

"I have seen the influence of Russia of late - an increased influence - in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban," Scaparrotti, who is also NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, without elaborating.

The US commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, also in February accused Russia of trying to undermine the United States in the country by attempting to "publicly legitimize the Taliban."

Russia has repeatedly denied providing any aid to the Taliban. Moscow has said its limited contacts with the militants are aimed at bringing the group to the negotiating table.

Moscow considers the Taliban a terrorist group and it is banned in the country, along with Daesh Takfiri group.

Afghanistan faces many security challenges years after the US and its allies invaded the country in 2001 as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but many areas in the country are still beset with insecurity.

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Saudi Arabia threatens to attack Yemen's Hudaydah port

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 10:18AM

The head of Saudi-led coalition in the war on Yemen has warned that the military alliance will attack Yemen's western port city of Hudaydah unless the United Nations intervenes.

On Thursday, Ahmed al-Asiri claimed that the coalition seeks to transfer humanitarian assistance to Yemen from the Red Sea port city of Mokha.

The United Nations has already rejected a call by Saudi Arabia and its allies to supervise Hudaydah, where tens of refugees were killed last week in an aerial attack blamed on Riyadh.

More than 40 people lost their lives and dozens of others were injured in an apparent Saudi airstrike that hit a boat carrying Somali refugees near Bab al-Mandeb Strait on Friday.

Riyadh and its allies have denied being behind the air raid despite witness accounts citing an Apache helicopter - which is only used by Saudi Arabia in the war on Yemen - to have attacked the vessel.

The UN and Russia have warned against the humanitarian ramifications of any Saudi-led attack on the port city.

During a Wednesday meeting of the UN Security Council convened by Russia, the Kremlin warned about "grave humanitarian consequences" that would come if Saudi Arabia goes ahead with a plan to attack Yemen's western port city of Hudaydah.

The attendants in the UNSC meeting discussed the grave humanitarian situation in Yemen and efforts toward a peaceful conclusion of the two-year-long war imposed by the Saudi regime on the Yemeni people.

Hudaydah is currently under the control of Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah fighters, who have been defending the impoverished country against the Saudi aggression since March 2015. The city, Yemen's fourth largest and its biggest port, served as a thoroughfare for the transit of about 70 percent of Yemen's food imports in the pre-war years.

When the Saudi regime started pounding the crisis-hit country, Hudaydah turned into a primary entry point for humanitarian aid and fuel meant for areas inside Yemen, including the capital, Sana'a.

If the city falls under the control of Saudi forces and mercenary soldiers, the flow of humanitarian assistance toward those areas would be blocked.

On March 13, Moscow also warned about the critical situation of the port city in providing its people with much-needed humanitarian aid.

The "plans to storm Yemen's biggest port of Hudaydah give rise to serious concerns," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, adding that the fall of the city would cut Sana'a from "food and humanitarian aid supplies." She also said the humanitarian situation in Yemen was "catastrophic."

On Wednesday, the World Food Programme (WFP) said 60 percent of Yemenis, some 17 million people, faced a "crisis" and were in urgent need of food as a direct result of the Saudi war.

Saudi troop killed

On Thursday, the Saudi Interior Ministry said that Saudi border guard Atallah Yassine al-Anzihas been killed following rocket attacks by Yemeni forces on a Saudi military base in the kingdom's southern border region of Dhahran Janoub.

The Saudi campaign has so far killed over 12,000 Yemenis. The aggression was meant to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's president who has resigned and is a staunch ally of Riyadh.

The campaign also sought to undermine Houthis. However, due to resistance from the Yemeni nation, the regime in Riyadh has so far failed to achieve success and suffered considerable human loss in its military.

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Mubarak walks free for first time in six years

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 10:9AM

Egypt's ousted president Hosni Mubarak has walked free for the first time in six years, his lawyer says.

Mubarak on Friday left a military hospital where he had spent much of his six-year detention over a series of charges, including killing protesters in the 2011 uprising that ended his 30 year rule in 2011.

His lawyer Farid al-Deeb was quoted as saying that the former Egyptian dictator was heading to his home in Heliopolis.

A top appeals court cleared Mubarak earlier this month of charges of killing protesters. He was accused of inciting the deaths of protesters during the 18-day revolt, in which about 850 people were killed.

The release came a day after an Egyptian court ordered a renewed corruption probe into Mubarak over allegations that he, his wife, two sons and their wives received gifts from the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper valued at about $1 million.

In January 2016, the appeals court upheld a three-year prison sentence for Mubarak and his two sons on corruption charges. But the sentence took into account time served. Both of his sons, Alaa and Gamal, were freed.

Mubarak was originally sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for conspiring to murder 239 demonstrators during the 18-day revolt but an appeals court ordered a retrial that culminated in 2014 in the case against him and his senior officials being dropped.

The court also rejected demands by lawyers of the victims to reopen civil suits. That left no remaining option for appeal or retrial, according to a judicial source.

Lawyers of the victims have condemned the verdicts clearing Mubarak and his officials as politically motivated.

Many Egyptians who lived through Mubarak's rule view it as a period of autocracy and crony capitalism. His overthrow led to Egypt's first free election, which brought in President Mohamed Morsi.

Morsi only lasted a year in office and was overthrown by then army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who went on to win a presidential election in 2014.

Sisi has since launched a crackdown on Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. By contrast, Mubarak-era figures have been cleared of charges and a series of laws limiting political freedoms has raised fears among activists that the old regime is back.

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Taliban militants capture key district in Afghanistan's Helmand

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 8:42AM

The Taliban militant group has captured the center of a strategic district in Afghanistan's southern Helmand, forcing government troops to pull out of the area.

The Sangin district's police chief, Mohammad Rasoul, confirmed the militant group overran the district's center on Thursday, hours after Afghan army and police units withdrew from the area.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi also issued a statement to announce the capture of Sangin, once considered the deadliest battlefield for British and US troops in Afghanistan.

Rasoul further said that at the time of the Taliban siege, there were only eight policemen and 30 Afghan soldiers on duty.

He said the security forces were now amassing nearby for "preparing our reinforcements to recapture the district," without saying when the counterattack would occur and how many forces would be involved.

In the capital, Kabul, a lawmaker from the captured district, Mohammad Hashim Alokzai, urged the military to move quickly to retake of Sangin. He said Sangin's fall could have devastating consequences for Helmand Province.

The Taliban already controls several major districts in Helmand, where the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah has in the past months been the scene of constant and heavy attacks by the militant group.

Sangin District was once considered the deadliest battlefield for British and US troops in Afghanistan.

The British took over southern Helmand in 2006. Most of Britain's more than 400 military deaths occurred in Helmand Province  in Sangin alone, Britain lost 104 soldiers.

The development comes amid a surge in Taliban assaults against civilians in recent weeks. The militant group steps up such attacks in the run-up to and during the spring every year as part of a special offensive.

NATO: Russia may be helping Taliban

Meanwhile, a top US commander in Europe accused Russia on Thursday of helping supply the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"I've seen the influence of Russia of lateincreased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban," said Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also NATO's Supreme Allied Commander.

The commander did not elaborate on what kinds of supplies might be headed to the militants.

However, Russia dismissed the allegation as "a lie" on Friday, saying the claim was an attempt by Washington to try to cover up for the failure of its own policies in Afghanistan, the RIA news agency reported.

Afghanistan faces many security challenges years after the US and its allies invaded the country in 2001 as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but many areas in the country are still beset with insecurity.

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Russia Says Not Supplying Taliban, Calls U.S. General's Statement A 'Lying Assertion'

RFE/RL March 24, 2017

A senior Russian diplomat has rejected a statement by the top U.S. general in Europe that Moscow may be helping supply Taliban militants who are fighting the U.S.-backed government and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

"This is an absolutely lying assertion," state-run news agency RIA quoted Zamir Kabulov, head of the Foreign Ministry department responsible for Afghanistan and a former ambassador to Kabul, as saying on March 24.

U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, told a U.S. Senate committee on March 23 that he has seen evidence of increasing Russian efforts to influence the Taliban "and perhaps even to supply" the militant group.

Scaparrotti, a four-star general who previously served as the director of the Joint Staff and the commander of U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan, did not specify what types of supplies he thought Russia might be providing the Taliban.

Kabulov charged that Scaparrotti's remark sought to "justify the failure of American military and political leaders in the Afghan campaign."

U.S.-led forces have been battling the Taliban since driving the extremist group and its Al-Qaeda allies from power following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

With reporting by RIA and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-supplying-taliban- u-s-general-lying-assertion/28388539.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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Trump's Former Campaign Manager Agrees To Testify In Russia Probe

RFE/RL March 24, 2017

A senior Republican lawmaker says President Donald Trump's former campaign manager has volunteered to speak to a U.S. congressional committee about its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Devin Nunes, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters on March 24 that Paul Manafort's lawyer contacted the committee and offered to make his client available to lawmakers.

The committee is investigating alleged ties between Trump associates and Russia, as well as what U.S. intelligence calls Kremlin-directed interference in the U.S. election.

"The counsel for Paul Manafort contacted the committee yesterday to offer the committee the opportunity to interview his client," Nunes said. "We thank Mr. Manafort for volunteering and encourage others with knowledge of these issues to voluntarily interview with the committee."

It was not immediately clear whether his testimony would be in an open or closed setting. Nunes told reporters that his panel would coordinate with Manafort's lawyers on whether the testimony would public.

The announcement came just days after the Associated Press reported that Manafort previously worked for a Kremlin-connected Russian billionaire and, as early as 2005, had proposed a political strategy to benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Manafort resigned as chairman of Trump's presidential campaign in August 2016 following reports of illicit payments related to his previous work for the political party of Ukraine's former President Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian leader who was ousted from power in February 2014.

FBI Director James Comey on March 20 confirmed publicly that his agency was conducting investigations into communications between Russian officials and Trump associates.

U.S. intelligence agencies released a report in January assessing that Russia conducted a hacking-and-influence campaign aimed at denigrating Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. The Kremlin rejects the allegation.

After initially expressing repeated skepticism about that assessment, Trump said he believed Russia was behind the hacking campaign but insists it had no impact on the outcome of the election.

The White House said earlier this week Trump did not know his former campaign chairman had worked for Kremlin-connected Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and had proposed a political strategy that the AP reported was aimed at a public-influence campaign that would favor Putin.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on March 22 insisted the work Manafort did for Deripaska had taken place a decade ago and was irrelevant to Manafort's job with Trump's 2016 election campaign.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, The Boston Globe, Politico, and CNN

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/us-russia -manafort-trump-ex-manager- agrees-testify/28389100.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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Over 100 Civilians Killed in Yemen in March, Mainly by Coalition Strikes

Sputnik News

21:31 24.03.2017

Over the past month alone 106 civilians were killed in Yemen, mostly by air strikes and shelling by Saudi-led coalition war ships, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  More than 100 civilians were killed in Yemen over the month, most of them by airstrikes and shelling conducted by the forces of the Saudi-led coalition, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday.

"Over the past month alone, 106 civilians have been killed, mostly by air strikes and shelling by Coalition war ships," the statement released by the Office said, adding that a certain number of Somali refugees were among the casualties, as well as Yemeni fishermen, women, and children.

"The violent deaths of refugees fleeing yet another war, of fishermen, of families in marketplaces  this is what the conflict in Yemen looks like two years after it began utterly terrible, with little apparent regard for civilian lives and infrastructure," Prince Zeid bin Raad, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, as cited in the statement.

The Commissioner stressed that two years of conflict is "enough", and urged "all parties to the conflict, and those with influence, to work urgently towards a full ceasefire to bring this disastrous conflict to an end, and to facilitate rather than block the delivery of humanitarian assistance."

Zeid also called for creation of an independent international investigation into the numerous reports of serious violations of human rights in Yemen, stressing that those responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in Yemen should not "enjoy full impunity."

Yemen's civil war between the internationally recognized Aden-based government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi movement backed by army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh erupted in March 2015. Shortly after the start of the conflict, the Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries launched Operation Decisive Storm, which has since been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request.

According to the latest UN data, the total number of documented civilian deaths in the Yemeni war makes almost 4,800 people, with over 8,200 civilians injured. The UN Human Rights Office warns that the actual number of civilians killed in the conflict may be "considerably higher."

 Sputnik

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Russia Offers to Set Up Helicopter Maintenance Center in Sri Lanka  Official

Sputnik News

11:01 24.03.2017(updated 11:21 24.03.2017)

A deputy chief of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said that Russia has proposed to set up a service center for Russian-made helicopters in Sri Lanka.

LANGKAWI (Sputnik)  Russia has proposed to set up a service center for Russian-made helicopters in Sri Lanka, a deputy chief of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation told Sputnik on Friday.

"We've submitted our proposals to equip a helicopter maintenance center and provide spare parts for armored hardware to the Sri Lankan side," the agency's Mikhail Petukhov said at the LIMA 2017 military show in Malaysia.

Sri Lanka has 12 Mi-8/17 military transport helicopters, six Mi-24P attack helicopters, 36 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, and around 50 BTR-80 amphibious armored personnel carriers.

 Sputnik

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Taliban Denies Talks With Pakistan on Afghan Peace Prospects

By Ayaz Gul March 24, 2017

Afghanistan's Taliban disputes media reports that its representatives recently visited neighboring Pakistan and discussed with officials there the prospect of holding direct peace talks with Kabul.

The Taliban have long refused to hold direct talks with the Afghan government, calling it a "puppet" of the United States.

"We strongly reject [the media reports] because none of our leaders has traveled to Islamabad, nor has he met with any official there," Zabihullah Mujahid, the insurgency's main spokesman, told VOA Friday.

But he did not outright deny reports his group may attend a Moscow meeting, if invited.

"When an invitation is extended to us, only then we can consider it and comment on it," Mujahid said.

Reports of Pakistan meeting

He spoke a day after an Associated Press report said Pakistani officials hosted seven Taliban leaders in Islamabad in their bid to press the insurgents to return to peace talks with the Afghan government.

Pakistan brokered and hosted a single meeting between Taliban and Afghan officials in July 2015, but the revelation at the time that the insurgent group's supreme leader, Mullah Omar, had been dead for two years disrupted the peace process.

A senior Pakistani government official and an intelligence official told VOA they were unaware of any such "visit or talks." Both officials requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on such matters.

"Pakistan is trying to distance itself from hosting Afghan peace talks and would instead prefer they are held in a country acceptable to all the parties," the intelligence official maintained.

Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated in recent years because of Taliban-led attacks in Afghanistan, for which Afghan officials blame insurgent sanctuaries on Pakistani soil.

Afghanistan open to talks

Speaking in Washington earlier this week, Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani insisted Kabul has kept the doors for peace negotiations open to insurgents, but accused Islamabad of hindering efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in his country.

"Pakistan's reluctance to end its support for terrorism underpins the continuation of violence in Afghanistan and the region.  A paradigm shift in Pakistan is needed if any progress is to be made in peace efforts with the Taliban," Rabbani said.

Russia to host talks, US says no

Russia also has recently stepped in to try to promote Afghan peace and reconciliation efforts through a multinational dialogue.

Moscow plans to host another round of the discussions next month with officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Iran and China to further the process. The United States was also among the invitees, along with several Central Asian nations.

But Washington has reportedly turned down the invitation to the April 14 conference. The United States was not consulted before receiving the invitation and does not know Russia's objectives for the gathering, the Associated Press said Thursday, quoting a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Separately, a top U.S. military commander told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday that Russia may be supplying the Taliban as they battle U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan.

But U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO's Supreme Commander, did not elaborate on what kinds of supplies might by provided or how direct Russia's involvement could be.

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Malaysia Buying Chinese Ships to Protect its Waters From China, Others

By Ralph Jennings March 24, 2017

Malaysia's deal to buy Chinese naval ships and step up patrols against any intrusions from China underscores the complexity of relations between the two countries and signals growing concern over national defense.

Officials from the Southeast Asian country, with a coastline stretching from the Sulu Sea westward to the Indian Ocean, said in November they would get four littoral mission ships made in China.

Littoral mission ships are relatively small vessels designed in the past for stealth combat near coastlines, sometimes against bigger enemies.

Upgrade aging fleet

Analysts say those ships would head up the replacement of 50 vessels in the Royal Malaysian Navy to protect its waters from a list of threats. Among them is China, which competes with Malaysia for claims to the shared South China Sea.

"China, when their vessels patrol the nine-dash line, that brings them very close to Malaysian shores," said Ibrahim Suffian, program director with the Kuala Lumpur-based polling group Merdeka Center. He was referring to a line China uses to delineate a maritime claim extending from its southern coast almost to Indonesia.

"The prime minister announced the agreement with China last year, for four littoral vessels," he said. "In the past the Malaysian armed forces have typically favored Western equipment, whether from the U.S., the U.K. or France, so this marks a departure from the practice."

Malaysian backlash

In 2015, the country spotted a Chinese coast guard ship anchored at Luconia Shoals, which are tiny South China Sea land forms about 150 kilometers north of Malaysian Borneo. A Chinese naval vessel had been seen earlier near Malaysia, and in March 2016 Malaysia spotted 100 Chinese fishing boats escorted by Beijing's coast guard.

Some in the country of 31 million people feel their government reacts weakly to China's ship movements, a perception that has threatened the ruling party's reputation, said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

"If you look at what happened in September 2015, when they had the first revelations about this Chinese coast guard vessel stationed off Luconia Shoal, there was quite a public backlash because people were questioning how come the Malaysian government allowed the coast guard vessel to be there," Koh said.

The government of Prime Minister Najib Razak felt "there must be something done at least to appease the public and to show the public that something is really done and they are serious about it," he said.

Valuable economic partner

Malaysia usually avoids poking China directly because of a valuable economic relationship, analysts say. Malaysia counts China, the world's second largest economy, as its top trading partner and leading source of direct foreign investment.

China uses its economic influence elsewhere in Southeast Asia, most recently in the Philippines, in exchange for tolerance of its activities in the disputed sea.

China maintains the world's third strongest military compared to Malaysia at No. 34, according to the database GlobalFirePower.com.

"No matter how much Malaysia is going to upgrade the navy, it's not going to catch up with China's naval expansion by a far stretch," said Oh Ei Sun, international studies instructor at Singapore Nanyang University.

Beijing claims about 95 percent of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea, covering fishery-rich waters that Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines also claim.

China has stepped up defense of its maritime claims since 2010. Its coast guard, fishing vessels and oil rigs pop up in waters that overlap the exclusive economic zones of other countries as it landfills islets that other claimants call their own.

But Malaysia sits on the most extensive undersea fossil fuel reserves among the South China Sea parties.

Pirates, extremists also threats

In addition to the potential for conflict over maritime disputes, Malaysia needs naval upgrades also to resist violent Muslim groups who try to cross a hard-to-police sea border from the southern Philippines into Borneo, analysts add.

And sea pirates sometimes operate off the north coast of Borneo, pushing the need for authorities to have faster patrol boats, Oh said. In the commercial space, fishing vessels sometimes approach Malaysian waters from Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, Suffian added.

But Malaysia cut its defense budget 12.7 percent to $3.41 billion this year, and Koh said some of its ships are 30 to 50 years old, making them "uneconomical to maintain."

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British Police Make Two 'Significant' Arrests In London Terror Attack

RFE/RL March 24, 2017

British police say they have made two more "significant" arrests in the investigation of the deadly attack near Parliament and said the birth name of the assailant, Muslim convert Khalid Masood, was Adrian Russell Ajao.

Britain's top counterterrorism officer, Mark Rowley, said on March 24 that police have nine people in custody, while a 10th person has been released on bail as the investigation continues.

Authorities have said that Masood, who had a history of violence, was thought to have carried out the Westminster attack on his own. But they have not ruled out the possibility that others may have been involved.

"Clearly a main line in our investigation is what led him to be radicalized. ... Was it through influences in our community, influences from overseas, or from online propaganda?" Rowley said.

"We remain keen to hear from anyone who knew Khalid Masood well, understands who his associates were, and can provide us with information about places he has recently visited," he added.

The two arrests came overnight as a 75-year-old British man died of injuries suffered when the assailant drove a rental car through a crowd on Westminster Bridge, which leads to the British Parliament.

Leslie Rhodes was taken off life support at King's College Hospital, police said. His death brought the death toll in the attack to five, including Masood.

The other victims were police officer Keith Palmer, 48; Aysha Frade, a 43-year-old British woman; and Kurt Cochran, an American tourist from the state of Utah, who was in his 50s.

Rowley added that two police officers at the scene of the attack also suffered significant injuries. Two other people also remain in critical condition, one with life-threatening injuries, he said.

Masood, who was shot dead by police within the security perimeter of Parliament in the midst of the terrorist attack, also was known by several other aliases.

They said Masood had not been the subject of any current investigations by British authorities and there was "no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack."

British Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons earlier on March 23 that the attacker was "a peripheral figure" known to security authorities and had been investigated.

Police said they were working on the assumption that Masood, who did not have any convictions on terrorism charges, was inspired by Islamist extremism. The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed the assailant was one of its "soldiers."

Victims who were injured on Westminster Bridge came from 12 countries.

They included teenage schoolchildren from France, a Romanian couple, and others who traveled from as far as China to explore London. A Romanian woman was pulled alive from the River Thames after falling from Westminster Bridge during the attack.

With reporting by Reuters, BBC, AFP, Sky News, Press Association, and AP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/westminster-attacker- masood-islam-convert/28388086.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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US State Department Memos Shed Light on 'Extreme Vetting' for Visas

By Victoria Macchi, Smita Nordwall March 24, 2017

The U.S. State Department has asked American embassies and consulates around the world to identify certain groups that should get extra scrutiny when they apply for visas.

A series of directives also instructs U.S. diplomatic posts overseas to review the social media accounts of visa applicants who are suspected of terrorist ties or of having been in Islamic State group-controlled areas.

The diplomatic cables sent by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directed embassies to convene security and intelligence working groups to determine criteria for "population sets" that would warrant increased scrutiny before traveling to the U.S.

Even if the applicant otherwise qualifies for a visa, those identified as meeting the criteria would require additional scrutiny, leading to a possible visa denial.

It is the first evidence of a plan for the "extreme vetting" of foreigners entering the United States that President Donald Trump promised during his campaign.

The four cables sent between March 10 and March 17 do not define which groups would be considered among the "population sets" requiring more scrutiny.

Social media accounts

But in the first glimpse into what "extreme vetting" may look like under the Trump administration, one of Tillerson's memos would have added to the interview process questions about an applicant's workplaces, employers, addresses and travel history going back 15 years, as well as all email addresses and social media handles used in the last five years.

The questions were withdrawn in a following memo, pending approval of the list by another federal agency.

The directives, first reported by Reuters, quickly drew criticism from rights groups and others who've accused Trump of discriminating against Muslims through his now-suspended ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries  Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Discrimination?

"These measures could provide license for discrimination based on national origin and religion,'' human rights group Amnesty International wrote in a letter to Tillerson on Thursday. "They could provide a pretext for barring individuals based on their nonviolent beliefs and expression. Social media checks, as well as demands for social media passwords at U.S. borders, have significant implications for privacy and freedom of expression.''

Anil Kalhan, a law professor who chairs the international human rights committee of the New York City Bar Association, added that the directives "will needlessly worsen visa processing backlogs" and may lead to unwarranted visa denials.

Critics of Trump's calls for "extreme vetting," including refugee officials and State Department staffers, have said the process for visa processing is already stringent.

"We have a terrorist watch database. We have known immigration violators database. We have a criminal background check database that they have to go through. They don't just take the visa applicant's word," Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University's law school, told CBS News last month.

"They do go through all of these computer databases to verify for themselves that it's appropriate to issue the visa to a particular individual," he said.

A State Department official refused to comment when asked about the recent memos by VOA. He said only that the agency "immediately took steps to further strengthen our already strong screening and vetting procedures" after the travel-related executive order issued March 6, which has been suspended in part by federal courts.

VOA State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine contributed to this report.

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2 New Arrests in London Terror Attack

By VOA News March 24, 2017

London police said Friday they have made two more arrests in connection with the attack near Parliament.

Counter-terrorism commander Mark Rowley characterized the arrests as "significant," though he did not provide any details. He said nine people are currently in custody and one person has been released.

Police officials identified the attacker who killed four people near Parliament as Khalid Masood, a Briton who converted to Islam and had a lengthy criminal record for weapons possession and other charges.

Rowley said Masood's birth name was Adrian Russell Ajao and appealed to the public for any information about him.

"We remain keen to hear from anyone who knew Khalid Masood well, understands who his associates were and can provide us with information about places he has recently visited,'' Rowley said. "There might be people out there who did have concerns about Masood but did not feel comfortable for whatever reason in passing those concerns to us.''

Islamic State said Masood, who was 52, was a "soldier" of the extremist group who responded to its call to attack civilians and the military in countries allied with the United States in battling IS.

Masood had never been convicted of terrorist offenses, but British security officials said he had been investigated in the past "in relation to concerns about violent extremism." Authorities say they believe he was acting alone Wednesday when he ran down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, a Thames River crossing leading to the Houses of Parliament, crashed his rented vehicle into a gate and fatally stabbed a policeman who tried to stop him.

Armed police shot and killed Masood moments later.

In the hours after Wednesday's attack in the heart of London, police conducted raids around the country in search of anyone who may have given support to Masood. Eight men and women were arrested Thursday on suspicion of planning terrorist acts.

The dead assailant, who was older than most Islamist attackers involved in recent spectacular terror attacks in Europe, had been a teacher of English and was known as a fanatical bodybuilder.

One of the civilians who was run down on the bridge, a 75-year-old man, died Thursday in a hospital, raising the casualty toll to four victims and Masood.

Although Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, a statement posted online did not implicate the group in the planning or execution of the attack.

An Italian tourist who witnessed the carnage told reporters he saw Masood attack the policeman with two knives. "He gave [the officer] around 10 stabs in the back," the visitor said.

Valiant efforts to resuscitate Constable Keith Palmer at the scene failed. The 48-year-old officer was a 15-year police veteran.

One American was among the dead - 54-year-old Kurt Cochran of Utah, who was in London with his wife to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. His wife, Melissa, was among the 30 people injured. Masood's vehicle hit the Cochrans as they crossed Westminster Bridge.

The remaining victim of the attack was a British school administrator, Aysha Frade, 43.

Mourners gathered in London's Trafalgar Square Thursday evening, about one kilometer from the crime scene, for a candlelight vigil. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, told the crowd of thousands that"those trying to destroy our shared way of life will never succeed."

Khan said the vigil in the most recognizable public plaza in London was meant to honor the dead and injured, but also "to send a clear, clear message: Londoners will never be cowed by terrorism."

Rowley, head of counterterrorism efforts for London's Metropolitan Police Service, said the eight people arrested Thursday were picked up during searches at six separate locations, and that investigations were continuing in London, Birmingham and other parts of England. He declined to say whether or how those detained were involved in Wednesday's attack.

"It is still our belief, which continues to be born out by our investigation, that this attacker acted alone and was inspired by international terrorism," Rowley told reporters.

Prime Minister Theresa May struck a defiant tone in discussing the attack before Parliament Thursday, telling British lawmakers that what London experienced was "an attack on free people everywhere."

"Yesterday an act of terrorism tried to silence our democracy, but today we meet as normal, as generations have done before us and as future generations will continue to do, to deliver a simple message: We are not afraid and our resolve will never waver in the face of terrorism," she said.

May thanked Britain's friends and allies around the world "who have made it clear that they stand with us at this time."She said the victims include nationals of France, Romania, South Korea, Germany, Poland, Ireland, China, Italy and Greece, as well as the United States.

The United Nations Security Council in New York, chaired by British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, observed a moment of silence Thursday for the London victims.

"You may know that today there are victims in London from 11 nations. Which goes to show that an attack on London is an attack on the world," Johnson said. "I can tell you from my talks here in the United States with the U.S. government and with partners from around the world that the world is uniting to defeat the people who launched this attack and defeat their bankrupt and odious ideology."

In London, Parliament's session began with a minute of silence Thursday. Police officers stood in silence nearby outside the headquarters of the city's Metropolitan Police.

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China to launch fourth FY-3 meteorological satellite in 2017

People's Daily Online

By Zhang Huan (People's Daily Online) 18:40, March 24, 2017

According to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, China plans to launch its fourth Fengyun-3 (FY-3) meteorological satellite in the second half of 2017, Xinhuanet.com reported on March 23. It will be China's 16th meteorological satellite.

Having more satellites in orbit means better weather forecasts, storm analysis and environmental monitoring. Zhu Wei, deputy chief designer of the satellite, explained that the fourth FY-3 satellite has clear advantages over the previous three, as it possesses better stability, reliability and accuracy. It is also equipped with remote sensing instruments including an Infrared High-Spectrum Atmospheric Sounder, Wide-Angle Aurora Imager and Ionosphere Photometer.

The satellite will achieve continuous all-weather monitoring of atmospheric parameters including liquid water path, moisture content, surface emissivity and surface temperature. It will be unaffected by adverse weather conditions, unlike most satellites.

Zhu also stated that China eventually plans to launch four more FY-3 satellites so that the global weather forecast model can be shortened to four hours from the current six, in order to predict natural disasters earlier and with greater accuracy.

According to China's Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, only the U.S., Europe and China possess both polar-orbiting and geostationary meteorological satellites. Currently, China's meteorological satellites are the primary source of information for weather forecasts in the eastern hemisphere.

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China May Launch 2nd Liaoning Aircraft Carrier Late April

Sputnik News

08:45 24.03.2017(updated 08:53 24.03.2017)

Second Chinese Liaoning aircraft carrier might be launched at the end of April 2017, local media reported Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  According to Sina news portal, a number of photos have been circulating in the Internet, depicting installation of radars and base painting of the deck. After analyzing the photos expects came to a conclusion that the vessel might be launched in late April, in particular on April 23, when China celebrates Founding day of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy.

Liaoning is a Type 001 class vessel. The first carrier was rebuilt out of Soviet aircraft cruiser Varyag in early 2000s, with the first sea trial taking place in 2011. In September 2012, Liaoning was commissioned into the PLA Navy.

In late December 2015, the Chinese Defense Ministry announced plans to construct a new Liaoning aircraft carrier, built by China itself.

 Sputnik

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Growing Disconnect with China Seen Ahead of Hong Kong Election

By Joyce Huang March 24, 2017

On March 26 in Hong Kong, an electoral committee of nearly 1,200 people, stacked with Beijing loyalists, will select the city's chief executive for the next five years.

The race is widely seen as a competition between China's preferred candidate, Carrie Lam, and the more popular John Tsang.

While most believe Lam is virtually guaranteed to win with Beijing's support, questions linger about how divided the electoral committee vote will be and what impact the results might have on calls for political reforms from the city's youth and pan-democrats.

Lingering nostalgia

It's been 20 years since the British handover of Hong Kong to China, and the former colony remains a vibrant mix of East and West, a port city that dances to the beat of its own drum.

Double-deck trams and buses ply narrow streets as the pungent smell of dried seafood fills the air. Horse racing, a holdover in this former British colony, is still popular.

The race for chief executive, however, is one competition many hoped would be different.

Dashed hopes

2017 was originally the year Hong Kong might be allowed to directly elect its top leader.

Instead, China's political grip has tightened and there is a growing disconnect with the city's communist rulers in Beijing.

Young people, in particular, are upset about stalled political reforms.

Trian Kong, a 24-year-old dance instructor, said when she was younger, she was excited to know that she would be able to cast her vote in the chief executive election every five years.

Knowing the option is no longer available, she says she has grown indifferent to the city's politics.

"I have no rights to vote, and there's nothing I can do about it," Kong told VOA.

Another 21-year-old performing artist shares Kong's frustration.

"People like us, citizens like us, don't have any right to speak out. Even though we speak out, it doesn't change a lot," said Michael Wong.

Both said they are not hostile to China, but hoped for freer elections, which won't be rigged by the authorities or controlled by the rich and the powerful.

Status quo

What the public wants for its young and old isn't much more than what they have now. That is, the rule of law and economic prosperity, as well as "one person, one vote" for its top leader, who they hope will look after the interests of this city's 7 million residents.

The failure of the incumbent chief C.Y. Leung to promote greater democracy and freedoms triggered the massive months-long Occupy Central campaign. Commonly known as the Umbrella Movement, it protested China's decision in 2014 to pre-screen the city's chief executive candidates in a proposed popular vote.

The disappearance of booksellers in late 2015 fueled already growing fears the "one country, two systems" formula, enacted by China, was turning into "one country, one system."

Denied political participation, the city's pro-democracy activists say they are not afraid to show defiance again if Beijing continues to ignore the true voice of Hong Kong.

Core values

"The Chinese government is trying very hard to combat any democratization movement," said Yvonne Leung, former president of the Hong Kong University Students' Union.

"But I believe it is very important for Hong Kong people to uphold their core values, because the more aggressive the Chinese government are, the more people will be affected," she added.

Leung was among those student leaders during the Occupy Central campaign.

She disagreed with the views of tycoon Li Ka-shing, who told reporters on Thursday that the city needs to put its collaboration with Beijing before local sentiments.

Yet, for now, China is likely to get its way.

Observers say Beijing's hand-picked candidate, Carrie Lam, is expected to claim a majority of the votes, outperforming the former finance secretary rival John Tsang, whose pan-democrat supporters account for only one-fourth of the votes.

Political unrest

But the election is not likely to signal an end to political unrest, analysts say.

According to Dixon Sing, associate professor of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's social science division, because of the city's "mini-circle" electoral system, its democratic forces have been torn apart by realists and idealists  a source for their continued disunity.

"The divisions will continue, but then it is also a matter of making compromises, including respecting mainstream public opinions," Sing added.

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Sanctions badly affect most needy in North Korea: UN report

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 5:26AM

The United Nations has warned that sanctions against North Korea are taking a serious toll on humanitarian aid activities in the country, where millions of women and children are reliant on donations.

A report by Tapan Mishra, the UN's senior resident official in Pyongyang, says the bans slapped on the North over its nuclear and missile activities are causing a "radical decline" in donations among the needy in the Asian state.

Such donations, the report said, are badly needed by "18 million people, or 70 percent of the population, including 1.3 million children under five."

North Korea has been the target of a broad array of tough sanctions by the US and the UN Security Council over its nuclear and missile tests.

Pyongyang says its missile and nuclear program is part of its self-defense measures aimed at protecting the North's sovereignty and safety in the face of threats by the US and South Korea.

Mishra, who coordinates UN development program and other activities in the country, said North Korea is in the midst of "a protracted, entrenched humanitarian situation largely forgotten or overlooked by the rest of the world."

The report said "chronic food insecurity, early childhood malnutrition and nutrition insecurity" continue to be widespread in North Korea.

The sanctions, it said, also have a psychological impact on the donors, making them reluctant to provide funds for projects in the country.

"This is reflected in the radical decline in donor funding since 2012," it said. "As a result, agencies have been forced to significantly reduce the assistance they provide ," it added.

Forty-one percent of the population in North Korea or two in five people are undernourished, while 70 percent depend on the Public Distribution System (PDS) for rations, according to the report.

With international sanctions in effect, health service delivery remains inadequate with many areas not equipped with sufficient facilities, equipment or medicines to meet people's basic health needs, it added.

On Monday, Reuters quoted a US official as saying that Washington was considering more sweeping sanctions as part of a broad review of measures against North Korea.

Reacting to the report, a senior North Korean diplomat at the UN, said his country has no fear of tighter US bans and is determined to pursue the "acceleration" of its nuclear and missile programs.

North Korea is irked by joint wargames held annually by the US and South Korea on the volatile Korean Peninsula, saying the drills are practices for a war on the country.

Washington has recently angered Pyongyang by starting the installation of an advanced missile system at an air base in South Korea.

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Putin Meets Le Pen, Says Not Seeking To Influence French Vote

RFE/RL March 24, 2017

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has met with Russian President Vladimir and said that if elected, she will consider how to swiftly remove sanctions against Moscow.

At the unannounced meeting in the Kremlin on March 24, Putin said that Russia was not seeking to sway the upcoming vote in France and defended his decision to meet with Le Pen.

"We do not want to influence events in any way, but we reserve the right to talk to representatives of all the country's political forces, just as our partners in Europe and the United States do," Putin said.

Le Pen said that Russia and France should exchange intelligence concerning the fight against terrorism, adding that "only together can we overcome this scourge."

Addressing reporters after the talks, Le Pen said that if elected, she would consider what she had to do to swiftly remove the sanctions Western governments have imposed on Moscow over its interference in Ukraine.

'Putin's World'

The French National Front (FN) party leader has voiced admiration for Putin in the past and did so again after the meeting, which an aide to Le Pen said lasted about 90 minutes.

"He represents a sovereign nation," Le Pen told reporters. "I think he also represents a new vision."

"A new world has emerged in the past years. This is Vladimir Putin's world, Donald Trump's world in the United States, Mr. [Narendra] Modi's world in India," she said, referring to the U.S. president and the Indian prime minister.

"I think I am probably the one who shares with all these great nations a vision of cooperation and not one of subservience -- a hawkish vision that has too often been expressed by the European Union."

Those words echoed remarks by Putin and other Russian officials, who have accused Western governments of "Russophobia" and suggested that European Union members are subservient to both the United States and the EU leadership.

An aide to Le Pen, Ludovic de Danne, told the Reuters news agency that the meeting focused mostly on international affairs.

"He wished her good luck for the presidential election," said de Danne, who took part in the talks. "We felt they understood each other, they were on the same wavelength."

Opposed To Sanctions

Le Pen met with Putin after a visit to the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, during which she called for closer ties between the two countries and the removal of EU sanctions.

The European Union, the United States, and other countries have imposed sanctions on Russia over its seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and its support for separatists whose war against government forces has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine.

"It is absolutely inconceivable that because of the sanctions, Russian and French lawmakers are not able even to meet to discuss issues that are of the great importance for protecting peace and lives of our citizens," Le Pen told the Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee.

Le Pen called for "strategic and economic cooperation" between France and Russia, saying: "This new world taking shape right before our eyes now is already facing two gigantic, monumental challenges, namely globalism and Islamic fundamentalism."

Le Pen was visiting Russia at the invitation of Duma committee head Leonid Slutsky, who said that her trip was "courageous."

Le Pen has repeatedly called for closer ties with Putin and said she does not consider Moscow's annexation of Crimea illegal.

Her one-day visit comes a month before the April 23 first round of the French election, one of a series of votes in EU countries this year that are seen as a test of Russia's influence in the West at a time when many officials and analysts believe Putin is seeking to sow disunity and undermine institutions in the EU and the United States.

After U.S. intelligence agencies released a report in January saying they assessed that Putin ordered an "influence campaign" to interfere in the U.S. presidential election last year, there are fears that the Kremlin has been seeking to sway elections in France, Germany, and other countries.

Opinion polls ahead of the French election suggest that Le Pen is likely to reach a second-round runoff vote on May 7, but would probably lose to a centrist candidate.

Conservative presidential hopeful Francois Fillon has also called for better relations with Moscow. Front-runner Emmanuel Macron, an independent who backs the EU sanctions against Russia, has accused the Kremlin of being involved in cyberattacks.

Russian Connection

Le Pen has made multiple trips to Russia in the past, receiving positive coverage in the Russian state media.

Her relationship with Russia has been in the spotlight during the election campaign, partly because of a $9.7 million loan the National Front took from a Russian bank in 2014. Her party said that French banks had refused to lend it any money.

National Front members have said they are seeking millions of euros to fund presidential and parliamentary elections this year, but both Le Pen and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the possible financing of the party's election campaign was not discussed during her meeting with Putin.

Russia has repeatedly denied reports that it is trying to influence the French election campaign.

On March 23, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said allegations that Russia was interfering in electoral processes in France and Germany as "absolutely fictional."

Lavrov said Le Pen was not a "populist" or "marginal" but a "realist or antiglobalist" figure.

The French presidential election is followed by parliamentary elections in June.

German voters will elect the members of the Bundestag in September, with Chancellor Angela Merkel facing a tough fight.

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters, TASS, and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-le-pen-visit- kremlin-ukraine-sanctions/28388456.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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Le Pen: No Evidence of Russia Meddling in French Election

Sputnik News

20:04 24.03.2017

Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said there was no evidence of Russia's alleged meddling in the French election.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  French far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN) party said Friday that she has not seen any evidence of Russian interference in the French presidential elections.

"Every day I hear these statement from [French President] Francois Hollande but I have not seen even a hint of the evidence regarding these accusations," Le Pen told RT in an interview.

She pointed out that at the same time Hollande asked for no explanations from the United States despite the fact the CIA launched an espionage campaign prior to the French presidential elections of 2012, likely referring to the WikiLeaks revelation dating back to February.

Le Pen is currently visiting Russia at the invitation of senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky as part of cooperation between State Duma lawmakers and French political circles. The National Front leader is one of the main presidential candidates in the French elections, the first round of which is scheduled for April 23.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia did not interfere in the affairs of other countries, particularly in the election processes. He expressed indignation at "absolutely fictitious and most importantly not smart" media reports claiming Russia's "total influence on the electoral processes" in France and Germany.

 Sputnik

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Iran raps renewal of UN special rapporteur's mandate

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 3:38PM

Iran has condemned as "selective and spiteful" the UN Human Rights Council's resolution to renew the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic, saying it was a politically-motivated move by a few countries abusing UN mechanisms.

The United Nations Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the special rapporteur on Iran for the seventh consecutive year despite the lack of endorsement by the majority of member states and through mere reliance on the vote of a "certain political bloc" and its few allies in the region who are clearly violators of human rights at regional and international levels, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Friday.

The Human Rights Council on Friday decided to extend the mandate of the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran for a further period of one year in a resolution on the situation of human rights in Iran, adopted by a vote of 22 in favor, 12 against and 13 abstentions.

Qassemi said such a "confrontational policy and destructive and failed approach" is pursued through the "exertion of pressure on other countries to support these selective and spiteful resolutions by taking advantage of various political and economic levers" and will regrettably undermine the credibility of the UN human rights mechanisms.

It would also discredit countries that seek to tarnish the image of independent countries, including Iran, which refuses to follow the neocolonialist policies of certain Western states, he added.

Such countries also want to cover up their human rights violations, crimes against humanity and brutal killings in the region and across the world, he emphasized.

"In the eyes of the Islamic Republic of Iran and most of the Human Rights Council's member countries which did not support this resolution at various levels, this resolution lacks necessity, legal validity and professional support," the Iranian spokesperson said.

He added that a human rights rapporteur with such meager support and justification cannot be expected to carry out their mission while observing the principles of independence, fairness and impartiality.

Qassemi said Iran has always proved in deeds and words its "resolve and interest [to engage in] dialog and constructive and purposeful cooperation" focused on the genuine promotion of human rights through legitimate international human rights mechanism.

He stressed the importance of monitoring human rights issues in all countries through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism which is based on universality and equality as well as abstention from discriminatory, selective, political and double-standard policies.

The Iranian spokesman emphasized that the Islamic Republic attaches importance to promoting this mechanism, which he described as the closest international structure to justice in reviewing human rights issues in all countries.



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Over a third of married couples spend less than half an hour a day talking to one other, a recent survey shows.

In a nationwide poll of 1,002 married men and women conducted from Nov. 11 to 16 by the Planned Population Federation of Korea, 32.9 percent said they spend 30 minutes to one hour a day talking with their spouses. Another 29.8 percent said 10 to 30 minutes, while 8.6 percent said less than 10 minutes. Only 28.7 percent spend more than an hour in conversation with each other.

The majority of respondents, or 58.8 percent, said they mostly chat during mealtimes, while 21.5 percent said they do so before going to sleep. Another 14 percent said they only find time to talk during the weekends, while 5.7 percent said the same was true of when they wake up in the morning.
US sanctions 11 firms, individuals for transferring technology to Iran

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 3:15PM

The United States has imposed sanctions on eleven companies or individuals from China, North Korea or the United Arab Emirates for transferring technology to Iran that it claimed could boost the country's ballistic missile program.

The US State Department said on Friday nineteen more firms or individuals were sanctioned for other violations under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA), which Washington uses to slap sanctions on foreign individuals, private entities, and governments accused of being involved in proliferation activities.

The sanctions will be effective for two years and do not apply to these individuals and entities' respective countries or governments, the department explained.

According to the statement, the eleven entities sanctioned under the INKSNA for transfers to Iran's missile program are:

- Beijing Zhong Ke Electric Co. Ltd. (ZKEC) (China)

- Dalian Zenghua Maoyi Youxian Gongsi (China)

- Jack Qin (Chinese individual)

- Jack Wang (Chinese individual)

- Karl Lee [aka Li Fangwei] (Chinese individual)

- Ningbo New Century Import and Export Company Limited (China)

- Shenzhen Yataida High-Tech Company Ltd (China)

- Sinotech (Dalian) Carbon and Graphite Corporation (SCGC) (China)

- Sky Rise Technology [aka Reekay Technology Limited] (China)

- Saeng Pil Trading Corporation (SPTC) (North Korea)

- Mabrooka Trading (United Arab Emirates).

This comes a day after a bipartisan group of US senators in Congress introduced a bill that would impose tighter sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile tests and other non-nuclear activities.

The bill was introduced on Thursday by 14 Democratic and Republican senators, including senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The legislation would set mandatory sanctions for anyone involved with Iran's missile program and those who trade with them. It would also apply sanctions to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China -- plus Germany started implementing the nuclear agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on January 16, 2016.

In February, US President Donald Trump undermined the multilateral deal by introducing a new round of sanctions against Iran following the country's successful test-launch of a ballistic missile, which Washington said was a breach of the JCPOA.

The US Treasury Department said Washington had imposed sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 entities as part of an effort to ratchet up pressure on Iran over its missile program.

The United States claims that Iran's missile tests violated Resolution 2231 that endorsed the Iran nuclear agreement.

Tehran insists its missile tests do not breach any UN resolution because they are solely for defense purposes and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.

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U.S. Senators From Both Parties Sponsor Bill Tightening Iran Sanctions

RFE/RL March 24, 2017

U.S. senators from both major political parties introduced legislation on March 23 to tighten sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile launches and other non-nuclear military activities.

Authored by leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and co-sponsored by seven senators each from the Republican and Democratic parties, the bill mirrors the harder line against Tehran taken by President Donald Trump and is considered likely to pass in the Senate.

"The spirit of bipartisanship of this important legislation underscores our strong belief that the United States must speak with one voice on the issue of holding Iran accountable for its continued nefarious actions across the world as the leading state sponsor of terrorism," said Democratic Senator Robert Menendez.

Committee Chairman Bob Corker said the bill targets Iran's "destabilizing actions" that threaten U.S. allies in the Middle East. It was introduced on the eve of an annual Washington conference of the influential pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC.

The bill would make sanctions mandatory for anyone involved with Iran's ballistic missile program. And it would apply sanctions to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while putting into law sanctions already imposed by the executive branch on individuals tied to Iranian support for alleged terrorism.

Asset Freeze

The IRGC, an elite military body, is a powerful political force in Iran and it has a broad presence throughout Iran's economy.

The legislation would also require the U.S. president to freeze the assets of any person or entity involved in specific activities that violate the UN arms embargo on Iran.

Iran has maintained that legislation toughening non-nuclear sanctions violate its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

But the bill's authors insist its was written carefully to avoid interfering with that agreement.

Trump has made it clear that he wants to take a tough stance against Iran, and Corker said he consulted with the White House in drafting the bill.

In February, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on 25 individuals and entities in Iran, which it said were just "initial steps" in response to Iran's repeated testing of ballistic missiles, which the United States maintains is in violation of UN resolutions.

Tehran has also angered Washington by supporting Yemen's rebel Huthi movement, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country's six-year-long civil war.

Menendez told the Reuters news agency that the bill was intended to take a "regional" strategy because of the breadth of Iran's activities in the Middle East.

"It calls for a regional strategy because Iran is obviously involved in the region in various ways, whether it be in Yemen or Syria and beyond," he said.

With reporting by Reuters, Politico and Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/us-senators- both-parties-sponsor-bill-tightening-iran- sanctions-non-nuclear/28387782.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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Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act Sanctions

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

March 24, 2017

On March 21, the United States imposed sanctions on 30 foreign entities and individuals in 10 countries pursuant to the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA). These sanctions apply to the specific individuals and entities which will be listed in the federal register and will be in effect for two years. The sanctions do not apply to these individuals and entities' respective countries or governments. These sanctions exemplify the U.S. government's continued commitment to Nonproliferation and the promotion of global stability and security.

As part of the March 21 sanctions, a group of eleven entities and individuals were sanctioned for transfers of sensitive items to Iran's ballistic missile program. Iran's proliferation of missile technology significantly contributes to regional tensions. As an example, we have seen indications Iran is providing missile support to the Houthis in Yemen. This destabilizing activity only serves to escalate regional conflicts further and poses a significant threat to regional security. We will continue to take steps to address Iran's missile development and production and sanction entities and individuals involved in supporting these programs under U.S. law. The imposition of sanctions against these eleven foreign entities is a continuation of our commitment to hold Iran accountable for its actions.

The eleven entities sanctioned under the INKSNA on March 21 specifically for transfers to Iran's missile program are:

Beijing Zhong Ke Electric Co. Ltd. (ZKEC) (China)

Dalian Zenghua Maoyi Youxian Gongsi (China)

Jack Qin (Chinese individual)

Jack Wang (Chinese individual)

Karl Lee [aka Li Fangwei] (Chinese individual)

Ningbo New Century Import and Export Company Limited (China)

Shenzhen Yataida High-Tech Company Ltd (China)

Sinotech (Dalian) Carbon and Graphite Corporation (SCGC) (China)

Sky Rise Technology [aka Reekay Technology Limited] (China)

Saeng Pil Trading Corporation (SPTC) (North Korea)

Mabrooka Trading (United Arab Emirates).

An additional 19 foreign entities and individuals were sanctioned under INKSNA on March 21 for other violations. These entities and individuals were sanctioned as a result of a determination that there was credible information indicating they had transferred to, or acquired from, Iran, North Korea, or Syria goods, services, or technology listed on multilateral export control lists; or on U.S. national control lists, or other items that could make a material contribution to the development of weapons of mass destruction or missile proliferation. These determinations were the result of a periodic review of sanctionable activity as required by the INKSNA. These determinations underscore that the United States continues to regularly impose sanctions under existing authorities, as warranted, against entities and individuals that engage in proliferation activity with Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

The following restrictions will go into effect on the sanctioned individuals and entities effective March 21.

No department or agency of the U.S. Government may procure or contract for any goods, services, or technology from the designated entities, except to the extent the Secretary of State otherwise may determine;

The designated entities are ineligible for any assistance program of the U.S. Government, except to the extent the Secretary of State otherwise may determine;

S. Government sales of any item on the U.S. Munitions List to these entities are prohibited, and sales of any defense articles, defense services, or design and construction services controlled under the Arms Export Control Act are terminated; and

New licenses will be denied, and any existing licenses suspended, for transfers of export- controlled items.

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Iraqi forces take control over Daesh command center in western Mosul

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 2:39PM

Iraqi government forces have managed to establish complete control over a command center run by the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in central Mosul as the country's armed forces battle to recapture the country's second largest city and drive the extremists out of their last urban stronghold in Iraq.

Commander of Federal Police Forces Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat said on Friday that soldiers from the 5th Division of the police seized the building in the Old City on the western side of Mosul, Arabic-language al-Forat news agency reported.

Jawdat added that security personnel found documents, explosive devices, weapons and communication sets inside the facility.

Elsewhere in the Cardagli village of the central province of Salahuddin, pro-government fighters from Popular Mobilization Units  commonly known by their Arabic name, Hashd al-Sha'abi  foiled an infiltration attempt by Daesh militants.

Ali al-Husseini, the spokesperson of Hashd al-Sha'abi for northern Iraq, told al-Sumaria television network that his fellow fighters engaged in hour-long clashes with the Takfiris early on Friday, and are now in full control of the area.

Iraqi army soldiers and Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters launched their offensive to retake Mosul last October and since then they have made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements.

Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19.

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US Underestimated Number of Daesh Fighters in Sirte Libya's Last Year

Sputnik News

20:55 24.03.2017(updated 21:32 24.03.2017)

The US military probably underestimated the number of Daesh terrorists near Libya's Sirte and overestimated the number of civilians, the AFRICOM chief said.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US military likely underestimated the number of Daesh militants around the Libyan city of Sirte during operations last autumn, US Africa Command commander Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said on Friday.

"I think we probably underestimated the number of ISIS [Daesh fighters] who were there [Libya] and probably overestimated the number of civilians," Waldhauser told reporters.

Waldhauser said he was hesitant to estimate the exact number of remaining Islamic State militants, but thought it was around 100-200 throughout Libya.

He said the group's ability to sustain territory in Libya had deteriorated.

In August, the US Africa Command launched Operation Odyssey Lightning in Sirte in support of the Libyan Government of National Accord. The operation, aimed at ousting Islamic State from the port city, was concluded in November.

Daesh gained a foothold in Libya in the turmoil following the 2011 overthrow of the country's longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.

During the operation, which began on August 1, US forces carried out 495 airstrikes against Daesh in support of Libya's Government of National Accord.

On December 5, Libyan forces allied with the country's United Nations-backed government announced they had retaken Sirte from Daesh. It was the only city outside of Iraq and Syria that the group controlled.

 Sputnik

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Comment Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the accusations of the Russian Federation to address the support of the Taliban Movement

03/10/17 14 : 41

460-10-03-2017

We pay attention to put forward recently by representatives of command of foreign military contingents deployed in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, as well as some Afghan officials in charge of the Russian Federation, the address of the alleged support of the Taliban Moscow (DT). The Russian side "incriminated" DT supply of weapons, financing the activities of this extremist organization, and even assist in the establishment on Afghan territory militant training camps. Needless to say, this is not supported by any evidence.

For replication of such absurd fabrications viewed orchestrated campaign to discredit our country, during which the international community and the Afghan tossed the thesis of "undermining" Russian international anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.

It is clear that these attempts are certain forces both outside Afghanistan, as well as inside it, not interested in stabilizing the situation in that country. This is done, and to divert attention from the responsibility for the numerous mistakes made in more than 16 years of foreign military presence in Afghanistan.

Russia is making a major contribution to the collective fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. We provide free assistance to equip the Afghan national security forces, weapons and ammunition, organize training of their employees on the basis of Russian educational institutions.

With regard to the limited contacts with the Taliban Movement, they are subordinated to the task of ensuring the safety of Russian citizens in Afghanistan and are intended to induce DT join the national reconciliation process under the leadership of Kabul and the three basic principles: recognition of the Constitution of the IRA disarmament, breaking the link with LIH, "Al-Qaeda" and other terrorist organizations.

It is unlikely that these actions "legitimize" the Taliban: the grouping has been practically recognized Kabul equal partner in dialogue in which took place in 2015, a series of meetings with officials of the IRA representatives of DT in Qatar, China, UAE, Norway, Pakistan.

It is no secret that the contacts with the DT is supported by many countries in the region, outside the region of the country, as well as the mission of the UN in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, until now such meetings, and a variety of formats, was created to help stabilize the situation in Afghanistan, the result failed.

In this regard, in Moscow, it was decided to step up efforts to develop a common regional approach to promoting natsprimireniya process and the creation of favorable conditions for the establishment of direct talks between the Government of the IRA and the Taliban Movement. Solving this problem have been devoted to consultations in the format of the Moscow dialogue with the participation of stakeholders in December 2016 and February this year, We intend to continue this work with a view to an early end to the fratricidal war, to achieve harmony and peace in Afghanistan.

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Six Russian soldiers killed in gun battle with Chechnya militants

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 9:15AM

Six Russian soldiers have been killed in a gun battle with militants, who attempted to launch an attack on a military facility in the country's southern region of Chechnya.

The National Guard of Russia said in a statement that the militants attempted to storm their base in heavy fog at around 2:30 a.m. local time (Thursday 2330 GMT).

However, a group of Russian soldiers spotted the assailants and successfully repelled the attack following an exchange of gunfire, the statement added.

"Six of the attackers were destroyed," the statement said. "During the armed combat, six military were killed and there are wounded."

None of the attackers managed to make his way into the base, added the statement.

A group of extremist militants are fighting in Chechnya and across the volatile North Caucasus. The group sporadically launches terrorist attacks against authorities and police forces in the region.

Authorities in Moscow say hundreds of people in the region have left to join the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group in Iraq and Syria. They now fear that their return could pose serious security threats to the country.

Russia has fought two wars against separatists in the region over the past decades. The region is now governed by Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov, a former militant who is now loyal to the Russian government.

The security situation in the region, however, remains volatile.

In December last year, security forces killed another 11 gunmen in Chechnya after the militants attempted to target police forces in the provincial capital, Grozny.

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Kyiv Identifies Suspected Gunman In Ex-Duma Deputy's Assassination

Christopher Miller March 24, 2017

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry has confirmed the identity of the suspected gunman in the assassination in Kyiv on March 23 of a former Russian lawmaker who fled last year to Ukraine.

A ministry spokesman told RFE/RL that the man seen shooting ex-Duma Deputy Denis Voronenkov and a bodyguard in security-camera footage of the incident is 28-year-old, Crimean-born Ukrainian national Pavlo Parshov.

Parshov died in a hospital of bullet wounds suffered when the wounded bodyguard returned fire after the suspect shot Voronenkov multiple times in the head on a downtown sidewalk.

Anton Herashchenko, a nationalist lawmaker and adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, alleged in a Facebook post that Parshov was a secret agent for Russian security services.

He said the Russians helped Parshov cross into Belarus and make his way to Russia, where he "trained in a sabotage school created in the time of Stalin's NKVD," a reference to former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's hated secret police.

Herashchenko alleged that Parshov was ordered to return to Ukraine and infiltrate a unit of the armed forces or the National Guard "to pretend he was an ordinary soldier" and then lay low until his Russian handlers activated him recently to kill Voronenkov.

Parshov reportedly served for 13 months in the Ukrainian National Guard before leaving the force in August.

Amid media reports that pointed the finger at Parshov, the spokesman, Artem Shevchenko, said his ministry was leaving a public announcement of the suspect's name to Kyiv prosecutors investigating the daylight shooting.

'Matter Of Honor'

Ukrainian officials have blamed Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2014 and has since backed separatists resisting national government control in eastern Ukraine, but neither officials nor investigators have publicly produced evidence linking Moscow to the crime.

The Kremlin has rejected as "absurd" accusations that Russia was involved.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on March 24 called it "a matter of honor for Ukrainian law enforcement and security structures" to successfully investigate Voronenkov's killing and last year's car-bomb assassination of journalist Pavel Sheremet, also in the capital.

Within hours of Voronenkov's death, he had suggested the killing was "an act of state terrorism on the part of Russia."

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry's website lists Parshov as a fugitive wanted in the southeastern Dnipro region for allegedly creating fake businesses and laundering money. A mugshot accompanying the entry shows a man with dark eyes, short dark hair, and a trimmed beard. It states his birthdate as July 28, 1988.

Voronenkov and his wife, a fellow ex-legislator who fled Russia with her husband in October, were publicly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin since they landed in Kyiv, comparing Russia to Nazi Germany.

But Voronenkov was also said to be testifying for Ukrainian authorities as they tried to bolster their case that ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych played a role in the deployment of Russian forces to Ukraine amid the street unrest that eventually forced him into Russian exile in February 2014.

Moscow resisted recognizing the subsequent government in Kyiv and occupied and seized Crimea and, according to NATO and the Ukrainian government, has been arming and supporting separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine ever since.

Voronenkov was not universally trusted among Ukrainians, some of whom questioned his loyalties and Kyiv's quick decision to grant him citizenship.

Voronenkov was a Communist Party deputy in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, from 2011 until an election in September 2016 and was the target of Russian allegations of millions in property theft in Moscow before he fled.

He told RFE/RL in an interview last month that he feared for his own and his wife's safety, noting that "we are poking a sore spot of the Kremlin with our statements."

Ukrainian authorities subsequently provided Voronenkov with a bodyguard.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said on March 24 that it was "in support of a full and impartial investigation [of Voronenkov's killing] that will bring those responsible to justice."

The German Foreign Ministry expressed hope that Voronenkov's killing will be fully and thoroughly investigated.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-voronenkov- killing-suspect-announced/28389151.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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Six Russian Troops, Six Militants Killed In Chechnya Fighting

RFE/RL March 24, 2017

Six Russian National Guard troops and six assailants have been killed in an attack on a military unit in Chechnya, one of the deadliest incidents in the region in months.

The commander of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, said that a group of militants attempted to gain access to the unit in thick fog in the early morning hours of March 24.

Six servicemen were killed and three were wounded in the ensuing gunbattle, Zolotov said.

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, said he believes that the goal of the attack was to obtain weapons at the military unit.

Kadyrov said that three of the attackers who were killed were identified as natives of Chechnya, while the other three were from the Rostov and Volgograd regions further north.

The SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based organization that monitors militant activity worldwide, said a Caucasus branch of the extremist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for what it called a "suicide raid."

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meeting in the Kremlin with French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, called the attack "a grave incident" and said that Russia and the rest of the world "must unite their efforts against terrorism."

Kadyrov vowed to do everything possible to "provide residents in the region with security, despite provocations."

Chechnya was devastated by two post-Soviet wars between government forces and separatists.

Most of the large-scale fighting ended more than 15 years ago, but an Islamist insurgency persists in Chechnya and other provinces in Russia's North Caucasus.

Kadyrov, first appointed by Putin in 2007, has kept a lid on separatism with what opponents and rights activists say are repressive measures and a climate of impunity for security forces.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow that Kadyrov controls the situation in Chechnya, and that Russia is not alone in being challenged by extremists.

"No country in the world is immune to terrorist attacks, whether it happens in the Chechen Republic or the capital of the United Kingdom," Peskov said, alluding to the March 22 attack in London that killed five people, including the assailant.

With reporting by TASS, Interfax, and RIA

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-troops-militants- killed-chechnya-fighting/28388034.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's Western Military District Receives Its First Tor-M2 Air Defense System

Sputnik News

13:48 24.03.2017(updated 13:53 24.03.2017)

Russia's 538 guards Air Defense Missile Regiment of the Western Military District's 4th Guards Tank Division received its first Tor-M2 system, commanding officer Col. Konstantin Demidov said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Demidov said at a military production acceptance day the Tor-M2 delivered by the Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant Kupol "surpasses foreign counterparts by its main characteristics and armament."

The Tor-M is an advanced short-range surface-to-air missile system, designed to defend key military and civilian facilities from attacks by aircraft, cruise and guided missiles, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles.

It can simultaneously detect more than 40 targets, track and attack four of them at once at a range of up to 23,000 feet and at altitudes of up to 19,700 feet.

 Sputnik

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A growing number of married couples are sleeping in separate beds to ensure a good night's sleep, untroubled by each other's snoring and other disruptive habits.

Retailers are swiftly catching on to the trend, and Korean furniture makers like Hanssem, Casamia and Iloom introduced separable beds last year. They not only split in two on demand, but the mattresses can be raised or lowered to deal with snoring spouses or alleviate swollen legs.

Iloom said sales of these beds doubled over the last two months, while Hanssem saw sales rise 30 percent. "Our target customers were middle-aged couples, but a lot of newlywed couples also bought the beds," says Kim Tae-eun at Iloom.

Hanssem used to sell its single beds mostly to students, but now a growing number of married couples are opting to buy two single beds, so now there is a swish leather version for older people available.


'US-led assault on Raqqah unlawful if not coordinated with Damascus'

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 4:37PM

Syria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar al-Ja'afari has stressed that any US- or Turkish-backed military offensive against the militant-held northern city of Raqqah must be coordinated with the Syrian government otherwise it would be illegitimate.

Countries backing militant groups in Syria, such as Britain, France, Turkey and Qatar, are sponsors of terrorism, and the escalated fighting between government forces and Takfiri terrorists on the outskirts of Damascus is designed to disrupt the UN-sponsored Syria peace talks in the Swiss city of Geneva and those in the Kazakh city of Astana, Ja'afari told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

"All the terrorist attacks, as I said, are pushing everybody towards a total failure and fiasco in the political and diplomatic process," he pointed out.

The Syrian chief negotiator emphasized that his delegation would never walk away from the ongoing peace talks in Geneva.

Ja'afari questioned the airstrikes of the US-led coalition purportedly fighting Daesh terror group, saying only Syrian troops are fighting terrorists with the help of Russia and Iran.

The fifth round of Syria talks kicked off in Geneva on Thursday. The deputy UN special envoy for Syria, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, separately met representatives from the Damascus government and the main opposition delegation, the High Negotiations Committee.

Ramzy said he had held preliminary talks with each side and hoped to begin "substantive discussions" on Friday.

UN Special Envoy for Syria joined Geneva peace talks on Friday.

De Mistura is trying to mediate a political agreement between Syria's warring sides. The two sides have not had face-to-face meetings in four previous rounds under his auspices since early 2016. He has presided over all those rounds.

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces have seized all areas near Jobar neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, forcing foreign-backed terrorists to retreat.

The development came as US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militants reached one side of Tabqa dam - most commonly known as the Euphrates Dam - about 40 kilometers west of Raqqah.

On Tuesday, US military aircraft air-dropped members of the SDF - a Kurdish-dominated and anti-Damascus alliance - near Tabqa, providing air support for them to retake the dam.

Earlier this month, US Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of the US-led anti-Daesh coalition, said talks were underway with Turkey on the role Ankara might play in the operation to liberate Raqqah.

Washington currently has about 500 Special Operations troops in Syria. However, their activities have been limited to what the Pentagon describes as training and assisting Kurdish forces in their battle against Daesh and other terrorist groups.

Recently, General Joseph L. Votel, the commander of the US Central Command, said more American troops might be needed in Syria to step up their so-called campaign against Daesh.

Turkey's Hurriyet Daily newspaper reported in early February that Turkish military chief Hulusi Akar had presented his American counterpart, Joseph Dunford, with two plans for a potential operation said to liberate Raqqah.

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Syrian army besieges last Daesh stronghold in Aleppo

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 24, 2017 5:59AM

The Syrian army is besieging the last stronghold of the Daesh Takfiri terrorists in the northern province of Aleppo, weeks after launching a campaign to liberate the entire province.

The Syrian Central Military Media said Thursday that Syrian troops launched the siege on the Daesh-held town of Deir Hafer, located on Aleppo-Raqqah highway, after capturing nearby areas from the terrorists.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said Syrian government forces have now cut the road linking Deir Hafer with Raqqah Province, the main Daesh stronghold in the country.

Elsewhere in northern Hama, Syrian army forces managed to push back militants with Takfiri Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, known as al-Qaeda in Syria, after briefly losing ground to the terrorist organization in the west-central city.

The Syrian army succeeded in consolidating its positions and it is currently engaged in heavy fighting with the militants.

The offensives coincide with another in the eastern neighborhoods of Damascus, where heavy clashes are underway between army forces and Takfiri militants.

The militants have failed in their attempts over the past days to reach the heart of the Syrian capital amid stiff resistance by government forces.

The clashes are taking place despite a truce which has been in place across Syria since last December. The ceasefire does not include the Takfiri terrorists of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and Daesh.

On Thursday, UN humanitarian advisor on Syria Jan Egeland said the delivery of humanitarian aid to almost 300,000 civilians in the outskirts of Damascus has been cut due to the continued fighting in the area.

Nearly 161,000 civilians in the besieged Douma rural area and 142,000 others in Kafr Batna have run out of food stocks and all the routes to the areas have been blocked.

The UN is preparing to send an aid convoy to Wadi Barada, a valley outside Damascus on Friday, but humanitarian aid to other areas has been stalled.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates wrote two letters to the UN, in which it held Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar responsible for the escalated fighting between government forces and foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists on the outskirts of Damascus.

The ministry called on the Security Council to assume its responsibilities and combat terrorism and criminal acts being perpetrated by Takfiri terrorists.

The letters also read that such attacks are simply aimed at undermining the UN-sponsored Syria peace talks, which opened in the Swiss city of Geneva on Thursday.

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Syrian Army Kills Tahrir al Sham Extremists' Commander in Western Hama Province

Sputnik News

16:33 24.03.2017

Syria's government army has killed a field commander of the Tahrir al-Sham militant group in the north of Hama, the capital of Syria's western province of the same name.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  According to al-Mayadeen television broadcaster, the commander of the group subordinate to the Jabhat Fatah al Sham (al-Nusra Front) terrorist organization was identified as Abu Ahd Isham.

Earlier in March, two blasts occurred near Bab al-Saghir cemetery in Damascus, claiming the lives of at least 40 people and injuring 120 others. The Tahrir al-Sham militants reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The civil war in Syria has been lasting for around six years with government troops fighting against numerous opposition factions and terror organizations such as al-Nusra Front and Daesh, outlawed in Russia.

The nationwide Syrian ceasefire regime was introduced on December 30, 2016. Terrorist organizations are not part of the ceasefire.

 Sputnik

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Eight Donetsk Republic Soldiers Killed in Donbass Over Past Week

Sputnik News

21:16 24.03.2017(updated 21:18 24.03.2017)

Eight Donetsk People's Republic soldiers lost their lives in the fight against Ukrainian troops over the past week.

DONETSK (Sputnik)  Eight militiamen of the People's Republic of Donetsk (DPR) were killed and five others were wounded in the fight with the Ukrainian forces over the past week, a spokesperson for the DPR Ombudsman's Office said Friday.

"From March 17 to March 23, continued attacks on the DPR territory [carried out] by the Ukrainian side resulted in various degrees of injuries to 17 people, including five militia members. Eight militiamen died in the same period," the spokesperson told journalists.

On March 3, the spokesperson announced that 60 people were killed in DPR in January and February and a total of 4,349 people were killed in the self-proclaimed republic since the start of the military conflict in 2014. Two weeks later, UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (UNMMU) said almost 10,000 casualties had been recorded among the Ukrainian Armed Forces, militias and civilians in Donbass since the beginning of the military conflict.

The Donbass conflict erupted in April 2014 as a local counter-reaction to the West-sponsored Maidan coup in Kiev that had toppled President Viktor Yanukovych in February. Residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions held independence referendums and proclaimed the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Kiev has since been conducting a military operation, encountering stiff local resistance.

In February 2015, Kiev forces and Donbass independence supporters signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in Donbass, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Despite the agreement brokered by the Normandy Four states, the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.

 Sputnik

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GE Power confirmed Friday that it is cutting jobs at the companys Salem plant.

A spokeswoman for GE Power, a division of General Electric Co., declined to say how many employees are losing their jobs.

Were still working through the process, so we dont have a final number, Katie Jackson said.

About 700 people, including engineering and manufacturing employees, have been employed at the site.

GE Power announced similar cuts this week at plants in Schenectady, New York, and Greenville, South Carolina.

In an email, Jackson said the job reductions are tied in part to GEs acquisition in November 2015 of France-based Alstoms power and grid businesses.

Based on the current challenges in the power market and the integration of GE and legacy Alstom, GE Power continues to transform the business to support our growth strategy and meet the needs of our customers, she said.

As a result, were taking employee actions to simplify our structure. These are difficult decisions, but necessary to ensure the long-term competitiveness of our business, Jackson added.

She said GE Power is committed to working with our employees during this transition.

Joe Noojin, president of union Local 82161, IUE-CWA , at the GE plant, said manufacturing has been going strong there, with all product lines increasing. He noted theres never a guarantee that this pace would continue but said there has been speculation about possibly hiring more production workers.

He said the plant has about 330 hourly workers and the majority are members of Local 82161.

Among other products, the Salem plant designs and produces control systems and sub-components for gas and steam turbines, generators and static starters.

GE said the primary function of the control systems is to ensure safe, reliable and highly efficient operation of our customers equipment and plants.

In addition, design and testing of computer software occurs on-site. The Salem plant also houses a 24-hour call center to help customers troubleshoot problems and a global training center visited each year by about 300 global customers, GE said.

In November 2015, GE celebrated its 60th anniversary in the Roanoke Valley. According to a newspaper story in 1957, the plant then employed about 2,000 people.

General Electric Co. has been under pressure from activist investor Trian Fund Management to boost its industrial profits, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. This week, GE announced plans to reduce industrial expenses by $1 billion in 2017 and to cut another $1 billion next year.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 24, 2017) -

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Rapier Gold Inc. (TSX VENTURE:RPR) ("Rapier" or the "Company") announces that it has closed the final tranche of its private placement through the issuance of 150,000 flow Through units (the "FT Units") and 950,000 non-flow through units (the "NFT Units") for gross proceeds of $112,250. Finder's fees in the amount of $5,250 and 52,500 compensation warrants are payable on this tranche. The shares are subject to a four month hold period expiring July 28, 2017.

The Company also announces it has entered into debt settlement agreements with creditors of the Company to settle $479,551.91 in debt through the issuance of 4,795,519 shares, subject to regulatory approval. The debt settlement shares are subject to a four month hold period expiring July 28, 2017 and are issued at a price of $0.10 per share.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering for expenditures on the Company's Pen Gold Project, located 75 km south west of Timmins, Ontario, and for general working capital. Details of the offering are summarized in the Company's news release dated February 20, 2017.

Pen Gold Project Summary

The Company's activities are exclusively focused on exploring the Pen Gold Project, comprising approximately 19,333 hectares (approximately 193 sq. km.) located on Highway 101, 75 km south west of Timmins, Ontario. (See Appendix 1). The project is approximately 45 km southwest of Tahoe Resources Timmins West Mine and the recently discovered 144 Exploration Area. Tahoe Resources (formerly Lakeshore Gold) are conducting an extensive exploration program on 144 Exploration Area, which is outlined in a very comprehensive section of the company's website: http://www.lsgold.com/Mines-Projects-Properties/Review-of-Properties/Timmins-West-complex/144-Gap-Zone-Discovery/default.aspx

The Pen Gold Project is located approximately 85 km northeast of Goldcorp's Borden Gold Project. In March 2015 Goldcorp acquired this project in the takeover of Probe Mines for $526 million. Goldcorp are actively advancing the Borden Gold Project as a source of ore for the 11,000 tpd Dome Mill, located 160 km away in Timmins.

The Pen Gold Project appears to be on the western extension of the Porcupine-Destor Fault Zone (PDFZ), one of the most productive gold structures in the world. This fault zone extends east into Quebec and hosts many of the largest and most famous gold mines in Canada. The Timmins Camp has produced approximately 72.5 million ounces of gold to date.

Probe Metals acquired the Ivanhoe Project located to the west of Rapier's Pen Gold Project and the West Porcupine and Ross Properties to the east of the Pen Gold Project.

Gary Wong, P. Eng., Vice-President Exploration of the Company, and a Qualified Person under the definition in National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical content of this release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Roger Walsh, President & 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 news release.

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 securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. 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 the 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 the benefit of, any person in the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption from such registration requirements.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements: Certain disclosure in this release constitutes forward-looking statements. In making the forward-looking statements in this release, the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company, including that the Company is able to procure personnel, equipment and supplies required for its exploration activities in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis and that actual results of exploration activities are consistent with management's expectations. Although the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among others, that actual results of the Company's exploration activities will be different than those expected by management and that the Company will be unable to obtain financing, or will experience delays in obtaining any required government approvals or be unable to procure required equipment and supplies in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Appendix 1

To view Appendix 1, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1089819.jpg
(TNS)  Former state Sen. Larry Bankston should have mentioned a possible conflict before he rendered a legal opinion that wound up disqualifying the two top bidders for a mammoth contract to manage Louisianas $1.6 billion flood-recovery program, according to one of the spurned bidders and an expert in legal ethics.Bankston, the attorney for the State Licensing Board for Contractors, told the board that companies vying for the contract needed to have a residential contractors license  something that three of the five bidders did not have. The board agreed with him.Bankston, who went to federal prison for racketeering in 1997, did not disclose to the board that his son, Ben, works for an affiliate of the bidder ranked No. 3. When the top two bidders were thrown out, that company suddenly was poised to get the work, at a price tag of perhaps $350 million.However, officials in Gov. John Bel Edwards administration instead opted last week to restart the process, which is aimed at helping victims of 2016s catastrophic floods. A new bid solicitation was issued Wednesday.The confusion around the effort to pick a contractor  and the suspicion of chicanery  has led to a round of finger-pointing and recrimination.Already, IEM, the North Carolina-based firm that had the top-ranked bid and was initially awarded the contract, has filed a lawsuit in state court in Baton Rouge challenging the licensing boards decision.Robert Bruno, a lawyer for IEM, said the whole episode makes Louisiana look terrible. He said he worries that the contract will become bogged down in litigation as weary homeowners wait for help fixing their flooded houses.The second-ranked bidder, PDRM, isnt thrilled either. Its manager, Tim Barfield, who formerly was secretary of the states Revenue Department, was the one who filed paperwork with the contractor board challenging IEMs qualifications.Unlike IEM, PDRM had a commercial contractors license. The joint ventures managers assumed that would be sufficient, given that state officials last year had decreed that was the license needed to bid on Louisianas Shelter at Home program, likewise aimed at helping flood victims.Instead, Bankston rendered an opinion saying that a residential contractors license was needed. Neither IEM nor PDRM had one when the proposals were due in late February. Another bidder, HGI, also lacked such a license.Barfield said the differing rulings on necessary licenses showed some inconsistency on some very similar scope issues on the part of the state. I give Larry the benefit of the doubt, but after the fact it sure looks bad, Barfield said.All of the bidders have since gotten the necessary licenses.The No. 3-ranked proposal came from a joint venture called Rebuild Louisiana Now, led by a firm called SLS. That is owned by three Texas brothers  Todd, Billy and John Sullivan  who since last year also have owned DRC Emergency Services, where Ben Bankston works as a regional manager.Larry Bankston said he was unaware that his son's firm  which is not named in the bid package  had a relationship to any of the bidding companies when he wrote his opinion. He also noted that he provided the opinion in response to a request from a bidder  and not the bidder affiliated with his sons firm.Dane Ciolino, a Loyola Law School professor and an expert on legal ethics, said Bankston definitely should have disclosed the possible conflict to his client. Under American Bar Association ethics rules, a lawyer should make a client aware of any situation in which his representation could be affected by a personal interest.In this case, Ciolino said, there is a substantial risk that his advice to this client would be affected by his sons interest.Ciolino noted that its the lawyers job to alert the client of a conflict; the client can then decide to waive it by giving informed consent in writing.Bankston said he learned about the potential conflict only after issuing the opinion. He said his son told him he wasn't even aware of the bid by the affiliated company.Billy Sullivan, one of the owners of SLS and DRC, told The Advocate in an interview that DRC and Ben Bankston would not have any involvement with the construction management contract for the state. "Ben Bankston would have no financial gain from this at all," Sullivan said.Larry Bankston said that had he known about the relationship between DRC and the bidding company, he would have told his clients about it. "I would have disclosed the issue, but the opinion was already written," he said.Lee Mallett, chairman of the state contracting board, whose 15 members are appointed by the governor, said he retains full confidence in Bankston. Bankston was hired in early 2016 by a board composed of appointees of Gov. Bobby Jindal.Mallett characterized the dust-up as sour grapes and said IEMs officials have only themselves to blame for not lining up the correct licenses before submitting their bid.Sullivan, of SLS, said he was disappointed his company was being dragged into what he characterized as a fake controversy."Clearly, the only reason we got thrown into it is because IEM and PDRM were disqualified, and all of a sudden we're next in line," he said. "Some of the competitors are looking for a story where there really is none."SLS also filed a protest to the bid process, but only after PDRM did.Sullivan said his firm will be competing for the contract again. He said he agreed with the licensing board's decision to disqualify the original winner."SLS had a commercial license and a residential license," he said. "We respect the state's decision."Bruno, the lawyer for IEM, does not, criticizing the decision to throw out such a giant contract over what he said is a technicality.The person who will be hurt, he predicted, is Joe Citizen of Denham Springs, whose house is rotting while lawyers and business owners fight over a job he said his firm fairly won.How long the rebidding will take is unclear, but it could wind up resulting in a better deal for taxpayers.Matthew Block, the governors executive counsel, said one reason administration officials decided to redo the bidding was that they were disappointed with the prices received the first time around. In the next round, the bids will be scored slightly differently, with more weight given to price than in the first round.Responses to the new solicitation are due April 7, with the winning bidder to be chosen by April 13.Jacques Berry of the Division of Administration, which is overseeing the process, said state officials do not believe the decision to restart the bid process will significantly delay progress, in part because the federal money that will pay for the program isnt yet available to the state.2017 The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.Visit The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La. at www.theadvocate.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
BREAKING! @oitcolorado releases RFP for alternative public safety broadband network to @FirstNetGov Read about it https://t.co/5tpHrUL7Nc  FirstNet Colorado (@FirstNetCO) March 24, 2017

On March 22, the state of Michigan issued an RFP so that it could potentially opt out of a national public safety network contract with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet)  an increasingly popular quest, as Michigan was the fourth state to do this. And just two days later, on March 24, Colorado joined this effort by issuing its own RFP.We want real creativity and innovation from potential bidders," Colorado Point of Contact Brian Shepherd said in a press release . "Colorados RFP approach is unique and we are excited for many segments of industry to review and thoughtfully consider responding. We believe the full benefit of this network lies not only in providing a solution for first responders, but in enabling a comprehensive statewide critical communications infrastructure that can support multiple services.The state has divided the RFP process into two phases. Responses will go through an initial selection process, and then bidding requirements will get more detailed.Additionally, the RFP is seeking bids for two projects that applicants can either submit in tandem or separately. Bids are due by May 8 and the RFP documents can be found on the state procurement website , under RFP number 2017000243.FirstNet's buildout could begin as early as June, as its legal battle with RFP bidder Rivada Mercury was recently settled in favor of the authority.
The Sauber F1 team has announced that Pascal Wehrlein is feeling that his fitness level is not up to the task of participating in the Australian Grand Prix this weekend and will pull out of the event and be replaced by Sauber's reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi.

Wehrlein said, "My fitness level is not as it should be for a full race distance because of my training deficit. I explained the situation to the team yesterday evening. Therefore, the Sauber F1 Team has decided not to take any risks. It is a pity, but the best decision for the team."

Team principal, Monisha Kaltenborn said, "We have great respect of Pascal's openness and professionalism. This decision was definitely not an easy one for him, it underlines his qualities as a team player. The focus is now on his fitness level, and in such a situation we do not take any unnecessary risks. Pascal will be in China as planned."
Fernando Alonso has ruled out calling it quits amid the McLaren-Honda crisis.

Asked how he is coping with a third consecutive year with an unreliable and uncompetitive Honda power unit, he told Corriere della Sera: "I have the answer -- you work hard.

"I am going? Where would I go? What would I do at home? Watch television on the couch or cook dinner?

"The solution is to work hard and demand a response from the team," Alonso added.

The 35-year-old's contract runs out this year, but the faster cars of 2017 mean Alonso is dropping many hints that he will definitely not retire.

"The fact is that for four years we drivers drove horrible cars. But now the situation has improved," said Alonso.

As for the possibility of a third world title, he added: "I am more than ready. I train harder than ever. In the corners there is no one faster than me."

Some might say Alonso has made bad decisions since winning his titles over a decade ago, while others say it was bad luck.

"Speaking of bad luck with everything I've experienced would not be right," he insisted. "My choices? If I had a crystal ball, I would have guessed better which car to take."

Now, Alonso is still one of the highest paid drivers in F1, but how much would he give up in exchange for a Mercedes engine?

"Not one cent," he insists.

"This is not my question. It is a matter of projects. As we can see, they were wrong in Japan so we have to figure out what is missing and change course."

(GMM)
Honda has acknowledged the need to rebuild its hapless 2017 power unit.

Amid rumours works partner McLaren is considering dumping its Japanese partner, reports say Honda is starting work on a major upgrade.

"The difference in power with our rivals is big," Honda's F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa is quoted by Spanish newspapers including El Mundo and El Pais.

"To improve we have to achieve more efficient combustion and change the hardware of the current power unit," he added.

"We are working on it, but we will not be able to put it in the car for two months."

Hasegawa's news comes as an increasingly frustrated Fernando Alonso piles the pressure on, amid the threat of his expiring McLaren-Honda contract.

"The change of regulation is a golden opportunity to catch Mercedes, so we needed to be much better," he said in Melbourne.

"If last year we were fighting for Q3, this year anything but the top 5 or 6 is no reaction," Alonso added.

"Personally I am well prepared and I feel that I am very fast. I attack the corners but I lose 200 metres in a straight line which is very frustrating."

But Alonso was also highly critical of the media, saying reporters are "trying to exaggerate the situation".

"It is very easy to say McLaren-Honda is going to be last, that both cars will retire on the first lap. All of this nonsense is increasing day after day," he said.

(GMM)
Many of the students in Cynthia Taylors fourth- and fifth-grade social studies classes at the Academy of Lincoln say their year-long project on entrepreneurship and free enterprise taught them how to spend money wisely.

Taylor recently received national recognition  the Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education from the Freedom Foundation  for her innovative teaching project.

Through the entrepreneurship project, students create a currency and business plans to sell goods and services. They also apply for a class job, receive biweekly paychecks, keep a ledger of transactions and pay taxes. Twice a month, they hold the Lincoln Market, and at the end of the year, students have the chance to spend currency on items in a school auction.

They also learn valuable lessons.

When owning a business, pay attention, said fifth-grader Karissa Siteup. When one customer is unsatisfied, there may be a problem that needs to be fixed, which means less success.

Fifth-grader Jordan Britt has enjoyed the opportunity to be in control of her own money she earned by doing a job.

This will help me in the future when I get a job and have to use my own money on things I need, Jordan said. It will also help me know to save my money and put a little aside to do something I would enjoy.

Taylor has successfully organized the project for her students the past few years. Though she didnt start the market program at Lincoln, Taylor took responsibility for the program and added components.

The Leavey Award recognizes educators, elementary through college, for innovative and effective techniques in teaching entrepreneurship and free-enterprise education. Taylor was one of 12 educators honored for seven award-winning projects.

Words cannot express how this award came at the right time, Taylor said. As an experienced teacher, I know the importance of positive encouragement to our students, and at the same time, teachers need the same.

A teacher for more than 35 years and a teacher in the Very Strong (VS) program at Lincoln for 10 years, Taylor has taught social studies in the program for seven years.

The VS program at Lincoln serves highly gifted students in fourth through eighth grades. More than 100 fourth- and fifth-graders participate in the market program.

Each September, students create a currency that will be used for the school year. Fourth-graders are taught a unit on economics, and students learn more about the year-long lesson, which Taylor calls Market. Students have a few weeks to brainstorm ideas for the goods or services they will bring to Market, and the law of supply and demand is discussed. Each student completes a business plan and must apply and pays for a business license. They are required to participate in one of two markets held each month in the cafeteria. Students pay to sell, have their business license signed and set up goods and services.

They love to hear the whistle blow and me saying, Market Is Open, Taylor said. They learn that our Lincoln Market is a type of free market enterprise.

Participating in Market has prompted fourth-grader Anika Barnes to consider starting her own business one day.

I think Market is an early start to a good future, Anika said.

Students are paid biweekly for things such as attendance, neat desks and lockers and completed homework. Every two weeks, desk rent is collected, and students must keep a ledger to keep track of profits and losses. These ledgers are used to pay taxes in April.

This year, Taylor also invited the Center of Smart Financial Choice to conduct a workshop with students. At the end of the year, students spend their earned currency at an auction, which includes items donated by parents and the community.

Students learn to apply principles learned in class through this process, Taylor said. Our year-long elementary market provides all our VS elementary students an authentic, real-life, hands-on economic scenario.
Let me see if I have this right. President Trump has several times explained his false statements with the excuse that he was relying on what unnamed others had told him or what he had read in the newspaper.

Dont reporters do the same thing when putting together a news story  rely on what people tell the reporters and what the reporters have read in other news sources? Trump considers relying on what others tell him and what he reads in the newspapers to be valid excuses for the falsehoods he frequently tweets. But when a reporter does the same thing, it is fake news and the reporter is the enemy of the people. The differences are that Trump has access to the best intelligence available through the CIA and NSA (but apparently never checks these sources to see if his tweets are credible) and the reporters feel compelled to apologize or run a correction when they get the facts wrong. Trump never apologizes or corrects his false statements. Go figure.
OK then: All Americans are going to pay for the wall; American steel will not be used in the Keystone & Dakota Access pipelines, and they will create fewer than 100 permanent jobs; business waste is now flowing into our drinking water; Trump reversed a planned rate cut on mortgage insurance for many first-time homebuyers; he has not announced his secret plan to destroy ISIS as promised; there is no set plan for repealing and replacing the ACA as of yet; he defended Russia although it has been proven to have interfered in the 2016 election; the White House is under investigation and in turmoil; he listens to the alt-right over his intelligence community; with his tweets, most of his rhetoric, and, by calling the media the enemy, he remains divisive. We are just as polarized as ever.
The 13th Annual Focus on French Cinema Opening Night and Gala Ceremony honoring legendary French Director Claude LeLouch takes place March 31 with a gourmet cocktail reception at Lescale Restaurant Bar on Steamboat Road followed by an award ceremony and showing of the film Its Only The End Of The World at the Bow Tie Cinemas on Railroad Avenue in Greenwich. The film, directed by Xavier Dolan and honored at the 2017 Oscars, is internationally recognized. For tickets to the festival and more info, call 203-629-1340, or go to www.focusonfrenchcinema.org.

Scene

Actors Tony Danza and former Dancing With The Stars contestant and best-selling author Marilu Henner were spotted having drinks together at Patsys on West 56th Street in New York City last Friday night. Both Danza and Henner starred together in the popular sitcom Taxi. Danza is in town at Feinsteins 54 Below on West 54th Street where he is performing Tony Danza: Standards and Stories with his four-piece band.

Out there

The Greenwich Choral Societys Swing into Spring Gala takes place at Richards of Greenwich at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The evening will feature wine, hors doevres, live and silent auctions and performances by the Swing Chorus of the Greenwich Choral Society, popular baritone Eddie Pleasant and pianist Steven Graff. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Greenwich Choral Societys scholarship and outreach programs. Tickets are $100 per person. For information and tickets, visit www.greenwichchoralsociety.org or call 203-622-5136.

Out there

Rosies Frozen Yogurt, the 20-year establishment in Cos Cob and Old Greenwich and owned by Sindy and Steven Steinberg, is opening a third store on Marthas Vineyard this summer on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs.

Scene

The Cos Cob Fire Police Patrol, Inc. is celebrating its 90th anniversary at the annual fundraiser on April 1 at Greenwich Country Day School. Former Town of Greenwich Selectman Paul Hicks, recipient of the 2016 Chiefs Award for Outstanding Service, will serve as the evenings emcee. The benefit will feature a menu by OnTheMarc Catering, an open bar, wine and beer and live music by the popular local band The Short Bus. For tickets and more info, visit www.ccfpp.org/events or contact Sebastian Dostmann at 203-550-4415 or sdostmann@ccfpp.org.

Out there

The Musicians from Marlboro, under the direction of pianist Mitsuko Uchida, will make their final stop at the Greenwich Library as part of The Friends Concert Series at 4 p.m. March 26. For more info, call 203-622-7938.

And thats all for now.

Later

Got a tip? Seen a celebrity? E-mail Susie Costaregni at thedish2@yahoo.com.
He wont be shining some light on anything else. Photo: Facebook

The North Carolina father who took an AR-15 to self-investigate the claim that the popular D.C. pizzeria Comet Ping Pong was a clandestine Hillary Clinton pedophilia ring has pleaded guilty today to weapons possession. As part of his plea deal, 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch will serve time for two weapons charges, and prosecutors will drop a third that wouldve carried a mandatory five-year minimum sentence.



Reports say Welch has also agreed to surrender three firearms and a box of ammunition, and pay $5,744 to cover the damage inflicted by bullets he shot into Comet Ping Pongs computers, an office door, and (somewhat ironically) a ping-pong table when he charged into the busy restaurant last December to see if the #PizzaGate conspiracy theory held any truth. Fake-news stories said the ring operated out of Comets basement, a secure location since Clinton campaign chair John Podesta sometimes ate at the joint. They also contended it was a satanic ritual grounds and a place where cannibalism occurred. As Welch later admitted, The intel on this wasnt 100 percent.



Authorities say, regardless, his ill-advised decision to drive 350 miles to D.C. in his Prius to get a closer look that day sent families and employees fleeing the premises. He didnt hurt anyone, but did shoot the place up pretty well, and left after he found no evidence of child sex slaves. Hell remain in jail until his sentencing hearing starts on June 22. Its not clear yet what each side will be seeking. He could serve up to 20 years total, but the plea agreement suggests 18 to 24 months for the interstate transport of firearms, plus 18 to 60 months for assault with a deadly weapon.
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Before today, there was never really any convincing leak that pointed to the possibility of Samsung releasing a Coral Blue Galaxy S8 (and/or S8+). There were a couple of leaks that suggested this, but given that the front bezels of those leaks were actually colored, it leads us to believe they may have been fakes, as @evleaks leaked press renders show black bezels for at least three different colors: Black Sky, Orchid Grey, and Arctic Silver.

A new leak shows us a press render that looks quite like the others, except, upon closer inspection, youll notice the border of the device is blue, and it looks to be the same coral blue that we first saw on the Samsung Galaxy Note7 first, that is until Samsung decided to make the Galaxy S7 edge with the same color scheme.

Alleged renders of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in Coral Blue

If you need any more convincing, the wallpaper of the render is an underwater scene featuring a coral reef! Besides, Samsung would be giving up on a huge opportunity if it didnt release a coral blue version of the S8. Not with all the praise the Galaxy Note7 got with the fresh new paint job.

Theres always the possibility that this leak is a fake, so dont take our word for it. The only way to find out for sure is to wait for Samsungs event this upcoming Wednesday. Well tell you how you can tune into the live stream once the date comes closer, so stay tuned for that.

Source | Via
Kannur VC Dr Gopinath Ravindran was the last to respond to Raj Bhavan shortly before the 5pm deadline.
Kat Jamieson is an author and tastemaker who has been sharing her passion for lifestyle topics such as fashion, decor, travel, and cooking since 2011 on her blog: With Love From Kat. Her first book, Blended, was recently released in October. In this book, Kat shares a seasonally inspired and holistic approach to cooking, as well as her take on entertaining and living well. She shares more than 125 recipes that have helped her to feel energized, vibrant, and balanced. Aside from these nourishing recipes, Kat also discusses how she has obtained a truly balanced and...
By Lily Lee | Published on 2017/03/24

The heart-fluttering romance is mainly why I watch the K-dramas but recently, there have been so many great thriller dramas that caught my attention! Following that trend, it's not too hard to find psychopathic characters in our favorite dramas. All of these psychopaths are terrifying villains with sickening behavior but their evil aura combined with a fierce glare makes them so dangerously sexy. Let's take a look at some of the psychopathic characters who have made a great impact.

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Mo Tae-goo played by Kim Jae-wook

Actor Kim Jae-wook made a special appearance in the recent drama "Voice" and took over the flow of the drama in such a short time. He was able to portray the cold blooded Human Hunter Mo Tae-goo so flawlessly that people started to look at him in different light. Actor Kim Jae-wook's psychopath is fly. Even though his character has committed such unforgivable act, he made the villain look good. His sexy fit in suit made the most stylish villain ever!

Choi Tae-ho played by Choi Tae-joon

When you watch "Missing 9" you are pretty much watching a serial killing parade performed by Choi Tae-ho. Even in the limited situation like being trapped in a deserted island, he was running east to west, succeeding in 5 kills! Despite any injuries, he survived till the end to shed blood. Just by looking at Choi Tae-joon, I am reminded of Choi Tae-ho's ruthless nature.

Lee Jae-kyeong played by Shin Sung-rok

"My Love from the Star" had many of my favorite stars such as Jun Ji-hyun, Kim Soo-hyun, Yoo In-na and Ahn Jae-hyun, so I was in an eye-candy heaven but that Shin Sung-rok though. That slight dark circle, sharp face shape and intense glare so toxic, he created fear. This psychopath made a legendary shot as he whispered to the camera his famous line, "Take care of your health".

FYI, he found a look-alike during this drama was being aired, which is a nation famous character from the Korea's messenger service  the KakaoTalk Dog. Actor Shin Sung-rok's nickname will forever be the Psychopath KaTalk Dog.

Ryoo Tae-oh played by Lee Joon

In "Gabdong - The Serial Killer" Lee Joon was a perfect psychopath. Every time the camera caught his mad smile appeared behind the innocent eyes, all the viewers felt the chill down their neck. Lee Joon was famous for being the K-pop idol and a comic character in many variety shows but this role of Ryoo Tae-oh changed his career completely for good.

Jeong Seon-ho played by Park Bo-gum

Many of you know that our lovely Park Bo-gum as an innocent, pure-hearted boy who played the characters similar to his personality such as Choi Taek in "Answer Me 1988" and Yi Yeong in "Moonlight Drawn by Clouds". But do you know about Jeong Seon-ho in "Hello Monster"? In this drama, our pure Bo-geom goes to the dark side and put a knife on his hand. Blood everywhere, psychopath everywhere.

Every time there's a killer aura reflected on his adorable face, I can't help myself but awe at his acting skill. In this drama, even though he is a psychopath, you begin to pity him and see the good and the bad in him.

Nam Gyoo-man played by Namkoong Min

In 2016, this actor hit big. Until now, he was that handsome-faced actor who had the skills but just didn't get as famous like he should have been. It was "Remember" that made him join the league of famous actors and "Beautiful Gong Shim" and "Chief Kim" added more praises to his career.

Now, with "Remember", I will say straight up that Namkoong Min have made a huge impact on the history of K-drama as far as creating a psychopath character. Unlike the usual charismatic, calm-on-the-outside, icy psychopaths, this one is always on fire. Nam Gyoo-man has a huge anger issue and his personality is one where I would call it a "loser". Namkoong Min have pulled this character so well and he mentioned in an nterview later on that it was so hard to play a character so evil as him.

By. Lily Lee
Published on 2017/03/24 | Source

Added new poster for the upcoming Korean movie "My Little Baby, Jaya" (2017)

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Directed by Yoon Hak-ryul

With Kim Jung-kyoon, Oh Ye-seol, Hwang Do-won, Kim Jong-won, Lee Eung-kyung, Lee Han-wi,...

Synopsis

My daughter Jaya! Sorry I couldn't protect you!

Won-seul (Kim Jung-kyoon) who suffers from cerebral palsy has a daughter named Ja-ya (Oh Ye-seol). She was the victim of school violence, bullying as well as rape, and she chose death. Won-seul struggles to reveal the truth about her death but he feels helpless at the truth of our society today. Won-seul decides to take revenge on society...

Release date in Korea : 2017/04
Published on 2017/03/25 | Source

Added episode 4 captures for the Korean drama "Radiant Office" (2017)

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Directed by Jeong Ji-in, Park Sang-hoon-III

Written by Jeong Hee-hyeon

Network : MBC

With Go Ah-sung, Ha Seok-jin, Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Dong-wook, Lee Ho-won, Kim Byung-choon,...

16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00

Synopsis

An abrasive marketing director and a female temporary contract worker at the same furniture company. She faces repeat rejection in her job search until despair drives her to attempt suicide. At the hospital, she learns she has a terminal condition, but then, finally succeeds in getting hired. With nothing to lose, she tackles her job and her life with a perspective.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/03/15

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Man Stabs His Girlfriend More Than Two Dozen Times Because She Refused an Abortion

by Micaiah Bilger, Life News, March 24, 2017

A Hawaii jury convicted a man of murdering his ex-girlfriend in December after prosecutors said he stabbed her to death for refusing to abort their unborn child.

Steven Capobianco, of Maui, was supposed to be sentenced on Friday for second-degree murder and arson, Hawaii News Now reports. According to the report, Capobianco could face 20 years to life in prison.

According to police, the ex-girlfriend, Charli Scott, was five months pregnant with their unborn child when she was killed. Prosecutors said Capobianco lured her to a remote area, claiming that his truck had broken down, and then tortured and stabbed her about 20 times; police said he also set fire to her vehicle. Prosecutors alleged that Capobianco murdered Scott in revenge for her refusing to have an abortion.

The report does not mention her unborn child who also was killed in the attack. It does not appear that there were any charges in connection to the unborn childs death.

Police said they never found the full remains of Scotts body, only some of her bones, hair and clothing, according to the report.

Heres more from the Daily Mail:

Scott decided to continue with the pregnancy even though Capobianco insisted on an abortion, [Prosecuting Attorney Robert] Rivera said.

In an early interview with detectives, Capobianco said about the pregnancy, Admittedly, Im not thrilled about having a child. Its not what I was planning on doing at 24  Im a single, 24-year-old male who has a dog and I can barely keep me and my dog I mean like yeah, we eat pretty well, but its like I have a dollar in my pocket right now until my next paycheck. I dont have any spare cash for a child. But he claimed he saw how happy it made her and then was all for it, according to KHON. He even claimed his new girlfriend, Cassie, was fine with the baby news and willing to try to make things work.

Capobianco was determined to have been the last person to see Scott alive on Feb. 9, 2014; and her family reported her missing the next day, Maui Now reports. Police also reported seeing burn marks on his hands when they interviewed him soon after Scotts death.

Pregnant women face high levels of domestic violence. One in six women is first abused during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Sometimes the abuse occurs after the woman refuses her partners demands to have an abortion, as it did with a Pennsylvania case in 2015.

In June, LifeNews reported another gruesome case involving a North Carolina woman who allegedly was murdered by her boyfriend after refusing to abort their child.

And in March 2016, a Brooklyn, New York man was sentenced to 32 years in prison for a similar case. A jury found Torey Branch, 35, guilty of abortion, burglary and assault for beating his pregnant girlfriend and causing the death of their unborn child, LifeNews reported.
Signer of Anti-Trump Letter Withdraws From Pentagon Think Tank

Cronin cites 'personal reasons' for pulling out from plum post in Hawaii

by Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon, March 24, 2017

Patrick Cronin, a liberal Republican China hand who signed a letter denouncing Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, on Friday withdrew from taking a plum position as director of a Pentagon-funded think tank in Hawaii.

Cronin "informed the Department of Defense that he wishes to withdraw his name for consideration as director of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies for personal reasons," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said.

The action followed a Thursday report in the Washington Times revealing that Cronin had signed a letter in March 2016 along with 121 other former Republican national security officials opposing Trump's presidential bid.

The initial announcement by the Asia Pacific center March 10 stated that Secretary of Defense James Mattis had approved Cronin's appointment to head the Honolulu-based think tank.

The center altered its announcement after the Times report, omitting the reference to the secretary of defense's approval.

Until recently, the think tank was part of the U.S. Pacific Command. It now reports to the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for policy. However, the center, which conducts military and civilian education, supports the Pacific Command, according to the center's website.

Disclosure of the Trump critic's appointment took both the Pentagon and Pacific Command by surprise.

Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, said Mattis was not involved in Cronin's appointment, which was underway before January when the Trump administration came into office.

A Pacific Command spokesman sought to distance the command from Cronin by claiming it has little relationship with the center.

President Trump and the White House have taken a hard line on so-called never-Trump Republicans, blocking several prominent former officials who held senior national security and foreign policy positions in previous administrations.

The anti-Trump letter that Cronin signed, one of two signed by Republicans during the campaign, stated that "we are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency."

"He is fundamentally dishonest," the letter stated, adding that the former officials are committed to "working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office."

Trump dismissed the criticism during the campaign as the product of failed establishment officials and made clear the opponents would not be appointed to positions in his administration.

The policy has made it difficult for the Trump administration to fill some senior-level political positions in the Pentagon and State Department.

Cronin stated in an email before he withdrew that he was honored to be offered the position of director at the Asia-Pacific Center.

"This is not a political appointment but it was approved by the secretary of defense," Cronin said.

Davis, however, said Mattis was not involved in any way with the selection of Cronin for the post.

Cronin said in an email that "the campaign is history and now the hard work of governing beckons for all Americans."

"After Donald Trump's triumphant election, I turned to the mission of how I could help the president and his national security team," he said.

"Attack me for expressing my personal views about candidates during our democratic election process, but please judge me by my faithful and unstinting commitment to support President Trump, his administration, and above all the United States of America," Cronin said.

William C. Triplett II, a China specialist and former counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the withdrawal was appropriate.

"Patrick Cronin not only signed the obnoxious Never Trump' letters, he went out of his way to endorse Hillary for president," Triplett said.

"Just another of the inappropriate appointments coming out of office of the secretary of defense," he added. "I think it is disloyal to continue to throw declared enemies at the White House and demand their endorsement. Such a situation would be unthinkable if Hillary had become president."
A DOG grooming parlour in Henley has re-opened under new ownership.

Karole Robertson, who took over Naughty Mutt Nice earlier this year, welcomed dozens of customers to a launch party on Friday evening.

The guests were shown around the premises in Reading Road, which have been refurbished to include a new wet room, bath, flooring and tables.

The salon now offers advanced grooming techniques, holistic spa treatments and ultrasonic dental care as well as selling a range of dog food and accessories.

The guests, many of whom brought their pets, were each given a glass of champagne and a gift bag containing vouchers for treatments and a small packet of dog treats. Mrs Robertson said: The refurbishment went well so were all ready and open for business. Weve set up a grooming stall in the window so people will be able to watch us working.

We can offer all kinds of new services at our dog spa, from blueberry or vanilla facials to mud baths and coat conditioning.

We couldnt wait to get everything up and running. I feel a lot more settled now and its great to see everyone coming in so that I can get to know them and their dogs.

Mrs Robertson bought the business from Aspen Weatherburn, of Albert Road, Henley, who launched it in 2009.

Ms Weatherburn, a former journalist, is now helping her partner Alistair Cooper to launch a wine consultancy business. Mrs Robertson said: Im going to carry on the great work that she did.

It has been great getting to know the team and were working together really well now. We had a soft launch a few weeks ago and its nice to see people are already coming back. Theyre becoming familiar faces so it makes me feel like Im part of the community.

Mrs Robertson moved to Britain from Brazil in 2003 and launched her first grooming business, called Paws 4 Applause, from a workshop at her home in Ruscombe in 2011.

She still lives in the village with her husband Struan, son Milo, three, their 10-year-old West Highland terrier Brian and 12-week-old Lakeland terrier Tiggy.
TWO metal detectorists are set to cash in after their finds were declared to be treasure.

They each discovered hoards dating back more than 2,000 years  one in Bix and the other in Checkendon.

At an inquest last week, the Oxfordshire coroner Darren Salter declared both met the criteria to be treasure and they will now be valued by the Governments treasure committee.

Jon Long was in a field at Bix in October when he unearthed a collection of more than 50 items, including a decorative razor, a decorated bracelet and a dagger from the Bronze Age, meaning they date back to 1400 to 1200BC.

They were buried in a bucket urn in a small pit but the base of this had been destroyed by a plough. Most of the items were found within 10m of the bucket.

Mr Long, from Reading, contacted Anni Byard, the British Museums finds liaison officer for Oxfordshire, after finding the first few items as he suspected there were more.

The hoard is from the ornament horizon period, when there was an increase in the wearing of bronze and gold personal ornaments such as rings, bracelets, pins and torcs, a one-piece stiff necklace.

Mr Long, who has been metal detecting for five years, said he chose to go to Bix as he had a few hours to spare and he could get permission from the owner of the field.

He said his detector started making a significant sound when he found the bracelet.

He then sent a photograph of it to his friend and fellow metal detectorist James Mather, who had found a hoard in Watlington.

Mr Long said: He got back to me, saying he thought it might be from the Bronze Age so I went back over the area. I pulled out a small dagger as well, so I thought it could be hoard and contacted Anni.

I went back the following Sunday with Jim and we went all over the area. We dug a hole and found the pot of items. I could not believe it. Its the fact that no one has touched or seen these items for thousands of years.

It was an amazing experience to find something of this significance for Oxfordshire.

Mr Long, whose last significant find was a medieval hoard in Pangbourne in 2014, said he was not concerned with the value of the Bix hoard.

The significance of the hoard is what is special for me, he said. This is the only middle Bronze Age hoard from Oxfordshire.

Ms Byard told the inquest: The detectorist was very responsible once he realised he had found several items.

He started digging, then called us in and we carried out a controlled excavation and discovered the rest of the hoard.

It is the first find of the ornamental period in Oxfordshire, so this is quite significant. They are usually found in Wiltshire or Hampshire.

The bracelet, which weighs almost 160g, is decorated with four rows of chevrons and two panels of parallel lines. The copper razor was decorated on both faces with uneven and unequal panels of chevrons, cross-hatching and diagonal lines.

The dagger was found in seven pieces while a torc was found in 11 fragments, including two hooked ends.

The pot containing the items was made from flint and clay. It was plain with a rounded rim.

Mr Salter said that as the find was more than 300 years old and contained at least 10 per cent precious metals he was satisfied that it was treasure.

Paul Lycoll, also from Reading, discovered an Iron Age hoard during a series of metal detecting trips to Checkendon in late 2014 and early 2015.

His find included two gold and five silver coins, a copper alloy toggle, copper alloy bridle-bit side link and a harness brooch dating from between 200BC and 100BC.

Both gold coins are staters, a type of ancient Greek coin, with one thought to be from the Gallic war period. Four of the silver coins are drachmas, another type of Greek coin. Two are attributed to the Narbonne area of France and another two from central-west Gaul, a region in central Europe.

The other silver coin is attributed to the then northern Gaul/Armorican border in western France. One side of the coin shows the head of Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, fertility, the useful arts and prudent warfare.

The alloy toggle is thought to be from late in the Iron Age and was a type of moulded decoration widely distributed across southern Britain from 100BC to 100AD.

A similar example to the bridle-bit side link was found in Essex in 2015. It is considered unusual as the central bead appears on the central link rather than the side link.

The brooch is in a U-shape with flaring ends. It is decorated with motifs, including crescent shapes, triangles and waves.

Mr Salter said: This is an Iron Age hoard found in Checkendon and my conclusion is treasure.
It was a good news day in Sandyford yesterday as a 3m expansion plan for its business district was officially launched.

The scheme, spearheaded by the Sandyford Business Improvement District, will benefit at least 1,000 companies in the area.

Major initiatives include the launch of a smart district strategy, which now provides free public Wi-Fi, as well as improvements in infrastructure and landscaping.

Over the next five years, the industrial hub will continue to grow with the construction of more office space.

The offices will cater for up to 10,000 employees, which will add to the area's workforce.

Apartments

There are also plans to build 600 new apartments in the area, which Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor commended at the launch.

"You don't need me to tell you that housing is a pinch point, one our Government is tackling, but nevertheless you are showing foresight in providing this accommodation," she said of the business improvement district.

The minister assured businessmen from companies including Microsoft, AIB and JCDecaux, that the Government is "prepared" for Brexit.

She added that a minister appointed solely to deal with Brexit would not work, adding that it would be up to each individual ministry to deal with the issue.

However, the chief executive of Leopardstown Racecourse, Pat Keogh, said that the idea of having a Brexit Minister should be "kept under review".

"I'm very worried about Brexit. We have no idea what way it is going to impact at this stage; I don't think the British know," said Mr Keogh.

"If you look at the challenges that have faced this country over the years, I don't think there's ever been a challenge in the same league as Brexit," he added.
Ex US President Bill Clinton visiting the Kilkenny Design Shop today on Dublin's Nassau St. Photo: Douglas O'Connor

Former US President Bill Clinton caused quite a stir when he stepped out for a shopping trip in Dublin city centre.

Mr Clinton was followed by a number of fans as he browsed Irish craft and design products in the Kilkenny Shop on Nassau Street yesterday afternoon.

The former president spent almost an hour in the store and filled his basket with a selection of Irish-made jewellery, homeware and crafts.

One of the managers at the store, Anastacia Dovdula, said the 70-year-old's visit was "like a dream".

"We didn't expect him to call in, it was a complete surprise. He had an entourage with him. Everyone is still buzzing now," she said.

Gift

"The store was so busy. It was so exciting. He really pulled in the crowd.

"He was looking at everything in every department, but he seemed most interested in the products made in Ireland."

Ms Dovdula said he picked up a selection of Irish handmade items, and the staff presented him with a small gift for his grandchildren, Charlotte and Aidan Clinton Mezvinsky.

"He did buy a few things. All of the things were made in Ireland by Irish designers, which is great because that's what we're all about. He bought some jewellery, some homeware and crafts," she said. "We gave him a little gift for his grandchildren, a little handmade toy. He was delighted."

Mr Clinton, who was in the White House from 1993 to 2001, was photographed as he chatted to people in the crowd and posed for selfies outside the store.

He was accompanied by a number of security personnel and they guided him through the growing crowd.

He raised a bunch of daffodils being sold in aid of the Irish Cancer Society's Daffodil Day as he waved and walked towards his car.

Mr Clinton visited Ireland to attend the funeral of former Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in Derry on Thursday.

He then travelled to Dublin to dine with well-known businessman Denis O'Brien and hotelier John Fitzpatrick.

The trio were pictured chatting to passers-by as they left Peploe's Wine Bistro on St Stephen's Green.
A British dad-of-five has been convicted of murdering Dublin plasterer John O'Neill after a petty row at a Costa del Sol bar.

A Spanish jury found Darren O'Flaherty (42) guilty by a unanimous 9-0 verdict after a four-day trial at a court in Malaga.

He was also convicted of attempting to murder bar manager James Walsh and owning the unlicensed gun used on July 28, 2010, at Coco's Bar in the holiday resort of Benalmadena.

The jurors cleared O'Flaherty, from Liverpool, of the attempted murder of a second bar worker.

Shot

O'Flaherty, who was on the run from British police when he shot 40-year-old dad-of-two Mr O'Neill dead, is now facing a lengthy jail sentence.

Prosecutors called on Judge Julio Ruiz to jail O'Flaherty for 17 years for Mr O'Neill's murder, 12 years for the attempted murder and a year-and-a-half for the weapons conviction. The sentence is expected to be delivered within the next fortnight.

The British man learned his fate through a translator and looked briefly at relatives in the courtroom, including his parents, before hanging his head.

His lawyer, Cristina Carrillo, said afterwards she would appeal.

Mr O'Neill, from Coolock, north Dublin, was on his first foreign holiday with his family - partner Maxine Sutcliffe, son Jake, then three, and daughter Jasmine, then nine months.

He collapsed and died at a bus stop 50 yards from the bar after suffering a fatal wound to his stomach.

O'Flaherty was extradited to Spain in February 2015 to await trial.

Jurors were told on the first day of the trial that he was living under a false name when he killed Mr O'Neill, but the charge of using fake documentation to rent his Costa del Sol flat was withdrawn.

O'Flaherty also faces having to compensate the partner and two children of his victim with up to 250,000.

His defence lawyers had argued Mr O'Neill's death was a simple homicide, punishable by 10 to 15 years in prison, and not a murder under Spanish law.

However, jurors decided he had given his victim no chance of defending himself in the "surprise attack", making his crime murder in Spain.

O'Flaherty returned to the bar with a .38 revolver and targeted drinkers after being kicked out for an unprovoked attack on a friend of the slain Irishman, who had been using a toilet he was trying to get into.

His defence lawyers said he was drunk and high on drugs the night of the murder, and suffered from mental health problems that reduced his criminal responsibility.

However, jurors said there was "no evidence" for those claims and rejected them.
The family of murdered backpacker Danielle McLaughlin want a second post-mortem to be carried out on her body amid claims they are not happy with the way her situation was handled by authorities in India.

The body of the 28-year-old was flown into Dublin Airport yesterday morning, but she may not be reunited with her family until next Tuesday, two weeks after she was murdered.

The Donegal woman's heartbroken mother also revealed that Danielle had decided not to stay in India, but was merely planning to learn how to teach yoga. She was then due to fly to Canada to begin a new chapter in her life in September.

Ms McLaughlin was found dead in a secluded spot in Canacona, a popular area for holidaymakers in Goa, on the west coast of India, on Tuesday, March 14.

Home

A post-mortem showed she had suffered cerebral damage and constriction to the neck.

Danielle's family are now waiting to see if they can have a second post-mortem carried out on the body of the young woman.

However, it may now be Monday before that takes place, as the coroner's office does not carry out the procedure at weekends.

A family source said they were not happy with the way Danielle's situation had been handled in India.

It has also been revealed that further medical procedures are to be undertaken on Danielle in Belfast before she is returned to her home on the Inishowen peninsula.

Realistically, it may now be Tuesday when her body is returned to her mother Andrea and her four younger sisters.

Local Sinn Fein Senator Padraig Mac Lochlainn said it was a very difficult time for the family but they are just relieved that Danielle's remains are home.

"We are grateful that Danielle is back on Irish soil and now it is a matter of getting her home to her family as quickly as we can," he said.

Danielle's mother Andrea said she will not fully accept that her daughter is dead until she holds her hand.

Speaking from her home in Buncrana, Co Donegal, Andrea said she just knew that her eldest daughter had died when her friend Louise McMenamin arrived at her home in Marian Park.

"I knew as soon as I saw her. As soon as she walked in the door I told her. She did not even get the chance to tell me," she said.

"It feels as if it was a year ago and if it was yesterday. It will only get to sink in when I get to hold her hand."

The heartbroken mum said her daughter had already been granted a visa for Canada and said she had wished she had gone there instead of India.

"She was hemming and hawing between the two for a while," Andrea said.

"I was not happy about her going to India this time. I would have preferred her to go to Canada, but she said 'I don't want to be anywhere else in the world other than India and that's where I want to be'."

Although Andrea said she wants justice, she did not want "an eye for an eye".

Cope

"Danielle did not believe in an eye for an eye," she said.

Looking to the coming days, weeks, months and years ahead without Danielle, Andrea said she simply does not know how she is going to cope.

"I don't know, I really don't know. I don't know life without Danielle. I don't know what life is going to be like. I don't want to even think about it," she said.

Ms McLaughlin was the eldest of five daughters.

She had been celebrating Holi - a Hindu spring festival - on the night she was killed.

Her body was discovered near the holiday hot-spot of Canacona earlier this month.

One man - Vikat Bhagat (23) - was swiftly arrested over her death and police said he confessed to the attack.
George Davis (right) and John Breen are worried about being removed from their pitch. Photo: Damien Eagers

A newspaper vendor, who has sold millions of papers from a four-wheeled buggy over nearly 40 years, said he has had "sleepless nights" after being told to "push off" from his stand outside Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre.

George Davis (62) has been in business at the same spot since before the shopping centre was constructed. His colleague, John Breen (46), has been working at the stall since leaving school aged 13.

Contract

Whether they will continue spreading the news hangs on a court's reading of evidence of a purported contract "agreed" by barristers John Peart, now a senior counsel, and Mary Finlay, now Appeal Court Judge Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan.

Judge Francis Comerford was told in the Circuit Civil Court yesterday that solicitors involved in a late 1970s bid to shift Mr Davis from his George's Street site had been struck out.

Barrister Mark O'Riordan, for Mr Davis, told the judge the written agreement could not be found and had not been made an order of court at the time.

Mr Peart said that, when the shopping centre was being built in the 1970s, a hoarding around the construction site contained "an indentation" from which Mr Davis, of Hadleigh, Ballybride Road, Rathmichael, Dublin, continued to sell his papers to passers-by.

He said the then-Ms Finlay had drawn up an agreement, which they both signed, stating that Davis could sell his newspapers from the entrance.

"It clearly gave Mr Davis a right to sell his newspapers at the front entrance only of the shopping centre for his lifetime," Mr Peart said.

Coltard, which acquired the centre in 1998, plans a 10m redevelopment.

Raymond Delahunt, counsel for Coltard, told the court that at no time since 1998 had Mr Davis paid rent to Coltard and his use of the shopping centre entrance to sell papers had never been sanctioned.

Worried

Speaking to the Herald, Mr Davis admitted he was very worried about losing the stall and the effect that could have on Mr Breen.

"It's his livelihood - that's all he has, since he was a child. He's one of the best-known lads in the town, he's loved," Mr Davis said.

Mr O'Riordan said Mr Davis had sold newspapers at the site for more than 38 years and holds an irrevocable licence, which he asked the court to affirm.

Mr Davis also seeks an injunction restraining Coltard from interfering with his news vending pitch.

Judge Comerford has reserved judgment.
Election day forecast? Sunny skies and, perhaps, a good turnout

"I hope that means that more people will go out and vote," said Barry Jackson, deputy elections director in Washington County.
HICKORY  Irish poets Cahal Dallat and Anne-Marie Fyfe will visit Hickory for readings at Taste Full Beans at 7 p.m. Thursday and in the Cromer Seminar Room at Lenoir-Rhyne University at 10 a.m. Friday.

Dallat and Fyfe will read from their work, sign books, perform music and answer questions at Taste Full Beans from 7-8 p.m. Friday and from 10-11 a.m. Saturday in the Cromer Symposium Room at Lenoir-Rhyne University. Admission is free.

For more information, visit www.poetryhickory.com or www.ncpoetrysociety.org.

Shortline museum hosts celebration

NEWTON  The Southeastern Narrow Gauge & Shortline Museum will host Night Train, Rolling Down the Tracks: A Celebration of Railroads, performed by the Western Piedmont Chamber Orchestra under the direction of John Gordon Ross, outside the Newton Depot at 3 p.m. Saturday.

There will be activities throughout the day at the Newton Depot campus. The museum, the Alexander Railroad Pavilion, and the Model Railroad Center will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Food and beverages will be available for purchase from noon to 5 p.m.

In the event of inclement weather, the performance will be held in the Newton-Conover Auditorium at 60 West Sixth St. in Newton.

The Southeastern Narrow Gauge & Shortline Museum is the result of the collaboration of two groups: the Newton Depot Authority and the Alexander Chapter of the NRHS. The museum is located in the historic Newton Depot at 1123 N. Main Ave. in Newton and is open every Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Waterwheel opens in April

VALDESE  The Town of Valdese is excited to announce on the first Saturday of each month from April through October, Valdese Public Works will have the waterwheel at McGalliard Falls Park running.

Fred Meytre originally built the Meytre Grist Mill in 1906 to serve the Waldensian community populating the area by grinding up their corn and wheat. A large flood in 1916 obliterated the original water wheel and the mill then changed to turbine power.

In honor of the renovations and new additions to the park, the public is encouraged to bring a picnic and spend the afternoon enjoying the new wheel. McGalliard Falls Park is located off of Main Street on NW Church Street.

Peter Fletcher to perform in Hickory

HICKORY  Classical guitarist Peter Fletcher will perform at Patrick Beaver Memorial Library on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

New York Citys Fletcher is touring nationwide to promote his newest CD released in September.

The concert at Patrick Beaver Memorial Library is free and open to the public. For more information, call 828- 304-0500 ext. 7235. Patrick Beaver Memorial Library is located at 375 Third St. NE on the SALT Block.

Convention center hosts pottery festival

HICKORY  The 20th Catawba Valley Pottery & Antiques Festival will be at the Hickory Metro Convention Center on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The festival is recognized as the primary destination for Southern traditional pottery enthusiasts, offering sales of old and new pottery, antiques and folk art by more than 110 vendors. Educational programming gives insight to the history of Southern pottery with demonstrations, an exhibit and a lecture.

Pottery demonstrations and videos will be available as well as book stores operated by the Catawba County Historical Museum and the North Carolina Pottery Center.

Saturday tickets are $6 for adults, $2 for 12 and under at the door. For more information, call 828-324-7294 or visit www.catawbavalleypotteryfestival.org.

Hickory Arts house concert

HICKORY  The Hickory Arts house concerts will feature Clowee Issabelle on March 31. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. for an eat and greet with the artist, and the performance begins at 8 p.m.

Issabelle is a home-schooled senior who also attends CVCC for Cosmetology and her Associates in Arts Degree. She has been playing piano, singing and writing her own songs since she was 9 years old. She also enjoys acting, and most recently appeared as Princess Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress for the Lincoln Theatre Guild at the Lincoln Cultural Center.

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased online  only 40 seats are available and tickets will not be sold at the door.
From his early raves to massive club shows, Tiesto has spent the past 20 years guiding the ebbs and flows of each audience. He finds the connection so intimate he has a ready comparison.

Basically its like having sex, he said.

Tijs Tiesto Verwest, who is the worlds second highest-paid DJ on the list of Forbes magazine, made his name in the trance scene of the 1990s, with his tension-building synthesizer flows and mid-tempo beats working sweaty crowds into literal trances.

Electronic dance music, or EDM, is no longer just for ravers. It is a constant on mainstream radio, with pop stars from Katy Perry to Enrique Iglesias setting their voices to electronic beats.

For Tiesto, the dance subculture has evolved rather than ended, with the EDM on the radio remaining distinct from DJ sets at festivals.

I think a lot of DJs adjust to pop music. The stuff on the radio is still pop music; its not dance music as we know it at the festivals, he told AFP in Miami.

Its a good balance between DJs making pop music and then in the live sets they have different drops and make it more for the festivals, he said.

The Dutch artist was visiting Miami for the Ultra Music Festival, a premier electronic music party that runs from Friday to Sunday. He is taking advantage of his visit to open a pop-up store in Miami Beach.

Tall and youthful for his 48 years, Tiesto spoke at the store that sells knapsacks, caps and T-shirts bearing his signature, as fans pressed their faces against the window to get a look at the world-famous DJ.

Music and fashion and merchandise are more one than ever before, said Tiesto, who has a residency in Las Vegas and became the first DJ to play the Olympics at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

Not too quick or too slow

DJs, according to Tiesto, have a unique relationship with crowds as they mix in front of thousands of people in joyous, fast-changing motion.

I think that the only art in the world that gives you that with the audience is pretty much the DJ. Because theres always the surprise factor, he said.

You never know what youre gonna get from the audience, so thats why I think there is a very special feeling.

But how can he manage the lows in each performance, bringing audiences down a level so they can take a breather rather than keeping them constantly on overdrive?

Youve got to feel it out. Thats an experience you learn with DJing over the years, he said.

Like sex, it has to be the perfect timing for everything: you dont want to be too quick or too slow.

Tiesto laughed and blushed a little bit. Its a very magical feeling, he said.

Changing sound

In the world of EDM connoisseurs, Tiesto has generated controversy with his shift from his trance roots to a more mainstream house sound.

Tiesto was hesitant when asked about his sound but acknowledged his rising success. He said his break started in 2009 with his collaboration-heavy album Kaleidoscope and then Red Lights, his 2013 radio hit with acoustic guitar off his album A Town Called Paradise.

I just always follow my gut feeling. I do what I like and I just play what I like, he said, without elaborating on his changing style.

As for picking music to sample in his sets, Tiesto said he had diverse tastes from indie rock to R&B to soul, although he admitted he was less interested in hip-hop.

Nonetheless he said he could sample everything from rappers Kanye West and Drake to alternative rockers The Killers or more obscure indie bands.

My tracks always start to build from the underground. And then if they become mainstream thats a bonus, but Im not focusing on it, he said.

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From everything we have heard about Yogi Adityanaths way with votes, it would seem the man has never felt a tinge of electoral insecurity in his 19-year-old political career. But it turns out Uttar Pradeshs new chief minister had to work his way to electoral invincibility. Senior journalist Dhirender K Jhas 35-page book, which reads like a meticulous magazine profile, details the lowest point in the five-time MPs electoral journey to show why he may never fear losing an election again.

It was between 1998 when 26-year-old Adityanath, would-be mahant at the Gorakhpur temple, first won the eastern UP Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 26,000 votes, and 1999, when he fought the election again and found his vote margin down to 7339. The plunge in winning margin was especially hurtful because shortly after winning the Gorakhpur seat the first time, Adityanath had launched his first apolitical organization, Gau Raksha Manch, to consolidate the Hindu vote. The cow card was apparently not enough to polarize the voters in Gorakhpur. The young MP realized he needed to develop a wider base among Hindus to play the power game in UP.

His moment came in 2002. Drawing on the nationwide split between Hindus and Muslims after the riots in Gujarat, Yogi Adityanath decided to hit the ground anew. He began by changing the name of Gau Raksha Manch to Hindu Yuva Vahini and expanded its jurisdiction beyond cows to anything and everything that could project minorities as the enemies of Hindus, from their meat-eating habits to their appeal among Hindu women. To give this new outfit a structure and mission, its presence was divided into multi-level committees  state, district, block and panchayat  and young and restless Hindu men in villages in and around Gorakhpur recruited in large numbers.

Right from the first day, writes Jha, HYV ran a toxic campaign of religious politics, turning the smallest of incidents to sectarian wars. There were at least six major riots in the region within the first year of HYVs formation and at least 22 major riots in Gorakhpur and the neighbouring districts till 2007.

Yogi Adityanath sworn in as Uttar Pradesh chief minister at Smriti Upvan, in Lucknow, India, on March 19, 2017. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and others were present on the occasion. (Ashok Dutta/HT Photo)

The plan paid off pretty soon. In 2004, Adityanath won the Gorakhpur seat by a margin of 142,000 votes; five years later, he claimed victory by 300,000 votes. Gau Raksha Peethadhiswar Parampujya Yogi Adityanath Ji Maharaj, as his disciples call him, has been unstoppable since. But as Jha painstakingly outlines, the saint-politicians political fortune doesnt depend on the BJP or the RSS but is fueled by a communal polarization of an extreme kind.

But thats not all Jhas book does. Its biggest achievement is putting the story of Yogi Adityanath in a context that reveals the man as more than a radical Hindu leader. Jha tells Adityanaths story from being a young Thakur from an Uttarakhand village who takes the Gorakhpur Temples cultural influence-in 1949, its Mahant presided over the installation of Ram Lallas statue at the Babri Masjid-- his predecessors political penchantthe Mahants have been fighting elections since 1967and adds his personal talent for 21-st century minority hatemongering to become one of the most powerful men in Indias most populous state.

But as Jha has already shows us once, the man is not above insecurities. It came back to haunt him in 2007, when after an egregious act of sectarian provocation, the Samajwadi government in UP put him in jail. When the then three-time MP attended the parliament after 11 days in jail, he broke into sobs while narrating to the Speaker how the SP was out to malign and torment him. Adityanaths image as a firebrand leader took a serious hit among his followers. The sight of Adityanath shedding tears shocked his Thakur supportersa weakness unbecoming of a male belonging to a martial caste.

Read more: Bringing Gorakhpur to Lucknow



The arrest led to another turn in Yogi Adityanaths politics. He continued to set Hindus against Muslims as core strategy, but he now prefers to make speeches rather than lead mobs to this effect. It hasnt made him less popular. Two days after Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister of UP, I spoke to a young gau rakshak in Meerut about how he was feeling. He put it simple and straight: Mother India is now in safe hands.

Yogi Adityanath And The Hindu Yuva Vahini that was released on the Juggernaut app will be included in the forthcoming book entitled Shadow Armies: Fringe Organizations and Foot Soldiers of Hindutva by Dhirendra K Jha

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When we talk about fake food in India, we usually mean food that has been adulterated. We might refer to dal to which pebbles have been added to make up some extra weight. Or to oil which has been mixed with cheaper fuels.

But there is a flourishing global fake food industry which thrives, not by adulterating food but by mislabelling it. Or it takes cheaper food substitutes, passes them off as the real thing and then makes us pay the price of the superior product.

Ironically, luxury products  which people pay huge sums of money for  are often the easiest to fake. And snobs are the easiest to fool.

Heres a list of foods you should be careful about.

Honey

Much of the worlds cheap honey comes from China and is produced using dodgy processes (Shutterstock)

Suddenly honey is hot. Whereas, in the old days, you just had plain old honey, you now have honey distinguished by the names of the flowers the bees were feeding on. The theory is that the pollen of those flowers gives the honey a distinctive flavour. So beekeepers will often plant only one kind of flower near their hives so that they get a mono-pollen honey.

In Australia and New Zealand, honey flavoured with the pollen of the Manuka tree is a big deal and you find it at gourmet shops around the world at high prices. So it is with high quality acacia honey and many other varieties.

In Australia and New Zealand, honey flavoured with the pollen of the Manuka tree is a big deal and you find it at gourmet shops around the world at high prices (Shutterstock)

Heres the problem. The vast majority of all bottles of Manuka honey are fakes. The total production of Manuka honey in the world (mostly from New Zealand, but also from Australia) is under 2,000 tonnes. But over 10,000 tonnes of Manuka honey are sold in gourmet and health food shops around the world. Ordinary honey is packaged as Manuka honey and most people cant tell the difference.

But, all packaged honeys are suspect. A few years ago, tests conducted on honey sold on US supermarket shelves showed that 75 per cent had no pollen at all  let alone fancy pollen like acacia or mulberry or whatever.

There were two possible reasons for this. The first is that much of the worlds cheap honey comes from China and is produced using dodgy processes (too much insecticide, etc.) The US banned Chinese imports, so the Chinese began using an ultra-filtration process to rid the honey of its pollen. If there is no pollen, it is hard to tell where the honey is from. This suited the Chinese who wanted to disguise its origins.

The second is that most of us dont really know the taste of honey. So, unscrupulous producers create a honey-like product using caramel, industrial glucose, gelatins etc. The answer is to never buy honey from a large producer no matter how fancy the packaging or the price. Buy local. And stay artisanal.

Maple syrup

Real maple syrup is mostly Canadian and always costly (Shutterstock)

Not that many Indians eat maple syrup, but this is an even bigger scam than honey. Real maple syrup is mostly Canadian (it is a Native American invention) and can be delicious. It is always costly.

But what you and I call maple syrup has never been near a maple tree. All the big multinational maple syrup brands (Aunt Jemima, Hungry Jack, Mrs Butterworth etc.) make a product from high fructose corn syrup and flavour it with a synthetic industrial molecule called Soloton. This is sold as Pancake Syrup or (under US law) Maple Flavoured Syrup. It is disgusting and unhealthy. Do not eat it.

Balsamic vinegar

Balsamico from Modena in Italy is one of the worlds great condiments (Shutterstock)

All chefs will tell you that balsamico from Modena in Italy is one of the worlds great condiments. It is made like fine wine from Trebbiano and Lambrusco grapes and aged for a minimum of 12 years in a succession of casks. A few drops (perhaps a single drop, even) can add depth and complexity to dishes.

But because real balsamic vinegar is costly, the Italians themselves have cheerfully created two bogus categories. The first, misleadingly called Aceto Balsamico di Modena, is a cheap industrial product that is sold all over the world as the real thing. The second is called condimento balsamico, a largely meaningless classification.

The industrial balsamic vinegars consist of wine vinegar with food colour, caramel and cornflour (or some other thickener). This creates a counterfeit version of the real thing and each factory can produce hundreds of litres a day. This is the stuff they offer you in fancy restaurants, not because they are trying to cheat you, but because usually, they dont know any better. The condimento is kept in the kitchen and used by mediocre chefs to tart up their food.

Wasabi

Something like 95 per cent of the wasabi in restaurants is fake (Shutterstock)

If you have ever been to an expensive Japanese restaurant and wondered why they make such a show of shredding fresh wasabi from a root in front of you, well, there is a good reason.

They are proving to you that their wasabi is real. This is important because something like 95 per cent of the wasabi in restaurants is fake.

What is called wasabi is a mixture of horseradish and mustard, produced in factories, to resemble the real (more expensive) thing. Real wasabi has a more vegetal flavour, which begins to deteriorate within 15 minutes of it being shredded. It will not burn your tongue and send noxious fumes down your nostrils.

The problem is that, outside of Japan, hardly anyone knows the real flavour of wasabi. They think the industrial counterfeit is what wasabi tastes like!

Soya sauce

You dont need to fake soya sauce, right? Its cheap and easily available, isnt it? Well, yes and no.

True soya sauce is a complex concoction with thousands of grades and varieties. But yes, a perfectly acceptable light soya sauce (of the kind they give you at Chinese restaurants) is not that difficult or expensive to make.

And yet, nearly all of the soya sauce consumed along with millions of Chinese takeout meals in the US is fake. Those little packets of soya that are a staple of American dining are made from hydrolysed vegetable protein, corn syrup and an industrial flavour molecule.

But why? Well cost, mainly. Real soya sauce takes three months to make. The fake stuff takes three days.

What about Indian soya sauce? Frankly, I dont know. But most good restaurants will use a Thai brand (relatively cheap in Indian shops) or Kikkoman (more expensive).

I suggest you do the same.

Cream

Have you noticed how the bakery products at so many expensive five-star hotels can be so bad? One reason is that chefs sometimes scrimp on real ingredients because they reckon that Indians cant tell the difference. I was shocked to discover a couple of years ago that one of Indias most famous hotels encouraged chefs to use soya cream rather than real cream. (The situation has been set right now, Im glad to say.)

Why would a pastry chef not want to use real cream, one of the essentials of his trade?

Well, because soya cream makes things easier. You can add any vegetable fat (i.e. oil) to increase its fat content (real dairy cream has 30 per cent and double cream is really 50 per cent fat). Then, you get a cream that does not collapse in warm rooms and lasts longer on dessert buffets and at pastry shops.

How does it taste? Pretty awful. But look at it this way. For years and years, the hotel in question made do with soya cream. So perhaps customers really cant tell the difference.

Truffle oil

Truffle oil usually has nothing to do with real truffles; a tiny proportion is made by infusing truffles into good olive oil (Shutterstock)

I am a bit of a bore on this subject, so a brief note. Truffle oil usually has nothing to do with real truffles. A tiny proportion is made by infusing truffles into good olive oil. But this is expensive, so something like 90 per cent of all truffle oil is made by adding a molecule derived from the petroleum industry to any cheap oil. It does not smell or taste like truffles (it might even make you sick), but it is so ubiquitous that many people now think that this is what a truffle should taste like.

From HT Brunch, March 26

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The woman sitting across from me wears her celebrity lightly. Shes open and friendly and perhaps the warmest person I know. And yet, many in the film fraternity harbour the misconception that she is distant, even snooty. And as I meet the pretty Gauri Khan at my new office in Andheri, Mumbai, I realise to my horror that I had made the same mistake when I first met her...

Flashback to 1994, when we were shooting Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge in Switzerland. Gauri was there with a friend, and Shah Rukh (Khan) introduced us. I thought both she and her friend were very aloof. Then, just because I could speak French, Shah Rukh appointed me as the person to take them around for a day in Rougemont in the French part of Switzerland. Gauri obviously didnt believe that somebody from a Hindi film crew was cool enough to speak French, and kind of sniggered at the idea. But things got a bit better once we bought the train tickets and I was able to manoeuvre them through that day. We landed up getting along really well and by the end, I was quite a favourite of hers. In fact, we grew to becoming really close on that trip.

When we came back to Mumbai, she followed up with me and I became her first friend from the industry, an industry that she had otherwise stayed away from because she was wary of the people in it. The Delhi girl who used to dance with Shiamak Davar had thought that film industry people were not her cup of coffee. I kind of broke that mindset for her. In fact, I think that the foundation of my friendship with Gauri lies in the fact that I made her love the people in the movies, people who are actually really great. She grew to realise that, and today, all her strong equations are from within the film fraternity. Ive seen her evolve from being an apparently aloof girl to now actively belonging to her husbands world. Ive seen her rooting for his films and being stressed and jittery pre-release just like any movie industry persons family member would be. But in the last decade, shes also come into her own in a whole new way.

My Name is Khan

It took me an entire month to get Gauri to agree to be on the cover of Vogues second issue in India in January 2008. She didnt see why she should just because she was Shah Rukh Khans (SRK) wife and a mother, however fulfilled she felt in those roles. But today, the self-confessed woman of few words is ready to let the world in, if only for a glimpse into her work life.

With Gauri Khan Designs, her design store in Mumbai, and a flourishing home decor practice having taken off over the last five years, shes comfortable in the place shes in. From never wanting to be on a magazine cover to now doing full interviews. When I avoided interviews, it was mainly because I didnt want to speak only about my personal life, says Gauri. Today, I have something to share about my life which is connected to my work and Im happy to share my journey.

Gauri is wary of the first lady of Indian cinema tag. Very aware that there could be a perception that SRKs wife is getting all this work because shes SRKs wife. Im sure I will reach a position in my life where people will understand its not about being Mrs Shah Rukh Khan, but about the work I do. It may take a few years but Im ready to wait. I want people to know we mean business.

She means business

The consummate professional dreams big. In 2017, she plans to expand from her 1,000 sq ft store in Raghuvanshi Mills, Lower Parel, and unveil what will be the flagship property of her brand. Shah Rukh was driving one night and he spotted this property in Juhu and said, Im going to get this place for you. I would, of course, like to grow with time and make sure that my business is doing the kind of numbers to warrant moving into a larger space. And I think we managed pretty well in the last three years. On my own, I would not have been able to decide to expand so quickly. Shah Rukh helped me make that decision.

She then divulges something even I didnt know! Shah Rukh himself, if he wasnt an actor, would probably have liked to become an architect or interior designer, says Gauri. Hes totally into buying property, building and decorating very passionate about it. I have no doubt that if he was given any space, especially an office, he would make the swankiest one ever, much better than I ever could! Unfortunately, he doesnt have the time to do this, but he does have the vision.

The mega project in Juhu promises to be an address known to all for luxury and design. I ask Gauri how she envisages using it. Over the years, Ive experienced a huge vacuum in the design industry in our country, especially when it comes to world-class furniture and accessories. I hope to fill that void. There will be two parts to the new store. One part will have Gauri Khan Designs, which will all be made in India products  furniture, accessories, lamps, rugs, etc. Our country is very rich in heritage and handcrafted objects. The craftsmen in India are fantastic and I want to showcase their talents. For the other half of the store, after evaluating the business, we thought that Roberto Cavalli Homes would be a great brand to associate with. So that will be exciting for our clients. We are in talks with two other brands as well. Im personally designing the store to present all these brands perfectly.

Actor Ranbir Kapoor, whose house Gauri is doing up, says, Gauri is the guru of style. Ive never worked with someone so aesthetically driven, so professional and so absolutely on the ball about everything. When I remind her of this, Gauri says, Since you brought up Ranbirs name, I have to say that getting to do his home as a turnkey project, both architecturally as well as on the interiors, is a game changer for Red architects and myself.

Constructive creativity

That quiet confidence stems from her knowing that her natural sense of style and aesthetics is being appreciated. But people have been recognising her eye for design for a long time. Even 15 years ago, our friend Kaajal Anand asked her to collaborate on a luxury interiors store called Yantra in Mumbai, along with Avanti and Yash Birla. But Gauri didnt feel ready for it then.

It was only when the Khans started building Mannat that she recognised her true potential. The project  yes, I call it that even though its my own house!  took us about five years, as we had issues with permissions and paperwork, says Gauri. We were working with Red architects Kaif and his assistant Jyoti. I realised I enjoyed every part of working on the house, whether it was doing the furniture or wall textures or space planning and layouts I got fully involved with it and learned a lot from them. I even tried to get into the technical part of it, learned whatever I could when they came on site visits, from the civil work to electricals to air-conditioning. When I travelled, everything about my travel somehow got connected to my home. I took pictures. I enjoyed the whole process.

When she finally opened the doors of the finished and fabulous Mannat to family and friends, the rave reviews made her think about considering this her calling. Everybody reacted to my aesthetic (not to take the credit away from Kaif), the style and also the scale of the house, which you dont find in Mumbai. They also loved how I had treated it architecturally, a heritage property with high ceilings. It all just came together, she recalls with satisfaction. Which is why she was amenable to the idea of showcasing her design sense at her friend Sussanne Khans The Charcoal Project. Gauri explains, Interior design wasnt something I rushed into. It has taken me a long time to realise, five years with Mannat and five years in the business.

The complete woman

Its also a platform for her to express herself, I surmise. Shes expressing much more emotion through this work than she ever has. Only her nearest and dearest are usually privy to such expression. Shes introverted and takes a while to open up. But when she does, she is full of love and has all the warmth in the world to give.

Shah Rukh Khan with his children Aryan and Suhana; (inset) AbRam

Gauri has been a constant mother figure to the three kids  Aryan (18), Suhana (16) and AbRam (3)  and even to Shah Rukh at times. She has a very strong maternal instinct. Her family has always been her biggest motivation: their happiness, their success, their evolution as people. Over the years Ive known her, Ive seen her evolve beautifully from the young wife who wore the hippest clothes and partied with Shah Rukh, to being a responsible, 24/7 mother. The kids are hugely dependent on her: shes provided security, sensibility, and sensitivity, and continues to be the Rock of Gibraltar in that house, as well as its heartbeat.

To me, shes a solid friend. She has been there for me whenever Ive been in an emotional crisis. I have always had sibling love for her and I feel shes family in many ways. Her most enduring and endearing quality is that she is free of drama. She has a great tendency to do everything, not letting people realise that shes doing so much. When she did up her entire house, I didnt even know it was happening. Raising her kids has happened seamlessly. Her decision to educate Aryan and Suhana out of the country, that decision, the paperwork, everything, happened without any fuss. She deals with salacious rumours about Shah Rukh in the same way, with her innate strength.

She is there for us quietly, seamlessly and without burdening anyone with her presence by making them feel obligated to her. She sometimes may not have the words to say it, sometimes may not have the actions to prove it, but her presence has always been spectacularly soothing in every dramatic or crisis-laden situation in my life. Every time my mothers been in and out of the hospital with major back and spinal injuries, whether it was the morning, afternoon or evening, Gauri was there. I would ask her, Why are you still herego home! and she would say, What am I doing? I just want to be here. That quiet strength is what defines her.

But by no means is she dull. In fact, shes hysterically funny. The analogies that she draws in situations, the way she words certain things, shes very funny. Her true personality is something only her inner circle and her closest people know. Her children are always laughing at the things she says and Shah Rukh always finds her hysterical.

As we crack up once again after one of our usual analysis of someone we know, I marvel at how spot on she is in her observations. She has a certain way of putting things in perspective that no one else I know does. When I ask her the last question on my list, the touchy topic of being a star wife, Gauri comes into her own. She emphasises, The term just drives me nuts. It sounds very strange to me. If only people can treat me as a normal human being, take me as a woman of today instead of tagging me as a star wife. Im not pitching myself with anybody and nor am I overly ambitious. All I need is to wake up in the morning, go to the gym, feel healthy, get to work, be creative, come back home to the kids. I want to do very good work. I may not become a world-renowned designer as I havent started in my 20s. But its never too late to do anything in life and when I design a space, I want it to be the best home or office theyve seen. When people walk into my new store, they have to say its the best store theyve seen. Whatever I touch has to turn to gold or look good. I have a goal, something to look forward to. Its fulfilling and I feel like a complete woman today.

Karan Johar is an Indian film director, producer, writer, screenwriter, actor and television personality. An Unsuitable Boy, his recently released autobiography, was co-authored by former Brunch editor Poonam Saxena. Offering a rare peek into his journey so far, the book created quite a stir and topped bestseller lists.

From HT Brunch, March 26, 2017

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There was a bit of a ruckus in the art world last September, when the Yinchuan Biennale opened in China. The government had withdrawn the work of Ai Weiwei, one of the countrys top artists and an activist, for political reasons. In solidarity, artist and architect Anish Kapoor, who had also been invited to exhibit there, decided to boycott the biennale.

For artist Bose Krishnamachari, the curator of Yinchuans first ever biennale, it was a tense situation. Without both Weiwei and Kapoor, the contemporary art extravaganza would be roiled in politics right from the start.

So Krishnamachari did what he had to do. He convinced Kapoor to drop the politics for that moment. Though the artist refused to attend the event, he allowed his artwork to be displayed. The Yinchuan Biennale was saved, and its curator Bose Krishnamachari proved once again exactly how powerful he is in the international art world.

Chinese whispers

In his new 5,000 sqft studio in Mumbai  something of a miracle in a city with matchbox-sized apartments  53-year-old Krishnamachari is overseeing renovations that had been interrupted five years ago in 2012, when he founded and curated the first Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

An internationally recognised art event, the 2012 Kochi-Muziris Biennale hosted the works of 89 artists from 23 different countries, and had four lakh visitors.

The second edition in 2014 attracted more than five lakh visitors, as many as the six-month long Venice Biennale does. And the ongoing third edition has had five lakh visitors so far.

It was because of the success and growing reputation of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale that Bose was asked in November 2015 to curate Yinchuans first biennale. And just a short eight months later, the event opened to huge success on September 12, 2016, with the works of 73 artists, including Indias Sudarshan Shetty, Japans Yoko Ono and the UKs Anish Kapoor.

I dont think any other biennale was hosted at such short notice, says Bose. When the Chinese government removed Weiwei, I was upset. And when Anish Kapoor pulled out in solidarity with Weiwei, I was shocked. The host, Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art, had spent a lot to get Kapoors work, and so close to the opening of the event, I had to convince him to stay. So I urged him to think about the efforts the museum was putting in promoting contemporary art in a region where nobody knew what it was. And I told him that such incidents also happen in India.

Though Kapoors eventual agreement to participate in the biennale generated a controversy that still has the art world simmering, the affair showed exactly how much goodwill Krishnamachari has generated over the years  goodwill that allows him to break all barriers, including the financial setbacks he faced while organising the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and the politics that beset the Yinchuan Biennale.

And believe it or not, the foundations of this goodwill were laid in the canteen of Mumbais JJ School of Art where he spent most of his time after arriving from a Kerala village in 1985.

Bose was the highest scorer in 100 years at the JJ School of Art. (Aalok Soni)

Goodwill hunting

Krishnamachari wanted to study art. The admission committee of the JJ School of Art was not certain if he deserved to. Denied admission in his first year in Mumbai, Krishnamachari managed a seat the next year, and proceeded thereafter to spend most of his time in the canteen.

The JJ canteen is in the centre of the huge campus, and it placed Krishamachari right in the centre of Mumbais art scene. He had so much time to spend there simply because he was quick at his work. And good. So good that he was the highest scorer in 100 years of the JJ School of Art.

I learned more in the canteen than I learnt in the classrooms, says Bose. At the canteen, Bose became friends with architects Kapil Gupta, Nuru Karim, poet and cultural theorist Ranjeet Hoskote, artists Atul Dodiya and Laxman Shreshtha.

Bose would visit their homes and discuss art, heritage and creativity. You can create a network only when you are interested in knowing about others and yourself, says Bose. Knowledge is not just information. You cant get that only from books. It has to be experienced.

 Many artists are reluctant to share their gallerists or collectors numbers. Im not. Its important to share. What else are you making art for?

He slept just three hours a night, and was the first person in the canteen every day. At noon, after college, he made sketches of customers at Worlis Mela restaurant till midnight. I did that to survive in Mumbai, says Bose. But it taught me a lot. While interacting with so many arrogant, polite and beautiful people every day, I learnt a lot about human behaviour and to speak in English.

To experience art first-hand, he also helped Shireen Gandhy of Mumbais Chemould Prescott Road gallery hang paintings for exhibitions. I didnt know how to organise an art symposium, but I did it nevertheless with the help of friends. I was hungry for knowledge, says Bose.

Back then, in the 1980s, when think tanks and creative addas were unheard of, Bose invited artists, poets, actors and philosophers to exchange ideas. And his willingness to share his contacts with others expanded his network.

Many artists are reluctant to share their gallerists or collectors numbers. I am not, he says. Most young artists, he claims, could have accessed his telephone diary. Thats how Ive given and gained access. Its important to share. What else are you making art for?

In no time, Bose became one of the most sought-after names in the Indian art world. His artworks raked in lakhs of rupees and he also opened his own art gallery, BMB, in 2008. In 2009, he was invited to curate the India pavilion of the prestigious art fair, ARCOmadrid.

Artists for art

Bose then began work on realising his and the Indian art fraternitys biggest dream  a biennale in India. In India, you find great art, heritage, architecture and artists anywhere you go, says Bose. But we dont have the infrastructure to show our treasures and talents. I think every state should have museums and art institutes. But we dont.

So when Keralas former culture minister MA Baby invited ideas to promote culture and tourism in the state, Bose and Riyas Komu suggested an art biennale.

 Knowledge is not just information. You cant get that only from books. It has to be experienced.

Since then Bose has been emotionally and financially consumed by the event. He chose to close his gallery and almost gave up his personal practice to realise the dream. Its why my studio isnt fully ready as yet, says Bose.

Hosting a biennale in a country where most people dont understand contemporary art, was riddled with difficulties. But Bose and his team didnt give up.

The first roadblock was a shortage of funds after the state government that had promised funds for the biennale went out of power. Bose and other artists put in their personal funds to host the first edition.

There was a time when I paid 3 crore in taxes, highest in the neighbourhood where I live, says Bose. For an artist thats a big amount, but now I hardly have anything left.

That doesnt bother Bose as much as the allegations (that he and others from the organising team had pocketed 5 crore, given as funds by the government). I was shattered, says Bose. We still kept at it and decided to let our work speak for us.

It did. Despite not being able to arrange funds to complete all the 70 projects for the first edition, they started the second. But this came with losses of 6.5 crore. At this time, the entire art fraternity came forward to help, says Bose.

Artists Vivan Sundaram and Jitish Kallat, who was also the curator of the second edition in 2014, put their money in the project. A young artist from Kerala sold his wifes mangalsutra, and many other students, professors and local businessmen contributed as much as possible for the second edition.

Now in its third edition, the biennale seems to have managed well financially. The lack of patronage in art, he says, is the sole reason why many artists are not making it big. Artists like Subodh Gupta and Sudarshan Shetty are first recognised outside the country and then valued here, says Bose. This must change.

Given that Bose Krishnamachari is working on this issue, were sure that change will happen.

From HT Brunch, March 26, 2017

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When PK Mahanandia was born in a remote forest near Athmallik in Orissa, a rainbow appeared in the sky. The village astrologer predicted that he would work with colour when he grows up. After a one-week-old PK survived a cobra attack, the astrologer returned and scribbled the babys future on a palm leaf. It read: He will marry a girl from far, far away, from outside the village, the district, the province, the state and even the country. He also whispered that PK neednt go looking for her, she will come to him.

The astrologers prophecies came true. PK is an artist, and love came to him.

You gotta have faith

I have many questions for PK, but he also has one for me. Are you married? he asks. And when I say no, he says: You dont have to find it. Love will come to you. Just believe in it.

Listening to his story, I cant help but believe in it. PK had every circumstance against him when he was born in 1949, an untouchable and poor. He was made to sit outside the classroom at school, and was pelted with stones if he dared to go near a temple. While pragmatism demanded dismissing the prophecy  after all, how could an untouchable from a remote village find a casteless soul mate like him, let alone a complete foreigner  PK held on and the prophecy became his only hope. I believed in it since the beginning. Theres a perfect plan for everyone. You just have to believe in it and it happens, says PK.

The first photo of PK and Lotta together, taken in New Delhi in 1976

As time passed, PK became an artist in Delhi, and on a winter evening in December 1975, as he took down his paintings from his usual spot in Connaught Place, he laid his eyes on Swedish tourist Charlotte (Lotta) Von Schedvin for the first time. They met a second time. And then a third. I had long, hippie hair at the time, and it was flying though there was no wind, he recalls. I felt weightless. She was staring at me with her big blue eyes and I felt she was taking a photo of my soul.

Lotta belongs to Swedish nobility. In caste-riddled India, PK is on the lowest rung. But their love was strong. Love is the most powerful force on this planet, says PK. We come from love, we are proceeding towards love and must be conscious of that. Its what binds us.

But Lotta had to return to Sweden, and PK? Well, PK decided he would not give her up, so he cycled 7,000 miles to be with her forever.

Such a long journey

PKs life is the subject of Swedish author Per J Anderssons recently released book The Amazing Story of The Man Who Cycled from India to Europe For Love. The book is an English translation of the original Swedish work New Delhi-Boras, published in 2013. In addition, there are rumours that Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Warner Bros are interested in giving a reel spin to his story.

Andersson, who has been writing about India for over three decades, says that he was enthralled by PKs story when he first met him. I had written a lot of stories about India in the Swedish media, and PK contacted me one day, 20 years ago. He was curious to know who the person behind these stories was, with such an interest in his home country. A week after the phone call, the author was on his way to PKs forest home in West Sweden, to interview him. While the resulting story was published in travel magazine Vagabond, which Andersson still edits, it was also the beginning of a long-standing friendship.

Author Per J Andersson; the book cover

The book, an ode to PKs incredible journey over four months (he travelled through Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Austria and Denmark to reach Sweden in May 1977) also captures his personal struggles and the despair he had to overcome in life. While PK managed to get into school, his untouchability meant he was ridiculed all the way through. His misery found temporary respite when he got through an art course at the College of Art in Delhi, and left his village for the Capital. There, sketching portraits for Rs 10, he spent many nights hungry, and slept on railway platforms.

India was a popular stop on the hippie trail in the 1970s, and PK was exposed to many cultures when he met tourists at the India Coffee House. The world was a different place then, and it was a happy time, of freedom, peace and love, says PK, who was recently in New York with his family and Andersson to launch the book at UN Publications on the International Day of Happiness (March 20). Though his talent was recognised, and he was invited to the homes of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, it was only after meeting Lotta that he really saw meaning in his life.

Ignorance is bliss

After Lotta left for Sweden, PK knew he had to follow. Though he didnt even know Sweden was different from Switzerland, he set off on his bicycle from Delhi. I had no knowledge of geography, of how big Europe was, he says. I didnt even know the distance in kilometres. If I had known how far it was, I dont think I would have dared. Its good that I didnt know.

For Andersson, it was a challenge to write a story that wasnt just about the pursuit of romance. It wasnt just a romantic story, but also about the underlying psychological levels... someone who had to fight against so many obstacles. His story makes you believe that the world, despite its flaws and injustices, is a beautiful place. And that almost anything is possible if, like PK, you love the people who surround you and have respect and empathy even for your enemies.

PK and Lotta with their kids, Emelie and Karl-Siddharta

In Sweden, PK established a life with Lotta, teaching art and even yoga. Back home, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Utkal University of Culture in Bhubaneshwar. Today, the couple runs a number of programmes, one of which sees 25,000 tribal children in high school. Its a strange sort of redemption for the man who was once stoned and kicked into the dirt. I used those stones as stepping stones, and built my home with them. And my home is very strong now, he says.

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From HT Brunch, March 26, 2017

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Commerce and Industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said Amercian phone-maker Apples demand for tax incentives to set up a manufacturing unit in the country will have be looked at after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is rolled out.

GST will be coming soon. So, tax-related incentives demanded by Apple will have to be looked from a different angle, Sitharaman told PTI on the sidelines of Chemexcil function here.

The government has not accepted most of the demands of the iPhone maker, she added.

Apple plans to set up a manufacturing unit in Bengaluru this year, where it will assemble its products, probably only iPhone 6 and 6s models, according to reports in a section of the media.

The American tech giant has sought various concessions on taxation and import of components for setting up the unit. The Cupertino-based technology giant currently manufactures in China and Brazil.

Apart from tax sops, Apple also wants relaxation in the mandated 30% local sourcing of components. Earlier reports had said the company would be importing all its components on the grounds that it is bringing in cutting-edge technology to the country.

Apple also wants to open a fully-owned retail outlets in the country.

In January, Apple had indicated to the government that it was ready with a blueprint to begin manufacturing iPhones, but wants fiscal concessions, including Customs duty waiver on imported components.
Sebi banned Reliance Industries and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year and directed the Mukesh Ambani-led firm to return nearly Rs 1,000 crore for unlawful gains made through alleged fraudulent trading in a nearly 10-year-old case.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said it will challenge the order before the Securities Appellate Tribunal and termed Sebi directions as unjustifiable sanctions.

After finding that RIL made unlawful gains, Sebi has asked the company to disgorge Rs 447 crore, along with an annual interest of 12% since November 29, 2007, which itself would be more than Rs 500 crore, taking the total disgorgement amount to nearly Rs 1,000 crore.

The case relates to alleged fraudulent trading in the futures and options (F&O) space in the securities of RILs erstwhile listed subsidiary Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL).

In a 54-page order passed by Whole-Time Member G Mahalingam, RIL and 12 other entities have been prohibited from dealing in the equity derivatives in the F&O segment of stock exchanges, directly or indirectly.

The ban will be in place for one year from today.

The 12 other entities are Gujarat Petcoke and Petro Product supply, Aarthik Commercials, LPG Infrastructure India, Relpol Plastic Products, Fine Tech Commercials, Pipeline Infrastructure India, Motech software, Darshan Securities, Relogistics (India), Relogistics (Rajasthan), Vinamara Universal Traders and Dharti Investment and Holdings.

Reliance Industries has been directed to disgorge the amount, along with interest within 45 days.

Mahalingam said the directions are being passed after taking into consideration the magnitude of the fraud across the markets.

I am inclined to pass certain directions against the noticees in order to protect the interest of the investors and reinstil their faith in the regulatory system, the order said. The noticees may, however, square off or close out their existing open positions.

In the statement, Reliance Industries said it is in the process of consulting its legal advisors.

We propose to prefer an appeal and challenge the order in the Securities Appellate Tribunal. We remain confident of fully justifying the veracity of the transactions and vindicating our stand, the company said.

The Reliance Industries group had earlier sought settling the case, but Sebi had refused. The proceedings in the long-pending case were expedited in the past few months.

RPL has been merged with the listed parent firm.

As per the Sebi order, RIL by employing 12 agents to take separate position limits of open interest on its behalf by executing separate agreements with each one of them and cornering 93.63% of the November futures of RPL, acted in a fraudulent manner.

Furthermore, Sebi said RIL manipulated the F&O segment through 12 of its agents and allowed them to hold the contracts till the last day of expiry.

Thereafter by closing out the derivative contracts on November 29, 2007, RIL has engaged in a pre-planned fraudulent practice and the same cannot be held to be a mere breach of position limits by the clients attracting penalty under the exchange circulars, the order noted.

On the basis of an analysis of the trading strategy and pattern adopted by RIL in the cash market during November 2007 and specifically on November 29, it was found that there has been a manipulation of the last half an hour settlement price, Sebi said.

November 29 was the expiry day of the November futures of RPL.

Mahalingam also said RIL made unlawful gains to the extent of Rs 513 crore.

In March 2007, RILs board of directors decided to raise resources by offloading its 5 per cent stake in Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL).

Between November 1-6, 2007, the notices took substantial positions in the November futures contract of RPL. As a result, the holding in derivatives contracts of RPL reached 95% of the market-wide position limit. Following an investigation into the matter, Sebi later issued showcause notices.
Amid the raging Stayzilla controversy, Karnataka information technology minister Priyank Kharge on Saturday said no industry, including startups and vendors, are above law and should function within the parameters and anybody raising money should pay up.

Yogendra Vasupal, co-founder of Stayzilla, was arrested on March 14 for alleged cheating and criminal intimidation.

Stayzilla controversy has been blown out of proportion. However, the advise I would give in this whole episode is that there are rules and regulations for everyone - whether it is for SMEs, startups or big corporations.

If you have raised or taken money, you have to pay up. You cannot say I will not pay, he told PTI.

Asked whether advertising firm Jigsaw alone should be blamed for the entire Stayzilla episode, as alleged by Vasupal, Kharge said he would not take sides.

As I am a part of the government, I have to support entrepreneurs in all fields and hence I cannot take either the side of Stayzilla or Jigsaw.

Jigsaw had alleged Stayzilla had defrauded it to the tune of about Rs 1.68 crore for services it rendered since last year.

On March 15, the minister had earlier tweeted: Spoke to Dr Manikandan, IT minister for his intervention in @stayzilla case. I am sure he will help if @YogiVaspal is on right side of law.

The minister had sounded supporting Stayzillas Vasupal and ignoring Jigsaws Aditya CS. When asked if his comment was too early, Kharge said he stood by what he had commented and clarified he had not endorsed Vasupal, but tried helping him, provided he was on the right side of the law.

He said there was no question of giving one-sided support to either the startup community or vendors.

If some body does, it is like endorsing Vijay Mallya who has left the Indian shores as a defaulter, he said.

If you owe somebody money or theres a violation of rules I cannot say - if he or she is running a startup, therefore please let him free. Can we endorse Vijay Mallya? he asked.

If he or she is on the right path, as a custodian of the eco-system, I have to ensure they get justice, he added.

Kharge also disagreed with the startup is in danger slogan raised by the industry during the entire Stayzilla episode. ... Can it be? Innovation cannot be suppressed. Startup is all about innovation and ideations. You are saying that because of Stayzilla incident 7,000 odd startups will shut shop? Not a single will close,he said.

To a query, he refused to endorse the notion that the start up bubble would burst. On the contrary it is a cyclic rise and fall of businesses in any sector, he said.

Valuation is a flawed business model if you ask me.This discount-based model adopted by some e-commerce giants is basically to get as many people addicted to you. They are formulae to woo customers by offering discounts, he said.
Haldwani : The forest department on Saturday suspended three senior officers, after an operation went horribly wrong during which the mining mafia mowed down a beat watcher near the banks of Kosi in Ramnagar.

In another incident on Friday, the Barhaini range near Kaladhungi saw confrontation between mining mafia and forest officials near Baur river. A forest team led by Barhaini beat officer Mayank Kumar was fired upon by mining mafia, prompting the team to retaliate. This was the nineteenth instance of attack on forest employees by the quarrying mafia in last six years.

The brazen killing is the first major test for the new Trivendra Singh Rawat-led BJP government. The opposition Congress was quick to latch on the episode, alleging that a BJP minister was hand in glove with the mining mafia.

Rawat condemned the incident and directed the police to take the necessary measures in order to bring the mining mafia to justice. He announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh for the bereaved family.

Pehelwan Singh, 47, from Bannakheda, Bajpur was crushed to death by a tractor trolley on Friday night at Jwala forest range when he along with a team of nearly 24 personnel was chasing the vehicles laden with riverbed material on Friday late evening. The deceased has seven children.

The illegal miners had come prepared as it reportedly held a dozen foresters captive inside the dense forest. But they beat a hasty retreat when they realised a police team was on its way to the spot. The police said that the tractor trolley has been identified and the driver Jaswant was arrested late Saturday evening.

After a directive by the chief minister, forest minister Harak Singh Rawat ordered the removal of divisional forest officer (Terai East) Kahkashan Nasim, sub-divisional officer Balwant Shahi and ranger Shekhar Tiwari. The order for their removal has been issued and officials will be attached to the forest headquarters in Dehradun till investigation is over, Rawat told Hindustan Times.

SSP, Nainital, Janmejay Khanduri said the tractor trolley driver Jaswant was arrested and questioning was on. There had been reports of illegal quarrying on Baur, Kosi and Dabka rivers and action would be taken against such acts, he added.

The opposition Congress attacked the government for patronizing the mining mafia. There is difference in BJPs working and words. The incident has come to the fore within few days of BJP assuming power. We know that one of the ministers in the Trivendra Singh Rawat Cabinet from Udhamsingh Nagar is a part of mining mafia and BJP is giving shelter to him, PCC president Kishore Upadhyay alleged.

In another important decision, police circle officer Mithilesh Kumar was transferred to Chamoli district for failure to stop illegal mining.

On Saturday, SSP, Udham Singh Nagar, Sadanand Date conducted raids in Sultan Patti against those involved in illegal quarrying and seized nine tractor trolleys laden with riverbed material. Date suspended 11 police personnel of Sultanpur Patti for dereliction of duty. A drive has been launched against illegal quarrying and action would continue in days to come, the SSP said.
BJP leader and Lok Sabha MP from west Delhi, Parvesh Verma, on Saturday endorsed the idea of setting up of anti-Romeo squads in Delhi on lines of the ones in Uttar Pradesh.

Verma demanded that there should be similar teams in the national capital as women were harassed at night and felt insecure. The anti-Romeo squads of Uttar Pradesh have been criticised and accused of moral policing.

Verma, son of former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, was speaking at BJPs Panch Parmeshwar Sammelan (booth level workers meet) at Ramlila Maidan on Saturday.

Following reports of harassment of couples by squads in UP, chief minister Adityanath Yogi had directed the principal secretary (home) to prepare detailed guidelines to ensure that the police did not act against boys and girls hanging out together with consent.

UP CM @myogiadityanath is doing exemplary work, cow slaughtering units are locked in UP, eveteasers hiding at home:@p_sahibsingh @htTweets  Parvez Sultan (@theparvezsultan) March 25, 2017

The chief minister of UP Adityanath Yogi is doing exemplary work. It has been only a week, but factories where cow slaughtering was done have been locked. Boys, who would harass girls, are sitting at homes, Verma claimed.

Rooting for the formation of anti-Romeo cells in Delhi, he said such squads had become imperative for the safety and security of women. These boys roam around girls schools and colleges. Our (BJPs) district and block level women workers should help police so that anti -Romeo cells can be formed here. Whenever our women  daughters and sisters  venture out at night, they should feel safe, he said.

Former police commissioner Ajai Raj Sharma, however, said that these days the word Romeo was often confused with couples.

Dont confuse the word Romeo for couples. A squad for crackdown on eve teasers, who are Romeos, is required in Delhi. But at the same time, couples who go out with mutual consent should not be bothered. To enforce this, police need to be trained. They need to be told that the purpose was to carry out surprise checks at spots where such harassers often loiter. Sensitisation of the police is absolutely important so that the purpose is not defeated, former Delhi Police commissioner Sharma said.

The Delhi police said they have several schemes under which police act against eve teasers. Policemen in plain clothes are posted at universities and outside women colleges as decoys to act against such Romeos. Outside paying guest accommodations, our women officers patrol the roads and ensure that there are no eve teasers, said an officer.
A massive fire broke out at the Narela industrial area in outer Delhi on Saturday, killing one and leaving another injured.

At around 12.20 am, the fire control received information about the fire in a plastic factory at G block of the DSIDC industrial area in Narela.

According to the fire department, initially only seven fire tenders were sent to the spot. As the fire spread, another23 fire tenders were rushed to the spot. It took the fire fighters at least three hours to douse the flames, a fire official said.

Two men who were employees at the factory were trapped inside. While one died on the spot, the other is recuperating at the hospital. We found the charred body around 4 am. The man was later identified as Bablu who worked at the factory. Another man, Anil Dubey, who worked as a guard was also found unconscious. He was immediately rushed to the hospital and is now stable, a senior officer said.

The fire was brought under control and the cooling operation went on for the next three hours. We will probe the cause of fire, said a police officer.

Though the cause of fire is still unknown, police suspects that a cylinder blast triggered it. A case of negligence has been registered in the matter and an inquiry has been initiated.

Eyewitnesses that include other workers of the factory have told the police that Dubey was the first one to notice the smoke. Eyewitnesses said that it was Dubey who alerted the workers inside about the fire and instead of running away, he went inside to evacuate people and in the process he sustained severe burn wounds, a police officer said. We will send a notice to the factorys owner asking him to join the investigation, he added.

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Sounding the bugle ahead of the municipal polls in Delhi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Saturday hit out at Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, alleging that the two- and-half-years of his government in power in Delhi has been riddled with corruption.

Comparing the tenure of the BJP government at the Centre, Shah said that even after being in power for almost three years, the Opposition couldnt trade any corruption charges against it.

When the AAP came to power, the people of Delhi felt that it will deliver good governance. However, in a short span of time, it has indulged in corruption like no other party has. The governments principal secretary (Rajendra Kumar) was arrested by the CBI on corruption charges. There was a scam in onion purchase, appointments in Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), water tanker procurement and street lights. One of the AAP ministers was involved in the Hawala case. Another minister is involved in land scam, Shah said while addressing a rally of booth level workers at Ramlila Maidan to motivate them before the civic polls.

The rally was attended by six Lok Sabha MPs of Delhi including BJP state unit chief Manoj Tiwari, Union ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Sanjeev Balyan and Vijay Goel. Saturdays rally also marked the partys formal launch of campaign for the April 23 municipal elections.

Barely a week after a new government being sworn-in in Uttar Pradesh, Kejriwal is seeking its performance report. Dont worry, BJP will fulfil all its promises. And, we will not ask for your performance report because it is expected from responsible people. Thirteen of your MLAs are facing criminal cases. How do you explain that? Before the municipal election campaign, you (Kejriwal) should order a magisterial enquiry to look into corruption charges against your MLAs, the BJP chief said.

Shah asked the people to dislodge AAP government in the next (assembly) elections. MCD election will work for laying the foundation for assembly elections. To ensure development, there should be a government, which is not indulged in fighting with the Centre. MCDs should work in coordination with the centre and state government for the growth, he said.

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The temperature outside is unusually hot for a March afternoon in Delhi but Balwan Singh, a gold medalist para-athlete, is waiting in the queue determined to submit his resume.

Singh,36, is not alone. A dhaba owner, a Delhi university student and a fashion designer are among the thousands aspiring to get a BJP ticket to contest the municipal elections on April 23.

The Bharatiya Janata Partys decision to not field sitting councillor or their relatives this time has given hope to first-timers, amateur politicians and those who want to join politics. The party has received over 33,000 applications for 272 seats --- 121 for each.

The party had set March 20 as the last date for receiving ticket applications but the queues havent abated. A Delhi BJP spokesperson said they are accepting applications past the last date of submission.

With a seven-page resume, including news clippings about his victories  Singh wants to personally hand over the resume to Delhi BJP chief, actor-turned-politician, Manoj Tiwari.

Apart from being an athlete, I am also a social worker. Prime Minister Narendra Modis meeting with para-olympic athletes encouraged disabled people like me. Now, because the party has decided not to give tickets to sitting councillors, I think it is an opportunity for people like me, said Singh, who won the Gold medal in 2006 and 2010 Asian Para games.

Tribhuvan Nath Chaubey,47, runs a paratha stall in Satya Niketan. He says he has been a BJP foot soldier since childhood. I had not got a chance to contest elections. I am a BA (Hons) graduate too. I am 47 but to date I had not got a chance. Now, with Amit Shahji giving us the opportunity, I will contest and win the elections.

Almost everyone in the queue has a neat resume, in crisp A4 size sheets, with the BJPs symbol  a lotus  printed prominently on every page. It is to impress the bosses, a woman says.

iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0tAeUcPIGOo?ecver=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

One of the youngest faces in the queue is Abhishek, 22. I am a second-year law student and an ABVP member. The party has promised to empower the youth, so here I am competing with all the experienced candidates. Its a tough fight.

Nidhi Malhotra, a Kalkaji resident is a fashion designer. A first timer, who has not contested any election till date, she said, The experienced candidates never gave us a chance. But now we see some hope of getting into politics and serving the country.

One of the oldest persons waiting in the sweltering heat is Indira Bhardwaj,59, who says she has been a party member since 1987. Bhardwaj is unsure but is hopeful, 2017 is her year.

Previously, the wives and relatives of councillors got tickets but the rule has changed. I have served the party for over 30 years now. If I dont get a chance this time, I know I will never get it, Bhardwaj.

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The 17-year-old boy, who crushed management student Siddharth Sharma on April 4 in 2016 under the wheels of his Mercedes car, was allowed to drive without a licence for three years by his parents, reads the chargesheet police filed on Saturday.

Police said that the teenager, who was four days short of turning 18 on the day of the accident, was given the keys of luxury cars, including Porsche, Mercedes and Honda City, and allowed to drive around Delhi by his parents, noted the 23-page chargesheet filed against the teenagers parents and family driver in connection with the hit-and-run case which killed 32-year-old Sharma in north Delhis Civil Lines in April last year.

In a first, police chargesheeted the parents because they did not stop their child from driving the vehicle. The boy had been driving since the last three years without a licence and had violated traffic rules. He had been challaned twice for speeding and once for driving without a seat belt.

The Mercedes, which crushed management student Siddharth Sharma to death, is jointly registered in the name of his parents. The father and mother are equally responsible for allowing the boy to take the car. So we have made them accused in the case, said a police official privy to the investigation.

On Saturday, a Delhi court listed the case for further consideration on April 27.

The chargesheet, filed in the court of metropolitan magistrate Shefali Tandon Barnala, mentioned that call detail records (CDR) of the teenager and his father were examined and it was found that the boy had spoken to his father at the time of the incident. Also, the father had paid Rs 50,000 in a hospital to admit Sharma, while the police were trying to trace him.

The father has been made an accused for concealing information and misguiding the course of investigation. Along with the parents, the family driver is also an accused for making contradictory statements in the court, reads the chargesheet.

The investigation officer said that the father, who runs a business of wedding cards, had tried to change the line of investigation by convincing the driver to give a false statement to police to save his son.

Initially, the driver had said that he was the one who was driving the Mercedes at the time of the incident. But he later got scared by the wide media coverage and death of the victim and admitted that he was not driving the vehicle. This was supported by the eyewitnesses, the chargesheet said.

The parents and the driver have been made accused under sections 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 203 (giving false information) and 109 (Punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence) of the IPC and section 5/180 of motor vehicles act.

The teenager was initially apprehended and charged under lenient sections of causing death due to negligence and let off on bail, triggering massive protests in the city. Delhi Police later apprehended him again and charged him for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. He was granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board later.

The CCTV footage of the accident shows Sharma crossing the road and being flung at least 15 metres in the air after being hit by the speeding Mercedes.

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The Delhi police went into a tizzy on Saturday after receiving an alert about three alleged terrorists planning serial blasts, who were to sneak into Delhi from UP in vehicles full of explosives.

Special teams were deployed on borders for checks,a bomb disposal squad was kept on standby and all vehicles were stopped for a thorough check.

Though the information was declared a hoax, the police during the checks stumbled upon R 1.25 crore that was being transported in three different cars from UP to Delhi.

A picket near Machli farm in Seelampur was set up after the police received information about terrorists trying to sneak into Delhi through UP. Each vehicle was stopped and checked. In the last 12 hours, we recovered R 1,25,30,000 in new currency from three cars, joint commissioner of police, eastern range, Ravindra Yadav said.

First a Hyundai Creta car carrying nearly R 50 lakh was intercepted and two persons, Jasmeet Singh and Gurmeg, were detained. Our staff stopped another vehicle and found nearly R 25 lakh and the driver, Pankaj, was detained. The third car stopped a few hours later was carrying R 50 lakh and one Arun was detained, he said.

All notes were new currency notes in the denomination of Rs 500 , 2000 and 100, he added.

Because the model code of conduct is in enforce in Delhi for the MCD elections, police have informed the income tax department, the SDM and the district magistrate about the seizure. Though the police suspect the money may be for the elections, the source is still unknown.

Our staff intercepted the money and detained the persons carrying the currency for questioning since the model code of conduct is in place. We have informed the returning officer of the area and the I-T department. The I-T department has seized the money along with three signed chequebooks and one mobile phone, Yadav said.
For Uday Kotak, executive vice chairman and managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, the attributes of a successful leader can easily be listed under one head: The 5Cs  character, conviction, commitment, creativity and capability.

In his address as chief guest at the 42nd annual convocation of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), held recently, Kotak said his company would not be what it is today if we did not think differently. As you move out of your cocoon, you will need to find creative solutions - dare to be different, test yourself, be ready to encounter challenges and also for failure, learn from your mistakes, and know that committed execution is the key to capability.

IIMBs Board of Governors, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, in her convocation address highlighted Kotaks achievements which made him one of a rare breed of first-generation entrepreneurs in India who have created world-class enterprises with very frugal resources. A 26-year-old who founded Kotak Capital Management Finance Ltd., in 1985, in pre-liberalisation India with its archaic and draconian policies, Uday had systematically built (the company) into a financial behemoth, Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd, Shaw, the chairman and managing director of biopharmaceutical firm Biocon Limited, said.

Under his watch, Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd had become Indias first non-banking financial company to be converted into a bank and today Kotak Mahindra Group is recognised as one of the topmost employers in India and Kotak Mahindra Bank as one of the most efficient and high-performing banks in the country, Shaw said. Besides this he had strongly focused on community development and inclusive growth  evident in the groups initiatives to offer low-cost services to rural customers and its welfare programmes. He has also set up the Kotak Education Foundation, which addresses the educational needs of underprivileged children. Such initiatives are saluted by IIM Bangalore, an institute that is dedicated to social impact and nation-building activities, Shaw added.

Kotak, who is the sole Indian financier to feature in Money Masters and has been amongst Forbes magazines Most Powerful People in The Financial World (May 2016), concluded his speech with more wisdom. You have huge opportunities, he told the graduates. However, you will face tough and challenging times as well. You have to be bold but keep your values intact. You need to be resilient, and stand up for defending what you believe in.

Special moment: Everyones ready for the convocation (Handout)

About 598 students graduated this week at IIMB, 20 from the fellow programme in management (FPM), 18 from the post graduate programme in public policy and management (PGPPM), 75 from the post graduate programme in enterprise management (PGPEM), four from the post graduate programme in software enterprise management (PGSEM), 70 from the one-year full-time executive post graduate programme in management (EPGP) and 411 from the two-year full-time post graduate programme in management (PGP).

Gold medallists: (L-R) Vaibhav Gupta (PGP), Dharmendra Hiranandani (PGP), Udit Jalan (PGP), Shishank Gupta (PGPEM), Pranav Kumar Mallick (PGPPM), Suresh Ganesan (PGPEM), Nikhil Goyal (EPGP), and Kushal Nitin Dalal (EPGP). (Handout)

Professor G Raghuram, director, IIMB, shared the successes and achievements of the students. Wishing the graduating students success, he lauded them for being committed, active, and energetic. Please put your all into serving the nation for its development agenda and to making the world a better place for humanity. As you move on to become alumni of this wonderful institution, I hope you will continue to cherish the eternal bond and remain connected with us. Go dream and pursue your passion with gusto, he said.

Apart from faculty members awarded as distinguished alumnus/alumna from their own schools Raghuram highlighted the contributions made by IIMB faculty in publishing in A category journals and said that it was a matter of great pride and visibility for the institution.

Achievers all:First tow: (L-R) Shishank Gupta (PGPEM) gold medallist - I Rank, Nikhil Goyal (EPGP) gold medallist - I Rank, and Pranav Kumar Mallick (PGPPM) gold medallist - best academic performance. Second Row: (L-R) Udit Jalan (PGP) gold medallist - first rank, Kushal Nitin Dalal (EPGP) gold medallist - best all round performance, and Vaibhav Gupta (PGP) gold medallist - best all round performance. Last row: Suresh Ganesan (PGPEM) gold medallist - best all round performance, and Dharmendra Hiranandani (PGP) gold medallist  second rank. (Handout)

In a special mention of the 20 graduating FPM students Prof Raghuram said, It gives me great pride to report that among the 20 of you, there are 17 peer review publications, including five in top-tier journals. Out of the known 13 placements, 10 are joining academic institutions of which six are in other IIMs, a matter of great satisfaction for us.

Among the graduating students this year, eight have been awarded gold medals. In PGP (Batch 2015-17), Udit Jalan, Dharmendra Hiranandani and Vaibhav Gupta received the gold medals for first rank, second rank and best all round performance, respectively.

In PGPPM (Batch 2016-17), Pranav Kumar Mallick won the gold medal for best academic performance.

From PGPEM (Batch 2015-17), the gold medal for first rank and for best all round performance went to Shishank Gupta and Suresh Ganesan, respectively.

In EPGP (2016-17), Nikhil Goyal won the gold medal for first rank, while Kushal Nitin Dalal won it for best all round performance.
The Anarchist is coming!

Jake Gyllenhaal is all set to star in a drama about an American who joins the fight against Islamic state in Syria, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Gyllenhaal will be re-teaming with Life director Daniel Espinosa for this project, which is an adaptation of the Rolling Stone article, The Anarchist vs ISIS.

Espinosa is set to direct the film adaptation and will produce under his newly formed production banner BOZI alongside Ninestories producers Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker. Thematically, were often attracted to material about the search for identity, especially in a world where its become easier to feel less and less connected. Seths story is about people who abandon everything thats familiar as a means to connect in the most brutal of circumstances, said Marker in a statement.

Written by Seth Harp, the Rolling Stone article tells the true story of a ragtag team of American volunteers, socialists and outcasts who are fighting alongside the Kurdish militia known as the YPG to beat ISIS in Syria and establish an anarchist collective amid the rubble of war.

On a related note, Jake Gyllenhaal can be currently seen in Life, alongside Ryan Reynolds and Rebeacca Fergusson.
Twenty vultures were found dead in Assams Lakhimpur district on Saturday after they fed on cattle carcasses that contained high level of antibiotics .

Forest officials in the district said residents of Akhoiphutia village near Dhokuakhana reported sighting about 60 vultures, some appearing lifeless, on the bank of a river.

Forest officials found 20 dead vultures while 52 were still alive. After treatment, 45 were able to fly away while the remaining were not fit enough, districts additional deputy commissioner DK Bora said.

Veterinarians said feeding on cattle carcasses near Akhoiphutia village killed the vultures. Cattle in the area had been vaccinated in the area following an outbreak of a bovine disease.

The carcasses had high dosages of antibiotics, a veterinarian said.

In 2015, feeding on carcasses containing veterinary drugs had killed 28 vultures in the area.

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A benevolent face of Muslims that is opposed to Islamist terrorism could emerge from India, a senior functionary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) said on Friday.

Alok Kumar, head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs Delhi unit, dismissed fears that the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the expansion of the Sangh in the country did not bode well for the minority community.

He said the RSS, the ruling BJPs ideological parent, was with the nationalist Muslims in India.

In what appears to be an attempt by the Sangh to reach out to the minority community, Kumar said there was a possibility that the Indian Muslims could be the benevolent face of Islams universal brotherhood against terror.

Addressing mediapersons at a press conference, Kumar credited the coexistence of Hindus and Muslims in India for the minority communitys disinclination towards fundamentalism.

He said there was a growing unease among Muslims in India about terror attacks, the rise of the orthodox Wahabis and the targeting of Sufi sects.

Kumar referred to the February terror attack at the Sufi shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Pakistans Sindh province by Islamic State that left over 75 people dead, as an example of growing fanaticism.

After the blast, we went to the shrine of Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki (a Sufi saint whose shrine is in Delhis Mehrauli) to express our condolences. During our discussion with the people there, we realised there is a lot of unrest among the Muslims over the attacks, Kumar said.

Reaching out

Accused of pursuing anti-minority politics, the Sangh appeared to be making overtures towards the Muslims, especially the Sufi sect.

Its Muslim Rashtriya Manch has been working with the community to build bridges and has off late been pushing for an end to the practice of triple talaq and implementation of the common civil code.

In India, there are many inter-religious influences that can be seen at the dargahs. They offer the chadar, but also offer prasad, they sing qawalisall of which are dismissed as idol worship by the Wahabis, he said.

On the issue of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, which has been a cause of friction between the Hindus and Muslims for decades, he said the RSS will go with the decision taken by the Dharam Sansad.

Ram Mandir issue is not an RSS movement. It is led by the saints, he said.

The Dharma Sansad or religious parliament was organised by former VHP chief Ashok Singhal with religious men and pontiffs, to address issues pertaining to the majority community.

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The Patna high court has asked the AIIMSPatna administration and the Union health ministry to respond to a petition seeking round-the-clock emergency service, blood bank and other necessary infrastructure for treatment of patients at health facility.

A division bench of chief justice Rajendra Menon and justice Sudhir Singh sought the replies by the next date of hearing, which it fixed after two weeks.

Petitioner Devika Biswas had said that All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-Patna, which was established in 2012, needed to be fully equipped to render meaningful service to the people of Bihar and nearby states.

Petitioners counsel Vikas Kumar Pankaj said without emergency services and blood bank, the hospital at present was like a body without a soul.

The court also clubbed petition with another, which too had pleaded for improvement in services of on AIIMSPatna.

The other petition, filed by Mukeshwar Dayal, had claimed that AIIMS-Patna rendered no emergency services and lacked a proper blood bank.

It also said the health facility could not undertake autopsy, had no MRI facility and students lacked laboratories and equipment to work with.

He had also claimed that the hospital lacked basic teaching facilities and cadavers for dissection in its anatomy department. Besides, there were no laboratory facilities in departments of pathology, pharmacology, preventive and social medicine, microbiology, forensic medicine and toxicology (FMT), community medicine and family medicine. It also pointed to lack of fully functional trauma centre and ICU as also super specialty departments for neurology, gasteroenterology and nephrology, due which the very purpose of starting the hospital had been lost.

Additional solicitor general (ASG) SD Sanjay represented the Union health ministry in the court, while Binay Kumar Pandey appeared for AIIMS-Patna.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who got the additional charge of the defence ministry a week ago, has given the green light to widespread military reforms.

The reforms are based on a report by the Lt General (retired) DB Shekatkar committee, which made recommendations on enhancing the combat potential of Indias three armed forces, rationalising the defence budget, and improving the teeth-to-tail ratio.

The committee set up by then defence minister Manohar Parrikar in 2015 submitted its report on December 21 last year.

Sources at the defence ministry headquarters in South Block said Jaitley reviewed on March 18 a presentation on a new strategic partner policy, plans to create a chief of defence staff (CDS) post, and restructuring of higher defence structures along with the Shekatkar committee report.

Two days later, he approved about 90 key recommendations of the Shekatkar committee.

The Shekatkar committee had apparently exceeded its brief with some 200 recommendations. The defence ministry whittled it down to 120, of which some 90 were approved by Jaitley. The ministry expects all the proposals to be implemented in the next two years, a senior official said.

Defence secretary G Mohan Kumar has written to the three services headquarters to implement the proposals.

The ball park figure of Rs 25,000 crore is expected to be saved if the committees proposals for rebalancing military expenditure are implemented.

The panel wants the military to move out of non-core areas such as the National Cadet Corps (NCC), remove duplicity among the three services, and make institutions such as the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and ordnance factory boards more accountable through project audits and by shelving outdated concepts.

For instance, an entire Signals unit was tasked to listen to radio broadcasts from the 1962 war. This unit will be disbanded with the troopers redeployed into other tasks. The recommendations are not aimed at cutting jobs but making the military lean and thin, the official said.

The Narendra Modi government is expected to clear soon the creation of a CDS post and the strategic partner policy, which will boost the Make in India campaign in the defence sector.

A major recommendation is that the defence budget should be 2.5% to 3% of the GDP. The committee called for redefining the revenue and capital heads in the budget.

In broad terms, revenue means money required to maintain the military, while capital is spent on acquisition and modernisation.

The army, with 1.3 million personnel, could get the major chunk of the budget  above navy that has around 55,000 men and women, and the air force, which employs around 150,000.

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Heads of cow shelters in Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal on Saturday sought support of seers and temple authorities across India for Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanaths push to protect the bovine, considered gau mata by many Hindus.

The appeal was made at a workshop of the Akhil Bharatiya Goushala Sangh (ABGS), an umbrella body of cow shelters acorss the country, which was attended by members of goushalas operating in the three states.The workshop was held at Jharkhands capital Ranchi.

Immediately after assuming office last week, the BJP chief minister of UP has launched a crackdown on illegal slaughter houses in the state and asked police to keep track of transportation of cattle.

The UP governments drive has reignited a debate on freedom of personal choice with critics accusing Hindu right-wing groups of curtailing the menu of a large section of the population who prefer the cheaper beef over other meat.

(The) time has come we save our holy cows, Jharkhand Pradeshik Goushala Sangha president RK Agarwal said at the workshop.

He also stressed on the need for taking out cow protection rallies in every village of the country to educate the poor and farmers on the significance of rearing cows for social, economic, religious, environment and health benefits.

Duttsharananandji Maharaj, founder of worlds biggest cow sanctuary at Pathmeda, flew down to Ranchi from Rajasthan to address the workshop and spoke on the need for launching a massive cow protection campaign in India.

The Pathmeda sanctuary is a shelter for 1.27 lakh cows run and managed by seers.

Jhakhand is one of the few states in the country that has enacted the Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act. The act carries a penalty of Rs 5,000 and imprisonment of up to five years or both for offenders.

The BJP government is planning to make cow slaughter a non-bailable offence.

The Jharkhand government has also announced annual grant of Rs. 50 lakhthe highest in the country-- to every registered cow shelters in the state.

While Jharkhand has 27 registered cow shelters, neghbouring state Bihar has 86, but majority of them have been encroached by land sharks.

Last year, cow vigilante groups allegedly killed and hanged two Muslim cattle traders in Latehar district sparking nation-wide anger.

The ABGS has already launched a Bharat Goudarshan Yatra 2017 wherein members and saints patronising cow protection will travel to at least five states and two neighbouring countries-Nepal and Bhutan, meeting local bodies and educating them on steps to be initiated to make cow shelters economically and socially viable.

The Pathmeda founder said those treating cow as a mere animal are anti-Vedic and anti-India.

Cow is associated with Gods and religion. Unfortunately, in this country people are killing it for insignificant amounts. I started my shelter at Pathdema after rescuing eight cows while they were being smuggled. Today, there are more than a lakh cows there. I dont find why others cannot do it, he said.

The ABGS members unanimously hailed Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy for moving a private members bill in the parliament seeking death penalty for cow slaughter.

The bill has, however, raised fears of persecution of the minority community.

The law (against cow slaughter) is supreme and we all should abide by it. But harassing a community or propagating violence against them in garb of Gauraksha isnt acceptable, said Shahid Akhtar, national convener of Muslim Rashtriya Manch and court member of Aligarh Muslim University.
The share of cows in the illegal cattle trade from India to Bangladesh has been an average 12% over the past three years, shows an HT analysis of official data on livestock seized along the international border.

Focus on cow smuggling and consumption of cattle meat has risen since the BJP won power in 2014, but the issue returned to spotlight after the new Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath clamped down on illegal slaughterhouses and cattle smuggling this week.

The BJPs ideological parent  the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh  considers cows sacred and has long pushed for a nationwide ban on their slaughter and trade, saying the bovine population was under threat in India.

But official data accessed by HT indicated that the situation was probably far from alarming for cows in India.

Between January 2014 and December 2016, the number of cattle seized varied between 1.5 lakh to 1.75 lakh every year. And the seizure of cows is consistent between 11.7% and 11.9% in all three years. The government began collating cattle seizure data from 2014, the year the BJP came to power.

Maximum seizures are of bullock or ox (37.6% - 40.7%) and calves (30.6%- 43.24%). Male calves accounted for 95% in the calf category.

While there is no definite estimate of illegal cross-border cattle trade, unofficial government estimates pegs it at 1.8 million to 2 million animals, according to a senior official from home ministry. He declined to be identified citing the political sensitivity in the matter.

Experts say extrapolation of seized goods is an accepted global practice to make an educated guess  known as guesstimate -- and they peg it at nearly 10 times the seizure.

Data collated by HT from auctioning of seized cattle by customs outposts along the Indo-Bangladesh border comes close to unofficial home ministry estimates. In Muslim-majority Bangladesh beef is a staple.

The Border Security Force (BSF), tasked with stopping smuggling of bovine animals besides guarding the frontier, hands them over to the customs department, which in turn auction it. The valuation of cattle to be auctioned are classified into broadly five headscow, buffalo, bull or ox, calf-male and female.

A mid-level BSF official posted in Assams Dhubri, considered the most vulnerable smuggling spot among 33 areas along the border identified by the government, said nearly 90% cattle seized in 2015 in areas under the jurisdiction of his outpost were males.

It is difficult to say right away how many of the cattle seized are cows and how many are bulls or oxen. But almost 90% of the 28,702 cattle seized in 2015 were males, the official told Hindustan Times.

Smugglers we arrested said their clients across the Bangladesh border prefer bulls or oxen because they are meatier and tastier.

The seizure along the Indo-Bangladesh border also works as a good sample size since cattle from across north India is transported to the bordering states of India before being smuggled through the border.

Dealing with transportation can solve much of the cattle-smuggling problem, particularly after trucks enter Assam at two highway points -- Boxirhat near Dhubri and Srirampur near Gossaigaon -- from West Bengal, said Longnit Terang, the police chief of Dhubri.

There have been cases of cattle transporters armed with challans saying the consignment is destined for states such as Meghalaya and Nagaland. But the cattle are offloaded at various points on the way after vehicles carrying them enter Assam. These animals are then smuggled out to Bangladesh.

A bigger challenge in stopping illegal cattle trade is the number of stray cattle which are vulnerable to smuggling.

The last livestock census in 2012 estimated 5.28 million stray cattle in India, most of them in two states alone Odisha (1.13 million) and Uttar Pradesh (1 million).
Chief minister Aditya Nath Yogi on Saturday played a development card on his home turf Gorakhpur where he was accorded a rousing welcome at a felicitation event organised by the district BJP unit and citizens organisations.

Addressing the gathering, he said, The successive governments at the Centre and the state governments did not work for the development of the state. The BJP government will make UP a number one developed state in the country. There will be no discrimination on the basis of caste and religion.

Invoking PMs sab ka saath, sab ka vikas slogan, he said his government will not pursue appeasement policy.

Rs 1 lakh for pilgrims

He announced Rs 1 lakh in aid to to Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims. We would also establish a Kailash Mansarovar Bhavan either in Lucknow, Ghaziabad or Noida, he added.

Setting the agenda

Setting the priorities of his government, he said there will be no new decisions and the election manifesto will be the guiding principle for the government.

He said the benefit of welfare schemes will reach people. The closed sugar mills will be revived, new employments will be generated, migration of the youths will be curbed, there will be end of goonda raj, corruption will be checked and the roads will be free of potholes by June 15, he added. The government is also preparing a plan for the welfare of the farmers, he said.

Anti-romeo sqauds

Adityanath said he received letters and calls from girls and women regarding harassment and eve- teasing in public places.

The anti- Romeo squads have been formed to take action against anti- social elements. People who harass girls are not youth but ruffians , he said. The CM said there will be no moral policing.

Slaughter houses

Yogi said action against the slaughter houses had been taken on the recommendation of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). In its report, the NGT had said that slaughter houses had been violating pollution control norms and ordered closure of the illegal slaughter houses flourishing in residential areas.
Failing to reach consensus over certain posts, the newly elected Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) on Friday postponed the elections of its office-bearers to March 28.

Sources said Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who was the general secretary in the previous term, wanted to be re-elected to the second senior-most post of the gurdwara body, but was challenged by three other contenders: Harmeet Singh Kalka, Harmanjit Singh and Amarjeet Singh Pappu.

They staked their claim, taking the plea that the post needs to be filled by a new face. As things got chaotic, Avtar Singh Hit also staked his claim for the post of president.

As the House couldnt reach a consensus, the elections were postponed, with Manjit Singh GK unanimously elected the pro tem chairman.

The committee elections have been put on hold as a consensus couldnt be reached on certain names proposed to be made the office-bearers, Sirsa told HT, adding Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal was busy and a final decision couldnt be reached.

Earlier, senior party leaders, including Rajya Sabha member SS Dhindsa and Lok Sabha member Prem Singh Chandumajra, held a meeting with GK and Sirsa, where the two Delhi leaders remained divided on re-electing certain office-bearers.

While postponing the elections, the DSGMC claimed it had been done as it would be busy celebrating Delhi Fateh Diwas on March 25 and 26.

GKs close aide Kulmohan Singh said: The elections could have taken place even if there were multiple contenders, but it would have divided the party. By postponing the polls, an attempt has been made to avert fissures.

Out of 51 members in the House (46 elected and five co-opted), the SAD (Badal) claims support of 41. Chandumajra, Dhindsa and GK were not available for comment.

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Pahle paristiti hamaare vipreet thee, ab paristiti hamaare anukool hai. (Earlier the situation was against us. Now it is favouring us.), Nagendra Singh Tomars hoarse voice echoes in the tiny, dimly-lit room on the ground floor of a house in a narrow lane in the Khalasi Line locality of western Uttar Pradeshs Saharanpur district. Wearing a crisp white kurta-pyjama and saffron jacket, fifty-year-old Tomar, the western UP head of Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV), a right-wing organisation founded by Yogi Adityanath in 2002, is surrounded by local office bearers. Some of them want him to meet their families; some want him to acknowledge the work they have done for the Hindu samaaj; some want a selfie with him.

Yogi Adityanaths anointment as UP chief minister has made HYV the centre of gravity in the state. The organisation that was discredited as fringe is now the mainstream. Many HYV members are of the belief that with Yogi as the head of the state, the Hindutva agenda will get a boost and the organisations activities will scale up multifold. To HYV members, various functions of the brigadeformation of cow vigilante groups, anti-Romeo squads, protests against religious conversionswhich were earlier perceived as radical, illegal or categorised as moral policing, now appear attuned to the priorities of the new chief minister.

Senior members of HYV are out to tap this energy. Tomar, who teaches commerce at a senior secondary school in Meerut, is visiting Saharanpur as part of his western UP tour to activate HYVs units in the region. He is astute, soft-spoken, watches his words and is conscious of the renewed interest in Vahini. We have to identify genuine people across districts and assign duties to them, Tomar tells a gathering of workers.

Nagendra Singh Tomar, west UP head, Hindu Yuva Vahini. (Aishwarya Kandpal/ HT Photo)

Over a luncheon meeting at the residence Dr Yogendra Rana, state vice-president of HYV, Tomar explains how the new state government will affect Vahinis operations. Our workers suffered a lot in previous regimes. Every time they protested, the system looked at them as wrongdoers instead of arresting the real culprits. That will change now. The administration very well understands the intention of the person at the helm of affairs and works accordingly, he says.

By the evening, news of Romeo squads in full swing in Jhansi and the burning of two meat shops Hathras is flashing on TV channels.

Tomars interactions with HYV members give insights to the organisations plans and priorities. As Tomar juggles his schedule, a Vahini member tells him that the name of a hospital in his area has been changed to a Muslim name. Tomar says that it is a better idea to name institutions after nationalist Muslims such as ABJ Abdul Kalam instead of opting for a local leader or an unknown person.

Watch: Hindu Yuva Vahini members talk about their agenda and hopes from the new state government

A volunteer is concerned regarding many members of the Dalit community in his locality converting to Christianity. Tomar raises his pitch. The Christian missionaries have been luring our youth for ages now. You have to identify such people and persuade them to return to their original religion, he says.

Yogi Adityanath, head priest at the Gorakhnath math in eastern UP and five time parliamentarian, founded HYV to fight Islamikaran of the state. Anti-social elements started entering UP from Nepal through Gorakhpur to break up our country. The problem of fake currency, cattle smuggling and human trafficking saw a rise. Numerous mosques, madrasas and shrines (sic) started coming up solely with the purpose of propagating anti- India sentiments, says Tomar.

Since its establishment, HYV has been operating as a shadow army of sort. It alerts the authorities but does not always rely on them. It changes its tactics depending on the situation. If need be, take things in your own hands, is the norm. Maharaj (as Yogi Adityanath is popularly known among his followers) is fighting bad elements. And in such struggles, many a time one tends to break the law. This is why there are charges against him, Tomar says.

Women are conspicuous by their absence in HYV. It has been like this from the beginning., says Tomar about the gender disparity in Vahini. Once we mentioned it to Maharaj. He said first we should consolidate the strength we already have.

Young members of HYV are more vocal, emboldened and assertive. On Tuesday, they took a Vijay Yatra (victory march) in Saharanpur in which they hailed the new CM, celebrated their own valour, and warned the minority community to mend its ways.

Yogi Adityanath at a meeting of Hindu Yuva Vahini workers in Gorakhpur, east UP. (HT Photo)

Some of the slogans shouted at the rally were: Agar UP mein rehna hoga, Yogi Yogi kehna hoga; Yogi jee ke cheete hain, apne bal pe jeete hain; Mulla ka na qazi ka, ye desh hai veer Shivaji ka.

Maharaj seemed to them the best CM contender because he possessed the two most important traits needed to govern the state. Woh dabangg hain aur rashtravaad se bhare hain (he is fearless and a nationalist to the core), says Vivek Kaushik, Vahini member in Saharanpur.

This is his second day as the CM. There is a clampdown on abattoirs. What the previous government could not do in five years, he will do in five days. He is a man of action, adds Kaushik.

Maharaj becoming the chief minister also translates into HYV members making concerted efforts to project him as a strong leader who is out to govern. On more than occasion, senior members of Vahini looked visibly uncomfortable as we spoke to volunteers. Conversations were interrupted and we were instructed to only speak to office bearers. Reason: Yogi ji ko apmaanit karne ji saazish chal rahi hai (there is a conspiracy to malign him).

The UP chief ministers disciples attribute his controversial statements to a biased media. His popularity on the ground was swelling each passing year. People were yearning for him to become CM. But the media preferred showing only some of his statements and those too, were minus the context, says Sachin Mittal, office bearer in Meerut.

Almost all the Vahini members we spoke to said that unlike the image created by the media, Maharaj is not against any community. A section of the Muslim community is radical. It has no respect for other religions. It protects anti-nationals and justifies criminal activities by citing religious scriptures. Maharaj unka ilaaj hain (for such people, Maharaj is the cure). Have cordial relations with good people and destroy the evil ones, is the philosophy of Hindu Yuva Vahini, says Jagjeet Gujjar, 29, HYV member from Deoband.

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Ashok Kumar is a headmaster, class teacher and office staffer all rolled in one at a primary school in Bechutola, Bihta, barely 50 km from Patna. The school, likewise, is a single room that accommodates 80 students from classes one to five.

When Kumar teaches students of the lower classes, he expects the older ones to revise their lessons. He insists that they read and write, not make noises that would disturb their schoolmates. When the mid-day meal is served, they are shifted to the verandah.

Nothing has changed since I began working here in 2003. I try to teach by segregating students. At times, I ask some of them to sit outside, says the teacher, who is trying to acquire a graduation degree through a correspondence course.

The students, in turn, try to make the most of the situation by obeying their teacher. When sir teaches students of other classes, we either listen or revise whats already been taught, says Mansi Kumari, a class four student.

That said, the condition of the school is far from ideal. Last month, chief minister Nitish Kumar wondered why school attendance remained low despite his government dedicating 20% of the annual budget to education. A visit to this humble school in Bihta should provide him with an answer.

Over 800 km east of Patna stands Bal Vihar, another single-teacher primary school. Though it is located in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, its infrastructure is nothing to write home about. The burden of teaching five classes with two dozen children in a single room rests squarely on the shoulders of Pavan Kishor Mishra. Mishras responsibilities do not end there. He also has to handle other tasks usually undertaken by non-teaching staffers, such as locking and unlocking the room, overseeing the mid-day meal programme, and ensuring that all the bills are paid for. Mishra  who is physically challenged  follows the one day-one subject principle to teach his students. So, mathematics is taugh on Monday, English on Tuesday, Hindi on Wednesday, science on Thursday, and so on.

Kumar and Mishra are no anomaly in the countrys education system, which has 97,923 single-teacher primary and secondary schools. According to data compiled by the Unified District Information System of Education, Madhya Pradesh topped the 2015-16 list with 18,190 such institutions  followed by Uttar Pradesh with 15,669 and Rajasthan with 12,029. Of these, about 82,000 are primary schools.

The Right to Education guidelines prescribe one teacher for every 30-35 students in government and private schools. However, data provided by the government paints a picture thats light years from rosy.

While single-teacher schools were introduced to address the educational needs of children in marginalised and remote habitations, they compromise the basic parameters of quality education. Such institutions jeopardise factors such as classroom transactions, individualised attention to children, and continuous and comprehensive evaluation  all of which are essential. Shortage of teachers, the main reason for the existence of such schools, is a concern in many states, says Komal Ganotra, director, policy and advocacy, Child Rights and You.

The effectiveness of single-teacher schools is anybodys guess. When A Madhusudha Reddy  the 57-year-old teacher at the mandal parishad primary school at Inamguda village in Telanganas Ranga Reddy district  falls ill, as many as 23 students get a holiday. I have been working in this school for the last seven years. However, despite my best efforts, the student strength has not gone up, he says.

In the 2017 budget, the NDA government unveiled a system to measure annual learning outcomes at schools. Thats easier said than done in a country with nearly a lakh single-teacher schools. We failed miserably at achieving our millennium development goals of effecting universal primary education by 2015. If adequate measures are not taken, this dream will remain unfulfilled even as late as 2030, says Anisha Ghosh, programme officer, children and governance, Centre for Child Rights.

Upendra Kushwaha, the Union minister of state for human resource development, recently sought to shift the blame by saying that recruitments, service conditions and redeployment of teachers lie primarily in the domain of state governments. However, the Centre provides financial assistance to state governments for additional teachers under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan to maintain the pupil-teacher ratio. The Centre is consistently pursuing the matter of expeditious recruitment and redeployment of teachers... he said in Parliament.

In this years budget, the NDA government stressed on ensuring quality education by gauging learning outcomes in various subjects at the elementary level (from classes one to eight). However, that seems like an ambitious goal in the current scenario.
India plans to seal international borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, home minister Rajnath Singh said on Saturday, turning his attention to frontiers that many say has become a hotbed of infiltration and smuggling.

Speaking at a function at the Border Security Force Academy in Madhya Pradesh, the home minister said the sealing of borders would be done as soon as possible. He also praised the BSF for changing the rules of engagement.

Now BSF is a known entity even in the neighbouring countries, the minister said.

Rajnath has previously said New Delhi wants to completely seal the Pakistan border by 2018 by employing a mix of physical barriers and technological tools such as surveillance.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal has also called the BSF to seal the Bangladesh border to stem what he called a steady stream of miscreants and illegal migrants from the neighbouring country.
Washington In continued engagement with the new Trump administration, India and the United States have pledged to work as partners to combat the full spectrum of terrorist threats and explore areas of mutual concerns and commonality of purpose to build on a relationship that has historically enjoyed bipartisan support.

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval became the second high-ranking Indian official to engage with officials at the highest levels in the new administration, meeting his counterpart in the White House H R McMaster, defense secretary James Mattis and secretary for homeland security John Kelly during his two-day visit to the US that concluded Friday.

The NSA also met senior Republican senators John McCain, who heads the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, and Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Just two weeks ago Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia, were here on a similar whirlwind get-to-know tour. They had met secretary of state Rex Tillersen, NSA McMaster, department of Secretary Kelly, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and President Donald Trumps top adviser on international economic affairs Kenneth Juster.

These visits followed, and were in continuation with, two phone conversations Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had with President Trump starting with a congratulatory call on the morning after latters stunning upset victory in the November 9 elections.

Indian officials have felt generally pleased and encouraged by the interactions. In discussions characterized as very warm, very positive and very constructive, Doval and his interlocutors covered a wide range of issues, both regional and global.

Both Pakistan and China were discussed, but Indian sources stressed the discussions very broad, and they were more in the nature of listening, conveying your concerns, trying to assess what the new administration was thinking about on various issues.

Doval and McMaster committed to work together as partners to combat the full spectrum of terrorist threats, affirming that both great democracies stand together in the fight against terrorism, senior administration official said after their meeting.

This was Dovals second meeting with the new administrations NSAs  his first was with Michael Flynn, who left under a cloud of allegations in February about his contacts with Russians.

In the meeting at the Pentagon, Doval and Mattis discussed the importance of the bilateral relationship, and the role of both nations in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles, a defense department spokesman Jeff Davis said, adding they also discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters including maritime security and counter terrorism.

Secretary Mattis specifically applauded Indias efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region.

Counter-terrorism was a major focus of Dovals discussions with Secretary Kelly, of the Department of Homeland Security, who explained the recent orders by the Trump administration to ramp security on flights  specially the ban on laptops and all electronic devices larger than a cellphone on US bound flights from eight Muslim-majority nations.
An Indian woman and her six-year-old son have been found dead in their New Jersey home, an official in New Delhi said on Friday, even as the Indian government contacted US authorities to take stock of the situation.

Sasikala Narra, a 40-year-old IT professional, and her son, Anish Sai, were found with their throats slit, prompting the police to launch a criminal investigation into the brutal killing. Prosecutors in a release disputed some media reports that it was a hate crime connected to their Indian origin.

Heres what we know so far:

The victims

Sasikalas husband, Narra Hanumanth Rao, found the bodies when he returned home in Maple Shade in New Jersey from state on Thursday.

Prasad Thotakura, an Indian-American community leader, said that according to the information he had, Rao allegedly found his wife and child in a pool of blood and with their throats slit.

Sasikala had picked up her son from school in the afternoon and returned home. Investigators said the husband found his wife and son killed around 9pm after returning from work.

The couple --- both of them from Andhra Pradesh --- worked in the IT fields and had been living in the US for the last 12 years.

Probe on

Police said the deaths were being investigated as homicides, but further information wasnt released.

Law enforcement officials denied the killings were hate crime or a result of bias against the Indian origin of the victims, according to a statement provided by Burlington County Prosecutors Office.

Contrary to some media reports, at this point there is no indication that this is a hate crime connected to the fact that the victims are of Indian origin, the statement said.

The Public Information Officer at the prosecutors office Joel Bewley stressed that there was no information suggesting the incident was motivated by any kind of bias.

Needle of suspicion

Sasikalas parents, who live on the outskirts of Andhra Pradeshs Vijayawada, suspected the involvement of their son-in-law in the killings.

Venkateshwarlu and Krishna Kumari alleged that Hanumanth Rao was not treating their daughter well for the past two years, and he was also involved in an extramarital affair.

They said Hanumantha Rao telephoned them just to say that his wife and son had died and did not say anything more.

Police in the US launched a criminal investigation into the case and were looking into motives behind the murder, including the possibilities of any foul play.

India reacts

In his weekly media briefing in New Delhi on Friday, external affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the government was still awaiting details of the unfortunate incident.

We are in touch with the US authorities who are trying to ascertain the details in the matter, he said.
The Union Government on Saturday sought to clarify that there was no agreement or decision on carving out a larger Nagaland state and termed media reports on the issue erroneous.

Some media reports have appeared recently to the effect that the Government of India has agreed to carve out a larger Nagaland State by taking away the territories of the states contiguous to Nagaland. Such reports are erroneous. It is clarified that there is no such agreement or decision of the Government of India, said a Union Home Ministry statement.

Assam had witnessed protests after reports in the media that National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah general secretary T Muivah had said the August 2015 framework agreement recognises his outfits demand for territorial integration of Naga-inhabited areas in the region.

The Naga group is keen on a Greater Nagalim which includes tracts of land in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and parts of Myanmar where there are Naga inhabitants.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had also said earlier that there is no proposal with the central government about larger Nagaland.

We are committed to protecting Assams territory, he had said.
Tamil actor Rajinikanth on Saturday announced that he has decided against attending a controversial event in Sri Lanka after facing criticism from regional groups, including the Viduthalai Chriuthaigal Katchi (VCK) and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK).

I will not participate in the event, although I disagree with the reasons given by MDMK and VCK leaders Vaiko and Thirumavalavan, the actor said in a statement.

The actor maintained that he wanted to visit Sri Lanka to interact with Sri Lankan Tamils and participate in a charity-related project that will benefit them. I also wanted to see the soil where Tamils shed their blood to gain self-respect and self-determination, the popular actor, also known as Thalaivar (leader) to his fans, added.

Rajinikanth was supposed to launch a housing scheme for Tamils displaced by the Sri Lankan civil war in Jaffna on April 9. He was also slated to hand over the keys to 150 houses built by the Lyca Groups Gnanam Foundation to beneficiaries of the project.

Thirumavalavan had warned Rajinikanth on Friday that attending the event would anger the Tamil community.

I have no personal agenda against Rajinikanth. We are good friends. But I strongly oppose his decision to visit Sri Lanka and participate in an event organised by Lyca, which has business ties with the Sri Lankan government, the VCK leader said, noting that the island nation was yet to rehabilitate Tamils displaced by the war or bring people guilty of alleged human rights violations to justice.

Though the civil war ended eight years ago, many in Tamil Nadu still harbour the Tamil Eelam dream. Several political groups also retain a measure of anger over the war.

Rajinikanth, however, made it clear that he will not reconsider attending an event of the sort again. I would like to say that I am not a politician, but an actor, he said. Making people happy is my job, and if I get an opportunity to meet Sri Lankan Tamils in the future, I would be grateful if you dont politicise the issue.

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Uttar Pradesh is bustling with activity as the new BJP government has started a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses and so-called Romeos, leading to jubilation among fringe Hindu groups.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has announced zero-tolerance towards communal violence but many say the appointment of the Goraknath temple chief in the top job might boost the Hindutva agenda in Indias biggest state with 18% Muslim population.

But in a number of other BJP-ruled states, such a push is already visible. These states have brought changes in the policy that they claim are to correct distortion of the Congress but the opposition term them as pushing the RSS agenda.

In Haryana, public funds have been allocated for finding the mythological river Saraswati with a central institution asked to conduct research on the river that found a mention in the Rigveda.

In Rajasthan, history books are being rewritten to teach students that Mughal king Akbar was not the victor, but was defeated by local icon Maharana Pratap in the Battle of Haldighati . The state has witnessed a spurt in attack by fringe Hindu groups against Christians in recent months.

What is happening in Uttar Pradesh or any other BJP-ruled state is not surprising for me. This is what one can expect from the RSS. They will like to change everything rational and modern that has been created in the last 65 years, said former Delhi University history professor DN Jha.

But, the biggest binding force for pro-Hindu groups in the BJP ruled states had been vigilantism in the name of cow protection. As most of the cow trade is run either by Muslims or Dalits, they are the targets. And the BJP-ruled states have provided them the necessary legal help by enhancing penalties, with Gujarat now proposing 10 years of jail for killing cattle.

Although it is too early to say whether something similar will happen in Uttar Pradesh, here is a low down on the growing saffron stamp in some other BJP-ruled states.

RAJASTHAN

Textbook change: Termed as cultural reform, the BJP government has revised text books to remove chapters on Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhis assassination and introduce chapters on the Emergency, on RSS ideologues Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

New school uniform: From the next academic year, students in government schools will have to wear brown trousers in place of khaki -- the change resembling the new dress code of the RSS.

Education minister Vasudev Devnani says yoga in schools will bring positive change students health. (HT file photo)

Surya namaskar: The ritual of Hindus, surya namaskar, is now part of morning prayers in all government schools. The government terms it as an exercise which has nothing to do with religion. Education minister Vasudev Devnani said a community (read Muslims) which follows the moon cannot disrespect the sun.

Cow vigilantism: The only state to have a department for cow protection has seen a spurt in cases of bovine vigilantes. The so-called protectors stripped alleged smugglers and thrashed them in Pratapgarh district in June 2016. This week, vigilantes led by Sadhvi Kamal, forced the Jaipur municipal corporation to seal a Muslim-owned hotel even before any forensic report on whether the meat served at the establishment was beef .

Attack on Christians:Christians in tribal districts of Rajasthan have come under attack by members of the Vanvasi Kalyan, an affiliate of the RSS, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad in recent past.

MADHYA PRADESH

Cow slaughter: The government amended the law on cow slaughter in 2010, enhancing the jail term for killing of cows and cow progeny from three to seven years. The accused will have to prove himself innocent in a court of law rather than the prosecution proving him guilty .

RSS shakhas: The government lifted a ban on state employees by a previous Congress government on participation in RSS shakhas. The governments view is that the RSS is an apolitical organisation, and hence, employees could freely take part in it.

In October last year, state higher education minister Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya said: Dress code is an effective thing and brings uniformity among students. (HT file photo)

College dress code: The state government has prescribed salwar and kurta as dress for girls in all colleges from the next academic year. The institutes will have to display the pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar among others.

Pilgrimage, paid by state: One of most ambitious schemes introduced by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan offers pilgrimage to people on state governments expenses. Though members of non-Hindu communities too can avail the benefit of the scheme, the Opposition sees it as the BJP governments Hindutva agenda.

Yoga, surya namaskar: Yoga is now a subject in all schools with a teacher for the same in every school now. The state government organises surya namaskar every year in January to mark the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. Muslims have opposed it.

HARYANA

Cashing in on cows: Chief minister Monahar Lal Khattar has enforced a ban on cow slaughter and sale of beef with renewed vigour. A special wing has been created under a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. In addition, a permit is needed to export a cow from outside the state for rearing.

Searching for Saraswati: Rejuvenating the mythological river Saraswati, which finds a mention in the Rigveda, is high on the governments agenda. The first attempt to revive the river by digging a canal in Kurukshetra was done in 2016 and Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Ecology has been given the job of tracking the non-existent river.

Banking on babas: Khattar, a former RSS pracharak, had appointed Baba Ramdev as brand ambassador of Haryana with a cabinet minister rank, a position the yoga guru declined. Later, the government invited Jain monk Tarun Sagar to address the Vidhan Sabha, who caused a controversy by addressing the House nude.

The RSS office Madhav Bhawan at sector 12-A has been using Gurugram in its address for a long time. (HT file photo)

Name change: Gurgaon was renamed Gurugram, because mythology states Dronacharya in the Mahabharata used to train Pandavas and Kauravas at the same site. Also, Mustafabad town of Yamunanagar district was rechristened as Saraswati Nagar on the grounds that it was linked to the mythological Saraswati river.

Curriculum curve: Initially, the Haryana government floated the idea of introducing Bhagavad Gita for students of all classes in its schools across the state. As the move was severely opposed, it tweaked the idea and introduced a book on moral education with Gita and text from other religions also part of it.

GUJARAT

Textbook change: In 2014, the Gujarat government mandated Tejomay Bharat as supplementary reading in all government primary and secondary schools. The book, written by RSS education wing member Deenanath Batra, credits ancient India for many scientific discoveries, including space missions.

Punishment for cow slaughter: In 2011, the state government made cow and progeny slaughter and transportation illegal by amending the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act 1954. It introduced three to seven year imprisonment for offenders. The government proposes to enhance the punishment to 10 years and a law is likely to be introduced in ongoing budget session.

In 2011, when Narendra Modi was Gujarat chief minister, the state had imposed a complete ban on slaughtering and transportation of cow and progeny by amending the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 1954. (HT file photo)

Cow vigilantes: It is the only state that gives cash incentives to cow protectors. Between 2011 and 2014, the state has disbursed Rs 75 lakh to 1,394 vigilantes for raiding illegal cattle transporters. The top performer got Rs 3.75 lakh including biennial best cow protector award.

JHARKHAND

Cow Slaughter Act:The previous BJP government of Arjun Munda enacted the Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act that provides for a penalty of Rs 5,000 and imprisonment of up to five years or both for offenders, and was strictly enforced by the present government. The incumbent BJP government is planning to make cow slaughter a non-bailable offence.

Name change: Ranchi University had recently mooted a proposal to rename the famous Ranchi College after Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay, a strong votary of the Hindutva movement. The proposal has been stalled for the moment following resistance by anti-saffron students wings.

Forceful conversion: Chief minister Raghubar Das had recently said that penalty provision for alleged forceful conversion by Christian missionaries will be enacted and had started a helpline for people to register complaints. No change in law has been introduced in the assembly so far.

New scheme for cow sheds: The Jharkhand government has made a rule for disbursing Rs 50 for each rescued cows to gaushalas (cow sheds). Hundreds of cows are rescued every month across the state, especially on national high ways. These cows were brought to Gausalas for their upkeep. However, Gausala owners feel that the amount is still less.

(With inputs from correspondents in Bhopal, Ranchi, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Jaipur)

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Two top Senators have urged the Trump administration to push for the sale of F-16 fighter jets to India to build its capability to counter security threats and balance Chinas growing military power in the Pacific.

Senators Mark Warner from Virginia and John Cornyn from Texa in a joint letter to US Defence Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, the Trump administration must make the fighter jet acquisition a priority during initial bilateral discussions with India.

India has launched an effort to expand its combat aircraft fleet and the competition has reportedly narrowed down to Lockheeds F-16 and Saabs Gripen.

Noting that the last F-16 for the US Air Force rolled off the production line in Fort Worth in 1999, the two Senators said India remains the only major F-16 prospect customer.

A primary factor in Indias decision will be compliance with Prime Minister Modis Make in India initiative, which will require establishing some level of local production capacity, Warner and Cornyn wrote.

Given the strategic significance of India selecting a US aircraft as the mainstay for its future Air Force and the potential for a decision this year, we ask that the administration make the fighter acquisition a priority during initial bilateral discussions, they said.

Warner, who is a Democrat and Cornyn from the Republican Party are the co-chairs of the influential Senate India caucus, the only country specific caucus in the US Senate.

We urge you to weigh in forcefully with the White House on the strategic significance of this deal, both to Americas defence industrial base and to our growing security partnership with India, said the letter dated March 23.

Making a strong case for the sale of F-16s to India, the two Senators said this would represent a historic win for America that will deepen the US-India strategic defence relationship and cement cooperation between our two countries for decades to come.

It would increase interoperability with a key partner and dominant power in South Asia, build Indias capability to counter threat from the north, and balance Chinas growing military capability in the Pacific, they said.

India, they said, increasingly serves as an integral partner in the United States security architecture in the volatile South Asia region, helping to protect our joint interests and deter common threats, and has emerged as a critical trading partner, they noted.

As such it is in our national interest to work with India to progress democratic principles through regional security partnership and burden sharing, they said.

To this end, we support the co-production of our legacy F-16 aircraft in India to help sustain the United States current fleet of aircraft and aid a critical Indian security need with a proven American product, Cornyn and Warner wrote.

The competition for the fighter jets, they wrote, presents an opportunity to solidify and strengthen the significant gains made in the bilateral US-India defence relationship over the two previous administrations, they said.
The officer first shot at him and then saved his life. Hit by a bullet, Somaru, a Maoist commander, owes his life to an IPS officer who had engaged him in a fierce gun battle last week in the dense forests of Chhattisgarhs Bastar.

Saheb saved my life, says Somaru, referring to Dantewadas additional superintendent of police Abhishek Pallav, as he recovers at a government hospital.

Carrying a bounty of one lakh rupees, Somara was hit in the abdomen by a bullet on March 18 during the seven-hour long encounter that left five Maoists and two policemen dead. Bleeding profusely and writhing in pain, his life was rapidly ebbing when Pallav, a doctor-turned-policeman, came to his rescue.

Time was the key to saving his life as he was losing blood profusely and I being a trained doctor could not have looked the other way, says Pallav.

Before joining the IPS in 2013, Pallav from Begusarai in Bihar had been a practicising doctor, having done his MD from AIIIMS in 2009. Though a bit rusty, he had not forgotten his skills. Even as the gun battle raged, he bandaged the wounded Somaru, gave him painkiller injections and then sent him off to the nearest hospital in an ambulance.

If he had bled for a few more minutes, he would have been dead, says Pallav.

But sending Somaru to the hospital was easier said than done. Bullets were flying and a policeman already lay dead, making the security personnel bay for blood. They wanted Somaru dead.

Though a fugitive, he is an Indian citizen. He deserved treatment, says Pallav. He reasoned with his men and they finally relented to let Somaru be taken to the hospital.

Time was the key to saving his life as he was losing blood profusely and I being a trained doctor could not have looked the other way. --- IPS officer Pallav

Pallavs act has earned him fulsome praise from his higher-ups and yielded valuable intelligence on the Maoists from Somaru.

What the officer has done is a brilliant example of how rules of engagement should be followed, admits DM Awasthi, the special director general of Chhattisgarh police. Often accused of excesses during their anti-Maoist operations, Pallavs humanitarian act could be a potential PR masterstroke.

Saving Somaru was also a good idea since he is a treasure trove of information on the Maoists. Police say a grateful Somaru is now singing like a canary and divulging secrets.

It was a tip-off that had led the police to the remote village of Chirmur across the river Malangir on that day. As the team approached, the Maoists opened fire and the police retaliated. More than 2700 rounds were fired with Pallav firing no less than 23 rounds.

The battle over, Somaru is receiving treatment under judicial custody. Pallav went to see him at the hospital the other day. Somaru was all smiles, signaling that the officers heroism had swept away the enmity between the two.

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The Uttarakhand government has recommended a CBI probe into a Rs 240 crore scam in which prime agricultural land was illegally transferred for construction of National Highway-74 coming up in Udham Singh Nagar district.

We have recommended that the Centre order a CBI probe into the land scam of Rs 240 crore relating to the national highway 74 coming up in US Nagar chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat told a press conference adding prima facie seven officials were found to be involved in the land fraud.

All the officials who are of the rank of the sub-divisional magistrate have been placed under suspension pending a CBI probe, he said. One of them has now retired.

The officials who have been suspended are Dhirendra Pratap Singh, Anil Kumar Shukla, Surendra Singh Jangpangi, Jagish Lal, Bhagat Singh Fonia, N S Naganiyal and Himalaya Singh Martolia. Of the suspended officials Martolia is a retired official whereas Dhirendra Pratap and Shukla are Special Land Acquisition Officers (SLAOs). A case will be registered against the retired official whereas others have been placed under suspension.

Rawat neither confirmed nor denied the involvement of politicians in the land fraud. We have recommended a CBI probe. Action would be taken against whosoever would be found guilty, he said dubbing the land scam as a serious issue. He said the CBI probe was recommended on the basis of an inquiry conducted by the Kumaon commissioner Senthil Pandiyan.

The inquiry has revealed that those involved in the scam changed the use of agricultural land and showed the compensation that was paid about 25 times higher than the actual cost of the farm lands. No genuine farmer whose land was acquired for the national highway was paid the compensation, Rawat said.

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A 6-year-old girl was left with life-threatening injuries after she was allegedly brutalised by three cousins who inserted a stick in her private parts after gangraping her in Uttar Pradeshs Etah, police said on Saturday.

One of the accused has been arrested after the incident on Thursday. Two of the accused are minors.

The incident comes amid a crackdown by the Yogi Adityanath on criminals harassing women in public places. The BJP, which sweeped to power in Uttar Pradesh, has promised to ensure womens safety.

My youngest daughter was playing outside the house on Thursday evening while we had gone to the fields. The accused lured my daughter to a nearby field and gangraped her. They also inserted wood in her private parts. We found her lying in a pool of blood and took her to the district hospital but she was referred to JN Medical College, Aligarh, the victims mother said.

Anita, in-charge of the womens Hospital in Etah said doctors pulled out pieces of wood from the body of the victim who was in a very serious condition.

She was bleeding profusely and there was danger of her liver bursting. So she was referred to JN Medical College, Aligarh where she has been operated upon, she added.

Prof M Haris Khan, superintendent of JN Medical College said the victim is under utmost care round the clock.

She is out of danger and is recovering, but is so terrified that a child psychologist will start her counselling from tomorrow.

Police said the three brothers are aged 18, 16 and 7. A total of nine people have been booked in the case.
Communal tension ran high in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras district after three Muslim graves were desecrated by unidentified miscreants and an idol of a folk deity was allegedly vandalised in two separate incidents on Friday.

The incidents come just days after firebrand Hindu-monk turned-politician Yogi Adityanath became chief minister of the state that has a history of communal violence.

After Fridays prayers, members of the Muslim community took out a march to protest the sacrilege of the graves at the districts Sikandrarao area.

They also submitted a memorandum, addressed to governor Ram Naik, to the sub-divisional magistrate.

Another group gheraoed the kotwali police station and demanded immediate action against the culprits. Circle officer RK Vashisht pacified the agitated crowd.

Station in-charge of Sikandrarao police station Rajveer Singh, said, An FIR was registered against unidentified persons in the case.

Immediately after getting information about the incident, Singh and town in-charge Vipin Yadav reached the spot with a large posse of police personnel to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, residents of Bisawar village in Sadabad area of the district claimed that some anti-social elements damaged idol of Baba Jahar Veer (worshipped as a warrior-hero) in the villages Nagla Chatti locality.

Police, however, denied having any information about the incident.

When the devotees went inside the temple, they found that Baba Jahar Veers idol had been damaged, claimed a resident of the area.

Condemning the incident, the villagers also called a panchayat to discuss the matter.
Here are the top ten stories you need to read to get you up to date this morning:

After airlines deny ticket, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad forced to travel by train

From business class air travel to a long, overnight train journey! Shiv Sena parliamentarian Ravindra Gaikwad was forced to take a New Delhi-Mumbai train on Friday after all major airlines in the country put him on their no-fly list for assaulting a senior Air India official.

Gaikwad abused and assaulted a 60-year-old duty manager of the national carrier with his slippers, venting his anger after being denied business class on a Pune-New Delhi Air India flight on Thursday. Read the full story here.

Govt questions NYTs wisdom after editorial slams Modis pick of CM Adityanath

The external affairs ministry on Friday took exception to an editorial in The New York Times, which criticised the BJPs decision to appoint Yogi Adityanath as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister.

Referring to the article, titled Modis Perilous Embrace of Hindu Extremists, external affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said: All editorials or opinions are subjective. This case is particularly so. The wisdom in doubting the verdicts of genuine democratic exercises  at home or abroad  is questionable. Read the full story here.

FIR filed against filmmaker Shirish Kunder for tweets about UP CM Adityanath

A police complaint was lodged against filmmaker Shirish Kunder with Hazratganj police station here on Thursday, for allegedly derogatory remarks against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The FIR was based on a complainant who said that Kunder had first tweeted Hoping a goon will stop rioting once hes allowed to rule is like expecting a rapist to stop raping once hes allowed to rape.

He also posted a second tweet, Going by the logic of making a goon as CM so that he behaves, Dawood can be CBI director. And Mallya - RBI Governor. Read the full story here.

Big setback for Trump as Republican pull out healthcare legislation

President Donald Trump suffered a stunning political setback on Friday in a Congress controlled by his own party when Republican leaders pulled legislation to overhaul the US healthcare system, a major 2016 election campaign promise of the president and his allies.

House of Representatives leaders yanked the bill after a rebellion by Republican moderates and the partys most conservative lawmakers left them short of votes, ensuring that Trumps first major legislative initiative since taking office on January 20 ended in failure. Democrats were unified against it. Read the full story here.

Meat, chicken, eggs to go off plates as sellers in Uttar Pradesh begin strike

Not just buffalo meat, Uttar Pradesh is fast heading towards a non-vegetarian crisis as entire chicken, goat meat and egg markets have begun shutting down. While more than 80% markets of non-vegetarian items already downed shutters on Friday, various traders associations have declared strike from Saturday.

In these circumstances, vegetable prices, which were on the decline for last one week, are likely to register a steep hike. Read the full story here.

Sonia Gandhi is back, hale and hearty: Congress

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who had been abroad for medical check-up, returned home late on Thursday night accompanied by her son Rahul Gandhi at a time when there is growing clamour for structural changes in the party. The 70-year-old leader is doing fine, according to party sources.

She had left the country earlier this month for an undisclosed destination, which the Congress said was for a routine medical check-up. Read the full story here.

Lalu Prasad injured in stage collapse in Patna

RJD chief Lalu Prasad suffered minor injuries in his back after he fell down following a stage collapse during a religious event at Digha in western Patna on Friday evening. Prasad had gone there to attend a yajna around 7pm. As he started to move towards his seat on the stage, it collapsed as a large number of devotees had climbed on to the temporary structure. Lalu lost balance and fell on the ground.

Though Prasad went home immediately after the incident, he later complained of pain in the back and ribs. He was then rushed to the IGIMS where doctors carried out tests and also conducted an X-ray. Read the full story here.

I told them to kill me: Indian soldier who was held captive in Pak after straying across LoC

An Indian soldier, who was returned by Pakistan after holding him captive for four months said he often prayed for death while being tortured in their custody. I was assaulted. I told them: Kill me. I realised that this was the end of the road for me, Chandu Babulal Chavan, who was handed over to India on January 21, said on Friday in conversation with a Marathi channel. Read the full story here.

After Rohtang, India plans 4 more tunnels for easier access to Chinese frontiers

Even as work on the strategic Rohtang tunnel progresses slowly, the defence ministry has decided to construct four more tunnels in order to effect all-weather connectivity with treacherous roads linking the Chinese frontiers in Leh and Ladakh. The four proposed tunnels will cut through lofty mountain passes in the Himalayan and Zanskar mountain ranges to facilitate year-round movement of vehicles  both civilian and army  to border areas.

Once built, they will cut through the avalanche-prone Shinkula pass  which connects Lahaul valley in Himachal to Zanskar in Jammu and Kashmir. Read the full story here.

Islamic State claims responsibility for suicide attack at Dhaka airport

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility late on Friday for a suspected suicide bomb attack outside the Bangladeshi capitals main international airport, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications.

A bomber was killed in the blast, police said, the third in a series of suspected attacks and the second claimed by the Islamic State group since last week. Read the full story here.

US imposes sanctions on entities in China, North Korea and other countries

The Trump administration announced sanctions on Friday on 30 foreign companies and people from 10 countries, including China, and accused the entities of engaging in proliferation activity. These determinations underscore that the United States continues to regularly impose sanctions under existing authorities, as warranted, against entities and individuals that engage in proliferation activity with Iran, North Korea, and Syria, the State Department statement said in a statement. Read the full story here.
The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Jalpaiguri district of north Bengal, where a major child trafficking racket was busted in February, has written to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) proposing mandatory biometric registration of birth at every hospital and nursing home to prevent trafficking of children.

The CWC of the district was at the centre of a storm after a baby selling racket was unearthed in the district in February by CID.

Biometric registration of all child birth in hospitals and nursing homes should be mandatory, the CWCs letter to NCPCR said.

Read: Maneka Gandhi calls for zero tolerance on child begging

In a three-page letter dated March 8, the committee  which acts as a bench of magistrates  has pointed out how trafficking rackets are producing children before the CWC with fake identity of mothers and getting them declared free for adoption.

This free for adoption certificate from the CWC is mandatory for specialised adoption homes to handover children to prospective adoptive parents.

Activists protesting against child trafficking clash with the police on the streets of Kolkata in November 2016. (HT Photo)

We propose biometric birth registration at every hospitals labour wards so that a basic identification of the children with mother is done. This is not a vast task for hospitals and nursing homes. If a child is identified right after birth, child trafficking will be easier, even (if) sold or kept in childcare institutes, reads the letter from Jalpaiguri CWC.

The possibility of biometric registration of newborns was discussed earlier by the Centre, but the pilot reportedly ran into a few problems. The CWC members, however, think this offers a foolproof method.

Read: Assam emerges as Indias hub of human trafficking

A team of members from the national child rights commission visited north Bengal to investigate the case but returned without much success. They alleged non-cooperation from the administration in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts.

CID identified at least 31 children were sold between 2012 and 2016 from Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts. (HT Photo)

CID has identified at least 31 children sold between 2012 and 2016 from Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts through a racket involving members in the CWC, district child protection units and childcare homes.

This was the third major child sale racket busted in the state within six months, the first two being at Falta in South 24-Parganas and Baduria in North 24-Parganas districts during November-December last year. Nursing homes have been found to be one of the key sources of newborns for trafficking.

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West Bengal recorded the highest number of women and child trafficking cases in the country in 2015 and 2016 with the districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas dominating the list.

It was, however, due to the consistent efforts of some members of the Jalpaiguri CWC from the beginning of 2016 that the state government launched a probe, resulting in the arrest of seven persons earlier this year.

The arrested persons include the district child protection officers (DCPO) of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri, a member of Darjeeling district CWC and three persons associated with a government-recognised specialised adoption agency. Two other members of the Darjeeling district CWC are under the CIDs scanner.

Read: Child trafficking racket busted in North Bengal

According to the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and the CARA (Central Adoption Resource Agency) guidelines, abandoned children and those surrendered by their mothers mostly due to unwanted pregnancy and economic distress are to be produced before the CWC of the district concerned, and the CWC will issue further directions towards their stay in child care homes or specialised adoption centres.

There are several allegations that nursing home authorities often inform mentally unstable or unmarried mothers that their baby was a stillborn. Then they arrange for a woman to come before the CWC with the infant, claim its her baby, and wish to surrender her/him before the CWC for the babys care and protection, a member of the Jalpaiguri district CWC said, requesting anonymity.

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Facebook authorities have removed the controversial poem from his wall, poet Srijato Bandyopadhyay claimed on Saturday.

Facebook authorities removed the poem that triggered such controversy over the past few days. Most of the comments were extremely distasteful, Bandyopadhyay, 42, told the media on Saturday.

Read: Mamata Banerjee stands by Srijato Bandopadhyay, says democratic voices cannot be hushed up

However, Facebook on Sunday restored the post, apologising for the mistake.

The post was accidentally removed and has now been restored. This was a mistake, and we are sorry, a Facebook spokesman said.

On March 19 , the 12-line poem virtually polarised the residents of West Bengal, with a member of a Hindu rights group lodging a police complaint on the grounds that it hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindus. It culminated in Siliguri Police registering an FIR on non-baliable sections.

The chief minister vowed to protect the poet who, she said, was being targeted by the saffron camp for writing a political poem. Incidentally, Mamata Banerjee frequently tries her hand in composing poems and has books on poems to her credit. (HT Photo)

Over the next few days, the poem and the complaint virtually polarised the residents of the state with chief minister Mamata Banerjee asserting that nothing would happen to the poet.

On March 22, the police started a case and slapped non-bailable section of IT Act. Section 295A of the IT Act relates to deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs. It carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and/or fine.

In the poem Bandyopadhyay criticised the outcome of the UP elections, took a veiled dig at chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath and made a derogatory remark against Trishul, a quintessential Hindu symbol.

Read: Police start case, slap non-bailable section against Bengali poet for hurting religious sentiments

I shall continue to write what I feel as a poet, undeterred by such complaints, Bandyopadhyay told the media on March 22.

BJP state president Dilip Ghosh stood by complainant, Arnab Sarkar, a 20-year-old student who is also a member of Hindu Samhati, and criticised the poet. He does not have too many readers. He has not only made distasteful comments against Hindu religion, but also made disparaging comments against Yogi Aditya Nath, who is an elected representative of the people, remarked Ghosh.

Read: Ambikesh Mahapatra knocks on PMO door

I will not give much importance to the issue. The majority of people in this country believe in freedom of speech. A degree of freedom of speech still exists in this country. Our country has not become Pakistan or Bangladesh, and one has the right to speak here. Since the past two days I have been trolled in Facebook after I posted the poem, the poet had commented.

Some of the comments against me are dangerous threats. These people, so called flag bearers of Hindutva, never read poems and I do not expect them to understand, Bandyopadhyay also told HT.

Sarkar told HT, I have reservations about the last line of the poem where he makes derogatory remarks about trishul, a quintessential symbol of Hindu religion.

I can tell you nothing harsh will happen to Srijato. Everyone has democratic rights. He wrote a poem, which is political. Those who are spreading saffronisation have lodged the complaint. In social media the poet is being targeted and threatened. I do not want to name anyone. They want to dictate what we will think and do, said chief minister Mamata Banerjee, while speaking to a television channel.
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Saturday that his Samajwadi Party will choose its next national president before September 30, triggering specualations of his stepping down from the post.

Akhileshs party, which fought the recently held assembly elections in alliance with the Congress, suffered a defeat at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which came to power in the politically crucial state with a brute majority.

The run-up to the elections saw a fierce infighting in Akhileshs family, with the then chief minister snatching the post of national president from his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Akhilesh faction stripped Mulayams brother, Shivpal, of his state presidentship.

On Saturday, Akhilesh addressed an impromptu press conference at the SP office in Lucknow even as his party held a national executive meet.

Akhilesh did not clarify or speak further on the election of the new president. Traditionally, the SP always re-elected the existing president --- barring a January 1 emergency convention where the party handed Akhilesh the mantle.

In his address, Akhilesh also took jibes at the new administration led by Yogi Adityanath, a 44-year-old Hindutva leader.

Talking about reports of shudhikaran (purification) of the 5-Kalidas Marg --- the official CM residence, Akhilesh said: When we will form the government again in 2022, we will sprinkle Ganga jal with the help of fire brigade not only on 5-Kalidas Marg but also in all the government offices (to purify them).

Referring to Adityanaths last Lok Sabha speech taking a dig at Akhileshs age, the former CM said: Of course, he is an year older to me, but so far the work is concerned, he is far too small than me...

On law and order, Akhilesh said: Incidents are happening all over the state now, but they are not being highlighted with Yogis picture -- the way media used my picture while reporting (such) incidents earlier.

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An Indian Police Service officer was suspended on Saturday after he alleged in a series of tweets that the Uttar Pradesh government was selectively targeting officials of the Yadav caste who are seen as supporters of the previous Samajwadi Party administration.

Himanshu Kumar -- a 2010-batch IPS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre  had tweeted on March 22 that there was a rush among senior officers to suspend/send to reserve lines all police personnel who have Yadav surname. His allegation was rebuffed by senior officials, who said the BJP government had not ordered any police transfers.

But Kumar didnt stop and his second post was more controversial. Why is DGP office forcing officers to punish people in the name of caste? he wrote on the microblogging site, tagging chief minister Yogi Adityanaths official handle.

He has since deleted the posts and issued a clarification, but continued to retweet others supporting him. Some people have misunderstood my tweet. I support the initiative of the government, he posted later.

But the controversy refused to die down and an inquiry was ordered on Wednesday. , culminating in his suspension as a disciplinary action.

A senior home department official said the IPS officer was suspended as disciplinary action after a fact-finding report. Spokesman of home department, Vipin Mishra, confirmed the suspension of the IPS officer, who was attached with the director general of polices (DGP) office in Lucknow.

Kumar was removed as superintendent of police, Firozabad, after the assembly elections  which the BJP won with a thumping majority -- and is currently on medical leave.

The IPS officer was in the news last July for filing a case against his estranged wife, Priya Singh, in Noida. He alleged she hacked into his email accounts to obtain bank statements and personal details. His wife also lodged a case of dowry harassment and domestic violence against him and his family members in Bihar.
Aggrieved by the closure of slaughter houses across Uttar Pradesh since Yogi Adityanath became chief minister, the Qureshi community, who are mostly engaged in butcher trade, have threatened a stir if their problems are not redressed.

A delegation of al-Qureshi Kalyan Samiti will meet the chief minister in his constituency Gorakhpur on Sunday and present a memorandum to him.

If the talks failed, the community will hold a massive demonstration in front of the Assembly in Lucknow on March 27, the Samiti president, Fawad Ali said.

The crackdown on cattle smuggling and illegal slaughter houses across Uttar Pradesh on the new CMs directives has resulted in scores of arrests and cases against the minority community, lakhs of whom have lost their livelihood.

We are jobless and our family members are starving. There are 25,000 Qureshi community families in Gorakhpur. Adityanath is our representative and he should redress our grievances, Ali said.

Mohammad Islam, a member of the Qureshi community, said they would urge Adityanath to provide alternative employment or a government job to one member from each Qureshi family if the state government is adamant about the closure of slaughter houses.

We are ready to close the slaughter houses. But the state government should rehabilitate us or give alternative employment, he said.

Terming the action one-sided, Mohammad Irfan Ali said no action was taken against people who indulged in slaughter of pigs, goats and chicken. The closure of the slaughter houses is a conspiracy against the Qureshi community, he said.

Even as buffalo meat traders in UP, who supply 50% of the countrys exports, are mulling legal action, non-vegetarian tradersincluding eggs, chicken, mutton and fishhave downed their shutters in Lucknow.

The members of the Qureshi community have applied for licence in Gorakhpur Nagar Nigam (GNN) office but are forced to run from pillar to post by the municipal officials.

The officials told us to contact the food cell, but they turned us back. We will urge chief minister to direct the GNN officials to grant us licence to run the slaughter houses, Fawad Ali said.

District BJP leader, Dharmendra Singh said during his two-day stay in Gorakhpur, Adityanath will meet representatives of various communities and organisations, but did not specify whether that would include the Qureshi community.

In 2012, the Qureshi Kalyan Samiti had filed a petition in Allahabad high court in 2002 after a slaughter house located in Humayunpur locality was closed. The HC had directed the district administration to provide an alternative slaughter house, which was set up in Bhathat on the outskirts of the city. However, BJP activists organised a protest and ensured that even that was closed.

The then district magistrate permitted the Qureshi community to slaughter buffaloes in their respective houses or temporary slaughter houses in their localities. After the newly constituted BJP government ordered closure of illegal slaughter houses, the GNN raided the Qureshi houses and imposed a ban on slaughter of buffaloes, Ali said.

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A Sharjah-bound Air Arabia plane made an emergency landing at Lucknows Amausi airport early on Saturday morning after it developed a technical snag.

All the 182 people inside the plane, including seven crew members, were safe as the pilot handled the situation well.

The aircraft took off from Kathmandu airport at 12.35am but after a while, it started shaking midair due to vibrations in the engine, causing panic among passengers.

After the plane landed at 1.25 am, passengers were shifted to a nearby hotel for the night, Amausi airport director, P K Srivastava said, adding that they would be flown to Sharjah in another plane.

Full emergency landing was sounded at 1.08 am. Fire tenders, ambulances and doctors were called and police were put on alert to handle emergency, Srivastava said.

The pilot kept his cool and handled the situation well, he said, adding that engineers who would repair the snag were yet to arrive.
Uttar Pradeshs new health roadmap will start taking shape from the next week to take care of gaps in services, check corruption and optimise resources, health minister Siddharth Nath Singh said here on Friday.

He said a report will be ready by next week.

We intend to reach to the last man in the queue. We are here to serve, the minister told reporters on his visit to Rani Laxmibai hospital.

The minister spent over an hour, inspected different wards, outpatient departments and clinics. He gave an-anti TB drug to a patient there. Modiji has emphasised on making India TB free by 2025 and we should work in that direction, he said.

He said it will be mandatory for private hospitals and clinics too to get TB patients treated by them registered with the government.

Read more: Like Modi, Yogi is a hard taskmaster, says Siddharth Nath Singh

Asked whether the political names of services and schemes political (Samajwadi ambulance scheme, Samajwadi pension scheme etc) will be removed, he said: We are not worried about names but politicisation of schemes will not be allowed. Those who do not serve people have politicised schemes and we shall not allow this. Hence such names will not be there, he said.

The minister said administrative failure affected implementation. The minister said probe will be set up if corruption is found in various schemes such as the National Health Mission.

Govt docs engaged in other units under scanner

Government doctors, who have got themselves attached to departments or units (other than hospitals), will have to come back to the mainstream hospital functioning. A list of such doctors is being prepared by the health department.

Health minister Siddharth Nath Singh on Friday said that list of such doctors of the provincial medical services is being prepared. We have come to know that many of them have got themselves attached to different departments just to stay in Lucknow. Such doctors will be brought back to work or they will have to resign, the minister said.

Read more: A day after getting portfolio, Yogi ministers get into action mode
After students got poor scores in the Master of Law (LLM) exams, the University of Mumbai (MU) has decided to recheck a sample number of answer sheets to see if there was a problem with the assessment.

After receiving flak from the student community about the poor LLM results, in which 85% students failed the exams, vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh has agreed to re-evaluate the answer sheets of 10% of the students who failed the LLM exam this semester for free. Usually students pay Rs 500 to get an answer paper rechecked.

We have demanded that re-evaluation of all answer sheets be done free of cost. However, he said that based on the re-evaluation results of 10% papers they will decide the future course of action, said Sudhakar Tamboli of Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena (MNVS), a student union, who met with Deshmukh on Saturday.

Of the 703 students who appeared for the first semester LLM exams, 85% failed and many of the unsuccessful students blamed poor assessment for bad results and said that most LLM papers were assessed by teachers from LLB course as there is dearth of examiners for evaluation of answer sheets of post-graduate courses. A professor from the department of law said the high rate of failure could be a result of the university rushing the assessment. I have learnt that the papers were assessed within a couple of days by visiting faculty, the professor said.

MNVS has demanded that re-evaluation of all LLM papers should be conducted without charging any fee from the students. Deshmukh told us that this decision will be taken based on the re-evaluated marks of the 10% papers. If it is proved that students were wrongly failed, then he will conduct re-evaluation of all papers for free, added Tamboli.

HT had previously reported that the university was also planning to postpone the dates for re-examination of LLM and LLB papers, since there are many students who have failed in both the exams and have therefore sought time for re-evaluation. We have also found out that unlike LLB, where the question paper is available in English as well as Marathi, no such option is available in LLM. We have demanded that the option of appearing for the paper in Marathi be extended to LLM students as well, and the V-C has agreed to look into it, said Tamboli.

READ MORE

University of Mumbai may put off LLB, LLM repeat examinations on students demand

80% fail LLM first semester exams, students blame faulty assessment

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Resident doctors resumed duty on Saturday, but said services at medical colleges and peripheral hospitals in the city will be fully functional only from Sunday. During the strike, doctors attended only to emergency cases.

Dr Avinash Supe, dean, KEM Hospital, Parel, said the hospitals out patient department (OPD) treated 150 to 200 patients a day during the strike. The hospital treated about 1,400 patients on Saturday.

More than 70 patients were admitted to the hospital, while the emergency ward attended to 131 patients. Dr Supe said more than 110 surgeries were performed at the hospital.

Dr Ramesh Bharmal, dean of B Y L Nair Hospital, Mumbai Central, said doctors resumed work on Saturday morning.

Residents started OPD work and we didnt have to postpone any surgeries. All of our resident doctors have returned. Our OPD and ward level services will start functioning with full strength on Sunday, said Dr Bharmal.

A resident doctor from Sion Hospital said he expects the changes proposed by state to be implemented by the promised deadlines. There have been multiple strikes in the past. Each time, we were given assurances that were not fulfilled later. We hope we achieved our goal this time, said the doctor.

Resident doctors had refused to resume work even after groups such as the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors and Indian Medical Association asked them to.

The doctors had demanded that security at hospitals be stepped up. However, after the Bombay high court hearing and notifications from the medical education ministry, the doctors called off protests. The fight is unrelated to IMA or MARD, its about our personal rights, said a resident doctor, LTMG Hospital.

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4,500 resident doctors in Maharashtra call off 5-day strike, resume duties

Government doctors work in trying conditions. The least they need is safety

Resign if you are not fit to work: HC to resident docs on strike in Maharashtra
The state government on Saturday officially received possession of 12.5 acres of land at Dadars Indu Mill on which a memorial of Dr Babasaheb Ambekdar will be built. National Textiles Corporation (NTC), which works under the Union textiles ministry, sold TDR (transfer of development rights) to the state government for Rs1,413 crore.

Union textiles minister Smriti Irani gave the land documents to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and minister of state for social justice Ramdas Athawale at the Vidhan Bhavan on Saturday. Fadnavis said the demolition of the old structures at the site had been completed and the bidding process for the construction of the memorial will soon begin .

According to officials, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the nodal agency for the project, will soon prepare a detailed project report and invite bidders. The memorial is expected to cost more than Rs500 crore, including Rs200 crore towards the cost of the 350-ft statue of Dr Ambedkar. With minimal construction, the project cost has been kept low. But erecting such a tall statue will be major challenge for us, said an official from Mantralaya.

The NTC has fetched more money from the sell of the TDR than the value of the plot, said the official. It will have to give the excess amount to the state government. In case of a lesser valuation of the TDR, the state will be liable to pay the difference.

People celebrate the transfer of the 12.5-acre plot outside Indu Mill in Dadar on Saturday. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

State social justice minister Rajkumar Badole said, Beside a parking lot, a library, a replica of Chavdar pond in Raigad, we plan to build a few viewing points to make the statue visible from all directions. We also plan a cyclorama for a 360 degree view and will probably be a first-of-its-kind experience in India. The project will take about three years to complete, he said.

Prime minister Narendra Modi performed the bhoomipujan of the project at Indu Mills in Dadar on October 2015. After a tri-partite agreement between the state, centre and NTC was signed in April 2015. The dispute over the compensation model and the amount delayed the transfer of the land. The NTC had initially demanded Rs3,600 crore for the land. After the union cabinets nod in August 2016, the procedure of the actual transfer was completed this week. In the state assembly, Fadnavis said the transfer has taken place under section 11(a) of Sick Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Act 1974.

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When Ambedkars legacy is politically and commercially pawned

Maha govt to decide on Ambedkar statue height by next week

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Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray meet soon? State BJP leaders said PM Modi is meeting constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) next week, when he may meet Thackeray too.

While Thackeray is likely to be invited along with the other NDA partners, state BJP leaders said a separate meeting between the PM and the Sena chief may happen. If it takes place, the meeting will be significant to both BJP and Sena, as the parties have a strained relationship in Maharashtra.

Revenue minister and senior BJP leader Chandrakant Patil said Thackeray was invited for a meeting. The invitation was extended when Uddhavji called up the PM to congratulate him for the victory in the UP elections.

The NDA meet comes in the backdrop of the election for the President of India.

Despite being our partner for about three decades, the Sena has been targeting us continuously. Although Modi-Thackeray do not share cordial relations, such a meeting could end the bitterness between the two parties, said a key BJP leader.

Two senior BJP ministers, Patil and finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, are expected to meet Thackeray next week to clear the air.

The Sena has so far not reacted to reports of invitation to Thackeray.

The BJP and Sena have been at loggerheads since the 2014 Assembly elections, the ties have been getting worse even though the parties run the state government together. Both parties independently fought the recent BMC elections, which were full of attacks and counters. Thackeray went on announcing that not only the citys mayor, but even the states CM will be from his party. The allies in the state refused to join hands in the BMC to form the body after polls.

The constant bickering also gave rise to rumours that the Sena will pull out of the state government ahead of the BMC election. The Sena also cornered its ally in the state legislature by teaming up with the Opposition in the ongoing budget session over the issue of a complete loan waiver to farmers.

Fed up with the spat, the BJP is reportedly mulling the idea of ending the partnership at the state level.

The BJP has claimed it has the support of 29 MLAs from Opposition parties and that it would rather face mid-term polls than tolerate a troublesome ally.

READ MORE

BJP leaders to meet Uddhav Thackeray to clear the air on alliance
The state legislative council finally passed a money bill amidst chaos caused by Opposition members on Saturday.

This means that approximately 15 lakh state government employees will get their March salaries on time. Earlier, there were concerns that the Appropriation Bill would be delayed owing to repeated adjournments.

The state government had even warned that it would approach governor C Vidyasagar Rao, asking him to direct the legislative council to pass the bill.

When the house assembled at 1pm on Saturday, the Opposition benches taunted the government for allegedly beating up a farmer by security guards at Mantralaya. Amidst the chaos, council chairman Ramraje Nimbhalkar asked state finance minister Deepak Kesarkar to table the bill. It was then passed without any discussion.

The bill sought permission to spend Rs50,000 crore. Half of the amount will be used to disburse salaries of government employees.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena does not enjoy a majority in the legislative council as it is dominated by the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine.

The bill was stuck in the upper house because of adjournments right from the beginning of the budget session. The sticking point was the demand of a farm loan waiver by the Opposition. On the issue, Opposition leaders had disrupted the lower houses when the budget was being presented. Later, 19 MLAs from Congress and NCP were suspended for nine months for their unruly behaviour during the presentation of the budget. The Opposition has been demanding that the government withdraw the suspension order.

Farmer beaten up: NCP calls govt insensitive

The opposition condemned the alleged bashing up of a 32-year-old farmer, Rameshwar Bhusare, by the guards at Mantralaya on Thursday. He is from a village in Kannad taluka of Aurangabad district. Council chairman Ramraje Nimbhalkar asked the state government for a detailed report on the incident within the next two days. Raising the issue, NCP leader Sunil Tatkare said it was unbecoming of the government to refuse a patient hearing to Bhusare, who is facing agrarian crises. This shows lack of sensitivity towards farmers, said Tatkare. In response, parliamentary affairs minister Girish Bapat said the state is serious about the issue. We have already ordered a probe in this matter, said Bapat. The police had denied allegations and said Bhusare bit one of the guards when he was asked to leave.

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Shiv Sena joins Opposition to stall Maha house

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A day after Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnaviss appealed to resident doctors to join work or face action, all resident doctors across government medical colleges resumed duty.

The state health department said that by Saturday afternoon, all the 4,500 resident doctors had joined work. The doctors have received a written assurance from the Medical Education department and Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) explaining the long and short term plans for doctors safety.

Over 312 resident doctors across four medical colleges and 16 peripheral hospitals had resumed their duties until 11.30pm on Friday. Dean of KEM Hospital Dr Avinash Supe said that later in the night, more doctors walked away from the strike and resumed work. By morning almost all the doctors across four medical colleges in Mumbai attached to Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital and Medical College, Sion, B Y L Nair Hospital (Topiwala National Medical College), KEM Hospital (Seth G S Medical College) and D R N Cooper Municipal General Hospital (HBT Medical College) had called off the strike.

Officials stated that no action would be taken against the doctors who have joined work. The expulsion notices will be condoned since the resident doctors have abided by the norms. Even though the Bombay High Court has given us the power to take any or all action against the doctors, state government has requested to show leniency, said Idez Kundan, assistant municipal commissioner, BMC.

The high court and the state government had confirmed that no punitive action would be taken against doctors who resume work on Friday at 8 am. Even the resident doctors from other 10 medical colleges outside Mumbai reported to work before 8am.

However, as the six-day long ordeal for patients came to an end, it is to be seen how Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD)  the major resident doctor body which has lost its popularity amongst the residents  is able to retain its presence.

The strike had continued for two days after MARD appealed to residents to call off the strike and resume work. There are also talks of a new organisation to be formed under a fresh leadership. MARD was unable to stand strong and fight for residents and gave in as soon as state government put pressure on them and IMA effectively tackled the issue. We are planning to set up a new committee to replace MARD since it has lost its foothold amongst resident doctors, said a senior resident from KEM Hospital.
The suspension of 19 Opposition legislators is likely to be withdrawn on Wednesday, when the budget session of the state legislature resumes after a short break of three days.

The Congress and NCP-led Opposition had boycotted the proceedings of the Assembly from last Monday, following the suspension of 19 of its MLAs for disrupting the budget presentation last Saturday.

Following a series of meetings with the Opposition on Saturday, parliamentary affairs minister Girish Bapat announced in the state assembly that the government could withdraw the suspension by Wednesday.

However, the Opposition announced that it would continue with the Sangharsh Yatra, a state-wide protest for a complete loan waiver for farmers. The protest march was planned by the Opposition parties, following the suspension of the MLAs.

After the Opposition decided to hold the protest from March 29 to April 5, the BJP-led state government seems to have softened its stand, according to a source. It had stalled proceedings of the Assembly for the first two weeks of the budget session, over the loan-waiver issue.

Bapat said in the Assembly on Friday that the role of the Opposition is imperative in the proceedings of the House and government wants them to participate.

According to sources, the government agreed to the revocation of the suspension of the MLAs on the condition of the Opposition helping the government pass the appropriation bill. As the Opposition has the majority in the Upper House, the bill could not be passed without their support and participation. The government put forth the proposal of revocation of the suspension in two phases, which the Opposition opposed.

The government and particularly chief minister Devendra Fadnavis are adamant on continuing the suspension. They proposed to withdraw the suspension of 12 MLAs next week and the remaining MLAs in the last week, said a Congress leader, on the condition of anonymity. He said that the Opposition, however, would not withdraw its plan of the Sangharsh Yatra, beginning from Wedensday.

Jayant Patil, NCP group leader, said they were firm on the Sangharsh Yatra and were not interested in withdrawal of the suspension. Our battle is for the demand of the waiver of the loan. We are not bothered about the suspension and are not participating in the House proceedings even on Wednesday, he said.

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Oppn burns Maharashtra budget, Shiv Sena stays calm

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The Andheri police recently arrested a 47-year-old taxi driver from Madhya Pradesh for allegedly raping a married woman. The accused had also allegedly extorted Rs3 lakh from the woman by threatening to tell her husband and children about the rape. The survivor had approached the police in July last year after the driver demanded more money.

A police official said the accused lives at Mira Road with his wife, while the survivor lives in the western suburbs.

The woman met the accused a year ago when she hired his taxi in Andheri to visit a relative. During the ride, the accused convinced her to buy a new car and rent it to an app-based taxi operator, said the officer. The woman then asked the driver for help to go about the business. The driver took Rs1 lakh from her and took her to various offices so she could understand the procedures required to rent out a car to app-based cab services.

During this time, the two also got into a physical relationship, after which the driver started blackmailing her for money.

In her complaint, the woman said she gave the accused another Rs2 lakh but he continued to demand more money.

This made her approach the police. We traced the drivers location and a police team was sent to Madhya Pradesh on March 16. They managed to nab the accused in Bhind district on March 19 and he was brought to Mumbai said police inspector B Sadhunke of the Andheri police station.

The driver has been booked for rape and cheating and other crimes under the Indian Penal Code. He was produced in court and is currently in police custody.

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Thane: Ex-school cab driver held for raping 2 minors inside SUV for 6 months
Three Uttar Pradesh policemen were suspended after they detained a young couple at a Ghaziabad park as part of an ongoing anti-Romeo drive, described as a crackdown on people harassing women in public places, officials said on Saturday.

The couple were taken to a police station though no women police personnel was present, mandatory for detaining women.

The incident came amid widespread criticism of a section of police who are accused of resorting to moral policing in the name of reigning in criminals.

The criticism forced chief minister Yogi Adityanath  who had rolled out the drive immediately after assuming office  to order new guidelines for the anti-Romeo squads. He has also asked police not to harrass consenting young men and women found together.

Police said the couple, presumed to college students, were spotted by the team in the PCR van at Ambedkar Park in Navyug Market on Friday afternoon.

The cops approached the couple and asked them to verify their credentials and later took them in a PCR-van to Kotwali police station.

The PCR van had no women personnel deployed. A video shot by some passerby also went viral and senior superintendent of police ordered suspension after the incident came to his knowledge, said Ranvir Singh, spokesperson for SSP Deepak Kumar.

Those suspended were identified as head constable Mehtab and constables Dilip Kumar and Pankaj Kumar. The PCR van was deployed under Kotwali police station area.

Creation of the anti-Romeo squads was one of the major poll planks of the BJP which won a brute majority in the state in the recently-held assemby polls.

But police has come under fire for allegedly harassing consenting couples and hauling up youngters and men even out on a stroll. Photographs and video clips of police forcing youngsters to do sit-ups as punishment have also fanned anger.

Uttar Pradesh has a poor record in womens safety and every year hundreds of girls drop out of school or college to avoid sexual harassment in public places.

UP police data show that more than 7100 cases of molestation were registered during the first 11 months of 2015. In the corresponding period in 2014 and 2013, a total of 7734 and 6685 cases were registered.

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Dozens of protesters arrived at the office of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Raj Nagar District Centre (RDC) in Ghaziabad and blamed the partys general secretary and western UP in-charge Naseemuddin Siddiqui for the recent drubbing in UP assembly elections.

The protesters also demanded his ouster but markedly refrained from targeting party chief Mayawati.

Since Saturday afternoon, protesters started gathering outside the party office in Ghaziabad and shouted slogans against Siddiqui and also tried to burn his effigy. However, they were stopped by the police.

Siddiqui has ruined the party and we demand his ouster. He misled the party chief and sold tickets to the highest bidders. We are appalled by the defeat in the recent elections and he should be expelled from the party. We demand a change in the party, otherwise we will continue to protest, said Sachin Siddharth, who claimed to be party worker.

Since Saturday afternoon, protesters started gathering outside the party office in Ghaziabad and shouted slogans against the partys general secretary and western UP in-charge Naseemuddin Siddiqui and also tried to burn his effigy. They were stopped by the police. (HT Photo)

Despite the loss, we will continue to vote for the party. Behanji (Mayawati) should clean the party now. Siddiqui did not take party workers into confidence before the ticket distribution. He was not aware of the ground realities and acted in an arbitrary manner. All this led to loss for the party in the elections and workers suffered despite working very hard for the party, said Brij Gautam, another protester.

The protesters claimed that they have come from western UP districts and also submitted a memorandum to the BSP office bearers. BSP district president Premchand Bharti tried to play down the incident.

These protesters were not from the party and had come with some ill-intent to malign the image of our leaders. On one hand, they were hailing the BSP and party chief Mayawati, and on the other hand, they are levying allegations against our leaders. We prefer to ignore such protests, he said.

This is not the first time that protesters have levied allegations against BSP party leaders. Earlier, BSP MLA Amarpal Sharma also alleged that the party leadership took money for ticket distribution. (HT Photo)

This is not the first time that protesters have levied allegations against BSP party leaders. Earlier, BSP MLA Amarpal Sharma also alleged that the party leadership took money for ticket distribution.

His allegations came after he was expelled from the BSP on charges of anti-party activities ahead of UP polls. Later, Sharma joined the Congress and contested from Sahibabad assembly segment where he was defeated by BJP candidate Sunil Sharma. Siddiqui had rubbished these allegations as well.

This election, the BSP fared poorly and suffered a heavy loss. It could only win 19 of the 403 seats with a 22.2% vote share. In the 2012 elections, the BSP was ousted from power by Samajwadi Party and the party could gather only 80 seats.

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In its first executive meeting held after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government in the state, the Ghaziabad municipal corporation cleared a budget of Rs836 crore on Saturday. Corporation officials also directed all departments to follow the BJPs Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra and work as per its priorities.

Mayor Ashu Verma too asked all officials to take a copy of the document and start working accordingly. The Sankalp patra is a set of pre-poll promises that the BJP made before the elections. It includes a development agenda for farmers, citizens, women, youth and other sections of society.

We have also asked officials to put the highlights of the manifesto on government advertisements across the city. The old days are gone now and work will be done as per the state governments priorities, Verma said.

In his first interaction with senior officials in Lok Bhawan in Lucknow on Monday, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had also instructed them to ensure implementation of the BJPs Sankalp Patra.

On Saturday, the CM said that a facility for Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims will come up either at Lucknow, Ghaziabad or Noida. In Ghaziabad, the mayor said the corporation board had already cleared a proposal last year and identified 10,000 square yards near Arthala for pilgrims of Kailash Mansarovar and Kanwar Yatra.

As the place has already been identified in Ghaziabad, we will apprise the CM about its availability so that it can be built here, he said.

The land identified is next to Ala Hazrat Haj House that was inaugurated by former CM Akhilesh Yadav last year.

To carry out development works, the corporation board has proposed an income of Rs633 crore along with an expenditure of Rs613 crore.

We need to expedite the geographic information system (GIS) survey for all properties in Ghaziabad so that house tax can be levied and more income can be generated to carry out development works. The survey will also help us get locations of roads, which will in turn help us identify which roads have been repaired, said Abdul Samad, municipal commissioner.

The proposal for the survey was cleared in the previous board meeting held in November. The officials also proposed that the limit of 0.67% of infrastructure development funds (IDF) be raised to 1% of the 2% IDF amount. The IDF is a 2% surcharge paid by residents on purchase of stamp papers.

The 2% funds are divided in a specified proportion between the municipal corporation, Avas Vikas and Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) to carry out local development works.

We still have Rs183 crore of the IDF pending to be received from the state government. We have already identified around 43,000 new properties, but our house tax incomes have not risen accordingly. We will also pursue state officials to direct that other agencies divert their funds to local development and not to infrastructure projects such as the metro. This will reduce the burden on the corporation, which has to spend on local infrastructure, the mayor said.

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The Ghaziabad police on Saturday claimed to have several leads in the blind case of the acid attack on a 21-year-old woman. A blind case is one in which there are no suspects and no identification of the attackers, they said.

The victim, Gulista, is fighting for her life at Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi after suffering more than 50% burns in the March 21 attack . Police said they are trailing the manufacturers label found on the container of acid left behind.

Gulista, who got engaged recently and was slated to be married to a Khurja resident after April, was sleeping inside her house when unidentified assailants poured around a litre of acid on her. She sustained severe injuries on her eyes, forehead, chest and other parts of the body.

Police said they are tracking the person who purchased the acid.

Read more: Ahead of her wedding, 21-yr-old battles for life after acid attack in Ghaziabad

The bottle of acid bears the label of a company that deals in that particular substance. It is sold to select people only. We are tracking the chain of purchasers of the bottle. We found some quantity of acid left behind in the container and have sent it for forensic tests. We have also taken the mobile phone details of the victim and her family members and are probing three to four suspicious numbers, said Rajesh Kumar Singh, circle officer (city 2).

We have recorded her statements at the hospital in front of a magistrate. She said she could not identify the attackers as she was sleeping at the time. Her dying declaration has also been recorded in case something unfortunate happens to her. Three teams are working on the case and it will be cracked in three to four days, he added.

A team of police and forensic experts also visited the scene of crime and tried to ascertain the route the assailants might have taken to reach her house.

However, her family claimed the case was not being investigated properly and the police have made no headway so far.

The police came to our house and inquired about the incident. We have been repeatedly asking them about the attackers, but they have not given a proper reply so far. Gulista is stable now and is speaking in a very low voice.She said she was sleeping at the time and could not identify the persons who attacked her, said Zahid, her brother.

Meanwhile, district probationary officer Mahesh Kandpal said the victim will soon be given a compensation of Rs5 lakh under the Rani Laxmi Bai Mahila Samman Kosh scheme floated by the previous state government.

The documents were forwarded and we expect the amount to be released to her soon. Her treatment cost will also be compensated, he added.

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Newly elected MLA Pankaj Singh said chief minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath has assured him of taking policy decisions to end the alleged rampant corruption in Noida authority. Singh made the announcement after meeting the chief minister in Lucknow on Friday. He also said the CM has assured him of taking measures to improve healthcare facilities in the area.

If all permanent employees of the Noida authority are made eligible for transfer from one city to another, it would play a big role in reducing corruption. I put forth this suggestion after many residents complained of deep-rooted corruption in the Noida authority. The CM agreed to make the policy changes to enable transfers, said Singh.

Read more: CM Yogi Adityanath seeks details of Noida, G Noida and Yamuna e-way authorities

There are 1,583 permanent employees with Noida authority but the state government doesnt decide their transfers. It only has a say in the transfer of three provincial civil service officials and three public civil service officials. The state government can only transfer engineers or lower rung officials working on deputation in the Noida authority.

The permanent staff, particularly engineers, have created a nexus because they have been working in the authority for years. However, after the policy change, the government will be able to transfer them, which will reduce corruption. The state government will bring out these changes soon, said Singh.

Read more: How Yadav Singh used clout to build plush club in Noidas Sector 27

In an election rally in Ghaziabad earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said he will order a CAG audit of all development authorities in the state to check alleged corrupt practices.

Apart from the Noida authority issue, the Singh said he also demanded that the Sector 30 building meant for a paediatric institute be developed on the lines of Delhis All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Noida needs better healthcare for the poor and the middle class. The CM has agreed to develop the facility on the lines of AIIMS. The building is already there. We will expand it and get the approvals necessary from the state and Central health departments. It will also reduce the pressure on AIIMS and will cater to western UP areas, the MLA said.

We are working to fulfil the promises in the election manifesto. We will work to form a vigilance body in Noida and also take other steps to ensure that residents do not suffer to get their work done, he added.

The first-time MLA has also directed the Gautam Budh Nagar district administration to call a meeting of the Noida authority and the traffic department to streamline traffic management.

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The bail application of 22-year-old Rahat Khan, who was booked for allegedly posting derogatory content against CM Yogi Adityanath on Facebook, will be heard on Monday.

The application was moved before local court in Surajpur on Friday, after which the first additional chief judicial magistrate, Parul Pawar, ordered the police to produce case dairy before the court and posted the matter for hearing on Monday.

Khan was arrested in Dankaur by Greater Noida police on Thursday evening, after they received a complaint from one Naveen Sharma, a member of Hindu Yuva Vahini, a youth group founded by Yogi Adityanath.

Police had earlier informed Hindustan Times that Khan had posted a morphed photograph of newly elected CM Yogi Adityanath with an insulting caption that questioned chief ministers integrity on his Facebook wall.

Khan was produced before local court and was sent to jail on Friday. Khans advocate, Dinesh Kumar, said, We moved a bail application on Friday, but the hearing in the matter is posted for Monday.

Khans family members have alleged the involvement of hatemongers in the matter and that Khan was being falsely implicated. Our family has been raising our voice for several social causes, which is not liked by some hardliners. Hence, they are trying to harass us by any means. The photograph could have been posted by someone else through his social networking account, said Kadir Khan Jayswal, the arrested mans uncle.

Complainant Sharma claimed that he was informed about the controversial post by someone else after which he checked Khans Facebook profile and complained to police.

Sharma said, Chief minister elect Yogi Adityanath is a respected figure and idol for many. The Facebook post could hurt feelings of many people.

Following the complaint, Dankaur police booked Khan under Section 66A (punishment for sending offensive messages through communication services) of the IT Act, 2000, and Section 153a (promoting enmity between different groups) of the IPC.

The action against Khan came close on the heels of police arresting four people in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly posting and sharing on social media objectionable pictures of Adityanath.

These arrests were made in Varanasi, Ghazipur, Sonbhadra and Bareilly districts, police said.

The 44-year-old Adityanath, known as a firebrand Hindu leader, is the head priest of Gorakhpurs influential Gorakhnath shrine and a five-term parliamentarian.

The BJP leadership chose to make him the chief minister after the party and its allies won a landslide victory  with 325 seats  in the February-March assembly elections in the countrys most populous state. The Yogi was sworn in last Sunday to head a BJP government in Uttar Pradesh in 15 years.
A statue of Dr BR Ambedkar installed in a park in Sarfabad village of Sector 49 was allegedly damaged on late Friday night. Police have registered a case of mischief against unknown persons.

The matter came to light when some local residents went to the park on Saturday morning and found the statues right arm damaged. They said the perpetrators had tried to vandalise the statue to create tensions in the area.

As news of incident spread, around 100 village residents, including women and children, assembled near the spot and started protesting with placards and slogans against the state government. They demanded an immediate probe into the incident and fencing around Dr Ambedkars statues.

The life-size statue is installed in a park adjacent to the indoor stadium of Sarfabad village. Local residents visit the park in the mornings and evenings and hold the statue in high regard.

The entry to the park is unmanned and one of its boundary walls is scaled down, making it easy to sneak in. The protestors claimed such incidents have taken place in the past too, but the government never took any strong action in the matter.

Senior police and district administration officials reached the spot and tried to pacify the villagers. They promised that the statue would be replaced and the height of the parks boundary wall raised.

Lal Singh Gautam, Bahujan Samaj Partys district president, joined the protestors along with party members. He said Dr Ambedkars statues have been targeted during the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The incident took place at 11pm on Friday. We received call at 9am on Saturday and went to the spot. The anti-social elements had tried to damage it completely. It was an attempt to polarise people and hence we have demanded that Dr Ambedkars statues be fenced.

Bijendra Singh Bhadana, station house officer (SHO), Sector 49 police station, said, We have registered a case of mischief against unknown persons. A team is investigating the matter to find the people involved. A new statue is being brought from Jaipur and will be installed in a day or two.

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The Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) sealed 30 marriage palaces on Friday after the owners failed to procure a No-objection Certificate (NOC) from it, even as the last date to do was February 15. GMADA has issued the NOCs to 65 of 101 marriage palaces under its jurisdiction.

The Punjab government had framed a policy in 2012 on the orders of the Punjab And Haryana high court. The policy mandated that owners had to take clearances from eight departments. The government started a single window system in 2012, but marriage palace owners claim that it failed to streamline the process.

The marriage season is on and many palaces have booked functions. GMAD should consider extending the date of submitting the NOC. The authority should grant time to those who have applied, but have not got permission till now, said Sukhdev Singh Sidhu, president, SAS Nagar Marriage Palace Association.

Seconding him, a Balongi marriage palace owner said, Permission from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the forest department and the pollution department is the most cumbersome. Many marriage palaces have applied, but are awaiting clearances. In this case, the sealing drive is illogical.

GMADA chief administrator Varun Roojam said, The marriage palaces that have failed to submit NOCs have been sealed. We issue the NOC after permissions from relevant departments.

60 palaces operating illegally

Even as the sealing drive was launched, sources in GMADA said, A list of 60 hotels and eateries that also function illegally as marriage palaces was recently submitted to us. We are getting the list verified.

The chief administrator confirmed said, After verification, action will be taken.

Process began in 2012

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on August 17, 2012, had directed Punjab DCs to furnish a list of all unauthorised marriage palaces in the state. The directions came during the hearing of a petition for action on unauthorised marriage palaces that have mushroomed under GMADA. Following this, GMADA issued notices to 102 marriages palaces functioning without a Change-in-Land-Use (CLU) certificate. After which, some submitted the documents. Then, 12 marriage palaces were sealed.

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Beware Romeos! Now Jharkhand has adopted Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanaths anti-Romeo squad (ARS) model to check eve-teasing in public and on educational campuses.

The ARS, which has started functioning in Ranchi, will be replicated in other districts of the state very soon, state police officials said on Friday.

Ranchi police have constituted four teams with a woman ASI and constable and two male constables. The ARS teams claimed that they found over 30 eve teasers outside different womens colleges in the city on Friday.

The ARS was constituted to provide safety and security to girls studying in schools and colleges, said senior superintendent of police, Ranchi, Kuldeep Dwivedi.

Crime against women is on the rise in Jharkhand. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data reveals that crime against women has increased even after Raghubar Das led BJP government came in power in the state in December 2014. The NCRB had recorded altogether 5,972 cases committed against women in 2014, which increased to 6,518 in 2015.

According to the crime records available on Jharkhand police website, Ranchi registered 131 rape cases in 2014, which increased to 158 in 2015. The district has registered 104 cases of rape till August 2016.

To check crime against women, chief minister Raghubar Das had flagged off Shakti fleet, an army of 40 women commandos, in Ranchi in 2016. The commandos on scooters are part of a quick response team to back up Shakti mobile application, which had been launched simultaneously.

City superintendent of police (SP) Kishor Kaushal said there is slight difference between ARS and Shakti Commandos. The ARS is a dedicated team to check eve-teasing, while Shakti Commandos are assigned to take up all kinds of crimes against women, including eve-teasing, Kaushal said.

Eight mobile numbers were also released o which girls could contact cops anytime, anywhere.

College girls have welcomed Ranchi polices initiative. We face lots of problems in public areas and outside the educational institutions. We hope ARS teams will provide us safety, said an undergraduate student of Ranchi Womens College, who, however, requested anonymity.

However, a section of the students community said that it was tough sometimes to identify eve-teasers and innocent students. The team should identify properly. Innocent boys should not be harassed, said Amit Mahato, a student of Ranchi university.

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A total of 1240 undergraduate, postgraduate and Ph.D students were conferred degrees at the 27th convocation ceremony of Ranchis Birla Institute of Technology (BIT) Mesra in presence of renowned scientist Padma Vibhushan Jayant V Narlikar and Jharkhand governor Droupadi Murmu on Friday.

Narlikar, the chief guest at the ceremony, asked students to avoid complacency and strive for betterment.

You are no doubt very happy at your achievement. I would like to say that you should not rest satisfied with what you have achieved but try to improve yourself. In short, try to aspire for excellence in whatever you undertake, Narlikar said.

He narrated stories from the University of Cambridge to drive home his point and inspire students to work harder.

Out of the 1240 students, 728 received graduate degrees, 450 got postgraduate degrees while 62 got their Ph.D degrees on Friday.

Among engineering students, Yash Kaushal bagged the gold medal in computer science, Govind Kumar Singh in electronics and electricals, Prabhpreet Singh in information technology (IT) and Subham Agarwal in mechanical.

All the gold medallists have already received placement offers but they refused to share their package and posts offered as per their contracts with the hiring companies, a BIT source said.

As many as 96 international and domestic recruiters visited the campus this year and offered 963 jobs and 124 internships. In addition, 20 more companies are expected to visit the campus for recruitment.

An average package of Rs.6.8 lakh per annum was offered to BE grads from the institution this year. BIT, however, did not disclose the highest package offered.

As all of us are aware, ISRO launched Indian Rocket PSLV-C37 with a record 104 satellites into space from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota and much is expected from young professionals like you, governor Droupadi Murmu told the students.

She sought BITs support in imparting technical training to youths for the different works in the state under Momentum Jharkhand.

Referring to a quote by former president Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, she said that problems were common but it was attitude, which made the difference.

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Jharkhand police special investigating team (SIT) probing the high profile murder of Dhanbad ex-deputy mayor Neeraj Singh on Friday picked up a retired government officers family for renting out their house to four men, who disappeared soon after the incident that claimed four lives.

Police suspect the four men, whose whereabouts and antecedents ae not clear yet, could be the possible killers. According to eye witnesses four men on two motorcycles had carried out the crime on Tuesday. Police have also arrested two suspects, Avinash Kumar and Shashi Paswan from Jharia, following intelligence inputs.

One Aditya Raj, who worked as private security guard of the slain ex-deputy mayor was also being grilled.

We are extracting details from the Roy family of Kusum Vihar on the four men who had recently shifted to their house on rent and have gone missing after the murders, Nirsa police inspector Parmeshwar Prasad, who is also the investigating office of the case, said.

He said expert artists have been summoned from Ranchi to prepare sketches on the appearance of the four assailants.

Earlier in the day, on Dhanbad senior superintendent of police (SSP) MR Chothes directive, police picked up Roy, his wife, two daughters and their maid.

Interestingly, RA Roy, former deputy director of Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research ( CIMFR) -Digwadih campus, had personally approached the police with a petition, informing them about the sudden disappearance of his tenants.

A police team went to his home, broke open the locked doors where the four men stayed and seized some belongings.

During interrogation, Roy said he had rented his house to one Munna, resident of Samastipur in Bihar on the recommendation of one of his acquaintances from his native village.

Few days back, I saw three other men joining Munna in the house. They claimed to be residents of Gaya and Chapra districts of Bihar. All were in their early thirties and well built. They claimed that they were executives of a private company operating in Dhanbad and Bokaro, Roy told police.

The investigating team also visited different shops having CCTV cameras for video footages in Saraidhela area where the shootout occurred. However, they could not get any substantial clue from them.

Meanwhile, opposition Congress has stepped up its demand for CBI probe in the case. Only a CBI probe will unravel the murder mystery and bring the actual culprits to book, said state Congress secretary, Aditya Vikram Jaiswal, suspecting that innocents might become a scapegoat.

Neeraj Singhs uncle and ex-minister, Bachcha Singh held a press conference this afternoon where he charged the ruling BJP government of protecting its legislator Sanjeev Singh, who is the prime accused in the case. He demanded the legislators immediate arrest.

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Superstar Rajinikanths visit to Sri Lanka next month to inaugurate a housing scheme has met with opposition from pro-Tamil outfits here, who cautioned him from getting involved in the emotive ethnic issue.

Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi (TVK) urged the top actor not go ahead with his two-day visit starting April 9 during which he is slated to hand over 150 houses to displaced Tamils.

VCK founder Thol.Thirumavalavan alleged that efforts were on to involve the Enthiran star in the ethnic issue in the island nation.

There are efforts to involve him in the ethnic issue. Superstar (Rajinikanth) should not get involved in this matter and I say this as a friend, the pro-Tamil leader told a Tamil TV channel.

The megastar is scheduled to hand over the homes built by Lyca Groups Gnanam Foundation for displaced Tamils in northern Jaffna.

The actor is currently shooting for ace director Shankars 2.o, a sequel to the duos earlier hit Enthiran, starring Rajinikanth and produced by Lyca Productions.

Incidentally, Lyca Productions had in 2014 faced opposition in Tamil Nadu when various pro-Tamil parties and organisations including VCK and TVK had opposed its producing of the movie Kaththi (Knife), starring popular star Vijay.

They had alleged that the proprietor of Lyca Productions, Allirajah Subaskaran, had close business ties with then Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, often criticised in Tamil Nadu for the death of civilian Tamils during the final assault on rebel LTTE in 2009.

Lyca Productions had then refuted the allegations.

Thirumavalvan said he had no problem with the commercial motive of Rajinikanths visit to Sri Lanka but said he felt there could be a political motive behind it.

So he should be careful about this and it would be good if he could avoid visiting Sri Lanka, he said.

TVK founder and former MLA T Velmurugan said the actor should not fall prey to the efforts to paint a rosy picture of Sinhala-Tamil relations in the island nation.

At a time when Tamils are seeking justice for the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka, Rajinikanths visit does not augur well. This is an attempt by Sri Lankan government through Lyca to create an image that Sinhalas and Tamils are living unitedly, he said.

Velmurugan, who had spearheaded the protest against Lyca Productions in 2014, said Rajinikanth has great respect and following among Sri Lankan Tamils and therefore he should not commit himself to the programme.

He questioned whether there were no actors in Sri Lanka who could be used for this purpose.

There is a big political conspiracy behind this and Rajinikanth should not fall prey to this, he said.

Gnanam Foundation has constructed homes for the relocation of displaced Sri Lankan Tamils affected by the civil war as part of the Lyca Housing Scheme in Chinna Thampan and Puliyankulam regions in Vavuniya district in Jaffna.

Lyca Productions creative head Raju Mahalingam in a statement on Friday said when they approached Rajinikanth to grace the event as the chief guest, he readily agreed to be part of the function.

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Eleven men and women in their twenties on Friday slaughtered a sheep and took off their clothes at the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, according to the police in southern Poland.

The individuals, whose identities and motives are unknown, then chained themselves together in front of the camps infamous Arbeit macht frei (Work makes you free) gate, the museum at the site said in a statement.

Regional police spokesman Sebastian Glen said the seven men and four women draped a white banner with the red text love over the infamous gate.

They also used a drone to film the incident, according to local media.

Museum guards at the site in the southern city of Oswiecim immediately intervened, and the police said all those involved had been detained.

They include six Poles, four Belarusians and one German, according to Glen, who said a knife was found at the scene.

Oswiecim police said one of the men used a sharp tool to kill the sheep on the premises.

Local police spokeswoman Malgorzata Jurecka said the individuals were being questioned at a police station and police officers were investigating on site.

She said they planned to inform prosecutors of the incident, adding that the people involved will likely be charged with desecrating a monument or other historical site.

Oswiecim police said the individuals were also being investigated for the unfounded killing of an animal.

Shocked and outraged

We are shocked and outraged by this attempt to use this memorial site for a protest and which mars the memory of thousands of victims. Its a reprehensible act, museum spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel said.

This is the first time something like this has happened at Auschwitz, added museum director Piotr Cywinski. I have no idea what their motives were.

The entrance gate, with the inscription Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Sets You Free), of the former German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial in Oswiecim, Poland. (AP Photo)

Unconfirmed local media reports said the incident was intended as a protest against the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Nazi Germany built the Auschwitz death camp after occupying Poland during World War II. The Holocaust site has become a symbol of Nazi Germanys genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom were killed at the camp from 1940 to 1945.

Polands chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said the actions of those involved were wrong, regardless of the groups motives.

Any use of Auschwitz for political statements, even using Auschwitz for moral statements, is not how Auschwitz should be remembered, he said. The Germans used Auschwitz to try to eliminate the Jewish people. Any happenings are a desecration of the memory of all those killed at Auschwitz: Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others.

More than 100,000 non-Jews also died at the death camp, according to the museum. An estimated 232,000 of Auschwitzs victims were children.
At least 50 people have been killed and dozens more injured since Tuesday after armed men attacked three villages in the central Bambari region of the Central African Republic, local residents who fled their homes said.

Prosper Tchoulekrayo, who escaped from Yasseneme village, said the attackers had fired indiscriminately on the inhabitants.

The provisional toll of the attacks in the Agoudou Manga, Yasseneme and Ngouyanza is at least 50 dead. Dozens more have been injured, said Isaac Arata-Naba, an Agoudou Manga resident.

Tchoulekrayo said the attacks were staged by members of the UPC, a faction of the former rebel and mainly Muslim Seleka movement which is continuing to stage reprisal attacks against natives.

But a UPC (Unity of Central African People) source denied the group was involved in the latest attacks.

The source said a rival Seleka faction called the Popular Front for the Rebirth of the Central African Republic had raided the villages, adding that they were targeting UPC positions.

One of the worlds poorest nations, the Central African Republic has been struggling to recover from a three-year civil war between the Muslim and Christian militias that started in 2013.

President Faustin-Archange Touadera took office in March 2016 with a mandate to lead a transition to peace but much of the country remains under the control of armed groups.

Deadly clashes between rival factions have regularly broken out near the central town of Bambari, where a contingent of the UN peacekeeping force is based.

The fighting is linked to the control of lucrative mines in the mineral-rich country and racketeering.

An independent UN expert on Central Africa, Marie-Therese Keita-Bocoum, had in February deplored that armed groups have taken over more than 60% of the country.
President Vladimir Putin met French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen as she visited Moscow on Friday, with the Russian leader stressing that the Kremlin does not meddle in Frances politics.

Le Pens meeting with Putin -- their first, according to Moscow -- comes a month before the first round of the French presidential vote and as she tries to boost her international status by meeting with world leaders.

We by no means want to influence the current events but we reserve the right to communicate with all representatives of all political forces of the country, Putin said, according to a Kremlin-issued transcript.

Russia has been accused of interfering in the US election in an effort to sway results in President Donald Trumps favour, prompting a probe by American authorities.

Last month an aide to staunchly pro-Europe French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron accused Russia of trying to derail his campaign by spreading false rumours through state media.

Le Pen, leader of the National Front party, said she and Putin discussed ways to fight fundamentalism. Speaking to reporters, she declined to say which issues Putin had raised during the encounter.

She said Putin represented a new vision of the world.

A new world has emerged in the past years. This is Vladimir Putins world, Donald Trumps world in the United States, Mr (Narendra) Modis world in India, she told reporters.

I am probably the one who shares with all these great nations a vision, once again, of cooperation and not one of subservience, not the hawkish vision that has too often been expressed by the European Union.

Lifting sanctions

Anti-EU Le Pen is among European politicians who have called for closer ties with Putin and approved of Moscows annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, which saw the United States and European Union impose sanctions against Russia.

Le Pen said Friday that if she were elected, she would ponder lifting sanctions against Russia.

I have always been opposed to these sanctions that I thought were profoundly unfair and utterly counterproductive, she said.

Le Pen has visited Moscow on several occasions, enjoying positive Russian state media coverage.

Russia has offered praise for rightwing and eurosceptic politicians in Europe -- with Putin cementing closer ties with Hungarys Prime Minister Viktor Orban, for example, in Budapest last month.

But calls for a detente with Russia have drawn criticism in France, and Le Pens conservative rival in the presidential race, Francois Fillon, has also been hit by charges of being too close to Putin.

Media reports claim that Fillon introduced a Lebanese oil pipeline builder -- with whom he signed a $50,000 lobbying contract -- to Putin at a business forum in 2015.

Benoit Hamon, the Socialist candidate, lashed out at what he called Le Pens subservience to Putin, saying Russias interests are not Frances interests.

Russian loan

It is rare for Putin to meet a foreign presidential candidate so close to an election.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putins meeting with Le Pen and his encounters with other representatives of foreign opposition forces were normal practice.

Russia is ready to stay in contact with representatives of all political forces, with the current leadership, with representatives of the opposition, Peskov said.

The meeting -- which lasted an hour and a half, according to a Le Pen advisor -- was not announced this week when the Russian parliament confirmed that she would be meeting with lawmakers Friday.

Le Pen met Russian parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, calling for increasing cooperation with Russia in the fight against terrorism.

She also posed for a selfie with federal lawmaker Vitaly Milonov, known for having drafted Russias 2013 law banning gay propaganda, which he posted to his Facebook page.

In 2014, the National Front received a nine-million-euro ($9.7 million) loan from a Russian commercial bank that later collapsed.

The party on Friday dismissed the possibility of seeking further funding from a Russian bank.

Le Pen said in Moscow that financial aid to her party had in no way been discussed during her meeting with Putin.

Le Pen has sought to capitalise on the anti-globalisation anger reflected by Brexit and the election of Trump -- both results that were welcomed by the Kremlin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday said Le Pen was not a populist but a realist or anti-globalist figure.
A Filipino fisherman cast adrift in the high seas by a storm survived for nearly two months by drinking rainwater as he helplessly watched his uncle die beside him, the survivors mother said Saturday.

The PNG Post Courier newspaper, quoting local police, said a fishing vessel found Rolando Omongos, 21, adrift and without food on a boat on March 9.

Weak and distressed, he was examined by doctors and held on the boat on the island of New Britain while arrangements are being made for his return home, it said, adding his ordeal lasted 56 days.

A January storm separated him and his uncle Reniel Omongos from their main fishing vessel, leaving the two stranded on a tiny boat without fuel, food or fishing tools, said Rosalie Omongos, the mother of the survivor and sister of the deceased.

Rolando told me they lost their voices after one week and my brother later died. My son said he cried but his eyes were dry, she told AFP, speaking by phone from the Philippine port of General Santos.

He told me he kept his uncles body on the boat in case a ship came to rescue them, but there was nothing and so he threw it into the water when it started to smell, she added.

After the storm Rolando and his 31-year-old uncle relied on rain water they gathered using a one-gallon jug, the woman said.

They endured hunger and thirst and their skin was burnt by the sun because the boat did not have any roof, she said.

She said her son and her brother sailed off from General Santos on December 21 along with other fishermen aboard the bigger vessel.

But when the fishing boat and crew returned to port after the storm without the two men, the family feared the worst.

We did not hear anything from them for three months. We thought they were both dead, the woman said.

The mens employer later reported the rescue and the death to the Philippine coast guard on March 10, General Santos coast guard officer Emma Ruth Consuelo told AFP.

His mother said she spoke to her son by telephone on March 12, three days after his rescue.

It is difficult for us to accept my brothers death, but we are overjoyed to learn that my son is alive, said the 40-year-old woman.

The family and the Filipino coast guard both said they did not know when the survivor would return home. His employers could not be contacted by AFP on Saturday.
At least six people, including two police officials, were killed and scores wounded in two bomb blasts in Bangladesh on Saturday near a militant hideout that was raided by commandos, the police said.

The explosions in the northeastern district of Sylhet came a day after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint near the countrys main airport in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

At least six people including two police official were killed in two explosions, one near the hideout and another in front of the building, said Sylhet police spokesman Zedan Al Musa.

More than 40 people were wounded, several critically, he added. About a dozen army and police personnel were among the injured.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a bombing on Bangladeshi forces in Sylhet, the SITE monitoring service said, citing the militant groups news agency Amaq.

Army commandos had stormed the hideout, which belonged to a domestic Islamist group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and was blamed for a cafe attack in July last year in which 22 people were killed, most of them foreigners.

On Saturday, commandos rescued all 78 people trapped inside the five-storey building for more than a day in an operation that was still underway.

The raid came after a string of suicide attacks on security bases this month.

A forensic report confirmed that Fridays attack was a suicide blast that was the third incident involving explosives in the capital, Dhaka, in a week.

Islamic State and al Qaeda have made competing claims over killings of foreigners, liberals and members of religious minorities in Bangladesh, a mostly Muslim country of 160 million people.

The government has consistently ruled out the presence of such groups, blaming domestic militants instead.
A conference in Houston brought together various groups with an interest in India and held discussions on best ways of doing business in the country including dialogue on Make in India.

The first-ever Houston India Conference, hosted by Asia Society Texas Center began on Friday. The theme of the two-day conference is Make in India- The Inside Story.

Texas has a vibrant Indian-American population that has contributed immensely to the understanding between our two countries across business, academia, the sciences. We would like to take Texas Can do spirit back home, consul general of India in Houston, Dr Anupam Ray said.

Indo-US relations will be the defining partnership of the 21st century, he added.

Speakers included, included Manjari Chatterjee Miller, an assistant professor of internal relations at Boston University, along with Nisha Biswal, former assistant secretary of state for south and central asian affairs and Nagaraj Naidu, joint secretary at economic diplomacy ministry of external affairs, Kalikesh Singh Deo MP, World Bank South Asia executive director SC Garg in Houston and Dhruva Jaishankar, Fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution India Center, New Delhi.

The Conference brings serious dialogue on India and Make in India to Houston, the organisers said.

Conference was the brain child of the Consulate General of India in Houston, Dr Ray in partnership with non-profit group India House, Indo-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston, according to the conference Chair, Jiten Agarwal.

Though the sentiment among panellists, which included political commentators and Indian government officials, was positive for the future of US-India relations, they noted that theres uncertainty over how such they will evolve under President Donald Trumps administration.

Houston India Conference is designed to bring together the various constituencies that have an interest in India, and discuss with them the latest developments and the best practices of doing business in India.

The central focus of the conference is to provide a collaboration platform and share todays India story with the audience in Texas who are interested in investing in India, by the people who are playing an important role in shaping up the modern.
The man who killed four people outside Britains Parliament was in Saudi Arabia three times and taught English there, the Middle Eastern countrys embassy said.

A Saudi embassy statement released late on Friday said Khalid Masood taught English in Saudi Arabia from November, 2005 to November, 2006 and again from April, 2008 to April, 2009.

The embassy said he had a work visa. It said he returned for six days in March, 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent.

The Saudi embassy said he was not tracked by the countrys security services and did not have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was known as Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted at least twice for violent crimes.

Masood drove his rented SUV across the crowded Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, striking pedestrians. Then he jumped out and attacked police officer Keith Palmer, who was guarding Parliament, fatally stabbing him before being shot dead by police.

In all, he killed four people and left more than two dozen hospitalized, including some with what have been described as catastrophic injuries. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record dating to 1983. The violence came later, first in 2000 when he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account.

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine his motives and possible accomplices. Two people remain in custody for questioning.

They are two men, aged 27 and 58, who were arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities havent charged or identified the two men. Others who were arrested in connection with the investigation have been released.

Details about how he became radicalized arent clear. His time in Saudi Arabia may provide clues. He was also jailed in Britain and may have become exposed to radical views while an inmate.

Masoods last conviction was in 2003, also involving a knife attack. Its not clear when he took the name Masood, suggesting a conversion to Islam.
Sydneys Opera House and Harbour Bridge plunged into darkness Saturday to mark Earth Hour, as global landmarks began dimming their lights to draw attention to climate change.

Millions of people from some 170 countries and territories are expected to take part in the annual bid to highlight global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas to drive cars and power plants.

The event, which originated in Sydney, has grown to become a worldwide environmental campaign, celebrated across all continents.

Highlights Lights are switched off for 60-minute at 8:30 local time to mark Earth Hour. Empire State Building, the Kremlin, Big Ben, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower and Egypts pyramids are all scheduled to switch off. Conservation group WWF organises the Earth Hour. The event originated in Sydney.

Conservation group WWF, which organises Earth Hour, said great strides had been made in highlighting the dire state of the planet.

We started Earth Hour in 2007 to show leaders that climate change was an issue people cared about, coordinator Siddarth Das said.

For that symbolic moment to turn into the global movement it is today, is really humbling and speaks volumes about the powerful role of people in issues that affect their lives.

In Sydney, many harbourside buildings switched off their lights for an hour from 8.30pm local time as the call for action began rolling out across the world.

I agree with the concept, 100 percent, said student Ed Gellert, 24, in Sydney.

I think people probably avoid the fact that climate change is happening, so its good to see the city grouping together to support Earth Hour.

From Australia, it was moving westward through Asia, where Hong Kongs skyline was to go dark in solidarity while at Myanmars most sacred pagoda, the Shwedagon, 10,000 oil lamps were to be lit to shine a light on climate action.

A combination photo shows the Tokyo Tower before (L) and after its lights were switched off for Earth Hour in Tokyo, Japan on March 25. (REUTERS)

The event will also be marked throughout Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Monuments including the Empire State Building, the Kremlin, Big Ben, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower and Egypts pyramids are all scheduled to switch off.

Lisbon will host a concert by candlelight, Singapore a carbon-neutral run, and Tanzania will organise a tree-planting ceremony.

Homes and businesses were also being asked to join in, and individuals could commit to the cause on Facebook.

WWF said teams around the world would use Earth Hour this year to highlight climate issues most relevant to individual countries.

In South Africa, the focus would be on renewable energy while in China, WWF said it was working with businesses to encourage a shift towards more sustainable lifestyles.

A combination photo shows a view of China Central Radio and Television Tower before (top) and during Earth Hour in Beijing on March 25. (REUTERS)

Visible proof

Last year, scientists recorded the Earths hottest temperatures in modern times for the third year in a row.

Nations agreed in Paris in 2015 to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial temperatures.

That is the level at which many scientists say humankind can still avoid worst-case climate outcomes in terms of rising sea levels, worsening droughts and floods, and increasingly violent superstorms.

Climate change is visible proof that our actions can have a ripple effect beyond physical borders, Das said.

It is up to each of us to ensure the impact we create helps instead to improve the lives of those around us and elsewhere, at present and in the future.

Earth Hour does not collect global statistics on the energy conserved during the 60-minute blackout, with the event having a more symbolic intent.
The new Indian ambassador to Nepal, Manjeev Singh Puri, arrived in Kathmandu on Saturday to replace Ranjit Rae, who completed his tenure last month.

Puri is the 24th Indian envoy to Nepal. Rae completed his three-and-a-half year term on February 28.

The new envoy is scheduled to present his credentials to President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Sunday.

The position of the Indian ambassador in Nepal is considered a prize posting because of the close relationship between the two countries and New Delhi usually chooses one of its most senior diplomats for the post. The respect and regard the Indian ambassador receives in Kathmandu is rare for any diplomatic assignment.

As a close neighbour of Nepal and due to the open border, India keeps a close watch on political, cultural, economic and security-related developments in Kathmandu and this makes the job of the Indian envoy all the more challenging.

Indias role as a stakeholder in Nepals peace process is also crucial at a time when the political situation is unpredictable. Nepal is preparing to hold three elections in the next 10 months against the backdrop of a standoff between the government and Madhesi parties.

Before Puri was appointed as ambassador to Nepal, he was Indias envoy to Belgium. An Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1982 batch, Puri also served as ambassador to the UN in New York during 2009-13. He was a senior member of India's UN Security Council team during 2011-12.

Puri was actively involved with issues of sustainable development and environment and was a lead negotiator in India's delegation for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012. He was also a key member of India's delegation at various climate change negotiations.
Several Indian citizens in Britain have received calls from people purporting to be from the Home Office, demanding money to deal with non-existent errors in their passports or visa papers, prompting an advisory from external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.

After receiving tweets from affected Indians in several countries, Swaraj asked them not to worry and to report the calls to the nearest Indian mission. The Indian high commission in London too issued an advisory, asking those affected not to pay money to the callers.

More than 10 affected Indian citizens have approached the high commission, and officials said they were aware of at least 25 such cases . These cases emerged recently, but similar calls were received in previous years.

The Indian missions advisory states: A number of incidents have come to the attention of the High Commission involving fraudsters having telephonically cheated some Indian nationals by posing as officers from UK Home Office/ UK immigration/ UKBA.

These fraudsters extort money from Indian nationals, claiming that mistakes were noticed in their passports, visa forms, immigration forms etc and that they should deposit money (as demanded by these fraudsters) to have these mistakes rectified or else they will be deported or imprisoned in UK.

The advisory noted that in some cases, the callers falsely claimed they had information about the Indian nationals from the high commission or other authorities in India or the British high commission in New Delhi.

This is to clarify that the High Commission does not send any such notifications to UK authorities. If there is any issue, the High Commission contacts the concerned Indian national, directly using the official email ID of the High Commission ending with @hcilondon.in, it said.

Indian nationals are advised not to entertain suspicious telephone calls and they should never part with their money in response to such calls. Indian nationals are further advised to immediately notify the local police and also report the matter online to Action Fraud (www.actionfraud.police.uk) or by calling Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.

The advisory said Indians could also bring such calls to the notice of their university (in case of students), their employers/sponsors(in case of work permit holders) and to the high commission at the email ID info.london@hcilondon.in.

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Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US Saturday, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through the worlds busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai.

Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban, including Istanbuls Ataturk International Airport and Qatars Hamad International Airport.

And while the ban has sparked anger across the region for again targeting majority-Muslim countries, some increasingly wary travellers shrugged off the latest restriction.

Its a rule. I follow the rules, said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year.

The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours.

Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again, read a statement emailed to AFP.

The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.

The United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.
The British man who killed four people during a London rampage had made three trips to Saudi Arabia: He taught English there twice on a work visa and returned on a visa usually granted to those going on a religious pilgrimage.

More details about attacker Khalid Masoods travels, confirmed by the Saudi Arabian embassy in Britain, emerged Saturday amid a massive British police effort to discover how a homegrown ex-con with a violent streak became radicalized and why he launched a deadly attack Wednesday on Westminster Bridge.

The embassy said he taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009, with a legitimate work visa both times. He then returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent and made on an Umra visa, usually granted to those on a religious pilgrimage to the countrys Islamic holy sites.

The embassy said Saudi security services didnt track Masood and he didnt have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was called Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted at least twice for violent crimes.

Masood drove his rented SUV across Londons crowded Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, striking pedestrians. Then he jumped out and stabbed to death police officer Keith Palmer, who was guarding Parliament, before being shot dead by police.

In all, he killed four people and left more than two dozen hospitalized, including some with what have been described as catastrophic injuries. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, calling him a solider who responded to its demands that followers attack countries in the coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

British officials said security at Parliament will be reviewed after new footage emerged that showed the large gates to the complex were left open after Masood rushed onto the grounds. There are concerns that accomplices could have followed him in and killed even more people. The footage from that day shows pedestrians walking by the open gates and even a courier entering the grounds.

Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair told the BBC that changes to the outer soft ring of Parliaments security plan are likely in the aftermath of Masoods attack.

The new footage follows earlier video that showed slight delays and confusion during the evacuation of Prime Minister Theresa May from Parliament as the attack unfolded.

Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record in Britain dating to 1983. In 2000, he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account. Masoods last conviction, in 2003, also involved a knife attack.

The British press quoted people who had contact with Masood over the years describing him as a man who seemed to lose control at a moments notice. One victim, Danny Smith, told The Sun newspaper that Masood had stabbed him in the face with a kitchen knife after an argument just three days after they met.

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine his motives and if he had any possible accomplices. Two men, aged 27 and 58, remain in custody for questioning after being arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities havent charged or identified the men.

Seven others who had been arrested in connection with the investigation have been set free. A 32-year-old woman arrested in Manchester and a 39-year-old woman arrested in east London have been released on bail.

Police are scouring Masoods communications systems, including his possible use of the encrypted WhatsApp device, to help determine if he had any accomplices in the attack.

Details about how he became radicalised arent clear, although he may have become exposed to radical views while an inmate in Britain or while working in conservative Saudi Arabia. Its also not clear when he took the name Masood, suggesting a conversion to Islam.
Two days before Prime Minister Theresa May begins the process to leave the European Union, thousands marched on the streets of London on Saturday amid heightened security, demanding the undoing of Brexit or the continuation of benefits of remaining in the EU.

Organised under the forum Unite for Europe, supporters said they were the 48% who voted to remain in the EU during the June 2016 referendum. Carrying placards and shouting slogans in support of EU, protestors included many European citizens living in Britain.

May is due to send the notification under Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty to Brussels on Wednesday. March 25 is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community.

Several anti-Brexit leaders such as Liberal Democrats leaders Tim Farron and Nick Clegg were due to address the gathering. The party wants a second referendum to be held on the final terms of Brexit decided by the end of March 2019.

The forum said: We are the 48% who voted against Brexit and those who were not allowed to vote against it  the young and the EU nationals living, working and paying taxes in the UK. We are outraged by the governments current direction in dealing with the result of the referendum.

We want to remain a member of the Single Market. We want to secure the benefits that the EU membership brings us. We want a guarantee that the EU citizens already here will have the right to stay.

The march wound its way along arterial roads of the capital around Park Lane, Green Park, before heading towards parliament, where a higher level of security was in place in view of last Wednesdays attack that left five dead and many injured.

Farron said: The choice is who should decide the final (Brexit) deal. Should it be politicians or the people? The Liberal Democrats say the people. We can turn the tide of populism and we can change the direction of our nation  liberals and progressives can and will win again.

I am not prepared to accept that our country is inevitably to become meaner, smaller, poorer. If you believe in democracy then you accept defeat with good grace... and you keep on campaigning for a better Britain, he added.
Myanmar rejected the United Nations rights councils decision to investigate allegations that security officers have murdered, raped and tortured Rohingya Muslims, saying the probe will only inflame the conflict.

The Geneva-based body on Friday decided to urgently dispatch a fact-finding mission to the Southeast Asian country, focusing on claims that police and soldiers have carried out violations against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

The army crackdown, launched in October after militants killed nine policemen, has sent tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.

Read: Indias Rohingya dilemma: A clash of interests and values

Escapees have given UN investigators gruesome accounts of security officers stabbing babies to death, burning people alive and committing widespread gang rape.

The allegations have heaped enormous pressure on Myanmars one-year-old civilian government, which has vigorously swatted back calls for an international investigation.

Myanmars foreign affairs ministry on Saturday stopped short of saying it will block the UN-backed probe but said it has dissociated itself from the resolution as a whole.

The establishment of an international fact-finding mission would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues at this time, it added.

Myanmar is carrying out its own domestic inquiry into possible crimes in Rakhine.

Read: 22,000 Rohingya from Myanmar fled to Bangladesh in one week, says UN

But rights groups and the UN have dismissed the body, which is led by retired general turned vice-president Myint Swe, as toothless.

The recent crackdown is only the latest conflict to beleaguer the stateless Rohingya, who are denied citizenship and face brutal discrimination in the Buddhist-majority country.

More than 120,000 Rohingya have languished in grim displacement camps ever since bouts of religious violence between Muslims and Buddhists ripped through Rakhine state in 2012.

Also read: Myanmars Rohingya recount killings, rapes, burnings back home

Most are not allowed to leave the squalid encampments, where they live in piecemeal shelters with little access to food, education and healthcare.
Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will make a state visit to India from April 17 at the invitation of her Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee.

The Presidents Office confirmed the visit, her first trip abroad after assuming office in October 2015. Besides Mukherjee, Bhandari will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, home minister Rajnath Singh, and leaders of ruling and opposition parties in New Delhi, said Madan Kumar Bhattarai, an aide to the president.

We are not sure whether the visit will be for four or five days. The itinerary is yet to be decided, Bhattarai said.

Some minor agreements are likely to be inked during the visit, officials said.

Bhandari was slated to visit India last year but the trip was cancelled after former premier KP Sharma Oli stepped down. Oli had accused India of toppling his government, a charge denied by New Delhi.

Officials told Hindustan Times that after her engagements in New Delhi, Bhandari is expected to visit Varanasi, where she will attend a function at the Banaras Hindu University.
The Pakistan government has cleared a move to make former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif the head of a military alliance of 39 Muslim countries created by Saudi Arabia, defence minister Khawaja Asif has said.

Soon after Sharif completed his term last year, it was reported in December that he would lead the Islamic Military Alliance, which was formed by the Saudis in 2015 to fight terrorism, especially the Islamic State and other groups.

Asif told Geo News channel on Saturday that Pakistan had cleared the move to make Sharif, 60, the head of the alliance.

They (Saudi Arabia) had made a written request and we have given our consent to the Saudi government in writing, he said. Though the formalities were yet to be completed, the government had decided in-principle to clear the move.

Asif said this would be an arrangement between the two governments and it is only a matter of time before Sharif takes up the appointment. The structure of the Islamic Military Alliance is still not in place and Sharif is expected to give it shape, he added.

The defence minister, who had visited Saudi Arabia earlier this year, said the advisory board of the Islamic Military Alliance, comprising the defence ministers of member countries, is expected to meet in May.

Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia are among the members of the alliance, which has a command centre in Riyadh. Saudi defence minister Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud had said in 2015 that the alliance will tackle the Islamic worlds problem with terrorism and will be a partner in the worldwide fight against this scourge.

Earlier this month, there were reports that the Pakistan Army will send a brigade of about 3,000 combat troops to Saudi Arabia to strengthen defences along the kingdoms vulnerable southern border with Yemen in the face of threats from the Islamic State and Houthi rebels.

This will not be the first time that Pakistani troops will be deployed to Saudi Arabia. Pakistani troops train and advise Saudi military personnel and sources told Hindustan Times that about 2,000 Pakistani officers and soldiers are currently in the kingdom.

Military ruler Zia ul-Haq sent an elite armoured brigade to Saudi Arabia at King Fahds request after terrorists besieged the Grand Mosque complex in Mecca and the Iranian revolution in 1979. The brigade was deployed for a decade and some 40,000 soldiers served in it.
Pakistan might replace its top envoy to India, Abdul Basit, who has completed his three-year tenure in New Delhi.

Basit, the Pakistan high commissioner to India, was appointed in March, 2014 after he suffered a major disappointment when he was sure of being appointed Pakistans foreign secretary but last-minute wheeling and dealing resulted in the appointment of Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry.

He failed again to get favours from the decisions-makers in Islamabad when last month his junior Tehmina Janjua was appointed his boss and foreign secretary.

The powerful men in Islamabad wanted to make history by appointing a woman as the first foreign secretary of Pakistan.

Reliable sources said Basit in the heat of passions had thought of resigning. But later decided to stay put, making it clear to his bosses he would not work in any subordinate position to Janjua.

As he completes his tenure, foreign office bosses are unsure how to deal with Basit. Sources said an option could be to let Basit carry on but the problem is he is considered hawkish by the incumbent government who hardly fits into the Prime Ministers policy of good ties with all neighbours.

Another possibility could be to appoint him to send him as ambassador or high commissioner to a European capital. The last option could be to send his replacement to New Delhi and let him come back and then proceed on a long leave.

Already, name of senior diplomat Sohail Mahmood is being discussed as possible replacement. He is not the only one as other names are also being named including one of former spokesperson Tasnim Aslam, the sources said.

In his Pakistan Day speech on Thursday at the embassy in New Delhi, Basit said the long-standing unresolved issues of Kashmir must be resolved as per the aspirations of Kashmiris.
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has issued a show cause notice to ARY News channel over comments on a statement by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The regulator on Friday took exception to remarks made by Shahid Latif, a guest on an ARY News programme, that termed a recent statement by Sharif blasphemous, Dawn online reported.

Shahid Latif made the remarks during The Reporters programme which aired on Thursday.

This is a very dangerous trend. The hosts of the programme did not intervene nor stopped him from passing such comments, which is a violation of Pemra rules, a Pemra statement said.

According to the statement, airing any offensive, provocative or derogatory remarks violate PEMRA Act 2007 and various sections and clauses of the PEMRA Code of Conduct 2015.

The ARY News was directed to submit its reply by March 31 and explain why action should not be taken against it for airing hate speech.

Pemra said if the channel was found guilty, the regulator could ban The Reporters, cancel ARYs operating licence and impose Rs 1 million fine.

Pemra also issued show cause notices to nine TV channels -- Ab Tak TV, Waqt TV, Channel 5, Sach TV, 7 News, Aaj TV, Roze TV, News One and Capital TV -- for airing fake news of a plane crash near Rawalpindi.

The channels have been directed to submit a reply by March 31.

The Pemra also issued a show cause notice to Dawn News for not complying with its orders of suspending Zara Hut Kay for three days.

The presenters of the show discussed a reference against justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which is pending before the Supreme Judicial Council, in an episode aired on March 9.

According to a Dawn News official, the channel had already obtained a stay order from the Sindh High Court against the notice.
Russia has denied a top NATO generals allegation that Moscow is secretly supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Zamir Kabulov, the Kremlins special envoy in Afghanistan, on Friday said the allegation of Moscow supplying the extremist group was absolutely false, BBC reported.

This comes after General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATOs Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington on Thursday: I have seen the influence of Russia of late -- increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban.

Read: Russia may be supplying the Taliban: NATO commander

Scaparrotti gave no further information to back up the allegation.

Russia has previously said its limited contact with the Taliban is aimed at bringing them to the negotiating table.

Moscow considers the Taliban a terrorist organisation, and backed the Northern Alliance against the group in the civil war of the 1990s.

But in December 2015 it did concede the Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours in Russias fight against Islamic State militant group.

Softening its approach towards the Afghan Taliban is a dramatic and somewhat unexpected shift for Russia, but ties have improved over the past year, with several Russian officials publicly acknowledging Moscows contacts with the Taliban.

They cite two reasons: ensuring the security of Russian citizens and political offices in areas where the Taliban has recently expanded its territorial control; and countering the IS, which established its regional branch in Afghanistan in January 2015.

The Afghan Talibans assurances that it will keep the IS away from Russian borders and those of other regional players, including Iran and China, have proved particularly important.

But this new softening has led a number of high ranking American military officials to accuse Russia of undermining the Afghan government and its US/NATO allies and legitimizing the Taliban.

According to US officials, Russia is using the emergence of the IS in Afghanistan as an excuse to justify its meddling in the country.

Kabul has repeatedly reminded Moscow that instead of establishing links with non-state actors, it should work with the government for regional peace and stability.

The comments came a month after the US commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said Russia was encouraging the Taliban and providing them with diplomatic cover in a bid to undermine US influence and defeat NATO.

But Kabulov said: These fabrications are designed, as we have repeatedly underlined, to justify the failure of the US military and politicians in the Afghan campaign. There is no other explanation.
Britains regulator of charity organisations investigated a group seeking to advance the Sikh religion in the UK and concluded on Friday its main trustee had used the body as a conduit for immigration fraud to bring Indian nationals to the country.

The Charity Commission removed the Khalsa Missionary Society from its register in February 2016 and has now permanently barred the trustee  identified only as Trustee A in its investigation report  from being involved in any charity organisation.

The Khalsa Missionary Societys objective was: To advance the Sikh religion in the UK for the benefit of the public through holding prayer meetings, lectures, public celebration of religious festivals, producing and/or distributing literature on Sikhism to enlighten others about the religion.

The commission said it was notified in August 2013 by the home office immigration and enforcement criminal investigations team that a probe into the charity had been launched as it was suspected of being abused to allow the illegal entry of Indian nationals into the UK for a fee.

The commission opened a statutory inquiry in September 2014 and found there was only one active trustee in the charity. As a result of its concerns, the commission removed the individual as a trustee in January 2016.

The individual pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court to three counts of assisting unlawful immigration between 2011 and 2013, and was sentenced to 27 months in prison on May 16, 2016, the Charity Commission said.

The inquiry concluded that the trustee used the charity to facilitate immigration fraud. The charity had been used as a conduit for the immigration fraud, which worked by the charity sponsoring individuals as ministers for religion, while funds were circulated through the charitys bank accounts to give the appearance that the charity was receiving legitimate donations, the inquiry report said. The inquiry concluded there had been misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of the charity and the trustee had potentially provided false and misleading information to the commission.

Carl Mehta, head of investigations and enforcement, said: We work closely with law enforcement agencies to prevent and disrupt abuse of charities. In this case we were able to share information with the Home Office immigration and enforcement criminal investigations team and support the successful prosecution of an individual who was benefiting from this disgraceful abuse of charitable status.

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US President Donald Trump declared himself disappointed and a little surprised by a stinging health care defeat on Friday, which called his much-vaunted deal making skills into question.

In an Oval Office statement, a notably restrained Trump said his first major legislative proposal was a very very good text that fell by a very tight margin, amid splits in the Republican majority.

The businessman-turned-president who spent decades touting his skills as a negotiator said making legislation was an interesting experience and blamed Democrats for not coming together.

He predicted that the existing system -- Barack Obamas signature health reform -- would cease to exist and vowed to swiftly move on to focusing on tax reform.
In the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State group became infamous for its spectacular variations on explosive vehicles. For attacks in the West, it has advocated the use of the same tool but suggested a simpler method, encouraging its followers to use regular vehicles to achieve bloodshed.

It makes for a very effective unsophisticated high impact, very frightening form of an operation.

Experts say that vehicle attacks  whether IS-inspired or coordinated  present a unique challenge for law enforcement officials as they are nearly impossible to predict and easy to pull off. They require no advanced training, no specialized materials. Almost anyone can own or rent a vehicle.

Some feel that these low-tech, lone wolf operations can have the same psychological impact as larger, more sensational attacks. Four people were killed in London on Wednesday with this tactic in what was the worst attack on British soil since the transport network bombings on July 7, 2005.

Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, says what makes such attacks so frightening is the relatively low barriers to entry. The method was embraced by al-Qaida before being revitalized by IS.

Its a very difficult thing to fight against. There is no quick fix.

It makes for a very effective unsophisticated high impact, very frightening form of an operation, he said. You dont need to know someone who can make you a bomb or buy you a gun in order to carry out an attack. Its a very difficult thing to fight against. There is no quick fix.

British authorities on Thursday identified Khalid Masood as the man who mowed down pedestrians with an SUV and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament. The British national wasnt on a terrorism watch list although he was once investigated for extremism. IS claimed the attack.

Other major attacks where a vehicle was used 14 July 2016, Nice: A cargo truck took to the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in an attack that left 86 people dead and hundreds of others wounded in the French town. 19 December 2016, Berlin: A truck plowed through a Christmas market that killed 12 people and injured over 50.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence group, says it is almost impossible for law enforcement agencies to stop IS-inspired attacks, especially vehicular-style ones like the one in London. Since 2014, this simple but effective method has been laid out repeatedly and in detail in IS propaganda material which continues to circulate online.

Its not a style of attack that you can monitor by increasing security and intel on who has weapons or other attention-grabbing variables, Katz told The Associated Press. Every car suddenly turns into a possible weapon, so its really very difficult to stop.

Vehicle attacks, like knife attacks, are aggressively promoted by IS and its online supporters. In its November issue of its online magazine Rumiyah, IS extolled the virtues of the car as a weapon of attack and offered guidance to its followers, suggesting the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade as a possible target.

Its not a style of attack that you can monitor by increasing security and intel on who has weapons or other attention-grabbing variables,

Vehicles are like knives, as they are extremely easy to acquire, points out the online magazine issue. But unlike knives, which if found in ones possession can be a cause for suspicion, vehicles arouse absolutely no doubts due to their widespread use throughout the world. 

Two weeks later, an Ohio State University student rammed his car into a group of pedestrians on campus and then got out and started stabbing people with a butcher knife before being gunned down by a police officer. IS claimed the attack, which left 11 people wounded.

The devastating potential of such violence was dramatically illustrated last summer in the French beach town of Nice when a cargo truck took to the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in an attack that left 86 people dead and hundreds of others wounded. A truck was also used in last years Christmas market attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, including the driver of the truck that was commandeered.

In the London attack on Wednesday, the weapon of choice was an SUV. Katz sees the similarities between these attacks as evidence that IS propaganda is taking hold and that more needs to be done to counter it. Winter says that the impact of propaganda is overplayed and a copycat effect is also a factor.

Omar Ashour says these attacks are gaining traction precisely because authorities have their defenses up. The IS leadership began urging attacks on the West after the US-led coalition launched airstrikes on the group. The message then evolved to spell out the best ways to use a knife or inflict the most damage possible with a car.

IS may provide very detailed tactical information that helps the attackers to create more damage but there is a ceiling to that. They could not do as much damage as firearms or bombs would do. The capacity to execute largish, more complex operations is extremely limited, says Ashour, a lecturer in security studies at the University of Exeter.

Anne Giudicelli, director of the security risk consultancy firm Terrorisc, says that such attacks are becoming a signature approach for IS in Europe. While not much more can be done to boost security on the ground, more can be done to fight the spread of IS ideology online, and cooperation between European countries confronting this threat can be tightened.

At the level of strict security, the maximum is done, she told the AP. The authorities are confronted to the fact that all the outward signs, what we call indicators, the criteria for surveillance, are today very volatile because individuals adapt, they know what will get them detected.
After terror attacks in Paris, Nice, Brussels and Berlin, there was a sense of deja vu as Khalid Masood struck in Westminster last Wednesday  politicians, police, experts and the public with flowers and candles all seemed to follow a script, and so did the British news media.

Defiant words about not bowing to terror were said inside and outside parliament, security was enhanced, experts pontificated, and members of the public gathered in thousands at vigils and laid flowers and cards with moving messages at various places.

But what made Wednesday different was its instant subjection in the media to an avalanche of supposition and speculation, wrote prominent columnist Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. He went on to criticise the BBCs wall-to-wall coverage  on the BBC  which went viral.

The coverage reminded many of Margaret Thatchers speech in 1985 often mentioned in studies of media and political violence: We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

Stuart Allan, head of the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, told Hindustan Times: These are shocking, deeply disturbing incidents, yet there is a strong inclination for some journalists to report on them using familiar, almost conventionalised framings to explain their significance.

This rush to judgement not only leads to factual mistakes in the heat of the moment, it risks normalising a language of terror, effectively ruling out alternative ways of understanding whats happened.

Much of the Westminster attack coverage was driven by the expectation that it was a matter of when  not if  London would face a terror attack. The official threat perception of severe, meaning an attack was highly likely, added to the medias contingency plans.

Daya K Thussu, professor of international communication at the University of Westminster, noted: Even a reputable network like Channel 4 News identified the attacker to be Abu Izzadeen, a radical British cleric who was, in fact, in a British prison. His pictures were instantly circulating on Twitter posts and Facebook messages.

People look at tributes left in Parliament Square following the Westminster attack. (Reuters)

Such reporting is increasingly becoming common in an age of hypermedia activities where memes, slander, half and quarter truths compete with professionally gathered and edited news.

Leading the criticism, Jenkins told BBC presenter Evan Davis: No ones suggesting you ignore itYou have a choice of prominence and the prominence given to them now I think is aiding and abetting terrorism. You should choose to treat it as a crime.

Under the IRA terrorists and even under the PLO ones, we treated them as crimes. In this case probably some crazy guy for all I know, who has gone mad and hes done something stupid and hes dead  its a crime.

Its quite different from ascribing it with this tremendous clutter of politics and Islam and religion. Its quite wrong and it is a new phenomenon, not on the part of the terrorists  terrorism is just a method of getting publicity  we are the people who give them publicity, and we are giving it to them now, Jenkins said.

Amid growing debate on the coverage, Allan added: Journalists need to resist the temptation to offer instant analysis, namely by staying focused on gathering and sifting through facts and perspectives from a diverse range of sources.

Headlines declaring an attack represents a threat to democracy, for example, should invite debate on the editorial page or in opinion columns, but have no place being presented as self-evidently true in a news report.

According to Thussu, The pressure to be first with the news is so paramount that professional journalists have little time to check and verify the facts. News, especially its visual version, is worryingly veering towards what might be called a macabre infotainment.

Mike Jempson, director of ethics charity MediaWise, told HT: Non-stop TV coverage from Westminster was inevitable but does give rise to concern that it plays into the hands of those who propagandise terror. Similarly, newspaper front pages focusing on images of the killers action send the wrong message, confirming in the minds of would-be lone wolf killers that they can achieve notoriety even in death.

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After failing to repeal Obamacare, Republicans in the US Congress quickly pivoted on Friday to President Donald Trumps next priority: overhauling the federal tax code, but their plan has already split the business community.

Division among Republicans was the chief cause of the embarrassing setback on Obamacare, and similar fault lines have been evident for months in the Republicans tax plan, mainly over an untested proposal to use the tax code to boost exports.

House of Representatives tax committee chairman Kevin Brady conceded the demise of a Republican plan to roll back Obamacare could make the path to tax reform harder. This made a big challenge more challenging. But its not insurmountable, he said after Ryan cancelled a vote on an Obamacare rollback bill.

But Brady said he and House speaker Paul Ryan are all-in on tax reform.

House speaker Paul Ryan holds a news conference after Republicans pulled the American Health Care Act bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act act known as Obamacare. (Reuters Photo)

Brady said House republicans plan to begin moving on tax reform this spring and to pass legislation before Congresss summer recess in late July. We are going to work with the administration to get this done, he said.

Trump has been unclear about his position on the most problematic feature of the House republicans tax blueprint, a proposal known as the border adjustment tax that would cut taxes on exports and raise them on imports.

Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday that tax reform in many ways was a lot simpler than healthcare reform.

We are able to take the tax code and redesign things and I think there is very, very strong support, Mnuchin said at an event hosted by news website Axios.

Comprehensive tax reform is a policy goal so complex that it has defied successive Congresses and presidents since 1986 when it was last accomplished under former President Ronald Reagan.

The US tax code is riddled with narrow subsidies and loopholes, many of them deeply embedded in the economy and defended by the interests they benefit, such as the mortgage interest deduction and the business interest deductibility.

Bradys panel has been working on a plan since mid-2016 that would cut the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%, end taxing foreign profits for US-based multinationals and cut other tax rates for businesses and investors.

The plan has divided businesses, prompting import-dependent industries to warn of higher prices for consumer goods from clothing and electronics to gasoline.

Brady has been adamant that border adjustment will be part of the House tax reform, saying earlier this week that the provision was a given for final legislation but would include a transition period for import-heavy industries.
New insightsfrom intelligence archives of the United States and North Vietnamhighlight the genesis 50 years ago of a flawed strategy.

Had President Lyndon B. Johnson, advisers and intelligence services not disregarded, rejected, missed or misread the signals emanating from Asia in the early to mid-1960s, they might his policy not have stubbornly adhered to an attrition strategy in Vietnam that failed to take advantage of the offensive strengths of American forces. Instead, the United States wasted lives, treasure and political capital on a prolonged, unsustainable defensive effort. Dissipated throughout South Vietnam, American forces could not exploit an opportunity that could have shortened the conflict: concentrating along South Vietnams lightly populated narrow neck to threaten an invasion of North Vietnam and Laos. Such an approach in 1965 might have minimized force requirements and choked off Hanois access to the South.

In 1964, when the strategy that would determine the wars course was being formulated, worry about China heavily influenced U.S. foreign policy. Because China had intervened when North Korea was invaded in 1950, American policymakers widely assumed China would do the same in Vietnam. Some worried that if the United States bombed the Hanoi-Haiphong area, North Vietnam might ask China for air cover, forcing the United States either to back off or to strike Chinese air bases.

At the time, the United States wanted North Vietnam to stop supporting insurgent activity in South Vietnam and respect the 1962 International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos. Neither the president nor his advisers had a clear vision of how to achieve those aims.

Three questions heavily influenced U.S. strategy choices: What level of insurgent activity might be manageable for South Vietnam on its own? What U.S. actions might be required to persuade North Vietnam that fighting for Vietnams unification was not worth risking its own security? How far could North Vietnam be pushed militarily without provoking a wider conflict with China?

To help address those questions, in May 1964 the National Intelligence Council issued a Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE), Probable Consequences of Certain U.S. Actions with Respect to Vietnam and Laos. Although other intelligence reaches the presidents desk daily, SNIEs reflect the collective views of all U.S. intelligence agencies, including dissenting views, giving the documents unique weight and authority. Formulated to provide shared perspectives of the CIA and other intelligence agencies on sensitive national security issues, SNIEs are also seen by independent-minded congressional committees, making it difficult for presidents to ignore them. With a presidential election looming just six months away, President Johnson would likely have read and been influenced by the May 1964 SNIE. Unfortunately, it might have misled him.

That estimate, declassified in 2004, lists the United States options in Laos and Vietnam and postulates probable regional responses and the principal factors influencing them.

One of its assertions, that North Vietnam has pulled back whenever it appeared that its tactics might provoke a major U.S. response, is especially puzzling. In fact, North Vietnams flagrant violation of the 1962 Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos was widely knownfrom diplomatic traffic, CIA agent reports and even Associated Press reports. The North Vietnamese had not pulled back at all. How could the intelligence community have misread this? Hanoi had instead used the Laos accord to gain greater freedom of action when the U.S. military withdrew from the country. Yet no one in authority seems to have questioned the estimates opposite conclusion.

The estimate also assessed that interdiction of imports and extensive destruction of transportation facilities and industrial plants would cripple North Vietnams industry and degrade, though to a lesser extent, its ability to support guerrilla warfare in South Vietnam and Laos. At that time, North Vietnam had no significant military industries of its own. China and the Soviet Union provided most of its war materiel. Without military-industrial targets, a U.S. air campaign could only make a difference by attacking transportation infrastructure. But the North Vietnamese were undeterred by air attacks and steadily increased the southward flow of troops and supplies.

The estimate was correct at least once, when it suggested that the North would probably be willing to suffer some damage to the country in a contest of wills with the U.S., but some damage is a vague premise on which to base a bombing campaign.

The SNIE might have persuaded the president and his advisers that bombing only military transportation targets in nonstrategic places, coupled with assertive force posturing, would be sufficient to cause North Vietnam to back off, thus buying time for South Vietnam to solve its political woes and bring the insurgency under control. But, in fact, it would not be sufficient; it only gave Hanoi more time to adapt.

Lack of guidance from other government agencies compounded the problem. There was no accompanying assessment from the State Department regarding how long South Vietnam might take to get its political house in order nor one from the Defense Department on how long or what type of a bombing campaign would have to be sustained before North Vietnam would back down. Threatening an invasion of any part of Laos or North Vietnam does not appear to have been considered at that point.

North Vietnamese perspectives of the war are just emerging through the translated writings of senior participants, shedding light on what the 1964 SNIE got right and wrong. Andrew Wiests 2013 Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land features many such translations that refute the 1964 estimates conclusions and point out the missed opportunity of threatening a limited-objective invasion in 1965.

General Vo Nguyen Giap, the architect of North Vietnams victory over France, exhorted his subordinates to press American troops hard but to avoid provoking them into launching a ground war in North Vietnam, no matter how limited. Giap knew that North Vietnam would not subordinate itself or its armed forces to China and would therefore have to fight aloneand likely lose the gains it made in the South should the formidable United States invade.

General Dong Sy Nguyen, responsible for building, maintaining and operating the Ho Chi Minh Trail, especially feared an American invasion of southern Laos: Transportation would have been interrupted and we have no idea what we would have done to recover. This would have enormously impacted the battlefield in the South. He could deal with bombing but not an invasion.

General Le Trong Tan, North Vietnams chief of the General Staff, echoes that fear: The Americans needed to deploy no more than a division of troops into the Dong Hoi panhandle [a short distance north of the DMZ].This strategy would have been lethal, because China would have sat idly by, while our troops were pinned down.The impetus of the fighting in the South would have reversed itself. Those were risks Hanoi would have had to take seriously if U.S. forces had postured for an attack northward.

From Dong Hoi, Cape Ron is only 28 miles farther north and the Mu Gia Pass is 40 miles distant. Loss of that territory with its higher ground would have left North Vietnam even more exposed. Had the Americans and South Vietnamese credibly threatened to seize and hold Indochinas sparsely populated narrow waist, they would not have had to dissipate their troops trying to defend everything at once in the South, sparing much of the countrys destruction and the terrible loss of life it suffered over the next decade.

With regard to China, suggests that strikes in the Hanoi-Haiphong area, killing Chinese air defense personnel or sinking the May 1964 estimate Chinese ships, could trigger Chinas entry into the ground war. But it sent a mixed message by also stating that China almost certainly would not wish to become involved in hostilities with U.S. forcesthough it would make various threatening gestures.

In mid-1964, China unilaterally canceled its military agreement with North Vietnam, which steadfastly declined to allow observers from China or the Soviet Union into its councils of war. It would neither subordinate its forces to a Chinese commander nor allow China to influence its strategy. And China was unwilling to risk placing its forces under the command of a small, former vassal state pleading for help.

In a well-publicized January 1965 interview with Edgar Snow, an American journalist who had written extensively on China since the 1930s, Chinese leader Mao Zedong said that Chinas armies would not fight outside its borders and that Vietnam must cope with its own situation. To meet its fraternal obligations, China instead sent road builders, hospital staffs, air defenders and various technicians to North Vietnam, freeing tens of thousands of North Vietnamese to go south to fight. Mao would do no more, even after hundreds of his troops were later killed by U.S. airstrikes. No SNIE ever corrected the 1964 estimates misreading of Chinese perspectives.

An internal factor likely influencing Mao was fear of elevating the public profile of his chief political threat, Marshal Peng Dehuai. Like any dictator, Mao was always watchful for signs of another leader emerging to possibly displace him. Peng was Chinas most respected warrior as a result of his role in reversing the tide of the Korean War in 1950. If China again went to war, Pengs visibility would surely rise, making his potential influence in political matters hard to stifle.

The full range of considerations driving Maos restraint may never be known, but some were visible to intelligence agencies and the media alike. Prolonged economic stagnation had steadily worsened Chinas standard of living, stirring social unrest and encouraging challenges to Maos authority. To suppress dissent, Mao set the Great Cultural Revolution into motion in 1966, transforming all of Chinese society into spies against one another. While the time might have seemed ripe to divert internal unrest by going to war, that strategy was not in Chinasor Maosbest interest. A war with the United States would have sapped Chinas meager finances, consumed the best of its forces, risked an American nuclear attack and left China dangerously exposed to its other enemies. After all, President Dwight Eisenhower had threatened China with nuclear attack to force an end to the Korean War in 1953 and did so again during the Quemoy and Matsu crisis of 1958. How could Mao be certain that Johnson would not do the same?

Chinas military was also stretched thin and its weapons were decades older than those of the Soviet Union and India, whose growing partnership threatened China from the north and south. An inconclusive war with India in 1962 and ongoing border skirmishes compelled China to keep substantial forces tied to the Sino-Indian frontier. More were tethered to Chinas coast for fear that Taiwan, aided by the United States, might try to exploit Chinas internal unrest. Another large force was deployed along the borders of Mongolia and the Soviet Union, where Soviet forces sat poised like a dagger pointing at Chinas heart.

Turning to military actions in Vietnam in 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin incident on Aug. 4 elevated Vietnams prominence in American political discourse. President Johnson addressed Congress on August 10, offering assurances that the United States sought no wider war but was united in its determination to bring about the end of Communist subversion and aggression in the area. Congress approved and supported the president, as commander in chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against U.S. forces and to prevent further aggression.

On Feb. 6, 1965, air base near Pleiku in South Vietnams Central Highlands. At the same time, Soviet Premier Alexei the Viet Cong attacked a U.S. Kosygin was in Hanoi to discuss a possible military alliance, and U.S. National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy was in Saigon to assess South Vietnamese capabilities. While there had been other Viet Cong attacks on U.S. installations, the timing of this one gave it unique political significance. That day, Johnson approved Operation Flaming Dart to bomb selected North Vietnamese targets just north of the DMZ, followed by Operation Rolling Thunder, which commenced on March 2, striking North Vietnams heartland and the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On March 8, the U.S. ground campaign in Vietnam was changed from Advisory to Defense.

Disturbed by the trajectory of events in Vietnam less than a week after the bombing campaign began, Johnson decided to again raise the stakes by dispatching 3,500 U.S. Marines to protect U.S. air bases in Vietnam. Two more Marine battalions were sent in early April. Soon they were patrolling the countryside, engaging the Viet Cong and North Vietnam Army (NVA) regulars.

South Vietnamese control in Saigon and the Central Highlands was shaky in the summer and fall of 1965, prompting General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, to deploy U.S. troops to trouble spots. Generals Nguyen Cao Ky and Ngo Van Thieu had come to power in Saigon, somewhat stabilizing the government, but the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had just suffered two major defeats at the hands of the Viet Cong in open, conventional warfare. With increasing Viet Cong activity around Saigon, riots in the northern coastal cities and a revolt by Montagnard tribesmen against their Vietnamese commanders in the Central Highlands, morale dropped and desertions increased in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

Hoping to turn the tide, General Westmoreland made a watershed recommendation: U.S. forces would assume primary responsibility for combat operations against the Viet Cong. They would engage guerrilla forces, wearing them down and driving them from populated areas. If necessary, a second phase would destroy the enemy in remote areas as well. President Johnson approved the strategy. On July 28, 1965, he committed a further 50,000 U.S. troops to the conflict. By the end of 1965, 180,000 U.S. troops had been sent, as well as one Republic of Korea (ROK) division and an Australian-New Zealand (ANZ) task force. In 1966, the number of U.S. troops doubled.

Johnsons advisers believed it necessary to help Saigon buy time but failed to appreciate that U.S. forces could only do so by putting North Vietnam under unbearable pressure and that such pressure could not be generated if ground operations were limited to South Vietnam. American political capital, public patience and eventually the Johnson administration itself were among the casualties of those flawed assumptions.

Tying highly mobile U.S. units to specific areas of South Vietnam ceded initiative to the enemy and increased the number of U.S. troops needed to make a difference. American force dissipation gave the Communistswith intimate knowledge of the terrainopportunities to attack where and when they perceived an advantage. Additionally, U.S. forces were necessarily organized, trained and equipped for a multitude of missions around the globe, unable to concentrate solely on counterguerrilla warfare.

Spreading American and allied forces throughout South Vietnam in a defensive role squandered their strategic potential. If all three U.S. divisions (two Army and one Marine) sent to Vietnam in 1965 had been sent to South Vietnams northernmost provinces, they would have unhinged North Vietnams strategy. The effect would have been even greater if U.S. and ARVN marines had begun training together for a possible amphibious end run on North Vietnams long, exposed coastline. Combining the two deployed U.S. airborne brigades with their ARVN counterpart as a strategic reserve would also have raised North Vietnams concerns about possible airborne assaults on its territory. Joint invasion planning with the South Vietnamese, certain to leak, would have heightened Hanois worries. To counter the threat of invasion, North Vietnam would have had to reinforce defenses all along its coast, along the DMZ and around the main passes into Laos, straining its resources. Given the mixed readiness of North Vietnamese divisions in 1965, the threat of invasion could also have induced Hanoi to recall its units from the South. The Central Highlands and Laos would have mattered less to North Vietnam if its own territory seemed at risk.

Hanoi could still have gambled by attacking the Central Highlands from eastern Cambodia to deflect U.S. forces from the DMZ, but its prospects for success seem small. Three South Vietnamese divisions (including a new one formed with battalions drawn from around the country), a ROK division, the ANZ task force and the combined airborne strategic reserve, backed by U.S. aviation, would have blocked North Vietnams path. Given the small NVA force in Cambodia at the time (around 17,000 men), the distance and rough terrain they would have had to cover from staging areas across the border, the difficulty of protecting themselves from air attacks as they encountered allied units and the likelihood of meeting ARVN and allied forces on the ground of their choosing would have dimmed the offensives prospects. An NVA defeat at the hands of a predominantly South Vietnamese force would have done more to bolster ARVN morale in 1965 than sending a U.S. division to the highlands.

An attack on Saigon like the 1968 Tet Offensive was also unlikely that early in the war. Although the VC were superb guerrilla fighters, they were not yet organized, trained or equipped for a general offensive in which closely coordinated, corps-scale conventional operations would have been necessary. At the time, no NVA combat units were that far south, and North Vietnam could not have sent any units there if U.S. forces had been concentrated near the DMZ, poised to attack northward.

Forced to deal with the possibility of an invasion, North Vietnam could have done little more than curse its predicament. If the United States had then focused on strengthening South Vietnams government and armed forces, rather than sending more American combat troops to Vietnam in 1966, it would certainly have shored up South Vietnams self-confidence. That approach might have saved many lives and much treasure.

General Creighton Abrams, Westmorelands successor, disagreed with Westmorelands strategy of fighting the war throughout the South. He believed the United States hurt the ARVN by carrying too much of the war effort. According to Wiests Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land, General Hoang Minh Thao, who commanded North Vietnamese troops in the Central Highlands, agrees: Concentrating a few U.S. divisions near the DMZ and equipping ARVN with new American weapons would have been a more effective use of U.S. resources. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu expected the United States would adopt such a strategy, but his views were not solicited in Washington.

How a campaign of injecting new life into the ARVN might have worked is worthy of discussion because it has bearing on the wars course. In 1965 plans were under way to expand the ARVN airborne and marine brigades to divisions. They were South Vietnams best and, if supplied with new American radios, lighter weapons, and the then-new M102 howitzers, each could have stood toe-to-toe with an NVA division, as they later did.

Similarly, it would have made sense to reorganize and strengthen South Vietnamese armored and ranger forces, which were spread across the country. If consolidated, they could have formed two well-equipped light armored divisions, an airmobile ranger division and an airmobile ranger brigade in each corps. Then, paired with U.S. counterparts, the ARVN might more readily have seen itself as a partner in threatening the North and waging counterguerrilla operations in South Vietnam. Had that succeeded, it would have been unnecessary to send another eight U.S. division equivalents between 1966 and 1968. The rotation base in the United States could then have remained sufficiently robust to sustain the flow of qualified advisers to ARVN units.

And while American and South Vietnamese forces instead tried in vain to defend everything everywhere, the Norths units exploited opportunities to fight on their terms. Their consequent resilience made every battle inconclusive. By the time their sanctuaries were invaded in Cambodia 1970 and Laos in 1971, it was too late. American troops were already beginning to withdraw and there was no political capital left to spend.

By misreading the signals emanating from Asia in 1964, the Johnson administration missed the opportunity to apply pressure on North Vietnam that it could not handlethe threat of an invasion of its own territory or southern Laos. Instead, a course was set that would have no such effect, enabling North Vietnam to continue raising the cost in U.S. lives, treasure and patience. A plate bearing the adage Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it belongs on the desk of every member of the national security establishment.

Karl Lowe served two tours in Vietnam as an infantry officer and later served as chief of the Joint Staffs Strategy Division and special assistant for strategy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This article was inspired by a conference on hybrid warfare at Ohio State Universitys Mershon Center of International Security Studies. Portions are included in Hybrid Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2012) edited by Dr. Williamson Murray, professor emeritus, The Ohio State University, and Dr. Peter Mansoor, director of the Mershon Center.

Originally published in the April 2014 issue of Vietnam. To subscribe, click here.
Statue Honors Canines in Combat

Four breedsDoberman pinscher, German shepherd, Belgian Mali- nois and Labrador retrieverflank a soldier in the nations first monument honoring dogs in military service, dedicated in October 2013. The nine-foot bronze statue was erected at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, where dogs have been trained for military uses as sentries, scouts and trackers since 1958. The drive to establish the monument began with John Burnam, who had spent 10 months working with a scout doga German shepherd named Clipperin Vietnam. More than 400 of the dogs used in the war were euthanized in Vietnam when the war ended. Burnam has now spent decades working to honor the dogs faithful servicewhat Burnam called radar on four paws. Serving with these hero dogs is how I learned of their incredible lifesaving capabilities during combat situations, said Burnam. The dogs sight, hearing and sense of smell were far superior to that of any human soldier I had ever observed on the battlefield. A final element to the monument is the addition of a bronze dog water fountain.

U.S. and Vietnam Sign Agreement on Clearing Land Mines

Only an estimated 20 percent of the unexploded bombs in Vietnam have been removed. On Dec. 16, 2013, representatives from the United States and Vietnam signed an agreement regarding locating and removing this deadly legacy of the war, as reported by Thanh Nien Daily. The agreement commits $4.5 million from the United Statesin addition to $65 million already supplied over the years. The goal is to map the country, identify remaining ordnance and establish a center overseeing the collection of data and the records of victims. Another $500,000 was given to Clear Path International, a group dedicated to aiding people maimed by land mines.

Kerry Returns to Vietnam

In December 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Hanoi to discuss maritime security, territorial disputes, trade agreements and human rights. He also spent time traveling the Mekong Delta, talking about the threat of climate change and the importance of establishing fair access to the rivers water for all six nations that share it. In his public remarks regarding his meeting, Kerry noted that the United States is the leading trade partner of Vietnam and the seventh largest investor in Vietnam. Not only has trade between the countries increased 50-fold since relations were normalized in 1995 but more than 16,000 Vietnamese are studying in the United States. This was Kerrys 14th trip back to Vietnam; he traveled frequently to Vietnam in the 1990s to reopen normal diplomatic relations. His most recent previous visit was in 2000.

Vets Artwork Focuses on Vietnam

Kevin Bowen, a Vietnam veteran turned writer, professor and painter, recently displayed 34 portraits in a Hanoi exhibition. Bowens fascination with the country never subsided, and since his Air Force service in 1969, he has returned to Vietnam each year, working on building and sustaining a better understanding between the nations and their peoples. His oil paintings depict Vietnamese artistspoets, painters and writersthat he has come to know and respect. For 27 years, Bowen directed the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, which helped promote improving the American connection with Vietnam.

The Things WE Carried Exhibited

Readers in Wilmington, N.C., have chosen Tim OBriens suite of stories about the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried, for The Big Read, a national community-based program designed to celebrate the power of storytelling and encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. To help bring the story of war to life and encourage participation by a diverse audience, the Office of the Dean of Students at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, put together an exhibit of items that students, faculty and staff carried with them while serving in the armed forces. The exhibit, which includes a display of photographs, is called The Things WE Carried: UNCW Community, Deployed. Also, in mid-January the author OBrien joined the Wilmington community to read and discuss his book and the process of transforming his own experience of serving in Vietnam into literature.

Condom Fashion Mix vs. HIV

Dresses made of condoms and wrappers are promoting public discussion about HIV prevention in Ho Chi Minh City. Fashion student Nguyen Minh Tuan began developing the project as part of his university work, and seven dresses incorporating 25,000 condoms debuted at a ceremony on Nov. 28, 2013. Timing the event to coincide with World AIDS Day on December 1, Tuan wanted the public to see and feel the condoms to overcome ambivalence about using them.

Sustainable Coffee Beans Soar

Coffee beans certified to be grown in a sustainable fashion now make up 44 percent of total production of coffee beans in Vietnam, up from 20 percent a year earlier, according to Bloomberg news. If the trend continues at the same rate, more than 80 percent of Vietnams coffee will be grown on a sustainable basis by 2020.

Brother Vets Create War Museum

Two brothers who served in Vietnam have created a small museum in donated space in a storefront in Minneota, Minn., according to KSTP.com. Charles and Royal Hettling wanted not only to commemorate local men who were killed while serving but also to honor the experience of both cultures that endured the war. They display photos, engravings and artifacts, many collected by Charles, who has returned frequently to Vietnam. Its about the impressions of two people serving at different timesone at the beginning, and the other at the endand how the war affected them, said Royal Hettling. For more information about the Vietnam Memorial and History Center, look for the link on the towns website: www.minneota.com.

Low-Cost Prosthetics for Amputees

A project to create and distribute low- cost leg prosthetics to Vietnamese amputees is well under way, thanks to a Macon, Ga.-based Mercer University professor of biomedical engineering and his students. As reported by the Associated Press, Dr. Ha Van Vo, who emigrated from Vietnam in 1990, works with his students and partner groups in the Mercer on Mission program, which has volunteer projects throughout Asia. Their first trip to Vietnam was in 2009, and they have already fitted prosthetics for about 775 amputees, many who were maimed by land mines. The prosthetics are made of plasticnot the more costly carbon fiberand do not require custom fitting.

Originally published in the April 2014 issue of Vietnam. To subscribe, click here.
When Ron Osgood decided com- munity college wasnt for him in 1967, he failed to grasp the consequences until he received his draft notice. His subsequent enlistment in the Navy inadvertently led to his pursuit of a career in television and ultimately to teaching media and telecommunications at the college level for more than 25 years and to his work as a documentary filmmaker. Osgoods Vietnam experience has been the catalyst of his most acclaimed work, the widely screened film My Vietnam Your Iraq, and his most recent endeavor, a groundbreaking interactive website with first person stories of those who fought on all sides of the Vietnam War: The Vietnam War/American War: Stories From All Sides, at VietnamWarStories.org.

How did you find your way to Vietnam?

I graduated from high school in 1966 and went to a community college in Chicago. I didnt like it much so I dropped out, and in 1967 that was the wrong thing to do if you werent interested in going into the military. I hadnt thought much about the war until one of the kids in my neighborhood who went to Vietnam with the Marines was killed in his first month. That was a real eye-opener, but it was too late since I had just received my draft letter. My father, who served in the Navy during World War II, suggested I could talk to a Navy recruiter. I went in and was able to enlist.

Did your fathers World War II experience influence your view of the military?

I didnt know much about his service. I have some photos and records and know a few of the fun stories vets tell their kids, but little more. Ultimately, that lack of knowledge became a motivating factor in my latest documentary work.

What did you want to do in the Navy?

I wanted to get into electronics. I went to boot camp in December 1968 and then to a basic electronics school. When everyone was getting orders to ships, my orders were to another school to learn how to operate the Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (FLOLS). I couldnt figure out why I was chosen. All the others in the program were in at least their second enlistment. I found out the Navy was trying to put younger people in this particular field at an earlier time in their service. I believe I was a test case.

What was your service in Vietnam like?

I spent most of the next three years aboard the carrier Oriskanyabout 23 months of actual time in the Gulf of Tonkin. I operated the FLOLS and Pilot Landing Aid Television system. We recorded the planes taking off and landing. A squadron would go out and do their mission and when they came back they could study their launch and landing.

Your career path began on Oriskany?

I didnt really like TV at the time, and I really had no clue what I would do when I got out of the Navy in 1972, but I knew I needed a job and I had the GI bill. I went back to community college. I flew from Vietnam back to Chicago, and, since school had already started, the very next morning I was in college. Amazingly, I also met my wife in a class that first day. My experience led to a job working in the TV/AV department at the college.

How did this blossom into your career?

I found I was interested in TV after all. When I followed my wife to Southern Illinois University, I decided to pursue a degree in TV broadcasting. I didnt really like broadcasting, but I enjoyed the craft part of TV. I joined a student group that was making documentaries. I then went into a masters program in educational media where I found I could put together my interest in the media in a way other than broadcast TV. I was a media director in Wisconsin and a video producer at the University of Iowa before landing a position at Indiana University teaching TV production. I retired in 2012 after 26 years there. In recent years I was able to work on my documentary projects.

Did Vietnam stay with you after the war?

I didnt think much about it. I kept in touch with some guys Id served with but never participated in activities or events. I got married, went to school, started a career and mostly just moved on with my life and left the military behind.

When did you decide to turn toward Vietnam-related projects?

Two events in 2005 affected me. I read a news article about a Vietnam vet whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004. It got me thinking about the fact that I too had a son, and thinking what kind of advice would I give my son about deciding to go to war or not. It was powerful. In a letter hed never sent, the vets son wrote to his dad: I wanted to be just like you. About that same time, there was a rededication of Chicagos Vietnam veterans memorial and I felt I needed to go. It was the first time Id ever gone to anything like that. Hundreds of guys were there and I saw how important this was to them. I went away feeling proud. As I walked back up the street, there was a rally going on against the Iraq War. Two soldiers back from Iraq, still on active duty, were speaking out against the war. Id never been to a protest before. When the event ended, I went up to one of the soldiers and told him I thought he was courageous to speak out. He looked nervous and said to me, My dad wont ever let me come home again. His dad, he said, had served during the Vietnam War and was very pro Iraq War. I thought that was really sad.

And that experience led to your documentary My Vietnam Your Iraq?

I thought about the letter to the vet from his son and this young man and saw an intriguing story about the dynamics between a Vietnam veteran with child in the Iraq War. It was a great project.

Some detected an antiwar tone in the film. How did Vietnam vets react?

It was almost 100 percent positive. Most people are impressed with how much candor there was in the interviews. I think that was because these people, who didnt really want to tell their stories, opened up to me as a fellow veteran. Some did take an antiwar stance, but its not my story, its the vets who are speaking. So if it happens there is an antiwar feel, its because thats the way these people felt.

How did VietnamWarStories.org spring from the making of the film?

One vet I interviewed in the film, Arthur Barham, tells a story about finding a letter on an NVA fighter whod just been killed during Tet. It was the first time hed talked about his combat experience. He told me how a dead enemy soldier didnt mean as much to him as a young man as it did 40 years later. Barham said: He was just like me. Complaining about the same things I complained about. Barham recalled that he had been able to send the same type of letter to his parents that the dead soldier was not able to send to his parents. It really made me want to do something from the point of view of that dead North Vietnamese soldier and the American that lived: two men who have an encounter; one lives and one doesnt.

How did you decide on a website instead of a traditional documentary?

In 2009 I began trying to figure out how to do this, and I decided one of the things Id like to do is tell it in a new-media way as opposed to the traditional linear documentary form. That also helped land a fellowship opportunity and grant.

How did you reach former NVA soldiers?

I got a journalist visa. That meant Id need a handler, who I expected would be a lifelong Communist Party member and everything would be no. It turned out he was a 31-year-old who knew more about American pop culture than me. He was a good guy to work with. In theory I would have to give a list of veterans I wanted to interview a month ahead of time. I told them I had leads but not specifics and suggested we could find people along the way to interview. That caused problems. They have veterans associations across the country, but the majority of members fought for the North. In many cases the officials provided me with the people for my interviews. I knew they were likely people they usually used for these types of things, but still they had stories Americans hadnt heard. It was a challenge finding accessible veterans who fought for the South. Some were skeptical or afraid to speak and others were denied approval by the government. I have interviews from ARVN in the United States but I really want stories of ARVN vets who still live in Vietnam.

What did the former NVA think about this?

They would say that after 1975 they moved on with life. Why do you want to know about the war? theyd ask. I explained the importance of knowing more than just one side of the story and that Americans would be interested in hearing their side.

Why do you, and why should U.S. vets, want to know the other sides stories?

I always want to know things from the other point of view. There are two sides to everything, like in the Japanese movie Rashomon, where the same story is told from the perspective of different people. Another reason, for me, stems from the fact that I know so little of my fathers story. If nothing comes out of this but an archive of stories of veterans from all sides of the Vietnam War, it will be worth it. The goal of this was never to tell the history of the war; it is to tell the stories of individuals and their small part of the war.

Any negative reaction from Vietnam vets?

A lot of vets Ive shared this with and some Ive interviewed have no interest in what the NVA say. It may be because of bad memories or just that they have no desire to learn about their experience. I think it is sort of sad, but I understand.

Whats the next step for the site?

I need funding to enhance elements of the site and build the interview archive. I want to make it easier for vets to get their stories recorded, and Id like to have a companion Vietnamese language site so that we can tell the story fromand toboth sides. That is the ultimate goal.

Originally published in the April 2014 issue of Vietnam. To subscribe, click here.
Sons of Nam

The service members who returned home from Vietnam were each affected by their war experiences in unique and life-changing ways. The effects range from profound impacts of physical and psychological disability and other crushing outcomes common to any war to merely a delayed education or career. In some cases individuals emerged with skills or talents that altered the trajectory of their lives in a positive direction. Despite their differences, they are all brothers. In this issue we meet three sons of Nam, whose Vietnam experience has had a positive impact on their lives.

Kimo Williams has had an extraordinary 40-year career as an innovative musician whose creative talents were inspired and refined during his service in Vietnam. Williams multifaceted and eclectic musical styling traces its roots to the swirling cultural upheavals of the late 1960s and his own Vietnam experience in the early 1970s. Writer Rick Fredericksen explores Kimo Williams fascinating evolution and his ongoing contributions to his fellow veterans, in Are You Experienced, a nod to Williams musical mentor, Jimi Hendrix.

Ronald Osgood, professor emeritus at Indiana Universitys Department of Telecommunications, spent his Vietnam years in the Gulf of Tonkin on the aircraft carrier Oriskany. He had no idea at the time that the work he did operating the Pilot Landing Aid Television system on the ship would lead him into a long and successful career teaching telecommunications and making documentary films. As Osgood relates in this issues interview, he left Vietnam largely behind in 1972, until some 30 years later when he was inspired to explore the dynamics of Vietnam veteran fathers and their children who fought in Iraq in the widely acclaimed documentary My Vietnam Your Iraq. Osgoods recently launched website, VietnamWarStories.org, is an innovative and important new-media exploration of the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of those who fought on all sides of the conflict.

Our cover story is, literally, a long-buried treasure, in words written and pictures taken that never made it to print until now. Captain Lyle Parker, a young doctor from California, knew he could better care for his menpilots and crew of the 188th Helicopter Assault Companyif he experienced for himself the stresses and strains they experienced. The story Doc Parker, Chopper Surgeon, Door Gunner, was written by the late Harold Ellithorpe in 1968 and recently unearthed for us by photographer Paul Stephanus, whose pictures chronicle this intriguing story. Still practicing today, Doc Parker learned lessons about the human condition while in the Hueys of Vietnam that have served himand his patientswell for the past 45 years.

Originally published in the April 2014 issue of Vietnam. To subscribe, click here.
Cambodian UXO Survivors

Siem Reap near Angor Wat in Cambodia has a group searching for unexploded ordnance (UXO) from the same time frame as shown in the story Good Boom, February 2014. Here is a photograph taken by me and my wife, Bonna Nong (now a U.S. citizen, who lost all of her immediate family to Pol Pots genocidal rule, 1975-79). There is a private group of survivors of the Killing Fields in Cambodia who search for UXO in Cambodia. Part of their backing came from Princess Diana of England, who also provided assistance in Bosnia and Africa. Thank you for Ted Lievermans Good Boom. Semper Fidelis.

Staff Sgt. Bruce L. Downs

Palmer, Alaska

Giap Sanitized

Im confused. Having read Giaps Second Masterpiece in your magazine (February), Im surprised it never mentioned the darker side of Vo Nguyen Giap. Giap oversaw and implemented the North Vietnamese Armys strategy throughout the war. That included the wholesale slaughter of civilians during the 1968 Tet Offensive in Hue. More than 3,000 civilians were executed by the North Vietnamese forces, and thousands more died in countless battles at the hands of the NVA.

This excerpt on Giap is shameful at best and Vietnam magazine is better than this. We all know that the conduct of the North Vietnamese was atrocious and yet I could only find one reference to Giaps behavior. The story said that he was reviled by some. There was no context to this reference and no effort was given to explain the atrocities conducted by his army.

Giap was not a great leader, nor was he a great general. He allowed his military to suffer the loss of hundreds of thousands of troops in a hope that the opposition would get tired and go home. Americas loss was tied directly to our governments inability to prosecute the war militarily.

Al Aldecoa

Asheville, N.C.

Phams Friends

I am glad to see that at least one journalist, Beverly Deepe Keever, is willing to talk about her relationship with Viet Cong superspy and agent-ofinfluence, Pham Xuan An (Reviews, Death Zones and Darling Spies, February). We wont understand the Real War until all of Phams friends take a long, hard, painful and honest look at their relationship with him. Even Keever doesnt seem to want to really deal with Phams betrayal of her, his country and, ultimately, himself. Like many Viet Cong, Pham was put in a re-education camp by General Vo Nguyen Giap, et al., after the fall of Saigon. Neither Keever nor any of Phams other friends seem to have done anything to help him while he was imprisoned. I would call the relationship between Pham and his media friends a misalliance that contributed to the tragic fate of South Vietnam.

Raymond P. Opeka

Grand Rapids, Mich.

Engineers at Widows Village

Concerning your story Everybody Was a Hero That Day (February): Right across the highway from Widows Village was a tiny engineer unit, the 66th Engineer Company, Topoa batch of mapmakers. Before the narrative in your article gets going, probably after the VC 122mm rocket barrage on the 66ths compound, this group of fewer than 225 people, all told, was attacked by the same VC gang described in the article. We reacted unexpectedlyas far as the Viet Cong were concernedand the enemy hesitated. We spoiled their attack, and then there is the rest of your story. Needless to say, not one engineer received an award. But we all survived the attack.

Thomas F. Bayard

Wilmington, Del.

For the Dogs

I was appalled that Diane Carlson Evans had to face such disgraceful opposition to the Vietnam Womens Memorial (Interview, December 2013). She said she received threats; the opposition said it would open up the floodgates for other proposals for memorials: The Canine Corps will want theirs too, she was told. Its been estimated that more than 10,000 soldiers lives were saved by war dogs. Thats at least 10,000 more names that would be on The Wall in Washington.

Robert L. Benedict

Lincoln, Ill.

Editors note: The U.S. Military Dog Teams National Monument was dedicated at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas on Oct. 28, 2013.

Originally published in the April 2014 issue of Vietnam. To subscribe, click here.
I was five years old when Life After Death dropped, 20 years ago to the day. The Notorious B.I.G. had just died 17 days prior. I wouldnt hear any of his music until about seven or eight years later when I borrowed a friends CD on a middle school field trip, but by that time I definitely already knew who Biggie was. The Brooklyn star was only 24 (one year younger than I am now) and two albums into his career when he was fatally shot, but even in a small, mostly white town in Washington State, his posthumous reputation preceded his music. The words Tupac and Biggie already meant a lot of different things to a kid who at that time, had probably only heard Changes: a warning about the dangers and inherent evil of gangsta rap, a sign of maturity and hardness for kids who owned their CDs or wore shirts emblazoned with their faces, a recent addendum to the pantheon of music geniuses gone too soon (like Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, etc.).

Tupac and Biggie both predicted their own deaths on multiple occasions. Song titles like If I Die 2Nite, Ready To Die, Suicidal Thoughts, and Death Around the Corner popped up on albums they released while still living, no doubt products of an East/West rivalry centered on their creators that had already led to threats, diss tracks, and in Tupacs case, a non-lethal shooting in 1994. What mythologized Biggie more than anything else, though, was Life After Death.

Its simply insane to think about an album thats this obsessed with death arriving just over two weeks after the murder of its creator. This was the CD age, so there was no way that the album couldve been altered at all in that 17-day interim the hearse on the cover, the simulated death by gunshot that kicks off the album, those death threat messages at the beginning of My Downfall, the eerily on-the-nose Youre Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You) all were included on the final draft that Big turned in while still breathing. Thats absolutely crazy. Other rappers have mused about their own premature deaths soon before they were actually killed, but none with the certainty or timing of Life After Death. David Bowie tried to pull some similar shit with last years Blackstar, but despite the general public being unaware of his terminal cancer, he was, which substantially cuts down on the Nostradamus factor.

This shock value, obviously along with the success of Ready to Die (which to date has sold far fewer copies than LAD), led to the album being a huge, Diamond-selling hit. If youre a rap fan or a curious, impressionable kid, how are you not going to buy an album in which the best rapper alive recently deceased predicts his own death? Life After Death is currently the fifth highest selling rap album of all time, behind albums by Eminem, MC Hammer, and Nelly, and you can attribute at least some of that success to right-place-right-time poignancy akin to Wiz Khalifa getting his first #1 song in the wake of Paul Walkers death, or to use this example again, Blackstar becoming the first of David Bowies 25 studio albums to reach #1 in the US.

If Life After Death was, like its predecessor, filled exclusively with hard-edged mafioso rap, its commercial achievements would be almost unbelievable, but that was decidedly not the case. In addition to being a post-mortem sensation, it doubled as a key fulcrum in Bad Boy Records pivot from niche street rap label to world-conquering pop behemoth. In between the release of Biggies two albums, Diddy had pushed out Platinum-selling projects by Faith Evans, Total, and 112, all smooth R&B that was pretty far removed from the Biggie and Craig Mack albums that were the labels first two releases. This high-gloss sound made its way onto about half of Life After Death via songs like Mo Money Mo Problems, Fuck You Tonight, and the 112-assisted cuts Miss U and Skys The Limit, which all contrasted with the albums grittier, more menacing side. In the most jarring instance, Biggie goes from rapping over Schooly Ds P.S.K. What Does It Mean (often cited as the first gangsta rap song) on an interlude that leads directly into the chopped up Diana Ross disco sample of Mo Money Mo Problems. Life After Death was never going to be as cohesive as the narrative-oriented Ready To Die, but in straddling the pop and gangsta sides of hip hop, it paved the way for Bad Boys sophomore class of Ma$e, The LOX, Black Rob, and Shyne.

But what Life After Death lacked in the thematic cohesion department, it made up for with the best storytelling rap ever laid to wax, period. On the albums character-driven songs N****s Bleed, I Got a Story to Tell, and Ten Crack Commandments being the most focused Biggie delivers Hollywood-ready scripts filled with tension, rising actions, and climaxes like hes a seasoned screenwriter. Whether hes telling you about his shady friend Arizona Ron or himself cuckolding and robbing Knicks player Anthony Mason, Big rapped in ways no one ever had, or ever has since. Take a random four bars out of Ten Crack Commandments say The cheddar breed jealousy specially/If that man fucked up, get yo ass stuck up/Number 2: never let em know your next move/Dont you know Bad Boys move in silence and violence? and youve got lines thatll pop up interpolated in songs by Lil Wayne, Danny Brown, Denzel Curry, and many others. These Life After Death tracks are as important as How To Rap 101 guides as they are important as classic bangers.

The album doesnt hit its most legendary run until the end though. After the Too Short-assisted pimping anthem The World is Filled, the phoned-in death threats at the start of My Downfall begin to flood in, signifying that the next fifteen minutes are going to much heavier than the 94 minutes that preceded them. Biggie boasts about his riches yet again on that first track, but its through the eyes of jealous onlookers, making all of the Lexuses with the automatic start, shrimp a la carte, bitches from Brussels, clams, and mussels seem more like targets painted on Bigs back than luxuries. Then comes Long Kiss Goodnight, the most ruthless piss-on-a-grave track thats ever been released. Its clearly about Tupacs death, as Big references a car accident him and Lil Cease got in three days after the fatal shooting and rumors that Pac had been raped in prison. Its so dark that Big had to get RZA, who rarely worked outside of the Wu-Tang Clan, to lace him with a gothic Al Green sample. On both of these tracks, Diddy puts massive distortion on his voice and rants like no one else can combined with the similar approach on Nas Hate Me Now, it might represent his best vocal performance of all time.

Youre Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You) is the perfect closer, with Big sounding impossibly confident about what the future holds for his young life, and the beat splitting the difference between the albums poppy and gritty sounds. It is, in my opinion, what truly made Biggie a legend, what made it certain that kids would know his name for years to come, even if they had never heard his music. Personally, I dont think Life After Death matches Ready To Die in terms of a well-packaged, well-structured album, but theres no question that its the more important release in terms of Bigs legacy. On it, he showed he could do any style of rap that existed at that point sex jams, murder music, funky Bad Boy pop rap, ballads, storytelling opuses, triplet-flowing Midwest rap, pimp rap, even West Coast rap and make himself into a larger-than-life persona while doing so. Its going to be a long time until we have another piece of art thats this eerily predictive of the future while also being one of the most popular pieces in its medium. Rest in peace to Biggie the prophet, and Biggie the worldwide sensation.
Thomas Friedkin wasn't the first to sell Americans on the virtues of Toyota's compact cars at a time when big domestic models ran rampant. But nearly 50 years ago, he did set in motion a supply chain that would fuel their ubiquity in the Gulf Coast region, forever shifting the course of the American auto market and changing the lives of local commuters with better gas mileage and smaller engines.

Friedkin, a billionaire auto magnate with a penchant for flying, stunting and big-game hunting, died March 14 at 81.

He founded Gulf States Toyota, one of the world's largest independent vehicle distributors, in Houston in 1969 and propelled it to become the city's largest private company.

Friedkin, who rarely appeared in the press during the course of his career, generally avoided the spotlight save for his regular appearance on Forbes' annual list of America's billionaires. More than a week had passed before the public learned he died, first reported by the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday.

His family declined to comment about his death and has not disclosed details about his services. Gulf States Toyota issued a brief statement acknowledging him as an industry pioneer and a devoted leader with an enduring legacy.

Friedkin is survived by his wife, Susan, and four children. His son, Dan, has succeeded him as chairman and CEO of the company and amassed a net worth of $3.6 billion, Forbes reported this month.

Friedkin was born Aug. 29, 1935, in San Diego, Calif. He spent much of his twenties as a pilot with Pacific Southwest Airlines, a California carrier that his father founded in 1949 with flights priced as low as $5.65.

The company expanded quickly, adding planes and routes, and Friedkin continued to fly even when he became a top shareholder and board member.

It was a fun time to be in the airline business, said George Shortley, PSA's former chief financial officer, recalling Friedkin's dedication to the company and his passengers.

"He was reported to be an absolutely excellent pilot," Shortley said.

Friedkin stopped flying for the airline around the time he moved to Houston and signed an agreement with Toyota Motor Sales USA, a nascent division of the Japanese automaker. As a distributor, Gulf States Toyota would buy vehicles wholesale from the manufacturer and deliver them to Toyota retailers.

Fueled by oil crises

At the outset, few likely would have predicted the meteoric rise of Gulf States Toyota, which now supplies hundreds of thousands of vehicles to dealerships in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

Japanese automakers, in the 1960s, had only just begun to rival General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, the "Big Three" domestic manufacturers that dominated the market after World War II.

"It took foresight for people to invest in Toyota and Nissan," said automotive writer and historian Ken Gross. "They were smart in taking that gamble."

Toyota first found success in the U.S. with its 1965 Corona, an automatic model with air conditioning, then a rare luxury even in the sweltering South. It kept up the momentum with the 1968 Corolla, a boxy and colorful option for drivers on a budget.

By 1972, Toyota had sold a million vehicles and was well on its way to becoming the top imported brand in the U.S. Gulf States Toyota had sold 5,000 cars and trucks to 14 dealerships by the end of that year.

Then, the oil crisis hit when OPEC halted exports in 1973. Gas prices soared, tanks ran dry, and fuel economy, hardly an issue among American consumers in the golden years of the 1960s, had suddenly entered the car-buying lexicon.

"For decent gas mileage, you turned to Japan," Gross said. "And once you had one, you didn't go back."

Prices surged again in 1979, when Iran slashed oil production in the wake of the revolution that eventually established the country as a republic. Gulf States Toyota had sold nearly 66,000 vehicles by the end of that year.

Toyota models, at that point, had become the most popular imported vehicles in the U.S. John McGovern, former senior vice president of Toyota Motor Sales, said that Friedkin and his company were integral to the brand's success in the Gulf Coast region.

"They were definitely the forerunners for our doing business in the southwest U.S.," he said.

Amid the surge in business, Friedkin leveraged his aviation skills to perform as a stunt pilot and actor in Hollywood cop thrillers and Westerns.

He appeared in several films, including "The Gauntlet," "Pale Rider" and "The Rookie," films Clint Eastwood directed around the time he challenged a robber to go ahead and make his day in the famous "Sudden Impact."

Meanwhile, Gulf States Toyota continued to boom, and in 1989, Friedkin, an avid hunter and conservationist, established Tanzania Game Tracker Safaris. It's now one of several adventure companies that help support the Friedkin Conservation Fund, which protects 6.1 million acres of land in Tanzania.

Barbara Crown, editor-in-chief of the Hunting Report, said those companies have for years pioneered more sustainable wildlife hunting and preservation tactics in Tanzania. There, the conservation fund has invested millions of dollars in anti-poaching and education efforts.

"He had a passion for conservation," Crown said. "He was fighting against poaching at every turn."

Business hall of famer

In 1998, Gulf States Toyota outsold even Toyota Motor Sales USA in import market share. A year later, Friedkin was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame, alongside former President George H.W. Bush and other business luminaries.

He eventually passed responsibility for the company to his son, telling Forbes in 2001, "I am not a greedy person, and I don't have to make the last dollar there ever was."

The magazine in 2013 valued his net worth at $1.7 billion.

Gulf States Toyota, under Dan Friedkin, has continued to grow, reporting $8.4 billion in revenue in 2015.

A company spokeswoman said dealers were informed of the founder's death this week.

Vic Vaughan, a Toyota dealer in the San Antonio area who formerly operated in Houston, said he regarded Friedkin as an incredible man during the few times they met.

The company, he added, fostered the growth of Toyota throughout the region and invested in the infrastructure needed to bring the vehicles to consumers.

"They're a first-class organization, highly regarded," he said. "For me, it's been a wonderful relationship."

Note: This story has been amended to correct Thomas Friedkin's birthday.
A weird thing happened to me recently that prompted thoughts on real estate investing, "eminent domain" and big gubmint, a.k.a. big government.

I (re-)learned that what you don't know might hurt you, and also what you think you know about your constitutional rights might not be true.

Through a series of unfortunate events, I became a one-fifth owner in a parcel of agricultural land in Southeast Bexar County, Texas. I've been trying to sell it ever since. I have areas of investment expertise, but real estate development isn't one of them. Which is probably why I found myself in this awkward spot.

Last fall I learned from our real estate agent that a 50-acre parcel of which I am a part-owner has a planned "major thoroughfare" running through the middle of it.

My agent sent me the city parcel map, and yup, there's a bright yellow line cutting right through our property. As owners we can't build on that. Any development done on the property has to make way for a future, theoretical, 120-foot wide road right down the middle.

Theoretical highways

Art Reinhardt, an assistant director of transportation for the city of San Antonio, explained to me that in 1978  and then periodically updated afterward - the city mapped out future theoretical roads, to account for growth.

The long-planned major thoroughfare is not built yet and might not be built for decades, or even built at all, ever. But in the meantime, we can't use that land for anything except a road.

All-in, the as-yet non-existent "major thoroughfare" will take about 5 acres out of the parcel and make it unavailable for building. Multiply those 5 acres times the cost per acre, and we're talking about real money lost by myself and my fellow owners.

Constitutional shield

At first, I thought the carved-out 5 acres would be no big deal. Because, well, I'm an American. And I was flipping through my copy of the U.S. Constitution, as one does in one's free time, and I reread Article V of the Bill of Rights: "Nor shall any person  be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

This amendment is the basis for limitations on any government - city, state or federal - claiming "eminent domain" over private property, taking it for public use without paying the private property owner for that taking.

So, no problem, I thought, the city of San Antonio will certainly pay us for that public use, right? I mean, I read it right there in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So, cool, I'm good.

That's when I called city officials to test my theory.

Nope. There will be no compensation. I checked with multiple city officials familiar with this type of matter in the planning, transportation, and legal counsel's offices. None of them wanted to be identified because they weren't authorized to be quoted.

I further learned that even if an unbuilt (but planned) major thoroughfare exists, it won't show up in a title search, the typical due diligence real estate purchasers use to be certain they have full to ownership with no liens or counterclaims from anyone, like an unpaid creditor or previous owner.

It seems the only practical way a buyer would know about this is through hiring a specialist attorney familiar with maps showing city plans for major thoroughfares. Something we clearly hadn't done.

The particulars

I talked to San Antonio attorney David Denton, a specialist in eminent domain and governmental real estate issues. He helped walk me through the legal particulars that would define an "eminent domain" case versus a "tough luck, private property owner" case.

Cities and other government entities obviously have rights and the need to restrict private usage through zoning, parcel platting, infrastructure requirements and transportation. These are considered "exactions" imposed by a city government.

An exaction, in real estate law, is land, money or goods the government requires and the property owner has to provide as a condition to develop the land. It's not considered a taking covered by eminent domain because - get this - it's treated as a negotiated deal. Except the property owner doesn't really have a choice, and the government holds all the cards.

In legalese, qualifying for payment under eminent domain hinges on whether it's an "exaction" (a negotiated deal in which there is no cash compensation for the private land-owner) or a "taking" (possible compensation for the private landowner).

Exactions provide government cover for a variety of legitimate uses, including it seems, future theoretical road access. Denton also mentioned case law around the "proportionality" of the government's requirements. I understand that to mean that if a higher proportion of a full property value was lost, it might start to resemble a taking, but my situation didn't rise to that level.

A few lessons

One lesson, obviously, is don't get into investing in things without really knowing what you're doing.

In other words, do as I say, not as I do.

Another lesson, more subtly, is that the world of real estate is not as simple as a bright line between private property rights and public or government property rights. We rarely can do precisely what we want with private land, and the public interest can impinge upon our theoretical property rights.

The third lesson I learned along the way is that big gubmint can be serendipitously profitable. It turns out there's private silver lining opportunity in this public impingement. As a developer buddy of mine explained, some investors seek out land like this, with a major thoroughfare plan running through it.

Here's why. If the major thoroughfare did get built soon, I'd be sitting on a potential gold mine (a very small-scale gold mine, but still).

Suddenly my rural land would become far more valuable from the expected increase in automobile traffic. I could lease it out to a Krispy Kreme or whatever fast-food joint would build a store next to the major roadway cutting through the property.

Actually, who am I kidding? If we could lease to Krispy Kreme specifically, I would move into a trailer next door and never leave. I love that sugary goodness.
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration resurrected a long national fight around the Keystone pipeline on Friday when it approved a cross-border permit to allow construction of the $8 billion project.

With state and local regulatory hurdles left to clear and environmental groups gearing up to challenge the presidential permit in court, the embattled oil pipeline has a ways to go before construction begins and crude flows to Texas refineries.

The fluidity of the situation became evident during a ceremony at the White House on Friday morning, when President Donald Trump asked the CEO of Keystone developer TransCanada when construction would begin.

"We're going to have to see," CEO Russ Girling said. "We have some work to do in Nebraska to get our permits there."

"Nebraska? I'll call Nebraska," Trump said.

It might not be that simple.

"This is a pretty big step forward for TransCanada and Keystone XL getting built, but it's important to remember the granting of the presidential permit is not a general nationwide permit to start construction," said Fred Jauss, a former official at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, now an attorney at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney. "This is going to take time."

A larger debate

It was once just one in a series of pipelines bringing crude from Canada's oil sands fields to the U.S., but the Keystone pipeline became a touchstone in a larger debate around climate change between the fossil fuel industry and the environmental movement.

In late 2015, three years after TransCanada filed its original application, President Barack Obama announced he would not grant the project a permit on the grounds that allowing a pipeline transporting oil with such a high carbon intensity would undermine U.S. leadership on climate change.

But the State Department reversed course Friday, after Trump had ordered officials to look again - following up on a promise he made on the campaign trail. In its findings, the State Department said building the Keystone, which would have the capacity to deliver 800,000 barrels a day to the Gulf Coast, serves U.S. national interests.

Undersecretary of State Tom Shannon cited the importance of Canadian crude in maintaining U.S. energy security and downplayed the climate concerns of the previous administration.

"Since (2015), there have been numerous developments related to global action to address climate change, including announcements by many countries of their plans to do so. In this changed global context, a decision to approve this proposed project would not undermine U.S. objectives in this area," a 31-page report released Friday by the State Department read.

Attention almost immediately shifted to Nebraska on Friday, the last of three states from which TransCanada said it needs approval before it will begin construction on the 1,200 mile pipeline.

With approvals from Montana and South Dakota in hand, the Canadian firm must convince Nebraska regulators who have watched their original approval overturned after activists and tribal groups sued.

More litigation possible

TransCanada has submitted three possible routes to the Nebraska Public Service Commission for consideration, trying to find the path of least landowner resistance. But after Friday's announcement, environmental leaders said any approval would again meet with litigation.

"You're looking at two to three years of legal challenges in the state of Nebraska at the very least," said Jane Klebb, president of the activist group Bold Alliance.

The rekindling of the Keystone debate comes at a tough moment for the oil industry, and the cost-intensive Canadian oil sands industry in particular, with crude trading at less than $50 a barrel.

Shell announced this month it was selling off its oil sands business with an impairment of between $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion, joining competitors like Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips and Statoil that have sold or written down their Canadian oil businesses in recent years.

A spokesman for TransCanada said, "our shippers remain committed to the project," but analysts were of a mixed opinion.

They expressed fear around a coming price collapse, while arguing the market demand along the Gulf Coast was there.

"There still comes the economic question, and that depends a heck of a lot more on whether we've seen the last of the crude price bust than Washington politics," said Robert McNally, president of the Rapidan Group, an energy consultancy.

"Canadian crude production is set to grow over the next several years, and Canada is facing logistical bottleneck issues," said Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

But TransCanada is facing a legal and public relations onslaught.

In a call with reporters Friday, environmental leaders promised a steady series of events to block the pipeline in the months ahead.

The Sierra Club said it would challenge the presidential permit in federal court "in the next several days."

Tribal leaders are making plans to resurrect the protest camps that delayed the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota. And petitions to the financial institutions providing the financing for Keystone are "circulating."

Even in an industry used to operating in war-torn parts of Africa and the Middle East, some agonized about the potential for business disruption and physical violence.

"Some banks may be loath to enter a credit facility if they think their management team will get death threats, that they will incur branch protests, or that some municipalities will sever ties," said Ethan Bellamy, an energy analyst at the investment firm Robert W. Baird & Co. "This is a real business consideration going forward."

'Going to be hiccups'

But along the Texas Gulf Coast, the Keystone oil cannot arrive fast enough.

A decade ago, local companies redesigned refineries to process heavy grades of crude from countries like Venezuela, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. But transportation costs from those fields are high, and heavy Canadian crude via the Keystone is expected to provide a lower cost alternative that could ultimately boost profits for refiners, analysts said.

"Our Gulf Coast refineries were built like a glove into which Canadian heavy crude fits like a hand," McNally said.

How long will they have to wait?

The prospect seemed close three years ago, when the southern leg of the Keystone that treks from Cushing, Okla., to Nederland was completed with minimal fanfare. But the attorneys who handle pipeline regulation struggle to make predictions.

Jauss, the former FERC official, pointed out that even once TransCanada had state-level approval, local planning boards likely will need to weigh in on issues like permits to move construction equipment.

"I wouldn't expect a rapid green light from the other regulatory agencies that have to weigh in," Jauss said. "There are definitely going to be hiccups along the way."
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Friday praised a plan by cable company Charter Communications to hire 20,000 American call center workers.

But the hiring initiative dates back to 2015 as part of the company's successful efforts to merge with Time Warner Cable.

It's the latest corporate jobs announcement made at the White House that capitalized on plans made before Trump won the presidency.

Other major companies including General Motors and Ford have allowed Trump to take credit for job decisions that either pre-date his election or involve market forces outside the administration's direct control.

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge had said at an investment conference in December 2015 that the company would have to make about 20,000 hires once it acquired Time Warner Cable and Bright House to bring outsourced jobs in-house.

But after meeting with Trump in the Oval Office Friday, Rutledge credited the administration's call to reduce regulations and corporate tax rates for contributing to the hiring decision.

He went on to say that uncertainty over whether the administration can deliver those corporate tax cuts - in light of the muddle this week over replacing former President Barack Obama's health care law - could influence its hiring commitment.

As part of the 20,000 jobs to be added over four years, Rutledge said the company will also invest $25 billion and open a new call center in McAllen in South Texas that will employ 600 workers. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also attended the meeting.

Charter spokesman Justin Venech said the company previously had no timeframe for hiring the 20,000 workers.

The company said Friday that it would happen over four years.
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The food-media website Eater recently tweeted, "Watch out, Texas. New York is on its way to being a barbecue capital" and linked to a video about Hometown Bar-B-Que, a celebrated Texas-style barbecue joint in Brooklyn.

The tweet was undoubtedly meant to be provocative and incite debate to generate views for the video. And indeed it did.

Curiously, though, most of the strident objections seemed to come from non-Texans. On the other hand, my own response, like several other Texas barbecue aficionados I know, was just a shrug and a "ho-hum."

"New York barbecue is challenging Texas for supremacy" is an old trope that the New York food media trot out about once a year. It's as if they're just occasionally gauging the validity of the argument - running it up the flagpole to see if anybody salutes, if you will.

Some Texans take the bait. The Tyler Morning Telegraph wrote an exasperated editorial titled "Sorry, New York, but Texas remains the barbecue capital."

More Information Hometown Bar-B-Que 454 Van Brunt Brooklyn, N.Y. hometownbarbque.com See More Collapse

And what about the Texas pitmasters who actually make the barbecue and seem to be in the crosshairs of their Big Apple brethren? Of the few I mentioned it to, none was even aware that such a claim had been made.

So why are Texans so indifferent about these New York claims? It comes down to one word: confidence.

The culture, traditions and techniques are so ingrained in Texas barbecue that any challenge to its supremacy is simply not believable. Which isn't to say the New York barbecue crowd isn't going to stop crowing about its smoked meats.

If life really is like high school, you can look at it this way: New York barbecue is the nerdy kid in the front of the class always raising his hand to get attention while the cool kids of Texas barbecue sit in back rolling their eyes.

Which isn't to say that all Texas-style barbecue made in New York is bad. Hill Country Barbecue and Mighty Quinn's are two excellent Texas-style barbecue spots in the Big Apple.

But the best Texas-style barbecue in New York is indeed at Hometown Bar-B-Que, the Red Hook-based joint referenced in the original tweet.

I've been visiting Hometown since it opened in 2013 and have known owner and pitmaster Billy Durney for just as long. The big and burly Durney is a son of Brooklyn. But if there is such a thing as a true honorary Texan, Durney is it.

He fell in love with Texas and barbecue during visits here when he previously worked as a bodyguard for A-list celebrities. Durney struck up a friendship with Wayne Mueller of Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor and began making frequent trips there to learn the traditions and techniques of Texas barbecue.

The accolades that the food media - both in New York and Texas - have showered upon Durney's Texas-style barbecue are absolutely deserved.

But don't take my word for it. Houston pitmaster Russell Roegels recently visited New York on a tour of colleges with his son, who plans to attend culinary school. Roegels also visited a few barbecue joints, including Hometown, where he ran into celebrity chef Mario Batali. Indeed, the wider culinary world in New York now makes the pilgrimage to Red Hook to find out what all the smoked-meat fuss is about.

Roegels was impressed with the barbecue as well as meeting Batali - "He even offered to write a recommendation for my son!" Roegels says.

As for the barbecue: "The barbecue at Hometown compares with the best barbecue in Texas," Roegels says.

So, what about New York being a barbecue capital?

"Not quite there yet," Roegels says. "Great barbecue there is few and far between. It's everywhere in Texas.

"I think they're getting a little ahead of themselves."
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 1 of 2 Keri Blakinger Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Houston Disc Dogs Show More Show Less



This is not my first rodeo. As a World Champion Disc Dog, I have been to a good number of these things  and I have six suggestions to make them less human-centric and more agreeable for canine visitors such as myself.

1.More auction options. Currently, you auction boring things like steer and wine. I have no interest in these. Stuffed squirrels  or, better yet, live ones  would do. But what I really want is a cow-poop auction. I'm envisioning freshly made patties on a silver platter, topped with cat droppings. Can this be arranged?
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Kristen Kuehler gave White Lightning, her purebred Chester White pig, two scoops of food. As he nudged the bucket, she dumped in a third scoop. Then a fourth. And a fifth.

"Basically all he wants, since he's not on weight limit now," she said.

During the judging portion of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, pigs can only gain or lose 10 pounds. So White Lightning had been fed a regimented, sloppy mixture of water, feed and electrolytes every three to four hours.

But Friday was auction day. He would be sold to the highest bidder, so Kuehler, 17, of Munday, gave White Lightning as much food as he wanted. After all, he'd won the title of Breed Champion for Chester White pigs in the Junior Market Barrow Show.

And that honor, on Thursday, had earned him a name. Kuehler knows better than to name pigs early on, so she had previously called him "pig" or "hog."

"If I name them I get really attached," she said.

Kuehler has been taking pigs and sheep to shows since she was 7 years old. This year, she raised seven pigs and two sheep.

That meant waking up around 6 a.m. to feed the animals before going to volleyball practice. Then she had school and more volleyball practice before returning home to the pigs and sheep. Each one had to practice walking for shows.

It would 8 or 9 p.m. when she finished, and Kuehler still had homework to do.

"I get very tired," she said. "I just like the memories that we make when we come to stock shows."

WHITE LIGHTNING was the third pig in Friday's auction. The Junior Market Grand Champion Barrow, the best pig in the youth competition, was up first and sold for $212,000. The Junior Market Reserve Grand Champion Barrow, second best pig, sold for $133,000. Both prices set new world records.

Then Kuehler stepped onto the stage, in front of an audience wearing pink boas, pig hats or swine necklaces. She walked White Lightning around the stage, using a whip to direct him. A tap under the left side of his nose meant to turn left. A tap under the right side meant to turn right.

The bidders settled on a price of $100,000.

Kuehler won't get to keep all of that. Here's how the auction works: Each exhibitor is guaranteed a certain dollar amount based on how their pig placed in the show. The Junior Market Grand Champion Barrow is guaranteed $40,000. The Reserve Grand Champion Barrow is guaranteed $25,000. Breed Champions, like White Lightning, are guaranteed $10,000.

The rest of the money goes into the show's educational fund and a bonus pool used to pay the auction's expenses, with leftover money in the bonus pool being split among the exhibitors.

Kuehler will put some of the auction money toward college, where she wants to study something in agriculture, and the rest will go toward buying more animals for shows.

She walked off the auction stage and handed off White Lightning without saying goodbye. That, she figured was for the best: "I probably would have bawled."
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Regulars to central Texas' spring and fall antiques fairs know that too much is never enough.

Accumulated stuff seems endless along the 30 mile-stretch of Texas 237 in Fayette County between Carmine, Round Top and Warrenton, where dedicated shoppers engage every spring and fall in a ritual search for vintage dustables from Grandma's era, serious furniture, anything weathered, hand-crafted doodads, yard geegaws, pricey linens and textiles, funky clothes, flashy costume jewelry, cowboy boots and a gazillion quirky objects.

You've never seen so much stuff piled in open pastures or under tents or in tin buildings, lugged across the globe by vendors who have become as familiar as family. And now, another very big venue is tempting visitors.

Market Hill, Paul Michael Company's sprawling 130,000-square-foot warehouse just north of Round Top, is an appealingly hybrid indoor-outdoor mall where spacious air-conditioned shops with sliding metal and glass doors open onto covered breezeways. It's a step up from weather-vulnerable tents, from a company familiar to Nutcracker Market shoppers for its holiday decor.

Paul Michael opened his Round Top store at the center of Market Hill last spring, expanded to six vendors last fall and now has 18 shops. Several high-profile Round Top regulars are among them, including the Brenham antiques and gift retailer Leftovers and Indiana-based couple Don and Marta Orwig, who have an eye for wonderfully eccentric finds.

More Information Market Hill When: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily, through April 1 Where: 1503 Texas 237, Round Top Info: Free; 800-732-3722; paulmichaelcompany.com See More Collapse

A glass-walled, state-of-the-art kitchen, headed by Bastrop chef Paul Higgins, serves prix fix lunch ($15) and dinner ($30). Diners sit at pretty tables in the central breezeway. I would have been happy with just a cup of coffee and a croissant; breakfast wasn't available when we visited last Sunday at 9 a.m., but Michael said that will come soon. He's still working out kinks.

In the staged rooms of his own emporium, tables and chairs manufactured in Arkansas mix with appealing decorative goods sourced from around the world.

Michael's four year-round stores (in Lafayette and Monroe, La.; Lake Village, Ark.; and Canton) focus on seasonal decorations, but he's using the Round Top location to showcase his company's own designs.

"We're trying to offer something new and innovative," he said.

He's also hosting a store-within-a-store, filling a back corner with a display of colorful ikat pillow covers in handmade silk from wholesale importer MD Home. Shopkeeper Gunay Ugur said the company contracts with 600 home weavers in Uzbekistan, who create the cover fabric on 17- or 24-inch looms.

"It takes a day to weave 3 feet," Ugur said. The artisans can't work at night because Uzbekistan only has electric service for eight hours a day. The pillows are finished in Turkey.

Across the rest of Market Hill, the finds last weekend ran the gamut from small indulgences to one-of-a-kind architectural pieces.

Don Orwig knows every inch of this territory: During 28 years of working the fairs, he has kept two shops to cover his bases. He's particular about his neighbors - he doesn't want to be near sellers of cheap, mass-produced goods.

He's always at North Gate Hills in Warrenton, but his second space has hopped around, from the Original Round Top Antique Fair to Marburger Farm to Blue Hills, which is currently for sale. And he expects Market Hill to be the next top destination.

Market Hill opens its doors for several weeks, with hours that accommodate shoppers early and late. Admission and parking are free.

Michael believes Market Hill fills a niche. "This buying frenzy that some of these scenarios create by being open just a few days is not to my liking," he said. "It's always a buyers' market."

With 23 acres, he has room to expand, but he's in no rush.

"I'm fairly creative but not the most organized and efficient person," he said. "We need to see this through and get it as perfect as we can."
Bob Dylan releases "Triplicate" next week, his new triple album of classic American standards. Five years have passed since Dylan last released an album of songs he wrote, and if you count "Triplicate" as three distinct recordings, that brings his great American songbook run to five.

Dylan doesn't do many interviews these days. But he did one with veteran music writer Bill Flanagan, likely in an effort to circumvent having to talk to other people. The chat isn't oddly provocative, as when Dylan in 2012 talked to Mikal Gilmore about transfiguration. While long, it isn't exactly probing, with breaks for the occasional hairball.

Flanagan: You could have had some love scenes with Faye Dunaway  any regrets?

Dylan: Nope.

It's more the "Here's what I like ... " subgenre of Q&A.

Among the things Dylan likes: Frank Sinatra, Fats Waller, Sarah Vaughan, Ornette Coleman, Artie Shaw, Rick(y) Nelson and Joan Baez.

Flanagan also asked, "What drummers do you like?"

"Lots of them," Dylan replied. "(Gene) Krupa, Elvin Jones, Fred Below, Jimmy Van Eaton, Charlie Watts. I like Casey Dickens, the drummer who played with Bob Wills. There are a lot of great drummers."

MBR

It's an interesting mix. The flamboyant Krupa was the gold standard for big-band drummers for years. Jones anchored jazz great John Coltrane's sound for much of the '60s. Van Eaton appeared on many great old Sun Records recordings. Below played with blues man Little Walter and, later, was a well-recorded player with the storied Chess label.

Watts played in some band you've probably heard.

Dickens was the interesting outlier among the group. The Beaumont native is alive and well, which can't be said about many of Bob Wills' Playboys, including his original drummer, William "Smokey" Dacus, who died in 2001.

And unlike the company Dylan placed him in, Dickens wasn't a lifelong student of the drum. He found his way into music through a back door left ajar.

He was a school teacher who admired the swinging sound of Texas legend Bob Wills. He so dug Wills' music that Dickens approached the fiddler/band leader and offered his services as a bus driver. Wills didn't need a bus driver, but he suggested Dickens, 28 at the time, try learning bass or drums. Dickens went to Herb Remington  a Houston-based pedal steel virtuoso who composed the Wills' standard "Boot Heel Drag"  who ran a music shop. He walked out with a used set of drums.

The Cowtown Society of Western Music said Dickens was still kicking around the Fort Worth area, and at 87 still wanders out for the occasional gig.

So I reached out to Dickens, who hadn't heard anything about the Dylan shout-out.

"Is that right?" he said.

He said his focus with Wills was narrow. "Bob's forte was rhythm," Dickens said. "He ran a dance band, so all he wanted was a good beat. And I must say I had a good beat. But that's about it, too. There wasn't else to it."

Dickens' tenure with Wills only lasted about three years in the early 1960s, which would have put his name in album credits around the time a young Dylan would've been paying attention to such matters. He went back to teaching after his detour into music.

"People have called me a legend," he said. "I don't consider myself a legend."

He deflected attention to Wills. Dickens has a music room in his Fort Worth home dedicated to Wills.

And like Remington  who still lives and works in Houston  Dickens is a living piece of Texas music history, and two of increasing few connections to a vibrant era of swinging country music from this state.





Bookmark Gray Matters. It still wanders out for the occasional gig.


The Federal Aviation Administration had resisted years of efforts to strengthen oversight of the hot-air balloon industry, creating a vacuum that allowed Alfred "Skip" Nichols to obtain and keep a license to pilot commercial balloons.

Nichols and 15 of his passengers died in a Texas field last July.

A San Antonio Express-News review of government documents, internal emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and testimony from a federal safety hearing in Washington reveal missed opportunities that led up to the deadliest balloon crash in U.S. history.

Among the newspaper's findings:

Balloons suffer higher crash rates than other aircraft, but the FAA doesn't require those pilots to take drug tests or undergo medical evaluations.

Of more than 140 private and commercial balloon crashes since 2005, more than half were blamed on mistakes made by the pilot, and nearly one in five involved a power line.

Commercial balloons are getting larger to accommodate more customers, increasing the odds of a tragedy. The Kubicek balloon that Nichols piloted was more than nine stories tall and featured a 750-pound gondola with five separate compartments that could fit 16 passengers and the pilot.

One of the first people to recognize the growing risk was an FAA safety inspector in Detroit, who said oversight of the balloon industry was "minimal or non-existent."

More than three years before the deadly crash, he suggested increasing regulations.

To this day, the FAA hasn't adopted his proposal.

****

With minimal federal oversight of hot-air balloons, it's ultimately up to customers to vet pilots. It's not an easy task.

Third-party brokers dominate web searches for balloon rides, and customers aren't told who they're flying with until they pay for tickets.

There's no straightforward way to check the track record of a balloon pilot, and there's no requirement for the pilot to carry insurance.

"Ballooning may be more hazardous than some folks realize," said Chris Kilgore, a lawyer who represents the company that insured Nichols' balloon. "It has an uncontrolled element once the balloon is aloft. It's one of the reasons why I won't fly in one."

The National Transportation Safety Board, which issues nonbinding recommendations to the FAA and other agencies to prevent future accidents, is investigating the July crash.

In a written statement to the Express-News, the FAA said there's no guarantee drug tests would have flagged prescription medications that Nichols was taking, and medical exams also could be circumvented.

RELATED: Lockhart crash's grieving families to FAA: Don't let it happen again

Dean Carlton, president of the Balloon Federation of America, the primary trade group for balloon pilots, didn't challenge the newspaper's findings that balloons suffer higher crash rates, but said many accidents are survivable hard landings.

"We estimate nearly a half-million people flew safely in hot-air balloons last year," Carlton said. "It's a very, very safe sport. But every once in a while, something happens. And something this dramatic hasn't happened since the Hindenburg."

Yet Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB board member who served as chairman of the safety hearing, was unusually blunt about the FAA's lack of oversight. When asked in an interview if he believed the agency was doing enough to protect the public, he said the record speaks for itself.

"We have 16 people who are dead," Sumwalt said. "This pilot should have never been flying."

****

Wayne Phillips warned the FAA it could happen.

An FAA safety inspector in Detroit, Phillips was a licensed balloon pilot who had owned a sightseeing company before he joined the agency.

In November 2012, Phillips wrote a proposal urging increased scrutiny of the industry, saying that balloon rides were more common than helicopter tours, and some balloons were "behemoths."

"When fifteen passengers pay $250 each, there could be exceptionally strong motivation to launch a flight that is worth nearly $4,000 in one hour," Phillips wrote.

But it was "exceptionally easy," he said, to get a pilot's certificate to fly a commercial balloon - requiring only 20 hours of flight time.

Phillips proposed putting commercial balloon pilots on par with sightseeing operations for airplanes and helicopters.

Balloon operators would have to obtain a "letter of authorization" that would, among other things, notify the FAA about the operation, increase the chances for inspections and mandate drug tests for pilots.

Phillips, who still works at the FAA, declined an interview request for this report. But emails obtained by the Express-News through the Freedom of Information Act show he sent his proposal to the FAA office in Albuquerque, N.M., for review.

It was then sent on Dec. 12, 2012, to James Viola, manager of the FAA's Flight Standards Aviation and Commercial Division.

The FAA heavily redacted sections of the emails it released, citing an FOIA provision that allows the agency to withhold "recommendations, opinions and analyses," so it's unclear how seriously Phillips' proposal was considered.

By coincidence, an NTSB inspector had seen a need for stronger regulations after he investigated a separate crash in 2013 near Chester Springs, Penn.

In 2014, the NTSB formally sent its recommendation to the FAA, and it mirrored Phillips' proposal to require letters of authorization and drug tests for commercial balloon operations.

On Nov. 6, 2015, the FAA announced its decision.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said increased oversight wasn't necessary.

****

Under federal regulations, Nichols was supposed to notify the FAA within 60 days of any convictions involving driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He also was supposed to tell the FAA about "reportable administrative actions" on his record, such as a revocation of his driver's license.

That never happened.

In fact, Nichols, who was 49 when he died, had been arrested for a string of drug and traffic offenses. Most recently, on May 25, 2010, he'd been found guilty as an "aggravated" DWI offender.

FAA Special Agent Sonja King investigated a complaint received in December 2012 and confirmed that Nichols had failed to report his criminal offenses to the FAA. But she didn't recommend revoking or suspending his license. The violations were "stale," she wrote, a regulatory term to describe violations that are more than six months old.

FAA officials said that if they had tried to prohibit Nichols from flying, he likely would have won any appeal. And they said the stale-violation rule is a standard followed by the NTSB, which handles appeals filed by disciplined pilots.

But a case can't go stale if a pilot falsifies a record, according to past appellate decisions involving other pilots.

Patricia Morgan, the mother and grandmother of two victims from San Antonio, Lorilee and Paige Brabson, said the FAA should have grounded Nichols when it had the chance, pointing out there was no guarantee he would have filed an appeal.

"They were aware of this man, and they did absolutely nothing," Morgan said. "Nothing."

King recommended issuing a warning to Nichols. The FAA agreed.

****

In Washington, the NTSB kept pushing to increase oversight of the balloon industry.

On May 18, 2015, it asked Phillips if he could look at balloon crashes that occurred after April 2014, when the NTSB recommended letters of authorization to the FAA.

Out of 25 accidents, 66 percent involved commercial operators, Phillips found, and 28 percent involved some form of injury or death.

Of particular concern was a May 2014 crash in Ruther Glen, Va., that killed three people after the balloon struck a power line.

But the FAA didn't budge from its initial decision.

"Since the amount of ballooning is so low, the FAA believes the risk posed to all pilots and participants is also low given that ballooners understand the risks and general hazards associated with this activity," Huerta wrote in a letter to the NTSB.

****

The NTSB hasn't yet released its findings on last summer's crash.

Among the evidence collected were burned up cell phones.

In the air, passengers had taken pictures and videos of the stunning view. At 7:40 a.m., one passenger sent a picture via text message to a relative.

"You see our shadow," he wrote, pointing out the balloon's silhouette.

The picture also showed a hole in the clouds.

Through the hole, the ground was visible - along with a transmission tower with high-voltage power lines.
After years of uncertainty, five neighborhood post offices in Houston have been given reprieves from closure but one station in west Houston's Energy Corridor remains under review.

The news, revealed by the U.S. Postal Service this week, received a mixed reaction from Memorial Super Neighborhood President Greg Sergesketter, whose communities south of Katy Freeway stand to still lose the Fleetwood Station at 315 Addicks Howell, but learned that the Memorial Park Station on Town and Country - also in his jurisdiction - will be saved.

He said cutting post offices amid west Houston's booming residential development - and with 90,000 employees in the Energy Corridor - seems counterintuitive.

"We certainly understand the post office is under financial issues, but we also understand you've got to look at the community and see if it really makes sense," he said, speaking as an area resident and not on behalf of the Super Neighborhood. "Is it because the post office is not needed here?"

Sergesketter added that many area residents expressed opposition during a September 2015 meeting with Postal Service officials and later through letters.

"It was bad enough when we were going to lose Town and Country and then they put both on the chopping block," he said. "We could never get a straight answer. Now we have one off the chopping block and that's better."

The Postal Service has been shuttering and moving stations for the last few years in a massive downsizing effort. Possible impacts to several Houston neighborhoods have been looming for more than three years.

Changes put on ice

In 2013, the agency unveiled plans to move or consolidate six Houston stations: Memorial Park at 10505 Town And Country Way; Julius Melcher at 2802 Timmons; Greenbriar at 3740 Greenbriar; University at 1319 Richmond; Medical Center at 7205 Almeda; and Southmore at 4110 Almeda.

USPS spokeswoman Kanickewa "Nikki" Johnson said in a statement this week that Memorial Park, Julius Melcher, Greenbriar, University and Medical Center "are no longer being considered for relocation and, at this time, the Postal Service has no plans to make any changes," but that "the Fleetwood Station is still being evaluated, but no final decision has been made at this time."

In 2014, consumers, activists and two Houston members of Congress successfully advocated to spare the Southmore station from relocation.

The USPS, an independent government agency, has been running deficits for years. Annual mail volume has fallen by 60 billion pieces over the last decade, from 213 billion in 2006 to 154 billion in 2016. Besides decreased demand for postal services, the agency is racked by debt fueled by retiree health benefits obligations. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2016, the Postal Service posted a net loss of $5.6 billion.

Barry McVea has regularly visited the Medical Center station for postage for more than 15 years - including a swing by Friday - but didn't know about the potential closure.

"I'm glad this location is here. It's convenient to me," said McVea, a retired retail manager who now works as a school crossing guard.

Nellie Thompson, a 70-year-old retiree, said she had heard about the possible shutdown, but not the reprieve. She has a post office closer to her home, but prefers the Medical Center station.

"I come here all the time, about six times a month. I get my stamps here," she said Friday on the way to her car. "You can get in and get out."

Lack of notice under fire

The Postal Service's communication with residents, particularly for an organization that could visit almost everyone's home, has been a sore point with Houstonians. The agency announced its proposed relocations in 2013 not via mailbox notices or visits with homeowners associations and civic clubs, but during a Houston City Council meeting and with posted letters at affected stations.

Susan Thompson has lived in the Memorial Bend neighborhood near Beltway 8 for more than three decades and said Thursday she had no idea the Memorial Park post office had been spared. She saw a posting at the station about the potential closing but no follow-up announcement.

"They never did put a notice there," she said. "My primary complaint is that they don't communicate with their own people, much less the neighbors. Something's wrong there."

Other busy Houston locations have been moved in the last two years.

The former downtown post office complex at 401 Franklin - built in 1962 and renamed in 1984 for pioneering Houston Congresswoman Barbara Jordan - was sold in 2015 to a developer who had plans for mixed use. The station reopened in a far-smaller remodeled annex on Hadley Street in Midtown.

The Heights post office building at Yale and 11th streets was sold and retail services were moved in 2016 to a nearby annex on 19th Street.
WASHINGTON - On the 64th day of Donald Trump's presidency, the art of the deal didn't work.

Facing a revolt by rank-and-file lawmakers from their party's right and center, Republican leaders on Friday were forced to pull long-promised legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, leaving uncertain, at least for now, the GOP's plans for health care.

The move spelled the first major legislative defeat for Trump, who had presented himself to the nation as a winner, spent weeks trying to woo recalcitrant Republicans and issued an ultimatum the night before: Take a vote, regardless of the outcome, or he would move on, likely to push the Republican tax reform agenda.

It was a tactic straight out of his 1987 best-seller, "The Art of the Deal," one designed to put pressure on adversaries by showing a willingness to walk away. But this time, it was the lawmakers who walked.

It also was a stinging setback for House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, a Republican from The Woodlands and one of the central architects of the Obamacare replacement legislation.

Ryan, unshaven and showing the wear of a dayslong drama, conceded defeat.

"Obamacare is the law of the land, and it's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced," he said.

Trump, for his part, suggested that Obamacare might be left to die a natural death, something Republican critics of the 2010 law have long predicted.

"The best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode," Trump said. He also invited Democrats, somewhat whimsically, to join in a bipartisan effort to forge "a better health care plan."

Sounding uncharacteristically chastened, Trump also chalked up the defeat as a learning experience. "We learned a lot about loyalty," he said. "We learned a lot about the vote-getting process."

Frantic negotiations

Forced to postpone the bill for the second-day running, amid frantic negotiations to save it from likely defeat, Republican leaders faced a wave of internal recrimination over one of the most consequential GOP promises of the 2016 elections: Repeal and replace Obamacare.

The about-turn proved to be a stunning reversal from the heady days of Trump's November election victory, when tea party activists looked forward to repealing Obamacare on "Day One" of his presidency.

Brady, in a final floor speech to rally support, warned his party of the stakes involved. "Today, we have a choice to make," he said. "Will we answer the president's call to action and pass this legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare? Or, will we allow the law to remain fully in place and deny our constituents the relief they urgently need?"

Democrats, who remained uniformly opposed to rollbacks, said Republicans failed to take into account the political perils of a plan that would leave 24 million more Americans without insurance, even as hard-right lawmakers said it didn't go far enough to repeal Obamacare.

"They've spent eight years in contempt of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act," said Houston Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee. "It really clouded their judgment about which way to go."

'A disappointing day'

In the end, Ryan acknowledged that Republicans could not form a consensus around replacement legislation, caught between conservative critics pressing for total repeal and moderates who wanted to preserve but trim back some of the more popular provisions of Obamacare.

Among the major sticking points were planned GOP cuts to Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, disabled and elderly and a passel of Obamacare insurance mandates that Republicans said were too costly.

While Republicans unified against the central tenet of Obamacare - the "individual mandate" that everyone buy insurance - they split on what should replace it to ensure sufficiently large risk pools of healthy adults to make the insurance market work.

The central architecture of the GOP bill, called the American Health Care Act, would have replaced the individual mandate with a 30 percent "continuous coverage" penalty, aided by age-based tax credits to buy insurance. Republicans said their plan would reduce the deficit and save a trillion dollars in taxes, which Democrats said would disproportionately go to the rich, while cutting aid to the poor.

Democrats also fought back against the GOP plan to defund Planned Parenthood, the women's health network that provides abortions.

But the real legislative fistfight was among Republicans themselves.

"Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains," Ryan said. "While we're feeling those growing pains today, we came really close today but came up short."

Ryan, owning the retreat on the GOP bill, said that he told Trump it was the best thing to do and that the president agreed.

"I will not sugarcoat this," Ryan said. "This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard."

10 to 15 votes short

With the outcome in severe doubt early in the day, Ryan found himself rushing to the White House to confer with the president, who kept up a full court press of tweets and phone calls.

Republicans knew full well the stakes for them. Pulling the bill from consideration might not have seemed as ignominious a defeat as losing the vote outright. But both scenarios spelled humiliation for a party that has been railing against the law since Obama signed it seven years ago Thursday.

They also recognized that taking a vote and losing would have caused unnecessary long-term electoral damage for the party. Moderates who supported the bill might have been susceptible to hard-right primary challenges, potentially risking GOP control of the chamber.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer remarked that since 2010, every Republican "from dogcatcher on up" has campaigned on repealing Obamacare, a main reason congressional Republicans and the White House chose to take it up first, before tax reform. He added the budget savings from repealing the Affordable Care Act could have gone to tax reform.

As Friday's debate opened an estimated 30 to 40 Republicans still appeared to be no votes. Depending on how many Democrats would be present, they could only afford 21 or 22 defections.

By Trump's estimate, they were still about 10 or 15 short by the end of the day.

Among the possible defectors were two Texans: U.S. Reps. Louie Gohmert of Tyler, a Freedom Caucus critic, and Randy Weber of Friendswood, who had tweeted the night before that the bill needed "more vetting."

Gohmert, one of the bill's most outspoken conservative critics, said Republican leaders had oversold their legislation to win votes. "We have been lied to," he said on Fox. "This bill keeps Obamacare in place in perpetuity."

Gohmert also mocked GOP leaders' efforts to corral conservative holdouts in a closed-door session Thursday night. "It was like that pep rally, condemning those of us not with the team, saying that we were cowards - that we don't have courage," he said. "Courage was standing up and getting standing ovations from your colleagues."

Expect a new effort

But conservatives, who said the bill fell short of the promise of repealing Obamacare, weren't the only ones standing in the way. A group of moderates, including New Jersey Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, raised many of the same concerns as Democrats.

"Members of Congress from across the country realized that this bill would hurt their constituents," said Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio. "Millions of people would have lost their coverage, including more than 660,000 Texans."

Now, Castro added, Congress should work in bipartisan fashion to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act.

But with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress, it is likely party leaders have not heard the last calls for repeal.

Said Trump: "I never said repeal and replace it in 64 days."
Last week, the Texas Legislature passed the halfway mark of its 85th session, leaving two months to get bills through both chambers and to the governor's desk before they leave Austin.

At the start of the session, in January, Gov. Greg Abbott listed four emergency items  ethics reform, a Child Protective Services overhaul, preparing Texas for a Constitutional convention, and banning so-called "sanctuary cities"  which lawmakers could consider in an expedited manner.

The Senate since has passed bills dealing with all of Abbott's requests, but the House has gotten off to a slower start. To date, House lawmakers have passed two measures aimed at reforming CPS, while the other items remain in committees.

Legislators also must craft a multi-billion dollar state budget and attend to other bills that Abbott did not mention but they want to champion.

Given that the House's composition is roughly five times larger than the Senate's, the lower chamber's process can take longer than its legislative counterpart. The institutional differences between the Senate and House, particularly the pace of each chamber's work, have become a sticking point this session.

Additionally, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, are engaged in an increasing public fight, stemming from the speaker's distinct lack of enthusiasm for Patrick's much-championed bill regarding who should use which bathrooms in public buildings and schools.

Personalities aside, here at a glance is where the big legislative issues stand:

Tom Reel/Staff

Transgender bathroom access

A priority of Patrick's, Senate Bill 6, the so-called "bathroom bill" would require people to use bathrooms in public schools and colleges and government buildings that correspond to their "biological sex" as listed on their birth certificates. It also would prohibit local jurisdictions, including cities and counties, from adopting anti-discrimination ordinances permitting transgender people to use public bathrooms that match their gender identities.

It has set off a pitched fight with House leaders who have dismissed the bill as a waste of time and argued it would damage the Texas economy, a claim that Senate supporters refute. SB6, dubbed the Texas Privacy Act by its sponsor, GOP Sen. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham, passed the Senate March 15 by a 21-10 vote.

Abbott has not said whether he supports the bill, and it is unclear when a House committee will take up the legislation.

RELATED: Transgender comedian makes her bathroom business public

Julie Watson/Associated Press

Sanctuary cities

Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, has pushed through another major priority of Abbott: Senate Bill 4, the so-called "sanctuary cities" bill. At issue is whether local law enforcement should honor every federal immigration request by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold on to immigrants in the country illegally until federal officials give further instructions or take them into custody. As noted by several of the bill's opponents, the decision to honor ICE requests, known as detainers, is voluntary.

The bill also would ban local law enforcement agencies from enacting policies prohibiting officers from asking about someone's immigration status if they have been stopped with probable cause. It would cut off state grant funds to a local entity for the following year if a court finds it adopted a policy in violation of Senate Bill 4.

Shaminder Dulai/STAFF

Child protection services

Lawmakers began the session with promises to address chronic issues facing Texas' child protective system, which include children sleeping in state offices and thousands of abused or neglected children going unchecked for months. Abbott made it a priority item, allowing legislators to consider and pass legislation in an expedited manner. Both chambers passed major reform bills in early March, and they now await consideration by the other.

Authored by Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Sunnyvale, House Bill 4 would allow grandparents or other relatives to be eligible for state aid if they take care of neglected kids through the Department of Family and Protective Services' kinship program.

House Bill 5, by Rep. James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, would make DFPS a standalone agency outside the auspices of the mammoth Health and Human Services Commission. The upper chamber took a different approach, with Senate Bill 11 by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, which would allow private community-based care programs to take over some foster care and kinship cases."

Johnny Hanson/Staff

Public education funding

The House is working on its own billion-dollar attempt to change how much state money goes to school districts. Rep. Dan Huberty, the chairman of the House Public Education Committee, sponsored House Bill 21, which would boost education spending by $1.6 billion. It would result in more per-pupil funding for districts and would add more money for students diagnosed with dyslexia. The committee has not voted on the bill, which won praise from many education leaders. Huberty said after an initial March 7 hearing that it was a good starting point but needed more work.

 Royalty-Free/Corbis

Business franchise tax

Last session, lawmakers cut the business franchise tax by 25 percent, depriving the state of more than $2 billion in revenue and promising to look at further cuts next time. On March 21, the Senate followed through with their plan in a 23-7 vote on Senate Bill 17, which would slash the tax every two years if the state's revenue grows by at least 5 percent. The measure, which goes to the House next, effectively would eliminate the margins tax in a decade if current estimates hold, according to the bill's author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.

Eric Gay/STF

"School choice"

For years, the Senate has targeted so-called 'school choice' measures as one of its chief measures to reform the state's public school system. After failed attempts to get a bill to Abbott's desk last session, Senate Education Committee Chairman Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, introduced Senate Bill 3 this year. It would establish educational savings accounts and tax credit scholarships to fund costs associated with parents moving their children from traditional public schools to private or parochial schools.

The Senate committee voted 7-3 on March 23 to send the bill the full chamber. The House has met the proposal with fierce and bipartisan opposition, arguing that the Senate's efforts eventually would take money from cash-strapped public schools. Instead, House lawmakers are focused on overhauling the state's school finance system.

Jay Janner/MBO

Ethics

Another of Abbott's emergency items is statewide ethics reform, which Sen. Van Taylor, R-Plano, has pushed with Senate Bill 14. The major provision of the bill would force elected officials to disclose their government contracts, bar former legislators from immediately becoming lobbyists, and revoke pensions for politicians convicted of felonies. On Feb. 7, the upper chamber voted unanimously to send the bill to the House, where it awaits a committee hearing. A similar ethics reform package died in the waning hours of the 2015 session after House and Senate negotiators could not agree on whether to require nonprofits that engage in political activity to disclose their financial contributors.

Tom Reel/Staff

State budget

A two-year state budget is the only bill lawmakers must pass, and the effort to do that this year is fraught with Republican infighting between the House and Senate over who has the more responsible proposal.

RELATED: Finance committee approves Senate's $106B spending plan

At the start of the session, the Texas comptroller projected that lawmakers will have about $104 billion to spend over the next two years. On March 22, the Senate Finance Committee approved a $106.3 billion budget plan by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, that is expected to head to the Senate floor this week. It would continue current education funding levels, while adding $2.6 billion for student enrollment growth, as well as add $316 million to fund a shortfall in the Teacher Retirement System.

To bring the Senate proposal below the comptroller's estimate, Nelson's committee backed a fiscal maneuver that would delay $2.5 billion in expected transportation funding. House Speaker Joe Straus slammed the decision as an Enron-like move that amounts to "counting money twice in order to balance the budget."

Another major point of contention with the House, which initially proposed a $108.9 billion budget, is whether lawmakers should tap into the state's Rainy Day Fund to cover costs because of sluggish economic growth due the oil and gas downturn. House leaders want to utilize some of the savings fund, which has $10.2 billion in it, but Nelson said there is no appetite for that in the Senate.

RELATED: Straus rebukes Senate budget writers over plan to delay transpo funding

Tamir Kalifa/Associated Press

Abortion

Texas lawmakers are considering a host of bills this session that would continue their efforts to rollback abortion rights.

On March 15, the upper chamber passed Senate Bill 8 to restrict the use fetal tissue from elective abortions, which is already illegal under federal law, and Senate Bill 415 to bar so-called 'dismemberment abortions' in the state. Both issues are priorities for Abbott and Patrick, as well as their anti-abortion rights allies. While there is some support for the measures in the House, which has held preliminary hearings on the legislation, Democrats are expected to put up a fight if the bills get to the House floor.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Convention of states

Responding to Abbott's call for legislation readying Texas in the event of a constitutional convention, the Senate in a party-line vote in March passed a resolution to convene a first-ever convention of states to amend the nation's founding document.

Senate Joint Resolution 2 limits proposed constitutional changes to three categories: putting term limits on federal lawmakers, curbing the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and imposing fiscal restraints on Washington. Accompanying legislation in the Senate also sets the qualifications for delegates  who must be incumbent House or Senate members  and imposed penalties for those who go beyond the items prescribed in the resolution. For example, it would be a state jail felony, carrying a potential maximum sentence of two years behind bars and a $10,000 fine, if a Texas delegate went rogue.

That provision has come under attack by House members, who have yet to schedule a committee hearing on the issue. Note: It requires 34 states to approve any proposed changes to the Constitution.
The White House has long said there's no second option after Friday's failure to vote to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Yet President Donald Trump has previously mused about taking a different path: letting the health law collapse on its own and forcing Democrats to the table. And he returned to those remarks on Friday, saying, "We'll end up with a truly great health care bill in the future after this mess known as Obamacare explodes."

"It's imploding and soon will explode and it's not going to be pretty," Trump said. "The Democrats don't want to see that. So, they're going to reach out when they're ready."

GOP leaders pulled their bill to repeal and replace Obamacare after it became clear they didn't have the votes to pass it. There are several things the administration and Tom Price, Trump's Health and Human Services secretary, can do to help the law or undermine it at a critical juncture:

- A crucial lawsuit. The House of Representatives is winning a suit it first filed against the Obama administration over the so-called cost-sharing reduction payments, saying the administration didn't have the authority to pay them. Trump could choose to stop defending the suit, ending subsidies that go to about 7 million low-income people, potentially pushing insurers out of the market.

- The individual mandate. On Trump's first day in office, he signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to minimize the health law's burden. The Internal Revenue Service, in response, said it'd use a light touch on enforcing the health law's individual mandate, a key piece of Obamacare that requires people to sign up for health insurance or pay a fine.

- No more ads? At the end of the 2017 enrollment period, the Trump administration pulled some ads and other outreach, potentially undermining sign-ups. One big question is how much the Trump administration will encourage people to sign up for next year. On Friday, two Democratic senators said HHS's inspector general was looking into the decision to halt the outreach.

- Market regulations. HHS has proposed a set of rules to make the ACA's markets more favorable to insurers, hoping that more will stick around if they can make money. Some of them could reduce the number of people taking advantage of loopholes in the ACA, potentially lowering premiums for the rest.

- Political muscle. President Barack Obama and his administration worked to persuade insurers to stay in Obamacare. The Trump administration could be less forceful when insurers decide to drop out, leaving some regions without competition.

Matt Lloyd, an HHS spokesman, didn't respond to a request for comment on Friday about how the agency will approach the health law. Sylvia Burwell, the department's secretary under Obama, said there are "important steps that the administration can take to promote competition and affordability in the marketplace as well as maintain the quality improvements that millions of Americans have experienced."

It's not clear House Republicans will be in any mood to help out the health law or its customers, either. House Speaker Paul Ryan, r-Wisconsin, said Friday that the health law was collapsing, and Republicans were doing its crafter a favor by working to repeal it.

In some states, Obamacare's individual markets are chugging along, with several insurers offering coverage. In others, insurers have pulled out, leaving consumers with just one choice, or potentially none at all, as in some parts of Tennessee. Oklahoma's insurance regulator warned on Friday that his state's lone carrier was threatening to pull out. And premiums also vary significantly by market.

"A market can be going in fits and starts, and not be in a death spiral," said Craig Garthwaite, a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "What I fear is we're going to see more attempts to actively sabotage the market."

Health insurers have asked for a few steps to stabilize the market ahead of 2018.

"For the past 18 months we had been looking at a few key items that had been necessary for stabilizing the individual market for 2018 and those things remain our priorities," said Kristine Grow, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's main lobbying group.

Some of the changes include continuing the cost-sharing subsidies, eliminating the ACA's tax on health insurers, and providing some supplemental funding to stabilize the ACA's risk pools.

Robert Laszewski, an insurance industry consultant, said he'd advise insurers to approach the market cautiously, given the administration's statements.

"I would be as conservative as possible," he wrote in an email. "My advice is that with the party in power betting on a collapse, no insurer should be bet their surplus account on untrustworthy and inept politicians. Simple as that. Batten down the hatches."

Although Friday's repeal attempt failed, Republicans are still in control of the law's fate, said Seth Chandler, a visiting scholar at George Mason University's Mercatus Center.

"I don't know that Obamacare will collapse everywhere if left to its own devices, but I do think it's fair to say it's in serious trouble," Chandler said. "The Trump administration is going to have to choose where on the spectrum it wants to fall in terms of keeping the Affordable Care Act afloat."
What does the world look like without United States leadership? We're about to find out.

The nations that signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership met in Chile earlier this month - the first major meeting since Donald Trump rejected the multilateral trade deal. But instead of U.S. leading the talks, as had been the norm during the eight years of negotiations, China has stepped in to fill the void.

That ascendant nation is seizing the mantle of leadership once reserved for the United States - on trade, global warming and even development.

Chinese companies are building, financing and operating ports across the globe, from Greece and the Middle East to East Africa and Sri Lanka. The Chinese military has also built its first overseas outpost in Djibouti, which sits along major trade routes.

Closer to home, China continues to invest in South and Central America, including $60 billion in Venezuela. Anti-American governments in the Western hemisphere receive a convenient boost, but allies like Mexico only get a browbeating from Washington. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote this week in the Financial Times that "there was no greater strategic gift the U.S. could give China than to abrogate Nafta and rupture the North American community."

But that's exactly what Trump has threatened to do.

Things aren't much better across the Atlantic, where Vladimir Putin's Russia is working to roll back the United States' gains since the Cold War. Troops in Ukraine, cyberattacks in the Baltics and rigged polls and fake news in Bulgarian elections have all worked to undermine European stability and punish politicians who look toward the West instead of toward Moscow. Putin broke bread with French politician Marine Le Pen last week, a candidate for president who wants to shatter the entire EU.

Not since the depths of the Cold War has Europe needed her Atlantic ally more than today. But where an ally once stood, the European Union now finds an adversary. Trump has insulted European leaders, abandoned a key trade treaty and even attempted to craft deals with individual nations in the European Union - which is the equivalent of a foreign leader trying to negotiate with individual states against Washington.

European Union President Donald Tusk wrote an open letter earlier this year outlining the greatest threats to the EU marks the 60th anniversary of the foundational Treaty of Rome. Trump is on the list.

The United States landed at Normandy in 1944, funded the Marshall Plan, executed the Berlin Airlift, defended Europe from Soviets, supported democracy and contained communism. But in three months, Trump has turned us into Europe's enemy. Ronald Reagan's tough talk scared our adversaries. Donald Trump's scares our allies.

At home, the public servants in charge of our nation's foreign policy have found themselves abandoned by the White House. Hundreds of key positions in the State Department have gone unfilled. No one is being given work. Experts are ignored while the president's daughter and son-in-law get seats at the table.

"This is probably what it felt like to be a British foreign service officer after World War II, when you realize, no, the sun actually does set on your empire," Julia Ioffe cited a mid-level State Department officer in The Atlantic. "America is over. And being part of that, when it's happening for no reason, is traumatic."

In our darkest days, an American president once told the nation that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself.

For anyone looking at the global picture, that fear is very real.

We're deeply afraid of what Trump is doing to the post-war order. We're afraid he's abandoning everything our nation won after World War II and the Cold War. We're afraid he's throwing away the sacrifices made on the beaches of Normandy and Guadalcanal. We're afraid of the world he's trying to create - a world without the United States at the center.

We're even more afraid of whether we'll be able to retake that mantle of leadership once he's finally left office.
As Ronald Reagan might say to Rick Perry: "There you go again," boot in mouth. The peccadillo of the moment is an op-ed Perry submitted to the Houston Chronicle criticizing the recent election of the student body president at his alma mater, Texas A&M University.

It is heartening to know that the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Energy has become so comfortable overseeing the nation's massive nuclear arsenal, monitoring the Iran nuclear deal, figuring out how to fix America's energy policy, and reading President Donald Trump's tweets that he had time to scold a bunch of college kids.

The facts behind the letter are straightforward. The candidate for university president who got the most votes, Robert McIntosh, was disqualified by student government election officials because of irregularities in his campaign: voter intimidation and failing to properly report campaign expenditures. The first half of the ruling was dismissed on appeal by the student body judicial court; the second upheld. So McIntosh had every procedural opportunity to make his case, and he failed.

Perhaps the most salient fact is that the mother of the losing candidate is a longtime Republican fundraiser, Alison McIntosh, who has contributed to the campaigns of such big-league Republicans as Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.

We don't know if Perry's op-ed was written in deference to a big party donor, but if it was, it came at the expense of Texas A&M and its student body. His criticism of particular students devalues what has for nearly 150 years made Texas A&M special: Its unwavering commitment to a code of ethics and the chain of command. Failure to follow the rules is a breach of the code, no matter if the failure is small and seemingly insignificant.

Nor is it reasonable to complain that "things would be different if the other guy had won," a claim that takes direct aim at the sexual orientation of Cooper, who is gay, and repeats the go-to argument that "political correctness" is the source of all Republican setbacks. This argument demeans every single student election official who voted to disqualify McIntosh and every member of the student judicial court who voted to uphold the disqualification. And his charge that the Texas A&M administration "stood passive while equal treatment was mocked in the name of diversity" is way out of bounds. He has no way to know the truth of any of his claims or the motivations of those involved. The whole purpose of student-run government is so young people can learn to navigate these kinds of issues successfully - or, on occasion, screw up.

Adults, that means you; Rick Perry, should stay out of it.

Surely Perry knew and honored the university's ethics traditions as a student leader, and we would like to believe he still does. We would also like to believe that a campaign donor's influence isn't the source of his odd commentary. Better, we think, to hope that Perry can avoid these "oops" distractions in the future, keep a watchful eye on the nukes and his boots planted firmly on the ground.
Foreign aid

Regarding "Budget guts nearly all but defense" (Page A1, March 17), typically, the Agency for International Development (USAID), also referred to as "foreign aid," comprises only a minuscule portion of the budget. In recent years, it has hovered around1 percent. The administration proposes cutting that sliver by at least a quarter.

If managed conscientiously, USAID-funded programs work wonders for the nutrition, health and education of children around the world. And today's healthy, educated children are not likely to become tomorrow's terrorists.

Child nutrition also leads to increased child survival, which ultimately results in smaller families. Family planning works best in a setting where children are expected to survive well into adulthood. When given this assurance, women of all cultures consistently choose to have their first child later in life, to have their children farther apart, and to have fewer children.

Let's hope that our elected representatives have the vision to do the right thing when the appropriations process begins.

Paul Hornick, Houston

Health care

Regarding "GOP scrambles to save health plan" (Page A1, Friday), after watching all the drama surrounding the Republican's attempt to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, wouldn't it be nice to see everyone take a deep breath, step back and work to develop a workable health care plan for America. Why not take a smart approach and hold hearings with testimony from doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies and the public to determine what will work and what needs fixing?

Congress should conduct meetings all around the country. There is no need to have a Democratic or Republican insurance law. What we need is true reform that works for everyone.

Lester Tyra, Montgomery
When Hawaii and Maryland federal judges last week blocked President Donald Trump's second attempt at a travel ban affecting many visitors from Middle East nations, the president called it an act of "unprecedented judicial overreach."

It wasn't. In fact, the Hawaii decision was based partly on a Texas judge's ruling just two years ago. And it was a ruling that Trump - if he was aware of it - would have celebrated.

The earlier ruling was issued by Brownsville U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen. It dealt with, of all things, a president's power when it comes to immigration.

Barack Obama had issued a presidential order allowing a three-year reprieve and work permits for more than 4 million undocumented parents of U.S. citizens, if they had committed no crimes. It was, in effect, an extension of his earlier order that granted protected status to "dreamers," undocumented young people who had been brought to the United States at an early age by their parents.

Republicans were angered by the order and Texas joined 25 other states in suing to block it. The coalition didn't file the suit in Brownsville by accident. Judge Hanen is a conservative judge appointed by President George W. Bush.

Hanen had described illegal immigration as a biblical flood that ''endangers America'' and is "an open invitation to the most dangerous criminals in society.''

Not quite Trumpian rhetoric, but on the spectrum.

Hanen's ruling served as precedent for Hawaii Federal District Judge Derrick Watson and Maryland Judge Theodore Chuang in two ways. The first had to do with whether Hawaii had "standing" to sue. The legal concept is that one cannot file a lawsuit unless one can show that he or she has been harmed. Lawyers for Hawaii mentioned, among other things, that the ban would hurt their tourism industry. Conservative critics scoffed at that as thin gruel in the face of the threat of terrorism.

But in the Texas case, Judge Hanen ruled that the state had standing because it would incur expenses by having to issue driver's licenses to the new - at least temporarily - legal residents. That seemed like thin gruel to liberal critics at the time.

An even more controversial issue - at least in legal circles - is the use by the Hawaii and Maryland federal judges of public statements by President Trump and others in deciding whether the purpose of Trump's travel decree was to discriminate against Muslims. That would be unconstitutional.

During his campaign, Trump famously issued a press release calling for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." He repeated the notion numerous times on the campaign trail. His first travel ban was struck down partly because it included a reference to exceptions for religious minorities from the designated Muslim countries.

Conservative legal experts argue that judges should base their decisions solely on the text of the law. But others argue that when the motives of the law are questionable, statements by those who make the law are fair game. Both Hawaii's Judge Watson and Maryland's Judge Chuang took the latter approach.

Once again, these judges were provided a precedent by Texan Judge Hanen. In that case, Justice Department lawyers argued that Obama's directive was merely offering guidance while allowing for case-by-case exceptions to immigration enforcement personnel. The actual words of the order repeated this several times. But the judge cited a statement by Obama at a town hall sponsored by Spanish-language TV network Telemundo.

"There are going to be some jurisdictions, and there may be individual ICE officials or Border Patrol who aren't paying attention to our new directives," Obama said. "But they're going to be answerable to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, because he's been very clear about what our priorities should be."

So there you have it. It may or may not be right for judges to look to political rhetoric when ruling on laws, but the precedent is clear: The practice has been used to outrage both sides of the immigration debate.

Casey is a former Houston Chronicle metro columnist. This commentary first was broadcast on KLRN-TV's "This Week with Rick Casey."
CHICAGO - Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are all over America's public schools.

Not physically, of course, but they are ever-present in the minds of millions of students who are either in the country without legal status or have parents who are.

It comes out in countless ways - fidgetiness belying anxiety, depression manifesting itself as anger, and sometimes as just the plain old listlessness of a student who is sleepy in class because he or she was awake in the night wondering if parents, uncles or grandparents will be taken away soon.

Even teachers aren't immune to such fears. Though educators are never informed by the school about the legal status of students or their families - not only are school personnel prohibited from inquiring about the immigration status of students, by federal law the schools themselves are not allowed to ask families or students about their citizenship - teachers worry.

Sometimes students or their parents openly discuss their immigration problems with teachers they trust. Other times teachers just infer things from conversations with families at open houses or conferences. But in most cases we don't really know.

Early last week, a Hispanic student was called out of my class by the office for a parent pick-up. The girl looked at me and another teacher in the room quizzically and said, "No, I'm not supposed to go home early."

We called the office and confirmed that this student was being taken out of school in the middle of the day and, ultimately, she was asked to pack up and go.

At the time, I had the fleeting thought: "Oh no, I hope this isn't some sort of terrible immigration emergency and this is the last time I'm ever going to see this kid."

The next day, she didn't come to school and I willed away negative thoughts about her family being on the run or otherwise in crisis. As of this writing, she still hasn't been back to school. It's probably nothing, but I won't know until I see her again. Realistically, these teacherly moments of stress are nothing compared to what the students themselves are contending with.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, about 2.5 million undocumented youth live in the U.S. and another 4.1 million children are U.S.-born but live in mixed-status households with at least one parent or family member who is unlawfully present. They all have the constitutional right to attend public schools.

And it's safe to say that whether any of these students have ever laid eyes on an ICE agent or not, the fear of having their family come into contact with one is nothing short of a daily source of trauma.

Some school systems, like the Chicago Public Schools, have told principals not to let federal immigration authorities inside district buildings unless they have a criminal warrant. Schools in California, Utah, Colorado, Pennsylvania and other states are conspicuously putting similar measures into place to ensure that immigration officials do not come onto school grounds without warrants.

Others, in communities with large Latino populations, are going so far as providing teachers with handouts about what they can do in the event that an ICE officer comes to their classroom.

"Ask to see the enforcement agent's credentials and warrants," "Ask the enforcement agent why this matter could not be dealt with at the student's home," and "Encourage enforcement agents to interview students outside of school hours and off school grounds," reads one fact sheet.

If this sounds like public schools are having to spend scarce resources and time preparing their administrators and teaching staff to stand up to armed federal agents - that about sums it up.

And these new duties are in addition to having to deal with instances of students making racial slurs and chanting taunts like "Build that wall!" in school hallways.

For schools in communities with large populations of unlawfully present immigrants, the specter of having ICE agents show up during class is revolting. Though there is a policy stating that ICE officers and immigration agents should refrain from enforcement actions at K-12 schools, there is no statute or law guaranteeing it.

There ought to be.

Cepeda's column is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Her email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com.
A Houston woman was injured Friday afternoon in a crash on Highway 17 just south of her hometown.

Cpl. Curtis Haden of the state patrol said a northbound 2001 Oldsmobile driven by Annie M. Hultz, 48, ran off the roadway, struck a ditch embankment and struck several small trees.

Hultz, who was wearing a seat belt, was taken with moderate injuries to Texas County Memorial Hospital.

The vehicle had moderate damage, Haden reported.
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Chinas government is seeking full access to Canadas economy in free trade talks, a move that could result in Chinese state-owned companies bringing their own employees to work on projects in Canada.

Chinas ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, told the Globe and Mail his government wants to avoid discussions of human rights issues, fearing it could become a bargaining chip in negotiations.

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Additionally, China would see any attempt to block takeovers of Canadian companies on national security grounds as protectionism, Lu said.

Investment is investment. We should not take too much political considerations into the investment, he said. Just like the negotiations of the (Canada-U.S.) FTA, we should not let political factors into this process. Otherwise, it would be very difficult.

Canadian and Chinese officials held exploratory talks on a free trade deal earlier this year. Lu told the Globe another meeting will take place in April.

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Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum, told the CBC that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "is very clear that we want to pursue stronger ties with China. We think that in the medium term this will lead to more Canadian jobs."

Many trade experts point out that the vast majority of Chinas largest corporations are state-run enterprises whose executives are often hand-picked by government.

They also note that Chinas notion of full access to an economy could be very broad. As the foreign policy blog OpenCanada notes, Chinas 2015 free trade deal with Australia includes a provision that allows Chinese companies to bring their own employees into the country to work on projects, so long as those projects are worth more than AUD$150 million.

Charles Burton, an associate political science professor at Brock University, says bringing their own workers abroad is normal practice for Chinese companies.

Its not as if [the Chinese] would be asking something of Canada that they dont expect from other countries, he said.

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Though China has been among the most vocal countries in resisting the protectionism of the Trump administration, critics say the country is itself a bastion of protectionism. They note China allows almost no foreign investment in banking and telecommunications.

Many argue the country has not lived up to the commitments it made to open up its economy when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Chinas interest in Canada lies primarily in energy, and in the possibility of exploiting Canadas oilsands, experts say. The country will push for a reversal of Harper government-era policies that restricted the ability of Chinese state-owned businesses to invest in Canadian energy.

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Opinion polls suggest Canadians are split on the issue of free trade with China.

One poll carried out for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada last August found 46 per cent support for a deal with China, and the same percentage opposed. However, that was a stronger showing than a poll six months earlier, which showed only 36-per-cent support for a China trade deal at that time.

Canadians were much more likely to support free trade deals with more developed economies, such as the European Union, Japan and Australia.

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I didn't directly witness the horrific attack in Westminster this week, but it is a near miracle that I didn't.

My office is on the 5th floor of Portcullis House, the modern building that directly overlooks the place where the attacker crashed his car into the railings of the House of Commons, and New Palace Yard where he fatally stabbed a Police Officer and was then shot dead.

Literally seconds before the attack the Division Bell rang to call MPs to vote, and I left my office to take the lift to the ground floor, and walk through the tunnel under the road where unbeknownst to us the attack was unfolding overhead.

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I emerged into the New Palace Yard seconds before the shots were fired, but then entered the Commons building to go to vote and did not hear the gunfire. Moments later however as I walked into the voting lobbies we were told that an incident was ongoing and to remain where we were.

Some colleagues arrived and reported that they had seen what had happened, a Police Officer under attack and the assailant shot just a few yards from where I had just been walking.

We remained on lock down in the House of Commons chamber and the surrounding lobbies for the next four hours, as news seeped in about the other aspects of the attack, and the carnage on Westminster Bridge. The atmosphere was one of resolute calm, and sadness as we learned of the deaths and injuries outside.

PC Keith Palmer was one of the officers I pass and say good morning to everyday as I enter the gates of Parliament and use my pass to access the estate. He was one of the unarmed officers who check passes and give directions to the many tourists who visit Westminster and wander up to have their photos taken with Big Ben in the background. He gave his life bravely defending democracy.

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Since 9/11 there are many more armed officers standing nearby ready to deal with any serious threat. Sadly PC Palmer was fatally stabbed before those officers were able to shoot his attacker. There will be a full enquiry into how the stabbing happened, but it is hard to see how you can stop a person with murderous intent driving a vehicle into innocent pedestrians.

Sadly it is an experience which occurred in 2012 in my constituency of Cardiff West when a mentally ill individual drove a vehicle at pedestrians, killing my constituent Katrina Menzies and seriously injuring several others.

You can put up barriers around obvious targets like Parliament, but unless you have advance intelligence, you cannot prevent a deranged and crazed individual from driving at a crowd of pedestrians.

Of course it wasn't just MPs caught up in the lockdown. Thousands work on and around the Parliamentary estate, and Wednesday is the busiest day for visitors due to Prime Minister's Questions. Amongst those on lockdown for hours were several school parties. As a former teacher I could not help but think of the teachers with the French children who came under attack, but also of the teachers on the parliamentary estate with very young children who acted professionally to the youngsters in their care throughout.

The sad truth is this is not the first attack in Westminster, London or the UK as a whole, and it will not be the last.

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During the Second World War Hitler's Luftwaffe destroyed the Commons chamber, but MPs carried on meeting in the Lords. It was rebuilt but Churchill and Attlee agreed to incorporate the broken archway at the entrance of the Commons chamber as a reminder. In the 70s an IRA bomb went off in Westminster Hall, and in 1979 - Airey Neave MP was murdered yards from Wednesday's attack by an INLA car bomb.

In July 1990 in East Sussex, Ian Gow MP, was killed by an IRA car bomb, and of course last year Jo Cox MP was murdered in her constituency by a right wing extremist. I was in Westminster in July 7th, 2005 when bombs went off across London in the 7/7 attacks. No doubt we will face future attacks too.

But on Thursday at 9.30am the Commons met as usual. We observed a minute's silence and got on with our normal business.
Hutchinson woman arrested for alleged sex with four juvenile males

Police have been investigating case since two victims came forward in September. Two others were identified since through the investigation.
Lanesborough Elementary School interim Superintendent Kimberley Grady, left, and School Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego participate in Friday's meeting.

Lanesborough Elementary Weighs New Tuition Policy

LANESBOROUGH, Mass.  The Lanesborough Elementary School Committee on Friday formally began the process of raising the tuition it charges New Ashford.

In response to longtime criticism from town officials about the difference between the negotiated salary tuition rate and the actual per-pupil cost of a Lanesborough education, the district has developed a policy that will peg that tuition to that average cost.

"Any tuition agreement entered into by the Committee to accept non-resident students will be set at the rate of the most recent [Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] published per-pupil rate for Lanesborough Public Schools," the policy reads in part. "In addition to this base rate, Towns who tuition students into the Lanesborough Elementary School as part of a tuition agreement will be required to pay 100 percent of Special Education costs for students on [individualized education plans], or 100 percent of the disability accommodation costs for 504 Plans. The sending town will be responsible for transportation of their students."

Currently, New Ashford, which does not have an elementary school of its own, is the only town tuitioning its pupils into Lanesborough.

The neighboring town pays $8,734 per pupil this year and is scheduled to pay $8,996 in fiscal 2018, the last year of the current two-year contract. The most recent figure on the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website shows that the per-pupil cost at Lanesborough in 2014-15 was $16,615.

In the past, tuition contracts have been negotiated between the towns' school committees. If the Lanesborough School Committee adopts the proposed policy at its April meeting, New Ashford would have a "take it or leave it" option going forward: accept the rate as reported by DESE or find another option for its elementary school-aged population.

"Based on the meeting we had with the [Board of Selectmen] and prior years' discussion  it's not a new subject  [interim Superintendent Kim Grady] and I said, instead of doing separate agreements with separate towns, can't we have a policy that says: This is what our rate is, and if you want to come, great," School Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego said.

"This gives [New Ashford] time to figure out if they want to continue to do it or if they want to explore other options and to make sure they have the money in their town budgets. ... It's a fair price for the education they receive here."

Lanesborough is part of a two-town regional junior-senior high school at Mount Greylock Regional School, which several years ago renegotiated its tuition agreements with New Ashford and Hancock in response to criticism from Lanesborough about the per-student rate. Mount Greylock moved to gradually bring the rate in line with the average cost of an education at the school.

In other business on Friday afternoon, the two members of the three-person committee in attendance authorized four line-item budget transfers for the fiscal 2018 budget to address needs at the school. The changes, which totaled $26,600, come from the district's contingency fund and do not change the bottom line on the $2.8 million spending plan presented to the town earlier this month.

Grady sought and received permission to use $7,800 from the contingency fund to pay for new Chromebooks to help move the school toward a 1:1 computing model; $2,300 to account for a teacher's advancement that the district learned about after the budget was set; $1,500 for a stipend for the caller who coordinates substitute teachers, and $15,000 to create a subsidy for financially eligible families to send their children to the school's tuition-based pre-kindergarten program.

The small stipend for the substitute caller was something that had been in the budget previously but was dropped for an unknown reason, Grady said.

"In FY14, that item was there," DiLego said. "In FY15, it kind of disappeared. She didn't stop doing the work, to her credit."

The creation of a pre-K subsidy will allow Lanesborough to offer early childhood education to more children in the community. Families in the district will apply for a subsidy by completing the free- and reduced-lunch application, Grady said. Based on their income eligibility, subsidies would be available for the full annual tuition cost ($3,150) or half the tuition.

The $15,000 would allow Grady to offer up to four full tuition slots.

"We have received recent phone calls from families with the pre-K mailings having gone out," she said. "People have been inquiring about what we have to offer. We don't have vouchers here at LES. We lost them years ago because of how the program operated.

"There are surrounding towns that have a charge [for pre-K] and surrounding towns where, because they're bigger, the program is free. They have more opportunities for grants. Because we're a single-school district, we receive very little funding from the state, and it's basically enough to meet the needs of the special ed students in the program."

In other business on Friday, the School Committee approved a 2017-18 school calendar that has classes beginning on Sept. 5 and ending  barring snow days  on June 15. Pupils can look forward to a short week next November, when the school will have a half-day on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving for parent-teacher conferences and be closed on the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving weekend.

Grady also informed the committee that the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee requested a volunteer from the elementary school panel to help on an ad hoc committee looking at expanding the Mount Greylock district to include Lanesborough and Williamstown Elementary School.

The three schools already share a central administration, but each is its own school district, an arrangement that Mount Greylock began studying in earnest in 2013. The idea of K-12 regionalization gained momentum, but Mount Greylock School Committee put the effort on hold in order to address its building project.

Grady, who serves as superintendent for all three school districts, is scheduled to give a presentation on regionalization to the Williamstown Board of Selectmen on Monday. She noted on Friday that much of the work on amending the regional agreement, which includes a provision that neither town's elementary school can be closed without the consent of voters in the affected town.
Wreaths were laid by the monument in Park Square to honor those who died in the war. Joe Diffillippo. Tony Pastore singing the National Anthem. City Councilor Melissa Mazzeo was honored for her long-time support of veterans. PreviousNext

Vietnam Veterans Honored In Pittsfield Ceremony



Scott Gagnon urged veterans to help each other out, especially when it comes to accessing benefits. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The war may be long over but Vietnam War veterans are still tasked with a duty of making sure no other veterans return home to face the same fight for benefits they endured.

Scott Gagnon served as both the commander of the Dalton Veterans of Foreign Wars Post and as the Massachusetts Veterans of Foreign Wars assistance service officer for Western Massachusetts. He knows well the fight Vietnam veterans have endured in just trying to secure proper medical care.

"From November 1954 until April 30, 1975, over 3 million veterans served in Vietnam, 58,200 died, 109,577 were wounded, 1,700 are still missing in action, 11,000 women served in Vietnam as nurses, translators, flight controllers and band leaders. The average age of a Vietnam veteran was 21 years old. They racially consisted of 85 percent white, 12.5 percent black, 2.5 percent Hispanic or other. The Vietnam combat veteran saw an average of 240 days of combat during a one-year tour. One in ten were killed or wounded; one in ten have Hepatitis C," Gagnon said.

"When they came back they were not welcome. They were disrespected, mistreated, and in some cases spit upon. Half the country was angry at them because they fought the war and the other half was angry at them because they lost the war. It was difficult for returning veterans to get meaningful care at the Veterans Administration for combat-related injuries that were not recognized, undiagnosed, and left untreated."

There are Vietnam veterans who can't prove they were in Cambodia or Laos where they were injured. There is the group of "Blue Water" veterans who are still fighting to have it recognized that their ships were exposed to Agent Orange so the sailors can receive benefits. There are veterans who served at Camp Lejeune who were sickened by water and were denied benefits. Gagnon doesn't want to see that happen to any other veteran.

"Congress and the Veterans Administration must strengthen VA and Department of Defense mental health programs, expand gender specific programs, and increase access to benefit for sexual trauma and domestic violence, provide benefits to veterans and family members impacted by toxic exposure," Gagnon said.

He called for increasing services for those who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and the quicker process to help the country's needy veterans and families.

After Vietnam veterans fought both the battle overseas and then at home, he feels it is the duty of all veterans to help each other out.

"We here today show our fellow veterans how to access benefits. That is our duty, to serve those who follow us, to protect the benefits they have earned and so richly deserve," Gagnon said.

Gagnon gave those remarks on Saturday when the local Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 65, the American Legion Post 68, and the VFW Post 448 held its annual Vietnam veterans memorial service. The ceremony honored the 27 military members from Berkshire County who were killed in the war.

"Our mission today is to honor the fallen Vietnam veterans of our community and restore honor," said John Harding, who provided the opening remarks.

The ceremony featured the laying of wreaths at the Vietnam monument in Park Square from each of the local veterans groups. Veterans Fran Tremblay and George Moran read the names of each of the 27 local servicemen who were killed during the war. The Dalton American Legion Post 155 performed a volley and Taps were played.

This year featured an added recognition as Harding recognized City Councilor Melissa Mazzeo, who has attended every single ceremony the group has held, for her support of the Vietnam veterans over the years.

Joe Diffillippo served as the master of ceremonies and Tyrone Belanger was the officer of the day.
The now-suspended police chief in the district of Yongsan has been booked for an investigation, along with the head of the Yongsan Ward office and two others, on charges of profess...
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Amber Heard has spoken of how she was told that revealing her sexuality would end her career.

The actor was speaking at The Economist's Pride & Prejudice event at New York, where she claimed filmmakers doubted whether she could play a straight woman in a romantic lead.

Heard came out as bisexual seven years ago and said it was "difficult".

"It was not easy. I was the only one working in this way, so it was definitely difficult because no one had done it," she said.

I did that even though everyone told me it would end my career, without a doubt.

The 30-year-old, who recently finalised a divorce with actor Johnny Depp, said she has never hidden her sexuality and did not make a "coming out" announcement as had previously been reported.

Recommended Why more and more women are identifying as bisexual

"When I hear someone comment about me coming out, I think it's funny because I was never in," she said.

Instead, she said, she was asked directly about her sexuality by a reporter at the time, and she answered honestly.

"Then I realised the gravity of what I had done," she said.

Heard appeared in the film The Danish Girl with Eddie Redmayne, and was cast as Mera in Zack Snyder's upcoming superhero film Justice League, due for release later this year.
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Hollywood stars have reacted jubilantly after US President Donald Trump pulled his Obamacare repeal bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump announced the move after it became clear that the voting process would end in failure.

The decision, which was made just minutes before the vote was due to take place, is being viewed as a significant setback for Trump, who promised to repeal and replace Obamacare throughout much of his campaign.

Ryan told Trump just ahead of the scheduled Friday vote that there were too many dissenting Republicans to pass the American Health Care Act.

The White House could only afford to have 22 Republicans vote 'no' on the bill.

John Legend, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Moore and George Takei were among those who took to Twitter shortly after to comment on Trump's defeat.

It's no secret that Hollywood and Trump's relationship is hardly a good one - particularly since Trump announced plans to cut government funding for the arts.

Ruffalo wrote: "Congratulations to the #Resistance for win on Health Care."

Moore mocked the business mogul turned-president's deal making skills with a nod his 1987 book: "So much for the Art of the Deal."

In a statement made at a hastily-arranged news conference, Trump said "we learned about loyalty" in the process of the bill's failure.

"I think the real losers are [Democratic Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi and [Senator] Chuck Schumer...they own Obamacare," he added.
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It's arrived - the moment Love Actually fans were all waiting for.

This year's Red Nose Day proceedings debuted a ten-minute sequel to the beloved 2003 rom-com, all in an effort to bring good cheer and raise some much-needed money for charity.

The short saw the return of several of the original cast: namely Hugh Grant, Martine McCutcheon, Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Colin Firth, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lucia Moniz, Liam Neeson, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Olivia Olson, Bill Nighy, Marcus Brigstocke, and Rowan Atkinson.

Sadly, Emma Thompson did not return, as her onscreen husband, Alan Rickman, passed away last year. The film's writer-director Richard Curtis had previously explained there would be no tribute to Rickman either, as the matter would understandably be "too complicated".

Taking place 14 years later, it did certainly answer a few questions fans may still have about the fates of the film's characters. We've recapped them below.

Juliet, Peter, and Mark

Thankfully, the film's famous (or infamous, depending on your view) love triangle saw some resolution; with Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) still happily married. That didn't, however, stop Mark (Andrew Lincoln) from turning up to their door with another set of cards.

While it appeared as if Mark still had some unresolved feelings for Juliet, asking whether the couple were happy and replying, "Shame", when she replied in the positive; Mark assured he was joking (or was he?), before revealing that he had made good on one of his plans from the original film.

Yes, Mark is now married to Kate Moss. Though she's not a fan of the beard.

Billy

Billy (Bill Nighy) is back on Radio Watford with Mikey (Marcus Brigstocke) to promote his new charity single, a cover of ZZ Top's 'Gimme All Your Lovin'' with the word 'lovin' changed to 'money'.

It certainly looks as if little about him has changed; he's still just a little judgemental towards the younger generations ("you must have realised how short and selfish they are"), has an autobiography out that he hasn't read, and still gives brutally honest answers (Best shag again? "It's definitely one of the Kardashians, but which one Mike, which one?").

One sad little note, though; his manager Joe is no longer with us, as his "big heart" led to a "big heart attack".

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 Love Actually 2 trailer teases all the returning characters

Rufus

We've got no explanation as to what exactly Rufus (Rowan Atkinson) did to see him fired from his upmarket department store gig, but his new job at Sainsbury's has seen all of his old habits intact, as he puts a little too much effort into gift-wrapping a red nose bought by someone.

Jamie and Aurelia

Thankfully, the pair are still married; her English is wonderful, his Portuguese is... OK. He still insists on wearing turtlenecks, claiming they're back in fashion. It's revealed they have three children together, though by the end of the scene she announces to him that she's pregnant with their fourth.

Daniel, Sam, and Joanna

Daniel (Liam Neeson) receives a surprise visit from his now-26-year-old son Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), who's meant to be in New York and hasn't been in touch in a while. Sam reveals he has a lot on his mind, but the object of his obsessions is none other than Joanna (Olivia Olson).

It turns out, the pair reconnected while in the US and got together, with them now returning to London so Joanna can ask Daniel for his permission for her to propose to Sam. There's no sign of Claudia Schiffer's Carol, though.

David and Natalie

David (Hugh Grant) is Prime Minister once more - and another thing that hasn't changed is his love of dancing his way through Downing Street, though his new backing of choice is Drake's 'Hotline Bling'. That said, some of his more iconic dance moves have become a little bit harder to pull off in the passing years.

It also looks as if he and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) are still happily together; the short ends with him taking questions at a press conference, ending in a speech that has become particularly relevant - and deeply poignant - after this week's events.



Though we live in difficult times, he reminds us all that, "wherever you see tragedy, you see bravery too... good's going to win, I'm actually sure of it".

And thus, Red Nose Day Actually ended with a reminder of why it exists in the first place: to encourage us all to reach out and help those in need. You can donate and help change lives here.
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Sib Hashian, the drummer of Boston whose daughter Lauren has a daughter with Dwayne Johnson, has died after collapsing during a set, with The Rock describing his death as extremely poetic and somehow beautiful.

Hashian was on the Legends of Rock Cruise at the time, with a witness telling TMZ that CPR was performed and a defibrillator used but to no avail.

The 67-year-old was a part of the Boston that produced their famous self-titled album that spawned the hit More Than a Feeling.

The Legends of Rock Cruise left Florida on 18 March and has stopped in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas so far - it will apparently continue to sail, with other musicians playing tributes to Hashian.

Rest In Peace & Love to my second dad Sib Hashian, The Rock wrote on Instagram.

Don't know why things have to happen the way they do sometimes. When loved ones leave us so suddenly without having a chance to say goodbye.

Perhaps the lesson here is the reminder to live our lives as full and as present as we possibly can, because we just never know what's around the corner.

What a full and exciting life this man lived. What an amazing family he created, loved, watched over and protected.

Being on stage, in front of adoring fans, friends and family. Keeping the beat one last time. Your passing in this manner is extremely poetic and somehow beautiful.

Thank you for the many life lessons you've taught over the years. Grateful.

We love you Sib. We miss you. Yhmwitcoltroml. "Hasan burgers" for everyone in heaven.
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Its rare to see this type of volatile, virtually unspoken chemistry, the type that Yussef Kamaal have.

When you see the south London duo play together, with that preternatural ability to predict and effortlessly follow whichever direction the other is about to fly off into, youd think they had been playing together for a lifetime.

In fact, Yussef Kamaals lifespan is a relatively short one.

Drummer Yussef Dayes made his name as part of United Vibrations, while keyboardist Kamaal Williams released 12s on the Peckham-based 22a label, under the name of Henry Wu.

Now signed to Gilles Petersons staunchly eclectic Brownswood label, what bonds the pair is an unblinking focus on rhythm. In fact, it doesnt seem an exaggeration to say Dayes is rhythm.

Each beat surges through him like an electric shock, and sometimes you cant tell if its him playing the drums or the drums playing him. He moves with an indefatigable vigour and dexterity, drawing beats from Sixties jazz, from bossa nova, from early dubstep, from J Dilla, from just about anywhere.

When the accompanying bassist and guitarist  both excellent throughout  leave the stage, theres an icy sparseness to Williams bass-heavy keyboards, boiling the rhythm down to its purest form.

We hear improvisations based around cuts off the duos 2016 LP, Black Focus, such as the unabashed funk of Lowrider and the skittish Strings of Light.

Each one is a confluence of musical cultures, and reflects whats going in this scene. Were seeing UK jazz (for lack of a better term) explore not only different musical avenues, but the circles within which it operates.

Tonight, south of the Thames, Moses Boyd, another major proponent of the movement, is playing the Corsica Studios nightclub. Here, were in a council meeting hall built in the Thirties. Whos to say where it goes next.
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Ed Sheeran, a reunited Love Actually cast and James Corden's Carpool Karaoke helped to raise more than 71 million for Comic Relief so far, it has been announced.

Stars of music, comedy, film and TV got together for the 17th Red Nose Day for events including a 10-minute 'sequel' to the film Love Actually.

Ed Sheeran made a guest appearance in BBC comedy People Just Do Nothing and also appeared in a short documentary where he visited Liberia to found out about the work being done by Comic Relief.

Sir Lenny Henry opened the show where he paid tribute to those affected by the attack in Westminster.

"Tonight is an opportunity to save lives, to reach out in the spirit of partnership and compassion," he said.

"The money you give tonight will make things better for people with tough lives here at home and abroad and your generosity year after year proves how much more there is that unites us than divides us.

"Every donation is a good deed."

Since it launched in 1985, Comic Relief has raised more than 1bn. The charity says it uses the money it raises through events like Red Nose Day: "To tackle the root causes of poverty and social injustice in the UK and across the world."

Donations can still be made to Comic Relief - you can watch the BBC's Red Nose Day coverage on BBC iPlayer.
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This year, most of the worlds leading manufacturers launched their highest-quality OLED TVs, with price tags to match.

But not Samsung.

The company has now formally announced its own top-of-the-range technology, and it comes with its own new buzzword for you to take on board: QLED.

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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

Its an advanced version of an LED TV, where the Q refers to the fact that this uses a layer of nano-sized particles called Quantum Dots. Quantum Dot technology is basically a classy TV filter that enhances colours and offers strong brightness and wide viewing angles  unlike some screen technologies that look washed out when youre not sitting front and centre.

QLED uses Samsungs latest version of Quantum Dots which are made of metal. These promise, Samsung says, 100% colour volume, the biggest range of colours available on any TV today.

Where QLED excels compared to OLED is in its brightness. In other words, it can look impressive in brightly lit living rooms. OLED shines in darker environments. In the demonstrations that Samsung produced, the picture quality was jaw-droppingly good, matching extraordinary pin-sharp images with vibrant but realistic colours and deep black shades.

A recent technological development is HDR or High Dynamic Range, which allows bright and dark areas of a picture to show great detail at the same time: blue skies are not washed out, dark shadows are not grey sludge.

Matching HDR with QLED, Samsung suggests, offers the real standout picture quality, not least because it's much brighter than OLED.

Samsung promised these QLED TVs would be its smartest yet, with an improved interface that makes it easier to find the shows and channels youre after and to control everything from a simple remote with voice control built in.

OLED is a premium technology, with high prices attached, but QLED is far from cheap, with TVs ranging from 1,999.99 to 4,899.99. Samsung needs to persuade customers that its own technology is a match (or better) for OLED, which is seen by many as the ultimate for picture quality.

The TVs go on sale from 29 March in the UK, with pre-orders kicking off on 15 March.
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A breakthrough in stem cell research has given men left with erectile dysfunction after prostate surgery the chance to enjoy normal intercourse again, according to new research.

In early clinical trials, eight out of 15 incontinent men suffering from erectile dysfunction were able to have sex, six months after undergoing a one-time stem cell treatment, Scientists told European Association of Urology's annual meeting in London.

All of the men involved had used pills or devices to get an erection beforehand, lead researcher Dr Lars Lund told The Independent.

Recommended Donald Trump meets 30 men to discuss future of maternity care

Fifty-three per cent of the men have kept the ability [to have sex] after one year, without having to use drugs or implants and other devices," added the professor at Odense University Hospital in Denmark. Its very promising.

Prostate surgery is responsible for up to 13 per cent of erectile dysfunction cases.

Researchers removed fat cells from a patients abdomen via liposuction. They undergo a brief treatment and are turned into all-purpose stem-cells, meaning they are able to mutate into nearly any cell in the body.

Dr Lund said the study is the first of its kind to inject stem cells directly into the penis with a syringe. There, they begin to transform into nerve and muscle cells, as well as endothelial cells that line blood vessels, he said.

Men are put under general anaesthesia while the procedure happens, and are discharged from hospital the same day.

The next step will see his team to perform a randomised controlled trial of the treatment.

Participants will be randomly assigned one of several clinical interventions alongside a control group, in which subjects are given a placebo or no intervention.

Dr Lund said that while the research is still in its early stages, the results so far have already showed promise.
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Elliot Polland is a New York divorce attorney with nearly 50 years of experience, so he knows a thing or two about what can make or break a relationship.

Polland spoke with INSIDER right after getting out of court about the biggest mistakes married couples make and the best things married couples should do to make sure their relationships will last.

Set up boundaries with in-laws and other family members.

(Flickr via markjsebastian (Flickr via markjsebastian)

While Polland said that family members' insights can be useful in noticing things about a person that their partner doesn't see, it's important to make sure they don't take it too far.

There are many times where I've had clients coming in and saying that their in-laws have destroyed their marriage, he said.

It's ultimately up to the couple to decide what those boundaries should be.

I don't know that there's any magic formula for that, he said. Every situation is different.

Maintain an affectionate physical relationship.

(Flickr/markhillary (Flickr/markhillary)

It's the little things that go a long way.

Obviously a sexual one is important, but even for older couples where that becomes less important, even the cuddling and the hugging certainly maintains that close connection that I think is very important for maintaining a relationship, he said.

Keep records of your assets.

(Kena Betancur/Stringer/Getty Images (Kena Betancur/Stringer/Getty Images)

Banks and most other financial institutions don't maintain records beyond six years, he said. If somebody claims that they came into the marriage with X dollars and tries to claim that that was their separate property if there were a divorce, if they didn't maintain those old records, they would have virtually an impossible task in proving that this was their pre-marital fund.

Polland advised scanning the necessary documents and entrusting them to a parent of sibling.

Find someone who you have a lot in common with.

(Shutterstock)

Although opposites may attract, I think the bottom line is that the more you have in common with your spouse, the easier it is to maintain that relationship because there's less likelihood of disagreement and argument going forward, Polland said.

This is particularly relevant when it comes to a couple's religious practices and beliefs.

I've had Jewish couples where one became more Orthodox and it caused the marriage to unravel, even though they were both of the same religion, he said. I've had other cases [where] as the relationship ended, people who have married outside their religion end up with a tug-of-war over the children whether they should be raised one religion or another. This goes back to having similar backgrounds, similar values. It gives you a stronger foundation fundamentally.

 How to make your marriage last

 Men reveal the biggest changes they made to be better at dating

 11 things people think are terrible for your diet that actually aren't

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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Online shopping behemoth Amazon has avoided a $1.5bn (1.2bn) tax bill after winning a legal dispute in a US tax court.

Judge Albert Lauber rejected a variety of arguments presented by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), bringing to an end a lengthy court battle.

Ruling in favour of the worlds largest online retailer, he said it was legal for Amazon to have funnelled its European sales through a low-tax Luxembourg sub-company in 2005 and 2006, instead of the US.

Amazon said that if it had lost it could have had been forced to pay a US tax bill as high as $1.5bn and potentially faced significant tax liabilities in the years to come.

The company  which according to Forbes is the worlds 12th most valuable brand  made $2.37bn of profit in 2016, four times what it made in the four previous years combined.

Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Baird Equity Research told Reuters the ruling should shield Amazon from potentially significant tax obligations to the IRS covering years beyond the ones covered in the lawsuit."

Yet Amazon could still face additional tax bills in Europe if Brussels officials choose to take further action.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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Luxembourg is known as one of the world's biggest tax havens, offering heavy discounts on corporate taxes that have attracted global companies such as Pepsi and Apple.

During his Presidential campaign, Donald Trump criticised Amazon for not paying enough in tax. The online retailers chief executive, Jeff Bezos, responded angrily to the claims, triggering a social media battle.
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Cadbury will consider shrinking the size of its products or raising its prices after Brexit, the company has said.

The firm's UK boss said Britain would remain its home of chocolate manufacturing, with its factory in Bournville, Birmingham, to continue as its global chocolate research and development hub.

Glenn Caton, told The Guardian: The UK is still going to be a huge market.

However, he said Cadbury would follow other food manufacturers in using an industry tactic known as shrinkflation to offset the cost of Brexit.

This often involves cutting the size of a product while the prices increase or remain the same, meaning consumers pay more for less.

All we can do is to move to the times that we face," he said.

"I am confident though because a 200m investment in the last five years is not something we are going to walk away from. I cant guarantee anything forever but am I confident that we are still going to have world-class manufacturing and research sites in the UK for the long term? I do feel confident of that."

Cadburys parent company, Mondelez, sparked outrage when it recently reduced the size of its Toblerone bars, increasing the gaps between the triangular chunks while the price did not change.

Since the referendum, a pack of Cadbury Creme Eggs has also shrunk from six eggs to five, with only a slight decrease in the price.

While the size of Freddo chocolate bars have stayed the same, their price has increased by 20%, from 25p to 30p.

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

Other products subject to shrinkflation include cartons of Tropicana juice, Maltesers, and bottles of Bulmers fruit ciders.

While he strongly signalled Cadburys commitment to the UK, Mr Caton also said the company was concerned about the future of its EU national employees.

We have 50-odd different nationalities in our research and development centre in Bournville.

We want EU nationals who are working here and living here to have the security that they can continue to do so.

Mondelez International, a division of the US giant Kraft, bought Cadbury for 12 billion in 2010.

The company paid no corporation tax in the UK in 2014 and 2015, the last years for which figures are available.

In the interview, Mr Caton defended these tax arrangements, saying: We do pay, as a company, billions of dollars in tax on a global basis.
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Saturday mornings are frequently an occasion when Donald Trump scrolls down his Twitter feed and starts to launch forth.

On previous weekends he has insulted Alicia Machado, a former Mexican Miss Universe, urged his supporters to have their own rallies to counter the anti-Trump protests across the country, and even suggested his predecessor in the White House wiretapped him at Trump Tower.

But this Saturday, the President appeared chastened, unable to summon up much enthusiasm for the serious presidential business of tweeting insults and barbs.

Obamacare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry! he wrote.

Mr Trump is licking his wounds after a humiliating defeat over the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Mr Trump had promised on the campaign trail to scrap the programme, which he termed a disaster, and replace it with something great.

As a result, he had gone along with a proposal by House Speaker Paul Ryan to make repeal of Obamacare his first legislative project. But even with the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, a vote on the new bill in the House of Representatives was called off at the last minute after Mr Ryan was forced to admit they did not have sufficient votes.

Neither Mr Trumps reported charm offensive, or his veiled threats, were sufficient to win over a handful of hardline conservative members who felt the Republican plan still gave too much away.

This was an interesting period of time, Mr Trump said afterwards, in comments many believed underscored his political inexperience and naivety. We learned a lot about loyalty and we learned a lot about the vote-getting process.

 Trump defeated: President remains bullish despite failure to repeal Obamacare

The affair has been seen as deeply damaging to Mr Trump, who on day 64 of his presidency ought to have been enjoying an easy legislative win, galvanising his supporters and Republican colleagues, and using the momentum for his next project.

The President said his next focus would be a reform of the tax system, something that probably matters more to many of his supporters and which he has long supported. Many wondered why he did not make tax reform  or a major infrastructure spending bill  his first priority.

He told reporters that he and the party would go very, very strongly for big tax cuts and tax reform, after failing to get enough support for the healthcare vote. He said that taxation was an issue Ive always liked, and suggested that the plan to introduce his proposal may be brought forward from May.

But that might not guarantee an easy win for Mr Trump either. The Associated Press pointed out the failure to make progress with Mr Ryans austere health bill means the Republicans will have less than $1 trillion in tax cuts to play with.

The Republican health plan would have repealed nearly around $1 trillion in taxes enacted under Mr Obamas Affordable Care Act. The bill coupled the tax cuts with spending cuts for Medicaid, so it wouldnt add to the budget deficit.

Now, without the spending cuts, it will be much harder for Republicans to cut taxes without adding to the federal governments debt.

Yes this does make tax reform more difficult, said Mr Ryan. But it does not in any way make it impossible.

He added: That just means the Obamacare taxes stay with Obamacare. Were going to go fix the rest of the tax code.

Meanwhile, with Democrats trying to not to crow too loudly about Mr Trumps misfortune, Democratic senator Bernie Sanders warned supporters of another fight.

We now must take on a horrific Republican budget and efforts at tax reform which means huge tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, he said.

There is no way to interpret Mr Trumps defeat as anything other than a major setback to the president, even if he could yet brush it off.

But even Republicans have admitted that the drama that played out on Capitol Hill on Friday raises doubts about the Republicans ability to take on and pass major legislation.

Congressman Jodey Arrington of Texas, a first time member of the House, said: This was my first big vote and our first big initiative in the line of things to come like tax reform. I think this would have given us tremendous momentum and I think this hurts that momentum.

Another Republican congressman, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, added: You always build on your last accomplishment.
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Tokoloshe is a myth, said Sizwe. Has anyone ever seen a tokoloshe?

Yes, said Airs. I have.

I was sitting in a beachfront bar in a small town on the Eastern Cape of South Africa with half-a-dozen Xhosa guys. Just a few days ago. The sound of the surf outside. Airs had taken me there to discuss the art of magic with some of his buddies, to try to nail down the difference between the sangoma and the ixwhele, distinct varieties of witch doctor. Oddly enough, they mainly wanted to talk about Brexit.

I first met Airs 17 years ago. I went to South Africa back in 2000 for the idyllic waves I had seen in Endless Summer but Airs (who had won a serious Big Air contest or two) taught me to sandboard instead, way up in the monumental dunes that overlook the Indian Ocean. Its like snowboarding but on sand. You need to rub in plenty of wax to get a smooth descent. And you have to trudge back up the dunes again. But its all worth it for the sheer joy of the ride. And its warmer than the swell that seems to come straight up from Antarctica.

Back then Airs was a pure hedonist with an infectious joie de vivre. He was 19 years old and described himself as a boy because he had not yet had his initiation, involving  among other rigours  getting circumcised without an anaesthetic. But a beach boy. He taught me a few words of Xhosa, and took me to his grandmothers house where we ate cornmeal porridge, and he showed me where he had first seen the tokoloshe (or witch). He was born under apartheid, but now Nelson Mandela had changed all that and the ANC was in power and...and it was a time of hope. We even had tea together in a white farmers house.

Airs seemed to me then  he still seems  to carry the torch of the new South Africa. Inevitably, I lost touch with him. But back in South Africa for the Stellenbosch literary festival (Woordfees), I set about trying to track him down to see what had become of him in the intervening years. I dug up an old friend of his in Cape Town, a white South African engineer. He told me Airs was now working for a backpackers place a few hundred miles east. I phoned them up. A woman told me he was there somewhere. She eventually put him on the phone. It sounded like the same Airs I had known years before. Unchanged. So I hopped on a plane to the Eastern Cape. A big guy called Selwyn picked me up and we drove for another hour or so and I got out and was embraced by Airs. The very same. Now in his mid-thirties but recognisably the same guy: slim, sinewy, in baggy surf shorts and black t-shirt, and a red cap, with a smile of unequivocal friendship.

Jeffrey's Bay is the ultimate surfers paradise (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Just like old times we went out on the dunes together. We stopped at a local liquor store to get drinks. We bought water and a bottle of Original Sedgwicks Old Brown.

Outside, Airs firmly brushed aside a lively trio of likely lads who looked as if they might want to step on my shadow. He had been my young guru, now he was my bodyguard.

My hair was a shade or two whiter than before, and I was carrying an injury, but was otherwise reasonably similar. He had a well-trimmed chin beard that was going grey. His legs had a few cuts from some thorny bushes around the local waterfall and he had a massive scar on one arm from fending off a blow from a sjambok. And he had a few tattoos he hadnt had before. One was the name of his child, which means something like They are still beautiful. Another was the trademark of the gang in which he had become a gang leader in prison. One more thing: he was in love, he told me.

I made one or two cautious, risk-averse, chronically slow descents. Airs came screaming off the top of the dunes, carving across the slope, kicking up sand, throwing in the occasional 360, and pulling off the kind of huge moves that gave him his nickname: fearless, fluid, unstoppable. Sandboarding is all about falling with style. Airs had style the way a bird has feathers. Grace under pressure, as Hemingway would say. He was a natural, a dazzling dune surfer, fluent in body language. I could only dimly remember a few rusty phrases. Wax on, wax off, he would say while waxing the board, in an allusion to The Karate Kid. But he really was a master of kung fu and aimed his foot at a point over the top of my head. Which is how he had come to be recruited to the gang when he was in prison.

We sat in the shade of a vertical dune and Airs polished off the bottle of sherry and struggled to hold back the tears as he told me of his misadventures. He should never have gone to Cape Town, he said. Then it would never have happened. That was his big mistake. If only he had stayed on the beach. But by then he was a father, divorced, and he had to earn more money.

At some point he discovered he was HIV positive. But I knew I would be fine so long as I kept exercising and led a healthy life. It was when he was practising his martial arts moves in a small apartment that he fatally stabbed a woman. He was using the sword as part of his routine and she had come up behind him. He was tried for culpable homicide (we would say manslaughter), pleaded guilty, and sentenced to five years. He thought they should have given him more.

He knew what prison would be like so he went in as hard as he could, beating the living daylights out of anyone who looked at him sideways. He had to be tougher than they were. Hence the gang, and his elevation to gang leader, a frontline fighter in any prison riots. Of which there were more than a few.

Airs was angry, mainly with himself for accidentally killing someone, but also with God for having deserted him. I was angry with my mother for giving birth to me. He became a satanist. Satan, he said, is not all bad. But after a time and after conversations with a prison pastor, he gave up all belief in God and Satan, Christianity and Judaism, and now, he said, holding out his arms in a sweeping gesture that took in the sea, the sky, and the infinite sands, believed only in nature''. The Bible is just paper. He served a couple of years of his sentence inside and the rest outside. He got his job back, lectured people on the myths surrounding HIV (for example, how having sex with a virgin can cure you), and led regular clean-up teams along the beach, picking up plastics and litter.

But Airs remained an adherent of magic. He knew people who could set fire to objects at a distance and wield lightning bolts. It remained a mystery to him how it was that mere white men had ever achieved such dominion over black people. We should have turned the waves back, he said, speaking of the first white ships to arrive, but we didnt. And now a new wave had brought a young European woman to these shores and they had fallen in love. A classic holiday romance blossomed among the dunes and the waterfall and the lagoon and the natural fruits. Shes not wild, just mellow. I can do wild, Airs said, but I like mellow. She had gone back to Europe, but they were phoning one another and he was supposed to join her. All he needed was a passport and a visa. But he had no documentation. His original birth certificate was long gone. All he had was a prison record, which wasnt going to help him. Which might explain in part why he was drinking quite so much.

Sandboarding is all about falling with style: Airs has style the way a bird has feathers

Apart from the sherry he had already drunk a small bottle of vodka that morning. I had a headache, he said. Then I didnt. When we hit the beachfront bar that night, there were a lot of bottles already on the table in front of us. But not enough. We went to the bar and ordered another bottle of whisky (it had to be H&B), a bottle of Smirnoff, and several beers to wash it down.

It was when everyone was voicing an opinion about the differences between the sagoma and the ixhwele  with Sizwe maintaining that the ixhwele was a prophet or seer of sorts, and Airs arguing that the ixhwele had the power to inflict harm, even kill, at a distance  that Airs got up out of his chair to remonstrate with someone called Samson, who was lying on the sofa and drinking mainly vodkas. But he staggered and stumbled and fell over on the sofa, knocking over a few bottles as he went down, flailing. Falling without style. The Xhosa guys were not impressed and glared at him. He had offended against some kind of obscure code. I thought: this could turn ugly. I was also concerned that the guy I thought of as my guardian angel was now lying crumpled up on the floor in a heap. A fallen angel.

Just then, like some kind of genie out of a lamp, his big friend Selwyn came bursting through the door, and helped me haul Airs to his feet. We made our apologies and poured Airs into the car and drove off into the night. I heard that an hour later he was dancing in the backpackers bar and trying to turn somersaults and backflips.

They stopped him because the ceiling was too low.

Andy Martin is the author of Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me (Bantam Press, RRP 18. 99). He teaches at the University of Cambridge. Follow him @andymartinink
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Apparent sightings of the Tasmanian tiger in northern Australia have sparked a search for the long-extinct carnivore.

The wolf-like predators were the largest known carnivorous marsupial to have existed alongside human society, but the last known specimen died in a zoo on the island of Tasmania itself in 1936.

However, based on eyewitness evidence provided by a tourism operator and a former park ranger, 50 camera traps will be set up across the Cape York Peninsula in the hope of finding a surviving population.

A reconstructed tourist poster featuring the thylacine, created to call attention to the loss of other species across the globe: (Expedia.co.uk)

Professor Bill Laurance will be heading the survey, which will take place across remote locations in Australia's largest wilderness area.

He told the Telegraph: All observations of putative thylacines to date have been at night, and in one case four animals were observed at close range, about 20 feet away, with a spotlight.

We have cross-checked the descriptions we received of eye shine colour, body size and shape, animal behaviour, and other attributes, and these are inconsistent with known attributes of other large-bodied species in north Queensland such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs.

Sightings of the 30 kilogram carnivore properly known as the thylacine are common, but are generally written off as cases of mistaken identity. Feral cats and dogs are the most common lookalikes.

A tiger in captivity in Hobart Zoo, Tasmania (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

But the two latest observations, whose exact location is being kept a secret by the researchers, are considered plausible. Patrick Shears, a qualified ranger, added that Aboriginal locals also reported sightings of the beast.

"They call it the 'moonlight tiger'," he told the Telegraph. "They're curious. If you're not moving and not making a noise they'll come within a reasonable range and check you out then just trot off.

The thylacine was not actually related to Western carnivorous dogs or cats, but evolved its teeth, claws and characteristic striped back in isolation.

The Tasmanian tiger had a distinctive large bite, shown here in a still from one of the few videos shot of the extinct beast

It is depicted in Aboriginal rock art from at least 3,000 years ago. However, by the time Western explorers arrived in the Australian continent it was extinct on the mainland and increasingly rare in Tasmania itself, losing out in competition with dingos and human hunters.

Bounties worth 100 a head in today's money fuelled an intensive hunting drive, while diseases and dogs imported from Europe further contributed to its apparent obliteration from Tasmania.

Since the last captive thylacine died, there have been nearly 4000 reported sightings on mainland Australian soil. Tasmanian tour operator Stuart Malcolm has offered an A$1.75 million (1 million) reward for proof the thylacine has survived to the present day.

However, professor Laurance and his team are not expecting to claim any reward, emphasising that the chances of any tigers surviving on the Australian mainland remain very slim.
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Just one week ago, on the evening of Saturday 19 March, a generally quiet north London neighbourhood, Finsbury Park, was rocked by a terrible crime, when two toddlers were found with critical injuries. A man, said to be the birth father, has been arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder. Three of the more restrained headlines in response to these attacks read, depending on which newspaper one read: Man arrested over murder of one-year-old boy as his twin sister fights for life  after alleged hammer attack (Daily Mirror); Man arrested on suspicion of murder after mother heard screaming for help as one-year-old boy is killed and sister is fighting for life, (The Daily Telegraph); and Distraught mother ran into street screaming my kids, my kids after finding her son beaten to death with a hammer (MailOnline).

The case has been set for a plea hearing in June, with a provisional trial date in September. The arrested man has yet to enter a plea and we must not second-guess the facts in this tragic case. However, this was the third distressing instance of multiple family victims nationally in just three weeks. And those only the ones known to any audience beyond the local newssheet.

Less than two weeks before the Finsbury Park incident, police in Stowmarket found 65-year old carpenter and decorator Richard Pitkin dead. Also dead in the extended family home that used to boast a tea room was Sarah Pitkin, 58. The Pitkins, by report, were well-liked and respected. Police were not looking for anyone else in connection with their inquiries.

White House Farm in Essex, scene of the Bamber murders. The court decided Jeremy had placed the gun in his dead sisters hands to make it look like murder-suicide (Rex)

Stowmarket is a fairly small Suffolk town. Wolverhampton, by contrast, is a city of 250,000 inhabitants. But, just three days after news of the Stowmarket tragedy, the people of Wolverhampton were nonetheless alarmed to read in their copies of the Birmingham Mail: Man killed sister and knifed mum before killing himself. Had citizens and neighbours in that part of the Black Country turned to The Sun, even less would have been left to their imaginations: Maniac knifeman stabbed his sister to death and injured his mum before turning blade on himself in bloodbath at flat.

***

So in cases where there is family annihilation, what is it and why and why does it happen?

One of the most infamous family annihilations ever took place in sprawling White House Farm, Essex, on 7 August 1985. Sheila Bamber, her parents Neville and June Bamber, and her sons Nicholas and Daniel, were all killed that fateful day. Worse, Sheilas brother Jeremy Bamber, then aged 24, apparently staged everyones murder as if Sheila herself were the culprit. Homicide/suicide, surely? Police who initially attended the scene  ironically in response to a panicked-sounding telephone call from Jeremy  seemed content to accept that interpretation.

For weeks lasting into months, that narrative amazingly stayed unchallenged; and it is fair to say the incarcerated Bamber still maintains his absolute innocence three decades after his belated conviction and life sentencing.

Conventional instances of homicide/suicide where the perpetrator cannot go to jail because he  it is statistically far more likely to be a he  is already dead, either at the scene of horror or perhaps at some secluded beauty spot nearby  tend to have 10 common features.

The historical cases show is that in murder-suicides, first, the killer is, as said, likely to be a man: where familial, a son, brother or father rather than daughter, sister or mother. Second, isolation is frequently a factor, if not the deciding factor: geographical isolation, psychological or psychiatric isolation, perceived isolation within the family  bullying, deprivation, marginalisation, or isolated status, disgrace.

Newspapers offer lurid headlines on the act, but rarely shed light on motive

Third, often the perpetrator is consumed with hatred: sometimes hatred is fuelled by resentment. And, fourth, one influence persuading someone to attack his own family so viciously is frequently a grudge: expulsion from the home, threatened separation, refusal of money, not being mentioned in a will, unfair accusations, a partners alleged infidelity  or even something as trivial as youre forever nagging.

Fifth, the instrument of death is more often than not extremely violent: gun, sword, knife or hammer are preferred over suffocation or gassing. However, in recent years, fire appears to have been used more, perhaps because perpetrators are more aware of the importance of destroying DNA evidence, and with the terrible bonus that it is the fire or the smoke or both doing the killing, not the instigator.

Sixth, typically escape routes are blocked, and a time chosen when the family are near-at-hand, sleeping or watching TV. Keys are hidden. Those who rush upstairs are pursued. And those who rush downstairs are trapped. Elaborate precautions are taken that a getaway car is not to hand  except for the killers use. Also, that killer needs to be faster down the street were one of his intended victims to achieve temporary freedom.

Seventh, it is likely that there have been lesser preparatory and experimental attacks before the final showdown. For example, survivors of domestic violence typically endure between 20 and 200 assaults before sounding the alarm and calling on neighbours, trusted siblings, or the police. Perhaps the family car is in an inexplicable crash. Or prowlers, maybe suspected of mere rogue-trading or peeping Tom-ery, are been seen near the later site of execution.

In the 1977 Pottery Cottage murders, Billy Hughes (inset) butchered a family in Eastmoor, near Baslow in Derbyshire (Derby Telegraph)

Eighth, pleas for mercy are routinely and callously ignored. Ninth, the perpetrator usually neither expects nor tolerates retaliation. He likely relies on past romance or deep-seated trust placed in him as one of us to deter any last-minute fracas.

Womens aid, womens assertiveness, women survivors, and womens self-defence groups place emphasis on attempting realistic self-protection. Naturally it is a truism that fighting back is risky, statistically abortive, sometimes provocative prior to an even worse fate, or very occasionally peremptory: a false alarm. Nobody should expect doomed family members always to have a heavy chair or flower-pot to hand  but advice is sensibly given that if you are going to die in any case, you might as well attempt some resistance. And there is rare forensic evidence that the escaping man, whether or not he later self-harms or takes his own life, bears scratches, bruises, cuts or organ-damage that must have been inflicted by one, more, or even all, his targets.

Finally and disturbingly, tenth, if the killer dies during or following his act of family annihilation, could well be set to be pitied rather than blamed: Poor soul ; Must have borne terrible suffering in the Army, at work, as a child...;  Moment of madness ; Wonderful dad ; Not round to put the record straight, whatever. And this (probably undeserved) taking into account of past misfortune has possibly been orchestrated by the killer long before the act. Maybe letters have been written, certificates displayed, thousands of pounds raised for charity, compensation successfully awarded... anything to perpetuate a story of awful injustice, noble self-abnegation, valid self-sacrifice. Because the killers unbelievable  yet curiously tenable  accomplishment is to write the first version of history.

History he has himself fulfilled. History he has himself shaped. Maybe history could supply us with detailed statistics for (a) homicide/suicides; and (b) whole- family killings not attributed to an integral, or past, members of those threatened families? No such fortune. Whereas homicides (murders) appear in one table of figures, Suicides (sometimes attempted suicides) appear in other lists. Even then, statistic-gathering is chaotic, partly due to coroners hesitant to issue suicide verdicts.

Do other countries perhaps keep better records? No. What we do know is that family annihilation is occasionally cultural; also imitative. South Africa is blighted with two kindred phenomena: isolated Boer and/or white men, on the margins, killing their entire families then themselves; alternatively, a son: not impossibly a black or mixed-race son, killing his parents, maybe his siblings as well, with appropriation of assets an attributed motive.

As for the US, comparisons with UK family-killings are ever more fraught with difficulty. Guns and harmful weapons far more available than in Britain, and spree-killings of all types are hard to separate out from targeted killings of a culprits relatives, say with one or two bystanders also killed or injured. Home invasions in the States are certainly frequent  but as few as 100 people each year die as a direct consequence of burglary or attempted burglary within the broken-into home; compared with at least 18,000 US suicides  labelled suicides  each year.

The Laitner familly at Suzannes (centre) 1983 wedding in Sheffield. Basil (left) along with Richard and Avril (right) were murdered hours later

Is alcohol an important component, giving the instigator more courage? Or are perpetrators drug-dependent? The jury is still out over mitigation. Who knows whether a killer with little or no regard to his own safety, his own discovery, his own lifespan, would have been more restrained with more inhibitions. Harmful substances certainly dont seem to reduce instances of family annihilation  or their intensity.

***

So where do my 10 common factors leading to family annihilation leave we who survive; we the relations and friends who are not subject to our own familys annihilation or someone elses; we who read about it from the comfort of our armchairs; we who are safe, secure, cherished and uplifted at home? A difficult quandary. Arguably, more difficult in the aftermath of family annihilation than in the wake of almost any other crime, any other catastrophe, even any other unforeseeable disaster.

Nor do the police, the courts, psychiatrists, or social workers  those whose daily employment is to help those in distress, but not this degree of distress  give the rest of an easy lead; give us reasons, perhaps in reply to that familiar plea: give us a clue! Society buries family annihilation (undertakers, literally) because the subject is too painful; it is seemingly too far beyond comprehension. Maybe falsely, family annihilation is considered a flash-in-a-pan; perhaps it is put down far too quickly to the mental illness of which it is so obviously a manifestation; and crucially there is rarely a survivor, less so an attendant survivor, to enlighten either the authorities or the public.

Police, press, parliament, the Church, social services, the NHS, everyone most likely to be listened to, can usefully move on to more pressing issues  because there is there is nobody to prosecute, and/or nobody who can be subject of a child protection conference, and/or nobody who can be reassessed as a risk; or else the intentional killer who is an accidental or purposeful survivor makes a full confession. In which case there are only three available disposals: long-term imprisonment, enduring committal to hospital, or leeway enough, without intention, for the prisoner to finally take his own life (far more likely, statistically, if he lived through an initial attempt so to do).

Ironically, societys certainty that its all over and done with militates against prevention, mitigation, avoidance, of family annihilation in the future. So onlookers and professionals alike are tempted to close the chapter, to let bygones be bygones. Instead, it is beholden on everyone to take account of warning signs: buildups of spite and resentment; previous domestic violence; acrimonious divorce and separation; bankruptcy; custody and access sessions denied or giving rise to concern; threats.

Because threats are not always empty. What everyone takes to be bragging, bad-mouthing, intimidation or hyperbole might actually be a signpost to future family annihilation. So statutory reviews must in future be held before the event, not after.

***

Which brings me to my own commitment to find out more concerning family annihilation. That prompt came from four instances a little too near where I lived for comfort.

2017 marks 40 years after escaped prisoner Billy Hughes, now deceased, took a family hostage at a cottage in Eastmoor, near Baslow in Derbyshire, butchering Grandma, Grandad, the couples son-in-law and their granddaughter. Only Mum survived the Pottery Cottage Murders, even she within seconds of her own shooting or knifing. And Eastmoor is just four miles up the road from where for more than three decades we made our home.

The Shropshire estate at which in 2008 a millionaire with business problems murdered his wife and daughter before shooting dead their dogs and horses, setting fire to the house, and finally killing himself (PA)

Six years later came the Dore Wedding Day Massacre. A talented pupil, who had been taught by my wife, crouched in her bedroom, in an affluent suburb of Sheffield, towards the end of the family celebrations that crowned her elder sisters marriage ceremony just hours earlier, and listened, listened, as every single member of her cherished family to hand  solicitor father, doctor mother, older brother  faced arbitrary execution at the other side of her hasty barricade. Grim. With worse for this young woman still to come. And all at the hands of a robber  not a relative.

Came the day 10 years after that: at the time a I was a local government officer charged with supervising three childrens access to their mother at a voluntary-funded contact centre. I was returning from the centre when I heard that, in a lay-by just a few miles down the same road I was driving along, a jealous father, also a centre user, had had set light to himself and his two sons  by a woman he had acrimoniously split from  within the exactly parked car he had used for access to the children. Three bodies discovered within. No lads able to survive their ordeal, survive their access, and see their mother again; nor chance that mother should encounter, look after, love, her boys again. Total immolation. Total elimination.

One final coincidence: from 2011 to 2014, when I needed my car in the evening, I chose to park it at the other end of the alley opposite where Id moved to. And one enchanting summer afternoon, the cul-de-sac was full of police cars, sentries, men in white suits. I had not consciously registered the house before. It was semi-detached, privately owned, on the outer edge of a large post-war municipal estate. In succeeding days, I soon learnt a Stepdad had murdered the widowed shopkeeper he had recently married, then laid on the same bed and stabbed himself to death. All because she had told him she had had enough.

In the face of such terrible calumny, in the light of such unimaginable discoveries, most observers, most survivors, most people holding Twitter or Facebook accounts, most readers of newspapers, will remain baffled as to why anyone, anywhere, would want to take them (those the murderer has known or loved) all with me  thus  releasing them from agony. Is this really the freedom from oppression a crazed killer yearns for? Or is this too speedy an escape from lifes trials and tribulations; too convincing a hope of a Better World than that into which we were all born?

Purportedly, family annihilation, family extinction, is absolute love  absolute hatred?  expressed absolutely. And whatever the reasoning behind it, this is an act committed so suddenly, so ruthlessly, so willfully, it permits no second thoughts. No opportunity for reverse. No retrieval.

Three cases of family annihilation across the UK

1) Christopher, aged 50, shot dead his wife, 49, and daughter, 15, before gunning down their horses and dogs and then setting alight his 1.2m Shropshire home in 2008. The former mattress and pizza-box salesman had made himself into a millionaire, but his business interests collapsed, leaving him in 4m of debt. Some say he killed his family in a crazed attempt to protect them from poverty they were about to face. The killer was caught on CCTV on the night of the blaze walking his mansion's grounds carrying a bucket, a rifle and lighter fluid for setting the fire.

2) The bodies of a mother, 44, her son, 13, and daughter, nine, were found in February 2011. The mothers husband was working abroad. Police broke into the familys detached house, in the Midlands, after they were contacted by a concerned relation. The children were found in their bedrooms with stab wounds to their neck and chest. Their mother, a devout Roman Catholic, was in the bathroom with multiple knife wounds to her arms. An inquest heard that the womans mother called police after she was unable to contact her daughter. Police investigated the tragedy as a suspected double homicide-suicide.

3) A report into the care of a North-east of England ex-soldier, who shot dead four members of his family in 2006, found failings in the mental health care he received. David, 41, killed his aunt and uncle, both 70, and their sons  Davids cousins  aged 41 and 44. He was sentenced to a minimum term of 15 years after admitting manslaughter. There was reportedly a lack of communication between agencies.
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The Westminster attacker converted to Islam in prison, it has emerged, as police continue to piece together the journey of Khalid Masood from all-round nice guy, to violent criminal, to terrorist.

The 52-year-old served several prison sentences for offences ranging from grievous bodily harm, to assault and possession of an offensive weapon dating back to his teenage years.

Violent episodes peppered his life, with one friend recalling Masood admitting he had dreams about killing someone 16 years before he murdered four people outside the Houses of Parliament.

One two-year stint in jail came after a racially-fuelled fight outside the Crown and Thistle pub in Northiam, East Sussex, which left a man needing 20 stitches to the face.

Former friend Lee Lawrence tried to pacify Masood that day, but soon found the rage directed at him.

He had the knife against my throat and he is going, I want some blood, I want some f***ing blood, I want to kill someone, the 47-year-old told The Telegraph.

After he calmed down a bit he was saying, What have I done? What am I doing? I am going for help, I just want blood or I want to kill someone.

 Westminster attack probe : Resident describes police seizing van and cars after Birmingham raid

He said he was having help, some kind of anger management.

Mr Lawrence also claimed the father of three told him: I dream about blood. I dream about killing someone.

The outbursts were a far cry from the Kent-born schoolboy known as Adrian Ajao, remembered by one classmate as an all-round nice guy who was popular, sporty and intelligent.

A childhood friend of the man then known as Adrian Elms said he announced his conversion to Islam after serving a jail sentence.

When he first came out he told me hed become a Muslim in prison and I thought he was joking, Mark Ashdown told The Sun.

Then I saw he was quieter and much more serious.

I gave him some cash-in-hand work for a few months as a labourer.

The convicted killer (centre) was remembered as an all-round nice guy by former classmates

He said he needed time to pray and read the Quran - something about finding inner peace."

Mr Ashdown said Masood still showed flashes of the old Ade but they were few and far between, with his friend splitting from his former partner and becoming increasingly religious.

It was unclear whether the change came during his imprisonment at Lewes Prison in East Sussex, Wayland Prison in Norfolk or Ford open prison in West Sussex.

Masoods abrupt religious conversion will fuel concerns about the rising threat of criminals being brought under the influence of hardened jihadis while in prison  a pattern repeated time and again in Europe among Isis militants including those who carried out the Brussels and Paris attacks.

Ministers have announced plans to create specialist units within jails to tackle what a Government-ordered review last year concluded was a growing problem.

Isis recruiters are known to target violent criminals looking for a route to redemption, with more than half of known European jihadis fighting in Iraq and Syria known to have a criminal past.

Experts have also warned that Muslim converts are more susceptible to radicalisation as they lack moderate voices among friends and relatives and do not have the Islamic knowledge to counter Salafist teachings.

Masoods route to extremism could also have been influenced by two stints working as an English teacher in Saudi Arabia, whose government enforces a fundamentalist form of Islam linked to extremist movements around the world.

In pictures: Westminster attack Show all 9 1 /9 In pictures: Westminster attack In pictures: Westminster attack An air ambulance lands after gunfire sounds were heard close to the Palace of Westminster in London PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack MPs wait until the situation is under control in Westminster. 'The alleged assailant was shot by armed police,' David Lidington, leader of the House of Commons, told the house. BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Crowds gather in Westminster after shooting incident, which police are treating as terror attack BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Police were also called to an incident on Westminster Bridge nearby AP In pictures: Westminster attack Early reports indicate the car, which mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge and mowed into around a dozen people, was the same vehicle which then rammed into the railings of the Palace of Westminster, just around the corner Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack Security sources described the suspected assailant as a middle-aged Asian man, who is understood to have left the car before attacking a police officer with a seven-to-eight inch knife PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack Police have asked people to avoid the immediate area to allow emergency services to deal with the ongoing incident AP In pictures: Westminster attack One woman has died and a number of others, including the police officer, have been hurt, according to a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack At least three gun shots were heard by those inside Westminster, and proceedings in the House of Commons have been suspended AP

The Saudi Arabian Embassy in London said Masood did not appear on the security services radar during stays in 2005/6 and 2008/9.

Theresa May said Masood was the subject of an historical investigation over violent extremism by MI5 but was not part of the current intelligence picture, describing him as a peripheral figure.

There was no prior intelligence of his intent, or of the plot, she added.

Police are also searching for potential accomplices after it emerged that Masood used the messaging service WhatsApp just minutes before his attack, raiding properties in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Wales.

Only one man out of 11 people arrested in the wake of Wednesdays terror attack remains in custody after two more suspects were released yesterday.

The Metropolitan Police said a 27-year-old man from Birmingham and 39-year-old woman from East London would face no further action in the case.

A 58-year-old arrested in Birmingham remains in custody and a 32-year-old woman from Manchester is on bail pending further inquiries.

Seven other people were released with no further action on Friday.

Police conduct a fingertip search near Parliament yesterday (PA)

Scotland Yards head of counter-terrorism Mark Rowley said detectives want to understand Masoods motivation, preparation and associates and if he either acted totally alone, inspired by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him.

Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, having called for atrocities in Europe and released detailed instructions on car and knife attacks, although the extent of the groups involvement remains unclear.

Masood ploughed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing three members of the public including a British mother-of-two on her way to pick up her daughter from school, and an American tourist celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary.

He then crashed the car into railings outside the Houses of Parliament and ran into an entrance, fatally stabbing PC Keith Palmer to death despite his protective vest, before being shot dead.

Calls are growing for security and physical barriers around the Palace of Westminster to be stepped up, although Government officials have praised the response of emergency services.

Muslim faith leaders led a 200-strong peace rally in Birmingham on yesterday, with Dr Waqar Azmi telling the crowd: Those people who are Daesh and Isis do not define the values that Muslims would hold.

We refuse now to allow them to misrepresent us, and refuse now to allow them to define us.

Tens of thousands of anti-Brexit demonstrators also fell silent at Parliament Square in tribute to the victims of the Westminster attack.

Additional reporting by PA
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As fears grew that Khalid Masood had not been the lone wolf many had originally assumed, more details emerged of the seemingly rootless, troubled life of the Westminster terrorist attacker.

The locations varied from Tunbridge Wells, byword for bourgeois respectability, to prison.

The perceptions of those he encountered on the way veered from all-round nice guy to troubled  and troubling  violent thug.

Khalid Masood began as plain Adrian, born on Christmas Day 1964 in Erith on the Kent-London border, to Janet Elms, a white 17-year-old single mother and a black father.

Within two years, there was a stepfather: Janet married Phillip Ajao in 1966 in Crawley, West Sussex.

The family moved on to the St James Park area of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and here Masood, now going by his stepfathers surname as Adrian Ajao, appears to have been a happy and popular schoolboy.

Aged 15, at Huntley School for Boys, he was among a group of lads smiling for the camera as they took part in a 24-hour sponsored five-a-side tournament for charity.

He was a very nice guy, down to earth, liked by everyone around him, said Stuart Knight, one of the other boys in the photograph, now a 52-year-old butcher.

He was a very good sportsman, his mother was a Christian, he was an all-round nice guy.

Khalid Masood during his school days, when he was known as Adrian Ajao (Huntley School) (Huntleys School)

Yet after leaving school at 16, and moving to Rye, East Sussex, Masood began what was to become a lengthy criminal career.

His first conviction was just before his nineteenth birthday, in November 1983, for criminal damage.

At some point, there was also an estrangement from his respectable family, which is thought to have included two half-brothers.

His mother moved to rural Trelech in Carmarthenshire, West Wales, about 15 years ago and ended up running a business selling handmade bags and cushions from her farmhouse. Her home was blocked by a police van and officers.

A mechanic at the garage in the tiny village insisted that whatever the son had done, the mother and her husband Phillip, now thought to be in poor health, were good people.

 Woman who knew Westminster terror attacker 'shocked' to find out it was Masood

Masood appears to have tried to find respectability himself, having a child in 1992 and moving to the quiet Sussex village of Northiam to give his family and himself a better and more tranquil way of life, as a court would later hear. It didnt work.

Some locals found him intelligent, but unsettling.

Alice Williams, 59, landlady of the Rose and Crown pub in the nearby village of Beckley where Masood would sometimes drink, recalled a man who was very intelligent, but always slightly sinister.

He would do The Telegraph crossword and would make intelligent conversation, said Ms Williams. But he was a bit racist. He always had a chip on his shoulder.

In an incident that  in Masoods mind if no one elses  may have led to a sense of alienation and grievance, he was convicted in 2000 of wounding and criminal damage.

After a row at the Crown and Thistle pub in Northiam, Masood, who had drunk four pints during the afternoon, slashed cafe owner Piers Mott with a knife, leaving him with a face wound that needed 20 stitches.

It was said at the time that Masood had been one of only two black men in the village. And Alexander Taylor-Camara, Masoods defence barrister, told Hove Crown Court: There were racial overtones in the argument between himself and the victim. He let that get to him  unusually, because in the past he has been able to shrug off that sort of abuse.

His wife and family have now become ostracised in the village, added Mr Taylor-Camara. It is a very small community and his wife and family have been extremely affected by this.

In pictures: Westminster attack Show all 9 1 /9 In pictures: Westminster attack In pictures: Westminster attack An air ambulance lands after gunfire sounds were heard close to the Palace of Westminster in London PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack MPs wait until the situation is under control in Westminster. 'The alleged assailant was shot by armed police,' David Lidington, leader of the House of Commons, told the house. BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Crowds gather in Westminster after shooting incident, which police are treating as terror attack BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Police were also called to an incident on Westminster Bridge nearby AP In pictures: Westminster attack Early reports indicate the car, which mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge and mowed into around a dozen people, was the same vehicle which then rammed into the railings of the Palace of Westminster, just around the corner Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack Security sources described the suspected assailant as a middle-aged Asian man, who is understood to have left the car before attacking a police officer with a seven-to-eight inch knife PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack Police have asked people to avoid the immediate area to allow emergency services to deal with the ongoing incident AP In pictures: Westminster attack One woman has died and a number of others, including the police officer, have been hurt, according to a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack At least three gun shots were heard by those inside Westminster, and proceedings in the House of Commons have been suspended AP

Masood  sentenced under the name Adrian Elms  was jailed for two years.

Another sentence for knife crime would follow. In 2003, he was jailed for six months for possession of an offensive weapon after a man was stabbed in the nose and left with injuries that needed cosmetic surgery following a row outside a nursing home in East Sussex.

Heather Mott, widow of the victim of the first incident, recalled, in apparent contrast to what the defence lawyer had claimed in court, that her late husband had simply been seeking to defend someone who was working for him.

And Ms Mott, whose husband died in 2008, went on to make a potentially prescient observation about Masoods two jail sentences: He was obviously prone to being radicalised. He has come out even worse.

She is not the first this week to raise the possibility that Masood followed the now-well trodden jihadi path of criminality followed by radicalisation.

He spent time in Wayland Prison in Norfolk and Lewes Jail in Sussex. At the time, awareness of the potential for inmates to be radicalised in jail was in its infancy.

And Lewes, judging by a riot that occurred there in October 2003, and an HM Inspectorate of Prisons report from 2000, was hardly the perfect place for rehabilitating offenders.

In exasperated tones, Sir David Ramsbotham, then Her Majestys Chief Inspector of Prisons, wrote of parts of the Victorian jail being in desperate need of refurbishment, and of an increasing number of prisoners seeking protection from fellow inmates.

After being released from jail, Masood appears to have taken another possible route towards radicalism, or  perhaps by this stage  increasing radicalisation.

In a CV seen by The Sun newspaper, Masood claims to have gone to Saudi Arabia  a stronghold of the hardline strain of Wahhabi Islam favoured by Al-Qaeda  in 2005.

This was a year after marrying Farzana Malik, a Muslim woman, in the Medway area of Kent.

On his CV Masood claims to have acquired a qualification in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL), and worked in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.

In 2006, though, he is thought to have returned to the UK, living in Crawley, West Sussex. Here  in a town which like others in Masoods life has produced its share of home-grown terror plotters  he appears to have been something of a nuisance neighbour.

One report suggests that Masood once jumped out of a third floor window of his home to escape police. Former neighbours were reported to have described Masood, by now a keen and physically imposing bodybuilder, as violent, abusive and bad news.

The CV seen by The Sun would suggest that Masood then returned to Saudi Arabia, teaching workers at the General Authority of Civil Aviation in Jeddah, in 2008 and 2009.

Masood, according to his CV, then returned to Luton, another English town which has acquired an unwelcome reputation for harbouring a minority of Islamist extremists.

Here, if the CV is to be believed, he taught at a TEFL college as a senior English teacher, supervising seven other staff  despite his criminal convictions.

On his CV, he described himself as an experienced TEFL teacher with extensive success in sales management  friendly and approachable, as well as being a good listener.

Former neighbours in Luton recall a rather more aloof character.

He was always shy, said one resident near the property where Masood had lived between 2010 and 2011. I didnt see him often.

He always wore black Islamic dress with a black beanie hat, she said.

I didnt see him during the day. Sometimes I would see him walking around at night. He was like a shadow. It was hard to tell he was living there.

There was yet another move, to Forest Gate in east London.

By this time, apparently divorced from Farzana Malik, Masood appears to have been living with another woman. A flat linked to this woman in the former Olympic village in east London has now been raided by police, with officers saying the occupants would not be returning any time soon.

Masoods last home was in Birmingham. His CV appears to suggest he set up his own English language tutoring business in 2012, reportedly promising Arabian students aged 18 to 30 effective teaching from beginner to PhD level.

Outwardly, he was a respectable middle-aged man now, with a female partner and children of primary school age. Polite  friendly in every interaction, in the words of one neighbour in the Winson Green cul-de-sac where Masood had been living until December.

The 52-year-old was still putting on the friendly act at his last stop: the three-star Preston Park Hotel in Brighton, where he spent his last night alive.

He was very friendly, laughing and joking, Sabeur Toumi, the hotel manager, told Sky News. Masood even mentioned his wonderful children.

Then the ex-jailbird checked out, said he was going to London for the day, and perpetrated the most murderous terrorist attack in Britain since 2005.
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Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of London to demand plans for Brexit are reversed.

The protest is being held just days before Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to trigger Article 50, which will formally start the process of the UKs withdrawal from the EU.

It also coincides with the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, the EU's precursor.

The march, which was due to set-off from Park Lane at 11am, was delayed by more than an hour, with some suggesting police were unprepared for a turnout being much higher then expected.

Blue and yellow, the colours of the EU, dominated in the crowd and marchers carrying flags representing the countries of the union travelled along Piccadilly, Pall Mall and Whitehall before massing at Parliament Square, where they held a minute of silence for the victims of the Westminster attack.

Many EU nationals living in Britain joined the crowd, represented by the group The 3 Million, but many British citizens and families also marched to protest the Governments plans for a hard Brexit.

Tens of thousands joined the the Unite for Europe march in central London (Adam Withnall)

Some banners carried a despairing tone, with one declaring Brexit a EUge mistake, while another claimed the reality of Brexit makes me shudder. One simply declared in big letters: Tut.

But among the crowd, there was almost a carnival atmosphere. This was, after all, billed in part as a celebration of the EU's birthday.

In the heart of the throng, a full marching band of drummers kept up a beat and the crowd responded with cheers.

Alastair Campbell was spotted in the crowd taking a selfie with one of the organisers. He also addressed protesters in Parliament Square and said: "We can persuade Theresa May to change her mind, she's already done it once."

Organisers said the march had been organised to make pro-EU voices heard and condemn the leave campaign, which they claim was based on lies and put peoples future at risk for political gain while inciting hate and dividing communities.

A similar event also took place in Edinburgh, which was organised by the Young European Movement. More than 1,000 people are reported to have marched from Waterloo Place in the city centre to the Scottish Parliament, waving EU and Scottish flags.

On its website, Unite for Europe said: "We are the 48 per cent, who voted against Brexit and those who were not allowed to vote against it  the young and the EU nationals living, working and paying taxes in the UK. We are outraged by the governments current direction in dealing with the result of the referendum.

Making the case for those, who fundamentally never wanted Brexit, organisers hope the march will prompt Parliament to listen to those who want the UK to remain a member of the single market, secure the benefits of the EU membership and guarantee that EU citizens already in the country will have a right to stay.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, one of the speakers at Parliament Square, said he spoke not only for the 48 per cent, who voted remain, but also for those who voted to leave the EU.

"We are here to show solidarity and respect for those who voted leave. We do not believe they wanted this. [Theresa May] does not speak for 52 per cent, she barely speaks for five per cent," he said.

Addressing the crowd, Tottenham MP David Lammy said: "There are lots of people against Brexit in this country, and people are changing their mind.

"We're here because of a lot of anti-immigration rhetoric. We're living in a dictatorship. In democracies, people are always allowed to change their minds. Over the coming months and years we will fight. Nigel Farage wouldn't give up. Labour needs to rediscover its mojo, and quickly."

Rallies celebrating the 60th anniversary of the EU's founding treaty were also held in Berlin, Rome and Warsaw.
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Boris Johnson reportedly urged David Cameron to apply for the role of Nato secretary-general, when the pair met for dinner in New York.

The Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister were seen leaving the Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem earlier this week.

As the pair shared a meal, Mr Johnson is said to have urged his former schoolmate to consider the senior role with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). It comes with a tax-free annual salary of 222,019.

The pair's relationship is known to have become strained after Mr Johnson opted to join the Leave campaign during the EU referendum.

Boris Johnson and David Cameron leaving restaurant in New York separately (Twitter/Joanna Geary)

Whitehall figures say Mr Cameron is the British Governments first choice for the position, which is generally appointed through the back channels of the most influential member states.

Mr Cameron has kept a relatively low profile after resigning as Prime Minister and quitting as an MP in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.

But he has emerged as a front-runner for the Nato role with the incumbent, former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, expected to stand down in the next two years.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said the UK will play a bigger role in Nato to make up for its withdrawal from the EU.

Both Mr Fallon and Chancellor Philip Hammond are said to be keen that Mr Cameron should throw his hat into the ring for the role, which is regarded as the top defence position in the organisation.

It has been claimed that Mr Johnson broached the subject over dinner, although the Government has yet to make any official statement on the role.

The Foreign Secretarys spokesman denied the pair had been dad-dancing after a picture emerged of Mr Johnson apparently standing on a chair during the meal.

Mr Cameron has not publicly ruled out considering the role and is understood to have met former Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen in January.

Those who champion Mr Cameron believe he has the ideal experience to lead the alliance at a time when its importance has been questioned by some, including Donald Trump, who recently branded it obsolete.
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The government department responsible for taking Britain out of the European Union has defended barring European nationals from some of its posts.

While the Department for Exiting the EU bolsters its staff ahead of negotiations to secure crucial trade deals and other agreements, several vital roles are deemed too sensitive for non-Brits.

That includes a job collecting records complying with freedom of information laws, some diplomatic posts and those involving access to intelligence from MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, The Times reports.

 Article 50: What will happen after it's triggered?

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, accused the Government of being gripped by paranoia threatening to see civil servants selected by nationality over talent.

The Department for Exiting the European Union employs people from all backgrounds, including a number of EU nationals, a spokesperson for the department told The Independent.

But because of the sensitive nature of the work done at the department, a small minority of posts are reserved for UK nationals.

This is standard practice across the Civil Service, based on security advice, which sees around 25 per cent of jobs reserved overall.

Our approach is not new or remarkable and entirely in line with that taken by other departments.

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

Staff from across the Civil Service have been flooding into the Brexit department, since the shock vote for Britain to leave the EU last June raised fears the Government was woefully under-resourced to tackle the transition.

The formal process to leave the block will start on Wednesday with the triggering of Article 50, following Theresa Mays commitment to take the step before the end of March.

Sir Tim Barrow, the UKs permanent representative to the EU, informed the European Council Presidents office of the move last week.

David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, said the Government was on the threshold of the most important negotiation for this country for a generation.

The Government is clear in its aims: a deal that works for every nation and region of the UK and indeed for all of Europe  a new, positive partnership between the UK and our friends and allies in the European Union, he added.

Thousands of anti-Brexit protesters were expected to march through Westminster on Saturday amid calls for a second referendum on the terms of the UKs departure.

It coincides with the EUs 60th anniversary celebrations in Rome, where leaders of the other 27 remaining member states will gather to discuss plans for the future of the union without the UK.
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The official Leave.EU campaign has asked whether Douglas Carswell  who has announced he will quit Ukip and sit as an independent MP  was "a Tory plant all along".

Mr Carswell has clashed with Ukip's leadership in recent months and was its only MP. Party donor Arron Banks reacted to the news with a smiling face emoji.

The official Leave.EU Twitter account set up a poll on the social networking site, and said: "Douglas Carswell, who supports mass immigration, is finally out of Ukip. Was he a Tory plant all along?" The only options are 'Yes' and 'Definitely'.

Mr Carswell, who represents Clacton in Essex, defected to Ukip from the Conservatives in 2014. He said he would not return to it this time.

On his website he said: "Like many of you, I switched to Ukip because I desperately wanted us to leave the EU. Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving Ukip.

"When first elected to represent Clacton in 2005, I promised to do all I could to help ensure that Britain left the EU. To the consternation of my then party whips (some of who, I'm delighted to see, are now ministers helping make Brexit happen), I made my intentions on that front plain in my maiden speech. Job done."

The Independent has contacted Mr Carswell for comment.
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Ministers have been accused of breaking promises to roll back the database state after a watchdog condemned the storing of police mugshots of millions of innocent people.

The independent Biometrics Commissioner has attacked the Governments weak response to a High Court ruling  five years ago  that the mass retention of custody images is unlawful.

The Home Office has proposed only that police forces be required to consider requests to delete images from people who have not been convicted of any offence.

But Paul Wiles, the Commissioner, has told ministers that the public deserves a presumption of deletion, forcing the police to prove why mugshots of the innocent need to be retained. There are more than 19 million images in total.

In a sharp rebuke, Mr Wiles said the Governments proposal leaves the governance and decision making of this new process entirely in the hands of the police.

The verdict has been seized up on by civil liberties groups, who said it showed ministers are failing to abide by a damning High Court ruling.

Bella Sankey, policy director at Liberty, said: The Biometrics Commissioner is right to feel let down. Innocent peoples photographs are held on a searchable database.

Responsibility shouldnt fall to the public to apply for their images to be deleted  the police should automatically clear out their own systems.

The criticism was echoed by Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights Group, who said: Its essential that pictures are automatically removed unless police give a reason to retain them. We are meant to be presumed innocent.

The Commissioner outlines exactly how intrusive this national database is becoming as facial recognition is applied to it. He is also damning about the lack of safeguards surrounding its use.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: The Tories used to warn about a database state, and now, by stealth they want to create one.

If your mugshot is still on file, and you havent been found guilty of anything, you have to ask nicely for it to be removed. This is utterly scandalous.

The controversy follows the long-delayed Home Office response, last month, to the 2012 ruling that automatically keeping custody pictures of adults and juveniles facing no police action breaches their human rights.

Despite that judgement, police forces have quietly continued to build up a massive database without any of the safeguards that apply to DNA and fingerprint data.

The database now boasts more than 19 million custody images  pictures and videos  of people police have previously arrested and questioned. Facial recognition technology is used to identify suspects and to help investigations.

The Home Office insisted it is impractical to insist police forces go through all 19 million images and delete those of people who were not convicted of an offence.

Instead, it proposed a system of requesting deletion  but leaving the police with the discretion to retain an image where this is necessary for a policing purpose and there is an exceptional reason to do so.

It also rejected the same system introduced for DNA profiles and fingerprints  where most profiles are deleted automatically  because many peoples faces are on public display all the time.

But the Commissioners response, quietly slipped out by the Home Office, called for greater independent oversight, transparency and assurance.

Leaving decisions in police hands risked variation in decision making between forces resulting in a postcode lottery as to whether images are retained, Mr Wiles warned.

Furthermore, a request system to delete arrest records saw just 1,003 applications logged by the 896,209 people arrested in 2015-16  of which only 233 were accepted by the police.

Mr Wiles reserved his strongest criticism for the Home Offices claim that mugshots are less intrusive than DNA or fingerprints.

I disagree with that assertion, he wrote. In fact, the use of facial images is more intrusive because image capture can be done using cameras in public places and searched against Government databases without the subject being aware.

Facial images are no longer only used solely for custody purposes and image capture, and facial searching capabilities have and are being used by the police in public places.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd had claimed her proposals struck a careful balance between protecting individual privacy and giving the police the tools they need to keep us safe.

The Coalition Government in 2010  with Theresa May as Home Secretary  vowed to scale back Labours database state, passing a flagship Protection of Freedoms Act.

It forced the destruction of most fingerprint and DNA profiles and curbed the collection of biometric data from children, CCTV use and the collection of communications data by public bodies.
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Michael Gove has the same crazy anti-Muslim policies as Donald Trump, according to a former chairwoman of the Conservative Party.

Baroness Warsi has described the former Tory leadership contenders views as deeply, deeply worrying, arguing they were a strong influence on David Camerons policy shift on tackling extremism.

Before being made Education Secretary, Mr Gove wrote a provocative book about Islamist terrorism, arguing that a sizeable minority of British Muslims hold rejectionist Islamist views.

In an interview to promote her book, Baroness Warsi said she was tempted to agree with the suggestion that Mr Gove radicalised the former prime minister.

When you hang out with someone at weekends and spend holidays with them and your kids hang out together, you discuss things and share things and influence people in a way that you cant around a Cabinet table or in a formal meeting, the Conservative peer said.

I dont have a personal issue with Michael, hes never done anything to me personally  but politically I find his views and what I saw in Government deeply, deeply worrying.

Im just pleased the Conservative Party didnt feel he was fit to be Conservative leader. If Michael had been left to run this [anti-extremism] policy in the way he would run it, we would be seeing the kind of things that were now seeing in the White House.

The Gove-esque view of the world is very much in line with the anti-Muslim policies of Donald Trump and his crazy people, Baroness Warsi added.

The only difference is in Britain there are too many other rationals among the politicians to say: we're not going down that route. Nevertheless, she said, Islamophobia is a bigotry blind spot for us.

Speaking with the i newspaper, before this weeks terror attack on Westminster, the peer ennobled and promoted by Mr Cameron criticised the Governments controversial anti-terrorism Prevent strategy for being bizarrely misguided.

It was targeting young Muslims, when so many terrorists come from other backgrounds and convert to jihadism with little or no experience of Muslim life, after being preyed upon by extremists, she said.

Mr Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown all lectured Muslims on what they should do to stop terrorism, leaving their diverse communities feeling alienated and more vulnerable to radicalisation.

Baroness Warsi said: I felt the David I knew in 2006 was a real person. If I ever went in and had a one-to-one conversation with him, that David would come back again.

But his speeches became more antagonistic. Where David was in 2006 was completely different to where he was in 2016.

The peers book, The Enemy Within, analyses the UKs relationship with its Muslim communities and the dangerous misunderstandings of them.
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An Egyptian airline has seen its first ever all-female crews take to the skies.

Egyptair has dispatched its first two flights staffed exclusively by women and said it has a total of 12 female pilots and co-pilots working on different types of aircraft.

The two flights departed for Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait from Cairo at the same time on Wednesday.

The company said the move was a celebration of International Womens Day this month while the government announced 2017 would be the year of Egyptian women, according to the government's website.

Egypts minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathi said his ministry considered working women indispensable partners in every aspect of the civil aviation sectors.

Egyptair Airlines chief executive, Captain Sherif Ezzat, said: It is time to promote womens empowerment and encourage more Egyptian women to pursue aviation careers. Today is going to be very inspiring for all the women all over the world, aviation women and particularly the Egyptian woman.

(Egyptair ) (Egyptair)

The airline is not the first to announce an all-female flight deck crew in a sector still largely male-dominated.

Last year, Royal Brunei Airlines first all-female pilot crew landed in Saudi Arabia, where women can pilot a plane but are still not allowed to drive a car.

But the occurrence of two female in the flight deck is still rare.

Only one flight in about 300 to and from the UK is flown by two women, 17 have one male and one female pilot and the remaining 282 are two-men on the flight deck.

Only three per cent of pilots worldwide are female, a figure which is hardly bigger in the UK with six per cent.
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A Libyan court has suspended an agreement struck with Italy aiming to reduce refugee boat crossings across the Mediterranean Sea.

A document released by the justice ministry in Tripoli did not give a reason for the move, which comes as an increasing numbers of migrants are launched by smugglers towards Europe with the arrival of spring.

The justice ministry of the Government of National Accord (GNA) confirms that the court is still examining the issue in order pending a ruling, and that no final judgement has been issued, it said.

The GNA is not recognised by Libya's Tobruk-based parliament, which backs a rival administration in eastern regions where a powerful Russian-backed warlord holds sway.

The rival parliament declared the agreement struck between Tripoli and Italy null and void in February and declared the GNA had no legal status in the Libyan state.

Continued conflict between warring parties since the Nato-backed removal of Muammar Gaddafi has worsened around crucial oil ports this month, endangering European efforts to replicate the EU-Turkey deal, which dramatically cut refugee crossings to Greece last year.

Rising arrivals to Italy sparked attempts to stem the flow by increasing cooperation with authorities in Libya, where 90 per cent of boats crossing the Central Mediterranean are launched.

 Desperate journeys: Rescued at sea, refugees detail abuse in Libya

But the UN-backed GNA is failing to regain territory controlled by factions including Isis, while armed gangs and smugglers have capitalised on widespread lawlessness to detain, extort, enslave and eventually export migrants for profit.

More than 5,000 asylum seekers were killed attempting the treacherous crossing in 2016 and a record of at least 583 more have died so far this year, with fears of another 240 drowning when their dinghies sunk last week.

Recommended More than 240 refugees feared drowned in the Mediterranean

A deal struck between the Italian and Libyan prime ministers in February said it aimed to tackle people smuggling, with Paolo Gentiloni pledging millions of Euros and equipment to bolster the capacity of Libyan authorities.

The move, backed by fellow EU member states at a summit in Malta, alarmed the UN and humanitarian agencies who have long reported the murder, torture, rape and abuse of migrants in both government and militia-run detention centres.

The Libyan coastguard, being trained by the UK and other European nations, is additionally accused of attacking international rescue ships, shooting refugees and causing hundreds to drown.

Almost 22,000 migrants have been rescued at sea and taken to Italy so far this year, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries and Bangladesh.

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

EU leaders are aiming to shift some of the responsibility for search and rescue operations to the Libyan government and hope to set up new migrant camps in the country where failed asylum seekers can be returned to their home countries before journeying to Europe.

But the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) cautioned that it could take a long time for facilities to meet international humanitarian standards.

There are a number of vital issues that need to be addressed regarding Libya, Stephane Jaquemet, the UNHCRs regional representative for southern Europe, told The Independent.

Interior ministers from Libya, Tunisia, Italy, Germany, Malta and other nations affected by the crisis released a fresh declaration to tackle the root causes of migration and combat smuggling on Monday, but it was unclear how their aim can be achieved.

Tensions are also increasing over Russias alleged support for General Khalifa Haftar, whose Libyan National Army resists the GNA.

Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army, leaves the Russia's foreign ministry after a meeting in November 2016 (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

The 73-year-old veteran, who served under Gaddafi before fighting to oust him in 2011, visited Moscow twice last year and was invited on to Russias Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier as it returned from waters off the coast of Syria in January, for talks with the defence minister.

Sir Michael Fallon criticised the discussions, saying: We dont need the [Russian] bear sticking his paws in.

The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, responded by saying there was no animal in Britains zoo that can tell a bear what to do.

General Haftar has the backing of Egypt and the UAE but was shunned by Barack Obamas administration. Donald Trumps position remains unclear.

The head of US forces in Africa said there was an undeniable link between Russia and General Haftar, saying Russian troops were on the ground and trying to influence the action in the region.

Marine General Thomas Waldhauser said the US would maintain a force in Libya, where it backed local forces in the offensive to drive Isis out of its stronghold of Sirte.
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Angela Merkel has reportedly given the go ahead for Ivanka Trump to visit Germany on official White House business.

The pair met in Washington DC last week, but the first daughter has now been offered the opportunity to view some of the European countrys vocational training centres by a group of business executives.

Ms Merkel is supportive of the idea, according to German newspaper, Der Speigel.

The German Chancellor was pictured speaking to Ms Trump earlier this month during a roundtable discussion on training workers in the US capital.

A White House official said Ms Merkels staff reached out to her directly about setting up the meeting, which appeared far more successful than the one between the chancellor and her father.

The world leaders did not shake hands during their meeting in the White House's Oval Office.

Ms Trumps visit to Germany is believed to be an outcome of the meeting.

At the end of the session, Ms Trump said American and German executives in attendance would form a taskforce that will provide a report in three months detailing programmes that could be expanded and ways the countries can work together.

Germany currently offers a dual vocational training programme to young people, which combines an apprenticeship in a company with theoretical modules at a vocational education centre.

Executives have invited Ms Trump to look at the model.

Ms Trump had previously played a major role in coordinating a similar international workforce meeting during Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus visit last month.

Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Show all 18 1 /18 Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The 12th-century castle dominates Sevnica old town Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The old town has a beautiful riverside setting Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town 'White House' slippers in Sevnica castle Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The annual salami festival, the Salamiada Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Sevnica was a nondescript town before Melania hit the big time AFP/Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Sevnica butchers take their sausage-making skills seriously Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Only men are allowed in the Salamiada Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town As American as.... a Sevnica apple pie Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town There are no plans to make a Donald pie Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The slippers featured in a recent fashion show AFP/Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The castle is one of the top tourist sites in town Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Melanija cake has gone down a storm AFP/Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The smart house still owned by Melania's parents Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town They live in America but visit occasionally Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The communist block of flats in which Melania grew up Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Melania skin cream, for a presidential complexion Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town First lady chocolates, dusted with gold Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Even locals can't get enough of the Melanija cake Nick Redmayne

At the suggestion of Mr Trudeaus office, she helped organise a discussion on economic development opportunities for women.

But despite being influential in policy making, Ms Trump  who will soon have security clearance and a West Wing office, does not currently have an official White House role, which has drawn criticism.

Being designated a White House employee triggers an array of transparency and ethical provisions, including a law prohibiting conflicts of interest.

Government watchdogs are concerned that by refusing to call Ms Trump an employee, the White House could be attempting to give her a loophole if she improperly mingles her government policy roles with her business and financial interests.
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Donald Trump is being urged to publicly condemn a white US army veteran who is accused of killing a black man with a two-foot sword in a racially-motivated attack.

Prosecutors say James Harris Jackson launched a vicious attack on Timothy Caughman in New York on Monday, however the US President is yet to address the killing.

Jackson told police he had been harbouring feelings of hatred towards black men for at least 10 years after he was arrested on suspicion of murder.

He turned himself in at a Times Square police station about 25 hours after he allegedly killed Mr Caughman, who had staggered into a precinct bleeding to death.

"The defendant was motivated purely by hatred," said Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi, who added that the charges could be upgraded, "as this was an act most likely of terrorism."

Mr Trumps radio silence on the attack has been greeted with public outcry, with many Americans urging him to label Jackson a white supremacist and recognise the killing as a terror attack.

On Thursday he tweeted his condolences to US tourist Kurt Cochran who was killed in the London terror attacks.

A man named Timothy Caughman was killed on Monday in NYC by a white supremacist in a terrorist attack. Maybe send condolences to his family, one man wrote in a tweet directed to Mr Trump.

Imagine the headlines if a Muslim would have travelled to New York and murdered a white man with a sword. A sword, another wrote.

Many others have highlighted the the issues Mr Trump felt compelled to tweet about since being elected president.

Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time! Mr Trump wrote in a recent tweet.

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 wrote in another.

Authorities said Jackson came to New York last week to make a splash in the media capital of the world by killing as many black men as possible.

He was armed with two knives and told officers he had tossed the sword in a bin in Washington Square Park, officials said. It was later recovered.

Investigators said they were trying to determine exactly what drove Jackson to violence. They planned to search his laptop and phone and interviewed friends and family.

His attorney, Sam Talkin, said if the allegations are anywhere close to being true, "then we're going to address the obvious psychological issues that are present in this case".
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A gang of armed robbers including a man in a pig mask have opened fire at one of Las Vegas most famous hotels, sparking panic among tourists.

Hundreds fled the Bellagio hotel and casino after the gang targeted its Rolex watch shop in the early hours of Saturday morning, hiding under tables or seeking safety in stairwells.

Mayra Guadalupe Yanez was on holiday with her husband and grandchildren when gunfire broke out.

An armed robber in a pig mask at the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas on 25 March (@Kir_kamil)

She said she saw a man wearing a mask in the shape of a pigs head and carrying a gun fleeing the Rolex shop.

I heard three shots, he was carrying a gun and took the mask off while he was leaving, Ms Yanez told The Independent.

I started running as soon as I heard them. We're really scared.

Several witnesses photographed the suspect, showing him wearing a dark shirt and trousers and carrying a bag. Some said the robbers used sledge hammers to smash their way into the shop.

Guests described mass panic as gunshots rang out at the Bellagio, with hundreds of tourists running outside from the casino area.

Police surrounding the Bellagio hotel after a reported shooting in the early hours of 25 March (Ama Arthur-Asmah)

Everyone running, I'm currently ducked on the floor under a table, a woman caught up in the incident wrote on Twitter.

She and other guests sought refuge in an emergency exit stairwell after hearing "shots and waves of people running, yelling 'run, run!'."

Police put part of the Bellagio on lockdown as guests were evacuated to safety, with dozens of police cars surrounding the resort on the busy Las Vegas Strip.

The citys police department said it was investigating the robbery, adding that initial reports of an active shooter were false and no one was injured.

The preliminary investigation suggests that at least three suspects entered a retail store to commit the burglary, a spokesperson said.

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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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It is believed that at least one suspect fired shots inside the store. At this time, one suspect has been taken into custody.

A member of the Bellagios security department told The Independent he could not give any more information on the incident.

All I can say is everyones fine, he added.

Parts of the Bellagio resort remained closed while the investigation continued into the early hours of Saturday morning  one of the busiest times for the gambling hub.

It is famed for its grand dancing fountains and lake, housing almost 4,000 rooms over two separate buildings, alongside a casino, restaurants, an art gallery, botanical gardens, shops and entertainment.
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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is now planning to attend a major Nato summit, despite previously claiming he could not fit the gathering of foreign ministers into his schedule.

The key Donald Trump ally was reportedly intending to miss his first meeting with leaders of the military alliance, that was originally scheduled for early next month.

However, the meeting has now been rescheduled to accommodate Mr Tillerson.

"The Secretary of State will visit Nato in Brussels on Friday, 31 March," a State Department spokesperson said. "The visit will come after his trip to Ankara, Turkey."

The compromise seems intended to allay fears that Mr Trump will try to withdraw funding from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), which he has previously said is "obsolete".

During his presidential campaign, the billionaire said he would "certainly look at" scrapping the entire organisation.

Although he has since rolled back from that position, he has repeatedly said he feels the United States' contributes too much to the organisation when compared with other members.

Shortly after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he claimed Germany owed "vast sums of money to Nato".

He added that "the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defence it provides to Germany!"

 Rex Tillerson says 'these things happen' when asked about Russian civilians dying

Jorge Benitez, a Director of NATOSource, told The Independent a decision to leave the Alliance would be a "major issue" because "the US plays a leading role in it.

He said it would be "difficult to make important Nato decisions without our top leaders participating and building agreement between the 27 other allies."

But Mr Tillerson will now be able to attend the summit, avoiding a clash with a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which is set to be held on the same dates.
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Bernie Sanders has vowed to make opposing Donald Trump's proposed budget his next fight, following the collapse of the President's plan to repeal Obamacare.

The former Democratic presidential nominee celebrated the withdrawal of President Trump's draft American Health Care Act (AHCA).

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said he had agreed with the President to withdraw the vote, after it became apparent it would not get the minimum of 215 Republican votes needed.

Mr Sanders said the bill's defeat showed "Americans won't accept huge tax breaks for billionaires while 24 million people are kicked off health insurance."

After the setback, Mr Trump blamed Democrats for failing to work with his partydespite the Republicans' control of Congress, as well as the Senate.

It was the second big defeat of presidency, after judges ruled against his revised executive order barring travel from six predominantly Muslim countries. The first order was also thrown out by the courts.

Mr Trump said his party will now go "very, very strongly for big tax cuts and tax reform", something Mr Sanders vowed to fight.

"We now must take on a horrific Republican budget and efforts at 'tax reform' which means huge tax breaks to billionaires and corporations," said the veteran Vermont Senator.

Mr Trump's initial 2018 budget proposal allocates an extra $54 billion (43 billion) for the US armed forces and his promise to construct a wall along the border with Mexico is also provided for in the "pared-down first draft" revealed earlier this month.

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

However, the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department and the Agriculture Department would take big hits to their budgets under Mr Trump's plan, which would also eliminate funding for 19 government agencies.

They include the African Development Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The President has said he wants to cut the rate of corporation tax, currently the highest among advanced economies, from 35 to 15 per cent.

For individuals, Mr Trump has said he wants to simplify the US' tax bands, reducing the number from seven to three, with thresholds at 12, 25 and 33 per cent.

It would mean scrapping the current 10 per cent rate for those earning less than $19,625 (15,737) as well as lowering the amount people can earn before tax kicks in, regardless of how many children live in a household.
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A non-profit organisation that tracks civilian casualties caused by airstrikes in the Middle East said it has shifted nearly all of its resources to track a surge of claims regarding US-led strikes in Syria and Iraq.

The group, called Airwars.org, had been tracking deaths caused by both Russian and US airstrikes but said in a statement Friday that it was suspending its work on "alleged Russian actions in Syria -- so as best to focus our limited resources on continuing to properly monitor and assess reported casualties from the US and its allies.

"Almost 1,000 civilian non-combatant deaths have already been alleged from coalition actions across Iraq and Syria in March - a record claim," the statement said. "These reported casualty levels are comparable with some of the worst periods of Russian activity in Syria."

In the last week, three mass casualty incidents have been attributed to US.-led forces in Iraq and Syria, making March one of the most lethal months for civilians in the the two-year-old war against the Islamic State.

Last week, US drones targeted what locals deemed a mosque in Aleppo province in a bid to target al-Qaida leaders. US officials said dozens of terrorists were killed, but those on the ground said at least 47 civilians also died in the strikes. The Pentagon denied that there were any civilian casualties but has launched a formal investigation into the incident.

On Monday, a conflict monitoring group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said a strike near Raqqa targeted a school that was serving as a home for multiple families displaced by fighting in the area, killing at least 33. The Pentagon admitted US aircraft were operating in the vicinity but, according to Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, the military is having a hard time rectifying the location of the building that was targeted with what was shown as destroyed on social media.

On Thursday, Iraqi media reported that an airstrike in Mosul killed more than 200 people. The Pentagon is investigating the claims.

Recommended Last librarian of Mosul prepares for when his city is free from Isis

After the fall of Aleppo to Syrian and Russian forces in December and the recent escalation of the US-led campaigns against the Islamic State in Mosul and Raqqa, claims of civilian casualties caused by American-led forces have outstripped those caused by Damascus and the Kremlin, according to Airwars.

As Syrian forces advance into opposition-held Hama in central Syria, Airwars has recorded roughly 50 civilian casualty events caused by the joint Russian and Syrian air campaign in March.

Airwars uses varying methods to investigate and confirm civilian casualties, relying on a medley of local news outlets, NGOs, civilian volunteers and social media to determine if casualty reports are fair, weak, contested or disproved. For March, nearly half the alleged strikes are contested, according to Airwars data.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

According to Airwars, more than 2,500 civilians have been killed by the US-led coalition, which has admitted to killing only roughly 220 civilians. In recent months, the Pentagon said it has taken strides to investigate a backlog of claims while starting to release monthly civilian casualty assessments.

"The decision to temporarily suspend our Russia strike assessments has been a very difficult one to take," Chris Woods, the director of Airwars, said in a statement. "Moscow is still reportedly killing hundreds of civilians in Syria every month. But with Coalition casualty claims escalating so steeply - and with very limited Airwars resources - we believe our key focus at present needs to be on the US-led alliance."

Washington Post
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Donald Trump's flagship healthcare bill has been killed off after failing to secure enough support from Republicans, in a major embarrassment for the US President during his first attempt at passing legislation through the House.

The decision, made just minutes before the vote was due to take place, will be viewed as a significant set back for Mr Trump, who has promised to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan told Mr Trump just ahead of the scheduled Friday vote that there were too many dissenting Republicans to pass the American Health Care Act. The White House could only afford to have 22 Republicans vote 'no' on the bill.

We came very close, Mr Ryan said in a press conference.

He said the failure to reach the required 216 votes to pass the bill was a result of moving from an opposition party to a governing party - you have growing pains".

The president gave his all in this effort...hes really been fantastic, said Mr Ryan.

In a hastily arranged news conference, Mr Trump said "we learned about loyalty" in the process of the bill's failure to garner enough votes, but was clear to place blame on Democrats.

Saying the bill had no votes from the opposition, Mr Trump said "I think the real losers are [Democratic Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi and [Senator] Chuck Schumer...they own Obamacare."

Mr Trump continued his rhetoric that Obamacare is a "mess" solely created by Democrats.

House Speaker Paul Ryan addressing the media (Getty)

However he also said "when [Obamacare] explodes - which it will soon - what would be good is if they work with us" to get a better, bipartisan health care bill.

"I worked as a team player" and "learned a lot...about arcane rules in the Senate and the House," Mr Trump said, likely referring to the Senate's Byrd Rule.

It kicked in because Republicans used a method - called the "reconciliation process" - to try and pass a bill that prevented Democrats from filibustering the bill.

However, it also limited the concessions the White House could make to dissenting Republicans known as the Freedom Caucus. The bill would have gone to the Senate once it passed the House.

Vice President Mike Pence and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney joined Mr Trump in aggressive lobbying for votes on the bill with members of the dissenting Republican faction

Despite several concessions and promises being made, Freedom Caucus members still had major concerns about provisions such as the "essential health benefits"; a list of required items that insurance companies must cover for each person under Obamacare regulations.

 Trump says 'Obamacare is dead' as he prepares to repeal and replace healthcare act

A dejected Mr Ryan said this is a setback, no two ways about it and described the Republican conference as let down.

Mr Ryan said he does not blame anyone, but did say it all comes down to a choice...Are all of us willing to give a little to get something done?

House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a press conference what happened on the floor today...is a great day, it's a victory...for the disabled, for senior citizens.

Mr Trump said he was "disappointed and a little bit surprised." Next up for the White House is pursuing tax reform "very strongly", he added.

The bill will also come as a blow to many on Capitol Hill. Several Congressional Republicans ran and won on platforms featuring the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

Mr Trump had promised hundreds of times during his presidential campaign to break through gridlock in Washington DC bureaucracy and repeal and replace the disaster of Obamacare, but added today: "I never said I would repeal and replace in 64 days."
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Donald Trump could be forced to leave office over the investigations into his administrations links with Russia, a former national National Security Agency (NSA) analyst has warned.

John Schindler, a security expert and former counterintelligence officer, said that if the US President was to face an indictment over allegations his campaign team colluded with Russia to disrupt the presidential election, it could put an end to his presidency.

Speaking to CBC radio, Mr Schindler said: If, not just people around him, but the president himself is facing possible indictment down the road, that could be a game changer. He could be removed from office for that, whether he wants to be or not."

Mr Schindler said that with the FBI investigation, actions by Congress and a possible independent inquiry, Mr Trump and his teams alleged ties to Russia would "inevitably" be made public.

The administration isnt getting away from this story, he said.

It comes after FBI director James Comey's confirmed the Bureau was looking into both Russias alleged interference with the 2016 election and also possible links between Moscow and members of Mr Trumps campaign team.

Other congressional committees also are investigating a possible Russian connection mostly behind closed doors.

 Republican says there is 'more than circumstantial evidence' of Trump-Russia collusion

But there have also been suggestions the investigation could lead nowhere.

Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists who broke the Watergate scandal, claimed the US President was involved in a cover up to hide connections between members of his campaign team and Russia.

Responding to these concerns, Mr Schindler said it was possible the investigation could come to a dead end and added: Trump, by inclination, doubles down, triples down, quintuples down at every opportunity.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Trumps former election campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was accused of once working to further the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is now a leading focus of the investigation by American intelligence.

Mr Manafort volunteered to testify as part of the investigation and he is expected to be interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee, the panels chairman has said.

For Mr Schindler, the fact Mr Manafort is willing to testify shows he knows he is facing some very serious federal charges and wants to clear the air.

He said: It tells me that Trump's whole defence is one member of his inner circle away from turning state's evidence and spilling some beans and it starts to be all over. We're not there yet. But I think that day's coming."
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Donald Trump has addressed the failure of the Republican Party's healthcare bill in Congress by saying "Obamacare will explode" and "cease to exist".

The President blamed Democrats' lack of cooperation for having to pull the bill, despite the GOP holding a majority in the House. He said his next priority will be tax reform.

Mr Trump claimed that "I've been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode. It's exploding right now."

"When you get no votes from the other side, meaning the Democrats, it's really a difficult situation," he added.

He said: "We will end up with a truly great healthcare bill in the future.

Recommended Democrats rejoice as Trump is forced to pull healthcare bill

"It will go very smoothly, I really believe, I think this is something that certainly was an interesting period of time. We all learned a lot. We learned a lot about loyalty, we learned a lot about the vote-getting process."

He said he remained confident in Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who he said "worked very very hard" on the bill.

Mr Trump added that eventually Democrats would see the error of their ways. He said: "I honestly believe that Democrats will come to us and say, look, let's get together and get a great healthcare bill, or plan, that's really great for the people of our country."

But following the news the bill had been pulled, Democratic senator Bernie Sanders said: "Our job is to improve the Affordable Care Act, not repeal it. Our job is to guarantee health care to all people as a right, not a privilege."

Mr Sanders had been vehement in his opposition to the Republicans' plan. He added: "The bill's defeat shows Americans won't accept huge tax breaks for billionaires while 24 million people are kicked off health insurance.

And House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said: "Today is a great day for our country. What happened on the floor is a victory for the American people. For our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children."

Asked whether he felt betrayed by the Freedom Caucus, the group of Republican lawmakers who opposed his healthcare plan, Mr Trump said: "I'm not betrayed. They're friends of mine. I'm disappointed. I'm a little surprised, to be honest with you. It was pretty much there within grasp."

Among the group's objections was the "essential health benefits" clause of the bill.

It said that requiring insurance companies to cover a list of itemsincluding, but not limited to, access to mental health services, substance abuse counselling, physical therapy, maternal care and paediatric care like vaccinationswould raise premiums.

The American Health Care Act, Mr Trump and Mr Ryan's proposed plan, would have left 24 million people uninsured by 2026 according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The CBO also said that while it would have saved the government money, people's insurance premiums would have risen by between 15 and 20 per cent above the expected increase under Obamacare.
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America is waking up to the inadequacies of Donald Trump following his humiliating failure to repeal and replace Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act, a former Secretary of Labor has claimed.

In a Twitter post, Robert Reich described the President as incompetent and a liar, adding he may well be a traitor, in reference to ongoing allegations linking his campaign team to Russia.

Most of America is now waking up to the walking catastrophe who is now our president, Mr Reich said.

Mr Reich, who headed the Labor department under President Bill Clinton, picked out three key failures for the Trump administration across what he terms an Emperors New Clothes week.

He begins by noting that Donald Trumps first major legislative goal  repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act  just went down in flames.

Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, were forced to pull the bill after failing to secure the support of enough lawmakers.

Recommended Trump healthcare bill vote killed off by Republican leaders

No Democrats backed the bill, which was seen as a take-down of the Obamacare programme, while some Republicans refused to support it. Despite nominally controlling both Houses of the United States legislature, Mr Trump and his key allies were forced into a humiliating climb-down.

Introduced by then-President Obama in 2011, the Act aims to reduce Americans reliance on costly private health insurance and enable those without insurance to access essential care by introducing subsidies and forcing insurers to accept all applicants.

Secondly, Mr Reich writes, FBI Director James Comey said the FBI has no evidence to support Trump's trumped-up charge that Barack Obama wiretapped or otherwise monitored Donald Trump.

 Trump defeated: President remains bullish despite failure to repeal Obamacare

Contrary to Mr Trumps claims, it is he who is the subject of an FBI investigation into possible collusion with Russian operatives to win the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr Reich says.

Trumps braggadocio has now been revealed as a total sham, Mr Reich concludes. Apart from his most ardent supporters, most of America is now waking up to the walking catastrophe who is now our president. Thats progress.

Now a professor at Berkeley University and a political commentator, Mr Reich has previously served under both Democratic and Republican presidents.
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A young John F Kennedy believed Adolf Hitler might still be alive after the end of the Second World War, a diary entry has revealed.

JFKs diary, which he kept while touring Europe as a war correspondent for Hearst magazines, demonstrates his fascination with the Nazi leader, who he wrote "had in him the stuff of which legends are made".

The President later gave the diary to one of his research assistants, who is auctioning it on the 100th anniversary of his birth. It is believed to be the only one he ever kept.

As a young reporter, JFK travelled to Hitlers bunkers in Berlin, and his Eagles Nest mountaintop retreat, in summer 1945.

[Hitler] had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him, the future President wrote.

Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten Show all 8 1 /8 Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572108.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572107.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572112.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572111.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572109.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572110.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572113.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten 5572114.jpg From Kennedy in Berlin, published by Prestel, copyright Ulrich Mack

After his visit to the Berlin bunker where Hitler committed suicide as Russian troops closed in on the city, JFK wondered whether the Nazi leader might still be alive.

The room where Hitler is supposed to have met his death showed scorched walls and traces of fire, he wrote.

There is no complete evidence, however, that the body that was found was Hitler's body."

A spokesperson for the auction house which is selling the book has strongly denied JFK had any admiration for Hitler, or the Nazi Party.

Theres no glorification, and I wouldnt take this out of context, said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR Auction.

I think Kennedy was a historian, and hes writing his understanding of Hitlers place in history.

JFK love letters for auction

The diary also records JFKs trip to England to cover the 1945 General election. He correctly predicted that Winston Churchills Conservative Party would be defeated.

After studying the state of British politics, the reporter wrote: Capitalism is on the way out - although many Englishmen feel this is not applicable to England.

Socialism is inefficient; I will never believe differently, but you can feed people in a socialistic state, and that may be what will insure its eventual success.

The diary will be auctioned in Boston next month, and is expected to fetch around $200,000 (160,000).
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Democrats in the Senate are ramping-up pressure on the Trump administration to release visitor logs of where the President conducts official business by introducing a bill named after Mr Trumps luxury Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.

The Make Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act  or MAR-A-LAGO Act  demands the administration publish records for the White House or any other location where Donald Trump regularly conducts official business.

It emerged in March that since becoming US President, Mr Trump had spent around a quarter of his time as President in his Palm Beach estate.

 Sean Spicer: Less trips for Trump to Mar-A-Lago to save taxpayer money is "a vast reach"

The Obama administration had a policy of making visitor records public three to four months after they were created and the Democrats have said they expect to see the Mr Trumps logs as soon as 20 April, if the administration is to continue with the procedure.

New Mexico Senator Tom Udall, who is leading the push for the act, said: By refusing to release the White House visitor logs, President Trump is only validating the rampant concerns about who may be pulling the levers in his administration.

The President should end his administrations disturbing pattern of stonewalling information and immediately reinstate the previous administrations policy of publishing White House visitor logs.

Although his Mar-a-Lago resort is a 15-hour drive from the White House, the 126-room estate has been described as an outpost of American government and the President has taken to referring to the complex as his Winter White House.

Mr Trump had an al fresco briefing on a North Korean missile launch in February at the resort, alongside Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. The President has also entertained health care industry executives there.

The group of Democrats are likely to find it difficult to get the legislation passed the GOP-controlled Congress, where Democrats will need to win Republican support to get any bill through.

Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Show all 14 1 /14 Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A lesbian couple kisses in front of mural depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a barbecue bar 'Keule Ruke' on May 19, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Barcroft Media/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A lesbian couple kisses in front of mural depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a barbecue bar 'Keule Ruke' on May 19, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Barcroft Media/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural VILNIUS, LITHUANIA - NOVEMBER 23: A woman walks past a mural showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (R) blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the wall of a bar-b-que restaurant on November 23, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Many people in the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are concerned that Russia, because Trump has expressed both admiration for Putin and doubt over defending NATO member states, will be emboldened to intervene militarily in the Baltics. Sean Gallup/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A woman walks past a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural AP Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A child walks past a graffiti depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a bar in the old town in Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, May 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) AP Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural People walk past a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A man photographs a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural AP Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A young woman walks past a mural showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (R) blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the slogan "make everything great again," in reference to Trump's campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again," on the wall of a bar-b-que restaurant on November 23, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Many people in the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are concerned that Russia, because Trump has expressed both admiration for Putin and doubt over defending NATO member states, will be emboldened to intervene militarily in the Baltics. Sean Gallup/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A morning commuter stops to look at a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Restaurant owner Dominykas Ceckauskas pose next to a mural on the wall of his establishment depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. / AFP / Petras Malukas (Photo credit should read PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP/Getty Images) Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A passerby photographs a mural showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (R) blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the wall of a bar-b-que restaurant on November 23, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Many people in the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are concerned that Russia, because Trump has expressed both admiration for Putin and doubt over defending NATO member states, will be emboldened to intervene militarily in the Baltics. Sean Gallup/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Getty

Effective government is dependent on public trust, but unfortunately, the Trump Administration is missing that key ingredient," said Representative Mike Quigley, co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Transparency Caucus.

With each passing day, the American peoples confidence in our President decreases, and it is no surprise given the administrations efforts to roll back productive policies that increase openness and improve transparency.

While Mr Trump and his family enjoy private quarters in a closed-off area of the grounds, the resort is also home to a members club. The Mar-a-Lago Clubs members include real estate developers, energy executives and Wall Street financiers.

Executive director of the Sunlight Foundation John Wonderlich, who is backing the Democratic bill, said Congress must force the administration to publish the records if Mr Trump refuses to do it voluntarily.

As long as President Trump continues to conduct public business in his private business, the same standards of disclosure should apply to Mar-a-Lago as the White House, he said.
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Donald Trumps former national security adviser has denied discussing the removal of an exiled cleric from the US to face charges over an attempted coup in Turkey.

Michael Flynn was forced to resign from his post after giving incomplete information on discussions over sanctions with the Russian ambassador and is one of several figures being investigated over ties with the Kremlin.

James Woolsey Jr, the former director of the CIA, said Mr Flynn had met with senior representatives of Recep Tayyip Erdogans government in the run-up to the US election on behalf of his Flynn Intel Group.

Mr Woolsey, who was a Trump campaign adviser at the time, advised late to the meeting to find Mr Flynn and Turkish officials allegedly discussing Fethullah Gulen.

 Who is Michael Flynn?

It looks as if there was at least some strong suggestion by one or more of the Americans present at the meeting that the United States would be able, through them, to be able to get hold of Gulen, he told CNN.

Mr Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal he arrived in the middle of the conversation but described the basic plan as a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.

He said he alerted American officials to the alleged conversation, which he called suspicious and concerning.

Mr Gulen, a Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric has been accused of fomenting a violent attempted coup against President Erdogan in July but denies the charge, although his Hizmet movement admits some of its supporters may have been involved.

A lack of evidence caused Barack Obamas administration to refuse Ankaras calls to extradite Mr Gulen but there has been speculation that Mr Trump may not share the position.

A spokesperson for Mr Flynn denied he or anyone else at the meeting had discussed physical removal of Mr Gulen from the United States.

In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Show all 17 1 /17 In pictures: Turkey coup attempt In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Erdogan attends the funeral service for victims of the thwarted coup in Istanbul at Fatih mosque on July 17, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey Burak Kara/Getty Images In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soldiers involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge with their hands raised in Istanbul on 16 July, 2016 Gokhan Tan/Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A civilian beats a soldier after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 REUTERS/Murad Sezer In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Surrendered Turkish soldiers who were involved in the coup are beaten by a civilian Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soliders involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wave flags as they capture a Turkish Army vehicle Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt People pose near a tank after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's Bosphorus Brigde Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A Turkish military stands guard near the Taksim Square in Istanbul Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Pierre Crom/Twitter In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers secure the area as supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan protest in Istanbul's Taksim square AP In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Murad Sezer/Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers detain police officers during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish Army armoured personnel carriers in the main streets of Istanbul Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Chaos reigned in Istanbul as tanks drove through the streets EPA/TOLGA BOZOGLU In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks to media in the resort town of Marmaris Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of President Erdogan celebrate in Ankara following the suppression of the attempted coup Reuters

No such discussion occurred, Price Floyd added in a statement. Nor did Mr Woolsey ever inform General Flynn that he had any concerns whatsoever regarding the meeting, either before he chose to attend, or afterwards.

Mr Flynn heavily criticised Mr Gulen in an article published on election day in November, arguing the US should not give him a safe haven and treat Turkey as a priority and a friend.

Justice Department documents later revealed that the article was linked to research conducted for a Turkish-owned company whose owner is an ally of Mr Erdogan.

Inovo BV paid Flynn Intel Group $530,000 (425,000) for work he admitted may have principally benefitted the Turkish government in official filings.

Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, said Mr Trump did not know Mr Flynn was acting as a foreign agent when he was hired after the documents emerged.

Anyone representing the interests of foreign powers in a political capacity must declare their interest to the US government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Refusals by the American government and much of Europe to recognise the Ankaras accusations against Mr Gulen has worsened relations with Turkey amid Mr Erdogans anger over international criticism of security crackdowns and purges in the military, government and media since the coup.

Turkish cleric and opponent to the Erdogan regime Fethullah Gulen (Getty)

A report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee found that evidence of the Gulen movements involvement in the group was anecdotal and circumstantial, as was evidence used for its terrorist designation by the Turkish government.

While some of the individuals involved in the coup may have been Gulenists, given the large number of Gulenist supporters and organisations in Turkey, it does not necessarily follow that the Gulenists were responsible for the coup or that their leadership directed the coup, MPs concluded last week.

The Turkish President hit out at the head of Germanys BND foreign intelligence service on Friday for suggesting Berlin is not convinced that Mr Gulen orchestrated Julys coup.

Bruno Kahl told Der Spiegel magazine that Turkey tried to convince us on a number of different levels. But they havent yet been successful.

Turkey has been accused of illegally sending agents to spy on followers of the Gulenist movement around in Germany, which is also one of several countries locked in a dispute with the Erdogan government over rallies in support of next months constitutional referendum.

Switzerland has also started a criminal investigation into alleged Turkish espionage at events held at the University of Zurich.
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A security guard who has spent nearly two decades keeping watch over students at a college in the Philippines was able to join their ranks today  as a scholar celebrating his own graduation.

Erwin Macua spent four years juggling his job as a guard at St Theresas College in Cebu City with studying and being a father of three children.

And today, the 38-year-olds efforts were rewarded, as he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Elementary Education degree.

Age is not a hindrance, poverty is not a hindrance, the scholar told ABS-CBN news.

Just pursue your dream with the formula: hard work plus determination plus prayer and you will reach your aspirations in life.

Despite working a long overnight shift from 7pm to 7am, Mr Macua maintained a full course load, attending classes from 7:30am to 4pm, Cebu Daily News reports.

The security guards name has also been on the colleges Deans list since his first year as a student in 2013.

Mr Macua told ABS-CBN it had always been his dream to complete his studies  and that he wanted to be a teacher because of his love of working with children.

Education is a good course to deal with students and you can really change their lives, he told the broadcaster.

The father used his own savings to fund his first year in college, but he says he was sponsored by an anonymous donor for the remainder of his school years.

Mr Macua has said he plans to continue his work watching over students at St Theresas as he prepares for exams to earn a teaching licence.
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The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats are the most popular political party in the Nordic country, according to a new poll.

The YouGov poll showed nearly a quarter  23.9 per cent  of people said they would vote for the party if an election were held now, meaning its support is at nearly double the level of what it was during 2014s general election.

Results put the Sweden Democrats ahead of the Social Democrats, who form the larger part of a coalition government under Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, and well ahead of the Moderates. Support for those parties has fallen by nine and eight points, respectively, since 2014, YouGov found.

Recommended British volunteer arrested for giving food to refugees

YouGov has had the Sweden Democrats ahead of their government rivals for most of the last six months, though Reuters reported that a separate poll on Thursday found the party had 19.2 per cent support, making it the second most popular.

Matthew Goodwin, a senior fellow at Chatham House, said on Twitter: I doubt they will sustain once election nears but given the climate its relevant.

According to its website the party believes the overall net impact of mass immigration from distant countries [is] strongly negative, both economically and socially.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

It says multiculturalism leads to fragmentation and segregation where culture clashes occur, and wants to severely limit family immigrations and reunification to combat forced marriage, trafficking, and economic costs resulting from families being unable to support themselves.

Sweden, which has a population of under 10 million, has taken in many tens of thousands of refugees from Syria, Somalia and Yemen in recent years.

It became the focus of attention after US President Donald Trump suggested the country was having problems like they never thought possible because they took in large numbers of immigrants.
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Donald Trumps anti-EU rhetoric could spark a war in the Balkans, Jean-Claude Juncker has warned.

The US President previously said Brexit would be a great thing for the UK and that a favourable trade deal with the US could tempt others to leave the EU block.

But President of the European Commission Mr Juncker said the European perspective in the Balkans enabled to maintain peace in the region.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Mr Juncker said he had told US Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to Brussels: Do not invite others to leave, because if the EU collapses, you will have another war in the western Balkans.

The only possibility for this tortured part of Europe is to have a European perspective.

If we leave them to themselves  Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, Macedonia, Albania, all of these countries  we will have a war again."

During his visit, Mr Pence said he and President Trump were looking forward to working with the EU to deepen our political and economic partnership. But the comments were received with a pinch of salt and EU leaders have raised concerns over Mr Trumps suspicion of Brussels.

On Friday, Mr Juncker called Brexit "a failure and a tragedy" but said the negotiations for Britain's withdrawal would be "friendly and fair".

But the EU chief also shared his concerns over the Trump administrations intentions when it comes to the US' relationship with Russia.

When it comes to security, Trump is pushing them more and more in the direction of European integration, he said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

There have been concerns over the threat of Russian hacking in Europe, with three major elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany this year.

Front National leader and anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week.

Russian media reported Mr Putin told Ms Le Pen that the Kremlin had no intention of interfering with the election  which it has been accused of doing in the US last year.

Ms Le Pen reportedly called for closer French-Russian ties at a meeting in Russias parliament earlier in the day and labelled sanctions over Russias annexation of Crimea counterproductive.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ms Le Pen and Mr Trump are realists, if you want, or anti-globalists, and not representatives of fringe or populist views.
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Italy might soon become the first Western country with an official menstrual leave policy for working women. The lower house of Italys parliament has started discussing a draft law that, if approved, will mandate companies to grant three days of paid leave each month to female employees who experience painful periods.

The proposed law was hailed by some local media outlets as a positive step to help working women who suffer from cramps. The Italian edition of womens magazine Marie Claire described it as a standard-bearer of progress and social sustainability. But the bill has also its critics, even among the working woman it seeks to protect.

Some fear that the law might backfire, penalising women in a country where they are already struggling to participate in the workforce. If women were granted extra days of paid leave, wrote Lorenza Pleuteri in Donna Moderna, another womens magazine, employers could become even more oriented to hire men rather than women.

Recommended Nearly half of girls unaware what is happening when they start period

On paper, Italy has female-friendly labour laws. Five months of paid maternity leave are mandatory both for employers and employees, meaning that companies must grant the leave and women, with few exceptions, cannot renounce it. During this period, a new mother receives 80 per cent of her salary, paid by INPS, Italys version of Social Security. After that, parents of both genders have the right to take six extra months of parental leave, which is optional and paid at 30 per cent of their salaries.

In practise, however, Italian women struggle in the job market more than women in other developed countries. Italy has one of the lowest rates of female participation in the workforce in Europe. Only 61 percent of Italian women work, well below the European average of 72 per cent.

 Portland Artist Spotlights Donald Trump's Comments with a Portrait Painted in Menstrual Blood

This is due in part to employers reluctance to hire women and retain them after they become mothers. According to a report by ISTAT, Italy's national bureau of statistics, almost one-fourth of pregnant workers are fired during or right after their pregnancies  even though doing so is illegal.

The menstrual leave presents a catch-22: While it could help solve a real issue for Italian women, it may become another excuse for employers not to hire them in the first place.

Women are already taking days off because of menstrual pains, but the new law would allow them to do so without using sick leaves or other permits, said Daniela Piazzalunga, an economist at research institute FBK-IRVAPP, in an email. However, on the other hand I wouldnt exclude that [if the law is approved] this would lead to negative repercussions: The demand for female employees among companies might decrease, or women could be further penalised both in terms of salary and career advancement.

Theres also the danger that, rather than breaking down taboos about menstruation, the debate surrounding the proposed menstrual leave will end up reinforcing stereotypes about women being more emotional during their periods, wrote Miriam Goi, a feminist writer at Vice Italy.

The bill was presented on 13 March by four lawmakers, all women, from the ruling Democratic Party. According to Romes Il Messaggero newspaper, it could be approved in the coming months.

Similar laws already exist in parts of China, Japan and South Korea. A few private companies, including Nike, have also introduced menstrual leaves for their staff.

But experts still can't agree on whether menstrual cycles should constitute an economic and labour issue. A study by two Italian economists published in 2009 in the American Economic Journal concluded that the menstrual cycle increases female absenteeism and that such absenteeism contributes to the wage gap between men and women. A subsequent study published in 2012 on the Journal of Human Resources found no evidence of increased female absenteeism.

 Washington Post
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European Council President Donald Tusk has warned that the EU will either be united, or will not be at all.

Without Theresa May, leaders from the other 27 EU members, were marking the union's 60th anniversary at an informal summit in Rome.

Mr Tusk urged the bloc to come together following Britains planned departure.

But the run-up to the celebrations had been tainted by bitter divisions among EU members, with both Poland and Greece threatening to refuse to sign a formal declaration of unity unless given concessions on key issues such as immigration and austerity.

 Tens of thousands take to streets to demand Brexit be reversed

Eventually they joined their fellow members in signing the Rome declaration, a success for a bloc that in recent years has appeared divided in the face of an influx of refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

Mr Tusk told EU leaders: Europe as a political entity will either be united, or will not be at all, adding that only a united Europe can be a sovereign Europe in relation to the rest of the world.

He said: Only a sovereign Europe guarantees independence for its nations, guarantees freedom for its citizens.

But while much of the language surrounding the Rome treaty related to unity, a principle of disagreement was central to the accord itself.

The agreement will enshrine the idea of a multi-speed bloc, where some nations can move ahead while others stay on the sidelines on specific issues.

Recommended Tens of thousands take to streets to demand Brexit be reversed

The declaration says: We will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction.

The EU has often done this in practice in the past, with only 19 nations in the eurozone and not all members participating in the Schengen zone of borderless travel.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to assuage fears that the multi-speed model would lead to a further unravelling of unity.

The Europe of different speeds does not in any way mean that it is not a common Europe, Ms Merkel said after the ceremony. We are saying here very clearly that we want to go in a common direction. And there are things that are not negotiable, she added, referring to the EU freedom of movement, goods, people and services.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

In a series of speeches, EU leaders also acknowledged how the bloc had strayed into a complicated structure that had slowly lost touch with its citizens, compounded by the severe financial crisis that struck several EU nations over the past decade.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, the host of the summit, said over the past dozen years the EU's development had stalled.

Theresa May's midweek deadline for Britain's triggering of Article 50, will launch the two-year countdown to Brexit.

In the UK, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London on Saturday to demand plans for Brexit be reversed.

Campaigners said the march had been organised to make pro-EU voices heard and to condemn the Leave campaign, which they claim was based on lies and incited hatred.

Associated Press contributed to this report
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An Israeli teenager arrested on suspicion of making multiple bomb threats to Jewish organisations in the US, began his campaign of terror after he was rejected for military service, according to local media reports.

The man, who has dual Israeli-American citizenship, is suspected of making more than 100 threats to Jewish community centres across the US, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

Israels Channel 10 News said he was depressed and infuriated after the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) refused to accept him for military service.

Quoting police sources, the broadcaster said the rejection made him determined to show what he was capable of.

Military conscription exists in Israel for all citizens are over the age of 18, except for Arab Israeli citizens, who are exempted.

It appears the teenager, whose name has not been released to the public by the police, was exempted from service on medical grounds.

 Over 100 tombstones vandalised in Philadelphia Jewish cemetry

His lawyer, Galit Besh, told The Times of Israel her client had a very serious medical condition that might have affected his behaviour. Channel 10 reported the condition was a nonmalignant brain tumor.

The suspect remains in custody, and faces charges of extortion and is accused of sowing widespread fear and panic, police said.

Michael Rosenfeld, a spokesperson for the Israeli Police, said in a statement the young man had used sophisticated technology to mask the origin of his calls to synagogues and community centres.

He didnt use regular phone lines. He used different computer systems so he couldnt be backtracked, Rosenfeld alleged.

The Anti-Defamation League, a US-based Jewish charity, has recorded more than 120 bomb threats against Jewish community centres across the US since 9 January, amid fears of rising anti-Semitism in the country.

A number of Jewish cemeteries have also been vandalised.

Jenny Silverman, President of the Jewish Federation of North America, said in a statement following the mans arrest on Thursday:

It was heartbreaking to learn that a Jewish man is a prime suspect. As a community and a society we must remain vigilant in our effort to counter anti-Semitism and other hate crimes as they appear.

We are fortunate to know we have partners in law enforcement who will do whatever it takes to bring these perpetrators to justice.
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Israel has ignored a demand by the UN Security Council to stop building settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, the UN has warned.

In the first report on the implementation of a UN resolution, which called on Israel to cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory including east Jerusalem, the UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov said that no such steps had been taken.

The resolution did not impose any sanctions on Israel but it enshrined a global disapproval of the settlements.

It was adopted by the Security Council in December with 14 votes in favour and a US abstention.

Israel and then President-elect Donald Trump urged Barack Obama to wield its veto on the resolution.

Mr Mladenov told the council Israel had violated international law by authorising a high rate of settlement expansions.

He said that the actions taken by Israel indicate a clear intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory.

In January alone, he said two major announcements were made for a total of 2,500 new houses in existing West Bank settlements.

For decades, Israel has been constructing Jewish settlements on territory captured in 1967 during a war with its Arab neighbours.

Most countries view Israels activity as illegal and an obstacle for peace but Israel disagrees. Palestinians are calling for an independent state to be formed from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Many of the advancements that were made in the past three months will further sever the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state and accelerate the fragmentation of the West Bank, said Mr Mladenov.

He added settlements were one of the main obstacles to peace.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Mladenov also said some Palestinian groups, including Hamas, are continuing to incite violence against Jews and that an increase in rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel was a worrying development that was undermining the prospects for peace.

He added it was regrettable that the Palestinian Authority had not condemned the attacks and he slammed the violence as unacceptable.

Reactions by Hamas officials to terror attacks against Israelis have been particularly reprehensible and deserve condemnation, Mr Mladenov said.

The Security Council resolution was first put forward by Egypt, who then withdrew it under pressure from Israel and Mr Trump, and was put forward again by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal.

Israels UN Ambassador Danny Danon said: There can be no moral equivalency between the building of homes and murderous terrorism. The only impediment to peace is Palestinian violence and incitement.

Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour told reporters: Settlements need to be stopped, not only because they are illegal, but they are the main obstacle in the path of the two-state solution.

Additional reporting from Associated Press and Reuters.
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Iraqi forces have been forced to pause the offensive on the Isis stronghold of Mosul by the catastrophic rate of civilian casualties reported in the city.

The US-led coalition is investigating allegations its air strikes killed more than 130 men, women and children as they sheltered in their homes in the western district of al-Jadida.

Central Command confirmed it carried out bombings that correspond to allegations of civilian casualties for the first time on Saturday, but insisted the strikes hit Isis fighters and equipment.

Local residents said at least 137 civilians had been killed in a cluster of homes hit on 13 and 17 March, which some reported had previously been used as a sniper position by Isis.

Journalists saw children and a pregnant woman among at least 50 bodies recovered from the rubble, with limbs and shoes protruding from destroyed houses.

Iraqi government forces suspended their six-month advance on Saturday amid growing international pressure over the incident and numerous other allegations of civilian deaths.

The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans, a Federal Police spokesman said. Its a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on.

 Iraqi forces launch push to retake western Mosul from IS

A spokesperson for the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve said an investigation had been opened to determine the validity of claims over its strikes and insisted they corresponded with international law.

The coalition respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from Isis brutality, he added.

Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of Isis inhuman tactics terrorising civilians, using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighbourhoods.

The Pentagon previously announced four strikes near Mosul on 17 March, saying they destroyed 25 fighting positions, 56 vehicles plus a suicide car bomb.

The US official civilian death toll from the air campaign against Isis in Syria and Iraq stands at 220, although monitors say the real total is far higher. Not-for-profit group Airwars warned this week of record deaths as bombing reached unprecedented intensity.

It said the number of reported civilian casualties in coalition strikes has hit 1,000, with allegations accelerating under Donald Trump to suggest possible key changes in the US rules of engagement that are placing civilians at greater risk.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

The President issued an executive order demanding a new plan to defeat Isis from his military, which arrived on his desk in February but has not been detailed in public.

The UN said it was profoundly concerned by the reports emerging from al-Jadida, which it described as densely populated.

We are stunned by this terrible loss of life and wish to express our deepest condolences to the many families who have reportedly been impacted by this tragedy, said Lise Grande, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq.

Nothing in this conflict is more important than protecting civilians.

International humanitarian law is clear. Parties to the conflict  all parties  are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians.

This means that combatants cannot use people as human shields and cannot imperil lives through indiscriminate use of firepower.

Senior Iraqi politicians also expressed concern, with speaker Salim al-Jabouri saying that although MPs recognised the responsibility shouldered by government forces, they must spare no effort to save the civilians.

Iraqis displaced by fighting flee to the Al-Sumoud neighbourhood of Mosul on March 22, 2017 (AFP/Getty)

Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi, himself from Mosul, described the al-Jadida strikes as a humanitarian catastrophe, calling for an emergency parliamentary session and an immediate investigation into the incident.

Isis has been fortifying Mosul, where leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his Islamic State in 2014, for almost four years and its militants are deploying suicide car bombs, mines, booby traps, ambushes, mortars and drones to defend their last city stronghold in Iraq.

Faced with their toughest battle yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to air strikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Mosuls densely-populated western districts.

Progress has faltered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the narrow alleys of the Old City, where thousands of civilians have been fleeing every day.

An army statement published in the al-Sabah state newspaper said that future operations would be carried out by ground troops highly trained for urban combat.

Our heroic forces are committed to the rules of engagement which ensure protection of civilians it added.

Fleeing residents have described grim living conditions inside the city, where up to 60,000 people remained trapped, saying there is no running water or electricity and no food coming in.
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Jalud, West Bank  Palestinian farmer Fawzi Ibrahim is proud of his heirloom corn, whose kernels ripen in iridescent shades of red, blue and gold like jewels.

But what makes it priceless are the obstacles he faces to grow his crops.

Small farmers struggle worldwide. But international experts say Palestinian farmers face disabling odds in the 60 per cent of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control and is home to some 400,000 Jewish settlers.

As settler agricultural start-ups get prioritised access to water, export markets and development rights, the Israeli occupation is roiling the centuries-old pastoral life of Palestinian farmers, experts say, adding fuel to a conflict in which land is a trigger.

For years, Israeli settlers have chased Ibrahims tractor, threatened him, yelled at his Israeli soldier escorts, tried to burn his fields and warned that letting him farm would risk bloodshed, according to the Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights.

Ibrahim must coordinate with the Israeli army because his land is in a security zone abutting Israeli outposts, the group said. But he and his lawyer waited eight weeks for permission to plant 50 acres of winter wheat in just two days, under the guard of two jeeploads of Israeli soldiers. A human rights worker and Israeli settlers looked on.

Ibrahim said he fears he will suffer thousands of dollars in farming losses again this year.

Theyre making us poor, he said.

A recent UN report said the Israeli occupation has set off a continuous process of de-agriculturisation in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, depriving the Palestinian economy of potential agriculture revenue of $700m, by World Bank estimates, as Israeli settlers bar Palestinians from crops, grazing lands and springs.

The World Food Program is providing food assistance to 75,000 Palestinians in Area C, according to local spokesman Raphael du Boispean.

Muhammad Muqbil, a Palestinian father of nine and grandfather of 38, says he had his olive trees stolen by settlers (Anne-Marie OConnor/Washington Post)

A December report by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said Israeli settlements have overtaken a half-million acres of former Palestinian lands in Israel-controlled Area C, which was placed under full Israeli control in 1990s accords. BTselem said an estimated 200,000 and 300,000 Palestinians live in Area C.

What the Israeli settlers are doing in those areas is a disaster, said Avshalom Vilan, executive director of Israels powerful Farmers Federation, a mainstream private farmers group. Theyre stealing from the lives of their Palestinian neighbours, and making their lives impossible.

Its in Israels interest for Palestinian farmers to work their land peacefully, Vilan said. We will all pay for this.

Yishai Fleisher, the international spokesman of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, said that life will be much easier for Palestinian farmers under a one-state solution, in which minorities are incorporated into the state of Israel.

Jews live in the settlements because they are the heartlands of the Bible and Jewish history, Fleisher said. Many of us are also in the settlements to thwart the two-state solution, because we think it's wrong, unjust and dangerous.

Spokesmen for the Israeli settlers Yesha Council, the Agriculture Ministry and the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment.

Israels Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Unit, or COGAT, said 5 per cent of Palestinian fields adjacent to Israeli villages in the West Bank require Israeli permission and escorts to ensure that their work goes undisturbed ... while implementing their right to cultivate their land.

COGAT said it provided 600 such escorts in 2016 for the Palestinian olive harvest, a target of Israeli settler attacks.

The Rand Corp. said settler attacks quadrupled from 2006 to 2014 and are an important trigger of Palestinian retribution.

A 2013 World Bank report said the agriculture contribution to the Palestinian economy declined by more than half in Area C in the past two decades, with Palestinians losing access to water and land, and less than 1 per cent of land designated for Palestinian construction.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlement agriculture rose 35 per cent, by World Bank estimates, with growing exports to Europe and Russia.

COGAT said Israelis provide training to Palestinian farmers and operators of a German-financed wastewater treatment plant, and oversaw the shipping of 113,000 tonnes of Palestinian produce outside the West Bank in 2016  a tiny fraction, said Palestinian Authority official Marwan Durzi, of the export potential of 2.6 million tonnes of Palestinian agriculture.

Durzi said settler appropriation of springs forces Palestinian villagers to drastically reduce village herds, while Israeli authorities deny Palestinians permits for wells and cisterns and demolish non-permitted irrigation.

Since most Palestinian families in Area C live partly on farming, its crippling, Durzi said.

Ibrahim was a scion of a prosperous family in the 1980s, when Israelis took 2,000 acres of family farmland and olive groves in the West Bank, ending his agronomy studies at Texas A&M University.

Israeli rights groups helped him recover 100 acres.

Ibrahim watches subsidised Israeli agriculture start-ups flourish on land he claims at Shvut Rachel, a Jewish outpost founded in the name of Rachela Druck, a settler killed in a 1991 Palestinian attack on a bus. Shvut Rachels most famous onetime resident, Jack Teitel, was convicted in 2013 for killing two Palestinians.

Alleged Hamas militants shot Israeli student Malachy Rosenfeld on the highway as he traveled through the area in 2015  just a few miles from Ibrahim's land.

In January, Israeli authorities indicted four Israeli settlers who lived on a hilltop near Ibrahim's fields in Geulat Zion  once home to an Israeli accused of the 2015 firebomb killing of a Palestinian mother, father and baby in nearby Duma  after Israeli undercover police allegedly caught them going after Palestinian farmers with stones and truncheons.

Settlers do what their government wants them to do, Ibrahim said. They want them to take the land.

Ibrahim said his family once farmed alfalfa and barley on land seized for vineyards by the Esh Kodesh outpost, which has Israeli-supplied water.

But Aaron Katsof, an Esh Kodesh vintner, insisted that there was nothing here.

An Israeli court ordered a settler to clear his vineyards off a parcel of Ibrahims land by December 2015, and though the settler finally moved this year, he was convicted of kidnapping and beating a Palestinian shepherd, and Ibrahim says he's still afraid to reclaim the land.

Ibrahim remembers the days when younger Palestinians waited for the harvest to marry, and patriarchs lived well from the land.

To Ibrahims generation, he said, land is life.

Diabetes has forced him to rely on a cane, but Ibrahim said he is determined to end his days as a farmer.

If I leave, they'll take the land, he said. Then Ill have nothing.

 Washington Post
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The UK has put the United Nations Human Rights Council "on notice" over what it called its "disproportionate focus on Israel".

On the final day of the council's 34th session the UK mission to the UN said it would vote against all resolutions about Israel's conduct in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories if things did not change.

While it made clear its "serious concerns about the growth in illegal demolitions and settlement activity" and said the UK stood "shoulder to shoulder with the international community" in support of a two-state solution, it added the council's "unacceptable pattern of bias" would only make the goal harder to achieve.

The statement, made during the deliberations on Friday, continued: "The trend of Israeli conduct in the occupied Palestinian territories over the past year has been negative.

"But we must also recognise the continuing terrorism, incitement and violence that Israel faces. Renewed Hamas efforts to rebuild their tunnels are a grave concern. The scourge of anti-Semitic incitement and glorification of terrorism continue.

"And yet neither 'terrorism' nor 'incitement' were a focus of this weeks council discussions and resolutions. This is not acceptable."

The mission also questioned why Israel was still a standing agenda item while "Syrias regime butchers and murders its people on a daily basis".

According to UN documents, the United States was also "disappointed that the council continually singled out Israel for criticism without fully acknowledging the violent attacks directed against its people, nor the obligations and difficult steps required of both sides".

Briefing notes showed US representatives saw Israel's agenda item status as "among the largest threats to the credibility of this body".

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday she was concerned about Israel's building of settlements in the occupied West Bank, which she said was undermining progress towards a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Israel is building settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalemwhich it seized in a 1967 war and has occupied for nearly 50 yearswhere Palestinians want to establish their state and capital.

"I see no reasonable alternative to the goal of a two-state solution," Ms Merkel told reporters before holding talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Berlin.

On the issue of the settlements, she added: "I am very concerned about developments in the West Bank, which are leading to an erosion of the basis for a two-state solution."

And Donald Trumps administration has threatened to withdraw from the Human Rights Council, arguing that the US wants to improve global human rights and defend Israel.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrote in a letter to nine UN advocates and human rights groups that the council must undergo "considerable reform for us [the US] to participate" and that the US "continues to evaluate" the council's effectiveness.

Mr Tillerson, who has been given authority as to how and when the US executes its funding cuts to the UN, said he was concerned about the human rights record of other countries in the 47-member council, such as China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Supermarket giant Tesco will unlock 100,000 of its coin-operated shopping trolleys after it failed to convert them in time for the circulation of the new 1.

The new, lighter and reportedly more secure 12-sided coin enters circulation on Tuesday, beginning a six-month transition period before the old "round pound" ceases to be legal tender.

Meanwhile, supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi have said all of their trolleys have been updated ahead of the Tuesday deadline.

Local authorities are already coping with a surge in the number of abandoned trolleys, after a tax on plastic bags came into force that encouraged some shoppers to leave supermarkets with the carts.

Tesco said trolleys across fewer than 200 of its shops will be unlocked from Tuesday as the store upgrades them to accept the new coin.

A Tesco spokesperson offered assurances that all trolleys would be upgraded by the time the new round pound ceases to be legal tender on 15 October.

We're replacing the locks on our trolleys to accept old and new pound coins as well as existing trolley tokens," they said.

As an interim measure we will unlock trolleys while this process is completed and we will continue to have colleagues on hand to attend trolleys in our stores, so our customers aren't affected by the changes.

It recently emerged that the new 1 coin could pose problems for drivers, with an estimated one in ten parking meters not ready for the change.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA 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

Vending machine operators are also not prepared. Despite a 32m industry effort to upgrade Britain's vending machines, 15 per cent of them still unable to accept the new coins.

The Automatic Vending Association (AVA) said that with around half a million vending machines across the UK, ensuring all of them are upgraded is a major operation.

The body has estimated that all vending machines will be fully upgraded by the end of the transition period in October.

The new coin has been described as the most secure coin in the world, boasting high-tech features, including a hologram.

The coins have been made at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, at a rate of three million per day.

They have a gold-coloured outer ring and a silver-coloured inner ring and are based on the design of the old 12-sided threepenny bit, which went out of circulation in 1971.

It might take a few days or weeks for people to start seeing the new 1 coins turn up in their change as they gradually filter into general use.

The production of the new coins follows concerns about round pounds being vulnerable to sophisticated counterfeiters. Around one in every 30 1 coins in people's change in recent years has been fake.

Press Association contributed to this report
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The INSIDER Summary:

Pilots have resting cabins where they can sleep on long-haul flights.

The cabins are usually located behind the cockpit and above first class.

The small sleeping area typically contains a lie-flat bed, reclining seats, and sometimes a TV and bathroom.

Passengers aren't the only ones who sleep on long-haul flights. Flight attendants and pilots need their rest as well  but you won't catch them snoozing in economy class.

While flight attendants sleep on bunk beds in tiny crew rest areas, pilots get their own separate sleeping compartments, where they can spend up to half of their time on a long flight.

Most fliers are completely unaware of these hidden sleeping quarters. Here's what they look like.

On most planes, the pilot's resting area can be found above first class and tucked behind the cockpit, as it is on this Boeing 777.

Boeing

Pilots can access their sleeping quarters either by climbing hidden stairs or a ladder, like this one. (Mal Muir/AirlineReporter)

The sleeping berths look wide and comfortable enough, and there are curtains to help drown out the sound of the plane. There's also a phone in the room in case the resting pilot is needed

(David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter (David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter)

Some pilot's quarters come with a sink or bathroom, similar to this crew bathroom on a Lufthansa Airbus A380. Essentially, it looks the same as any economy class bathroom but it's probably cleaner and there's less wait time.

(David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter (David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter)

This pilot's resting area on an American Airlines 777 has a TV. The screen is definitely larger than the ones economy passengers are used to.

(David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter (David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter)

On this Air New Zealand 777, the pilot's compartment is designed in the standard layout, with two reclinable seats and beds at the back.

(David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter (David Parker Brown/Airline Reporter)

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There have been remarkable acts of civil protest and disruptions over the last few months. From the womens march, to sit-ins about Obamacare, attempts have been made everywhere to stymie the chaos that has governed our lives and the news cycles since Trumps inauguration.

This renewed sense of political urgency has been no different when it comes to Jewish communal responses to the potential impact of this new regime. And amongst many other worries of increasing anti-Semitism, the oppression of religious minorities, the confirmation of David Friedman as the Ambassador to Israel this week is in many ways a watershed moment for diaspora Jewish engagement with Israel/Palestine.

This appointment is a blow to many of us who believe in the values of democracy, and human rights, and who believe those values are found staunchly within our Jewish religious and cultural tradition. Yet a man who has publicly called Jews who dont support settlement expansion as worse than the kapos at Auschwitz, and who continues to deny the rights of Palestinians, is now charged with representing the one of Israels closest international allies.

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

There is a growing sentiment amongst the American Jewish community that feels worried about the authority a man like Friedman will have in influencing actions on the ground in Israel/Palestine. It is inevitable that his confirmation will only embolden Netanyahus government in pushing for a hard line, pro-settlement, anti-democratic stance. For me, the fundamental injustice of this appointment is what it signifies for the possibility of an end to the Occupation. Its tragically poetic that during the year of the 50th anniversary of Israel securing control over the territories, an individual whose repugnant ideas of what it means to support Jewish self-determination, one which rests unequivocally and unapologetically on the oppression of another people, is now legitimised in an unprecedented way.

Not to mention the alarming on the ground consequences that will arise were Friedman to fulfil his promise, for example, to move the American embassy to Jerusalem. It is yet another example of this dumpster fire of an administrations ability to dredge up individuals with the capacity for potential for harm so great, that it leaves me with an existential anxiety that is difficult to shake.

Even AIPAC, an organisation which is continuously criticised amongst the liberal Jewish community for failing to effectively address the Occupation, settlement expansion and the undemocratic legislation passed recently in the Knesset, continues to support at least in words, a two-state solution. The fact that even by their standards, Friedmans attitude towards Israel/Palestine is inflammatory is indicative of the changing political landscape that seeks to legitimise these extremist views as valid avenues for diplomatic action.

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Here in the UK research shows us that the majority of Jews in this country support a two-state solution and are concerned that the settlements continue to be an obstacle to peace. Many of us mourn the seemingly never ending Occupation  it fills us with a sense of despair. Organisations like J Street, If Not Now, and their equivalents in the UK have given young Jews like myself a space to engage with Israel in a way that allows us to hold onto our values of social justice and human rights. To be slandered by the likes of Friedman as a kapo, language usually reserved for the likes of social media trolls, sends the message to the progressive Jewish world that we are not welcome. It is a message to progressives that is echoed in other appointees, cabinet members and staff of the Trump Administration; to challenge the status quo, to work for a more just world is no longer part of the plan.

This type of hyper-nationalist rhetoric does not represent me. It doesnt represent the thousands of activists and allies who will continue to demonstrate the number of ways that Friedmans appointment will only bring strife to Israel/Palestine. It is likely that his role will cause the Jewish community across the political spectrum to question what it means to have a connection to Israel. In all likelihood, things will inevitably get a lot worse, before they get better. If that makes you feel a bit hopeless, join the club.
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Guests at the Old Post Office Building in Washington DC that is now a luxury Trump hotel have not, best I know, had any complaints about ghosts springing from the closets or unexplained bangs in the night. But it may only be a question of time.

Its not just that the buildings Romanesque architecture, a few doors from Donald Trumps new billet on Pennsylvania Avenue, gives it a perfect haunted house aura. It can look positively spooky on a misty, moonless night. Rather, it is about one deceased woman who right now is surely tempted more than ever to rise from the grave and wander its corridors in rage.

I refer to Nancy Hanks, by all accounts a formidable force who died prematurely from cancer in 1983 when she was just 55 years old. A distant cousin of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, she was the first female chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). She was appointed to the post in 1969 by President Nixon and held it for eight years.

It was during that tenure that Hanks spearheaded a campaign to block plans for the demolition of the building, an ultimately successful crusade that earned her a special posthumous honour; the year of her passing, the whole splendid pile was renamed the Nancy Hanks Center.

That it has now become a jewel in the crown of the Trump hotel chain would surely be injurious enough. But now a far greater insult has been added. The organisation that Hanks headed so zealously  before she was done she had persuaded the federal government to increase its annual budget from just $8m to $114m (91m)  has now been slated for extinction by Trump.

Mike Huckabee is bucking fellow conservatives to defend the National Endowment of the Arts (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

America First" seemingly means ditching all things common good in favour of fattening the military and cutting taxes on the rich. Trumps draft spending plan submitted to Congress includes slashing the budgets of places like the Environmental Protection Agency (down 31.4 per cent) and the overseas development arm of the State Department, USAID (28.7 per cent). It would also signal the end of the road for the NEA and its two sister agencies, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Oh, the joy of the conservative movement, for who the NEA, which sprang from Lyndon Johnsons Great Society, has long been its bugbear number one. If the CPB, which sustains public radio and television stations across the land, especially in rural areas, and the NEH, provider of grants for projects aiming to maintain the countrys grasp of its own history  such as the Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War, a staple of classrooms for 30 years  are slain also, then so much the better.

Why such animus? One way to explain is to reach back to the late Eighties when conservatives accused the NEA of providing funding for exhibitions featuring works they condemned as pornographic or blasphemous. Exhibit A was Piss Christ by Andres Serrano, a photo image of Jesus on the crucifix soaking in the artists urine. From there, move right along to the seven pieces in the late Robert Mapplethorpes X Portfolio, including images of a finger inserted in a penis and a bull-whip being similarly positioned into the photographers rear end.

For better or worse, the NEA has been extremely careful ever since to avoid giving its dollars to projects likely to draw fresh conservative fire. Yet, some on the right still havent recovered. George Will, the syndicated columnist, couldnt help evoking the Mapplethorpe/Serrano brouhaha writing in support of Trumps euthanasia instincts. He also resurrected the old chestnut that the arts are a hobby for, and benefiting, the elite. The NEAs effects are regressive, funding programmes that are, as Paul Ryans House Budget Committee said, generally enjoyed by people of higher income levels, making them a wealth transfer from poorer to wealthier, he wrote, citing the budget preferences of the House speaker.

This also has to do with the debate over what is the proper scope of federal government. No one doubts the military falls within its spending ambit, but doling out taxpayer dollars for arty-farty endeavours is altogether more iffy to conservatives. Let the states fund these things if they want to. Beyond that, leave support of the arts to philanthropic organisations. Philanthropy, including giving by churches, is the fall-back for conservatives whenever they move to cut social spending. And in their minds, of course, the best art is art that is financially self-supporting.

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Thats nice. But there are only so many philanthropic dollars, even in America. And does anyone believe that the NEA could have brought professional Shakespeare productions to more than 2,000, mostly small, communities in all 50 states if they had to turn a box-office profit? Or that any of the recent Illinois-based NEA programmes recently highlighted by the Chicago Tribune would have happened without federal help, including mentoring of at-risk teens through folk music, or the recent staging of a Latino Film Festival by the International Latino Cultural Center?

Oddly, one of the more eloquent defences of the NEA has been offered by one of the countrys most committed conservative voices. Writing in the Washington Post, former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a bass guitar fiend in an earlier life, took the opportunity to slam celebrities who, he says, are professional anti-Trump whiners (you listening, Meryl?), but then fiercely rebutted the for-the-elites argument made by Will.

I do care greatly about the real recipients of endowment funds: the kids in poverty for whom NEA programmes may be their only chance to learn to play an instrument, test-drive their God-given creativity and develop a passion for those things that civilise and humanise us all, Huckabee wrote. Theyre the reason we should stop and recognise that this line item accounting for just 0.004 per cent of the federal budget is not whats breaking the bank.

The money point is apt. These dollars are vital for these agencies and recipients of their grants, but piddling in the greater scheme of things. Trump wants to eliminate the NEAs $148m budget, the NEHs $148m and the CPBs $445m, as well as $230m for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which supports Americas libraries and museums. Thats less than $1bn or about one deck of the yet-to-be commissioned aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, visited by Trump recently. Its currently budgeted to cost $13bn.

All is not yet lost. The budget that eventually emerges from Congress will not be the same as the one proposed. But the risk is that, after decades of trying, conservatives on the Hill may finally have the clout to sink these arts agencies. My guess is that more living Americans will mourn them than they realise. That will include inner city kids who like their poetry slams and residents of rural areas that otherwise wont see Shakespeare or have a local public radio station updating them on pork belly futures and other doings of their communities.

And there will be one dead American for whom the demise of the NEA, in particular, would be the final insult sufficient, perhaps, to stir her from eternal rest.
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Few people are better than Donald Trump at spinning things to their own benefit. From claiming the crowds that turned out to see him on inauguration day were the biggest in history, or else claiming he knows better than military professionals on how to defeat Isis, the New York tycoon has never lacked in braggadocio or swagger.

But as it become clear that for all his efforts  a mixture of charm and threats  the Republicans simply did not have enough votes to pass a healthcare replacement bill, he looked rather pathetic.

There were things in this bill I didnt like. Both parties can get together and do real health care, thats the best thing, he said. This means were going to have an even better bill.

But as Trump spoke, through a forced trial, it was pretty clear that he was not even convincing himself. He insisted that he liked House Speaker Paul Ryan, and that he had worked very hard. But just a few hours earlier, he had effectively thrown him under the bus, making clear that he should never have gone along with Ryans ill-prepared, ideologically-driven assault upon Obamacare.

Some people are already claiming Trump is now a lame duck; that he will not be able to achieve anything else after this setback.

The Democrats and other opponents of Trump may wish that to be the case, but it is not. If the next legislative project he takes on is a planned and coordinated push for more tax cuts or infrastructure investment, the businessman will be able to recover his swagger and claim some easy victories.

But his defeat on Friday, and the recognition that the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, will for now remain in place, is seriously damaging for a number of reasons. And Trump knows that.

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The first 100 days of any presidency are always considered the most crucial, the best chance to push ahead with marquee projects and initiatives for which the new incumbent wants his administration to be forever associated. Its a time when there is, usually, a degree of goodwill within the country, and among their party there is a readiness to throw themselves behind the mandate the nations voters have just delivered.

But 10 weeks into his term, Trump has suffered a defeat that stings him in two ways.

For all his efforts to try to put the blame on Ryan, Trumps decision to put his shoulder behind the Republicans American Health Care Act has meant people can draw two lessons: either he is either not the persuasive dealmaker he has always projected himself as, or else his partys elected politicians are insufficiently scared of him and are more worried about their own supporters, who they need to reelect them in 2018.

We came very close, Ryan said afterwards at a press conference.

The Republicans bill was always a pretty lousy thing. Hardline conservatives hated it because they believed it provided too many entitlements to people, while moderates feared that millions fewer people  an estimated 14m in 2018 alone  would be able to afford health insurance.

The public also appeared to hate the bill. A recent Quinnipiac University poll suggested that just 17 per cent of the public approved of the measure, while 56 per cent disapproved.

All of which had left close observers of Washington wondering why Trump decided to get behind something neither he or most of his voters care about in the first place.

While he was happy to knock Obamacare on the campaign trail, and while it earned him cheers, Trump was never as obsessed about cutting coverage as Ryan or the members of the hardline freedom caucus. Trumps voters invariably prioritise issues such a job creation, immigration, tax reform and a rebuttal of the Washington establishment that the president just utterly misjudged.

His attempt to blame the House Democrats for what transpired is even more feeble.

He has come away looking hapless, chaotic and ineffective. For a man who campaigned as someone who could be relied on to get things done  even against the toughest odds  that is not a good look.
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The United Nations is raping children. The facilitation of these child rapes is in part funded by the UK taxpayer.

You think this is fake news? Well lets go right to the top and check the facts.

Earlier this month, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in releasing the 2016 UN annual review said that there were 145 cases of sexual exploitation and abuse involving troops and civilians across all UN peace missions in 2016 alone. The United Nations Secretary General is talking about his own organisation.

These 145 cases involved 311 victims and even the UN recognises that this is the tip of the iceberg. Many of the victims, by the UNs own admission, are children.

UN Peacekeepers and staff raping children is not a right-wing conspiracy or fake news, it is admitted by the UN itself. But is the UN repeating the mistakes of the Catholic Church by obfuscation and minimisation of the problem, not talking it head on and stamping it out?

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The UNs language is interesting here. It is wishy-washy as if child rape were a problem that needed to be minimised, not wiped out.

I fully recognise that no magic wand exists to end the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse, Guterres said. Nevertheless, I believe that we can dramatically improve how the United Nations addresses this scourge.

Dramatically improve the situation? He is kidding right? What about wiping it out?

The Secretary General proposed a four-part strategy: putting the rights and dignity for victims at the forefront of UN efforts; working relentlessly to end impunity for those guilty of sexual abuse and exploitation; building a network to support UN efforts including civil society, external experts and organisations; and raising worldwide awareness of the problem to address the stigma victims face.

I have a much better idea. Lets start with the language that is used here. Let us not hide behind large concepts. Let me be blunter.

What is a better term than sexual abuse of the 14-year-old child, together with her 18-year-old friend, set upon by UN peacekeepers near Bambari airport in Central African Republic late in 2015?

This is not sexual abuse. This is the gang rape of a child. It is neither sexual abuse nor an indiscretion. It is not something to be minimised. It is something to be wiped out with brutal efficiency.

If this is not shocking enough, the 14-year-old child became pregnant (as many others who are abused do) and her rape was paid for and facilitated by you, the reader. You paid for this gang rape through your taxpayer funds to the UN.

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Have you ever wondered why countries like Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan send so many peacekeeping soldiers? It is because the UN pays for these countries to send soldiers. It is a huge export earner for their militaries and it is paid for by the net contributing countries like the UK, the US and Australia.

And this is not a surprise or unknown. Google food for sex and UN sexual abuse and see just how much comes up and for how long it comes up. See for how long Kofi Anan, Ban Ki Moon and now Antonio Guterres have been saying something must be done.

I am not a right wing UN basher  I used to work for the UN. As my close friends will tell you, one of the reasons I left the UN is because I call them the second largest harbourer of paedophiles behind only the Catholic Church. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe the UN is worse.

How bad could this problem be?

Well, the UN has well in excess of 100,000 staff and Peacekeepers at any given time. Often the number is higher. Approximately two-thirds are male  at least 66,000. The National Crime Agency in Britain estimates one in 35 (almost three per cent) of the male population have paedophilia tendencies.

Recommended Trump to order billions of funding cuts to UN agencies

If the UNs staffing profile was similar to the broader population that would mean that there are about 2,000 men with paedophilia tendencies working for the UN.

And many of them are in positions of authority, with diplomatic immunity and impunity to act.

And the UN wants us to believe that the number of victims is in the hundreds?

Here is what I think should be done.

The UN and large international NGOs need to put specific paedophile checks and filters in place in the recruitment process. I know few NGOs that do.

Second, the International Criminal Court should be empowered to criminally charge UN staff, Peacekeepers and international NGO staff for crimes involving children.

Thirdly, the UN knows which soldiers were deployed in areas where the children were raped. Those soldiers should all be DNA tested and matched against the children born of rape. The rapists should then be charged, if not in their home courts then elsewhere.

Fourthly, all UN agencies and NGOs should have independent and robust confidential whistle blowing procedures to identify the paedophiles.

The UN should be given six months to implement this mechanism  failing which all funds should be withheld from the agency.

What can you do to help? Do not donate a single cent or pound to any organisation unless it satisfies you that it has a process to eliminate paedophilia. And how can you tell? Here is a good test: ask the agency how many of its staff they have referred to the police. Because if the answer is none then they are not taking this problem seriously.

Is this too extreme?

People have been using soft words about paedophilia in the UN and large NGOs for decades. None of this is secret. None of this is surprising. But never have we actually put pressure for something to be done.

This is child rape, perpetrated in our name, using our money and it must stop. Now.

Andrew MacLeod worked as an aid worker for the Red Cross in Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s and for the UN in Pakistan, Afghanistan as well as other locations in the 2000s. He is the author of A Life Half Lived, published by New Holland Press and can be followed on Twitter @AndrewMMacleod.
Garda Traffic Corps from the Cork North Division stopped this vehicle in Mallow, Co. Cork yesterday and kicked off a massive debate online about the legality of the drivers actions.

Gardai said there was no tachograph in use and the driver had no Certificate of Competency.

However, Gardai also hit out at the driver over the weight of the load.

"The maximum allowable weight for this vehicle and trailer was 9.5 tonnes but as you can see, the combined weights were far in excess of this" it said.

The move by the Gardai sparked a massive online debate on whether the drivers actions were legal.

One man questioned Gardai asking "What was the weight of trailer, truck and straw bales when ye weighed it?" while a whole host of people saying that there was no way the load of straw was over 9.5t.

"Bales must be full of water to weight over 9.5 ton".

"I would say the lorry no more than 3.5 tone for it's a aloy body the trailer 1 tone Witch is bout 4.5 /5 tone there's not 5 tone of bales".

"No way that's over 9.5tons ! 9 round bales and 10 large square !?," were just some of the comments online.

Other recent agri related road offences

Driver stopped in Wexford. No licence to tow trailer- so no insurance. He won't be able to dig his way out ot that. pic.twitter.com/6k4YFLjZFv  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) March 14, 2017

Gardai conducting Operation Thor checkpoint in Wicklow seized Tractor as it hasn't been taxed/insured for 15+ years. pic.twitter.com/OibMXBI3e5  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) March 8, 2017

'Time to retyre' - Tipp Traffic Corp seized this tractor driving on 3 wheels & 4th wheel tied to rear. Driver was 'wheely wheely sorry' pic.twitter.com/WlMibLG6QD  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) February 21, 2017

Meath traffic unit on patrol, driver of tractor holding a mobile phone. FCPN issued 80 and 3 points. pic.twitter.com/QINBJ34NcM  Garda Info (@gardainfo) November 29, 2016

Meanwhile, the issue of tachographs has also been highlighted by those in the agriculture community recently.

Recent legislation put a limit of 100km radius for tractors to travel from their base of operations.

However, Farm Contractors Ireland (FCI) said recently that many modern tractors are required to transport machines and farm produce greater distances, where the use of a truck would not be practical or economical due to the relatively low value of the goods in transit, such as straw.

FCI is calling for this limit to be raised to 180km.
'For every woman that gets to the top, theres another nine that dont,' host Norah Casey told the audience in Dublin

Lucy Gaffney, chairwoman, Communicorp, and Louise Phelan, vice president, PayPal, raise their hands in agreement that Tanaiste Francis Fitzgerald should become the next Taoiseach at the Planet Woman Academy in the RDS. Photo: Damien Eagers

Some of Ireland's most innovative and powerful women shared the secrets of their success at the fifth annual Planet Woman conference at the RDS in Dublin yesterday.

Female leaders from across the business spectrum offered the audience a glimpse of what it takes to succeed at the top of the corporate ladder.

The event began with a stark statistic from host Norah Casey, who informed the crowd that "for every woman that gets to the top, there's another nine that don't".

However, attendees were soon treated to some fascinating insights into what it is that makes a successful career woman. The tone of the event prioritised the practical over the purely aspirational, with the speakers delving into illuminating detail about how best to add value to an organisation.

"Ten percent of what happens to me is what I learn. The rest is what I do about it," said Louise Phelan, PayPal vice president of Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

"I had been in an amazing company in GE. But I did need a change. I needed to get out of my comfort zone. I did 16 interviews with PayPal before I got the job."

Communicorp chairwoman Lucy Gaffney began by offering a prize of 10,000 worth of advertising on any of the company's radio stations.

Ms Gaffney told the audience of having to drop out of college, a decision that was forced upon her because she wanted to be with her husband against the wishes of her parents.

She said she left radio station 98fm having been passed over for promotion by owner Denis O'Brien. She founded her own business and noted that Mr O'Brien was the first client at her new firm.

However, she said she was relieved to eventually return to work for the Irish businessman.

"I have great respect for people who run their own business, but I found it too stressful," she said.

She said there had been no pivotal moment over the course of her career.

"Failure is not a bad thing. Success is not final and failure is not fatal. I have absolutely had people that have championed me. Denis O'Brien asked me to run a division of Digifone and I sat in front of him crying thinking I can't do it. So it helps when you have people around you that support you and believe in you."

The conversation surrounding who will be the next Taoiseach once Enda Kenny steps down has been centred around Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar. However Tanaiste Francis Fitzgerald said she could potentially throw her hat into the ring.

Ms Fitzgerald said she was "seriously considering" running for the leadership, a statement that was met with enthusiastic applause.

Enterprise Ireland ceo Julie Sinnamon said that Brexit "has changed my life".

Ms Sinnamon went on to say that there had been a degree of denial in the aftermath of the UK vote with many people hopeful that "sense would prevail in the end".

She said that Irish businesses were now adjusting to the reality and expressed confidence that the country could weather the turbulence that is likely to ensue once Article 50 is triggered.
Richie Boucher to leave just ahead of his 60th birthday, in line with the banks mandatory retirement age

Bank of Ireland's long serving chief executive Richie Boucher will retire before the end of the year, the bank said yesterday, staying on while the lender looks to find a replacement.

He'll leave ahead of his 60th birthday, in line with the bank's mandatory retirement age.

A recruitment process is under way, but analysts said a pay cap which has been in place since the bank bailouts may limit the potential candidates.

Bank of Ireland's new CEO will earn a maximum of 500,000 a year, less than Richie Boucher's 843,000 pay package.

He was exempt from the salary restriction because his pay was agreed before it was introduced.

"It (the pay cap) will narrow the field especially if you are looking at someone in the big UK banks. Internally it is not going to be an issue and it might not matter for someone prepared to take a longer term view," Investec analyst Owen Callan said yesterday.

Bank of Ireland shares dipped yesterday, an ironic tribute to the most senior Irish banker to have come through the crash without losing his job.

His appointment in 2009 was highly controversial. Before the crash Richie Boucher had led the bank's retail arm - including mortgage lending. He was close to property developer Sean Dunne, including backing his grandiose plans to develop the heart of Ballsbridge.

As CEO his blunt style rubbed many up the wrong way. In 2011 he had an egg flung at him at the bank's annual general meeting. His insistence that the bank's PLC status, rather than its dependence on taxpayers, should set the terms of the debate during hearings of the Oireachtas Finance Committee meant he frequently antagonised TDs and senators.

He was described by one TD as having "a hide like a rhino", a simile helped by the Zambia-born rugby fan's heavy South African accent.

He described formerly staid Bank of Ireland succumbing to the then prevailing bubble in earthy terms. "At a wild party even good girls can get into trouble," he said.

But Boucher oversaw a dramatic overhaul of the lender. He secured 1.1bn from backers, including Wilbur Ross, that kept the bank from full nationalisation.

Restructuring, which included around 6,000 job losses and asset transfers to Nama, shrank the bank dramatically but Boucher defied Brussels to retain New Ireland Assurance.

A return to profit has seen Bank of Ireland return 5.9bn to taxpayers for the 4.8bn it received. The State retains a 13pc stake.

Read more: Internal candidates and outsiders in the running for top bank job
A second, unnamed senior executive at media group Independent News and Media made a complaint under whistleblowing legislation to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE), it is now understood.

On Tuesday, INM, which owns the Irish Independent, said it was complying with a requirement from the ODCE to produce records in relation to a possible acquisition by the company of Newstalk.

It was reported at that time that the engagement with the ODCE had been prompted by a disclosure understood to have been made by INM CEO Robert Pitt under new whistleblower legislation.

The 'Irish Times' has now reported that a second protected disclosure was also made to the ODCE.

Both approaches to the ODCE are understood to have happened around the same time last year.

Protected disclosures allow an employee or employees to come forward to the State's corporate governance watchdog with information which they believe may provide evidence of wrongdoing found in the course of their work.

'Issue'

"The company does not intend to comment further regarding the ODCE's request and the independent review," a spokesman for INM said.

It is understood that the original complaints, made under the Protected Disclosure Act 2014, were made around the time that INM issued a statement to the stock exchange confirming that an "issue" had arisen between CEO Robert Pitt and INM chairman Leslie Buckley over a possible acquisition of Newstalk.

They are understood to have disagreed about the potential price INM might bid for Newstalk.

The bid talks did not progress. Businessman Denis O'Brien is the largest single shareholder in INM and is the owner of the Communicorp Group, whose assets include Newstalk.

This week, INM said that it had established a formal independent review to examine and inquire into matters concerning the possible acquisition of Newstalk and related matters in December last, before being contacted by the Director of Corporate Enforcement.
YouTube has a decade-long head start, but obviously everyone wants a piece of the pie

The decision by a handful of high-profile consumer brands to pull advertising from Google's YouTube over offensive content could threaten the site's long-term strategy of stealing ad revenue from television, analysts and ad industry professionals say.

The immediate financial impact of the controversy is likely to be limited, in part because a big chunk of YouTube revenue comes from smaller advertisers who lack the budget for TV campaigns and do not have easy alternatives.

Some analysts also believe that departing advertisers, eager to reach YouTube's millennial audience, will quickly return.

But with "brand safety" emerging as a major concern for marketers amid a surge in hate speech and other types of offensive content across the internet, the widespread assumption that major advertisers are ready to shift large chunks of their budgets from TV to digital now looks much more dubious.

"The challenge with this is that you have algorithms vetting content and inventory," said Justin Cullen, chief digital and data officer for Core Media, one of Ireland's largest ad agencies. "It's impossible to vet everything manually, so they need to improve and make their processes more robust. They need to open their platforms up to third party measurement and verification."

Core Media suspended advertising campaigns on YouTube and Google Display Network on behalf of clients such as Heineken, AIB and the National Lottery.

Expand Close CEO Alan Coxs Irish-based Core Media suspended advertising on YouTube. The agency says processes need to be more robust / Facebook

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"If Google wants the revenue back they have to do something," said Mr Cullen. "There has to be an extra amount of rigour to ensure brand safety for clients. If there isn't sufficient confidence, brand owners aren't going to take the risk."

YouTube, part of Alphabet, has spent years courting big brands that spend hundreds of millions annually on air time. But over the past week, giant US companies including Verizon Communications, AT&T and Johnson & Johnson have cancelled their YouTube ad deals.

"Video is actually a lot more fragile of an ecosystem than the Silicon Valley, software-eats-everything crowd may want to think," said Joel Espelien, a senior analyst at the Diffusion Group, which studies the future of television.

"The point is all content isn't actually the same, all advertising isn't actually all the same. There is an element of taste. And when you ruin that, the whole thing does kind of start to fall apart."

Google offers little visibility into YouTube's financial performance, but analysts view it as a key driver for the company's growth as its traditional search advertising business matures. Analyst Mark Mahaney of RBC Capital Markets estimates YouTube will bring in about 12 billion in revenue this year.

Whether the recent events are a mere blip on the radar for Google or a harbinger of bigger problems to come may depend on whether the company can quickly improve its technical tools to give advertisers more control over where their ads appear.

YouTube has begun reviewing its advertising policies and will take steps to give advertisers more control, Philipp Schindler, Google's chief business officer, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. Google also plans to hire more people for its review team and refine its artificial intelligence - a key step, since much of the ad-serving is handled by automation.

YouTube faces a special imperative to keep creators happy as rivals such as Facebook and Twitter try to court talent for their own platforms, said Hank Green, a prominent YouTube creator who runs the VidCon conference. "YouTube has a decade-long head start, but obviously everyone wants a piece of the pie," he said. (Additional reporting Reuters)
The London Stock Exchange in the City of London. Photo: Reuters

European indices were mixed yesterday amid stronger than expected business activity figures, and nervousness over US President Donald Trump's efforts to push through his healthcare reform.

Investors sold Eurozone government bonds as reports on private-sector activity in the bloc provided further signals of economic growth, strengthening the case for a withdrawal of monetary stimulus.

Despite uncertainty over the delayed US healthcare vote that may have implications for the "Trumpflation" trade, Eurozone government bond yields rose.

The rise came as a survey showed businesses across the Eurozone ramped up activity at the fastest pace in almost six years in March to meet burgeoning demand. French and German business activity also expanded more than expected in March.

Any reading above 50 on the PMI index suggests expansion, and the French number was 57.6, the German 57.0 and the Eurozone equivalent was 56.7. "It will be a confirmation of the economic strength in the Eurozone, and that means there's more of a case for the ECB to tighten (monetary policy)," said DZ Bank strategist Christian Lenk.

In Ireland, the ISEQ Overall Index fell 0.57pc to 6,604.07.

It was pushed lower by declines in shares including those in Bank of Ireland, after CEO Richie Boucher confirmed he'll leave this year. Shares in the bank were 0.8pc lower at 24 cent.

Other movers included packaging giant Smurfit Kappa, with its shares falling 3.6pc to 24.10. Shares in travel software firm Datalex rose 3.2pc to 3.77.

The FTSE-100 was flat, while Germany's DAX rose 0.2pc. France's CAC-40 was down 0.2pc.

Engineering firm Smiths Group was the top gainer on the FTSE, rising 2.9pc.
Marian Finucane is one of the highest paid presenters on RTE

Late, Late Show host Ryan Tubridy is RTEs best-paid presenter and commands annual fees of 495,000 for his services.

RTE has "no plans" to release the salaries of its top earners until 2018.

The revelation came after the national broadcaster announced this week it plans to make 200 to 300 staff redundant having lost 100m in revenue since 2008.

The decision not to release salary details this year means Ray D'Arcy's pay packet will not be released until next year, over three years after he returned to the station in 2014.

D'Arcy's salary, rumoured to be in the region of 500,000, has been a source of great controversy. It was brought up in the Dail in 2014, with TDs calling for greater levels of transparency within RTE.

Expand Close Ray D'Arcy Picture: Andres Poveda / Facebook

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RTE began publishing the details of the incomes of top-tier presenters during Cathal Goan's tenure as director general. They are released every second year. As they were published last year, RTE is under no obligation to release any further information until 2018.

Asked if it would be releasing details of individual salaries, such as D'Arcy's, a spokesperson said: "RTE does not comment on individual salaries."

They also stressed that RTE presenters are "not necessarily" the top earning broadcasters in the country.

"But RTE is the only media organisation that discloses pay details," the spokesperson said.

Expand Close Marian Finucane is one of the highest paid presenters on RTE / Facebook

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Last year, RTE announced a 40pc reduction in fees paid to the top 10 earners compared to 2008 figures.

Earlier this week, director general Dee Forbes defended the high salaries of presenters such as Ryan Tubridy - who is paid 495,000.

"Those salaries are 1pc of RTE's total cost base. Our top talent is no longer the only talent in Ireland, and to ensure that you have strong voices and faces of the organisation, talent is important."
The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

Family Liason Officer Garda Sinead Barrett bringing flowers to Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

Garda Supt. Tony Healy from Belmullet Garda Station speaking during a press briefing at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

Garda Supt. Tony Healy from Belmullet Garda Station, Jurgen Whyte from the Air Accident Investigations Unit (centre) and Micheal O'Toole who is On Scene Cordinator for the Irish Coast Guard speaking during a press briefing at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

An Irish Coast Guard Helicopter lands at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

A Doctor passes through a Garda checkpoint at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

Two Gardai look on from Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

Jurgen Whyte from the Air Accident Investigations Unit, Garda Supt. Tony Healy from Belmullet Garda Station and Micheal O'Toole who is On Scene Cordinator for the Irish Coast Guard arrive to speak at a press briefing at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

An Irish Coast Guard Helicopter lands at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

The Irish Coast Guard land at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

Calm seas as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

The Irish Coast Guard land at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017

Investigators have confirmed that a crew member of the Rescue 116 helicopter has been located in the aircraft's wreckage but added that they can not confirm his identity this stage.

Senior Gardai and rescue workers added that the two other missing crew members had not yet been located.

The three men- Mark Duffy, Ciaran Smith snd Paul Ormsby- were on board the Irish Coast Guard helicopter when it collided with the Blackrock island on the early hours of March 14.

Speaking at a media briefing at Blacksod lighthouse at 11.30pm tonight, Garda Supt Tony Healy said: "I can confirm that we found the body of a crew member in the cockpit section of the aircraft on the seabed. Operations will continue over night.

Expand Close (From the top left, clockwise) Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, winchman Ciaran Smith and winchman Paul Ormsby. Photo: Irish Coast Guard/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp (From the top left, clockwise) Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, winchman Ciaran Smith and winchman Paul Ormsby. Photo: Irish Coast Guard/PA Wire

"It is not possible to confirm the identity of the crew member at this point," Supt Healy said.

The senior officer also met with relatives of the three missing crew members this evening, and said that they were constantly being updated on any developments.

"It's obviously a very challenging time for the family and they're going through a difficult time and stressful situation waiting for the recovery of their loved ones. They are being fully updated by a garda family liaison officer,"Supt Healy said.

Efforts are currently focused on retrieving the crew member who has been located.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close The Irish Coast Guard land at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 Calm seas as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 The Irish Coast Guard land at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 An Irish Coast Guard Helicopter lands at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 Jurgen Whyte from the Air Accident Investigations Unit, Garda Supt. Tony Healy from Belmullet Garda Station and Micheal O'Toole who is On Scene Cordinator for the Irish Coast Guard arrive to speak at a press briefing at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 Two Gardai look on from Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 A Doctor passes through a Garda checkpoint at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 An Irish Coast Guard Helicopter lands at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 Garda Supt. Tony Healy from Belmullet Garda Station, Jurgen Whyte from the Air Accident Investigations Unit (centre) and Micheal O'Toole who is On Scene Cordinator for the Irish Coast Guard speaking during a press briefing at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 Garda Supt. Tony Healy from Belmullet Garda Station speaking during a press briefing at Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 Family Liason Officer Garda Sinead Barrett bringing flowers to Blacksod Pier as the search continues for Rescue 116. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 The search continues for Rescue 116 along Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. Pic Steve Humphreys 24th March 2017 / Facebook

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The Granuaile will be stationed near the Blackrock island over night with cover being provided by the LE Samuel Beckett.

An Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) will also be on standby overnight.

Earlier, divers recovered the 'black box' recording device of the tragic helicopter.

Diving operations commenced off the Mayo coast in the search for three missing Irish Coast Guard members earlier today.

In a statement on Friday evening, the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) said the flight recorder will be taken under escort to Baldonnel Aerodrome where it will be onward transported to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) in the UK for download.

Chief inspector with the AAIU, Jurgen Whyte, told Independent.ie earlier that the "most important thing" was to find the 'black box'.

He confirmed shortly after 5pm this evening that the data recorded had in fact been found by divers.

"We're happy to announce the positive recovery of the data recorder at 16:30 today from the seabed just off Blackrock," Mr Whyte said.

"The recorder is now in the possession of one of my investigators, the investigator in charge Paul Farrell, and it's presently located on the Granuaile.

"During the night after some work we'll recover the recorder back to Dublin where it will be flown to the UK Air Accident Investigation branch where it will be further downloaded, hopefully successfully by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week."

Supt Tony Healy said that divers are continuing to operate near the Blackrock island and that further data will need to be analysed to determine if the three missing crew members are with or near the wreckage.

In a statement issued this evening, the AAIU wrote;

"The Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) in consultation with An Garda Siochana, the Naval Service, the Coast Guard, the GSI, the Commissioner for Irish Lights (CIL) and the Marine Institute wish to advise that the flight recorder (black box) of R116 has been successfully recovered from the sea bed on the Eastern side of Black Rock, at a depth of approx. 40m.

"The flight recorder is now in the custody of the AAIU and will be taken under escort to Baldonnel Aerodrome where it will be onward transported to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) in the UK tomorrow, Saturday 25 March for download."

Operation

The Naval Service team were deployed shortly after 11.30am this morning from the Irish Light's vessel, the Granuaile.

An underwater robot had been used to carry out an examination of the wreckage of the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, located in depths of 40m close to the Blackrock island.

Senior investigators stated that they were hopeful of progress being made throughout the day but stressed that information from the divers will need to be assessed before they can establish if the three crew men are with the wreckage.

Speaking at a press briefing this morning, Supt Tony Healy said: "This morning conditions are ideal, diving operations have commenced and we're waiting for reports back from the divers as soon as they come back on the surface."

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He added that there was no indication at this stage if the three missing crew members- Mark Duffy, Ciaran Smith and Paul Ormsby- are with the aircraft's wreckage.

Jurgen Whyte of the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) said that it had not yet been established what caused the Rescue 116 helicopter to collide with the Blackrock lighthouse located 12km off the Mayo coast.

"As we said all along the important thing is that we get access to the cockpit voice recorder and the flight recorder. The priority has always been to recover the victims and if the divers happen to come across the recorder they will take the recorder. Because if we see it, we must take it because we can't leave it behind," he said.

A family liaison officer has been briefing the family members of the missing crew men on any developments in the search operation and investigation.

The Naval Service dive team will operate in pairs and will be able to spend nine minutes at the seabed before returning to the surface.

Air, shore and surface searches are also being carried out, with over 200 personnel from various agencies involved in the large scale operation.
A day after the body of Anne Shortall was discovered in the workshop of cabinetmaker Roy Webster, a candlelit vigil was held "to light her way home" at the spot where she was last seen. Onlookers had noted the powerful sense of love and community in action amongst the hundreds who had gathered there in silence.

Almost two years later, those who knew her are still struggling to come to terms with her loss. Anne (47) lived for her family and enjoyed constant involvement in the lives of her grandchildren.

The separated mother of three adult children was a familiar face in her favourite pubs in Wicklow town.

"She was a very quiet lady. Even when I would be out myself, I would often see her sitting alone at a table," said one man. "You'd always see her around the town with the grandchildren. She doted on them," recalled a woman who had known her well.

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However, she was also a woman in a desperate financial situation at the time her path crossed with Roy Webster's.

Anne married her husband Colin in August 1992 and they had three children - Alanna (19), Emma (22) and older brother David.

The couple separated and had been living apart for around eight years by 2015. There was a mortgage on the family home in Rathnew, Co Wicklow, at the time they separated and while Mr Shortall continued to meet payments, Anne did not and it was repossessed in 2013.

Anne had not worked in about 10 years, was on anti-depressants and her evenings revolved around the pubs. Her money troubles had deepened since her separation and she owed thousands in bills and rent arrears by the time she "blackmailed" Webster.

With an eviction notice served and due to lose her home within days, Anne's options were running out.

Friends had known that she had fallen on hard times, drifting into difficult personal circumstances in the wake of her marriage break-up. One said that Anne's disappearance and the subsequent discovery of her body had come at a particularly difficult time for her family, with Anne's niece having developed serious health issues.

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Meanwhile, Anne's brother tragically took his own life in the weeks following his sister's murder. "The family have had a terrible time of it," said the friend.

Webster (40) was also described locally as a quiet man who kept himself to himself and was rarely spotted in his village of Ashford. A respected tradesman, he was considered of "impeccable character" by the gardai.

Webster was raised on the family farm in Killoughter, Co Wicklow, and went to school locally. After school he completed an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker before going to Australia. He returned and settled, eventually forming his own company - Ashwood Kitchens. He married Sinead in 2005 and the couple built their home on his parents' land. There was a "big mortgage" on their home and in the good times they bought a second house in Gorey, Co Wexford.

At the time he killed Anne Shortall, Webster was 38 years old, had a daughter who had just turned four and newborn boy - just six weeks old. He doted on his children, picking up book he ordered for his daughter just hours before he killed Anne.

However, his business was bad in 2015, with work having dried up over the preceding three to four years. He found himself on job-seeker's allowance, while the second house was in negative equity.

His wife Sinead did not work outside the home and managed the family finances. Despite financial problems, the picture that emerged was of a man with a stable, happy home life, a conscientious worker who enjoyed being a new father for the second time.

It was thoughts of losing all this - everything he had "worked so hard for" that were on his mind at the time of his fateful confrontation with Anne Shortall.

But in an act of savage violence, Webster ended up throwing it all away.
ACCS president Antoinette Nic Gearailt revealed findings of a recent survey in which 96pc of its schools reported difficulties in recruiting for regular part-time or temporary full-time contracts (Stock picture)

A lifting of the restriction on the use of retired teachers in classrooms is under consideration in response to growing shortages of qualified staff for key subjects in second-level schools.

It is one of a number of measures now being examined by the Department of Education as a short-term answer to a worsening crisis over teacher supply.

Education Minister Richard Bruton said it was also looking at the possibility of allowing teacher trainees, in the second year of their post-graduate study, to fill gaps.

Another idea the department would explore is conversion courses to upskill existing teachers to teach other subjects, he said.

Mr Bruton said there is "no quick fix, but there are a number of short-term measures we can take".

In the longer-term, a report on teacher supply from the Teaching Council has put forward models for addressing the issue in a structured way, he said.

The scale of the problem was outlined in stark detail to Mr Bruton yesterday at the annual conference of the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools (ACCS).

ACCS president Antoinette Nic Gearailt revealed findings of a recent survey in which 96pc of its schools reported difficulties in recruiting for regular part-time or temporary full-time contracts.

Maternity

She said recruitment goes on throughout the year, such as providing cover for maternity leave, career breaks and professional development, while trying to fill "short-term unexpected absences has become a nightmare".

The biggest problem is with Irish, where 67pc of schools reported difficulties, followed by modern languages (51pc), maths (30pc), home economics (26pc), science - mainly chemistry and physics - (20pc) and special needs (14pc).

She gave an example of one school that advertised three maternity positions, but received no applications, while another filled a position after advertising eight times.

"And the story is the same across most schools. In effect, school students are not being taught by qualified teachers," she said.

Ms Nic Gearailt said there was a need for both short-term and long-term solutions as "schools cannot limp along as they are at present, not knowing if they are going to have teachers".

The ACCS president suggested options such as conversion courses for existing teachers and a reconsideration of the position of post-graduate students, in the second year of the course, who spend a lot of time on the school premises but not in a teaching capacity.

Mr Bruton has a Teaching Council report on teacher supply on his desk, which, he said, he would be publishing in the second quarter of this year and which, while "very valuable but does not offer an instantaneous solution".
(from L to R) Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni pose for a picture outside the city hall "Campidoglio" (Capitoline Hill) as EU leaders arrive for a meeting on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, in Rome, Italy March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Tony Gentile

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is welcomed by Prefect of the Pontifical household Georg Ganswein as he arrives at the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis, Friday, March 24, 2017. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

From left, Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and TaoiseachEnda Kenny during arrivals for an EU summit at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Taoiseach Enda Kenny signs a declaration during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the roadside breath tests and penalty points revelations are "not acceptable".

The Taoiseach was responding to the news this week that more than 14,500 people who were prosecuted for road traffic offences are to have their convictions quashed because of garda error.

Furthermore, the number of drink-driving tests carried out between 2011 and 2016 was exaggerated by over 937,000.

The Taoiseach also said it is "not a question" of the Government "interfering" with garda matters.

Expand Close From left, Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and TaoiseachEnda Kenny during arrivals for an EU summit at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) / Facebook

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Whatsapp From left, Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and TaoiseachEnda Kenny during arrivals for an EU summit at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome on Saturday, March 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Speaking in Rome where he is celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, Mr Kenny said: "Well, first of all its not for government to interfere in the running of the Gardai, its an internal matter.

"But the minister has already set out our very strong view about this, and has expressed that very strong view to the Garda Commissioner.

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"Clearly, the government have made changes here, to the strengthening of GSOC, the strengthening of the Garda Inspectorate and the setting in place of the independent Garda Authority, which I believe will change the culture of the Gardai over the next number of years."

He continued; "And we would like the Commissioner to be very clear in her statement that she makes later this evening about this.

Expand Close (from L to R) Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni pose for a picture outside the city hall "Campidoglio" (Capitoline Hill) as EU leaders arrive for a meeting on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, in Rome, Italy March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Tony Gentile / Facebook

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Whatsapp (from L to R) Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Council President Donald Tusk, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni pose for a picture outside the city hall "Campidoglio" (Capitoline Hill) as EU leaders arrive for a meeting on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, in Rome, Italy March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Tony Gentile

"Its not acceptable."

The Taoiseach said he still have confidence in Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan and said he is looking forward to her statement this afternoon.

"Ive expressed confidence in the Garda Commissioner on quite a number of occasions," he said.

"Id like to see her statement this afternoon. I continue to have confidence in her.

"Its not a question of government interfering with the running of the Gardai.

"Thats why weve made the very extensive reforms for the Garda and the running of the Garda that are now in place and that will have, I think, a very deep effect over the next number of years."

Meanwhile, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald last night expressed "very serious concerns" about the two blunders but also indicated that she retains confidence in the Commissioner.

"The scale of the issues which were the substance of a press conference from An Garda Siochana is very concerning," Ms Fitzgerald said.

She noted Garda first highlighted the penalty point issue in June last year by writing to the Department of Justice to indicate it was conducting a nationwide audit. As a result of this audit a further report was provided to the department on March 14, 2017, and the final figures were presented by An Garda Siochana at its press conference yesterday.

Fianna Fail is set to ramp up the pressure on Ms O'Sullivan, with justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan telling the Irish Independent the public need "a full explanation in respect of both issues".

He criticised Garda management for holding a press conference to reveal basic details on the scandals but then retreating without providing a full explanation. Ms O'Sullivan chose not to attend the media briefing, which coincided with one of the busiest news days of the year following the death of Martin McGuinness and the terrorist attack in London.

Asked how much time Ms O'Sullivan should be given to provide answers to the outstanding questions, Mr Callaghan said: "I would say they should have answers within a week. If an adequate explanation isn't provided, then we won't have confidence in the Garda Commissioner."

Ms O'Sullivan is already under pressure from other political parties to step aside while the tribunal into the treatment of whistleblower Maurice McCabe hears evidence.

However, a spokesperson for the Commissioner said there was nothing further to add to what is in the public domain "at this stage".

Gardai revealed on Thursday that 14,700 people were wrongly brought to court without a fixed-charge notice being issued first. They will have their penalty points quashed and fines repaid. The State will have to cover the cost of the process, potentially running into millions.
A 'vigilante' crowd of well over 100 people gathered at a west Dublin housing estate after they received information that a recently-released serial sex attacker was staying at an apartment there.

Up to 10 gardai from Ronanstown Garda Station responded when the large crowd of angry local residents gathered at Weaver Court in Neilstown.

The incident is understood to have started at about 9.10pm on Thursday and continued for around two hours before the crowd dispersed.

It is thought people in the crowd believed that sex offender David Radford (20), of Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham, was in the property.

Radford was released from the Midlands Prison in Co Laois less than a fortnight ago.

Gardai reassured the angry crowd that Radford was not in the property after that information was incorrectly posted on Facebook.

However, this did not initially stop the crowd from leaving the area, as a garda told them he considered that a "mob had taken over the car park" where they had gathered.

The large group responded by chanting: "What do we want? The rapist out. When do we want it? Now." However, Radford has never been convicted of rape.

Shortly after this, the crowd left the area. No arrests were made as gardai said no criminal offences were committed.

"This mob mentality does no one any favours. Garda resources could have been better deployed in that area on Thursday night," a senior source said.

The exact whereabouts of David Radford were unknown last night but it is understood he had been staying in Tallaght for a number of nights after his release from jail.

In November 2015, Dublin Circuit Court heard that Radford tried to drag a 15-year-old girl into a cul-de-sac after telling her he wanted her and her body.

He was given a two-and-a half-year jail sentence after the court heard that gardai nominated him as a suspect having viewed CCTV footage from the area. He could be seen following the girl from her Luas stop before he approached her asking directions to a main road.

Radford denied the allegation in interviews with gardai but was re-arrested in January 2015, two months after the attack, when his DNA was found in a semen stain on the girl's bottoms.

The teenager was able to give gardai a good description of her attacker and said she could feel his penis against her backside as he was pushing her along.

She said she didn't want to sleep because she could only see Radford's face

His 15 previous convictions include three for sexually assaulting women in similar random attacks, dating back to 2010, when he was aged 14.
Dublin Fire Brigade is run by Dublin City Council while the National Ambulance Service, which caters for the rest of the country, is part of the HSE. Picture: Damien Eagers

Patients in life threatening emergencies who need a 999 ambulance are at serious risk because of the way Dublin Fire Brigade manages its calls.

According to the safety watchdog, some patients in critical situations are having to wait 10 minutes longer than they should for a 999 ambulance to arrive, as a result of the manner in which Dublin Fire Brigade is operated.

A key problem is the ongoing lack of integration between the Dublin Fire Brigade service and the HSE-run National Ambulance Service, despite improvements in co-operation in recent years, the report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) said.

Dublin Fire Brigade is run by Dublin City Council while the National Ambulance Service, which caters for the rest of the country, is part of the HSE.

The lack of proper integration between both means that if a patient with a potentially life threatening condition in Dublin dials 112/999 for an ambulance, current arrangements for call handling and dispatch can result in a delay in response.

This is due to the way calls are transferred from Dublin Fire Brigade to the National Ambulance Service.

Hiqa warned of the dangers in a previous report in 2014.

Two years later, it found the situation had worsened as demand for ambulances increased.

It discovered that over 24 hours a high proportion of calls being queued were potentially life-threatening.

Hiqa said it escalated its concerns to Dublin City Council.

A Dublin Fire Brigade ambulance may continue to be dispatched to the patient even though a nearer National Ambulance Service ambulance may have been available and better placed to respond.

"The status quo puts patients at risk and cannot be allowed to continue," warned Sean Egan, Hiqa's acting head of healthcare regulation.

Firefighters last month voted for strike action over proposed reforms to the service operated by the Dublin Fire Brigade. This has now been deferred to allow for mediation by the former director general of the Workplace Relations Commission, Kieran Mulvey.
Earlier this week, some files were released from the British National Archives at Kew. These revealed details of the compensation paid to the families of British airmen who had been executed by the Gestapo after a mass escape from Stalag Luft III: the German camp that became famous because of the movie 'The Great Escape'.

The files also revealed details of some lesser-known crimes that were committed by the Nazis. These involved a small group of Irish prisoners who were held in a slave labour camp in north-west Germany for more than two years.

Those Irishmen were all merchant seamen captured while working on Allied ships, and one of them was a relative of mine. My father's cousin William was serving on a merchant ship in August 1940 when it was sunk off the coast of Madagascar by a German raider. William was taken prisoner, and arrived in Bordeaux in occupied France a few months later.

From there, he was sent on to an internment camp in northern Germany called Sandbostel. This would become infamous as one of the most brutal in the entire camp system, and tens of thousands of Russian prisoners died there from exposure, starvation, disease or murder. Towards the end of 1941, all merchant seamen were moved to a new internment camp at Milag Nord where conditions were somewhat better.

However, in January 1943, 32 Irish seamen were moved by the Gestapo to nearby Bremen. When they got there, the Gestapo tried to convince them to sign legal contracts, and to work for Germany. The Irish prisoners were offered incentives to do so. But, without exception, they refused to become freie Arbeiter (voluntary workers) for Nazi Germany.

On the night of February 6, 1943, the Irish prisoners were woken by the Gestapo and loaded on to two trucks. They were driven to a new camp near the village of Farge, a small inland port on the River Weser. Until then, the Irish seamen had been held in prison camps controlled by the Kriegsmarine, the German navy. From here on, their future would rest in the hands of the SS. The Irish prisoners arrived in the early morning, and within a few hours had received a savage beating from their SS guards. They were told they would not be protected by the Geneva Convention, or the International Red Cross: they would have no further contact with the outside world.

They had been brought to Farge to work on Project Valentin: code name for an immense bunker where it was planned to construct submarines. The ambition was to build a new U-boat every 56 hours, and the Nazis were prepared to go to any lengths to achieve that objective. During the next two years the Irish seamen joined more than 10,000 slave workers, and were subjected to relentless and back-breaking work. They would witness prisoners shot and beaten to death, and see others die from malnutrition and exhaustion. By the end of the war, almost half of the slave workers were dead.

Five of those who died were Irish prisoners. The first was Patrick Breen, from Blackwater in Co Wexford. It is believed he died after a vicious beating from an SS guard. It is not known what happened to his body, but it seems probable he was buried in a mass grave. Three other Irish seamen died from typhus, which was endemic in the camp.

The last of the Irish prisoners to die was William. According to one of the Irish prisoners, he had been ill for three or four days before the doctor who attended the camp decided to operate on him, on a table in the Irish hut. It had not been sterilised - there was no hot water in the camp - and there was no anaesthetic. In the words of one Irish seaman: "Four of us held him down: one at each shoulder and one on each leg. He was in great pain, and groaned a lot when the doctor cut into him." William survived the operation, but died in the early hours of the following morning.

Within a few weeks of the war ending in Europe, most of the Irish seamen were able to return to Ireland. All were malnourished, and some were seriously ill. However, they were largely ignored by the Irish press, and soon disappeared from public view. Nevertheless, in 1947, four Irish seamen agreed to return to Germany to give evidence against SS personnel on trial for war crimes. Their evidence proved vital in securing convictions for most of those on trial.

No representative of the Irish government attended. In fact, our government was actively opposed to such trials, and lobbied vigorously against them. It is hard not to reach the conclusion that the government was indifferent or negligent in its concern for the Irish citizens held in the slave labour camp. They were, after all, non-combatants from a neutral country, and it was not uncommon for merchant seamen to be repatriated. Our government seems to have been overly concerned that representations might annoy the Nazi regime.

The files that have just been released from the British archives include the handwritten claims made by the Irish prisoners for compensation from the British government. In these claims, the prisoners describe some of the brutal conditions they endured. They refer to inmates being shot or flogged to death, exposure to freezing weather, disease, and "people dying all over the place". James Furlong from Wexford wrote that he spent his years in the camp "always afraid my turn would come".

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The initial award made to each prisoner was 1,000, and that was processed with minimum delay. In contrast, the German government did not make any compensation payments until almost 60 years later. By then, almost all of the Irish prisoners were dead.

A few years ago, I visited the Farge Bunker where the Irish prisoners worked. Part of this enormous building has now been converted into a museum, and I was pleased to see that the Irish prisoners are acknowledged as a distinct group of victims of the Nazis. It seems deeply ironic that their suffering is recognised in Germany, but not yet in their own country.
In just seven days, we have had three very high-profile funerals laden down with politics. There was the errant bishop, Eamonn Casey; the stoically long-suffering political wife and daughter, Maureen Haughey; and the gunman-turned-statesman, Martin McGuinness.

Amidst family and friends' very genuine personal grief in all three cases, all were hugely public political acts.

In fact, all were overtly about shaping a legacy, addressing darker shadows of the past, and recasting the future of their associated institutions, the Catholic Church, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein/IRA.

Irish people know a lot about funerals and in the main we do them rather well. But the political or institutional funeral takes on an extra dimension alongside supporting and sympathising with the bereaved. Here the waking and burial ceremonies also fulfil other functions. They become a statement about the status and power of the institution to which the deceased was attached. They often are about enhancing or at least adjusting that institution's reputation. They regularly are an attempt to re-orient that institution for the future.

All of these factors were in evidence in the three funerals which occurred from last Thursday week to Thursday of this past week. At Galway Cathedral there were 11 bishops and 61 priests in attendance at the requiem mass for former Bishop of Kerry and Galway, Eamonn Casey. His remains were laid to rest beneath the splendid cathedral he had to leave rather abruptly in 1992. The second sentence uttered by principal celebrant of the mass, Bishop Kirby, would have been unthinkable just a short few years ago as it referred to both Bishop Casey's son and former lover. "I sympathise with Peter Murphy and his mother, Annie," he said.

In the homily, Bishop Brendan Kelly paid a warm tribute to an old friend, who had many strengths, and noted it was not the time to rake up the details of the controversy. But he balanced that by saying many people were hurt by the controversy and implicitly stated that a higher standard of behaviour is expected of priests and bishops.

Expand Close Eimear Mulhern with other family members at the funeral of her mother Maureen Haughey Photo: Colin Keegan / Facebook

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"Irresponsibility, infidelity and sin are very shocking in the lives of those who preach the gospel," Bishop Kelly frankly stated.

For many church critics, the bishops will never do right. But this was a very candid and Christian approach to life which reflected very well on the senior churchmen on this occasion. There was no attempt to dodge reality.

The politics of our second funeral were more nuanced and subtle. Maureen Haughey, the daughter of a Fianna Fail Taoiseach, who married another, was a strong woman in her own right, who led her own life, and successfully guarded her privacy through many controversial years. But she was the daughter of a Fianna Fail founder, Sean Lemass, and the wife of a man who led the party for 13 years.

There were seven pews at St Sylvester's Church in Malahide full of Fianna Fail people reaching back five decades and right up to the present day. The presence included party leader, Micheal Martin, and former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

There was more than a suggestion that the party's past, and that of their most controversial leader, Charlie Haughey, was being reconciled with the present and future.

Some 20 contemporary TDs and Senators were in attendance - presenting as party trying to project a united front.

Politicians sitting in enforced silence in a church for over an hour can project strange effects. And Maureen Haughey's story also reflected well retrospectively on her late husband whose memory still evokes intrigue.

Our final politically-laden funeral was, like the other two, also an expression of familial and community grief. But the burial ceremony for Martin McGuinness, who led Sinn Fein and the IRA through a bitter war, on to armed peace, and finally into politics, was undoubtedly the most politically-loaded of all our three funerals.

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Martin McGuinness's primary position within the Republican movement was uncontested for the past 30 years. He was very well respected by his contemporaries and something of a mythical folk hero to a rising generation.

But beyond those narrow confines. things got tricky. It was not just unionist and Protestant communities who remembered the atrocities with still burning hurt. The IRA, like all terror organisations, expended a lot of its energies terrorising their own neighbours in efforts to keep them compliant and, at least silent, if not quite on-message.

Yet the genuine nature of Martin McGuinness's work for the peace process over 20 years, and his clear commitment to making power-sharing work, won out over the very dark shadows of the earlier phase in his life. The cross-community acknowledgement, especially from among one-time bitter adversaries on the unionist side, could not be gainsaid.

The Sinn Fein party's primacy in Northern Ireland politics was confirmed by the Assembly elections earlier this month. They even finally emerged ahead of the SDLP in their Derry heartland for the first time. The enormous funeral, attracting luminaries from all sides of the political spectrum on these islands and beyond, can only copper-fasten this primacy.

The message from former US President Bill Clinton was more than a tribute. It challenged the emerging new leadership.
Enda Kenny and his wife Fionnuala are welcomed by the prefect of the papal household Georg Gaenswein as they arrive for an audience with Pope Francis with other European leaders in the Vatican Picture: AFP/Getty

Enda Kenny's much-anticipated departure as Taoiseach in a few months' time will kick off more than just a leadership contest.

His decision to finally step aside, probably in June, will set in motion a period of soul searching within the Fine Gael party.

It's a process that many members feel is long overdue.

Mr Kenny's legacy will undoubtedly be assessed in the context of the undeniable leadership he has shown in rebuilding an economy that was on its knees just a few years ago.

But the treatment of middle-income earners by the Fine Gael-led government will be included among Mr Kenny's failures.

The squeezed middle, as they are often described, do not believe their struggles have been recognised to any real degree.

They feel neglected, even forgotten about. These families want a break. Today, the frontrunner to succeed Mr Kenny as Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader makes a direct pitch to the country's coping classes.

Leo Varadkar acknowledges that the level of income tax they pay is unjust and says it is driving our qualified professionals overseas.

"Taxes should be low, simple and fair," he writes. "High tax rates make it harder to attract skilled, qualified and talented people home from London and from other countries, and it is one of the push factors that causes our homegrown doctors, IT professionals and others to take opportunities elsewhere."

While there is an element of vagueness to Mr Varadkar's tax vision, his focus falls on three key areas.

Firstly, Mr Varadkar insists the marginal tax rate needs to brought below 50pc. Many workers already pay a punitive rate as high as 52pc, once Universal Social Charge and PRSI are factored in.

For the self-employed, the marginal rate can be as high as 55pc. "The Government should never take more than 50pc of any euro you earn," Mr Varadkar insists.

The means by which Mr Varadkar intends to achieve this aim is two-fold. He wants to raise the entry point at which workers begin paying the higher tax rate of 40pc, which is currently set at 33,800.

This is the arguably the most straight forward option and is one that has the support of Fianna Fail.

Mr Varadkar is also standing over his party's pledge to scrap USC, although he does not specify whether this will be achieved by 2021 as promised by Finance Minister Michael Noonan.

But while Mr Varadkar wants people to pay less via income tax, he believes that a fair compromise is that they pay more into so-called 'social insurance'.

This is undoubtedly the most contentious element of his plan.

The upside, he says, is that the insurance money paid by workers will be "ringfenced" to provide services such as medical expenses. But sceptics will undoubtedly see this as a tax under a different guise.

In making the argument for social insurance, Mr Varadkar takes a swipe at people who refuse to work.

"Too often, we have allowed Irish society to be divided into one group of people who pay for everything but get little in return due to means-tests, and another group who believe they should be entitled to everything for free and that someone else should pay for it," he said.

This will be music to ears of the middle classes but pitches Mr Varadkar firmly against left wing parties that are going from strength to strength.
One of the diaries in which she recorded bullying

Anthony and Colette Wolfe spoke about the devastating loss of their daughter Leanne on last night's Late Late Show

The parents of an 18-year-old girl have described the harrowing moment they discovered she had taken her own life.

Anthony and Colette Wolfe spoke about the devastating loss of their daughter Leanne on Friday night's Late Late Show and said they did not notice any "warnings" in the weeks and months before her death.

The teenager endured emotional and physical torture at the hands of a bullies in Cork for at least three years before her death in 2007.

She left behind diaries detailing her suffering.

She had just been accepted onto a course to train for her dream job as a midwife.

The family, from Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, have spoken out several times about the consequences of bullying on mental health.

Last night, they described the moment they realised she was gone.

"My son phoned me, he said 'Leanne's gone', just those words," said Anthony.

"It was just after midnight, we were just going to sleep.

"He said, 'Dad, Leanne is gone'.

"I said, 'Gone where?'.

"He couldn't get it out of his mouth. Imagine waking up and getting this phone call, thinking it was a dream.

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"But that was it, that was the phone call we got."

The couple, who were away at the time, said they immediately thought about getting home to their chioldren.

Colette said, "There was a garda alongside [our son] at this stage. We didn't know that but he said, 'You have to tell them'.

"So he said, 'she's dead Dad'.

"Up until then I never experienced fear. I knew my life was going to change and my family life was going to change.

"I remember I started screaming. We put the phone back together, because Anthony had thrown it.

"I phoned him back and said, 'This is mam, what's going on?'.

"He was crying and he said, 'She's gone mam'," Colette continued.

"There was a lot of confusion going on and I could hear people in the home, I could hear my other daughter crying.

"I was thinking, 'These are my children, we should be at home with them.'"

Colette said she then asked for the phone to be put to Leanne's ear so she could say a few words.

"I didn't even know it was suicide," she continued.

"I said, 'clear everyone out of her room' and asked for the phone to be put to her ear.

"I said, 'Love, we're coming home. We'll always be there'.

"The garda came on the phone, he said, 'Mrs Wolfe, I'm so sorry about your loss'.

"I said thank you. He said, 'Your daughter sent you a beautiful text' and that he'd talk to us when we got home."

Colette described how in the immediate aftermath of Leanne's death, she did not understand that she had taken her own life.

"We didn't get any warnings," she said.

"I didn't think it was suicide."

The couple now speak in secondary schools and raise awareness of bullying in schools.

"Leanne is not the only one, it goes on a lot, it's very sad," Colette said.

"Leanne wrote something when she was 15 and it is very deep. She said, 'we're on this road for a very short journey, be nice to each other, even if you don't agree when you're teenagers, it doesn't have to go to texting or name-calling'.

"People don't know what's going on in the background."

Colette added;

"There is hope, you can come through this. We have, with the grace of God. Don't feel sorry for us, we work with a lot of people like us.

"We have a wonderful life, I will see my daughter one day with the grace of God."

If you are affected by any of the issues in this article, contact the Samaritans on 116 123 (Ireland and UK), email jo@samaritans.org or find your local branch at www.samaritans.org

Childline runs a 24-hour confidential phone service on 1800 666666, or can be contacted by text. Children can text the word: talk, bully or help to 50101. Any child can contact the line for support.
Almost four years since he and his sisters were arrested during a siege of a Cairo mosque, Ibrahim Halawa sits in an Egyptian prison cell grimly counting the days of his incarceration.

This week, Dublin-born Halawa, who was just 17 when he was seized by Egyptian security forces, learned that his trial had been adjourned for the 20th time since 2013. His family in Ireland are now calling on the Government to launch legal proceedings against the Egyptian state at the International Court of Justice.

Mr Halawa is on trial along with almost 500 others for their alleged role in violence during the protests that took place in the Ramses Square area of the Egyptian capital in mid-August 2013. At least 97 people died in the demonstrations, most as a result of what Amnesty International called the "reckless use of force by the security forces".

Sheikh Hussein Halawa, Mr Halawa's father and the imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland (ICCI) in Clonskeagh, Dublin, says he told his children to take shelter in a nearby mosque after clashes broke out during the mass protest against the army's overthrow of Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt's oldest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood was later designated a terrorist organisation by the post-Morsi authorities.

The Halawas attended the Ramses Square protest and other earlier rallies against the military coup while visiting relatives in Egypt. They were among scores of people, including several journalists, who were captured and taken to Cairo's infamous Tora prison after security forces stormed the mosque near Ramses Square.

The three Halawa sisters were released some months later but Mr Halawa faced terrorism-related charges. His case was taken up by Amnesty which considers him a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly.

Back in 2013, Irish officials, including then foreign minister Eamon Gilmore, were confident the case would be resolved soon. Almost four years on, it is clear they didn't reckon with the nature of the regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian army general turned president.

Egypt today is more repressive than it was under Hosni Mubarak, the dictator forced to step down following mass protests in early 2011.

The military coup of 2013 ushered in a more paranoid Egypt, one in which thousands have been detained, many for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Accusations of links to the Muslim Brotherhood - often spurious - have driven many of the round-ups.

In this context, Mr Halawa's case may have been affected by the fact his father has been the secretary of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), a group of scholars that formulates religious opinions on practical matters relating to Muslims living in Europe. The ECFR is an offshoot of the Brussels-based Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE), an umbrella group of various affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.

While the Halawa family have long feared Mr Halawa would face the death penalty if he was found guilty, there was some hope in January when Mr Sisi told a delegation of Irish politicians a pardon could be considered once his trial is over. The question is when that might be.

Mr Halawa has been on hunger strike and, according to his lawyer, has become so weak that he is now in a wheelchair.

After the news of yet another postponement of his trial on Wednesday, the family were despondent.

"The sad reality is my brother is dying in an Egyptian prison, facing a mass trial, which at this rate will take over 10 years," his sister Somaia said.

"Given Ibrahim's current mental and physical state, we don't believe he will be strong enough to survive that delayThe flawed trial process and conditions to which Ibrahim has been detained can no longer be accepted."

The fact Mr Halawa is being tried in a mass trial along with hundreds of others is believed to be a key factor in the repeated postponements, though Egypt's shambolic judicial system has long been criticised by human rights groups.

It emerged recently that a technical review of audio-visual material presented in the case and prepared last July by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior for the court of appeal in Cairo found no evidence against Mr Halawa. Amnesty says this chimes with its own research, stating that Mr Halawa could not have committed the crimes as he was already sheltering in the mosque at the time.

Mr Halawa's trial is now postponed until April 5 and his legal team plans to lodge a legal opinion with the Irish Government on how to proceed with action against the Egyptian state.

It argues that the current trial process clearly does not meet the standards required by international law.
European integration was a project created by the people, for the people. It was a movement of a generation who came together to proclaim 'never again!' after a half-century of horrific war. With the Treaties of Rome on March 25, 1957, the EU's first six members consigned the ghost of Europe's past to the history books, leaving them as a cautionary tale for future generations never to repeat.

On the 60th anniversary of that fateful date, we are marking the birth of the European project anew. With a changing and uncertain world around us, the time has come to renew our vows, and reaffirm our commitment to a united future - in which all citizens and all member states are treated equally.

Of course, it is regrettable that, shortly after the celebration of our 60th anniversary, we will receive the divorce letter of the UK. The implications of this decision will be felt nowhere more than in Ireland. Ireland will be part of a new Europe of 27, which must act resolutely to meet the expectations of its citizens.

For this we must seek new answers to an old question: Where do we go from here? We do not have those answers, as they are not ours alone to give. Europe cannot be instructed through executive orders or dictated in 'splendid isolation'. This is a question that has to be taken to the people.

For too long there has been a gap between what people expect and what Europe can deliver. We do not pretend that Europe can solve all problems, but nor should we entertain the notion that individual nation states can achieve everything alone. Ireland has benefited enormously from its membership of the EU, whether in development of its infrastructure or its ability to create employment, and Europe has benefited from Irish membership. Now is the time for an honest debate about what we want from our Union.

We could carry on as we are; not resting on our laurels, but focusing all our energy on delivering on the big issues, on our positive agenda of completing the internal market, the digital single market, creating an energy union and a capital markets union.

We could go the other way entirely, and choose an EU 27 focusing only on the single market. But Europe is far more than a market of goods and money. To say otherwise is to betray the values we fought for, on battlefields and soapboxes over centuries.

As a third scenario, we could allow some member states to forge ahead in areas already framed by the treaties, leaving the door open for others to follow when they are ready. This is already a reality today, with varied groups of countries already set to either create an EU patent court or harmonise their laws on divorce and property regimes for international couples or set up a European public prosecutor to fight fraud against the EU budget. These examples of enhanced co-operation show that we do not need everyone to go forward at the same speed, but we do need everyone pulling in the same direction.

Another variant could be for the EU 27 to do a lot more, all together, in a small number of areas where our actions really add value and where citizens expect us to act. This would effectively mean more of 'doing less' in areas where member states cannot agree or are better placed to deal with the issue alone.

Finally, member states could also go full throttle and decide to share more power, resources and decision-making across the board.

These five scenarios are all feasible. They will be hotly debated by national parliaments, governments, civil society, people from all walks of life. In reality, Europe's future is most likely to be etched in a sixth scenario, of your own design.

Europe has a date with democracy in 2019 and from now until the elections we want every voice to be heard. Our future has to be designed and owned by us all. When it comes to the EU, it has always been too easy for leaders to say what they do not want. Now they need to organise debates that reach every corner of Europe to decide on what it is they do want.

Whatever road we end up following, the future is ours for the making.

For 60 years Europe achieved the unachievable: a stay in the everlasting European tragedy of war and peace. But this Europe is not a given. Europe always was and remains today a choice. And the choices we make today, tomorrow, in two years from now, have to be guided by a full understanding of their implications, not for us, but for the generations to come.

Because we will be judged not for what we inherited but for what we leave behind.

Jean-Claude Juncker is President of the European Commission
'too often, we have allowed Irish society to be divided into one group of people who pay for everything but get little in return due to means-tests, and another group who believe they should be entitled to everything for free and that someone else should pay for it."

Leo Varadkar's pitch to middle income workers will ring true for a lot of people who work hard, pay their taxes, want to contribute to society, but wonder whether they are getting a fair deal.

In this country, they are referred to as the squeezed middle. Across the Irish Sea, they are the JAMs (Just About Managing).

The sentiments are the same. These are the people who ensure our public services are paid for and obey the law.

But they get little enough back.

Writing in today's Irish Independent, Mr Varadkar sets out his vision for the future of the tax system.

Ahead of the Fine Gael leadership contest, the frontrunner and Social Protection Minister outlines the broad principles of what he has in mind.

He feels workers hit the higher rate of tax at too low a level, personal taxes are too high, the self-employed are discriminated against and the high rate of tax is a disincentive to attracting skilled workers.

Mr Varadkar also wants to see a greater level of return for workers for social insurance payments.

"Taxes should be low, simple and fair," he writes.

Over the coming months, he will have to put flesh on the bone of his proposals.

But a debate on the tax treatment of middle income earners being central to the Fine Gael leadership contest is a welcome development.

Commissioners position is now looking untenable

Former garda commissioner Martin Callinan famously got a knock on his door to drop a less-than-subtle hint that the government wanted him to resign.

His successor Noirin OSullivan is being given considerably more time to consider her position.

The reputation of An Garda Siochana took another battering this week with the revelation that 15,000 motorists will have their penalty points quashed and fines repaid after a massive blunder in the way our roads are policed. And then theres the million breath tests that never took place.

All of this is undermining confidence in the police force.

Take away the Sergeant Maurice McCabe whistleblower controversy and this would still be a major crisis for the Garda.

Patience is starting to wear thin with Commissioner OSullivan.

Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald did express a strong degree of frustration yesterday, saying the scale of the issues identified were appalling and staggering and do raise questions around supervision and accountability.

But she hasnt raised questions about the Commissioners suitability for office.

However, Fianna Fail justice spokesman Jim OCallaghan did and is demanding an explanation  or else.

The Commissioners position is looking untenable.
The anti drink driving message is not getting through to a new generation of drivers and more needs to be done to communicate the serious threat to lives from being behind the wheel under the influence.

That's the message from Louth County Council's Road Safety officer, Adrian O'Sullivan, who spoke last week after new statistics from Garda headquarters revealed that 31% of people killed in road crashes in 2014 had alcohol in their system at the time of their deaths.

In addition, Gardai reported a 13% increase in 'driving under the influence' arrests so far this year and said that March is the second most dangerous month of the year for alcohol related collisions.

The analysis also found that a third of drivers/motorbike riders who died in fatal crashes in 2014 had a positive toxicology for alcohol; 35% of car drivers killed had a positive toxicology for alcohol; 40% motorcyclists killed had a positive toxicology for alcohol; 28% of pedestrians killed had a positive toxicology for alcohol and a massive 96% of the drivers/motorcycle riders who had a positive toxicology were male.

Mr O'Sullivan said the new figures made for grim reading. He said the last available report that looked at fatal crashes from 2008-2012 and which included a break-down for Louth, showed that 33 people died in crashes on the county's roads in those four year - ten of which were alcohol related.

He said: 'It's a problem in Louth, like everywhere else in the country and while drink driving rates had been going down a few years ago, there seems to be a bit of slippage on that rate'.

Mr O'Sullivan said there may be a number of factors to the creeping higher of the drink driving rates, including the reduction in Garda enforcement. He said: 'There may be a perception that you won't get caught if you drink and drive, but the Gardai have recently announced the Traffic Corps is to be increased by 10% and I would welcome that'.

He also pointed to the fact the Transport Minister Shane Ross is considering a ban for anyone caught with any alcohol in their system and it 'is being debated around the country'. The Road Safety Officer said a recent survey showed that more than nine out of ten people want to see anyone who is detected with drink on them behind the wheel to be banned, but the message is still not getting through, especially to young male drivers aged 18 to 34.

Mr O'Sullivan said a number of agencies, including local authorities, have their parts to play in order to get the message across. He said it is a long term project and it will not happen overnight, but 'there needs to be peer pressure' so that drink driving is no longer acceptable among this group.

In addition, people 'have to take responsibility for themselves and what they do'.
DkIT student Andrew Reddan has been crowned KNORR Student Chef of the Year 2017.

DkIT student Andrew Reddan has been crowned KNORR Student Chef of the Year 2017 after a thrilling cook off hosted by Cork Institute of Technology.

Not only did Andrew overcome a challenging theme set out by KNORR, he also successfully fought off the challenge of ten other rising stars to claim the top prize.

Students were challenged to create a starter using Irish seafood and a main course celebrating Irish beef.

They were also asked to demonstrate an understanding of the challenges of culinary sustainability, food waste management and allergen awareness.

Andrew impressed the judges with his starter of Irish sea bass with Carlingford mussel ragout with lemon and curd and mint risotto.

For his main course, he served a 'Tasting of beef', which comprised seared sirloin, cheek croquette, bonemarrow crumb with caramelised celeriac puree.

Andrew explains the story behind his menu: 'the dishes were inspired by my experience as a fisherman, fishing off the east coast of Ireland in a little village called Baltray. I'm also a keen supporter of local producers.'

'The concept of the dishes is trying to combine food, science and art to create dishes full of culture, history and modern techniques, while using local, seasonal produce sourced on my doorstep.'

As well as the much-coveted KNORR Student Chef of the Year title, Andrew won a fantastic culinary experience in New York. On the first night, he will dine in the chic surroundings of the multi award winning and three-starred Michelin restaurant, Eleven Madison Park.

He will also get an opportunity to take a unique food tour of The Big Apple.
Frank Pentony, Louth County Council; Peggy Freeman and Billy Condon, both Tourism Ireland; Paul Bell, Council chairman; Joan Martin, Chief Executive LCC; Thomas McEvoy, Head of LEO (Local Enterprise Office, Louth); and Mary T Daly, county council, in the Tourism Ireland office in New York.

Representatives of Louth County Council, who were in New York for a week for the St Patrick's Day celebrations, met with senior executives from Tourism Ireland in New York at an engagement on Wednesday. They were briefed on Tourism Ireland's extensive promotional programme for 2017, which is already underway.

Tourism Ireland aims to build on the success of 2016, which was the fourth record-breaking year in a row for Irish tourism from the United States. Tourism Ireland is prioritising North America this year, as a market which offers a strong return on investment, in terms of holiday visitors and expenditure.

Their important 'culturally curious' and 'social energiser' audiences are being targeted with distinctive vacation experiences, events and special offers tailored to their interests. Tourism Ireland is creating 'stand out' for the island of Ireland in the US, highlighting experiences like the Wild Atlantic Way, the Causeway Coastal Route and Ireland's Ancient East. Promotions aim to grow travel to the regions of Ireland, during the shoulder and off-peak seasons.

Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Ireland's Head of North America, said: 'We were delighted to meet with the representatives of Louth County Council and to have the opportunity to brief them about the extensive promotional programme we are undertaking in the United States this year.

'Our ambition is to surpass the record-breaking performance of 2016 and to deliver a +9% increase in revenue and a 6% increase in visitor numbers from North America in 2017 i.e. 1.6 billion generated by 1.7 million visitors.

'St Patrick's Day traditionally marks the real start of the tourism season for us; our aim is to bring a smile to the faces of people everywhere and to convey the message that Ireland offers the warmest of welcomes and great fun, as well as wonderful scenery and heritage.

'We are using every opportunity to capitalise on Ireland's heightened profile this week; the saturation coverage about Ireland at this time of year - across the airwaves, in newspapers and digital media - is an invaluable boost for our overall tourism marketing drive in 2017'.

There was some criticism of the trip, particularly from independent councillor Maeve Yore who said, during a presentation at Monday's monthly meeting that 'council money would be better spent on other things than on trips like this'.

Cllr. Maria Doyle asked council CEO Joan Martin about the trip, who did chairman Cllr. Paul Bell and the four officials meet while in New York.

Ms Martin said a report on the trip would be available to members in time for the April meeting in line with protocol.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein TD Gerry Adams spent 36 hours in the United States and speaking in Washington, he called on 'all parties which see the value of Irish unity to act together'.

The party's president said: 'The Good Friday Agreement obliges the Irish and British governments to legislate for unity if that is the choice of the people north and south. These changing times present real challenges and real opportunities. We need to continue to strategise, organise, and persuade for Irish unity. We need to plan for a United Ireland. There is no short cut. Irish America has a real and crucial role in this transition'.
Housing minister Simon Coveney spent more than three hours talking and listening to DkIT students, including newly elected SU president Pauraic Renaghan during a visit to the Dublin Road campus last week.

Minister Coveney spoke to students about the government's Ireland 2040 plan and also heard about their concerns on a number of issues including accommodation, Brexit, jobs and mental health.

Pauraic said the minister's visit went very well and during his meeting with him, vice president, Aaron Geoghegan, and former president Aaron Lawless, the SU president talked about accommodation shortages and what can be done to incentivise landlords to provide homes for students. Minister Coveney told them about the government's plans for additional accommodation for 18,000 and added that Dundalk is included.

In addition, the problem of ITs not being able to borrow money to use towards accommodation construction or other projects was discussed with the minister saying the government is looking at legislation at the moment to perhaps change that or allow colleges to team up with private companies to construct accommodation.

On the issue of Brexit, Minister Coveney was upbeat, particularly about Dundalk, Pauraic said. The SU president said: 'Minister Coveney told us he believes that Brexit presents opportunities for Dundalk and pointed to the Craigavon company Almac's move to the town earlier this year.

'He believes that Dundalk is in a good position to benefit from anything positive that may come from Brexit'. They also talked about how DkIT students from the North and the possibility of them having to pay fees if they're out of the EU. It is hoped, Pauraic said, that Northern students would continue to be treated as EU citizens in this regards post Brexit.

Renewable energy, as provided by DkIT's wind turbine, along with social housing, a united Ireland, additional funding for social care workers, mental healthcare and other issues were discussed when Minister Coveney spoke to a large number of students at a campus event, hosted by RTE's Ciaran Mullooly and there was a lively question and answer session with the minister and students moderated by Micheal O Muircheartaigh.

The event was also attended by Fine Gael's Louth TDs, Peter Fitzpatrick and Fergus O'Dowd, along with Fiannan Fail TD Declan Breathnach.

Pauraic said: 'There was great engagement from the minister about the various issues that we raised and it was great to be involved in something like this in my first week as SU president.
St. Vincent's debating and public speaking team are set to bring their rhetorical prowess to a national stage yet again with their forthcoming performance in the national final of the Knights of St Columbanus public speaking competition.

The culmination of six months hard work, the girls clinched their place at the event in Maynooth after a rousing speech on the importance of building bridges, not walls.

Under the guidance of their teacher Victoria O'Hagan, Aoife McGeough, Ayumi Catibusic and Eimear Smyth hope that their powerful message will see them bring home the gold.

Indeed this is the second time this year that the team have achieved such success, Aoife McGeough being crowned national champion at the European Commission Soapbox event in the National Concert Hall in November and winning a trip to the European Parliament.

Aoife's achievement in fact marks the third time that St. Vincent's have secured that coveted national title in the last five years and can be added to their national titles in Debating Science. Victoria added

'The girls have worked tirelessly and I want to wish them the very best of luck in the final.'
There was a hearty breakfast on the table for those Greystones people wanting to get well fed before their St Patrick's Day celebrations began.

The 1st Wicklow and 2nd Dublin scout troop hosted their annual St Patrick's Day breakfast last Friday morning in Greystones.

The breakfast at the scout den on Trafalgar Road included three packed sittings throughout the morning, before the start of the town's parade.

The proceeds from the day will help support the local scout troop.

This event is always a good start to the national day, and this year was no exception.

It was an enjoyable occasion for family and friends of scouting in Greystones, and even for the members who spent the morning slaving over a hot stove.

The group is now approaching its 91st anniversary, last year having celebrated 90 years of scouting in greystones.

The troop is the oldest former Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland group and was founded as a pilot programme in 1926.
Bray Institute of Further Education Arts Festival 'Three Sisters' by Chekov at the Mermaid Arts Centre: Tony O'Neill as Vershinin and John O'Brien as Andrei

Gabriel Allen, Vice Principal, and Ray Tedders, Principal of BIFE, with the Russian Ambassador Maxim Peshkov

The Russian ambassador to Ireland, Maxim Peshkov, was the guest of honour at last Tuesday's production of 'Three Sisters' by Anton Chekov.

The play was on at Mermaid Arts Centre on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of the continuing Bray Institute of Further Education arts festival.

The festival includes performances from dance, theatre, film and music.

Set in a remote Russian town, three sisters - Olga, Masha and Irina - yearn for the adrenaline rush of life in Moscow; but their plans go nowhere. Disaster, deception, meaningless self-sacrifice - each new twist of fate sees the sisters' control over their destiny slip away.

This was followed by 'BIFE Music Goes Live' last Thursday at Mermaid. The performance night showcased this year's work by BIFE College of Music senior students and teachers, and introduced BIFE's latest course, the Music Performance diploma.

A new initiative from the music department, the students have had great fun and worked hard to entertain their audience with a selection of popular styles. This group have been performing live in the college at various events over recent months before bringing their repertoire to the Mermaid.

'Shortcuts' is a collection of short films made by the graduating students of Bray Institute of Further Education. Each graduating student writes and directs a short film as part of their final year.

The audience got to see the series of films last night (Tuesday) at Mermaid, with comedy, horror and everything in between.

'Always Dancing' will be the final event at the Mermaid and may be the most breathtaking. The diverse programme of 23 different pieces includes original choreography by both tutors and students.

Also included in the programme are repertoire pieces from the ballet 'A Simple Man' originally choreographed by Gillian Lynne, based on the Life of L.S. Lowry and adapted by Emma Hayward; 'Orfeu e Euridice" choreographed by Pina Bausch; and 'Dancing Bartok, Beethoven and Schonberg' choreographed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, both adapted by Eimear Byrne.

Stunning sequences and costumes are a feature of this show and it is recommended viewing for lovers of dance. Always Dancing will be in the Mermaid on Thursday and Friday, March 23 and 24.

To finish off the festival there will be a final event in BIFE on Thursday and Friday, March 30 and 31.

A sound installation entitled 'Sonic Chambers' is an interactive sound experience that puts you in control, without any need for musical background required.

Have you ever wondered how the worlds of music and technology combine? Come along and find out.

To find out more about the college and its courses, go to bife.ie.
Rescue 116 on a rescue mission in Roundwood on Sunday, March 12, days before it disappeared off the Mayo coast. (photo: Deputy Andrew Doyle)

Members of Greystones Coast Guard held a moment of silence during the St Patrick's Day Parade, as a mark of respect following the Rescue 116 helicopter crash.

Dara Fitzpatrick, Paul Ormsby, Mark Duffy and Ciaran Smith were the crew on board the aircraft which came down last Tuesday off the Mayo coast.

Three of them are still missing, while the funeral of Captain Fitzpatrick took place in Glencullen last Saturday.

'The whole street went silent,' said Dermot Macaulay of Greystones Coast Guard, describing the poignant scene in front of the viewing stand last Friday afternoon.

The local crew discussed whether to walk in this year's parade, as they do each year, ultimately deciding to hold the minute of silence. Parade-goers respectfully observed the moment, their thoughts with the families of those involved in the crash.

Dermot said that the Coast Guard team in Greystones is stunned by the tragedy. 'It's very difficult to put into words,' he said.

'We were talking to other crew members and they cannot come near to figuring it out.'

As a team, the Greystones members have trained with the helicopter crew of Rescue 116 on numerous occasions. The Dublin-based rescue helicopter was a common sight in the skies over County Wicklow, either for rescues, training, or involvement with the Bray Air Display.

Dermot said that the crew had done school visits, and would have spent plenty of time chatting to the local volunteers, as well as the children.

'They were beautiful people and so nice to the kids. It's amazing what they do.

'The whole team is majorly shocked,' said Dermot. 'It's so sad that there are six children affected by this.'

He said that the Greystones team attended the funeral of Captain Fitzpatrick at the weekend. He said that the grounds of the church were packed with mourners an hour before the Mass began.

Dermot said that plans are being made to prepare a book of condolence in the area.

The search for Paul Ormsby, Mark Duffy and Ciaran Smith continues. The Sikorsky S-92A helicopter wreckage remains on the ocean floor until weather conditions allow its recovery.

The Air Accident Investigation Unit extended its sincere sympathies to the families and friends of the crew of R116, in a statement they released on Monday.

Chief inspector of air accidents Jurgen Whyte, and investigator-in-charge Paul Farrell said that their primary objective, in conjunction with other agencies, is locating and recovering the missing crew members.

In addition, the AAIU is anxious to recover and examine as much wreckage as possible, and in particular to recover the combined voice and flight data recorder ('black box').

Some helicopter wreckage has been recovered from the general area of Black Rock lighthouse, on the approach to Blacksod Bay.

A significant amount of wreckage has been recovered from the sea and this has been logged and will be brought to the AAIU wreckage facility in Gormanston, Co Meath, for detailed examination. A signal believed to be from the black box has been detected underwater. This has identified an area which will be further investigated at the earliest opportunity, subject to weather conditions.
The late Martin McGuinness had a personal fondness for County Wicklow, according to Sinn Fein TD John Brady.

Yesterday, Deputy Brady paid tribute to former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, who died on Monday night.

'Martin led republicanism from the front for decades, striving for reunification and promoting peace and reconciliation and a genuine commitment to equality and respect,' said Deputy Brady.

'Martin was no stranger to Wicklow and we shared many canvasses throughout the county for many different elections down through the years. Indeed, in the Presidential election of 2011 he secured thousands of votes from right across Wicklow. Martin had a personal fondness for Wicklow and in some of our many conversations we spoke about Republican history in Wicklow, and the men and women of 1798, remembering people like Michael Dwyer, Sam McAllister and Ann Devlin. Only last year, he travelled down to the count centre in Greystones to celebrate my election victory,' said Deputy Brady.

He said that the party will 'continue to build Martin's legacy - a peaceful, reconciled, equal, united Ireland'.

'On behalf of republicans everywhere we extend our condolences to Bernie, Fiachra, Emmet, Fionnuala and Grainne, grandchildren and the extended McGuinness family,' said Deputy Brady.

Wicklow County Council has also officially extended its deepest sympathies to the family of the late Mr McGuinness. An online book of condolence is now available at wicklow.ie.
Kilavaney Parish in Tinahely recently extended a warm welcome to Josiane Umumarashavu from Rwanda whose photograph was featured on the Trocaire Box in homes and schools all over Ireland during the Lenten campaign in 2004.

Josiane was 12 years old and living in a village in southern Rwanda and that year's Lenten campaign highlighted the situation in Rwanda ten years after the genocide of 1994.

The purpose of Josiane's visit to Tinahely was to bring the Trocaire box to life and to thank Trocaire supporters for their generosity. On this, her first trip outside her native Rwanda, Josiane was accompanied by Sr Ancille from Rwanda, Trocaire's Elisha Kelly, Hannah Evans and Alan Whelan.

They attended 9.30 a.m. Mass in St. Kevin's Church followed by a very successful visit to Tinahely National School and Crossbridge National School. Josiane especially enjoyed her visit to the primary schools, where she gave a presentation to the children about her life, followed by questions and answers from the children.

Josiane's father, sister and two of her brothers were killed during the genocide in Rwanda. Josiane's mother and two other brothers survived but in 2004 they were struggling to make ends meet, living off a small piece of land and constantly facing the threat of hunger.

The generosity of Trocaire supporters helped to provide families such as Josiane's with the farming equipment they needed to improve food production. Trocaire has been working in Rwanda since 1994, supporting families in the poorest region of the country.

Josiane said 'Life is definitely better now. We have a home, a piece of land, cows and goats. Because of this support I was able to finish my schooling.'

Trocaire supporters in Ireland helped Josiane and her family long after the 2004 Lent campaign had finished. By paying her school fees and helping to buy books and other materials, Josiane was able to finish her education. Josiane graduated with a bachelor degree in Accounting from university in Kigali, Rwanda in 2015. In October 2016 Josiane commenced employment with Trocaire in Kigali.

Ellen Fox-Lanigan Chairperson Kilaveney Parish Pastoral Council said 'I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who gave Josiane a warm welcome to Tinahely. A special thanks to the children and staff from Tinahely NS and Crossbridge NS for their enthusiastic welcome given to Josiane. It was indeed a memorable day.'
A Rathnew family have been overwhelmed by the level of support they have received as they set about trying to raise 250,000 after two of their sons were diagnosed with a rare genetic illness with no known cure.

Leslie and Lynda Martin were still coming to terms with two-year-old Cathal being diagnosed with Metachromatic Leukodystrophy in December, when they were informed last month that his one-year-old brother Ciaran also suffers from the same condition.

'Our son Cathal was born a perfectly healthy boy in May 2014 and was reaching all his milestones like any other little child. We first noticed a problem when Cathal was having problems walking,' said Leslie.

'After multiple trips to the doctor and Tallaght Hospital, Cathal was diagnosed with MLD in December last year.

'He is now almost three years old. As a result of this illness, Cathal has gone from a fully healthy 18-month-old child to almost completely paralyzed within a year-and-a-half. He sits in a customised fully supported chair provided by Enable Ireland. Cathal's muscles are so weak that he cannot feed himself, chew or swallow and from a week ago he is fed through a nasogastric (NG) tube.'

Metachromatic Leukodystrophy attacks the nervous system. It was diagnosed too late in Cathal and, sadly, his condition is now terminal. However, Ciaran has not yet displayed any symptoms of the condition and he was diagnosed earlier than his older brother.

Tallaght Hospital arranged for Ciaran to be tested to see if he was eligible to take part in a clinical trial in Milan. He flew out to Italy on March 7, his first birthday, and underwent a series of tests and has been deemed eligible for a Gene Therapy Clinical Trial.

The treatment will take six months and require around-the-clock nursing care. The couple, who have an older third child, are planning to do two 12-hour shifts each day, seven days a week, alternating between Ireland and Italy.

Firstly, they have launched a 250,000 fundraising drive to help pay the costs of the care and travel.

'We have been getting a huge level of support,' said Leslie.

'There has been an amazing surge of support in the area which has been overwhelming. All sorts of different fundraising events have been organised.

'Hopefully we can reach our target within a few months but we are still a long way off. Our families and friends have been great as well. It has been an extremely tough time and we still have a long road ahead of us but we are so appreciative of the amount of support we have received, and the words of encouragement people have offered us as well,' he said.

The family have set up a fundraising page at www.idonate.ie/2997_the-martin-family-.html.

Numerous local fundraisers have already been arranged by a community lending its support to the family..

On Monday, April 3, a coffee morning and cake sale will take place in Glenealy Hall at 10.30 a.m. James Dunne and the St Joseph's NS Band will also perform.

Meanwhile, Liz Doyle of Ashford ran the 10k Gaol Break on Sunday in aid of the Martin Family Trust. If anyone wants to sponsor her she can be contacted on (086) 8520505.

If the family end up raising in excess of 250,000, they plan to donate what is leftover in Cathal's name. 'It would be a fitting tribute to his contribution to the world and for saving his younger brother's life by teaching us all about the condition,' said Leslie.
A new national planning framework, Ireland 2040 - Our Plan, will focus on areas such as housing, jobs, transport, education, health, environment, energy and communications.

One of the principal purposes of Ireland 2040 will be national development goals, including improved living standards, quality of life, prosperity, competitiveness and environmental sustainability, which will all be more broadly considered. It is also envisaged this will also provide greater clarity for private sector investment.

Senior planner at Wicklow County Council, Sorcha Walsh, provided councillors with a presentation outlining the framework's details.

It is intended that the Ireland 2040 Plan will be a high-level document that will provide the framework for future development and investment in Ireland. It will be the overall plan from which other, more detailed plans will take their lead.

Ireland 2040 will also be a tool to assist the achievement of more effective regional development. In order to ensure that positive outcomes arising from national growth can be shared by people throughout Ireland, the potential of all areas will need to be realised, relative to their capacity for sustainable development. The framework will seek to identify how best to work towards all of these shared goals for the benefit of the Country as a whole. It will also have statutory backing.

Written submissions from the public were accepted up until Thursday. However, there will be further opportunities for the public and all interested parties to make a submission relating to the framework at a later stage in the process.
A spokeswoman for residents near the People's Park has welcomed the suspension of plans to build a concrete ramp into the river.

Jill Porter and some other residents of the area were present at a special meeting of Wicklow County Council which took place recently.

The council's plans have come to a halt pending further legal advice. While members voted in favour of the move the previous week, residents raised further questions regarding the compulsory purchase order on the site and whether the council owns the property.

'At last week's Wicklow County Council meeting councillors voted overwhelmingly in favour of going ahead with the project despite residents of Little Bray raising concerns over the extent of the ramp and its legality,' said Jill Porter.

'At this week's special meeting of Wicklow County Council held on Monday it was revealed that the residents had received legal advice which questioned whether the local authority was actually the owner of that section of the People's Park.'

She said that the locals are pleased with this development, not having expected it. 'Most councillors voted on this proposal with the caveat that legal advice stated was in order. It is apparent that independent legal advice is required.

'The decision taken on Monday is welcomed by all the residents,' she said.
Want to learn more about Traveller Culture?

As part of Friendship Week Fermoy Community Network is hosting a workshop on Traveller culture delivered by Traveller trainers who live in the North Cork area.

The training is free and is for anyone who wants to learn more about Traveller culture.

The workshop takes place on Monday 27th March at 2pm in the Youth Centre, Ashe's Quay, Fermoy.

If you would like to attend please contact the Fermoy Community Resource Centre at 025 - 32962 to book a place.
Meghan and Margaret O'Sullivan of The Castle Hotel, Macroom, who won 'Best Service Excellence Award' for the Irish Country Hotel Group at the Manor House Hotels & Irish Country Hotels AGM in Parknasilla, Sneem. Photo by Don MacMonagle

Held at The Parknasilla Hotel, Sneem, County Kerry, last Tuesday, The Castle Hotel was awarded The Irish Country Hotel Service Excellence Award.

The award followed a mystery guest inspection, where a strict series of tests, and evaluations were carried out. Afterwards the assessor referred to a 'truly Irish welcome' at the Castle Hotel Macroom.

In the words of the assessor, commenting on the Castle Hotel, the assessor revealed that the most impressive aspect of the stay was undoubtedly the staff at the Macroom establishment.

"They were attentive and interested, yet professional at all times and I would highly recommend this hotel to others," was the feedback.

Margaret & Megan Buckley proudly accepted this highly prestigious award on the hotel's behalf and paid tribute to the entire staffing team on this exceptional recognition.

The Invisio Service Excellence Awards are presented to the hotels that have achieved the highest combined scores in the areas of both friendliness and efficiency.
The HSE has apologised unreservedly to the family of a part-time farmer who died in hospital three days after being admitted having injured himself cutting down a tree.

The entire preventative measures that should have happened in the A&E department at Cork University Hospital did not occur in the case of Michael Feeney, Coolagown, Fermoy, the HSE said.

Mr Feeney's brother, John Feeney, also of Coolagown, had sued the HSE as a result of the death.

Liability was admitted and the case was settled for 95,000.

The apology read by the Feeney family counsel, Dr John O'Mahony, stated: 'The HSE accepts the care provided to the deceased in this case was negligent and sub-standard.

'Subsequent to the death, a system analysis review was performed and recommendations were made in that regard which have been implemented.'

Counsel said Mr Feeney, who worked in Teagasc and was in his 50s, had injured himself while cutting down a tree on his land in Fermoy. He was admitted to the hospital after 10pm on April 9, 2014, with a hip fracture.

Mr Feeney remained in a wheelchair throughout that night and the next morning he was put on a trolley.

He was told he required surgery but Mr Feeney was later told that, due to time constraints and unavailability, he would not be operated on until the following Monday.

Counsel said Mr Feeney was allocated a bed at about 7pm on April 11 and was kept under review by the orthopaedic team.

Mr Feeney developed a deep vein thrombosis and later cardiac arrest, and died before 5pm on April 12.

Dr O'Mahony said Mr Feeney required surgery and this did not take place in the first 24 hours after his admission to A&E.

It was claimed there was a failure to exercise reasonable diligence, care, skill andcompetence in the examination, investigation, diagnosis, treatment, advice and management of Mr Feeney.

Outside court, John Feeney, flanked by his sister Ann and brother Thomas, said the family were glad to have received the apology.

He said: "The family are deeply saddened by what happened in hospital and we are so glad to have an apology. We hope that such a tragedy will never happen again."
Government plans to address the housing needs of Cork are falling far short of targets set for this year, one opposition politician warns. Since January 2015 just 173 social homes have been built or begun construction in a county experiencing intense demand amid thousands on housing waiting lists.

Cork North West TD Michael Moynihan this week criticised Housing Minister Simon Coveney for what he said was the minister's failure to deliver on the commitments of the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness. New figures published this week show the Government has not achieved the accelerated delivery of homes set out in the plan.

"The Housing Action Plan commits to the construction of 5,000 new social homes in 2017. However the figures contained in the Social Housing Status Report show that, at best, there will only be 1,000 new social homes constructed in 2017," Deputy Moynihan said.
Local man Joseph Connolly says carrying a donor card wasn't something he gave much thought to - until he found himself on the organ donor list dependent on life saving dialysis three times a week.

It's fair to say Joseph has been dealt a tougher hand in life than most - complications from his type 1 Diabetes has not only led to his kidney problems, it has also led to him having both his legs amputated and undergoing a triple heart bypass.

Despite his difficulties Joseph remains positive but says receiving a donor kidney would make a huge difference to his quality of life.

'It would mean so much to me, I'd have a much better quality of life,' he explained.

Joseph was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes 30 years ago but his serious health complications only began to surface within the last decade.

'It was fine, I could go around and have a normal life and then all of a sudden about seven years ago bang. It affected the heart as well.

'I was attending my diabetic clinic and the doctor there did bloods and told me he have to send me to Dublin for more tests. After those tests, the doctors told me: 'It's like this Mr Connolly you're going to need a kidney transplant.

'It was a huge shock to the system, I couldn't believe what they were telling me,' he said. 'The diabetes ended up getting worse and I eventually had both my legs amputated so I'm wheelchair bound. The second one was removed last October, and they are still keeping an eye on me for infections, they've taken me off the transplant list for the moment until I get the all clear that the infections are gone.'

Joseph has also undergone a triple bypass as a result of his diabetes and says that while his quality of life is limited, it would be dramatically improved were he to receive a kidney transplant. 'Between one thing and another I got the full package. It took a huge amount of adjustment,' who lives in Rathmullen Park with his partner and fulltime carer Colette Heeney.

'My quality of life is pretty bad at the moment. I have to have dialysis three days a week, sometimes four. If I did get a kidney and it worked I wouldn't need dialysis anymore and that would make a huge difference to my life.

'If I got a kidney transplant, okay I'm wheelchair bound I'll always be wheelchair bound but I'd have a much better quality of life. It would mean so much to me. At the moment I can't go anywhere without a carer being with me. We got an extension built and I basically live in the extension because it's all on the flat. It's purpose built theres a shower room and the bedroom is here and the television andthat type of thing.'

When he was first diagnosed, Joseph had home dialysis for two years before that stopped working and he now attends the Beacon Renal Unit in Drogheda having previously had to travel to Dublin for his dialysis.

Each session takes four hours and fifteen minutes so Joseph says his life revolves around his dialysis treatment.

'It is a huge amount of time and it does leave me with a lot of limitations,' explained Joseph, who is full of praise for the 'amazing' staff at the Beacon unit.

'They are brilliant and they can't do enough for you,' he said. 'They look after you 120%, the nurses up there are so nice.'

However, Joseph dreams of the day he will no longer need to attend for dialysis and as organ donor week approaches at the start of April, he urged everyone in town to think about carrying an organ donor card so they could give the gift of life.

'When I was growing up and I used to see donor cards I never used to think anything of them, it didn't really register with me,' said Joseph. It's only when you're in this position that you realise what it means to someone and you really hope that people would think about carrying a donor card. If you have a card your family know what your wishes are should something happen.'
Daffodil Day takes place on Friday, March 24th and as always there are a host of of events planned in Drogheda to raise vital funds for the Irish Cancer Society.

The Irish Cancer Society-Drogheda Volunteer group, was established by Lizanne Allen in 1987, in response to a phone call looking for volunteers to do a street collection in Drogheda, for the first ever Daffodil Day (Conquer Cancer).

She responded by getting a few friends together to collect. From the very first day the street collections in Drogheda have been very well supported and every year every corner the town has willing volunteers who brave the cold and the rain ( and occasionally sunshine!!) to support Daffodil Day.

The idea for the Daffodil Day Fashion Show was born from the desire to try to boost the amount raised locally.

Back in the days of the punt, and despite best efforts, the volunteers could never get over 10,000 on street collections.

Lizanne mulled over the challenge with her late sister Lynda and her friends, and the idea of a fashion show with local people on the ramp, and at the helm, was conceived. The Daffodil Day Drogheda Fashion Show has been running 25 years and is a highlight on the Drogheda social calendar. The show's longevity and success is due, in no short part, to the unwavering support of the people of Drogheda, and the businesses participating and sponsoring the event. The local business diary also has a longstanding fixture in The Gold Cup Business Lunch hosted by local business people, Karen Healy, Giles Belton, Maeve Smith, Bernard Woods and Hilary Lynch with all proceeds going to Daffodil Day.

This year the business lunch takes place during the Punchestown Festival at the end of April as the Cheltenham Festival clashed with St Patrick's Day.

In 2014 the Drogheda Volunteers were very ambitious, embarking on a fundraising and awareness campaign.

By asking local businesses to Paint the Town Yellow in the run up to Daffodil Day and marching as the yellow army in St Patricks Day Parade, we sought to remind people of the important services provided and research funded by the ICS. Such was the success of the 'yellowfication' of Drogheda, RTE decided to film the Nationwide Daffodil Day Special here! The town looked wonderful and even after the cameras were gone local people went the extra mile to ensure the town was awash with colour.

Local preschool and primary school children made beautiful daffodil pictures which filled up empty retail units all over the town centre. Indeed Drogheda Port, Murtaghs of Drogheda and local artist Noel Kelly teamed up to paint the Mall Buoy on North Quay with giant daffodils.

Shop fronts were transformed with all things yellow. Painting the Town Yellow in the run up to Daffodil Day is now a permanent feature of life in Drogheda. Businesses go Yellow and make a donation to the society to show their support for the awareness campaign.

Not content with ensuring the streetscape was yellow, the committee sought to get bouquets of daffodils brightening up the inside of workspaces all over town. Volunteers make and deliver Daffodil arrangements in exchange for 50 donation to Daffodil Day. This year there are over 50 ordered.

The Irish Cancer Society - Drogheda Volunteers committee currently comprises of 11 local ladies, founding member Lizanne Allen, with Mary Convery, Edeltraud Kyck, Jean Coulter, Niamh Matthews, Vicki Mathews, Rebecca Doherty, Joanne Allen, Majella O'Boyle, Sonya Carr and Grainne Black.
Swords horse rider, Niamh Hyland has been presented with the 'runner-up' award, at the Riding for the Disabled Association Ireland's (RDAI) 'Rider of the Year Awards'.

The presentation was made during the national voluntary organisations annual national conference in Adare, Co Limerick, last week. The awards are presented annually to highlight the recreational and therapeutic benefits of horse riding and carriage driving.

The awards are sponsored by Wexford Insurances and were presented by Irish international pentathlon athlete, Arthur Lanigan O'Keefe.

Speaking at the presentation, RDAI Field Officer, Roisin Henry said that Niamh rides with the Kilronan RDAI group in Swords and attends St. Michael's school in Raheny.

Ms Henry said: 'Niamh only started horse riding two years ago after moving to St. Michael's. While she was a little nervous at first, her natural ability soon meant that she overcame any nerves and quickly became confident, content and extremely competent on her horse, Smurf, whom she keeps asking to take home.

'Everybody feels her posture, balance and confidence have improved greatly since she started riding. Horses have become her definite favourite animal and her enthusiasm for the subject is contagious with even her classmates undertaking a project in school entitled, 'Caring for Horses' for their Applied Junior Certificate,'
Aer Lingus has been fined 250,000 for a health and safety breach in connection with the death of a cargo driver at Dublin Airport over two years ago.

The company admitted exposing non-employees to risks to their health and safety in relation to a practice which had developed of cargo drivers habitually gaining access to a loading bay by climbing onto and off a three foot high loading dock.

John Murray (55), from Skerries, was climbing down from a loading bay at a cargo warehouse with some light parcels at the airport at night when he fell and suffered fatal head injuries.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard he was discovered lying on his back unconscious approximately 25 minutes later. He suffered fractures to the base of his skull and despite undergoing surgery to relieve swelling of the brain he died several days later.

The company pleaded guilty through a representative that it failed to manage and conduct its undertaking in such a way as to ensure, that individuals who were not its employees were not exposed to risks to their safety, health or welfare at or near Gate 7 at Aer Lingus Cargo Warehouse on November 5, 2014.

The full charge specifies that there was a failure to ensure that adequate measures were in place to protect people from the risk of a fall from height and that there was a failure to implement its written procedures dealing with driver access to loading bays.

The offence states that Aer Lingus 'regularly permitted or required drivers to access and egress the building via the loading bay itself'.

Victim impact statements from Mr Murray's wife Angela and their two children were handed into court.

Shane Murphy SC, defending, said Aer Lingus deeply regretted that this tragic situation came to pass.

He said the company had co-operated fully with the investigation and the current situation meets the implementation of best practice.

Mr Murphy said there had been a lack of supervision at night and bad practice had developed.

Judge Martin Nolan extended his condolences to the Murray family. He noted Mr Murray's death had been devastating for his family and had left a huge hole in their lives.

Speaking outside court Angela Murray told reporters that her children had lost 'the best of fathers' and she had lost her 'anam cara', her soul mate.

'John was a good kind man, a loving husband, dad, brother, uncle and friend and the world is a poorer place without him,' she said.

The Murray family's solicitor Dermot McNamara confirmed that a claim for damages against Aer Lingus has been lodged in the High Court. 'Whilst my clients welcome today's verdict, it does little to ease their pain,' said Mr McNamara. 'John Murray went to work on November 5 2014 and his family expected him to return home safely.'
The issue of construction traffic in Donabate has once again been raised with the HSE with a local TD claiming that it is of major concern for local residents.

A number of projects are taking place in the area including the development of the National Forensic Hospital.

Other works include work on the Tusla resident childcare facility project which is due to be completed in the first quarter of this year.

Furthermore, construction work is due to commence on the ground floor of block 1.2.3 at St. Ita's hospital campus towards the end of this month.

Deputy Alan Farrell (FG) said: 'Construction traffic in Donabate is a major concern for many residents in the local community, particularly as we approach further development for the new National Forensic Mental Hospital at St. Ita's.

'The Head of Estates of the HSE has confirmed to me that the enabling works for the National Forensic Mental Health Services Hospital project were completed in November 2016 and, as construction has not yet begun, no construction traffic related to this project has passed through Donabate since the third week of November last.

'However, at that time, HSE Estates approached all other building contractors working on the St. Ita's site and requested that they ensure those driving construction vehicles on all other projects were made aware of speed limits, and to consider limiting construction traffic travelling through the village at peak times as a gesture of goodwill.'

Deputy Farrell added: 'Other works are being completed at the St. Ita's site, which are separate to the development of the National Forensic Mental Hospital and, as such, Fingal County Council never attached any traffic restrictions to the planning permission for these building projects or other construction projects in the community - meaning they are not prevented from passing through the village at peak times. '

He said: 'I would hope that the council realises the dangers posed by construction traffic travelling through the village during peak hours, particularly when children are going to, and coming from, school.

On that basis, I would urge Fingal County Council to attach similar traffic restrictions to the planning permission for all other large-scale projects in Donabate and Portrane.

'In the interim, I have requested Fingal County Council to contact those involved in other construction projects on the St. Ita's site, and other major projects in the area to ask them to limit the level of construction traffic travelling through the village during peak hours as a matter of safety, and a gesture of goodwill to the local community.'
The entire airport community has been shocked by the loss of the crew of Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 helicopter which was based at Dublin Airport and began many of its lifesaving missions from there.

A Dublin Airport spokesman told the Fingal Independent: 'Rescue 116 was based at Dublin Airport and the entire airport community has been shocked by the events of recent days.'

The airport spokesman said: 'The past few days have been very difficult for the Irish Coast Guard and for the wider Irish search and rescue community. Our thoughts are with all of our colleagues at the Irish Coast Guard and also the families and friends of Rescue 116's four crew; Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, Winchman Paul Ormsby and Winchman Ciaran Smith.'

The crew we members of the Irish Air Line Pilots' Association (IALPA) which is also based at Dublin Airport.

A spokesperson for IALPA said: 'The Irish Air Line Pilots' Association would like to express our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the crew of 'Rescue 116'. The decorated crew of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, Ciaran Smith and Paul Ormsby paid the ultimate price in their service to the State and the people of Ireland should be proud to have men and women like the crew of 'Rescue 116' watching over them.'
A local TD has paid tribute to the Oldtown crew member of Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter 116, saying that Ciaran Smith has spent 15 years working to 'serve and protect our community'.

Fianna Fail TD in Dublin Fingal, Darragh O'Brien TD has expressed his sympathies with the families, friends and colleagues of the Rescue 116 Coast Guard helicopter crew whose aircraft went missing off the coast of Mayo, last week.

Deputy O'Brien said: 'My thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick who it has been confirmed has sadly passed away.

'My thoughts are also with family, friends and colleagues of the three other missing crew members of the Dublin Coast Guard, who are anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones.'

Turning to the Fingal member of the courageous helicopter rescue crew, Deputy O'Brien said: 'Local crew member, Ciaran Smith from Oldtown in North Dublin has worked to serve and protect our community for over 15 years.

'It is difficult to imagine the pain that Ciaran's wife Martina and their three young children are experiencing at this time.'

The local TD added: 'The men and women of the Irish Coast Guard and in all our emergency services, put their lives on the line for us 24/7, 365 days of the year. Living by the coast we see the coast guard on a regular basis carrying out exercises and emergency call outs. We almost take it for granted.

'I would also like to pay tribute to the entire Coast Guard crew, many of whom have been taking part in the massive search for their colleagues, which is another testament to their strength and professionalism.'

Deputy O'Brien said: 'This tragedy is a sad reminder of the risks the emergency services face every day to keep us safe.'

Labour Transport spokesperson and local TD, Brendan Ryan, also expressed his sympathies with the families, friends and colleagues of the Rescue 116 Coast Guard helicopter crew.

Deputy Ryan said: 'I echo the sentiment of the Irish Coast Guard which has said it's a dark day for Ireland's emergency services. My thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick who it has been confirmed has sadly passed away.

'It is difficult to imagine the pain and sense of loss they must be feeling at the moment.

'My thoughts are also with family, friends and colleagues of the other brave missing crew members of the Dublin Coast Guard, who are anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones. We are all hoping for the best possible outcome for them.'
A local TD has reminded the Minister for Justice of the groundswell of opinion in Rush in favour of reopening the town's Garda Station.

Sinn Fein TD for Dublin Fingal Louise O'Reilly reminded the Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald of a petition requesting the reopening of Rush Garda station and the restoration of services to Lusk amid media reports she has made a decision on re-opening a small number of stations in a pilot scheme.

The petition was the result of local demand for the reopening of the station and Deputy O'Reilly collected the signatures last year and made it available at the time to the minister for consideration.

Deputy O'Reilly said: 'The Programme for Partnership Government made a firm commitment to launch a pilot scheme to reopen six Garda stations.

'However, following questions to the Minister previously it seemed there was scant detail on the basis upon which stations would be chosen for the pilot. Indeed, while the Minister advised that the Garda Commissioner and the Policing Authority have responsibility for this area, she did say that she will have a role in this.

'Amid media reports that the minister has finalised her list for the pilot scheme, and indeed that Stepaside Garda station will be one of those in the pilot, questions remain on the other five stations. Moreover, what criteria have been used in the selection and when will the list become public.'

Deputy O'Reilly made the argument for including Rush in the pilot scheme, saying: 'The closure of Rush Garda Station has left a void in the policing of North Fingal. Rush, due to its geographical location, is distinctly disadvantaged in regards to responses to calls, with the only fully operational Garda Station in Balbriggan.

'Having received numerous calls from residents and shop owners in relation to this, I spent a large amount of time last year collecting a petition of signatures in the local community. Every weekend, we were meeting people on this and they voiced their anger over the current situation. In that regard, I submitted the petition to the Minister to demonstrate first-hand the groundswell of support for the re-opening of the station. I believe that the petition and the local support carry great weight in terms of the merits of having Rush in the pilot.'

The Sinn Fein TD added: 'In recent months, serious violent crime has visited the community of Fingal and I believe that as part of the pilot scheme, all areas should be considered equally on their merit and their need for increased Garda presence in the community. Reopening Rush Garda station and restoring services to Lusk, I believe, should be part of this.

'This petition shows that the people of Dublin Fingal are particularly eager that this station be reopened and services restored.'
Coastal communities who depend on the brave men and women of the Irish Coast Guard are feeling the loss of the crew of Rescue 116 more keenly than most and local RNLI services who work hand in glove with the Coast Guard to protect those communities have been moved to pay tribute to the crew of Rescue 116.

A spokesperson for Skerries RNLI has paid tribute to the lost Coast Guard helicopter crew, including Fingal's own Ciaran Smith.

The local RNLI spokesperson told the Fingal Independent that the lost crew and all of their colleagues based out of Dublin Airport were 'absolute consummate professionals'.

'We have worked with them many times and I can tell you they are all absolute consummate professionals and just incredible to work with,' the Skerries RNLI spokesperson said.

The RNLI volunteer said that the unfolding story off Blacksod in Mayo was a 'terrible tragedy' and he extended the sympathies of the local crew members to all the family and friends of the lost helicopter crew.
A High Court application to have a judicial review of the Fingal County Council decision to grant a five-year extension to the planning permission for the new North Runway at Dublin Airport, has been put back for hearing until March 22.

The case was before the High Court last Thursday along with a separate case seeking an injunction on construction work on the new runway.

Both cases are being brought by a group of residents from St Margaret's headed by the chairperson of the St Margaret's Concerned Residents group, Helena Merriman.

Responding to the action for the first time publicly, chief executive of Fingal County Council, Paul Reid told councillors at the March meeting of the full council, last week that the action had been taken and was due for mention on March 16 but the matter was now 'sub judice' and there would be no further comment from the council on the issue.

Cllr Brian McDonagh (Lab) said he wanted to state his position on the issue publicly and said he was against the decision to grant the extension to the planning permission. He said that instead, there should have been an entirely new planning permission sought for the runway.

The two separate legal actions are being taken by residents in St Margaret's against the development of a new runway at Dublin Airport.

The St Margaret's Concerned Residents group are seeking an injunction under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act and it is understood the action is centred around local concerns about waste management procedures put in place by the daa for the construction phase of the 320 million North Runway project.

Separately, a list of 22 named residents from St Margaret's which also includes members of the St Margaret's Concerned Residents group, are seeking a judicial review of the five-year extension to the planning permission for the new runway.

The residents application for a judicial review of that process pre-dates the decision of Fingal County Council to grant a five-year extension to the planning permission, indicating the action will also challenge the application process.

In granting that extension, council planners acknowledged that there were 'commercial and economic' factors outside the control of the daa that meant the project could not be completed within its original 10-year planning permission period.
The loss of Coast Guard winchman, Ciaran Smith will be felt all over Fingal and particularly in coastal communities like Skerries where the sight of helicopter Rescue 116 hovering overhead was a familiar one.

St Patrick's Day had added poignancy in Skerries this year as the helicopter crew of Rescue 116 would normally have been flying over the parade. This year, of course, they were missing as a minute's silence was held at the parade in their honour.

Working hand-in-glove with the members of Rescue 116 were Skerries Coast Guard and their thoughts are prayers are with their lost colleagues and all of their families and friends.

Vanessa Gaffney, Officer in Charge at Skerries Coast Guard, told the Fingal Independent: 'The striking red and white Sikorsky S 92 Coast Guard helicopter is a familiar sight in the skies over Fingal, bringing a commanding but reassuring presence.

'The Coast Guard helicopter crews from the local Dublin Airport base have played a key role in the many rescues and searches that have taken place on our coast. Local communities are indebted to the dedication and professionalism of the Dublin crew.'

Vanessa added: 'All of the team at Skerries Coast Guard send our thoughts and prayers to the families and friends of the three missing Coast Guard crewmen; Ciaran, Paul and Mark, as they anxiously await news of their loved ones.'

Recalling training exercises with the helicopter crews and in particular local man Ciaran Smith, Vanessa said: 'After the helicopter lands and the rotor blades come to a stop, the winchmen would be the first out of the aircraft to meet the team.

'Ciaran was always instantly recognisable with his broad, beaming smile as he strides across the field to say hello.

'All of the Coast Guard helicopter crews wear the striking yellow helmets. Ciaran's helmet was by far the most memorable of all of them, with the back of it adorned with brightly coloured cartoon stickers, no doubt decorated with help from his young children.'

John Ryan, Deputy Officer in Charge recalls winch training with Ciaran, said: 'We always recall our first winching exercise, sitting at the door of the aircraft, ready to be winched out.

'The winchman is on the ground ready to meet us. Unfortunately, the downdraught often caught many of us by surprise on our first winch, knocking us off balance once our feet touched the ground.

'There's been plenty of times where winchman Ciaran has lifted us up from the grass and dusted us off without laughing too much at our helplessness.'

The Sikorsky S-92 first appeared in Fingal skies in early 2014 as part of the Coast Guard's helicopter fleet upgrade.

Rescue 116 is the radio callsign attributed to the Coast Guard helicopter operating out of the base at Dublin Airport at any given time.
Two Wexford schools have been shortlisted in this year's Bord Gais Energy Student Theatre Awards

The two local school which have caught the attention of the judging panel are Gaelscoil Inis Corthaidh and Gorey Community School. Both schools will now attend an exciting awards ceremony in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in May.

Gaelscoil Inis Corthaidh in Enniscorthy has been shortlisted in the Best Costumes category for its costume creations in the school production of 'Oiche Chiuin'. Judges said that the costumes 'really brought the story alive'.

Gorey Community School has been shortlisted in the Best Choreography category for its choreography in the production of 'Disco Inferno' by 5th and 6th year students. Judges praised the students for their use of 'seamless and professional' choreography.

On Wednesday, May 17, representatives from both school as well delegations from the other short listed primary and secondary schools will attend the awards ceremony which will be presented by RTE presenter Eoghan McDermott.

This is the fourth year of the hugely successful awards which were set up by Bord Gais Energy to recognise and reward participation in the dramatic arts in schools around Ireland. Over 1,000 schools have taken part in the Awards since their launch in 2013 and last year saw over 2,000 students from counties across Ireland attend the Bord Gais Energy Theatre for the celebratory Awards ceremony.

This year's judging panel comprised of actress Amy Huberman; Dancing with the Stars Aoibhin Garrihy; best-selling novelist Sinead Moriarty; writer and storyteller Dave Rudden; theatre designer Monica Frawley; manager of the Bord Gais Energy Theatre Stephen Faloon; and Bord Gais Energy Sponsorship Programme Manager Tanya Townsend.

Irene Gowing from Bord Gais Energy said: 'Year on year the standard of entries blows us away, and this year has been no different.'
Jack Farrell with proud family, parents Charlie and Noreen and brother Adam, at the Press Pass Awards

Jack Farrell is presented with his award for photojournalism by Minister Finian McGrath and Newsbrands Ireland chairperson Vincent Crowley

A stunning shot of an autumnal Listowel Town Park saw one young Kerry student winning one of the top prizes in the country's competition for budding journalists.

Causeway Comprehensive student and Ballyduff native Jack Farrell was awarded the photojournalism prize for his portrait capturing the park in all its autumn time glory in the Press Pass Awards last week - the leading competition nationally encouraging young media talents at second level.

Jack's shot blew judges away.English teacher Michelle Mulvihill and Causeway Deputy Principal Anne Marie Hassett accompanied Jack and his proud family - Charlie, Noreen and Adam - to the awards ceremony in Dublin where Minister Finian McGrath and Vincent Crowley presented the prize.
Five members of Tralee Mountaineering Club had to spend a night on the summit of Spain's highest mountain when two cable cars on the mountain broke down in mid air.

A group of 15 from the Tralee club were among 111 tourists stranded on the summit of the Mount Teide volcano in Tenerife when the emergency unfolded last Wednesday.

While 10 members of the Tralee club were able to walk down to the base station on the 3,700 metre mountain, five of the Kerry group were forced to stay on the peak as two of their party were unable to walk down.

One was suffering from altitude sickness and the second had suffered a twisted ankle.

They, and 106 other tourists, were forced to spend the night on the mountain summit where they had to shelter in three small cabins in temperatures that, at times, fell as low as -16 Celsius.

By midday on Thursday the group had been airlifted from the summit by helicopter and brought to medics at the base station.

The Spanish emergency services said the tourists, who spent the night at the improvised shelters, were given food, water and warm clothes and were accompanied by emergency personnel.

An emergency services spokesman told The Kerryman that while there were no serious injuries, some people suffered high blood pressure, altitude sickness, minor cuts and dizziness.

Club Member Paul Walsh - who spent the night on the mountain - described the conditions as very cold and uncomfortable and praised the Spanish emergency services for their skill.
There's increasing anxiety in Killorglin over the safety of the town's historic bridge over the River Laune, with no work undertaken in the past eight years to address an obvious dip in the structure that appears to be worsening.

Many now fear a major catastrophe on what is one of the most heavily trafficked large bridges in the entire county.

Kerry County Council insist that the 'settlement' - as it describes the subsidence - has been stopped as the result of works carried out in 2009, and a system of continuous assessment monitoring the situation since.

Cllr Quigg said many in Killorglin are worried in the absence of any major underpinning work since '09 - particularly in the light of recent other collapses at locations in the county.

"This is just it, we've seen what happened to the Gaddagh Bridge in Beaufort and others in the county and with the modern day weight and volume of traffic over a bridge originally built for horses and carts who's to say it won't happen again?" Sinn Fein County Councillor Damian Quigg asked.

He is to raise the issue at next week's meeting of Kerry County Council in an attempt to discover what steps the Council is taking to ensure public safety and the viability of one of the county's most iconic bridges.

He said he was 'dumbfounded' no works have taken place on the bridge in the past eight years.

"I'm dumbfounded. It must be the only bridge in Ireland that is on a national route of major tourist importance, giving onto the Ring of Kerry, one that is now under massive traffic weight in terms of the volume of frieght. If this was anywhere else in the country would it be left so long?"

"There was talk of a bypass over a new bridge. Businesses might have a concern about that going forward as it would bypass the town centre completely, but I think it could attract more people in while relieving congestion as you could pedestrianise part of the centre."

Kerry County Council told The Kerryman that the issue is primarily a matter for Transport Infrastructure Ireland (formerly the NRA) as the bridge is on a national route.

The national body was tasked with carrying out an assessment of the eight-arch structure last year, while the council added that works have been undertaken to strengthen the structure in the recent past.

"There were significant rehabilitation works undertaken on Laune Bridge in late 2009 which included piling (enhancements) of the bridge piers (uprights)," a spokesperson said.

The Council has been keeping an eye on the structure since: "The bridge has been subject to regular monitoring over the last five years where level surveys indicate that the works have been successful and the settlement has been arrested. "The bridge will continue to be monitored in conjunction with the TII," they added.

Cllr Quigg is meanwhile also calling for a public meeting on the future of the bridge and other important infrastructure.

The issue has also been raised by Cllr Michael Cahill as well as by former councillor Johnny 'Porridge' O'Connor.
Survivor of the notorious industrial school at Glin Tom Wall is being threatened with legal action by the religious order at whose hands he suffered physical and sexual abuse over documents from the school he handed over to the University of Limerick in 2015.

It's a threat Mr Wall describes as an 'insult' to all survivors of a school that figured prominently in the horrific revelations of the Ryan Report.

The 800 individual documents Mr Wall moved from the school on its closure in 1973 has been judged one of the most important existing portfolios relating to life in the industrial school system, outside of archives held by religious orders.

He donated all the material to UL in 2015 to help historians better understand the deeply troubling system.

But the Christian Brothers order immediately moved to recover the material, claiming that it is the rightful owners of the documents. Now, after an exhaustive process involving solicitors on all sides, the order has directed Mr Wall to relinquish his claim on the documents and return them to the order or face legal action.

Fianna Fail TD for Limerick Niall Collins this week branded the legal threat as 'nothing short of contemptible'.

Mr Wall was the youngest boy ever admitted to St Joseph's Industrial School in Glin at just three years of age. He survived more than a decade of sexual and physical abuse before being discharged to work as a farm boy at the age of 16. He later returned to the school and at the age of 24 helped the remaining religious close the building for good in 1973.

"I was ordered by the Superior Brother Murry to burn all the documents that he gave me, but was told that I could keep any that I particularly wanted. As I was looking for my own file I therefore held back some of the documents that I had been told to burn and I put them in the attic of a house in Glin where they remained for the next 40 years."

UL said the documents represented an 'opportunity to shine a light into the darkest corners of our country's recent past' on accepting the cache two years ago.

Within a month of donating the documents, Mr Wall received a letter from a solicitor acting for the European Province of the Congregation of Christian Brothers that stated: "For the avoidance of any doubt, this collection is the rightful property of the EPCCB. Mr Wall does not have legal ownership...in the event the collection is not returned to our client we will have to advise our client of the remedies available to them in law to secure the return of the collection."

Negotiations between Mr Wall and the EPCCB have since failed to reach an agreement.

Among the collection are documents which show how the order organised apprenticeships for boys on leaving Glin with the boys' pay going straight back to the institution, Mr Wall said.

He fears that if the order succeeds in getting the collection no one will get the chance to study their contents."I firmly believe these documents should be kept in UL where they can be preserved and viewed and will be a record for future generations. It is an insult to me as a survivor and the many other survivors who were abused by the Christian Brothers that they can now claim ownership of these documents after a lapse of 40 years."

Mr Wall fears the order could 'destroy' the collection. He is now calling on the State to intervene in the dispute and take ownership of the collection for the benefit of public knowledge and the ongoing trials of other survivors.

Deputy Collins supports this proposal. "It is beyond belief that the Christian Brothers, having previously sought to burn the personal documents of former residents, would now threaten legal action against the person who sought to protect them and correctly involved UL."
Work on the first phase of the Tralee traffic plan - to restore two way traffic on Denny street - is proceeding on schedule.

Work has now commenced on the upgrade of the Castle Street and Denny Street junction, which will see the junction undergo substantial repairs and resurfacing.

In addition Kerry County Council (KCC) has confirmed the allocation of 95,000 to completely resurface Denny Street.

The works on Denny Street - which include the construction of three pedestrian crossings and the introduction of parallel parking spaces - are due to conclude by Easter and KCC Senior Executive Engineer Eamon Scanlon said the contractors are confident of meeting that deadline.

Once the Denny Street works are complete the new two-way system will be introduced with immediate effect. The Mall will be closed to traffic from April 24 to allow works proceed there.

For one week - from April 24 - The Mall will be closed to traffic while Denny Street is still a one way road.

The Mall works - which will last until November 18 - are due to be halted for the summer

However, Mr Scanlon said he is still hopeful work will be allowed continue through the tourist season, a move which he said would allow the entire project conclude much sooner.

No matter what happens, all work will halt for the Rose of Tralee festival in mid August.

Mr Scanlon apologised for the disruption the works have caused, adding that KCC and contractors John Craddock Ltd are doing all in their power to minimise disruption and "keep Tralee open for business."

He also addressed issues with the new pedestrian crossings at the Denny Street / Castle Street junction which have led to significant traffic delays and caused confusion among motorists and pedestrians.

Mr Scanlon said these teething problems should be resolved when the new intelligent traffic system is fully operational though he added that drivers and pedestrians will have to change their habits if the system is to work as it is designed to.

Once the new system is in place the council will examine it to see if some adjustments are needed. Funding will also be sought to improve key junctions identified as problem areas.

Clarity on taxis

As part of the Tralee Traffic Plan - which will see The Mall semi-pedestrianised and two-way traffic restored on Denny Street -the existing Mall taxi rank has to be moved.

To replace it, a number of smaller ranks will be located in areas around the town. This has led to confusion among the public, businesses and some taxi drivers as to where the new ranks will be located.

During a media briefing tour of the town centre works on Monday, Kerry County Council Senior Engineer Eamon Scanlon provided full details of the new taxi rank system.

Plans to locate ranks on either side of Denny Street have been abandoned as they proved to be unsuitable for taxi drivers and customers.

Instead the main rank will be located adjacent to Boots in the AbbeyCourt car park with the queue of taxis stretching around the corner into the Abbey carpark.

At night - from 8pm on - a temporary six-car rank will operate on Edward Street and taxis will also be allowed operate from the loading bays on The Mall which have room for six or seven cars.

The existing rank at Shaws lane will remain in place acting as a feeder to the other ranks.
A long vacant retail unit in Tralee has been cited as a prime example of the need to reform Ireland's commercial rates system during a recent debate in the Seanad.

Earlier this month Clare-based Senator Martin Conway used the former Dunnes Stores outlet on Bridge Street in Tralee to illustrate his argument in favour of reforming how commercial rate refunds are handled.

At present in cities, the owners of vacant retail units can claim a 50 per cent rebate on the rates paid for that unit. However, in rural towns the owners can claim a 100 per cent refund.

Senator Conway said that this has led to a situation where the owners of these units - often large retail chains - have no incentive to see the units occupied and, in some cases, will actively seek to keep the premises empty in a bid to lessen or prevent competition.

To end such practices, 100 per cent rate rebates were abolished in the major cities and Senator Conway has called for the measure to be specifically extended to all large rural towns.

At present local authorities can vary the rate rebates they offer but this has to be done on a county-wide basis and specific regulations can't be applied to particular towns.

It was mainly for that reason that Kerry County Council opted to keep its refund rate at 100 per cent in its last budget.

"A large unit in Tralee town centre from which Dunnes Stores traded successfully for many years is now empty. The company was so successful in the town that it decided to build a big out-of-town unit on a greenfield site," Senator Conway said.

"As a consequence, its former unit in Tralee town centre has been empty for some time. The existence of this vacant unit in the centre of Tralee is choking development in the area. It is fair and reasonable to expect a successful company like Dunnes Stores to make a contribution towards the rates bill for what I would describe as a derelict site," he said.

"The way it used to work was that a company with one of these units would pay rates on that unit before claiming those moneys back by demonstrating that the unit was available for renting to a suitable client who could meet strict terms and conditions. To deal with this problem in Dublin and other big cities, it was decided to introduce legislation limit to 50 per cent the rebate such companies could get on their rates," he said.

"The particular example in Tralee is replicated in towns all over the country," said the Senator.

"I have huge sympathy for somebody who goes out of business and is having difficulty in renting a unit, given that it may require significant investment to bring it up to an acceptable standard and the particular client may not have money to do so. However, it is a different ball game when there is a major company with significant profits which is in a position to prevent this from happening," said Senator Conway.
One of the most horrific events in the county's recent past was recalled this week in a powerful speech by Ned O'Sullivan in the Seanad as he reacted to the horrific revelations coming from Tuam.

It's a story well known in North Kerry, one that was immortalised by playwright Tony Guerin in his acclaimed Solo Run - a man with a strong connection to the story; but it bears perennial retelling lest younger generations might forget the horrors of the absolute worst of the Catholic Church's strangehold on Irish society through most of the 20th Century.

Senator O'Sullivan retold the horrific tale after sharing his thoughts on the revelations emerging from Tuam which he described as 'chilling' and 'horrendous'.

"I use my remaining time to share a story with the House. It concerns a sad and dark time in Ireland and it will have resonance given the subject under discussion today," Senator O'Sullivan said.

"In February 1946, in a small cottage at the edge of my home town in north Kerry, a young, single girl gave birth to a baby with the assistance of a local midwife.

"Complications set in and immediate medical help was required. A local hackney man by the name of John Guerin was sent for and he brought the seriously ill girl to the local hospital, less than a mile from her home. She was refused admittance and directed to the county hospital in Tralee, which entailed an agonising journey for her of 20 miles.

"Although she was at death's door, she was again refused admittance in Tralee and redirected to the union in Killarney, which was a further 20 miles away and which was considered to be a more suitable place for her peer group. There, she died," he said, continuing:

"Mr Guerin took her coffin back to Listowel on the roof of his car to find the gates of our parish church locked against them. The local convent chapel door was locked as well. By this time, word had spread and a sizeable crowd of angry people had gathered in our square.

"Mr. Guerin and his neighbours broke down the chains on the church and shouldered the remains up to the altar. Community pressure was applied and the girl's body was buried in consecrated ground the following day. Many years later, Mr. Guerin's son, Tony, a celebrated playwright, wrote a play about that story called "Solo Run", which ran to packed houses in Dublin. A local balladeer, Sean McCarthy, who wrote "Shanagolden", also wrote a beautiful poem, In Shame, about the incident. It highlighted the plight of the unmarried mother of the time.

"They whisper their stories, they glance with the eye/ They look over my shoulder when I pass them by/ And my father and mother, they treat me the same/ Oh hear the nightingale crying in shame love in shame."

Ned said about the only positive that could be gleaned from the story was the 'courage' of the ordinary working people of Listowel against the religious elite in demanding a Christian burial for the tragic girl.

However, Ned told the Senate he would not 'join the queue' to point the finger at the priests and nuns - saying most of them gave 'fantastic' service to communities.

Tony Guerin - hackney man John Guerin's son and author of Solo Run - told The Kerryman he later spoke to the nephew of the nun who refused admission at Listowel. "He told me she was deeply ashamed of it, but she was just following orders I guess like so many of them.

"My father never paid any price for what he did. He didn't give a shite about what anyone might think and would just do what he thought was right, that's the kind of man he was. We were the poor peasants in the Gleann

"We didn't know much about it as children. You'd know something was going on but you'd be cleared from the kitchen. It was much later when I became aware of it as my father was a man who never talked about things."
The public water supply in Ventry has been found to contain worrying levels of chemicals associated with a variety of health risks, including cancer. However, work currently being carried out by Irish Water will alleviate the problem in the coming months.

Chemicals known as trihalomethanes (THMs), which are classified as 'possibly carcinogenic' and have also been linked to potential reproductive effects, have been found at high levels in the Ventry water supply, by comparison with other areas in West Kerry which are not similarly affected. However, the HSE says the health risks are minimal.

According to the HSE, the legal limit for THMs in drinking water in Europe is 100 microgrammes per litre. Water quality tests conducted in Ventry in September 2014 found 50 microgrammes of THMs per litre and this dropped to 34 microgrammes per litre when a second test was conducted a month later. In 2015 tests found 34 microgrammes of THMs per litre in April and 84 microgrammes in September. Irish Water's website reports that a test conducted in Ventry last September found the level of THMs was at exactly the legal maximum. The website has no report of a second test being conducted following this startling result.

By comparison with Ventry, Dingle was found to have THMs levels of between 5 microgrammes/litre (April) and 19 microgrammes/litre (September) last year, while Ballyferriter, Annascaul and Castlegregory all recorded 5 microgrammes/litre or less.

Kerry County Council Area Engineer Niall O Donaill told The Kerryman that organic material from decaying vegetation causes a peak in THM levels in chlorinated drinking water in the autumn and that areas supplied from a surface water source - as is the case in Ventry - are most affected.

In most cases water treatment plants remove organic material from drinking water and this prevents the formation of THMs. However, it would appear that the Ventry treatment plant at Cill a' Rith is not removing this organic material effectively, even though it was upgraded within the past 10 years.

Mr O Donaill was unable to comment on this, but he did say that work currently being carried out by Irish Water will lower THMs levels in Ventry's water supply. A borehole has recently been drilled at Cill a' Rith to tap into deeper groundwater, which is free of the risk of THMs contamination. This groundwater will be mixed with the existing supply from Mount Eagle Lake to lower THM levels or, if the borehole produces enough water, it will be used as the sole supply source for Ventry. He said the new water supply will be operational in the near future, and definitely before September when THMs levels tend to peak.

THMs are formed when organic material in water reacts with the chlorine used to purify public water supplies. The concentration of THMs in drinking water varies according to the level of organic material in the water, the amount of chlorine required to treat the water and the temperature of the water that is being treated

According to the HSE, people can be exposed to THMs by drinking contaminated water, inhaling THM vapour which evaporates from water, and even by absorbing the chemicals through the skin when showering.

However, the health authority says that while some studies suggest that very long-term exposure (35 years or more) to high levels of THMs may be linked to a slightly increased risk of some types of cancer, in particular bladder and colon cancer, the evidence is not conclusive. The HSE also says that findings regarding risks of miscarriage and low birth weight caused by THMs in drinking water are inconsistent

Temporarily raised levels of THMs in drinking water are "unlikely to result in any risk to health", and "the potential risks from drinking untreated water far outweigh any possible risks of long-term exposure to THMs", according to the HSE.

The health authority advises that people can lower their exposure to THMs in drinking water by boiling the water for one minute to allow THMs evaporate and allowing it to cool before drinking, to store tap water in the fridge for 24 hours in an open jug or to use suitable activated carbon water filters. They also recommend ensuring bathrooms and kitchens are well ventilated, taking short baths instead of a shower and using colder water to bath or shower.
Almost 20,000 is being spent by Wexford County Council sending councillors and council officials across the globe, mainly for St Patrick's Day events, the meeting heard.

The biggest expense was sending the leas cathaoirleach Cllr Michael Whelan and one official, New Ross District Manager Sinead Casey to attend the St Patrick's Day parade in New York having been invited by the New York Wexford Association. The five day trip's stated purpose is 'to continue links and support with Wexford people living in New York at the parade and to promote the Kennedy Wexford link and meet with groups and individuals'.

The estimated cost of sending the Mayor of Wexford Cllr Frank Staples, Cllr George Lawlor and a council official to Wexford's twin town Coueron is 1,500.

2,000 is being sent sending Cllr Staples and two members of Wexford Borough Council's twinning committee to Fleures in Belgium from April 14 to April 17. The stated purpose of the trip is to formally sign a triangular twinning agreement with Fleures and Coueron.

A trip to Savannah from April 3 to April 7 is expected to cost 7,329. Chairman Cllr Paddy Kavanagh and two officials will be attending the trip to promote tourism in Wexford and to develop links with business in Savannah. This arises following an invitation from the World Trade Centre in Savannah.

Cllr Kavanagh said all of the trips are invitations which Wexford County Council and municipal councils have accepted.

Cllr Robbie Ireton asked why no councillors were attending the London St Patrick's Day Parade, saying he is paying for the cost of his own trip.

'I won't be claiming any expenses from the council. Is no one going because it is so close to this island?' he said.

Cllr Malcolm Byrne proposed the motion which was seconded by Cllr Jim Moore and approved by a majority of councillors.
Niamh Cullen, Ballyknock; Shauna Connors, Ballybeg, Leah Ryan, New Ross; Ellie Ryan, Drummond and Katie O'Connell, Drummond with Pixie the dog

Huge crowds gathered in Graiguenamanagh for this year's St Patrick's Day Parade which featured everything from Donald Trump to a German classic band.

Graiguenamanagh's own celebrity chef Edward Hayden was master of ceremonies this year for the parade which drew a large audience from near and far.

The rain held off and everyone enjoyed a spectacle of colour and activity.

Taking part this year was the Todtnau Concert Band from the Black Forest in Germany who presented a concert of brass band music to the delight of everyone.

The Graiguenamanagh Brass Band also got the crowd going outside the Duiske Inn, while a very orange faced Donald Trump had people in stitches.

Numerous local sporting groups were represented at the parade, with many people gathering at the review stand in Tinnahinch, to watch the groups as they passed.

With a fantastic array of talent on show, everyone enjoyed a great day in the picturesque Kilkenny town.
The mother of a teenage girl who went through hell before being treated by the HSE for her scoliosis has said she fears for her two youngest daughters who have been diagnosed with the condition as no long term solutions have been put forward by the government to resolve the lack of operating theatre time in Irish hospitals.

Scoliosis is a condition causing a side-to-side curvature of the spine which can occur due to congenital, developmental or degenerative problems, but most cases of scoliosis do not have a known cause. On Monday the Ombudsman for Children Niall Muldoon said ongoing delays and the failure by Government to deal with access to scoliosis treatment is impacting on children's rights.

The report found that children have been experiencing significant waiting times for scoliosis surgery, up to 18 months. The report also says that crisis management has not resolved the issue and there have been significant delays in publishing the promised Health Service Executive action plan on scoliosis. The HSE says that a Paediatric Action Plan for Scoliosis Treatment has been submitted so no child with scoliosis should have to wait over four months from when the need for surgery is clinically determined.

Lisa Franklin's daughter Shauna shot to national prominence in 2014 and 2015 after her case was highlighted in the Dail. Lisa successfully campaigned for her daughter to get the life changing operation, having been told it would be take an inordinate amount of time for the procedure to happen. She fears her daughters Katie and Caoimhe, will not have the surgery they require and will suffer long term back problems as a result. Lisa said: 'It's worse now than it was when Shauna went to get her surgery. Nine months ago Caoimhe was put on a list for surgery as a precautionary measure. She was fitted with a back brace, but they didn't know if it was going to work.'

The new theatre to treat scoliosis at Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin will open in April, Minister for Health Simon Harris has said. He said 194 spinal procedures would be carried out, significantly more than last year. Lisa remains unconvinced, warning that this is a 'sticking plaster' approach.

'I got a phone call in late February to say Caoimhe was being transferred to Cappagh Hospital for her operation.'

As Dr Patrick Kiely performed the operation on Shauna, the Franklin family want Caoimhe to also be operated on at Crumlin. 'The girl who rang me said she didn't know who would be performing the surgery.'

At a recent appointment Lisa learned that Caoimhe's curvature had increased.

'We were told we would definitely need the operation and Dr Kiely said he would perform it. We were shellshocked to learn that the operation was required because we thought the curve would stay stable for longer.'

Lisa said the family trust Dr Kiely and his team and want them to perform the surgery. 'I've so much anger and frustration. Shauna is a new person now but her operation wouldn't have taken as long if she was operated on sooner. She had issues with fluid build up in her lungs after the operation and emotionally going through all that waiting will never leave us as a family. I am a lot angrier this time.'

She said a new theatre was opened at Crumlin but another theatre was closed, adding that plans to have a four month turnover for operations by the end of the year sound great, but will not solve the problem.

'This is only possible because they have outsourced children to other hospitals. The lists could well be twice as long as what they are now once this temporary measure is over. It's a sticking plaster approach. The truth is they need more theatre time. There is no spinal mentoring team in the 26 counties. One is brought from the North for surgeries as there is a risk of paralysis.'

Her daughter Katie was diagnosed with scoliosis two years ago.

'Hers is very mild at present, but it's slowly increasing. We are monitoring her. We thought Caoimhe was all clear but almost overnight a curve developed when she hit a growth spurt. Our eldest daughter Chloe doesn't have it.'

She called for the Government to look at the bigger picture and invest in treatment.

'When I campaigned for Shauna they came back at me and said there were sicker children on the list. They used it as a weapon against me and I still feel guilty. But children shouldn't be allowed to get into that condition and children shouldn't be made to feel guilty. At the time we genuinely thought we were making a difference for everybody because of the response we got. We thought we were changing things for the better but we didn't change anything. It's worse now.'
A New Ross cafe owner has described how burglars struck at the worst possible time for his business, stealing two days' takings, a laptop, a tablet and his staff's tips.

Emmett Ronan arrived to open his cafe Harvey's Coffee House & Bistro on the quay in New Ross near Lidl, on Tuesday morning at around 8 a.m. only to find a coffee grinder which had been on the shelf, on the floor and the till cash drawer on a table in his office, empty.

Emmett said: 'It couldn't have happened at a worse time. I would usually be in on Monday's and would have gone to the bank but my son had an appointment.'

Around 1,200 was stolen, along with the staff's tip jar money, a laptop and a tablet computer Emmett kept in the cafe for his children when they visited. They also took the Coca Cola and a bottle of whiskey the staff had given him as a present.

'There was no noticeable sign of a break in. The four doors were locked and all the windows. Then I noticed the coffee grinder so I knew which window they jimmied open to get in.'

The thief entered via the adjoining street, Priory Lane, which has no CCTV cameras and is not lit by a street light.

'It must have been a thin person (to get through the window). The guards believe he was wearing gloves.

'He ripped out the black till box and took it into the office where he found the coin float which was well hidden. The girl's tip jar was gone.'

The sensor for the cafe alarm did not detect the burglar due to where he entered the premises, but Emmett plans to beef up security at the cafe.

Emmett said fortunately no front of house damage was done and the cafe's equipment escaped unscathed.

His laptop was found on the old courthouse grounds in New Ross but Emmett must wait to see if it is still in working order.

This is the first break-in to a business in New Ross for many months and gardai ae warning business owners to have effective security systems as a precaution following the burglary at Harvey's.

Emmett said he is not going to dwell on what happened.

'If I were to dwell on it I wouldn't have come in today. We got half a day's trading on Tuesday after the garda forensic team left. I was as long waiting when thieves broke into Gala stealing 40,000 years ago.'

Emmett said after almost four years the business was finally breaking even.

'We had a great end to 2016 and start to 2017 up until Tuesday. Business in December was up 20 per cent. We have built up a loyal local customer base and we hope to continue to do so.'
Cllr John Fleming said residents in small housing estates across the county are being left in limbo because Irish Water will not invest money in fixing sewerage problems in their estates.

Cllr Fleming said some of the residents who have been trying to sell their homes have been unable to because of the lack of movement by Irish Water.

Director of Services for Planning and Economic Development Tony Larkin said the issue is being discussed at national level but no solution has been forthcoming. Cllr Fleming said he was not satisfied by the reponse.

'These are people who are trying to sell their house. It's not something that can be left in limbo.'

He asked for an update on the situation at the April council meeting. Cllr George Lawlor seconded the motion. Mr Larkin said he does not expect any solutions to emerge over the coming weeks.

Mr Larkin said: 'We have sorted 97 per cent of unfinished estates. 3 per cent have developer led infrastructure. They are caught in a lacuna where we can't take them in charge and it's sitting with the developers. I have taken legal advice. '97 per cent of the unfinished housing estates have been fixed up and there are 14 or 15 that are troublesome. Irish Water won't take them in charge.'

Cllr Fleming asked if the council can undertake to take these estates in charge as an interim measure.

Mr Larkin said the council has assisted residents and advised them. 'Many of the residents are not collaborating. They need to put a few bob in the kitty and keep the wastewater system maintained. In many estates residents don't want to work collectively.'

Cllr Michael Whelan said: 'It's not just about selling the house, it's about living in the housing estate as well. Some of the residents are facing management fees of over 1,000 a year and they have too much on them (already). Someone has to hold Irish Water to ransom. They have them start treating people with some dignity.'

Cllr Lisa McDonald said the council should use bonds which are in place for estates to resolve sewerage issues.

'Are we looking at the bonds before they disappear into perpetuity; bonds we are holding from builders who have gone bust. We will be here in 100 years and even if they aren't covering what they were meant to but they could cover something. It's our money and it's sitting in a bank acount.'

Mr Larkin said the council can renovate sewerage systems in estates 'but who maintains them going forward?'

'We can't take them in charge. There is a nation level negotiation going on and Irish Water are looking at a couple of estates on a pilot scheme basis. I would hope it will lead to something. We are acting as a planning authority to put everything right but we can't act as a water authority.'
'Saints' no longer on signage at the hospital

A motion calling for the the title saint (St) to be reinstated in all ward names at Wexford General Hospital was passed at the meeting.

Fianna Fail Cllr John Fleming called on the HSE in his motion to reinstate the 'proper title' of saint on all ward names and signage in Wexford General Hospital.

He said this was to reflect our heritage, tradition and our history.

'I visit Wexford General Hospital regularly and in my opinion it is totally wrong. A patient on a trolley doesn't care about what name is on a sign over a door.'

He said in future hospital management should consult with people if they plan to make significant changes.

Chairman Cllr Paddy Kavanagh agreed, saying we should never be in this situation.

'It's ridiculous. It should not have happened,' he said, adding that he understands the changing of the signage cost the HSE around 35,000.

Cllr Tony Dempsey said: 'The HSE has a lot more to worry about.'

Cllr Deirdre Wadding said she agreed that it was a case of a waste of money, but did not go along with the argument that the move went against Irish heritage and tradition.

'Our history didn't start with the arrival of St Patrick or whoever came before him,' she said, voicing her opposition to the motion.

'I think we should look at the separation of church and state,' she added.

Cllr Fleming's motion was supported.
A play written by the Wexford-born musician and writer Larry Kirwan about the historic clash between the Irish government and the Catholic church over the Mother and Child Scheme over 65 years ago, will open on a New York stage in April.

'Rebel in the Soul' will be presented by Irish Repertory Theatre and directed by the company's Artistic Director Charlotte Moore.

The play dramatises an extraordinary episode in Irish history when the former Minister for Health Noel Browne tried to introduce free maternity healthcare for mothers and children but met with fierce opposition from Archbishop John Charles McQuaid who saw the scheme as immoral, especially the plan to discuss family planning with women.

Kirwan who is best known as former frontman of the Celtic rock band Black 47, said anyone of a progressive nature from Ireland looked up to Noel Browne. 'My mother loved him. She always said Noel Browne was the only politician in Ireland who cared about women'.

The play will run off-Broadway for six weeks and will also feature the characters of Sean McBride, leader of Clann na Poblachta, the party to which Browne belonged, and his wife Phyllis. The action is set over one day in April 1951 after Browne's Mother and Child Scheme was defeated and he was forced to resign from the Dail. He was re-elected as an Independent TD before joining Fianna Fail, founding the National Progressive Democrats and ultimately joining the Labour Party. One of Browne's daughters saw a read-through of the play and gave it her blessing.

Kirwan said he was sympathetic to all the figures involved in the controversy. 'I'm pretty sympathetic to all of them. Each was in a bind, there's no two ways about it. It's looking at it from a humane perspective.
Sligo Greenway Co-op have urged all relevant stakeholders to move with urgency in an effort to create a greenway on the route of the disused railway line running between Collooney and Bellaghy.

The lobby group are due to hold their second AGM in Curry on this coming Wednesday, 22nd of March.

Co-op Chairperson, Pat McCarrick, is urging all parties who have a role to play in bringing a greenway to Sligo, to act without further delay to ensure the County benefits. He said: "We are all aware of the current difficulties being experienced by Bus Eireann and Irish Rail in maintaining their rural transport services.

"While no one takes any pleasure in this, it does point up the fact that investment in reviving disused lines is not on the cards.

He continued: "Meanwhile many counties throughout the country are working on their own greenway facilities and are in effect building a national greenway network. We must not be left behind, we must not lose out, Sligo needs to be part of this network. A greenway for Sligo will provide jobs and prove a great local amenity but for us to be part of a national network that will bring tourism benefits and visitors from all over Europe and beyond is just too good of an opportunity to miss out on. The establishment of the new National Greenway Network Forum recently is a very welcome departure as it helps to 'join the dots' at Government and national level.

"Further to all of this, the need for County Sligo and South Sligo in particular is great. Everyone seems to agree that increased tourism is a great idea for Sligo, and indeed it is. From our point of view here in Sligo Greenway Co-op, the greenway from Collooney to Bellaghy would be an excellent tourism centre piece for the region.

He added: "I therefore urge all who can help to bring this about to do so without further delay" the Statement concluded.

The Sligo Greenway Co-op AGM take place in the Yeats County Inn Hotel, Curry this Wednesday 22nd March at 8pm.
The Vice President of the United States paid tribute to his Tubbercurry grandfather in an emotional speech at a gala dinner in Washington last Wednesday night.

Pence is the grandson of Richard Michael Cawley who emigrated from Tubbercurry in 1923 to become a bus driver in Chicago.

Mr Pence said at The Ireland Fund dinner: "All the I am, all that I will ever be and all the service that I will ever give is owed to my Irish heritage.

"As I serve the people of this country I will do so with the faith, the determination, the cheerfulness, the humility and the humour that is characteristic of the great people of the Emerald Isle."

There was controversy last November when members of Sligo County Council wanted to invite Pence to Tubbercurry for a visit with LGBT activists angered due to Pence's previous support for 'conversion therapy' for gay people. The Council later said the controversial VIce-President would not be invited.

When asked about what he was thinking as he stood on stage at the inauguration, Pence told the Gala dinner: "I just keep thinking of that day in April 1923 when Richard Michael Cawley stepped off the boat in Ellis Island. I can't imagine what the sight of the statue of liberty meant to him that day. The torch of freedom," he said.

He continued: "As I stood on that inaugural stage I just kept thinking of that Irishman. I kept thinking of what he would be thinking about looking down.

"One, knowing me as well as he did, he'd be extremely surprised, And two, I have to think he just thought he was right. He was right about America. He was right to summon the courage as generations did before and since to come here and follow their dreams."

He was presented with a special award by The Ireland Fund and a copy of the Tubbercurry National School enrolment book that contained his grandfather's name.
Tributes have been paid to the Irish Coast Guard crew of Rescue 116 in the aftermath of last week's tragic events off the Mayo coast.

The Coast Guard operate Rescue 118 from Sligo Airport in Strandhill and its crew was tasked to the ill fated incident off Blacksod last Monday night week. It has also been involved in the search for the missing crew over the past week.

A fisherman sustained an injury to his hand resulting in a call for assistance from the British-registered fishing vessel 241km off the west coast.

The Dublin based R116 was tasked with providing communications and back-up support for the Sligo-based R118 on the 482km round trip to the fishing vessel in the Atlantic when the Air Corps was unable to provide such cover.

R116 disappeared just after 12.45am on Tuesday morning as it prepared to land at Blacksod, to refuel. The Sligo-based R118 helicopter had been tasked at 9.40pm on Monday.

Rescue 116 was flown by Capt Dara Fitzpatrick and Capt Mark Duffy with the aim of acting as top support cover for the Sligo helicopter.

The fisherman had severed the top of his thumb and the Sligo-based helicopter R118 with trained paramedics were able to treat the crewman en route to land.

R118 was returning to land with the injured crewman when it was informed that communications had been lost with R116. The Dublin-based helicopter had been about to land for a routine refuel. R118 undertook a search for missing colleagues before landing the crewman at Blacksod, where he was taken by ambulance to hospital, and then refuelling and resuming the search. The fisherman was taken initially by road to Mayo General Hospital, and subsequently transferred to University Hospital Galway, where it is understood he had plastic surgery under a local anaesthetic.

The body of Captain Fitzpatrick was recovered and a massive search continues for her missing colleagues.

Cathaoirleach of Sligo County Council Councillor Hubert Keaney has expressed his sympathy to the family of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick.

"Our emergency and rescue services display enormous courage in carrying out their vital work, often in very difficult and challenging circumstances. The whole community shares their grief at the loss of Captain Fitzpatrick, and their concern for the missing crew members.'"

The Cathaoirleach also commended the crew of the Sligo based Irish Coast Guard helicopter for their role in the ongoing operation.

At last Monday's meeting of Sligo County Council a vote of sympathy was passed as a mark of respect to the family and colleagues of the late Captain Fitzpatrick. Proposing the motion, Councillor Declan Bree said: "There is an air of sadness and disbelief in the community since the tragedy occurred.

"As an island nation we have a particular affinity and admiration for all those involved with the Coast Guard and Lifeboat services and all of us are very much aware of the courage and dedication displayed, time after time, by members of the emergency services in search and rescue operations. The fact that we have a sister Coast Guard helicopter, Rescue 118, based in Sligo brings the tragedy even closer to us."

The motion was seconded by Cllr Tom MacSharry who said it was difficult to take in such a tragedy.

"Everyone in Sligo is very familiar with the sound of the Coastguard Rescue helicopter and are acutely aware of the fantastic work which the crew does on an almost daily basis."

There have been many tributes locally to the bravery of the Coast Guard. In a post on Facebook, the Strandhill Peoples' Market which is based at Sligo Airport said: "Have you ever heard the alarm ring when you have been browsing stalls at Strandhill People's Market in Hangar 1?

"This sound (which many of us have come accustomed to) is the distress signal for the Rescue 118 official. A mere matter of minutes after it rings, the crew board the rescue chopper, hit the runway, and take to the skies. Excited children often watch in awe as the chopper becomes a distant bird, but adults tend to wonder what scene the crew will be met with at their destination. We always admire their bravery, courage, and fearless dedication to their work.

"We are beyond saddened to hear about the disappearance of Rescue 116. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends, and colleagues of Capt Dara Fitzpatrick and the three missing crew members."

Shells restaurant in a post said: It's always great to see the Sligo Coast guard crew arriving into Shells first thing in the morning, but it also comes with a heavy heart as we know they have been out on call during the evening, and none of us really know the bravery and courage it takes to put your life on the line for others, every day.

"We were all so saddened to hear about the disappearance of the Rescue 116. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends, and colleagues of Capt Dara Fitzpatrick and the three missing crew members."

In another post, Strandhill native and surfer Seamus McGoldrick spoke of how he was rescued himself by one of the Irish coastguard rescue helicopters last March beside crumbling cliffs in precarious circumstances.

"I am deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the disappearance of Rescue 116.My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of those who were one board. The award-winning crew of Rescue 116 selflessly risked their lives to conduct hundreds of rescues before this tragic event. I hope we can all learn from their bravery and valour."
Birthday boy Richard Whittle cuts his cake in Horans, Baltinglass, surrounded by his wife Linda and children

Horan's of Baltinglass was a place of celebration recently as local man Richard Whittle celebrated his 40th birthday in style.

Richard, who hails from Stratford on Slaney was surrounded by his nearest and dearest for the occasion, including his wife Linda and their children Chris, Marcus, Emma and Lucas.

The milestone was also enjoyed by Richard's twin sister Caroline, albeit in Galway so she was unable to attend Horan's.

A large number of relatives, neighbours and friends from Baltinglass wished Richard well and he was presented with a cake topped with Christmas trees.

As Richard works with the Emerald group growing Christmas trees, this was a fitting decoration and certainly made him smile and he cut the cake.
The High Kings are set to play a fundraising concert on Saturday, April 29, at Inisfail in Germaines of Baltinglass in aid of Talbotstown NS.

The group has been going from strength to strength over the past couple of years. They have sold out concerts in venues across Ireland and are currently on tour in the USA.

Their first album, The High Kings, was released in 2008 and reached number 2 in the Billboard world music charts.

The group comprises Finbarr Clancy, whose father Bobby was a member of the legendary Clancy Brothers; Martin Furey, whose father Finbarr is famous for his time in the Fureys; and Brian Dunphy, whose father, Sean, once represented Ireland in the Eurovision song contest.

Following the death of his uncle, Liam Clancy, Finbarr said that while it felt like the end of an era for Irish music, The High Kings were determined to carry on the tradition. He also admitted that they had big shoes to fill.

The final member of the band, Darren Holden, is a successful Broadway star.

As well as being a leading vocal group, they are also accomplished musicians, playing 13 different instruments between them. They have been the headline act in London's Trafalgar Square St Patrick's Day celebrations playing in front of an estimated 15,000 people and they have visited the White House performing for Barack Obama and Irish Taoiseach, Enda Kenny on St. Patrick's Day.

Proceeds from next month's concert will go to Talbotstown National School, Kiltegan. Tickets cost 26.50 and are available to purchase by contacting or calling in person to either Germaines on 059 6481005 or the office at Talbotstown National School on 059 6473179.

Ticket numbers are limited so you are advised to purchase your tickets early.
The talents of the members of Arklow Camera Club were on display for all to enjoy recently as they hosted their annual members' exhibition.

Arklow Library was the venue for the exhibition which continues until Saturday, March 25.

A stunning selection of the members' work was on display and very well received by the public. Arklow Camera Club is Arklow's oldest photographic association. With the emphasis placed firmly on fun and learning and not quite so much on competition, club members spend as much time as possible actually shooting pictures and encouraging one another.

It is also the perfect forum in which to learn the basics and advancing from there to learn more advanced techniques.

The group meets at Marshlands Leisure Centre just off the Dublin Road at least once per month, with most other meetings being out in the field.

Keep up to date with club activities at www.arklowcameraclub.ie or on facebook at www.facebook.com/arklowcameraclub
Paddy Murray, Terri Conron, Catherine Wild and Joe Conron at the soup lunch in Donard in aid of Focus Ireland

Members of the West Wicklow Church of Ireland parish of Donoughmore/Donard came together for a well supported local fundraiser recently.

Hard working parish volunteers prepared a delicious and hearty soup lunch as part of a church Lenten project which was served up at Donard Community Centre.

There was a great turnout on the day with plenty of support for parishioners and local residents in this tight-knit community.

All proceeds were donated to this year's chosen charity - Focus Ireland.

The soup lunch has been a fixture in the parish for the last couple of years and each year a certain charity is selected as beneficiary.

Thanks are extended to everyone who came along and showed their support.

A great afternoon full of fun was enjoyed by all in aid of a worthy cause.
The "fine spring weather" with temperatures as high as 17 degrees is to continue into Monday, according to a Met Eireann forecaster.

Ireland is set to be hotter than Madrid this weekend as the temperatures are due to average between 13 and 16 degrees, and are set to hit 17 degrees in the west.

Overall, the weekend is expected to be dry with prolonged sunny spells.

"It's another day of long, bright spells of sunshine," forecaster John Eagleton told RTE Radio One.

"The temperatures will rise with this sunshine, and it's set to be 13-16 degrees in places this afternoon.

"Temperatures could be as high as 17 degrees in parts of the west."

And the sunshine and unlikely March temperatures are expected to combat the Monday blues as well, as the good weather will continue into early next week.

"The fine spring weather continues into Monday, however Tuesday will get cloudier and showers will become heavy again next week," Mr Eagleton added.

The balmy temperatures will make Ireland warmer (and drier) than Spanish capital Madrid where rain and cooler temperatures are expected over the weekend.
Hosni Mubarak waves to supporters from his room at the Maadi Military Hospital (AP)

Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was freed from custody yesterday morning after six years of legal proceedings and wrangling that frustrated activists who had hoped he would face justice for the deaths of hundreds defying his rule.

The ailing, 88-year-old Mubarak left the Armed Forces Hospital in Cairo's southern suburb of Maadi and went to his home in the upscale Heliopolis district under heavy security, according to an Egyptian security official speaking on condition of anonymity.

His release marked a new chapter for the former autocrat whose people rose up against him in 2011 and demanded an end to his 30 years in power marked by corruption, inequity and reliance on a much-feared security apparatus.

It also underscored the failed aspirations of the Arab Spring movement that swept the region. Six years later, mass uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria have led to civil war, failed states or a return to heavy-handed rule.

Mubarak's lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, told the 'Al-Masry al-Youm' daily that the former president returned home with his sons, Alaa and Gamal, and the entire family, including his wife, Suzanne, celebrated his return over breakfast together.

On March 2, Egypt's top appeals court acquitted Mubarak of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising. A criminal court had ruled in May 2015 that Mubarak serve three years and fined him millions of Egyptian pounds following a conviction for embezzling funds earmarked for the maintenance of presidential palaces. The ruling was upheld by another court last year, and Mubarak's release was for time served.

Prosecutors on Thursday reopened another corruption case linked to allegations that Mubarak received gifts worth $1m (925,000) from the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Numerous London buildings went dark to mark the event.

Some of the worlds most famous buildings turned their lights out for an hour this evening to mark Earth Hour  an event to raise awareness about climate change, and one that can make a significant difference to carbon monoxide pollution for the hour it takes place.

Around the world people switched off their lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm, while some of the worlds most famous landmarks did the same.

Numerous London buildings went dark, while the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate and many others joined in on the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) initiative that started in Sydney 10 years ago.

1. Big Ben at the Palace of Westminster

2. Tower Bridge

3. The London Eye

4. Harrods

5. La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

6. The Kremlin

6. The Brandenburg Gate

7. The Eiffel Tower

8. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Mumbai

9. The temple of the Parthenon, Athens

10. The Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur

11. The Estadio Estadio do Dragao, Porto
Some, including Nigel Farage, claim Carswell was never UKIP in the first place.

UKIPs only MP Douglas Carswell has left the party.

Carswell, 45, will now sit as an independent MP for Clacton and said his leaving the party was amicable  a by-election not being necessary as he is not moving to another party.

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has since said Carswell was never UKIP and sought to undermine us and should have gone some time ago.

One reporter has claimed Carswell met with a senior Conservative politician earlier in the month.

This idea of a link between the Conservatives and UKIP isnt uncommon either.

Perhaps one of the most significant comments on Carswells departure comes from Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron  who claims though UKIPs parliamentary attendance may be waning, their agenda is not.

As he departed, Carswell said while Ukip has not won many seats in Parliament, in a way, we are the most successful political party in Britain ever  because of the vote to get Britain out of the European Union.

Perhaps, given a certain perspective, Carswells comments have a small nugget of truth to them  but now Brexit has been voted for and theyve no seats left in Parliament, some are politely calling for UKIP to step aside.

How polite.

Although, in a rather more jovial manner, this lot out marching for Unite For Europe today would seem to agree.

There were one or two happy for Carswell though, and who, like Farage, seemed to think Carswell was never really part of UKIP in the first place

A view shared by others associated with the party.

And commentators too.
Including a classic your mum joke.

Everyone loves a placard, and boy do we have a treat for you.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London to protest about Brexit on the day that marks the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which created the path towards the European Union we have now.

The Brexit topic clearly got peoples creative juices flowing, because there were some brilliant  and brilliantly rude  signs on show. Take this one, for example.

Or this one.

At one point, there were even condoms.

It was a theme a few people touched on

Boris Johnson made an appearance, on a painting by artist Kaya Mar.

And Theresa Mays face made more than one.

Elsewhere, people were getting to the heart of the issue.

Between 25,000 and 100,000 demonstrators attended the event, calling for Britain to remain in the European Union, which took place just a few days before the Prime Minister will trigger Article 50, beginning the exit process.

And one thing is certain: these protesters dont think were in for an easy ride.
A man who was jailed for threatening to kill US president Bill Clinton in 1994 has been detained without bail over the killing of his 83-year-old father.

Glenn Armstrong was arraigned in Uxbridge District Court, Massachusetts, where not-guilty pleas were entered on his behalf on charges of murder, misleading a police investigation, motor vehicle theft and failing to provide a DNA sample.

Armstrong's father, Walter Armstrong, was found dead on January 11 in the home they shared in Blackstone, Massachusetts. The medical examiner said a bag was used to suffocate him.

Glenn Armstrong was arrested in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, the next day.

Armstrong was sentenced to 21 months in prison for threatening to kill Mr Clinton.

AP
President Michael D Higgins signs a book of condolence at the British embassy in Dublin. Photo: Mark Condren

The London attacker used WhatsApp just two minutes before he ploughed his car into pedestrians, leading police to investigate a possible wider extremist network.

Khalid Masood was active on the encrypted messaging service at 2.37pm on Wednesday, although it remains unclear whether the 52-year-old was sending, receiving or simply viewing messages.

Investigators believe he was inspired by Islamist terrorism and Isil has claimed responsibility for the massacre that left four victims dead, although the extent of the group's involvement is not yet known.

Scotland Yard's Deputy Commissioner, Mark Rowley, said police were probing whether Masood acted completely alone after being inspired by terrorist propaganda or was "encouraged, supported or directed" by others.

Nikita Malik, a senior researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, said WhatsApp and social media had been used for a variety of purposes by Isil-inspired terrorists.

"In a lot of other incidents people have shared material," she told 'The Independent'. "It can act as a sort of a modern suicide note to explain their justification."

Meanwhile, Mr Rowley said more "significant" arrests had been made yesterday, bringing to 10 the number of people in custody over the attack, which killed four people and the assailant.

The latest arrests were a man and a woman detained early yesterday in Manchester.

Detectives have searched 21 properties in London, Brighton, Wales, Manchester and Birmingham in one of Britain's biggest counter-terrorism operations in years.

"We've seized 2,700 items from these searches, including massive amounts of computer data for us to work through," Mr Rowley said, adding that contact had been made with 3,500 witnesses.

An American man from Utah, a British retiree and British female school administrator were killed on the bridge, and police officer Keith Palmer was stabbed to death.

The latest victim, a man who died in hospital on Thursday night, was named as 75-year-old Leslie Rhodes from London.

Meanwhile, President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Enda Kenny signed a book of condolence at the British embassy in Dublin for the victims.

The President expressed his solidarity to British ambassador Dominick Chilcott, saying it is very important to see the atrocity as a criminal act.

Mr Higgins also said he would be writing to Queen Elizabeth.
THE European Union's remaining 27 leaders will declare the EU to be "undivided and indivisible" at an anniversary summit today, despite the looming reality of Brexit and weeks of bitter disagreement over the text of the Rome Declaration setting out the future of the troubled bloc.

The EU leaders will put on a brave face when they gather for a "unity summit" on top of Rome's Capitoline Hill and renew the EU's marriage vows in a ceremony to mark 60 years since the signing of its founding document, the 1957 Treaty of Rome.

Looming over the summit will be British Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to trigger Article 50 next week and begin formal talks to secede from the union - a reality reflected in the fact that she will be absent from today's line-up of leaders.

Preparations for the celebration have been marred by deep divisions among EU members, with Poland and Greece both threatening to refuse to sign a formal declaration unless given concessions on issues including immigration and austerity.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, tried to brush off suggestions that Britain's absence would be "the elephant in the room" - joking to a BBC interviewer that Mrs May was "not an elephant".

Mr Juncker conceded Europe's increasingly fractious membership were struggling to agree on how to handle migration, deal with multiculturalism and put the single currency on a sustainable track. "We are not in the best form and shape we could be in," he admitted.

The divisions in Europe - split east-west over values and immigration and north-south over austerity and the euro - were highlighted by the tortuous drafting process of the two-page Rome Declaration which was watered down in successive versions to accommodate members' objections.

Italian security forces threw a cordon around the city as the first EU leaders arrived last night, with dinghies patrolling the Tiber River and some 5,000 officers deployed on the streets amid reports anarchists might disrupt proceedings.

Several EU leaders arrived early for an audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican, but the Pontiff pulled no punches in addressing the bloc's problems, admonishing Brussels for losing touch with ordinary people and calling on EU leaders to make "practical decisions" to improve lives.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The father of Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings co-pilot who deliberately crashed his aircraft, killing 150 people, yesterday claimed his son was not responsible for the disaster.

An emotional Gunther Lubitz told a press conference in Berlin his son was not depressed or suicidal at the time of the 2015 tragedy, as is widely believed. But he failed to produce the evidence he had promised that would clear his son's name.

Instead, he offered a new report commissioned by the family which picked holes in the official investigation and suggested a different sequence of events.

Rather than locking Capt Patrick Sondenheimer out of the cockpit and flying the Airbus into the French Alps, the 27-year-old co-pilot could have started a routine descent and then fallen unconscious at the controls, the report argued.

The official investigation found Lubitz repeatedly overrode an electronic keypad the captain used to try to unlock the cockpit door. But the report's author Tim van Beveran, a well-known aviation journalist, suggested the keypad could have malfunctioned.

Lawyers for the family said the official investigation had failed to prove Lubitz's guilt and called for it to be reopened. "We have to live with the fact we have not only lost our son, but that he was portrayed as a depressed mass murderer," his father said.
The children's 30-year-old father has been arrested

A father has been charged with murdering his newborn baby and two-year-old daughter in North Carolina, police said.

The bodies of four-day-old Genesis Freeman and toddler Serenity Freeman were found on Saturday near an intersection close to the city of Raeford, Hoke County sheriff Hubert Peterkin said.

Tillman Freeman III, 30, of Fayetteville, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Genesis and Serenity Freeman.

Peterkin tells the Fayetteville Observer the children were stabbed multiple times with what appears to be a hunting or survivalist-type knife. He called the crime "horrific."

Before they were found, Freeman was arrested and charged with child abuse and child endangerment. The children were reported missing following a domestic dispute. Freeman's wife was in a local hospital when the children disappeared.

It's not clear whether Freeman has an attorney.

AP
Members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia staged the attack on the police between the cities of Tshikapa and Kananga

Forty-two policemen have been decapitated after being ambushed by a militia group in Congo, officials report.

The officers were attacked in Central Kasai province, which has seen a spike in deadly violence in recent months.

Kasai Assembly President Francois Kalamba said on Saturday that members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia staged Friday's attack between the cities of Tshikapa and Kananga.

Kalamba says the militia members freed six policemen because they spoke the local Tshiluba language.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia has been fighting Congolese forces since August, when security forces killed their leader.

The violence has left 400 people dead. The UN and rights groups have warned Congo's military against excessive use of force.

Kasai Governor Alexis Nkande Myopompa said investigations are under way into the decapitations.

AP
A public memorial service for Carrie Fisher, right, and her mother Debbie Reynolds will be held at Forest Lawn Cemetery (AP)

Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds will be remembered at a public memorial in Hollywood on Saturday, following their deaths just a day apart.

Friends, family and fans of the famous mother and daughter will gather at Forest Lawn Cemetery, where the two actresses were buried together in January.

The service inside a 1,200-seat auditorium will be shown on big screens at the cemetery and live-streamed on the internet.

In a statement to fans, Reynolds' son Todd Fisher said: "We will be celebrating their lives with friends, family members, and the people who loved them, you."

Fisher, who shot to fame as Princess Leia in Star Wars, died aged 60 on December 27 after suffering a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles.

A day later her mother, Singin' In The Rain star Reynolds, 84, died after a suspected stroke.

The memorial will feature a tribute song from Fisher's close friend James Blunt, which will be unveiled during a photo montage.

Her daughter Billie Lourd will attend but is not expected to make a speech, while Fisher's beloved dog Gary will also feature, TMZ said.

The Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles will perform along with dancers from the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio.

Costumes and memorabilia from the careers of Reynolds and Fisher will also be on display.

The two women were laid to rest at a funeral on January 6, where the ashes of Fisher were carried in an urn shaped like a Prozac pill.

Fisher had spoken publicly about her battle with bipolar disorder and drug problems during her life.

The public memorial begins at 1pm local time (8pm GMT) on Saturday. It will be live-streamed at www.debbiereynolds.com.
South Sudan is the site of one of the world's largest humanitarian crises

Sexual violence has reached "epic proportions" in South Sudan during its civil war, the UN Commission on Human Rights said.

Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60% last year, the group found.

A UN humanitarian aid survey conducted in December found 70% of women sheltering in UN camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began.

Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicentre of the problem. Aid organisations blame this on a recent increase in fighting between rebels and government troops - the latest shift of the three-year conflict in an already devastated nation.

One young woman who endured months of sexual assaults after being held by rebels said she did not expect to become embroiled in South Sudan's conflict.

"I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams," the 23-year-old said in an interview earlier this month. "If I talk about it, I just cry."

She had been visiting her family in the summer of 2015, with plans to return to school in the capital, Juba. Instead, she was abducted by rebels loyal to an opposition group calling itself MTN, after a popular African telephone company.

Their catchphrase riffs on the company's slogan, taunting: "We're everywhere you go."

She was taken from her mother's hut by rebels who had been searching for her uncle, who had been accused of conspiring with government forces. At their headquarters, she was charged, tried and convicted for her uncle's alleged crimes.

For the next 16 months, she was forced to live in large, muddy pits infested with snakes. Subsisting on only meagre amounts of food, she wasted away, and her hair fell out. Eventually, she was released in December after she became ill.

"They told me to get medicine and then changed their minds and told me to leave and never come back," she said.

The woman became pregnant during her ordeal, and had a child, which she named Barack Obama. "I still have hope," she said. "I just don't even know where to start."

Mundri has many such stories. According to a recent Inter-Agency assessment by international and local organisations focused on gender-based violence, 29 rape cases were reported in Mundri between August and October.

Local organisations say the number is likely to be double that, but most incidents go unreported because of the stigma surrounding rape.

James Labadia, founder of local women's aid body Maya, said: "Realistically, it's more like over 50 cases."

He has been working with rape survivors for several years but said things have never been so dire. "The end of 2016 was the worst quarter I've ever seen," he said.

The group received funds from the US Agency for International Development last year, and while Mr Labadia plans to seek more money, the possibility is in jeopardy thanks to US president Donald Trump's proposed budget cuts.

Reports of rape and abduction are rampant on both sides in Mundri, which is under government control while neighbouring villages are held by the opposition.

South Sudanese officials insist they are taking steps to counter sexual violence. Things in Mundri are slowly improving, said Abokato Kenyi, the minister of education, gender and social welfare in Amadi state.

"The government has put out a new law that any soldier who misbehaves will now be punished," Mr Kenyi said. As of January, he said, anyone convicted of rape will be sentenced to prison.

During the town's first International Women's Day celebration since 2014 earlier this month, Mr Kenyi called on men and women to work together to combat sexual assault.

But survivors say what they really want is to rebuild their lives.

Since returning to the community, the 23-year-old rape victim has received psychosocial support from Maya's staff and joined a women's group. They are launching business initiatives such as selling soap and baked goods in the hope of helping women become self-sufficient.

Ultimately, the woman's dream is to return to school and become a nurse.

"I can't give up," she said.

"I need to continue going to school and fighting for my rights. When you get the woman, you get the nation."

AP
Donald Trump and Republican leaders have scrapped their bill to repeal "Obamacare" in a humiliating failure for the US president, when it became clear his flagship manifesto pledge would nosedive in the House of Representatives.

Democrats said Americans could "breathe a sigh of relief" after seven years of non-stop railing against former president Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act health care law.

But Mr Trump said Obamacare was imploding "and soon will explode".

Thwarted by two factions of fellow Republicans, from the centre and far right, House speaker Paul Ryan said Mr Obama's health care law, the Republicans' top target in the new Trump administration, would remain in place "for the foreseeable future".

It was a stunning defeat for the new president after he had demanded House Republicans delay no longer and vote on the legislation on Friday, pass or fail.

But his gamble failed and instead Mr Trump, who campaigned as a master deal-maker and claimed that he alone could fix America's health care system, saw his ultimatum rejected by Republican politicians who made clear they answer to their own voters, not to the president.

At the White House, a dejected but still combative Mr Trump said h e had "never said repeal and replace it in 64 days", though he had repeatedly shouted during the presidential campaign that it was going down "immediately".

The bill was withdrawn just minutes before the House vote was to take place and politicians said there were no plans to revisit the issue.

Republicans will try to move ahead on other agenda items, including overhauling the tax code, though the failure on the health bill can only make whatever comes next immeasurably harder.

Mr Trump pinned the blame on Democrats, saying: "With no Democrat support we couldn't quite get there.

"We learned about loyalty, we learned a lot about the vote-getting process."

The Obama law was approved in 2010 with no Republican votes.

Despite reports of backbiting from administration officials toward Mr Ryan, Mr Trump said: "I like Speaker Ryan. I think Paul really worked hard."

For his part, Mr Ryan told reporters: "We came really close today but we came up short. This is a disappointing day for us."

He said Mr Trump had "really been fantastic", but when asked how Republicans could face voters after their failure to make good on years of promises, he quietly said: "It's a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you."

In the autumn, Republicans used the issue to gain and keep control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

During previous years, they cast dozens of votes to repeal Mr Obama's law in full or in part, but when they finally got the chance to pass a repeal version that actually had a chance to become law, they could not deliver.

Democrats could hardly contain their satisfaction.

"Today is a great day for our country, what happened on the floor is a victory for the American people," said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who as speaker helped Mr Obama pass his Affordable Care Act in the first place.

"Let's just for a moment breathe a sigh of relief for the American people."

The outcome leaves both Mr Ryan and Mr Trump weakened politically.

For the president, this piles a big early congressional defeat on to the continuing inquiries into his presidential campaign's Russia connections and his unfounded wiretapping allegations against Mr Obama.

Mr Ryan was not able to corral the House Freedom Caucus, the restive band of conservatives that ousted the previous speaker.

Those Republicans wanted the bill to go much further, while some moderates felt it went too far.

Instead of picking up support as Friday wore on, the bill went the in other direction, with several key politicians coming out in opposition.

Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, who chairs a major committee, Appropriations, said the bill would raise costs unacceptably on his constituents.

The Republican bill would have eliminated the Obama statute's unpopular fines on people who do not obtain coverage and would have also removed the often-generous subsidies for those who bought insurance.

Republican tax credits would have been based on age, not income like Mr Obama's, and the tax increases Mr Obama imposed on higher-earning people and health care companies would have been repealed.

The bill would have ended Mr Obama's Medicaid expansion and trimmed future government financing for the national programme, letting individual states impose work requirements on some of the 70 million beneficiaries.

AP
French ecology minister Segolene Royal had to cut short her visit to French Guiana after masked demonstrators stormed into a regional biodiversity conference she was attending

Massive protests have spread through French Guiana, blocking roads to neighbouring Brazil and Suriname and prompting the US government to issue a travel warning for the French territory in South America.

Hundreds have taken part in protests over high crime, the cost of living and anger at the quality of social services such as health care.

The Collective of 500 Brothers, the group largely behind the unrest, is demanding that the French government send a minister to negotiate with them, according to spokesman Ken Saint-Luce.

"We, citizens of French Guiana, are tired of living our lives like this. Life over here has become very difficult," Mr Saint-Luce said told Surinamese radio station Apintie.

"We had been talking to the local government for weeks, but that did not lead to anything concrete."

The demonstrations have paralysed French Guiana in recent days as protesters blocked roads and many businesses and schools have closed.

A visit by Segolene Royal, the French minister of ecology, to the territory on March 17 was cut short after masked demonstrators from the collective stormed into a regional conference on biodiversity she was attending in the department's capital city of Cayenne.

Demonstrators surrounded the consulates of Suriname, Haiti and Guyana in Cayenne the same day, demanding that the government return all prisoners from these nations to their native countries immediately.

The planned launch on Tuesday of an Ariane 5 rocket from the space center in Kourou, carrying a South Korean satellite and a Brazilian satellite, had to be postponed indefinitely and an Air France flight to Cayenne was diverted back to Paris on Thursday, four hours into its journey.

Passengers on board were told the flight was returning because of the social unrest in French Guiana. Flights from regional airlines to Cayenne on Friday were cancelled.

The US State Department issued a travel warning because of the potential for the protests to turn violent.

It said the US embassy in Paramaribo, Suriname, was able to provide only very limited consular services in French Guiana and citizens should avoid travelling there.

AP
After almost three decades of service, Sgt. Barry Bruce has made a mark on Cabarrus Countyand the community has made its mark on him.

But the time has come to hang up the badge.

Bruce officially announced his retirement from the Cabarrus County Sheriffs Office at the Monday, March 20, Board of Commissioners meeting. He will cap off his 28 years of service with his final day Saturday, April 1.

Its a tremendous feat in and of itself to be here that long and see the many changes and the impacts that folks like Sgt. Barry Bruce have made not only at the sheriffs office but on the citizens of Cabarrus County, Sheriff Brad Riley said. I would venture to say that if he had the opportunity to talk about some of the changes hes been through, 30 years, its almost a total opposite of where he started 30 years ago. But Barry has been a fantastic employee.

Bruce joined the U.S. Army Reserves in 1979 after graduating high school, also serving time with the West Virginia International Guard and security police wing. He graduated from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College with his degree in criminal justice and began at the sheriffs office in 1989.

He has been a true blessing, Riley said. He always brings a voice of reason and a good heart, just a kind person, to every situation, and I just wish we had many more like him. Going out the door, I know that hes the kind of personand hes told me if you ever need me, feel free to call on me. Barrys one of the first people that if you ever earn any accolades along the way, hes the first one to bring you a small gift and token of appreciation.

In 2003, he helped implement a motorcycle brigade for the department, seeking out grants to fund the initiative. Bruce is a member of several community organizations and is active in motorcycle safety courses.

Hes just a big-hearted fellow, Riley said. Hes going to be greatly missed. Ive always considered him to be a good friend of mine. Hes one of those individuals that you love to work alongside of, never complains about anything you give him.

Bruce seemed to have the same mix of emotions, getting a little misty-eyed as he bid farewell to commissioners.

I said I wasnt going to tear up, but I might anyway, he said. Ive met a lot of good people here, made a lot of good friends. I just want to say thanks to the citizens of this county for allowing me to serve in this position that Ive served in.

Im going to miss a lot of people, a lot of people in this building and the sheriffs office. But there comes a time when you have to step out, and this is my time.
New York, Mar 24 (Just Earth News): The United Nations and humanitarian partners are appealing for $20 million to address the devastating consequences of Cyclone Enawo in Madagascar.

Despite the fact that 200,000 square kilometres covering half of Madagascars 22 regions have been affected, the country will not be left behind, said Bary Rafatrolaza, Deputy Foreign Minister of Madagascar, in a news release from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

We are working closely with national and local authorities to meet the needs of those affected by the storm, said Violet Kakyomya, UN Resident Coordinator in Madagascar, commending the Government both in evacuating people endangered by the storm before its arrival and in mobilizing the national and international response to the cyclone.

Enawo struck the coast of Madagascar as a Category 4 cyclone on 7 March, causing extensive damage due to high winds and flooding in north-eastern parts of the country. Between 8 and 10 March, the cyclone traced an arc nearly the length of the island nation, bringing heavy rainfall and flooding to central and southeastern areas.

At least a quarter of a million people in the worst-affected areas require urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance and protection in the storms wake. The Government has declared a national emergency and requested international support.

Some 20,000 families who lost their homes need emergency shelter and more than 100,000 children whose schooling has been disrupted need temporary learning spaces.

Up to 85 per cent of planted subsistence crops were lost in some areas, while more than 1,300 wells  the major source of household water  are flooded and contaminated. More than 100 health centres and 3,300 classrooms were damaged by the cyclone.

Of the nearly 250,000 people who sought shelter in evacuation centres during the storm, more than 5,300 of the most vulnerable have no home to return to and remain in displacement sites.

In addition to providing water, sanitation and hygiene assistance for 168,000 people, the $20 million will fund food assistance for 170,000 people, and support more than 240,000 farmers in replanting crops and replacing livestock.

Photo: UNICEF Madagascar

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Mar 25 (Just Earth News): The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on Friday agreed on a roadmap to womenas full and equal participation in the economy as a vital step to achieving sustainable development as the body concluded its two-week session.

This Commission has engaged strongly, comprehensively and constructively over the last two weeks in considering the most effective ways in which to bring about change for women in the world of work, said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, formally known as the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

The outcome document, consisting of a set of agreed conclusions, highlights barriers that women face, such as unequal working conditions, womens over-representation in the informal economy, gender stereotypes and social norms that reinforce womens concentration in certain sectors, such as health and social sectors, and the uneven share of unpaid care work that women do.

This years Commission drew the attendance of 162 Member States, including 89 representatives at the Ministerial level. More than 3,900 representatives from 580 civil society organizations came to New York from 138 countries, attesting to the growing strength and unity of womens voices around the world.

Member States expressed concern over the gender pay gap and the persistently low wages paid to women, which are often below decent living wages.

In the final agreement, they commit to the implementation of equal pay policies through social dialogue, collective bargaining, job evaluations and gender pay audits, among other measures.

There has never been any excuse for the inequality that exists. Now we are seeing a healthy intolerance for inequality grow into firm and positive change, said Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Underlining that womens careers should not experience any disadvantage because of pregnancy and motherhood, the outcome document stresses the need to ensure that both women and men have access to paid parental leave and to promote men's usage of such allowances.

For the first time, the transition of informal and domestic workers into the formal economy was a key issue of discussion for the Commission, whose members agreed on the need of promoting decent work and paid care in the public and private sectors; increasing the provision of social protection and wages that guarantee an adequate standard of living; and ensuring safe working conditions for women.

This comes as a matter of concern as many migrant women employed in the informal economy and in less skilled work are especially vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

The Commission recognized the positive contributions of migrants and called for gender-responsive migration policies that promote migrant womens economic empowerment.

It also calls for strengthened efforts in both public and private sectors to retain women in the workforce and seek more gender balance in managerial positions.

Member States further called for an end to the practice of gender-based price differentiation, also known as the pink tax  whereby goods and services intended for or marketed to women and girls cost more than similar items marketed to men and boys.

With the empowerment of indigenous women being the emerging theme of this session, the outcome document urges the full inclusion and development of indigenous women in economic life, including through the establishment of indigenous-owned businesses.

UN Photo/Mark Garten

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Superstar Rajinikanth's decision to take part as the chief guest of an event to hand over newly built houses to Eelam Tamils in Jaffna of Sri Lanka has snowballed as a subject of political debate now.

On Friday Viduthalai Siruthaigal Katchi party leader Thol Thirumavalavan had urged Rajinikanth to boycott the event conducted by Gnanam Trust of Lyca Group which has built 150 houses for the Tamils living in war affected zones of Sri Lanka.READ ALSO: Prominent Tamil politician opposes Rajinikanth's visit to Sri Lanka

A few other pro-Tamil organisations have also urged Rajinikanth to stay away from the event.

This became a topic of debate in social media as well as the National news channels on Friday.

However Rajini's decision found a supporter in the form of a veteran Indian politician well known for taking pro-Sri Lankan Government stand in Ethnic divide between the Sinhala Government and Tamils living in Sri Lanka. As you guessed it right. it is none other than Subramanian Swamy.

Swamy in his latest tweet as said "If cinema star Rajnikant does not chicken out, but remains firm to go to Jaffna to distribute free houses, then he is worthy of praise."

We have to wait and watch for Thalaivar's decision to know whether he will take part in the event to be held on April 9th in Jaffna. It is to be noted that Gnanam Trust is being run by Lyca Group chariman Subaskaran who is producing Rajinikanth's upcoming mega budget film '2.0'.
Following the opposition of Thol Thirumavalavan and a few other political leaders of Tamil Nadu., Superstar Rajinikanth has withdrawn his plans to visit Sri Lanka and take part in the event to distribute newly built houses to the Eelam Tamils. The houses have been built by Gnanam Foundation run by Subhaskaran, the Chairman of Lyca Group of Companies which is producing Rajinikanth's upcoming film '2.0'.

In a three page letter in Tamil language, Rajinikanth has conveyed his decision to not attend the event, heeding to the request of his respectable friends from Tamil Nadu politics.

"My respectable good friend Mr.Thirumavalavan through his media interviews, Mr.Vaiko through telephone conversation and Mr.Velmurugan through his friends have urged me to abstain from taking part in the event. Though I am not wholeheartedly convinced by all the reasons put forth by them, I have withdrawn my plans to participate in the event, respecting their affectionate request.

I am not a politician, I am just an actor. As noted by my dear brother Thirumavalavan, my job is to entertain people.

At the same time I wish to tell another thing. If I get a chance to visit Sri Lanka again to make those people happy and to see the place where a holy war of Tamils has happened, I make a rightful request to my friends to not make that as politics and prevent me from going their."
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1. Comedian Ahsaan Qureshi Slams Sunil Grover, Asks Him To Stop 'This Nautanki' & 'Grow A Spine'

If you dont have the guts to speak because you think he wont take you again, then that means he is your God. Then leave this nautanki. You are just keeping quiet, he will cajole you and you will be back on the show. Grow a spine. Being a comedian is different but being human is also important, Qureshi said in an interview with Indian Express.

2. Twinkle Khanna Takes A Dig At UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Suggests That He Perform A Yoga Asana To Release Gas!

At the India Today Woman Summit recently, Twinkle was about her views on UP CM Yogi Adityanath, while being quoted that he doesnt have an amazing track record for his statements on women.

3. Shirish Kunder Apologises After FIR Is Lodged Against Him For Mocking UP CM Yogi Adityanath

A police complaint has been lodged against the Tees Maar Khan director at Hazratganj police station in Lucknow under Section 66 of Information Technology Act, 2008. Meanwhile, the Joker filmmaker has tweeted an apology for the same.

4. Swara Bhaskar's Open Letter On Sexism Is A Must-Read For Everyone

BIOGRAPHIA.CO.IN

"In the space of my work, you know that contentious thing called the workplace, the professional context when in my workplace, men in positions to hire me, or give me work made a pass at me or a proposition or just grabbed me and began to try and neck me. Instead of being offended I smiled. I was nice! I didnt say NO! I was apologetic even. I said- Please! Please! I cant," she writes.

5. Ranbir Kapoor Looks Totally Mesmerised As Fan Croons 'Channa Mereya' For Him!

MENSXP.COM

Ranbir patiently listened to the song and couldnt stop himself from showering praises thereafter.
Akshay Kumar is one of the busiest actors in Bollywood. With an average of 3-4 releases every year, Akshay Kumar is an actor who believes in entertaining people. Apart from the typical masala films he usually does, he also comes up with films like Airlift and Baby to bring some untold heroic stories to the limelight.

And now, this year, with the lineup of films like Toilet Ek Prem Katha and Padman, Akshay is all set to entertain and educate people. With Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Akshay Kumar is all set to touch the bitter truth of our society - lack of toilets and how people dont have access to proper places for defecation.

?With the wrap of #ToiletEkPremKatha treating you guys to a still from the film...Keshav and Jaya's unique love story coming to you on June 2 :)? A post shared by Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) on Feb 20, 2017 at 9:12pm PST

While many actors turned down the role, Akshay agreed to do the film. And after seeing the first look, we know that Akshay, like always would again do justice to his role.

Instead of posting a promotional video of the film, Akshay posted an informative video on his social media accounts. In the video, Akshay talks about the harsh realities around open defecation in India and how people in the villages still don't have an access to toilets. Backing with some statistics and facts, Akshay's video is a must watch for everyone. Here are some of the points that Akshay has raised in his video.

#1

Indiatimes

#2

Indiatimes

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Indiatimes

Watch the video here.
While Shiv Sena MP was triggering national outrage by using his slipper to beat an Air India official, AICC secretary V Hanumantha Rao, a former MP from Telangana, allegedly hurled casteist abuse at a police inspector while trying to storm into the "Media Point" in the state assembly.

bccl

The former Rajya Sabha member, who has courted controversy in the past, was caught on camera warning a police officer after being stopped from entering the "Media Point" on Thursday.

Sudhakar, an inspector on duty, had told Rao only MLAs and MLCs were allowed to speak to the media in the designated area.

After the officer took to social media on Friday to express his angst and offered to quit to protest against the humiliation, a criminal case was lodged against the politician.

He was booked under IPC Sections 353 (assault or use of criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his duty) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

screen grab/timesnow

When Rao was stopped by the cop, he warned him and ordered him to show him the rule book. The former MP said,

"You people have made Dharna Chowk out of bounds for protesters and now I am being banned from entry into the Media Point. Are we living in a democracy or a dictatorship? Who are you to stop me? I am secretary of the All India Congress Committee and I will definitely address reporters."

Also Read: Airlines Take The Fight Against Shiv Sena MP To Next Level! After Air India, Now Indigo Cancels His Ticket

The police officer pleaded that he was only informing the former MP about the rules and was not curbing his movement. "I also saluted Hanumantha Rao," the officer said.

screen grab/timesnow

Thursday was not the first time Hanumantha Rao had courted controversy. He had targeted governor E S L Narasimhan in April last year, claiming that the governor's frequent temple visits inconvenienced other devotees.

After #Goongaikwad watch exMP #VHanumanthaRao @INCIndia gen sec of #Telangana abusing police officer and his mother. CI was doing his duty pic.twitter.com/ALblUSa9m0  Shankar Raj (@shanksnews) March 24, 2017

Even after the controversy, Hanumantha Rao remained defiant.

"I have the right to address the media in the designated place. When he objected, I asked him to show me orders. In the assembly, only the speaker can give orders and marshals can act on the speaker's directions, and police have no rights," he said.
The extradition of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallaya seems quite close now as the British government has sent India's extradition request to a district judge.

This is seen as the first step towards a judicial decision that could send him back to India to face trial.

AFP

"The UK home department on February 21 conveyed that India's request for the extradition of Mallya has been certified by the secretary of state and sent to the Westminster magistrates' court for a district judge to consider the issue of releasing of a warrant," MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

The Indian government is looking to bring back Mallya following the pending cases of loan default totalling over Rs 9,000 crore.

Also Read: Despite Being Put Up For Auction Four Times, There Are No Takers For Vijay Mallya's Personal Jet

Baglay said a formal extradition request for Mallya in line with the India-UK extradition treaty was handed over to the British high commission here through a note verbale on February 8.

The British government decision seems to have followed the Indian request. Finance minister Arun Jaitley, who was in UK last month, was told by the British leadership that they would take a "positive" view of the matter.

AFP

While handing over the request, India had asserted that it has a "legitimate" case against Mallya and maintained that if an extradition request is honoured, it would show British "sensitivity towards our concerns".

Also Read: Vijay Mallya Wants To Negotiate His Rs 9000 Cr Loans, Says He's Ready For A One-Time Settlement

The extradition process involves a number of steps, including a decision by the judge whether to issue a warrant of arrest. In case of a warrant, the person is arrested and brought before the court for preliminary hearing, followed by an extradition hearing ahead of a final decision by the secretary of state.

AFP

The wanted person has a right to appeal to the higher courts against any decision all the way up to the Supreme Court. In January this year, 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 fled India on March 2, 2016.

Also Read: Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher House Is On Offer At Rs 35 Crore Discount, Yet There Is No Buyer
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday travelled in an Indian Coast Guard hovercraft to perform a symbolic 'jal-pooja' for the proposed Rs 3,600 crore memorial of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

PMO India

The 'Shiv Smarak' is coming up in the Arabian Sea, around 1.5 km from Mumbai shoreline opposite Marine Drive.

PMO India

He was accompanied by Governor C.Vidyasagar Rao, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and others.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is a torchbearer of courage, bravery & good governance. #ShivSmarak is a fitting tribute to him & his greatness.

Descendents of the great Maratha warrior, Udayan Raje Bhosale and Sambhaji Raje Bhosale were also present along with other dignitaries, as the large ICG hovercraft set off from the Girgaum Chowpatty on Saturday afternoon.

Mumbai Mirror

At the spot in the Arabian Sea finalised for the project, where a makeshift floating mini-replica of the proposed memorial is, Modi poured water from a bronze vessel and threw some earth at the site to perform the 'jal-pooja'.
Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad had been on the receiving end of some really strong backlash after he assaulted an Air India staffer following an argument over him not getting a business class seat.

ANI

While politicians cutting across party lines have condemned his action, various private airlines have decided to blacklist him from flying.

Under fire from various corners, now his wife has come to the MP's defence. According to Gaikwad wife Usha, her husband has never lost cool like what happened on board the Air India flight.

Ravindra Gaikwad/ Facebook

Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, Usha blamed the Air India staffer's behaviour for the incident. She even went on to claim that Gaikwad slapped the 60-year-old official after he disrespected PM Narendra Modi.

"My husband wanted to do was register a complaint against Air India's poor service. But, instead of taking down his complaint, they kept on arguing. Finally, when they used the name of our prime minister disrespectfully, he lost his cool and hit the staffer."

It is interesting that Gaikwad who has been bragging about slapping the official 25 times never mentioned such a thing.

Even if we are to take her argument at face value, her husband's own words would contradict her.

In one of his first interviews after the slap incident, when a journalist asked him "sir how can slap someone, you are MP," Gaikwad reply was "I am a Shiv Sena MP, not BJP's.
An incident in UP shows how even the constables of our country have caught the selfie fever! Three women constables were caught taking a selfie in an ICU while on duty.

They were seen taking pictures in the same room where a gang-rape and acid attack victim was in a very serious condition!

Twitter

Imagine a patient is fighting for her life and someone is frolicking around taking selfies, and that too constables! The incident took place at Lucknows King George Hospital.

Needless to say, the constables got suspended for their nonsensical selfie. The newly-formed Yogi Adityanath government has been given credit for suspending them, however this should have been an ideal consequence had it been any other government ruling UP!

UP: Three women constables take selfie in ICU while on duty of a gangrape and acid attack victim in Lucknow's KGMU Hospital, get suspended pic.twitter.com/EyOugICFIg  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 24, 2017

The victim is a Dalit girl who is fighting for justice as the criminals raped her and threw acid on her private parts. Cabinet minister Rita Bahuguna along with the newly-appointed CM, Yogi Adityanath paid a visit to the victim. When shall the acid-survivor get justice, only time will tell.
In February, a famine was officially declared in South Sudan, only the second country to be existing with this declaration since 2000. One was declared in Somalia in 2011, where at least 2,60,000 people died and, according to the UN Food Program, half of them were children below five years of age.

The fact that South Sudan has officially been pronounced as a nation suffering from a famine, means that people are dying every day.

Reuters

How did it start?

South Sudan only became independent in 2011, making it the worlds youngest state. Soon after acquiring independence, the country became entangled in a civil war for the past three years. The conflict began in 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup against him. The war has caused massive chaos in the country from people being forced to flee, halted agriculture, which has increased food prices, and aid agencies being blocked from accessing people in dire need of support.

In 10 points, we tell you why a large-scale collective response on an international plane has become necessary:

1. According to the United Nations, the worst famine of its kind, since 1945, is insidiously unfolding in South Sudan and its completely a man-made crisis. Almost half of the countrys population is at risk.

2. An estimated 100,000 people are facing starvation, with another one million on the brink of famine. According to the UN, nearly five million people are going hungry.

Reuters

3. UNICEF warned that more than 2,70,000 children across the width and breadth of the country are malnourished. 20,000 of them are living in famine-affected areas.

4. A worsening economic situation and low agricultural output have caused food prices to inflate with exaggeration. This is triggered a food security crisis.

Reuters

5. Almost 40 per cent of the population struggles to put three full meals on their plate. Children are by far the most vulnerable. Over 3,60,000 children under the age of five are estimated to be suffering from acute to severe malnutrition.

6. More than half of South Sudans children of school-going age are out of school, make it the country with the highest proportion of out-of-school children in the world. Children are vulnerable for many reasons including being recruiting by armed organisations and risk physical and sexual abuse.

Reuters

7. A UN survey has found out that 70 per cent of women living in legal camps for the protection of civilians in the capital of Juba had been raped either by the police or soldiers. It also found that 80 per cent had been forced to watch someone else being raped.

8. Armed forces are massacring women and children with knives and instead sparing their ammunition for the conflict.

Reuters

9. South Sudan has become Africas largest refugee nation, from where more than 1.5 million people have fled their homes since 2013.

10. More than 5,00,000 people have fled from the country to Uganda, with 90 per cent of them being women and children.

Reuters

The civil war in Syria has kept the world's attention, but countries such as South Sudan, Yemen and Nigeria are under devastating threats as well.
In what seems to be the need of the hour, people from the minority communities in the US, have joined hands against the white supremacist bigotry by a section of American society. According to reports, people from the Jewish, Muslim, and Indian American communities gathered on the steps of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in northwest Washington and stood in solidarity against rising hate crimes in the US.

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"This is about having peace throughout all communities and religions and races," said Rochelle Berman, who was present at the event on Friday night.

The slogan "We Stand Together Against Hate" was held high above the crowd at the top of the synagogue's steps, reported WJLA news portal, an ABC Television affiliate.

"There should be no discrimination based on race, or gender or skin colour," said a woman.

This year discrimination across the country fuelled vandalism, bomb threats and murders, such as Indian American Srinivas Kuchibholta who was shot and killed during a Kansas hate crime.

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"There are just a lot of challenges out there that basically unity is going to bring us all together," said another attendant.

A 43-year-old Indian-origin store owner, Harnish Patel, was shot dead outside his home in Lancaster County, South Carolina earlier in March.

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A Sikh man, Deep Rai, an American citizen, was also fired upon in a racial attack earlier this month.

Also, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic threats and vandalism across the country, which included bomb threats at 90 Jewish community centres and the desecration of cemeteries in several US states last month.
Way back in the mists of 8-Bit computing was a little game on the Apple II that was meant to be a somewhat educational game teaching you about the perils of frontier American life. Oregon Trail aimed to teach kids about the real life experiences of heading out on the real Oregon Trail which according to just about anyone who remembers playing it, meant dying of dysentery in new and exciting ways. So imagine doing the same kind of thing in another game, but this time sailing across the ocean from London to Nassau in the 1700's with only your logbook, your sailors and a crate of food to keep company... Welcome to The Caribbean Sail!The Caribbean Sail looks to be the next best thing for fans of that classic game Oregon Trail, but this time you can not only name all your crew, but you can have five occupations, five different ships, go spear fishing to replenish your food supply, check for messages in bottles, listen to the chippy soundtrack, and what we all love experiencing in this type of game, dying from a horrible disease or in the case of The Caribbean Sail, getting struck by lightning! Sound like your sort of game? Good, then either head on over to the Steam Greenlight page to give them a vote or purchase it through the main website.: 1) Steam Greenlight 2) Website
Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode on Saturday has hailed the efforts of his predecessor, Babatunde Fashola, the Minister for Work, Power and Housing, made his first official to the seat of government since hand over in May 2015.

Mr. Ambode, who spoke when he received Mr. Fashola and some top officials of his Ministry on a courtesy visit at the Lagos House, Ikeja, attributed many of his achievements as governor to the solid foundation laid by Mr. Fashola.

Ambode said,  I want to say that this is a historic moment for us, notwithstanding that the Honourable Minister lives in Lagos, this is the first time he is stepping his feet into the Alausa premises and we need to honour him for that and say a big thank you for coming back home.

It was the first time the two politicians met officially at the state governments headquarters in Lagos.

It was also the first time Mr. Ambode would publicly acknowledge the achievements of his predecessor, whom he recently accused of frustrating some of his projects. Mr. Fashola denied the claims.

For nearly two years, both men seemed locked in a cold war. Less than six months into his administration, Mr. Ambode revoked a 50-year concession contract for the redevelopment of the highbrow Falomo Shopping Centre awarded by Mr. Fashola.

During the same period, details of some outrageous contracts awarded by Mr. Fashola, including one in which he spent N78 million to upgrade his personal website, leaked to the public.

At a town hall meeting late last year, Mr. Ambode spoke of how he was running his government N3 billion less than what his predecessor had been spending.

Source: ( Premium Times )
According to the latest information coming out from the Senate, it has been revealed that Mr. O.A Ojo, a director in the National Assembly Service Commission at the center of a scandal in which fake documents were used to evade the payment of appropriate customs duties on a Range Rover imported for the use of Senate President Bukola Saraki, benefited from irregular and questionable promotion that catapulted him over numerous of his seniors in the civil service.

Some members of the Senate have demanded an investigation of the scandal, focusing particularly on Mr. Sarakis possible role in generating fake documents for the clearance of one of his many cars, and the loss of revenue to the Nigerian treasury occasioned by such sharp practices.

Sahara reporters sources disclosed that Mr. Ojo, who is the main culprit behind the scandal, was for some inexplicable reason elevated above colleagues with seniority in qualification or service. An architect by training, the controversial director signed the letter addressed to the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to demand the release of the Range Rover, which cost N298 million, after customs officers seized the car. In the letter, Mr. Ojo stated that the car was for use in the convoy of Senate President Bukola Saraki. The NCS had impounded the car on account of the use of fake documents to pay customs duties that were significantly lower than the appropriate fee.

Documents exclusively obtained by SaharaReporters showed that Mr. Ojo was promoted from the rank of Deputy Director to acting Director and then to Director within one year. Two civil service sources told reporters that the mans dramatic and unusual elevation represented a form of reward for Mr. Ojos extraordinary loyalty to corrupt political office holders. Our sources cited Mr. Ojos letter to the NCS as the kind of service he often renders to public officials who wish to cut corners and deprive the Nigerian treasury of legitimate revenues.

[Mr. Ojo] is a well-known beneficiary of the corruption in the National Assembly, and his accelerated promotion has been marked by several irregularities, said one source.

Documents obtained by our investigators revealed that, on December 2, 2016, Mr. Ojo was appointed as Secretary, Directorate of Procurement, Estate and Works. The promotion came via an internal circular (NASS/CNA/46/ Vol. 1/222) dated December 2, 2016 and signed by Mr. M.A Sani-Omolori, Clerk of the National Assembly. The appointment came even before the resolution of a controversy related to his previous promotion.

On January 1, 2008, he had been promoted from the Directorate level to Assistant Director. Then, in January 2012, he was again promoted to the post of Deputy Director. A year and nine months later, Mr. Ojo was elevated to the post of acting Director by the National Assembly Service Commission. He was appointed as a replacement for Mr. Ojeh A. Dickson, who had submitted a notice of his intention to proceed on pre-retirement leave. Mr. Ojos appointment as acting director was made via a circular (NASC/SS/PF/1378) dated November 24, 2014 and signed by Mr. M. E Onu, Director in charge of Promotions, Discipline and Appeals, on behalf of the chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission. The same month, Mr. Ojo was promoted to the post of substantive Director.

In a curious twist, the letter conveying Mr. Ojos promotion was backdated to January 1, 2013. Our sources remarked that the promotion was highly irregular, noting that Mr. Ojo was rewarded at a period during which he was neither serving in an acting capacity nor eligible for promotion, as he had spent barely one year as Deputy Director.

Our sources added that the letter conveying Mr. Ojos promotion to full director was even more bizarre as his predecessor, Mr. Ojeh Dickson, was at the time still in the service with the National Assembly Service Commission. That meant that Ojo was above the man he succeeded, one source said.

According to the same source, If Mr. Ojos promotion was based on the period he served as acting Director, then his date of promotion, by service rules, should be with effect from 2014 and cannot in any circumstance be January 1, 2013. He and other sources argued that the date Mr. Ojos promotion took effect, January 1, 2013, was dubious. They demanded scrutiny of the exercise.

We strongly believe that Mr. Ojo was unlawfully promoted ahead of his seniors to serve the purpose of some corrupt individuals at the National Assembly, one of the sources stated, echoing the views of several who spoke to our correspondent.

Source: ( Sahara Reporters )
It is more saga and drama for the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu chairman as the Department of State Service ( DSS) issued a report containing an evidence implicating the Magu to the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN).

The report, which was signed by one Folasade Bello on behalf of the Director-General of the DSS, was in response to a letter sent to the DSS by the AGF dated December 19, 2016 with reference number, HAGF/DSS/2016/Vol 1/7.

The DSS also attached 12 documents as evidence against Magu who was rejected by the Senate last week based on the damning security report.

According to the DSS, Magu while serving on the presidential arms procurement probe panel befriended a fellow member of the panel, Air Commodore Mohammed Umar (retd.).

Umar was later arrested and charged by the DSS sometimes last year for alleged money laundering and illegal possession of firearms.

According to the DSS, Umar said in his confessional statement that his company furnished Magus official residence in upscale Maitama.

It reads in part, This is a copy of the confessional statement of the confessional statement of Air Commodore Mohammed Umar (retd.), a suspect hitherto detained and currently being prosecuted by the service.

The statement confirms his ownership of Valcour SA Nigeria Limited, a company awarded the contract of securing and furnishing an official residence for Ibrahim Magu by the FCTA. Investigations revealed that this was facilitated after Magu was earlier shown the residence by one Uche Aleka, a close business associate of Umar who was introduced to Magu by the former.

The security service said when Umars house was searched by operatives, several top secret documents, which emanated from the EFCC were found at his residence, evidence that Magu was providing him with sensitive information.

It added, This is a copy of progress report with reference number SH/COS/24/A/7277 dated 25th May, 2016 on NNPC/NLG Brass Investments Accounts in Nigeria commercial banks from Chief of Staff to the President, Mr. Abba Kyari, to the acting Chairman of the EFCC chairman. The letter is an official/classified document of the EFCC, which was duly received by the commission as indicated by the stamp on the document. However, it was recovered at Umars residence.

The DSS alleged that Magu allegedly used his position to settle personal scores with his perceived opponents.

It concludes, It has exposed Magu as a fraudulent officer and betrays the high confidence reposed in him by the President.

All attempts to speak with the EFCC spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, proved abortive as his telephone indicated that it was switched off.

In his response to the AGF last year, however, the EFCC boss denied all the allegations levelled against him by the DSS.

Magu his relationship with Umar was one of professional acquaintance devoid of issues of conflict of interest since their paths crossed when they became members of the arms procurement probe panel.

He said, The claim that EFCC documents, including EFCC letters addressed to the Vice President and being investigation reports on the activities of Emmanuel Kachikwu and his brother Dumebi Kachikwu, were found in his home during a search by the DSS came to me as a surprise.

If that is correct, he should be made to disclose how he came by such documents. I never discussed my official duties with him let alone give him documents pertaining to investigations being conducted by the commission.

Magu further denied allegations that Umar rented the Maitama apartment for him.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
It was all about the wonders of God and excitement for the people of Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State on Saturday as snows fell from the sky during a rain which began around 4 p.m.

The residents, mostly students of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, and the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, took snapshots of the white solid substance.

Our correspondent, who was a witness, observed the excitement that greeted the incident as many of the residents rushed outside to catch a glimpse of the rare occurrence.

The rain lasted for barely 40 mins.

Ireoluwa Akinyemi, a fresh graduate of EKSU said it was a refreshed experience for him.

I have not seen snow in this magnitude before, Im really excited. It is a lovely experience.

Another neighbour, Kemi Fadairo, said the size of the snow was the biggest she had seen.

I have been seeing snows fall but these are the biggest I have seen, she said.

The rain started by stoning doors with the snow, first causing apprehension among residents, who peeped through their windows to observe if it was an intruder.

We thought it was somebody playing pranks, so we peeped through the window to see who it was to know whether to shout for help.

It was then we discovered it was snow falling from the sky and hitting the door hard. I also joined in taking photographs, said Olawale Hafeez, a Laboratory Technologist.
Ex BB Naija housemate, Thin Tall Tony was hosted at Heritage Bank office earlier this week. They presented a gift to him for playing a good father of the bride role when he was still in the Big Brother Naija House.Heritage Bank Hosts Ex BB Naija Housemate Thin Tall Tony, Presents Gift To Him

See photos below:
After Dr Allwell Oji jumped into the Lagoon at Third Mainland bridge, and also the sucidal attempt by two women also wanting to jump into the Lagoon.

Many people, including medical experts, seem to be pointing to depression as the possible cause for Dr Allwell Ojis tragic suicide. However, two renowned Ifa priests have maintained a different stance.

They believe that the likely cause of Dr Allwell Ojis decision to commit suicide was either because he was controlled using an African traditional technique or the lagoon is hungry and angry.

In an attempt to solve the mystery of what really caused Dr Ojis demise, NewTelegraphonline consulted Ifa priests, Chief Omo-Oba Olorunwa Ayekonilogbon and Chief Yemi Elebuibon, another well-known Ifa priest. And they said:

Chief Omo-Oba Olorunw Ayekonilogbon:

Considering that it was after Oji received the call that he took his life in such a cruel manner, speaks volume. That a bird cried at night and a child died in the morning could not be wished away as a mere coincidence.

It is either he was controlled using an African traditional technique or the lagoon is hungry and angry.

If he was controlled through African traditional way, no matter how he tried to evade it, he could still have looked for or waited to get near water before taking his life. You also know that our religion believes in destiny, it could have been his destiny as welAgain, if you look at the rate of deaths in the lagoon in recent time, via suicide mostly, it is equally possible the water is hungry and angry.

What His Royal Highness, Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos, needs to do now and urgently too, is to assemble credible traditionalists, I mean Ifa priests, to find out why the lagoon has suddenly become angry. All what the Babalawos need do is get close to the water, take a little for consultation. Ifa is capable and would surely reveal why all these things are happening.

Until that is done, we might be chasing shadows.

Chief Yemi Elebuibon spoke in a manner that suggests that Oji could have been programmed (hypnotized) to do what he did:

It is a great offence for a person to commit suicide; an abomination. Whoever does that is considered to have brought dishonor to his/her family.

Yet, the traditional belief behind suicide is that some people do not just commit the act on their own, but for some mystical interventions.

However, some people could find themselves in critical and unpleasant situations, and opt for suicide as the last resort instead of living to face the problem.

Whenever it happens proper inquiry is set up by the king or head of the community where it occurred to find the cause of the problem and an Ifa priest is mostly called upon to prescribe atonement to cleanse the city.
There have been eye brows raised as it concerns the arrest of only Yorubas at the crisis going on in Ile-Ife, Osun State. The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, on Friday justified the arrest of only suspects of Yoruba extraction over the recent clash between Yoruba and Hausa communities in Ile-Ife, Osun State, which resulted in the death of about 46 persons.

He said crime neither had tribe nor identity.

Idris spoke with State House correspondents shortly after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the security situation in parts of the country.

The police have been the subject of criticism for arresting and parading 20 Yoruba persons, including a monarch, over the clash while not a single Hausa/Fulani person was detained, even though both groups involved in the clash were said to have had casualties.

The pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere; and the Oodua Peoples Congress are among groups and individuals that have been criticising the police over the development.

The OPC had on Thursday, in a statement by its founder, Dr. Frederick Fasehun, given the Federal Government and the police 48 hours to arrest the Hausa/Fulani persons involved in the crisis.

Idris, however, defended the action of the police, saying crime had no tribes.

He said the police would not hesitate to apply the law once criminal cases were established against individuals, irrespective of their tribes.

He said, You know we are police officers. Crime has no tribe. If you are a criminal, you are a criminal.

Crime has no face. We dont look at crime in the identity of where you are coming from.

As far as you are a criminal and the police find you wanting, we apply the law.

He said investigation had revealed that the crisis started with a disagreement between two people selling food along the road.

On the massacre in Zaki Biam, Benue State, Idris said he had deployed police special units to arrest one of the men declared wanted in connection with the case.

We have deployed Mobile Police Unit on 16th of this month and of recent that incident that happened at Zaki Biam, there are allegations on that Gana, one of the wanted men.

This man has been on the police wanted list and I have decided to deploy some special unit to go after him and get him by all means.

Like I said earlier, definitely, we are going to get that man, he said.

Idris also said the latest attack was not carried out by Fulani herdsmen.

No, I dont think it was Fulani herdsmen. It was an activity of a criminal using some of his criminal gangs in the state to harass people, he added.

The police boss also said the crisis in Kogi State was not about kidnapping.

He said it was a case of militants who were bent on disrupting the peace of the state.

He promised that the police would handle the situation.

Idris said he used the opportunity of his meeting with Buhari to update him on polices efforts to ensure security across the country.

He said, The meeting was to share with the President our deployment strategies on the ground; our deployment in some of these flashpoints all over the country, especially Benue, which is the current one.

We also talked about deployment in Kaduna State, which started some few weeks back and deployment in Ile-Ife, where we have a lot of police officers. Special squads and investigation team are on the ground to conduct investigation on the matter.

The police boss said the President directed him to ensure that all facilities at polices disposal were used to make sure that the security challenges were brought under control as soon as possible.

He said he assured the President that he would ensure that was done.

Meanwhile, some Yoruba elders; the OPC; and an Igbo think tank, Aka Ikenga, have criticised Idris justification of the arrest, describing it as capable of destabilising the country.

A Yoruba elder statesman, Ayo Adebanjo, expressed disappointment with the IGPs defence, saying the arrests were biased towards Hausa/Fulani.

He said, It is unfortunate that the person who calls himself the IGP has no apology for doing injustice. If he agrees that two sections were fighting and two sections suffered casualties, is he saying the indigenes of Ile-Ife killed themselves and destroyed their own properties?

Yes, a criminal is a criminal but I am asking him, are the criminals only from one side when there are victims from both sides?

Adebanjo, therefore, urged northerners to prevail on the President and the IGP to stop playing with fire.

This is not the time for ethnic crisis in this country because we have a lot on our hands. Those of us who are sincere about having peace in the country are worried about this, but it appears that the oppressors are not bothered.

It is a shame and I am calling on northerners, particularly the good elements among them, to warn these people not to provoke the Yoruba people, he said.

A former Minister of Education, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, said he had not read Idris defence, but noted that the IGPs job is to protect everybody irrespective of where they come from.

And in the execution of his duties, one would expect him to be very impartial. He was not appointed as the IG of a section of the country, but IG for the Nigerian nation, he added.

Founder of Aka Ikenga, Oscar Onwudiwe, described the situation as not only worrisome but detrimental to the unity and stability of Nigeria as a whole.

Onwudiwe, a lawyer, said with the one-sided arrests made by the police and the comments of the Inspector General, it was evident that there were instructions from above not to touch persons of Hausa/Fulani ethnicity involved in the Ile-Ife clash.

Onwudiwe said, The latest incident is a confirmation of what many of us already know. Since this administration came on board, there has been a clear difference in how a certain people are treated. The conduct and statement of the IGP go to show that indeed, there is an order from above not to touch the Hausa/Fulani involved in the Ile-Ife crisis. Otherwise I dont know why only the Yoruba should be arrested after the clash.

Before Buhari came on board, herdsmen had been moving their cattle around different parts of the country without causing problem, but going by the level of destruction they have caused over the last two years, it is as if there is a new agenda to silence anyone who raises a voice against their nefarious activities. Under Buhari, it is a clear case of some animals being more equal than others.

The National Coordinator, OPC, Gani Adams, who also faulted the IGP over his justification of the arrest of only the Yoruba people in the crisis, said the police boss should know it was impossible to defend such an arrest when two ethnic groups were involved in the clash.

While calling on President Buhari to caution the IG, Adams pointed out that if such could happen in Ile-Ife, the cradle of the Yoruba race, then worse things could happen in other towns.

He said, If we dont raise our voice now, worse things might happen. That is why we are calling for restructuring because we cannot continue like this. The Hausa people operate with psychological confidence because when they kill people, nothing happens.

Look at the case of Mile 12 in Lagos last year, where many Yoruba people were killed; why didnt the IGP parade Hausa people like hes doing to Yoruba people now? What of Agatu in Benue where hundreds have been killed so far?

We are not against the police arresting Yoruba people who were found culpable, but we are saying there should be no bias. If there is no evidence of the Yoruba person that was killed, is the police saying Ile-Ife people also burnt their own houses?

Following the clash in Ile-Ife, the Assistant Inspector- General of Police, Zone 2, Kayode Aderanti, on Thursday held a security meeting with ethnic group leaders in Sagamu, Ogun State.

The theme of the meeting was: The need to live together in peace.

This move, he said, was part of a proactive measure to promote peaceful co-existence among the different ethnic groups in the state.

While addressing the large gathering of different ethnic groups living in Sagamu, Aderanti, who lamented the Ile-Ife crisis, said, Sagamu has the largest concentration of ethnic groups in the country. We want everyone to live in peace; we want you to live as brothers and sisters.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The Kano State government has arrested no fewer than 5,000 people for violating the Environmental Sanitation Law, have been prosecuted by the State Commissioner for Environment, Dr Ali Makoda.

The alleged violators were arrested and tried by the states mobile courts between January to March.

Makoda, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Alhaji Sagir Wali, told newsmen on Saturday shortly after monitoring the monthly sanitation exercise in eight local governments areas.

According to him, the violators were arrested along the major roads in the city during sanitation.

We were able to arrest 5, 000 defaulters and they were charged to our mobile courts which imposed some fines on them, he said.

He noted that Saturdays sanitation exercise was a huge success compared to previous ones with regard to level of compliance.

Makoda also commended some self-help groups which participated fully during the exercise.

He, therefore, called on the general public to continue to give the government the necessary support in order to keep the state clean.

The Chairman, Kano State Central Committee on Self-help Groups, Alhaji Ibrahim Garba, commended the state government for its support and urged a sustenance of the assistance.

He called on chairmen of local governments in the state to emulate the state governments gesture towards ensuring a clean environment.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper)
It was a week of blessings for Mrs Elizabeth Orefuwa, the overall best graduating student of the Lagos State University, Ojo, as she was delivered of a baby girl barely a day after graduating.

Orefuwa graduated with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.74 at the universitys 21st convocation held on March 22.

36,540 students were conferred with degrees, diploma and doctorate while 26 made first class.

An ecstatic Orefunwa said she felt the contraction just before the convocation and was scared if the baby would deny her the opportunity of participating in the graduation.

I was having contraction and was scared that the baby might come before the convocation.

I told God to take control because I wanted to experience the convocation and God took control until I got home.

It was when I got home that it started again and my husband took me to the hospital where I gave birth at about 1. 00 p.m. on Thursday.

Reliving her experience, 29-year-old Orefuwa said she had yet to come terms with the reality of becoming a mother.

Earlier, she said during the institutions convocation on Wednesday that the journey through the school did not come easy but with determination and motivation, she had a good story to tell.

The journey through the institution was not easy; it took me seven years of writing the UTME before I finally gained admission in 2012.

I also applied for direct entry three times at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

During this period of waiting, I started a professional career at the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN) in 2007 and qualified as an Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) in 2010,Orefuwa said.

She said that she wanted to study accounting but found herself studying education, adding that she enjoyed every bit of it and never dreamt of coming out with a first class and becoming the best student.

According to her, self-determination and motivation through her fathers insistence on academic excellence gave her an edge.

My aim is to get my first-degree certificate after several years of waiting and to satisfy my dad, who has been insisting on the academic certificate before professional certificate.

She said that her marriage in the final year and the pregnancy did not affect her academic performance.

I had a CGPA of 4.72 before marriage and I graduated with 4.74 point; I got married in 2016 and my husband was very supportive.

A chartered accountant, Orefuwa, said she would love to combine teaching with practising accounting profession.

(NAN)
An Ikeja High Court has sentenced a 32-year-old security guard, Kenechukwu Okonkwo, to 14 years imprisonment for raping a 29-year-old virgin.

According to the judge presiding over the case, Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye while passing the sentence at an Ikeja High Court, Lagos, described rape as an `act of extreme violence against women.

Ipaye said that there should be zero tolerance for any form of violence against women and vulnerable members of the society.

She said, I hereby sentence you, Kenechukwu Okonkwo, to 14 years imprisonment to commence from today March 24, 2017.

Okonkwo was arraigned in court on July 14, 2015 on a charge of rape which is contrary to Section 258 (1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011.

During the trial, the prosecution led by Adeniji said that Okonkwo committed the offence on December 27, 2013, in his one-bedroom apartment located in Ketu Lagos.

He said, The complainant was a 29-year-old saleswoman (name withheld) who was a virgin.

She became friends with Okonkwo who was a security guard working at a supermarket where she supplied goods.

She was experiencing accommodation problems and was about to be evicted from her home.

The complainant, however, confided in Okonkwo about her problem and he offered to keep some of her property in his apartment.

She came to inspect his apartment which was a face me I face you, doubting the suitability of his apartment and when she turned to leave, Okonkwo blocked her exit and forcefully dragged her from the corridor into his apartment.

She was screaming and begging him in Igbo language and he responded saying that you have been suffering me for too long, he said.

The prosecutor said the convict however, gagged her with wrapper to stifle her scream and had forceful carnal knowledge of her in his bedroom.

The noise and commotion in the apartment attracted Okonkwos co-tenant who came to intervene to no avail.

It was when the landlord knocked on Okonkwos door to enquire about the noise that the complainant was able to escape, Adeniji said.

However Okonkwo, in his testimony during the trial, claimed that the sexual intercourse between him and the complainant was consensual.

He said that he had a desire to marry her and she usually visited him at his apartment on Sundays with members of her church.

On that fateful day, I attended a naming ceremony and while I was leaving the ceremony, I received a phone call from the complainant saying that she was at my house.

I got home and she collected the bag of pure water I was carrying and asked me what I wanted to eat and I told her I wanted to eat Indomie.

She changed into a pair of tights from her jeans trousers to make the Indomie and I played an adult movie which we watched together while we had dinner.

She made me promise that I will marry her and thereafter, we made love, he said.

However, when he was being cross-examined by Adeniji, Okonkwo admitted, contrary to his testimony, that the complainant visited him for the first time on the day of the incident.

Justice Ipaye, in convicting Okonkwo, noted inconsistencies in his testimony.

She said, The defendant is not only economical with the truth, he should not be believed.

There were inconsistencies in his testimonies and his longstanding friend who testified on his behalf as DW2, could not recall knowing her as his girlfriend.

She was at risk of having her belongings thrown out of where she was staying and he took advantage of her vulnerable state on the night of Dec. 27, 2013.

After hearing and observing the defendant and the complainant give their testimonies, her account is more in line with narration of her accommodation problem.

Her visit to the defendant was not a social visit but to establish the suitability of his home to keep some of her belongings at the time.

She is of a very slim build and could have been easily overpowered by the defendant and her account was more in line with the account of the medical doctors who testified on behalf of the prosecution, Ipaye said.

Four witnesses testified on behalf of the prosecution  the complainant, the investigating police officer and two medical doctors.

Noting the impact of the medical evidence on her conviction of Okonkwo for the crime, Ipaye said, Penetration, however slight, constitutes the offence of rape.

I have no doubt about the penile penetration, as the testimony of the complainant was clear, concise and unequivocal.

PW3, Dr Oluwaseun Osungbusi, is a medical doctor with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. He came to testify on behalf of his colleague, Dr Justina Oyemarin, who attended to the complainant on the night of the alleged rape.

He and Oyemarin both worked at the Ikosi Primary Health Centre where the complainant sought treatment after the alleged rape.

Oyemarins report noted that the complainant had a broken hymen, had bruises on her body and had heavy vaginal bleeding and discharge.

PW4 was Dr Joseph Onwoh, a medical doctor with over 30 years of experience in gynaecology.

In his testimony, he told the court that when the complainant was referred to him, she was bleeding and had a ragged, broken hymen.

He counselled her and advised her to keep her bloodstained underwear as evidence in case the matter goes to court.

He can be seen as a first responder who saw the complainant in her state of distress and his testimony was in line with the test results presented by Osungbusi, she said.

Mr Worer Obuagbaka, counsel to the convict, in his plea for mercy, told the court that Okonkwo was a first-time offender and was repentant.

The convict is a first time offender and the only son of his family; he lost his mother last year to cervical cancer and has been in custody since December 2013.

During this period, he has learnt his lesson, I plead with the court to pass a light sentence on the convict and temper justice with mercy, Obuagbaka said.

However, the prosecutor, Mr Kazeem Adeniji, the Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, commended the judgment.

(NAN)
Four persons were stabbed to death by their neighbour in Portugal in a rural area in the north of the country before surrendering to police.

The man confessed to killing an elderly couple and a woman in their homes, and then another woman in the street in Tamel, a village on the outskirts of Barcelos, some 380km north of Lisbon.

A police officer on duty in the regional centre of Barcelos, said the suspect has surrendered and confessed to the crime; all the victims died from neck wounds.

The officer said, Investigations has started on the motive or motives for the action but

it appears to be a local problem between neighbours.

Source: ( PM News )
Three phone numbers has been released by the Nigeria Customs Service to the members of the public to help reach the helpdesk for immediate confirmation of Customs duty papers by members of the public.

The numbers according to the service are; 094621597, 094621598,094621599.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Acting Public Relations Officer, NCS, Mr Joseph Attah, on Saturday.

The numbers according to Attah, are for those interested in verifying the genuineness of their papers or who intend to buy vehicles from dealers.

The statement read in part, Any person can take advantage of this easy way to call and give the following information; and hold on for an immediate answer before purchasing the vehicle(s)- C number, year of payment, command that the duty was said to be paid.

As you are reading out the C- number on the top right of the Single Goods Declaration (SGD) and giving the year of payment and the command (where the duty was paid), the information is being keyed in for prompt answer that will enable you make appropriate purchase decision.

He added that the NCS, under the present management was determined to explore all ways of easing Customs processes and procedures in the interest of the general public.
Five persons have been confirmed dead in an auto crash which occurred at Asejire end of Osun on Friday while others sustained severe injuries.

Among the dead was a journalist, Nathaniel Abimbola, working with the Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC) in Osogbo. His friends said he was aged 48. He marked his birthday on 26 of February this year.

Abimbola, a graduate of University of Ibadan was attached to the State Assembly and had been on the beat for 10 years.

Four others who died, alongside Abimbola, were all members of Celestial Church of Christ (CCC) Ayetoro Osogbo.

It was gathered that the entire occupants of the ill fated 18seater bus were heading to Imeko headquarters of the church for a retreat.

The driver of the bus was said to have lost the brake of the vehicle before ramming into a stationary Nigerian Bottling Company Coca-Cola truck.

Those that sustained injuries in the accident are being treated at state hospital Ibadan and Ikire.

Governor Rauf Aregbesola has expressed grief over Abimbolas death.

Aregbesola in a condolence message signed by the Director Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon in Osogbo on Saturday, said the death of Abimbola has robbed the state-owned media organization of one of its most dependable hands.

This is sudden and tragic. Abimbola has shown himself as a reliable hand in the business of dissemination of information.

His life was short but was eventful. He has demonstrated capacity for professional excellence but he has come to the end of his journey

We console ourselves with the reality that death is a necessary end that must come when it is our time.

The governor urged the entire OSBC family to take the loss with equanimity.

Also, the state council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has declared a seven day mourning for Abimbola.

Mr. Mr Biodun Olalere, chairman of the union, described Abimbola as a man loved by all through his penchant for peace and hardwork.

Also, the State House of Assembly, has described Abimbolas death as a rude shock.

In a statement by the Chairman, House Committee on Information and Strategy, Olatunbosun Oyintiloye, the assembly said Nathaniels death was like a strange dream.

Abimbola, who attended Oluponna Community High School, in Osogbo, was survived by an aged mother, wife and three childrentwo boys and a girl.

Source: ( PM News)
TECNO today released its premium PhonePad 3 phablet in Nigeria. Tagged Do business, stay mobile, the device was made with the intention of facilitating business communications and productivity for its users on-the-go. As TECNOs best 7-inch phablet, it has lots of upgrades in performance and design on the PhonePad 7E that was released last year.

Speaking of the device, the Marketing Director of the TECNO Tablet Business Unit, Mr. Steven Huang said, There is a dilemma for modern business man: phone is too small to deal with some daily work, while laptop is too heavy to carry wherever you go. Here comes the PhonePad 3, a user friendly high-end device carrying the mission of offering an improved and efficient business life .

As mentioned, this new TECNO PhonePad 3 comes with a well-crafted brushed metallic body. It is much slimmer than you can imagine.

Lets unveil more feature details of this elegant device:

Big Screen & Large view

TECNO PhonePad 3 is equipped with a 7-inch HD screen. And it has a high screen-to-body ratio reaching to 74%. Everything just becomes bigger and clearer on such a large screen. The HD display delivers a noticeably more brilliant and vibrant effect.

Improved Performance

TECNO PhonePad 3 is powered by a large 4100mAh battery which supports up to 2 business day usage when fully charged. It boasts an improved memory of 2GB RAM for easy multitasking without lag. Equipped with a 16GB internal memory, the storage can be expandable up to 128GB via the MicroSD card slot.

The Fingerprint sensor by the side unlocks the phablet easily and safely with just one touch, it can also work as a mini touchpad for reading, browsing, etc. The phablet comes with a 5MP front camera with flash and a 13MP rear camera with dual true tone flash, enhancing the cameras ability to take superb pictures in low light.

Intelligent Business Apps

TECNO PhonePad 3 is pre-installed with premium applications for enhanced business productivity. Camcard is just like an electronic business card holder which allows users to easily manage business cards and find contact details of others easily. CamScanner comes in handy for scanning documents and taking records at a single tap. WPS Office is paired with the 7-inch display, which makes read, modification and edition become much easier when on-the-go.

A Faster Way to Share across the Internet

TECNO PhonePad 3 supports dual Micro SIM functionality with ultra-fast 4G LTE connectivity, which makes it faster to share files and business information across the internet.

The device which not only appeals to the business elite but all premium gadget lovers as well. The TECNO PhonePad 3 will be officially launched on the 27th of March 2017 and is now available in all retail outlets across the country.
"AI is the new UI" may be a cliche now. But back in 2011 when Apple first released Siri, the capability to control a mobile device by talking to it through an intelligent assistant was revolutionary. Granted, Siri wasn't as smart as HAL in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" or Eddy, the shipboard computer in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," but it made enough of an impact on consumer technology to spawn a stream of similar intelligent assistants.

Siri was soon followed by Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google's Assistant. And these will likely be joined soon by many others, including Samsung's Bixby, which is based on technology Samsung acquired when it bought Viv, a company founded by the people behind Siri.

And just as the iPhone took off when Apple opened it up to third-party app makers, the key to the success of these intelligent assistants may well be the ability for third-party developers to access them and employ them as a user interface to their applications.

It's an idea that's not been lost on the technology companies behind these assistants. Heres a look at how the "big four" assistants  Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant  are being used now, where they differ, and what comes next.

Alexa

Amazon has been particularly successful in driving third-party adoption of Alexa. The company first made its Alexa Skills Kit available to developers in June 2015, and six months later over 130 skills were available. (Skills, in Amazon parlance, are applications that can be accessed on one of Amazon's Echo devices using Alexa as the user interface.) Since then, the development of Alexa skills has exploded. By September 2016 over 3,000 were available, and in February 2017 Amazon announced that the number of skills had burst through the 10,000 mark. That means over 10,000 applications use Alexa as their user interface.

Perhaps more significant is the availability of Alexa Voice Service (AVS). Released in 2015, AVS allows manufacturers to build Alexa into connected products that have a microphone and speaker. Chinese manufacturer Tongfang has announced plans to integrate Alexa into its Seiki, Westinghouse, and Element Electronics smart TVs using a microphone built into the remote controls, enabling owners to use Alexa to carry out actions such as searching channel listings and managing the TV settings.

Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei has also announced plans to build Alexa into its Mate 9 smartphone, and car makers such as Ford are planning to build Alexa into their vehicles to enable drivers to carry out actions such as playing music or setting destinations on the navigation system. Ford owners will also be able to use specially developed skills on Echo devices to carry out functions on their cars such as activating remote start or locking and unlocking doors.

When it comes to voice-enabling third-party devices, James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, says that Amazon has a huge advantage over its rivals. That's because it has been working on Alexa for two years, and it can draw on its experiences with its AWS cloud. "If you are working on a washing machine then any problems have probably already been solved, Alexa has been tested, and someone may already have deployed it for that use," he says. "Amazon has realized that for Alexa to be deployed like this then it has to handle the cloud, security, and so on, and it has learned how to do that from AWS. Apple doesn't have that."

Of course, both Microsoft and Google do have experience running large-scale clouds, and technically there is probably not a big difference between their intelligent assistant technologies, McQuivey says. Companies' decisions about which to adopt could therefore hinge on more strategic considerations, like whether Amazon could become a direct competitor to them or if they want to align themselves with Google or Microsoft.

Siri

Despite being the first in this wave of intelligent assistants, Apple has been slow to offer Siri as a user interface to third-party applications; it's only with the release of iOS 10 and SiriKit that it has been possible for external developers to build software that can be controlled by Siri. Even so, the possibilities are severely limited compared to what developers can do with the Alexa Skills Kit.

SiriKit can be used to build apps only in a particular set of domains with specific intents. For example, a messaging app can register to support the Messages domain and the intent to send a message. Siri then handles all of the user interaction, including the voice and natural language recognition and getting information. As well as messaging, apps can be built that support the following domains: ride booking, photo search, payments, VoIP calling, workouts, and adjusting the climate controls and radio settings in CarPlay apps. But that's all.

Of all these intelligent assistants, Siri stands out as the exception because it is confined to devices made by Apple. And although that means that it is the most widely distributed, it is by no means the most commonly used. "A high percentage of Apple users say that they have used Siri once, but they don't use it often," says McQuivey. "By contrast, one third of Echo users use Alexa multiple times per day, and another third use it once a day," he adds.

Cortana

Microsoft's Cortana is different from Siri or Alexa in that it is a multiplatform intelligent assistant. It first started out on Microsoft's mobile platform and is now available as an app on iOS and Android, as well as on Windows 10 and Microsoft's Xbox game platform. It's a strategy that Microsoft calls making Cortana unbound, which the company explains  in an apparent dig at Apple  means that it is "tied to you, not to any one platform or device."

Microsoft is also developing a Skills Kit for Cortana that will allow developers to take bots created with the Microsoft Bot Framework and publish them to Cortana as a new skill. In addition, developers will be able to repurpose code from existing Alexa skills to create Cortana skills, and they will be able to integrate their web services as skills.

Taking another page from the Amazon playbook, Microsoft has also announced a Cortana Devices software development kit (SDK), which will allow OEMs and ODMs to put Cortana into all kinds of products from cars to televisions to mobile devices, and even an Echo-like connected speaker, which audio equipment manufacturer Harman Kardon plans to release later this year.

Cortana will also work on the IoT Core edition of Windows 10, offering the possibility of IoT devices that can be controlled using Cortana as the user interface.

Assistant

Google is slightly behind the curve when it comes to intelligent assistants. Google Assistant appeared on the scene only within the last few months  in the Google Home device that was launched in November 2016, the Pixel smartphone launched in October 2016, and the Allo messaging app launched in September 2016. And it was only in December 2016 that Google launched its Actions on Google program, allowing developers to use Google Assistant to work as a user interface for Google Home skills. It's also promised an Embedded Google Assistant SDK that will allow other hardware makers to embed Assistant in their products.

Beyond the big four

There are other companies also developing general intelligent assistants that may be made available to product makers of all sorts. For example, audio recognition and cognition company SoundHound has launched a platform called Houndify that includes large-scale speech recognition and natural language understanding, connections to various data providers to access different types of information, and the capability to add custom phrases and queries.

Once a product is integrated with Houndify, the company promises that it will instantly understand a wide variety of questions and commands in the same way that Alexa or Cortana can. The difference is that rather than making a feature of having Alexa or Cortana in their product, manufacturers will be able to use Houndify as an "own brand" intelligent assistant. As well as Android and iOS SDKs, the company has also made SDKs available for C++, Web, Python, Java, and C#.

Looking forward

How widespread will the use of intelligent assistants as a user interface to applications become? It seems unlikely they will replace the keyboard and mouse for desktop applications in the foreseeable future. But for applications you need to access while driving or walking, or applications running on mobile devices or devices with no screens  such as many IoT devices  an intelligent assistant seems to make perfect sense.

What will be interesting to see play out is whether having an intelligent assistant, such as Alexa, becomes a selling point for products, or whether an own-brand solution such as Houndify ends up being all that users demand.

On that question, McQuivey says that the answer will depend on the type of product under consideration. For a television, for example, he says that the use case has been established: People talk to their televisions to find programs and to control the television itself. For that reason, consumers are unlikely to care if the voice interface is provided by Alexa, Cortana, Assistant, or an own-brand solution.

But for other types of devices McQuivey says that consumers will want interoperability: At the start of a laundry session you might want to ask the washing machine to turn off the central heating, or turn on the oven. In that case, you would want to buy a washing machine that uses the same voice assistant as their heating system or oven. Today that's likely to be Alexa, but in theory Cortana and Assistant could catch up very quickly, says McQuivey.

Of course, Apple is the master of creating an ecosystem of products that interoperate, but Siri can be used only in Apple's closed ecosystem. That means that unless Apple branches out into domestic appliances and other household devices, Siri is unlikely to become an important user interface for the future.

Related video:

This story, "Why AI will rule all UIs" was originally published by CIO .
In a recent announcement out of CeBIT Hannover, IBM Security and SIX, the operator of the infrastructure underpinning the Swiss financial sector, have released plans to leverage IBM Watson for Cyber Security in a new cognitive Security Operations Center (SOC). The new facility will be housed at SIX's offices in Switzerland to provide localized cybersecurity services tailored to the needs of the region.

As part of a new partnership, the SIX SOC powered by IBM will give clients access to the latest IBM cognitive security tools used to fight cybercrime. The centerpiece of the new SOC will be IBM Watson for Cyber Security. SIX will now be able to offer advanced security services to its existing financial industry customers, using the IBM Security capabilities as important building blocks for the offering. The project will add new capabilities to a traditional SOC infrastructure as well as develop a new, highly collaborative IBM  SIX framework for the multi-tenant, next generation SOC.

Digitization, Internet of Things, global connectivity and the integration of new disruptive technologies are some megatrends opening a lot of new business opportunities. However, they also bring new threats with possible high impact on the industry, said Robert Borntrager, Division CEO, SIX Global IT. We operate the infrastructure of the Swiss financial market. IBM as leading company in Security Operations and Response was the logical partner for us and the perfect match for our requirements to build and operate our SIX Security Operations Center which will go beyond today's off-the-shelf cybersecurity standards  therefore defining the next generation of the Swiss financial market.

This partnership with SIX is a major step in Switzerland for IBM as a company, and its security business in particular, said Thomas Landolt, Country GM, IBM Switzerland. IBM has a proud tradition of excellence providing the world's top financial services companies with essential technologies. We're looking forward to both helping SIX manage its own cybersecurity needs, and also becoming an essential partner starting with the globally respected Swiss banking market to those other organizations who need regionally based and Swiss market compliant security services.

Edited by Alicia Young
The Green Party Annual Convention is taking place in Waterford this weekend.

The conference opened last night with a keynote address from Peter Willcox, who was captain of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior when the ship was bombed by French agents in New Zealand.

It will include a panel discussion on the media, politics and the challenge of "alternative facts" politics.

Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan, says that he will be recommending a more collaborative Brexit process.

"So one of the points I'm making, and I think it's critical, is that the talks actually have to be much wider, it shouldn't be just about triggering Article 50, it should be about what kind of agreements can we get, particularly on standards that are not contentious," he said.

"It's not just all about tariffs and trade, it should be about what kind of standards you set. Europe's the right place to do that and Britain should continue to follow those standards."
Irish parents pay some of the highest childcare costs in the world, while workers in the sector earn an average of just 9.27 an hour, according to a new campaign.

Trade union IMPACT is calling for greater state investment in early education.
Donald Trump and Republican leaders have scrapped their bill to repeal "Obamacare" in a humiliating failure for the US president, when it became clear his flagship manifesto pledge would nosedive in the House of Representatives.

Democrats said Americans could "breathe a sigh of relief" after seven years of non-stop railing against former president Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act health care law.

But Mr Trump said Obamacare was imploding "and soon will explode".

Thwarted by two factions of fellow Republicans, from the centre and far right, House speaker Paul Ryan said Mr Obama's health care law, the Republicans' top target in the new Trump administration, would remain in place "for the foreseeable future".

It was a stunning defeat for the new president after he had demanded House Republicans delay no longer and vote on the legislation on Friday, pass or fail.

But his gamble failed and instead Mr Trump, who campaigned as a master deal-maker and claimed that he alone could fix America's health care system, saw his ultimatum rejected by Republican politicians who made clear they answer to their own voters, not to the president.

At the White House, a dejected but still combative Mr Trump said he had "never said repeal and replace it in 64 days", though he had repeatedly shouted during the presidential campaign that it was going down "immediately".

The bill was withdrawn just minutes before the House vote was to take place and politicians said there were no plans to revisit the issue.

Republicans will try to move ahead on other agenda items, including overhauling the tax code, though the failure on the health bill can only make whatever comes next immeasurably harder.

Mr Trump pinned the blame on Democrats, saying: "With no Democrat support we couldn't quite get there.

"We learned about loyalty, we learned a lot about the vote-getting process."

The Obama law was approved in 2010 with no Republican votes.

Despite reports of backbiting from administration officials toward Mr Ryan, Mr Trump said: "I like Speaker Ryan. I think Paul really worked hard."

For his part, Mr Ryan told reporters: "We came really close today but we came up short  This is a disappointing day for us."

He said Mr Trump had "really been fantastic", but when asked how Republicans could face voters after their failure to make good on years of promises, he quietly said: "It's a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you."

In the autumn, Republicans used the issue to gain and keep control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

During previous years, they cast dozens of votes to repeal Mr Obama's law in full or in part, but when they finally got the chance to pass a repeal version that actually had a chance to become law, they could not deliver.

Democrats could hardly contain their satisfaction.

"Today is a great day for our country, what happened on the floor is a victory for the American people," said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who as speaker helped Mr Obama pass his Affordable Care Act in the first place.

"Let's just for a moment breathe a sigh of relief for the American people."

The outcome leaves both Mr Ryan and Mr Trump weakened politically.

For the president, this piles a big early congressional defeat on to the continuing inquiries into his presidential campaign's Russia connections and his unfounded wiretapping allegations against Mr Obama.

Mr Ryan was not able to corral the House Freedom Caucus, the restive band of conservatives that ousted the previous speaker.

Those Republicans wanted the bill to go much further, while some moderates felt it went too far.

Instead of picking up support as Friday wore on, the bill went the in other direction, with several key politicians coming out in opposition.

Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, who chairs a major committee, Appropriations, said the bill would raise costs unacceptably on his constituents.

The Republican bill would have eliminated the Obama statute's unpopular fines on people who do not obtain coverage and would have also removed the often-generous subsidies for those who bought insurance.

Republican tax credits would have been based on age, not income like Mr Obama's, and the tax increases Mr Obama imposed on higher-earning people and health care companies would have been repealed.

The bill would have ended Mr Obama's Medicaid expansion and trimmed future government financing for the national programme, letting individual states impose work requirements on some of the 70 million beneficiaries.
A blogger from Singapore who was jailed for online posts criticising his government has been granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge ruled.

Amos Yee, 18, has been detained by US federal immigration authorities since December when he was taken into custody at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Attorneys said he could be released from a Wisconsin detention centre as early as Monday.

Judge Samuel Cole issued a 13-page decision on Friday, more than two weeks after Yee's closed-door hearing on the asylum application.

Judge Cole wrote: "Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore."

Mr Yee left Singapore with the intention of seeking asylum in the US after being jailed for several weeks in 2015 and 2016. He was accused of hurting the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians in the multi-ethnic city-state. Yee is an atheist.

Many of his blog and social media posts criticised Singapore's leaders.

He created controversy in 2015 as the city-state was mourning the death of its first prime minister when he posted an expletive-laden video about prime minister Lee Kuan Yew just after his death.

Such open criticism of political leaders is discouraged in Singapore. The case raised questions about free speech and censorship and has been closely watched abroad.

Judge Cole said testimony during Mr Yee's hearing showed that while the Singapore government's stated reason for punishing him involved religion, "its real purpose was to stifle Yee's political speech".

He said Mr Yee's prison sentence was "unusually long and harsh", especially for his age.

Officials at Singapore's embassy in Washington DC have not addressed the case and messages left for the government on Saturday morning in Singapore were not immediately returned.

Human Rights Watch applauded the decision.

Phil Robertson, the body's deputy Asia director, said: "Singapore excels at creating a pressure cooker environment for dissidents and free thinkers who dare challenge the political, economic and social diktats from the ruling People's Action Party.

"It's clear the Singapore government saw Amos Yee as the proverbial nail sticking up that had to be hammered down."
His departure later this year will mark the last of Irelands boom-time bankers to exit lenders which needed to be expensively bailed out by taxpayers as the country hurtled into its worst financial crisis and the bailout of late 2010.

Holding senior positions since joining from Royal Bank of Scotland in 2003, Mr Boucher was appointed chief executive in early 2009. A few months earlier the Government had struck the banking guarantee that covered a huge range of the bank bond debt at the bailed-out lenders.

Bank of Ireland received 4.8bn from taxpayers but was nonetheless the only Irish lender to avoid outright nationalisation or closure.

Mr Boucher helped engineer a shares sale involving a trio of international investors, including investor Wilbur Ross, who is now the US Commerce Secretary under President Donald Trumps administration.

Mr Boucher had repeatedly apologised on behalf of the bank for its lending decisions taken during the boom. But along with the Government, the bank has been quick to add it had paid back the monies pumped into the lender during the crisis.

Bank of Ireland returned to profit almost three years ago but a definitive decision to restart paying a dividend has been delayed. The Government still owns a 14% stake in the bank.

Mr Boucher told the Banking Inquiry many lenders at home and abroad had made the same lending mistakes during the boom years. In recent times, the bank has resisted opposition politicians calls for it to follow other Irish lenders in cutting its standard variable mortgage rates.

Including a 234,000 pension contribution, Mr Boucher who turns 59 this year, was paid a total of 958,000 in 2016.

In a sign he was thinking of stepping down, Mr Boucher joined Eurobank Ergasias in Athens as a non-executive director this year.

He has demonstrated extraordinary and exemplary personal commitment to the group and has brought to everything he has done a clarity of direction and unrelenting focus, Bank of Ireland said yesterday.

Mr Boucher said: I will be 59 in August of this year and I feel it best for the group that someone else leads the groups next stage of development.
The body of the 28-year-old was flown into Dublin Airport yesterday morning after a three-day journey from Goa.

Danielles family are now waiting to see if they can have a second autopsy carried out on the body of the young Buncrana woman.

It may be Monday by the time that takes place, as the coroners office does not carry out autopsies at weekends.

An autopsy has already been carried out on Danielle in India. However, Danielles family have insisted on a second one in Ireland.

A family source said they were not happy with events in India and how Danielles situation had been handled.

It has also now been revealed that further medical procedures are to be undertaken on Danielle in Belfast before she is returned to her home on the Inishowen Peninsula, meaning it may now be Tuesday before the remains of Danielle are returned to her mother Andrea and her four younger sisters.

Local Sinn Fein Senator Padraig Mac Lochlainn said this is a very difficult time for the family but they are just pleased that Danielles remains are back on Irish soil.

We are grateful that Danielle is back on Irish soil, and now it is a matter of getting her home to her family as quickly as we can, he said.

Danielles mother, Andrea Brannigan, said she will not fully accept her daughter is dead until she holds her hand. Speaking from her home in Buncrana, Co Donegal, Ms Brannigan said she just knew that her eldest daughter had died when her friend Louise McMenamin arrived at her home in Marian Park on Tuesday week last.

I knew as soon as I saw her. As soon as she walked in the door I told her. She did not even get the chance to tell me.

It feels as if it was a year ago and as if it was yesterday. It will only get to sink in when I get to hold her hand.

Ms Brannigan said Danielle had decided not to stay in India but was planning to learn how to teach yoga and was due to fly to Canada to begin a new chapter in her life in September. The heartbroken mum said her daughter had been granted a visa and how she had wished she had gone to Canada instead of India.

She was humming and hawing between the two for a while, she said. I was not happy about her going to India this time. I would have preferred her to go to Canada. but she said I dont want to be anywhere else in the world other than India and thats where I want to be.

She also said that although she wants justice for her first-born, she did not want an eye for an eye.
Local Government Minister Simon Coveney said the project, shelved during the economic crash, is a priority, as work continues to finalise by September the Ireland 2040 national planning framework strategy.

He said the document will place significant emphasis on promoting and facilitating growth outside Dublin.

And so we do need to connect Irelands second a nd third largest cities as an obvious counterbalance to the dominance of Dublin which has 40% of the population and 50% of the economic turnover, Mr Coveney said. Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford  these cities need to grow and expand and to create counterbalances to Dublin.

We undoubtedly have to find a way of financing and building a much better road infrastructure between Cork and Limerick.

He said the Minister for Public Expenditure, Paschal Donohue, is assessing capital expenditure programmes as part of a mid-term review.

He said that review should be finalised around the same time the national planning framework strategy is finished in September.

This [the motorway] is a 1bn project. It is a priority and the Government is looking at ways that we can finance that sooner rather than later, he said.

Business and political leaders in Cork and Limerick have sought upgrades to the N20 for over a decade. A favoured 80km route, from the junction with the proposed Cork north ring road near Blarney to the junction with the N21 at Attyflynn, Co Limerick, which would cut travel time between Blarney and Attyflynn from 61 to 45 minutes, has been selected.

However, former Transport Minister Leo Varadkar shelved the plan in 2011. His successor Paschal Donohue, kept plans on hold in 2015.

However, a 1m funding allocation from the Government to the NRAs successor, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, last November has kickstarted preparatory work on the project again.
He was 17 when he was arrested with three of his sisters during a siege at the Al-Fath mosque in Cairo in 2013.

It was reported earlier this week that his condition has deteriorated in recent weeks and that he has been confined to a wheelchair.
Wives & Partners of the Defence Forces (WPDF) have already lobbied a number of TDs in pursuit of better pay and conditions.

It expects in the next six weeks to mount protests as it ratchets up the campaign.

A WPDF spokeswoman referred to a litany of examples of very poor pay among Defence Forces members, so much so that a significant number of soldiers, sailors and airmen have to get family income support (FIS) to make ends meet.

The group has set up a Facebook page for its members and many have posted about dire conditions being endured by spouses.

One woman posted: My husband is in the army the past 15 years. We have four young kids and we have to rely on Family Income Supplement to survive as what he gets paid does not cover us.

We struggle every week, once the bills are paid we are left with nothing. We never go out or anywhere for fear of being in debt.

Another said: No person who volunteers to serve their country should be allowed to have wages so poor that they need social welfare support.

There are examples of Defence Forces personnel taking sick days because they cannot afford the petrol to drive to work.

There are also claims some men slept in cars overnight in or near barracks because they cannot afford the fuel to travel home.

The campaign group say morale is very low across the Defence Forces and also insist it is little wonder tso many were quitting their jobs.

The WPDF spokeswoman said they were also very concerned about continuing delays in paying an agreed higher allowance to Naval Service personnel who have worked on migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea.

PDforra, the association which represents enlisted members of the Defence Forces, secured increased allowance at an arbitration meeting on November 11 last for sailors on armed duty.

The Department of Defence was only prepared to pay an unarmed allowance.

However, images from rescue scenes showed several of the sailors armed with Steyr rifles and machine guns due to potential security threats from Islamic militants operating in the Libyan coastal area.

The extra payment amounts to about 1,300 after tax for each sailor and it was hoped it would be paid before Christmas.

A number of weeks ago, the minister with responsibility for defence, Paul Kehoe, promised to try and speed up the payment but there has been no progress to date.

WPDF said the delay was unacceptable, especially as some young crew members worked so many hours on rescue missions they were only being paid the equivalent of 4.35 an hour, well below the minimum wage.

WPDF are also lobbying for PDFORRA to be given full union recognition.
In geographys version of a long shoe lace, trapped between impenetrable mountain on one side and a vast ocean on the other it is said theirs is a patchwork of all the good bits God left over after creating the earth.

Visit Chile and you soon share the nations opinion.

No other country can boast the same longitudinal variety as this super slender 2,700 mile long country whose coastline measures the equivalent of travelling almost two times around the world.

With its territories in America, Antarctica, and Oceania, Chiles landscapes and climates range from the worlds most arid desert Atacama in the north to gigantic ice fields and glaciers in Southern Patagonia.

The centre of Chile enjoys an almost year-round balmy temperate Mediterranean climate that warms and nurtures wine and fruit production both key exports.

Chiles huge swathes of pristine lakes, rivers, spectacular mountains and remote forests have made the country South Americas leading adventure tourism destination.

To coin another favourite saying the weather is almost always nice somewhere in Chile and its true.

We were almost swept off our feet by ferocious Antarctic winds at the southernmost tip of South America on Tierra del Fuegos Admiralty Sound while Santiagos cafe pavement terraces were bathed in warm early summer sunshine.

With neither the fabulous beaches of Brazils immense coastline nor the passionate charm of tango mad Buenos Aires capital of Argentina, Chile has come of age with the discovery of its bountiful natural wonders.

Santiago is the safest city for foreign tourists and also the cleanest metropolis in Latin America while Chile is rated one of the most prosperous and stable nations on the South American continent. That being said the average salary for a non-professional worker is under US$400 although the cost of living is comparably high.

Santiago was tipped one of the worlds top ten cities to visit in 2017 by National Geographic Traveller.

Influential US magazine Saveur christened it the worlds  Next Great Food City, raving about the exciting restaurant scene. New boutique hotels are popping up and staid run down districts are rejuvenated, classified bohemian and chic.

Wandering Santiagos pleasant boulevards passing notable landmarks and shopping at handmade crafts markets my guide apologetically announces, Chileans are the British of South America, were reserved compared to our Latin neighbours, not given to shows of emotion in public or drawing attention to ourselves.

I had already noted their very British habit of forming orderly queues in the airport arrivals hall where inadequately staffed immigration created an hour long tailback.

Patient queues stretched out all over Santiago from the retro Funicular train at the foot of famous Cerro San Cristobal hill offering the best views over the city to numerous street stalls selling affordable food and drink compared to high prices in the touristy areas.

For 17 long years, Chile endured the Pinochet military dictatorship. Consigned to the darkest pages of the history books traces of its effects are still noticeable.

The body language of older folk was especially telling as they shuffled silently and expressionless past.

Crowds enjoying the balmy night warmth at outdoor cafes and bars were already packing it in by 10 pm on a Saturday night. What a contrast to exuberant Buenos Aires whose nightlife was just beginning.

During Pinochets regime large crowds were not allowed to gather, people kept their heads down and many of us remember the night curfews and disappearance of thousands who opposed him, a retired doctor explains, sharing my park bench.

Santiago used to be more of a quick stop over on the way to highlights liked extra-terrestrial Atacama Desert, the beautiful nature rich Los Lagos region, surreal spectacular Torres del Paines and southern Patagonia that are on most visitor itineraries.

Since shaking off its boring image of the past Santiago is emerging from the shadows proving theres plenty to see and do for tourists.

The city is walker friendly with attractive green spaces street entertainment and re-vamped buzzy neighbourhoods such as Barrio Italia, Bella Vista and Lastarria.

An aerial view over Valparaiso known as little San Francisco.

Cultural sights are dominated by the renowned museum of Pre-Columbian Art and Museum of Memory and Human rights.

The latter (free admission) examines human rights violations and disappearances that occurred under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1990.

Santiagos architectural mix features Baroque, Victorian and typically south American austere public buildings and immense squares.

An hour and a half away to the west port city of Valparaiso is known as little San Francisco and there are remarkable similarities between both.

Eccentric and edgy Valparaiso has been a haunt of artists (especially graffiti specialists), poets and alternative lifestyles for over a century.

We arent hippies, were happies declares the writing on a painted stone advertising a holistic centre.

The city was South Americas leading port until the opening of the Panama Canal when its fortunes declined but remnants of its past wealth and power are seen in run down mansions once owned by English, German and East European settlers.

Art nouveau style Barburizza Palace art museum, one of Valparaisos cultural highlights is housed in the mansion of a Croatian immigrant who amassed his wealth during the boom of nitrate mining the so-called white gold my terrific guide English-born Jackie Lee reveals.

We explore Valparaiso, getting lost in its warren of narrow streets of rainbow coloured shops and houses.

Most buildings on the tourist trail are covered in graffiti and wall murals clinging precariously to Valparaisos 57 hills accessed by funiculars and escalators one of which was built back in 1883 and still functions perfectly.

A sprawl of ramshackle corrugated dock workers homes, artists studios and coffee shops, though charming, look as if they could blow away in a flash. Like San Francisco Valparaiso has also been prone to earthquakes through the centuries.

Jackie reassuringly puts my mind at rest with the good news that Chile is one of the safest places in the world to be should the earth start moving. It has one of the most effective disaster relief infrastructures anywhere and buildings are constructed to weather a massive 9 strength quake.

At lunch in the quirky Turri cafe housed in an old mansion with fabulous views over the Pacific an introduction to a Terremoto (earthquake) cocktail begs.

So I take Jackies advice and opt for my first ever Pisco Sour. After all, it is Chiles signature cocktail.

Next morning we headed into nearby Casablanca wine country to the Matetic award winning winery owned by a family who emigrated from Croatia to Chile many years ago.

Passionate about strictly adhering to organic methods of grape cultivation cow horns filled with manure are buried between plants to stimulate growth while burnt stinging nettle inoculates the compost around the vines An elegant 5-star boutique hotel and restaurant in the midst of the estates beautiful gardens completes the picture.

Flying south to the furthermost reaches of Patagonia, gateway to Antarctica at Punta Arenas the views of snow tipped volcanoes, glaciers and granite towers are thrilling.

Then plying the same waters sailed by Charles Darwin on The Beagle crossing of the Magellan straits we spot a lone sperm whale.

Environmental Biologist Melissa Carmody (who has Irish roots) is behind the wheel of the jeep driving off the ferry at the port of Porvenir.

It will be mostly rough track from here, she warns setting out for wilderness Karukinka park. Managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society of Chile we are about to explore some of the most remote terrain with the lightest human footprint in the world.

We hiked through rare dense southern beach forests and drove around awesome fjords in the foothills of the Andes visiting Karukinkas peatland terrain.

It looked quite like our Irish bogs except for the towering mountains, omnipresent Guanacos (a smaller prettier relative of the camel) and the Condors regally sailing overhead.

Then we stopped off to visit a colony of more than a hundred King Penguins, enjoying celebrity status since their arrival from the icebergs of Antarctica to the south.

That was the icing on the cake for me of a memorable sometimes exhausting journey following a little in the footsteps of the late Bruce Chatwin.

In Patagonia Chatwins masterpiece of travel, history and adventure was first published exactly 40 years ago.

Direct flights between the UK (London Heathrow) and Santiago began this year, from 879 return.

Isabel travelled to Chile with Imagen de Chile ( www.thisischile.cl ) which builds Brand Chile , and she was guided on Tierra del Fuego by the Wildlife Conservation Society ( www.wcs.org ).

There are leading Latin American specialists like Pura Aventura ( www.pura-aventura.com ) and Journey Latin America ( www.journeylatinamerica.co.uk ) as well as Ireland based Nuevo Mundo ( www.nuevomundo.ie )
JUST a few hours into our train ride, we know the passengers in the cabins on either side of ours: On one side are two young Canadians on a month-long, round-the-world backpacking trip.

On the other are four middle-aged women on a trading expedition from their towns in Zambia to Dar es Salaam, where theyll buy supplies for their shops, including clothes and spare parts for cars.

Theyre not waiting to get to Dar to get started: At every whistle-stop town along the way, vendors try to sell things through the window  often produce at prices far below those in the Tanzanian metropolis.

So the women are stocking up on items they can sell for a profit when we arrive in a day or two: tomatoes, oranges, passion fruit, boiled peanuts and, just this morning, roasted caterpillars.

Much of this trading takes place in the corridor outside our cabins. Chilesi, one of the Zambian women, tells me whats good, and what to pay.

Yesterday: That papaya. Five hundred shillings, or about 25 cents.

Today: No, dont buy the caterpillars. Just try mine.

She has bought a plastic bag containing three or four pounds of the roasted amber morsels. I pop one in my mouth. Its lightly salted.

Mm, I say, and make a face. She and her travel mates laugh.

Later, something will blow through an open window and lodge in Chilesis eye.

An hour passes and its still there, so the call goes out for help: One of the Canadians has contact-lens solution, and we have eye drops.

And later yet, when Chilesis better, the ladies will gather in the corridor in a happy mood and sing as the train rumbles through the Tanzanian night. As they harmonise, we realise its church music.

A passenger waits on a platform ahead of the departure of the South African luxury Blue Train in Pretoria. Picture: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty

Theres something about trains. Theyre laid out in a way that lets you move around  if you get tired of your seat, your car or your companions, alternatives are close at hand.

Whats more, unlike an airplane, trains often tell a story of national ambition, and when youre on one, youre a part of that story. Cross the American West on Amtrak and its hard not to think of the transcontinental railroad, binding the coasts together in 1869.

Ride the Trans-Siberian Railway, which traverses seven time zones, and you get a sense of both the majesty of Russia and the sheer vastness of the earth.

Those who rode the Orient Express, from Paris to Istanbul, could feel a part of elegant old Europe, with a homicidal frisson of Agatha Christie lurking in the next car.

When I was 22, I spent four months hopping freight trains in the American West, travelling with hobos.

I was conducting ethnographic research for my undergraduate thesis  which eventually became the subject of my first book  but I was also living out a romantic chapter of American history, because in the DNA of freight trains resides Jack London, country music and the mythos of the West.

Africa has trains too, and I wanted a chance to ride them. The main lines in sub-Saharan Africa tell the story of British colonialism.

Theres the train from Mombasa, Kenya, to Uganda (nicknamed the Lunatic Express), which was established in 1896 as a way to consolidate what was then British East Africa.

An even more ambitious project was that of the 19th-century mining magnate Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company, which leveraged its wealth from gold and diamonds into dominion over vast areas of southern Africa.

Rhodes built rail lines north from Cape Town, eventually crossing the Zambezi River at Victoria Falls and reaching all the way to present-day Congo.

But his ambition stretched far beyond: He dreamed of creating rail and telegraph connections from Cape Town to Cairo that would tie together two edges of Africa.

(At its peak in the 1920s, Britain did briefly claim an unbroken chain of territories between the two.)

A passenger waits on a platform ahead of the departure of the South African luxury Blue Train in Pretoria. Picture: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty

Rhodes died in 1902 at age 48, and his railway never even reached the halfway point.

Even so, the phrase Cape to Cairo retains some sort of incantatory power, Rhodess unrealised version of Manifest Destiny.

In her memoir about growing up in Rhodesia in the 1970s, Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller wrote:

Up through South Africa, the train laboured in the heat ... slicing on hot wheels, ever north. This was where Cecil John Rhodes had intended for we British to go. From Cape to Cairo had been his dream. One long stain of British territory up the spine of Africa.

Fullers family decided to leave the country after the civil war. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and their farm was sold off in 1982.

Now the Africans are in charge, conflicted about their inheritance  imperialism was not about love. Lately, South Africa has been agonising over images of Rhodes in particular.

Last year, after a statue of him at the University of Cape Town was splattered with human feces during a protest, a South African Rhodes scholar who had graduated from Rhodes University wrote in The Times about the aesthetic and moral assault on ones entire being that occurs when a black person walks across a campus covered with statues and monuments that celebrate colonial conquerors as heroes.

The statue was eventually removed. Someone attacked the bust of Rhodes at nearby Table Mountain National Park a few months later, removing its nose with a grinder after failing to cut off its head.

It was soon after that my wife, Margot, and I arrived in Cape Town from New York and checked into a dreamy hotel perched on a hillside overlooking the sea where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic; we could see pods of whales passing by.

Although many people who visit Africa head straight to a safari lodge, our trip would be different: two weeks rolling on trains northeast to Dar es Salaam via Victoria Falls, from South Africa into Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania, over 3,000 miles in all.

Other rail lines exist but ours would get us the farthest north in the shortest time.

The rides would be wildly various: We would whipsaw between luxury and something closer to freight-hopping. And along the way, we would see the land from a different perspective  literally, of course.

But our conveyance would also be inseparable from the continents history and struggle to forge a different kind of present.

TO BOARD a train in Cape Town is to follow a well-trodden path: Its what colonists did in the 19th century, disembarking steamships from England and Europe en route to centres of wealth such as Kimberley, which started producing diamonds in 1871, and Johannesburg, where gold was found in 1886.

None did it more lavishly than Rhodes himself, whose personal coach now gathers dust in a museum in Zimbabwe. But a tourist can approximate it today, as we did, with an overnight trip on the Blue Train.

The experience is both comfortable and discomfiting. Walking with your fellow passengers from a private waiting room in the station onto the train itself is to feel the 21st-century collapse into the 19th; we were back in colonial days, pampered members of the ruling race.

The Blue Train is the fanciest train I have ever seen. Its exterior is painted lushly in its eponymous colour; inside there is a lot of lacquered Italian birch and custom marquetry, and brass fittings galore.

Margot and I sat across from each other in our cabins club chairs, gazing out of our big, clean window.

The rough exurbs of Cape Town yielded to an amber veldt with patches of irrigated green; hills rose and fell. We were rolling to Pretoria, the seat of South Africas executive branch of government, and the ride was awesomely quiet  quite a feat for an old train.

Our fellow passengers were an older, prosperous crowd, mostly British and Afrikaner, and mainly Caucasian.

All the butlers, waiters, bartenders, kitchen and other low-level employees were black, as were the two armed guards who stepped outside the train at every sunny stop.

A Transnet marshall opens the gate platform for the South African luxury Blue Train lounge.

Three of our 52 fellow passengers were black South African  a mother and her two adult children.

The daughter explained to us that their mother had been saving for the trip for years.

At dinnertime, the Blue Train aspires to the grandeur of Downton Abbey: Women are instructed to dress in elegant evening wear and men must wear coat and tie. The spirit of upper-class occasion was reinforced by the almost baroque servility of the waiters.

Maam-sir, good evening, said ours.

This is Goodhope.

He was referring to himself.

Sorry to leave you alone. Will you be having wine?

Margot and I were sharing a table with a retired English couple, the Waterses, and we all said yes.

Goodhope will return, he said, with a slight bow.

After the meal, we found that our cabin had been transformed: Our butler had lowered our beds from the wall and carefully made them, turning back a corner of each duvet.

Electric mini-blinds covered the window; the lighting was golden and low. We found a movie on the rooms little TV, turned off the lights and opened the blinds so we could see the stars.

The tracks clicked by beneath us, this train an instrument not of empire, but of tourism.

The next morning, waking earlier than I might have liked, I was rewarded with a view of thousands of flamingos in a shallow lake, a flurry of pink and white. As the day unfolded, landscapes, all different, appeared outside our window.

Whereas on the first day, farmland had morphed into the vineyards of South Africas Cape Winelands district, bright green foliage over red soil, and then into sere Karoo with sagebrush reminiscent of prairies of the American West, the second day presented wild plains gradually yielding to populated lowlands.

We were due to pass within sight of Soweto, the township and major suburb of Johannesburg.

But heavy train traffic and delays led to a rerouting; instead of Soweto we passed by a different side of Joburg, often going quite slowly, sometimes creeping alongside the great citys not-in-the-least-bit luxurious commuter trains with their open windows and open doors, packed with dark-skinned workers who stared at our train and us, sealed inside it.

WE WOULD end up arriving in Pretoria at 6.40pm instead of 12.40pm, but the Blue Train was a pleasant place to be stuck. I spent a couple of those hours chatting with a staff member who lived in Soweto and was proud of it.

It has the only street in the world with the homes of two Nobel Peace Prize winners  Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

I wanted to talk about the fate of the Rhodes statues but he demurred; employees, he said, were under strict instructions not to discuss politics with the guests. But he did allow that his countrys constitution was still young  just 20 years. This will take time.

I commented on how stunningly quiet the train was. He explained that was partly due to its double-glazed windows, which also prevented stones from coming in. I raised an eyebrow.

Yes, sometimes children throw them. They may break the outside window, but they wont break the inside.

Why do they throw stones?

Well, to some the Blue Train is still a symbol of apartheid.

That made sense. Our lavishly comfortable car with its armed guards and passengers in formal attire had just passed one of those stopped commuter trains crammed with workers. But I also knew better than to draw a deep moral out of this.

When I had been catching the rails with the hobos, I had to dodge rocks thrown by kids through the boxcars open doors.

People throw stones at Amtrak trains as well  investigators once considered it a possible cause of a wreck in Philadelphia in 2015.

So the stone-throwing might be apartheid  but it might also be the temptation of the train itself.

From Pretoria, Rhodess rail line continues north, through present-day Botswana to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. From there, the route angles northwest to Victoria Falls, crossing the Zambezi River into Zambia. After two days on the Blue Train, we flew from Johannesburg to Bulawayo, and a very different country.

After two days on the Blue Train, we flew from Johannesburg to Bulawayo, and a very different country.

ZIMBABWEs economy suffered a near-collapse between 2007 to 2009, from which its yet to recover.

Today, the most imposing building in Bulawayo belongs to the National Railways of Zimbabwe. But its profile belies its actual power: Freight carried by the railway declined from 18 million tons in 1998 to roughly 2.5 million tons in 2015.

The station itself is semi-decrepit. Tickets are sold only on the day of departure; though we arrived before the ticket office opened we had to stand in line for most of an hour: Many people, one clerk.

It was a relief to finally settle in our compartment, but we soon noticed problems. Several of the lights inside the train didnt work. The window, presently open, was nearly impossible to close.

A tiny wash basin, cleverly hidden by a folding table, looked like it hadnt worked for years. And pretty much everything in the compartment was filthy  Margot ran a hand wipe along the leatherette seat and it turned black: We had been spoiled by the Blue Train.

That night, I drifted into a fitful sleep, but Margot stayed up. The train made many, many stops, during which it became clear that it was a lifeline to villages that had no other connection to the outside world.

Theres a guy outside on a donkey cart! she exclaimed around 2am.

By morning, this train to one of the worlds great tourist destinations was basically empty except for us; everyone else had gotten off somewhere along the way.

While Rhodes had aimed to lay rail north from Victoria Falls, toward Lake Victoria, about 1,200 miles away, the landlocked Zambians had a different goal: connecting to a port.

In 1970, six years after independence and with the aid of China and the partnership of neighbouring Tanzania, they built their own, the Tazara Railway, that headed 1,156 miles northeast to Dar es Salaam.

The Zambian terminus of this project is the grand railroad station in tiny Kapiri Mposhi. One of its best features, from our point of view, was its first-class waiting room.

That lounge, with its upholstered furniture, portraits of the presidents of Zambia and Tanzania, and private bathroom, was where we met Chilesi, Catherine and the others who would share our first-class car to Dar.

With about three hours to kill before departure, we exchanged food (our Clif bars, their fruit) and told stories. The Zambian women showed Margot how to wrap the fabric she had bought into a skirt.

In short, we became friendly before the train ever left  the perfect prelude to a rail journey.

The train had linen service and offered meals in our compartment, as well  typically eggs for breakfast and chicken and rice at other times, all of it cheap and homey.

The Chinese-made coaches, though showing their age, were cleaner than the train cars in Zimbabwe; even better, the windows worked.

Just as the Blue Train had slowed on its approach to Johannesburg and Pretoria, so too did the Tazara creep into Dar es Salaam. The advertised noon arrival somehow slipped to 11.30pm.

We didnt mind terribly much, except that I was worried we wouldnt be met at the station by the driver wed arranged for in advance.

The end of a long train journey is like the end of a dream: You must leave the cocoon, the private compartment and the separate experience of time and space, and rejoin reality  in this case, a big African city we didnt know.

No more contemplating history; it was time to fend for ourselves in the present.

For our Canadian friends, the dream ended before the train even came to a stop: Taxi drivers leaned in through the windows, wanting to know where they were going.

We marched with trepidation onto the dimly lit platform. Colourful lights and music greeted us as we approached the station: the stations restaurant was hosting a wedding party.

A short tunnel led to the street; we waded into the throng. Two or three signs with names on them were being waved in the air, and I was stunned to see one with our name.

The driver had waited 11 and a half hours for us; I practically hugged him.

Youre here! I said.

Yes, sir, he said, reaching for our bags.

His car was old and beat up. It was beautiful.
An officer then escorts him to the toilet and signs a notebook that Maher carries, authorising his release until 6pm.

After breakfast with his wife and two small children, he takes care of chores aimed at rebuilding his life  renewing his drivers license, reactivating his mobile phone; he visits friends and family and searches for a job in civil engineering, his occupation before he was clapped into prison. Whatever he does, he must be back at the police station before sundown.

Every second now is important, said Maher, a slight 36-year-old with a full beard and a grey woollen ski cap that covered his bald pate. If I delay for 15 minutes, the police have the right to send me back to prison.

Maher and I were sitting in his small, dark apartment at 3pm on a Sunday in February, waiting for his children to return from school. A coffee table was strewn with textbooks from Mahers studies at Cairo University, where he is pursuing a second degree, in political science, this one begun behind bars.

It was just six years ago that Maher was celebrated around the world as a symbol of freedom and democracy. In January 2011, as the leader of a social-media-savvy network of young activists called the April 6 Youth Movement, Maher mobilised hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in demonstrations in Cairos Tahrir Square and across the country that took down then president Hosni Mubarak.

The movement was considered for a Nobel Peace Prize, and Maher travelled across Europe and the US talking about the Arab Spring and Egypts future with the likes of Ban Ki-moon and Lech Walesa.

However, the hopes that were raised by the revolution dissolved into sectarianism and chaos, and Mahers aspirations were extinguished within two years. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the defence minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, seized power in July 2013 and outlawed protests.

Five months later, a judge found Maher guilty of illegal demonstration, rioting, and thuggery and sentenced him to three years in jail. Another judge added six months to Mahers sentence for verbally assaulting a public officer while on duty after he demanded that the police remove his handcuffs while in court for a 2014 appeal.

Maher spent almost all of that period sealed in a small cell in a solitary-confinement wing at Tora Prison, a notorious complex on the outskirts of Cairo, built during British rule, that houses about 2,500 political prisoners and common criminals.

Today, Maher is nominally a free man, but the restrictions on his movements are stifling. Every day for the next three years, Maher must spend 12 of every 24 hours at his local police station, a surveillance period intended to ensure he refrains from anti-regime activity.

The regime is deeply concerned that he could revive the social-media network that brought his followers to the streets six years ago. As it was explained to Maher, tweets can lead to demonstrations, and demonstrations can lead to revolution, and that will bring down the regime and create martyrs, he told me.

So if you are tweeting, you are like a terrorist.

Every day for the next three years, Maher must spend 12 of every 24 hours at his local police station, a surveillance period intended to ensure that he refrains from anti-regime activity.

The front door opened, and Mahers wife, Reham, their daughter, Meral, 9, and their son, Nidal, 5, spilled into the room. Nidal raced to the television, switched it from the soccer match to a cartoon and then snuggled up to his father.

I missed these moments, Maher said.

Reham, who met Maher at Cairo University 16 years ago and married him in 2007, told me that, about a year after Mahers imprisonment, they decided to explain the situation to their daughter.

I tried to make her grasp the difference between being detained for political reasons and being a common criminal, Reham said.

I explained what the revolution was and how people protested. And I told her that when the current regime took over, it didnt allow people to express their opinions. Sisi knew what happened to Mubarak, so he didnt want them to speak out again.

In prison, Maher earned a reputation as a defiant figure, repeatedly sending antigovernment criticism and vivid descriptions of his ordeal to the Western and Egyptian news media.

Denied pens and paper, he scribbled messages on tissues, using pens smuggled into his cell, and managed to smuggle the notes out. After they were published, guards would tear his cell apart, removing bricks from walls to search for hiding places.

They confiscated his books, radio and clothes, leaving him with only his thin prison uniform. Still he continued devising acts of rebellion. A year into his confinement, Maher grew an extravagant handlebar mustache and a long beard and then braided it.

It bothered them  it seemed like I was making fun, he said. The prison officials complained to my father. They said: Please tell him to shave. 

After getting out of jail, Maher decided to keep wearing facial hair; it helped disguise his identity. Mahers face is widely recognised in Egypt, and other April 6 Youth Movement leaders have been physically attacked by regime loyalists who blame them for plunging the country into instability and violence.

Maher had to be careful with what he told me; the regime might send him back to prison if he criticised Sisi too harshly. Yet Mahers reluctance runs against all his instincts.

Since his release, he has sensed a deepening anger toward the regime, and he believes that the political climate may be changing.

People tell me that they can see through the lies, he said, and that they are supporting us.

Sisis crackdown on the opposition far exceeds the darkest period of repression during the Mubarak era. Human rights groups claim that as many as 60,000 political prisoners now languish in Egypts jails. (At the end of Mubaraks rule, the figure was between 5,000 and 10,000.)

Egypts prisons are filled to triple their capacity, and the regime has built 16 more prisons to handle the overflow. Once described by Amnesty International as Generation Protest, the youths who took to the streets in Egypt to bring down a dictator in 2011 have acquired a grim new nickname: Generation Jail.

Many Egyptians have accepted Sisis argument that another prolonged round of protests could invite radical Islamists to capitalise on the chaos. Egyptians are proud that the first Arab leader to whom US president Donald Trump spoke after his electoral victory was Sisi, a sharp contrast to Barack Obama, who had suspended military aid to Egypt for two years after the police massacre of 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters in August 2013 at Rabaa, a Cairo encampment.

Ahmed Maher, founder of the 6 April Youth movement, turns himself in to Egyptian prosecutors after an order for his arrest made for defying a new law restricting demonstrations on.

Obama never invited the Egyptian president to the White House.

The thinking is, Egypt is returning to its rightful place as a player, said a veteran political observer in Cairo, who, like many officials I spoke to, feared retribution for discussing even innocuous-seeming elements of Sisis policies.

Sisis crackdown has unfolded amid one of the most expansive overhauls of the legal system in Egyptian history. After declaring a state of emergency and disbanding parliament in 2013, he issued a series of presidential decrees that granted him unprecedented power to silence his critics.

A protest law enacted in November 2013 requires three days notification before a demonstration can take place and gives the Interior Ministry the right to cancel, postpone, or move the protest if it determines protesters will breach ... the law.

Broad new counterterrorism laws have expanded the definition of terrorism to include civil disobedience; this gives prosecutors latitude to roll over 15-day pretrial detention periods, in many cases without limit.

One of the most notorious magistrates, Mohammed Nagy Shehata, known as the executioner judge, a holdover from the Mubarak era, has handed out hundreds of lengthy prison terms and death sentences to pro-democracy activists.

In early 2016, Shehata sentenced three young members of April 6, who were attending a memorial service for a murdered comrade when they were arrested, to life terms for protesting without a license, possessing fireworks, and spreading false information. (The sentences were later reduced to 10 years.)

Egypts slide back into authoritarianism wasnt foreordained. Today the leaders of April 6 admit that they werent prepared for the challenges that followed their initial success.

Many of them were barely out of their teens; Maher, from a politically aware, middle-class family in Cairo, had built the group online, connecting on Facebook and embracing civil-disobedience techniques that he learned while demonstrating for human rights and judicial independence with a small pro-democracy movement. He was beaten and jailed repeatedly.

The group took its name from the date of a sit-down strike in Cairo that Maher organised in 2008 in solidarity with textile workers in the Nile Delta. That led to small demonstrations against corruption and police brutality, which were quickly broken up by Mubaraks security forces.

Then, on January 25, 2011, a protest march on Egypts National Police Day exploded into a nationwide movement. Late that morning, Maher watched with amazement as crowds filled Tahrir Square and said: We made a revolution! We made a revolution!

Days after the February 11 resignation of Mubarak, one of the worlds longest-serving tyrants, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a transitional military body, sent a bus to pick up Maher and three other protest leaders and took them to a villa owned by military-intelligence officials.

Sisi, then the intelligence chief, and two other generals greeted them respectfully, Maher recalled.

Sisi said: You are heroes. You did miracles. You brought down Mubarak. You did something we failed to do for years. But now we need you to stop demonstrating. 

Maher and the others rejected Sisis request. 

We said: The revolution is not complete. We need to change the cabinet, change the structure of the government. We kept sending them demands.

Over the next six months, Maher met with Sisi three times.

We said the same, and he said the same. We need to stop demonstrating; stand together against enemies. Sisi always hated the protests.

After Mubaraks downfall, Maher travelled to the US and captivated students in gatherings at New York University, Harvard, MIT, and American University, and met with leaders of the Arab-American community.

In Europe, he talked politics and revolution with the first vice-president of the European Commission, Catherine Ashton; officials from the United Nations Human Rights Council; and Green Party and Social Democratic representatives to the European Parliament in Brussels.

Western diplomats and politicians underestimated the structural weakness of the secular democrats, the grass-roots appeal of the Islamists and the entrenched power of the deep state  military intelligence and the state security apparatus.

Back in Egypt, the April 6 leaders searched for a strategy.

We didnt have a vision, admitted Walid Shawky, a dentist and member of the April 6 Political Committee.

We didnt have an answer for what comes next.

Maher struggled to articulate an ideology, vaguely describing the groups leanings as social democratic, social liberal  somewhere between unfettered capitalism and Soviet-style communism.

While April 6 members continued their activism, Islamists cemented their political advantage. The Muslim Brotherhood won parliamentary and presidential elections but enraged much of the population when it tried to draft a constitution based largely on fundamentalist Islamic principles.

By the end of 2012, Egypt was in chaos. April 6 gave its support to Tamarod, a grass-roots movement that gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures favoring early elections that, they believed, would remove the Muslim Brotherhood from power.

Maher believed that they had the militarys support. Instead, on July 3, 2013, Sisi went on television and announced that he was deposing President Mohammed Morsi and seizing power.

He suspended the constitution, disbanded parliament, declared a state of emergency, ordered the arrests of Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders and then in August began the deadly attack on the Brotherhood protest camp at Rabaa.

After nearly two years of turmoil, many Egyptians were desperate for stability, and April 6 suddenly found itself lacking any popular support.

Days after the coup, the interim president, Adly Mansour, a former Constitutional Court chief justice who was appointed by Sisi as a figurehead civilian leader, summoned Maher to the presidential palace.

He was asked to go on trips to Western countries and say: This was not a coup, but something the people had asked for,  said Ayman, the April 6 founding member.

Maher and the whole leadership of the movement refused to do it. We said: This is a military coup  people asked for an early election. 

Maher wont comment on the incident.

The movements leaders publicly denounced the Rabaa killings as a massacre, further antagonising Sisi and sealing the groups fate. Maher was arrested on Nov. 30 and sent to Tora Prison.

In 2014, as Maher and other April 6 leaders languished in jail, Egypts Court for Urgent Matters, one of Sisis favoured tools for stifling dissent, banned the groups activities, accusing it of espionage and defaming the state.

Last winter, Amr Ali, who succeeded Maher as the April 6 general coordinator, received a three-year sentence for conspiring to overthrow the government and joining an illegal organisation, another crippling blow to the movement.

In February, I returned to Cairo to meet Maher, who was released from prison on Jan. 5. As the April 6 leader prepared to report for his own far stricter surveillance, I asked him whether this routine, a constant reminder of the unyielding power of the state, demoralised him.

Maher shrugged. He had recently finished reading Samuel Huntingtons 1991 book, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late 20th Century, and he believed that history would prove his efforts worthwhile.

Huntington wrote that waves of revolution are greater than waves of counterrevolution, Maher said.

So its three steps forward, two steps back.

A friend picked up Maher at his home, and I followed them in my car to the station. The sun was sinking low over the desert as I drove down the wide street leading from Mahers home, past shabby apartment blocks with laundry drying on every balcony and stunted palm trees lining the meridian.

The wail of a muezzin wafted across the neighbourhood; four officers stood inside a corrugated-roof guard post just before the gate. The driver embraced Maher and then motored away.

Maher wore his woollen ski cap and carried a black satchel containing a novel and a dinner that Reham had prepared for him.

Its a surprise, he told me, hoisting the bag over his shoulder. Ill find out what it is when I get inside.

Then he crossed the road, walked past the four unsmiling policemen and disappeared into the shadows.
One of the chief advantages to cloud computing is its ability to implement the latest technologies in record time. While the enterprise struggles to deploy Flash technology and even basic server virtualization in the data center, the cloud is already pushing forward with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI).

This more than anything is one of the main reasons why many tech experts say the traditional data center is on the way out. When providing advanced data services is the core business rather than a support cost center, the incentive to deploy state-of-the-art technologies is high. At some point, the thinking goes, cloud services and applications will be so far ahead that the bulk of the enterprise workload will migrate off-premises, with perhaps certain key functions residing on local, hyperconverged infrastructure that requires little more expert knowledge to maintain than the breakroom refrigerator.

This focus on an entirely new level of data sophistication is a key element among top cloud providers looking to crack the enterprise market. According to the Economic Times, Google has invested upwards of $30 billion into its Cloud Platform, and the focus now is to leverage the AI and ML technologies developed for its search engine for advanced enterprise services. In this way, the company hopes to deliver the kind of functionality that is vital to compete in the emerging digital services economy, and provide them on a cost structure that not even the largest enterprise can hope to achieve on its own.

Building advanced capabilities into the cloud is likely to be particularly beneficial outside of Europe and North America, where the installed base of enterprise infrastructure is still relatively small. Chinas TenCent Cloud recently announced that it will adopt Nvidias Tesla GPU accelerators to drive AI capabilities across a series of cutting-edge enterprise services. The project involves Pascal-based P100 and P40 devices connected by the NVLink platform that supports deep learning and other tools for advanced analytics, service automation and natural language processing.

Traditional business software platforms are also tapping into the advanced capabilities that the cloud brings to the table. Adobe recently enhanced the Sensei framework for its Adobe Cloud Platform to better integrate AI and ML into enterprise workflows. The aim is to allow the enterprise to standardize and customize customer data to improve the delivery of enhanced user experiences, while at the same time improve marketing effectiveness and efficiency. The platform can also integrate with third-party APIs to share data, content and analytical insights through the Adobe I/O cross-cloud development portal.

And Microsoft is adding new Big Data and AI capabilities to its Azure Government Cloud. Two key services are the Power BI Pro and HD Insights data visualization tools that help organizations manage, analyze and visualize large data sets. The intent is to foster greater democratization of Big Data services so that even non-data-experts can run the analytics they need to make informed decisions. As well, the company has launched a Cognitive Insights suite of services that leverages audio and text translation, facial recognition, and a number of other tools to augment everything from national security to benefits fulfillment.

The enterprise has long been caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to data technology. There is always a competitive advantage to leveraging the latest and greatest capabilities first, but that has to be tempered by budgets and infrastructure development roadmaps.

In the cloud, however, these conflicts are much less pronounced. The provider worries about technology while the enterprise needs only to ensure that its resource consumption is in line with its revenue stream.

And unlike the old days when you had to invest in infrastructure first and then figure out what to do with it, you can bring your service requests to the cloud provider  and if they cant meet your needs, there is undoubtedly someone out there who can.

Arthur Cole writes about infrastructure for IT Business Edge. Cole has been covering the high-tech media and computing industries for more than 20 years, having served as editor of TV Technology, Video Technology News, Internet News and Multimedia Weekly. His contributions have appeared in Communications Today and Enterprise Networking Planet and as web content for numerous high-tech clients like TwinStrata and Carpathia. Follow Art on Twitter @acole602.
One of the frustrations of owning a mobile phone is that calls can be made by an unknown number. And while there are times when the call is from someone that has changed their number or belongs to someone that has just been introduced to another, there is also the chance that it is just a spam caller. T-Mobile has just announced two new features for its subscribers that will minimize the frustration that comes with the possibility.

As BGR has explained, the first of the features is Scam ID. The technology behind the same has the ability to inform users when an incoming call is likely a scam. Meanwhile, the second is called Scam Block, which will outright block possible scam calls from ever being made to the mobile device.

The publication further explained that Scam ID and Scam Block are powered by patent-pending technology, which is built right into the advanced network. As such, the features will work on any and all users within T-Mobile's network. The telecom company explained that the as soon as the call reaches a number within its system, the patent-pending technology quickly analyzes it against a massive database of tens of thousands of known scam numbers.

This database is constantly updated almost in real time by further analyzing incoming calls to the T-Mobile network. Spam ID and Spam Block are already live and available for use, although only for ONE account subscribers at this point. Other users will be able to activate the feature beginning April 5. It is free as well, so there is hardly any harm in trying them out.

Android Police provided the various dialer codes that activate the features. To enable the Scam ID, it is "#664#," while Scam Block is "#663#." Meanwhile, to disable Scam Block, users can dial "#632#." In addition, dialing "#787#" will allow users to check their Scam Block status.
Amazon has just added two brand new phones to their lineup of Prime Exclusive Phones. The two phones are sold unlocked and at a subsidized price, which in exchange for displaying personalized offers and ads on the lock screen, similar to what Amazon does with budget-friendly Kindle models. Vice President, Consumer Electronics at Amazon.com, Laura Orvidas said, "Prime Exclusive Phones consistently rank in our best-sellers list, and some of the most highly rated unlocked phones available on Amazon, the program has exceeded expectations," Orvidas also added, "Our goal is to give Prime members a wide variety of offers on unlocked phones at affordable prices, we're thrilled to welcome a new manufacturer, Alcatel, to the program. As we continue to expand Prime Exclusive Phones with the launch of the Moto G5 Plus and Alcatel A30.Prime members can have more options now to choose from, with a range of prices starting at $49.99."

The first new phone is the Moto G5 Plus which cost at $184.99 and $45 off the regular price. The Moto G5 Plus features a metal design, instead of the cheaper plastic typically seen on low-cost phones like this. As for the specs, the phone has a 5.2-inch screen, Snapdragon 625 processor, and comes in either a 32GB model with 2GB of RAM or a 64GB variant with 4GB of RAM. Also, there is a 64GB version for $239.99, which is $60 off the regular price. Moto G5 was just officially announced a few weeks ago by Motorola and will be released at the end of the month. Consumers can pre-order for either the Prime Exclusive version or the standard version now and have it arrive on March 31st. It's fully compatible with all four major US carriers: AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile.

The second new phone is the Alcatel A30 which cost $59.99, and is $40 off the regular price for Prime members according to Amazon. The phone has a 5-inch display, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal space.There is a CDMA version of this phone, which will work with Verizon, and a GSM version, which will work with AT&T and T-Mobile, cosumers interested must make sure to order the correct one Pre-ordering now will have the phone arrive on 19th of April.
The ATM card is dead. Or is it?

Starting Monday, all 13,000 Wells Fargo ATMs will enable you to withdraw money without using your card, according to Jonathan Velline, head of Wells Fargo ATM and branch strategy.

It works like this: Open the Wells Fargo app on your phone. Tap a button in the app for a temporary eight-digit code. Then enter the code, followed by your PIN, to access your account.

Wells Fargo is the first major U.S. bank to offer app-based access to all of its ATMs.

Citigroup, Chase and Bank of America and others are working on similar ATM functions, with only some machines already upgraded.

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo will enable ATM access without a card via a temporary eight-digit code accessible in its mobile app.

Later this year, it gets even better. Wells Fargo will activate ATM near-field communication (NFC) readers, enabling you to use Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay or the bank's own Wells Fargo Wallet, for gaining ATM access. Just walk up to the ATM, tap the phone on the reader while holding your finger on your phone's fingerprint scanner, and the ATM will prompt you for the PIN. Once entered, you get access as if you had used your ATM card.

The NFC feature won't be universally available until at least late next year. The NFC readers are already built into some 40% of Wells Fargo ATMs, according to Velline, and additional installations will continue through next year.

Not carrying a card means your card can't be used by crooks to steal money from you. And that improves your security.

The downside of not carrying cards is that you won't be able to gain entrance to the ATMs that are behind a door that you can unlock only with a card. (Velline told me that the bank is testing solutions for no-card access to these ATMs, but has nothing to announce yet.)

Why ATM theft is such a big deal

One way crooks steal money is by using an ATM to steal from the bank. It's good old-fashioned bank robbery, but with a modern twist.

These approaches include the Russian way (malware that instructs the ATM to dispense cash when a certain code is entered) and the American way (pulling up to a gas station ATM in your pickup truck, tying a steel cable around the ATM and driving away, dragging it behind your truck).

ATM bank robbery is the banks' problem. You have to worry about your own bank account being drained by sophisticated ATM thieves.

One of the oldest ATM card-theft tricks is the creation and installation of fake ATM interfaces, complete with keypad and card scanner. They're called ATM skimmers. These are mounted by criminals on top of the real ATM interface. When someone tries to use the ATM, the crooks copy the data from the card and record the PIN entered on the fake keypad.

Here's a security video of a skimmer being installed at an ATM in New Jersey.

This particular crime has been around for years, and it's growing fast.

The FICO Card Alert Service says the number of ATMs with compromised security increased sixfold in 2015 over the previous year.

The biggest recent innovation in the world of ATM insecurity comes in the form of pinhole "spy" cameras. While a skimmer copies the data on the card, the camera records video of the bank customer entering his or her PIN. Later, the crooks can make a fake duplicate card, and use the PIN they saw entered on the video.

This is a better solution than fabricating a mock keypad, because the equipment is smaller and less difficult to build. Victims use the actual ATM keypad, instead of a fake one. Only the card skimmer is fake.

This method has mostly replaced the old approach of fabricating a phony keypad. Already some 90% of skimmers found now use pinhole cameras, according to Verizon.

The London police do a great job raising public awareness about various types of theft and what people can do about it. The department's official Twitter account tweets photos of new ATM scams they discovered, such as this and this. The department is trying to get people into the habit of covering their fingers while entering their ATM PIN, just in case there's a hidden camera watching. They use the hashtag #CoverYourPin.

These pictures reveal that ATM-installed pinhole cameras are almost impossible to spot.

Security experts say you should look for signs of tampering, such as broken, scratched or loose fixtures, before using an ATM.

The New York Police Department says crooks often install card-skimming electronics on one machine, then damage nearby machines to force customers to use the compromised one. They warn that customers should avoid using an ATM if it's one of several and the others are out of service.

In fact, the evolution of ATM skimmers tracks the same trends in consumer technology -- thinner, smaller and more mobile.

That's why the advice to look for ATM tampering works only for the "traditional" skimmers that duplicate ATM interface elements.

The newest threat is something ATM maker NCR calls "deep insert skimmers." Instead of an elaborate fake ATM interface placed on top of the ATM, "deep insert skimmers" go inside the scanning mechanism where they can't be seen, and where they don't interfere with the functioning of the ATM's card scanner.

The first "deep insert skimmers" couldn't be removed from ATM card readers. They were installed permanently, and some wirelessly transmitted card data to a nearby pinhole camera. After leaving the skimmer in operation for a few days, the thief would retrieve only the camera, along with its card data and video of PIN entry.

The most sophisticated "deep insert skimmers" use magnets that snap into place inside ATM card scanners. They retain their own data and can be removed after harvesting ATM card data.

Used with pinhole cameras, they're very close to being undetectable.

Here's video of a "deep insert skimmer" being demonstrated by an ATM thief.

You'll note that all this skimming activity involves magnetic-strip cards. We now have chip-based cards, which are supposed to improve security.

The U.S. chip standard is called EMV, which are the initials of the three companies that created it: Europay, MasterCard and Visa. EMV cards are also backed by JCB, American Express, China UnionPay and Discover. Visa has given banks until October to support EMV cards at ATMs.

Sadly, there's an emerging version of ATM skimming for EMV cards called "shimming." This kind of theft is hard and rare, so it's not a major threat yet.

Worse, most cards that use chips still require the magnetic strip that's so easy to scan. And most ATMs that support chips will require cards with magnetic strips, even if they read the chip for data.

Isn't ATM skimming over now that we have cardless access?

It would be tempting to assume that fingerprint-protected, NFC-based authentication would end ATM crime. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, and for three reasons.

1. Unsecure ATM methods aren't going away

Sadly, newer and better security schemes don't improve security if they are deployed in addition to the old ones, rather than as a replacement for them.

For example, fingerprint access to a phone is more secure than a four-digit PIN, but it's not more secure than both fingerprint access and a four-digit PIN. The PIN access is still there.

Banks like Wells Fargo are not in a position to force customers to give up unsecure banking habits. They add new methods without canceling the old ones. To illustrate this, Velline told me that Wells Fargo has 20 million mobile app users. But it has 70 million customers. That means 50 million Wells Fargo customers aren't even using an app.

The new use of temporary codes for ATM access is more secure. But all the less secure methods are still in place.

Banks will have customers with ATM card access, mobile app access or both. The banks will support ATM card access via cards that have chips, magnetic strips or both. They'll support mobile app-based access that uses passwords, fingerprints or both. And once the app is accessed, the ATMs will dispense cash to customers who choose an app-generated numeric code, NFC unlocking, or both.

In other words...

2. People are lazy about security

Banks have to give customers what they want. That leaves security ultimately in the hands of consumers, who generally don't care or know about security (until they become victims of theft or fraud).

For example, if Wells Fargo customers wanted to maximize ATM security after Monday, they would put their ATM card in a safe place and never carry it. They would change their Wells Fargo app password to a very strong password using a good password manager, then never use it, opting instead for fingerprint access to the app. Then, at the ATM, they'd use the new eight-digit code option.

But I'd bet that most customers will keep carrying their ATM cards, keep their unsecure app passwords, and even keep using the card at the ATM out of habit.

Users are almost always the weakest link in any security chain.

3. Cash is still king

Bank websites and mobile apps support nearly every banking function, including check deposits (via smartphone pictures of checks).

The only reason to visit an ATM at all is to withdraw or deposit cash.

Cash is ideal for privacy, because transactions leave no digital record. But it's lousy for security because it can be stolen -- and also because it inspires people to use ATMs.

The good news

The bad news is that ATM crime will continue unabated, with criminals updating their methods as new technologies arise.

The good news is that you can protect yourself. Avoid using cash and ATMs. Update your password to a very secure one. Use fingerprint access to your banking app. Take advantage of your bank's latest ATM security. Never carry or use your ATM card (unless you need it as a debit card). And always check your transactions on your bank's app or website -- and ask the bank about anything suspicious.

If all of that fails, you should also know about the existence of a law called the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, which requires banks to reimburse you for any losses resulting from this kind of ATM crime. You have to report the theft within 60 days, or the law doesn't apply.

Thanks to new technology, anyone can do banking securely.

They won't. But they can.

And so can you.

This story, "How to protect yourself from ATM crime" was originally published by Computerworld .
Details of President Donald Trump's plans for "extreme vetting" of visa applicants have emerged and they are clearly demanding. Getting a visa will require people from many countries to turn over social media handles, employment history and other information.

These policies are a concern for technical and academic conferences on issues such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence. These conferences often draw attendees from around the globe.

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The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) conference in February in San Francisco, for instance, was attended by people from more than 40 countries.

Nearly half of the AAAI's 1,818 attendees, a new record, were from outside the U.S. That number included 275 from China, a 76% increase from last year.

"We are very much concerned about the impact in the coming years," said Subbarao Kambhampati, the president of the AAAI and a professor at Arizona State University's School of Computing and Informatics.

The next AAAI conference will be held in February 2018 in New Orleans. Its executive council is already discussing "proactive plans," which include "...letting prospective authors know that we will facilitate remote presentation and participation in the event of their travels being affected by these new restrictions," said Kambhampati.

The extreme vetting program applies to people who are not from 38 countries covered in the visa waiver program, which includes European nations and Australia, but not the Middle East, Africa and most of Asia. These attendees may have to provide quite a bit of information about themselves to obtain a visa.

Diplomatic cables that were obtained by Reuters detail what extreme vetting requires, such as the applicant's travel history over 15 years, prior occupations, phone numbers used in the last five years, as well as all email addresses and social media handles used in that period. It will likely add time to visa processing and may discourage some people from attending conferences in the U.S.

Trump's initial seven-nation ban in late January was rolled out right around the time the AAAI was holding its conference.

"We scrambled to make last-minute arrangements for people who were unable to travel," said Kambhampati. Those efforts included allowing remote presentations by authors outside the U.S.

Trump's first set of executive orders, which were stayed by the courts, didn't have a big impact on the AAAI's February conference.

"While we are doing what we can, clearly we are at best M*A*S*H units trying to ameliorate the adverse impacts in some small ways," said Kambhampati. "Free flow of people and ideas are after all essential for any scientific enterprise."

The large annual supercomputing conference last year, SC16, took place in November in Salt Lake City and was attended by about 12,000 people. This year's theme is "inclusivity" and the event routinely draws people from around the globe.

Taner Akcam, a history professor at Clark University, said the new travel policies "will cost the United States its position as a leading nation in science. Other nations will be able to advance and our country will be the loser in this situation."

The White House policy presents "uncomfortable practices and practical problems," said Akcam. Among the concerns: Will a visa be issued? Will customs authorities grant admission? And can a computer be used on a plane?

"We scholars mostly prepare our talks or last-minute preparations during such a flight," said Akcam. "To ask us not to use the computer is like saying, 'Don't eat or drink.'"
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EMERGENCY services on both sides of the Solent were called out during the early hours of this morning following a report a ferry passenger heading for the Isle of Wight fell overboard.





Staff became concerned a man in his 30s, a foot passenger aboard Red Funnel's Red Eagle car ferry, had either fallen or jumped into the sea, during the 1.30am crossing From Southampton to East Cowes.





The passenger had been vomiting on board the ship and staff were concerned for his welfare after they were unable to locate him during the crossing, or account for him when the vessel docked at East Cowes.





The Maritime Coastguard Agency were called, which immediately sparked an air-sea rescue search, with its helicopter from Lee-on-the-Solent scrambled and Cowes RNLI lifeboat alerted.





Also assisting in the operation were the Needles Coastguard Rescue Team (CRT), which was tasked to meet the ferry at the East Cowes terminal, at 1.42am, to assist Isle of Wight police officers.




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HARIBO has finally decided to open a manufacturing facility in North America for the first time since the German candy maker started its operations in 1920. According to a report on CBS News, the international candy maker has chosen Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, to be the location of its first North American manufacturing facility.

Governor Scott Walker warmly welcomed the decision of HARIBO to establish its North American manufacturing facility in Wisconsin. The governor's reaction is not surprising given that the plan will provide at least 300 new jobs for Wisconsin residents.

HARIBO is expected to shell out about $242 million to build the manufacturing facility, whose location is near Chicago. The project is anticipated to be completed in 2020.

ABC 7 Chicago reported that the German gummy bear maker's planned manufacturing facility may be the biggest investment that Wisconsin has gotten from a foreign company. In applauding the decision, Walker highlighted the state's business friendly environment and strong fiscal management, seeking to reassure prospective investors that they would be welcome in case they have plans to pour money into the state.

The size of the manufacturing facility would be 500,000 square feet, making it the third largest candy plant in the United States. The state and the gummy bear maker have been in talks about the projects about six months before they decided to announce the final decision.

Based from the statement of HARIBO Chief Financial Officer Wes Saber, the manufacturing plant in Kenosha county will not be the last one that the gummy bear maker will open in the United States. The manufacturing facility will just be the first one, but there are plans to expand throughout the country.

In other news, Jobs & Hire previously reported that Starbucks will create 240,000 jobs around the world by 2021.
Rumors that Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger is retiring in 2018 have ended with the company's announcement that his contract will be extended, according to a report by The Economic Times. Iger will continue to lead Walt Disney until July 2, 2019.

Under the new contract, the Walt Disney CEO will receive a base salary of $2.5 million, the same one that he had been getting for the past few years of leading the company. On the plus side for Iger, the new contract comes with a $5 million signing bonus. Details of Iger's compensation were disclosed in a regulatory filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

At a Marshall and Annenberg event in Santa Monica, Iger revealed that he told his staff to stay away from any project that involves incorporating virtual reality headsets. The chief executive expressed that he does not think that virtual reality headsets can substitute for real rides.

Although he did not drop any names, the declaration that Walt Disney will not offer rides that rely on virtual reality headsets appears to be a dig on its competitors. The Los Angeles Times reported some of the company's competitors have actually launched attractions involving virtual reality headsets. Some of the theme park companies that did include Knott's Berry Farm, SeaWorld and Six Flags.

Instead of virtual reality headsets, Iger said he is considering how to incorporate augment reality to Walt Disney's theme parks. While augmented reality will still involve the use of headsets, the customers will not be totally cut off from the real world unlike virtual reality headsets that throw people wholly in the digital world.

One of the projects that appears to be in the works in Walt Disney's lab involves dueling with a stormtrooper and using a light saber. Jobs & Hire previously reported that Walt Disney recently offered a sneak peak of its planned Star Wars Land.
Anyone who has ever bought an iPhone, iPad, or iPod knows that the product has been designed in California. However, the Cupertino-based company outsources manufacturing jobs to countries to China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Now, the tech giant adds India to the list, as it was reported that iPhone will be manufactured in the country within weeks.

According to the The Wall Street Journal (via New York Post), Apple and its Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron will likely start manufacturing iPhone 6 and 6S models in India within the next four to six weeks.

An official told the publication that almost all preparations have been done for launching Apples first phase project in Bangalore through Wistron, which also has manufacturing centers in China, Malaysia, Mexico, the Czech Republic, and the US.

In a statement, an Apple spokeswoman said, Weve been working hard to develop our operations in India. We appreciate the constructive and open dialogue weve had with government about expanding our operations.

It was previously thought that Apple might move all its manufacturing operations to the US, as President Donald Trump previously told Axios that Apple CEO Tim Cook had his eyes open to the iPhone being manufactured in the country.

Back in November, President Trump spoke directly to Cook to discuss bringing the manufacturing of Apple products back to the US. According to Macworld, the president is looking to provide very large cuts for corporations.

Apple outsources manufacturing of individual parts to various countries. In Macworlds breakdown of components that go into the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6, the cameras are by Sony in Japan, while Omnivision in the US produces the front-facing FaceTime camera chip but subcontracts TMSC in Taiwan for manufacturing. Main chassis assembly is done by Foxconn and Pegatron in China, while mixed signal chips are from NXP in the Netherlands.

Though Apple outsources its manufacturing operations, the company continues to be a major employer in the US, as all development, design, and marketing work are done in-house in Cupertino.

For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on the red iPhone 7 and 7S.
Many children know what its like to come to school hungry, and for teacher Katherine Gibson Howton, she knows all too well what its like when her students dont get enough to eat at home. This is why she, along with a fellow teacher, has come up with a solution to feed kids who come to school hungry.

Howton took to Facebook to post a photo of a cabinet that she shares with another teacher, Julie Mack. The cabinet is stocked with instant oatmeal, bread, jars of peanut butter, tea, and strawberry preserves.

In the post, Hawthon said that every teacher she knows keeps an emergency cabinet stocked for their hungry students.

Children come into our classroom everyday telling us they are hungry, said the Oregon-based high school teacher. Many more never say a word because they are embarrassed and it is up to us to notice that they are distracted, tired, and grumpy.

Hawton added that compassionate teachers learn to ask if there is food in the house, and they also try to find out when was the last time the student has eaten. However, she adds that the really skilled teachers do more than that and just start feeding the hungry child.

Speaking with Scary Mommy, Howton said that she and her fellow teachers know that some of their students have no food in the house by the end of the month. This week, when a student of hers complained of a headache, she learned that the student hasnt eaten all day.

Howton learned that a majority of her colleagues provide food for their students.

I asked my colleagues, Do you find it weird that weve never talked about it If we as educators arent talking about it, how could parents possibly know? she said.

Last week, it was reported that the US government is planning to cut after-school programs that provide free food to students. According to CNN, the National School Lunch Program, a federally assisted meal program that enables children to get low cost or free lunches at school, wont be affected by the cut. However, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, a US Department of Education program that supports before and after-school and summer programs, may be in danger of getting axed.

For most children, the governments free school lunches and after-school meal programs are the only way for them to get enough food to keep them satiated for the day. Howton said that while the government is cutting the federal safety net, she, along with other teachers, are making sure to provide this invisible safety net that no one knows about.

For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on the Canadian teacher who won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize.
Back in the late '90s and early 2000s, Bebe was the go-to place for women who are looking for that special outfit to wear for a night out on the town. But as customers are now opting to shop online, the retail chain is said to be planning to close all of its brick-and-mortar stores to focus on online sales.

Sources told Bloomberg that the company is trying to close its physical locations without filing for bankruptcy. The sources asked for anonymity because the efforts arent public.

The insiders added that the company may be required to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy if enough landlords arent willing to negotiate. Currently, Bebe is operating 170 boutique and outlet stores across the country.

It was said that unlike many retailers, Bebe has no significant debt. But the company lost about $200 million over the past four years, and negotiating with landlords to get out of leasing contracts may prove to be difficult.

The company has yet to respond to Bloomberg regarding the report.

Earlier this year, Bebe announced that it would be closing as many as 25 locations. Metro also reports that they have lost more than 80 percent of their stock in the last two years and cut 45 jobs in 2016.

Bebe was established in 1976 by Iranian entrepreneur Manny Mashouf, and the brand became synonymous with sexy dress styles. The brand launched the Kardashian sisters limited edition fashion line in early 2010.

The news comes on the heels of recent retail closings, including Kenneth Cole. The company said back in November that it would be shuttering almost all of its locations to concentrate on its online, international, and wholesale businesses.

Bebes rival, BCBG, is also about to close 570 independent boutiques all over the world, according to Cosmopolitan. Meanwhile, Abercrombie & Fitch will also be rebranding and closing 60 stores in 2017.

For more, check out Jobs & Hires report about the future of Sears and Kmart.
Most parents of teenagers often worry about their whereabouts, and that their kids may not be completely honest on where theyre going. But Ubers new program is about to help parents track their kids down as it launches a new program specifically designed for teens.

In a press release posted on Thursday, March 23, at the Uber Newsroom site, the ride-sharing company announced that they are piloting a new program that gives teenagers ages 13 to 17 a way to conveniently and independently move around with Uber.

The program was launched on the same day in Phoenix, Arizona, and parents in the area can invite their teens to join a Family Profile and create an Uber account specially for them.

Once a teen accepts the invitation and creates the account, theyll be able to get rides from experienced Uber drivers who have consistently received high ratings from previous passengers.

To be able to keep track of their children, a receipt will be sent to the parents, complete with full trip details after each ride.

As a way to ensure that the teen arrives at wherever it is that they tell their parents that theyre going to, Uber will send notifications to the parent when the teen arrives at the destination. Moreover, parents will also get informed if teens ask to be dropped off more than 1,000 meters from their expected destination.

The new Uber teen service means that kids who tell their parents that theyre studying at the library wont be getting away with sneaking to a friends house to hang out. As an extra precaution, parents will also be getting notifications if the destination or expected time of arrival changes.

Those who want to track their teens trip in real time may also do so using the map inside their Uber app.

Phoenix-based parent Charlotte Loomer, who is a mother of three teenage boys, told the Phoenix Business Journal that the new Uber teen service will help her out as a mom. Loomer, who is also an Uber driver in the area, also said that the option gives her another way to earn money for the family.

As a driver, I like being able to help, said Loomer. I know what it means for me to know that my kids are safe and will take them to where they need to go.

For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on mattress company Casper and its odd hotline.
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Carmike Cinemas movie theaters in the Triad will switch over to AMC Theatres branding in April.

In Winston-Salem, Carmike 10 at 3640 Reynolda Road will become AMC Classic Winston-Salem 10, and Carmike Wynnsong 12 at 1501 Hanes Mall Blvd. will become AMC Hanes 12.

The Carmike 18 at 4822 Koger Blvd. in Greensboro will be renamed AMC Classic Greensboro 18, and Carmike 8 at 2705 N. Main St. in High Point will change its name to AMC Classic High Point 8.

AMC Theatres, based in Leawood, Kan., acquired Carmike Cinemas Inc., based in Columbus, Ga., on Dec. 21 for about $1.1 billion, including the assumption of Carmike indebtedness. With the acquisition of the Carmike properties, AMC became the largest theater exhibitor in the United States, Europe and the world. The company operates about 900 theaters with more than 10,000 screens internationally, including 661 theaters with more than 8,200 screens in the United States.

Fran Daniel

Krispy Kreme opens

first shop in Peru

Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corp. announced Thursday that it has opened its first shop in Peru.

The shop, which is in Lima, is the 1,000th Krispy Kreme international location and the first of 24 planned in Peru.

Krispy Kreme signed a development agreement with Agape Coral SAC in 2015.

The new shop is three levels and features two dining areas and a terrace. It will serve Krispy Kremes premium coffee and doughnuts, including the signature Original Glazed doughnut.

Fran Daniel

OK Food recalls more than 466 tons of breaded chicken

OKLAHOMA CITY  An Oklahoma food company is recalling more than 466 tons of breaded chicken because of possible metal in the food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday that OK Food, Inc. is recalling 933,272 pounds of the food shipped nationwide that was produced between Dec. 19, 2016, and March 7, 2017, and includes the number P-7092 inside the USDA inspection mark.

The USDA said in a news release that contamination came from metal conveyor belts and was discovered Tuesday. An agency spokesman did not immediately return a phone call for further comment.

The agency says there have been no confirmed reports of injury, but consumers should either throw the product away or return it to the place of purchase.

The Associated Press
Just one year after filling the position, Salem Academy is once again looking for a new Head of School.

Lisa Pence abruptly left the post nine months into her tenure. The school announced her departure Monday in a note to parents.

As president of Salem Academy and College, I am writing to let you know that Mrs. Lisa Pence is no longer serving as Head of School at Salem Academy, read the message, signed by Lorraine Sterritt, president of Salem Academy and College. We wish her all the very best in her future endeavors.

A second message, sent Thursday, announced that former dean of students and assistant head of school Mary Lorick Thompson would return to fill the post in the interim. Thompson retired at the end of last school year, after 44 years at Salem.

The school is not releasing any details about Pences sudden exit.

At the time of her hiring, Pence was heralded as a great fit for Salem.

She will both maintain our distinguished traditions, and lead us into the future, Sterritt said during a visit from Pence last March.

Harvard-educated, Pence had decades of experience in private-school administration coming into the job, and ties to Salem to boot.

Pences brother lived in the area and her niece was attending Salem at the time of her hiring. Pence had been a frequent visitor in Forsyth County; her parents moved to a farm in Pfafftown in 1979 after her father took a job with Reynolds American.

Theres a little magic in this place that resonated with me, Pence said during that visit.

Salem conducted a national search that ultimately landed on Pence, previously the Upper School Director at Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Md. She was unanimously chosen as the first choice of the 18-member search committee.

She replaced Karl Sjolund, who left Salem after nine years to take a similar position at St. Andrews-Sewanee in Sewanee, Tenn.

Miss T, as Thompson is known at Salem, will return April 4. At the time of her retirement, Thompson planned to move to Spartanburg, S.C., to be closer to family.

Thompson was hired at Salem in 1972 as a recent college graduate to serve as house counselor. She moved up through the school, being named dean of students in the early 1980s and assistant head of school several years later. Thompson kept an apartment on campus the entire time, often spending several nights there each week. She became a well-known and beloved part of campus.

An announcement posted on the Salem Academy website said the school was delighted to announce Thompsons return.

Students, parents, faculty, staff and alumnae can rest assured that Salem Academy is in the very best of hands, Sterritt said in a statement Friday.
Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

 Jeffrey Eugenides, American novelist and short story writer

Its been such a long time ago that I dont remember how Dr. Lloyd Story became my personal physician. I think it was 1979 when I was referred to him after a company physical. He was my maternal grandmothers physician and would later become my wifes family doctor, too.

It has been a little over a year now since he closed his practice and we began the search for a new physician. That task was challenging. We had an established relationship that we liked, and now we had to start over.

Sarah and I didnt know then how much we would miss him until we stared evaluating where to go next.

Dr. Story loved to tell stories. They were part of every visit. Whatever the reason for our visit, there was an associated story of his that related to it in some way. We would wager on how long a visit would take and would get a good laugh out of it.

He had a small office with friendly staff. We knew them and they knew us. Im sure other patients felt the same way.

It was easy to get an appointment and be seen.

Dr. Story often had an opinion or two about health-care challenges, politics and the changes in processes that added more work.

He did not like having to use the computer to input all the information required from each visit. Not that it wasnt necessary or important, but because he had to input a bit of it himself. It was a slow process.

Usually, he would dictate the results of a visit and have it taken care of later by a staff member.

Those days were over. It was funny to see him peck away, a keystroke at a time, inputting information and talking about it at the same time.

And in between keystrokes, usually, was another story. Often those stories included his family, his parents and growing up in Tennessee. The story had some relevance to a point about the visit, treatment or how he handled a situation.

Sometimes I didnt want to ask another question because I knew another story would follow. I was ready to go. I never shared that with him.

Just thinking about that makes me laugh even now.

He also had a way of checking in on my exercising habits or lack thereof. When Sarah had an appointment, he often asked her if any exercising was going on in the household, referring to me.

In his dictation after a visit, he would note the visit, the specifics and ... note a need to visit the gym before the next visit. For more than 35 years, the routine remained the same.

Get ready for the story before he treated you, Sarah responded when I asked her what she remembered about him.

There was always a social part to every visit.

As he input information about a visit in the computer, talking about the changes the hospital made that required it or dictating the results of the visit, he would pause, sit back on his stool and ... another story would follow. Sometimes I would engage in the conversation, and at other times, just listen.

He was thorough and when he detected something he referred us to a specialist, if necessary, right away.

After he retired last year, we realized how much we missed those stories, the ease of getting in to see him when needed and the family atmosphere created in the office.

Several weeks ago, we had a conversation with Cindy, a nurse who worked in his office. We were sad to hear his health was failing and he was not doing well.

Early last Sunday morning, Sarah told me he had died. She was reading the obituaries in the paper, a regular routine, when she saw the notice. It felt like we had lost a family member.

We were saddened by the news and immediately had our own stories to share about our visits.

A lot of stories were shared by his son during his memorial service, and I am sure his father is telling stories now in another place.

We appreciate his care and now, more than before, his many stories.
Emirates airline President Tim Clark listens to a question during an interview overlooking Dubai International Airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The president of the Middle East's biggest airline says a ban on electronics other than mobile phones in the cabins of U.S.-bound flights came as a complete surprise as he defended security measures at its Dubai hub. (AP Photo/Adam Schreck)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  The president of Emirates, the Middle East's biggest airline, defended security measures at the carrier's Dubai hub on Wednesday and said the ban on personal electronics onboard U.S.-bound flights came without warning.

Tim Clark told The Associated Press that he only learned of the new U.S. regulations the previous day, saying the carrier "had no prior knowledge whatsoever." Emirates is now scrambling to ensure it is in compliance by a Saturday morning deadline - a target Clark said it would meet a day early.

Dubai was one of 10 cities in Muslim-majority countries affected by the new rule, which will force passengers to forego their tablets, laptops and other gadgets on direct flights to the U.S. Mobile phones and medical devices will be allowed onboard.

Clark said Emirates would fully comply with the directive, even as he questioned why his airline's hub was included.

"I do find that a little bit surprising to be quite honest," he said. "When I travel around even the United States or Europe or Asia, I don't see this level of scrutiny that goes on in Dubai."

Emirati authorities work closely with their U.S. counterparts to ensure that "the people that they are concerned about coming into the United States do not board our flights," he added.

"Emirates and its owner, the government of Dubai, and the airport ... (are) as safe as any airport or any airline could possibly be," he said.

Britain issued similar restrictions a few hours after U.S. officials announced theirs, though Dubai and Abu Dhabi - the two United Arab Emirates hubs on the U.S. list - were not included in the British ban.

Emirates has expanded rapidly in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent decades, and is one of the airlines most affected by the new U.S. rule.

It operates 18 daily flights to a dozen U.S. cities, including major destinations such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as smaller markets like Boston and Fort Lauderdale.

Story continues

Many of the passengers it carries are not going to or from the Middle East, but transit through Dubai International Airport to points all over Emirates' far-flung global network. The airport is the world's busiest air hub for international passenger traffic, and the third busiest overall.

Emirates' success and that of smaller rivals Qatar Airways and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways has rattled big U.S. airlines, who accuse the Gulf carriers of receiving billions of dollars of unfair government subsidies. They deny the allegations.

Clark was unaware of any specific security threats that prompted the U.S. directive, but he dismissed suggestions that protectionist pressures were behind the move.

"I can only assume the United States government has reasons to do what they're doing," he said.

Emirates is the only carrier in Dubai affected by the new U.S. rules. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines stopped flying to the city last year.

The airline boss said Emirates was stung by the Trump administration's executive order to restrict travel for passengers from seven Muslim-majority nations, with demand for the U.S. less robust than before.

"Frankly it's not surprising given what has been going on," he said, adding that Emirates has no plans to scale back on its U.S. operations. "This is not going to stop us."

Emirates is racing to implement plans to let passengers use their laptops and other devices until they are ready to board their U.S.-bound flights.

The gadgets would be collected before takeoff and stowed securely in cargo holds before being handed back to passengers once they land, Clark said. Passengers on flights connecting in Dubai wouldn't need to hand them in until boarding the U.S.-bound leg.

That may be little consolation for business travelers hoping to get some work done on the long haul from Dubai to the U.S. - a journey that can last up to two-thirds of a day.

Clark suggested they try to look on the bright side.

"For once I don't have to bang out all the emails," he said. "I've got a perfect excuse to say to the boss, 'I couldn't do any work because of the ban.'"

___

Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck
By Brad Brooks and Stephen Eisenhammer

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A police inquiry into corruption and unsanitary conditions in Brazil's powerful meatpacking industry contains more than 8,000 pages of evidence suggesting systematic fraud, not just isolated abuses, said three sources with direct knowledge of the probe.

The evidence, they said, will contradict assertions by the government and meat companies that police raids last week on meatpackers accused of bribery to conceal health violations had unfairly tarnished the entire industry.

Brazil's meat sector, facing suspensions from over a dozen of the more than 150 countries to which it sells, is scrambling to preserve business that fuelled $14 billion in exports in 2016.

So far, police have made public only a small percentage of the alleged abuses by meatpackers, the sources said, from small firms supplying the domestic market to major exporters who rank among the world's largest food companies.

Most of the suspected crimes, they added, remain under judicial seal.

"The investigation does focus on endemic corruption," one source with direct knowledge of the inquiry told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The person is not allowed to discuss the investigation publicly.

None of the three sources would name companies or individuals implicated by the evidence.

Brazil's federal police declined to comment.

An Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman said the ministry would work with police and deal with further details as they emerge.

Since the scandal emerged one week ago, meatpackers and government officials have sought a balance between condemning any wrongdoing and asserting that Brazil boasts the highest sanitation standards of any meat industry worldwide.

The two-year investigation, known as "Operation Weak Flesh," has already lodged accusations against more than 100 people, mostly health inspectors, for taking bribes, allowing the sale of rancid products, falsifying export documents, or failing to inspect meatpackers at all.

Story continues

Prosecutors have yet to present charges.

Still, governments from China, Hong Kong, the European Union and other major buyers in recent days announced at least partial bans on Brazilian meat imports.

BRF (BRFS3.SA), the world's largest exporter of poultry, and JBS (JBSS3.SA), the world's biggest meatpacking company, are among dozens of firms targeted by police, court documents show.

Both companies deny wrongdoing.

Some politicians and government officials, including Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, accuse investigators of seeking the spotlight and sensationalising the probe.

The criticism prompted the head of the federal police in Brasilia to issue a joint statement with the Agriculture Ministry on Tuesday, saying incidents uncovered by police "do not represent a widespread malfunction of the Brazilian system."

The sources said that police agreed to issue it to relieve political pressure and continue their investigation in a calmer environment. The police did not respond to a request for comment about the statement.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks and Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Paulo Prada and Frances Kerry)
[JURIST] Argentinian Federal Judge Claudio Bonadio [CIJ backgrounder, in Spanish] on Thursday ordered [opinion, in Spanish] former President Cristina Kirchner [official website, in Spanish] to stand trail in a multi-billion dollar fraud case. Kirchner and 14 other government officials have been accused of collaborating in an attempt to to defraud the Argentinian government of $3.5 billion by selling the Central Bank of Argentinas [official website] dollar futures at below-market rates. Kirchner and her two children are also currently being investigated [NYT report] for corruption charges related to her real estate businesses, including that she received illicit payments from public works contractors.

Kirchner has faced numerous legal troubles since leaving office. Kirchner was indicted [JURIST report] in December on allegations of corruption, accused of illicit association and fraudulent administration in connection with the use of funds meant for public works. In 2015, a judge in Argentina dismissed [JURIST report] criminal allegations against Kirchner that accused her of conspiring to shield Iranian officials from responsibility for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Kirchner was accused [JURIST report] of the cover up in January 2015. In February, an Argentine prosecutor asked a court to investigate [JURIST report] Kirchners successor, Maurico Marci, and other government officials over a deal the national government made with a company owned by Macris family.
On November 7, 1956, the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 1001, which called on the United Kingdom, France and Israel to pull all of their military forces out of Egypt. The Resolution came during the Suez Canal crisis, during which Israel invaded Egypt with the support of the U.K. and France, after Egyptian President Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.



Read Resolution 1001 and others passed by the U.N. General Assembly from November 1-10 during the Suez Canal Crisis.
On Friday a judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] released an opinion [text, PDF] affirming Trumps authority to issue his second travel ban executive order. Despite arguments that the latest travel ban is a rehash of the initial Muslim ban, the judge held the new ban had undergone substantive revisions and further deliberations, making it no longer likely that Plaintiffs can succeed on their claim that the predominate purpose of [the new travel ban] is to discriminate against Muslims based on their religion and that [the new travel ban] is a pretext or sham for that purpose. In addition, the judge said Trump provided sufficient reasons to justify the order, particularly national security needs. The court also held that [t]he President has unqualified authority to bar physical entry to the United States at the border. The Muslim activists who initiated this suit vowed to appeal [Politico article] this case further following Fridays ruling.

Federal courts across the country are taking divergent views on the revised travel ban. On Monday a Hawaii federal judge who issued one of the injunctions refused to clarify [JURIST report] his travel ban ruling. Judge Derrick Watson strongly condemned the new travel ban, saying [t]he illogic of the Governments contentions is palpable,  in his opinion [text, PDF]. Last week a Washington federal judge who ruled against Trumps first travel ban declined [JURIST report] to extend the injunction on the revised ban. Also last week, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] denied [JURIST report] a rehearing on Trumps first ban noting that the issue had become moot because the DOJ had withdrawn its appeal on the first ban. The DOJ requested a hold on the appeal proceedings in February and later DOJ withdrew [JURIST reports] it after Trump signed his revised ban.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Friday awarded symbolic reparations [order, PDF] for the victims of a deadly 2003 attack by forces under the control of Germain Katanga [case materials] in the Democratic Republic of Congo. ICC Trial Chamber II awarded $250 to each of 297 victims, as well as collective reparations [press release] in the form of housing support, income-generating activities, education aid and psychological support. The Chamber emphasized [AP report] that the symbolic amount is not intended to compensate for the harm, but to provides meaningful relief to the victims. The Chamber limited Katangas personal liability to $1,000,000 of the $3,752,620 assessed as the approximate monetary cost of the physical and psychological harm suffered by the victims. Katanga was convicted in 2014 for crimes committed in the attack at Bogoro, in the Ituri region of Congo, in which 200 people were shot and hacked to death.

The five-year war [BBC backgrounder] in the DRC between 1998-2003 was fought between government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, and rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. The conflict resulted in millions of deaths and allegations of war crimes against military leaders, including for recruitment of child soldiers and crimes against humanity. In March 2014, the ICC found Katanga guilty [JURIST report] of one count of crime against humanity (murder) and four counts of war crimes (murder, attacking a civilian population, destruction of property and pillaging) committed in February 2003 during the Bogoro attack. In November 2015, Katanga became the first ICC convict to be granted early release [JURIST report]. Since beginning its investigation in June 2004, the ICC has indicted seven people [ICC materials] in connection with war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Congo.
The Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA) [advocacy website] filed [CJA case summary] a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] on Thursday in the US District Court of Massachusetts against former Haitian Mayor Jean Morose Viliena alleging he committed crimes against humanity in Haiti between 2007 and 2009. Viliena is currently a resident of a Boston suburb. The lawsuit was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 [text, PDF]. The act allows civil actions to be filed in the US against individuals who subject others to torture or extrajudicial killings under authority of a foreign nation when remedies in the location of the conduct have been exhausted. CJA filed the lawsuit on behalf of three Haitians, David Boniface, Nissage Martyr, and Juders Yseme. The case alleges that in July 2007, David Boniface had denounced Viliena in court, and Viliena and his militia then murdered Bonifaces brother later that night in retaliation. Martyr and Yseme worked on a community radio station in the city. In April 2008, the case alleges that after Viliena announced he was shutting down the radio station, Viliena and his supporters invaded the station and shot both Martyr and Yseme. Martyr had to have one of his legs amputated due to the injuries and Yseme became blind in one eye. Viliena was indicted for murder in 2010 in Haiti, but authorities there have not prosecuted him.

Numerous Haitian officials have previously faced trials in the United States for various crimes. In January, former Haitian coup leader Guy Philippe plead not guilty [JURIST report] in US court to charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. In February 2014 an appellate court found that Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier who ruled the nation for 15 years, could be charged [JURIST report] with crimes against humanity committed during his reign in the 70s and 80s. Former president of Haiti Jean Bertrand Aristide has also been charged [JURIST op-ed] with committing several crimes, centering on allegations of corruption, criminal conspiracy, money laundering and misappropriation of funds.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1169 [text, PDF] into law on Thursday, making his the 15th state to allow residents to carry concealed firearms without a permit. The bill was met with little opposition in the state legislature [materials], passing the House in a 83-9 vote, and the Senate in a 34-13 vote. The law, which goes into effect August 1, will allow North Dakota residents over the age of 18 to conceal a firearm so long as they have possessed a valid drivers license or state ID card for at least a year. The current law makes carrying a firearm without a permit a misdemeanor, with fines up to $1,500 and imprisonment up to 30 days for violators. In signing the bill into law, Burgum said [press release],

Gun ownership is both a right and a responsibility, and that responsibility begins with individuals and families.North Dakota has a rich heritage of hunting and a culture of deep respect for firearm safety. As a hunter and gun owner myself, I strongly support gun rights for law-abiding citizens. House Bill 1169 allows citizens to exercise their Second Amendment right under the U.S. Constitution. It also is consistent with the North Dakota Constitution, which declares in Article I that all individuals have the inalienable right to keep and bear arms for the defense of their person, family, property, and the state, and for lawful hunting, recreational, and other lawful purposes, which shall not be infringed.

A statement from Burgums office says that the new law does not change the places designated in law as off-limits to conceal carry, including schools and publicly owned or operated buildings, although a bill to do so has been introduced [materials] in the state legislature.

The ability to carry concealed weapons, especially in churches and on college campuses, has become an increasingly prevanlent issue. Earlier this week, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed into law [JURIST report] a bill allowing individuals over the age of 21 to get enhanced concealed carry permits which will allow them to carry concealed weapons at public colleges, airports, polling places, sporting events, some state offices and the state capitol. Last month, the New Hampshire House of Representatives approved a bill that would repeal the law [JURIST report] prohibiting state citizens from carrying concealed firearms without a permit. Earlier in February the US House of Representatives voted to repeal [text, PDF] an Obama-era gun regulation that required mental health information to be shared with the national gun background check system. In December Ohio Governor John Kasich signed Senate Bill 199 [JURIST report], making it legal to carry concealed weapons at daycare facilities and onto college campuses. Last September the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit restored [JURIST report] gun ownership rights of individuals convicted of minor crimes. Earlier that month the New Jersey Second Amendment Society filed [JURIST report] a lawsuit against the states Attorney General in New Jerseys district court alleging the states stun gun ban is unconstitutional.
[JURIST] The US State Department [official website] granted [press release] a presidential permit to the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline [corporate website] on Friday allowing it to construct, connect, operate, and maintain pipeline facilities at the U.S.-Canadian border in Phillips County, Montana for the importation of crude oil. According to the Department, the administration weighed the foreign policy; energy security; environmental, cultural, and economic impacts; and compliance with applicable law and policy. The Keystone XL Pipeline [company website], which will be a 1,179-mile pipeline running from Alberta to Nebraska, was rejected [Reuters report] in 2015 by former president Barack Obama [official website], saying that the pipeline would release emissions that may add to climate change. Current President Donald Trump [official website] has said the pipeline will create thousands of jobs.

In January Trump signed [JURIST report] an executive order to advance the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. In December the Army Corps of Engineers had announced [JURIST report] that they would find an alternative path for the Dakota Access Pipeline. In January 2016 TransCanada filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging Obamas veto [JURIST report] of the Keystone XL pipeline.
SAO PAULO, March 24 (Reuters) - Brazilian miner Vale SA said on Friday the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York annulled nearly all parts of a class action lawsuit against the company and executives over the collapse of a tailings dam in Brazil in 2015.

The only parts of the case that remain ongoing are linked to specific statements made by Vale in 2013 and 2014, and a conference call in November 2015, the company said.

(Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by James Dalgleish)
[JURIST] President Donald Trumps healthcare bill was withdrawn from Congress [H.R. 1628 actions] on Friday after pushback from moderate Republicans and Democrats. Introduced to fulfill one of Trumps biggest campaign promises, repealing the Affordable Care Act [Medicaid backgrounder], the American Health Care Act of 2017 (AHCA) was pulled from Congress on the eve of its scheduled vote. Trump issued an ultimatum to Congress Republicans earlier in the day, telling them that Trumpcare was to be the only opportunity to repeal Obamacare. Although the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the AHCA would reduce the deficit by $336 billion between this year and 2026, Congress seemed to be split on the issue of whether the AHCA went too far or not far enough. In the aftermath, Trump indicated [Rolling Stone report] that Republicans would go after tax reform as they waited for Obamacare to explode.

Repealing the ACA was a significant element of the latest election cycle. Earlier this week, Republican lawmakers released two amendments [JURIST report] to the AHCA in an effort to appeal to both conservative and liberal critics. Senators proposed [JURIST report] the initial ACA replacement bill at the end of January. This came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order [JURIST report] aimed at repealing the ACA, shortly after being sworn in. The Senate had prepared for the repealing of the ACA earlier that month when it voted 51-48 [JURIST report] to prevent the process from being subject to a filibuster.
New year, same Old Lady. According to UEFA rankings published this week, Juventus remain the team to beat as far as defending in concerned.

The governing body's rating system which orders teams by the average number of goals conceded per game since the turn of 2017 puts Massimiliano Allegri's men top of the pile with a tally of 0.41. Bayern Munich (0.44) and Manchester United (0.5) fill the second and third positions.
The latest 2 minute preview trailer for the upcoming OCN time travel crime drama Tunnel starring Choi Jin Hyuk (Pride and Prejudice) and Yoon Hyun Min (Beautiful Mind) showsChoi Jin Hyuk on the hunt for the killer.

We see the brutal murder of a woman as well as our detective trying to solve the case both in the past and in the present. I love Choi Jin Hyuk's intensity and determination. It looks like this could be another gritty crime drama.

Tunnel is about a violent crimes detective from the past that travels through time to the present day. Choi Jin Hyuk plays a detective from the 1980's who was trying to catch a killer when he time travels through a tunnel to present day Seoul. He partners with Yoon Hyun Min who has a sharp intellect and is very skilled at his job.

Tunnel is scheduled to premiere March 25 on OCN.

See the trailer here: https://youtu.be/QRVg1EXASTc

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Copyright  2015-2017 by Kdrama Kisses. All rights reserved.
ROLLING MEADOWS, IL--(Marketwired - March 24, 2017) - Charles Industries, Ltd., a leading provider of innovative enclosed solutions for communications service providers, has expanded its fiber distribution hub (FDH) lineup of indoor and outdoor solutions with many new form factors that increase providers' ability to deploy FDH in a variety of manners and environments. With the industry's broadest line of cabinet, pedestal and terminal FDH solutions, Charles is able to offer service providers scalable, economical FDH enclosures that are right-sized to their location within the provider's fiber network.

In the past, fiber networks mostly relied on large metal cabinet FDH that required placement on concrete pads or utility poles. As the network has evolved, so too have considerations for FDH placements. Municipal permitting restrictions, community aesthetics, and security considerations have necessitated smaller FDH footprints and new form factors from manufacturers. Charles Industries has worked closely with its customer partners to meet these requirements and develop a diverse line of FDH solutions optimized for many different deployment locations.

Charles Industries has created indoor FDH cabinets and terminals capable of serving as few as 32 subscribers to as many as 384 subscribers from a single enclosure. The CFBT-Hub metallic cabinet series offers four sizes (48, 96, 144 and 384 port bulkheads), while its new non-metallic CFIT-Flex compact hub series offers two sizes (32 and 64 port bulkheads). All models feature hinged fiber splice trays, cable management guides and bend controls, secure locking mechanisms, and other technician-friendly features. CFBT-Hubs and CFIT-Flex Hubs are rapidly-deployable solutions that may be wall mounted in equipment rooms or closets within the customer premises.

For outdoor FDH placements, Charles lineup includes CFFP Fiber Flexibility Pedestals, CFIT-Hub metallic cabinets, and CFIT-Flex Hub non-metallic terminals. CFFP buried distribution pedestals offer flexible placement opportunities in outside plant networks at a fraction of the cost of metallic pad mount FDH cabinets and are available in 72, 144, and 288 port sizes, with a patch and splice 96 port option also available. Their non-metallic, one-piece dome and expanded-capacity base design is flood, fire, rodent, corrosion and impact resistant. CFIT-Hub metal cabinets are available in 48 and 96 port bulkhead models that feature weatherproof, powder-coated welded aluminum construction, while non-metallic CFIT-Flex compact hubs are available in 32 and 64 port models, with all cabinet and terminal mountings being pole or wall mountable.

To assist service providers in determining which Charles FDH solution is optimal for a particular deployment, a Charles Fiber Distribution Hub Overview fact sheet is available for internet download at: http://www.charlesindustries.com/main/te_fdh_overview.html.

About Charles Industries, Ltd.

2017 marks Charles Industries' 49th year as a privately held, diversified manufacturing and technology company serving telecommunications, wireless, utility, broadband, marine and industrial markets. Founded in 1968, the company is ISO 9001:2000 and TL 9000 registered and headquartered in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, with five additional U.S.-based manufacturing centers. For further information, please visit www.charlesindustries.com or call (847) 806-6300.

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GRAND ISLAND  Hornady Manufacturing Co. has been named the 2016 Manufacturing Business of the Year by the Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC). The award was presented formally during a luncheon March 17 at the Capitol in Lincoln attended by 21 senators from the Unicameral, including Sen. Curt Friesen representing District 34.

Hornady is a leader in bullet, ammunition, re-loading and accessory design. Founded in 1949 by Joyce Hornady, the company began making bullets in a rented garage in downtown Grand Island. The business remains family-owned today and employs a workforce of more than 300. Hornady has been an NBDC client since 2004, continuing to expand its facilities, operations and markets.

About the Nebraska Business Development Center

In 2016, the Nebraska Business Development Center provided business analysis, training and consulting to 2,187 businesses throughout Nebraska resulting in more than $398.9 million in cumulative economic impact for the state.
KEARNEY  An open house will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 13 at Central Community College Kearney Center.

It will be followed by a Kearney Area Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours event from 5 to 7 p.m. at the center at 3519 Second Ave.

CCC came to Kearney in 1970, taking over the practical nursing program established by Kearney Public Schools. The college leased the school districts Whittier Building until 1989, when it made the first of several moves into rented facilities around Kearney.

The Kearney Center found its current home in 1997 at the 17,000-square-foot Hilltop Lanes Building, which was donated to the CCC Foundation and remodeled into an educational facility. This celebration will be one of the last chances to see the Hilltop Lanes location before the new 63,000-square-foot CCC facility opens at the corner of 30th Avenue and West 11th Street in the fall.
KEARNEY  The Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist most known for his iconic Napalm Girl image from the Vietnam War completed his last project as a full-time employee of The Associated Press this week when he photographed sandhill cranes in Nebraska.

My God, Ive never seen so many birds, Nick Ut of Los Angeles said Thursday afternoon at Fort Kearny State Historical Park, one of the central Nebraska tour stops for 20 travel writers.

The writers spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Platte River blinds at Audubons Rowe Sanctuary. Ut said he probably took 500 photos during those times.

When I was in Japan and China, I shot (photographed) birds, Ut said. But didnt see nearly as many birds there as he did along the Platte River. Now I know I can come to Nebraska.

Other tour activities for the writers included crane watching at The Crane Trust near Alda, seeing prairie chickens near McCook, and visiting art and history museums from North Platte to York.

I dont think a lot of people know about Nebraska. They think its just farming, but theres a lot to learn about Nebraska, Ut said, adding that he enjoyed calling friends during the North Platte stop to say he was at Buffalo Bills ranch.

Ut was encouraged to take the tour by his L.A. photographer friend Mark Edward Harris who wanted to sign up. Ut said their plans were made before he decided to retire next Wednesday from full-time work with AP.

I love traveling in America because Ive never had time. Thats why I came to Nebraska, he said. This is my vacation, but this is for AP.

Ut never really is on vacation.

Whenever he has a camera in his hands, he looks for photos to send to AP. He said that will continue in retirement when he does freelance assignments, travels the world to present photo workshops, and returns to Vietnam two or three times a year to visit family and support a hospital by delivering toys and donating prints from the Vietnam era for fundraisers.

He knows what he will be thinking when he walks into APs office for his final few full-time days in a 51-year career. The company is like family, Ut said.

Most importantly, retirement will allow him to spend more time with his grandchildren and travel with his wife.

War correspondent

Ut never could have dreamed of such activities while growing up in South Vietnam as the 11th of 12 children.

His career started with a personal tragedy, the loss of an older brother he idolized who had been hired by AP and was killed in 1965 when the soldiers he was with were overrun by Viet Cong rebels. At his brothers funeral, Ut asked the photo editor at APs Saigon Bureau for a job.

Ut was hired on Jan. 1, 1966, at age 15. Banned from war zones, he was permitted only to do darkroom work and shoot feature photos around Saigon. Then the war came near his village in 1968 and Ut became a combat photographer at age 17.

I loved the job right away, he said.

On June 8, 1972, he took the photo that still defines the Vietnam War.

While photographing napalm bombs falling on the village of Trang Bang, he saw terrified children running away. They included 9-year-old Kim Phuc, naked and with skin being burned off her body.

Ut took the photo, but then gave first aid to Phuc and took her to a hospital.

Im so lucky that I took that picture. That picture changed my life, he said, when asked about doing his most honored work at the age of 21.

A huge change was the notoriety that came from receiving the Pulitzer Prize. Ut said he learned that the photo was named best war image. His friends told him he was going to win the Pulitzer Prize, but he didnt believe them until he returned from a photo assignment and saw they had organized a celebration party.

He keeps the award at home, but the Leica camera he used to take the photo is displayed at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Ut said the image helped spark antiwar protests that are credited with helping end U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He often has been approached by American veterans who thank him for taking a photo that allowed them to come home early or not go to Vietnam.

That keeps me happy, too, he said.

The terror-filled encounter with Ut on the village road nearly 45 years ago also changed  saved  Kim Phucs life.

Ut said he and Phuc became friends as she recovered from her injuries and he returned to her village every few weeks. However, they lost touch in 1975 when Americans and many South Vietnamese rushed to leave the country after the fall of Saigon.

Ut was in California for a short time and then assigned to APs Tokyo Bureau for two years. Thats where he met his Vietnamese wife, Hong Huynh.

I told her I am a photojournalist and Im never home, if you want to marry me, Ut said. They moved to Los Angeles in 1977.

Ut said that if he were a young man today wanting to work as a war photographer, he would not get married because he wouldnt want to leave his wife and two children home alone so much.

Ut was shot three times while working in Vietnam and thought he probably would die as his brother had. He said he took chances then he would not take today.

Reconnecting

It took Ut more than a decade to reconnect with Phuc. He learned in 1989 that she was in Cuba, so he met her there.

According to Phucs biography on the KIM Phuc Foundation International website, she had been under constant government supervision after the war but was able to go to Cuba to study in 1996.

She met another Vietnamese student there, and they were married in 1992. They went to Moscow on their honeymoon and were able to defect to Canada when their flight back to Cuba stopped for refueling in Gander, Newfoundland. Phuc, her husband and two sons live in the Toronto area.

Ut said he and Phuc remain friends.

Since settling in Los Angeles in 1977, Uts focus for AP has been photographing events involving celebrities, including Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson trials. I love to cover big stories, Ut said, adding that one of them, the L.A. riots in 1992, reminded him of the Vietnam War.

His life and work are being remembered in an AP book in progress and in a Ken Burns documentary Ut expects to be out next summer.

No matter what Ut does in retirement, one thing will be true.

I will always take pictures, never stop, he said. This camera is like my doctor. ... Ill only really retire if my (shutter button) finger is hurt.
LITCHFIELD  Two Litchfield third-graders were selected to exhibit their art at the State Capitol this month.

According to a Litchfield Public Schools news release, Gracie Reitz, daughter of Lindsay and Kenneth Reitz, and Topanga Boyles, daughter of Amber Betke and Ross Boyles, have their art on display for youth art month this March. They created self-portraits with watercolor and colored pencils.

A ceremony to honor the girls and other winners is today (Saturday). Nebraska Art Educator of the Year Jody Boyer will be speaking with them to encourage and congratulate them on their artwork and success.
Repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act seemed so simple one year ago among Republicans who were confident they could erase Barack Obamas namesake health care law and replace it with something infinitely better. That belief went up in flames Friday when congressional leaders pulled the plug on plans to vote the American Health Care Act out of the U.S. House of Representatives and advance it to the U.S. Senate.

A rampant case of cold feet spread Friday among Republicans who were so confident they could do better than Obamacare that they sprinted to replace it.

The effort has stalled or failed, but we think most Americans will forgive the GOP for pressing the pause button. Theres a lot more work to be done before we get the kind of health care we ought to have.

Perhaps the solution will come from surgically fixing the problems with Obamacare. It had its faults.

We Americans have watched as health costs spiraled out of control under the ACA. Today, insurance not only is too costly to purchase privately, the high deductibles and co-pays make it impossibly expensive to use your insurance.

ACA had its positive points. It did allow 14 million more Americans to purchase a health insurance plan.

However, Americans whose premiums and co-pays have skyrocketed are within their rights to complain that ACA has put most Americans through a lot of trouble and expense just to add 14 million to the ranks of the insured.

After the partys big White House and congressional election wins, the GOP was correct to assume it finally had repeal within its grasp, but haste makes waste. In the rush to repeal and replace, the plan that the Republicans cobbled together landed like a rock with its added costs for low-income elderly Americans and tax breaks for the rich. Fettered by its other shortcomings and faults, the GOPs plan clearly failed to impress, and no amount of convincing by the Republican leadership or president could muster the support needed to advance the plan out of the House to the U.S. Senate.

The GOP shouldnt hang its head too long after Fridays hiccup. Its time for Republicans and Democrats to step back, assess what has been good about Obamacare and what needs to be better, and see if they can meet in the middle. Americans want a plan that is fair, affordable and fiscally sustainable. We dont have it with the ACA or the GOPs American Health Care Act, but something better is achievable.
The spotlight was on Nebraskas number one industry this week as Nebraskans across the state celebrated National Ag Week. I joined Nebraskans from Scottsbluff to Omaha at 11 events over three days to highlight how our states number one industry continues to grow Nebraska. While commodity prices in many markets are lagging, there are many reasons to be optimistic about agricultures future in Nebraska.

Some may think growing agriculture only matters to our farm and ranch families, however, this $23 billion industry has a big economic impact on every part of our state. According to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, one in four jobs in Nebraska are agriculture-related. In addition to our states 48,700 farms, ag-related industries employ Nebraskans who manufacture irrigation equipment in Hastings, process food in Omaha, and conduct research at the University in Lincoln among many other occupations.

Nebraskas commodity production leads nationally in numerous categories. In 2016, Nebraska ranked number one among all states for red meat production, cattle on feed, and Great Northern beans. We rank second for our total number of cattle and calves, ethanol production, and pinto beans. We are third in the nation for corn for grain production and corn exports.

These successes did not happen by accident  they happened because Nebraskans worked together to grow agriculture.

There are several successes over the past year we celebrated this week. In 2016, six more counties received Livestock Friendly County designations, sending the message they are open to new livestock operations. We cut red tape for ag producers with a new vehicle designation allowing them to move equipment without additional licensing. In 2015, the Legislature and I put in place a new Livestock Siting Matrix to streamline the siting process for new projects. Just in the last few months, Dodge County became the first county to adopt this matrix. The county recently welcomed a new $1 billion investment from Costco, which is locating a new chicken processing plant in Fremont. This investment alone is equivalent to approximately 1 percent of our states GDP.

Trade has been key to growing agriculture in Nebraska. Over the past two years, we have led successful trade missions to the European Union, Japan, and China, and signed a new $400 million trade agreement with Taiwan. Tax reform will also help grow agriculture. Over the last couple of years, the Legislature and I have worked to deliver meaningful property tax relief for Nebraskas farmers and ranchers. We have delivered over $400 million in direct property tax relief with an additional $40 million for our ag producers over the next two years. I am currently working with senators to change the way we value ag land for taxation purposes. Today, we value ag land based on market sales. With the Agricultural Valuation Fairness Act, we would move to an income potential valuation system, which will help taxes track more closely with land values.

Throughout National Ag Week, I will visited with Nebraskans about how we can work together to grow agriculture. We must continue to grow agriculture to grow Nebraska, so the Good Life continues to provide the great opportunities the next generation is seeking. If you have any thoughts you would like to share on the state of agriculture in Nebraska, I hope you will contact my office by emailing pete.ricketts@nebraska.gov or by calling 402-471-2244. We look forward to hearing from you.

Pete Ricketts is governor of Nebraska.
The scale of the crime was titanic, the biggest hacking case ever brought to court by the U.S. The hackers cyber-pried their way into a half-billion Yahoo user accounts, gathering intelligence on American diplomatic and military officials, White House personnel, Russian journalists and dissidents, and a U.S. airline.

No, were not revisiting Mondays testimony by FBI Director James Comey. Were talking about fresh twists in an astonishing crime spree that dates to 2014, but has largely faded from view.

The Department of Justice last week charged four people in connection with the 2014 break-in, and it comes as no surprise that theyre Russian comrades-in-arms. In fact, two of them work for Russias successor agency to the KGB. So on the heels of the Kremlins tap dance all over the U.S. presidential campaign, we now have hard evidence of the Russian governments cyber-plundering of a Silicon Valley giant and 500 million of its users.

With these charges, the Department of Justice is continuing to send the powerful message that we will not allow individuals, groups, nation-states or a combination of them to compromise the privacy of our citizens, the economic interest of our companies or the security of our country, acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord said in announcing the charges.

Strong words, but we wonder how powerful that message is when three of the accused  agents Igor Sushchin and Dmitry Dokuchaev, along with Interpol-wanted hacker Alexsey Belan  are safely in the arms of Mother Russia. (A fourth defendant, Karim Baratov, was arrested in Canada on March 14.)

A powerful message needs to be sent. Sanctions against Russia are likely the best  and only  tool.

Cyber-espionage is the new global battlefield, and Russia is on the wrong side of the trenches. Its hard to cooperate with Russian officials in order to pursue hackers when Russian officials are doing the hacking.

Chicago Tribune
BOAO, China  China's ambitious plan to revive its ancient Silk Road through its much-touted One Belt, One Road initiative goes beyond vision and political rhetoric; it is already becoming a reality, a resources executive said Thursday.

"Reality in the business world means there is money spent and money invested," said Eurasian Resources Group CEO Benedikt Sobotka at a media interview at the Boao Forum in the Chinese province of Hainan.

The privately-held Kazakh-founded company headquartered in Luxembourg is the successor to Kazakhstan's largest miner ENRC that was mired by allegations of corruption in 2014.

Since then, Eurasian Resources Group has embarked on a turnaround and has already inked several agreements with Chinese partners in the last two years as part of the new Silk Road initiative worth billions of dollars that looks poised to position the company as a strategic supplier of niche commodities to the world's second largest economy. These include projects in Kazakhstan, Brazil and Africa.

It is developing cobalt production in Africa with Chinese partners and will, by 2018, be the largest supplier of the blue metal to the East Asian giant, said Sobotka. The material will be crucial in the batteries of electric cars that the Chinese government is promoting to build leadership in clean energy driving.

Chrome used in steel-making is another of the niche commodities that China needs to import for all of its needs.

One Belt, One Road makes a difference to global development, said Sobotka.

"Without Chinese financing, we wouldn't be building the size of the plant we are building and China wouldn't be receiving these strategic raw materials," he said of the African cobalt project.

While China seeks to revive an ancient route as a new trade corridor, countries spanning across Central Asia to the Middle East and Europe are set to welcome new opportunities for investment.

In the commodities space, the global supply chain role of the world's second largest economy will continue to grow as it secures the commodity supplies it needs to feed its massive appetite as the world's major consumer for many raw materials that it doesn't produce itself.

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Already, Chinese investments have benefited the landlocked nation of Kazakhstan, said Sobotka.

"When the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90s, everyone (said) that Kazakhstan would struggle because it does not have access to the ocean, but it turned out that we didn't need to have an ocean because China was going to be the ocean of Kazakhstan," he said.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect Eurasian Resources Group CEO Benedikt Sobotka's name.





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elon musk solar roof

Tesla CEO Elon Musk just revealed more details about the roll-out plan for its solar roof.

Musk said on Twitter Friday that Tesla will begin taking orders for its solar roof in April. Tesla previously said it was on track to begin installing the solar roof later this year, but hadn't provided exact timing on when it will become available to purchase.

Tesla unveiled its solar roof product last October, about a month before the company acquired SolarCity in a deal worth $2.1 billion. Tesla is offering four different shingle styles that can capture solar energy: textured glass, smooth glass, French slate, and Tuscan glass.

Tesla hasn't provided concrete details on the solar tiles' expected efficiency or price, but Musk has said the solar roof will be cheaper than a normal one when factoring in the price of labor.

"It's looking quite promising that a solar roof will actually cost less than a normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account," Musk said on a conference call in November.

NOW WATCH: Tesla will begin selling its Solar Roof this year  here's everything you need to know





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How to fix the NHS. And what the United States can learn from it.

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I grew up in the United Kingdom and have friends and family who rely on the National Health Service. Ive written previously how I believe that, despite the idea of a completely free at the point of use health care system sounding very noble  and there are certainly many great things about the NHS  its not a model that has been copied in any other country.

As someone who also has lots of friends and former colleagues working in the NHS, I regularly hear stories about how that system is completely at breaking point. The British media also regularly communicate this message, and the NHS undoubtedly relies on a huge amount of good will.

The ideal health care system probably resides somewhere in between this type of completely centralized socialized system, and a private insurance-based one. Out of all the systems, Ive experienced, Australia comes pretty close to this mid-point: a system Ive worked in myself during my final year of medical school.

Following the Australian model, here is what the United Kingdom should do, summed up in 2 straightforward steps:

1. Keep the NHS in place as is.

2. Encourage everyone who can afford it, to take out their own private health insurance, and then give them a tax rebate for doing so.

This would be an ideal solution, because great swathes of the middle classes and wealthy will likely leave the public NHS, thus relieving pressure on the system. If, for any reason, they arent happy with their insurance-based system or coverage, they can always go back to the NHS. Sounds simple, right? Back to reality. Here is whats blocking such a good idea from happening in Britain:

1. British psyche. Im afraid it is so ingrained in the national psyche that health care must be free, that any such proposal to encourage people out of the NHS, would likely cause a national uproar among large swathes of the population  however sensible it sounds

2. Political tool. Whichever political party proposes the above, would likely be annihilated with screams from opposition parties that they want to privatize the NHS (when actually no such thing is happening). We are just being pragmatic and realistic, and if someone leaves the NHS, its only fair that they should get some tax back, like in Australia. There would also be talk of a two-tier system. So what? Thats life, as long as the public system is still excellent. Doctors could have it written in their contracts that they must do a certain amount of work in the NHS, so they dont leave it completely.

Because of the above issues, the Australian model, which would probably work so well in a prosperous nation like the UK, seems like a pipe dream.

As for America, if we are approaching this type of health care system from almost the opposite end of the spectrum, why not have this scenario:

1. A single-payer type system for anyone who desires it (Medicare available to all, or at least lower the current age of eligibility).

2. A private insurance-based system with tax breaks for anyone who can afford it, and offered by employers as a job benefit.

Having a basic fall back in place for everyone to access health care should not be as unpalatable for the anti-big government folk as some may think. If it was coupled with the right tax incentives to encourage people and employers to purchase their own private insurance, it could actually produce significant long-term cost savings, while also allowing a free market competitive insurance system. In a consumerist society like the United States, anyone who could afford it would want to enter the insurance market to give them more freedom and choice over their health care options, and not rely totally on the system that was offered by the government, with all the associated control and restrictions.

The great elephant in the room with health care and only offering coverage in a free market environment, is that there are unlikely to be any realistic scenarios in which insurance companies will be competing to insure the 52-year-old longstanding diabetic with heart disease (the people who need health care the most). One way or another, if these people have no insurance, society is going to end up paying for their care in the end.

The more this health care debate continues, and politically turns into a mess, the more Im convinced that some type of single-payer system will ultimately be the one thats put in place. The only question is, how long it takes to get there and what steps the government takes to encourage people to only use it if they absolutely cant afford anything else?

In health care, things that sound so straightforward and obvious, seem all too hard to come by.

Suneel Dhand is an internal medicine physician and author of three books, including Thomas Jefferson: Lessons from a Secret Buddha. He is the founder and director, HealthITImprove, and blogs at his self-titled site, Suneel Dhand.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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After writing my 21st post about appendicitis back in November, I swore I would not write about it again for the foreseeable future.

Well, the future is now because investigators from the United Kingdom and Canada just published a meta-analysis including ten papers and 413 children about the efficacy and safety of nonoperative treatment for appendicitis in children.

They concluded that nonoperative management is effective in 96 percent of children with acute uncomplicated appendicitis during their initial hospitalizations with just 17 (4 percent) children requiring appendectomy before discharge. An additional 68 (16.4 percent) developed recurrent appendicitis later, and 19 of these patients were treated with the second course of antibiotics. The other 49 underwent appendectomy with histologic evidence of recurrent appendicitis.

Another 11 patients underwent appendectomy in the follow-up period for various reasons. In all, 77 (18.6 percent) patients initially treated with antibiotics eventually underwent appendectomy.

Although the initial hospital length of stay for appendectomy was shorter than that of patients treated with antibiotics, complication rates were similar.

These findings were met with headlines like Antibiotics, not surgery, could treat appendicitis in children, study suggests from the Guardian and Is Surgery Always Needed for Kids Appendicitis? from US News.

What are the problems with this paper?

After searching the literature, the authors identified the ten studies they deemed suitable  seven prospective and three retrospective. Four involved only nonoperative treatment. It is unclear how one could perform a meta-analysis comparing the nonoperative treatment of appendicitis with antibiotics to appendectomy if 40 percent of the studies did no such comparison.

Of the ten papers, only one was a randomized controlled trial, and it was a pilot study in which patients, parents, and surgeons were not blinded regarding treatment allocation. The lack of blinding obviously taints the results. The proper way to do this study is to blind the patients, the parents, and the surgeons by obtaining consent for enrollment before knowing which treatment group each patient was randomly assigned to.

The authors of the meta-analysis also pointed out that the randomized trial was not powered to provide definitive evidence of the efficacy of nonoperative treatment vs. appendectomy.

In the five other studies, surgery and antibiotics were discussed with the parents, and they were allowed to choose which treatment their child would undergo, hardly an objective research method.

Other than saying it varied, the meta-analysis was vague regarding how the diagnosis of acute uncomplicated appendicitis was made in each of the reviewed studies. An unknown number of children may have been diagnosed by clinical criteria only. Therefore, some may not have had appendicitis at all. If they never had appendicitis, they were not likely to get a recurrence no matter what the treatment was.

The combined average length of follow-up for patients in the ten studies is not stated but ranged from as little as two months to 51 months, and seven of the studies had follow-up lengths of less than two years.

The authors had an epiphany about this stating, Although we have not formally analyzed it, we noted a tendency for long-term efficacy to be lower in studies with longer duration of follow-up. The short duration of follow-up is an issue with all studies of nonoperative treatment of appendicitis.

No studies used the same intravenous antibiotic regimen, and the duration of IV antibiotics was any one of the following: 2 doses, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 to 120 hours, until abdominal tenderness resolved, and until C-reactive protein was less than 5 mg/dL. The oral antibiotic protocols were almost as varied.

I can agree with one conclusion of the meta-analysis. The authors called for larger and proper randomized controlled trials and said, Until such studies are completed, we would recommend that nonoperative treatment of children with acute uncomplicated appendicitis be reserved for those participating in carefully designed research studies.

This should ease the conscience of any surgeon not involved in a randomized controlled trial who believes appendectomy is still the treatment of choice for children with appendicitis.

Skeptical Scalpel is a surgeon who blogs at his self-titled site, Skeptical Scalpel.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Mar 24, 2017) - Entree Gold Inc. ("Entree or the "Company") (ETG.TO)(NYSE MKT:EGI)(EKA.F) is pleased to report that further to its news release of February 28, 2017, the Company has today filed and mailed the materials for its Annual General and Special Meeting (the "Meeting") of shareholders, optionholders and warrantholders (collectively, the "Securityholders") which describe, among other things, the proposed strategic reorganization of the Company's business (the "Arrangement"). The Company's Information Circular (the "Circular") and other Meeting materials are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.entreegold.com.

The Arrangement

At the Meeting, among other items of business including the annual election of directors, shareholders of Entree ("Shareholders"), as well as Securityholders voting together as a single class, will be asked to consider and, if thought fit, to pass, with or without variation, a special resolution to approve a statutory plan of arrangement (the "Plan of Arrangement") under Section 288 of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia). It is intended that, as part of the Arrangement, Shareholders will receive common shares of newly incorporated Mason Resources Corp. ("Mason Resources") by way of a share exchange, pursuant to which each existing share of Entree is exchanged for one "new" share of Entree and 0.45 of a Mason Resources common share (the "Consideration"). Entree will transfer to Mason Resources all of the issued and outstanding shares of Entree U.S. Holdings Inc., which indirectly holds the Ann Mason copper-molybdenum project in Nevada (the "Ann Mason Project") and the Lordsburg copper-gold property in New Mexico, along with US$8.75 million in cash.

There will be no change to Shareholders' existing interests in Entree.

The Plan of Arrangement calls for Entree warrantholders to exchange their warrants for replacement warrants to acquire the same number of Entree shares and 45% of that number of Mason Resources shares. Similarly, Entree optionholders will exchange their options for replacement options to acquire the same number of Entree shares and 45% of that number of Mason Resources shares. The exercise prices of the replacement warrants and options will be determined in accordance with the Plan of Arrangement.

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The board of directors of Entree (the "Board") has unanimously determined that the Plan of Arrangement is fair and in the best interests of Entree and its Securityholders and recommends that Securityholders vote FOR the Plan of Arrangement.

The Meeting

Entree Shareholders, warrantholders and optionholders as of the record date of March 16, 2017 have the right to vote by proxy or in person at the Meeting to be held May 1, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. PDT at the offices of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, 1200 Waterfront Centre, 200 Burrard Street, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Benefits of the Arrangement

The Arrangement is expected to provide Securityholders with the following benefits, among others:

(a) The Plan of Arrangement is expected to result in two, separate and focused, well-capitalized, debt-free entities, each with a high quality advanced project providing new and existing shareholders with optionality as to investment strategy and risk profile:

Mason Resources : The 100% owned Ann Mason deposit is currently the fourth largest undeveloped porphyry deposit in Canada and the U.S. by contained copper resources. Located in the historic Yerington mining district in Nevada, the Ann Mason Project has excellent access to infrastructure and strong community support. Pre-Feasibility level metallurgical test work has been completed and the current mineral resource estimate constrained within the PEA-pit is classified 95% as Measured plus Indicated, with only 5% remaining as Inferred. Tremendous upside potential exists on the project through several earlier-stage copper-oxide and sulphide zones and numberous untested targets. An updated Preliminary Economic Assessment (" PEA ") was recently filed summarizing these results.

Entree: The Company will continue to hold its carried joint venture interest in a substantial prospective land package in Mongolia which includes two of the world class Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold deposits, Hugo North Extension and Heruga. The resources at Hugo North Extension include a Probable reserve, which is included in the fully financed $4.4 billion underground block cave currently under construction. Rio Tinto is the project operator for the entire Oyu Tolgoi project, including the underground block cave mine.

(b) The Plan of Arrangement is expected to give scope to potential value accretive and synergistic acquisitions by each entity.

(c) The Plan of Arrangement is expected to maximize Shareholder value by allowing the market to value Entree's Mongolian assets independently of the U.S. based assets, including the Ann Mason Project.

(d) It is expected that transferring the Ann Mason Project and Lordsburg property from Entree to Mason Resources will accelerate development of the projects.

It is a condition of closing to the Arrangement that the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") has given conditional acceptance to the listing of the Mason Resources common shares. Listing will be subject to Mason Resources fulfilling all the listing requirements of the TSX. Mason Resources does not have any of its securities listed or quoted, and has not applied to list or quote any of its securities, on a U.S. marketplace.

The Circular

The Circular contains, among other things, details concerning the Arrangement, reasons the Board has recommended the Arrangement, requirements for completion of the Arrangement, the procedure for receiving the Consideration under the Arrangement, how registered Shareholders may exercise their dissent rights, procedures for voting at the Meeting and other matters. Securityholders are urged to carefully review the Circular and accompanying materials as they contain important information regarding the Arrangement and its consequences to Securityholders.

YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

How to Vote

A proxy or voting instruction form will accompany the Meeting materials you receive by mail (or electronically if you have enrolled for this service with Computershare). Instructions on how to vote, which vary depending on whether you are a Shareholder, an optionholder or a warrantholder, are provided in the Circular and the accompanying materials.

Securityholders are encouraged to vote before 10:30 a.m. PDT on April 27, 2017.

How to Receive the Consideration

If you are a registered Shareholder, we also encourage you to complete and return the letter of transmittal included in the Meeting materials ("Letter of Transmittal") together with the certificate(s) (if any) representing your existing Entree shares and any other required documents and instruments, to the depositary, Computershare. If you are a registered Shareholder, the Letter of Transmittal must be completed and returned to Computershare (regardless of whether your shares are represented by physical share certificates or held in a Direct Registration System ("DRS") account) in order for you to exchange your existing shares for new Entree shares and Mason Resources shares. Provided you have completed and returned the Letter of Transmittal to Computershare in accordance with its instructions, once the Plan of Arrangement is completed new Entree shares and Mason Resources shares will be issued and DRS statements representing such shares will be distributed to you. If you hold your Entree shares through a broker or other intermediary, please contact that broker or other intermediary for instructions and assistance in receiving the Consideration in exchange for your Entree shares. Assuming that all conditions to completion of the Plan of Arrangement are satisfied, it is anticipated that the Plan of Arrangement will become effective on or about May 9, 2017.

QUALIFIED PERSON

Robert Cinits, P.Geo., Entree's Vice President, Corporate Development, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has approved the technical information in this release. For further information on the Entree/Oyu Tolgoi LLC joint venture property, see the Company's technical report, titled "Lookout Hill Feasibility Study Update", with an effective date of March 29, 2016, available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website. For further information on the Ann Mason Project, see the technical report titled "2017 Updated Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ann Mason Project, Nevada, U.S.A.", with an effective date of March 3, 2017 available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website.

ABOUT ENTREE GOLD INC.

Entree Gold Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company balancing opportunity and risk with key assets in Mongolia and Nevada. As a joint venture partner with a carried interest on a portion of the Oyu Tolgoi mining project in Mongolia, Entree has a unique opportunity to participate in one of the world's largest copper-gold projects managed by one of the premier mining companies - Rio Tinto. Oyu Tolgoi, with its series of deposits containing copper, gold and molybdenum, has been under exploration and development since the late 1990s. Additionally, Entree has also been advancing its Ann Mason Project in one of the world's most favourable mining jurisdictions, Nevada. The Ann Mason Project hosts the Ann Mason copper-molybdenum deposit as well as the Blue Hill copper deposit within the rejuvenated Yerington copper camp.

Sandstorm Gold, Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill Resources are major Shareholders, holding approximately 14%, 10% and 8% of issued and outstanding shares, respectively.

This News Release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to corporate strategies and plans; uses of funds; the value and potential value of assets and the ability of Entree to maximize returns to Shareholders; potential financial and other benefits of spinning-out the U.S. projects; timing and approval for a spin-out of the U.S. projects; the estimation of mineral reserves and resources; the realization of mineral reserve and resource estimates; the potential development of Ann Mason; construction and continued development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; potential discovery of new mineralized zones; plans for future exploration and development programs and budgets; permitting time lines; anticipated business activities; proposed acquisitions and dispositions of assets; and future financial performance.

While the Company has based these forward-looking statements on its expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee of Entree's future performance and are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies, local and global economic conditions, legal proceedings and negotiations and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the status of the Company's relationship and interaction with the Government of Mongolia, Oyu Tolgoi LLC, Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill. With respect to the construction and continued development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine, important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, the timing and cost of the construction and expansion of mining and processing facilities; the timing and availability of a long term power source for the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; the impact of the delay in the funding and development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; delays, and the costs which would result from delays, in the development of the underground mine; and production estimates and the anticipated yearly production of copper, gold and silver at the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine. Other uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, Entree not obtaining Shareholder, Securityholder, court or regulatory approval of the Arrangement; the market valuing Entree and Mason Resources in a manner not anticipated by Entree; unanticipated costs, expenses or liabilities; all conditions precedent to the Plan of Arrangement not being satisfied or waived and the Plan of Arrangement not becoming effective; the size, grade and continuity of deposits and resource and reserve estimates not being interpreted correctly from exploration results; the results of preliminary test work not being indicative of the results of future test work; fluctuations in commodity prices and demand; changing foreign exchange rates; actions by Rio Tinto, Turquoise Hill and/or Oyu Tolgoi LLC and by government authorities including the Government of Mongolia; the availability of funding on reasonable terms; the impact of changes in interpretation to or changes in enforcement of, laws, regulations and government practices, including laws, regulations and government practices with respect to mining, foreign investment, royalties and taxation; the terms and timing of obtaining necessary environmental and other government approvals, consents and permits; the availability and cost of necessary items such as power, water, skilled labour, transportation and appropriate smelting and refining arrangements; and misjudgments in the course of preparing forward-looking statements. In addition, there are also known and unknown risk factors which may cause the actual results, performances or achievements of Entree to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to international operations, including legal and political risk in Mongolia; risks associated with changes in the attitudes of governments to foreign investment; risks associated with the conduct of joint ventures; discrepancies between actual and anticipated production, mineral reserves and resources and metallurgical recoveries; global financial conditions; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; inability to upgrade Inferred mineral resources to Indicated or Measured mineral resources; inability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; conclusions of economic evaluations; future prices of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining government approvals, permits or licences or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; environmental risks; title disputes; limitations on insurance coverage; as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk" in Entree's most recently filed Management's Discussion & Analysis and in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Entree's Annual Information Form for the financial year ended December 31, 2016, dated March 10, 2017 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.
(Adds Hollande)

PARIS, March 25 (Reuters) - Ditching the euro to return to the franc would harm the purchasing power of the French, President Francois Hollande and central bank governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said on Saturday, in tacit warnings against the National Front.

Opinion polls show the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen qualifying for the April 23 first round of the presidential election but losing the May 7 run-off to centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Leaving the euro is one of Le Pen's trademark policies, both a marker of her anti-establishment stance that attracts voters angry with globalisation, and an obstacle to her quest for power in a country where a majority oppose a return to the franc.

"Some (candidates) want to leave Europe. Let them prove to the French people we'd be better on our own!" Hollande told reporters in Rome on the margins of an event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Union's founding treaty.

"They can't prove it because ... a return to a national currency would trigger devaluations and a loss in purchasing power, closing borders would trigger job losses," he said, according to a transcript of his comments provided by his office.

Surveys consistently show that French voters, in particular the elderly, overwhelmingly want France to stay in the euro, despite their scepticism over the European Union.

Some 72 percent of French voters oppose a return to the franc, an Ifop poll published in Le Figaro daily showed.

But there is a sharp gap between voters as a whole and those who plan to vote for Le Pen in the first round of the presidential election. Some 67 percent of Le Pen voters back ditching the euro, the Ifop survey showed.

Speaking on the same theme as Hollande, European Central Bank policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned against a euro exit in an interview published on Saturday.

"Exiting the euro and devaluing our currency by 20 percent would mean that the cost of imported goods would increase by the same amount," he told the Ouest France newspaper. Euro membership has allowed France to benefit from lower borrowing costs, leading to savings of 30-60 billion euros per year, Villeroy said, adding that ditching the currency would mean giving up those savings.

Neither Villeroy nor Hollande mentioned Le Pen by name, but she is the only top candidate clearly calling for a euro exit. Left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who stands fourth in opinion polls, far behind Macron and Le Pen, calls for a complete overhaul of the EU and euro zone rules but foresees a euro exit only if renegotiation talks fail.

Le Pen has said she would seek to renegotiate France's EU membership with the aim of returning to the franc and cutting back the bloc to a loose cooperative of nations. She would put the outcome of the talks to a referendum.

Opinion polls see her qualifying for the two-way election run-off but losing it to the centrist, pro-EU Emmanuel Macron. But there are many undecided voters, making the outcome of the election unpredictable.

(Reporting by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Mark Potter and David Evans)
Graeme Edgeler writes:

New Zealand has adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This treaty forms part of New Zealand domestic law. As part of the International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act, it makes a number of actions, long-recognised internationally as war crimes, express crimes under New Zealand law. A couple of these are in issue to this allegation. Section 11(2) of the Act, and Article 8(2)(b) of the Statute include the following as war crimes: (v) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives; (xiii) Destroying or seizing the enemys property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war; The maximum penalty for someone convicted of a war crime is life imprisonment.

So these are very serious allegations.

Lots of people are saying that there appear to be war crimes. No-one appears to have appreciated what that means. It means we need an investigation into war crimes. In New Zealand, this is a job for the Police. I think about this not only from the perspective of New Zealand legal obligation to investigate allegations of war crimes, and the right of victims of alleged war crimes to have those allegations investigated, and prosecuted, but also from the perspective of those who are alleged, even if implicitly, anonymously, or collectively, to have committed war crimes.

I agree with Graeme that the Police should investigate.

An inquiry cannot be allowed to interfere with a possible prosecution. The possibility that evidence heard by a commission of inquiry could be evidence that might be heard by a jury at a criminal trial (or more importantly, might be inadmissible at a criminal trial) could mean that there would need to be substantial suppression orders, lest the fairness of future criminal proceedings be threatened.

So you shouldnt do an inquiry and then a Police investigation. The Police investigation should come first.

I do not know whether allegations contained in Hit & Run are true, or whether the allegations, even if true enough to properly found a charge, are capable of being proved by admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. But the Soldiers who were present, those who ordered them to take part, and everyone else involved at whatever level of the New Zealand Defence Force or the New Zealand Government has rights. And one of those rights is to have any allegations against them that need investigating, investigated by a competent authority, without improper pressure being placed on the investigator. They also have the right to have any decision over whether to lay a charge, decided only after a thorough investigation, and considering not only incriminating evidence, but evidence that tends to show their innocence. This is most likely to happen if any criminal investigation begins as soon as possible, and is not prejudiced by a full public inquiry.

I think Graeme makes a compelling case.

Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson have authored a book alleging war crimes; theyre not necessarily certain who, but the describe events that could amount to war crimes committed by New Zealanders. This has consequences. When confronted with allegations of war crimes, New Zealand is obliged not just to find out what happened, but to investigate, and if appropriate, prosecute. But it would be wrong to pursue an inquiry that may prejudice the rights of those now under suspicion of committing war crimes. Commissions of inquiry do not investigate crimes. This is the job of the Police.

The Police should launch an investigation. They are the competent authority.

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FILE PHOTO - Visitors look at a nuclear power plant station model by American company Westinghouse at the World Nuclear Exhibition 2014, the trade fair event for the global nuclear energy sector, in Le Bourget, near Paris October 14, 2014. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

By Jessica DiNapoli

(Reuters) - The U.S. utilities that are clients of Toshiba Corp's nuclear power plant construction subsidiary, Westinghouse Electric Co LLC, have hired advisers to prepare for its potential bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move comes as Toshiba sees Westinghouse's bankruptcy as increasingly likely. The Japanese conglomerate has hired restructuring consulting firm Berkeley Research Group LLC and law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP to help defend it against bankruptcy claims, the people said on Wednesday.

Scana Corp (SCG.N) and Southern Co (SO.N), the power utilities which hired Westinghouse to build the first nuclear power plants in the United States in more than 30 years, have also hired restructuring advisers, the people said.

This is because, in a potential Westinghouse bankruptcy, Scana and Southern Co would be among Westinghouse's largest creditors, owed the cost overruns on the projects, which tally in the billions of dollars, one of the people added. The utilities are hoping to recover these costs in a bankruptcy process for Westinghouse, according to the sources.

Scana has hired restructuring experts from advisory firm Ducera Partners LLC, while Southern Co is working with investment bank Rothschild & Co, the people said. Scana owns the South Carolina plant under construction, while Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co, will own plants in Georgia.

"Whether or not Westinghouse files for Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) is ultimately a decision for its board, and must take into account the various interests of all of its stakeholders, including Toshiba and its creditors," Toshiba said in a prepared statement. "It is not appropriate for Toshiba to comment prematurely."

The conglomerate has also said bankruptcy is one of several options for Westinghouse, which it acquired for $5.4 billion about 10 years ago.

The sources asked not to be identified because preparations for a potential Westinghouse bankruptcy are confidential.

Story continues

"We're continuing to monitor the situation with Westinghouse and are prepared for any potential outcome," Georgia Power said in a prepared statement.

Spokespeople for Berkeley Research Group, Scana and Skadden did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ducera and Rothschild declined to comment.

Toshiba has said it would take a $6.3 billion writedown related to Westinghouse, and gained an extension from Japanese regulators until April 11 to submit its latest quarterly financial results or face having its public shares delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Reuters reported earlier this week that Westinghouse was reviewing proposals for a debtor-in-possession loan exceeding $500 million to help finance its potential bankruptcy. Westinghouse has already hired restructuring counsel, Reuters reported earlier this month.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Stephen Coates)
International Game Technology Ordinary Shares (NYSE: IGT) may no longer be worth the gamble for investors.

Argus analyst John Staszak has downgraded the stock to Hold due to a number of near-term headwinds the firm has identified in the gaming equipment market.

The companys recent 2017 EBITDA guidance of $1.68 billion$1.76 billion is confirmation that International Game Technology has a tough road ahead this year, Staszak said in a note.

IGT shares appear fairly valued at current prices near $23, near the midpoint of their 52-week range of $12$32, Staszak said. Given the companys current challenges, we see limited upside for the stock over the next 12 months.

Analyst: MGM A Better Choice

Staszak said there will be relatively few new casino openings in the U.S. market this year, muting demand for gaming equipment. IGT also faces tough Powerball comps  and must make a $195 million payment to the Italian government as part of its deal to operate the countrys national lottery. That payment, Staszak said, is likely to weigh on the companys free cash flow.

Argus maintains a favorable long-term view of International Game Technologys cash flow, the analyst said, but the stock simply has no bullish catalysts ahead at the moment.

In the meantime, Argus recommends gaming investors opt for Buy-rated MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM).

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Latest Ratings for IGT

Mar 2017 Argus Downgrades Buy Hold Jan 2017 Bank of America Downgrades Buy Neutral Sep 2016 Argus Research Initiates Coverage on Buy

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 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
By Kim Hyeong-woo





In a recent interview with Quartz, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, proposed that governments should tax robots. By doing so, we will be able to generate social funds to help workers who are displaced by robots. Such a "robot tax" would slow down the speed of automation, thus give more time for society to handle its potential challenges.

He may sound like a modern-day version of a Luddite, a group of English textile workers who destroyed weaving machines in the 19th century, but I believe he is starting an important and timely debate. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence are likely to result in job losses not only in manufacturing but also in transportation (for example, driverless trucks) and service industries (the fintech revolution). When new technology replaces human workers, it may create the following problems.

First, job losses may result in a substantial decrease in government tax revenues. Based on a Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) report, personal income taxes contributed 51.4 percent ($1,946.9 billion) of the total government tax receipts in the third quarter of 2016. This number corresponds to 31.4 percent of the government current expenditures and 70.1 percent of government social benefits that include social security payments, Medicare, and unemployment insurance payments. That is, decreases in income taxes may put the existing social safety net at risk, pushing displaced workers into even harsher lives.

Second, automation may lead to further income inequality across households. When human jobs are replaced by robots, all the labor income (minus operational costs of the robot) will be transformed into profits, which will be allocated to the company's shareholders via dividends, or greater compensation will be given to high-skilled workers who survived automation. Consequently, this is likely to widen the income gap across the human workers in the absence of a tax code overhaul.

Notwithstanding many other socio-economic issues that may stem from automation, these two potential challenges alone may be enough to trigger discussions on a robot tax. If taxing robots or the owners of robots is inevitable, how should we do it? Is it practically feasible and desirable? If not, are there any alternative methods?

It seems that there are many practical issues in implementing robot taxes. As Yanis Varoufakis points out, it is not easy to assess proper tax rates. Bill Gates suggested that if a robot replaces a human worker, we should tax the robot at a similar level as a human would pay. Even in such cases, it is not clear what reference salary should be used over time for the tax base, because machines will not ask for a salary-negotiation every year. Further, there may not be any prior reference salary if the government tries to tax a new company that uses no human workers.

Alternatively, the government may impose a lump-sum tax on the installation of a robot, which will deter automation by creating tax disincentives. However, it would be very difficult to distinguish such taxes from conventional taxes on capital goods, which complement human workers instead of replacing them. Furthermore, heavily taxing corporate investment might impede innovation and R&D activities. That is, distortive effects of such tax schemes may outweigh the potential benefits of slowing down the social costs of automation.

So, it seems that there are many practical obstacles in implementing a robot tax. Alternatively, governments may raise tax rates on corporate profits or they may employ more progressive tax schemes that target the top income earners to compensate for losses in tax revenue due to automation. If properly implemented, such a tax overhaul would provide a reasonable solution to the two problems we mentioned earlier. That is, the government will be able to compensate for losses in income taxes, and the new tax policy would alleviate income inequality. However, I recognize how difficult it has been to put forward a tax overhaul toward a more progressive system even during times with no contemplation of economic consequences of automation.

Fortunately, we are not out of luck. We may consider a practically feasible and less distortive solution such as the establishment of a sovereign-wealth fund like the one proposed by Miles Kimball. Under these schemes, we may create a public fund that has the same level of independence as the Federal Reserve System or the European Central Bank. The fund buys equities of existing companies as well as initial public offerings (IPOs) for the fund using available tax revenues. The fund generates a cash flow, from which dividends can be distributed evenly to every citizen. This is consistent with the idea of a universal basic dividend (UBD) suggested by Yanis Varoufakis as an alternative to a universal basic income (UBI).

I do agree with Gates that we need to start discussions about the consequences of automation and desirable solutions to deal with potential challenges from it. It seems that there are many practical obstacles in implementing a robot tax, even though we must find the new source of incomes that complement tax losses due to automation. However, creating a public fund that renders partial ownership to society might serve an attractive and practically feasible solution to robot taxes.

Dr. Kim Hyeong-woo is a professor of economics at Auburn University. He received his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, and his B.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University. He published over 25 SSCI journal articles since 2009 in the areas of macroeconomics, financial economics, and economic forecasting. He can be reached at gmmkim@gmail.com.
Was a bomb found in BTS' concert in New Jersey? Nope! It's just the A.R.M.Y BOMB merchandise, silly!

According to Koreaboo, the Newark Bomb Disposal Unit (BDU) rushed outside the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Friday, March 24 after a bomb was reportedly found in the nearby premises. It wasn't a real bomb though, but the BTS light stick that just happened to be called the "A.R.M.Y BOMB".

BTS fans (or the ARMY) were just minding their own business, waiting in line to enter the Prudential Center when suddenly the Newark BDU arrived on the scene because someone reported a bomb in the area. The BDU even brought their trusty K9 companion to search for the "bomb".

The person who has reported the "bomb" is undoubtedly not a BTS fan since he/she does not know of the A.R.M.Y BOMB merchandise that is being sold outside the center during that time. The BTS merchandise had a little red LED that was meant to look like a fuse.

The Newark BDU eventually left after a 10-minute search in the area and verified there was no threat or whatsoever. Nobody was also hurt during the incident, luckily.

BTS was in Newark, New Jersey on March 23-24 for the "2017 BTS Live Trilogy Episode III (Final Chapter): The Wings Tour". Their next leg will be in the Allstate Arena in Chicago on March 29.

In other news, BTS just signed up with a new record deal in Japan with Def Jam Records, reports Pop Crush. The K-pop group is now label mates with famous record artist like Kanye West, Lady Gaga, and rapper Wale who just collaborated with BTS' Rap Monster with the song "Change".

"We are thrilled to welcome BTS to the Def Jam family. It's remarkable how they have established a strong career in such a short period of time," said Def Jam Records on March 24. "We wish them more successes in the years to come."

BTS' "Wings Tour" will start in Osaka, Japan on May 30. They will also release a Japanese version of their hit song "Blood, Sweat & Tears".
FILE PHOTO - United Parcel Service (UPS) aircraft are loaded and unloaded with air containers full of packages at the UPS Worldport All Points International Hub in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. on December 9, 2016. REUTERS/John Sommers II/File Photo

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday held United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) liable for having illegally shipped hundreds of thousands of cartons of untaxed cigarettes in New York, depriving the state and New York City of millions of dollars of taxes.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan said the state and city are entitled to compensatory damages and fines, and that UPS' "high degree of culpability" meant "significant penalties" were appropriate.

"UPS largely relied on its size and weak internal procedures to excuse blatantly culpable conduct," she wrote. "But there were many, many people within UPS who consciously avoided the truth, for years."

The state and city had sought more than $872 million, and Forrest could determine the award as soon as next month.

UPS was accused of having since 2010 shipped more than 683,000 cartons of untaxed "contraband" cigarettes to unlicensed wholesalers, unlicensed retailers and residences, often from smoke shops on Indian reservations.

The plaintiffs said this violated the Atlanta-based company's October 2005 agreement with the state not to ship cigarettes to unlicensed dealers and individual consumers.

UPS was also accused of violating federal laws against racketeering and cigarette trafficking, as well as New York's public health law.

In her 218-page decision, which followed a non-jury trial in September, Forrest also declined the state's and city's request for injunctive relief and to appoint a monitor, saying UPS had taken many steps to avoid a recurrence.

UPS said in a statement that it was evaluating the decision, but pleased that Forrest found its current tobacco compliance program "adequate."

Eric Schneiderman, the state's attorney general, in a statement called the decision "a win for New York and a win for public health."

Zachary Carter, the New York City Corporation Counsel, said he was also pleased with the decision.

Forrest also rejected UPS' argument to cap any payout, after the company claimed it was blindsided at trial when the plaintiffs sought an award nearly five times the roughly $180 million it had been expecting.

Story continues

The state and city are pursuing a similar lawsuit against UPS rival FedEx Corp (FDX.N), which is being overseen by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan. Any trial in that case is unlikely to begin this year, court records show.

The case is State of New York et al v United Parcel Service Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-01136.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish and Diane Craft)
travis kalanick fountainhead

Google and Uber each need to choose a good book for the judge presiding over their lawsuit, according to the "request for literature" filed in California federal court on Friday.

It's a book recommendation, though, that comes with higher than normal stakes.

Each side gets to name one and only one "book, treatise, article or other reference publicly available" to educate the judge presiding over their legal case about a technology called Lidar and how it's applied to self-driving cars  not your typical bedtime reading, but one that will have seriously influence the judgment of their case.

Last month, Waymo, the self-driving company owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, sued Uber, claiming that one of its employees stole vital Lidar technology shortly before starting his own self-driving company (which Uber later acquired). The trade secrets case is shaping up to be one of the most significant and closely-watched battles in Silicon Valley in years, pitting two of the world's most powerful companies, and former partners, against each other.

That's why Judge William Alsup wants to study up.

According to filing, the judge already knows a lot about lenses and focal lengths. "So, most useful would be literature on adapting LiDAR to self-driving vehicles, including various strategies for positioning light-emitting diodes behind the lens for best overall effect, as well as use of a single lens to project outgoing light as well as to focus on incoming reflections (other than, of course, the patents in suit)," the filing says.

Business Insider's recommended reading list

Both companies will be giving Judge Alsup an in-person tutorial of the technology on April 12, so the book recommendations are due a week before to give plenty of time to read. Uber didn't respond to request for comment, and Google declined to say what it was going to choose.

In the event Waymo or Uber are lacking in ideas, we decided to come up with a few handy suggestions that might be more entertaining than a single book on light-emitting diodes:

Story continues

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PRESS RELEASE

Humanitarian Disasters Unfolding In Mosul, Damascus

March 24, 2017 (EIRNS)UN officials in Iraq warn that the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces assault on western Mosul is setting the conditions for an even larger humanitarian crisis than that which already exists. They estimate that 600,000 people remain in ISIS-controlled parts of the city, including 400,000 trapped under siege-like conditions. "They are desperate for food. They are panicked," Bruno Geddo, UN High Commissioner for Refugees representative in Iraq, speaking from outside Mosul, told reporters in Geneva, reports Al Jazeera.

"The worst is yet to come, if I can put it this way. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions,"

he said.

Civilians are also trapped by U.S.air strikes, which apparently have killed hundreds in the last few days, including one district of the city where buildings collapsed after a U.S. strike triggered a huge explosion. "Finding survivors is very difficult because the area is completely destroyed," Civil Defence chief Brigadier Mohammed Al-Jawari told reporters, reports Reuters. "Its a very big disaster, indeed we can describe it as a disaster." Estimates of the death toll range from 137 to more than 200 people. The situation, overall, is so bad, in fact, that the U.K.-based Airwars group, announced in an email this morning, that it is suspending its assessments of Russian air strikes in Syria so as to avoid falling behind on its assessments of coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria. In March alone, Airwars reports, there have been more than 1,000 civilian casualties alleged from coalition air strikes.

As usual, the U.S.-led coalition wouldnt admit to causing any civilians casualties. "We are aware of reports on airstrikes in Mosul resulting in civilian casualties. The Coalition conducted several strikes near Mosul and we will provide this information to our civilian casualty team for further investigation," the coalition said in a statement.

In Syria, renewed fighting in the northern and western suburbs of Damascus is threatening a new humanitarian disaster. According to the UN, 300,000 people have been cutoff from humanitarian aid because convoys can't bring supplies into the conflict zones. "They are totally dependent on our supplies. Starvation will be just around the corner unless we get there in the coming weeks," Jan Egeland, UN humanitarian adviser on Syria, told Reuters news agency on Thursday. Both the Syrian government and the Russians have attributed the escalation in fighting over the past week or so to efforts by Hayat Tharir al Sham, the current incarnation of Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, to sabotage the intra-Syrian peace talks, which reopened in Geneva yesterday.
Los Angeles International Airport was recently ranked one of the 10 most improved airports in the world.

But SkyTrax, the air-transport industry research company that gave LAX that ranking, also listed the facility as the 86th best airport in the world, behind airports in Russia, South Korea, Colombia and Peru.

LAX officials are hoping to improve the airports perception among travelers by launching an airport-wide employee training program to deliver a gold-standard experience.

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The effort is the airports first facility-wide training program. It includes not only LAX workers  police, janitors and customer service workers  but also employees at the airports restaurants, coffee shops and retail outlets.

In October, the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners approved a contract worth up to $1.6 million with Maryland-based Customer Service Experts to help implement the training program.

Under the program, each of the airports 50,000 employees will watch a one-hour film on how to be more courteous, helpful and informative. New employees will also undergo the training program.

To test workers, Customer Service Experts will send undercover shoppers through the airport to gauge how they are treated by LAX staff and vendors. If an LAX employee gets a low score based on how he or she treated a shopper, the employee will have to undergo additional training.

This program is challenging because we have so many people and so many tenants, said Barbara Yamamoto, chief experience officer at Los Angeles World Airports, which runs LAX. But it is needed.

Still, she noted that LAX employees cant be blamed if a traveler has a bad experience at the airport because of gnarly roadway construction, relocated gates and extra long screening lines.

Theres a lot of things that happen at the airport that are not the fault of any particular person, she said.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.

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Californias push for clean energy is forcing the players  consumers, regulators, utilities and fuel producers  into an uncomfortable dance that has each stepping on others toes.

But all must learn to perform together or risk the reliability of crucial energy services, representatives of the various quarters said during the first of three community forums on the future of energy regulation convened by California Public Utilities Commission.



For the record: This article incorrectly identifies battery company Sonnen Inc. as Sonnen Batterie, which is the name of a Sonnen Inc. product.

Edward Randolph, director of the commissions energy division, issued a word of caution: The energy sector simply must make changes that line up with the states growing mandates for clean energy.

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If they dont want to be a buggy-and-whip company, they have to adjust, Randolph said during Thursdays meeting at the commissions San Francisco headquarters.

George Minter, a regional vice president for Southern California Gas Co., said his company is willing to change, in part by focusing on production of clean gas as an alternative to fossil fuel.

The challenge is how do we address the use of our gas system, the use of our electric system? Minter said.

Challenges abound as utility companies face lower electricity consumption because of increases in energy efficiency and consumers producing their own power; oil refiners must determine how their industry will operate in the slow shift to electric vehicles. And businesses and consumers are looking for ways to cut their costs.

How we all play together and how we all dance together is looking different, said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western State Petroleum Assn., which represents oil refiners. Were all in the same space.

Ultimately, the state is pushing toward a carbon-free electric grid. Current requirements have set mandates for 50% of electricity produced by clean energy by 2030. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon wants to raise the bar to 100% clean energy by 2045.

Even regulators are trying to figure out how to meet the demands.

At the January unveiling of a Tesla Inc. electricity storage system for Southern California Edison, commission President Michael Picker marveled at how rapidly advancements in technology are changing the energy landscape.

The innovation taking place occurs faster than we can regulate, Picker said during the event at Edisons Mira Loma substation in Ontario.

Within the last decade, the electricity industry has undergone a dramatic shift as solar power and developments in electricity storage have become focal points of the new energy economy.

Last year, solar was the source of 39% of new electricity generation deployed around the country, followed by natural gas at 29%.

A key shift: homeowners and businesses have become power producers themselves with rooftop solar panels. Utilities never contemplated consumers sending power to the electric grid when the network of power lines was created a century ago.

Theyre looking at 50% of their load leaving, maybe 80% of their load, leaving over time, Matthew Freedman, an attorney for the Utility Reform Network, an advocacy organization that represents consumers, said during Thursdays forum.

The effect of the changes, Freedman said, could adversely affect not only businesses but also consumers.

As we design policies, we need to be mindful about how technologies and costs are going to change, Freedman said.

Tesla chief Elon Musk is launching the latest version of rooftop solar generation products, a new solar shingle product he demonstrated last fall that would replace the boxy products that currently attach to building rooftops. Musk tweeted Friday that the company will begin taking orders in April.

Tesla and other companies such as Sonnen Batterie also have developed home energy storage options that allow consumers to supply virtually all their electricity needs themselves, although cost for the battery systems remains high.

Coupled with smart technology, the solar and storage packages are increasingly giving consumers greater control of their energy use.

Meanwhile, California regulators and their counterparts nationwide are grappling with the transition from a totally centralized power system dominated by big utilities to one that is more interactive, in which customers buy from and sell power to utilities.

Part of the concern is that as consumers increase their independence from the utility companies, there will be a lack of financial support for the electric grid.

The utility industry argues that power companies provide the cheapest way to produce renewable energy such as solar and wind, which helps meet the states 50% clean energy mandate.

Richard McMahon, vice president of energy supply and finance at the Edison Electric Institute, a utility industry trade group, said in a recent interview that utility-scale solar provides broad benefits, including ensuring reliability of service and lower costs.

Citing an MIT study, McMahon said the installed cost of large-scale solar is more than 80% less than private rooftop solar.

EEIs member companies will continue to invest in Americas energy future and remain focused on providing reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy to all customers, McMahon said.

ivan.penn@latimes.com

For more energy news, follow Ivan Penn on Twitter: @ivanlpenn

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The willful destruction of Richard Neutras masterwork  the 1962 Maslon house  reads like a senseless architectural murder mystery.

Richard Rotenberg bought the Rancho Mirage home in 2002 for $2.45 million, having never set foot inside the incomparable design. Without explanation, he razed it within weeks, eliciting worldwide revulsion. Inflaming that paradox, Rotenberg later sold the lot and left town.

For 15 years, the question  why did he do it?  has swirled around what has become legend in architectural circles.

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Enter French artist Yan Tomaszewski, a nouveau Inspector Clouseau, determined to examine, if not quite solve, that very question. Tomaszewski arrived in Los Angeles from Paris in December, backed by a 9,000-euro French Institute research grant to create an art installation about the Maslon tear-down.

I see this as a drama, because the Maslon destruction is so theatrical, said Tomaszewski, 32, a graduate of Paris Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts.

Tomaszewski plans to stage his installation in Paris or Los Angeles this year or next, after he completes his research.

It will include an art film featuring a subjective model of the 5,000-square-foot, six-bedroom residence, which was commissioned by the late Samuel and Luella Maslon. He is also creating miniature ceramic sculptures of the couples famed, home-based art collection.

A consummate researcher, Tomaszewski has visited Palm Springs five times, interviewing preservationists, architects, real estate agents and Maslons friends.

He has even met with Los Angeles psychoanalysts, exploring rarefied theories about Neutras modernist architecture  clues he uses to puzzle out Rotenbergs motivations.

After reading accounts of the story in Paris two years ago, Tomaszewski pondered what caused such a pure act of destruction. That musing led him to Freuds theory on self-destruction, which in turn led him to the works of late Austrian-British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein.

Central to Tomaszewskis research is Kleins seminal work, Envy and Gratitude (1957), which details binary emotional states that are uncannily played out in the seemingly pointless Maslon demolition.

Tomaszewski views Rotenberg, the buyer, as the personification of envy  an unconscious drive to ruin what is enjoyed and desired by others. Gratitude, the antithesis of envy in Kleinian theory, is epitomized by Neutra and the home, as well as the Maslons and their stunning art collection, Tomaszewski said.

Internalized by the infant mind, the states of envy and gratitude are said to be unconsciously acted out by adults  hence Tomaszewskis psycho-artistic approach.

Yan emailed me and wrote, Im doing this crazy project, recounts Marmol Radziners Leo Marmol, an L.A. architect who has met with the artist several times.

His European voice is unique. Ive been very supportive, Marmol said. Projects like this are opportunities to educate all of us. If architects only talk to architects, were not going to get anywhere.

Vienna-born Neutra, a close friend of Sigmund Freuds son, Ernst, would no doubt revel in Tomaszewskis psychoanalytical take.

Neutra fixated on psychoanalytic theories, believing that his glass-rich designs acted much like an analyst, able to unravel the neuroses of his home buyers. Architectural theorists, in fact, have cast the master modernist as a psychospatial therapist.

Neutra might have enjoyed Tomaszewskis initial designs: The artist has perched some of the miniature Maslon art sculptures on small ceramic copies of the homes couches  as if they are patients undergoing psychoanalysis.

hotproperty@latimes.com

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A classic is a survivor. A classic transcends the winds of change. We see its genius in the timelessness of its appeal.  There is a measure of comfort in our belief that a classic will resist its age. A classic has nothing to do with truth, but it has something to do with wisdom.

These words were spoken recently by Chicago radio host Lin Brehmer and its an apt definition of what has stood the test of time in culture.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returned to Chicago for the 47th time recently after appearing earlier in the month at the Los Angeles Music Center. The companys annual appearance is a Chicago dance tradition, if we ever had one, and a testament to the importance of this predominantly African American contemporary dance company.

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Closing every show is Alvin Aileys masterpiece Revelations, which, coincidentally, premiered 47 years ago too.

Choreographed on the brink of the civil rights movement in America, Revelations was a radical act for its time. Today Revelations is a history lesson through dance that evades antiquity, a timeless reminder of how far weve come, and how far we have to go.

Technically demanding, choreographically sound and aesthetically magnificent, Revelations is the dance version of Rodins The Thinker, or Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. Its the closest we get in dance to a permanent exhibit. Its a classic. And while I often start to complain seeing the same work twice in a season, like most classics, I can (and do) watch this over and over and over, without fatigue.

I never get tired of doing Revelations,  dancer Solomon Dumas said in an interview. At 28, the Chicago native performed at home for the first time since joining the main company. He first glimpsed the iconic work 15 years ago and has since watched or danced it a few hundred times.

I was immediately able to connect with the piece, said Dumas, who recalled renting videos of the company from Chicagos Harold Washington Library and learning parts of the piece during AileyCamp, an outreach program that introduces dance to inner-city kids. Its a period piece, he said, but its timeless. For me, performing [Revelations] is a spiritual experience.

In her 17 years with the company, dancer Hope Boykin has performed Revelations thousands of times. I believe in all of what Revelations stands for, she said in a phone interview.

Mr. Ailey was honest enough to let the work come through him  and its my duty to uphold that work. Im not perfect, but Im striving to be all of those things I hear every night, said Boykin, referring to familiar gospel hymns like Fix Me, Jesus and Didnt My Lord Deliver Daniel that accompany the dance. This work is still so relevant, she said. Audiences are so moved by this work.  It has changed people.

Artistic director Robert Battle recognizes the delicate balance between legacy and currency in running a company that is approaching its 60th anniversary. Battle said hes broadened the companys repertory during his tenure to incorporate works outside Aileys typical aesthetic (adopting works like Ohad Naharins Minus 16 and Christopher Wheeldons After the Rain).

Hes learning to get beyond the awe of the responsibility as the director of a company that has changed hands only twice  founder Ailey hand-picked Judith Jamison to run the company prior to his death in 1989, and Jamison picked Battle when she stepped down in 2011.

Its getting more and more comfortable all the time, said Battle, but he admitted it took some time to find his voice and learn to trust his instincts.

Joining Revelations across three unique lineups during the five-day Chicago engagement was Masekela Language (1969), a lesser-known Ailey work that draws connections between the South African apartheid and the Chicago race riots of the 1960s, plus two new dances also focused on the African American experience: the first installment of Kyle Abrahams three-part Untitled America and Boykins r-Evolution, Dream. Abrahams Untitled America examines the criminal justice system and the effects of incarceration on African American families, while Boykins r-Evolution, Dream, her third piece of choreography for the company, was inspired by recordings of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Battle will likely continue to move Ailey forward, but now or in the future, he may never get away with ending a show without Revelations.

I put a poll out on Facebook, asking why Revelations still matters, and the resounding theme across a few dozen responses was, It just does. Revelations represents more than the Ailey dance company. It represents the faith, beauty and complexity of African American culture. It imbues pain, and humanity and joy. And, for some, it is the best possible representation of how Dance (capital D) can bring people together.

Alvin Ailey wanted dance to be accessible, said Battle. People find relief in being together and attending the theater, and dance is nonpolarizing. Its abstract enough that [viewers are] not being bombarded, and they can decide what that means to them.

Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.

ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com

calendar@latimes.com
Brendan Pattengale started out wanting to be a commercial fashion photographer, but the draw of nature was too powerful to resist.

Every summer hed join his parents, avid backpackers, in the Eastern Sierra backcountry, and he has hiked with a brother from Bishop to Mt. Whitney. But it was a trip to Georgia OKeeffes Ghost Ranch in New Mexico four years ago that reinvigorated Pattengales passion for landscapes. Ever since then Ive been on a maniacal quest for colors, the Los Angeles photographer said.

A selection of Pattengales vibrant, painterly panoramas are on display through April 8 at the Fahey/Klein Gallery in L.A. as part of the show Young Blood, which includes four other young photographers distinct approach to color. Nick Cope and Dustin Arnold take a dark, dusty turn with a still life of withering plants exposed to household chemicals, while Chad Pitmans series features fruits and nuts decomposed during the course of a year. Torkil Gudnasons life-affirming arrangements are neon flower studies constructed in the studio.

Pattengale travels to Northern Chile, Bolivia, Iceland and other far-off locales where he watches the sun set, the moon rise and the landscape react to the light in the hours in between. I wait to see what the Earth and atmosphere reveals in regards to color, he said, adding that his bag of tricks includes a stash of sunglasses with different-colored lenses.

Brendan Pattengales Your Light and Love, Bolivia, 2016, 40 inches by 60 inches. (Brendan Pattengale / Fahey/Klein Gallery) ( Brendan Pattengale / Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles)

Brendan Pattengales Now I See the Light, Chile, 2017, 40 inches by 60 inches. (Brendan Pattengale / Fahey/Klein Gallery) ( Brendan Pattengale / Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles)

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His abstract vistas and valleys are transformed by various photographic techniques. In Your Light and Love, an iceberg rises from a lavender Bolivian lake as a deep orange sun reflects in the water. Now I See the Light is a desert layered with rich browns, golden yellow and dusty red resembling the lush saturation of an animated film.

I feel nature lives and breathes like humans and has an emotion and spirit. Pattengale said. I try to capture the grandeur of that special glow that emanates from the land.

Brendan Pattengales You Know You Were So True, Iceland, 2016, 40 inches by 60 inches. (Brendan Pattengale / Fahey/Klein Gallery) ( Brendan Pattengale / Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles)

Follow The Times arts team @culturemonster.

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The Oscar-winning co-writer of the film Birdman, Alexander Dinelaris, toys with themes of human mortality and the after-effects of pathological parenting in his frustratingly uneven play Still Life, now at Rogue Machine Theatre.

The action centers on Carrie Ann (Laurie Okin), a successful professional photographer who recently lost her father, Theo (Frank Collison), also a professional photographer. That death has resulted in Carrie Anns complete artistic paralysis  a grief that Dinelaris aggrandizes far past its dramatic viability.

Carrie Ann meets trend analyst Jeffrey (Lea Coco) at an exhibition of her work. Metaphorical images of dead animals strike a chord with Jeffrey, who happens to be awaiting his own potentially dire medical prognosis. The two quickly become an item, but even meeting the love of her life is not enough to snap Carrie Ann out of her professional torpor. A modern-day Bartleby, the Photographer, she simply prefers not to pick up a camera  much to our increasing exasperation.

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Dinelaris mingles the corrosive with the treacly in his meandering drama, which often seems like a blitz of unrelated scenes and monologues. However, at its most acidic, the play has offbeat characters and crisply acerbic dialogue that can fascinate. Susan Wilder is particularly effective as Joanne, a powerhouse academic and Carrie Anns scathingly truthful mentor, while Jonathan Bray also shines as Terry, Jeffreys bumptiously lecherous but emotionally fragile employer. Both layer welcome crust onto all that soft sentimentality.

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The cast also includes Nardeep Khurmi as Sean, Jeffreys doctor friend; Jennifer Sorenson, who plays, among other roles, Seans wife; and Tania Verafield as a student photographer who accompanies Carrie Ann on a National Geographic shoot to the Serengeti. (No, Carrie Ann still wont take a picture.) As a last-minute substitute for another actor, Verafield also played several other roles with considerable aplomb.

Thomas Buderwitzs set, flanked by blown-up projections of ill-composed photographs, is simple to a fault. Although director Michael Peretzian delivers a few crackling scenes, he fails to stop the plays slow slide into bathos. Peretzian consistently coats the proceedings in honey when an acid bath is required.

         

Still Life

Where: Rogue Machine Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Los Angeles

When: 8:30 p.m. Saturdays and Mondays, 3 p.m. Sundays, through April 23

Tickets: $40

Follow The Times arts team @culturemonster.

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Ghouls, headless horsemen, werewolves and monsters in all stages of reanimation recently lost a key patron.

On March 19, Liz Wrightson confirmed that her husband, Bernie, beloved artist and creator of many things that go bump in the night, had died at 68 after a long battle with brain cancer.

Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson. (Bernie Wrightson / Publisher: Dark Horse Books / Co) (Bernie Wrightson / Publisher: Dark Horse Books / Co)

As a statement on the artists website thanked fans and friends for all the years of love and support, comics and horror aficionados around the globe mourned the loss of their maestro.

R.I.P. to the great Bernie Wrightson, a star by which other pencillers chart their course, director Joss Whedon tweeted. Bernie Wrightson was the first comics artist whose work I loved, author Neil Gaiman wrote. Horror connoisseur Guillermo del Toro took a 24-hour pledge of silence in honor of his favorite artist, As it comes to all of us, the end came for the greatest that ever lived: Bernie Wrightson, Del Toro wrote. My North dark star of youth. A master.

Though Wrightson may not have been a household name outside his canon, the passion of the testimonials was not surprising. No one uncovered the soul of a monster like Wrightson, who found the gorgeous in the grotesque. A few slashes of his pen revealed the twisted green lips and furrowed brow of Swamp Thing, a monster he created with writer Len Wein. The precise placement of each hair on the furry body of a werewolf rocketed the beast right off the page. Wrightsons little lines were magic.

Best known for his transformation of Mary Shelleys classic, the monster that became known by the name of his fictional creator. The 1983 book Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein complemented Shelleys tale with page after page of illustrations that forever changed the image of Frankensteins Monster.

Bernie Wrightsons cover for Frankenstein (Dark Horse Books/ Bernie Wrightson)

Recasting the the lantern-jawed look made famous by actor Boris Karloff into a sunken-cheeked creature, Wrightsons contoured lines made the undead beast look more like a lost, lonely soul. His strokes relined the face of a monster into the face of a corpse you couldnt help but connect with.

The Maryland native began his career as an illustrator for the the Baltimore Sun, but after meeting genre artist Frank Frazetta at a comics convention he decided to follow his passion full time. Like many artists in the 70s and 80s, Wrightson headed to New York in hopes of landing a gig with DC, Marvel or any other comics publisher. At one point Wrightson was living in the same Queens apartment building as artists Allen Milgrom, Howard Chaykin and Walter Simonson.

We'd get together at 3 a.m., Simonson recalled. They'd come up and we'd have popcorn and sit around and talk about whatever a 26, 27 and 20-year-old guys talk about. Our art, TV, you name it. I pretty much knew at the time, These are the good ole days.

Despite his own success as an artist for Marvels Thor, Simonson bowed to Wrightson. Even at an early age, he said, we were all really in awe of his work, it was so good.

Besides being able to draw anything he wanted, Simonson added, Wrightson was a master of value  the depth and tone of the colors.

Comic book artist Bernie Wrightson at the Wizard World Austin Comic Con at the Austin Convention Center on October 26, 2012 in Austin, Texas. (Gary Miller / FilmMagic) (Gary Miller / FilmMagic)

In drawing or in painting, one of the things that you control is the value, which is the light and dark, he explained. If you were to take your color TV set and somehow turn off the color and just have a black and white and gray picture, you're looking at the values of those color pictures. Frankenstein is a complete masterpiece of value, using incredibly complex pictures, and yet you always see exactly what you are supposed to see. He drives the eye right where it needs.

Moments after the news of Wrightsons passing broke, the Internet was awash with Wrightsons illustrations. Elaborate covers of Marvels Doctor Strange and issues of Creepy magazine and Swamp Thing tributes filled online feeds, but the most arresting (and shared) image came from his Frankenstein files. The black-and-white plates dominated the discussion. Artists and fans championed Wrightsons use of negative space, his lifework and most of all his attention to detail.

Inside Frankensteins laboratory. An example of one of Bernie Wrightsons intricate works from the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelleys Frankenstein. (Bernie Wrightson/Dark Horse Books)

His interpretation of Frankensteins laboratory, for example, is a riot of detail, said Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics. It might take a moment before you even notice the corpse laying at the bottom of the composition on the left. That makes it a bit more of a treasure map. Bit more of a Where Is Waldo?

It's so complicated and yet he's able to show you what he wants you to see, Simonson said. In some ways [the lab scene is] the core of the story. It's where Frankenstein breaks the laws of God. I think people were just drawn to it cause it's so completely over the top and yet it's so completely controlled at the same time.

Wrightsons penciling work was equally unparalleled. Last year, during a tour of his extensive library of art and pop culture memorabilia at Bleak House, Del Toro instantly named Wrightsons Frankenstein as the pieces in his catalog that were the hardest to find.

They are very rare, the director said at the time. The people that have them don't let them go. It's taken me years to get that. I have nine out of the 13 favorite plates of the Frankenstein book that Bernie Wrightson ever did. The other four: one of them, no one knows where it is, and the other three are, I would say, very hard to pry away from the people that have them.

But it wasnt just the vision or the control or the intricate panels he drew like no other  that influenced so many  it was what lay behind them.

He was a genius, and not just a monster guy, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola said in heartfelt testimonial on Facebook. Everything Bernie did had soul."

meredith.woerner@latimes.com

Twitter: @MdellW

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Sure, rom-com enthusiasts might be having all the feels now that the sequel to 2003s Love Actually has been unveiled (for some of us, at least), but Andrew Lincoln has a bone to pick.

I dont say anything! Lincoln playfully cracked during a recent sit-down to discuss The Walking Dead. I was like, you got me back here? Everybody else has got a line, and youre not giving me any? I didnt even get radio miked! I was like, can I improvise a funny line at the end? And they just went, no.

Almost 15 years after the original movie was released  becoming something of a holiday classic in the years since  the Richard Curtis film got a 10-minute sequel that premiered Friday as part of Britains Red Nose Day telethon Those in the U.S. can watch the Love Actually skit during Comic Reliefs Red Nose Day on NBC May 24. But viewers across the pond have already tweeted plenty of spoilers.

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Dubbed Red Nose Day Actually, the 10-minute short film checks in with many of the Love Actually characters to see where they are in 2017.

That meant more card-holding for Lincoln.

The 43-year-old English actor has become the face of one of the most iconic moments in the rom-com movie canon. Say the words Love Actually, and the image of him, years before he came to be known in the U.S. for his role in The Walking Dead, holding cue cards that profess his unrequited love outside his beloveds home is likely to come to mind.

Among the many plotlines in the 2003 film is the story between Juliet (Kiera Knightley), her husband, Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and his best mate Mark (Lincoln). Mark is hopelessly in love with Juliet. But to hide that fact, he treats Juliet poorly. Later in the film, Mark shows up outside Peter and Juliets home with a CD player (remember those?) and the notecards that declare his love to her. (Juliet opens the door while Peter stays watching TV on the couch.)

Lincoln says the scene resonated so deeply that he began getting requests for him to reenact it.

People want me to help out their love lives, Lincoln said. Ive become the Patron Saint of Marriage Proposal Miming. I mean, who wouldve thought?

But he was more than willing to keep up the act for a sequel for Red Nose Day, a British charity telethon created by comedian Lenny Henry and Curtis that uses live comedy, music and sketches to raise money and awareness for Comic Relief, a charity that supports children living in poverty in the U.K. and Africa.

It is a bit of a light snack, rather than a full meal, Curtis told The Times of the film. And, no, dont expect a full-fledged follow-up. It wont happen, Curtis said.

In the mini-sequel, Lincolns Mark has once again popped up outside Juliets door with some cards. And the scene put his facial muscles to work.

I turned him into a mime artist, Curtis said. He doesnt speak again. But he jokingly added,  I should have given him something.

Lincoln was more concerned that it might be a bit creepy that hes still pulling the cue card stunt after all these years.

Im back outside her door, Lincoln said. I told Richard, Wait, now Im going to be considered the Patron Saint of Stalking. How many years has it been?

The cards, which Lincoln wrote himself, as he did in the original, inquire how Juliet and Peter are getting on. Then, in a nod to the original, its revealed that Mark has, indeed, ended up with a supermodel. If you want to know who, were sure Twitter can tell you.

Lincoln, while pleased that Mark does have a happy ending, just wishes he could have vocalized his happiness.

One word. Give me one line, he said.

The most-read Entertainment stories this hour 

yvonne.villarreal@latimes.com

Twitter: @villarrealy
Good morning. Im Paul Thornton, The Times letters editor, and it is March 25, 2017. Lets take a look back at the week in Opinion.

Is Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare)  who chairs the House Intelligence Committee and oversees its ostensibly independent investigation of President Trump s baseless wiretapping claims and Russian campaign meddling  begging for a select committee or special prosecutor to do his job for him? Because with his announcement this week that members of the Trump transition team had their communications incidentally collected by intelligence agencies and his decision to brief the president on his findings, thats exactly where Nunes is headed.

At the end of a bizarre week in Washington that included the heads of the FBI and National Security Agency knocking down Trumps claim that his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower, confirmation that the FBI has been investigating any possible Trump campaign connections to the Russian hacking, and Nunes breach of protocol and possibly ethics in briefing the White House, The Times Editorial Board warns Nunes that his credibility is coming into question:

Sure enough, Trump, who famously (and recklessly) accused former President Obama of ordering the wiretapping of Trump Tower during the election, said he felt somewhat vindicated by Nunes revelations  even though FBI Director James Comey and Nunes himself have debunked that assertion. This wasnt the first time that Nunes has come to Trumps assistance. At an Intelligence Committee hearing Monday at which Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers testified about Russian involvement in last years presidential campaign, Nunes and other Republicans focused on leaks of classified information. Trump tweeted that same day: The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now! Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, complained that Nunes decision to share information with the White House before he provided it to the committee was a profound irregularity. He warned that Nunes cannot conduct a credible investigation this way. Hes right: Nunes shouldnt be briefing the president whose election campaign his committee is expected to scrutinize. Unless the chairman can reassure the public and his colleagues, including the panels Democrats, that his freelancing days are over, the public may look elsewhere  the Senate Intelligence Committee or a proposed 9/11-style independent commission  for a trustworthy account. >> Click here to read more

No matter what happens, well still have to deal with Russia. Its increasingly autocratic and assertive leader Vladimir Putin deserved the attention of the U.S. long before his countrys campaign meddling. Lines of communication between the two nuclear superpowers must be kept open, writes The Times Editorial Board, but the Trump administration must continue to impose sanctions on Russia for interfering in Ukraine. L.A. Times

Is it reasonable for police to shoot someone in his or her own home? In 2011, Los Angeles County Sheriffs deputies entered a home whose occupants were asleep. One man, dazed and startled by the intruders, set his hand on a nearby BB gun, prompting the deputies to shoot him and the woman he was with. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether to uphold a 9th Circuit decision awarding $4.2 million to the couple; it should. L.A. Times

The country is starting to realize what California has long known: that one year of exceptionally wet weather will not come close to alleviating the states water crisis. The complex system of reservoirs, dams and levees built to tame the states extreme swings between parching dryness and unrelenting soakings barely withstood this wet seasons torrential rains, and it remains to be seen if California can safely store all the springtime and summer snowmelt yet to trickle down from the mountains. Meanwhile, decades of careless groundwater overuse have resulted in well failures even now  and the extremes will only get worse with climate change. New Yorker

Is this what they think of us? This tastelessly whimsical look at our state, which places us somewhere between hopelessly demoralized and naively optimistic, tries to be funny about the inflated self-importance of Trump-era Californians (our bougainvillea catches the rising sun in San Clemente, but our schools stink). I say tries because the pieces opening joke (for lack of a better term)  that the snowflakes in West Hollywood were so tired of politics after November they postponed their municipal election  misfires in the premise and the punchline: No such postponement took place, and all anyone in L.A. has been talking about since November has been politics. We on the West Coast are used to journalistic head-scratchers from the East, but really? Washington Post

Give Chelsea Clinton a break. News broke that the former first daughter would be receiving an award, and the Internet just about lost it. She has given no indication that shes interested in running for the U.S. Senate, but shes still eyed (critically) as a contender. And much of the vitriol comes from a surprising place, notes Ann Friedman: the left. It needs to stop. L.A. Times

Reach me: paul.thornton@latimes.com
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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A veteran U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent was accused this week of working with an organized crime figure to help a Mexican national with multiple convictions reenter the country illegally.

Felix Cisneros was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of a felony count of aiding and assisting an inadmissible alien to enter the United States, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.

The 42-year-old Murrieta resident had worked with ICE for 10 years and was assigned to the agencys Homeland Security Investigations office in the Inland Empire, according to the U.S. attorneys office in Los Angeles.

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Cisneros worked as an undercover agent and investigated money laundering as well as human and narcotics trafficking, according to court records.

He was contacted in 2013 by a key figure of a criminal organization based in Southern California to assist the unidentified Mexican national, according to FBI Special Agent Brian Adkins, who wrote the federal affidavit.

At the time, the man was working for the organized crime leader in the oil and gas industry, and had traveled to Mexico to negotiate business transactions, Adkins said.

When the man tried to reenter the U.S. in July 2013, he was detained at Los Angeles International Airport and his passport was confiscated because of an arrest warrant for fraud, which was issued by the Burbank Police Department, according to Adkins.

Because the man was ineligible to enter the country, he was temporarily allowed to remain in the U.S. for 90 days, Adkins wrote. The man was then ordered to appear at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection deferred inspections office in Los Angeles.

The Mexico native was a legal permanent resident of the U.S. but had multiple criminal convictions for financial fraud, Adkins wrote. The man also admitted to bribing a politician as well as a state prosecuting agency to replace a prosecutor who was investigating an associate of the organized crime figure, the special agent said.

The financial fraud conviction would have barred the Mexican national from entering the U.S., Adkins said.

A month later, according to Adkins, the crime figure asked the man to return to Mexico again to negotiate an oil and gas deal.

But there was a problem.

The man didnt have his passport.

Thats when Cisneros coordinated a meeting likely through deception between the man and a Customs and Border Protection officer at LAX, according to Adkins, who said he believes Cisneros convinced the officer to return the passport after claiming the man was a confidential informant and witness in court proceedings.

After obtaining his passport, the man traveled to Mexico City and later flew back to LAX.

According to Adkins, Cisneros contacted Customs and Border Protection officers and persuaded them to allow the man to reenter the U.S.

Adkins affidavit included call logs and instant messages of alleged conversations between Cisneros and the man before and after the business trip.

If Cisneros is convicted, he could face 10 years in federal prison.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
Los Angeles police fatally shot a suspect in Boyle Heights early Saturday, forcing the temporary closure of a Metro Gold Line station, authorities said.

Officers were on patrol near 1st and Soto streets around midnight when they heard gunshots, according to a statement from LAPD.

The officers drove toward the sound of gunfire and encountered a suspect, according to the news release. The shooting occurred when they tried to stop the suspect.

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The suspect, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

A gun was recovered at the scene, authorities said.

No other details were available about the shooting, which remains under investigation.

The Metro Gold Line was running in both directions, and the station at 1st and Soto streets was reopened shortly before 11 a.m. Saturday.

carlos.lozano@latimes.com

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11:10 a.m.: This article was updated with new information about Metro Gold Line operations.

This article was originally posted at 10:20 a.m.
An engineering expert who visited the troubled Lake Oroville reservoir said this week that it would be nearly impossible for the state to complete temporary repairs to its fractured and eroded main spillway by a target date of Nov. 1.

In a report submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week, a panel of five independent consulting engineers warned that a significant risk would be incurred if the main spillway was not operational after October, which is the traditional start of Californias rainy season.

However, an engineering and risk management expert who was not part of the consulting panel told The Times this week that he doubted the state could meet such a close deadline.

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I think that is a challenging timeline, said Robert Bea of UC Berkeleys Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.

Bea, a retired civil engineering professor who led an investigation into failure of the New Orleans levee system after Hurricane Katrina, visited the reservoir recently to review inspection documents, as well as the report by the Independent Board of Consultants.

The consultants proposed that temporary repairs to the spillway be completed by Nov. 1, and that permanent repairs be completed after the rainy season.

In order to accomplish this, report authors said the Department of Water Resources should award grading contracts by March 31, complete design plans by mid-May and approve a construction contract by June 1. That would give the company five months to complete the work, the report suggested.

Bea said that schedule leaves little space for unanticipated problems.

Previous experience with these kinds of rushed field construction projects clearly indicates  expect the unexpected, Bea said. There will be delays that result in extension of optimistic schedules.

According to department spokeswoman Lauren Bisnett, the agency is still formulating a plan of action.

We are in the process of analyzing alternative approaches, both temporary and permanent, and we expect to detail that process and preferred alternatives within the next weeks, Bisnett wrote in an email Friday.

She said the agency was committed to completing the job on time.

DWR has stated from the beginning that our objective is to have a fully functional spillway before the start of the next storm season  response and recovery efforts are being expedited to make that happen. Bisnett wrote.

The spillway, although not part of Oroville Dam itself, is the primary means of releasing water from Lake Oroville in a controlled fashion. Without it, water levels would steadily rise until the reservoir overflowed and flooded the Feather River and surrounding communities.

A steeply sloped stretch of concrete some 3,000 feet long, the main spillway is as wide as a four-lane highway. Water released from the reservoir can speed along the channel at more than 50 miles per hour, and the force it exerts on the concrete is tremendous.

After half a century of service, those forces finally hammered through the spillways concrete deck and caused a major crisis in February, when more than 100,000 area residents were evacuated.

Since then, the Department of Water Resources has scrambled to shore up and stabilize erosion at the main spillway and an earthen emergency spillway.

The agency has also had to perform a delicate balancing act as it alternates between conducting repairs to the main spillway and using it to release runoff from a record season of rain and snow.

The result has been a yo-yo effect with the reservoirs water level.

Bill Croyle, acting director for the agency, estimated that crews may have to release water down the main spillway two more times before June.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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A man in his 20s was shot and killed in Westlake on Friday afternoon, police said.

Authorities have not yet identified the victim, who was slain about 2:15 p.m. on the corner of West 2nd Street and South La Fayette Park Place, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Gus Barrientos of the LAPDs Rampart station.

We have a murder, we have a victim, Barrientos said. We dont have a name.

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Police received a call of shots fired about 2:15 p.m. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, Barrientos said. Police do not have suspects but believe one or more men may have killed the man. It was unclear whether the shooting was gang-related, Barrientos said.

Fourteen people have been killed within a one-mile radius of Fridays shooting, according to the Homicide Report, The TImes online database.

Police are asking anyone with information about Fridays shooting to call LAPD Rampart Community Station homicide detectives at (213) 484-3650.

Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli.
The Los Angeles skyline serves as a backdrop for the Boyle Hotel and Mariciachi Plaza in Boyle Heights. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Past the looming maze of freeway interchanges on the west side of Cesar Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights sits Bikys Market, a light blue building with a dusty green awning.

On the days that San Antonio de Padua Church across the street is closed, locals come here to confide their troubles to store owner Sue Kim.

Theyre drug related, divorce related, cheating related; sometimes they sound like soap operas, said Kim, 55, who runs the convenience store with her husband, Steve. They know I can listen and give advice.

These days, customers seem to be talking about one more thing: President Trump.

As the Kims see it, Trump and his promised immigration crackdown have altered the mood in the neighborhood they serve.

Two weeks ago, Steve and other residents learned that a local auto shop mechanic, anticipating he might be deported, had quit his job and moved back to Mexico.

He was just a working man, he said.

Sue Kim shakes her head.

Theyre so scared, I think theyre hiding, she said.

Bikys Market is at the center of one of Americas most iconic Latino neighborhoods. Boyle Heights for generations was an Ellis Island for immigrants entering America  both legally and illegally. They were Jewish, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Armenian. Eventually, most who came were from Mexico.

So profound was Boyle Heights transformation into a mecca of Mexican American culture that city leaders in 1994 changed the name of the neighborhoods main drag  Brooklyn Avenue  to honor civil rights pioneer Cesar Chavez.

On this street, talk of Trump is everywhere. Its mostly critical. And its tinged with anxiety and uncertainty.

The market

Sue Kim and her husband run a small convenience store along Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights. The business has been in the family almost 40 years. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Juan Najera, 57, enters the market to buy a soda. He has known the Kims for years now, and they quickly began chatting.

Najera, a car window installer, is in the country illegally.

I never got around to getting my documents in order, he said. I know what might happen, but if they deport me to Mexico its fine. All my family is there.

Najera came to the United States in 1988 for a new life. His wife and daughter followed in 1990. Four years later, the couple separated. Najeras daughter is now in her 30s and has two daughters of her own.

I worry more about her, he said. She has a work permit, but shes trying to get everything settled just in case.

He said his son in-law has been waiting 14 years for a green card. Even though their applications are being processed, Najera said, he feels his daughters family is still in danger of being deported.

Anything is possible with this president, Najera said.

Immigrants ask: What happens to my child if I'm deported?

He follows current events religiously  to stay informed and to get more material for his music. Najera is in a punk rock band called Unrest 92. The name was inspired by the 1992 L.A. riots.

He writes songs for the band, sings and plays the guitar too.

As Najera pays for his soda, the Kims say its customers like him that they worry about.

It's like hes family, Sue Kim said. I worry so much.

When Steve Kim has the television news on inside his market, customers cant help but comment.

They say, Youre watching him?! Kim, 69, said. I myself am not happy with him [Trump], but I still want to know what he says.

Kim said customers tell him theyre angry and stressed over the rhetoric about minorities, particularly Mexican immigrants.

The customers worry about immigration, about deportations and even the possibility of war, Kim said.

Born in Seoul, Steve Kim came to the United States in 1975. A green card holder, he settled in Long Beach, rented a small apartment and looked for work.

In the mid-1980s, Kim purchased the little market on Warren Street and Cesar Chavez.

Back then, the area was plagued by gangs and crime. But over the years, the neighborhood has improved and his store has become something of a hangout, even a sanctuary. The Kims say that as immigrants, they can relate to the dreams and worries of their mostly Latino customers.

They have watched the children coming into their store grow up. Some have returned as adults, with their own children.

Some grew up to become police officers, and some turn out bad, Steve Kim said. Theres a lot of sad stories; some went to jail or got killed.

Its about building relationships, Sue Kim said. Theyre our customers and our neighbors. We live together. I love them all.

The hearse driver

Hearse driver William Monge, a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, supports Donald Trump. Monge said, the way he sees it, most Latinos tend to have more conservative values than liberal ones anyway. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Two miles east of the Kims market, where Cesar Chavez shifts from business to residential district, Will Monge stands next to a hearse near a cemetery.

The 47-year-old shouldnt be alive. But he is, and he thinks its for a reason.

Ive been shot five times. Ive been stabbed multiple times. Ive been left for dead in the streets. Ive been an addict. Ive been in the penitentiary, he said of the years when he was involved with gangs.

Then Monge found God and found value in work as a hearse driver. His faith and conservative values led him to support Trump for president. He also agreed with some of Trumps policies.

Even though Monge works in a heavily immigrant community, he doesnt share the outrage and fear of many in Boyle Heights over Trumps vow to deport those here illegally.

Monge believes Trump will deport only people with criminal records here illegally, and thats fine with him.

When is the Latino going to wake up and say, You know what, we need to do things for ourselves? he said. You cannot go on the street and start demanding from a country that is established with established borders and established laws. These are their laws and their borders.

He hopes people will give Trump a chance.

Monge was born in Los Angeles. His father had come to the U.S. after fleeing Nicaragua and the leftist Sandinistas. His mother, who is Colombian, left her homeland and never returned because of the violent conflict between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The family lived in the Pico-Union District. When Monge was 10, they moved to Highland Park and later Watts.

It was violent and dangerous in South L.A., he said. The first day we moved in, someone broke into the garage.

One day, his parents were walking near 111th Street and Avalon Boulevard when they were robbed at gunpoint. His father was shot but survived.

Monge began to do angel dust during the 1980s. He stopped going to school and spent more time around gang members. He served time in prison through his 20s and 30s.

When he got out, I let everything go. I got focused on school. I stopped the drugs and drinking, he said.

He attended trade tech and graduated as a graphic design artist in 2010.

I got focused in the church, he said. We do a lot of outreach at juvenile halls, high schools. And we worked closely with gang intervention groups.

He said that during last years election, things got intense at work because he was the only Trump supporter; everyone else was backing Hillary Clinton.

Youve got four years; work with the guy, Monge said, hoping people will give Trump a chance. People fear change.

The muralist

Adrian Ulloa, 21, stands in front of a mural he worked on that was recently completed on the side of a dollar store that runs along Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in the Boyle Heights. The mural is titled Love our Mothers. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Amid the bustle and noise of Boyle Heights shopping district, Adrian Sarto Ulloa manages to drown out the sounds from the taco joints, clothing shops, hardware stores and other Latino businesses that line this stretch of Cesar Chavez near Cummings Street.

Under the midday sun, Ulloa, 21, he meticulously moves a spray can up and down, touching up the tail of a green hummingbird on the mural hes creating.

The mural, Love our Mothers, is devoted to the community and mothers throughout the world. It stands for the awareness of climate change and to support immigrants and to empower people and resist the Trump administration.

Ill just say, Im motivated to paint for the next four years, he said.

To Ulloa, Los Angeles murals represent a view of the Latino immigrant experience far different from the one Trump painted on the campaign trail. He knows many in Boyle Heights feel embattled and afraid, and hopes his own art can be a counterpoint to that.

Ulloa teaches graffiti art at Soledad Enrichment Action in Boyle Heights, a nonprofit started by mothers who lost their sons to gang violence.

He said that one of his students who is in the country illegally was helping him finish the mural when immigration agents showed up in the area. While federal officials have said that no new crackdowns have been launched since Trump took office, Ulloa said the sighting rattled many.

A Mexican American, Ulloa was raised in Boyle Heights. To him, art was a salvation, a passion that kept him on track.

Painting definitely saved my life, no doubt about it, he said.

The mother

At the far eastern edge of Boyle Heights, 42-year-old Rosalba sits on a chair and ponders her new job.

She doesnt have a uniform, but Rosalba is now working as the security guard at a store that sells boilers on Cesar Chavez at the East Los Angeles border.

Until recently she worked in the garment trade, cutting the extra wool from newly sewn clothes.

But she quit a few weeks ago, fearing she could be swept up in immigration raids.

There were rumors that they have been making their way around garment factories, she said.

The new job feels safer, less exposed, she said.

Rosalba was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and came to the U.S. illegally in 1992, when she was 16. (She asked that her last name not be used because she fears being deported.)

She attended Montebello High School, met her husband at the garment factory where she worked and got married in 2003.

Her son and daughters are U.S. citizens, but Trumps election and his promised crackdown on people here illegally has left Rosalba feeling anxious.

Its terrible, she said. Im hearing that they might go into peoples homes and arrest them? Its just absolutely awful, to just come and grab people out of nowhere.

Miguel, who also did not want his last named used in order to protect his mother, said they talk about Trump whenever hes on the news. Hes frustrated, knowing that his mom could be deported, but he tries not to think about it.

When hes not busy studying, however, the thoughts creep in.

I think about what if, said 19-year-old Miguel, who goes to East Los Angeles College and plans to apply for Cal State Northridge. I would be in charge of my sisters, and I havent found a job, so how am I going to support them?

Despite immigration officials ramping up operations and news of deportations, Rosalba and Miguel have yet to discuss a plan.

I worry. Im scared something may happen to me, Rosalba said. But I try not to think too much about it. I cant worry about it so much.

I hope nothing happens.

Jessica Alvarez takes a photo of Briana Alvarez on a visit to Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) (Luis Sinco /)

Lead photo: The Los Angeles skyline serves as a backdrop for the Boyle Hotel and Mariciachi Plaza in Boyle Heights. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

ruben.vives@latimes.com

Twitter: @latvives

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Tuesday marked an obscure anniversary in American history: It was 114 years to the day after President Theodore Roosevelt established the first national wildlife refuge, in Pelican Island, Fla.

Countless birds had been slaughtered in the area for their feathers, and the federal designation stopped the mass killings. Now, more than 560 wildlife refuges across the country have been set aside, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says, for wildlife first.

Yet the meaning of that phrase was muddied in the minds of many conservationists on the refuge systems anniversary this year.

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On Tuesday, the Senate voted to repeal a rule created by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last summer to end some controversial hunting practices in national wildlife refuges in Alaska. The measure now awaits the signature of President Trump.

Acting under the rarely used Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress by a majority vote to overturn rules approved by federal agencies within 60 legislative days of their adoption, the Senate restored policies adopted by Alaska game officials to increase the number of animals such as moose and caribou  prized by hunters  by making it easier to kill the animals that prey on them.

State policies allow the killing of bear cubs and sows, killing wolves and their cubs in their dens, baiting grizzly bears, shooting bears from aircraft, shooting bears in baiting areas on the same day a hunter flies into a hunting area, and capturing bears with traps and snares.

The measure to remove the federal prohibition, which cleared the House in February, was sponsored there by Rep. Don Young of Alaska, the chambers longest-serving Republican and a longtime critic of federal hunting restrictions on public lands in Alaska.

Young and other Alaska lawmakers cast the issue as a matter of states rights and preservation of traditional subsistence hunting.

In Alaska, many hunt for survival, both personal and cultural, said Sen. Daniel Sullivan, a fellow Republican, after the vote. Alaskans have been able to maintain these strong and life-sustaining traditions through a rigorous scientific process that allows for public participation and ensures we manage our fish and game for sustainability, as required by the Alaska Constitution.

But the measure, which was approved largely along party lines in both chambers, met loud opposition from Democrats, who noted that refuges are federal land, that scientific studies question whether killing predators will substantially increase other game, and that predators are a key part of healthy ecosystems.

Conservation groups sharply criticized the Senate vote.

Rolling back protections for predators defies everything wildlife refuges stand for, said Emily Jeffers, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, in an email. Refuges are places where we celebrate biological diversity, not where wolves and bears are inhumanely killed for no good reason. Its an outrage that Congress would revoke rules that stop the senseless slaughter of predators, heedless of the important role these animals play in healthy ecosystems.

Alaska has 16 national wildlife refuges that occupy nearly 77 million acres, far more than any other state.

Roosevelt himself was an avid hunter, but he was also famous for not killing one bear in particular. In 1902, on a hunting trip to Mississippi, one of his assistants captured a black bear and chained it to a tree to make it easier to shoot.

Viewing this as extremely unsportsmanlike, the National Park Service wrote on its website, Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear.

The story of Roosevelts restraint enamored the press and the public and inspired the name of a new stuffed animal toy, the teddy bear.

william.yardley@latimes.com | @yardleyLAT
Its official: Utah has approved the lowest blood-alcohol driving limit in the country.

Proponents argued the new legal standard will improve public safety, while opponents assailed it as hurting the states tourism industry.

Heres what you need to know  in seven numbers  about the new law.

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.05%

It will become the legal blood-alcohol limit for driving in the state.

In approving the new limit, Utah is the lone state in compliance with recommendations from a 2013 National Transportation Safety Board report that called on states to lower the limit for blood-alcohol concentration, known as BAC, to this level.

.08%

The unofficial national BAC standard. Every state  besides, of course, Utah  has eschewed suggestions from the NTSB to redefine what constitutes drunk driving.

28

The number of people who die every day nationally in motor vehicle crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

.02%

Its the limit in Poland. Indeed, in many European countries, the BAC limit is lower than .08%.

Colton Prestwich works behind a so-called Zion curtain, a barrier that had been required in Utah bars and restaurants to shield patrons from workers preparing alcoholic drinks. (Rick Bowmer / Associated Press)

60%

The percentage of Utah residents belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith that prohibits the use of alcohol. The states unique demographics explain why Utah has a complicated relationship with alcohol. (Gov. Gary Herbert, who signed the new BAC bill into law, is Mormon.)

During the legislative session, which ended this month, lawmakers addressed several issues centered on alcohol.

Among them was a 2009 law that required restaurants to erect a wall or partition  known as a Zion curtain to locals  to shield patrons from seeing alcohol being mixed, poured or prepared. Many restaurant owners hated the law. In a compromise proposal passed this year, restaurants would be allowed to stop using the Zion curtain if they set up a child-free buffer zone around their bar.

$396.4 million

The amount Utah generated in liquor sales in 2015  a sign that, despite the presence of the Mormon Church, plenty of state residents or visitors partake of a drink now and then. According to the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 2015 booze sales were about $29 million higher than those in 2014, which hit $367.2 million.

03/23/2017

The date Herbert signed the .05% bill into law. Its set to take effect in December 2018.

kurtis.lee@latimes.com

Twitter: @kurtisalee

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A man who police said was inspired by false Internet rumors dubbed pizzagate to fire an assault weapon inside a Washington pizzeria pleaded guilty Friday to two charges.

Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, N.C., said during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington that he had agreed to plead guilty to interstate transportation of a firearm and assault with a dangerous weapon.

As part of the guilty plea, prosecutors will drop a third charge, possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, which had carried a mandatory minimum prison term of five years.

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Authorities say the 28-year-old Welch fired shots from an AR-15 assault rifle inside the Comet Ping Pong restaurant Dec. 4, after driving from North Carolina to investigate a bogus conspiracy theory about Democrats harboring child sex slaves there. No one was injured.

Lawyers said in court that under sentencing guidelines Welch probably faces 1 to two years in prison as a result of the interstate transportation charge and 1 to five years for the assault charge. Sentences on the charges could run either consecutively or concurrently.

Prosecutors and Welchs defense attorney did not say Friday what sentences they intend to seek.

Welch has also agreed to pay approximately $5,700 for damage he caused in the restaurant. Welch fired shots at a locked door after he entered and patrons fled.

Sentencing is set for June 22.
The Trump administration is accepting proposals from contractors for preliminary designs and prototypes for the first sections of the presidents ballyhooed wall along the border with Mexico. If its built, the project will be a boondoggle of legendary proportions and likely will become the subject of historic ridicule. Why? Because Trumps silly wall cant possibly address much of the problem he seeks to fix.

Its hard to count people hiding in the shadows, but the best estimates put the current U.S. population of undocumented immigrants at 11 million to 12 million people. The Pew Research Center reports that a long growth trend in illegal immigration began around 1990, when the undocumented population was about 3.5 million, then rose steadily to a peak of 12.2 million in 2007 and since has ebbed to a stable 11.7 million people. But those folks, obviously enough, are already here  about three-quarters of them have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, and only 14% have been here for less than five years. Our undocumented neighbors are not newcomers.

Pew says net illegal immigration has shifted in recent years, with more Mexicans leaving the country than entering, a function of the U.S. economys slow recovery from the 2007-2009 recession and improved job opportunities in Mexico. The Border Patrol similarly has charted a decrease in apprehensions along the Mexican border, from an average of 1.16 million a year between 2000 and 2006, to 858,638 in 2007, bottoming out at 327,577 in 2011. Driven partly by an influx of Central American children and families, who tend to turn themselves in upon arrival to seek asylum, apprehensions rebounded to 408,870 last year. Given that diminished human flow, and the fact that more people are leaving than arriving, it hardly seems worth the expense of building a wall that the Department of Homeland Security estimated would cost $21.6 billion (other estimates run much higher).

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Human migration routes are like rivers: If they hit an obstacle, the flow finds a way around it.

Trump has milked the melodrama of a border wall, but he ignores the likelihood that it would be ineffectual at stopping people from entering the country without permission. Human migration routes are like rivers: If they hit an obstacle, the flow finds a way around it. So a wall will just lead smugglers to find new routes and methods  planes, boats and 31-foot ladders for a 30-foot wall  even as it is being built, further undercutting confidence in the barriers effectiveness. Nor would Trumps wall address the growth in illegal immigration from Asia, which outpaces immigration from Latin America.

Perhaps most important, a wall could do nothing to halt the growing trend of people entering the country legally (often by plane) and then not leaving, which by some estimates accounts for as much as half of the undocumented immigration.

Granted, ending overstays is a tricky problem. The government already records who enters the country, including collecting fingerprints from non-citizens. But it has yet to figure out a way to know when those visitors leave. Congress ordered an entry-exit system in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and renewed the call after the 9/11 terror attacks  at least five of the terrorists had expired visas. But implementing it has proved vexingly difficult, and the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations all failed to come up with a workable system despite spending $600 million on pilot projects.

While collecting biometric information might be relatively simple at international airport terminals, the challenges become monumental at ground-level crossings, where some 119 million people leave the country each year without any interaction with U.S. Border Patrol (travelers do get interviewed by Mexican and Canadian border agents as they enter those countries). So the U.S. would have to build checkpoints at each crossing, many of which lack the space for that kind of expansion, and would make authorized border-crossing even more time-consuming and frustrating. It also would be expensive  about $7 billion. Then the government would need to create or expand programs to match the departures against the entries, figure out who has overstayed and track them down.

At some point, the government needs to get honest about what is possible, and what is desirable, in addressing illegal immigration. And taxpayers need to decide how much theyre willing to spend for what result, and where the line between reasonable and ridiculous might lie.

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To the editor: David L. Faigman, dean of UC Hastings College of the Law, bemoans the high cut score resulting in what he asserts is a pass rate on the California bar exam that is too low. He notes with some chagrin that 1,789 people couldve become lawyers had they only attempted to do so in New York instead of California. (The California bar exam flunks too many law school graduates, Opinion, March 21)

As my grandmother wouldve said, You call this a problem?

In this era of partisan rancor, Id be willing to bet that an overwhelming majority of Californians would agree on one thing: The last thing our state needs is more lawyers.

Michael H. Leb, Pasadena

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..

To the editor: Californias low pass rate on the bar exam pales in comparison to a true outrage: the cost to attend a state-sponsored law school.

Acknowledging graduation debt well above $100,000, how does Faigman expect new admits to work their way out of debt as a legal aid lawyer, in consumer or public interest law or anywhere but at giant corporate firms? Where is his moral outrage, or does he not want to criticize his schools questionable annual tuition of about $50,000?

I know I probably would have foregone being an attorney to avoid such crushing debt instead of serving as a prosecutor, then representing indigent criminal clients and regular people.

A.J. Faigin, Laguna Niguel

..

To the editor: Faigmans piece fails only in describing the bar exams victims as young people.

When I was a 54-year-old first-year student in 2007, my classmates at our American Bar Assn.-approved schools four-year night program were mostly employed, with many juggling midlife responsibilities. Our class of 2011 had a dismal bar pass rate of 35%.

Our dean chalked up this majority failure to a class of bad test-takers.

In addition to reviewing the tradition of the California bar exam, law schools would do well to examine the proficiency of their instructors.

Bruce Breslau, Chatsworth

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Congratulations, Malibu: Youve forged a consensus on immigration, perhaps the most polarizing issue in politics today. Problem is, the agreement is on how bad you look.

Last week, the City Council of that seaside municipality voted to make its community a safe haven for immigrants fearing deportation under the Trump administration. Readers who reacted to a Times report on the Malibu vote weighed in not on the merits of so-called sanctuary policies that, among other things, prevent local police from working with federal immigration officials, but rather on some residents expressed desire to continue having their domestic needs met by migrant labor.

Readers on all sides of the immigration debate found something not to like about this. Here are some of their letters.

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Los Angeles resident David Goodwin bemoans an elite mentality:

Malibu resident Mikke Pierson perfectly displayed a Hollywood-elite kind of mentality in supporting the decision of Malibu to become a sanctuary city. He was quoted as saying, We would be paralyzed and no ones houses would be cleaned.

These people are not just housekeepers; they are also professionals, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses and architects.  Chris Peterson, Valencia

There are a wide range of views on this issue. Crime, justice, respect for the law, the needs of innocent children, splitting up families, the cost of medical care for indigents  all of these factor into this complex issue. But only a Malibu resident would wonder who would clean his house.

And Hollywood wonders why people have contempt for the elite. And, yes, if this is your big concern, you are in the elite.

Chris Peterson of Valencia says immigrants do more than domestic work:

I realize Pierson meant well when he said, We would be paralyzed and no ones houses would be cleaned.

But really? Is this how he sees immigrants? These people are not just housekeepers; they are also professionals, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses and architects.

Im an third-generation Korean American who happened to marry someone who was a second-generation American of Irish and Swedish descent. My deceased husband would have been appalled reading those words.

Orrin Turbow of Oxnard recommends better pay for workers:

If the people of Malibu who support their sanctuary status really care about the undocumented, they would pay them what a U.S. citizen would earn doing comparable work.

One member of the City Council said, Our city depends on a Hispanic population to support our comfortable lifestyle. Do we not owe them what comfort and protections that are possible?

What they really owe the workers is a fair market wage.

Hawthorne resident Richard Wilson suggests another way Malibu can support workers:

Show your solidarity, Malibu, by building low-income housing for the legal and illegal workers so they dont have to commute two hours to clean your houses.

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To the editor: The Times editorial on President Trump and Russia was thoughtful, balanced and largely correct. (This is how Trump can achieve a balanced policy with Russia, editorial, March 21)

It did, however, miss one very important point: Trump represents the best opportunity to improve US-Russian relations in more than two decades. Although the reasons vary, the Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama all had very little interest in or little chance at improving what many observers agree had become a new Cold War.

Of course, the investigations by Congress and the FBI into alleged interference in the 2016 campaign and whether anyone in the Trump operation was complicit in that activity must play out before anything can be accomplished regarding the larger relationship between the two countries.

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It is certain that suspicions about the presidents motives and the hardening of congressional attitudes on Russia over the allegations of interference will make any improvement in relations more difficult. But there is nothing that prevents a new equilibrium of cooperation and competition in principle. And, the Trump administration is the first in 20 years with a real chance to walk back from many conflicts and to rebuild a balanced relationship, especially in military and geopolitical competition.

Larry Caldwell, Beaumont

..

To the editor: The writer is a professor of politics emeritus at Occidental College, where he has taught U.S. national security and Russian foreign policy.

Your editorial makes sense if Russias interference in the campaign hadnt been for Trump.

Trump lacks the credibility to act as head of state in any dealings with Russia. Hes tainted by the Russian interference, his shady financial history with Russians, his conspicuous praise of President Vladimir Putin and his repeated disparagement of America in comparing us to them. Trumps words, policies and appointments, far from being reassuring, seem instead geared toward confusing us, as if Putin were Trumps role model for governing.

How can we trust Trump when he seems intent on changing our country to be like Russia?

Patricia Casey, Fallbrook

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President Trump, elected on a promise to use his deal-making prowess to get Washington working, blinked Friday in the face of defeat, agreeing to halt a House vote on a GOP healthcare overhaul amid crumbling Republican support.

The move came just hours after the White House insisted the vote would go forward regardless of the outcome, and followed Trumps extraordinary ultimatum Thursday night, when he told rebellious lawmakers that if they didnt vote for the bill, he would move on to other priorities.

To avoid an embarrassing vote, Trump asked House Speaker Paul D. Ryan to abandon the effort.

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The collapse of the bill  legislation that managed to displease both Republican conservatives and centrists  dashed the partys immediate hopes of fulfilling a longtime campaign promise to repeal and replace President Obamas signature healthcare law, also called Obamacare.

Trump made a hard, last-minute push for the GOP bill. His spokesman said Friday that the president left everything on the field.

In an Oval Office appearance after the vote was pulled, Trump described it as a very interesting experience. He praised his fellow Republicans and deflected blame on Democrats  who opposed the bill. He also said hed learned something about loyalty, apparently referring to the GOP defections.

Trump predicted the country would eventually need to revisit the issue, saying, We will end up with a truly great healthcare bill in the future after this mess that is Obamacare explodes.

Both Trump and Ryan, however, said the Republican Party had no plan to revive the repeal-and-replace effort anytime soon, so the current healthcare law will remain in place.

The defeat exposed Trumps limits as negotiator in chief and raised doubts about his administrations ability to achieve the rest of its conservative agenda, including tax cuts, deregulation and trade reform.

The fallout was also a setback for Ryan. Critics say the legislation was crafted too quickly and without enough input from other lawmakers or consultation with industry and interest groups.

Hopefully there will be a lesson learned that lets work together to write the bill instead of writing it in private, said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

The failure will only complicate the odd-couple partnership between Ryan and Trump. The president may think twice next time about relying on the speaker to lead legislative campaigns. Though Trump signaled his continued support Friday for Ryan to remain in his post, and many lawmakers were standing by his side, finger-pointing over what went wrong is bound to linger.

Ryan could have afforded to lose no more than about 21 Republican votes to reach the 216 needed for passage. Defections were estimated at one point to be 30 or more.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus wanted Trump and Ryan to go further and faster in unwinding Obamacare rules and taxes. Centrist Republicans were worried the GOP plan would leave too many Americans without health insurance.

Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, were feeling those growing pains today, Ryan said. We came up short.

The GOP defeat marked a victory for a broad coalition of patient advocates, physician groups and hospitals, which had mounted an intense and sustained campaign to highlight the damage they said the bill would do to patients medical care.

Congressional offices reported a huge influx of calls urging a no vote on the bill.

This is a clear statement that the policies in the bill were fatally flawed and should never again see the light of day, said Robert Doherty, senior vice president of the American College of Physicians.

It remains unclear what political price Republicans may pay for their failure to advance a repeal bill despite controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress. Many GOP activists will be angry if the party abruptly drops an issue it has campaigned on for years.

At the same time, public support for Obamacare has been rising amid the threat to repeal it, and opinion polls showed strong concern over the GOP plan.

The turmoil over the bill also served as a reminder of the GOPs ongoing internal strife, which can allow small groups of rank-and-file Republicans to determine the partys direction.

Theres bitterness within our conference, said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.). Its going to take time to heal.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said he hoped the defeat would eventually bring the party closer together.

This is a tough situation for us to handle right now; theres no question its a loss for leadership, he said. Sometimes these things, if you give them time to marinate, well have an opportunity to bring us back together, and regroup, and get our mojo again.

Democrats stood firmly against the Republican bill, which GOP leaders had hoped to pass on Obamacares seventh anniversary this week. Democrats warned of the harm to ordinary Americans  many in areas Trump won  who would lose access to healthcare.

Under the Republican plan, about 24 million more Americans would be expected to join the ranks of the uninsured during the first decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who helped Obama pass the Affordable Care Act, called the failure of the Republican effort a victory for the American people.

The House bill would have dramatically scaled back the healthcare safety net that Obamacare expanded, slashing federal spending and removing key coverage guarantees.

It would have effectively reversed the insurance coverage gains that the country has notched over the last several years, and doubled the number of uninsured by 2026.

States would have lost nearly $900 billion in federal funding for their Medicaid health insurance programs for the poor.

As the bill approached a final vote, opposition grew. GOP leaders were forced to abandon a Thursday vote after conservatives, led by the House Freedom Caucus, argued the bill did not go far enough in gutting Obamacare  particularly its mandates that health policies provide specific benefits. They wanted insurers to be allowed to offer skimpier plans that cost less.

Meanwhile, centrist Republicans worried the bill would have left too many constituents without healthcare.

Trumps inability to close the deal with the holdouts exposed his newness to the legislative process and his slim hold on the deeper policy nuances needed to bring lawmakers to his side.

The president largely played the role of a bustling figurehead  inviting lawmakers to the White House, trying to win their support  rather than an in-the-weeds horse-trader able to round up votes.

For example, Friday morning Trump tweeted criticism of the Freedom Caucus for not taking the deal even though it would have cut funds for Planned Parenthood. But abortion, in this case, wasnt driving their opposition.

For a while, negotiations with the rebellious factions were relatively congenial. But that changed late Thursday after Trumps budget chief told House Republicans during a private meeting in the Capitol basement that the president was done negotiating and expected lawmakers to fulfill their campaign promises to end Obamacare, according to those in the room.

The dramatic moment startled Republicans  and cut both ways.

Some lawmakers who panned the bill left the meeting frustrated by Trumps tough talk, while others became emotional  there were tears, said Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.)  over their moment to achieve their longtime goal of ending Obamacare.

I wish you could have seen the passion in that room, said Republican Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.).

Times staff writers Brian Bennett and Michael A. Memoli contributed to this report.

A side-by-side comparison of Obamacare and the GOPs replacement plan 

Trump threatens to leave Obamacare in place if GOP bill fails 

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com | @LisaMascaro

noam.levey@latimes.com | @noamlevey

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California corrections officials on Friday unveiled new regulations that will increase the chances of early release for hundreds of state prison inmates, and expand the credits they earn for demonstrating good behavior and completing rehabilitation programs behind bars.

The highly anticipated  and hotly contested  guidelines are the first major step toward overhauling the states prison parole system under Proposition 57, the ballot measure approved by voters last year that aims to reduce the statewide prison population by 9,500 inmates over the next four years.

In a conference call Friday, Scott Kernan, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, echoed Gov. Jerry Browns words on the measure, calling the new law a durable solution for prison overcrowding and part of the states response to a federal court-ordered cap on the state inmate population.

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But he also emphasized the need to create opportunities that improve the chances for inmates to leave prison and keep them from coming back.

Through rehabilitation, we are creating hope in our prisons by giving inmates the opportunity to change and acquire skills and tools to be productive members of our society once they leave prison, he later said in a statement.

Proposition 57 gave new power to the state parole board to grant early release to prisoners whose primary sentences are for crimes not designated as violent under California law. It also provides new ways for those inmates to earn time credits toward their sentences if they enroll in certain programs.

The pool of inmates newly eligible for parole  about 1,200 offenders  is expected to expand by more than 500 over the next fiscal year, Kernan said Friday. Early projections show more than 1,500 inmates could be eligible for early release by 2021.

Under the regulations, inmates will be able to trim their sentences up to six months for earning a high school diploma or college degree, and up to a month each year for successfully completing self-help programs  such as substance abuse support groups, counseling and parenting or anger management classes.

They will also have the chance to earn greater milestone credits, awarded for achieving certain goals in certain rehabilitation programs, allowing them to potentially reduce their sentences by up to 12 weeks in a yearlong period.

But the regulations could face scrutiny from law enforcement officials and prosecutors who have opposed the measure from the start. They have argued its incentives should not be extended to sex offenders or those serving life sentences. The debate has spurred several lawmakers to introduce legislation that would expand the states list of violent crimes.

The regulations unveiled on Friday exclude only death row inmates and those who are serving life without the possibility of parole from the credit earnings. Violent offenders could receive up to 20% of time served for good behavior, up from 15% in previous guidelines.

Voters say yes to Proposition 57, Gov. Jerry Browns push to loosen prison parole rules 

The rules are expected to receive final approval in the fall after a public comment period. If they win initial approval from state regulators, changes to the credit system will begin as early as May, while the parole eligibility changes will take effect in July.

Probation officials and criminal justice advocates lauded the effort on Friday. In a statement, Mary Butler, president of the Chief Probation Officers of California, called the rules fair and consistent with the mission of Prop 57.

The voters spoke clearly in Prop. 57 that they want true rehabilitation in our prison system, and in order to have true rehabilitation we must ensure a balance of incentives and sanctions in any regulations that are permanently adopted, she said.

jazmine.ulloa@latimes.com

Twitter: @jazmineulloa

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Updates on California politics
For Glendale resident Cheryl Herrera, getting shingles was the best  and worst  thing to happen to her.

Herrera said she was bedridden for about five weeks when she contracted the virus four years ago, which was enough time to think about the things she was missing out on and wished she could do.

I told myself that when I get better that I will not take my health for granted and do all the things that I say I always wanted to do but never got around to doing, she said.

She decided to take up photography as a hobby, which resulted in her traveling to national parks across the United States and Canada, including Joshua Tree, Zion, Bryce and Yosemite. Her creative hobby led her to win the Best of Show Award in this years annual photography contest hosted by the Friends of the Burbank Public Library.

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It is the second time that Herrera, 40, entered the competition, winning second place for Best Scenic Photo in Color last year.

The winners and entries for this years photo contest are on display at the Burbank Central Library, 110 N. Glenoaks Blvd, during normal business hours through April 26.

Herreras winning photo is one she took last summer when she and her family were on vacation at Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Though the vivid image of a turquoise-tinted lake, snow-capped mountains and cloud-filled blue skies appears to be taken during the day, it was actually shot at about 10 p.m., which is about the time the sun sets in that part of the hemisphere during that time of year.

Everything was sort of perfect that day, she said. The weather was just perfect. It has clouds and the pinks were coming in. The color of the water really and truly is that color because of the glacial lakes.

The only thing that wasnt perfect was the mosquitoes that were constantly biting her and other photographers that evening.

They bit me through my clothes, but it was worth it, Herrera said.

When planning trips, Herrera said she likes to go parks with hiking opportunities. Just being in the parks is what sort of inspired me to take photos. I wanted to remember what I saw at the parks, so I started taking pictures, and I really enjoyed it. It became a passion and something I fell in love with.

With spring break and summer around the corner, Herrera already has a few trips lined up. She and her daughter plan to spend a few days in Iceland before flying out to the Netherlands sometime next month. During the summer, Herrera and her family hope to go to Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

With her trusty Sony a7S camera by her side, Herrera said she is looking to continue taking more photos and sharing them.

What I hope to convey when I take my pictures is the feeling I felt when I was taking them, she said. Thats what I try to capture.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) continues to press the U.S. Congress to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide in advance of the 102nd anniversary of the massacre of millions on April 24.

On Wednesday, Schiff and Rep. Dave Trott (R-Michigan) introduced a bipartisan resolution that recognizes the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire that spanned from 1915 to 1923 .The Ottoman Empire is modern-day Turkey.

Over 100 years ago, the Ottoman Empire undertook a brutal campaign of murder, rape and displacement against the Armenian people that took the lives of 1.5 million men, women and children in the first genocide of the 20th century, Schiff said in a statement. Genocide is not a historic relic  even today hundreds of thousands of religious minorities face existential threat from ISIS in Syria and Iraq. It is therefore all the more pressing that the Congress recognize the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide and stand against modern-day genocide and crimes against humanity.

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Trott, whose district in Michigan has a large population of Armenian people, was a co-sponsor alongside Schiff in introducing legislation last year to have former president Barack Obama recognize the genocide. Like Schiff, Trott has been working to have the U.S. government formally acknowledge the tragic event.

This year will be the ninth time, one for every congress since he was elected, that Schiff has brought forward legislation to commemorate the Armenian Genocide.

In 2007, Schiff had legislation with 212 co-sponsors that nearly passed on the House floor.

Trott said he was proud to be taking part in the effort.

After over 100 years, it is long overdue that the United States government stand in solidarity with the Armenian people to officially recognize the genocide waged against their families a century ago, Trott said in a statement. I am honored to be able to represent such a vibrant Armenian population in southeast Michigan, and I will continue to fight for them in Congress.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio
When Linda Trinh Vo was growing up, she never heard about the experiences of other Vietnamese Americans in the classroom or read about their history in her textbooks.

It was as if her entire community didnt exist.

Even today, theres very little history on Vietnamese Americans from their perspective and their voices, said Vo, professor of Asian American studies at UC Irvine.

In Vietnam, they have basically written us out of the history books  those who left the country  and in America, they write about the war from the American side, particularly the veteran side, but very little about Vietnamese Americans.

So Vo decided to do something about it.

She started collecting the life stories of first-generation Vietnamese Americans living in Southern California as a way to preserve this much-neglected history. This year, her Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project at UC Irvine is celebrating its fifth anniversary.

Its important to tell the stories that have been erased from the history books, Vo said.

Vo developed the idea for Viet Stories from the Vietnamese American community itself. After she began working for UCI in 2000, she would go to events in Orange Countys Little Saigon where people would suggest that she start an oral history project.

You should be collecting our history, Vo recalled them saying. So many in the community are passing away, and once they pass away we will lose their stories.

It took her more than a decade to collect the necessary funding and institutional support, and in 2012, Viet Stories was launched to collect, translate, transcribe and digitize the oral histories of everyday Vietnamese Americans living in Southern California.

One of Vos biggest concerns starting off was whether people would participate.

The war was very difficult, being a refugee and the post-war period were very difficult, and many families didnt talk about it, she said. And they didnt tell their family members, so we werent sure that they would be willing to tell their stories.

But what we realized is that the time is right. There are so many in that first generation who want to tell their stories to their children and grandchildren, about what happened to them, what they did to survive, who they were  and they wanted to leave some sort of legacy.

The project currently has 450 stories, more than 180 of which are fully digitized and available to the public online.

The Vietnamese migrants tell of not finding a very welcoming United States, with Americans having mixed feelings about the war itself, and their dispersal across the 50 states left many families feeling isolated. Leaving so much of their lives behind, enduring sometimes arduous ocean journeys, and having to start over again in a new country where they did not speak the language or understand the culture left many stunned.

On the other hand, even amid great challenges, many maintained hope.

One of my memories was when our boat was damaged [during their escape], and we were on an island where we were fixing the boat, said Jack Toan, who was 9 when his family fled Vietnam in 1979. I was laying out in the open with my dad, and I remember him telling me, When we go to America youll have the opportunity to go to college and be a doctor, dentist, lawyer  whatever you want.

The expectations of these [Vietnamese] parents was to find a better life. And thats what they held on to as they left the country.

Toans family initially settled in South Carolina, where, as the only Vietnamese family in town, they faced threats of violence from their neighbors.

The pastor of the church that was responsible for bringing my parents to the United States shared with me that when we first arrived, the congregation took turns patrolling our home because there were elements in the community that didnt want us there, and he was concerned for our safety, said Toan, whose family later moved to California.

When this project came up, it was an opportunity for me to tell the story of where my family came from, and to leave a trail for my children to know where they came from and to understand what their identity was, said Toan, a community affairs director for Wells Fargo, which recently started a $50,000 matching grant to help support Viet Stories.

What stands out to Vo is the diversity of the Vietnamese American experience.

Oftentimes were framed as just boat people, refugees, she said. But what we realized is the incredible diversity of the population.

As she explained, many came to the U.S. as students, diplomats, military members and war brides before the 1975 fall of Saigon. After the war, hundreds of thousands more came as refugees. She also discovered ethnic diversity in the community, including individuals who are ethnically Chinese, multiracial and adopted.

But all of their stories, Vo said, testify to the strength of the community.

How people managed to survive during the war, how they found their way here, and what people were able to do to rebuild their lives from scratch. Theyre amazing stories of survival, she said. To me, its about the resilience of a community.

Toan agreed.

Orange County has the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam, and when you look at the culture of Orange County, you can see the influence of the Vietnamese community, not only politically and culturally, but also economically, he said. Its a case study on how an immigrant community can really contribute to society in America.

In addition to oral histories, Vo has also collected documents and artifacts, including high school diplomas from Vietnam; a chest X-ray proving that someone didnt have tuberculosis upon entering the United States; the single suitcase a family carried across the Pacific Ocean; the blanket someone received at the refugee camp at Camp Pendleton; and decades-old photographs of Little Saigon.

A spin-off of the original oral history project containing documents and artifacts is slated to be on display at the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana this summer, and next year, at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, in Yorba Linda.

While Viet Stories focuses on the experiences of the older generation, Vo also sees part of her mission as reaching out to younger Vietnamese Americans.

Many times the older generation will pass away and their children will throw their stuff away, like an old suitcase  throw it away  or a document they cant read, she said.

So were also trying to educate the community on what archives are about and why its important to preserve them. We want to have the younger generations invested in this project for the future, because its documenting their history as well.

Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil is a contributor to Times Community News.
A year-round costume shop in downtown Costa Mesa held its grand opening Thursday.

Halloween Bootique, which is located in The Triangle, hosted a costume party that included artist performances, a photo booth and refreshments.

Mothers Market raising money for Environmental Nature Center

Costa Mesa-based Mothers Market & Kitchen is donating a portion of funds collected from the sale of grocery bags to the Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach. All seven Orange County Mothers Market locations are participating, according to a news release.

The drive lasts through Friday.

Newport company breaks ground on Long Beach housing development

Newport Beach-based Integral Communities recently broke ground on Riverdale, a gated 131-unit community of detached single-family homes in Long Beach.

Integral is working on the project with Irvine-based Brandywine Homes, according to a news release.

The developments grand opening is scheduled for August. When complete, it will contain homes ranging from 1,900 to 2,250 square feet. Prices are expected to start in the low $600,000s.

RSI names new management staff

RSI Communities, a Newport Beach- and Texas-based developer, announced two new members of its executive management team.

Patrick Donahue was promoted to president of the Southern California division and Suzie Ek to senior vice president of sales and marketing.

UCI to offer masters in business analytics

UC Irvines Paul Merage School of Business has launched a new master of science in business analytics (MSBA) program in response to high demand from businesses, recruiters and students, according to a news release.

The one-year, full-time program of 50 units is now accepting applications through June 15. Classes are scheduled to start this August. For more information, visit merage.uci.edu/go/msba or email msba@uci.edu.

Guild Club opens in South Coast Collection

The Guild Club, a members- and reservation-only dining experience in Costa Mesas South Coast Collection, is now open for lunch and dinner.

The owners are Noah and Marin von Blom of DirtySexyHappiness Hospitality Group, which also owns Arc and Restaurant Marin with SoCo. The couple described the 1,000-square-foot restaurant as something that looks like Winston Churchills den.
Thousands of people are expected to attend a Make America Great Again march on Saturday at Bolsa Chica State Beach to support veterans, police and first responders.

The event is slated to run from noon to 3 p.m. and is one of about 40 affiliated events scheduled nationwide that day.

Despite the expected heavy foot traffic, all parts of the beach will remain open, senior park aide Mark Riddlebarger said. He said the organizers have a permit.

Jennifer Sterling, a Laguna Beach resident and one of the organizers of the march, said Friday that about 3,000 people are expected to attend.

Though the march bears Donald Trumps campaign slogan, and organizers elsewhere are making their support for the president quite clear, Sterling said the local gathering will have a different focus. Participants will be wearing blue ribbons to support law enforcement and donations will be collected for veterans, she said.

We want to wave our American flag and be patriotic, Sterling said.

The march was originally going to be near the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa, but fairgrounds officials announced earlier in the month that they would close the property on Saturday and Sunday in anticipation of the event because of public safety concerns.

A Trump rally held April 28 outside the Pacific Amphitheatre  where the then-candidate had been speaking  resulted in violence that spilled onto the streets. People could be seen jumping on the hood of a police car.

The amphitheater is on the fairgrounds.

Sterling said organizers are expecting a contingent of counterprotesters but will do their best to avoid confrontation. She said the march will be family-friendly.

California State Parks Capt. Kevin Pearsall said his department will have about three dozen officers monitoring the march, and will collaborate with Huntington Beach police in case it spills from the beach to the surrounding area.

Pearsall said his department is aware of social media exchanges that hint at possible clashes between marchers and counterprotesters.

Huntington Beach police spokeswoman Jennifer Marlatt confirmed that officers will provide support if a conflict arises.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter: @benbrazilpilot
On April 4, incumbent Zareh Sinanyan wants to extend his first term on Glendale City Council and continue his ongoing work to deal with a lack of affordable housing as well as sustain his vision for a local modern transit system.

At 14 years old, Sinanyan emigrated with his parents and older sister to Burbank from Soviet-aligned Armenia as political refugees in 1988. Despite pleas to his father to attend middle school with the large Armenian population in Glendale, Sinanyan was forced to stay in Burbank as a way to more quickly assimilate into the United States.

It worked, he said, and he would later move to Glendale after graduating from USC Law School. Sinanyan has been practicing law in Glendale since 2001.

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An active member in the community, Sinanyan would later serve for several years on three separate city agencies before his first election to City Council four years ago. Despite this, Sinanyan said he never saw himself pursuing any political office, but was compelled by his peers call to action.

I thought that I could do a good job representing the people of Glendale. I always had the passion, Sinanyan said. The mere fact that I got involved so much was from a passion of being interested in what we do and trying to have a say in it.

His successful run was not without controversy, however, as Sinanyan fielded criticism and an attempt to remove him from his council seat after it was discovered that he had previously written sexist and racist comments under a YouTube account. He would admit to making the remarks and apologized after he was elected. Sinanyan had no comment on the matter when reached Friday.

As part of his first term, Sinanyan introduced several programs to council such as the Glendale Tech Initiative, which focuses on making the city a place where tech companies want to do business. He is also behind the City Council in Your Neighborhood program, an effort to hold meetings in the community outside of City Hall.

Sinanyan also served one term as Mayor in 2014.

As current chair of the Housing Authority, Sinanyan has worked to squeeze affordable housing into some of the planned mixed-use downtown developments. Hes also helped veterans find housing and had a hand in the upcoming artists colony, known as ACE 121.

I predict in the next few years more funding will be allocated toward creation of more affordable housing because in the absence of that the city is looking at potential rent control ballot measures, Sinanyan said. All this is brewing unless theres a counterweight toward allocating more affordable housing funds.

Sinanyan is also responsible for Measure J on the April 4 ballot that asks residents to vote on placing term limits for City Council members.

As vice chair of the Eco-rapid Transit Authority  a 13-member group advocating for the creation of an energy efficient transit system along a nearby 40-mile corridor  hes involved in plans that hope to rectify the lack of projects in Glendale by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

If you look at the MTAs map, Glendale is the big black hole there, Sinanyan said.

With a little help from overseas companies and Measure R funds, the transit authority is now in a better position to start feasibility studies on several long term projects that includes blending the Antelope Valley line and proposed improvements to the California High Speed Rail Line.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda
Nearing the close of her first term as Glendales Mayor, Paula Devine lauded the safety of the city and its balanced budget for fiscal year 2016 at the annual State of the City address Wednesday, but she warned of the potential for a multimillion-dollar loss in the General Fund.

Glendale continued to rank among the safest places to live last year, earning the third spot in California and sixth nationwide for cities with a population of 200,000 or more, according to statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Report. The ranking comes despite Glendales poor reputation when it comes to pedestrian-related accidents, which saw a 45% dip in incidents last year.

Devine praised the citys roughly $80-million General Fund reserve  about 41% of the adopted General Fund budget  attained without the need for cuts to core city programs and services.

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Your city government continues to be lean and more efficient than ever before, doing much more with less while delivering high-quality services, Devine said. We have reinvented ourselves.

The increase in downtown development  particularly mixed-use, high-rise apartments  is the continued subject of criticism from many people in the community who believe its had a negative impact on traffic and density.

Devine, however, said the new developments are performing as designed, reporting that most of the buildings are at upward of about 94% occupancy and the tenants are valued contributors to the citys economy and vibrancy.

1 / 10 Glendale Mayor Paula Devine, center, greets attendees before delivering her State of the City address. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 2 / 10 Glendale mayor Paula Devine gives the state of the city address at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 3 / 10 YMCA of Glendale and the Arts Colony Projects George Saikali received the Organization & Project of the Year award at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 4 / 10 Glendale Chamber of Commerce chair of the board Kathy McClure, left, and VP Taguhi Sogomonyan, right, presented the New Business - Commitment to Service award to Premier Print & Services Group, Inc.'s Vince Wrzos, second from left, and Mark Faberberg, second from right, at the Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 5 / 10 Ascencia executive director Natalie Profant Komuro received the Woman of the Year award at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 6 / 10 YMCA of Glendale and the Arts Colony Projects George Saikali received the Organization & Project of the Year award at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 7 / 10 Datastream IT founder and CEO received the Man of the Year award at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 8 / 10 Glendale Chamber of Commerce Chair of the Board Kathy McClure, left, and Woman of the Year 2016 Elizabeth Manasserian, right, presented the Man of the Year award to Datastream IT founder and CEO Louie Sadd at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 9 / 10 Glendale mayor Paula Devine, center, talks with attendees before giving the state of the city address at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 10 / 10 Ascencia executive director Natalie Profant Komuro received the Woman of the Year award at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017 and State of the City Luncheon, at the Hilton in Glendale on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

Last year was also the start of Glendales Tech Initiative plan, where city officials extended a hand to technology companies as a way to encourage growth. Also, a housing development project called ACE 121, which provides units to artists and their families, was completed.

Devine said this year will see the conclusion of several long-term projects, including the renovation of the Glendale Central Library, and issues, such as whether or not the city should upgrade the aging Grayson Power Plant.

More uncertain, however, is whether or not the city will repay $57 million to residents for illegal energy-rate increases as well as cease the annual transfer of $20 million from Glendale Water & Powers electric revenue fund to the citys General Fund.

Last year, an L.A. Superior Court judge found the city violated its charter when it transferred $85 million from the utility to its General Fund during the previous five years.

The issue now hinges on the City Councils decision about whether to appeal the courts ruling.

We are currently evaluating the risks and benefits of appealing this challenge and determining the best course of action for the city and its residents, Devine said.

Several local residents and businesses were honored at the luncheon, hosted by the Glendale Chamber of Commerce, for their contributions to Glendale.

Glendale Chamber of Commerce 2017 Honorees

Woman of the Year: Natalie Profant Komuro, Ascencia

Man of the Year: Louie Sadd, Datastream IT

Project of the Year: Arts Colony Project, YMCA of Glendale

Organization of the Year: YMCA of Glendale, Chief Executive George Saikali

New Business of the Year: Premier Print & Services Group, Brent LaBine, Vince Wrzos, Mark Fagerberg

Business of the Year: Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital, President Jack Ivie

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda
Belarus riot police arrested hundreds of demonstrators and dozens of journalists Saturday in a police crackdown that seemed designed to prevent the spread of public discontent over the declining economy and the autocratic government of President Alexander Lukashenko.

The arrests, in which those seized were taken to detention centers in armored police vehicles, came after more than a month of protests across the country. Lukashenko had allowed the demonstrations take place, in what many in the country and in the West saw as a sign that the man considered to be Europes last dictator was softening his grip on his nation of 10 million.

Those hopes were dashed Saturday as hundreds of riot police and plainclothes KGB officers forcefully blocked demonstrators from gathering in Minsks main squares for a planned protest sparked by opposition to Lukashenkos new tax on the unemployed.

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Local media outlets said about 700 people were detained. Some were later released. The arrests raise to more than 1,000 the number of those detained since the protest movement started Feb. 17.

Opposition parties organized the protests to coincide with the annual commemoration of the 1918 declaration of the Belarusian Peoples Republic, an independent but short-lived state revered by pro-Western Belarusians.

Saturday was the fiercest crackdown on public dissent since the 2010 postelection demonstrations, when hundreds were beaten and arrested, including many of the countrys opposition leaders. That crackdown resulted in Western sanctions against Lukashenko and his government.

Ayres is a special correspondent.
Speaker Paul Ryan has been trying to whip the GOP into supporting the bill. Many members of congress will still vote no. Source: Getty Images

The Obamacare repeal bill, the American Health Care Act, has had a few makeovers on its way to the floor for a vote in an effort to make it more likeable.

This AHCA is one of the most universally detested bills, as one Republican member of Congress tweeted, and the bill has been earning the ire of moderate Republicans, conservative Freedom Caucus Republicans, and, of course, Democrats. This is a bill only a parent would love.

The parents, Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump, have scrambled to add more to the bill, though it may be like putting lipstick on a pig that will never pass the House if the GOP leadership cant whip the votes. In what the New York Times described as a back-room deal, the GOP re-wrote the bill to remove the ACAs essential health benefits provision, which require insurers to cover 10 basic services. Until recently, the GOP said it would keep this provision, which standardizes coverage, in the AHCA.

Now, the AHCA stipulates that states would decide what essential health benefits must be included in insurance plans.

The Congressional Budget Office updated its analysis of the bill Thursday, but it still scored the bill as including the essential health benefits. So the broad implications of making changes to these benefits are unclear.

But Trump and Ryan supporting a bill that removes standardizing what insurance is has many concerned. According to NBC Newss Benjy Sarlin, the Society of Actuaries noted the removal could create a race to the bottom as insurers offer leaner plans with skimpy coverage (since they wont be required to cover these benefits, which include things like maternity care, pediatric care and hospitalization). For perspective, Yahoos Garance Franke-Ruta noted that before the ACA, in 2009, only 13% of health plans for 30-year-old women buying their own plans covered maternity care.

On the flip side, however, is the fact that essential health benefits bumped up premiums by 13% to 17%, according to Axios. Translation: more coverage and better care was not free. Nevertheless, many consumers will probably dislike being stripped of a high standard of coverage after having enjoyed them for seven years. And the already terribly-polling billonly 17% of the public support it, according to Quinnipiacmay see its popularity sink further.

Story continues

Ryan and Trump have already made concessions to get more support for the bill. Earlier this week, changes were made to halt states that wanted to expand Medicaid, work requirements for Medicaid were put in, and the tax cuts were moved up one year to 2017. And late Thursday, President Trump issued an ultimatum to GOP holdouts: support the bill or else. Earlier, the President had told the Freedom Caucuss leader Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), Im going to come after you if you dont support the AHCA. Meadows currently does not support the bill.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it to tips@yahoo-inc.com.

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The British man who killed four people during a London rampage had made three trips to Saudi Arabia, teaching English there twice on a work visa and returning on a visa usually granted to those going on a religious pilgrimage.

More details about attacker Khalid Masoods travels, confirmed by the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Britain, emerged Saturday amid a massive British police effort to discover how a homegrown ex-con with a violent streak became radicalized and why he launched a deadly attack Wednesday on Westminster Bridge.

The embassy said he taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009, with a legitimate work visa both times. He then returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent and made on an Umra visa, usually granted to those on a religious pilgrimage to the countrys Islamic holy sites.

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The embassy said Saudi security services didnt track Masood and he didnt have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was called Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted at least twice for violent crimes.

Masood drove his rented SUV across Londons crowded Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, striking dozens of pedestrians. Then he jumped out and stabbed to death police Officer Keith Palmer, who was guarding Parliament, before being shot dead by police.

In all, he killed four people and left more than two dozen hospitalized, including some with critical injuries. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, calling him a soldier who responded to its demands that followers attack countries in the coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

1 / 23 A police officer places flowers from members of the public in London. (Will Oliver / EPA) 2 / 23 Union flags fly at half-staff in front of Big Ben at the Houses of Parliament in central London. (Niklas Hallen / AFP/Getty Images) 3 / 23 Police forensics teams search Parliament Square outside the Houses of Parliament in London. (Andy Rain / EPA) 4 / 23 Pedestrians cross Westminster Bridge in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament in London after the bridge reopened following the March 22 terror attack. (Niklas Hallen / AFP/Getty Images) 5 / 23 Police stand guard outside a flat in Birmingham, which was raided by anti-terror police in connection with the London attacks. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images) 6 / 23 The front pages of U.K. daily newspapers reporting on the terror attack in central London. (Daniel Sorabji / AFP/Getty Images) 7 / 23 A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament in London following a terror attack. (Carl Court / Getty Images) 8 / 23 Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Police say they are treating a gun and knife incident at Britains Parliament as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise. (Stefan Rousseau / Associated Press) 9 / 23 Armed police following major incidents outside the Houses of Parliament in London. (ANDY RAIN / EPA) 10 / 23 Emergency services transport an injured person to an ambulance, close to the Houses of Parliament in London. (Matt Dunham / Associated Press) 11 / 23 A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament in London. (Carl Court / Getty Images) 12 / 23 Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster in London. (Stefan Rousseau / Associated Press) 13 / 23 Armed police in position outside the Houses of Parliament in London. (Andy Rain / EPA) 14 / 23 An iinjured man on Londons Westminster Bridge holds his knee in an image from video. (Radosaw Sikorski / AFP/Getty Images) 15 / 23 An injured man is helped to safety near Westminster Bridge in London. (Carl Court / Getty Images) 16 / 23 Bystanders look on outside the police security perimeter near the Houses of Parliament. (Jack Taylor / Getty Images) 17 / 23 An injured person is loaded into an ambulance near Westminster Bridge in London. (Carl Court / Getty Images) 18 / 23 A police officer directs pedestrians back from the area around the Houses of Parliament in London. (Andy Rain / EPA) 19 / 23 Police secure the area close to the Houses of Parliament in London. (Matt Dunham / Associated Press) 20 / 23 Armed police on a street outside the Houses of Parliament in London. (Andy Rain / EPA) 21 / 23 Police in London secure the area on the south side of Westminster Bridge close to the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday. (Matt Dunham / Associated Press) 22 / 23 Police in London close the area near Houses of Parliament on Wednesday after reports of violence. (Victoria Jones / Associated Press) 23 / 23 A police officer stands on Parliament Square outside of the Houses of Parliament in London on Wednesday after witnesses reported sounds like gunfire outside. (Kirsty Wigglesworth / Associated Press)

British officials said security at Parliament would be reviewed after video emerged showing that the large gates to the complex were left open after Masood rushed onto the grounds. There are concerns that accomplices could have followed him in and killed even more people. The footage from that day shows pedestrians walking by the open gates and even a courier entering the grounds.

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair told the BBC that changes to the outer soft ring of Parliaments security plan are likely in the aftermath of Masoods attack.

The new footage follows earlier video that showed slight delays and confusion during the evacuation of Prime Minister Theresa May from Parliament as the attack unfolded.

Masood, who at 52 was considerably older than most extremists who have carried out attacks in the West, had an arrest record in Britain dating to 1983. In 2000, he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account. Masoods last conviction, in 2003, also involved a knife attack.

The British press quoted people who had contact with Masood over the years describing him as a man who seemed to lose control at a moments notice. One victim, Danny Smith, told the Sun newspaper that Masood had stabbed him in the face with a kitchen knife after an argument just three days after they met.

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine his motives and if he had any possible accomplices. Two men, ages 27 and 58, remain in custody for questioning after being arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities havent charged or identified the men.

Seven others who had been arrested in connection with the investigation have been set free. A 32-year-old woman arrested in Manchester and a 39-year-old woman arrested in East London have been released on bail.

Police are scouring Masoods communications systems, including his possible use of the WhatsApp encryption messaging app, to help determine if he had any accomplices in the attack.

Details about how he became radicalized arent clear, although he may have become exposed to radical views while an inmate in Britain or while working in conservative Saudi Arabia. Its also not clear when he took the name Masood, suggesting a conversion to Islam.

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An initial investigation of a recent airstrike believed to have killed more than 200 civilians in Mosul found it was conducted by the U.S.-led coalition at the request of Iraqi security forces, the Pentagon said Saturday.

Witnesses said the airstrike killed hundreds of residents on Baghdad Street in west Mosuls Aghawat Jadidah neighborhood March 17, including many women and young children. On Friday, in an area where apartment blocks were reduced to rubble, at least 50 bodies could be seen, including those of pregnant women, children and newborns.

On Saturday, a day after announcing that the incident was under investigation, Pentagon officials released a statement saying the coalition had targeted Islamic State fighters and equipment in the area March 17, at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties.

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The coalition said that it takes allegations of civilian casualties seriously and that a formal Civilian Casualty Credibility Assessment of the airstrike and the civilian toll is underway.

The coalition respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from ISIS brutality, the statement said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

1 / 18 A man overcome with grief cries out as he is escorted away after finding a loved one dead amid the rubble of a destroyed home following an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 18 A man points towards the fighting as he walks through an area that was affected by a reported coalition air strike in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 18 Family members identify the dead bodies recovered in the rubble of a destroyed home after there were reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province,. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 18 Neighbors and volunteers watch as corpses are pulled out of the rubble of a home destroyed by reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 18 Iraqi residents carry out body bags after recovering corpses from the rubble inside a house destroyed by an airstrike in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 18 People move quickly to avoid danger along the destroyed streets in Mosul after an airstrike attributed to the U.S. killed scores of people in Iraqi city. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 18 With the help of family members, Iraqi Civil Defense members recover a body that was buried in the rubble of a home destroyed by an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 18 Residents climb out of a basement after showing where family members survived an airstrike by being underground in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 18 A man walks out of a destroyed home in Mosul, Iraq, climbing over piles of rubble left following an airstrike. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 18 A man grieves for his loved ones, who were found dead in the rubble of a destroyed home after reported coalition airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 18 Turkya Azadin weeps while watching Iraqi Civil Defense members recover bodies trapped in the rubble after a reported coalition airstrike in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 18 Residents pile body bags in the back of a truck after airstrikes in Mosul left scores dead. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 18 Family members help Iraqi Civil Defense members pull corpses from beneath the rubble in Mosul after airstrikes killed dozens of civilians. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 18 Local residents help Iraqi civil defense force members recover corpses trapped in the rubble of a home destroyed after coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 18 The dead body of an Islamic State militant lies in the street after coalition airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq. Dozens of civilians were killed during the raid. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 18 Mosul residents pile body bags in the back of a truck after recovering the dead from the rubble in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 18 Iraqi Civil Defense members search for bodies in the rubble of a destroyed home after coalition airstrikes killed scores of civilians in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 18 A boy stands outside a house in Mosul in which neighbors had reported that Islamic State was operating. The rubble in front of the boy is what remains of a house destroyed in coalition airstrikes. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The airstrike, if found to be responsible for the fatalities, would mark the deadliest civilian casualty incident by far since the U.S. military began its involvement in mid-2014. The credibility assessment, in which the military gathers and analyzes an array of information that is both classified and public, is expected to take two to three weeks.

The focus of the inquiry will be whether the coalition airstrike hit civilian buildings; whether an accumulation of airstrikes in the area degraded the structural integrity of buildings before they fell; or whether Islamic State detonated an explosion after the airstrike to bring structures down, according to Col. John Thomas, Central Command spokesman.

This sort of assessment is really complex, Thomas said. It gets especially difficult to determine what happened in certain areas of the city where the streets are so narrow that large vehicles cannot get through.

Another likely possibility is that an airstrike hit or triggered an Islamic State suicide car bomb. Militants have deployed the mobile bombs, in which a driver will blow himself up in the face of advancing Iraqi forces. Witnesses said militants parked a truck packed with explosives on their block days before the airstrike, then forced families inside their homes as they lingered outside, sniping from roofs.

Some saw militants shooting at aircraft before the strike, then saw the truck explode during the attack. United Nations officials said they were profoundly concerned by the allegations surrounding the airstrike.

Were incredibly worried about what is happening in western Mosul. Its much, much, much worse than the east for civilians, Lise Grande, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said Saturday.

The military is investigating at least a dozen other reports of civilian casualties in Mosul.

The Pentagon has acknowledged 220 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the U.S. campaign against Islamic State began in 2014. Independent monitoring groups such as the London-based nonprofit Airwars put the casualty figures much higher, at about 2,700 civilians killed in airstrikes in both countries during that time.

Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, the Pentagon said Saturday. But the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISIS inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods.

There were reports Saturday that Iraqi forces had halted operations across Mosul in response to the airstrike, but officials said that wasnt true.

We didnt stop our operation. Our operation is still ongoing, but its not like before, said Raed Shaker Jawdat, Iraqs federal police chief.

We are now going slowly, he said, because the Old City area where they have been fighting is densely populated. Iraqi leaders called for investigations into the strike, and greater restraint by forces fighting to free Mosul.

People move quickly to avoid danger along the destroyed streets in Mosul after an airstrike attributed to the U.S. killed scores of people in Iraqi city. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

We realize the huge responsibility the liberating forces shoulder, Iraqi parliament speaker Salim Jabouri tweeted, calling on them to spare no effort to save the civilians.

Iraqi Vice President Osama Nujaifi, a Mosul native, issued a statement calling the strike a humanitarian catastrophe that killed hundreds. He blamed both the U.S.-led coalition and federal police for using excessive force and called for an emergency session of parliament to address the incident.

Atheel Nujaifi, the former Mosul governor, called for a U.N. investigation into the airstrike. Otherwise, he said, Iraqi forces are unlikely to adjust their tactics.

They need to change the military operation, to deal with it as a city, not an open area. Theres citizens inside it, so they need to use minimal fire, not huge bombs, he said. I dont think it will change anything if theres no international pressure.

The former governor faulted federal police deployed on the west side, joining counter-terrorism forces he described as well trained and qualified and who protected civilians as they fought from east to west.

For the east side, it was a good plan. The people felt safe and secure during the liberation, he said. It wasnt like this.

If they continue in the same way, I believe it will be a big problem after the liberation, he said. The people of Mosul will not forget this.

Family members help Iraqi Civil Defense members pull corpses from beneath the rubble in Mosul after airstrikes killed dozens of civilians. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

West Mosul residents had complained about civilian casualties from airstrikes in the days leading up to the Jadidah strike. Hours after fleeing west Mosul with his family March 10, Mohammed Ali Mohammed, 40, recalled how he saw two neighbors killed in airstrikes.

Islamic State was trying to take those two guys from their house, he said of three militants. The plane targeted them and killed them all  including the two civilians. His daughters mother-in-law, sitting nearby in a field as they awaited a bus to a displaced persons camp, said her daughters west Mosul home was also targeted in an airstrike.

Luckily, Nawal Taha, 50, said, the family had just left home.

Islamic State forced us to leave our houses. They said you have half an hour or we will kill you, Taha recalled.

There were many Islamic State fighters in our neighborhood, she said, but the family stayed because before the offensive, we got leaflets from the army telling us to stay.

Afterward, militants forced families into their Wadi Hajar neighborhood, and Taha took 20 people in for a week, in addition to her family of 10. Now she worries about airstrikes in other overcrowded neighborhoods still under militant control. Theyre using our roofs to target them and so civilians are getting killed, she said.

Turkya Azadin weeps while watching Iraqi Civil Defense members recover bodies trapped in the rubble after a reported coalition airstrike in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Seated nearby, electrician Dari Saoud, 19, said he had seen a house in his Mohata neighborhood targeted by an airstrike the day before that killed at least 30 civilians, including women and children.

I saw it with my own eyes from about 50 yards away, he said, recalling how a bomber destroyed the civilian home and nearby houses where he said militants were sheltering.

They are accurate about their goals, their targets, but Daesh has time to escape, he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. He said he doesnt blame the U.S.-led coalition for the civilian toll.

Its because of Daesh that civilian casualties are happening, Saoud said.

Abu Adnan, 60, fled his west Mosul neighborhood near the Old City on March 10, a week after he saw a neighbor killed and another injured in what he described as an airstrike.

They should be accurate with the targeting of Islamic State fighters because the Old City is densely populated and the houses are not good quality. If one falls, others will too, Abu Adnan said as he hauled a bag of possessions over a dirt berm and out of his Danadan neighborhood as federal police looked on. His daughter, Amina, 10, carried a white flag to signal that they were civilians. Most of their relatives live in the Old City, Abu Adnan said.

Neighbors and volunteers watch as corpses are pulled out of the rubble of a home destroyed by reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Nearby, Namir Adib, 53, who runs a local supermarket, said he saw the airstrike that killed their neighbor, 28- year-old university student Bakr Borham.

Islamic State fighters were on the roof of Borhams house, Adib said, but not with his permission  he was a civilian. He pointed to windows and doors that he said were damaged by the airstrike.

Many people get killed because of the airstrikes, said his brother and neighbor, Atheer Ghazi, 55, adding that he would prefer to see soldiers fighting in the streets.

Up the street, barber Muthana Jabar, 32, said that he was friends with Borham and that he was nearby when the airstrike hit his house.

An Islamic State sniper was on the roof, so it was targeted, he said of Borhams home. Two days later we went to check the house, and he was dead. They should be more careful with the airstrikes because it endangers our lives, Jabar said.

Hennessy-Fiske reported from Mosul and Hennigan from Washington.

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6:20 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional details.

It was first published at 12:30 p.m.
Mars may have had its own ring billions of years ago according to a recent research conducted at the Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana funded by NASA. The study also denotes that the red planet's moon will eventually be rings again in the future as published in the Monday edition of Nature Geoscience.

The study on Mars ring and moon was headed by David Minton, and assistant professor at the Purdue University and Andrew Hesselbrock, a Department of Physics and Astronomy Ph.D. Student. Their theory suggests that the process of transformation probably took place three to seven times in the planet's history.

According to a model they created, Mars ring was a result of an asteroid or a big celestial body that slammed the planet 4.3 billion years ago. The slam produced debris from the planet that was pushed into space which eventually formed a planetary ring.

"That large impact would have blasted enough material off the surface of Mars to form a ring," said Andrew Hesslbrock, according to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Mars ring composed of debris clumps together resulting in the formation of moons.

The moons turning to Mars ring takes place because of the planet's gravitational pull bringing objects closer. Over time, the celestial body gets nearer to the Roche limit, the point where the red planet's tidal force breaks the gravity holding together a celestial body.

Researchers are closely watching over Deimos and Phobos, the planet's moons as the latter is getting nearer Roche limit. When Phobos breaks apart into a Mars ring for 70 million years, it is expected to be in smaller form after the process, as every time moon turns apart and turns into a ring, it will be five times smaller than its precedent.

The study suggests that having the appearance of a mundane asteroid class, the two moons could have been asteroids that got caught in the planet's gravitational field. Both have the potentials of becoming a Mars ring in the future, as ARS Technica reported. Watch this video for more of the story.
Scientists have found a rotavirus vaccine against the diarrheal disease that kills about 600 children a day worked well in a large a trial in Africa. The doctors are reported that's thing appears to be a practical way to protect millions of children.

According to The New York Times, the new vaccine is rotavirus, the most common cause of death from diarrhea in children under the age group of 5. The vaccine is manufactured by an Indian company and was tested in Niger by Doctors without Borders.

The medical researchers have stated that the vaccine is expected to be as cheap as or cheaper than current alternatives. The new rotavirus vaccine can last for a month without refrigeration, which makes far easier to use the vaccine without electricity in the remote village.

The New England Journal of Medicine has reported that the new vaccine of rotavirus must be approved by the World Health Organisation. The doctors stated that the approved process is still underway, experts hailed the new vaccine as a leap forward.

As per the report from WHO, almost 215,000 children under the age of 5 die every year by rotavirus. The figure is almost half in just four countries: India, Pakistan, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A leading research was sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that found that rotavirus was the leading of fatal diarrhea in children under the age group of 2. The only major one not caused by bacteria which are treatable with antibiotic and antiphrastic drugs.

Around 300 medical personnel were involved in the trial in Niger. Trained health workers have spent 24 hours a day in each of the 132 villages that the 3,500 in the study live in.

However, the study report was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The journal report pointed out that the vaccine was made by the Serum Institute of India was 67 percent effective in preventing severe episodes of rotavirus-related diarrhea.


The researchers from Houston have found complete genome of the mosquito that carries the Zika virus. The new technique that significantly lessens the cost and the time it takes to solve genetic mysteries.

According to Houston Chronicle, the research report published Thursday in the journal Science. In the journal, the researchers demonstrate how they were able to stitch together thousands of DNA fragments from the Aedes mosquito by using a technique known as a 3D assembly.

The researchers hope, with the method they can assemble a complete genome sequence from scratch of about $10,000 in a matter of weeks. The Human Genome Project lasted about 10 years and $4 billion to sequence a genome from scratch, or de novo, as it is called.

PHYS has reported, by 3D genome assembly, the scientists have assembled the 1.2 billion letter genome of the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries Zika virus. The new genome will enable scientists to better combat the Zika outbreak by identifying vulnerabilities in the mosquito that uses to spread Zika virus.

Human genomes include 6 billion chemical letters, called based pairs that divided up among 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chromosomes can be hundreds of millions base pair long, that's mean determining the sequencing can be incredibly time-consuming and expensive.

The advances in technology have brought down the cost of DNA sequencing. The only way to use those short reads is to compare them to an existing reference genome. The human genomes differ from one another, the use of reference genome does not tell a person's complete picture.

A few years back, Erez Aiden's team at Baylor figured out how the 6.5-foot-long genome folds to fit inside the nucleus of a cell. The research team has also used 3D assembly to construct from scratch the genome of the Culex mosquito that spreads the West Nile virus.

However, both mosquitos' genetic makeup helps scientists trying to find the new way to stop the spread of the disease. Scientists are on the way to find the new path of discovery.


The efforts of Kris and Doug Tompkins to acquire lands since 1990 have paved the way to the conservation of nature and Chile's beautiful landscapes. Although their visions were marred by antagonists who thought they are seeking the lands for their own personal benefits, the preservationist couple thrives to reach their goals. Even at the death of one of them, Kris Tompkins continued on to dedicate themselves as the Tompkins Conservation has recently donated 11 million acres of land, all for its preservation.

The Tompkins Conservation foundation has donated over a million acre of land to the government to expand their national parks and the signing of agreements was done just last week. According to reports from Blooloop, the donation of Tompkins Conservation was the largest ever made by a private entity and their generosity was acknowledged by Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. With the recently signed agreement, the Chilean government can add five more new parks with its 11 million acre land expanding from the north to south.

Adding Parque Pumalin and Patagonia to Chile's national park system will add up more jobs, and will definitely produce an income of about US$270 million for in tourism as per reports from New Atlas. With its huge expanse, it is considered to be three times the size of Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks combined. The pledge between Tompkins Conservation and the Chilean government has to be felt before the end of president Michelle Bachelet's term in 2018.

Thus, the project of expansion and converting these lands into national parkland has a 12-month deadline. The proposed "Route of Parks" will be a 17-park network extending up to 1,500 miles from Puerto Montt to Cape Horn. Thanks to Kris and Doug Tompkins' purest intentions, this will be Chile's sanctuary to its citizen and a tourist spot for nature lovers and adventurers from around the world.
Various rumor reports and publications have claimed that Microsoft may be going in an entirely different direction with their upcoming new Microsoft Surface Book 2 laptop. That direction, however, may not necessarily be forward as the company is expected to take a step back and offer the upcoming new 2017 Surface Book 2 as a standard laptop instead of a 2-in-1 device.

While some users have praised the original Surface Book's ability to detach from its keyboard and become a powerful tablet, others aren't quite inclined to use the particular feature. As reported by Droid Report, Microsoft may, in fact, have several reasons to go for a more traditional clamshell laptop design as opposed to having a convertible one.

The original Surface Book's hinge had presented some problems in the past, with some users complaining that the hinge actually leaves an unsightly gap that lets dust into the laptop's screen. According to MS Power User, the hinge is also still just another point of failure for the laptop as problems may eventually arise from it with continued use.

One of the biggest advantages of reverting to the traditional laptop design is the decrease in cost to manufacture the upcoming new Microsoft Surface Book 2 laptop. This means that if the rumors do indeed turn out to be true, then the upcoming Surface Book may be priced significantly lower than its predecessor. Removing the complicated hinge will essentially also improve the device's overall durability in the long run.

Another reason for shifting to the tried and tested laptop form factor is that the Microsoft Surface Book 2 may finally be considered as a power laptop that can compete with the likes of the Dell XPS laptops and Lenovo's Yoga line. Microsoft will also be able to cram in more powerful hardware into the laptop thanks to the savings it will make in reverting to the laptop form factor.
Cebu Pacific (Philippine Stock Exchange: CEB-PH) is set to achieve record results for the last financial year, said Lance Gokongwei, president and chief executive of the Philippines' first budget airline.



"We have about 58 to 60 percent of the domestic market now  And naturally, we benefited from lower oil prices, so we did very well last year," Gokongwei told CNBC's "Managing Asia."

Most of those record profits will be re-invested into acquiring planes with higher fuel efficiency, which will in turn result in more competitive airfares for Cebu Pacific customers, Gokongwei added.

The budget airline is part of JG Summit Holdings, the second largest conglomerate in the Philippines which began as a simple corn starch plant. As president and COO of conglomerate JG Summit Holdings, Gokongwei also holds various leadership roles in the JG Summit's fast-moving consumer goods and property arms.

As premium airlines in the region run into turbulence, Cebu Pacific is going all in with a twofold strategy aimed at improving competitiveness.

The first of those strategies involves working around the limited aviation infrastructure in the Philippines, which together with an uptick in air travel demand, has led to congestion.

"We have a limited slot situation in Manila. The airport there is quite slot-limited so our strategy is to up-gauge the existing slots we have by putting in larger aircraft," Gokongwei said.

Cebu Pacific will be ramping up productivity by replacing its existing Airbus 319 and 320 models with the Airbus 321neo. The 321 model has 230 seats compared to the existing 180 seats onboard the Airbus 320. The airline has committed $4 billion to a fleet upgrading program that would see it acquiring 46 new planes between now and 2021.

The airline's second strategy involves developing and investing in 5 additional hubs outside Manila, including Cebu, Davao and Ilo Ilo. Smaller aircraft will be used to provide direct access along those routes, Gokongwei said.

Story continues

Giving Cebu Pacific an additional boost could be the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's plans to ramp up infrastructure spending. Gokongwei said there are plans to "build out the 5 airports outside of Manila."

"Before, travelling by air was considered something only the elite did and now, everyone in the Philippines has access to fly through democratized travel," Gokongwei said.





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By Conor Ganly, News & Deputy Editor, Leinster Express

I grew into adulthood in the late 1980s - lean times. My first summer away from my safe west of Ireland home was to spend a couple of months working in London and living with a brother - an immigrant.

We lived with our two first cousins both of whom were university graduates. We were from Galway they from Dublin. All were forced to emigrate.

My first night there was out in Kilburn - an Irish parish in London. Everybody in the pub was Irish.

However, from then on for the rest of the summer my only Irish contact was with the brother and cousins.

Construction work was not for me so I went to a private job agency.

They dispatched me to work for Brent Borough Council. For the next fortnight I worked with another immigrant, from the West Indies, he drove the truck I was the labourer.

During those two first weeks my eyes were wrenched wide open to a world apart.

At home we thought London was 'full of Irish'. I found out that it was, but the city was more of a multi-cultural melting pot with all sorts from the four corners

One job was in a school removing polling booths. I still remember a poster up on the wall. Its purpose was integration. The poster had names and national flags of pupils from across the globe.

Ireland in the late 1980s was like cow's milk - white though not homogenised. We were all relatively the same.

Roll the clock on to 2017. Portlaoise is now my home and the town reminds me of that school poster in London. It is a reality we must welcome.

Last week, Laois people gathered in their thousands under the patriotic rain, to rightly celebrate our Irishness. Among the crowds and particpants were many people who do not have Irish names or were not born here.

Against that reality of differance, this week former president Mary McAleese urged communities to drown out what she called "the siren voices of racial and religious intolerance which are playing havoc with the lives" of refugees and immigrants around the world.

Speaking at a party in the White House, our Taoiseach Enda Kenny thanked President Donald Trump for giving so much time to celebrate St Patricks legacy as the patron of immigrants.

After all, St Patrick was not Irish and was a slave.

The Taoiseach could have coined a phrase that can reinvent our national day so that it is a celebration of everyone on the island.

By the way, my brother is now a citizen of the USA. One cousin is in Australia and another returned to London.
Two key medical experts will present a free information seminar this week for adults and children who are suffering migraine.

The seminar will be delivered by Consultant Paediatrician, Dr Muhammed Tariq and Jane Melling, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Migraine Clinic, Dublin Neurological Institute, Mater Hospital Dublin

An estimated 10% of children suffer migraine - thats over 100,000 children in Ireland alone. The condition is misunderstood and often misdiagnosed in children. A recent BT Young Scientists Project by migraine sufferer Tara OBrien discovered that 1 in 4 students suffered from migraine but only 27% of teachers felt they knew how to treat and support a student suffering from migraine.

Migraine is recognised as a medical condition, by the Department of Education allowing students to avail of extra supports and arrangements under the Reasonable Accommodation for Certificate Examinations (R.A.C.E) Scheme. Only 5% of students and 12% of teachers are aware that this scheme is available to migraine sufferers, despite the fact that it has proved an invaluable support to students especially around stressful exam times.

Dr Muhammed Tariq is a Consultant Paediatrician in the Midlands Regional Hospital with an interest in Respiratory, Allergy, Migraine and Sleep. Dr. Tariq was previously a Consultant Paediatrician in the UK for a number of years and he trained at Kings College London. He has extensive expertise and experience treating migraine and headache disorders in children and he has developed Irelands first GP protocol for diagnosing paediatric migraine.

The seminar will also feature an information and advice session for Adult Migraine Sufferers with Clinical Nurse Specialist. Jane Melling. Jane will explain the various treatments, medications and lifestyle adaptations that often prevent or reduce migraine attacks.

There are over 500,000 people who suffer migraine in Ireland, with an estimated 13, 000 attacks occurring every day at a cost of 252 million annually to the Irish Economy in lost days and reduced productivity.

The seminar takes place on Wednesday, March at 7pm in the Maldron Hotel, Portlaoise. To book a place email info@migraine.ie or you can book on Eventbrite at www.eventbrite.ie/e/migraine-in-children-and-adults-expert-seminar-tickets-32660567637?aff=es2

The Migraine Association has provided advocacy, information and support services for migraine sufferers in Ireland for over 20 years. www.migraine.ie.
(Updates with CEO McGarry leaves without meeting Akzo)

AMSTERDAM, March 24 (Reuters) - A team of executives from U.S. paint maker PPG left the Netherlands on Friday without meeting their counterparts at Akzo Nobel during a two-day charm offensive to win support for their proposed takeover of their Dutch rival.

PPG's public relations blitz followed Akzo's rejection of a March 20 takeover offer, a decision which has raised protests from shareholders who say the U.S. company's bid deserves a fair hearing.

Akzo Nobel shares were down 0.1 percent at 77.84 euros on Friday afternoon, well below the 89.6 euros implied by PPG's cash and share offer, which values Akzo's share capital at $24.4 billion.

PPG Chief Executive Michael McGarry remained open to meeting with Akzo Nobel representatives "anytime and anywhere", a PPG spokesman said.

But a spokesman for Akzo said no meetings were planned, repeating statements by Akzo CEO Ton Buechner that the current proposal was not sufficient to warrant any engagement with the U.S firm.

During their two-day visit, PPG's team met local media, officials from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Akzo Noble shareholders and the VEB, an organisation that represents shareholders in the Netherlands.

McGarry met Bertholt Leeftink, Director-General Enterprise and Innovation at the Economic Affairs Ministry in The Hague, a ministry spokesman said. He declined to provide details.

But the PPG team failed to meet any Akzo officials or labour unions.

"To be honest, we don't want a deal with the Americans," said Erik de Vries, a representative of Akzo's main labour union FNV. "We have major concerns about their plans for job cuts."

Akzo has said PPG's offer, "not only fails to reflect the current and future value of Akzo Nobel, it also neglects to address the significant uncertainties and risks for shareholders and other stakeholders".

Under Dutch law, the company's boards must take the interests of employees and customers into account when making major strategic decisions, along with those of shareholders.

Story continues

Many of Akzo's shareholders have urged Buechner to meet PPG's McGarry. A poll of 50 Akzo Nobel shareholders published by Sanford Bernstein found that 80 percent of them wanted Akzo's management to enter talks with Pittsburgh-based PPG.

About 7 percent of the company's shareholder base is Dutch, while about 11 percent of its 46,000 employees are based in the Netherlands.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; editing by Keith Weir and David Clarke)
The Minister for Health has postponed a crunch meeting with Laois GPs over the future of the Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise.

Minister Simon Harris was due to meet the GPs next week, March 29, to discuss with them what should happen with the hospital. However, they have now been told that he cannot now meet due to "scheduling issues and Dail business".

The GPs had hoped that the meeting would play a key part in retaining services at the hospital which is under serious threat of downgrade by the HSE and its Dublin Midland's Hospital Group. The DMHG says it has the backing of the national clinical leads in removing A&E, ICU and other services from the hospital.

The Laois GPs have been to the fore in the fight to retain services but recently declined an offer of a meeting with the DMHG chief executive and author of the plan for Portlaoise, Dr Susan O'Reilly.

At the time the family doctors said they first wanted to see a plan for the hospital before discussing its future. Their co-operation is critical for any HSE plan since the health service wants to filter less-ill patients who need treatment through a Medical Assessment Unit. This unit was high on the agenda when Portlaoise hospital consultant met Dr O'Reilly.

The Minister had pledged to meet the doctors when he visited Portlaoise in January at the height of the trolley crisis. He gave the commitment to local councillors and TDs including Minster for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan.

The GPs were briefed recently by Fianna Fail Health Spokesperson Billy Kelleher. Fianna Fail has access to information under the Confidence and Supply arrangement with Fine Gael. The doctors learned that consultations between the HSE and Department of Health officials are complete on Portlaoise but that it was not clear if the Minister had the plan.

The HSE refused access to the plan for Portlaoise to Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley because they said to release it under Freedom of Information would not be in the best interest of patients.

The HSE cannot make a decision to downgrade Portlaoise because this is a policy decision and under law only the Minister for Health can make a decision.

The GPs have been told that Minister Harris will now meet them on April 25.
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The talk of the Blitz spirit in London can become a bit mawkish at a time like this. A family member of mine went through the real Blitz in 1940 and 1941 and she told me that all was far from the myth. Class still pervaded all  for example, many looked down on those without a shelter who hid from bombs in the tube. Not everyone sang Roll out the barrel; not everyone cooed with gratitude as Queen Elizabeth wafted by in chiffon. Looting was a common occurrence. Horrible things were covered up by the authorities.

And yet it was also a time of extraordinary solidarity. The resilience of the East Londoner was not made up. Grandma talked matter-of-factly about being bombed out, of losing home and possessions  not once but twice, as if it were a minor inconvenience.

When I was a child in the seventies I was taken to see the Christmas windows at Selfridges. Not far from where my Grandma worked throughout the Blitz. Selfridges was bombed later that day (the IRA gave a warning and there was enormous damage but no loss of life). Twenty five years later the office where I worked received damage when a nail bomb was left in Brixton market. My colleagues and I were lucky. It was a weekend and none of us were in the building but many Saturday shoppers suffered horrible injuries.

London is a magnet for the brightest and the best but also for the very worst. There will always be those who want to erase their own futility by making a depraved little mark in one of the greatest of capitals.

Many Londoners, commuters and visitors will have a near miss or a what if in their minds today but perhaps a tiny crumb of comfort can be drawn from the history and the very fabric of London itself. A city that has seen it all.

* Ruth Bright has been a councillor in Southwark and Parliamentary Candidate for Hampshire East
My Twitter and Facebook timelines are full of people heading to march for Europe today. Tim Farron and Nick Clegg are speaking at the march in London. Tim Farron is on second and the Cleggster is on last. Alex Cole-Hamilton is speaking for us, as he has done so movingly on so many occasions, in Edinburgh.

Its such a poignant, emotional day. Its 60 years since the Treaty of Rome was signed. Its the Diamond Jubilee of a real diamond of international co-operation and collaboration and partnership. In just four days, Theresa May will set in train the process of us leaving it. That absolutely breaks my heart. And, in time, it will cause real hardship for everyone in this country, but most of all, the poorest, who mainly voted Leave.

In London, Lib Dems will be meeting at 10 am at Marble Arch. In Edinburgh, meet at Waterloo Place at 1pm.

Tim Farron will touch on the tragic events of Wednesday before going on to talk about Brexit.

The unspeakable outrage that happened in this city on Wednesday will not defeat us, or silence us or divide us. Democracy continues, free speech continues, our way of life continues. Terrorism will not win.

He will then move onto Brexit and will say:

We respectfully say that Parliament is not enacting the will of the people, it is interpreting the will of the people.

Theresa May could have chosen a consensual Brexit shes chosen the most extreme version divided the country.

Departure not destination. The choice is who should decide the final deal. Should it be politicians or the people? The Liberal Democrats say the people.

We can turn the tide of populism and we can change the direction of our nation  liberals and progressives can and will win again.

I am not prepared to accept that our country is inevitably to become meaner, smaller, poorer. If you believe in democracy then you accept defeat with good grace and you keep on campaigning for a better Britain.

Our job is to win hearts and minds over these coming months, to win support for a referendum on the deal, to change the direction of the debate and to change the direction of our country.

If you love your country, then you do not meekly sit by while it turns a dangerous corner. Instead you keep fighting, you keep believing.

With the triggering of Article 50 this week, some will despair, this week of all weeks they will despair. We are here to say defiantly, we are up to here with despair, the future is yet to be written, we stand together to say that we are determined to write it.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
joe scarborough

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough launched into a lengthy tirade on healthcare Friday morning, slamming President Donald Trump for prioritizing healthcare overhaul above issues such as tax reform.

"This was such an obviously stupid play done by somebody, or a group of people, that didn't know how Washington worked," Scarborough said on "Morning Joe."

"We said it time and time again. They could not lead with healthcare. And when they decided to lead with healthcare, why did they decide to lead with Paul Ryan's version of healthcare? It was completely opposite of what Donald Trump promised every day on the campaign trail."

The future of Republican leaders' healthcare bill, the American Health Care Act, has been in flux all week, as Republicans struggle to whip votes within their own party. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have remained holdouts, arguing the AHCA does not go far enough in repealing the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law better known as Obamacare.

Trump used Twitter on Friday morning to attack the House Freedom Caucus, arguing that it was ironic that the group, "which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!"

Scarborough said Trump had waded into the same trap that befell President Bill Clinton when Clinton tried to push healthcare reform in the early 1990s.

"So much of this was the same mistake that  neophyte presidents make when they come into Washington," he said. "Bill Clinton ended up getting destroyed because he went too far left."

Scarborough said Trump should have allowed Ryan, the House speaker, to sort out the details of healthcare reform with other members of Congress first and involve himself toward the end of a deal to play "peacemaker."

"I know this sounds cold  they said, 'Well we've been promising to repeal and replace Obamacare for six years.' Well guess what? That's their problem," he said. "That's not the president of the United States' problem."

Story continues

Watch a clip of the full exchange below:

NOW WATCH: Animated map shows which states are the biggest winners and losers from 'Trumpcare'





More From Business Insider


SpaceX and NASA Are Looking for Places to Land on Mars

SpaceX, the aerospace company led by Elon Musk, is working with NASA scientists to locate possible landing sites on Mars.

Paul Wooster, who manages the guidance, navigation, and control systems on SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft, said during a presentation at MicroSymposium 58 earlier this month that the landing sites were for both its Red Dragon spacecraft as well as future human missions, SpaceNews reported.

Musk founded SpaceX to lower the cost of space travel with the eventual goal of colonizing Mars.

The symposium program, held in Woodland, Texas ahead of the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference there, focused on surface exploration and sample return. Woosters talk on SpaceXs plans was followed by a presentation by NASA on landing sites and exploration zones for human missions to Mars. One site looks promising, Wooster said.

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NASA and SpaceX are narrowing down sites based on certain criteria, including access to ice near the surface, which would be used to support humans who settle on the planet, according to remarks reported by SpaceNews.

SpaceX recently completed its 10th cargo flight with NASA. The companys Dragon spacecraft was deployed on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida and delivered supplies and scientific experiments to the International Space Station for NASA.

SpaceXs intention to get to Mars is hardly secret. Last year, the company tweeted its plans to send Dragon to Mars as early as 2018. But the collaboration provides a glimpse at the companys progress.

Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018. Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come pic.twitter.com/u4nbVUNCpA - SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 27, 2016

The planned Mars spacecraft will be called Red Dragon.

SpaceX announced last month it plans to send to private citizens in a crewed Dragon in a trip around the moon next year-an important step towards the companys ultimate goal. Dragon currently carries cargo to space. However, the spacecraft was designed from the outset to carry humans. SpaceX through an agreement with NASA is working on the Dragon to enable it to fly crew.

Story continues

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed a bill that updates NASAs mission to include exploration on Mars. However, Musk says the bill wont help accelerate the timeline to get to Mars.

Musk, responding to a journalist Kara Swishers tweet, said the bill changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing. Existing programs stay in place and there is no added funding for Mars, he wrote, later adding Perhaps there will be some future bill that makes a difference for Mars, but this is not it.

This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com
Signs of spring

(Image credit: Linda & Dr. Dick Buscher)

By mid-February in the three great hot and dry deserts of the American West, wildflowers turn stark desert landscapes into a sea of color. Whether it is in the low plains of Death Valley or among the saguaro forests of the Sonoran Desert, wildflowers become for a short time the most common of plants, while also signaling the arrival of another spring.

Colorful deserts

(Image credit: Linda & Dr. Dick Buscher)

Every color of the rainbow can be found across the land which, in another short three months, will return to the drab shades of browns and blacks. But for now, the gold of the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), or the blue of lupine (Lupinus preens) and the purple of the owl's clover (Castilleja exserta), as shown here, all turn the desert into a magic carpet of natural beauty.

Western Swallowtail

(Image credit: Linda & Dr. Dick Buscher)

And as surely as the explosion of wildflowers occurs across the desert lands each spring, so too do the many species of butterflies returning to feed upon them. In the Sonoran Desert alone, there are more than 250 species of butterflies found flittering across the desert floor, from one wildflower to another. Here, a Western Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) enjoys a quick meal of nectar.

American Snout

(Image credit: NPS)

The American snout (Libytheana carinenta) is a common butterfly of these American deserts. It has an extremely wide distribution from central California to the eastern United States, south through Central America and South America to Argentina. Each spring in the West, there is a mass migration northward of millions of these butterflies. Two generations of butterflies occur each year. The adult wingspan measure 1.6 inches to 1.9 inches (4 to 5 centimeters) and they seem to have a preference for feeding on yellow and white flowers.

Painted Lady butterfly larvae

(Image credit: NPS)

The return of butterflies to these deserts is soon followed by an explosion of their young caterpillars feeding on the annual crop of desert wildflowers. Shown here is the larvae of the Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) as it feeds of the Common Fiddleneck (Amsinckia menziesti) flower in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.

Painted Lady

(Image credit: NPS)

The Painted Lady is also known in some parts as the Thistle Butterfly because of its caterpillars' apparent fondness for thistle plants. It is the most widely dispersed butterfly in the world, as it can be found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Occasionally a population explosion of the Painted Lady butterfly in the deserts of northern Mexico results in a migration of the butterfly into the far north of Canada.

Gold-hunter's Hairstreak

(Image credit: NPS)

The Gold-hunter's Hairstreak (Satyrium auretorum) is a common visitor to these southwest deserts. Desert milkweed (Asciepias subulata) is a favorite food of this butterfly, which has a wingspan of 1 inch to 1 1/4 inches (2.5 to 3.2 cm). Hairstreak butterflies belong to the Lycaenidae Family and are part of the true butterfly Superfamily Papilionoidea. There are approximately 4,700 species of this family of butterfly found around the world.

Great Purple Hairstreak

(Image credit: NPS)

The colorful Great Purple Hairstreak (Atlides halesus) is another member of the Superfamily Papilionoidea found in the deserts of the American West. The Great Purple Hairstreak has one short and one long tail protruding from its hind wing. Adults have a wingspan of 1 1/4 inches to 2 inches (3.2 to 5.1 cm). Mistletoe often found growing on mesquite and palo verde trees of the desert regions are a favorite food of the Hairstreak's caterpillars.

Queen butterfly

(Image credit: NPS)

The Queen butterfly (Danaus gilippus) is a year-round resident in the deserts of the American West. It is a relative of the Common Monarch (Danaus plexippus), but is darker in color. Adult Queen butterflies have a wingspan of 2 5/8 inches to 3 7/8 inches (6.7 to 9.8 cm). The larvae of the Queen feed on the various species of milkweed that grow throughout the desert. Queen butterflies are found throughout the American deserts and in the southern regions of the United States, south through Mexico, Central and South America to Argentina.

Checkered White

(Image credit: NPS)

The Checkered White (Pontia protodice) is a commonly found butterfly in the middle and lower elevations of the American deserts. They are most common from March to May but can be found in the warm regions of the desert all year round. A smaller desert butterfly with a wingspan of only 1 1/2 inches to 2 1/2 inches (3.8 to 6.3 cm), Larvae of the Checkered Whites prefer to feed on the flowers, buds and fruits of their host, but will consume leaves when only leaves are available. They dine on the variety of plants from the mustard, cabbage and caper families that grow across the desert regions.

Western Pygmy-Blue

(Image credit: NPS)

The Western Pygmy-Blue (Brephidium exilis), one of the smallest butterflies in the world, has a wingspan of only 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch (1.2 to 2 cm), and is a common resident of the American deserts. Caterpillars feed on the many species of saltbush found across these desert regions. They are part of the gossamer wing family of butterflies, or those whose wings appear delicate and shimmery because they are covered by both pigmented and light-reflecting scales. These miniature butterflies are found from central California east to Texas and south throughout Baja California, Mexico to Venezuela. Interestingly, the tiny chrysalises of the Western Pygmy-Blue can make a faint noise that lepidopterists think might help scare off hungry ants.
The last ice age led to the rise of the woolly mammoth and the vast expansion of glaciers, but it's just one of many that have chilled Earth throughout the planet's 4.5-billion-year history.

So, how often do ice ages happen, and when is the next freeze expected to begin?

The answer to the first question depends on whether you're talking about big ice ages or the little ice ages that happen within those larger periods. Earth has undergone five big ice ages, some of which lasted for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, Earth is in a big ice age now, which explains why the planet has polar ice caps.

Related: Photo gallery: Antarctica's Pine Island glacier cracks

Big ice ages account for about 25 percent of Earth's past billion years, said Michael Sandstrom, a doctoral student in paleoclimate at Columbia University in New York City.

The five major ice ages in the paleo record include the Huronian glaciation (2.4 billion to 2.1 billion years ago), the Cryogenian glaciation (720 million to 635 million years ago), the Andean-Saharan glaciation (450 million to 420 million years ago), the Late Paleozoic ice age (335 million to 260 million years ago) and the Quaternary glaciation (2.7 million years ago to present).

These large ice ages can have smaller ice ages (called glacials) and warmer periods (called interglacials) within them. During the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation, from about 2.7 million to 1 million years ago, these cold glacial periods occurred every 41,000 years. However, during the last 800,000 years, huge glacial sheets have appeared less frequently  about every 100,000 years, Sandstrom said.

This is how the 100,000-year cycle works: Ice sheets grow for about 90,000 years and then take about 10,000 years to collapse during warmer periods. Then, the process repeats itself.

Given that the last ice age ended about 11,700 years ago, isn't it time for Earth to get icy again?

"We should be heading into another ice age right now," Sandstrom told Live Science. But two factors related to Earth's orbit that influence the formation of glacials and interglacials are off. "That, coupled with the fact that we pump so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere [means] we're probably not going to enter a glacial for at least 100,000 years," he said.

What causes a glacial?

A hypothesis put forth by the Serbian astronomer Milutin Milankovitch (also spelled Milankovic) explains why Earth cycles in and out of glacials and interglacials.

As the planet circles the sun, three factors affect how much sunlight it gets: its tilt (which ranges from 24.5 degrees to 22.1 degrees on a 41,000-year cycle); its eccentricity (the changing shape of its orbit around the sun, which ranges from a near-circle to an oval-like shape); and its wobble (one full wobble, which looks like a slowly spinning top, happens every 19,000 to 23,000 years), according to Milankovitch.

In 1976, a landmark paper in the journal Science provided evidence that these three orbital parameters explained the planet's glacial cycles, Sandstrom said.

"Milankovitch's theory is that the orbital cycles have been predictable and very consistent throughout time," Sandstrom said. "If you are in an ice age, then you'll have more or less ice depending on these orbital cycles. But if the Earth is too warm, they basically won't do anything, at least in terms of growing ice."

Related: Doomsday: 9 real ways Earth could end

One thing that can warm Earth is a gas such as carbon dioxide. Over the past 800,000 years, carbon dioxide levels have fluctuated between about 170 parts per million and 280 ppm (meaning that out of 1 million air molecules, 280 of them are carbon dioxide molecules). That's a difference of only about 100 ppm between glacials and interglacials, Sandstrom said.

But carbon dioxide levels are much higher today when compared with these past fluctuations. In May 2016, Antarctica carbon dioxide levels hit the high level of 400 ppm, according to Climate Central.

Earth has been warm before. For instance, it was much warmer during the dinosaur age. "[But] the scary thing is how much carbon dioxide we've put in [the atmosphere] in such a short period of time," Sandstrom said.

The warming effects of that carbon dioxide will have big consequences, he said, because even a small increase in Earth's average temperature can lead to drastic changes, he said. For instance, Earth was only about 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) colder, on average, during the last ice age than it is today, Sandstrom said.

If global warming causes both Greenland's and Antarctica's ice sheets to melt, the oceans will rise about 196 feet (60 meters) higher than they are now, Sandstrom said.

What leads to big ice ages?

The factors that caused the long ice ages, such as the Quaternary glaciation, are less well-understood than those that led to glacials, Sandstrom noted. But one idea is that a massive drop in carbon dioxide levels can lead to lower temperatures, he said.

For instance, according to the uplift-weathering hypothesis, as plate tectonics pushed up mountain ranges, new rock became exposed. This unprotected rock was easily weathered and broken apart, and would fall into the oceans, taking carbon dioxide with it.

These rocks provided critical components that marine organisms used to build their calcium-carbonate shells. Over time, both the rocks and the shells took carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which, along with other forces, helped lower carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, Sandstrom said.

Originally published on Live Science.
PASTOR MIKE BENOIT

Background: He's 63, born and raised in Albany where he graduated from Vincentian Institute and attended what's now Sage College of Albany for a year. He and his wife Lois are the parents of Alisha, Callie and son Nathan.

You're the pastor of Cornerstone Fellowship in North Hoosick.

It's the only church I ever pastored. It will be 35 years on Oct. 30.

Before that, you'd set your sights set on being rock star.

I musically cut my teeth on Duane Allman and Eric Clapton, I played in local bands, the most popular was Adirondack with five great guys in the late '70s. We opened for Joe Cocker at the Palace. We were either going to make it with the band or get straight jobs and play music on the weekends. Near the end, though, I felt the Lord pulling me to another place. After a tug, there was this incredible yank.

Your young son's illness changed any plans you had.

Marc was 8 years old when he contracted leukemia. I fell on my knees and asked, "What did I do wrong?" I didn't go to church much but I read the Bible and had a sense of God's ultimate control over my life. After a lot of prayer and conversation, we opted for natural treatment in Florida. But we left there after a legal battle there and couldn't complete the therapy we wanted. We were told Marc would die in two weeks. He lived a year.

We moved to Phoenix and met down-to-earth people and Pastors Larry and Janet Neville at a small, outreach-minded church. I was an uneducated, long-haired hippie musician, full of energy, looking for purpose. Under the Nevilles' guidance I was transformed into a disciple for ministry.

We trained one on one rather than in a college or seminary model, with the New Testament as a guide. We were young men and women raised up and sent into unchurched areas. We played play rock 'n' roll on street corners and in parks to get a crowd and then reach out with the gospel. We transitioned after a while to the Phoenix First Assembly, a megachurch of over 15,000.

What brought you back East?

The first Assembly of God Church in North Hoosick, which my father-in-law founded and had led for 17 years, called and asked if I would try out. I spent a weekend preaching three services and knew this was where I was supposed to be. The Capital Region had come alive spiritually. I was excited. We have shifted from the Pentecostal affiliation to a nondenominational fellowship. Our worship team leads through music, scripture and spontaneously inspired singing and soloing. I invite my worshipers, of all ages, to let it go, "Let the creator be creative in you. Let the holy spirit move you."

Hoosick Falls is dealing with PFOA in its drinking water.

It's been hard, but the fabric in this community that is well-woven. It can weather this crisis as it has many difficult situations. We're located on Route 22, less than a mile north of Hoosick Falls, so we are not on the village water supply. One of our foundational strengths is a united clergy group of nine churches. Our ecumenical clergy association brought in a faith-based team to help navigate the situation. We met with political and social leaders to keep communication open, civil and positive as much as possible. The Hoosick Area Church Association's ministry center distributes thousands of dollars in food. An emergency fund works with the Salvation Army and has resources to be a stopgap for folks who fall between the cracks. The ministry center is also home to an IRS program in which we do taxes for free for anyone earning under $43,000 a year.

As this year began, your life was turned upside down.

Out of nowhere I was feeling short of breath and tired. I spiked a fever on Jan. 10, went to Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, which is the closest hospital and where I've been a volunteer chaplain. After a CT scan, the doctor was concerned and told me my lungs were full of fibrosis. I went by ambulance to Albany Med. My oxygen demand got worse and worse. I was transferred to the ICU on Friday the 13th where I needed 100 percent oxygen. A dozen years ago I would have been intubated or dead. There's still no diagnosis beyond the general heading "interstitial lung disease" that doesn't respond to treatment.

A lot of people know me, and my wife is a retired Hoosick Falls teacher who everybody loves, so word spread fast. I was transferred Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston to be evaluated for a lung transplant, but I wasn't healthy enough and therefore denied. They said, "There's nothing else we can do."

And then, something changed.

Nobody knows why it stopped ravaging of my lungs. All I can say is that the only constant is prayer. It took a few days for word to spread, the precipitous free fall ended and my oxygen need has decreased each day. I went back to Albany Med. A month ago the progress went from a snail to a turtle. I started feeling remarkably better. I was released on March 17.

What are your plans now?

I am at my daughter Alicia's home near Kingston. In North Hoosick, volunteers are removing moldy sheet rock from my home and creating a safe place for me to be. I won't move back until we're done cleaning it and have air filters in place.

Every day I feel better. My doctors and my family want me to be careful where I go and what I do. I cannot thank everyone enough for their support, prayer, positive thoughts, donations and offerings. I thank the North Hoosick Fire Department and Hoosick Falls Rescue Squad. My church, my family, musicians have done so much behind the scenes to keep the church running. I am still easily winded and need constant oxygen, but this is nothing less than a miracle. Mine is truly a resurrection story. I have every confidence I'll be better in a year than I was two years ago. And I'll be at my church on Easter Sunday ready to rock for Jesus.

 Rob Brill
Troy

Two at-large Republican City Council members called Friday for the city to use available city reserves and federal funds to open the two municipal swimming pools this summer.

Councilwoman Kim Ashe-McPherson said Mayor Patrick Madden, a Democrat, should allocate a portion of the city's $2.259 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funds for the Knickerbacker Park and South Troy pools.

Funding to operate the pools was cut from the city's 2017 budget proposed by Madden and later amended before it was approved by the council. Since then there's been a public outcry for the city to open the pools so its poorest residents have a place to cool off this summer.

"These are funds that would enable the city pools to be reopened and to have an important recreational opportunity restored for so many city families this summer," Ashe-McPherson said.

City Council President Carmella Mantello wrote Madden Friday to ask him to use money from the city's $1.2 million capital reserve account or the CDBG money for the work necessary to open the pools.

"The two city pools in Troy have been open continuously for several decades, and in turn served many young people in our community," Mantello said.

"I would request that you develop a short term plan to open the city pools, and then together we can carve out a long-term plan once we've effectively dealt with the pools in 2017," Mantello said.

Deputy Mayor Monica Kurzejeski has been handling the pool issue for Madden's administration. The city is to have an engineer review the condition's of the two pools.

"The City Council's proposal to reallocate CDBG funds will hurt neighborhoods and strip away important funding from planned improvements to parks, streets and sidewalks in Lansingburgh and other areas throughout the city," Kurzejeski said.

The deputy mayor said the administration encourages the City Council leadership to work on long-term neighborhood improvement and "review the City Council approved five-year plan which is posted on the city website."

Ashe-McPherson said the right thing for Madden to do is to reallocate the CDBG money to get the pools ready for the summer swimming season. For the administration not to use the federal funds for the pools raises questions, the councilwoman said.

"This seems like a missed opportunity to reopen the pools and the mayor needs to reverse course and provide funds to restore this important service in 2017," Ashe-McPherson said.

kcrowe@timesunion.com  518-454-5084  @KennethCrowe
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Cleveland City Council approved the usage of Hotel Occupancy Taxes (HOT) funds on March 21 to be used for marketing purposes for two upcoming events hosted by the Greater Cleveland Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber sought the funds, $12,022 to be precise, to market its upcoming Outdoor Expo and Music Fest later this year.

"This is only for the advertising and promotion," said Cleveland Chamber COO Jim Carson.

The Outdoor Expo, set for Aug. 26-27, is replacing the Lock 'N Load Gun Shows the Cleveland Chamber has hosted in the past. The event is set to provide vendors and items based around not only firearms but also other outdoor activities such as archery and fishing.

"The Outdoor Expo is going to be a huge family event," said City Manager Kelly McDonald.

The Music Fest is scheduled for Oct. 21 and is expected to have a number of musical performances from various bands, including the Cleveland High School band.

"I think it will eventually go into an annual event," said Carson.

J. Rice, past board chairman of the chamber, also explained that the Music Fest is going to feature a number of genres including zydeco, blues, country, rock and roll and more.

"We covered just about every taste in music," he said.

The council passed the item unanimously.

Cleveland Police Chief Darrel Broussard presented an award for 35 years of service to Capt. James Primeaux.

Primeaux is a local resident of Cleveland, who graduated from Cleveland High School Class of 1968.

"He started at the Cleveland Police Department in April of 1979 as a reserve police officer," said Broussard. "On March 22, 1982, he became full-time as a patrol officer."

Primeaux has performed a variety of duties for the Cleveland Police Department from patrolman, shift supervisor, detective and evidence-property room manager. He is currently assigned as the captain of the Criminal Investigations Division and holds a State of Texas Master Peace Officers Certification.

Broussard also said Primeaux is one of the best genealogists he has ever known and is very knowledgeable on the history of Cleveland and the police department.

"We are grateful to have Capt. Primeaux as a valued member of our team for the many years," said Broussard. "We truly appreciate and thank you for your genuine loyalty to this department and the City of Cleveland, Texas."
After what's considered a stunning setback for Republicans trying to replace the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, Woodlands Republican congressman Kevin Brady says he's not discouraged by the setback.

President Donald Trump had demanded early Friday that House Republicans vote on the legislation Friday, but instead of voting on the bill, it was pulled minutes before the vote was scheduled to take place.

Brady, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, laments that Republicans in Congress couldn't join in defeating the opposition mounted by Democrats.

"There are a lot of Americans and a lot of Texans who are going to be hurt," Brady told The Courier by phone late Friday.

"I'm proud to stand with President Trump," Brady said. "We have fought hard for this repeal -- but I'm not discouraged. Ways and Means Republicans are moving full speed ahead with President Trump on the first pro-growth tax reform in a generation."

Earlier this week, in a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee, Brady a staunch and longtime critic of Obamacare, while also taking a lead role in pushing the proposed American Health Care Act, the Republican replacement plan, sang the praises of the Republicans' proposal, while continuing to blast Obamacare.

"Millions of Americans have lost access to the health plans and doctors of their choice," Brady told the committee. "Out-of-pocket costs are skyrocketing. And free-market competition in healthcare has all but disappeared," he said.

Meanwhile late Friday, President Trump blamed the Republican setback earlier in the day on Democrats.

"With no Democrat support we couldn't quite get there," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "We learned about loyalty, we learned a lot about the vote-getting process."

For their part, Democrats who continue to bash the Republican proposal, seemed thrilled with Friday's developments.

"Today is a great day for our country, what happened on the floor is a victory for the American people," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who as speaker herself helped Obama pass the Affordable Care Act in the first place. "Let's just for a moment breathe a sigh of relief for the American people."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Etihad Airways A380 JFK Flags

The Department of Homeland Security's ban on large electronics is now officially in effect.

The ban, which was announced on Tuesday, forbids passengers from bringing any electronic devices larger than a cell phone into the cabin of certain flights to the US.

Airlines were sent scrambling for answers to the operational nightmare created by the ban, after getting just 96 hours to comply or risk losing their license to fly into the US.



There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the ban's motives, its effectiveness at deterring a terrorist attack, the huge loopholes left open by the Trump administration, and how airlines are expected to comply with the ban and a Federal Aviation Administration prohibition against checking lithium-ion battery devices.

Here's what we know so far.

What's the ban?

The ban requires passengers to place all electronic items larger than a cell phone in their checked luggage so the devices cannot be accessed in flight. This includes laptops, tablets, e-readers, portable DVD players, gaming devices larger than a smartphone, and travel-size printers and scanners. However, necessary medical devices are exempt.

The new policy covers only non-stop flights to the US coming from one of 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa  including a few of the busiest transit hubs in the world: Istanbul, Turkey and Dubai in the UAE.

Flights from the US to these destinations will not be affected.

Laptop ban airlines and airports DHS TSA

As a result, a total of nine airlines, including industry heavyweights such as Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, and Turkish Airlines, will have to deal with the consequences of the ban.

But not all flights from these airlines into the US will be affected by the ban.



For instance, Emirates offers flights to New York's JFK International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey from Dubai that stop in Milan, Italy and Athens, Greece. On Thursday, Emirates confirmed that passengers on these flights will be permitted to have their laptops and other electronic devices with them in the cabin.

Story continues

In addition, no flights operated by US or European airlines will be affected directly by the ban because none offer non-stop service to the US from that region of the world. However, several US carriers including American, United, JetBlue, and Alaska could see their business take a hit. This is because airlines such as Qatar, Turkish, and Emirates feed passengers directly into their respective domestic networks.

How will the ban work?

The ban calls for all large electronic devices to be packed with checked luggage at each passenger's point of origin. This means that those transiting through the affected airports will be without their devices from the onset of their trip. For instance, if you are traveling from Mumbai, India to Atlanta, GA via Doha, Qatar, your laptop will have to be checked in Mumbai even though it's not one of the airports on the banned list.

Qatar Airways Business Class Q Suite

However, those flying with Emirates through Dubai will have the benefit of a work-around that will allow passengers to have access to their laptops until it's time to board their flights. For passengers, Emirates' complimentary laptop handling service will allow them to have access to their devices during the first leg of their journey along with their layover in Dubai.

Passengers who use the service will be required to declare their large electronic devices to security agents before boarding US-bound flights. The devices would then be packed in secure boxes and stored in the aircraft's cargo hold. The boxes would be returned to the travelers once they reached the US.

Other airlines such as Qatar Airways have indicated they will implement extra security measures to ensure the security of the devices. Although none have yet to clarify what those measure are.

According to US officials, there's no set date for the end of the ban and its need will be periodically reviewed.

Why the ban?

According to senior administration officials, the decision to implement these security measures is a result of intelligence showing a risk for terrorist activity involving commercial aviation.

"Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation and are aggressively pursuing innovative methods to undertake their attacks, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items," an official said on Monday.

dubai airport

Whatever this intelligence consists of, it was substantial enough for the national-security apparatus to act.



But confusing matters was that the UK issued a similar ban Tuesday but excluded four airports  Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Doha, Qatar, and Casablanca, Morocco  featured in the US ban.

In addition, several aviation industry analysts who have spoken with Business Insider question whether a ban of this type would even be effective in countering a terrorist attack. Doha, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi are major international transit hubs with extensive multilayered security procedures. US-bound flights are also screened in dedicated facilities using well-trained security professionals who often have experience in law enforcement or the military.

In fact, Abu Dhabi International Airport is equipped with a US Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance facility where passengers and bags headed for the US are screened by US customs officials.

Hamad International Airport Qatar

Also, areas of world known to be hotbeds for terrorist activity have been left off the list banned countries. For example, Pakistan International Airlines' flight from Lahore to JFK International by way of Manchester, England is not covered by the ban. Which means, it's possible for terrorists to simply bypass the banned airports and reach the US through any number of European transit hubs.





Did you know? You can carry your laptop/tablets onboard US bound #PIA flights. pic.twitter.com/pc8g8Owo9G  PIA (@Official_PIA) March 22, 2017

The lithium battery problem

The electronics ban will have a few unintended side effects. One of the most serious is the large number of lithium-ion batteries in the cargo hold of an airliner.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it's behavior with potentially catastrophic consequences.

"FAA battery fire testing has highlighted the potential risk of a catastrophic aircraft loss due to damage resulting from a lithium battery fire or explosion," the agency wrote in an alert in February. "Current cargo fire suppression systems cannot effectively control a lithium battery fire."

Administration officials told journalists on Monday that they were working with the FAA to maintain a safe flying environment, but they did not state specifics. Business Insider asked DHS for specifics on Tuesday but has not yet heard back from officials.

This is particularly concerning for Michael Mo, the cofounder and CEO of KULR Technologies, a company that specializes in thermal-management systems for batteries.

Turkish Airlines Airbus a330 300

"Lithium-ion batteries are inherently volatile. It's statistics. It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when one of these things blow," Mo told Business Insider in an interview. "So when that happens, it's better to have humans nearby to react and put out the fire."

According to Mo, the only saving grace here is that spare batteries and power banks are still prohibited. Which means only batteries fitted inside devices will be stored with cargo. Even though it's not perfectly safe, these batteries tend to be more stable and less likely to combust.

With the laptop ban still in its infancy, more details will likely emerge in the near future. Stay tuned.

If you're currently a business traveler affected by the US laptop ban, you can share your story with transportation@businessinsider.com.

NOW WATCH: A $2.5 trillion asset manager just put a statue of a defiant girl in front of the Wall Street bull





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Birmingham, England

Long before his short stints in jail turned into years behind bars, Khalid Masood was known as Adrian Elms, with a reputation for drinking and an unpredictable temper.

At least twice he was convicted of violent crimes, well before he stabbed a police officer to death Wednesday in London with a motion that one horrified witness described as "playing a drum on your back with two knives."

But as he checked out of his hotel to head toward London for his deadly rampage, the manager said he was struck by his guest's friendly manner.

Within hours, Masood drove his rented SUV across the crowded Westminster Bridge, leaving a trail of dead and wounded. Then he jumped out and attacked Constable Keith Palmer, an officer guarding Parliament, stabbing him to death before being shot to death by police.

In all, he killed four people and left more than two dozen hospitalized.

Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record dating to 1983. The violence came later, first in 2000 when he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account.

The victim, Piers Mott, was scarred for life, said his widow, Heather.

Masood's last conviction was in 2003, also involving a knife attack. It's not clear when he took the name Masood, suggesting a conversion to Islam.

Heather Mott said Masood appeared to come out of jail "even worse." She said she got chills when she learned the identity of the London attacker.

"What a pity they didn't realize he was a nutter," she said.

Police are combing through "massive amounts of computer data" and have contacted 3,500 witnesses as they look for clues as to why the British-born man launched the deadly attack.

"Clearly that's a main line of our investigation is what led him to be radicalized: Was it through influences in our community, influences from overseas or through online propaganda? Our investigations and our arrests will help in that, but the public appeal will make a big difference if people come forward with more information," said Britain's top counterterrorism officer, Mark Rowley.

A security official who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation confirmed that Masood had spent time in Saudi Arabia but said investigators were still trying to determine how long he stayed and what he was doing.

Prime Minister Theresa May said Masood was "investigated in relation to concerns about violent extremism" years ago. But she called him "a peripheral figure."

The Islamic State group described Masood as "a soldier," claiming responsibility for the attack. Rowley said police are investigating whether he "acted totally alone inspired by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him."

People made arrests across the country as they investigate whether anyone else helped Masood prepare his attack. Six people were released without charge Friday night, leaving four in custody on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.

Detectives have searched 21 properties in London, Brighton, Wales, Manchester and the central English city of Birmingham in one of Britain's biggest counterterrorism operations in years. Wednesday's attack was the deadliest in Britain since suicide bombers killed 52 commuters on London's transit system on July 7, 2005.
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Washington

President Donald Trump greenlighted the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, declaring it a "great day for American jobs" and siding with energy advocates over environmental groups in a heated debate over climate change.

The presidential permit comes nearly a decade after Calgary-based TransCanada applied to build the $8 billion pipeline, which will snake from Canada through the United States. Trump's State Department said the project advances U.S. national interests, in a complete reversal of the conclusion President Barack Obama's administration reached less than a year-and-a-half ago.

"It's a great day for American jobs and a historic moment for North America and energy independence," Trump said, standing alongside TransCanada's CEO in the Oval Office. Keystone will reduce costs and reliance on foreign oil while creating thousands of jobs, he said, adding: "It's going to be an incredible pipeline."

The decision caps the long scientific and political fight over a project that became a proxy battle in the larger fight over global warming. And Friday's decision, while long foreshadowed by Trump's public support for Keystone, represents one of the biggest steps to date by his administration to prioritize economic development over environmental concerns.

TransCanada, Trump said, can now build Keystone "with efficiency and with speed." Though it still faces other major hurdles, including disputes over the route, the president said the federal government was formulating final details "as we speak."

The 1,700-mile pipeline, as envisioned, would carry oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. It would move roughly 800,000 barrels of oil per day.

Environmentalists, Native American groups and landowners who've opposed Keystone expressed outrage, and Greenpeace said the U.S. was "moving backwards" on climate and energy policy.

"Keystone was stopped once before, and it will be stopped again," vowed Annie Leonard, the group's U.S. director.

Obama in 2015 rejected the pipeline after years of study, saying it would undercut U.S. credibility in the international climate change negotiations that culminated later that year in a global deal in Paris. He echoed the argument of environmental groups that Keystone would encourage use of carbon-heavy tar sands oil, contributing heavily to global warming.

Relying mostly on the same information, the Trump administration reversed Obama's decision Friday.

In a lengthy report, the State Department alluded to the Paris deal as one reason. Because many other countries have pledged to address climate change, it said Keystone can proceed without undermining the overall effort to slow global warming. The Paris agreement compels the U.S. and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades.

Keystone would strengthen U.S. energy security by increasing access to Canada's "dependable supply of crude oil," said the State Department, which had jurisdiction because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canada border.
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A man accused of fleeing after hitting and killing two bicyclists in Waller County Saturday afternoon has been arrested.

Victor Kevin Tome, 25, was driving north on Buller in Waller County near hundreds of riders participating in a MS150 training ride when police said he hit and killed 48-year-old Keri Blanchard Guillory, who was riding with her husband, 53-year-old Michael Guillory.

About 80 yards later, Tome hit and killed 37-year-old Craig Randall Tippit, police said. A third bicyclist, who was riding near Tippit, dove into a ditch on the side of the road. That rider was taken to Memorial-Hermann Katy Hospital, authorities said.

Tome fled on foot, leaving his badly damaged blue Dodge Stratus, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Erik Burse said.

"It's a pretty long crime scene," Burse said. "He tore the car up."

The Waller County Sheriff's Office, DPS, the Texas Department of Corrections, the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, Austin County Sheriff's Office, and the Burton Police Department all joined in the search, Waller County Sheriff Office Major Sydney Hester.

Tags on Tome's German Shepherd, which had somehow gotten loose, were used to help identify him.

MISSING: Foul play suspected in disappearance of Texas Panhandle man

Tome, meanwhile, had broken into a nearby house, police said. When the homeowner returned, he found Tome in his living room and convinced him to turn himself in.

The homeowner then drove Tome to a police checkpoint.

'We're glad that it ended the way it did and no one else was injured," Burse said.

Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis said Tome faces two charges of leaving the scene of an accident.

"There may be more serious charges coming depending on the evidence as it's gathered and presented," Mathis said.

Reached by phone Saturday night, Julie Guillory said her son and daughter-in-law loved to ride together.

Tome had struck and killed her daughter-in-law and almost hit her son.

"It's just unbelievable," she said. "She is just a wonderful spirit, good to everybody, kind to everybody, she didn't have one flaw, to me."

The couple had married in October of 2008, Guillory said. Keri Guillory had grown up in Houston, then attended Louisiana State University and worked at LV Shipping & Transport.

She had two adult sons and a young grandson, and she loved to sing, the elder Guillory said.

The Chronicle was unable to reach Tippit's relatives.

The cyclists had been participating in the 2017 SpringFest Metric Century, an MS 150 training ride supporting people with disabilities.

"We are saddened by the tragic deaths today of two bikers participating in our SpringFest bicycle ride," wrote officials from The Center Houston - one of the ride's sponsors - on their Facebook page.

"The Board of Governors and staff express profound sympathy for the victims' families. Other riders were injured, and we are praying for their full recovery."

Back in Waller County, local officials also offered their condolences.

"We're very saddened for the victims' families," Waller County Judge Trey Duhon said. "We have a lot of bicyclists that come through Waller County to train for the MS 150... so, it's extremely tragic to us when something like this happens and people get hurt."

Houston Chronicle reporter Brooke Lewis contributed to this story.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Trump administration announced sanctions Friday on 30 foreign companies and people from 10 countries, including China, and accused the entities of engaging in proliferation activity.

"These determinations underscore that the United States continues to regularly impose sanctions under existing authorities, as warranted, against entities and individuals that engage in proliferation activity with Iran, North Korea, and Syria," the State Department statement said in a statement.

The companies included under the newly imposed sanctions are based in China, North Korea, and the United Arab Emirates.

The State Department said that 11 of the entities and people contribute to activity that "serves to escalate regional conflicts further and poses a significant threat to regional security."

Eleven entities and individuals were sanctioned for transfers of sensitive items to Iran's ballistic missile program.

The government also implemented sanctions on 19 companies or people found to have "transferred to, or acquired from, Iran, North Korea, or Syria goods, services, or technology listed on multilateral export control lists, or on U.S. national control lists, or other items that could make a material contribution to the development of weapons of mass destruction or missile proliferation."

Most of the companies listed engage in export activity.

As consequence of the sanctions, which were officially implemented on March 21, no U.S. department or agency can procure or contract for any goods, services, or technology from the designated entities. New licenses will be denied and these companies are ineligible for any U.S. assistance.
A husband and wife stabbed to death in their North Side townhome early Thursday have been identified by the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office.

Ernest Gil Ybarbo III, 40, and his wife Jessica Jimenez Ybarbo, 35, were pronounced dead in their home at 8 a.m. in the 1800 block of Budding Boulevard, officials said.
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At the 21st annual Cesar E. Chavez March for Justice on Saturday in San Antonio, residents joined in chants of Si, se puede, and carried signs of support for American immigrants.

Event organizers estimated about 15,000 people attended the march, which began at 10 a.m. at the corner of South Brazos and Guadalupe streets and ended at the Alamo.

A champion of farm workers rights, Chavez led nonviolent protests in the form of fasts, boycotts and marches. He was a born into a Mexican-American family of farm workers in 1927, just before the start of the Great Depression.

Chavez spent his childhood and early adulthood working on farms in California. He witnessed a number of hardships laborers were forced to endure, and felt that unionizing was the only way to ensure fair wages and better working conditions.

In 1962, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, later called the United Farm Workers.

At the march, one woman carried a sign that said Immigrants made this country, while Manu Livar, 13, held one that said Keep I.C.E. out of our communities.

Manus father, Robert Livar, said he and his family try to stay active in the community. His band, Bombasta, raises money to help provide legal aid for undocumented residents.

Being undocumented isnt a crime, Livar said. Its a civil issue and we feel pretty strongly about that.

Three students from the University of Texas at San Antonio said they came out to engage in the community.

I think its important to commemorate the things that Cesar Chavez did for our people, said Vanessa Garcia Jimenez, a freshman at UTSA.

Her classmate Stephanie Barrera, a sophomore, said she thought it was important for young people to be a part of creating and influencing change.

As members of the community that are younger, we should be the ones that are striving to enforce this change and be a part of the change, she said.

Mayor Ivy Taylor joined the march for a time as well, as shes done for the past several years.

Its wonderful to be out here remembering the legacy of Cesar Chavez, who fought for people who were not well-represented in order to secure rights for them.

Esmeraldo Pruneda, a board member of the Cesar E. Chavez Legacy and Educational Foundation, marveled at how the march had grown in the last two decades. He said Chavez was there for the first march in San Antonio 21 years ago, which had about 30 participants.
A recent commentary in the Express-News by Simon Sequeira, the CEO of Quadvest Water & Sewer Utility in Magnolia, attempts to blame all of the states water issues on groundwater conservation districts, or GCDs.

The commentary (The next generation of water wars; Governmental greed siphoning dollars, future from Texans, March 5) states, Many of these districts were created to prevent the big cities like Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio from coming into their county and taking their water.

I can agree that many GCDs were created in response to movement of water from rural to urban counties; however, the motives were to prevent the unfettered pillaging of water without any regulatory constraints or concerns about the impact on local landowners and natural resources. In other words, GCDs were created to protect private property rights of every landowner, not just those who want to pump the aquifer to extinction and sell that water for a profit.

The author references an independent study conducted by the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University that concluded a review of the regulatory practices of the local GCDs supported the conclusion that Texas has a regulation-induced shortage of groundwater.

But the study reviewed groundwater regulation strictly through the prism of how to make the most money from the resource, ignoring all other factors. Selling all groundwater for its highest and best use, as the report advocates, would mean no water for irrigation, no water for environmental flows, and no water for small domestic and livestock use. Once the aquifers are depleted in agricultural areas, agriculture will literally dry up and blow away; we will never replace irrigation water with desalinated groundwater or seawater.

The Bush School plan is shortsighted and myopic.

Lets compare that study with one conducted by independent hydrogeologists from the Bureau of Economic Geology, Department of Geological Science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and Intera Inc. completed in 2012.

The objective of the study, Sources of Groundwater Pumpage in a Layered Aquifer System in the Upper Gulf Coastal Plain, USA, was to quantitatively assess sources of groundwater pumpage, impacts of pumpage, time scales of impacts, and reversibility of pumpage impacts in dipping, unconfined and confined aquifers using modeling and monitoring data from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Texas as an example.

With rising groundwater demands, it is important to quantify how much groundwater is available for production and the impacts of such production on the system, the introduction says.

This report assessed the pumping impacts to the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer using predictive pumping from the 2002 State Water Plan out to the year 2050. The study area covers the entire Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer from Northeast Texas to the border with Mexico, and divides the aquifer along the same divisions as the three groundwater management areas, or GMAs, in those areas  the northern section (GMA 11), the central section (GMA 12) and the southern section (GMA13). A summary of the results from that study indicated that:

Pumpage changed 3 out of 10 streams from gaining to losing in the semiarid south, meaning aquifers would be sucking water out of the streams instead of adding water to the streams.

Pumpage reversed regional vertical flow gradients in about 40 percent of the entire aquifer area from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer to the overlying Queen City Aquifer. This is important as water quality could be affected by changes in vertical flow gradients.

Simulations of predictive pumpage to 2050 indicate continued storage depletion (41 percent from storage, 32 percent from local discharge, and 25 percent from regional discharge capture), meaning everyone is losing water, even landowners who arent pumping any groundwater.

The report looked at time scales of pumpage impacts in the southern section by running the model to look at effects over 500 years. Pumping at 1999 rates will continue to decrease aquifer storage for up to 500 years, lowering aquifer levels for every landowner whether pumping or not.

Simulations conducted to assess aquifer recovery after pumpage ceases showed that 100 years after stopping all pumping, the aquifer would only recover 38 percent of the amount held in storage.

GCDs are required to take these potential impacts into account, not just economic considerations to the largest pumpers.

Sequeira argues that groundwater should be regulated just like oil and gas. The goal of oil and gas regulation is to ensure every single drop is eventually produced and sold. That cannot be the goal for aquifers, both because we need them as a perpetual supply of water and because not only does our entire economy depend on an adequate supply of water, our very lives depend on water.

Land that has been pumped dry of its oil and gas can still be used for homes, businesses or agriculture; land that has no access to water is economically useless. Ensuring a perpetual supply of water is the only way to protect the private property rights of every landowner.

Sequeira wrote that the Texas Supreme Court has said that water is private property and water will be regulated like oil and gas.

Here is what the Texas Supreme Court actually said in Edwards Aquifer Authority vs. Day:

The principal concerns in regulating oil and gas production are to prevent waste and to provide a landowner a fair opportunity to extract and market the oil and gas beneath the surface of the property. Groundwater is different in both its source and uses. Unlike oil and gas, groundwater in an aquifer is often being replenished from the surface, and while it may be sold as a commodity, its uses vary widely, from irrigation, to industry, to drinking, to recreation. Groundwater regulation must take into account not only historical usage but future needs, including the relative importance of various uses, as well as concerns unrelated to use, such as environmental impacts and subsidence.

The cities along the Interstate 35 corridor with groundwater permits from the Edwards Aquifer Authority are well aware of the impacts to overpumping an aquifer. An excerpt from the Edwards Aquifer Authority website makes this evident:

It is estimated that theres 25-55 million acre-feet of water available, and if current use is only 450,000 acre-feet a year, then it sounds like theres enough water to last more than 100 years! However, the aquifer contains a lot of water that cant really be produced in legal or practical terms. The problem is the springs go dry when the aquifer is still 95 percent full. So as long as we are going to maintain at least minimal natural spring flows for the sake of endangered species, recreational economies, downstream ecosystems, and downstream economies, then the large amount of water below the level of the springs is essentially unavailable.

Sequeira also wrote, In San Antonio, the San Antonio Water System has been forced to build a 200-mile water pipeline from Burleson County into San Antonio because the governmental shield of groundwater districts around the city prevented landowners from selling their water to SAWS.

This statement is blatantly untrue. To begin with, Section 36.122 of the Water Code prohibits GCDs from discriminating against export, so any attempt would be illegal and easily remedied in court. Second, SAWS is already exporting water from Gonzales County and has 30-year permits to do so.

My district, the Gonzales County Underground Water Conservation District, is familiar with the I-35 corridor, where many of the thirsty large cities are located. We have issued export permits to the Schertz-Seguin Local Government Corp. for 19,263 acre-feet per year; the San Antonio Water System for 12,688 acre-feet per year; the Canyon Regional Water Authority for 7,400 acre-feet per year; the Hays Caldwell Public Utility Agency for 10,300 acre-feet per year; the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority/Texas Water Alliance Limited for 15,000 acre-feet per year; and the Aqua Water Supply Corp. for 5,000 acre-feet per year.

Sequeira wrote that it is past time for Texas to reform the current water plan and replace it with a comprehensive plan that puts the end user  not the government  first.

The government he speaks of is the local citizenry where the groundwater is owned and located, those people who will benefit from  and be directly impacted by  local pumpage. I can think of no one better to regulate our aquifers to ensure everyone gets their fair share and everyones property rights are protected.

Greg Sengelmann is general manager for Gonzales County Underground Water Conservation District.
The issue of immigration and border security is more complex than the political debate in Washington and on cable television would lead the public to believe. It is also easier and far less costly to solve than many of the plans introduced by leading politicians and pundits.

The reality on the Texas-Mexican border, as well as much of the border outside Texas, is that the flow of immigrants who illegally enter the United States has declined dramatically in recent decades, from 1.6 million to about 400,000.

Today, at the border, there is still an illegal entry problem, with individuals, mostly from Central America, coming to the United States in the hope of participating in the American dream. These economic migrants are basically law-abiding people who are seeking work because their country of origin has not given them a chance to succeed even at the basic level of feeding their families.

While immigration is a national obsession, theres a much greater and more real threat to American prosperity and national security. The United States is now at around 1.9 births per female, well below replacement level. And with 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day, the demographic outlook is bleak.

Without population growth and the prospect of new workers, economic growth is not likely. Future GDP growth above 2 percent on a sustained basis will be an enormous challenge in the face of the demographic winter that will have a huge impact on the world during the next several decades.

We need an immigration policy that addresses Americas need for workers. We need about 600,000 to 650,000 low-skilled workers every year to keep our economy growing. We do not produce that type of worker in America. In fact, the largest part of the workforce is now the millennial generation. This group of workers is not committed to low-skilled work, so where are we going to get people to do basic, so-called dirty jobs?

We better wake up and understand the need to reform our immigration policy in America, or we will continue to starve this countrys economy because of the lack of human capital to do the basic work required in a growing economy. This should be a fact-based discussion with the political and emotional elements pushed aside for the sake of reason.

In addition to fact-based immigration reform, there are two things the U.S. Border Patrol seeks along the Texas-Mexico border: visibility of the river and access to the river. Both can be easily achieved simply by cleaning up the riverbank along the Rio Grande. Salt cedar and Carrizo cane are invasive plants that are not native to Texas. Their density becomes a hiding place for immigrants and criminals who illegally enter the United States.

Once these invasive plants have been eradicated, an all-weather river road should be built to provide U.S. Border Patrol agents access to patrol the riverbank. Encouraging Mexico to eradicate the plants on their side as well would create a large buffer zone that discourages immigrants and criminals from crossing.

A new open zone with a clean field of view can be further enhanced with modern technology, including motion detectors, cameras and infrared sensors. This enhanced natural buffer zone is a far more effective barrier to entry than any man-made barrier and also represents a good-neighbor solution.

This approach is a faster, cheaper and more effective way to patrol and control the river, and allow Border Patrol agents to do what they do best  protect the border. Under the Secure Fence Act of 2006, some border fencing was installed on the Rio Grande that gave Americans a false sense of security. Only when we can provide the Border Patrol with unimpeded access can we expect to see real results.

Yes, more can be done to smartly and cost-effectively improve border security. However, the reward for enhancing apprehension is only as good as the legal process supporting it; otherwise, the process only becomes a catch-and-release program. Today, with the rapid decline in illegal immigration, the problem squarely rests on an inadequate judicial system. Simply said, we need more immigration courts.

Through October 2016, more than a half-million cases were awaiting adjudication in U.S. immigration courts. Border Patrol executives put the wait time at 1,000 days.

Reductions resulting from the 2011 budget sequestration are the main culprit, along with a lack of will to solve the problem. As immigration enforcement budgets have more than quadrupled over the past five years, funding and staffing for the immigration courts have lagged far behind. There are currently 242 immigration judges, while 253 judges were on the bench in 2010.

The July 2014 prioritization of cases of children and families from Central America seeking asylum has led to the further escalation of wait times for the many immigration court cases that have not been prioritized. Some judges have been removed from their typical caseload to hear only cases of recently arrived children and families, leading to even further delays.

To clear the backlog of these half-million cases by 2023, Congress would need to double the number of immigration judges. Alternatively, failure to increase the number of judges could result in a backlog of as many as 1 million cases in only five years.

Additionally, many children who arrive from Central America know they can surrender to Border Patrol, be sent to a detention center, and within a few weeks be released to family members in the United States, never to be heard from again. These children should be processed quickly, and so too should the parents or family members who come to pick them up.

If the parents or other relatives are determined to be out-of-status or undocumented, then both the parents and children should be legally processed expeditiously and returned to their country of origin. That result would stop the migration of children because the prompt enforcement actions would be quickly passed on to families in those Central American countries hoping to migrate their children.

To solve the border security problem, we must look to reasonable and productive solutions that benefit the United States and Mexico. As Texas largest trading partner and our neighbor, we must support a border security plan with Mexico that continues to foster economic development and our good neighbor policies that have been in place for generations.

Cleaning up the river in cooperation with Mexico would create a natural barrier that is an effective and economically positive solution, one that protects and preserves the borders most important asset  the Rio Grande River  and private property rights that have existed for 300 years. By following this path and by doubling the number of immigration judges to solve the real crisis with immigration, we can provide American citizens with comfort that our border is secure and our economy has been protected.

All these suggestions come at a cost well below that of building walls that only act to destroy our relationship with Mexico, our ally and partner. If you really want border security, clean up the river and fix the immigration court system.

Dennis Nixon is CEO and chairman of the board of International Bancshares Corp. and International Bank of Commerce.
the wolf of wall street

Like most in people in sales, Wall Streeters make a living out of putting a positive spin on things.

So, maybe it was to be expected that  after they touted Donald Trump's healthcare plan as make-or-break for the new president  analysts would suddenly pivot to a new cheery message

as it fell apart.

Here it is: Actually, the failure of this plan makes it easier for Trump to advance his tax cut agenda, which is what has underpinned the stock market's record-breaking rally.

Here's Washington-based investment research firm Compass Point:

"Tax reform does not necessarily represent an easier task, but such a shift would soften the markets reaction if [Trumpcare] fails in the House or eventually stalls in the Senate. There are still deep policy divides over tax reform, ranging from border adjustment to deficit doubts, but a shift away from health care would likely be viewed positively by the market."

Sure enough, stocks dipped after Trump announced he was pulling the healthcare bill due to a lack of votes, but quickly bounced back as the silver lining took hold.

House Speaker Paul Ryan was quick to promise that the rest of the agenda is intact despite the infighting.

"Yes this does make tax reform more difficult, but it does not make it impossible," he said during a press conference. "We are going to proceed with tax reform."



Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office for Management and Budget, was on CNBC towing a similar line earlier in the day: "We do not think it's impacted one way or the other by this decision," he said of tax reform.

But any optimism from investors would underestimate the potential damage caused by the failure of the President's first signature piece of legislation. It hasn't just exposed divisions within the Republican Party, it has also forced Republicans in Congress to renege on their No. 1 campaign promise to voters and emboldened the Democratic opposition.



Tax cuts weren't going to be easy in the first place, but it's also noteworthy that the GOP was counting on repealing Obamacare to fund part of its overall tax-cut strategy.



Story continues

CNBC's ever-bullish Jim Cramer acknowledged as much on the air earlier Friday after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke at an event where he continued to hold to a highly unrealistic forecast of accomplishing tax reform before Congress' August recess.

"Mnuchin is out there talking about a tax cut. Trump wants to be the business president. But the momentum is lost," he said.

Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets is even less sanguine.

"Considered a key hurdle before moving forward with other bullish stimulus pledges  tax cuts, deregulation, infrastructure spending  the outcome could represent a turning point within the Trump rally, either reigniting it or possibly snuffing it out," he said. That was just hours before the the whole thing came undone.





Screen Shot 2017 03 24 at 4.19.26 PM

NOW WATCH: The president's close friend of 40 years explains Trump's sense of humor





More From Business Insider


A gofundme page has been established to raise funds to assist with the recovery of Vitor Vieira, the 37-year-old man who was stabbed in Longford town on St Patricks night.

Vitor, originally from Portugal, has been living in Longford for 17 years and he remains in a critical but stable condition following the attack in which he received serious facial lacerations and lost a substantial amount of blood.



Maria Phillips, who has known Vitor since the first day he came to Longford, set up the gofundme page on Thursday (March 23) and she says the response has been amazing and she praised the people of Longford for their community spirit and generosity.

Over 1,800 was raised by Saturday afternoon (March 25) and Maria urged people to keep up the good work and to keep sharing Vitors gofundme page.

Maria also stressed on the gofundme page, All money raised will be given direct to Vitor's family. To ensure transparency, I would like to point out that when I withdraw funds I will present Vitor's family with a cheque for funds raised.

Maria told www.longfordleader.ie that Vitor is  the most generous person going and would help anyone that needed help.



She continued, Vitor is one of us, everyone likes him. He wouldn't harm a fly. He's one of the hardest workers I know and was never out of work.



Maria suggested that it is likely that Vitor will require plastic surgery and will incur hefty medical expenses.

She added, When he comes home it will break his heart not to be able to work and pay his own bills. Everyone is so upset over what happens to him. I just want to help in any way I can and everyone in Longford feels the same.



The gofundme page for Vitor Vieira can be found at www.gofundme.com/vitor-vieira

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Longford stabbing victim critical but stable
The Abbey Hotel, Roscommon, will host a brides-to-be day out on Sunday March 26, with a unique 'Say Yes to the Dress' event.

Brides-to-be are invited to attend the event, which will include complimentary hair and makeup trials from Grafters, the Hair Lounge and Lisa Naughton MUA, as well as complimentary Mother's Day Mum and Daughter digital photos captured by Monika.ie.

Attendees are welcome to try on their dream wedding dress, as the event will feature a sale of bridal gowns from leading boutiques, and advice and tips on choosing the perfect gown will be available.

Mothers will be able to browse a selection of Mother of the Bride/Groom attire, wedding hats, headpieces and accessories for sale or hire on the day.

Brides will also be given the opportunity to win a fabulous satin chiffon beaded wedding dress from C&M Bridal, a stunning special occasion headpiece from Ballinasloe Milliner Ana Victoria Mulcahy, a set of His & Hers bathrobes from local Lanesboro Business, Shoot for the Moon, and a free day's hire on a set of love signs from Love Lights Ireland when you register in the free draw.

There will also be a 10% discount on all Abbey wedding packages for the day of the event only.

This is an excellent opportunity to try on that dream gown, get some top tips and try out hair and makeup styles for thebig day.

The event will kick off in the Abbey Hotel at 12 noon and will go on until 4pm. Admission is free. Follow the Abbey Hotel on Facebook for more details.
Lifestyle

For jazz aficionados and those looking for a relaxing night out, check out these luxe bars in Singapore that are perfect for you to kick off your shoes and relax over tipples and live music

Mar 25, 2017 | By Teri Chong

Jazz fans, weve got something good coming for you. The annual Singapore International Jazz Festival is back for its fourth run from March 31 to April 2, popping up at the Marina Bay Sands! In light of this upcoming event, we dive into a few of the best luxury jazz spots in Singapore. Get ready to groove along to the blues and tunes with the help of our round-up.

1. Monti

We kick things off with Monti, the latest addition to Singapores jazz lounge scene. Landing at the Fullerton Pavillion, Monti is an Italian establishment with a spectacular view. Topped with an open-air terrace that is perfect for an after-work breather, Monti also has a program loaded with music. Monday Blues and Sunday J@m sessions are just some of the offerings at this snazzy establishment. Adding to this lineup is a star-studded live jazz band, headed by local jazz legend Jeremy Monteiro who describes the venue as one of the best venues in the world Ive had the pleasure of playing in. Plans have also been put in place to transform Monti into Singapores top jazz venue, with invitations to special international guest performers. Monti muses that all their drinks are carved in the spirit of Jazz, thats sure to create a unique bespoke experience.

Monti

82 Collyer Quay, Singapore 049213

Tel: +65 6535 0724

Monday-Saturday: 12pm-3pm/4pm-1am

2. B28

B28 makes it into another of our lists! Other than being a splendid speakeasy, the lux bar injects live jazz music into its program. If youre looking for a little hideaway with some tunes, B28 is the bar for you. Hidden in the basement of The Club hotel, this jazz bar is stocked with over 120 whiskies from Scotland. B28 bar offers weekly jazz affairs amongst its lush sofas, conjuring an intimate affair with ambient lighting and jazz paintings. B28 is the best place to start celebrating the weekend with live jazz music available every Friday and Saturday.

B28

28 Ann Siang Rd, Singapore 069708

Tel: +65 6808 2180

Monday-Thursday: 5pm-1am

Friday and Saturday: 5pm-2am

3. Montreux Jazz Cafe

Located at Pan Pacific Hotel in the heart of Orchard Road, the Montreux Jazz Cafe is a new sanctuary in the middle of pubs and bars. The dim lighting and cosy ambience ensures that you will be able to jive along to the bustling blues of the jazz band. The world famous jazz-themed cafe is not only known for their namesake the Montreux Jazz Festival but also the top-quality contemporary dining available.

Montreux Jazz Cafe

10 Claymore Road, #01-02, Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore 229540

Tel: +65 6733 0091

Monday-Sunday: 12am-3am

4. Bar and Billiard Room

Singapores oldest existing bar in its original location is the Bar and Billiard Room, housed at the iconic Raffles Hotel. One of the citys pioneer hotels, the Raffles Hotel boasts colonial influenced architecture and is reminiscent of old Singapore. A piece of this history is present in Bar and Billiard Room, with the restaurant bar dressed in opulent decor from floor to ceiling. Every corner of the interior from the replicated floor tiles to the sparkling chandelier is a nod to old world Singapore culture  which is exactly what makes this location special. Focusing on its whisky collection, top-notch cigars and cool cocktails, the restaurant bar is livened with weekend jazz performances, offering a slice of luxury.

Bar and Billard Room

Raffles Hotel, Singapore 189673

Tel: +65 6337 1886

Sundays-Thursdays: 11am  1230am

Fridays & Saturdays: 11am  130am

5. Bobs Bar

Bobs Bar is a Cuban-inspired bar along Singapores sunny shores at the Capella Singapore. Making good use of its location on Sentosa Island, the beach and the breeze transports patrons back to 1960s Havana. The bar has a beautiful al-fresco terrace, with sprinkles of daybeds and sofas to lounge on. Quirky events such as Havana Nights and Cuban Fever are held at the end of the week and on weekends, filling the air with Latin jazz music. Bobs Bars jazzy tunes are available every Wednesday to Friday. Feast on Cuban styled barbeques and the rich flavour of Cuban culture at Bobs Bar, something that has never been attempted before.

Bobs Bar

1 The Knolls, Sentosa Island, Singapore 098297

Tel: +65 6591 5047

Mon-Sun: 12pm-12am

6. Axis Bar and Lounge

A prime location for a relaxed rendezvous, Axis Bar and Lounge takes its place as one of the top jazz lounges in the Little Red Dot. Stunning floor to ceiling windows amass themselves to bring you a stunning picture of the Singapore cityscape. This elegant watering hole is furnished with plush armchairs and sofas  perfect to laze on while enjoying a class act performance from their live jazz band. The lounge is transformed in the evenings into having a more chic atmosphere, with jazz tunes and smooth vocals to keep you company all night.

Axis Bar and Lounge

5 Raffles Ave, Marina Square, Singapore 039797

Tel: +65 6885 3500

Sunday-Thursday: 11am-12am

Friday-Saturday: 11am-1am
It is now time for another episode of Farewell To Competition, in which a product is imagined to have won a battle that will actually be ongoing for years to come.

Writing for The Motley Fool, Danny Vena says Amazon Is About to End the Competitions Only Advantage Over Alexa. (Tip o the antlers to Philip Speicher.)

E-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. has a hit on its hands with its artificial intelligence-based Alexa virtual assistant and the products powered by the digital darling.

12 out of 10 pundits agree: The Amazon Echo is a hit! The same pundits also agree that the Apple Watch is a flop. These pundits apparently dont know that Apple has sold more Watches than Amazon has Echos. It is incorrect to call these pundits incurious, however, as theyll often put things in their mouths that arent edible, just to try them out.

The Echo smart home speaker, its miniature sibling the Dot, and the portable Tap have taken the world by storm.

Well, when we say world, what we mean is the English and German-speaking part of the world. Since, you know, those are the only languages Alexa currently speaks.

One might be inclined to consider languages another strength the competitions has over Alexa but then one would not get that job writing for The Motley Fool and one would go on to lead a happy and productive life.

If Alexa suffers from one key disadvantage, its the lack of a smartphone to call home.

But now Amazon has put Alexa into an app that you can have on your smartphone so the skys the limit. Once you launch the app.

Recode is reporting that Amazon is planning upgrades that would allow Alexa-powered devices to initiate phone calls using voice commands.

Imagine bringing the existential dread of ConferenceCall.biz to your living room.

Users will be able to tap the microphone button inside the Amazon app to access Alexa, which essentially brings its myriad of skills to the iPhone.

Just not in any way thats, so far, without more friction than surplus Soviet toilet paper.

Vena notes that Alexa is coming as a system-wide assistant on some smartphones but certain smartphones in certain languages isnt exactly going to dominate the market.

Lots of people really like Alexa, which is arguably better than Siri (at least in English), and the Echo is definitely a successful product, albeit less successful than the Apple Watch. But the Macalope doesnt get why pundits feel the need to exaggerate about it.
The staff of Fortune and a panel of experts recently assembled our annual list of the Worlds Greatest Leaders. Heres a profile of one of them.

Visionary, ideologue, risk-taker: None of these shorthand labels quite capture who Elon Musk is. The billionaire entrepreneur is running two companies he cofounded that together employ 35,000 people. His aims are stratospheric. Tesla





tsla







, the automaker and sustainable-energy company that acquired SolarCity in 2016, is Musks pathway to a carbon-emissions-free world. (The batteries hes beginning to crank out at Teslas Gigafactory in Nevada are another element of that strategy.) SpaceX, an aerospace startup, was founded to lower the cost of space transportation and ultimately enable the colonization of Mars.

Musk, who has admitted to keeping a sleeping bag near a production line at Teslas factory in Fremont, Calif., has added another problem to his to-do list-soul-crushing traffic. His new business, the Boring Co., aims to find a way to quickly and cost-effectively dig networks of tunnels for vehicles and high-speed trains such as the Hyperloop, an idea he floated in 2013 that universities and startups are actively trying to develop.

Musks aura as a technocratic seer has taken some lumps over the past couple of years. Tesla-experiencing production delays and falling short of delivery goals-hasnt always lived up to the bullish expectations of analysts and its legion of passionate fans. And the Tesla/SolarCity merger drew fire from critics who question whether the acquisition will benefit shareholders. But many still look to him as one of the tech worlds foremost civic-minded voices. Musk advises President Trump as part of the Strategic and Policy Forum.

This article is part of the 2017 Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders list, our annual directory of world-changing leaders in business, government, philanthropy and beyond. Click here to see the entire package.

This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2017 > Pakistan in flap over Russias Afghan Moves

Pakistan is finding itself between the rock and a hard place with the announcement by the Russian Foreign Ministry on March 10, 2017 that the Afghan National Security Advisor, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, was heading for Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on March 17. The Russian announcement said that the two officials will discuss the security situation and prospects for promoting national reconciliation in Afgha-nistan, as well as ways to develop multilateral cooperation within the Moscow format of regional consultations on Afghanistan.

Plainly put, the talks aim at firming up Russian support for the Afghan armed forces (following up on Afghan FM Salahuddin Rabbanis talks with Lavrov in Moscow last month) while also exploring the prospects for the intra-Afghan reconciliation process within the regional format the Russians initiated in recent months.

Curiously, within hours of the March 10 announcement in Moscow, Russias acting envoy to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov also said in the Security Council in the course of a discussion on Afghanistan: At its (regional formats) next stage we think it will be important to, in a timely fashion, involve in that same process our Central Asian partners as well as the United States.

Clearly, Russia is anxious to work with the US on the Afghan problem and would have already begun sounding out Washington. However, there is an influential war lobby in the US, which sees the Afghan war through the military prism. Two vocal figures belonging to that lobby, Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, wrote an opinion-piece in the weekend in Washington Post plugging the line that the US should focus on intensifying its military role in Afghanistan. The tenor of their argument is as follows:

Unfortunately, in recent years, we (Obama Administration) have tied the hands of our military in Afghanistan. Instead of trying to win, we have settled for just trying not to lose. Time and time again, we saw troop withdrawals that seemed to have more to do with US politics than conditions on the ground. The fixation with force management levels in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq and Syria, seemed more about measuring troop counts than measuring success... Weary as some Americans may be of this long conflict, it is imperative that we see our mission through to success.

The two hawkish Senators believe that the US should revert to a holistic approach toward relations with Pakistanan approach that works toward harmonising the interests and objectives of the Pentagon with the Pakistani militarys, based on the premise that the latter needs to be incentivised to cooperate with the US war effort. Essentially, their revisionist thinking harks back to the George W. Bush era when Pakistan used to be a key non-NATO ally. Pakistan of course will be delighted if the gravy train begins running again.

Now, it is at a most delicate juncture that Russians and Afghans are jumping the gun. Some Pakistani sniping toward Moscow may already have begun for the latter acting as a spoiler just when things appeared to be looking up. A report on March 14 in the Pakistani media cited sources in Islamabad alleging that Russians may try to bring the Afghan Government and Taliban together.



Indeed, if the Russians get into the play, it can only be a matter of time before the Taliban slip out of Pakistans exclusive orbit. The Pakistani military would have reason to worry about the Syrian analogy, where Russia quietly began establishing behind-the-scenes channels of communication directly with the field commanders of rebel groups (who were operating until then as the proxies of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, etc.) and over time weaned them away from the warpath toward the reconciliation in Astana, leaving in the lurch their political bosses who are living up in exile in Istanbul or Doha in five-star comfort.

Interestingly, the Pakistani report says that the Talibans representatives in Qatar declined to comment about this development. Its a subtle hint that the Taliban and Pakistani military are joined at the hips and as long as the Haqqani Network is held on a tight leash from Rawalpindi, all roads to the Taliban must eventually have to run through Pakistan.

Indeed, the Pakistani press report shows some degree of irritation toward Russia for getting Atmar across for talks in Moscow on March 17 to discuss Russian-Afghan security cooperation and Afghan reconciliation. (Atmar recently visited New Delhi too.)

Conceivably, Moscow would have figured out by now the source who could be master-minding the disinformation campaign over an alleged Russia-Taliban nexus. The Russian Foreign Ministry did some plain-speaking on the topic on March 10, without mincing words. (Sputnik)

The Pakistani military would have preferred to work exclusively with the Pentagon as its soul-mate in the period ahead, but Trump is, alas, in no hurry to jump into the dalliance, and, in the meanwhile, the Russian action plan can only create space for Kabul to negotiate harder with Islamabad. Too many cooks spoil the broth, as the saying goes.

Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including Indias ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2017 > Moscows Step disturbs Kabul, New Delhi

The six-nation conference on Afghanistans security future held in Moscow on February 15 has brought about considerable disquiet in the two participating capitals, Kabul and New Delhi. Since the conference wason Afghanistan, Kabul would have been concerned in any way but the objectives, deliberations, and indications of further action have induced Afghanistan and India to be watchful about what the future may unfold. This reaction of two of the participantsand the former being the very subject of discussionwould have been surprising in normal circumstances. But then, why this strong sense of disquiet?

There are two major features of the conference that have made governments sit up not just in Afghanistan and India but elsewhere as well. One is Moscows tacit declaration that it is occupying the central roleplayed so long by Washingtonin helping shape the future of Afghanistan, a country it had abandoned way back in 1989 following the withdrawal of the Soviet occupation force after a ten-year fruitless war with the Mujahideen. In-between, it was the United States, initially headed by President JimmyCarter and then by Presidents Ronald Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, which determined the way Afghanistan was handled on the world stage. With the Donald Trump presidency sending what are at best described as confusing signals, the international leadership role in the south-central Asian country seems to have suddenly fallen vacant. At least, that appears tobe the view in President Vladimir Putins government.

Judging by media reports, the Afghanistan-India opposition to the planned participation of the Afghan Taliban in future negotiations seems to have discounted Russias projection that an insecure Afghanistan would be a fertile ground for the Islamic State (IS) and that the Taliban (with whom Moscow had first come in contact way back in 2007) should, therefore, be encouraged to move closer to the regional powers in order to build an effective bulwark against the IS. Both Kabul and New Delhi clearly dispute this reading and continue to believe strongly that the Taliban are a very potent destabilising force as proved over the last decade and more. They also believe, as do western diplomats and analysts, that the Taliban are being encouraged by Russia which will prove to be a big mistake and encourage the terrorist group to oppose the Afghan state much more stridently.

The first signs of a major South Asia policy departure by Moscow, however, were available when the Russian Government initiated a move to draw Pakistan out of the United States orbit. This process itself began with the Obama Administration growing increasingly critical of Islamabads intimate and enduring relationship with not just the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban forces (until the latter turned into a deadly enemy of the state) but also with a plethora of Islamic jihadigroups active in both Afghanistan and India apart from within the Pakistani territory itself.In fact, US-Pakistan relations nosedived when American forces ambushed the fugitive Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad near the Pakistani capital Islamabad, thus exposing the Pakistani lie about its ignorance of the Al-Qaeda leaders clandestine presence in its territory. On its part, Pakistan had over the last few decades come to depend much more on its all-weather friendship with China than on its traditional relationship with the United States. China, on its part, had long selected Pakistan as its main ally in the south-central Asian region and formulated policies to augment and strengthen the relationship.

All these factors have now come into full play with Russia, China and Pakistan moving in unison in shaping Afghanistans security future. If Russias strategy is to replace the United States in presiding over Afghanistans future, China is in the country in a fast-growing role as well, and since both the world powers are demonstrably on the side of Pakistan which has striven all along to cement its primacy in the pivotal Afghanistan, Pakistan too appears to be much more confident than before about its continuing importance in the countrys future.

The sharply contrary views presented by Kabul and New Delhi on the one hand and that of the host nation along with Beijings and Islamabads on the other hand at the Moscow conference thus indicate a new turn in Afgha-nistans chequered history. The points of contention are two: Are the Taliban a cursethe main destabilising forceand should, therefore, be neutralised or are they a legitimate stakeholder and should therefore be an equal partner in any future settlement on Afghanistan? Secondly, is Pakistan a problem (for sheltering the Taliban in its territory) or a facilitator in any such settlement? The sixth participant, Iran, has its own set of interests in Afghanistan and was over the years on the side of Russia and India in opposing the Taliban and Pakistan but is now more focused on exploiting the new opportunities being brought in the region by the ongoing implementation of Chinas One Belt One Road initiative a very important part of which is the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Tehran, therefore, is hedging its bets and waits patiently to weigh in its options. As in all probability Washington-Tehran relations would deteriorate and the latter must cultivate and enlarge its alternatives, Iran is likely to move closer to China and Pakistan apart from Russia. Tehran and New Delhi, on the other hand, are likely to move away from their hitherto warm political and economic relations as the latter grows closer to Washington.

Kabul and New Delhi appear to be especially disturbed by Moscows wholesale acceptance of Islamabads vocabulary in respect of the Taliban. This was rather tellingly articulated by Afghanis-tans representative, M. Ashraf Haidari, a Foreign Ministry official, who was quoted saying at the conference: The key challenge to the process remains a policy selectivity by some to distin-guish between good and bad terrorists, even though terrorism is a common threat that con-fronts the whole region, where if one of us doesnt stand firm against it, others counter-terrorism efforts will not bear the results we all seek.

That Russia has embarked upon executinga well-planned script into the Afghanistan question is evident from its proposal at the February 15 conference that regional efforts should be expanded by involving at the next stage the potential of other countries, primarily from Central Asia, to quote a Foreign Ministry statement reported by Russias Interfax news agency. It wants stability and cooperation to fight extremist groups, including the Islamic State (IS), which is gaining ground in Central Asia. Responding to Afghanistans and Indias opposition to the Russian plan to invite the Taliban to future exercises, Russia said that it was talking to the terrorist group to undermine their efforts.

By taking this stand, Moscow has clearly decided to ignore the previous experiences of the United States-led efforts to similarly rope in the Taliban as an equally responsible entity in future negotiations between Kabul and Islamabad, which was essentially a Pakistani move to enhance the terrorist groups acceptability in international affairs and eventually facilitating their partici-pation in negotiations with the Afghan Govern-ment on an equal footing. Every such effort failed as the Taliban kept on sending confusing signals and interspersing the preliminary talks with major attacks inside Afghanistan. Kabul was forced eventually to give up on such exercises; both Presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani ultimately owning up the futility of this approach.

Without destabilising its traditional relations with India, Moscow has also been cultivating Islamabad in modest measures, a direction very much welcomed by Pakistan which saw this development as a potential means of weakening its arch-rival, India. Ever since last year, the Russian Government has deliberately moved to counter-balance the fast-growing US-India relationship by forging closer ties with Pakistan. Seen exclusively from the point of view of a maturing counter-US alliance of Russia and China, and by virtue of the Sino-Pakistan all-weather friendship, it is but natural that Pakistan has moved over smoothly into its orbit.The surprisingly swift shift of a one-time military ally of the United States to the enemy camp is also an indication that the Russia-Pakistan relationship is no longer beholden to the much older and comprehensive Russia-India relationship. When in an unprecedented move last year the Russian and Pakistani armies held a joint exercise and India protested vehemently, it was summarily dismissed. Besides, the unsettling conditions in Afghanistan apparentlycontinue to worry Russia, which by seeking the Taliban to be on its side hopes to create a zone of comfort in the region. Once the declared Russian intention to join its initiative Eurasian Economic Union project with the CPEC comes to fruition, economic, political and strategic cooperation among Russia,China and Pakistan will be further strengthened.

Unlike Russia, which clearly seeks to play the role of the main global power in determining the future of Afghanistan, Chinas interests stem principally from its overriding security concerns in the western-most province of Xinjiang which has been witnessing a simmering Uighur rebellion despite an enormous regime of repression on the indigenous population. The very fact that even though the first officially documented Uighur rebel was killed in a battle in northern Afghanistan way back in 1997 and that despite hundreds of summary executions and other forms of state repression, the rebellion continues implies Chinas predicament. By befriending both the Afghanistan state and the Taliban, Beijing apparently seeks to draw the optimal benefit out of such an association.

Meanwhile, Afghanistans fabulous mineral riches (with more minerals being discovered by explorations) continue to remain to be exploited, and each new and old player in the country is making moves desired to enrich them eventually.

Apratim Mukarji, a former Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, is an analyst of South and Central Asian affairs. He is also the author of Afghanistan: From Terror to Freedom (New Delhi, 2003).
Interview with Nouria Al-Neama, Vice Chairman & MD of Orchid Real Estate

Tell us about your career.

In 1984, I graduated from Kuwait University and began working at Burgan Bank of Kuwait as a management trainee. After 15 months of training I joined the auditing department and after 6 years of hard work, I became head of the group. A real estate bank then extended an offer to me for a senior auditor position and I made that move.

During my time there I stepped away to become a Certified Bank Auditor (CBA), which involved obtaining a specialized certificate from the United States. After I obtained the needed credentials I met with the Central Bank of Kuwait. I became Chief Internal Auditor (CIA) of the Kuwait Real Estate Bank.

At that time, you reached the highest level for women in Kuwaits banking arena.

You could say that. At the time I was the first Kuwaiti woman to become Chief Internal Auditor at a bank and to receive the certified bank auditor certificate. After twenty years of working in the banking arena however my familys company was expanding and I had to step away to see to the future of the business.

What sets you apart from other real estate companies is what you do with decoration, design, and furniture.

In what sectors is your company active? What companies are you associated with?

My company is called Orchid Real Estate. We are active and operate in local and international residential and commercial real estate sectors. I am also the chairman of Jood Gulf Holding Company.

What are the types of businesses you are involved in?

Im involved with all the subsidiaries of Jood Gulf Holding Company. Our subsidiaries deal with real estate, logistical work, air conditioning, kitchen manufacturing, aluminium factories, sliding, and the list goes on.

You are a very large group with a lot of activities. What do you specialize in on the real estate side of your business? What are the strengths of Orchid Real Estate?

Orchid Real Estate specializes in buying and selling buildings within Kuwait and internationally. We buy buildings, renovate them, and then prepare them for resale. Once touched by us, the buildings value increases (often double) and this is where our speciality lies.

Are you involved in the decoration, design, or choosing furniture?

Im involved in all three. Our process involves visiting furniture companies, talking to their engineers, deciding on design, and more. What sets you apart from other real estate companies is what you do with decoration, design, and furniture. You have to be creative but the most important thing is love. Love what you do and do what you love.

How would you assess the current market in Kuwait? Is there a lot of demand?

It is fluctuating. In the last four to five months it has slightly decreased due to our economy but I am optimistic that it will grow again and real estate will thrive.

Is there a specific area of your business that you want to focus on?

We want to focus on residential real estate through hotels. Hotel apartments are beneficial because as tourism increases, the demand for these spaces increases. Many people from the Gulf area are coming to Kuwait and need these spaces so we want to concentrate on this area.

Are you interested in attracting investors or international brands and companies to partner with, or do you want to keep your business a family business?

I am open to expansion if it will increase our brand and reputation and is good for the country. Expansion is often a discussion in our daily and weekly meetings.

Is there space for you to expand into other sectors?

In 2020, Kuwait aims to be the capital of the food industry. Visitors from surrounding countries often come for our restaurants and are increasing in numbers. We would like to expand into the food sector and there is space and opportunity to do so. We are particularly interested in providing specialty coffees and Italian foods.

What would you tell the members of the business community abroad that are interested in Kuwait? Why should they come here?

It is a great time to come and invest in Kuwait. Kuwait has incredible opportunities for entrepreneurs with new ideas and big dreams. Anyone who concentrates and has a promising business plan can achieve something here.

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WASHINGTON D.C. A man known to law enforcement as the "Incognito Bandit" was arrested Friday just as he attempted to board an outbound flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston announced in a written statement that Albert Taderera, 36, of Brighton was wanted for the October 7, 2016, robbery of the Wayland TD Bank. But, authorities suspect he may have had a hand in as many as 16 bank robberies in and around Boston over the course of two years.

The FBI learned Thursday that Taderera had booked a flight to Ethiopia from Dulles International Airport at about 11:15 a.m. Friday. Later, he switched for a 5:45 p.m. flight to South Africa. FBI agents arrested Taderera Friday afternoon in Washington as he waited to board the flight to Johannesburg.

According to court documents filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston, between February 2015 and March of 2017, 16 banks were robbed, the robber using a similar method of operation in all. In each case, the robber wore a dark hooded sweatshirt with a dark face mask and sunglasses, dark gloves and dark clothing. The robber showed what witnesses described as a black semi-automatic handgun and demanded cash from tellers.

The robber escaped either by running into nearby woods or by driving from the scene in a black BMW sedan.

Investigator's big break in the case came Wednesday, March 16 when police in Concord saw a black BMW outside of a local bank. The vehicle had a revoked registration and matched the description they had been asked to watch for. They had the car towed.

Several days later a man identifying himself as Taderera called the tow company to inquire about his car. He was told the car was being held by the police.The next day the FBI learned he had booked a flight and was about to flee.

Taderera is expected to appear in U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia Monday for his initial hearing. He was charged by criminal complaint with robbing The TD Bank in Wayland, and if convicted faces up to 25 years in federal prison
A West Hartford, Conn., man was arrested after leading police on a high-speed chase in Longmeadow early Saturday morning.

But Brian Devalle, 18, was released from custody because he crossed the state line into Connecticut.

Longmeadow police said K-9 Officer Amanda Van Buskirk tried to stop a car for speeding on Maple Road at about 2:10 a.m. The driver fled, and the officer discovered the car was stolen.

When the chase turned down Homestead Blvd., which dead ends near Interstate 91, the driver got out and ran, and Van Buskirk deployed K-9 Kai to track him.

Kai tracked the driver to a spot over the state line, where Devalle was being detained by Massachusetts State Police and Enfield police.

Enfield police told The Republican/MassLive that Devalle was taken to their department for an "investigation" and released.

Longmeadow Police Sgt. Eric Wisnouskas said the department will seek a fugitive from justice warrant for Devalle's arrest and rendition to Massachusetts.

This is a developing story. Stay with The Republican/MassLive for more information as our reporting continues.
Holyoke-arrests.jpg

Two people were arrested in Holyoke on Thursday after police investigations into drug activity at a local hotel. Nicolas Flores, 19, of Holyoke (left) and Kelsey Roach, 24, of Ware (right), are now facing charges.

HOLYOKE - Two people were arrested in Holyoke on Thursday after a police investigation into drug activity at a local hotel, according to Lt. Jim Albert of the Holyoke Police Department.

One of the arrested is a local teenager who is now being charged with selling heroin.

19-year-old Nicolas Flores, of Holyoke, was arrested on Thursday night after police detectives raided the Day's Inn on Northampton Street, where they found 300 bags of heroin and a large amount of cash, Albert said.

Detectives had earlier received information that Flores was living at the hotel and possibly selling drugs out of his room.

Also arrested was Kelsey Roach, a 24-year-old woman from Ware who is now being charged with heroin possession and conspiracy to violate the drug laws.

Both Flores and Roach were arraigned in Holyoke District Court on Friday morning.
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House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announces that he is abruptly pulling the troubled Republican health care overhaul bill off the House floor, short of votes and eager to avoid a humiliating defeat for President Donald Trump and GOP leaders, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, March 24, 2017.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Massachusetts Medical Society is asking the U.S. Congress "to allow the Affordable Care Act to continue to provide health coverage to more than 20 million Americans, including record numbers of covered patients in Massachusetts."

Dr. James S. Gessner, society president, issued the request in a statement late Friday that thanked Massachusetts legislators for their opposition to the American Health Care Act, which Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives pulled from a vote on Friday.

"Without question, this bill would have been harmful to our patients - including the most vulnerable - and to our members' ability to provide them quality care," said Gessner of the proposed replacement legislation to the federal healthcare bill.

"In Massachusetts and elsewhere, this legislation would have deprived members of our community of the subsidies that make health insurance affordable; would have ended the Medicaid expansion that has helped so many; would have overturned mandatory coverage of essential health benefits; and would have resulted in children, seniors, pregnant women and other under-served patients losing access to essential health care services."

His statement added, "On behalf our patients and physician members, we thank our Congressional delegation for their support."

Both U.S. House Representatives Richard Neal, D-Springfield, and James McGovern, D-Amherst, were outspoken in their opposition to the repeal of the ACA, also known as Obamacare.

In a New York Times story Friday afternoon about the failure of the Republicans to gain enough votes for the proposed legislation, which would have eliminated federal standards for what basic services must be covered by insurances, McGovern is quoted as calling the proposed elimination "so cartoonishly malicious that I can picture someone twirling their mustache as they drafted it in their secret capitol lair last night."

"This back-room deal will kill the requirement for insurance companies to offer essential health benefits such as emergency services, maternity care, mental health care, substance addiction treatment, pediatric services, prescription drugs and many other basic essential services," McGovern is quoted as saying.
GFDA Investors and Friends,

Yesterday, the U.S. Census released population estimates for the year ending July 1, 2016. From July, 1, 2015 to July 1, 2016, the Census Bureau estimated that the Great Falls MSA (Cascade County) population shrunk by 0.4%. Today, the Montana Department of Labor released employment estimates for February which showed our MSA at a 4.0% unemployment rate, the second lowest rate in February on record.

Low unemployment is good. Shrinking population and workforce is not. Of the 7 major Montana urban areas, only one other had population shrinkage last year, Butte with 0.1% loss. Billings grew by 0.9%, Bozeman by 3.7%, Helena by 1.3%, Kalispell by 2.1% and Missoula by 1.9%.

The most recent year was unfortunately not an aberration. Over the 6 year period July 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016, the U.S. Census estimates that the Great Falls MSA grew by only 0.5%. In the same period, Billings grew by 6.8%, Bozeman by 16.7%, Butte by 1.0%, Helena by 5.8%, Kalispell by 7.9%, and Missoula by 6.2%.

With 70% of the American economy driven by consumer spending, it will be difficult to continue to grow our local economy if we dont also grow our population. And, local companies cannot expand if we dont have the workforce.

Today at a lunch with Sen. Daines, we kicked off our strategic planning process: Great Falls 2022: Whats Next? I believe the single most important thing to consider in our new strategic plan is the workforce/population challenge.

First, can we succeed in attracting people/talent to grow our population. I say absolutely yes! We have a great product to sell. We just have to be hungry enough to put together the resources to sell it.

Second, can we continue to improve our community product to make it more competitive to retain and attract talent. I say absolutely yes! We have made many improvements, have more underway, and tremendous underutilized assets that we can build on.

Third, are we going to do this? I say absolutely yes! Because if we dont, everything we have invested in this wonderful community will be for nought.

Last June, GFDA hosted a mini-summit looking at what other communities have done to retain and attract talent. Weve learned from other communities what has worked and what hasnt. Last month we commissioned a report to demonstrate the positive impact population growth would have on each sector of our economy so that we can show our investors how they would earn a return on investment. Tuesday night, the City Commission allocated $30,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds so we can commission a household labor survey to delve into why our labor participation rate is running 2% below the state and national average, and learn more about underutilized workforce skills. Similar studies we commissioned in 2003 and 2009 proved to be effective in helping us land Centene and Blue Cross Blue Shield claims processing centers.

We will be working with our current investors to put together our new priorities and the resources to implement them.

We cannot afford to sit by while other communities steal our talent. We need to step up efforts to continue to make our city more competitive in retaining and attracting people. We need to mount a professional, multi-year relocation marketing effort to effectively pitch our great community. And, we need to step up efforts to create higher wage career opportunities.

Our investors, coupled with smart priorities and aggressive work, have helped increase total annual wages by 12.5% or $161 million over the past 3 years. Weve grown manufacturing jobs by an average of 7% a year for 4 years. We have a new rail industrial park, riverfront redevelopment, over 350 new apartments, a new 325+ seat call center, numerous entrepreneurial startups, two new hotels, the new East End Retail center, and more underway. Momentum is on our side.

Brett

Brett Doney

[email protected]

http://www.GFDevelopment.org

1-406-750-2119

Economic Growth, Diversification and High Wage Jobs

GFDA and High Plains Financial are Equal Opportunity Lenders.
On this episode of Resilience, Entrepreneur Network partner Jason Saltzman sits down with Gemma Sole and Amanda Curtis, co-founders of Nineteenth Amendment (a platform for fashion as experience), to talk about how they became the first startup ever to partner with Macys and how they broke the second-most important rule of the internet to do it.

Watch the video to learn more and catch the full episodes here.

Jason Saltzman

Full Story: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/How-to-Break-the-Rules-of-the-Internet-to-Create-10974654.php
by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, March 23, 2017

Invoking a graphic design first used in its trademark 1966 cover story, Is God Dead, the latest edition of Time magazine poses the more contemporary question: Is Truth Dead?

The cover story draws primarily on an exclusive interview with President Donald Trump exploring a number of falsehoods and alternative facts, including his thus-far-unsubstantiated accusation that President Barack Obama wiretapped him during his campaign and his equally unsubstantiated claim that 3 million undocumented immigrants voted in the presidential election, as well as other fanciful allegations.

"The more the conversation continued, the more the binary distinctions between truth and falsehood blurred, the telltale sign of a veteran and strategic misleader who knows enough to leave himself an escape route when he tosses a bomb, Time magazines Michael Scherer says of his interview with President Trump.

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Rather than assert things outright, he often couches provocative statements as beliefs, or attributes them to unnamed 'very smart people.' During the campaign, he claimed falsely that Texas Senator Ted Cruzs father had consorted with the assassin who killed John F. Kennedy. Now as President, Trump argued that he had done nothing wrong by spreading the fiction, since it had been printed in the National Enquirer, a tabloid famous for its unconventional editorial standards," he says.

Trump has discovered something about epistemology in the 21st century, Scherer continues. The truth may be real, but falsehood often works better.

"It is for this same reason that Russia deployed paid Internet trolls in the 2016 campaign, according to U.S. investigators, repeatedly promoting lies on U.S. social networks to muddy the debate. In the radical democracy of social media, even the retweets of outraged truth squadders has the effect of rebroadcasting false messages.

'Controversy elevates message. And it keeps the President on offense Since winning the White House, Trump has employed this weapon at specific times, often when he is losing control of the national story line. He pulled the trigger on Nov. 27, a day after Clintons vanquished campaign agreed to join in a recount of votes in Wisconsin. Over the course of that day, Trump sent out 11 tweets, averaging 18,440 retweets, expressing his outrage over the situation. But the two most widely read and shared, by wide margins, were the false ones."
Early results of a clinical trial suggest that stem cell therapy may be a promising treatment for erectile dysfunction, after the procedure was found to restore sexual function in men with the condition.

Share on Pinterest Researchers suggest that stem cell therapy may be an effective treatment strategy for ED.

The stem cell therapy involves injecting the patients own stem cells  derived from abdominal fat cells  into the erectile tissue of the penis.

Lead researcher Dr. Martha Haahr, of Odense University Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues found that within 6 months of the procedure, 8 of the 21 men treated were able to engage in spontaneous sexual intercourse.

The researchers recently presented their findings at EAU17  the European Association of Urologys annual conference  held in London in the United Kingdom.

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a condition whereby a man has difficulties getting or maintaining an erection in order to engage in sexual intercourse.

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases, around 12 percent of men under the age of 60, and 22 percent of men aged between 60 and 69, have ED.

High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, chronic kidney disease, and prostate surgery are some of the physical conditions that can cause ED. Psychological issues  such as anxiety, stress, depression, and low self-esteem  can also contribute to ED.

Current treatments for ED include PDE5 inhibitors (such as Viagra), penile implants, and injections. However, Dr. Haahr and team note that all of these therapies can have significant side effects.

As a result, researchers are on the hunt for alternative treatments for ED, and stem cell therapy has emerged as a promising candidate in animal trials.
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"All depressions are not equal and like different types of cancer, different types of depression will require specific treatments. Using these scans, we may be able to match a patient to the treatment that is most likely to help them, while avoiding treatments unlikely to provide benefit," says Helen Mayberg, MD, who led the imaging study. Mayberg is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Radiology and the Dorothy C. Fuqua Chair in Psychiatric Imaging and Therapeutics at Emory University School of Medicine.Mayberg and co- investigators Boadie Dunlop, MD, Director of the Emory Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, and W. Edward Craighead, PhD, J. Rex Fuqua Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, sought to develop methods for a more personalized approach to treating depression.Current treatment guidelines for major depression recommend that a patient's preference for psychotherapy or medication be considered in selecting the initial treatment approach. However, in the PReDICT study patients' preferences were only weakly associated with outcomes; preferences predicted treatment drop-out but not improvement. These results are consistent with prior studies, suggesting that achieving personalized treatment for depressed patients will depend more on identifying specific biological characteristics in patients rather than relying on their symptoms or treatment preferences. The results from PReDICT suggest that brain scans may offer the best approach for personalizing treatment going forward.In recruiting 344 patients for the study from across the metro Atlanta area, researchers were able to convene a more diverse group of patients than other previous studies, with roughly half of the participants self-identified as African-American or Hispanic."Our diverse sample demonstrated that the evidence-based psychotherapy and medication treatments recommended as first line treatments for depression can be extended with confidence beyond a white, non-Hispanic population," says Dunlop."Ultimately our studies show that clinical characteristics, such as age, gender, etc., and even patients' preferences regarding treatment, are not as good at identifying likely treatment outcomes as the brain measurement," adds Mayberg.Source: Eurekalert


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Summer is that time of the year when a lot of NRIs return back home for a vacation. But, this year is going to be a little different, at least according to standup comedian Sundeep Rao.

The whole world is aware of Donald Trumps views regarding immigration, and how his recent policies were a nightmare for all immigrants, illegal or not. With so much tension going on with this topic, Rao tried to look at it from a different perspective and made fun of some NRI stereotypes.

He started off by noting that whatever is happening in the US isnt really our concern over here, but then he realized what this would actually result in. These cousins of ours, who werent very cool, are coming back with inflated egos, a false sense of accomplishment, and a fake accent, he said.

Making a joke about Trumps plan of building a wall along the US-Mexico border, he said he would call up Trump and ask him to build a wall around the airport in Bengaluru.

Poking fun of the typical NRI behaviour, he said, They come back with the arrogance, going hey man, you know, back in California, man, I used to do adventure sports, like bungee-jumping, skydivingdo you have that shit in India? Adventure sports? Im like, yeah bastard, cross the road.

Watch the hilarious video with completely spot on jokes and a fake accent, here.
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"Your Beatitude, I want to thank you for inviting me to be here in Cyprus -- an invitation that serves as a reminder that Greece and Cyprus linked their struggle for national liberation with the spirit, the assistance, the support and the solidarity of the Church.

My dear friend the Foreign Minister of Cyprus, Ioannis Kasoulides, with whom we are establishing trilateral cooperation schemes with other countries, shaping a network of security and stability in the Mediterranean.

Dear leaders of the political parties of Cyprus, Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Fotopoulos.

What our country needs today, what Cyprus needs, what we need together as we strive for a just, viable solution to the Cyprus problem, is unity, is the potential and capability to see beyond the end of our nose. To see the future and have the right to dream that it is what corresponds to the yearnings of our peoples. We have to conscientiously pursue what is right and just, not only for us, but for others as well. We have to fight consistently for all Greek Cypriots to feel the greatest possible security on the island of Cyprus, but the Turkish Cypriots and the three small minorities on Cyprus must also have the maximum possible rights.

I remind you that the national revolution of 1821 succeeded because it was connected with an international movement of solidarity. And that makes it incumbent upon us, the Foreign Ministers, to make sure they understand us. The poet said that what is spoken does not suffice; what is heard is also of great importance. What is heard by the foreigners -- those we are working with -- so that we can have their support and understanding in the battle we are waging.

Cyprus needs a viable and effectively functional solution. Cyprus was always high among our national priorities. I personally tell the story that the first beating I took at a demonstration was, over 50 years ago, at a demonstration over the Cyprus issue, outside a foreign embassy. The Cyprus problem politicised our generation, and it politicised it emotionally. There are some people who cannot perceive this emotional tie with Cyprus. Our generation, which went through the military courts and jail cells of the junta, felt a deep responsibility and fear that the junta was preparing to perpetrate crimes. And of course it isn't our fault -- it isn't the fault of those who opposed the junta for its crimes -- but we will always feel we carry the debt of not having been able to avert the crimes.

Cyprus is the sentiment of our adolescence, our politicisation. It is the sense that we always need to apologize for the crimes committed by certain people who called themselves Greeks but were not Greeks. They were yes-men.

As many people thanked me coming in, I want to repeat: our stance on Cyprus is a debt, a debt of history. It is an emotional, logical and cultural debt. I find it very moving to be here on March 25th and see young Cypriots parade. And that is why I just want to say what I told the journalists: For us, Cyprus is emotion, it is love, it is an apology and a debt. Thank you."
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UPPER THUMB  The Huron County Sheriff's Office assisted a kayaker Friday who was traveling to set a Great Lakes record.

Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson reports his office responded to a report of a kayaker distressed in ice off the Eagle Bay Public Access site in Port Austin Township at 5:08 p.m.

"Deputies and I responded and arrived on scene about 15 minutes later," Hanson stated in a news release. "It was learned that onshore team members of a lone female kayaker attempting to set a Great Lakes record had lost site of her in broken ice about a half mile offshore. While the Caseville Fire Department was arriving with our trailered airboat about 10 minutes later, a person in a survival suit walking in the water was observed walking toward shore."

About another 10 minutes later, it was learned the person walking in the water was a team member looking for the missing kayaker, the release states.

"At that time, our airboat was launched in the ice-filled Grindstone Harbor to respond to that area, which was about 1.5 miles away," Hanson reports. "As it was responding, it was learned that Kinde area men Quinn Duda and Justin Baranski had spotted the kayaker paddling toward Grindstone from the west. Our airboat stood by in the rough 3 to 4 foot wave water until the kayaker made it to the north Grindstone point, where we got her out of the water."

The kayaker  52-year-old Traci Lynn Martin of Lee's Summit, Missouri  was wearing a survival suit. She was checked by an awaiting Thumb Ambulance crew, and refused any further medical treatment.

"We learned that she had left the Harbor Beach area around 10 this morning, and she developed mechanical issues with her rudder, (and) she overshot the Grindstone Harbor," Hanson stated in Friday's release. "The stronger northerly winds were also not anticipated quite as soon either. In conversation with her, I discouraged any further attempts of her record-setting journey until the weather, ice and water conditions become more favorable."

Martin later told the Tribune in an email message that she was not in distress and had a radio to use if needed. But her onshore team did not understand a cellphone message and thought she was in distress.

She said she planned to resume her quest to travel 8,600 miles in 10 months on Monday.
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...
HOWELL, MI - A group of Howell students had the rare opportunity to rip apart a school, and it was even part of a class assignment.

Students in Howell High School's Firefighters Academy spent the morning of Friday, March 24, breaking down doors, breaching walls and pulling hoses into a former Livingston Education Service Agency school building.

The training simulated forced-entry scenarios firefighters could enter encounter when trying to access a burning building. The vacant school building on the southeast side of the Livingston Educational Service Agency is slated for demolition on Monday.



The Firefighters Academy provides students who are interested in a career in firefighting with the training required to take the state firefighter's exam. Several former cadets have gone on to work for local fire agencies. The Howell program also served as the model for the Detroit Fire Department/Detroit Public Schools fire academy that launched in 2015.
BAY CITY, MI -- A Bangor Township ex-con accused of burglarizing a house and making off with guns, knives, and hunting supplies has accepted a plea offer.

Brandon S. Strange, 29, on March 9 appeared in Bay County Circuit Court and pleaded guilty to one count of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a larceny. The charge is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Strange also pleaded to an unrelated charge of possessing less than 25 grams of a controlled substance.

In exchange, the prosecution agreed to dismiss charges of first-degree home invasion, receiving and concealing stolen firearms, larceny in a building, larceny of a firearm, and felony firearm.

By taking a plea deal, Strange followed the lead of his cousin and codefendant, Justin M. Roque, 34. Roque in November pleaded guilty to the same charge as Strange did, as well as a count of receiving and concealing stolen firearms. On Jan. 9, he was sentenced to three years' probation.

Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill is to sentence Strange at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, April 24.

Strange and Roque's case stems from an incident that happened the morning of July 31, when Bay County Sheriff's deputies responded to a breaking-and-entering complaint in the 3200 block of State Street Road. The victim, a 53-year-old man, told police he was last at home about 3 p.m. the previous day and had returned to find his house broken into.

The missing items included several handguns, rifles, ammunition, kitchen knives, a cutting block, trail cameras, power drills, a crossbow, a compound bow, hunting clothes, a flat screen TV, collectible coins, wine, laptops, and jewelry, court records show.

The man said he believed Strange, his neighbor, was responsible, as he'd recently been on parole for property crimes. While deputies were at the scene, they saw Strange drive by in a silver Ford Explorer. They determined Strange's driver's license was suspended and they removed him from the Ford, court records show.

On searching Strange, deputies found cocaine and a pipe on him. In his wallet, he had $563 as well as some collectible coins, court records show.

Strange's parents told deputies he lived with them, adding that their 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun was missing from a closet. They gave deputies consent to search their home, with deputies finding a purse containing more collectible coins. Strange's girlfriend, who also lives at the residence, told deputies the purse was hers, but she hadn't used it in months and she didn't know where the coins came from, court records show.

"It wouldn't surprise me if Brandon stole it," the woman told deputies. "Have you seen his rap sheet? Stealing is like second nature to him."

The woman also said Strange's cousin, Roque, had been over the night before, court records show.

Strange denied any wrongdoing to deputies. He said he found a bag containing the coins in his driveway while leaving that morning and took it, court records show.

In the course of their investigation, deputies went to Roque's address in Bay City and encountered him there. Roque told them he'd heard of Strange's arrest and denied being his accomplice. He allowed police to search his residence and they did not find any stolen property, court records show.

Police also went to the home of Roque's younger brother, Alexander Roque. In the house's basement, police found and confiscated a compound bow case with the complainant's name on it, the compound bow itself, a laptop, a tote box of hunting supplies, rifles, power tools, trail cameras, and a backpack with jewelry and another camera in it, court records show.

Deputies arrested Alexander Roque on outstanding warrants. En route to the jail, Alexander Roque told deputies his brother had contacted him earlier to say he put some items in his basement, but not to worry about it as he would take care of them. Alexander Roque told his brother he wanted nothing to do with the situation and told him to remove the items from his house, court records show.

In police's presence, Alexander Roque called Justin Roque to get him to implicate himself in the crimes.

"Alexander told Justin that he was going to put the items to the curb but Justin told him not to in case the police were watching," police wrote in their reports, contained in court records. "During the conversation Justin asked Alexander to wipe down the items to get Justin's fingerprints off of them. Justin then advised he would be on his way to get the items and planned to throw them in the woods behind the residence."

Police returned to Justin Roque's home and arrested him. They also executed a search warrant on his home and discovered a Ruger rifle and ammunition they'd missed in their previous search.

Alex Roque was not charged in connection with the burglary.

Strange in July 2009 was sentenced to 18 months to six years in prison after pleading guilty to larceny in a building in Saginaw County. After serving some time, Strange in November 2011 was sentenced to two to 10 years after pleading guilty to receiving and concealing $1,000 to $20,000 in stolen property in Bay County.

The Michigan Department of Corrections discharged Strange on Feb. 27, 2015.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - A Lansing-area man accused of using social media to groom teens to share nude photos has been indicted on federal charges.

Sameer Gadola has been indicted by a federal grand jury of sexual exploitation of a minor, enticement of a minor and receipt of child pornography.

The sexual-exploitation charge carries a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison upon conviction.

Gadola allegedly convinced a 16-year-old boy in Texas to send images of himself while engaged in sexually explicit conduct and displaying his genitals, according to the indictment signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexis Sanford.

Gadola is free on an unsecured $10,000 bond.

He is scheduled to be arraigned April 19 in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.

The government said the images were transmitted to Gadola via Instagram, an internet social-media platform.

"A detailed review of Gadola's Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat search warrant results determined that he engaged in many online relationships with boys and girls who appeared to be under the age of 18 for the purpose of sex," FBI special agent Henrik Impola wrote in a criminal complaint.

Gadola's parents earlier issued a statement through defense attorney Thomas Cranmer: "As parents we fully support our son and stand behind him. There is another side to the government's allegations. We look forward to seeing all of the evidence presented during the course of this matter."

A federal grand jury recently handed down the indictment.

The investigation began when a 13-year-old boy's mother told Shiawassee County sheriff's deputies that she logged onto her son's Instagram account and learned he had been communicating with Gadola for two weeks, the FBI said.

The FBI alleged that Gadola was "grooming" the boy.

The FBI asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection to seize Gadola's cell phone as he returned to the U.S. after a trip outside of the country.

"During the inspection by customs officers, Gadola stated that he 'did not want to go to jail or turn into a monster like Jerry Sandusky.' He said he has a sickness and is trying to do the right thing and get better," Impola wrote.

He said Gadola admitted to having multiple sexual conversations with juveniles on the internet.

Gadola also said he has many online followers but would not harm a child, records showed.

He told investigators he was trying to help the Texas teen because he had been bullied, and thought he was 18 when they exchanged photos, the FBI said in court records.
SAULT STE. MARIE, MI - The Soo Locks opens at the stroke of midnight on Saturday, March 25, kicking off the Great Lakes shipping season for 2017.

The last few days have been a hulking sort of horse race, with maritime fans debating which massive ship would reach the impressive lock system first and be the inaugural one through the gates.

The winner: The 1,000-foot and U.S.-flagged Stewart J. Cort. It's in line to be the first one into the system's Poe Lock. Once through, the up-bound freighter is headed to Superior, Wisc., according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the locks.

There was a small locks-side welcoming party for the Stewart J. Cort's crew on Friday. Hats and a commemorative plaque were handed out, with congratulations on being the first to reach the locks.

The Cort will be followed by the down-bound steam ship, Phillip R. Clarke, said Kevin Sprague, an engineer with the Soo Area Office.

The locks connect Lake Superior to the other four Great Lakes. Lake Superior has the largest Great Lakes coal and grain ports, as well as five iron ore ports.

In 2016, U.S.-flagged Great Lakes freighters moved 83.3 million tons of cargo, according to the Cleveland-based Lake Carriers Association.

The locks have been closed since Jan. 15. During the 10-week winter shutdown, it underwent needed repairs and maintenance. Much of it had to do with the Poe Lock's switch to a new hydraulic operating system, the Army Corps said.

The MacArthur Lock has maintenance scheduled through mid-April. It's on the south side of the Poe.

"Navigation is the primary mission of the Detroit District and the Soo Locks is an essential component of the Great Lakes Navigation System," said Lt. Col. Dennis P. Sugrue, an engineer for the Detroit District. "Thanks to our entire dedicated district team in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., for successfully completing another massive winter work program in order to ensure reliability of this critical Great Lakes connection."
How many hot wings can he take?

We know youve been wondering how much spicy food Dax Shepard can handle.

Luckily, we now have an answer. The Milford native recently appeared on Hot Ones, the top-performing YouTube series for the online food magazine First We Feast.

The series challenges celebrities to answer tough questions while eating dangerously hot chicken wings. Shepard recently sat down with host Sean Evans and talked about a wide variety of topics including his new film CHIPS, Jay Z, Costco and his love for Michigan. Shepard was confident going in.

I think Im good, he told Evans about his heat tolerance. But I bet thats the kind of person that really goes down hard.

Here is a heat index breakdown of the topics covered.

Don't Edit

"CHIPS"

Type of hot sauce: Tuong Ot sriracha

Scoville level: 2,200

Question topic: Scary motorcycle tricks in "CHIPS."

Reaction to heat: None

Don't Edit

In this Feb. 3, 2017 file photo, DJ Khaled attends ESPN: The Party 2017 in Houston, Texas. DJ Khaled will host a new music-themed cruise called Summerfest Cruise, a four-day festival that will also feature Future, A$AP Rocky, Lil Wayne and others, June 30-July 3, aboard the Norwegian Sky cruise ship. The ship will sail from Miami to the Caribbean. (Photo by John Salangsang/Invision/AP, File)

John Salangsang

DJ Khaled

Type of hot sauce: Mcilhenny Co, Tabasco pepper sauce

Scoville level: 4,000

Question topic: Punk'd and DJ Khaled

Reaction to heat: None.

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MLive File Photo

Coney Dog's and Costco

Type of hot sauce: El Yucateco chili habanero

Scoville level: 5,790

Question topic: Love for the Costco food court

Response: "I'm a hot dog person. I'm from Detroit. You know Philly's got the Cheese steak, Chicago's got the deep dish pizza, and Detroit's thing is Coney dogs. So it's a natural casing hot dog with a beautiful chili sauce on it. The bar is high for me."

Reaction to heat: Very little

Don't Edit

Samantha Madar

Classic cars

Type of hot sauce: Queen Majesty red habanero and black coffee hot sauce

Scoville level: 14,000

Question topic: Classic cars

Reaction to heat: "That's bland," he said. "I would say that's less hot than the previous two. You're right I'm getting cocky. This thing might bite me really bad."

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Kristen Bell's "Dipping" habit

Type of hot sauce: Hot Ones Homeboy's Fiery Chipotle

Scoville level: 15,600

Question topic: Awesome Instagram photos and Kristen Bell's "dipping" habit.

Reaction to heat: "I like this one so much I'm going more bites than necessary," he said.

Don't Edit

Michigan vacation

Type of hot sauce: Bravado Spice Company Ghost Pepper and Blueberry Hot Sauce

Scoville level: 28,000

Question topic: The perfect trip to Michigan

Response: "We had the perfect trip this year," Shepard said. "We rented a house on the lake. And then just eat. I'll have a couple 100 Coney dogs in a week."

Reaction to heat: "Oh that's exciting I love blueberries and they say it's got a lot of antioxidants and is great for thinking," he said.

Don't Edit

MLive File Photo

Detroit's Civil War

Type of hot sauce: Torchbearer Sauces Zombie Apocalypse

Scoville level: 100,000

Question topic: American vs. Lafayette chili dog situation

Response: "I applaud you for knowing that is the Civil War that exists in Detroit," Shepard said. "We are a Lafayette family. American is damn good but I would never walk in there instead of Lafayette. There's something about it. American is a little too flashy."

Reaction to heat: Not much. "I feel like we're just kissing," he said. "I want to get to the heavy petty."

Don't Edit

Jay Z man crush

Type of hot sauce: Da Bomb Beyond Insanity Hot Sauce

Scoville level: 135,600

Question topic: Jay-Z man crush

Reaction to heat: "That one's getting there," he said. "This one is more present. My mouth is watering a little bit."

Don't Edit

In this March 11, 2017 photo, Dax Shepard poses for a portrait to promote his film, "CHiPs," at The London Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Ron Eshel/Invision/AP)

Ron Eshel

His nose

Type of hot sauce: 357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce

Scoville level: 357,000

Question topic: His nose, and other famous noses.

Reaction to heat: "Nose is running a bit just to check in with my symptoms," he said.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

MLive File Photo

Mental math

Type of hot sauce: Blair's Mega Death Sauce

Scoville level: 550,000

Question topic: Mental math

Reaction to heat: "These could get so hot that you could be eating the bones and not even notice," he said. "That's what I'm worried about. So far so good. I'm actually getting concerned now about my actual health. I think something might be broken in here. At a certain point, you have to go, hmm, I have nerve damage or something."

Don't Edit

Dax Shepard, left, and Kristen Bell arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of "CHIPS" at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Monday, March 20, 2017. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Jordan Strauss

More stories about Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell

How Kristen Bell's love for the Red Wings led to her marriage to Dax Shepard

Dax Shepard on his favorite places to visit when he's home in Michigan

Dax Shepard makes Kristen Bell audition to be his wife in 'Chips'
People react as they look at a screen displaying the Sensex on the facade of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai, India, February 1, 2017. REUTERS/Shailesh Andrade - RTX2Z41C

The Nifty took a breather after hitting a record high of 9,218 in the previous week and closed 0.56 percent lower for the week ended March 24, 2017. The S&P BSE Sensex ended 0.7 percent lower at 29,421.40 in the same period.

The S&P BSE midcap index closed 0.3 percent lower, while the S&P BSE Smallcap index ended 0.4 percent higher for the week ended March 24.

A strong appreciation in rupee and continued regulatory issues with US FDA led to consolidation in IT & pharmaceuticals sector. Realty and media stocks hogged the limelight. Profit booking was witnessed in auto, infrastructure, banks, and FMCG stocks.

The market is consolidating in a narrow range near its crucial support level, which still warrants some caution as a breakdown could take the index towards even lower levels from here. However, a breakout, could take the Nifty towards 9,218-9,250 level and beyond.

The market took a breather this week post a flip rally led by state election results and supportive FII inflows. The market was facing some pressure to edge past 9200 levels on concerns of stretched valuation, Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services told moneycontrol.

Strong selloff in global market due to emerging concern regarding the passage of Trump policies ahead of key vote on US new health care policy which pushed the domestic investors to turn profit booking, he said.

Going by the buzz on D-Street, we have collated a list of top six factors which could chart the direction for markets this coming week.

Sebi bans RIL from equity derivatives

Come Monday morning, Reliance Industries (RIL), the countrys second most valued firm will be in focus after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Friday banned RIL and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year and directed the firm to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore for alleged fraudulent trading in a 10-year-old case.

A company spokesperson said it will challenge the order. Reliance Industries has been asked to disgorge Rs 447 crore, along with an annual interest of 12 percent since November 29, 2007, which itself would be more than Rs 500 crore, taking the total disgorgement amount to nearly Rs 1,000 crore.

(Disclosure: Reliance Industries owns Network 18, which publishes Moneycontrol.com.)

Market eyes monsoon, El Nino impact

One of the biggest domestic risks which D-Street faces is monsoon trajectory. The year 2016 gave some relief after two years of below-normal monsoon. The hope-based rally is based on a revival of earnings and pickup in economic activity.

IMD officials on Friday said that India is likely to emerge unscathed from the El Nino weather pattern as it is expected to set in only during the latter part of the four-month monsoon season which should lift sentiment on D-Street this coming week.

Monsoon rains, the lifeblood of India's farm-dependent USD 2 trillion economy, arrive on the southern tip of Kerala state by around June 1 and retreat from the western state of Rajasthan by September.

Australias most respected weather forecast department has predicted El Nino this year which could potentially derail the rural recovery party, although it is still early to worry about this, Jimeet Modi, CEO, SAMCO Securities told moneycontrol.

The year ending compulsions would keep the market range bound subject however to US market response to Affordable Care bill. The market is likely to remain in a sideways zone with a firm bias. Investors should remain invested and traders should buy on decline with strict stops.

March F&O expiry

The stock market is expected to remain volatile ahead of the expiry of March months contract as traders roll over their derivative positions (Futures & Options (F&O)) segment from the near-month March 2017 series to April 2017 series.

The near-month March 2017 derivatives contracts will expire on Thursday, March 30.

Volatility to remain high as we go into the expiry of March series derivative expiry on next week which is also FY closing. Open interest build up shows maximum call writing at 9200 which shows the market is unlikely to reach that mark, Abnish Kumar Sudhanshu, Director & Research Head, Amrapali Aadya Trading & Investments told moneycontrol.

For the week, 9,180 and 9,220 levels will act as immediate resistance while the supports are expected to come in at 9,050-8,975, he said.

Technical Outlook

The Nifty couldn't sustain the all-time highs and ended down while it recovered in the later part of the week sustaining the 9,100 mark. The Nifty made a hanging man pattern on the weekly charts thereby sending a cautious signal to investors and traders.

A hanging man is a bearish pattern and is formed almost when an uptrend is near as there is sell-off seen with open and high being same, while a body displaying the existence of bears at upper levels, Mustafa Nadeem, CEO, Epic Research told moneycontrol.

Bulls try to cover the lower part making a shadow as same, or larger, compared to the body. This indicates as an early indicator of bulls losing the control and trend may reverse provided a confirmation with next closing below the shadow, he said.

Chandan Taparia, Derivatives and Technical Analyst at Motilal Oswal Securities said that the Nifty has to continue to hold above 9,075 to witness a buying interest towards 9,160 and 9,218, while on the downside 9,020-9,000 is likely to act as a major support.

Macroeconomic data

A flurry of macroeconomic data is expected on Friday, March 31. The government will unveil external debt data followed by infrastructure output data for the month of February, foreign reserves, bank deposit growth on a year-on-year (YoY) basis and bank loan growth.

India's annual infrastructure output growth slowed to 3.4 percent in January from 5.6 percent in the previous month on a fall in refinery production. The output growth came in at 4.8 percent for the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2017.

Upcoming Board Meets

More than 50 companies are scheduled to hold their board meet in the coming week. Coal India will meet on Sunday, March 26 to consider a second interim dividend. Earlier this month, the state-controlled miner had announced an interim dividend of Rs 18.75 a share, paying out a total of Rs11, 640 crore.

Other companies which will hold their board meet to consider dividend include Colgate-Palmolive India (27 March), MindTree (27 March), and India Nippon (March 30).

Mangal Credit and Fincorp said that the board meeting is scheduled to be held on March 28, 2017, to consider and approve stock split. Layla Textile board will meet on March 29 to consider a stock split.
A Delhi court on Saturday put Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to trial in a criminal defamation case filed against him by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the DDCA issue.

Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Paty leaders pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. The next hearing in the case will take place on May 20.

Advocates from both the sides indulged in a heated argument over non-appearance of Jaitley after Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sumit Dass started the proceedings.

The accused, including Kejriwal, who were present before the court complained of "serious threat" after which the judge asked all the persons to go outside the court room, barring those who were concerned with the case.

Our strategy is simple that we will fight tooth and nail till order comes. All charges are leveled by Arun Jaitley are baseless, said AAP Lawyer Rishikesh Kumar.

Earlier, on January 30 this year, the court had dismissed Kejriwal's plea seeking to be heard on point of framing of notice.

Earlier in October 2016, the Delhi High Court had dismissed his plea to stay trial court proceedings in the case, saying "it is devoid of merit".

A civil defamation suit has also been filed by Jaitley before the Delhi High Court in relation to the matter seeking Rs 10 crore in damages.

In April 2016, the trial court had granted bail to Kejriwal and others in the case after they appeared before it.
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To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research.

Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)

Today

Some passing clouds. Low near 65F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some passing clouds. Low near 65F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.
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 []
Are Americans the real terrorists?More than 200 civilians killed in suspected U.S. airstrike in IraqMunatha Jasim watched Iraqi civil defense workers in red suits scurry among the ruins of her neighbors homes Friday, extracting the dead and zipping them into blue body bags.The massive explosion that tore through Baghdad Street last week killed nine of Jasims relatives, including son Firas, 7, and daughter Taiba, 4. We recovered half his body, she said of the 7-year-old. The rest is still there.The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is investigating whether it was responsible for an airstrike in the west Mosul neighborhood of Aghawat Jadidah March 17 that local civil defense officials said killed at least 200. It would be the highest civilian death toll from an airstrike since the battle against the militant group Islamic State began more than two years ago and among the deadliest incidents in modern warfare.The coalition has opened a formal civilian casualty credibility assessment on this allegation, and we are currently analyzing conflicting allegations and all possible strikes in that area, said U.S. Army Col. Joe Scrocca, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition, who added that coalition forces routinely strike Islamic State targets in that area.Scrocca said the investigation is looking at multiple allegations placing a strike in the area sometime between March 17 and 23. The Pentagon previously announced four strikes near Mosul March 17 that destroyed 25 fighting positions, 56 vehicles plus a suicide car.We will continue to assess the allegations and determine what if any role a coalition strike may have had in that area, Scrocca said.Nearly 50 bodies could be seen Friday in the area of the alleged airstrike, where relatives helped recover remains.One man approached a bag that contained the body of a pregnant woman, touched it, talked to it, then began to cry and wail. Civil defense workers had to lead him away.In a nearby garage where bodies were being stored, another man who lost 32 relatives tried to identify them based on what had been recovered: some government identification cards, a brown wallet and a black purse. But he started to sob, and had to step outside, sit on the curb and hang his head.Jasim walked down a dirt street that reeked of death. Bodies were still pinned under houses; blackened hands and a pair of feet in yellow high-top sneakers protruded from one place in the rubble. Finally, she stopped and pointed to the ruins of her home. She said a militant sniper had set up across the street from her house before the attack.
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The popularity of Tonkatsu by Ma Maison spread widely through word of mouth in its first month, praising its quality of meat cuts and authenticity of its food preparation. Tonkatsu by Ma Maison exclusively serves up a variety of Tonkatsu dishes; breaded deep-fried pork cutlets that is popular in Japan. Tonkatsu by Ma Maison uses only the highest grade ingredients from the Hire (fillet) to the Rosu (loin) and all prepared to perfection, its juicy and tender meat is the result of Ma Maisons own preparing method.

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Calaveras County Seal View Photos

San Andreas, CA  The Calaveras supervisors face a chock-full agenda on Tuesday.

Already approved during a March 7 closed session was the final selection of a new Environmental Management Agency Administrator/Air Pollution Control Officer (APCO). The position was vacated late last October by Jason Boetzer, who took a position in Sacramento.

During the meeting the supervisors will memorialize their choice by passing a resolution officially hiring Bradley Brad Banner for the job. He reportedly brings over 30 years of related experience; the past 11 were spent as the Environmental Health Director for the Butte County Public Health Department.

Banner holds a bachelor of science degree in environmental health from the University of Washington and is a registered environmental health specialist with the State Department of Health Services. His compensation was set as the existing base rate of $58.81 per hour.

Sheriff Looks To Squeeze Midyear Money

Sheriff Rick DiBasilio returns to the board with the hope of squeezing more midyear funding dollars for his department, mostly from the general fund, which requires a four-fifths majority vote to pass. At the Feb. 28 meeting the board approved various budget adjustments but deferred action on the sheriffs request for an additional $861,088.

Since overtime costs are exceeding budgeted amounts at a rate of $ 35,225 per month, interim CAO Manuel Lopez reviewed the request, agreeing that the sheriffs department requires an adjustment of $375,000 for the five months remaining of the year. The sheriff is also seeking over $8,600 to cover some safety equipment purchases; specifically, ballistic vests and micro T-sights. He is also requesting appropriations of $10,000 and $75,000, respectively to cover dispatch and jail personnel overtime hours. Also requested is nearly $14,000 from the regulatory fee fund for tactical gear and monocular equipment.

The board also expects to pass a resolution allowing the county to receive emergency funding reimbursements from the Governors Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) to repair county roads and infrastructure damaged during recent storms events. At its Feb. 28 meeting, public works updated the supervisors on road damage resulting in probable expenditures that exceed the countys ability to fund without external aid.

Disaster Dollars For Storm Damage Repairs

Costs incurred for eligible emergency and permanent work are 75 percent reimbursable through FEMA, 18.75 percent from CalOES through the CDAA, with an approximate 6.25 percent local match on eligible work. Public works is recommending that the local match be made from the general fund. Current estimates for recovery are between $5.5 million and $5.7 million, which may result in up to $356,000 in local match over the next several years

Among the letters of support the supervisors are expected to approve sending is one to back a grant proposal to tap additional federal lands access program (FLAPs) funding for the long-planned scenic Highway 4 Wagon Trail project. Prospects look good since it was highly ranked for it and now has local match requirements leveraging county roadway impact mitigation (RIM) funds.

The board also plans to send letters of strong support to California Assemblymember Jim Frazier and Senator Jim Beall, backing the AB 1 transportation infrastructure funding and reform proposal. These communications note that Calaveras currently strains to maintain nearly 700 miles of locally maintained roads and a transit system serving rural and disadvantaged citizens with dwindling revenues.

In Other Business

In other business, the supervisors will consider establishing two new no parking zones. One is along a narrowed section of Main Street in downtown Murphys, where a 140-foot segment of the roads eastbound shoulder between the Union Public Utility Districts driveway and the west abutment of the Angels Creek bridge is reportedly too narrow to safely allow for both on-street parking and pedestrians.

Too, to prevent on-street parking from interfering with the safe passage of bicyclists accessing the Arnold Rim Trail Cedar Center Bikeway Connection, a no parking zone is proposed for both sides of Oak Circle from Oak Court to the western end of the bike lanes at the beginning of the cul-de-sac, a length of approximately 583 feet.

Among the proclamations slated to be made is March 30 Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day; April as Child Abuse Prevention and Alcohol Awareness months; also April 3-9 as Public Health Week. Tuesdays meeting, following an 8 a.m. closed session with legal counsel, will open to the public in the supervisors chambers (891 Mountain Ranch Road).
Yosemite Road crash creates power outage View Photos

Update at 6:30 p.m.: PG&E reports the lights are back on for the 170 customers in the Woodham Carne Road area of Sonora. A solo-vehicle crashed into a power pole on Yosemite Road just after 4 p.m.

Original post at 5:05 p.m.: Sonora, CA  A vehicle versus power pole crash in the Sonora area has left 170 PGE customers without lights.

The company reports a crew is heading to the scene on Yosemite Road near Woodham Carne Road. The CHP reports the vehicle went off the roadway, smashed into a pole and brought down power lines. Luckily, there were no injuries in the wreck.

PG&E has posted a 7:30 p.m. restoration time.
Sonora, California  Tuolumne County District Attorney Laura Krieg objected to the early release of 51-year-old Bryan Lee Beenblossom citing he had only served 10 years of a 21 year sentence for his dangerous run from the law in 2006.

Krieg reported on Friday that Beenblossom of Sonora was denied early release from prison by the Board of Parole Hearings following his 2007 conviction for evading officers while driving recklessly through stoplights, colliding with vehicles and reaching speed 70 mph during a chase. In 2016, Beenblossom became eligible for parole due to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Non-Violent Second Striker program, which was enacted in 2015 to address prison overcrowding. The program allows for inmates not convicted of a violent crime to seek early release once a prisoner is within 1 year of serving 50 percent of their sentence.

In September of last year, District Attorney Krieg was notified of Beenblossoms possible early release via letter. When I got this particular inmate I was surprised because we feel he is everything except non-violent, stated D.A. Krieg. She adds, We immediately responded and objected due to not only his committed offense, which was very, very dangerous his evading [law enforcement] that put the public at risk, but also due to the fact that he had been put on parole or probation fourteen times previously and had violated that eighteen times. (Further details regarding Beenblossoms crime can be found here.)

The Board of Parole Hearings citing the District Attorneys letter in its decision to deny Beenblossoms early release.
Stolen tools found in vehicle View Photos

Sonora, CA  Thieves hit two Sonora stores and managed to flee just minutes before police arrived, but an alert CHP officer stopped them in their tracks as they were heading out of town.

The first call came into the Sonora Police Department from a clerk at the Ross store on Mono Way reporting that a man and woman walked out the door with items still in hand on Thursday around 7:30 p.m. About an hour later, dispatch received another call, this time from the Walmart Store on Sanguinetti Road. Employees report two males left the store with a cart full of tools and clothing. Officers could not locate the pair at the scene but put out a description of their vehicle to area law enforcement.

It was about fifteen minutes later that a CHP officer spotted the vehicle driving erratically and speeding on Highway 108. The vehicle was pulled over on Phoenix Lake Road near Hess Avenue. A records check showed it was stolen from Turlock. Inside were 26 year-old Adrian Eugene Hernandez and 33 year-old Paul James Howard, both of Turlock, along with19-year-old Autumn Marie Trousdale from Ceres. A search of the vehicle discovered items stolen from the store with the price tags still on them.

Hernandez and Howard were booked for shoplifting and felony theft or extortion of motor vehicle. Their bails were set a $10,000.00 each. Both were on probation from Stanislaus County for drug charges. Howard was also on a California Department of Corrections Parole for Armed Robbery.

Trousdale faces traffic related charges from the CHP.
The sound of polka and big band music will fill the Fremont Auditorium on Saturday.

KHUB is hosting their 38th annual Polka Party from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the auditorium located at 925 N Broad Street.

The free event includes eight hours of music, dancing and plenty of food and drinks for everyone to enjoy.

The Leo Lonnie Orchestra will kick off the event at 11 a.m. and will be followed by The Happy Players at 2 p.m.

The Happy Players is made up of a group of four Fremont high students. Jameson and Jackson Brettmann, Turner Blick and Luke Eisenmenger comprise the group which has performed in multiple venues since their start in 2013.

The Mark Vyhlidal Polka Band will be the final band of the day and will take the stage from 4-7 p.m.

Some highlights of the band include performing in Las Vegas, performing on the Garrison Keillor Public Radio Show, and being selected by the Smithsonian Institute to be on their national recording Deeper Polka.

It is something we have done for a long time and the main thing that I like about it is you dont really get the chance to see people play live music anymore. You can go to a concert and see a high profile band but with this there is usually someone playing the clarinet, accordion, and trumpet and you just dont see that much anymore, KHUB General Manager Chris Walz said.

Along plenty of polka, the event will also include a variety of traditional Czech cuisine.

We will have kolaches, brats, sauerkraut and all kinds of desserts and stuff for people to enjoy, Walz said.

Beer and other refreshments will also be served with all proceeds going to the Fremont Cosmopolitan Club.

Walz explained that even though the style of music isnt as popular as it used to be the event still draws a large crowd.

It is something (polka) that is really not as popular as it used to be but last year we didnt expect all those people, and holy cow the place was plum full for a while, he said.

For those who cannot attend KHUB will be broadcasting the entire event live on KHUB1340 and 1340khub.com. The event will also be televised on News Channel Nebraska.

Entrance to the event is free, food and drink will be available for purchase.
The OneOrlando Fund established to manage donations that poured in following the Pulse nightclub attack officially closes March 31.

OneOrlando Fund officially closes March 31

Fund stopped accepting donations Jan. 1

RELATED: More coverage of the Pulse attack

The fund stopped accepting donations Jan. 1, and the remaining funds will be given out to victims using a distribution method approved by the board.

The fund's website directs people to the Contigo Fund and the Central Florida Foundation Better Together Fund.

Sandi Vidal, vice president of community strategies and initiatives with the Central Florida Foundation, said: "We came alongside the OneOrlando Fund to really focus on strengthening the nonprofits in the communities and filling the gaps."

The foundation manages more than 400 charitable funds that are invested back into the community. The Better Together Fund focuses on community needs now and in the future.

"Tragedy, when it happens, it happens," Vidal said. "It is devastating to the community at that moment, but there are long-term ripple effects that continue to happen. And it's not just something that goes away."

So far, the fund has given grants for support groups and other organizations. Vidal said mental health is a focus.

"Sometimes, people will internalize and won't get help right away," she said. "Or, they get help and think they are better and something triggers them later on, so there's ongoing mental health care needs that will continue to happen in the community."

The foundation meets with a group of mental health care nonprofit organizations approximately every other month to get updates from the community on where they see things.

"One of the things that we did hear in our most recent meeting is that people are having flashbacks to the event," Vidal said. "Again, one of those reminders that mental health care is a long-term event."

Donations to Better Together will help the foundation prepare for what's to come, Vidal said.

"I think there are so many things that we dont think about that will probably come to a head on June 12 when we have the anniversary of the event," she said.
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A book chronicling the outrageous and hilarious Fiesta Cornyation will hit shelves early next month.

Cornyation, the antithesis to the Coronation of the Queen of the Order of the Alamo, a debutante pageant, has been a San Antonio tradition for more than 50 years, and those new to the Fiesta fun will soon have a guide to one of the city's biggest annual events.

"Cornyation San Antonio's Outrageous Fiesta Tradition," will be available for purchase April 11, a Trinity University Press news release states.

RELATED: 15 medals that will probably sell out before Fiesta

The book tracks the origins of the annual event, which acts a satire version of the uppity Coronation of the Queen, featuring duchesses, empresses and queens and some dressed in drag.

Click through the slideshow to see photos from previous Cornyation events to get a taste of the rude mayhem.

Tickets for the annual event, benefiting local charities, went on sale Friday, March 24. Prices range from $15 to $40 and can be purchased here.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
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Albany

Three area land banks that target vacant and abandoned homes for demolition or resurrection will get $3.4 million in funds, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Friday.

The Albany County Land Bank, Troy Community Land Bank, and the Capital Region Land Bank that serves Schenectady and Amsterdam will get the money, part of $21 million being distributed statewide from legal settlements Schneiderman reached with banks.

"When the foreclosure and housing crisis hit a decade ago, it devastated communities," Schneiderman said at a news conference at the Albany County Office Building, surrounded by state and local officials, housing advocates and affected families.

Abandoned houses swiftly fell into disrepair, lowering the values of neighboring properties, he said.

While the state Legislature approved creating land banks in 2011, he said, no funding was available at first. As he reached settlements with banks charged with causing the financial crisis, Schneiderman said he knew some of the $5 billion New York received should go to fund them.

So far, he said, the three local land banks have put 125 properties back into owners' hands and 100 more vacant buildings have been demolished.

"In the past three years, we have acquired 644 vacant and abandoned properties," said Adam Zaranko, executive director of the Albany County Land Bank. Ninety are in the hands of new owners, 46 have been demolished, 70 lots have been improved and 63 buildings have been stabilized or rehabilitated, he said.

Albany County has provided $1.5 million and is about to give another $250,000, County Executive Dan McCoy said.

"This is keeping people in their homes and giving people the opportunity to buy a home," he said.

In Troy, the land bank has acquired 24 vacant properties in the city's poorest census tract, with 16 of them being rehabilitated for local owners.

Saretha and Luis Sotomayor are beneficiaries of the program. The couple came to the Albany area in 2014 from New York City, where they had once been homeless.

"We always knew about Habitat for Humanity. We decided to give it a try," Luis Sotomayor said.

Through Habitat for Humanity, the couple learned about the Albany County Land Bank. They were able to get a grant to purchase a Clinton Avenue home, where they will live with their three children, one grandchild and their son's girlfriend.

"It used to be a three-family house that has been converted into a single-family home for us," Saretha Sotomayor said.

As required by Habitat for Humanity, the couple provided "sweat equity" into the house, painting and doing other work that already has given them a sense of ownership. They are slated to move in next week.

tobrien@timesunion.com  518-454-5092  @timobrientu
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Do you have concerns over developments in your neighborhood or have an issue that you feel needs broader attention?

All Norwalk residents concerns will be welcomed at the monthly meeting of the Coalition of Norwalk Neighborhood Associations on Monday, March 27, starting at 7 p.m. in Room 101 at City Hall.

All residents of Norwalk are always welcome, and the coalition recommends that each member associations send at least one representative to each meeting.

The primary topic will be the city's creation of the 2018 Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD), often referred to as the Master Plan. Discussion will include an overview of the project process followed by a dialogue on what steps the coalition should take to ensure extensive input from the various neighborhood associations and their residents.

The POCD is the guiding document for development in the city, including consideration for housing, environment, transportation, recreation and open space, infrastructure, governance, schools, public safety services, historical preservation, conservation and sustainability.

When the POCD is revised for its state-mandated 10-year revision, the coalition believes it should stand as a blueprint for the vision, development and growth of the city. To achieve this, the coalition is seeking members to participate on its POCD development sub-committee.

A copy of the 2008 plan can be found on the citys website at www.norwalkct.org/DocumentCenter/View/389.

The CNNA seeks to provide a common voice on larger Norwalk issues by providing information to members on important issues, meetings and events and to solicit fair and equal participation of neighborhood association and residents.

For more information visit www.norwalkneighborhoods.com.

CRANBURY

Despite the ongoing uncertainty over its federal funding, the local Meals on Wheels program is still working to bringing food to the doorsteps of its many clients.

Thats why when the Norwalk Senior Center celebrates its 45th anniversary with a gala, much of the proceeds will go toward its Meals on Wheels program.

The Norwalk Senior Center will hold its annual gala at Shore and Country Club on Friday, April 7 from 6:30-10:30 p.m.

The evening will offer food, open bar, live and silent auctions and the magical sounds of several local jazz artists. The center will also honor Edward J. Musante Jr., president and CEO of the Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce, for all he has done for the seniors in the community over the years.

Tickets cost $135 and reserved tables of eight are available for $1,080. To find out more about being an event sponsor, placing an ad in the program book, making a cash or auction donation, or to purchase tickets, contact Beatrix Winter at 203-847-3115 or email bwinter@norwalkseniorcenter.org.

NORWALK CENTER

With the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts and Maine, the debate over whether or not Connecticut should follow suit has intensified.

In response, New Canaan-based Maddox Law Firm will host a timely presentation entitled Marijuana: The Law and Social Policy. The event is open to adults and high school students and is free of charge.

The event will feature the explanation of state and federal marijuana laws, including those that pertain to medical marijuana in Connecticut. There will also be discussion about some of the risks and potential costs the state is facing as marijuana becomes legalized in other states and appears to be trending toward greater mainstream acceptance.

The event will also feature conversations about marijuanas medical track record and recent experiences in Colorado and Washington related to distribution regulations as well as tax revenue.

The event will be held at the Norwalk Public Library, which is not responsible for the content of this presentation, on Thursday, March 30 from 7-8 p.m. in the large auditorium.

Event organizers ask those interested in attending to send an email to maddoxteam@maddoxlaw.com.

SILVERMINE

April showers bring May flowers, but, even more immediately, it brings young children a chance to meet the Easter Bunny.

On Saturday, April 1, the Easter Bunny will host the 28th Annual Silvermine Community Associations Annual Pancake Breakfast.

The Easter-themed breakfast will be served in the cafeteria of the Silvermine School on Perry Avenue. Flapjacks start flipping at 8 a.m. and the syrup keeps flowing until 11 a.m. Admission is $8 for adults and $4 for children.

The Pancake Breakfast is a great opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones, catch up on the neighborhood news or just escape the winter blahs. There will also be games and face painting for the kids, so stop in for a stack of pancakes and stay for a cup of coffee. Bring the gang and dont forget to stay for the special membership drawing, which awards one lucky resident with free heating oil and other prizes.

For more information, visit www.silverminenews.com.

Share your neighborhood news

To share your community and neighborhood news with The Hour, contact Pat Tomlinson at 203-354-1046, or at ptomlinson@hearstmediact.com.
Solana Beach, Calif.

Once a week, union leaders representing U.S. Border Patrol agents host a radio show from a sleepy office park near San Diego, where studio walls are covered with an 8-by-12-foot American flag and portraits of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

The agents mix discussions about border security with shoptalk and news commentary in a show that airs by podcast and on a radio station in Tucson, Ariz.

The show has a somewhat unlikely lead sponsor: the hard-right Breitbart News site. The hosts open a revealing window into how union leaders hope to reshape enforcement on 6,000 miles of border with Mexico and Canada.

The show, called "The Green Line" for the color of Border Patrol uniforms, is aimed at agents, Congress and the media. It's part of an effort to raise the union's profile, a strategy that included outspoken support for Trump's presidential bid.

That move paid off. Within a week of Trump taking office, the Border Patrol chief was forced out and replaced by a union favorite to lead the agency as it undertakes a major hiring spree.

The union, headed by a former Trump transition team member, has endeared itself to the president, whose top strategist, Steve Bannon, led Breitbart News before joining the White House. The conservative site features the union's views in its border stories, while acknowledging the sponsor.

The show's hosts alternate between workplace gripes and topics in the news. One recent morning, they scorned an airline worker who maligned the Border Patrol when a co-host checked in for a flight, lawmakers who want to declare California a sanctuary state and pockets of the agency that have resisted Trump's directives to expand immigration enforcement. The discussion turned to a Supreme Court hearing involving a Mexican teen slain by an agent who fired across the border. The question was whether the agent could be sued.

Are agents "going to be second-guessing themselves when the rocks are flying?" asked co-host Shawn Moran, a vice president of the National Border Patrol Council. "Are they going to hesitate and say, 'You know what? This guy could end up suing me.' Forget the fact that he could end up killing the agent."

The union's ascendancy comes as Trump prepares to add 5,000 Border Patrol agents, hire more immigration judges and deportation officers and build a wall along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

"The Green Line" arranged Breitbart's support through Brandon Darby, a onetime left-wing activist turned FBI informer who helped convict two people accused of a bomb plot during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Darby attracted the notice of founder Andrew Breitbart, who recruited him to join the upstart news site.

As managing director of Breitbart Texas, Darby published leaked photos inside overcrowded child-detention facilities in 2014, drawing attention to a surge of Central Americans crossing the border. Darby and Bannon  who led Breitbart after its founder died in 2012  created "Cartel Chronicles," a bilingual feature about organized crime that includes articles from dangerous parts of Mexico.

Breitbart editors call its sponsorship a show of support for front-line agents.

"'The Green Line' is something I'm very proud of because it's these guys and gals having a voice," Darby said, referring to the Border Patrol agents.

The union's rhetoric troubles groups whose complaints of a trigger-happy culture gained traction in Barack Obama's administration. The union criticized independent reviews that faulted practices on use of force and employee discipline and bristled at an employee award for avoiding deadly force when confronting armed suspects.

"They want to be unfettered," said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human-rights advocacy group. "Most law enforcement agents do, but they're especially vocal about it. They have forcefully resisted efforts to reform."

Union President Brandon Judd calls the criticisms overblown and said the Border Patrol's record stacks up well against other agencies considering border agents' high arrest counts. Customs and Border Protection says employees fired guns 27 times last year. That number has declined each year since 58 in 2012.

The union clashed with a former FBI official who was picked in June to be the first outsider to lead the Border Patrol since its creation in 1924. Mark Morgan, who handled use-of-force issues as head of internal affairs for the Border Patrol's parent agency in 2014, was replaced by a career agent, Ronald Vitiello, the union's initial choice.

Judd points to the high percentage of agents who join as a measure of the organization's internal support. Its latest filing with the Labor Department shows 12,622 dues-paying members in 2015 out of roughly 15,000 eligible, or more than 80 percent.
Two Decembers ago, 7-year-old Raelyn Marie Guevara came home from Roy Cisneros Elementary on the West Side and handed her mom, Reyna, a neon green Habitat for Humanity flier she had picked up at school.

Mom was like, Oh, we cant ever qualify for one of those things, said Raelyn, now 8, on a bright, busy Saturday morning. And I was like, `Oh, come on, Mom, just fill it out. You never know.

Raelyn was beaming as she told the story, with her grandmother beside her, just moments before she got to see for the first time the Habitat home that was built for her, Reyna and a second child on the way all because she nudged her mom two years ago.

The single-story, 3-bedroom house, is one of 14 located in Lenwood Heights, a new neighborhood off Acme Road on the West Side, that Habitat dedicated Saturday, celebrating the 1,000th home that the San Antonio chapter  the oldest Habitat affiliate in America  has constructed since its founding by a local Presbyterian pastors wife, Faith Lytle, in 1976.

Hundreds of Habitat volunteers, full-time construction workers, future homeowners and well-wishers filled the tidy neighborhood yesterday, as crews of Valero volunteers wheeled out new sod to front lawns, swept driveways and mingled with real carpenters doing measurements for cabinets.

I owe this all to my daughter, said Reyna Guevara, a lab technician at Baptist Medical Center, as she eyed the new kitchen in her new 1,060-square-foot house. To watch it all go from a blank slab to this is amazing. I had a hand in building the porch. I put up siding. And I had no experience in construction. Now I know how to use all these saws, she giggled, but I dont know what you call them.

I am just overcome, said Guevara, who attended Memorial High School, that people who dont even know me and my daughter would come out and do something like this. It shows there is still hope and love in this world. I grew up on the West Side and it has always been known for drugs and violence. I want to be a part of changing that. I want to see it thrive.

The now-familiar formula of Habitat for Humanity, made famous by its most celebrated volunteers, former president Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn, combined the progressive Christian faith of the Carters and fellow-Georgian millionaire Millard Fuller, with corporate volunteer programs and the need for affordable housing throughout America to build one of the most successful charitable foundations in the country. Under Fuller, who was eventually fired over disputes with the Habitat board, the group built more than 175,000 houses in 100 countries.

In San Antonio, according to communications director Stephanie Wiese, Habitat works with low-income families making about $28,000 a year who promise to provide at least 300 hours of sweat equity in the building of the home. Habitat provides 20-25 year mortgages with zero interest and at no profit to Habitat, which estimates it costs them about $80,000 (with no federal funds) to build their basic 3- and 4-bedroom homes, not including land and infrastructure. Guevaras monthly mortgage payment will be about $550, including insurance and taxes, said Wiese, who added that theyve had only a 1.5% foreclosure rate.

The homes dedicated on Saturday, Wiese said, are part of 167 houses Habitat will build on 26 acres it bought from Bethel United Methodist Church on Acme Road.

Habitat of San Antonio builds about 40 to 55 homes a year, using hundreds of tons of donated materials that are often high-quality, energy-efficient items, such as impact-resistant shingles. During all our hailstorms, said Wiese, none of our Habitat homes had any repair problems. These are not starter homes.

Surprisingly, there is not a wait-list for the homes. Wiese said families are qualified for their loans as homes are constructed, which, with good weather, only takes about two months.

Our first house in San Antonio took us two years to build, said Wiese, who has been with Habitat 21 years. Weve learned a few things. Mainly, that you have to have great volunteers  Valero has worked with us for 10 years  and you must remain a grassroots organization thats really tied to the community.

And I hope,  said Guevara, as she explained both her pride of ownership and parenting, that my little girl will tell other families about this program and how it can change their lives.
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AUSTIN  Nursing homes that are stretched thin as they care for Medicaid residents are asking lawmakers to approve a fee on their facilities that would allow Texas to get hundreds of millions of matching federal dollars to boost their low reimbursements.

But the idea has generated a backlash from nursing homes that serve private-pay patients and object to paying the proposed assessment, which they call a granny tax. Their private-pay patients are outside Medicaid, and the homes arent confident of promises that theyll be otherwise repaid for their share of the fees that would trigger more Medicaid dollars.

I have no guarantee under this legislation that once I pay this tax that we will be reimbursed, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Chip Utterback, president and CEO of the not-for-profit Blue Skies of Texas in San Antonio, whose residents are mainly military retirees and are private-pay. I spent my life flying airplanes and managing risk. To me, this is a risk thats unacceptable.

Those who support the legislation say the homes that serve private-pay patients will be repaid. They say its wrong to call the measure a granny tax because the legislation would prohibit homes from charging residents for the fee, either directly or indirectly.

The assessment is necessary, backers say, because Texas has one of the lowest Medicaid reimbursement rates in the country for nursing homes and lawmakers facing a tight revenue picture are unlikely to provide help from existing state dollars. Nursing homes need more resources, they say, to upgrade their buildings and technology and to retain a skilled staff, with a 90 percent turnover among nurses and 97 percent among aides statewide in 2015.

Raul Espinosa Jr., administrator of San Pedro Manor in San Antonio, said he would use additional funds for staff retention through such means as higher salaries. His facility has a turnover of about 50 to 60 percent among certified nurse aides, he said, calling them the backbone of care for his facilitys residents, 70 percent of whom are covered by Medicaid.

People that are here for long periods of time know the residents. They know what needs to happen. They understand the residents. So when something is wrong with the residents, they are able to tell the nurse, Hey, this resident is not acting right. Something is going on with this resident. Can you go check them out? Espinosa said, explaining the value of retaining staff.

The battle will get a public airing Monday, when the Senate Health and Human Services Committee has scheduled a hearing on Senate Bill 1130 by Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen. The idea has bipartisan support, with Rep. J.D. Sheffield, R-Gatesville, carrying the companion legislation, House Bill 2766.

The legislation would provide for the Health and Human Services Commission to impose a reinvestment allowance on licensed facilities based on the days they serve non-Medicare patients.

Under federal rules, such a fee cant be based on Medicaid patients alone, so private-pay residents also would be included in the calculation.

The fee would raise an estimated $360 million over two years, going a long way toward bridging a gap in funding. The Medicaid match would increase that to an estimated $800 million.

The legislation under federal rules cant directly provide for reimbursement to nursing homes for the fees that are based on private-pay patients.

But the plan  modeled on a Missouri program  is for the Texas Health Care Association and other providers to create the Nursing Facility Agent Corp., which would reimburse those homes with money given voluntarily by facilities that would benefit from the arrangement.

Thats where the trust breaks down.

The only thing in statute is a tax. The corporation that pays people back is entirely voluntary, said George Linial, president and CEO of LeadingAge Texas, a trade association representing not-for-profit aging services providers, including nursing homes.

Linial called the proposal bad public policy. We think that taxing one set of older adults to pay for another set of older, frail adults is not the right way to do it. The state has a certain responsibility. They need to step up and fund things.

Blue Skies Utterback said the assessment would amount to $4,000 per resident, or about $500,000, for his facility annually. He said the only alternative to passing the cost along to residents  which he wouldnt want to do and which he said he feared could price them out of paying for their own care  would be to cut back on the level of care.

This all sounds great in theory, Utterback said of the proposal, but in the end, there is no guarantee my residents, who pay for themselves, will not get hurt out of this. If we have to take a half-million dollars a year out of our nursing home support and cannot pass that on to the resident, the only way you do it is to reduce services. Thats simple business.

With a push at the federal level for changing the way Medicaid is distributed to a block-grant system that would give states a set amount of federal money for services, he added, there is additional concern about Texas coming to rely on funds from a new state assessment.

Kevin Warren, president of the Texas Health Care Association, which includes nonprofit and for-profit skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation centers and assisted living facilities and is backing the legislation, said the industry came up with this plan because the problem of inadequate Medicaid reimbursements is only getting worse.

This is something that simply cant wait, Warren said. In terms of the addressing long-term care funding, this can cant be kicked down the road any longer.

About 90 percent of the facilities in Texas take residents who accept Medicaid, and their daily reimbursement for each is about $20 a day less than the allowable cost per patient, Warren said. That affects their ability to properly fund items, including salaries.

I was driving on Sunday past the Rudys, and they were advertising for all positions at $12 an hour, which is almost $2 an hour more than what a certified nursing assistant is going to make, he said. These facilities who are caring for the frail and elderly are losing staff to not only other health care sectors, but they are losing to other industries entirely.

Hinojosa, vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the goal of his legislation is to provide additional funding for quality services.

The industry, quite frankly, is in need of funding to take care of the elderly in the nursing homes.  But we usually underfund nursing homes, which of course lowers the quality of service they provide to the patients, Hinojosa said. And if we are not going to add additional funds, then we ought to allow them to be able to use whatever mechanism is available to draw down federal funds.

San Pedro Manors Espinosa agreed, saying the state is not increasing any funding whatsoever. We have asked for years and years. And this is an answer for everybody.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
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Lawmakers in Austin are considering legislation that would allow the state of Texas to license two controversial family detention centers near San Antonio, a move that would bring the facilities closer to complying with a court settlement governing the treatment of immigrant children.

Because the centers hold adults and children, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services initially wouldnt license the facilities in Dilley and Karnes City when they were opened in 2014 after large numbers of Central Americans were crossing the border and claiming asylum.

The next year, a federal judge in California ruled that immigration officials couldnt hold families for extended periods of time in Karnes City and Dilley because the centers werent licensed and were closed facilities that the families couldnt leave. The judge ruled that immigration officials must quickly release families held in those detention centers.

RELATED: Bexar sheriff to Gov. Abbott: immigration requirements for jails 'troubling'

The federal government still uses them as processing centers and says it releases families after about 21 days.

The Texas DFPS made an emergency rule change allowing it to license the facilities, sparking a series of lawsuits that ended with a judge in Austin ruling the state didnt have authority to inspect and license family detention centers.

Identical pieces of legislation introduced in the Texas Senate and House would allow DFPS to license the centers and give the department permission to exempt them from state rules governing child care facilities. The legislation would strike an existing state law preventing DFPS from licensing facilities where immigrants who have not committed crimes are held, but it contains language clarifying that the law would not authorize the state to enforce federal immigration laws.

Reps. John Raney, R-Bryan; John Cyrier, R-Bastrop; and Mark Keough, R-The Woodlands and Sens. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, and Bryan Huges, R-Mineola, did not not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Dr. Marsha Griffin, the co-author of a policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics that outlined the negative impacts of family detention, said the detention centers are inappropriate for children and dont meet basic needs or standards of child care.

RELATED: Straus, Patrick rivalry takes to the airwaves as tensions grow in Legislature

The 2,400-bed center in Dilley and 800-bed facility in Karnes City have classrooms, play areas and on-site medical care, but the academy found that they were not sufficient and that detained children suffer from post-traumatic stress and have higher rates of anxiety, depression and other behavioral problems. Griffin said the centers maintain jail-like conditions, including flashlight checks in childrens rooms while theyre sleeping.

The detention centers should not be alleviated or released from those requirements that are set by law in Texas, Griffin said.

Pablo Paez, vice president for corporate relations at the Geo Group Inc., which operates the Karnes City detention center, directed questions about the future of family detention  the number of detainees at the family centers is unusually low and the Trump administration has said its considering detaining parents separately from their children  to federal officials. Paez also wouldnt say if Geo worked with legislators to craft the bills.

We support any effort to provide appropriate levels of government oversight and ensure the highest standards of care for the children and parents entrusted to us, he said. We remain focused on providing high quality care in a safe and humane setting.

RELATED: Trump voter facing her law-abiding husband's deportation

Jonathan Burns, the director of public affairs for CoreCivic, the firm that operates the Dilley center, said his company was not involved in writing the legislation. He also didnt answer questions about whether the Trump administration was likely to continue holding families in Dilley and Karnes City.

Our focus continues to be on meeting our government partner's stated needs with dignity and safety for the individuals they entrust to our care, Burns said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it couldnt comment on the pending legislation. In response to the American Academy of Pediatrics report, ICE said, Family residential centers are an effective and humane alternative for maintaining family unity as families go through immigration proceedings or await return to their home countries.

jbuch@express-news.net

Twitter: @jlbuch
EDITORS NOTE  OWI means operating while intoxicated. DWLS means driving while license suspended. (MC) is for Judge Michael D. Carpenter. (L) is for Magistrate Gerald Ladwig. (SC) is for Circuit Judge Stephen P. Carras. Sentences may vary based on previous offenses committed by the defendant. Some sentencings include other fees imposed by the state.

Beaverton

Leroy Thomas Billiau, 30, allowing DWLS on Feb. 23, $400 fines and costs (L).

Ashley Lynn Crane, 30, third-degree retail fraud on Jan. 4, 2016, 93 days in jail with all but seven days suspended and credit for four days, $800 fines and costs, nine months probation, 80 hours community service, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed (MC).

Coleman

Leonard Edwin Grice, 34, impaired driving on Jan. 22, two days in jail with credit for time served, $400 fines and costs (MC).

Harrison

Kassie Pauliene Hendrickson, 41, OWI and allowing DWLS on Nov. 24, 15 days in jail with credit for one day, $175 fines and costs (MC).

Midland

Richard David Altman, 46, Rodd Street, disorderly conduct on Dec. 31, 90 days in jail with credit for 51 days, $125 fines and costs (MC).

Matthew Edward Bauman, 24, South Meridian Road, no proof of insurance on Feb. 2, $210 fine (L).

Scott Michael Campbell, 46, East Ashman Street, domestic violence on Jan. 2, 93 days in jail with all but 15 days suspended and credit for four days, $350 fines and costs, one year probation, not to be involved in any assaultive, threatening, intimidating, violent, aggressive, disorderly or abusive behavior toward any person, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed, no medical marijuana (MC).

Joseph John Dallessandro, 27, Wyllys Street, allowing DWLS on Jan. 19, $400 fines and costs (MC).

Derek Jon Florey, 31, West Prairie Road, DWLS and false identification on Feb. 20 and malicious destruction of trees, shrubs, grass, turf or soil on Dec. 27, 75 days in jail with credit for 19 days, $300 fines and costs, $837.50 restitution (MC).

Ryan Michael Gerulski, 33, Elizabeth Street, DWLS on Feb. 22, $400 fines and costs (L).

Tad Jeremy Lorenz, 42, North Saginaw Road, third-degree retail fraud on April 28, 2015, malicious destruction of personal property on Jan. 23, larceny on Jan. 29, 93 days in jail with credit for 46 days, $375 fines and costs, $55 restitution (MC).

Christopher Michael Pnacek, 28, Letts Road, disorderly person/jostling on Sept. 2, three weekends in jail with credit for one day, $550 fines and costs (MC).

Leroy Porter, 41, East Pine Street, domestic violence on Sept. 16, 2015, seven days in jail with credit for one day, $975 fines and costs (MC).

Andrew Douglas Schihl, 35, North Eastman Avenue, OWI on Nov. 23, 93 days in jail suspended with credit for one day, $875 fines and costs, one year probation, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed, to be monitored by an alcohol tether for 60 days (MC).

Clark William Swerdan, 23, Wyllys Street, aggravated domestic assault on Jan. 22, one year in jail suspended with credit for 17 days, $975 fines and costs, restitution left open, one year probation, 50 hours community service in lieu of fines, not to be involved in any assaultive, threatening, intimidating, violent, aggressive, disorderly or abusive behavior toward any person, no contact with the victim, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed (MC).

Jessie Ray Villasenor, 33, North Five Mile Road, allowing DWLS on Feb. 18, $300 fines and costs (L).

Tyson James Western, 41, Nuclear Court, marijuana possession on Dec. 22, one year in jail suspended with credit for one day, $975 fines and costs, 18 months probation, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed, driver license suspended (MC).

Paul Joseph Walker, 28, North Saginaw Road, no valid license on Feb. 2, 34 days in jail with credit for time served, $225 fines and costs (MC).

Jerrold D. Yazzie, 31, Corrine Street, aggravated domestic violence on Dec. 10 and Dec. 11, one year in jail suspended with credit for 32 days, $975 fines and costs, one year probation, not to be involved in any assaultive, threatening, intimidating, violent, aggressive, disorderly or abusive behavior to any person, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed (MC).

Sanford

Chad James Carigan, 42, impaired driving on Dec. 4, 93 days in jail suspended with credit for one day, $450 fines and costs, nine months probation, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed (MC).

Zachary William-Jeffrey Dice, 25, impaired driving on Nov. 24 and malicious destruction of personal property on Aug. 17, 93 days in jail with all but 10 days suspended and credit for one day, $325 fines and costs, $902.96 restitution, one year probation, not to be involved in any assaultive, threatening, intimidating, violent, aggressive, disorderly or abusive behavior to any person, may not use or possess drugs or alcohol, subject to random drug and alcohol screening, may not enter bars, attend counseling as directed (MC).

Mount Pleasant

Santino Juan Garza, 17, DWLS on Feb. 21, $300 fines and costs (L).
Alfred Skip Nichols wasnt allowed to drive a car. He shouldnt have been allowed to pilot a commercial hot air balloon.

That basic premise is the starting point for addressing the obvious safety issues with commercial balloon flights, which are more dangerous than other forms of commercial flight.

Nichols was the pilot in a tragic commercial balloon crash that killed 16 people last summer near Lockhart just outside of Austin. He had numerous past drunken driving convictions in Missouri, and prior to the fatal flight Nichols had taken what one doctor has called a witches brew of prescription drugs, including Valium, Prozac and oxycodone.

He should never have been piloting a nine-story-tall balloon with a gondola big enough to carry 16 passengers and a pilot. He should never have been allowed to launch on a foggy July morning with visibility so limited he failed to see power lines.

Federal Aviation Administration officials have repeatedly rebuffed efforts to better regulate commercial hot air balloon flights. In the past, the National Transportation Safety Board had pleaded with the FAA to regulate commercial balloon operators, citing recurring safety issues and predicting a tragedy like this would happen without better oversight.

The FAA recently issued a statement to Express-News investigative reporter John Tedesco, saying better regulations would not have prevented the Lockhart tragedy. The agencys argument is twofold: Better regulations would be based on flimsy self-reporting. Second, that the number of commercial hot air balloon flights are relatively small, and therefore so is the risk of tragedy.

Its not factually wrong to make such assertions, of course. But its also not really intellectually honest to say there is nothing to be done. The FAAs response is incomplete, reflecting entrenched flawed policy. True, as the FAA asserts, better regulations might not have prevented the Lockhart tragedy. But they might have. They certainly would create a more professional environment, which would improve safety standards.

True, as the FAA asserts, there arent nearly as many commercial balloon flights as airline or helicopter tours. But its also true the crash rates for balloons are higher than for private and corporate aircraft. Also, the general public probably isnt aware it is much easier to get a pilots certificate to fly a commercial balloon than other forms of flight.

Perhaps thats why pilot error accounted for more than half of the 140 private and commercial balloon crashes since 2005, Tedesco found after scouring aviation records. Nearly 1 in 5 incidents involved power lines. In that time, 70 passengers and pilots have been killed or injured.

It only makes sense to place commercial balloon pilots on par with other commercial pilots who conduct tours in terms of flight hours, medical tests and background checks. Whether the 16 passengers are in a hot air balloon or a private plane for a tour, the risks and purpose are the same. Pilots should have to qualify for a letter of authorization from the FAA, ensuring they meet basic expectations of passengers when it comes to experience and safety.

The FAA also needs to regulate the size of these balloons. As Tedesco reported, some can be as large as 11 stories tall in an effort to carry more passengers. Nichols balloon was nine stories tall and would regularly hold 12 to 14 passengers.

Finally, there is the issue of ensuring the public is aware of a pilots history. The Balloon Federation of America is developing a pilot rating system for consumer review, but Tedesco found flaws in this voluntary system. The FAA should require commercial pilots to disclose all crash history, if any, to potential passengers, as well as require an annual background check.

There is a strong anti-regulatory sentiment in Washington, D.C., which does not portend well for greater oversight of anything, especially something as small as the commercial balloon industry. But doing nothing is not a solution  as the FAAs past resistance on this issue shows. Doing nothing is an invitation to more fatal crashes. The families who lost loved ones in the Lockhart crash undeniably wish someone had done something.

It simply makes no sense not to hold commercial balloon pilots to the same standards as other commercial pilots. Nichols wasnt allowed to drive a car. Why was he allowed to fly a commercial hot air balloon with 16 passengers?
A Chinese man who grabbed headlines for introducing his homelands traditional dishes in one of Zimbabwes oldest townships, has been jailed and awaits deportation.

Li Changfeng, 24, became an instant hit in Bulawayos Old Luveve suburb for preparing and selling Chinese food to locals and was interviewed by the local Chronicle newspaper.

In February, he told the publication that his food was an instant and popular hit.

That put him on the radar of immigration officials who then looked into his work status in the country.

It was then discovered that Changfeng was on a valid workers permit that stiprrestulated that he was employed by Dongxin Machinery, a firm in Kadoma that specialised in mining machinery, as a mechanic.

But he was found to be in breach of the law as he had resigned from the company, but failed to notify immigration officials as was legally required. Instead, he continued using the existing permit.

Appearing before Bulawayo magistrate Gamuchirai Gore, facing charges of violating the terms of his employment permit as outlined in the Immigration Act, Changfeng was found guilty and fined R500, and detained at Khami medium prison, awaiting deportation.

Last year another Chinese man, Zhang Zhongyi, was ordered to leave the country by Bulawayo magistrate Stephen Ndhlovu.

Zhongyis issue came to light after video footage of him beating up his employees surfaced and he was arrested for the assault. It was also found that his permit had expired.

Meanwhile, in a Twitter spaces discussion on Friday, hosted by the China Africa Project titled African Justice and Chinese Offenders, one speaker argued that Chinese lawbreakers and criminals in Africa were buoyed by senior government officials and law enforcement agencies. This was because most of the business operations they were part of had direct links with the political elite.

The discussion came against the backdrop of a Chinese businessman who was sentenced to a 20-year jail term in Rwanda after video footage of him beating up an employee tied to a pole, surfaced.

He had 30 days in which to appeal the sentence.

 News24

Breaking News via Email
While we are very familiar with most of the names in President Mnangagwas cabinet, there are some newcomers we are not very familiar with or rather weve seen them but we are not quite sure what to make of them or how they feature in the grand scheme of things.

Minister Perrance Shiri

Air Force of Zimbabwe Commander (1992 to 2017)

Played an integral part in harmonising Zipra, Zanla and Rhodesian forces into one national defence force.

Master of Science degree in Development Studies (2016)

Renowned throughout the Air Force of Zimbabwe for nudging his subordinates onto the path of academic excellence.

Chairperson of Command Agriculture Technical Committee (2016-17).

Helped steer countrywide procurement and distribution of Command Agriculture inputs.

Under his watch, Zimbabwe recorded its first bumper maize harvest in years, with 2,2 million-plus tonnes projected.

Royal College of Defence Studies, London (1986)

Professor Amon Murwira



BA Honours in Geography (University of Zimbabwe);

Msc Environmental Systems Analysis and Monitoring (The Netherlands)

PhD Geo-Information Science (GIS, RS) for Environmental Systems Analysis and Monitoring (The Netherlands)

Lecturer and Post-graduate Co-ordinator Department of Geography and Environmental Science (University of Zimbabwe)

Ecologist responsible for GIS and Remote Sensing Applications (Department of Natural Resources, 1994-98)

Fellow Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences

Member African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE)

Member Geographical Association of Zimbabwe

Dr Sibusiso B Moyo



Major-General (Zimbabwe Defence Forces, 2015-2017)

PhD International Relations (University of Zimbabwe, 2016)

Proven experience in international diplomacy and international economic affairs for the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

Enjoys good relations with figures in key global markets, particularly across Africa and in the Far East.

Credited with helping spread the imperative of educational advancements throughout the rank and file of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

Has been pivotal in public-military interactions in different parts of Zimbabwe.

Prof Paul Mavima



Deputy Minister Primary and Secondary Education (2013-2017)

Principal Director, Deputy Prime Ministers Office (2009-2013)

Member of Parliament, Gokwe-Sengwa (2013 to date)

Associate Professor, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, the US (2007)

Assistant Professor, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, the US (2000-2007)

PhD (Florida State University Asker School,1999)

Master of Public Administration (University of Zimbabwe,1990)

Bachelor of Science in Political Administrative Studies (University of Zimbabwe, 1984)

Minister Kazembe Kazembe



PhD scholar (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016 to date)

Vice-Chairman (Zanu-PF Mashonaland Central, 2016 to date)

Secretary-General (Dynamos Football Club, 2011-12)

Businessman with interests in security technologies

MBA (Africa University); BTech in Marketing (Technikon SA); Graduate Diploma in Marketing (IMM) SA

Electrical Power Engineering (Harare Institute of Technology); Data Communication and Networking (University of Zimbabwe)

BTech Level 5 in CCTV surveillance ( TAVCOM Training College, UK)

Minister Winston Chitando



Bachelor of Accountancy (University of Zimbabwe, 1984)

Anglo-American Corporation (Hwange Colliery Company, 1984)

Hwange Colliery Company (1985-1996)

Zimasco Commercial Manager (Mining and Industrial Division (1997)

Executive Director (Zimasco) and Mimosa Mining Company (1998-September 2007)

Managing Director Mimosa Holdings (2007)

Executive Chairman Mimosa Holdings (2013)

Vice-President Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe (2008-11)

President Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe (2011-13)

Chairman Hwange Colliery Company Limited (2016)

Chairman of the Platinum Producers Association

Breaking News via Email
Originally published at the Tax Justice Network

In our March 2017 Taxcast: the high price were paying for our finance sectors  we look at staggering statistics showing how the US finance sector is a net drag on their economy.

Also, as the British government initiates Brexit divorce negotiations to leave the EU, we discuss something they ought to know, but obviously dont  theyre actually in a very weak position. Could it mean the beginning of the end of the finance curse gripping the UK economy?

Featuring: John Christensen and Alex Cobham of the Tax Justice Network, and Professor of Economics Gerald Epstein of the University of Masachusetts Amhurst, author of Overcharged: The High Cost of High Finance. Produced and presented by Naomi Fowler for the Tax Justice Network.

Professor Gerald Epstein:

If you look at particular finance centres, say London and New York, the problem is that the net cost of this system is quite significant, it imposes a cost not only on people who use finance but for the whole economy. So, what we need to think about is what are the more productive activities that ought to be substituted for these excessive aspects of finance?

John Christensen, Tax Justice Network on Britains weak position in Brexit negotiations:

We might be seeing the start of the end of Britains grip by the Finance Curse

Download the mp3 to listen offline anytime on your computer, mobile/cell phone or handheld device by right clicking here and selecting save link as.

Want more Taxcasts? The full playlist is here.
'It wasn't meant to be': Chandler Smith comes up short in third Chandler Smith talks about what more was needed tonight and what could've been done differently as he puts a cap on the season.
Find the newest releases to watch from National Geographic on Disney+, including favourite documentary series and films Free Solo, The Rescue, Shark Beach with Chris Hemsworth and The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
Local TDs Jackie Cahill, Seamus Healy and Mattie McGrath, have come up smelling of roses to launch Cystic Fibrosis Ireland's flagship fundraising appeal, 65 Roses Day, taking place on Thursday April 13th.

The deputies are urging people across Tipperary to join with them in nailing their purple colours firmly to the Cystic Fibrosis Ireland mast by buying a purple rose for 2 or donating online at www.65rosesday.ie.

As part of the nationwide effort, volunteers will be out and about selling purple roses on the streets of the county and in The Showgrounds Shopping Centre in Clonmel to raise much-needed funds.

65 Roses Day  so-named after the way in which young children are first taught to say the words "cystic fibrosis"  is part of Cystic Fibrosis National Awareness Week, from April 10 to 16.

Monies raised will go to fund the development of dedicated healthcare facilities, research, counselling and much-needed grant supports for people with cystic fibrosis (CF) in areas such as transplant assessment, fertility and bereavement.

Members of the public can support people with cystic fibrosis on 65 Roses Day by:

 Buying a Purple Rose for 2 or donating online at www.65rosesday.ie

 Completing a 65 Roses Challenge  see www.65rosesday.ie for details

 Texting "65 Roses" to 50300* to donate 2

Text costs 2. Cystic Fibrosis Ireland will receive a minimum of 1.63. Service Provider: LIKECHARITY. Helpline: 076 6805278.

People wishing to lend a hand on 65 Roses Day by volunteering to sell purple roses in the community can contact Cystic Fibrosis Ireland on LoCall 1890 311 211, by email at fundraising@cfireland.ie, or by visitingwww.65rosesday.ie.
Two Clonmel women are set to trek Camino de Santiago (The French Way) for Family Carers Ireland next month.

Funding the entire adventure themselves, Lisronaghs Maria Kennedy and Clonmels Aine Ryan will walk the final 129 km of the Camino Frances from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela on the famous trail in northwestern Spain.

Married to Liam Kennedy with three kids - Sarah, Jack and Yvonne - Maria works at Family Carers Clonmel on Sarsfield Street as an administrator. She has always wanted to walk the Camino, but desired to make the trip "more meaningful by raising money for carers having seen first hand the great work they do".

Her close friend Aine, who works at Bulmers in Clonmel, will celebrate her 50th birthday as they hike the most social part of the Camino in Spains Galicia region.

I want to make a difference," Maria tells South Tipp Today.

"I'm inspired by the work of Family Carers Ireland and I want to support them by raising money from walking the Camino with my friend Aine.

The work that Richie Molloy and the rest of the team here at Family Carers Clonmel do is fantastic, from the Five Steps to Living Well with Dementia project which helps to reintegrate people back into society to helping the elderly use computers and support groups, Maria highlights.

Family Carers Clonmel manager Richie Molloy with Maria Kennedy and Aine Ryan.

Maria and Aine have "rediscovered their surroundings" while preparing for the Camino. We have walked from Clonmel to Carrick-on-Suir, and in some beautiful woods around Clonmel to help us get ready for the Camino, Maria smiles.

Aine already has chocolate eggs hidden around the house for her loved ones, as she will be in the heart of the Camino for carers on Easter Sunday.

Family Carers Clonmel currently has 30 part-time home respite workers at their branch, and while they acknowledge the funding received from HSE Section 39, fundraisers are the driving force behind their advocacy.

The elderly find it difficult to get through to humans on the phone, branch manager Richie Molloy explains.

We offer a one to one support service here at Family Carers Clonmel, help with filling out forms and represent our carers at appeal meetings.

Maria cared for her parents and does great work for carers in the locality, he continues.

Richie is very proud of the local heroes for taking on such an admirable feat.

Its fantastic that Maria and Aine are taking on the Camino at their own expense for Family Carers, and I hope they really enjoy the experience, he adds.

Maria and Aine s itinerary (April 11-17):

Day 1: Arrive in Sarria and stay overnight

Day 2: Walk to Portomarin - 22 km

Day 3:Walk to Palas de Rei - 24 km

Day 4: Walk to Arzua - 28km

Day 5: Walk to Rua - 19km

Day 6: Walk to Santiago de Compostela - 20 km

Day 7: Travel to Finisterre and do 16 km walk

Support Maria and Aine here.
NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller outlined on Saturday (25 March 2017) NATOs response to a more challenging security environment at the annual Brussels Forum conference organised by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Addressing an audience that included diplomats, journalists and academics, Ms Gottemoeller said that NATOs new eastern deployments and increased role in the fight against terrorism show the Alliance can deliver security in the 21st century, but that cyber and hybrid threats mean NATO must improve its capacity to act faster. The Deputy Secretary General cited the arrival of US troops in Eastern Europe and the strong engagement of the new US national security team, including US Vice President Pence and Defence Secretary Mattis as examples of the United States' unwavering support to the Alliance. Turning to the situation in Libya, Ms Gottemoeller said that NATO has received a request from the Libyan Prime Minister to begin NATO defence institution-building inside Libya and urged Russia to support the UN-backed government. Replying to a question from the Russian Ambassador to NATO, the Deputy Secretary General stressed that the new NATO deployments in Eastern Europe are a defensive and proportionate response to Russias illegal annexation of Crimea and its continued military build-up. Ms Gottemoeller added that NATO would continue its dialogue with Russia to clarify its position and minimise the risk of incidents.

Ms. Gottemoeller took part in a panel discussion on transatlantic security, together with US Senator Ron Johnson, Special Advisor to Frances Chief of Defence Rear Admiral Henri Schricke and Soli Ozel, lecturer at Kadir Has University.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had talks in Budapest on Thursday (23 March) with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. The two leaders discussed the current security situation and the Secretary General thanked the Prime Minister for Hungarys significant contributions to NATOs collective defence.

Later this year Hungarian troops will deploy to the Baltics as part of NATOs Forward Presence in the eastern part of the Alliance. Hungary is also one of the largest contributors to NATOs KFOR peace keeping mission in Kosovo and in Afghanistan, Hungarian forces have also served as part of NATOs Resolute Support Mission. The mission is to train, assist and advise the Afghan security forces to ensure the country never again becomes a safe haven for international terrorists.

The Secretary General thanked the Prime Minister for Hungarys commitment to increased defence spending. Since 2014, Hungary has stopped the cuts in defence spending and has increased it in real terms. Mr. Stoltenberg and Mr. Orban also discussed preparations for the meeting of Allied leaders in Brussels on 25 May.

During his visit the Secretary General also met with the Hungarian Minister of Defence, Istvan Simicsko.
A statewide survey set out to analyze the availability of healthy and unhealthy products around California revealed what some health officials report as a concerning trend in the availability of e-cigarettes.

For example, in San Mateo County, the survey found that the majority of stores carry liquor, e-cigarettes and cigarillos for less than the price of a candy bar  but not fruits and vegetables.

"I think there are several reasons that we need to look further into," said Edith Cabuslay, a program services manager at San Mateo County Health System. "One of them is because e-cigarettes are unregulated. There aren't many restrictions to having them available in the community."

While 65 percent of stores selling cigarillos was a nearly 10 percent drop in availability since the last survey in 2013, the availability of e-cigarettes jumped from 31 to 54 percent of surveyed stores in San Mateo County.

Cabuslay said she was concerned with numbers indicating that local retail pharmacies are selling tobacco at a greater rate than the statewide average.

"Pharmacies, you know, trying to promote health, keeping people healthy and cigarettes are kind of against that," Half Moon Bay pharmacist Andrew Lai said. "Its kind of hypocritical for a pharmacy that supposed to be promoting good health to be selling cigarettes or e-cigarettes."

His store was one of a handful awarded by the county for their decision to never carry tobacco products.

Part of the Healthy Stores for a Healthy Community campaign, the survey also looked at advertising trends.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Storefront advertising was deemed less healthy locally than it was just three years prior with about 61 percent of advertisements designated as marketing "unhealthy" products and 9 percent deemed marketing for "healthy" products

Cabuslay said that stores in closer proximity to schools had a higher amount of unhealthy advertising, a concern for her as a health official.

"Retailers play a very important role in our communities. They are our access to fruits and vegetables and other healthy products," Cabuslay said. "They play a key role in making sure we continue to be a healthy community in San Mateo County."

Just three years ago, 54 percent of surveyed stores in San Mateo County carried low or non-fat milk while just 37 percent of stores are now choosing to carry them.

"Its something that we want to look further into, better understand why retailers might be more likely to sell unhealthy products than healthy products," said Cabuslay.

However, she imagines the short stock life and profit-margins of those healthier items play a role in the decision-making.

"[The study] is definitely a step in the right direction," Lai said.
Despite a degenerative disease that makes going to school a life-threatening situation, a three-year-old Maryland boy attends classes every day thanks to technology allowing him to connect with his classmates, make friends and even join them for lunch.

Max Lasko and his mother operate a Beam telepresence robot from home, several miles from school.

When Max first started, every time Max would beam in on the robot, they would be really excited and yell, It's the robot! It's the robot! teacher Allyson Levine said. But after about a week or two, it became, Max is here.

Max was born with spinal muscular atrophy, which makes it difficult for him to move, breathe and eat. He cant be in a classroom for fear of catching a cold or flu, which could be life-threatening for him.

We felt that it was really important -- since Max's cognition is fully intact, his social intelligence is fully intact -- we wanted him to be able to interact with his peers but we wanted to do so safely, said his mother, Kristen Lasko.

Max's mother is a teacher, and his father, Jonathan Lasko, is a computer scientist. They applied for and won a grant to cover the costs of the robot, and they asked the Bender Jewish Community Center in Rockville to accept Max into class.

What our role is is just to be accepting of everyone, said Ora Cohen Rosenfeld, head of the Bender JCC Early Childhood Center. And I think this is teaching our children to see Max as a child just as they are with the same needs. Hes different and yet he's very much the same.

Max is on a ventilator, and his mother puts "angel arms" on him so he can move his hands and participate in activities like coloring for a friends birthday picture book.

Max vocalizes but lacks strength for articulation. His mother understands everything he says.

Asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Max surprised his mother when he replied he wants to be a teacher like she is.

A teacher? his mother reacted. You want to be a teacher? I didnt know that. Wow.

Im glad he has these teachers as role models, Jonathan Lasko said. He's looking ahead and imagining himself in the role of teacher, and just like any of us, he's not going to let his different abilities get in the way of doing what he is passionate about.
A Cook County judge ruled Thursday that Illinois lawmakers must be paid on time despite their failure to pass a budget, which has caused a pileup of more than $12.8 billion worth of unpaid bills.

Last year, then-Comptroller Leslie Munger, an appointee of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, put lawmaker paychecks in line with Illinois' other past-due bills in an effort to make lawmakers feel the pain of the budget stalemate.

Cook County Circuit Judge Rodolfo Garcia ruled current Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza needs to pay up, citing a 2014 law passed after then-Gov. Pat Quinn withheld paychecks over pension reform.

Several Democratic legislators sued Munger, claiming she was in violation of the state constitution through executive-branch interference with the Legislature. They also claimed she and Gov. Rauner were holding up legislators' paychecks for political leverage.

Mendoza said she planned to comply with the order. She also said she would ask her lawyers to appeal the judge's ruling.

"As former Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka did in a 2013 legislator-pay case, I will release the back pay checks to all elected officials consistent with the judge's order," Mendoza said in a statement.

Munger, who is now deputy governor, said the victory by legislators was an example of lawmakers putting their own paychecks ahead of taxpayers, human services and those in need.

"For more than two years, lawmakers have failed to do their job and now believe they should be paid for doing nothing," she said, adding Mendoza should ask for an immediate stay of the ruling pending her appeal.

"The fact the Comptroller didn't immediately request a stay is further proof that the Comptroller, Attorney General and Speaker Madigan are engaged in a coordinated abuse of taxpayers," Munger said.

Munger announced in April she would put legislative pay at the back of the line like other overdue vendor bills until members of the House and Senate and Rauner reached agreement on a full-year state budget, which has been missing from Springfield for two years.

Mendoza defeated Munger in a special election last year, but she kept her predecessor's policy on lawmaker paychecks. Legislators' June paychecks weren't issued until January. Several have been vocal about their disdain over not getting paid in a timely manner amid the state's budget impasse.

The base legislative salary  unchanged in eight years  is $67,836, but most every legislator gets a stipend of $10,327 or more for extra duties.
More than 200 families have already left their homes in East Chicago, forced out after the Environmental Protection Agency discovered dangerously high levels of lead and arsenic in the soil.

But for some of the 67 families still living in the area, leaving isnt an option.

Despite their efforts to stay, several families say theyre being threatened with forced eviction if they dont leave by the end of the month.

Were here to deliver a message to this city. Were here to deliver a message to this state, said Sheila Garland with National Nurses United, who joined others outside East Chicagos Administration Building to protest the potential eviction. Were here to deliver a message to this country. That you are not going to bowl us over.

On Tuesday, residents were notified that because demolition was about to begin, they would need to be relocated to temporary housing beginning April 4.

The main thing that were asking for and I dont think its that much - is let the people stay here with their children until the end of the school year. Which is only about a month-and-half away., said resident Sherry Hunter.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is handling the emergency relocation and says five Indiana families would be moved to Illinois.

Akeesha Daniels, who has lived in the West Calumet House Complex for 13 years, is one of them.

I feel like moving us and all of the residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex right now would be a disaster, she said.

Daniels was among a group of protesters who delivered a letter of demands to the mayors office Friday. The group sang we shall overcome as they demonstrated.

East Chicagos mayor did not respond to a request for comment.
For more than seven decades, Burrville Volunteer Fire Department in Torrington has served its community. At the end of the month, that chapter comes to a close.

The news is hitting many in the community hard, particularly one family.

"The fire department closing is actually heartbreaking to me," said Amy Hill.

Heartbreaking because the Burrville Firehouse has always been there and kept them safe.

"Our house caught on fire when I was a little kid, and Burrville was here first. They saved our house," said Hill.

Hill's grandfather served in the department as president and fire chief. When Herman Marine was killed by a drunk driver, their fire department was there.

"I was 14 years old when that happened, and the firemen took me under their wing. They were a second family to us," said Hill.

A plaque and flagpole sit outside the fire house, honoring Marine. Hill says she plants new flowers in the box by the plaque every season.

In a letter to residents, the Burrville Fire Department wrote about the announced closure, saying in part that "during the past couple of decades, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit, train, and keep volunteer firefighters. We have reached the point where we can no longer provide the necessary services required by the great citizens of Burrville or the City of Torrington."

A separate letter given to the mayor says members voted and approved the proposal to dissolve the department during their monthly meeting on March 23, and that on or about April 1, they will file a Certificate of Dissolution with the Secretary of the State. And that "As of that date, The Burrville Volunteer Fire Department Incorporated will stop carrying on its activities even though it will still continue its corporate existence to wind up and liquidate its activities and affairs..."

Hill says it's always been a comfort to see the fire house close to her home, and she worries about another fire.

"Torrington is a fantastic fire department. I can't say enough about them. But they're still in Torrington, and we're still on the outskirts. I just worry," said Hill. "The matter of minutes could matter."

Torrington Fire Chief Gary Brunoli told NBC Connecticut via email that the Burrville Fire Department's announced closure is a sad day for all in Torrington and that all present and past members should be thanked for their service.

Brunoli went on to say that there is no loss in coverage for their residents and that "I want to ensure to all residents of the City of Torrington they will continue to receive the highest level of service from all members of the Torrington Fire Service."

But it doesn't change the sense of community that Amy Hill and others feel will be lost when Burrville's Volunteer Fire Department closes for good.

"It's just really sad, and it's going to be really hard to see them go," said Hill.

Brunoli says two other volunteer fire departments, Drakeville and Torringford, assist Torrington fire. He says both those volunteer departments are in need of more personnel.

"I would say [the volunteer fire departments] are struggling as are many more, not only in Connecticut, but across the country."

When asked if Torrington Fire Department would put career firefighters in the Burrville Fire House once it closed, Brunoli replied, "As far as the need for another fire house to be opened there, at this time there is no discussion or planning at this time. The City Board of Safety Commission would be the board that would be involved in any future firehouses anywhere in our city."
A former Connecticut priest who plead guilty to providing a teenager with ammunition and explosives powder in 2012 has been sentenced, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Paul Gotta, a 58-year-old former East Windsor resident who was charged with seven counts of sexual assault two years ago, faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of willfully distributing an explosive material to an individual under the age of 21 years old, according to prosecutors.

He has been sentenced to nine months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release for the explosive and firearm offenses.

In 2012, Gotta aided a 17-year-old with purchases thousands of rounds of ammunition and on two occasions purchased two pounds of explosives powder in East Windsor for the same teenager, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said that Gotta purchased the contents to construct a pipe bomb in the following months.

Gotta served as administrator of St. Philip Church in East Windsor and St. Catherine Church in Broadbrook until he left in 2012 after being accused of sexual abuse.

Gotta was indicted on six charges, including aiding and abetting the unlawful transport of a firearm in interstate commerce, aiding and abetting the possession of a handgun by a juvenile, aiding and abetting the possession of ammunition by a juvenile, distribution of explosive material to an individual under the age of 21, aiding and abetting the attempted manufacture of a pipe bomb, and obstruction of justice but only plead guilty to one charge, prosecutors said.
A Torrington man is accused of hacking the system of a mortuary science school and forging paperwork that would qualify him as a licensed mortician, according to court documents.

Jonathan Ryan, 22, was charged with second-degree forgery and second-degree computer crimes after police said he forged documents to make it appear like he graduated from the Mortuary Science program at Lincoln College in Southington.

Ryan then helped prepare dozens of bodies for burial at Gleeson-Ryan Funeral Home, which is owned by his father.

Last year, the director of the school, Dr. Paul Warren, contacted state police to investigate possible forgery at the school in June.

Warren said that Ryan had created a fake Lincoln College transcript by forging the college seal and registrar's name on a transcript in May 2015. Ryan also created a fake email address for a professor so he was able to get an apprentice embalmer's permit from the Connecticut State Department of Public Health.

Between sometime in 2015 and 2016, Ryan worked embalming or assisting in the preparation of roughly 60 bodies for burial at his family's funeral home in Torrington.

State police said Ryan's father Christopher Ryan told investigators he did not know his son obtained his credentials improperly.

Ryan said the reason he forged documents to become a mortician apprentice was actually part of a two-person investigative journalism project, according to arrest warrant documents.

According to the arrest documents, Ryan wrote in a submission to the International Conference of Funeral Service Examining Boards, in part:

"I find flaws in unsecure websites and human processes and my partner converts my findings into wonderful articles. We have been working on this little project of ours for over two and (sic) one half years, with little success until stumbling onto your website. It is mind boggling that you would leave such an important form, the Verification of Graduation and Projected Graduation Date forms, COMPLETELY (sic) unsecured. There was no password, there was no authentication, and there was no oversight for 6 (sic) months."

State police did find that Ryan attended Lincoln College from Sept. 4, 2013 to Dec. 1, 2013, but never got his degree.

Neither Lincoln College or the Gleeson-Ryan Funeral Home returned NBC Connecticut calls for comment.
When high-level athletes train too hard too fast, they can end up with a dangerous condition that destroys their muscle tissue.

Last summer, eight players on the Texas Woman's University volleyball team learned that lesson.

A report just released says the young women ended up in the hospital because of a fitness test, "which included 75 tricep pushups."

University leaders on Friday talked about changes they've made to keep this from happening again.

"A lot more increased education, particularly around hydration, also around rhabdo: what is it? What are the things that cause it?" said Monica Mendez-Grant, vice president of Student Life at TWU.

Mendez-Grant says there's new awareness on campus after the volleyball players fell victim to rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle tissue that releases a damaging protein into the blood.

Mendez-Grant apologized to the players again this week after findings from the report showed grueling preseason fitness tests and dehydration caused the young women to be hospitalized with the muscle condition.

"I assured them that the institution was concerned with their health and well being," she said.

Doctors, including Dr. Jaya Kumar, with Medical City Denton, say rhabdo is not common and most athletes have nothing to fear.

Mendez-Grant has made it her mission to make sure no other athletes or students have to deal with the condition again.

Those changes include rhabdo education for all staff and players, and fitness testing will now be vetted to make sure it's appropriate and staffing adjustments have been made.

TWU says all the volleyball players are doing well.















Texas politicians are reacting Friday after a vote on the Republicans' capstone health care overhaul was withdrawn when the GOP could not put together the support necessary for passage.

The move came after Speaker Paul Ryan weighed strategy at the White House with President Donald Trump. GOP lawmakers and aides said they lacked the votes to succeed in the House, just hours before a do-or-die showdown demanded by Trump.

In a statement released to NBC 5, U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, said:

"My constituents sent me to Washington to provide relief for hardworking American families who have been stuck with unaffordable coverage and fewer choices under Obamacare. I remain committed to that goal and look forward to fulfilling that promise."

U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, said:

"Today is a victory for the millions of people that would lose health coverage if the Affordable Care Act was to be repealed. With an outpouring of correspondence to Representatives and their staffs this week, the people have spoken firmly against this bill. Republican leadership rushed their healthcare bill to the floor without enough consideration for the lives of the people it would affect. I am pleased that the Affordable Care Act will stay in place, and promise to join my colleagues in opposing any bill that comes up in the future, should it be as disorganized and dangerous as this one."

U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said:

"After 61 votes, seven years of promising to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and a flurry of late night backroom deals, House Republicans still couldn't come together to even vote on their terrible replacement plan. President Trump's self-proclaimed master negotiation skills failed to deliver on the promises he made during the 2016 campaign. This ugly episode demonstrates that he is not a strong leader for Congressional Republicans. Seven years was more than enough time for different factions of the House Republican Caucus to create a viable replacement that actually delivers on their promises to lower costs and help Americans access better quality care. But instead, they tried to jam through a bill that alienated both moderate and right wing factions of their party.

"Luckily, their divided caucus allows the 20 million Americans who gained access to comprehensive health insurance under the Affordable Care Act to sleep peacefully, knowing that their health is not on the chopping block."

Former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, told NBC 5:

"I think Paul Ryan said it best. He said this is not a good day, this is a failure, and we're going to learn from it and we're going to keep moving forward."

"It's very hard to pass major legislation, especially major legislation that has such an impact on people, on families, and on the economy," Hutchison said. "I wouldn't say that this is the end of it at all, but I think there will be a pause."

"I can't blame this on anyone, except that I think there was not enough time to bring people together to really get a strong consensus," she said.
Now that the effort to overhaul the nation's health care system has collapsed, the Trump administration is turning its attention to tax reform.

President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that the administration will now focus on gaining congressional approval for a sweeping tax overhaul plan.

Trump's comments came after Republicans were forced to cancel a House vote on their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act because they could not get the support needed for passage.

After Republicans pulled the health measure, Trump told reporters at the White House, "I would say that we will probably start going very, very strongly for the big tax cuts and tax reform. That will be next."

While the GOP decision to pull the health care proposal could be an ominous sign for tax cuts and the rest of Trump's legislative agenda, Trump was more optimistic, saying, "now we're going to go for tax reform, which I've always liked."

Earlier in the day, Mnuchin, the president's chief economic spokesman, suggested that tax reform might be easier to sell in Congress.

"Health care is a very complicated issue," Mnuchin said. "In a way, tax reform is a lot simpler."

During a morning interview, Mnuchin said he had been overseeing work on the administration's bill over the past two months and it would be introduced soon. He said it would be one proposal that would cover both cutting individual and corporate taxes in the same legislation.

"We are not cutting this up and doing little pieces at a time," Mnuchin said.

He said the goal was still to win congressional approval of the tax measure by August. But if the timeline is delayed, he said he expected the proposal to pass by the fall.

At the White House, press secretary Sean Spicer acknowledged the August deadline is an "ambitious one" for such a comprehensive and complicated project, but he said it's a goal the administration "is going to try to stick to."

"Tax reform is something the president is very committed to," Spicer told reporters. Mnuchin had lunch at the White House Friday with Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

In his earlier appearance, Mnuchin did not reveal whether the administration will include a contentious border adjustment tax that is in a House tax proposal. The measure, which would impose a 20 percent tax on imports, has positive and negative features, Mnuchin said. He also would not reveal exactly what corporate tax rate the administration would propose, other than it will be "a lot lower" than the current 35 percent rate.

In a wide-ranging public interview event with the news site Axios, Mnuchin also said Trump's proposal to boost infrastructure spending would probably include $100 billion to $200 billion in federal money and depend on public-private partnerships to boost the total to $1 trillion over the next decade.

Mnuchin was asked whether the administration's tax plan would lower rates at all levels but not include an absolute tax cut for high income individuals because the lower rates for the wealthy would be offset by increases in other areas, such as reduced deductions. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, dubbed this goal the "Mnuchin rule" during his confirmation hearing.

Mnuchin did not comment specifically on the goal but said, "The president's objective is a middle income tax cut. ... Our primary focus is a tax cut for the middle income (earners) and not the top."

While Wall Street has staged a huge rally since Trump's surprising election victory, Mnuchin said he believed the market could move still higher as the administration succeeds in implementing its economic program to cut taxes and eliminate burdensome regulations.

He predicted Trump's plan would achieve economic growth of 3 to 3.5 percent, up significantly from anemic growth around 2 percent seen in the current recovery, the weakest in the post-World War II period. He said "this is definitely not all baked in" to market expectations.

The Treasury secretary, who participated in his first meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers last weekend in Baden-Baden, Germany, called the meeting a success. He said while news coverage focused on the administration's successful push to drop a pledge to oppose trade protectionism, that took only a small portion of the discussion time.

"On trade, the point I made was that the president wants to have free trade ... but he wants to renegotiate deals" that are not favorable for American workers, Mnuchin said.

In addition to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, Mnuchin said the administration was also planning to focus on stronger enforcement of other trade agreements.

AP reporter Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
The Pasadena Police Department and the FBI released security video Friday of a man who is believed to have thrown an explosive device into the Cheesecake Factory restaurant in Pasadena in February.

No one was hurt in the Feb. 2 incident. On Friday, authorities showed video of the assailant attempting to discard clothing reportedly worn shortly after the explosion occurred.

At a news conference at Pasadena police headquarters, officials also announced a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man.

Forensic evidence was collected after the incident, but all leads and tips have been exhausted, said Deirdre Fike, FBI assistant director in charge.

The blast occurred at 6:08 p.m. on Feb. 2 at the restaurant at 2 W. Colorado Blvd. Responding officers immediately evacuated the restaurant and located the detonated homemade pyrotechnic device, according to Pasadena police. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Bomb Squad also responded and rendered the device safe, police said.

Video shows the man walking into a nearby grocery store after the explosion, walking with an unusual gait with his feet turned inward.

The motive was not known but Pasadena police Lt. Vasken Gourdikian told NBC4 back in February that nothing in the investigation has suggested the incident was "anything other than a really bad prank." Another police spokesman told NBC4 the device was a "glorified firecracker" that didn't appear to be made to injure anyone.

Witnesses described the suspect as 6 feet tall, with a thin build, a heavy beard, all black clothing and a black beanie.

Anyone with information is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324). Tipsters can remain confidential.
Laughter, music and the tapping of dancing shoes reverberated throughout a public memorial to Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, which loved ones say is just how the actresses would have wanted it.

There were few tears throughout the two-hour ceremony Saturday, which honored the mother-daughter duo's impact on film, culture and those who knew them with a mix of photos, videos, and anecdotes that kept the audience laughing and applauding.

Todd Fisher led the ceremony, which he said was intended to bring fans an intimate view of his mother and sister. He called it a show, saying his mother hated to attend memorials.

Hundreds of fans  some wearing "Star Wars" attire  attended the public ceremony that featured numerous family photos, Reynolds' final interview reflecting on her life and philanthropy and one of Fisher's high school friends sharing some of her off-color emails to him.

A troupe from Reynolds' dance studio performed an homage to "Singin' in the Rain," the film that catapulted Reynolds to stardom at age 19. After an opening film that was an ode to Fisher's "Star Wars" role, a working R2D2 unit came on stage, mournfully beeped and parked next to a director's chair with Fisher's name on it. Across the stage, near a piano, sat an empty chair with Reynolds' name on it.

Fisher, 60, an actress and writer who starred as Princess Leia in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, died Dec. 27 after suffering a medical emergency days earlier aboard a flight from London. Reynolds, an Oscar-nominated actress for her role in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," died the following day at age 84.

Todd Fisher recounted his mother's final moments and her remark that she wanted to be with her daughter.

"It was a very peaceful exit that only my mother could have orchestrated," he said to booming laughter. "She was trained in Hollywood where they teach you to make a great entrance, and exit."

Fisher and Reynolds had a complex relationship, with some years of estrangement before they reunited and became close confidantes.

Actor Dan Aykroyd described Fisher, his one-time fiancee, as a chatterbox who never let him speak. He described using the Heimlich maneuver on her once, and joked that if he had been on the plane where Fisher fell ill in December, he "might have been able to save her again."

He echoed a sentiment expressed by many early in his remarks. "We really shouldn't be here this soon," he said.

The ceremony was attended by several stars, including Rene Russo, Beverly D'Angelo, "Dallas" actress Morgan Brittany, actor-director Fisher Stevens, "Brady Bunch" actress Susan Olsen and actor Griffin Dunne.

Dunne recounted living with Fisher in New York when they were both young actors, and her initial reactions to working on "Star Wars." He recounted Fisher's assessment of the film: "It's stupid and it's terrible."

After the first screening, they both knew she had been wrong. "We knew movies would never be the same, and you just knew Carrie's life would never be the same."

When speakers weren't delivering one-liners  some that had been uttered or penned by Fisher and Reynolds  music and dance took over the stage. The ceremony featured a new song James Blunt wrote after Fisher's death, and the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles performed a somber rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" that celebrated Fisher's status as a feminist icon.

Actress Ruta Lee celebrated Reynolds' philanthropy in her eulogy, which included her singing to troops during the Korean War and her later efforts raising millions to help those suffering from mental illness. Carrie Fisher battled mental illness and addiction, exploring her struggles in the book "Postcards from the Edge."

Fisher discussed her mother's charitable work in a video clip, joking: "She sort of started what this town was going to need quite a bit of, which was treatment for the mentally ill."

Lee said it was OK to feel sadness at the deaths of Reynolds and Fisher, but not to dwell on it. "Debbie the unsinkable and her beautiful daughter would never want us to mourn," she said.

Author Gavin de Becker, who attended high school with Fisher and recounted how his infatuation with her turned into a lifelong friendship, said his friend "zoomed through time" and made so many people's lives better. He recounted how Fisher took him on international trips and "gave me so many firsts."

"The first time I had sex was at Carrie's house," de Becker said. "It wasn't with Carrie, but she arranged it."

It was one of many tales about the actresses that drew boisterous laughter.

After the service, fans were invited to see the actresses' final resting place at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills, a storied cemetery where numerous celebrities, including Bette Davis and Liberace, are buried or interred.

Many also paused to snap photos with some of the actresses' memorabilia that was displayed outside the theater, including two dresses Fisher wore while filming "Star Wars" and "When Harry Met Sally," and two of Reynolds' costumes from "Singin' in the Rain" and "Unsinkable Molly Brown."
The Coast Guard was searching for five Haitian fishermen that went missing near the southern claw of Haiti Friday evening.

Authorities said the five Haitian were fishing when three dinghies got separated from rest of the group. The incident happened 55 miles southwest of the island nation.

Crews were searching for the missing fishermen by sea and in the air. The Coast Guard is working with Haitian officials in the search efforts.
A Staten Island woman whose license plate was stolen from her car says shes now being victimized by the City of New York--which is demanding she pay for two no-license-plate tickets slapped on her parked car.

My social security check is $900 a month. They want $250. Thats almost a third of my check. Are you kidding? For something I didnt even do? I need help, Christine DeLisa sad. Im not guilty. Im a victim.

The 69-year-olds trouble began in February 2016 when she found a traffic enforcement ticket on her car for no license plate. However she says it had been stolen. Unsure of what to do, she immediately called her NYPD precinct.

She said police gave her instructions on how to handle the situation until a police report was completed.

They said leave the ticket in the window with the orange envelope and put a note in the window stating you contacted us."

But the very next day, despite leaving the note and the ticket, her car was hit with another no-license-plate citation from a traffic enforcement agent. Again, she called the precinct.

They laughed and they said, We know who gave you the tickets and thats the way they operate. They said dont worry about it, youll win the appeal.

But DeLisa said she never had a prayer. At her initial Finance Department hearing, where these tickets are handled, she was found guilty of both violations. Among the reasons cited: waiting to prepare a police report and get a new license plate.

I did what I was told to do by law and yet, Im wrong. Why? Im not wrong. Im 100 percent right, she said.

The NYPD had no comment on DeLisas case, including the advice she says she received from her precinct.

A spokesman did note the law requires vehicles to be removed immediately from the street when a license plate is stolen.

When her appeals failed, Staten Island Councilman Steven Matteo tried to help, writing a letter to the commissioner of the Finance Department.

[DeLisa] believes she should not be held liable for these violations and associated penalties, Matteo wrote.

Additionally, the constituent finds she is unable to afford neither the violations nor the associated penalties.

The Finance Department, however, was unmoved  and sent her case to a collection agency.

When contacted by NBC 4 New York, the department said it would put DeLisa on a payment plan.
A pickup truck making a right turn at a Queens intersection hit and killed a baby girl in her stroller Thursday night, police say.

The baby's mother was pushing the stroller across 23rd Avenue in East Elmhurst when the truck turned from 94th Street and hit the stroller, police say.

The driver stayed on the scene. Police identified him as 44-year-old Wallace Ramirez of Massachusetts. Authorities charged him with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care.

Witness Reese Fluellen, who knows the mother because their children play together, says he'd said hello just seconds earlier.

"As I turn the corner, I was walking maybe 10, 15 seconds, I hear a loud crunch, I hear brakes from the truck," he said. "I hear screaming, 'You ran over my baby, You ran over my baby.'"

Fluellen immediately ran back, along with other bystanders who tried to help. The baby, identified as Skylar Perkins of Queens, was unresponsive and appeared not to be breathing, and the mother was hysterical.

Clearly shaken, Fluellen said, "I have a child the exact same age. Our kids play together. It just really hits home."

"There's nothing like seeing a mother think that she's lost her baby. It's one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen," he said.

Responding police officers rushed the baby to Elmhurst General Hospital in the back of their patrol car.

The girl, who had severe trauma to the head and body, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The baby's mother had been walking in the crosswalk with the child secured in the stroller, according to police. Fluellen said the driver didn't appear to realize what had happened until he stopped and got out.

"When he got out, when he saw the baby, his reaction was just like [shocked]," said Fluellen. "I see how high the truck is, I'm guessing from where he was sitting he couldn't see it because he hit her from the other side of the vehicle."
An American Airlines flight had to abort its takeoff at LaGuardia Airport Friday morning after a bird flew into the engine, the Port Authority said. Now the frequency of 'bird strikes' is back under the spotlight.



Flight 2266 to Miami was set to depart from runway 13 of the Queens hub shortly when the pilot reported the bird strike around 7:30 a.m., officials said.



The plane returned to the gate, where passenger photos showed crew members working to remove the bird's remains from the engine.



No injuries were reported and airport operations were not affected, the Port Authority said.

But the plane's scheduled takeoff was scrubbed as crews worked to clean bird remains out of the engine.

In 2009, a flock of geese brought down US Airways Flight 1549, which is now immortalized as the 'Miracle on the Hudson'.

After Captain Chesley Sullenberger narrowly landed the plane on the waters of the Hudson River, Queens congressman Joe Crowley began advocating for more measures to monitor bird populations around New York's airports - including special avian radar so air traffic controllers can know when flocks of birds are threatening.

Meanwhile--since the Miracle on the Hudson--bird strikes have become more common near LaGuardia.

There were 104 recorded strikes in 2009, and in the five years after the Miracle on the Hudson there were an average of 155 bird strikes.
What to Know Thousands attended the funeral of slain EMT Yadira Arroyo at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church in the Bronx.

Arroyo was killed in the Bronx on March 16 when a man hijacked her ambulance and ran her over with it, police said

Mayor de Blasio said the loss of "Yadi" continues to reverberate throughout the city.

Thousands of family, friends and FDNY colleagues gathered Saturday to remember an EMT who was killed by a hijacked ambulance, remembering her as a hero who leaves behind "a legacy of service and lives saved."

Among those who attended the funeral for Yadira Arroyo were Mayor Bill de Blasio, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro and her five sons.

"I want you to know that your mother leaves behind an incredible legacy, a legacy of service and lives saved," Nigro said, addressing her children. "She touched so many in her brilliant career, we are a better department because of all she gave us and we are a greater city because of how nobly she served."

The 14-year FDNY veteran was killed March 16 after she and her partner tried to stop the 25-year-old from hijacking the ambulance they were riding in. Police say the hijacker put the ambulance in reverse, ran over Arroyo, then went forward, dragging her into an intersection.

At St. Nicholas of Tolentine Roman Catholic Church in the University Heights neighborhood of the Bronx, the roll of snare drums rang through the street as an FDNY marching band solemnly strolled through.

Bagpipes played "Amazing Grace" as nine FDNY officers delicately removed Arroyo's casket, draped in an American flag, and carried it into the church as her family followed behind.

Yadira Arroyo died a hero when she tried to stop a thief who hopped into her ambulance as the veteran EMT was on her way to a call Thursday, according to FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro. Erica Byfield reports.

Arroyo's partner, Monique Williams, sobbed as she took the podium. The heartbroken EMT was so overcome with emotion that she was unable to read a passage and instead deferred to a colleague who took the stage with her as she bowed her head, her body shaking as she cried.

The mayor offered his condolences to her five sons -- Edgar, Isaiah, Jose, Justin and Kenneth -- and sympathized with their loss; he also lost his father at around the same age as Arroyo's sons.

"When you lose your parent, it's a current that runs through you your entire life," he said. "The hearts of our city are broken today because we have to say goodbye to someone who was there for all of us."

Thousands of family, friends and colleagues of slain FDNY emergency medical technician Yadira Arroyo packed into a funeral home in the Bronx to say their final goodbyes.

He said the loss of "Yadi" continues to reverberate throughout the city.

Nigro said: "Most of all, she was a hero. She died as a hero, but most importantly, she lived as one. In every sense of the word, she was a true hero to our city."

He told her sons that although they may not be blood, but the department would always be one call away.

"You now have thousands more brothers and sisters who will support you and stand by your side. Never forget that."

After the court hearing for Jose Gonzalez, the suspect in the ambulance hijacking that killed EMT Yadira Arroyo in the Bronx, EMTs and representatives were emotional and angry. The lawyer for Gonzalez also spoke, though EMTs reacted angrily.

Jose Montez fondly recalled the times he spent in the kitchen with his mother learning how to cook as the eyes of his family and thousands of Yadi's colleagues were affixed on him.

There were many lessons his mother taught him, including "how to make things taste good," but the most important one was learning how to listen.

"My mother wasn't perfect, but she was excellent," he said. "On top of every other lesson she taught me, she taught me how to listen."

[NY ONLY SPEC PHOTOS] Members of FDNY Pay Tribute to Fallen EMT Yadira Arroyo

He paused for a moment before diving into a memory about how both always wanted to have the last word, which drew quiet laughter. Before he stepped down from the podium, he reminded all that their unity served as a pillar of strength.

"We'll all be okay because we have each other."

The New York Mets honored Arroyo at a Friday night spring training game against the Atlanta Braves.

The New York Yankees provided free parking for those attending her funeral and hosted a post-funeral meal at Yankee Stadium's Great Hall, the Daily News reported. About 5,000 cars and buses were expected to park in the ballpark lot.

A 44-year-old mother of five, who worked for 14 years at FDNY EMS station no. 26 in the Bronx, was mowed down by her own hijacked ambulance while she and her partner were on their way to a job. Marc Santia reports.

The man accused of killing her, Jose Gonzalez, is behind bars. His attorney says he's severely mentally ill.

In a show of force, mourning members of the FDNY packed the Bronx Criminal Courthouse Wednesday for Gonzalez's hearing, which he skipped.

Gonzalez has 31 prior arrests and four prior misdemeanors on his record, authorities say. He faces murder, manslaughter and robbery charges.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey has accused the Trump administration's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, of participating in a discussion with Turkish officials about possibly subverting the U.S. extradition process to remove a Turkish cleric from the United States.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Woolsey's comments and posted a video interview with him late Friday . A Flynn spokesman said Friday that Woolsey's claims are "false" and that "no such discussion occurred."

In the Journal interview, Woolsey says he walked into the middle of a discussion between Turkish officials and members of Flynn's firm, Flynn Intel Group, late in the evening of Sept. 19 at Essex House hotel in New York City.

Woolsey said the discussion generally involved removing cleric Fethullah Gulen from the U.S. without going through the lengthy extradition process, though he said it stopped short of outlining a specific plan to sweep the cleric out of the country. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought Gulen's extradition from the U.S. after accusing the cleric of directing a failed coup last summer. The U.S. government has rebuffed that request, and Gulen, who has a green card and lives in Pennsylvania, has denied involvement.

Woolsey described the discussion as "brainstorming, but it was brainstorming about a very serious matter that would pretty clearly be a violation of law." Though, Woolsey noted that the discussion "did not rise to the level of being a specific plan to undertake a felonious act."

Flynn spokesman Price Floyd told The Associated Press that Flynn Intel Group's work never involved discussing removing Gulen from the United States by any means other than the extradition process. He confirmed that Woolsey attended the meeting but denied that it involved subverting the legal process.

"The claim made by Mr. Woolsey that General Flynn or anyone else in attendance discussed physical removal of Mr. Gulen from the United States during a meeting with Turkish officials in New York is false," Floyd said. "No such discussion occurred, nor did Mr. Woolsey ever inform General Flynn that he had any concerns whatsoever regarding the meeting, either before he chose to attend and afterward."

The meeting was part of lobbying work Flynn's firm was conducting on behalf of a company, Inovo BV, which is owned by Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin.

Earlier this month, Flynn and his firm registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for the work for Alptekin, saying that it could have benefited the Turkish government. Flynn's firm was paid $530,000 over the course of the contract, which ran from August through November while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. Alptekin has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered as a foreign agent under pressure from the Justice Department.

As the AP reported earlier this month , Flynn's attorneys twice disclosed to advisers to President Donald Trump after the election that it was likely Flynn would need to register as a foreign agent for the work. The first discussion was with the Trump transition team while Flynn was being considered for the top national security post. After Flynn joined the Trump administration, his attorneys then informed the White House counsel's office that Flynn's foreign agent registration was imminent. The White House has confirmed both contacts.

In the video interview, Woolsey said he didn't know if he missed a caveat to the discussion because he arrived late to the September meeting. In addition to Woolsey and Flynn, others present included Alptekin, Flynn's business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, and two Turkish officials: Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogan's son-in-law. Alptekin has told the AP that he arranged the meeting.

Woolsey said he doesn't remember if Flynn actively participated in the discussion. "I don't recall who said what," Woolsey said in the Journal interview. Though in an interview with CNN, he said there "was at least some strong suggestion by one or more of the Americans present at the meeting to the Turks" that the U.S. would be able to get ahold of Gulen.

"It was suspicious. It was concerning, and I felt I needed to say something about it to someone, but was it a clear plot that they were going to seize him? No," Woolsey said during the CNN interview.

Woolsey has said he informed then-Vice President Joe Biden about the meeting through a mutual friend. Representatives for Biden declined to comment.

Woolsey, who served as CIA director under President Bill Clinton and briefly was a member of the Trump transition team, said he served on an advisory board for Flynn Intel Group but never did any work for the firm or received any payment from it.

Flynn, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, was fired by Trump last month after Trump said Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are part of House and Senate committee investigations into contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.
The largest school board in Canada said it won't be booking future trips to the United States, citing "uncertainty" surrounding President Donald Trump's latest travel restrictions, NBC News reported.

The Toronto District School Board announced it would bar new trips to the U.S. because of "uncertainty surrounding these new restrictions  specifically with regards to who may be impacted and when," John Malloy, director of education for the school board, said in a statement Thursday.

"We do not make this decision lightly, but given the uncertainty of these new travel restrictions and when they may come into effect, if at all, we strongly believe that our students should not be placed into these situations of potentially being turned away at the border," Malloy said in the statement.
Pro-Trump marchers and Anti-Trump protesters clashed in the streets of Philadelphia Saturday.

The Pennsylvania 'MAGA' March planned for Saturday morning was met by Anti-Trump protesters in Old City and Center City. Both groups demonstrated near and around Independence Hall and City Hall.

The Pro-Trump marchers first gathered at Independence National Historical Park on 5th and Market streets at 11:30 a.m. where they held a rally at People's Plaza. The group then marched on Market Street toward City Hall. Andrew Shecktor, a candidate for the U.S. Senate (PA, 2018) served as the keynote speaker for the rally.

"I know every American has a side of unity and patriotism running in their blood," organizers for the Pro-Trump demonstration wrote. "This is the chance where you can stand up to all the lies and corruption we face in this very much love nation to be proud to have our freedom and to thank all the men and women who have served and lost their lives in the line of duty to show you care who is coming into this nation with love and care and not terrorism and hate. We are marching for our President, Vice President, Military, and First Responders."

During the march and rally, the demonstrators were met by a group of Anti-Trump protesters who used the hashtag #DisruptMAGA on social media.

"Lets show them that Philly knows the truth. That America was founded on Colonialism, Genocide, Slavery and Sexism," organizers for the Anti-Trump march wrote. "Those traditions continue today, though sometimes in varied forms. America was never great. But Philly can be great on March 25th. Let our rage send a message to all those who think the election of Trump means that we will lie down and die, and all those unsure how to best stand against Trump and his minions."

The pro-Trump group also planned on marching on Benjamin Franklin Parkway towards Eakins Oval in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art but were stopped by police who wanted to avoid a clash between the two groups. Both marches tied up traffic in Center City. Streets were closed near City Hall but later reopened. Both groups dispersed shortly after 3 p.m.

Two people, a man and a teen boy, were cited for disorderly conduct.

NBC10's Drew Smith spoke with members of both groups.
San Diego is one of the top cities in America for residential solar power installations but for some reason, that number has stalled.

"This is the first year where we've seen an overall slowdown year over year," said Daniel Sullivan the President of Sullivan Solar Power.

Sullivan says over the second half of 2016 and into 2017 the adoption of renewable energy has slipped. He says historically the solar industry has grown 30% to 40% year over year. Why the change?

"One being is that the rules changed for those who went solar last year in June and so it made it slightly less attractive," said Sullivan.

Those changes include Net Metering 2.0, where new solar customers are unable to receive the same credit for excess electricty. Sullivan also says potential solar customers are annoyed by agressive marketing.

"Companies going out in the neighborhoods knocking on their doors, calling them on the phone," said Sullivan, "for the average consumer it's overwealming, it's confusing."

So what will bring the industry back? Benjamin Airth with the Center for Sustainable Energy says the addition of batteries or storage will make going solar more cost effective for some people. The homeowner would be able to store excess electricty at their home rather than sent it back on grid to SDG&E.

"There's absolutely a need," said Airth but prices and incentives for the storage batteries will have to be attractive to potential solar customers.

"But there's still a lot of learning that needs to be done," said Airth.

Sullivan agrees, " The technology is proven, the questions was, is the cost going to justify the investment?"
Leaders in Calvert County, Maryland, say their community is heartbroken after a baby boy was killed by the family's dog.

A family friend was watching the 8-month-old baby at a home on Prancer Court in Lusby about 1 p.m. Thursday when the family's pit bull attacked the baby, police said.

Two sheriff's deputies who arrived to the house saw the pit bull attacking the baby and quickly decided the only way to stop the attack was to shoot the dog, killing it.

The baby was already dead.

Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans said the deputies who responded are distraught.

"You could see the emotion -- how they were upset. They felt kind of helpless that they couldn't do more. That was the result of frustration that they couldn't do anything more to help save this child," Evans said.

The sheriff's office has not released the name of the baby boy, to protect the family's privacy.

"This is one of the worst tragedies that our community has suffered in such a long time. It's almost unspeakable. It's a very, very close, tight-knit community," said Calvert County Commissioner Tom Hejl said.

Nine-hundred cities in the country have regulations on pit bulls.

According to dogsbite.org, there were 31 dog-related deaths nationwide in 2016. Twenty-two of those deaths were from pit bull attacks.

The Calvert County Animal Control Chief Craig Dichter said he doesn't think this attack indicates the law needs to be changed in the county.

"The majority of the pit bull breeds or type breeds that we deal with are very friendly and no problems. There are some that are sometimes a problem in a way, but do I think we need a ban on it? I don't think we need to go that far," Dichter said.

Evans said the sheriff's office has completed its investigation and there will be no criminal charges filed.
Robin Dickerson says she felt helpless after having two knee replacements.

"I felt like my life had been taken away," Dickerson said.

Dickerson, who lives in Clinton, Maryland, said her insurance company wouldn't cover the cost of a nurse's aide after she came home from the hospital.

She called 911 services 15 times in one month because she had no one to help her when she fell down or needed help getting up her front steps when her husband was at work.

Now, Dickerson is getting help from a new program in Prince George's County called Mobile Integrated Healthcare, which helps residents who rely on the 911 system as their primary means of healthcare.

Prince George's County Fire Official Kenneth Hickey said Dickerson is one of 38 people who have repeatedly called 911 and are now getting help through the program.

"Some people call for stubbed toes," Hickey said.

Mobile Integrated Healthcare is credited for reducing 911 calls in the county more than 60 percent compared to this time last year.

It links Prince George's County residents with nurses from Washington Adventist Hospital who can check on the residents' health needs.

"Let's say you've called 911, 10 times for chest pains in the last year. A nurse and a paramedic would schedule you an appointment," Hickey said.

Dickerson said she is grateful the program is currently working to find her a nurse.

"Thank you. I love you. You know, it's a great thing that they're doing," she said.

For more information about Mobile Integrated Healthcare, visit here.

D.C. and Montgomery County have similar programs.

D.C. Fire Department's Sreet Calls program: Go to FEMS.dc.gov or call (202) 673-3320.

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service: Visit here for more information.
U.S.-backed Syrian fighters reached a major dam held by ISIS in northern Syria Friday as Syria's U.N. ambassador said hundreds of American personnel are "invading my country," insisting that any effort to liberate the city of Raqqa  the de facto capital of ISIS  should be done in coordination with the Damascus government.

The push toward the Tishrin Dam came three days after U.S. aircraft ferried Syrian Kurdish fighters and allies behind ISIS lines to spearhead a major ground assault on the ISIS-held town of Tabqa where the dam is located. Tabqa is west of the city of Raqqa.

ISIS has been pounded in Syria in recent months with attacks against the extremists from three fronts: the U.S.-backed fighters, Turkish troops and their allies near the border with Turkey, and government forces in the northern province of Aleppo.

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said government forces captured late Friday the town of Deir Hafer, the last ISIS stronghold in Aleppo province, after troops stormed the town under the cover of Russian airstrikes.

After losing wide areas they once held in Syria, ISIS extremists now are mostly present in the northern province of Raqqa and the eastern region of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq.

Cihan Sheikh Ehmed, the spokeswoman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, said the fighting is ongoing at the entrance of the dam, adding that there have been casualties among ISIS fighters. She gave no further details.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said SDF fighters are marching slowly toward the buildings of the Tishrin Dam because of mines and explosives planted by ISIS.

To the east of Raqqa, SDF fighters clashed with ISIS gunmen inside the village of Karama, according to the Observatory and Mohammed Khedhr of Sound and Picture Organization, which documents ISIS violations. Karama is about 10 miles east of Raqqa, making it a strategic village to capture.

The attacks on the Tabqa and Karama were ongoing under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, according to the activists.

SDF fighters have been on the offensive since November under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition with the aim of eventually surrounding Raqqa and storming it.

In France, the country's defense minister said the campaign by international forces to take back ISIS' de facto capital will start in the coming days. Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Raqqa is a "major objective" for the U.S.-led coalition trying to quash ISIS extremists in Syria and Iraq.

Le Drian spoke on CNEWS television Friday. He said: "Today we can say that Raqqa is encircled and that the battle will begin in the coming days. It will be a very hard battle but it will be an essential battle."

As the coalition advances in its battle to retake the ISIS stronghold of Mosul in Iraq, the U.S. has been intensifying involvement in Syria's conflict ahead of the battle for Raqqa.

In Geneva, where peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition resumed Friday, Syria's ambassador to the U.N. Bashar al-Ja'afari insisted that "American warplanes" had bombed a school in the village of Mansourah, west of Raqqa, a day earlier and were responsible for the deaths of 237 civilians among some 500 people fleeing Raqqa. He did not elaborate.

Al-Ja'afari said any military presence in Syria without government approval was "illegitimate."

Using the Arabic acronym for the ISIS group, he said: "Those who are truly fighting Daesh are the Syrian Army with the help of our allies from Russia and Iran."

The U.S. has deployed more than 700 advisers, marines and Rangers to Syria to support fighters battling ISIS militants.

Speaking to reporters later Friday, U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura told reporters that he is not expecting miracles, breakthroughs, or even breakdowns, at the latest round of Syria peace talks in Geneva.

De Mistura also urged Russia, Turkey and Iran, the guarantors of the upcoming talks at the Kazakh capital of Astana, to "retake the situation in hand" amid a recent escalation of fighting on the ground. The guarantors had successfully negotiated a cease-fire at the previous Astana talks, albeit one that De Mistura conceded has been violated repeatedly.

"Hopefully there will be a new Astana meeting as soon as possible to control the situation, which at the moment is worrisome," said De Mistura.
Police have captured a man accused of stabbing his girlfriend's mother earlier this week in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Authorities have been searching for 32-year-old Ping Hong, who was wanted for attempted murder.

The victim was stabbed on Howard Street around 11 p.m. Tuesday. She suffered serious injuries from several stab wounds and was transported to a local hospital for treatment.

Hong, whose last known address is in Vernon, Connecticut, was apprehended Friday at South Station in Boston by Waltham police, state police and MBTA transit police.
The New Hampshire Senate has approved an additional $4.5 million to beef up the front lines of the war on drugs.

More than a million dollars would go to hiring five new state troopers to intercept drugs coming into the Granite State from Massachusetts.

"I agree with it, they should, because it's getting bad," said Cheryl Vanmeter of Salem, New Hampshire.

Those additions troopers would be assigned to the communities on the Massachusetts border, targeting drug dealing traveling north.

"Their whole deal would be to dismantle the drug routes that are commonly used by drug dealers coming into the State of New Hampshire," explained Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard.

In many cases, those dealers are driving directly into Willards city. His department started targeting low level dealers in the summer of 2015. Operation Granite Hammer is now a statewide program that, under this bill, would get an additional $2.5 million.

"What drug dealers need to know, is we're going to come after you, we're going to disrupt your transportation routes, we're going to seize your money, seize your vehicles," Willard promised. "Then, if any of your drugs, the poison you put on our streets, lead to death of a citizen, be prepared to do a sentence that's akin to a murder."

The bill is expected to pass the House and Gov. Chris Sununu has promised to sign it.
Lawmakers in New England are reacting to the failure of the GOP's health care bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill Friday after an inability to get the support needed to pass the American Health Care Act.

"I have concerns about the legislation as it's currently written, and I know that other governors did, as well," Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said.

Baker, a Republican, confirmed he sent letters to members of his delegation asking them to vote against the GOP plan.

"My job, as the governor of Massachusetts, is to look out for the best interests of Massachusetts," he said. "Starting in 2020, we would lose about $1 billion a year, and Massachusetts has worked really hard on a bipartisan basis over the course of the last decade to get to what most people would call universal coverage for people here in the Commonwealth."

A major objective of Donald Trump's campaign was to repeal and replace Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. The GOP's bill was panned by Democratic congressmen and failed to garner significant support from the Republican majority.

"House Republican leadership and President Trump hastily pushed this legislation forward without public hearings and with very limited debate. We heard loud and clear from the families we represent that Trumpcare would put their access to health care at risk," Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts said. "I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will now take into account how the American people have reacted to their so-called plan and I call for a sincere, bipartisan effort to make needed improvements to the Affordable Care Act."

"This bill would take away health care and increase costs of millions of Americans and tens of thousands of Granite Staters," said Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

"The failure of Trumpcare is good news for people across New Hampshire and America who would have faced higher costs for less care," agreed fellow Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. "While I am encouraged to see this measure fail in the U.S. House of Representatives, we must stay vigilant against attempts to pull our health care system backward."

"Today is a victory for the millions of Americans who would have lost their health care and been forced to pay more for less coverage under Trumpcare. This bill was nothing but a tax cut for billionaires paid for by taking health care away from 24 million Americans," Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said. "Today is a reminder that the real power in our democracy is with the people. Thank you to everyone in Massachusetts who made their voices heard. This wouldn't have been possible without you."

"It has been something to watch Trump and Ryan on this. Trump keeps calling it 'Ryancare' and Ryan keeps calling it 'Trumpcare,'" Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said. "Nobody wants to own this stinker."


Christian MP tells Norwich audience of knife attack Christian MP tells Norwich audience of knife attack

A Christian Labour MP has told an audience at UEA in Norwich of the moment he was stabbed by a Muslim constituent in 2010 and of how he believes that the shared values of all faith groups are important in politics and society. Keith Morris reports.
In this issue of the Gearhead Toolbox Im covering dashboards and visualizations. There are an incredible number of products and services in this domain and today I've chosen three particularly interesting projects ...

Cachet: A Status Page System

As our businesses become evermore complex and simultaneously faster moving, communicating the status of services and activities is crucial to keeping things moving and minimizing confusion. It is also often on of the least well-executed functions. Enter the idea of corporate status and incident tracking dashboards of which Cachet, a free, open source status page system is a great solution.

Cachet, released under the BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License, was written in PHP (5.5.9 or later required) and works under Apache, Nginx, or Caddy. It requires Composer and works with MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite. In operation, Cachet lists your service components along with both current and historical incident reports and you can customize the look of your status page. Incidents can be posted using markdown either directly via the Web interface or by using the extensive and well-documented JSON-based API.

Cachet also provides metrics, has localization (ten languages are currently supported), two factor authentication (its compatible with the Google Authenticator app), and subscribers can be notified of status changes via email. A great feature of Cachet is that its Web interface uses the Bootstrap framework so its fully responsive and looks great on tablets and smartphones.

For installation details youll need to go to the Cachet GitHub repo and the publishers, Alt Three Services Limited, also provide installation support starting at a (crazy low, low) price of $149 with discounts for education and non-profits. This is a fantastic tool and really easy to install, configure, and use. Highly recommended.

Lightning: Interactive Data Visualization

While a status page is great for basic updates, when you want to show more complex information, such the scope of equipment outages in a large network, youre going to want to use a visualization and thats what Lightning was designed for.

Lightning, released under the MIT license, is a complete data visualization system that:

 provides API-based access to reproducible, web-based visualizations. It can be deployed in many ways, including Heroku, Docker, a public server, a local app for OS X  and even a server-less version well-suited to notebooks like Jupyter. It comes bundled with a core set of visualizations, but is built to support custom ones. / Lightning can expose a single visualization to all the languages of data science. Client libraries are available in multiple languages, including [Python, Scala, JavaScript, and R] with more coming soon.

A collection of example Lightning visualizations is available. Very impressive.

Dashing: A Dashboard Framework

Since were talking about displaying information Ill include Dashing which describes itself as The exceptionally handsome dashboard framework and it is! As of 2015, Dashing maintenance ended but as its been in production and polished for years, its stable and usable. Dashing, created by Shopify, is free, open source software released under the MIT license and was based on Sinatra:

a free and open source software web application library and domain-specific language written in Ruby. It is an alternative to other Ruby web application frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Merb, Nitro, and Camping. It is dependent on the Rack web server interface  Sinatra is small and flexible. It does not follow the typical modelviewcontroller pattern used in other frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails. Instead, Sinatra focuses on "quickly creating web-applications in Ruby with minimal effort." - Wikipedia

Dashing builds on this framework and its features include:

These widgets use data bindings to keep things DRY (Dont Repeat Yourself) and simple, powered by The use of pre-made widgets or you can create new widgets with SCSS , HTML, and CoffeeScript These widgets use data bindings to keep things DRY (Dont Repeat Yourself) and simple, powered by batman.js (which is also no longer under development).

An API to push data to dashboards or you can make use of a simple Ruby Domain Specific Language for fetching data.

A drag and drop interface for re-arranging your widgets.

The ability to host dashboards on Heroku in less than 30 seconds.

This is an amazing piece of engineering and it would be hard to recommend its use if it wasnt for its existing large and enthusiastic community that provides advice, support, and a stream of new widgets.

Comments? Thoughts? Drop me a line then follow me on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for my new newsletter!
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Toyotas luxury brand Lexus on Friday launched three models, making an entry with these products in the Indian market ranging from Rs 55.27 lakh to Rs 1.07 crore to take on established brands in this segment such as Audi and Mercedes, which are already present in the country for more than a decade.

The Japanese car major aims to target Toyota customers, who are looking to upgrade, and luxury customers, with the launch of three models. It is the right time for Lexus to enter the Indian market so that our customers dont go to other brands The Indian luxury customers are growing and it is part of our future strategy to tap them, said Yoshihiro Sawa, president, Lexus International.

Its four dealerships - Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bengaluru will soon offer these models and will follow it up with service centres at Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi, the company official said.

The firm has priced Lexus RX Hybrid model at Rs 1.07 crore, RX F Sport hybrid at Rs 1.09 crore and ES 300H hybrid sedan priced at Rs 55.27 lakh (all prices ex-showroom). The company also unveiled its top end SUV LX450d, but has held back its prices to be announced with its fifth-generation Lexus LS to be available in India from next year.

The company officials were not yet keen to manufacture these products locally in India and said they watch the market conditions. Till then, parts will be imported from Japan. Our pricing position is higher than JLR or German brands. We havent set a sales target as such and would like to create Lexus brand in the country, said Akitoshi Takemura, senior vice-president, Lexus India.

CHENNAI: Toyotas luxury brand Lexus on Friday launched three models, making an entry with these products in the Indian market ranging from Rs 55.27 lakh to Rs 1.07 crore to take on established brands in this segment such as Audi and Mercedes, which are already present in the country for more than a decade. The Japanese car major aims to target Toyota customers, who are looking to upgrade, and luxury customers, with the launch of three models. It is the right time for Lexus to enter the Indian market so that our customers dont go to other brands The Indian luxury customers are growing and it is part of our future strategy to tap them, said Yoshihiro Sawa, president, Lexus International. Its four dealerships - Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bengaluru will soon offer these models and will follow it up with service centres at Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi, the company official said. The firm has priced Lexus RX Hybrid model at Rs 1.07 crore, RX F Sport hybrid at Rs 1.09 crore and ES 300H hybrid sedan priced at Rs 55.27 lakh (all prices ex-showroom). The company also unveiled its top end SUV LX450d, but has held back its prices to be announced with its fifth-generation Lexus LS to be available in India from next year. The company officials were not yet keen to manufacture these products locally in India and said they watch the market conditions. Till then, parts will be imported from Japan. Our pricing position is higher than JLR or German brands. We havent set a sales target as such and would like to create Lexus brand in the country, said Akitoshi Takemura, senior vice-president, Lexus India.
A Sharadhaa By

Express News Service

National Award-winning actor Prakash Raj does not need to trumpet his talent. He knows he has it and so does his audience, and it has been acknowledged across the globe. When this years opening episode of Weekend with Ramesh Season 3 goes on air, with Prakash as the guest, the audience will be in for a surprise.



Although Prakash will be talking about his journey and will hear friends and associates sharing memories with and thoughts on him as is the regular format of the show. The highlight will be a video chat with none other than the legendary Hollywood director, Steven Spielberg.



In a conversation with City Express, Prakash says that he has always been a Spielberg fan even from his childhood, and he got an opportunity to meet the director five years ago in Mumbai when he visited Anil Ambanis residence. According to him, it was a very moving experience and he was overwhelmed to learn that the director was familiar with his work, after the acclaimed 2008 Tamil film Kanchivaram.

Prakash Raj



They had hosted a dinner for the director. I and Kamal Haasan were invited from the southern film industry, says Prakash. I had worked in Singham, distributed by Reliance. Tina Ambani introduced me to the filmmaker saying I am an interesting actor, an entertainer and a great comedian.

But Steven looked at me and said I see a lot of pain in his eyes and asked me whether I had portrayed a weavers character in a film, and I said Yes, in Kanchivaram. I got to know that he had watched it at the Toronto Film Festival and associated the film with the expression in my eyes. It was a sweet gesture and it moved me.



Prakash says that this again is another great opportunity to connect with Steven, over a video chat. The makers of Weekend with Ramesh show came to know of my meeting with Steven and got in touch with him. He sent messages that surprised me, and there were tears of joy. It was an unbelievable moment, he says.



Prakash says that, in his video message, Steven did not call him an actor, but addressed him as a talent, a contributor and a global collective artist. It was a moment of joy because it came from a legend across borders, he says. I am humbled and will never forget those moments.



The actor-filmmaker is currently busy re-writing the script of Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu, to be made in Tamil and Telugu, while he is gearing up to be part of the Bollywood movie Golmaal Again. I am also busy with the Producers Council election, held in Chennai and I am contesting. This apart I am dedicating some time for my foundation, he says.

National Award-winning actor Prakash Raj does not need to trumpet his talent. He knows he has it and so does his audience, and it has been acknowledged across the globe. When this years opening episode of Weekend with Ramesh Season 3 goes on air, with Prakash as the guest, the audience will be in for a surprise. Although Prakash will be talking about his journey and will hear friends and associates sharing memories with and thoughts on him as is the regular format of the show. The highlight will be a video chat with none other than the legendary Hollywood director, Steven Spielberg. In a conversation with City Express, Prakash says that he has always been a Spielberg fan even from his childhood, and he got an opportunity to meet the director five years ago in Mumbai when he visited Anil Ambanis residence. According to him, it was a very moving experience and he was overwhelmed to learn that the director was familiar with his work, after the acclaimed 2008 Tamil film Kanchivaram. Prakash Raj They had hosted a dinner for the director. I and Kamal Haasan were invited from the southern film industry, says Prakash. I had worked in Singham, distributed by Reliance. Tina Ambani introduced me to the filmmaker saying I am an interesting actor, an entertainer and a great comedian. But Steven looked at me and said I see a lot of pain in his eyes and asked me whether I had portrayed a weavers character in a film, and I said Yes, in Kanchivaram. I got to know that he had watched it at the Toronto Film Festival and associated the film with the expression in my eyes. It was a sweet gesture and it moved me. Prakash says that this again is another great opportunity to connect with Steven, over a video chat. The makers of Weekend with Ramesh show came to know of my meeting with Steven and got in touch with him. He sent messages that surprised me, and there were tears of joy. It was an unbelievable moment, he says. Prakash says that, in his video message, Steven did not call him an actor, but addressed him as a talent, a contributor and a global collective artist. It was a moment of joy because it came from a legend across borders, he says. I am humbled and will never forget those moments. The actor-filmmaker is currently busy re-writing the script of Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu, to be made in Tamil and Telugu, while he is gearing up to be part of the Bollywood movie Golmaal Again. I am also busy with the Producers Council election, held in Chennai and I am contesting. This apart I am dedicating some time for my foundation, he says.
By PTI

CHENNAI: Actress Kajal Aggarwal says it was great to collaborate with Tamil star Ajith for the first time in "Vivegam".

"The film has a lovely story and I'm very excited to work with Ajith sir, who is a wonderful person. He is a powerhouse of talent and I'm really happy to be associating with him in this project," Kajal told PTI.

The Siva-directed movie will revolve around the relationship of a husband and wife. It is being produced by Sathya Jyothi Films.

"I play a proper Tamilian girl. The film focuses on the husband-wife relationship and the outcome has been great so far. I'm really happy working with the entire team. I will join the sets for the final leg of the shoot in Bulgaria."

Kajal started the year on a high note with the success of megastar Chiranjeevi-starrer Telugu film "Khaidi No 150".

"It was very nice working with Chiranjeevi gaaru. He's a legend and it's a pleasure to have acted opposite him. We had already seen the film in Tamil ('Kaththi') and everyone loved Vijay's performance. So, I was happy to be part of the Telugu remake of this particular film."

The actress completed a decade in the industry and says it has been a huge learning experience.

"It's been great. It's been a huge learning experience.

There have been ups and downs. I have learned from my mistakes and I'm just trying to improve in every film that I do."

Kajal is also delighted about her different role in director Atlee's "Vijay 61", where she will pair up with Tamil star Vijay for the third time in her career.

"Atlee is known for penning fabulous role for girls. His actresses have a lot of potential and good character arcs. My role has shaped very well. You will see an extremely different Kajal on screen. It is my third collaboration with Vijay after 'Thuppakki' and 'Jilla'," says Kajal.

The actress denied reports that she has signed Tamil director Deekay's next comedy to rest.

"I know Deekay is working on a script. We are good friends. But, I have neither heard the script nor has he approached me.

CHENNAI: Actress Kajal Aggarwal says it was great to collaborate with Tamil star Ajith for the first time in "Vivegam". "The film has a lovely story and I'm very excited to work with Ajith sir, who is a wonderful person. He is a powerhouse of talent and I'm really happy to be associating with him in this project," Kajal told PTI. The Siva-directed movie will revolve around the relationship of a husband and wife. It is being produced by Sathya Jyothi Films. "I play a proper Tamilian girl. The film focuses on the husband-wife relationship and the outcome has been great so far. I'm really happy working with the entire team. I will join the sets for the final leg of the shoot in Bulgaria." Kajal started the year on a high note with the success of megastar Chiranjeevi-starrer Telugu film "Khaidi No 150". "It was very nice working with Chiranjeevi gaaru. He's a legend and it's a pleasure to have acted opposite him. We had already seen the film in Tamil ('Kaththi') and everyone loved Vijay's performance. So, I was happy to be part of the Telugu remake of this particular film." The actress completed a decade in the industry and says it has been a huge learning experience. "It's been great. It's been a huge learning experience. There have been ups and downs. I have learned from my mistakes and I'm just trying to improve in every film that I do." Kajal is also delighted about her different role in director Atlee's "Vijay 61", where she will pair up with Tamil star Vijay for the third time in her career. "Atlee is known for penning fabulous role for girls. His actresses have a lot of potential and good character arcs. My role has shaped very well. You will see an extremely different Kajal on screen. It is my third collaboration with Vijay after 'Thuppakki' and 'Jilla'," says Kajal. The actress denied reports that she has signed Tamil director Deekay's next comedy to rest. "I know Deekay is working on a script. We are good friends. But, I have neither heard the script nor has he approached me.
Sudarshan Purohit By

Express News Service

If you look closely, no life is ordinary. The geopolitics of the past, the social upheavals that took place, the pointing finger of chance that choose this or that person, all these mark each life as unique. By the same token, each life contains traces of their times, and one person could potentially reflect the history of a period. Literary fiction writers have used this technique for long.

But Ayyas Accounts, by Anand Pandian and M P Mariappan, uses this approach to tell a real life story. Mariappan, the Ayya of the title, is Anands grandfather, and in this book, the grandson and the grandfather alternating narration, takes us through a tumultuous life lived in tumultuous times.

From a poor childhood in rural Tamil Nadu, Mariappan travels to Burma with his father, who is settled in a town near Rangoon. He eventually starts up a store business there and begins to prosper. These are good times for Indians in British-controlled Burma.

Ayyas Accounts

By: Anand Pandian and

M P Mariappan

Publisher: Indiana

University Press

Price: `399; Pages: 232

However, with World War II looming, most of them are forced to travel back to India by roada harrowing journey of 1,700 miles, through jungles and barely-there roads. He arrives at Pudur in TN and struggles to reclaim his life, eventually getting married, moving to Madurai, and starting a fruit business.



Mariappan becomes secure only after this business prospers. However, as each of his children gets settled in life and inevitably moves away with better job prospects, he finds himself dealing with a new globalised world where ones family is no more contained in a village or town. The lessons learned through his life stand him in good stead and he is the guiding light for the younger folks.



Put blandly, this could be every mans story. But thats the point the joint authors are makingthat even a normal life has drama in it. In one way or another, every reader will see something of himself or his family in this book. Mariappans story stands also for the growth of a nation.

Most of us Indians who are now successful in life owe it to much poorer parents and grandparents who struggled to improve their lot. Where building your own home was once the biggest worry for couples in the years before liberalisation, now the stories related to emigration and time zones occupy mind space.

Mariappan never claims to be extraordinary in any way, or does his grandson. He admits to bits of cheating in his business dealings. He admits that he wasnt home enough for his children, and even that he isnt as educated or as smart as hed like to be. But, he says, this is the way of the world he lived in. He is proving himself to be a normal man.

The book comes off as slightly confused at pointsjust when you are settling into the autobiographical narrative, it shifts to detailed anthropological analysis. And then back. Most readers may prefer one or the other. Let this not detract you from reading this book, however, both views are interesting.

If you look closely, no life is ordinary. The geopolitics of the past, the social upheavals that took place, the pointing finger of chance that choose this or that person, all these mark each life as unique. By the same token, each life contains traces of their times, and one person could potentially reflect the history of a period. Literary fiction writers have used this technique for long. But Ayyas Accounts, by Anand Pandian and M P Mariappan, uses this approach to tell a real life story. Mariappan, the Ayya of the title, is Anands grandfather, and in this book, the grandson and the grandfather alternating narration, takes us through a tumultuous life lived in tumultuous times. From a poor childhood in rural Tamil Nadu, Mariappan travels to Burma with his father, who is settled in a town near Rangoon. He eventually starts up a store business there and begins to prosper. These are good times for Indians in British-controlled Burma. Ayyas Accounts By: Anand Pandian and M P Mariappan Publisher: Indiana University Press Price: `399; Pages: 232However, with World War II looming, most of them are forced to travel back to India by roada harrowing journey of 1,700 miles, through jungles and barely-there roads. He arrives at Pudur in TN and struggles to reclaim his life, eventually getting married, moving to Madurai, and starting a fruit business. Mariappan becomes secure only after this business prospers. However, as each of his children gets settled in life and inevitably moves away with better job prospects, he finds himself dealing with a new globalised world where ones family is no more contained in a village or town. The lessons learned through his life stand him in good stead and he is the guiding light for the younger folks. Put blandly, this could be every mans story. But thats the point the joint authors are makingthat even a normal life has drama in it. In one way or another, every reader will see something of himself or his family in this book. Mariappans story stands also for the growth of a nation. Most of us Indians who are now successful in life owe it to much poorer parents and grandparents who struggled to improve their lot. Where building your own home was once the biggest worry for couples in the years before liberalisation, now the stories related to emigration and time zones occupy mind space. Mariappan never claims to be extraordinary in any way, or does his grandson. He admits to bits of cheating in his business dealings. He admits that he wasnt home enough for his children, and even that he isnt as educated or as smart as hed like to be. But, he says, this is the way of the world he lived in. He is proving himself to be a normal man. The book comes off as slightly confused at pointsjust when you are settling into the autobiographical narrative, it shifts to detailed anthropological analysis. And then back. Most readers may prefer one or the other. Let this not detract you from reading this book, however, both views are interesting.
Track two talks with Pakistan is fast becoming a profitable cottage industry in this country. This peace talks lobby felt that our surgical strike and fire assaults that had chastised Pakistan last year was just a brave flash in the pan and we could now return to the track two dialogue in a business-as-usual mould. It mattered little to them that Pakistans ISI had simply switched tactics and was now using Islamic State fronts, and local Maoists and criminals to sabotage our 1,20,000-km rail network.

In November last year, 150 Indians were killed and 200 wounded in a serious act of rail sabotage in Kanpur. This was virtually equivalent of another Mumbai 26/11. It was sought to be buried under the carpet. Three MPs recently reached Islamabad to signal all was well once more. Possibly Uncle Sam had given the nudge and nod, and the doves were straining to fly to Islamabad in droves. Setting the stage were activists such as Gurmehar Kaur who informed us with a flourish of cards that not Pakistan but war had killed her father. It was time to make peace and the only way to establish it was to gift the Valley to Pakistan on a platter! The Ramjas College fracas now makes much more sense in hindsight.

In 1998, Prime Minister Vajpayee and members of his Cabinet had ridden the peace bus to Lahore. It was a grand gesture like Neville Chamberlains (the British PM who had returned to England from Berlin crowing Peace in our times. A year later the Second World War had started). In our case, the Kargil War started just six months later in May 1999. Pakistanis have developed back-stabbing into a fine art. The Americans push us into peace talks and the Pakistanis enjoy humiliating us. Even as our Parliamentarians were popping the champagne in Islamabad, the Pakistani Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination grandly announced to Geo TV that a committee headed by Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Ajiz had recommended that Gilgit-Baltistan be incorporated as the fifth State of Pakistan (in addition to Punjab, Pashtunkhwa, Sindh and POK).

The Pak Constitution, he said, would be duly amended soon. It was a highly premeditated and outrageous provocationa virtual slap in the face and a brazen attempt to turn de-facto occupation of Indian territory into de-jure ownership. Our Parliamentarians should have flown back the very next day to register our protest. All that we got were rather feeble and anaemic statements from our foreign ministry. It had the air of deja vu. In the 1950s, China had simply gone ahead and built the Aksai-Chin highway through Indian territory. It took us nearly three years to even find out that such a road had been built in our area. In 2016, China announced the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with great fanfare and has built the road alignments through Indian territory. Both China and Pakistan held Indian sovereignty over J&K in utter contempt. All we can manage in return is anaemic whimpers of futile protest.

Pakistan claims J&K is a disputed territory. Gilgit- Baltistan is part of J&K and Pakistan never tires of saying the case of J&K is before the UN Security Council. Yet it can unilaterally alter the status of Gilgit- Baltistan. Does it consider India such a weak and pusillanimous state? The onus of asserting and restoring our sovereignty over POK and Gilgit-Baltistan is squarely on India. China is using Pakistan to keep India bullied, cowed down and wholly preoccupied in South Asia. If things go on in this fashion, India will be left with little option but to deal militarily with a Pakistan, whose asymmetric adventurism and provocations scale new heights each passing month.

Meanwhile, defence and modernisation of the armed forces seem to be slipping dangerously in our list of priorities. State politics of Goa take precedence over national security and a sensitive portfolio like defence is left to be tenemented by a part-time defence minister who is burdened with a crucial portfolio like Finance. The unfortunate impression given out is that national defence is among our lowest priority. As a percentile of the GDP, our defence budget has fallen to 1.6 per cent. This drift in defence could have serious long-term consequences. In 1962, our political elite had reached the firm conclusion that wars could just not happen anymore. After the disaster of 1962, we have had to fight three major conventional wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999. If despite this, we refuse to learn lessons and prepare ourselves for the possibilities of conflict, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Should Pakistan declare Gilgit- Baltistan its fifth state, India must abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution to begin with. The problem in J&K is primarily rabidly communal. It has been an extended communal riot with terrorist violence, ethnic cleansing and arson of secular schools. We have allowed it to go on under the rubric of a freedom struggle and now free speech for seven decades. It was a tragic mistake to thin out troops from South Kashmir and move them to the borders under the pressure of human rights enthusiasts and votaries of a political solution. We must check this dangerous drift in matters of national security.

Maj. Gen. (Retd) G D Bakshi

War veteran and strategic analyst

gagandeep. bakshi@yahoo.com

Track two talks with Pakistan is fast becoming a profitable cottage industry in this country. This peace talks lobby felt that our surgical strike and fire assaults that had chastised Pakistan last year was just a brave flash in the pan and we could now return to the track two dialogue in a business-as-usual mould. It mattered little to them that Pakistans ISI had simply switched tactics and was now using Islamic State fronts, and local Maoists and criminals to sabotage our 1,20,000-km rail network. In November last year, 150 Indians were killed and 200 wounded in a serious act of rail sabotage in Kanpur. This was virtually equivalent of another Mumbai 26/11. It was sought to be buried under the carpet. Three MPs recently reached Islamabad to signal all was well once more. Possibly Uncle Sam had given the nudge and nod, and the doves were straining to fly to Islamabad in droves. Setting the stage were activists such as Gurmehar Kaur who informed us with a flourish of cards that not Pakistan but war had killed her father. It was time to make peace and the only way to establish it was to gift the Valley to Pakistan on a platter! The Ramjas College fracas now makes much more sense in hindsight. In 1998, Prime Minister Vajpayee and members of his Cabinet had ridden the peace bus to Lahore. It was a grand gesture like Neville Chamberlains (the British PM who had returned to England from Berlin crowing Peace in our times. A year later the Second World War had started). In our case, the Kargil War started just six months later in May 1999. Pakistanis have developed back-stabbing into a fine art. The Americans push us into peace talks and the Pakistanis enjoy humiliating us. Even as our Parliamentarians were popping the champagne in Islamabad, the Pakistani Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination grandly announced to Geo TV that a committee headed by Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Ajiz had recommended that Gilgit-Baltistan be incorporated as the fifth State of Pakistan (in addition to Punjab, Pashtunkhwa, Sindh and POK). The Pak Constitution, he said, would be duly amended soon. It was a highly premeditated and outrageous provocationa virtual slap in the face and a brazen attempt to turn de-facto occupation of Indian territory into de-jure ownership. Our Parliamentarians should have flown back the very next day to register our protest. All that we got were rather feeble and anaemic statements from our foreign ministry. It had the air of deja vu. In the 1950s, China had simply gone ahead and built the Aksai-Chin highway through Indian territory. It took us nearly three years to even find out that such a road had been built in our area. In 2016, China announced the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with great fanfare and has built the road alignments through Indian territory. Both China and Pakistan held Indian sovereignty over J&K in utter contempt. All we can manage in return is anaemic whimpers of futile protest. Pakistan claims J&K is a disputed territory. Gilgit- Baltistan is part of J&K and Pakistan never tires of saying the case of J&K is before the UN Security Council. Yet it can unilaterally alter the status of Gilgit- Baltistan. Does it consider India such a weak and pusillanimous state? The onus of asserting and restoring our sovereignty over POK and Gilgit-Baltistan is squarely on India. China is using Pakistan to keep India bullied, cowed down and wholly preoccupied in South Asia. If things go on in this fashion, India will be left with little option but to deal militarily with a Pakistan, whose asymmetric adventurism and provocations scale new heights each passing month. Meanwhile, defence and modernisation of the armed forces seem to be slipping dangerously in our list of priorities. State politics of Goa take precedence over national security and a sensitive portfolio like defence is left to be tenemented by a part-time defence minister who is burdened with a crucial portfolio like Finance. The unfortunate impression given out is that national defence is among our lowest priority. As a percentile of the GDP, our defence budget has fallen to 1.6 per cent. This drift in defence could have serious long-term consequences. In 1962, our political elite had reached the firm conclusion that wars could just not happen anymore. After the disaster of 1962, we have had to fight three major conventional wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999. If despite this, we refuse to learn lessons and prepare ourselves for the possibilities of conflict, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. Should Pakistan declare Gilgit- Baltistan its fifth state, India must abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution to begin with. The problem in J&K is primarily rabidly communal. It has been an extended communal riot with terrorist violence, ethnic cleansing and arson of secular schools. We have allowed it to go on under the rubric of a freedom struggle and now free speech for seven decades. It was a tragic mistake to thin out troops from South Kashmir and move them to the borders under the pressure of human rights enthusiasts and votaries of a political solution. We must check this dangerous drift in matters of national security. Maj. Gen. (Retd) G D Bakshi War veteran and strategic analyst gagandeep. bakshi@yahoo.com
By ANI

BIKANER: Asserting that Rajasthan despite having a woman Chief Minister in Vasundhara Raje is not able to provide security to the feminine gender of the state, Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Saturday expressed concern over the Bikaner rape case and demanded a check on all anti-social elements.

In Rajasthan we have a Chief Minister who is a woman. Being a woman Chief Minister, she is not able to give a sense of security to our sisters and mothers and ladies who live in the state, Pilot told ANI.

Highlighting that Rajasthan ranks number three in all states of India where incidents like rapes, molestations and exploitation of women are on the rise, Pilot asked the state government to keep a check on all anti-social elements so that such untoward incidents so not occur again.

The matter came to the fore after the minor girl's father alleged that his daughter was raped by eight teachers of a private school who also made a video of the heinous act.

The alleged incident occurred in April 2015 and the FIR was registered on Friday after the girl's father gave a complaint to the police.

BIKANER: Asserting that Rajasthan despite having a woman Chief Minister in Vasundhara Raje is not able to provide security to the feminine gender of the state, Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Saturday expressed concern over the Bikaner rape case and demanded a check on all anti-social elements. In Rajasthan we have a Chief Minister who is a woman. Being a woman Chief Minister, she is not able to give a sense of security to our sisters and mothers and ladies who live in the state, Pilot told ANI. Highlighting that Rajasthan ranks number three in all states of India where incidents like rapes, molestations and exploitation of women are on the rise, Pilot asked the state government to keep a check on all anti-social elements so that such untoward incidents so not occur again. The matter came to the fore after the minor girl's father alleged that his daughter was raped by eight teachers of a private school who also made a video of the heinous act. The alleged incident occurred in April 2015 and the FIR was registered on Friday after the girl's father gave a complaint to the police.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The CBI has booked four former officials of Syndicate Bank and six other people, including a Jaipur-based builder in a case of graft, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy and for causing loss of Rs 209 crore to the bank.

The agency on Saturday conducted searches at four locations the premises of the accused persons at Jaipur and Ajmer.

It was alleged in the complaint that the said accused in a criminal conspiracy availed home loans and credit facilities from Jaipur and Udaipur branches of Syndicate Bank on the basis of forged and fabricated documents. The funds so disbursed by Syndicate Bank were diverted and fraudulently siphoned off to the companies owned by accused persons, thereby causing an alleged loss to the bank, a CBI spokesperson said.

The accused persons in the case include former Assistant General Managers A K Tiwari and Adarsh Manchanda besides former Chief Managers Deshraj Meena and Santosh Gupta, official sources said. Besides bank officials, chartered accountant Bharat Bomb, his brother-in-law Pavitra Kothari, and Bomb's employees Vineet Jain and Piyush Jain have also been named as accused persons in the case, the sources said.

Other accused in the case include builder Anoop Bhartiya, who has constructed the World Trade Park in Jaipur and Shankar Lal Khandelwal. The agency carried out searches at Bhartiya's premises in Jaipur and Kothari's residence and office in Ajmer.

Bomb, who is considered the mastermind in the alleged cheating case, is facing another CBI case and is presently undergoing judicial custody in the case since March, 2016. The other case in which Bomb is an accused was registered in March last year and the agency has filed a chargesheet.

NEW DELHI: The CBI has booked four former officials of Syndicate Bank and six other people, including a Jaipur-based builder in a case of graft, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy and for causing loss of Rs 209 crore to the bank. The agency on Saturday conducted searches at four locations the premises of the accused persons at Jaipur and Ajmer. It was alleged in the complaint that the said accused in a criminal conspiracy availed home loans and credit facilities from Jaipur and Udaipur branches of Syndicate Bank on the basis of forged and fabricated documents. The funds so disbursed by Syndicate Bank were diverted and fraudulently siphoned off to the companies owned by accused persons, thereby causing an alleged loss to the bank, a CBI spokesperson said. The accused persons in the case include former Assistant General Managers A K Tiwari and Adarsh Manchanda besides former Chief Managers Deshraj Meena and Santosh Gupta, official sources said. Besides bank officials, chartered accountant Bharat Bomb, his brother-in-law Pavitra Kothari, and Bomb's employees Vineet Jain and Piyush Jain have also been named as accused persons in the case, the sources said. Other accused in the case include builder Anoop Bhartiya, who has constructed the World Trade Park in Jaipur and Shankar Lal Khandelwal. The agency carried out searches at Bhartiya's premises in Jaipur and Kothari's residence and office in Ajmer. Bomb, who is considered the mastermind in the alleged cheating case, is facing another CBI case and is presently undergoing judicial custody in the case since March, 2016. The other case in which Bomb is an accused was registered in March last year and the agency has filed a chargesheet.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said India has urged the United States to provide details of the cases of 271 illegal immigrants whom Washington wants New Delhi to take back.

This is an ongoing matter. The U.S. authorities had conveyed to us sometime back that out of certain statistics provided to them earlier, 271 cases remained to be addressed. However, no details of these cases were provided. We have asked for the same, MEA official spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

The Trump administration recently informed India that it is targeting for deportation more than 270 Indian nationals living in the United States illegally, the Washington Post reported.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during a question period in Rajya Sabha yesterday said that the Indian Government has asked for further information from Washington before allowing deportations.

There is growing concern in India over treatment of its citizens in the United States after a high-profile shooting of an Indian computer engineer in Olathe, Kan., in February, and other suspected hate crimes.

The revised ban was announced this month and would have banned people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days.

Unlike the previous executive order, the revised one removed Iraq from the list of banned countries, exempted those with green cards and visas, and removed a provision that arguably prioritizes certain religious minorities.

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said India has urged the United States to provide details of the cases of 271 illegal immigrants whom Washington wants New Delhi to take back. This is an ongoing matter. The U.S. authorities had conveyed to us sometime back that out of certain statistics provided to them earlier, 271 cases remained to be addressed. However, no details of these cases were provided. We have asked for the same, MEA official spokesperson Gopal Baglay said. The Trump administration recently informed India that it is targeting for deportation more than 270 Indian nationals living in the United States illegally, the Washington Post reported. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during a question period in Rajya Sabha yesterday said that the Indian Government has asked for further information from Washington before allowing deportations. There is growing concern in India over treatment of its citizens in the United States after a high-profile shooting of an Indian computer engineer in Olathe, Kan., in February, and other suspected hate crimes. The revised ban was announced this month and would have banned people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days. Unlike the previous executive order, the revised one removed Iraq from the list of banned countries, exempted those with green cards and visas, and removed a provision that arguably prioritizes certain religious minorities.
Sanjib Kumar Roy By

Express News Service

PORT BLAIR: A massive unexploded bomb was found at Mayabunder region of North Andaman on Friday, triggering large-scale curiosity among local residents.

The vintage bomb, as huge as an LPG cylinder, was found by construction workers of Mayabunder region, who were digging earth under a Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) project.

As soon as the matter was reported to the Mayabunder Police, the area was cordoned off and the bomb was brought to an open area and kept safely under close supervision of the Police Department.

It seems like a World War II bomb. The bomb disposal team of Indian Army has already been informed about it. They will come and dispose off this bomb. Till that time no one will be allowed to go close to the bomb for safety reasons, Ingit Pratap Singh, the Superintendent of Police, of North and Middle Andaman told TNIE on Friday.

He said that the Mayabunder Region has many Japanese bunkers, built during World War II and therefore it is possible that the rusted bomb is of that time.

Andaman and Nicobar Islands had witnessed several air raids from both British and Japanese Forces during World War II, before and during Japanese Occupation which was from 1942 to 1945.

On many occasions in the recent past such unexploded vintage World War II bombs were found in various corners of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The bomb is being disposed off by a team of marine commandos MARCOS.

MARCOS is a special operations unit of the Indian Navy which is trained to conduct highly specialised operations.

In 1942 during WWII, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were captured by the Japanese Forces but in 1945 these islands were again re-captured by British forces.

Bombs from the World War II era are frequently found in London, Germany and Japan.

Last month, schools and nearby homes were evacuated after a suspected Second World War bomb was discovered at a building site in London.

A huge cordon was put in place and roads were closed after the unexploded device was found near Brondesbury Park in Brent, north-west London. The army was called in to deal with the bomb while police and the fire service also remained on the scene while the bomb was detonated.

PORT BLAIR: A massive unexploded bomb was found at Mayabunder region of North Andaman on Friday, triggering large-scale curiosity among local residents. The vintage bomb, as huge as an LPG cylinder, was found by construction workers of Mayabunder region, who were digging earth under a Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) project. As soon as the matter was reported to the Mayabunder Police, the area was cordoned off and the bomb was brought to an open area and kept safely under close supervision of the Police Department. It seems like a World War II bomb. The bomb disposal team of Indian Army has already been informed about it. They will come and dispose off this bomb. Till that time no one will be allowed to go close to the bomb for safety reasons, Ingit Pratap Singh, the Superintendent of Police, of North and Middle Andaman told TNIE on Friday. He said that the Mayabunder Region has many Japanese bunkers, built during World War II and therefore it is possible that the rusted bomb is of that time. Andaman and Nicobar Islands had witnessed several air raids from both British and Japanese Forces during World War II, before and during Japanese Occupation which was from 1942 to 1945. On many occasions in the recent past such unexploded vintage World War II bombs were found in various corners of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The bomb is being disposed off by a team of marine commandos MARCOS. MARCOS is a special operations unit of the Indian Navy which is trained to conduct highly specialised operations. In 1942 during WWII, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were captured by the Japanese Forces but in 1945 these islands were again re-captured by British forces. Bombs from the World War II era are frequently found in London, Germany and Japan. Last month, schools and nearby homes were evacuated after a suspected Second World War bomb was discovered at a building site in London. A huge cordon was put in place and roads were closed after the unexploded device was found near Brondesbury Park in Brent, north-west London. The army was called in to deal with the bomb while police and the fire service also remained on the scene while the bomb was detonated.
By Express News Service

BHOPAL Over 50 blasts and raging fire were reported from an ordnance factory in Khamaria area of Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday evening. However, no casualty or injuries were reported.

Spread across 50 acres, the factory located 370 km from Bhopal is a defence ministry unit which is engaged in production of major ammunition, including the 125 mm anti-tank ammunition with Russian cooperation.

The series of blasts started at around 6.30 pm and led to fire, 90% of which was doused by dozens of fire tenders by 9 pm. Jabalpur district collector M Chaudhary, who was present at the spot with the SP MS Sikarwar, said that no casualty or injury had been caused by the incident. A probe would be launched into the incident soon, he said.

The district administration and police, however, were on alert all through the night outside the factory. The blasts and fire took place at F3 section of the factory, particularly in building 323 and 324, where major ammunition was stocked. As a precautionary measure, residents of some of the localities near the factory were shifted to safer places.

The Saturday evening incident took place just a day after three minor blasts took place at the ordnance factory at Itarsi town of Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh.

BHOPAL Over 50 blasts and raging fire were reported from an ordnance factory in Khamaria area of Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday evening. However, no casualty or injuries were reported. Spread across 50 acres, the factory located 370 km from Bhopal is a defence ministry unit which is engaged in production of major ammunition, including the 125 mm anti-tank ammunition with Russian cooperation. The series of blasts started at around 6.30 pm and led to fire, 90% of which was doused by dozens of fire tenders by 9 pm. Jabalpur district collector M Chaudhary, who was present at the spot with the SP MS Sikarwar, said that no casualty or injury had been caused by the incident. A probe would be launched into the incident soon, he said. The district administration and police, however, were on alert all through the night outside the factory. The blasts and fire took place at F3 section of the factory, particularly in building 323 and 324, where major ammunition was stocked. As a precautionary measure, residents of some of the localities near the factory were shifted to safer places. The Saturday evening incident took place just a day after three minor blasts took place at the ordnance factory at Itarsi town of Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh.
By Express News Service

On Thursday, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad roughed-up an Air India staffer after making a fuss about having had to fly economy class, rather than business class. The MPs behaviour just amplified the problems Indian flyers cause we dirty toilets, pinch stewardesses and display a crude sense of behaviour.

Airline crews, in fact, try to avoid the route if they can. Ingrained as we are with the paisa vasool attitude, we are also highly demanding, say airline staffers.

Molly Truitt, a Quora-user who describes herself as a flight attendant with Delta Airlines, says Indian passengers are very demanding, and at times rude and impatient.

She recounts one of her flying experiences when the captain asked everyone to take their seats due to bad weather and she could not serve an Indian passenger.

 I explained to him what the captain said and was moving forward to sit down when he asked me to get him a glass of water. I explained to him again what the captain said and that for my safety I needed to take my seat. He continued to say You need to get me a glass of water, other passengers got theirs. I purchased it with my plane ticket. I expect my service.

Truitt says she apologised but asserted she must follow the captains orders and take her seat.

 I sit down, we land and he walks off the plane and complains to the flight leader that I am racist because I didn't get him his water that he paid for, says Truitt.

Crudeness is another problem flight crew have to deal with. One example of it is soiled or blocked toilets. Quora user, Nuralia Mazlan, who claims to have worked for two airlines, says she has had colourful experiences with Indian passengers.

She bluntly states that those who cant speak proper English, do not know how to behave accordingly and appear like this is just like their home, barefooted everywhere and appear nonchalantly undisturbed by on-board etiquette.

She goes on to make an outrageous assertion: In certain cases, (they) think the lavatory comes with a view, (and) thus they will try to open aircraft door thinking it is the toilet.

Interestingly, Indians themselves have shown that they cannot stand misbehaviour during a flight and would like to confront things directly, though most prefer to address things through official channels. A 2017 Flight Etiquette study by Expedia, an online travel company, shows 69 per cent would alert the flight attendant directly and ask them to handle a passenger who is misbehaving while 30 per cent said they would confront the passenger directly.

High up on the list that Indian flight passengers find annoying are people (children mostly) who kick ones seat from the (henceforth called rear-seat kickers), heavy drinkers and loud talkers. But theyre forgiving of flirting singles and amorous couples.

On Thursday, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad roughed-up an Air India staffer after making a fuss about having had to fly economy class, rather than business class. The MPs behaviour just amplified the problems Indian flyers cause we dirty toilets, pinch stewardesses and display a crude sense of behaviour. Airline crews, in fact, try to avoid the route if they can. Ingrained as we are with the paisa vasool attitude, we are also highly demanding, say airline staffers. Molly Truitt, a Quora-user who describes herself as a flight attendant with Delta Airlines, says Indian passengers are very demanding, and at times rude and impatient. She recounts one of her flying experiences when the captain asked everyone to take their seats due to bad weather and she could not serve an Indian passenger. I explained to him what the captain said and was moving forward to sit down when he asked me to get him a glass of water. I explained to him again what the captain said and that for my safety I needed to take my seat. He continued to say You need to get me a glass of water, other passengers got theirs. I purchased it with my plane ticket. I expect my service. Truitt says she apologised but asserted she must follow the captains orders and take her seat. I sit down, we land and he walks off the plane and complains to the flight leader that I am racist because I didn't get him his water that he paid for, says Truitt. Crudeness is another problem flight crew have to deal with. One example of it is soiled or blocked toilets. Quora user, Nuralia Mazlan, who claims to have worked for two airlines, says she has had colourful experiences with Indian passengers. She bluntly states that those who cant speak proper English, do not know how to behave accordingly and appear like this is just like their home, barefooted everywhere and appear nonchalantly undisturbed by on-board etiquette. She goes on to make an outrageous assertion: In certain cases, (they) think the lavatory comes with a view, (and) thus they will try to open aircraft door thinking it is the toilet. Interestingly, Indians themselves have shown that they cannot stand misbehaviour during a flight and would like to confront things directly, though most prefer to address things through official channels. A 2017 Flight Etiquette study by Expedia, an online travel company, shows 69 per cent would alert the flight attendant directly and ask them to handle a passenger who is misbehaving while 30 per cent said they would confront the passenger directly. High up on the list that Indian flight passengers find annoying are people (children mostly) who kick ones seat from the (henceforth called rear-seat kickers), heavy drinkers and loud talkers. But theyre forgiving of flirting singles and amorous couples.
By Express News Service

LUCKNOW: An FIR has been registered against film maker Shirish Kunder, husband of Bollywood choreographer and director Farah Khan, with Hazratganj Police for alleged derogatory remarks against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and head priest of the Goraknath Math, Yogi Aditya Nath.



The FIR was registered on Friday based on a complaint filed by Amit Kumar Tiwari, Secretary of Thakurdwara Trust of Ayodhya, said Deputy SP Avnish Kumar Mishra.



Kunder had on Twitter said, "Hoping a goon will stop rioting once he's allowed to rule is like expecting a rapist to stop raping once he's allowed to rape (sic)".



In another tweet, he said "Going by the logic of making a goon as CM so that he behaves, Dawood can be CBI director. And Mallya - RBI Governor (sic)."



Kunder is the sixth person to be charged for speaking against Uttar Pradeshs chief minister.



Siliguri - Bengali Poet, Srijato Bandopadhyay, whose controversial poem Curse was uploaded on Facebook March 19, the day Adityanath entered office allegedly throws shade on the new UP CM, and according to the complainant Arnab Sarkar, hurts Hindu sentiments with its last line. An FIR was lodged against him on Tuesday, and he may face up to three years in jail.



In the last line of his controversial poem, Srijato writes, As long as women are raped by digging up their graves, condoms should be worn on trishuls. The poem was removed by Facebook on Saturday following a national uproar.



He was also slapped with non-bailable charges under Sections 295A (deliberate or malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 57 of Information Technology Act on Wednesday.



Ghazipur - A 25-year-old man was arrested on Monday for posting an objectionable photo of the CM, hours after his swearing in ceremony from a fake facebook account.



Badhshah Abdul Rzak uploaded the picture on Sunday night which immediately went viral on social media. Following the post, members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini gathered outside his residence in Professors colony in protest, and police had to rush to the scene.

Razak later confessed to uploading the image on Facebook during interrogation.



Bengaluru - Prabha N Belavangala was on Tuesday booked with criminal charges after she allegedly posted objectionable content about Yogi Adityanath on her Facebook page. BJPs Yuva Morcha members filed a case against her for uploading obscene, morphed and tampered images of the Yogi.



She was booked with IPC sections pertaining to defamation, promoting enmity on grounds of religion, conducing mischief besides offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000.



Noida - Two days later, Rahat Khan, 22, was arrested by Dankaur police and a case was lodged against him for posting an objectionable picture of the Yogi on social media. He had captioned it Yogi hai, ya bhogi hai.



The complaint was lodged by members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, an outfit founded by Adityanath. Khan was arrested under Sections 66A (Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service) of IT Act.



Mumbai - In another similar instance, a 19-year-old youth from Ghatkopar was arrested for posting a picture of a warrior king with Yogi Adityanaths face on Facebook. The post was seen by locals on Saturday night who immediately alerted the Sambhaji brigade, a Maratha group, who then barged into his house.



Rinku Gupta then deleted the post but was taken to Pant Nagar police station and put behind bars for hurting the sentiments of a community.

Bareilly - Mohammad Salman, 26, was arrested from Faridpur here for morphing and circulating the Yogis picture on Whatsapp.

He was arrested on Monday night after the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) lodged a complaint. Salman claimed he had only forwarded the picture he had received.

Sonbadhra - Shekhar Yadav was taken into custody on Monday night for sharing a picture of Adityanath on a messaging application. Some BJP workers lodged a complaint against him. Brijesh Shrivastava from Varanasi was arrested on similar grounds after the city chief of Hindu Yuva Vahini lodged a complaint against him.

LUCKNOW: An FIR has been registered against film maker Shirish Kunder, husband of Bollywood choreographer and director Farah Khan, with Hazratganj Police for alleged derogatory remarks against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and head priest of the Goraknath Math, Yogi Aditya Nath. The FIR was registered on Friday based on a complaint filed by Amit Kumar Tiwari, Secretary of Thakurdwara Trust of Ayodhya, said Deputy SP Avnish Kumar Mishra. Kunder had on Twitter said, "Hoping a goon will stop rioting once he's allowed to rule is like expecting a rapist to stop raping once he's allowed to rape (sic)". In another tweet, he said "Going by the logic of making a goon as CM so that he behaves, Dawood can be CBI director. And Mallya - RBI Governor (sic)." Kunder is the sixth person to be charged for speaking against Uttar Pradeshs chief minister. Siliguri - Bengali Poet, Srijato Bandopadhyay, whose controversial poem Curse was uploaded on Facebook March 19, the day Adityanath entered office allegedly throws shade on the new UP CM, and according to the complainant Arnab Sarkar, hurts Hindu sentiments with its last line. An FIR was lodged against him on Tuesday, and he may face up to three years in jail. In the last line of his controversial poem, Srijato writes, As long as women are raped by digging up their graves, condoms should be worn on trishuls. The poem was removed by Facebook on Saturday following a national uproar. He was also slapped with non-bailable charges under Sections 295A (deliberate or malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 57 of Information Technology Act on Wednesday.Ghazipur - A 25-year-old man was arrested on Monday for posting an objectionable photo of the CM, hours after his swearing in ceremony from a fake facebook account. Badhshah Abdul Rzak uploaded the picture on Sunday night which immediately went viral on social media. Following the post, members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini gathered outside his residence in Professors colony in protest, and police had to rush to the scene. Razak later confessed to uploading the image on Facebook during interrogation.Bengaluru - Prabha N Belavangala was on Tuesday booked with criminal charges after she allegedly posted objectionable content about Yogi Adityanath on her Facebook page. BJPs Yuva Morcha members filed a case against her for uploading obscene, morphed and tampered images of the Yogi. She was booked with IPC sections pertaining to defamation, promoting enmity on grounds of religion, conducing mischief besides offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000.Noida - Two days later, Rahat Khan, 22, was arrested by Dankaur police and a case was lodged against him for posting an objectionable picture of the Yogi on social media. He had captioned it Yogi hai, ya bhogi hai. The complaint was lodged by members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, an outfit founded by Adityanath. Khan was arrested under Sections 66A (Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service) of IT Act.Mumbai - In another similar instance, a 19-year-old youth from Ghatkopar was arrested for posting a picture of a warrior king with Yogi Adityanaths face on Facebook. The post was seen by locals on Saturday night who immediately alerted the Sambhaji brigade, a Maratha group, who then barged into his house. Rinku Gupta then deleted the post but was taken to Pant Nagar police station and put behind bars for hurting the sentiments of a community. Bareilly - Mohammad Salman, 26, was arrested from Faridpur here for morphing and circulating the Yogis picture on Whatsapp. He was arrested on Monday night after the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) lodged a complaint. Salman claimed he had only forwarded the picture he had received. Sonbadhra - Shekhar Yadav was taken into custody on Monday night for sharing a picture of Adityanath on a messaging application. Some BJP workers lodged a complaint against him. Brijesh Shrivastava from Varanasi was arrested on similar grounds after the city chief of Hindu Yuva Vahini lodged a complaint against him.
Suraksha P By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: The Lok Sabha on Friday took up the Mental Healthcare Bill, 2016, which makes provision for protecting, promoting and fulfilling the rights of persons in delivery of mental healthcare and services.



Further discussion on the Bill will be taken up on Monday. The Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in August 2016.



On the mental healthcare front there is a yawning 70 per cent treatment gap in Karnataka. Under the National Mental Health Programme, district mental health programmes are implemented. Karnataka did not gear up well towards the implementation of National Mental Health Programme initially although now things are changing, assured Rajani H M, deputy director, mental health, Department of Health and Family Welfare.



She told Express, From 2004 to 2015, only four districts had implemented the district mental health programme. The National Mental Health Survey said that the lifetime prevalence of mental illness is around 13.9 per cent.

This is higher than non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension. In 2016-17, we have expanded the programme to all districts. We have trained 3,000 doctors in PHCs to identify mental illness and start treatment.

There are 25 psychiatrists working under district mental health programme. A few districts like Yadgir, Ballari, Chamarajanagar and Kalaburagi where we dont have psychiatrists in the programme, we are assisted by those in medical colleges and district hospitals, she added.



In 2014, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had also inaugurated Mano Chaitanya and Manasadhara schemes to provide free treatment, counselling and rehabilitation for people with mental disorders. Of the 18 Manasadhara centres, four are non-functional now due to poor footfall.



Under Mano Chaitanya, on select Tuesdays, district mental health programme psychiatrist or district hospital psychiatrist, goes to taluk hospitals and caters to the mentally ill. Manasadhara centres are for rehabilitation of chronically mentally ill. They are taught candle making, match making and computer skills, depending on their ability.



Some of the Mano Chaithanya clinics are not that great, so we are including Indian Psychiatric Society in such clinics, said Rajani. Manochaitanya programme runs in 139 taluk hospitals.

This year, `1.94-crore has been allocated for Manasadhara scheme, which is an increase from the previous two years.



Launched in October 2014, it first got a budgetary allocation of `3.4 crore because it was a new programme. Thereafter it got only `1.01 crore for the next two years.

BENGALURU: The Lok Sabha on Friday took up the Mental Healthcare Bill, 2016, which makes provision for protecting, promoting and fulfilling the rights of persons in delivery of mental healthcare and services. Further discussion on the Bill will be taken up on Monday. The Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in August 2016. On the mental healthcare front there is a yawning 70 per cent treatment gap in Karnataka. Under the National Mental Health Programme, district mental health programmes are implemented. Karnataka did not gear up well towards the implementation of National Mental Health Programme initially although now things are changing, assured Rajani H M, deputy director, mental health, Department of Health and Family Welfare. She told Express, From 2004 to 2015, only four districts had implemented the district mental health programme. The National Mental Health Survey said that the lifetime prevalence of mental illness is around 13.9 per cent. This is higher than non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension. In 2016-17, we have expanded the programme to all districts. We have trained 3,000 doctors in PHCs to identify mental illness and start treatment. There are 25 psychiatrists working under district mental health programme. A few districts like Yadgir, Ballari, Chamarajanagar and Kalaburagi where we dont have psychiatrists in the programme, we are assisted by those in medical colleges and district hospitals, she added. In 2014, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had also inaugurated Mano Chaitanya and Manasadhara schemes to provide free treatment, counselling and rehabilitation for people with mental disorders. Of the 18 Manasadhara centres, four are non-functional now due to poor footfall. Under Mano Chaitanya, on select Tuesdays, district mental health programme psychiatrist or district hospital psychiatrist, goes to taluk hospitals and caters to the mentally ill. Manasadhara centres are for rehabilitation of chronically mentally ill. They are taught candle making, match making and computer skills, depending on their ability. Some of the Mano Chaithanya clinics are not that great, so we are including Indian Psychiatric Society in such clinics, said Rajani. Manochaitanya programme runs in 139 taluk hospitals. This year, `1.94-crore has been allocated for Manasadhara scheme, which is an increase from the previous two years. Launched in October 2014, it first got a budgetary allocation of `3.4 crore because it was a new programme. Thereafter it got only `1.01 crore for the next two years.
By Express News Service

KOPPAL : A jilted lover slit the throat of a girl and set her ablaze by pouring petrol near Kushtagi in Koppal district on Saturday morning. She was admitted to a hospital, but succumed to her injuries in the night.

The deceased has been identified as Shahnaz (23), from Choudapur village in Yelburga taluk. She was is an Accredited Nurse Maid (ANM) at Mudenoor Primary Health Cenre in Kushtagi.



She was rushed to the Kushtagi government hospital. As her condition was critical, she was shifted to Kumareshwara Hospital in Bagalkot, said Kushtagi taluk hospital doctor Virupakshappa Allolli.

Shahnaz



When Shahnaz was waiting with her mother at Mudenoor to go to Kushtagi for a training programme, Amaregouda from Salunchimara camp in Gangavati taluk offered them a ride on his motorbike.



He, however, stopped the bike near Kushtagi, allegedly silt Shahanazs throat with a knife, poured petrol on her and set her on fire. Kamala Bee, who tried to rescue her daughter, also sustained burns.



According to sources close to the matter, Shahnaz and Amaregouda were in a relationship for the past three years. The youth was said to be enraged after Shahnaz recently got engaged to a person of her community.

KOPPAL : A jilted lover slit the throat of a girl and set her ablaze by pouring petrol near Kushtagi in Koppal district on Saturday morning. She was admitted to a hospital, but succumed to her injuries in the night. The deceased has been identified as Shahnaz (23), from Choudapur village in Yelburga taluk. She was is an Accredited Nurse Maid (ANM) at Mudenoor Primary Health Cenre in Kushtagi. She was rushed to the Kushtagi government hospital. As her condition was critical, she was shifted to Kumareshwara Hospital in Bagalkot, said Kushtagi taluk hospital doctor Virupakshappa Allolli. Shahnaz When Shahnaz was waiting with her mother at Mudenoor to go to Kushtagi for a training programme, Amaregouda from Salunchimara camp in Gangavati taluk offered them a ride on his motorbike. He, however, stopped the bike near Kushtagi, allegedly silt Shahanazs throat with a knife, poured petrol on her and set her on fire. Kamala Bee, who tried to rescue her daughter, also sustained burns. According to sources close to the matter, Shahnaz and Amaregouda were in a relationship for the past three years. The youth was said to be enraged after Shahnaz recently got engaged to a person of her community.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the first anniversary of the Puttingal temple fireworks tragedy is approaching, authorities of another temple in the district violated the District Collectors directive not to conduct fireworks.

The authorities of the Poruvazhy Peruveruthy Malanada temple, claimed to be the lone Duryodhana temple in South India, flouted the Collectors directive and conducted fireworks on Friday night. Though the police as well as the temple committee maintained that no persons were injured in the fireworks, local people said three persons suffered minor burns. The police have arrested 21 persons for conducting the fireworks flouting ban orders.

As of now, 21 persons have been arrested in connection with the incident. They were charged under various Sections of the Explosives Act. It was not a competitive fireworks.

The temple authorities said they conducted the fireworks as it was part of the temple tradition. Chinese crackers were used for the fireworks. We have seized 13 empty cylinders of the same. No persons were injured in the incident, said Joseph Leon, Sub Inspector, Sooranad police station. Meanwhile, a temple committee member told Express the reports of competitive fireworks and injuries to three persons were baseless.

According to him, the firework was conducted as part of temple tradition and it lasted only for less than half an hour. However, he admitted that the District Collector had denied permission to conduct the firework. Earlier in 1990, 26 persons had lost their lives in the Malanada fireworks, after the crackers kept in the storehouse caught fire.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the first anniversary of the Puttingal temple fireworks tragedy is approaching, authorities of another temple in the district violated the District Collectors directive not to conduct fireworks. The authorities of the Poruvazhy Peruveruthy Malanada temple, claimed to be the lone Duryodhana temple in South India, flouted the Collectors directive and conducted fireworks on Friday night. Though the police as well as the temple committee maintained that no persons were injured in the fireworks, local people said three persons suffered minor burns. The police have arrested 21 persons for conducting the fireworks flouting ban orders. As of now, 21 persons have been arrested in connection with the incident. They were charged under various Sections of the Explosives Act. It was not a competitive fireworks. The temple authorities said they conducted the fireworks as it was part of the temple tradition. Chinese crackers were used for the fireworks. We have seized 13 empty cylinders of the same. No persons were injured in the incident, said Joseph Leon, Sub Inspector, Sooranad police station. Meanwhile, a temple committee member told Express the reports of competitive fireworks and injuries to three persons were baseless. According to him, the firework was conducted as part of temple tradition and it lasted only for less than half an hour. However, he admitted that the District Collector had denied permission to conduct the firework. Earlier in 1990, 26 persons had lost their lives in the Malanada fireworks, after the crackers kept in the storehouse caught fire.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Buoyed by the overwhelming success in the recently concluded panchayat polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to hold the next meeting of the party's national executive committee in Bhubaneswar on April 15 and 16.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and several other Union ministers besides the Chief Ministers of BJP-ruling states are scheduled to attend the two-day event.

Speaking to mediapersons after his arrival from New Delhi on Saturday, Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan informed that senior BJP leaders L K Advani and M M Joshi would also attend the party's national executive committee meeting.

The Prime Minister and National President of the party will express their gratitude to the people of the state for their support to the party in the three-tier panchayat elections.

On a high after the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand feat and formation of government in Manipur and Goa, an upbeat BJP is now making an increased focus on Odisha where Assembly election will be held along with general election in 2019.

The BJP's national executive committee meeting in the state shortly after the panchayat election is a well crafted move by Shah, the chief architect of the party's stupendous success in Uttar Pradesh. The state is also part of the 'look east' policy of the Prime Minister.

The proposed meeting of the party will put Odisha in sharp focus in the view of the presence of Prime Minister for two days. Besides, the presence of Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states will be an added attraction, sources in the party said.

The BJP, which is holding its national executive committee meeting after two decades, is likely draft a clear cut strategy for Odisha where it has emerged as a rising force by increasing its tally from 36 Zilla Parisad seats in 2012 to 297 in 2017.

BJP's Odisha in-charge Arun Singh and national joint secretary (organisation) Soudan Singh are visiting the State on Sunday to hold preparatory meeting with the state leadership for the proposed national executive meeting, Pradhan said.

BHUBANESWAR: Buoyed by the overwhelming success in the recently concluded panchayat polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to hold the next meeting of the party's national executive committee in Bhubaneswar on April 15 and 16. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and several other Union ministers besides the Chief Ministers of BJP-ruling states are scheduled to attend the two-day event. Speaking to mediapersons after his arrival from New Delhi on Saturday, Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan informed that senior BJP leaders L K Advani and M M Joshi would also attend the party's national executive committee meeting. The Prime Minister and National President of the party will express their gratitude to the people of the state for their support to the party in the three-tier panchayat elections. On a high after the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand feat and formation of government in Manipur and Goa, an upbeat BJP is now making an increased focus on Odisha where Assembly election will be held along with general election in 2019. The BJP's national executive committee meeting in the state shortly after the panchayat election is a well crafted move by Shah, the chief architect of the party's stupendous success in Uttar Pradesh. The state is also part of the 'look east' policy of the Prime Minister. The proposed meeting of the party will put Odisha in sharp focus in the view of the presence of Prime Minister for two days. Besides, the presence of Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states will be an added attraction, sources in the party said. The BJP, which is holding its national executive committee meeting after two decades, is likely draft a clear cut strategy for Odisha where it has emerged as a rising force by increasing its tally from 36 Zilla Parisad seats in 2012 to 297 in 2017. BJP's Odisha in-charge Arun Singh and national joint secretary (organisation) Soudan Singh are visiting the State on Sunday to hold preparatory meeting with the state leadership for the proposed national executive meeting, Pradhan said.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra on Friday resigned from business advisory committee (BAC) of the Assembly protesting the autocratic attitude of the State Government and ruling BJD.

Mishra had asked the Government on Thursday to remove the red beacon from his vehicle and withdraw security cover given to him. In pursuance to my declaration in the House on March 22, I submit my resignation from Odisha Legislative Assembly. This may be accepted forthwith, Mishra said in a letter to the Assembly Secretary.



The Opposition Leader said he resigned in protest against the autocratic attitude of the Government in the Assembly.



As the Government has not been giving any importance to the BAC which decides business to be undertaken in the House, I preferred to resign from the committee, he said.



Mishra had announced in the Assembly on March 22 that he would resign from the committee as Speaker Niranjan Pujari had permitted the Government to run the House in a partisan manner.

BHUBANESWAR: Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra on Friday resigned from business advisory committee (BAC) of the Assembly protesting the autocratic attitude of the State Government and ruling BJD. Mishra had asked the Government on Thursday to remove the red beacon from his vehicle and withdraw security cover given to him. In pursuance to my declaration in the House on March 22, I submit my resignation from Odisha Legislative Assembly. This may be accepted forthwith, Mishra said in a letter to the Assembly Secretary. The Opposition Leader said he resigned in protest against the autocratic attitude of the Government in the Assembly. As the Government has not been giving any importance to the BAC which decides business to be undertaken in the House, I preferred to resign from the committee, he said. Mishra had announced in the Assembly on March 22 that he would resign from the committee as Speaker Niranjan Pujari had permitted the Government to run the House in a partisan manner.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Following requests from political leaders, Kollywood superstar Rajinikanth on Saturday announced that he was cancelling his two-day visit to Sri Lanka on an invitation from Lyca Productions, which is alleged to have links with former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa.



Making it clear that he has decided to stay away from the function organised by Lyca Productions in Vavuniya in Sri Lanka following affectionate requests from leaders of some political parties in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth made an appeal to them not to prevent him from visiting Lanka if he gets another opportunity in the future.



Rajinikanth was to attend an event organised by the cinema production house on April 9 to hand over 150 houses built in the war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka for the affected families belonging to the ethnic Tamil community.



VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan welcomed the decision of Rajinikanth.

Rajinikanth said while Thirumavalavan made this request through media, MDMK general secretary Vaiko called him over telephone in this regard.

Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi leader T Velmurugan had conveyed his request through friends, pointing out many political reasons. Though I cannot accept the reasons put forth by them wholeheartedly, I will stay away from this function, accepting their affectionate request,, he said.

I wish to underscore one thing. I am not a politician, but an artiste. As pointed out by Thirumavalavan, my duty is to entertain the people. If I get another opportunity to visit Lanka and meet the Tamil people there, I request you not to prevent me from visiting the place where a holy war took place. I take privilege in making this request with affection, Rajinikanth added.

Hailing Subaskaran, chairman of Lyca Productions, as a compassionate person, Rajinikanth said he had constructed 150 houses, in memory of his mother Gnanambika, for the people in Vavuniya who had lost their houses.

The function to present the houses to the beneficiaries is scheduled for April 9.

Besides, Malaysian Senate Member Vigneswaran and Tamil National Alliance leader R Sampanthan, MP from United Kingdom James Berry and Chief Minister of Northern Province CV Vigneswaran are scheduled to attend the function.

On the occasion, it has also been decided to give funds for constructing Research Building for Jaffna University. On April 10, Rajinikanth is scheduled to visit Vavuniya and hand over the houses to the people and plant saplings. Besides, he has also planned to visit Mullaithivu, Kilinochi and Pudukudiyiruppu.

CHENNAI: Following requests from political leaders, Kollywood superstar Rajinikanth on Saturday announced that he was cancelling his two-day visit to Sri Lanka on an invitation from Lyca Productions, which is alleged to have links with former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Making it clear that he has decided to stay away from the function organised by Lyca Productions in Vavuniya in Sri Lanka following affectionate requests from leaders of some political parties in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth made an appeal to them not to prevent him from visiting Lanka if he gets another opportunity in the future. Rajinikanth was to attend an event organised by the cinema production house on April 9 to hand over 150 houses built in the war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka for the affected families belonging to the ethnic Tamil community. VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan welcomed the decision of Rajinikanth. Rajinikanth said while Thirumavalavan made this request through media, MDMK general secretary Vaiko called him over telephone in this regard. Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi leader T Velmurugan had conveyed his request through friends, pointing out many political reasons. Though I cannot accept the reasons put forth by them wholeheartedly, I will stay away from this function, accepting their affectionate request,, he said. I wish to underscore one thing. I am not a politician, but an artiste. As pointed out by Thirumavalavan, my duty is to entertain the people. If I get another opportunity to visit Lanka and meet the Tamil people there, I request you not to prevent me from visiting the place where a holy war took place. I take privilege in making this request with affection, Rajinikanth added. Hailing Subaskaran, chairman of Lyca Productions, as a compassionate person, Rajinikanth said he had constructed 150 houses, in memory of his mother Gnanambika, for the people in Vavuniya who had lost their houses. The function to present the houses to the beneficiaries is scheduled for April 9. Besides, Malaysian Senate Member Vigneswaran and Tamil National Alliance leader R Sampanthan, MP from United Kingdom James Berry and Chief Minister of Northern Province CV Vigneswaran are scheduled to attend the function. On the occasion, it has also been decided to give funds for constructing Research Building for Jaffna University. On April 10, Rajinikanth is scheduled to visit Vavuniya and hand over the houses to the people and plant saplings. Besides, he has also planned to visit Mullaithivu, Kilinochi and Pudukudiyiruppu.
By AFP

ADEN: Sixteen rebels have been killed and 24 wounded in 24 hours of air raids by a Saudi-led coalition targeting the insurgents in Yemen, a military official and medics said Saturday.

The Huthi rebels were killed in air strikes on an air base and arms depot in the east of the rebel-held Hodeida province since Friday, the official said.

A source in the coalition supporting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government said Hodeida was one of the areas being targeted since Friday as part of ongoing military operations on areas under rebel control.

The dead and wounded were transferred to Al-Alfi military hospital and Al-Thawra hospital in the Huthi-controlled city of Hodeida, medics at the hospitals said.

The Red Sea port city is a key transit point for desperately needed imports into war-torn Yemen, where fighting has escalated since the March 2015 military intervention of the coalition against the Shiite rebels.

A boat carrying refugees was hit by an air strike earlier this month off the Hodeida port. Forty-two people were killed, most of them Somali refugees.

The coalition denied accusations it was involved in the attack and called on the United Nations to supervise the Hodeida port.

The UN has rejected the request on the grounds that parties involved in the Yemen war have a responsibility to protect civilians.

Yemen's conflict has steadily worsened since 2011, after protests led to the resignation of then president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Saleh is now allied with the Iran-backed Huthis, who control strategic points along the Red Sea coast and the capital Sanaa.

More than 7,700 people have been killed and 40,000 wounded since March 2015, according to the United Nations.

ADEN: Sixteen rebels have been killed and 24 wounded in 24 hours of air raids by a Saudi-led coalition targeting the insurgents in Yemen, a military official and medics said Saturday. The Huthi rebels were killed in air strikes on an air base and arms depot in the east of the rebel-held Hodeida province since Friday, the official said. A source in the coalition supporting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government said Hodeida was one of the areas being targeted since Friday as part of ongoing military operations on areas under rebel control. The dead and wounded were transferred to Al-Alfi military hospital and Al-Thawra hospital in the Huthi-controlled city of Hodeida, medics at the hospitals said. The Red Sea port city is a key transit point for desperately needed imports into war-torn Yemen, where fighting has escalated since the March 2015 military intervention of the coalition against the Shiite rebels. A boat carrying refugees was hit by an air strike earlier this month off the Hodeida port. Forty-two people were killed, most of them Somali refugees. The coalition denied accusations it was involved in the attack and called on the United Nations to supervise the Hodeida port. The UN has rejected the request on the grounds that parties involved in the Yemen war have a responsibility to protect civilians. Yemen's conflict has steadily worsened since 2011, after protests led to the resignation of then president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh is now allied with the Iran-backed Huthis, who control strategic points along the Red Sea coast and the capital Sanaa. More than 7,700 people have been killed and 40,000 wounded since March 2015, according to the United Nations.
By AFP

ROME: EU powerhouses France and Germany on Saturday warned Britain to expect no favours from Brussels once negotiations on the terms of Brexit finally get under way next week.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, who decided not to attend the bloc's 60th anniversary summit in Rome, is due to formally notify Brussels of Britain's intention to leave on Wednesday, kickstarting up to two years of discussions.

"Some things are not for sale," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters, saying Britain would not be granted any concessions which undermined the free movement of goods, people, services and capital within the European single market.

French President Francois Hollande said every effort would be made to ensure the divorce was amicable, but also warned that some pain was inevitable.

"It was her (May) who chose not be here and it was the British who chose to take another path but we have to maintain good relations. France is very connected to the UK."

That said, Hollande reiterated that a country leaving the European Union could not be seen to have benefited from the move.

"We will ensure that (Brexit) does not happen at Europe's detriment, that Britain remains a partner of the union but that, necessarily, it will pay the consequences."

EU officials suggested a more positive tone could have been set for the start of the negotiations had May opted to come to Rome for Saturday's largely ceremonial proceedings.

"It is a shame she is not here," a senior European official told AFP.

EU officials expect Britain's permanent representative in Brussels, Tim Barrow, to personally hand the withdrawal letter to European Council President Donald Tusk on Wednesday.

Draft guidelines for the remaining 27's negotiating stance are expected to be approved by ambassadors in Brussels on Friday before they are released, with Tusk and Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat due to discuss them at a press conference in Malta, on the same day.

As one European diplomat noted drily, that is Malta's independence day -- "which marks when British tanks and soldiers left the island!"

ROME: EU powerhouses France and Germany on Saturday warned Britain to expect no favours from Brussels once negotiations on the terms of Brexit finally get under way next week. British Prime Minister Theresa May, who decided not to attend the bloc's 60th anniversary summit in Rome, is due to formally notify Brussels of Britain's intention to leave on Wednesday, kickstarting up to two years of discussions. "Some things are not for sale," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters, saying Britain would not be granted any concessions which undermined the free movement of goods, people, services and capital within the European single market. French President Francois Hollande said every effort would be made to ensure the divorce was amicable, but also warned that some pain was inevitable. "It was her (May) who chose not be here and it was the British who chose to take another path but we have to maintain good relations. France is very connected to the UK." That said, Hollande reiterated that a country leaving the European Union could not be seen to have benefited from the move. "We will ensure that (Brexit) does not happen at Europe's detriment, that Britain remains a partner of the union but that, necessarily, it will pay the consequences." EU officials suggested a more positive tone could have been set for the start of the negotiations had May opted to come to Rome for Saturday's largely ceremonial proceedings. "It is a shame she is not here," a senior European official told AFP. EU officials expect Britain's permanent representative in Brussels, Tim Barrow, to personally hand the withdrawal letter to European Council President Donald Tusk on Wednesday. Draft guidelines for the remaining 27's negotiating stance are expected to be approved by ambassadors in Brussels on Friday before they are released, with Tusk and Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat due to discuss them at a press conference in Malta, on the same day. As one European diplomat noted drily, that is Malta's independence day -- "which marks when British tanks and soldiers left the island!"
By AFP

DHAKA: The Islamic State group claimed responsibility late Friday for a suspected suicide bomb attack outside the Bangladeshi capital's main international airport, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications.

A bomber was killed in the blast, police said, the third in a series of suspected attacks and the second claimed by the Islamic State group since last week.

The bomb, carried by a man on foot, exploded near a police checkpoint monitoring vehicles heading to Hazrat Shahjahal International Airport in Dhaka.

"The bomb carrier himself was killed," a Dhaka police spokesman, Yusuf Ali, told AFP.

In an Arabic report, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, according to US-based monitoring agency SITE Intelligence Group.

"A martyrdom-seeking attack targeted a Bangladeshi police checkpoint near the international airport in the city of Dhaka," the IS-linked Amaq news agency said.

Dhaka police chief Asaduzzaman Mia denied it was a suicide attack.

"He was carrying it (the bomb) but we can't confirm yet whether he was trying to attack the check-post," he said, adding that the bomb carrier was aged around 30.

However, a police officer, who cannot be named, told AFP that they suspected it was a "suicide blast" in which only the "suicide attacker" was killed.

The suspected attack was the third since last Friday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a camp for the country's elite security force near the airport.

The attacker was killed and two members of the Rapid Action Battalion, tasked with combating Islamist militancy, were injured.

The Islamic State group claimed the attack but the Bangladeshi government deny the presence of IS in the country and rejected the jihadists' claim.

IS has also claimed responsibility for a wave of killings since 2015 including for a major attack on a Dhaka cafe last year in which 22 people, including 18 foreign hostages, were killed.

The Bangladeshi government argues a new faction of homegrown extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was behind that and other attacks.

Last Saturday a man on a motorbike tried to cross a RAB security roadblock in Dhaka carrying a bag with improvised explosive devices.

Bangladesh police shot the suspected militant dead.

The latest incident came as police in the northeastern city of Sylhet cordoned off a five-storey building early Friday morning where suspected extremists were holed up.

Police have also been carrying out a series of raids in the southern Chittagong region and say they killed four suspected militants when they stormed an extremist hideout last Thursday.

DHAKA: The Islamic State group claimed responsibility late Friday for a suspected suicide bomb attack outside the Bangladeshi capital's main international airport, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications. A bomber was killed in the blast, police said, the third in a series of suspected attacks and the second claimed by the Islamic State group since last week. The bomb, carried by a man on foot, exploded near a police checkpoint monitoring vehicles heading to Hazrat Shahjahal International Airport in Dhaka. "The bomb carrier himself was killed," a Dhaka police spokesman, Yusuf Ali, told AFP. In an Arabic report, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, according to US-based monitoring agency SITE Intelligence Group. "A martyrdom-seeking attack targeted a Bangladeshi police checkpoint near the international airport in the city of Dhaka," the IS-linked Amaq news agency said. Dhaka police chief Asaduzzaman Mia denied it was a suicide attack. "He was carrying it (the bomb) but we can't confirm yet whether he was trying to attack the check-post," he said, adding that the bomb carrier was aged around 30. However, a police officer, who cannot be named, told AFP that they suspected it was a "suicide blast" in which only the "suicide attacker" was killed. The suspected attack was the third since last Friday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a camp for the country's elite security force near the airport. The attacker was killed and two members of the Rapid Action Battalion, tasked with combating Islamist militancy, were injured. The Islamic State group claimed the attack but the Bangladeshi government deny the presence of IS in the country and rejected the jihadists' claim. IS has also claimed responsibility for a wave of killings since 2015 including for a major attack on a Dhaka cafe last year in which 22 people, including 18 foreign hostages, were killed. The Bangladeshi government argues a new faction of homegrown extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was behind that and other attacks. Last Saturday a man on a motorbike tried to cross a RAB security roadblock in Dhaka carrying a bag with improvised explosive devices. Bangladesh police shot the suspected militant dead. The latest incident came as police in the northeastern city of Sylhet cordoned off a five-storey building early Friday morning where suspected extremists were holed up. Police have also been carrying out a series of raids in the southern Chittagong region and say they killed four suspected militants when they stormed an extremist hideout last Thursday.
By Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS: Israel took no steps to comply with a Security Council call to stop all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and instead authorised "a high rate" of settlement expansions in violation of international law, the United Nations said on Friday.

U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the council the large number of settlement announcements and legislation action by Israel indicate "a clear intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory."

He was delivering the first report to the council on implementation of the resolution it adopted in December condemning Israeli settlements as a "flagrant violation" of international law. The resolution was a striking rupture with past practice by President Barack Obama who had the U.S. abstain rather than veto the measure as president-elect Donald Trump demanded.

The resolution didn't impose sanctions on Israel, so the council isn't called on to take any action. But it does enshrine the world's disapproval of the settlements.

Mladenov, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, reiterated that the United Nations "considers all settlement activities to be illegal under international law and one of the main obstacles to peace."

He called "the January spike" in illegal settlement announcements by Israel "deeply concerning." During that month, he said, two major announcements were made for a total of 5,500 housing units in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank exclusively controlled by Israel.

"Overall, the last three months have seen a high rate of settlement-related activity, especially when compared to 2016, which saw tenders for only 42 (housing) units issued and some 3,000 units advanced over 12 months in Area C," Mladenov said.

Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon responded in a statement, saying "there is no moral equivalency between the building of homes and murderous terrorism. "

"The only impediment to peace is Palestinian violence and incitement," he added "This obsessive focus on Israel must end."

Palestinian leaders hope east Jerusalem will become the capital of a Palestinian state that will also encompass the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in 1967.

Mladenov said "many advancements in settlements in the past three months will further sever the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state and accelerate the fragmentation of the West Bank."

He said these actions in Kfar Adumim, Shiloh, Kokhav Yakov and Shavei Shomron "are in breach of international law and they must stop."

"Settlement expansion undermines the very essence of the two-state solution," Mladenov said, and the resolution states that the international community will not recognize any changes to the 1967 lines other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations."

UNITED NATIONS: Israel took no steps to comply with a Security Council call to stop all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and instead authorised "a high rate" of settlement expansions in violation of international law, the United Nations said on Friday. U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the council the large number of settlement announcements and legislation action by Israel indicate "a clear intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory." He was delivering the first report to the council on implementation of the resolution it adopted in December condemning Israeli settlements as a "flagrant violation" of international law. The resolution was a striking rupture with past practice by President Barack Obama who had the U.S. abstain rather than veto the measure as president-elect Donald Trump demanded. The resolution didn't impose sanctions on Israel, so the council isn't called on to take any action. But it does enshrine the world's disapproval of the settlements. Mladenov, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, reiterated that the United Nations "considers all settlement activities to be illegal under international law and one of the main obstacles to peace." He called "the January spike" in illegal settlement announcements by Israel "deeply concerning." During that month, he said, two major announcements were made for a total of 5,500 housing units in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank exclusively controlled by Israel. "Overall, the last three months have seen a high rate of settlement-related activity, especially when compared to 2016, which saw tenders for only 42 (housing) units issued and some 3,000 units advanced over 12 months in Area C," Mladenov said. Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon responded in a statement, saying "there is no moral equivalency between the building of homes and murderous terrorism. " "The only impediment to peace is Palestinian violence and incitement," he added "This obsessive focus on Israel must end." Palestinian leaders hope east Jerusalem will become the capital of a Palestinian state that will also encompass the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in 1967. Mladenov said "many advancements in settlements in the past three months will further sever the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state and accelerate the fragmentation of the West Bank." He said these actions in Kfar Adumim, Shiloh, Kokhav Yakov and Shavei Shomron "are in breach of international law and they must stop." "Settlement expansion undermines the very essence of the two-state solution," Mladenov said, and the resolution states that the international community will not recognize any changes to the 1967 lines other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations."
By AFP

DUBAI: Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US Saturday, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through the world's busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai.

Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban, including Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport and Qatar's Hamad International Airport.

And while the ban has sparked anger across the region for again targeting majority-Muslim countries, some increasingly wary travellers shrugged off the latest restriction.

"It's a rule. I follow the rules," said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year.

"The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours."

Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

"When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again," read a statement emailed to AFP.

The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.

The United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.

DUBAI: Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US Saturday, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through the world's busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said. An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year. The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14. The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week. Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai. Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston. Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban, including Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport and Qatar's Hamad International Airport. And while the ban has sparked anger across the region for again targeting majority-Muslim countries, some increasingly wary travellers shrugged off the latest restriction. "It's a rule. I follow the rules," said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year. "The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours." Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon. Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure. "When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again," read a statement emailed to AFP. The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights. The United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.
By AFP

YANGON: Myanmar on Saturday rejected the UN rights council's decision to investigate allegations that security officers have murdered, raped and tortured Rohingya Muslims, saying the probe would only "inflame" the conflict.

The Geneva-based body agreed on Friday to "urgently" dispatch a fact-finding mission to the Southeast Asian country, focusing on claims that police and soldiers have carried out violations against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

The army crackdown, launched in October after militants killed nine policemen, has sent tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.

Escapees have given UN investigators gruesome accounts of security officers stabbing babies to death, burning people alive and committing widespread gang rape.

The allegations have heaped enormous pressure on Myanmar's one-year-old civilian government, which has vigorously swatted back calls for an international investigation.

Myanmar's foreign affairs ministry on Saturday stopped short of saying it would block the UN-backed probe but said it "has dissociated itself from the resolution as a whole".

"The establishment of an international fact-finding mission would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues at this time," it added.

Myanmar is carrying out its own domestic inquiry into possible crimes in Rakhine.

But rights groups and the UN have dismissed the body, which is led by retired general turned Vice President Myint Swe, as toothless.

The recent crackdown is only the latest conflict to beleaguer the stateless Rohingya, who are denied citizenship and face brutal discrimination in the Buddhist-majority country.

More than 120,000 Rohingya have languished in grim displacement camps ever since bouts of religious violence between Muslims and Buddhists ripped through Rakhine state in 2012.

Most are not allowed to leave the squalid encampments, where they live in piecemeal shelters with little access to food, education and healthcare.

YANGON: Myanmar on Saturday rejected the UN rights council's decision to investigate allegations that security officers have murdered, raped and tortured Rohingya Muslims, saying the probe would only "inflame" the conflict. The Geneva-based body agreed on Friday to "urgently" dispatch a fact-finding mission to the Southeast Asian country, focusing on claims that police and soldiers have carried out violations against the Rohingya in Rakhine state. The army crackdown, launched in October after militants killed nine policemen, has sent tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. Escapees have given UN investigators gruesome accounts of security officers stabbing babies to death, burning people alive and committing widespread gang rape. The allegations have heaped enormous pressure on Myanmar's one-year-old civilian government, which has vigorously swatted back calls for an international investigation. Myanmar's foreign affairs ministry on Saturday stopped short of saying it would block the UN-backed probe but said it "has dissociated itself from the resolution as a whole". "The establishment of an international fact-finding mission would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues at this time," it added. Myanmar is carrying out its own domestic inquiry into possible crimes in Rakhine. But rights groups and the UN have dismissed the body, which is led by retired general turned Vice President Myint Swe, as toothless. The recent crackdown is only the latest conflict to beleaguer the stateless Rohingya, who are denied citizenship and face brutal discrimination in the Buddhist-majority country. More than 120,000 Rohingya have languished in grim displacement camps ever since bouts of religious violence between Muslims and Buddhists ripped through Rakhine state in 2012. Most are not allowed to leave the squalid encampments, where they live in piecemeal shelters with little access to food, education and healthcare.
By Associated Press

EL-ARISH: A pair of attacks by suspected Islamic militants on Saturday killed four policemen and injured six others in the turbulent north of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, according to security officials, bringing to 16 the number of policemen and soldiers known to have been slain in the area in three days.

They said three policemen were killed when their armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb south of Sinai's coastal city of el-Arish. Six more policemen were injured in that attack.

Later on Saturday, a policeman manning a checkpoint also south of el-Arish was killed by a sniper's bullet, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The attacks came two days after Sinai militants killed 10 army soldiers and two policemen in Sinai.

Northern Sinai, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, has long been home to an insurgency by militants, now led by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group. Attacks by militants grew deadlier and more frequent after the 2013 ouster of an Islamist president whose one year in office proved divisive. Mohammed Morsi was ousted by the military, then led by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, following a wave of massive street protests against his one-year rule.

EL-ARISH: A pair of attacks by suspected Islamic militants on Saturday killed four policemen and injured six others in the turbulent north of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, according to security officials, bringing to 16 the number of policemen and soldiers known to have been slain in the area in three days. They said three policemen were killed when their armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb south of Sinai's coastal city of el-Arish. Six more policemen were injured in that attack. Later on Saturday, a policeman manning a checkpoint also south of el-Arish was killed by a sniper's bullet, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. The attacks came two days after Sinai militants killed 10 army soldiers and two policemen in Sinai. Northern Sinai, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, has long been home to an insurgency by militants, now led by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group. Attacks by militants grew deadlier and more frequent after the 2013 ouster of an Islamist president whose one year in office proved divisive. Mohammed Morsi was ousted by the military, then led by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, following a wave of massive street protests against his one-year rule.
By AFP

ROME: European Union leaders renewed their vows at a special summit in Rome on Saturday, celebrating the troubled bloc's 60th anniversary with a commitment to a common future without Britain.

With British Prime Minister Theresa May absent, the other 27 countries signed a new declaration on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

Pro- and anti-EU protests took place in Rome, while in London tens of thousands of people marched against Brexit, which May will trigger on Wednesday.

With the EU facing a string of crises on top of Brexit including migration, a moribund economy, terrorism and populism, EU President Donald Tusk called for stronger leadership.

"Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago," Tusk said.

After welcoming the leaders to the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said: "We have had 60 years of peace in Europe and we owe it to the courage of the founding fathers."

The original Treaty of Rome was signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany to create the European Economic Community (EEC).

'Our common future'

The new Rome Declaration that the leaders signed, using the same pen that was used six decades ago, proclaims that "Europe is our common future" in a changing world.

But it also enshrines for the first time a so-called "multi-speed" Europe, in which some countries can push ahead on key issues while others sit out, an idea pushed by France and Germany but opposed by many eastern EU states.

French President Francois Hollande said the message from Rome was, "we're stronger together," while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "a Europe of different speeds does not mean at all that there is no common Europe".

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker insisted the EU could ride out recent storms.

"Daunting as they are, the challenges we face today are in no way comparable to those faced by the founding fathers," he said, recalling how the new Europe was built from the ashes of World War II.

The leaders met with the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears -- on the eve of the summit, the pontiff warned that without a new vision, the crisis-ridden bloc "risks dying".

The White House meanwhile congratulated the EU on its 60th birthday in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels.

But the British premier's absence, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and a row over the wording of the Rome declaration underscored the challenges facing the EU.

Greece, currently wrangling with the eurozone over getting more cash from its latest bailout, was the key country holding up approval of the document, by insisting on a mention of social benefits.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, fresh from a bitter row over former premier Tusk's re-election as EU chief, only agreed to sign at the last minute due to objections over the reference to a "multi-speed" Europe.

Pro-EU rallies in UK, Poland

Symbolising the divisions, rival demonstrations for and against the EU took place in Rome, watched by a heavy police presence.

"I was a girl during the war and this grand European movement has become my political ideal," Catherine Chastenet, a 74-year-old marcher from Paris, told AFP.

In London, around 80,000 people took to the streets to call for Britain to stay in the bloc with a sea of blue EU flags stretching out from Trafalgar Square.

"I was told I could settle down, marry a Brit and make my life here. Yet today I am told I'm a foreigner and should go back where I come from," said Joan Pons, a Spanish nurse who has lived in Britain for 17 years.

In Poland, thousands of Poles sang the "Ode to Joy" European anthem as they waved Polish and EU flags at rallies organised by the liberal opposition in dozens of cities and towns nationwide.

ROME: European Union leaders renewed their vows at a special summit in Rome on Saturday, celebrating the troubled bloc's 60th anniversary with a commitment to a common future without Britain. With British Prime Minister Theresa May absent, the other 27 countries signed a new declaration on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957. Pro- and anti-EU protests took place in Rome, while in London tens of thousands of people marched against Brexit, which May will trigger on Wednesday. With the EU facing a string of crises on top of Brexit including migration, a moribund economy, terrorism and populism, EU President Donald Tusk called for stronger leadership. "Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago," Tusk said. After welcoming the leaders to the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said: "We have had 60 years of peace in Europe and we owe it to the courage of the founding fathers." The original Treaty of Rome was signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany to create the European Economic Community (EEC). 'Our common future' The new Rome Declaration that the leaders signed, using the same pen that was used six decades ago, proclaims that "Europe is our common future" in a changing world. But it also enshrines for the first time a so-called "multi-speed" Europe, in which some countries can push ahead on key issues while others sit out, an idea pushed by France and Germany but opposed by many eastern EU states. French President Francois Hollande said the message from Rome was, "we're stronger together," while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "a Europe of different speeds does not mean at all that there is no common Europe". European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker insisted the EU could ride out recent storms. "Daunting as they are, the challenges we face today are in no way comparable to those faced by the founding fathers," he said, recalling how the new Europe was built from the ashes of World War II. The leaders met with the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears -- on the eve of the summit, the pontiff warned that without a new vision, the crisis-ridden bloc "risks dying". The White House meanwhile congratulated the EU on its 60th birthday in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels. But the British premier's absence, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and a row over the wording of the Rome declaration underscored the challenges facing the EU. Greece, currently wrangling with the eurozone over getting more cash from its latest bailout, was the key country holding up approval of the document, by insisting on a mention of social benefits. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, fresh from a bitter row over former premier Tusk's re-election as EU chief, only agreed to sign at the last minute due to objections over the reference to a "multi-speed" Europe. Pro-EU rallies in UK, Poland Symbolising the divisions, rival demonstrations for and against the EU took place in Rome, watched by a heavy police presence. "I was a girl during the war and this grand European movement has become my political ideal," Catherine Chastenet, a 74-year-old marcher from Paris, told AFP. In London, around 80,000 people took to the streets to call for Britain to stay in the bloc with a sea of blue EU flags stretching out from Trafalgar Square. "I was told I could settle down, marry a Brit and make my life here. Yet today I am told I'm a foreigner and should go back where I come from," said Joan Pons, a Spanish nurse who has lived in Britain for 17 years. In Poland, thousands of Poles sang the "Ode to Joy" European anthem as they waved Polish and EU flags at rallies organised by the liberal opposition in dozens of cities and towns nationwide.
By ANI

LONDON: A motion was passed in the British Parliament condemning Islamabads announcement declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth frontier, saying the region is a legal and constitutional part of Jammu and Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947.

The motion which was tabled on March 23 and sponsored by Conservative Party leader Bob Blackman, stated that Pakistan, by making such an announcement, is implying its attempt to annex the already disputed area.



Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression, the motion read.

It was further noted that the attempts to change the demography of the region was in violation of State Subject Ordinance and the forced and illegal construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) further aggravated and interfered with the disputed territory.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry has said that Beijing was ready to work with Islamabad to take forward the CPEC to benefit the people of both countries.

The CPEC is a 51.5 billion dollar project that aims to connect Kashgar, in China's western province of Xinjiang, with the port of Gwadar in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.

Baloch political and human rights activists have demanded a special rapporteur in the United Nations to probe gross human rights violations in Balochistan province.

With Pakistan planning to declare Gilgit-Baltistan region as its fifth province, the Baloch leaders have warned Islamabad of serious repercussions stating that this development will only lead to massive resistance by the people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The Gilgit-Baltistan area is Pakistan's northernmost administrative territory that borders the disputed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

A committee headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz recommended to grant the region a provincial status, reports the GeoNews.

Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh are four provinces of Pakistan.

However, India claims the Gilgit-Baltistan area as an integral part of its territory.

The area is significant to both Pakistan and China as the $46 billion CPEC passes through the region.

New Delhi has fervently maintained that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes areas currently under Pakistan occupation, is an integral part of the Union of India.

LONDON: A motion was passed in the British Parliament condemning Islamabads announcement declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth frontier, saying the region is a legal and constitutional part of Jammu and Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947. The motion which was tabled on March 23 and sponsored by Conservative Party leader Bob Blackman, stated that Pakistan, by making such an announcement, is implying its attempt to annex the already disputed area. Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression, the motion read. It was further noted that the attempts to change the demography of the region was in violation of State Subject Ordinance and the forced and illegal construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) further aggravated and interfered with the disputed territory. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry has said that Beijing was ready to work with Islamabad to take forward the CPEC to benefit the people of both countries. The CPEC is a 51.5 billion dollar project that aims to connect Kashgar, in China's western province of Xinjiang, with the port of Gwadar in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. Baloch political and human rights activists have demanded a special rapporteur in the United Nations to probe gross human rights violations in Balochistan province. With Pakistan planning to declare Gilgit-Baltistan region as its fifth province, the Baloch leaders have warned Islamabad of serious repercussions stating that this development will only lead to massive resistance by the people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The Gilgit-Baltistan area is Pakistan's northernmost administrative territory that borders the disputed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. A committee headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz recommended to grant the region a provincial status, reports the GeoNews. Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh are four provinces of Pakistan. However, India claims the Gilgit-Baltistan area as an integral part of its territory. The area is significant to both Pakistan and China as the $46 billion CPEC passes through the region. New Delhi has fervently maintained that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes areas currently under Pakistan occupation, is an integral part of the Union of India.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with NATO members next week in Brussels, officials said Friday, as alliance diplomats worked to nail down the date.

"We are currently planning to hold the meeting of NATO foreign ministers on 31 March. Consultations on scheduling among Allies are ongoing," a NATO official in Brussels said.

The NATO foreign ministers meeting had been planned for April 5-6, but that was thrown into chaos on Tuesday when Tillerson revealed he would not be attending.

Skipping the meeting was especially awkward because the former Exxon-Mobil CEO is to travel later in April to Russia, which has had fraught relations with NATO since the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2014.

So Tillerson will head to Brussels on Friday next week, a day after meeting in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to "discuss the way forward with our campaign to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq," acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

- Long-planned talks -

Officials suggested that a complicating factor for the NATO meeting might be the agenda of Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who might not be able to make it to Brussels on March 31.

"The date is almost certain. It's now mainly a question of timing," a diplomat in Brussels said Saturday.

The alliance's 28 member states have until Monday to work out the details of their plans.

The last minute preparations are not typical for NATO which normally has plans in place weeks ahead of time for these highly orchestrated meetings.

"The allies are trying to find a solution. It is understood that there are substantive reasons why Tillerson cannot come April 5 and 6," a diplomat told AFP.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit President Donald Trump in the United States in early April, and Tillerson would be expected to attend their meetings.

But his office has not confirmed that engagement, and word that Tillerson would stay away from the NATO talks stirred doubt about US commitment to its allies.

"Everyone is aware that this would send a bad message and people were not eager to have a meeting with a downgraded (US) representation," said the diplomat, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.

After almost two months in the job, Tillerson has yet to appoint a deputy or any assistant secretaries, has largely avoided the media and works with a small inner circle of advisers.

The administration, meanwhile, has been scrambling to reaffirm its commitment to US military alliances after Trump called into question their usefulness during the presidential campaign.

Last week, after meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump claimed Germany owes "vast sums of money to NATO and the United States," reviving his charge that allies do not pay their way.

- Obsolete alliance? -

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine general, has declared US support for NATO, and last week Tillerson reaffirmed ties with Asian allies Japan and South Korea.

The United States has worked with NATO to shore up support for the pro-western government in Kiev after Russia's annexation of Crimea and its support for a bloody uprising in eastern Ukraine.

Combined with economic sanctions, the deployment of more NATO troops from Western members to frontline Eastern allies in the Baltics and Poland was intended to send a signal to Moscow.

But during his presidential campaign, Trump raised eyebrows by expressing admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and dismissing NATO as "obsolete".

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with NATO members next week in Brussels, officials said Friday, as alliance diplomats worked to nail down the date. "We are currently planning to hold the meeting of NATO foreign ministers on 31 March. Consultations on scheduling among Allies are ongoing," a NATO official in Brussels said. The NATO foreign ministers meeting had been planned for April 5-6, but that was thrown into chaos on Tuesday when Tillerson revealed he would not be attending. Skipping the meeting was especially awkward because the former Exxon-Mobil CEO is to travel later in April to Russia, which has had fraught relations with NATO since the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2014. So Tillerson will head to Brussels on Friday next week, a day after meeting in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to "discuss the way forward with our campaign to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq," acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. - Long-planned talks - Officials suggested that a complicating factor for the NATO meeting might be the agenda of Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who might not be able to make it to Brussels on March 31. "The date is almost certain. It's now mainly a question of timing," a diplomat in Brussels said Saturday. The alliance's 28 member states have until Monday to work out the details of their plans. The last minute preparations are not typical for NATO which normally has plans in place weeks ahead of time for these highly orchestrated meetings. "The allies are trying to find a solution. It is understood that there are substantive reasons why Tillerson cannot come April 5 and 6," a diplomat told AFP. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit President Donald Trump in the United States in early April, and Tillerson would be expected to attend their meetings. But his office has not confirmed that engagement, and word that Tillerson would stay away from the NATO talks stirred doubt about US commitment to its allies. "Everyone is aware that this would send a bad message and people were not eager to have a meeting with a downgraded (US) representation," said the diplomat, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity. After almost two months in the job, Tillerson has yet to appoint a deputy or any assistant secretaries, has largely avoided the media and works with a small inner circle of advisers. The administration, meanwhile, has been scrambling to reaffirm its commitment to US military alliances after Trump called into question their usefulness during the presidential campaign. Last week, after meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump claimed Germany owes "vast sums of money to NATO and the United States," reviving his charge that allies do not pay their way. - Obsolete alliance? - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine general, has declared US support for NATO, and last week Tillerson reaffirmed ties with Asian allies Japan and South Korea. The United States has worked with NATO to shore up support for the pro-western government in Kiev after Russia's annexation of Crimea and its support for a bloody uprising in eastern Ukraine. Combined with economic sanctions, the deployment of more NATO troops from Western members to frontline Eastern allies in the Baltics and Poland was intended to send a signal to Moscow. But during his presidential campaign, Trump raised eyebrows by expressing admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and dismissing NATO as "obsolete".
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Delegates participating in the Commonwealth Auditors General Conference call on the President

New Delhi, Mar 23 : The delegates participating in the Commonwealth Auditors General Conference called on the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.





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Speaking on the occasion, the President expressed happiness that the multilateral forum of Auditors General of Commonwealth countries has met in India this year to discuss contemporary issues of relevance to the member Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs).He said that audit being a knowledge based activity, such interactions, sharing of knowledge, experiences, best practices would be mutually beneficial to all members of SAI.The President said that in India, the office of the CAG has been established by the Constitution of India. Government Audit plays an important role in the scheme of parliamentary financial control.The President said that it is praiseworthy that the delegates are engaging in fruitful deliberations on two very relevant contemporary themes, chosen for this Conference i.e. leveraging technology and environment audit.On global and national level technology and environment have become the key drivers for formulating strategies to address a host of issues. Technology has enabled faster communication, easy access to knowledge and information and facilitated efficient delivery of public services to citizens. Environment degradation and climate change along with their debilitating impact on our well being and of future generations are global concerns. Such concerns have led to positive action in the nature of Paris Agreement and other global treaties. Environment not only affects our well-being, its degradation threatens the very existence of several small island nations. Given the importance of technology and environment in todays world, the SAIs will have to remain in the forefront in these fields. They have an important role to play in ensuring that the nations meet their commitments on environment treaties and leverage technology to provide high quality services to the citizens.The President hoped that the exchange of views and sharing of experiences at the Conference would help in providing future guidance not just to Commonwealth Countries but many other countries of the world.
Setback for Mamata: Over 400 TMC members in Tripura join BJP

Guwahati, Mar 23 : After Manipur, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee faced another setback with over 400 party members including former chairman of the TMC Tripura unit joining Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday.





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The TMC members including 16 of the total 65 state committee members and former chairman of TMC Tripura unit Ratan Chakraborty have joined the saffron party in Agartala.During a meeting held in the capital city of the north eastern Indian state, the TMC members joined BJP in presence of Union minister of state for Railways Rajen Gohain, BJPs Tripura unit president Biplab Deb.Rajen Gohain and Biplab Deb jointly handed over the saffron party flag to Ratan Chakraborty.After joining the saffron party, Chakraborty said told media that, BJP is only political party in the country which interested for development in the north eastern region.I am confident that BJP will form the next government in Tripura in 2018. Only BJP would be able to free Tripura from the clutches from CPI (M), Chakraborty said.He further said that, he had joined the saffron party unconditionally.On the other hand, Rajen Gohain said that, his party will form the next government in Tripura and the ruling party CPI (M) would be washed away in the next assembly poll.Mamata Banerjee-led TMC has faced setback in Manipur after its lone legislator had joined BJP and help to form the first BJP government in the state.(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Siddaramaiah downplays Krishna's entry in BJP prior to Karnataka Assembly polls

New Delhi , Mar. 24 : Days after veteran politician S.M. Krishna joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Karnataka Chief Minister K. Siddaramaiah on Friday said that this would not make much of a difference as the saffron party would yet again be defeated in the state assembly polls.





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"He has joined the BJP, let him campaign for them. The BJP is anyways going to be defeated," Siddaramaiah said.Krishna, who joined the BJP on Wednesday, lashed out at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi saying politics is serious business and not a "hit-and-run job".He also alleged that there is disconnect between the Congress leadership and the rank while asserting that there is no leader in the grand old party who can match Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Krishna's entry boosts the BJP's prospects in Karnataka ahead of next year's assembly elections.
Tata Trusts,People For Animals announce plans to launch state-of-the-art veterinary hospital in Navi Mumbai

Mumbai/Kolkata, Mar 24 : Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra; Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development and Founder, People For Animals and Ratan N. Tata, Chairman, Tata Trusts on Friday will be announcing the collaboration between Tata Trusts and People for Animals, to build a state-of-the-art, multi-specialty veterinary hospital and emergency clinic that will serve the needs of all domestic and farm animals at accessible and affordable rates.





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The hospital will be located at Kalamboli in Navi Mumbai and is expected to be ready to welcome animals in two years.Estimates indicate that there are at least 50,000 registered pets, 70,000 unregistered pets, 200,000 stray dogs, and 300,000 stray cats in Mumbai, for which there are only two fullatime animal hospitals that caters to all their needs, treating hundreds of animals daily.One fullatime animal hospital in Central Mumbai simply cannot cater to the needs of all the animals in distress across Greater Mumbai in a timely manner.With the next closest animal hospital located in the neighbouring district of Thane, many sick or injured animals, both pets and strays, perish solely because of the lack of access to adequate local veterinary care facilities.The aim is to plug the existing gap in animal welfare in Maharashtra by setting up a strategically placed animal hospital catering to animals from Mumbai City, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Khandala, Lonavala, and Alibaug.All of the worlds major cities from New York to Shanghai have several comprehensive animal care facilities within city limits and Mumbai should be no exception.
JobsForHer celebrates two years of bringing women back to work post sabbatical

New Delhi , Mar 24 : Online connecting portal for women looking to restart their careers JobsForHer marks the end of its successful two years and the beginning of its buoyant third year operations this month.





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On the occasion of turning two, the JFH team successfully hosted a live chat session on Facebook with Neha Bagaria and her team, to answer queries on restarting careers for women. With a growing presence on social media, the portal is gathering steam and is all set to take on its third year head-on.In the past two years, it has not only offered potential candidates the choice to apply for jobs online but has also added resume-writing services, mentorship programs, return ship programs, as well as webinars and live chats.The portal has grown from strength to strength with its success clearly attributed to a dedicated staff of returnees. The company that started off with a power-packed team of five women returnees, is now an energetic 31 member team of restarters, ready to take on the world. In the past two years the team has managed to successfully associate with renowned blue chip companies like Intuit, Sapient, PayPal, Mindtree etc. for their returnee programs."I found out that 50 percent of all working women in India drop out of the workforce within 3 years. This is an extremely qualified, experienced and capable talent pool that our economy cannot afford to lose out on. My own experience in getting back to work after taking a 3.6-year of career break was so positive that it made me determined to enable other women to restart their careers as well. Thus, I founded JobsForHer in March 2015, to connect women with all that they required in order to get back to work and achieve their full potential." A study by UNDP shows that India's GDP can grow by 27 percent, if female participation matched males," said founder Neha Bagaria, JobsForHer.Over the last 2 years, JFH found that 57 percent of women returnees are looking at restarting their careers on a full-time basis and 22 percent through work-from-home opportunities.In its third year, JFH is committed to doing everything necessary to enable women to restart their careers and plans to expand its reach, size, and scale up its offerings, to create a larger impact. They plan to partner with more returnee-friendly companies across India to open up their doors to women looking to restart their careers; as well as offer mentorship, networking, inspiration, and career resources to women to help them bridge the gap that is keeping them from embarking on the second phase of their careers.Additionally, it also intends to maintain its 10 times growth this fiscal year as well.
India Expo Shop, Indian Exhibitions, IESA to host second India Expo Shop 2017

New Delhi , Mar 24 : With the immense success of the first edition of India Expo Shop Summit, The Indian Exhibitions, Conferences and Events Services Association (IESA), an apex organization working towards the development of the exhibitions, conferences and events services sector in India, in collaboration with key industry bodies, government organizations including Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC), is organizing the second edition of the India Expo Summit 2017 (IES 2017) at India Expo Centre and Mart, in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh on 17th April 2017.





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Themed on "Embracing Technologies in Events and Exhibitions", the IES 2017 aims to bring different facets of Exhibition Industry, opportunities, challenges on a single platform and how they could be addressed or assisted by the use of technology.The key objective of IES 2017, which would be inaugurated by president of India Pranab Mukherjee is to explore the potential of technology for Exhibition Industry in India and how its adoptions can bring massive shift in the way things are being done today.As we all know, Exhibit Industry is not only helping the government or the industry in transforming their imagination into reality, but over the years it has become an integral part of an ecosystem that ensures skills development, employment and overall growth of the country.Globally, India is emerging as a massive economic power, accelerated by the government's Digital India and Make in India push which has acquired international acknowledgment. And, Exhibit Industry is no exception to understand this reality. Hence, in sync with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji's vision to transform India into a knowledge economy and empowered country, the Exhibit industry believe that role of technology will be paramount in achieving this vision and hence taking many technology driven steps like exploring the use of emerging technologies to bring the next level of experience in event and exhibition sector.The conference will bring together experts, academia, government officials, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to share the insights, experiences and facilitate exchange of knowledge on the theme of "Embracing Technologies in Events and Exhibitions"In addition to in-depth focus on the growth and challenges in Exhibit Industry, the summit will also focus on topics such as integrating digital space in exhibition and events; latest development in coated fabrics and textiles; newer innovation in prefab systems; new trends in outdoor structures; printing and media for exhibition; and changing dynamics of soundproof and acoustic treatment among others.Distinguished speakers, government officials, experts from across the world will come together to deliver keynote address, special presentation and sessions. IESA has sent out invitation to senior government officials from Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Textile, Ministry of Skill Development and global technology firms and senior academician from IITs, NID and design institutes.Eminent speakers, industry leaders and experts to speak at the conference which includes Sabbas Joseph, President, EEMA; Rakesh Kumar, Chairman, IEML; Georges Kayser, Head of Asia Pacific- SIOEN Industries; Lee Tian, MD, Zhuhai Liri Tent Technology Co Ltd; Ross Ashton, The Project Studio; Michael Menezes, Chairman, Showtime Events; Narendra Naidu, Rhino Engineering and more.In addition to key speeches and presentation, the summit will have ample space of approx. 7000 sq. meters for organizations to showcase their work and solutions in this sector by putting their stall in the expo area.Nanu Binu, President, Indian Exhibitions Conferences and Events Services Association (IESA) said, "IESA has been continuously focusing on the development of Exhibitions, Conferences and Events services in India. With Prime Minister's vision to transform India into global knowledge power with the help of technology, the role of Exhibition Industry has become more important for taking this message to forward and showcasing it on a granular scale to the world. Therefore, in order to explore the benefits of technology, India Expo Shop Summit 2017 is being organized on the theme of "Embracing Technologies in Events and Exhibitions with the participation of senior government functionaries, experts and industry veterans."
India asks U.S. to provide details of 271 illegal immigrants

New Delhi , Mar. 24 : The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said India has urged the United States to provide details of the cases of 271 illegal immigrants whom Washington wants New Delhi to take back.





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"This is an ongoing matter. The U.S. authorities had conveyed to us sometime back that out of certain statistics provided to them earlier, 271 cases remained to be addressed. However, no details of these cases were provided. We have asked for the same," MEA official spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.The Trump administration recently informed India that it is targeting for deportation more than 270 Indian nationals living in the United States illegally, the Washington Post reported.External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during a question period in Rajya Sabha yesterday said that the Indian Government has asked for further information from Washington before allowing deportations.There is growing concern in India over treatment of its citizens in the United States after a high-profile shooting of an Indian computer engineer in Olathe, Kan., in February, and other suspected hate crimes.The revised ban was announced this month and would have banned people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days.Unlike the previous executive order, the revised one removed Iraq from the list of banned countries, exempted those with green cards and visas, and removed a provision that arguably prioritizes certain religious minorities.
Kantar Millward Brown Media Conclave 2017

New Delhi , Mar 24 : WPP -Kantar's brand, communications and media research unit Kantar Millward Brown conducted its annual Media Conclave 2017 in Mumbai. This year's Media Conclave focused on the impact of various media Ad Formats on campaign performances. The conclave played host to some of the country's top most Marketing, Media and Media Insights leads.





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Fuelled by the perpetual quest to optimize marketing spends, the phenomenon of 'defragmenting media' has begun driving unique 'Brand building' initiatives. The transition has evidently been exponential for digital channels. As newer avenues of outreach programs continue to flock around Advertisers, the uncomfortable counter-views on the questionable impact of various ad formats obviously crop-up.In the words of Gonzalo Fuentes, Global CEO Media and Digital Practice, Kantar Insights said "Digital as an investment is not small anymore and we need to start thinking more seriously about how as a medium, it can help to drive our brand strategy; how it contributes to other traditional media like TV, Print that are here to stay and most importantly how do we bring the focus to what is really keeping us in business: our brands."Kantar Millward Brown India has collated and mined campaign performances of around50 Indian campaigns that they've evaluated in the recent past. A consolidated analysis of the studies, revealed some thought-provoking insights. Some of the findings include:a TV still the strongest medium to build 'Reach' and 'Salience' across generationsa Social Media has high 'Reach' but has lesser capability to drive 'Brand Impact' among Gen Y and Gen X. However it drives better 'Reach' and 'Brand Impact' among Gen Za Online Videos work as well as TV in driving 'Consideration' for the brand among Gen Z and Gen Y but have lower 'Brand Impact' on Gen Xa Social Media has higher 'Reach' than Online Videos among Gen Z; but Online Video advertising has a better 'Brand Impact'Ashish Karnad, Executive Vice President, Media and Digital, Kantar Millward Brown says "Today, communication at every touch point with the consumer demands thoughtful optimization. With Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z is displaying different levels of ad avoidance to various ad formats across media; delivering a consistent Brand Experience using Media synergies coupled with scientific measurement is the order of the day."As per AdReaction 2016, Kantar Millward Brown's recently released annual study on receptivity to ads, Ad avoidance on digital devices is now a serious issue. All generations use the capabilities of Ad avoidance in one or the other form. Across generations, the main reason to install an ad blocker is to avoid being interrupted (through interruptive formats).All generations show positivity towards the ability to control ad exposure. Skipping ads is the most used method to avoid ads.Meheer Thakare, Head, Digital Solutions, Kantar Millward Brown said, "Creative strategies for mobile phones need to be re-thought! Younger audiences (Gen Z) highly disregard conventional digital ad formats like Pop-ups on their mobile phones. Keeping the shrinking screen in perspective, greater adoption of relatively newer digital ad formats such as sponsored lenses and mobile-based augmented reality (AR) seems inevitable. "Kantar Millward Brown India predicts- Online Video advertising will deliver brand impact like never before, but not in all cases. While the need for more receptive online video formats is imperative, the benefits of creating a sharable video and capitalizing the viral effect cannot be ignored.Demystifying the secrets of how videos go viral, Nigel HollisChief Global Analyst at Kantar Millward Brown : "True viral video has proven to be a mythical creature- like the goose that laid golden eggs- but great creative can still earn a sharing bonus. The more compelling the creative, the more people will seek it out and share it. But people need to know that creative exists in order to seek it out and share it. Today you have to promote your creative in order to ensure it is seen and shared."
Defence Minister hands over indigenous DRDO Naval Systems

New Delhi, Mar 24 : Minister of Defence, Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley handed over three Naval Systems indigenously developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba here on Friday.





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The Minister also released two other products developed by DRDO namelyIP-based Secure Phone and the Gallium Nitride Technology. Speaking on the occasionJaitley remarked that DRDO is becoming an important instrument for self-reliance of the nation. He stated that some of the best innovations have come from the pool of scientists of DRDO.The Defence Minister also said that great societies and nations are made through people working on important tasks in anonymity, like the DRDO scientists who were honoured.Jaitley also said that in the modern world, societies that invent and innovate will make faster progress.The Minister gave away the annual DRDO awards in various categories during the function. Apart from the scientists and teams who won awards in various vistas of technological excellence, the Advanced Systems Laboratory, Hyderabad and the Microwave Tube Research Development Centre, Bangalore won the coveted Silicon Trophy and Titanium Trophy respectively.The Naval Systems handed over to the Indian Navy are USHUS-II Submarine Sonar, Directing Gear for Hull Mounted Sonar Array, and RLG based Inertial Navigation System for Ship Applications (INS-SA). The export potential of DRDO technologies also received due recognition during the function, with the announcement of the bagging of export order for DRDO-developed torpedo to Myanmar.Speaking on the occasion Dr. Subhash Bhamre, Minister of State for Defence said DRDO is playing an important role in self-reliance of Defence Forces and the export potential of the Organisation is finding a place in the global Defence market. He congratulated all the awardees and their families.Chairman, DRDO and Secretary, Department of Defence (RD)Dr. S Christopher in his address said the Defence Acquisition Council cleared order value of DRDO products has gone uptoRs. 2.56 lakh crore out of which about Rs. 1 lakh crore was in the last two years alone.Sonars are the eyes and ears of a submarine under water. DRDO has developed the State-of-the-Art submarine sonar suite, USHUS-II, a highly evolved compendium of multiple sensors. The constituent sonars in the suite include passive sonar, active sonar, intercept sonar, obstacle avoidance sonar and underwater telephony.Directing Gear is an electro-mechanical system that supports the transducer array of hull-mounted ship sonar systems and rotates it at a controlled speed for in-situ acoustic calibration at Harbour and Sea.The Inertial Navigation System, based on indigenous Ring Laser Gyroscopes, provides vital information on the ships position coordinates and heading for steering it to its destination accurately. It features high speed processor, multi-constellation Sat Nav receiver, ship specific interfaces and innovative algorithms.With the emergence of Gallium Nitride as a state-of-the-art material for MMIC applications, DRDO has established this futuristic technology, which will substantially help in the development of next generation radars, seekers and communication systems, for application in Light Combat Aircraft.The Secure IP Phone incorporates an indigenous encryption algorithm on a trustworthy hardware platform to provide a high level of secrecy to voice and data, for communication of strategic and tactical plans of the Armed Forces.The function was also attended by senior functionaries of the Ministry of Defence, Indian Navy, DRDO and industry partners.
Post Airlines snub Gaikwad takes train route to Mumbai

New Delhi , Mar. 24 : After being barred by all the airlines, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad who assaulted Air India staff member took a train to Mumbai on Friday.





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Air India and six private airlines banned the 56-year-old MP from flying as he refused to apologise for the incident that triggered nationwide outrage.IndiGo cancelled Gaikwad's ticket for the Delhi-Pune flight, which he had booked for Friday.Later, another airline Vistara too banned the 56-year-old MP from boarding its flight.Earlier in the day, the MP from Osmanabad in Maharashtra downplayed reports suggesting that Air India is considering banning him from boarding its flights."I have the tickets, they can't blacklist me. I will board the Delhi-Pune Air India flight this evening. How can they not allow me?" he said."I will not apologise. It was not my fault, it was his fault. He should apologise. First ask him to apologise then we will see," Gaikwad told the media.Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has sought a report to determine the facts before he decides on what happens next for Gaikwad.Air India Duty Manager Sukumar, who was assaulted by Gaikwad, today asserted that the elected representatives need to behave in a decent manner."I am not scared at all, either with Gaikwad or with the Shiv Sena. I have been serving public and have also faced many who get irritated on such issues. It's a common thing for me," he added.Sukumar further said that he had requested Gaikwad to deboard the aircraft as cleaning staff had to complete their work following which he got angry."I had requested him (Gaikwad) to de-board the aircraft as the cleaning staff had to complete their work. On which he got furious and raised his hands," said Sukumar.Earlier, the Centre also took cognizance of the incident and assured a thorough probe into the matter.
Civil societies should come forward for socio-economic development of states like Bihar, Jharkhand: President

Patna (Bihar), Mar. 24: President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said civil societies should come forward to meet challenges for social and economic development of states like Bihar and Jharkhand.





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Addressing a seminar in Patna President Mukherjee said eastern region of the country lost its natural advantage due to freight equalization policy.Speaking on the occasion, the President said that he had come to the state of Bihar on many occasions and was always inspired by this land of inspiration."The ancient history of Bihar, of which Jharkhand was a part, is indeed glorious. It was the region where Buddhism first emerged and where Nalanada and Vikramshila served as great seats of learning in ancient India. Despite the region being a land of rich mineral resources and fertile soil, relative economic progress and development could not take place," President Mukherjee added.The President said that the enormous gap between the potential and reality of development in Bihar and Jharkhand, the former having plenty of fertile land and the latter endowed with abundant mineral resources, has attracted the attention of many scholars."At this juncture, however, we only need to remember one important lesson of history, viz, the burden of history, howsoever heavy, can indeed be unloaded with right social mobilization and political initiatives. We also need to realize that, for seriously disadvantaged regions like Bihar and Jharkhand, a strategy of development requires the policy makers to unleash the productive forces of the economy, and not just unquestionably follow a path of industrialization, as was done by countries or regions which had developed earlier," he added.The President said it is here that one requires directed research which can identify appropriate policies that best suit the interests of the regions.The President said that he was very happy to learn that the Asian Development Research institute (ADRI) is one of those institutions which have been active in social science research during the last 25 years.He hoped that they would continue their efforts in coming years and attain new heights in their academic pursuit and simultaneously provide valuable research support to various development agencies.
Child rights must be at the centre of Syria peace talks - UNICEF

New York, Mar 24 : Those participating the intra-Syrian peace talks in Geneva must put the rights of children at the centre of all their deliberations as children throughout the Middle Eastern country continue to come under attack, a senior United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) official has said.





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Those meeting in Geneva this week should put the rights of children at the centre of all their deliberations the right of every boy and girl to be protected, the right to receive life-saving humanitarian assistance no matter where they are and the right to an education, UNICEF Regional Director Geert Cappelaere said in a said issued yesterday, ahead of the resumption of the Geneva talks.Citing reports that Wednesdays attack on a school in Ar-Raqqa which is sheltering internally displaced families has killed 53 civilians including 12 children, he said the international community once again failed the children of Syria. We have been failing them for more than 2,200 days already, he added.UNICEF reminds all parties engaged militarily in Syria that it is their responsibility to protect and safeguard the lives of children and their families. Civilian infrastructure including schools and hospitals should be protected, no matter who controls the area, Cappelaere said.He said that children are being deprived of their basic right to life and denied their right to an education.All parties to the conflict and those with influence must redouble their efforts to find a political solution to end a conflict that is leaving nothing but death and destruction in its path, he said.Photo: UNICEFSource: www.justearthnews.com
Setback to RIL as SEBI bars 13 companies from dealing in equity derivatives

New Delhi , Mar. 25 : The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has barred 13 companies, including RIL, from dealing in equity derivatives in the Futures and Options (F and O) segment of stock exchanges, directly or indirectly, for a period of one year.





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The SEBI has also directed RIL to deposit Rs. 447.47 crore within 45 days.The board also directed to charge 12 percent interest on the amount of Rs. 447.47 crore from the date of November 29, 2007, considered to be the biggest penalty in insider trading.Following are the points mentioned in theSEBI order:(i) The noticees named above shall be prohibited from dealing in equity derivatives in the F and O segment of stock exchanges, directly or indirectly, for a period of one year from the date of this order. The noticees may, however, square off or close out their existing open positions.(ii) Noticee No. 1 shall disgorge an amount of Rs. 447.27 crore, as ascertained in para No. 5.5 above along with interest calculated at the rate of 12 percent per annum November 29, 2007 onwards, till the date of payment.(iii) Noticee No. 1 shall pay the said amounts within 45 days from the date of this Order either by way of demand draft drawn in favour of "Securities and Exchange Board of India", payable at Mumbai or by e-payment to SEBI account.Earlier in March 2007, the Board of Directors of Noticee No. 1 decided to raise resources by off-loading approximately 5 percent of its holdings of equity shares of the scrip Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL).While Noticee No. 1 undertook the transactions in the cash segment of RPL in November 2007, it enlisted the services of Noticees No. 2 to 13 as agents to operate in its behalf in the futures segment of RPL. Between November 1, 2007 and November 6, 2007 the above-named Noticees (serial Nos. 2 to 13) took substantial positions in the November Futures contract of RPL.On November 6, 2007, eventually, the holding in derivatives contracts RPL reached 95 percent of the market-wide position limit (MWPL), thereby, inviting upon it a restriction of no further increase in open interest (OI) position as per extant rules pertaining to trading in the derivative segment. This led to an investigation by SEBI into the matter.Prior to the said SCN, there was another SCN dated April 29, 2009 issued to Noticee No. 1, which was modified subsequently by corrigendum dated October 8, 2009, both of which were superseded by the SCN dated December 16, 2010.
UN spotlights slave descendants' legacy of achievements, overcoming 'dark chapter of human history'

New York, Mar 25 : Stressing the importance of remembering slavery and slave trade in human history, the legacy of which resounds down the ages, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday highlighted the contributions that people of African descent have made and are continuing to make to their communities and to the world.





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We must never forget this dark chapter of human history, Guterres told a General Assembly meeting to commemorate the abolition of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, ahead of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.The International Day, observed annually on 25 March, offers the opportunity to honour and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system, and aims to raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice on Friday.We must always remember the role played by many of our countries including my own country of Portugal in carrying out the largest forced migration in history and in robbing so many millions of people of their dignity and often also of their lives, Guterres said.The legacy of slavery resounds down the ages, and the world has yet to overcome racism. While some forms of slavery may have been abolished, others have emerged to blight the world, including human trafficking and forced and bonded labour. Heeding the lessons of yesterday means fighting these ills on Friday, he said.This years commemoration comes as the UN Remember Slavery Programme, which, in addition to educating about one of historys greatest tragedies, works to combat racism and prejudice, marks the 10th anniversary of its establishment.The Programmes theme for 2017 is Remember Slavery: Recognizing the Legacy and Contributions of People of African Descent. It urges remembrance of the fact that the transatlantic slave trade, while forming a very dark chapter in human history, also led to an unprecedented transfer of knowledge and culture from Africa to the Americas, Europe and elsewhere.The Programme also invited Lonnie G. Bunch III, Director of the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., to deliver a keynote address at the Assemblys commemorative meeting on Friday.The descendants of slaves have made their mark as inventors, economists and jurists; as authors and scholars; as artists and athletes; as politicians and civil rights leaders.Mae Jemison was the first African-American woman to enter outer space. Ralph Bunche, the first African-American won a Nobel Prize and was one of the most respected and celebrated international civil servants in the history of the United Nations. Derek Walcott, the poet and Nobel laureate from Saint Lucia who died one week ago, confronted the brutality of slavery and the legacy of colonialism through his poetry and writings.The United Nations and I personally attach the greatest importance to the challenge of slavery, past and present, Guterres said, urging all to unite against hatred at this time of rising divisiveness and build a world of freedom and dignity for all.In order to more permanently honour the victims, a memorial has been erected at UN Headquarters in New York. The unveiling took place on 25 March 2015. The winning design for the memorial, The Ark of Return by Rodney Leon, an American architect of Haitian descent, was selected through an international competition and announced in September 2013.Peter Thomson, the President of the General Assembly, called for the protection of human rights and an end to racism, xenophobia and modern forms of slavery, including human trafficking, forced labour and child labour.The consequences of slavery had not ended with emancipation, but continued to this day, he emphasized. Some were negative, but others positive, he said, underscoring the contributions made by descendants of slavery to shaping multicultural societies.UN Photo/Rick BajornasSource: www.justearthnews.com
Himachal Pradesh: Four houses gutted in fire in Kinnaur village

Kinnaur (Himachal Pradesh) Mar. 25 : A major fire gutted four houses while one was partially damaged in Kinnaur's Kothi village early morning today.





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The fire was controlled after five hours and the administration is assessing the damage.All the houses were made of wood in traditional hill architecture.Two of the damaged houses were empty while from the other three, people along with the cattle were saved.However, five families were affected by the damage in the fire.A temporary arrangement is being made for the villagers."Initially Rs. 10,000 reliefs is being given to each family of the village," Sub-Divisional Magistrate Avaninder Kumar confirmed.No death has been reported yet.
It's a girl for Amanda Seyfried!

Washington D.C. [USA], Mar.25 : Amanda Seyfried and her husband Thomas Sadoski are now parents to a little girl.





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As reported by E! Online, a representative for the actress confirmed that the duo welcomed their first child together.The 'Mamma Mia' star announced the news of her pregnancy in November, last year.Recently, the 31-year-old-actress said "she is ready to go and ready to meet the kid". While Sadoski felt "terrified and excited at the same time."The couple first met as co-stars on the sets of their film 'The Last Word' last year and tied the knot in a secret ceremony earlier this month.Sadoski was previously married to Kimberly Hope for eight years before they divorced in 2015. Seyfried, on the other hand, had been linked to Justin Long, but they broke up in September 2015.
IOM: Humanitarian agencies prepare for increased displacement of drought-affected Somalis into Ethiopia

Ethiopia, Mar 25 : As severe food insecurity continues to rise due to the worsening drought, thousands of Somalis are being forced to leave their homes in search of water, food and pasture. The Government of Ethiopia and the humanitarian community are planning for the potential arrival of 50,000 Somalis in the border regions of Ethiopia.





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Somalia is currently experiencing a drought, which could lead to famine only six years after a devastating famine killed nearly 260,000 people in 2011. Humanitarian agencies estimate that there are 6.2 million drought-affected Somalis in need of assistance, including food, water, sanitation services, healthcare, nutrition, protection and shelter.While needs are widespread, areas with little humanitarian access such as Bay and Bakool are especially affected, as many are forced to walk for days seeking assistance, food and water.We have received news of Somalis arriving at the Ethiopian border extremely distressed and malnourished, said Gerry Waite, IOM Somalia Chief of Mission.IOM is scaling up lifesaving operations along the drought-stricken Ethiopia-Somalia border, where thousands are at risk of disease and death. Thus far in 2017, IOM Ethiopia has transported over 4,000 Somalis from border entry points to displacement camps in Dollo Ado, where they are received and given access to lifesaving services.IOM and other humanitarian partners continue to seek resources to support the emergency shelter needs of drought-displaced families.IOM remains ready to assist vulnerable individuals crossing the Somalia-Ethiopia border, and appeals to the donor community for their support in helping people forced from their homes by drought, said Maureen Achieng, IOM Ethiopia Chief of Mission.Drought is also affecting Ethiopia low rainfall is predicted for the southern, eastern and north-eastern parts of the country. The Humanitarian Requirement Document 2017, produced jointly by the Government of Ethiopia and humanitarian partners, estimates a total of 376,000 internally displaced persons as a result of the drought.Initial projections of displacement figures are now expected to be much higher due to the severity of the drought. IOM Ethiopias Displacement Tracking Matrix has identified over 126,000 individuals internally displaced as a result of the drought since the beginning of 2017.IOM recently launched its 2017 Somalia Drought Appeal. It was developed to enhance current response, and expand the UN Migration Agencys geographic footprint within the country to help those most affected by the drought. IOM teams on the ground are rapidly scaling up ongoing interventions in the fields of health, shelter, water and sanitation, protection and food security.IOM is also increasing its displacement tracking capacity in Somalia and Ethiopia to allow for real time updates to better inform humanitarian response and planning. The activities presented in the Somalia Drought Appeal include and build on the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) and UN OCHAs Pre-Famine Operational Plan (January-June 2017), that target the countrys most critical lifesaving needs.Photo: IOM / Mary-Sanyu OsireSource: www.justearthnews.com
Is Priyanka Chopra superstitious? Find Out!

New Delhi , Mar. 25 : She may have carved a niche for herself across borders, but it looks like Priyanka Chopra is very much connected to her roots.





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In an interview to Marie Claire, the 34-year-old actor said, "I am like most Indian people. Because we are such an old culture, like 5,000 years old, there are a lot of little superstitions. So if something good happens in my life, I don't like talking about it too much.""I believe a lot in evil eye. It's called 'nazar' in India. If something nice or good is happening, you protect it," she added.She recently shared the link of the interview on her Twitter handle.PeeCee's forthcoming 'Baywatch' movie landed her eighth American magazine cover for its April issue, wherein she opened up about trusting her gut."I like to find my own way, which is something my parents always encouraged in me," she says. "They were like: 'You got you.' I think my inherent sense of confidence comes from that. Also, my mom used to always tell me, 'You could make the biggest screw-up on the planet, but you can come tell me and I'll help you fix it.' And my dad used to tell me, 'You kill someone, break a car, you come and tell me. I'll fix it for you.'"The 'Quantico' star also talked about philanthropy and how that has been an essential part of her childhood."Giving back was a big part of my upbringing. When you get so much, you've got to find a way to give back. You don't need a fat wallet. Time is something each one of us has and all it really takes to make the world better-and intention"
Canada: Scientists propose new classification system of dinosaur family tree

Toronto, Mar 25 : The first classification system related to naming the dinosaurs, laid out in 1888, may soon see a change as Canadian scientists have proposed a new classification system of dinosaur family tree, media reports said.





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After an analysis of 75 species of dinosaurs, scientists recently came to the conclusion that the meat-eating group, which includes T. rex, should be separated from plant-eaters such as the Brontosaurus due to their irreconcilable differences.We may be proved to be correct, we may not, said University of Cambridge paleontologist Matthew Baron, who led the research published in the journal Nature, CBCNews reported.Scientists also believed that dinosaurs originated 252 million years ago.Some of the scientists have been tweeting on the subject too.Baron tweeted,The first dinosaurs emerged in an area that is now Britain.University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz tweeted,Dinosaurs could have a UK origin https://t.co/GPSDze5px7via @MailOnlineA series of tweets from Baron reads:Radical shakeup of dinosaur family tree points to unexpected Scottish origins https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/22/scottish-fossil-may-cause-radical-shakeup-of-dinosaur-family-tree-saltopus?CMP=share_btn_tw #ScottishTakeOnOrnithoscelida.A shocking new study just disproved the 130-year-old theory about where dinosaurs came from http://uk.businessinsider.com/cambridge-study-disproves-130-year-old-dinosaur-origins-theory-nature-2017-3 via @BIUK_TechProvocative major re-organisation of dinosaur phylogeny http://www.nature.com/news/dinosaur-family-tree-poised-for-colossal-shake-up-1.21681 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7646/full/nature21700.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7646/full/543494a.html @nature.Media reports quoted Baron as saying, But what has to happen now is a complete abandonment of old dogmatic views across the field because we have shown that rigorous and objective studies can pull apart age-old ideas, and that we as scientists should never get too comfortable with an idea when it can still be tested in new ways..A Facebook post by Holtz said, New study shakes up the dinosaur family tree https://t.co/EpIWtCS2JIvia @usatodayBaron proposed two newly devised categories. The first, called Ornithoscelida, joins the theropods with all the current members of Ornithischia.Baron tweeted, A new theory proposes a radical regrouping of dinosaurs into two new major groups http://go.nature.com/2nIZc79Holtz tweeted, Palaeontology: Dividing the dinosaurs http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/543494a #CryHavokAndLetSlipTheOrnithoscelidansOfWar!In another tweet, Holtz said, Ornithoscelida Rises: A New Family Tree for #Dinosaurs https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/ornithoscelida-rises-a-new-family-tree-for-dinosaurs/ #evolution #phylogeny #fossilsBob Nicholls, Professional paleoartist, tweeted Ornithischians + Theropods = Ornithoscelida! http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7646/full/nature21700.htmlHoltz went to say on Facebook, Still my favorite personal quote from the whole #Ornithoscelida issue isnt even about dinosaurs: Even though we have complete genomes and entire bodies, we still cant resolve if elephants are closer to sloths than to horses, for example.Rearrangement: study is dinosaur family tree in questionhttp://https://t.co/qbhKQYmytq via @SPIEGELONLINE. -- posted Holtz.The current Saurischia group would lose the theropods but add a strange, primitive group of two-legged carnivores called herrerasaurids.Baron tweeted, Paradigm-busting news.. a new #Nature study proposes theropods are closer to ornithischians than to saurodomorphs https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/ornithoscelida-rises-a-new-family-tree-for-dinosaurs/The analysis placed the earliest dinosaur at 242 to 247 million years ago, a small Tanzanian species called Nyasasaurus, soon to become the dominant land animals until an asteroid wiped them out 66 million years ago.Our results strongly suggest that the ancestral dinosaur was a quick, two-footed, generalist feeder that would have eaten a mix of plants and meat, Baron said.Facebook post by Holtz, Dinosaur: pedigree reformed - new pedigree for lizards-https://t.co/jk23KLN1edBarons tweet, After 130 years, the dinosaur family tree gets dramatically redrawn, writes @edyong209Holtz tweeted, #EverythingYouKnowIsWrong (mabye).(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)Image of Dinosaur: Wikipedia
India joins the world to observe Earth Hour on Saturday

New Delhi, Mar 25 : On Saturday, nearly all countries, including India, will be switching off their non-essential lights for an hour, from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm, local time, in support of people's commitment towards energy conservation, proper utilisation of energy sources and awareness about climate change.





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From the Eiffel Tower to Taipei 101 and the Empire State Building to the Acropolis, thousands of landmarks will switch off their lights in solidarity as individuals, communities and organizations worldwide deliver on their potential to help change climate change, the planets biggest environmental challenge yet.Mooted by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Australia, in 2007, Earth Hour has slowly developed into a global movement.2017 marks the tenth anniversary of Earth Hour which started as a symbolic event in Sydney in 2007.It is the worlds largest grassroots movement for the environment, ensuring that people who are on the frontlines of climate change, are also empowered to be the planets first line of defense, said WWF in a release.We started Earth Hour to make a statement. Never did we imagine that we would be writing a dramatic new story for climate action where each individual can help turn the page toward a sustainable, climate-resilient future for all, said Siddarth Das, Executive Director, Earth Hour Global.He said, In ten years, Earth Hour has helped protect seas in Russia and Argentina, raised funds for conservation projects in Southeast Asia and the Amazon and even created a forest in Uganda and none of this would have been possible without the force that binds us all together our collective determination to protect the one planet we all share.On Saturday, WWF-India, in association with Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance hosted Pedal for the Planet 2017, a Cyclothon and Walkathon to celebrate Earth Hour 2017.The Earth Hour India campaign by WWF-India focuses on the need to inspire individuals, corporates and other organizations, schools, colleges, RWAs and housing societies to become Earth Hour Superheroes, undertake five simple actions and lend their voice to the largest grassroots level environment campaign in the world.The exhilarating 21 kilometer cyclothon, covered over two rounds and the 3.5km walkathon.Anuj Mathur, Chief Executive Officer, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance said, We are pleased to partner for the 9th consecutive year with WWF-India for the Earth Hour Pedal for the Planet initiative. We at Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance have always encouraged our employees in initiatives which promote sustainable lifestyle and safeguards the planet. It is heartening to see the increasing awareness around the world on the need to preserve the environment and within our organization we are taking all steps to contribute to this cause.Speaking about the success of the campaign and the event, Ravi Singh, Secretary General CEO, WWF-India said, Earth Hour is our attempt to inspire and empower individuals and help them fight against the complex issue of climate change. The enormous enthusiasm and support that weve witnessed for Earth Hour at the Pedal for the Planet Cyclothon is very humbling, it is great to see people coming together and committing to fight for a common cause that threatens the world as we know it.Building on the impact it has created in the last decade, in 2017, Earth Hour supporters in Spain and the UK are urging the government to deliver strong climate action and meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement.In Hungary and Uganda, people are encouraging communities and organizations to shift to renewable energy while in Cambodia, Greece and Colombia, people are coming together to act toward sustainable lifestyles.In Australia, the birthplace of the movement, WWF is using Earth Hour to spread awareness on renewable energy among the youth while also inviting supporters who switch off the lights to donate toward solar lighting in rural communities in Ethiopia.Similarly, people in Singapore, Indonesia, India and Hong Kong are teaming up as Earth Hour Buddies to help protect forests and oceans and promote sustainable living.Climate change is visible proof that our actions can have a ripple effect beyond physical borders. It is up to each of us to ensure the impact we create helps instead to improve the lives of those around us and elsewhere, at present and in the future, added Das.Image: AIRNews Twitter
Oxigen Services signs MOU with Department of Tourism, Arunachal Pradesh

New Delhi , Mar 25 : Oxigen Services, India's largest payment solutions provider, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Tourism, Arunachal Pradesh for becoming the preferred partner for providing digital payment solution to the residents and tourists visiting the state.





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Pramod Saxena, Chairman and Managing Director, Oxigen Services signed a MoU with the state government in the presence of Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of State for Home, Government of India, key dignitaries of the state and key officials from various companies."Oxigen services is proud to be associated with the Tourism department of Arunachal Pradesh by becoming a payments solutions partner to in providing digital payment solutions to the residents and tourists visiting the state. Arunachal Pradesh is considered to be the nature's treasure trove. Every year the state attracts a huge number of domestic and foreign tourists," said chairman and managing director Oxigen Services, Pramod Saxena."With this partnership, we would like to provide a reliable, efficient and robust service of our digital payments solutions, with access through Oxigen Wallet and Oxigen Micro ATM. This alliance is one step forward in the evolution of Digital India," added Saxena.
Will sprinkle 'Ganga jal' on UP Cabinet when I'm CM again: Akhilesh Yadav

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) , Mar. 25 : Taking a jibe at newly elected Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday asserted that when he will form the government again in 2022, he will sprinkle 'Ganga jal' on all the government offices to purify them.





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"When we will form the government again in 2022, we will sprinkle Ganga jal not only on 5-Kalidas Marg, but also all the government offices (to purify them)," Yadav said evoking laughter from the gathering.Commenting on Adityanath's last Lok Sabha speech where he brought up the former Chief Minister's age, Akhilesh said that even though he was younger than his successor, he had the upper hand in experience."Of course, he is a year older to me, but as far as the work is concerned, he is far too smaller than me. Talking about the incidents, that are happening all over the state like shutting down of illegal slaughter houses, 'Anti-Romeo' squad; I'm waiting for the day when these issues will be highlighted with Yogi's picture- the way media used my picture while reporting (such) incidents earlier." said Yadav.Akhilesh also emphatically voiced out his opinion on having elections with ballots."Demands will be held in Uttar Pradesh and in the Lok Sabha elections, the way elections are held around the world, the ballot will be held in the same way," said Yadav.In the recently-concluded elections in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav-led Samajwadi Party faced a stinging defeat at the hands of the BJP which won 312 seats in the 403-member Assembly.The SP won 47 seats.
There is an imperative need to defend universities as free spaces: Vice-President

Chandigarh (Punjab) , Mar. 25 : Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari on Saturday said there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to the people.





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He was delivering the 66th Convocational Address at the Panjab University here.Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Panjab University vice chancellor A.K. Grover and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.Sharing his thoughts on the importance of universities in our society the Vice-President talked about the idea of a university and how it distinguishes itself from other institutions where instructions are imparted focused on catering to requirements of daily life."The need for them to teach its members to think, to go beyond the obvious in learning for examination purposes, and to acquire the capacity and habit to question; the necessity for them to focus on research, to produce new knowledge that may be beneficial to society and the economy; the need to undertake social research, given the diversity and complexity of all societies in a fast changing world; and the imperative need for academic freedom so that the thought process and its expression is untrammelled by official or societal constraints," he added.The Vice-President said that a University has to be more than a mere polytechnic."Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections, the university should first aim to build a profound understanding of the discipline," he added.The Vice President said that a University has the twin responsibility of providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those very matters.He also underlined the important role of social research in questioning and deconstructing 'social and cultural mythologies' that circulate and proliferate in any society, especially during phases of change and uncertainty.The Vice President said that the recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be."The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be 'public good'," he added.The Vice-President said that the right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under the Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms."A University must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom," he added.
Rajinikanth cancels Lanka visit following opposition from pro-Tamil outfits

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) , Mar.25, ANI: After facing opposition from Tamil fringe groups, superstar Rajinikanth has called off his proposed visit to Sri Lanka to inaugurate a housing scheme in Jaffna.





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"VCK chief Thirumavalavan and MDMK chief Vaiko urged me not to visit Sri Lanka. I accepted their request because of cordial relationship," Rajinikanth said.The decision came after he met with opposition from pro-Tamil outfits in his state.Rajinikanth was to participate in a charity event, slated to take place on April 9.He was scheduled to formally present keys to 150 homes built by Gnanam Foundation for the internally displaced Tamils in the island nation.However, the visit was opposed by the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Marumarlarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMDK).Gnanam Foundation has been focusing on re-building infrastructure in the key areas of Sri Lanka which were badly affected in the civil war that took place around three decades ago.
A new restaurant has plans to move into the former Carmella's Pizzeria
One day, patients may be able to monitor their body's response to cancer therapy just by having their blood drawn. A new study, led by bioengineers at UC Berkeley, has taken an important step in that direction by measuring a panel of cancer proteins in rare, individual tumor cells that float in the blood.

Berkeley researchers isolated circulating tumor cells from the blood of breast cancer patients, then used microscale physics to design a precision test for protein biomarkers, which are indicators of cancer. After isolating each cell, the microfluidic device breaks the cells open and tests the cellular contents for eight cancer protein biomarkers. The researchers are expanding the number of proteins identifiable with this technology to eventually allow pathologists to classify cancer cells more precisely than is possible using existing biomarkers.

"Tremendous advances have been made in DNA and RNA profiling in cells collected using a liquid biopsy. We extend those advances to highly selective measurement of proteins - the 'molecular machines' of the cell," said Amy Herr, Berkeley a bioengineering professor and leader of the study team. "We are working to create medicine that would allow a doctor to monitor a patient's treatment response through a blood draw, perhaps on a daily basis."

The study was published March 23 in the journal Nature Communications. The research was a collaboration with breast cancer surgeon Stefanie Jeffrey at Stanford University and with a University of California startup, Vortex Biosciences. Funding was provided by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

The study focuses on circulating tumor cells, a potentially rich source of information about a person's cancer. These cells are thought to break off from the original tumor and circulate in the blood, and may be a sign of an aggressive tumor. But studying these cells is difficult because the cells are rare, so few are collected even when enriched from the blood. The cells contain different proteins than the original tumor, so research is ongoing to unlock the secrets of these elusive cells.

To better study circulating tumor cells, the researchers collaborated with physician-scientists and industry engineers to develop a microfluidics system that separates these large cells into a concentrated sample. A key advance the team made was in devising a system to precisely handle and manipulate the concentrated cells from blood. The Berkeley researchers then analyzed each circulating tumor cell for the specific panel of cancer proteins.

To do so, they placed each rare cell in a microwell (with a diameter roughly half the width of a human hair). Once settled in the microwell, the circulating tumor cells were burst open and the proteins released from inside each cell were separated according to differences in size or mass. The scientists were then able to identify cancer proteins by introducing fluorescent probes that bind to and light up a specific protein target. By sorting and probing the protein targets, the test is more selective than existing pathology tools. Enhanced selectivity will be crucial in detecting subtle chemical modifications to biomarkers that can be important but difficult to measure, Herr said. The researchers plan to expand their approach to identify more proteins, and proteins with unique modifications, in circulating tumor cells.

"Microfluidic design was key in this study. We were able to integrate features needed for each measurement stage into one process," Herr said. "Systems integration allowed us to do every single measurement step very, very quickly while the biomarkers are still concentrated. If not performed exceptionally fast, the cell's proteins diffuse away and become undetectable."
How a disease outbreak affects a group of animals depends on the breakdown of ages in the population, research has shown.

The findings could help scientists better understand how events such as disease outbreaks may affect certain groups in a population.

Scientists sought to examine how a spread of ages can influence a population's health, by simulating an outbreak of disease in small marine animals.

With lab experiments and computer modelling, they found that disease spread can vary depending on the age at which individuals are exposed to infection, and the age at which females in the group become mothers.

Experiments in the latest study found that offspring of younger mothers were more at risk from infection. The finding builds upon previous knowledge that younger individuals are more at risk.

Taking these factors into account, computer models showed that when death rates are high, disease can spread faster - even as populations fall. This contradicts the expectation that disease should spread most easily in dense populations, in which individuals interact more.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh carried out lab experiments with water fleas, examining how four generations of the small crustaceans responded to a common bacterial infection. Their results were used to build a mathematical model of how the organisms might respond in the long term to threats such as incidence of disease.

Their study, published in Ecology Letters, was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

Jess Clark, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, who led the study, said: "Many societies around the world are experiencing ageing populations, and investigating the impact of this might lend valuable insight into how such populations might respond to an outbreak of disease."
Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for men and women in the United States according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). In fact, the ACS estimates that 134,490 people in the United States were diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2016, including 70,820 men and 63,670 women. In addition, the ACS estimates that 49,190 people, 26,020 men and 23,170 women, died from colorectal cancer in 2016.

According to Mitchell Rubinoff, M.D., Chair, Gastroenterology, Valley Medical Group, "In order to reduce the mortality rate of this disease, it is crucial for individuals to be aware of the signs of colon cancerand not hesitate to have any cause for concern checked out as soon as possible. Early detection saves lives!"

What is Colon Cancer?

Often referred to together as colorectal cancer, colon cancer is cancer of the large intestine (colon), and rectal cancer is cancer of the last few inches of the colon. It most often begins as precancerous polyps on the inside lining of the colon. Colon polyps, as defined by the National Institutes of Health, are growths on the lining of your colon or rectum.

Who is At Risk?

Both men and women are at risk for developing colorectal cancer, even if they do not have any of the identifiable risk factors such as:

A family history of colorectal cancer

Being over age 50

Colorectal polyps

Genetic changes

Early Detection Through Screening Tests

"It is best to catch colorectal cancer before you become symptomatic. Doctors can actually prevent cancers from ever developing by removing polyps and they can cure more patients by diagnosing cancer at an early stage," explains Dr. Rubinoff.

Possible screening tests for colorectal cancer include stool tests, colonoscopy, or virtual colonoscopy. A colonoscopy is an outpatient procedure that is used to try to detect colon polyps and remove them before they can become cancerous. Your doctor will work with you to decide which test is appropriate for your individual history and symptoms.

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It is also important for individuals who are not showing any symptoms of colorectal cancer to go for routine screenings. The CDC states that "The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that adults age 50 to 75 be screened for colorectal cancer. The decision to be screened after age 75 should be made on an individual basis. If you are older than 75, ask your doctor if you should be screened. People at higher risk of developing colorectal cancer should begin screening at a younger age, and may need to be tested more frequently."

Signs and Symptoms

There are many potential symptoms of colon cancer and it is important to note that there is a great deal of overlap between colon cancer's symptoms and symptoms of other illnesses. And, while it is possible that your symptoms may be caused by something else, you should still be aware of what to look out for and make sure to see your doctor right away if you experience any of the following symptoms:

A change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation, or narrowing of the stool, that lasts for more than a few days

A feeling that you need to have a bowel movement that is not relieved by doing so

Rectal bleeding

Dark stools, or blood in the stool (often, though, the stool will look normal)

Cramping or abdominal (belly) pain

Weakness and fatigue

Unintended weight loss

Recognizing these symptoms, which are outlined by the American Cancer Society, is the first step to early detection. Once you alert your doctor to these symptoms, you may be sent for screening tests to confirm a diagnosis.

Prevention

You can help to prevent cancer by exercising, eating fresh fruits and vegetables, and maintaining a healthy weight. Be proactive and take charge of your health!
Unlike experimental neuroscientists who deal with real-life neurons, computational neuroscientists use model simulations to investigate how the brain functions. While many computational neuroscientists use simplified mathematical models of neurons, researchers in the Computational Neuroscience Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) develop software that models neurons to the detail of molecular interactions with the goal of eliciting new insights into neuronal function. Applications of the software were limited in scope up until now because of the intense computational power required for such detailed neuronal models, but recently Dr. Weiliang Chen, Dr. Iain Hepburn, and Professor Erik De Schutter published two related papers in which they outline the accuracy and scalability of their new high-speed computational software, "Parallel STEPS". The combined findings suggest that Parallel STEPS could be used to reveal new insights into how individual neurons function and communicate with each other.

The first paper, published in The Journal of Chemical Physics in August 2016, focusses on ensuring that the accuracy of Parallel STEPS is comparable with conventional methods. In conventional approaches, computations associate with neuronal chemical reactions and molecule diffusion are all calculated on one computational processing unit or 'core' sequentially. However, Dr. Iain Hepburn and colleagues introduced a new approach to perform computations of reaction and diffusion in parallel which can then be distributed over multiple computer cores, whilst maintaining simulation accuracy to a high degree. The key was to develop an original algorithm separated into two parts - one that computed chemical reaction events and the other diffusion events.

"We tested a range of model simulations from simple diffusion models to realistic biological models and found that we could achieve improved performance using a parallel approach with minimal loss of accuracy. This demonstrated the potential suitability of the method on a larger scale," says Dr. Hepburn.

In a related paper published in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics this February, Dr. Weiliang Chen presented the implementation details of Parallel STEPS and investigated its performance and potential applications. By breaking a partial model of a Purkinje cell - one of the largest neurons in the brain - into 50 to 1000 sections and simulating reaction and diffusion events for each section in parallel on the Sango supercomputer at OIST, Dr. Chen and colleagues saw dramatically increased computation speeds. They tested this approach on both simple models and more complicated models of calcium bursts in Purkinje cells and demonstrated that parallel simulation could speed up computations by more than several hundred times that of conventional methods.

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"Together, our findings show that Parallel STEPS implementation achieves significant improvements in performance, and good scalability," says Dr. Chen. "Similar models that previously required months of simulation can now be completed within hours or minutes, meaning that we can develop and simulate more complex models, and learn more about the brain in a shorter amount of time."

Dr. Hepburn and Dr. Chen from OIST's Computational Neuroscience Unit, led by Professor Erik De Schutter, are actively collaborating with the Human Brain Project, a world-wide initiative based at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, to develop a more robust version of Parallel STEPS that incorporates electric field simulation of cell membranes.

So far STEPS is only realistically capable of modeling parts of neurons but with the support of Parallel STEPS, the Computational Neuroscience Unit hopes to develop a full-scale model of a whole neuron and subsequently the interactions between neurons in a network. By collaborating with the EPFL team and by making use of the IBM 'Blue Gene/Q' supercomputer located there, they aim to achieve these goals in the near future.

"Thanks to modern supercomputers we can study molecular events within neurons in a much more transparent way than before," says Prof. De Schutter. "Our research opens up interesting avenues in computational neuroscience that links biochemistry with electrophysiology for the first time."
Researchers have shown for the first time that Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and schizophrenia have a shared genetic origin, indicating that the causes of these diverse conditions are biologically linked. The work has just been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

By analyzing the genetic profiles of almost 13,000 ALS/MND cases and over 30,000 schizophrenia cases, the research led by scientists from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland confirms that many of the genes that are associated with these two very different conditions are the same.

In fact, the research which involved collaborators from the University of Utrecht, Kings College London and members of the Project MinE and Psychiatric Genome Consortia has shown an overlap of 14% in genetic susceptibility to the adult onset neuro-degeneration condition ALS/MND and the developmental neuropsychiatric disorder schizophrenia.

While overlaps between schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric conditions including bipolar affective disorder and autism have been shown in the past, this is the first time that an overlap in genetic susceptibility between ALS/MND and psychiatric conditions has been shown.

Dr Russell McLaughlin, Ussher Assistant Professor in Genome Analysis at Trinity College Dublin, and lead author of the paper said: "This study demonstrates the power of genetics in understanding the causes of diseases. While neurological and psychiatric conditions may have very different characteristics and clinical presentations, our work has shown that the biological pathways that lead to these diverse conditions have much in common."

Professor of Neurology in Trinity and Consultant Neurologist at the National Neuroscience Centre, Orla Hardiman, who is the senior author and lead investigator on the project said: "Our work over the years has shown us that ALS/MND is a much more complex disease than we originally thought. Our recent observations of links with psychiatric conditions in some families have made us think differently about how we should study ALS/MND. When combined with our clinical work and our studies using MRI and EEG, it becomes clear that ALS/MND is not just a disorder of individual nerve cells, but a disorder of the way these nerve cells talk to one another as part of a larger network."

She continued: "So instead of thinking of ALS/MND as a degeneration of one cell at a time, and looking for a 'magic bullet' treatment that works, we should think about ALS/MND in the same way that we think about schizophrenia, which is a problem of disruptions in connectivity between different regions of the brain, and we should look for drugs that help to stabilize the failing brain networks".

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"The other significant issue that this research brings up is that the divide between psychiatry and neurology is a false one. We need to recognise that brain disease has many different manifestations, and the best way to develop new treatments is to understand the biology of what is happening. This will have major implications for how we classify diseases going forward, and in turn how we train our future doctors in both psychiatry and neurology. That in itself will have knock on consequences for how society understands, approaches and treats people with psychiatric and neurological conditions," Professor Hardiman added.

The new research was prompted by earlier epidemiological studies by researchers at Trinity, led by Professor Hardiman. These studies showed that people with ALS/MND were more likely than expected to have other family members with schizophrenia, and to have had another family member who had committed suicide. This was first noted as family histories were ascertained from people with ALS/MND in the Irish National ALS Clinic and was subsequently investigated as part of case control studies in Ireland in which over 192 families with ALS/MND and 200 controls participated. Details of over 12,000 relatives were analysed and the rates of various neurological and psychiatric conditions calculated in family member of those with ALS/MND and controls. This work was subsequently published in the prestigious American journal the Annals of Neurology in 2013.

This led the Trinity group to team up with European collaborators in ALS/MND to see if these epidemiological observations could be due to a genetic overlap between ALS/MND and schizophrenia.

The Trinity group, along with their partners in the University of Utrecht, will continue to study the links between ALS/MND and psychiatric conditions using modern genetics, epidemiology and neuroimaging, and in this way will develop new and more effective treatments that are based on stabilizing disrupted brain networks.
Today, at the World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases in Florence, Italy, Dr Thierry Thomas, Professor of Medicine and Head of the Rheumatology Department, University hospital, St. Etienne, France, was awarded the 2017 IOF Committee of National Societies (CNS) Medal.

The CNS Medal recognizes an individual who has made an important contribution to the cause of osteoporosis prevention through active participation in CNS activities and by expanding IOF's messages and outreach in his/her country. The CNS, comprising more than 230 patient and medical societies worldwide, is IOF's core membership committee. Its membership represents the world's largest single network of national and regional organizations dedicated to the prevention of osteoporosis and musculoskeletal disorders.

Professor Jean-Yves Reginster, Chair of the CNS and IOF Board member, stated: "I am delighted to recognize Thierry Thomas' outstanding achievements through the presentation of this prestigious award. As an acknowledged expert and leading educator in osteoporosis and the broader rheumatology field he has shown outstanding support for IOF programmes as well as for health professional education and advocacy initiatives in France. His commitment to the work of the Groupe de Recherche et d'Information sur les Osteoporoses (GRIO) and to the IOF Capture the Fracture Programme, as well as his overall contributions to research, teaching, public outreach, and secondary fracture prevention have served to advance patient care and health professional knowledge in France and beyond."

Professor Thomas has published more than 200 scientific articles or book chapters. He is Vice-President of the French Society of Rheumatology, Past President of GRIO, and President of the French College Academic Lecturers in Rheumatology, among other positions. His involvement in scientific societies and institutions include membership of the Bone Working Group of the French Society of Rheumatology, the ESCEO Scientific Board, the GRIO Scientific Board and the IOF Capture the Fracture Steering Committee.
A $9.5 million, five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will fund an intensive multidisciplinary research effort that seeks to better understand how cancer cells reach an aggressive state and begin to damage surrounding tissue. The initiative, called Cancer Systems Biology at Yale ([email protected]), is one of four new research centers in NCIs Cancer Systems Biology Consortium, and is directed by Andre Levchenko, Ph.D., the John C. Malone Professor of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Yale Systems Biology Institute.

[email protected] is based at the universitys West Campus and brings together investigators with varying research backgrounds from three schools and seven departments at the university, and a variety of other institutes and programs. In particular, at the core of [email protected], the Yale Systems Biology Institute on West Campus will join forces with the Yale Cancer Biology Institute, the Raymond and Beverley Sackler Institute for Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences, the Yale Cancer Center, and Emory University to address fundamental questions at the core of cancer biology. Four of the 12 principal and primary investigators are members of the School of Medicine faculty.

The program will address the specific problem of phenotypic plasticity of invasive cancers. Cancer cells with the same genomic makeup can adopt different phenotypes, or characteristics, switching from rapid division and growth to invasive migration and metastatic spread through unknown mechanisms. Furthermore, different phenotypes may co-exist in the same tumor, with cells exchanging signals among themselves and with surrounding normal tissues. [email protected] will explore this complexity of invasive cancer through a range of novel techniques and approaches.

[email protected] will also be devoted to understanding and manipulating the complex molecular networks governing complex cell behaviors. A key focus of the research will be on translational applications aimed at identifying new targets for therapeutic intervention and the development of new drugs targeting invading cells.

Says Levchenko, Our approach will vary from the use of synthetic biology to evolutionary approaches, and will rely heavily on advances in engineering, mathematics, and physics, in addition to breaking new ground in biology and chemistry.

The next important goal in cancer therapeutics will be to control or correct signaling networks rather than targeting individual molecules, and [email protected] brings unique sets of expertise and perspective together to do this, says Mark A. Lemmon, Ph.D., co-director of the Yale Cancer Biology Institute and the David A. Sackler Professor of Pharmacology at the medical school.

Other School of Medicine investigators who plan to take full advantage of [email protected]s advanced resources and collaborative approach include Jesse Rinehart, Ph.D., associate professor of cellular and molecular physiology. Rinehart says a portion of the grant will support a project that he and Farren J. Isaacs, Ph.D., an assistant professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology in the Yale Combined Program in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, have developed.

Weve combined our expertise in an area called synthetic biology and molecular biology, to build very, very unique bacterial cells, says Rinehart. Theyre unique because they allow us to encode human genes and then endow those human genes with the same physiological function that you might find in human cells. We recently demonstrated that we could bring in genes that are responsible for small protein networks or genetic networks in cancer, and that we could accurately model their properties in these bacterial cells.

Rinehart, whose primary expertise is in signaling networks, says that as the work proceeds, the presence of additional disciplines such as mathematical modeling will be invaluable. Mathematical models can combine real terms and real quantities with unknown variables, giving us a model that has flexibility and outcomes that are both predictable and testable. Says Rinehart of [email protected] colleagues who have expertise beyond the biological sciences, I really want to learn from them.

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Gunter P. Wagner, Ph.D., Alison Richard Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is looking for ways to use the knowledge of normal physiological aggressive cell growth to understand and thwart the often-fatal metastasis of cancers in humans. He hopes to find clues in certain mammals for which the skin cancer melanoma has become a chronic, non-malignant condition. Given all the molecular biology tools we have at our disposal it would not be surprising if we could find the gene regulatory differences that make the difference between cows and pigs on the one hand, and humans, Wagner says.

Wagner will draw from Levchenkos expertise in examining aggressive cancers in the context of surrounding biological matrix and normal stromal (connective tissue) cells. Levchenko views metastatic disease in military terms. If you think about an invading army, it can be welcomed by the population or resisted. A lot depends on the country that is being invaded and the population that lives there. Very similarly in cancer you can think about what happens with the cells that are normal and experience the invasion of cancer cells. Are they going to resist? Or are they going to promote the invasive spread?

Sidi Chen, Ph.D., assistant professor of genetics and systems biology, will use his labs expertise in designing experimental models to benefit CaSB and the field. My role in this grant is to build a platform to study cancer in animal models, says Chen. We have previously developed the CRISPR/Cas gene editing technology in vivo in Cas9 transgenic mice. We want to utilize this platform to build new mouse models to better study cancer.

A hallmark of [email protected] will be the opportunity for speed, efficiency, and new ways of attacking problems that collaboration brings. The moment any lab makes tangible progress, other investigators will know it. We typically get to interact with ideas and progress from other labs after its been published, says Rinehart. Even when its a breakthrough, its something that the lab was working on in the past. Sometimes that may be five years ago. You really need to know what they are doing now, and thats exactly what we have.

Levchenko compares this approach to a famous precedentthe Manhattan Projectwhich brought together scientists from many disciplines with the urgent goal of developing an atomic bomb that could win World War II. I dont think a lot of people thought it was possible to do what is already happening here, including identification of new lead compounds that have the potential to become anti-cancer drugs, in just a few years of our active work. We are dealing with one of the most difficult problems in medicine and the hope was that with harnessing all the interdisciplinary approaches, this problem can be solvedand the progress has been very impressive.

Lemmon believes the benefits of collaboration, with an emphasis on systems biology over studying components of cancer in isolation, may bring progress that is beyond exponential. Argues Lemmon, The emergent properties wont emergeyoull never know what they areunless you take a systems approach. So, if youre actually trying to understand the properties of the system, you will never understand it by looking at the parts.

Source: http://www.medicineatyale.org/janfeb2017/news/newsarticles/222923/
: At least 20 people were injured when a fire broke out at Ordnance Factory, Khamaria (OFK) in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh this evening, setting off a series of explosion.News18 has exclusively learnt that the accident occurred when 125 mm anti-tank bombs were being dispatched.According to reports, factory No 316 and 318 of the OFK have been completely gutted due to the massive blaze.However, no casualty has been reported yet and there is no report of any one being trapped inside the factory.According to reports, factory No 316 and 318 of the OFK have been completely gutted due to the massive blaze. (The first explosion was reported from the F-3 (filling area) of the Khamaria factory at around 6:00 pm. Three loud explosions rocked the filling area which was closed at 5:30 pm.District Collector Mahesh Choudhary said that 25 fire tenders were pressed into service, and the blaze was put out by 9.30 pm, three hours after it started. Cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, he said.No explosion took place after 7:15 pm, a source said.
Gwalior: Tanushree Pareek on Saturday became the first woman combat officer to be commissioned in the 51-year history of the BSF, the country's largest border guarding force.



Pareek (25) also led the passing out parade of 67 trainee officers that was reviewed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at the Border Security Force camp at Tekanpur near here.



Pareek, a resident of Rajasthan's Bikaner, is the first woman to join the force in the officer rank after she was selected in the all-India exam conducted by the UPSC in 2014.



The Home Minister himself put the rank stars on the shoulders of Pareek during the piping ceremony.



The force had begun induction of woman officers in 2013.



She will now be posted to command a unit along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab.



While praising the first woman "field officer" of the 2.5-lakh-strong force, Singh said the Centre has chalked out a new roadmap to strengthen border security and it plans to seal Indian borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan.



He added the BSF has built 73 border outposts, out of 76 such border structures constructed in recent times.



Lauding the force raised in 1965, Singh said BSF has changed the rules of engagement at the international borders and now it is a "known entity" in the neighbouring countries.



While paying his tributes to the personnel of the force killed in the line of duty, the minister said government is planning for an effective grievance redressal mechanism in the forces.



"The forces are coming forward with such mechanisms," he said.



He praised the BSF saying it is the only force after the Indian military which operates on land, water and air as it has a dedicated air and water wing apart from foot soldiers.



"BSF is not only the first line of defence but also the first wall of defence," he said.



The trainee officers, who passed out today, have undergone 52-week training in battle craft, intelligence gathering and other border guarding tasks before being commissioned into the force in the entry rank of Assistant Commandant.



Out of 67, 51 are direct entry officers while 16 have joined the officer ranks on promotion.



During his visit to the Tekanpur camp, Singh also watched a demonstration of PAVA shell firing at the Tear Smoke Unit (TSU) of the force.



The shells were prepared at the TSU and sent to Kashmir Valley for security forces as an alternative to pellet guns to control protests and stone pelters.



The BSF is primarily tasked to guard two of the most sensitive Indian frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh while it is extensively deployed for conducting anti-Naxal operations and rendering other duties in the internal security domain.
Bengaluru: Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge has thrown a challenge at the Central Government, offering to host an EVM-hackathon in Bengaluru to dispel doubts on whether the machines are fool-proof.



Kharge, who is Minister for IT, BT and Tourism, had two days back, asked the government to "Why not let Bengaluru start-ups have a go at it."



Priyank, the son of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, was responding on social media to reports where the Central government, and in particular Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, rubbished reports that EVMs could be tampered with.



Prasad, in a debate in the Rajya Sabha on electoral reforms, had said EVMs are tamper-proof and that the Centre would further strengthen their veracity by allowing a paper trail for votes.



Weighing in on the EVM debate, Kharge junior told Prasad that the best way to put doubts at rest would be to organise an EVM-Hackathon, further offering to host one in the country's start-up capital Bengaluru as it would be good to see disruption, if any, as part of ethical hacking.



"After the UP elections there is a lot of talk about the EVMs. After all, it's a machine... Scientific temper always teaches you that you should doubt, so if there is a doubt in the technology and there is nothing wrong in having an ethical hackathon. So the idea is to ensure that this kind of doubts is laid to rest," Priyank Kharge told News18.



He said his offer has no connection with claims raised by parties like BSP and AAP that EVMs were rigged in the recent Assembly elections.



"We have a very vibrant startup ecosystem here in Bengaluru. So I have just replied to what honourable minister Mr. Prasad said, that it cannot be hacked or it cannot be at fault. So I am just asking the right question, of saying that can we have a ethical hackathon and see if these EVMs can actually be hacked or not," Kharge said.



While saying this is not a 'challenge,' that he is merely reacting to what is happening in general, Kharge said his team has also, parallelly, written to the Election Commission and the Public Sector Units that manufactures EVMs to see whether they can get a machine that can be put to test through the city's tech wizards.



"The idea is very simple. We need to keep the trust in the EVMs. And in order to have that, it needs to be challenged, because at the end of the day people are putting their entire future on this machine. So we need to figure out whether this machine is good enough for us or not. I have complete trust in technology, being the IT minister, but if somebody doubts that technology, as a minister, it is also my responsibility to clear the air," Kharge said, pointing out that in the biggest democracy in the world, when 1.6 billion people are choosing their elected representatives through this machine, there is nothing wrong in evaluating how proficient the machines are.



Kharge's offer comes on a day when the Supreme Court began hearing a Public Interest Litigation on alleged tampering of the software in EVMs. A division bench of the apex court has sought the Election Commission's response to the PIL, that also seeks an investigation by software experts into this.



There have been loud accusations by Opposition parties of EVM tampering in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh elections, apart from questions being raised on why the Centre has not fully funded a paper trail for voting by machines, that was ordered by the SC a few years ago.
New Delhi: The Centre will finalise an "aggressive" national strategy in a month to end tuberculosis in the country by 2025, Union Health Minister J P Nadda said on Friday, on the occasion of World TB Day.



"Ensuring affordable and quality healthcare to the people is the government's priority. We are committed to achieving zero tuberculosis deaths. Therefore, we need to re-strategise, think afresh and be aggressive in our approach to end TB by 2025," he said at a programme.



"The National Strategic Program (NSP) will be finalised in a month and will be rolled out across the country. The vision of NSP is a TB-Free India. This programme aims at the rapid decline of the tuberculosis burden," Nadda said.



The minister said the 'Active Case Findings' initiative, which was launched in January in 17 states and covered 50 districts in the first phase to treat TB among vulnerable population groups, will be rolled out in 130 other districts by the end of this year.



"We are going ahead with Active Case Findings with better preparation in 130 more selected High-Risk districts to bring TB cases under treatment early. This would reduce the number of deaths, transmission of the disease and also its drug-resistant variant," he said.



Nadda also said the 'Daily Regimen' which have been found to be more effective and is till now is being implemented in five states will be rolled out across the country this year.



Observing that India has the highest number of TB cases in the world, he said the government has heightened its action to meet the 'End TB 'target by 2025.



"Drug-resistant TB is a growing threat and its diagnosis and treatment is costlier. We have decided to attack the root cause of the disease head-on," Nadda said.



Informing that the government has made notification of TB cases mandatory, he said, "Almost 92 per cent of TB patients with HIV has been put on antiretroviral therapy."



"The government has distributed more than 500 CBNAAT machines for rapid quality diagnostics in a year, with at least one such machine for each district. This step has led to 35 percent rise in the notification of drug-resistant TB cases last year," Nadda said.



At the event, the minister launched 'India vs TB', a campaign for early identification of tuberculosis symptoms propagating the importance of its treatment. The campaign features Bollywood star, Amitabh Bachchan.



The campaign has been developed by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Challenge TB.


Mumbai: Resident doctors in Maharashtra on Saturday resumed their duties after receiving assurances from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and intervention from the Bombay High Court.



The doctors called off their five-day strike after Fadnavis gave an ultimatum to striking resident doctors to resume duty or face legal action.



Bombay High Court had rapped the striking doctors and appealed them to call off their strike on Thursday.



Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors said in a statement that their meeting with the Chief Minister on Friday night was satisfactory.



"The state government has issued a letter of assurances and we feel our demands are being addressed. We have asked our members to resume to the duty from Saturday morning," the statement said.



More than 4,500 resident doctors had gone on mass leave for last five days after a series of assault took place on resident doctors in various parts of the state.



Except OPDs and general wards at government and municipal-run hospitals, the health services were not affected.


New Delhi: Government on Friday reacted sharply to The New York Times' editorial criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's choice of Adityanath Yogi as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and said the paper's wisdom to write such a piece was "questionable".



"All editorials or opinions are subjective. This case is particularly so. The wisdom in doubting the verdicts of genuine democratic exercises, at home or abroad, is questionable," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.



The NYT in the highly critical editorial, titled 'Modi's Perilous Embrace of Hindu Extremists', said since he was elected in 2014, Modi has played a "cagey game, appeasing his party's hard-line Hindu base while promoting secular goals of development and economic growth".



The move by Prime Minister Modi's party to name "firebrand Hindu cleric" Aditya Nath as Uttar Pradesh's chief minister+ is a "shocking rebuke" to religious minorities, the editorial said.
Lucknow: The hurly-burly of being the chief minister of the country's most populous state would not keep Yogi Adityanath away from his "favourite" cows as many of them will soon be shifted to his sprawling 5-Kalidas Marg residence.



'Gauseva' or service of cows has been a part of the 44-year old priest's regimen for several years during which he has developed a bond of affection with many of them.



"In the guashala (cow shelter) at the Gorakhnath Temple, there are close to 460 cows and calves. Whenever the Yogi is in Gorakhpur, he feeds the calves with milk, roti and jaggery.



After this he feeds the cows," said Swami Vidya Chaitanya Maharaj of Naimisharanya Ashram.



And now with Adityanath moving to Lucknow, some of his favourite cows would also soon be brought here to 5, Kalidas Marg, the official residence of the chief minister, he added.



"Adityanath calls the cows by their names. He has a strong bond with them. Nandini is his favourite," Chaitanya Maharaj, who has been in close touch with Adityanath for the past 12 years said.



He added that the Gorakhpur cowshed has the best breeds of cows including Gujarati, Sehwal, Desi and Gir, which produce over a hundred litres of milk a day.



This milk is used for making 'mattha' (a kind of buttermilk) which is distributed as 'prasad' among those visiting the Gorakhnath Temple, he said.



Known for his austere lifestyle, Adityanath has followed a strict daily regime.



"Adityanath gets up at 3 AM and practises Yoga between 4 to 5 AM. After this, he offers prayers and takes a round of the Mutt and temple premises, while inspecting the cleanliness of the place," Chaitanya Maharaj said.



He would then feed the fishes and then head to the 'gaushala' (cowshed), he said.



It was only after these chores were over, that he would head to his office as the head priest and Gorakhpur MP to listen to the grievances of the public, Chaitanya Maharaj added.
Lucknow: An FIR was lodged against Bollywood producer Shirish Kunder on Friday for his "objectionable" and "abusive" post on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi, police said.



The FIR was lodged based on a complaint filed in the Hazratganj police station here by Amit Kumar Tiwari who while referring to the Chief Minister as "Hindu Hriday Samrat Sant Shiromani Yogi Adityanath", quoted extensively from a tweet done from Kunder's official handle on March 21, wherein he says: "Going by the logic of making a goon as CM so that he behave Daud can be CBI director and Mallya RBI governor."



Tiwari complained that in the tweet, the Chief Minister has been compared to international terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and demanded that appropriate legal action be taken against the film producer.



An official told IANS that based on the complaint, an FIR has been lodged and a probe initiated.



Kunder, who however has deleted the tweets concerned, later extended an apology on the micro-blogging site.



"I unconditionally apologise. I never meant to hurt anyones feelings or sentiment," he tweeted.
"We burnt the effigy of the AI purser to support our MP who is our source of inspiration. We are proud of what he did as he was responding to the insult heaped by the airline on him," Chavan said.

A party spokesperson, however, said Gaikwad was not a person who would jump into such a thing and it was necessary to know what made him lose his temper.

: Shiv Sena workers in party MP Ravindra Gaikwad 's Osmanabad constituency, on Friday burnt an effigy of the Air India staffer, who was assaulted by the leader, triggering a slew of protests.Osmanabad district and tehsil unit functionaries of the Sena gathered at Babasaheb Ambedkar statue at Tuljapur and burnt the effigy, district vice president of Sena, Kamlakar Chavan said.Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, senior Sena minister Eknath Shinde said party president Uddhav Thackeray will take a decision on the Gaikwad issue."I feel it is not alright for people's representatives to turn violent," the minister said.Shiv Sena has sought an explanation from Gaikwad who hit an Air India staffer at IGI airport in Delhi with a slipper, and remained defiant over the incident."The party has sought an explanation from Gaikwad over the incident. The Sena does not condone violence of any kind," Harshal Pradhan, media adviser to Sena president said.Speaking to reporters outside the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in Mumbai, Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik too said the party does not endorse the act.He was however of the view that airline companies and railways should respect people's representatives.However, Shiv Sena on Friday said it would not condone the action of its MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who hit an Air India staffer with a slipper and then openly boasted about it."Shiv Sena does not subscribe to any such reaction by any of our party members," Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande said, reacting to Gaikwad assaulting an Air India employee. "We must agree that he has accepted to his action or reaction," she said."Gaikwad is known as 'Ravi Sir' and is very popular in his constituency. He has worked a lot towards solving the water problems of his region," she said."We really should know what made him lose his temper. He is not a person who would suddenly jump into such a thing," Kayande said.None of the senior Sena leaders, including party president Uddhav Thackeray, have so far commented on Gaikwad's action today.Air India lodges complaint with police against Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad for allegedly assaulting airline staffer at Delhi airport.
New Delhi: Anticipating a Bihar-like grand alliance in UP in the next general elections, BJP is holding talks with the RSS to chalk out a strategy to upend a larger socio-political coalition of all opposition parties.



As a first step towards consolidating its social coalition, there is a view emerging that the state president of the BJP should be from the Dalit community.



The incumbent president Keshav Prasad Maurya is now a deputy CM in Yogi Adityanath's government. A Most Backward Class (MBC) leader from Phulpur in Allahabad, Maurya's elevation as state chief backed by the RSS helped BJP to consolidate non-Yadav OBC voters taking the party vote-share to well past 40 percent in the just concluded Assembly polls.



BJP's three-fourth majority in the Assembly came at the cost of total decimation of BSP. Samajwadi Party was also reduced to its worst tally since its inception. But the two parties together with Congress polled more than fifty percent votes.



Facing marginalisation in state politics, there is every possibility that the two state parties may come together to take on the BJP in 2019.



In 1992, at the peak of Ram Temple movement in UP, Mulayam and Kanshi Ram joined hands to defeat the BJP in Assembly polls. The rest is history. In 2019, BJP does not want this history to repeat itself in UP.



Sensing realignment in the state politics there is a view emerging that the next UP state president should be from the Dalit community. This is aimed at further weaning away Mayawati's Dalit vote base which is said to be close to 20 percent.



"There are many seats in western UP where Muslims and Dalits together comprise of more than 50 percent of the electorate. Is case of total mobilisation of these communities, there is little scope left for us," says a BJP MP from Western UP.



Even in the just-concluded Assembly polls, BJP has made a concerted effort to ensure there was no polarisation in the first two phases.



"That would have been counter-productive has the minorities mobilised behind BSP. Here we gave an impression that the our fight was with the SP when BSP in reality was the main contender," says an RSS leader from the region.



Re-strategising for the next general elections, BJP will now attempt to further broaden the width of BJP's social coalition. Dalit, both Jatav and non-Jatav, is the new constituency which the party now aims to woo in the days ahead.



About half a dozen names from the Dalit communities are under consideration for the state president. That includes former MoS HRD and Agra MP Ram Shankar Katheria. Katheria is from the Dhanuk SC community.



Others in the race are: Kaushambi MP Vijay Sonkar, Bulandshahr MP Bhola Singh and Hathras MP Rajesh Diwakar.




New Delhi: Eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi civic polls, BJP chief Amit Shah on Sunday launched a blistering attack on the AAP alleging that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson.



Addressing BJP workers ahead of the MCD elections, Shah referred to party's victories in the recent assembly polls and said a win the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the national capital.



Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in "saffron", Delhi continues to remain a "white spot" and asked the party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the civic polls.



"After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps and so that the BJP's victory flag is unfurled in the national capital," he said.



Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.



"The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by CBI. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers, street lights."



"A minister is involved in hawala. There was a scam in waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequer's money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements," Shah said.



The BJP President contrasted his party's "clean record" in governance with the AAP's "tainted" tenure, saying many of its legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and "rape".



He also dared Kejriwal to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges.



"This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls," Shah said and appealed to party activists to work hard for the elections as it was Delhi where the then Jana Sangh, BJP's predecessor, came to power first.



Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel, as well as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, were present at the event.



Shah also referred to the anti-terror surgical strike undertaken last year, saying the armed forces "barged" into Pakistan to avenge the killing of soldiers in Uri last year.



Shah hailed the contribution of booth-level workers in the BJP's spate of electoral success across the country.



He was addressing a convention of booth in-charges at the Ramlila Ground, where around 60,000 workers had gathered.



The BJP has dubbed the group of five booth in-charges as 'Panch Parmeshwar', saying these "workers will work like 'panchs' towards getting administrative justice for people".



Shah said AAP had promised improved law and order in the city but "Kejriwal would do a big favour by reining in his MLAs".



"I would urge him to keep his MLAs in control. That will be a big favour for the people of Delhi. Criminal allegations have cropped up against 13 MLAs of the party that spoke of bringing change in politics," he said.



He advised Kejriwal "not to worry" about the BJP's poll promises in Uttar Pradesh and instead focus on bringing in the reforms in the areas of education and health.



"We will fulfil all our promises in Uttar Pradesh. You don't have to worry. Kejriwal makes a slew of promises ahead of polls but after the elections, he is found in Punjab, Goa, Gujarat.



"If you (Kejriwal) have the slightest shame left then he should remember that he is answerable to the people of Delhi on these tainted MLAs. He should do so before canvassing for votes ahead for the municipal polls," Shah said.


Lucknow: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday accused the Aditya Nath Yogi government of targeting police officials of a "particular caste", after IPS officer Himanshu Kumar was suspended for "indiscipline".



Kumar was recently in news for his controversial tweets accusing senior police officers of targeting subordinates of a particular caste.



"Only policemen of one particular caste are being suspended and transferred and everybody knows about it," said Akhilesh, whose party had all along been accused by political opponents of working in the interest of a particular caste.



The Samajwadi Party chief was interacting with mediapersons ahead of a national executive meet.



Earlier, a Home Department spokesman said, "IPS officer of the 2010 batch, Himanshu Kumar has been suspended for indiscipline."



Though Himanshu Kumar's tweet of March 22, that stirred a controversy in Uttar Pradesh, has since been deleted, its screen shot is still doing the rounds.



The deleted tweet said, "There is now a rush among senior officers to suspend/send to reserve lines all police personnel who have 'Yadav' surname."



In another tweet, Kumar said, "Why DGP office forcing officers to punish people in the name of caste?"



Later, Kumar put out another tweet saying, "Some people have misunderstood my tweet. I support the initiative of the government."



Kumar was attached with the Director General of Police's (DGP) office in Lucknow. He had been shifted to DGP's office by the Election Commission.



He was earlier posted as a Superintendent of Police in Manipuri and Firozabad, the region regarded as SP bastion.



After his suspension, Kumar tweeted, "Truth alone triumphs."



The IPS officer was in the news last July for filing a case against his estranged wife, Priya Singh, in Noida. He had alleged that she had hacked his e-mail accounts to obtain bank statements and personal details.
Chandigarh: Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday urged all his colleagues in the Punjab Congress to set an example for others by giving up red beacons on their vehicles, in line with their commitment to people of the state as part of the party's election manifesto.



"It is the collective responsibility of all party members to uphold the commitments made in the manifesto and fulfill their promises to the people," he said in a statement here.



"As the elected representatives of the people, it is our onerous responsibility and duty not only to fulfill our promises but also to do so in the positive spirit in which we made the same to the voters," he added.



Notably, the Congress returned to power in Punjab after a gap of 10 years. Assembly polls in the state were held in February this year.



The chief minister lauded all his ministerial colleagues and party MLAs who had already removed the red beacons and had won accolades for the same from the media as well as the public in general for arriving at the state Assembly yesterday in beaconless cars.



"The people voted for us as they trusted us to keep our promises and had faith in our ability to deliver on all counts," Amarinder said, adding "shedding VIP culture is a very small step in the direction of meeting their

expectations".



Acknowledging that the shift required a major mindset change, he said he was confident that every one of his party colleagues had the strength to take this courageous step in the interest of the state and people "who see the VIP culture as a culture of alienation and isolation".



"If red beacons could raise a leader's status and ensure his/her popularity then no incumbent government, MP or MLA would ever lose an election," he said.



The chief minister said that a red beacon is, in fact a "regressive symbol which should have no place in a progressive society like ours, where accessibility is an important criterion in gauging the popularity of any leader".



Amarinder reiterated his government's commitment to implement all the poll promises and the subsequent cabinet decisions in letter and in spirit, as he called upon all MLAs, ex-MLAs and other elected leaders to support his government's

efforts towards this positive transformation of Punjab.
Lucknow: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday took a dig at the new state government, saying only "anti-Romeo squads and clean-up drives" have been witnessed so far.



The SP leader accused the new government of targeting officials of a certain caste.



"I am waiting for the new Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Yogi Adityanath to come up with something concrete," Samajwadi Party President told the media after its National Executive meeting.



"As of now, all we are seeing on television are cleanliness drives in government offices and the anti-Romeo campaign (against eve-teasing)," he said.



He also took a dig at state government officials who he said were in an overdrive to ensure cleanliness after a directive from Yogi Adityanath.



"I never knew these officials are so good at wielding brooms; or else, I would have given them this charge long back," he quipped.



He said so far not even the first state Cabinet meeting had taken place and the SP was awaiting its outcome.



Akhilesh Yadav was apparently referring to the BJP's poll promise that the loans of small and medium farmers will be waived in the very first Cabinet meeting if the party was voted to power in Uttar Pradesh.
Dhaka: Two explosions ripped through a crowd Saturday, killing six people and injuring some 50 in Bangladesh's northeastern city of Sylhet as army commandos stormed an Islamist extremist hideout, police said.



The "powerful" blasts went off some 400 yards (metres) from the hideout, targeting police and hundreds of onlookers who were watching the commandos conduct an anti-militant operation at a five-storey apartment building, police said.



Deputy Commissioner of Sylhet police Basudeb Banik told AFP "six people including two police officers were killed" in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group via its propaganda agency Amaq.



He said around 50 people were injured including about a dozen police and security officers.



Several people were reported to be in critical condition, including the head of intelligence of the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which is tasked with combating Islamist extremism in the country, he said.



Police primarily suspect the blasts were the work of a new faction of the homegrown extremist group, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which has been blamed for a wave of attacks in recent years.



Police could not confirm if it was a suicide attack but believe one of the attackers could be among the dead.



IS claimed via Amaq that there were "dozens killed and wounded among Bangladeshi forces as a result of the detonation of an explosive device", according to US-based monitoring agency SITE Intelligence Group.



Banik rejected the claim, saying IS does not have any presence in the country.



The blasts occurred after an hours-long exchange of gunfire and commandos rescued "78 civilian hostages" from the hideout where several Islamist militants were holed up in a ground-floor apartment.



"Our main task was to rescue the hostages, which we have done successfully. We were able to rescue all 78 people safely," army spokesman Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told reporters.



He said the extremists were still inside the apartment building where they had barricaded themselves and laid explosive devices.



"As a result the whole operation is being conducted carefully," he said.



- 30-hour standoff -

The commandos backed by armoured personnel carriers launched the operation after a more than 30-hour standoff that began early Friday morning when police sealed off the building as militants detonated small bombs.



The spokesman could not say how many extremists were in the building, but police said there were at least two including a woman.



"They are Islamist extremists," police spokesman Musa said, adding they shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is the greatest).



Police used loudspeakers to ask the extremists to surrender, but they refused to give up, Musa said.



The raid came after a series of suicide attacks on security camps by Islamist extremists this month including one at a police checkpoint near the country's main international airport on Friday night.



Two of the three attacks, including Friday's blast in which the suicide attacker was killed, were claimed by the Islamic State group.



This month a police elite unit also stormed a building outside the port city of Chittagong, killing four members of JMB, including a woman.



IS has claimed responsibility for a wave of killings since 2015 including a major attack on a Dhaka cafe last year in which 22 people, including 18 foreign hostages, were killed.



The Bangladeshi government denies IS has any presence in the country, arguing instead that a new faction of JMB was behind the attacks.
April cattle futures exploded this week to the highest level in over a year, nearing $1.23 per pound. The price rally is a welcome relief for ranchers who have seen prices rise over 25 percent from bankruptcy-inducing levels under $1 per pound last fall.

Buying was prompted by reports that Brazilian police recently busted two of that countrys largest meat producers in a probe dubbed Weak Flesh. The companies are accused of bribing health inspectors and politicians, selling rotten beef, and mixing impurities like cardboard and soybeans into meat to stretch it and boost profits. These allegations have prompted buyers around the world to restrict Brazilian meat imports.

Brazil is the second-largest beef producer in the world after the United States; with the loss of Brazilian exports, foreign buyers may become more dependent on U.S. meat.

However, this rally may be short-lived if the scandal is contained to the 21 Brazilian meat processing plants currently implicated. Furthermore, many nations may not reduce imports for long, opting to increase inspections on imports, which would prevent a sharp increase in demand for U.S. beef. Worse yet, news of the scandal may cause a drop in beef demand, ultimately sending prices lower, which means that U.S. beef producers may need to act fast to capture the current high prices.

Oil flows lower on XL pipeline approval

On Friday, President Trump approved the Keystone XL pipeline, paving the way for more Canadian crude oil to flow to U.S. refineries. This move was widely expected, but would increase oil supplies by 800,000 barrels per day, exacerbating a domestic oil glut.

Oil markets fell near a four-month low, trading Friday under $48 per barrel, taking gasoline and diesel fuel prices lower by about two cents per gallon as well.

Perdue heads toward USDA position

Sonny Perdue, the nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, received a warm welcome this week in the Senate at his confirmation hearing. Perdue, the former governor of Georgia, addressed bipartisan concerns about budget cuts, immigration curbs, and limits on free trade.

If confirmed by the Senate, Perdue would oversee the USDA, an agency with nearly 100,000 employees that focuses on agriculture, forestry, rural development, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.
Washington: President Donald Trump said on Friday that he was disappointed that a conservative faction in the House of Representatives blocked his healthcare legislation and said "we learned a lot about loyalty" from the effort.



Speaking in the Oval Office after a stunning political setback, Trump said the healthcare effort was a victim of stalwart Democratic opposition and any future healthcare legislation would likely need Democratic support.



He also said he was surprised and disappointed by the opposition from the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservatives who prevented Republicans from using their majority in the House to pass the legislation.



Asked if he felt betrayed by the Freedom Caucus, Trump said he did not.



"No, I'm not betrayed. They're friends of mine. I'm disappointed because we could have had it. So I'm disappointed. I'm a little surprised, to be honest with you," Trump said.



"We really had it. It was pretty much there, within grasp. But I'll tell you what's going to come of it is a better bill...because there were things in this bill that I didn't particularly like. If both parties could get together and do real healthcare, that's the best thing," he said.



Trump, a New York businessman who won election Nov. 8 based in part on promises to get big deals through Congress, cast the failure as a learning experience.



We all learned a lot. We learned a lot about loyalty," Trump said. "We learned a lot about some very arcane rules in obviously both the Senate and the House."



Trump also expressed confidence in House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was seen as the main backer of the legislation. Ryan personally delivered the news earlier in the day to Trump that there were not enough votes to pass it.



"I like Speaker Ryan. He worked very, very hard. A lot of different groups. He's got a lot of factions. And there's been a long history of liking and disliking, even within the Republican Party, long before I got here," he said. "I'm not going to speak badly about anybody within the party."



Trump has privately told confidants he wished he had done tax reform first instead of getting immersed in the difficult effort to overhaul President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, which passed without Republican support in 2010.



"We'll probably be going right now for tax reform," Trump said, saying he wanted "big tax cuts and tax reform. That will be next."
Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 30, at St. James Lutheran Church, with Pastor Jeni Bohls officiating. Military honors will be conducted by the Mason City Veterans Association and the U.S. Marine Corps Honor Guard.
World class music at JAOTG

Event organiser, Production One Ltd has assembled another star-studded cast of entertainers including Victor Provost from the US Virgin Islands, James Jessey Joseph from Haiti, The William Roblejo Trio from Cuba and TT s Elan Parle and Vaughnette Bigford.

Chairman of Production One Anton Doyle reflecting on the JAOTGs success said: Its a blessing and definitely amazing to recognise that we have managed to keep this event going for 15 years.

When we first came up with the idea, local jazz musicians were not as prominent or celebrated as they are now and the genre itself was more of an underground movement that only a few people really appreciated and followed to any extent.

Its wonderful to see how the movement has grown and evolved; and although times are hard and sponsorship is virtually impossible for us to acquire these days, were still toughing it out and making it work somehow  because we love the music, believe in the artistes and we feel that its necessary for the country and the society to really be blessed by these classic sounds.

Then there are all those people who come out every year and keep telling us how much the experience means to them; and how it rejuvenates their souls  its really a labour of love at this point and were hoping the love is returned as we celebrate this blessed milestone and feature this amazing and talented cast of musicians at JAOTG 2017. One of the leading bands in the local jazz movement, Elan Parle is known for its blends of Caribbean rhythms with global music influences to create a Caribbean/world fusion.

Using freewheeling improvisations over carefully crafted compositions, ?lan Parl? is said to have brought a contemporary jazz perspective to the musical and cultural traditions of Trinidad and Tobago.

The vision for the group is reflected in the bands name Elan Parl?  which can be artistically interpreted to mean spirited conversations. Over the years, the band has been a staple at all of the local jazz festivals.

Cuban musician Roblejo is an excellent violin player who has paved a way as a professional artist in several popular music bands in his native Cuba.

Roblejo is also head of the William Roblejo String Trio that features violin, guitar and bass.

As a violin player, he has developed a strong career as part of important bands that play Cuban pop, trova and fusion music, including the David Torrens band.

From the technical perspective, he is well-known for brilliant executions on his instrument  which is why he is also a member of the Amadeo Rold?n string quartet of the Cuban National Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as one of the rising stars in the Cuba Interactivo project.

Roblejo completed his formal studies in violin at the High Institute of Arts in Cuba (ISA) and has subsequently taught violin in the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory of music in Havana, while concurrently heading the String Cathedra of the mentioned institution.

As usual, JAOTG will have food stalls, wines, desserts, snacks and beverages kinds, ample secured parking and room for picnic-style lounging.

Tickets cost $350 and are available at the malls and regular ticket outlets.

For more info: www.jaotg.

com.
RAGE IN ENTERPRISE

Residents began blocking access to John Street and surrounding roads with burning debris some firing flares and setting off firecrackers creating a gridlock as they demanded action on the Unruly Isis gang, which they blamed for Alexis murder, and a spate of killings in the central Trinidad community.

There were reports of gunshots being fired in the air.

Alexis, elder brother of Selwyn Robocop Alexis, who was also murdered last year, died when two men opened fire on him with high-powered guns from a vehicle as he stood outside his home at about 6.30 pm.

A police unit parked a short distance from the street, as part of their patrol duties, responded on hearing the gunshots and called for back-up when they found Alexis body. By 7.15 pm, neighbours and residents began streaming out into the streets, and angered by the Alexis murder began setting fires.

ROADS BLOCKED A joint police-soldier patrol posted at a HDC house in the area arrived soon after and cordoned off the streets, as Fire Services were called out to put out the fires.

The old Southern Main Road, a main thoroughfare which passes through the community, was also obstructed with debris along some parts triggering a traffic jam up to outlying areas including Chin Chin Road, Cunupia from where the fires could be seen.

A driver called Newsday and reported being unable to go past Chin Chin Road and had to find an alternative route.

Commuters had to divert through Longdenville and Ragoonanan Road as police redirected the traffic.

Just two weeks ago, on March 11, two men, Terrance Boomy Patrick and Christian Mohammed were shot while liming at the corner of John and School Streets in Enterprise. Patrick was pronounced dead at the Chaguanas Health Centre and Mohammed succumbed to his wounds at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope the following day. A man and a woman were also shot but survived and were discharged from the Mt Hope hospital after being warded for a few days.

Police believed the March 11 shootings were reprisals for the murder of Selwyn Robocop Alexis, a community activist who was charged for extortion and kidnappings but was never convicted. He and a customer were gunned down at his car wash in Enterprise last July 17.

The gunman was killed in the cross-fire.

Three men were detained for questioning about the murders of Patrick and Mohammed and one of them was identified as a relative of Selwyn Alexis. The suspects were however released. Sylvan is the third Alexis sibling to be murdered as brothers Mervyn Alexis and Selwyn Robocop Alexis were also gunned down in unrelated incidents.

BUILD POLICE STATION Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams last night told Newsday he was not yet in a position to comment.

Im not down at Enterprise, so Ill have to receive an update. A murder has taken place but I have to get the facts from the officers down there. Asked if he is monitoring the situation, he said, We have a substantial operation there, of police and soldiers, so thats in operation. The events of this evening Ill have to find out the details. Pressed as to if he would give his initial impressions, Williams replied he had not yet got the feedback. The Divisional Commander, in assessing what transpired today, will provide me with the information. Chaguanas East MP Fazal Karim, whose constituency includes Enterprise, last night reiterated his call for a police station to be built in the area, to replace what he described as an inadequate police post at Lions Gate near to where yesterdays shooting occurred. He said, A police station will do a lot to comfort local people, compared to just the temporary police post. He also urged more joint police/army patrols in the area. Karim said he condemned in the strongest possible the shooting of Alexis, just as he would condemn the killing of any citizen. He said it is worrisome that crime is out of control to the extent that people are afraid to leave their homes.

LINE CROSSED Recalling a religious leader at yesterdays funeral of WPC Nyasha Joseph lamenting her murder as a serving police officer, Karim remarked that when persons commit murder near a police post they have proverbially crossed the line, even as he lamented a murder near the Chaguanas Police Station.

He urged citizens to assist the police in their inquiries. Karim said he is working to try to establish skills-training programmes and police youth clubs in that area as an anti-crime deterrent.

He is also working with local schools, NGOs and faith based organisations, even as he recalled a recent ecumenical week of prayer to boost spirituality in the area. We continue to pray and seek Gods intervention, he said.

Parents too can play a big role, he said, given that many crimes are committed by young people. Asked if more should be done to try to directly stem feuding amongst gangs, he said hed ask religious leaders to try to mediate peace.

Saying the Government must step in to take responsibility in this situation, Karim promised to work with the Ministry of National Security and any other ministry towards a settlement of this unrest.

He again condemned the killing and urged all citizens and groups to work together to address the scourge of crime in both central Trinidad and nationwide. Efforts to contact National Security Minister Edmund Dillon were unsuccessful last night.
Online tax lawsuit set for July 21

Justice Ricky Rahim has set July 21 for trial, after attorneys for the courier companies and the Ministry of Finance agreed to a timetable for the filing of evidence and legal authorities to support their respective positions on the issue.

Rahim had granted the six courier companies leave to have the court review the decision of the government to implement the tax.

Ecouriers Ltd, Websource, Jet Box International, Aeropost, CSF Couriers and Caribbean Shipping Agencies are contending that the ministers decision to implement the tax, which came into effect on October 20 last year after the national budget, was irrational, wholly unreasonable and disproportionate to any aim of the State and was done without adequate consultation.

They also contend they were not given a fair opportunity to be heard before the imposition of the tax and this was in violation of the principles of procedural fairness.

They are seeking declarations that their rights were violated by the minister when he implemented the tax and that they were unfairly discriminated against.

The fiscal measure was announced by the Finance Minister, Colm Imbert, in September last year in the 2016-2017 budget statement.

Imbert said then that the new tax would be imposed on purchases that arrived in TT through courier companies or were brought in directly by individuals via air freight.

This measure, he said, was expected to raise an additional $70 million revenue.

Representing the courier companies are attorneys Keith Scotland, Joel Roper, Gideon McMaster and Jacqueline Chang, while the Minister of Finance is represented by Senior Counsel Martin Daly and Jason Mootoo.

Representing the AG are attorneys Michael Quamina and Sean Julien, who also instructs Daly for the Finance Minister
Were surrounded by monsters

Addressing mourners at funeral service at the house of mourning in Roystonia, Couva Rev Ragnauth said the world has now become a dark and gloomy place and the hearts of many including himself are now broken.

Our hearts are broken with this tragic news, but God is with us and He will never leave or forsake us. In times like this the Lord will give us light, but we are really living in dark times, really dark times, Ragnauth stressed. He called on persons to be good examples and allow their light to shine in such times of darkness.

Adding he said that his hope and prayer is that justice is served in Beephans murder. No matter how uncertain life is, God gives us light and hope. We need to shine our light brightly to take away the darkness and hatred in this world.

We need to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. We also must remember that in times like these, the Lord will give us strength, Ragnauth said.

Beephans decomposed body, still clad in school uniform was found in a drain behind his school, the Waterloo Secondary located at Raymond Jurawan Street off the Waterloo Main Road in Carapichaima on Monday last.

It is a difficult pain to bear, parents are not accustomed to burying their children. It is expected that children bury their parents. It is a tragic loss, Garcia told mourners.

He said that as a parent who has also lost a child, he understands the pain of such tragedy.

Years ago, Garcia said his son died and he too experienced the heartache of burying a child. Its a feeling of great sadness in this unfortunate situation to pay tribute to a child whose life has been snuffed out. It was with great sadness when we at the Ministry received the news.

A parent expects that when they send their child to school that they would be there safe and return safe. Parents are not expected to bury their child but the other way around, he said. As a result of such circumstances, the pain is increased for parents. Garcia said his ministry was doing everything possible to ensure that children receive an education in a peaceful and safe environment.

An autopsy showed the Form Four student had injuries to the right side of his face and died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Beephans cousin Samantha Seepersad described him as quiet and reserved. Seepersad said that the teenager had the ability to make everyone laugh. Beephan, she said showed affection to all and was fondly called, Mamas boy.
Unemployment not all that bad

Acknowledging that there has been a sustained and gradual increase in unemployment in Trinidad and Tobago in recent months, she said, From the last quarter in 2015, unemployment would have increased from 3.5 percent to about four percent in 2015. On poverty, she said, it did not start in 2015. It has been increasing over the last 10 years. Crichlow-Cockburn spoke yesterday in the House of Representatives during the debate on Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsinghs motion calling on the House to condemn Government for failing to deal with the countrys current unemployment challenges. Despite the economic downturn and Government operating within stringent economic times, she said, our unemployment rate is still not considered high by international standards.

It is below five percent which is considered the natural rate of unemployment. At those remarks UNC MP Barry Padarath heckled Crichlow- Cockburn and Speaker Brigid Annisette-George asked him to, Take your tea break now and return later. Shortly after, Annisette-George distracted by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, asked him to leave the Parliament Chamber as well.
Tom Brady Just Became

First NFL Player to Do This
Nebraskans know a thing or two about drought. Brutally hot and dry conditions pounded Nebraska in 2012 in one of the most dramatic droughts in recent memory.

Lake McConaughy shrank to only 54 percent full, with an additional decline in 2013. Many ag producers saw groundwater levels fall, in some cases in dramatic fashion.

There's good news of late, though.

Groundwater levels in much of the state have made major progress from 2012 due to robust precipitation.

The Platte River valley, the Panhandle and the eastern third of Nebraska have seen significant groundwater gains, the University of Nebraska- Lincoln's Conservation and Survey Division recently reported.

Not that all is well.

Water stress returned in 2016 to some areas of central and western Nebraska, the UNL scientists reported, based on survey results from nearly 5,000 wells statewide.

A few days after the UNL researchers issued that report, another institution on the UNL campus  the National Drought Mitigation Center  put forward its inaugural annual report.

The center, now in its 22nd year at UNL, works closely with institutions such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The report describes 24 drought-focused projects and 76 events the center has pursued either within our country or abroad.

Monitoring and early warning projects spearheaded by the center have focused on the needs of specific geographic areas, including U.S. regions, tribal areas in South Dakota, the Caribbean, a set of Middle Eastern nations and a long list of countries including the United Kingdom, Egypt, India, Vietnam and Australia.

These Nebraska-based institutions are making laudable contributions to local and global understanding of drought and options for coping with it.

This editorial appeared in the March 17 edition of the Omaha World-Herald.
Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, once described by a cybersecurity expert as the "most prolific bank robber in the world," ended up on a different list altogether in December: as one of the individuals noted in then-President Obama's sanctions against Russia for trying to influence the election. As Garrett M. Graff explains in his Wired piece, Bogachev is an FBI "most wanted" poster boy who developed a malware "masterpiece" under the screen name "Slavik," known for pulling off extensive financial transgressions around the globe. Now, however, Bogachev has become known as his homeland's "most notorious hacker," and he's still on the loose, despite the US government's multi-year battle to flush him out and haul him in. Graff's article details how Bogachev was constantly able to elude authorities where others couldn't, from the early days of the malware and ransomware projects he ran to the present.

It also reveals the FBI's unceasing efforts to take down the botnet-driven schemes, a probe that eventually uncovered Slavik's real identity (Bogachev) and that he'd moved on from banks to government "espionage commands." The FBI finally launched Bogachev's day of reckoning: May 30, 2014, when the feds would take down his whole operation. It was an "amazing" day of "cyber-hand-to-hand combat," one witness, a Pittsburgh US attorney, says of the attack, which was a success. Bogachev, howevernamed on Obama's sanctions list not for election hacking (the US government doesn't think he was) but to pressure Russia to turn him over in "good faith"may never be caught. "Bogachev and other Russian cybercriminals lie pretty far beyond America's reach," Graff laments. More on this thrilling cybercrime story at Wired. (A Hollywood hospital paid a computer ransom to hackers.)
A Canadian provincial government has withdrawn a man's eponymous personalized vehicle license plate, saying Lorne Grabher's surname is offensive to women when viewed on his car bumper. Grabher said Friday that he put his last name on the license plate decades ago as a gift for his late father's birthday, and says the province's refusal to renew the plate late last year is unfair. Grabher accuses the Nova Scotia government of discriminating against his name, the AP reports.

Transport Department spokesperson Brian Taylor says while the department understands Grabher is a surname with German roots, this context isn't available to the general public who view it. The personalized plate program introduced in 1989 allows the province to refuse names when they're deemed offensive, socially unacceptable, and not in good taste. (Read more vanity plates stories.)
A teenage blogger from Singapore whose online posts blasting his government landed him in jail was granted asylum to remain in the United States by an immigration judge in Chicago Friday. Amos Yee has been detained by federal immigration authorities since December, when he was taken into custody at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Attorneys say the 18-year-old could be released from a Wisconsin detention center as early as Monday, the AP reports. "Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore," Judge Samuel Cole wrote in his 13-page decision.

Yee left Singapore after being jailed for several weeks in 2015 and 2016. The atheist was accused of hurting the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians in the multiethnic city-state. However, many of his blog and social media posts contained criticism of Singapore's leaders. Cole said testimony during Yee's hearing showed that while the Singapore government's stated reason for punishing him involved religion, "its real purpose was to stifle Yee's political speech." He said Yee's prison sentence was "unusually long and harsh" especially for his age. Homeland Security attorneys opposed the asylum bid, saying Yee's case didn't qualify as persecution based on political beliefs (Read more Singapore stories.)
A group of 11 young people from several countries was detained after a bizarre protest at the Auschwitz death camp Friday. The Auschwitz museum says the men and women stripped naked, slaughtered a sheep, and chained themselves together under the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate, the BBC reports. The seven men and four women, from countries including Poland, Belarus, and Germany, also draped a banner with the word "Love" over the gate and used a drone to film the incident, Deutsche Welle reports. Their motives are unknown, though local media have reported it was a protest against the war in Ukraine.

Museum guards intervened and the group was taken to the local police station for questioning. Authorities in Poland say they are likely to face charges including desecrating a monument. "Using the symbol of Auschwitz to any kind of manifestation of happenings is outrageous and unacceptable," the museum said in a statement. "It is disrespectful to the memory of all the victims of the German Nazi Auschwitz concentration camp." (Read more Auschwitz stories.)
Authorities have identified the pilot whose plane mysteriously crashed with no one inside it earlier this month and say he was likely suicidal, Huffington Post reports. Xin Rong, a 27-year-old doctoral student from the University of Michigan, rented the Cessna from Ann Arbor Municipal Airport on March 15 and took off from Ann Arbor around 7pm, according to the Chronicle Journal. Authorities say he was heading to Harbor Springs, Michigan, but the plane crashed in the woods of Ontario, Canada, shortly before midnight after flying approximately 480 miles. There was no sign of Rong anywhere near the crash site, and his body still hasn't been found. Authorities believe the plane was on autopilot and crashed after running out of fuel.

Police in Michigan had been searching for Rong as a missing person, but that search has been called off, as has the search involving the crashed plane. Authorities say they "have reasons to believe" Rong, a former Google and Microsoft employee, was planning suicide when he took off in the Cessna. But they aren't giving any further details "out of respect for his family, classmates, and colleagues." Authorities say Rong wasn't in the plane when it crashed. "When [Rong] exited, and how [Rong] exited, is still a mystery," one investigator says. Canadian authorities say there is no reason to believe Rong is still alive, MLive reports. (Read more plane crash stories.)
A Louisiana deputy marshal charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of an autistic 6-year-old boy was convicted of the lesser offense of manslaughter Friday. Derrick Stafford was one of two officers who fired 18 bullets at the car of Christopher Few after a chase in 2015, unaware that Few's son was inside, the New York Daily News reports. The boy, who was in the front seat, was hit by four bullets and killed. Few was critically injured and learned of the death of his son when he woke up from a coma six days later. Stafford testified that he hadn't seen the boy and that he fired in self-defense, fearing that Few might reverse over fellow officer Norris Greenhouse Jr., the Advocate reports.

Stafford, who fired 14 shots at the vehicle, told the court he hadn't seen that Few had his hands up when he opened fire. "Never in a million years would I have fired my weapon if I knew a child was in that car," said Stafford, who became tearful when prosecutor John Sinquefield showed him photos of Jeremy's body. The prosecutor called the shooting an "execution" and said that at an average speed of 30mph, the 2-mile pursuit that preceded it was more of a "parade" than a chase. Greenhouse was also charged with murder and will go on trial in June. The AP reports that before the Marksville shooting, both officers had already been sued for using excessive force. (Read more Louisiana stories.)
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Slowly but surely, government transparency continues its march forward in South Dakota.

In the wake of Sunshine Week, a week set aside each year to encourage public access to information, we looked back at the 2017 South Dakota legislative session and saw two bills that caught our eyes: Senate bills 25 and 116.

Both measures became law and had powerful backers in Attorney General Marty Jackley and Gov. Dennis Daugaard, respectively, and we're proud to see two of our state's elected officials promoting transparency.

Through SB 25, South Dakota joins a list of 48 other states to publicly release mug shot photographs when a criminal suspect is booked. Along with Jackley, South Dakota Newspaper Association General Manager Dave Bordewyk supported the bill, which he said could serve as a useful public safety tool.

Daugaard also hopped on the transparency train with SB 116, a measure requiring state boards and committees to provide public notice and agendas for public meetings.

These are small, but necessary steps toward improved government transparency efforts, and we hope local boards and commissions follow suit.

While 2017 has been a fantastic year for openness from the state's perspective, it's a tale of two wildly different approaches to transparency at home in Mitchell. We've seen the city of Mitchell produce robust agenda packets giving residents a great early look at what will be discussed at Mitchell City Council meetings, while the Davison County Commission agendas continue to provide a cursory and nonspecific agenda that leaves citizens with more questions than answers.

We commend both the city and county, along with various local school districts and other committees, for improving access to agendas via the internet, but more work could be done.

The area with the most work left to do is in law enforcement.

As the state's top law enforcement official helped push for access to mug shots, local authorities often delay the release of information in a way that could slow the apprehension of suspects or could be perceived as hiding information from the public.

Take last week's press release from the Mitchell Area Crime Stoppers asking for the public's help locating suspects in five burglaries that occurred one to two weeks prior. Had the Davison County Sheriff's Office released this information sooner, perhaps when The Daily Republic calls each weekday afternoon, possible criminals wouldn't be on the prowl for so long. We understand some information must be kept confidential due to ongoing investigations, but why not release as much information as possible?

Both government and law enforcement work best when they have the public's trust, and initiatives like Jackley's and Daugaard's are great examples to follow. We only hope local governmental organizations and law enforcement agencies take note. And maybe by Sunshine Week 2018, South Dakota will see even more improvements in transparency and openness.

This editorial appeared in the March 20 edition of The Daily Republic of Mitchell, South Dakota.
New Delhi:

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal while addressing the media at his residence on Saturday said he will scrap the residential house tax and waive off arrears if Aam Adami Party wins the upcoming MCD polls.

Kejriwal contended that the house tax has become a major source of corruption and promised that his party, which is making its civic polls debut, will end it.

He vowed to transform the three civic corporations in the national capital into profit-making bodies. Two of the bodiesthe New Delhi Municipal Council and East Delhi Municipal Corporationare currently grappling with financial losses.

Taking a dig at the BJP which is currently in power in the municipal bodies, the chief minister said its councillors could be seen travelling on scooters before the previous MCD elections, but are now zooming around in expensive cars.

He also promised that the AAP will ensure that municipal staffers get their salaries on time.

We will abolish the residential house tax and waive off tax arrears if AAP comes to power...the party is preparing its detailed manifesto which will be released soon, he told reporters here.

The residential house tax is an important source of revenue for civic bodies.

Kejriwal added that the commercial house tax will continue to be in place.

To a question on allegations by political rivals that the AAP always announces freebies ahead of the polls, Kejriwal said the Delhi government is saving money on its projects which is then spent on public welfare.

The three municipal corporationsSDMC, NDMC and EDMC

go to polls on April 23, while votes will be counted on April

26.

Delhi CM Kejriwal meets party candidates contesting MCD polls, takes stock of campaign activities

Partys Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey was also present at the meeting.

Highlights:

# House tax paid by common man goes to politicians

# New parks will be built and MCD workers will get salary by 7 of each month: Kejriwal

# Will scrap residential house tax if voted in power: Kejriwal

# Tax paid by public is being stolen: Kejriwal

# Delhi Jal Board generated revenue of 178 crore, saved 3 million gallon water: Kejriwal

# We fulfilled every promise we did: Kejriwal
New Delhi:

Massive Fire broke out in a plastic factory in Delhis Narela in wee hours of Saturday morning. One factory worker has died and several others are feared to be trapped inside.

As many as 25 fire tenders have been rushed to the spot.

Similar fire had broken out at furniture market near Delhi's Mata Sundari College on March 12. The fire near Mata Sundri College, which broke out at Mata Sundri College at 4:30 am on Sunday, was doused.

Also Read: Massive fire breaks out at Delhi's furniture market, 30 fire tenders douse blaze

Also Read: 6 workers killed as fire breaks out at Hyderabad air cooler manufacturing plant



More Details Awaited
Mumbai:

Actor Akshay Kumar on Friday has drawn the attention of his country people regarding an important issue. The fitness freak of Bollywood on Friday has discussed some major problems causing due to absence of sufficient toilets in India.

The 49-year-old actor, who recently wrapped up shooting for his film "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha", took to Twitter to share a video in which he is addressing the issue of open defecation.

"I was not sure if I should discuss this with all of you as I knew many would think that this is just a publicity stunt for my upcoming film. You are right to think so. I am doing this film as I feel this topic needs to be discussed," he stated in the video.

Time hai apni #SochAurShauch dono badalne ka. Dekhiye, sochiye aur apne vichar bataiye YY pic.twitter.com/qpYdZwUpQ9  Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) March 24, 2017

Akshay encouraged people to build more toilets and expressed concerns about the consequences, especially poor women have to face due to lack of access to toilets.

"In a super power like India, many people, especially ladies cannot go to toilet when their body needs to because they don't have toilet in their homes and they need to defecate in open... I am scared women may have to face serious health issues as they are unable to go answer nature's call when the body demands, which may spread among children too."

The actor further urged people to help in building more toilets.

Also Read: Twinkle Khanna -Akshay Kumar starrer 'Pad Man' will shrink taboo associated with menstrual health

"We give donations in temples, gurudwaras, churches and masjids for blessings, can't we give 10 percent of that donation to build a toilet for the poor."

On the work front, Akshay is also busy doing the shooting of an upcoming film named 'Pad Man'.

Also starring Twinkle Khanna, the movie will shrink taboo associated with menstrual health.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Celebrity kid Harshvardhan Kapoor has opened up on nepotism in showbiz industry and said that it is indeed difficult for outsiders to leave a mark in B-town.

The actor, who happens to be veteran actor Anil Kapoor's son also asserted that once you make it to the industry it is your talent which takes you further.

"It's definitely harder for outsiders. I can't imagine the amount of hard work and dedication that it takes to make your way through. But, once you do that then it is about how talented you are," Harshvardhan said when asked if it's easy or difficult for outsiders to be in the film industry.

Also Read | Filmfare Awards 2017: Harshvardhan Kapoor not happy with Diljit Dosanjh winning best debut award

"We have examples like Ranveer Singh, Sidharth Malhotra, and Sushant Singh Rajput and then from film families we have Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Sonam Kapoor. There is a good mix. Everything in life has its advantages and disadvantages. It's all about doing your best," he added.

Harshvardhan is currently working in his next movie "Bhavesh Joshi" helmed by Vikramaditya Motwane.

"Well resume shooting soon it's going well. I'm looking forward to the trailer release."

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Popular Television show Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain fame Shilpa Shinde, well-known for playing Angoori Bhabhi, has filed a FIR against the shows producer, Sanjay Kohli, accusing him of sexual harassment.The FIR was filed at Walvi Naigaon police station near Mumbai on Thursday.

It was last year when Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain Angoori Bhabhi, has alleged mental torture and a threat to her career following which she has quit the show. She has claimed that Benaifer Kohli, the producer of the show, is a terror on sets. After which the producers sued Shilpa for Rs 12.5 crore for the losses they had incurred because of her absence. According to sources, the production house owes Shilpa Rs 32 lakh.

Also Read: Angoori Bhabhi aka Shilpa Shinde quits 'Bhabi Ji Ghar Par Hain', claims mental torture

In the FIR, Shilpa has alleged that Sanjay often tried to take advantage of her and called her hot and sexy. She said that he even touched her inappropriately once to which she objected with a firm no. Sanjay threatened her that he will throw her out of the show if she spoke to anyone about this. Next day, he again came to her make-up room and told her to get into a physical relationship with him if she wanted to stay on the show. She alleged that her make-up man saw this happening, after which he was fired.



However, sources close to Kohli refute these allegations. For one year, she (Shilpa) has not mentioned this anywhere. In fact, in November 2016, she even came on the sets of the show with a box of chocolates forBinaifer Kohli (Sanjays wife and the shows producer). Why would you do that to someone when her husband has molested you? says the source, adding that Shilpas make-up man was fired because he used to misbehave on the sets.

Defending her husband, Binaifer says, These are obviously false allegations. All I can say is that the matter is subjudice. I have faith in the legal system. I dont want to give her (Shilpa) unnecessary attention.
New Delhi:

Television actor Parth Samthaan is once has been accused of molesting a 20-year-old-model. According to the media reports, the incident apparently took place on February 20.

The victim reportedly filed a complaint last month itself. And now Bangar Nagar police station has registered the FIR under section 354 A of the Indian Penal Code.

If the media reports, Parth, who was seen in popular serial 'Kaisi Yeh Yaariyan', has been summoned by the police. However. the television actor hasn't made his appearance yet.

Also Read: 'Khoon Bhari Maang' actress Sonu Walia gets molested, registers FIR

Interestingly, this is not the first time that Samthaan has created a buzz for such a reason.

Earlier, Parth had made it to the headlines after he accused his producer-friend Vikas Gupta of molesting him.

Also Read: Om Swami seeks bail in molestation case

Parth had even sent a legal notice to Vikas on non-payment of dues and threats of ruining his career.

We wonder what Parth has to say in his defence regarding this molestation case.
New Delhi:

Comedy king Kapil Sharma, who created a buzz for his recent controversy with co-star Sunil Grover, is set for another jolt now as'The Kapil Sharma Show' is reportedly going off air now.

According to the media reports, Sony channel is no mood to renew show's deal with them now.

Reportedly, 'The Kapil Sharma Show' was supposed to renew their Rs 106 crore deal with Sony next month.

However, according to a report published in DNA, the channel has reportedly decided shut down the show in the wake of Kapil's recent controversy.

Also Read: Ali Asgar decides to quit The Kapil Sharma Show for Trideviyaan?

Sharma sparked a controversy after he allegedly assaulted Sunil Grover during a flight. It was reported that Kapil not just abused Grover but also threw his shoe at him.

While the incident had garnered a lot of criticism for Kapil, several members of the TKSS team too have decided to leave the show. In fact, Sunil Grover too, reportedly, has no plans to return to the show even if his fee is doubled.

Also Read | Kapil Sharma row: Six controversies surrounding the comedy star

Besides, the media reports also suggest that TRPs of TKSS has also been constantly decreasing over the past few months, which was also a matter of concern for the channel.

On the other hand, Sharma is also finding it difficult to get celebs visit his show and even reportedly called off the shooting of TKSS lately.

"Kapil had to cancel shoots as he couldn't get big celebs as guests. He has, in fact, left for Bikaner to shoot for his film, Phirangi, and will return to Mumbai on March 29," a source was quoted as saying.

Notably, no official statement has been made so far regarding 'The Kapil Sharma Show' going off air.

However, if the reports turned out to be true, it will indeed be a major shock for Kapil Sharma's celebrity status.

We wonder what Kapil Sharma has to say in this regard.








Mumbai:

Following the ban by major airlines on Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, party leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday questioned whether the Maharashtra Chief Minister should be similarly banned from travelling after a farmer was beaten up outside his office.

Major airlines have banned Gaikwad from flying after he assaulted an Air India staffer on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at a function here, Raut referred to an incident at the state secretariat on the same day where a farmer was allegedly beaten up by security guards outside the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnaviss office.

When a farmer was beaten up outside CMs office, are you going to ban the CM from travelling? Without carrying out any inquiry into Gaikwads behaviour, he should not have been banned by airlines. Shiv Sena does not endorse his actions but procedure should be followed, Raut said.

Also read: Hitting anybody can never be the culture of the Sena: Raut on AI staffer assault case

There should be investigation of both Gaikwads actions as well as the behaviour of Air India officials. Let the ethics committee (of Parliament) conduct inquiry in Gaikwads case, said Raut, a Rajya Sabha member.

Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, who was also present at the function, refused to face questions on the issue.

Senior Shiv Sena leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi also refused to comment.

Also read: Air India staffer assault case: Sena MP Gaikwad to meet Uddhav Thackeray

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New Delhi:

Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad who attacked Air India staffer with slipper will meet Partys acting president Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday. Gaikwad has also been asked to be present in front of a Panel constituted by Shiva Sena which will probe into the matter.

The panel will take the decision whether to suspend Gaikwad for assaulting AI Staffer or not as the party is under pressure from all around.

Earlier, on Friday Gaikwad left for Maharashtra by train after Air India, along with four other private airlines banned him from flying on their aircraft.

Read More: Ravindra Gaikwad-Air India row: As airlines ban unrepentant Shiv Sena MP, govt says law doesn't permit it

Gaikwad who took August Kranti Rajdhani Express left his seat in Gujarats Wapi station and went to his village, Usmanabad.

Meanwhile, an FIR has been registered against him on the basis of the complaint lodged by Air India for repeatedly hitting with sandals 62-year-old duty manager R Sukumar on a Pune-Delhi flight after it landed in Delhi on Thursday over not being able to fly business class despite having boarded an all-economy flight.

Watch: Video | Shiv Sena-AI incident: Sir please it will be a murder case, pleads AI staffer; I have many cases against me, replies MP

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New Delhi:

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched attack on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his party Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for misleading people of Delhi in the last three years.

No other party has done as much corruption as AAP did during their tenure in Delhi, said Amit Shah in Delhis Ramlila Maidan on Saturday.

Amit Shah said: Kejriwal had released a list of promises to people of Delhi but was busy in AAPs poll preparations in states like Goa and Punjab where his party the elections lost badly.

Also Read: Amit Shah takes jibe at Rahul Gandhi, says will never take job of advising Congress Vice President

Earlier on the day, Kejriwal addressing media at his residence and met party candidates contesting the MCD polls and took a stock of their campaign activities.

Also Read: Amit Shah justifies BJPs move to form governments in Goa and Manipur, says we had maximum MLAs

A party leader said Kejriwal discussed with them their door-to-door campaign, a key element of partys strategy to reach out to voters. He also reviewed the progress on projector showing his video message to the voters.









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Mumbai:

BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha on Friday demanded that Jinnah House, the residence of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in south Mumbai, be demolished and a cultural centre be built in its place.



Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on the budgetary demands of the Public Works Department (PWD), the MLA said, "The Jinnah residence in south Mumbai was the place from where the conspiracy of partition was hatched."



"Jinnah House is a symbol of the partition. The structure should be demolished," he said.Lodha said after the Parliament passed the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah House was the property of the Indian government. "Demolishing the property is the only option," he said.

ALSO READ | Demolish Jinnah House & build cultural centre there: LodhaAfter airlines ban on Gaikwad, should CM face similar action for beating of farmer: Raut



"The PWD is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the building and lakhs of rupees is spend over this," Lodha added. According to the legislator, after the passage of the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah's heirs cannot stake claim to the Jinnah house.



"The structure should be demolished and a cultural centre highlighting Maharashtra's culture and pride should be built. The cultural centre should also exhibit the glorious history of India," Lodha said.



The grand house built by Jinnah is located in MalabarHill area in south Mumbai. The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, was passed by voice vote in the Lok Sabha on March 14, incorporating theamendments made by the Rajya Sabha last week.



As per the Act, successors of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during partition will have no claim over properties left in India.the properties left behind in India.

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Patna:

A book chronicling the life and achievements of Super 30 founder Anand Kumar is all set to be published in Korean and French.



Biju Mathew, a Canadian psychiatrist, who wrote the book in association with Arun Kumar, made the announcement here. The book titled "Super 30" after its publication in English and Hindi has already been published in Marathi and Tamil, Mathew said.



"Before meeting Anand, I got to know of him through newspapers in Canada about the huge work he was doing for the students from underprivileged sections of the society and invited him for a social function.

ALSO READ | Google Boy Kautilya Pandit stumps all with his exceptional knowledge at Super 30



His address at the function impressed me as well as others and I asked him if I could write a book on him," he said. "The book is an example of how strong will and perseverance could help one overcome the stiffest of odds, as Anand Kumar has proved.



"It is an inspiration for all those who are not privileged but have a desire to script a success story. What the students of Super 30 have achieved tells a lot about the real silent social revolution, which has brought about generational change in many families," he added.Mathew said that he also plans a sequel after a fewyears.

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New Delhi:

Amid the buzz that Delhi Police is mulling introduction of anti-Romeo squads like those of Uttar Pradesh police, the force has discarded the speculation.

There were reports that the force is mulling a proposal to introduce women squads to patrol the areas which render women on scooters vulnerable.

The Delhi police spokesperson denied having any initiative akin to the UP one as of now.

Also read: Delhi Police rescues mother, daughter locked in room for 4 years

There is no such squad or move in the offing as of now. Delhi Police is sensitive towards the issue of women safety and anti-stalking measures, said Special Commissioner of Police (Operations) Dependra Pathak, also the chief spokesperson of the force.

Delhi Police had started an initiative Operation Shishtachar in which women officers in plainclothes deployed in buses and at crowded places used to catch men, found harassing women when BS Bassi was the police chief.

Also read: Court chides Delhi Police for indecisiveness over plea against Kejriwal

These men would then be counselled by religious gurus against indulging in such activities but the initiative lost the steam later.

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Power Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday green energy is going to be country's most installed power generation capacity in near future.

Being enthused by a drop of tariff in renewable energy Goyal said "Going by prices we have discovered, I am inspired to say that 60-65 per cent of Indias installed capacity base will be green energy"

"Indias renewable energy program is a great example of how you can do big by thinking big", he further said at 'Take Pride event' organized by CII.

Earlier this month, Goyal had predicted that Indias solar power generation capacity will cross 20,000 MW in the next 15 months, from the current 10,000 MW, and said drastic reduction in costs of solar power is proof of maturity of the sector.

Lower capital expenditure and cheaper credit have pulled down solar tariff to a new low of Rs 2.97 per unit in an auction conducted for 750 MW capacity in Rewa Solar Park in Madhya Pradesh last month. The auction was conducted by a joint venture of Madhya Pradesh government and the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).

The wind power tariff has too dropped to a record low of Rs 3.46 per unit in an auction of 1,000 MW capacity conducted by the SECI.

At present, out of 315 gw of total power generation installed capacity, around 50 gw is from renewable sources while large hydro projects (above 25 MW) constitute 44 gw.

As much as 14,000 MW (or 14 gigawatt) of solar projects are currently under development and about 6 gw is to be auctioned soon. In 2016, about 4 gw of solar capacity was added, the fastest pace till date. According to power ministry estimate, another 8.8 gw capacity is likely to be added in 2017, including about 1.1 gw of rooftop solar installations. The government is targeting 100 gw of solar and 60 gw of wind energy capacity by 2022. Total renewable energy generation capacity is envisaged at 175 gw by 2022.

Commending the government's initiative on Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said: "Nearly seven constitutional laws have been passed in the last two and a half years by this government without a majority in the Rajya Sabha. Our finance minister is the best finance minister."
Gandhinagar :

To prevent private schools from charging exorbitant fees in absence of clear laws, the Gujarat government on Saturday announced to bring a Bill providing for constitution of a Fee Regulatory Committee.

The Gujarat Self-Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2017 will be tabled for discussion and voting in the last two days of the ongoing Budget session, ending March 31, Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama told reporters in Gandhinagar.

The Bill empowers the state government to constitute a Fee Regulatory Committee for the purpose of determination of fee for admission to any standard or course of study in self financed schools.

Also read: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal cancels Gujarat visit in view of MCD polls 2017

This committee will be headed by a Chairman, who can be either a retired district and sessions judge or a retired IPS or All India Services officer.

Other members to be nominated by the government include a Chartered Accountant, a civil engineer or an approved government valuer, representative of private school management and one academician.

The committee will have jurisdiction over all the private schools, right from pre-primary to higher secondary private schools affiliated to Gujarat Board or CBSE.

Each and every private school will be required to submit their fee structure before the panel and take approval.

Also read: Gujarat ATS arrests criminal in connection with Chittorgarh murder case

The committee will also have the powers to initiate inquiry suo moto against any school which is found to be charging excess fees.

As per the Bill, aggrieved persons can also register their complaints against a private school.

The Committee shall have powers to regulate the fees charged by the school and take penal action as per the provisions of this Act said the Bill.

Penal action include refund of twice the amount of fees to parents, up to Rs 5 lakh fine for first offence, Rs 5 to Rs 10 lakh fine for second offence and cancellation of registration or affiliation of the school for the third offence.

The Bill also provides for the constitution of a Fee Revision Committee, to be chaired by a retired judge of the High Court.

School management can approach this committee to file a revision application if they are not happy with the order issued by Fee Regulatory Committee, said the Bill.

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New Delhi:

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh as soon as possible. This could be Indias major step against terrorism and the problem of refugees.

Rajnath Singh said this while addressing the passing out parade of the BSF academy at Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Union Home minister also praised Border Security Force and said that it has changed the rules of engagement at international borders which has made it a known entity in neighbouring countries.

BSF has changed rules of engagement at international borders. Now BSF is known entity even in neighbouring countries,

We have decided to seal the international borders with Bangladesh & Pakistan as soon as possible: HM Rajnath Singh at BSF Academy (MP) pic.twitter.com/neodMqAGOG  ANI (@ANI_news) March 25, 2017

In an official statement, Rajnath Singh on Friday termed terrorism sponsored by neighbouring Pakistan not only a threat to India but to entire humanity.

"The Home Minister highlighted the sponsoring of terrorism by our neighbouring country, which is a threat not only to India and international community but to the humanity as a whole. He reiterated that India has a policy of zero tolerance for terrorism," said a Home Ministry release.

Also Read: Nations violating definition of terror should be punished, says Rajnath Singh

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Gwalior:

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday revealed plans to seal the International Border with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Rajnath said that the move is being taken to ensure strong border security.

The Centre has chalked out a new roadmap to strengthen the border security and plans to seal the International Borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan, Singh said, addressing the Passing Out Parade of the BSF assistant commandants at the BSF Academy at Tekanpur near Gwalior.

The parade also saw the first woman assistant commandant of Indias border guarding force, Tanushree Pareek, passing out with Home Minister Singh registering his praise for the BSFs first woman field officer.

An official release in Gwalior quoted the Union Home Minister Singh as saying that the BSF had changed the rules of engagement on the International Border and now it was a known force even in the neighbouring countries.

Also read: Nations violating definition of terror should be punished: Rajnath Singh

The BSF built 73 Border Out Posts (BOPs) recently, and three more will be added soon, he added.

We are also planning an effective grievance redressal mechanism in the forces, the Home Minister said.

The Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) were setting up such a mechanism, the release added.

Also read: Home Minister Rajnath Singh dismisses Rahul's 'stealing mandate' charges

BSF was the only force after the Indian Army to operate on land, water and air, he said.

It is not only the first line of defence but also the first wall of defence, he added.

Display courage in the face of professional challenges, (show) compassion to the troops under command and (observe) integrity of highest order, Singh said while addressing the passing out Assistant Commandants, according to the release.

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Mumbai:

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday stressed that not all erroneous commercial decisions of a public servant can be deemed as corrupt. Arun Jaitley said that the amendments to the anti-graft law would be in interest of the honest bureaucrats.

He said the current Prevention of Corruption Act was drafted in 1988 during the pre-liberalisation era in line with the erstwhile needs of the system.

But the minister said the fundamentals of the anti-graft law in the liberalisation era have to be changed, where public servants, bankers and politicians are involved in taking commercial decisions now.

What subsequently appears to be an erroneous decision in the hindsight, is not necessarily a corrupt decision. That distinction between an erroneous decision and a corrupt decision is very thin in the 1988 law and therefore it needs to be restructured, Jaitley said at a Business Standard award function in Mumbai on Saturday evening.

Also read: Govt keen to roll out GST on July 1: FM Arun Jaitley

He said the amendments to the anti-graft law have been brought to Parliament and the select committee has suggested some marginal changes in its report.

Once those amendments are brought in, even in accordance with the recommendation of the select committee, the public servants and those taking commercial decisions, including the bankers, would be sufficiently empowered without the fear of consequences in taking honest commercial decisions, he said.

Talking about the current state of banks, which are reeling under NPA pressure, Jaitley said the government and the RBI are working on a speedy resolution. NPAs have crossed 9.3 per cent or around Rs 9 trillion as of the December quarter.

Also read: Jaitley over SC remarks on 'crorepati' MPs: Parliament alone has authority to approve how public money can be spent

We have had a series of meetings. The government has taken some initiatives, Parliament has framed the laws, RBI has issued circulars (for NPA resolution).

We believe some people are quite satisfied in exploiting the inability of the system and keep on defaulting. And, I think, this needs to end. Hopefully over the next few days you will be hearing from us a series of steps to negate that, the minister said.

Talking about the GST, he expressed confidence that the biggest tax reform would be rolled out from July 1.

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New Delhi:

Resident doctors in Maharashtra called off their 5 day long strike on Friday night and resumed duties after meeting with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

All the 40,000 doctors have reported back to work immediately.

Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors said in a statement that their meeting with the Chief Minister on Friday night was satisfactory.

The state government have issued a letter of assurances and we feel our demands are being addressed. We have asked our members to resume to the duty from Saturday morning, the statement said.

Due to the strike, total 135 patients have died in 3 BMC Hospitals of Mumbai due to non availability of emergency services.

CM Fadnavis during his meeting with IMA representatives informed that security has been provided in 16 hospitals since Thursday and it assured that the government will provide more security in the coming 10 days.

The chief minister had earlier in a strict voice criticised doctors for letting patients die.

Also Read: Bombay HC scolds striking Maharashtra resident doctors, asks to file affidavit

The Bombay high court on Friday reprimanded the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) for not complying the high court orders and resuming duties.

The high court directed MARD to file an affidavit stating that they have no objection if the government takes action against resident doctors on strike.

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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 micro-blogging site in one scroll:

#11:22 PM

Militants open fire on CRPF camp in Kulgam - PTI

Also Read: Militants open fire on CRPF camp in J-K's Kulgam, no casualties reported

#10:29 PM

Mumbai: FIR against TV actor Parth Samthan registered under section 354-A in Bangur Nagar on molestation complaint by a model: ANI

#10:00 PM

Raipur: Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh hands over the chaadar to be offered at Ajmer Sharif Dargah - ANI

#9:37 PM

Bangladesh bomb blast kills one, scores injured - Reuters India

#9:32 PM

NH-74 Land compensation scam: Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat suspends 6 SDM level officials with immediate effect: ANI

#9:20 PM

Tamil Nadu: TTV Dhinakaran, candidate of AIADMK's Sasikala faction for RK Nagar bypoll campaigns sporting their election symbol 'hat': ANI

#9:19 PM

Delhi: Lights go off at Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate as part of the global Earth Hour initiative

#8:41 PM

Coalition says it hit Mosul site where civilians reportedly killed- AFP

#8:40 PM

#WATCH: Fire and blast at ordnance factory in Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) leaves 6 injured, more feared trapped.- pic.twitter.com/6HLB2WZtTx  ANI (@ANI_news) March 25, 2017

#8:21 PM

Delhi: IT deptt seized around Rs 1.25 crores in new currency notes from 3 vehicles in Seelampur, 3 persons detained; EC officials told-ANI

#8:20 PM

Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General D Anbu reviewed the overall security situation in the Kashmir Valley earlier on Saturday: ANI



#8:08 PM

What happened was wrong, he should have kept his calm: Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena on MP Ravindra Gaikwad hitting an AI Staff with slippers: ANI

#8:07 PM

An Air Arabia flight landed safely in Lucknow Airport after experiencing a bird strike in its flight from Kathmandu to Sharjah on March 24:ANI

#7:46 PM

NBA: New York's Joakim Noah suspended 20 games for doping violation- AFP



#7:40 PM

This has come out in counter of a case; but charges are very serious & can't be denied: GC Kataria, Rajasthan Home Min on Bikaner minor rape: ANI

#7:37 PM

China lifts ban on Brazilian meat imports: Brazil minister - AFP

#7:31 PM

Tekanpur (MP):HM Rajnath Singh met family of visually impaired BSF Asst Commandant Sandip Mishra who lost his eye sight during ambush in 2000: ANI

#7:22 PM

Present condition of CRPF officer Chetan Cheeta wounded in Bandipora encounter, is stable & improving: Medical bulletin - ANI

#7:04 PM

Several people wounded in blast in army's ordinance factory in Jabalpur, MP

Also Read: Exclusive Video: Blast at Khamaria ordnance factory in Jabalpur, casualties feared

#6:59 PM

Lucknow: SO Nagesh Mishra of Madiyaon police station suspended, after he made everyone swear to vow of cleanliness while consuming tobacco:ANI

#6:55 PM

NH-74 Land compensation scam: Uttarakhand Government recommends CBI probe into the scam: ANI

# 6:27 PM

PM Modi was concerned about Uttar Pradeshs all-round developmentL: Yogi Adityanath



#6:04 PM

Jharkhand: Police recovered Rs.40 lakh cash, one AK-47,one SLR, one .315-bore firearm after encounter with Maoists in Latehar on Friday night

#6:04 PM

UP CM Yogi Adityanath reaches MP Inter College ground

#5:44 PM

Goa: A 58 years old British national died after he collapsed while exercising in a gym at Calangute on March 24; inquiry underway: ANI

#5:37 PM

Britain's UKIP to lose only MP as he quits party: AFP

#5:36 PM

Uttar Pradesh: A fire broke out in Sitapur, torched 9 houses, valuables worth over Rs 2 lakh destroyed in fire: ANI

#5:25 PM

Over 200,000 displaced by west Mosul battle: Iraq ministry - AFP

#5:13 PM

Yogi Adityanath arrives in Gorakhpur for the first time after being sworn in as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh: ANI

Also Read: LIVE: UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath reaches Gorakhpur on 2-day visit, begins road show

#5:11 PM

Lucknow: SP Singh, Azam Khan's Secretary transferred after three years, Kumar Kamlesh takes charge: ANI

#5:10 PM

Three Maoists surrendered before Malkangiri Police in Odisha on Saturday: ANI

# 4:28

India vs Australia, Dharamsala Test, Day 1: Indian spinners bundle visitors for 300; Debutant Yadav takes 4

Also Read: Highlights | India vs Australia, Dharamshala Test: Stumps at Day 1, Indian spinners bundle visitors for 300; Debutant Yadav takes 4

#4:26 PM

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and other accused AAP leaders pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. Next hearing to take place on May 20th: ANI

#4:17 PM

The court also frames charges against 5 other AAP leaders in the case after they pleaded not guilty: PTI

#4:15 PM

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal put on trial in a criminal defamation case filed against him by Union Minister Arun Jaitley in DDCA matter Kejriwal ot face criminal defa



Also Read: DDCA row: Arvind Kejriwal put on trial in criminal defamation case filed by Arun Jaitley

#3:57 PM

EU 27 sign Rome declaration, 60 years after founding treaty: AFP

#3:48 PM

ED attaches assets worth Rs 35 lakhs under PMLA of Lalit Mohan Das, former Executive Engineer RWSS Odisha in a corruption case: ANI

#3:47 PM

I will also pay visit to colleges in Baranbanki: UP Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma - ANI

#3:45 PM

Students say that they believe in giving exams without cheating: UP Dy CM Dinesh Sharma after inspecting a college in Lucknow: ANI

#3:40 PM

The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be public good: VP Hamid Ansari - ANI

#3:39 PM

And as sources of renewal of liberal values tht provide avenues of social mobility &equality to people:VP at convocation at Panjab University:ANI

#3:37 PM

There is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge:VP Hamid Ansari-ANI

#03:19 PM

Decision taken by Rajinikanth is right, he always takes right decisions: TNCC president S Thirunavukkarasar.

#03:19 PM

CBI registers case against 2 then AGMs & two then Chief Mgrs of Syndicate Bank & others for causing alleged loss of Rs209 cr(approx)to bank - ANI

#03:18 PM

VCK chief Thirumavalavan & MDMK chief Vaiko urged me not to visit Sri Lanka, accepted their request because of cordial relationship-Rajinikanth - ANI

#03:10 PM

Congress party workers protesting against Narada issue in Kolkata.- ANI

#03:05 PM

VCK chief Thirumavalavan&MDMK chief Vaiko urged me not to visit Sri Lanka,accepted their request because of cordial relationship-Rajinikanth

#03:01 PM

Rajinikanth cancels his proposed visit to Sri Lanka. - ANI

#03:00 PM

BJP National executive meeting will be held in Bhubaneswar on April 15&16; PM &National president(Shah) both will attend: Dharmendra Pradhan - ANI

#02:50 PM

Uttarakhand: A leopard attack in a villager's house in Haridwar injures two. - ANI

#02:47 PM

National Herald Case: All accused filed reply & opposed Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking summoning of witnesses. Next hearing on 22 April.- ANI

#02:27 PM

He is expected to meet Uddhav Thackeray: Shiv Sena's Manisha Kayande on R Gaikwad- Air India issue - ANI



#02:24 PM

I request rich Muslim families to give up their Haj subsidies, which'll make them an integral part of "sabka saath sabka vikas": Mohsin Raza - ANI



#02:22 PM

Party has taken the incident seriously. We do not subscribe to such instances: Shiv Sena's Manisha Kayande on R Gaikwad- Air India issue- ANI

#01:57 PM

Telangana: 10-year old girl allegedly molested by 2 people in Banjara Hills area of Hyderabad; case registered under POCSO Act; probe on. - ANI

#01:10 PM

Only policemen of one particular caste are being suspended/transferred, everybody knows. But will you report that? Akhilesh Yadav - ANI

#01:05 PM

I don't have any problem with shuddhikaran of the CM house. I just hope they look after the peacocks who had flown in there: Akhilesh Yadav - ANI

#01:00 PM

Lucknow: After receiving complaints of negligence towards gang-rape & acid attack victim UP CM Yogi Adityanath summoned Vice-Chancellor,KGMU - ANI



#12:50 PM

Lucknow: The gang-rape & acid attack victim whom UP CM Yogi Adityanath met yesterday complained about negligence shown towards her by KGMU. - ANI

#12:44 PM

UP Police suspends IPS Himanshu Kumar for indiscipline; in his tweets he alleged that seniors are targeting subordinates of particular cast - ANI

#12:33 PM

UP Govt suspends IPS Himanshu Kumar over tweets defaming police department

#12:32 PM

Delhi: Farmers from Tamil Nadu continue their protest at Jantar Mantar, for demanding drought relief funds. - ANI

#12:28 PM

Proposed CBIC to supervise work of all its field formations & Directorates & assist Government in policy making in relation to GST.

#12:25 PM

Central Board of Excise and Custom (CBEC) renamed as Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC), after legislative approval

#12:23 PM

Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shivpal Singh Yadav and Azam Khan not present at Samajwadi Party's national executive meet underway in Lucknow. - ANI

#12:08 PM

Goa: Anti Narcotic Cell arrests UK national and a local, busts international drugs racket, seizes drugs worth Rs. 23 lakhs. - ANI

#12:04 PM

EC transfers Chennai Police Comm S. George ahead of R.K. Nagar by polls after DMK's petition for same saying it will enable free-fair polls - ANI

#12:03 PM

EC orders transfer of Chennai Police Commissioner following complaints. -PTI

#11:00 AM

9 dead, 2 injured after work platform collapses in a thermal power plant in S China's Guangzhou; rescue operations underway: Xinhua News - ANI

#10:54 AM

We have decided to seal the international borders with Bangladesh & Pakistan as soon as possible: HM Rajnath Singh at BSF Academy (MP) - ANI

#10:15 AM

BSF has changed rules of engagement at international borders. Now BSF is known entity even in neighbouring countries: HM at BSF Academy (MP) - ANI

#10:00 AM

Hyderabad: Congress' V.Hanumantha Rao carried away&detained by Police for protesting over FIR lodged against him for misbehavior with Police - ANI

#09:52 AM

Home Minister Rajnath Singh attends the passing out parade of BSF Assistant Commandants at the BSF Academy in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh - ANI

#09:26 AM

Himachal Pradesh: 4 houses gutted in a fire which broke out in Kinnaur's Kothi village last night, later doused. No casualties reported. - ANI

#09:00 AM

Spinner Kuldeep Yadav to make his Test debut at Dharamsala today #IndvAus

#08:20 AM

Delhi: Fire broke out at a plastic factory in Narela industrial area; 32 fire tenders at the spot, efforts to douse to the fire on - ANI

#07:48 AM

NSA Ajit Doval held talks with US Defense Secy James N.Mattis at Pentagon in Washington DC;Indian Ambassador to US Navtej Sarna also present - ANI

#07:48 AM

USA: NSA Ajit Doval met US Defense Secretary James N. Mattis at Pentagon in Washington DC - ANI

#07:05 AM

Delhi: Fire breaks out in Narela industrial area,25 fire tenders at the spot - ANI

#07:00 AM

Maharashtra resident doctors called off their strike, joined duty late in the night - ANI

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Several accounts belonging to ABVP and its leaders were suspended by Twitter on Thursday night which were later restored after a strong criticism on Social media.

The ABVPs official Twitter account, @ABVPVoice, Delhi state account -- @ABVPDelhi and that of its national office secretary Rahul Sharma and national media convener Saket Bahuguna were suspended last evening, ABVP General Secretary Vinay Bidre said in a statement.

It surely creates suspicion and smells of prejudice, he said.

While Twitter India was forced to revoke the suspensions this morning following a massive online backlash, the incident has raised questions over the functioning of social media platforms, Bidre said.

An e-mail sent to the microblogging site for a comment on the matter did not elicit any response.

The RSS-backed student organisation has demanded that Twitter state the real reason for suspension of its accounts.

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Gorakhpur:

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday announced many measures to streamline things in the state. From crackdown on slaughter houses to pothole free roads in state, Yogi Adityanath addressed many issues.

Yogi Adityanath stressed that there will be no appeasement of anyone and promised development for all without any discrimination on the basis of caste, religion or gender.

Adityanath, whose ascent to power is seen with suspicion by some sections, also told the BJP cadres and supporters not to be over zealous in celebrating the partys historic poll victory and not to take the law into their hands as it could provide anarchist forces a chance to disturb law and order.

He also stated that police has been instructed not to harass innocent couples, a direction that comes amid complaints that the anti-romeo squads, meant to target eve-teasers, were troubling even the boys seen with their female friends.

He announced that those undertaking the annual Kailash Mansarovar Yatra will be given Rs 1 lakh by the state government and a Kailash Bhavan will be constructed for them.

On his first visit to his hometown Gorakhpur after becoming the Chief Minister, Adityanath said he intends to usher in development and progress of all sections of the state as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

Addressing an event to felicitate him, he repeated the mantra of sabka saath, sabka vikas.

Also read: UP CM Yogi Adityanaths speech in Gorakhpur: 10 key points

There would be no discrimination on the basis of caste, religion or gender. There will be development of all. But there will not be any appeasement of any section, he said.

He said Uttar Pradesh had been deprived of the benefits of development during the previous regimes and promised that his government would bring in the fruits of progress to the last man.

Adityanath, who took over as the Chief Minister last Sunday, talked about his priorities like safety of women, opportunities for youth, support for farmers and labour.

He said that there would be no place for goonda raj and corruption under his rule.

The Chief Minister said after he took over, he got calls from many girls who complained that they cannot go to schools or colleges because of eve-teasers, and several had to even give up studies because of this.

Also read: UP CM Yogi Adityanath asks officials to ensure no unnecessary harassment by anti-Romeo squads

Anti-Romeo squads have been constituted for the purpose of safety of girls and women, he said, and added that police officials have been directed that these squads should not harass boys who are with females due to consent.

This comes against the backdrop of complaints that these squads were targeting even the innocent boys.

Referring to the crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, Adityanath said his government would fulfill the promises made in the BJPs manifesto before the elections.

With regard to the welfare of the farming community, he said a team of two ministers and some officials has gone to Chhattisgarh to study their system which is very efficient.

He also listed some developmental steps, like a direction to the authorities to make all the roads in the state pothole free by June 15.

About the bhavan for Kailash Mansarovar yatra, he said it could be constructed in Noida or Ghaziabad.

Yogi Adityanath orders making UP roads pothole free by June 15

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi on Saturday directed officials of the Public Works Department (PWD) to make all state roads pothole free by June 15, 2017.

In Gorakhpur, which was his first public appearance after taking over as the states chief minister, Adityanath declared that he had told the PWD officials to ensure that there are no potholes in the roads of the state by June 15.

The state had lagged on the development front during the regimes of the previous governments, he said.

An official statement released in Lucknow said that chief minister gave the instructions to make UP roads pothole free at a review meeting of PWD.

He also asked the officials to complete all works and projects within the prescribed time frame on a priority basis.

Adityanath also asked the officials to prepare a work plan to extend better facilities to the people residing in rural areas.

The Chief Minister asked for adopting e-tendering so as to make the system more transparent and corruption free.

He underlined the need to keep tainted firms and contractors having mafia, criminal and corrupt image away from departmental works and instead give an opportunity to those with clean image who can ensure qualitative work.

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Paris:

Several people, including a child, were injured following a shooting in Lille, France on Saturday. Witnesses told police that an unidentified assailant opened fire near a metro station last night before fleeing, according to two Lille police officials.

The officials said one of those shot is a minor, and none of the injuries is life-threatening. The officials were not authorised to be publicly named.

Also Read | UK Parliament terror attack: Death toll rises to 5

The reason for the shooting is unclear. It comes as France is under a state of emergency after deadly extremist attacks.

Newspaper La Voix du Nord and radio France Bleu Nord reported that the Lille shooting may have been a settling of scores among local criminals.

Also Read | London terror attack: Islamic State group claims responsibility for shooting outside UK Parliament

While firearms are less common in France than the US, gang-related shootings occur sporadically in poor French neighbourhoods.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Beirut:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Saturday that nearly 16 people were killed on Friday night as airstrikes hit a prison in the rebel-held city of Idlib in northwest Syria. It said the dead included prisoners and prison guards, but did not have an immediate breakdown of the toll.

The strikes were believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes, which have been flying sorties in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government since Moscow began a military intervention in September 2015. The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.

It added that guards opened fire in the aftermath of the strike on fleeing prisoners, and there were initial reports of additional casualties in that fire. Idlib city became the second provincial capital to fall from government control when it was captured in March 2015 by the Army of Conquest, an alliance led by former Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, later known as Fateh al-Sham.

Also Read: Syria: 33 dead in US-led coalition air strike

Almost all the province remains under opposition control, and it has regularly been targeted by both Russian and government air strikes as well as raids launched by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Earlier in March, the US-led coalition said it wasinvestigating allegations at least 42 people were killed in araid it carried out in Idlib province.

Also Read: 33 killed in US-led coalition strike on school in north Syria: Monitor

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began six years ago with anti-government protests. A cessation of hostilities was brokered by rebel backer Turkey and regime ally Russia in December, but violence has continued across much of the country.

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New York:

Apple Inc has said that it has fixed all the vulnerabilities released by Wikileaks this week and the company has not negotiated with Wikileaks disclosures.

Documents released on Friday pointed to an apparent CIA program to hack Apple devices using techniques that users couldnt disable by resetting their devices.

The iPhone hack was limited to the 3G model from 2008. In a statement on Friday, Apple says the flaw was fixed with the release of the iPhone 3GS a year later.

Apple also says the Mac vulnerabilities were all corrected in all Macs launched after 2013.

Read More: WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 'Dark Matter' revealing CIA projects that infect Apple Mac Computer firmware

Apples statement is consistent with assessments from security experts, who say that many of the apparent vulnerabilities were in older technology.

Apple is going further in saying those flaws have all been remedied, based on its preliminary analysis.

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Islamabad:

Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday said that India aims to create unrest in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir by making claims on the presence of militants along LoC.

Army said in a statement that the Chief of Army Staff visited the LoC in Kel sector and a forward post at Sharda. He was briefed on the situation along the LoC by General Officer Commanding, Murree, Major Gen Azhar Abbas.

Referring to the Indian claims about the presence of militants along the LoC, Gen Bajwa said people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are fully aware of Indian atrocities and Indian agendas, according to a statement by the army.

Also Read | Pakistan will protect its people against Indian aggression: Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa

Pakistan Army shall continue to ensure protection and security of people along LoC, Gen Bajwa said, adding that the Indian propaganda will never succeed.

Earlier this month, Indian Armys Director General of Military Operations Lt Gen AK Bhat had raised the matter of movement of militants along the LoC with his Pakistani counterpart through a hotline call.

Also Read: Pak army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa asks officers to learn from Indian democracy

But the Pakistan military rejected Indian Armys concerns and asked it to share evidence.

Kashmir has remained a long-standing unresolved issue between the countries causing acrimony on both sides. Both countries have accused each other of repeatedly violating the ceasefire along the LoC.

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Islamabad:

Former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif will now head a Saudi Arabia-led 39-nation Islamic military coalition, formed to combat terrorism. This was disclosed by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif in a programme of private Geo TV.

Citing Asif, the channel said official documentation to issue the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) had not been done but the government has agreed in principle to issue the permission because the Saudi leadership had formally requested through a letter to let Raheel take up the command of the coalition.



Asif said he had visited Saudi Arabia for Umrah earlier this year, and had also met officials of the Saudi government.

ALSO READ | Pakistan former Army chief Gen Raheel Sharif to speak at annual meeting of WEF



In May, the advisory board of defence ministers of member countries will attend a meeting on the issue, he said, adding the structure of the alliance had not been decided so far. "When General (Retd) Raheel Sharif joins he will define a structure," he said.



In January this year, the defence minister had informed the Senate that the former army chief had not sought an NOC to lead a Saudi-led military alliance.



Asif had said Raheel had returned to Pakistan after performing Umrah in Saudi Arabia and if he applies for the NOC, then it will be decided according to law.



From a few politicians to retired army officers, journalists, intellectuals ? all had questioned the decision of a former Pakistani army chief to join a foreign military alliance after his retirement.



Pakistani leaders were initially taken aback when Saudi Arabia, without proper consultation with them, had announced in 2015 that Islamabad was also part of the new alliance.



Iran was not included in the grouping which appeared as a vague attempt to forge a Sunni Muslim alliance against Shiite Iran to curtail its influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and rest of the Middle East.

ALSO READ | Pakistan's Raheel Sharif to head Saudi Arabia-led Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism



Pakistan was in an unenviable position as it has good ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. It was also not ready to be dragged into the politics of Middle East.

Later, Pakistan confirmed its participation in the alliance, but had said that the scope of its participation would be defined after Riyadh shared the details of the coalition it was assembling. According to Saudi Arabia, the alliance is formed to fight ISIS and other militant outfits.

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Washington:

President Donald Trump on Friday suffered a stunning political setback in a Congress controlled by his own party when Republican leaders pulled legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.

The US House of Representatives similar to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament has 435 members. The Republican Party enjoys a simple majority in the House with 235 members.

However due to opposition from some of its own party lawmakers, in particular the one that have grouped themselves under the banner of Freedom Caucus, Ryan, who had been leading the effort on behalf of Trump, could not muster the majority 215 votes.

Also Read: Trump's bid to replace Obamacare postponed due to lack of majority

As a result, in an effort to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, Ryan announced today that he was withdrawing the move to have a vote on Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

The White House and Trump had put up a brave face even till the last minute when they tried their best to muster support for their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

With the writing on the wall, Ryan drove to the White House to inform Trump to inform him he does not have enough votes to see the important legislation pass through the Congress.

Unlike India, the US Congress does not have an anti-defection bill, as a result of which US lawmakers are free to exercise their right to vote on a bill as per their wish and not according to dictate of the party leadership.

The White House said Trump did everything he could for the passage of the bill. Theres no question in my mind at least that the President and the team here have left everything on the field... It is now going to be up to the members of the House to decide whether or not they want to follow through on the promise to that, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.

Also Read: President Trump barrels ahead with plan to gut Obamas signature healthcare law

Similarly, Spicer said, Ryan has done everything he could. Hes worked really closely with the President. I think at the end of the day you cant force people to vote, Spicer said.

Senator Mark Warner said it has now become clear that Trumpcare has been rejected.

Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty said the Affordable Care Act has problems that they need to work together to fix. The American Health Care Act would solve none of these problems, and the American people know it. Instead of lowering costs or improving the quality of care, this bill would force millions of Americans to pay more money for worse coverage, she said.

Americans throughout the country - including the thousands of folks in my district who called and emailed me - have sent a loud and clear message to Congress that they oppose this cruel and destructive proposal. Today, their voices were heard, Esty said.

We wont fix the problems in our healthcare system with just one party negotiating against itself, she added.

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LOS ANGELES, March 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lundin Law PC, a shareholder rights firm announces a class action lawsuit against State Street Corporation, ("State Street" or the "Company") (NYSE:STT). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired State Street shares between February 27, 2012 and January 18, 2017 inclusive (the Class Period), are encouraged to contact the firm in advance of the March 28, 2017 lead plaintiff deadline.



To participate in this class action lawsuit, please click here, or call Brian Lundin, Esquire, of Lundin Law PC, at 888-713-1033, or e-mail him at brian@lundinlawpc.com.

No class has been certified in the above action yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

On January 18, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed State Street entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, settling to confer a sum of $32.3 million to resolve charges related to an alleged scheme to defraud bank clients by wrongfully adding commissions to billions of dollars of securities trades.

The Company admitted to the allegations and agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement that mandates that the Company use an independent corporate compliance monitor for three years.

When this news was released to the public, the value of State Street dropped, causing investors harm.

Lundin Law PC was established by Brian Lundin, a securities litigator based in Los Angeles dedicated to upholding shareholders' rights.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.
LOS ANGELES, March 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lundin Law PC, a shareholder rights firm announces a class action lawsuit against Aetna Inc. (Aetna or the Company) (NYSE:AET) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws. Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between August 15, 2016 and January 20, 2017 inclusive (the Class Period), are encouraged to contact the firm in advance of the March 27, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline.



To participate in this class action lawsuit, click here, or call Brian Lundin, Esquire, of Lundin Law PC, at 888-713-1033, or e-mail him at brian@lundinlawpc.com.

No class has been certified in the above action yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: Aetna and its senior executives tried to influence Aetna's participation in the Public Exchanges for positive treatment from regulators regarding the Humana acquisition; that the Company threatened to cut back its participation in public health insurance exchanges if the Department of Justice ("DOJ") tried to block the merger; that Aetna withdraw from some public health insurance exchanges to complete its threat of leaving the marketplace once the DOJ filed suit to better its litigation; that Aetna withdrew from public health insurance exchanges that were profitable for Aetna; and that due to the above, Defendants' statements regarding Aetna's business, operations, and prospects were false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.

When this information was released to the public, the value of Aetna stock fell, causing investors harm.

Lundin Law PC was established by Brian Lundin, a securities litigator based in Los Angeles dedicated to upholding shareholders' rights.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.
WASHINGTON  The school construction bill that includes Region 12s proposed Agriscience-STEM academy passed unscathed through a key legislative committee late Friday evening.

Next the bill will face a vote in the Appropriations Committee.

Although the Education Committee voted unanimously for the school construction bill and declined to amend it, it still isnt certain that funding for the academy at Shepaug Valley School will stay in the bill.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloys administration had urged the committee on school construction to drop Ag-STEM from a funding priority list, but the committee kept it in the bill.

State Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, who sits on the construction committee and co-chairs the Education Committee, has said that legislators decided to keep the project in play because school officials did everything they were asked to do in revamping an earlier, larger and more expensive proposal.

The project, which would offer training in agricultural sciences and other technical fields, is an effort to bolster student enrollment in a district whose three rural towns  Washington, Roxbury and Bridgewater  project steep population declines in coming years.

The original $39 million proposal, approved overwhelmingly by Region 12 voters in November 2015, envisioned enrolling as many as 226 students from Region 12 and surrounding districts in new and renovated space at Shepaug. The state was expected to pay about $29 million of that total.

Owing to budget difficulties, the required bond issue for the academy was delayed last spring. Since that delay, the state Department of Administrative Services has pressured school officials to refine their proposal.

The district spent $370,000 on architecture firm Kaestle Boos Associates, and builders O&G Industries to prepare a revised proposal.

The latest proposal calls for a $29 million cost, with $23 million in state contributions, and envisions an enrollment of 139 students.

In February school board members voted 9-0 to approve spending $532,000 to get the project shovel-ready to improve the chances of winning state funding.

As board member Greg Cava said at the time, Weve got to put our money on the line.

blytton@hearstmediact.com;
Local health care officials say a proposal that would give a tax credit to hospitals that provide beds for opioid addiction treatment is well intentioned, but questionable.

The sentiment of the bill is great but the key question is what does the bed mean and, frankly, inpatient beds are just a small piece of the puzzle in taking care of people with opioid addiction. Its only the beginning, said Dr. Katherine Michael, the medical director of community behavioral health at the Western Connecticut Health Network, which includes Danbury, New Milford and Norwalk hospitals.

Michael said hospital staff will admit patients who need to go through a medically managed detox, but that much of the treatment needed for a lasting effect happens outside of the hospital in residential and outpatient settings.

The bulk of the treatment happens after detox or when starting maintenance treatment, Michael said. Patients need a lot of support during that phase so inpatient hospital beds really arent the answer  and hospital beds are an expensive place to do opiate detox. There are specialized residential programs that do this more efficiently and patients can stay longer.

State House Republican Leader Themis Klarides, who introduced the proposed bill with her sister, Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-Seymour, said on Friday that they are both open to conversations about the proposal.

The proposed bill calls for the creation of a pilot program that would allow a credit against the hospital tax  which is the subject of an ongoing legal challenge by the Connecticut Hospital Association  if hospitals make beds available for those suffering from opioid addiction.

We certainly understand its one piece of the puzzle, but we are in such dire circumstances so we really have to look at it one piece at a time, Klarides said. We thought it was one step forward in helping people with opioid addiction, while at the same time helping the hospitals that have been victimized for years and years.

But Michael said the proposed tax credit is a pretty convoluted way to provide the service.

It needs to be straightforward when you are treating substance abuse issues, she said. You need to have a nimble process and the ability to get people into treatment when theyre ready to go  I think its an attempt to try to ameliorate some of the losses from the tax but its probably not the way I would go about implementing a comprehensive opioid program.

The tax was adopted as a way for the state to secure matching federal grants that would then be redistributed back to the hospitals. In 2012, the hospitals paid about $350 million in taxes and received about $400 million in state and federal funds.

But this fiscal year, the hospitals will be taxed $556 million and receive $118 million. Last year, the hospitals were taxed $556.1 million and received $164.3 million.

In 2015, the Connecticut Hospital Association asked the state to stop collecting the tax, saying it was illegal and unconstitutional. Last September, state officials rejected their claim, and about two months later, CHA asked a state Superior Court to throw out the hospital tax.

The Connecticut Hospital Association has submitted testimony in support of the proposed bill.

The concept is enticing to hospitals, given our ongoing efforts to address the opioid epidemic and our persistent advocacy for relief from the hospital tax, the testimony said.

The hospital association wrote that it does have some practical concerns.

According to the hospital associations testimony, hospitals seeking additional licensed beds for opioid treatment would need to demonstrate that there is a clear public need, as well as other criteria mandated under current law. The association recommended that the state implement an expedited procedure or an emergency measure allowing hospitals to redeploy or create new licensed beds for addiction treatment services.

In addition to adopting the proposed bill, the hospital association also asked the state to maintain state-operated treatment facilities, fund adequately substance use treatment programs and continue to work with hospitals to match bed availability with patient need.
Police arrested two protesters Thursday in Irondequoit during a rally against Border Patrol agents who detained two women and five children, according to Spectrum News.

It all began when Geneseo Police called Border Patrol agents because they could not confirm the identity of a driver in a minivan with seven passengers. The vehicle was initially stopped for speeding. The driver provided a passport from Guatemala but not a license, according to the Livingston County News.

When Border Patrol agents arrived, they took the family into custody and brought them to customs officials in Irondequoit, where protesters were rallying for the family's release.

Rochester First reports that one of the women and a younger brother were taken to the Buffalo Immigration Detention Center. Her three children, all under the age of four, and the woman's sister were released.

Irondequoit Immigration Battle Protesters in Irondequoit clashed with police after they say a family from Guatemala was detained at the Customs and Border Protection Office. Story: bit.ly/2nYPNFe Posted by WHEC TV on Friday, March 24, 2017

WHEC reports that protester Philipp Birklbauer, 29, was arrested after throwing a wooden finial that struck a New York State Trooper.

A protest rally is scheduled for Friday at the Federal Building in downtown Rochester.
UNSW researchers have identified a critical step in the molecular process that allows cells to repair damaged DNA  and it could mean big things for the future of anti-ageing drugs, childhood cancer survivors and even astronauts. It could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing, improves DNA repair and could even help NASA get its astronauts to Mars.

Their experiments in mice suggest a treatment is possible for DNA damage from ageing and radiation. It is so promising it has attracted the attention of NASA, which believes the treatment can help its Mars mission.

While our cells have an innate capability to repair DNA damage  which happens every time we go out into the sun, for example  their ability to do this declines as we age.

The scientists identified that the metabolite NAD+, which is naturally present in every cell of our body, has a key role as a regulator in protein-to-protein interactions that control DNA repair.

Treating mice with a NAD+ precursor, or booster, called NMN improved their cells ability to repair DNA damage caused by radiation exposure or old age.

The cells of the old mice were indistinguishable from the young mice, after just one week of treatment, said lead author Professor David Sinclair of UNSW School of Medical Sciences and Harvard Medical School Boston.

Human trials of NMN therapy will begin within six months.

This is the closest we are to a safe and effective anti-aging drug thats perhaps only three to five years away from being on the market if the trials go well, says Sinclair, who maintains a lab at UNSW in Sydney.

Science  A conserved NAD+ binding pocket that regulates protein-protein interactions during aging

An anti-ageing pill could be on the horizon

For the past four years, Professor Sinclair and Dr Wu have been working on making NMN into a drug substance with their companies MetroBiotech NSW and MetroBiotech International.

The human trials will begin this year at Brigham and Womens Hospital, in Boston.

The findings on NAD+ and NMN add momentum to the exciting work the UNSW Laboratory for Ageing Research has done over the past four years.

Theyve been looking at the interplay of a number of proteins and molecules and their roles in the ageing process.

They had already established that NAD+ could be useful for treating various diseases of ageing, female infertility and also treating side effects of chemotherapy.

In 2003, Professor Sinclair made a link between the anti-ageing enzyme SIRT1 and resveratrol, a naturally occurring molecule found in tiny quantities in red wine.

While resveratrol activates SIRT1 alone, NAD+ boosters activate all seven sirtuins, SIRT1-7, and should have an even greater impact on health and longevity, he says.

NAD+ binding modulates protein interactions

An unexpected function of the oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) could underlie some effects of aging and propensity to age-related diseases. Li et al. found that the protein DBC1 (deleted in breast cancer 1) contains a domain that specifically binds NAD+. Binding of NAD+ inhibited the interaction of DBC1 with PARP1 [poly(adenosine diphosphateribose) polymerase 1], an enzyme important in DNA repair. Activity of PARP1 is inhibited by interaction with DBC1. Thus, the reduced abundance of NAD+ associated with aging may decrease PARP1 activity by promoting the interaction of PARP1 with DBC1. This mechanism could help explain the reported rejuvenating actions of NAD+ supplementation in older animals.

Science, March 24 issue p. 1312

Abstract

DNA repair is essential for life, yet its efficiency declines with age for reasons that are unclear. Numerous proteins possess Nudix homology domains (NHDs) that have no known function. We show that NHDs are NAD+ (oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) binding domains that regulate protein-protein interactions. The binding of NAD+ to the NHD domain of DBC1 (deleted in breast cancer 1) prevents it from inhibiting PARP1 [poly(adenosine diphosphateribose) polymerase], a critical DNA repair protein. As mice age and NAD+ concentrations decline, DBC1 is increasingly bound to PARP1, causing DNA damage to accumulate, a process rapidly reversed by restoring the abundance of NAD+. Thus, NAD+ directly regulates protein-protein interactions, the modulation of which may protect against cancer, radiation, and aging.

SOURCES- USNW, Science
By GMM 25 March 2017 - 08:46





Pascal Wehrlein on Saturday said he is confident he will be fit enough to return to his Sauber in China.

Although he told the German press he was in "no pain" in Melbourne following his back injury nine weeks ago, Wehrlein explained it was simply a lack of physical fitness that prompted his decision to sit out qualifying and the race.

"Anyone who knows how ambitious I am will know how much this decision hurts me. Especially since Im having no pain.

"I just realised in the long runs that my fitness is not enough for 60 laps," Wehrlein said as Ferrari reserve Antonio Giovinazzi took his place on Saturday.

"The decision was made between myself and the team. The doctors were not involved," he added.

Team boss Monisha Kaltenborn rejected what she called "ridiculous" speculation that Wehrlein being replaced by Ferraris Giovinazzi was actually political.

Indeed, Wehrlein insisted he will be back in the car in China.

"Ive been in the car for four days now (since the injury) and Ive been feeling better every day. Next week I will continue to improve.

"Im going to train hard in Europe next week, and Ill be back in the car in China on Friday. Then well see.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Senator Tijjani Yahaya Kaura, has observed that it is time for Nigerian leaders, especially the lawmakers to reboot the country.The Senator noted that majority of Nigerians that served as leaders were not entirely satisfied with their performance, hence the need to reboot the nation.Senator Kaura who stated this Friday in Kaduna while delivering a keynote address at the 2017 Retreat for Legislators, organised by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, noted that legislators were rarely accused of corruption in the past.He said it was in recognition of that, that the 8th National Assembly members had worked hard to uphold moral rectitude in line with the change begins with me mantra of the current administration.The Senator assured that the 8th Senate would ensure that the issue of corruption will continue to be in the front burner of national discourse.According to him, Nigerias democratic status would have probably collapsed and fallen like a pack of ill-arranged cards, if not for the timely intervention of the legislative arm.The 8th National Assembly has been engaged in improving governance, improving business and improving the livelihood of Nigerians.It is our belief that doing so will in the long run improve the economy and ultimately guarantee a better life for our people through law making, its oversight functions, which has led to blocking of leakages in the purse of the Federal Government.Before independence and through to the post-independence era, legislatures in Nigeria were rarely accused of corruption, rightly or wrongly. Indeed, corruption or any type of vices was seen as an abomination and anathema within the political circle.The challenges confronting the legislature are not insurmountable. There must be a determined resolve on our side to face these challenges squarely, and ensure that the ethics of the parliament are complied with.We are also determined to meet the expectations of the citizens from us in the performance of our constitutional responsibilities, he observed.Earlier in his welcome address, the Acting Director General, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Mr. Jonathan Juma, said an effective legislative institution that was responsive to public needs and actively involved in public policy process was imperative to advancing democracy in Nigeria.He explained that the retreat was designed to enhance the basic knowledge and skills of the participants for more effective interaction with the executive, particularly in the area of policy making.The retreat had in attendance members of the House of Representatives Committee on Governmental Affairs and National executive members of Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC.
FILE: L-R: Abia Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at a government function in Umuahia, Abia State

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is now the Enyioha 1 of Abia State, an honour bestowed on him by traditional rulers of the state.

Osinbajo visited Abia State on Friday, March 24, 2017 in his sustained effort to ensure peace in the restive Niger Delta region and other oil-producing states of the country.

Media aide to the vice president, Laolu Akande, said that Prof. Osinbajo is currently meeting with stakeholders on the communities.

Osinbajo travelled from Kaduna State where he met with Governor Nasir El-Rufai on Friday morning enroute Owerri, Imo State, before travelling to Abia

VP Osinbajo (is) now in Abia state continuing FGS interactive engagements with oil-producing communities, Akandes statement said.

He went through Kaduna-Owerri to Abia VP (is) accompanied by three ministers: Trade and Industry, Niger Delta and Petroleum Resources (state). The entourage was reportedly received by the governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu.

The Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government has struggled with relations with the people of the South South, the home of the Niger Delta, the owners of the oil and gas resources in the country.

President Buhari cast the tone for his relationship with the troubled oil region when a few weeks after his inauguration on May 29, 2015 he said that areas that gave him 5% votes (the South East and the South South), should not expected to be treated the same as areas that gave him 97% of the votes (North East and North West).

He has followed through his policy of marginalisation by attacking leaders  political, business, and traditional  from the Niger Delta. One of his early presidential orders was that the stipends to former Niger Delta militants who were under the Amnesty Programme be stopped.

Traditional rulers from the region have been hounded and harassed, their homes and shrines ransacked by agents of the countrys secret police. Soldiers have arrested a traditional ruler in Ogoniland.

The first president of Nigeria from the Niger Delta, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has been unfairly attacked by the Buhari regime in several forms under the guise of anti-corruption war. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has illegally clamped down on the bank accounts of former first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, and those of leading businessmen and women from the region.

Because of the presidents anti-Niger Delta posture and policies, there has been a renewed restiveness in the region. The leading militant group in the region, the Niger Delta Avengers, successfully cut the oil production in the country from 2.2 million barrels a day to less than 600,000 barrels a day following a chain of attacks on oil installations.
News that veteran Nollywood actor Victor Olaotan, may have his legs amputated following a motor accident he had in October 2016, has been ...

News that veteran Nollywood actor Victor Olaotan, may have his legs amputated following a motor accident he had in October 2016, has been debunked.Reacting to an online publication which said the actors legs may be amputated, Olaotans publicity, Demola Sanyaolu, rubbished the report in a telephone interview with The Nation on Friday night. He said the actor is recovering.It is unfounded, baseless and there is no truth in it, Sanyaolu said.It is just about some people that want to draw traffic to its website. Olaotan is recovering.Movie producer and friend of Olaotan, Opa Williams, also did not agree with the news. Williams said he saw Olaotan two weeks ago and the actor was recovering.The online publication on Friday, ran a story that Olaotans legs may be amputated and quoted a source as saying, Only family members, few friends and colleagues are aware of this development.This is coming 144 days after he survived a ghastly motor accident in the early hours of October 31, 2016.Olaotan, who starred as Fred Ade Williams in television drama Tinsel also played one of the fun-loving trio in Opa Williams latest movie, Three Wise Men, was returning to a movie set in Festac, Lagos, when the accident happened around Apple Junction, Festac. He was the only occupant of the car at the time of the accident.Olaotan was rushed to a hospital in Surulere, Lagos where he was place in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).He has since been away from the public and was even absent at the premiere of Three Wise Men in Lagos, last December.In January, Sanyaolu told The Nation that he actor is recovering and will be discharged from the hospital soon.Olaotan has acted in several TV programmes and movies. His last known production was Three Wise Men, a movie about 64-year-old Irikefe (Richard Mofe-Damijo) and his two friends, Timi (Zack Orji) and Tobore (Victor Olaotan), all retirees, who become playboys.
Femi Adesina, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, has declared that God has put his principals enemies ...

Femi Adesina, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, has declared that God has put his principals enemies to shame by restoring his health.In an article on Saturday titled Buharis health: Gloating is of no value, Adesina recalled the events that surrounded the health saga of the President.Going down memory lane, Adesina said Dr. Doyin Abiola, Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of National Concord, where he was then deputy editor, told him not to gloat while working on paper production on the death of ex-military ruler, Sani Abacha.She said something that both baffled and amazed me: Editor, no gloating. We have every reason to rejoice that Abacha is dead, but no gloating. Just present the news as professionally as possible. Dont gloat!I thanked her, and she left. Her instruction continued to ring in my ears, and was followed to the letter. Those who read National Concord the next day would recall that there was no sense of triumphalism, no newsmans orgasm of any kind, in the treatment of the story.Did Doyin Abiola have reasons to instruct her newspaper to preen and gloat about Abachas death? Every. He had given the impression that he would take over power, and hand over to Abiola, who had won the June 12, 1993, presidential election, which the military annulled. Instead, he locked the man up in solitary confinement.Doyin did not see her husband for five years. Also, Abacha had shut down Concord Press for about two years, causing the company grave economic afflictions. Under him, Kudirat Abiola, one of Doyins mates, had been murdered, shot down in the streets, allegedly on the orders of the state. And many more evil deeds.Continuing, Adesina noted that Between January 19 and March 10, of this year, President Muhammadu Buhari was away in London, first on routine holiday where he would do normal medical check-ups, and then, it became a medical vacation, in which he had to ask for an indeterminate number of days.Yes, who is he or she that never falls sick, let that person cast the first stone. As the President frankly confessed on his return, he had never been that sick in his life. Human, just human.And we know what attended the Presidents medical sojourn from certain quarters in the country. Wild news. Hate news. Rumour. Evil thinking. Even, gloating. They did all kinds of photoshops, and spewed all kinds of evil stories. They passed round outright wickedness on WhatsApp, and those of us who debunked their evil tales became enemies.When President Buhari spoke with me on phone from London on February 25, I was elated, and issued a press statement, detailing our conversation. Many Nigerians, good people from a great nation, who could get hold of my phone number, called. They would ask if truly we had spoken. Once I confirmed, they broke into tears of joy, crying like babies. They brought tears to my eyes many times.Till this son of hate, a purveyor of evil and tragedy, called. He identified himself as Jude (I decide to withhold his other name for now). He said: Mr Adesina, you claim to have spoken with President Buhari. When are you going to stop this political deceit? How can you speak with a man who is long dead, and you are deceiving the public that hes still alive?I didnt argue with the man (though I was tempted to call him sonofagun, the son of a gun). I held my peace, let him finish his orgy of evil, and calmly cut off the phone. Doomsday prophets. Evil thinkers. Peddlers of mischief.Then, on March 10, the President returned. Ecstasy and pure rapture from good Nigerians, who had been praying and supplicating unto God. Mai Gaskiya was back. The honest man had returned. Ramrod straight, man of integrity. He had been spared by God, and restored to us. Oh, glory!Did you listen to that short speech that President Buhari read on his return? Did you listen to his off the cuff remarks? Was there any gloating? None. Did he rub it in on those who had peddled evil news, fake news, hate news? No. That is maturity. That is how to be the father of a country.So, President Buhari would have been justified, if he gave evil people some jabs. But he did not. What a heart!Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.How did that Jude Somebody feel when the President returned? He even bears Jude, a Christian name. How embarrassing! But he was full of bile, in the gall and throes of bitterness. May God forgive him. Amen.With President Buharis health saga, some truths have been brought to bold relief once again. Anybody can be sick. Big or small man. A man of power, or a man of no consequence.Let us therefore be conscious of our mortality at all times. I can testify, from my many private discussions with him, that President Buhari is a man keenly aware of his own mortality at all times. A worthy example to follow.Another lesson. Life and death are the sole preserves of God Almighty. Despite all those concoctions and contraptions, fake pictures, false stories on WhatsApp, mendacious newspaper reports, President Buhari came back alive. Who says anything that God has not said?From March 10, when President Buhari returned, purveyors of evil have disappeared. Vanished! Utterly transmuted, like Brother Jero, in that work by Wole Soyinka. Even on social media, where they had held sway for many weeks, they evaporated. Like a beaten dog, they had their tails between their feet, and ran for cover. But should we rejoice? Dont gloat!Where is that Jude Somebody? I kept his number. I feel like calling him, saying: Son of a gun, how now? But I shouldnt do it. And I wont do it. Because I remember Dr. Abiolas instruction: Dont gloat!
Less than one week after a medical doctor, Allwell Orji, jumped into the lagoon in Lagos, operatives of the Lagos State Police Command a...

A woman, Abigael Ogunyinka, was rescued by fishermen in the early hours of yesterday in Lagos Lagoon, while another woman, Taiwo Titilayo Momoh, who also attempted to jump into the lagoon from the Third Mainland Bridge at about 11:25 am, was prevented from doing so by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad of the Lagos State Police Command.According to the spokesman of Lagos State Police Command, Olarinde Famous-Cole, Ogunyinka had attempted to jump into the lagoon at Ebute Ero before she was intercepted by vigilant fishermen.She explained that she was unable to repay a loan of N150,000 which she took from a microfinance bank and that the bank had been mounting serious pressure on her to defray the money, hence, she decided to take her own life by jumping into the lagoon.However, given the sensitive nature of the case, we shall investigate her statement and the alleged microfinance bank in order to establish the veracity of her comment.On her part, Momoh, a 58-year-old textiles dealer on Lagos Island, had put off her shoes and was wrapping her dress around her body when men of RRS 226 intervened in the nick of time and prevented her from jumping into the water.The woman, who lives in the Lekki area of Lagos, explained that she was pushed to committing suicide in order to put an end to her sleeplessness and shame caused by her indebtedness to three Swiss textile dealers.She said that her problem started in 2015 when a forex dealer carted away the N18.7 million she wanted to change to pay her foreign creditors.Her condition, she said, became compounded when robbers invaded her shop on Lagos Island and carted away her goods.She disclosed that she was haunted at nights by the ghosts of her creditors whenever she was alone.Momoh, a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, expressed her frustration after she had made fruitless effort to share her plight with the pastor of her parish.She noted that she was only allowed to see the pastors assistant.She said: Added to all this, my first son, who I thought would stand by me and console me, abandoned me. By the time Im gone, maybe he would come around and inherit what is left.I dont want to use my debt and death to disturb anybody. I was in the shop this morning. I have looked everywhere and estimated what is there.I think with my house, a bungalow, those I am leaving behind can still live comfortably. I want to go and meet God. This world is empty. I wont because I want to get rich join a cult. I go my way and I dont socialise unnecessarily.She added: I was a Muslim. I have because of this problem been jumping from one faith to the other. The problem is too much for me to bear. I want to go back to God.That is why I have dressed very simply. I am ready to meet Him. If He cannot address my problem on earth, let me go back to Him.Speaking with newsmen at the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) headquarters in Alausa, Ikeja, Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, explained that Momoh was in a taxi heading towards Oworonshoki on Third Mainland Bridge when she told the taxi driver to stop on the bridge.The woman, according to Owoseni, was about to jump into the water when a police team on a routine patrol on the Third Mainland Bridge sighted her and promptly saved her before she jumped into the lagoon.She attempted suicide by attempting to jump into the lagoon around Oworonshoki inward Mainland on Third Mainland Bridge. Unfortunately for her, she was rescued.The woman was in a taxi and alighted on the bridge and wanted to commit suicide by jumping into the lagoon.The police patrol team sighted her and rushed to rescue her before she jumped into the Lagoon, he said.Owoseni said his interactions with the woman revealed that she had depression as a result of unpaid loans, adding that she is still insisting that she wants to end her life.He explained that committing suicide is an offence under the law but that the police would try to talk the woman out of committing suicide.He said the police would do a medical evaluation on the woman to ascertain her condition.He explained that the woman would be taken through post-trauma programme to restore her hope and prevent her from committing suicide.Owoseni lamented the rate at which people commit suicide in the country, describing it as worrisome.He disclosed that the police had begun patrol of bridges across the state to forestall other cases of suicide.He also said it has become an offence for individuals to walk on bridges in the state and that no vehicle would be allowed to stop on any bridge in the state henceforth in order to prevent suicide incidents.Right now, the woman is still in trauma and she still insists that she wants to end her life, he said.The distraught woman, however, warned journalists from taking her photograph as she was being escorted from the RRS office into a waiting police vehicle, saying I am not a criminal.Orji, a medical doctor attached to Papa Ajao branch of Mount Sinai Hospital, Lagos, jumped into the Lagos lagoon on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos on Sunday in circumstances that remain puzzling.He reportedly ordered his driver to stop at a point on the bridge after receiving a call on his cell phone and proceeded to take the bizarre action.His body was found after three days of frantic search by a combined team of the Marine Police and officials of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA).
SaharaReporters has obtained Senator Dino Melayes West African Examination Council (WAEC) result sheets which it described as a pointer t...

SaharaReporters has obtained Senator Dino Melayes West African Examination Council (WAEC) result sheets which it described as a pointer that the embattled senator was a dismal student who earned only three credits.The result sheet for the senator, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who represents Kogi West senatorial district, came from a secondary school attended by Mr. Melaye.The senator according to SaharaReporters had kept that aspect of his academic history hidden from the public by scrubbing the school from his profile on the website of the Nigerian Senate.Mr. Melaye sat for the WAEC exams at the Abdulazeez Attah Memorial College, Okeke in Kogi State. His results, exclusively obtained by SaharaReporters, reveal that Senator Melaye, whose name on the result sheets was registered as Daniel Jonah O. Melaiye, only made three credits in Christian Religious Studies (C5), Agricultural Science (A3) and Biology (C6). Melaye took 6 other subjects including English Language (P8), Mathematics (P8), Chemistry (P8), Economics (P7) and Physics (F9).The dismal performance meant that Mr. Melaye did not have the minimum requisite credits to gain admission into a Nigerian university to study for a bachelors degree. In fact, the only way he could have been admitted for studies at a Nigerian university was if he earned other credits from another secondary school.Mr. Melaye did not list his secondary school education on his www.linkedin.com profile. Nor did he provide it on his senatorial profile on the website of the Nigerian National Assembly. Instead, he listed Gandun Nasarawa Primary School in Kano as the source of his West African School Certificate. Pupils in primary school are not eligible to sit WAEC exams.
The Enugu State Police Command has discovered a shallow grave where the remains of the former Chief Security Officer for Uzo-Uwani Local G...

The Enugu State Police Command has discovered a shallow grave where the remains of the former Chief Security Officer for Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State, Mr Ejiofor Enechi, were buried.It can be recalled that Enechi was kidnapped by a syndicate in December, 2016.Two top members of the kidnap gang, Chijioke Ozor alias earthquake and one Anselem Ngana were arrested in February 2017 after a fierce gun battle with members of the police anti- kidnapping unit in Enugu who trailed the suspects to their hideout in the forest  Malaysian Forest where kidnappers dump dead bodies.Enechis shallow grave was found on March 15, at the Aniocha Forest, Nimbo in the local government, following the arrest of the duo.The state Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Superintendent Ebere Amaraizu, confirmed the arrest of the two suspects and consequent discovery of Ejiofors remains in the forest to newsmen on Friday.According to him, Ozor and Ngana were members of the banned Oda Nimbo Vigilante Group in the area who had been involved in the kidnap of over 20 persons along the Nsukka- Uzo-Uwani  Onitsha road, in recent times.They were among about 30 other members of the dreaded group who were being hunted by security agents following the kidnap and murder of Ejiofor, after his relations had paid N2 million ransom for his release.Ozor, who hails from Ugwunani village in Aku, Igboetiti Local Government Area of the state, led the police to the shallow grave in the forest where the remains were exhumed.Our detectives discovered the shallow grave and the shrine where the gangsters took their victims to at the Aniocha Forest which stretches to Eshi River in Kogi State.Apart from Ejiofors remains, they found several motorcycles of other victims who must have been killed by same members of the vigilante group.Each time they kidnapped their victims, they blamed the action on Fulani herdsmen but it is now clear that the allegations against the Fulani herdsmen were diversionary.The forest is popularly known as Malaysia or Ugbo Ekwuru behind the Ugwuijoro Village in Nimbo.Ngana is from Akpama Nimbo and he was one of those in charge of monitoring Ejifors movements for other members of Oda Nimbo Vigilante group.Earthquake (Ozor) was among those who took him to the bush where he was allegedly murdered instead of the shrine.Over 30 members of the killer gang are still on the run and we are on their hot chase, the PPRO added.
Lagos State governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, yesterday, said about $60million would be pumped into the ongoing development of the Lekki F...

Lagos State governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, yesterday, said about $60million would be pumped into the ongoing development of the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) within the next six months.The governor, who spoke when he met with stakeholders at the Zone, assured that he remains committed to addressing the challenges and ensuring the project is actualised.I want to assure that our financial commitment to LFTZ will be improved in 2017, that is, we will accelerate to quickly clear our outstanding counterpart funding for the Zone.In essence, we expect that in the next six month, we should be having an investment of over $60 million. I believe that when we invest our share of the fund and China Africa Lekki Investment Limited (CALIL) does, it will bring a major development for the Zone, he said.The governor said that putting the fund at the Zone at a time when Nigeria was gradually easing its way out of recession would not only improve infrastructure and boost development, but will also help attract more investors to the Zone.He said over $6billion has been invested in the LFTZ in the last few years, with Dangote Group providing a lion share of about $4billion.Ambode said: Over $6 billion has been invested in the Zone in the last few years with Dangote share in the lump sum at $4 billion and we have a land space of over 16,000 hectares of which, just a portion of it is activated.We are all aware of the investments by Dangote Group and the China Africa Lekki Investment Limited (CALIL), had done as it concerns the partnership they signed with the Lagos State Government. And this partnership made the company own 60 percent while Lagos owns 40 percent.Ambode also assured that work would commence on the Lekki Deep Sea Port next month, saying that it was also a critical infrastructure that would attract more investors into the Zone and ensure return on investment.With the ongoing construction of the seaport, airport and others, it is obvious that a single road isnt sufficient for the Zone.It is now clear that we have to dualise the Lekki-Eleko Road beyond the Zone in order to withstand the influx of vehicle that will be making use of the road to access the Zone. With this, we will be able to sustain the investments in the area, the governor said.He expressed optimism that with the Lekki Deep Sea Port, Dangote Refinery and Lekki Airport coming on board, the Lagos East axis would witness massive economic turnaround within the next two years.
Members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the House of Representatives have assured the leadership of the party of their commitmen...

Members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the House of Representatives have assured the leadership of the party of their commitment to the timely passage of the 2017 budget.The lawmakers made the pledge during a meeting with members of the APC National Working Committee led by the partys National Chairman, John Oyegun.Speaking after the meeting, Mr Oyegun said the leadership of the party is impressed with the performance of the lawmakers.He told reporters that the visit was made to appreciate the House of Representatives for a job well done.The meeting took place on Friday at the National Assembly in Abuja, Nigerias capital.
Senator Ali Ndume has insisted that he bears no grudges against Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Senator Dino Melaye.

Senator Ali Ndume has insisted that he bears no grudges against Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Senator Dino Melaye.Ndume stated this in an interview with journalists, while responding to insinuations that he called for the probe of both lawmakers because of his removal as Senate Leader.He said it was the tradition of the Senate, to investigate such allegations against Senators.Are you saying I should not have raised the issue? It was in the public domain, and it is in the Senate tradition by Rule 14 and 15. There were precedents that were investigated. In the history of National Assembly, Salisu Buharis case came in the media too that he did not graduate from the University of Toronto Canada and was investigated. When it was discovered he did not have the degree, he stepped down and was prosecuted and sentenced before he was pardoned by former President Obasanjo.During the Fifth Assembly, Masari as Speaker was investigated over his certificate and cleared. Bankole was accused of not observing the NYSC and he was investigated. He produced his certificate and we verified it. Also, there was the Patricia Etteh case, and she had to clear herself.In the Senate, Enwerem had difference of S controversy in his certificate as in Evan and Evans, he was investigated and when it was discovered that there were discrepancies, he resigned. Chuba Okadigbo was investigated too and he lost his seat. Adolphus Wabara was accused of corruption and investigated. Even David Mark was accused and investigated and cleared. If you observe, the rate of abuses thrown at the Senate has reduced since I raised the issue, Ndume said.
The police responded yesterday to the accusation that they have been partial in their investigation of the recent communal crisis in Ile...

The police responded yesterday to the accusation that they have been partial in their investigation of the recent communal crisis in Ile-Ife,Osun State that claimed at least 46 lives.The clash pitched the Yoruba against Hausa.The police moved in and arrested a number of suspects, the majority of whom are Yoruba.The development drew sharp criticisms from prominent Yoruba leaders and groups who believe the police are partial towards the Hausa.They wonder why only the Yoruba are being arrested and harassed over the clash.However, Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris yesterday denied any such act by the police.Crime has no tribe, he told State House correspondents after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the security situations in different parts of the country.He added: If you are a criminal, you are a criminal.Crime has no face. We dont look at crime in the identity of where you are coming from.As far as you are a criminal and the police find you wanting, we apply the law.The Police IG expressed doubts over the involvement of Fulani herdsmen in the recent killings in Zaki Biam, Benue State.He said indications point in the direction of a wanted hoodlum, Gana.His words:No, I dont think it was an activity of Fulani herdsmen.It was an activity of a criminal who is using members of his criminal gang in the state to harass people.There are allegations that Gana, one of the wanted men, caused it.This man has been on the police wanted list. I decided to deploy some special units to go after him and get him by all means.Definitely we are going to get him.On his mission at the State House, he said: I came to see the President to update him on the deployment of the police in our effort to ensure that we have security all over the country.Obviously, it was to share with him our deployment strategies on ground; our deployment to some of these flash points all over the country, especially Benue, which is the current one; deployment to Kaduna State which started a few weeks ago; and deployment to the Ile-Ife crisis where we have a lot of police officers, both the special squad and investigation team.Asked on the specific directives given to him by the President, he said: Obviously, there should be a specific directive to ensure that all of us use all the facilities at our disposal to make sure that some of these incidents we are talking about are brought under control as soon as possible.I gave the President my assurance that we are going to do that. As I said earlier, we have deployed a special squad to Benue and we are surely going to get that Gana within a short time.He dismissed suggestions that the police have no strategy for fighting crimes in the country, saying: You know some of these crises; we have to look at the immediate causes for you to make a proper classification of the crimes,If you followed some of these crimes, they were just crimes that happened without any warning.If you look at that Ife crisis, if you see how it started, it was just a disagreement between two people, selling food along the road. So you have to look at the dynamics of the country itself.Obviously, when you have such a situation, we have to react to it. We have to move in to ensure we provide some security to the people.
The leader of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Otunba Gani Adams has accused the Nigeria Police of taking sides in the recent violent clash ...

The leader of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Otunba Gani Adams has accused the Nigeria Police of taking sides in the recent violent clash that engulfed the ancient town of Ile-ife, between some indigenes of the town, and Hausa/Fulani settlers.This was contained in a statement signed by Adams and made available to DAILY POST on Saturday, where he expressed worry over sectional approach the police had adopted in tackling the issue, which in his words remains two fighting.He wondered why no single Hausa/Fulani extraction was among the 21 suspects arrested and paraded in Abuja by the police for their involvement in the crisis.The OPC leader alleged that the pattern of arrest signalled a clear display of tribalism, which would be resisted by well meaning Yoruba leaders and Nigerians at large.It beats my imagination that a government that has been playing lip service to the lingering blood letting going on in Southern Kaduna, suddenly woke up from its slumber when the pendulum swings Westwards to begin an illegal arrest of Ife indigenes and leaving out the Hausa/Fulani who were deeply involved in the crisis untouched.The police recently paraded 21 suspects that were arrested in the aftermath of the crisis and to my chagrin, all of them were Yoruba. This leaves a question mark as to why no Hausa/Fulani was arrested, even as reports indicated that it was one of the Hausa/Fulani, residing in the Sabo area of the ancient city that sparked up the crisis. Infact, Yoruba recorded the first three casualties before the crisis went full scale. In the light of the foregoing, I join other Yoruba leaders and some prominent Nigerians to condemn the police for its one-sided parade of Ile-Ife residents over the recent clash between the Yoruba and Hausa communities in the ancient city. I make bold to say that the arrest, as being skewed by the police, is a display of huge tribalismOn behalf of my organisations, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Oodua Progressive Union, (OPU), I hereby state our serious objection to a one-sided arrest in a clash between two ethnic groups. We detest, in strong terms the undue deployment of federal influence along fault lines on the Ile-Ife crisis.We also suspect foul play as well as favouritism that those who were arrested for an offence allegedly committed in Ife were being bundled up to Abuja for nothing but sheer intimidation. We know it is not right, by law, to charge anybody in Abuja for a crime allegedly committed in Ife.We believe that issues that are capable of conflagrating this country must be avoided with a passion. Parading some people and saying they are culprits has severe tribal linkages with dire consequences. We cannot afford that at this point in time.We are like sitting on some keg of gunpowder. Politically, the action taken so far is not wise. And I want to appeal to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) that parading one tribe is not sensible. The interpretation would go beyond the level we can control. The action is not palatable because Nigeria is a heterogeneous state.It is not too late to correct the trend. This is very imperative as we are not going to fold our arms to see our land being overthrown from us.We cannot play the role of second fiddle in this case of palpable altercation involving two ethnic groups, the statement reads.
Fresh facts have emerged as to why Allwell Orji, a 35-year-old medical doctor with the Papa Ajao branch of Mount Sinai Hospital, decided...

A close associate of the deceased doctor revealed that he (Orji) once confided in him that he was fed up with life and wanted to end it all.He said: We were close and we often discussed about his life. He was a brilliant young man and he liked helping people. He was in the habit of taking part in free medical outreaches and he loved to study.Despite his condition, he was still studying further. He ought to be rounding off his post-graduate studies which would have enabled him to become a consultant, the young associate said.Although it was gathered that the deceased medical practitioner was a sickle cell anaemia carrier, the associate, who pleaded not to be named, said the deceased doctor sometimes had moments of mental instability.The young man added: Sometimes it happened like a convulsion, and it even embarrassed him at his place of work while he was busy with a patient. Although the family did their best to manage the situation, there were times when he and some members of the family exchanged words because they taunted him for acting abnormally.His frustration heightened when his father died about four years ago and some family members believed the burden of his health condition contributed to the fathers death. These were some of the reasons he told me at that time that he wanted to end it all, but I tried to encourage him with the word of God.The close ally also said that the late doctors mother had tried to get him a wife but it did not work out. He said the mum, a wealthy woman who owns a number of vehicles, also hired a driver for the doctor as a way of monitoring his movement to prevent him from taking his own life since he had exhibited such tendencies.The jeep (SUV) he was riding belongs to the mother and she also got him a driver to take him around. The mother tried to arrange marriage for him at a time but it did not work. The deceaseds younger brother is already married and his sister is also a medical doctor, the source said.When newsmen visited the Odunukan residence of the deceased on Thursday evening, a sober atmosphere pervaded the entire street. One of the residents, who identified himself simply as Mr. Oluwole, recalled that Oluwole had attempted suicide about four years earlier, adding that he saw Dr. Orji walking past the Saturday before his death.Oluwole said: We were here four years ago when he wanted to jump from the top of the storey building owned by his family. His family members do not relate with other people in the neigbourhood, and it was the same thing with the late doctor. I often saw him walking on the streets bespectacled on days he was not on call at the hospital. He walked like someone who was thinking too much.Oluwole also believed that things could have turned out differently if the deceased doctors family had not changed his driver.He said: It wont be out of place to describe him as a recluse. He was not on the social media, neither did he engage in any social activity.I believe things would have turned out differently if the family did not change his former driver. The former driver would have suspected and could have tried to stop him once he ordered him to stop on the bridge. I am not sure his new driver was well briefed on his medical condition.It was just like any other Friday when the late Orji resumed work at the branch of Mount Sinai Hospital on Ojekunle Road, Papa Ajao, Mushin, on March 17. The storey building housing the hospital overlooks the dual carriage road that is popular for the spill-over of heavy commercial activities from the nearby Ladipo Market. Although it is sandwiched by two very close buildings, Mount Sinai Hospital wears a bright colour that makes it easily noticeable.It was here that Orji reported last for duty as a medical doctor before he gave it all up two days later on a bright Sunday afternoon. He was said to have stopped his driver on the Third Mainland Bridge, got out of the vehicle and jumped into the Lagos lagoon.A colleague of the deceased, who did not want to be named, said that Orjis last day at work was like every other.He said: He was cheerful on that day and attended to patients in his usual cheerful manner. There was no slightest indication that something was amiss or anything to indicate that he was depressed or bothered by something. If there was any sign, it was not obvious at all. If there was anything amiss, that would be his personal life which, of course, we couldnt have been part of, the colleague said.A nurse at the hospital, who fought back tears as she spoke, also described the deceased Orji as a cheerful individual. Everybody here will miss him. He was a jovial person. He loved his work. He was someone we enjoyed working with. That Friday was his last day at work here, she added.One of the doctors, who appeared shocked by the incident, referred our correspondent to the Communications Manager at the Surulere branch of the hospital. It is the Communications Manager who has the mandate to say anything about the late Orji. I am sure that the hospital will communicate an official position about the incident in due course, the doctor said.At the Surulere branch of the hospital in Lagos, however, the Communications Manager was not available to speak with reporters. But an official of the hospital who would not disclose his name said that while he shared the sense of loss, he would not answer questions concerning Orjis personal life.He said: As for his official life here, I can tell you that he didnt show any sign that he had any issue whatsoever. He was at work on the Friday before the incident. He was a likeable fellow, cheerful, had a good working relationship with his colleagues and he was well remunerated. If he had personal problems, I wouldnt know. It didnt show.
Veteran Nollywood actor, Victor Olaotan has been reported to be having both legs amputated following the car crash he was involved in back in October 2016.Victor, best known for his role as Fred Ade-Williams in the long-running television drama Tinsel, Mr Olaotans legs may reportedly be cut off in order to save his life.Sources close to the family say his health status is being closely guarded. Although Victor is stable condition but his legs may have to be cut off to allow him any chance of recovery.The veteran was involved in a car crash on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on Monday, October 31, 2016.In 1974 he starred in a soap opera by Laolu Ogunniyi called Candles In The Wind alongside Kehinde Craig. He also once worked with NTA Ibadan where he produced Yoruba and English dramas.In 1981, Olaotan joined a group of 8 Nigerian performers who escorted former Nigerian President Shehu Shagari to the United States to have a meeting with Ronald Regan.He was on MNETs Tinsel series for seven years where he played the role of Fred Ade-Williams.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has announced that the Federal Government will take urgent measures to include Abia in the amnesty programme ...

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has announced that the Federal Government will take urgent measures to include Abia in the amnesty programme designed for oil-producing areas.Osinbajo made the promise on Friday in Umuahia during a town hall meeting with representatives of different groups from the oil-producing communities in the state, comprising traditional rulers, women and youth groups.He said that the federal government and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs would work hand-in-hand with the state government to ensure that beneficiaries of the amnesty programme hailed from Asa, the oil-producing area of Ukwa West Local Government Area of the state.Osinbajo was reacting to the protest by the people of the area at the meeting that the state was not included in the programme.On his part, Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu said that no single Abia indigene has benefited from the amnesty programme.Ikpeazu said that he was happy with the drama that played out at the hall and called for an inquiry on the purported list of 237 beneficiaries from the state as presented by Boroh.
The Police said in Makurdi on Friday that Tse-Achia village near Kasar in the outskirts of Zaki Biam, Ukum Local Government Area of Benue...

The Police said in Makurdi on Friday that Tse-Achia village near Kasar in the outskirts of Zaki Biam, Ukum Local Government Area of Benue, has been burnt.This is coming few days after Zaki Biam Yam Market was razed by hoodlums leading to the death of 17 people and 11 injured.The Police Public Relations Officer in the State, ASP Moses Yanmu, said the arsonists carried out the attack in the early hours of Friday.Yanmu said four houses were burnt while three persons, including a woman, were burned in one of the houses.The police spokesman added that preliminary investigations revealed that the attack was retaliatory.He said the identity of the attackers was still unknown but assured that the culprits would be apprehended and brought to book.Yanmu said investigations had revealed that the driver that drove the vehicle that conveyed the people who attacked Zaki Biam was from the village.Gunmen had besieged Zaki Biam village in a Toyota car few days ago shooting sporadically and destroying things on their trail.The police said they were yet to fathom the motive of the attackers, but appealed to those with useful information that might lead to their arrest to volunteer it to security agencies.(NAN)
The Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, has backed the former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, in his appeal at the British Court of Ap...

The Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, has backed the former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, in his appeal at the British Court of Appeal against his 2012 conviction.The President General of the group, Chief Joe Omene, and the Publicity Secretary, Chief Duncan Eghweree, said the union would give Ibori the necessary support in his quest for justice.Ibori was jailed for 13 years in 2012 over money laundering related issues in the United Kingdom.He returned to Nigeria on February 4, six years after he was arrested in Dubai by Interpol operatives.The group in a statement signed on Friday commended the courage of the former governor over his decision to challenge the processes that led to his conviction, since according to him, they were allegedly full of irregularities and loopholes.He said, No right thinking person will lie low with the amount of insult meted at Chief Ibori who is loved by all. It was obvious that some powerful forces wanted him out of the way at all cost.We were not surprised that he went through the eye of the needle because of his stand on issues particularly the struggle for resource control.We believe, however, that we cannot throw away the baby with the bath water, but rather you separate the baby from the water. Chief Ibori is our son and remains our son, no matter what might have happen in the past because he had some misunderstanding with some people. This obviously was the reasons behind certain manipulations that led to his conviction.
The high-level round of talks on Israeli settlements ended late on Thursday without agreement over limiting future construction on land ...

The high-level round of talks on Israeli settlements ended late on Thursday without agreement over limiting future construction on land the Palestinians want for a state.The four days of high-level meetings in Washington marked the latest step by President Donald Trumps aides aimed at opening the way to renewed peace diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians, despite deep skepticism in the United States and Middle East over the chances for success.Trumps Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, who recently returned from a visit to the region, led the U.S. delegation in what were described as intensive discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus chief of staff Yoav Horowitz and foreign policy adviser Jonathan Schachter.Inspite of setting a more positive tone toward Israel than his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump urged Netanyahu during a White House visit last month to hold back on settlements for a little bit.The two then agreed that their aides would seek an accommodation on how much Israel can build and where.The U.S. delegation reiterated President Trumps concerns regarding settlement activity in the context of moving towards a peace agreement, according to a joint statement released by the White House.The Israeli delegation made clear that Israels intent going forward is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes those concerns into consideration, the White House said.The talks were serious and constructive, and they are ongoing.Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 and settlements are one of the most heated issues.Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.Most countries consider Israeli settlements, built on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war, to be illegal.Israel disagrees, citing historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests.Trump has expressed some ambivalence about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy for the past two decades.He recently invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to visit.Trump has not publicly detailed what kind of agreement he wants with Israel on settlements.But many supporters of a two-state solution have urged a formula that restricts construction to the large settlement blocs that Israel is expected to retain under any final peace accord.In the talks, officials discussed measures for improving the climate for peace.It said a key focus was on steps that could have a meaningful impact on the economic environment in the West Bank and Gaza, and specifically a desire to advance efforts toward self-sustainability in electricity and water.NAN
A woman, identified as Taiwo Momoh, was on Friday prevented from leaping into the Lagoon by the operatives of the Rapid Response Squad of ...

A woman, identified as Taiwo Momoh, was on Friday prevented from leaping into the Lagoon by the operatives of the Rapid Response Squad of the Lagos state Police Command.Taiwo Momoh, 58, a textile dealer in Lagos Island, had put off her shoes and was wrapping her dress around her when men of RRS 226 prevented her from jumping.Speaking on her mission, the woman who lives in Lekki disclosed that she was pushed to committing suicide in order to put an end to her constant sleeplessness and shame occasioned by her indebtedness to three Swiss textile dealers.She noted that her problem started sometimes in 2015, when a Bureau De Change dealer carted away her N18.7 million she wanted to change to pay her foreign creditors.She added that the creditors had given her Swiss textiles worth several millions of naira, noting that she has maintained good relationship with the creditors for more than 15 years.Her condition she said became compounded when robbers invaded her shop in Lagos Island carting away most of the textiles that was left with herMomoh, a member of the Redeemed Christain Church of God disclosed that on several occasions she had attempted to see her Parish Pastor to identify with her problem and for the church to help her raise money to meet her Swiss Creditors in order to assure them that she would pay their money.She noted that she was only allowed to see the second in command, which has yielded no fruits."As you are seeing me like this, well dressed, you would think am living fine. But in my heart is a heavy burden. A burden of huge debt, disappointment from trusting people and abandoned by a son I love and bought a car for. I am a moving corpse".Added to all these, my first son, whom I felt would stand by me and console me abandoned me. By the time Im gone, maybe he would come around and inherit what is left.I dont want to use my debt and death to disturb anybody. I was in the shop this morning. I have looked everywhere and estimated what is there. I think, with my house, a bungalow, those I am leaving behind can still live comfortably. I want to go and meet God. This world is empty, she stated.She added, I was a Muslim, I have because of this problem been jumping from one faith to the other. The problem is too much for me to bear. I want to go back to God.That is why I have dressed very simply. I am ready to meet him. If He cannot address my problem on earth, let me go back to Him.
In a bid to unravel the cause of the recent death and suicide attempts in Lagos lagoon, journalists have spoken to two traditionalists who...

In a bid to unravel the cause of the recent death and suicide attempts in Lagos lagoon, journalists have spoken to two traditionalists who advanced reasons beyond depression.The traditionalists Chief Zebrudaya of the famed New Masquerade, Ayekonilogbon and popular Ifa priest, Yemi Elebuibon said that the lagoon is angry.After due consultation with the gods and his ancestors, Ayekonilogbon, declared emphatically that anything could have caused the death of Oji.Many theories and suggestions have been advanced on what might have been the likely cause of his action, the most prominent being depression.However, the Ifa priest said, such a theory could just be a smokescreen. To him, that a bird cried at night and a child died in the morning could not be wished away as a mere coincidence.Traditionally speaking, he said, only two theories could suffice in this case. It is either he was controlled using an African traditional technique or the lagoon is hungry and angry.Considering that it was after Oji received the call that he took his life in such a cruel manner, speaks volume. If he was controlled through African traditional way, no matter how he tried to evade it, he could still have looked for or waited to get near water before taking his life.You also know that our religion believes in destiny, it could have been his destiny as well. Again, if you look at the rate of deaths in the lagoon in recent time, via suicide mostly, it is equally possible the water is hungry and angry.Yet, the traditional belief behind suicide is that some people do not just commit the act on their own, but for some mystical interventions. However, some people could find themselves in critical and unpleasant situations, and opt for suicide as the last resort instead of living to face the problem.Elebuibon nevertheless agreed that it is possible for a person to harm himself or herself without any diabolical undertone. We live in a world where we all have personal battles. We tend to overcome them each time they arise as a result of our mental strength but sometimes they conquer us.Advancing reasons for the suicide and suicide attempts, Elebuibon said: However, a person may be suspected or confirmed to be under hypnotism. Such a person will begin to act under the control of mystical forces.The renowned traditionalist also said there is history of suicide in Ifa mythology and that hypnotism can only be prevented through constant consultation with Ifa for spiritual fortification.When this happens, a person may consider suicide as his/her last resort, the priest told Telegraph. He said it could be diagnosed through a session of Ifa consultation
The Department of State Services, DSS has given further justification for its opinion to the presidency on why the Acting Chairman of th...

The Department of State Services, DSS has given further justification for its opinion to the presidency on why the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC Mr. Ibrahim Magu should not have been confirmed for the position.The DSS in a letter to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami said Magus poor sense of judgment and willingness to compromise official documents for personal interest betrayed the high level of integrity that should be watchword of the holder of such office as EFCC chairman. The letter was a follow up to the security report earlier submitted to the presidency and the Senate which formed the kernel for the Senates refusal to screen Magu last December.The letter backing the documents was in response to an earlier letter by the AGF dated 19th December, 2016 with reference number HAGF/DSS/2016/Vol.1/7 which demanded for the basis for the security report. In the letter from the DSS signed by Folashade Bello for the Director-General of the DSS, the security service claimed to have attached 12 different documents backing its claim.The full documents were, however, not attached to the letter leaked to the press Friday. Comrade Isah Salihu, Special Adviser on Media to the Attorney General of the Federation, said last night that he could not speak on the leaked letter until Monday when he is in the office. The DSS is yet to formally appoint a spokesman. The root of the DSS report against Magu was what it claimed as his unusual relationship with Air Commodore Mohammed Umar (rtd.), a suspect being prosecuted by the DSS. Umar and Magu were earlier members of the Presidential Committee on Audit of Arms Purchase.Backing up earlier claims made against Magu, the DSS in the report said it provided a copy of the confessional statement by Air Commodore Mohammed Umar (rtd.), a suspect being prosecuted by the service. The statement affirms his ownership of Valcour S.A. Nigeria Limited, a company awarded the contract of securing and furnishing an official residence for Ibrahim MAGU by the FCTA. Investigation revealed that this was facilitated after MAGU was earlier shown the residence by, a man the DSS claimed is a close business associate of UMAR, who was introduced to MAGU by the former. The DSS also presented what it claimed was a forged Memo which supposedly originated from the Office of the Vice-President and addressed to Mr. President.This was according to the report recovered from the private residence of UMAR during a search operation by this Service. The document was a request for approval to commence further investigation into the financial activities of a serving minister from the Niger Delta. The DSS also forwarded another annexure being a letter from the Office of the Vice-President affirming that the annexure supposedly from the office was a forgery.Annexure E was a copy of Progress report with reference number SH/COS/24/A/7277 dated 25th May, 2016 on NNPC/NLG Brass Investment Accounts in Nigerian Commercial Banks from Chief of Staff to Mr. President, Abba KYARI to the Acting EFCC Chairman. The letter is an official/classified document of the EFCC which was duly received by the Commission as indicated by the stamp on the document. However, it was recovered at UMARs residence. Annexure F are photocopies of Managers cheques of First Bank PLC and Zenith Bank PLC, issued in favour of EFCC Recovery Funds Account on 13/05/2016 and 16/05/2016 respectively.These are all sensitive official documents of the EFCC found in UMARs residence during the search. Annexure G represented A classified letter from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) to the EFCC Chairman titled Re; Request to Freeze Accounts Messers Bebey; Merchant Ltd and 20 others, dated 7th March, 2016. This document was also dully received by EFCC but found in Commodore UMARs house during the search.Annexure H represented A document which emanated from Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and addressed to the EFCC Chairman on 6th May, 2016 with the subject, Re:Stop Debit Order on all NNPC Accounts and Subsidaries  A case for Joint Venture & NNPC Pension Funds Accounts. The document was recovered at UMARs residence. Annexure I represented NNPC Letter GED/F&A/08.26 dated 5th May, 2016 addressed to the EFCC Chairman and titled Re: Stop Debit Order on all NNPC Accounts and Subsidiaries. This was also discovered during the search of UMARs residence. Annexure J.This is a copy of NNPC correspondence with reference number GED/F&A/08.26 dated May 5th, 2016 and titled Re;Stop Debit Order on all NNPC Accounts and Subsidiaries  Transfer of FCT Balances to NNPCs TSA Accounts, addressed to the EFCC Chairman. The document was found in UMARs residence.Annexure K  A copy of an NNPC letter with reference number GED/F&A/08.26 dated May 5th, 2016 and titled Re: Stop Debit on all NNPC Accounts and Subsidiaries  Critical Accounts for immediate operations to the EFCC Chairman. The document was also recovered during the search of UMARs house. Annexure L  Copy of Confessional Statement by UMAR to the Service stating that his trip to Maiduguri for condolence visit to Ibrahim MAGU, sequel to the loss of a close relative, was made on behalf of the Presidential Committee on Audit of Arms Purchase. Cross examination of the Chairman of the Committee, AVM John ODE (Rtd.) revealed that the committee did not send any of its members on such an assignment.The visit of UMAR to MAGU is therefore assessed as an expression of their close sinister relationship at the detriment of National Security interests.Upon the various documents, the DSS submitted thus: An officer appointed as Ag. Chairman of EFCC should by all means be one of impeccable credentials, with proven integrity and capacity to lead the nations fight against graft in high and low places. Thus far, it is evident from MAGUs antecedents that he is by no means that kind of officer.His relationship with Umar MOHAMMED which involved disclosure of very sensitive and classified official documents in his possession shows lack of professionalism and assails his integrity. Moreso, for an office who was indicted and nearly dismissed six (6) years ago, to again be involved in similar circumstances, it is clear that MAGU is a perennial offender and cannot change. Also worthy of note is the fact that MAGU exhibited a total lack of judgment where it matters most. He accepted to move into a tastily furnished accommodation without any scrutiny of how it was furnished. This is curious and speaks volumes of his personality.The recovery of sensitive and classified documents from the residence of UMAR further underlays his close affinity to MAGU and an apparent penchant for sabotaging official processes and administrative protocols, just to further the latters personal material and pecuniary agenda. Such mutually beneficial relationships as with UMAR, who by his confession, approaches clients for possible exploitation, favours and associated returns is unprecedented and very damming for an anti-graft top official. It has exposed MAGU as a fraudulent officer and betrays the high confidence reposed in him by Mr. President.A further demonstration of MAGUs questionable credibility as an untainted anti-corruption official is his failed bid to settle personal scores with one Stanley Inye LAWSON by placing him on Security Watch Action.It was however discovered that LAWSON was actually working in the interest of the Federal Government and the Action was subsequently expunged.This reinforces the view that MAGU may continue to exploit his official position, if confirmed as EFCC Chairman and indulge in other unprofessional and criminal conducts for personal aggrandisement contrary to his oath of office.
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Longport voted to ban smoking on its ocean beaches, making it the first in Atlantic County to do so

(MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

LONGPORT -- Add another Jersey Shore town to the list of beaches where smoking is banned.

Longport voted this week to prohibit smoking at all its municipal buildings and parks and recreation facilities, which includes the beaches, Mayor Nicholas Russo said.

Longport becomes the first in Atlantic County to ban smoking at its ocean beaches.

A first violation carries a $250 fine. A second offense increases the fine to up to $500. Violations after that will be up to $1,000 per offense, according to the ordinance approved Wednesday night.

In 2015, Longport became the first town in New Jersey to ban plastic and paper bags for carry-out at its businesses.

Longport joins more than a dozen Shore towns that have banned smoking on the beach over the past several years.

The state legislature approved bills that would have prohibited smoking on all beaches in New Jersey, but Gov. Chris Christie, saying that decision should be left up to individual towns, vetoed that legislation and instead last July approved bans at state beaches and parks.

Towns where smoking is banned include Beach Haven, Belmar, Cape May Point, Harvey Cedars, Long Beach Township, Long Branch, Seaside Park, Ship Bottom, Spring Lake and Ocean City.

MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
MAPLE SHADE -- The fatal stabbing of a 38-year-old woman and her 6-year-old son Thursday at the Fox Meadow Apartments here alarmed many neighbors, but didn't surprise others.

"It's getting worse and worse and worse here," said Michael Lewis, 34, a corrections officer and 10-year resident of the sprawling apartment complex along the busy Route 73 corridor. "Some of the residents call it 'Fox Ghetto.' I want to get out of here. This is definitely my last year here."

Lewis huddled with other neighbors Friday morning as he walked his 10-year-old Australian shepherd, Bear, around yellow, plastic police tape roping off the crime scene.

The victims were Sasikala Narra and son Anish Narra, according to a statement from the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office. Police were called to the Hamilton Road residence just after 9 p.m. Thursday by the husband after he found the bodies of his wife and son, investigators said.

No arrests have been made. Both had sustained multiple stab wounds, authorities said, adding that autopsies would be performed Friday by Dr. Ian Hood, the Burlington County Medical Examiner.

Lewis said he has seen his share of crime scenes over the decade he has lived here.

"A few years ago a guy stabbed his wife or his girlfriend," Lewis said. "Then two years ago, two brothers got into a fight with a couple of their friends and they started stabbing each other."

The incident happened in April 2004.

A decade before Lewis moved in to Fox Meadow, another brutal murder happened. Apollo H. Cardenas killed his wife, Youngsook Lee, 29, in November 1996.

Cardenas fled to Ecuador shortly after the crime, but Burlington County investigators built a case against him and charged him in early 1997, not long after Lee's decomposing body was found in their Fox Meadow apartment.

Detectives found an ax stained with blood and matted hair in a closet.

Cardenas remained a fugitive for about 16 years, until he stepped off a plane from Ecuador in Miami in 2013 and a federal officer apprehended him plane-side after finding the New Jersey homicide warrant for his arrest.

Cardenas was convicted of murder at trial in 2014 and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

Mcauthur Douglas, 70, a retired IT worker stood beside Lewis and several other neighbors Friday morning looking at the latest crime scene here.

"I know wherever humans are there will be crime," he said. "And then a child is possibly involved. That's horrible."

Two calls for comment from the apartment complex management Friday were not immediately returned.

Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @bduhart. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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A Mount Laurel police cruiser.

(Mount Laurel Police Department)

MOUNT LAUREL TWP. -- Two township police officers were helping victims of a crash on Route 38 Thursday when they very nearly escaped being crash victims themselves.

A Mount Laurel man whom police believe was intoxicated crashed into a cruiser parked at the scene, pushing it into a cruiser and an ambulance that were parked in front of it, police said in a statement Friday.

The driver, Alfred F. Dipietro Jr., 41, suffered minor injuries, but police said none of the emergency responders were injured.

The incident occurred on Route 38 East near Briggs Road around 11 p.m. Thursday.

Police said the officers were outside of their vehicles, tending to the victims of the original crash, when their vehicles were hit. The cruisers sustained what police called "heavy damage."

Dipietro Jr. was charged with driving while intoxicated and released pending a court hearing, police said.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
"You're home, Artie!" bellowed a voice from the crowd at the Wellmont Theater on Friday night.

"I am home, that's right!" Artie Lange answered from the Montclair stage, his wispy mop of silver-gray hair sticking out in all directions after he'd thrown his blue Yankees hat into the audience. The moment played out like a supportive pat on the back for the Jersey comedian, who performed in St. Louis last weekend and had been in headlines after he was arrested March 12 on drug charges in Hoboken.

It was a confusing week for fans of Lange, 49, the former Howard Stern sidekick from Union who recently returned to the spotlight as a recurring character on the new comedy series "Crashing," now in its first season on HBO. When the comedian went on two morning radio shows Thursday to promote his Montclair set, he claimed he had been fired by HBO because of the arrest. The same day, both HBO and Judd Apatow, the executive producer of the series who expressed support for Lange after his arrest, said the comedian had not been fired.

While Lange did not shed any more light on that disconnect, he did talk about his role on "Crashing" and how a happy development was suddenly overshadowed by the arrest.

"Talk about self-destructive," said Lange, who is no stranger to rehab and has spoken openly about his addiction to heroin.

He said that a few weeks ago, Apatow and HBO had called him to tell him he was getting bumped up on the show, which stars series creator Pete Holmes as a comedian trying get a foot in the door in the New York scene. Lange, like a string of other comedians featured on the show, plays himself. Acting as a kind of mentor to Holmes, he's the first one to let the budding comic stay on his couch.

Lange said three days before he encountered police at his Hoboken parking garage (officer alleged they had found Lange with cocaine, heroin and drug paraphernalia), HBO and Apatow had proposed giving Lange a bigger, "buddy comedy"-type role on the show -- and a raise.

"The next day I was arrested," Lange said. (And three days after he was arrested, HBO announced the show had gotten the green light for a second season.) At one point, Lange mentioned that he could face a year in county jail. He did not, however, say he was fired from the show or that he wouldn't be working on it.

The comedian, who for a few minutes found himself contending with an especially adoring kind of heckler in the front row (the man was eventually escorted away from the stage), talked plenty more about drugs, rehab and his life as a comedian at the Montclair show. Lange, also host of the "Artie Quitter" podcast, comes to The Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank on April 8, BergenPAC in Englewood on April 14 and the Music Box at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City on June 10.

Here are some Lange gems from the show:

"I'm in every f***ing death pool," Lange said. "Every time I f***ing have a birthday, so much money changes hands on the internet."

"I'm a heroin addict and that's terrible," he said. "Anyone do heroin here?"

"Don't do drugs, guys, honestly. Kids, look at me. I'm 24 years old."

When Lange was in Ohio for a show and had fallen off the wagon, he took a road trip to a local 20-year-old's dealer to buy some heroin. The man had two types on offer -- "Bobby Brown" and ... wait for it ... "Artie Lange." The young man's response: "Dude, you've accomplished so much." Lange said he bought $500 of the Bobby Brown.

An old reliable of a line, which Lange trotted out on "Crashing": "I'm the only guy who got fat on cocaine."

Lange said he was upset when a critic for The Star-Ledger, his hometown paper, said that in the 1998 Bob Saget-directed movie comedy "

Lange recalled when Macdonald tasked him with keeping an eye on Chris Farley, an actor-comedian known for his own problems with drugs, at an after-party. "That's how bad it was," he said. "

Lange said he recently saw

I had a great night meeting my hero @artiequitter. pic.twitter.com/7P75Js96xW -- FERASS FROM JERSEY (@FERASS_FROM_NJ) March 25, 2017

"I left the Stern show in 2009 and a lot of people wrote me off," Lange told the audience. "You people didn't because you're here."

Lange estimated that a marketing degree from Montclair State University is just about equivalent to the cardboard backing on a Twinkie.

"I went to Union County College for a week," Lange said. Then he addressed someone in the audience. "You go there?" he said. "That's why you're ... in the 18th row at an Artie Lange show."

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.
NEWARK -- A federal grand jury on Friday indicted two men for allegedly robbing a Passaic club at gunpoint, according to Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick.

A 32-year-old Irvington man, Jimmy Cooper, known as "Flip," and a 28-year-old South Orange man, Keontrae Lawrence known as "Taz," were indicted on robbery and weapons charges, Fitzpatrick said.

Calls to each of their attorneys were not immediately returned Friday.

According to the indictment, Cooper, Lawrence and others allegedly agreed to rob the Passaic club at gunpoint in the early morning hours of Sept. 6, 2015. Cooper sent a text message to an undisclosed recipient to coordinate the robbery and how to smuggle a gun into the club.

Lawrence and another robber allegedly entered the office of the club minutes later and threatened to kill the lone employee who was there. The employee dumped the contents of two safes into two purses and was told to count to 100 as the alleged robbers fled the club, authorities said.

They led police on a high-speed chase through Passaic, Newark and East Orange before abandoning the car and fleeing on foot, authorities said. Lawrence and Cooper were later arrested in November.

The date of their arraignment has not been set. Members of the FBI, Passaic County Prosecutor's Office led the investigation with help from the Passaic Sheriff's Office and the Passaic and Newark police departments.

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.
The Hudson County Prosecutor will be hosting a free seminar for residents this week on how to prevent identify theft and other financial scams.

The workshop -- "Seniors Be Aware... Fraud Affects Us All" -- will explain the necessary steps of how to protect yourself and secure your records.

The workshop will be held on Tuesday, March 28, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Peace Care at St. Ann's located at 198 Old Bergen Rd. in Jersey City.

Presented by Detective Josue Martinez, the seminar will cover topics such as identity theft, debt collection, and investment fraud and scams.

The seminar is free and all residents are invited to attend. Light refreshments will be served.
TRENTON -- Trenton firefighter Naseeb "New" Washington and a group of friends from the public safety community will fan out in the city Saturday morning with hundreds of home-cooked meals and deliver them to the homeless.

They will go to them: alongside railroad tracks, in vacant buildings, and under bridges. The five-year city firefighter has nothing against soup kitchens, but he and his friends like to meet those in need on their turf.

The food is important, Washington said, but he wants to look in their eyes and say, "People are thinking about you."

Saturday is also Washington's 30th birthday -- and that's not a coincidence.

For a few years now, Washington has decided to give back on his birthday. "I am not a partier," he said. "It's just my way to celebrate."

He's also been there -- homeless.

Washington grew up in Newark and struck out on his own at the age of 17, after graduating from Weequahic High School.

He struggled and at times didn't know when, or where, he'd get his next meal.

"I have lived in my vehicle -- a 98 Windstar," he said.

About 10 years ago, he moved to Trenton for a fresh start, and took the police and fire department entry exams.

In the meantime, he worked for an armored car company and initially sought to be a Mercer County sheriff's officer. He was really close to moving to Virginia for a police officer job.

Then, the Trenton Fire Department hired him. "And it ended up working out for me."

He's now a deckhand on Ladder 4 and doing well financially.

But as he rises, he said, he believes he has an ongoing duty to use his gains for others -- so others might see the path.

"As I excel, it's my job to give back," he said.

Washington says his bigger paychecks won't be funding fancy cars or expensive liquors.

"We misconstrue success," he said. "And we're so blinded by these materialistic things."

It's not just saying it, but living it, he said. "I mean, I drive a Buick, with a hubcap missing," he laughed.

Washington says Ladder 4 is the more important wheels that he needs now, and plans to bridge the societal gaps he sees everyday. "There's a disconnect between those of us who have, and those who do not," he said.

Last year, when he set out with the group, the shared experiences were great, Washington said. It was his birthday, and Good Friday.

The group made over 200 meals with Vinnie Mannino, of Mannino's pizzeria in Morrisville, Pa., who opened his restaurant, donated time and supplies and has become a close friend.

Saturday will start out again at Mennino's and they plan to make and deliver 250 meals. He's been touting the day on his Facebook page, and gathering volunteers. Many who joined him last year will be along again.

Many who show up will be city firefighters, active and retired, their friends, and some law enforcement officers -- a family who will drop everything to help anyone.

Trenton is now his adoptive town. It gave him his career, and he has perpetual plans on paying the city back. But he also has plans to branch out to Newark, too.

With a wry smile, he's already planning "big things" for his 35th birthday.

"I will never forget where I came from," he said.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
The federal government plans to pour $125 million into the fight against a mysterious disease that has ravaged corals in Florida and much of the Caribbean, and now poses a dire threat to the treasured reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.
The population of Pottawattamie County remains stable in new U.S. Census Bureau estimates, while over the past year its growing in Mills County and falling in Harrison County.

On the whole, the Council Bluffs-Omaha metropolitan area is continuing to grow steadily  at 1.1 percent this past year  putting the region on track to hit 1 million people by 2025.

Pottawattamie County saw growth of just 0.1 percent, climbing to 93,582 people, in the new population estimates released Wednesday evening. Mills County grew 1.1 percent to 14,972 people, while Harrison County dipped 0.7 percent to 14,149 people.

Elsewhere in southwest Iowa, population fell 1.5 percent in Cass County to 13,157 people, 0.9 percent in Shelby County to 11,800 and 0.8 percent in Page County to 15,391. Residency is flat in Montgomery County, which has an estimated population of 10,225 people. Fremont County saw a 0.7 percent growth to 6,950 residents.

The metropolitan areas current estimate is 924,129 people. David Drozd, research coordinator with the University of Nebraska at Omahas Center for Public Affairs Research, estimates that could hit 1 million sometime in 2024 or 2025 if the current growth rate continues.

The areas continued growth may be a source of pride for civic boosters and an opportunity for businesses, from homebuilders to grocery stores. But it also puts pressure on schools and roads in faster-growing areas, especially in suburban Omaha.

Urban counties in Iowa are largely seeing growth, too. The Des Moines-West Des Moines metropolitan statistical area grew by 2 percent, reaching 634,725 residents. Iowa Citys metro grew 1.2 percent to 168,828 residents.

The Davenport-Moline-Rock Island area, however, dropped 0.3 percent to 382,268. The Dubuque metro area remained flat with 97,003 residents.

Meanwhile, in central Iowa, the U.S. Census Bureau said Dallas County  situated just west of Des Moines  is the fifth-fastest-growing county in the nation in the bureaus estimate.

The bureau said in a report released Wednesday that from July 1, 2015, to July 1, 2016, Dallas Countys population grew by 4.6 percent. The county population has increased by more than 27 percent since 2010.

Gary Krob of the State Data Center at the State Library of Iowa says that 2016 population estimates show that the state population continues to grow, but its occurring in just 23 of Iowas 99 counties.

 Jeffrey Robb of the BH News Service and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In a setback, President Donald Trump and GOP leaders pulled their Obamacare repeal bill off the House floor Friday after it became clear the measure would fail badly.

It was a stunning defeat for the new president after he had demanded House Republicans vote on the legislation Friday, threatening to leave former President Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act in place and move on to other issues if the vote failed.

The bill was withdrawn minutes before the vote was to occur.

The presidents gamble failed. Instead Trump, who campaigned as a master deal-maker and claimed that he alone could fix the nations health care system, saw his ultimatum rejected by Republican lawmakers who made it clear they answer to their own voters, not to the president.

While western Iowa Reps. David Young and Steve King differed on their view of the bill  known as American Health Care Act  both expressed optimism as Congress moves forward.

Young, R-Iowa, applauded Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for the bold move of pulling the bill.

Too many times in history we have seen leaders make avoidable mistakes, Young said in a statement released by his office. Great leaders know when to pause a journey down a path that isnt working and see the opportunity and optimism in starting over.

Young represents Iowas third congressional district, which includes all of Pottawattamie, Mills, Cass, Montgomery, Page and Fremont counties in southwest Iowa.

Young said that too many Americans have been suffering under the mistake made seven years ago when Obamacare was rushed through Congress and to President Obamas desk.

The Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, was announced in July 2009 and passed about eight months later on March 21, 2010. Critics say the final version of the bill didnt receive enough careful consideration.

It is a failed law that does not work for everyone and the problems and costs created by it are only going to get worse with each passing year, Young said.

Young had said he would not vote for the AHCA, saying the legislation was a good start but does not yet get it right and therefore I cannot support it in its present form.

The representative from Van Meter said the country needs laws that work for all Americans and for all patients  not just some.

Young was joined in opposition to the bill by the two Democratic representatives from Iowa  Dave Loebsack and Rod Blum, who represent portions of eastern Iowa.

It is a fundamental principle that repeal, reforms and fixes to our healthcare are done in the right way, for the right reasons, and in the right amount of time it takes to ensure we avoid the mistakes of seven years ago, Young said. I applaud the president, House leadership and my Republican colleagues in taking the bold move to pause and begin anew with a thoughtful and deliberate process that takes the time and input to get this right to achieve accessible, affordable quality healthcare for every American.

King, R-Iowa said Congress faces a hard road forward.

The strategy I always wanted was dont connect the repeal of Obamacare with the replacement of Obamacare, King said in a Facebook live video. Because then youve given yourself two assignments, and made it harder. I lost that argument.

King had said he would vote for the American Health Care Act.

I concluded it was the best strategy to go forward in support of this bill because the president had said hes done with this now, if this doesnt pass, he said. Plus, theres some good stuff in it.

King said Congress should vote on a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans have spent seven years campaigning against Obamas health care law, and cast dozens of votes to repeal it in full or in part. When presented the chance to pass a repeal bill that actually had a chance to get signed, they faltered.

The development came on the afternoon of a day when the bill, which had been delayed a day earlier, was supposed to come to a vote, come what may. But instead of picking up support as Friday wore on, the bill went the other direction, with some key lawmakers coming out in opposition.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, chairman of the Appropriations Comittee, said the bill would raise costs unacceptably on his constituents. Rep. Barbara Comstock of Virginia, a key moderate Republican, and GOP Rep. David Joyce of Ohio also announced no votes.

The defections raised the possibility that the bill would not only lose on the floor, but lose big.

In the face of that evidence, and despite insistences from White House officials and Ryan that Friday was the day to vote, leadership pulled back from the brink.

The GOP bill would have eliminated the Obama statutes unpopular fines on people who do not obtain coverage and would also have removed the often-generous subsidies for those who purchase insurance.

Republican tax credits would have been based on age, not income like Obamas, and the tax boosts Obama imposed on higher-earning people and health care companies would have been repealed. The bill would have ended Obamas Medicaid expansion and trimmed future federal financing for the federal-state program, letting states impose work requirements on some of the 70 million beneficiaries.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the Republican bill would have resulted in 24 million additional uninsured people in a decade and lead to higher out-of-pocket medical costs for many lower-income people just shy of age 65 when they would become eligible for Medicare.

The bill would have blocked federal payments for a year to Planned Parenthood.

Democrats were uniformly opposed to the legislation.

This bill is pure greed, and real people will suffer and die from it, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.

 Werner and Fram provided Associated Press coverage from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick, Richard Lardner, Stephen Ohlemacher, Vivian Salama, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Ken Thomas contributed as well.
- Russia reversed course in January as it purchased 1 million more ounces for its gold reserves. - This was in stark contrast to its December statement when it purchase no gold. - We believe this move was very political in nature and signifies that Russian-US relations are breaking down. - Not only do Russian gold purchases mean political distrust, but they also represent a very large chunk of global mine production of 12-15%. - The short-term picture may still be cloudy for gold, but for the long-term these are all very bullish factors.

The Russian central bank recently released its gold reserve data for January and investors should take note as it was an abrupt reversal of the central bank's December gold reserve move.

In January, the Russian central bank decided to purchase 1.0 million ounces of gold, which was a stark contrast to its January purchases of ZERO ounces.

Political Motives?

We have been saying for a while now that these Russian gold purchases are not simply financial moves, but also quite political. Gold is a reserve currency and is really the only true reserve currency that can act as an alternative to the US Dollar, thus countries wishing to undermine the US Dollar for whatever reason, would look to diversify into gold.

This is not logical theorizing, it is what happened. In the run-up to the US election, Russia made the biggest monthly gold purchase that it has made in decades when it looked like a Clinton victory (and a possible anti-Russian US regime) was probable. Then in December, when gold was well under $1200 per ounce (and thus attractive from a purely investment point-of-view), Russian purchases no gold during the month - a striking change in behavior. Maybe some optimism on Russian-US relation based on an incoming Trump regime?





If we are right and Russia is buying gold reserves based on the political climate, then it looks like they have had a pessimistic change of heart with their latest purchase. The one million ounces purchased in January (at a higher gold price than they could have purchased in December), matched some of the larger Russian purchases over the past decade.

What does that mean for investors? When it comes to gold, sovereign relations make a huge difference as they are a leading indicator for what will happen with monetary reserves. When countries distrust each other, then they tend to purchase gold as it represents a safe way to diversify reserves without purchasing the bonds/bills of the offending countries. With the US Dollar, there is a stronger case to purchase gold as it is still the only realistic alternative reserve currency.

That is what we believe Russia is doing here - purchasing gold to replace US Dollar reserves and the fact that their January purchase was so large signifies that maybe there will not be a new positive paradigm-shift in US-Russian relations.

Russian Purchases Versus Annual Gold Production

With the world producing anywhere from 90-100 million ounces of newly mined gold per year (depending on your source), Russia's annualized monthly purchase of 1 million ounces is quite significant to world gold production. At an annualized rate of 12 million ounces, the Russian central bank would be soaking up 12-15% of total annual mined gold - which is a huge amount.

Investors need to remember that even though world gold markets trade billions of dollars' worth of gold per day, the vast majority of this gold is traded in the paper markets - physical gold trading is a very small percentage of that. When it comes to these central bank purchases, these are all physical gold purchases, so the impact can be very great especially if other central banks or entities follow this example.

Takeaways for Gold Investors

While we have been bearish on gold in the short-term , these types of events continue to strengthen our view that gold is an excellent investment for the mid-to-long term. Not only are recent Russian purchases soaking up 12-15% of total annual mine production, but more importantly, they signify a world that growing apart rather than together.





Reversing globalization has consequences not only in producing cheap widgets, but to the global financial structure and the associated currencies - especially when it comes to reserve currencies. A lack of trust buoys gold as it remains the only true reserve currency without a sovereign benefactor, unlike the US Dollar. Thus gold does well in times of distrust and nationalism, and these Russian purchases may be a signal that we will not see a global Kumbaya anytime soon.

Thus, long term investors should take this as a bullish factor and keep in mind the big picture when it comes to gold. We do not see a reason investors should not consider having a large exposure to gold with positions in physical gold and the gold/silver ETF's (SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEARCA: GLD ), PHYS , SLV ). Additionally, the miners that have been underperforming gold over the last few months may offer investors considerable leverage to any rise in the gold price. Investors looking for this leverage may want to consider evaluating gold miners such as Goldcorp (NYSE: GG ), Agnico-Eagle (NYSE: AEM ), Newmont (NYSE: NEM ), or even some of the explorers and silver miners such as Tahoe Resources (NYSE: TAHO ) (we're not suggesting these companies specifically - only suggesting them for further investor research).

Investors need to be patient and realize that there is a lot of value in holding gold despite the negative price sentiment.
Lake Maloney student wins 2017 Sodexo Future Chefs Challenge

Ranan Rubalcava, a third-grader at Lake Maloney School, won the 2017 Sodexo Future Chefs Challenge at Madison Middle School on Friday.

His recipe for the challenge was Crust-less Baked Quiche.

Im really excited, Rubalcava said. This recipe was my own idea and I practiced on it a lot.

Cassie Rubalcava, Ranans mom, was excited as well.

Hes such a sweet boy, Cassie said. A long time ago we started making them in muffin tins for breakfast and the kids always loved it.

The judges all said the decision was difficult and that all the chefs did a wonderful job.

Larry Young, Sodexo general manager for North Platte Public Schools, has been The Food Dude and child nutrition director since January 2006. This years event was especially important to him.

We were behind schedule because two weeks ago I suffered a heart attack, Young said. Im just glad I get to be here today and it means so much to me.

Young said in an interview before the festivities began that this was a great group of kids.

Eight youngsters were selected out of 47 elementary school students who submitted healthy comfort food recipes. They worked hard in the kitchen preparing their dishes for the judges.

Judges for the competition were Miss Nebraska 2016 Aleah Peters; Sharon Davis, director of nutrition services for the Nebraska Department of Education; North Platte Mayor Dwight Livingston; and Brayden Murdock, meteorologist for KNOP News.
Dramatic changes in media have prompted the North Platte/Lincoln County Convention and Visitors Bureau to be proactive in how it markets the areas attractions.

On Friday afternoon, Lisa Burke, the bureaus executive director, rolled out a new ad campaign intended to reach a broader audience.

The one thing that was challenging for us and fortunate at the same time is that we have so many attractions and things to do and events in Lincoln County, its hard to create a cohesive marketing campaign, Burke said. We decided to reach people in a variety of ways through multiple platforms, while highlighting great attractions like the Golden Spike Tower and amazing events like Nebraskaland Days.

The visitors bureau received a grant from the Nebraska Tourism Commission to fund the new campaign.

We decided to hire Maly Marketing to work with us last summer to develop a strategy, Burke said.

Steve Maly introduced the campaign and the strategy behind it.

To take a look at the media landscape and how its shifting and changing around, Maly said, print advertising as a whole is down about 45 percent since 2010. Taking a look at live broadcast TV, for people under the age of 35, its down 28 percent.

He said people are still watching TV programs, but its on Netflix or Hulu and its delayed broadcast. Maly described various ways people seek products they wish to purchase or places they want to visit.

The average person spends over 28 hours per week just online, Maly said. And 36 out of every 60 seconds spent on a phone is social media.

Maly pointed out that video content is the most attractive to advertisers because it garners the most attention.

Online video consumption is blowing up, Maly said. On Facebook, about 80 percent of your feed is video-based.

With that in mind, Maly created a campaign that is heavily video-based with ads being produced for each of 27 attractions in Lincoln County.

By and large, each [attraction] falls into one of three buckets: historical, railroad or outdoor recreation, said Griffin Gale, creative director for Maly Marketing. We need to talk to each of these groups in the areas they are interested in while also finding a way to tie it all together into a cohesive campaign for North Platte.

Gale said the marketing agency decided to establish a character who has been a part of the community since 1878.

Buffalo Bill settled here, built Scouts Rest Ranch, and there is obviously a ton of community pride in being the home of Buffalo Bill, Gale said. We decided to really utilize that character and put our own advertising twist on it.

Since Buffalo Bill was a showman, Gale said, they built upon that aspect. The ads and videos are light-hearted, using humor to draw attention to area attractions.

Several videos can be viewed on the visitors bureau website, and a new one will be unveiled each week until all 27 are posted.

Gale said the campaign will also use hard-copy ads in selected markets, but most of the attention will be on getting folks to click on the videos through social media.

The face of the campaign is a young Buffalo Bill character who appears in all the ads.

For more information or to view the videos, go to the visitnorthplatte.com website and click on the Adventures of Buffalo Bill ad in the middle of the home page.
TransCanada needs routing approval from the state, which has not been given yet

LINCOLN  Not only did President Donald Trump grant a permit to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline Friday, he offered to help speed construction with a well-connected phone call to Nebraska.

As the president announced the permit during an Oval Office briefing with reporters, he turned to TransCanada CEO Russ Girling and asked when work will begin on the $8 billion project. Girling said the company needs to first get routing approval in Nebraska.

Im sure Nebraska will be good, Trump replied. Pete is a great governor, hes done a fantastic job. Ill call him today.

While Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts applauded the presidents decision Friday, the fate of the projects route does not rest with him. Rather, it is up to the five independently elected members of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, who arent expected to deliver a ruling earlier than September.

Meanwhile, the organizer of a landowner campaign that helped defeat Keystone XL two years ago predicted Friday that possible lawsuits stemming from the PSCs decision would delay construction for many additional months.

I dont anticipate any soil being turned during the next two years, said Jane Kleeb of

Hastings, director of Bold Alliance. On the national front, environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and National Resources Defense Council predicted they will succeed in their legal efforts to block the project.

When does construction start? The answer to that is never, said Bill McKibben of 350.org, an organization that works to reverse carbon pollution.

Trump has given TransCanada Corp. the cross-border construction permit it fought to obtain under President Barack Obama. The then-president denied the application two years ago, saying approval of the carbon-heavy project would have undermined Americas leadership on the fight against greenhouse gas pollution.

In granting the permit, Trump touted the construction jobs that will be created to build the pipeline, which he also said will help reduce Americas reliance on oil imports from the Middle East.

Its going to be an incredible pipeline, greatest technology known to man or woman, Trump said. And frankly, were very proud of it.

The 36-inch underground pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil daily from the tar sands region of Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

The southern leg of the project is complete. The roughly 1,200-mile section that Trump approved Friday would pass through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.

The company has reached easement agreements with most of the private landowners along the 275-mile planned route in Nebraska, but nearly 90 property owners have refused to sign. In an attempt to use eminent domain to obtain easement rights from the holdouts, the company filed applications last month that seek approval from the PSC.

More than 130 citizens and several environmental and labor groups have filed paperwork with the PSC to formally intervene for and against the proposed route. The list includes 92 landowners represented by Omaha attorney Dave Domina, three labor unions and two American Indian tribes.

Art Tanderup, whose farm near Neligh is on the proposed route, said he and his family are geared up to fight the project again. He said he believes the PSC process is designed to provide a serious review of the pipeline route, including its proximity to porous sandy soils and high water tables in his region of the state.

We hope we can show that its an imminent threat to the aquifer, the land and the people who live here, he said.

TransCanada officials have expressed confidence that they will meet the PSCs standards. But Ken Winston, a lawyer for Bold Alliance, said hes skeptical that the company can show how a foreign-owned pipeline that neither delivers oil to the state nor ships a Nebraska commodity to another market will fit the definition of public interest.

Larry Wright Jr., chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, said the company has not consulted with the tribe about whether the pipeline route disturbs any cultural or burial sites. It does cross a historic route known as the Ponca Trail of Tears.

Other opponents of the project pointed to sluggish global oil prices and the high cost of mining and processing the thick, sandy crude as reasons why major petroleum developers have abandoned projects in Canada. They also said one of their strategies to fight the pipeline will be to pressure the banks that lend money to TransCanada.

The U.S. State Department determined that building the pipeline serves U.S. national interests. That conclusion followed a review of environmental, economic and diplomatic factors, the department said.

The State Department reached the opposite conclusion two years ago.

The presidential permit was signed by Tom Shannon, a career diplomat serving in a senior State Department role, rather than by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The former CEO of oil company Exxon Mobil recused himself after protests from environmental groups that said it would be a conflict of interest for Tillerson to decide the pipelines fate.

Oil industry advocates say the pipeline will improve U.S. energy security and create jobs, although how many is widely disputed. Calgary-based TransCanada has promised as many as 13,000 construction jobs  6,500 a year over two years  but the State Department previously estimated a far smaller number.

The pipelines opponents contend the jobs will be minimal and short-lived, and say the pipeline wont help the United States with energy needs because the oil is destined for export.

In Nebraska, the governor said hes confident the PSC will conduct a thorough and fair review of the pipeline application.

The presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline is a welcome step forward to securing improved energy infrastructure in Nebraska and nationally while also creating jobs and ensuring our energy independence, Ricketts said in a statement.

He also said the pipeline will generate nearly $12 million in property tax revenue in a dozen counties during its first year of operation. Those payments, however, would decline in subsequent years as the value of the pipe depreciates.

Republican lawmakers representing Nebraska and western Iowa on Capitol Hill all have supported advancing the pipeline, pointing to job creation and energy independence.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., said Friday that TransCanada has gone through an appropriately difficult process that moved them to improve their construction materials and shift their route through Nebraska.

After that was done, all through the good efforts of many Nebraskans who were rightfully concerned about the environmental impacts, I think thats reason enough to move forward, Fortenberry said.

Don Bacon, R-Neb., said pipelines are the safest way to transport the oil.

Theres a lot of environmental protection standards that have been built in, Bacon said.

The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Americans for Prosperity-Nebraska issued statements in support of the presidents announcement.

A Trump presidential directive also required new or expanded pipelines to be built with American steel to the maximum extent possible. TransCanada has said Keystone wont be built with U.S. steel. The company already has acquired the steel, much of it from Canada and Mexico, and the White House has acknowledged its too difficult to impose conditions on a pipeline already under construction.

TransCanada first applied for a permit in 2008. Years of politicking, legal wrangling and disputes over the pipelines route preceded Obamas decision to nix the project.

The company also announced Friday it would drop its $15 billion claim against the United States over an alleged violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The claim was filed after the Obama administration denied the companys permit application.

World-Herald staff writer Joseph Morton contributed to his report, which also contains material from the Associated Press.
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.
You are clearly a super-user of NUVO.net. Thats a good thing. It means you depend on independent and local news sources to keep you informed. You are a smart person.



Coincidentally, independent and local news sources depend on you too. Youve read 25 articles this month and now, wed like you to be join our mission and become a NUVO Supporter. For as little as $4 a month, you can keep us alive and fighting -- and can have unlimited access to the independent news that cant be found anywhere else.
Lake and LaPorte Counties lost more than 2,500 residents combined last year, according to the latest estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The greater Chicago metro area, which includes southeast Wisconsin and Northwest Indiana, was the only metro area among the 10 largest in the country that did not grow last year, the Census estimate found. Cook County, home of the city of Chicago, lost 21,324 residents in 2016.

Lake County lost an estimated 1,803 residents in 2016, the most of any county in the state and a decline of 0.3 percent as compared to 2015. Its population has fallen by 10,124 residents since 2010, a 2 percent drop, but it's still the second most populous county in Indiana with an estimated 485,846 people. LaPorte County's population fell to 110,015 last year, down from 110,762 the previous year.

Porter County's population increased by about 600 residents to 167,791 last year. Porter County's population has grown by about 2 percent, or 3,233 residents, during the last six years.

Statewide, Indiana gained 20,285 residents in 2016, an uptick of 0.3 percent, according to the Census estimates.

The causes of Indianas sluggish growth has been both a strong decline in the natural increase of the population, which is a measure of the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths, and a significant slowdown in migration, said Matt Kinghorn, demographer at the Indiana Business Research Center.

Driven partially by lower birth rates since the Great Recession, Indianas natural increase in recent years has been about 30 percent lower than it was from 2000 to 2010," Kinghorn said. "The state has also seen a net out-migration of residents in each of the last two years.
HAMMOND  A person opened fire Saturday into Flick's Tap, striking three people inside, police said.

At about 1:30 a.m., an unknown person approached the Hessville neighborhood tavern at 6205 Kennedy Ave., firing multiple shots in the bar, Hammond Police Lt. Steven Kellogg said.

Two East Chicago men, ages 27 and 30, and a Hobart man, 51, were struck, Kellogg said.

The victims' conditions were not immediately known Saturday, Kellogg said. Witnesses told police the shooting may have been an attempted retaliation following a fight earlier that night at the bar.

However, police said the three victims were not involved in the earlier altercation.

Earlier this year, a 23-year-old Hammond man allegedly opened fired on two Illinois residents outside Flick's tavern. Curtis Devonte McDonald was charged with two counts of attempted murder in connection with the Jan. 9 incident.

Anyone with information about this shooting should contact Hammond Detective Lt. Mark Tharp at 219-852-2988 or Detective Sgt. Richard Tumidalsky at 219-852-2997.
EAST CHICAGO  The Indiana Department of Environmental Management will provide water filters for residents of a Superfund site where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently discovered elevated lead levels in drinking water, an IDEM spokesman said Friday.

The EPA began a cleanup of lead- and arsenic-contaminated soil from properties in zones 2 and 3 of the USS Lead Superfund site last fall, before East Chicago Anthony Copeland announced Dec. 8 the federal agency found elevated lead levels in a limited number of drinking water samples.

The lead in the soil is unrelated to the lead in the water, but residents exposed to both face cumulative health risks.

Up to 90 percent of an estimated 11,000 water service connections in East Chicago could be lead, which can leach into drinking water. Because of this, residents should assume they have lead lines and use a properly certified filter, EPA said.

Gov. Eric Holcomb said in a letter to East Chicago officials last week that providing water filters was a high priority. Holcomb on March 10 extended a disaster emergency in the city for 30 more days.

IDEM is still working out details regarding funding and distribution of the water filters, but hopes to begin the effort soon, spokesman Barry Sneed said. The filters are being provided "out of an abundance of caution," he said.

Quick action needed, groups say

Maritza Lopez, who lives in zone 3 and is a member of the East Chicago/Calumet Coalition Community Advisory Group, welcomed any assistance from IDEM.

"As a resident, I'm grateful they're doing it," she said. "Because right now everything that's been done has been done by the residents and outside organizations that have stepped in."

The CAG received 19 water filters March 4 from a Porter County organization called Project Neighbors and recently received another batch, she said. The CAG has been working to distribute those filters to the highest-priority households, including those with young children, pregnant woman or disabled seniors.

"Hopefully, IDEM comes in fast and they install it for us," she said.

The CAG and Community Strategy Group also have been working with different outside organizations to distribute bottled water, she said.

Mark Templeton, an attorney at the University of Chicago Law Schools Abrams Environmental Law Clinic, said he and others working on behalf of residents were pleased to hear IDEM plans to provide water filters.

"We would urge them to act as quickly as possible on that," he said. "Obviously, the people who live in these zones have been experiencing the cumulative effect of lead contamination for years."

Templeton was among 17 attorneys, community groups and advocacy groups that recently signed on to a petition asking EPA to use its emergency powers to respond to drinking water problems in East Chicago. EPA said it received the petition and "will continue to work with the city and state to protect the health of East Chicago residents."

Families still living in the West Calumet Housing Complex in zone 1 of the Superfund site should be receiving bottled water, he said. Residents on Friday protested the looming forced relocation of more than a dozen families from the complex.

Anjali Waikar, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, "All residents of East Chicago, not just those living at the Superfund site, are at risk of toxic lead contamination through their tap water. Officials should provide a solution that doesnt ignore the rest of the city.

Samuel Henderson, an attorney with the Hoosier Environmental Council, said the news is encouraging. However, several questions remain unresolved, including what type of filters will be provided, how much money is available and how many filters will be provided per home.

IDEM also conducting more tests

EPA sampled drinking water as part of a pilot study to determine if excavation in the Superfund site would disturb service lines, causing lead to become dislodged and enter the water supply. Before excavation started, the agency found lead levels of 15 parts per million  its action level under the federal Lead and Copper Rule  at 18 of 43 homes where it conducted sequential testing.

EPA has since said it views the results in the Superfund site as representative of the city's entire water system and declined to conduct additional sampling, saying any results would confirm only what is already known.

IDEM is currently working with East Chicago to conduct further testing to ensure the city is in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule, Sneed said. The city has been in compliance with the federal regulation since its inception in the early 1990s, he said.

Flint, Michigan, also was in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule before outrage over elevated lead levels gained national attention.

IDEM will not be conducting sequential testing, which is more robust than sampling required under the Lead and Copper Rule, Sneed said. Samples will be taken at taps.

EPA has said it is considering revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule.
SCHERERVILLE  One residential and two commercial construction projects have received unanimous secondary approvals needed to move forward.

The commissioners reinstated a secondary approval for ORourke Woods, a residential lot in the Whispering Ridge subdivision. The propertys owner, Mike ORouke, had been granted secondary approval to build a home on the lot in August, 2016. However, the approval had expired because the plans had not been submitted, said Town Manager Robert Volkmann.

Josh OHara of Lend Lease also got the green light needed to continue remodeling the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant at 985 U.S. 30 for owners Bryan and Terry Robinson. What OHara previously called a refresh will include interior upgrades, new signage and landscaping.

The cross access road between the KFC and the nearby Pizza Hut that commissioners required has been installed, Volkmann told the commissioners. This project is part of the U.S. 30 Commercial Corridor Overlay District.

In other business, the commissioners gave secondary approval for a two-lot commercial subdivision where a new 7,700-square foot physicians office would be built at 1050 Caroline and 1500 Eagle Ridge Drive. Dr. Ray Alavanja and Dr. Robert Pieters plan the single-story medical office on the former site of the Liberty Savings Bank.

Robinson Engineering is reviewing the plans now. The only thing needed is the blueprint documents.
ST. JOHN  A commercial development of more than 170,000 square feet at U.S. 41 and 96th Place is moving forward.

Shops 96 will be developed on 23 acres on the east side of U.S. 41 to Joliet Street and the railroad tracks. It lies between St. John Pool Center to the north and Al's Auto Body Experts II to the south.

Developer Bruce Boyer appeared at the town's recent Plan Commission study session to provide an update and begin the development process after initially bringing the plans to the town last year.

Current zoning on the property is a mix of small planned unit development and commercial zoning.

"Our intent is to clean that all up under one commercial planning and development for the entire parcel of land," Boyer said.

The first phase of construction will include a light industrial combination-type building on the rear of the property. On the northeast corner of 96th Place and U.S. 41 will be a single-story, multi-tenant commercial building. A single-story tenant commercial building will be built on the far south side of the property. There are about eight buildings in all that are planned in addition to a lot on the south side that will be available for future development.

A detention pond on the site will be relocated to the rear of the property and four existing buildings on the property will be demolished - a house to the far south side, the abandoned car wash, the existing lumber yard building and a house on the north side of the lumber building.

A traffic signal at 96th Place and U.S. 41 has already been approved by the Indiana Department of Transportation and 96th Place will extend east through the development. Boyer said along with the improvements to 96th Place, an access road will be built behind the outlots. That road will continue south and tie into the existing road that goes beyond McDonald's.

"That will keep an awful lot of traffic off of U.S. 41," Boyer said.

The project means that St. John Malt Brothers Brewery and Rascals Pizza-Pub-N-Grub will have to find new homes as those buildings will be demolished.

Jim Estry, Malt Brothers president and CEO, said they are currently working with Boyer to relocate within the development. Rascals could not be reached for comment.

Boyer will return to the Plan Commission's next regular meeting to request permission for a zoning change.

Town Manager Steve Kil said an estimated date to start construction on the project is May 2018.
New Yorkers joined local lawmakers to rally in remembrance of the man allegedly killed by a white supremacist earlier this week. NY1's Matt McClure filed the following report.

Residents started a makeshift memorial at the spot where police say 66-year-old Timothy Caughman was fatally stabbed Monday night in Caughman's honor.

Prosecutors say 28-year-old James Jackson traveled from Maryland to kill black men here. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams says the killing is a symptom of a larger problem - in the city, and across the country.

"This knife is a knife of racism, but it's also a knife of terrorism. And if we try to isolate this incident and say, 'Well, this is just one deranged person,' no. He comes from a sea of deranged people that are swimming with the tide of America's philosophy right now," said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Adams and others calling on the NYPD, prosecutors and everyday citizens to do more to prevent attacks like this from happening in the future.

"The office of the inspector general showed that no more than five percent of the NYPD's budget for investigations, for intelligence, was spent on white supremacists. No more than five percent. That is unacceptable," said Albert Fox Cahn, legal director of CAIR NY.

"Every American needs to know this person's name and needs to ask himself or herself, 'What have I done to end racism?'" said Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

Those in attendance vowed to keep Caughman's memory alive and to continue speaking out against hate as long as racists target communities of color.

As for the suspect in this case, Jackson is charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon.
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Jails across the U.S. are suffering from overcrowding, violence and abuse. It comes as staffing problems at lockups from New York to California continue to grow and have made long-simmering problems worse. A spate of deaths at New York Citys infamous Rikers Island jail complex has garnered national headlines. But rural and urban lockups from Tennessee to Washington to Georgia are not faring much better. Unlike prisons, most jails are funded and managed locally, so the problems they face can vary widely from one county to the next. Experts who spoke to The Associated Press and The Marshall Project, though, highlighted two problems theyve seen at jails across the country: too many people incarcerated, and not enough guards.
Youve Got This. Its the title of Molly Biehls new book, telling the story of her journey from grief to forgiveness.

The 47-year-old San Marcos resident is the sister of Amy Biehl, the Fulbright scholar from Newport Beach who was killed in 1993 by a mob of black South Africans in a township near Cape Town.

The men, members of the youth wing of the African National Congress, were returning from a rally and targeted Amy Biehls car, which was making its way through the township of Guguletu. She was dragged out of the car, stoned and stabbed to death two days before she was to return to Orange County.

Mollys parents, Linda and Peter Biehl, testified at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings in South Africa, after which the four men convicted of killing Amy were released from prison.

The Biehls set up a foundation in their daughters memory. It continues to serve at-risk youth through after-school programs, including in the very township where Amy was murdered. The Biehls forgave the men convicted of murdering their daughter.

Two of the four men, Easy Nofemela and Ntobeko Peni, came to work for the Amy Biehl Foundation and continue to serve in vital roles.

Molly Biehl talked to the Register about how her sisters death and its aftermath changed her life and what gives her purpose.

Q: What is your book about?

A: Its basically my journey through difficult and interesting challenges. Ive had to make a conscious effort to figure out how to thrive on the other side of grief. I felt like I was reacting to a lot of circumstances in my life. I found that so much of what Ive learned has been through reading and stories. I realized that sharing our stories is important. And thats why I decided to share mine. I wanted my children to see me take that risk and be vulnerable.

Q: Whats the biggest challenge youve ever faced and how did you overcome it?

A: The biggest challenge I faced was my divorce. It was so very personal and I didnt feel like I had a say in how things were going. I cared so deeply for my kids throughout the entire process. I also forgot to pay attention to myself during that time. I needed to stop and evaluate the situation, and draw from some of my previous challenges to find a way to get through it in a manner that was healthy.

Q: Could you describe what came out of one of the biggest tragedies in your life  the death of your sister Amy?

A: I was 23 when Amy died and thats the experience I think Ive drawn from the most to get to where I am today. Forgiveness is what I learned from her death  forgiving the men who were convicted of killing Amy. I realized I was good at it and it came naturally to me. People would ask me if was angry or felt vengeful. The truth is I never felt that way. My parents were my example because I watched them forgive. Like them, I saw that these men were human. In talking with one of the men, Ntobeko Peni, I realized how important my parents have been in his life. I could see he had the same hopes and dreams for his children that I did for mine. I realized how our commonalities far outweighed our differences.

Q: Whats your next step after the book?

A: Im in the process of designing an online course called Forgive It. I found that people who read Youve Got This felt inspired to talk to estranged family members, to forgive someone. Id like to create this course that people can take and apply to their everyday lives. I want people to see that forgiveness is healing, and its not always intuitive. Our natural response as human beings is to want to return harm. Ill be approaching in a less spiritual and more academic manner. The course will be delivered by topic like holding grudges or understanding the impact of anger. I just want to share my experience and see if it resonates with someone.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7835 or dbharath@scng.com
SANTA ANA   A Laguna Niguel man was sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday for repeatedly punching his 91-year-old hospital roommate.

Ibrahim Yousef Battat, 39, pleaded guilty to one felony count of inflicting injury on an elder adult with a sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury on an elder, according to the Orange County District Attorneys Office.

Battat was also ordered to pay restitution to the victim, whose name was not released.

On June 4, 2014, Battat attacked the 91-year-old man while both were patients and roommates at Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center, prosecutors said.

Battat used his hands to cover the mans nose and mouth and repeatedly punched him causing the victim to suffer a dislocated finger, major cuts to his head and hand, and eye swelling.

Prosecutors said Battat beat the victim until nurses and a patient in the next room restrained him.

Fountain Valley police officers arrived at the hospital and arrested Battat.

Prosecutors did not say why Battat and the victim were in the hospital or release details of a motive for the attack.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@scng.com Twitter: @thechalkoutline
If you want one extra bit of evidence of just how valuable the regions real estate can be, ponder this statistic:

Irvine Co. owner Donald Brens property empire, heavily concentrated in assets in and around Orange County, is the worlds fourth-largest personal real estate fortune.

The annual Forbes magazine ranking of the world billionaires  2,043 of them, by this count  listed 11 Orange County-bred, 10-digit fortunes.

Brens net worth was tops locally, pegged at $15.2 billion. Globally, it came in 66th largest and a sum surpassed by only three other property tycoons, one each from China, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

The 84-year-old Newport Beach developer was ranked 27th wealthiest American last year  and is the holder of the biggest individual U.S. real estate fortune.

By Forbes math, the 11 Orange County billionaires combined are worth $47 billion. That sum is loosely equal to the total annual business output of Tanzania or Belarus or Montana or South Dakota  or all the mortgages made to buy Orange County homes in 2015 and 2016.

Heres how the 10 other Orange County-inspired billion-dollar fortunes ranked globally and their respective rank in Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans in 2016:

No. 294, tie: David Sun, 64, of Irvine who co-founded electronics memory maker Kingston Technology in Fountain Valley. He was valued at $5.3 billion and was ranked 90th wealthiest American.

No. 294, tie: Suns Kingston co-founder John Tu, 75, of Rolling Hills was also valued at $5.3 billion (and 90th biggest U.S. fortune in 2016).

No. 441: Jim Jannard, 67, built two cutting-edge Orange County-based brands: Oakley sunglasses and Red cameras. The Washington residents fortune was estimated at $4 billion and was ranked 142nd wealthiest American.

No. 501: Igor Olenicoff, 74, of the Olen commercial real estate empire, based in Newport Beach. The Florida resident was valued at $3.7 billion and ranked 156th wealthiest American.

No. 522: Henry Samueli, 62, of Newport Beach. The co-founder of chipmaker Broadcom and owner of the Anaheim Ducks was valued at $3.6 billion and ranked 214th wealthiest American.

No. 660: Broadcoms other co-founder, Henry Nicholas, 57, of Newport Coast, was valued at $3 billion. Ranked 274th wealthiest American last year.

No. 814: Bond trader Bill Gross, 72, of Laguna Beach was valued at $2.5 billion. Ranked 290th wealthiest American.

No. 939: Newport Beach real estate and stock investor George Argyros, 80, valued at $2.2 billion. Ranked 335th wealthiest American last year.

No. 1376: Hilton Schlosberg of Irvine, 64, co-founder of the Monster energy drink brand. His fortune was valued at $1.5 billion. He was unranked in the Forbes 400 last year.

No. 1468: Rodney Sacks of Laguna Beach, 67, co-founder of the Monster energy drink brand. His fortune was valued at $1.4 billion. He was also unranked in the Forbes 400 last year.
Oakcrest Terrace, a 69-unit affordable housing community in Yorba Linda has debuted at full capacity. The complex, at 22744 Eastpark Drive in Savi Ranch, includes one-bedroom rents ranging $477 to $1,000; two-bedrooms from $535 to $1,124; and three-bedrooms that range from $593 to $1,247. The community is 100 percent leased and already has a waiting list, according to organizers. Amenities include 3,700-square-foot community center, a computer lab, and an afterschool program provided by National CORE. Financial partners include Citibank and Raymond James Associates. The architect was Wayne Davis. Other partners include DCi Engineering Inc. and landscape architects RRM Design Group. National Community Renaissance, based in Rancho Cucamonga, was the developer. The nonprofit manages nearly 9,000 affordable, senior and market-rate units in California, Arkansas, Texas and Florida.

Newport Beach-based Guthrie Development has acquired a six-building, multi-tenant retail, office, and service commercial project in Laguna Niguel for $5.8 million. The buildings, totaling 24,535 square feet of space, are at 27781-27841 La Paz Road. Guthrie acquired the buildings from La Paz Partners. Larry Schuler of CBRE represented the buyer and Josh Cunningham and Travis Dunn of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented the seller. The property consists of 10 individual units. Each of the buildings sits on its own parcel. Guthrie will do some initial capital improvements and, in turn, sell each building to an owner/user or as a leased investment.

Guthrie Development also announced the acquisition of 4200 Bonita, a 64,250-square-foot occupied industrial building in Fullerton for $7.75 million. The firm acquired the building from the owner and tenant, BI Technologies, an electronics parts supplier. The tenant plans to lease back the building until June. Zach Niles, senior vice president at JLL, represented the buyer and seller in the transaction. Guthrie plans to renovate the building and convert the excess parking to a large truck court and fenced yard.

Morgan Skenderian Investment Real Estate Group in Newport Beach has sold an eight-unit apartment complex in Anaheim to Plantero Holdings LLC for $2.15 million. The complex, at 2520 E. Park Lane, was owned by Zachery & Mara Toross. Paul Espinosa and Jay Skenderian of the firms Newport Beach office represented the seller and buyer in this transaction.

JR Williamson, senior vice president with NAI Capital, represented the buyer Calara Properties LLC on the purchase of a 19,700-square-foot industrial warehouse in Tustin for $3,79 million. The seller was Healing Word International. The property at 14281 Chambers Road was built in 1978 and refurbished 2002. It features an 8,100-square-foot, two-story office and research and development area. The property, on a 1.13-acre land parcel, was vacant at the time of the sale.

People in Real Estate

Lawrence Armstrong, the CEO of the Irvine-based design firm Ware Malcomb will showcase his artwork this month with Studio 26 located at 179 East 3rd Street in New York City. Armstrongs work also is being featured at two shows in Chelsea at the Metropolitan Pavilion. Last year the John Wayne Airport Arts Commission selected Armstrong to exhibit his artwork in the Thomas F. Riley Terminal in Santa Ana. In 2016, the Lawrence R. and Sandra C. Armstrong Gallery opened at Armstrongs alma mater, Kent State University.

Coming up

Commercial Real Estate Women, Orange County (CREW-OC) will host its sixth Annual SPIRE Awards ceremony Wednesday. The event will be held at The Samueli Theater, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Call 714-556-2122 for more information. For reservations, crewocspireawards.com.

The real estate briefs are compiled by contributing writer Karen Levin and edited by Samantha Gowen, business editor at the Register. Send related items to sgowen@scng.com. Allow one week for publication. High-resolution photos also can be submitted.
Kristina Nusenow is remembered at Marblehead Elementary School in San Clemente as an inspiring, caring teacher who had a way of making every student feel like they were her favorite.

She was an avid runner, a triathlete and coordinator of the schools running club.

As word spread of her unexpected passing on March 18, in her sleep, at age 49, parents, teachers, students and former students decided that the most fitting way to honor her would be a run.

Several hundred adults and children wearing red  Nusenows favorite color  populated San Clementes beach trail late Friday afternoon, March 24. They ran, jogged or walked a mile from North Beach to the San Clemente Pier, carrying flowers to the end of the pier to toss into the sea in her memory.

She was just a one-of-a-kind person with the purest heart, said Shawn Burns, a San Clemente mom with two daughters now at San Clemente High who were in Ms. Nusenows fourth-grade class at Marblehead Elementary.

She stayed in touch, even after they graduated from her, Burns said. She was just such a beautiful person, inside and out.

The run and the tossing of flowers were a mix of sadness, hugs, laughter and fond memories. Everyone is sad, and remembering wonderful stories, said Faith Morris, principal at Marblehead Elementary. She was easily the best of us.

Nusenow taught at Marblehead Elementary since the school, which has about 360 students, opened in 2001.

From the turnout, said friend Ashley Macy, gesturing at the crowd on the pier, she was very loved.

Loving and kind  caring  and just always wanting to help people was how Paige Ashley, 13, a former student now at Shorecliffs Middle School, described Nusenow.

Others described the teachers passion for fitness. She rode her bike every day to school, said Brooklyn Goudchaux, 11.

Keeping the kids moving was important to her, said Cori Goudchaux, Brooklyns mother.

Services are scheduled for 2 p.m. April 2 at Saddleback Church San Clemente.

Contact the writer: fswegles@scng.com or 949-492-5127
COSTA MESA  Orange Coast College instructor Olga Perez Stable Cox does plan to accept a top honor bestowed by her colleagues. But she still wont speak at commencement.

A college spokesman said Friday that he misinterpreted information when he said earlier this week that Cox would not accept the faculty member of the year award because she did not want to draw more attention to herself or detract from students celebration during commencement.

Cox was caught in a storm of controversy in December when a student secretly videotaped her bashing the election of Donald Trump during her human sexuality class. The controversy continued through early this year when the college said it was suspending the student who videotaped her, but later rescinded the suspension.

A committee of 10 faculty, classified and management members selected Cox as the full-time Colleague of the Year. The honoree typically gives a commencement speech.

Rob Schneiderman, president of the Coast Federation of Educators/American Federation of Teachers Local 1911, said Cox wont be a commencement speaker because she did not want to distract from the students.

This is consistent with her nature as a faculty member, Schneiderman said. Shes never been someone who has grandstanded to get attention. She wants graduation to be all about the students and not about her, so I respect her decision.

Joshua Recalde-Martinez, a leader with the campus College Republicans, which posted the videos, said in an e-mail that he was disappointed with the award because Cox did not represent and respect all students.  This move on her and the part of the college only serves to resurrect past tensions against both her and the College Republicans.

The speaker for Orange Coast Colleges graduation commencement has not been determined.

Contact the writer: rkopetman@scng.com
When California native Michelle Ditzhazy, 31, had a chance to return to the sunny climes of her home state after 41/2 years of prosecuting cases in New Jersey, she jumped at the chance.

Ditzhazy was sworn in recently to the newly-created position of community prosecutor in Huntington Beach by Mayor Barbara Delgleize, Orange County District Attorney Tony Reckaukas, and other dignitaries.

Although Ditzhazy had a fairly high-profile job in the Hudson County Prosecutors Office Special Victims Unit near New York City, she missed being away for California.

I wanted to come home and be more invested in prosecutions, said the Palmdale native. She also said she was eager to be working at a grassroots level of law.

In a large DAs office, you dont get to work as closely with the police and the community, Ditzhazy said.

Huntington Beach is the second city in Orange County, after Anaheim, to begin prosecuting misdemeanor cases. Anaheim prosecutes all misdemeanors in its city, but in Huntington Beach, Ditzhazy will be charged with prosecuting select misdemeanors in an attempt to better target, enforce and prosecute nuisance crimes.

Each year, Huntington Beach police make between 5,000-6,000 arrests, of which about 80 percent are misdemeanors that are turned over to the Orange County District Attorneys Office for prosecution.

After charges are filed with the Orange County District Attorneys office, well get first bite at the apple, City Attorney Michael Gates said of choosing the cases to prosecute.

Gates said he chose Ditzhazy from a strong field of more than 80 candidates, including district attorneys and many, like Ditzhazy, with felony trial experience. Although the new prosecutor will be dealing solely with misdemeanors and a number of nuisance crimes, Ditzhazy doesnt see the job as a step down.

I dont think its that much different, she said. I dealt with a lot of domestic violence cases, but those usually start at lower level.

Ditzhazy said maybe by intervening at an early stage, her cases will help break the progression to larger crimes. The plan initially is to focus on the downtown area and target drug use and possession, public intoxication, assault and other lesser crimes, as well as identifying repeat offenders.

As for criteria, Gates said of choosing the crimes the city pursues, that will evolve over time with the community, the business district, police and DAs (providing input.)

Gates said the downtown will be the first area of concentration, however, in a couple of years it could be somewhere else.

Ditzhazy, a 2010 graduate from the Seton Hall School of Law, was introduced to the community in February and has been meeting with the OC District Attorneys office, local attorneys and judges and gearing up.

Were just now starting to screen cases, Gates said. It will be a slow ramp up and we should be at full capacity by the end of the year. Were building completely from the ground up.

That part is appealing to Ditzhazy.

We can make it whatever we want it to be, she said. Were able to be creative.

And then theres the weather.

I left at the perfect time, Ditzhazy said. It was 80 here and its snowing back there.
LONDON  Sixty years after the treaty that led to its founding, the European Union is under fundamental stress  divided and divergent, anxious that it no longer represents the future but the past, and that it may be incapable of handling the serious challenges of this already turbulent century.

As European leaders gather in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain will be missing since her country has voted to leave  the most concrete evidence that the EU is no longer the obvious answer to the Continents many challenges.

Born 60 years ago in optimism that cooperation in trade would benefit all, the principle binding a union that has expanded from six nations to 28 has been solidarity  that difficulties would be faced together, that cooperation would bring the convergence of politics and economics and an ever closer union.

But much of that conviction has turned out to be magical thinking. Somewhere along the line, the EU lost its way.

Many place the pivotal moment at the crossroads it encountered when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet empire collapsed. Shortly after, the conversations were all about how to broaden by adding new members, as Washington and London wanted, and also deepen cooperation through new institutions. The bloc stumbled into trying both, imperiling growth and unity, even as it antagonized Russia.

What was at the heart of European values and principles was this simple idea of solidarity, that we would help those countries with difficulties and stick together through challenging times, said Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador and senior EU official.

It seems to have gotten lost when we enlarged to the new states of Central and Eastern Europe, and we saw it in our treatment of Greece, too. There is a sense of harshness and division, a lack of solidarity. And if that simple idea is not there anymore, then were in big trouble. If we dont have that, whats the use of going forward?

The main question facing the European Union, 60 years later, is one of reinvigoration. How can it recapture the optimism, restore the solidarity and reassure its core members while delivering economic opportunity to its poorer members and to its youth?

That will not be easy. Today the enlarged EU is poorer, more diverse and less united than ever. Its troubles are so numerous and structural that they threaten to undo the bloc.

Britain, its second-largest economy and one of two nuclear powers, has voted to leave. The countries of Central Europe are flirting with authoritarianism and Russia. Candidate countries like Turkey and Serbia have lost enthusiasm. Even core countries, like France, Germany and the Netherlands, are dealing with strong populist movements that are fiercely anti-EU.

For many, the European Union no longer stands for democracy and a better future, but instead a hindrance to national identity and economic opportunity. It has created a powerful transnational bureaucracy that by its nature becomes enamored with bureaucratic solutions, creating an ethos of faceless clerks and late-night crisis meetings of national leaders, most of whom worry more about perceptions at home than solving the problems of their neighbors.

Just this week, Poland and Greece were threatening, at least, to block the Rome Declaration meant to support the blocs renewed aspirations. Poland remains concerned the newer members outside the euro will be marginalized in the future, and suggested that the London attacks were linked to lax EU migration policies. Greece wants more explicit reference to the protection of workers, even as its debt crisis festers. The disunity threatens to weaken Europes hand as Brexit negotiations approach next Wednesday.

Not all the problems the bloc faces are of its own making, but they need to be faced nonetheless. Vimont, now a visiting fellow at Carnegie Europe, sees the new strains as reflective of a more individualistic society, which has also become selfish and nationalistic.

With the crises of migration, Greece and the British exit, which has been a body blow to the union, and the antagonism of the Polish and Hungarian governments toward migrants and basic freedoms, he said, there is animosity and a lack of generosity, and a loss of the willingness among countries to find a way out when there is disagreement.

Stefan Lehne, a former senior Austrian diplomat and EU official, says that 60 years after its founding treaty, the bloc has lost much of its original appeal. Writing together with Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society European Policy Institute, he sees the European mind closing amid a host of real, exaggerated and imagined fears.

We overestimated the transformational effect of the European Union, both in new states but also in the old ones, Lehne said in an interview. And for the euro, too  the economic convergence assumption underlying the euro was flawed. Its not happening.

The strains from enlargement have inevitably changed the bloc, but are unlikely to destroy it, Lehne said. But the assumption that democracy can be gradually transferred to the European level has also proved to be illusory.

The democratic deficit and underestimation of the power of identity may be the biggest flaws in the enterprise, Lehne said, especially with the bureaucratization of Brussels. But those are not the only problems, the others being logical tributaries.

Assumptions about the inevitability of a single market, which is a kind of religion for the bloc, as well as a common currency, the euro, were similarly flawed. Commitments to open borders have been outpaced by security challenges in an age of terrorism. The promises of prosperity for all have been undone as globalization sank cherished local industries while buoying bankers on oceans of wealth that flowed across borders. So people cling ever more tightly to sovereignty.

Hubert Vedrine, the former French foreign minister, sees Brexit as merely a symptom of these larger problems  the false promises of ever-increasing wealth and quality of life for all of social Europe, which will never happen.

Overregulation of everyday life from unelected bureaucrats, whether its bananas or electric vacuum cleaners or light bulbs, is its own problem, too, Vedrine noted, and not something the European Commission, the blocs bureaucracy, was intended to do.

Now there is an electoral insurrection against globalism, in both Europe and the United States, and unhappiness with a European system that wishes to continue endlessly, that does not listen, that does not wish to correct anything, that takes no vote into consideration, and if there is a referendum that does not give the desired result, there is a new one presented, Vedrine said.

If we do not manage to correct the system, he added, the European project will end.

Vedrine cautions not to overly focus on the far right. There are a lot of people who disagree with what Europe has become, and they are not for Marine Le Pen and the National Front, he said.

But he, like many, sees a new flexibility and a new tolerance for a multispeed or multitier Europe as the best way of retaining cohesion, rather than pushing all members to fit into the same structures  the euro being the most obvious example.

But even if the competing needs of EU members can be finessed, the external pressures on the bloc are mounting, too, not least from Russia and the Trump administration, which seems to tolerate NATO while disparaging the multilateral model that is the European Union.

The European project is troubled by uncertainty, with the disruption of Brexit underestimated, Russia poking at democratic unity and this huge question mark from Washington, said Stefano Stefanini, a former Italian ambassador who is a consultant in Brussels.

The West is fighting among itself while competitors like China, Russia and Turkey are rising, he said.

Both Stefanini and Simon Tilford, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, are struck by the complacency in Brussels, with rhetoric about the possibility of a multitier Europe lagging far behind the reality of division and competition.

In Brussels, they see a couple of quarters of economic growth as a sign that everything is well, Tilford said. The first sign of relative improvement is an excuse to sound defensive and complacent.

But can you return some powers to member states without abandoning the core project? Tilford asked. Can European identity be reconciled with large amounts of migration?

Rosy as the declarations Saturday in Rome are likely to be, they will not provide those answers.
While glad to see Republicans proposed health plan withdrawn Friday, Orange County Democrats in Congress acknowledged shortcomings of Obamacare and said they hope to work with Republicans to improve the current system.

The right thing to do is to fix it; for Republicans and Democrats to get together and fix it, said freshman Rep. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana.

A lot of Democrats recognize its not perfect. And it would be good for the American people to see the parties come together on this.

Correa said work needs to be done to rein in costs and premiums, that overhead can be cut and the system can be made more efficient overall. He also would like to see burgeoning drug costs reversed and supports repealing the tax on medical devices.

Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, expressed similar sentiments.

Im glad we can finally put Trumpcare to rest and that enough of the GOP realized this was not a better plan than we already have, said the congressman, whose district spans the Orange-Los Angeles county line. Now it is time for both sides of the aisle to come together and work on making the Affordable Care Act better.

Some Republicans  including President Donald Trump  sounded open to such collaboration.

I believe Democrats will come to us and say, Look, lets get together and get a great healthcare bill or plan thats really great for the people of our country, Trump said at a press conference after the GOP proposal was withdrawn Friday. And I think thats gonna happen. Whenever theyre ready, were ready.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, had been undecided on the GOPs proposed American Health Care Act and said Friday he was interested in working with Democrats on a better plan.

I want to thank those  on all sides of this debate  whove reached out to share their stories, said Royce, whose office has been the site of regular vigils by those opposed to the GOP plan. Rest assured, I will continue to work in a bipartisan and constructive manner on solutions to increase access to quality, affordable health care.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista continued to point to deficiencies in the the Republican proposal. But while he called for a bipartisan effort to come up with something better, he also indicated little desire to revise the current system.

The millions of Californians who had their insurance plans canceled, lost access to their doctors, (and) suffered premium increases and sky-high deductible hikes are depending on us to repeal and replace Obamacare once and for all, said Issa, who represents part of south Orange County and had also been undecided on whether to vote for the GOP plan.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, was expected to support the withdrawn proposal and has favored repeal of Obamacare.

Todays disappointment in the House is just that: a disappointment, a setback, a summons to rally and try, try again, Rohrabacher said Friday. That is what we will do in Congress. In the months ahead, we will perfect and tweak the legislation.

Rep. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Beach, was the only Orange County Republican to offer unqualified support for the abandoned proposal. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@scng.com
HUNTINGTON BEACH  A Make America Great Again march in support of President Trump drew about 2,000 people to Bolsa Chica State Beach on Saturday, March 25, including a group of about 30 protesters whose presence triggered a violent melee at the start of the event.

As the marchers, many in MAGA hats or carrying American flags, walked down the bike path from Pacific Coast Highway and Warner Avenue, about a dozen protesters wearing black masks formed a wall blocking them.

The situation got ugly and lasted for about a half hour; after much yelling, shoving, pushing and punching, some protesters pepper-sprayed a group of marchers.

Four protesters were arrested, California State Parks Police Capt. Kevin Pearsall said.

But the march went on.

March organizers said they had been hoping for peace. Many had brought their children.

Im not just here in support of Trump, but our vets, military, police officers and emergency responders, said Darlene Savord of Tustin, one of the organizers.

She later called the event a huge, huge success, and dismissed the violence.

We had a lot of Trump supporters here, which shows that we are united, she said.

Several marchers stopped to talk to protesters. Some of those conversations were loud and angry; others were peaceful.

Eric Sewell, who supports Trump, said he attended the march to have a dialogue with the dissenters.

I wanted to come here to talk, not to have fights on the street, Sewell said. Not everyone on the right is a hater.

Some of the protesters wore black masks to avoid being identified on social media. But Christian Cole of Irvine removed his mask to talk to Sewell.

I came here to hold a sign, play some music and win some hearts, Cole said. Fighting was not on my mind.

The march, among several held around the nation, extended along a two-mile stretch of the bike path.

The melee left Trump supporters like 54-year-old John Beaman of Tustin disheartened.

This is frustrating because we are trying to claim the higher ground here, Beaman said.

Jordan Hoiberg from Newport Beach said he saw a protester wield pepper spray in self-defense.

We were expecting it to be more peaceful, said Hoiberg, a member of the Socialist Party USA, one of the protest organizers. We were not about to start something when we are 10 people and they are a thousand. That would be suicidal.

The Trump-resistant Indivisible OC 48, meanwhile, released a statement saying they would not join any counterprotest to the MAGA march at Bolsa Chica.

Indivisible OC 48 believes that the most effective way to combat an agenda built on discrimination and divisiveness is to focus on our own positive and peaceful political actions, and not to engage in confrontations with other citizens exercising their rights to free speech, the group said.

The Indivisibles have been calling on Republican Congress members nationwide to hold town hall meetings so they can express concerns with Trumps policies and appointments.

At the Bolsa Chica event, some marchers carried a banner displaying swastikas, and another man held a sign containing an anti-semitic slur. Some of the protesters jeered them.

Pro-Trump marcher Tim Morris of Northridge said he cringed when he saw the swastikas. These guys dont represent all of us, he said.

Those pepper sprayed included Jennifer Sterling, one of the march organizers.

In all, three male protesters were charged with felony illegal use of pepper spray while one woman was booked on suspicion of misdemeanor assault and battery, he said. Two other protesters were detained but not arrested, Pearsall said. Their names were not released.

Two people suffered small cuts that didnt require any treatment, but no other injuries were reported, he said.

OTHER MARCHES

The local march coincided with a nationwide effort with marches in about 40 cities across 33 states.

In Hollywood, about 100 pro-Trump marchers waded down Hollywood Boulevard to rally around Trumps Hollywood Walk of Fame star. At least one kneeled to kiss the brass Trump etched in the sidewalk terrazzo.

A fistfight broke out along the sidewalk when a man grabbed a Trump supporters hat. Los Angeles police on bikes arrested two men for possible assault.

In Philadelphia, the march was delayed by two hours by protesters, but a few dozen Trump supporters eventually marched near Independence Hall, The Philadephia Inquirer reported.

In the Jersey Shore, the rally drew more than 2,000, and was mostly peaceful except for a brief scuffle with protesters who showed up with signs opposing the presidents proposed border wall, The Associated Press reported.

In Lubbock, Texas, the march was peaceful with participants walking from the citys Civic Center to the County Courthouse, according to the news website EverythingLubbock.com.

About 250 people rallied in downtown Phoenix, the Arizona Republic said.

SUPPORTERS SPEAK OUT

Some marchers in Huntington Beach, like Andrea Casella, said they came to support Trump because he fights for the causes in which they believe.

For eight years I sucked it up, the Long Beach resident said, referring to Barack Obama. And now we actually have our president.

She was unfazed by the investigations into the Trump administrations ties with Russia, calling it a smokescreen. And in her view, Trump is respectful to all groups, including women.

He has more women in high positions than anyone else, she said.

Some MAGA marchers wore t-shirts saying, Deplorable lives matter, a reference to a description Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton used to refer to Trump supporters during the presidential campaign.

We need balance in our country and the best way is to unite under one leadership, said Irvine resident Mario Medina, who was wearing a Trump t-shirt. Hes not a politician, thats what I like about him.

Medina and others said they were not discouraged by the administrations health care defeat. Republicans on Friday pulled the bill meant to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Theres going to be bumps along the road, he said. Obamacare is going to go down and ruin a lot of lives. If anyone is going to fix Obamacare, President Trump is the man to do it.

Heres how the events shaped up around the country:
CHERRY HILL, N.J.  Governors of both parties had warned Congress for weeks that the Republican health care bill threatened to saddle their states with big costs and potentially leave millions of people without coverage, especially because of the cutbacks planned to Medicaid.

The bills withdrawal on Friday left in place the status quo under the Affordable Care Act. That was welcomed by several governors in the states that opted to expand Medicaid under former President Barack Obamas law.

The Medicaid expansion has provided coverage for 11 million people in the 31 states that accepted it.

I am pleased todays vote has been held as this bill would drastically affect the Commonwealths ability to ensure essential care for thousands of people, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican in a Democratic-leaning state, said in a statement after the bill was pulled from consideration. This version does not reflect the needs of states and does not contain many critical aspects of health care reform that our administration has communicated to the federal government.

Jerry Brown, Californias Democratic governor, was fiery when he spoke in Washington, D.C., earlier in the week, calling the Republican measure a dangerous bill. His state estimated annual costs of $6 billion starting in 2020, when the Medicaid changes would have hit.

In a Twitter message Friday, Brown said he was relieved the bill was withdrawn, adding: The (hash)ACA endures. But for tomorrow, we must gird ourselves for the battles yet to come.

Reducing the amount of federal money for Medicaid was the chief concern among governors because the state-federal program accounts for such a large share of most state budgets. People who lose their health coverage tend to show up in emergency rooms, where the cost for their care is expensive and often falls back on the state.

The bill would have ended Obamas Medicaid expansion and reduced future federal financing for the federal-state program.

Some states also were planning to make up funding for Planned Parenthood because the Republican bill would have blocked payments to the womens health group for a year.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the changes under the GOP bill would have increased the number of uninsured people across the U.S. by 14 million next year and 24 million by 2026. The nonpartisan office also said the plan would have reduced the federal budget deficit by $150 billion over a decade.

The nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found in a study this week that trying to maintain the existing levels of Medicaid coverage would have been costly. It could have taken cuts equal to one-fourth of some state governments education budgets to keep the coverage without raising taxes, the report found.

Estimates from officials in at least 17 states released this month backed up that proposition. States would have to decide between spending a lot more on Medicaid or reducing the services provided and the number of people covered.

An analysis by New Mexico insurance regulators estimated that the states uninsured rate would double to 18 percent by 2026 if the Republican changes had been enacted. That would be close to the rate of people without insurance before the current law, commonly referred to as Obamacare, took effect, according to the analysis.

In Ohio, the state estimated that rolling back the Medicaid expansion entirely would have saved it $3.7 billion over a decade on Medicaid costs. Trying to maintain the program under the Republican plan would have cost $7.8 billion.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich and three other Republican governors  Arkansas Asa Hutchinson, Nevadas Brian Sandoval and Michigans Rick Snyder  wrote a letter to congressional leaders last week saying they wanted to undo Obamas Affordable Care Act but faulted the Republican replacement plan. They said it did not give states enough flexibility or provide the resources necessary to make sure no one is left out.

All four states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Kasich portrayed Fridays failure for the bill as a fresh start: Now we have a chance to do it right, he said in a Twitter message.

Other Republicans, including Hutchinson and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, said they dont want the issue to die  although Trump and congressional Republicans say they intend to move on to other parts of their agenda.

The demise of the Republican plan emboldened some of those seeking an expansion of the governments role in health care. New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Democrat running for governor, said Friday that he wants to ignite discussions on single-payer health care.

I hope, with todays failure, Republicans will come to their senses and realize cutting benefits, increasing rates and giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy is not the basis for improving healthcare, he said in a statement.

Associated Press reporters Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this article.
BAGHDAD  The U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq said Friday that it was investigating reports that scores of civilians  perhaps as many as 200, residents said  had been killed in recent U.S. airstrikes in Mosul, the northern Iraqi city at the center of an offensive to drive out the Islamic State.

If confirmed, the series of airstrikes would rank among the highest civilian death tolls in a U.S. air mission since the United States went to war in Iraq in 2003. And the reports of civilian deaths in Mosul came immediately after two recent incidents in Syria, where the coalition is also battling the Islamic State from the air, in which activists and local residents said dozens of civilians had been killed.

Taken together, the surge of reported civilian deaths raised questions about whether once-strict rules of engagement meant to minimize civilian casualties were being relaxed under the Trump administration, which has vowed to fight the Islamic State more aggressively.

U.S. military officials insisted Friday that the rules of engagement had not changed. They acknowledged, however, that U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq had been heavier in an effort to press the Islamic State on multiple fronts.

Col. John J. Thomas, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said that the military was seeking to determine whether the explosion in Mosul might have been prompted by a U.S. or coalition airstrike, or was a bomb or booby trap placed by the Islamic State.

Its a complicated question, and weve literally had people working nonstop throughout the night to understand it, Thomas said in an interview. He said the explosion and the reasons behind it had gotten attention at the highest level.

As to who was responsible, he said, at the moment, the answer is: We dont know.

Iraqi officers, though, say they know exactly what happened: Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi, a commander of the Iraqi special forces, said that the civilian deaths were a result of a coalition airstrike that his men had called in, to take out snipers on the roofs of three houses in a neighborhood called Mosul Jidideh. Saadi said the special forces were unaware that the houses basements were filled with civilians.

After the bombing we were surprised by the civilian victims, the general said, and I think it was a trap by ISIS to stop the bombing operations and turn public opinion against us.

Saadi said he had demanded that the coalition pause its air campaign to assess what happened and to take stricter measures to prevent more civilian victims. Another Iraqi special forces officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that there had been a noticeable relaxing of the coalitions rules of engagement since President Donald Trump took office.

Before, Iraqi officers were highly critical of the Obama administrations rules, saying that many requests for airstrikes were denied because of the risk that civilians would be hurt. Now, the officer said, it has become much easier to call in airstrikes.

Some U.S. military officials had also chafed at what they viewed as long and onerous White House procedures for approving strikes under the Obama administration. Trump has indicated that he is more inclined to delegate authority for launching strikes to the Pentagon and commanders in the field.

This is the second time this week that the military has opened an investigation into civilian deaths reported to have been caused by U.S. airstrikes. On Tuesday, Central Command said it was investigating a U.S. airstrike in Syria on March 16 that officials said killed dozens of Qaida operatives at a meeting place that activists and local residents maintain was part of a religious complex.

While Defense Department officials acknowledged that the building was near a mosque, they called it an al-Qaida meeting site in Jina, in Aleppo province.

Pentagon officials said that intelligence had indicated that al-Qaida used the partly constructed community meeting hall as a gathering place and as a place to educate and indoctrinate fighters.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 49 people had been killed in what the group described as a massacre of civilians who were undergoing religious instruction in an assembly hall and dining area for worshippers. The group has produced photos taken at the site after the strike that show a black sign outside a still-standing adjoining structure that identified it as part of the Omar ibn al-Khatab mosque.

Chris Woods, director of the observatory, a nonprofit group that monitors civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, said that in March alone the number of reported civilian fatalities has shot up to 1,058, from 465 in December, the last full month of the Obama administration.

We dont know whether thats a reflection of the increased tempo of the campaign or whether it reflects changes in the rules of engagement, he said. But, he added, the recent spike in numbers does suggest something has shifted.

U.S. military officials said that what has shifted is that the Iraqi military, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, is in the middle of its biggest fight so far  the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

In particular, the campaign for West Mosul has involved block-by-block fighting in an urban environment.

Theres been no loosening of the rules of engagement, said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. There are three major offensives going on right now, at the same time, he said, citing the battle for West Mosul; the encirclement of Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic States de facto capital; and the fight for the Tabqa Dam in Syria.

Davis said that the investigation was looking into whether Islamic State fighters were responsible for the explosion in Mosul, or if an airstrike set something off.

There are other people on the battlefield, too, he said. Its close quarters.

U.S. officials said that even the timing of the strike was still in question. Col. Joseph E. Scrocca, a spokesman for the U.S.-led command in Baghdad, said in a statement Friday that the strike under investigation happened between March 17 and Thursday.

The civilian death toll in Mosul was already widely described as heavy on account of Islamic State snipers and bombs, and intensified urban fighting in which artillery has been used. But there have been numerous reports from witnesses, including rescue workers and residents fleeing the fighting, about bodies being buried under rubble after heavy air bombardment.

Many of the reports centered on the Mosul Jidideh neighborhood, where residents said airstrikes hit several houses in recent days, killing dozens, including many children.

Capt. Ahmed Nuri, a soldier with Iraqs elite counterterrorism forces, who work closely with the U.S. military and call in airstrikes, said Thursday that his men, facing heavy sniper fire, helped collect five bodies from the rubble of a destroyed home. He said four of them were brothers  named Ali, Omar, Khalid and Saad  whose bodies were delivered to their grieving mother.

The mother, Nuri said, identified the fifth dead body as that of an Islamic State sniper who had been firing at advancing Iraqi forces from the roof of their house.

Local officials have reacted with outrage at the latest civilian deaths, warning that they will make it more difficult to fully take the city, and will alienate civilians still in Mosul, whom the Iraqi government is counting on for assistance.

The repeated mistakes will make the mission to liberate Mosul from Daesh harder, and will push civilians still living under Daesh to be uncooperative with the security forces, said Abdulsattar Alhabu, the mayor of Mosul, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

Alhabu estimated that at least 200 civilians had been killed in airstrikes in recent days in Mosul.
PARIS  Marine Le Pen, the French far rights presidential candidate, has never hidden her admiration for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and on Friday she met with him in the Kremlin.

Russian television broadcast images of Le Pen, gesticulating energetically across the table from a disengaged-looking Putin. Earlier, she called for developing relations with Russia and cooperation in anti-terrorism. Both were nods to her presidential campaign platform, which advocates closer ties with Putin, friendliness toward President Donald Trump and rejection of the European Union.

The meeting highlighted the potential for a general realignment of relations with Russia, even when Moscow has been accused of meddling in Western elections through computer hacking and the promotion of fake news.

The Trump administration has shown itself sympathetic to Moscow, to the extent that pre-election contacts between the two sides are being investigated in the United States. In a crucial election year in Europe, campaigns are peppered with parties and candidates that could redirect relations with Moscow.

Russian television reported that Le Pen had met earlier with parliamentary deputies in Moscow, while calling for the lifting of sanctions against Russia for its land grab in Ukraine.

Le Pens foreign policy positions in the 2017 campaign  Le Pen is favored to win in a first round of voting April 23 but lose in the second round  have a clear pro-Russian tilt. Aides have praised Le Pens ideological closeness to Trump and Putin.

Shes the only one who can speak with both Putin and Trump, one of Le Pens top lieutenants, Jean-Lin Lacapelle, said two weeks ago. Shes got a privileged relationship with Putin, said Lacapelle, a longtime friend of Le Pen. You cant be isolated when youve got both Putin and Trump on your side.

Asked whether the Le Pen campaign was in touch with Trump officials, Lacapelle would say only, There are lots of things going on.

In a nationalist speech to diplomats in Paris last month, Le Pen criticized the European Union, which she wants France to leave, for having mistreated Russia, calling Russia an indispensable interlocutor in the Middle East.
Just hours after President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan failed to replace Obamacare, there was an immediate reminder that fight against the current administration is on many fronts. More than 100 protesters gathered in Columbus Circle to express their outrage over the White House's approval yesterday for the completion of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The construction of the $8 billion TransCanada KXL Pipeline, which would transport oil directly from the drilling fields of Canada and North Dakota to refineries and export facilities along the Gulf Coast, was rejected by President Obama in 2015. Opponents of the pipeline fear the potential for environmental disaster along the route, and insist that it also sends the wrong message to a world struggling with how to deal with the effects of climate change.

The president of TransCanada, Russ Girling, said yesterday, "This is a significant milestone for the Keystone XL project. We greatly appreciate President Trump's Administration for reviewing and approving this important initiative and we look forward to working with them as we continue to invest in and strengthen North America's energy infrastructure."

While the State Department issued a permit for construction, the Wall Street Journal notes, the pipeline " still faces state-level legal challenges in Nebraska and South Dakota that could cause further delays. TransCanada needed approval from the State Department because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canadian border."

The Rally to Save Our Planet From KXL and Trump, began across from the Trump International Hotel, with chanting and a few speeches from local environmental groups like NYRenews and 350 NYC. Dozens of people then marched to Governor Andrew Cuomo's office in Midtown East, passing through Time Square on the way. The latter is always a strange, discordant venue for a protest, with bright LED-enabled consumerism and packs of tourists often overwhelming the message of a march.



Protesters and the Times Square characters (Scott Lynch / Gothamist)

The NYPD kept a close watch on the No KXL march the entire waythe protesters were relegated to sidewalks, pedestrian plazas, and, as it happens, bike lanesand helped with traffic. There was no tension between the two groups.

At the Governor's office building, there were a few more speechesthe message here was that if the Federal government won't help fight climate change, the State needs to raise its profile in that departmentand then many protesters left to join the NYC Resists Hate Crimes march, across town, a concurrent action sparked by white supremacist James Jackson's hate-crime murder of Timothy Caughman.
SANTA ANA  A 19-year-old Santa Ana gang member who shot at officers responding to a domestic dispute was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison.

Oscar Freddie Torres pleaded guilty Nov. 29 to grossly negligent discharge of a firearm in a plea deal that dropped attempted murder charges.

Torres also admitted sentencing enhancement allegations for the personal use of a firearm and criminal street gang activity, according to court records.

Two counts each of attempted murder on a peace officer and assault with a weapon not a firearm on a peace officer were dismissed.

Police described Torres as a self-admitted/documented gang member.

Police were called to a residence in the 400 block of South Hesperian Street just before 4:45 p.m. on Aug. 13, to handle a family disturbance, according to Santa Ana police.

When officers arrived, Torres opened fire in their direction multiple times, but they did not return fire and escaped injury, police said. Torres ran away, but was later arrested at his nearby residence.


Democracy Under Threat, but Americans Concerned with Other Things Wed., Oct. 19, 2022 Americans believe that our current form of government is under threat of disappearing, yet most dont think this threat is the biggest problem facing the country, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.
Agricultural News

Oklahoma State Extension Says Over Sixteen Million Dollars in Losses to Agriculture as a Result of Northwest Oklahoma Fire Complex

The numbers have been crunched: the March 7 wildfires that ravaged parts of Beaver, Harper and Woodward counties had an economic impact exceeding $16 million.







"In Oklahoma, more than 310 thousand acres burned causing a wide variety of losses to livestock, pastures, hay, fences and facilities," said Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension livestock marketing specialist. "Estimates of losses based on preliminary information currently available sum to a total of $14.6 million for cattle operations."







In addition, the Plum Thicket Sow Farm owned by Smithfield sustained losses of some 4,000 sows and an unknown number of weaning pigs. According to Smithfield officials, at leasat six sow barns were destroyed. Peel said hog farm losses of animals and facilities likely total $2 million dollars or more.







Estimated cattle industry losses in Oklahoma include:

? $6.7 million for fence replacement and repair;

? $3.5 million for livestock killed or destroyed as a result of the fire plus veterinary costs and reduced value of surviving injured animals;



? $2.2 million for burned facilities and corrals;

? $1.3 million for emergency feed; and



? $920,000 for burned pasture and hay.







"These estimates are based in part on preliminary totals of some 3,000 head of cattle lost and more than 1,100 miles of fences impacted," Peel said. "The current totals do not include any estimates for equipment losses, meaning estimates may increase as a more comprehensive assessment of the losses is completed."







Although the losses incurred in the fires will have significant and long-lasting financial impacts on the operations and families affected, Peel said no significant market impacts on livestock prices are expected.







"The losses incurred are very personal, both in terms of those directly affected and the outpouring of support from volunteers," said Darrell McBee, Harper County Extension Office director and agricultural educator.







As the region's primary coordinator of relief efforts, McBee said help has been rushing in from individuals, groups and organizations from 30 states encompassing everything from much-needed hay to sustain surviving livestock, to milk replacer used to feed calves orphaned by the wildfires, to fencing supplies, bottled water and much more; not to mention providing actual on-site labor and equipment for hauling hay, bottle feeding calves and rebuilding fence lines.







"We took phone calls from more than 3,000 people during the first 10 days," McBee said. "The outpouring of support has really showcased that America really is an extended community when the need arises."







The Harper County Extension Office is part of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, a state agency administered by Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.







"Our Cooperative Extension staff and faculty from northwestern Oklahoma and across the state have been stalwarts, investing their time, expertise and hard work in meeting the needs of farmers and ranchers in the region affected by the fire," said Tom Coon, OSU vice president of agricultural programs and DASNR dean and director.







"Their dedication reminds us of the importance of having a network of county Extension offices across the state that are meeting needs on a recurring basis and can respond quickly to emergencies," he said.







Anyone wishing to make donations or seeking additional information about the relief effort should contact the Harper County Extension Office by phone at 580-735-2252.







Source- OSU Extension (with additional information added on Smithfield Hog Farm)









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Omaha police arrested eight people and used pepper balls to disperse counterprotesters at a Make America Great Again rally Saturday in front of the Douglas County Courthouse.

The 2 p.m. rally drew about 100 people for what was billed as an event to show support for President Donald Trump, veterans, first responders and law enforcement.

An estimated 50 counterprotesters on hand were told to gather at the base of the stairs to the courthouse. A few minutes into the rally, another group about the same size, with people wearing all black and concealing their faces  a tactic known as black bloc  marched past the rally. Many in that group were associated with the group Antifa Nebraska, which calls itself an anti-fascist organization.

More than a dozen police officers, a few on horseback and others with bicycles, attempted to push that group back with a barricade of their bicycles, yelling Get back! Moments later, police fired pepper balls at the feet of the protesters, releasing a stinging gas. One woman fell to the ground, saying she had been hit with one of the balls. Minutes later she limped down stairs on the other side of the courthouse. Police called for an ambulance. No one was taken to a hospital.

About a half dozen protesters were pulled from the crowd by officers; some were pushed to the ground and handcuffed.

The people who were arrested were booked into the Douglas County Jail on suspicion of crimes such as disorderly conduct, carrying a concealed weapon, unlawfully throwing fireworks and committing acts tending to incite a riot.

Smoke in the area came from a smoke device deployed by an anti-Trump protester, a police spokesman said.

The commotion did not disrupt the rally. It continued even after the black bloc protesters were dispersed.

Eris Koleszar, 31, didnt agree with the use of pepper balls. She was among protesters standing at the base of the stairs before the group in black arrived.

The black bloc protesters are making a strong stance that is much needed, she said. But it definitely escalated with police as soon as they arrived.

Melynda Ream, 27, attended the rally as a Trump supporter.

Its very upsetting that neither side can exercise freedom of speech peacefully right now.

Shayla McShannon, 36, also was at the rally to support Trump. She said she would have liked to have had the chance to talk with the protesters and felt bad for those who were not in the group wearing black.

I know police maybe couldnt differentiate between who was causing a problem, but all of the protesters lost their voice because of this, she said. Today was a perfect example of how divided we have all gotten.

Despite the disruption, Jon Tucker, chairman of the Douglas County Republican Party, said the rally was a success.

Im just thankful that people showed up on a cold, rainy day, Tucker said. A lot of Trump supporters have felt silenced. I hope this was a way to feel heard, too.

At a Make America Great Again rally on Saturday in Huntington Beach, California, a protester was tackled by Trump supporters after he used pepper spray on the crowd of hundreds of Trump supporters.

Some supporters punched and kicked the protester, then chased the man as he ran off. The protester jumped over a fence and started running along the Pacific Coast Highway, where he was detained by California Highway Patrol officers.

A planned Rally for Democracy at Turner Park in Omaha was canceled Saturday because of wet conditions. Organizers of that event were the Womens March on Omaha, Indivisible Nebraskans and Suit Up Nebraska.

World-Herald staff writer Emerson Clarridge contributed to this report, which includes material from the Associated Press.
KEARNEY  The Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist most known for his iconic Napalm Girl image from the Vietnam War completed his last project as a full-time employee of the Associated Press this week when he photographed sandhill cranes in Nebraska.

My God, Ive never seen so many birds, Nick Ut said Thursday afternoon at Fort Kearny State Historical Park, one of the central Nebraska tour stops for 20 travel writers.

The writers spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Platte River blinds at Audubons Rowe Sanctuary. Ut said he probably took 500 photos during those times.

When I was in Japan and China, I shot (photographed) birds, Ut said. But he didnt see nearly as many birds there as he did along the Platte River. Now I know I can come to Nebraska.

Other tour activities for the writers included crane watching at The Crane Trust near Alda, seeing prairie chickens near McCook, and visiting art and history museums from North Platte to York.

I dont think a lot of people know about Nebraska. They think its just farming, but theres a lot to learn about Nebraska, Ut said, adding that he enjoyed calling friends during the North Platte stop to say he was at Buffalo Bills ranch.

Ut was encouraged to take the tour by his photographer friend Mark Edward Harris, who wanted to sign up. Ut said their plans were made before he decided to retire Wednesday from full-time work with the AP.

I love traveling in America because Ive never had time. Thats why I came to Nebraska, he said. This is my vacation, but this is for AP.

Ut never really is on vacation.

Whenever he has a camera in his hands, he looks for photos to send to the AP. He said that will continue in retirement when he does freelance assignments, travels the world to present photo workshops, and returns to Vietnam two to three times a year to visit family and support a hospital by delivering toys and donating prints from the Vietnam era for fundraisers.

He knows what he will be thinking when he walks into the APs office for his final few full-time days in a 51-year career. The company is like family, Ut said.

Most importantly, retirement will allow him to spend more time with his grandchildren and travel with his wife.

Ut never could have dreamed of such activities while growing up in South Vietnam as the 11th of 12 children.

His career started with a personal tragedy: an older brother he idolized who had been hired by the AP was killed in 1965 when the soldiers he was with were overrun by Viet Cong rebels. At his brothers funeral, Ut asked the photo editor at the APs Saigon Bureau for a job.

Ut was hired on Jan. 1, 1966, at age 15. Banned from war zones, he was permitted only to do darkroom work and shoot feature photos around Saigon. Then the war came near his village in 1968 and Ut became a combat photographer at age 17.

I loved the job right away, he said.

On June 8, 1972, he took the photo that still defines the Vietnam War.

While photographing napalm bombs falling on the village of Trang Bang, he saw terrified children running away. They included 9-year-old Kim Phuc, naked and with skin being burned off her body.

Ut took the photo, but then gave first aid to Phuc and took her to a hospital.

Im so lucky that I took that picture. That picture changed my life, he said, when asked about doing his most honored work at age 21.

A huge change was the notoriety that came from receiving the Pulitzer Prize. Ut said he learned that the photo was named best war image. His friends told him he was going to win the Pulitzer Prize, but he didnt believe them until he returned from a photo assignment and saw they had organized a celebration party.

He keeps the award at home, but the Leica camera he used to take the photo is displayed at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Ut said the image helped spark antiwar protests that are credited with helping end U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He often has been approached by American veterans who thank him for taking a photo that allowed them to come home early or not go to Vietnam.

That keeps me happy, too, he said.

The terror-filled encounter with Ut on the village road nearly 45 years ago also changed  saved  Kim Phucs life.

Ut said he and Phuc became friends as she recovered from her injuries and he returned to her village every few weeks. However, they lost touch in 1975 when Americans and many South Vietnamese rushed to leave the country after the fall of Saigon.

Ut was in California for a short time and then assigned to the APs Tokyo Bureau for two years. Thats where he met his Vietnamese wife, Hong Huynh.

I told her, 'I am a photojournalist, and Im never home, if you want to marry me,'  Ut said. They moved to Los Angeles in 1977.

Ut said that if he were a young man today wanting to work as a war photographer, he would not get married because he wouldnt want to leave his wife and two children home alone so much.

Ut was shot three times while working in Vietnam and thought he likely would die as his brother had. He said he took chances then he wouldnt take today.

No matter what Ut does in retirement, one thing will be true.

I will always take pictures, never stop, he said. This camera is like my doctor. ... Ill only really retire if my (shutter button) finger is hurt.
A blend of development and Hindutva: Tracking Yogi Aditynath's Parliament record

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

One of the biggest news after the Bharatiya Janata Party won the Uttar Pradesh elections was the appointment of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister. Since taking over as the CM, he has made all the right noises and has been in the media for a considerable amount of time.

Questions were asked of the BJP after Yogi, a controversial person was appointed as CM of UP, the most populous state in the country. Yogi brought with him a mix of both development and Hindutva and this was the perfect blend for the BJP.

Yogi is a five-time MP and at the age of 44 has already made a mark in Indian politics. He has not been a back-bencher in Parliament. He has taken part is debates and has an impressive attendance.

As per prsindia.org, his attendance was 77 per cent. He has taken part in 57 debates and asked 284 questions. The detailed list of Yogi Adityanath's performance in the Lok Sabha0 can be found here:

A blend of Hindutva and development:

During his debates, he has focussed heavily on both issues concerning Hindus and development. He has raised issues such as river pollution and rising cases of encephalitis. On the one hand, he has focused on cow slaughter, protection of Hindu rights, protection for Hindu pilgrims, uniform civil code.

He also played a major role in the discussions on the Enemy Property Bill which was recently passed in Parliament. He has raised questions about the rise of the Islamic State and radicalisation.

On the other hand, most of his questions were directed at the health department. He raised questions such as corruption in medical bodies and what measures were being taken to control population explosion.

In this questions to the Home ministry, he asked about measures being taken to control the rise of the IS, radicalisation, extremism by Christian separatists as well.

Data would show that 8.5 per cent of his debates were related to the railway budget. Eleven per cent of his debates were focused around Hinduism. He sought to know what was being done about the facilities for Amarnath Yatris, the reorganisation of the Amarnath Shrine board, and also lifting the ban on the Kailash Manasasarovar Yatra to Nepal.

He also asked questions about pollution of Indian rivers. Five debates were around eradication of encephalitis and Japanese encephalitis. There were also five debates around central university status to the Gorakhpur University, the constituency he represents. He also took part in four debates on carving out a separate Poorvanchal state from eastern UP.

OneIndia News
BJP's win in MCD should root out AAP: Amit Shah at Ramlila Maidan

India

oi-Anusha

"I urge our party workers to put their hearts into ensuring a victory for the party in the MCD polls. It is not just a battle to win Municipal corporation of Delhi but a step towards rooting out the Aam Aadmi Party in all future elections," Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah told party workers at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on Saturday. The stage is set for the Delhi municipal corporation polls and Shah's address made it clear that the real fight is between them and the AAP. Shah's message to the party cadre was loud and clear, win MCD to root out AAP.

After the landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls, the BJP wants to recreate the magic in Delhi Civic polls. Addressing booth level workers ahead of the Municipal Corporation Delhi polls in Ramlila Maida, Shah kickstarted BJP's massive campaign.

Shah attacked the Aam Aadmi Party accusing it of corruption. "No other party has done as much corruption as AAP did during their tenure in Delhi. Not one of two but 13 legislators of the AAP have been booked for criminal cases ever since AAP won elections in Delhi," Shah said.

Reiterating that the BJP won the five state polls on the agenda of development, he assured the same for Delhi. Taking a dig at AAP's performance in Goa and Punjab, Shah said that Kejriwal had made promises to the people of Delhi but only made a record of losing elections.

OneIndia News
Beware railways, Ravindra Gaikwad is on a train

India

oi-Anusha

After finding himself 'checked off' off all airlines, Shiv Sena MP and defiant assaulter Ravindra Gaikwad took a train to Pune. The member of Parliament from Maharashtra's Osmanabad constituency was taught a lesson on the importance of being 'grounded' by the association of airlines after he assaulted a 60-year-old crew member of Air India.

[College teacher, politician and rowdy: Is this what Ravindra Gaikwad teaches?]

Gaikwad was forced to take a train to Pune after Air India and IndiGo airlines cancelled his return tickets from Delhi. While keeping their staff safe from the ever-angry neta, the airlines have put the railway staff in jeopardy. Gaikwad is now a potential threat to railway staff.

The politician had to upgrade himself from business class air travel to a night-long journey on the train after airlines decided to show him what happens when he assaults a crew member with slippers. Gaikwad had to board the August Kranti Express from Delhi's Hazrat Nizamuddin station instead of flying high after two airline companies cancelled his tickets.

Considering the history of the passenger travelling with them, the railway authorities are better warned to keep alert and keep safe. From charges of culpable homicide to thrusting food down a fasting Muslim's throat, Gaikwad is a repeat offender.

A spokesperson from the railways said that Gaikwad received spot reservation since he was an MP and was allotted berth number 21 in the A1 compartment. Had there not been a seat and had the MP once again gone on his 'usual assaulting spree', would the railways have banned him too? While Gaikwad remained defiant and refused to apologise to the victim, he perhaps realised it was best to shut up rather than invite wrath of the public and bring more shame to his party and post. Gaikwad refused to comment further on the incident and told media persons that his party chief 'Udhavv Thackeray or Anil Desai would comment on it.

His party, Shiv Sena, has sought an explanation from the MP while defending him throughout, while the Delhi police have registered two FIRs against him which could lead to his arrest. Did the MP leave Delhi to avoid arrest? The MP instead of apologising had bragged about assaulting the victim 25 times with his slipper. What's more, he told the media that if the police were to arrest him, his party chief 'Uddhav saheb will take care of it.'

OneIndia News
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: Fire breaks out amid Chhath Puja celebrations in Aurangabad; many critical

Bihar: BJP and allies protest against hike in power rates

India

pti-PTI

Patna, Mar 25:The BJP led NDA on Saturday protested the sharp hike in power rates and demanded its roll back in the state assembly.

There Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar criticised the Nitish Kumar government for the astronomical hike in power rates and demanded its recall.

Former chief minister and BJP's ally Hindustani Awam Morcha chief Jitan Ram Manjhi also sought withdrawal of the new tariff.

Energy Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav made a statement saying the state goverment had decided to provide subsidy directly to consumers from the next financial year.

"We will study the BERC tariff comprehensively keeping consumers interest in mind and take a decision in the next 2-3 days on the rate of electricity before the new rate becomes operational from April 1, 2017," Yadav said.

Earlier 12 BJP MLAs served adjourned notice, but it was turned down by Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary.

PTI
BJP accuses AAP of siphoning off money meant for welfare of construction workers

BJP to hold national executive meet in Odisha on April 15

India

pti-PTI

Bhubaneswar, Mar 25: BJP will hold its two-day national executive meeting in the Odisha capital from April 15, to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party national president Amit Shah, senior leader L K Advani and others.

Announcing this on Saturday, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, said, "The Prime Minister will come to Odisha to thank the people for their unprecedented support to the BJP in the recent panchayat polls."

BJP state president Basant Panda said that the national executive meeting in Odisha will further encourage the party workers and local leaders for the 2019 general elections.

Senior party leader MM Joshi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and other party leaders will also be present at the meeting.

[Also read: BJP's win in MCD should root out AAP: Amit Shah at Ramlila Maidan]

Pradhan said the chief ministers of all the BJP ruled states will attend the meet. Party in-charge of Odisha Arun Singh and national joint secretary Soudan Singh will visit the state on Sunday to oversee the preparations for the meeting, he said.

PTI
BSF recieves its first woman field officer

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Bhopal, March 25: The Border Security Force on Saturday received its first woman field officer after a convocation ceremony conducted in the BSF academy at Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district.

Tanushree Pareek, a resident of Rajasthan, led the passing-out parade at the BSF Academy as the first woman field officer. She was also felicitated at the ceremony.

Attended passing out parade of BSF Assistant Commandants and witnessed several demonstrations given by BSF units in Tekanpur today pic.twitter.com/7p71uZKfnE  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) March 25, 2017

Congratulating the BSF, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said," I am happy that BSF has got its first woman field officer and hope that many more women will join her in securing our borders."

Pareek started training last year in a 52-week Assistant Commandant training programme with the 40th batch of the BSF academy.

IANS
Gujarat: Kejriwal cancels Sunday's visit in view of MCD polls

India

pti-PTI

Ahmedabad, Mar 25: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has cancelled his visit to Gujarat scheduled for Sunday as he is currently busy preparing for the next month's Delhi civic body polls.

"AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal will not be attending the Gandhinagar meeting. We have been told that he is busy with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls where names of candidates are being finalised," Aam Aadmi Party Saurashtra zone convener Kanu Kalsaria told reporters in Ahmedabad on Saturday.

"But tomorrow's programme will be held as per schedule in the presence of party's Gujarat in-charge, Gopal Rai," he said.

For Sunday's event, volunteers from across the 182 assembly segments in the state will gather at Chhavni Maidan in the state capital to discuss strategies for the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections and plan its door-to-door campaign. The Delhi civic body will go to polls on April 23.

PTI
How UAE and India are plotting the end of Dawood Ibrahim

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

With the United Arab Emirates government already probing his properties and the Enforcement Directorate filing a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, it appears that bad days for Dawood Ibrahim have begun. There are several business interests and properties of Dawood which have been identified in Dubai, and India is working closely with the UAE to seize them.

[India forms crack team to track Dawood]

The first move was made when National Security Advisor Ajit Doval visited UAE in 2015. He had handed over a list of properties with a request to seize them. The UAE on its part launched an independent investigation and even verified the properties.

Now the ED has decided to file a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, which would facilitate the seizure soon. The ED after collecting material and necessary evidence can place a formal request under the law to the UAE to seize the property. If ascertained that the facts are right, then the properties can be auctioned as well.

The investigations conducted in the UAE were based on the list given by India. A dossier prepared by India listed several properties and made a mention about a company known as Golden Box being run in Dubai. The dossier states that this company is being run by Anis Ibrahim, Dawood's brother.

The list of properties also includes hotels. The ED had narrowed down on the list of properties. It had listed out 50 prime properties owned by Dawood and his associates across 10 countries. ED officials are trying to gather more information on the properties owned by the D Gang in several other nations.

He has investments in Morocco, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Thailand, Cyprus, Turkey, India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.

The worth of these properties as per a preliminary probe indicates is worth over Rs 3,000 crore.

In all, the D-gang owns 50 properties in 10 different countries. All the properties have are benami. So far, the most concrete link that has been established between the D-gang and the properties is through Iqbal Mirchi.

OneIndia News
India's youngest father at 12, Kerala pre-teen booked under POCSO

India

oi-Anusha

The Kerala police booked a 12-year-old under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for fathering a child with a 16-year-old girl. Kochi police booked the minor after paternity tests confirmed that he was indeed the biological father of a baby girl born two months ago. The young parents are cousins and the new mother had named the 12-year-old boy as the father of the child shocking the family and the police alike.

The 12-year-old is now the youngest father in the country but faces charges of rape. Based on the statement of the young boy, the police also filed a case against the young mother under section 7 and 8 of POCSO. The case has become a challenging one for the police since both are minors and lack of clarity on who could be held as the perpetrator and who the victim.

The Kochi police said that the cases were filed against both minors after legal advice. Both their statements were filed with the local court in Kochi. Both minors have been shifted to an undisclosed location for counselling.

OneIndia News
Tickets for Muslims depends on winnability says BJP's Yedduyrapa

India

oi-Anusha

Muslim candidates are unlikely to find any place in the Bharatiya Janata Party's list for the upcoming assembly polls in 2018. State president B S Yeddyurappa on Friday told the media that the party does not have the confidence of winning seats by fielding candidates from the minority community. The BJP's resounding victory in Uttar Pradesh without fielding a single candidate from the Muslim community seems to have caught the Karnataka unit's eyes.

"Whether in Uttar Pradesh or Karnataka, we do not have the confidence of fielding a candidate from the minority community and winning the seat," Yeddyurappa told media persons. While he had rebelled against the BJP and contested the 2013 assembly elections under Karnataka Janata Paksha, the BJP had no Muslim candidates too.

Yeddyurappa added that the BJP did not believe in politics of minority appeasement and would contest with development as agenda. While it is too early to state if the party may change its stand closer to the polls, the state president's statement surely comes as disappointment for aspiring candidates of the party from the minority community.

OneIndia News
Karnataka Congress unperturbed by Krishna's exit, confident of win

India

pti-PTI

Bengaluru, Mar 25: Karnataka Congress on Saturday expressed confidence over the party coming back to power in 2018, but the party maintained a caution in the remarks against veteran leader S M Krishna, who left the party and joined BJP.

"S M Krishna is a senior. I don't want to comment on him or his remarks, but one thing is clear, Congress is strong in the state and we are sure that we will come back to power in 2018," state party chief G Parameshwara told reporters in Bengaluru.

He said the government's commitment in fulfilling the promises made to people, its developmental works and the programmes with social justice background reaching the poor gave confidence to the party about returning back to power.

Krishna who joined BJP on March 22, weeks after ending his nearly 50-years long association with the Congress, has said that Congress needed to be rebuilt but saw 'no seriousness' on the part of its leadership.

Also taking a dig at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, he had said that the politics is a serious business and not a "hit-and-run job". Asked about the impact of Krishna joining the party on Nanjanagudu and Gundlupete Assembly by-polls, Parameshwara said it is for the people to decide.

He has now officially joined the BJP and said he has accepted its principles. He has to naturally work for the party in Nanjanagudu and Gundlupete. Congress will do its our work. It was the people who would decide, he said.

Elections will be held for Gundlupete and Nanjangudu constituencies respectively on April 9 following the death of Cooperative Minister Mahadeva Prasad and resignation of V Srinivas Prasad as Congress MLA after he was dropped from the ministry.

To a reporter's question that according to Krishna, Congress has no future, Parameshwara said people would decide on the future of any party whether it is Congress or BJP.

Parameshwara however did not wish to comment on Krishna's allegations about seniors being sidelined in the Congress loosing connect with the people. Krishna has now gone out of the party and he was now free to say anything, Parameshwara said.

PTI
Law doesn't permit airlines banning passengers: Govt

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Mar 24: On a day domestic airlines decided to unitedly 'ban' Shiv Sena Member of Parliament Ravindra Gaikwad from flying on their aircraft for assaulting an Air India officer, the government said there was no law under which such proscription can be made.

Minister of State for Law PP Chaudhary told a private television news channel that if a person commits a crime he can be punished but he cannot be prevented from flying.

"There is no such law that restricts a person from flying. If somebody has committed a crime, then you can punish him. But refusing a ticket is no punishment when there is no such law. And, to my knowledge, there is no such law," Chaudhary said.

Earlier in the day, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha reportedly said the legality of the ban needed to be examined.

"We have to see if this action of the airlines is within the framework of law," Sinha said.

However, airlines defended the move, saying imposing a ban on a person from flying is very much within their jurisdiction.

Sources in Air India cited Chapter IV of Carriage by Air Act, 1972, which confers on the airlines the right to refuse a ticket to any person.

Sources also cited Rule 22 and 23 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937, to justify the ban on Gaekwad.

The rules state that "no person on-board an aircraft shall assault, intimidate or threaten, whether physically or verbally a crew member/ any person...which is likely to endanger the safety of the aircraft or of any person."

As per Schedule VI of Aircraft Rules, 1937 such an offence is punishable with imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or with fine not exceeding Rs 5 lakh.

Meanwhile, Gaikwad boarded Hazrat Nizamuddin-Rajdhani for Mumbai on Friday evening. According to television news channel Times Now, Gaikwad boarded the train from Nizamuddin Railway Station in New Delhi, but disembarked at Mathura station complaining of chest pain.

PTI

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, March 25, 2017, 12:48 [IST]
Maken interacts with Delhiites on FB live for MCD polls

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Mar 24: Interacting with Delhiites on a Facebook live session, the Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken hit out at AAP and BJP and explained his party's vision for a financially self reliant municipal corporations in the city.

The live question-answer session 'Dillikibaat, Dilkesaath' was joined by about 8000 viewers who posed over 2000 questions to Maken who replied 220 queries before moving to a video interaction with the audience.

"It is important to reach out to the audience through multiple social media platforms in order to expose the massive misgovernance of AAP and BJP in Delhi," Maken said.

He stressed that unless the MCDs are made financially self-reliant and enabled to generate their own funds, they cannot meet the expectations of the people "Delhi is the dirtiest city in India, thanks to misgovernance and corruption in MCD. Unprecedented 407 people died in 2015 because of Dengue and more than 300 during 2016," he said in a reply to another question.

The Facebook event revolved around the fiscal roadmap that was recently released by the Congress, said a statement released by the party.

PTI
Neither beef nor chicken, mutton or egg. UP traders go on strike

India

oi-Anusha

Meat traders in Lucknow have called for a strike starting Saturday in protest of government's crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses and their effects on livelihoods. Association of meat traders called for shops to be shut starting Saturday practically creating a meat supply crisis in parts of Uttar Pradesh.

"The indefinite strike begins from Saturday. We had advised those who had stocks to sell them all by end of day on Friday and shut shops on Saturday. Supply vehicles have also been stopped," said Mohamed Rizwan Siddiqui, the member of Lucknow Murga Mandi Samiti to newspapers.

Shops in Azad market area, Qaiserbagh market in Lucknow, Atala in Allahabad and parts of Varanasi saw meat shops down shutters as early as Friday afternoon. The traders' association claims that crackdown on illegal slaughter houses has impacted the livelihood of those who are dependent on them and the strike is in solidarity with them.

The strike is expected to be extended to other parts of the state which will impact almost all non-vegetarians in the state. Many eateries had complained of losing business as an impact of the closure of slaughterhouses and the situation is likely to worsen with this strike.

OneIndia News
'Rowdy Gaikwad', our parents told us assault is wrong

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

While the response by the 'rowdy' Member of Parliament Ravindra Gaikwad to the Air India incident was a shameless one, the reaction by his party Shiv Sena was even more shocking. Good parents often teach their children that no matter what, assault is not the solution. I am sure that Gaikwad's parents too may have taught him that, but then he clearly did not take that advise.

[Rowdy Gaikwad: Hitting a 60 year old is not machoism]

The Sena from the time the incident came to light never had the right statement to make. They continued to defend their leader despite evidence showing him assaulting the Air India staffer. The Sena did not both condemning the incident, despite 'rowdy' Gaikwad confessing shamelessly on camera that he had indeed assaulted the staffer.

[College teacher, politician and rowdy: Is this what Ravindra Gaikwad teaches?]

What did Sena's Manisha Kayande mean when she said that Gaikwad known as 'Ravi sir' is respected in his constituency? "He has done a lot to solve the the drinking water problem," she said. Miss Manisha, please remember quenching the thirst of people in a constituency does not mean 'rowdy' Gaikwad can be blood thirsty.

Also Kayande must understand that Gaikwad did not do the people of Osmanbad ((his constituency) a favour by providing drinking water. That is his job and that is what he has been elected for. Also Kayande must also realise that 'Ravi sir' has shoved a chapati down a fasting Muslim at the Maharashtra Sadan in New Delhi when he was upset about the quality of the food. Kayande must realise that the man she called 'Ravi sir' is a rowdy with a history.

Also Kayande must go back and check his affidavit. He has criminal charges pending against him. They include voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servants from duty, criminal intimidation and rioting. Is 'Ravi sir' justified of all this, Miss Kayande?

What the Sena must understand is that Goonda Raj is not going to work. There is a prime minister who is pushing hard for the development plank. Throwing the 'rowdy' Gaikwad out of the party will send across a strong message that the party wants to change its image. Development is what will win elections, not rowdyism.

OneIndia News
SEBI bars Mukesh Ambani's Reliance from futures trading for 1 year

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has banned Reliance Industries and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year and directed the Mukesh Ambani-led firm to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore for alleged fraudulent trading in a 10-year-old case.

"The order will be challenged," a spokesperson of the company said. PTI reported that Reliance Industries has been asked to disgorge Rs 447 crore, along with an annual interest of 12 per cent since November 29, 2007, which itself would be more than Rs 500 crore, taking the total disgorgement amount to nearly Rs 1,000 crore. The case related to alleged fraudulent trading in the F&O space in the securities of RILs erstwhile listed subsidiary Reliance Petroleum.

The order stated that the ban would be in force for one year. other entities that are banned are: Gujarat Petcoke and Petro Product supply, Aarthik Commercials, LPG Infrastructure India, Relpol Plastic Products, Fine Tech Commercials, Pipeline Infrastructure India, Motech software, Darshan Securities, Relogistics (India), Relogistics (Rajasthan), Vinamara Universal Traders and Dharti Investment and Holdings.

PTI reported that Reliance Industries group had earlier sought to settle the case, but SEBI had refused. The proceedings in the long-pending case were expedited in the last few months. Reliance Petroleum has been merged with the listed parent firm. Reliance Industries issued a statement with regards to the matter and has said that SEBI had imposed unjustifiable sanctions.

OneIndia News
Setback as Bihar train blast accused flees to Pakistan

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In a setback to the ongoing investigations into the Bihar train attack, a key accused has left Dubai for Pakistan. Shafi Sheikh, who guided the train attack moved to Pakistan from Dubai, according to a report of the intelligence agencies.

[Shafi Sheikh, the ISI man who gave the train derailment order]

His fleeing to Pakistan comes at a time when India was getting ready to extradite him. Sheikh was on the radar of the intelligence agencies since his name cropped up during the investigations.

His name had cropped several times in the past when intelligence agencies were tracking his activities in relation with the fake currency racket. Sheikh was planted in Dubai by the Inter-Services Intelligence to run the fake currency racket. He would receive fake currency from Pakistan in Dubai and then channelise the same to India.

Sheikh was running the Nepal module which attempted a blast on a railway track in Bihar. On October 1, 2016, Sheikh had contacted Shamshul Hoda in Nepal and directed him to plant a bomb on a railway track at Ghorasan in Motihari Bihar. The plan however failed as alert villagers spotted the pressure cooker bomb.

OneIndia News
Teachers raped daughter, drugged her to prevent pregnancy alleges Bikaner man

India

oi-Anusha

Eight teachers of a school in Bikaner were accused of gang-raping a minor and filming the act by the victim's father. The man alleged that the teachers had been abusing his daughter since April 2015 but a complaint was filed in this regard on Friday. In his statement, the man alleged that the teachers filmed the act and threatened his minor daughter who has been a victim of abuse for more than a year.

The victim's father alleged that his daughter was heavily drugged to prevent pregnancy. The girl in her statement to the police alleged that her teachers gave her heavy drugs to prevent pregnancy and the abuse continued for almost two years. The drugs they gave her took a toll on her health and she developed cancer-like symptoms. She is currently being treated at a cancer hospital.

Following the complaint, the local police registered cases under Indian Penal Code section 376-D and multiple sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The case is currently being investigated with no arrests reported yet. The police claim that one of the teachers had earlier filed a case of assault against the victim's cousins earlier in March.

OneIndia News
Not just future of Sena but democracy at stake, says Uddhav

Uddhav invited to PM's dinner to discuss President poll strategy

India

pti-PTI

Mumbai, Mar 25: Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray has been invited to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dinner party being hosted next week for the NDA allies to firm up the strategy for the upcoming presidential polls.

"Modi has called up the meeting of NDA constituents after Gudi Padwa, most likely on March 29, and Uddhav Thackeray will be present for the meeting," said Shiv Sena source.

"It is Modi ji's dinner diplomacy in which he will try and get consent over a name for the presidential election slated in July this year," a Sena leader said.

A central BJP leader, meanwhile, claimed that party stalwart Lal Krishna Advani, Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu are the among the prime aspirants for the post of President.

President Pranab Mukherjee had assumed the office on July 25, 2012, and thus, the next president has to be elected before July 25. All members of Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and various state assemblies are voters in Presidential elections.

"Though the BJP has majority in Lok Sabha and it is in power in several states, they do not want the allies to give any reason to complain. That is why Modi ji is to host the dinner," the Sena source said.

PTI
Bihar: Nitish Kumar swears in as CM for 8th time; Tejashwi Yadav to be Dy CM

Yet another setback for Nitish as 15 JDU Panchayat members join BJP in Daman & Diu

Would like to judge Adityanath by performance, says JD-U's Pawan Verma

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 25: It was an awkward moment of sorts when the panelists at a culture conclave were suddenly asked to share their perspectives on newly-appointed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Titled 'Culture and Nationalism', the panelists included former diplomat and author Pavan K Verma; professor and poet Makarand Paranjape, vedic scholar David Frawley; and columnist and writer, Sadia Dehlvi.

A close aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Pavan Verma said that he would not reach to hasty conclusions and judge Yogi on the basis of his performance.

"I would like to judge him by his performance, rather than passing a judgement everyday," Verma, a JD-U member of the Rajya Sabha, said.

Nitish Kumar, according to him, holds a similar view.

"This is the view that I have and even Nitish Kumar has said the same thing. Let us wait for six months time and see how he performs," he added.

Pavan Verma, on his part, reminded the audience that although it was too early to judge him, his performance would largely depend on maintaining communal harmony in the state and that all the steps that he takes must remain within the ambit of the law and the constitution.

A firebrand Hindutva icon, Yogi was sworn in as 21st Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on March 19.

Even as Verma's comments were welcomed with thunderous applause from the audience here, the views of his fellow-panelist provided room for further discussion.

"I mean what do I say? We have seen what happened to people," exclaimed Sadia Dehlvi, in what may have been an apparent reference to complaints against those posting 'objectionable' comments against the UP CM on facebook.

On March 21, at least four people were arrested in different parts of UP for this.

"His words have been divisive and I am scared of what might happen. But we should judge him by his performance, which, of all things, also includes communal harmony," she said.

For Vedic scholar Frawley, who has written more than 30 books on topics such as the Vedas, Hinduism, Sanatana Dharma, Yoga, Ayurveda and Vedic astrology, among others, Yogi has been at the centre of criticism just because a section of people differ with him.

"You have to give him a chance. He has promoted development and I hope he is going to adhere to it. Let us not criticise him just because we do not agree with him. Let's give him a chance," Frawley said.

The one-day Culture Conclave was organised by the Mail Today tabloid from the India Today stable.

IANS
Yechury demands Central govt for data on junked currency

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Mar 25: The CPI-M on Saturday attacked the NDA government for not making public the data on the amount of junked currency deposited in banks post note ban.

Taking to Twitter, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury asked whether the Modi government is "that incompetent" that it is yet to come out with the numbers. "Why don't we have the data on amount of old currency notes deposited even now? Is the Modi government that incompetent? Or complicit?" he said.

Why don't we have the data on amount of old currency notes deposited even now? Is the Modi government that incompetent? Or complicit?  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) March 25, 2017

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 last year had announced scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes. The government had set a deadline of December 30, 2016 to exchange the notes with banks.

NRIs and those who could not deposit the invalidated high value notes because they were travelling abroad can deposit the old currencies with RBI until March 31 subject to verification.

PTI
Avoid travelling to French Guiana: US to citizens

International

pti-PTI

Washington, Mar 25: The United States warned its citizens to avoid travel to French Guiana, France's South American territory now in the grip of labor unrest. Striking workers in the territory, which is administered as a region of France, have set up barricades on several roads and forced the postponement of an Ariane rocket.

The State Department warned of "widespread protests throughout French Guiana and along the roads leading to the neighboring countries of Suriname and Brazil."

The US embassy in neighboring Suriname can only provide limited assistance to travelers, it said, and added: "US citizens should avoid travel to French Guyana at this time.

"Protests in the cities of Kourou and Cayenne have the potential to become violent," the statement warned. On Thursday, the Guiana Space Center, a French and European launch site near Kourou, cancelled the planned launch of an Ariane 5 rocket carrying a Brazilian telecoms satellite.

Workers in several sectors, including the energy giant EDF and public hospitals, have launched protests this week demanding pay raises and improved public safety and health coverage.

PTI
Counter-terrorism: Decoding Ajit Doval's US visit

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is in the United States where he would seek to deepen counter-terrorism cooperation. During the various meetings that He has been having Doval has stressed on the need for expansion and increasing cooperation to jointly combat terror.

Doval emphasised on the need to build significant defence cooperation. The NSA went on to speak about issues such as maritime terror, regional security and counter-terrorism. Senior officials informed that the meetings were fruitful and positive.

"India and US will have to play a bigger role to combat terror," Doval explained in the US. "There are serious security concerns in the Indian region and cooperation with the US would go a long way in eradicating these issues," Doval also pointed out. He also emphasised on the problem emerging out Pakistan and how India has been a victim ofstate-sponsoredd terrorism.

Issues such as homeland security, radicalisation and cooperation in border controls were also discussed. There was emphasis laid on the need to cooperate at a higher level where cyber security is concerned. The NSA, during all his foreign visits, has spoken about the need to enhance cooperation on the cyber space.

"The cyber space poses a major risk whether it is cases of frauds, hacking or recruitments online," Doval pointed out. During one of the meetings, the US was keen on understanding New Delhi's views on the Afghanistan region. Questions about risks being posed by other nations in the region too were asked by the officials in the Donald Trump administration. While Pakistan was not discussed in particular, terrorism in the context of religion was discussed at length.

OneIndia News
Go back to Lebanon: Sikh-American girl told on NY subway

International

oi-PTI

In the latest of hate crimes against people of South-Asian origin, a Sikh-American girl was harassed on a subway train in New York when a white man, mistaking her to be from the Middle East, allegedly shouted 'go back to Lebanon' and 'you don't belong in this country'.

How hate crime post-9/11 is haunting Indian communities in Trump regime

Rajpreet Heir was taking the subway train to a friend's birthday party in Manhattan this month when the white man began shouting at her, according to a report in the New York Times.

Heir recounted the ordeal in a video for a Times section called This Week in Hate, which highlights hate crimes and harassment around the country since the election of US President Donald Trump.

Heir said she was looking at her phone when the white man shouted at her saying, "Do you even know what a Marine looks like? Do you know what they have to see? What they do for this country? Because of people like you." He told Heir he hoped she was sent 'back to Lebanon' and using expletives said, "You don't belong in this country," before he left the subway.

US: FBI investigates Srinivas Kuchibhotla murder case as 'hate crime'

Heir, a Sikh, said she was born 30 miles from Lebanon, not the Middle Eastern country but a namesake city in the American state of Indiana.

Heir said as the man left the train, she saw a young white woman in the train staring at her 'with tears in her eyes'.

Rise in reports of discrimination

"What had just happened provided evidence of what I had sensed beneath the surface for a long time -- racism that can turn violent and lately does," she said.

The report added that two fellow passengers stepped in to help Heir after the incident on the train. One woman tapped her on the shoulder and asked if she was all right. "That meant something because when you're a minority, you're so used to just experiencing things on your own," Heir said.

Another woman reported the incident to a police officer at a subway station.

The report said that as New York works to respond to a rise in reports of discrimination and harassment, subways have emerged as a source of special concern. It said the anti-harassment group Hollaback has received nearly double the usual number of reports of harassment on the subway and more than usual involve racist, Islamophobic or anti-immigrant comments since the election of Trump.

Heir's case is a yet another disturbing incident of racial discrimination in which people of South Asian origin have been targets of abuse and hate crime.

Last month, Indian-origin woman Ekta Desai had posted a video online of an African-American man racially abusing her and calling her inappropriate names as she was travelling on a subway train.

Fear and anxiety had gripped the Indian community following the tragic shooting in Kansas of 32-year old Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was killed when 51-year old US Navy veteran Adam Purinton opened fire at him and his friend Alok Madasani before yelling "get out of my country."

Purinton had assumed the two Indian men were 'Middle Eastern'.

PTI
Hamas official shot dead in Gaza shooting

International

pti-PTI

Gaza City, Mar 25: Gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot a Hamas official dead. The official had been freed by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap programme, the interior ministry in the Palestinian enclave said.

Mazen Faqha was released along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years. Iyad al-Bozum, an interior ministry spokesman in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, said that gunmen opened fire on Faqha in the Tell al-Hama neighbourhood.

"An investigation has been launched," he said, giving no further details. Police spokesman Ayman al-Batniji said Faqha had 'four bullets in his head' and said Israel and its 'collaborators' were responsible for the killing.

[Also read: Shooting outside UK Parliament, 5 dead, 20 injured]

"We know how to respond to this crime," he added. Faqha was a senior Hamas official in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but after his release Israel transferred him to Gaza.

The Israeli army refused to comment. But Khalil al-Haya, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, said: "This assassination does not serve anybody but the occupiers (Israel), it is of no interest to the other parties."

PTI
Woman, her two children mowed down by train; Suicide not ruled out

Constable sentenced to life for instigating minor to suicide after sexual abuse

UP: Man films wife committing suicide, does nothing to stop her

IS claims responsibility for suicide attack at Dhaka airport

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Dhaka, March 25: The Islamic State has taken responsibility for a blast in front of a police box at the entrance to Dhaka's Shahjalal International Airport, describing it as a 'suicide attack'.

Terrorism monitoring group SITE Intelligence tweeted that the militant group's mouthpiece Amaq news agency reported the 'suicide bombing' in the Bangladesh capital near the airport on Friday night, in which the bomber was killed.

[Suicide bomber killed near Dhaka airport]



"For the 2nd time in one week, #ISIS claimed a suicide bombing in the #Bangladesh capital #Dhaka, the latest targeting a police checkpoint," SITE said in another Twitter message.

An airport police officer had initially said it was a 'suicide attack', but Dhaka Metropolitan Police later ruled it out as an attack of that nature, Bdnews24 reported.

DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia said that it is suspected that the man was carrying a bomb in the bag.

He declined to comment on whether militants were involved in the blast, which occurred a week after what the law-enforcing agencies said was a suicide attack on a RAB camp in nearby Ashkona.

Meanwhile, the security forces on Saturday launched a final assault on a suspected militant hideout in Sylhet city, after a 30-hour siege, that began in the early hours of Friday. Over 50 persons were evacuated from a building on the outskirts of the city.

Commandos launched the assault 'Operation Twilight' at a complex housing two buildings in Shibbarhi area. The area was cordoned off by the security forces.

Police said the militants were holed up in a flat on the ground floor of one of the buildings. They said that at least two militants -- a male and a female -- were believed to be in the flat.

According to the report, gunfire was heard twice in the area. No other details were available.

Heavily armed members of the law-enforcing agencies surrounded the complex.

An Army officer said that the soldiers were leading the assault and "the SWAT was only helping them".

A police official said a search operation in Sylhet was carried out after getting information that militants have taken shelter in the district.

After finding the hideout at Shibbarhi on Thursday, police locked the flat from outside and cordoned off the complex early on Friday.

Police came under attack later in the morning. The suspects shouted Allahu Akbar while hurling grenades at the law enforcers. Police officials retaliated by opening fire, and the cordon was extended to the entire area, Sylhet Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner Rokan Uddin said.

Reports said 17 families from one of the buildings at the complex were evacuated on Friday. They were kept in a school in the area throughout the day. The families stranded in the flats of another building were told to keep their doors and windows shut.

IANS
Mass shooting in France leaves 3 injured, sparks fears of terror attack

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Paris, March 25: At least three people were injured after a gunman opened fire outside a metro station in the city of Lille in northern France on Saturday, days after the attack in London.

Armed police rushed to the scene and sealed off streets near the Porte d'Arras Metro station at around 9.45 pm (local time) on Friday night, the Mirror reported.

The shots, say reports, were fired at Jacques Febvrier square, a few metres from the metro station.

Witnesses reported at least three injuries, including a 14-year-old boy. The boy is believed to have been shot in the leg, said the local media. They were taken to the hospital and are not in a life-threatening condition.

The wounded were reported to have been shot several times, according to French news outlet La Voix.

The motive behind the shooting is not yet known. The shooter is reported to be still on the loose.

France has suffered a string of Islamist terror attacks during the past 12 months.

It comes after a suspected Islamist terrorist was gunned down at Paris Orly airport last week after launching an attack on a police traffic patrol.

Also, a suspected terrorist was arrested in the Belgian city of Antwerp on Thursday after he allegedly tried to drive a car into shoppers on a pedestrianised street, less than 24 hours after the Westminster attack.

The vehicle was reportedly full of liquid gas, knives and rifles.

The suspected driver, in camouflage, was later arrested by the police, the local media reported.

The incident, according to reports, was being investigated as a possible terrorist incident.

IANS

soni/bg
Trojan Horse Plot: How Birmingham became hub of jihadis from Pak and Kashmir

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Birmingham is in the news again. The police had named the Westminster attacker as Birmingham-based Khalid Masood. Four persons were killed in the London attack that took place on Wednesday. Birminghman has a distinction of being one of the major jihadi breeding grounds.

Interestingly, there are several jihadis at Birmingham whose families are linked to Pakistan and Kashmir. Most of the jihadis who grew up in Birmingham have left to Pakistan and Kashmir to fight along with terror groups. Birmingham is considered to be the place where the first suicide bomber was born has become for jihadi elements.

Indoctrination would take place through mosques. One such plot known as the 'Trojan Horse Plot," was busted in Birmingham. The plot revolved around organising a group of jihadis who sought to infiltrate and take over the education system.

Several young Muslims were brought in to Birmingham by jihadi elements. They were radicalised and trained to launch terror attacks and also fight in the Middle East, Asia and Britain. The plot circled around creating a pool of fighters.

What is interesting is that whenever one speaks of terror, there has to be a Pakistan link to it. Take the case of Rashid Rauf, an Islamist alumni from Birmingham. He is of British and Pakistan background and was one of the key players in a plot that sought to blow up the transatlantic airliner in 2006. Investigations showed that Rauf enjoyed the support and protection of the Inter-Services Intelligence. He, in fact, managed to escape from a jail in the UK with the support of the ISI. He was however killed in a drone strike in 2008. These reports remain unverified and another version is that he still lives in North Wazirstan.

Birmingham was also home to Moinal Abedin. He was the first al-Qaeda inspired terrorist. He too trained in Pakistan and returned to Birmingham. During a raid on his house a huge quantity of explosives were found. Another person with a Pakistan origin is Irfan Khalid. He was involved in the 7/7 bombings. He is currently in jail.

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Super Talent in Tallinn: Blockchain and Bitcoin Conference Tallinns Rousing Success

Published March 25, 2017 by Lee R

Professionals who learn blockchain position themselves for industry leadership.

The Baltics largest blockchain conference has come off swimmingly.

Blockchain Reaches Out

On March 9, Tallinn hosted the massive blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency development conference Blockchain and Bitcoin Conference Tallinn. It was received with great enthusiasm by a select group of inspired stakeholders.

Attendees

Attended by 250 people from 20 countries, the event was organized by large-scale event specialist Smile-Expo, a company which holds major blockchain conferences all across regional hubs including Russia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.

Smile on Estonia

The Estonian market has been added to the blockchain conference circuit due to a favorable IT environment bolstered by a dedicated Govtech sector created specifically to support blockchain projects.

Expert Speakers

The A-list of expert speakers included Bitcoin Foundation Founding Director Jon Matonis; e-Residency Managing Director Kaspar Korjus; IBM Poland Distinguished Engineer Karolina Marzantowicz; and Funderbeam Founder Kaidi Ruusalepp among the 14 specialists on hand to share crypto and blockchain management expertise.

Estonia the Digital Capital

Korjus emphasized the benefits of doing business in Tallinn, calling Estonias capital the home of digital society before unveiling the first landmark achievement of Estonias Govtech department: an amazing e-residence project granting Estonian residency to 18,000 people and 1,300 companies from 136 countries.

Applying Blockchain

The key to this unprecedented achievement is the use of blockchain technology:

Blockchain itself is nothing, it needs to be considered together with digital identity, legal environment, and efficient e-governance, explained Korjus. Only then we will start to understand its real impact.

Economic Integration

In considering the digital economy, Marzantowicz called for financiers to learn more:

Financial institutions are aware of the advantages of blockchain, but banks are not.

While regulation to this point limits bank use of still emerging blockchain technology, the greater challenge at this point is communicating the benefits of Bitcoin and blockchain to customers, such as convenience and the safety of the asset-storing system.

Topics Covered

Topics discussed by participants included regulatory issues; mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency acceptance by the society; the benefits of private and public blockchains; and the key players of the blockchain market.

Upon Review

With most of the world barely warming up to cryptocurrency, and totally unaware of blockchain, the cryptocurrency and blockchain conference in Tallinn gave attendees a leg up that likely has put them years ahead of the pace of development.
Free Space Optics Market - Favor Especially in Defense and Security

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Over the course of the past few years, the free space optics (FSO) technology has witnessed a substantial rise in prominence across a number of application areas and a high rate of adoption among service providers across the globe.The increased prominence of this technology is driven chiefly by the rising demand for high speed connectivity at low costs and the difficulties associated with the deployment of fiber optics networks.The vast rise in the incorporation of free space optics in high-speed networking technologies such as 3G and 4G, chiefly due to the quick deployment and easy installation of free space optical systems, is also positively impacting the expansion of the market.Browse Market Research Report:Transparency Market Research estimates that the global free space optics market will tread along a remarkable growth path and exhibit a tremendous 39.5% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024. At this pace, the market, which held an opportunity of US$81.3 mn in 2015, is expected to rise to US$1,306.1 mn by 2024.Some of the key application areas of free space optics are data transmission, storage area network, defense, last mile access, security, healthcare, airborne applications, and disaster recovery, and others. Of these, the segment of data transmission dominated the market in 2015.Data transmitted via FSO is more secure compared to other wireless transmission technologies, a factor that works in favor of FSO, especially across sectors such as defense and security.Applications of free space optics across the defense industry also held a substantial share in the global market in 2015. Owing to the high bandwidth capacity, low bit error rates, less power consumption, and high communications security features, the deployment of FSO technology across several operations in the defense industry has been persistent.Over the forecasting horizon, the rising demand for FSO from other application areas such as healthcare and airborne travel is expected to bolster the global market.North America dominated the global free space optics market in 2015 and was followed by Europe. Collectively, these two regions held more than 60% of the market in 2015.The primary factors driving the market for free space optics in these regions include considerable research and development activities and early penetration of latest technologies. Moreover, facilitation of high bandwidth and high quality access to communication methods and constant upgrades to network infrastructure are also fuelling the FSO market in these regions.The U.S. military has been using FSO technology for several years primarily in the areas of ship-to-ship and naval communications. In Europe, several technological endeavors sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA) and other space agencies have stimulated growth of the FSO market, especially in the domain of space laser communications.Make an Enquiry:In the next few years, Asia Pacific is projected to be the region with the most promising growth opportunities for free space optics. Developing countries such as India and China have witnessed steady economic growth and splendid development in sectors such as telecommunication and IT in the past few years.These factors are expected to fuel the growth of the FSO technology in the near future. The FSO market in Asia Pacific will see a significant rise in competitiveness owing to emergence of new players and advancement in free space optics technologies.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 Industry Insight: Mass Notification Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020

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The mass notification system has attracted many industries, including facilities management, fire safety, health safety, and business continuity management (BCM). Currently, more than 60 vendors are operating in the mass notification market. The emergence of many regional level and small players has increased the competition in the market; however the blue chip companies still have an upper hand with their superior product offerings. The market of mass notification is still at a nascent stage, with a market penetration of about 20% - 30%.Mass notification system is used for conveying real time critical information about the occurrence of any event. The use of mass notification service helps in minimizing human errors, rumors, distractions, and misinformation. The technological advancements in the mass notification system have opened up many new target industries, such as educational institutions and transportation. The mass notification system in educational institution facilitates circulation and supervision of notification to various endpoints. The message distribution in the mass notification system can be achieved via web-based portal, mobile application, call centers, or web browser. The mass notification systems are used in emergency, business-context-based alerting, business operations notifications, public safety, and IT service alerting.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:Based on the product type, the global mass notification services market can be broadly segmented as software, and services. On the basis of deployment type, the global mass notification market can be classified as On-Premises, and Hosted/On-Demand. Based on application, the global mass notification market can be broadly classified as emergency communication, disaster recovery, business operations, and public alert, and warning. On the basis of solution, the global mass notification services market can be broadly classified as in-building solutions, distributed recipient solutions, and wide area solutions. On the basis of industry verticals, the global mass notification services market can be classified as education, energy and power, healthcare, defense, governments, transportation and logistics, and others. The on demand/hosted mass notification services market is the largest and fastest growing segment.The availability of sub-standard substitutes for public safety is acting as a major road block, for the wide adoption of the mass notification market. The sub-standard solution has grown up significantly in the recent years, owing to the absence of standard regulations for mass notification systems across the end users industries. However, the mass notification system in military and educational institutions is highly regulated, due to the criticality of the message and sensitive nature of operations. The growing need for crowd management, increasing security threats, in addition to growing market penetration of mass notification in business operations are driving the global mass notification market.Browse For Related Research Visit Here:North America and Europe accounted for the largest market of mass notification in 2014. The stringent public safety norms, such as Standard for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA), and Recommended Practice for Analysis, Design, Installation, and Testing of Basic Surface Safety Systems for Offshore Production Platforms (API RP 14C), along with large spending on homeland security in these regions, has led to their dominance in the mass notification market. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for mass notification, owing to the up surging public awareness and increasing government expenditure on information and broadcasting in the developing countries. Country wise, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, China, India, Japan, France, Italy, and Brazil are some of the major mass notification markets.Some of the competitors in the mass notification market are Eaton Corporation Pvt. Ltd., IBM Corporation, Everbridge Inc., Honeywell International Inc., Siemens AG, Omnilert LLC, Everbridge Inc., Xmatters Inc., and Mir3 Inc.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekExecutive  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Monoclonal Antibody Therapeutics Market Volume Forecast and Value Chain Analysis 2016-2024

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Global Monoclonal Antibody Therapeutics Market: OverviewMonoclonal antibodies are a type of biological therapy used in the treatment serious conditions such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohns diseases, psoriasis, osteoporosis, systemic lupus erythematous, and others. Monoclonal antibody are target specific in action by not affect the other cells of the body thus restores the immune system.Browse Market Research Report @The market report comprises an elaborated executive summary, which includes market snapshot that provides information about various segments of the market. It also provides information and data analysis of the market with respect to market segments based on application, source, end-user, and geography. The market overview section of the report analyzes market dynamics such as drivers, restraints and opportunities that influences the monoclonal antibody therapeutics market in the current and future scenario.Global Monoclonal Antibody Therapeutics Market: SegmentationThis report analyzes the current and future prospects of the monoclonal antibody therapeutics market based on type of application, source, end user and geography. By application monoclonal antibodies are segmented according to the therapeutic area such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, infection, hematological diseases, ophthalmological diseases and others which include monoclonal antibodies used in treating cardiovascular, respiratory, and orthopedic disorders as well as monoclonal antibodies used in the prevention of transplant rejection.By source monoclonal antibodies are segmented into human, humanized, chimeric, and others, which include peptide body and murine antibodies. The human monoclonal antibody segment is expected to be highest contributing segment in the monoclonal antibody therapeutic market during the forecast period. Various factors such as patent expiry of block buster drugs, robust pipeline of monoclonal antibodies indicated in the treating various types of cancer and other disorders such as hematological, cardiovascular and orthopedic and upcoming biosimilars, define the market growth over the forecast period.Global Monoclonal Antibody Therapeutics Market: Research MethodologyThe research is a combination of primary and secondary research, conducted for understanding and arriving at trends, used to forecast the expected revenue of the major monoclonal antibody therapeutics market in the near future. Primary research formed the bulk of our research efforts with information collected from in-depth interviews and discussions with a number of key industry experts and opinion leaders. Secondary research involved study of company websites, annual reports, press releases, investor presentations, analyst presentation and various international and national databases.The report provides estimated market size in terms of US$ Mn for each by application, source, end user, and geography for the period 2014 to 2024, considering the macro and micro environmental factors. The revenue generated from each product was calculated by considering number of products used in the procedures and their market demand as per their use, number of product launched, annual revenue generated by products of each sub segment, trends in industry, end user trend, and adoption rate across all the geographies.Global Monoclonal Antibody Therapeutics Market: Regional OutlookMarket share analysis among the market players is analyzed to signify the contribution of these players in the market in terms of percentage share. All these factors will help the market players to decide about the business strategies and plans to strengthen their positions in the global market. Based on geography, the market has been analyzed for major regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. The study also covers detailed country analysis contributing majorly in the monoclonal antibody therapeutics market.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:The report also profiles the major players in the market and provides various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, and recent developments. Major companies profiled in the monoclonal antibody therapeutics market are Bayer AG, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Pfizer Inc., Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Merck & Co., Inc., Novartis AG, AbbVie Inc., Amgen Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Bristol  Myers Squibb Company and Biogen Inc. .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.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.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Cardiac Holter Monitor Market 2024 Overview, Competitive Analysis and Development by Companies

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Global Cardiac Holter Monitor Market: SnapshotCardiac Holter monitors are used for recording hearts electrical activities. The device operates on a small battery to records heart rhythm for 24-48 hours. The Holter monitor device consists of a recorder, for recording the hearts rhythm and a software, which is utilized to interpret the recorded data. The cardiac Holter monitor is most commonly used to diagnose and analyze cardiac arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, and bradycardia. Rise in government funding to create awareness about cardiovascular disorders and its prevention, shift of population towards preventive healthcare, and investments in research and development of advanced diagnostic devices are the key drivers in the global market.Browse Market Research Report @ntegration of Latest Technologies in Cardiac Holter Monitors Boosts DemandIn light of these reasons, the global cardiac Holter monitor market is expected to be worth US$518.9 mn by the end of 2024 as compared to US$293.8 mn in 2015. During the forecast period of 2016 and 2024, the global market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.6%. Despite the headstrong market drivers, the global market is likely to be challenged by the high cost of devices, error in signal processing, and lack of trained and qualified staff for appropriate usage of the devices. Be as that may, incorporation of wireless and Bluetooth technology in the cardiac holter, shifting of manufacturers approach towards customer centric development of products are the some of the trends that are likely to benefit the global market in the coming years.Based on product type, the global cardiac holter monitor market is classified as 1 channel, 2 channel, 3 channel, 12 channel, and others. The others segment includes 4 channel, 5 channel, 7 channel, and 10 channel cardiac holters. The 3 channel holters held the largest share in 2015 due to rising prevalence of cardiovascular disorders, rising geriatric population, and improved reimbursement policies. The segment is anticipated to remain dominant in the market along with 12 channel segment in the forecast period. The major factors responsible for the rise are increasing needs and demands by cardiologists for technologically compatible and efficient diagnostic devices and improved signal recording efficiency of 12 channel holter.With Increasing Investments in Research and Developments, North America Assumes LeadGeographically, the global cardiac holter monitor market is segmented into Latin America, North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. North America accounted for the largest share of cardiac holter market in 2015, due to increasing patients preference towards minimally invasive diagnostic tools and improved government funding for cardiovascular disorder treatments. North America is expected to remain dominant in the cardiac holter monitor market, which is attributed to the investments being made by key players in medical devices industry, and consistent rise in incidences of cardiovascular disorders in North America. Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the fastest growing segment, with highest CAGR in the coming years. Rising prevalence of cardiac arrhythmia & atrial fibrillation, various programs for the prevention of cardiovascular disorders conducted by WHO are the factors responsible for the high growth rate of Asia Pacific region in the forecast period.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @The key players operating in the global cardiac holter monitor market are GE Healthcare, FUKUDA DENSHI, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Spacelabs Healthcare, Welch Allyn, Schiller, BTL, Nasiff Associates, Inc., LifeWatch AG, Biomedical Instruments Co., Ltd., and The ScottCare Corporation. To stay ahead in the robust competition, the key players in the market are involved in incorporating technologically advanced and novel features in their products.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.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.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
North America Aesthetic Services Market: Segmentation, Global Market Regional Outlook 2016 - 2024

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North America Aesthetic Services Market: OverviewGrowing awareness about skin rejuvenation, expanding per capita income and the shift towards minimally invasive and non-invasive procedures are the major drivers propelling the growth of North America aesthetic services market. Lifestyle changes along with changes in eating habits leads to increase in obesity, which causes accumulation of excessive fat and cholesterol, resulting in increase in body weight. Obesity is a substantial problem in America that affects large number of people. Rising incidences of obesity are increasing adoption of liposuction procedure.Browse Market Research Report @Liposuction was the most popular surgical aesthetic procedure performed in North America and is expected to show highest CAGR over the forecast period. Among non-surgical services segment, dermal fillers segment is anticipated to show high CAGR of 11.6% during the forecast period due to growth in popularity of combination treatments for dermal fillers and their rise in adoption among customers, increase in the demand for the Botulinum Toxin by the ageing population and the high influence of celebrity looks driving the demand for dermal fillers segment.North America Aesthetic Services Market: Research MethodologyThe report is a combination of primary and secondary research. Primary research formed the bulk of our research efforts, with information collected from telephonic interviews and interactions via e-mail. Secondary research involved study of company websites, annual reports, press releases, stock analysis presentations, and various national and international databases. The report provides market size in terms of US$ Mn for each segment for the period from 2016 to 2024, considering the macro and micro-environmental factors. Growth rates for each segment within the aesthetic services market have been determined after a thorough analysis of past trends, demographics, future trends, technological developments and reimbursement scenario.The market overview section of the report includes qualitative analysis of the overall aesthetic services market including the determining factors and market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, market trends and opportunities, along with potential customer analysis, PEST analysis, top five services by countries, supply demand analysis and market entry opportunity analysis. In addition, market attractiveness analysis by country, services type and end-user along with strategies adopted by key players have been provided which explain the intensity of competition in the market considering different geographical locations. The competitive scenario between market players has been evaluated through market share analysis. These factors would help the market players take strategic decisions in order to strengthen their positions and increase their shares in the market. Pricing of services offered holds a crucial part of the report, which further describes the cost applicable to customer in both countries.North America Aesthetic Services Market: SegmentationBased on the end user, Dermatology clinics and cosmetic centers is the most attractive end-user segment of the aesthetic services market. The segment is projected to register a CAGR of 8.6% from 2016 to 2024. Ambulatory Surgery Centers is expected to be the next most lucrative End-user segment and anticipated to expand at the rate of 7.3% during the forecast period. ASCs are the preferred settings for aesthetic treatments, especially facial and scar treatments.Geographically, North America aesthetic services market has been categorized into The U.S. and Canada. The U.S. was the most attractive market in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 95% share of the North America aesthetic services market in 2015 and is projected to expand at CAGR of 7.9% during the forecast period of 2016-2024. Rising awareness and adoption of various aesthetic services, growing health care infrastructure, rising incidence of skin disorders are anticipated to boost the growth of the market in the region during the forecast period. Further increasing demand for aesthetic treatments among the male population and availability of user friendly aesthetic devices are the key factors fuelling the growth of aesthetics services market in near future.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @North America Aesthetic Services Market: Competitive OutlookMajor aesthetic service providers operating in North America aesthetic services market are Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, Riverchase Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, Dermatology solutions group, The Plastic Surgery Clinic, Cosmetic & Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Clinic Toronto, The MedSpa Southwest Plastic Surgery, Riverside Plastic Surgery, Marina Plastic Surgery, DCDermDocs, Quatela Center for Plastic Surgery.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.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.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Vacuum Assist Biopsy System Market Analysis By Key Growth Factors And Opportunities Forecasts To 2024

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In a Biopsy procedure tissue samples are taken for study and diagnosis of the suspicious lesions in the for cytology or histopathology studies. Breast biopsies are done through various techniques like Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy, Core Needle Biopsy and Surgical Biopsies. Among which Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsies are the conventional ones. In case of Core Needle Biopsies tissue samples are collected through the core of the needle, this technique is currently used at many places. Vacuum Assist Biopsy is a type of core needle biopsy which uses Vacuum for collection of tissue sample. In Vacuum Assisted Biopsy the needle is introduced percutaneous to the lesion sight either by stereotactic or image assisted (Ultrasound or MRI) approach. Due to the clinical advantages of this technique for the sampling of nodular lesions, better samples combined with least procedure time, non-invasive, less scaring for patient Vacuum Assist Biopsy is gaining acceptance among the physicians. In this procedure the probe / core needle is inserted through skin under image assistance or stereotactic guidance to the lesion. One it reaches the lesion vacuum is applied which draws the lesion / tissue inside the core, after which the cutting device cuts it from the breast tissue by rotation. By repeating these steps multiple tissue samples could be collected. On required sample collection, radiologist / physician can take out the probe/needle and a small bandage can be placed on the insertion site. This procedure doesnt need a sterile setup and is performed under local anesthesia. Due to the availability of large core probes/needles these systems are finding the place in removal of small benign lumps and resection of palpable or non-palpable breast lesions.Obtain Report Details @Global Market for Vacuum Assist Biopsy Systems can be segmented based on the technique used for Guiding or Positioning Technique, End User and Geography:Segmentation based on Guiding Technique Stereotactic Vacuum Assist Biopsy System Image Guided Vacuum Assist Biopsy SystemSegmentation Based on End User Hospitals Clinics Diagnostic CentersPositioning and guiding of the probe / needle is the critical stage in any biopsy technique and for Vacuum Assist Biopsy it needs a skillful user. Based on the guiding technique these can be categorized into Stereotactic Vacuum Assist Biopsy Systems and Image Guided Vacuum Assist Biopsy System. For Stereotactic systems mammography is used as a reference for positioning the probe whereas image guided systems could be based on Ultrasound imaging or MRI. Among them Ultrasound guided systems are getting widely used and are having large acceptance in future. Due to some limitations like short availability of the procedure period window, difficulty in accessing the far lesions MRI guided systems got set back but with new developments they are getting acceptance for specialized procedures which are not possible with stereotactic and US guided techniques.As this procedure is non-invasive and is undertaken with local anesthesia, it doesnt need a complete sterile environment and so can be done in mini operating rooms or physicians office where the MRI Guided Vacuum Assist Biopsy System is a limitation. Due to the shorter procedure time and less complications involved these procedures are done on day care basis also. Based on the End Users the market can be segmented into Hospitals, Clinics and Diagnostic Centers.On the basis of regional presence, global Vacuum Assist Biopsy Systems market is segmented into five key regions viz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Breast Cancer counts 25% of the lethal cancers female population face and overall it contributes to around 12% of the cancer cases in a year globally. In America it is estimated that around 12% of the female population with have the breast cancer in their lifetime. In UK and Belgium around 15% of breast cancer cased are diagnosed every year. As per studies females of age more than 45 Years are susceptible to breast cancer or some breast disease. Asia Pacific region comprising countries like Indian and Chine are among the most potential markets after North America and Europe due to growing population with mid or old age and rising awareness for healthcare.Fill The Form To Gain Deeper Insights On This Market @Some of the major players in global Vacuum Assist Biopsy System market are C.R. Bard Inc. Devicor Medical Products Inc.(Leica Biosystems), Hologic Inc., Etc.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:
Cryptococcosis Market Research Report Forecast to 2016 - 2024

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Global Cryptococcosis Market: OverviewThis report on the global cryptococcosis market analyzes the current and future scenario of the global market. Cryptococcosis disease burden is rising due to increase in susceptible patient population such as HIV-infected patients, solid organ transplantation recipients, and other immunosuppressive hosts. In addition, the huge patient base in Sub-Saharan countries fuels the growth of the cryptococcosis market. For instance, According to CDC, it is estimated that around 1 million cryptococcal meningitis cases occurs globally. Also, it is also seen that cryptococcosis mortality burden is very high which results in around 625,000 deaths every year. In addition, rise in private and public funding for creating awareness, and favorable regulatory scenario for new product launch are boosting the growth of the global cryptococcosis market.Browse Market Research Report @The cryptococcosis market report comprises an elaborate executive summary, which includes market snapshot that provides information about various segments. It also provides information and data analysis of the global market with respect to the segments based on treatment, distribution channel, and geography. A detailed qualitative analysis of drivers and restraints, and opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. Additionally, the section comprises clinical trial analysis and key industry event analysis to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. This section also provides market attractiveness analysis in terms of geography and market share analysis by key players, thus presenting a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global cryptococcosis market.Global Cryptococcosis Market: Scope of the StudyBased on treatment, the market is segmented into Amphotericin B, Flucytosine, Fluconazole, and other antifungals. Amphotericin B further segmented into Amphocin, Fungizone and other products. Flucytosine further segmented into Ancobon and other products. Fluconazole includes Diflucan and other products. In treatment type, Flucytosine was the largest segment of the global cryptococcosis market in terms of revenue in 2015, driven by its increasing adoption in U.S. The market segments have been analyzed based on cost-effectiveness of the drugs, prevalence of the diseases, and growing diagnosis rate of cryptococcosis across the globe. The market size and forecast for each of these segments have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Based on distribution channel, the global cryptococcosis market is segmented as hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, drug store, and mail order pharmacies. Retail pharmacy was the largest segment of the global market in terms of revenue in 2015 and is expected to continue to dominate the market by 2024, which is attributed to the increasing contribution of long term medication required for cryptococcosis treatment. Online purchase of drugs has been highly popular in most of the developed economies such as the U.S. and Japan.Geographically, the global cryptococcosis market has been categorized into five major regions and the key countries in the respective region: North America (U.S. and Canada), Europe (U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (India, Japan, China, Australia and Rest of Asia Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America) and Middle East & Africa (South Africa, GCC Countries, and Rest of Middle East & Africa).Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @Global Cryptococcosis Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also profiles major players in the global cryptococcosis market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Janssen Biotech, Inc. (Johnson & Johnson), Abbott Laboratories, Novartis AG, Pfizer, Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Glenmark Pharmaceuticals and Sigmapharm Laboratories LLC.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.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.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies Market 2024 Trends, Challenges and Growth Drivers Analysis

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Global Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies Market: OverviewThis report provides forecast and analysis of the medical microbiology testing technologies market on the global and regional levels. It provides historical data of 2015 along with forecast from 2016 to 2024 in terms of revenue (US$ Mn). The report also includes macroeconomic indicators along with an outlook on medical microbiology testing technologies globally. It includes drivers and restraints of the medical microbiology testing technologies market and their impact on each region during the forecast period. The report also comprises the study of current issue and opportunities for medical microbiology testing manufacturers.Browse Market Research Report @In order to provide users of this report with comprehensive view of the market, we have included detailed competitiveness analysis and company players. The dashboard provides detailed comparison of medical microbiology testing manufacturers on parameters such as operating margin, unique selling propositions, collective market share, and geographic concentration. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, by indication, type, technology type, application type, end user type and region.Global Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies Market: SegmentationThe report includes usage of Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies and the revenue generated from sales of medical microbiology testing technologies in all regions and important countries in these regions. By indication, the global medical microbiology testing technologies market has been segmented into respiratory diseases, neurological diseases, infectious diseases and others. By technology, the market is segmented into Cell Culture, Microscopy and Serology. On the basis of application, the market is segmented into Diagnostic and Treatment Monitoring. On the basis of end user, the market is segmented into Hospital Labs, Pathology Labs, Research Institutes and others.Market numbers have been estimated based on average consumption and weighted average pricing of medical microbiology testing technologies and the revenue is derived through regional pricing trends and the epidemiology of specific diseases. Market size and forecast for each segment have been provided in the context of global and regional markets. The Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies market has been analyzed based on expected demand. All key end users have been considered and potential applications have been estimated on the basis of secondary sources and feedback from primary respondents. Regional demand patterns have been considered while estimating the market for various end users of Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies in different regions. Top down approach has been used to estimate the Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies market by regions. Market numbers for indication, technology, application, and end user segments have been derived using the top-down approach, which is cumulative of each regions demand. Company-level market share has been derived on the basis of revenues reported by key manufacturers. The market has been forecast based on constant currency rates.Global Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies Market: Competitive LandscapeA number of primary and secondary sources were consulted during the course of the study. Secondary sources include FACTIVA, NCBI, Google Books, company websites, journals, press releases, Morningstar, Hoovers, and company annual reports and publications.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @The report provides detailed competitive and company profiles of key participants operating in the global market. Key players in the global Medical Microbiology Testing Technologies market include Agilent Technologies Inc., Becton, Dickinson & Company, Beckman Coulter Inc. (A Danaher Company), Biomerieux SA, Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., Roche Holding AG, 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.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.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Alpha 1-Antitrypsin Deficiency Treatment Market : Competitive Overview & 2024 Edition With Leading Players

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Alpha 1-Antitrypsin Deficiency Treatment Market: OverviewAlpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency is an inherited genetic disorder that causes insufficient production of the protein alpha 1-antitrypsin (A1AT) in individuals. A1AT is a protease inhibitor that has the capability to protect body tissues from enzymes of various inflammatory cells such as neurophil elastase. Insufficient production of this protein leads to pulmonary medical complications chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cirrhosis and emphysema. At present, the alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency treatment market is a highly promising and attractive market venture due to increased government support and high adoption rate for novel therapeutics. Some of the symptoms of A1AT deficiency include: Tiredness Vision problems Shortness of wheezing and breath Repeated pulmonary infections Weight lossObtain Report Details @Some of the available therapeutics used for the treatment of alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency are as follows: Prolastin Zemaira AralastPromising drugs for treating alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency that are still in the pipeline are as follows: rAAV1-CB-hAAT  a recombinant adeno-associated virus vector that helps in expressing alpha-1 antitrypsin gene in individuals affected with the condition POL-6014  a highly potent, novel, reversible and selective inhibitor of human neutrophil elastase that might be helpful in treating alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency CT-2009  a drug molecule ready for IND that can selectively disrupts RANTES and Platelet Factor 4 for treating alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiencyAlpha 1-Antitrypsin Deficiency Treatment Market: Key Growth EnablersGeographically, Europe and North America are projected to be the leading markets for alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency treatment due to the high prevalence and incidence rate of alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency in these regions. It is observed that this genetic disorder is most common among North Americans of European descent and Europeans. Racial groups other than white people are expected to be affected less frequently. In the U.S., one individual per 3000 - 5000 individuals is affected by alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency and about 25 million individuals carry one deficient gene. Both men and women are equally affected in numbers.Major factors propelling the growth of the alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency treatment market are increasing incidence rate of genetic disorders and high adoption rate for novel therapeutics. Moreover, increasing government support for developing novel therapies and personalized medicines, along with high research and development initiatives on the development of stem cell based therapeutics are expected to fuel the growth of the alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency treatment market. Furthermore, high demand for safe and effective pharmacological therapies along with increased life expectancy is expected to drive the growth of this market. In addition, technological breakthrough such as point-of-care drug delivery systems and increased focus on retaining superior quality of life are some of the factors that might contribute in the growth of this market. However, rise in overall healthcare expenditure and stringent regulatory approvals are some of the market-restraining factors that might hinder the growth of the alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency treatment market in future.Fill The Form To Gain Deeper Insights On This Market @Alpha 1-Antitrypsin Deficiency Treatment Market: Competitive OverviewAt present, the treatment market for alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency is highly consolidated due to the involvement of few players in the industry. However, it is expected that emerging biotechnological companies focused on the development of personalized medicines for genetic inherited disorders will try to achieve a significant amount of market share in the near future. Some of the companies involved in the development of therapies for treating alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency are Baxter International Inc., CSL Behring LLC, Grifols Therapeutics, Inc., Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc., iBio, Inc., rEVO Biologics, amongst others.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:
robots automakers

Robotic arms work on body shells of cars as they pass through an automated production line at the BMW Mini plant in Oxford, west of London, on Jan. 17, 2017. More than a third of U.S. jobs could be at "high risk" of automation by the early 2030s, a percentage that's greater than in Britain, Germany and Japan, according to a new report.

(Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images )

More than a third of U.S. jobs could be at "high risk" of automation by the early 2030s, a percentage that's greater than in Britain, Germany and Japan, according to a new report.

The analysis, by accounting and consulting firm PwC, emphasized Friday that its estimates are based on the anticipated capabilities of robotics and artificial intelligence, and that the pace and direction of technological progress are "uncertain."

It said that in the U.S., 38 percent of jobs could be at risk of automation, compared with 30 percent in Britain, 35 percent in Germany and 21 percent in Japan.

The main reason is not that the U.S. has more jobs in sectors that are universally ripe for automation, the report says; rather, it's that more U.S. jobs in certain sectors are potentially vulnerable than, say, British jobs in the same sectors.

For example, the report says the financial and insurance sector has much higher possibility of automation in the U.S. than in Britain. That's because, it says, American finance workers are less educated than British ones.

While London finance employees work in international markets, their U.S. counterparts focus more on the domestic retail market, and workers "do not need to have the same educational levels," the report said. Jobs that require less education are at higher potential risk of automation, according to the report.

Other industries that could be at high risk include hospitality and food service and transportation and storage.

Analysts have said truck driving probably will be the first form of driving in the U.S. to be fully automated, as long-range big rigs travel primarily on highways -- the easiest roads to navigate without human intervention.

But robots won't necessarily replace so many human workers. The report highlights several economic, legal and regulatory hurdles that could prevent automation, even in jobs where it would be technologically feasible.

For one, the cost of robots -- including maintenance and repairs -- could still be too expensive compared with human workers. And in the case of self-driving vehicles, questions remain about who is liable in an accident.

In other words, moving robots outside of a controlled environment is "still a big step," said John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC in Britain.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that he wasn't worried about artificial intelligence taking over American jobs.

"I think we're so far away from that that it's not even on my radar screen," he told Axios Media. "I think it's 50 or 100 more years."

Mnuchin also said automation would enable human workers to do more productive jobs at higher wages. "It's taken jobs that are low-paying," he said. "We need to make sure we are investing in education and training for the American worker."

Automation could end up creating some jobs, the PwC report said. Greater robotic productivity could boost the incomes of those behind the new technology, which Hawksworth said could flow into the larger economy.

Sectors that are harder to automate, such as health care, could also see a rise in jobs, he said.

--Los Angeles Times
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House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announces that he is abruptly pulling the troubled Republican health care overhaul bill off the House floor, short of votes and eager to avoid a humiliating defeat for President Donald Trump and GOP leaders, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, March 24, 2017.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Ever since the election of Ronald Reagan, American conservatism (through its agent, the Republican Party) has sought to convert America to its vision for the country. In 2016, through the combination of its dedicated base and American voter apathy, the achievement of this goal became a real possibility.

With the entire United States government finally under complete conservative control, the Republican Party can now proceed with its minority agenda. This includes passing laws and setting policies to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, reverse Roe v. Wade, eliminate funding for the arts, remove regulations from Wall Street and restrictions from energy companies, promote private over public schools, do away with environmental protection, remove safety nets for the poor and provide tax breaks for the wealthy.

The problem is, none of the above conservative aspirations have majority support among Americans. So the question becomes, are the president and Congress willing to constantly fly-in-the-face of public opinion to enact them? No matter how committed they are to conservative ideology, both have to be concerned with the long-range effects of perpetually pitting themselves against the will of the majority.

This is being made clear as Republicans try to dispose of the Affordable Care Act. It was easy for them to make a lot of noise before, but now that they are in position to actually dismantle a functioning program they realize, by doing so, they will face the majority's wrath in upcoming elections. It's very basic: what the conservative minority hopes for America and what the public majority wants are two different things. Attempts to force such a narrow and draconian ideology on those of us who deal with the reality of living in this nation will bring about considerable backlash.

Clark Santee, Wood Village
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A road crew improves a road along the U.S.-Mexico border on March 15 in Hidalgo, Texas. There has been great speculation on exactly where a border wall, promised by President Trump, would be built near the Rio Grande, which forms the border between Texas and Mexico.

(John Moore/Getty Images)

By Francis Wilkinson

Muhammad Ali was never shy, or average, and over the course of his celebrated life the world took proper note. If you type "Muhammad Ali death" into Google, you get more than 13 million returns.

So word that his son -- conveniently named Muhammad Ali Jr. -- had been detained for almost two hours at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Feb. 7 was bound to generate attention. Ali's lawyer, Chris Mancini, said Ali and his mother were stopped by customs agents on their return from a trip to Jamaica.

Mancini said Ali, an American citizen, was questioned about the origin of his name and whether he is a Muslim. Being a lawyer, Mancini naturally made a stink about these claims in the news media. (In a statement to The Washington Post, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said it "does not discriminate based on religion, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.")

One goal of President Donald Trump's aggressive posture on matters such as undocumented immigrants in U.S. communities and untrusted Muslims in U.S. airports, is to "take the shackles" off federal agents, as White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.

Freed from their Obama-era chains, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents can now spend more time with people such as Ali. Amazingly, Ali and his mother were stalled again later in February, Mancini said, when they sought to fly home to Florida from Washington D.C. A ticket agent told them they couldn't proceed to the gate. Ali was put on the phone with a Department of Homeland Security agent, who proceeded to interrogate him once more.

"The second instance was clearly retaliation," Mancini said in a telephone interview. "This is an American citizen, born and raised, trying to fly home."

There is always a possibility that the double inconvenience, and intrusive questions, resulted from bureaucratic incompetence. But it's almost as if the government went looking for a conflict with a Muslim with worldwide name recognition and instant access to the news media.

Ever since Sept. 11, American Muslims have complained of receiving extra scrutiny when they fly. Last week, Hassan Aden, a retired North Carolina police chief, was detained at Kennedy International Airport in New York for more than an hour. The difference now, compared with the more measured era of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, is that the White House all but encourages hostile encounters.

As stories of "unshackled" agents proliferate, they serve the Trump administration's goals. True, some stories, such as the case of a U.S. citizen who was detained for days in Colorado, provoke outrage. But they also generate news and word of mouth. And that translates, most importantly, into fear.

If Muhammad Ali Jr., an American citizen with one of the most famous names on the planet, can't get through an airport without a hassle, what hope should other Muslims have?

Likewise, when federal agents detain an undocumented woman seeking protection from domestic abuse at a courthouse in El Paso, Texas, other undocumented immigrants get the message clearly: No place is safe.

Government officials know how to encourage self-deportation. "They understand that they don't have the funds to ferret out 11 million people," said David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, in an interview. "They're creating an atmosphere that causes fear and trepidation and anxiety not only throughout the undocumented community but throughout the whole country. The object is to make life as miserable as possible so the ones they can't get their hands on will leave."

The news media, opponents of administration policy and immigrants themselves become unwitting accomplices. Word of mouth is how I learned the story of a New York woman, Maura Furfey, a U.S. citizen whose husband and child were briefly detained at Newark Liberty International Airport when they returned home from Mexico. When I tracked her down and asked about it, she said that her husband told her that a fellow passenger on the flight had been drinking and mentioned to a flight attendant that their fair-skinned daughter didn't look like the Mexican father.

That's all it took. The father and the child were detained and interrogated when the plane landed. The father, a green-card holder, was terrified. The daughter, a citizen, was in tears.

None of these people did anything illegal. Yet they were made to feel vulnerable, powerless, afraid. Their stories spread through social networks, the way scary stories do. Trump famously uses his Twitter feed like a blunt instrument of his aggression. Turns out he's using the rest of us the same way.

(c) 2017, Bloomberg View

Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and U.S. domestic policy for Bloomberg View.
Donald Trump

In 2016, more Oregonians cast votes for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, yet Trump was elected president. The man who lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.

(Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Elizabeth Donley

I understand Senate President Peter Courtney is hesitant to support National Popular Vote legislation because he thinks "Oregon electoral votes should be cast for the candidate chosen by Oregon voters." He feels that this would not be guaranteed under the national popular vote, which would instead "give away" Oregonian votes and let other states decide who is president.

I agree that giving away the Oregon vote is not something we want. I agree that each Oregonian's vote should matter and should count towards the election of our president. However, when is the last time that actually happened under the current winner-take-all system?

In 2016, more Oregonians cast votes for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, yet Trump was elected president. The man who lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. In 2000, more Oregonians cast votes for Al Gore than George W. Bush, yet Bush was elected president, a man who lost the popular vote by about 540,000 votes.

Oregonians already give away their votes to other states. Oregonians' votes today hold no weight in the current electoral system, and this might be most easily illustrated by voter turn-out. Sure, more than 2 million Oregonians voted in 2016, but 21 percent of eligible voters declined to vote, which is the highest mark since Oregon switched to mail-in voting in 1996. Why? Because Oregonians know their votes don't matter and that other states decide who will become our nation's president.

In this past election, I voted, as I have in every election since Nov. 7, 1988, my 18th birthday. I cast that ballot proudly, standing in a voting booth in Iowa City, Iowa, thinking carefully about who to pick and how it would affect our country.

In Oregon, there is no careful picking. In 2016, I had friends who refrained from voting for the first time ever, citing its unimportance in deciding the election. I had a friend who texted my husband a picture of his ballot with my husband's name written in as president. I had a friend who voted for a third party candidate she didn't support because she said it didn't matter anyway. I had a friend who forgot to mail in her ballot, and when I asked her how she could do that, her response was that it just slipped her mind and that it didn't matter anyway.

This is voting in Oregon under our current system. This is giving away Oregonians' votes.

I have a daughter who will be able to vote in four years. When she turns 18 and fills out her first ballot, I want her to know that her vote matters. With this understanding, my daughter will be an engaged and active citizen who pays attention to the election process. She will have the critical thinking skills to push through alternative facts and fake news. She will value the ballot decisions she will have to make as I did back in Iowa in 1988.

Share your opinion

Submit your essay of 500 words or less to commentary@oregonlive.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification.

However, if we hold onto our archaic system, I can guarantee that Oregonians will continue to give away their votes with the understanding that their state and their votes really do not matter on the national stage. I think Courtney would be hard pressed to argue that Oregon has any power in presidential elections in this day and age.

We need change, and the national popular vote is the easiest, most logical way to enact change. HB 2927, SB 823 and SB 824 need Courtney's support. It is time he stopped blocking this legislation.

Elizabeth Donley is the co-organizer of National Popular Vote-Oregon. She lives in Northeast Portland.
1mcconnell.JPG

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (C) speaks to the media while flanked by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) (L) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on Capitol Hill on March 21, 2017 in Washington, DC.

(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

If Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden really want to do something about the Supreme Court nominations, they would address the real problem and not a symptom - Judge Gorsuch. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has betrayed his senatorial and constitutional responsibilities by not allowing President Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a hearing. The problem is not one judge or another. The problem is a senate which will not follow its own procedures or correct what is clearly an abuse of power. Use the rules of the senate and charge McConnell. Censure him and penalize him for his flagrant disregard of his sworn responsibilities.

Andrew Collin, Sandy
TRUMP HOTEL.JPG

The facade of Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., in a photo from December.

(AP Photo/File)

By Timothy L. O'Brien

With all eyes focused on the Republican struggle to replace Obamacare on Thursday, a federal agency (overseen by President Donald Trump) told the Trump Organization (overseen by President Donald Trump) that a Washington, D.C., hotel (owned by President Donald Trump) could continue leasing the land it sits on from the federal government.

Leases can be nifty deals for real estate guys like Trump. They give builders the ability to comfortably pour hundreds of millions of dollars into erecting or rehabilitating a structure that they don't own -- often also on land they don't own -- confident that they can do business on the site long enough to earn piles of money from their investment.

Two of Trump's signature Manhattan buildings - Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street - sit atop land that he leases. Such is the case with the Trump International Hotel in Washington, too, but with a notable difference: The federal government owns the building and the land in Washington, while private entities own the land beneath Trump's New York skyscrapers.

Trump's Washington landlord is the General Services Administration, an agency he also happens to supervise (presidents get to appoint the head of the GSA). The GSA is charged with procuring goods, services and offices for other federal agencies as well as trying to preserve historic properties that the federal government owns.

Trump's hotel is a conversion of the Old Post Office Tower, which has occupied the site since 1899 and which was part of the GSA's portfolio of federal properties. Trump entered into a development deal on the Post Office in 2013 - years before he launched his successful presidential bid -- promising that he would spend at least $200 million to spruce up the building and pay the GSA $250,000 per month, with annual increases, in return for a 60-year lease.

The Trump International Hotel opened last September. But once Trump captured the White House in November, he began careening toward a confrontation with his federal landlord because of the language in the lease he had signed. It states that no "elected official of the Government of the United States" is entitled to "any share or part" of the lease "or to any benefit that may arise therein."

A strict reading of the lease suggests that the moment Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, he was in violation of the lease agreement. After all, the practical implication of his presidential victory was that he was now leasing land to himself, as both the steward of the federal government and as the owner of a privately held company. In other words, Trump had yet another financial conflict-of-interest.

But that's not how Kevin Terry, the GSA's contracting officer, sees things. He approved the Trump Organization's continued operation of its Washington hotel on Thursday, saying that the leasing deal occurred before Trump became president and therefore remained viable. He also said, essentially, that Trump is in compliance with the lease because his sons now run the Trump Organization and profits from the hotel don't flow directly to the president.

Terry's argument assumes that Trump's sons are authentically independent of him. It also assumes that that Trump somehow forfeits that forbidden "benefit" from the operation of the hotel because its profits pour into a trust (of which Trump is the sole beneficiary) instead of directly into the president's wallet.

Trump and his lawyers said in a January press conference that they would extricate the president (and his daughter and adviser Ivanka) from the Trump Organization by turning over its management to his two eldest sons and making sure that they were monitored by a pair of internal ethics and business supervisors. Trump also promised to forward profits from his hotels to the federal government to avoid violating constitutional restrictions against payments to presidents from foreign entities.

Thanks to documents unearthed recently by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism group, we know that Trump appears be even less removed from his business interests than the smoke and mirrors of that press conference suggested.

According to the documents, Trump has established a trust, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, that will house all the president's assets tied to the Trump Organization. But the trust has only two managers, Donald Trump Jr. and Allen Weisselberg. Weisselberg is a longtime Trump confidant who first worked for Trump's father, Fred, and who has been the Trump Organization's chief financial officer for years.

Trump receives "exclusive benefit" from any assets in the trust. While Donald Jr. and Weisselberg have legal control over those assets, the president can revoke their authority at any time. We'll probably never know how much money flows from the Trump International Hotel to the Trump Organization and then on to the president because Trump won't release his tax returns.

Ivanka Trump, who recently was granted security clearance and an office in the West Wing, retains an ownership interest in the hotel, according to the GSA's financial records. Her own businesses are also in the Trump family's version of a trust - a legal veil that, as the New York Times recently noted, still allows her to control her fashion enterprises (and, presumably, her stake in the Washington hotel).

The Trumps have already made the Washington hotel a locus of activity for lobbyists, diplomats, White House staffers and members of Congress, giving the luxury guesthouse an enviable, Gilded Age business boost (and prompting a Washington competitor to sue the Trump Organization, alleging that the company's proximity to the president gives it an unfair business advantage).

It's also unclear how serious the Trumps are about remitting profits from the hotels to the federal government as a way of limiting their financial conflicts. The Trumps' business partner in their Las Vegas hotel, Phil Ruffin, recently had this to say about the likelihood that the Trumps would pass along hotel profits to the government:

"They're not going to do that," he told Forbes, before repeating: "They're not going to do that." One of the president's sons later contradicted Ruffin, saying the Trump Organization would, indeed, remit the funds.

Andy Grewal, a law professor at the University of Iowa, argues that the GSA's ruling on the Trump lease was sound because it was built on the argument that the Trump Organization entered into the lease agreement before Trump became president and wasn't yet conflicted as a government official. In that narrow sense, Grewal notes, the Trumps are compliant.

But Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor, described the GSA's ruling in a Bloomberg News interview as "bizarre." .

"It's not hard to conclude that GSA is disinclined to displease the president of the United States," Tribe added.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group, sued Trump after he was sworn in as president, arguing that any payments he or the Trump Organization receives from foreign governments amount to a constitutional violation. It called the GSA's ruling a "disappointment."

"Trump still owns the hotel, still will benefit from payments and still has a vested interest in its success," said the group's executive director, Noah Bookbinder. "The problems remain, as they were on Inauguration Day, unaddressed."

Anyway, the Trumps are happy.

"We would like to thank the GSA for their diligent review of this matter," the Trump Organization said in a press release. "We are immensely proud of this property and look forward to providing our guests with an unrivaled luxury experience for years to come."

(c) 2017, Bloomberg View

Timothy L. O'Brien is the executive editor of Bloomberg Gadfly and Bloomberg View. He has been an editor and writer for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, HuffPost and Talk magazine. His books include "TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald."
Roni Norton walked off the plane in Mexico with her 9-year-old granddaughter Adriana.

She left two days later without her.

The state of Oregon sent Adriana to live with a man she barely knew. Her father.

She left behind her younger sister, older brother and the support network that helped her find stability after three years in foster care. She didn't speak Spanish. She had never even visited Mexico. She grew up in Estacada.

Yet the protections of Oregon's child welfare system ended the day she met her father at the airport in the Yucatan capital of Merida. Within weeks, her relatives in Mexico started to notice the bruises on her skin.

Norton is afraid she may never see her granddaughter again. She thinks back to the day, seven months ago, when she hugged her goodbye in Merida.

"She kept telling me, 'Don't leave me, Nana. You're still going to love me, right?'"

The system that put Adriana in harm's way is supposed to protect children but also try to keep families together. Her case exposes how even policies with the best intentions can sometimes go horribly awry for children. And when those kids are sent to foreign countries, there's little their frantic families can do. Oregon immediately severs ties with kids sent to parents overseas.

International placements of Oregon children came under scrutiny a decade ago, when preschooler Adrianna Romero Cram was killed by her adoptive aunt and uncle in Mexico. The agency rarely places children with relatives in other countries -- except for parents. Adriana was one of five Oregon children sent to live with parents in foreign countries last year, and one of 92 since 2011. International treaties and laws uphold parental rights as sacrosanct.

At first, social workers planned to place Adriana and her siblings with Norton at her home in Everett, north of Seattle. The kids were taken from Norton's daughter in 2013.

When Adriana's father said he wanted custody, the Department of Human Services sided with him. A judge's order made it final.

By law, the state must reunite children with parents who can provide minimally adequate care, even when a parent was never part of the child's life.

Adriana's family in the U.S. believes the state prioritized his rights over hers. They point to a trail of red flags that should have raised concerns about her father long before she boarded the plane.

To be sure, strict privacy laws prevent child welfare officials from explaining their decision or from providing a more complete picture of Adriana's case. In a written statement, Andrea Cantu-Schomus, a Department of Human Services spokeswoman, said the agency "follows state and federal laws in all reunification cases whether the placement is in-state, out-of-state or out-of-country."

Adriana's relatives said they felt social workers excluded or misinformed them throughout the legal process. Norton said she was told she had no right to testify, despite a 2013 bill that ensured that exact thing.

Social workers assured them they would monitor Adriana for six months, the relatives say, and they had no idea about the agency's policy to exit the child's life immediately.

Adriana's family in the U.S. lost contact with her about the same time Mexican child welfare officials received a report of her abuse. Neighbors also told officials her father abused drugs. The current status of any legal proceedings in Mexico is unclear.

Oregon officials keep telling Norton there is nothing they can do.

"They just discarded this little girl," she said, breaking down in tears. "I just don't understand."

Growing up

The concerning reports about Adriana's family came in for years.

Social workers received repeated calls from teachers and relatives who worried about Adriana, her brother and her sister. The boy had to take care of his sisters, four and seven years younger than him. He and Adriana often missed school. When Adriana did attend, she reportedly dozed off and struggled to make sense, as if she was given too much medicine. Her stepfather was charged with assaulting her mom in 2011, but the case was dropped.

It would be two more years until the state took the kids into protective custody. Adriana was 7.

The Oregonian/OregonLive is not using the family's last name to protect the children's privacy.

Social workers believed the adults in the home were using drugs and found out a man wanted by police was also living in the apartment. The kids learned to hide when things became chaotic and unsafe, documents say.

"All the children seem to be hypervigilant and have stress and anxiety related issues," one caseworker wrote.

Adriana's condition was most severe and escalated in unpredictable, sometimes violent outbursts that her foster parents struggled to control. She shuffled through three different homes and three different schools in two years.

For the first six months, she lived with her siblings and stepgrandparents in Milwaukie. She kicked holes in the wall and vaulted herself off the top of a bunkbed, her stepgrandmother Dana German said.

She learned to calm Adriana down by holding her until she stopped sobbing. But eventually her behavior became too much. The couple prayed and decided more experienced foster parents would be better for Adriana.

"I was very fearful in her need to act out so violently she was going to hurt herself," Dana German said.

She stayed with her next foster family for a year. Her behavior grew worse, and they too asked for her to be moved.

Her third placement ended suddenly after a few months when she acted in a threatening way toward another child, Norton said. As it happened, Norton was in Oregon City for meetings with Adriana's social workers. They gave her permission to get Adriana from the foster home and drive her to Washington. She lived there for the next year.

Doctors offered multiple diagnoses, including reactive attachment disorder, Norton said. The condition can make it difficult for children to to form any significant bonds. It can occur when a child's basic needs aren't met early on in life. Adriana later disclosed that she had been abused when she was younger, Norton said. Norton read books and watched videos about the disorder so she could understand how to help her granddaughter.

Adriana's behavior began to level out with medicine and intensive therapy, Norton said. Her school teacher offered extra support.

"When we first got her, she was so traumatized and broken," Norton said.

An uncertain future

Snapshots and video clips of Adriana's year in Everett fill Norton's phone.

The family celebrated Adriana's ninth birthday with a Monster High theme. She wore a light blue princess dress and sang along to "Happy Birthday." She loved singing, dancing and making art.

Her grandma's favorite photo reminds her of a time they did laundry together. Adriana was wrapped up in a comforter, giggling. "We just had a really cool day, her and I," Norton said.

Adriana's two siblings also moved to Washington over time, German said. She and her husband drove the four hours from Milwaukie to Everett to see them every few months. German noticed positive shifts in Adriana's behavior.

"She was doing so well under Roni's care," German said. "She had grown so much."

But social workers still hadn't finalized their long-term plan for Adriana. The case that would decide her fate crawled on in Clackamas County.

Her mother, Samantha, demonstrated few signs of progress, according to case files. She admitted to drug use and domestic violence, although she denies the allegations today. She says now she thought if she admitted things the state would allow her to reunite with her children more quickly. She didn't complete required drug treatment or parenting classes.

Her relatives felt she was in denial about her drug problems. "Sami is not in reality, and she can't take responsibility," Norton said.

In Oregon, parents in danger of losing their children must demonstrate they can provide minimally adequate care. If they do so, social workers must recommend reuniting the family. It's a universal concept. Parental rights are paramount.

"Parents have a constitutional right to their children, and to parent their children," said Annelisa Smith, a Portland attorney who was not involved in Adriana's case.

It became clear their mother wouldn't meet the minimum bar. But Adriana's father had those same parental rights.

From a legal perspective, the court must give noncustodial parents the benefit of the doubt that they are minimally competent until they prove they aren't, said Warren Binford, a law professor who leads the Clinical Law Program at Willamette University in Salem.

"It doesn't mean, 'Is this a great parent? Is this father of the year?' That's not what the court is deciding."

It isn't clear when Adriana's father expressed formal interest in custody.

Neither his lawyer nor his daughter's returned messages left by The Oregonian/OregonLive. A request to review key dates in the case was denied because juvenile court records are confidential in Oregon.

Once the process started to return Adriana to her father, no one else was given a voice, German said.

"The overwhelming feature that is really hard for everybody," she said, "is the fact that, regardless of a child's obvious needs, often the rights of the parents take precedent."

The father's rights outweighed Norton's, who until then had been in line to adopt her. Case files confirm that was the plan for Adriana for some time.

When those plans shifted, and throughout subsequent court proceedings, Norton said she was told she had no right to tell the judge what she felt was in Adriana's best interests.

But Oregon law does extend some rights to grandparents in dependency hearings, including the right to be heard by the court. Relatives who have significant relationships with children can also petition to intervene in the case.

Adriana's grandparents say they knew none of this. Officials told her not to worry about getting an attorney, Norton said, because they planned to recommend placing Adriana with her permanently.

"We're just the grandparents," she said. "We don't know what the process is."

Cantu-Schomus, the state spokeswoman, said no one at her agency could talk about Adriana's case. She said the agency must follow the law and noted that caseworkers don't have the last word.

"In all DHS cases, local judges -- with access to all information -- make the final decision about a reunification," Cantu-Schomus said.

Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Kathie Steele made the ruling in Adriana's case, according to three relatives. She declined to answer questions about the decision.

She said judges rely on the state to provide all the facts to ensure parents are good placements.

"We make our decisions on the basis of the information we have in front of us," Steele said.

'So weird'

Adriana's relatives on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border say the reunion was plainly destined to fail.

Her father, William, had a history of substance abuse in Oregon. She had no memory of him because he returned to Mexico when she was a toddler.

He lived in Oxkutzcab, a town of 21,000, where he was raised. He had moved to Oregon at age 18, returned to Mexico, and then came back to the Portland area in his 20s. That's where he met Adriana's mom. Their baby was born in August 2006.

Three months later, he was driving on Interstate 205 near Johnson Creek Boulevard when his vehicle veered across the highway and rolled over. A witness estimated the car was traveling 100 mph. An officer at the scene asked him to take field sobriety tests, and he said, "You know I'm drunk."

A decade later, coincidentally, one of the prosecutors in the case went on to represent the state in its plan to place Adriana with her father. To Norton, this underscored how the state should have known about William's troubles. "To me, it is a blatant disregard for a child's wellbeing," she said.

He was convicted of intoxicated driving and sentenced to probation. The judge also ordered him to attend weekly treatment meetings. He didn't show up for his first session, though, because he was back in jail.

He had been arrested after a Hillsboro police officer saw him near the police station, tearing up a piece of wooden landscaping. The officer smelled alcohol on his breath. When the officer asked his name, he said it was spelled like "Jackie Chan."

He pleaded guilty to lying to police and was received 10 days in jail. He was deported to Mexico before he served the full sentence.

He returned weeks later. He was arrested on new accusations of driving under the influence in October 2007. Again, he was deported to Mexico. Since he didn't appear for his arraignment, a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

The warrant remains active. This was another red flag Norton believes child welfare workers ignored.

He was deported a third and final time in March 2008, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement records.

William had little involvement in his daughter's life.

After Adriana was removed from her mother's care, Oregon child welfare officials tracked him down on Facebook in 2013. He was back in his hometown in Mexico.

His partner, Cintia, said he always wanted custody of Adriana after he found out what was happening with her mother. Cintia said he was not available to speak to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Cantu-Schomus said the Department of Human Services follows procedure in all reunifications with parents. That includes performing background checks and working with local authorities to make sure the needs of the child can be met.

Officials also request a "home study," the key document that helps determine whether the child can safely be placed with a parent. Social workers look into living arrangements, relationships and habits, and also signs of stress.

The transcribed version of Mexico's home study into Adriana's father is eight pages. It carried immeasurable weight.

The report mentions one of William's drunken driving arrests in Oregon, but doesn't say if he received treatment. One section says he drinks occasionally with family. The box that says "alcoholism" among a list of potential issues is blank. "Sociable," "hardworking," "good habits," and "no vices" are checked off.

Many facts in the home study are contradicted by the people who know him. It says he's a bricklayer; his partner says he's a truck driver. It says he's always had constant contact with his daughter; her family in the U.S. says that's not true.

A social worker sought the opinions of two "nearby and far-away neighbors."

Their names aren't included, but their opinions are accorded significant weight. Two of the five sentences in the report's final summary are based on what they said.

"During field investigation with nearby and far-away neighbors, they provided favorable data with regard to the subject's behavior because they stated that he is calm and without any vices. They know that he is currently married and a child was born out of their relationship."

That's how the report ends, with no clear formal recommendation.

The study doesn't cite interviews with relatives, including some who had concerns from the start.

William's mother, Juana, said her son stopped caring for his two older sons after he separated from their mother. "That's why I thought it was so weird about why they turned over custody to those (people)," she said, in Spanish.

Oregon social workers moved forward with the plan. The judge signed off last year.

Marty McMahon, a supervisor in the Oregon City child welfare office that oversaw Adriana's case, said he couldn't discuss what happened. In general, he said, the agency is bound by laws and can't step outside those boundaries.

"You have a lot of different people with a lot of different interests in outcomes," he said. "It can be very frustrating if the outcome is different than what you were hoping for."

Sen. Sara Gelser, of Corvallis, a leading reformer of Oregon's child welfare system, said the idea of separating a child from her family, community, culture and medical providers is not a decision focused on what's best for the youngster.

"That is not child focused," she said. "That is adult focused."

Her new home

Adriana's father awaited her arrival at the airport in Merida. She packed all the clothes and toys she could fit into two suitcases, and her silver cross necklace her grandmother gave her. She had to leave most of her things behind.

Norton stayed a few days and bought her school clothes for her upcoming fifth-grade year. Then she flew back home.

Adriana's relatives in the U.S. tried to accept the decision. They made plans to stay in touch through IMO, an online video chat service.

But German couldn't shake the dread she felt. Adriana's emotional state was already fragile, and things that make her feel uncertain or insecure make it worse. In German's mind, sending Adriana to an unfamiliar family, city and language was always a "recipe for disaster."

She and other relatives wondered how much her family in Mexico knew about Adriana's needs.

They were reassured by the understanding that the agency would keep Adriana's case open for six months to monitor how well she was doing.

McMahon has told Norton no one at his agency ever said that. He told The Oregonian/OregonLive the agency has no authority to act after it dismisses jurisdiction over a child's case.

However, when children are placed with parents in Oregon or elsewhere in the U.S., it's not uncommon for the agency to monitor the new living situation, juvenile law attorneys said.

But it is state policy to dismiss jurisdiction in foreign cases on the same day kids and parents are reunited.

Closing the case immediately reduces the agency's liability if a child is hurt, said Meghan Bishop, a Beaverton attorney who represents relatives in child welfare cases.

"Their liability is directly related to the fact that they are legal guardians of the child," she said. "They are no longer in the position where they can be sued."

Updates shared on Facebook portrayed Adriana's new life. She celebrated her 10th birthday with a heart-shaped cake and a Charlie Brown pinata. She shopped with her little brother and smiled for the camera.

For a few weeks, Norton was able to stay in touch. Communication soon slowed, then stopped almost altogether in October. Norton learned in November Adriana was taken from her father's home.

The news triggered months of calls and emails to anyone Norton believes might be able to help find Adriana and bring her back. She discovered Mexican child welfare officials had taken the girl from her father.

In Facebook messages to Norton, William denied any abuse. At Norton's urging, he wrote a letter in English saying he wanted to turn custody back over to Norton. He also sent documents that described the allegations against him, she said.

The case started when neighbors told authorities Adriana wasn't getting enough food, according to the Mexican child welfare reports, reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The reports said her father "drinks a lot of alcohol and appears to consume drugs."

Her father's partner, Cintia, denied the allegations. She said Adriana was a stubborn girl who sometimes fought with her younger brother. "But there was no mistreatment."

Adriana's paternal grandmother said she notified authorities after she saw bruises on the girl. Child welfare officials placed Adriana with her.

Oregon dismissed Adriana's case when she arrived in Mexico so it has no authority to intervene, officials said. McMahon told Norton there was nothing the agency could do.

But officials at the Mexican consulate contradicted that, saying they would help put Oregon social workers in touch with their counterparts in Mexico.

Any action in Mexico would trigger a legal process similar to the one in the U.S., said Helietta Gonzalez-Hernandez, a lawyer with the Consulate General of Mexico in Portland.

Social workers try to place children with the nearest relative, she said. If an American relative wants to request custody, he or she can explain the situation to Oregon child welfare officials, who can work with the consulate and their counterparts in Mexico, Gonzalez-Hernandez said.

She said she was aware of Adriana, but could not comment on any details of her case.

Relatives in Oregon and Washington said they have not been notified of any formal avenue to regain custody of Adriana.

Norton said all communication with Adriana's caretakers has been cut off.

The Oregonian/OregonLive was able to reach Adriana's grandmother in Mexico. She said Adriana is doing fine.

She placed a girl on the phone who said she was Adriana. The girl answered in English, then asked to speak in Spanish. She said she enjoyed playing with dolls and stealing her grandmother's shoes. She said she is happy.

Her grandmother in Mexico said she didn't want to return her to Washington, because it would be like she was abandoning her.

"The girl has suffered too much," she said. "You all don't have any idea."

Norton, in Washington, said she can't be sure that the girl on the phone was Adriana. Her concerns and fears stem from the answers she can never find. Is Adriana receiving the medicine and therapy she needs? Are Mexican social workers watching out for her?

Why can't Oregon officials do more to make sure she is safe?

Since November, Norton has called state leaders, federal lawmakers, consulate officials and foreign social workers. An FBI agent told her the agency would open an official inquiry into Adriana's case. Days later, the agent told her the FBI did not have jurisdiction. A spokeswoman could not confirm the status of the case to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Norton clutches a crinkled picture to her chest. It's Adriana's fourth-grade photo. The little girl smiles, showing dimples and the gap between two of her top teeth. Her Nana just wants her home.

"I have this overwhelming dread," she said, "that we are running out of time for Adriana."

Tony Hernandez of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this story.

-- Molly Young

myoung@oregonian.com

503-412-7056

@mollykyoung

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DALLAS -- An Oregon woman pleaded guilty to animal neglect after authorities say she didn't provide sufficient care for her goats, horses and llamas.

The Statesman Journal reports prosecutors dropped felony charges against Donna Dovey in exchange for her pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges Thursday at Polk County Circuit Court.

The 50-year-old kept the animals on rented farmland south of Dallas, Oregon.

Polk County Sheriff Mark Garton said a neighbor tipped authorities that animals were being neglected.

Deputies found 16 horses, three llamas and three goats. Some had large abscesses and were underweight.

Garton says the animals that survive will soon be put up for adoption. Volunteers with the Polk County Sheriff's Posse have been visiting the farm at least every day to feed and care for the animals.

-- The Associated Press
Law enforcement officials are searching a Turk Road property as part of an ongoing investigation into the 2011 murder of a man who once lived along the same roadway, which has been at the heart of several access disputes.

Authorities were tight-lipped about the operations Friday. Several patrol cars blocked the road just outside the home of Katy Wessel and John Mehan. In 2012, officials conducted a search warrant on the same property.

Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said the activity on Turk Road is part of the ongoing investigation into the murder of John "Mike" Crites, who until his death lived up the dirt road from Friday's flurry of activity.

Authorities refused to answer any further questions regarding the developments, noting that any paperwork relating to the operation are sealed.

No charges have been filed in the killing.

Part of Crites' remains were found in 2011 on MacDonald Pass in a wooded area just off Highway 12 outside of Helena. Other parts of him were found about a year later on the other side of the Continental Divide near Elliston.

On Friday morning, Mehan and Wessel appeared in Helena district court as part of a lawsuit they filed against Crites' estate alleging he continually harassed and threatened the married couple and another neighbor, Dennis Shaw.

A trial in the case was supposed to happen this month, but court documents say the dates will likely be postponed.

The suit was filed in May 2011. Crites disappeared a month later. He was supposed to meet with a neighbor to discuss to ongoing consternation over land disputes the day he went missing.

Two trash bags containing some of 48-year-old Crites' bones were found in October 2011 on MacDonald Pass, which is roughly 25 miles from his Turk Road home.

His skull and other parts of him were located a year later in 2012.

In July of that same year, Mehan was arrested on a felony charge of tampering with evidence on allegations he trespassed onto a neighbor's land and removed a video camera that had been used in the murder investigation. In October 2013, Mehan pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of misdemeanor criminal mischief. He received a six-month suspended jail sentence and a $1,000 fine.

The documents filed in the tampering case against Mehan outlined much of the state of the murder investigation at the time, although no one has been charged for the slaying.

Just before his arrest for tampering, the documents allege, Mehan spoke with someone at an event in Helena and voiced knowledge about the case not reported to the public. He said officials had not recovered a specific body part, the paperwork noted.

"Detectives believe the body was dismembered as there were markings on the remaining bones indicating the body had been sawn apart," an investigator wrote in the documents.

At the time, officials had not recovered various body parts, a cellphone and a handgun belonging to Crites. Authorities have declined to say if these items have been found since then.

"Detectives believe these items may not have been disposed of with the bones discarded on MacDonald Pass because the items could contain clues both to Crites' identity, manner of death and his killer," the investigator continued.

When authorities conducted search warrants at the home of Wessel and Mehan in 2012, they collected saws, Hefty garbage bags, a handgun and bolt cutters, among other items, according to previous Independent Record reports. Shaw's residence was searched at the same time.

Officials have repeatedly said they've never lost hope of solving the murder.

Last summer, a new detective took over the case. The previous two lead investigators have since retired.

Included in the information reviewed by Detective Andrew Blythe were the previous search warrants served in the Turk Road neighborhood, along with one conducted out of state.
State troopers are asking for help solving the poaching of a bald eagle found dead at a river mouth on the southern Oregon coast, its talons cut and no outward sign of fatal injuries.

Someone reported Monday that the bird had been slain and discarded at the mouth of the Winchuck River south of Brookings, state police said in a news release. A state Department of Fish and Wildlife trooper responded and found the bird, whose talons had been cut off and nabbed.

The bald eagle is a national symbol that was taken off the endangered species list in 2007 because of population recovery, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act safeguards eagles and imposes $100,000 fines, a year of jail time, or both for first-time, individual violators.

Troopers ask anyone who has information about the poaching to call Senior Trooper Paul Rushton at 541-531-5896.

Tipsters can also provide information about wildlife violations by calling 1-800-452-7888 or emailing TIP@state.or.us. The tips can be anonymous.

-- Jim Ryan

jryan@oregonian.com

503-221-8005; @Jimryan015
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FILE PHOTO -- U.S. Marshals arrested Thomas Elliott Stafford on Saturday morning outside a residence in the 1800 block of Southwest Alder Street. (The Oregonian/OregonLive)

(LC- The Oregonian)

U.S. Marshals on Saturday arrested a 40-year-old man suspected in the strangulation death earlier this month of a man near Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

Thomas Elliott Stafford

Marshals arrested Thomas Elliott Stafford at about 10:15 a.m. outside a residence in the 1800 block of Southwest Alder Street, officials said. Stafford is being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday for an extradition hearing.

A spokesperson for the Jackson County Sheriff's Department did not have information Saturday about how Stafford arrived in Portland or how long he is believed to have been in Oregon.

Stafford was wanted in the killing Jerry Floyd Kirkendall, 65. The body of Kirkendall, an Indiana resident, was found Monday, March 20, in the unplugged freezer at the home he was renting in Latimer, Mississippi. Kirkendall was last seen March 3, said Marcia Hill, a spokeswoman for Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell.

Authorities believe Stafford took Kirkendall's 2001 gold Cadillac Seville SLS and then sold it to a cousin March 5 in Mount Vernon, Alabama, for cash and a 9 mm Taurus handgun, Hill said.

Elliott pleaded was sentenced to 12 months probation last September after pleading no contest in Multnomah County Circuit Court to unlawful methamphetamine possession, court records show. An arrest warrant for probation violation was issued Oct. 5.

-- Allan Brettman
A memorial for Quanice Hayes, the black teen killed by police in Northeast Portland after being suspected in a robbery, was a mix of somberness, joy and anger Friday afternoon.

About 200 people filled the Philadelphia Missionary Baptist Church in Northeast Portland for the afternoon service, with a cream-colored casket at the front and center, covered with flowers.

Albina Ministerial Alliance's Coalition for Justice and Police Reform condemns grand jury decision.

The Albina Ministerial Alliance's Coalition for Justice and Police Reform on Friday condemned the grand jury's decision.

The group pressed for "stronger, independent oversight" of city police officers' deployment of "deadly and excessive force." It also called for the appointment of an independent prosecutor in police shooting and excessive force cases and pointed to a lack of Portland police diversity.

"Whether Quanice Hayes was guilty or not of personal robbery it is not the responsibility of the Police Officer to act as Judge or Jury and carry out the sentence," the group said in a statement.

"How can you put a bullet through the head of a young teenager on his knees (probably giving up) as well as two additional bullets in his body," the alliance continued. "We know the PPB is trained to shoot for the center mass, so the shot to the head is inconsistent with training."

The alliance represents church leaders and others who have pushed for police reforms.

Read the full statement

.

The service ended a week in which a Multnomah County grand jury delivered its decision Tuesday that a Portland police officer was justified in shooting Hayes, a suspect in an armed robbery, outside a home in Northeast Portland. The day after the grand jury's decision was announced, Hayes' mother, Venus Hayes, called for a federal investigation of the circumstances of her son's death, criticizing the way Portland police and the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office handled the case.

At the service, Hayes' cousin, Terrence Hayes, delivered an eight-minute eulogy that fondly remembered the family member known as "Moose," but it also used his relative's death to draw attention to broader issues of relations between African Americans and police in Portland as well as across the United States.

Terrence Hayes, who also spoke three weeks ago outside a Portland City Council meeting about his cousin's death, said, "Portland police and other police around this nation" pose a threat to black men.

"At some point, enough brains have to be stacked for y'all to see reality," Hayes said in an apparent reference to black men killed nationwide in officer-involved shootings.

Hayes, pacing at the front of the church with a wireless microphone, recalled seeing three children recently outside of his home playing with guns. None was black.

"I had to apologize to my sons," he said, "because I can't allow them to do that. They can't have water guns, BB guns - everything the law of this land supposedly allows for them has been denied."

Hayes also offered his opinion about young African American men and women recognizing their value.

Speaking to the women, he said, "There is a war to devalue you in this country ... the moment you stand up for what you're worth? Watch these little dudes do it, too."

Before Hayes spoke, about a dozen friends and family members stood before the audience to remember Hayes. And before that, Pastor Roy Clay combined Biblical readings with solo renditions of spiritual music, backed by an organ and drummer.

Moments after people had slowly filed out of the tiny church at Northeast Mason Church and Garfield Avenue, about 50 people gathered at the intersection. Some held a banner reading "Justice for Quanice Hayes."

For at least 15 minutes, they stood in the pouring rain chanting, "Say his name: Quanice Hayes," and "Black lives matter."

Before the funeral, Hayes' uncle, Steven Hayes, said the family didn't condone protests in front of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler's house - something that has happened on at least two occasions. All they wanted, he said, was for police to be held accountable.

"We don't want Officer (Andrew) Hearst on the streets again," he said.

He was referring to the officer who shot Hayes three times. Hearst has been involved in two fatal shootings in the past five years, and Steven Hayes said he should not be allowed to patrol anymore.

Hearst was one of three officers who fatally shot a man in 2013. Merle Hatch, 50, had a mental illness diagnosis. He was carrying a broken telephone handset, which he said was a gun. A grand jury found no wrongdoing in that case.

The grand this week said Hearst was justified in shooting Hayes three times - once in the head, twice in the torso - on Feb. 9. Police had been searching for an armed robbery suspect who matched Hayes' description.

-- Allan Brettman

-- Samantha Matsumoto
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Border Walls

When the Berlin Wall was torn down a quarter-century ago, there were fewer than 20 border walls around the world. Today, at least 65 walls or fences have been completed or are under construction between nations, according to Quebec University professor Elisabeth Vallet.

Here is a look at President Trumps proposal and some of the other walls located around the world.

Don't Edit

The signature of President Donald Trump is seen on an executive order in Oval Office of the White House. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Trump's executive order

On Jan. 25, 2017 President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for construction of a contiguous physical wall on the southern border between the United States and Mexico.

Customs and Border Protection issued two Requests for Proposals to carry out the executive order earlier this month. Responses are due by March 29.

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A U.S. Border Patrol agent guards a fence gate along the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas. (Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald via AP)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

United States/Mexico - existing wall

Length: The existing wall is a series of barriers that span 653 miles of the nearly 2,000 miles of the U.S.Mexico border.

Type: Mixed construction fencing consisting of steel posts set inches apart to keep people from crossing, makeshift metal barriers for blocking cars and razor wire.

Built: In 2006, Congress authorized the Secure Fence Act.

Sources: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, The Associated Press

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Lefteris Pitarakis/AP photo

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

N{/y

Length: 511 miles wall, 559 miles border.

Type: Concrete wall topped with 3 feet of barbed wire.

Built: In 2014, Turkey began building the wall in order to tighten security against militants on its border with Syria.

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Convicts build the fence of the second defense line behind the first protective fence on the border between Hungary and Serbia. (Sandor Ujvari/MTI via AP)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Hungary/Serbia

Length: 109 miles



Type: 13-foot barbed wire

Built: The first fence was built in 2015. Recently Prime Minister Victor Orban announced Hungarys plan to build a second fence.

Don't Edit

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(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

West Bank barrier

Length: Rerouted several times due to legal rulings.

Type: Part concrete wall, part wire fence

Built: Israel began building the barrier in 2002.

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Spanish police officers stand guard as migrants sit on top of a metallic fence that divides Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios/2014 file photo)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Melilla border fence

The European Union and Africa share two land borders: one of them in Melilla, the city is geographically African but legally part of Spain. The other border is in Ceuta, a western Spanish territory.

Length: 6 miles

Type: 20 foot tall wire fence, topped with razor wire.

Built: First built in 1998. A 3rd fence was completed in 2005

Don't Edit

Lithuania celebrated the 27th anniversary of its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union on Saturday, March 11, 2017 (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Lithuania plans fence

Length: 81 miles of border, from Vistytis to the Neman River

Type: 6.5 foot fence of unknown type.

Built: 2017 (expected)

According to the BBC, Latvia and Estonia also plan to erect fences along their borders with Russia.

Don't Edit

Great Wall in Badaling. (Benjamin Brink,The Oregonian/file)

Lynne Palombo | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Great Wall of China

Length: 13,000 miles built.

Type: Height varies from just above ground level to 30 feet high.

Built: Constructed over a period of about 17 centuries to fend off northern invaders. The wall, first opened to tourists in 1957, is now a famous UN World Heritage Site.
Between the Spruce Goose, an indoor water park and sprawling vineyards, the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum already has a lot to offer. But now partially under new ownership, the McMinnville museum might have a lot more to brag about.

A hotel, amphitheater and campground are among the big ideas in the works at the Evergreen campus, which will host a grand opening of its new event center spaces on Wednesday. All of it comes courtesy of Falls Event Center LLC, a Utah-based company that purchased several museum buildings and a sizable chunk of land during a bankruptcy sale last summer.

Local managers with the Falls Event Center have said that no big changes are coming to the museum buildings themselves - though the company now owns both the space museum building and the Wings & Waves Waterpark - as the expansion plans are focused primarily on the surrounding land.

"It was very important to keep the integrity" of the museum, general manager Lea Turner-Betts said. "It's a very special place."

After last year's deal, the Falls Event Center owns the space museum, water park, and additional property around the campus, including a large chunk of land. The Aviation Museum and theater are owned by Affordable Midcoast Housing LLC, a Maine-based company run by developer George Schott that bought them in a separate bankruptcy sale.

The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum itself is a nonprofit, and leases out the buildings from the two companies.

The vision of Falls Event Center is driven by its owner, Klamath Falls native Steve Down. He preaches "cause capitalism," a philosophy that puts a big emphasis on giving back to the community. One of Down's earliest companies was Even Stevens Sandwiches, which gives one sandwich to a local nonprofit for every sandwich sold (a shop may be coming to McMinnville soon).

That same philosophy will be maintained at Evergreen, where time in the new event center spaces - designed with wedding parties and conferences in mind - will be donated to nonprofits when not rented out, Turner-Betts said.

But the Falls Event Center is also focused on expansion. Outside the museum buildings, the company has already converted an old chapel into "the lodge," removing pews to make a more general space for big gatherings. Crews are also working on expanding Evergreen's vineyards around the building, making use of the sprawling green space that the company also purchased.

It's in that green space that the big changes would come.

Falls Event Center is in the beginning stages of reviving a bold idea: a four-star, 130-room hotel at the center of the campus. Work could begin on the hotel by the end of 2018, managers said, but plans for a campground and an amphitheater at the back of the property could come as soon as this summer, as the company considers hosting an event for the total solar eclipse in August 2017.

If all those visions are realized, Evergreen could become a hugely popular destination for weddings, birthday parties, music festivals and more.

"The vision of our founder here is to make (Evergreen) the number-one destination in Oregon," said Dan Barton, sales director for the Falls Event Center in McMinnville.

For now, the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum will look as it always has, with a few new spaces to host events. Diehard visitors should have no cause for concern, because while Evergreen may change, the museums will still be the heart of the campus.

In other words, don't expect the Spruce Goose to go anywhere.

This post has been modified to reflect the following correction: The Aviation Museum and theater are owned by Affordable Midcoast Housing LLC, a Maine-based company run by developer George Schott that bought them in a separate bankruptcy sale.

--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB
TR.CaliforniaGrayWhaleTail.jpg

A gray whale fluking off the Oregon coast during winter Whale Watch Week.

(Terry Richard/The Oregonian)

Can't make it out to the Oregon coast for this year's spring Whale Watch Week? Now you can watch the migration happen from afar, thanks to a new live stream from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.

The stream will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day of Whale Watch Week, which lasts from March 25 to March 31, showing a spot off the coast of Depoe Bay where migrating gray whales frequently pass.

The whales are headed north (that's left to right on the video), migrating from winter breeding grounds in Baja California, Mexico to summer feeding grounds in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. The live stream might also show members of a resident pod of gray whales, which live near the Oregon coast year-round.

Watching the stream is an exercise in patience - though an amazingly calming one - as whales may only pass by every now and then throughout the day. But catching a a close-up glimpse of a gray whale (and possibly a calf) is quite the reward.

This is the first year the parks department is streaming the gray whale migration, broadcasting video that usually plays for visitors inside the Whale Watching Center in Depoe Bay. Volunteers will be on hand there and at other state parks along the Oregon coast during Whale Watch Week, educating the public about the whales and their migration.

If the live stream inspires you to drive to the Pacific and see them for yourself, here are 7 tips for spotting gray whales as they pass and 6 good whale watching spots on the Oregon coast.

--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB
Alex Tizon.jpg

Alex Tizon was a professor at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. He was found dead in his Eugene home at 58.

(Photo by University of Oregon)

University of Oregon professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Alex Tizon has died, according to the School of Journalism and Communication. He was 57.

A medical examiner says Tizon died in his sleep of natural causes, journalism school Dean Juan-Carlos Molleda wrote. He was found by Eugene police in his home.

Tizon taught reporting and interviewing at the UO since 2011. He recently returned to the U.S. from a Knight International Journalism Fellowship in the Philippines, where he studied government efforts to alleviate poverty in its five most impoverished provinces, according to Molleda.

A first-generation immigrant from the country himself, Tizon chronicled his experiences and struggles as an Asian-American man in a 2014 memoir, "Big Little Man: The Search for My Asian Self."

Tizon spent 17 years as a reporter for The Seattle Times. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for a project investigating substandard living conditions in federally subsidized housing for Native Americans. He also reported on the 9/11 attacks and their effects throughout the country for the newspaper.

Tizon also worked in Seattle as a bureau chief for The Los Angeles Times and was a frequent contributor to The Atlantic Magazine.

"His death is a tragic loss not only to his family but to the entire SOJC (School of Journalism and Communication) community," journalism director Scott Maier wrote in a letter to students obtained by The Daily Emerald.

--Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344

@edercampuzano

ecampuzano@oregonian.com
Undocumented immigrant rally in Portland66435.JPG

File photo the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Building in Southwest Portland pictured Feb. 27, 2017. National lists released March 20, 2017 naming police agencies that received federal "detainer" requests to hold undocumented immigrants for deportation caused widespread confusion.

(Beth Nakamura/staff)

National lists released this week naming police agencies that received federal "detainer" requests to hold undocumented immigrants for deportation caused widespread confusion.

One of the lists from U.S. Homeland Security singled out the Washington County Sheriff's Office as one of the "non-cooperative" jurisdictions that received the most detainers between Jan. 28 and Feb. 3.

That prompted Sheriff Pat Garrett to reference Oregon's history as a sanctuary state and why agencies here don't hold immigrants on detainers.

Here's a look at the latest developments.

Q. What exactly are the lists?

The report reflects one week of detainer information obtained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said spokeswoman Rose Richeson. ICE is under Homeland Security and is charged with conducting deportations.

The document names 10 counties identified as ones that "do not comply with retainers on a routine basis" that received the most requests to hold suspected undocumented immigrants for federal agents to pick up.

Washington County had seven requests, No. 7 on the list.

The report also names 206 detainers from various counties and states that released immigrants after jailers declined to honor the immigration holds. This list named Multnomah, Marion and Clackamas counties.

Those three counties released people convicted of driving while impaired, indecent exposure, drug possession and assault, the report said.

Q. What's a detainer?

ICE says it places detainers on immigrants arrested on criminal charges or those it believes "are removable from the United States," according to its website.

ICE requests local police agencies hold immigrants up to an additional 48 hours - excluding weekends and holidays -- so it can take custody of them.

"When law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders, it undermines ICE's ability to protect public safety and carry out its mission," the website says.

The American Civil Liberties Union's website criticizes the immigration holds. "ICE's use of detainers to imprison people without due process and, in many cases, without any charges pending or probable cause of any violation has raised serious constitutional concerns," it says.

Q. What's the history of detainers?

The federal enforcement tool was created in the 1980s as part of drug war laws using fingerprint information to identify drug offenders who were in the country illegally, said Juliet Stumpf, a Lewis & Clark Law School professor, in a 2015 report.

Then under President George W. Bush, Homeland Security created the Secure Communities program to identify undocumented immigrants in general for potential deportation. They used the detainer mechanism to require local and state agencies to hold immigrants.

The program led to the deportation of 3,200 undocumented immigrants in Oregon -- including 588 from Multnomah County, 679 from Washington County and 411 from Clackamas County, and more than 400,000 nationwide, according to a 2015 federal report.

"It meant that the local police seemed to be the immigration officer to the community," Stumpf said in an interview this week. "And that meant if there was any concern about deportation levels, the face of immigration enforcement was the local police and not the federal immigration official."

Q. What happened in 2014?

U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart ruled that Clackamas County violated the Fourth Amendment rights of Maria Miranda-Olivares when it kept her in custody after she was eligible for bail. The county paid Miranda-Olivares $30,100 and her attorneys received more than $97,000, according to federal court documents.

After the Clackamas County ruling and similar rulings around the nation, the Obama administration announced it was ending Secure Communities in 2015.

Its successor, the Priority Enforcement Program, also relied on fingerprint sharing, but it gave the option for police agencies to decide if they would honor detainers and also allowed ICE agents to request notifications from them when a person would be released from local custody.

The program provided detailed guidance about the types of people who would be targeted for deportation, said Richeson, the ICE spokeswoman. Federal memos show deportation priorities for immigrants convicted of violent crimes and threats to national security over those convicted of lesser crimes, such as misdemeanors.

Q. What's different under the Trump administration?

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January indicating the return of Secure Communities.

The program attempts to push counties to participate instead of giving them the option. Not only could criminal convictions but also now arrests initiate deportation proceedings. Severity of the crimes isn't a factor.

What are the ICE deportation priorities?

Immigration agents are to consider deportation arrests on people who:

1. Are convicted of any criminal offense;

2. Have been charged with any offense;

3. Have "committed acts which constitute a chargeable criminal offense;"

4. Has engaged in fraud or "willful misrepresentation" during any encounter with a governmental agency;

5. Has abused a program that provides public benefits;

6. Are subject to a final order of deportation;

7. Or if the ICE agent otherwise decides the immigrant poses a risk to public safety.

Source: Department of Homeland Security Feb. 20, 2017,

Richeson, the ICE spokeswoman, points to a Feb. 20 memo from Secretary John Kelly that spells out the changed emphasis.

"All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States," she said in an email.

Stumpf said rank-and-file immigration officers once again, as they did during the Bush program, can pick and choose immigrants for deportation instead of following priorities created by agency leaders.

"What if ICE walked up to someone and said, 'Hey can we have a chat? Have you ever smoked doped?' And the person says, 'Once when I was 18, and I never smoked it since.' They have now admitted to a federal officer that they committed an offense that violates federal laws," Stumpf said. "Is that going to do it (cause a deportation arrest)?"

Trump also has called for the hiring of thousands more immigration agents.

Oregonians should expect to see a rise in the number of deportations and attempts to deport immigrants, Stumpf said.

Q. Now what in Oregon?

Washington County Sheriff Pat Garrett said this week that he won't honor the detainers, citing the 2014 ruling in the Clackamas County case.

"Washington County will continue to follow the court's clear guidance that these detainer requests are unconstitutional," Garrett wrote.

Gov. Kate Brown and local leaders, including Mayor Ted Wheeler and Police Chief Mike Marshman, Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury and Sheriff Mike Reese and others west of the Cascades, have repeatedly emphasized that they won't cooperate with ICE requests since Trump's executive order was published this year.

"Additionally, any agency that honors an ICE detainer is subject to civil litigation," Garrett wrote.

-- Tony Hernandez

thernandez@oregonian.com

503-294-5928

@tonyhreports
Boaters heading to Canyon Ferry Reservoir this weekend will find two open ramps with decontamination stations.

With ice still covering some of the reservoir, the boat ramp at the Silos on the southwestern part of the reservoir, and the Shannon Boat Ramp on the north end, will be open for use with decontamination stations set up on site. All other public boat ramps will be closed for the weekend. Decontamination simply cleans the boat by spraying the exterior and flushing the interior compartments with pressurized hot (120-140 degrees Fahrenheit) water to remove and kill any AIS that may be on the watercraft.

The limited access at Canyon Ferry Reservoir is part of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks response to a water sample from last fall that was found to be suspect for the presence of aquatic invasive mussel larvae. Water samples from Tiber were found to be positive for the invasive mussel larvae.

On Wednesday, the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission approved rules requiring boaters on Canyon Ferry and Tiber reservoirs to launch and exit at designated boat ramps, unless they are officially certified as local boaters by FWP.

The local boater program will allow watercraft owners to complete educational training on aquatic invasive species and sign an agreement with FWP pledging to only use the boat at either Tiber or Canyon Ferry reservoir.

Local boaters would not be required to decontaminate their boat each time they leave Tiber or Canyon Ferry but they still must stop at inspection stations where they will be expedited through after a brief interview.

Should a certified local boater want to use the watercraft at another waterbody, as part of the pledge, the boat owner would be required to get the watercraft decontaminated with hot water.

Local boater training and certification will be available online beginning in mid-April. Prospective local boaters can also get certified by attending one of the Joint Mussel Response Teams open houses that will focus on the effort to contain, detect and prevent the spread of invasive mussels and other aquatic invasive species.

The first open house is set Monday, March 27 at Montana WILD in Helena from 6-9 p.m. A Joint Mussel Response Team presentation will begin at 7 p.m. Local boaters can be certified after the presentation. Space is limited to about 80 people at Montana WILD so preregistering for the event is required. Call 406-444-2535 to register.

A similar open house will be held in Townsend on April 4 the Broadwater School and Community Library from 6-9 p.m. Additional open-houses events will be announced when dates and locations are secured.

Containing the risk of spreading mussels from the reservoirs to other areas is a key component of the Joint Mussel Response Teams implementation plan. When boaters transport water in their boats they can spread destructive mussel that are so small at the larvae stage they can only be seen under a microscope.

To combat the spread of all aquatic invasive species, Montana officials urge boaters and anglers to Clean, Drain, Dry their watercraft, trailers and equipment when they leave the water as a guarantee that theyre not spreading invasive mussels. A cleaned, drained and dry boat also will make for a quick inspection.

-- Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Montana lawmakers on Friday put off further discussion on dismantling and privatizing the state's massive workers compensation system, saying the task was too daunting to take up in the waning days of the legislative session.

Instead, the matter will be studied more thoroughly in the months after the Legislature adjourns.

Getting rid of the $1.6 billion State Fund would be a major undertaking  not only in practical terms because of the thousands of businesses that would be affected but also politically.

While Montana Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature, have generally favored privatizing some aspects of big government, they appear split on what to do about the State Fund.

Republican Sen. Fred Moore of Miles City is sponsoring the bill on behalf of a small group of insurance companies that say doing away with the State Fund would increase competition and reduce workers compensation premiums.

But Senate Majority Leader Fred Thomas, a Republican from Stevensville, and Republican Rep. Greg Hertz of Polson scheduled a news conference after Friday's committee hearing to express their opposition.

While opponents acknowledge that Montana has some of the country's highest premiums, they worry that premiums would further rise for high-risk trades such as logging and trucking.

Republican Sen. Ed Buttrey of Great Falls, who chairs the committee tasked with studying the privatizing of the fund, said he and other committee members needed more time to see how doing so would affect Montana businesses.

The fund serves about 26,000 policy holders. Its largest client is the state of Montana. It also serves many small businesses that might not be able to find a new insurance carrier because they would carry too high a risk or would be too small to be of economic value to underwriters.

Several insurance companies currently compete with the State Fund to provide workers compensation insurance in Montana.

One of the companies, Victory Insurance, argued that privatization would lower overall premiums in the state.

But critics of the plan said there was no guarantee that smaller companies would see lower premiums. And companies involved in high-risk businesses could find themselves in pools that generally pay higher premiums.
BILLINGS  Rob Quist, Montanas Democratic candidate for U.S. House, has a 16-year legacy of financial troubles that go beyond the property tax liens reported earlier this week by the Associated Press.

Flathead County court and property records indicate the popular musician turned politician has been turned over to collections; sued by a bank after not repaying a loan; and accused of fraud and deceit by a former member of Mission Mountain Wood Band, the group that vaulted Quist to Montana stardom in the 1970s.

Financial records filed with the U.S. House also show that Quist has reported drawing a salary from his campaign, a practice that isnt illegal but also not typical. Quist won the Democratic Party's nomination for U.S House on March 5, defeating seven other candidates in a nominating convention.

Quist will face Republican Greg Gianforte and Libertarian Mark Wicks in a special election to fill Montana's at-large House seat, vacated earlier this month by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Ballots are to be mailed April 28. Voting ends May 25.

The Montana Democratic Party declined to comment on Quist's financial troubles Friday.

Quist attributed the debt trail Friday to 20 years of sporadic illness brought on by a gallbladder operation gone bad in 1996. The candidate said a surgeon accidentally cut his bile duct, a tube that delivers bile from the liver to the small intestine. The duct had to be repaired, and Quist has been infection-prone ever since. He said a legal settlement with the Kalispell surgeon prevents him from discussing the botched operation in further detail.

Quist said his debt problems, which are multiple, are bound to his poor health.

The oldest case involves Kraig Trippel, a Kalispell excavator who did $5,960 worth of work for Rob and Bonni Quist in the spring of 2001 but had to file a lien for payment after most of the bill went unpaid.

The date of the work is important because its 10 years before the health episode Quist said kept him from paying his property taxes earlier this decade. That tax debt crept to nearly $15,000 before the Department of Revenue filed liens for three years of unpaid taxes on Quists 20-acre ranch.

In court documents, Quist identifies one year, 2011, that he was unable to work because of poor health.

Trippels impression of Quist was that the musician was in good health and working in 2001. The contractor told The Billings Gazette Friday the Quists hired him to excavate and landscape an area for a stage and dance floor behind their barn and that work had to be done quickly because the space was going to be put to use.

Ive had people that live in a trailer house and dont have a pot to pee in get out a shovel and try to do it themselves before calling me. If they can pay $100 or $200 a month, Ill work with them, Trippel said. This wasnt like that. And I guess I have an issue with someone not paying me for something that was being done just because it was important to pursue for that person.

Two months after the work and Trippels attempts to collect, the Quists wrote him a check for $1,000. As September came to an end, the contractor filed a lien, which stayed on the property until January 2002.

In 2007, the Quists didnt pay their property taxes. The Montana Department of Revenue filed a lien against the Quists in 2015 for $8,189.38 for unpaid taxes and fees related to the 2007 delinquency. Court records show that in May 2016, the debt was paid off.

In 2010, the Quists stopped making payments on a 1998 line of credit from Wells Fargo. Quist said the matter involved a credit card that he charged on during episodes of poor health. The couple still owed $9,994.19 on the card when the Quists stopped paying the bill in March 2010. Wells Fargo sold the debt to Security Credit Services LLC, which sued the Quists for payment in 2014. The case is ongoing.

In 2011, Flathead County Justice Court ordered the Quists to pay $1,380.17 to Collection Bureau Services Inc., a debt collector in Missoula. The Quists were summoned to court but didnt respond, according to the lawsuits case history. Collection Bureau Services declined to discuss the debt when contacted by the Gazette last week. The debt was paid in September 2011, roughly 10 months after the lawsuit was filed.

That was the year Rob Quist wasnt able to work, according to a lawsuit filed by the couple against U.S. Bank, which had threatened to foreclose on their property. The Quists are suing the bank and a title company essentially for not doing more to assist the couple as they tried unsuccessfully to divide and sell their land to pay off the bank. The case is ongoing, and Quist isnt comfortable talking about the lawsuit until its resolved.

The Quists 2011 property taxes werent paid in full. The Montana Department of Revenue filed a lien for 2011 taxes and fees totaling $2,911.13 in 2015. The Quists paid the debt in May 2016.

In 2012, the Quists had problems paying their property taxes again. The Montana Department of Revenue filed a lien for 2012 taxes and fees totaling $4,624.19. The debt was satisfied by May 2016.

That May date when the Quists paid off their $15,000 tax debt is tied to a successful stretch of real estate sales by Bonni Quist, Rob said.

Quist said he hasnt been shy about talking about his financial problems. He said theyre woven into his campaign narratives about his health and the need for a more serving government healthcare system. He said hes told this story at the Missoula Public Library at the beginning of his campaign.
Question: President Donald Trumps immigration policy reform brings to mind: Just how immigrant-based is Illinois? (1) Greatly (2) Middle-of-the-road (3) Not very much

Answer: Youd have to say (1) greatly. According to WalletHub.com, a national personal-finance website that researches such questions, Illinois is 9th in number of jobs generated by immigrant-owned businesses, 10th in foreign-born workers and 8th in the number of international students who then seek employment in Illinois.
The four-story, 82,000-square-foot proposal would be at the southeast intersection of Wylie Drive and Valley View Drive and would be accessible via both roads.
BLOOMINGTON  Central Illinois' Republican congressmen expressed disappointment Friday after the expected vote on the GOP's Obamacare replacement was canceled when Republican House leaders determined it didn't have enough votes to pass.

"It is disappointing that Republican members of the House were unable to reach consensus on how to fix Obamacare," U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood of Dunlap said in a statement released Friday evening.

"There is no doubt that health care reform is complicated and nuanced, but we have an obligation and responsibility to bring relief to all Americans," LaHood said. "This includes addressing skyrocketing premiums, high deductibles and the diminishing options to health care."

"I am disappointed in what happened this week and especially today but I'm ready and willing to work with anyone, Republicans and/or Democrats, to fix our broken health care system and make it better for the American people," said U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Channahon.

Shortly before House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the GOP's embattled health care plan from an expected vote on Friday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville said he was "cautiously optimistic" the bill would pass.

Speaking with reporters on a conference call shortly before the scheduled  and later canceled  House vote on the troubled American Health Care Act, Davis defended the bill, calling it "a very good replacement for the Affordable Care Act (ACA)," also known as Obamacare.

Davis, who represents much of Central Illinois, including parts of the Twin Cities, called Obamacare "a complete failure."

While millions of Americans  including about 4,500 people in McLean County  have gained health insurance through the ACA, Davis argued that 19 million Americans remain without health care coverage and another 30 million can't afford to use the insurance they have.

During negotiations this week to gain conservative support for the bill, an amendment was proposed to repeal Obamacare's requirement that insurers cover 10 health services such as maternal and mental health care.

"That's not something I was pushing for," Davis said in response to a question from The Pantagraph. But he added that states could retain the requirement.

"That's a talking point with no meat behind it," he said, adding that the bill would provide $15 million to states for "innovative ideas" related to mental illness, substance abuse and maternal care.

Davis hoped more of his Republican colleagues would support the bill.

"The Democrats are offering nothing new other than the failing status quo," he said.

On Thursday, however, Bloomington-Normal activists who support improving rather than replacing the Affordable Care Act said they weren't surprised that the legislation was faltering.

"They (House GOP leaders) are caving in to the conservatives, which doesn't reflect what most people are concerned about," said Jodie Slothower of Normal, representing Voices of Reason.

"This is going in the opposite direction of what Americans would like," she added. "Obamacare is popular but needs improvement."

LaHood said "We obviously have more work ahead of us but I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle."

Kinzinger said: "Issuing ultimatums and derailing progress is not in the interest of the American people and a wholly self-serving tactic. The American people deserve better and we as a legislative body can do better."
BLOOMINGTON  A person was shot in a gunfire incident that also damaged an apartment house Friday night on Bloomington's west side.

Police and firefighters were called about 10:26 p.m. to 901 W. Olive St.

One male suffered what police described as a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the foot; police did not provide the victim's age. He was taken from the scene by ambulance and was released from the hospital after treatment.

Police confirmed more than one bullet also struck the first floor of the older home that has been converted to apartments. One bullet possibly went through a wall into a room that was occupied at the time.

Police said there were no other injuries.

No one is in custody and the incident remains under investigation, police said.

The house, next-door yards and the street in front of it were cordoned off with police tape as officers combed the area for evidence such as shell casings.

A window was broken on a car in the street, but police, who were waiting for crime scene technicians, could not immediately confirm whether it was shot out.

Neighbors said they heard several shots, which they initially thought were fireworks.

Police said they had been called to a disturbance in that block earlier Friday afternoon.
BLOOMINGTON  Hours after House Republicans withdrew their controversial replacement for Obamacare, Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin encouraged them to return to the negotiating table.

"If you take repeal off the table, I'm pulling up a chair to that table," he said. "I'm willing to sit down and concede it is not a perfect law."

The assistant Democratic leader in the Senate said he hopes Republicans will continue working to improve the Affordable Care Act, popularly called Obamacare, and he has two proposals to help them.

"The first thing I'd put on the table is a public option. ... A not-for-profit option with Medicare-style operations and Medicare-style reimbursement," he said.

"Second ... the pharmaceutical industry played us like a fiddle when we passed the (ACA) and made sure there was almost no regulation on their industry," he said. "I want them to be profitable. I want them to research. I want them to find the new cures.

"But they spend more on advertising than on research," he said. "That is not informing consumers. It is in fact bludgeoning consumers into putting pressure on doctors, and it's hurting the cost of the system."

Durbin reiterated that he favors universal health care, though he knows it's a long shot under a Republican president and Congress.

"This is the last chance for private insurance," he said. "We want to see if it works. If it doesn't, the next step is obvious."

Health care was the most frequent topic at a town hall meeting hosted by Illinois' senior senator Friday in Bloomington. More than 500 attendees packed Illinois Wesleyan University's Westbrook Auditorium at Presser Hall and gave Durbin a warm welcome.

After a brief statement on health care, Durbin took nearly 90 minutes of questions ranging from policy issues like education, environmental protection, gun control and immigration to philosophical issues like what Democrats should push as a new agenda and how newcomers can be successful in politics.

Durbin, who has frequently called for President Donald Trump to release his tax returns, called again for a "bipartisan, independent, transparent commission" to investigate his ties to the Russian government. He suggested former Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, both conservatives, as co-chairs.

"In the meantime, we need a special prosecutor," he said. "Let's serve notice on (Russian President) Vladimir Putin that the next election will not be his playground."

Durbin said he supports Democrats' decision to filibuster the nomination of Supreme Court candidate Neil Gorsuch.

"For us to insist that a long-term appointment on the highest court should require 60 (Senate) votes is not a break with tradition at all," he said  in contrast to Republicans' historic refusal to hold hearings for President Barack Obama's nominee to the same seat, Merrick Garland.

Durbin said he remains concerned with Trump's credibility and responsibility.

"He's destroying his presidential credibility 140 characters at a time," he said. "My greatest concern is that knock on that presidential bedroom door at 3 in the morning, where he's dozed off between tweets, and somebody says, 'You have five minutes to make a life-and-death decision.'"

Of what Democrats and others interested in resisting Trump can do, Durbin said they'd be wise to resemble the tea party movement rather than the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"I have one word for you: elections. ... We need to find good candidates who share our values and support them," he said. "That Freedom Caucus (of House members) is a product of the tea party movement. ... It has to translate into real work for real candidates and real victories."

Durbin deflected a question on whether he'll run for governor  "I've got a full-time job, and I think it's pretty full," he said  but he said "to allow this state to go on two years without a budget is obscene."

"It is going to be painful as hell. The solutions are going to involve taxes and cuts, and we're not going to like any of it. But suck it up, my friends. We've got to get through this to give the next generation a fighting chance," he said.

To close, Durbin alluded to Republican U.S. Reps. Rodney Davis of Taylorville and Darin LaHood of Dunlap, who also represent Bloomington but have refused to hold in-person town halls despite local rallies protesting that decision. Tammy Duckworth, Illinois' newly elected Democratic junior senator, has not held a town hall in the Twin Cities.

"I'm going to have to tell your congressmen this wasn't so bad," Durbin said. "I hope they do come and you give them a warm welcome for being brave enough to stand before an audience that is not on their side."
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump greenlighted the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, declaring it a "great day for American jobs" and siding with energy advocates over environmental groups in a heated debate over climate change.

The presidential permit comes nearly a decade after Calgary-based TransCanada applied to build the $8 billion pipeline, which will snake from Canada through the United States. Trump's State Department said the project advances U.S. national interests, in a complete reversal of the conclusion President Barack Obama's administration reached less than a year-and-a-half ago.

"It's a great day for American jobs and a historic moment for North America and energy independence," Trump said, standing alongside TransCanada's CEO in the Oval Office. Keystone will reduce costs and reliance on foreign oil while creating thousands of jobs, he said, adding: "It's going to be an incredible pipeline."

The decision caps the long scientific and political fight over a project that became a proxy battle in the larger fight over global warming. And Friday's decision, while long foreshadowed by Trump's public support for Keystone, represents one of the biggest steps to date by his administration to prioritize economic development over environmental concerns.

TransCanada, Trump said, can now build Keystone "with efficiency and with speed." Though it still faces other major hurdles, including disputes over the route, the president said the federal government was formulating final details "as we speak."

The 1,700-mile pipeline, as envisioned, would carry oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. It would move roughly 800,000 barrels of oil per day.

Environmentalists, Native American groups and landowners who've opposed Keystone expressed outrage, and Greenpeace said the U.S. was "moving backwards" on climate and energy policy.

"Keystone was stopped once before, and it will be stopped again," vowed Annie Leonard, the group's U.S. director.

Obama in 2015 rejected the pipeline after years of study, saying it would undercut U.S. credibility in the international climate change negotiations that culminated later that year in a global deal in Paris. He echoed the argument of environmental groups that Keystone would encourage use of carbon-heavy tar sands oil, contributing heavily to global warming.

Relying mostly on the same information, the Trump administration reversed Obama's decision Friday.

Keystone would strengthen U.S. energy security by increasing access to Canada's "dependable supply of crude oil," said the State Department, which had jurisdiction because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canada border.

But the level of those benefits has been the subject of exhaustive debate in recent years.

Obama argued the oil wouldn't stay in the U.S. because it would be exported after being processed in American refineries. TransCanada insisted Keystone "is not an export pipeline." Many energy experts insisted the truth was somewhere in between.

Environmental groups argued Canada's tar sands oil should stay in the ground. But Keystone's backers said that wouldn't happen even if the pipeline wasn't built. Without a pipeline, they said the oil would move by rail or truck, more dangerous methods which themselves contribute greenhouse gas emissions.

Although portions of Keystone are already built, it still faces obstacles to completion. In Nebraska, for example, the route must still be approved and opponents have repeatedly thwarted TransCanada's attempts to access the necessary land. A commission is expected to review the matter later this year.

Trump, told of the hiccup, pledged his help.

"Nebraska? I'll call Nebraska," he said.
On March 14, The Pantagraph published a letter from Rich Veitengruber, president of the Building & Trades Council, with labor endorsements for local races. Unfortunately, an important endorsement was not included, Jamie Mathy in Bloomington Ward 1.

As a small-business person downtown, Jamie has great sense on how economic development works and ensuring fair wages and conditions for everyone. As local unions, we apologize for leaving this important endorsement off. On April 4 we hope Ward 1 voters will give Jamie Mathy high consideration.
Elect Kim Bray as alderman of Ward 9. Ive known Kim Bray and her family for 15 years. Kim Bray has been a leader her entire life. Kim is first and foremost a family person, an active church member, a community volunteer with Illinois Special Olympics, among many other of her efforts in this community.

Kim Bray is an attorney, and a 31-year employee of State Farm. Kim volunteers as pro-bono counsel with the Immigration Project, assisting legal immigrants in their applications for citizenship. Kim Brays work and volunteer experiences have given her opportunities to interact with individuals from all areas of our community. Kim has a great appreciation for the city's vitality and diversity, and is committed to building on Bloomingtons strengths.

Kim Bray will be an outstanding representative of Ward 9. Your vote on April 4 is very important.

Skip Crawford, Bloomington
I am writing in enthusiastic support of Mary Campbell for Heartland Community College board of trustees. Mary would bring to the board her experience from 30 years of teaching at ISU, as well as her many years of community involvement.

The list of community boards and projects she has worked on is long, so I will only mention a few. She co-founded Labyrinth Outreach Services for Women; co-chaired McLean County Domestic Violence Taskforce; and served, and is serving, on the boards of Collaborative Solutions, YWCA, Center of Hope Food Pantry, and West Bloomington Revitalization Committee. Her awards include Outstanding College of Arts and Sciences Teacher, WJBC Spirit of McLean County Outstanding Community Service Award, Social Worker of the year for the state of Illinois, and I could go on.
A powdered vaccine could prevent one of the top killers of children  the rotavirus. Experts said this could lead to saving around 100,000 children every year.

The new vaccine is around 70 percent effective against the virus. Rotavirus is a pathogen that gives children diarrhea and sometimes leads to death. Annually, 200,000 children die from rotavirus in developing countries.

This is not the first time a developed oral vaccine promised a decrease in the number of deaths but scientists believe this will lead to the biggest drop. But it is the first rotavirus vaccine designed to be effective for children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Zulfiqar Bhutta, who studies global health at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, says the rotavirus vaccine is different from the first vaccines because it does not need to be refrigerated. The vaccine is kept at room temperature for years but if the temperatures reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it could only last for six months.

This makes the vaccine very useful for countries not equipped with technology to preserve vaccines. Bhutta is not involved in the study but has information about the matter, VOA News reported.

Sub-Saharan Africa is not the only country targeted by the makers of the vaccine. Southern Asian countries can also use the vaccine since it is one of the rural places in the world with some areas still do not have electricity or clinics.

"This is important for increasing the reach of the vaccine, for reaching those who need the vaccine the most - the poorest of the poor," Bhutta said.

Health workers will dissolve the new rotavirus powder vaccine in water in order to make a salt solution. Children infected with the virus do not have to drink the whole solution as a few drops are said to be enough. The World Health Organization has yet to approve the new vaccine, NPR said.

Rebecca Grais, the leader in the testing of the vaccine, said the World Health Organization will most likely approve it. Grais also promised the vaccine's price is cheaper than those currently in the market. Meanwhile, the report about the vaccine was detailed in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.
The rape of a 14-year-old girl in a Maryland high school sparked an immigration debate. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos expressed sympathy for the victim during a recent visit to another school in the state. Even the White House reiterated why the president is tough on illegal immigration because of cases like this.

The rape happened at the Rockville High School bathroom. Students, 17-year-old Jose Montano and 18-year-old Henry Sanchez-Milian, attacked a 14-year-old girl and forced themselves on her.

Montgomery County police said the boys had no prior records of crime. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were brought into the case as Sanchez-Millian, originally from Guatemala, arrived in the U.S. last August illegally. ICE won't comment about Montano as he is a minor. Both offenders were charged with the crime without bail.

The school admitted Sanchez because of a standing federal law that mandated education institutions to accept anyone below 21-years-old, as per Yahoo. Montgomery County Public Schools spokesperson Derek Turner said the district received "hundreds of calls" described as "hate-filled, racist and xenophobic" when news of the rape became public knowledge.

Some also made threats against other immigrants attending the high school, as per WTOP. Some immigrants expressed authorities and government leaders must ensure everyone's safety and rights remain protected, regardless of their status.

During her visit to an elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland, DeVos said her heart ached for the victim, as per NBC Columbus. "As a mother of two daughters and grandmother of four young girls, my heart aches for the young woman and her family at the center of these terrible circumstances," the secretary said. "We all have a common responsibility to ensure every student has access to a safe and nurturing learning environment."

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan confirmed he got in touch with Montgomery County School superintendent, Dr. Jack Smith to discuss the case. He ordered authorities and officials to do their jobs and take this matter seriously.
A baby girl with a parasitic twin is doing well after an extensive surgery last March 8. Doctors remove the extra legs and feet growing from the 10-month-old's neck, which were part of her underdeveloped twin. They express confidence she will fully recover.

The Children's Medical Mission West flew baby Dominique to Illinois from the Ivory Coast in Africa for the special surgical procedure. A team of 50 doctors with five surgeons examined her rare case, where her parasitic twin's waist, legs, feet and spine remained connected to her body. They mapped out Dominique's six-hour surgical procedure to ensure the baby will be alright.

Doctors said Dominique won't be able to have a long life if she didn't have the surgery. Her heart and lungs were technically working to sustain and nourish two bodies and the abnormality will continue to grow as she grows. Thus, the physical strains could worsen had they not intervened, as per CNN.

Dr. John Ruge of the Advocate Children's Hospital said parasitic twin cases, which are one in a million, happens when identical twins fail to separate during the early stages of pregnancy. A 2008 study cited lack of blood supply in the womb as a likely cause to the rare case.

Meanwhile, the Children's Medical Mission West also arranged for Dominique's foster family in America. Nancy Swabb's family took her in and the baby will remain in their care until her return home in mid-April.

Weeks after her operation, the hospital presented Dominique to the media along with the Swabb. Their press conference went live on Facebook, where the foster mom said the baby lost the extra weight and she can now sit up well or raise her arms higher.

The Swabbs constantly communicated with Dominique's mom. "We send a lot of photos and updates and so we know that Dominique's family sees what she's doing," Swabb said, as per Reuters.

"We had 100 worries before surgery, and risks were high, so we're pleased with how she's doing," Ruge said of Dominique's progress. The doctor acknowledged everyone from the surgeons and specialists, to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the nursing staff, who helped on Dominique's case.
A mom who beat cancer twice gave birth to premature but healthy twins on Friday, March 17. The day after she welcomed them into the world, however, the mother passed away as her heart gave out.

California local Jamie Snider, 30, had ovarian cancer before she got pregnant. She beat the disease and lost an ovary in the process but later, she was surprised to learn she was pregnant with twins.

Doctors told Snider, however, there was bad news to her pregnancy. Her cancer returned and it was a rare and aggressive form of cervical cancer this time, as per Fox News.

Prepared to battle the disease, Snider received chemotherapy and radiation treatment at Stanford Medical Center during her pregnancy. She went into remission again, according to Daily Mail.

Before she was scheduled to give birth via C-section, Snider was optimistic about her future. She even wrote a message on her Facebook profile and told family and friends she's getting a hysterectomy after her C-section.

Unfortunately, after the birth and the hysterectomy operation, Snider's body gave out. Doctors declared her cause of death as congestive heart failure.

Snider, however, was able to see and cradle her newborn twins briefly before her death. She named them Camila and Nico.

"She got to lay with them, hug them, she passed away the next morning," Chris, Snider's brother said, as per ABC 30. "She made sure, she made sure those babies would live. She traded her life." "What gives me peace in my heart is she got to see those babies and hold them and be with them a little bit," Snider's best friend Larina Campanile said.

Snider also had two older daughters, Aubrey and Maddie. Friends and family have set up a Go Fund Me page for the children she left behind. The babies' father, Heath Coigny, will raise the twins in New Jersey.
This article was published well over a month ago, but I see from comments on my blog, on my Facebook page, and in my email inbox that some of what it has to say is still relevant, so I link to it:

http://www.vox.com/world/2017/2/19/14662244/trump-sweden-terrorist-attack-fake

But heres another word on the topic:

Some have been claiming, over the past few days, that I deny that there are any problems in the Islamic world, that I claim that there is no violence or crime among refugees in Europe, that I believe that there should be no vetting of potential immigrants, and/or that I believe that Islamist terrorism poses no threat.

These assertions are all categorically false. They are not true.

I freely acknowledge that there are major problems in the Islamic world, that there is appalling violence and crime among some refugees in Europe, that all who enter the United States as immigrants should be vetted, and that Islamist terrorism poses a grave threat.

I have posted many times on this blog, and spoken and written and taught and lectured, about problems in the Islamic world, about violence and crimes among refugees in Europe, and about the threat posed by Islamist terrorism. I will continue to do so.

But heres the thing:

There are those  invariably, in my experience, people who know relatively little, if not essentially nothing, about Islam, Islamic law, and the Islamic world  who exaggerate the problems in the Islamic world, who seek to portray Islam as inherently evil, who spend more time arguing against the admission of refugees and stoking the fires of fear than they do in thinking about what they might do to help, who wildly sensationalize and overstate the problems posed by the refugee influx into Europe, who make irresponsible, uninformed, and inflammatory statements about sharia law, and who grossly inflate the risk posed by Islamist terrorism.

Some are coming very close to the kind of nativist bigotry that has been aimed, in our nations history, against blacks, Jews, Italians, the Irish, Catholics, and, yes, Mormons. (See, for example, at least the first 2:30 minutes 0f this video.)

I feel a moral obligation to stand up against ignorant distortions, bigotry, religious prejudice, ethnic division, and anything remotely like thereunto.

And Im going to continue to do it.

What some dont understand about me is my devotion to the concept of balance. Ill illustrate it as follows: If Im in a group of people whom I judge to be overly critical of Israel in their support for the Palestinians, I will speak up for Israel. If, by contrast, Im among a group whom I judge to be too starry-eyed about Israel and without any sympathy for the Palestinians, I will speak up for the Palestinians and criticize Israel. The truth lies between the two extremes, and I have friends on  and sympathy for  both sides.

In the current climate, especially among people on the political right (where I very much situate myself), there seems to me to be little need to point out the threat of Muslim terrorism or the dysfunctionality of much of the Islamic world. There is likely nobody reading this blog who is unaware of the recent terrorist attack in London, let alone of the earlier attacks in Nice, Paris, London, Madrid, New York, Washington DC, and so forth. I doubt that any reader here has failed to hear of al-Qaida, ISIS, Black Hawk Down, and other such topics. In other words, theres no real call for me to pile on in this regard. I see my role, instead, as arguing for proper perspective, pointing out that Usama b. Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri dont exhaust the roll of notable Muslims, that the history and culture of Islam are richly varied and defy simplistic generalizations, that Islam isnt the murderous monster that some propagandists depict, that the Islamic world is neither perfect nor perfectly evil.

Its not that I minimize the bad. Its that I wont stand idly by while, in my judgment, some voices grossly exaggerate it.

If that makes certain folks angry, or wearies them, or causes them to lie about me and to call me (as one poster recently did) a leftist liberal who hates the Constitution of the United States, I guess Ill just have to live with that. My conscience wont permit me to do otherwise.

(I hope that certain folks in my audience will read this post more than once, if they need to do so, until they fully grasp what Ive said.)
DECATUR  Jose Luis Aboytes stood in front of the bench of Associate Macon County Judge Phoebe Bowers, dressed in a black-and-gray jail jumpsuit, flanked by his attorney and a translator.

The judge read aloud seven felony counts to him in English, which were each related to him in Spanish by the translator.

Aboytes, a former assistant pastor of an eastside church, was told he is charged with one count of predatory sexual assault of a child, two counts of criminal sexual assault and four counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

He declined Bowers' offer to read aloud the detailed charges, which specified the particular acts he allegedly performed on the female victim, who was younger than 13 years old when the first sexual assault occurred.

If convicted of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child younger than 13, Aboytes would face a sentence of six to 60 years in prison. The sentencing guideline for criminal sexual assault, victim 13 to 17, is four to 15 years. Aggravated criminal sexual abuse is punishable by three to seven years.

Five supporters of Aboytes attended the arraignment, sitting on a bench together in the gallery, off to the side from the main seating area directly facing the judge's bench.

Aboytes is accused of sexually assaulting a girl who attended the church where he worked, Palabra Miel Hispanic Church, 3434 E. Wabash Ave. The offenses allegedly took place between September 2015 and September 2016, in the church office and at his residence.

Aboytes, who is represented by attorney Todd Ringel of Bloomington, entered a plea of not guilty to all the charges. He is being held in jail on $250,000 bond. Aboytes is due in court May 15 for a pretrial hearing.
Patna: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday night inaugurated the launch of Radio City 91.1 FM at a function organized at the Dainik Jagran office in Patna in the presence of station officials and others.

Speaking on the occasion, Kumar said that despite the prolific presence of endless television channels and the emergence of the social media in the 21st century, radio always occupied a special place in the people's heart.

"For last several decades, people have received their information and have been entertained by radio and television but in spite of the changing faces of the electronic media, most people still spend their evening listening to the FM radio," he said.

Suggesting a need to rein in the social media, the Chief Minister said that it was imperative to keep social networks like Facebook and Twitter under control and introduce reformative measures to it before it 'completely loses its relevance'.

Congratulating the team for bringing Radio City 91.1 FM to Patna, Kumar urged them to expand their service to all parts of Bihar.

A subsidiary of the Jagran Media, Music Broadcast Limited, the parent company of Radio City 91.1 FM, the Patna station, 39th in nation, will broadcast programs like old movie songs and comedy of talents like Babbar Sher, officials said.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
PAAIA Hosts Annual Nowruz Celebration on Capitol Hill

03/23/17

Source: Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA)

WASHINGTON, DC - On March 20th, 2017, the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) hosted its annual Nowruz reception on Capitol Hill. Fourteen members of Congress, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, attended the reception, as well as more than 200 Congressional staff and special guests.



The Haftseen table

PAAIA's annual Nowruz reception on Capitol Hill is part of its broader effort to celebrate and foster greater understanding of Iranian culture, and to project an accurate and positive image of the Iranian American community. Attendees had the opportunity to learn about Persian culture, heritage, and the Nowruz holiday, as well as to enjoy Persian cuisine and a traditional Haftseen table.



The evening's program kicked off with remarks from the reception's host, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who said "In addition to celebrating a "New Day," this is an opportunity to highlight the many lasting contributions of Iranian Americans to all sectors of public life and society here in the United States."



Congresswoman Lofgren, in collaboration with PAAIA, also introduced legislation honoring the Iranian New Year into Congress. Besides commemorating the Nowruz holiday, the resolution acknowledges the "lasting contributions" of Persian civilization to the world and the "noteworthy" impact Iranian Americans have on the social and economic fabric of America. Click here to read the resolution.



Other members of Congress in attendance echoed Congresswoman Lofgren's sentiment, applauding the countless contributions of the Iranian American community to the United States. "For a long time, for generations, the Iranian American community has been a source of strength in every aspect of our lives," remarked Leader Pelosi.



Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (CA) speaking at the event



PAAIA would like to thank the many volunteers who made the evening a success and the members of Congress and their staffs who joined us for the event.



Additionally, we would like to extend a special thanks to the evening's guest of honor, Azar Nafisi. Author of the critically acclaimed Reading Lolita in Tehran, Nafisi offered thoughtful remarks on the importance of protecting immigrant rights, stating that "Immigrants bring to you a sense of hope and the gift of their traditions, culture, and history. Day-by-day, they make you feel new and bring new blood to America. Once America loses its love for new blood from the ancient world, it won't be America anymore."

The reception's co-hosts included: Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Senator Kristen Gillibrand, Senator Tim Kaine, Congressman Tony Cardenas, Congressman Scott Peters, Congressman Jared Huffman, Congressman Jamie Raskin, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, Congressman Justin Amash, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, Congressman Jim Himes, Congressman Ron DeSantis, Congresswoman Betty McCollum, Congressman Tom Cole, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Congressman Francis Rooney, Congressman Andre Carson, Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, Congresswoman Judy Chu, Congressman Charlie Crist, Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters.



Please click here to view our Facebook album with photos from the event.

Take action today! If you would like to educate your elected officials about the Persian New year, click here to support legislation commemorating the Iranian New Year!
Baha'is Imprisoned in Iran for Religious Beliefs Singled Out for Cruel Treatment

03/25/17

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

A member of Iran's perseacuted Baha'i faith has expressed serious concerns about two imprisoned ailing family members who are being denied early release despite being legally eligible.



Jamaloddin Khanjani





The Intelligence Ministry is refusing to send Jamaloddin Khanjani, an elderly former Baha'i community leader who has spent more than nine years in prison, to the hospital for long-term care, his nephew, Siavash Khanjani, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

"Someone who's 83-years-old needs special care," he said. "He has prostate disease and needs an operation, but prisoners who get outside treatment are immediately brought back to prison where there are no facilities for post-operation recovery and therefore the family is not willing to risk it."

The Baha'i community is one of the most severely persecuted religious minorities in Iran. The faith is not recognized in the Islamic Republic's Constitution and its members face harsh discrimination in all walks of life as well as prosecution for the public display of their faith.

"Also, a stent was placed in his heart several years ago, and he's generally too old and needs to be taken care of by his family and doctors, but unfortunately no one pays attention and we're worried about him," he added.

"We have asked that he be granted furlough and followed up several times, but the Intelligence Ministry always stands in the way," continued Siavash Khanjani. "Besides, the law says that prisoners who serve part of their time can be conditionally released. We have pursued that, too, but the authorities have rejected it. So my uncle is still sitting in prison."

Furlough, temporary leave typically granted to prisoners in Iran for a variety of familial, holiday, and medical reasons, is routinely denied to political prisoners as a form of additional punishment.

Siavash Khanjani also expressed concern for his nephew, who has been imprisoned since August 23, 2012.

"My brother's son Navid is still serving a 12-year prison sentence," he told CHRI. "He has digestion problems and back pain. He is also eligible for early release, but requests for conditional release filed by his family have been turned down."

Navid Khanjani was a member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters and a founder of the Association Against Discrimination in Education.

He was arrested in Isfahan in August 2012 after volunteering to help the victims of a devastating earthquake in East Azerbaijan Province and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for "spreading falsehoods," "disturbing public opinion" and "propaganda against the state."

In 2008, seven leaders of the Baha'i community-Jamaloddin Khanjani, Behrouz Tavakkoli, Saeid Rezaie, Fariba Kamalabadi, Vahid Tizfahm, Afif Naeimi, and Mahvash Sabet-were rounded up and charged with "assembly and collusion against national security," "propaganda against the state," and "espionage."

The "Baha'i 7" were each sentenced to 20 years in prison, but their sentences were reduced to 10 years imprisonment in 2015 upon appeal.

Article 58 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code authorizes the deciding court to grant conditional release for prisoners sentenced to more than 10 years in prison after they have served half their sentence.

"In April 2016, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran said elderly prisoners, including women over 55 and men over 65, should be freed," said Siavash Khanjani. "Based on the leader's order, we tried to seek freedom for my uncle, but unfortunately the judicial officials refused to comply."

Born in the Shahmirzad district of Semnan Province, Jamaloddin Khanjani's brick factory was confiscated after the 1979 revolution in Iran because of his religious beliefs.

Two years ago, his ancestral home, located in the family's agricultural fields in the Dazgareh Afshar village, was also demolished.

"The family received a 48-hour demolition notice from the Intelligence Ministry and the Semnan Province Council on April 19, 2015," Siavash Khanjani told CHRI at the time. "They had 48 hours to evacuate the property."

"They went to Tehran with their lawyer and secured orders from the Supreme Court to stop the demolition operations, but when they returned, they observed that 270 square meters of the house had already been demolished and it was too late to do anything," he said.
Iran says renewal of UN special rapporteur's mandate lacks 'professional basis'

03/25/17

Source: Tehran Times

TEHRAN - Iran reacted strongly to a resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday which extends the mission of its Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the country, saying the resolution lacks "professional basis" and is "confrontational."

"In the eyes of the Islamic Republic of Iran and most of the Human Rights Council's member countries which did not support this resolution at various levels, this resolution lacks necessity, legal validity and professional basis," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Friday.



The Human Rights Council on Friday extended the mandate of Asma Jahangir, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, for a further period of one year in a resolution on the situation of human rights in Iran, adopted by a vote of 22 in favor, 12 against and 13 abstentions.



Earlier Tehran asked the UN Human Rights Council to put an end to the mission of Jahangir, calling her report on the situation of human rights in Iran politically motivated.



At the 34th session of the Human Rights Council held in Geneva, Jahangir presented a 40-page report on human rights conditions in Iran, which accuses the country of numerous violations.



The UN rapporteur accused Iran of a range of violations, including executions of juveniles, imprisonment of religious minorities, and torture of political prisoners, accusations that Tehran rejects.



Qassemi also said such a "confrontational policy and destructive and failed approach" is pursued through the "exertion of pressure on other countries to support these selective and spiteful resolutions by taking advantage of various political and economic levers" and will regrettably undermine the credibility of the UN human rights mechanisms.



It would also discredit countries that seek to tarnish the image of independent countries, including Iran, which refuses to follow the neocolonialist policies of certain Western states, he added.



Such countries also want to cover up their human rights violations, crimes against humanity and brutal killings in the region and across the world, he emphasized.



About:

The Human Rights Council resolution A/HRC/16/9, mandates the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, to present an interim report to the Assembly at its sixty-sixth session and to submit a report to the Council for its consideration at its nineteenth session; and calls upon the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur and to permit access to visit the country as well as all information necessary to allow the fulfilment of the mandate. (read more)
Growing up, Alessandra Bertolis friends often declared they wanted to be princesses. Even as a young girl, Bertoli knew the life of a royal wasnt quite her thing.

I was always the one who said, I want to be an artist, she said.

So when the NuView Bridge Early College High School junior was asked to pull double duty by designing a set for a play about pioneering female astronomers she was also acting in, she took on the challenge.

And now, she is preparing to compete in the California State Thespian Festival on Friday, March 31, in Upland, a statewide contest that draws around 1,200 actors, playwrights, costumers and set designers vying for a chance to advance to the International Thespian Festival at the University of Nebraska in June.

Bertoli, 17, has spent recent days working on a scale model of that set, which she did for the play Silent Sky  the true story of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who in the 1900s discovered a way to determine the distance between Earth and other galaxies.

The Nuevo resident was tasked with designing a set that incorporated the audience sitting on the stage. She painted a star map of the Western hemisphere on the floor. For the backdrop of the 14-by-16-foot, three-sided stage, she used glow-in-the-dark paint to transform a night sky into a lighter one.

Bertoli will take the scale model to the state festival. The competition calls for her to present the design and be interviewed by judges on her process.

The school has no budget for theater, she said, so Bertoli used donated materials. She said she is looking forward to seeing how her first-time design stacks up with entries from other schools.

Its been a rewarding experience, she said. After the show  which was performed in October  people would compliment us on the acting, but lots of people asked, Who did the set? 

Cassie Hammond, Bertolis theater teacher, said she noticed that Bertoli, a performance student, liked to draw and asked the teen if she had ever thought about trying set design.

She tried it and she found out she loved it, Hammond said.

Hammond, who also teaches history at Mountain Shadows Middle School, has known Bertoli since the sixth grade and said she knew her student was up for the challenge.

Shes fabulous, Hammond said. Shes always been really involved in everything she does.

Bertoli said she inherited her artistic talents from her father, Joe.

Joe Bertoli said he was impressed with his daughters set design.

She approached the new challenge of set design the same way she tackles taking both high school and college classes at NuView, participating in school and community theater, being a part of student government and running track, he said.

I think she thrives on it, he said of her busy schedule. Yes, it gets overwhelming sometimes. Being young, you dont always realize what youre cable of until youre challenged.
One person was killed in a crash with a power pole in Moreno Valley on Saturday, March 25, fire officials said.

The crash was reported about 2:39 a.m. in the 17700 block Lasselle Street, according to a Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire news release.

The driver of a vehicle  who died from their injuries at the scene  crashed into a power pole, causing lines to come down and prompting a portion of the road to be closed for repairs, according to the release.
An impasse in contract negotiations between Perris Elementary School District executives and its teachers ended around 2:30 a.m. Friday, March 23, with a tentative contract agreement that includes wage increases for the current and coming year.

The accord came hours after several hundred teachers and their supporters staged a march to protest the lack of a deal.

We were able to reach a tentative agreement last night with the school district, said Ken Johnson, who represents the Perris educators on behalf of the California Teachers Association. We worked until the wee hours of the morning, and we do have an agreement on the contract.  We anticipate that it will be ratified by a high margin (of the membership).

Finalizing the agreement hinges on approval by the teachers in the ensuing days and the district board when it meets April 13.

Were very pleased that we have an offer on the table that works for all the parties involved, District Superintendent Vincent Ponce said in an interview Friday.

Neither Ponce nor Johnson would provide specific details of the agreement because it has not yet been broached with union membership.

The approximately 300 members of the Perris Elementary Teachers Association, which includes counselors and school psychologists, had been working under a contract that expired July 1, 2016. Negotiations started in April 2016 and recently reached an impasse when the teachers rejected what they viewed as an unfair offer.

The union had been seeking a 3 percent increase retroactive for the fiscal year ending June 30, and an 8 percent increase for this year, Johnson said. The goal, he said, is to bring Perris teachers wages up to a level competitive with other districts in the area.

That was our original offer when we were still negotiating, said union President Robin Jones, a fifth-grade teacher at Sky View Elementary. Then the district gave us their last, best and final (offer) and walked away.

First-year teachers in Perris start at $44,128 to $55,835, depending on their educational credentials, according to a salary schedule on the teachers associations website.

The district offer included a 6 percent increase only for this year, Jones said. After the union rejected it, both parties entered into a formal impasse process, starting with three days of unsuccessful mediation.

The process then went into the fact-finding phase, in which a representative from each side presents its perspective to a neutral observer.

Fact-finding was in progress Thursday at a former school site near downtown Perris when the union staged its rally. Carrying signs and noisemakers, several hundred participants, including educators from other school districts, gathered across the street from district headquarters on downtown East First Street. They then hiked about a mile to the fact-finding site, accompanied by a cacophony of horns blown by sympathetic motorists.

Ive worked for the district for 27 years, and Ive never seen anything like this  the disrespect weve had to endure, said teacher Patricia Escalante of her motivation to march.

In the days leading up to the agreement, union leaders and membership had talked about the possibility of initiating an attempt to recall board members and even go on strike.

Johnson said he believes the march may have contributed to a sense of urgency to the negotiations.

Ponce said he hopes the agreement will resolve some of the discontent that had arisen.

My goal is to return the focus to our kids needs, focus on their achievement, and prepare them for the 21st century work environment, he said.
SANTA ANA  The Federal Aviation Administration released this week audio of actor Harrison Ford talking with John Wayne Airports radio tower after he landed a single-engine Aviat Husky on a taxiway instead of a runway last month.

Ford, 74, can be heard in a follow-up phone call to the tower saying: Im the schmuck who landed on the taxiway in one of the recordings released by FAA officials about the Feb. 13 incident where his plane flew over an American Airlines Boeing 737 carrying more than 100 people that was holding on the runway.

Ford can be heard at one point asking if the larger airliner was supposed to be in the same area. The recordings were released in response to requests from media agencies.

The actor told tower communicators he was distracted by another aircraft nearby and turbulence.

The incident is under investigation, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said. Landing on a taxiway is a violation of FAA safety rules.

Among the records released is one of American Airlines pilot Edward Patton asking the tower about what had just occurred.

For reference he told Irene Willard, the air traffic manager, his planes tail was 42 feet high.

You get an idea of how close it was, Patton said.

It was definitely not a good position for him to be in, Willard said.

You can listen to the full recordings here.

Video of the landing was also released shortly after the incident by the Associated Press.

In 2015, Ford crash landed a World War II-era airplane on a Santa Monica golf course after the engine failed, suffering a broken arm and minor head injuries.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scng.com
A Martin Luther King High School student is suing the Riverside Unified School District, four students, King High assistant principal David Waldram and a parent after a video of the student getting punched in the face was shared across the internet.

The lawsuit, filed March 6, alleges that King High officials were aware of the assailants violent tendencies but did nothing to prevent the assault from taking place.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff  who was 15 years old at the time  was further victimized when the video of him getting punched went viral, the lawsuit says. The teens attorney, Stefano Formica, of the Beverly Hills-based Vaziri Law Group, said in an interview that even though his client moved schools, the video continues to haunt him.

This event could have been prevented and really affected him and will continue to affect him for the rest of his life unnecessarily, Formica said.

School district assistant superintendent Timothy Walker, in a phone interview Thursday, said the school district had not yet been served with the lawsuit and would not comment on it. He said that the district takes allegations of bullying very seriously.

Physical altercations and the safety and security of students is a primary focus and concern for all staff, Walker said. When an incident of aggression occurs, and the staff becomes aware, the district procedures in California Education Code are utilized against any child who initiated or participated in the aggression.

The lawsuit seeks general damages for emotional distress, physical pain, and mental suffering as well as loss of earnings and future earning capacity and medical and psychological care, the cost of the suit and further relief as the court deems just and proper, the lawsuit says.

The Press-Enterprise knows the names of the students named in the lawsuit  both the plaintiff and the defendants  but will not name them since they were juveniles at the time of the incident.

Riverside Police Department spokesman Officer Ryan Railsback confirmed that the assault allegation was investigated by the Police Departments school resource officer. The investigation was submitted to Riverside County Juvenile Probation for prosecution, he said.

The lawsuit alleges that during school hours July 29, 2016, the plaintiff was cornered in a bathroom by one of the defendants and was physically assaulted and battered, thereby causing serious and permanent injuries.

Formica said his client suffered an orbital fracture  an injury to the bone of the eye socket  and sought medical attention.

Three other King High students were in the bathroom at the time of the beating, the complaint said. They filmed the incident and uploaded the videos to multiple social media sources, according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges that the district had prior notice of the defendants inappropriate, harassing and violent conduct and propensities. Yet, the district failed to take reasonable and appropriate measures to protect students, including the plaintiff, from foreseeable harm   the complaint said.

Assistant Superintendent Walker said the district has a comprehensive bullying program and process mapped out in the student handbook. Reports of bullying are investigated and actions are taken to address those reports. Children are given suggestions for addressing those concerns.

The assault and subsequent online taunting caused the plaintiff  who is now 17  to suffer severe emotional distress, psychological injury, sleeplessness, anxiety, mental anguish the complaint said, in addition to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The father of the boy accused in the assault is named as a defendant in the suit, since he had prior knowledge of his sons behavioral problems and need for increased supervision but failed to prevent the incident from happening.
DECATUR  Former Decatur Police Chief Brad Sweeney may appeal to the states highest court in a quest to continue his lawsuit against the city of Decatur.

A three-judge panel for the 4th District Appellate Court on Friday ruled against Sweeney, affirming Macon County Circuit Judge A.G. Webber IVs dismissal of the lawsuit in June.

Sweeneys attorney, Jon D. Robinson, said Friday night that he thought it was likely he would file a petition asking the Illinois Supreme Court to hear the case. The high court could choose to allow the petition or not to hear the case.

I think most of (the opinion) I disagree with, the reasoning and the way it was set up, he said.

The case began in February 2016 when Sweeney was relieved of his duties by City Manager Tim Gleason. Sweeney alleged Gleason fired him retaliation for several events, including his objection to Gleasons use of a police car and driver for a personal trip in May 2015.

Sweeney, a 20-year veteran of the Decatur Police Department, had sought protection under the Illinois Whistleblower Act. But in its ruling, the appellate court said Sweeney did not blow the whistle, because he told no one but Gleason that he thought Gleason had acted inappropriately.

Simply having a conversation with the wrongdoer about the impropriety of his or her actions is not exposing the alleged improper activity, making it known, or reporting the wrongful conduct, said the opinion, written by Justice John W. Turner and joined by Justices Robert J. Steigmann and Thomas M. Harris.

Sweeney also said that he was fired for his refusal to publicly support a local motor fuel tax and his opposition to the tax during a city staff meeting. In court documents, Gleason provided other reasons for firing Sweeney that did not relate to the gas tax or police car ride.

Gleason did not immediately respond to messages seeking to discuss the ruling.

Ed Flynn, who represents the city in this case along with attorney Jerry Stocks, said: We respect the ruling of the circuit and appellate courts in this matter. They share the opinion that we have had from the beginning of this matter. He declined to elaborate.

Webbers initial ruling and the appellate judges review focused on legal aspects of the case, rather than facts of what happened between Gleason and Sweeney.

The Decatur police chief is an at-will employee, who could be discharged by the city at any time "for any reason or no reason," Webber wrote.

The judges found that Sweeneys situation did not fall under any legal exceptions.

Sweeney also argued that Gleason infringed upon his First Amendment rights, suggesting he was fired in part for objecting to the local gas tax the Decatur City Council ultimately approved later that month.

But Webber and the appellate court rejected that argument, too. In his written opinion dismissing the case, Webber phrased the issue plainly: You can't walk up to your boss, tell him where to go and always expect to keep your job (particularly in the case of an at-will employee).

Robinson said he was surprised not only by the result but by the timing of the decision so soon after oral arguments were heard in the case March 7. Its shockingly quick, he said. In the 46 years that Ive practiced, Ive never seen an opinion written this quick.

The ruling comes less than two weeks before the April 4 election, in which issues related to the lawsuit have played a key role. Mayoral candidate John Phillips has been a vocal supporter of Sweeney, who he has said serves as a key member of his campaign committee.

Incumbent Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe has stood behind the city manager, a position she reiterated Friday.

Four judges and a special prosecutor have concluded that Tim Gleasons actions were proper, she said. I hope now our community will move beyond this episode and the positive momentum will continue.

Phillips was unaware of the decision when reached by phone Friday evening and declined to comment.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this column incorrectly reported what is now at the site of the Arlington Hotel. It is a parking lot at University Avenue and Lemon Street in Riverside.

Many people believe the Mission Inn has always been the finest hotel in Riverside, but that is not the case.

The Glenwood Hotel, the precursor to the Mission Inn, was a comfortable, cottage type of lodging house. The Arlington Hotel was arguably a much nicer place to stay in Riversides early years. It was built by a former oil executive named Hiram Bond Everest.

Everest was born in New York State in 1830. By the 1860s, he had moved around and was engaged in various businesses. He became involved with a carpenter named Matthew Ewing, who discovered a method to derive kerosene from oil using no additional chemicals and far less heat than in old methods. In short, Ewing subjected the oil to a vacuum, which resulted in kerosene and some residual by-products. Everest saw a potential for these by-products.

Together, Everest and Ewing incorporated the Vacuum Oil Co. in 1866 (through various business transactions, Vacuum Oil eventually became Mobile Oil).

In 1879, Everest and Ewing sold Vacuum Oil to Standard Oil Co. of New York. Everest retired, first to Denver, then to Riverside in 1881. He purchased land in the Arlington area of Riverside and built a stately home that has since been torn down.

In 1887, Everest decided to get into the hotel business.

He had competition  there was already the Glenwood and new Rowell Hotels, and a conglomerate also was obtaining funds to build a Hotel Rubidoux on Mount Rubidoux. However, Everest had funds already, and in September 1887, started building a large hotel at the northwest corner of Eight (now University) and Lemon streets.

The hotel was originally going to be called the Hotel Everest, but by the time it opened just after Christmas 1888, the name had become the Arlington Hotel. Just before the opening, a Riverside Daily Press reporter toured the hotel and indicated that the rooms are certainly being fitted up in the finest possible shape. The walls and ceiling are being handsomely covered with elegant paper  gold, embossed and figured.

The next few years saw the Arlington Hotel become a great success. However, in 1893, there was a downturn in the economy, and most businesses suffered. Everest devised a plan to help his hotel.

In May of that year, when Riverside County was created and needed office space, Everest offered the bottom floors of the Arlington to the county. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved his proposal, and moved in almost immediately. Five years later, the county took over the entire Arlington Hotel, thus ensuring Everest of steady income. The countys tenure in the Arlington Hotel ended in 1904, when all offices moved into the new courthouse at 10th and Main streets.

In 1895, Everests wife died. He spent the next several years traveling throughout the country and Europe before settling down with his children. Everest died in New York in March 1913. The Arlington Hotel was eventually sold and renamed the Tetley Hotel. It stood on its parcel downtown until the early 1970s, when a fire destroyed the once-proud building. Now, the site is a parking lot at University Avenue and Lemon Street.

If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.

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Southern California Edison is looking to get out of the streetlight business.

City Councils throughout Western Riverside County have been voting on a proposal to purchase about 55,000 of the 63,000 streetlights owned by the utility company in the region. The cities would take over ownership and maintenance of the poles while Edison would simply supply power. Currently, cities pay a fee in addition to power costs.

The municipalities would spend millions buying the fixtures, but would hope to save money in the long run by not renting and by using more energy efficient bulbs. Cities would see costs for poles to drop from $10.3 million annually to $4.5 million, according to the Western Riverside Council of Governments, which is overseeing the program and helping with financing plans.

However, the poles come as is, with Edison freeing itself of any environmental or other issues that the poles may bring.

That caused some angst for Hemet City Attorney Eric Vail before that City Council agreed to move forward with the process.

I cant quantify the risk, Vail told the council. You wont know until you do your due diligence. They want to be indemnified from any contamination.

Vail said there wasnt much room for negotiations, either. SoCal Edison wrote a proposal and gave it to cities.

With an acceptance deadline of Friday, March 31, the proposal has been approved by Hemet, Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Temecula, Wildomar and the Jurupa Community Services District.

It was rejected by Calimesa, the Rubidoux Community Service District and unincorporated Riverside County.

A decision has yet to be made by Eastvale, Perris, San Jacinto and Norco  which appears to be against the proposal.

San Jacintos Council put off its decision until Tuesday, March 28, seeking information on why other agencies  specifically the county  have rejected the plan.

Eastvale Mayor Joe Tessari said acquiring the 4,000 poles in the city would result in significant savings.

A purchase would allow the city to add better lighting and energy-efficient LED lights, Tessari said. It would also make it easier for the city to use the poles for banners and cameras, he added. Currently, it must enter into agreements with Edison for such uses.

The agreements do not commit the municipalities to purchasing the poles. They will have nine months to line up financing and can back out at any time, said Tyler Masters, a program manager for WRCOG.

The terms, however, cannot be changed once a city agrees to move forward.

The Moreno Valley City Council approved a deal to purchase 9,411 lights for $4.95 million, which city officials say would give Moreno Valley some control over rising costs.

In recent years, the city, like others, has seen its rates increase by about 5 percent annually.

City officials have discussed the possibility for years because of an increasing shortfall between street light costs and revenues from a parcel fee for the program. They expect savings of $6.5 million over 20 years and an additional $1.5 million if the poles are converted to energy efficient LED lights.

Like Eastvale and the other cities, it would convert all the bulbs to LED, which burn brighter and are cheaper to operate.

Hemet figures to cut the cost on 1,738 poles being offered for $712,000. Officials hope to reduce the monthly operating cost from its current $11.43 per pole to $3.06 per pole.

The city anticipates savings of $2 million over 20 years.

This program is separate from the Streetlight Demonstration Area that has been under way in Hemet, although cities are likely to look at those results to decide what kinds of LEDs they will purchase.

Staff writer Imran Ghori contributed to this report.
Police on Friday, March 24 identified both the man found dead in a west side San Bernardino home Thursday and his suspected killer.

Ruben Santiago Hernandez, 23, of San Bernardino was found dead in a home shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday.

Family members gave police a description of the man believed to have killed Hernandez. He was identified as Santos Arellano, 32, of San Bernardino, according to a police news release.

According to police spokesman Lt. Mike Madden, Arellano was dating Hernandez mother.

Shortly after the slaying Arellano was pulled over by Rialto police near Foothill Boulevard and Date Street, where he was taken into custody.

He was booked into Central Detention Center on suspicion of murder. Hes being held without bail. Detectives didnt release the motive to the crime.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Marco Granado at 909-384-5628 or Sgt. Robert Sullivan at 909-384-5615.
George Arredondos mom would often tell him: Dont forget  Im always watching you.

This reminder rang especially true, he said, after catching a glimpse of his late mother during an early morning run to Wells Fargo in downtown Redlands.

I caught her in the corner of my eye and it startled me, Arredondo said Monday in front of a Redlands-themed mural hanging inside the banks State Street location.

The mural is part of the banks community mural program, which is dedicated to creating unique, custom-designed historical artwork that respects the communitys legacy, celebrates its diversity, and honors the past upon which the community was founded, according to a news release.

Wells Fargo installed the mural in December. It features iconic images of Redlands and its people, including two of the citys patron saints  the Smiley brothers  orange trees and a group of women working at the old Pepper Packing House on Sixth Street and Stuart Avenue. Two of the women featured are related to Arredondo  his mom, Pilar, and aunt, Connie Aguirre.

George called me the next day and says, Hey, I went to the bank last night and saw my mom staring at me,  said Miguel Aguirre, Connies son. So I asked, What in tarnation are you talking about? Have you been drinking? No, no. Theres a photo of my mom and yours hanging inside. Walk in and see for yourself. You cant miss it. And so I did.

The images brought back memories for the men and their families, especially Arredondo, whose mother died in August just shy of her 92nd birthday.

The sisters were two of nine children born to Simona and Aldofo Lara, whose families fled from Mexico in the 1910s during the Mexican Revolution in search of a better life, the Wells Fargo release said. The family crossed the border in El Paso, Texas, before making its way to Kansas City and eventually Redlands.

It was during World War II that both women sought employment at the packinghouse because it was walking distance from their home. They stayed for a while before moving on to other careers  Connie, a housekeeper, and Pilar, a teacher at St. Marys Catholic Church and, later, a certified nursing assistant at Terracina Post Acute Continuing Care Retirement Community. She retired from the retirement home after 25 years at the age of 77.

Pilar Arredondo and her husband, John, raised nine children. George Arredondo was the only boy. The tight-knit family has fond memories of growing up in Redlands, and though they are now scattered across California and the U.S., the family often keeps in touch by phone or at planned family reunions. In fact, between 200 to 300 family members are expected to attend a reunion scheduled for May at Sylvan Park.

Its really the only place that could fit us, George Arredondo said with a laugh.

Arredondos parents were married 62 years before his fathers death in 2006. Connie Aguirre died in 1994 at the age of 72.

While the loss of the matriarchs is still felt by family, their legacies continue through hundreds of photographs and the mural. Ann Penn, a communications consultant with Wells Fargo, said the image will stay up permanently, welcome news to the family.

I think my mom would be ecstatic about it, and her sisters are so excited about it, Arredondo said. Its an honor to have our parents featured. And Im glad that they have taken the heritage of Redlands to heart by honoring the people who helped build the town.
SANTA ANA  Police on Thursday, March 23 arrested a Riverside man in connection with the Feb. 8 slaying of Joseph Frank Garcia, 23, of Orange.

Detectives from the Santa Ana Police Department, working with officers from the Riverside Police Department, arrested Joshua Encinas, 23, without incident at his home in the 3000 block of Molly Street as they executed a search warrant, Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said. It was unclear if a weapon was recovered.

Garcia and Encinas are both tied to Orange County street gangs, but the investigation into a motive is ongoing, he said.

Garcia was found laying face-down in an alley behind a shuttered Food for Less around 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 8. Hed been shot multiple times in the upper torso.

Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Encinas was booked on suspicion of murder. Jail records show he was being held at the Orange County Mens Central Jail in Santa Ana. Neither bond nor an arraignment date was listed as of 10 a.m. on Friday.

Anyone with information about this incident can call Santa Ana police at 714-245-8390. Anonymous tips can also be passed along to the Orange County Crime Stoppers at 855-847-6227.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7802, jsudock@scng.com or via Twitter @jsudock
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Friday applauded the growing interest of French companies in Ghana, giving the assurance that the country was ready to protect their investments and that of other nations.



The growing interest among French companies in Ghana is welcome and I want to say Ghana recognises the importance of the security of investment and would ensure that our relevant institutions stand ready to protect them, he said.



President Akufo-Addo gave the assurance when he laid the foundation for the commencement of the construction of the new French Embassy in the Cantonments ambassadorial enclave in Accra.



The project, which is scheduled to be completed in 18 months, would host all of Frances operations in Ghana.



The initiative puts to rest years of anxiety and security concerns over the proximity of the present location of the French Embassy to Ghanas seat of Government - the Flagstaff House.



Continuous deliberations between the governments of Ghana and France led to the agreement to relocate the facility to Cantonments in the best interest of both countries.



President Akufo-Addo said the relationship between Ghana and France had been strengthened based on common values, shared vision of prosperity for its peoples, strong belief in democracy and human rights and the rule of law.



He said Ghana continued to benefit from French support, particularly in health, rural water supply, agriculture, services, communications and industry 60 years after bilateral relations were established.



He gave the assurance that the country would strive to strengthen the ties that bound both nations for their mutual advantage.



There are about 170 French interests in Ghana with services as the leading sector.



The President said though the negotiation for the relocation of the embassy, which shared a common wall with the Flag Staff House, had been saddled with mixed reactions, he was optimistic that the construction of the new facility would be the foundation stone and continuation of the growing interest of France in Ghanas development and progress.



It is gratifying to note that the aim of the mission is to complete the construction within a period of 18 months, I trust those given the responsibility to construct the edifice would deliver efficient and timely work so that its opening will help to expand the already cordial relations between Ghana and France, he said.

Source: GNA









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Many more firms in the United Kingdom (UK) are now willing to do business in Ghana to take advantage of the new governments pro-business policies, a senior UK government official has disclosed.



Adam Afriyie MP, Trade Envoy for UK Prime Minister Theresa May, made the disclosure when he led a delegation from the UK - Ghana Chamber of Commerce (UKGCC) to pay a working visit on the Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.



The visit, aimed at strengthening the existing trade relations between the two countries, was also an opportunity for the UK government and business to discuss how they could support Ghana to achieve her infrastructure development goals. Ghana is the UKs fourth largest export market in Sub-Saharan Africa.



The policies and budget of the Akufo-Addo government have a positive, private sector-driven agenda and the UK is ready to help the government achieve its aims and targets, Hon. Adam Afriyie indicated.



The environment is very refreshing. In the past it has been difficult for me to recommend that UK firms invest in Ghana. But so far its been good, and long may it continue.



Vice President Dr Bawumia reiterated the governments determination to make Ghana the investment destination of choice on the African continent.

Governments focus is on encouraging the private sector to help in making Ghana Africas most business friendly country.



Our agenda is to remove the bottlenecks in doing business, reduce the cost of doing business, create a low tax environment for businesses in Ghana, increase the standard of living of Ghanaians, and the budget statement presented by the Finance Minister to Parliament attests to these he stated.



We have to manage the economy in a fiscally responsible manner, the Vice President added.



The Nana Akufo-Addo government, Dr Bawumia continued, would strengthen the fight against corruption, especially in the award of contracts.



There will be transparency in the award of contracts. We will make sure we move away from era of sole sourcing contracts; we will be guided by the law. Rule of law will be at the center of this government, corruption will not be tolerated. As President Akufo-Addo has earlier indicated, the Right To Information bill will soon be passed by Parliament.



Mr. Jon Benjamin, UK High Commissioner to Ghana, bemoaned the fact that trade between the two countries had dropped by a third in the last three years, and hoped the renewed commitment would boost bilateral relations.



Ghana is very important to us, and we hope we can grow our trade again, H.E. Benjamin indicated.

Source: ghanaweb.com









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It does look like government has finally taken a decision to have a single platform, otherwise known as national switch to interoperate mobile money payments and other transfers from before the year ends, if latest timelines by Vice President, Dr Mahamoud Bawumia is complied with.



I have, on behalf of Government, today challenged the key stakeholders, to ensure there is interoperability between Ghana Link, which the banks are on, the e-zwich platform, and the mobile telephone platforms within six months. I am confident this can be achieved,



Interoperability refers to the ability of a subscriber to send money from one network to the other.



Speaking at the Ghana Economic Outlook and Business Strategy Conference on Wednesday, the Vice President explained that as compared to many other countries, Ghana has a well-structured financial services sector; a trusted regulator, an efficient banking system and a robust telecommunication facilities.



He said what was left was for all the players to be brought together and co-ordinated by a single entity to ensure the maximization of the benefits offered by mobile money and other electronic payment services.



According to him, the process itself is not rocket science. Government would like to see the realisation of the interoperability in mobile money transactions across telecom networks by the end of 2017.



The comments by the Vice President is expected to end a back-and-forth process initiated by the Bank of Ghana two years ago to hire a private firm to set up a national switch at the companys own cost and operate it over a 15-year period.



I think it would be very nice if we all put our minds to it and I think you guys should be talking a bit more for us to get it done. I want to encourage banks and mobile network operators to collaborate to increase the range of services available to customers, he said.



Already, the central bank has engaged Sibton Switch Systems who have been working on a process to rollout interoperability operation in the country. In terms of benefits, the interoperability offers wide range benefits to consumers, the operators and government. For instance, the successful rollout of the interoperability concept will enable the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPPS) to improve on its operational capacity and scope of work while leveraging on its existing networks. Even though the very concept of mobile money or electronic payment transactions creates convenience for the patrons or users, the idea to make the system interoperable ensures that the consumer gets an added benefit of efficiency. Because there is a third party, kind of monitoring services provided and other transactions, the telecommunication and banking firms are compelled to be more productive, sharpen their competencies and that of their agents and overall attain proficiency in their deliveries. The little complaints are eliminated or drastically reduced.



The second point crucial to the consumer benefit argument has to do with safety. Even though the telecommunication companies in Ghana have done pretty well over the years, one cannot ignore security issues resulting in common allegations of hacking, stolen passwords and missing funds, poor network among others. The presence of a third party providing inter-network operability will ensure there is greater degree or an improved reliability within the entire platform. Additionally, the sophisticated nature of the switch to be provided by Sibton Switch will guarantee a highly robust system with its attendant system integrity. That way, the consumer is assured of a hitch-free service any time of day, anytime of the year.



Yet another benefit to the consumer exist in the countries making up the West Africa Economic Monetary Union (WAEMU) and countries like Congo DR, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Madagascar, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. In these countries, the consumer can transfer funds from an E-money and/or deposit account to another account using a mobile device. He or she is able to do transfers including transferring e-money to other e-money, e-money to bank accounts or bank accounts to E-money, bank account to another bank account and all that is possible due to the presence of a third party to carryout an interoperability switch, according to the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI). So whereas under the current status quo, transactions are allowed only among users of same network, consumers will be in a position to send money irrespective of the recipients telecommunication network. This is also because instead of the current arrangement of peer-to-peer switching, a central or one common national switch would have assumed control of the interconnecting all the operators.



In February this year, a well known Blogger, Chris Skinner reported that three leading MNOs  Vodacom, Millicoms Tigo and Airtel  announced full interoperability. Vodacoms participation means that over 16 million mobile money users in Tanzania will be able to send payments to each other, regardless of which mobile operator they use. That is a key achievement, with the country claiming to be the first in Africa with full interoperability.



Lets come to employment generation. Allowing a private company to undertake this task of interoperability alone means that the state or the government through the central bank will be seeking to deepen its collaboration with the private sector. The private company will be required to employ a certain appreciable number of people as staff. They will be made of highly technical professionals to helping hands. The company will need additional numbers to man its numerous Call Centers to be set up nationwide. Through their work, the Switch operator is able to include more users onto the platforms, which may mean that a lot more agents could be engaged in the chain. In the end, significant jobs are created out of this project alone.



Perhaps the better part of this consumer benefit argument also is the fact that consumers get to pay less under the interoperability arrangement. This is due to the way things occur in the central switch system; the more people (consumers, banks and telecommunication firms) are added, the less the consumer pays because the cost is then spread among all users. It is therefore not true that with the coming into being of the interoperability concept, consumers will pay more. May be a a simple demonstration will suffice. So for instance, instead of paying ghc 20 for sending GHC 2,000 as it is currently, the figure will reduce to GHC 17.5; GHC 7.5 for GHC 1,000 instead of GHC 10; GHC 3.50 for GHC 500 instead of GHC 5; GHC 1.75 for GHC 200 instead of GHC 2.00 and GHC 0.75 for GHC 100 instead of GHC 1.00. this is how one stands to gain when the interoperability becomes operational.









Source: Business Desk









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Government is now set to start paying public sector workers through the biometric smart card, e-zwich from the last quarter of this year.



This follows several test runs to ensure that the platform can support the huge staff numbers in the public sector.



So far, national service persons are being paid through e-zwich card as well as the World Bank also paying its contractors through the card.



E-zwich is the brand name for the National Switch and Smart card payment system, an innovative method for improving accessibility to banking and retail services in Ghana.



The e-zwich system offers deposit-taking financial institutions, universal banks, rural banks and savings and loans, a platform that enables them to interoperate.



The e-zwich POS supports both online and offline transactions. This dual capability ensures that e-zwich services can be accessed in all parts of the country whether or not the area has good communications network.



Transactions such as cash deposit, cash withdrawal and sale are completed offline and consequently could be successfully completed in the remotest part of the country without regard to the efficiency of the telecommunication infrastructure.



Chief Executive of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS), Archie Hesse said the move is part of measures to bring some efficiency in the public wage bill.



He said the card shows people who are eligible to be on the Comptroller's list of persons to be paid as well as other details of the cardholder.



He explained that the GhIPSS system verifies that a worker has already been paid, so he/she is not paid twice.



"That is where the e-zwich system is still relevant. It is a verified system different from the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) system which was used to filter who should be on the payroll.



According to the Bank of Ghana, e-zwich card holders has increased from 496 000 to 1.8 million as at December 2016.

Source: myjoyonline.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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I stand, at the end of a 43-year journalism career, in gratitude for those who made it possible -- and enjoyable.

This emotion is as strong as any sense of accomplishment I might possess.

I am grateful, first of all, for the Herald & Review taking a flier on a 22-year-old University of Illinois graduate. Mid-1974 wasn't the best of hiring times for newspapers.

Early on at this institution, I was fortunate enough to join the staff of Dana Ewell. This late, great editor was the single finest person I have encountered in this business. Equal parts teacher and inspiration, she fostered a stimulating work environment. Dana, Dave Petrina, Linda Negro, Bob Strongman and I did some good journalism, back in the days when we were responsible for more than 20 counties outside the Decatur area.

I'm grateful to have had the chance to move over to the copy desk after 13 years of reporting. "Copy editors" are the ones who help find unanswered questions in reporters' stories, tidy up the grammar and spelling, make the stories fit the available space, and write the headlines.

Among the many, many fine copy editors with whom I worked, I am most grateful to Jeff Morrison, Ginger Wortman and John Reidy. Jeff, who left the H&R a couple of years ago, was a consummate combination of astute news judgment, clever, accurate headline writing, effective page design and spot-on word usage.

Ginger has had a work ethic second to none. There is no task she won't take on, as long as it meets the goal of turning out the best newspaper for you today, and then again tomorrow. Her compassionate, generous spirit infuses our corner of the newsroom with the air of positivity.

And John has been the one to ride herd on the copy editors handling their varied assignments and polish reporters' evening stories, all the while producing his own two to four pages a night. John has kept such an even keel that the occasional hint of frustration jolts all of us sitting near him. For decades, I "went into the trenches" with the three of them to get you your news.

The chance for me to return to some writing has been a joy in the past five years. I inherited Smarty Pants, the trivia quiz that's held down a corner of the Life cover page on Sundays for as long as I can remember. Choosing each week's topic, then wandered off onto the internet to do the research has been so satisfying. Then, I hope I've shaped the answers with a dash of humor.

The opportunity to write Prairie Talks has been more frequent in these later years. I hope you've found the touching ones touching and the nonsensical rantings just so. No animals were harmed in the making of these columns. Thirdly, I've been blogging for the past two years. Those flights of fancy largely have sprung from leftover bits of research from the Smarty Pants efforts.

Outside the doors of the newspaper, there are people and things for which to be grateful. Take the size of Decatur itself. I settled in as well as I did because it's roughly the same population as the city in which I grew up. There's been plenty going on, but you could always get across town with little to no trouble.

I'm well aware Decatur's identity has changed from a smokestacky but bustling industrial powerhouse to a more service-oriented locale. I also have followed the population trends over 40 years, but what Decatur has seen many other cities in Illinois and elsewhere in the Midwest especially have seen as well. There has been a core of people who not taken the status quo to be the way it would have to be, but have put their hearts into reshaping Soy City into new forms.

And most importantly, I'm grateful for my family. My wife, Lorelei, has had to put up with a spouse working on the opposite shift from hers. Let's face it: She pretty much has had to raise our children without me there. However, she knew intuitively that I was in the career I always wanted: She trained in the same field herself. She also could sense I was satisfied enough with our hometown not to stray to some other city.

My future path lies wide open. The route I've traveled thus far that's involved your readership has made me grateful.
More than 200 Ghanaians are reported to be stranded at the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border post of Penas Blancas in their attempt to transit into the United States of America (USA).



A press release issued by the Information Services Department (ISD) in Accra yesterday said there had been a steady surge of Ghanaian migrants to Cuba in South America over the past year, especially following the commencement of airlines from Accra to Havana in November, 2016.



The release, signed by the acting Director of ISD, Ms Elizabeth Efua Essel, said most of the migrants were deceived by syndicates in Ghana that they had collaborators in Cuba who could immediately facilitate their entry into the USA after they had arrived in that country.



The Ghanaians, however, become stranded with no means of catering for themselves, the statement said.



The ISD, therefore, has warned members of the public to beware of travel and tour operators, especially in Accra and Kumasi, who advertise on the various media platforms that prospective travellers could travel to the USA through Cuba.



The release said some of the travel and tour operators were engaged in new business ventures in Accra and Kumasi where, in order to make money, would cause several adverts to be run at vantage points on some various websites such as www.tonaton. com on the pretext of helping people to travel to America only for them to be stranded in Cuba with severe immigration complexities.



It said information received by the ISD from the Ministry of the Interior had indicated that the Cuban Immigration Authority was in the process of adopting immigration reforms aimed at restricting the entry of African migrants, especially Ghanaians, from using Cuba as an entry point into the USA, Central America and other Caribbean countries.



These strict immigration reforms follow interrogations of mostly Ghanaian nationals and some Nigerians, who informed Cuban authorities that the country is being used as a conduit to the USA in particular.



The reforms are, therefore, intended to curtail the surge of African migrants, observed especially from Ghana since 2015, and to maintain international and regional standards in human trafficking and migration flows.



Consequently, the Cuban immigration authorities have unofficially begun refusing entry to, and deporting African migrants immediately on their arrival in the country, in spite of valid visas, the statement said.



Background



Costa Rica was best known for its vacation beaches and lush rain forests but recently, it has become a thoroughfare for tens of thousands of migrants from South America and elsewhere who are hoping to reach the US.



Many were from the Caribbean, but a significant number trekking through the country were Africans and Southeast Asians, and collectively, they are straining Costa Rica's welcoming reputation.

Source: Daily Graphic









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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has asked personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to upgrade their knowledge and enhance their professional competence to deal with national security challenges.



He said global dynamics posed new forms of security challenges that could only be dealt with at the national level if security personnel adopted innovative strategies and adhered to ethical standards.



"In the prevailing global environment, security scenarios are shifting and, therefore, as military officers, you must prepare yourselves mentally, physically and professionally to meet that challenge," he said.



The President made the call in a speech delivered on his behalf by the Vice-President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, at the graduation of the Cadet Special Medical Intake III at the Ghana Military Academy (GMA) in Accra yesterday.



At the colourful event characterised by artistic military displays, 99 medical professionals who undertook a five-month military training were officially inducted into the GAF.



Present at the event were the Minister of Defence, Mr Dominic Nitiwul; the Minister of the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery; the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu; and the top hierarchy of the GAF, including the Chief of the Defence Staff, Major General O.B Akwa.



Discipline



The President urged the military officers to let the training they had received translate into the disciplined lifestyle that would be anchored on dedication to duty, personal and professional integrity; and diligence in safeguarding the countrys image.



"Merely wearing a rank on your shoulders does not make you a good leader, but you can only be worthy of respect and trust if you display unquestionable integrity, knowledge and courage in a compassionate manner," he said.



Assurance



President Akufo-Addo told the personnel of GAF that his government had advanced plans to roll out a comprehensive housing scheme to address the accommodation challenge of the GAF.



He said the initiative, dubbed Barracks Regeneration Project, would ensure that new accommodation facilities were constructed and renovation works carried out on dilapidated structures at the military barracks.



He observed that the move would ensure that the military personnel lived in a better environment that would motivate them to protect the country at all times.



The President described the graduation of the medical-turned-army officers as timely, saying their services would be needed to fill the human resource void when work on the Military Hospital in Kumasi was completed.



He further reiterated his commitment to ensure that the Military Hospital project in Kumasi was carried out, while pragmatic steps were taken to upgrade the facilities at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra.



Awards



Junior Under-Officer (JUO) Teng Yenbil Bernard received the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Award for being the All-Round Best Officer Cadet of the Special Medical Intake III.



The Best Female Officer Cadet Award was presented to JUO Lasidji Berlinda Narh, while Cadet Sergeant Nyarko Dennis took the Commandant Award for being the second best graduand.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. says President Nana Akufo-Addo's list of Ministers is as a result of enormous pressure mounted on him by his party members.



According to him, the President has been pressured to appoint 110 Ministers in order to apparently appease people.



To Kwesi Pratt, the people circling around the President are not telling him the truth and if they don't stop singing his praises; he will not be any different from other Presidents.



He advised government officials to stop being sycophantic and hypocritical and help President Akufo-Addo to make right decisions.



Help him and tell him the truth because if you dont tell him the truth, he will not become different from any other President . . . So, we should stop the praise-singing and hypocrisy. The President, himself, has told us that he knows that coming into government, he will be criticized and theres an opportunity for that. The President, himself, has come out to say this; still praise-singing, sycophancy. Why?



Analyzing the President's logic, Mr. Pratt alluded to the erstwhile Nkrumah regime disclosing that in the entire 9-year rule by Ghanas first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah; he never had a list of Ministers as Nana Addo's government.



Yet, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was able to deliver and undertake several significant developmental projects just with a smaller fraction of Ministers; he added.



To him, the President's justification for appointing 110 Ministers together with their deputies is unfounded.



If we need lots of Ministers to undertake developmental projects, then Kwame Nkrumah would have got about 6000 Ministers. If we need numerous Ministers to work for progress, Kwame Nkrumah would have taken 6000 Ministers. Because theres no doubt that when it comes to development, 9 years that he became President; the number of developmental projects he did, 9 years and no one has come close. But he had the lowest number of Ministers  44, 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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The General Overseer of Hope Generation Church, Prophet Dr Eric Nana Kwasi Amponsah popularly called Computer Man has revealed that the late President Atta Mills could have survived his untimely death if his former Director of Communications, Koku Anyidoho had not prevented him from offering prayers for the late leader.



According to him, the revelation about the death of former President Mills, came to him and went to the seat of government to pass on the information but was denied access to the late Mills by maverick politician, Koku Anyidoho.



In an exclusive interview with rainbowradioonline.com, the prophet said before the late president was flown to the United Kingdom, for his last check up, he informed the Flagstaff House of the revelation.



He said the late Mills was a close friend and allowed him and other men of God access to him to pray on behalf of the country but Koku Anyidoho prevented all these and did not allow him access to the leader when he was Head of Communication at the presidency.



He also did not mince words by stating that, the late president was killed prematurely by some evil individuals- but failed to mention their names.



According to him, those behind the killing of the former president, will soon be exposed and jailed for the crime.



He said, very influential people conspired and killed the God fearing leader for their own selfish gains and soon, they will be all exposed, prosecuted and jailed.



President Mills died at the 37 Military Hospital on July 24, 2012, and was buried in August that year.



John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills was a Ghanaian politician and legal scholar who served as President of Ghana from 2009 to 2012.



He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the ruling party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 election.



The late President John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills was from Ekumfi Otuam in the Central Region of Ghana. He was born in Tarkwa on 21 July 1944, located in the Western Region of Ghana.



He was educated at Achimota School, where he completed the Advanced-Level Certificate in 1963, and the University of Ghana, Legon, where he received "Black man of the month" several times.



At the age of 27, he was awarded his PhD after successfully defending his doctoral thesis in the area of taxation and economic development. He returned to Ghana that year, becoming a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana.



He became a visiting professor of Temple Law School (Philadelphia, USA), with two stints from 1978 to 1979, and 1986 to 1987, and was a visiting professor at Leiden University (Holland) from 1985 to 1986.



During this period, he authored several publications relating to taxation during the 1970s & 1980s.



Outside of his academic pursuits, Professor Mills was the Acting Commissioner of Ghana's Internal Revenue Service from 1986 to 1993, and the substantive Commissioner from 1993 to 1996.



By 1992, he had become an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Ghana.



Mills was also a Fulbright scholar at Stanford Law School.

Source: rainbowradioonline.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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When we first heard that Amy Schumer was going to play Barbie in a live-action film based on the beloved toy, we were curious as to how her raunchy style of humour might fit within the confines of a PG-rated family flick.

It seems well never get to find out, as overnight, Schumer made a statement to Variety saying that she had backed out of the high-profile project, citing the ever-ambiguous scheduling conflicts as an excuse. The actress said:

Sadly, Im no longer able to commit to Barbie due to scheduling conflicts. The film has so much promise, and Sony and Mattel have been great partners. Im bummed, but look forward to seeing Barbie on the big screen.

The film was due to start shooting in June, but Schumer has a promotional tour booked in for her comedy Snatched, and is also due to star opposite Steve Carell in She Came To Me, so these things may have influenced her decision.

Schumer did a polish on a recent draft of the films script, which is about a Barbie who gets kicked out of Barbieland for not being perfect enough, although its unclear whether Sony will stick with this concept or find a new one.

We respect and support Amys decision, said a representative for the studio in a statement. We look forward to bringing Barbie to the world and sharing updates on casting and filmmakers soon.

Mattel reportedly already has toys planned for the film, so Sony had better move to lock in a new star. As we speak, someone there may or may not be making a frantic phone call to Margot Robbies agent to find out what shes doing in June.

Source: Variety.

Photo: Mike Marsland / Getty.
One Nation founder and extremely weird unit David Oldfield is having some sort of a moment right now  as his wife Lisa continues to experience a slow-motion meltdown on The Real Housewives Of Sydney, hell be raising his own profile with an appearance on the upcoming Hells Kitchen Australia.

Frequent Masterchef guest Marco Pierre White defected from Network Ten to Channel 7 to host the show, whose cast features a rogues gallery of vaguely familiar faces and would-be celebrities, sure to make you sit up and ask who are these people and why are they on TV?

Oldfield, who appeared on Celebrity Survivor and was rumoured to have a fling with Pauline Hanson in the late nineties (he denies this), is already ruffling feathers on the show. In particular, there are reports that he has clashed with fellow cast member, Real Housewives Of Melbourne star Pettifleur Berenger.

Former Bachelorette Sam Frost, who also appears on Hells Kitchen, spoke to News Corp about the tension between them, saying:

David and Pettifleur are at each others throats all the time. Hes got a comeback for everything, he always has to have the last say. I said to him the other day, Oh man, imagine what it would be like to be one of your kids.

Olympian Jess Fox, House Husbands actor Lincoln Lewis, NRL player Willie Mason and The Chase star Issa Schulz will also put their skills to the test, alongside WAG Candice Falzon and Home And Away actress Debra Lawrence.

Rounding out the cast is Geordie Shores Gary Gaz Beadle, to add a little international flare to proceedings.

Falzon has also taken a swipe at Oldfield, saying:

Theres a few people on this show who are in it for the wrong reason and its very, very obvious. People who are there for fame and who want to ram their intelligence and opinion down peoples throats by trying to belittle them.

Oldfield was magnificently catty in response: Well, to Candice I would say: My Wikipedia entry reads a lot nicer than hers does.'

The One Nation founder has been fairly dismissive of his fellow cast-members in general, saying:

Theyre not the sort of people that I expect I would see socially after the program is filmed. Thats nothing against them but they have a different circle that they run in to the circle I usually run in.

While we might just be tempted to hate-watch this to see David Oldfield and Pettifleur Berenger at one anothers throats, this may is probably one of those situations where the behind-the-scenes drama is way more entertaining than the show itself.

Source: News Corp.

Photo: Hells Kitchen Australia.
Police lights PennLive.jpeg

PennLive file photo.

One person is dead, another is in critical condition and two additional people were hurt in two unrelated shootings early Saturday morning in the borough of Indiana.

The shootings took place near IUP but not on campus, and none of the parties involved was a student there, said Michelle Fryling, a university spokeswoman.

The first shooting occurred at 12:53 a.m. in the 1200 block of Philadelphia Street, according to Indiana County District Attorney Patrick Dougherty and Indiana police Chief William Sutton, who spoke at a press conference Saturday afternoon. Police gave this account:

Thomas Stanko, 21, of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was walking with his cousin, Julian Cole, when they got into a confrontation with three men. Stanko pulled a pistol out of his jacket pocket and fired two warning shots and then several more shots. He wounded one of the men with gunshots to the thigh and the foot and accidentally shot his cousin in the right forearm.

Less than an hour later, at 1:39 a.m., gunshots broke out about a mile and a half away in the 1100 block of Oakland Avenue. Matthew McNevin, 20, of Indiana was walking down the street and thought that he recognized a man walking down the street with a female companion as Carlos Recaldecampos, the man who had recently robbed him. He shot both Recaldecampos and the woman, Samantha Riley.

Recaldecampos, 21, of Indiana, was airlifted to UPMC Presbyterian hospital in Pittsburgh and died there just after 6 a.m.

Riley was flown Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnston, where she was in critical condition Saturday afternoon.

Both Stanko and McNevin have been arrested. Stanko was visiting Indiana to take part in the IUPatty's celebration, an often-raucous spring party unsanctioned by Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

"We have a large influx of people into our community this weekend and now we've seen what happens with guns," Dougherty said. "At some point we as a community need to say enough is enough and we aren't going to tolerate gun violence in our communities. The loss of young people's lives must stop."

Stanko has been charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangering.

McNevin was charged with criminal homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated assault, reckless endangering and other counts involving the gun, which authorities said was stolen. He and Stanko were both scheduled for April 10 preliminary hearings

This story has been updated with the charges filed against Stanko and McNevin and with remarks by the district attorney.

Suspects arrested in 2 separate overnight shootings in Indiana, per police pic.twitter.com/ZBFcMC36lp  Patrick Varine (@MurrysvilleStar) March 25, 2017
Screen Shot 2017-03-25 at 8.06.33 AM.JPG

(Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C.)

The Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C. said they have located the car of a former midstate woman found stabbed to death earlier this week.

Investigators are also continuing to search for a man they say is a person of interest in the death of 34-year-old Corrina Mehiel. Police have not said why the man is considered a person of interest in her death.

Police have released new photos of the man, as well as a video taken at a convenience store. He is believed to have frequented the Beltville and Laurel areas of Maryland.

Mehiel was discovered in a basement apartment in the 600 block of 14th Street NE about 4 p.m. Tuesday. She had been bound and stabbed and her car was taken, police said.

On Friday, police announced that her car was located but they did not say where.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the police at 202-727-9099. Anonymous information may be submitted to the department's text tip line by text messaging 50411.

Mehiel, who was executive director of Harrisurg nonprofit Danzante from 2008 to 2010, was an artist and teacher at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C. She hailed from Burnsville, North Carolina and was living in D.C. temporarily, according to reports.

She specialized in community engagement art, and was working with the artist Mel Chin.

She was a project assistant at Mel Chin Studio and taught studio and socially engaged art at The Art Academy of Cincinnati, according to her website. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Cincinnati and a B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University. She has exhibited nationally and abroad, and presented papers on her research at the College Art Association Annual Conference and the Perspectives on Arts Ed Research in Dusseldorf, Germany.

She was a 2000 graduate of Trinity High School in Cumberland County.
Donald Trump

President Donald Trump salutes as he steps off Marine One at the White House, Sunday, March 19, 2017, in Washington.

(Alex Brandon / AP)

By Eugene Robinson

President Donald Trump called himself "instinctual" this week, but the word he must have been groping for was "untruthful."

Eugene Robinson (PennLive file)

He lies incessantly, shamelessly, perhaps even pathologically, and his lying corrodes and dishonors our democracy.

Of course we've had presidents who lied -- to name a few, Lyndon Johnson about Vietnam, Richard Nixon about Watergate, Bill Clinton about Monica Lewinsky. But the key word in these examples is "about."

Other presidents had comprehensible though illegitimate reasons for lying about specific things. Trump often lies for no discernible purpose other than to pump up his own fragile ego.

He even lies about his own lies. In an interview with Time magazine, he made the "instinctual" claim and portrayed himself as a modern-day Nostradamus. "I predicted a lot of things," he claimed. "Some things that came to you a little bit later. But, you know, we just rolled out a list."

His list begins with Sweden. At a rally in Florida last month, Trump made an ominous reference to "what's happening last night in Sweden."

In fact, nothing remarkable had happened in Sweden the previous night; Trump apparently saw a news report about immigration issues there, and must have mistakenly thought he heard a reference to a specific recent event -- an honest mistake, for most people.

But Trump can't admit it was a mistake at all. Two days after his remark, Sweden did see unrest in immigrant neighborhoods. So he counts that as a win, as if he had somehow seen the future.

Trump often uses clairvoyance as a justification for falsehoods. The most vivid recent example -- and perhaps the most damaging to the dignity and credibility of the presidency -- was the string of tweets that began with this: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

A host of present and former intelligence officials, including FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, state categorically that there is no evidence any such thing took place.

Trump initially sent press secretary Sean Spicer out to stand by the claim and demand a congressional investigation.

The White House finally admitted that one version of the allegation came from a Fox News legal analyst who was promptly refuted by his own network and pulled off the air.

But on Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., dashed to the White House to tell Trump he had learned -- from unnamed sources -- that there may have been some "incidental" collection of intelligence from members of the Trump transition team.

Asked by reporters if this supported Trump's wiretapping claim, Nunes acknowledged that no, it did not.

Not one of the "facts" Trump claimed was backed up -- there is no evidence that President Obama ordered anything, no evidence that Trump Tower was wiretapped, no evidence that any of the "incidental" information was collected "before the victory."

But the president continues to insist he was right, because "a lot of information has just been learned, and a lot of information may be learned over the next coming period of time. We will see what happens."

Trump offered to Time that same I'm-a-soothsayer defense for his ridiculous claim that millions of people voted fraudulently in the election, thus causing him to lose the popular vote. No election official in any state has reported seeing voter fraud of this magnitude, or in fact of any magnitude. It did not happen.

Except, of course, in Trump's imagination.

"You have tremendous numbers of people" who committed fraud, Trump said. "In fact I'm forming a committee on it. ... We'll see after the committee. I have people who say it was more than that."

Trump also claimed that "I predicted Brexit," except I can find no record of any such thing.

When asked beforehand whether Britain would vote to leave the European Union, he said he didn't know what would happen.

That's a shrug, not a forecast.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, a conservative bastion, had this to say on Tuesday: "If President Trump announces that North Korea launched a missile that landed within 100 miles of Hawaii, would most Americans believe him? Would the rest of the world? We're not sure, which speaks to the damage that Mr. Trump is doing to his presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods."

The president's response: "I thought it was a disgrace that they could write that."

But no, Mr. Trump, the disgrace is all yours.

Eugene Robinson is a columnist for The Washington Post. His work appears on Saturdays on PennLive.
Marcellus Shale gas extraction in northern Pennsylvania

(PennLive file)

(Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.)

By Colin McNickle

A strange dichotomy has emerged within the administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf regarding the shale gas industry. And it's increasingly difficult for thinking people to bridge the practical and intellectual chasm.

Colin McNickle (PennLive file)

Much attention is being given to a new study -- by IHS Markit -- that suggests Pennsylvania has enough raw feedstock in its Marcellus and Utica shale plays to support up to four additional ethane "cracker" plants in the commonwealth. That's in addition to the one under construction in Beaver County's Potter Township.

That's pretty exciting news.

Details of the study were released on March 21 by the governor and his Team Pennsylvania Foundation. The study predicts there could be additional investment of between $2.7 billion and $3.7 billion in natural gas liquid assets in Penn's Wood.

"Pennsylvania has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to develop and implement a strategy that will cultivate a manufacturing renaissance and transform our economy across the commonwealth," Wolf said in a news release.

He says Shell's cracker plant laid the foundation for "a diverse and robust petrochemical and plastics industry ... and we must ensure that we make the most of this chance to create good-paying jobs for Pennsylvanians."

OK, sounds promising, reasonable and as if the administration is on top of things.

With a major caveat.

In the same news release, Dennis Davin, secretary of the state Department of Community and Economic Development, set up a long list of "key priorities" to capitalize on the burgeoning opportunities of shale gas.

Among them, "proactively engaging shareholders to bring the right decision-makers and resources to the table; attracting additional infrastructure investments in petrochemical and plastics manufacturers, as well as retaining and growing Pennsylvania's existing industry; developing pad-ready sites throughout the state to encourage investment opportunities; streamlining the development timeline and addressing potential critical infrastructure bottlenecks; and training a workforce with the right skill sets to fill future jobs created by the industry."

But as one of the wags with whom I regularly confer reminds:

"Policies are important if we want to get the economic equation right for Pennsylvania and create an environment to attract capital," the wag said.

But, "While it is easy to tout natural gas development through reports such as this, let's not forget the policies on the table obstructing our ability to achieve this 'generational opportunity' outlined in the report."

Among those are the proposed severance tax and onerous and/or cumbersome regulations, including the time it takes to secure permits.

But another thought comes to mind as well:

Shell's cracker plant is billed as something of a great pump primer -- replete with heavy taxpayer incentives -- that will, we are told, serve as a great catalyst for economic development, not only in the shale gas industry but for ancillary industries and, thus, the Keystone State's economy at large.

Could be. Hope so; the early report card already shows that to be happening.

But how many additional public "incentives" will be "required" to capitalize on this "once-in-a-generation opportunity"? For how long will taxpayers be asked (forced, really) to "prime" this "pump"?

If the shale gas industry truly is the be-all and end-all to economic Nirvana -- and make no mistake, its possibilities truly are exciting -- why should taxpayers continue to be tapped for costs, capital or otherwise, that the industry alone should bear?

As but one example, is it really, as DCED's Davin appears to suggest, a taxpayer function (other than, say, at existing brownfield sites) to develop "pad-ready sites throughout the state to encourage investment opportunities"?

It is not. That should be the exclusive purview of the shale gas industry and private property owners with whom respective companies negotiate land and royalty deals.

Government should be a facilitator, not a developer. And Pennsylvania's history is replete with tales of well-meaning (one would assume) but misguided (one can confirm) government officials mistaking the latter for the former.

Indeed, Pennsylvania is at the epicenter of the shale gas revolution. Fortunes will be made. And, as is the case in a free market system, some fortunes will be lost; the marketplace will reward and it will punish. That's the nature of our economic system. (And those who fail today are free to regroup and attempt to prosper another day.)

The shale gas industry -- just as any industry -- must stand on its own. But it can't do that if government sends mixed signals -- one day dismissing the import of the industry and regulating it to its knees, then, the next day talking of despoiling the public of its wealth to help the industry in the guise of "economic development."

Government that governs least truly is the best government. "Beneficent" government that overplays its hand on either side of the equation will do neither the shale gas industry nor taxpayers any favors.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. His work appears regularly on PennLive Opinion. Readers may email him at cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org.
Marijuana

Harrisburg's new reduced penalties for possession and use of marijuana are taking effect.

(AP file photo)

Harrisburg's reduced penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana took effect this week as police officers are trained in how to enforce the new law.

"The police are focusing on more serious issues, such as the epidemic of gun violence," Mayor Eric Papenfuse said, in a written statement.

In July, City Council voted unanimously to make Harrisburg the third city in the state to reduce the violation from a misdemeanor to a summary offense on the same level as a traffic ticket.

Under the new system, the fine for marijuana possession is $75 while marijuana use comes with a $150 fine. If an individual is cited three times within a five-year period, the penalty will revert back to a misdemeanor charge.

Papenfuse said city police officers were being trained in the new law, with full implementation expected next week. He noted that the city has eased enforcement in recent months.

Harrisburg's reduced penalties follow a general trend statewide that included last year's legalization of medical marijuana statewide. That system is currently being rolled out, with the Department of Health currently reviewing applications from grower/processors and dispensaries.

Members of the Trump administration, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have indicated a harder line on marijuana enforcement could be coming, however. That would put the federal government increasingly in conflict with states and municipalities that relaxed enforcement or legalized marijuana altogether.

"There is still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and drugs of that nature," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last month.

Papenfuse and Police Chief Thomas Carter, in a city press release, thanked the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts for its help in expediting the implementation of the new law.
FILE - In this Jan. 25, 2015 file photo, Debbie Reynolds, winner of the Screen Actors Guild lifetime award, left, and Carrie Fisher pose in the press room at the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles. The mother-daughter actresses will be honored at a public memorial on Saturday, March 25, 2017, at the storied Hollywood Hills cemetery where both have been laid to rest. Fisher and Reynolds died one day apart in late December 2016. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 67F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 67F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph.
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The Unfairness Doctrine will be Emperor Trumps greatest legacy because its totes unfair to blame him for anything he repeats from the Fox News Channel. As he told TIME Magazine in his most deranged interview yet:

A: Why do you say that I have to apologize? Im just quoting the newspaper, just like I quoted the judge the other day, Judge Napolitano, I quoted Judge Napolitano, just like I quoted Bret Baier, I mean Bret Baier mentioned the word wiretap. Now he can now deny it, or whatever he is doing, you know. But I watched Bret Baier, and he used that term. I have a lot of respect for Judge Napolitano, and he said that three sources have told him things that would make me right. I dont know where he has gone with it since then. But Im quoting highly respected people from highly respected television networks.



Q: But traditionally people in your position in the Oval Office have not said things unless they can verify they are true.



A: Well, Im not, well, I think, Im not saying, Im quoting, Michael, Im quoting highly respected people and sources from major television networks.

Got that? The buck stops elsewhere. At Fox. Just like Ive been saying since 2009.

JUDGE NOT: Speaking of Judge Nappy. Last weeks exciting episode of Friday Fox Follies ended with egg on White House Spinster Sean Spicers face for having repeated Judge Andy Napolitanos tin foil hat conspiracy. While Fox News Sunday Downplays Foxs Role In Trumps British Wiretap Claim, Fox News pulls Judge Napolitano over his Trump wiretap claims.

In other words: Emperor Trump has more faith in this whacked out conspiracy from Fox, than does Fox.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE: Trump saw Judge Nappy with those Foxy Friends, so it shouldnt surprise anyone that Fox & Friends [is] the morning show of choice for Donald Trump. Smart people are fully aware of The Bigotry And Idiocy Of Donald Trumps Favorite News Show, a place where Kellyanne Conjob is still welcome. Meanwhile, One Jaw-Dropping Fox & Friends Tweet Perfectly Sums Up What a Joke the Network Is after Fox News tells viewers to ignore Comeys bombshell testimony, which is why CNNs Jake Tapper Blasts Fox News For False Statement About Comey Testimony.

And, if that werent enough for one week:

Steve Doocy Gushes Over Obscure Right

Wing Blogger Who Crashed ACLU Meeting

Theyve been hitting the Rockville rape case hard because its the latest episode of F&Fs relentless ongoing series of Undocumented Immigrants Behaving Badly.

Fox & Friends Suggest Sanctuary

Cities Offer Up 14 Year-Old School

Girls To Immigrant Rapists

In fact, the entire station has been working the Rockville beat [see below].

VANITY FAIR & BALANCED: Here are just 2 pull-quotes from Its a Disaster. Its a Nightmare. Is a Civil War Brewing Inside Fox News?, a much longer article by Sarah Ellison, which opens:

No one is missing her anymore, one Fox News insider told me recently. This person was referring, of course, to Megyn Kelly, the networks former star who left for NBC earlier this year. Kellys move may have signaled a rightward lurch for NBC, which appears to be coming to terms with its place in our new Trumpian reality. (MSNBC also recently hired Kellys former colleague Greta Van Susteren.) But the move may be more significant for her former stomping ground, Fox News, which appears to be in the midst of its own regressive (if highly rated) culture change. During Kellys reign, it was always all about Megyn, one former Fox colleague told me. Now, its all about the Old White Men.

Ellison also writes:

Soon after Kelly left to pursue a more mainstream future at NBC, Fox News returned to its natural state. Rupert Murdoch, who stepped in to run the network himself, hand-selected the former conservative wunderkind Tucker Carlson to take over for Kelly. Now, Fox Newss prime-time hours from 8 to 11 P.M. are entirely peopled by white, male commentators: OReilly, Carlson, and Hannity. As Andy Lack recently noted at an industry event, the network feels more like state broadcasting than it ever did under Ailes. And the formula is working. Carlson, with his perpetually furrowed brow, is drawing higher ratings than Kelly did during her tenure.

Click through, because Ellison describes the reasons for Foxs hard turn to the right following the Ailes Scandal.

FRYER TUCKER: This week the man/boy came out against multiculturalism

Tucker Carlson: Western Cities Got

Dangerous When They Imported

Radical Religious Ideologies

signed onto Foxs Rockville Rape Hysteria, with interesting results

Watch: City Councilman Zeke Cohen

debates Tucker Carlson about immigration

Tucker Carlson cited one of our

stories on air, and now we need a shower

and managed to piss off Kal Penn [who] hits Tucker Carlson for saying the NEA is for elites.

IN THE SPIN CYCLE ZONE: Loofah Lad is always at his funniest and spiniest when the subject is his vanilla milkshaking buddy, Emperor Trump:

Bill OReilly: Trumps Obama wiretapping

claims have harmed the president himself

OReilly: Trump Would Be Wise to

Embrace Only Facts in the Future

But, if Emperor Trump has Fake Facts, the Falafel King will provide him cover:

OReilly: Trumps False Wiretap

Claims Might Not Have Been Far Off

Bill OReilly Uses Rep. Nunes Stunt

To Help Trump Deflect From Russia Ties

It must be good to have a friend in the White House.

CREDIT WHERE CREDITS DUE: I knew the day would come when Id have to write about former-colleague John Roberts, who almost inherited Dan Rathers chair at CBS, before the feces hit the fan on the George W. Bush AWOL scandal. Luckily, Roberts doesnt always pushing the Fox/Trumpian line:

Foxs John Roberts: Connect Some

Of The Dots Here Between Devin

Nunes And The White House

However, Ive watched Roberts report 5 times now. Its filled with a lot of ifs, maybes and possibilities. There are no facts at the chewy center.

So, enjoy these CanCon reports from very early in his tee vee career instead:

MORE ON THE UNFAIRNESS DOCTRINE: While Fox made Emperor Trumps Unfairness Doctrine possible, who made Foxs Unfairness & Unbalanced Doctrine possible? Step right up conservative hero Ronald Reagan, whose FCC abolished the original Fairness Doctrine. When Congress passed a new one, Reagan vetoed it. Subsequent attempts to reinstate it have floundered. It was within this climate that Fox News was born.

It doesnt hurt that the FCC only licenses broadcast networks  whatever that means in these days that almost every home is wired  because the public airwaves (radio and tee vee) are considered a public trust. Since the FCC doesnt license cable-only stations, there is no license to yank  no pressure that can be applied  to ensure stations is not playing fast and loose with the truth.

Thats how we got 20 years of fake Fox news, quoted by what could very well be a fake POTUS, who who has instituted his own Unfairness Doctrine.

FOX BYTES: Foxs James Rosen Joins Devin Nunes On Trumps Russia Deflection Team  Oops! Foxs Efforts To Intimidate A Trumpcare-Opposing Republican Backfires Big Time!  Fox Host: The Important Thing To Remember From The London Terror Attack Is Never To Blame Guns  Newt Gingrich: We Must Defeat Left-Wing Mythology That You Can Be Multicultural And Still Be A Single Country

Headly Westerfield is just the latest writer to make a tenuous analogy between Adolph Hitler and Emperor Trump.
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President Trump is blaming Democrats, even though 34 House Republicans were poised to vote against the Republican health care bill.

In a phone interview with The New York Times Maggie Haberman, Trump blamed Democrats:

TRUMP tells me in interview this is now the Democrats' fault, and that he anticipates that when Obama "explodes" they will be ready to deal  Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 24, 2017

* OBAMACARE, not the former president https://t.co/DfJgV0jdwU  Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 24, 2017

TRUMP told me he is happy having this in the rearview mirror. "It's enough already," he said of the negotiations.  Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 24, 2017

POTUS did not sound mad, showed uncharacteristic discipline as he talked about who had let him down (he said Democrats).  Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 24, 2017

Trump isnt blaming the 34 Republicans who were going to vote against the bill. Instead, he is blaming Democrats for never supporting a bill that would have taken health care away from 24 million people. Its typical Trump. He is going to blame Democrats for his own failures while refusing to admit where the real problem rests.

If Trump wants Democrats to help him on Obamacare, he can start by actually talking to Democrats about health care.

This is not the fault of Democrats. The blame for this fiasco rests with Donald Trump and Paul Ryan. They tried to jam a health care bill through the House, and they failed.
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In an interview published yesterday in Time magazine, Donald Trump defended his administration by saying, Im President, and youre not. While true, his being president doesnt imply what he thinks it implies.

And its a childish defense, the sort of thing youd hear on a playground. Trump claimed,

Im a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right. Hey, look, in the meantime, I guess I cant be doing so badly, because Im President, and youre not.

Poorer logic is difficult to imagine. Which might explain some of Donald Trumps many mistakes, and why he thinks he never makes them. In fact, as a Ryan Lizza tweet reveals, a House Freedom Caucus source said of Trumps understanding of healthcare, He seems to neither get the politics nor the policy of this.

Hard to be right when you dont know what youre talking about, and then lie about it.

The response to Trumps interview has been devastating:

Pretty amazing.@Jezebel redacted everything that's not verifiably true from Trump's TIME interview about the truth https://t.co/vBhqqEnMpn pic.twitter.com/2u5FBEXTGV  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 24, 2017

As Chelsea Clinton no doubt enjoyed putting it after all the lies Trump told about her mother,

Removing the alternative facts, half truths and untruths from Trump's @Time interview reveals how little remains https://t.co/AgzObgkUiK  Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) March 24, 2017

If you want some numbers, The Toronto Stars Trump fact-checker-in-chief Daniel Dale provides some:

Donald Trump made 14 false claims in his Time interview on the subject of whether he makes false claims. #TrumpCheck pic.twitter.com/11TdYuPDCO  Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 23, 2017

In other words, Trump lies a lot about whether or not he lies.

The fact that he is president just further exposes his rampant dishonesty. It doesnt mean he is right about, wellanything. Or that he isnt doing badly. He is doing very badly indeed, as the scandal surrounding his possible collusion with Russia amply demonstrates.

At every opportunity, Trump tells us how smart he is, but there is plentiful evidence he got played by Vladimir Putin.

And Ezra Klein makes a compelling argument for Donald Trump having been played by Paul Ryan, not exactly the smartest guy in the room himself.

And according to Klein, it doesnt appear to have been very hard for Ryan to prove to the world that Trump is not such a smart guy after all.

This is not really a surprise about a guy who, if he sees it on TV or reads it in a newspaper, believes its real, unless its something he doesnt like, and then its fake news.

And who, by the way, doesnt believe its true if it comes from his own intelligence community, but does believe its real if it comes from the Kremlin.

Trump insists,

What am I going to tell you? I tend to be right. Im an instinctual person, I happen to be a person that knows how life works.

Except that he happens to be wrong quite a lot, and then lie about it. Like he did in the interview.

If Trump thinks winning an election is some sort of vindication of his endless lies, the evidence suggests he is about to learn a very painful lesson indeed.
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During an interview on MSNBCs The Rachel Maddow Show, Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made it clear that Democrats plan to block Trumps Supreme Court nominee. Schumer is going to force Gorsuch to get 60 votes or be replaced by a new nominee.

Video:

https://youtu.be/3QGgwJbUOmM

Schumer said that Senate Democrats werent impressed by Gorsuch, and he warned that it is going to be hard for him to get 60 votes. Schumer said, Everyone should have to get 60 votes. He added, If a judge cant 60 votes, you dont change the rules, you change the judge or the nominee.

Senate Democratic Leader Schumer made it clear where this is going. Senate Democrats are going to filibuster and require Gorsuch to get 60 votes for confirmation. Since there arent 60 votes in the Senate for Trumps nominee, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is going to have an interesting decision to make. Either McConnell will change the rules to require a simple majority for Supreme Court confirmation, or Gorsuch will sit in Merrick Garland limbo land until there are 60 Republicans in the Senate, or Trump picks a new nominee.

The House win on health care has emboldened Democrats. Senate Democrats were already planning on stopping Gorsuch, but with momentum on their side, they are now looking to hand Donald Trump a devastating series of defeats that will crush his presidency, and make it clear that despite his promises of winning, Trump is nothing but a loser in the Oval Office.
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GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham was obliterated on Saturday at a town hall event in deep red South Carolina when he told the crowd that he would vote in favor of Donald Trumps Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch.

Graham said he will enthusiastically support Gorsuch and threatened Democrats if they decide to filibuster him.

Video:

Lindsey Graham destroyed for saying he supports Gorsuch pic.twitter.com/ka8xf0hnEj  Sean Colarossi (@SeanColarossi) March 25, 2017

Graham said, Judge Gorsuch was one of the finest people, I think, President Trump couldve chosen. I am going to enthusiastically support him, and if the Democrats try to filibuster him, they will be making a huge mistake.

When Graham went on to spew a bunch of talking points about how qualified Gorsuch is, the crowd was not impressed and continued to shower him with boos.

The South Carolina Republican quickly changed his strategy and started insulting the people in the audience.

To everybody that boos Judge Gorsuch, youre not persuading me at all, he said, essentially admitting that he isnt interested in listening to his constituents opinions. As a matter of fact, if you cant understand that this is a qualified nominee, then youre not listening. If you dont understand that elections matter, then you dont understand America.

Clearly, Graham hasnt taken any classes on how to deal with people that disagree with him.

Ultimately, Republican members of Congress are in over their heads if they think the people will let them get away with ramming through Trumps agenda, which is unpopular across the board.

The GOP failed on enacting the unconstitutional Muslim ban. They failed to pass a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And now the people will stand up to Trump as he tries to fill a Supreme Court seat that was stolen by Republicans.

If Graham doesnt see that the American people are not on board with this presidents agenda, then its he who isnt listening.
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When news started leaking out that members of the Trump campaign, and Trump himself, were tied to the Russian Putin, there were a couple of Republicans who were not stunned like many Americans. In fact, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain have been stalwarts in warning that at the rate Putin had already been interfering in Western democracies in Europe to undermine confidence in government, it wasnt out of the realm of possibility that he was intricately involved in attacking Americas democracy.

However, according to a report from the Associated Press, one of Donald Trumps trusted campaign advisors, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, had been hard at work for Putin before he worked for Trump and crafted a plan to influence American politics for a Russian oligarch aligned with Vladimir Putin in 2005. 

The AP report stated that Trumps Putin connection and former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, proposed a confidential strategy plan to a Putin ally in early June 2005 that he promised would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putins government.

In a 2005 memo to Russian oligarch and close Putin ally Oleg Deripaska, Manafort wrote:

We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success. [The model] will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.

According to Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) the most recent disclosure undermines the groundless assertions that the administration has been making that there are no ties between President Trump and Russia. This is not a drip, drip, drip. This is now dam-breaking with water flushing out with all kinds of entanglements.

Entanglements may be a bit of an understatement. Manafort was Trumps campaign chairman last year from March until August, including through the RNC nominating convention. It is doubtful Trump would have asked Manafort to resign in August except for an Associated Press revelation that Manafort orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraines ruling pro-Russian political party. The latest business records are even more damning because they provide a more direct link between Manafort and Putins interests in Ukraine and in America.

It is noteworthy that even as it looks like Manafort is going to testify before the seemingly corrupt House Intelligence Committee, he and his associates are still close to the Trumps White House. Manafort told a colleague this year that he continues to speak with Trump by telephone, and that one of his former business partners in Eastern Europe, Rick Gates, has been seen inside the White House on a number of occasions, helped plan Trumps inauguration and now runs a pro-Trump nonprofit organization, America First Policies, to back the White House agenda. Mr. Gates said he was aware of Manaforts close ties to Russian oligarch Deripaska and Vladimir Putin, but that he knew nothing about the plan to assert Putins influence in Washington politics. There is no way of knowing if Gates is telling the truth, but these are people closely aligned with Trump, so it is not outrageous to assume Gates is lying.

It is difficult to believe that everyone, including Trumps close circle of advisors, didnt know about the strategy to influence Washington on Putins behalf regardless of when it started. It was, after all, Donald Trump himself who pressured the RNC to include a hands off approach to Russias incursions into Ukraine.

Manafort proposed that Deripaska and Putin would benefit from lobbying Western governments, especially the U.S., to allow the Russian oligarchs to keep possession of former Ukrainian state-owned assets. He proposed building long term relationships with Western journalists and other measures to improve recruitment, communications and financial planning by pro-Russian parties. He also pledged to bolster the legitimacy of governments friendly to Putin and undercut anti-Russian figures through political campaigns, non-profit front groups and media operations.

No matter how one parses this latest revelation, it is another sign that Trumps people were closely aligned with the Russians for the sole purpose of benefitting Putins interests including influencing American foreign policy. It is not surprising that the effort goes back to 2005 because enough foreign policy experts have been aware, and warning, that Putin has been, and still is, working diligently to undermine Western governments; a task that achieved results in America probably a lot sooner than either Putin or Manafort imagined.
With fall in the air, cyclamen start peeking through the leaf litter, giving the woodland garden a splash of color when most plants have finished blooming. As those pink, white or magenta blooms unfurl and appear, it is a memorable sight to see. Read moreFall charmers and winter wonders
Michael Anthony Pressley II told deputies during an interview that he followed the victim to his residence and shot him "following a road rage incident," according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Road rage shootings in 2021 in the U.S. resulted in 131 deaths, according to an analysis by Everytown for Gun Safety. Read more'Road rage' led to fatal shooting in King's Grant, new records show
South Carolina voters head to the polls Nov. 8, casting ballots in midterm elections that will not only determine the state's next governor but will also act as the first major referendum on the Biden era. Read moreYour voter guide to top races, key issues in South Carolina's 2022 midterm elections
MIAMI  As a kid in Venezuela, Miguel Lozano helped his father make promotional products for such well-known names as Mercedes-Benz and Bacardi. By the time he was 12, he had hired himself out as a graphic designer and web developer for a barbershop, and while in high school in Orlando, he and a friend had an online sneaker boutique that sold limited edition  and high-priced  sneakers to collectors.

Now, as an encore, the 18-year-old Florida International University sophomore has launched a men's luxury footwear line he hopes will marry his passion for shoes with his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.

"I've always been into shoes," said Lozano, a finance and marketing major. "I used to own a lot of them  at least 50 pairs."

No longer. As a college student with limited storage space, he's culled his collection to mostly sneakers and dress shoes. But his company, Gambino Alliance, affords him an emotional outlet. Last month, he opened a Kickstarter account to raise money for his project. In less than 48 hours, he had made his goal of $20,000. The campaign ended Sunday.

Quality counts

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The Kickstarter fundraiser was just the latest step in an almost two-year process. Lozano actually began working on his footwear line in 2015, as a college freshman. Why not, he asked himself, design a really nice pair of Chelsea boots, something he would love to wear?

Chelsea boots are a classic, "but they're also trending," Lozano noted. "Everyone wants a pair."

So Lozano did what he usually does when faced with a challenge. He dove into research online, until he found a factory in Pakistan willing to make some samples. Then he invested months in pursuit of the quality he wanted. It took 20 different tries for the factory to get it right.

"The quality of the leather is very, very important," he explained. "Eighty percent of what's out there is pig leather, and it's not very good. I wanted cowhide leather. It's more expensive, but it also feels so much better."

Comfort, too

He was particular about more than just the leather, though. He sent the factory back to the drawing board several times because it wasn't meeting his design requirements. What's more, the soles of the boots "were pretty bad. Extremely ugly." He wanted flexible rubber soles  and something extra, too. Inspired by NASA's use of material  a detail he picked up during his research  he added temper foam to the inside soles.

"For the best comfort," he added.

By May 2016, nearly six months after he first had started, Lozano received a sample that met his requirements, from the stitching to the sole to the materials, all sourced from Germany and Italy. Lozano then moved on to working on another style: the classic Derby shoe. The production of this one was easier. By then he had done the research on materials for the boots and looked through the Pantone catalog to select the colors for his footwear. He decided on some of the trending hues but also "picked out a lot of what I like."

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All this effort has come with a price, of course, and it's not just one that can be measured in dollars. Between his studies, his commitment to get Gambino off the ground and freelancing for a children's swimwear company, Lozano doesn't have much time for the usual college socials.

Partying? "That's just not my scene," he said. "I did a lot of partying in high school already."

Un-'Lucky'

Lozano originally named his footwear line "Lucky Luciano" because he wanted to evoke the fashion of the Italian mafia. The name, though, was trademarked, so he moved on to Gambino  as in one of the "Five Families" said to rule organized crime in New York City  and added "Alliance" to distinguish it from other businesses with the same name.

For a while, he used his savings and earnings from a short internship and freelance work to fund his new business, but the arduous process of making shoe samples wiped out his account. He landed an investor this past November, an organic food and soap distributor, after he built a website and ran the social media marketing for the owner.

With that infusion, he ordered 200 pairs of shoes, which arrived in January. He's been sending those to influencers  that is, local and national celebrities with lots of followers on social media. So far several have posted pictures of the shoes.

Gambino Alliance's Chelsea boots retail at $320 and the Derby at $240, but Kickstarter backers get them for discounted prices starting at $169 for the Derby and $239 for the Chelsea.

"Right now, we're at the branding stage," Lozano said. "We're all about the branding. We want people to know we're out there."
Ben Bogard, originally from Oronoco and a 2012 graduate of Pine Island High School, currently lives and works in New York City in video production with the mass media company Conde Nast through Emoticon Productions.

I caught up with Ben, a two-time National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Student Production Award winner, last week on his way back from the Omaha Film Festival , where his film, "The Art of Hope," was being shown.

"That film was my senior honors thesis for college and was comprised of three vignettes on artists with cognitive disabilities who work, and one owns a business in an art studio in Anchorage, Alaska," he said.

"I went up there during my sophomore year with class and we volunteered at the studio. I volunteered on the PR/video side, while some of the others volunteered on the social work side of things. I made some corporate videos for them, and was also able to spend two days in the studio to make the first vignette.

"I returned the next year  this time with a grant  and was able to spend a week gathering more footage and interviewing these two other artists to create these three little portraits," Bogard said.

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The film will soon be available for viewing on his website, www.benjaminjbogard.com .

Bogard graduated last May from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and communication, with an emphasis in organizational and public relations.

I didn't actually go to school for film or video or anything like that," he said. "The majority of what I know is actually self-taught, and what I did in college on the communications side of things was more of the theories element and practicing it in the field."

Since graduating, Bogard moved to New York, where he took a position for a few months with Buzzfeed.

Because he works on a lot of small team stuff, Bogard wears many different hats.

"I'm in video production, but I produce, shoot and edit," he said. "When I was in Sundance, there was a lead producer, a director of photography, and I was the main editor, but also shot things and produced some while I was out there, so it's kind of a bit of a hodgepodge."

Since moving to New York, Bogard's had a ton of amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, such as working fashion weeks in New York and Paris, and going to the Sundance Film Festival.

"For Fashion Week, I was a focused on behind-the-scenes, so I did 360 (-degree) videos and worked with the executive producer to interview all of the artists for makeup and hair and anything else that would be happening backstage pre-show," he said. "We would cut those up and make them available on social media.

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"In Paris specifically, we also worked on social media videos for Barneys. We interviewed designers (some of the designers he covered were Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Dior, and Nina Ricci) for a better understanding of their process and what they are thinking when they start creating and designing a collection, and a little bit of background about them and their work in the company. People really liked to get up close with the designers and put a human element to it instead of just having coverage of models walking a runway.

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear about his work. To see some of his videos, check out his website.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  Vogue launched its newest international edition this month, targeting a niche audience in the Middle East that is fashion conscious, style-driven and wealthy. If its debut is anything to go by, the magazine promises to be bold, representative and deferential.

The 22nd international edition of Vogue featured on its cover American supermodel Gigi Hadid, whose father is Palestinian, wearing an embellished, mesh veil covering half her face. With one eye peering out from beneath the veil, the magazine's cover words aimed readers directly at its mission: "Reorienting perceptions."

At the helm of Vogue's nascent project is Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz, a fashion-forward mother of three and Saudi royal who describes herself as "ambitious."

"I don't want Vogue Arabia to just be another regional magazine. I definitely want it to be a global one as well, especially in this political climate. I think it's very important," she told The Associated Press from her office in Dubai's Design District.

Through its range of features and shoots, the magazine attempts to cater to a wide and diverse audience of Arab women, whose varying takes on personal style and modesty cannot be defined by one trope or fashion statement.

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While not intentionally provocative, there are images of women in backless gowns and skirts that end above the knee. There also are artful shots of women in headscarves, though not necessarily worn in the parameters of the Islamic hijab.

In Hadid's cover shot, for example, the veil reveals a hint of bronzed shoulder.

"We aren't trying to make a giant political statement, but we do think that we can help contribute to conversation," said Shashi Menon, founder of Nervora, which published Vogue Arabia in partnership with Conde Naste.

"We want to be  delicate is the wrong word, but we want to be cognizant on how we are speaking to and with women from this region and that means being understanding," he said.

Vogue Arabia's strongest foothold is  as its name suggests in the oil-rich countries of the Arabian Peninsula, where modern malls and a growing art scene are part of a wider push to get in on the multibillion-dollar-a-year global fashion industry, which is dominated by the U.S., Europe and Japan.

Vogue Arabia's target audience is well-traveled and long has had access to fashion magazines, both local and international, including of course American Vogue.

Vogue Arabia launched digitally first last fall, but its print edition went out this month with 35,000 copies distributed across the major cities of the Gulf, as well as in Cairo, Beirut and select salons and hotels in North Africa. It was not, however, in newsstands in conservative Saudi Arabia.

Menon said the expectation isn't that Vogue Arabia will somehow replace American Vogue or Vogue Paris, but that it will provide for the first time an edition that directly speaks to a Middle Eastern audience in a local voice. It's also the first Vogue edition for an entire region, rather than for a single country.

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Inside its glossy pages, Vogue Arabia capitalizes on the breadth of culture and character of the Middle East's 22 Arabic-speaking countries. For its March issue, that meant features on an arts initiative in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, an interview with the Egyptian sisters behind the purse brand Okhtein and a high-glamour shoot in Paris by Sudanese stylist Azza Yousif.

Bold colors are prominent throughout the layout, not just on the clothes, but in the makeup and accessories, too. Advertisers include powerhouses such as Dior and Cartier, as well as the local outlets that carry them.

The March arrival of the magazine also had a section entirely in Arabic.

Calligrapher Wissam Shawkat produced the Arabic typography for the various sections of the issue. He's also been featured in the digital edition.

The Iraqi-born calligrapher, whose Arabic artwork has debuted on Rolex watches and in the logos of brands such as Tiffany & Co., said he had total freedom of design when working with Vogue Arabia.

"Calligraphy is usually not something featured with something like a magazine like Vogue," he said.

But by featuring culture and art from the Middle East, he said the magazine spreads an important message.

"It shows there's still beauty and hope in the region whatever is happening. This is hope," he said.
It began with an invitation to join the choir in the early 1990s. Dr. Lori Bates was a medical student at the time.

New to Rochester, she was looking for ways to connect with people in the community. Then a member of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church encouraged her to join the choir. The congregation became an integral part of Bates' life from that point forward.

Bates is now a family physician, and she and her husband have two teenage children. When asked about the core values of the Good Shepherd community, she reflected on the congregation's inclusiveness, responsiveness to community needs and commitment to "fostering of a sense of curiosity."

The church's official mission statement is: "Gathered, empowered and sent to share the love of Christ with all people." Bates said the congregation's pastors, the Rev. Charlie Leonard and the Rev. Carl-Eric Gentes, and members seek to live out this mission inside and outside the church building.

Finding ways to meet community needs is important to the people of Good Shepherd, and it has been since the church was formed in the 1960s. At that time, members gathered in the 4-H building on the Olmsted County Fairgrounds.

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These days, volunteers from the congregation help regularly at the Dorothy Day House. Members also provide space in their building to a variety of community organizations such as Boy Scouts and Al-Anon. On Sunday afternoons, another faith community, Iglesia Cristo El Rey, uses the space.

Music is an important means through which the people of Good Shepherd proclaim their faith. There are a variety of choirs and musical groups for people of all ages and levels of experience. Some of Bates' fondest memories of the congregation relate to the times she participated in church musicals. She expressed appreciation for what the last 30 years of membership have meant to her.

"Good Shepherd has been an outlet for my nonmedical skills, and it's been a home for my family," she said.

When asked what she most wants people to know about Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Bates reflected, "We'll do what we can to make sure everyone knows this can be a home for them."

She said the congregation's "resilience and relationships" are at the core of the community. Church members have been through significant ups and downs through the years; through them, they persevere in their desire to share the love of Christ. Bates shared that members like to laugh and enjoy fellowship together.

The congregation offers Sunday school and adult education opportunities on Sunday mornings beginning about 9:15 or 9:30 a.m., and everyone is welcome to participate.

Worship services are held on Saturday evenings at 5:30 p.m. and Sundays at 8:15 a.m., and 10:30 a.m. Communion is celebrated weekly at every service.

Good Shepherd is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) denomination. The church is at 559 20th St. SW. To learn more about Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, visit their "I'm New" page at goodshepherdchurch.net/im-new .

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It already was a great day: a balmy 50 degrees and clear blue skies at the end of February. The kind of day that gives you hope spring actually will come. Then the real stars showed up.

Half a dozen bald eagles, swooping and soaring and diving above the mighty Mississippi River to the west. From a vantage point 400 feet above the river on a bluff in Rush Creek State Natural Area, I had the best seat in the house to watch the magnificent birds.

It's a view that never gets old, even as it becomes more common during spring migration in the coming months.

While the views  of the birds, the riverside bluffs and the Mississippi  are the main draw to Rush Creek in Wisconsin's Driftless Region, the state natural area also is remarkable for its size and unique landscape.

"This is nearly 3,000 acres of land, and with that largeness, that kind of landscape-scale size, it has all of the ecological functions and all of the species and all of the things that go along with having a large, functioning ecosystem," said Thomas Meyer, a conservation biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources who said the natural area is one of his favorite places.

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"You get up on top and you can see a long way and get a sense of what this landscape looked like a long time ago," he said.

Dramatic views

That landscape includes a two-mile stretch of dry prairie on bluffs along the Mississippi River. The tree-free swaths of land are a marked contrast to the otherwise-wooded landscape, made even more dramatic by their location on the steep bluffs.

"Back in the 1840s, that entire southwest corner of the state and much of southern Wisconsin was this kind of open prairie savanna landscape, where you'd have open-grown oaks and shagbark hickories and other trees that are resistant to fire scattered along the landscape, kind of like an African savanna," Meyer said. "Those steep slopes were kept open by fire, most of which was set by Native Americans."

As European settlers pushed west and began farming the land, much of the state's prairies disappeared. Fire suppression allowed trees to proliferate, further erasing the savanna-like landscape.

Less than 10,000 acres of native prairie remain from Wisconsin's 2.1 million acres of grassland pre-European settlement, and most of those are in small parcels of 10 to 50 acres.

The grassland at Rush Creek is characterized as dry prairie  the soil is dry and rocky, and its location on steep bluffs make it difficult for trees to gain a foothold, Meyer said. They're also known as "goat prairies," as the sure-footed animals are just about the only ones who can navigate the landscape.

"There's a whole suite of species that hangs out on these dry prairies that aren't found on mesic or wetter prairies," including grasses and wildflowers of shorter stature, Meyer said.

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Wildflowers bloom

Come spring, those wildflowers will be out in full force on the prairie slopes and in the natural area's woods, Meyer said.

Look for little bluestem, blazing-star, silky aster and bird's-foot violet. Meyer also noted Rush Creek is a good spot for finding the elusive (and delicious) morel mushroom.

In addition to bald eagles, look up to see red-shouldered hawks that, similar to the eagles, love riding the thermal updrafts created by winds rising up the bluffs.

The bluffs themselves are composed of limestone on top of sandstone. Outcrops throughout the natural area provide an up-close look at this geology.

Trail tips

The best access point to the large natural area is on Rush Creek Road just off Highway 35 (the Great River Road).

From the parking lot there, cross the road and follow the old service road as it winds south up the bluff. It's a steady uphill hike, but not too strenuous. At a slow pace it should take you about 45 minutes each way.

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Follow the trail to the right when it forks. It soon flattens and opens up on the bluff top where sweeping views of the Mississippi River and its floodplain await.

"That, in my opinion, is the best group of open slopes," Meyer said, noting other access points for getting to the bluff top are not nearly as developed. Some people park on Rush Creek Road where it intersects with Highway 35 and hike straight up the bluff from there, he said, but it's a steep climb without a clear path to follow.

While you're there

North of Rush Creek, Battle Bluff State Natural Area features a similar dry-prairie landscape on its bluffs. The site is named after the Battle of Bad Axe, also known as the Bad Axe Massacre, fought there in 1832 during the Black Hawk War.

Bad Axe and his followers  warriors, women, children and elderly  were caught here between the pursuing militia to the east and an armed steamboat in the river.

Many were killed or drowned trying to flee, and the battle essentially ended the Black Hawk War. A state historical marker on Highway 35 near De Soto commemorates the battle.

A full day of hiking calls for a pizza of epic proportions. The Great River Roadhouse on Highway 35 just north of De Soto delivers. Thin crust, just the right amount of sauce and a heaping amount of cheese and toppings are the perfect combination for a tasty pie, washed down with a local beer from Pearl Street Brewery, just up the road in La Crosse.

Be prepared for a wait on busy weekends.

-----

More information: You don't need a state parks sticker to access Rush Creek. Pets are allowed but must be leashed. For more information, see tinyurl.com/mj647qr .

Getting there: Rush Creek State Natural Area is on Highway 35 in Crawford County, between Ferryville and De Soto. Turn northeast onto Rush Creek Road (note that it is not paved) and follow it about half a mile to a small parking area on the west side of the road.
AUSTIN  For a couple who loves Spam, this was a no-brainer.

Mark "I Love Spam" Benson, 42, and his bride-to-be, Anne Mousley, 33, a couple who live in Liverpool, England, plan to marry April 25 at the Spam Museum in Austin. The 11 a.m. ceremony will be officiated by International Spam Brand Manager Jaynee Sherman.

It will be the first wedding held at the Spam Museum.

"They talked about marriage for a long time and where they wanted to do it," said Rick Williamson, a spokesman for Hormel Foods . "We felt that somebody who shows that much love for the Spam brand was a great candidate for a Spam-tastic wedding at the museum."

Benson is known on the other side of the pond for being the man who legally changed his middle name from William to "I Love Spam" last year. It mostly was in tribute to his grandfather and uncle, who both worked at Newforge Foods factory in Gateacre, Liverpool, where Spam was produced in the United Kingdom from 1941 to 1998.

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Benson said his grandfather  who fought in World War II  shared his rations with Americans before going to work in the factory. The factory eventually was converted into a grocery store, where Benson now buys his tins of Spam, bringing the story full-circle.

That inspired Mousley to surprise Benson with a wedding at the Spam Museum. Hormel and Spam Brand officials were surprised by the request but thought, why not? They were happy to oblige.

"It wasn't really built for a wedding," said Savile Lord, manager of the Spam Museum and community relations. "But they went so far as to change their middle name to 'I love Spam,' and where else than the museum as a great place to host the wedding? It fits perfectly. It's so much fun for this one-time unique event."

When Mousley got the OK, she "proposed" to Benson on Valentine's Day, surprising him with the theme wedding and destination.

Benson admitted a "few tears" rolled from his eyes.

Did Mousley know her husband-to-be loved Spam so much? Not exactly, but she does love him and his tastes.

"Our friends and family were surprised and quite jealous," Mousley said.

"It was a match made in heaven," Benson said. "I couldn't believe it was true. Initially I was excited and a little bit nervous. But it's just excitement now. I can't wait."

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This will be Mousley's first visit to the United States  Benson had been to Boston but no farther west. Their children, Milly, 5, and Evie, 3, also are excited to be a part of their parents' wedding.

The Spam Brand team will pull out all the stops for the wedding, officials said, with some surprises here and there, including providing Benson with a Spam tie and serving Spam-inspired appetizers at the wedding venue.

Lord said the museum will be open to the public on the wedding day because the event is scheduled during operating hours; visitors are welcome to witness the ceremony.

The cherry on top of the ... Spam, though, is the honeymoon gift.

The Spam Brand team is flying the family to Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, for the annual Spam Jam festival, according to Brian Lillis, Spam Brand manager at Hormel Foods.

"It's an event that's been going on 15 years," Lillis said. "This is a big year, and we wanted to send the couple off to a great honeymoon and have as much of the Spam Brand experience as possible."

For the future Mr. and Mrs. Benson, it's a dream come true.

"It's great for us, and it's a lifetime opportunity we wouldn't have gotten again," Benson said. "We're very privileged."

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BISMARCK, N.D.  Siding with the Second Amendment rights of North Dakota citizens' over others' concerns about safety, Republican Gov. Doug Burgum late Thursday signed legislation that would allow most adults to carry a hidden firearm without a permit.

The legislation means North Dakota will become one of about a dozen so-called "constitutional carry" states on Aug. 1. The bill would allow law-abiding people 18 and older to forgo background checks and classes that are now required. The legislation only requires someone carrying a concealed weapon to have a valid ID and notify law enforcement of the weapon during instances such as a traffic stop.

In a statement Thursday night, Burgum urged anyone pondering carrying a concealed firearm to enroll in gun safety classes.

"Gun ownership is both a right and a responsibility," the governor said. "That responsibility begins with individuals and families."

The law had sailed through both houses of the GOP-led Legislature, with dissention largely among Democrats.

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Supporters said the bill promotes the constitutional right to bear arms and allows protection from criminals. Critics worry it could lead to more shootings as people with less training would be carrying weapons.

Carrying a hidden firearm without a permit at present is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,500.

The bill was among a package of gun-rights measures being considered this session, including allowing people with concealed carry permits to have guns in churches, schools and other public places. It's unclear if Burgum, an avid hunter, would also sign those into law.

The number of concealed carry permits in North Dakota has more than doubled in the past five years to 48,700.

North Dakota residents already can get a concealed carry permit by completing an hour-long class and passing an open-book test. The classes cost about $50. An enhanced license, that allows reciprocity with other states, requires firearms training and the open-book test.

The South Dakota Legislature this month approved a similar measure but GOP Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed it, saying his state's gun laws are already reasonable.
MINNEAPOLIS  Sheriff Rich Stanek strongly disputes Hennepin County's inclusion on a federal list of uncooperative jurisdictions, and showed photos he says prove two Mexican men left jail in the custody of immigration agents. The sheriff says that contradicts a statement federal officials released on Monday.

Under the headline "Public Safety Advisory," Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week issued its first Declined Detainer Outcome Report.

The notice stems from an executive order from President Trump that requires Homeland Security to publicize a list of "criminal actions committed by aliens" along with jurisdictions that ignored detainer requests from ICE.

The list includes two people from Mexico jailed in Hennepin County and released last month. But Stanek says the implication the men were simply let out onto the streets of downtown Minneapolis is misleading.

"Both inmates were released, and ICE took them directly into custody on Feb. 3 at approximately 10:15 p.m.," Stanek said.

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One of the men  who's 29 years old  had been held on suspicion of having drugs. The other, 47, was suspected of illegal weapon possession.

ICE says it requested the jail hold the men until immigration agents could pick them up. Stanek contends such detainer requests are illegal unless they come with a court order. While jail staff won't hold someone without a judge's OK, Stanek says his office cooperates with ICE on a regular basis.

In this case, the sheriff says deputies gave immigration a heads up before releasing the men. To drive home his point, Stanek released photos of the men leaving the jail with two ICE agents.

"The photographs here, the video images, speak for themselves. I have talked with ICE about this, they know that we have these, they know that we have talked with them, as yet though, they haven't said boo about it," Stanek said.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman urged ICE to correct the record.

"To be fair, we all make mistakes. ICE made a big one here, and I think the sheriff is due an apology," Freeman said.

In a statement, ICE spokesperson Shawn Neudauer did not offer an apology, but said the agency values its relationships with law enforcement.

And he pushed back on Stanek's assertion that detainer requests are illegal. Neudauer says the documents give sheriff's offices the legal authority to hold people in the country illegally for up to 48 hours. He says the requests are necessary so ICE agents have time to respond.

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At the news conference, Stanek did not criticize Trump or his immigration policy. Stanek  a Republican  met the president during a law enforcement meeting at the White House last month. After the gathering, he praised Trump's stance on public safety and said sheriffs "have the president's back."
The news obviously wasnt good for conservatives this week on the Obamacare front. On the spy vs. spy front, the news was mixed and confusing.

However, there was plenty for conservatives to be happy about. First and foremost, Neil Gorsuch was terrific at his Senate hearing, and the Democrats seem determined to maximize the damage his confirmation will inflict on them. In addition, President Trumps approval of construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline represents a nice win.

Finally, lost in the avalanche of big news, the Trump administration has taken a vehement pro-Israel position at the United Nations. The Washington Post reports:

The Trump administration is strongly condemning what it calls a systemic anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, arguing Friday that U.N. monitoring of West Bank settlement activity allowed by the Obama administration is the latest example. Michele Sison, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat at the United Nations, spoke against what the United States says is the unfair singling out of Israel during a closed session of the U.N. Security Council on Friday. There and elsewhere, the Trump administration is arguing that the United Nations has allowed valuable time and attention to be hijacked for bashing Israel.

The Obama administration featured prominently in the Israel bashing. On its way out the door, it promoted a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements  a position the U.S. had always prevented the Security Council from adopting.

The resolution cannot be undone, but the Trump administration can still lash out against the U.N.s treatment of Israel. In fact:

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and other U.S. officials are taking every opportunity to point out what they say is institutional mistreatment of Israel at the United Nations and its member bodies, and the United States is expected to use its presidency of the U.N. Security Council next month as a megaphone.

In addition, the Trump administration is using its voting power to stand up for Israel:

Earlier Friday, the United States voted against five resolutions it calls anti-Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Trump administration lobbied allies to also vote no. No major U.S. ally did so, but Britain issued a warning that it would follow the United States suit if the U.N. body continues to single out Israel for opprobrium. Today we are putting the Human Rights Council on notice, British Ambassador Julian Braithwaite said. If things do not change, in the future we will adopt a policy of voting against all resolutions concerning Israels conduct in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories.

It sounds like Great Britain is trying to play on both teams.

The Human Rights Council, a bad joke, approved all five anti-Israel resolutions, of course. Ambassador Haley has said that the U.S. will boycott discussions related to these outrageous, one-sided, anti-Israel resolutions.

Our backing of Israel at the U.N. doesnt mean the Trump administration has no concerns about Israeli settlement activity. As the Post reports:

The new Trump White House has sent mixed signals on settlements. Trump publicly endorsed a hiatus on settlement building during Netanyahus visit to Washington last month, but the White House has also said it does not necessarily see the issue as a hindrance to peace.

Obviously, a U.S. administration can try to persuade Israel to limit settlement activity while still sticking up for Israel at the U.N. Indeed, one can argue that the U.S. is likely to be more persuasive if it defends Israel against the jackals.

Conservatives should be delighted that the Trump administration is doing just that.
The World Bank has approved a $200 million loan to Nigeria to support the governments effort to boost agriculture.

The loan from the International Development Association, World Banks low-interest arm, has a maturity of 25 years with a grace period of

five years.

The loan, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, is to support small and mid-scale farmers.

The bank, in a statement on Friday, said about 60,000 individuals will benefit directly from the funding, of which 35 percent are women.

Similarly, about 300,000 farming households will be affected indirectly.

Nigeria slipped into its first recession in 25 years in 2016, brought on by low prices of crude oil. It has been trying to diversify away from hydrocarbons, build infrastructure and boost agriculture.

But the World Bank, in its statement, said, Priority value chains  will include products with potential for immediate improvement of food security, products with a potential for export and foreign currency earnings.

The funds will help tackle low yields, lack of seed capital to set up agro-factories, low-level adoption of technology and limited access to markets, the bank said.

Records show that Nigeria, Africas largest economy, spends $20 billion a year importing food.

With the fall in oil prices, it has been running short of dollars, which has also weakened the local currency, the Naira.

In February, the Nigerian government unveiled an economic recovery plan, tagged Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP, which included currency reforms to boost tax revenues.

The ERGP, among other objectives, also aims to achieve self-sufficiency in rice by 2018 and in wheat by 2019 or 2020.

By the latter date, it also hopes to be a net exporter of rice, cashew nuts, groundnuts, cassava and vegetable oil, some of the crops the World Bank loan is meant to finance.

In January, a report released by the Famine Early Warning System Network, FEWS NET, an agency supported by the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, had warned that Nigeria faced a credible risk of famine in 2017.

The report noted that due to persistent conflict, severe drought and economic instability, Nigeria and three other countries  Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen  were likely to be hit by famine (IPC phase 5).

PREMIUM TIMES had on Friday reported that the International Monetary Fund, IMF, is expected to warn Nigeria by the end of the month on its economy recovery plan.

The Washington-based organisation is not satisfied with the economic plans put in place by Africas largest economy, aimed at dragging it out of recession.

Further actions are urgently needed, the IMF said in its 68-page report, due to be released March 29.

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Three crude oil marketing firms on Thursday agreed to pay over $184 million for under-delivery of crude oil recorded under the former petroleum product swap regime, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has announced.

Under the swap arrangement, the NNPC allocated crude oil to trading companies in exchange for processed petroleum products.

The Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Maikanti Baru, said the repayment agreement was arrived as part of ongoing reconciliation process with the three companies, namely AITEO Energy Resource Limited, Ontario Oil and Gas Limited and Televaras Group of Companies.

The NNPC, which confirmed the settlement in a statement, said at the end of the reconciliation exercise that Taleveras committed to an initial settlement of $17.2 million payment within two weeks, and a further payments in $10 million tranches later.

Ontario also agreed to pay $10 million, although the NNPC did not say how much AITEO agreed to pay.

We have engaged them and positively. So far AITEO has been very cooperative and we had extensive reconciliation across all our chains of businesses where they are involved, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru said.

He said Televaras agreed to make a tranche payment of $17 million, while Ontario has also agreed to come to the table with our team and present their repayment schedule.

Mr. Baru commending the three companies involved in the crude oil swap for coming forward to reconcile their accounts and agreeing on a settlement plan to bring the long standing matter to a closure.

The GMD said the ongoing debt recovery process was geared towards probity and accountability in the operations of the Corporation in line with current reforms in the industry.

Only last week, the NNPC announced aggressive measures to achieve full recovery of over 130 million litres of petrol stored in the facilities of two indigenous downstream operators, MRS Limited and Capital Oil & Gas Limited, under a throughput arrangement to ensure a robust strategic reserve.

Providing details of the infraction by the companies, NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Henry Ikem-Obih, Downstream explained that the violation was discovered earlier in the year.

Mr. Ikem-Obih said when the Corporation need to access the over 100 million litres of petrol stored at the Capital Oil & Gas depot for NNPC Retail and over 30 million litres in MRS Limited depot all in Apapa area of Lagos, it was discovered that all the stock had been sold without due authorization.

He said though MRS had fully complied by returning the 30 million litres of petrol it expropriated, the Corporation was working assiduously to recover from Capital Oil & Gas the 82 million litres of petrol, valued at N11billion, out of over 100 million litres.

Mr. Baru said its management was determined to recover the missing products from the company.

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The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the supply of phosphate between Nigerian and Morocco has created about 50, 000 jobs, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has said.

A statement by NNPC spokesperson, Ndu Ughumadu, said the Group Managing Director of the corporation, Maikanti Baru, made this disclosure in Abuja.

Mr. Baru disclosed this recently while receiving the National coordinator of The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD-Nigeria), Gloria Akobundu, at the NNPC Towers in Abuja.

The NNPC boss, who noted that the MoU between the two countries was for the supply of phosphate to rejuvenate agriculture by making fertilizer available and affordable, said the deal had started yielding positive results in the country.

The Moroccans have already supplied a cargo of phosphate which has been delivered to various blending plants across the country, the GMD said.

Already, eleven blending plants have come into production because of the supply.

I am happy to inform you that this development has translated to the creation of about 50, 000 jobs and led to the production of about 1.3million tonnes of fertiliser in the country.

According to the statement, the Moroccans have also given Nigeria a generous credit term of 90 days and they are planning to bring in more cargoes that will fit the various blending plants in the country, following the arrival of the first consignment.

According to the GMD, aside being a huge boost to the Nigerian agricultural sector and the economy, this partnership is expected to boost bilateral relationship between the two countries.

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In the last 10 months, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Nigerias main opposition party, has grappled with a lingering leadership crisis that has defied solutions.

The party on May 21, 2016 split into two factions at its national convention in Port Harcourt, following the sack of the National Working Committee led by Ali Modu Sheriff and its replacement with a National Caretaker Committee chaired by Ahmed Makarfi.

Since the crisis broke out, different courts have given varied judgements with the Sheriff group winning some and the Makarfi faction emerging victorious in others.

The crisis deepened when the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt Division, delivered a judgement on February 17, recognising Mr. Sheriff, a former governor of Borno State and senator, as the authentic chairman of the party.

The various organs and most members of the party kicked against the judgement. The Makarfi faction proceeded to the Supreme Court, which heard the matter for the first time last Thursday.

Attempts by some prominent members to resolve the crisis, including former President Goodluck Jonathan intervene have so far been futile. The farthest both groups could go at a meeting brokered by Governor Seriake Dickson on Thursday was to agree to a cease fire and stop making public statements on the crisis.

Will the crisis break the 19-year-old party which ran Nigeria for 16 year under three presidents  Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru YarAdua and Goodluck Jonathan? Judging from its past, that is unlikely.

In nearly two-decades of its existence, PDP has devised ways out of upheavals that have threatened its survival, and four of such spells of crises have stood out.

Power tussle between Obasanjo and the founding fathers of PDP

In 2001, barely two years after it formed government at the centre, the PDP experienced its first major crisis that shook then ruling party to its foundation.

Crisis broke out after the partys national convention where Barnabas Gemade was elected the national chairman.

A chieftain of the party, Sunday Awoniyi, had sought to be elected national chairman but the then president, Olusegun Obasanjo, favoured Mr. Gemade, currently a senator. The party was sharply divided as some of the founding fathers who queued up behind Mr. Awoniyi, one of their own, resisted the choice of Mr. Gemade.

The crisis lingered for months. In June 2001, Mr. Awonyi and seven others were expelled from the party for anti-party activities.

Those sanctioned were former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, former governor of the old Borno State, Asheik Jarma, former governor of the old Gongola State, Bamanga Tukur, and former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Don Etiebet. They were all members of the partys Board of Trustees.

Three national officers of the party were also fired. They were the National Vice Chairman, South-South, Marshall Harry, the National Publicity Secretary, Emmanuel Ibeshi, and his deputy, Gbenga Olawepo.

While Messrs. Ume-Ezeoke, Awoniyi, Etiebet and Tukur were expelled for allegedly hobnobbing with some new political groups in the country, the national officers were sacked for purportedly sponsoring publications said to be injurious to the image of the party.

However, after about one year, the new partys leadership under Audu Ogbeh recalled the expelled party leaders, hinging its decision on the need to begin the formal process of healing all wounds inflicted on its members nationwide as a result of past crisis.

Mr. Awoniyi did not return to the PDP, as he and members of his faction floated a new political association called National Frontiers.

Among those present at the first meeting of the new political group, were Mr. Ume-Ezeoke (protem chairman), Abdulkarim Adisa, Nsikak Eduok, Isa Mohammed, Sule Ahmed and Yohana Madaki.

Paul Unongo, Kenny Martins, Kabiru Gaya, Idongesit Nkanga, Musa Musawa, Ibrahim Kefas, Mohammed Anka, Jani Ibrahim, Anne Obi, Tanko Ayuba, Saad Brinin Kudu, Ben Apugo, Yahaya Mahmud, Ibrahim Hassan and Femi Okuroumu were also at the occasion.

Messrs. Ume-Ezeoke and Etiebet were later to become the national chairmen of the All Nigeria Peoples Party at different times, while Mr. Tukur returned to the PDP years later to become its national chairman. Mr. Harry also joined the ANPP before he was murdered in Abuja.

Obasanjo/Atiku/Governors Feud

In 2002/2003, the PDP was again divided following the power struggle between Mr. Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

The major cause of the crisis was the second term ambition of Mr. Obasanjo. His deputy was interested in succeeding his boss.

Mr. Atiku had become very powerful in their first term. He was not only overseeing the economy but also controlled the PDP structure. At the time, Mr. Obasanjo, a retired army general, was literally ruling from the air as he was always travelling abroad in search of elusive investments.

As a result, Mr. Atiku became close to the partys governors and its other chieftains. The governors wielded enormous power thus making it possible for them to dictate the direction of the then ruling party.

Indeed, it was speculated that the former vice president who had strong political structure recommended Audu Ogbeh to the president to succeed Mr. Gemade as the PDP national chairman.

When Mr. Obasanjo, encouraged by some party chieftains, including Tony Anenih, suddenly realised he was gradually losing political influence to his deputy, he sought to take control of the party. By this time the 2003 general elections were drawing close.

To ensure he secured the partys ticket, Mr. Obasanjo, literally begged the vice president and the governors led by former Delta Governor, James Ibori. After securing the ticket, the embittered president attempted to replace Mr. Atiku as his running mate. His effort was thwarted by the governors and some other prominent members of the party, some of who threatened to dump the party.

Some years later, Mr. Ibori, later convicted and jailed for fraud, told the media that his corruption problem started when he said Mr. Obasanjo was not sellable, electable and marketable in 2003.

Even so, because of Mr. Obasanjos new grip on the PDP, some of the partys chieftains who were no longer comfortable in the party, left in frustration. Among them were Jim Nwobodo and Ike Nwachukwu, who went to contest the presidential election on the platforms of the UNPP and NDP, respectively.

A former Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo, also quit the PDP to join the ANPP where he became running mate to Muhammadu Buhari in the 2003 election. Also, Habu Fari and some of his associates left for the NDP.

Solomon Lar/Shuaibu Oyedoku rebellion

Although it has faced and survived crises in the past, the Solomon Lar/ Shuaibu Oyedoku crisis threatened the partys existence the most.

In June 2006, the then ruling party split into two when some members led by its pioneer National Chairman, Solomon Lar, announced a parallel national executive committee to take over the running of the party from the then national chairman, Ahmadu Ali.

The splinter group, which claimed to enjoy the support of 17 out of the 36 state chapters and FCT as well as some stalwarts of the party, also opened a parallel national secretariat in the Mabushi area of Abuja.

Leaders of the group consisted mainly of national officers of the party during the leaderships of Barnabas Gemade and Audu Ogbeh as chairmen of the party.

The group announced the setting up of a National Interim Management Committee (NIM) with Mr. Lar as the national leader to take over the running of the party.

Other members of the NIM were Ibrahim Safana (Deputy National Chairman, North), Shuaibu Oyedokun (Deputy National Chairman, South), Orji Nwafor-Orizu (National Secretariat), Umar Kareto (National Treasurer), E.C. Akpbobi (Deputy National Secretary) and Abass Aidi (National Financial Secretary).

Others were Inuwa Labaran (National Organising Secretary), Emmanuel Ibeshi (National Publicity Secretary), Bala Dada (National Legal Adviser), Innocent Agbo (National Auditor), Chika Ibeneme (National Women Leader), and Aminu Ahmed (National Youth Leader).

The group also appointed some national vice chairmen is some zones. They included Ahmed Song (North East), Mutawallin Hadejia (North West), Abiola Morakinyo (South West) and Sam Eke (South East).

Other officers appointed were Bode Ojomu (Deputy National Publicity Secretary), Bashir Sheriff (Deputy National Auditor) and A.A. Okara (Deputy National Financial Secretary).

Mr. Shuaibu, who had served as deputy national chairman of the PDP before the crisis, told journalists that the new executive was formed because the Ali-led NWC had been declared illegal by the court.

He directed the sitting national officers to vacate their offices and hand over to the directors in their various departments.

He noted that out of the 34 founding fathers of the PDP, only three were still in the party and that others had been chased out by those elements who were beneficiaries of the G34.

Mr. Oyedokun further contended that the party officers led by Mr. Ali were purportedly elected by affirmation in a method that was strange to its constitution.

One of the first actions the faction took was to nullify the expulsion of a former governor of Anambra State, Chris Ngige, and the suspension of a former governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye.

It also said it would set up the State Interim Management Committee of the party.

The Ali-led group said the splinter group acted to weaken the party and jeopardise its fortunes in the 2007 polls.

The party survived the division because it was in power at the federal level and in most of the states. The party subsequently resolved the crisis and went on to win the 2007 with a common front.

Atiku/Five Governors Revolt

On August 31, 2013, another major crisis erupted in the PDP, splitting it into two.

During the partys special national convention at Eagle Square, Abuja, some party chieftains, including seven of its 23 governors, left the event and addressed a press conference where they announced the birth of the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP).

The governors were Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Babangida Aliyu (Niger).

Party chieftains who floated the new faction were former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former acting National Chairman of the PDP, Kawu Baraje, a former Osun State Governor and former National Secretary of the party, Olagunsoye Oyinlola.

Mr. Baraje, who spoke for the group, said they struck to salvagethe party from those who had hijacked it.

The splinter group subsequently opened a new secretariat in the Maitama District of Abuja.

Five of the governors, except Messrs. Lamido and Aliyu, dumped the party for the APC, which had been birthed a few months earlier following the successful merger talks by some opposition, namely ACN, CPC, ANPP and a section of APGA.

Some members of the party in the Senate and the House of Representatives, including current Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, were some of the PDP legislators who defected to the APC.

In December 2013, in one fell swoop 37 members of the lower legislative chambers defected to the APC while Mr. Saraki and 10 others followed suit. The senators were Umaru Dahiru, Magnus Abe, Wilson Ake, Bindow Jubrilla, Danjuma Goje and Aisha Jummai-Alhassan. Others were Ali Ndume, Shaba Lafiaji, Abdullahi Adamu and Ibrahim Gobir.

One major outcome of that crisis was the loss of the power at the centre and in some states by the PDP to the APC. Former President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP was defeated by the Muhammadu Buhari of the APC in the 2015 presidential poll.

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The national commandant of the Nigerian Peace Corps, Dickson Akoh, arrested on Sunday by the police, is still being held nearly a week later, authorities have said.

Mr. Akoh, 43, was arrested after he turned himself in at the FCT command headquarters, saying he learnt the police were looking for him.

He was detained at a facility run by the police special anti-robbery squad in Abuja, PREMIUM TIMES learnt the evening of his arrest. He had not been released since then.

On Friday evening, the police told PREMIUM TIMES they charged Mr. Akoh to court earlier in the week, although the claim was disputed by sources close to the commandant.

We arraigned him at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday, FCT police spokesman, Anjuguri Manzah, told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone.

Mr. Manzah declined further questions on the matter, including whether the police procured a court order to continue holding Mr. Akoh in detention beyond the legally-allowed 48 hours.

But two sources close to Mr. Akoh said the police did not arraign the commandant.

The sources said the police tried to arraign him before Gabriel Kolawole of the Abuja Division, but the judge declined to entertain the case immediately.

Justice Kolawole asked them to come back on March 28 for the case, one of the sources said.

The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid complicating an ongoing negotiation between the authorities and Mr. Akohs representatives.

The incident came three weeks after the Nigerian Army, police and the SSS, in a joint operation, stormed the Peace Corps head office in Abuja, arresting its founder, Mr. Akoh, and other national leaders before shutting the facility down.

PREMIUM TIMES confirmed at least two people were injured during the raid, but could not independently verify what the security agency were responsible.

On March 1, the police paraded Mr. Akoh and his officials, 49 in total, and accused them of running an outlawed organisation with intent to perpetrate fraud and jeopardise national security.

The police said a 2013 official gazette of the Nigerian government dissolved and proscribed illegal security outfits which included the Peace Corps.

Mr. Akoh and his officials were later released, but Peace Corps offices remained shut nationwide.

A few days later, authorities slammed a 90-count charge of recruitment scam, money laundering and impersonation to the tune of N1.4 billion on the Mr. Akoh and his comrades.

Mr. Akoh strongly denied the charges, saying he had been investigated and cleared by anti-graft officials.

Millicent Umoru, a spokeswoman for the Peace Corps, condemned Mr. Akohs arrest and demanded his immediate release in a telephone exchange with PREMIUM TIMES shortly after he was arrested on Sunday.

The incident came amid efforts by the National Assembly to complete final amendments of the harmonised version of the Nigerian Peace Corps Bill and dispatch it to the executive for assent.

Click here for PREMIUM TIMES detailed look into the lingering dispute between the Peace Corps and existing Nigerian government agencies.

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Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Saturday extolled the virtues of his predecessor, Babatunde Fashola, as Mr. Fashola, now the Minister for Work, Power and Housing, made his first official to the seat of government since hand over in May 2015.

Mr. Ambode, who spoke when he received Mr. Fashola and some top officials of his Ministry on a courtesy visit at the Lagos House, Ikeja, attributed many of his achievements as governor to the solid foundation laid by Mr. Fashola.

I want to say that this is a historic moment for us, notwithstanding that the Honourable Minister lives in Lagos, this is the first time he is stepping his feet into the Alausa premises and we need to honour him for that and say a big thank you for coming back home, Mr. Ambode said.

It was the first time the two politicians met officially at the state governments headquarters in Lagos.

It was also the first time Mr. Ambode would publicly acknowledge the achievements of his predecessor, whom he recently accused of frustrating some of his projects. Mr. Fashola denied the claims.

For nearly two years, both men seemed locked in a cold war. Less than six months into his administration, Mr. Ambode revoked a 50-year concession contract for the redevelopment of the highbrow Falomo Shopping Centre awarded by Mr. Fashola.

During the same period, details of some contracts awarded by Mr. Fashola, including one in which he spent N78 million to upgrade his personal website, leaked to the public.

At a town hall meeting late last year, Mr. Ambode spoke of how he was running his government N3 billion less than what his predecessor had been spending.

Great achievements

On Saturday, Mr. Ambode made a rare acknowledgement, attributing much of the success of his administration in the last 22 months to more or less a fall out of the great achievements the former governor had already put in place.

We have decided that we would carry on with a sense of continuity in all the things that have been done, Mr. Ambode continued.

I had always said that what we wanted was this continuity of the last 18 years, but continuity with improvement and we are happy that all that has been done in the last 22 months is just a continuation of the template the former Governor left behind.

We are happy that the sense of collaboration that we have expressed here is what we believe can carry whatever it is that Lagos stands for, moving forward. As you may be aware, Lagos is celebrating its 50 years of existence this year.

The last 18 years have been so dramatic and historic in terms of the growth and development that we have seen in Lagos, commencing from 1999 when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into office and the eight good years spent by you and the two years we have done. So, obviously, there is a remarkable change between 1999 and now, Governor Ambode said.

Mr. Ambode also pledged to expand the existing collaboration with the Federal Government, saying that it would not only benefit Lagosians, but Nigerians in general.

He assured that the requests made by the Minister in regard to Housing projects of the Federal Government and other road construction would be accelerated, while also expressing optimism that the debts owed Lagos would be refunded.

I continue to say that we would support the Minister in every way that is possible, everything that we have actually talked about in terms of debt by the Ministry as it relates to projects, the Minister is actually more vast than me in these areas and in this agitations having done the same thing for eight years, obviously he is not somebody that we would want to convert to our passion or our request because he used to be part of what we have always asked for, Mr. Ambode said.

Earlier, Mr. Fashola who described the visit as home-coming for him, said he had come with his team to Lagos as part of a nationwide project monitoring exercise to inspect the job done so far on Federal Government projects.

He assured that the Ministry had made representations to the Federal Executive Council on modalities to pay debts owed State Governments including Lagos State for rehabilitation of federal roads over the years, saying that the debts would be paid through bond instrument.

The Minister also expressed readiness to assist Lagos State power initiative, especially in the rural areas.

It would be recalled that Governor Ambode recently set machinery in motion to attain 24-hour power supply through generation of 3,000 megawatts of electricity by 2022.

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Prominent Nollywood scriptwriter, Chike Bryan, is dead.

His close friend and colleague, Mac Collins Chidebe, broke the news on Saturday on Facebook.

According to Mac Collins, Bryan was riding in his friends car when he received a phone call from home about some happenings. Then he lost his cool.

Afterwards, the friend asked him to calm down but it was too late. He suddenly had stroke and began throwing up in his friends car.

He wrote, A guy I have worked so closely with in almost 10 months. Suddenly he disappears from my life. Death, O death, why?

He woke up this morning hale and hearty. He had breakfast at a friends and was on his way to the office.

Praying fervently for him, our friend made a turn and drove on neck break speed to his house where he picked his wife and rushed him to the hospital where he was admitted but later referred to LASUTH in Ikeja.

On getting to LASUTH, the wife was told the hospital could not admit him for lack of bed space. For almost five hours my buddy was hanging on to dear life without treatment. How callous can some medical personnel be! An emergency case was treated with so much nonchalance.

So much grief, sorrow, and tears in his home. CBN left behind a young wife and 5 lovely kids. I pray God to give the family the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.

The late scriptwriter was diagnosed with chronic renal failure in July 2013 and underwent regular dialysis at Igando General Hospital, Lagos.

In June 2014, the deceased, president of the Scriptwriters Guild of Nigeria, had a successful kidney transplant after President Goodluck Jonathan donated N10 million for Bryans treatment abroad. The money was given to him through the AGN President, Ibinabo Fiberesima.

Some of his greatest movie projects include Magic Cap, A Million Madness and Polygamy.

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A Sokoto State Sharia Court on Friday issued a bench warrant for the arrest of a Senior Councillor in the Sultanate Council of Sokoto and Magajin Garin Sokoto, Alhaji Hassan Danbaba.

The News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) reports that Justice Umar Sifawa, gave the order in a ruling on a motion filed by the National Vice Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), North-West, Inuwa Abdulkadir.

Mr. Abdulkadir had dragged Mr. Danbaba, the grandson of the late Premier of Northern Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello, to court for alleged defamation of character.

He alleged that Mr. Danbaba had in a publication in August, 2016, described his late father as a  slave bought by one Gwaggo, for two shillings.

The complainant had told the court that Mr. Danbaba said that he (Abdulkadir) did not take adequate care of his late mother.

The respondent had filed a notice of appeal on the ground that the court had erred by issuing a summon on March 13 and March 22, giving him only two days to appear before it for his defence.

The motion on notice filed by Mr. Danbabas counsel, Yusuf Dankofa, also said the court breached the appellants right to fair hearing and fair trial.

This, he averred, was in violation of section 36 ( 6) ( B), of the Constitution that states, every person charged with a criminal offence shall be entitled to be given adequate time and facility for the preparation of the defence.

Mr. Danbaba had also filed a motion on notice praying for the stay of the courts proceedings, pending the determination of his appeal at the State High Court.

The counsel to the complainant, John Shaka, on Friday urged the court to strike out both the respondents motion on notice and notice of appeal.

Mr. Shaka had also prayed the court to order the Inspector-General of Police to arrest and produce the respondent before the court.

The counsel to the respondent was, however, not in court on Friday.

In his ruling, Mr. Sifawa refused to grant the prayers of the complainant to strike out the respondents motion on notice and notice of appeal.

The Judge said, it is premature to do so as the accused should be given another chance to present his case, if he wishes to do so.

Mr. Sifawa, however, granted, in part, the prayer seeking the issuance of an order to the IGP for the arrest and production of Mr. Danbaba.

He said, This is to the effect that a bench warrant shall be issued immediately for the arrest and production of accused before the court.

But, the order is to the CP of Sokoto State and not the IGP as applied for, to arrest the accused wherever he is found in Nigeria, pending further instructions by the court.

The judge adjourned the case till April 6.

(NAN)

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An auto crash which occurred at Asejire end of Osun on Friday killed five persons while others sustained severe injuries.

Among the dead was a journalist, Nathaniel Abimbola, who worked with the Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC) in Osogbo. His friends said he was aged 48. He marked his birthday on 26 of February this year.

Mr. Abimbola, a graduate of the University of Ibadan, was attached to the state House of Assembly and had been on the beat for 10 years.

Four others who died, alongside Mr. Abimbola, were all members of Celestial Church of Christ (CCC), Ayetoro Osogbo.

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that the entire occupants of the ill fated 18-seater bus were heading to Imeko headquarters of the church for a retreat.

The driver of the bus was said to have lost the brake of the vehicle before ramming into a stationary Nigerian Bottling Company Coca-Cola truck.

Those that sustained injuries in the accident are being treated at state hospital Ibadan and Ikire.

Gov. Rauf Aregbesola has expressed grief over Mr. Abimbolas death.

In a condolence message signed by the Director Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Semiu Okanlawon, the governor said the death of Mr. Abimbola has robbed the state-owned media organisation of one of its most dependable hands.

This is sudden and tragic. Abimbola has shown himself as a reliable hand in the business of dissemination of information.

His life was short but was eventful. He has demonstrated capacity for professional excellence but he has come to the end of his journey

We console ourselves with the reality that death is a necessary end that must come when it is our time, the statement said.

The governor urged the entire OSBC family to take the loss with equanimity.

Also, the state council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has declared a seven-day mourning for Mr. Abimbola.

Biodun Olalere, chairman of the union, described Mr. Abimbola as a man loved by all for his penchant for peace and hardwork.

Also, the State House of Assembly, described Mr. Abimbolas death as a rude shock.

In a statement by the Chairman, House Committee on Information and Strategy, Olatunbosun Oyintiloye, the assembly said Mr. Abimbolas death was like a strange dream.

Mr. Abimbola, who attended Oluponna Community High School, in Osogbo, is survived by his mother, wife and three childrentwo boys and a girl.

(NAN)

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The Ondo State House of Assembly has said it will not challenge Fridays Appeal Court judgement which invalidated the impeachment of the former deputy governor, Ali Olanusi.

But the Peoples Democratic Party in the state wants the House to appeal the judgment for its academic relevance.

The court, in quashing Mr. Olanusis impeachment, held that the exercise by the House of Assembly in April 2015 was unconstitutional.

The house had removed him as deputy governor after he refused to follow the immediate past governor, Olusegun Mimiko, from the Labour Party on whose platform they were elected to the Peoples Democratic Party, PPD, instead joined the All Progressives Congress.

The house, which impeached Mr. Olanusi, had 25 of its 26 members belonging to the PDP.

The Appeal Court also held that the former deputy governor was not accorded fair hearing before he was impeached.

The court ordered the restoration of the rights and benefits due to the former deputy governor from the time of his removal from office to the period his tenure elapsed.

Mr. Olanusi took his case to the Appeal Court after he failed to secure a favourable judgment at the a Federal High Court in Lagos, which on August 13, 2016, struck out his fundamental rights enforcement suit which he filed to challenge his impeachment.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Siji Akindiose, told PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday that there was no need to challenge the Appeal Courts decision in the interest of allowing our nascent democracy to move faster.

I think we must give the court the respect, even when we were apparent mistakes, Mr. Akindiose said.

We have to defer to the courts because our democracy is still nascent, we have to concede some things so our democracy can grow faster.

Institutions must be given the opportunity to make mistakes and then get corrected in order to move forward.

But PDPs Director of Publicity, Ayo Fadaka, said the appeal courts judgment was both funny and academic.

He said there was too much interference of the judiciary in the business of the legislature, which is another and independent arm of government.

The development is amusing and at the same time academic, Mr. Fadaka said, when sought his views on the matter.

It is amusing in the sense that the tenure of the former deputy governor has long expired. It is academic because he cannot go back to assume the office of a deputy governor.

I wish the house will appeal this judgment at least for is academic value.

We may say the deputy governor should be allowed to go and enjoy his retirement, but I wish the house would appeal the judgment.

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On this week's Atlantic City Story podcast, reporters Christian Hetrick and Nicholas Huba talk about the fight between Atlantic City overseer Jeffrey Chiesa and the city's police and firefighters.

We also talk to Staff Writer Hanna Schweder, who wrote recently about families in the city who lost a loved one to violence.

Christian and Nick had some interesting thoughts about Chiesa's demand for givebacks and the unions response.

Christian has been covering the story closely, while Nick has seen other battles between unions and Gov. Chris Christie, and had some perspective.

Chiesa has been called the state's "designee," "overseer," "czar," and "overlord."

He's framed his approach around numbers - he wants to cut 100 firefighters and 24 police officers from the ranks and is also demanding those remaining take a big pay cut to balance the budget.

The unions are pushing back on the perception and public relations front. Last week they rallied with a message of a city and its residents and visitors stripped of protection by the cuts.

They also highlighted the circumstances of officer Joshlee Vadell, who was shot in the head breaking up a robbery last summer. Vadell, they said, would lose badly-needed benefits under Chiesa's plan.

Chiesa quickly backpedaled from the Vadell example, exempting him.

Numbers are hard to argue against when you're drowning in debt, but public perceptions of safety can be powerful.

While the two sides were wrestling for higher ground, there are real people hurt by crime, not just in the city, but everywhere.

Hanna's story is a more personal one of residents losing a loved one. Even so, she found that in many cases, survivors are often moved to help others as part of the healing
NORTHFIELD Linwood teacher Kimberley Peschi entered a not guilty plea Wednesday to simple assault on student.

Peschi, a Linwood school music teacher, appeared in Northfield Municipal Court.

According to the release, on Feb. 10, Linwood police responded to the Belhaven Avenue Middle School to investigate the alleged assault of a 12-year-old student by a teacher.

On Feb. 15, Kimberley M. Peschi, 40, of Galloway Township, was charged with cruelty and neglect of children, a 4th degree crime, and simple assault, a disorderly persons offense.

Peschi, a Belhaven Avenue Middle School music teacher, is alleged to have stepped on the back of the students chair on Feb. 9, pulling both chair and student to the ground, causing the victim to hit his head, according to authorities.

According to the police report, there were eyewitnesses and video of the incident.

The release says that based on investigation, the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office will prosecute the assault on the municipal level.

If convicted, Peschi could face as many as six months in jail.

No date for the trial was provided.

School officials have previously said Peschi was suspended with pay after the incident and further action may be taken.

Peschi earlier referred calls for comment to her attorney, Dean Wittman, who could not be reached for comment.

Peschi has worked in the Linwood school district since 1999. She also has taught a yoga class there as part of the schools Explorations program.
Healthcare in American is set to change... again. After a lengthy battle over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its multi-year implementation, the Trump administration stands just weeks or months away from dismantling former President Barack Obama's legacy healthcare bill and instituting its own.

Obamacare had its ups and downs

In one key way, Obamacare, as the ACA is most commonly referred to, was a success. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it wound up reducing the uninsured rate from 16% before its implementation to less than 9%, at one point.

In other respects, Obamacare left a lot to be desired. The law's strict regulations tied the hands of insurance companies, with many finding that it just wasn't profitable to list their plans on ACA marketplace exchanges. Three of the five largest national insurers -- UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, and Humana -- significantly reduced their 2017 plan offerings, with Humana announcing that it wouldn't even offer ACA plans in 2018.

It also failed to attract enough young adult enrollees. The Shared Responsibility Payment (the penalty associated with not buying health insurance) never came close to matching the total cost of purchasing a year's worth of health insurance, coercing quite a few younger, healthier adults to take the cheaper route and remain uninsured.

Trumpcare takes shape

Thus enters the American Health Care Act (AHCA), stage right. The AHCA, which has already been dubbed by pundits as "Trumpcare," looks to repeal and replace Obamacare as cleanly as possible. This could, of course, be challenging, given that Obamacare was passed with a supermajority of 60 votes in the Senate, and all that may be available to Republicans for the time being is a reconciliation bill, which would allow Republican lawmakers to remove only those components of Obamacare that directly affect the federal budget. Reconciliation can pass with a simple majority vote in the Senate.

Here are some of the most critical provisions of the American Health Care Act:

It eliminates the subsidies and penalties associated with the ACA.

It bases tax credits on a person's age as opposed to income level.

It ends Medicaid expansion by 2020 and distributes future Medicaid payments to states on a per-capita basis.

It allows insurers to add a 30% monthly surcharge to people who didn't have continuous health insurance coverage in the previous year.

It lets insurers charge older adults up to 67% more in monthly premiums compared to younger adults than under the ACA.

It boosts the annual contribution limit for health savings accounts.

It maintains two crucial Obamacare provisions: allowing children to stay on their parents' health plan till age 26, and disallowing insurers the right to turn away people with pre-existing conditions.

It eliminates the net investment income tax and Medicare surtax.

Based on the initial report from the Congressional Budget Office that 24 million people could lose coverage over the next decade, there's a clear worry over what Trumpcare might do to the healthcare industry as a whole.

However, there may be an even more pressing and urgent concern that could affect more than twice as many Americans.

Trumpcare expedites Medicare's insolvency

According to a new report from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, or CRFB, the passage of the AHCA would further cripple the already struggling Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust, which covers the costs associated with Part A (in-patient hospitals stays and procedures, as well as long-term skilled nursing care) for the 57 million eligible Medicare enrollees.

Of specific note, the elimination of the Medicare surtax -- a 0.9% added payroll tax on earned income above $200,000 specifically paid in its entirety by the employee -- is expected to result in a cumulative deficit to Part A of $150 billion by 2026. As a result, the CRFB estimates that Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust insolvency date (i.e., the point at which it'll have used up all of its spare cash) will be moved forward from 2025 to 2023. That's just six years from now.

It's critically important to note that the insolvency of Medicare Part A doesn't mean Medicare is going bankrupt. Instead, it would mean that Medicare Part A would become a budget-neutral program. In other words, the reimbursements paid to hospitals and physicians would be done based on the revenue the program brings in, and nothing more. The CRFB projects that this could result in a 14% reduction in reimbursements by 2024 to remain solvent.

So what exactly does this mean? Hospitals and physicians would still be getting paid by Medicare, and Medicare would continue its similar coverage (assuming no drastic changes to its structure), but there's a reasonable likelihood that some medical professionals may stop accepting Medicare or could considerably throttle back the number of Medicare-covered patients as a result.

The simple solution, according to the CRFB, which seeks sensible budget-balancing legislation, is to keep the Medicare surtax in place. Paying tax on earned income above $200,000 is expected to generate $117 billion over the next decade, which would bridge more than three-quarters of Medicare's expected deficit over the next 10 years.

It's a matter of perspective

For what it's worth, the CRFB's report differs a bit from the Medicare Board of Trustees' annual report from 2016. Of course, it's worth pointing out that the Medicare Board of Trustees hasn't factored in any impact of Trumpcare since it was released in mid-2016.

According to the trustees' report, Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust is slated to exhaust its spare cash by 2028, which is three years later than the CRFB estimates before the presumed passage of Trumpcare. The trustees' report also lists a long-term actuarial deficit of 0.73%. In plainer terms, the trustees are suggesting a 0.73% hike to Medicare's portion of FICA taxes, from 2.9% to 3.63%.

Medicare taxes are usually split right down the middle between employers and employees (1.45% each), with the exception being income above $200,000, as noted, where the tax liability falls solely on the employee. The trustees are implying that a roughly 0.365% increase in Medicare payroll taxes per employer and employee would bridge the funding shortfall in the Hospital Insurance Trust over the next 75 years.

Though they may differ in their insolvency dates, both the CRFB's and Trustees' reports are clear in implying that Medicare is in trouble.

To be clear, there is no shortage of ways that Medicare's budget shortfall can be dealt with. But this latest report from the CRFB should hopefully help light a fire under lawmakers in Washington that their window of opportunity to fix Medicare without potentially adverse repercussions is going to start closing soon, so they'd better act fast.

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Jiyeon Lee, a South Korean expat, doesnt serve Korean barbecue at her Heirloom Market BBQ in Atlanta. She and her husband, Texas-born Cody Taylor, serve American barbecue with Korean touches. Example: pungent gochujang-marinated pork, smoked over oak and hickory wood and served as a sandwich crowned with kimchi coleslaw.

In Austin, Miguel Vidal has mated the ingredients of his Mexican ancestry with those of his Texas upbringing at his celebrated Valentinas Tex Mex BBQ. Think house-made corn tortillas with smoked brisket, guacamole and tomato serrano salsa.

Ready or not, change has come to Barbecue Country. Often viewed in black and white, the world of slow-smoked Southern barbecue is being transformed by the immigrants of contemporary America.

A lot of the cultures coming here have something they call barbecue, says Thomas W. Hanchett, retired staff historian of the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte. They are now becoming part of the South and using this language of barbecue. What had been foreign, international traditions are becoming American traditions.

Of course, from its earliest days, Southern barbecue has been a polyglot cuisine. Its origin combined Caribbean and Native American techniques of indirect smoking with European meats  pork and beef, mainly  and African-American flavorings. More than a century ago, Mexicans in California and Texas contributed a style known as barbacoa in which cow heads are roasted in a pit in the ground. Germans are generally believed to have created the mustard sauce of South Carolina.

The German influence, along with Polish and Czech, is also big in Texas, where in the 1880s and 1890s those immigrants meat markets were the ones selling barbecue, says Texas Monthly barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn.

Apparently, such culinary influences were not always appreciated. Vaughn emailed me a link to an archived copy of an 1875 front page of the Dallas Daily Herald that showed a strain of anti-immigration that persists through American life to this day. A German sausage factory has been established in Austin, one item in a column titled The Heralds Compress reads. It may not be amiss to remind our city authorities that this is a splendid opportunity to dispose of our surplus dog crop.

Objections aside, those immigrant groups affected barbecue culture all over the state. But in central Texas it became a signature barbecue style, characterized by slow-smoked beef and coarse-ground, spicy sausage.

Greeks have influenced American barbecue as well, with the most famous example being Charlie Vergos, a son of immigrants. He founded the famous Memphis barbecue restaurant Charlie Vergos Rendezvous where, in the late 1950s, he concocted a spice rub for pork ribs that combined Greek herbs, such as oregano, with traditional barbecue spices. Dabbed with vinegar while cooking, the creation became known as the Memphis dry ribs style, so called because theyre not sauced, or wet.

In its multicultural history, stretching back before the formation of the country, barbecue might be the one true indigenous American cuisine. Curiously, barbecue is viewed as unchanging. But, from the foods we smoke to the way we smoke them, barbecue is constantly evolving.

What we think of as barbecue today would have been unrecognizable to eaters a century ago, Robert Moss, author of Barbecue: The History of an American Institution, told First We Feast. We dont need to redefine barbecue in America; its already busy redefining itself, and the new flavors of immigrant communities are an important part of that evolution.

Cultures around the world enjoy some kind of fire-cooking tradition. But for the most part, theyre different from what weve come to expect when we walk into a Southern barbecue restaurant. Korean barbecue is thin-sliced meats grilled quickly over a direct  typically, gas  fire, while the Indian tandoor uses a clay oven, and Sichuan duck is smoked over tea leaves, then frequently fried. Southern barbecue is big meats such as beef brisket, pork shoulder and ribs slow-smoked using an indirect fire of hardwoods.

Heirloom BBQ Market, opened in 2010, represents a melting-pot approach to barbecue. The brisket, for example, is injected with a Korean version of miso before bathing low and slow in smoke inside an all-wood cooker imported from Texas.

Drawing on the Korean little-plates tradition of fermented and pickled vegetables, Lee, who was a pop star in South Korea, saw an opportunity. Its a really good pairing with the heavy meat dishes, with all the pickles and vegetables, she says. At first, it was, Is this a barbecue restaurant? But people in Atlanta, its a melting pot and very diverse, and people are open-minded about trying something new.

Taylor said Heirloom experienced some initial resistance from barbecue purists but overcame it with glowing press attention. He says the idea behind what appears exotic is actually simple. We decided to just go with what we brought from our house, ingredientwise and feelingwise, Taylor says. Just be yourself. Thats what barbecue is all about.

While the fusion trend inhabits a small corner of the barbecue firmament, similar cultural mash-ups are occurring nationwide. At Kimchi Smoke in northern New Jersey, owner Robert Cho, a Korean-American, smokes the kimchi that tops the smoked pork, which he piles onto a flour tortilla. He calls the creation a Korean Redneck Taco. In Charlotte, the husband-and-wife team of Tim Chun and Lisa Kamura at the Seoul Food Meat Co. turn out meats marinated in Korean flavorings and served with pickled radish and sides of Sriracha cracklins, ramen mac and cheese, and soy-pickled deviled eggs.

At the food truck Honky Tonk Kid BBQ in Waco, Texas, David Gorham serves a rotating menu of global fusion, which combines traditionally smoked Texas meats with an international flair. Its recently concluded Italian menu featured a smoked meatball sub with a fire-roasted marinara sauce, plus side dishes such as citrus and fennel coleslaw.

I just want to introduce people to different flavors and different cultures, Gorham says. I just want people to know there are other flavors out there, and we can all get together, and thats what barbecue should be.

In New York, Hometown Barbecue offers a lamb belly banh mi alongside traditional pulled pork sandwiches, Izzys Smokehouse and Main House BBQ serve kosher barbecue (beef, chicken, no pork), and pastrami is on barbecue menus all over town.

We have so many great barbecue restaurants that they have to distinguish themselves, says Eater critic Robert Sietsema. We have a universal constituency that loves sweet and sour flavors. The flavor palette is being preserved with a smokiness that people long for.

In Texas, smoked meats such as brisket and pork are finding their way into tacos instead of the more traditional white bread. Whether serving (barbecue) as tacos rather than sandwiches or with beans and rice and stuff like pico de gallo as a garnish instead of pickles and onions, were seeing the Mexican influence a lot more, Vaughn says.

In Southern California, pastrami tacos have long been a thing. But recently, restaurants have emerged that specialize in a form of lamb barbacoa popular around Mexico City.

In Mexico, a wood fire burns hot and long in a hole in the ground, and the retained heat cooks marinated lamb. At his two Aqui Es Texcoco restaurants  one outside San Diego, the other in Los Angeles  Francisco Paco Perez simulates the process using a gas oven and, to provide a semblance of smoke and a hint of bitterness, maguey leaves, which smolder. He seasons the meat traditionally, with chile de arbol, guajillo, onions and garlic.

People want to know traditional dishes, says Perez, who is originally from Guadalajara and began cooking the dish at a restaurant in Tijuana owned by his mother. I think my food represents my culture, and so I want to introduce Americans to that.

Barbecue has functioned the other way as well  as a cuisine that immigrants and their descendants use as an entry point to claim America. Chinese-American Robin Wong and his brother Terry, who grew up in a diverse Houston suburb called Alief, operate barbecue pop-ups in Houston with a Vietnamese childhood friend named Quy Hoang. Although they sometimes experiment with Asian flavors, to Wong, barbecue is a unifying food in a diverse world. Our normal menu is straight Texas barbecue, he says.

Tyson Ho, a Chinese-American, smokes classic Carolina whole hog in his Brooklyn restaurant, Arrogant Swine. This is my tiny part of preserving American history and creating my spot in the American story, Ho says. When you grow up neither white nor black in the U.S., it is hard to find a piece of America that is yours. It is hard to find something that youre heir to. So, cooking barbecue is my way of grabbing hold and saying, This is mine. 
Thousands of people across New Jersey have stayed out of jail due to historic changes to the criminal justice system in the state.

The Bail Reform and Speedy Trial Act, which was officially enacted Jan. 1, aimed to decrease jail populations and save costs for counties by eliminating bail in most criminal cases. After three months, there are nearly 2,400 fewer people in jail awaiting trial than there were at this time last year, according to statistics from the state.

But reviews from law enforcement have been mixed.

A resolution passed by the Ocean County Association of Chiefs of Police last month called the new law dangerous, onerous and fiscally disastrous, referring to the cost it has taken to implement and the potential pitfalls of a new public safety assessment (PSA) score that helps a judge determine whether to release or detain a defendant.

The resolution came in the wake of the release of Christopher Wilson, a convicted sex offender, before his trial in a separate case involving the alleged solicitation of a 12-year-old girl on two occasions. Wilsons PSA score came in low because his first conviction came when he was a minor, which isnt counted by the new system.

This led to an uproar from the Police Department in Little Egg Harbor Township, where Wilson lives, and resulted in chiefs from around the county calling for an injunction against the new law.

Wilson was detained Thursday after a successful appeal by the Ocean County Prosecutors Office.

But judges can use other factors, beside PSA score, in deciding to hold or release a suspect, including previous convictions that dont register in the system and relevant factors in individual cases.

We can now have a direct conversation about whether the person is a threat to the community, said state Appellate Division Judge Glenn A. Grant, acting administrative director of New Jersey courts. The old system was more risky because it was solely based in money.

Grant added New Jersey has great information technology infrastructure for dealing with quick turnarounds for court hearings. After arrest, defendants must be given a detainment hearing within 48 hours, keeping the courts open on weekends.

Grant said the IT infrastructure can bring up someones file in a matter of seconds, so the 48-hour window should be enough time to prepare for a hearing.

Meanwhile, civil rights activists have praised the changes, saying the elimination of bail levels the playing field compared to an old system that disproportionately affected minority communities.

Some law-enforcement officials have concerns about the law but are willing to wait and see what happens when it is fully implemented.

We have to adapt, Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato said. Its more of a fluid system, and it does appear that less people are being detained.

Coronato said they will have a better idea how the system works within a few months, when prosecutors are required to bring cases to trial within 180 days of indictment, barring motions and delays filed by the defense.

Overall, Grant said there is no perfect system, and its going to take time for people to get used to dramatic changes.

There is nothing magical about any pre-trial system. They all have shortcomings, Grant said. But this system is more objective. Its a much more honest system.
ATLANTIC CITY  The Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal plan to open a convent in Atlantic City this summer.

The Diocese of Camden announced Friday the Sisters accepted an invitation from Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan for the location of their first American mission outside New York City.

On Aug. 15, the Sisters will formally dedicate their new residence at the former St. Michaels parish rectory. The rectory was closed in 2015 after the church joined the citywide Parish of St. Monica.

Four nuns will live in Atlantic City to begin a new mission.

My parishioners and I look forward to welcoming a new group of sisters. We are excited to collaborate with the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal in the great work they will do in our city said the Rev. Jon Thomas, pastor of St. Monicas.

The Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal were established in 1988 in New York and have convents in New York City, two in the Bronx and another in East Harlem; one convent in Leeds, England; and another in Drogheda, Ireland.
LINWOOD  Police are investigating an incident that happened Friday at Mainland Regional High School.

Several students reported to school staff that one student said he had a kill list and wanted to gas-bomb the school, Linwood police said in a news release.

Mainland staff removed the student from class, and he was taken to the Linwood Police Department for questioning. The students parents were notified and are cooperating in the investigation.

About 2:45 p.m., a robo-call from Superintendent Mark Marrone told parents the district received unconfirmed information relative to the safety and security of the school and a student had been detained by police.

The school was not locked down during the incident.

School board President Jill Ojserkis said she could not discuss details, but she was aware of the incident and school officials immediately contacted police when they became aware of a potential problem.

We take all issues regarding student safety seriously, she said. School officials worked cooperatively with the police to protect students and staff.

On March 8, three students were arrested following a lockdown at Absegami High School in Galloway Township. Student Jil Patel, 18, and two minor students were charged with creating a false public alarm for a group text allegedly sent to students during the lockdown.

On Feb. 15, an 11-year-old student at the Joyanne D. Miller Elementary School in Egg Harbor Township brought a knife and kill list to school in his backpack and was suspended.
LINWOOD  Atlantic County Republicans endorsed Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno Saturday in the partys primary for governor.

The race to replace Gov. Chris Christie was the only one with any competition in the county partys annual convention, held at Linwood Country Club.

The second-place finisher in the county vote didnt have to travel far to speak to the crowd.

Hirsh Vardhan Singh, of Linwood, announced his candidacy early this month and apparently impressed the crowd in his hometown with his speech Saturday.

Singh, an engineer who graduated from Egg Harbor Township High School, received 157 votes from county Republicans in his longshot race for governor.

Guadagno won easily with 917. Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli came in a distant third.

How your lawmakers voted HOUSE

Freeholder Frank Formica nominated the states first lieutenant governor to move up in office, saying, No other statewide elected leader has been more  accessible to the citizens and businesses of New Jersey than Kim Guadagno.

But Singh urged his fellow Republicans to endorse him, saying he has brought new voters and energy to the party.

He said Guadagno is connected at the hip with a (Christie) administration  with a 17 percent approval rating.

The convention votes were unanimous for all other local offices, including the state legislative campaign from the county.

The party formally endorsed Assemblyman Chris Browns run for the state Senate and Vince Sera and Brenda Taube for the Assembly. Sera is a city councilman in Brigantine, and Taube is a former Margate city commissioner. Contact: 609-272-7237 MDeangelis@pressofac.com Twitter @PressBeach
HOUSE

Health insurance sales across state lines: The House on March 22 passed, 236-175, a bill allowing small businesses to form association health plans qualified to sell policies across state lines. A yes vote backed HR 1101 over complaints it would strip states of authority to control their own insurance markets.

Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd: YES

Tom MacArthur, R-3rd: YES

Mandatory coverage of opioid treatments: The House on March 22 defeated, 179-233, a Democratic motion requiring health plans created under HR 1101, above, to continue the Affordable Care Acts mandatory coverage of drug addiction including opioid abuse. A yes vote was to adopt the motion.

LoBiondo: NO

MacArthur: NO

Health insurance and antitrust laws: The House on March 22 passed, 416-7, a bill that would end the health-insurance industrys exemption from federal antitrust laws under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. These companies are regulated by their home states. A yes vote was to send HR 372 to the Senate.

LoBiondo: YES

MacArthur: YES

SENATE

FCC rule on internet data sharing: The Senate on March 23 voted, 50-48, to nullify a Federal Communications Commission rule that internet service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon must obtain customer consent before they collect and share personal data such as browsing and app activity with advertisers. A yes vote was to send SJ Res 34 to the House.

Robert Menendez, D: NO

Cory Booker, D: NO

David Friedman, U.S. ambassador to Israel: Voting 52-46, the Senate on March 23 confirmed David M. Friedman, 65, a lawyer who has represented the Trump Organization and President Donald Trump in bankruptcy litigation, as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Friedman supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories and advocates moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A yes vote was to confirm Friedman.

Menendez: YES

Booker: NO

Rule on worker injury records: The Senate on March 22 voted, 50-48, to nullify a Department of Labor rule on the length of time firms must keep updated worker injury records for potential review by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A yes vote backed six-months retention rather than the five years set by the rule. (HJ Res 83)

Menendez: NO

Booker: NO

Predator control on federal refuges: The Senate on March 21 voted, 52-47, to nullify a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule that would ban extreme methods of killing bears, wolves and coyotes on the 16 federal wildlife refuges covering 77 million acres in Alaska. A yes vote was to adopt HJ Res 69 on grounds that less restrictive state laws should take precedence.

Menendez: NO

Booker: NO

Source: Voterama in Congress
Guards stand next to the U.S. Constitution in the rotunda of the National Archives in Washington in 2003.
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.




"I learned early on that you can't let others put limitations on your child," Farrell said. "Your child will decide what his or her limitations will be." Farrell went on to recount the powerful story of how he was told his son would probably never walk. "Think about how important a child's first steps are in their development. When my son took his first steps after we heard he would never walk, it was an important lesson for us to never let others put limits on his abilities."

When discussing his wishes for his son and others with special needs, Farrell spoke of the importance of inclusive schools and organizations  such as Gatepath  that allow people of all abilities to be bold, compassionate individuals.

The Power of Possibilities brings like-minded people together, raising awareness for children, youth, and adults with special needs and developmental disabilities. "It shines a light on how our differences are beautiful and reminds us to see with our hearts in addition to our eyes," said Gatepath CEO Bryan Neider.

"This is an event for everyone who wants to create a community that is healthy, friendly, thriving, and inclusive," said Neider. "It's for those who want to join Gatepath in celebrating the accomplishments of those we serve who have overcome obstacles to achieve meaningful employment, providing a path to independence and fulfilling their dreams."

In addition to the discussion with Farrell, Gatepath announced the recipient of this year's Neal Poppin Award, which honors an individual whose determination, spirit, and enthusiasm transcends any limitations he or she has faced. This year's award recipient, Fernando Arce, was born nearly three months premature. He weighed less than two pounds, was in the hospital for several months after his birth, and was not expected to live.

Over time, Fernando overcame remarkable odds of being both blind and profoundly hearing impaired, and exceeded expectations in his work and personal endeavors. He is now employed at the The Magnolia of Millbrae, a retirement community, where his gentle nature and warm spirit are an inspiration and lesson for all.

In a video tribute to Fernando, Vincent Muzzi, owner of The Magnolia of Millbrae, spoke about how the interaction between Fernando and other staff members helps everyone benefit from working in an inclusive environment that embraces differences, and enriching all. "When hiring someone with a disability, it's not just the employee with the disability who gains an advantage in the workplace," said Muzzi. "It's a working relationship that benefits everyone involved; it's beyond the paycheck."

Muzzi also commented on the advantages that businesses can gain by following inclusive hiring practices. "It's important to provide opportunities for Fernando and others with special needs and disabilities," said Muzzi, "but it's also important to note that businesses can derive a great benefit from this type of hiring practice. I think of it as a win-win."

"Employers like The Magnolia of Millbrae who partner with Gatepath are not only providing meaningful employment," Neider added, "but they are also helping create opportunities for independence and building self-confidence for future success in all phases of their life."

The Power of Possibilities was sponsored by Bailard, Peggy Bort Jones, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, Gatepath Auxiliary, GoPro, Sutter Health Mills-Peninsula Health Services, Boston Private Bank, Electronic Arts, Linda and Richard Leao, Carole Middleton Foundation, Norman S. Wright Mechanical Equipment, Bon Appetit Management Company, Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated, San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront, Wells Fargo, Kathryn and Richard Breaux, CBRE, Elaine and George Cohen, Diane Christensen Mason and Charles H. Mason Jr., D'Elia Construction Inc., Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Barbara and Paul Regan, and Lilli Rey.

"There's no greater joy than watching individuals with special needs and disabilities flourish and attain their dreams," said Kate Breaux, President of the Gatepath Auxiliary, who co-hosted The Power of Possibilities. For more than 66 years, the Gatepath Auxiliary has partnered with Gatepath and is fully committed to the mission of creating a world where individuals of all abilities are accepted, respected and included. "It's wonderful to come together for an event like this to celebrate and recognize such incredible and inspirational achievements by people throughout our community."

Contact: Julia Ballantyne, Gatepath

916-390-4671 cell

[email protected]

SOURCE Gatepath

Related Links

http://www.gatepath.org


FORT WORTH, Texas, March 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AZZ Inc. (NYSE:AZZ), a global provider of galvanizing services, welding solutions, specialty electrical equipment and highly engineered services to the power generation, transmission, distribution and industrial markets, today announced it entered into a new credit agreement as of March 21, 2017, amending and restating the existing credit agreement, originally dated March 27, 2013 and amended on August 8, 2016. The new five-year, $450 million revolving credit facility, which will expire on March 21, 2022, contains a $150 million accordion feature to upsize the facility to $600 million if needed, and also includes a $75 million sub-limit for the issuance of letters of credit.

"I'm very pleased to finalize a new credit agreement with our banking partners," said Paul Fehlman, AZZ's Chief Financial Officer. "We believe the new credit facility accomplishes the important strategic goal of providing us significant financial flexibility at lower credit spreads that will support our growth initiatives, and positions us to consider strategic opportunities that can add value to our business. The new agreement further demonstrates the confidence our banking partners have in the financial strength of our business."

The new credit agreement contains customary representations, warranties, covenants and events of default. The Company's obligations under the new agreement are unsecured, but all of the Company's subsidiaries (other than the subsidiaries organized in a jurisdiction outside of the United States) have guaranteed such obligations. The Company today also filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission describing additional terms and conditions of the new credit agreement.

About AZZ Inc.

AZZ Inc. is a global provider of galvanizing services, welding solutions, specialty electrical equipment and highly engineered services to the markets of power generation, transmission, distribution and industrial in protecting metal and electrical systems used to build and enhance the world's infrastructure. AZZ Galvanizing is a leading provider of metal finishing solutions for corrosion protection, including hot dip galvanizing to the North American steel fabrication industry. AZZ Energy is dedicated to delivering safe and reliable transmission of power from generation sources to end customers, and automated weld overlay solutions for corrosion and erosion mitigation to critical infrastructure in the energy markets worldwide.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain statements herein about our expectations of future events or results constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as, "may," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are based on currently available competitive, financial and economic data and management's views and assumptions regarding future events. Such forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and investors must recognize that actual results may differ from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. This release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, changes in customer demand and response to products and services offered by AZZ, including demand by the power generation markets, electrical transmission and distribution markets, the industrial markets, and the hot dip galvanizing markets; prices and raw material cost, including zinc and natural gas which are used in the hot dip galvanizing process; changes in the political stability and economic conditions of the various markets that AZZ serves, foreign and domestic, customer requested delays of shipments, acquisition opportunities, currency exchange rates, adequacy of financing, and availability of experienced management and employees to implement AZZ's growth strategy. AZZ has provided additional information regarding risks associated with the business in AZZ's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended February 29, 2016 and other filings with the SEC, available for viewing on AZZ's website at www.azz.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. You are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements herein and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. These statements are based on information as of the date hereof and AZZ assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact:

Paul Fehlman, Senior Vice President Finance and CFO

AZZ Inc. 817-810-0095

Internet:

www.azz.com

Lytham Partners

602-889-9700

Joe Dorame, Robert Blum or Joe Diaz

Internet:

www.lythampartners.com

SOURCE AZZ Inc.
ZURICH, March 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CeBIT Hannover -- IBM Security (NYSE: IBM) and SIX, the operator of the infrastructure underpinning the Swiss financial sector, today announced plans to leverage IBM Watson for Cyber Security in a new cognitive Security Operations Center (SOC). The new facility will be housed at SIX's offices in Switzerland to provide localized cyber security services tailored to needs of the region.

As part of a new partnership, the SIX SOC powered by IBM will give clients access to the latest IBM cognitive security tools used to fight cybercrime. The centerpiece of the new SOC will be IBM Watson for Cyber Security, the industry's first cognitive security technology. Watson has been trained on the language of cyber security, ingesting over 1 million security documents, helping security analysts parse thousands of natural language research reports that have never before been accessible to modern security tools.

SIX will now be able to offer advanced security services to its existing financial industry customers, utilizing the IBM Security capabilities as important building blocks for the offering. The project will add new capabilities to a traditional SOC infrastructure as well as develop a new, highly collaborative IBM  SIX framework for the multi-tenant, next generation SOC.

SIX will be enabled by IBM Security to take full control of cyber security protection for clients by tapping into world-renowned IBM X-Force threat intelligence research. SIX selected IBM for its ability to provide wide ranging expertise in security and data protection, but also for its experience managing multiple global SOCs serving a variety of industries.

The new Cognitive SOC services will be extended to customers of both companies, who are looking for a trusted Swiss-based security partner. The services will be initially offered to banking industry customers who need security, regulatory, compliance and audit capabilities located in the region to ensure adherence to existing or future Swiss data privacy and data protection legislation  regulating what can be exchanged, by whom and how, as well as financial market regulations.

SIX and IBM will jointly develop a roadmap that defines the evolution of the "New Generation of Security Operations Center". To ensure the SOC and associated security services are operational as soon as possible, the roadmap includes the joint development of the first basic building blocks of the new targeted platform and the required governance for running this long-term strategic cooperation successfully.

"Digitization, Internet of Things, global connectivity and the integration of new disruptive technologies are some megatrends opening a lot of new business opportunities. However, they also bring new threats with possible high impact on the industry. We operate the infrastructure of the Swiss financial market. IBM as leading company in Security Operations and Response was the logical partner for us and the perfect match for our requirements to build and operate our SIX Security Operations Center which will go beyond today's off-the-shelf cyber security standards  therefore defining the next generation of the Swiss financial market", says Robert Borntrager, Division CEO SIX Global IT.

"This partnership with SIX is a major step in Switzerland for IBM as a company, and its security business in particular," said Thomas Landolt, Country General Manager IBM Switzerland. "IBM has a proud tradition of excellence providing the world's top financial services companies with essential technologies. We're looking forward to both helping SIX manage its own cyber security needs, and also becoming an essential partner starting with the globally respected Swiss banking market to those other organizations who need regionally based and Swiss market compliant security services."

The IBM Cognitive SOC

IBM recently announced its Cognitive SOC platform, which brings together advanced cognitive technologies with security operations and provides the ability to respond to threats across endpoints, networks, users and cloud. The IBM Cognitive SOC platform puts cognitive technologies into security analysts' hands, enhancing their ability to fill gaps in intelligence and act with speed and accuracy.

For more information on Watson for Cyber Security and the IBM Cognitive SOC, visit: http://www-03.ibm.com/security/cognitive/

About SIX Group

SIX operates the infrastructure underpinning the Swiss financial sector and offers a comprehensive range of services around the world in the fields of securities trading and settlement, financial information and payment transactions. The company is owned by its users (approximately 130 banks of various orientation and size). Its workforce of over 4,000 employees and presence in 25 countries throughout the world generated operating income of CHF 1.8 billion and a Group net profit of CHF 221,1 million in 2016. www.six-group.com

About IBM Security

IBM Security offers one of the most advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM X-Force research, enables organizations to effectively manage risk and defend against emerging threats. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research, development and delivery organizations, monitors 35 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries, and holds more than 3,000 security patents. For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/security, follow @IBMSecurity on Twitter or visit the IBM Security Intelligence blog.

IBM's statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at IBM's sole discretion. Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. Information about potential future products may not be incorporated into any contract. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion.

Media Contact:

Karine Faucher-Veronneau

IBM Communications

+33 6 77 10 27 49

[email protected]

SOURCE IBM
Lucknow, March 20 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday directed senior officials of the state to prepare a roadmap for "good governance and transparency" for all departments.

Presiding over a meeting of the officials, Yogi handed them the Bharatiya Janata Party's vision document -- Sankalp Patra -- for the 2017 state assembly elections, and asked the bureaucrats to study the document and ensure its "speedy and complete implementation".

Officials present at the meeting told IANS that the "maiden meeting with the new CM was good" though it had its "share of anxious moments". They pointed out that they knew very little about the new Chief Minister, who is known for his firebrand Hindutva-oriented politics.

Yogi also asked policemen to ensure that law and order situation in the state improved within a week.

He referred to the late-night killing of a BSP leader in Allahabad and directed the Director General of Police (DGP) to bring the guilty to book. The Chief Minister was slated to attend a high tea hosted by Governor Ram Naik at Raj Bavan for the new ministers.

Earlier in the day, Yogi moved into the official Chief Minister's residence at 5, Kalidas Marg. But before he moved in, seven priests from the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur, of which Yogi is the presiding priest, propitiated the gods -- performing a "Shuddhi Hawan" and "Vastu Puja" -- before a "Kalash" was placed as a sign of house warming.

A priest also made the auspicious 'Swastik' symbols on both sides of the tall gate of the heavily guarded CM's residence, which was occupied by former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for well over five years.

The sprawling bungalow will now be home to the 44-year-old Chief Minister, who is a bachelor, and some of his companions of many years, who, an insider said, would take care of the "routine puja-paath".

Before moving into the 5, Kalidas Marg, the Chief Minister spent the night at a luxury suite in the state's VVIP Guest House, where many senior officials visited him and sought directions.

Prominent among those who visited him included Chief Secretary Rahul Bhatnagar, Director General of Police Javeed Ahmad, senior Indian Police Service officer Sultan Singh and Surya Kumar Shukla.
Patna, March 21 : Taking cue from Punjab, a Congress minister in Bihar on Tuesday demanded an end to the use of "red beacon" on the official vehicles of ministers in the state.

Education Minister Ashok Choudhary, who is also state unit chief of the Congress, said: "Yes, I have demanded an end to the VIP culture on the lines of the Punjab government."

All vehicles of ministers and top officials should be without the beacon, Choudhary told the media here.

His demand was supported by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party but was met with scepticism by ally and ruling Janata Dal-United, JD-U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said VIP culture was misused in Punjab due to the drug menace. In Bihar, there was no such problem, he added.

The new Punjab Cabinet in its maiden meeting in Chandigarh on Saturday announced an end to the use of red beacons on official vehicles by the Chief Minister, ministers, legislators and officers.

The Amarinder Singh-led Congress government assumed charge in Punjab on March 16 after the party swept the assembly polls on March 11, winning 77 of the 117 assembly seats.
New Delhi, March 21 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday said he will work to free the state of corruption and communal riots.

Adityanath, a five-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member from Gorakhpur, told the Lok Sabha that he would curb anti-social elements in the country's most populous state.

"We will work to make the state free of corruption, rowdyism and hooliganism. We will present a development model which will prevent distress migration of youths for jobs," he said.

In what appeared to be his farewell speech, Adityanath thanked members for their affection during his membership of the House.

Adityanath spoke while the House was debating the finance bill.

He claimed credit for bringing about changes in Gorakhpur, which he admitted did not enjoy a positive image among people earlier. Adityanath was first elected to the Lok Sabha from the seat in 1998.

Now, he said, no trader in Gorakhpur paid "goonda tax" and the town did not witness incidents of abduction.

"There were 403 riots in Uttar Pradesh, but not one in eastern UP. We will be successful in creating the same situation in Uttar Pradesh."

Referring to the days he became MP for the first time, Adityanath said he had gone to meet a minister who recalled having been at a rally in Gorakhpur where bombs were thrown.

"In last 15 years, what used to be said for Gorakhpur, was said for whole of Uttar Pradesh."

Adityanath said the verdict in Uttar Pradesh was a slap on the face of those who questioned the welfare policies and development agenda of the Narendra Modi government.

"We will bring a new model of development in Uttar Pradesh under the leadership of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We are committed to development of every caste, every class and every citizen," he said.

The 44-year-old BJP leader also took a dig at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who were projected as "UP ke ladke (sons of Uttar Pradesh)" during the campaign for assembly elections.

Adityanath referred to him being younger to Gandhi by almost a year and elder to Yadav also by a year.

The Congress and the Samajwadi Party had forged an alliance in the assembly polls with Gandhi and Akhilesh holding some joint press conferences and roadshows.

"I think I came between their pair...it might be a big reason for your loss," Adityanath said.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, responding to Adiyanth's remarks, wished him luck and said: "You have the chair now, maintain its dignity and go ahead."

Adityanath was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday. He came to Delhi in the morning and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He has to become member of the state legislature in the next six months.

Lok Sabha officials said he had not resigned his membership of the House.
Washington, March 22 : US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will skip a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) meeting early April, the US State Department has confirmed.

"The Secretary's schedule does not permit him to attend the NATO ministerial on those dates, but... we're trying to accommodate this in his schedule," said his acting spokesman Mark Toner at a briefing on Tuesday.

Instead, the US will send Tom Shannon, the acting Deputy Secretary of State, to the NATO meeting on April 5-6, said Toner, Xinhua news agency reported.

Though Tillerson would not be the first US Secretary of State to skip the NATO meeting, his decision came at a time when US allies in NATO are questioning whether President Donald Trump would continue to support the 28-nation alliance.

During his presidential campaign and after the election victory, Trump blasted NATO as "obsolete" and demanded other NATO allies to raise their defence spending.

NATO members are expected to spend two per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence by 2024. So far, only five signatory governments, including the US, have met the obligation.

However, since his inauguration in January, Trump and his senior officials have repeatedly pledged full support for NATO.

"We have raised concerns, certainly, about NATO allies all reaching their commitments," said Toner.

"But that shouldn't in any way speak to our disregard for the alliance or our commitment to the alliance and the security of Europe," Toner added.
Washington, March 22 : US President Donald Trump will attend a NATO leaders' summit scheduled for May, the White House said.

"The President looks forward to meeting with his NATO counterparts to reaffirm our strong commitment to NATO, and to discuss issues critical to the alliance, especially allied responsibility-sharing and NATO's role in the fight against terrorism," the White House said in a statement on Tuesday.

It added that, in addition to meeting the leaders, Trump will host NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House next month.

The April meeting with Stoltenberg has been arranged to prepare for a May 25 summit in Brussels on the "new security environment, including the alliance's role in the fight against terrorism, and the importance of increased defence spending and fairer burden-sharing", CNN reported on Wednesday.

The announcement of Trump's attendance comes on the heels of a decision by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to skip a NATO foreign ministers' meeting, and instead host Chinese President Xi Jingping later this month, before visiting Russia in April.

The State Department has suggested "alternative dates" to NATO for the meeting, said the report.

Tillerson's decision not to attend the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels has led to consternation amongst the US' European allies.

"Seeing the Chinese, then going to Russia and avoiding NATO in the middle -- it's weird," said one NATO diplomat.

"It shows that they don't care about NATO. They are not multilateral."

State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner said that the meeting's dates didn't fit in Tillerson's schedule and a NATO official confirmed that the group was still negotiating with the State Department to schedule the meeting.

Toner said the agency is "certainly appreciative of the effort to accommodate Secretary Tillerson".
New Delhi, March 22 : An opposition member in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday accused the government of forcing Indians to get Aadhaar Cards, with Congress, Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal members walking out before the Finance Bill was passed.

The opposition also objected to one of the amendments in the bill that makes Aadhaar Card mandatory for filing of income tax returns, but it was eventually passed.

As Finance Minister Arun Jaitley finished his reply to a debate on the Finance Bill, Biju Janata Dal leader Bhartruhari Mahtab said the government is forcing Indian citizens to get Aadhaar Cards by making it mandatory for filing of tax returns.

"You are forcing the citizens," Mahtab said, to which Jaitley said: "Yes, we are."

The minster, justifying the move, said people were using more than one PAN card to evade paying taxes.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Mohammad Salim wondered if an Aadhaar Card cannot be duplicated. "If duplicate PAN (Permanent Account Number) Card can be made, can't a duplicate Aadhaar card be made," Salim asked.

Soon after, Mahtab said his party was not satisfied with the Finance Minister's reply, and the BJD staged a walkout.

Congress leader in the house, Mallikarjun Kharge, then urged the government to announce a loan waiver for farmers across the country.

"The Prime Minister, Finance Minister, and Agriculture Minister are all sitting here. As you promised in Uttar Pradesh, waive loans of farmers across the country," Kharge said.

"Jaitley sahib has got so much money -- as you yourself have said. You have got more than Rs two lakh crore; why don't you make the announcement," he said.

The treasury benches, however, remained quiet, and Speaker Sumitra Mahajan moved ahead with the process of bill passage, which agitated the opposition members.

The Congress and Trinamool Congress members then walked out, leaving most opposition benches empty as the Finance Bill was passed.
Kathmandu, March 22 : Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' will leave here for China on Thursday to attend the Boao Asia Forum in China's Hainan province during which he will also meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday.

Prachanda will travel to Beijing to meet Xi. This is his first official visit to China after becoming the Prime Minister in August last year.

"The Prime Minister will meet the Chinese President on March 27 (Monday) at the Great Hall of the People where both leaders will discuss matters of mutual interest," the Foreign Ministry said.

The Chinese side has already communicated that the meeting between Xi and Prachanda will a brief one -- no longer than 20 minutes -- and Xi had cut short his other engagements to make time for it.

As Prachanda's visit to Nepal's northern neighbour will be keenly followed and watched in New Delhi, it is almost official that no accord or understanding will be signed during the visit, announced Prachanda a day ahead of his China visit.

"We are not going to sign any deal in this visit," said Prachanda at a CPN (Maoist Centre) Central Office meeting.

"My visit will be to lay the ground for the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepal and the objective of my China visit is focused on bringing him to Nepal," he said.

Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat also said that Nepal is not going to sign any deal with China but will discuss some crucial bilateral issues.

He said that discussions would take place on matters pertaining to the China-initiated "One Belt One Road" (OBOR) plan and participation of Nepal in China's flagship foreign policy initiative.

Likewise, issues related to Nepal-China Transit and Transportation Agreement, its protocol and expansion of cross-border transmission line in northern border would be discussed.

On OBOR, the Foreign Minister said Nepal and China have discussed in length about it and its possible advantage to Nepal, but "we cannot agree on free trade with China as Nepali side is still considering its merits and demerits", he added.

Mahat said Nepal had prepared to sign at least five agreements with China on various issues, but they wouldn't be signed this time as Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will not be available in Beijing during Prachanda's visit.

The Nepali side had prepared to sign agreements on cross-border transmission line, and allowing the Chinese companies to conduct detailed project reports of railway projects that will connect Nepal-China border to the southern plains and Pokhara via Kathmandu.

Other agreements related to harnessing Chinese investment in Nepal on various sectors, establishing cross-border economic zone and capability-enhancing the National Planning Commission.

Prachanda will return to Nepal on March 29.
New Delhi, March 22 : Aadhaar may become the only identity (ID) card in future, while making it mandatory for filing of Income Tax returns is necessary to curb tax evasion and frauds, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday Replying to the debate on the Finance Bill in the Lok Sabha, Jaitley said that Aadhaar may become the only card in future replacing all other types of identity cards such as Voter ID and PAN.

He said the Aadhaar-based Unique Identity (UID) system had been conceptualised by the previous UPA government.

"Almost every tax paying family has Aadhaar. Now 98 per cent adults have Aadhaar and 108 crore Aadhaars have been issued," Jaitley said.

After two-day debate, the Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Finance Bill.

The bill was passed through voice vote, with over 40 amendments by the government, one of which will make an Aadhaar card, or enrollment number, mandatory for filing Income Tax returns after July 1.

"Aadhar made mandatory because we have cases of some people have five-five PAN cards. These can be used for tax evasion, that's why Aadhaar has been made compulsory," the Finance Minister told the House.

"Aadhaar has biometric details, so its chances of misuse become minimal," he added.

Referring to the demonetisation drive to check corruption, Jaitley said data mining done by Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had showed up 18 lakh cases whose deposits did not match with their income and who were then notified by mail or messages.

"Of these, 8.71 lakh people have responded to queries. The Income Tax Department will act against the rest," he said.

The opposition objected to the amendment that makes Aadhaar Card mandatory for filing of income tax returns.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Mohammad Salim wondered if an Aadhaar Card cannot be duplicated. "If duplicate PAN (Permanent Account Number) Card can be made, can't a duplicate Aadhaar card be made," Salim asked.

Jaitley alswo said the amendment to reduce the ceiling on cash transactions is to curb generation of black money and the move to introduce electoral bonds is for cleansing the political funding.

"To encourage digital economy and to discourage cash economy, I had proposed in Budget that there will be a ban on cash transactions of over Rs 3 lakh. I am making it Rs 2 lakh by an amendment," he said.
Washington, March 24 : The US will not attend a peace conference on Afghanistan organised by Russia on April 14 in Moscow, according to US State Department sources.

The sources did not explain to EFE on Thursday the reasons why the US will not attend the conference. The conference will be attended by countries like India, Pakistan and Iran in addition to Afghanistan.

According to Sputnik news agency, the Taliban will not participate in the conference.

In February, Russia had convened a six-party meeting on peace in Afghanistan, in which India, China, Iran and Pakistan participated, in addition to delegations from Kabul and Moscow.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the time criticised the former Barack Obama administration for its position on the Afghan conflict and was convinced that he could forge closer cooperation with the Donald Trump administration.

Lavrov also stressed the importance of involving the Taliban in the dialogue for constructing peace in Afghanistan, in keeping with the criteria set out in UN Security Council resolutions, Efe news reported.

The Russian Foreign Minister and the National Security Advisor to the Afghan Presidency Mohamad Hanif Atmar met in March to prepare for the April 14 conference.
Patna, March 24 : The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday demanded the setting up of anti-Romeo squads in Bihar for women's safety in line with neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

"Bihar government should constitute anti-Romeo squads... to deal with anti-social elements," senior BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi told the media here.

He said the squads should be deployed at schools, colleges, universities and busy markets for the safety of women and girls in the state.

"In view of growing number of cases of crime against women on the streets, the anti-Romeo squads are a must in Bihar," Modi said.

This is the second major demand made by the opposition in Bihar in the last 24 hours.

Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar had on Thursday demanded that illegal slaughter houses flourishing in the state should be closed and sealed in line with Uttar Pradesh.

Newly appointed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi came out with both directives just after he took charge on March 19.
New Delhi, March 24 : Two more airlines -- AirAsia and Vistara -- on Thursday "banned" Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad for beating up an Air India employee.

The Indian Commercial Pilots' Association also sought an unconditional apology from Gaikwad and threatened to direct its members "not to operate any flight which has Gaikwad on board".

While AirAsia said it "will support any decision taken by the industry", Vistara said "the concerned individual will be barred from flying on any of our flights with immediate effect".

Vistara said it was "in full solidarity" with Air India.

"The individual concerned will be barred from flying in any of our flights with immediate effect," a Vistara spokesperson said.

Earlier, Air India, IndiGo, Jet Airways, SpiceJet and Go Air banned Gaikwad on their flights with immediate effect.
Islamabad, March 24 : The Taliban group on Friday denied reports that its representatives visited Islamabad to discuss the prospect of holding peace talks with Kabul.

"We strongly reject (the media reports) because none of our leaders has travelled to Islamabad, nor has met any official there," the Voice of America quoted Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid as saying.

His statement came a day after the media reported that Islamabad hosted seven Taliban leaders here to press the insurgents to return to peace talks with the Afghan government.

The Taliban have long refused to hold direct talks with the Afghan government, calling it a "puppet" of the US, the VOI reported.

Pakistan in July 2015 brokered and hosted a meeting between Taliban and Afghan officials, but the revelation that the group's supreme leader Mullah Omar had been dead for two years disrupted the peace process.

According to a senior Pakistani government official, they were unaware of any such "visit or talks".

"Pakistan is trying to distance itself from hosting Afghan peace talks and would instead prefer they are held in a country acceptable to all the parties," the official maintained.

Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated in recent years because of Taliban-led attacks in Afghanistan, for which the Afghan government has blamed insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Speaking in Washington earlier this week, Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani insisted Kabul has kept the doors for peace negotiations open to Taliban, but accused Islamabad of hindering efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

"Pakistan's reluctance to end its support for terrorism underpins the continuation of violence in Afghanistan and the region... A paradigm shift in Pakistan is needed if any progress is to be made in peace efforts with the Taliban," Rabbani said.

Russia has recently stepped in to try to promote Afghan peace and reconciliation efforts through a multinational dialogue.

Moscow plans to host another round of the discussions next month with officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Iran and China to further the process.

Mujahid did not outright deny reports that his group may attend a Moscow meeting, if invited.

"When an invitation is extended to us, only then we can consider it and comment on it," he said.

The US was also among the invitees, along with several Central Asian nations, but Washington reportedly turned down the invitation to the April 14 conference.
London, March 25 : Britain's Prince George will attend a private primary school where the first rule is to "be kind" and pupils are discouraged from having best friends.

Thomas's Battersea is a few miles from the family residence in Kensington Palace and charges parents A6,110 ($7,619) a term, the Guardian reported A message on the Kensington Palace Twitter site announced that he would join the school in September 2017.

Established 40 years ago, the school is described on its website as being a "busy, thriving, purposeful" school, which has 540 boys and girls between the ages of four and 13.

It places a lot of emphasis on pupils' wellbeing, according to the Tatler Schools Guide. There is a counsellor on staff and the school uses "human ecology" to track pupils' emotional responses at school.

Pupils are also discouraged from having best friends because it could leave other children feeling ostracised and hurt.

It also has strong academic results with a "high-achieving, competitive side". Pupils go on to win places at top public schools Bryanston, Marlborough and Bradfield and the school is known for its sporting prowess and drama productions.

George's parents, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, said in a statement: "Their Royal Highnesses are delighted to have found a school where they are confident George will have a happy and successful start to his education."

Prince George, who is third in line to the throne, attends nursery at the Westacre Montessori School in Norfolk.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge recently announced plans to move from their main home in Norfolk back to their apartment in Kensington Palace, as Prince William will be taking on more royal duties.

Princess Charlotte, who will be two in May, is due to start nursery in the summer.
Washington, March 25 : US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will travel to Turkey and then to the NATO headquarters in Brussels aiming to quell a controversy caused by the announcement that he would not attend a meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers.

Tillerson "will visit NATO headquarters in Brussels on March 31. The visit will take place after his trip to Ankara, Turkey," a State Department spokeswoman told Efe news on Friday.

The spokeswoman did not say if that meant the US had agreed with NATO to hold the meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers on March 31 rather than at the beginning of April as planned in order to fit in with Tillerson's schedule.

"We'll soon provide details about his agenda," she added.

Last week, the State Department announced that Tillerson would not attend the NATO foreign ministers' meeting, something very unusual for a US Secretary of State and which has not happened since 2003.

According to several media reports, the decision was taken due to the possible conflict of the NATO meeting with the next visit to the US of Chinese President Xi Jinping, for which April 6-7 are rumoured as the possible dates.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner would only say that the date of the NATO meeting was in conflict with Tillerson's schedule, adding that the department was speaking with the NATO secretary general to see if the date of the meeting could be changed.

As for Tillerson's visit to Turkey, the State Department provided no details, though bilateral conversations are expected to focus on the fight against the Islamic State (IS) and the conflict in Syria, among other issues.
New York, March 25 : The decision to pick Hindutva leader Adityanath Yogi as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh shows the BJP thinks "nothing stands in the way of transforming a secular republic into a Hindu state", the New York Times said on Friday.

In a hard-hitting editorial, the daily said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had played a cagey game since taking power in 2014, appeasing his party's hard-line Hindu base while promoting secular goals of economic growth.

"Despite worrying signs that he was willing to humor Hindu extremists, Modi refrained from overtly approving violence against the nation's Muslim minority," the editorial said.

But Modi, it said, finally revealed his hand.

"Emboldened by a landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh, his party named a firebrand Hindu cleric, Adityanath, as the state's leader.

"The move is a shocking rebuke to religious minorities and a sign that cold political calculations ahead of national elections in 2019 have led Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party to believe that nothing stands in the way of realizing its long-held dream of transforming a secular republic into a Hindu state."

The Times said Adityanath had made a political career of demonizing Muslims, he had defended a Hindu mob that murdered a Muslim man in 2015 on suspicion that his family was eating beef, and had said Muslims who balked at performing a yoga salutation to the sun should "drown themselves in the sea".

The daily said Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 200 million people, badly needed development, "not ideological showmanship".

"The state has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Nearly half of its children are stunted. Educational outcomes are dismal. Youth unemployment is high."

While Adityanath has made the right notes, the daily said his appointment showed that Modi sees no contradiction between economic development and a muscular Hindu nationalism that feeds on stoking anti-Muslim passions.

"Modi's economic policies have delivered growth, but not jobs. India needs to generate a million new jobs every month to meet employment demand.

"Should Adityanath fail to deliver, there is every fear that he - and Modi's party - will resort to deadly Muslim-baiting to stay in power, turning Modi's dreamland into a nightmare for India's minorities, and threatening the progress that Modi has promised to all of its citizens."

Shutting down any sort of Beef in the state was the first ever move by Adithyanth after he claimed the CM's chair. Intensive drive to shut down slaughterhouses across the state have hit the population, hotels and even animal zoo

-- With inputs from IANS
Chennai, March 25 : The Liberation Panther Party aka Vidhuthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) has advised superstar Rajinikanth to re-consider his decision to visit Sri Lanka to inaugurate a housing scheme. They said it might earn him the wrath of the Tamil community.

As part of his visit, being organised by Lyca Productions, Rajinikanth is expected to speak at a public meeting and plant tree saplings.

According to a source in VCK, Rajinikanth's visit might prove to the world that things are back to normal in Sri Lanka.

"Nothing has changed in Sri Lanka, especially the lives of displaced Sri Lankan Tamils following the civil war in 2009. They're using Rajinikanth's visit to fool the world that life has returned to normal but it hasn't. We want Rajinikanth to reconsider his decision. If not, he will face the wrath of Tamil community," the source told IANS.

VCK - a political party that supports the cause of Dalits in Tamil Nadu - is led by T. Thirumavalavan, who is spearheading the protest against Rajinikanth's visit.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the "Enthirana actor will hand over the keys to 150 homes built for Tamils by Gnanam Foundation on April 9 in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, according to a statement released by Lyca Productions.

Lyca Productions is also bankrolling Rajinikanth's upcoming release "2.o", a sequel to his 2010 Tamil blockbuster "Enthiran".
Despite its name, the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance doesnt fret the arrival of April tax time.

Todd Berry, president for almost two dozen years of the 85-year-old nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to policy research and citizenship education, prefers to think of the alliance as an alternative to fake news.

Taxpayers, voters, school students, state and local officials, and the press all benefit from our work, said Berry, a former marketing manager for Jones Dairy Farm in Fort Atkinson. In an age of shrinking news staffs and highly partisan careerist politics, it is increasingly difficult for the public and press to get objective, understandable, factual information about their government.

The alliance, Berry said, does research and provides the resulting information in vehicles the average citizen can understand. Those channels include a monthly magazine, a biweekly newsletter, a civics text that soon will be published in its 19th edition, annual municipal and school finance guides, civic lectures, website and social media.

Q. How has your role in the Wisconsin political landscape changed in the last five to 10 years? Is there more or less of a hunger for impartial data?

A. In Wisconsin, the political landscape has evolved over the past 30 to 40 years with the advent of the full-time professional legislature, the centralization of power in the offices of legislative party leaders and the governor, and the increasingly take-no-prisoners partisanship that has developed among activists on the far left and far right. Respect, kindness, polite behavior, decorum are much less evident in capitol buildings today.

This has resulted in the last five to 10 years in the increasing inability of government at state and federal levels to work through and solve difficult problems. That gridlock and dysfunction has led to increased citizen alienation from public institutions. Regardless of party or ideology, both the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections were really protest elections with voters begging for problem-solving, for results, and willing to take a chance on anyone who might deliver that.

Q. Are you experiencing a decline in financial support for what you do?

A. We are a nonprofit 501(c)(3) and like all charitable organizations, every year presents new challenges. The irony is that white-hat truth-telling and fact-finding are not what most easily motivate financial giving in the public arena. Reflecting our politics today, it is anger and emotion and simplistic answers that move many donors to act.

For us, this is complicated by the fact that what we offer is a public good. Anyone can request most of our work for free: our civic and community lectures are free, part of our public service mission; serving as a resource to media reporters and editors is free; answering inquiries from citizens and local officials is free. People can benefit from much of our work without having to pay for it.

And although our research, writing, and speaking remain mostly free as part of our commitment to public service, it costs to provide all those services.

Another challenge for many local charities is the business mergers and acquisitions that strip the state of company headquarters, civic leadership and a commitment to finance state and local nonprofits.

Q. What does nonpartisan mean anymore?

A. Our view of nonpartisanship has not changed for the last 85 years. We take the responsibility of being a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) very seriously. Internally, staff members are required to have no links to any kind of partisan or political activity, other than voting. We actively police each others work to ensure that it is objective. We do no lobbying, no advocacy, no electioneering, no endorsing of candidates. We affiliate with no other organizations  national, state or local  and turn down all requests for project collaboration.

The only time we are accused of being partisan is when we put out factual information that might put an incumbent politician and his or her allies in a bad light. Emperors do not like to be shown wearing no clothes. We have been attacked from the extremes of both left and right.

We always are willing to provide information to every candidate for office, regardless of affiliation. The 2002 campaign remains a great example. Pre-primary, the campaigns of the multiple Democratic gubernatorial candidates came in for discussions and information; so did the incumbent Republicans campaign. The libertarian candidate, Ed Thompson, came multiple times in person to talk with us.

Q. How is the election of Donald Trump as president changing the way Wisconsin enacts public policy? A. It is too early to tell whether Trump is having or will have any effect on policy-making. It will depend on what happens with federal tax, fiscal, and health policy, and those will be decisions that ultimately rest with Congress and not the president.

Q. What word best describes the mood of Wisconsin residents when you go out to address groups?

A. Curious. Refreshing. Appreciative. People are hungry for reliable information, candor and honesty that they dont feel theyre getting from politicians or much of the media. I am always struck by the eagerness of audiences to know more about their government, and the appreciation they show after my colleagues and I speak.

Q. What troubles you about the current legislative system in Wisconsin, if anything?

A. There are policies in state law that exacerbate electoral politics at the legislative level. Both parties have refused to reform the redistricting process when they had the power to do so  Republicans, post-2010; Democrats, post-2008. Independent drawing of constituency lines that ensured that districts were compact and followed municipal and county lines, violating as few civil boundaries as possible, would make a significant difference.

An even more important factor, though, is the voting process. Partisan primary elections  the La Follette legacy gone terribly wrong  encourage extreme candidates, both left and right, accentuating partisanship, division and gridlock. The Washington state blanket-primary approach would address this. An alternative would be rank voting where there would be no need for primaries; we simply rank our candidate preferences, with computer processing producing the choice most acceptable to the most voters.

Q. Who are one or two of your favorite Wisconsin political figures  alive or dead  and why?

A. Warren Knowles for his grace and magnanimity. Pat Lucey for his courage to be a governor willing to lead and make big reforms, some of which worked and some of which proved less successful. Lee Dreyfus for his ability to see far into the future  and be proven correct. Tony Earl and Tommy Thompson for being the last governors of their respective parties who believed in working across party lines, respecting opponents and attempting to solve problems.

Q. Where is the alliance heading in the next five years or so?

A. The need for the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance has never been greater. The erosion of news media resources, the extreme polarization and professionalization of politics, and the decline of school civics instruction have left the public desperate for reliable, factual information about government. We must work harder than ever to fill that void.
Patna, March 25 : Bihar's Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav on Saturday dared new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to ban liquor and set up an "anti-Daru squad" on the lines of the much hyped anti-Romeo squad.

"Liquor is dangerous, it pollutes health and society. Yogiji don't divert people's attention and constitute anti-Daru squad (anti-liquor squad)," Tejaswi, the younger son of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, told media here.

Tejaswi said if Adityanath is a 'Yogi' and an honest advocate of religion, he should order a total liquor ban in Uttar Pradesh like in Bihar.

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance government enforced total prohibition on April 5 last year in the state.
New Delhi, March 25 : Actress Neha Sharma, who will be seen in a special role in the upcoming film "Mubarakan", says working with veteran actor Anil Kapoor is a delight.

"Anil Kapoor is a delight to work with. The one thing that I admire most about him is his warmth... He makes it a point to greet everyone on set and brings this amazing energy on set and you enjoy the work," Neha told IANS over e-mail from Mumbai.

The 29-year-old actress says she also shares the same passion for fitness as Anil, who is also starring in "Mubarakan".

"It's amazing every time I bump into him training at the gym or swimming," she said.

Asked about her role in the film, Neha said: "I have a special appearance in the film. It's an interesting part that I play, but it's too early for me to talk about it."

"Mubarakan", which is directed by Anees Bazmi, also stars Ileana D'Cruz, Arjun Kapoor and Athiya Shetty.

The film is slated to release in July.
Kathmandu, March 25 : , Newly appointed Indian ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri arrived here on Saturday.

India on March 11 appointed Puri as its 24th envoy to Nepal as his predecessor Ranjit Rae completed his term on February 28, The Himalayan Times reported.

Puri is scheduled to submit his letters of credence to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Sunday.

Before being assigned to the Kathmandu mission, he was Indian ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Born in 1959, Puri had joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1982.

Prior to Brussels, he was India's ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN from 2009 to 2013.
Washington, March 25 : The Russian state-owned news service Sputnik has applied for a White House pass and is seeking membership in the Foreign Press Group in order to become a part of pool rotations, a media report said.

Sputnik would be part of a rotating group of roughly 22 overseas outlets following President Donald Trump in his daily interactions along with pool reporters from American print, TV, and radio outlets.

Andrew Feinberg, Sputnik's White House correspondent, has been in talks with the Foreign Press Group head Philip Crowther, who told Politico news that if Feinberg and Sputnik complete the boilerplate criteria for being a member of the press group, there "shouldn't be any reason" they wouldn't join the White House press pool.

Among the criteria to become a Foreign Press Group member is a White House-approved hard pass, membership in the White House Correspondents' Association, and State Department verification that the network is, indeed, based in another country.

Other state-sponsored outlets are part of the rotating foreign pool, including France 24 and China's CCTV.

Sputnik is one of Russia's government-funded news outlets aimed at international audiences.

Launched in 2014, Sputnik has a goal of providing "alternative interpretations that are, undoubtedly, in demand around the world", its head Dimitry Kiselyov said at the launch.

The site was formed by combining former wire services RIA Novosti and the Voice of Russia.
Washington, March 25 : The majority of Americans do not support President Donald Trumps proposed spending cuts, and they think that an independent commission should probe possible links with Russia, a latest poll said.

According to the Quinnipiac University national poll on Friday, which surveyed 1,056 voters from March 16-21, 66 per cent respondents said they wanted an independent commission to probe the links between Trump campaign advisers and Moscow, compared to the 29 per cent who did not think so, Politico news reported.

Sixty five per cent respondents think alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is either "very important" or "somewhat important", and 63 per cent said they were "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about Trump's relationship with Russia.

While 59 per cent of respondents disapproved of the way Trump has handled US policy toward Russia, 61 per cent of Republicans approved.

On federal spending, 87 per cent of respondents oppose cutting funding for medical research, compared to 9 per cent who support it.

More than 80 per cent did not support cutting funding for new transit projects or cutting funding for after-school programmes, and 70 per cent of respondents opposed eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which Trump's proposed federal budget calls for, Politico news quoted the poll as saying.

Respondents supported increased military spending and they overwhelmingly supported increasing funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide health services to veterans.

A majority of respondents said that Trump should not lower taxes on the wealthy, including 50 per cent of Republicans.

Voters were divided on the idea of spending federal funds on building a wall along the Mexican border.

Sixty four per cent of respondents opposed the idea overall, compared to 35 per cent of respondents who supported it, but Republican respondents largely supported funding a Mexican border wall by 74 per cent to 24 per cent.
Panaji, March 25 : A UK national who was arrested on Friday for being part of a narcotics racket in Goa, had smuggled synthetic drugs into India by caching them in a condom, police said on Saturday.

Superintendent of Police (Crime) Umesh Gaonkar told the media that the accused David Johnson, had also managed to smuggle in other drugs, by hiding them in medicinal containers, which were originally used to store herbal products, as well as in the form of sugar cubes.

"He managed to give the slip to the officials at Heathrow airport before arriving in Mumbai in February. He has been in Goa selling synthetic drugs to customers here," Gaonkar said.

On Friday, state anti-narcotics sleuths arrested Johnson with party drugs like ecstacy and LSD worth Rs 18 lakh from his residence at Anjuna, a beach village in North Goa.

Gaonkar said the accused's clients were those who used to frequent music parties which are held regularly along the coastal belt.

Goa's beach and nightlife attract nearly four million tourists every year, half a million of whom are foreign nationals.
Shimla, March 25 : The Himachal Pradesh government has got permission from the Union Ministry of Agriculture for importing a chemical and machinery to combat serious problems afflicting apple produce, an official said on Saturday.

The Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Produce, Marketing and Processing Corporation (HPMC) would soon import chloropicrin from the US-based Trinity Mfg. Inc. for providing it to the University of Horticulture and Forestry in Nauni for trials.

A spokesperson of the horticulture department said the chemical would be used to combat serious problems of specific apple replant disease and would go a long way in managing soil borne pathogens affecting other fruits, vegetables and floriculture crops.

The chemical was so far not registered in India and thus could not be manufactured or imported from outside for use in soil treatment.

The spokesperson said keeping in view the importance of the chemical steps have been initiated under the World Bank-funded Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Development Project for getting the chemical registered in the country.

He said multi-locational trials would be conducted in Shimla, Solan and Kullu districts this year. This would pave the way for registration of the chemical in the country.

This is one of the major initiatives by the state which would especially benefit the apple growers of Shimla, Kullu and Mandi districts where the orchards had become too old and senile and need immediate replacement with latest varieties and rootstocks.

Himachal Pradesh is one of India's major apple-producing regions, with more than 90 per cent of the produce going to the domestic market. Apples alone constitute 84 per cent of the state's fruit economy of Rs 3,500 crore ($520 million).
New Delhi, March 25 : The CBI has registered a case against two former additional general managers and two ex-chief managers of Syndicate bank and others for causing an alleged loss of Rs 209 crore to the bank.

The agency registered the case under sections of criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act following a complaint from Syndicate Bank against its ex-employees, an official said on Saturday.

It is alleged that the four former bank officials and six persons, including a chartered accountant and a builder, committed the fraud in the bank's two branches in Jaipur and Udaipur in Rajasthan.

"An alleged loss of Rs 209 crore was caused to the bank by the accused as they conspired with each other and availed home loans and credit facilities from Jaipur and Udaipur branches of Syndicate Bank on the basis of forged and fabricated documents.

"The funds so disbursed by Syndicate Bank were diverted and fraudulently siphoned off to the companies owned by accused persons, thereby causing an alleged loss to the bank," Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) spokesperson R.K. Gaur told IANS.

The official further said that separate CBI teams on Saturday conducted searches at the residential and official premises of the accused persons at four places in Jaipur and Ajmer and recovered some incriminating documents.
New Delhi, March 25 : It was an awkward moment of sorts when the panelists at a culture conclave were suddenly asked to share their perspectives on newly-appointed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi.

Titled "Culture and Nationalism," the panelists included former diplomat and author Pavan K Verma; professor and poet Makarand Paranjape, Vedic Scholar David Frawley; and columnist and writer, Sadia Dehlvi.

A close aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Pavan K. Verma said that he would not reach to hasty conclusions and judge Yogi on the basis of his performance.

"I would like to judge him by his performance, rather than passing a judgement everyday," Verma, a JD-U member of the Rajya Sabha, said.

Nitish Kumar, according to him, holds a similar view.

"This is the view that I have and even Nitish Kumar has said the same thing. Let us wait for six months time and see how he performs," he added.

Pavan Verma, on his part, reminded the audience that although it was too early to judge him, his performance would largely depend on maintaining communal harmony in the state and that all the steps that he takes must remain within the ambit of the law and the constitution.

A firebrand Hindutva icon, Yogi was sworn in as 21st Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on March 19.

Even as Verma's comments were welcomed with thunderous applause from the audience here, the views of his fellow-panelist provided room for further discussion.

"I mean what do I say? We have seen what happened to people," exclaimed Sadia Dehlvi, in what may have been an apparent reference to complaints against those posting "objectionable" comments against the UP CM on facebook.

On March 21, at least four people were arrested in different parts of UP for this.

"His words have been divisive and I am scared of what might happen. But we should judge him by his performance, which, of all things, also includes communal harmony," she said.

For Vedic scholar Frawley, who has written more than 30 books on topics such as the Vedas, Hinduism, Sanatana Dharma, Yoga, Ayurveda and Vedic astrology, among others, Yogi has been at the centre of criticism just because a section of people differ with him.

"You have to give him a chance. He has promoted development and I hope he is going to adhere to it. Let us not criticise him just because we do not agree with him. Let's give him a chance," Frawley said.

The one-day Culture Conclave was organised by the Mail Today tabloid from the India Today stable.
Gorakhpur, March 25 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi on Saturday in his first speech after taking up the reins of the state announced his government will provide Rs 1 lakh aid to Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims.

"Those who want to go on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar would be given Rs 1 lakh aid by our government," the Chief Minister said during a rally here.

"We would also establish a Kailash Mansarovar Bhavan either in Lucknow, Ghaziabad or Noida," he added.
With his proposed cuts in federal research and development spending, President Donald Trump risks harming a priority he puts at the top of his own list  national security.

The history of federal investment in R&D, especially since the end of World War II, reflects a bipartisan consensus that money spent on basic and applied research pays economic and security dividends over the long haul while helping the nation respond to short-term crisis.

The dawn of the Cold War in the late 1940s and 50s, the space race in the 60s, the oil crisis in the 70s, the defense build-up of the 80s and the post-9/11 threats to homeland security are ready examples of how federal R&D spending often parallels national challenges.

If you want a more secure America, policymakers have agreed for decades, the government must invest enough to stay ahead of competing nations that would like nothing better than to close the historic research and innovation gap.

Trumps discretionary spending budget moves in the opposite direction. It calls for a 20 percent reduction in spending by the National Institutes of Health, a 10 percent cut in the National Science Foundation budget, a 44 percent cut in the Department of Energy budget and the outright elimination of other R&D programs.

These massive reductions are being pushed despite the fact that federal R&D spending as a share of the gross domestic product has already declined. It was at a lower level in 2016 than it was at any point since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. Federal R&D spending in 2015 was 40 percent less in relative terms than where it stood in the late 1980s.

Supporters of Trumps budget proposal say federal R&D spending is supplanting privately funded research and preventing the marketplace from deciding where to put its own research dollars.

The evidence suggests otherwise: Federal R&D and research supported by states and academic institutions de-risks private investment, thus making it easier for the market to move quickly on vetted ideas and inventions with the greatest potential.

Cutting federal spending on science is a sure way to slow, not advance, (private research) growth, wrote Adams Nager, an economic policy analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Most studies over time have concluded that private R&D dollars chase the federal investment, leading to creation of economic value and jobs that leverage the public dollars. For example, a 2013 study by the nonprofit Battelle Institute noted that every $1 spent by the federal government on the Human Genome Project led to $65 in genetics-related private activity.

The Trump cuts in federal R&D spending would have a ripple effect in Wisconsin, where federal R&D spending has been a major factor in creation of intellectual property, direct and indirect jobs, company spinoffs and related industry research spending.

Wisconsin is 16th among the states in patents issued per capita, 12th in academic R&D per capita and 15th in industry R&D per capita, all metrics that can be linked to federal investment in key sectors such as the life sciences, advanced manufacturing and engineered products.

UW-Madison, the Medical College of Wisconsin, UW-Milwaukee, Marquette University, the Marshfield Clinic, the BloodCenter of Wisconsin and most UW System campuses receive merit-based federal dollars to conduct research. Most often, the sources are NIH and NSF. Cuts in those grants and contracts would slow progress on critical research that benefits people close to home and far beyond Wisconsins borders.

The UW Board of Regents heard this month about the effects of federal cuts in just one program: the UW Sea Grant Project, which supports research on the Great Lakes through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Elimination of $2 million in federal money in that single project would likely wipe out matching dollars from other sources and endanger efforts to protect the Great Lakes, which support a $62 billion regional economy.

The United States continues to rank as the worlds leading R&D nation in gross expenditures and as a percentage of gross domestic product. Other nations are closing the gap, however, at a time when the challenges to U.S. security and economic dominance are looming in the rear-view mirror. Trumps proposed cuts stand to draw those challenges even closer.
Kolkata, March 25 : In view of bumper crop and stable prices in the market, pulse traders on Saturday demanded "removal of stock limits" and "lifting of ban on exports" of pulses, particularly for the varieties which are traded below the minimum support price (MSP).

"Our association has demanded the removal of stock limits and lifting of exports ban on pulses, particularly of the varieties which are currently being traded below MSP so that falling prices could be arrested," India Pulses and Grains Association's Chairman Pravin Dongre said here.

"Country's pulses production, taking both Kharif and Rabi into account, is expected to be over 22 million tonnes this year. Prices will also remain in a stable range," Dongre said.

Except Kabuli Chana, there are export bans for all other crops, he said on the sidelines of the National Pulses Seminar.

Traders also said if the prices continue to remain muted, farmers might switch over to other crops.

"The government fixed the MSP for Arhar at Rs 5,050 per quintal, but due to bumper crops farmers are selling it at about Rs 3,300-3,400 a quintal, which is not encouraging for farmers. They may switch over to other crops," Uttar Pradesh Dal Millers' Association Chairperson Mithilesh Kumar Gupta said.

Last November, the Central government had increased the MSP for pulses.

In 2016-17, the MSPs for Kharif pulses namely Arhar, Moong and Urad were set at Rs 5,050 a quintal, Rs 5,225 and Rs 5,000 per quintal respectively. The MSPs for gram and masur were fixed at Rs 4,000 and Rs 3,950 per quintal respectively.

According to Dongre, October to September is considered as the pulses season and India's pulse production was at around 18 million tonnes last year (2015-16) while the country imported around six million tonnes of lentils.

"Despite a bumper crop this year, imports of about four million tonnes will be required in this year as the domestic consumption is usually about 25-26 million tonnes a year," he said.

Domestic consumption pattern is also price elastic, that means, when prices are less, consumption goes up. "Low prices will lead to an increase in consumption," Dongre said.

Traders are also worried about possible imposition of import duty on imported pulses.

"We are getting messages that the Centre may consider import duty on pulses at about 20 per cent for yellow peas and 10 per cent on other crops. We don't know whether it will be done or not, but it would be detrimental for the consumers and traders," Dongre added.
Nay Pyi Taw, March 25 : The Myanmar government has rejected a UN mission to investigate the alleged persecution of the Muslim minority Rohingya group in Rakhine state, according to an official statement on Saturday.

The UN Human Rights Council decided on Friday to urgently send a fact-finding mission to clarify allegations of abuse by security forces against Rohingya civilians, which it said may constitute crimes against humanity, Efe news reported.

But Myanmar's Foreign Ministry, headed by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, warned that the UN fact-finding mission "would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues at this time", the statement said.

The UN decision "is also not in accord with the situation on ground and the national circumstances", the ministry added.

The Myanmar government has set up a committee headed by Vice President Myint Swe to investigate the issue but the UN council decided the alleged violations require the involvement of the international community given that the independence of the body was in doubt.

The UN mission will focus on allegations of killings, rape, forced displacement and the destruction of homes committed during a military campaign launched in retaliation for an armed assault on October 9 on three border police posts.

At least 74,000 Rohingyas are in refugee camps in Bangladesh and 20,000 others have been displaced in Rakhine state because of the military operation.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, this month called for a committee to investigate the policies of systematic discrimination suffered by this minority, whose situation in Rakhine worsened following the outbreak of sectarian violence in 2012.

The Rohingya issue is a sensitive topic in Myanmar politics, with radical Buddhist groups leading the former government to adopt several discriminatory measures against that minority community including restrictions on movement.
Kathmandu, March 25 : India's new Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri arrived here on Saturday to begin his tenure in the key posting, that will see him help foster close ties between the two neighbours.

Puri, who was so far Indian envoy to Belgium and is India's 24th Ambassador to Nepal, succeeds Ranjit Rae who had completed his three-and-a-half year term on February 28.

Puri is to submit his credentials to President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Sunday.

The Indian envoy has a key job due to the close relationship between the two countries and New Delhi mostly dispatches one of its senior-most diplomats to the post.

India is not only a close neighbour of Nepal but due to the open border, its political, social, economic, security and other concerns remain high in Kathmandu. Also a stakeholder in Nepal's ongoing peace process, India's role is always crucial given the uncertain political situation prevailing now in Nepal as the country braces to hold three elections this year in the midst of standoff with the Madhes-based parties.

Puri, an Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1982 batch, has served as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations in New York from 2009 to 2013. He was a senior member of India's Security Council team during the years 2011-2012, when India served on the Security Council.

He was actively involved with issues of sustainable development and environment. A lead negotiator in India's delegation for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, he was also a key member of India's delegation at various Climate Change negotiations, including the Major Economies Forum and the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Gwalior, March 25 : Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that the country's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh will be sealed to stop infiltration of terrorists and refugees.

Speaking at the passing out parade of the Border Security Force (BSF) at Tekanpur in Gwalior district, Rajnath Singh said that the responsibility of barring refugees has been given to the Border Management Division.

"The 3,323-km long border with Pakistan will be made impenetrable. A 6.9-km long laser wall has been constructed in Kashmir and in 45 places in Punjab. A concrete wall will also be constructed in many places in Punjab and Kashmir and a laser wall will be made in Gujarat," he added.

"The BSF is discharging its responsibilities in protecting the nation's borders properly. That's why, the trust and belief of the people towards BSF has increased," the Home Minister told reporters.

Responding to a question, Rajnath said: "The borders would be sealed. Fencing would be done wherever it's possible and in case it's not, technology would be brought into application."

Speaking on the increasing Maoist incidents, he said: "These incidents have decreased 50-55 per cent in the last 2-3 years. Previously, 135 districts were Maoist infested, which has come down to 35 now."

"The state governments are tackling the situation (Maoist incidents) and the central government is providing complete assistance. 100 battalions of paramilitary forces have been stationed in such areas."

Talking about the BJP youths arrested for allegedly establishing parallel telephone exchange lines between India and Pakistan for the exchange strategically important information, Singh said that the NIA is investigating the charges.
New Delhi, March 25 : President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said the joint efforts made by India and Bangladesh will help realise the aspirations of people of both the countries.

Mukherjee also extended his greetings and felicitations to the government and people of Bangladesh on their National Day on March 26.

"It is a matter of satisfaction that the close relations between India and Bangladesh have substantially expanded in recent years. We have succeeded in enhancing and intensifying our cooperation in areas of our shared interest," he said in a statement here.

"I am confident our joint efforts will contribute to the realisation of the aspirations of our respective people," he said.
New Delhi, March 25 : Accusing the AAP government in Delhi of corruption, the BJP on Saturday said they has failed to fulfil any of its poll promises even after remaining in power for over two years.

Addressing a party rally at the Ramlila Maidan here ahead of municipal corporation polls, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah said the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government was "corrupt" as 13 of its MLAs have been charged with various offences.

"Kejriwal has asked us why the BJP has not waived farmers' loans in Uttar Pradesh, as promised. You don't worry. We will fulfil all our promises, but it's not even a week since we formed the government there," Shah added.

The BJP chief said the AAP government was not doing anything for the people of Delhi.

"There have been various cases of corruption against AAP MLAs," he said, adding that there has also been corruption in the Jal Board, Waqf Board and other agencies under the AAP rule.

Shah also criticised Kejriwal for spending money meant for Delhi elsewhere to further his politics.

"Kejriwal makes huge promises before elections; but once the elections are over, he is nowhere to be seen," he said.

The BJP chief exhorted party workers to go from door to door in the national capital and convince people to vote for the BJP in the April 23 civic polls.

Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said all political parties except the BJP were disintegrating and their leaders were abandoning them to join the BJP.

"The BJP has been winning elections after elections after 2014 and parties like the Congress, Samajwadi Party, AIADMK, AAP and others are disintegrating.

"Ever since Narendra Modi has become the Prime Minister, there has been a movement in the country -- the BJP's flag can be seen across the country," he said.

Naidu said there was not even a single charge of corruption against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in three years.

"During the Congress regime, there would be many corruption cases in a single day, but nobody can accuse us of any corrupt practice," he said.

Naidu also praised the BJP, saying it was the only party which ensured representation to all sections of society.

"The BJP has maximum persons from the Scheduled Castes, farmers and women as MPs," he said.

The minister said the government's demonetisation move was criticised by many but people proved them wrong by giving the BJP a huge mandate in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Kolkata, March 25 : Poet Srijato Bandyopadhyay claimed on Saturday that Facebook had deleted his controversial poem he had posted on his wall.

"The Facebook authorities have removed the poem which had led to so much controversy in the past few days," said Bandyopadhyay.

A police complaint was lodged against Bandyopadhyay for posting a 12-line poem titled "Abhishaap" ("Curse") on Facebook on March 19, the day Aditya Nath Yogi was sworn in as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.

Complainant Arnab Sarkar - said to be a member of Hindu right wing group - filed a case at the Cyber Crime Police Station of northern West Bengal's Siliguri Police Commissionerate on Monday night, demanding Bandyopadhyay's arrest and exemplary punishment for the post which "hurt Hindu sentiments".

On Thursday evening, Bandyopadhyay and his wife Durba lodged a complaint with the Kolkata Police Cyber Cell of receiving obscene messages on Facebook messenger.

They said they are also receiving "con calls" from unknown numbers.

A case has been lodged under sections 67 of the IT Act and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code on the basis of his complaint.

The couple have been provided with a bodyguard from the Special Branch of Kolkata Police for security.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stood by the poet.

In a veiled attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, she on Thursday said a "certain party engaged in saffronisation" is threatening Bandyopadhyay, and vowed to protect him.

"A particular party, engaged in saffronisation, is giving threats to Srijato on social media. It is unfortunate. It is a political poem. I will take care of the fact that he faces no problem. Let him write poems," she said.
Amman, March 26 : Jordan's Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani said on Saturday that a US presidential envoy will attend the 28th Arab Summit to be hosted in Jordan between March 23 and 29.

Xinhua news agency quoted Momani as saying, the summit will also be attended by United Nations Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

The UN official will also take part in the Arab foreign ministers meeting and will brief them on the latest developments in Geneva talks between the Syrian regime and the opposition, said Momani at a press conference at the summit's media centre.

He added that representatives from the UN, Russia and the EU will also take part in the summit.

Referring to issues discussed during the preparatory meetings for the Arab Summit, Momani said the Arab League officials discussed the threat of terrorism and extremism and means to address them.

Discussions also focused on the need that Arab states take the lead in the fight against terrorism especially since terrorists seek to tarnish the image of Islam.

The Arab Summit, he said, will work on unifying Arab stances regarding the various issues.

Arabs also stressed on their rejection of relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, said the minister.

Stressing that there was a "positive atmosphere" during the summit, Momani said efforts are ongoing to enhance ties between all Arab states.
Today, Security America Inc., a non-bank mortgage lending company announced that they are offering mortgage loans at a 0% down payment rate to service members and veterans of the United States Military. While the competitions rates remain at a steady 3% down payment rate, Security America Inc.s announcement has been welcomed as being potentially game-changing.

VA Home loans are mortgage options typically offered to active duty members, reservists and veterans of the United States Military for the purpose of purchasing a home. It is worth noting that the Veterans Administration does not lend money directly for the VA Home mortgage loans. Rather, the Veterans Administration acts as a guarantor to the top twenty five percent of loan applications made by private lending institutions which in this specific instance refers to Security America Mortgage Inc.

Veterans who qualify for the VA home loan get to purchase a home with zero percent down payment, no personal mortgage insurance and on top of it all the sellers pay for all the closing costs.

The main problem that has always been persistent as far as home ownership is concerned is the down payment option. This drawback continues to be the proverbial thorn in most prospective home owners heels. Back then, the norm was that you could disclose your income level, total assets and not necessarily disclose the details of your job; under the condition that your credit score was healthy.

Secure America Mortgage Inc. also offers another revolutionary mortgage plan where the prospective home owner only needs a 1% down payment for kick start the home buying process. The 1% down payment plan is similarly designed and meant to be specifically used to purchase a home with no allowance of refinancing options.

FHA mortgage financing criteria stipulates that at least 3% mortgage lending is the industry standard. This is echoed by the mortgage plans available in the market offered by brands such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan all at 3% down payment. The difference however comes in with Security America Mortgage Inc. supplying 2% funding as a grant. This is done to meet the industry regulations 3% criteria. This means that the prospective homeowner contributes a friendly 1%.

This 1% down plan does however require of the prospective home owner meet of several terms and prerequisite conditions. First time home buyers are required to complete a free online application form developed by Security America Inc. This establishes the eligibility of the individual. Trading off for a low down payment volume translates to higher loan amounts and consequently larger volumes of monthly payments. As mentioned, the Security America Mortgage Inc. 1% down payment plan does have some prerequisite conditions one of which unspoken, requires the prospective home owner to have high levels of fiscal discipline. This ensures that the individual will stay faithful to the monthly payments.

This by a large part reduces instances of clients backtracking on mortgage loans. The upside however, is that the 1% plan does make quite the difference between being a successful home owner and being forced to wait a lengthy period to grow savings; often with the hope that the mortgage rates and home buying prices remain constant. That isnt always the case. The Mortgage Lending industry is always adjusting to economic conditions.

Compared to traditional FHA loans, Security America Mortgages 1% plan doesnt have any life of loan or upfront mortgage insurance premiums. These additional costs push the Loan to Value ratio well over 98 percent. The 1% down payment plan ensures you retain a larger volume of equity at lower Loan to Value ratios.

To show proof of need, the prospective home owner must be below the median income of the specific country of residence. The debt to income ratio must be below 45% with a minimum credit score of 680. So far, the response has been positive. Security America Mortgage Inc.s 1% down payment plan has received widespread acclaim and shows promise of continued growth.

Click the Link below to calculate your home loan payments.

https://securityamericamortgage.com/va-loan/va-loan-calculator
SAE International is excited to collaborate with NASA to develop this unprecedented opportunity for thought leaders in aerospace engineering to come together and shape the future of NASA research. - Jim Forlenza, SAE International

SAE International and the NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI) will join forces to host, Autonomy and the Next Generation Flight Deck Symposium, at NASAs Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., April 18-19, 2017.

Providing a forum for leading aerospace engineering stakeholders from aerospace companies, government agencies and universities, the symposium will tackle future trends in autonomy and flight deck technology and the latest developments in engineering practices. Specific technologies on the docket are applicable to NASA research and include next generation air traffic control, unmanned aircraft systems, UAS traffic management, spacecraft, smart sensors, artificial intelligence, cyber security and the International Space Station.

SAE International is excited to collaborate with NASA to develop this unprecedented opportunity for thought leaders in aerospace engineering to come together and shape the future of NASA research, says Jim Forlenza, Group Director, SAE Events. The technology and practices discussed here are applicable to a wide swath of exciting applications and we look forward to two days of riveting dialogue and teamwork.

For more information or to register, visit: sae.org/events/nasa

About SAE International

SAE International is a global association committed to being the ultimate knowledge source for the engineering profession. By uniting over 127,000 engineers and technical experts, we drive knowledge and expertise across a broad spectrum of industries. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering professionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our philanthropic SAE Foundation, including programs like A World in Motion and the Collegiate Design Series.

For more information: http://www.sae.org.

About NARI

The NASA Aeronautics Research Institute is part of NASAs Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and was established to pursue the objective of making investments in innovative, early-stage and potentially revolutionary aviation concepts and technologies. A virtual institute, NARI uses Internet-based, geographically dispersed collaborations to improve efficiency in the research process. NARI uses modern telecommunications and information technology tools to conduct virtual meetings, seminars and conferences; link institute teams, share knowledge and enable interaction among the NASA aeronautics community.

For more information: https://nari.arc.nasa.gov/

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the firm is excited to have Lieutenant Colonel Noah Fontanez bolster our existing practice with his extensive knowledge of aviation, and oil and gas law

Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig is proud to announce that Attorney Lt. Col Noah Fontanez and Shannon Broyles, both formerly of Fontanez Law Firm, have joined their exceptional legal team, expanding the Firms presence to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Noah Fontanez will expand upon Dunlap Bennett & Ludwigs existing corporate, business, and litigation practices while providing new expertise. This expansion will allow the firm to serve new and existing clients more efficiently by increasing capacity and available services.

Tom Dunlap, founding partner of Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, stated the firm is excited to have Lieutenant Colonel Noah Fontanez bolster our existing practice with his extensive knowledge of aviation, and oil and gas law.

When asked what Noah Fontanez is most excited about when it comes to joining Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, he stated Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig has a large marketing base and has developed, over the years, the credibility of a firm that gets results. Noah Fontanez first became interested in oil and gas law while attending school at the University of Tulsa College of Law. Noah stated that Oklahoma is kind of the hub of energy law and oil and gas and to him, it made sense to take a class in that area of law. He then went on to the Army JAG Corp and later combined his experience in the military with his knowledge of oil and gas law and took a job as in-house council at Samson Resources; one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the United States at that time. He cited his three years of hands-on experience at Samson Resources with setting the foundation on which he was able to build his own successful practice, Fontanez Law Firm, which he founded in 2009.

Noah stated that the most rewarding aspects of what he does is being able to get the best results for his clients, to hear his name associated with positive comments, and to take something, build it, and have continued success.

The addition of Noah Fontanez and Shannon Broyles to the Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig team builds on their practice of offering all clients the affordable and accessible legal counsel needed to secure future success.

Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig was founded in 2001 as a two-man team, which built an expansive clientele network on the foundation of uncompromised integrity, quality, and accessibility.
Infectious disease affects billions of people on a global scale; from third world countries to hospitals in the United States...

Infectious disease affects billions of people on a global scale; from third world countries to hospitals in the United States, its a threat that is constantly changing and evolving. Mediaplanet's Fighting Infection campaign sparks a conversation on the current obstacles facing infection prevention and offers strategies for the healthcare community to help decrease the number of completely preventable deaths caused by these infections.

The discussion of fighting infection covers large scale issues from poverty, to hospital acquired infections, to antibiotic resistance. The solution to fighting infection lies in the recognition that these issues are intertwined and need to be problem solved by encouraging patients and healthcare workers to work together.

Ansha, an Ethiopian mother and patient healing from Trachoma trichiasis, graces the cover of the print campaign. Her story of triumph over infectious disease is just one example of what is possible when education, funding and treatment come together to offer a patient a new lease on life.

The print component of Fighting Infection is distributed within the Friday, March 24th regional circulation of the weekend edition of USA Today, with a circulation of approximately 250,000 copies and an estimated readership of 750,000 within the New York, DC/Baltimore, Minneapolis, Houston and San Francisco markets. The digital component is distributed nationally, through a vast social media strategy and across a network of top news sites and partner outlets. To explore the digital version of the campaign, click here.

This edition of Fighting Infection was made possible with the support of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Infectious Diseases Society of America, Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, Surgical Infection Society, Malaria No More, American Society of Microbiology, DebMed, Germ-X, Clinical RM, Christian Blind Mission, 3M, ESRI, Halyard Health, Hardy Diagnostics, ICP Medical, TRSA, Accelerate Diagnostics, Nuvo Surgical, Filtration Group Corporation, Molnlycke Health and Wockhardt and many more.

About Mediaplanet

Mediaplanet is the leading independent publisher of content marketing campaigns covering a variety of topics and industries such as Health, Education, Lifestyle, Business and Technology, and Corporate Social Responsibility. We turn consumer interest into action by providing readers with motivational editorial, pairing it with relevant advertisers and distributing it within top newspapers and online platforms around the world. Please visit http://www.mediaplanet.com for more on who we are and what we do.

Press Contact:

Jamie Bradley

Jamie.bradley(at)mediaplanet(dot)com

646-922-1404
CSI Technology Incubator The Incubators direct connection to the world-class programming provided by CSI is exactly the kind of innovative solution our borough needs to succeed in todays competitive tech marketplace. -Linda M. Baran, president, CEO, SINY Chamber of Commerce

The North Shore of Staten Island is becoming a burgeoning center of technology innovation in New York City, led by the efforts of the CUNY College of Staten Island (CSI) Technology Incubator, and its first round of tech-based entrepreneurs from across the region and around the globe.

Ranging from 3D simulations that drive new ways of seeing design and construction project progress to data-driven apps to improve the tourist experience through environmental interactions and local retail opportunities, the CSI Tech Incubator is also home to a new Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition startup that may enhance operations in New York City public schools and schools across the country.

In addition to the global-record-shattering New York Wheel, the Citys only premium shopping experience at Empire Outlets, the platinum-class Lighthouse Point multi-experience complex, and Ironstates barrier-breaking URBY residential village with its own farm-to-table experience, the CSI Tech Incubator is a part of the foundation and epicenter of the Boroughs first innovation district. As this transformative growth continues to unfold on Staten Islands North Shore, the Incubator will be a driver of economic development that will attract more businesses and additional employment opportunities to the borough.

Leveraging the resources of CUNY (The City University of New York), including its world-renowned faculty and the regional-powerhouse CUNY High-Performance Computing Center with the advanced capabilities of Geographic Information System (GIS), the co-working space of the Incubator is a dynamic experience for startups that integrates with the technology ecosystem of New York City and the exponential growth on the North Shore of Staten Island.

The Chamber is pleased to see three innovative start-up companies selected as the CSI Tech Incubators first cohort, commented Linda M. Baran, president and CEO of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce. The Incubators direct connection to the world-class programming provided by CSI is exactly the kind of innovative solution our borough needs to foster a dynamic tech community. With this connection, the Incubator will no doubt provide the resources, guidance, and mentorship these businesses will need to succeed in todays competitive tech marketplace.

This timing is right for a technology revolution in New York City. The economy is transforming rapidly because of technological innovation, and technology is one of the Citys priority sectors for workforce development. The Internet, mobile technologies, social media, and big data have fostered the creation of thousands of new startup companies across the City, and these new tech startups are reordering the Citys economy and workforce. The CSI Tech Incubator is poised to have Staten Island lay claim to the economic development of the technology sector, deepening the boroughs integration with the fabric of the Citys technology ecosystem.

As of March 27, 2017, local and international tech entrepreneurs determined to make the leap from a startup to something much bigger will have a place to call home. These startups may be uniquely poised to find a permanent home on Staten Islands North Shore, in light of its many developments.

Through a competitive application process, the selected startups were chosen for their tremendous potential:

Vectuel: founded in France in 2007, Vectuel develops 3D simulations that enhance capital improvement projects in the design, construction and marketing phases by making them understandable to the widest audience possible. The company designs highly innovative interactive 3D applications for real estate and urban development, combining enhanced maps, 3D models and virtual reality media, to create three-dimensional 360-degree experiences of future developments and help project leaders tell their story in a visual way.

Walk & Explore: utilizes data analytics to personalize and enhance interactions between users and the environment. Users of the new software product can chose among more businesses and municipal services compiled through the interface to increase choice for consumers. The technology can even improve the sightseeing and travel experience for tourists and further boost local sales.

Mtech: employs Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition software for educational purposes, automating administrative tasks in a school setting through an online venue. Through technology, Mtech can provide educators with the ability to know where students are at all times and maintain a safe environment by, for example, alerting school officials of any unauthorized entry to facilities. The founder of Mtech is a College of Staten Island student.

Visit http://www.csitechincubator.com for details.

About the College of Staten Island

The College of Staten Island is a senior college of The City University of New York (CUNY) offering Doctoral programs, Advanced Certificate programs, and Masters programs, as well as Bachelors and Associates degrees.

CSI is ranked 3rd in New York State by MONEY magazine for Best Colleges and 6th in the Nation on CollegeNets Social Mobility Index. CSI is also a Top Masters University, as ranked by Washington Monthly, in the Top 15% for Alumni Salary Potential according to Payscale, and has been named a Military Friendly School for seven consecutive years by GI Jobs magazine.

The CUNY Interdisciplinary High-Performance Computing Center, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the New York City region, handles big-data analysis for faculty researchers and their student research teams, as well as researchers nationwide.

The 204-acre landscaped campus of CSI, the largest in NYC, is fully accessible and contains an advanced, networked infrastructure to support technology-based teaching, learning, and research. Dolphin Cove Resident Halls, the colleges new apartment-style luxury suites, celebrates its third year at full occupancy housing students from across NYC, the United States, and the world.
The IHC Group IHCs goal is to provide better pet health products and increase awareness of pet insurance that benefits both pets and their owners. With PetPartners, we will now broaden our audience to include not just pet parents but quality, responsible breeders. Past News Releases RSS IHC Specialty Benefits Rick...

Daniel Cottrell Joins IHC Specialty...

2017 Career Opportunities with...

The IHC Group (IHC) today announced the acquisition of 85% of the stock of PetPartners Inc., a pet insurance marketing and administration company based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

PetPartners markets pet health insurance covering dogs and cats in all 50 states plus D.C. Since 2002, the company has been the exclusive pet insurance partner of the American Kennel Club (AKC), and provides pet insurance to AKCs registrants through the AKC Pet Insurance brand. Additionally, PetPartners became the exclusive providers of pet insurance to the Cat Fanciers Association in 2004.

While many of us consider our pets to be members of our families, only a tiny fraction of them have insurance coverage, said David Kettig, Chief Operating Officer of IHC. IHCs goal is to provide better pet health products and increase awareness of pet insurance that benefits both pets and their owners. Together with PetPartners, we will now broaden our audience to include not just pet parents but quality, responsible breeders.

IHC has named Rick Faucher to serve as President of PetPartners, and John Wycoff, formerly the companys Director of Marketing and Information Technology, has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer. Stephen Popovich, the incumbent President and Chief Executive Officer of PetPartners will retire after a transition period. Additionally, Sir John D. Spurling, the founder and leading pet insurance innovator will remain on PetPartners board of directors.

Later this year, IHC will begin to underwrite policies sold and renewed by PetPartners through its highly rated carrier, Independence American Insurance Company (IAIC), which has been underwriting pet health plans since 2011. IHC also owns http://www.petplace.com (PetPlace), a popular web destination that attracts over 1,000,000 visitors each month with more than 10,000 veterinarian-approved articles for pet parents concerned with their pets health and well-being. This latest acquisition further demonstrates IHCs commitment to strengthening and growing their footprint in the pet health insurance space.

For more information on IHCs pet health insurance, please contact Rick Faucher at 602-395-7083 or Rick.Faucher@IHCGroup.com. Please visit http://www.ihcgroup.com, http://www.petpartners.com and http://www.akcpetinsurance.com for additional resources.

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About The IHC Group

Independence Holding Company (NYSE: IHC) is a holding company that is principally engaged in underwriting, administering and/or distributing group and individual specialty benefit products, including disability, supplemental health, pet, and group life insurance through its subsidiaries since 1980. The IHC Group owns three insurance companies (Standard Security Life Insurance Company of New York, Madison National Life Insurance Company, Inc. and Independence American Insurance Company), and IHC Specialty Benefits, Inc., a technology-driven insurance sales and marketing company that creates value for insurance producers, carriers and consumers (both individuals and small businesses) through a suite of proprietary tools and products (including ACA plans and small group medical stop-loss). All products are placed with highly rated carriers.

About Independence American Insurance Company

Independence American Insurance Company is domiciled in Delaware and licensed to write property and/or casualty insurance in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Its products include short-term medical, hospital indemnity, fixed indemnity limited benefit, group and individual dental, and pet insurance. Independence American is rated A- (Excellent) for financial strength by A.M. Best Company, a widely recognized rating agency that rates insurance companies on their relative financial strength and ability to meet policyholder obligations (an A++ rating from A.M. Best is its highest rating).

About PetPartners Inc.

PetPartners history dates back to the 1980s when British-owner and leading innovator in pet insurance, Sir. John D. Spurling created a pet health insurance company exclusively for the Kennel Club in Great Britain. PetPartners provided pet health insurance to dogs and puppies in the United Kingdom for nearly two decades before its arrival in the United States. Since 2002, PetPartners has been the exclusive provider of pet health insurance protection to registrants of the American Kennel Club through the AKC Pet Insurance. In 2004, PetPartners was selected by the Cat Fanciers' Association, the largest registry of purebred cats, to provide health insurance to CFA registrants. In 2009, PetPartners began to offer its new PetPartners-branded products both to individuals and groups (such as associations, companies and credit unions).

About American Kennel Club

Founded in 1884, the American Kennel Club is a not-for-profit organization, which maintains the largest registry of purebred dogs in the world and oversees the sport of purebred dogs in the United States. The AKC is dedicated to upholding the integrity of its registry, promoting the sport of purebred dogs and breeding for type and function. Along with its more than 5,000 licensed and member clubs and its affiliated organizations, the AKC advocates for the purebred dog as a family companion, advances canine health and well-being, works to protect the rights of all dog owners and promotes responsible dog ownership. More than 22,000 competitions for AKC-registered purebred dogs are held under AKC rules and regulations each year including conformation, agility, obedience, rally, tracking, herding, lure coursing, coonhound events, hunt tests, field and earthdog tests. Affiliate AKC organizations include the AKC Humane Fund, AKC Canine Health Foundation, AKC Reunite and the AKC Museum of the Dog. For more information, visit http://www.akc.org.

AKC, American Kennel Club, the American Kennel Club seal and design, and all associated marks and logos are trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks of The American Kennel Club, Inc.

Become a fan of the American Kennel Club on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @AKCDogLovers.
Lawyers for Alec Cook, who faces 21 criminal counts related to the alleged sexual assault or harassment of 10 women, said Friday that they have filed an appeal of a committees recommendation that he be expelled from UW-Madison.

A UW-Madison disciplinary committee on March 10 voted to side with a university investigator who recommended expulsion for Cook. The panels decision was 2-1, Cooks lawyers said. On Friday, the lawyers, Chris Van Wagner and Jessa Nicholson, said that UW failed to provide a fair and impartial hearing as required by law.

Cook, 21, of Edina, Minnesota, was arrested in October on sexual assault charges, and more charges were added as other women came forward to allege that Cook had sexually assaulted or harassed them in incidents dating back to March 2015.

Van Wagner and Nicholson said in their statement that UW failed to ensure that panel members werent unduly influenced by erroneous media reports or alerts and notifications issued by the university about Cook.

Alec has asked the chancellor to reject that recommendation and order a wholly new hearing in which Alec is allowed to inquire into the possible biases and prejudgments of each potential panel member before they are allowed to decide his educational fate and future, they wrote.
In this months roundup of the best-reviewed self-published titles, we highlight a thriller about a man drawn into a deadly mystery by his deceased doctor, a collection of devotionals, a sci-fi mystery, and more.

 The Smart One

Drew Yanno

Plot: An unnamed narrator receives a list of apparently unrelated and unfamiliar names after the death of his former family doctor. But the list soon draws him into a mystery that has him running for his life.

PWs Takeaway: An outstanding Hitchcockian thriller... The twists are surprising.... The spare prose a good match for the fast-moving plot.

Comparable Titles: Desperate, Before He Finds Her

Sample Line: Ironically, I keep mentioning life when, in fact, it was death that started the ball rolling....

Read the review.

My Temporary Life

Martin Crosbie

Plot: Crosbie tells the story of Malcolm Wilson, from his school days to his meeting, decades later, with a beautiful woman with a mysterious secret.

PWs Takeaway: Crosbies novel captivates from the get-go with spine-tingling drama and penetrating character portrayals.

Comparable Titles: This Boys Life, The End of Eddy

Sample Line: Numbers dont vary. They dont stray. If a series of numbers add, or multiply, or subtract a certain way today, theyll do that over and over again tomorrow, without fail.

Read the review.

Journey to Peace

Keanna Barnes

Plot: Barnes collects 31 devotionals to help mothers process the grief of miscarriages and stillbirths.

PWs Takeaway: Barness writing is intimate.... The daily meditations are quick doses of hope.

Comparable Titles: What Was Lost, From Gods Word to a Womans Heart

Read the review.

Levels

D.H. Richards

Plot: Set in a fantastic multilevel city, the novel follows small-time fixer Talbot Singhs investigation of a murder that is more than it appears.

PWs Takeaway: The superior worldbuilding offers plenty of potential for a sequel.

Comparable Titles: James S.A. Coreys Expanse series

Read the review.

Judahs Scepter and the Sacred Stone

D.A. Brittain

Plot: A princess flees Jerusalem, meeting the son of a king in Egypt, where an attraction develops.

PWs Takeaway: An engrossing tale of faith and love.

Comparable Titles: Connilyn Cossettes Out from Egypt series

Read the review.
PubTech Connect: New Speakers Added, Early-Bird Registration Ends This week

Otis Y. Chandler, cofounder and CEO of Goodreads, and Max Linsky, cofounder of Pineapple Street Media, the podcast company behind Missing Richard Simmons, have joined the lineup at PubTech Connect, the innovative conference presented by PW and the NYU SPS Center for Publishing, where technology and publishing intersect. The conference will be held in New York City on April 20. The discounted early-bird registration rate expires Friday! Visit PubTechConnect.com for more info and tickets.

From the Newsletters

Tip Sheet

Jess Kidd, author of the new mystery Himself, picks 10 of her favorite supernatural mysteries.

Childrens Bookshelf

An analysis of 2016s bestselling childrens books shows a booming backlist and reinvigorated franchises.

Religion BookLine

A look at independent Muslim publishing houses and the extra challenges they face to counter cultural misunderstandings.

Global Rights Report

More on Melba Escobars The Beauty House, the Colombian novel that took the London Book Fair by storm.

BookLife Report

Can self-publishing crack the academic market?

Sign up for these and other great, free newsletters.

The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week was Into the Water by Paula Hawkins.

Podcasts

Week Ahead

PW senior writer Andrew Albanese on why the most recent AAP Statshot sales report showed a significant decline in trade sales.

More to Come

The More to Come crew discusses comic book shows on Netflix, the surprise bestseller My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, and rumors of a DC/Amazon subscription service.

KidsCast

Literary agent turned author Holly M. McGhee discusses her middle grade novel, Matylda, Bright and Tender, about a fourth grader coping with the death of her best friend.

Blogs

ShelfTalker

Take a video tour of Maines DDG Booksellers.

PW Radio

Holly Tucker discusses her new book, City of Light, City of Poison. And PW news editor John Maher reports on literary nonprofits in the age of Trump.
Bloomsbury Kids Nabs Middle Grade Nonfiction

In a world rights acquisition, Susan Dobinick at Bloomsbury bought Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levys Down the Hill. The middle grade nonfiction book, subtitled One Girls Story of Walking into History, is about Boyces experience in the Clinton 12, a group of black students who, in 1956, integrated Tennessees Clinton High School. (The Clinton 12 are considered the group that broke the color barrier in public education in the South.) Boyce is writing the book with Levy (I Dissent); the pair was represented by Caryn Wiseman at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Kershaw Takes Wave to Caliber

Bestselling author Alex Kershaw (The Bedford Boys) sold The First Wave, about the first troops to break through the German line on D-Day, to Brent Howard at Caliber. The world rights deal, closed after a six-bidder auction, was brokered by agent Jim Hornfischer, who has an eponymous shingle. Dutton said the book, set for spring 2019 to coincide with the 75th anniversary of D-Day, will recount the gripping, immersive drama of one of the most important battles of the 20th century through the lens of a select group of heroes.

Bumble Founder Makes Her Move at Portfolio

Whitney Wolfe sold Make the First Move to Stephanie Frerich at Portfolio. The North American rights deal was handled by CAA. Wolfe is the 27-year-old creator of the dating app Bumble, on which only women can initiate contact with potential matches; the publisher said the book, which is scheduled for fall 2018, will be a manifesto on how to take action in your career and business, as well as in life and love.

Wilkman Mounts a Screening at Bloomsbury

Documentary filmmaker and author Jon Wilkman (Floodpath) sold a history of documentary filmmaking to Anton Mueller and Callie Garnett at Bloomsbury. Mel Berger at William Morris Endeavor represented Wilkman, selling North American rights. Bloomsbury said the book, scheduled for 2019, will focus on the innovators and the new technologies that changed the way Americans viewed the truth.

Briefs

Fonda Lee sold world rights to her adult debut, Jade City, to Sarah Guan at Orbit. The book, which is slated for fall 2017, was sold by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. Lee is a YA author (Zeroboxer) and black belt. Jade City, according to Orbit, is a gripping Godfather-esque saga of intergenerational blood feuds, vicious politics, magic, and kung fu.

Pegasuss Katie McGuire took world English rights to Clarissa Harwoods historical debut, Impossible Saints. Laura Crockett at TriadaUS Literary, who represented Harwood, said the novel follows an English suffragette torn between her political ambitions and her love for a young clergyman. The book is slated for winter 2018.

In a world English rights deal, Keith Goldsmith at Vintage bought Lucas Manns memoir-in-essays, Captive Audience. Victoria Marini at the Irene Goodman Agency, who represented Mann, described the title as an book-length essay that traces the authors own life and relationships through examinations of the reality television shows he watched.
With the opening of Amazons Chicago bookstore in the citys Southport Corridor section last week, the company now has five Amazon Books outlets and announced plans for five more. Though Amazon took 10 months between opening its first store in Seattle and its second in San Diego, Calif., the pace of openings and announced openings has quickened.

The e-commerce giant opened two outlets last year and added one in Dedham, Mass., in February. Amazon has announced plans for stores in Bellevue, Wash.; Lynnfield, Mass.; New York City; Paramus, N.J.; and Walnut Creek, Calif.

The stores share some basic characteristics, such as displaying their books face out, carrying digital devices and accessories, and only stocking books that receive high ratings from Amazon reviewers. In a new wrinkle added after the first few stores opened, customers who are members of Amazons Prime membership service receive the same discounts they get for online purchases; books are full price for nonmembers. Most stores, which range from 3,500 to 6,000 sq. ft., employ around 20 booksellers and staff.

There are some differences between the outlets, however. The two newest stores, for instance, have small cafes (the Dedham store serves Peets coffee, while in Chicago its Stumptown), and each store carries books that Amazon has determined will appeal to neighborhood buyers in such categories as travel. The Chicago outlet is also the first store not in a mall and is the only one whose doors open at 8 a.m. rather than 10 a.m., as at the four other locations.

Though no specific dates have been announced for when the new outlets will open, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed that all are on track to open this year. How many more stores the company will open remains a mystery, but there have been numerous media reports that Amazon is looking in the Los Angeles area. If true, that would be in keeping with the companys preference for coastal state locations.
The election of President Donald Trump has galvanized many in the book industry to a level of political activism not seen in generations. This week, we continue a series that shines a spotlight on some of the actions taken by those in publishing, bookselling, libraries, the nonprofit world, book-related media, and elsewhere. In the first part of a two-part feature, we look at the recent work of nonprofits.

Book publishingrelated nonprofits have long supported, defended, and promoted both the First Amendmentin particular the rights to freedom of speech and the freedom of the pressand government support for the arts and humanities. But in the wake of the election of President Trump, who has decried well-established journalistic entities as fake news and called for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, many perceive these foundational American ideas, and the agencies that enact them, as being in jeopardy.

As a result, the literary nonprofit world is ramping up for a protracted campaign in favor of free speech and support of the arts. As Dave Fenza, the executive director of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, put it: Literary groups are not changing their values or work. There is just a far greater urgency in expressing those values.

PW checked in with a host of nonprofits to see how they are responding to that urgency, and how their leaders see their organizations roles in a hyperpartisan U.S. The takeaway was clear. Though the literary and book industryrelated nonprofit sector remains diverse, when it comes to the administrations proposals and rhetoric, the response has been uniform and simple: this needs to stop.

Literary Network

At the forefront of the actions taken by nonprofits has been the Literary Network (LitNet), a coalition of nonprofit literary organizations founded in 1992 by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses and Poets & Writers magazine in response to freedom of expression controversies surrounding the National Endowment for the Arts; it is supported by the majority of the other organizations we contacted for this story. In 1995, LitNet was instrumental in preserving NEA writing fellowships. Today, its advocacy committee chair, Joe Callahan, noted, LitNets member organizations have shifted quickly into gear following the election of Trump and the news, in early January, that he plans to axe the NEA. Callahan said that, at that time, LitNet began collecting NEA success stories from its members and organizing members in target areas to reach out to their congresspeople in support of the agency. Collectively, our 68 members bring a breadth of audience and vision to this challenge that we are facing, Callahan said. We believe that the NEA is vital to the creative and educational ecosystem, and we will fight to protect it.

Academy of American Poets

The academy, under the leadership of executive director Jennifer Benka, has worked to publish poems relating or responding to issues brought to light or exemplified by the election. Works include Danez Smiths C.R.E.A.M, on racism and life as an African-American poet; Chard DiNiords Children of Aleppo, about bombings in Syria and war; and Anne Waldmans Anthropocene Blues, about climate change and environmental threats. The academy is also coordinating a special project focusing on themes of migration and immigration in poetry for the newly formed Poetry Coalition, which is advocating for continuing funding for the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Benka added that, for the first time in the organizations history, the academys chancellors have issued a public statement. The academy is also an active member of the Literary Network.

Association of Writers and Writing Programs

The AWPs Fenza sees the current movement as perhaps the most impassioned response from the literary community since the war in Iraq, although, he noted, advocacy this time around focuses on a far wider range of issues. In response to budgetary threats to the existence of the NEA, the AWPs efforts to maintain public funding of the arts have doubled recently, and the AWP has partnered with the organization Americans for the Arts, which is dedicated to advancing the arts in the U.S. The AWP is also an active member of the Literary Network.

Community of Literary Magazines and Presses

Theres no question that recent current events have provided a focus and drive for the CLMP community likely not seen since the Vietnam War, said Jeffrey Lependorf, executive director of the CLMP. One of the founding members of the Literary Network and an advocacy organization by trade, CLMP has remained active in the coalition. The organization has also been working to protect NEA funding by sending directives to its member publishers about how to contact legislators. It also recently cosigned a letter written by the American Literary Translators Association focused on protecting immigrant rights. Lependorf noted that one of the very core values of small press and literary magazine publishing is giving voice to those not always given a place at the larger commercial publishing table; in the wake of the election, he has found that many are focusing in new ways and overtly engaging in political actions in ways beyond the norm.

National Coalition Against Censorship

Earlier in March, the NCAC released a statement in support of freedom of the press in conjunction with the majority of the other nonprofits on this list. We are nonpartisan, and we make a concerted effort to be critics of censorship whether it comes from the left, the right, the center, or wherever in this solar system, said NCAC executive director Joan Bertin, before adding that in my lifeand Ive been around a whileI dont think Ive ever seen a sustained attack on the credibility and sustainability of the press like that being enacted by the current administration. Bertin also worries that this climate might affect which books do and do not get published. Ive read a lot of articles about sensitivity screeners, and it could be plausible that publishers are a little more cautious about what they publish than they may have been a few years ago, she said. Ironically, it appears that the Yiannopoulos book was cancelled because it offended not just the left but the right. As for her organizations response to censorship of publishers or press, regardless of ideological bent, Bertin was clear: We will continue to do what weve always done. We dont defend the speech, we just defend the right to speech, and the right to publish it.

Poets & Writers

At Poets & Writers, magazine editor-in-chief Kevin Larimer maintains that the priority remains to serve, to inform, and inspire creative writers; so of course our coverage is going to reflect whats important to them. The September/October 2016 issue of Poets & Writers magazine featured advice from 50 writers for the next president; in its May/June 2017 issue, a number of articles will directly respond to the Trump administration and its priorities, including its threats to the NEA. Theres no doubt that the positions taken by the Trump administration, some of which run counter to the principles of many of our nations literary artistsincluding the presidents budget proposal that would eliminate federal funding for the NEAare of grave concern to them, Larimer said. Poets & Writers is also a founding member of LitNet, and remains involved in its work as well under the auspices of P&W executive director Elliot Figman.

American Booksellers for Free Expression

ABFE, a unit of the American Booksellers Association, is working on a new Open Discussion Project, which it will use to provide booksellers with tools to encourage people to cross partisan lines and engage in conversation about race, class, immigration, and other divisive issues, according to director Chris Finan. The project will begin with diversity-focused reading lists that can be distributed to customers, used in reading groups, or incorporated into public forums and events. Finan said that six bookseller volunteers are already working on creating the lists, and the ABFE is looking for additional help. The First Amendment is always more important at times when the country is divided, Finan added. It protects the right to protest and freedom of the press. It also provides a way to resolve our differences peacefully in conversation and debate.

American Library Association

While the ALA is continuing in its usual advocacy work, promoting factually correct information and equity and parity in the library community, the variety of things that were handling at one time are definitely different since the election, Julie Todaro, ALA president, said. Ill do two or three [media] interviews a day, some weeks more, and theyll each be on a different topic. This is unique. Todaro added that, unlike in the past, ALA members are explicitly looking for not just advocacy, but an outspoken response to the actions of the current administration. Our people want us to speak up, but they want an outcry, she said. [Now] Ill take a press release that were releasing and Ill change it from opposed to to shocked and dismayed. Because we are shocked and dismayed, and we want to reflect what our members are feeling. She mentioned that now, when candidates run for positions in the ALA, vetting committees will ask questions on topics including sanctuary cities, global warming, and other hot-button political issues, and they will vet candidates based on how their answers correspond with the ALA code. The director of the ALAs Office for Intellectual Freedom, James LaRue, has also been busy spearheading the OIFs condemnation of censorship of government websites and teaching students and others about media literacy, including how to discern fake news from satire and opinion. LaRue noted that there is an emerging role for librarians as moderators of civil and civic discourse, adding that there arent many places left in America where you can go and listen to people that you disagree with. He pointed to librarians in red states such as Montana as caretakers of sensible, fact-based intellectual exchange. Finally, the most recent issue (March/April) of the ALAs magazine, American Libraries, robustly outlines how librarians can best fulfill their mission in times of turmoil.

Authors Guild

We have had to increase our First Amendment activities in the last couple months plus, Authors Guild executive director Mary Rasenberger noted. Our membership comes from across the political spectrum, so as a policy, we try to keep things nonpartisan. That said, when we see authors freedom of expression and freedom of the press attacked, even by the president himself, we need to take a stand. Some may view that as partisan, but we do not. We are serving our mission, period. Rasenberger said that the guild is likely to slow down a bit on free speech advocacy for the moment in order to focus on the guilds other priorities, to ensure that they do not get lost in the hurricane of threats to free expression. Those priorities include rallying opposition to the proposed elimination of funding for the NEA and NEH; letters opposing the budget cuts have been sent to members of the two congressional appropriations committees, and those letters have gained more than 3,500 signatures total. The guild is also pushing for net neutrality and has signed statements and letters regarding freedom of expression from organizations including the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Media Coalition, and the Free Expression Network. The organization has also launched, and has begun publishing online, a series of essays asking authors to respond to the question, What does the First Amendment mean to you?

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

One thing that were noticing on the legal challenge side is that things that were off the table previously in terms of legislation are back on the table, said CBLDF executive director Charles Brownstein. Most especially in the area of filteringlibrary filtering and other kinds of filtering. Brownstein said that his groups focus is primarily on the state and local level, where turnaround time on court decisions and legislation tends to be quicker. He noted an uptick in incidents of book bans and challenges, and mentioned the Stop Human Trafficking Act as having embedded language mandating filtering on devices. The CBLDFs response, Brownstein said, is to provide counsel behind the scenes and public letters when appropriate. The organization is also working with the Kirkland and Ellis law firm to develop a handbook for creators on the First Amendment and intellectual property principles. And CBLDF general counsel Bob Corn-Revere, of the Davis Wright Tremaine firm, is organizing a workshop aimed at acquainting retailers with their First Amendment rights and what the risks are of selling expressive content and how to protect themselves. The organization has signed a number of joint statements, including a National Coalition Against Censorship missive calling President Trumps attacks on the media a threat to democracy.

PEN America

Under the direction of executive director Suzanne Nossel, who previously served in the State Department under Obama and as head of Amnesty International, PEN America will continue to ramp up its political involvementNossel noted that the organization will soon open an office in Washington, D.C. I think its a very different landscape for those of us who do free expression for a living, she said. Things we have taken for granted in this country have been really thrown into question. As such, PEN is putting together a report on how to address issues around fake news without impinging on the freedom of the press. PEN is also active, Nossel said, in the fight to preserve the NEA and NEH. Nossel said that PEN is also working more closely with our partners in the publishing industry, whom she described as galvanized, in efforts to engage authors and publishers more directly in PENs work. Theres a sense that people are on high alert, she said. Publishers are worried about their authors abilities to travel. Weve heard from authors whove been stopped and forced to turn over their passports. Theres a very worrying sense that this new administration is encroaching on our freedom as a creative sector. Nossel noted that she has also been working with the ALAs attorney on a tip sheet on refugees and sanctuary cities, and added that she admires the way organizations such as the ALA have been dealing with the current political climate.

PEN Center USA

PEN Americas Los Angelesbased sister branch of PEN International has run two Freedom to Write petitions in the wake of the election and has advocated for writers on an individual basis as well. These efforts include petitioning authorities to drop charges against the journalist Jenni Monet for covering the North Dakota Access pipeline protests and petitioning U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips to drop the criminal charges against six journalists arrested while covering the inauguration. Libby Flores, the director of literary programs at PEN Center USA, noted that all charges save those against journalist Aaron Cantu have been dropped. The organization also collaborated with literary journal the Rattling Wall in a call for postelection writing, and has launched a Writers Respond essay series where each author provides a take on a First Amendmentrelated issue. PEN Center USAs mission has not changed since November 8, though the need for the kind of work we doadvocating for free expression, writers, readers, and storieshas become even more urgent, said PEN Center USA executive director Michelle Franke. Not only is the First Amendment under attack in the U.S., so are the most vulnerable among us. Journalists need to be protected and championed right now, but so do writers of color, women writers, LGBTQ writers, disabled writers, and so many more.

This article has been updated with new information.
The daughter of Rich and Kathy Dunham of Illinois City has been a member of the National Honor Society, Spanish Club, WYSE, school musical and the prom committee. She is a four-year member of the Rockridge bands, including marching, concert and pep band. She also has performed as a member of the Rockridge Spirit Squad Dance Team throughout high school.
A Madison man struck and killed a pedestrian on a virtually empty Far East Side street last year after inhaling aerosol air duster from a can he had bought less than 10 minutes earlier, a jury decided Friday night.

The jury deliberated for about four hours Friday before also acquitting Timothy E. Dobbs, 37, of a second charge accusing him of hit and run in the death of Anthony C. Minardi, 51, who minutes earlier had gotten off a bus in the 4100 block of Nakoosa Trail on Sept. 5, 2015.

The conviction for homicide by intoxicated driving carries up to 25 years of combined prison and extended supervision.

Dane County Circuit Judge Clayton Kawski will sentence Dobbs in about two months, after a pre-sentence report is completed by the state Department of Corrections. Dobbs will remain behind bars until his sentencing hearing.

Prosecutors said that before the crash, which happened at about 7:20 a.m., Dobbs had been to Woodmans on Milwaukee Street, where he bought candy, and Menards on East Springs Drive, where he bought 10 cans of air duster, because it was on sale.

Dobbs told police that he had been inhaling the air duster to ease the pain of a hand injury he had recently sustained.

In closing arguments Friday, state Assistant Attorney General Emily Thompson told jurors that Dobbs admitted to police and others after the crash that he huffed some of the air duster as he drove. She said he lost consciousness as he drove on Nakoosa Trail, causing his car to cross opposing lanes of traffic, jump a curb and strike a tree and a sign before hitting Minardi on the sidewalk.

She said Dobbs sat in his pickup truck while passers-by assisted Minardi. Dobbs then started the engine, backed up and left the scene on one flat tire before he was stopped by police.

In his testimony Friday, however, Dobbs said he had only tried the air duster in the Menards parking lot, not while he drove. He said he lost consciousness because of the intense pain of trying to remove a brace on his injured hand.

Thompson said that while Dobbs claimed his hand was in great pain that morning, surveillance video from Woodmans and Menards showed him freely using that hand as he made his purchases without any apparent pain.

Is it possible that everything the defendant says is true? Thompson asked. Maybe. But is it reasonable in light of all the other evidence youve seen?

In her closing argument, Dobbs lawyer, Sarah Schmeiser, said that prosecutors hadnt proven that Dobbs was under the influence of any intoxicants at the time of the crash. Evidence of any difluouroethane from the air duster was not found in Dobbs blood, she said.

They havent really identified the intoxicant they think Tim was under the influence of, Schmeiser told the jury.

What happened, she said, was a sad, terrible, tragic accident.

She also said that there was no evidence that Dobbs knew he hit anyone, an essential element of the hit and run charge.

But Thompson said Dobbs had to know that he had struck someone before he fled the scene, which would have been amply evident to him from the dents on the hood of his truck. She also said that Dobbs never bothered to get out of his truck, roll down the window or even look out his truck windows to see Minardi or the people helping him as he lay on the ground.
The Northern Illinois Newspaper Association, a professional organization with member newspapers throughout the region, is seeking scholarship applications from graduating high school seniors who plan to continue their journalism education in college.

The DispatchArgusQCOnline is a member of the association which, each spring, awards one $1,000 and one $500 scholarship.

The scholarships will be presented to a high school seniors who demonstrates the standards of honesty, integrity, attention to detail, hard work, creativity and an understanding and commitment to quality community journalism. The successful candidate may be an editor, writer, photographer, manager, marketing or advertising representative or graphic designer at a high school newspaper and/or website, or a professional news publication, either print or online.

Students must attend high school within the Northern Illinois region including Rock Island, Mercer, Henry and Whiteside counties. Applicants must submit a copy of their high school transcripts, which must include grade-point average.

They also must submit:

 A letter of recommendation from a high school counselor, newspaper adviser or professional supervisor. Additional letters of recommendation are welcome.

 A portfolio of published newspaper work. Examples include articles, display or classified

advertisements, photographs or photo pages, page layouts or full copies of a newspaper

showing the students contribution to the overall product.

 An autobiographical essay that includes a description of career goals.

 A completed nomination form, which can be found at ninaonlinedotorg.wordpress.com/2016-scholarship-entry-form.

Applications must be postmarked by the April 14 deadline. Send them to Northern Illinois Newspaper Association, c/o John Etheredge, Record Newspapers, 109 W. Veterans Parkway, Yorkville, IL 60560.
CLOVIS, Calif.  Ramiro Corral Guerrero used to eat his lunch in the bathroom to hide from bullies and because he didn't know how to speak English.

After about a month of this, he found friends in his teachers at Clark Intermediate School and started eating lunch in their classrooms. They were much different than the teachers he had in his small childhood village in Mexico ruled by drug cartels.

"The teachers would hit us  body punishments with rulers and books," Ramiro recalled, "and they would miss school a lot."

His Clovis teachers show up to class and never hit him.

At 17, Ramiro is far different from that shy reclusive boy who used to hide in the bathroom. He's now fluent in English and is on his way to learning French as a member of Clovis High School's French Club. It's among a long list of extracurricular activities he's involved in, including Latin dance, Academic Decathlon, Science Olympiad, a Veterans Club, Latino Club and Leo Club  the student organization of philanthropic Lions Clubs International.

Ramiro was also recognized as one of Clovis Unified School District's 2017 Students of Promise during a special ceremony recently. The 16 high school juniors chosen this year were honored for overcoming personal challenges to excel in school.

Some of those challenges: Serious medical conditions, homelessness, abuse and addiction. In 17-year-old Alecsis Tipton's case, the addiction applied to her mother, who died of a methamphetamine overdose when Alecsis was 12 years old.

The Clovis High School student wants to go to college to become a social worker so she can help children who have gone through similar struggles.

"I really want them to know that there is someone there that wants them to get to a better place," Alecsis says. "I want them to know there is positivity in the world, and they don't have to keep going through the things that they are going through."

Her grades fell around the time her mother died  all Fs at one point  until her father and grandmother warned that if she failed, her future opportunities would be limited. Alecsis credits family, faith in God and knowing her strengths and weaknesses in helping her push through pain to succeed.

"I know if I'm weakening in something, I immediately go and get help with it," she says, "and I take responsibility for myself."

Her high school counselor, Jennifer Pritchard, describes Alecsis as positive and compassionate -- a girl who regularly leaves thank you notes pinned to the door of her office. Alecsis' grandmother, Mary Tipton-Martinez, paints a similar picture.

"She just has this great heart of gold  she really does," Tipton-Martinez says. "She's like a mother hen sometimes to her sister."

Ramiro's mother, Maribel Hernandez, is very proud of her son. She believes Ramiro will reach his dream of becoming a physician. In Mexico as a boy, he milked cows to make cheese -- his family's main source of income.

Ramiro wants to become a doctor who helps everyone. He dislikes how expensive medical care is now.

"People really need help sometimes and they (doctors) just don't accept them," he says. "I would really like to change that."

His dreams don't stop with becoming a doctor.

"On the side," he adds, "I would like to be a music producer."

"Music is the language of everyone," Ramiro says. "Music speaks to everyone. I really like music, and since it helped me to learn English, I want to help other people to learn other things. ... Even music helps you make new friends, because you can share your same interests."

Ramiro might even make music in Paris someday, a place he envisions as "romantic and exotic."

He has some words of encouragement -- which he shared on in Spanish and English -- for other immigrants now struggling like he did to find acceptance in a new land:

"Work hard, dream big, never give up, just have faith."
Although the mass media present China today as progressive, especially after the 2008 Olympics fanfare, it remains among the world's cruelest regimes.

The term Red China is not anachronistic. Though certainly less oppressive than during the Cultural Revolution, when it executed millions, China is still governed by a single regime, the Communist Party, which requires members to be atheists. It imprisons dissidents without due process, oppresses Tibet, and enforces a policy, backed by compulsory abortion, restricting most families to one child. (Since Chinese traditionally prefer male offspring, this has led to disproportionate abortion  even infanticide  of female babies, creating an artificial majority of males in China.) The government directly controls most media, blocking criticisms of itself on the Internet.

Perhaps worst is suppression of religious freedom. Christian churches, though permitted, must submit to government control and censorship  either as part of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement or Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Independent house churches, comprising some 90 percent of China's Christians, face persecution. The Voice of the Martyrs reports:

The human rights record in China is one of the worst in the world. Its system of re-education through labor detains hundreds of thousands each year in work camps without even a court hearing.... The house church movement (unregistered churches) endures unimaginable persecution, yet stands on its commitment to preach the gospel, no matter the cost. China continued its crackdown against Christians and missionaries in 2008, as they sought to purge the country of religion before hosting the Olympic games.... Church property and Bibles were confiscated. Christians were harassed, questioned, arrested and imprisoned. Christians in prisons are routinely beaten and abused.
This has been a bumpy week for Ukraine. An exiled former Russian MP turned Kremlin critic was gunned down in Kiev on Thursday outside a hotel popular with foreign business people. Hours earlier, a huge weapons arsenal about 100km from the front line with Russian-backed separatist forces in the country's east exploded in a series of massive blasts. Kiev has suggested Russia may be responsible for both; Moscow denied it.
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Close to 50 people gathered at the University of Georgia Arch March 21 to protest the most r
On the day of the Classic City Crawl, there will be a sea of people wearing green t-shirts hopping in and out of downtown bars, restaurants an
People are often told to take a walk in someone elses shoes or to see with someone elses eyes. No matter how hard people try to explain hard
'It is not as bad an airline as it is made out to be: We serve wonderful food, the leg space is more, our cabin crew is warm and friendly.'

'The customer needs to be apprised of these things,' Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani tells Arindam Majumder and Alokananda Chakraborty.

The India International Centre has an old world charm about it. It is also the place frequented by politicians, bureaucrats, Supreme Court judges, journalists and so on.

It is no surprise that Air India boss Ashwani Lohani, who strongly believes in the strength and goodness of the government sector, chose this place to have lunch with us.

Just a day before we are scheduled to meet, the federal auditor Comptroller and Auditor General of India had contested the government-owned airline's claim of a turnaround saying that it had understated its losses.

We were apprehensive Lohani might call off the meeting anticipating tough questions. But he doesn't disappoint.

Lohani is there a little before 1.30 pm, when we are scheduled to meet, and is unflappable.

"Why should one be afraid if he has done nothing wrong?" he says and insists Air India has changed... and changed for the better.

Air India recorded its maiden operating profit in a decade in the last fiscal. The profit earned on the back of a record low fuel price was enough to get a pat on the back from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It is also a fact that the airline that once dominated the Indian skies has steadily lost ground to private airlines and is always under scrutiny.

With India's chief economic advisor expressing doubts over its viability, the clamour to privatise the loss-making carrier has only grown louder.

Lohani refuses to be drawn into the debate on whether Air India should indeed be privatised.

"I don't fret over things that are not in my control, I only concentrate on doing things the right way," Lohani says, pointing out that he has been successful in changing the perception of the airline in the public eye.

"It is not as bad an airline as it is made out to be: We serve wonderful food, the leg space is more, our cabin crew is warm and friendly. The customer needs to be apprised of these things."

Before things heat up we decide to order food. Lohani is a light eater: He chooses garlic toast and a helping of sprout salad. We protest as we order our fish and chips. As an after-thought Lohani adds a beer.

He says he has had a heavy breakfast -- he had been to an army camp near Siachen in the morning and had stuffed parathas there.

"I also like to control what I eat and exercise to keep fit." Breathing exercises and asanas are part of the daily routine for this man who goes to office all seven days of the week.

In the summer of 2012 when the government offered a bailout package of Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) to the airline, Lohani, then a divisional railway manager, had written a blog post saying how those developments made for 'interesting reading.'

'The recent downturn in the fortunes of Air India makes for interesting reading. Amazing how Indian bureaucrats can screw a high-performing public-sector corporation in a short time frame,' Lohani had said.

In August 2015, Lohani was appointed chairman and managing director of the struggling airline. By then, he had gained a reputation as a turnaround man having revived the fortunes of the India Tourism Development Corporation and the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation.

We ask him how he feels about that title.

"I don't know what it means, I really don't know. I have just handled two or three organisations properly. Yes, I agree that under my tenure their fortunes revived," he says matter-of-factly.

Then he lets slip his dislike for management jargon. "You see all these things -- 'turnaround', 'strategy' -- they are over-rated terms, they don't mean anything."

"You have to believe in the power of people and the strength of a leader. An organisation can be changed if the staff believes in its leader.'

Lohani has recently asked his top team to sit on the same floor of Airlines House, the Air India headquarters. "It helps to connect with people."

"There is no strategy for turnaround," he goes on. "In my view 'strategy' is too light a word, I believe in the power of my men, their genuine efforts. People look for integrity, confidence and an unbiased attitude from the top management. You do that, you can easily have the support of your men."

Simple.

Lohani recounts an incident during his days as DRM at Indian Railways. The safai karmacharis of a station were on strike for more than a week.

"I went there, took off my shoes, sat with them on the platform and requested them with folded hands to call off the strike promising that all their problems will be resolved. And they did call off the strike," he says, asserting the need for constant communication with a team.

So how long will it take Air India to turn around? He refuses to give a timeline citing the huge debt burden he has inherited.

"It impacts every single thing, every single decision. I had given myself one year for ITDC, but this is completely different. I was eager to join Air India, but wasn't aware that I have to fight such huge debt."

Air India sits on a debt pile of around Rs 46,000 crore (rs 460 billion), which entails an outgo of over Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) per year in terms of debt servicing.

It is in negotiation with lenders for restructuring the debt, but efforts have failed to fructify so far.

As we near the end of our conversation, we order fig ice creams, a popular draw at this place. Lohani is not interested. "I like home food. Not because of anything else, but because my wife is a great cook." He orders another beer.

We point out that even in operational terms Air India's performance has been below par as compared to private airlines.

"You can't compare us to private companies, the modus operandi is different -- we are a network airline -- in the public sector you are scrutinised at each and every step, I can't even order for a spoon without approval," says the bureaucrat who likes to think of himself as a CEO.

What has been his biggest achievement as Air India boss?

"I think I have brought in a sense of professionalism at the airline -- it runs like a business," Lohani gets back to his earlier comment about the importance of leadership.

"You have to be transparent in your dealings with your subordinates," he adds, pointing out that his own family travels by train.

The other thing the father of two girls is proud of is the new environment of "fairness" in the organisation.

"If I receive a complaint from a woman colleague against a male colleague about harassment, I first sack the guy. Inquiry baad mein hogi (Inquiry will happen later)."

Is that fair to the male colleague?

"Well, if you do that once, twice, the men will be very very careful. Plus, the women also know there will be immediate action. So they won't bring frivolous complaints."

How does it feel to be constantly under the media glare?

"You have to live with it. This is a large and complex operation. But you learn to deal with things."

In fact, it is the same reason why he doesn't like Delhi so much. "It is large and complex. I like small town simplicity," says Lohani, who grew up in Kanpur and has lived in 10 cities during the course of his career.
'The top-most functionaries and destiny-makers of the nation have thrown away the pretensions of statesmanship.'

'They seem to have made a categorical announcement that the next general election will be fought on the solo plank of Hindutva, rather than on good governance, economic development, and employment to youth', says Mohammad Sajjad.

With the Janata Party's 'Open Passport Policy' in the mid 1970s, employment opportunities for the Muslims, along with Hindus, expanded in the Gulf countries.

This helped improve the economic lot of Indian Muslims. This upwardly mobile segment invested in employable technical education for their children as also in retail businesses and even in local politics.

All this created competition, rivalry, hostility. Besides, they made their presence felt in public spaces in various other ways.

Simultaneously, during the 1980s, the 'secular' nationalism in India's governance turned out to be inclined towards 'cultural' nationalism tilted in favour of the minorities.

The Shah Bano judgment overturned by Parliamentary legislation in 1986 was identified as the best specimen of this 'appeasement.'

This is when Indian politics came face to face with the expressions of 'pseudo secularism' and 'minority-ism.'

Since then, building up majoritarian Hindutva politics became easier.

The neo-rich segment of Muslims also resorted to enactment of their culture in India's public space -- higher and imposing minars and gunmbads (spires and domes); grander and brighter mosques; azaan on loudspeakers; night-long frequent milad ceremonies on loudspeakers; religious processions for the Prophet's birthday; holidays in public institutions/offices on such occasions; all of which makes the Muslim presence in public space even much exaggerated.

Outside India, the scholars, Uriya Shavit and Fabian Spengler, in their 2016 essay, based on an analysis of case studies in England, Germany, Sweden and Israel, argued that in recent years the azaan on loudspeakers has triggered fierce protests as it represents an Islamic quest for domination and a decline of Christian values.

Thus in the name of secularism what was played out by the Congress in the 1980s and in subsequent decades by the regional forces, which increasingly reduced to a specific dynasty of a specific neo-dominant caste, was cultural nationalism, 'favouring' Muslim minorities.

So, in the name of 'secularism', arrogantly leaving aside the ablest of politicians, even a novice like Rabri Devi could become chief minister. And even history-sheeters could rise to power. A Taslimuddin could become a Union minister of state for home affairs.

In short, administrative vision and capabilities were discounted while elevating someone to high office.

Kidnappings for ransom, non-payment of salaries to government employees for several months together, absence of roads, unavailability of electricity, growing unemployment, all were discounted.

Mockery and buffoonery could be taken as the modus operandi of nation building. Yet, quite disgustingly, such regimes kept getting votes in the name of 'secularism' and 'social justice.'

This was inevitably destined to be outdone by the cultural nationalism of the majoritarian onslaught.

Today, in the name of Hindutva, the saffron forces are happily going the same way of discounting ethical eligibilities, administrative vision and capabilities, while selecting a chief minister.

The cynical game of playing out 'cultural nationalism' has come full circle.

Today, when the history-sheets of the newly anointed Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, is cited, the by now brainwashed and brutalised electorates, in this 'age of anger' can dismiss it by saying: 'Well, we give a damn to all these; we are getting Hindutva and that is it! Here is a leader who can show the 'appeased' minorities their 'deserved' place on the margins! Let this score first be settled.'

Representing this sentiment, the top-most functionaries and destiny-makers of the nation too have thrown away the pretensions of statesmanship.

They seem to have made a categorical announcement that the next general election in 2019 will be fought on the solo plank of Hindutva, rather than on good governance, economic development, and employment to youth.

In this post-truth era, truth is suspected, and falsehood is trusted.

Hence, there are only a few who make a cool headed introspection as to whether the new regime will be capable of mitigating growing rural distress, of undertaking agrarian development, of creating employment, etc.

Balanced regional development (intra and inter-provincial) is no longer a concern. Religious hysteria is. Accentuated most by the lack of a credible alternative in terms of leadership.

In short, the 'cultural' nationalism of exclusion and hate has overtaken economic nationalism, if at all an adeqauate content of it ever existed.

In the 19th century, colonised India had charted out its path in a different way. First, the nation-in-making that India was underwent self introspection through socio-religious reforms, 'informed by the twin pillars of humanism and rationalism.'

It preceded economic nationalism. Metaphorically speaking, a Raja Rammohan Roy preceded a Dadabhai Naoroji.

Subsequently, competitive communalism was also played out, as the popular phase of anti-colonial nationalism became more assertive and stronger.

Pakistan defined its nationalism in exclusionary ways. Zia-ul Haq's era was for even greater assertion along those reactionary lines of Islamisation. Pakistan is still living up to that dangerous idea regardless of what kind of ideological forces are formally in power there.

It is paying heavier human cost. Even its religious majority is not spared, and cannot remain unhurt. It is in the grip of blood thirsty, radicalised, non-State actors.

It is not that a Third World country like India is no longer colonised.

Make no mistake. India is certainly an informal colony of the global capitalist-imperialist powers.

But the moment this analysis is put forward, the smell of 'Leftism' creates repulsion. This is an era of ascendance of religious/majoritarian reaction across the globe.

Turkey's Erdogan, the US' Trump are only more prominent manifestations in our times. Erdogan has risen to power through the hate-filled communalisation of vernacular spaces. Our trajectory is no different.

India is increasingly choosing to imitate these countries without caring for the costs. Pakistan and others have paid, and continue to pay.

This exclusionary 'nationalism' will not solve everyday needs and the economic well being of the people. It will not create employment for the youth.

Human history is aware of it. It therefore does give us hope that such regressive trends never last beyond a specific brief duration. But such phases don't go away just inevitably.

Some new forces emerge and come forward to take humanity out of such an abyss. One may or may not be see any such force available at the moment.

But the enviably long civilisational character of India will certainly throw up such forces, sooner than later.

Sanity shall prevail. In such moments of crises, poetry come to our rescue. Let us recall Faiz:

Dil naa-ummeed to nahin naa-kaam hi to hai

Lambi hai gham ki shaam magar shaam hi to hai

That eagerly awaited morning will certainly dawn tomorrow, with new ideas, new idioms, new slogans, new vision, new programmes!

It will certainly stand up to reclaim plural India with its nationalism of inclusive development!

Professor Mohammad Sajjad teaches at the Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. He is the author of Muslim Politics in Bihar: Changing Contours Contesting Colonialism and Separatism: Muslims of Muzaffarpur since 1857.

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IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, March 21, 2017. Photograph: Press Information Bureau
Yogi Adityanath has turned the VVIP guest house into his seat of power, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.

IMAGE: A priest paints swastika and 'om' signs outside the official bungalow of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow. The CM is expected to shift into his official residence next week during the nine-day Navratri fest. Photograph: PTI Photo

Lucknows VVIP Guest House has become the most powerful address in Uttar Pradesh ever since newly-appointed Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi checked in to one of its suites after his elevation to the top post.

The guest house, which is owned by the UP governments estate department, has in the past hosted Union ministers and other high profile guests during their short visits to the state capital.

However, the precincts have never seen such activity as they have over the past week, after Adityanath moved in with his security paraphernalia and aides. The entire complex and surrounding area have since been virtually converted into a fortress.

The VVIP guest house is located opposite another city landmark, the Loreto Girls College on the posh Mall Avenue. The area also boasts of the residence of former Chief Minister Mayawati and the Bahujan Samaj Partys office.

So far, Adityanath has deferred his entry to 5 Kalidas Marg, the official residence of incumbent chief ministers. The VVIP guest house and the official residence are less than a kilometre apart.

According to sources, Adityanath could move to the official residence next week during the nine-day Navratri fest, which religious Hindus consider auspicious for starting new ventures. Earlier, the official residence was subjected to Hindu religious rituals to prepare its premises for the new occupant, who himself is a revered seer and head of the powerful Gorakshnath Peeth of Gorakhpur.

Meanwhile, Adityanath is scheduled to visit Gorakhpur, his parliamentary constituency, on Saturday. He will return to the state capital on Sunday.

The VVIP guest house continues to see a steady stream of high heeled visitors, including politicians, bureaucrats (both present and past), and police officials.

On Friday, former state minister and senior BSP leader Ramvir Upadhyaya met Adityanath at the guest house to complain about the alleged attempt on his sons life by a Samajwadi Party leader.

SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadavs younger son Prateek and his wife Aparna also called upon Adityanath, as did Alok Ranjan, a former state chief secretary and advisor to former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Rajinikanth on Saturday cancelled his visit to Sri Lanka, where he was scheduled to give away homes for displaced Tamils, after some pro-Tamil outfits urged him to withdraw from the programme.

The actor said he took the decision after founders of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, Vaiko and Thol Thirumavalavan respectively, and Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi leader T Velmurugan asked him to consider withdrawing from the programme.

In a statement, the actor said Vaiko had spoken to him over the phone on the issue, while Thirumavalavan had made a plea through the media and Velmurugan had sent across a message through a friend.

They placed before me various political reasons and kindly asked me not to participate in the programme. Although I could not wholeheartedly accept what they said, I avoid attending the function heeding their request, he said.

The pro-Tamil outfits had cautioned the superstar from getting involved in the emotive ethnic issue.

The 66-year-old actor was scheduled to hand over the homes built by Lyca Groups Gnanam Foundation for displaced Tamils in northern Jaffna on April 9-10. Lyca Productions, owned by Subashkaran Allirajah, is producing the actors latest sci-fi movie 2.0, a sequel to his earlier Enthiran.

In 2014 various Tamil outfits, including VCK and TVK, had opposed Lyca Productions Tamil movie Kaththi, alleging that Allirajah had close business ties with then Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is often criticised in Tamil Nadu for the death of civilian Tamils during the final battle against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009.

Explaining the reason behind his earlier decision to take part in the programme, Rajinikanth said it was his long-time desire to salute that brave soil.

There was a long-time desire in me to set foot on that brave soil where lakhs of (Tamil) people gave their lives for the cause of their race. After fulfilling that, I was also eagerly waiting to meet the people and have an open talk with them, he said.

Further, he had planned to meet Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena to take up the emotive fishermen issue, the actor said.

Apparently pained at the opposition to his Lanka visit, the actor said he was not a politician, but an artiste whose duty was to entertain people.

He said if there were any future visits by him to the neighbouring country, it should not be politicised.

If I get the privilege of witnessing that divine soil in the future by visiting there and entertaining the people, kindly do not politicise that visit, he said.

Rajinikanth said he should not be stopped during such future visits, adding, he was making the plea humbly and it was his right.

The actor further said he was scheduled to hand over the keys of houses to beneficiaries along with British MP James Berry, Chief Minister of the Northern Province, CV Vigneswaran and others on April 9.

There was also a plan to give away Research Building Fund for the Jaffna University, he said.

The next day, he was supposed to participate in a sapling planting event, Rajinikanth said, adding, both events were scheduled at Vavuniya in Sri Lanka.

The popular actor said Allirajah had constructed 150 houses in memory of his mother Gnanambika.

While Thirumavalavan had asked the actor not to get involved in the emotive ethnic issue, TVK leader Velmurugan had alleged that the programme was an effort to paint a rosy picture of the relations between Sinhalese and Tamils.
Eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi civic polls, Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the Aam Aadmi Party alleging that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson.

Addressing BJP workers ahead of the municipal corporation elections, Shah referred to the partys victories in the recent assembly polls and said a win the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the national capital.

Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in saffron, Delhi continues to remain a white spot and asked the party workers to ensure BJPs victory in the civic polls.

After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps and so that the BJPs victory flag is unfurled in the national capital, he said.

Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.

The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in Delhi Commission for Women, in procuring water tankers, street lights.

A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in WAQF board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequers money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements, Shah said.

The BJP president contrasted his partys clean record in governance with the AAPs tainted tenure, saying many of its legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and rape.

He also dared Kejriwal to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges.

This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls, Shah said, and appealed to party activists to work hard for the elections as it was Delhi where the then Jana Sangh, BJPs predecessor, came to power first.

Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel as well as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari were present at the event.

Shah also referred to the anti-terror surgical strike undertaken last year, saying the armed forces barged into Pakistan to avenge the killing of soldiers in Uri last year.
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Riot police in the capital of Belarus arrested dozens on March 25 as protesters gathered to take part in Freedom Day rallies. The protests were the latest in a series of demonstrations against the policies of authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Protesters also took to the streets in other cities across the country. (RFE/RL's Belarus Service)
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Riot police in Minsk detained hundreds of people on March 25 during protests against President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government. Protesters chanted "Shame on you!" and "Fascists" as police blocked roads leading to central Minsk, where the opposition supporters gathered to hold a march. (RFE/RL's Belarus Service)
Afghan security forces have killed seven militants in the latest military operation in Logar Province, where Taliban insurgents have a strong presence, a local police chief has said.

Esmatullah Alizai said that government forces also seized weapons from the militants during the operation in Logar's volatile Charkh district on March 24.

Alizai said more than 20 militants were killed, 10 wounded, and four others detained since the military sweep in Logar, southeast of the capital, Kabul, began three weeks ago, amid Afghanistan's spring fighting season.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, officials say security forces uncovered a plot to detonate explosives inside a mosque in the northern province of Sar-e Pol.

Provincial Governor Mohammad Zahir Wahdat said on March 25 that a man was arrested in suspicion of planting a bomb inside the Guzar Shahan mosque ahead of Friday Prayers on March 24.

With reporting by Khaama.com
MINSK -- Riot police deployed in force in the Belarusian capital on March 26, preventing protesters from holding a rally one day after a violent crackdown that activists said saw hundreds of people arrested and many beaten.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets across Belarus in recent weeks in the countrys largest antigovernment demonstrations in years (read latest in Belarusian-language live blog here).

Demonstrators have been trying to build on discontent that has been growing in Belarus since President Alyaksandr Lukashenkas government began enforcing a tax against people who dont have full-time employment.

The 2015 law, known popularly as the law against "social parasites," went into effect earlier this year, sparking protests that have broadened into general dissatisfaction against Lukashenkas 23-year rule, which many Western countries have described as Europes last dictatorship.

In the past, most political protests have been limited to Minsk and other major cities, but notably, the demonstrations of recent weeks have popped up in smaller towns and cities.

Several dozen people were detained in Minsk March 26, as protesters began gathering in central October Square. Riot police rounded up protesters, in some cases forcefully herding them into police vans.

Police conducted searches in other cities across the country ahead of time as well.

Tatsyana Revyako, an activist from a Belarusian human rights group called Vyasna (Spring), said on March 25 that an estimated 700 people were arrested in Minsk.

WATCH: Belarusians Protest In Homel And Brest

Many of the arrested were beaten and are in need of medical assistance, she said.

During his two decades in power, Lukashenka has systemically quashed opposition parties, independent media, and civil society groups. Past outbursts of political protests have been met with violence.

Some political observers have speculated that Lukashenka was allowing the demonstrations to take place as a way to release pressure on the countrys beleaguered economy.

IN PICTURES: Police Detain Protesters In Minsk

Belarus is heavily dependent on cheap oil imports from Russia, which it refines and then exports to Europe and elsewhere.

The country is also heavily dependent on trade with Russia, and remittances from Belarusians working there, something that has suffered due to Russias own economic problems.

The European Union has condemned the Belarusian authorities actions against protesters and demanded an immediate release of all recently detained peaceful citizens.

Opposition Leader Detained

Opposition leader and former presidential candidate Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu was detained late on March 24 in the western city of Brest, where he is currently being held in a detention facility.

Nyaklyeau was on his way to Minsk from Warsaw after talks with Polish government officials. He was stopped at the border and taken off a train, his wife, Olga Nyaklyaeva, said.

Nyaklyaeu had been scheduled to appear in court on March 24 to face charges of participation in previous protests, but the trial was delayed when he failed to show.

Nyaklyeau was planning to lead the rally in Minsk along with prominent opposition leader Mikalay Statkevich.

Statkevich, a former presidential candidate, said he still planned to attend the protest, but he did not attend and his whereabouts were unknown late on March 25.

Statkevichs wife, Maryna Adamovich, told RFE/RL she was briefly detained by authorities at the March 25 Minsk demonstration and that she has not heard from her husband since March 23.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service correspondent Alyaksandr Dynko in Minsk; AP and AFP
Among the numerous routine violations of human rights in the Republic of Daghestan, one of the most widespread and pernicious is the inclusion of thousands of people, including some underage children, in the so-called "prophylactic register" of individuals suspected of "an inclination to commit a criminal offense."

While that category includes former offenders, registered drug addicts and alcoholics, and people with a record of domestic violence, many others are peaceable, law-abiding members of society. Their sole offense is that the republic's Interior Ministry regards them as "religious extremists," even though there may not be the slightest evidence to substantiate such suspicions.

It should be stressed that the prophylactic register is not an exclusively Daghestani phenomenon. It was instituted by the federal Interior Ministry, and the bureaucratic procedure under which local police officers identify and add to it the names of potential offenders is spelled out in detail in a directive issued in December 2012, according to the news portal Caucasian Knot.

In Daghestan, however, that procedure, together with the stipulation that a person can be entered in the register only after a police officer has become convinced on the basis of a one-on-one conversation that he/she poses a genuine threat, is routinely violated in the name of fighting religious extremism.

Moreover, in April 2015, Daghestan's Interior Minister Lieutenant General Abdurashid Magomedov issued additional instructions on intensifying measures to identify and register extremists, and on keeping them under surveillance. Human rights activists say Magomedov was not empowered to issue those instructions, which are therefore illegal.

Detailed criteria for inclusion on the prophylactic register have never been made public, and some Daghestanis remain unaware that they have been so designated until they are detained by police. They are then routinely taken to a police precinct, photographed, fingerprinted, and required to provide DNA samples, none of which are required under the federal Interior Ministry directive.

People on the register may not travel beyond Daghestan. Some hospitals reportedly refuse to treat them. In the worst-case scenario, they are subjected to torture to induce them to incriminate fellow "religious radicals," or criminal charges are fabricated against them.

Initially, Daghestan's Interior Ministry targeted primarily those believers who profess the austere Salafi strain of Sunni Islam favored by the now moribund North Caucasus insurgency. But increasingly in recent months adherents of traditional Sufi Islam are also being included in the register.

At the same time, human rights campaigners also suspect rank-and-file police officers in Daghestan are under pressure to demonstrate their "efficiency" in combatting the threat posed by "religious extremism" and risk dismissal for failing to do so.

Daghestan's Salafi minority reportedly numbers between 40,000-50,000 people, of a total population of some 2.9 million. In his annual address to parliament in March 2015, Interior Minister Magomedov gave the total number of names on the prophylactic register as 17,200, of whom he said 6,601 "espoused nontraditional Islam" (meaning Salafism), according to the independent Russian-language weekly Chernovik.

One year later, those figures had risen to 20,407 and 10,338, respectively. That represents an increase of more than 50 percent in the number of people entered in the register on the grounds of their actual or imputed religious belief.

The Moscow-based human rights group Memorial said in the summer of 2016 that its Makhachkala office advised "dozens of people every day" who seek help in getting their names removed from the prophylactic register. Some of them, according to lawyer Murad Magomedov, were atheists.

The most likely explanation for the exponential increase over the past two years in the number of people officially designated religious extremists is alarm over the number of young men leaving Daghestan and other North Caucasus republics to join the fight in Syria, and a resulting intensification of efforts by the Interior Ministry to stem that exodus. Chernovik reported in June 2016 that over the previous 10 months there was an analogous huge increase in detentions of worshippers at Salafi mosques after Friday Prayers. The most prominent Salafi mosques, including that on Kotrov Street in Makhachkala, have since been closed.

Meeting in May 2015 with Interior Minister Magomedov and Republic of Daghestan head Ramazan Abdulatipov, members of the Russian presidential human rights commission argued that the practice of including suspected religious extremists in the prophylactic register was unconstitutional insofar as it impinges on the right to freedom of belief. Magomedov categorically denied that anyone was added to the register on the basis of his religious beliefs, and insisted that the entire procedure was legal. Republican Deputy Prime Minister Ramazan Djafarov, a retired Federal Security Service (FSB) major general, similarly affirmed that the prophylactic register was both necessary and legal.

Memorial's team of lawyers has since drafted extensive and detailed advice to people who discover they have been entered in the prophylactic register, enumerating their legal rights and explaining how, and within what time period, to appeal against procedural violations or take legal action.

Some court cases have even been successful: Daghestan's Supreme Court has ruled twice that police acted illegally in adding people to the register, while one of the most prominent victims, Magomed Magomedov, spokesman for a Salafi mosque in Makhachkala, won a legal battle late last year to have his name removed from the register.

Meanwhile, Kremlin insider Maksim Shevchenko, who was refused registration in Daghestan to run as a candidate for last year's Russian State Duma election, has formally asked President Vladimir Putin to task the Prosecutor-General's Office with investigating violations by Daghestani police of the requirements for entering people in the prophylactic register.

An end to such violations seems unlikely, however. Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow Carnegie Center has described Daghestan's Interior Ministry as an independent actor, a "fortress under siege" that seeks in the first instance to defend "its own corporate interests," rather than a government agency called on to protect the state system.

As for its head, Magomedov, he currently ranks fourth in the most recent straw poll conducted by Chernovik to determine which of 10 prominent Daghestani political figures could muster enough support to qualify for the title of "people's president."

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he is in constant contact with international security authorities to ensure stability in Kosovo as more ethnic Serb police officers in the north of country resigned.



Kurti said on November 6 after a rally by ethnic Serbs in the streets of North Mitrovica that the security situation in Kosovo was threatened by various criminalized individuals and groups, but said that during his time in office, we have made great progress in the fight against crime and corruption."



He added that the rule of law goes hand in hand with peace and security and cannot be threatened, adding that authorities do not distinguish criminals on the basis of ethnicity, but only on the basis of their criminal acts."



When asked about the decision on November 5 by the Serbian List party to leave Kosovo's institutions, Kurti repeated his call that Kosovo Serbs refrain from doing so.



"I once again I invite all Serb citizens of our country to not abandon institutions, not to resign, not to leave their jobs, because there would be less service for the people," he said.



Kurti has blamed Belgrade for seeking to destabilize Kosovo by supporting the ethnic Serbs in their boycott of state institutions.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement on November 5 that the withdrawal of Kosovo Serbs from the country's institutions "is not a solution to the current disputes" and it has the potential to further escalate tensions.



A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo released to RFE/RL's Balkan Service late on November 6 said the United States agreed with the European Union that the recent developments around relations between Kosovo and Serbia "are of great concern and put important progress achieved in the EU-facilitated Dialogue at risk."



"The Kosovan Serbs' withdrawal from Kosovan institutions is not a solution to the current disputes and has the potential to further escalate the tensions on the ground," the statement added. "All involved must take steps to reduce tensions and ensure peace and stability on the ground."



The Serb officers who resigned on November 6 submitted written resignations to the police station in North Mitrovica. One of the policemen told RFE/RL that the officers only submitted their resignations in writing but had not yet turned in their uniforms and weapons. However, he said this will follow in the coming days.



Numerous media outlets reported that the police officers took off their uniforms as part of the wider Serb movement to withdraw from institutions in Kosovo touched off by a move to implement a mandate on the conversion of vehicle license plates.



A statement from the Kosovar police force said it was aware that Serb police officers had abandoned their posts and that some have handed over police equipment.



The rally by ethnic Serbs in North Mitrovica on November 6 came a day after Serbs there said they would quit their posts in state institutions to protest against the use of license plates issued by Pristina.

Following a meeting of Serb political representatives in the north of Kosovo on November 5, the minister of communities and returns, Goran Rakic, said he was resigning from his post in the Pristina government.



He told reporters that fellow representatives of the Serb minority in the north had also quit their jobs in municipal administrations, the courts, police, and the parliament and government in Pristina.



Rakic said they would not consider returning unless Pristina abolishes the order for them to switch their old car license plates, which date to the 1990s when Kosovo was a part of Serbia, to Kosovo state plates.



Addressing the rally on November 6, Rakic accused Kosovo government authorities of not respecting international law and agreements negotiated in Brussels.



Rakic has called on the protesters "not to fall for provocations and to continue the fight with peaceful and democratic means."



The license-plate measure took effect on November 1, and Kosovo authorities said enforcement would be gradual.

The U.S. Embassy statement reiterated Washington's position that the Kosovar authorities should extend the process of converting vehicle license plates and suspend any punitive actions until the license plates issue can be resolved through dialogue.

Many ethnic Serbs in Kosovo refuse to recognize the countrys independence from Serbia, which it declared in 2008.



The European Union has told Kosovo and Serbia that they must normalize ties if they want to advance toward membership in the 27-nation bloc.

With reporting by dpa, AP, and AFP
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is no fan of gender equality, which he routinely decries as a Western concept that damages women and distracts them from their vital roles as wives and mothers.

And again this week, at a speech on March 19 marking the birth of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, Fatima Zahra, Khamenei doubled down, suggesting that Westerners themselves are having second thoughts.

"Today, Western thinkers and those who pursue issues such as gender equality regret the corruption that it has brought about," said the man who has the final say in religious and political matters in a country of 83 million people.

He even blasted gender equality as a "Zionist plot" aimed at corrupting women's role in society.

"Making women a commodity and an object of gratification in the Western world is most likely among the Zionist plots aiming to destroy society," Khamenei was also quoted as saying.

Women in Iran are denied equal rights before the law in divorce, child custody, inheritance, and other areas. A woman's testimony in court is considered to be half the value of a man's. Women need the permission of their father or husband to travel. And women are forced to cover their hair and body.

There are rare reports of women being sentenced to death by stoning, although it is unclear how many such sentences are carried out under Iran's opaque justice system.

Khamenei suggested that Western views of women used to be "more decent," "more prudent," and "more suitable" with "the nature of men and women."

"When you look at the literature in European countries in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was absolutely different from the 20th century," Khamenei said. He added that "it is obvious that there has been political work from the Zionist and the colonial system."

Khamenei went on to say that Iran's overwhelmingly male, clerically dominated establishment does not aim to keep women at home. Yet he added that, in his eyes, the roles of mother and wife are the most important a woman can play.

"The role a woman can play as a family member is in my view more important than all other roles that a woman can play," the Iranian leader said. "The question is whether a woman has the right to ruin her role as a mother and a wife because of all the good, interesting, and sweet [opportunities] that could be there for her outside the family environment."

Khamenei has said in the past that the effort to establish equality between men and women was "one of the biggest intellectual mistakes" of the Western world. "Why should a job that is masculine be given to a woman? What kind of honor is it for a woman to do a man's job?" he asked in a 2014 speech.

Iranian hard-liners routinely accuse women's rights champions of promoting "obsolete" feminist views and claim that such views and demands are anti-Islamic.

In December, the head of Iran's female Basij militia called the promotion of gender equality illegal and demanded that the country's powerful judiciary take action against people who speak out against gender discrimination.

Women's rights activists have been persecuted by the Iranian state through interrogation, arrest, and jail sentences. Many have been forced to leave the country.

Homa Hoodfar, a retired professor at Concordia University in Montreal known for her work on gender relations, was imprisoned in Iran last year for more than 100 days for what a state prosecutor called "dabbling in feminism and security matters."

Iran's lone Nobel laureate, lawyer and 2003 Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, now lives abroad following years of persecution for her work on human rights cases.

In a 2009 contribution to The Guardian, Ebadi noted that "despite the cultural, social and historical heritage of Iranian women, the Islamic republic has imposed discriminatory regulations against them."

She added, "The laws imposed on Iranian women are incompatible with their status and, consequently, the equality movement is very strong."

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
Police in Kyrgyzstan have used stun grenades to disperse hundreds of protesters at a rally against the detention of a former parliamentary deputy who plans to run for the presidency.



Dozens of demonstrators were detained in the March 25 confrontation, which underscored growing political tensions ahead of a November presidential election in the Central Asian country.



About 500 demonstrators started gather outside the security service headquarters in Bishkek after authorities detained Sadyr Japarov on March 25 upon his return to Kyrgyzstan from three years of self-imposed exile.



He faces charges of taking a government official hostage in 2013.



A Reuters photographer said some protesters started scuffling with police and throwing bottles at authorities a few hours into the protest.



Kyrgyzstans Interior Ministry says it detained 68 people.



Japarov was a senior member of the Kyrgyz government and an adviser to former President Kurmanbek Bakiev.



After Bakiev was ousted in 2010, Japarov became a member of parliament.



But in 2013, Japarov was sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of attempting to violently seize power after he and other lawmakers tried to force their way into the presidential palace during a protest.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and Interfax
Three Pakistani bloggers have been accused of blasphemy in an Islamabad counterterrorism court, an offense punishable by death.

Police and government officials on March 24 said the charges were set against two bloggers from Pakistan's southern city of Karachi and one from Islamabad.

Officials said they were arrested earlier this week. They are being held for seven days while their online activity is probed, an official said.

One of the bloggers, using the alias Allama Ayaz Nizami, had 12,000 followers, said the official, who did not want to be identified.

Authorities said laptops of the detainees had also been seized for forensic analysis.

The arrests come after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on March 14 ordered that "blasphemous" content on social-media websites be removed or blocked.

He said those responsible for posting such material will be "strictly punished."

Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Pakistan and can carry the death penalty.

It is a highly sensitive issue in a country where dozens have been murdered over blasphemy allegations, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.

At least five other bloggers were earlier charged with insulting Islam. They have since fled the country after receiving death threats, the Associated Press reported.

Those bloggers said the charges were in retaliation for their criticism of the military and intelligence agencies.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, VOA, and Dawn
British police say they have released without charges six of the 10 people being held in the investigation of the deadly attack near Parliament and said the birth name of the assailant, Muslim convert Khalid Masood, was Adrian Russell Ajao.

Four other people remained in custody on March 24 as authorities work to learn how Masood became radicalized before he went on his rampage. He was shot and killed by police during the attack.

Authorities have said Masood, who had a history of violence, was thought to have carried out the Westminster attack on his own. But they have not ruled out the possibility that others may have been involved.

The six people released on March 24 -- two women and four men -- were arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood had lived. They had been arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.

"Clearly a main line in our investigation is what led him to be radicalized...was it through influences in our community, influences from overseas, or from online propaganda?" said Mark Rowley, Britain's top counterterrorism officer.

"We remain keen to hear from anyone who knew Khalid Masood well, understands who his associates were, and can provide us with information about places he has recently visited," he added.

Aside from Masood, four people died in the attack, including a 75-year-old British man from south London who died on March 23 when he was taken off life support at King's College Hospital.

Leslie Rhodes died of injuries suffered when the assailant drove a rental car through a crowd on Westminster Bridge, which leads to the British Parliament.

The other fatalities were police officer Keith Palmer, 48; Aysha Frade, a 43-year-old British woman; and Kurt Cochran, an American tourist from the state of Utah who was in his 50s.

Among the injured was a Romanian woman who fell into the Thames River when Masood's rented vehicle plowed into pedestrians during the attack.

Her countrys embassy on March 24 said she remained in serious condition but was showing signs of improvement.

Romanian officials did not identify the woman, but her friends said she was Andreea Cristea of the Black Sea port of Constanta. Her boyfriend was injured but has been released from the hospital.

Two police officers at the scene of the attack also suffered significant injuries. Two other people also remain in critical condition, one with life-threatening injuries, counterterrorism officer Rowley said.

Masood, who was shot dead by police within the security perimeter of Parliament in the midst of the terrorist attack, also was known by several other aliases.

They said Masood had not been the subject of any current investigations by British authorities and there was "no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack."

British Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons earlier on March 23 that the attacker was "a peripheral figure" known to security authorities and had been investigated.

Police said they were working on the assumption that Masood, who did not have any convictions on terrorism charges, was inspired by Islamist extremism. The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed the assailant was one of its "soldiers."

Victims who were injured on Westminster Bridge came from 12 countries.

They included teenage schoolchildren from France and others who traveled from as far as China to explore London.

With reporting by Reuters, BBC, AFP, Sky News, Press Association, and AP
A Bulgarian government official revealed on November 7 that remains found in Bulgaria in September belonged to a prominent Ukrainian military pilot who had been missing for months, and the body has been returned to Ukraine for burial.

The remains of Ukrainian Air Force Colonel Mykhaylo Matyushenko, 61, were identified using DNA after the body was found in a lake after several months in the water, according to Hristo Ilchev, head of the search division of the regional directorate of the Internal Affairs Ministry.

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Matyushenko, who went by the call name Grandfather and was head of the Ghost of Kyiv brigade, disappeared from the skies over Snake Island in the Black Sea in June, according to the Ukrainian military.

His fate had been unknown until Bulgarian authorities were able to positively identify the body after it was found attached to a parachute in the lake near the Bulgarian Black Sea coastal port of Tsarevo.

Officials in the Bulgarian Internal Affairs Ministry suspected the body was that of a Ukrainian Air Force pilot and contacted representatives of the Ukrainian Embassy and the Ukrainian Army, both of which provided additional data to reveal the identity of the pilot.

Ilchev said Matyushenko's military aircraft, an SU-124, was shot down in the area of Snake Island near Odesa. Matyushenko and the other pilot of the aircraft ejected.

The pilot we found had his limbs severed from a faulty catapult. He most likely died of blood loss, as no other signs of injury were found on the body," Ilchev said.

Ilchev made the comments on November 7 during a ceremony to present the police chief of Tsarevo with an award for his handling of the case.

No information is available about the fate of the other pilot.

Matyushenko had experience as a fighter jet pilot and civil aviation pilot. Before the war he was in management at one of Ukraine's commercial airlines.

He was buried in his hometown, Bucha, on October 3, according to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

The mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Feroryuk, said Matyushenko had volunteered to reinforce his colleagues on the southern and eastern fronts.

Russian forces withdrew from Snake Island on June 30 after coming under heavy bombardment from Ukrainian artillery. Ukrainian troops claimed to have raised their flag on the strategic Black Sea outpost a few days later.

"For Matyushenko, this was the last mission. They couldn't find him for a long time," Feroryuk said.

The headquarters of the Ukrainian Air Force announced in April that the legend of the Ghost of Kyiv was created by the Ukrainians. The military made it the collective name of the members of the 40th Air Force Tactical Brigade, which defends Kyiv and "appears suddenly in places where no one expects it."
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Randolph-Macon College celebrated the life and work of a man described as a legend, institution and mentor on Saturday.

James E. Henry, the longtime supervisor for the Randolph-Macon campus print shop, had a conference room at the college dedicated in his honor.

The room, which sits adjacent to President Robert R. Lindgrens office, was the former site of the campus printing shop Henry ran for most of the 45 years he worked at Randolph-Macon.

It really was a wonderful trip, Henry said.

Henry said his work at the college from 1950 to 1995 spanned turnover elsewhere on Randolph-Macons staff as well as changes in technology. In his time, he used a printing press, mimeograph machine and a mailing machine.

Henry, who once was a custodian, credited his start in the print shop to Richard E. Grove, a former Randolph-Macon professor of computer science.

(Grove) said, You dont have to be a custodian all your life, Henry recalled. I need somebody to operate this printing press, and I think you can do it. Dr. Grove could tell me how to operate it, but he couldnt operate it.

In his remarks, Lindgren noted the way Henry is still remembered by former students and faculty as an important figure of the Randolph-Macon community.

James Henry was one of those people who transcended his job, Lindgren said.

Yvonne Brandon is on Randolph-Macons board of trustees. When Brandons father was nervous about her attending Randolph-Macon, so far from Birmingham, Ala., where he lived, Henry told him, Dont you worry, Ill look out for her.

And that is exactly what he did, Lindgren said.

Saturdays festivities were attended by many of Henrys family, some of whom traveled from as far as New Jersey and Maryland for the occasion.

Hes kind of like the glue that holds us together, Melinda Spurlock said of Henry, her mothers cousin. Hes a pillar of the Henry family.

Professor Alphine W. Jefferson, the director of black studies at Randolph-Macon, said the honor for Henry was among the few  if not the only  of its kind on campus. The first black student to graduate from Randolph-Macon was Haywood A. Hap Payne Jr., Class of 1968, ending 136 years of segregation at the college.

This is tangible recognition of the many contributions that black Americans made, seen and unseen, to Randolph-Macon, Jefferson said.

One of Henrys daughters, Sonya Johnson, struggled to find the words to describe what the recognition meant to her family.
DANVILLE  Dozens of Dan River Region students flew drones, constructed planes and learned to code during their spring break last week as part of Drone Camp at the Institute for Advanced Learning & Research.

The camp, a collaboration between the institute and the 4-H Virginia Cooperative Extension, ran Monday and Tuesday for elementary school students and Thursday and Friday for middle school students.

During the two-day camp, attendees not only flew drones but also learned a bit of coding and about farming in the video game Minecraft.

Were talking about what a drone is and how its used, said institute programming director Dana Silicki.

During the latter part of the day Thursday, students learned how drones can be used for agricultural purposes, said VCE Extension Agent Mandi Dolan.

With 4-H, STEM education is definitely on the radar right now, and I think by giving them the opportunity to combine three very different topics and real-life situations gives them an excellent opportunity to learn, Dolan said.

During the afternoon, attendees attempted to attach a small video camera to the top of a foam airplane.

Seventh-grader and camp attendee Trevor Wilkerson said he was fascinated by the applications for drones.

Its very interesting the things you can do with them, Trevor said.

He said he was amazed that drones could monitor huge fields, as well as monitor crop changes with infrared cameras.
Bill Jordan, who retired as principal of William Fox Elementary School in Richmond in 1985, was an uncommon educator.

You knew he was different when you walked in the building, wrote retired Fox reading specialist Deborah B. Hanger in an email. ... He wore flannel shirts, jeans, boat shoes, and, often, mismatched socks. (At Christmas he was known to have worn one green sock and one red sock.)

Alane Cameron Miles, who attended Fox during the Saturday Night Fever disco years, recalled that he also had worn a leisure suit.

We called it a disco suit, she said. To have a principal wear something John Travolta-esque  we loved that. Lots of us have pictures of us with him wearing that suit.

After giving visitors a tour and quick history of his school, Mr. Jordan would take them to his office  at the back of the school. Having to go to the office was different at Fox. Inside was a rocking chair, rows of bookshelves whose tomes included French poetry, and lots of distinctive artwork.

Even kids who had to see him for not-so-great reasons did not have fears. They knew Mr. Jordans going to work it out,  Miles said.

Not that he hid himself away in his office. He always was out greeting you when you came to school and at the end of the day when you were leaving. I have no memory of his office. He was always in the hallway, in the library, Miles remembered. He would check on you at the nurses office. He went into the classroom, into the cafeteria, onto the playground.

I broke my wrist once and he got to me before the nurse did  and I was only 40 feet from the nurses office. He always was right out there.

Mr. Jordan, who retired from Fox in 1985 and from the Richmond school system in 1986, will be honored today at a memorial service at 2 p.m. at Richmond Friends Meeting, 4500 Kensington Ave. in Richmond.

He died of complications of dementia February 21 in a Henrico nursing home where he was undergoing rehabilitation. The 91-year-old Richmond resident was holding hands with his wife and son during prayer.

Born John William Jordan III on Nov. 3, 1925, he earned a pilots license before graduating from John Marshall High School, soloing on his 16th birthday. He was not a good student, according to his wife, Donna Knicely. He attended the College of William and Mary briefly before serving in the Army Air Forces working with electronics in Europe and later would serve in California with the Air Force during the Korean War.

He had to pay his own way through several courses before he could enter college on the GI Bill. He graduated with a philosophy major from Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary, now part of Virginia Commonwealth University, in May 1949. In 1957, he earned a masters degree in school administration from the University of Richmond.

With no experience, he began a lengthy career in education teaching seventh grade in Front Royal, where he had what amounted to Advanced Placement students in a corner of his classroom learning at their own pace.

At Stonewall Jackson Junior High School, he taught his male sixth and seventh graders to build birdhouses and, at their request, his girls to do embroidery after he boned up with a book. He also served as an assistant principal at the former Madison School and at Grace Arents Elementary School.

Mr. Jordan came to Fox in 1960.

I remember his openness to just about any kind of idea, and he found ways to cut red tape and encourage teachers who were great and found a way to tactfully exit ones not meant to be teachers, said Laura Cameron, whose children went to Fox during the early 1970s.

Cameron said that when a female student upset by a situation at home didnt want to come to school, Mr. Jordan would pick her up in his white MGB, with the top down, and take her to school long enough that she started going to school (on her own) and did just fine, Cameron said.

During his time at Fox, the school went from all-white to a mixed neighborhood school that had a vibrant PTA. To encourage parents to bring their children to Fox after white flight, he would walk around the Fan District knocking on doors to invite neighbors to see his school and speak to groups about Fox, his wife said.

He was instrumental in getting the city to tear down a row of houses to enlarge his childrens playground. He helped start the Strawberry Street Festival, a school fundraiser. He held the first Art Month of local artists and encouraged community meetings at Fox.

Marjorie Simmons, a former counselor at Fox, recalled, Fox was known throughout the region for its high standards. Bill was like a rock star principal. When it came time to register a child to go to school, parents would line up at 3 a.m., regardless of the weather, to make sure their child got a slot. Teachers loved him. Fox was the best school in the city.

Bill Jordan believed strongly in the city school system. Fox was the reason I wanted (my family) to stay in the Richmond public schools, Miles said. His legacy for making us believe in the Richmond public schools has lasted generations.

After retiring, he and his wife moved onto a 37-foot sailboat called Orchid Boat and were gone two years. He bagged for Ukrops Super Markets for a time and volunteered in the community.
WASHINGTON

Watching the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, one might easily find oneself wishing he were president of the United States.

Alas, hes not. But Gorsuchs selection to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia is the sanest act committed by a president whose first 60 days have left him with an approval rating under 40 percent and persistent questions about his stability.

Donald Trump should be sending champagne to Gorsuch  for life  for projecting enough grace to benefit those who havent a knack for it. This, obviously, would include Trump, whose fitful Twitter tantrums tend to overtake any noble aspirations he might pretend to. But then, I delude myself.

The week has not been kind to Trump, though he alone has earned the text that will follow him into history books. Imagine knowing that future generations will read about the Twitter-fevered illusionist who invented stories to distract the crowds, accusing his predecessor, Barack Obama, of wire taps in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Imagine knowing what the world now knows  that Trumps paranoid fantasy was just that. Testifying Monday before the House Intelligence committee, FBI Director James Comey said there is no evidence to support the presidents claims. He also said that the FBI is actively investigating whether the Trump campaign had any connection to Russian operatives responsible for the hacking of the Democratic National Committees computers, the contents of which were delivered to WikiLeaks.

Comeys remark that Vladimir Putin hated Hillary Clinton so much that he was trying to hurt her  and if it benefited Trump, fine  seemed to dispel suspicions that Trump himself had anything to do with Russias blatant interference with U.S. elections. But, who knows? Comey was careful to reveal as little as possible about the bureaus findings.

So that was Monday.

Most of the focus Tuesday turned to Day 2 in Judge Gorsuchs confirmation process. Amid much bluster and box-checking by senators on both sides of the aisle, Gorsuch continued to remind everyone why his peers, especially other judges, consider him as qualified as anyone could possibly be. Calm and unflappable throughout, Gorsuch wore the face of someone accustomed to listening intently without betraying any predisposition or bias.

Democrats naturally had to set out their arguments for their base and spent most of their time questioning Gorsuchs independence and fairness, repeatedly trying to get him to signal whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Gorsuch said nothing to appease or agitate, pointing instead to his record of participation in 2,700 lower-court rulings. He also made assurances that he takes precedent seriously, noting that Roe has been reaffirmed multiple times.

Gorsuchs stubborn (and ethical) refusal to offer opinions on precedent spoke directly to his independence. To express an opinion, he said, would damage his credibility and perception of fairness with future litigants. It didnt seem that there was any question that would throw Gorsuch off, which is what usually happens when one is secure in the truth and confident of ones convictions.

But, importantly, all got to make their points, including the repellent Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., whose own record, frankly, should disqualify him as an arbiter of judicial integrity. Here is a man who committed one of the most craven betrayals of his generation  not sex with an intern, nor trafficking with prostitutes, but with stolen valor.

How does a man who embellishes his military career  implying that he fought in Vietnam when, in fact, he received five deferments before serving stateside  consider himself worthy to prosecute the qualifications of one of the nations most brilliant jurists? When he did serve in the military, Blumenthal was able to secure a cushy position in the Marine Corps Reserves (which is not to impugn his ability to meet the Corps rigid physical requirements), where he was given such jobs as refurbishing a childrens campground and running a Toys for Tots drive.

Not that those arent important.

Blumenthal did issue a public apology in 2010, saying he had meant that he had served during the war, which was and is nonsense. Blumenthal, nonetheless, has found the courage to hit the airwaves and bray his intention to become Gorsuchs fiercest opponent, promising to filibuster and demanding a 60-vote majority, which he has declared the standard for Supreme Court nominations. It isnt, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.

Gorsuchs hearing should reassure Americans that there are still grown-ups around who are willing to serve. It was also heartening to hear him say that No man is above the law, no man.
When Peter Valiante and his husband, Jimmy Bryant, went house hunting four years ago, they didnt travel far. They had outgrown their Midlothian town home, but they didnt want to leave the area.

My husband and I have called this area of Midlothian home for the last seven years, Valiante said. We wanted to stay close to the amenities we have come to know and love. My son was 11 at the time, so remaining in the same school district was important to us as well.

They soon focused on Queensgate, a relatively small development that was in the early stages of construction near the intersection of Coalfield and Queensgate roads. The community, developed by Richmond-based Riverstone Properties LLC and built by Eagle Construction of Virginia, offered -acre lots and customizable floor plans. And it allowed Valiantes son, Colby, to stay in the same school district.

Valiante and Bryant bought a Queensgate lot in April 2013, and they moved into their new, 3,200-square-foot, Arts and Crafts-style house five months later.

It has modern and traditional elements, which suits our style, Valiante said. An open floor plan was important to us, and being able to finish the attic to create additional living space was the icing on the cake.

Valiante and Bryants decision to stay in the area isnt unusual among Queensgates homebuyers.

Nine out of 10 of my prospects come from with a 10-mile radius because they love this area and want to stay here, said Ashley Smoral, Eagles site agent for Queensgate. Its a fantastic location, with dining and shopping nearby, and its an easy commute to Short Pump and downtown Richmond.

Architectural styles in Queensgate include Craftsman, Colonial and European. Sizes for the developments homes range from 2,600 to more than 3,300 square feet. Prices range from the low $340,000s to the low $400,000s.

With construction on 73 of the communitys 75 homes finished, the development is nearly built out.

Thats a significant change from when Valiante and Bryant bought their house. Back then, the neighborhood only had approximately 10 homes. So theyve witnessed the developments transformation into a community.

One of the benefits to watching the neighborhood grow is the opportunity to meet incoming families early on, Valiante said. Many of us moved into our homes within just a few months of each other, so we got to know each other throughout the process and develop friendships.

Even now, the community is small enough for neighbors to gather for community-wide block parties and social events throughout the year.

There is a true sense of friendship and heart in our neighborhood, and you dont find that everywhere, Valiante said. Moving to Queensgate was the perfect choice for our family.

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CHRISTIANSBURG  Plea agreements this week ended the cases of two people caught last summer in a car on West Main Street with guns and an active one-pot drug-making setup.

Kara Beth Burton, 21, of Christiansburg, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court to a charge of conspiring to manufacture a Schedule I or II drug. She was sentenced to five years in prison, to be suspended after she served seven months. Burton will be on probation for five years and her drivers license will be suspended for six months, Judge Robert Turk said.

Her co-defendant David Andrew Hodge, 33, of Salem, pleaded guilty Monday to manufacturing a Schedule II drug and entered a no contest plea to a charge of possessing a concealed firearm without a permit. Turk sentenced Hodge to five years in prison on the drug charge and 12 months in jail on the weapons charge, all to be suspended after Hodge served nine months. Hodge also will be supervised by the probation office for five years, Turk said.

Plea agreements led to the nol prossing, or dropping, of charges of manufacturing meth and possessing a Schedule II drug against Burton, and conspiring to make drugs and carrying a weapon while also carrying drugs against Hodge.

A third defendant in the case, Richard Skyler Helm, 34, of Shawsville, has a court hearing scheduled for April 18.

The case against the three began when Christiansburg police were alerted about a car where methamphetamine was possibly being made, Montgomery County Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Jessica Preston said Tuesday. Officers found guns in the car and a one-pot drug setup that was in the process of mixing drugs, Preston said.

The one-pot setup is a container in which ingredients are mixed to make meth.

A wrinkle in the case arose when lab tests conducted after the arrest did not detect meth, attorney David Rhodes, who represented Hodge, said after Mondays hearing.

Hodge and Burton were initially charged with making or conspiring to make meth, but the charges were amended to making a Schedule II drug for Hodge and conspiring to make a Schedule I or II drug for Burton.
Heres an idea: Should Southwest Virginia secede and form its own state?

We dont mean that seriously, of course. However, lets explore it as a thought experiment.

The practical problem with secession  aside from the legalities and all that  is that Southwest Virginia is subsidized by the rest of the state. Yes, yes, we think were ignored by Richmond and in a lot of ways we are. Still, the fiscal reality is that Northern Virginia really subsidizes the rest of Virginia. If theres any part of the state that should secede for bottom-line reasons, its Northern Virginia.

Lets not encourage that.

Money does tend to talk. Otherwise, French-speaking Quebec might already have seceded from Canada.

Just because we get subsidized, though, doesnt mean we get the attention we think we deserve. When schools in the coalfields faced an unprecedented funding crisis brought on by collapse of the coal industry, Richmond didnt exactly swing into action. The governor expressed his concern but words dont pay the bills. Not a single candidate for governor  in either party  proposed a solution. Or even made a dramatic gesture in the coalfields direction.

If you want to look at it this way  and we do  we had to take care of ourselves. It was the only legislator from Southwest Virginia who serves on the House Appropriations Committee  Del. Nick Rush, R-Christiansburg  who came up with a new funding formula.

Even then, the handful of legislators who worked out the final version of the budget changed things around so that two of the counties in far Southwest Virginia wound up with exactly zero dollars. Could that be because not a single legislator from Southwest Virginia was in the room when that happened? (Cue the Hamilton musical and song in which Aaron Burr longs to be in The Room Where It Happened.)

What if we just said sorry, were tired of being your afterthought; were outta here?

We could have fun fantasizing about things that will never happen: So were subsidized by Northern Virginia now? Maybe if we were a separate state we could wring even more money out of Northern Virginia. If we succeeded with seceding, wed take three state colleges with us  Virginia Tech, Radford University and the University of Virginias College at Wise. All those urban crescent students now paying in-state tuition? We look forward to cashing your out-of-state tuition checks.

More seriously, would the threat of secession  as farcical as that may be  help call more attention to our part of the state? (Short answer: Yes.) At any given time, there are multiple attempts across the country to redraw state lines. In 2008, politicians in North Lauderdale, Florida, proposed splitting that state into two. In 2012, a group around Tucson, Arizona, tried to force a state referendum to create a new state called Baja Arizona; they failed. In 2013, a secession movement to split off North Colorado actually got on the ballot, but was voted down.

California is perpetually plagued by secession attempts. Five counties in northern California have officially declared their support to form the State of Jefferson. Proponents have even designed their own flag, with two Xs in the middle. Thats supposed to signify how northern California has been double-crossed by more populous southern California.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper proposed that California be split into not two but six different states. There was even a petition drive to get the proposal on the state ballot in 2016, but not enough people signed on.

Within the past decade, there have been similar attempts to partition Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New York and Washington.

All of those movements have sprung from the same wellspring: Some rural areas feel ignored by the urban centers that now dominate their states politics. Just this year, state legislators in Washington took up  and ignored  a bill to turn the rural, eastern part of the state into the State of Liberty.

Since statehood, the lifestyles, culture, and economies of eastern and western Washington have been very distinct and dramatically different, the bill read, while the urbanization and rapid growth in the western portions of the state has progressively heightened this divergence of cultural and economic values between the western and eastern portions of the state.

Just switch the geography and that sounds pretty familiar, doesnt it?

That initiative was sponsored by conservatives who wanted nothing to do with Seattle values. Were less concerned with values and more concerned with squeezing more funding out of Richmond.

In other words, the threat of secession might be better than the real thing. Were thinking something more along The Mouse That Roared  the 1955 European novel that later became a movie starring Peter Sellers and a play that once was a favorite on high school stages. In that satire, the mythical Grand Duchy of Fenwick declares war on the United States, hoping to be quickly defeated and then showered with foreign aid.

Would our State of Southwest Virginia threaten to close Catawba Hospital, as the state tried to do last year? We bet not. Would our State of Southwest Virginia see suburban politicians vote for a bill that would make it harder to increase broadband speeds in rural areas, as some tried to do this year? We bet not, because thered be a lot fewer of those suburban pols and a lot more rural politicians attentive to our unique needs. Our State of Southwest Virginia might not be able to fund the coalfield schools the way they deserve, but we suspect theyd be a much higher priority.

Of course, theres a more real-life example of a place that decided it was willing to endure some short-term economic pain in return for trying to be the master of its own destiny. That was basically the rationale behind Great Britains vote to leave the European Union, a vote known as Brexit.

We can call ours Swexit.

Whos in?
At least three were injured, including a boy, thought to be aged 14. Fortunately, none of the injuries are life-threatening. The shooter has reportedly fled the scene . Emergency services were deployed in the area. Armed police response sparked fears of terrorism as Europe remains on a high state of alert.Officers found about 10 bullet shells on the scene.The motives behind the shooting are not yet known. Officers remained at the scene. Initial reports suggested that the shooting was a settling of scores among local criminals. Patrick Calvar, who run the DGSI agency  Frances equivalent of MI5  told a parliamentary committee last month: Several incidents show us that the candidates for violent action are numerous but that they face logistical problems, especially in acquiring weapons.
. Pope Francis welcomed the leaders to the Vatican on the eve of the summit. Europe finds new hope when she invests in development and in peace. Development is not the result of a combination of various systems of production. It has to do with the whole human being: the dignity of labour, decent living conditions, access to education and necessary medical care. Development is the new name of peace, the Pope said in his speech.. The original Treaty of Rome launched the European Economic Community. It was signed by six countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. The US was among those countries that sent congratulatory messages to EU leaders. The UKs Brexit is a fact that possibly will affect the future of the EU but first is a fact proving things change and our time has new and provocative goals to understand.
Adele paid tribute to the victims of the London terror attack at her show this week in Auckland, New Zealand. The soul icon dedicated her song "Make You Feel My Love" to the victims and spoke to those in her hometown from onstage.

"Today there was a terror attack in my hometown of London," Adele, 28, told the crowd. "I'm on the other side of the world and I want them to see our lights and to hear us."

She added:

"It's very strange not being home, all I want to do today is be at home with my friends and family. Everyone's fine, but there are four [victims] who aren't fine so let's dedicate this to them tonight."

An outpouring of fan support followed with hundreds sharing and reposting her dedication via social media.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Entertainment News
The Indian Coast Guard on Friday seized a Pakistani fishing boat in its territorial waters off the Gujarat coast, officials said.

Coast Guard officials said the boat, operating within Indian waters close to Jakhau port in north Gujarat, will be escorted to a Indian port and the fishermen will be interrogated by security and intelligence agencies.
An FIR was lodged against Bollywood producer Shirish Kunder on Friday for his "objectionable" and "abusive" post on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi

Police said, The FIR was lodged based on a complaint filed in the Hazratganj police station here by Amit Kumar Tiwari who while referring to the Chief Minister as "Hindu Hriday Samrat Sant Shiromani Yogi Adityanath", quoted extensively from a tweet done from Kunder's official handle on March 21, wherein he says: "Going by the logic of making a goon as CM so that he behave Daud can be CBI director and Mallya RBI governor."



Tiwari complained that in the tweet, the Chief Minister has been compared to international terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and demanded that appropriate legal action be taken against the film producer.





An official told IANS that based on the complaint, an FIR has been lodged and a probe initiated.



Kunder, who however has deleted the tweets concerned, later extended an apology on the micro-blogging site.



"I unconditionally apologise. I never meant to hurt anyones feelings or sentiment," he tweeted.
India and the US pledged to continue their strong defence partnership during a meeting here between Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis.

According to a readout of their meeting by Pentagon Spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis, Mattis hosted Doval at the Pentagon on Thursday to discuss the importance of the US-India relationship, and the role of both nations in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles.

Mattis specifically applauded India's efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region. Both of them reaffirmed building upon the significant defence cooperation progress made in recent years, the statement said.

Mattis and Doval discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters including maritime security and counter terrorism and the two pledged to continue the strong defence partnership between both nations.

Indian Ambassador to US Navtej Sarna was also present at the meeting.

Doval, who is on a four-day visit to the US, also met Secretary of Homeland Security General (Retd) John Kelly and National Security Advisor Lt Gen H.R. McMaster.

During his meeting with McMaster, both sides reviewed the security situation in South Asia.

Doval's visit to the US comes days after that of Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar.

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With an eye to grab Odisha in the 2019 assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to hold its national executive meeting here on April 15 and 16.

Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said senior leaders of the party would attend the two-day executive meeting in Bhubaneswar.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP National President Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states will attend the executive meeting, Pradhan said.

Besides them, senior BJP leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi and several other national leaders of the party will attend the two-day meet in Bhubaneswar, he added.

The meeting is expected to give fresh momentum to party activities in the state as the BJP, which has performed exceptionally in the panchayat polls, is targeting to dethrone the incumbent Naveen Patnaik government in the assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2019.

"The Prime Minister will arrive in Odisha to thank the people of the state for their unprecedented support to the BJP in the recently concluded panchayat polls," Pradhan said.

BJP's Odisha in-charge Arun Singh and National Joint Secretary (Organisation) Soudan Singh will visit Odisha on Sunday to review preparations for the meeting.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son and party Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday opposed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking examination of Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi and others in the National Herald case.

The defence counsel told Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen that Swamy's application contemplates to create a situation where a fishing and roving enquiry could be set into motion beyond the scope of the allegations made in the present complaint.

All the accused - the Gandhis, Congress party leaders Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey, and Sam Pitroda and Young Indian - filed a common reply on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader's plea seeking summoning of party General Secretary Dwivedi, Associated Journals' Chief Financial Officer Ashok Gupta, Company Secretary Suresh Kumar Sharma and others as witnesses.

After Swamy sought more time to prepare his argument, the court listed the matter for April 22.

In the list, Swamy also wished to examine officials concerned from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the Registrar of Companies, the Land and Development Office of Ministry of Urban Development and other officials.

Defence counsel Taruannum Cheema said Swamy's application is designed as an attempt to make out a new case, which is impermissible in law.

"The complainant, through this application, is seeking to summon witnesses and call for documents without divulging their necessity and desirability on the basis of the allegations made by him in his complaint," Cheema said in the application and pleaded the plea be dismissed with exemplary cost.

She said that witnesses sought to be summoned with documents have no connection with the allegations made in the complaint and the documents are beyond the scope of inquiry set-out in it.

"Moreover, no purpose or relevance of the documents, which the complainant seeks to summon by calling the witnesses enumerated in the instant application, has been disclosed.

"The entire exercise is for malafide purposes of travelling beyond the realm of the complaint and what was initially alleged in the complaint," Cheema added.'

Swamy had filed a complaint about "cheating" in acquisition of AJL, which published the National Herald newspaper, by Young Indian, "a firm in which Sonia and Rahul Gandhi each own a 38 per cent stake".

He had accused the Gandhis of allegedly conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by just paying Rs 50 lakh, through which Young Indian obtained right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that the AJL owed to the Congress.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi on Saturday in his first speech after taking up the reins of the state announced his government will provide Rs 1 lakh aid to Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims.

"Those who want to go on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar would be given Rs 1 lakh aid by our government," the Chief Minister said during a rally here.

"We would also establish a Kailash Mansarovar Bhavan either in Lucknow, Ghaziabad or Noida," he added.

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Delhi Police on Friday chargesheeted the father of a minor driver involved in a hit-and-run case in which a business consultant was killed, court sources said.

The fresh additional chargesheet was filed before a magistrate here, who has listed the matter for Saturday for further hearing.

The court was hearing a case against the juvenile, who turned major just four days after the Mercedes he was driving at high speed mowed down Siddharth Sharma in Civil Lines area of north Delhi on April 4 evening last year.

According to court sources, police has chargesheeted the juvenile's father under charges dealing with abetment to culpable homicide for letting his son drive despite knowing he had caused an accident earlier.

In the first prosecution under the amended Juvenile Justice Act, the Juvenile Justice Board ordered that the minor will be tried as an adult while allowing the Delhi Police plea seeking to try the offender - who was 17 in April last year - as an adult as the offence was defined as heinous crime.

Police, in its chargesheet filed on May 26 last year, had charged the juvenile with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which entails a maximum of 10 years in jail.

In the final investigation report, police charged the juvenile with offences under the Indian Penal Code's sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 279 (driving on a public way so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life) and 337 (causing hurt by an act which endangers human life).

Both father and son are out on bail.
Delhi Police on Friday chargesheeted the father of a minor driver involved in a hit-and-run case in which a business consultant was killed.

Court sources said, The fresh additional chargesheet was filed before a magistrate here, who has listed the matter for Saturday for further hearing.



The court was hearing a case against the juvenile, who turned major just four days after the Mercedes he was driving at high speed mowed down Siddharth Sharma in Civil Lines area of north Delhi on April 4 evening last year.



According to court sources, police has chargesheeted the juvenile's father under charges dealing with abetment to culpable homicide for letting his son drive despite knowing he had caused an accident earlier.





In the first prosecution under the amended Juvenile Justice Act, the Juvenile Justice Board ordered that the minor will be tried as an adult while allowing the Delhi Police plea seeking to try the offender - who was 17 in April last year - as an adult as the offence was defined as heinous crime.



Police, in its chargesheet filed on May 26 last year, had charged the juvenile with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which entails a maximum of 10 years in jail.



In the final investigation report, police charged the juvenile with offences under the Indian Penal Code's sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 279 (driving on a public way so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life) and 337 (causing hurt by an act which endangers human life).



Both father and son are out on bail.
A GOP-sponsored healthcare bill was pulled from the floor of the House of Representatives ahead of a vote, presumably because not enough votes have been secured for its passing, US media reported on Friday.

House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled his Obamacare repeal bill from the floor on Friday, a day after Trump had threatened to walk away from healthcare reform if he didn't get a vote, CNN reported.

After a dramatic day on Capitol Hill, Ryan rushed from the White House to Capitol Hill to tell Trump he did not have the votes to pass the measure, the culmination of seven years of Republican efforts to eradicate President Barack Obama's proudest domestic achievement.

Two senior administration officials said the decision to pull the bill was Ryan's.

The decision means that for now, at least, Obamacare will remain in place until Republicans can come up with some plan that can overcome deep intra-party divisions about how to kill it.

The decision to delay the vote marks an acute embarrassment for Trump, who had gambled big by presenting holdout House conservatives with a take-it-or-leave it ultimatum on Thursday night and put his own credibility on the line.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met United States Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon to discuss the importance of the U.S.-India relationship and the role of both nations in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles.

"Democracies like ours need this sort of dialogue and we have had a strengthening of the relationship over the last several years," Mattis said in a statement after the meeting on Friday.



During the meeting, the Defence Secretary specifically applauded India's efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region, said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, adding that both leaders reaffirmed their intent to build upon the significant defence cooperation progress made in recent years.

NSA Ajit Doval held talks with US Defense Secy James N.Mattis at Pentagon in Washington DC;Indian Ambassador to US Navtej Sarna also present pic.twitter.com/aBEJ7OHWlH  ANI (@ANI_news) March 25, 2017



"We share the values. We share the democracy. We all have the very common objective and interest, both for the region that I come from and also globally that's able to work together, share our ideas and thoughts and bring about some new innovative changes and improvements," Doval said.



USA: NSA Ajit Doval met US Defense Secretary James N. Mattis at Pentagon in Washington DC pic.twitter.com/837QKnzSSE  ANI (@ANI_news) March 25, 2017

Mattis and Doval further discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters, including maritime security and counterterrorism, Davis said, and the two leaders pledged to continue the strong defense partnership between both nations.
Community resource center brings assistance to the people that need it
What motivates people to give large sums of money for a cause that might not directly enrich them? Thats a perennial question in the field of philanthropy.

For those donating to work in the life sciences, the answer is often compellingly personal.

Since all of us are mortal  subject to aging, disease and death  advances in biomedicine promise benefits to billionaires and the poor alike. From the elimination of ancient scourges such as smallpox and polio to confronting modern challenges such as Alzheimers disease and the need for more food for an expanding global population, everyone has a stake in the progress of the biological sciences.

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Without philanthropists who have given hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, San Diego Countys biomedical community  from basic research to clinical care  would likely be far less advanced. These mega-givers include multi-billionaire Denny Sanford, telecommunications pioneer Andrew Viterbi and rental-property magnate Conrad Prebys, who died last year. Theres also ResMed founder Peter Farrell, biotech investor Elizabeth Keadle, billionaire brothers Neal and Linden Blue of General Atomics fame and developer Doug Manchester, former owner of The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Thanks to their financial support, along with government grants, visionary executives and talented scientists and physicians, the San Diego region has become a globally recognized center for biomedicine. Whether its cancer, heart disease, neurology, viruses that cause everything from Ebola to AIDS, rare genetic conditions or pediatric specialties, this county has leaders considered to be at the forefront of their field.

The result is a hub employing tens of thousands of workers, anchored by UC San Diego, flanked by renowned biomedical institutes and brimming with commercial enterprise by companies such as Illumina, Ionis Pharmaceuticals and branches of major corporations including Thermo Fisher Scientific, Novartis, Pfizer and Celgene.

Altogether, its an industry of innovation bound by the twin goals of extending life and improving the quality of that life.

Recently, philanthropists Malin Burnham, Darlene Shiley, Irwin and Joan Jacobs, Ernest Rady and Alan Gold spoke with The San Diego Union-Tribune about what inspires them. Click below to read each of their conversations.

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For Shiley, writing a big check is just the start of her philanthropic commitment. When Donald (Shiley) and I married in 1978, he was determined that our entire estate would go to charitable causes and I agreed. About two years into one of the happiest marriages you could imagine, I asked if we could start giving earlier to experience the likely success of the various ventures. Donald thought it was a terrific plan and immediately said, Great. How about you handle it? If only I had known how much work, though satisfying, philanthropy can be, I might have chosen a different suggestion. It is an enormous responsibility that I carry on in his honor.

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The couple have a lifelong ethic of giving. Our families were philanthropic, but on a very different level. They gave to the local synagogue, but not in any major way. We both came from very humble homes. Were very fortunate to be able to do what were doing now.

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Business sense, brothers death help inspire Burnhams financial generosity. Hes known not only as a large-scale philanthropist, but also as an effective advocate for philanthropy among his wealthy peers. One of those is Denny Sanford, who called Burnham the best pickpocket in the world during a 2014 panel on philanthropy. I think he could go to jail for what hes done to me, Sanford said as the audience laughed.

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When a pediatric hospital asked for $20 million, Rady gave $120 million. My wife of 57 years and I want to give to things where we can make a difference. Were in a position to make a difference, so I dont want to give a little bit here and a little bit there.  I just get involved with people whom I trust, and Ive never been disappointed.

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Biomedicine has enriched Gold  and he has given much back in return. We give our time, we give our money and we recommend it to our friends and associates. So we need to understand those organizations very well. Thats how we assure ourselves the money is being spent properly.

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
MALIN BURNHAM, 89, Point Loma

No lofty goals of saving humanity, but good, solid business sense prompted Malin Burnham to start giving money to charitable causes.

As a young real estate broker in the 1960s, Burnham knew his familys local firm couldnt stand head-to-head against the national giants entering the San Diego market. So on the advice of his peers, he made the most of his local roots, including contributing to worthy local causes. Philanthropy to nonprofits would give Burnham better name recognition and help get his phone calls returned.

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The national firms couldnt match this local depth of expertise, Burnham said, because their people didnt stay in San Diego. After a few years, they would be promoted and transferred to other markets.

Making that first contribution was difficult, Burnham said.

I was never taught anything about philanthropy. My family was not a rich family. I didnt inherit anything, except the opportunity to build a business. I tried three times to sign a $1,000 check, and I was so nervous I couldnt sign it. I kept postponing my entry into gifting.

But to truly be a part of the San Diego community, as a recognized local business, Burnham realized that he had to pony up.

Burnham got involved in biomedical philanthropy by being asked to join the board of what was then the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation, now the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.

(The cancer research foundation has changed its name twice in response to major philanthropic donations  from its original name to the Burnham Institute in 1996 after a $10 million gift from Burnham, and then to its present name in 2010 after a $50 million donation from Denny Sanford.)

At first, Burnham needed some convincing.

I said, Wait a minute. I dont know anything about cancer. Its never been in our family, Im not a scientist. Why are you asking me?

Geography was the answer. As its name then indicated, the foundation was narrowly focused on La Jolla. Burnham, who didnt live in La Jolla, would expand the foundations base.

After a tour of the foundation and meeting with its founders, William and Lillian Fishman, Burnham was convinced.

I was aware at the time that in those days that most science was done in a vacuum, Burnham said. Scientists didnt want his or her neighbors to see what they were doing  they might steal my secrets.

When I went into this laboratory, there were no walls, there were no silos  they addressed each other as family members and partners. I just liked what I saw and heard and felt.

Burnham said he at first couldnt put a name to what he experienced then, but later realized it was the spirit of collaboration that is the hallmark of the San Diego science community.

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Biomedical philanthropy became personally important to Burnham when cancer eventually reached his family. His brother died from prostate cancer.

When they found his prostate cancer, it was in the last stages, Burnham said. He was gone before he knew it.

Then Burnham himself was diagnosed with prostate cancer, in a much earlier stage that made successful treatment possible. That diagnosis was made with the help of a test for PSA, or prostate specific antigen.

One of the steps in the PSA tests was discovered at the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation, he said. And that saved my life, because I was taking PSA tests every year. Ive had a gratitude to the industry and to the effort in helping to build. Probably 20 percent of my life since then has been involved in medical research.

Burnham has since become known not only as a large-scale philanthropist, but as an effective advocate for philanthropy among his wealthy peers. One of those is Sanford, who called Burnham the best pickpocket in the world during a 2014 panel on philanthropy.

I think he could go to jail for what hes done to me, Sanford said as the audience laughed.

Burnham had help from Papa Doug Manchester, another member of the institutes board, who had coaxed Sanford to visit the cancer foundation. Along with other colleagues, they drew Sanford into the San Diego biomedical community.

Being this active is part of what makes philanthropy happen, Burnham said. Gifts require whats known as the ask. So not just the donors are philanthropists, but also the volunteers, fundraising officials and many others involved in the process of giving.

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
Alan Gold, 56, Poway

Unlike most donors, biomedicine is Alan Golds career. Hes the former CEO of BioMed Realty Trust, which leases space to research institutes and pharmaceutical companies. That familiarized him with the physical requirements for biomedical entities, along with what they do.

SAN DIEGO, CA March 23rd, 2017 | Philanthropist Alan Gold poses for photos at the Rancho Bernardo offices of BioMed Realty on Thursday in San Diego, California. | (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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BioMed Realty Trust was acquired by the private equity firm Blackstone Group in 2015 for $4.8 billion. Today, Gold is executive chairman of Innovative Industrial Properties, which leases to medical marijuana companies.

He also has been a board member of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since December 2013.

Neighborhood Healthcare, a network of community clinics in San Diego and Riverside counties, was among of the first nonprofits that Gold and his wife, Debbie, started helping financially. They liked the clinics dedication to delivering health care to low-income families.

Weve been supporting it since 1998, giving more than $1 million to date, Gold said. Its a passion to give back to the community that both I and my wife have. We truly believed in the Neighborhood Healthcare mission, which was directly focused on north San Diego County, where we lived.

Among their more recent contributions: money to purchase land for a new clinic in Poway.

Their gift was made in honor of Alans late parents, Martin and Delia Gold, who lived in Poway for more than 50 years and firmly believed in the importance of giving back to the community, according to Neighborhood Healthcares website.

The Golds are also donors to The Scripps Research Institute, the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the Salk Institute, all renowned biomedical research facilities in La Jolla.

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For the Golds, their philanthropy is focused on a few causes, enabling them to provide not only money but also attention.

We give our time, we give our money and we recommend it to our friends and associates, Alan Gold said. So we need to understand those organizations very well. Thats how we assure ourselves the money is being spent properly.

Joining the Salk board was prompted by a partnership with BioMed Realty Trust. That alliance piqued Golds personal interest as he gained knowledge about the institute.

As I learned more about their mission and the quality of their scientists, I became personally involved, he said. Its all about the people.

Gold said he and his wife decide on where to donate by first finding causes they care about, then looking to groups working on those causes.

Its coming from our own passions, Gold said.

And the Salk institutes philosophy and goals spoke to those passions.

Salk is involved in the earliest stages of scientific discovery, Gold said. It takes the longest time for an idea (in basic science) to come to fruition, but it has the greatest impact. ... Thats where true, new discoveries are found.

Asked about President Donald Trumps plan to reduce the National Institutes of Healths budget by $5.8 billion next year, Gold said he hoped Congress would stave off the cuts in the interest of supporting basic research. More private philanthropy also needs to be encouraged, he said.

There is an increasing wave of philanthropy based on the fortunes of those who can give, Gold said. But there needs to be greater education about the importance of giving.

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
Joan and Irwin Jacobs, 83 and 84, La Jolla

With a fortune largely earned from Irwin Jacobs leadership of telecommunications and chip-making giant Qualcomm, the Jacobses have transformed the world of philanthropy in San Diego. They became famous in the charitable world for a $120 million gift that saved the San Diego Symphony from bankruptcy.

Other large contributions have placed the Jacobs name on UC San Diegos School of Engineering and the universitys new hospital. Since the university is how the Jacobses were originally drawn to San Diego, it has a special place in their hearts.

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Millions also have gone to the Salk Institute, where Irwin Jacobs served as chairman for a decade, and other biomedical causes.

The couples devotion to philanthropy goes back many decades before those donations. The Jacobses grew up in Jewish families of modest means  Joan Jacobs (nee Klein) in New York City and Irwin Jacobs in New Bedford, Mass.

Our families were philanthropic, but on a very different level, Joan Jacobs said. They gave to the local synagogue, but not in any major way. We both came from very humble homes. Were very fortunate to be able to do what were doing now.

Major donations in the biomedical field are a relatively new experience for the Jacobses. This can be traced to Irwin Jacobs decision to become chairman of the Salk Institute in 2006, a year after he stepped down as CEO of Qualcomm.

Taking a leadership role at the Salk implied a monetary as well as time commitment.

Irwin Jacobs said he and his wife scaled up their gifts to the Salk after he got to know it reasonably intimately and saw a need. One need was to provide professors with more money, not only for themselves but also for their laboratories and professional recognition.

To do that, the Jacobses helped form endowed chairs, with $1 million for each of them on the condition that another donor contribute a matching amount.

We set it up initially with five chairs, I believe, Irwin Jacobs said. Those went quickly, then we went to 10, 15 and now 20. The matching grants work very well.

To directly aid scientists with specific projects, the institute established an innovation fund.

Somebody comes up with a new idea, you cant raise federal money for it right away, how do we manage to get that started? Irwin Jacobs said.

Each year, we give many scientists enough money to start a years worth of work on a new idea, he added. And then they get to a point where they can go raise separate money.

Perhaps the biggest contribution to the Salk came from Irwin Jacobs successful pursuit of William Brody to become the institutes president. Brody gained fame as a master fundraiser while serving as president of Johns Hopkins University.

With Brody as president beginning in March 2009, the Salk Institute raised $330 million for its capital campaign, bringing it greater independent financial security to support its roster of basic biomedical research. Brody then stepped down, and he was replaced early last year by Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn.

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Focus package: What prompts someone to give millions of dollars to a scientific cause?

Around that time, the Jacobses put their money to the clinical side of medicine, contributing $100 million toward construction of UC San Diegos Jacobs Medical Center, which opened in November.

Irwin was on the board of the UCSD Foundation, and they mentioned they would like to have a hospital or medical center, Joan Jacobs said. So he came home and we talked about it, and we realized that would be a great asset for San Diego.

We originally made a donation of $75 million, Irwin Jacobs said. But then the cost went up and so they needed additional funding. So we set up another $25 million as a one-to-one match, and that was fully met.

From the Salk Institute to the new hospital, the Jacobses extend their generosity across the biomedical spectrum  from basic research to clinical care. Today, they identify the biggest need as fundamental research.

Theyre all important, but clearly, especially with the latest word out of Washington, basic science needs additional support, Jacobs said. He was referring to the presidents proposed slashing of the budget for the National Institutes of Health, the largest single underwriter of biomedical research in the United States.

But the problem goes beyond one president, he said. Thats in some sense been true for several years now. The budget of the NIH has not kept up with the number of scientists and the great work being done.

That in turn has pushed up the average age of biomedical scientists who get their first NIH grant to the early 40s, he said.

Some of the best work, theyve found out, is from age 25, when they were just young and eager, Joan Jacobs said.

The Jacobses also supported the stem cell consortium of local biomedical centers that allied to build the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, just across the street from the Salk Institute on UC San Diego property.

Whether its in the arts, education or sciences, the Jacobses said they plan their donations together.

Its turned out that he knows the sciences better than I do, so he will look at start-up companies and other areas. And I have an interest in the arts, Joan Jacobs said. Growing up in New York City, I was exposed to museums and theater.

Irwin Jacobs said: For example, the major donation to the symphony was a suggestion by Joan. Shes also interested in whats happening with the La Jolla Playhouse. But mostly its just things we talk about and sort our way through.

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
Ernest Rady, 79, La Jolla

When the childrens hospital that bears his name asked Ernest Rady for $20 million to establish a center for pediatric genomic medicine, he gave an unexpected rely: He offered $120 million instead.

August 4, 2014, SAN DIEGO, CA | Ernest Rady, left, and his wife, Evelyn Rady, right, are all smiles during the announcement of their $120 million pledge Monday to Rady Childrens Hospital, to create the Rady Pediatric Genomics and System Medicine Institute at the hospital that already bears their family name. The Institute will be capable of sequencing and analyzing the genome of every incoming patient. |Photo by Howard Lipin/U-T San Diego/Mandatory Credit: HOWARD LIPIN/U-T SAN DIEGO/ZUMA PRESS | U-T San DIego photo by Howard Lipin copyright 2014 (Howard Lipin / U-T San Diego)

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After representatives of Rady Childrens Hospital San Diego picked themselves up off the floor, they put the money to good use, establishing an institute for genomic medicine.

Under the leadership of Dr. Stephen Kingsmore, the institute tackles the very toughest of cases: infants and children with life-threatening diseases that cant otherwise be diagnosed. In some cases, these patients have just days to live unless an effective treatment can be found.

For Rady, who made his fortune in finance, the stupendous gift to the 520-bed hospital was just a matter of logic. He knew of the increasingly powerful technology of genomics and how it might be used to find causes of disease that resisted other means of diagnosis.

And for Rady, already a major supporter of the hospital, the need to introduce genomics was self-evident.

$20 (million) wouldnt do anything, Rady said. You cant have a great childrens hospital, to look after the children of our community, without a legitimate and significant research arm.

Rady said hes not quite sure how he came up with $120 million.

Someone asked me that question, and the answer I gave was temporary insanity, he said, chuckling.

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Focus package: What prompts someone to give millions of dollars to a scientific cause?

It wasnt the first gift Rady and his wife, Evelyn, made to the hospital. In 2006, they pledged $60 million to what was then named Childrens Hospital San Diego. In honor of the contribution, the hospital was renamed Rady Childrens Hospital.

My wife of 57 years and I want to give to things where we can make a difference, Rady said, explaining the couples criteria for giving. Were in a position to make a difference, so I dont want to give a little bit here and a little bit there.

Rady, a former board member of the hospital, said hes pleased with how the donations have been spent. Rady has confidence in the organizations leaders and thus doesnt feel the need to look over their shoulders: Theyve done better without me than with me there.

For Rady, people come first.

I just get involved with people whom I trust, and Ive never been disappointed. ... If you trust the people, theyre going to do a great job. In the case of Rady Childrens, theyve done more than I ever would have hoped for.

Beyond his own involvement, Rady said he thinks the attention drawn to the hospital and other sources has spurred additional donations  not because of him directly, but because the causes are so compelling.

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
Darlene Shiley, 70, La Jolla

The name Darlene Shiley is known across San Diego County in large part because of the prodigious donations she and her now-late husband, Donald, have bestowed on medical, scientific and arts causes.

More than $100 million from their fortune has gone to institutions such as the Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego, the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimers Disease Research Center at UC San Diego and the Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center at San Diego State University.

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And Shiley herself, an actress by training, is known nationwide among fans of Downton Abbey for her support of the drama series on PBS.

Close to Shileys heart is the fight against Alzheimers disease and other dementias. A form of dementia claimed the life of Donald Shiley, the noted heart valve inventor, in 2010. She has described the painful process of saying goodbye, especially the point where her husband was so deep in dementia that he no longer recognized her.

When Donald and I married in 1978, he was determined that our entire estate would go to charitable causes and I agreed, Shiley said. About two years into one of the happiest marriages you could imagine, I asked if we could start giving earlier to experience the likely success of the various ventures.

Donald thought it was a terrific plan and immediately said, Great. How about you handle it? she said.

If only I had known how much work, though satisfying, philanthropy can be, I might have chosen a different suggestion. It is an enormous responsibility that I carry on in his honor.

In the course of the couples philanthropy, education has been at the top of their list.

Donald and I both fervently believed in the empowerment provided by education, Shiley said. We both came from economically challenged circumstances and learned very early on that a good education was the path to carry us forward. That has been and will always be true.

Scholarships are probably the best way to give students the opportunity they need. And since I was trained in the theater and music, Im a strong supporter of the performing arts and arts education.

One of the first gifts the couple made was a scholarship to the University of San Diego.

Donald and I were impressed by then-President Author Hughes speech about the importance of a values based education, Shiley said. We climbed on board the USD train that night.

The outcome was a giving record that spans from the early 1980s to the present day.

From the beginning, I felt it important to personally investigate the types of projects that we felt were largely unmet needs, Shiley said.

We began with the Shiley Awards in Health, Education and the Arts, which pretty well defines our wide-ranging interests. Occasionally, (I) will respond to requests, but there are simply too many to adequately cover. You have to find the ones that do the most good for the most people.

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For Shiley, writing a check is not the end of her commitment. Its the beginning.

One of the most important issues in philanthropy for both donors and institutions is stewardship, she said. When I fund a program, I expect the organization to follow the guidelines that have been agreed to in a pledge statement that makes the goal of the gift clear. We dont micromanage, but we watch very carefully to see if we are attaining the outcomes sought.

And if the outcomes are not being met, Shiley said, shell work quietly to right the ship.

For people soliciting donations, Shiley suggests direct contact, but to avoid being too pushy.

Do acquaint me with your organization  send a brief informational summary and if it fits our goals, we will follow up.

Do present more than one idea/level of proposed funding.

Do remember how many people need assistance and allow us to move on to a new project once we have responded to yours.

And to express gratitude for a donation, Shiley suggests a few easy steps:

Reading a simple, handwritten thank you note carries great weight and inspiration.

Hearing a sincere thank you for all you do can power you to more and bigger goals.

Feeling that people are responding to your giving makes it all so worthwhile.

Finally, Shiley said more people should become donors and volunteers so the San Diego area can continue to benefit.

One thing that concerns me is the aging of our regions major philanthropists, she said. There needs to be a next wave, a new generation of givers. Whether giving of your time, talent or treasure, there is room and a need for all of us to participate to the breadth of our capabilities.

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
Paranoia and a five-day methamphetamine bender appear to have sparked the unprovoked and deadly shooting of a young San Marcos woman, whose body was found dumped by a roadside in January, a prosecutor said in an interview Friday.

The accused gunman, 27-year-old Paul R. Castro IV, pleaded not guilty in a Vista courtroom Monday to murder and assault charges as well as allegations that he used a gun, Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe said.

Superior Court Judge Cynthia Freeland ordered that Castro  whose gang moniker is Menace  be jailed in lieu of $3 million bail.

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Castro, a documented Las Vegas gang member, faces 69 years to life in prison if he is convicted killing Antonia Herrera and shooting at her boyfriend.

Castros defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Alexandra Knudson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.

Authorities have said the killing happened as Hererra, her boyfriend and Castro were passengers in a car headed from Las Vegas to Herreras San Marcos apartment before dawn Jan. 11.

According to Watanabe, no argument or animosity preceded the shooting. Rather, an attempt by the 23-year-old victim to reassure the paranoid Castro went horribly wrong.

The prosecutor said Herrera had gone to Las Vegas on Jan. 8 to visit friends. Three days later, she and her boyfriend were headed to San Marcos, riding in the backseat of a friends car when Castro, the front seat passenger, became distraught.

Watanabe said Castro is bipolar and schizophrenic, with a documented history of paranoia.

And at the time of the shooting, Castro told police, he had been on a five-day meth binge, with no sleep.

During the ride, the defendant  being paranoid and on meth  kept saying that he believed the occupants of the car were trying to kidnap and kill him, that theyd been hired by a drug cartel to kill him, Watanabe said.

The driver and the couple in the backseat tried to reassure Castro, and calm him down.

After a five-hour drive, they neared unincorporated Escondido and the freeway exit to reach Herreras apartment. At that point, the young woman told Castro they would be driving through a desolate, wooded area but told him not to worry.

She said it to keep him calm, the prosecutor said, but it had the opposite effect.

What came next was unexpected and quick.

He pulled out a gun, racked the slide and turned around and fired three shots into the back seat, directly at the victim, Watanabe said.

All three bullets hit Herreras torso. One shot also grazed the right arm of her boyfriend, who had been cuddling with her at the time.

Castro, still holding the gun, ordered the driver to find a place to dump Herreras body.

The scared driver obeyed, pulling off Interstate 15 at the next exit. They dumped Herreras body in a ravine off Champagne Boulevard south of Lawrence Welk Drive sometime before sunrise and headed back to Las Vegas.

The following day, a resident across the canyon found the body and called police, according to the Sheriffs department.

A combination of Herreras Facebook page, credit card records and witness statements eventually led authorities to Castro, the prosecutor said.

Castro  who is on probation for aggravated child endangerment in Nevada  was arrested in Las Vegas last month. He was extradited to San Diego County late last week.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
A march toward electing City Council members by district, rather than at-large voting, appears to be sweeping across North County  and Oceanside could be next.

Escondido made the switch in 2013 to settle a voting-rights lawsuit alleging the citys election system disenfranchised Latino voters. San Marcos was threatened next with a similar lawsuit and agreed last year to change to district voting, and the Vista City Council  the most recent to receive a lawsuit threat  is set to vote on the issue Tuesday.

The same attorney who targeted election systems in San Marcos and Vista said Thursday he just sent a similar warning letter to Oceanside. A few weeks ago, some Oceanside residents also started calling for the change, arguing district elections would get more people involved in local politics, bring to light some overlooked issues, and possibly put some new faces on the council

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It would provide a better opportunity for new people who dont have a big budget, said Nadine Scott, a community activist and longtime observer of the citys politics.

Malibu-based attorney Kevin Shenkman said hes demanding Oceanside move to district elections on behalf of Southwest Voter Registration Project, a Latino voting rights organization. He said, like many other cities in the state, Oceanside is being targeted because it is violating the California Voting Rights Act.

Their system of election is unlawful, Shenkman said. Its causing the dilution of the Latino vote.

The voting rights act was approved in 2001 and made it easier for minorities to show their votes were being diluted by at-large districts. Even cities like Escondido and Vista  where Latinos have successfully been elected to the council  appear vulnerable to lawsuits invoking the act, and the court decisions almost always favor the plaintiffs.

Oceanside residents like Donna McGinty said they dont think discrimination is an issue in the citys elections, but that district voting would be better for other reasons.

McGinty said, under the current system, the council often doesnt listen to its constituents, and that if council members represented just one specific area they would be more sensitive and responsive to the community.

The public would have an individual who is tied to them directly and meets with them on a regular basis  to discuss their issues and territorial concerns, she said. Its an easy way to garner more interest from the public.

Councilwoman Esther Sanchez said Friday if Southwest Voter Registration is demanding Oceanside make the change, she will support.

Im sure theyve done their homework, she said, adding that every city the group has challenged under the Voting Rights Act has either switched to district elections or taken the issue to court and lost.

Besides that, its the right thing to do, said Sanchez, whos been a councilwoman since 2000. She said shes recently grown more concerned about voter representation and the lack of diversity on the panel.

On April 19, shell ask the council to schedule a workshop on the matter, she said. The last time Oceanside discussed the idea was about 15 yeas ago.

We had a lot of people come in and say they didnt like the idea, Sanchez recalled. Some said they liked being represented by five council members, instead of just one  but a lot has changed since then, she said.

We were polite to each other, Sanchez said, but not so much anymore. After this past election  I can see why people might not want to run.

In addition to council districts, she said, will ask that the workshop include a discussion about term limits and campaign contribution limits.

McGinty said another benefit of holding district elections is that political campaigns would be less expensive because the candidate would have a smaller territory to cover. That would encourage more young people to run for the council, she said.

They just dont have that kind of money, McGinty said. Its up to us to try and encourage them.

District elections have a down side. Some people say they make council members more interested in the affairs of their district than in the city as a whole, making it more difficult to get anything approved.

Im really not a fan, said Councilman Jack Feller.

Council members now come from homes spread widely across the city, he said, so everyone is well represented. He and Sanchez both said they attend a wide variety of events to meet with a broad cross-section of community members.

Thats what were all driving for  to represent everyone, Feller said.

Feller said election districts would be more practical once Oceanside gets a little larger, maybe 200,000 residents or more. The citys 2016 population was estimated at 167,000.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehl
More than 100 critics of President Donald Trump and his policies, and another three dozen or so Trump supporters, rallied outside a Vista event that was supposed to feature Rep. Darrell Issa on Friday evening.

The congressman, who endorsed Trump during his presidential campaign, was not there. He had stayed in Washington D.C. for what was supposed to have been a critical House vote on a bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and replaced it with a plan dubbed the American Health Care Act.

Protestors gather outside a chamber of commerce event in Vista to protest Darrell Issa.

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The vote, first slated for Thursday and later pushed to Friday afternoon, never happened. But the last-minute decision by Republican leadership to pull the controversial bill came too late for Issa to attend the North County event, a dinner hosted by the Vista Chamber of Commerce.

The failure to bring the bill to a vote was a relief to dozens of Trump detractors at the Friday protest, many of whom said they benefit from Obamacare.

This is why it was not put to a vote  because of people like us, said Vista resident Mustafa Nizam.

Still, Issas absence did not discourage his detractors or supporters, who waved signs along the street leading to the Shadowridge Country Club, the site of the Chamber event.

We need to keep the pressure on until he represents us and our interests, protestor Michael Gordon said of Issa.

Across the street, Trump supporter and Oceanside resident Patti Seigmann said she and like-minded people came out for several reasons, including showing the community  and the opposition  that Trump has their backing.

We want to support the president, she said.

1 / 9 A Trump supporter holds a Trump Sign as one of the anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters holds a sign close to the face of the supporter. Photo by Teri Figueroa (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 9 A Trump supporter holds a Trump Sign in front of anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters. Photo by Teri Figueroa (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 9 Around a hundred anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters chant slogans at the entrance to the Shadowridge Golf Club. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 9 Vista resident Martin Facey yells into a loudspeaker as he and around a hundred anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters chant slogans at the entrance to the Shadowridge Golf Club. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 9 A man yells Communists at anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters as he drives past them at the entrance to the Shadowridge Golf Club. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 9 Vista resident Nancy Cook, center, holds her arms up as she and around a hundred anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters chant slogans. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 9 Around a hundred anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters chant slogans at the entrance to the Shadowridge Golf Club. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 9 Around a hundred anti-Trump and Congressman Darrell Issa protesters chant slogans at the entrance to the Shadowridge Golf Club. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 9 VISTA , March 24, 2017 | A protester holds a sign with Congressman Darrell Issas picture on as around a hundred anti-Trump and Issa protesters chant slogans at the entrance to the Shadowridge Golf Club, where Issa was supposed to have attended an event put on by the Vista Chamber of Commerce, in Vista on Friday. Issa was not at the event at the Shadowridge Golf Club because he was in washington D.C.. | Photo by Hayne Palmour IV/San Diego Union-Tribune/Mandatory Credit: HAYNE PALMOUR IV/SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE/ZUMA PRESS San Diego Union-Tribune Photo by Hayne Palmour IV copyright 2016 (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Passersby honked and waved at one side of the crowd or the other during the dueling rallies. One man yelled communists as he drove past the Trump detractors.

Since the November election, when Issa retained his House seat by a razor-thin margin, the Vista congressman has been dogged by protesters rallying each week outside his office, calling on him to reject the proposed repeal of Obamacare. Theyve also voiced displeasure at the presidents cabinet picks and policies.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
Poway Unified School District officials are planning to enter mediation talks with ousted Superintendent John Collins, over claims that he took $345,000 in improper payments.

The district fired Collins in July over those charges, and sued him to recoup the money. In January, Collins attorneys revealed in court filings that the San Diego District Attorneys Office is looking into the complaints against Collins, and asked the court to stay the civil case until the criminal investigation is done. They noted that Collins would not testify on any matters in the civil trial that could weigh against him in a potential criminal case.

On May 18, however, the district and Collins will turn to mediation on the disputed payments, said Collins attorney Paul Pfingst. Theyll hash out accusations that Collins, then the highest paid school superintendent in the county, padded his salary by collecting unauthorized vacation payouts, taking off-the-books vacation days, receiving unearned raises and accruing longevity pay far in excess of what his contract allowed.

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Pfingst, a former San Diego County district attorney who served from 1994 until 2002, said those allegations boil down to matters of contract interpretation, and that hell show Collins was within his rights in taking the payments.

Im hopeful that the mediator will be able to convince the district that Dr. Collins interpretation of his contract is the correct interpretation, and that the contract permitted him to do the things he was doing, Pfingst said.

In September, Collins filed a claim against the school district alleging he should have been offered work as a classroom teacher after being fired. The school board rejected the claim in November.

Maribel Medina, who is representing the district in the Collins case, declined to comment because of the active litigation.

Collinss termination followed his long tenure at the district, where he enjoyed accolades as chief of some of San Diego Countys highest performing schools. He started at Poway Unified in 1989 as an assistant principal at Twin Peaks and worked his way up through the ranks, becoming superintendent in 2010. His pay followed suit, rising to $308,900 per year, with total compensation of $457,347 including extra pay, benefits and retirement  making him the second highest paid superintendent in the state.

Collins star first began to fall in 2011, however, after he coordinated a $105 million construction bond deal, using a controversial type of financing that would take decades to repay at a long-term cost of nearly $1 billion. By December 2015, speculation began building that Collins was negotiating an exit deal.

The school board placed him on administrative leave in April and commissioned an audit of his compensation by the accounting firm VLS Forensic Services. Far from providing basis for a severance package, the audit concluded that Collins had already taken more than he was owed, and had engaged in self-dealing to enrich himself.

The audit stated that Collins cashed out more than $148,457 in vacation pay that he hadnt earned, then took additional days off without logging them. By the time he was placed on administrative leave, the audit stated, Collins had already overdrawn his vacation balance by 445 hours.

The district also maintained that Collins improperly took extended time off, including a month-long holiday in July 2015, for which he claimed only 12 days of leave, and other sick or vacation days that he counted as work days.

Pfingst said Collins accrued and used vacation days in accordance with his contracts, and consistent with standard business practice. He said the discrepancies stemmed from differing interpretations of how those leave balances were handled each time Collins signed a new contract with the board.

The audit also alleges Collins was awarded roughly $132,000 in longevity pay that he hadnt earned, through 2.5 percent bonuses provided to employees at 10, 15, 20 and 25 years of service. Under Collins, the longevity awards were compounded and added to employees base pay, resulting in permanent salary hikes. The district maintained that those should have been one-time bonuses, instead of ongoing raises. Because they accrued to his own pay permanently, Collins received a total of $132,090, instead of the $12,603 he should have received for those milestones, the audit stated.

Pfingst countered that such longevity raises typically form an ongoing part of employees salaries, and said Collins pay was consistent with standards for public agencies, as well as the rules governing other employees in the school district.

In these cases and others, he said, the districts audit deciphered contractual provisions in the manner most unfavorable to the former superintendent.

They did a very big and thorough investigation, he said. I just think the people they hired were influenced by the desires of the client, to interpret the contract in every way that was adverse to Dr. Collins.

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan
There was always music playing in her home growing up, and Cybele Pena remembers always moving to it. A lifelong dancer, Pena is inspired and grounded by the movement of her body to music and shares that expression with children and adults throughout the county. As a teaching artist for Arts for Learning San Diego, an affiliate of the Young Audiences National Network that advocates for arts in education, she teaches dance at schools, after-school programs and at festivals, like Sundays Family Arts Day in the Diamond  Brazilian Carnaval.

I love the mind, body and soul connection I find in dance. I find it is one of the few times that I am truly present (and) stop thinking about my to-do list , she says. The combination of movement, music and the desire to express what is inside or what cannot be said sometimes with words makes dance feel like the most important thing in the moment I am doing it.

Pena, 36, lives in North Park with her husband and their three kids, who are also dancers. On Sunday, shell demonstrate the traditional dances of Latin America, along with other forms of dance during the family-friendly event from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, 404 Euclid Ave., in San Diego. She took some time to talk about her own dance career, what she shares with local students in schools and what people can expect to learn on Sunday.

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Q: What is your role in the Brazilian carnival this weekend?

A: I will perform a little bit, but my role is really to be engaging the crowd and inviting them to join us by moving and celebrating life in a festive way.

Q: What made you want to work with this event?

A: I am so excited to do this event because it is fun, free and for the community. I love the neighborhood. I lived there for many years, and I teach dance at nearby Knox Middle School through Arts for Learning.

Q: What kinds of traditional dances will you be teaching this weekend?

A: Although the event title is Brazilian Carnaval, we will really be including some beautiful dances and rhythms from several parts of the world that celebrate carnival. I am going to bring calypso, representing Venezuela and Trinidad, and conga/comparsa, representing Cuba. I will also be joining in with the band for some Brazilian samba.

What I love about North Park ...

I love that I can walk to both a beautiful canyon/park area in Morley Field and Florida Canyon and also to good coffee shops and food spots. I love the diversity in the community.

Q: How and where did you learn these dances?

A: I studied Afro-Cuban dance and music for a huge part of my life under several incredible instructors. I had a master teacher of Afro-Cuban drum and dance named Juan Carlos Blanco, and I was introduced to him when I was a senior in high school. I joined his company, Omo Ache, and we had to learn the history, the songs, the cultural meaning and then, of course, the dance and movement vocabulary. I also lived in Venezuela for two years and took classes in different cultural dances from all over the country, researched their history, performed them and received certificates for my accomplishments. I also got to participate in and be at carnival in Venezuela, which was so beautiful. I absolutely love the happiness brought on by all of this importance being placed on a celebration that brings a whole community outside to dance and make music together.

Q: What was the process of learning these dances like for you?

A: For me, it was a natural connection. I have always felt that the world would be a better place if more people danced together, if people took care of each other as a community and created more spaces to joyfully express themselves with freeing movement and rhythm. That is one what drives me to teach dance in the schools  I see the way it changes the culture of a group or a whole school when you start to set an expectation that we will use our whole selves to express our feelings and we will all respect how that looks different on each person.

Q: Youll also be performing with Sol e Mar, a popular local band specializing in music from Cuba and Brazil. What can people expect from this performance?

A: Sol e Mar is an incredible group. I love working with them because their knowledge of music is so extensive. They play music from Cuba, Brazil and other places in Latin America and the Caribbean. They dont just play the rhythms, they have dedicated themselves to understanding the cultures, religious and spiritual traditions, and meaning involved in all of this music. I can tell them, I want to do a Venezuelan calypso dance and then lets do a conga from Cuba, and they will know what to do. They are going to be parading through the audience encouraging people to feel the music and join in.

Q: What kind of audience participation will be involved in this performance?

A: There will be opportunities for the audience to watch and be amazed by an excellent demonstration of Brazilian capoeira and great music and performances, there will be chances for them to get up in their seats and dance, to come up on stage and join in, and to parade around with us. There will also be a place to make their own masks.

Q: How do audiences typically respond when asked to participate in this way?

A: Sometimes people are nervous at first because it isnt something we always do in our culture, dancing together with young and old out in public, in a celebratory way. There are usually some people who get excited to join in, often because it reminds them of something in their culture or from their childhood, or even an experience they had in another country. Those people are the brave ones that come out and show everyone else that its OK to enjoy in that way.

Q: What is your goal this weekend in teaching these dances to people?

A: I want them to feel joy, to feel connected to others, to feel curious and inspired to learn more about the world.

Q: What styles of dance do you teach?

A: I teach dance classes with many different styles, themes and objectives. I taught an after-school program that focused on learning about Latin American dance styles and some geography and history. I recently did a residency in a school with fifth-graders that looked at the connections between dance and storytelling in many cultures. We looked at how many different cultures express stories and pass on their traditional tales through dance, from Native American styles to hip-hop. Then, I gave them tools to create their own dances to tell the story of a book they read in class. In classes like that, it is more about being able to make a wide variety of artistic choices to express intent, observe and think critically, describe things in detail, and fully experience their learning through movement.

Q: Which style do you feel youre most drawn to?

A: Afro Cuban has probably been the biggest part of my life. There is so much to it, all of the movement has so much meaning and I think the movement just flows for me. I feel spiritually connected. Right now, I am really inspired by house dance. There is a sense of community among house dancers and house music lovers that I find really reminds me of the folkloric groups I have been in.

Q: Whats been challenging about being a dancer and about teaching dance to others?

A: I sometimes teach seven classes a day, so that is physically exhausting at times. For a while, I felt like teaching all day, every day was not leaving me any energy to train, perform, or even just have fun dancing on my own, but lately I have been making it a priority to take classes and create choreography for myself and others. And to perform again. I feel so much better when I do and feel like I have more to give to my students.

Q: Whats been rewarding about that work?

A: Bringing dance into schools and getting to be the one to help create a space to explore and learn through the art of dance makes me feel very lucky. I love that dance is often a gateway to students wanting to learn more about other cultures and understand other people in the world. I get to experience how students express their feelings, take risks, become fully engaged and excited about school when dance is a part of their day. I get to watch kids who never thought dance was their thing, start to realize that it is just another tool to explore the many possibilities of ways they can move, things they can create and answer questions that have endless right answers.

Q: What has your life as a dancer taught you about yourself?

A: That learning is never done and you are never too old to create.

Q: Describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

A: Going to the beach, Vietnamese or Thai food, nature, time to slow down with my family, time to gather to make music and dance with friends.

Email: lisa.deaderick@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @lisadeaderick
The proposed acquisition of financial giant MoneyGram by a company with close ties to the Beijing government might be scuppered by rising fears that Chinese spies would exploit the data of U.S. troops and their families to track military movements and identify targets to turn.

The bidding war for Dallas-based MoneyGram pits Chinas Zhejiang Ant Small and Micro Financial Services  called Ant  against Euronet Worldwide, a Kansas firm thats American-owned.

Ant offered $1.9 billion for MoneyGram on Jan. 27. Euronet swept in with a $2 billion bid nearly three months later, but the only deal under tentative agreement is Ants.

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A spin-off of online retail giant Alibaba, Ant operates in China like Americas PayPal system, but its subsidiaries include an online bank and a money-market fund. Chinese billionaire Jack Ma directs both companies, although its believed that about 15 percent of Ant is owned by the Communist government and the sovereign wealth fund it controls.

In a statement to The San Diego Union-Tribune, Ant said no Chinese fund or government agency owns more than 5 percent of the company, that Chinese officials dont control the business and that they never participate in Ants management or board, nor do they have access to the companys consumer data or other private information.

Hackers linked to Chinas military and spy agencies are accused of raiding data from both the American government and key national security contractors, including aerospace leader Northrop Grumman and shippers moving U.S. troops and equipment worldwide.

With MoneyGram, you have a company that routinely provides financial services to Department of Defense personnel. That information can be analyzed and exploited, said Christopher Swift, a former investigator at the U.S. Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control, where he probed international transactions involving terrorist syndicates, weapons smugglers and rogue nations banned from doing business in America.

This is a merger that involves Americas financial system, and the financial system is part of the critical infrastructure of the United States. On top of that, MoneyGram collects information about Americans and could be a potential source of information to the Chinese government, added Swift, now a partner at the Washington, D.C.-based legal firm of Foley & Lardner, where he specializes in white-collar litigation, international law and national-security cases.

In its statement, Ant said it had earned the trust of 630 million global customers by protecting their personal information. It pledged to retain all data about Americans on MoneyGrams servers in the United States and said none of that material would be shared with the companys China headquarters or Chinese government officials.

Customer data will be managed by Ant in the same way as its managed by MoneyGram today, the statement read.

MoneyGrams representatives didnt return messages seeking comment.

In 2012, the company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department after admitting to criminally aiding and abetting wire fraud and failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. MoneyGram forfeited $100 million for turning a blind eye to the defrauding of tens of thousands of American citizens and agreed to strengthen its compliance department, according to the agreement.

Its harder to crack down on Chinese government spying.

In 2014, for example, a federal grand jury indicted five members of Peoples Liberation Army Unit 61398 for stealing data from American corporations. The following year, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management announced that Chinese hackers ripped off the records of up to 21.5 million Americans, a treasure trove of data that included details about military personnel and contractors with high security clearances.

Troops and their families using MoneyGram to send money to relatives, friends or others must fill out forms designed to flag financial crimes such as money laundering and wire fraud.

Depending on the type of transaction, customers can disclose a wide range of personal data, including residential addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates and banking information, plus similar details about the recipient of the funds.

MoneyGram outlets also record information from a clients passport, drivers license, national identity card or other government-issued pieces of identification. The info is usually kept for five years in case federal or state bank regulators audit the transactions.

The sheer reach of MoneyGrams 347,000 outlets or affiliated agents in 200 nations means that it routinely serves military members and their families.

The Union-Tribune counted 20 MoneyGram outlets running in an arc from Temecula Heights past North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego Naval Base and Point Lomas Third Fleet headquarters to Imperial Beach  where the SEALs are building a new $1 billion compound.

About a dozen MoneyGram outlets are located around Camp Pendleton, and six are situated near Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Lemoore Naval Air Station, home to the Navys new fleet of F-35C stealthy strike fighters, has a MoneyGram in town. So does Yuma, Arizona, home to the Marine Corps F-35B program.

Its a 10-minute drive from the gates of Vandenberg Air Force Base and its top-secret missile and satellite programs to the nearest MoneyGram.

Euronet executives said theyre worried about the geographic pattern.

Our team has been in the money transfer business for more than 30 years. We have a keen understanding for the significant amount of personal data that is collected and preserved related to the senders and beneficiaries in these transactions, and the view it provides to the financial sector, Euronet Chairman and CEO Michael Brown said in a statement to the Union-Tribune. We also understand the impact on the lives of customers, and the risks were it to be misused by a company or government. Members of Congress, members of a congressional commission and others have raised concerns about such risks in this transaction.

Two Republican congressmen with sway over Americas policies toward China  Rep. Robert Pittenger of North Carolina and Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey  have asked whether Beijing would use MoneyGram data to crack down on human-rights dissidents. Ant has rejected their fears.

Other lawmakers told the Union-Tribune they were just learning about the national-security issues dogging the deal. Dayanara Ramirez, spokeswoman for Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, said her office is currently waiting to get more information/background on the matter.

Vargas serves on the House Committee on Financial Services, which could exert oversight regarding the transaction.

The proposed sale of MoneyGram to Ant also could fall victim to a tiny federal agency lodged in the U.S. Treasury Department  the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS. That office combines the expertise of 11 federal agencies, including the Pentagon and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to weigh purchases of key American companies by foreign businesses.

In 2013, CFIUS helped thwart the sale of a mining company to Chinese investors due to concerns that they would own property too near the Navys top gun fighter school at Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada and the Corps air station in Yuma.

Four years earlier, the office scuttled a similar Chinese deal to acquire another company with holdings near Fallon. The review cited serious, significant and consequential national-security issues raised by senior Pentagon officials.

In addition, President Barack Obama in 2012 barred the Chinese-owned Sany Group from erecting a wind farm near restricted air space at the Boardman test range in Oregon, where the military flies cutting-edge drones.

Because the MoneyGram sale is governed by an executive branch process, President Donald Trump will get the final say unless Congress intervenes.

On Jan. 9, then-President-elect Trump met with billionaire Ma at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Ma promised to create 1 million American jobs during the next five years as Alibaba expanded into the United States  a point echoed by Ant in its statement to the Union-Tribune.

The White House didnt respond to requests seeking comment for this story.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
A new sewage treatment plant on the Baja California coast. A pipeline to collect wastewater from ocean-front communities. A plan to re-use Tijuanas treated wastewater in agriculture.

These are some of the highlights of a soon-to-be-released plan by the state of Baja California to upgrade Tijuanas sewage infrastructure  a vision that officials say would benefit residents on both sides of the border.

The plan, expected to be finalized in the coming weeks, comes on the heels of a Tijuana spill that caused uproar last month in San Diego County when millions of gallons of untreated sewage crossed the border, contaminating its southern beaches. The incident highlighted the urgent need for upgrades to Tijuanas sewage system, despite strides in collection and treatment made over the past two decades.

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We were already making an effort, but now we will be working more quickly, said Manuel Guevara, Baja Californias Secretary of Infrastructure and Urban Development.

Planners say the document seeks to eliminate the flow of untreated sewage in the Tijuana River channel, reduce coastal contamination and use the citys treated wastewater rather than simply discharging it into the river.

The plan is that the Tijuana River watershed not have a drop of sewage water, said Miguel Lemus, director of the Comision Estatal de Servicios Publicos de Tijuana, CESPT, a state agency that operates the citys sewer and water delivery system. The plan is that by the end, the Tijuana River watershed would be protected.

Achieving that vision comes with a steep price tagmore than $280 million. Funding has yet to be secured, but state officials hope the document will help them draw support for the different projectsthrough a combination of grants, loans and public-private partnerships or another form of private-sector investment.

Controlling the cross-border flow of sewage from Tijuana into San Diego has been a battle waged for decades by agencies on both sides of the border. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has for years backed projects to collect and treat sewage from Tijuana, whose hillside colonias sit across the border and upstream from the rivers mouth in Imperial Beach.

But with limited resources and rapid growth, Mexico has been hard-pressed to comply with a 1990 agreement between the United States and Mexico known as Minute 283, which states that the government of Mexico will assure that there are no discharges of untreated domestic or industrial wastewaters into waters of the Tijuana River that cross the international boundary...

Last months spill has returned the issue of Tijuanas sewage infrastructure to center stage. A major point of contention has been CESPTs failure send notification of the release of the sewage into the river channel.

A binational committee spearheaded by the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) and its Mexican counterpart, Comision Internacional de Limites y Aguas, (CILA) is expected to deliver a report on the incident early next month, and offer recommendations for advising of any cross-border contamination.

The most important thing I could see is an agreement on an information and notification protocol for any significant spills, said David Gibson, head of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Diego. We are far more effective when we work together. I want us to continue that collegial relationship.

CESPT has reported that the cause of the spill is a collapsed sewage collector in central Tijuana. It claims an operation to replace the damaged pipe resulted in the release of less 30 million gallons of raw sewage into the river channel from Feb. 1 to Feb. 4far less than initial U.S. estimates that ranged from 143 million to 220 million gallons of sewage over a longer time period.

Saying four similar pipes are in danger of collapse, the utility is awaiting an emergency declaration by Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid that would release some $3.5 million for the repairs.

But already before the emergencies, the state late last year began drafting a plan for the region together with Mexicos National Water Commission, and two bi-national infrastructure agenciesthe North American Development Bank and the Border Environment Cooperation Commission.

Its a wonderful plan, said Maria Elena Giner, the commissions general manager, whose staff has been working closely with CESPT. Theyre really looking towards addressing this as a bilateral issue.

Though the plan has yet to be made public, Baja California officials laid out some of its major components in recent interviews.

Among the immediate needs listed earlier this month in a state document is the construction of a new treatment plant at San Antonio de los Buenosa recommendation first made in a 2015 study funded by the Border Environment Cooperation Commission at the request of Mexicos National Water Commission.

The activated sludge plant would replace a 30-year-old facility whose discharge since 2015 has failed to meet Mexican federal standards, according to U.S. and Mexican officials. Guevara, the states infrastructure secretary, said he has secured a promise from Banobras, Mexicos state-owned development bank, that it would subsidize 40 percent of the cost of the plant.

The rest would come from a variety of sourcesMexicos National Water Commission, the state, and the private sector.

Also on the immediate needs list is the construction of a nine-mile pipe that would collect sewage from Pacific Coast communities for treatment at a state plant in northern Rosarito Beach.

Medium-term, the plan looks at pumping treated wastewater from eastern Tijuana to support agriculture in the Valle de las Palmas, a valley east of the city. It would also transfer sludge from the Punta Bandera facility to the valley.

Among the long-term objectives is the construction of an underwater discharge pipeline.

They have a good vision, they have a good plan, its up to them to find the moneythrough water rates, sewer rates, borrowed money or from the federal government, said Alex Hinojosa, deputy managing director of the North American Development Bank.

There is the will, but there is a need to clearly identify resources, said Roberto Espinosa, who heads the Tijuana office of CILA. The problem is big, its complex, and its going to take time to take those measures.

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble
The widow of a Mexican man who crossed into the U.S. illegally in the trunk of a car is suing the U.S. government, alleging that staff at a detention facility in Otay Mesa repeatedly ignored his pleas for medical care, causing him to die from complications of pneumonia weeks later.

The lawsuit, filed in San Diego federal court, is among a string of cases alleging negligence when it comes to the medical problems of immigrants held at detention centers across the country. A 2007 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which was settled in 2010, addressed similar issues in Otay Mesa.

If these facts in the complaint are true, then this would violate the core principles not only of the Constitution but of the settlement, said David Loy, legal director for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. The prior lawsuit addressed precisely this kind of problem of people begging for care and not getting care.

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Most of those in the Otay Mesa Detention Center are being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The facility also houses criminal detainees and material witnesses for the U.S. Marshals Service.

The lawsuit names the federal government, as well as CoreCivic  the private company contracted to run the Otay Mesa center  and a guard identified as C.O. Langdon.

Healthcare at the facility is provided by ICEs health service corps and the federal Public Health Service, according to the lawsuit. A San Diego ICE spokeswoman declined to comment on the case last week, saying she didnt have enough information. A CoreCivic spokesman in Tennessee, where the company is headquartered, said officials had not yet reviewed the lawsuit.

According to court records, Gerardo Cruz-Sanchez, 32, tried to cross into the U.S. in the trunk of a car on Feb. 4, 2016, at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. The driver, Juan Carlos Ortega-Gonzalez, had presented someone elses U.S. passport to the Customs and Border Protection officer. Cruz-Sanchez and two other immigrants in the U.S. illegally were then found in the trunk.

Cruz-Sanchez wasnt charged with a crime but was held as a material witness in the case against the smuggler, agreeing to testify against him. Cruz-Sanchez was granted bail  $15,000 with a 10% cash deposit  but was unable to pay so he remained detained, according to court records.

Cruz-Sanchez was healthy when he was arrested but contracted pneumonia later, according to the complaint.

He would be alive today if authorities had honored their legal and moral duty to care for their own witness, according to the lawsuit.

The illness began with flulike symptoms, and Cruz-Sanchezs requests for medical attention were rebuffed, the complaint said. He then started coughing up blood, saturating his clothing and bed sheets. He pleaded with Langdon and medical staff members for intervention but received none, the suit said. His condition deteriorated so that he could not talk, move or swallow food. He also suffered from respiratory distress and wheezing.

His cellmate, Alejandro Chavez, called the Mexican consulate 20 to 30 times asking for assistance, and on Feb. 22 a Spanish interpreter visited Cruz-Sanchez. It was unclear from the lawsuit if the interpreter tried to take action.

The cellmate repeatedly begged Langdon  a Spanish-speaking officer  to help Cruz-Sanchez, but Langdon mocked him, told the two to stop complaining and told Cruz-Sanchez to man up and stop being a chicken, the lawsuit said.

On Feb. 26, Cruz-Sanchez was taken to the emergency room at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista, where he died three days later.

The lawsuit alleges Cruz-Sanchez was never examined by a doctor while in custody. His widow, Paula Garcia Rivera, requested her husbands medical records from the detention center but was ignored, the complaint said.

The driver who had brought Cruz-Sanchez across the border pleaded guilty to human smuggling and was sentenced to time served, which was about three months.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis

Davis writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Click here for a Spanish version of this story
In a new push to address health risks from a surge in residential construction near freeways, Los Angeles officials have requested a study of development restrictions, design standards and other steps to protect residents from traffic pollution.

Planning, transportation and other officials should prepare strategies to address the hazard of freeway pollution affecting residents of new and existing structures, according to a motion filed this week by councilmen Jose Huizar and Paul Koretz. These could include buffer zones and barriers, air filtration requirements and regulations on building design.

The proposal cites a recent Los Angeles Times story that found the city keeps approving homes in high-pollution zones near freeways despite more than a decade of warnings from air quality regulators and scientists.

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I think its about time, said Huizar, who represents a district stretching from downtown to Eagle Rock. Weve had report after report  about how living next to a freeway is detrimental to peoples health. We need to have a comprehensive study.

More than 1.2 million people in Southern California already live within 500 feet of a freeway and suffer from higher rates of asthma, cancer, heart attacks, preterm births and a growing list of other health problems, according to the Times story, which analyzed U.S. Census data, building permits and other government records.

And the population is growing as Los Angeles and other cities approve thousands of homes within 500 feet of freeways, where California air quality officials have since 2005 advised against placing more residents.

Mayor Eric Garcetti said Friday that he supports Huizars plan to explore new regulations for development near freeways.

We should look at both zoning requirements and technology to ensure that people who live in housing always live healthy, Garcetti said. I grew up next two freeways during leaded gasoline days. My familys experienced cancer. We had a cancer cluster on our street, so Im very personally sensitive to this. So absolutely. Whether its through spacing, or through technology and ventilation, we should be looking at ways of protecting Angelenos.

Garcetti and other local politicians have opposed limits on how many homes can be built near freeways, arguing that such restrictions are impractical and will hinder efforts to ease a severe housing shortage.

Any discussion about new development regulations must include developers of affordable and market-rate housing, said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., a business group based in the San Fernando Valley. New restrictions, he said, have the potential to devalue land and make it harder to build.

Anything that restricts the opportunity to build increases housing costs, Waldman added.

 More than 1.3 million people already live in high-pollution zones within 500 feet of a Southern California freeway and thousands more are moving there each year.

Huizars proposal calls for the analysis to consider the competing concerns of our current housing affordability crisis and the potential impact of limits to development near freeways.

Los Angeles officials began considering the issue several years ago in response to mounting science linking traffic pollution to an array of illnesses, including childhood obesity, autism and dementia. In 2012 the planning department began sending health advisories to developers who filed applications to build housing within 1,000 feet of a freeway. About 600,0000 Angelenos lived that close to a freeway in 2010, according to Times analysis of U.S. Census data.

Those developers were informed that city officials had the power, in certain instances, to impose anti-pollution measures, such as changes in building designs to situate residents away from traffic, windows that do not open or additional trees and shrubs to provide barriers. But such modifications are not required.

Los Angeles officials, faced with continued development near freeways, went further last year, changing the building code to require enhanced air filtration systems in new homes within 1,000 feet of a freeway.

Live near the freeway? Tell us your story. 

City officials have faced criticism from neighborhood groups and environmentalists for continuing to approve freeway-adjacent apartment projects, including some with balconies directly overlooking traffic.

Cities have broad land-use authority and could limit home construction near freeways to protect public health if they wanted to, according to legal experts. Los Angeles officials have so far focused on improving air filtration, building design and vehicle emissions.

That doesnt go far enough, health advocates and air quality regulators say, in part because it will take many years for stricter vehicle emissions standards to phase in and reduce health risks. Putting space between people and pollution through development restrictions, they say, is the only sure-fire protection.

Until everyone drives electric cars, we need to stop building houses next to freeways, said Joseph Lyou, a member of the South Coast Air Quality Management District board who heads the Coalition for Clean Air. He praised Huizar for taking this public health issue seriously.

Huizar said he wants city officials to develop a long-term approach to the issue by examining such options as regulations supporting electric cars and buffer zones that keep new housing a specific distance away from freeway.

Over the past decade, Huizars district has seen new multistory housing go up near freeways in downtown, Boyle Heights and elsewhere. One particularly noticeable example, he said, is the Da Vinci, a 526-unit apartment complex completed in 2016 alongside the 101-110 freeway interchange.

That development is too close to the freeway, Huizar said. I ask myself, what planning policies allowed that to happen?

tony.barboza@latimes.com

@tonybarboza
While the San Diego trial of wealthy Mexican businessman Jose Susumo Azano Matsura and three others ended more than six months ago with guilty verdicts, no one has been sentenced yet as the case continues to be tied up in post-trial motions.

Others charged in the case also still face potential punishment from the Federal Election Commission for their roles in illegally funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the businessman into 2012 San Diego mayors race.

Federal law bars foreign citizens without legal status in the U.S. from contributing to domestic political campaigns. Azano was not a U.S. citizen.

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He was convicted on Sept. 8 of 36 charges including conspiracy to make campaign donations by a foreign national, falsifying campaign records and orchestrating a network of straw donors to make contributions for which Azano later reimbursed them.

His son, Edward, was also convicted of the conspiracy and other charges, and campaign services expert Ravneet Singh was convicted of conspiracy and making illegal campaign contributions.

The jury deadlocked on one charge against the senior Azano of illegally possessing a firearm. Federal prosecutors have said they will retry him on that charge, but no new trial date has been scheduled.

The defendants were initially to be sentenced Dec. 12, but that date was postponed to allow Azanos new lawyer  hired after the guilty verdict  to work up and file post-trial motions challenging the guilty verdicts.

A hearing on those motions was set for April but has now been postponed until June.

The six-week trial in federal court last summer focused on more than $500,000 of Azanos money that was funneled into the 2012 mayoral campaigns of Republican District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Democratic Rep. Bob Filner. (Filner won the election but resigned after less than a year in office amid a sexual harassment scandal.)

Azano also contributed money to the San Diego County Democratic Party and the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Some of the money was funneled into campaigns via straw donors  friends or family members who made donations to the Dumanis and Filner campaigns and were reimbursed by Azano, sometimes on the same day. Other funds were sent to independent campaign committees.

Prosecutors said Azano secretly paid Singhs company, which specialized in political social media campaigns, to work for Dumanis and later Filner. The work was not reported on required campaign disclosure reports.

The largest Azano contributions went to support political committees via a shell corporation owned by Azano and through businesses owned by former La Jolla luxury car dealer Marc Chase.

Chase pleaded guilty and was a key witness at the trial, testifying over parts of several days about how Azano gave him cash to reimburse straw donors, and how he laundered $180,000 of Azanos money to campaign committees through several of his businesses.

In January, Chase was sentenced to probation. At the time, his lawyer said he was facing a hearing before the Federal Election Commission over his role in the illegal scheme.

Chases lawyer, Guadalupe Valencia, said no date has been set for the hearing.

Knut Johnson, Azanos lawyers, said any action the FEC might take against his client will wait until he is sentenced. In a case where there is a criminal prosecution and a civil law violation, like an FEC action, the civil case is delayed until criminal proceedings are completed, Johnson said.

Its pretty clear to me the FEC is not going to do anything unless and until the criminal case is over, he said.

Another defendant, former San Diego police Detective Ernesto Encinas, is also facing an inquiry from the FEC. Encinas was the security chief for Azano who played a major role in connecting the businessman to the campaigns. He pleaded guilty early on, cooperated with investigators and is awaiting sentencing.

His lawyer, Jeremy Warren, said the FEC has an enforcement action pending against his client, but no hearings or other actions are scheduled.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
Investors who visited EquityPro Capitals new downtown San Diego office couldnt help but be impressed with the custom wall of 30 flat-screen TVs flashing numbers and graphics of stock market activity.

The four employees the startup had hired exuded young, bright talent.

The investor party at the hip Hotel Indigo, with sushi, open bar and gift bags, furthered that notion of success.

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It was everything a boutique investment management firm should be.

Except it wasnt. Not even close.

The man at the top, Joshua Knaup, didnt have a license to trade. He was a laid off FedEx driver.

The hedge fund he had persuaded investors was worthy of their savings was non-existent. And, within a year, the more than half-million dollars they had handed over to him didnt exist any longer, either.

On Friday, some of Knaups victims sat stone-faced in a San Diego courtroom to witness the man they had put their trust in be sentenced to prison. He had pleaded guilty months earlier to two counts of wire fraud.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo didnt disappoint them.

This is theft, there is no question this is theft, the judge scolded Knaup, who was standing before her in black Nike sneakers, jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. You didnt steal from a stranger, you stole as a friend, and in this courts opinion thats even worse. Thats a theft that goes right to the heart and soul and stays with the victim for a very long time.

She sentenced Knaup to two years and nine months in prison  a term that was six months longer than the high-end recommendation prosecutors made in the plea agreement and came as a bit of a surprise. The judge also ordered him to pay back his six victims  a total restitution of $556,629.

The sentence was pronounced after the victims and Knaup had sat through a busy morning calendar of other defendants being sentenced for smuggling unauthorized immigrants and large amounts of methamphetamine.

The idea that white collar crime should not be treated as seriously as drug smuggling or illegal entry  I think thats wrong, Bencivengo said.

The dozen or so victims and their supporters embraced each other outside the courtroom later, feeling some vindication but heeding the judges warning that they will likely never be paid back the money they lost.

Knaup found his investors in all corners of the community  from the Coronado Rotary Club to the streets where his neighbors walked their dogs to the side of the road while changing a tire.

Mr. Knaup preyed on his victims, exploited their interests and vulnerabilities to get them to invest with him, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Galvin said.

Knaup met Lois and Henry Mathews when he began dating their niece, ingratiating himself at their wedding anniversary celebration in 2013 and over numerous dinners in their Bankers Hill home. Lois, a self-employed floral designer, and Henry, who has dementia, had lost a significant amount of their retirement savings during the recession and were depending on a $240,000 inheritance to get them through their later years.

Lois Mathews, 72, told the judge Friday that she was clear in voicing her anxiety to Knaup about new investments.

I can take all that worry away from you, was his response, she said.

He knew all my fears of the future, and he still lied and stole from us.  He just wanted our money, she said.

The investment vehicle Knaup sold to his clients was his F2 Fund, a hedge fund that invests only in liquid equities and equity options trading on the U.S. exchanges. The prospectus he handed out  plagiarized from another hedge funds  explained the origin of the funds name as a biblical reference to giving the first fruits of your income, according to prosecutors.

Knaup recruited Lewis Barnum, 80, at a Coronado Rotary Club meeting and later promised to make the lonely man with dementia the chairman of the board for EquityPro. A $50,000 investment in June 2014 turned into a total of $161,000, as well as about $35,000 in charges to Barnums credit cards, prosecutors said.

One of Barnums daughters got word from a friend at her fathers bank that he was being accompanied by a strange man and writing large checks.

He preyed on my father in his diminished capacity, Brooke Barnum said in court.

Knaup met Jason Croskey, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, on the side of a road while changing a tire. The agent invested $10,000. But in early 2015, when Croskey told Knaup he needed his money because he was having a child, Knaup promised to get it back, saying it hadnt been invested yet.

When the money didnt come, the agent went to the downtown office  the same day Knaup was being evicted from not only the suite but his apartment above. Knaup gave him a check for $10,000 dated a week out, but the funds were never there to cash.

Knaup had nothing left by that point, said his defense attorney, Michelle Betancourt. He escaped to Mexico  not to avoid responsibility, but because he couldnt afford to live elsewhere, and to regroup and figure out how to make up the losses, Knaup said in a letter to the judge.

He eventually moved in with his fiancees family about 25 miles south of Tijuana, then moved to Sonoma County and got a job at a construction company with his brothers help.

He said he was in shock when the FBI came knocking on his door to arrest him.

That may be because Knaup has always had a different take on the situation. He never set out to maliciously lie and steal from people. Instead, his big dreams of starting a successful investment firm went awry, due to his own mistakes and inexperience, he said.

I may have been overconfident, he wrote in the letter to the judge.

He added: I will take responsibility for not being able to save it, and acknowledged so many basic things that I see now that I missed.

His public defender pointed out that Knaup did not spend the investments on lavish extravagances such as Rolex watches and beachfront property in Mexico, but instead poured the money into building out his office, renting his apartment and paying his full-time employees, who included a financial controller, an operations manager, a head trader and an executive assistant.

There was an effort made to start up the company, it was completely misguided and without direction, Betancourt said.

The notion brought loud chortles from the victims.

Jennifer Stahl, who invested $50,000 with Knaup and was hired as his accountant, countered that the employees werent always paid and were instead inexperienced and naive about their roles at EquityPro, which they thought was a legitimate company. Stahl ended up discovering the farce and turned over significant information to the FBI investigation, she said in court.

In his apology to the victims, Knaup turned and looked them in the eye at one point: Im incredibly sorry for everything that happened and that I have caused.  I hope you can find it in the depths of your hearts and minds to accept my apology.

Finding Knaup a flight risk and concerned about his ties to Mexico, the judge remanded him into custody immediately to begin serving his sentence  another surprise from the judge that left him unable to retrieve his overnight bag from his San Diego hotel room.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
Heres a sampling of comments about the Friday decision to pull the American Health Care Act, the congressional Republican leaders proposed overhaul of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act):

Dr. Ted Mazer of San Diego, president-elect of the California Medical Association

They did the right thing for both themselves and the people of the United States. While the Affordable Care Act needs to be repaired or even replaced, the ... reconciliation bill was flawed. Now they will hopefully go back and do it right. It may take longer, but the impacts of any new health-care bill deserve proper consideration, not a rush to make political points.

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Fran Butler-Cohen, CEO of Family Health Centers of San Diego

This is a clear indication we are moving too fast.  Elimination of essential benefits is not the answer. With the opioid crisis, narcotic addiction and mental health needs so prevalent in our country, elimination of treatment options is not a supportable public health direction. Look at the historic high drivers of cost for health care organizations (equipment, supplies, pharmaceuticals, etc.). While it may appear to fly in the face of a free market, the reality is, (cost) caps should be applied. Return to the days of regional health care planning to ensure that need drives expansion (physical buildings and services). Explore direct contracting with HMOs through a competitive process. Create transparency in purchasing and services. Place a greater emphasis and importance on primary care doctors, not specialists. Fund (programs) to train physicians in community medicine  widen the access net. There is so much that can be done without knee-jerk reactions and hastily developed resolutions that, in the end, disappoint us all.

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Richard Kronick, professor of family and preventive medicine at UC San Diego and former director the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Obamacare has increased the number of Americans with health insurance by more than 20 million, has contributed to the longest sustained period of slow growth in health care expenditures in the past 50 years and has catalyzed slow but steady improvements in the quality of care.  I am heartened that a majority of representatives in the House have refused to pass a horrendous bill that would have stripped coverage from more than 20 million fellow citizens in order to provide tax breaks to a small number of the most wealthy among us.

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Nathan Kaufman, managing director of Kaufman Strategic Services in San Diego

The ultimate goal of health care reform is to improve cost, quality and access. Obamacare has been successful at improving access at the expense of increasing cost with no material impact on quality. Under the proposed Republican plan, cost and access would have suffered for certain. No one has a plan that will optimize all three.

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Chris Van Gorder, CEO of the Scripps Health network in San Diego County

Now that this piece of legislation is not moving forward, I would hope that reasonable legislators will reach across the aisle to make Obamacare into AmericasCare. In other words, health care policy supported by both parties and the president that achieves the coverage goals of Obamacare but corrects some of the cost and access defects. But to make that a reality, they will need to reach out to those of us who really understand health care and make us partners in the effort.

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Dan Gross, executive vice president of hospital operations for Sharp HealthCare

In the current form, the proposed legislation significantly threatened health care coverage for millions of Californians and Americans. Any future Affordable Care Act dialog related to changes should address issues of strengthening access, coverage, quality and affordability and be health policy-driven rather than partisan-driven.  Areas of focus could include adequacy of health plan choice, premium costs, state health exchanges and oversight, and revisiting of original revenue streams within the Affordable Care Act. The many successes of California should be reviewed for national learning and best practices.

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Robert Seidman, health care economist at San Diego State University

There are undeniable problems with Obamacare that led to dissatisfaction nationally among many people. But it is unclear that the (GOP leadership bill) will address these problems. Premiums are still expected to increase, at least in the short term, due partly to the fact that healthier individuals will no longer be required to buy insurance, so the remaining pool of insured individuals will be more costly. Of course, many people may find that they are able to purchase a policy at a lower premium, only to discover that this is true only because it covers fewer services or their cost-sharing is higher.

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Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego

This is a victory for the American people and our democracy. Its a testament to the power of the American people to have their voices heard on a bill that would have directly impacted their lives.  The president just learned that health cares not just business  its personal when peoples lives are at stake.

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Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista

The millions of Californians who had their insurance plans canceled, lost access to their doctors, suffered premium increases and sky-high deductible hikes are depending on us to repeal and replace Obamacare once and for all.  However, the American Health Care Act was an imperfect approach and I believe that we can do better.  Wee should consider plans, like mine, to give all Americans access the same high-quality coverage as federal employees and their families, as well as other good ideas from both sides of the aisle to deliver solutions to these problems.

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Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego

Im glad they pulled the bill. Hopefully, this means that my Republican colleagues acknowledged how disastrous TrumpCare would be for millions of people across the country. Its time for us to come together to find bipartisan solutions and make improvements to our health care system that will lower costs and increase access to quality, equitable and affordable health care for all Americans.

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Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego

Im proud that so many Americans  including thousands of the people I represent in San Diego  made their voices heard and urged their representatives to oppose this health care repeal. Its largely because of this pressure that this bill was pulled before it even received a vote. I appreciate my constituents speaking up at town halls and through calls and emails to my office to encourage me to keep fighting to improve our health care system.

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Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, didnt respond to a request for comment.

-- Compiled by staff writer Paul Sisson.

Health Playlist On Now Video: Why aren't Americans getting flu shots? 0:37 On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now Video: Vaccine can prevent human papillomavirus, which can cause cancer 0:31 On Now 23 local doctors have already faced state discipline in 2017 0:48 On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life

paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

Twitter: @paulsisson
An initial investigation of a recent airstrike believed to have killed more than 200 civilians in Mosul found it was conducted by the U.S.-led coalition at the request of Iraqi security forces, the Pentagon said Saturday.

Witnesses said the airstrike killed hundreds of residents on Baghdad Street in west Mosuls Aghawat Jadidah neighborhood March 17, including many women and young children. On Friday, in an area where apartment blocks were reduced to rubble, at least 50 bodies could be seen, including those of pregnant women, children and newborns.

On Saturday, a day after announcing that the incident was under investigation, Pentagon officials released a statement saying the coalition had targeted Islamic State fighters and equipment in the area March 17, at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties.

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The coalition said that it takes allegations of civilian casualties seriously and that a formal Civilian Casualty Credibility Assessment of the airstrike and the civilian toll is underway.

The coalition respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from ISIS brutality, the statement said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

1 / 18 A man overcome with grief cries out as he is escorted away after finding a loved one dead amid the rubble of a destroyed home following an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 18 A man points towards the fighting as he walks through an area that was affected by a reported coalition air strike in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 18 Family members identify the dead bodies recovered in the rubble of a destroyed home after there were reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province,. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 18 Neighbors and volunteers watch as corpses are pulled out of the rubble of a home destroyed by reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 18 Iraqi residents carry out body bags after recovering corpses from the rubble inside a house destroyed by an airstrike in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 18 People move quickly to avoid danger along the destroyed streets in Mosul after an airstrike attributed to the U.S. killed scores of people in Iraqi city. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 18 With the help of family members, Iraqi Civil Defense members recover a body that was buried in the rubble of a home destroyed by an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 18 Residents climb out of a basement after showing where family members survived an airstrike by being underground in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 18 A man walks out of a destroyed home in Mosul, Iraq, climbing over piles of rubble left following an airstrike. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 18 A man grieves for his loved ones, who were found dead in the rubble of a destroyed home after reported coalition airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 18 Turkya Azadin weeps while watching Iraqi Civil Defense members recover bodies trapped in the rubble after a reported coalition airstrike in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 18 Residents pile body bags in the back of a truck after airstrikes in Mosul left scores dead. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 18 Family members help Iraqi Civil Defense members pull corpses from beneath the rubble in Mosul after airstrikes killed dozens of civilians. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 18 Local residents help Iraqi civil defense force members recover corpses trapped in the rubble of a home destroyed after coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 18 The dead body of an Islamic State militant lies in the street after coalition airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq. Dozens of civilians were killed during the raid. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 18 Mosul residents pile body bags in the back of a truck after recovering the dead from the rubble in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 18 Iraqi Civil Defense members search for bodies in the rubble of a destroyed home after coalition airstrikes killed scores of civilians in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 18 A boy stands outside a house in Mosul in which neighbors had reported that Islamic State was operating. The rubble in front of the boy is what remains of a house destroyed in coalition airstrikes. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The airstrike, if found to be responsible for the fatalities, would mark the deadliest civilian casualty incident by far since the U.S. military began its involvement in mid-2014. The credibility assessment, in which the military gathers and analyzes an array of information that is both classified and public, is expected to take two to three weeks.

The focus of the inquiry will be whether the coalition airstrike hit civilian buildings; whether an accumulation of airstrikes in the area degraded the structural integrity of buildings before they fell; or whether Islamic State detonated an explosion after the airstrike to bring structures down, according to Col. John Thomas, Central Command spokesman.

This sort of assessment is really complex, Thomas said. It gets especially difficult to determine what happened in certain areas of the city where the streets are so narrow that large vehicles cannot get through.

Another likely possibility is that an airstrike hit or triggered an Islamic State suicide car bomb. Militants have deployed the mobile bombs, in which a driver will blow himself up in the face of advancing Iraqi forces. Witnesses said militants parked a truck packed with explosives on their block days before the airstrike, then forced families inside their homes as they lingered outside, sniping from roofs.

Some saw militants shooting at aircraft before the strike, then saw the truck explode during the attack. United Nations officials said they were profoundly concerned by the allegations surrounding the airstrike.

Were incredibly worried about what is happening in western Mosul. Its much, much, much worse than the east for civilians, Lise Grande, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said Saturday.

The military is investigating at least a dozen other reports of civilian casualties in Mosul.

The Pentagon has acknowledged 220 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the U.S. campaign against Islamic State began in 2014. Independent monitoring groups such as the London-based nonprofit Airwars put the casualty figures much higher, at about 2,700 civilians killed in airstrikes in both countries during that time.

Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, the Pentagon said Saturday. But the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISIS inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods.

There were reports Saturday that Iraqi forces had halted operations across Mosul in response to the airstrike, but officials said that wasnt true.

We didnt stop our operation. Our operation is still ongoing, but its not like before, said Raed Shaker Jawdat, Iraqs federal police chief.

We are now going slowly, he said, because the Old City area where they have been fighting is densely populated. Iraqi leaders called for investigations into the strike, and greater restraint by forces fighting to free Mosul.

People move quickly to avoid danger along the destroyed streets in Mosul after an airstrike attributed to the U.S. killed scores of people in Iraqi city. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

We realize the huge responsibility the liberating forces shoulder, Iraqi parliament speaker Salim Jabouri tweeted, calling on them to spare no effort to save the civilians.

Iraqi Vice President Osama Nujaifi, a Mosul native, issued a statement calling the strike a humanitarian catastrophe that killed hundreds. He blamed both the U.S.-led coalition and federal police for using excessive force and called for an emergency session of parliament to address the incident.

Atheel Nujaifi, the former Mosul governor, called for a U.N. investigation into the airstrike. Otherwise, he said, Iraqi forces are unlikely to adjust their tactics.

They need to change the military operation, to deal with it as a city, not an open area. Theres citizens inside it, so they need to use minimal fire, not huge bombs, he said. I dont think it will change anything if theres no international pressure.

The former governor faulted federal police deployed on the west side, joining counter-terrorism forces he described as well trained and qualified and who protected civilians as they fought from east to west.

For the east side, it was a good plan. The people felt safe and secure during the liberation, he said. It wasnt like this.

If they continue in the same way, I believe it will be a big problem after the liberation, he said. The people of Mosul will not forget this.

Family members help Iraqi Civil Defense members pull corpses from beneath the rubble in Mosul after airstrikes killed dozens of civilians. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

West Mosul residents had complained about civilian casualties from airstrikes in the days leading up to the Jadidah strike. Hours after fleeing west Mosul with his family March 10, Mohammed Ali Mohammed, 40, recalled how he saw two neighbors killed in airstrikes.

Islamic State was trying to take those two guys from their house, he said of three militants. The plane targeted them and killed them all  including the two civilians. His daughters mother-in-law, sitting nearby in a field as they awaited a bus to a displaced persons camp, said her daughters west Mosul home was also targeted in an airstrike.

Luckily, Nawal Taha, 50, said, the family had just left home.

Islamic State forced us to leave our houses. They said you have half an hour or we will kill you, Taha recalled.

There were many Islamic State fighters in our neighborhood, she said, but the family stayed because before the offensive, we got leaflets from the army telling us to stay.

Afterward, militants forced families into their Wadi Hajar neighborhood, and Taha took 20 people in for a week, in addition to her family of 10. Now she worries about airstrikes in other overcrowded neighborhoods still under militant control. Theyre using our roofs to target them and so civilians are getting killed, she said.

Turkya Azadin weeps while watching Iraqi Civil Defense members recover bodies trapped in the rubble after a reported coalition airstrike in Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Seated nearby, electrician Dari Saoud, 19, said he had seen a house in his Mohata neighborhood targeted by an airstrike the day before that killed at least 30 civilians, including women and children.

I saw it with my own eyes from about 50 yards away, he said, recalling how a bomber destroyed the civilian home and nearby houses where he said militants were sheltering.

They are accurate about their goals, their targets, but Daesh has time to escape, he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. He said he doesnt blame the U.S.-led coalition for the civilian toll.

Its because of Daesh that civilian casualties are happening, Saoud said.

Abu Adnan, 60, fled his west Mosul neighborhood near the Old City on March 10, a week after he saw a neighbor killed and another injured in what he described as an airstrike.

They should be accurate with the targeting of Islamic State fighters because the Old City is densely populated and the houses are not good quality. If one falls, others will too, Abu Adnan said as he hauled a bag of possessions over a dirt berm and out of his Danadan neighborhood as federal police looked on. His daughter, Amina, 10, carried a white flag to signal that they were civilians. Most of their relatives live in the Old City, Abu Adnan said.

Neighbors and volunteers watch as corpses are pulled out of the rubble of a home destroyed by reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Nearby, Namir Adib, 53, who runs a local supermarket, said he saw the airstrike that killed their neighbor, 28- year-old university student Bakr Borham.

Islamic State fighters were on the roof of Borhams house, Adib said, but not with his permission  he was a civilian. He pointed to windows and doors that he said were damaged by the airstrike.

Many people get killed because of the airstrikes, said his brother and neighbor, Atheer Ghazi, 55, adding that he would prefer to see soldiers fighting in the streets.

Up the street, barber Muthana Jabar, 32, said that he was friends with Borham and that he was nearby when the airstrike hit his house.

An Islamic State sniper was on the roof, so it was targeted, he said of Borhams home. Two days later we went to check the house, and he was dead. They should be more careful with the airstrikes because it endangers our lives, Jabar said.

Hennessy-Fiske reported from Mosul and Hennigan from Washington.
The protest leader had a bullhorn, a message, and a captive audience.

We call this McTrump, he said, at high volume, from the parking lot outside of a union hall last Tuesday. He was trying to get the attention of the San Diego County Democratic Party members as they convened just a several feet away inside a meeting room.

McTrump in our party, here in San Diego, he continued.

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At one point, somebody inside closed the blinds over the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers halls windows, making it impossible to peer in, and for those inside to look out and see the protesters alongside Andrew McKercher, the man with the bullhorn.

In the protesters view, McTrump is Mickey Kasparian, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135, head of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council and political kingmaker. Five months ago, he was accused in lawsuits by two of his subordinates who say they were treated unfairly when they worked for him in the unions offices.

Both are women and one said she was pressured by Kasparian into a sexual relationship.

The allegations have caused a rift among San Diegos Democrats, a group that is married to organized labor. The county Democratic Party says that there is nothing it can do because Kasparian has not been convicted of a crime, while the labor boss critics said that they feel that two groups that the party has traditionally fought for  women and workers  are being ignored.

Thats raised the ire of people like McKercher, who was shouting into the bullhorn Tuesday.

Its become a problem that must be tended to, as it distracts from more important work serving constituents, San Diego Councilman David Alvarez said. Alvarez, a Kasparian critic, is a Democrat and party central committee member.

From the perspective of the progressives of the community, it doesnt focus on the agenda of creating good jobs and focusing on policies to help the middle class, he said. There hasnt been a strong united force to work on those issues.

The party hasnt taken steps to address the allegations, said Escondido Councilwoman Olga Diaz, also a Democrat.

They dont want to deal with it because its messy and hard. Its a family feud, thats what it is, she said. You have this weird uncle who has crossed a lot of lines and nobody wants to deal with it. And its Thanksgiving.

Kasparian denies all the accusations contained in the lawsuits. In addition to a now-former employee who claimed she was pressured to have sex with him, another said she was wrongly fired in an act of political retaliation. Kasparian declined to comment for this article.

The head of the county Democratic Party, Jessica Hayes, did not return a request for comment. On the groups website she said that the party has heard the womens allegations but its bylaws limit how it can respond.

As a political organization, we are not equipped to determine the facts or adjudicate the claims in such serious cases. The legal system is the appropriate forum for both the accusers and the accused to receive the due process that they deserve, Hayes statement said.

While Hayes said the party has no reason to take action, the partys Ethics Committee can make recommendations to the Central Committee about a course of action, including but not limited to censure, removal, state party notification, law enforcement notification, or no action at all regarding any Democrat residing in San Diego County, according to the partys regulations.

I am very hurt and disillusioned that they would come out and support Mickey rather than talk to me, said Isabel Vasquez, the woman who sued Kasparian for sexual harassment.

Vasquez and other critics said that its even more important now than ever for Democrats to chastise Kasparian, particularly since the party needs a moral footing to condemn statements President Donald Trump has made about women, and to have credibility after the sexual harassment scandal of now-former Mayor Bob Filner, a Democrat.

Cmon Dems. Its a womens issue. Its a workers issue, Anabel Arauz said outside the union hall Tuesday She used to help workers join Local 135, but she said she was unwillingly transferred into an unfulfilling office job after her boyfriend put posts critical of Kasparian on Facebook.

Arauz said Kasparian fired her on Friday. She received a letter saying she was terminated for disloyalty and discussing the lawsuits, among other reasons.

The Democratic Womans Club of San Diego tried unsuccessfully to get Kasparian removed as a delegate to the state Democratic Convention in May, and individual current and former politicians have condemned him and called for investigations. In a letter to the party, it suggested that Kasparians influence might have made him immune from accountability.

Alvarez said some progressives are worried that standing up to the labor leader could have negative repercussions.

I think a lot of people see Mickey Kasparian as someone who has a lot of influence, and saying something, or speaking up, would be problematic for them, Alvarez said.

In February 46 progressives, including nine current and former elected officials, sent the boards of Kasparians union, the Labor Council, and the state and county Democratic party demanding an investigation and that Kasparian be suspended. Neither request was fulfilled.

Diaz, who signed the letter, said felt like the time to confront Kasparian was overdue. She was attacked by him years prior after she cast a vote that allowed a non-union store to open up in Escondido. She said she didnt take the salvos personally, and she wasnt depending on labors support, but was advised to make peace with Kasparian for the sake of the political benefits. She said she wasnt interested and felt it was unfair to expect a woman to perform penance for a fight she didnt start or really care about. Plus, it all seemed kind of petty.

I am not going to kiss the ring. Its not a role I am going to adopt, she said.

But she didnt make it an issue at the time. When the allegations came out last year it was clear that something now needed to be done, Diaz said.

What these women are accusing him of, this is serious stuff she said.

Critics are waging a three-pronged campaign to put pressure on Kasparian and his supporters. Brent Beltran, a friend of two of the accusers who has helped organize some of the protests against the labor leader, said the effort aims to strip the union boss of some of his influence.

First, theyre trying to get him removed as an alternate from the Democratic partys central committee. Theyre also working to get him removed, or at least suspended from his position in the Labor Council. And finally, theyll start agitating Local 135 members, pushing them to elect a new president for their union.

And if Kasparian is exonerated through all this, hes welcome back, Beltran said.

Meanwhile, the lawsuits against Kasparian continue. Dan Gilleon, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, said witnesses are being deposed in an effort to support the allegations and questions are being raised about whether union funds and political influence has been used to punish the accusers friends and supporters.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841
Crafting comprehensive state marijuana regulations this year will likely be a turbulent process of trial and error, Californias top marijuana official told a few dozen San Diego industry leaders during a forum this week.

Lori Ajax, chief of Californias Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation, also said that once new regulations are in place in January the state may crack down on illegal marijuana operations that local jurisdictions have struggled to close.

Ajax also expressed some optimism the state could help marijuana businesses get access to banks despite the drug still being illegal under federal law, but said any changes to local tax rates would need to start at the grass roots level.

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On some issues unique to San Diego, such as U.S. Border Patrol agents possibly blocking transportation of marijuana that is allowed under state law, Ajax said she didnt have any answers yet.

Ajax assured the audience, however, that her staff is moving full speed ahead despite recent comments from the Trump administration that enforcement of the federal marijuana ban could resume.

We have so little time to wring our hands about that, she said. We have to get this done so Im focusing on whats in my control, and thats not in my control.

The main theme of her hour-long question-and-answer session at San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce headquarters on Thursday was that crafting regulations will be a work in progress followed by a period of awkward transition once theyre in place.

Shes facing time pressure because Proposition 64, which was approved by 57 percent of state voters on Nov. 8, requires the new regulations be in place by Jan. 1.

Her agency plans to unveil proposed regulations for medical marijuana in late April and then, after the state Legislature sorts out which of nearly four dozen proposed bills under consideration will become law, propose recreational regulations in late summer or early fall.

Ajax urged the group of local industry leaders, which included attorneys, dispensary owners, cultivators and operators of delivery services, to take an active role in commenting on the proposals during a 45-day period after they are unveiled.

They are proposed regulations  not final, she said. The whole reason we have a 45-day comment period is for you to comment, and we expect we may be changing stuff.

And even after the regulations become law, Ajax predicted there would be changes based on how the rules perform in real-world situations.

This industry evolves very, very quickly so we have to be ready if some of our regulations arent working the way we thought they would  we need to be ready to make changes, she said. Not everything is going to be OK on Day 1  theres going to be a transition.

Her chief concerns, she said, are whether there will be enough licensed labs to test all of the marijuana  which will be a requirement under state law  and whether cities and counties will approve enough distributors to get the drugs to dispensaries.

Testing labs need expensive equipment and rigorous certifications, creating significant barriers to entry, she said.

Distributors may also be scarce, she said, partly because state medical marijuana legislation is more restrictive about the size of their role than Proposition 64 is.

She said the goal is to align the regulations so that there is one consolidated industry  not separate business models for medical and recreational.

But she said that will be a challenge, because there are many differences between state legislation approved for medical cannabis in 2015 and what voters approved in November for recreational.

Another hurdle is the number of state agencies involved in the process.

Her agency will oversee dispensaries, labs, transporters and distributors. The state Food and Agriculture Department will oversee cultivation and pot farms, and the Public Health Department will oversee manufacturing of edibles.

In addition, the Fish and Wildlife Department will play a role in regulating cultivation, while the Pesticide Control Department will have a role in the lab testing.

Ajax, who worked in the states Alcoholic Beverage Control Department before starting her new job one year ago, said regulating marijuana is more complex than alcohol because state law gives local jurisdictions a larger role.

The state is the sole licensing authority for alcohol  not true with cannabis, she said.

So her agency will have local liaisons to ensure the state isnt licensing local businesses that violate laws passed by the 500 cities and counties across California.

We will need a lot of coordination on both sides, she said.

She said that shes optimistic comprehensive state regulations will encourage local jurisdictions to begin approving more types of marijuana businesses by alleviating fear and confusion about how the state will regulate them.

In addition, she said the state will announce in May the company that will handle its track-and-trace system, which will allow regulators to track where the cannabis is and where it has gone to prevent potential diversions to the black market.

Ajax said the state may also crack down on illegal dispensaries and other unpermitted marijuana businesses once state regulations are in place, just as it would illegal alcohol businesses.

The goal is to get everybody into the regulated market and diminish the illegal market, she said, adding that becoming legal should be rewarded because it takes significant time and money. We dont want to put you at a disadvantage.

She said such efforts would be in collaboration with local law enforcement.

Those are discussions were having with California Highway Patrol and the local cities and counties because it is a coordinated effort, she said. We are working on that strategy. If we want to regulate it, we have to encourage people to get licensed by us, so we will have to deal with that illegal market.

On banking, Ajax said there are no easy answers because of the federal ban. But she said California Treasurer John Chiang recently created a working group to explore solutions.

This is not something the bureau is going to fix alone, she said. But we really want to try to solve this. Its a lot harder for us to regulate an industry thats all cash.

On local jurisdictions levying taxes that threaten to make it impossible for legal marijuana businesses to succeed, Ajax said local leaders would need to build support at the grass roots level for changes.

But Ajax said she is aware of such potential problems, expressing concern that black market businesses could thrive in such areas.

Can we learn from states like Washington where they had to bring down their tax because it was too much? Yes, of course, she said.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick
Two residents and a dog suffered smoke inhalation and a second dog died in a fire that heavily damaged a Mountain View house Friday.

No information about the cause of the fire was available, but it was considered accidental, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokeswoman Monica Munoz said.

Three adults were inside the two-story home on South 36th Street, south of Ocean View Boulevard, when the fire broke out on the second floor about 10:45 a.m., Munoz said.

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Much of the house was filled with black smoke and flames when firefighters got there. Two of the three residents were taken to a hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation, Munoz said. Firefighters were able to resuscitate one of the dogs, but not the other one.

Damage to the house was estimated at $240,000. The Red Cross was called to assist the displaced residents.
The Department of Justice request that the U.S. House Committee on Ethics defer action in its review of campaign-finance allegations against Rep. Duncan Hunter is a rare move that has signaled serious trouble for other lawmakers in recent history.

The Ethics Committee didnt explicitly say why the Justice Department asked it to hold off on the review of allegations against Hunter, R-Alpine, but it effectively laid bare the existence of an ongoing criminal investigation involving the congressmans use of campaign money.

The Ethics Committee has been reviewing allegations that Hunter spent tens of thousands of dollars for personal purposes such as health care and family trips.

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Political law experts say its rare for the Justice Department to ask the Ethics Committee to hold off on its own investigation. In recent instances, some lawmakers have ended up behind bars.

Hunters chief of staff, Joe Kasper, did not respond Friday to requests for comment on this story.

Hunters attorneys  one of whom is a local criminal defense lawyer  released a statement following the committees announcement on Thursday.

The statement said Hunter intends to cooperate fully with the government on this investigation, and maintains that to the extent any mistakes were made they were strictly inadvertent and unintentional.

Hunters local lawyer, former U.S. Attorney Gregory Vega, declined to comment Friday because investigation was ongoing.

Since the Federal Election Commission and The San Diego Union-Tribune began asking questions about apparent personal spending of campaign funds in April 2016, Hunter has repaid his campaign some $62,000 in expenses it identified as personal, mistaken or insufficiently-supported.

Hunter has attributed some of the charges, such as $1,300 for video games and $1,100 paid to an oral and facial surgeon in El Cajon, to mistakes and mix-ups between blue credit cards.

Experts say the Ethics Committee deferral to the Department of Justice raises the stakes for Hunter.

I think it shows that its very serious, Andrew D. Herman, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney said Friday. If its more low-level violations of the elections law (DOJ) usually lets Ethics deal with it.

The Department of Justice has not made public the existence of an investigation, nor detailed what crimes it suspects Hunter or members of his campaign may have committed.

The Department of Justice typically asks the Ethics Committee and the Federal Elections Commission to temporarily halt their own inquiries because theres a risk that simultaneous civil investigations can complicate efforts to interview witnesses and bring charges within the time frame allowed by law.

In any overlapping set of investigations, for obvious reasons, the criminal cases take precedence, Herman said. Prosecutors essentially want to clear the lane for them to do their investigation and be able to do it within the statute of limitations ... . Once theyre done they will then relinquish that precedence and let other entities do their work.

Theres no way for the public to know how often the Justice Department asks government agencies to hold off on their own probes while criminal investigation is ongoing, because most agencies, such as the FEC, arent required to tell the public.

The Ethics Committee, however, is legally required to work within certain rules and timelines, and it generally has to make a public statement if it decides to extend or delay its review beyond the allowable period of time. It also has to give the public a reason for the extension or delay.

Since 2010, the Ethics Committee has released public statements about its review of allegations against dozens of lawmakers. The Union-Tribune identified four cases in which statements announced deferral to the Justice Department. Hunters case was the fifth.

In three of the four cases, the lawmaker under investigation was indicted, according to the Union-Tribunes review of news coverage. A grand jury has been called in the fourth case.

Of the three lawmakers indicted, two were convicted of crimes and sent to prison. The third lawmakers criminal case was ongoing as of Friday.

Lawmakers accused of spending campaign funds for personal benefit have been indicted on charges including income tax evasion and making false reports to the Federal Election Commission.

But that doesnt mean indictments always follow committee deferrals, or that convictions always follow indictments, political law experts said.

In the recent past, cases that were deferred by Ethics generally did result in criminal charges being brought, but that has not always been the case, said Brett Kappel, an attorney at Akerman LLP in Washington, D.C., and a noted expert in campaign laws and ethics rules. Moreover, indictments have not always resulted in convictions. A deferral by the Ethics Committee isnt a reliable predictor of whether there will ultimately be a conviction.

Still, the Justice Department generally does not interfere with elections or ethics officials enforcement of the law unless a criminal investigation is ongoing and there is evidence that the violations were knowing and willful, Kappel said.

Trevor Potter, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who is a former commissioner and chairman of the FEC and noted expert in campaign and election law, also said the Department of Justice wouldnt ask the Ethics Committee to defer its review unless it had good reason.

They obviously have reason to think theres a criminal violation here, enough reason that theyve opened a criminal investigation, and thats a big deal, Potter said. They would need some significant level of evidence to open a criminal investigation against a member of Congress.

Since 2010, two have ended up in prison after the Committee on Ethics halted its process at the Justice Departments request.

The first was former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat from Illinois.

In November 2010, the Ethics Committee announced that it would defer investigation into possible violations related to Jacksons alleged offer to raise money for then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in return for an appointment to the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.

Jackson pleaded guilty in February 2013 to one count of felony fraud for spending $750,000 from his campaign on personal items. He was later sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. His wife, Sandi, was sentenced to a year in prison for omitting $580,000 in income on the couples tax returns.

In November 2012, the Ethics Committee announced it was deferring action at the Justice Departments request in its investigation involving alleged illegal contributions received by Michael Grimm, a Republican former congressman from New York.

The justice investigation expanded beyond the alleged illegal contributions, and in December 2014, Grimm pleaded guilty to a crime related to filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to eight months in prison.

Two other cases are pending.

The Ethics Committee announced in November 2015 that it was granting the Justice Departments request to defer action in its investigation of allegations against Rep. Robert Pittenger, a sitting Republican congressman from North Carolina.

As of Jan. 11, 2017, a grand jury was hearing testimony to decide whether Pittenger should be indicted on charges related to his former real estate business.

The Ethics Committee announced in March 2016 that it would suspend, at the Justice Departments request, its review of fraud, misuse of campaign funds, and other allegations against former Rep. Corrine Brown, a Democrat from Florida.

Brown has maintained that she is not guilty, and her case is about a month away from trial.

Previously: Hunter

morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com
If you thought the clampdown on National Security Agency telephone spying was over, think again. There are a whole host of government programs available to local, state and federal authorities that expose who you are, where youre traveling, who youre meeting with and what youre saying.

These programs are conducted under the cloak of secrecy. Ostensibly, theyre used to target individuals under surveillance for sound reasons.

Unfortunately, the equipment cant tell the good guys from the bad guys, so many individuals may be unwittingly caught up in its web.

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As reported by KXTV in Sacramento, and other news organizations, one such government surveillance program is called Stingray. This program simulates a cellphone tower and tricks nearby mobile phones into connecting to it, rather than standard commercial towers. The system collects the cellular telephone number; incoming or outgoing status; number dialed; date, time and duration of the call; and its location.

Another federal program called Triggerfish, when combined with Stingray, exposes the actual content of the cellphone conversations. It allows law enforcement agencies to intercept up to 60,000 different cellular conversations over a targeted area.

Add a few more features and it can be used as a phone listening device to hear oral exchanges even when the phone is thought to be turned off. All of this equipment is so mobile it can be located in planes, cars and boats.

There is also related equipment that can track the location of a cellphone  which is not really hard to do even with commercial equipment. However, heres one you probably never thought of, tracking without a cellphone. Cameras at street intersections take pictures of a license plate when a car goes through a red light. But they also take pictures of everyones license plate, digitize them and make it possible to track the movement of every car. Add to that facial recognition software used in conjunction with security cameras in stores or on the street, and a person can also be tracked on foot.

Federal agencies have tried to meddle with public requests for information on Stingray. When the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California submitted a Freedom of Information Acts request to the Department of Justice on the use of Stingray, it ignored the request.

Ars Technica reported in 2015 that a new Department of Homeland Security policy comes after federal agencies, most notably the FBI, have tried to tightly control information about Stingrays for years. The FBI and the Harris Corp., one of the primary manufacturers of the devices, had refused to answer specific questions.

The device is used by the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, Secret Service, National Security Agency, U.S. Marshals Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Homeland Security; police and the list goes on.

Unfortunately when Stingray passes itself off as a legitimate cell tower, it can jam associated commercial networks when signal levels become alike at fringe areas.

In 2014 CNET reported that police in Florida have offered a startling excuse for having used a controversial Stingray cellphone tracking gadget more than 200 times without telling a judge. The polices excuse for not informing the judge was the devices manufacturer made them sign a nondisclosure agreement that they say prevented them from telling the courts. The revelation came during an appeal of a 2008 sexual battery case in Tallahassee.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has introduced a bill in Congress that would prohibit government agencies from using Stingray type simulators without a warrant in most circumstances.

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, have asked the Department of Homeland Security to enact a policy on cellphone surveillance devices, such as Stingrays, but the request has gone nowhere.

Kahn of Maitland, Fla., has lectured on automation and electronic communications at hundreds of academic and other venues. He invented the first large-scale digital cellular telephone system, the forerunner of all systems used today. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
Is Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, a crook or merely utterly incompetent in managing both his campaign and family finances? Everyones going to find out, it appears, given the confirmation Thursday that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the five-term congressman over his use of campaign funds for personal purposes.

The confirmation came in sync with the House Ethics Committees release of a report that said Hunter may have converted tens of thousands of dollars of campaign funds from his congressional campaign committee to personal use to pay for family travel, flights, utilities, health care, school uniforms and tuition, jewelry, groceries and other goods, services and expenses.

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May have? Hunter has already repaid more than $60,000 in campaign spending that he acknowledges was for personal purposes or which lacked proper documentation. Yet in a statement to The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Hunters attorneys said the federal probe stems from expenditure issues confronting his campaign committee and insisted that to the extent any mistakes were made they were strictly inadvertent and unintentional.

This isnt just lawyer-speak. Hunter has pushed the idea that reporting about his improper spending is fake news spurred by liberal bias and dishonest media. President Trumps Justice Department doesnt agree. As a result, its possible he could lose his seat in a conservative district the 40-year-old otherwise seemed likely to hold for decades. If that happens, Hunter has no one but himself to blame.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

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The San Miguel Consolidated Fire Protection District outsourced its services to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in 2012, but last July decided to return to serving the area on its own.

On Monday, San Miguel board members discussed a transition plan laid out by a consultant that explained many of the things that are going to be needed to return fire functions back to the district.

The transition date is set for July 12.

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The seven-member fire district board that serves rural East County voted in 2016 to drop its contract with the state agency two years early.

Fire board President Theresa McKenna said at the time that by going back to a stand-alone district, the board will have more control over costs. Property taxes from homeowners fund the district.

One time start-up costs for moving are projected to be $377,000. A transition plan cost for a needed training academy is projected to be $172,000.

Since it voted to leave CalFire, board members have created a timeline and developed a list of needs for new employees, including fire captains, a training battalion chief, engineer and firefighter/paramedic.

The districts consultant, Criss Brainard, on Wednesday was named fire chief. Brainard spent most of his career at the San Diego fire department, and was a former employee of the San Miguel district.

San Miguel has already developed curriculum for academy training for its employees and has reached an agreement with Heartland Training Facility in El Cajon to work with San Miguel employees.

The academy will be a four-week program that will cover district-specific policies, standard operating procedures and employee performance expectations.

McKenna said cancelling the CalFire contract and returning autonomy to the district will save nearly $1.5 million in the first year.

San Miguel was struggling in 2012 with an estimated $2.2 million budget deficit. It was reeling from years of declining revenue, partly due to decreased property values in the district. To save money, it signed a five-year, $68 million agreement with CalFire to provide services.
A New Rotavirus vaccine is the new vaccine under evaluation by the WHO. This is believed to prevent children's death from the diarrheal disease.

CBS News reported a new safe and effective rotavirus that could prevent diarrheal disease-causing 600 of children die each die. The rotavirus vaccine under the evaluation of the World Health Organization is known to be effective in around 80 to 90%.

Rotavirus is a viral disease causing children that are five years old and below to suffer and die. Each year there are 450,000 children who die from the virus. According to New York Times, rotavirus has been defeated by a new vaccine tested in a large trial in Africa and believed to be the most practical way to protect these children.

The rotavirus vaccine is expected to be more effective and cheaper than another form of vaccines available and can last for months even not refrigerated. Dr. Paul A. Offit from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia happily announced his feelings on the development of the new vaccine.

Dr. Offit commented, "I wish there were 10 companies making rotavirus vaccine. Because there are thousands of children dying from the virus." Currently, there are 215,000 children from Pakistan, Nigeria, the Democratic Congo, India and all over the world are dying each year based on the record of WHO.

Prior to this, a rotavirus vaccine was made by the Serum Institute of India that can give 67 percent reliability in severe cases of the rotavirus diarrheal diseases. While in 1999, the first American rotavirus vaccine called Rotashield was pulled out in the market due to fear of intussusception. Another vaccine was developed by the GSK, the Rotarix, which was tested in Africa.

Trial Director Rebecca F. Grais for Doctors Without Borders said that the perfect vaccine is necessary for treating the rotavirus. This new Rotavirus vaccine can be 80 to 90 percent effective. However, it must be approved first by the World Health Organization before can be distributed in the affected countries.
While Microsoft has not revealed anything about the highly anticipated Microsoft Surface Phone, rumors about the handset's possible specs, price and release date have been hitting the Internet for quite some time now.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the Australia Financial Review in November 2016 that the company is currently working on the "ultimate mobile device," reported Trusted Reviews. However, he chose not to reveal any other detail about the device in the pipeline.

According to Windows Central, Microsoft watcher @h0x0d has unearthed a patent from the software giant for a foldable device. As per the report, the Redmond-based company has filed for a patent for "hinged displays" that could be for a foldable tablet. The patent in question, which was filed in 2015, has become available publicly just recently. It details a screen with a number of separate displays.

"In order to reduce and/or obscure the visibility of a support structure for a display panel, the present disclosure provides example display devices including curved or otherwise bent regions for directing light to a user's eye when the user's gaze is directed to a support structure at an edge of the display panel," the patent reads.

Notably, not each patent gets converted into a device. However, it is interesting to note that the latest patent filing details both folding mobile devices and large-tiled display that might be modeled around modular ones.

At this point of time, it remains unconfirmed if the particular design will see the light of day in the future. It is also unclear if the patent design will be used for a smartphone or a tablet. However, this does not stop fans from speculating if the patent is for the much awaited Microsoft Surface Phone.

There are also reports that claim Microsoft could delay Surface Phone release date to 2018 or 2019 and roll out another "Windows 10 Phone" this year. Readers are advised to take the information with a pinch of salt as nothing yet has been officially announced about the Microsoft Surface Phone specs or its release date.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope detected a supermassive black hole expelled out from the center of the distant galaxy by powerful gravitational waves. This black hole is the biggest black hole that has been identified to be kicked out of the galaxy.

The discovery was found by Marco Chiaberge from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland and his colleagues. Chiaberge said that the amount of energy that is required for a supermassive black hole to be expelled is equivalent to 100 million supernovae exploding simultaneously, as noted by New Scientist.

In the image taken by Hubble, it showed a bright quasar, which is the energetic signature of the black hole, located from the galactic center. The scientists noticed the unique features of the galaxy discharging strong blasts of radiation in the throes of galaxy mergers. The team did not expect to see a quasar, not in the center of the galaxy based on their observations. It was clearly removed from the center of a regular shaped galaxy.

Justin Ely of STScl, one of the researchers, said that they found the gas surrounding the black hole was flying away from the center at 4.7 million miles an hour. It was moving fast that it could travel from Earth to the Moon in just three minutes.

So, how did the black hole expel from the core of this galaxy? The researchers explained that in two galaxies that are merged, their black holes are at the core of the newly developed elliptical galaxy. Once the black holes spun with each other, the gravity waves ejected enormously. If these objects do not have the same mass and rotation level, they discharge powerful gravitational waves. Also, when they collide, they inhibit from generating gravitational waves. On the other hand, the newly merged black hole retreats in the opposite direction of the most powerful gravitational waves and then rocketed out from the galaxy, according to NASA.
Where does your tax money go? In most instances it supports direct government activities such as schools, police, housing, public health and the like.

But in many instances your tax money is transferred to nonprofit corporations that have convinced government leaders that they perform a service worthy of public support. Museums, festivals, parks and tourism promoters are common nonprofit recipients of public funds.

There is a bill, H.3931, pending in the House of Representatives, that would exempt nonprofit organizations getting public funds from the Freedom of Information Act.

The bill is being promoted as a way to make nonprofits accountable to the governments that provide funding by requiring filing of general statements about how your money is being spent. If you believe that nonsense, I have some beachfront property in Walhalla for sale.

In too many instances, those doling out your money are benefiting from the use of those funds to hire their relatives or worse. If this bill passes, we will never know.

Some legislators have been told nonprofits are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and this bill will add "transparency." Nonprofits receiving or spending your money are already subject to the open government law, and you are entitled to see their records. All you have to do is ask.

In 1974 the General Assembly enacted the Freedom of Information Act, based on a finding that it was vital in a democratic society that public business be conducted in an open and public manner. The Supreme Court of South Carolina has repeatedly ruled that this law exists to prevent secret government activity.

One mechanism used to hide government activity has been through the use of nonprofit corporations. The University of South Carolina for years hid a presidential slush fund behind a nonprofit foundation. When the public and press demanded an accounting of the foundation's activities through Freedom of Information Act requests, the foundation refused to provide access, saying the law did not apply to it because it was a nonprofit corporation.

The S.C. Supreme Court said otherwise. The court looked to the definition in the law of those organizations to which the law applied. These organizations are identified in the law as "public bodies." If an entity is a public body, it is required to disclose certain records and conduct its meetings in a prescribed manner.

A "public body" includes "any organization, corporation, or agency supported in whole or in part by public funds or expending public funds." The USC Foundation met this definition, and, as a consequence, was required to account for how it spent its money. When exposed to public scrutiny many of the expenditures, such as gifts to elected officials and lavish speaking fees, were questioned and protested.

Is there value in knowing how a nonprofit organization that gets tax money spends that money? Most of us think so. If you know where the money is going, you have grounds to tell your representatives in government that you approve or disapprove of the way your money is being spent. We should be past the point where we will accept an assurance such as, "Trust me. Great things are being done with your money."

There is too much evidence to the contrary that trust is not enough. In Richland County alone, we've had a recreation commission paying inflated salaries to relatives who probably shouldn't have been on the payroll in the first place. We've had the records of a high school booster club requested by the attorney general who is investigating charges that much of the money is not accounted for. Two festival organizers are being questioned about what they have done with the public money they have received to conduct festivals that seem not to have happened.

I suspect certain nonprofit organizations across the state would be exposed to scorn or prosecution if their activities were subjected to public scrutiny. There are allegations in several parts of the state that tax money is being laundered by nonprofit corporations to fund political contributions.

The only thing transparent about H.3931 is the desire of organizations supported by or spending your money to do it in secret. This bill should be defeated.

If not, your tax dollars will go down a rabbit hole never to be heard from again. Tell your House member you want true accountability and defeat the bill.
Saturday was the first full day of service on the BART extension to Warm Springs, but the new station was already proving to be a popular backdrop for selfies, with couples and families taking pictures along the upper-level railing against green hills draped with fog.

The land around the station is far from densely occupied, surrounded by the Fremont hills, empty fields, warehouses and the Tesla auto plant.

But many of the stations first riders said they live nearby and were curious to see how the construction had turned out after the long wait, which dragged more than two years past the predicted 2014 opening date.

Hes really excited, said Leanne Leung, 31, pointing at her husband, Chin, as they waited on the platform with their twin daughters, who are 16 months old.

We drive by here every day  weve been waiting a long time. Its nice to see all the cars and people around here, said Chin, 32.

Its nice. His family can visit us more easily now, too, said Leanne, referring to her husbands relatives in Berkeley and San Francisco.

Its a big deal to have it open. I mean, its two years late. They could have done the forecasting a little better, Chin said.

He added that he heard on the news Saturday morning that the federal budget might jeopardize the fate of the extension to San Jose, but added that personally, I dont really care about down south.

The relative glut of parking at the Warm Springs Station  nearly 2,100 spaces  is a change from the congestion at BARTs Fremont stop, said Judy Huckabay, a Warm Springs resident who was riding the train with her husband.

Theres no parking at the BART in South Fremont. But my husband and I are BART lovers. We look for things to do that are BART-friendly, Huckabay said.

The new stations location, 5.4 miles south of the Fremont stop, is an improvement for her as well.

This is much more convenient. If I have to drive across Fremont, thats 7 miles, that can take 40 minutes, Huckabay said.

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.

Other riders agreed that the station, the farthest south in the BART system, eases the logistical headache of getting around the Bay Area.

Its certainly more convenient to come here than to go up to Millbrae, which is what we used to do. Were from the other side of the bay  Mountain View and Sunnyvale, said Robert Lawrence, 93, of Mountain View.

Its a 40-minute drive to get there, and this was only 20, added Teena Henshaw, 80.

Some of the delays in the stations opening were caused by the difficulty of getting the stations modern technology to work with the existing BART system.

And as shiny and new as the station was on Saturday, it still contained reminders of BARTs standard delays and dysfunction. A banner advertised future closure dates for the Lake Merritt Station, which will be shut down periodically on weekends from April through July for track maintenance work, and the usual advisories piped in over the speakers.

Track maintenance work has been completed for today, a female voice intoned, but there are still residual delays.

Filipa A. Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
Like much of San Francisco, South Park has lived multiple lives. Its been a posh address and a warehouse zone, an African American neighborhood in one era and the crossroads of Multimedia Gulch in another.

Now the small oval that gives South Park its name has been remade as thoroughly as at any time in its 160-year existence. The update is steeped in the values of todays city, down to six benches with armrests that double as laptop tables. The play structure could be a computer-generated optical illusion.

But heres the good news: The design isnt simply streamlined or hip. The makeover of the unusual green within the block bounded by Second, Third, Brannan and Bryant streets also seeks to be inclusive  a philosophy that adds substance to the style and helps make the new South Park into one of San Franciscos most satisfying public spaces.

Almost all thats left of the old South Park are rounded curbs that date back to when it was surrounded by stylish brick town houses  they perished in the 1906 earthquake  and 18 aged elm and sycamore trees planted afterward. Last year, 30 trees were removed along with wood benches and rotting play structures dating to the 1970s, replaced by a playful string of experiences linked by a single ambling path.

Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle

There are large lawns on the east side and a grassy hillock toward the center. Angled walls provide seating as well as protection from outside traffic. The play structure is an expressive pair of enormous metal hoops that are linked but seemingly want to fly apart, with netting draped between the swooping curves for young and old to climb on.

As for the walkway, it typifies the meticulous imagination of landscape architect David Fletchers approach to a space first conceived in the 1850s. Thats when South Park was built to attract wealthy homeowners  a plan thwarted when Nob Hill instead became the address of choice.

The snaking concrete path resembles a procession of oversize Popsicle sticks intended to mimic the parks silhouette. At points along the way, it flares out to create communal spaces.

All this makes for an easy stroll  and an angled journey that continually reorients your view within the oval and the low buildings that enclose it. Every few steps offers a slightly different take: Sometimes the near horizon is a seating area, then it shifts to a thatch of landscape. Or a lift of your head reveals the tall new towers of Transbay and Rincon Hill, peeking down on the promenade.

The meander also serves as a fully accessible path, through a space that is 18 feet higher on the east than on the west. Along the way, the wide spots with tables or extra benches flatten so that a wheelchair can park with ease.

We really wanted to create one shared path, said David Fletcher, whose studio is based in Dogpatch.

Most of Fletchers work has been at a smaller scale, such as his courtyard for a Hayes Valley condo complex that won an award in 2015 from the American Society of Landscape Architects. He started on the oval in 2010, when the South Park Improvement Association hired him to look at how a beloved but tattered space could be reborn with care.

Once the effort was embraced by the citys Recreation and Park Department, work began in earnest. The association raised more than $250,000, while fees and contributions from area development projects accounted for nearly $2 million. A crucial piece came from city residents, with $1.2 million from two park bonds. Rec and Park began construction last January, and the ribbon-cutting was March 7.

Throughout, Fletcher held to the desire to make a space that functions and to do so with flair. His other aim, to bring different publics together, translates to such design elements as the all-in-one play structure.

Most new playgrounds have to have separate areas for different ages, with a fence around each one to keep dogs out. We didnt want to do that, and Rec and Park showed a lot of trust, said Fletcher, who has two young boys. South Park is a big space but a tiny space ... we were determined to accommodate all of its weird adjacencies and hidden constraints.

Even the selection of the benches, designed by Yves Behar, fits into the larger message.

Its not only that several have the armrests that can support a computer. Or that the flat standard armrests are wide enough for a coffee cup. Its that there are no obstructions within the seating area of each bench  nothing to prevent an indigent person from stretching out at night after other park users have left.

In San Franciscos economically stratified South of Market, this is an almost radically civic gesture.

And who spends time in South Park? Youd be surprised.

During lunchtime the oval can be a caricature of self-absorbed techdom, with debates over dashboards and database servers pinging earnestly through the air. Aggressively fit men stride by in clusters, venture capitalists on the prowl for their next unicorn.

Yet the buildings around South Park include three single-room-occupancy hotels, home to 100 or so men and women. Many are African American or Filipino, the two populations that for decades shared the block with the blue-collar workers who made their livings at the machine shops and warehouses where fine homes once stood.

Susan Gilbert/The Chronicle

That mix began to shift in the 1980s, when architects and photographers were drawn to the intimate scale and cheap rent  one of San Franciscos first beachheads of gentrification.

Some of the creatives, drawn to what then was the edge, never left. But the 80s are also when nonprofits purchased what then were decrepit rooming houses, ensuring a social mix that endures despite the dot-com boom of the late 90s and the ongoing tech ascendance.

I was torn when they cut down so many trees, but Im happy for the new park, said Kimberly, who has lived for eight years in low-income housing above Caffe Centro. She and several friends were gathered one morning last week near the play structure, which includes a tire hammock on which Kimberly took a few swings. And its really nice on weekends. We all brought pizza and barbecue out last Saturday.

Well never return to the days when a laundry filled the storefront where Caffe Centro does brisk business, but its heartening to see South Park remade in a way that seeks to serve all economic classes. The test now is whether the city, and South Parks users, care enough to allow the new space to fulfill its promise as it matures.

John King is The San Francisco Chronicles urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron

Online extra

For more photos and John Kings narrated slideshow of South Parks evolution: http://bit.ly/2nMPEYg
I heard the tenor saxophone before Cynthia Mackey opened her door.

She always has jazz or classical music playing on the stereo. She likes the soothing background sounds  and her guests do, too.

Mackey is an Airbnb host. This month, Airbnb released a report showing that 62 percent of hosts in Oakland are women who earn an average of $5,510 per year.

I thought Id check on one.

Mackey, 56, has been hosting for four years. She rents an upstairs bedroom in the craftsman house she owns with her brother near Lake Merritt. Guests who pay $70 to $75 per night to stay with Mackey get more than a large room with a bed, couch and a walk-in closet that has been converted into an office.

They get an Oakland tour guide.

Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle

I interact with people. I like that part, Mackey said as we sat at her dining-room table. It gives you the opportunity to make an income, but it engages you. You interact as much as you care to.

Mackey represents the brightest side of Airbnb. She is friendly and unbuttoned. We talked about our families. Most of hers arrived in California from Mississippi and Louisiana, part of the black migration west in search of jobs unavailable in the segregated South.

But the debate over whether Airbnb exacerbates the housing crisis  with hosts listing nonoccupied condos and apartments all year  is making the rounds in the East Bay.

In January, Oakland began the process of regulating Airbnb and other short-term rental sites amid concerns the rentals siphon supply from an already scarce housing stock. The Oakland City Council is considering rules that could include taxes and permits on short-term rentals, as well as a monitoring and enforcement system that limits the number of nights a home can be rented. The council could pass the rules by the end of the year.

In San Francisco, ground zero for Airbnb regulatory skirmishes, the law allows hosts to rent a room in their house or apartment for an unlimited number of days, or entire homes for up to 90 days a year.

Airbnb says it has been collecting hotel taxes in Oakland since 2015 and has paid more than $2.5 million to the city. But Airbnb has to be even more up front with its data. If it can champion female hosts in Oakland, it can also be more vigilant rooting out hosts who want to game the system, thus depriving renters access to much-needed space.

Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle

Because hosts like Mackey, who are willing to play by the rules, shouldnt be deprived of showing people around Oakland year-round.

Mackey was born in Los Angeles, but she was raised in Oakland. Her father owned a pet grooming salon on Park Street in Alameda. She and her brother saved for seven years before purchasing their three-bedroom house in the Adams Point neighborhood 18 years ago.

No matter who went first  thats how we look at the things  the other would have this home, Mackey said.

They rented the basement apartment until the renter moved to Arizona to be closer to her grandchildren. Her brother wanted his own space, so he moved downstairs. Thats when Mackey began playing the jazz music so the house wouldnt feel empty.

Mackey has an engineering degree from USC, but hasnt had a full-time job since 2001. She works from home in marketing. She learned about Airbnb while reading an article in Essence, a lifestyle magazine for black women.

Thats ironic because Airbnb repeatedly has had to respond to allegations that hosts discriminate against black guests. Racism on the platform might be an even greater problem to solve because like many technology companies, Airbnb has struggled to promote diversity internally. In September, the company announced a plan to eradicate discriminatory hosts from its network.

Many of Mackeys guests dont realize shes black until they arrive.

Thats been interesting to see, she said.

Do they visibly react to the sight of her?

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Some people do. They never say anything, Mackey said. Ive never had anybody say anything rude. I dont react to that. Im like, Welcome to my home, because thats what Im doing. Im welcoming you into my home.

I like to think  maybe they have a positive spin when they leave the home.

Mackey sees Airbnb as a steady, recession-proof source of income. As she gets closer to retirement, she knows the property taxes will still have to be paid. And what if health care costs go through the roof? As you age, the cost of living doesnt come down, but your earning potential certainly does.

And because Mackey works from home, it limits how much she socializes. But as an Airbnb host, the party comes to her. When a woman from South Africa came to visit her son, who is a chef at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, she and Mackey took walks around Lake Merritt.

When a large family from Mexico City, in Oakland for a wedding around Mexican Independence Day, rented several places in the neighborhood, they asked Mackey if they could have a party at her house.

And I asked the matriarch, Are you cooking? Mackey said.

Yes, she cooked. And instead of jazz, traditional Mexican music boomed from the living-room speakers.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
President Trump railed against sanctuary cities  including San Francisco, a favorite target  during his campaign, and once in office he demanded the release of public reports listing regions that limit their cooperation with immigration officials.

So it came as a surprise to many immigration experts Monday when not a single city or county in California  where a state law known as the Trust Act severely limits the situations in which immigration holds can be granted  was included in the first report as having such a policy.

My gut thought is that Im puzzled  Im not sure how theyre leaving off California jurisdictions. I just dont know, said Bill Hing, a professor at University of San Francisco School of Law.

The weekly reports are meant to highlight regions that choose not to cooperate with ICE detainers or requests for notification, therefore potentially endangering Americans, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration officials issue detainers when they want jails to keep people past their release date, to give federal authorities time to pick them up.

San Francisco, along with other sanctuary cities, requires a criminal warrant for its jail to hold inmates.

When law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders, it undermines ICEs ability to protect the public safety and carry out its mission, Thomas Homan, acting director of the immigration agency, said in a statement.

The reports are made up of two main parts. One is a snapshot of instances where agencies refused to hold individuals longer than their release date. Some California jurisdictions, including Alameda and Santa Clara counties, were included in that section of the first report.

The other part lists areas that have policies that restrict cooperation with immigration officials. No California jurisdictions were listed there.

But California is widely known as being home to many sanctuary cities. Trump famously criticized San Francisco after Kathryn Steinle was fatally shot along the citys Pier 14 in July 2015. Her alleged assailant was a man who was unauthorized to be in the country and had been released despite immigration officials requesting the city hold him.

As the administration follows through on Trumps promise to crack down on illegal immigration and punish sanctuary cities, its unclear what Mondays omission of San Francisco or any other California jurisdiction signifies.

The administration could be considering public opinion, some legal and immigration experts said. Publishing a long list of California jurisdictions could make it seem like the idea is well established  the longer the list, the more mainstream it appears, said Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.

And anyway, Gulasekaram said, the Trump administration is not likely to sway the opinion of many California residents by listing their cities or counties in the report. But including a place like Travis County, Texas, could change minds there.

Its a place thats likely to get constituents to perhaps put pressure now on the sheriff and change the policy, Gulasekaram said.

Theres also the fact that San Francisco is suing to block Trumps executive order that seeks to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities. Trump administration attorneys have said that a motion to immediately block the order is not necessary because they have yet to withhold funds.

If you put (San Francisco) on this list, that could be used by the city to say, It is very clear you intend to actually take away our funds, Gulasekaram said.

Its also possible that the administration made an error in putting the report together, said Christopher N. Lasch, a professor at University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

There were other mistakes in the list, some local officials said. Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriffs Office, said the instance of it denying a detainer was inaccurate. The Sheriffs Office did not have a detainer denial of an inmate who matched the description listed in the report, Kelly said.

ICE officials acknowledged that the list may be incomplete. Jurisdictions included in the report are based upon publicly disclosed policies, said James Schwab, a spokesman for the immigration agency. This is a working document and will, over time, capture a more clear picture as it evolves.

So San Francisco could show up on the list next week, when the second report is expected.

Still, the fact that San Francisco wasnt on the first list makes it seem like the report was not put together carefully, Lasch said.

I think this raises the question of, Why is the data so wrong? Is there some kind of agenda being pursued through the selective inclusion or exclusion from the list? Lasch said. The fact that no mention is made of the California Trust Act or any local California policy certainly jumps out as a glaring error.

Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @haleaziz
A consumer interest group has taken complaints about Amazons advertised prices to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, demanding an investigation and saying the company is ripping consumers off.

Consumer Watchdog argued that list or was prices, displayed near the current price and showing the putative savings by the buyer, are often bogus and much higher than what most other retailers are charging.

Consumer Watchdog believes Amazon and its executives are cynically flouting the law to increase sales and profits, wrote John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog in a petition to Becerra. A company cannot claim its discounting something from a certain price when virtually nobody charges that amount.

If the comparison pricing were false, it could violate the California Business and Professions Codes rules on advertised values.

The attorney generals office declined to confirm or deny any investigation of Amazon. The state filed an amicus brief in a 2010 case when California district attorneys sued Overstock.com over its comparison pricing.

In that case, a judge ruled in 2014 that Overstock had to pay nearly $7 million in penalties for the deceptive pricing. Overstock appealed the ruling.

Amazon said the recent Consumer Watchdog complaints are misleading.

We validate list prices against actual prices recently found across Amazon and other retailers, the company said in an email. We eliminate List Price when we believe it isnt relevant to our customers.

Amazon Canada was hit in January with fines of more than $750,000 from that countrys Competition Bureau over misleading prices.

In that case, the Canadian investigation found that Amazon had failed to confirm the accuracy of prices from its suppliers. Amazon made changes to the way it shows prices after the settlement, changes that went into effect at all Amazon sites, the Competition Bureau said in January.

Amazon dropped list pricing last year in some categories like groceries, and a July study by comparison-shopping site Rout found that only about 30 percent of products showed list prices, down dramatically from May, when more than 70 percent featured them.

Consumer Watchdog conducted its own research over three days in February to compare prices on more than 4,000 products, the group said.

It found that Amazon has reference prices on more than 25 percent of listings, and that the majority of those crossed-out prices were higher than the prevailing market price  the key language in the California code on the issue.

In other words, the reference prices were an entirely bogus notional price that created the false impression that customers were getting a deal when they were not, Consumer Watchdog said in a news release. When correcting the inflated list prices, the fictitious discounts often vanished, the study found.

The group said it found that Amazon overstated median market prices by about 20 percent on average.

Amazon has also begun using a was price on listings that is compiled from recent price history, the company said. The was price is intended to to be an alternative to list prices.

Daniel DeMay is a SeattlePI.com staff writer. Email: danieldemay@seattlepi.com Twitter: @Daniel_DeMay
Troubled electric-car startup Faraday Future has ended talks with Vallejo about building an auto factory on the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard, city officials reported Friday.

The company will instead focus on completing its first factory in North Las Vegas, officials said. Work on the $1 billion factory came to a halt in November amid reports that privately held Faraday was facing a cash crunch.

The company  which aims to challenge Tesla with its own high-performance electric car  said Friday that it remains interested in the 157-acre Mare Island site and may restart negotiations in the future.

Faraday would like to thank the city and its officials for their generosity and professionalism throughout this process, and looks forward to exploring future opportunities with the city, the company said in a press release.

The Los Angeles company does not release financial information. But questions about its viability have been swirling since last fall.

Faradays main financial backer is Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, CEO of technology conglomerate LeEco, which has its own electric car division. But in a letter to LeEco employees last fall, he acknowledged that the company had lost focus and grown too fast. Nevadas state treasurer told the China Daily newspaper that Jia had run out of money.

LeEco declined to comment for this story. .

Faraday reported last month that it is soliciting bids from construction companies to carry out the next phase of construction in North Las Vegas.

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Faraday Future wants to reinforce that our commitment to the state of Nevada and our $1 billion investment in the region over the next few years has never changed, the company said in a Feb. 15 press release. It reported spending $120 million so far, with grading on the site now complete.

Faraday unveiled its first production car, the FF 91, at the CES show in January and plans to begin production in 2018.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
It might sound ironic, but a giant mutual fund group hopes to reduce the confusion created by having many versions of the same fund by launching yet another version, called clean shares.

Like most fund managers that sell through brokers and advisers, American Funds has multiple categories of shares for each fund it manages. Each category, called a share class, has the same underlying investments, but different commissions and annual fees depending on how they are sold.

American has 19  count em  different classes. It hopes the newest class will eventually replace the others by making it easier for investors to understand how much they are paying American for investment management and what they are paying the broker or adviser who recommended the fund. Its much more simple and transparent, said Matthew OConnor, Americans director of North American distribution.

Clean shares, introduced in late January, also could help American compete with low-cost fund groups such as Vanguard, which hauled in more net money last year than all other U.S. fund companies combined, according to Morningstar. Vanguard attracted $277 billion in net inflows. American, the Los Angeles fund group that is the nations second largest, had net outflows of almost $5 billion.

We have gone through share class proliferation. Now we are returning to a single structure, but it is very different from where we started, OConnor said.

Unlike Vanguard, American does not sell directly to investors. Also unlike Vanguard, which manages primarily index funds, American is an active fund manager, which means that it analyzes and picks individual securities, which costs more than running an index fund. For this, it charges an investment management fee averaging 0.25 to 0.3 percent of fund assets per year.

This is on the low side for active managers, but its hard to see because American also acts as a paymaster. It collects commissions and fees from fund investors and distributes them to the brokerage and advisory firms that sell its funds, the banks that hold the funds assets and transfer agents that keep shareholder records.

These fees (but not commissions) are added to Americans investment management fee to come up with an annual expense ratio, which is stated as a percentage of assets.

American has different arrangements with brokers, advisers and service providers. Some brokers want a commission up front, some will forgo the commission for an annual fee. Some large retirement plans can negotiate big fee discounts. To meet these and other demands from its distribution network, American (like its competitors) kept creating new share classes with different fee structures.

So now it has three share classes sold by commissioned brokers to retail investors (labeled A, B and C shares); three sold by fee-based financial advisers (labeled F1 through F3); five sold in 529 college savings plans (labeled 529A through 529F1); and eight sold through retirement plans (labeled R1 through R6).

On Americans flagship fund, Growth Fund of America, the expense ratio ranges from 0.33 on R6 shares to 1.54 percent on 529B shares. Even though they have the same portfolio, if you had invested $10,000 in each of those two share classes 10 years ago, the R6 shares would now be worth $20,997 compared with $18,754 for the 529B shares, according to Morningstar.

With its new clean shares, labeled F3, American will no longer act as paymaster. It will collect only its own fees. On Growth Fund of America, it will charge 0.33 percent annually  0.27 percent for investment management and 0.06 percent for expenses it pays itself, such as legal and printing costs.

That will make it look more competitive with low-cost leaders such as Vanguard, whose average expense ratio is 0.18 percent.

Brokers and advisers who recommend clean shares can add whatever fees or commissions they want, and they could end up costing much more than 0.33 percent. However, by unbundling investment management and sales-related fees, it should be easier for investors to see how much they are paying American and how much they are paying for advice.

A clean share has the cost of operating the fund, but it doesnt include the sales commission paid to the broker, said Barbara Roper of the Consumer Federation of America. That is separately negotiated between the customer and broker. It would be the same way when you buy stocks or exchange traded funds.

The hope is that by separating the two, market forces will drive down fund commissions, the same way they drove stock-trading commissions, Roper said.

Americans class A shares charge up to 5.75 percent in up-front commissions, or $575 on a $10,000 investment. By comparison, do-it-yourself investors can go to a discount broker and buy an unlimited amount of exchange-traded funds for less than $7 per online trade and in some cases, zero.

Capital Group, Americans parent, had to get permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission to create clean shares because historically, fund companies  not brokers  set commissions and fees. Janus has also received SEC permission to sell clean shares.

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One way fund managers compete with each other is by offering brokers bigger commissions or other incentives, which are not clearly disclosed to investors. This encourages brokers to recommend funds that make them, not their investors, the most money.

People licensed as brokers can do this, as long as the fund is suitable for their client, because they are not held to a fiduciary standard. Fiduciaries must put their clients interests ahead of their own. People who are registered investment advisers are fiduciaries and are required to act in their clients best interests.

Clean shares were expected to get a boost from the U.S. Department of Labors fiduciary rule, approved last year under the Obama administration. This rule requires brokers, as well as advisers, to act as fiduciaries when they get paid to give advice about retirement (but not other) accounts.

With clean shares, a brokerage firm could pay their salespeople the same fee or commission on all funds. This would eliminate the incentive to favor one fund type or one fund company over another and help firms comply with the fiduciary rule, Roper said.

Companies were supposed to start complying with the rule April 10, but the Trump Administration ordered the department to reconsider the rule. In early March, the department delayed implementation for 60 days. The rule is not likely to survive in its current form, but some version of it could, Roper said.

No matter what happens with the rule, American plans to forge ahead with clean shares and believes the industry will follow suit. The rule, even if it doesnt pass, has raised awareness about high fees and conflicts of interest.

But investor advocate Mercer Bullard of Fund Democracy wonders why any brokerage firms would sell clean shares if the fiduciary rule is not adopted, because of the price competition clean shares could unleash.

Morningstars John Rekenthaler hopes they will. I like (clean shares) in spirit. We would all be better off if mutual funds, stocks, ETFs, were all owned and purchased the same way. The onus (is) on the broker to have good disclosure.

I asked OConnor whether that name implies that its other share classes are dirty. He said that possibility was discussed. But we feel strongly this will be the future of how mutual funds are priced.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender
Efforts to hire more women and people of color at Uber Technologies Inc. have been long hindered by a peculiar constraint. Members of the recruiting team were denied access to information about the companys diversity makeup, according to several people familiar with the San Francisco companys hiring process.

The recruiting arm assigns some members to focus on hiring diverse candidates, a program that has received enthusiastic endorsements from Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. But the team found it difficult to do its job without demographic data, which is a common way to identify a companys weaknesses and set hiring targets, the people said.

Ubers demographic composition has been a topic of interest for people outside the recruiting department, too. Various female software engineers have requested such data for years and were told the human resources department didnt track it. Some of them began calculating it on their own in an attempt to determine which managers seemed friendliest to women, said a former employee.

Beyond the lack of data, recruitment efforts struggled from a dearth of focus, funding and leadership. At least a half-dozen Uber recruiters involved in diversity programs have left in the past 18 months. Several of those people said diversity took a backseat to the companys needs to hire quickly.

Liane Hornsey, Ubers senior vice president of human resources, said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that shes working to clean up Ubers cultural problems, including its approach to recruiting. Hornsey, who joined the company this year, said Uber revised 1,500 job descriptions to remove unconscious bias from the language, will hold job interview training for women in tech, and is ensuring that its panel of interviewers is diverse. Uber plans to release a diversity report for the first time next week.

Bloomberg spoke with about a dozen current and former Uber staffers familiar with the companys hiring process. They asked not to be identified because many have employment contracts that bar them from criticizing the company. Their experiences illustrate how a startup defined on breaking rules and expanding at any cost can develop into a homogenous work environment, where discrimination goes unchecked. Uber, valued at $69 billion, has become the latest test case for Silicon Valleys inclusion issues.

Uber is under enormous scrutiny following recent accusations of a toxic and sexist workplace. Susan Fowler, a former software engineer at the company, wrote a blog post last month alleging that her boss at Uber propositioned her for sex and was protected by HR. She also said women were discriminated against throughout the technical group.

The ride-hailing giant is now trying to rehabilitate its image and ease employee unrest. It hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the sexual harassment claims and the companys culture. The results of this probe are expected by the end of April and will be released to the public, according to Arianna Huffington, an Uber board member.

The company-wide meeting each Tuesday has become a weekly airing of grievances, where Kalanick has offered several tearful apologies. The 40-year-old CEO delivered one such atonement publicly after Bloomberg published a video showing him arguing with an Uber driver. Kalanick said he needed leadership help and would hire a chief operating officer. Some insiders are pushing for a strong female leader to take the role.

As the company prepares a full diversity report, it has presented one statistic: 15 percent of engineers, scientists and product managers are women. This is lower than other startups, and even its bigger and older tech peers, including Facebook, which has struggled with its own diversity hiring. Airbnb, which was founded around the same time as Uber, said 26 percent of technical employees are women. Lyft, which is Ubers main competitor in the U.S., said it also plans to release its first diversity report soon.

In 2015, as Uber was expanding worldwide and more than doubling its workforce, it hired Damien Hooper-Campbell as global diversity and inclusion lead. Hooper-Campbell, who is black, has extensive experience in the area. He was an assistant director of minority initiatives at Harvard Business School, a Goldman Sachs Group vice president focused on inclusion efforts, and a diversity strategist at Google.

Hooper-Campbell was initially directed to plan diversity recruitment programs and outline goals to make Uber more hospitable to minorities working there, said two former employees. The move was encouraging to his fellow recruiters, who were frustrated by a lack of leadership on diversity projects.

But Hooper-Campbells job soon changed. He was dispatched to Oakland to serve as a face of the company to officials there and help oversee logistics around the planned new office, the people said. His role was in constant flux, Sean Cervera, a former colleague on Ubers recruiting team, recalled in a blog post this month. Within a year, Hooper-Campbell left to become chief diversity officer at eBay. EBay declined to make him available for an interview.

Cervera wrote that he had been enlisted to help Uber find more diverse recruits in technical roles, but that he was allowed to spend only 10 percent of his time on that work. Cervera, who now works on inclusion recruiting programs at LinkedIn, declined to comment.

Mitch and Freada Kapor, a pair of early Uber investors, believe the company isnt doing enough. Uber has had countless opportunities to do the right thing, they wrote in a blog post. Ubers outsize success in terms of growth of market share, revenues and valuation are impressive, but can never excuse a culture plagued by disrespect, exclusionary cliques, lack of diversity, and tolerance for bullying and harassment of every form.

Cassie Vance, a brand strategy expert in San Francisco, said she was approached by Uber this month about a job opportunity. Under normal circumstances, Id love to have a conversation regarding a role like this. ... But ... these are not normal circumstances, Vance wrote to the recruiter, according to the LinkedIn message seen by Bloomberg. To say that Id be embarrassed to have Uber on my resume would be a gross understatement. I know Im not the only person that feels this way, and if you ask me, theres no marketing strategy that is going to get you guys out of the hole youve dug yourselves.

Olivia Zaleski and Eric Newcomer are Bloomberg writers. Email: ozaleski@bloomberg.net, enewcomer@bloomberg.net
Police in Fairfield were investigating a shooting Friday afternoon that left a man dead in a car at an intersection in the Solano County city, authorities said.

The incident occurred around 1:43 p.m. near the intersection of Great Jones and Illinois streets, eight blocks north of Highway 12, according to the Fairfield Police Department.
A staff member for the California agency that oversees health insurance for inmates in state prisons accidentally sent an email containing the personal information of more than 700 people to an unauthorized recipient, officials said Friday.

The breach that exposed personally identifiable information  which under state law can include Social Security numbers, credit card numbers and drivers license numbers  and medical records was reported Feb. 9 to the 738 people who had their information compromised January 23.
A much-anticipated U.S. Supreme Court showdown soon will decide whether Americas major political parties can continue to rig American elections without violating the Constitution.

The case of Whitford vs. Gill will test the courts willingness to finally set constitutional limits on that long-standing, pervasive form of election rigging known as partisan gerrymandering.

Taking center stage in Whitford, and playing a pivotal role, will be the innovative idea of a San Francisco political scientist.

Eric McGhees efficiency gap model may prove to be the elusive standard the court has been seeking to enable the justices to identify and rein in excessively partisan gerrymanders.

Partisan gerrymanders rig elections by manipulating the borders of voting districts to favor one political party over another. They deliver majorities, even supermajorities, of a partys candidates to the legislature, in defiance of the majority of voters overall.

They create safe seats that insulate incumbents, making them less accountable, less willing to compromise and more likely to contribute to legislative gridlock.

They let politicians select the voters they need rather than allowing voters to elect the leaders they want.

And they are unconstitutional, at least theoretically.

The Supreme Court has said that partisan gerrymanders violate the Constitution when theyre excessive. But the court has felt ill-equipped to define when a gerrymander has crossed into excessive territory and over the constitutional line.

The justices have searched in vain for an effective, manageable standard on which they credibly can rely to evaluate partisan bias in voter-district plans.

In the absence of such a standard, the courts consistently have given a constitutional pass to partisan gerrymanders, even avowedly excessive ones.

That finally changed in November with Whitford, when a federal district court ruled, for the first time, that a partisan gerrymander was unconstitutionally excessive.

In doing so, the court relied on McGhees efficiency gap model to reject an extremely aggressive districting plan mapped by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature.

McGhee, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, was studying partisan bias in Californias elections when he hit upon the idea of seeing bias as a function of wasted votes.

Votes are wasted when they are cast for losing candidates, or for winning candidates beyond what was needed to win (the over-vote).

McGhees insight was to see discriminatory bias in the way a gerrymander makes the opposing party waste as many votes as possible.

His model offers an intuitive way to gauge the effects of gerrymanderings time-honored map-drawing techniques, quaintly known as packing and cracking.

Packing involves designing voter plans that crowd opposition voters into districts that are already opposition strongholds. The oppositions wasted over-vote is thus maximized when such districts are packed to the max.

Cracking involves drawing plans that break up opposition strongholds and relegate the divided remnants to surrounding districts where they are reliably outnumbered. This increases the number of districts the opposition loses, maximizing the votes the opposition party wastes whole districts at a time.

McGhees model generates the efficiency gap quotient or EG for a given voter plan. (See box.)

McGhee teamed with law Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos to develop a potential legal test for gerrymanders supported by historical analyses of efficiency gaps in U.S. elections going back to 1972.

Their data suggested setting an EG of 7 as a presumptive constitutional limit  i.e., if your gerrymander forces the other party to waste 7 percent more of the statewide vote than your party, you probably are gerrymandering excessively and ought to provide an overriding justification.

In Whitford, the legislatures intent to favor Republican candidates was clear. The efficiency gaps for Wisconsins gerrymander over three successive elections were off the charts: 13 for the 2012 election (which meant 48 percent of the statewide vote was converted to 60 percent of the assembly seats), and comparable EGs and votes-versus-seats asymmetries in the 2014 and 2016 elections, confirming that Wisconsins gerrymander was both discriminatory and durable; in other words, a large slow-moving target for any court intent on finding a highly biased plan.

The Whitford court invalidated Wisconsins plan, and ordered the Legislature to prepare a new one in time for the 2018 elections. Wisconsin has appealed to the Supreme Court.

The 2011 gerrymander in a state like Wisconsin, with its relative statewide parity in party affiliation, and highly polarized politics, may have pushed gerrymandering close to a political breaking point.

The Supreme Court is not likely to find a red flag any redder than Wisconsins biased plan.

And though no measure to evaluate partisan bias is going to be perfect, it is difficult to imagine a standard markedly superior to the model developed by McGhee.

So the stakes are high. A judicial solution may be all thats available for voters in the vast majority of states without independent districting commissions (like Californias).

And a solution from the ballot box would be a hard sell in gerrymandered states where votes for change are prone to be systematically wasted.

A loss for the Whitford plaintiffs would likely foreclose a judicial solution to excessively partisan gerrymanders once and for all, and consign large swaths of the country to a future of unbridled redistricting warfare, where the constitutional rights of millions of American voters are accepted casualties.

A victory for the plaintiffs, and for Eric McGhees idea, would assure American voters contending with the antidemocratic excesses of partisan gerrymanders that the Constitution is in their corner, at long last.

James Matson is an Oakland attorney with an interest in electoral reform. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at http://bit.ly/SFChronicleletters.

How the measure works

D  R

Total votes

= EG

Read formula as: Votes wasted by Democrats minus votes wasted by Republicans divided by the total votes cast in the election.

For example: If a gerrymander by Republicans wastes a higher percentage of Democratic votes than Republican votes, then the EG quotient goes up. If the EG quotient is higher than 7, Republicans gerrymander is deemed excessive and therefore unconstitutional.

Definition: Votes are wasted when they are cast for losing candidates, or for winning candidates beyond what was needed to win (the over-vote).

James Matson
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee investigating links between Russia and Donald Trumps presidential campaign, told The Chronicle Friday that its hard to have confidence in the panels GOP chairman because he has been providing political cover to the White House.

This is no way to conduct an investigation, said Schiff, as he blasted fellow California Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare.

Schiff, D-Burbank, said Nunes actions this week, including briefing President Trump on incidential intelligence on the president and his transition team discovered as part of court-approved surveillance of foreign powers, compromise his ability to lead a bi-partisan investigation of whether anyone on the campaign coordinated with Russians.

On Friday, Nunes announced that Trumps former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, would testify before the House Intelligence Committee in closed session as part of its investigation. The committee wants to look into links between Manafort and a wealthy Russian close to President Vladimir Putin. Schiff prefers that the hearing be held in open session so the public could see it.

Also on Friday, Nunes canceled a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday that was supposed to feature former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and Sally Yates, who briefly served as acting attorney general in January.

But Nunes has been opaque  inconsistent in Schiffs words  about the content of the intelligence on Trump and his transition team. Nunes said it had nothing to do with Russian interference in the November election and was collected legally. Nunes main concern seems to be that the information was widely disseminated among intelligence officials, who had revealed the identities  unmasked  the people involved.

But Schiff and other Republicans such as Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, were aghast that Nunes shared the information personally with Trump and not members of the Intelligence Committee. Nunes also briefed House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Its hard to say anybody can have full confidence after the events of this week, Schiff told The Chronicle editorial board Friday via Skype. You dont take information to the White House instead of your own committee if it purports to shed light on one of the things that were investigating.

Nunes, a member of Trumps transition team who is close to the president, told Fox News commentator Sean Hannity this week that I felt I had a duty and obligation to tell (Trump) because, as you know, hes been taking a lot of heat in the news media."

Trump later said I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found.

Schiff was baffled Friday about what the relevance of the information Nunes purports to have seen. He said Nunes needs to decide whether he wants to continuing being a surrogate for Trump or lead an independent investigation.

If the information wasnt about the Russian investigation and if, according to Nunes theres no evidence that anything was unlawfully collected, Schiff said the only thing I can surmise is that this was an effort to give the president some cover.

It appears that Nunes was helping the White House use this new information given to him to deflect criticism about the Russian investigation. So it isnt internally consistent, Schiff said Friday. But one thing is undeniable: This is no way to conduct an investigation.

Regardless of Nunes behavior, Schiff said that Democrats are not going to walk away from the investigation. Even though the Democratic members dont have the votes to require the committee to do anything, he hopes public pressure will result in creation of an independent commission to investigate Russian connections.

If we were to talk away and say that the chairman is fatally compromised and were not going to participate, then none of this is going to get investigated by the House, and that is just unacceptable, Schiff said Friday. Were going to soldier on.

But I think and hope the pressure becomes too great for the speaker to resist supporting an independent commission, he said.

So far, both Ryan and Nunes have declined to support an independent investigation.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
California Rep. Adam Schiff has been all over the news this week as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating links between Russia and Donald Trumps presidential campaign.

He started the week by providing the clearest explanation yet of the Russian connection to the Trump campaign and why it should matter to voters. He ended it Friday, by telling The Chronicles editorial board its hard to have confidence in the Intelligence Committees GOP chairman because he has been providing political cover to the White House.

This is no way to conduct an investigation, said Schiff, as he blasted fellow California Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, who earlier in the week told Trump that U.S. intelligence services may have picked up incidental information on the president and his transition team as part of a court-approved surveillance of foreign powers. Nunes neglected to tell his fellow committee members.

Through it all, Schiff, 56, has maintained his low-key, steady demeanor, one befitting a former federal prosecutor  someone who can methodically dismantle a witness without raising his voice.

Ive never seen him lose his cool, said Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles. The way he reacted to Nunes this week is about as angry as Ive seen him.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Schiff is emerging from relative obscurity to become a leading voice for Democrats in their opposition to the Trump administration. His plain-spoken, 15-minute statement at the beginning of Mondays Intelligence Committee hearing won raves in resistance corners.

And his elevated profile is raising speculation that Schiff may be well-suited to succeed California Sen. Dianne Feinstein should she decide not to seek re-election next year. Like Feinstein, Schiff is seen as a moderate willing to work in a bipartisan way

Now more people are becoming aware of his straight-ahead manner  even as he excoriated Nunes actions.

Schiff criticized Nunes for briefing President Trump on the incidental intelligence  information picked up during an unrelated investigation  and said that and other actions compromise Nunes ability to lead a bi-partisan investigation of possible Trump campaign connections to Russians.

On Friday, Nunes canceled a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday that was supposed to feature former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and Sally Yates, who briefly served as acting attorney general in January. Schiff tweeted the cancellation was an attempt to choke off public info.

Nunes has been opaque  inconsistent in Schiffs words  about the content of the intelligence on Trump and his transition team. Nunes said it had nothing to do with Russian interference in the November election.

Its hard to say anybody can have full confidence after the events of this week, Schiff told The Chronicles editorial board Friday via Skype. You dont take information to the White House instead of your own committee if it purports to shed light on one of the things that were investigating.

If the information wasnt about the Russian investigation and if, according to Nunes theres no evidence that anything was unlawfully collected, Schiff said, the only thing I can surmise is that this was an effort to give the president some cover.

To those who have watched Schiff, who was elected to Congress in 2001, evolve as a politician, his measured response this week can be seen as a characteristic that Democrats need at a moment when it would be easy to devolve into partisan cheap shots.

Schiff may not be a glad-hander and ribbon-cutter, Dreier said, but he is the the smartest politician Ive ever been around.

Hes anticharismatic, Dreier said. His charisma comes from being anticharismatic. He represents Hollywood but hes not theatrical at all. And thats rare in this media age to have a politician achieve success by being like that.

Former state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, who knew Schiff when both served in the Legislature, said hes a progressive but he doesnt wear it on his sleeve. He doesnt believe if he talks louder and more that youll believe what he has to say.

Adam would always try to persuade you by his arguments, not appeal to your knee-jerk reaction, said Perata, who represented the East Bay in Sacramento.

So much of politics is right place, right time, Perata said. And right now, this guy has come up four cherries. If he were to say hes running (for Senate), I wouldnt go to Las Vegas and bet against him.

But a Senate run is a long way off. Until these high-drama moments on the Intelligence Committee, Schiff has been largely unknown outside of his district, which encompasses Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena and parts of Hollywood. It is largely white, 25 percent Latino and well-educated.

Born in Massachusetts  his mother a Republican and his father a Democrat  Schiffs family moved to Danville when he was 11. He was so quiet that his mother once said he never told her who he was dating. When his classmates at Monte Vista High School voted him most likely to succeed, I was totally shocked, he told the Glendale News-Press. I didnt think anybody in the school knew who I was.

He wasnt even sure he would go into politics. As he neared the end of his undergraduate career at Stanford University, he took both the Medical College Admission Test and the Law School Admission Test. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he went on to become a U.S. attorney in Southern California, and said he never lost a case.

But he lost a lot at politics. The first time he ran for office, he finished 10th out of 14 candidates in a state Assembly race. It took two more runs before he won a seat to the state Senate in 1996. In 2000, he beat conservative Republican Jim Rogan to go to Congress.

While a passion for foreign policy and intelligence work might be anathema to limelight-loving politicians, they are genuine areas of interest for Schiff, say those who know him. He also has long had an interest in transparency and open government, which he said Nunes was ignoring through his actions Friday.

Regardless of Nunes behavior, Schiff said that Democrats are not going to walk away from the investigation of a possible Russian connection. Even though the Democratic members dont have the votes to require the committee to do anything, he hopes public pressure will result in creation of an independent commission to further investigate. So far, both House Speaker Paul Ryan and Nunes have declined to support an independent probe.

If we were to walk away and say that the chairman is fatally compromised and were not going to participate, then none of this is going to get investigated by the House. And that, Schiff said, is just unacceptable.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
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An unidentified male was arrested in Marin on multiple counts of identify theft and fraudulent charges. In his possession were 19 fake California driver's licenses, seven brand-new MacBook Pro computers, and three iRobot vacuums, authorities said.

"Anyone can become a victim of fraud or identity theft, so it's important that we all remain vigilant," reads a statement on the Marin County Sheriff Office Facebook page.
John King/San Francisco Chronicle

If youve been wondering when San Franciscos Salesforce Tower would finally stop climbing higher and higher into the sky, the answer is  soon.

The last steel beam will be maneuvered into place atop the 1,070-foot high-rise on April 6, developers Boston Properties and Hines revealed Friday. The high point will come four years after the ceremonial groundbreaking in March 2013, but barely a year since the first steel appeared above ground last March.
Saturday was the first full day of service on the BART extension to Warm Springs, but the new station was already proving to be a popular backdrop for selfies, with couples and families taking pictures along the upper-level railing against green hills draped with fog.

The land around the station is far from densely occupied, surrounded by the Fremont hills, empty fields, warehouses and the Tesla auto plant.

But many of the stations first riders said they live nearby and were curious to see how the construction had turned out after the long wait, which dragged more than two years past the predicted 2014 opening date.

Hes really excited, said Leanne Leung, 31, pointing at her husband, Chin, as they waited on the platform with their twin daughters, who are 16 months old.

We drive by here every day  weve been waiting a long time. Its nice to see all the cars and people around here, said Chin, 32.

Its nice. His family can visit us more easily now, too, said Leanne, referring to her husbands relatives in Berkeley and San Francisco.

Its a big deal to have it open. I mean, its two years late. They could have done the forecasting a little better, Chin said.

He added that he heard on the news Saturday morning that the federal budget might jeopardize the fate of the extension to San Jose, but added that personally, I dont really care about down south.

The relative glut of parking at the Warm Springs Station  nearly 2,100 spaces  is a change from the congestion at BARTs Fremont stop, said Judy Huckabay, a Warm Springs resident who was riding the train with her husband.

Theres no parking at the BART in South Fremont. But my husband and I are BART lovers. We look for things to do that are BART-friendly, Huckabay said.

The new stations location, 5.4 miles south of the Fremont stop, is an improvement for her as well.

This is much more convenient. If I have to drive across Fremont, thats 7 miles, that can take 40 minutes, Huckabay said.

Other riders agreed that the station, the farthest south in the BART system, eases the logistical headache of getting around the Bay Area.

Its certainly more convenient to come here than to go up to Millbrae, which is what we used to do. Were from the other side of the bay  Mountain View and Sunnyvale, said Robert Lawrence, 93, of Mountain View.

Its a 40-minute drive to get there, and this was only 20, added Teena Henshaw, 80.

Some of the delays in the stations opening were caused by the difficulty of getting the stations modern technology to work with the existing BART system.

And as shiny and new as the station was on Saturday, it still contained reminders of BARTs standard delays and dysfunction. A banner advertised future closure dates for the Lake Merritt Station, which will be shut down periodically on weekends from April through July for track maintenance work, and the usual advisories piped in over the speakers.

Track maintenance work has been completed for today, a female voice intoned, but there are still residual delays.

Filipa A. Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
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The San Francisco man who allegedly tried to kidnap a 13-year-old girl on a street in San Franciscos West Portal neighborhood was charged with half a dozen offenses Friday, prosecutors said.

Lee Mason Eigl, 26, was charged with kidnapping, assault with the intent to commit rape, two counts of lewd acts, robbery and criminal threats, said Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the San Francisco District Attorneys Office.
Rafe Swan/Getty Image

Police arrested two San Francisco residents in the slaying of a 44-year-old San Bruno man who was killed in the Mission District, officials said Friday.

Jose Mejia-Carrillo, 22, and Alexis Cruz-Zepeda, 23, were arrested Tuesday about 7:05 p.m. at 19th and Church streets near Dolores Park, police said.
Hyderabad: Health Minister C. Laxma Reddy on Friday told that the State Government is planning to construct four new multi-speciality hospitals around Hyderabad. During question hour in the Legislative Assembly, the minister informed that 500 bed hospitals and 250 bed mother and child hospital will be established in the city. Sites for construction of hospitals have been identified at Victoria Memorial Home, L.B.Nagar, Mylardevpally or Rajendranagar, near Petbasheerabad police station and beside Miyapur Bus terminal.

He said that the hospitals would be constructed on government lands and there was no question of land acquisition. Once the banks approve loans, the construction will begin.

Regarding development of Osmania General Hospital, the Health Minister said new building plans have been prepared and very shortly foundation would be laid.
After closing in early February, ending its 21-year run in North Beach, the Rose Pistola space (532 Columbus Ave) is in new hands.

According to a pending liquor license, the space's operational licenses are being transferred to a restaurant doing business as Cantina Di Liguria. Tied to the filing are Bonnie Fisher and Boris Dramov, the folks behind Roma Design Group.
NEW YORK  The latest in a string of brutality cases against Rikers Island guards has added fuel to a growing debate on whether New York Citys notoriously violent jail complex has become so dysfunctional it should be shut down.

At least 35 staff members at Rikers have faced criminal charges in the past three years, including 13 for assault or attempted assault. Federal prosecutors have also charged more than a half dozen Rikers guards with violating inmates civil rights through excessive force, smuggling drugs and other charges since 2014.

Rikers Island is one of these long-term injustices and abuses that every New Yorker should be outraged about, said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The situation is intolerable.

Inmate activists have for more than a year argued that shutting down the sprawling, 10-jail complex on the East River is the only solution for a cycle of abuses that include violence by guards and gang members, mistreatment of the mentally ill and juveniles and unjustly long detention for minor offenders.

If you are a New Yorker who cares about the soul of the criminal justice system, you know that Rikers is the belly of the beast, said Glenn Martin, founder of the nonprofit group JustLeadershipUSA, which seeks to decrease the number of Americans behind bars.

Among other arguments for closing Rikers is that the island facility near La Guardia Airport  accessible only by a narrow bridge  is too isolated, cutting off inmates from the outside world in a way that hinders oversight and rehabilitation.

Daily populations at Rikers have recently been falling below the roughly 10,000 capacity, a trend city officials attribute to reducing detention for those charged with misdemeanor drug possession. Advocates say that makes it viable to dismantle Rikers and replace it with a combination of new and expanded existing jails in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Cost estimates have reached as high as $10 billion.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has stuck to his position that reforms and improvements at Rikers are both the least costly and most practical approach.

A 2015 settlement of civil litigation over pervasive brutality at Rikers imposed various changes, including the addition of thousands of surveillance cameras, stricter policies on use of force and the appointment of a federal monitor to oversee conditions.

Cuomo, who frequently is at odds with fellow Democrat de Blasio, took an indirect jab at the mayor at a community forum earlier this month, saying his view of the citys position is that closing Rikers would be too hard.

Well you know what, impotence is not a defense for me, the governor said. New York City can accomplish anything it wants to, when it wants to. It just needs the political will. It is an outrage in New York City to allow Rikers Island to exist.

The latest brutality case stems from security videotape in a maximum-security shower area that shows guard Rodiny Calypso viciously attacking an unnamed inmate in February 2014, a criminal complaint says. After the pair exchanged words  Calypso claims the inmate spit on him  the guard handcuffed the victim and punched him in the face and the head several times, it says.

Calypso, 38, was released on $150,000 bond. His attorney, Joey Jackson, said Tuesday his client looks forward to his chance to address the allegations in court.

An independent commission headed by the states former chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, is close to announcing recommendations for reforms in the citys criminal justice system, including whether to shut Rikers for good.

Tom Hays is an Associated Press writer.
BRENTWOOD, N.Y.  The wounded warrior is now a cop  and hell be walking the beat on titanium legs.

Matias Ferreira, a former U.S. Marine Corps lance corporal who lost his legs below the knee when he stepped on a hidden explosive in Afghanistan in 2011, is joining a the Suffolk County Police Department in suburban New York City.

The 28-year-old graduated Friday from the Suffolk County Police Academy on Long Island after 29 weeks of training.

The 6-foot-1, 215-pound rookie passed all the physical training and other requirements just like any other recruit, including running a mile and a half in around 11 minutes. He begins patrols this week, a department spokesman said.

I just really want to be able to help people, said Ferreira, who immigrated to the U.S. from Uruguay as a child. I want to be involved in the community, and the Police Department definitely allows you to do that.

Ferreira was on patrol in Afghanistan on Jan. 21, 2011, when he jumped off a roof in a compound suspected of being a Taliban outpost.

As soon as I landed I knew something was wrong because it was like a movie almost. I heard a noise and everything went black, he said. A bomb had gone off beneath his legs, amputating both below the knees. I just saw blood throughout my pants.

He was evacuated to a local hospital. Within days, he was back in the U.S. being treated for his injuries. Three months later, he was wearing prosthetic legs.

I was up and walking in prosthetics and really just starting my new life, he said.

That new life has included activities he had never tried before the blast. He has played on a softball team of wounded warriors. He skydives, scuba-dives, snowboards and motorcycles.

Raised in Georgia, he met his future wife, Tiffany, when his softball team played a game on Long Island in 2012. The couple now have a 2-year-old daughter.

He has served this great country with outstanding distinction, and will now serve and protect the residents of Suffolk County, Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said in a statement.

Ferreira acknowledges the job will bring challenges, but approaches his new career with a sense of humor. He said he was once asked during academy training whether he has concerns about injuries.

If I break my leg, I go in the trunk and put on a different one and I keep on going, he said.

He lives by the motto that life without limbs is limitless.

The only disability we have is the ones that we make, he said.

Frank Eltman is an Associated Press writer.
Gershon Kekst, a corporate adviser who counseled many of the biggest deal makers during the merger boom of the 1980s and helped form the modern financial public relations industry, died March 17 in New York. He was 82.

A representative of the firm he founded, Kekst & Co., confirmed Mr. Keksts death at a hospital. No other details were given.

For more than five decades in public relations, Mr. Kekst forged relationships with business moguls such as Sanford I. Weill of Citigroup and Henry R. Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, as well as the bankers and lawyers who advised them on takeovers and other financial matters.

Such was the dominance of Mr. Kekst and his firm that Kekst & Co. advised both Time and Warner Communications in their 1989 union, as well as both Walt Disney Co. and Capital Cities in theirs in 1995.

What was once a public relations niche that he pioneered has become a huge and profitable industry in its own right, with dozens of competitors vying to advise on mergers and financial crises.

I dont think it really existed before Mr. Kekst, said Martin Lipton, a prominent mergers lawyer who often worked alongside him. It had always been around in some way, but he professionalized it.

Although the publics image of a public relations maven may tend toward that of a garrulous sales representatives willing to talk ones ear off, Mr. Kekst was known as a counselor of few words, even during crucial board meetings. He said that what he offered was saykhl  the Yiddish word for common sense and judgment.

The thing that most impressed not just me but everybody is that Gershon brought calmness and sense to a meeting, Lipton said in an interview. He was one of those people who, when he spoke  which was not that often  people paid attention.

Mr. Kekst sat with McGraw-Hill in the late 1970s as it sought to fend off a takeover by American Express, advised Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in the late 1980s in its successful bid to buy RJR Nabisco in the frenzied merger contest made famous by the book Barbarians at the Gate, and counseled Chrysler as it rebuffed unwanted bids by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian in the 1990s.

And it was Mr. Kekst who oversaw the public relations side of Citicorps merger with Travelers in the late 90s, giving birth to the financial colossus Citigroup. Mr. Kekst had been a longtime public relations adviser to the deals maestro, Weill.

He was wise, always spoke the truth, even as unpleasant as that can sometimes be, and over time became a trusted adviser whose opinion was sought after by CEOs, lawyers and bankers alike, Maurice Levy, chairman of Publicis, the advertising giant that owns Kekst & Co., wrote in a memorandum to employees.

Gershon Kekst was born on Oct. 12, 1934, in Salem, Mass., to Hannah, an immigrant from Palestinian territory, and Joseph Jacob, an immigrant from Lithuania. Both his parents taught in Hebrew school; his father died when he was 4. By the time he attended the University of Maryland, he had his ambitions set on becoming a radio journalist; he told the New York Times in 1989, I didnt just want to be a radio broadcaster; I wanted to be Edward R. Murrow.

But upon graduating, Mr. Kekst switched his career path to public relations, first in Washington and then in New York at Ruder & Finn. By the time he struck out on his own, in 1971, he had begun to focus on the nascent field of financial communications.

In the 1989 interview with the Times, he suggested that the focus had evolved as much out of necessity as anything else.

The first deals that came to us were financial, he said. If the first deals had been with the fashion industry, I think its fair to say that wed be a fashion PR firm.

But Mr. Kekst quickly aligned himself with many of the deal makers who would soon loom large over the industry, including his eventual mentor, Joseph H. Flom of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Lipton, of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Mr. Kekst struck a deal of his own in 2008, agreeing to sell the firm that bore his name to Publicis. He said at the time that he had been negotiating with the firm for almost 10 years before securing a sale price that people briefed on the terms said was as high as $150 million.

He stayed on until 2009. The firm now employs 70 people out of its office on Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan.

As a philanthropist, Mr. Kekst gave money especially to Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he had served as chairman, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

His survivors include his wife, Carol, and sons, David and Joseph.

Michael J. de la Merced writes for the New York Times.
Kjell Qvale grew to fame and wealth in San Francisco decades ago, but some rather far out conspiracy theorists believe he may also have a more sinister background as the area's infamous...Zodiac Killer?

Every conspiracy needs a good debunking, and this one deserves just that, but first, let's hear the theory out.

It's a far-fetched hypothesis, and one based almost entirely on two things: a vague facial similarity, and the fact that Qvale happened to be walking his dog right nearby around the time that the killer murdered a taxi driver in the Presidio Heights neighborhood.

Qvale, to be clear, was a widely successful man. As the San Francisco Chronicle wrote when he died in 2013, Qvale "introduced California motorists to 'foreign' cars at time when American-made cars reigned supreme in the United States." He founded the British Motor Car Distributors and the San Francisco International Auto Show, and was the first to sell Volkswagens in the West.

Now, onto the Zodiac. Here's the history we do know:

On October 12, 1969, a taxi driver named Paul Stine was shot at pointblank range and killed in the Presidio Heights neighborhood. Three witnesses saw it happen, but because of a miscommunication involving the police radio, police at the scene were looking for a black man rather than a white man. While looking for the wrong suspect, one of the cops happened to pass a white man who fit the description that the witnesses had actually described. Together, the police officer and the witnesses helped cobble together the now-famous composite sketch of the killer.

Here's where it gets weird, as reported by Jalopnik.

In the late 1960s, Qvale lived in Presidio Heights and was at a nearby intersection with his pup as police, including an officer named Armond Pelissetti, were searching for the suspect on foot. This is the working theory, as presented by one theorist:

Pelissetti arrives at scene. He talks to the kids. He calls it in. In the meantime Fouke has been en route to the scene, driving along Jackson, where he encounters Zodiac. Shortly after this encounter Fouke meets Pelissetti somewhere on Cherry where the two of them has a brief conservation. If this is indeed the sequence, Zodiac could have made it to 3636 from 3712 Jackson St. He could have changed his clothes and picked up his dog and moved outside before Pelissetti managed to reach the point where he accosted KQ. The time allows for this. I'm not saying this is what happened. But the time does allow for it, as I see it. 3712 is the proverbial stone's throw from 3636. And Zodiac could have bolted as soon as Fouke was out of sight.

The key red flag in this theory, as Jalopnik notes, is that upon returning home, Qvale could have just stayed there. That would have easily allowed him to avoid the whole ordeal, that is, if he actually was the Zodiac, which he is most definitely not.
The future rolled into the Bay Area 45 years ago when the first BART line began operation between Fremont and Oakland. This weekend the transit system finally inches further south with the opening of the Warm Springs/South Fremont Station.

How does the initial fanfare compare to that first train out of Fremont? Well, they didn't have a slick mascot named "Clip," but they did have untarnished seats and some 70's appropriate uniforms.
When Helen Beristain told her husband she was voting for Donald Trump last year, he warned her that the Republican nominee planned to "get rid of the Mexicans."

Defending her vote, Beristain quoted Trump directly, noting that the tough-talking Republican said he would kick only the "bad hombres" out of the country, according to the South Bend Tribune.

Months later, Roberto Beristain -- a successful businessman, respected member of his Indiana town and the father of three American-born children -- languishes in a detention facility with hardened criminals as he awaits his deportation back to Mexico, the country he left in 1998.

"I wish I didn't vote at all," Helen Beristain told the Tribune. "I did it for the economy. We needed a change."

Critics on the left have blasted Helen Beristain for not taking the president's rhetoric seriously and allowing his administration to plunge the country into what they consider a chaotic and inhumane immigration debacle. Critics on the right have inundated the family with racist threats and attacked Beristain for giving refuge to the love of her life, a man they consider a foreign interloper.

Caught somewhere in the middle of the fiery political clash are people like Roberto Beristain -- individuals who have built a successful life inside the confines of the fuzzy, legal limbo in which they exist. Supporters say the 43-year-old has never broken the law and doesn't have so much as a parking ticket on his record. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, the conservative community that the Beristains call home, called him "one of its model residents."

But Beristain's model citizenship didn't stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials from arresting him when he showed up for his annual meeting with the agency on Feb. 6. Beristain -- who had obtained a Social Security card, a work permit and a driver's license -- was expecting to return home to his family and business.

Instead, he was taken into custody, setting off a last-ditch effort by family members and multiple lawyers to free him from ICE custody. Thus far, those efforts have failed. Family members told the Tribune that ICE officials had informed them that Beristain would be deported Friday.

Beristain has been in the United States since 1998, when he visited an aunt in California and decided not to return to Mexico, according to the Tribune. He would go on to marry his wife, start a family and put down roots in Indiana, where he is the owner of a popular restaurant called Eddie's Steak Shed, which employs 20 American citizens, advocates told The Washington Post. He has worked at the restaurant for the past eight years and bought it from his sister-in-law in January.

In 2000, the ICE spokeswoman said, a federal immigration judge granted him "voluntary departure" for a 60-day period. Because he didn't leave the United States during that 60-day period, Beristain's "voluntary departure order reverted to a final order of removal," the spokeswoman said.

And yet, by cooperating with ICE officials, Beristain was able to lead a normal life in plain view, one that included a work permit and a driver's license. He even has a Social Security number that says "Valid only with Department of Homeland Security authorization," the Tribune reported.

Jason Flora, an Indianapolis lawyer who has worked on Beristain's case, said that, under his previous agreement with DHS, Beristain had an "order of supervision," which allows immigrants with a removal order to remain in the country for a humanitarian reason, such as having sole custody of children or taking care of family members.

"Essentially," Flora said, "they're saying you're not bad enough to be deported."

Reached by phone Friday afternoon, the family's spokesman, Chicago lawyer Adam Ansari, told The Post that ICE officials had told him that Beristain would be moved from his current location inside a county jail in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to New Orleans, where he'll be held another two weeks before being deported to Mexico.

The situation is always fluid and accurate information is often hard to come by, Ansari said. What was clear, he said, was that the entire process since Beristain's arrest had been "inhumane" and that the Beristain family is "distraught."

"How do you explain this to children," he said, noting that Beristain's children are 15, 14 and 8 years old. "Trying to explain this to children from the immigrant community has been really hard. You're telling them that their loved one is in jail not because they did something wrong, but because of their country of origin and what they look like.

"This is hurting the entire community and people are scared," he added.

Reached by email, an ICE spokeswoman said Beristain "remains in ICE custody pending his removal to Mexico."

"For operational security reasons, ICE does not release information regarding upcoming removals," she added.

Stories such as Beristain's -- in which law-abiding parents are deported because of their immigration status -- have inundated the news media in recent months. The Twitter account "Trump Regrets" has amassed nearly 260,000 followers by retweeting disappointed and angry Trump voters.

"Previously," as The Post's Samantha Schmidt and Sarah Larimer reported last month, "the Obama administration prioritized the deportation of people who were violent offenders or had ties to criminal gangs. Trump's executive order on Jan. 25 expanded priorities to include any undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of a criminal offense."

"Personally, I think the president should be giving him a handshake," said Flora, the lawyer who had worked with Beristain. "Either Trump was lying when he said we were only deporting bad guys or Trump's view of bad guys is so expansive it can literally include every single immigrant."

Days after Beristain's arrest, Flora said, he filed a "stay of removal" to prevent deportation, but it was rejected March 15.

"Once the case is finalized and done, there's really no reason to keep him around in their eyes," Flora said, referring to ICE. "They think, 'Why take up jail space for no reason if all the legal options have been exhausted?' "

Flora said the decision to deport Beristain is a "wildly disproportionate" response when measured against the law he broke nearly two decades ago.

"If you asked 100 people to paint you a picture of a bad guy, no one would draw anyone remotely resembling Roberto," he said.

Helen Beristain told the Tribune that -- in their effort to get her husband U.S. citizenship -- the couple has had 10 attorneys over the past 18 years. Many of those attorneys, she said, told them that they had no choice but to wait for immigration laws to change.

Instead of changing in the couple's favor, the laws evolved to make her husband more vulnerable to deportation, a development the Beristains never expected. She told the Tribune that Trump's deportation measures -- the ones she thought her family would be exempt from -- are harming "regular people."

"I understand when you're a criminal and you do bad things, you shouldn't be in the country," Helen Beristain told the CBS TV affiliate WSBT. "But when you're a good citizen and you support and you help and you pay taxes and you give jobs to people, you should be able to stay."

"We were for Mr. Trump," she added. "We were very happy he became the president. Whatever he says, he is right. But, like he said, the good people have a chance to become citizens of the United States."
Most agree that rules and laws should be followed. Illinois has some complex election laws that are to keep elections honest, while keeping everybody on an even playing field. In my area, there is a group of "Wilmette Friends" that are not happy about contested elections in New Trier Township. They have been really aggressive in their campaigning. I am fed up with their antics, so I objected.

As a homeowner in New Trier Township, I have been concerned about the ever increasing levies on my tax bill, which now includes 16 different government agencies getting money from my taxes on my home.





The upcoming April 4, 2017 local elections include races for several positions on the New Trier Township Board - no connection with New Trier High School in Winnetka. Townships were started over 125 years ago when villages, towns, and the county were not organized as a government unit to fix roads and some limited tax assessments. New Trier Township has evolved into a group funding multiple social service agencies, with the township demanding large administration costs. Some say higher than most not for profit organizations. Some new independent leadership may be necessary to get the township running more efficiently at lower costs and, of course, lower taxes.

This week I filed a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Elections, asking them to investigate how a campaign may electioneer without registering as a political entity. Here is a clip from the complaint:

Illinois Election Law provides for a complaint process, titled a D-4 to bring violations of the campaign disclosure act to the attention of the State Board of Elections. A D-4 was filed today by lawyer Dan Kelley with the Illinois State Board of Elections representing Wilmette Resident Mark Weyermuller in a complaint against the Wilmette Friends who are engaging in electioneering without registering as a political organization with the State of Illinois.

Specifically, the complaint notes that the Wilmette Friends has coordinated and paid for political consultants, yard signs, mailers, websites, and handbills while neglecting to register with the State, specifically no D-1 Statement of organization form, identifying themselves as a PAC.

More significantly, the Wilmette Friends have also solicited contributions without designating a committee treasurer responsible for recording keeping and financial reporting in clear violation of the Illinois Election Code. The law says no committee may accept anonymous contributions or accept contributions when there is a vacancy in the office of the committee treasurer.

While at the same time the Wilmette Friends have been vigorously campaigning against the imagined influence of outside forces in New Trier politics, decrying the thought that a PAC (the just-barely-organized New Trier Coalition, with minimal assets and no expenditures, per their transparent filings) may have been organized to recruit and promote candidates un-approved by the New Trier Caucus. Under the campaign disclosure laws, political action committees are obligated to register and comply with record keeping and financial reporting requirements of the Election Code (as administered by the Illinois State Board of Elections) after reaching a $5,000.00 threshold in funds received or expended.



I hope the State Board of Elections steps up the enforcement here. Contested elections are really important for democracy. The local elections are Tuesday, April 4, 2017 with early voting taking place now.

Mark Weyermuller is a small business person, real estate professional, and conservative activist in Chicago. He is a citizen journalist and regular contributor to Illinois Review. Mark can be heard weekly on the radio in a "man on the street segment" at 10:31pm as a regular guest on the Stephanie Trussell Show heard Sunday nights 9pm-midnight on WLS 890-AM.
The first wolf spotted in northwest Nevada in nearly 100 years was confirmed Friday as being part of a seven-member pack that vanished last year from its stomping grounds in California.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife used scat to determine that the lone male wolf was genetically related to the toothy group known as the Shasta Pack, which disappeared from southeastern Siskiyou County in the past year, mystifying state biologists.

Chief State Game Warden Brian Wakeling told the Associated Press on Friday that the wolf was seen in early November near Fox Mountain just west of the Black Rock Desert, where the annual desert gathering known as Burning Man is held about 20 miles from the California state line.

A conservation lab at the University of Idaho confirmed that the wolf droppings came from the offspring of a gray wolf couple that gave birth to five puppies near Mount Shasta in 2015. It was the first pack of timber wolves, as they are also known, to establish itself in California since at least 1924.

Wolves had not been verified in Nevada since 1922.

None of the seven wolves in the Shasta Pack  all sport distinctive black coats  had been seen since May 2016, when researchers confirmed the presence of a single juvenile. Its unclear whether this was the same animal seen in Nevada.

Nobody knows what happened to the other members of the pack. Pete Figura, a senior environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said it is possible they all migrated to a new region, but added it is unusual for an entire pack to completely abandon its breeding grounds.

There was speculation that the muscular predators might have been killed, but it was impossible to know because none of the animals was wearing a radio collar. Some ranchers in Siskiyou County had threatened in the past to employ the three Ss  shoot, shovel and shut up  if any of the sharp-toothed meat-eaters got near their livestock.

The Shasta Pack is believed to have killed and eaten a calf in November 2015, the first reported case of livestock predation by wolves since their return to California. That was also the last time the entire pack was known to be together.

The presence of Canis lupus in Nevada is another milestone in the steady movement of wolves across the Western United States. Up to 2 million gray wolves once lived in North America, but Europeans, fed by big, bad wolf myths, drove them to near-extinction in the lower 48 states.

Then, in the mid-1990s, 66 Canadian wolves were released in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in an attempt to bring the apex predator back. They have since spread across the Rocky Mountains, into Washington, Oregon and California.

Roughly 5,500 wolves now live in the United States.

The first wolf to enter California was OR-7, a radio-collared animal from Oregon that crossed the border in late 2011. He created a sensation when he traveled 2,500 miles through seven counties. Then, in 2013, OR-7 returned to southwestern Oregon, where he found a mate. Now almost 8, he has had litters of pups for three consecutive years and is the leader of the Rogue Pack.

Besides the Shasta Pack, two wolves were confirmed in Lassen County last summer. The male was identified as the son of OR-7, but so far there is no evidence of any pups.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite
BEIRUT  Warplanes struck rebel-held parts of Syria on Saturday, killing and wounding scores of people amid clashes on multiple fronts between government forces and insurgent groups in some of the worst violence the country has witnessed in weeks, opposition activists said.

The air strikes, which some activists said included Russian air raids, concentrated on the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, the central province of Hama and suburbs of the capital Damascus that have come under attack by insurgent groups over the past week.

One of the strikes hit a main street in the Damascus suburb of Hamouriyeh, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 50, activists said. The dead included eight women and children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

They have been hitting Hamouriyeh for days but today they struck an area packed with civilians, Awis al-Shami of the Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets, said via text message.

The strikes come as insurgent groups have been on the offensive in Damascus and the central province of Hama. Government forces and their allies launched a counteroffensive capturing some of the areas they lost in Damascus and Hama.

Opposition activists also reported air strikes in Idlib province hitting several towns and villages as well as the provincial capital that carries the same name.

The Observatory said a Friday night attack struck a prison run by militants, killing at least 16 people including prisoners and prison staff in Idlib city.

The Syrian National Coalition, one of the largest opposition groups, said the air strikes on Idlib targeted among other things a womens prison, saying that dozens of people were killed or wounded.

The Observatory and the Civil Defense group said an air strike struck a clinic in the village of Kfar Nubul in Idlib province. They had no immediate word on casualties.

Bassem Mroue is an Associated Press writer.
ROME  Proclaiming Europe is our common future, 27 leaders of the European Union signed a statement Saturday in Rome declaring their commitment to integrating the Continent even as a series of crises has badly weakened the efforts and Britain prepares to leave the bloc.

The statement, known as the Rome Declaration and signed on the anniversary of the day the blocs foundations were laid 60 years ago, underscored the unique union with common institutions and strong values, a community of peace, freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

In a nod to reality, however, the leaders acknowledged that they were facing unprecedented challenges, both global and domestic, including regional conflicts, terrorism, growing migratory pressures, protectionism and social and economic inequalities.

The ceremony took place in a hall in Rome that was richly decorated in frescoes depicting scenes from the ancient world. It is the same room where the Treaty of Rome was signed March 25, 1957, by six countries. That event helped lay the groundwork for Saturdays union.

Moments after signing, Christian Kern, the Austrian chancellor, raised his fists in triumph. A keynote speaker, Donald Tusk of Poland, president of the European Council, recalled that his 60th birthday this month made him the same age as the European Community, a forerunner of the union, and a beacon for freedom and dignity for Poles during the Communist era, when it was forbidden to even dream about those values.

But behind the pomp and ceremony were concerns about the prospect of the projects failure  even its collapse. With Britain starting this Wednesday a two-year timetable to leave the union, Prime Minister Theresa May was absent from the gathering. And in a speech at the Vatican on Friday, Pope Francis warned the leaders that their union risks dying as nations, and citizens, turned inward.

Underlining the disaffection with the union, protesters took to the streets Saturday, shutting down Rome neighborhoods and railing against European technocrats, capitalism and shadowy economic powers. But at other marches and sit-ins, many celebrated the treaty. The March for Europe held a rally close to the palazzo where the signing took place.

Europe gave us 60 years of peace, so I felt I had to give something back, said Mauro Armadi, 23, who had traveled to Rome from Taranto to show his support for the treaty.

Tobias Lundquist, 26, who had traveled to Rome from Sandviken, Sweden, said, With the European Union, we cast off our dark history and came together to solve problems at a table, not a battlefield.

James Kanter and Elisabetta Povoledo are New York Times writers.
LONDON  The British man who killed four people during a London rampage had made three trips to Saudi Arabia: He taught English there twice on a work visa and returned on a visa usually granted to those going on a religious pilgrimage.

More details about Khalid Masoods travels, confirmed by the Saudi Arabian embassy in Britain, emerged Saturday amid a massive British police effort to discover how a homegrown ex-con with a violent streak became radicalized and why he launched a deadly attack Wednesday on Westminster Bridge.

The embassy said he taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009, with a legitimate work visa both times. He then returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent and made on an Umra visa, usually granted to those on a religious pilgrimage to the countrys Islamic holy sites.

The embassy said Saudi security services didnt track Masood and he didnt have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was called Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted of violent crimes at least twice.

Masood drove his rented sport utility vehicle across Londons Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, striking pedestrians. He then jumped out and stabbed to death police officer Keith Palmer, who was guarding Parliament, before being shot dead by police.

In all, he killed four people and left more than two dozen hospitalized, including some with what have been described as catastrophic injuries. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, calling him a soldier who responded to its demands that followers attack countries in the coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair told the BBC that changes to the outer soft ring of Parliaments security plan are likely in the aftermath of Masoods attack.

Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record in Britain dating to 1983. In 2000, he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account. Masoods last conviction, in 2003, also involved a knife attack.

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine Masoods motives and are scouring his communications systems, including his possible use of the encrypted WhatsApp device, to help determine if he had any accomplices.

One 58-year-old man remains in custody for questioning after being arrested Thursday in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities havent charged or identified him.

Gregory Katz is an Associated Press writer.
BENI, Congo  A Congolese militia group has decapitated 42 police officers after ambushing them in Central Kasai province, which has seen a spike in deadly violence in recent months, a local official said Saturday.

Members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia staged Fridays attack between the cities of Tshikapa and Kananga, according to Kasai Assembly President Francois Kalamba.

Kasai Gov. Alexis Nkande Myopompa said investigations are under way into the decapitations.

Large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August when security forces killed the militias leader. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the U.N. Human Rights Watch.

While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also ties to Congos political crisis, according to Human Rights Watch. Anger has been growing in the country at long-delayed presidential elections, and dozens were killed in December amid protests as President Joseph Kabila stayed on past the end of his mandate. A deal reached between the ruling party and opposition to hold elections by the end of this year, without Kabila, remains fragile as the U.N. urges its implementation.

The decapitations were announced as the rights group called on Congos government to cooperate with U.N. efforts to locate experts, including an American and a Swede, who have been missing in the Kasai region for nearly two weeks. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo said its movements have been restricted.

Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro and Carley Petesch are Associated Press writers.
1 Refugee crisis: A Spanish aid organization said Friday it feared hundreds of refugees may have died off Libyas coast, while Turkish media reported that 11 died after a boat sank in the Aegean Sea. A boat capsized near the Turkish resort town of Kusadasi, and nine people were rescued, the Turkish Coast Guard Command said. Two people, believed to be smugglers, were detained. Concerns about the refugees near Libya rose after Spains Proactiva Open Arms group found five bodies near two capsized boats Thursday. Proactiva said the boats were found north of the Libyan town of Sabratha.

2 Syria fighting: U.S.-backed Syrian fighters reached a major dam held by the Islamic State group in northern Syria on Friday. The push toward the Tishrin Dam came three days after U.S. aircraft ferried Syrian Kurdish fighters and allies to spearhead a major ground assault on Tabqa, where the dam is located. Tabqa is west of the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group. Syrias U.N. ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, said the hundreds of American personnel are invading my country, insisting that any effort to liberate Raqqa should be done in coordination with the Damascus government.
MUNDRI, South Sudan  After months of being raped by her rebel captors in the middle of South Sudans civil war, the young woman became pregnant. Held in a muddy pit, sometimes chained to other prisoners, she later watched her hair fall out and her weight plummet. But the child was a spark of life.

And so she named him Barack Obama, she explains, now free. I still have hope, she says, caressing the babys cheek with a finger. I just dont even know where to start.

The 23-year-old is one of thousands of rape victims in South Sudans three-year-old conflict, which has created one of the worlds largest humanitarian crises. Sexual violence has reached epic proportions, says the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.

Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60 percent last year. Seventy percent of women sheltering in U.N. camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began, according to a U.N. humanitarian survey conducted in December.

Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicenter of the problem. Aid organizations blame it on the recent increase in fighting between rebels and government troops, the latest shift of the war in an already devastated nation.

The young woman didnt expect to become embroiled in South Sudans conflict.

I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams, she said in an interview. If I talk about it, I just cry.

She had been visiting her family in the summer of 2015, with plans to return to school in the capital, Juba. She never made it back.

Instead, she was abducted by rebels loyal to an opposition group calling itself MTN, after a popular African telephone company. Their catch phrase riffs on the companys slogan, taunting: Were everywhere you go.

The rebels burst through the door of her mothers hut, firing their weapons and shouting, she said. They were searching for her uncle, whod been accused of conspiring with government forces.

They beat my grandfather and aunt and then said if they couldnt find my uncle theyll take me instead, she said. I told them Id rather die than go with them.

But the rebels dragged her into the bush and brought her to their headquarters, where she was charged, tried and convicted for her uncles crimes.

For the next 16 months, she was forced to live in muddy pits infested with snakes, she said. Subsisting on only vegetables, she wasted away.

Im not attractive anymore, she says now, tugging at the waistband of her baggy pants. Shifting around in a plastic chair outside a coffee shop, she shyly adjusted her headscarf, covering what little hair she has left.

She said she was released in December because she became ill. They told me to get medicine and then changed their minds and told me to leave and never come back, she said.

Mundri has many such stories. According to a recent Inter-Agency assessment by international and local organizations focused on gender-based violence, 29 rape cases were reported in Mundri between August and October.

Local organizations say the number is likely double that, but most incidents go unreported because of the stigma surrounding rape.

Realistically, its more like over 50 cases, said James Labadia, founder of MAYA, a local aid organization that focuses on womens empowerment. He has been working with rape survivors for several years but said things have never been so dire.

The end of 2016 was the worst quarter Ive ever seen, he said.

The group received funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development last year and Labadia plans to seek more, a possibility that may be clouded by President Trumps proposed budget cuts.

Reports of rape and abduction are rampant on both sides in Mundri, which is under government control while neighboring villages are held by the opposition.

Another resident, a 26-year-old mother, said two soldiers broke into her house in September and tried to assault her mother and 9-year-old child. She begged to be raped instead. If they touched my daughter I would have died.

The soldiers left her daughter and mother alone and gang-raped her instead, while her family was forced to listen in the adjacent room, she said.

She reported the case to the county commissioner but said no one was ever arrested. She lives in fear it will happen again.

South Sudanese officials insist they are taking steps to counter sexual violence. Things in Mundri are slowly improving, said Abokato Kenyi, the minister of education, gender and social welfare in Amadi state.

The government has put out a new law that any soldier who misbehaves will now be punished, Kenyi said. As of January, he said, anyone convicted of rape will be sentenced to prison.

Sam Mednick is an Associated Press writer.
BAGHDAD  An air strike targeting Islamic State militants in the Iraqi city of Mosul that witnesses say killed at least 100 people was in fact launched by the U.S. military, American officials said Saturday.

U.S. officials did not confirm the reports of civilian casualties but opened an investigation. In the days after the March 17 air strike, U.S. officials had said they were unsure whether American forces were behind the attack.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With Saturday-Sunday brunches and weekday Happy Hours in effect for a short time longer, Afternoone's restaurant announced it will be closing its doors.

The West Brighton mainstay is in its 24th year of business.

"It's not something we were looking forward to but it just got tough. Instead of sticking it out any longer, I think it's wise we cut the losses," said Champ Albano. He took the business over in January, 2015.

"For the past two years, I want to thank the West Brighton neighborhood for their unwavering loyalty and support," said Champ. "We hope that someone can come in and continue to take care of the neighborhood and offer a place for them to feel at home."

"We took a chance," said Champ, a St. Peter's Boys High School grad who said, upon leasing the premises two years ago, that he felt at home in the area.

Afternoone's final day will be Sunday, April 2.

"I am reaching out to those families who have booked parties with us. I am trying to find accommodations for them and some of the restaurants in the area have been helpful with that," said Champ.

Laurent "Champ" Albano became the proprietor of Afternoone's on New Years Day, 2015.

The operation at 415 Forest Ave. has rich history as a restaurant and bar.

Former eateries here include the "Dilly Dally Club" which became "The Greenery" and then the "Upstairs-Downstairs." Eventually, it evolved into more of a dinner spot with a formal dining room upstairs and downstairs place to sup.

The place became known as Blaine and Noone's, run by Brian Noone and Danny Blaine (now of Rosebank fame as the proprietor of tavern Danny Blaine's.)

It evolved into Afternoone's in the early 1990s, the moniker serving as a play on the former Blaine and Noone's.

Afternoone's expanded eventually into a third storefront, once occupied by The Book Nook.

Joe Terito ran the business prior to Champ, expanding upon popular themes of the restaurant including brunch and American fare.

In its final days, Afternoone's is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on Sundays from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Happy Hour runs from 3 to 7 p.m.

The restaurant can be reached at 718-816-6744.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- They got nailed for stealing nail polish - lots of it.

A pair of thieves from the North Shore -- a man and woman -- swiped more than $1,400 in nail polish from three CVS stores around the borough, prosecutors allege.

Ballew Joe, 27, of Slosson Terrace, St. George, and Roxanne Rogers, 26, of Collfield Avenue, Westerleigh, were arrested Wednesday and charged with three heists dating to Feb. 25, said police.

That day, the defendants snatched more than $1,000 in nail polish from a CVS at 4065 Amboy Road, Great Kills, a criminal complaint said.

Three days later, on Feb. 28, the duo struck at a CVS at 2045 Forest Ave., Mariners Harbor, lifting about $100 in assorted nail polishes, said the complaint.

The next day, March 1, they grabbed assorted nail polishes valued at $376 from the CVS at 1654 Richmond Ave., Graniteville, the complaint said.

Joe, however, wasn't finished.

He boosted more than $1,000 in assorted nail polishes from a Duane Reade at 2107 Richmond Ave., Graniteville, on March 15, said the complaint.

The defendants' actions were captured on surveillance videotape at each location, the complaint said.

Joe, whose name also appears in court papers as Joe Ballew, and Rogers were charged with multiple felony counts of grand larceny and stolen-property possession.

They're also accused of misdemeanor counts of petit larceny and stolen-property possession.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A serial thief from New Brighton accused in a string of commercial break-ins across the borough last year has pleaded guilty to burglary charges.

Hector Rodriguez was busted in September and charged with pulling off 14 heists dating back to January 2016.

Rodriguez, then 38, allegedly pilfered more than $20,000 in cash, debit cards, and jewelry in the break-ins.

An accomplice, Christopher Holley, of New Brighton, was also charged in connection with a number of those burglaries.

The defendants were arrested on Sept. 29 in possession of various burglar's tools including three crowbars, two face masks, and a heavy duty angle grinder, said authorities.

Holley previously pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to third-degree burglary and awaits sentencing.

Rodriguez pleaded guilty Friday in state Supreme Court, St. George, to two counts of third-degree burglary.

He is scheduled to be sentenced April 10 and is being held without bail.

Rodriguez has other legal troubles.

He's also facing burglary charges in Queens where he's accused of burrowing into the rooftops or walls of six different grocery stores and bodegas between October 2015 and September 2016.

Rodiguez made off with more than $40,000 in cash and stolen goods, allege Queens prosecutors.

That case is pending in Queens state Supreme Court.
Nws Garner

File photo: Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, speaks at a National Action Network event with Rev. Al Sharpton in Philadelphia last year. (Staten Island Advance/Rachel Shapiro)

(Staff-Shot)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- Eric Garner's mother said her son would still be alive if the police had dismissed the "abusive" cop at the center of her son's case.

"It just appalls me to think that the man who choked my son had so many allegations against him," Gwen Carr said Saturday during an appearance at the National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. "If they had taken care of it, my son would still be alive."

This week, an anonymous employee at the Criminal Complaint Review Board (CCRB) leaked Officer Daniel Pantaleo's apparent records to ThinkProgress. The documents appear to show the officer had 14 allegations and seven disciplinary actions against him.

The CCRB substantiated four complaints against Pantaleo, including two incidents of an "abusive" stop and frisk in 2011 and 2012, the report said.

"You have a pattern here that he had no regard for the boundary of law enforcement," Rev. Al Sharpton said during his weekly address at NAN Saturday.

The committee recommended charges be brought against Pantaleo in each incident, but the NYPD disciplined the cop by giving him instruction and taking away two vacation days, the article said.

"They did nothing," Carr said. "They let him on the street to abuse people. Now, they're outraged it leaked."

"They need to clean out their house," she added. "They need to get rid of the police officers who abuse people."

Sharpton said Saturday he met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions two weeks ago, and demanded Pantaleo be brought to justice.

"There is no way you can choke a man to death on video and it not be brought to court," Sharpton said he told Sessions. "It's our intention to keep pushing this case."

Since the leak, it was revealed the federal government had revived its investigation into Garner's death in police custody.

Deputy Inspector Joseph Veneziano, who was the commanding officer of the 120th Precinct when Garner died, and Sgt. Dhanan Saminath testified Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, sources told the Daily News.

According to the New York Post, Veneziano complained after his testimony that the "yes or no" answers he had to give were intended to blame Pantaleo.

"This has to stop," Carr said. "We have to go after the law."

Garner, 43, died July 17, 2014, when officers attempted to arrest him for allegedly selling untaxed, loose cigarettes in Tompkinsville.
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In February, Manafort said he was never involved with "anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration." Trump has used the denials to assert that "to the best of his knowledge" none of his associates has anything to do with Russia. But documents obtained by the AP reveal Manafort had sought work from a Putin ally and proposed a campaign that he said could "greatly benefit the Putin government."
John Nolte;

Our national media has known for months that the Obama administration spied on Team Trump. This was not only common knowledge within the media community, it was no secret. In fact, as you'll see below, for two big reasons, the media was overjoyed that this spying had occurred: (1) they got scoops damaging to Trump, and (2) in their provincial and cultish minds, the very fact that the oh-so pure Obama administration felt the need to spy, could only mean Trump was in bed with Putin.

In fact, the media was actually having a big public party using Obama's spying. Hoo-hah here's a scoop! Whee-hee Flynn said this! Woo-woo palace intrigue! Ha-haaah here's what so-and-so said! Tra-la-la here's what so-and-so did!

And then on March 4, in a series of tweets that had the exact same effect as political nukes, Trump himself confirmed what the media had already told us, that the Obama administration had spied on him and his team. Trump's brilliance was focusing on the sleazy and illegal act of the actual spying. And this is when the media realized that all their ha-has and tra-la-las were about to backfire. Their Precious Barry was now at risk, and so the shameless cover up and lying began ...
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A campaign calling for tighter restrictions and heavier fines for dog owners with hounds that attack people or other animals will be brought before the Legislative Assembly this week.

It comes as the owners of a pomeranian dog "ripped apart" and killed instantly in a horrific public attack urge for changes to dog ownership laws, in the hope their pet didn't die in vain.

Maree and Peter Toscan are devastated by a dog attack that killed their 13-year-old Pomeranian Buzz. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

The three attacking dogs, believed to be two bull Arabs and an American pit bull, have been handed back to their owner without being declared dangerous, following a "thorough investigation" by Domestic Animal Services.

The Toscans purchased their late dog as a puppy 13 years ago. The tiny ball of fluff and energy was named Buzz, to match his personality.
"I'd been a firefighter for five years and was with the navy for 10 years before that but never had any anxiety. Then all of a sudden this rocks me."

"I had no idea what was happening," Rob Thompson said.

When these symptoms woke a Canberra firefighter in the middle of the night, he was convinced they signalled a heart attack and impeding death.

Over time, Mr Thompson came to learn that panic attacks he suffered regularly from then on were due to a cumulative exposure to trauma.

Despite PTSD research focusing much more on the military than emergency workers, horrors of the emergency frontline haunt Mr Thompson more than those he faced on the battlefield. The dim spotlight on emergency trauma has left many emergency workers with limited knowledge of the very condition they could be experiencing.

Over all the years spent jumping out of helicopters and racing into fires, Mr Thompson thought he was bulletproof.

But with the panic attacks came out-of-character behaviour such as taking six-hour bike rides that he thought went for 30 minutes, and sitting on a mountain top all day, starring into the distance. He suffered a relationship breakdown after losing the ability to show emotion and experienced re-occurring nightmares.

As his mind slowly broke down, he realised even firefighters weren't superhuman.
One of Australia's largest student accommodation providers has been been forced to pay almost $90,000 after making false and misleading claims to students and failing to put their rental bonds in a trust.

An investigation by Victoria's consumer watchdog found UniLodge Australia breached tenancy and consumer laws in one of its Melbourne CBD buildings.

The UniLodge building in A'Beckett Street, Melbourne. Credit:Simon Johanson

As a result of breaking the law, Queensland-based UniLodge was required to pay $40,000 to the Victorian Consumer Law Fund and another $47,024.80 to the Residential Tenancies Fund to repay the interest it earned while holding students' bonds.

Consumer Affairs launched an investigation into UniLodge after a complaint from a student in 2014.
It's never easy for American businesses to make it in China. Cultural differences, government interference and the sheer cost of competing in a market that dwarfs the US have frustrated companies ranging from Wal-Mart to Uber.

Those stumbles aren't dissuading Airbnb, however. This week the home-sharing pioneer announced that it's changing its local brand name in China and doubling its investment there.

By any measure, the opportunity is immense. In 2015, Chinese travellers spent nearly $US500 billion, and the government expects that number to more than double by 2020 as the country's middle class expands. But capturing a major piece of that market will require Airbnb to navigate a far more tangled thicket of cultural issues than what confronted Uber and other tech companies in China. And judging by its efforts so far, it probably won't be up to the task.

In theory, China should be one of the world's biggest and best markets for home-sharing. Chinese travellers took 2.2 billion domestic trips in just the first half of 2016, up nearly 10.5 per cent year-on-year. Yet China has only 4 hotel rooms for every 1,000 people, compared to 20 in the US And thanks to China's housing boom, about 50 million empty homes are scattered across the country just waiting (in theory) for paying visitors.
The horrific attack on an elderly dog in Gungahlin is another reminder that the territory has a serious problem with pet ownership and the laws that exist around dangerous dogs.

What will it take before both lawmakers and pet owners take appropriate action to stop the disturbingly regular occurrences of dogs attacking people and other canines?

There might not be an easy solution to be found but it's an issue that we as a territory need to tackle.

Pet owners need to take responsibility for registering their dogs, their dogs' behaviour and knowing where they are at all times.
I found a $5 note the other day, folded in half, damp with dew, nestled in a patch of grass. Oh, what happiness. It probably dropped from my own pocket, but that's hardly the point. Money on the ground is free money. It can be spent on frivolous things.

In the world of digital payments, the equivalent would be a bank making a mistake in your favour  something that never happens, and if it did happen, would be hunted down by the bank's computers. The joy would be short lived.

The Man Jar: there'll be shiraz tonight. Credit:Louise Kennerley

According to the latest figures, cash is on the way out. The use of automatic teller machines is at a 15-year low. In places such as Finland, businesses are no longer required to accept the folding stuff. In Australia, people will buy a packet of chewing gum with a wave of plastic.

This is all very well, but how do we replace the occasional serendipity that comes with cash? Sometimes it's the $5 found on the ground; more commonly it's the $20 discovered in the pocket of an old pair of jeans. Or the $50, slipped into a cheque book for banking, then forgotten.
The difference between life and death for a woman in Australia, one of the most prosperous nations, can come down to a few hundred dollars to pay a removalist or a rental bond.

Violence by a partner or former partner is the leading preventable cause of death and illness of women aged 15 to 45 in this country. More than one woman a week is being slain in this way, and many more are injured. So, being able to afford to flee a residence where such dangerous abuse is happening saves women  and protects their children.

For other women  those who have escaped, or those struggling as single parents, for example  the difference between being homeless and having shelter for themselves and their children can come down to a few hundred dollars to pay a utility bill or overdue rent or replace a worn-out fridge or washing machine.

For still other women, the difference between being able to send their children to school and having to keep them home can come down to a small sum to buy a uniform and a few books.
Good news. Australia is the world's ninth-happiest nation, according to the annual World Happiness Report.

Norway topped the happiness league table, which draws on "life evaluation" surveys from 155 countries. Australia ranked a little lower than New Zealand but higher than the United States and Britain.

It turns out the happiest people live in small-to-medium-sized Western democracies  the top 10 nations all fit that description.

The economics of happiness has become increasingly sophisticated over the past decade and there's growing interest in how broad measures of wellbeing can be used to inform government policies.
"Men," the Colonel breathes, "We're going in. Remember, we are fighting for King, Country, and 18C. A century from now, I tell you, they will raise a glass to us all, for standing up for the right for Australians to vilify each other..." Political madness More seriously, for once in my life, I don't have a particularly strong view on 18C  quite likely because as an older, white, well-off, straight, able-bodied man I am not the obvious target for the kind of vilification it seeks to prevent. What I don't get, however, is the government's obsession with it? A small cabal of the commentariat aside, nearly all the passion on the subject appears to be on the side of retaining it, and it is particularly deep and widespread in Australia's multicultural community. Just like the move to cut Sunday penalty rates, it seems like political madness for the government to pursue both measures with such vigour. What am I missing?

Cavalry commemoration Too long a story to go into, just trust me. A mob I know is gearing up to commemorate the role of Indigenous Australians in the famous charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba at dusk on 31 October, 1917. As part of the work of the Rona Tranby Trust, an organisation committed to preserving the legacy of the first Australians by recording oral histories from their descendants, the plan is to take 10 descendants of those Indigenous Light Horsemen to this year's centenary re-enactment in Israel and to have them play a part in the formal commemoration. They have found several such descendants, but would like more. Please contact Roland Gridiger at roland@gridigerlaw.com.au if you'd like to know more. Joke of the week

Tea is an evil substance. Tea is more dangerous than beer. Please avoid drinking tea. I discovered this last night. I had 14 beers at the pub till 3 am while my wife was just at home drinking endless cup of tea. You should have seen how violent and angry she was, when I got home! I was peaceful, silent and calm, heading straight to bed, even as she continued to shout at me, shaking the whole house up. It went on and on. Please, ladies, if you can't handle your tea, don't drink so much of it. Twitter: Peter_Fitz They said it "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."

John Lennon, many years ago, on the father of rock'n'roll, who died last Saturday. "There was no [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978] warrant that I'm aware of to tap Trump Tower. I don't think there is anyone in the White House today that is under any type of surveillance at all." The chairman of American House Intelligence Committee, Republican Devin Nunes, after reading a Department of Justice report that concluded that there was no evidence of a physical wire-tap on Trump Tower.



"I have no information that supports those tweets." James Comey, Director of the FBI, also not believing that President Obama wire-tapped Trump Tower.



"To draw a cartoon, to voice an opinion, to hurl abuse  these are optional choices. To have dark skin, belong to a racial minority group or be born into disadvantage are not. The former group's rights to speak should not come at the expense of the latter's rights simply to be." Mariam Veiszadeh, frequent commentator on matters concerning Islam in Australia.

"In 30 years of show business, I've never seen it like this. If you are even lukewarm to Republicans, you are excommunicated from the church of tolerance." An unnamed Hollywood actor last week, talking about how hard it is to be a Trump supporter, anywhere in the showbiz industry these days. "I ride past here, I walk past here and I always look, it's always on your mind." Stephen Grimmer, on the arrest of a suspect for the murder of his baby sister, Cheryl, 47 years ago, after she was allegedly abducted from a shower block at Fairy Meadow that he still lives near. "The last thing I want is to get a proper job."
Qantas chief Alan Joyce recently pioneered the "Pride Cookie", a calorific morsel designed by famed chef Christine Manfield and scattered with rainbow chocolate drops to evoke the full spectrum of human love when served on domestic flights.

One assumes this was part of Joyce's engrossing national campaign to get Peter Dutton's undies in a bunch. And indeed, the thought of the Immigration Minister copping a Pride Cookie in seat 1A en route from Brisbane to Canberra is sufficiently entertaining to excuse certain other significant structural flaws inherent to the plan (viz: Good luck finding a gay man who would eat a cookie).

Dutton, whose regularly-ventilated commitment to free speech fully covers the right of everyday Australians to make racist remarks but stops somewhere short of airline executives supporting concepts to which Dutton is personally opposed, told Joyce last weekend to "stick to his knitting".

(Reader alert: Terrible knitting puns ahead.)
Australia has taken a lone stand as the only country in its neighbourhood to boycott negotiations for a new global treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

Talks expected to include up to 120 nations are to get underway in New York on Monday, yet the Turnbull government has decided Australia will not participate in drafting the new treaty.

Labor has described the government's position as "astonishing" and will on Monday push for a Senate motion to urge Australia to join the negotiations.

The decision to boycott the talks comes despite growing regional concern about North Korea's drive to equip missiles with a nuclear warhead, raising fears the existing nuclear safeguards under international law are fraying.
Australia and China found unprecedented common ground during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Australia this week.

Premier Li and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull are statesmen united in opposition to a common foe: trade protectionism. Addressing an economic forum in Sydney, neither mentioned the United States or President Donald Trump by name but the subtext was as clear as the symbolism.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull share a joke at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Credit:Getty Images

With President Trump pledging to protect US business against foreign competition, Australia is being positioned as a partner in China's opportunistic campaign to be seen as the new defender of globalisation and free trade champion of the world.

The Prime Minister told a ballroom packed with businesspeople and politicians at the Westin Hotel that "the cooperation between China and Australia showcases to the region and the world our determination to defend trade liberalisation and advocate the benefits of free trade."
"It is really hard but in the end we have tried not to take sides because the way the whole thing has been handled has been incredibly painful for everyone  it shouldn't be in the papers, it should be in private."

And yet it is some of those "friends" who are the very reason why the bust-ups are in the media, with various camps intentionally leaking usually damaging titbits to journalists in order to gain the upper hand in a hopeless game of schadenfreude.

Loyalties are tested, though allegiances were clearly on display at dinner a few weeks back in Sydney to celebrate Anthony Bell's Perpetual Loyal winning the Sydney to Hobart, especially from Alan Jones, who wrote a speech from his sick bed that was read out to the packed room. Jones, one of the most influential voices in the country, effectively declared Bell was a great man.

No such praise was extended to the woman who embraced Bell at the finish line just months ago or who had been by his side in the public eye. Indeed Kelly Landry had become persona non grata in Bell's dominion.

One of Stefanovic and Thorburn's friends told PS in the months following the bust-up: "What are we supposed to do? We've known them for ever, then suddenly Karl walks out  we know him as one half of a relationship. It's like he walked out on us too. It is incredibly difficult not to take sides."
A man has been found guilty of several charges over an attack on two female backpackers on the sand dunes of a remote South Australian beach.

The 60-year-old was on trial for sexually assaulting a Brazilian woman and hitting a German woman with a hammer at Salt Creek, east of Adelaide, in February 2016.

The SA Supreme Court jury delivered its verdict on Saturday, finding the man  whose identity has been suppressed  guilty of six charges.

He was found guilty of indecent assault, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, endangering life, causing serious harm, and aggravated causing serious harm.
As she sat alongside hundreds of academics in a conference hall, Mindy Blaise felt herself growing angry.

The Victoria University professor watched on as the only woman on a panel of four men was ignored.

Academics Mindy Blaise and Emily Gray (left to right) have formed a group that if fighting against sexism in academia. Credit:Joe Armao, Fairfax Media.

No one asked her questions. And when she opened her mouth to speak, she was drowned out by male voices.

"There is a boys' club, and a boys' network, and the women are never privileged to that," Professor Blaise said.
"Don't teach your kids coding," says New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman. "Well  teach it if you want. But before you teach them coding, teach them digital civics: how to talk to one another on the internet, how to understand fact from fiction."

The internet is a sewer "of untreated, unfiltered information," he told his audience of teachers and international education leaders at a conference in Dubai on the weekend, "and if we don't build the values filters so our children can interact in this environment, with real values ... we have a real problem."

Friedman identified a problem that education systems are only now beginning to wrestle with. Life is largely lived online, and schools do not prepare children for it.

It's not just about keeping them safe from predators, cyberbullies, porn and identity theft: it's also about having an ethical framework, and the skills to assess the reliability of information.
Police have uncovered a highly sophisticated, Sydney-based international crime syndicate believed to be involved in money laundering and drug production.

Police seized significant amounts of cocaine and ice, a number of guns, and a bulletproof vest in a number of property searches across the city this week. At one property, the bomb squad was called to inspect three booby traps, which were found in a gun safe.

A gun seized by police during property raids this week. Credit:NSW Police Force

Three men were arrested this week as a result of the ongoing investigation into internationally-based money laundering syndicates operating in Sydney

On Wednesday night, police stopped a truck towing a Hyundai iLoad van at Marulan in the Southern Tablelands. Inside they found 8kg of cocaine, 6kg of methylamphetamine, commonly known as "ice", and a Glock pistol.
Former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr says he is making representations in Beijing and Canberra about the case of Sydney academic Feng Chongyi.

Dr Feng, an associate professor of China Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, was prevented from boarding a plane at Guangzhou airport on Friday morning and again on Saturday night.

Two Chinese lawyers who are in contact with Dr Feng say he was advised verbally by security police that he was under suspicion of threatening state security.

He had not been shown any documentation before being stopped from leaving China, they said.
Police are considering the possibility a car crash in Sydney's south-east late Saturday night, which left two young people dead, was the result of racing or speeding.

The driver lost control of the car while travelling down Botany Road around 10.30pm. It is understood the car flipped, hit a power pole and burst into flames.

A Police Media spokesperson said, while they had not formally identified the victims, they believed the man and woman were teenagers and the driver was likely a P plater.

She said it was not yet clear whether the driver was speeding but that investigators were "keeping their mind open on all options at this point".

The spokesperson said reports there were three dead were incorrect but the fact there was confusion indicated just how bad the wreckage was.
The only globally important wetland in suburban Melbourne is at "significant" risk of major and long-term environmental damage from the removal of two level crossings on the Frankston line, a report for the Andrews government has warned.

The Edithvale-Seaford wetlands in Melbourne's south-east are a refuge for about 100 threatened or migratory bird species from Siberia, Japan and Alaska. Surrounded by suburban houses, they are the last remnant of a large swamp that once stretched from Frankston to Mordialloc.

Robin Clarey, vice president of Friends of Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands, and Ian Williams. Credit:Simon Schluter

Though small and heavily marked by urban encroachment, the Edithvale-Seaford wetlands have been classified as one of the world's significant wetlands for the richness and diversity of the wildlife they support, and are protected under an international treaty.

Threatened species found at the wetlands include the Australasian bittern, curlew sandpiper and swift parrot.
A gas leak at a petrol station in Melbourne's north forced dozens to evacuate their homes late Saturday night.

About 25 people left their houses after a bowser began leaking gas at the Caltex Woolworths petrol station on Sydney Road, Coburg North.

Residents in Coburg North were evacuated as a precaution.

An attendant at the station alerted emergency services when he was unable to stop an LP gas bower from leaking about 9pm.

Metropolitan Fire Brigade spokesman Trevor Woodward said fire fighters sprayed the area to disperse the gas to stop it from pooling.
Berlin: Germany last year warded off two cyber attacks by APT28, a top official said, referring to a Russian hacking group also dubbed "Fancy Bear" that experts say successfully targeted Hillary Clinton's US election campaign.

The first, in May 2016, was an attempt to create an Internet domain for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in the Baltic region, said Arne Schoenbohm, president of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Credit:AP

The second attack, several months later, involved a spear-phishing scheme directed against German parties in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. Experts said that attack used a NATO domain name to try to inject malicious software into the networks of politicians.

The hacking of the Democratic National Committee in the United States and the leaking of confidential emails was part of what US intelligence agencies concluded was a campaign ordered by President Vladimir Putin to influence the US election in favour of Donald Trump.
The Kremlin Put Us on Their "Fake News" List, But the Deaths Continue to Pile Up.

Maria Maksakova is assisted from the place where her husband, Denis Voronenkov, was killed

Update: CNN has added the deaths of three more Russian diplomats or officials in two months to the list. CNN has noticed what we noticed 2 months ago: The mysterious deaths of Russian officials are piling up.

First Alexander Kadakin, 67, the Russian ambassador to India, died on January 26 after a brief, mysterious illness. Then, Denis Voronenkov was gunned down in Ukraine.

"The brazen daytime slaying of a Russian politician outside a Ukrainian hotel this week brings to eight the number of high-profile Russians who have died over the past five months since the US presidential election on November 8," says CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/24/europe/dead-russians/index.html

Denis Voronenkov, 45, was gunned down Thursday outside a hotel in Kiev. Voronenkov and his wife both spoke out against Putin after they left Russia for Ukraine in October.

For noticing the similarities in deaths that were piling up 2 month's ago, the Kremlin added us to their official "Fake News" list. http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/22/media/russia-government-fake-news/ Now, they'll have to add CNN as well.

You read it here first! Here's our story from January:

For the fifth time in 3 months, a Russian diplomat has died under suspicious circumstances. Vitaly Churkin death at Russia's consulate in New York City has been explained as a mere "heart attack." But his death involved a mysterious femme fatale, sources say.

Russia's UN Ambassador reportedly shared the intimate company of a much younger woman before he showed up dead at the Russian Consulate in New York City on Monday morning. The official line was that he suffered a heart attack at the Consulate, and was rushed to NYC's Presbyterian hospital. He was transported to the Russian Consulate already dead, sources say, from a more compromising location.

Conspiracists on Twitter theorize that a woman seen cavorting with Churkin recently was not, in fact, merely a mistress, but an intelligence agent. Is there a campaign underway to kill Russian diplomats? It seems so. Other Russian diplomats and spies who have died recently include:

1. Oleg Erovinkin was an FSB officer linked to the infamous "golden shower" Trump dossier. On December 26, 2016, Erovinkin was found dead in his car in Moscow. No cause of death has been announced.

2. On December 19, 2016, while speaking at an art gallery exhibition in Ankara, Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was assassinated by Mevlut Mert Altntas, an off-duty Turkish policeman.

3. Petr Polshikov, 56, was said to be a high ranking Russian diplomat in the Latin American department. He was found dead from multiple bullet wounds on December 18, 2016 in Moscow. His murder remains unsolved. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2445028/petr-polshikov-russian-diplomat-shot-dead/

4. Andrey Malanin, 54 a high ranking Russian diplomat was found dead in his apartment in Athens Greece on January 9, 2017 with no signs of a break in and no apparent cause. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/top-russian-diplomat-found-dead-9593229

Not only Russian officers have become victims of this campaign. Within 24 hours of the deaths of Polshikov and Karlov, Yves Chandelon, the chief auditor of NATO relating to terrorism financing and money laundering, was found dead in his car of a gunshot wound. Chandelon had been made to look like a suicide, but the circumstances were suspicious.

Some on Twitter expressed doubt that the timing of the diplomat's death was a mere coincidence. "As investigation in to Trump Russian ties build up suddenly Vitaly Churkin dies. What a coincidence. #Russiagate, #kremlingate #flynn" tweeted one. "Vitaly Churkin dies suddenly! Putin is possibly erasing all links to Donald Trump and Russia's connection to him. Other Intel agents died," said another, referring to Sergei Krivov.

Krivov, another Russian diplomat in the US, died under suspicious circumstances the day after the US election. Like Churkin, he died at the Russian Consulate in New York City, and was said to have suffered a heart attack there. But this did not explain blunt force trauma to Krivov's head. https://www.buzzfeed.com/alimwatkins/the-strange-case-of-the-russian-diplomat-who-got-his-head-sm?utm_term=.gvVX5xwx5#.onKAL2N2L

President Vladimir Putin, who expressed deep personal shock at the death of the longtime diplomat and friend, also prefers the company of young women. The president dated Russian Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, and is reputed to have had a child with her in 2015.

In so dying, the Diplomat and former child actor joins the ranks for former United States Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who died in 1979 at age 70 in the company of a 25 year old aide, Megan Marshack. Finding Rockefeller dead, Marshack called a friend before she called an ambulance. She refused to speak about the incident for the rest of her life.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin

It is not clear whether the longtime Russian diplomat was still married at the time of his death, so the pair may have simply been consenting adults. Churkin had 2 adult children from his marriage. The identity of Churkin's mistress or girlfriend was not immediately available.

For the record the official account is as follows: Vitaly Churkin fell ill at his office at the Russian Mission to the U.N. on East 67th Street around 9:30 a.m. and was unconscious when emergency personnel arrived, sources said.

Churkin was given CPR and taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital in serious condition. He was pronounced dead at 10:55 a.m., the day before his 65th birthday.

Update: 2/23, the Kremlin has labelled this story as "Fake News." http://www.mid.ru/en/nedostovernie-publikacii

This story has been used as a reference by the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/world/europe/russia-fake-news-media-foreign-ministry-.html
I said, "Say ALGAEEE on three - one, two-" Dr Jane interrupted, "No, say chimpanZEE!"

SaMoHi students were very excited to meet and present their science and sustainability projects to JG yesterday at Environmental Charter Schools in Lawndale, CA. Ten schools were invited to take part in this special after school opportunity.

Following a tree planting ceremony and observing student projects, "Dr Jane" spoke to a packed amphitheater of young people and educators. Dr Jane - age 82 - was as lucid as ever as she masterfully relayed stories of her life and messaged the audience about the urgency of achieving sustainability. The campus of ECS was further inspiring to Samohi students who all commented that they wished Samohi was more like theirs.

A lighthearted moment: As I was taking a photo of Jane with the students, I said, "Say ALGAEEE on three - one, two-" Dr Jane interrupted, "No, say chimpanZEE!"

For many years, students from santa monica high school's environmental science and leadership program, Team Marine, have been partnered with the Jane Goodall Institute Roots & Shoots Program, and have functioned as a R&S team. Senior student Zoe Parcells, co-captain of Team Marine and member of the national youth council for R&S introduced JG to the stage.

Meet Dr. Jane!

Dr. Jane Goodall was born in London, England, in 1934. She grew up living with her mom, dad, and sister, Judy. From a very young age, Dr. Jane loved animals. She would read and learn everything she could about them. When she was a child, her favorite books were Dr. Doolittle and Tarzan.

In 1956, Dr. Jane was invited to visit friends in Kenya. She could not go right away, but instead needed to work very hard and save money for the long trip. Finally in Kenya, Dr. Jane was told that if she wanted to study and learn more about animals, she should ask Dr. Leakey for a job. Dr. Leakey was a scientist who studied how ancient people in Africa had lived. He hired Dr. Jane to work for him, and because of her hard work, he assigned her a very special task. Dr. Jane was asked to study how chimpanzees lived at a place that is today called Gombe Stream National Park in the country of Tanzania.

In 1960, Dr. Jane's mom came to live with her and help her while she studied the chimpanzees. Dr. Jane and her mom lived in a tent for several months. Every day, Dr. Jane would go into the forest to try to observe how chimpanzees lived in the wild. She patiently waited, looking for the chimpanzees. At first, when the chimpanzees would see Dr. Jane, they would run away. Dr. Jane learned to be very patient, quiet, and still, so she would not scare away the chimpanzees.

Finally, after many weeks, she had the chance to watch how the chimpanzees ate, slept, and moved. Dr. Jane also watched how the chimpanzees acted with each other and how they behaved with their families. Toward the end of her study, Dr. Jane observed the chimpanzees making tools. Dr. Jane watched as a chimpanzee that she named David Greybeard used a twig to get termites out of a termite mound and eat them! What a great discovery to learn that chimpanzees made and used tools!

Jane Goodall with a juvenile homo sapien male at Santa Monica High School.

Dr. Jane spent nearly 30 years studying chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park and then started traveling so she could teach other people about chimpanzees. In 2016, Dr. Jane celebrated her 82nd birthday! Today she loves traveling and encouraging young people like you to make a positive difference in your community by helping other people, animals, and the environment.

About Roots & Shoots

Roots & Shoots is the global youth leadership program of the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). Founded in 1991, it is now active in almost 100 countries with hundreds of thousands of young people who are inspired by Dr. Jane Goodall to make the world a better place. Dr. Goodall and a group of Tanzanian students founded Roots & Shoots on their shared belief that the world is in peril, and that young people can play a huge role in creating a more hopeful future.
Researchers are most interested in persistent contrails

Using biofuels to help power jet engines reduces particle emissions in their exhaust by as much as 50 to 70 percent, in a new study conclusion that bodes well for airline economics and Earth's environment.

The findings are the result of a cooperative international research program led by NASA and involving agencies from Germany and Canada, and are detailed in a study published in the journal Nature.

During flight tests in 2013 and 2014 near NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, data was collected on the effects of alternative fuels on engine performance, emissions and aircraft-generated contrails at altitudes flown by commercial airliners. The test series were part of the Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions Study, or ACCESS.

Contrails are produced by hot aircraft engine exhaust mixing with the cold air that is typical at cruise altitudes several miles above Earth's surface, and are composed primarily of water in the form of ice crystals.

Researchers are most interested in persistent contrails because they create long-lasting, and sometimes extensive, clouds that would not normally form in the atmosphere, and are believed to be a factor in influencing Earth's environment.

"Soot emissions also are a major driver of contrail properties and their formation," said Bruce Anderson, ACCESS project scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. "As a result, the observed particle reductions we've measured during ACCESS should directly translate into reduced ice crystal concentrations in contrails, which in turn should help minimize their impact on Earth's environment."

That's important because contrails, and the cirrus clouds that evolve from them, have a larger impact on Earth's atmosphere than all the aviation-related carbon dioxide emissions since the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.

The tests involved flying NASA's workhorse DC-8 as high as 40,000 feet while its four engines burned a 50-50 blend of aviation fuel and a renewable alternative fuel of hydro processed esters and fatty acids produced from camelina plant oil. A trio of research aircraft took turns flying behind the DC-8 at distances ranging from 300 feet to more than 20 miles to take measurements on emissions and study contrail formation as the different fuels were burned.

"This was the first time we have quantified the amount of soot particles emitted by jet engines while burning a 50-50 blend of biofuel in flight," said Rich Moore, lead author of the Nature report.

The trailing aircraft included NASA's HU-25C Guardian jet based at Langley, a Falcon 20-E5 jet owned by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and a CT-133 jet provided by the National Research Council of Canada.

"Measurements in the wake of aircraft require highly experienced crew members and proven measuring equipment, which DLR has built up over many years," said report co-author Hans Schlager of the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics. "Since 2000, the DLR Falcon has been used in numerous measurement campaigns to investigate the emissions and contrails of commercial airliners."

Researchers plan on continuing these studies to understand and demonstrate the potential benefits of replacing current fuels in aircraft with biofuels. It's NASA's goal to demonstrate biofuels on their proposed supersonic X-plane.

For more information about NASA's aeronautics research, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aero
The turkeys are less pagan and more paranoid

A Boston man named Davis was on his way to work Monday when he saw a preternatural ritual: a group of wild turkeys marching in a circle around a dead cat.

"I've got three dogs and four fish tanks at home... I enjoy nature, I enjoy wildlife," says Jonathan Davis of Randolph, Massachusetts, who filmed the scene on his phone on March 2. "It's not every day you see something like that."

Once Davis posted his footage to Twitter, it went viral. Davis and others noted the incident's apparent resemblance to a ritual.

But in all likelihood, the turkeys are less pagan and more paranoid: In a phone interview with National Geographic, wildlife biologist Tom Hughes of the National Wild Turkey Federation attributed the turkeys' behavior to a combination of curiosity and fear.

"My guess is they are puzzled by the strange behavior of the dead or dying cat," says Hughes, "[and wanted] to get a better look, without getting too close." The result, he says, is a circle of turkeys-mostly females-all eyeing the potential predator's carcass, but none of them wanting to get any closer.

Turkeys' instinct to follow the flock probably compounded the circling. University of Mississippi biologist Richard Buchholz said that he has seen similar behavior in birds of the family Phasianidae, which includes turkeys, pheasants, and chickens. These birds chase after the tails of those in front of them, as a way to keep a flock together.

But he also points out that not so long ago, seeing a single wild turkey in Massachusetts, not to mention several in a circle, would have been surprising.

Wild turkeys circling a dead cat in the middle of the road

In precolonial North America, it's thought at at least 10 million wild turkeys roamed the continent. But European colonies brought with them unchecked hunting and habitat loss, which decimated turkey numbers. By the late 1700s, wild turkeys were effectively extirpated from New England, and by 1874, Hughes says that wild turkeys were extinct in Massachusetts.

The turkey's decline reached its peak in the 1930s, when the U.S. population of turkeys had fallen to about 200,000 individuals, 2 percent of its precolonial level.

In 1918, the last known Carolina parakeet died in Ohio's Cincinnati Zoo, four years after the last known passenger pigeon died in the very same cage. So people at the time wanted to avoid the loss of another avian species.

In response, a coalition of sportsmen, conservationists, and state and federal wildlife officials have worked for decades to boost turkey numbers, largely through hunting regulations, a decline in subsistence hunting, and the trap-and-transfer of wild turkeys to new habitats.
Puppet Wins Best DevOps Tool for Open Source at the 2017 DevOps Excellence Awards

PORTLAND, OR and LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM  (Marketwired)  03/24/17  , the standard for automating the delivery and operation of the software that powers everything around us, has been awarded the Best DevOps Tool for Open Source at the 2017 DevOps Excellence Awards that took place on Wednesday March 22, 2017 in London.

The 2017 DevOps Awards  held annually  is judged by the editors of UK publication, Computing, alongside industry experts and recognises outstanding and innovative solutions, people and services. The Best DevOps Tool for Open Source validates Puppets hard work and innovation in this space and affirms its commitment to the Open Source community.

Held at the London Marriott Hotel in Mayfair, the awards celebrate the DevOps industrys finest products, people and companies. Puppet was recognized for its innovation in designing a tool to tackle DevOps specifically for the Open Source community, a tool that is helping organizations to automate processes  saving time, money and accelerating performance.

Marianne Calder, VP of EMEA at Puppet, said, We are honored to be recognized in the DevOps and Open Source space. The Open Source community is one we are grateful to be part of and we will continue to strive towards creating and developing new innovations for the better. At Puppet we believe in hard work and that is key to our success at these awards. We look forward to delivering real benefits as we build a stronger foothold in the U.K..

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Puppet is driving the movement to a world of unconstrained software change. Its revolutionary platform is the industry standard for automating the delivery and operation of the software that powers everything around us. More than 35,000 companies  including more than 75 percent of the Fortune 100  use Puppets open source and commercial solutions to adopt DevOps practices, achieve situational awareness and drive software change with confidence. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Puppet is a privately held company with more than 500 employees around the world. Learn more at .

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Our View: Your vote, whatever it is, is a vote for democracy
New Delhi, Mar 25 (IBNS): On Saturday, nearly all countries, including India, will be switching off their non-essential lights for an hour, from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm, local time, in support of people's commitment towards energy conservation, proper utilisation of energy sources and awareness about climate change.

From the Eiffel Tower to Taipei 101 and the Empire State Building to the Acropolis, thousands of landmarks will switch off their lights in solidarity as individuals, communities and organizations worldwide deliver on their potential to help change climate change, the planets biggest environmental challenge yet.

Mooted by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Australia, in 2007, Earth Hour has slowly developed into a global movement.

2017 marks the tenth anniversary of Earth Hour which started as a symbolic event in Sydney in 2007.

It is the worlds largest grassroots movement for the environment, ensuring that people who are on the frontlines of climate change, are also empowered to be the planets first line of defense, said WWF in a release.

We started Earth Hour to make a statement. Never did we imagine that we would be writing a dramatic new story for climate action where each individual can help turn the page toward a sustainable, climate-resilient future for all, said Siddarth Das, Executive Director, Earth Hour Global.

He said, In ten years, Earth Hour has helped protect seas in Russia and Argentina, raised funds for conservation projects in Southeast Asia and the Amazon and even created a forest in Uganda and none of this would have been possible without the force that binds us all together  our collective determination to protect the one planet we all share.



On Saturday, WWF-India, in association with Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance hosted Pedal for the Planet 2017, a Cyclothon and Walkathon to celebrate Earth Hour 2017.



The Earth Hour India campaign by WWF-India focuses on the need to inspire individuals, corporates and other organizations, schools, colleges, RWAs and housing societies to become Earth Hour Superheroes, undertake five simple actions and lend their voice to the largest grassroots level environment campaign in the world.

The exhilarating 21 kilometer cyclothon, covered over two rounds and the 3.5km walkathon.

Anuj Mathur, Chief Executive Officer, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance said, "We are pleased to partner for the 9th consecutive year with WWF-India for the Earth Hour 'Pedal for the Planet' initiative. We at Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance have always encouraged our employees in initiatives which promote sustainable lifestyle and safeguards the planet. It is heartening to see the increasing awareness around the world on the need to preserve the environment and within our organization we are taking all steps to contribute to this cause."



Speaking about the success of the campaign and the event, Ravi Singh, Secretary General & CEO, WWF-India said, Earth Hour is our attempt to inspire and empower individuals and help them fight against the complex issue of climate change. The enormous enthusiasm and support that weve witnessed for Earth Hour at the Pedal for the Planet Cyclothon is very humbling, it is great to see people coming together and committing to fight for a common cause that threatens the world as we know it.

Building on the impact it has created in the last decade, in 2017, Earth Hour supporters in Spain and the UK are urging the government to deliver strong climate action and meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement.

In Hungary and Uganda, people are encouraging communities and organizations to shift to renewable energy while in Cambodia, Greece and Colombia, people are coming together to act toward sustainable lifestyles.

In Australia, the birthplace of the movement, WWF is using Earth Hour to spread awareness on renewable energy among the youth while also inviting supporters who switch off the lights to donate toward solar lighting in rural communities in Ethiopia.

Similarly, people in Singapore, Indonesia, India and Hong Kong are teaming up as Earth Hour Buddies to help protect forests and oceans and promote sustainable living.

Climate change is visible proof that our actions can have a ripple effect beyond physical borders. It is up to each of us to ensure the impact we create helps instead to improve the lives of those around us and elsewhere, at present and in the future, added Das.

Image: AIRNews Twitter
Pluto is a dwarf planet but that doesn't make it any less worthy of our attention.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Pluto's status as a "dwarf planet" is once again stirring debate. This comes as some planetary scientists are trying to have Pluto reclassified as a planet  a wish that's not likely to come true.

Pluto has been known as a dwarf planet for more than a decade. Back in August 2006 astronomers voted to shake up the Solar System, and the number of planets dropped from nine to eight. Pluto was the one cast aside.

There was some outcry that Pluto had been destroyed in an instant and was no longer important, and the reverberations were most keenly felt across America.

After all, Pluto was "their planet," discovered in 1930 through the meticulous observations of American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

At the time of the vote, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was only seven months into its nine-year journey to Pluto. There was concern that when it finally arrived, would people even care about a dwarf planet?

For many astronomers, the demotion of Pluto was a defining moment. It wasn't a gesture of destruction and it wasn't aimed specifically at Pluto. What it signalled was a major leap forward.

In that moment the world's astronomers acknowledged significant progress in our understanding of the Solar System, an achievement to be proud of  even if everyone was not entirely happy.

What's in a name?

The first step to understanding a group of objects is to classify them. We group like with like to examine the aligned characteristics or any significant differences between groups. With this insight comes a deeper understanding of how things work, form or evolve.

The planets were originally grouped together because the ancient Greeks saw them as "the wanderers," travelling across the sky. Five bright objects  Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn  may have looked like stars, but while stars stayed fixed within their constellations, these planets moved independently from them.

The cause of this planetary motion was eventually established by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, bringing with it a new revelation. Planets were more than wanderers, they were objects in orbit about the Sun and with this understanding Earth became a planet too.

Earth became a planet too, once the 'wanderers' were understood. (Image credit: Reid Wiseman/NASA)

Defining a planet in the 21st century

More than 400 years and many discoveries later, a new storm began brewing in our understanding of the Solar System.

Since 1992, astronomers had begun to find objects orbiting the Sun out in the realm of Pluto. Were they planets too?

Conversely, Pluto was a bit of an oddball. It was smaller than several moons of other planets, and it had a highly inclined orbit that made it stand out from the others. Was it truly a planet or was it part of a much larger family of objects?

With the discovery of Eris (originally known by its designation 2003 UB313) in 2003, a decision could no longer be avoided. Eris was about the size of Pluto and certainly more massive. Was Eris a planet? And if not, where did that leave Pluto?

Astronomers have a forum for such deliberations via the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Representing astronomers worldwide, the IAU is the recognised authority responsible for naming and classifying planetary bodies and their satellites.

The IAU formed a Planet Definition Committee to consider the scientific, cultural and historical issues at hand. A draft proposal was put forward, and during the 2006 IAU General Assembly in Prague, with the world's astronomers gathered together, the Committee's proposal was vigorously debated.

A revised proposal was presented to the IAU membership on the final day of the General Assembly and was passed with a large majority.

For the first time, a planet was formally recognised as being "a celestial body that:"

(a) is in orbit around the Sun

Since Pluto had not "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit," it was not a planet but would be recognised as a "dwarf planet."

A colleague of mine, Martin George, director of the Launceston Planetarium, was there when the vote was taken and captured the excitement and the nuance of the event.

There was quite a buzz in the room and we knew we were about to make history. Did everyone agree on the exact wording? Perhaps not. However, I think it would have been worse to see media headlines reading 'Astronomers cannot decide what a planet is.'

Size matters and location too

The distinction of planet and dwarf planet brings a consistency to how objects are named across the universe. On the grand scale, there are galaxies and there are dwarf galaxies.

Within our Milky Way Galaxy, the Sun is a yellow dwarf star that in billions of years will evolve to become a red giant before ending its life as a white dwarf.

The Milky Way and its neighboring dwarf galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds seen in the lower left. (Image credit: C. Malin/ESO)

These distinctions among galaxies and stars helps astronomers interpret and understand them, tracing their evolution.

Planets and dwarf planets are distinct because of their size and their location in the solar system. It provides a way to examine how planets and dwarf planets may have originated and evolved differently.

Planetary resemblance

At present, the IAU has officially recognised five dwarf planets. They are Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea, which orbit the Sun beyond Neptune, and Ceres, which is the only object in the asteroid belt massive enough to be spherical.

The dwarf planets compared to Earth. (Image credit: NASA)

Detractors and also supporters of the standing planet definition can point to problems with it. For instance, it only applies to objects orbiting the Sun. But what about exoplanets? And what is meant by "cleared its neighbourhood?" If Earth was located farther away from the Sun, would it be able to clear its orbit?

But, as astrophysicist Ethan Seigal explains, minor qualifications to the planet definition can bring it in line with exoplanets and allows the definition to work with renewed clarity.

Whereas the latest proposal to reinstate Pluto, advocates a geophysical definition of planet. Namely, that a planet should be large enough to be round, but not so big that it is a star. This broad definition casts the net wide, and not only Pluto, but also the Moon and more than 100 other Solar System objects would become planets.

Now wouldn't that be a leap backwards in regards to structuring and understanding our Solar System? How much of it is driven by the notion that nothing but a planet is worth exploration?

There's a plethora of "not-planets" in our Solar System that are worlds worthy of attention. This includes the fiery volcanoes of Io, the icy geysers of Enceladus, the reddish surface of Makemake, the crazy spin of Haumea and the mystery of hundreds of worlds unknown orbiting beyond Neptune.

So let the official word on planets and dwarf planets be as passed in 2006 and let our exploration of the Solar System continue to amaze us.

Tanya Hill, Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museum Victoria

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates  and become part of the discussion  on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.
The geophysical definition of a planet categorizes the worlds of the solar system by their composition. Rather than remembering the individual planets, students would learn about the types.

THE WOODLANDS, Texas  There's new hope for people who still believe that Pluto is a planet more than a decade after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified the object as a dwarf planet.

A group of planetary scientists is making the case that the definition for a planet should rely more on what an object is than where it is. Pluto's demotion came largely because the world fails to clear its orbit of other large objects (most notably, Neptune). But the proposed geophysical definition focuses on the physical properties of a body rather than the characteristics of its orbit, and would also include objects such as the dwarf planet Ceres and Jupiter's moon Europa.

"The [current] IAU definition [of a planet] is primarily concerned with gravitational perturbations and orbits," Kirby Runyon, a planetary scientist graduate student at Johns Hopkins University told Space.com. "Those aren't what planetary scientists study." [Destination Pluto: NASA's New Horizons Mission in Pictures]

Runyon said many scientists who study the composition and features of worlds already define a planet based on the intrinsic attributes of the object, rather than on the object's interaction with its environment. He pointed to over 40 scientific papers on Europa and Saturn's moon Titan that refer to those bodies as planets.

"Round moons like Titan and Europa have been referred to as planets for decades in planetary literature," Runyon said. "Our definition just newly encapsulates and formalizes a precedent already set."

What makes a planet?

For more than 70 years, elementary students learned that the solar system contained nine planets. The discovery of objects beyond Pluto's orbit shook up this view, and in 2006, the IAU voted to change the definition of planet.

The organization's definition said a planet orbits the sun, is not a moon of another object, is rounded by its own gravity and clears its orbit of other objects. In its annual journey, Pluto travels in the Kuiper Belt, a region of the outer solar system populated by many small, rocky, often icy objects. Because Pluto and the other round worlds in the Kuiper Belt they have failed the requirement to clear their orbits, and are classified as dwarf planets. The IAU doesn't define a dwarf planet as a subclass of planets, but rather as a separate class of objects altogether, a situation Runyon called "a grammatical absurdity."

Against this, Runyon and a group of colleagues have written a proposal that would define a planet as a round object that has never undergone fusion (ruling out smaller, dead stars known as white dwarfs), regardless of its orbit. Not only would the new definition bump up the round dwarf planets into full-fledged planethood, but it would also add moons, or "satellite planets," as the new definition calls them, to the club.

All the scientists named on the proposal are members of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. That probe is now on its way to study another icy object in the Kuiper Belt. The agency has not released proposal is not an official stance by the agency.

A separate, 2015 proposal for the definition of a planet sought to quantify the rather ambiguous term "round" mathematically rather than intuitively. Author Jean-Luc Margot of the University of California, Los Angeles, defined the size of planets as being large enough to clear their orbits, leaving Pluto and the rest as dwarf planets. (Margot is not involved in the new proposal.)

But Runyon said that whether a planet becomes round can depend not only on its size and gravity, but also on the strength of its material. For instance, while Saturn's moon Enceladus is roughly the size of the asteroid Vesta, the moon's weak, icy composition makes it round, unlike the rocky asteroid. He said he'd rather have roundness remain a bit less defined.

"I'm going to stick with 'round' and 'not round,' and be content with a little ambiguity," he said.

That doesn't mean all scientists have to reject the IAU definition, Runyon said. While the proposed definition might make sense for planetary scientists, he acknowledges that people who model the orbits of worlds or who search for worlds beyond the sun might be perfectly fine with the IAU's definition. He said scientists can rely on the definition that is most useful for them.

That sort of thing already happens in astronomy, he said. For instance, while chemists refer to certain elements on the periodic table as "metals" based on their conductivity and ability to lose electrons, astronomers have for decades referred to everything other than hydrogen and helium as metals. Even within research papers, scientists will define a term in a specific way out of several options and use that definition consistently within the work. So, a field-wide consensus isn't always necessary, Runyon said.

"We can live in happy coexistence," he said.

The solar system hosts over 110 round worlds. Under the geophysical definition, they would all be planets. (Image credit: Kirby Runyon, modified from Emily Lakdawalla)

What's in a name?

While Pluto fans have argued for its reinstatement as a planet for the last decade, what does it matter to scientists whether Pluto, Ceres and Europa are considered planets?

Part of the motivation is the scientific impetus towards classification, Runyon said.

"Scientific nomenclature facilitates communication and conceptualization about ideas," Runyon said.

Classifying elements in the periodic table helped chemists understand these substances' properties and even predict the existence of undiscovered elements. Classifying different types of stars helped astronomers better understand these bodies' properties. Similarly, classifying the different kinds of worlds could help planetary scientists learn more about the formation and evolution of these objects.

"Words actually carry a lot of weight," Runyon said. "Look at the last presidential election. Words are powerful."

Runyon said he and his colleagues also think the definition of a planet affects the general public's perception of the importance of astrophysical objects.

In the new definition proposal, the authors wrote, "many members of the public, in our experience, assume that alleged 'nonplanets' cease to be interesting enough to warrant scientific exploration.  To wit: A common question we receive is, 'Why did you send New Horizons to Pluto if it's not a planet anymore?'"

That perception may color attitudes to more bodies than just Pluto, Runyon said. Water worlds  like Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's satellites Titan and Endeladus  may be some of the most promising sites for discovering life beyond Earth in the solar system. But, Runyon said, many people tend to ignore those worlds because they are called moons instead of planets.

"These words fall off their mental radar," Runyon said.

By classifying moons and other round bodies planets, the more than 110 known objects in the solar system that would be categorized as planets could pose a challenge to students. But Runyon recommended focusing more on objects' locations and how they form than on all those names.

"Students ought not memorize lists of names, because you don't learn anything [doing that]," Runyon said. Instead of simply learning that some objects are planets and others are not, "I want them to learn there [are] lots of planets and here are the different types," he said.

Runyon also said he hopes that this discussion about planetary definitions will help the public realize that scientists often disagree, and that this is healthy for science. Simply knowing that many or most planetary scientists consider Pluto and other dwarfs to be full-fledged planets, he said, could help make members of the public think more inclusively about different worlds in the solar system, regardless of their titles.

"Stirring up negative emotions about Pluto and other dwarf planets turns people off to science," he said. "On the other hand, leveraging positive emotion for science is a win-win situation."

Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd, Facebook or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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Moscow, 24 March 2017 (SPS) - Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov underlined Thursday, in Moscow, the need to increase the international communitys coordinated efforts to reach a fair resolution to the conflict in Western Sahara.

The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, who is the special representative of Russias President to the Middle East and Africa, received Thursday a delegation of the Polisario Front on visit to Moscow, led by Mhamed Khaddad, Sahrawi coordinator at the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

During this meeting, the two sides exchanged views on the situation relating to the settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara, particularly in the light of the preparations for the examination, in April in the UN Security Council, of the issue of the renewal of MINURSO mission in Western Sahara, according to a communique of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

On this occasion, the Russian side pointed out the immutability of the Russian position, based on the need to reach a mutually acceptable political solution to this long-standing issue, on the basis of UN relevant resolutions, added the document, underlining Moscows willingness to continue working in this regard, in collaboration with all the stakeholders, notably with the partners of the Group of friendship with Western Sahara.

During these talks, the two sides underscored the need to increase the efforts of the international community to reach a fair settlement, taking into consideration the fundamental interests of the peoples of the North African region and contributing to the improvement of the situation in the Maghreb. (SPS)

062/090/700




Addis Ababa, 25 March 2017 (SPS) - The African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) Called for the immediate engagement of direct and serious talks without preconditions and in accordance with article 4 of the Constitutive Act of the AU to overcome the current impasse in the Western Sahara conflict, affirming that it remains actively seized of the issue.

The PSC announced in its communique after its 668th meeting in Addis-Ababa on Monday (March 20th) on the situation in Western Sahara, the first of its kind since Morocco joined the AU, the reactivation of ad hoc Committee of Heads of State and Government on the Western Sahara Conflict, established pursuant to the resolution adopted at the 15th Ordinary Session of the Conference of Heads of State and Government of OAU (Orgnisation of the African Union), held in Khartoum, Sudan, from 18 to 22 July 1978, while recalling the relevant provisions of article 4 of the Constitutive Act of the AU which evokes, among other things, the peaceful settlement of disputes between the member states of the Union, stressing that it is imperative to engage immediately in direct and serious talks, without preconditions, and in accordance with article 4 of the Constitutive Act.

The Council regretted the absence of Morocco during this meeting, a first test "failed" by Rabat, according to the chief of the Saharawi diplomacy.

The PSC also decided, according to the statement, to reinforce the mandate of the former Mozambican President, Joaquim Chissano, to be appointed High Representative of the AU for Western Sahara, "to facilitate direct talks between the two member states and to mobilize the efforts of Africa and the United Nations to this end ". In this regard, the Council calls on the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, to take the necessary steps to enable the AU High Representative to assume his mandate immediately.

The African body calls upon all AU member states, in the spirit of pan-Africanism and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitutive Act, to mobilize and provide other forms of political and diplomatic support to Joaquim Chissano, to facilitate direct talks, furthermore calling on the AU Commission to take immediate steps to reopen the AU Office in El Aaiun, Western Sahara, including the provision of human and financial resources and the necessary logistical means. (SPS)

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Addis Ababa, 25 March 2017 (SPS) - The African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) has called on the United Nations and the international community as a whole to give their full support to African efforts to overcome the current impasse in the process of settling the Western Sahara conflict, noting that it has decided to review the situation on a regular basis in Western Sahara on the basis of updates and recommendations provided by the Chairperson of the AU Commission and the AU High Representative for the Sahara Western region.

The PSC also decided to conduct a field mission to Western Sahara in 2017, indicating its interest in renewing the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) Which will expire on 30 April 2017, in accordance with Decision 2285 (2016) of 29 April 2016.

In this regard, the PSC urged the United Nations Security Council to take the necessary steps to ensure that MINURSO can once again fully exercise its functions so that it effectively oversees the ceasefire agreement, prevent the resumption of violations, and to this end call on the Security Council to assign a human rights mandate to the Mission, taking into account the need for independent and impartial monitoring in the occupied territories.

"The Council also calls on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to take appropriate measures in this regard," according to its statement, calling also on the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights ( ACHPR) to undertake a mission to Western Sahara as soon as possible in order to assess the human rights situation and make recommendations to the Council on the basis of the results of its visit to the region in September 2012.

In this regard, the Council urges the two member states to cooperate fully with the mission of the ACHPR. (SPS)

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STAMFORD  The remains of 2267 Shippan Ave.  wood and wires, stone and steel - could have proved what sparked the fire that destroyed Madonna Badgers family.

But the pieces of the house were smashed to bits or sold as scrap  according to recently released testimony that presents new details about the fire  and left to a demolition company that the city hired without telling Badger.

Norwalks AMEC Carting, which tore the house down 24 hours after the 2011 Christmas Day blaze that killed Badgers three daughters and her parents, filled 11, 40-yard containers of house parts, according to the court documents. Within three days of the demolition, AMEC removed the containers, sorted through the debris, sold the recyclable material to a scrap yard, and dumped the rest in a landfill.

AMEC Project Manager John Buzzeo testified it was the first time hed seen a demolition and disposal of debris  considered evidence  handled in such a way. Buzzeo was deposed by lawyers for Badger and her ex-husband, the late Matthew Badger, who are suing the city and two officials over the destruction of evidence. Jury selection in the case is scheduled to begin April 25 in state Superior Court in Hartford.

Buzzeo told the attorneys he submitted an application for a demolition permit with the help of Stamford Chief Building Official Robert DeMarco. According to testimony, DeMarco said his boss, Director of Operations Ernie Orgera, approved the demolition of the house. Orgera testified DeMarco took down the house on his own.

The application form asked for the date demolition would begin, Buzzeo said, and he wrote Dec. 28, 2011.

Lawyer: In fact, the demolition had occurred on Dec. 26, 2011, correct?

Buzzeo: Correct.

Lawyer: And was it Mr. DeMarco who told you to put in Dec. 28 ?

Buzzeo: Im not quite sure.

Lawyer: Mr. DeMarco was the one who was telling you how to fill out this form, right?

Buzzeo: I probably just put it down there for  I dont know why I put that date down. Maybe he did tell me.

Lawyer: In your entire career, had you ever put an incorrect date down for when the work will start on a project in a demolition application?

Buzzeo: No.

Lawyer: And it was Mr. DeMarco who was saying you should fill out this application to demolish after the demolitions already occurred, correct?

Buzzeo: Correct.

Signed on the line

Buzzeo said he wrote his name on a line of the form that asked for the signature of the owner or an agent for the owner.

Lawyer: And it was Mr. DeMarco who told you to sign as the owner or agent even though you werent the owner or agent, correct?

Buzzeo: Yeah, we usually sign this because I would think I would be the agent of the permit because were doing the demolition.

Lawyer: OK. But you werent Madonna Badgers agent 

Buzzeo: No.

Lawyer: And Mr. DeMarco reviewed this affidavit, which he knew was not true, and then he approved the application anyway, correct?

Buzzeo: Correct.

Lawyer: Can you remember any situation in your career other than this one where a representative of the Stamford building department instructed you to file false information in a demolition application?

Buzzeo: No.

DeMarco testified at an earlier date that he asked AMEC to complete the application because a demolition permit is the only way to remove a house from the tax rolls.

Asked whether he told Buzzeo to sign the form as an agent of the owner without contacting Madonna Badger, DeMarco replied, I didnt think it mattered because the house was already taken down and he granted the permit as a formality.

This was not a thorough demolition  the house was taken down under eminent domain  imminent unsafe condition, DeMarco testified.

DeMarco said he couldnt think of another time in his long career in Stamford that a building was demolished without a permit, or that the city issued one without the owners knowledge.

Discounted debris

It goes to the core of why the Badgers sued the city, DeMarco and Orgera, charging that they destroyed the house without consent, a violation of city and state laws. The Badgers allege that city officials wanted to cover up building inspectors inadequate oversight of a major renovation of the century-old Victorian on Shippan Point, where Lily Badger, 9, died with her twin sisters, Sarah and Grace, 7, and their grandparents, Pauline and Lomer Johnson.

The fire marshal determined that fireplace ashes placed in the mudroom caused the blaze, but the Badgers have questioned why there were no permits for two new electrical panels, why they were wired to an old panel, how the contractor was allowed to work without a Connecticut home-improvement registration, why the work was allowed to exceed the scope of the plans, and more.

Buzzeos testimony sheds light on what happened to the remains of the house. He testified AMEC separated out the copper, brass and other recyclable material and brought it to a scrap dealer. Asked what happened to the money, Buzzeo said AMEC keeps the revenue from recyclables because the company reduces the price of demolition by the amount it expects to earn from the scrap dealer.

Lawyer: But in this case, where the owner didnt even know you were demolishing the house, but its still her property  shouldnt she get back the money from the scrap metal?

Buzzeo: I dont know.

Lawyer: Have you ever run into that situation before  where the owner didnt even know that her house was being demolished?

Buzzeo: Not that Im aware of.

There was not a lot of discussion about how to handle the debris, according to Buzzeos testimony.

He said DeMarco asked another AMEC employee if it was feasible for us to store this debris somewhere. The employee told DeMarco we dont have the facilities or the room to do it, and that was the end of the conversation, Buzzeo testified.

He also testified that Stamford police, who investigated the fire, did not ask him what happened to the debris, and he doesnt know of anyone else at AMEC who was asked.

angela.carella@scni.com; 203-964-2296; stamfordadvocate.com/angelacarella
Kolkata, Mar 25 (IBNS): PATH Welfare Society with support from aITC Mission SunehraKala is organizing a Childrenas Meet- a gathering of over 400 children & Child Cabinet members from 24 government schools in Kolkata.

The event aims at providing these children a platform to show case their learnings and share their experiences in terms of promoting health & hygiene in their schools & how they ensured operation & maintenance of water & sanitation facilities that have been provided to their schools by ITC MSK.



The newly elected child cabinet Shri SaraswatiVidyalaya will take their oath during this event along with the inauguration of the new Water, Sanitation & Solar Panels that have been provided to this school by ITC MSK, implemented by PATH Welfare Society.

This event will be attended by:

JanaabFirhad Hakim

KC Manna, Chairman SSM (SarvaShiksha Mission) Kolkata

Anwar Khan, Councillor, Ward 80

RamPyare Ram, Councillor Ward 79

SudeepSarkar DC Port, Kolkata Police

Suvra Bhattacharya, DPO (District Project Officer) SSM Kolkata

SundarBandhpadhya, Pedagogy Consultant, SSM Kolkata
M ost cars on the market today will contain between 50 to 100 electronic control units or computers and many now come with apps capable of operating windows and locks, some even have the ability to remotely summon the car.

As vehicles become more plugged in, technology experts are concerned that the cars we are driving today could be susceptible to being hacked either directly through the cars own systems, or through apps on mobile phones. Its a particular worry for researchers looking at the progress of self-driving technology, as several models now come with some level of autonomous capability, which could be open to sophisticated hacking in the future.

Several hackers from cybersecurity firms have already shown they are able to wirelessly access cars that are on the market today, taking control over acceleration and braking, even steering in certain circumstances.

New research out this week suggests that this has become a worry for the public as well, with 59 per cent of respondents to a Satrak/YouGov survey saying they regard vehicle hacking as a future problem for connected vehicles.

From the 2,000 people surveyed by YouGov, 40 per cent said they felt hacking is a fairly serious issue for new cars.

Asked about the brands they most trust to keep them safe, BMW and Mercedes came out on top, trusted by 29 per cent of those surveyed. The French carmakers Renault and Citroen fared less well, with only nine per cent of respondents saying they trusted those brands.

According to Dan Walton, MD of Satrak Plant Security, the firm organising the survey, car makers need to ensure that IT security keeps up with the pace of technological change.

Its important that people realise how sophisticated criminals are getting in regards to vehicle crime and thefts  whether plant commercial or private, he said.

When we think about a car being broken into, we tend to imagine smashed windows and coat hangers being jammed into doors, but times are changing,

Vehicle technology and security is like an arms race and its important that manufacturers keep ahead of sophisticated criminals who know how to undermine the security of a vehicle through its digital components.

These risks were highlighted last month when researchers from the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab found they were able to hack nine variations of car-connected Android apps, giving them access to a range of onboard capabilities. Kaspersky say they were able to locate the cars, unlock them and activate the ignition in a few instances. The car apps that were hacked have been downloaded hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times.

Viktor Chebyshev, a Kaspersky researcher who worked on the project, questioned why app developers were not providing the same level of security to car apps as that applied to online banking apps.

Luckily, we have not yet detected any cases of attacks against car applications, which means that car vendors still have time to do things right. How much time they have exactly is unknown. Modern Trojans are very flexible  one day they can act like normal adware, and the next day they can easily download a new configuration, making it possible to target new apps. The attack surface is really vast here.

Two years ago, researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek showed they were able to hack into the electronic systems of Millers Jeep Cherokee, and take control of certain key aspects of the Jeeps digital functionality.

Miller and Valasek then took Wireds Andy Greenberg out for a spin in their hacked Jeep, remotely switching on the air con, activating the brakes, reducing the throttle, operating the radio, even pasting a picture of themselves onto the vehicle's display panel.

The results of their year-long research was supplied back to the automaker, and resulted in Jeeps parent company, Fiat Chrysler Automotive, issuing a software patch and recalling 1.4 million vehicles. In a statement, FCA said:

The software manipulation addressed by this recall required unique and extensive technical knowledge, prolonged physical access to a subject vehicle and extended periods of time to write code.

No defect has been found. FCA US is conducting this campaign out of an abundance of caution.

Last year, Keen Lab, Chinese security firm attempted a similar hack on a Tesla Model S, gaining access to the indicators, windscreen wipers, car seats, and the brakes. Tesla responded by quickly issuing a remote fix to their cars, which solved the problem.

The issue demonstrated is only triggered when the web browser is used, Tesla said in a statement.

[The hack] also required the car to be physically near to and connected to a malicious Wi-Fi hotspot. Our realistic estimate is that the risk to our customers was very low, but this did not stop us from responding quickly. In addition to employing a significant team of security experts, Tesla runs a scheme known as a "bug bounty programme", inviting security experts such as those at Keen to test their car's security, in return for cash prizes.

Kaspersky Labs say todays threat from criminal car hackers, rather than well-intentioned "white hat" security researchers, is currently minimal, not least because the majority of cars on our roads are not yet equipped with the level of technology required to be vulnerable to a hack in the first place. But the use of connected cars is already increasing, with the number of cars connected to the internet by default rising from 2 to 151 between 2011 and 2016, according to the Kelley Blue Book.

In several years the situation will be far more dangerous, Kaspersky said in a blog post.

Whats worse, the car industry is organised in such a way that manufacturers would probably be solving these fundamental problems for decades. So if we dont want to lose the rush completely, its high time to act; fortunately, many manufacturers understand that as well.

A criminal would have to study out a lot of technologies and devices to hack a connected car. Its a big and complicated task. Thats not the all: they would also need to invest money into a car and some special equipment.
A round 150 people gathered in Birmingham city centre last night, in a Unity Vigil organised by Birmingham Muslim Engagement & Development (MEND) and Birmingham Stand Up To Racism.

The group came together in solidarity against the terrorist attack at Westminster on Wednesday afternoon.

The event started at 6pm and took place in the city centre, close to the Bullring.

People hold placards during a vigil in Birmingham / Joe Giddens/PA Wire

Birmingham Central Mosque chairman Muhammad Afzal said of Wednesday's atrocity in London: "nothing justifies taking lives of innocent people."

He continued: "those responsible must be brought to justice to protect good, in our constant fight to eradicate evil within humanity".

The event followed a candle-lit vigil at Trafalgar Square in London on Thursday.
F ears Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood was groomed for extremism in prison have heightened after it was claimed he turned to Islam whilst behind bars.

Counter-terrorism officers have spent days piecing together what led the 52-year-old to shed his birth name and later unleash carnage on the capital.

Only one man, 58, arrested in Birmingham remains in police custody after a 27-year-old man was released with no further action on Saturday.

A total of 11 people were initially held after raids across the country.

Westminster floral tributes 1 /9 Westminster floral tributes Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS

It remains unclear whether the attack, which left four dead and scores injured, was carried out alone or with support.

The Saudi Arabian embassy in London said Masood worked in the country, home to some of the most virulent Islamic extremism, for several years, raising the possibility he was radicalised overseas.

A childhood friend of the man then known as Adrian Elms told The Sun newspaper he first emerged as a Muslim after serving a jail sentence.

Khalid Masood, in the back row, in his days as a schoolboy when he used the name Adrian Ajao

Mark Ashdown, 52, said: "When he first came out he told me he'd become a Muslim in prison and I thought he was joking.

"Then I saw he was quieter and much more serious. He said he needed time to pray and read the Koran - something about finding inner peace."

He added: "There were still flashes of the old Ade, but they were few and far between."

His abrupt religious conversion will fuel concerns about the rising threat of criminals being brought under the influence of hardened jihadists while in prison.

Westminster attack probe : Resident describes police seizing van and cars after Birmingham raid

Ministers have announced plans to create specialist units within jails to tackle what a government-ordered review last year concluded was a "growing problem".

His route to extremism could have also come from a stint living in the Middle East.

The Saudi embassy said Masood lived in the country between November 2005 and 2006 and April 2008 and April 2009, during which time he worked as an English teacher on a work visa, travelling to the country again for five days in March 2015.

Westminster terror attack claims fourth innocent victim

Details of Masood's history of criminality have continued to come to light, suggesting a propensity for violence which laid the groundwork for his armed rampage on Wednesday.

Unarmed Pc Keith Palmer was knifed after the killer blazed a trail of destruction by driving a car at pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and storming the parliamentary estate armed with two knives.

He was then shot dead by police.

Teenager: Khalid Masood, then known as Adrian Ajao, in the centre of the second row of schoolboys from the top

The middle-aged Muslim convert was born in Kent, but moved around the country and used a variety of aliases including Adrian Russell Ajao.

Scotland Yard's head of counter-terrorism Mark Rowley said detectives want to understand his "motivation, preparation and associates" and if he "either acted totally alone, inspired by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him".

Detectives have seized 2,700 items from the searches, including "massive amounts" of computer data, while around 3,500 witnesses have been spoken to. Searches at three addresses are continuing.

Attack at Parliament, March 22, 2017 1 /48 Attack at Parliament, March 22, 2017 A policeman points a gun at a man on the floor as emergency services attend the scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminste PA The scene of the incident @Lukesteele4 The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The flag above the Houses of Parliament in London flies at half mast the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn A forensics tent on Westminster Bridge seen from Victoria Embankment in London the day after a terrorist attack Jonathan Brady/PA Police officers walk accross Westminster Bridge the morning after an attack by a man driving a car and weilding a knife Darren Staples/Reuters Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster Stefan Rousseau/PA A knife on the cobbles at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood (centre) helps emergency services attend to a police officer outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA A man lies injured after a shooting incident on Westminster Bridge in London Toby Melville/Reuters Injured people are assisted after an incident on Westminster Bridge Toby Melville/Reuters Police secure the area on the south side of Westminster Bridge close to the Houses of Parliament in London Matt Dunham/AP An armed police officer runs accross the road during an incident on Westminster Bridge in London Toby Melville/Reuters A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament Carl Court/Getty Images A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament Carl Court/Getty Images The scene outside the Houses of Parliament The area around Westminster was put on immediate lockdown BBC Police outside the Palace of Westminster, London Victoria Jones/PA Westminster Bridge Theresa May during Prime Minister's Questions before the incident PA A police officer stops traffic as the Jagaur car of British Prime Minister Theresa May is driven away Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images A image of armed police inside Parliament @BarryGardiner Emergency services close to the Palace of Westminster, London Yui Mok/PA Police close to the Palace of Westminster, London Victoria Jones/PA Wire Police close to the Palace of Westminster, London Yui Mok/PA An Air Ambulance outside the Palace of Westminster Victoria Jones/PA Emergency personnel close to the Palace of Westminster Yui Mok/PA Police forensic officers on Westminster Bridge, close to the Palace of Westminster Dominic Lipinski/PA People remain in pods on the London Eye after it was stopped Jonathan Brady/PA Mark Rowley, Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations in the Metropolitan Police, speaking outside Scotland Yard in London Victoria Jones/PA Westminster Bridge BBC Emergency services make their way down the river Jack Taylor/Getty Images Members of the public wait at locked doors outside St Thomas' hospital Carl Court/Getty Images

Mr Rowley said: "We remain keen to hear from anyone who knew Khalid Masood well, understands who his associates were, and can provide us with information about places he has recently visited.

Masood was known to police and MI5 but was not implicated in any current probe.

He had convictions for assaults, including grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.

Masood's victims on the bridge included US tourist Kurt Cochran and his wife Melissa, from Utah, who were on the last day of a trip celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. Mr Cochran was killed and Mrs Cochran was badly injured.



Additional reporting from Press Association.
T wo people were stabbed in a subway underneath a busy road in north-west London, police say.

Officers were called to reports of a man carrying a knife in Church Road, Northolt shortly after 7pm on Friday, March 24.

Police and London Ambulance Service paramedics arrived to find a 16-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man suffering stab wounds.

Both were rushed to a central London hospital. Their injuries are not life-threatening, officers have confirmed.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: At this early stage, it is believed that the incident took place in the subway underneath the White Hart roundabout, and involved a large group of males. Enquiries continue.

No arrests have been made.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Ealing CID on 0208 721 7045.
New Delhi, Mar 25 (IBNS): BJP National President Amit Shah will address a rally in Delhi's Ramlila Maidan on Saturday, ahead of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) polls.

Shah will be joined by union minister MV Naidu as the rally is expected to draw a big crowd. .

"The corporation elections are an opportunity for Delhi voters to give mandate against the AAP government, which is involved in corruption, nepotism and has stalled development work," The Times Of India quoted BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe as saying.

Sahasrabuddhe is also in charge of the civic election management committee.
P olice have urged witnesses to come forward after a student was stabbed in the chest outside a college in north-west London.

Officers were called to Denzil Road in Brent to reports of a stabbing at 10.45am on Wednesday, March 15.

Paramedics and police arrived to find the 19-year-old suffering a knife wound near the Willesden campus of the College of North West London.

He was rushed to a central London hospital. The victims injuries were not life threatening or life changing.

An 18-year-old man was charged with grievous bodily harm on Thursday.

A spokesman for the further education college, which specialises in vocational courses for students aged over 16, said: "The victim was taken to a central London hospital. His injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

"The police have confirmed that the injured person is a student of the college and we are providing every assistance we can to the police."

Detectives want to speak to anyone who witnessed the attack or has information that may assist their investigation.

They are keen to speak to anyone who may have seen a knife around the Denzil Road area since Wednesday.

Anyone who witnessed the stabbing or has any information is asked to contact detectives at Wembley CID on 020 87333 756, or 101 or via Twitter @MetCC.

Alternatively, you can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
S cotland Yard has deployed bombproof armoured vehicles on the streets of London after the Westminster terror attack.

In a major show of strength by the Metropolitan Police, two of the force's 13 Jankel Guardians were parked in Parliament Square.

The vehicles, built in Surrey, are considered "military spec" and cost 128,000.

They were bought by the Met for use in several units including riot control and firearms, and are aimed at helping combat terrorism, gun violence and hijackings.

Show of strength: Two Jankel Guardians with Parliament in the background / AFP/Getty Images

Their appearance in the capital came as the number of armed police in London and other major cities across the UK was stepped up.

Scotland Yard's anti-terror chief Mark Rowley said: "The police service will sustain an enhanced armed and unarmed presence over the next few days.

Tributes for Westminster & Parliament Attack 1 /26 Tributes for Westminster & Parliament Attack A police officer places flowers and a photo of Pc Keith Palmer on Whitehall near the Houses of Parliament in London Dominic Lipinski/PA A floral tribute to the victims of yesterday's terror attack is left at the security cordon near Westminster Abbey in central London Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Metropolitan Police in a minute's silence at New Scotland Yard Sky News A minute's silence is observed outside New Scotland Yard in London to pay respect to the victims of yesterday's terror attack in Westminster Jonathan Brady/PA MP's in a minute's silence at the House of Commons BBC Conservative MP James Cleverly pays an emotional tribute to his friend Pc Keith Palmer, telling the Commons he was a "strong, professional public servant". PA The flag above the Houses of Parliament in London flies at half mast the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn People leave flowers at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge in London Hannah McKay/Reuters Flowers outside the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London Gareth Fuller/PA Flowers at the Police Memorial after yesterday's terror attack on the Houses of Parliament in Westminste Alex Lentati Cressida Dick in a minute silence today at New Scotland Yard for Westminster terror victims Jeremy Selwyn A bunch of roses is layed at the Metropolitan Police headquarters at New Scotland Yard in central London Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Flowers arrive in Westminster the day after the attack Jeremy Selwyn The Union Flag on Portcullis House flies at half mast following yesterday's attack Carl Court/Getty Images Flowers are laid at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge in London Hannah McKay/Reuters Terror attack: Flowers placed below a police cordon on Westminster Bridge Hannah McKay/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London Richard Pohle/The Times/PA Flowers are laid at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge in London Hannah McKay/Reuters Two policemen stand guard at a cordoned off area on the way to the Houses of Parliament in central London Matt Dunham/AP The royal standard at full mast above Buckingham Palace in London the day after a terrorist attack Jonathan Brady/PA

London, and the UK, are open for business, and we are out there in greater numbers to make sure that the public see a highly visible presence to help reassure them as they go about their daily lives.

Four people were killed by Khalid Masood before the terrorist was shot dead by police in Wednesday's horrific attack.
T housands of demonstrators are expected to join an anti-Brexit march in Westminster on Saturday, days after knife-wielding terrorist Khalid Masood attacked the heart of British democracy.

The Unite for Europe march will end with a rally in Parliament Square, the scene of floral tributes to victims of Wednesday's outrage, where Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron will insist "democracy continues".

Mr Farron is expected to say: "The unspeakable outrage that happened in this city on Wednesday will not defeat us, or silence us or divide us.

"Democracy continues, free speech continues, our way of life continues. Terrorism will not win."

Organisers announced on Thursday that the march would go ahead after talks with the police and Greater London Authority.

Between 25,000 and 100,000 demonstrators are estimated to attend, joining calls for Britain to remain in the European Union - just days before Theresa May triggers Article 50 to begin the exit process on March 29.

Anti-Brexit 'March for Europe' protest 1 /13 Anti-Brexit 'March for Europe' protest Organiser estimated up to 30,000 people attended the central London rally PA Thousands parade through the streets of the capital for the anti-Brexit march PA Pro-EU protesters painted their faces in the colours of the union's flag PA Demonstrators held placards expressing their support for the European Union PA Some placards were more imaginative than others PA Bob Geldof was among famous faces to address demonstrators at Parliament Square PA Lib Dem leader Tim Farron also addressed crowds during the rally Getty The route from Hyde Park to Westminster passed major London landmarks including Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square Getty/AFP Demonstrators attached an EU balloon to the statue of Winston Churchill outside Parliament PA Some demonstrators had digs at the politicians behind the UK's Leave campaign, including now Tory leadership hopeful Michael Gove PA

Organisers said in a statement: "We will not be intimidated. We will stand in unity and solidarity. We will march on the heart of our democracy and reclaim our streets in honour and respect of those that fell.

"We will be observing a minute of silence and remembrance at the start of the rally. We would encourage all attendees to bring with them some symbol of respect and to act in the appropriate fashion on the day."

Mr Farron will use the rally to renew his call for a second referendum to "change the direction of our nation".

"The choice is who should decide the final deal," he is expected to say.

"Should it be politicians or the people? The Liberal Democrats say the people.

Theresa May pledges prosperity to whole of UK

"We can turn the tide of populism and we can change the direction of our nation - liberals and progressives can and will win again.

"I am not prepared to accept that our country is inevitably to become meaner, smaller, poorer. If you believe in democracy then you accept defeat with good grace...and you keep on campaigning for a better Britain.

"Our job is to win hearts and minds over these coming months, to win support for a referendum on the deal, to change the direction of the debate and to change the direction of our country."

Lib Dem former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, Labour MP David Lammy and Green co-leader Jonathan Bartley are also expected to address the rally.
T he 75-year-old man killed in the Westminster terror attack was the former window cleaner of Winston Churchill, friends have revealed.

Leslie Rhodes, from south London, died a day after being seriously injured when terrorist Khalid Masood mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge.

He had been attending an appointment at St Thomass Hospital when Masood went on a rampage  killing four and injuring 50.

He suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung in the attack. He died after falling into a coma.

Westminster floral tributes 1 /9 Westminster floral tributes Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS Floral tributes were left by well-wishers in Westminster REUTERS

Friends of Mr Rhodes today told how he was a kind and gentle man who had worked as a window cleaner in Croydon for 20 years.

They said that he had been proud that one of his long-term clients had been the former Prime Minister.

Westminster terror attack claims fourth innocent victim

A client and friend of his Janine Roebuck told MailOnline: Les was my much loved window cleaner for 20 years.

You couldn't wish to meet a kinder, gentler man. He cleaned the windows of Chartwell - Winston Churchill's home - for many years.

Killer: Masood / Metropolitan Police

It was something he was so proud of.

Mrs Roebuck said that Mr Rhodes would still clean the windows of former clients and friends, despite being retired.

London attack: Trafalgar Square vigil 1 /21 London attack: Trafalgar Square vigil Trafalgar Square vigil People light candles at a vigil in Trafalgar Square the day after an attack Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Trafalgar Square vigil Londoners light candles as they gather for a vigil in Trafalgar Square Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA Trafalgar Square vigil A woman holds up a sign at a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil A tribute at a vigil in Trafalgar Square for the victims of Wednesday's attack Lucy Young Trafalgar Square vigil People attend a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack at Trafalgar Square Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil People light candles at a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil People hold up signs at a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil People attend a vigil in Trafalgar Square the day after an attack Darren Staples/Reuters Trafalgar Square vigil Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey at the candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square Yui Mok/PA Trafalgar Square vigil Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey at the candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square Yui Mok/PA Trafalgar Square vigil Londoners gather for a vigil in Trafalgar Square Andy Rain/EPA Trafalgar Square vigil Crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square Amy Ashenden Trafalgar Square vigil A few people were left paying their respects late in the evening after the crowds had dispersed from Trafalgar Square following a vigil Lucy Young Floral tributes are seen in Westminster the day after an attack in London REUTERS Candles burn on Westminster Bridge the day after an attack in London Darren Staples/Reuters Trafalgar Square vigil A woman reacts at a vigil in Trafalgar Square the day after an attack Hannah McKay/Reuters

He was retired but would still do a few favours for people I suppose. He was more of a friend.

Speaking of his death, she said: It's tragic. I'm very sorrowful not to see him again and that such a sweet soul met such a horrible death.

Victim: Kurt Cochran

He was a very gentle and shy person. He was warm and always smiling and it was a joy to see him on a monthly basis.

He was a gentleman in every sense of the word.

Victim: PC Palmer posing with tourists / Will Robins/Tyler Chapperley-Russell

Mr Rhodes is said to have moved to Clapham in the 1970s but had never married or had children of his own.

His neighbours and friends were at his bedside at the time of his death.

Victim: Aysha Frade, 43, was also killed / Facebook

As well as Mr Rhodes, Masood killed American tourist Kurt Cochran, Spanish mother-of-two Aysha Frade and PC Keith Palmer  whom he stabbed at the gates of Parliament.
P olice are calling for an east London banquet hall to be permanently shut down after a young man was shot and stabbed in front of horrified partygoers.

Officers are demanding the closure of the upmarket Praba Banqueting Suite in Ilford over concerns over "gang-related issues" there.

Police and paramedics descended on the venue after the 22-year-old victim was shot and stabbed during a 21st birthday party in the early hours of February 5.

One witness described the scene as a "war zone". The victim was rushed to hospital with serious injuries, Scotland Yard said.

The scene outside Praba Banqueting Suite in Ilford after the shooting

Police said they have already received several other calls to the venue this year and have concerns over serious crime and disorder.

In a report to Redbridge Council, PC Ian Taylor said: Since the venue came under new ownership in 2016, police have become increasingly concerned with the manner in which the premises are run.

In recent weeks the venue has been the subject of information indicating that the venue is attracting gang related issues from other parts of London.

The venue was forced to surrender its licence last month following the shooting.

Its owners Praba Banqueting Limited are due before Redbridge Council's licensing committee next week.

The company has applied to transfer the licence to a different company but police want the venue shut down altogether.

In a letter to the sub-committee, PC Taylor said: Police have held meetings with the owners of the venue giving advice and impressing upon them their responsibilities as owners.

This advice, police believe, has gone unheeded leading to an event being booked at the venue which has resulted in serious crime and disorder, an investigation into attempted murder, a threat to public safety and public nuisance.

The scene of the shooting in Ilford

He added police have little faith that the current owners are running the venue acceptably and said that repeated advice from police licensing officers appeared to have gone "unheeded.

PC Taylor said: Police are objecting to the premises licence being transferred to the new owners as based on our dealing with them to date.

Police have concerns and doubt the premises would be operated in a fit and proper manner.

A spokeswoman for Redbridge Council said: Redbridge Council has received an application to transfer a licensing act of 2003 licence to a third party.

The letter included in the committee papers from PC Ian Taylor outlines the police objection to the transfer taking place.

The licensing sub committee on March 29 will hear evidence from the Metropolitan Police under the crime and disorder licensing objective and determine if the transfer can take place.

The Standard has contacted Praba Banqueting Suite for a comment.
S ecurity fears have been raised after it emerged that the gate of Parliament were left unmanned and open in the immediate wake of Wednesday's terror attack.

The footage, captured by The Times, shows the aftermath of the assault on New Palace Yard in which PC Keith Palmer was stabbed to death.

As armed officers swarm the forecourt, having shot dead terrorist Khalid Masood, the imposing iron gate that allows vehicles to enter can be seen wide open.

No police officers are visible guarding the entry point, known as Carriage Gates, fuelling concern the attack might have been worse had Masood been followed by accomplices.

Attack at Parliament, March 22, 2017 1 /48 Attack at Parliament, March 22, 2017 A policeman points a gun at a man on the floor as emergency services attend the scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminste PA The scene of the incident @Lukesteele4 The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The flag above the Houses of Parliament in London flies at half mast the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn A forensics tent on Westminster Bridge seen from Victoria Embankment in London the day after a terrorist attack Jonathan Brady/PA Police officers walk accross Westminster Bridge the morning after an attack by a man driving a car and weilding a knife Darren Staples/Reuters Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster Stefan Rousseau/PA A knife on the cobbles at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood (centre) helps emergency services attend to a police officer outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA A man lies injured after a shooting incident on Westminster Bridge in London Toby Melville/Reuters Injured people are assisted after an incident on Westminster Bridge Toby Melville/Reuters Police secure the area on the south side of Westminster Bridge close to the Houses of Parliament in London Matt Dunham/AP An armed police officer runs accross the road during an incident on Westminster Bridge in London Toby Melville/Reuters A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament Carl Court/Getty Images A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament Carl Court/Getty Images The scene outside the Houses of Parliament The area around Westminster was put on immediate lockdown BBC Police outside the Palace of Westminster, London Victoria Jones/PA Westminster Bridge Theresa May during Prime Minister's Questions before the incident PA A police officer stops traffic as the Jagaur car of British Prime Minister Theresa May is driven away Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images A image of armed police inside Parliament @BarryGardiner Emergency services close to the Palace of Westminster, London Yui Mok/PA Police close to the Palace of Westminster, London Victoria Jones/PA Wire Police close to the Palace of Westminster, London Yui Mok/PA An Air Ambulance outside the Palace of Westminster Victoria Jones/PA Emergency personnel close to the Palace of Westminster Yui Mok/PA Police forensic officers on Westminster Bridge, close to the Palace of Westminster Dominic Lipinski/PA People remain in pods on the London Eye after it was stopped Jonathan Brady/PA Mark Rowley, Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations in the Metropolitan Police, speaking outside Scotland Yard in London Victoria Jones/PA Westminster Bridge BBC Emergency services make their way down the river Jack Taylor/Getty Images Members of the public wait at locked doors outside St Thomas' hospital Carl Court/Getty Images

Pedestrians are shown walking past and at one stage a courier on a moped appears to enter unchallenged.

Yards away, separate footage showed Theresa May being rushed from the building and into a waiting car.

Although the gate was open for a matter of minutes, critics will use the brief security lapse to rebuke claims on Friday by Scotland Yard's anti-terror chief that current arrangements were "proportionate".

Mark Rowley said that procedures for guarding Parliament had been designed so they were not "overly intrusive".

Westminster attack: Final picture of Pc Keith Palmer emerges

"Our current arrangements have been developed with Parliament over many years and are designed to provide access to the seat of our government balanced with security that is proportionate but not overly intrusive," he said.

Parliament's main entrance has two sets of large metal gates allowing vehicles to go in and out of the estate and they have traditionally been left open during the day.

A pair of smaller, makeshift gates was introduced more recently with two police officers at each to check passes and allow cyclists, cars and delivery drivers to come and go.

Just inside the entrance gate, armed police are usually present and an unarmed officer sits in a booth by the exit.

Electronic ramps are depressed and barriers lifted further into the courtyard after passes are checked using handheld machines which flash up with a picture of the passholder.

More police, some armed, are usually present after the final checkpoint.

Wednesdays murderous rampage at Westminster left five people dead, including the attacker. Many more were injured.
D ouglas Carswell has quit Ukip to leave the Eurosceptic party without a single MP.

The representative for Clacton in Essex said he would remain his seat as an independent.

Mr Carswell said: Like many of you, I switched to UKIP because I desperately wanted us to leave the EU. Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving UKIP."

He hailed the "extraordinary achievement" of pulling Britain out of the EU, and said: "By April 2019, Britain will no longer be a member of the EU. After twenty-four years, we have done it. Brexit is in good hands."

Mr Carswell added: "I will not be switching parties, nor crossing the floor to the Conservatives, so do not need to call a by election, as I did when switching from the Conservatives to UKIP. I will simply be the Member of Parliament for Clacton, sitting as an independent.

Rocky relationship: Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell (Picture: Jeremy Selwyn) / JEREMY SELWYN

"I will leave UKIP amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won."

It comes after a public spat in which Ukips former leader Nigel Farage accused Mr Carswell of "working with his Tory friends" to undermine the party.

Mr Carswell was first elected in 2005, and defected from the Conservatives to Ukip in 2014, triggering a by-election.

His announcement of his decision to leave Ukip pointedly did not include any reference to Mr Farage, with whom he has endured a rocky relationship, or current leader Paul Nuttall.

Instead, hailing the role of grassroots volunteers, he said: "UKIP might not have managed to win many seats in Parliament, but in a way we are the most successful political party in Britain ever. We have achieved what we were established to do  and in doing so we have changed the course of our country's history for the better.

"Make no mistake; we would not be leaving the EU if it was not for UKIP  and for those remarkable people who founded, supported and sustained our party over that period."
T esco is to leave shopping trolleys at its biggest stores unlocked when the new 1 coin launches.

The supermarket giant said work was being carried out to change the locks on its trolleys, which will not currently accept the new 12-sided coins.

Other supermarkets including Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's have said their trolleys accept both the old coins and the new ones, which launch on Tuesday.

Of the 3,500 UK Tesco branches, fewer than 200 have trolleys which require a coin or keyring token to use them.

Harder to fake: The new 1 coin to be in circulation in 2017

A Tesco spokesman told the BBC: "We're replacing the locks on our trolleys to accept old and new pound coins as well as existing trolley tokens."

The spokesman told the BBC that staff would ensure trolleys were returned to their parks.

The old round pound coin is set to be phased out completely by October 15.
T wo teenage boys have been found dead at the bottom of a cliff.

The bodies of two 17-year-olds were discovered by police at Huntcliff in Saltburn at about 7pm on Friday.

A spokesman for Cleveland Police told the BBC: "Inquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances of exactly what happened."

Police added that the two boys' families were being supported by specialist officers.

The coastguard was also called to the scene.
D onald Trump has been forced to withdraw a healthcare bill set to overhaul Obamacare after it failed to get enough support.

The President agreed to pull the vote after it became apparent it would not get the minimum Republican votes needed.

The last-minute U-turn is a huge setback for the President in a Congress controlled by his own party.

Repealing Obamacare legislation had been a key pledge in his 2016 election campaign.

Health reforms: US President Donald Trump pauses as he speaks from the Oval Office / AFP/Getty Images

He said the healthcare legislation he supported had been "very, very close" to getting enough support.

Speaking in the Oval Office after the setback, Mr Trump blamed Democratic opposition for the result.

He said: "We really had it. It was pretty much there, within grasp.

Crestfallen: House Speaker Paul Ryan announced the decision earlier today / AP

But I'll tell you what's going to come of it is a better bill...because there were things in this bill that I didn't particularly like. If both parties could get together and do real healthcare, that's the best thing.," he said.

Mr Trump also expressed confidence in House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was seen as the main backer of the legislation. Ryan personally delivered the news earlier in the day to Trump that there were not enough votes to pass it.

"I like Speaker Ryan. He worked very, very hard. He's got a lot of factions. And there's been a long history of liking and disliking, even within the Republican Party, long before I got here," he said. "I'm not going to speak badly about anybody within the party."

Earlier, Mr Ryan told reporters: "We are going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.

"I will not sugar coat this. This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard."

Trump has privately told confidants he wished he had done tax reform first instead of getting immersed in the difficult effort to overhaul President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, which passed without Republican support in 2010.

"We'll probably be going right now for tax reform," Trump said, saying he wanted "big tax cuts and tax reform. That will be next."

A recent poll on the publics view of Mr Trumps health reforms revealed just 17 per cent approved.
Guwahati, Mar 25 (IBNS): A recent statement reportedly made by NSCN (IM) General Secretary Thuingaleng Muivah at the NSCN (IM) headquarters Hebron on its 38th Republic Day, has triggered protests in Assam, according to media reports.

Muivah allegedly said that the Framework Agreement signed with the Union government on August 3, 2015 has recognised the outfit's demand for integration of all Naga inhabited areas in the north eastern region in the form of Greater Nagalim.



NSCN (IM) has demanded to form the Greater Nagalim by including the Naga inhabited areas of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur.



Following Muivah's alleged statement, several organizations in Assam, including All Assam Students Union (AASU), Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), and ATASA, protested against the Nagalim formation and demanded the Centre clear its stand over the Framework Agreement.



On Saturday, several organizations burnt effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, NSCN (IM) and protested against the creation of Nagalim.



AASU warned that nobody can take one inch of Assam's land and no sections outside of the state have rights to discuss about Assam's land issue.



AASU said that they want peace in Nagaland, but not at the cost of Assam's land.



The student organization also demanded that the Centre and the Assam government make the Framework Agreement public.



The Naga outfit has included parts of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivsagar, Charaideo, Jorhat, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao and Nagaon districts in their proposed Nagalim map.



In his statement, Muivah allegedly said, "NSCN embarks upon negotiation in accordance with the mandate of the people. NSCN has had consultative meetings with the people on talks consecutively for eight times. As our national movement is principle-based so our fighting and negotiation are also principle-based and that solution has to be principle-based."



"The historic Framework Agreement recognizes the unique history, the identity, the sovereignty, the territories of the Nagas. It also recognizes the legitimate right of the Nagas to integration of all Naga territories. It also says co-existence of the two entities and share-sovereignty of the two entities'. The agreement does not betray the principle. It is one of the strong foundations for amicable solutions for the Nagas at this given point of time, rejection of which will take the Nagas back to far behind of others. The Framework Agreement will safeguard the present and the future of the Nagas," Muivah said.



The Naga outfit also included 80 percent of Manipur and huge parts of Arunachal Pradesh in their proposed Nagalim.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
A firefighter brought a dog back from the dead after he pulled it from a burning building and revived it using "mouth to snout resuscitation".

Andrew Klein, of the Santa Monica fire department, California, found the ten-year-old bichon frise and shih tzu cross unconscious as he searched the burning flat on Tuesday, March 21.

Overcome by heat and smoke, the dog was totally lifeless, Mr Klein said.

I picked him up and ran out of the apartment because time is key, especially with a small dog.

Kiss of life: Firefighter pulls lifeless dog from burning building before reviving it with CPR / Santa Monica Fire Department

He brought the little white dog, named Nalu, out of the building and laid him on a patch of grass.

Images posted online show the firefighter begin to resuscitate the pet before attaching an oxygen mask to Nalu.

Christina Lamirande, the dogs owner, was tearful as she was sure Nalu was dead.

But after 20 minutes the dog began breathing on his own and regained consciousness.

In statement, Santa Monica fire department said: After 20 minutes, the dog began breathing on its own and regained consciousness, even regaining the ability to walk around.

With the help of caring neighbours, a local animal hospital was found and the pet was transferred for further care.
I talian justice officials are investigating after a man was found not guilty of sexual assault because the woman did not scream.

The accuser had said her colleague had forced her into sexual acts but a court in Turin granted him an acquittal because it deemed her saying enough was not a strong enough reaction.

Following the controversial ruling, which sparked outrage across Italy, the woman is facing charges for slander.

According to the BBC, the female hospital worker said the defendant had forced her into sexual acts and threatened to stop providing her with work if she did not comply.

When she was questioned about why she had not responded to the advances more strongly, she said: "Sometimes saying no is enough but maybe I did not use the force and violence that in reality I should have used, but that is because with people who are too strong, I just freeze."

The court heard that the women had been a victim of repeated abuse as a child by her father.

But the judge said she had "betrayed the emotion that a violation of her person had to inspire in her.

They described her account as "unlikely" and said the assault  which she alleges took place in 2011 - "did not exist.

Italian Justice Minister Andrea Orlando has now launched an investigation into the case.


S everal people have been left injured following a shooting near a Metro station in Lille, according to reports.

Local media reported at least three people had been hurt in the attack, including a 14-year-old boy.

The teen was said to have been blasted in the leg during the shooting.

Photos from the scene showed armed police in the city centre.

However, despite early fears of a terror alert, local media reported it appeared to have been a gang-related incident.

According to French reports, several shots were fired near the Porte d'Arras metro station at around 9.50pm.

Armed police sealed off roads in the surrounding area.

French news site La Voix Du Nord reported at least five shots had been fired.

None of the injuries are thought to be life-threatening, police said.
New Delhi, Mar 25 (IBNS) : BJP President Amita Shah on Saturday came down heavily on the Aam Aadmi Party, saying corruption has flourished in Delhi under the Arvind Kejriwal Government rule. y.

"Corruption has flourished in Delhi under Aam Aadmi Party," he said while while addressing a campaign rally for the Delhi Municipal Corporation polls.

"No other party has done as much corruption as AAP did during their tenure in Delhi. Not one of two but 13 legislators of the AAP have been booked for criminal cases ever since AAP won elections in Delhi," Shah said.

Shah said BJP's development agenda helped it win most of the recent Assembly elections in five states and it holds the same promise for Delhi, where "nothing has been done."

"I urge our party workers to put their hearts into ensuring a victory for the party in the MCD polls. It is not just a battle to win the corporation, but a step towards rooting out the Aam Aadmi Party in all future elections," he said.
Washington/Dhaka, Mar 25 (IBNS|): The US has urged its citizens to be vigilant during their visit to Bangladesh.

"Please review your personal security plans, remain aware of your surroundings, including local events, and monitor local news stations for updates. Be vigilant and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security," the US Embassy in Dhaka said in a statement.

The warning was issued following a suicide attack that was carried out on a police check post at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport intersection in Dhaka.

At least one person has been killed in the incident which occurred on Friday.

He was reportedly the attacker.

Donald Trump's Image: twitter.com/POTUS
Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon

Today, a small number of Republicans and one hundred percent of the Democrats torpedoed this legislation, meaning that the disaster created by Obamacare will be here for the indefinite future. The real losers in this are the small business owners, self-employed, and the family farmers who pay their own premiums. Many of these hardworking taxpayers pay over $20,000 a year in premiums with deductibles frequently over $10,000.

"We are also seeing more and more women who purchase their own insurance having to pay for the full cost of pre-natal care and for the delivery of their babies because of these very same high deductibles. Unfortunately, we will continue to hear more about companies who wont expand because of the employer mandates, and we will see more and more low income earners who are only offered part-time jobs. The Republicans campaigned on fixing this, and I worked my hardest to do so.

"I remain committed to those who are hurting because of Obamacare. We had an opportunity to fix our broken healthcare while retaining pre-existing conditions coverage, no healthcare caps, and the ability to cover our children through the age of 26. My goals remain the same.

"In the weeks and months ahead, Congress will work on tax reform, border security and immigration, and infrastructure improvements. While doing so, I will remain steadfast in seeking solutions to fix Americas broken healthcare system.

Nebraska Rep. Jeff Fortenberry

I wish to thank the thousands of people who have contacted me, many with grave concerns about this legislation. Given the decision not to hold a vote on the American Health Care Act, I want to emphasize that the critical work on health care reform is not finished.

I am not interested in more of the same, not the same poor outcomes in our broken health care system, not the same stagnant Washington debates. The harsh reality is this: our current health care system helps some people, but hurts many others. That is not fair. We have to do better. To do nothing is unsustainable. To do nothing forgoes the opportunity to transform our health care system into something better. To do nothing forgoes an opportunity, perhaps permanently, to re-imagine this.

Among its problems, the American Health Care Act confused health care with tax reform, creating unnecessary tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Nevertheless, I remain committed to pursuing a better health care system for everyone in our nation. We must continue work to keep alive the hope of a much deeper, broader, necessary policy realignment to create a vibrant 21st century health care system that lowers costs, improves outcomes, and protects vulnerable persons.

Nebraska Rep. Adrian Smith

I am disappointed we could not take this first step toward repealing and replacing Obamacare. Too many Nebraskans are being harmed as Obamacare continues to fail, and I remain committed to doing everything I can in bringing people together, taking action, and delivering the relief we promised.

Iowa Rep. David Young

Too many times in history we have seen leaders make avoidable mistakes. Too many Americans have been suffering under the mistake made seven years ago when Obamacare was rushed through Congress and to President Obamas desk. It is a failed law that does not work for everyone and the problems and costs created by it are only going to get worse with each passing year.

"Great leaders know when to pause a journey down a path that isnt working and see the opportunity and optimism in starting over.

"Bottom line  we need laws that work for all Americans and for all patients  not just some. It is a fundamental principle that repeal, reforms and fixes to our healthcare are done in the right way, for the right reasons, and in the right amount of time it takes to ensure we avoid the mistakes of seven years ago.

"I applaud the President, House leadership and my Republican colleagues in taking the bold move to pause and begin anew with a thoughtful and deliberate process that takes the time and input to get this right to achieve accessible, affordable quality healthcare for every American.
New Delhi, Mar 25 (IBNS): Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said the Centre has chalked out a new roadmap to strengthen our border security.

Addressing the Passing Out Parade of the Assistant Commandants at the BSF Academy, Tekanpur in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh on Saturday, he said the Government plans to seal the International Borders with Bangladesh & Pakistan.



Rajnath Singh said the BSF has changed the rules of engagement at the International Borders and now BSF is a known Force even in the neighbouring countries. BSF has built 73 Border Out Posts (BOPs) out of 76 BOPs constructed in recent times, he added.

The Union Home Minister said we are planning for an effective grievances redressal mechanism in the forces.

He said the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) are coming forward with such mechanism.

Rajnath Singh praised the first BSF woman field officer, Tanu Shree Pareek who passed out from the academy today.



Congratulating the trainee officers on their successful completion of the tough training, the Union Home Minister called upon them to display courage in the face of professional challenges, compassion with the troops under command and integrity of highest order.

He wished them good luck and expressed confidence that the Trainee Officers will live up to the expectations of the Nation.

He also applauded the efforts put in by Director, BSF Academy and his team of dedicated instructors for molding and shaping competent officers from a civilian.

The ceremony concluded with BSF Band Show, Jaanbaaz Show, Dog Show and Bold Show. Several dignitaries including DG BSF, Senior BSF, Army and Police Officers graced the occasion.

The Union Home Minister said BSF is the only force after the Indian Army to operate on Land, Water and Air.

BSF is not only the 'First Line of Defence' but also the 'First Wall of Defence', he added. Paying homage to the BSF martyrs, Rajnath Singh said many BSF officers and jawans have laid down their lives in service to the nation.

Earlier, the Union Home Minister laid wreath at the 'Ajay Prahari' memorial in the BSF Academy.

The Passing Out Parade of BSF Assistant Commandants (Direct Entry) Batch No. 40 & Assistant Commandants (Limited Departmental Competitive Examination) Batch No. 10 was conducted at the Veerangana Lakshmibai Dikshant Prade Sthal in the BSF Academy today. A total of 67 Trainee Officers passed out after their basic training and all trainee officers were administered the Oath of allegiance to the Indian Constitution. Officer Trainee Tanu Shree Pareek, the first women officer inducted in the General Duty (GD) Stream of BSF, commanded the magnificent parade.




Floor debate on priority bills continued this week. A lot of time continues to be spent on the Choose Life license plate. This is a controversial issue and has generated a lot of debate and cloture votes. The Helmet Law Bill from Sen. Lowe of Kearney is also a controversial issue where debate went to a cloture vote. That failed by one vote which was disappointing. Sen. Lowe is a good senator. Like Senators do, he tirelessly promoted his bill with all the Senators of the body. I supported him. He had received promises from several who pledged to vote for cloture (stopping debate) and they changed their vote at the last minute. I am taking the time to explain this because I hear from folks all the time who tell me they dont like the political partisanship they see in our non-partisan legislature. I would urge folks to remember that integrity; being true to ones word, is far more important than political ideology. Lack of integrity causes far more problems in our Unicameral than any political party ever did and I am sad to report I see it every day.

My bill that would establish a two-year moratorium on commercial wind energy development in the Sandhills (LB 504) survived a kill motion and is now held in committee and will very likely stay there without any action for the rest of the session. The Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Dan Hughes (LD44) opposes the bill, and as long as he does, it will never come out of the committee to the floor of the legislature for debate. I would like to thank the many hundreds of my constituents in the 43rd District who took the time to come testify for the bill, and who have called and written letters and emails to the committee. Thank you for being Nebraskas 2nd House.

The Revenue Committee will meet in Executive Session very soon. My bill to put a four-year cap on property taxes beginning in 2019 (LB 576) will be on the agenda. I have worked closely with the eight members of the Revenue Committee and as I write this the vote is too close to call. We need five votes to advance the bill to general file. As I have said before, Nebraskans should not have to suffer future increases in property taxes while waiting for the legislature to fix this extremely complex problem. I would urge people interested in this bill to contact the members of the Revenue Committee, most especially the Chairman, Sen. Jim Smith (LD 14) and ask him to vote to advance the bill to general file.

I have two bills left to introduce:

LB 503. Stops the State from collecting union dues from employees.

Business & Labor Committee, 20 March at 1:30 p.m., room 2102.

LB 502. Implements Constitutional Carry for guns.

Judiciary Committee, 23 March at 1:30 p.m., Room 1113.

Ill be doing a Town Hall in the district this Saturday. Please join me at the Bunkhouse in Valentine at 8 a.m. on Saturday the 25th of March. Its at 109 East Highway 20.

I want to thank everyone who contacts my office letting us know where you stand on bills before the legislature. Please keep your calls and letters coming. Please contact the office if you would like to set up a time to visit with me, or you have any concerns about what is happening in YOUR legislature.
Nebraskas 2016 fall turkey hunters are encouraged to share their experiences with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission via a survey.

Hunters who provided an email address at the time they purchased a permit will receive an email invitation to participate in the survey. Those who did not provide an email address can take the survey at Game and Parks website.

The survey will ask hunters about their turkey harvest, as well as about their hunting experiences and efforts. Information obtained from the survey will be used to estimate statewide harvest, which is used to inform turkey management decisions. Other information obtained will be used to assess the quality of the turkey hunting experience.

New this year, successful hunters will be asked which sub-species of turkey, in their opinion, they harvested. This information will allow managers to determine the hunter-perceived distribution of turkey varieties in the state. It also will compliment ongoing genetics work to determine sub-species presence and distribution.

Hunters are encouraged to complete the survey whether their hunting experiences were successful or not. To participate in the survey, hunters who have not provided Game and Parks with an email address can, starting March 20, visit: OutdoorNebraska.gov/turkeyhuntersurvey. The survey will be available on the website for two weeks beginning March 20. Results of past surveys can also be viewed at: OutdoorNebraska.gov/wildturkey.

Finding the best waters

With nearly 450 lakes and streams open to public fishing, deciding where to fish in Nebraska can sometimes be challenging. Daryl Bauer, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission fisheries outreach program manager, has provided some useful tips for anglers on the agencys website.

A page on Game and Parks website lists the best waters to fish for specific species in 2017. It includes walleye, white bass, wiper, bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass, channel catfish, redear sunfish, smallmouth bass, blue catfish, flathead catfish, sauger, yellow perch, northern pike, bullhead, muskellunge, and trout.

From brook trout to flathead catfish, a variety of species of sunfish to the biggest, baddest predators, Nebraska offers anglers a tremendous variety of quality fishing opportunities, Bauer said.

To see the page, visit OutdoorNebraska.gov/fishing/.

Prairie chicken viewing program

The NCORPE project in cooperation with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has started a program on the NCORPE property to view wildlife, specifically greater prairie chickens.

The viewing blind is available Monday to Friday until April 28 as well as some Saturdays and Sundays.

Viewing sessions begin 1 hours before sunrise so viewers can get into the blind without disturbing the prairie chickens in their natural habitat. For more information and to schedule a viewing time, contact Bill Sellers at 308-534-6752 or at bsellers@urnrd.org.

NCORPE is an augmentation project in cooperation with the Upper Republican NRD, the Middle Republican NRD, the Lower Republican NRD and the Twin Platte NRD that ensures that river flow obligations are met in accordance with the Republican River Compact. NCORPE is restoring 16,000 acres back to native rangeland, which has led to a large increase in wildlife since NCORPE began. This new viewing area on the projects property is a chance for the wildlife to be on display for the public.

The opportunity to see wildlife up close and in person, instead of a picture in a book or maybe a written article, can a lot of times bridge the connection gap, said Bill Sellers, range manager at NCORPE.

The blind was donated from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and it sits on a lek, a place where male prairie chickens assemble to compete for females attraction, so viewers will have a front row seat to watch this display.

Make Fourth of July reservations

Campers eager to reserve spots in Iowa for the Fourth of July weekend should mark March 31 on their calendars, when reservations for a Friday arrival open.

Campers can make reservations for sites three months ahead of their first nights stay.

Electric sites go quickly, reminds Todd Coffelt, chief of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources state parks bureau. And some sites will already be reserved by campers arriving prior to the holiday weekend.

Not every campsite is available on the reservation system. Parks maintain between 25 and 50 percent of the electric and nonelectric sites as non-reservation sites, available for walk-up camping.

Information on Iowas state parks is available online at www.iowadnr.gov/stateparks including the link to reservations. Campers can also log on directly to http://iowastateparks.reserveamerica.com; enter their preferred dates and/or parks to see what sites are available and make a reservation.

Information sought on bald eagle shootings

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is looking for the person or persons responsible for shooting two bald eagles in Webster County.

People around here are outraged, said Bill Spece, state conservation officer with the Iowa DNR. Both eagles were shot with a similar caliber firearm and left for dead so it is possible that these cases are related.

Spece said the first bald eagle was an immature bird found two weeks ago by a person hunting shed deer antlers in the Boone Forks Wildlife Area, in southeast Webster County. The second bald eagle was a mature bird found Saturday near the sewage lagoons at Lehigh. The eagle was alive, but died shortly after being transported to a wildlife rehabilitator. It had been shot twice.

The eagles were found within 10 miles of each other.

We dont have much to go on so we are asking for the publics help to find those responsible, Spece said.

He said people with information on the case can use the Turn in Poachers (TIP) website at www.iowadnr.gov/tip, call the TIP hotline at 1-800-532-2020 or call him directly at 515-571-0127. Information can be left anonymously.

Bald eagles are a state and federally protected species.

Council Bluffs vehicle park to reopen April 1

River Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Park in Council Bluffs is scheduled to reopen for riding April 1.

The park was closed due to safety concerns over flood-damaged trees. Loggers recently completed work removing potentially hazardous trees and trails are now re-established.

We are very excited to get the park open again, DNR Park Ranger Aaron Johnson said. Weather-related events could cause us to remain temporarily closed, but otherwise we are good to go.

More than 80 volunteers recently helped with final clean-up and preparation for opening.

Some trails are still a little rough due to some ruts left from the logging operation, says Johnson, But most of the trails that existed prior to logging have been reopened.

Due to safety concerns and to sustain the work recently completed, Johnson reminds that riders cannot go off trail or make new trails.

River Valley is open to ATV, off-road motorcycles and side-by-sides that are 65 inches in width or less.

Riders must have their machines registered with their county recorders office or with an ELSI vendor for nonresident user permits. ELSI vendors can be found where hunting and fishing licenses are sold.

Riders who are ages 12 through 17 are required to have a valid ATV education certificate in their possession. Operators of side-by-sides must possess a valid drivers license.

For more information about park rules, go to www.dnriowa.gov/ohv

Celebration for osprey return

Volunteers from 12 osprey release sites, their families and key partners from Minnesota and Wisconsin will be recognized during a picnic celebrating the return of the fish hawks to Iowas landscape at Quarry Springs Park, in Colfax on May 20. The event is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Yankton chief Golden Eagle Elk will be the keynote speaker.

There were 24 nesting pairs of ospreys reported in Iowa last year. Since 2015 two nesting pairs of ospreys have fished from Quarry Springs waters.

Attendees may purchase a pulled pork or vegetarian catered box lunch for $10 or bring their own picnic. To order lunch, contact Pat Schlarbaum at 515-432-2823 ext. 104.

Calendar

TUESDAY

>> Learn to Hunt Spring Turkey workshop, Nebraska Game and Parks Outdoor Education Center, Lincoln

>> Learn to Hunt Spring Turkey workshop, Omaha Gun Club, Omaha

THURSDAY

>> Take a Walk in the Park Day, Lake Ogallala SRA, Ogallala

FRIDAY

>> Trapping seasons close for muskrat and beaver
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.
VATICAN CITY  He was a child prodigy who became one of the most famous artists in the world, and more than 6 million tourists come to see his work at the Vatican Museums every year.

Raphael Sanzio, better known simply as Raphael, covered the walls of the popes Vatican palace in ornate frescoes and filled the Sistine Chapel with tapestries modeled on his designs before he died in 1520 at the age of 37.

Now, for the first time, the legendary Renaissance painter and architect is being celebrated on screen in a 3D docudrama produced by the Vatican Museums and media partners Sky and Nexo Digital, with the backing of the Italian cultural ministry.

The movie may be the closest thing to standing in front of Raphaels works themselves.

It takes viewers behind the scenes into the popes private palace but re-creates moments of the artists life from the era in which he lived, 500 years ago. Some of the scenes were actually shot in the rooms where he painted his most famous fresco, The School of Athens, which features nearly all of the ancient Greek philosophers.

Titled Raphael  Prince of the Arts, the movie features Italian actor Flavio Parenti playing the role of Raphael while other actors portray Leonardo da Vinci and other leading artists of the era. The movie gives viewers a close look at more than 40 of Raphaels masterpieces.

At a media conference Tuesday inside a room at the Vatican Museums filled with huge tapestries that Raphael designed, Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, called the movie a perfect synthesis of art, technology and cinema.

The movie will be released in Italy in April and eventually shown in 60 countries, including the U.S., where a September release is planned. The movie re-creates the artists life from his childhood in the small town of Urbino to his triumph as one of Italys most beloved artists.

Raphael is buried inside the Pantheon in central Rome.

Antonio Paolucci, a former director of the Vatican Museums and one of the art historians featured in the movie, encouraged the media to take a look at Raphaels final work, The Transfiguration, which is featured in the movie.

This is the masterpiece of all masterpieces, Paolucci said. Before he lost consciousness, his final brush was on The Transfiguration. Nothing compares with it.
An Egyptian security official says ousted President Hosni Mubarak is back at home, free following his release from custody after legal proceedings that took years during which the country witnessed major upheavals.

The official says Mubarak left the Armed Forces hospital in Cairo's southern suburb of Maadi earlier in the morning on Friday and went to his house in the upscale district of Heliopolis under heavy security measures.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

Mubarak's lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, refused to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.

The 88-year-old Mubarak was acquitted by the country's top appeals court on March 2 of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 popular uprising that led to his ouster.
Kolkata/Malda, Mar 25 (IBNS): A massive storm, along with a heavy downpour, lashed few areas of West Bengal's Malda district on the wee hours of Saturday, killing at least two persons, including a child, and leaving several others injured.

According to reports, as many as six development block areas of Malda district were hit by the storm at around 5:30 am. and it continued for over 30 minutes.

With a wind speed of 70-80 kmph, the heavy storm destroyed several houses and damaged corps and fruits.

Malda District Magistrate (DM) Tanmoy Chakraborty told IBNS, "The massive storm mainly damaged houses, huts and corps at Bamongola, Habibpur, Gajol, Chanchol-II and Ratua-II block areas while few other blocks, including Chanchol-I, Ratua-I, Manikchak and English Bazar, were partly hit by the gust and shower."

"After the incident, rescue workers rushed to the affected areas and adequate succours were also sent there," Chakraborty added.

A senior official of Malda district police has confirmed that at least two persons were killed as mud-walls fell on them during the storm.

"Reports of two deaths due to storm have been reported so far while more than 25 persons were injured in the incident," the officer told IBNS.

"The deceased have been identified as Mukulesh Rehman (60) and nearly 9-year-old Manirul Islam, who were the residents of Gajol block's Majhra village and Dhangara Bishonpur village under Chanchol-II development block area respectively," the official further said.

Due to the heavy storm and rainfall, electricity and telecommunication systems were affected in the areas which has not been retrieved till the latest update came in.

A source said that over thousand people have become homeless as large number of mud-huts were flattened and roofs of several houses were blown away by powerful wind.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)


First in a five-part series about how all three branches of Missouri government helped prop up the Sheriffs' Retirement Fund by charging a court fee that many judges and legal scholars find unconstitutional.

Up until 2014, the Sheriffs Retirement Fund in Missouri was like many other public pensions in America, struggling to keep pace. But then something unusual happened.

After then-Attorney General Chris Koster issued a third opinion in less than two years that indicated the $3 court fee that funds the sheriffs pensions should be applied to municipal courts in the state, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed course.

The court had never applied the fund to municipal courts, and it had ignored two Koster opinions to the contrary. But in 2013, the court added the fee to charges municipal courts were to attach to traffic tickets and other cases facing Missourians, even though sheriffs played no role in the application of justice in municipal courts. The change applied to all municipal courts in the state except those in the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County.

The results were immediate.

Between 2012 and 2015, the Sheriffs Retirement Fund  which currently serves 122 retired sheriffs in the state  showed an increase of more than $10 million in assets.

Today, compared to most public employee pension funds, its flush with cash.

Its not a bad thing that sheriffs in the state, many of whom make relatively low wages in poor, rural counties, have a strong pension fund. But how that fund came to balance its books is a tale of intrigue that involves all three branches of Missouri government.

In the months before the nation would learn of municipal court abuses in Missouri because of unrest in Ferguson, the combination of pressure from key senators and the attorney generals office would lead the states top court to reverse course on a position that many of the states judges still believe was the proper one.

And it has created an ongoing dispute that now has dozens of municipal judges standing up against what they believe is the unconstitutional action of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Of the 608 cities, towns and villages in Missouri with a municipal court, as many as 362 of them may be refusing to add the $3 sheriffs fund surcharge to municipal court cases. And now, despite the financial strength of the pension fund, the Sheriffs Retirement System is asking for help to get them to pay up.

On March 6, C.F. Barnes, executive director of the retirement system, sent letters to circuit clerks in 102 Missouri counties, copying state Auditor Nicole Galloway on all of them, asking them to enforce the Missouri Supreme Courts August 2013 order that the $3 surcharge applies to municipal courts.

If the Sheriffs Retirement System wants a fight, its about to get one.

Most of the courts that arent collecting the fund have judges who have filed their own orders  called sua sponte orders, which argue that collecting the Sheriffs Retirement Fund surcharge is unconstitutional.

One of the cities that isnt collecting the fee is Nevada, Mo., where the municipal judge, Bryan Breckenridge, signed a sua sponte order on Aug. 26, 2013, ordering that the $3 fee not be charged in any municipal cases. If Breckenridges name sounds familiar, thats because he is married to Patricia Breckenridge, who is the chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court. Breckenridge sent me a copy of his order when I emailed to ask about the March 6 letter from Barnes.

It is still in place, the judge wrote.

This Court finds that the imposition of the Sheriffs Retirement Fund surcharge  would entail a sale of justice, Breckenridge wrote in his order.

The idea that unnecessary surcharges stand as an impediment to justice is one that has its origin in a document that existed long before Missouri was a state or the United States was a nation. Rooted in Article 40 of the Magna Carta, the English document that inspired much of todays modern American law, is the concept that the courts shall be open to all, that they shall not erect financial barriers that bar access to the court for poor people.

It is also an idea that is at the core of the municipal court reforms implemented by the Missouri Supreme Court last year after months of protest in Ferguson and north St. Louis County. Poor, black residents complained of being jailed because they couldnt afford increased costs in cities relying on court fees as a source of revenue.

In its various responses to Ferguson, the states high court worked to fix this problem, coming to the recognition that municipal courts were being used in some cases as revenue centers. All along, the court had its own secret.

Outside of St. Louis and St. Louis County, the court was involved in helping the Sheriffs Retirement Fund balance its books by violating the very principles inherent in its report requiring changes to municipal court rules.

At the heart of the scheme was a hearing in February 2013 in which former state Sen. Mike Parson, a southwest Missouri Republican who is now the lieutenant governor, threatened the court during a budget hearing that should have had nothing to do with the Sheriffs Retirement Fund. That former senator is also a former sheriff. He is a close friend of former Attorney General Koster, a Democrat, who issued the three opinions that ultimately led a skittish Supreme Court to flip its position in direct violation of its own case law interpreting the Missouri Constitution. Koster declined to comment for this series.

The result is a status quo that few in Missouri government want to talk about, because the truth could unravel a budget knot that will threaten more than a retired sheriffs pension. It calls into question the bedrock trust in the checks and balances built into Missouris government.

Thursday  More than sheriffs' pensions at stake.
ST. LOUIS  With the lowering of his glasses and slight nod of his head, Earnest Williams may arguably have been the most influential person in the city police department from his perch in the Sixth District for the past 40 years.

No matter the color of their shirt, or how many stripes or how much brass adorned it, commanders have looked to Mr. Williams, a man in blue, for his signature nod of approval or disapproval when making decisions.

Many of them he trained, and then quietly watched as they ascended the ranks or left for more prestigious careers in law enforcement.

More than 100 admirers packed into North Patrol headquarters Friday for Williams ceremonial final roll call. Some of them ribbed Williams by imitating his nods or his famous grunts and gestures instructing them on how reports should be filled out.

He had his own sign language, said Lt. Dan Zarrick, who led the nearly hourlong gathering.

The crowd included city, federal and county law enforcement officers, business leaders and politicians. Among them were Lt. Col. Jerry Leyshock, Lt. Col. Ronnie Robinson and former Lt. Col. Al Adkins, of the St. Louis police; former Lt. Col. Roy Joachimstaler, now OFallon, Mo., chief of police; Alderman Sharon Tyus; and John Abrams, president of the North Patrol Police and Business Partnership.

Williams, 62, was one of nine children in a family originally from Mississippi who grew up in Normandy. He graduated from the police academy in December 1976. He said the stability of a career as a first responder attracted him.

His job required that he live in the city. He ultimately settled in a neighborhood in the Sixth District, in the north part of the city. He still lives there today.

The department had about 2,200 officers when he joined. His annual salary was between $11,000 and $12,000. He was given a night stick and an assignment: the Sixth District. He drove a Nova on patrol and remembers when cruisers didnt even have police radios.

Back then it was known as the retirement district, Williams recalled about the Sixth District during an interview Wednesday. Everybody that was close to retirement wanted to come out here because it was quiet.

Now, the department is about half the size. Night sticks have been replaced by Tasers. Computers and radios are part of everyday life. And the retirement district has turned into the citys busiest when it comes to calls for service and crime.

Despite his calm, quiet demeanor, Williams has seen his fair share of violence. He even shot a man while on duty the 1990s.

Also during the early 1990s, Williams spent about four years detached to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Otherwise, hes been a patrolman.

He said he applied for promotions, but didnt get them. Politics, he said, lowering his glasses to emphasize the point.

So, in the Sixth District he remained and on patrol.

Eight police chiefs have reigned throughout his tenure.

Williams has worked about 11,000 days. Written 8,000 police reports. Responded to 80,000 calls for service. And eaten about 100,000 free meals, Zarrick joked.

Williams dined with residents who would invite him to stay for a meal after an encounter. And he would break the tension with someone in a restaurant who looked at his uniform with disgust by sitting with them to share a meal, said Capt. Janice Bockstruck.

Getting to know the community outside of a crisis is what Bockstruck and others believe helped Williams survive for 40 years in the tumultuous district.

When you interact with the community not on a call, you realize the community does love us and if you dont take that time you will never make it, she said.

Bockstruck noted that a sign that hung above the door to the North Patrol station read Home of the Real Police.

It means you have dedication, loyalty and love not only your fellow officer but the community as well, she said. Mr. Williams is the real police.

The elder statesman of the Sixth District also has had the same patrol car for years, whereas other officers typically use whatever vehicle is available, added Sgt. Michael Scego.

He earned it, he said. Everyone knows car 626 is Mr. Williams car.

Officer Joan Joann Glover Straughter reminded the crowd of another Williams creed: Be quick with the listening and slow with the speaking.

Department officials estimated that he instructed hundreds of officers since becoming a training officer in 1994. One was Robin OQuinn, now an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

A lot of the run-and-gun officers dont give you time to take your training wheels off, but he would make sure you got the fundamentals down first. He was a paperwork and community-oriented officer, OQuinn said. There is not an inch of this district that doesnt know Mr. Williams.

Williams lowered his gold-rimmed glasses one last time before his final roll call ended with a gesture that reminded those in the room of one of the basic tenets about thorough report writing and command presence that he instilled on his trainees. That is, that taking notes could calm a chaotic scene and help an officer recall information later, instead of running the risk of filling in gaps with inaccurate information.

He pulled out a small notebook and pen from his suit pocket, held them in front of him, looked at the crowd and nodded.

Everyone knew what it meant.

And he didnt have to say a word.
ST. LOUIS  A 5-year-old girl and a woman in her 20s were taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds after an incident in the 3100 block of Mount Pleasant Street on the city's South Side Saturday afternoon, police said.

The girl was shot in the shoulder and the woman in the leg.

Police said both were conscious and breathing but no further details were immediately released on their condition and on how the shooting occurred. The incident took place about 3:20 p.m., police said.
Had someone not suffered a dislocated hip before dawn one recent morning, a baby who had nothing to do with it might have died 2 miles away.

It is a tiny twist in a story full of big ones that continues to unfold in the strange case of Cristy and Justin Campbell of Glen Carbon.

She apparently shot her former husband to death at their burning house before dawn March 16 and fled with their newborn son in an SUV as their other six children escaped. Lots of details remain unclear.

But this part begins 18 miles away, with the dislocated-hip call to the Highland Fire Department. It drew one of the two ambulances on duty to a street near that citys downtown. The EMS crew then called for help in lifting the patient.

That roused paramedics Todd Zobrist and Ty Barr, who had been asleep with about 90 minutes to go until the 7 a.m. shift change. Their 22  hours on duty had been ordinary, so far.

Zobrist, 31, is a hometown boy with the Swiss surname to prove it. Highland is big on its Swiss heritage. Zobrist, an Army veteran of Iraq, is big on physical fitness.

Hes been training for a triathlon  an endurance contest of running, biking and swimming. His least favorite part is swimming, Zobrist told me while describing that nights twists and turns.

The men werent even out of the big red-and-white ambulance at the lift assist address when they heard urgency in the radio dispatchers voice. Everybody  EMS, fire, police  was needed at Silver Lake for a vehicle in the water.

The medics wondered how someone got past the steel guard rail that lines Illinois Route 143 as it crosses the lakes dam. Zobrist emptied his pockets as he drove, figuring he might have to wade to a car near the bank. It would be a challenge in the dark, with the temperature below freezing.

The medics were amazed to find an SUV maybe 100 feet out in the lake, submerged within a foot of the roof, with its headlights shining underwater and windshield wipers slapping up small waves.

Zobrist joined Highland police Officer Shawn Bland on a boat dock. Neither could see anyone in the water. Volunteer firefighters would be coming with a boat and rescue suits, but when?

Despite a protocol to wait for special gear, Zobrist stripped to his pants and waded out. Slowed by the muddy bottom, he swam most of the 75-foot gap.

Leaning down from the SUVs roof, he expected to see an unconscious driver. The side window was open, or broken, but nobody was there  just a bluish-purple doll floating face-up. He snared a leg; it wasnt a doll.

Zobrist did CPR on the lifeless infant and looked for the boat. Shivering and losing muscle control, he figured neither he nor the child would last long. So he held up the victim and did a back stroke for shore.

He said that Barr, confident his partner could make it, stopped police Officer Heather Kunz from jumping in.

Kunz lifted her uniform shirt and held the baby to her bare skin to hasten warming as another officer drove the ambulance to nearby St. Josephs Hospital. Barr provided lifesaving care while a soaked, half-frozen Zobrist did what he could from under a blanket.

It was a team effort, Zobrist told me. Everybody played their role. If I hadnt gone in, somebody else would have.

He said the radio log showed they were on the scene just seven minutes. They never did see the boat. It turned out that a fire department vehicle, sent to tow it, had been delayed by a train.

Restored by warm IV fluids, Zobrist spent the rest of the day under blankets at home. He and his wife, Jessica, a paramedic in Breese, are parents of two young boys.

Cristy Campbell, who apparently had driven through a yard and into the water on purpose, was found dead of exposure and drowning in the lake several hours later. Court records show she had a long history of marital problems.

At a debriefing a week ago, Zobrist held Julian Campbell, 3 months old, for a less dramatic second time.

Strangers recognized Zobrist and Barr having breakfast at a restaurant on their next shift and paid the bill. Zobrist, who also is a volunteer firefighter in the separate Highland-Pierron district, said he appreciates their appreciation of first-responders.

People dont think about us until they need us to pull off some kind of miracle, he said. Im not saying, Buy our breakfast. But shake our hands.

Oh, so how did the dislocated hip save the child? Zobrist said if he and Barr had been asleep at the station instead of awake in a running ambulance, it would have delayed them by a minute or two that little Julian didnt have to spare.
Image: Official Twitter handle of Akhilesh Yadav

Lucknow, Mar 25 (IBNS): Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav attacked Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Aditynath over the latter's comment on age difference with the former, on Saturday, according to media reports.

Yogi Adityanath during an address in Lok Sabha recently said that Akhilesh is a year younger than him while Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was one-year older.

Former CM of UP took a jibe at Yogi and said: "Though he is older than me but much behind in doing work."

Akhilesh did not stop himself from attacking CM regarding the recent steps that the newly elected government has taken in UP.

Within few days after swearing-in, Bharatiya Janata Party led government in UP banned several slaughter houses and also activated Anti Romeo squad.

In a sarcastic tone, Samajwadi Party chief said: "Some police officers said that they can understand the criminal intention of a man by looking at their eyes.It is surprising that people are able to understand such things within few days of BJP government coming to power, which even doctors wold not be able to say."

Meanwhile, several police officers were seen across UP to question men who are roaming alone, whom them felt to be suspicious.

However, Yogi Adityanath in a public address at Gorakhpur few hours ago, ensured that there would be no moral policing as long as it does not cost the safety of women.

In recently concluded election of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh led Samajwadi Party received a crushing defeat as BJP secured 325 seats to come back to power after 15 years.
What has happened to our powers of discernment and our ability to see these people for what they are, which is that they care nothing for us?
Chennai, Mar 25 (IBNS): Southern superstar Rajinikanth cancelled his trip to Sri Lanka where he was about to give away some homes for Tamils who were displaced, subjected to the requests of various Tamil parties, on Saturday, according to media reports.

Regarding his cancellation, the actor said that he was requested by several political party leaders citing the political reasons.

Rajinikanth was scheduled to hand over several homes to displaced Tamils, built by the Lyca Group's Gnanam Foundation which is incidentally producing his next film 2.0.


Six-year-old Emma Willmott pictured in the Guild Chapel with Bev Short and Viv Handy of Avon Floral Art ahead of venues Mothers Day event. Photo: Mark Williamson (G3/2/17/9799)

STRATFORD-ON-AVON MP Nadhim Zahawi has been paid a 253,200 bonus by a Middle East oil company.

Mr Zahawi was paid the bonus by Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP), which employs him as a part-time chief strategy officer.

It was detailed in the updated Register of Members Financial Interests on which all MPs must publicly declare earnings and other payments and benefits they receive in addition to their 75,000 a year parliamentary salary.

The payment was made on top of the 20,125 monthly salary Mr Zahawi already receives from the company, for whom he works for between eight and 21 hours per week.

The latest bonus dwarfs two that the MP received from GKP last year, each of 26,082.19 in May and June.

In a short statement Mr Zahawi told the Herald: All of my earnings are fully declared in the Register of Members Financial Interests, and rightly so.

Earlier this week the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life announced a short review on the subject of MPs outside interests.

Last year Mr Zahawi defended himself following revelations that he had made 370,000 from GKP when the company was 470million in debt.

Press reports at the time stated that he had made a fortune from his work with the company, while small shareholders had seen their investment all but wiped out.

Mr Zahawi explained that the companys debts had racked up, resulting in a drop in its share price, under a previous management team and a new team had been brought in to restructure and save hundreds of jobs in Kurdistan and the UK.

He said that he had been approached by the company because of his gas expertise and background in chemical engineering, and his country expertise.

Gulf Keystone Petroleum describes itself as a leading independent operator and producer in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

It is the operator of the Shaikan field with current production capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day. The company is due to publish its full-year accounts next month.

This story appeared in the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald on Thursday, 16th March. To download a copy every week for all the latest news, arts and sport CLICK HERE
The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution condemning the Israeli regime for violating the rights of the Palestinian people and settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories and Syrias Golan Heights.

The resolution, which was passed on Friday, called on Israel to put an end to all of the human rights violations linked to the presence of settlements, especially of the right to self-determination.

It condemned the Tel Aviv regime for the continuation of settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in East Jerusalem (al-Quds), in violation of international humanitarian law and in defiance of the calls by the international community to cease all settlement activities.

The UN body went on to denounce Israels demolition of Palestinian homes, forcible transfer of Palestinians, and changing the demographic composition of the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem al-Quds and the Syrian Golan Heights.

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War and later occupied it in a move that has never been recognized by the international community. The regime has built tens of illegal settlements in the area ever since and has used the region to carry out a number of military operations against the Syrian government.

The Friday resolution also said the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank seriously undermine the peace process and jeopardize the ongoing efforts by the international community to reach a final and just peace solution compliant with international law and legitimacy, including relevant United Nations resolutions, and constitute a threat to the [so-called] two-State solution.

Meanwhile, UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the UN Security Council that Israel has failed to abide by last years Resolution 2334, the 15-member bodys first condemnatory measure against Tel Aviv in about eight years.

"The resolution calls on Israel to take steps 'to cease all settlements activities in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem (al-Quds).' No such steps have been taken during the reporting period," Mladenov told the council.

Describing Israels accelerated construction of settlements as "one of the main obstacles to peace," Mladenov said, "Many of the advancements that were made in the past three months will further sever the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state and accelerate the fragmentation of the West Bank."

The developments come two days after Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics announced that last year, 2,630 settlement units were constructed in the occupied West Bank, marking a rise of 40 percent from 2015.

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with building new settler units, stressing that the Tel Aviv regime had no plan to limit settlement construction in East Jerusalem al-Quds.

About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinians state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

Since the January inauguration of US President Donald Trump, who is a staunch supporter of Israel, the Tel Aviv regime has stepped up its construction of settler units on occupied Palestinian land in a blatant violation of international law.
Saudi Arabia intends to write off debts owed by Iraq to the kingdom resume direct flights between the two countries, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said on Thursday.

During a meeting between Jubeir and his Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, the top Saudi diplomat said that the latest Iraqi visit to Riyadh, which was headed by the undersecretary of the Iraqi foreign ministry, served to activate coalition between the two countries, according to the Iraqi foreign ministers official website.

The two foreign ministers met on the sidelines of a meeting for the International Coalition Against the Islamic State (Daesh) in Washington, D.C.

Al-Jubeir revealed Riyadhs intention to cancel previous debts owed by Iraq, without mentioning the volume of these debts.

He added that the Kingdom intends to resume direct flights between Riyadh and Baghdad and Riyadh and Najaf in the context of strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.

On his part, Jaafari said that his country is still in need of financial support and humanitarian aid, and it will need to reconstruct the infrastructure of Iraqi cities after their complete liberation from the Islamic States grip.

In the same context, a member of the Iraqi parliaments Foreign Relations Committee, Abbas El-Bayati, told Anadolu Agency that Iraqi-Saudi relations have seen a significant improvement over the past weeks, especially after Jubairs visit to Iraq.

Al-Bayati said that during the Iraqi delegations visit to Riyadh, the issue of the resumption of direct flights between the two countries was discussed. He expects it to be put into force soon.

Iraqi Saudi relations had witnessed tensions after Baghdad submitted a request to Riyadh, last August, demanding the replacement of Saudi ambassador, Thamer Al-Sobhan, who was accused by Baghdad of interference in internal Iraqi affairs. Last moght, Jubair visited Baghdad in what observers saw as an attempt by Saudi Arabia to counterbalance the Iranian influence on Iraq.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues his sharp criticism of Europe, saying Ankara may review its relations with the continent following the countrys April referendum.

On Tuesday, Erdogan described Europe as fascist and cruel and said that the policies of European countries resemble those of the pre-World War Two era.

The president stressed that Turkey will no longer be threatened by the EU membership process, saying that from now on Turkey will not allow any Europeans to carry out spying under various pretexts on Turkish soil.

Erdogan pointed to the EU criticism of Turkeys state of emergency following last Julys attempted coup and told the bloc to mind its own business.

The comments come despite repeated warnings by EU leaders for Erdogan to stop his inflammatory rhetoric against the bloc. Tensions broke out in early March after a number of EU states, especially Germany and the Netherlands, prevented Turkish ministers from attending campaign rallies in their countries.

Erdogan argues that European powers are using Nazi tactics by banning Turkish political rallies.

Turkey has been attempting to become part of the EU for decades. The process has been mired in problems, and only 16 of the 35 chapters in the accession procedure have been opened for Ankara so far.

In November last year, the European Parliament suspended the accession talks with Ankara over concerns regarding human rights and the rule of law following the July 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan, which Ankara claims was organized by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. In January, Turkey, however, called on the EU to resume the negotiations.

Brussels has already criticized Ankara for its massive crackdown since the attempted coup. According to official figures, tens of thousands of people, including military personnel, judges, and teachers, have been suspended, dismissed, or detained as part of the post-coup clampdown.

The 28-nation bloc has also expressed its deep concern regarding Turkeys referendum, further putting the accession talks on a bumpy road.

The April 16 plebiscite is aimed at abolishing the office of the prime minister and giving more executive powers, including issuing decrees, declaring emergency rule, appointing ministers and state officials and dissolving the parliament, to the currently largely ceremonial position of president. Critics say the vote would give the president dictatorial powers.

In March, Germany infuriated Turkey after it prevented Turkish ministers from campaigning in the European country for a Yes vote in the upcoming referendum.

The ban generated an unprecedented row between Ankara and Berlin. Erdogan called Merkel a terrorist supporter over Berlins failure in responding to 4,500 dossiers sent by Ankara on terror suspects, including those linked to PKK militants and last years failed coup.

The Netherlands also angered Ankara after it barred two Turkish ministers earlier this month from holding rallies for a Yes in the plebiscite, prompting Erdogan to call Dutch authorities fascists and remnants of Nazis.
Russia on Thursday warned the United States against using missile launches by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to justify its military buildup on the Korean peninsula.

"We consider it inadmissible to use the developing situation to achieve unilateral military advantages, and to inject massively new types of weapons into the region," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a news briefing, adding that Moscow considered the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in the Republic of Korea a "serious destabilizing factor."

Without a comprehensive settlement of existing problems via political and diplomatic means, which takes into account the concerns of all parties involved, it is impossible to move toward peace and stability in northeast Asia, the spokeswoman said.

"We see no alternative to the collective search for a new constructive strategy to break out of the current impasse in line with the general military and political detente and dismantling the confrontational architecture in the region," Zakharova said.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the DPRK had test-fired another missile, believed to be in response to ongoing U.S.-South Korea military exercises codenamed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, but failed with the missile exploded in the air.

South Korea has hurriedly launched the process of hosting a U.S. missile shield, in spite of continued opposition from its citizens and neighboring countries.

Two mobile launchers and some THAAD equipment arrived at the location of its deployment earlier this month.
New York, Mar 25 (Just Earth News): In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the outcome of the World Summit in which it, inter alia, underscored that each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

In addition to the States responsibility, the General Assembly also highlighted that the international community, too, has the responsibility to use appropriate means in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the UN Charter  the chapters dealing with peaceful settlement of disputes and regional arrangements  to help to protect populations from such crimes.

Within the UN system, the Secretary-General has designated a senior official to serve as his Special Adviser and to support both the organization and UN Member States in implementing the principle as well as in fulfilling the obligation.

The current Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect is Ivan SimonoviA who assumed the office in October last year.

Prior to his appointment, SimonoviA served as the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, heading the New York office of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (July 2010 to September 2016). He has also published extensively in the fields of law and human rights.

UN News spoke with SimonoviA on the progress made by the international community since the adoption of the principle of Responsibility to Protect, the challenges it is facing at the moment, and his role.

UN News: Can you briefly talk about your mandate and role; why do we need the Responsibility to Protect?

Ivan SimonoviA: I am the Special Adviser of the United Nations Secretary-General for Responsibility to Protect. My mandate is to develop Responsibility to Protect conceptually, politically as well as operationally.

This means clarifying what the principle really is. It means gathering political support for Responsibility to Protect and discussing the ways how it should be implemented and what mechanisms should be used.

Responsibility to Protect is very much needed to protect populations from the worst of all crimes  protect them from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Unfortunately, I have to say that those so-called atrocity crimes are on the rise. Therefore activating the Responsibility to Protect  not only speaking about the commitments but also implementing it in practice is hugely important.

UN News: Since the adoption of Responsibility to Protect in the outcome of the 2005 World Summit, what major progress has been made by the international community on fulfilling the principles?

Ivan SimonoviA: There has been quite a lot of progress in the sense of conceptual development of Responsibility to Protect, such as through the Secretary-Generals yearly reports and informal interactive debates. It has been clarified what Responsibility to Protect means.

It means that UN Member States are obliged to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. However if a State is unable to do it itself, it is the obligation of other States to provide assistance and support to the State that is under stress.

But if all these efforts do not work, if the State manifestly fails to protect populations or the State itself targets the population, then it is the obligation of other States to act collectively through the Security Council to protect populations.

UN News: What are the biggest challenges at the moment?

Ivan SimonoviA: The biggest challenge is implementation.

We have seen from 2005 until now, many interactive dialogues, UN Member States expressing commitment, we have also seen Security Council as well as Human Rights Council resolutions having specific provisions dealing with Responsibility to Protect. More and more peace missions have protection of civilians in their mandate.

These are all [indicators of] progress.

But reality check: we are facing an increase of atrocity crimes and this is very concerning.

UN News: Going forward, how can the Responsibility to Protect agenda be advanced? For instance, what can UN Member States do?

Ivan SimonoviA: What UN Member States not only could, but in my firm belief  should do  is that they should regularly conduct risk assessments of risks of atrocity crimes in their own country, and they should introduce mitigation measures to prevent it from happening.

It is not only the responsibility of the Member State to prevent atrocity crimes and punish those who commit them, if they occur. It is also their obligation to prevent them through a set of measures such as through adequate budget allocations; ensuring their security forces are properly trained, professional, and they know about their obligations in protecting human rights and preventing mass atrocities. There is also a need to ensure that there is no structural discrimination and that there is equal access to justice, so it is a lot to do.

But is also an obligation of Member States who can afford and who have the capacity to help other Member States that have protection gaps to prevent mass atrocities. A very good opportunity to do this is the Universal Periodic Review, which is conducted by the Human Rights Council.

Finally, I think what should also be improved is the Security Council reaction to mass atrocities.

Unfortunately, far too often we have faced situations such as in Syria during which terrible crimes are being committed without adequate reaction because of divisions within the Security Council. So I fully support all initiatives to reduce the veto power in the Council when the issue of atrocity crime is at stake.

As far as peace operations are concerned, we must ensure that their mandates have protection of civilians included. At the same time, adequate means of protection should be provided so that it can work in practice.

UN News: Also, what role cans the civil society and other organizations play to help progress the agenda?

Ivan SimonoviA: Responsibility to Protect is defined in outcome document of 2005 World Summit as primarily the obligation of Member States so the civil society in this respect serve as a watch dog  whether the Member States are observing the obligations that they have themselves, free willingly, undertaken.

In practice this could also mean, for example, ahead of the Universal Periodic Review, civil society can submit stakeholder reports emphasizing protection gaps that exist in a country.

Beside this watchdog function, civil society itself can have an active role, it is not obliged by the principle of Responsibility to Protect, because it applies to States, but in the sense of preventing atrocity, especially on a local level, civil society can do a lot in the sense of conflict prevention and conflict resolution.

At the global level, the civil society can work to remind both Member States and the UN of their obligations under Responsibility to Protect.

UN News: In the end, would you like to add anything from your side?

Ivan SimonoviA: I think that in challenging situation, where we are, with atrocity crimes on the rise, all of us  the UN system, Member States, regional organizations and civil society must work together.

The increase of atrocity crimes is simply unacceptable, we should do more to protect the most vulnerable against horrific crimes, namely: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

Photo: Logan Abassi UN/MINUSTAH

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Cheaper, locally produced medical kits can save lives By Quintus Perera View(s): View(s):

Though there are numerous innovations based on extensive research in the health sector to save lives, there are some constraints in Sri Lanka as these imported products are out of reach for patients due to the cost.

Four medical academics from the universities of the country  Prof. Ranil Dassanayake, Department of Chemistry, University of Colombo; Prof. (Ms) Nilmini Silva Gunawardene, Molecular Medicine Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya; Dr. Jagath Weerasena, Institute of Bio-Chemistry, Molecular Biology and Bio-Technology, University of Colombo and Prof. Aresha Manamperi, Molecular Medicine Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya have teamed up to form a corporate entity with the name and style Ceygen Biotech (Pvt) Ltd  a start-up in its truest sense.

The National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka (NSF) under its Technology Grant Scheme has provided funding of around Rs. 10 million for this highly commercially viable venture. To find out how these kits for the extraction of nucleic acids from various biological origins are manufactured, Shantha Siri, Scientific Officers NSF, recently accompanied the Business Times (BT) to the 10th Floor, Durdans Hospital where Ceygen maintains its laboratory.

Ceygen is not only a viable commercially oriented business venture, but is a unique life-saving mechanism as the techniques they are now manufacturing could replace the costly imported ones. The product purely science based and the technique called Molecular Diagnosis is an effective tool which can be used for accurate diagnosis of viral and infectious diseases among other useful purposes.

Prof. Dassanayake along with Prof. (Ms) Gunawardene and Dr. Weerasena told the BT that treatable and manageable communicable and non-communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, hepatitis B and C, dengue, thalassemia, a variety of leukemia and tumours, cancer, blood disorders and other genetic disorders can be accurately and fast detected by their kits and this accurate and early detection could save lives.

He said that they are a group of senior academics of the university system of Sri Lanka and this is the first time that high-tech biotechnology products are developed in Sri Lanka. This technology is one of the high-tech fields which can be used to drive the sustainable economic development of any country as this technology has been used by many nations including India, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Cuba, Iran and many other countries, he indicated.

Majority of their products and services, he asserted are focused on the life science sector and Ceygen develops and produces Column-based Nucleic Acid extraction Kits, reagents and has three unique areas: Virology, Microbiology and Oncology.

He indicated that with the Nucleic Acid Technology (NAT) portfolio, they are able to provide a wide array of innovative products and services to researchers, physicians, patients, hospitals and laboratories worldwide. Ceygens quality systems, scientific expertise and state-of-the-art facilities support their customers in meeting the stringent requirements of the highly regulated healthcare industry, Prof. Dassanayake said.

He said that they floated the company in 2006 and so far have invested Rs. 400 million. The company has been involved in extensive research since 2012 and producing Kits and recombinant proteins which are cheap because they are locally produced and thus the poor can also afford the services.

He said that if these Kits had to be imported by the Government, it would have to spend around Rs. 210 million while their products are three to four times cheaper. They are not rushing into mass production of Kits but slowly moving forward maintaining the highest quality. Prof. (Ms) Gunawardene said that they are getting the services of several Biochemistry and Molecular Biology graduates and postgraduates who are doing their MSc and PhD.

Dr. (Ms) Thamara F Dias, Director General, NSF giving reasons as to why they considered allotting funds to this company, indicated that communicable and non-communicable diseases takes a significant toll on the population, is a huge burden to the economy and misdiagnosis and wrong treatment not only increases cost of treatment but also leads to increased mortality.

She pointed out that molecular diagnosis is an effective tool which can be used for accurate diagnosis of diseases and the local production of these Kits reduces the limitations for use due to high cost of imported test kits and reagents.

She said that Ceygen is a start-up in the field of Biotechnology that took the initiative with a grant of the NSF to manufacture genomic DNA extraction kits, viral RNA extraction kits and recombinant enzymes locally with a five-fold cost reduction than imported ones, thus enabling patients to access effective diagnostic techniques at an affordable cost.
Naming and shaming View(s):

It was chance encounter with a sociology professor during a walk at the Weli Park at Nugegoda that triggered the thoughts behind todays column. It was chance encounter with a sociology professor during a walk at the Weli Park at Nugegoda that triggered the thoughts behind todays column.

Prof: Hi Feizal, How are things?

Me (FS): Well, while there is freedom of expression which is a huge plus, there are still issues in governance.

Prof: Absolutely. Things are moving too slow and corruption still persists apart from what happened in the past. Maybe the corrupt should be named and shamed.

Me: But will it work? Look at the procession of present and past politicians who are hauled up before court. They proudly lift their cuffed hands to media cameras indicating political victimization. It has become a joke. Handcuffs have become a symbol of political oppression.

Prof: Ah, thats a new theory, never realised it.

A few days later, he resigned as a board member of a state body because some recent overseas professional engagements meant he had limited time for this work apart from his regular academic career. However, my gut says he was disappointed with the slow progress on corruption tackled in the state.

Meanwhile I was brought down to earth on Monday while pondering what to write. Meygollo okkama boru kiyanne, (they are lying) says the cantankerous Kussi Amma Sera (KAS) as she prepares the morning tea, whistling an off-beat version of Sunil Pereras Piti kotapan nonay.

Mokkakde? (What?), I ask and then she refers to a newspaper report where the SriLankan Airlines CEO has defended a controversial deal to wet least an A330 aircraft to Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). The media reported last week that Pakistani authorities were probing alleged corruption in the deal and had barred the PIA CEO, a German national, from leaving the country.

KAS was annoyed with the SriLankan CEOs response. He was reported as saying that the deal was a transparent process and that the tender strictly followed government procedures.

Transparency kiyyanne apey public ekata penna oney neda (being transparent means keeping the public fully informed), she said.

Moving on, a telephone call thankfully disrupts the getting-nowhere conversation with KAS. Its friendly economist Ahthayrole on the line.

Ahthayrole: Hey, did you see that page one advertisement in the Daily News on March 18?

Me: No. Why? What about it?

Ahthayrole: Its a big ad titled Public Notice of Apology with the word apology in huge letters. It has been placed by a proprietor of a pharmacy in Trincomalee who says he was found guilty by the Magistrates Court of carrying on a business without a valid licence, issuing drugs without a prescription by a doctor and failure to engage the services of a qualified pharmacist. The accused has duly noted in the advertisement that he paid a fine of Rs. 50,000 and wished to extend a sincere apology to the general public of Sri Lanka for committing the above offences and pledge that I shall not commit any such offence in the future.

Me: Whaaaat? Public apology? Unbelievable! Wait let me get the newspaper. (I run to the newspaper rack at home, rummage through old papers and find the March 18 edition of the Daily News, and yes there is a huge ad).This is serious stuff.

Ahthayrole: This is what naming and shaming of a guilty person should be.

Me: Totally agree.

Then I recall seeing earlier small newspaper advertisements on similar public notices of apology on the payment of a fine in cases pertaining to selling drugs without a doctors prescription and the pharmacy not having a qualified pharmacist. That didnt draw my attention until Ahthayrole brought it to my notice.

This was interesting. To check the law pertaining to public confessions, I asked a criminal lawyer whether there is provision in any other Sri Lankan law for public confessions of this nature, and he wasnt sure and was in fact surprised at the kind of public notice that prevails in offences pertaining to the sale of medicinal drugs.

While laws in most territories permit confession or admission of guilt in a crime, its unheard of that such confessions are published as notices for the whole world to see.

Defamation laws or regulations pertaining to the media contain provisions whereby newspapers are obliged to publish a correction of an incorrect news item and apologize to the aggrieved parties in the same notice.

If the public confession of committing a crime and pledge to the public, through a compulsory newspaper advertisement, not to repeat the offence extends to other laws, then this is the naming and shaming culture that Sri Lanka desperately needs.

Imagine a politician atoning for his or her sins, on being found guilty of an offence including corruption or abuse of power, and publishing the compulsory public apology?

Imagine a corrupt businessman being found guilty by a court and issuing a public notice of apology?

Imagine a journalist being found guilty of manufacturing news and falsely implicating some people and ordered to publish a note of confession?

Imagine civil society activists who have got activated with the advent of the Right to Information Act and demanding information on the assets of public figures, while hiding their own assets from public scrutiny, being asked to publicly confess?

Imagine if judges, who are not above the law, also come under the proposed laws of public confession?

Imagine the head of state and the head of government also agreeing to be covered by public confession and publishing notices of apology?

Imagine.?

Will that change the world, reduce crime, reduce corruption or give new life to the culture of naming and shaming the corrupt who act with impunity?

Maybe yes, maybe no. However, this is food for thought and if the law of equality is applied, then the public notice of apology enshrined in the laws pertaining to the sale of medicinal drugs without a prescription or proper licence, should extend to other offences too.

Only then Kussi Amma Seras assertion that transparency kiyyanne apey public ekata penna oney neda (being transparent means keeping the public fully informed), will become a reality.
New York, Mar 25 (Just Earth News): United Nations peacekeeping is becoming more agile and capable, the outgoing chief on Friday said, even as the cost for each peacekeeper fell 16 per cent in recent years, dropping the entire budget of the blue helmets worldwide to around $7.2 billion.

Its a lot of money at face value, but its 0.4 per cent of world military expenditure, Herve Ladsous, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told journalists in New York during his final briefing in this post.

No other army has done what the United Nations has done over the past six years, he added. The price for UN peacekeeping operations is currently $7.2 billion, down from $8.2 billion in 2011. We diminished the cost per peacekeeper by 16 per cent without any diminution in the level of equipment.

Comparing UN costs with the price tag for similar operations done by Governments alone, Ladsous said the UN operation cost was one-quarter of such operations.

Even as the costs have decreased, the agility and capacities of UN peacekeeping has strengthened, said Ladsous.

For example, the UN will shortly have a permanent capacity to deploy a vanguard brigade within 30 to 60 days, a very useful improvement over the current six to eight months to deploy a unit.

Technological advances, such as surveillance drones, balloons and cameras, are helping to bring peacekeeping into the 21st century

Another example of progress cited by Ladsous is the work under way to create a framework policy on intelligence which will save lives and allow peacekeepers to do a better job.

Technological advances, such as surveillance drones, balloons and cameras, are helping to bring peacekeeping into the 21st century, Ladsous added.

The geographic makeup of the peacekeepers is also changing, with an increased number of units from the so-called Global North, which incorporates countries from North America and Europe, as opposed to the Global South, which consists of South America, Asia and Africa.

When I can in in 2011, 95 per cent of peacekeepers were from the Global South, said Ladsous. Now we have more countries from the Global North, from Europe, the European Union, in Mali and in Central Africa.

Another key aspect of change in peacekeeping is their ability to adapt to the situation in each country and in creating exit strategies because missions are not eternal, Ladsous said.

He noted that three peacekeeping operations  in Cote DIvoire, Haiti and Liberia  are expected to close down this year.

Peacekeeping is about political solutions

Despite the evolution of peacekeeping, its operations are often hampered by ongoing challenges, Ladsous noted. These include deployments to countries where there is no political process.

Peacekeeping is about political solutions. The visible part is the soldiers, the uniforms, the policemen, but the reality is that were there to serve a political solution and quite often, it was the case in Mali initially, it was the case in CAR [Central African Republic] initially, there was no political solution in sight, he said.

The Security Council is not always as supportive as it should be in such circumstances, nor in instances where UN blue helmets should be sent.

One of the greatest challenges, however, is managing expectations of UN Member States, donor countries and other actors.

The heart of the mandate is about protection of civilians. This is an extremely difficult issue. Yet we cannot have a peacekeeper behind every single citizen in the theatre, said Ladsous.

While it is difficult to quantify, UN peacekeeping saves lives, the outgoing chief said. Pointing to South Sudan, where he just visited with the incoming chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Ladsous said the UN saved at least 220,000 lives in South Sudan alone.

Among other issues discussed in his final press briefing was the recent sexual exploitation and abuse report, asymmetrical attacks on peacekeepers, and uncooperative Governments hosting peacekeeping operations.

UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Sri Lanka in superpower geopolitical gymnastics View(s):

Marshal Josip Broz Tito of the former Yugoslavia is credited with the famous quote of yesteryear that Non-Alignment meant signalling left and turning right. Or maybe it was the other way around, but the drift was clear.

Today, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), launched in the 1950s and which went on from strength to strength till the mid-1970s in the midst of the Cold War period is no longer relevant. Sri Lanka, one of the pioneers of this movement is now in the forefront of giving the Movement the boot as being irrelevant in the modern day, but Movements principles may still be relevant.

NAM was essentially an anti-West movement of nations that were emerging from colonial, mainly Western, rule. It was led by countries like Cuba and Iran at times, and today its chairman is Venezuela, a virulently anti-American state.

The super-power equation has also changed in recent years. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US became the sole policeman of the world, but not for long. Russia (which, inter-alia, kept the nuclear arsenal and military hardware when the Soviet Union was dismantled  and has enormous natural gas and oil resources) has bounced back into contention and superpower status, discarding its Communist policies along the way.

President Maithripala Sirisena visited Moscow this week rekindling diplomatic relations established 60 years ago with a country that is largely ignored when the UNP sits in office.

The new player in the super-power game is China, which is already flexing its military muscle in its immediate neighbourhood, especially in the sea lanes of the South China Sea with a long-term view to extending its influence to the Indian Ocean and beyond to the African seas. Hambantota is, therefore, of key strategic interest to China and its Peoples Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN). Those in Sri Lanka negotiating a controversial partnership with China to manage the new harbour in the city have come up against some hard ball tactics from the Beijing end and seem weak-kneed in response.

China seems to have worked with an iron fist in a velvet glove, so to speak, showing disinterest in economic investment in Sri Lanka unless it gets its pound of flesh. Having compromised the Sri Lankan Government in the first place by building a port in double-quick time, China is now tying Sri Lanka to a debt crisis it partly created; a debt Sri Lanka hasnt the money to repay thanks to the folly of the previous Administration.

There still remains some confusion about the proposed Agreement with the Cabinet announcing go-ahead plans and President Sirisena suggesting a sub- committee go into its merits. At least there is one commendable clause that no activities of a military nature whether on land, sea or air, in and around the port-city will be permitted other than with the permission of the Government of Sri Lanka.

The fact that the US Pacific Command did some joint military manoeuvres in Hambantota with the nascent Sri Lankan Coast Guard cannot be a mere coincidence. That they were concluded on the eve of the visit of the Chinese Defence Minister to Colombo last week seems a VHF (Very High Frequency) signal to the Chinese not to jump to the conclusion that Hambantota is their turf already.

How much the VHF signals are picked up by Colombos political and defence establishments only they will know. The US Defence Department was never in sync with its State Department over the northern separatist insurgency in Sri Lanka. Once, the US DefenceAttache in Colombo defended the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and their conduct in defeating the LTTE at the height of the State Departments thrust in Geneva to belittle the same Armed Forces and tie the country to a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for a tribunal to probe allegations of war crimes. The straight-talking Defence Attache was sent packing post-haste for his public comments.

As President Sirisena held talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, a string of proposed Agreements were announced with China in the wake of the Chinese Defence Ministers visit. None of them has been made public so far. The defence relationship with China is long-standing given that countrys unstinted help in quashing the northern separatist rebellion in Sri Lanka. The Chinese state-owned enterprises need to be factored in commercial roles in Sri Lankas strategic assets (ports, airports, highways, power generation) and Sri Lankas OBOR-Maritime Silk Route parts of which the US calls the Maritime Super Highway  weighs heavily in Beijings favour.

In the midst of this, Sri Lanka is on the verge of extending its 2007 Acquisition and Cross Services Agreement (ACSA) with the USA. Signed by the then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and US Ambassador Robert Blake, it allows America logistic support, supplies and services in Sri Lanka, especially its ports in case they are needed.

In case of any eventuality, such as a super-power clash in the vicinity, Sri Lanka can opt not to take sides and decline these facilities, preventing US military movements.

However, such a step could be considered a hostile act. Not helping a friend in need is as bad or as good as, helping the enemy. Furthermore, there are murmurs that there are changes contemplated to the ACSA to permit military operations to be launched from Sri Lankan soil. Fuelling these reports is the fact that, in return, the US has given two years grace for Sri Lanka at the UNHRC. In the circumstances, it may be prudent to consider an amendment to the Exclusion clause of the Agreement to suspend its applicability in times of war, and call for a consultative mechanism followed by a public statement clarifying the position.

While nothing is official, and this Government is playing things close to its chest, the super-power geo-political gymnastics is sucking Sri Lanka into shadowy war games; China using the debt card and the US using the UNHRC card to exert pressure on Sri Lanka. The Indian Ocean Peace Zone proposal initiated by Sirmavo Bandaranaike is now sunk into the depths of the ocean but not so the UN Law of the Sea Conference also spearheaded by Sri Lankan Ambassador Shirley Amarasinghe  as China, India, the US and even Japan extend their naval capabilities and presence in these warm  now simmering, soon boiling, waters. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently referred to non-state actors also indulging in maritime terrorism in the Indian Ocean disrupting economic growth.

With Sri Lankas central location in the Indian Ocean, its national security concerns and foreign policy based on geographic location, geo-political realities and geo-economics to replace the fading Non-Aligned Movement, building and balancing military relationships with India, China, the US and Japan will be crucial if Sri Lanka is to remain a friend of all and an enemy of none. More so, if the Non-Alignment principles are to remain the golden thread that runs through the fabric of its foreign policy.
Hambantota deal: Major changes in final draft View(s):

China Merchant Port Holdings Company Ltd (CMPort) which has clinched majority shares of the Hambantota Port joint venture company will sell a quarter of them within the first ten years to a Sri Lankan party at a fair value determined by an independent valuer, the final draft of the concession agreement between the company and Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) states.

At the start, CMPort will hold 80 percent of shares while SLPA will have 20 percent. A divestiture would effectively bring down CMPorts shareholding in the joint venture company to 60 percent. An independent valuer will be mutually agreed upon and appointed by the Sri Lanka Government and CMPort while the valuation will be based on an internationally acceptable valuation methodology.

However, in the event a Sri Lankan party expresses interest in buying the divesting shareholding within the first five months of the agreement being signed, the sale will be based on the transaction value stipulated in the agreement. This means the interested party will have to pay a fee calculated on the US$ 1.4 billion that the joint venture company will be capitalised with.

The agreement also states that, in the event there is no Sri Lankan party interested in such acquisition within the 10 years, CMPort and its affiliate would be entitled to divest its shareholding in the company to any other party with the first right of refusal given to the other shareholders.

It specifies that, in the event the public-private partnership (PPP) operator needs further funds, then, such additional funds shall be contributed by the respective shareholders in proportions corresponding to their shareholdingat the time of the required investment. (The PPP operator will be majority owned, controlled and managed by CMPort).

Crucially, the agreement does not say what would happen if the SLPA does not have the money to invest. But an earlier version of the document had read that, in the event the PPP Operator needs any funds, the shareholding of 80-20 percent may be changed or diluted based on the further capital contribution by the shareholders.

This meant that the SLPAs shareholding in the joint venture  already small at 20 percent  could reduce still more if it could not find the required funds. And it also meant that CMPorts share would increase if it deposited the requisite money.

It is also noteworthy that the parties will agree to the divestiture of shares being based on an independent valuation when the proposed allocation of an 80 percent shareholding to CMPort is not based on a similar valuation. The company will take over all assets and services of Hambantota Port with none of the liabilities. The SLPA is even obligated to restore the US$40 million tank farm  forcing it to incur an additional cost  before handing it over free of oil to CMPort.

The final draft of the concession agreement is just 96 pages long and pertains to the public-private partnership being forged for the running and development of Hambantota Port. The PPP operator would be entitled to collect the total revenue generated from all services including, but not limited to, navigation charges, landing and delivery charges, port dues, etc. There is no mention of royalties payable to the SLPA.

The agreement clearly states that, from the date of the agreement till the performance of port services reaching 50 percent capacity utilisation, or during the first fifteen years, there shall be no container port/terminal development directly in competition with the Port Services and activities carried out at the Port, within one hundred (100) Km perimeter from the periphery of the Port Property. This is called the Exclusive Limit.
Horana tyre factory: Tycoon agrees to pay more View(s):

Controversial businessman Nandana Lokuwithana has agreed to pay a higher lease premium for the Horana land earmarked for his tyre factory, export more of his output and develop site infrastructure at his cost.

Mr. Lokuwithana consented to the new terms in negotiations with the Board of Investment (BOI), official sources told the Sunday Times. He will now deposit Rs 210 million upfront as lease premium as opposed to the Rs 170 million earlier pledged. He will allocate an additional Rs 350 million to develop the site infrastructure, a sum the BOI would earlier have had to spend.

The tycoon has also vowed to export a higher proportion of his output; the ratio was not immediately available. And it has been agreed that the staff quarters, which he initially wanted inside the BOI zone in contravention of usual procedure, would be located on the fringes of his property and accessed from outside. Discussions are ongoing.

The Dubai-based businessman, who bought the Ceylon Steel Corporation in 2009, proposes to set up the tyre factory in the BOIs Wagawatte Industrial Zone in Horana. The foundation stone was laid in January in a plot of 100 acres identified for the project. But concerns soon arose regarding the original deal negotiated for him by the Ministry of Development Strategies.

Among other things, it envisaged granting him a 99-year lease at an annual rent of Rs 10,000 (roughly Rs 100 per acre). The BOIs prevailing policy is to limit leases to 50 years.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) also sanctioned a massive discount on the lease premium; instead of paying the floor rates decided upon by the BOI, he was to have the land at rates calculated by the Governments Valuation Department.

Work on the site was suspended on President Maithripala Sirisenas instructions and the agreement was revisited. Among the concerns flagged was that the BOI would incur losses in leasing out the land at a fraction of the agencys floor price.

But while the new agreed premium is Rs 40 million higher, it does not come close to the rates usually quoted by the BOI for property in the zone. The nominal annual rental also stays the same.

The BOI charges a premium of US$ 40,000 (Rs 6 million) an acre for a 50-year lease of WIZ land. The annual ground rent per acre at WIZ is US$ 3,850 (around Rs 578,000).
Maldivian opposition condemns govt. move to postpone polls due to outbreak of H1N1 View(s):

The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has strongly condemned the decision by the countrys rulers to postpone local government elections citing the recent outbreak of the H1N1 flu as the reason.

The Saudi Arabian Kings visit to the Maldives was cancelled two weeks ago and the government said this was due to the H1N1 flu outbreak. The MDP alleges that the outbreak of flu is being used as a ruse by the Government to avoid elections and cover up accusations of incompetence.

In a statement issued yesterday, the MDP called upon its international partners to urgently take punitive action against President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, his officials and others in the regime in order to help reverse the Maldives continued slide towards authoritarianism and one-man rule.
Some Spanish fun and traditional Lankan and Indian By Tarini Pilapitiya View(s): View(s):

Wrapping up a week long fashion initiative on March 18, the HSBC Colombo Fashion Week 2017 under the theme of Celebrating Colombo presented ethical and wearable fashion trends.

Kicking off the night in a riot of colour was Spanish designer Agatha Ruiz de La Prada. Her designs have a fun, flirty element which appeals to any crowd. An upbeat beginning to a grand night saw the models striking entertaining poses in standard neon pink water polo caps and platform sandals, their vibrant ensembles giving a new perspective to everyday swimwear.

Next up was MERAKI, Sharmila Ruberus label known for monochromatic and detailed designs. Her latest collection was an ode to Athena  the Greek Goddess of wisdom, arts, craft and war  a formidable combination that exemplifies the power of femininity. Pastel and the occasional vivacious pleated dresses made for an elegant collection.

Charini Suriyage has made her mark as one of the first Sri Lankans to showcase at the London Fashion Week. Her brand CHARINI stands for its compliance with ethical fashion and is an experimental amalgamation of the traditional and the modern. Hexapoda Couture her collection inspired by the anatomy and textures of insects was both sophisticated and sensual.

Dimuthu Sahabandu captured the essence of old Ceylon, the Dutch and Portuguese era in his collection that used delicate fabrics of rich muted colour with intricate embroidery and beading to compliment and accentuate the female silhouette. His Sri Lankan inspired summer collection of ready-to-wear clothing items was an ode to the traditional Sri Lankan lotus motifs found in many forms of Sri Lankan art.

MAUS  officially launched at the 2013 Colombo Fashion Week by designer Annika Fernando this year presented loose flowing clothing in gentle monochromatic colour schemes. This graceful collection was accessorized with pieces from Papillon du The.

Ponds BB+ presented Neons and Nudes, makeup looks inspired by the electric eighties. Audacious colours of bold and daring pinks, yellows and blues ignited the ramp and were skillfully showcased on the nude bases on the faces of the models. Ponds BB+ is in collaboration with celebrity Indian makeup artist Pallavi Symons.

The grand finale saw one of Indias most successful design labels Abraham &Thakore. This years summer collection by designers David Abraham, Rakesh Thakore and Kevin Nigli was a rich neutral colour palate of black combined with a metallic shades of white, silver and gold, exploring the development of a modern design voice while drawing on the rich traditional vocabulary of Indian design and craft.
Sri Lankan Contemporary Art at Aicon Gallery, New York View(s):

Situated off the southern tip of South India, the lush Sri Lanka island has drawn visitors for centuries. But the carnage of the 26-year civil war, which ended in 2009, tore the country apart. During the most strident phase in the late 1990s artists began to denounce terror, and visual arts took a prominent place as a critical voice. Many artists emerged as political individuals-some as rebels themselves loaded with an anti-establishment rhetoric. They became interventionists in their effort to expose the horrors and the aftermath of the civil war. Much like the voice of the subaltern, contemporary artists in Sri Lanka who felt marginalized and peripheral established their ideas and modes of expression from the consciousness of the outsider. In this way, their art became a radical language of resistance, with the intention of envisioning a space for uncertainty, deliberation, and thought. Many of the artists selected for this exhibition continue to foster this initiative and express their response to the lack of government support for war crime abuses, suppressed violence, inhuman treatment of refugees, womens exploitation, and dislocation.

Portraits of Intervention is anchored by a series of works by the artist and theoretician Jagath Weerasinghe who coined the phrase 90s trend, to describe a movement that exposed state sponsored terror, suppression, and insurgency. The collective effort by artists brought together by pain and common loss led to turbulent artistic modes often alluding to brutal violence and the tensions of urban dwelling. As a co-founder of the Theertha International Arts Collective in 2000, Weerasinghe was instrumental in shaping the raw expression of art through his own bold inelegant urban paintings of the fallen soldier-a mere pawn in the hands of the authorities which captured the here and the now. In his recent sketchbooks, Weerasinghe depicts internal conflict and bodily degeneration from the consequences of the war with his trademark effusion of colour, energy, and emotion. In these organic drawings, microscopic particles of disease are enlarged and fear is magnified as the male body appears to be dissected with its organs exposed. Weerasinghes unmitigated endeavour to forge new methods of art practices that question and upend power provides a framework for the works on display to be understood.

Anoli Perera on the hand other, who was also a founder of Theertha, dwells on womens issues and the daily entanglement of emotion in a patriarchal world. Her large flowing red dress made with woven elastic, and drawings shaped from old sewing artifacts consecrate the role and place of women still relegated to domestic chores. Issues of identity and freedom are formulated through the outline of the female figure in both her works.

Artists like Pradeep Chandrasiri and Bandu Manamperi, core members of Theertha, positioned their own bodies and lives at the pivot of their art making practices. Chandrasiris installation references his firsthand encounter with being interrogated, and the work serves as a memorial space for ongoing concealed violence. Images of Manamperis dynamic performances take the use of the body one step further in the way, for example, he conveys the force of violence by covering himself with Chinese fire crackers.

The body lurks beneath Priyantha Udagedaras ostensibly decorative paintings. Alluding to sex workers from the war surreptitiously employed in spas, the artist reveals how their lives and traumas are completely concealed. Bodies and shapes dangle more ominously in Janananda Laksiris digital photographs that hint at the inherent insidiousness of political power. A similar kind of murky unease can be detected in Danushka Marasinghes manipulated found photographs, while Thisath Thoradeniyas ironic charcoal drawings suggest human manipulation.

For Pala Pothupitiye, a permanent member of Theertha, maps are his metier. He uses old and new maps of Sri Lanka to reimagine colonial demarcations as much as he creates dialogues about insurgencies, isolation, and exclusion driven by greed and religious might. Similarly, archival images feature in Liz Fernandos diasporic vision of a lost culture.

Loss and the ravages of war bleed through Dominic Sansonis deeply moving photographs of homes in the northern Tamil territory of Jaffna. Simple objects and furniture represent a sense of belonging that still remains inaccessible for many Tamils uprooted during the war from the region. This ordeal is expressed with ferocious honesty by the emerging Jaffna artists Savesan Nalliahs and M. Vijitharans depiction of mayhem, chaos, and the brutal depredation of women in their hometown.

Yet despite the issue driven nature of the works, contemporary Sri Lankan art is evocative of larger emotions and a transcultural sensibility. Intervention here that plays on ambiguity and deracination is expressed through creativity and self-actualization. The discovery of meaning in their art becomes a process for self-discovery and transformation. It is this approach in which the notion of self and identity merge towards formulating a discussion that embraces the whole of humanity.

Bansie Vasvani is an art critic and writer with a focus on Asian and other non-Western art practices.

The Aicon Galery is at 35 Great Jones St., New York NY 10012

Portraits of Intervention: Contemporary Art from Sri Lanka, a group exhibition curated by Bansie Vasvani, featuring works by Pradeep Chandrasiri, Liz Fernando, Janananda Laksiri, Bandu Manamperi, Danushka Marasinghe, Savesan Nallaiah, Anoli Perera, Pala Pothupitiye, Dominic Sansoni, Thisath Thoradeniya, Priyantha Udagedara, M. Vijitharan, and Jagath Weerasinghe will be open from April 1-19 at the Aicon Gallery in New York.
Ethiopia, Mar 25 (Just Earth News): As severe food insecurity continues to rise due to the worsening drought, thousands of Somalis are being forced to leave their homes in search of water, food and pasture. The Government of Ethiopia and the humanitarian community are planning for the potential arrival of 50,000 Somalis in the border regions of Ethiopia.

Somalia is currently experiencing a drought, which could lead to famine  only six years after a devastating famine killed nearly 260,000 people in 2011. Humanitarian agencies estimate that there are 6.2 million drought-affected Somalis in need of assistance, including food, water, sanitation services, healthcare, nutrition, protection and shelter.

While needs are widespread, areas with little humanitarian access such as Bay and Bakool are especially affected, as many are forced to walk for days seeking assistance, food and water.

We have received news of Somalis arriving at the Ethiopian border extremely distressed and malnourished, said Gerry Waite, IOM Somalia Chief of Mission.

IOM is scaling up lifesaving operations along the drought-stricken Ethiopia-Somalia border, where thousands are at risk of disease and death. Thus far in 2017, IOM Ethiopia has transported over 4,000 Somalis from border entry points to displacement camps in Dollo Ado, where they are received and given access to lifesaving services.

IOM and other humanitarian partners continue to seek resources to support the emergency shelter needs of drought-displaced families.

IOM remains ready to assist vulnerable individuals crossing the Somalia-Ethiopia border, and appeals to the donor community for their support in helping people forced from their homes by drought, said Maureen Achieng, IOM Ethiopia Chief of Mission.

Drought is also affecting Ethiopia  low rainfall is predicted for the southern, eastern and north-eastern parts of the country. The Humanitarian Requirement Document 2017, produced jointly by the Government of Ethiopia and humanitarian partners, estimates a total of 376,000 internally displaced persons as a result of the drought.

Initial projections of displacement figures are now expected to be much higher due to the severity of the drought. IOM Ethiopias Displacement Tracking Matrix has identified over 126,000 individuals internally displaced as a result of the drought since the beginning of 2017.

IOM recently launched its 2017 Somalia Drought Appeal. It was developed to enhance current response, and expand the UN Migration Agencys geographic footprint within the country to help those most affected by the drought. IOM teams on the ground are rapidly scaling up ongoing interventions in the fields of health, shelter, water and sanitation, protection and food security.

IOM is also increasing its displacement tracking capacity in Somalia and Ethiopia to allow for real time updates to better inform humanitarian response and planning. The activities presented in the Somalia Drought Appeal include and build on the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) and UN OCHAs Pre-Famine Operational Plan (January-June 2017), that target the countrys most critical lifesaving needs.

Photo: IOM / Mary-Sanyu Osire

Source: www.justearthnews.com
If youve ever wanted to see your name on the cover of a published book, then Tauranga Writers has a doozy of an opportunity for you.

In celebration of the groups 50th anniversary this year, Tauranga Writers is aiming to create a Guinness World Record for the most number of authors contributing to a single book, which will be titled A Peoples History of The Bay of Plenty.

Were hoping well end up with a book with A Peoples History of The Bay of Plenty, byand then 200 names on the cover, says Tauranga Writers member Bryan Winters.

This is an attempt to get people thinking: I could get my name on the cover of a book and encourage writing amongst the public.

Bryan says with 200 writers contributing up to 200 words each, the book would end up being 40,000 words long, which is pretty decent.

Itll feature 10 chapters covering everything from ancient and recent history, through to the future of the Bay of Plenty and everything in between.

It could be quite entertaining, eye-opening and funny, who knows what the outcome will be.

But theres a catch  to get involved youll need to save your submission onto a USB stick and physically upload it onto a computer that will be set up at Creative Bay of Plenty.

Emailed submissions wont be accepted, says Bryan.

What were trying to do is create a bit of action, people walking in and out of Creative BOP. Writing is often a solitary exercise, this exercise is all about collaboration and is not meant to be silent.

We want people coming and going, demonstrating that writing is alive and well in Tauranga.

Once compiled A Peoples History of The Bay of Plenty will be published as a hardcopy book. All profits from sales will support Tauranga Writers and by making a submission youll be agreeing to this condition.

Submission will be accepted at Creative Bay of Plenty on Willow St, Tauranga, from Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm, up until March 31. For more information, visit: www.bopbook.com
There was plenty of action on and off the track at yesterdays Bayleys International Raceday at Tauranga Racecourse, with big prizes on offer.

The $100,000 Windsor Park Stud Japan-New Zealand International Trophy was won by All Roads, ridden by Kelly McCulloch while the Shiseido Fashions in the Field overall winner was Elizabeth Charleston.

The $30,000 Drymix Cement Bay of Plenty Cup went to Woodsman, who was ridden by Anna Jones. Punters who took a risk backing On Parole for the win in the Ultimate Motor Group 1600 would have been pleased with jockey Samantha Colletts victory, with odds of first-place offered at $20.50.

Fashions in the Field supreme winner Elizabeth Charleston won a trip for two to the Brisbane Racing Carnival on Treasury Ladies Oaks Day, Saturday June 3. The prize package includes return airfares for two to Brisbane thanks to Travelcom, two nights accommodation, hospitality for two in the Birds of Paradise Marquee and entry into the Indooroopilly Fashions in the Field.

SunLive photographer Tracy Hardy captured all the fashion action below, including the place-getters in both After Hours Eventwear categories and Bernina Sewing Centre Open Design Award.





Anna Jones from Matamata finishing first on Woodsman in the Drymix Cement Bay of Plenty Cup.



Anna Jones and Woodsman after the race.

After Hours Eventwear High Fashion over 35 category, third place Janelle Burnside, first place and overall winner Elizabeth Charleston, and second place Stacey Hanley.



Bernina Design Award winners, third, Andnia Rian, first Jane Bennett and third, Diana Hampton.


Three years after starting a science education resurgence in Tauranga, the House of Science is taking its programmes nationwide.

Former Tauranga Girls College Head of Science Chris Duggan, appalled at the lack of science knowledge possessed by incoming Year 9 students, left her teaching job in 2014 to set up the House of Science.

Supported by a horde of willing volunteers, Chris developed, and now delivers, a range of science resource kits to the regions primary schools.

These kits contain everything a year 1-8 teacher needs to get their students involved in hands-on science experiments, says Chris.

The kits are sponsored by local businesses and range in topics from flight science to forensics, food science to force & friction. Tauranga currently has 48 of these kits available to 55 House of Science member schools, and each week more than 2000 children are using them to learn science.

Alongside the resource kits, the House of Science also delivers comprehensive teacher professional development to primary, intermediate and secondary teachers, runs after school and holiday programmes, has a successful VEX robotics club and provides a science tutoring service.

The organisation receives no government funding, so relies on sponsorship of local businesses, community grants, donations and membership fees.

January 2016 was the start of an exciting year, as the Wright Family Foundation commenced a partnership with the House of Science. This facilitated a move into Taurangas CBD and encouraged us to start thinking beyond the local region.

The recently-established House of Science NZ Charitable Trust is a national body responsible for developing resource kits, and supports the establishment of House of Science branches across the length of the country. Each branch is an independent charitable trust and raises funding locally, while the New Zealand head office manages the website teachers use to book a kit and provides training for branch staff and volunteers.

Founding Chair of House of Science (NZ) Dr David Tanner says its a logical growth progression in the development of the House of Science brand in New Zealand.

This initiative has added significant value to the local Tauranga community, and others across the country want to replicate the success in their communities.

Chris has been a finalist in the 2015 and 2016 women of influence awards, and was recently named a Kiwibank local hero. She describes herself as an accidental hero.

I saw a need, and decided someone needed to do something. The speed and extent at which this concept has grown blows me away. I am so excited that the goal of raising scientific literacy across all ages and ethnicities is becoming a reality; one family, one school, one town at a time.
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"Air Arabia flight G9532 from Kathmandu to Sharjah on March 24 experienced a bird strike shortly after departure from Kathmandu international airport," Air Arabia's official statement said.

By India Today Web Desk: An Air Arabia flight carrying 182 passengers and crew from Kathmandu made an emergency landing at Lucknow airport after the aircraft suffered a bird hit. The flight was on its way to Sharjah.

The airline, however, issued a statement saying that all passengers were safe.

"Air Arabia flight G9532 from Kathmandu to Sharjah on March 24 experienced a bird strike shortly after departure from Kathmandu international airport. This caused the aircraft to divert to Lucknow Amausi Airport for a routine maintenance check," the Gulf-based airline said in a statement.

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The airline said all its passengers were provided with hotel accommodation.

Sources also said that the Airbus A320 aircraft is undergoing maintenance and is unlikely to be airworthy anytime soon.

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A 34-year-old Wytheville man with a history of assaulting law enforcement is now accused of spitting at and threatening a local magistrate.

Police arrested Larry Dalton Banes on March 13 and took him before Magistrate Christina Whitlock for a bond hearing after April Dawn Glass accused him of stealing her phone, jewelry and prescription medications.

In her criminal complaint, Glass wrote that Banes came to her place on March 9 to hang out and that she fell asleep while he was in the bathroom. Banes wasnt there when she woke up, and her cell phone, checks, and 40 to 50 prescription pain pills were missing.

My checks and some of my jewelry were found in his pockets with officers (sic) Akers watching, she wrote.

In court documents, Whitlock said she stopped Banes bond hearing after he jumped up and started screaming obscenities, kicking over chairs and spitting towards the Magistrate (me) and shouting he was going to found out where I live and F*** you up.

Wythe County Sheriffs Office Maj. Anthony Cline charged Banes on March 15 with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer, obstructing justice and disorderly conduct.

Appearing before a different magistrate, Banes wouldnt answer some of the questions, and the magistrate checked yes in a box that asks if the suspect is likely to obstruct, threaten, injure or intimidate a witness, juror or victim.

Based on charges, history and behavior in front of me, he wrote.

In 2012, Banes was convicted in Wythe County Circuit Court of assaulting a county deputy. He received a suspended sentence and probation.

Given a public defender to represent him on the new charges, Banes, who is unemployed, is being held without bond in the New River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin.

His preliminary hearings been set for April 20.

Jeffrey Simmons can be reached at 228-6611, extension 19, or jsimmons@wythenews.com.
Members of Grace and Greenwood United Methodist churches pray for local law enforcement officers and their families as part of the Adopt a Cop: Blue Prayers Program. On Sunday, three of those prayer recipients came to Grace UMC to show the congregation part of what they do.

The demonstration focused on drug detection and playful reward by one Marion police officer and his enthusiastic and highly trained K9.

MPD Senior Police Officer Jeff Horn and MPD Officer (in training) William Johnson came to Grace UMC to show those who pray for his and his fellow officers safety part of what their job is all about. K9 Officer Cooper, a boisterous yellow lab, is trained in the detection of narcotics. Horn is his handler.

The program was mainly for the children, to demonstrate Coopers abilities and offer information on safety and a fingerprinting opportunity. But the adults gladly joined in to watch and applaud as well as ask questions about Cooper.

To us its work, finding those drugs that are eating up our community, said Horn. To Cooper its a game. He just likes to play.

First trained as a contraband detection dog with the Virginia Department of Corrections, Cooper now works for the MPD to find illegal drugs such as marijuana, heroin and meth as well as controlled substances such as suboxone and oxycontin.

Horn set up a demonstration in the churchs fellowship hall with drug-scented material in one of several cans or boxes scattered on the floor. Cooper discovered the drugs and was rewarded with praise and a tug-of-war game with Horn and a favorite towel.

A similar demonstration took place outside when scented material was concealed on a person and in a vehicle. Cooper quickly and easily discovered the contraband and was again rewarded with a game of tug-of-war.

Kelen Wilson, wife of the pastor of Grace and Greenwood UMCs, said the Adopt a Cop: Blue Prayers Program began in August 2016 and congregation members committed to drawing the name of an officer and praying for him or her and their families every day for a year. Many also send cards and food gifts to the officers.

This is just our way of letting you know that we care about each of you, and we appreciate all the work that each of you do to keep our Marion community safe, Wilson wrote in a letter to the MPD explaining the program.

If the police, both town and county, are willing to go out and put their lives on the line for us every day, then we should be willing to remember them in prayer daily that they will return home safely, Wilson said. Here in Marion we are a small town, along with our county, and the police are not some strangers. They are our friends, our neighbors, our families and our church members. Our police force needs to know that we do care about them.

Feedback about the program has been positive, Wilson said. Its been a successful program. I feel like it will go on for years to come.

Horn and Johnson thanked the congregation for their prayer program and their interest in the work they do.

We appreciate knowing there are people out there thats got our backs, Horn said.
The FBI and law enforcement officers searched a wooded area Friday in South Carolina for evidence related to the disappearance of Brittanee Drexel, according to reports.

Drexel, of Chili, was 17 when she disappeared during a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach in 2009. She was last seen on a hotel security camera and her body has not been found.

13WHAM reports that officials are searching for remains that could belong to Drexel.

The FBI called the teen's mother, Dawn Drexel, and told her that they had information on a possible location of her daughter's body, according to the station.

Agents are working with the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office. Georgetown County is north of McClellanville, South Carolina, where Brittanee Drexel's telephone last produced a signal, reports Live5News.

According to court testimony, Drexel's last days were filled with violence. Witnesses told authorities they believed the teen was beaten, gang-raped, shot and left with alligators near Myrtle Beach.

The most shocking Upstate NY crimes of 2016
An FIR was filed by the Delhi Police against Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad for allegedly assaulting an elderly Air India staffer over the allocation of a seat.

By Mail Today Bureau: Delhi Police registered an FIR against Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad for allegedly assaulting an elderly Air India (AI) staffer over the allocation of a seat.

A counter complaint was also submitted by Gaikwad against AI before Delhi Police alleging that he was pushed and yelled at.

A case has been registered against Gaikwad under sections 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 355 (assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour person) of the Indian Penal Code, said Dependra Pathak, Delhi Police chief spokesperson and special commissioner (operations).

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"We are transferring the case to Crime Branch for a detailed probe", he added.

MANAGER SLAPPED 25 TIMES WITH SLIPPER

Gaikwad, Lok Sabha MP from Maharashtra's Osmanabad seat, slapped and hit 60-year-old duty manager R Sukumar 25 times with his slippers when the official persuaded him to disembark after the plane landed at the IGI Airport from Pune.

The MP refused to alight, holding up the aircraft for over 40 minutes Thursday.

Meanwhile, state carrier AI along with four private airlines banned Gaikwad from flying on their planes. Jet Airways, IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir are the members of Federation of India Airlines.

I HAVE NO REGRET, SAYS GAIKWAD

Gaikwad said, "I have no regret. That person should come and apologise to me and then the Air India CMD should also come and apologise.

In his complaint, Gaikwad said he was made to travel by AI on economy class even as he had business class ticket. "I have the tickets, they can't blacklist me. I will board the Delhi-Pune Air India flight this evening. How can they stop me?" he said.

"Police should take action to restrict these people from doing this kind of things again. They should not keep on doing it. They should not take it as their birthright to assault a person," said Sukumar.

Security personnel of both CISF and Delhi Police were deployed at IGIA after Aam Aadmi Sena activists arrived with roses and slippers to greet Gaikwad but he was a 'no-show' following ban on him.

ALSO READ | Ravindra Gaikwad finds bird of his feather, Maharashtra MLA says he has slapped 20 officers

After Air India, IndiGo cancels Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad's ticket

WATCH VIDEO | Should Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad be put behind bars?

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Scientists at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have developed a new stem cell method allowing the more efficient production of human brain and muscle cells. The results of the study were published on March 23 in the scientific journal Stem Cell Reports.

The new technique will allow the generation of millions of these functional cells in the space of a few days, and has the potential to create new avenues in the study of disease through the increased diversity of new cell types.

The University of Cambridge Research website describes these human stem cells as having the ability to develop into almost any type of tissue, including brain cells. They hold huge potential for studying human development and the impact of diseases, including cancer, Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, and heart disease. While it takes between nine and 12 months for a single brain cell to fully develop in humans, and three to 20 weeks for scientists to create human brain cells using current existing methods, the new technology, OPTi-OX, promises to be less time-consuming.

Using OPTi-OX, the research team was able to create a large and nearly pure population of identical cells at an unprecedented rate, which has the potential for further drug discovery, and to assist in methods of therapy which require a great amount of cells.

Lead author and clinician, Dr Mark Kotter of the University of Cambridge, said, Neurons produced in this study are already being used to understand brain development and function. This method opens the doors to producing all sorts of hard-to-access cells and tissues so we can better our understanding of diseases and the response of these tissues to newly developed therapeutics.

Source: www.cam.ac.uk/research
Apple has received a ransom threat from a hacking group claiming to have access to data for up to 800 million iCloud accounts.

The hackers, said to be a London-based group called the Turkish Crime Family, have threatened to reset passwords and remotely wipe the iPhones of millions of iCloud users if Apple fails to hand over a total of US$700,000. They have given the company an ultimatum to respond by April 7.

Apple reportedly has denied that the group succeeded in hacking its systems, maintaining that it obtained the email addresses and passwords from previously compromised third-party services. Apple is working with law enforcement on the threats.

The data set in the iCloud hack matches the data found in the 2012 hack of 117 million accounts on LinkedIn, according to some published reports.

However, the Turkish Crime Family strongly denied that in a message to TechNewsWorld on Friday.

Correcting the Message

The initial reports of a ransom demand of just $75,000 were incorrect, the group said in response to our email query. It actually demanded $100,000 for each of its seven members, plus extra stuff from Apple that are worth more to us than money, which it promised Apple it would keep secret.

The group also told TechNewsWorld that the only member based in London is Kerem Albayrek, who is facing charges related to listing a hacked Yahoo database for sale. It claimed that its iCloud ransom demands were in part to spread awareness of Albayrek, as well as of Karim Baratov, a Canadian resident charged earlier this month, along with a second hacker and two Russian FSB agents, in the 2014 breach of 500 million Yahoo account holders.

The group told TechNewsWorld that it showed Apple scan logs that contain 800 million iCloud accounts, and that Apple claimed the data had come from outside sources.

The group said it planned to launch a website that would list iCloud user names, last names, dates of birth and a captcha of their current location from an iCloud app.

The site will not disclose passwords initially, the group said, but it would do so most probably in the future.

Shaking Down Apple

The Turkish Crime Family threat should be taken seriously, said Pierluigi Paganini, a cybersecurity analyst and member of the Cyber Group G7 2017 Summit in Italy.

I consider the threat is credible, even if it is quite impossible to know the exact number of iCloud credentials in the hands of hackers, he told TechNewsWorld.

The group is known in the hacking underground for the sale of stolen databases, Paganini said.

The group reportedly has approached several media outlets directly; it told TechNewsWorld that it had been in contact with five.

However, it is unlikely that the groups efforts to stir public pressure against Apple will be effective, noted Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president for cloud research at Trend Micro, in an online post.

Apple is too large and has too many resources to give in to public pressure, he pointed out.

The groups demands are similar to a shakedown in the physical world, in which criminals demand monthly payments to protect a business, Nunnikhoven noted.

In the digital world, the pressures that make victims pay (e.g. keeping your store in one piece) dont apply, Nunnikhoven wrote.

With iCloud accounts, Apple has the ultimate safety valve  they control the infrastructure behind the accounts, he added. Which removes most of the pressure points criminals could use.

There is no evidence of state involvement in this cyberthreat, Nunnikhoven told TechNewsWorld.

However, there is mounting evidence that this is a group whose eyes are bigger than their stomachs, he suggested. Selling credentials on the underground is rather commonplace. Attempting to extort one of the biggest companies on the planet with poor quality data is quite another.

Credible Threat

A report in ZDNet appeared to lend credence to some of the hacking groups claims, however. The group provided 54 credentials to the publication, which were verified as authentic based on a check of the password reset function.

Most of the accounts were outdated, but 10 people did confirm to the publication that the obtained passwords were legitimate and that they since had changed them. Those 10 people were living in the UK, and had UK mobile numbers.

Trend Micro is urging iCloud users to protect their accounts by using two-factor authentication, and also to use a password manager.

A password manager helps users create unique passwords for every account and stores them remotely so that hackers cannot access one or two accounts and thereby gain access to many more.

The FBI declined to comment for this story.

Apple officials did not respond to our request to comment, and a Yahoo spokesperson was not immediately available.
The safety of autonomous vehicle technology is under the microscope once again following a crash on Friday in Arizona involving a self-driving Uber. The vehicle involved in the accident, a Volvo XC90 luxury SUV, came to a stop on its side as shown in a photo shared on Twitter.

The Chicago Tribune said in a report that the Uber vehicle was struck when another vehicle failed to yield. A Tempe police spokesperson said there was a person behind the wheel of the Uber vehicle although it's unclear at this time if they were actively controlling it. No injuries were reported.

A spokesperson for Uber confirmed the incident with Bloomberg, adding that it has suspended testing of its autonomous vehicles in Arizona - and has paused similar operations in Pittsburgh - until an investigation into the matter is complete.

The spokesperson added that there was no Uber passenger in the backseat at the time of the crash.

Again, the Uber vehicle was not responsible for the accident.

Uber's fleet of self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs hit the streets of San Francisco in early December. The autonomous rides were quickly forced off the roads, however, as the California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked their registrations. In February, Uber moved the fleet to Arizona where it has been operating for the past month without incident.

Crash image courtesy Fresco News via Twitter
The U.S. Senate has just voted to overturn the internet privacy regulations currently upheld by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). If passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, internet service providers (ISPs) would no longer need to ask for the permission of consumers to access private information such as geolocation, health information, and web browsing history.

A Victory For ISPs

Fifty Republicans voted to overturn the Obama-era internet privacy rule, while 48 Democrats voted against the resolution that was introduced earlier this month. When the original rule was first approved by the FCC last October, what it meant for big ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T was that they would need to ask for consumers' consent before gaining access to information deemed as private.

Even then, some believed that this ruling would give websites such as Facebook the unfair advantage of having access to consumer data and using it to their advantage for advertising while ISPs had more hoops to jump through to get to the said data.

With the overturn of this ruling, the extra hoops protecting consumers' privacy will be repealed, though FCC is firm that there are still protective measures even without the Obama-era ruling. They are, however, concerned about the implications of this ruling, and are calling for the House of Representatives to review the ruling thoroughly.

"This is the antithesis of putting #ConsumersFirst. The House must still consider this legislation. We hope they recognize the importance of consumer privacy and not undermine the ability of Americans to exercise control over their sensitive data," said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeney in a joint statement.

What Does This Mean For Consumer Privacy

Among many things, the internet is one of the easiest ways to access an individuals' personal, sensitive data. In this particular case, many are questioning the possibility of ISPs taking full advantage or even abusing the sensitive information that they can gather from their consumers. Even now when the ruling is still in place, it is already easy for websites to access your data and search history so much so that a simple search for one item could lead to a whole week's worth of advertisements all over your screen.

Is it possible that this very subtle privacy breach could become even worse in the days to come? Maybe. Even world wide web inventor Tim Berners-Lee acknowledges that the internet is no longer a simple manner of communication, but has become a powerful tool that has completely evolved since its inception.

In this regard, he is calling for collaboration between consumers and companies to balance out the internet's current problems including political advertising, the spread of fake news, and data collection that some consumers do not even realize they are giving out for free.

There is still no schedule for when The House will discuss the matter, but to many, this issue is beginning to look like a mere competition between companies, rather than actual measures being made to protect their consumers' rights and privacy.

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The iPhone 6s may be an old warhorse, but that hasn't stopped the smartphone from becoming consumers' most favored handset.

According to a report from IHS Markit, the Apple smartphone has emerged the best-selling handset for 2016.

"In terms of shipments, the iPhone 6s from Apple bested all competitors for sales in 2016, according to new analysis from IHS Markit," noted the report.

The report based its findings on the research from the IHS Markit Smartphone Shipment Database. This database keeps track of quarterly shipments for over 350 smartphone models.

On the basis of shipments, the iPhone 6s routed even sibling iPhone 7 in sales and took home the top honors.

The Q4 2016 figures, however, tell a different story as in this period, the iPhone 7 was the world's best-selling smartphone, followed by the iPhone 7 Plus.

Why The iPhone 6s Routed Rivals

IHS Markit did not divulge the shipment estimates for 2016, but the chart reflects that the iPhone 6s accounted for 60 million shipments.

According to analysts, the iPhone 6s performed better than its contemporaries largely due its top-end features and specs.

"The iPhone 6s is wildly popular in dozens of countries globally, due to its attractive hardware design blended with rich features such as 4K video, large multi-touch display, and fingerprint security," said Neil Mawston executive director at Strategy Analytics.

How Did Apple Fare?

The top four spots in the list of the most sold smartphones in 2016 went to Apple courtesy of its iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 6s Plus. This means that Apple easily managed to rout rival Samsung, which made it to the top 5 thanks to its Galaxy S7 edge.

How Did Samsung Perform?

Samsung's Galaxy S7 edge was not the only handset from the company to make it to the list. The company's Galaxy S7 was the ninth best in the rankings. While Samsung may have been outpaced by Apple, a silver lining for the company is that the two smartphones performed better than their predecessors Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy S6.

The gross and combined shipment of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge was 10 million higher than that of its predecessors in the same period.

Samsung shipped roughly 25 million units each of the 2016 models of the Galaxy J3, Galaxy J5, Galaxy J7, and Galaxy S7.

What About Other OEMs?

The Oppo A53 also made it to the list of the best-selling smartphones for 2016. It was ranked seventh and was the only non-Samsung or non-Apple device in the list. However, Huawei, which is the third biggest smartphone maker in the world, did not make it to the list.

Photo: Karlis Dambrans | Flickr

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By India Today Web Desk: Alia Bhatt has had more hits than misses on the red carpet. Honestly, in the public memory, she's had hits ONLY; no misses. But the night she appeared on the HT Most Stylish Awards red carpet, that was set to change.

Alia Bhatt, who also walked holding hands with rumoured beau Siddhart Malhotra, wore this one-shoulder, short dress by Lebanese designer Reem Acra to the style awards last night. The dress had a side train that Alia played around with for the cameras:

Photo: Yogen Shah

Photo: Yogen Shah

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Though we love the fact that Alia chose to go with a nude-makeup look, and pretty much no jewellery--except tiny earrings that you can't see in these pictures--we really think Alia could've chosen something better for this red-carpet appearance.

Now, this does not mean that Alia did not carry this dress off--she carries pretty much anything off with that innate charm. All we're trying to say is that the dress did not suit Alia's personal style--we've always known her style to be more free-flowing and easy. This dress, on the other hand, was a little too uptight for an easy personality like Alia's. And to top it all up, it looked a bit uncomfortable too.

Photo: Yogen Shah

All in all, when attending an event that recognises your style, we think it's only fair that Alia should've let her easy-going personality come through.

--- ENDS ---
Aging is a phase in life when more care and concern is required for all individuals. That is also the time when so many diseases haunt a person as a result of aging cells which may have incurred DNA damage.

Now a new study says flushing out retired cells from the body can rejuvenate the body. Senescent cells in the body are distinguished by their inability to divide and accumulate with old age. These dormant tissues also contribute to heart disease, arthritis, and diabetes.

The study is a harbinger to life-extending treatments. The research was done by a team of scholars at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Led by senior author Peter de Keizer, the study had already obtained positive results when the molecule they developed was administered to mice.

The molecule developed by researchers selectively destroys senescent cells and showed encouraging results in mice with better kidney functioning and more stamina in the old rats. They are now looking whether the molecule will extend the lifespan of the tested rats before starting the trials in humans.

The drug administered to the genetically modified mice also stopped the plaque buildup in their arteries.

Rationale Of Removing Senescent Cells Through Drug

The senescent cells do have the power to develop a protective protein named p53 to annul the DNA damage. But that does not work because another protein FOXO4 engulfs it and blocks the functioning.

As an antidote, de Keizer and team designed a molecule that had a shortened version of FOXO4 that attaches to p53. It was noticed that the peptide developed by researchers thwarted FOXO4 and p53 from pairing up and forced the death of senescent cells and saved the healthy cells.

The selective killing of senescent cells is done by disrupting their chemical balance from within.

The study and the findings have been published in the journal Cell.

"It's definitely a landmark advance in the field," said cell and molecular biologist Francis Rodier of the University of Montreal in Canada who was not part of the study.

Consequences Of Removing Senescent Cells

James Kirkland, who is a diabetes researcher at the Mayo Clinic said peptides like the one de Keizer developed have limitations as the digestive system will destroy them. They can only be delivered through inhalation or injections.

He noted that the drug molecule could not cut down the number of platelets in mice. Also, the killing of senescent cells in bulk could trigger complications in groups like cancer patients.

The concerns are known to de Keizer and he said the forward steps will be with caution.

De Keizer is keen to see whether the molecule can kill cancer cells that share many similarities with senescent cells.

Future Scenario Of Doctors Treating Aging

The team of de Keizer will be watching out for the extended longevity of the treated mice. If they live longer, safety studies for humans will follow.

The ultimate goal is to know whether the drug can take out senescent cells and reverse age-related disorders.

"Maybe when you get to 65 you'll go every five years for your anti-senescence shot in the clinic. You'll go for your rejuvenation shot," he said.

He also predicted a future scenario in which aging will be treated by doctors directly rather than combating the diseases coming from old age.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Text "Goodbye" to the SMS feature of Hangouts.

Google is reportedly dropping the text service from its communication tool Hangouts on Android. In a leaked email sent by Google to its G-Suite administrators, Google outlined the termination of the SMS feature on May 22. This move is seen as part of Google's efforts to refocus Hangouts as a workplace communication tool to challenge the new app Slack developed by Microsoft.

Google has a slew of messaging services aside from Hangouts. It already has the video-centric Duo, and it recently launched Allo, its official chat messaging app. Meanwhile, Android Messages has replaced Messenger as Android phones's default messaging app.

Hangouts Says Bye To SMS

In an email circulated by Google to its administrators, Google is dropping the SMS feature effective May 22. The company outlined what the users will expect and do moving forward. The users will receive an in-app message on the said date.

Hangouts SMS users on Android will be asked to use another messaging app on their phones. If they don't have any, they will be prompted to go to Google Play Store to download one. All messages will be accessible in this new app, and it will not affect the existing messages.

For those who use SMS via Google Voice on Hangouts, they will likewise be prompted to get a new messaging app. The Google Voice messages will be retained and accessible in Google Hangouts.

As for those who use Google Voice Hangouts on Android, good news since they will not be affected: only the SMS services will be taken down. They won't receive a prompt in turn.

And lastly, for non-SMS users on Hangouts on Android, they will obviously get no notification.

Hangouts Goes Meet And Chat

The dropping of the SMS feature is seen as a natural move for Hangouts as it consolidates its efforts to be a workplace communications and business enterprise tool. The surge of the business chat app Slack by Microsoft prompted Google to tighten the specialization of its myriad of chat apps, including Hangouts.

Recently in a conference, Google announced that Hangouts has been repackaged as two services: Meet and Chat. Hangouts Meet is a new collaborative video messaging / meeting service designed to engage people to do face-to-face meetings, or in Hangouts's new purpose, do business meetings via video chat. Google describes it as making "joining meetings effortless."

Hangouts Chat is Google's attempt to take on Slack. It is a collaborative messaging tool that lets people do joint discussions on projects, through sharing of information and work, as well as assigning tasks and discussing results.

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NASA is currently in the middle of a financial battle with the Trump administration but the agency is making sure that it's still keeping its current active programs in top condition, as evidenced by the International Space Station's activities.

ISS astronauts have been sharing incredible sights they see in and from space. This time, we all have a chance to see them in action as NASA live streams three spacewalks that will each last for 6.5 hours!

NASA announced on March 18 that the ISS will have three scheduled spacewalks on March 24, April 2, and April 4, all beginning at 8 a.m. EDT (12 noon GMT). Each mission will feature two astronauts from Expedition 50.

First Spacewalk

The NASA stream started at 6:30 a.m. EDT (10:30 a.m. GMT) but it will mostly involve preparations since the actual spacewalk will not begin until an hour and a half later. Expedition 50 astronauts involved in the three spacewalks are Commander Shane Kimbrough, European Space Agency Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet, and NASA Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson.

The first spacewalk, which is happening March 24, will require Kimbrough and Pesquet to prepare the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 or PMA-3 for the installation of a second International Docking Adapter, which will be used to dock commercial crew vehicles. The two astronauts will have to disconnect electrical connections and cables in preparation for a robotic move on March 30 and, once the PMA-3 is properly installed in its new location, it will be the main dock for the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship.

"The two spacewalkers will lubricate the latching end effector on the Canadarm2 robotic arm, inspect a radiator valve suspected of a small ammonia leak and replace cameras on the Japanese segment of the outpost," NASA writes.

Next Spacewalks

The second spacewalk, scheduled for April 2, will have Kimbrough and Whitson connecting the PMA-3 electrical connections and cables in its new location atop Harmony, as well as installing the second upgraded computer relay box on the ISS's truss. They will also install covers and shields on the PMA-3.

The third and final scheduled spacewalk will have Pesquet and Whitson replace the ExPRESS Logistics Carrier - an avionics storage platform - on the ISS' starboard truss. The box contains command, electrical, and data routing equipment for scientific experiments aboard the ISS.

The live stream will include live scenes from the ground operations, the ISS, and even the GoPro camera attached to the astronauts' helmet.

You can watch the live stream from NASA TV or in the video below (you can even send in questions as you watch and it could get answered on air).

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A new study looking into job automation estimates that millions of human workers around the world might lose their jobs to robots in the future.

According to a new PwC report, many jobs worldwide risk automation from artificial intelligence and robotics by the early 2030s. However, the report notes that in many cases the jobs won't disappear altogether, but rather change and adapt.

US Jobs Most At Risk Of Automation

While automation will impact millions of human workers globally, Americans seem to be at greater risk of automation. The PwC study reveals that a whopping 38 percent of jobs in the United States are at risk of being replaced by AI and robots over the next 15 years.

That's a higher percentage of jobs at risk of automation compared to other countries such as the UK, Germany, and Japan, where the risk of automation applies to 30 percent, 35 percent, and 21 percent of jobs, respectively.

Service jobs dominate both the UK and the U.S. job markets, with roughly the same share of employees holding positions in core labor sectors such as finance, education, transportation, food services, and manufacturing. However, PwC took a closer look and found substantial differences in the type of work conducted within these sectors that could explain why U.S. jobs face a greater risk of automation.

Routine Task Automation

In some sectors such as finance, the difference is whopping - 61 percent of finance jobs in the United States could be replaced by robots, while the same applies to just 32 percent of UK jobs in the same sector.

John Hawksworth, PwC chief economist in the UK, notes that many positions in the U.S. financial sector focus on domestic retail operations, whereas the financial sector in the UK is more focused on investment banking and international finance. The latter functions entail a notably higher level of expertise and education compared to domestic retail operations.

Hawksworth believes that it's easier to automate routine tasks conducted by U.S. workers than have a robot replace a London investment banker, for instance. Nevertheless, the risks of automation extend to plenty of other industries.

"A key driver of our industry-level estimates is the fact that manual and routine tasks are more susceptible to automation, while social skills are relatively less automatable," Hawksworth explains. "That said, no industry is entirely immune from future advances in robotics and AI."

At the same time, the PwC report doesn't necessarily mean that robots will be taking over and eliminating human workers in some sort of robot apocalypse. The study points out that automation will lead to changes in workforce and, in turn, those changes will translate to other jobs in the future. On the other hand, those jobs will likely be for human workers with higher skill sets, education, and expertise.

Hawksworth heralds a job market restructuring at a global scale, with some labor sectors more susceptible to automation than others. Workers with jobs in health care, education, and social work, for instance, face the lowest risks of being replaced by robots according to PwC.

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The drive to detect methane leaks has been underway in the U.S. cities. With Google Street View mapping cars giving the lead, fitted with state-of-the-art methane analyzers and sensors scouring gas leaks beneath the urban centers.

The mission has been spearheaded by researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) in association with the Environment Defense Fund and Google Earth Outreach.

The cars are fitted with infrared laser methane analyzers that detect the methane concentration in the air while algorithms compute the methane leaks and the size of such underground emissions.

The data is being monitored by researchers at the Colorado State University. According to lead researcher and CSU associate professor of biology Joe von Fischer, the effort will pre-empt any labor-intensive steps in the future to measure out methane leaks from the distribution chain.

The project's intent is to help the government and utility companies to prioritize leak repairs by addressing the top 8 percent of leaks to slash methane emissions from pipelines by 30 percent.

Mapping Methane Leaks More Effective

Meanwhile, the mapping exercise at the leaking natural gas pipelines with Google Street View cars has been found far more effective than conventional leak detection efforts.

The Google Street View cars drove from street to street with methane analyzers collecting air samples to measure the concentration of methane.

In New York state, the Google cars drove around Boston, Indianapolis, Staten Island, and Syracuse. Maps were made from the methane data for algorithms to pinpoint locations where underground pipes are leaking.

Boston Among Worst Affected

So far the worst affected areas have been found to be Boston, Staten Island, and Syracuse, where old cast iron distribution pipes are existing.

At Burlington and Indianapolis replacement of pipes with corrosion-resistant materials made a positive change with methane levels found to be 25 times lower than per kilometer of road.

The mapping has estimated that the largest 8 percent of leaking pipes are in Boston, Staten Island, and Syracuse. If they are repaired on a priority, the overall reduction in methane emissions from leaks will be 30 percent.

California Methane Leak

Southern California faced the hazards of methane leak in the last quarter of 2016 after utility officials detected the underground pipe leak in late October. The leak was reported by the Southern California Gas Co. Thousands of families were evacuated following the methane emissions.

It was described as an "environmental disaster" by the Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and two schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District had to be closed.

The methane leak was a jolt to California Gov. Jerry Brown's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

More than 72,000 metric tons of methane have leaked, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

"Methane is in a category of greenhouse gasses known as short-lived climate pollutants," suggested a note on the website of California's Air Resources Board.

Thousands of residents from the Porter Ranch community had to relocate after complaining of nausea and other problems.

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Google is finally ringing the death knell for Google Talk  more famously known as Gchat  and is replacing it permanently with Hangouts. The company released the latter back in 2013 as a beefier iteration of Gmail's sidebar chat platform, although users were free to use Gchat just as well if so they chose.

Google Pulls Gchat's Life Support

Users won't be able to access Gchat come June 26, at which point they'll be forcibly shifted to Hangouts. Google will notify users with a heads up in the coming weeks. After which they'll be automatically transported to Hangouts, like it or not.

It doesn't seem, however, that the change is significant and experience-breaking. There will still be a messaging platform integrated into the core Gmail experience, and contacts will also be transitioned over. Google has been attempting to convince users to switch to Hangouts for years. This time, it's drastically doing so.

Google Talk For Android Also Pulled

By extension, the Google Talk app for Android will also be defunct, alongside other apps that are designed to work with Google Talk services. To reiterate, this is not looking to be a sudden, brutal change of platforms. Hangouts, and all apps which support Hangouts, will still be functional.

That said, seeing Gchat being punted into the sunset might trigger the waterworks for some people, seeing as how Gchat was the primary messaging tool of yesteryear, becoming huge in the early aughts. It also brings back fond memories of the early days of the internet, at an epoch where AIM headlined internet usage.

Google's Many Messaging Services

But people aren't stuck with Hangouts. In fact, Google has a number of other messaging platforms. Why it's hosting such duplicates of relatively the same thing is a story for another time, but if you fancy anything other than Hangouts, there's also Allo, Duo, Android Messages, and even Supersonic Fun Voice Messenger  an experimental messaging app without a keyboard. While Google's strategy with its many messaging apps is unclear, it is updating both Allo and Duo with much-needed features: Allo with file-sharing, and Duo with voice-only calling functions.

Google Is Also Removing SMS Messaging From Hangouts

As The Verge reports, In addition to formally yanking Gchat, Google also announced that it's removing SMS from Hangouts starting May 22, and that Android users should instead switch to the new Android Messages app, which is getting brand-new features, such as reading receipts, group chats, and high-resolution photo sharing. The move proves Google is intent on pushing for Rich Communication Services, or RCS, an improved standard for text and multimedia sharing. Killing off Gchat might also be Google's way of signaling that it's about to reorient Hangouts into a worthy Slack competitor.

Finally, in another effort of cleaning up its services, Google is also removing Google+ functionality on Gmail in the next month or so, Engadget reports. Also, a number of experimental Gmail Labs items are getting rolled into official Gmail add-ons.

Saddened by the demise of Gchat? Have memories to share about the once-popular messaging platform? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!

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Elon Musk has finally shut down rumors that his own company, SpaceX, will greatly benefit from President Donald Trump's latest bill for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

This is despite the unbelievable fact that the President just made human exploration to Mars a federal law.

Elon Musk Not Happy

Responding to a tweet by Kara Swisher, the cofounder of independent tech news website Recode, which implied that somewhere the business magnate is "smiling" about the news, Musk said:

@karaswisher I am not. This bill changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing. Existing programs stay in place and there is no added funding for Mars.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 22, 2017

"Perhaps there will be some future bill that makes a difference for Mars, but this is not it," he continued in a second tweet.

Trump's NASA bill has somewhat made it into law to add human exploration of the Red Planet as a goal for the space agency to provide for the use of International Space Station until 2024, along with private sector companies partnering with NASA to deliver cargo and experiments, among others. Nevertheless, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, believes this is still nowhere near his dreams of making commercial travel to Mars possible for the public.

Trump's NASA Bill

The recently signed legislation highlights a whopping $19.5 billion budget for the government space agency for the current fiscal year. This is the first time in seven years that a U.S. president has approved an authorization bill for NASA, Sen. Ted Cruz, the representative of Texas and a chief sponsor of the bill, claimed.

The first of its kind, the S.442 bill aims to support NASA's deep space exploration missions  including "achieving human exploration of Mars and beyond"  and encourage private-public partnerships, according to the White House.

"I'm delighted to sign this bill. It's been a long time since a bill like this has been signed, reaffirming our commitment to the core mission of NASA: human space exploration, space science, and technology," President Trump said.

Musk In Trump's Council

Earlier this year, Musk drew flak after Trump's team announced his name as a member of the POTUS' economic advisory council, alongside other prominent business leaders. On his Twitter account, Musk has shared to millions of his followers, who are still questioning his decision, some updates on how his presence in the Trump advisory council is making a difference.

In addition, I again raised climate. I believe this is doing good, so will remain on council & keep at it. Doing otherwise would be wrong.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2017

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Smartphones have become an integral part of one's life and do more than simply allowing one to make and receive calls. With the arrival of digital payment services, people often use their smartphone for conducting cashless transactions.

However, when people need to withdraw money, they are still required to use their debit card. This may soon change as several banks are looking to adopt new systems such as cardless ATMs. These ATMs could redefine the way the banking sector functions as it would allow users to withdraw cash using their smartphone.

Leading the way is Wells Fargo, which may soon be followed by other major banks in the United States.

Smartphones Replacing ATM Cards?

Starting Monday, March 27, Wells Fargo ATMs will undergo this modification in the United States.

"The new feature allows customers to withdraw cash at any time, even when they don't have their cards on them," stated Jonathan Velline, head of ATM and branch banking at Wells Fargo.

The bank will be updating all of its 13,000 cash machines with the new smartphone functionality. The bank has already tested this function in select locations. This feature is expected to not only increase the convenience of cash withdrawal but also provide heightened security.

The New Process Of Transaction: How Will It Work?

Customers will need to have the Wells Fargo mobile app installed on their smartphone to use the new functionality. Reportedly, 20 million people already use the Wells Fargo mobile app.

Wells Fargo account holders will have to enter their PIN along with an eight-digit code, which is generated automatically by the bank's app. These codes have a one-time validity and a new one has to be generated for the ensuing transaction.

Those who are unsure about migrating to the new system need not fret as for the time being, bank authorities are not doing away with the debit cards. Therefore, ATMs will still be accepted and one can use them freely.

How Security Would Be Improved

According to Velline, the cardless ATM functionality will help decrease the cases of criminals using credit card skimming methods to conduct fraudulent transactions. These methods aid criminals in not only reading but also storing the data on the cards that have been keyed into an ATM.

To beef up security measures in the cardless system, Wells Fargo has rigid authentication protocols in place.

"Security certainly was a big aspect of the cardless feature and the two-step identification helps reduce the risk of fraud," added Velline.

In 2016, Wells Fargo was embroiled in a scandal, which alleged that the bank's employees had created over 2.1 million fake customer accounts to boost sales figures. This incident affected the bank's reputation and resulted in a sharp drop in new customers who would open a credit card or checking account with the bank. With the new feature, Wells Fargo is optimistic that it will regain lost ground.

Wells Fargo is not alone in this transition to cardless ATMs. Both Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase & Co. are also working toward bringing this functionality customers' way.

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On March 25, Saturday, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m local time, Earth Hour will be observed in 7,000 cities spread in more than 170 countries. The occasion will be marked by the city skylines in most countries going dark.

At the anointed hour, lights will go off and all buildings including thousands of global landmarks from Vegas to Giza will go dark to observe the occasion.

During the event, people will voluntarily turn off lights and try to reduce emissions in a symbolic way. The event's organizer, World Wildlife Fund, has claimed that this is the largest voluntary action in the world.

Earth Hour As Voluntary Abdication Of Electricity

The abdication of electricity at least for an hour in a year will be supplanted with gestures like dinner under candlelight and cooking in a bonfire. These gestures at a collective level will add solidarity to the efforts in saving energy and of doing something for the planet's preservation.

By switching off lights in houses, businesses, and public buildings for one hour, awareness about energy issues, emissions, and climate change are brought to the center stage.

Earth Hour brings the issue of energy conservation and energy efficiency to the mainstream by seeking changes in the way energy is used. According to physicist David MacKay, an American uses double the amount of energy than his European counterpart in maintaining the same quality of life.

Though the goals of Earth Hour are lofty, there are dissenting voices that doubt its efficacy.

Criticism Of Earth Hour

Energy blogger Maggie Koerth-Baker is of the view that Earth Hour is not sending an adequate message. The blogger criticizes the media as well, as coverage of Earth Hour has been short on discussions regarding energy efficiency.

Also, many people may be disillusioned in knowing that Earth Hour is not contributing much to the actions to combat climate change. Baker says the event limits itself as a symbolic platform to demonstrate to "do something" about global warming.

Yet another critic is Bjrn Lomborg, who said many wrong lessons are being taught by Earth Hour. In reality, Earth Hour only increases carbon dioxide emissions. He says the event smacks of symbolism and reveals what is bad about feel-good environmentalism.

According to Lomborg, the prime message of Earth Hour is that tackling global warming is easy. All that is required is switching off the lights.

The expert says even if the entire world switches off all residential lights for one hour to reduce carbon dioxide emission, that would only match China halting its carbon dioxide emissions for less than four minutes.

Earth Hour Increases Emissions

Lomborg also highlights the paradox that Earth Hour is becoming a cause of higher emissions. There is the finding by National Grid operators in the UK that a mere drop in electricity consumption does not reduce the energy received by the grid and emissions will not be down.

This is because, during Earth Hour, even if there is any reduction in CO2, that will be offset by the additional firings of coal and gas stations for resuming electricity supplies later on.

Even the cozy candles used during Earth Hour are fossil fuels, which are 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs.

Lomborg is also critical of the message from Earth Hour that downplays electricity consumption. Electric power has given humanity huge benefits and allowed mechanization of the world and saved millions of people from backbreaking work.

The author says the best idea that can be promoted during Earth Hour is the greening of the world's energy. He also calls for a new policy that replaces subsidy for unreliable solar and wind energy so that green technologies can phase out fossil fuels.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
By Press Trust of India: Ahmedabad, Mar 25 (PTI) Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GCMMF), which sells its products under Amul brand, today defended its TV commercial for ice cream and accused HUL of resorting to "stunt to pressurise and frighten" it.

FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) has moved Bombay High Court against Amul over the commercial, which suggests to consumers to buy Amul ice cream and not the frozen dessert as the latter was made from vegetable oil and was not healthy.

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Talking to reporters here, GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi said HULs litigation is a "stunt".

"HUL, which makes frozen dessert, has challenged our latest TV commercial that aims to create awareness among consumers about the difference between ice cream and frozen dessert. The latter is made from vegetable oil, while ice cream is made from milk fat," he said.

"This is HULs stunt to pressurise and frighten us into submission. But they dont know that we are backed by 36 lakh poor farmers who want to make consumers aware about the products they are buying," he said.

He further said HUL had dragged Amul to Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) last year objecting to the latters move to distribute pamphlets on the same issue, but the ASCI ruled in its favour, saying that Amuls campaign "does not disparage the entire campaign of frozen dessert."

Sodhi said ice cream is made from milk fat while frozen dessert is made from vegetable fat, and cannot be called an ice cream.

"FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) has named this category as frozen dessert. We thought of informing our consumers to check on the packet of the product to ensure if it is icecream or frozen dessert," he said.

"Even FSSAI allows us to inform our users about our products, and I dont think we have made any mistake... We have just informed consumers and left it for them to decide."

Amul is looking at Rs 1,000-1,100 crore market share in ice cream segment this year, he said.

Sodhi said Amul had created a similar "awareness" campaign differentiating between butter and margarine, and is also planning to launch another campaign regarding cheese and cheese analogues.

The Amul MD further said that GCMMF is looking at sales turnover of Rs 27,000 crore during FY 2016-17 with a rise of around 18 per cent over the last year. The company is looking to expand its capacity in coming years and also launch new products in sweets and snacks, he added.

He said that GCMMF plans to invest Rs 2,000 crore for expansion in another two years. PTI KA PD RMT BJ

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Arnold Schwarzenegger put an internet troll in his place who made an unsavoury comment against the athletes participating in the Special Olympics.

By India Today Web Desk: Don't mess with the Terminator or you will be put in your place.

Recently, a social media video got viral on Thursday in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was seen celebrating the athletes who participated in the Special Olympics at the 2017 World Winter Games back in his home country Austria.

Captioning the clip, "These guys inspire me!", Arnold shared the video on Snapchat. Arnie has been a vocal supporter of and has worked with the Special Olympics for many years.

"You all are truly the greatest athletes in the world!" -@Schwarzenegger pic.twitter.com/21JWeI1dKk- Special Olympics (@SpecialOlympics) March 24, 2017

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While most of the comments the video received were encouraging and positive, one rather hateful remark made towards the athletes really riled up Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The comment read, "The Special Olympics make no sense. The Olympics are for the best athletes in the entire world to compete against each other to determine who is the best. Having retards competing is doing the opposite!"

To this, Arnie replied, "Right now, I guarantee you that these athletes have more courage, compassion, brains, skill - actually more of every positive human quality than you."

He went on to add, "I know what you really want is attention, so let me be clear: if you choose to keep going this way, no one will ever remember you."

Since then, the original comment and the response to it by Arnold Schwarzenegger have been deleted.

ALSO READ: I think Donald Trump is in love with me, says Arnold Schwarzenegger

WATCH: India's grand haul at the Special Olympics

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The French president mentioned to Nicolas Maduro his interest in starting a bilateral work useful for Venezuela and the region. | Read More
Speaking to India Today, Chadha he has filed a complaint with the magistrate and that he along with the six AAP leaders accused in the Jaitley case were threatened with their lives.

By India Today Web Desk: On the day the Patiala House court framed charges against Arvind Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders in the Jaitley defamation case, party spokesperson Raghav Chadha alleged death threats were made against Kejriwal, the other Aam Aadmi Party leaders accused in the case and Chadha, himself.

Chadha made the allegations on social media and later reiterated them while speaking to India Today.

Death threats given to AAP leaders appearing in Jaitley defamation case,including myself,by lawyer on the other side in Patiala House Court- Raghav Chadha (@raghav_chadha) March 25, 2017

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Chadha told India Today that he has filed a complaint over the matter with a magistrate and that he along with the six AAP leaders accused in the Jaitley case were threatened.

The threats were made by one Vivek Sharma, practising lawyer of the Patiala House court, Chadha further alleged.

Today's hearing, in which Kejriwal and the other AAP leaders pleaded not guilty to criminally defaming Arun Jaitley, was marked by heated arguments and disruptions.

(More details awaited)

Also WATCH: Jaitley defamation case: AAP leader Raghav Chadha alleges lawyer issued death threats to Kejriwal

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Taking the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) a step further, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley approved the reorganisation of the field formations of the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC).

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Taking the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) a step further, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley approved the reorganisation of the field formations of the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC).

After getting the legislative approval, the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) is now renamed as the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC).

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"The existing formations of Central Excise & Service Tax under the CBEC have been re-organised to implement and enforce the provisions of the proposed Goods & Services Tax Laws," stated the statement issued by the Finance Ministry.

The Central Government is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that GST is implemented by July 1 this year. Cabinet has already given approval to four supporting GST bills, which will be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming week.

Apart from assisting Central Government in policy making related to GST, the proposed CBIC will supervise the work of all its field formations as well as directorates. CBIC will also continuing to Central Excise levy and Customs functions.

"The CBIC will have 21 Zones, 101 GST Tax payer Services Commissionerates comprising 15 sub-Commissionerates, 768 Divisions, 3969 Ranges, 49 Audit Commissionerates and 50 Appeals Commissionerates. This will ensure rendering of taxpayer services to all the taxpayers through an indirect tax administration structure, having pan-India presence," Finance Ministry statement added.

Also read:

What is the GST bill? Here's all you need to know about India's biggest tax reform

GST: Modi govt can't levy taxes if Parliament doesn't pass 4 Bills till Sept 15

--- ENDS ---
A month after the New Orleans City Council approved plans for a new family restaurant on Bourbon Street, angering preservationists who accused
Civil attorney Suzanne "Suzy" Montero and insurance attorney Rachael Johnson are headed for a runoff in the race for a vacant seat on the Orle
Ever tried keeping three children under the age of three quiet in a 40-minute queue at the post office?



Holly Pender has. And the experience is one she would rather forget.

"I do almost all my shopping online because it is so difficult for me to get out. The whole purpose is that I get deliveries straight to my house."

And yet the mother of three from Merrylands says she still has to head to Australia Post to pick up about 80 per cent of the five to 10 packages her household receives each week.

"It has become more common that the delivery guy just drops off a mail card, even though someone is home," Ms Pender said.
On a Wednesday evening at a local bar in Kansas, Indian software engineers Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani were chatting over their customary after-work whiskies.

Another patron, Adam W. Purinton, a Navy veteran, 51, started hurling racial slurs at the pair. Purinton was tossed out by security, but returned and fired on the two men. Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed and Madasani was wounded. Hours after the killing, Purinton walked into a bar and told a member of staff he had just killed "two Middle Eastern men".

Nine days later in Washington, Deep Rai, 39, a US citizen of Indian descent, was working on his car in his driveway when an unidentified white male racially abused him before shooting him in the arm, shouting "go back to your own country".

Both incidents are being investigated by US authorities as potential hate crimes. The attacks, and a string of other incidents across the country, have made front-page news in India. Mistaken as Muslim by extremists, non-Muslim Indians are increasingly being drawn into a wider surge of Islamophobic attacks in the country, with Indian politicians and families increasingly concerned about the safety of relatives and friends there.
The footage is mesmerising as much as it is terrifying. Enormous explosions, wild enough to blow the clouds away, a churning blast wave across the earth as a giant mushroom of dust and smoke slowly rises above. This display of the destructive power of nuclear weapons  seen in newly declassified film of early atomic tests from 1945 and 1962, and now released online  should be seen as a stark warning. Such weapons must never again be used in anger.

The only true guarantee to save humanity from its own destructive ability is to completely rid the world of nuclear weapons stockpiles. Much as we have become inured to the danger over the years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the heightened tension of the Cold War, there is no managing this risk. Too many atomic bombs remain ready to fire at a moment's notice; there are too many chances for human error that would see a catastrophic mistake.

At a time when the temperament of many leaders is rightly questioned, this should be the time to redouble efforts for nuclear disarmament, rather than trust the luck of the last 70 years will hold.

In that spirit, on Monday, negotiations will commence in New York for a new treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons  not regulate, but ban the bomb outright. More than 120 countries have pledged to participate. Regrettably, however, Australia is not among them.
Frank Carleton, Longwarry Living in a big city, the fact is ... Dear Pauline Hanson, what London's mayor Sadiq Khan actually said was he believed the threat of terror attacks are "part and parcel of living in a big city" and encouraged Londoners to be vigilant to combat dangers. He was quoted in The Independent newspaper as saying major cities around the world "have got to be prepared for these sorts of things" to happen when people least expect them. He said that means being vigilant, having a police force that is in touch with communities, security services being ready and being prepared to exchange ideas. Senator Hanson, before you "do a Trump" and give alternative facts, please give them in full context so they are not "taken out of context", something I am sure would make you angry beyond belief it were to happen to you. Neil McMillan, Point Cook

THE FORUM Versatile valley Calls for Hazelwood to remain open until pumped hydro comes on stream are not realistic or something private provider Engie would be willing to do. Instead, with hundreds of jobs at stake, the state government needs to take the initiative and directly fund or, provide incentives to, companies willing to invest in solar thermal technology (already in use in the US and Spain). Together with wind turbine and solar farms, land can be leased out for wind and solar generation, adding to overall output plus an additional income stream. Here is the chance for immediate infrastructure investment in a location already connected to the grid, with a skilled workforce, providing manufacturing maintenance and other opportunities. There are already a number of local, US and EU-based companies willing to come on board. We need to stop scoring points on energy policy and get on with the job. The Latrobe Valley could become a centre for renewable energy production, providing a much needed boost to both the area's and the state's economy. Dennis O'Connell, Ivanhoe

Down the line The energy from Hazelwood is supplied to Melbourne by power lines that connect to the grid in the Melbourne area. To replace this energy from interstate sources, would at times require the existing linking power lines to carry more energy. The main source is from the NSW/Snowy Scheme, and these power lines have not been upgraded for decades. They have a limited capacity. Power lines can carry less energy as the ambient temperature rises, as they are designed for a maximum conductor temperature of 100 degrees Celsius. The issue is not just the availability of energy from generating sources, but also the capability to transfer this energy to where it is needed. Douglas Maxwell, Bright Seller beware The demise of Hazelwood power station makes for interesting reading. Calls by the AIG to extend its life raise issues relating to its run-down condition. When it was owned and run by the State Electricity Commission it was well maintained and returned a profit to the state. "We" had control of our asset and could have managed its closure progressively as alternatives came on line. There is a lesson here for other states still considering privatisation of public utilities  seller beware!

Stuart James, Leneva Hazelwood hydro? While our politicians are so preoccupied with scoring points off each other, they seem to be ignoring obvious possibilities. The Hazelwood cooling pond and mine seem to be an obvious site for a significant pumped hydro scheme. The topography right, there is a skilled and under-employed workforce, engineering capacity, a power grid, and it is close to a large demand. While some are calling for a $750million subsidy to keep the dinosaur alive, a fraction of that expenditure spent on a pumped hydro scheme could provide great benefits. Graham Moore, Northcote Keep it open

'Victorian taxpayers lose on Kew Cottages redevelopment' (19/3)  well there's a surprise. It's becoming almost a weekly occurrence that all those who have protested over various so-called developments are being proven right, from closed and demolished schools to sub-standard high-rises and everything in between. Our politicians of all levels and stripes have been governing, and continue to do so, for the benefit of construction companies, not for the citizens of Victoria. Commercial-in-confidence contracts must be banned. Let us all know what is really happening, right at the outset. Margaret Callinan, Balwyn Making the shift While I cannot comment on the specifics of the Kew Cottages deal, it is quite easy to reduce a specific company's profits via intergroup charges, such as management fees, intergroup loans, debt guarantee charges etc. If the state is to enter profit-sharing agreements it should not be with a specific company only. This is why the Tax Office introduced the tax consolidation rules, as companies could easily shift profits internally among its wholly owned group. Peter Wisniewski, Moonee Ponds

Rating mad Insurer NIB's Mark Fitzgibbon's comments ('Can you haggle for cheaper medical treatment', 19/3) regarding the review of doctors on the website whitecoat.com.au reveal his misunderstanding of the interaction between doctors and patients that form the basis of clinical care. In particular, his comment that medical specialists should view online ratings (based on parameters set purely by the insurance industry) as equivalent to "hotel reviews on TripAdvisor", and his apparent surprise doctors would not wish to partake in such "marketing reach", demonstrates Mr Fitzgibbon and his company lack insight into the profession they profit from. Perhaps if doctors developed a website that offered comparisons of the relative benefits of different health insurance products, the trend towards corporate-driven views of the practice of medicine might be redressed. Engaging in "marketing reach" behaviour such as this is outside the moral code of medical practitioners, but in an environment where corporate interests increasingly intrude into medicine, I genuinely wonder if the medical profession can now rationally choose to do otherwise. Dr Jane Anderson, Richmond Too little, too late?

An article on the degradation of the Great Barrier Reef ('Here to see the reef before it goes', 19/3) quotes a NASA climate scientist saying he was "here to see the reef before it was gone". A tourist operator is quoted thus: "Bleaching is a real bitch from a marketing perspective." Yes and it's a real bitch from a life on our planet perspective too! How shameful that it may have to be the loss of tourist revenue for drastic, long-lasting measures to be taken? My fear is that it may all be too late! Linda Fisher, Malvern East Snow job Hope that was an LED lightbulb moment Malcolm. Banjo must be rolling in his grave with so much laughter. Burning coal to pump the hydro! Could anything be dafter? A great parody Annabel Crabb (19/3). Peter McCarthy, Mentone

Taking a stand As a nurse, and a member of the country's largest union, I completely support the ACTU's Sally McManus in her views on breaking unjust laws. Nurses are advocates and activists, and if we believe a patient's life or wellbeing is at risk, most of us will put ourselves on the line for them. We cannot and will not stay silent and leave harmful or unjust laws go unchallenged. If the most ethical and trusted professionals don't take a stand, who will? Elisabeth Hall, Reservoir Road rage Why in Australia do we allow trucks to travel at the same speed as cars? It is not at all surprising to read about the numerous accidents and fatalities involving trucks when one considers that trucks, compared with cars, take about twice the distance to stop in an emergency. On top of that they appear to have a licence to swerve from lane to lane and to tailgate at will thereby terrifying all around them. This is not the case in most OECD countries where trucks are restricted to 90 km/h and to the inside lane unless overtaking another truck. Driving in such countries as France, Japan, Germany is an entirely different experience even though the speed limit for cars is higher.

Rod Evans, Parkville Battlers' salute Congratulations Jacqui Lambie. I may not always agree with you, but on this occasion, I salute you as a defender of the battlers in our community, ('Lambie upset and angry, but not ashamed', 24/3). Indeed, you may be the last bastion for those who have, understandably, lost faith in a government which sees pollies rorting the system and the well heeled keeping their wealth intact, while too many citizens struggle to survive. Helen Scheller, Benalla Underclass hero
According to police, the blast took place around 7 pm, around a kilometre away from the building where the militants were hiding.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: At least four people were killed and around 30 others injured in two separate suicide blasts near a militant hideout that was raided by commandos in South Surma's Shibbari area in Sylhet district on Saturday.

According to police, the blast took place around 7 pm, around a kilometre away from the building where the militants were hiding.

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Three of the four deceased have been identified as court police inspector Chowdhury Mohammad Koysor, college student Ohidul Islam Opu, and Shahidul Islam, a resident of the area. The fourth person could not be identified. He was estimated to be around 35 years old.

One of the blast victims being rushed to the hospital in Sylhet.

COPS INJURED

Inspector Monir of Sylhet police and Surma police station OC Shah Harun Ur Rashid were among those injured in the blast.

The victims were rushed to the Osmany Medical College Hospital in Sylhet.

Police were yet to give details of the blasts. One of the injured people told the media at the hospital that some onlookers stopped a person carrying a black polythene bag.

ABOUT THE TWO BLASTS

"The first blast occurred just after he said that there was red spinach in the bag. Five to six people were injured in the explosion," he said. "Another explosion occurred when the police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) came. Around 25 people were injured," he added.

Police and army para-commandos have been trying to penetrate the militant den on the ground floor of the building since around 9 am on Saturday after having it cordoned off for roughly 30 hours. Their attempts have so far been foiled by explosives laid out around the building. Locals of the town have been standing around the cordoned area since the beginning. The last time a major terrorist attack took place in Bangladesh was in Dhaka's Gulshan in July last year when 5 militants barged into an upscale cafe and killed 22 people.

Also read | IS claims responsibility for suicide attack at Dhaka airport

Also read | Dhaka: 10 people, including children, killed after truck carrying cement overturns

--- ENDS ---
A large number of civilians have been killed or injured. Chris Woods, director of independent civilian casualties monitoring agency Airwars, says that since the assault began hundreds have been reported killed by coalition airstrikes. "We're seeing worse numbers now in Mosul than we did during Aleppo," he says. "There was a report in the British Daily Telegraph [March 12] saying 300 civilians died in just two neighbourhoods of Mosul in a 24-hour period as a result of airstrikes." The Russian and Syrian campaign to take Aleppo was extensively covered by western media with Moscow and Damascus usually blamed for the death and injury of civilians.

Few if any mainstream western media representatives blamed the al-Qaeda backed rebels for the carnage or called on them to surrender as a way of ending the siege. Woods rightly points out that the international media is not covering the civilian casualties in Mosul in the same way as they covered the Aleppo conflict. Certainly the Australian television networks are not. Children are being killed and injured and pulled from bombed buildings but if it's "our" side doing the bombing it seems it's not to be screened. But the killing is not going un-noticed. It's being raised in US State Department briefings, not least by Russian journalists. On March 15, one journalist referred to Iraqi politician Khamis Khanjar's statement that at least 3500 civilians had been killed in Mosul within the past month. Khanjar said the mounting casualties came mainly from airstrikes and indiscriminate shelling of heavily crowded neighbourhoods.

In response State Department official Mark Toner, who was briefing the media before the presidential election and still holds his position, abandoned Kerry's Aleppo line that no civilians should be killed or forced to leave a city when it is being liberated. He maintained that US forces made every effort to avoid civilian casualties when carrying out airstrikes. He said he didn't have any sense of whether Khanjar's numbers were credible. If there were credible allegations of civilian casualties as a result of the coalition's actions or Iraqi Security Forces' actions, they should be investigated. US authorities are co-operating with Airwars to assess allegations of civilian casualties. But Chris Woods told the ABC's 7.30 Report that his organisation could not engage with Australia because Australian authorities would not say where they bombed, when they bombed and what they bombed. He said this had been going on for 30 months.

Questioned about this a Defence Department spokesperson told The Canberra Times that the ADF operated under strict rules of engagement that were designed to protect Australian forces, minimise the risk of injury to civilians and strictly comply with Australia's obligations under domestic and international law. He said the Australian Defence Force provided regular public updates on its operations, including in Iraq and Syria, and aimed to balance the protection of operational security with its obligation to be transparent and accountable to the Australian public. The spokesperson said statistical data about air operations was available on the Defence website. But the Air Task Group (ATG) statistics only show the number of operations flown each month. They do not reveal where Australian aircraft bombed, when they bombed and what they bombed. The spokesperson said the ADF thoroughly reviewed every ATG strike following the return of the aircraft to ensure the strike accorded with pre-strike approvals.

"The ADF takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously. If an allegation is raised following an ATG strike, the matter is investigated and the findings are reported." The ATG strike data was aggregated with coalition data and released in the daily coalition media release, he said. But this clearly does not satisfy Airwars, which contrasts Australia's procedures with those of the United States and Britain. In its transparency audit released in December Airwars said Australia was one of the least transparent members of the international coalition fighting ISIS. "Canberra has consistently refused to disclose almost any information relating to an estimated 405 airstrikes to October 2016  with one notable exception," the report states.
It's never easy seeing your ex move on with another, but when that ex is Matty Johnson looking for love with at least 22 potential suitors on national television, what do you do?

Well, if you're last year's Bachelorette, Georgia Love, you avoid The Bachelor.

Despite her doing the dumping, she told Fairfax Media this week it will be hard to watch the marketing manager, 29, woo the woman he has said he wants "to spend the rest of [his] life with".

"It will be like watching an ex dating a whole bunch of people, which no one really wants to see," Love said at the announcement of her new ambassador role for beauty brand Palmer's at Nour, Surry Hills.
Police are asking the community to help find a missing 16-year-old girl who may be with a 28-year-old man.

Sally Lee Gordon-Smith was last seen at an address in Kealba, near St Albans, on March 20.

Police are asking for help locate missing teenager Sally Lee Gordon-Smith who may be with a 28-year-old man Benjamin Gowland.

She is believed to be in the Melbourne CBD or the Enterprize Park area and may be with 28-year-old Benjamin Gowland.

Police and family have concerns for her welfare due to her age and failure to get in touch
Six prison officers were assaulted by an inmate and his visitor in Port Phillip on Saturday morning.

The staff members were hospitalised with non-life threatening injuries following a melee at the Truganina prison at 11.30am.

Investigations are underway to find out what sparked Saturday's fight. Credit:Paul Rovere

"It's believed six staff, both male and female, were assaulted by one of the male prisoners and a male visitor," a police spokesman said.
A man remains in a critical condition after being stabbed in a motel on Dunn Bay Road in tourist hot spot Dunsborough just after 9pm on Friday night.

Officers will allege a 37-year-old man walked up to a 33-year-old man who was sitting at a table and stabbed him several times before fleeing.

The incident happened along Dunn Bay Road, in the heart of Dunsborough.

The men are known to each other.

The victim received critical injuries and was taken to Busselton Hospital before being airlifted to Royal Perth Hospital by the RAC Rescue Helicopter.
The assassin who gunned down a prominent Russian opposition figure on a sidewalk in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev was identified by Ukrainian officials Friday as a 28-year-old Russian agent.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the country's interior minister, identified the agent as Pavel Parshov. Parshov had undergone "a special course at a school for saboteurs", he said in a Facebook post.

Denis Voronenkov was shot dead by an unidentified gunman at the entrance of an upscale hotel in Kiev. Credit:AP

The gunman was himself grievously wounded by a bodyguard for the target, Denis Voronenkov, and subsequently died in the hospital.

The allegation was immediately dismissed by Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as "absurd".
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 24 (PTI) State owned Bank of Maharashtra has approved issuance of preferential shares to the government for capital infusion of Rs 300 crore.

The board of the bank in its meeting today approved the proposal of raising of equity capital up to Rs 300 crore by way of preferential allotment in favour of government, the bank said in a BSE filing.

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Pune-based Bank of Maharashtra on March 16 had received communication from the government for Rs 300 crore capital allocation plan.

The bank said issue price of shares to be allotted will be decided on April 3.

The government has approved second tranche of capital infusion in public sector banks to enhance their capital base.

The first tranche was announced in July with the objective of enhancing their lending operations and enabling them to raise more money from the market.

It has already announced a fund infusion of Rs 22,915 crore, out of the Rs 25,000 crore earmarked for 13 PSBs for the current fiscal.

Stock of the bank closed 1.19 per cent higher at Rs 34.10 on BSE today. PTI KPM KRH SBT BAL

--- ENDS ---
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating death toll)

From Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Mar 25 (PTI) At least three people were killed and 31 injured today in two blasts when Islamist militants hurled explosives on people as army commandos stormed their hideout in Bangladeshs northeastern Sylhet city following a 30-hour security siege.

"Two civilians and a policeman have been killed in separate blasts outside the militant hideout," said Golam Kibria, commissioner of Sylhet Metropolitan Police. "Five of the injured are law enforcers," he told The Daily Star.

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The first blast happened around 7:00 p.m. about 400 metres off the five-storey building where the militants were hiding. It targeted the huge crowd witnessing the operation codenamed "Twilight" and policemen deployed there as part of a cordon, killing two civilians.

Another blast took place in front the hideout an hour later that killed the policeman. "The Rapid Action Battalion and armed policemen had replaced onlookers at the first blast site when the second attack happened," an eyewitness told PTI.

The injured have been admitted to hospitals, officials said.

The first blast occurred shortly after an army spokesman hinted that the commandos were set for the final assault on the extremists, after they had evacuated the building of the residents with the help of firefighters and other officials.

The militants are said to have spread across the building and planted Improvised Explosive Devices as traps, contrary to earlier reports they had taken over only the ground floor.

Authorities were yet to hold a briefing for the media after the blasts. But Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan has said the number of militants holed up is not yet confirmed.

When asked about how long the commando operation could take, he said: "It is the commander of the operation, who will decide how it will be conducted or when it could end."

Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Divisions Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the operation, a military spokesman said, which was assisted by polices SWAT and counter-terrorism units. The elite Rapid Action Battalion is also involved.

The militants have carried out 12 explosions since the operation was intensified this morning after the nearly 30-hour security siege around the building failed to flush them out.

Police had raided the building early morning Friday and cordoned off the area.

Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) chief Monirul Islam said they got information that JMB chief Musa along with some other JMB militants were in Sylhet, but it was not clear if they were the ones hiding in the building.

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The neo-JMB, said to be inclined to the Islamic State, was behind the July 1 terror attack on a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed.

Earlier today, TV channels were barred from broadcasting the operation "live" but their reports showed commandos taking positions around the building.

Witnesses said smoke billowed out of the building and they heard intermittent explosions and gunshots from the building.

People in the neighbourhood have been advised to remain indoors as the operation was still in progress.

Reports have said at least two suspected militants, including a female, were on the ground floor of the building but a police officer later feared a "whole lot of them (neo-JMB operatives)" could be there.

Police had urged the two suspected militants, staying in the building as tenants for three months, to surrender, but they refused. The militants shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is the greatest) and told police to send your SWAT team.

Authorities have cut off gas and power lines of the building since last night.

The operation "Twilight" was launched after a suicide bomber last night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. It came a week after an identical attack on a RAB camp in Dhaka.

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Police had tracked down the Sylhet hideout less than a week after they busted two militant dens on the outskirts of the southeastern port city Chittagong.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack. PTI AR CPS NSA ZH AKJ ABH

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Hours before the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee announced his shocking claims about surveillance of the Trump transition team on Wednesday morning, he practically disappeared.

Rep. Devin Nunes was traveling with a senior committee staffer in an Uber on Tuesday evening when he received a communication on his phone, three committee officials and a former national security official with ties to the committee told The Daily Beast. After the message, Nunes left the car abruptly, leaving his own staffer in the dark about his whereabouts.

By the next morning, Nunes hastily announced a press conference. His own aides, up to the most senior level, did not know what their boss planned to say next. Nunes choice to keep senior staff out of the loop was highly unusual.

The Republican chairman had a bombshell to drop.

The intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition, Nunes told reporters Wednesday morning.

Nunes reviewed dozens of reports produced by the U.S. intelligence community that showed this, he added. Though the surveillance was done legally, Nunes said he was alarmed that information about transition officials was widely disseminated throughout the government, and that in some cases their names were unmasked, meaning not hidden as is usually the case when when a U.S. persons information is collected through foreign surveillance.

Immediately after the press conference, Nunes went to the White House to brief the president. Afterwards, Trump said he felt somewhat vindicated by the briefing for his false claim that President Obama wiretapped him during the election. (Nunes has maintained this is not true.)

Asked to explain why he decided to brief the president, Nunes told Sean Hannity on Thursday he had done so because the information concerned him and that the president was receiving criticism from the press.

"Its clear that I would be concerned if I was the president, and thats why I wanted him to know, and I felt like I had a duty and obligation to tell him because, as you know, hes taking a lot of heat in the news media," Nunes said.

Democrats and Republicans were taken by surprise by Nunes actions.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, hinted at the unusual circumstances Friday during a press conference, criticizing the chairman for what appears to be a dead of night excursion. It appears Schiff was being literal.

All of us are essentially in the dark, Schiff told reporters Friday. Its not just that he hasnt shared them with Democrats on the committee, he hasnt shared them with Republicans on the committee.

Im the only one whos seen the documents, as far as I know, Nunes said Friday.

Nunes office had no comment for this story.

Theres all kinds of speculation like this floating around about his source, his whereabouts, the circumstances of his announcement, etc. Im not going to comment on it, his spokesman said.

Where Nunes went and who his source was for this informationwhich he said was still incompleteis now a mystery with serious repercussions for the independence of his investigation into Russian interference with U.S. elections.

This information was legally brought to me by sources who thought that we should know it, Nunes added.

Nunes said the documents involved legally collected foreign intelligence under FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and they confirmed U.S. persons were incidentally collected during surveillance. This information would have been classified, by the very nature of its contentsand would have needed to be reviewed in a special location.

If were assuming in good faith that the chairman of the intelligence committee made sure to conduct himself within the bounds of the law, then any classified material reviewed by him would have needed to be reviewed in a secure facility, explained Bradley Moss, a lawyer specializing in national security clearances. There are a very small number of them in the general area of the District of Columbia. And there are log entries to enter any SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility]. Assuming that whoever gave it to him was authorized to have that information, he would have had to have visited a SCIF.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have suggested that Nunes source was the White House, looking to distract from FBI Director James Comeys revelation Monday that the bureau is investigating whether members of Trumps campaign colluded with Russia.

Where did [Nunes] receive this information? From our knowledge, no one on his staff and no other members were a part of this, Rep. Eric Swalwell said on MSNBC on Thursday. So that means it had to be outside of the Capitol. So, did he go to another agency? And does that mean that the White House was a part of this? It sure seems like the White House after what came out on Monday was scrambling to do anything it could to put another smoke bomb into this investigation.

Even before this controversy, Nunes independence had been questioned. Nunes had been a member of the presidents transition team, and his office had previously acknowledged that he had, at the request of the White House, spoken to a reporter to challenge reports of links between Trump associates and Russia.

The White House denied any knowledge of Nunes source.

Im not aware of where he got the documents from. I dont know, said Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday. I dont know where he got them from. [Nunes] didnt state it. So I dont have anything for you.

We dont talk about sources at this committee. We want more people to come forward, Nunes added Friday.

The president did, however, promise evidence supporting his wiretap claim would be given to the House or Senate intelligence committee. Trump told Fox News that he would be submitting things before the committee very soon.

We will be submitting certain things, and I will be, perhaps, speaking about this next week, Trump said last week. This has not yet occurred, as far as the public knows.

On Friday, Nunes also announced that the committee controlled by Republicans had indefinitely postponed a scheduled open hearing Tuesday with former national security officials, replacing it with a closed hearing with the heads of the FBI and NSA.

For House Republicans and the White House, this is about obstruction and distraction, Rep. Mike Quigley told The Daily Beast. And this week there were three: that Obama wiretapped Trump tower, number two, this middle of the night excursion, and number three, canceling the open hearings. I just tell my colleagues that we have to keep up the pressure so they dont turn the lights out.
The swirling maelstrom around President Donald Trump and his teams alleged ties to Russia may have claimed another victim on Thursday.

Rick Gates, one of six former Trump campaign aides who joined the nonprofit group America First Policies to support Trumps agenda, left the organization just two months into the presidents term. On Thursday night America First Policies announced on Twitter that Gates was leaving the group.

America First Policies spokesperson Katrina Pierson told The Daily Beast that Gates was done with his work for the nonprofit and simply moved on.

Rick volunteered to help set up the organization and build out the administrative tasks, Pierson said. Now that everything is up and running, he has decided to move on to his next project. We are appreciative of his work.

She denied that his departure had anything to do with a slew of recent stories about former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and claimed that Gates had planned to move along to other projects anyway.

We just wanted to notify everyone in real time so that there wouldnt be a flurry of rumors, Pierson told The Daily Beast. Of course, it seems that we were kidding ourselves.

But according to three former Trump campaign officials familiar with the inner dealings of the organization, this was not exactly the case.

Heat is on, one person who requested anonymity said immediately after the announcement.

Gatess departure, according to the sources, was due to a combination of the nonprofits troubled start and his proximity to Manafort, who is reportedly a target of the FBIs counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. FBI Director James Comey officially confirmed the investigation on Monday before a House panel.

As The Daily Beast previously reported, America First Policies hadnt done much to rally behind the president in the first months of his administration. Republican super-donor Rebekah Mercer initially walked away from backing the project due to former campaign digital director Brad Parscales refusal to show her tax returns. Another former campaign official who worked on America First Policies, David Bossie, also departed the organization this month. Politico reported on Friday that the White House was concerned about the groups absence ahead of a term-defining health care vote which was pulled on Friday.

I havent seen any evidence of any work that theyre doing or any fundraising theyre doing, a previous Trump campaign official told The Daily Beast.

But Gatess association with Manafort and Russia might have been the final straw.

Gates joined Manaforts firm Davis Manafort in 2006. Early on in their partnership, Gates and Manafort had Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin, as a client but the business relationship quickly went south. According to a report in the Washington Post from August, 2016, Deripaska accused Gates and Manafort of taking some $19 million intended for investments, failing to account for the money and then not responding to questions about what the money was used for. Manaforts attorney did not respond to requests for comment from The Post at the time.

Deripaskas attorneys went on to claim that they could not find either Manafort or Gates and hired a private investigator to track them down, according to a petition filed in a Cayman Islands court. By 2014, Manafort and Gates were working in Washington, D.C. to promote policies favored by Ukraines president Viktor Yanukovych.

Manafort brought Gates along to join the Trump campaign in April 2016, and from then on he reportedly performed the duties of deputy campaign manager before Manafort left. After Manafort exited the campaign in August 2016 after increasing criticism of his ties to Russia, Gates apparently stayed in the Trump orbit. Campaign spokesman Jason Miller said at the time that Gates would be the campaigns liaison to the Republican National Committee, though others said that he was no longer affiliated.

Trump wanted him gone, a former official claimed to The Daily Beast. He became friends with Reince [Priebus] and shipped him over to the RNC. He was out of sight of Trump. Apparently hes made nice with the kids. He was essentially running the inaugural.

Trump had ordered Bossie to fire Gates about six times, one source told The Daily Beast previously. When Manafort left and as Gates stuck around, a number of former campaign officials grew to dislike him and suggested to The Daily Beast that his presence was unwanted.

After the election in November, Gates was reportedly planning Trumps inauguration.

Rick Gates should be nowhere near anything that has to do with Donald Trump, one official told The Daily Beast.

A recent story in The Washington Post about Manaforts proximity to Gates contributed to the final decision according to a former official.

It is unclear though who exactly told Gates to go or if he left of his own volition. Pierson told The Daily Beast that he left of his own accord and that she was happy with his work.

Seriously, Rick is a hard worker and is very good with admin and organization, Pierson said. Hes always been very helpful. Hes been around at least since 2004 and knows a lot of people around DC. The startup was finished over the weekend and the rest of the first line of ads were delivered Monday, so when he says that he needs to go work on his next project, we said thanks again!

His next project remains unknown.

Gates did not respond to an email or phone call about his decision to leave. Parscale also did not respond to a request for comment.

But for some former officials who often claimed that Gates would boss them around and then respond with dont shoot the messenger when they questioned him, the news of his departure was welcomed with open arms.

After hearing Dude, dont shoot the messenger for months, Im happy to see that karma got her gun working again, one official told The Daily Beast.
Facing certain defeat on their increasingly doomed health-care bill, Republican leaders chose to pull it from the floor Friday afternoon rather than watch it die on live television.

We just pulled it, President Donald Trump called to tell Washington Post reporter Robert Costa around 3:30 p.m. ET on Friday. We had no votes from the Democrats, Trump said later in remarks to press. They werent going to give us a single vote so its a very difficult thing to doI think what will happen is Obamacare, unfortunately, will explode. Its going to have a bad year.

Republicans never sought any Democratic votes, and Trump has previously floated the idea of trying to let the Affordable Care Act cave in on itself rather than repeal it this early in his presidency.

Just minutes after the bill was pulled, a somber-looking House Speaker Paul Ryan emerged at a hastily called news conference to lament the new GOP governing coalitions "growing pains." He refused to sugarcoat his party's major legislative defeat, and acknowledge he could not reach a consensus with hardline conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus.

I spoke to the president just a little while ago and I told him that the best thing I think to do is to pull this bill, and he agreed with that decision, Ryan said at a press conference following the decision.

"Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, we're feeling those growing pains today," the speaker said. "This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard.

He added, bluntly: "This is a setbackno two ways about it."

"We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," Ryan admitted, signaling a shift toward other items on the GOP's legislative agenda, including tax reform and border security.

A late Thursday rallywhich brought White House advisers to the Hill to try to convince holdouts to back the American Health Care Act (AHCA)gave Republicans some hope that they might be able to squeak by.

But that good will had faded as the sun rose over Capitol Hill, because apparently after a good nights sleep those holdouts were still no votes.

At a vote on Friday morning, Majority Whip Steve Scalise moved around the House floor trying to stem the bleeding. From the seats above the House gallery, Scalise could be seen talking to no-leaners Rep. Warren Davidson, who holds Speaker John Boehners old House seat in Ohio, and New Jerseys Chris Smith.

But as Scalise nodded and wrote down Smiths comments, another member of the New Jersey delegationHouse Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysenannounced his opposition. Hours after Scalises conversation with Davidson, his fellow Ohioan Rep. David Joyce announced his vote would be a no.

Meanwhile, House Freedom Caucus members seemed to dig in further. Upon hearing that White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and President Trump were compiling a shit list of those who opposed the bill, an aide working for the hardline conservative caucus responded, Meh.

When asked by The Daily Beast if he was at all concerned about potentially making the White House hit list for his staunch opposition from the beginning to the American Health Care Act, Freedom Caucus member Rep. Justin Amash just smiled, laughed, and replied, What do you think?

"That champagne that wasn't popped [by Democrats] last November might be utilized [this week]," Republican congressman Mark Walker told reporters on Friday afternoon, roughly an hour before this weeks Trumpcare-Ryancare hard-sell finally imploded on itself.

Just before everything officially collapsed, The Daily Beast asked a House Republican aide about the current state of affairs on the AHCA. The aide messaged back, "I have a song to explain," and then sent along a YouTube link to a song by hip-hop artist T.I. titled, Dead and Gone.

Failure this week to even get a floor vote on Trump and Ryans repeal-and-replace effort belies Trumps self-promoted reputation as a closer and as an expert dealmaker. The White House had been claiming for days that there would be a vote and that it would get done this week. The White House aggressively courted Freedom Caucus members in a bid for a deal that would pacify the caucuss members.

All those plans, and pitches and concessions that came from the president himself, amounted to a setback at best, and humiliation at worst. Trumps ultimatums and targeted threats didnt move the needle enough in his direction, either.

Were taking [Trumpcare] down, a House Freedom Caucus aide told The Daily Beast on Tuesday morning. Later that day, Congressman Rod Blum, a member of the Freedom Caucus, said that Ryan and co. simply dont have the votes, and that he and other hardliners were playing a game of chicken with House GOP leadership.

Lets see who blinks first, Blum said.

On Friday afternoon, the other guys blinked first.
As the House of Representatives down in Washington, D.C. seemed poised to vote on repealing Obamacare , 15-year-old Brendan Delgado of New York was preparing to spend a half day off from school volunteering at a medical facility that bears an increasingly unlikely name.

TRUMP, read the big letters, followed by a smaller Pavilion on the front of this building at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens.

The name is in recognition not of Donald, but of his mother Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, who provided the funding for the original TRUMP Pavilion for Nursing and Rehabilitation in 1975. Her childrenincluding Donaldwere born at Jamaica Hospital and she was a prominent member of the Womens Auxiliary there. She was known to be thrifty in other aspects of her life, sometimes going into the laundries at the TRUMP apartment buildings to see if anybody had left coins in the washing machines. But she was also known to be more than generous with both money and time when it came to the hospital.

Long after her death in 2000, Mary Anne continues to have a reputation as an actually good person.

Thats what they say, said Brendan Delgados mother, Maria, who works at TRUMP Pavilion.

She then posed a question that defies an answer.

What happened?

She was asking how such a fine woman whose name rightly belongs on a healthcare facility could have a son such as Donald Trump. His latest sins include being happily ready to leave more than 20 million people without health insurance just so he could boast that he had made good on a rabble-rousing campaign promise to junk Obamacare. He had run into trouble in the House of Representatives because some moderate Republicans found what might be called Trumpcare too cruel and some conservatives found it not cruel enough.

Maria Delgados decency was manifest as she spoke smilingly about the 238-bed rehab facility named after Mary Anne Trump. She reported that the patients are generally content and unworried about insurance under the present system, which Donald Trump has been seeking to upend.

Its very homey, welcoming, she said of TRUMP Pavilion, which specializes in the elderly.

And it only made sense that Marias teenage son was as manifestly decent as his mom. He thinks he might want to design computer games when he gets older and presently harbors no ambitions in the medical field, so he is not resume building when he spends what time he can spare volunteering at the pavilion.

Just help out, he said. Just go in and help out.

With that, he proceeded inside with his mother, who had beamed with justified pride when describing her sons efforts to do good for no other reward than doing it. The TRUMP on the front of the building continued to attest to the decency of Mary Anne, which continued to pose the question of what she might have felt having Donald for a son.

Mary Ann sometimes told a story that began with her giving Donald and his brother Robert each an equal number of Legos when they were little boys. She recalled that Donald asked to borrow Roberts Legos so he could build a high tower. Robert agreed, but when he went to recollect them he discovered that Donald had glued together all the Legos.

When Donald grew old enough to use concrete and steel, he continued to build with nobody but himself in mind. The only buildings that bore TRUMP in his honor were ones that he named himself after himself. His idea of charitable giving was to make money off it.

Whatever Mary Ann might have privately thought of all this, Donald was still her son and she offered no public criticism. Donald, on his part, remained unmoved by the example she set with the TRUMP Pavilion. The only significant philanthropy that bore his name is Donald J. Trump State Park, so christened at his insistence when he donated 436 acres to New York for which he had paid $2 million and declared to be worth $100 million, thereby making himself eligible for tens of millions of dollars in tax deductions.

The TRUMP at Jamaica Hospital was retained in continued recognition of Mary Anne when the pavilion was replaced by a new slightly larger and considerably cheerier one around the corner in 2009. It was still the TRUMP Pavilion even though the funding was provided not by her family but by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That is the agency whose budget Donald Trump proposes to slash by $6 billion, ending altogether the community development program that built this very facility.

Just before noon on Friday, a nurse emerged from the TRUMP Pavilion and affirmed Maria Delgados sunny description of health care there under the present system.

It is a good place, the nurse said. Caring staff. They take care of the patients.

Down in Washington, Mary Annes son was making a final push to get a repeal of Obamacare through the House of Representatives. His self-avowed genius as a deal maker failed him and around 3 p.m. he told Speaker of the House Paul Ryan that he wanted to pull the bill.

Were going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future, Ryan said at a press conference, as if this were something to mourn.

Back up at the TRUMP Pavilion, Brendan Delgado was helping out on his half day off from a high school named after our second president, John Adams.

Young Brendan was making his mom rightly proud by doing good for the sake of doing it in the happy facility named after a benefactor who is somehow the mom of the man who is somehow our 45th president.
DENVERNeighbors had no idea that a multi-million dollar illegal weed business was allegedly operating behind the fancy front door of the mansion on the hill.

According to prosecutors, Michael Stonehouses black market pot business was as lucrative as that of any Mexican cartel, growing hundreds of pounds of pot and delivering it in duffel bags to at least five other states where marijuana remains illegal. In fact, according to to a recent grand jury indictment, Stonehouses clandestine marijuana business was raking in so much cash, it appears he and 15 employees were having a hard time finding a place to put it. The 37-page indictment says that money orders were deposited in five-figure chunks in seven different banks so that Stonehouse and Co. could purchase even more homes in all-American neighborhoods right under the noses of the cops.

Thursday, a judge set bond for Stonehouse, 53, at one million dollars.

Chris Decker, Stonehouses attorney, balked at the high bond, pointing out that Stonehouse is a family man and a former Marine who has had plenty of legal jobs, including one as a marijuana consultant and another as the owner of a food truck. Decker believes that Stonehouse is being used as an example in a high-stakes political climate as the Colorado legislature attempts to put the brakes on current medical marijuana laws. He told The Daily Beast that the drug sting involved SWAT teams, flash grenades and humvees.

This arrest was an artificially militarized tactical field day, said Decker.

The drug bust comes at a time when Colorado lawmakers are pushing hard for more stringent laws to regulate medical marijuana. Currently, residences are allowed to have up to 99 pot plants, which can be used for medical purposes; a proposed law would cut that number down to 12. Its a move Colorado street cops are hoping for as they struggle to keep up with the 99 home-grown marijuana plant cap.

This is a counting nightmare on the doorstep! complained a frustrated Colorado police officer at the DEA press conference. Greenwood Village Police Chief John Jackson said I hear all of the time Its not that bad. But more and more and more, I hear story after story.

Shayne Heap has been Sheriff of Elbert County, Colorado for 15 years, which is almost as long as long as pot has been legal in the state, starting with medical marijuana in 2000: I have 45 deputies, but I could use 10-12 more just to work the marijuana cases. Hes seen his calls go up 180 percent since legalization. Pot has killed us from the very beginning. Elbert County is a bedroom community of Denver where many people move to get away from it all. The median income is just over $82,000.

These criminals get to live in good neighborhoods where no one will suspect themTheyre hiding behind Colorado pot laws and getting away with it, said Tom Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, an arm of the Office of National Drug Control Policy which follows the impact of marijuana legalization in Colorado.

The HIDTA has found that since Coloradans were first allowed to legally grow pot at home in 2013, drug seizures of marijuana found in U.S. mail have increased by 427 percent. This doesnt include private carriers like FedEX, nor does it take into account pot actually driven in cars across state lines.

Gorman said that out-of-state sellers cant wait to get their hands on the potent cannabis strains which are grown, packaged, and smuggled out of the Rocky Mountains, and Colorado growers are getting double the price. Said Gorman: Instead of eliminating the black market, Colorado has become the black market.

A story told by prosecutors at Stonehouses hearing appears to illustrate that point. During the investigation, Stonehouse allegedly confided to an undercover agent at a breakfast meeting that hed considered starting up a legal marijuana business, but decided not to because his own business was just too easy.

Last week, an Arapahoe County, Colorado grand jury indicted Stonehouse and 15 others for alleged crimes including distribution of marijuana, possession with intent to distribute marijuana concentrate (in this case, hash oil), and money laundering for incidents which dated back to March 2014.

The indictment reads like a juicy crime novel. It was the result of an investigation which started with a raid at a sprawling ranch off a dirt road in Elizabeth, Colorado, south of Denver. Here, investigators say they found five million dollars and 845 pot plants. The indictment says that 200 law enforcement officers found that Stonehouses operation was dealing 300 pounds of pot every month and physically driving the product to Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Florida, Missouri, and New Mexicoall states where weed is still illegal and can fetch top dollar. The indictment claims an astounding amount of cash changed hands. For example, after one eight-duffel-bag-delivery from Denver to Alexander, Arkansas, DEA agents found that a dealer had just paid $300,000 in cash for 290 pounds of pot, but that he still had $150,000 of leftover money lying around the house.

To avoid being caught, the indictment stated that Stonehouses partners were using secret code language as they made deals by cellphone: the word T-shirts allegedly stood for packages of pot and a pot delivery trip to Arkansas was dubbed razorback. Product was allegedly exchanged in broad daylight at places like school and Starbucks parking lots. Sometimes, the indictment claims, cash was even disguised wrapped in birthday wrapping paper.

Colorados bipartisan bill to limit the number of home-grown medical marijuana plants for patients from a cap of 99 per household down to 12 hopes to curb black market operations such as these. It still needs full approval in the state senate, as well as the Governors signature, to become law.

Of the 28 states that currently allow medical marijuana, Colorado is the only one which allows patients to have more than 16 plants growing in their homes. State Representative Dan Pabon, a Democrat from Northwest Denver who supports the bill, calls the 99-plant cap a complete relic of the Wild West days of medical marijuana.

Gorman doesnt have much faith that the bill will curb organized crime. And he believes it comes too late for a generation of children who will pay the price for Colorados pot experiment. In five to ten years from now, were gonna look back and say, My God, what did we do?

At his advisement, Stonehouse appeared to have regrets of his own. Looking defeated in a blue jumpsuit, handcuffs and ankle chains, he turned his head around to mouth a message to his distraught wife, Im so sorry.
The lies of Trumpworld are coming home to roost, and the walls are starting to close in.

The more new information surfaces, the more inescapable it seems that associates of Donald J. Trump, when he was a candidate for president, coordinated with Russian operatives or their cutouts to coordinate the release of information damaging to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Thats not just the Occams Razor explanation for the weird web of connections among Trump, his family, and people either connected to or from Russia. Its the gist of the FBI investigation that has made the 45th president unique in American history; a bizarre combination of Dick Nixon and Alger Hiss.

FBI director James Comey confirmed the investigation in an open congressional hearing this week. He and the director of the NSA went on to confirm, and to reiterate multiple times to resistant Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee, that the purpose of the Russian intervention in our 2016 election was to help Donald Trump; not just for the kicks of posting fake news on Reddit, Facebook and 4Chan.

The FBI is also believed to be investigating at least four men associated with the Trump campaign: longtime Trump whisperer Roger Stone, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort (who is now under multiple investigations; including potential money laundering related to shady dealings in both Ukraine and Cyprus), and Trump national security advisers Michael Flynn and Carter Page.

These are either a series of incredible coincidences, or theyre evidence of a fairly large plot by a group of Americans to collude with a hostile foreign power to tip a U.S. election in their favor. Its a modern-day Watergate break-in layered over with what historian Douglas Brinkley has called the smell of treason.

Donald Trumps attempt to throw the media off this bombshell story by posting a tweetstorm of lies, alleging a fictional plot by former president Obama to wiretap Trump Tower, bore some fruit this week. Much of the media reliably ran down the rabbit hole of did he or didnt he regarding Obama, and Trumps minions in the House of Representatives, led by Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, led Republican committee members in a chorus of obfuscation, attempting to shift the focus of the hearing from potential collusion by Trump campaign officials with Russia to the evils of leaks. A rather intriguing exception was Miami Republican Ileana Ros Lehtinen. Shes a close ally of one John Ellis Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and Trump opponent who is thought to have a connection to the person who paid for that infamous Christopher Steel dossier. Jebs father, in addition to being a former president of the United States, is also a former head of the CIA; just to add to the almost graphic novel-quality intrigue of Russiagate.)

Nunes compounded the change the narrative plot late this week by turning himself from the chief investigator of the White House into its errand boy, This week, he rushed out to cameras claiming to have seen evidence that Trumps transition team (of which he was a member) was surveilled. Nunes fairly boasted that before his media avail, hed invited himself to the White House to share that information with the presidentin other words, with the potential target of an FBI investigation. But by dropping yet another grenade into the insane Russiagate narrative, Nunes blew up his committees credibility along with his own. Days later, he couldnt even stand by his bombshell assertion that he now knew for sure that the Obama era intelligence community wiretapped Team Trump.

Despite Nuness pitiful subjugation of himself and his committee to the interests of an epically scandalized White Housethe ruse has been a failure.

The White Houses desperate attempts to disown him notwithstanding, Manafort, who far from being a virtual stranger or mere Trump volunteer, is a guy with an apartment on the 43rd floor of Trump Tower and unique proximity, physical and historical, to Trump. Manafortwho according to Nunes has agreed to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, and apparently its Senate equivalentis a sword over the White House, not a shield. If he faces the threat of jail time for any one of his dirty financial deeds, what would be his incentive to go down protecting Trump and his cronies? Im no prosecutor, but if I was, Manafort would be the first guy Id offer a deal to. After that, Id move on to the other discarded Trump acolytes who might soon testify before congress: Carter Page and Nixon-era dirty trickster Roger Stone.

The White House has found its stooge in Nunes, a former back bencher with an inherited California farm who suddenly rose to become the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, despite having zero experience in anything to do with intelligence gathering, law enforcement or even the law. But Nunes, despite his best flacking, wont be able to shield this administration forever. His secret information stunt this week may have set in motion the inexorable drive toward a select committee, or worse, a special prosecutor. And most of the people likely involved in the plot to pull a Watergate break-in on Hillary Clinton are not in the administration, and thus are out of the reach of executive privilege. Their one potential protector, Attorney General Jefferson Sessions, was forced to recuse himself from any investigation due to his own lies and Russia ties.

No matter how hard his team and his congressional flaks try to change the subject, Russiagate is the central narrative of the Trump administration. It defines Trumps narrow election and is eating away at not just his legitimacy, but also his moral authority and his literal power to order Republican members of congress around, to threaten them if they dont do his bidding, or to compel them to pass his agenda. (Case in point: the swift demise of his and Paul Ryans scheme to tear up Obamacare and replace it with tax cuts for the rich and insurance company giveaways.) Trump is quickly becoming a man without a constituency beyond the most stalwart of his voters who no matter what he says or does, refuse to see him for the charlatan he is.

At this point, Donald Trump ought to worry in multiple directions.

If Manafort or one of his other abandoned cronies turns on Trump to save himself, and the drip-drip-drip of revelations about the plot to fix the election becomes a flood, Russiagate could swallow his presidency whole, and maybe even force the Party Men of the GOP to at least threaten impeachment.

If the Bannonites decide to make war on Paul Ryan over the healthcare fail and Republicans on Capitol Hill elect to cut bait and make a play for the stability and predictability of a President Pence, impeachment could become more than just a threat.

If Trump voters begin to bail in the wake of Trumps siding with Ryan over them on trying to take away their healthcare, Republicans could pay a steep price in 2018 and maybe even lose their now total control of Congress.

Or in the most potentially humiliating scenario for Trump, if the Russians decide they were sold the political equivalent of a Trump University degree, and their puppet is no longer capable of delivering for Moscow, we may yet discover the meaning of kompromat, as the Russian machine that Put Trump in office through leaks turns those leaks on him.
The world is warmer than its ever been since records began to be kept in 1880. The Antarctic ice sheet is melting so fast it alone is responsible for 10 percent of the global rise in sea levels. The coral bleaching of Australias Great Barrier Reef, a direct result of global warming, is now virtually irreversible.

All this as the Trump administration abandons measures to combat climate change and gives climate change deniers full powers to put the brake on any scientific research devoted to establishing a link between climate change and human activity. Goodbye Planet Earth.

This is the willful corruption of science in the cause of ideology. But weve been here before. To understand how this game is played, we can go back to what you could call the foundation of the Liars Academy, the professionalization of the crafting of alternative scientific facts.

Its generally thought that the turning point in establishing a direct link between smoking and cancer came with the U.S. surgeon generals report of 1964. Drawing on 7,000 scientific studies and the work of 150 consultants, the report demonstrated that the death rate among smokers was 70 percent higher than among non-smokers.

In fact, the first really authoritative warning about smoking came in 1953, when Alton Ochsner, president of the American Cancer Society and the American College of Surgeons, predicted that the male population would be decimated unless steps were taken to reduce the cancer producing content of cigarettes.

At this point any link between smoking and cancer had not been acknowledged by the National Cancer Institute or the U.S. Public Health Service or most of the medical establishment. (As late as 1958 a Gallup survey showed that only 44 percent of Americans believed smoking caused cancer.)

A top R.J. Reynolds executive, Claude Teague, had reviewed the same evidence as Ochsner and reported, Studies of clinical data tend to confirm the relationship between heavy and prolonged tobacco smoking and incidence of cancer of the lung.

All copies of Teagues report were collected and destroyed, and a week after Oschners speech six tobacco company presidents met to take stock of the threat now facing them. As a result, they called in John Hill, founder of the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. What followed was a strategy described by a lawyer as the industrys ultimate public relations sham.

Hill & Knowlton advised the companies:

There is only one problemconfidence and how to establish it; public assurance and how to create itin a perhaps long interim when scientific doubts must remain. And, most important, how to free millions of Americans from the guilty fear that is going to arise deep in their biological depthsregardless of any pooh-poohing logicevery time they light a cigarette.

This marked the beginning of what became, literally, an industrial scale exercise in the promotion of an alternative scientific reality. It involved not just alternative facts but an entire body of false scientific argument to deny that smoking caused cancer. This was the work of an unholy alliance of tobacco company executives, public relations flacks, corporate lawyers, scientists, politicians, and gullible media.

The full extent of the conspiracy was revealed only in 2001, when David Kessler, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and relentless foe of the tobacco industry, published his memoir, A Question of Intent.

(Personal disclosure: I was one of a team of researchers who worked with Kessler on the book.)

It is timely to revisit this story because, among other things, it demonstrates that the daily flood of alternative facts from the White House builds on the foundation of Big Tobaccos model of disinformation. There is no need to compare this with the propaganda machine of Nazi Germany or of any totalitarian state. In its reach and sophistication it is a wholly American achievement.

For more than four decades Big Tobacco had one objective: to maintain the pretense that the link between smoking and cancer remained unproven. In that method it anticipated the entire strategy of climate change deniers, to argue that even if the earth was warming up there was no link between that and human activity. In order to pursue their disinformation campaign the tobacco industry had to produce its own alternative factsor alternative science.

Hill & Knowlton outlined a four-point strategy to deal with scientific critics: (a) smearing or belittling them (b) trying to overwhelm them with mass publication of the opposed viewpoints of other specialties (c) debating them in the public arena; or (d) we can determine to raise the issue far above them, so they are hardly even mentioned, and then we can make our case.

The first step in pursuing this strategy was to set up a body that looked and sounded like an authoritative scientific enterprise, then to staff it with scientists prepared to sell themselves to the mission. It was named the Council for Scientific Research, CTR, and its director was a Harvard-educated cancer researcher of international renown, Clarence Cook Little. He, in turn, recruited similarly illustrious peers to the cause.

All of these supposed experts were satisfied that they could rest their reputations securely on the narrow premise on the unproven link. In this they were abetted by lawyers who discovered that when cases against the tobacco industry came to court juries were inclined to believe that smoking was a personal choice. So-called scientific witnesses supported attorneys who argued that association cannot prove causation.

Everyone was molded according to the script, one industry official told Kessler later as he investigated the record.

Kessler, respectful of C.C. Littles reputation, could not understand how he could have gone along with the CTRs strategy. He went through Littles private papers and found no answer. He did, however, find a letter to Little from Charles Huggins, a Nobel laureate cancer researcher at the University of Chicago. Huggins pleaded with Little: Please leave the tobacco industry to stew in its own juice[it] is criminal to promote smoking. It is dastardly. This is the Age of the Hollow Man. Let it not be known as the age when our finest thinkers sell out.

Eventually the industry decided that the CTR was not as effective as it should have been. In 1964, following the surgeon generals report, the alternative facts campaign had another instrument, Special Projects. This had no official address, no incorporation papers, no board of directors, no by-laws and no accountability.

In fact, Special Projects marked the ascendancy of lawyers. David Hardy, of the law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, began looking for scientists and physicians prepared to testify against the surgeon generals report before Congress. Special Projects was run by the general counsels of the tobacco companies, supported by Shook, Hardy and the Washington, D.C. law firm Covington & Butling.

Kessler discovered that every decision, every research project, every public presentation, went through lawyers who had one prevailing concern: liability.

Kessler found an industry source who was prepared to talk as long he remained identified only as Veritas. Discussing the lawyers involved in Special Projects, Kessler asked, Where did they cross the line?

When you commission the research and know the outcome, thats fraudulent. When you market that as the truth, thats evil, Veritas replied.

The cynicism of the operation could sometimes catch a rooky lawyer unawares. One recent law school graduate working for another law firm, Wachell, Lipton, involved with Big Tobacco pointed out that the industry money flowing to the firm was being used to purchase favorable judicial or legislative testimony, thereby perpetrating a fraud on the public.

He asked for guidance from more senior colleagues. There was no record of the response. We are fond of describing America as a nation of laws. Maybe so, but we are also a nation of lawyers, and you get what you can pay for.

Although the industrys main effort was directed at squashing litigation, there was a more subtle program of managing the social climate for tobacco use. The industry always worked hard to recruit young smokersafter all, the market had always to replace the people being killed off by smoking with another generation of initiates. They noticed that anti-smoking campaigns were beginning to work among teens. In response they branded public health advocates as the enforcers of political correctness, even commissioning a theater group to satirize the new puritanism.

Kessler discovered that at Philip Morris successful manipulation of the story wasnt thought to be enough. Part of a top secret plan called Operation Rainmaker was that they should not only shape the story but own the means of delivering it. Notes for a meeting in 1990 said, If we are to truly influence the public policy agenda and the information flow to the populace, we must be the mediathe only way to do this is to own a major media outlet.

The proposed targets included the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain; the Copley News Service, United Press International and U.S. News & World Report.

This plot never came to pass. But in some cases Big Tobacco didnt need to buy the media because the media gave them a pass. Perhaps the most egregious example of this was in a surprising place: the newsroom of The New York Times.

For years some of the most rigorously sustained reporting on Big Tobacco had been the work of Philip Hilts in the Washington bureau of the Times. Hilts had a deep grasp of scientific detail and a passion for pursuing the secrets of how the ingredients of cigarettes were manipulated to create addiction. After a lot of digging Hilts discovered that in Philip Morriss Benson & Hedges brand there had been a significant rise in the levels of nicotine. Company research had described these levels as optimum.

Following publication of the Benson & Hedges story, Philip Morris executives went ballistic and demanded that the paper print a correction. The editors refused, saying that no error had been made.

However, in the Times newsroom some editors had developed a not another tobacco story resistance, feeling apparently that there was little left that could surprise. And a week later, Soma Golden Behr, assistant managing editor for national news, called Hilts to New York. Over lunch Behr told Hilts that his tobacco beat was finished and he was reassigned. For two years, until 1999, the Times basically dropped the story.

In that period Alix Freedman of The Wall Street Journal won a Pulitzer for her coverage of Big Tobacco.

Kessler thought Hiltss reporting had been invaluable and later sought to find out why he had been pulled from the story. He decided that it wasnt directly a result of the Philip Morris intervention. It was more a dumb misjudgment by editors who thought that the reporter had become too committed to one story.

There is a moral to this, and one I know well from personal experience. Obsession can be the difference between a reporter who sees no further than the news cycle and one who implicitly understands where a story is really going and will stick with it until it gets there. Obsession is good. And when youre up against alternative facts its indispensable.

In his time as FDA Commissioner, under presidents Bush and Clinton, from 1990 to 1997, Kessler was the most formidable opponent ever faced by Big Tobacco. The Supreme Court ultimately refused to accept his case that tobacco should be classified as a drug and therefore that it should be regulated by the agency.

Nonetheless his agencys investigations finally exposed the lethal secret that the industry had hidden beneath its mountain of alternative facts: cigarettes were, basically, a nicotine delivery system, nicotine led to addiction, everything that could be done to strengthen the dose of nicotine was done, and nicotine addiction killed.

Kessler also proved in chilling detail that the public good can suffer grievous harm as a result of a deliberate and sustained campaign to corrupt science and defer for generations the acceptance of scientific fact. Climate change is a far greater threat than smoking ever was. The ethic of the Liars Academy has now been incorporated into main stream politics: the methods of denial havent changed, but the stakes are now so much higher. And, as with smoking, there is no concern for future generations, just a greedy defense of the indefensible.
The gray asphalt streets of Minsk, Belarus, looked too clean and almost totally deserted on the eve of a major opposition rally against the countrys authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko. The words arrest and repression traveled from mouth to mouth. Officials in uniforms and plain clothes grabbed people at their homes, offices and on the streets. By Friday up to 300 people were behind bars. The atmosphere felt as if the capital of Belarus was not in Europe but in North Korea.

Activists went underground before joining the protest on Saturday, where police detained 25 journalists. On Thursday, police had detained 17 activists, supporters of the opposition, and random bystanders. The KGB, the initials still used by the Belarusian security service, blocked cellphones and hacked the social media accounts of concrete opposition activists.

The key leader of the opposition and a veteran dissident, Mikola Statkevich, spoke with The Daily Beast on Friday from his secret underground flat about the chemistry of dictatorship and courage needed by people today not only in Belarus but in the West. The moment has come to stand up for democratic values and against atrocities.

One dictatorship gives birth to another dictatorship, said Statkevich, arguing that a seemingly out of the way and often forgotten country like Belarus sets precedents that spread, especially in the era of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

All of Moscows acts of political repression were first practiced in Belarus, said Statkevich. The European Union should realize that without the dictator Lukashenko, the world would not have seen the latest actions by authoritarian leader Putin.

Since 1996, Lukashenko has won presidential elections five times and every time the leader threw his opponents in jail. But these are ++nervous times for Putins neighbors++[[ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/16/trump-in-the-white-house-and-russia-s-neighbors-back-in-the-ussr.html ]], who have every reason to believe he wants to reconstitute the Russian empire, even if that means moving in on his erstwhile friends.

Statkevich has been through bad times, and worse times.

In 2010, Statkevich took part in presidential elections and called Lukashenko a coward for not facing other candidates at public debates, even once.

Lukashenko kept me locked in prison for five years and when I came out in 2015 and led the opposition movement again, I told people that Lukashenko is a criminal and deserved to be in prison, Statkevich told The Daily Beast. Over 5,000 protesters joined us in Minsk last month, even those who had voted for Lukashenko in the past, as the true words we spoke on the square stirred the courage of the people: deeply disillusioned Belarusians are ready to take risks, so we ask the world to help us this time.

That same day last month, Statkevichs wife and aide, Marina, discovered that her cell phone and the internet at her home mysteriously stopped working; and that somebody else was writing posts on her social media accounts.

Anti-Putin activists sympathize with the anti-Lukashenko movement.

Putin is Lukashenkos long-time student, gradually copying Belarusian laws against dissidents and the entire system of repressions from the Belarusian KGB, says Ilya Yashin, who has been leading Russians to anti-Putin rallies for more than a decade.

A whole generation of Belarusians have lived their lives fighting against President Lukashenkos rule and President Lukashenko has lived his life putting pressure on them. The fight broke thousands of lives, children grew up missing imprisoned parents, exiled activists could not return to Belarus, missing their families and sacrificing their careers.

In the meantime the population grew poorer and poorer. Two years ago, when Lukashenko won the election for the fifth time, the official average salary in Belarus was $435 a month. This year the figure dropped by at best $100.

For the first time we see Lukashenkos electorate, middle-aged and older people, joining the rallies, says Nata Radina, editor-in-chief of Charter97, an online publication. Theyre openly addressing Lukashenko: Just go away, you failed as our leader.

Radina, who was based in Warsaw attended meetings with Polish legislators earlier this week. EU officials discussed new economic sanctions against several sectors of the Belarusian economy, she said. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch called on Lukashenko to put an end to repression and allow people to exercise their constitutional rights.

Aleksei Sozonov, a Belarusian businessman, has had to work in Russia to support his mother. We have seen it all, he said: Political murders, the torture of dissidents, the fatal sicknesses of opposition members in prisons, and hunger strikes, says Sozonov. Belarus is a failed state. The only time we saw Lukashenko turn slightly pro-Western was when he was under a heavy burden of economic sanctions.

For many years, Moscow acted as Lukashenkos main donor and ally, propping up the regime of a country with fewer than 10 million people. The Kremlin tolerated hundreds of millions of dollars in debts until this year, when Russia estimated Belarus owed around $550 million for natural gas. Lukashenko had no money to pay back such a huge bill.

Russia needs to spend money in Syria and Ukraine, so Lukashenko feels that his chance to receive more money from Moscow is fading, says Radina.

On Friday police detained 13 people, including French, Ukrainian, and Belarusian journalists at the office of the Green Party, where volunteers collected clothes, food and other items of aid for detained activists.

One of those arrested, Gulliver Cragg of the international news network France 24, said that journalists asked police the reason for their arrest, but in vain. The only answer they heard was, We had information that there was a crime here and we need to verify everyones identity. Cragg told The Daily Beast that because police took away all volunteers, other detained people did not receive any aid that day.

Politicians in Moscow and Minsk share a similar habit of blaming foreigners for staging political coups, as it if is inconceivable the people would rise up on their own.

On Friday, Lukashenko admitted that he was concerned there might be the kind of uprising in Belarus that took place in Ukraine, in Kievs Maidan Square, in the winter of 2013-2014. Those events led to overt and covert Russian retaliation and the continuing war there.

Somebody wants to blow up the situation here and use our freaks, but I am not going to allow this, Lukashenko declared.

A long-time observer of the anti-Lukashenko struggle, Irina Khalip predicted mass arrests of protesters at Saturdays demonstration, and so there were.

The official Belarus News agency declared the unauthorized street rally on Saturday failed to gain popular support. But ++the picture that emerged on Charter 97++[[ https://charter97.org/en/news/2017/3/25/244848/ ]] was very different.

According to this report, accompanied by extensive video and still photographs, mass arrests took place in the city center around the Academy of Sciences and elsewhere, with the police collaring everyone who had a poster or a flag.

A large crowd did manage to gather in one area, around Yakub Kolas Square, according to Charter 97, but the riot police cornered the people there and grabbed them. Altogether, hundreds of people were detained.

Irina Khalip said she and others have serious concerns that any incident, any provocation, may be used to to imprison the key opposition figure, Statkevich, for many yearsagain.
Natural science will  incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.

Karl Marx, 1844

You can take the peasant out of the countryside, and Stalin did, literally, and on an industrial scale. It is hardermuch harderto take the countryside out of the peasant. Slave societies rarely breed fine feeling, and lives spent on the edge of starvation breed reciprocity faster than friendliness. (There is a word for debt in Russiandolg, but no word for favor. The nearest equivalent, odolzhenie, still expects a return.)

Traditionally, peasant relations in the countryside had been policed through reputation, and the ease, speed and savagery with which it could be destroyed. The threat of denunciation held together communities who could quite literally starve to death if too many of their members abandoned them. In tsarist times, people who left for side-earnings in the city and tried to break with their village were regularly accused of heresy. When the Soviets took over, religious denunciations turned seamlessly into political ones. Being an enemy of the people was not at all a Stalinist innovation. Stalins genius was to harness and direct to his own ends the fierce belligerence of the peasant class.

In this he was supported by a new generation of Bolshevik official: earnest believers whose whole adult life had been spent under Soviet rule. These men knew their state was unfinished and unstable, but they had no experience of alternatives. For them, the bourgeois old guard represented, not a rejected alternative, but an obstacle to be removed. (The Party was by now, as it never had been under Lenin, a working-class party.) At a provincial conference on 27 May 1928 (and still some way off from real power), the Party chief of Nizhny Novgorod, Andrei Zhdanov, cast the gathering cultural revolution in apocalyptic terms, as the war of sons against fathers: The struggle for the cleanliness of our ideas, the struggle for the youth has to take an important place at the moment; it is necessary to develop within the Komsomol [the Party youth wing] a critical relationship toward the older generation [and] its shortcomings in its way of life and being.

Youth activists duly harried their elders and betters, and in particular attacked them for their religious beliefs. In a letter to the national teachers newspaper, one reader complained:

My teacher in junior class, meeting me sixteen years after I left school, wept and told me that she is even afraid to live and work at the present time. She has no regrets for the Tsarhe drove her fiance into the grave and so she is still unmarried at forty. But the icons that they threw out of the schoolthis was more than she could bear.

This cultural revolution silenced an entire educated class at the very moment the government, committed to breakneck industrialization, thirsted after new practical ideas. So it was perhaps inevitable that it ended up backing ideas that turned out to be eccentric, to say the least. Every madcap professor shown the tsarist door rose clamoring for his day in the Bolshevik sun.

John Littlepage, an American engineer working in the Soviet gold-mining industry, wrote of the perpetual nuisance of so- called inventors, crackbrained persons who are convinced they have made some amazing mechanical discovery, a type that seems more numerous in Russia than elsewhere.

Linguistics discovered Professor Nikolai Marrs idiosyncratic Japhetic theory of language. Music students embraced Professor Boleslav Yavorskys theory of modal rhythm, which had been a standing joke for years within the Moscow Conservatory. These men werent wrong or mad any more: they were radicals.

By the time the celebrated plant breeder Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin died of cancer in June 1935, he was not just considered an untutored genius, he was being hailed by the agriculture commissar, Yakov Yakovlev, as a heroic opponent of bourgeois science.

Michurin rose to fame as a sort of Soviet Luther Burbanka homespun genius who greened drought-browned valleys and filled the peoples bellies by mixing together scientific thinking and folk remedies. Like the Massachusetts-born plantsman Burbank, Michurin grew up in genteel poverty. The produce of his home townKozlov in the province of Ryazan, 300 kilometres south of Moscowincluded rather scraggy fruit, which ceased to sell once the new railroads brought in produce from Crimea in the far south. Rather than sell their orchard, however, Ivan Michurins parents more or less destroyed themselves trying to hang on to it. A succession of misfortunes sent Ivans father Vladimir steadily more crazy. Tuberculosis killed his wife; his half-mad mother terrorised the family, and of his seven children, only Ivan survived. At his wifes funeral Vladimir came out with a dance song instead of a dirge and was taken away for the first of several stays at the local asylum.

Ivan Michurin, though he aspired to an aristocratic lycee in St Petersburg, in the end enjoyed only one year of local elementary school education. He went to work in nearby Tambov as a railway clerk, then as a signal repairman. He married a mechanics daughter, and therebut for his determination to realise his fathers agricultural fantasiesMichurins story ought really to have ended.

In 1888, in his mid-thirties and determined to make something of himself, Ivan Michurin bought fourteen hectares with borrowed money, quit his job, and set up a nursery. Rather than grafting southern varieties onto northern stocks, he decided to breed hybrids from seeda highly dodgy tactic given that good fruit varieties are complicated and unstable hybrids to begin with, and unlikely to breed true. It is hardly surprising, then, that Michurin came to the conclusion that there was no regularity in hereditary phenomena, and no coherent science to be had from studying them.

In November 1905, taking advantage of the promises of new civil liberties, Michurin submitted a petition to turn his unprofitable nursery into a state experiment station. After an unexplained delay of two and a half years, the Ministry of Agriculture turned him down. He later earned two medals and a job offer from the ministry, but none of this quelled his resentment towards the know-all academics who had failed to see the value of his work.

In 1911 and 1913, a plant collector from the US Department of Agriculture, Frank Meyer, visited Michurins nursery. Michurin priced himself out of an arrangement to sell regular fruit stocks from his nursery. He did not really need the trade. What he needed was the story: to hear him tell it, agents of the USDA had been visiting him since 1898, and had repeatedly begged him to come to the USA on an astronomical salary of $32,000 a year.

When the Soviets took control of the country, they agreed to turn Michurins nursery into a breeding station. True, Michurin was both eccentric and cantankerous, but Nikolai Vavilov himself visited Michurin in 1920 and was impressed by the old mans notes. (Experimenters like Vavilov liked Michurins stocks because they were so bizarre. They were not, however, particularly commercial. Even in 1931, when Michurin was being recast as a working-class hero, only one new variety of apple could be found worth certifying.)

Michurins skills as a lobbyist were formidable. In September 1922 he got the President himself, Mikhail Kalinin, to visit his nursery in Kozlov. But the following autumn, in Michurins seventieth year, the First All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition was held, and here, and at the very end of his career, things threatened to come unstuck. Michurins view was that plants- manship was an art, incommunicable in abstractions or formulas: It is evident that nature, in its creation of new forms of living organisms, gives infinite diversity and never permits repetition. He was right, of course: a fruit nursery is not a laboratory, and the hybridisation of fruit trees is a tangled business, better handled as a craft, learned over the course of years, than as an undergraduate research topic.

But as science had taken hold of the European imagination in generaland the Bolshevik imagination in particularso public funding had become dependent on delivering neat, simple, scientific explanations of ones work. And this, for Michurins institute, was bound to end in failure. A young horticulturalist, Igor Gorshkov, sent by Michurin to wow the exhibition, was worsted in arguments again and again over the validity of some of the Kozlov nurserys hybrids. The one between a melon and a squash attracted especially negative attention. No, said the other experts, the stock onto which you grafted something would not alter the germ plasm of your fruiting plant, and all Michurins talk of vegetative blending and mentoring made no sense.

When Michurin learned of Gorshkovs reception, he blew his top: if Gorshkov couldnt win extra support for the nursery, he might as well throw in his cards and accept the USDAs (fictional) job offer. Gorshkov pitched this threat to the editors of Izvestiia, who ran it under the headline Kozlov or Washington? Where, the paper asked, would Michurins work find supportthe Soviet Union or the USA?

Michurin was so delighted with this coup, he presented Gorshkov with a watch, hand-engraved by himself with the words From I. Michurin to I. Gorshkov. For Victory over the Old Fogies of Horticulture. 14 October 1923.

Michurin remained an outsider. Few mentioned him in their papers. Trofim Lysenko took an interest, but the old man rebuffed him. He was far friendlier with Vavilov, and Vavilov was among those who elected him an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences a week before his death.

Most independent scholars were like Michurin: opportunists seizing their last chance at glory. But some were closely allied to the Bolsheviks from the start. Olga Borisovna Lepeshinskaya had been a personal friend of Lenin and his wife. Between 1897 and 1900 they had all been banished to the same region of Siberia. As a consequence, she was terrifyingly well-connected and not remotely intimidated by power. On a personal level, she was charming. She fiercely opposed anti-semitism, and had dedicated her personal life to the orphan problem, bringing up at least half a dozen children as her own. As a scientist, however, she was a disaster. She once announced to the Academic Council of the Institute of Morphology that soda baths could rejuvenate the old and preserve the youth of the young. A physician, Yakov Rapoport, asked her sarcastically whether mineral water would work instead. Lepeshinskaya, oblivious to his tone, told him no. A couple of weeks later Moscow completely sold out of baking soda.

The same unstoppable cart that whisked Michurin and Lepeshinskaya to glory also carried along several articulate youths whose ambition far outweighed their talent. The simpler and more outrageous their schemes, the more they appealed to fond wishes, the more they were believed. (Sciencereal science, Marxs one sciencewas supposed to be straightforward and practical.) Planning groups and building trusts approved plans for socialist cities of the future. A government commission thought about reforming the calendar (with 1917 as Year One). The Soviet patent office, the Committee on Inventions, reported one case of a scientist entirely lacking in formal education who was given 200,000 roubles and an electrical biology laboratory to show how bombarding seeds with ultra-high frequency radio waves would trigger bumper harvests. (The police eventually tracked him down to the cabaret clubs of Leningrad.) Considering the work of a physicist in Ashkabad who made rain with electrified smoke, the Marxist philosopher Isaak Prezent declared:

We are carrying out the grandest task, planned alteration of the climate A special grand institute for making and stopping rain is being organized The grandest, unheard of projects are now being worked out, in actual working plans with concrete economic calculation, for the irrigation of dry regions and an all-out assault on the desert. We are solving the problem of heating Siberia.

Eccentric schemes tend to blow up in their backers faces, and the state was aware of the risk. In 1947 Eric Ashby, a botanist attached to the Australian Legation, observed that, there has been recently an increase in the efficiency with which the State separates genuine from bogus advances in agricultural research, and protects itself from being sold a pup by enthusiastic and not too critical experts. There is, for example, an interesting and elaborate organization for testing new crop varieties, known as the Government Commission for Seed Testing, under the chairmanship of Academician Tsitsin.

But problems of this sort sprang from more than a handful of hucksters and independent scholars. Old Bolshevik hands, Party leaders and key bureaucrats were themselves dedicated amateur philosophers of science. They ruled in the name of scientific government, and were honour-bound to pronounce on scientific issues. Their mistaken and wild schemes came stamped with the imprimatur of the state, and were much harder to challenge.

Stalin was himself a totally dedicated and self-declared Lamarckian, obsessed by the idea that it might be possible to alter the nature of plants. As the years went by this obsession grew, and became indeed his only hobby. At his dachas near Moscow and in the south, large greenhouses were erected so that he could enter them directly from the house, day or night. Pruning shrubs and plants was his only physical exercise. In 1946 he grew especially keen on lemons, not only encouraging their growth in coastal Georgia, where they fared quite well, but also in the Crimea, where winter frosts obliterated them. Stalin was not discouraged. He asserted that oaks and other deciduous trees, if planted as seeds, would adapt to the most hostile conditions, flourishing in the dry steppe, and in the salty, semi-arid wildernesses near the Caspian Sea.

Leaders, politicians and bureaucrats have their hobby horses, of course. The problems start only when these people assume for themselves an expertise they do not possess, when they impose their hobby horses on the state by fiat. The Bolshevik tragedy was that, in donning the mantle of scientific government, the Partys leaders felt entitled to do this. More: they felt obliged to do this. Stalins Lamarckian beliefs and utopian fond wishes regarding the plasticity of living forms were rather ordinary for his day. Realizing these ideas in policy would have extraordinary and often catastrophic effects on the lives of millions.

STALIN AND THE SCIENTISTS  2016 by Simon Ings; used with the permission of the publisher, Atlantic Monthly Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc.

Simon Ings is the author of Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953. He edits the culture section of New Scientist and regularly contributes to publications including the Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Independent, and Nature. He lives and works in London.
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating with 4 killed, other details)

From Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Mar 25 (PTI) At least four people were killed and 31 wounded in two blasts today when Islamist militants hurled explosives on people as army commandos stormed their hideout in northeastern Sylhet city in Bangladesh after a 30-hour security siege.

Doctors and security officials said the four included a policeman and a college student. Four security officials injured in the blasts were critical, according to Osmani Medical College, Hospitals deputy director Debabrata Roy.

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The first blast happened around 7:00 p.m. about 400 metres off the five-storey building where the militants were hiding. It targeted the huge crowd witnessing the operation codenamed Twilight and policemen deployed there as part of a cordon.

Another blast took place in front the hideout an hour later and killed the policeman. "The Rapid Action Battalion and armed policemen had replaced onlookers at the first blast site when the second attack happened," an eyewitness told PTI.

The injured were being treated at nearby hospitals, including the Osmani Medical College, Hospital.

The first blast occurred shortly after an army spokesman hinted that the commandos were set for the final assault on the extremists, after they had evacuated the building of the residents with the help of firefighters and other officials.

The militants are said to have spread across the building and planted Improvised Explosive Devices, contrary to earlier reports that they had taken over only the ground floor.

Authorities were yet to hold a briefing for the media after the blasts. But Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan has said the number of militants holed up is not yet confirmed.

When asked about how long the commando operation could take, he said: "It is the commander of the operation, who will decide how it will be conducted or when it could end."

Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Divisions Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the operation, a military spokesman said, which was assisted by polices SWAT and counter-terrorism units. The elite Rapid Action Battalion is also involved.

The militants have carried out 12 explosions since the operation was intensified this morning after the nearly 30-hour security siege around the building failed to flush them out.

Police had raided the building early morning Friday and cordoned off the area.

Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) chief Monirul Islam said they got information that JMB chief Musa along with some other JMB militants were in Sylhet, but it was not clear if they were the ones hiding in the building.

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The neo-JMB, said to be inclined to the Islamic State, was behind the July 1 terror attack on a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed.

Earlier today, TV channels were barred from broadcasting the operation "live" but their reports showed commandos taking positions around the building.

Witnesses said smoke billowed out of the building and they heard intermittent explosions and gunshots from the building.

People in the neighbourhood have been advised to remain indoors as the operation was still in progress.

Reports have said at least two suspected militants, including a female, were on the ground floor of the building but a police officer later feared a "whole lot of them (neo-JMB operatives)" could be hiding there.

Police had publicly urged the two suspected militants, staying in the building as tenants for three months, to surrender, but they refused. The militants shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is the greatest) and told police to send your SWAT team.

Authorities have cut off gas and power lines of the building since last night.

The operation "Twilight" was launched after a suicide bomber last night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. It came a week after an identical attack on a RAB camp in Dhaka.

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Police had tracked down the Sylhet hideout less than a week after they busted two militant dens on the outskirts of the southeastern port city Chittagong.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack. PTI AR CPS NSA ZH AKJ ABH

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From the beginning, Frida Kahlo and Diego Riveras relationship was an exceptional blend of passion and turbulence. Only a few days after meeting, the famous Mexican muralist began an affair with the 18-year-old art student 20 years his junior. Their three-decade love story would go on to become one of the greatest romances in the history of art.

I did not know it then, but Frida had already become the most important fact in my life. And she would continue to be, up to the moment she died, twenty-seven years later, Rivera wrote after knowing the adult Frida for only a few days. (Rivera soon recognized Frida as the same young girl who had watched him intently as he painted a mural several years earlier.)

But while they were each others greatest loves, they encountered more than a few road bumps throughout their lives together. Rivera was a notorious and unapologetic womanizer; Kahlo responded in kind, conducting illicit liaisons of her own that allegedly included trysts with communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky and famed dancer Isadora Duncan.
If he survives this ugly nomination fight where partisanship trumps ideology and qualificationsyet againJudge Neil Gorsuch wont be joining his daddys and granddaddys Supreme Court. Americas most exclusive fraternity used to be such a boys club that even when a Republican president floated the name of an impressive woman jurist, his trial balloon popped. Tellingly, in 1971, the American Bar Association advisory committee deemed Mildred Lillie, the first serious female Supreme Court possibility, unqualified.

That Richard Nixon tried to be the pioneering president to first name a woman to the highest court in the land appears to be another Nixon anomaly. The Red-baiting, liberal-hating, enemies-list-making Nixon also signed off on the Environmental Protection Agency, Affirmative Action, and an ever-expanding federal budgetwhile visiting Soviet Russia and Communist China.

Was he a closet feminist too?

Actually, these liberal moves demonstrate how Tricky Dick coped with the Sixtiesand a Democratic Congress. Having been elected in 1968, Richard Nixon understood that unless he faced the major cultural, political, and social upheavals he would face defeat in 1972. When campaigning, this perpetually-needy politician shouted to women: I want you! We need you!

Once elected, Nixon agreed with his advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan that, thanks to womens liberation, female equality will be a major cultural/political force in 1970s. Hoping to make political hay, Nixon directed his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman to grab [the] ball on [the] womens thing.

Juggling, Nixon hired more women than his Democratic predecessors had but celebrated the traditional wife more enthusiastically, too. He said he was proud of the women in our Administration who dont hold office but hold the hands of the men who do. He honored the Cabinet wives as a dozen mothers of 47 childrenand as a dozen grandmothers to 45 more. Barbara Bush, the Republican National Chairman George H.W. Bushs traditionalist helpmate, called one spousal outreach meeting Nixon hosted the silliest thing in the world. He did it to make us feel part of things; instead of that, we felt like doltssitting in the back row.

Similarly, while marginalizing his wife in the White House, Dick began pitching her as an equal to the outside world.

Pat Nixon visited day care centersa bold move when many still considered them facilitators of maternal neglect. President Nixon also told Haldeman to get a story out that his wife and daughters were the strongest advocates for a female Supreme Court justice. He calculated that even if he failed, women would like having friends in the White House.

In October 1971, after two Nixon nominations to the Supreme Court failed, Nixon decided to ask the ABAs committee to vet possible candidates before he nominated them. One front-runner was the California Court of Appeals judge Mildred Lillie.

Born in Iowa in 1915, Lillie grew up in California. Her formidable mother made her a moralist but failed to make her an artist. In college, Lillie realized that if I had to rely upon my artistic talents to earn a living, I would probably spend the rest of my life on welfare. Graduating Berkeleys Law School in 1938, she faced the Great Depression and widespread discrimination. I would never appoint a woman, one senior lawyer admitted. Ive had a couple of women in this office, one of whom worked out fairly well, but the other ones created nothing but trouble.

Eventually, Lillie found a job in private practice and in 1947 an appointment to Los Angeles Municipal Court. By 1958 this smart jurist often dismissed as lady judge began serving on the Court of Appeals. When she died in 2002, she was Californias longest-serving appellate judge for 44 yearsand judicial officer for 56 years.

Lillie impressed Nixons aides. Attorney General John Mitchell declared: Lillie is just conservative period. Forever fighting liberals, Nixon sneered: One thing about the woman conservative. These bastards cant vote against her. He added: A conservative woman from California! God. That will kill them.

Mitchell hoped the American Bar Associations pre-approval would appear objective. What the hell does the bar know about it, Nixon replied. Good God, I can take a bar examination better than any of those assholes.

Surprisingly, despite Mildred Lillies impressive record, the twelve ABA representatives deemed her unqualified. They couldnt conceive of a woman as colleague or judicial superior. Chief Justice Warren Burger, whom Nixon ordered to be a good solider and accept a female colleague, secretly lobbied members of the Committee to preserve the Courts single-sex collegiality. Nixons former White House counsel John Dean later characterized the disqualified conclusion as shameless gender discrimination.

Forces to his right now blocked Nixon the reformeror did they? John Jenkins 2012 book about the appointment of the successful nominee, William Rehnquist, suggests Nixon wanted credit for proposing a female justice without being stuck with one. It is hard to read any presidents mind, especially the Machiavellian Richard Nixons. Still, one possible tell remains. Nixon lacked the courage to tell his wife Pat that he appointed two men, William Rehnquist and Lewis Powell on October 21, 1971. When she objected, rather than blaming the ABA, he claimed no qualified woman shared his judicial philosophy of strict constructionism. Pat was furious. Dick dismissed her, saying We tried to do the best we could Pat. When Haldeman reported that the announcement scored another ten strike, the president added: except for my wife, but boy is she mad.

Mildred Lillie didnt sulk. Dodging any Nixon-related taint may have relieved her. She became a California legend, with a favorite anecdote from her brush with national immortality. She enjoyed recalling that the lanky and pleasant young man at the Justice Department who had carried her suitcase became Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Modern historians insist historical forces make history. Americans have certainly learned these last few months that individuals can force those forces in different directions. No one knows what kind of Supreme Court justice Mildred Lillie would have been. But, one thing is clear. The feminist revolution was greater than any one individual pioneeror any twelve obstacles. A decade after Lillies rejection, Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day OConnor to the Supreme Court. The locomotive of progress slowed but was neither derailed nor blocked, no matter who was president.
With the United States caught up in an undeclared shooting war with Germany in late 1941 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt battling isolationists to deliver more support to the British and the Soviets in their desperate fight against Hitlers forces, the release of top secret American war planning documents shook the nation. Seventy-five years later, the leak continues to stir up controversy. Some even claim that FDR himself was behind the leak of his own militarys blueprint for war against Nazi Germany.

World War II was raging in Europe and Indochina throughout 1941, sweeping up virtually every nation on earthexcept the United States. Thanks in large measure to Americans isolationist leanings, the U.S. remained officially neutral while Hitlers forces occupied almost all of Europe, part of North Africa and the Middle East, and advanced deep into the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Japanese forces were waging a long and brutal war in Indochina and preparing for a possible attack on the United States itself. President Franklin D. Roosevelt feared that a Nazi victory over the British and Red armies, the last remaining European holdouts against Hitler, would leave America truly isolated in the face of Germanys and Japans murderous aggression. But in the heat of the tough 1940 presidential campaign, FDR had repeatedly assured American mothers, Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.

Then, on Dec. 4, 1941, came the explosive revelation that seemed to show he was lying. The U.S. military had prepared a lengthy report, called the Victory Program, which spelled out in detail war plans for defeating Germany, down to the sites for invasion and the number of ships, aircraft, tanks, and trucks needed. The deeply isolationist and anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune, which revealed the documents existence, ran a huge block type headline declaring: F.D.R.S WAR PLANS! (The same article appeared simultaneously in the Washington Times-Herald, a politically similar newspaper published by the cousin of Tribune publisher Colonel Robert McCormick.) The Tribunes Capitol Hill correspondent, Chesly Manly, described a blueprint for total war on a scale unprecedented in at least two oceans and three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The Victory Program called for a draft army of 5,000,000 troops, from a total manpower of more than 10,000,000 men in uniform, as part of a general national war mobilization. The U.S. would, Manly wrote, invade Europe on the specified date of July 1, 1943, in the final supreme effort to defeat the mighty German army
Princes Harry and William were complementing halves of a whole growing up, but, as William becomes more protective of his privacy and Harry loosens up as he contemplates marriage to his actress girlfriend, the styles and manners of the two princes are diverging fast.

Consider this for a tale of two brothers.

After Prince William succeeded in alienating the British public last week by skipping a symbolically important church service and taking an ill-advised ski trip, in the course of which he was pictured high-fiving a lingerie model over a boozy lunch and videoed doing some very dodgy dad dancing in a Verbier nightclub, his younger brother Prince Harry won plaudits and sympathy for an emotionally-charged visit to an AIDS center his mother had once visited.

In an emotional moment, Harry was shown a signed photograph of his late mother from her visit to the Leicester Aids Support Service (LASS) in November 1991, and a wall of tributes she had launched honoring those who died from the disease.

Meanwhile, the extraordinary backlash has continued to unfold against Prince William on phone-in radio shows and the pages of British newspapers this week. William is said to still be quietly seething at what he perceives as the outrageous invasion of his privacy that a fellow clubber in a nightclub videoing him on a phone dancing like an embarrassing uncle at a wedding constitutes.

Few people who are not on Williams payroll identify with the young Princes outrage.

The future king chatting up a pretty 20-something blonde at a ski resort? Thats a valid story, says one usually sympathetic source. But William wont see it that way.

In fairness to William, he has been hammered harder than is completely fair this week. The reason for the vindictive pile-in is a perception among the media that he and Kate have spent the past ten years deliberately antagonizing and frustrating the press at every opportunity, including attempting to neuter them by issuing news releases on social media.

The empirical reality is that ever since the Leveson inquiry disclosed their phones had been hacked, William, Harry and Kate have been treated with kid gloves by the British media in comparison to the privacy invasions all-too regularly dished out to other celebrities.

Witness, for example, the fact that no UK paper published pictures which appeared globally of Harry at Tom Inskips wedding in Jamaica with Markle a few weekends back because of privacy concerns.

Communicating this to William, in particular, is impossible, who continues to act with extraordinary hostility towards the press. He and Kate sometimes appear to go out of their way to make the lives of the UKs phalanx of royal reporters difficult.

Harry, by contrast, used to be like this but has mellowed considerably in his attitude to the press since he unedifyingly sneered at a BBC reporter on camera in Afghanistan that he wished the man wasnt there.

Richard Palmer, the veteran royal correspondent for the Daily Express, told the Daily Beast: I think its true to say that all three [William, Kate and Harry] at various times have alienated the mediaand many of their readers and viewersbecause of their hostility, their attempts to control the press, and the perception that they wanted to have their cake and eat it.

William and Kate are great with the people they meet, less so with the media. Photographers covering her arrival at an engagement this week complained, for example, that she didnt even bother to look at them so they had no photos showing her face.

Harry has mellowed. Hes not the party prince anymore and not quite the same angry, outspoken young man he was in his late teens and early twenties. He can still be abrasive at times but on the whole, he is charming, relaxed, and chatty. He is engaging and sometimes quick with the banter.

Palmer believes that Harrys professional successhis achievements in setting up an HIV/AIDS charity in southern Africa and creating the Invictus Games as part of a campaign to help a generation of military veterans physically or mentally scarred by 25 years of warshas helped create a more at-peace individual.

William, by contrast, is still waiting for his anti-poaching campaign or one of his other causes to show some real tangible success and adds that he needs to shake off the reluctant royal image.

Other royal watchers have similar takes on the way the siblings lives and styles are diverging.

The author Penny Junor who has written biographies of both young royals says: William and Harry are very different characters Williams focus is now his family and he is very protective. He is also very controlling and hates press intrusion, and probably gets unnecessarily wound up about it.

Harry is much more of an extrovert and Meghan is a public figure and, I assume, very happy to be recognized and photographed. He doesnt agonize, as William does, he just gets on with life.

Of course, William has spent a lifetime constrained by his destiny. Harrylike younger brothers since the dawn of timehas always got away with more than his older sibling. Whether its regular six week sojourns in Africa, partying naked in Vegas hotel rooms, or rolling drunk out of nightclubs, Harry still manages to project an image of being the chilled kind of guy youd want to be friends with.

Williams solo dad dancing, by contrast, isnt the kind of party many people would want to attend.

Williams challengeand one at which he has so far been unsuccessfulis to make us love him like we do his brother, foibles and all.
By Press Trust of India: From Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Mar 25 (PTI) Bangladeshi commandos today launched a military operation to flush out militants belonging to an Islamist group behind the countrys worst terror attack from a building amid fears that several residents were trapped inside.

The operation was launched after a 48-hour siege by security forces failed to drive them out of a five-storey building in Sylhet, a northwestern city.

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Officials and witnesses said army para-commandos led by a major general launched the crackdown assisted by polices Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, counter terrorism unit and elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

"GOC (general officer commanding) of our Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the Operation Twilight there," a military spokesman told PTI.

TV channels were barred from live coverage of the operation.

Earlier reports had said at least two suspected militants, including a woman, were inside the building, but a police officer later feared a "whole lot of them" could be there.

Police said militants are believed to be the operatives of neo-Jamaatun Mujahideen Bangladesh (neo-JMB).

The neo-JMB, said to be inclined to the Islamic State, was behind the July 1 terror attack on a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed.

Officials said at least 28 families were trapped inside the building.

Some 70 people could be evacuated ahead of the full scale military assault. The police used megaphones to ask militants to surrender before launching the operation.

Military put barricades on adjacent thoroughfares including on a regional highway as joint forces took position to storm the militant hideout. Authorities overnight cut off the gas and power lines to the building.

Police asked the people in the neighbourhood to stay indoors.

The Operation Twilight was launched after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by Islamic State terrorist group.

Bangladesh witnessed a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013.

The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack. PTI AR NSA

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Tejaswi said if Adityanath is a 'Yogi' and an honest advocate of religion, he should order a total liquor ban in Uttar Pradesh like in Bihar.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Bihar's deputy chief minister Tejaswi Yadav on Saturday dared new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to ban liquor and set up an "anti-daru squad" on the lines of the much hyped anti-romeo squad.

"Liquor is dangerous, it pollutes health and society. Yogiji, don't divert people's attention and constitute anti-daru squad (anti-liquor squad)," Tejaswi, the younger son of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, told media.

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Tejaswi said if Adityanath is a 'Yogi' and an honest advocate of religion, he should order a total liquor ban in Uttar Pradesh like in Bihar.

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance government enforced total prohibition on April 5, 2016 in the state.

ALSO READ | PM Modi's big praise for ex-ally Nitish Kumar over Bihar liquor ban

ALSO READ | Romeos must die: On Yogi Adityanath's orders, UP police forms squads to crack down on eve-teasers

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By Press Trust of India: Bhubaneswar, Mar 25 (PTI) BJP will hold its two-day national executive meeting in the Odisha capital from April 15, to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party national president Amit Shah, senior leader L K Advani and others.

Announcing this today, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, said, "The Prime Minister will come to Odisha to thank the people for their unprecedented support to the BJP in the recent panchayat polls."

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BJP state president Basant Panda said that the national executive meeting in Odisha will further encourage the party workers and local leaders for the 2019 general elections.

Senior party leader MM Joshi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and other party leaders will also be present at the meeting.

Pradhan said the chief ministers of all the BJP ruled states will attend the meet.

Party in-charge of Odisha Arun Singh and national joint secretary (organisaton) Soudan Singh will visit the state tomorrow to oversee the preparations for the meeting, he said. PTI AAM AYP

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The British Parliament has declared that Gilgit-Baltistan, currently under Pakistan's control, belongs to India. It condemned Pakistan's move to declare it as its fifth province. The British Parliament also called the construction of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as illegal.

By India Today Web Desk: The British Parliament has condemned Pakistan's move to declare Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth province. The British Parliament passed a resolution rejecting Pakistan's position on the region in PoK.

A motion was passed by the British parliamentarians announcing Gilgit-Baltistan as a legal and constitutional part of Jammu and Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947.

The motion had been tabled in the British Parliament on March 23 by Bob Blackman of the Conservative Party. It says that Pakistan is attempting to annex an area that does not belong to it.

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The British Parliament motion reads, "Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression."

The British parliamentarians accused Pakistan of adopting a policy to change the demography of Gilgit-Baltistan region in violation of State Subject Ordinance. They called the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as illegal.

The 'forced and illegal construction' of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has interfered with the disputed territory, the motion said.

The Gilgit-Baltistan area is under Pakistan's control since it invaded Jammu and Kashmir soon after partition of India. It forms the northernmost administrative territory under Pakistan's control just beyond the Kashmir region - a part of which is illegally occupied by Islamabad.

Recently, a committee headed by Sartaj Aziz, the Foreign Affairs Advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recommended converting the Gilgit-Baltistan region into its fifth province.

Pakistan has four provinces - Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North West Frontier Province).

Watch the video here

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What issue do Iowa voters most often say is critical? You might be surprised
By Press Trust of India: Tanushree Pareek today became the first woman combat officer to be commissioned in the 51-year history of the BSF, the countrys largest border guarding force.

Pareek (25) also led the passing out parade of 67 trainee officers that was reviewed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at the Border Security Force camp at Tekanpur near here.

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Pareek, a resident of Rajasthans Bikaner, is the first woman to join the force in the officer rank after she was selected in the all-India exam conducted by the UPSC in 2014.

The Home Minister himself put the rank stars on the shoulders of Pareek during the piping ceremony.

The force had begun induction of woman officers in 2013.

She will now be posted to command a unit along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab.

While praising the first woman "field officer" of the 2.5-lakh-strong force, Singh said the Centre has chalked out a new roadmap to strengthen border security and it plans to seal Indian borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan.

He added the BSF has built 73 border outposts, out of 76 such border structures constructed in recent times.

Lauding the force raised in 1965, Singh said BSF has changed the rules of engagement at the international borders and now it is a "known entity" in the neighbouring countries.

While paying his tributes to the personnel of the force killed in the line of duty, the minister said government is planning for an effective grievance redressal mechanism in the forces.

"The forces are coming forward with such mechanisms," he said.

He praised the BSF saying it is the only force after the Indian military which operates on land, water and air as it has a dedicated air and water wing apart from foot soldiers.

"BSF is not only the first line of defence but also the first wall of defence," he said.

The trainee officers, who passed out today, have undergone 52-week training in battle craft, intelligence gathering and other border guarding tasks before being commissioned into the force in the entry rank of Assistant Commandant.

Out of 67, 51 are direct entry officers while 16 have joined the officer ranks on promotion.

During his visit to the Tekanpur camp, Singh also watched a demonstration of PAVA shell firing at the Tear Smoke Unit (TSU) of the force.

The shells were prepared at the TSU and sent to Kashmir Valley for security forces as an alternative to pellet guns to control protests and stone pelters.

The BSF is primarily tasked to guard two of the most sensitive Indian frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh while it is extensively deployed for conducting anti-Naxal operations and rendering other duties in the internal security domain.

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NORWALK  Gracie Bradleys biggest takeaway from a recent trip to Nagarote, Nicaragua wasnt from something she saw.

On the contrary, It was the lack of something, Bradley, a senior at Norwalk High School, said.

It was the lack of people asking for more or being sad in their current condition, she added. It was just normal for them. It was just their everyday life.

Bradleys travels earlier this month were part of an annual trip a delegation from Norwalk takes to Nagarote as a part of the Norwalk Nagarote Sister City Project  a partnership in sustainable community development between the two cities that has existed for 30 years.

This year was a bit different though as two students from The Kevin Eidt Chapter of The Norwalk High Honor Society  Bradley and fellow senior Sabrina Imbrogno  were invited on the trip for the very first time.

The honor society has been involved for about three years with the Sister City project and theyve graciously offered to do fundraising and done some incredible work to raise money for scholarships for our kids, said Tom Kretsch, president of the Norwalk Nagarote Sister City Project. Ive always thought the next step in that journey would be to have those kids get down there firsthand and see what a nonprofit in a third-world country is like.

The two students and five fellow delegates from the project made the trip to Nagarote for five days earlier this month. In that time they visited several programs run by the Sister City project, including a preschool, a tutoring program, a community center and a sustainable farm.

In the students free time they were able to explore the city and talk to locals.

We look at it more of an interaction kind of project, Kretsch said. They get to do what we do and see all the programs and see the kids and get a feel for another part of the world and step outside of the box.

The best part of it, Bradley said, was just interacting with the students and learning about how they live. Its so different from anything Ive ever seen or experienced before  What anyone said or told me about Nagarote seemed like such a foreign concept until I was actually there.

The Norwalk Nagarote Sister City Project was started in 1986 by a group of people who believed they could transcend violence, political and propaganda of the time through people-to-people contact and exchange.

In that time theyve developed the various community programs that, Kretsch said, have become a crucial part of life for many who live there. Theyv also given away scholarships to allow aspiring students in Nagarote to attend school. This year the Norwalk High honor society raised roughly $5,000 to send students there, Bradley said.

At the end of the trip, before the delegation left, Kretsch said the city held a surprise gathering where community members gave thanks to the project.

The whole gist was what a difference it has made in their lives, Kretsch said. To hear it first-hand like that unsolicited, from the heart, it was really affirming.

Its truly made a difference in the peoples lives, he said. Thats the beauty of seeing it first hand. I think it planted a seed in their (the students) lives for the future. What that will be, who knows, we will see.

KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049; @kevinedschultz
The BSF's Training Centre and School has just a unit hospital with 20 beds, no special treatment facilities and no specialists, not even a surgeon. It was because of these deficiencies that the six BSF members had to be rushed to the town's civil hospital located about 10km away.

By Jugal R Purohit: On Friday, inside the Sitagarh firing range in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh, a bloodbath was averted.

A 51mm mortar, an easy-to-use weapon which is typically deployed to pulverise the enemy positioned a kilometre away, was fired and it landed way short of its target. Six Border Security Force (BSF) personnel luckily survived.

Commando training centre

Little known to most, Hazaribagh hosts what is among the biggest training establishments of the force. Size isn't its only claim to fame. Versatility too is. Apart from the firing range, the town hosts the BSF's Training Centre and School (TC & S) where commando training is imparted along with that for explosives and jungle warfare.

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There is also a Subsidiary Training Centre. Various firing techniques are imparted to those under training. In the words of its former Commandant, then Deputy Inspector General (DIG), SK Sood who retired as the Additional Director General of the BSF, at any given point in time there are between 4000 to 6000 personnel and families stationed in it.

Just a 20-bed unit hospital for 6000 BSF personnel

Yet in terms of medical facilities, there is just a unit hospital with 20 beds, no special treatment facilities and no specialists, not even a surgeon. It was because of these deficiencies that the six BSF members had to be rushed to the town's civil hospital located about 10km away. PC Sharma, Inspector General, TC & S, said they had to shift the injured to the civil hospital also known as sadar hospital as 'no surgeon was available to treat them there in the 20-bed hospital'. His phone was subsequently switched off.

Sood headed the institute from July 2010 to December 2011. He said, "TC&S does not have proper medical facilities. No specialist is posted there. Even the "sadar" hospital at Hazaribagh town which is located about 15 km from the institution has only elementary facilities. This causes loss of precious time in patient care leading to fatality more often than not."

Incidentally, a much larger, more equipped composite hospital was sanctioned and had started functioning at TC&S in 2009-10, but was shifted out to Guwahati.

Also read:

BSF losing more men to diseases, mental illness than ops: DG

Post surgical strikes, young recruits ditch uniform services

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WILTON  Wesley Clapp said his arts education at Wilton High School was instrumental in him becoming the art director, brand stylist, illustrator and visual communicator he is today.

The 2005 graduate returned to the high school for its 30th annual arts festival to speak to aspiring young artists.

The staff here at Wilton High School is obviously tremendous. So it just feels right to come back and reconnect and say hello to my old dear friends and see what theyre doing and what exercises and programs theyre rolling out for all the new young kids, he said. Mrs. (Rusty) Hurd gave me everything that I needed in terms of space and time and materials.

As the K-12 instructional leader of fine and performing arts, Hurd said the arts festival has been an essential part of the high school  highlighting the works of current and former students, as well as artists within and outside the area.

Such celebration is crucial, especially amid potential budget cuts where the arts may not always be on the high priority level, she added.

To see a practicing artist is so important. They give great info to students and let them know how to be an artist and also get an appreciation for different art forms, said Hurd, who has taught at Wilton Public Schools for the past 40 years. Hes a perfect example of the kinds of things wed like to see come out of the arts department.

Scott Webster, the high schools instructional leader of world languages, offered similar insight on the importance of running the festival of languages. From Wednesday through Friday, students attended various cultural events, from Tibetan singing bowls and German folk dancing to Indian and French crafts workshops and the much anticipated world languages talent show.

I think its a great way to open the doors to the world and give kids the opportunity and exposure to different cultures, different countries, different ways of thinking and its a really great way to bring the school together, he said.

In the 14 years hes been involved with organizing the festival, he said the program has grown so large that events are filled within two to three days and require student involvement.

I think the best part is that its mostly student-driven, he said. The majority of the presentations are run by the students themselves.

Students were able to talk about their cultural backgrounds, presenting on India, Korea, Italy, Argentina, France, Ecuador, and Ghana, among other countries. They also weighed in on diversity issues faced in the high school and the broader community.

Aqueelah Muhammad, a senior at the high school, sat on this student panel and served as one of the co-presidents of the festival of languages.

No one really talks about their heritage or their culture and I feel like this is a good way for students to open up and find others who also share their culture, she said. This week gives people a chance to come out of their shells.

SKim@hearstmediact.com; 203-354-1044; @stephaniehnkim
Forty-five new officers graduated as part of the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Centers 195th basic session on Friday.

Of the 45, five officers who will serve in area departments graduated. Chance Engel of the Hall County Sheriffs Department, Aaron Marquez of the Grand Island Police Department, Christopher Grooms of the Valley County Sheriffs Department, Michael Martinez of the Polk County Sheriffs Department and Cale Neelly of the Hastings Police Department graduated at Fridays ceremony.

David Thome, an instructor at the training center, presided over the ceremony. He gave a short speech to the graduates before Lt. Gov. Mike Foley gave the address.

As a person who has chosen this profession, you will face many choices, Thome said. Choose to be a guardian warrior.

Thome told the officers to be kind but not weak and to be confident but not arrogant.

Do the right thing for the right reason in the right way, Thome said. Your training is a foundation. Trust it.

Thome told officers that, once they think they know everything, theyll become ineffective. He said the training should never stop.

Look at every day as you go to work as an opportunity to build on that foundation, Thome said.

Foley said public safety is the most core essential function of state and local government.

We say congrats, but most importantly, we say thank you, Foley said.

Foley talked about homeland security meetings he has attended, specifically one in Arizona and one in Salt Lake City. He said he was fascinated by the security at the Temple Square in Salt Lake City. He mentioned a busy highway he visited while at the meeting in Arizona. The highway is notorious for drug trafficking.

I dont need to tell anyone here what the drug culture is doing to our society, Foley said. What a difficult task you have of how to police all of this.

Foley cited Gallup polls and said that more people are supportive of law enforcement now and are less approving of Congress, TV news and newspapers. He said its crucial to attract moral men and women for law enforcement to protect communities.

He said as different issues arise, with terrorists recruiting people via social media and other problems, the distinction between military and law enforcement will continue to blur. Foley told the officers that, no matter what, he and Gov. Pete Ricketts got your back.

He said people in communities are watching law enforcement officers and look up to those who serve them.

I implore you, maintain your integrity. Whether youre in uniform or out of uniform, Foley said. Please, dont let us down.
The Merrick County Sheriffs Department arrested three people who live at 156 Beck Road for felony animal neglect on Thursday.

Horses and dogs have been seized from the property in the last nine months.

Thomas J. Leetch Sr., 35; Michelle A. Vonohlen, 34; and Rolland E. Schleichardt, 50, were all three arrested for felony animal neglect. Leetch also was arrested for possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

As of Friday afternoon, the three individuals were in jail.

In June, the Central Nebraska Humane Society assisted in the removal of five horses from the property. In that instance, Leetch was charged with five counts of abandoning or cruelly neglecting an animal, which is a Class 1 misdemeanor. The trial on those charges is set for 9 a.m. April 21 in Merrick County Court.

On Saturday, March 18, the Merrick County Sheriffs Department executed a search warrant at the property. Twenty-one dogs were taken from the property and placed with the Central Nebraska Humane Society.

The animals were severely abused/neglected and were in desperate need of veterinarian care, says a news release from Merrick County Sheriff John Westman.

On Thursday, the Sheriffs Department located all of the responsible parties involved and made arrests in the case, the release says.

The Merrick County Sheriffs Office has responded to numerous complaints in reference to the conditions of the property, concern for resident living conditions and animal complaints, the release says. The Sheriffs Office has affected several arrests and issued numerous citations to the individuals residing on the property.

The residence falls within the two-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction for the city of Grand Island and is subject to the zoning regulations set forth by the city of Grand Island and not those of Merrick County. However, Merrick County cannot enforce city ordinances/zoning regulations for the city of Grand Island.

In a case such as this, removing animals from an abusive or neglectful environment allows for the animals to enjoy a better quality of life and also allows law enforcement to hold inhumane animal owners accountable, the release says.

This property is not only a disgust to Merrick County, but it has been made very clear by the property owners that they are not willing or capable of fostering animals or providing appropriate living conditions or respect for their surrounding neighbors, the release says. We will continue to enforce laws and hold persons accountable for their actions as we continue working to improve our environment by partnering with our communities.

The Merrick County Sheriffs Department was assisted by the Central Nebraska Humane Society and the Central City Police Department.

According to neighbors, Leetch and Vonohlen and three children lived in a mobile home on the property. Schleichardt lived in a camper on the lot, which totals slightly more than a half-acre.

Legal records indicate that the land is owned by David Stout.

On Feb. 3, the city of Grand Islands building department director posted a Notice to Vacate near the front door of the mobile home. The sign urges people not to enter because the building is unsafe to occupy since it is not served by water or electricity.

Grand Island Building Department Director Craig Lewis said on Thursday that residents have made some strides in cleaning up the property. Some of the debris has been picked up outside since the notice was posted, he said.

Leetchs lawyer, James Wagoner, said his client is misunderstood. Hes probably trying to help some critters and they want him off the property. So what are you going do? he said Friday. Referring to the horses, Wagoner said, He got them for Christmas for his kids. Later on he spent a week in jail, but when he got them, they were pretty damn skinny.

Wagoner is not happy that the Merrick County sheriff invited the Humane Society to the property.

What gives him the right to make the invitation? Wagoner said. Well, you know, they make allegations, but thats all they are for now.

Neighbors in Schwartz Subdivision say theyve had issues with Leetch for more than 10 years. They complain about the horses and dogs wandering into their yards. Not only have the animals been neglected, but their waste products have created a health hazard, they say. They also say Leetch has plugged electrical cords into their property to use their electricity.

In 2012, Leetch and Vonohlen were served notice by the Merrick County Sheriffs Department of the dogs being potentially dangerous.

In March 2016, Leetch and Stout received a letter from Hall County Regional Planning Director Chad Nabity. The letter says the property had been brought to the attention of the city due to the presence of livestock maintained on the property as well as the accumulation of rubbish, trash, junk and other offensive materials that have been allowed to accumulate on the property.

The property is zoned large lot residential with a manufactured home overlay, said Jen Myers, Merrick Countys zoning administrator.

Grand Island City Attorney Jerry Janulewicz said hes been in contact about the property with Merrick County Attorney Lynelle Homolka.

Weve known for some time that theres been conditions that need to be addressed, Janulewicz said Thursday. Were working toward getting those addressed.
The 17 men at the Salvation Army shelter were able to sleep well Friday night following a donation of pillows.

The mission committee at Trinity United Methodist Church donated 33 pillows to the Salvation Army on Friday morning after reading about the shelters need for funds and financial support.

Shelter Director Deny Cacy said Russ Anderson, associate pastor at Trinity United Methodist, saw the story and asked what the church could do to help.

He asked if I could put together a crucial need list  of what we would use in an average year or an average day or month, Cacy said. The pillows were the first thing that we discussed because we have a lot of them that are completely shot, stained or weve had them for a long time. Theyre just worn out.

Once Anderson had the list of crucial need items, Deb Brummund, Donna Winter and the rest of Trinity United Methodists mission committee worked to gather pillows from church members to donate to the Salvation Army. Brummund said the committee made a video to show during worship services that encouraged church members to bring in pillows to donate.

The only way we did it (asked for pillows) was the video in the worship service saying we were going to partner with the Salvation Army because of their need, she said. We asked people to bring new or gently used pillows to the church this week as soon as possible. People have just been bringing them in. Most everybody brought in two  at least the people I saw.

Cacy said that, when Brummund called him to set up a meeting time to pick up the pillows, he was speechless.

I couldnt believe that they got that much of a response that quickly, he said. I was like, Whoa, I just got you the list late Friday afternoon. She asked how we wanted to set up a meeting, and I didnt know. I wasnt expecting that. Its a huge blessing.

Cacy said the pillows will allow the men to feel more comfortable and at home at the shelter. It will help them to build their self-worth and get a good nights rest.

Most people see this as just a few pillows. But when you start looking at our need, our current situation and making the men feel at home, you cannot even explain what this does, he said. A lot of the guys have back issues or some type of issue where weve given them two or three pillows to try to allow them cushioning and comfort. Now, especially with some of them that are here, theyll have one that will sufficiently meet their needs.

In addition to the pillows, the mission committee also donated plain, white pillowcases. The reason for the white pillowcases, Brummund said, was to allow the Salvation Army to wash them more easily by running it through the bleach.

Brummund said Trinity United Methodist and the mission committee want to encourage other churches to partner with the Salvation Army, as well. Items the shelter needs include basic cleaning supplies such as bleach, toilet cleaner and glass cleaner. It also needs hygiene items such as razors, shaving cream, toilet paper, shampoo and conditioner.

Cacy said other needed items include vacuum cleaner bags and laundry soap.

Those interested in donating to the Salvation Army shelter can contact Cacy at (308) 382-4855, extension 7.
A hearty Saturday Salute goes to the agricultural producers throughout our state during this National Agriculture Week.

Gov. Pete Ricketts made a visit this week to the Raising Nebraska exhibit at the Nebraska State Fairgrounds to celebrate agriculture and the contribution it makes to the state of Nebraska.

He noted that agriculture contributes about $23 billion to the states economy. The number of farms in Nebraska increased by 5 percent from 2007 to 2012 and the number of farmers increased by 10 percent.

Our farmers and ranchers are the most productive and innovative in the world, Ricketts said. We are in an ideal situation right here in Nebraska to be able to take advantage of those demographic strengths. Thats why the long-term prospects for agriculture are fantastic.

The farmers life isnt easy. Its a lot of hard work day in and day out. But farmers are making their living from the land because they understand the value of a rural life to their own families as well as the importance of their work to a hungry world.

We salute our states agricultural producers who give so much of themselves to raise crops and livestock to feed the world.

Students learning from project

We also salute the Central Platte Natural Resources District, Pheasants Forever and the Nebraska Wildlife Federation for their work on a project to create a four-acre butterfly research habitat along the Wood River flood control project west of South Locust Street and involve local children in the project.

About 40 students from Walnut Middle School, Success Academy and the school districts Roots N Shoots group joined with a couple dozen adults to work on the project Thursday afternoon.

The four-acre site was seeded with more than 40 different wildflowers and prairie grasses designed to replicate the diversity of a natural prairie.

Along with creating habitat for pollinators, the project is focused on educating students about wildlife, their habitat and the importance to humans.

The students learned that monarch butterflies contribute to the health of the planet. When they feed on nectar, they pollinate many types of wildflowers. Monarch butterflies are also an important food source for birds, small animals and other insects.

This is a very valuable project, both in its contributions to our natural surroundings and in its focus on education of our children. We salute these agencies for coming together to make this possible.
A 30-year-old was allegedly set on fire by her in-laws at their house in Buxar, Bihar, at midnight on March 7. She died on March 11, but police still haven't registered an FIR.

By Arpan Rai: Krishna Kumar regrets not going to the police the first time his sister Rani told him about being beaten within 10 days of getting married in 2007.

Ten years later, the 30-year-old was allegedly set on fire by her in-laws at their house in Buxar, Bihar, at midnight on March 7.

She was hospitalized with over 90 per cent burn injuries all over her body, leaving just the back of her head unscathed. She died of cardio-respiratory failure on March 11 after battling for three days.

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But even a fortnight after her death, police has refused to lodge an FIR in the case. Kumar alleged that he has gone to the police at Sonipatti, Buxar, four times but was turned away each time as cops demanded a statement from the magistrate and medical reports before registering his complaint.

THIS IS A SERIOUS MATTER, IMMEDIATE ACTION WILL BE TAKEN: MANEKA GANDHI

He finally tweeted to women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi about the case.

Taking swift notice, she replied to his tweet on Friday morning, "Extremely sorry to hear about your loss, dear @Krishna60274940. Please DM me your contact number."

Talking to Mail Today, a ministry official said, "This is a serious matter and immediate action will be taken by the ministry."

VICTIM'S BROTHER SPEAKS TO MAIL TODAY

Speaking to Mail Today over the phone, Krishna said he learnt about his sister's injuries on receiving a call from his eldest sister, who also lives in Buxar.

The victim's father said that the family members of Rani claimed that she caught fire from the stove while working in the kitchen. The in-laws were not available for comments.

Kumar said that Rani's in-laws used to harass her and demanded the fridge despite having one and kept it locked to pressurise her.

"Rani's mother-in-law said that she will only open the first fridge after she will get the second fridge from our family," Krishna told Mail Today.

He added that Rani often complained to her parents about how her two daughters and a three-year-old son were denied milk because of the fight over the fridge in the house.

"We knew about the abuse she endured for years as she told us repeatedly but we could not say a word inas we feared what villagers would say. Besides, we did not have money to buy them a fridge," he said.

After the police officials turned him away on March 20, Krishna Kumar took to Twitter to contact Bihar chief minister, Uttar Pradesh's newly elected CM Yogi Adityanath, Sushil Modi and Lalu Prasad Yadav in a series of tweets and sought help but did not get any response.

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ALSO READ | Agra: Acid attack victim honoured by President Pranab Mukherjee on International Women's Day

No one-stop centres for women who have suffered sexual violence despite six rapes in Delhi every day

ALSO WATCH | Maneka Gandhi's special cell to monitor cyber-trolling

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Election Day 2022: The stakes are high with all eyes on Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania voters on Election Day will make decisions that could reshape the future of both the commonwealth and nation.
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Linkedin Salil Shetty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017

Donald Trump had barely spent a month in the White House when his administration began translating his divisive campaign rhetoric into policy.

Targeting people for their faith, his administration issued executive orders banning the entry of citizens from half a dozen Muslim majority countries.

At a stroke of a pen, by curbing travel from countries which suffer war and strife and shutting down the United States refugee resettlement program, the US imperiled its storied tradition of welcoming refugees from across the world.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 09:57 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde648308 1 People Pandji-Pragiwaksono,stand-up-comedy,Anies-Baswedan-Sandiaga-Uno Free

As a supporter and spokesman of Jakarta gubernatorial candidate pair Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno, Indonesian stand-up comedian Pandji Pragiwaksono has always been bold in expressing encouragement toward the pair. Pandji has been very vocal on his social media accounts, which include his official website (blog) and Twitter.

In his latest blog post, Satria Piningit, Pandji lashes out at those who criticized him for forgetting human rights issues following the release of a photo where Anies Baswedan posed alongside Tommy Soeharto, the youngest son of Indonesias former president Soeharto. The late president himself has a track record of alleged human rights abuses and corruption.

The photo garnered strong protests from Indonesian Twitter users. Some accusing Pandji for getting paid to write the post, while others condemned him for being forgetful of his 2012 blog post memBieber where he shot critics toward Soeharto and the New Order era.

Piye kabar idealismemu Le... Penak sama keluargaku toh? pic.twitter.com/gdhumkElLh  jumandjih (@jumandjih) March 14, 2017

Jangan terlalu menganggap tinggi institusi. Yg penting bukan sekolah di mana. Tapi apa yg dilakukan semasa sekolah. Di manapun itu. https://t.co/2gf4g8NdFn  Pandji Pragiwaksono (@pandji) March 20, 2017

Pikun nik pelawak. Kerjaan boleh ngelawak tp jg mati sebagai lawakan https://t.co/dvYu69AkPY  banjirejekimall (@banjirejekimall) March 15, 2017

Well, I retweeted and I liked [the criticism tweets], said Pandji during the press conference of Stand-Up Comedy Indonesia (SUCI) 7 where he participated as one of the judges.

Its because what [the netizens] want is right, they actually dont want us to be trapped in practices that happened in New Order era [again]. But one thing that we all have to know is what exactly the New Order is  does it end in Cendana [Soehartos clan]? [] Thats why I wrote [Satria Piningit].

Pandji also said he does not mind people's strong opinions about him. I think its fair if people criticize and have opinions about me because Id also do the same," he said. "In fact, it wouldnt be fair if I gave my critical opinion, but others werent allowed to do the same, he explained. As the spokesperson of running mates Anies-Sandi, Pandji has been specifically assigned by Anies to gather and influence young voters.

During his career as a stand-up comedian, Pandji admitted that social issues had been his favorite topic. There has been content about social politics and human rights, he said. So if I have to show that I take sides during this Jakarta gubernatorial election, then Ill do it.

Pandji Pragiwaksono (left) and Indro 'Warkop' during the press conference of 'Stand-Up Comedy Indonesia 7' on Thursday.(JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

Read also: Pandji speaks to masses in 'Juru Bicara'

Furthermore, Pandji is not afraid to be labeled as biased. [I think] stand-up comedy will certainly take sides. The comics have to know their standpoint when they perform, he added.

As for his forthcoming project, Pandji said he is in the process of writing a script for a drama comedy film. Ernest [Prakasa, stand-up comedian] has taught me how to write it. Alhamdulillah (thank God) I have signed a contract with a production house, he stated, adding that Ernest Prakasas Cek Toko Sebelah has inspired him to contribute to the movie industry.

Although the two are friends in the same circle, Ernest Prakasa has been known to be a supporter of Basuki Ahok Tjahja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat, the opposing candidate in Jakarta's gubernatorial election, and Pandji realizes their differences.

Stand-up comedy is an art that needs open-mindedness. If youre not open-minded, then its hard to be a comic, he said. And the open-mindedness has been important these days on the politic scene, and we (he and Ernest) have shown that, despite our differences, were mature enough to accept each other. We still hang out together. (asw)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25 2017

After being criticized for not being pro poor in his leadership, incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has focused on wooing the sick and elderly by spending most of his campaign time visiting ailing residents in the third week of the runoff campaign.

On Thursday, the inactive governor paid a visit to the houses of sick residents on Jl. Kalibaru, Cilincing, North Jakarta.

One of the residents visited by Ahok was Rosna, 72, who has been immobile since she slipped and fell during flooding in the capital last month.

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Linkedin Bambang Muryanto (The Jakarta Post) Yogyakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 19:51 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde6504f4 1 National Yogyakarta,Amnesty-International,Salil-Shetty,Sri-Sultan,intolerance,pluralism,human-rights,Islamic-hard-liner Free

Salil Shetty, the secretary general of UK-based human rights organization Amnesty International, has asked Yogyakartas Sultan Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X to continue promoting diversity and pluralism following a recent series of intolerant incidents in the province.

Salil said he had directly appealed to the de facto governor of Yogyakarta during their meeting to use his power as regional leader to ensure that the rule of law was upheld in handling such incidents.

Indonesias Constitution is based on human rights. Every group should be treated equally, Salil said after the two-hour meeting at the Kepatihan compound in Yogyakarta on Friday.

(Read also: Yogyakarta becoming more intolerant: Study)

A study by rights group the Setara Institute recently revealed that the state of freedom of religion in Yogyakarta was in continuous decline, with at least 53 cases of religious rights violations recorded in the province between 2007 and 2016.

In December, last year, the Muslim Peoples Forum (FUI) of Yogyakarta forced Duta Wacana Christian University (UKDW) to take down billboards depicting three female students, one of whom was wearing a hijab, studying in a library. The hard-line group claimed the billboards insulted Islam.

(Read also: Bigotry haunts nation)

Intolerance: A billboard featuring a female student wearing a hijab is erected at the corner of Sanata Dharma Catholic University in Yogyakarta. The Muslim People's Forum (FUI) in the city has forced another university, Duta Wacana Christian University, to take down a similar billboard, claiming it will mislead Muslim students.(JP/Tarko Sudiarno)

Usman Hamid, Amnestys Indonesia representative who also attended the meeting, said that during the meeting Sri Sultan had also raised concerns about the rising number of such hard-line groups. These groups use pressure to gain economic benefit, Usman said.

Yogyakarta Unity and Community Protection Agency head Agung Supriyono brushed off allegations that the administration had succumbed to intolerant groups. (bbs)
The CBI has registered a case against two former AGMs & two former chief managers of Syndicate Bank and six persons.

By Rohit Parihar: The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) is carrying out searches at four places in Jaipur and Ajmer even as it registered one more case relating to a massive fraud in Syndicate Banks at Udaipur and Jaipur where loans were taken by a builder using documents of others and money was invested in housing projects and to buy prime properties.

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According to a press release, the CBI has registered a case u/s 120B r/w 420, 467, 468, 471 of IPC and 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of PC Act on a complaint from Syndicate Bank against two former AGMs & two then chief managers of Syndicate Bank and six persons including CA, builder etc. related to a fraud in its two branches at Jaipur and Udaipur. An alleged loss of approx Rs 209 crore was caused to the bank.

It was alleged in the complaint that the accused in criminal conspiracy with each other availed home loans/credit facilities from Jaipur and Udaipur branches of Syndicate Bank on the basis of forged and fabricated documents. The funds so disbursed by Syndicate Bank were diverted and fraudulently siphoned off to the companies owned by accused persons, thereby causing an alleged loss to the bank.

It is also informed that two accused are still in judicial custody and one accused is on bail by Supreme Court on medical grounds in another case which was registered during March 2016 and charge-sheeted by CBI.

This case registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act for alleged fraud committed at Syndicate Bank branches in Udaipur and Jaipur. Ten branches of Syndicate Bank were raided then in Delhi, Jaipur and Udaipur.

In March last year, the CBI had registered a case against several senior officers of Syndicate Bank and others for causing an alleged loss of Rs 1,000 crore to the state-owned bank. The accused, in connivance with bank officials, committed the fraud by resorting to discounting fake cheques and bills against fake letters of credit (LC) and arranging overdrafts against non-existent LIC policies.

Later, in June last year, the CBI filed first chargesheet against the chief manager of Udaipur branch Santosh Gupta, his wife Usha Gupta and CA Bharat Kumar Bamb.

Enforcement Directorate is also looking into the way huge money was siphoned off as investment.

Also read:

Chargesheet filed by CBI in Rs 1000-crore Syndicate bank fraud

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Asila Jalil (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25 2017

Young people in ASEAN countries can connect with each other and strengthen their ties through the ASEAN Youth Organization (AYO).

AYO is a non-profit and non-governmental organization based in Jakarta that aims to increase awareness about the regional body among young people.

AYO president Senjaya Mulia said that engagement between youths is vital as the region consists of more than 50 percent of people below the age of 30 as of now.

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Whether it is historically accurate to say that Barus in Central Tapanuli is ground zero of the civilization of Islam Nusantara (Islam in the Archipelago) is irrelevant to President Joko Jokowi Widodo, who came all the way from Jakarta to the remote region in Sumatra to officiate a monument claiming exactly that.

The President, who is struggling to contain the rise of religious fanaticism, was here to send a message: that diversity is the nations wealth.

Barus, also known as Fansur, is a place where Islam harmoniously blends with not only local cultures but also influences from other great civilizations. It is the hometown of the legendary 16th century poet and mystic Hamzah Fansuri, who articulated the monist doctrine of wujudiyah.

On Friday, Jokowi officiated the Islam Nusantara Monument in the region as the ground zero of Islamic civilization in Indonesia, even though many scholars believe that Indonesian Islam began in Samudra Pasai, which is located in northern Aceh.

The President acknowledged the rich history of Barus.

Today, I visited the Mahligai graveyard where many traders from the Middle East were buried. They are known as awliya [saints] who brought Islam to Indonesia through Barus.

The President said he had known for years that the history of Barus, which means camphor, was recorded in ancient Egyptian manuscripts as camphor was used to preserve mummies.

Barus exported camphor to the Middle East in the past. One can thus find a number of historical sites like huge graveyards, gravestones that have ancient Persian writing and other historical artifacts in Barus.

(Read also: Jokowi to inaugurate center of Islam of the Archipelago)

In his remark, Jokowi said Indonesia was a pluralistic nation with 714 tribes, such as Asmat, Badui, Batak, Betawi, Bugis, Gayo, Sasak and Sunda, in 315 regencies and cities across the country. This diversity is a treasure that we must be thankful for as in one region alone there are various types of greetings.

North Sumatra Governor Tengku Erry Nuradi said that French archeologists found that from the ninth until the 12 century Barus was a trade center where Batak, Javanese, Arab and Tamil traders mixed with each other. The main commodities at that time were spices and camphor, Tengku said.

The form of Islam developed in Barus best represents the version of Islam Nusantara, Fuad Jabali, a historian from the Jakarta State Islamic University (UIN), said. Islam Nusantara is characterized by its inclusivity and in Barus the international aspects of Islam blends peacefully with local traditions.

It must be symbolically understood that Jokowi acknowledges that the kind of Islam that Indonesia needs is an Islam that embraces differences. Islam Nusantara is an Islam that celebrates the diversity of local traditions and global traditions as shown by Barus in the past, Fuad said.

The countrys largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), supported Jokowis move, saying it could counter the narrative of Islam espoused by extremist groups. The most important point the President wants to make is that Islam and culture cannot be separated in Indonesia. Islam and nationalism, Islam and tolerance for diversity as well as Islam and history cannot be separated, NU deputy secretary-general Imam Pituduh said.
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Linkedin Ika Krismantari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25 2017

If fake news is the Lord Voldemort of everything going online, then Indonesia is still grappling to find that bespectacled little boy with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead to save the world.

Listed among the worlds top-10 social media markets, the nation of 250 million people is trying everything it can to stop the spread of fake news. The governments latest move is by trying to resurrect the era of media control by introducing centralized policies, including website blocking, media verification and a bar code system.

Naturally none of those work because the internets power out there is just too great. Any attempt to block websites will end up in failure because new sites will keep appearing, no matter what.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 16:26 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64de58 1 City Bekasi,dead-baby,murder,murder-case,West-Java,police Free

The body of a dead baby was found sprawled on the side of the road on Jl. KH Agus Salim, Bekasi, West Java, shocking pedestrians who passed the area at around 5 a.m. local time on Saturday.

A Bekasi resident, who wanted to remain anonymous, said residents became suspicious due to an unpleasant smell emanating from a construction project.

After Subuh [the pre-dawn prayer], people passing smelled a rancid odor. After investigating, they found the body of a dead baby wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown into a waste site, said the resident as quoted by tribunnews.com.

The baby weighed an estimated 3.8 kilograms, with a height of around 48 centimeters.

Residents who witness the incident condemned those who had thrown out the baby, saying it was inhumane. How did they have the heart to throw away their own child? they said.

Bekasi Police personnel were dispatched to the location to investigate the finding, which caused a traffic jam. (vny/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 12:26 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64a254 1 National Densus-88,counterterrorism,terrorism,terrorists,TerroristSuspect,#Terrorism Free

Personnel from the National Polices Densus 88 counterterrorism squad searched on Friday a house belonging to suspected terrorist Bambang Eko Prasetyo, one of eight terrorists captured in the latest antiterrorism operation, in Ciputat, South Tangerang, Banten.

Yes thats correct. A search has been conducted in a house rented by BEP, National Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Martinus Sitompul said as quoted by Antara in Jakarta on Friday.

He further said that police personnel searched the suspects house to seek evidence related to his alleged terrorist acts.

During the search, officers found several pieces of evidence, including several laptops and documents. The documents were confiscated to complete the polices intensive investigation on BEP, said Martinus.

(Read also: Alleged terrorists wanted to make Halmahera new Poso: Police)

Earlier, Densus 88 personnel captured eight suspected terrorists in several areas across Banten and West Java on Thursday, one of whom was shot dead for attempting to resist arrest.

The police first arrested Suryadi Masud, alias Abu Ridho, at Hotel Lafa Park Family Adventure in Kampung Pesanggrahan, Tanjung Baru village, East Cikarang district, Bekasi regency.

They later arrested Bambang at a motor workshop on Jl. Aria Putra Serua, Ciputat, South Tangerang. From the two arrests, the police expanded their operation, arresting Mulyadi in Menes and Adi Jihadi in Pagelar district  both in Pandeglang, Banten.

The Densus team then arrested four suspected terrorists in Ciwandan, Cilegon, Banten. They are Achmad Supriyanto, Icuk Pamulang alias Icuk Warianto, and Ojid Abdul Majid, who suffered gunshot injuries on his shoulder because he resisted arrest. The suspected terrorist killed in the arrest was Nanang Kosim. (mrc/ebf)
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Linkedin Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25 2017

Wonders never cease to occur at Plaza Indonesia Fashion Week where Indonesian designers get exposure to high-end fashion enthusiasts.

In its 10th edition that runs until Saturday, Plaza Indonesia Fashion Week features two rising designers that received applause for bringing out a different side of their artistic ability in their latest collections.

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Linkedin Vincent Guerend and Francisco Fontan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25 2017

Sixty years ago, on March 25, 1957, six European countries signed the Treaties of Rome named after the capital of Italy where they met. The common aspiration of Europeans to build peace and prosperity through shared destiny was made reality.

European integration became a strong magnet, gradually enlarging and deepening to become a union of 28 member states. After so many wars and conflicts 510 million inhabitants entered the longest period of peace in European history.

Today, 60 years later, we are among the millions of Europeans to celebrate. Peace, prosperity, freedom and solidarity are at the core of European integration. A legacy that is critical for our common future.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar  Sat, March 25 2017

Two boats crashed into one another in Nusa Penida waters in Bali on Friday, killing one passenger and injuring six others.

The incident took place at around 10 a.m. when a small boat with 13 passengers departed from Nusa Lembongan to Toya Pakeh village in Nusa Penida. The small boat crashed into a bigger traditional boat coming from the Kusamba traditional port in Klungkung to Nusa Lembongan near Nusa Ceningan waters, Nusa Penida Police chief Comr. Ketut Suastika said.

Based on witness accounts, the small boats captain did not see the traditional boat coming his way as his sight was blocked by a bamboo woven basket near the helm.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 08:27 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64688b 1 City East-Jakarta,public-library Free

East Jakarta will soon have a modern public library with air-conditioned reading rooms, comfortable chairs and tables, sofas and pleasant outdoor scenery.

East Jakarta Library and Archives Agency head Fadlan Zurhan said the municipality had renovated a building that used to be the Pondok Bambu subdistrict office in Duren Sawit into a cafe-style library and data center.

We have prepared i-Jakarta digital library and Indonesia OneSearch as tools to search for digital books in the country. We also have programs to count the number of visitors, Fadlan said on Friday as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

Pondok Bambu subdistrict chief Syahrul Munir said the integrated library was almost finished.

We have put the bookshelves, tables and chairs into place. There are also reading rooms equipped with air conditioners, sofas and chairs, Syahrul said.

The librarys location is strategic and easy to access.

Syahrul said he was optimistic the place would soon be packed with people. (dev)
As though adding insult to injury, American biodiesel producers have followed the European Unions (EU) lead in accusing Indonesia of dumping practices, less than a week before the latters first meeting to clear its name with the WTO.

The United States-based commercial trade association National Biodiesel Board (NBB), along with dozens of its fellow biodiesel producers, filed a petition on Thursday with the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia.

The group, under the name the NBB Fair Trade Coalition, says imported biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia has flooded the US market and violated trade agreements, something that has been firmly denied by Indonesian biodiesel players.

This might just be a protectionist move by US biodiesel producers. They want to protect their domestic industry by accusing us of dumping practices. This is unfair, Indonesias Biofuel Producers Association (Aprobi) chairman Paulus Tjakrawan said on Friday.

Previously, NBB chief executive officer Donnell Rehagen said in a statement reported by Reuters that the trade groups move was to create a level playing field to give markets, consumers and retailers access to the benefits of true and fair competition.

However, Paulus said it was no coincidence that such an allegation had arisen less than a week before Indonesias meeting with the WTO. Indonesia is preparing to file a complaint against EU anti-dumping duties on its biodiesel exports to the WTO in Geneva on March 29 to 30.

In November 2013, the EU set duties from 8.8 percent to 20.5 percent for Indonesian producers and between 22 percent and 25.7 percent for Argentine producers, to apply for five years in both cases.

Considering the NBBs timing to petition the US government, we feel this is a way to support the EU in the context of our meeting with the WTO, Paulus went on to say.

Indonesia sold US$982.52 million worth of biodiesel to the 28 member bloc in 2012, a year before the duties were erected. Sales dropped by about half in 2013 after the tariffs were imposed.

Accumulative exports plunged by 96.5 percent to $14.7 million in 2015 before climbing to $29.8 million in 2016, data from the Trade Ministry show. Meanwhile, Indonesias annual biodiesel exports to the US surged by 117 percent in the 2014-2016 period to 350,176 tons of biodiesel a year, or 93.75 percent of Indonesias total biodiesel exports last year.

If such a petition is approved by the US government, we will certainly see a significant drop in our biodiesel exports, Indonesian Vegetable Oil Refiners Association (GIMNI) executive director Sahat Sinaga said.

Its going to be impossible for us to reach the target of exporting 500,000 tons of biodiesel in 2017.

Therefore, Aprobi plans to gather together Indonesias biodiesel producers and exporters this Monday to coordinate their moves and support the governments plan to annul the NBB Fair Trade Coalitions petition.

One of the issues raised in the trade groups petition is the existence of the Indonesian Oil Palm Estate Fund (BPDP-KS). The trade group also mentions the Indonesian governments efforts to impose a 15 percent biodiesel blending policy in 2015 and a 20 percent blending policy last year.

Since mid-2015, palm oil exporters have been levied $50 per ton for crude palm oil (CPO) shipments and $30 for processed palm oil products when CPO prices stand below $750 a ton in a bid to help pay for biodiesel subsidies, replanting, research and development for oil palm farmers.

Nonetheless, Rapolo Hutabarat, the corporate affairs manager at Musim Mas Group, one of Indonesias largest integrated palm oil companies and a member of Aprobi, said the US had also been offering various subsidies to its farmers.

Rapolo mentioned the subsidies for corn farmers, including direct payments, counter cyclical payments and marketing assistance loans from the US government to help such farmers develop their businesses.

So actually, they are also doing the same thing as we are by giving subsidies to farmers, he said.
By Press Trust of India: Beijing, Mar 25 (PTI) China has captured 2,566 fugitives, a number of them from the ruling Communist Party,who had fled to other countries and recovered USD 125 million of illicit funds from 2014 to 2016.

Among them, 1,283 turned themselves in or were persuaded to return to China, according to a statement issued today by the office in charge of pursuing fugitives under the central anti-graft coordination group.

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Out of 2,566 fugitives who had fled to more than 90 countries, 410 were members of the Communist Party of China or official staff, it said. The authorities also recovered 8.6 billion yuan (USD 125 million) of illicit funds.

So far, 39 suspects of Chinas 100 most-wanted have returned.

The campaign has effectively stopped corrupt officials from fleeing overseas, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. PTI KJV AMS AKJ AMS

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25 2017

As though adding insult to injury, American biodiesel producers have followed the European Unions (EU) lead in accusing Indonesia of dumping practices, less than a week before the latters first meeting to clear its name with the WTO.

The United States-based commercial trade association National Biodiesel Board (NBB), along with dozens of its fellow biodiesel producers, filed a petition on Thursday with the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia.

The group, under the name the NBB Fair Trade Coalition, says imported biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia has flooded the US market and violated trade agreements, something that has been firmly denied by Indonesian biodiesel players.

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Linkedin Syofiardi Bachyul Jb and Moses Ompusunggu (The Jakarta Post) Padang  Sat, March 25 2017

Muslim residents of Padang, West Sumatra, are protesting the presence of a crematorium for Indonesians of Chinese descent in the heart of the local Chinatown in the city, arguing that it goes against Islamic beliefs.

Dozens of people from several Muslim organizations staged a protest in front of the crematorium owned by the Heng Beng Tong (HBT) community on Wednesday, demanding the immediate closure of the crematorium, which they label haram (forbidden in Islam).

It is the second rally in the past two years put on by Muslim groups against the crematorium. The crematorium is located inside a funeral home owned by the HBT community in the Chinatown area in Batang Arau subdistrict, Padang.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 07:50 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64497e 1 Business Papua,Freeport-Indonesia,divestment,Luhut-Binsar-Pandjaitan Free

Maritime Coordinating Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan has said Papua will get 5 percent from the divestment of cooper and gold miner PT Freeport Indonesia, which is required by law to release 51 percent of their shares to the Indonesian entities.

Freeport divestment is part of what is being discussed by representatives of the government and Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of United States-based Freeport McMoRan, in connection with the conversion of the contract of work (CoW) into a special mining license (IUPK).

With the divestment, we will have 51 percent of shares, while Freeport will have 49 percent, with 5 percent of shares for local administrations and for local tribes. With [the dividend from] the shares, Papua will improve its education, agriculture and livestock businesses, Luhut said as reported by tempo.co on Friday.

He said the shares for Papuan people would never be tampered with and Freeport would pay the dividends to Papua. It is part of the protection of our people in Papua, he added.

When meeting with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo on Wednesday, Papua Governor Lukas Enembe demanded 10 percent shares of Freeport.

Freeport Indonesia has refused to accept a government demand, and it converted its CoW into a special mining license (IUPK). The company argues that IUPK would effectively annul its CoW, signed in 1991. It has threatened to take the case to international arbitration if a mutual agreement is not met in the next few months. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 19:55 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde65120a 1 National NKRI,OPM,Papua,#Papua,separatism,TNI-AD,TNI Free

Over 150 members of the separatist group Free Papua Movement (OPM) have agreed to end their resistance and conveyed their pledge of allegiance to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, said a statement released by the Indonesian Army (TNI AD) on Friday.

TNI AD spokesperson Col. Alfret Denny Tuejeh attributed the surrender of the separatist group members to the successful approach of Sinak district military commander (Danramil) First Lt. Yusuf Rumi, who promised their safe return, among other things.

It took a long process before all of the members decided to leave the OPM. They agreed to leave their group after he [Yusuf] guaranteed their safety, Denny told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Utaringen Telenggen, one of the 154 OPM members who laid down their arms, said as cited in the release that they agreed to return as they had become aware that they got no benefit from being a member of an armed separatist group.

The ex-OPM members also requested Puncak Jaya regent Willem Wandik to give them each a Honai, or traditional Papuan house, for their place of living. Both TNI and local administration officials agreed to fulfill their demand.

Utaringgen and his compatriots conveyed their pledge of allegiance to the NKRI in a ceremony on Monday, during which they were handed over Indonesias Red-and-White flag in front the Jayapura regent, police and military officials and local residents.

The 154 OPM members came from Kampung Weni and Kampung Rumagi in Mageabume, Puncak Jaya. (dis/mrc/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 15:29 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64c7fb 1 Business scooters,two-wheeler,market,vespa,Piaggio Free

PT Piaggio Indonesia, the sole distributor of Italian motorbike brands Vespa and Piaggio in the country, launched on Friday two revamped 125-cc engine-capacity scooters, the Vespa LX and Vespa S, to tap into the countrys high demand for two-wheelers.

Piaggio Indonesia president director Marco Noto La Diega said the products were equipped with Italian Green Experience Technology (i-get), which could improve engine performance, boost fuel efficiency and reduce noise.

We introduce a new injection system with a barometric sensor to control combustion, Diega told reporters at the launching ceremony in Jakarta.

He said his company was offering the Vespa LX i-get 125 cc at Rp 29.90 million (US$2,243) and Vespa S i-get 125 cc at Rp 31.50 million. Both products are being manufactured in Vietnam.

(Read also: Indonesian electric scooter to begin limited production)

Diega further said that Indonesia had the second-largest Vespa community in the world with more than 40,000 users, after Italy, which has more than 120,000 users.

Established in 2011, Piaggio Indonesia sells four Italian motorbike brands in the country, namely Piaggio, Vespa, Aprilia and Moto Guzzi, at its 37 official outlets spread over several big cities. (yon)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 13:20 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64ab22 1 City Depok,hospital,#RSUD,health,HealthcareServices,health-facilities Free

The Depok administration is planning to build a new regional general hospital (RSUD) in the eastern part of the city. At present, Depok has only one RSUD, which is located in Sawangan, a district in its western area.

This year, the Depok administrations Housing and Residence Agency will propose a budget to clear land for the development of the RSUD, which will be located in either Cimanggis or Tapos districts, an official has said.

The feasibility study [for the construction project] was completed last year. Next year, the budget will be provided, said the agencys administration division head, Erik Setiawan, as quoted by tempo.com on Friday.

He said the RSUD that would be built was a type-B hospital, which requires 1.4 to 2.9 hectares of land. The budgetary allocation for the project has not yet been decided. Its still being discussed. Maybe it will reach hundreds of millions of rupiah.

According to Health Ministerial Regulation No. 56/2014, a type-B hospital provides a wide range of specialist medical treatment but only limited sub-specialist treatment.

After purchasing the land, Erik said, the Depok administration was targeting to make a detailed engineering design using the citys additional budget in October 2018. We are optimistic the land will be available next year, so in 2019, construction can begin.

The Depok administration will also continue the construction of two new buildings at the Sawangan general hospital. This year, it has allocated an additional Rp 70 billion (US$5.26 million) for the project.

The administration has disbursed Rp 115 billion for the development of the new buildings. We hope Depok will have two general hospitals by 2021, Erik said. (kkk/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 15:30 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64d210 1 Business tanjung-priok-toll-road,consession-management,Hutama-Karya,trans-sumatra,debt,bonds Free

The government plans to give the concession to manage the Tanjung Priok toll road to state-owned construction firm PT Hutama Karya, which is struggling to finish Trans-Sumatra toll road.

Comprising eight sections spanning 2,818 kilometers, the Trans-Sumatra toll road is estimated to cost Rp 80 trillion (US$6.01 billion).

The State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministrys deputy for construction, infrastructure and facilities, Pontas Tambunan, said that revenue from the toll road could be used by Hutama Karya to issue bonds, among others, which could finance the Trans-Sumatra project.

As the project has a low internal rate of return, investors are not interested in pouring their money into it, and consequently, the firm needs to rely on sizeable amount of debt.

"The Trans-Sumatra project is not highly [commercially] feasible and therefore, weve provided a state capital injection (PMN) to Hutama Karya. We are thinking of other ways to help them, Pontas said during a meeting with the House of Representatives on Thursday.

(Read also: Hutama Karya issues Rp 1t bonds, pushes trans-Sumatra project)

In late March, the government handed over the concession to manage the Jakarta Outer Ring Road section S (JORR S) to Hutama Karya, resulting in around Rp 4 trillion in additional equity for the company. In addition, the government also provided viability gap funds (VGF) for the project.

Pontas, however, could not specify if the transfer of management of the Tanjung Priok toll road concession would be carried out shortly as the value of the road was still being calculated.

Now in the final stage of construction, the toll road is scheduled to open soon.
Members of Muhammadiyah Youth Wing hold a protest in front of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) building in Jakarta on Friday. The protestors expressed their support for the anti-graft body in the investigation of the mega corruption scandal of the e-ID case and also rejected the revision to the KPK Law.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan)(KPK) building in Jakarta on Friday. The protestors expressed their support for the anti-graft body in the investigation of the mega corruption scandal of the e-ID case and also rejected the revision to the KPK Law.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 18:06 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde64f5da 1 National US-Air-Force,Sultan-Iskandar-Muda-Airport,emergency-landing,aceh,US-military,#Aceh Free

A US military aircraft carrying 20 crew members made an emergency landing at Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport in Aceh on Friday. Some of the American military personnel were reportedly prohibited from leaving the aircraft because they did not have passports with them.

There were 20 crew members on board the aircraft. Some of them are not carrying their passports, Indonesian Air Force spokesperson Air Commander Jemi Trisonjaya said as quoted by tempo.co on Saturday.

He further explained that the eight US crew members who did not have passports had to wait for coordination between local immigration authorities and representatives of the US Embassy in Indonesia.

Crewmen who brought passports were allowed to disembark and even permitted to stay at a nearby hotel under the watch of local security authorities.

Those who have no passports are not permitted to leave the airport. They are being guarded by the Air Forces security personnel, said Jemi.

The US aircraft reportedly touched down on the airports runway at 1:30 p.m. local time on Friday because of engine failure. The plane was on its way to Kadena Air Force Base in Japan from Diego Garcia, Chagos Islands, in the Indian Ocean, when the incident occurred.

It flew at 25,000 feet above the sea level when a failure in one of its engines was detected, said Jemi.

It was the radar at the 3rd National Air Defense Sector Command (Kosekhanudnas) in Medan, North Sumatra, that detected the presence of the US military aircraft in Indonesian airspace.

The Kosekhanudnas commander later informed the commander of the Sultan Iskandar Muda Air Force Base, said Jemi.

The aircraft, with United States Air Force written on its body, is still parked on the apron of the Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport. It is still waiting for repairs from the US authorities, said Jemi. (ebf)
Chief Minister Yogi's endorsement of cleanliness has got an overwhelming response from various government departments.

By Shiv Pujan Jha: It would be too early to pass a judgement on the performance of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, but the changes on ground are already visible at least in relation to the cleanliness drive.

Several shopkeepers have put up notices asking customers to use the dustbins they have put adjacent to their shops. The shop owners claim that they are inspired by Yogi Adityanath.

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Some shop owners at the Mahatma Gandhi Marg where the Chief Minister is presently staying have put up such notices in large numbers and are exhorting the customers with folded hands to help them in the mission. Jitender Kumar Yadav runs a makeshift dhaba and has been a witness to a spurt in his business as a bee line of people throng to meet Yogi.

The man had put up three dustbins and notices at his shop. Flies hovered on leftovers until yesterday but today the place could be seen sparkling clean with Jitender instructing the staff to keep cleaning the adjacent pavement.

The cleanliness drive, Jitender feels can be a success only when commoners start following it religiously. He however, feels that the welcome change has already started and that several shop keepers are taking to it willingly.

Next to his shop is a tea stall owned by Umashankar Yadav. People from far and wide come to his tea shop as he prefers to serve it in earthen pots. Normally, the customers would throw the earthen cups or 'kulladh' on the ground and walk away. But now, Umashankar has been asking people to throw the empty cups in the dustbins that have been put there.

Chief Minister Yogi's endorsement of cleanliness has got an overwhelming response from various government departments.

The Senior Superintendent of police, Lucknow set an example by cleaning the police station. Power minister Shree Kant Sharma too cleaned his office sending out the message loud and clear.

Also Read:

Ahead of CM Adityanath's maiden visit to Gorakhpur, clamour grows for 'Yogi as PM' in 2024

Yogi Adityanath gets cracking: 3 days, 5 big decisions of new Uttar Pradesh chief minister

Also Watch:

Yogi Adityanath era begins in Uttar Pradesh

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, March 25, 2017 20:14 2053 a291276806121264c0bd211cde6520ad 1 National aceh,Sultan-Iskandar-Muda-Airport,US-Air-Force,US-military,#Aceh Free

The US military aircraft that made an emergency landing at Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport in Aceh, on Friday, is still parked on the airports apron as its crew members are waiting for the arrival of a repair team from their country, an official has said.

Sultan Iskandar Muda Air Force Base commander Col. Suliono said on Saturday that security authorities were still guarding the American plane and so far, no measures had been taken to repair the aircrafts damaged engine.

We are still waiting for the arrival of a recovery team from the US. It is hoped that repair activities can be conducted tomorrow, he told The Jakarta Post over the phone.

(Read also: US military aircraft makes emergency landing in Aceh)

As reported earlier, a Boeing 707 aircraft belonging to the US Air Force was forced to make an emergency landing at Sultan Iskandar Muda Air Force Base, Aceh, at 1:20 p.m. local time on Friday after one of its engines reportedly caught fire.

[The aircrafts] engine number four was caught fire and had to be shut down when it was still in the air. The crew members later requested an emergency landing in the airport. It managed to land smoothly, Suliono said.

The aircraft was on its way from the US military airbase in Diego Garcia in Chagos Islands, the Indian Ocean, to Kadena Air Force Base in Japan.

The aircraft was carrying 20 military personnel. Suliono said all of crew members were allowed to stay in a hotel in Aceh after authorities coordinated with the US Embassy in Jakarta. (mrc/ebf)
(front page)

Washington sends troops to Syria, moves to

outflank rivals

Raqqa, Syria, is increasingly the focus of competing capitalist powers seeking to defend their economic and political interests in the Middle East today. The military forces of Washington, allied with the Syrian Democratic Forces  Arab fighters opposed to the dictatorial Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and their Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) allies; Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran, with its allied Hezbollah and Shiite militias; and Ankara are all jockeying for position to take the city.

Washington and its allies are the closest. The 50,000-strong Kurdish-led SDF, backed by U.S. troops and air power, is now within six miles of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State. Washingtons goal in reaching Raqqa first  at the same time as U.S. forces and their Iraqi army allies are moving to retake Mosul  is to push out Islamic State and establish a strong military and political base of operations across the two countries.

The propertied rulers in the U.S. are escalating their military firepower. The Pentagon is sending substantial reinforcements of U.S. troops to Syria, drawn from the nearly 5,000 Marines and paratroopers now being deployed to Kuwait. These troops would join Washingtons warplanes, attack helicopters, artillery and some 1,000 Marines, Rangers and special operations forces already operating alongside the SDF.

Though President Donald Trump won election by promising to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars, as well as campaigning in the name of jobs and economic gains for working people, his administration has put forward a new draft budget that would sharply increase military spending by $52 billion this year alone.

Iranian-backed forces and troops from the Assad regime are also converging on Raqqa. And Ankara and their Free Syrian Army forces are trying to find a way to elbow in on the fight.

In an interview posted on Syrias state news agency SANA March 11, Assad described Washingtons troops in Syria as invaders.

On March 17, Israeli warplanes crossed Syrian airspace to bomb a weapons convoy for Hezbollah forces. The Assad regime fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israels jets. The Israeli military shot down one of the Syrian missiles and denied Syrian army claims that it had shot down an Israeli jet. Debris was reported in Jordan, 12 miles from the Israeli and Syrian borders.

Ankara seeks to bolster influence

Ankara, which has dropped its demand that Assad step down, views the Kurds as its biggest problem. There are some 30 million Kurds divided between Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran  the largest nationality without its own homeland in the world.

Ankaras goal is to prevent the YPG from linking the 20,000 square miles of Syrian territory it controls along the Syrian-Turkish border with the fight by Kurds in Turkey for autonomy.

Ankara invaded Syria last year, seeking to prevent Kurds in cantons they control in the northeastern and northwestern parts of the country from uniting. Working with Free Syrian Army troops, Turkish forces were seeking to take Manbij, some 70 miles from Raqqa.

Moscow brokered a deal between the YPG and their Syrian allies in Manbij for Assad regime troops to occupy nearby towns. And Washington sent troops to Manbij as a signal to Ankara to keep out.

Turkey is the third largest country in NATO, with a population of 79 million and close to half a million military personnel. It shares Incirlik Air Base with U.S. military forces, who control a significant number of nuclear weapons there.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a referendum April 16 to concentrate more power in his hands. It would make permanent many of the regimes emergency powers since an attempted military coup last year. Since then some 110,000 civil servants have been fired and over 37,000 people arrested.

Erdogan sent government ministers to Europe to try and rally a big vote from the millions of Turks living there, where support for his regime is greater than inside Turkey. This is especially true in Turkeys Kurdish regions, where opposition to Erdogan is widespread.

The Dutch government took the unprecedented step of blocking two Turkish ministers from entering the country. Similar meetings were prevented in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Sweden. Erdogan then called the governments of Germany and the Netherlands fascist and Nazi-like.

This unprecedented breakdown of normal capitalist diplomatic relations can actually work in Erdogans favor, stoking a higher turnout from nationalist forces angered by the European regimes treatment of Turkish government representatives.

Workers across Turkey are being battered by the consequences of the world capitalist economic crisis. Youth unemployment is running at 21 percent. And in a December report that many agree understates the real extent of the carnage, the Confederation of Merchants and Craftsmen said over 6,000 workers have been killed on the job in the last five years.

Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the underlying issues of Kurdish oppression and working-class politics will not go away in a region wracked with war.





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US oversight board orders cuts for Puerto Rico workers to pay off bonds

Washingtons Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico is stepping up instructions to the islands elected officials to implement crippling budget cuts and other attacks that will batter working people to keep paying the U.S. colonys $70 billion debt to wealthy bondholders.

The bipartisan board  La Junta in Spanish  was appointed by President Barack Obama with dictatorial power to overturn any economic or financial decision made by the Puerto Rican government. As a result, even opponents of independence for Puerto Rico, including those who want the island to become the 51st state, have to admit their island is a U.S. colony.

Unionists and students, opponents of Washingtons colonial rule and working-class activists in the U.S., including Osborne Hart, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of New York, have been speaking out and protesting against the attacks.

The Feb. 28 plan presented by Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rossello freezes wages of government employees until 2020, cuts more than $300 million a year from the University of Puerto Rico, increases property taxes and taxes on tobacco, scraps infrastructure projects, increases motor vehicle fees by 10 percent, and will cut pensions by at least 10 percent by 2020.

These cuts come on top of cuts imposed over the last decade: layoffs of nearly 25 percent of government workers, the closing of more than 150 schools, sales tax increases and pension cuts. The moves have hammered the working class. More than 1,600 people abandon their homeland for the United States every week.

The Junta demanded Rossello add further cuts to his original plan. They demanded the immediate implementation of a furlough program cutting between two to four days a month from the work schedule, to reduce government payrolls by at least $420 million a year, as well as steeper pensions cuts and the elimination of the annual Christmas bonus for public workers.

Under the plan, teachers would face a two-day furlough each month. Juan Hernandez told Primera Hora that he currently makes $1,800 a month teaching. If he loses two days pay What am I going to have left? he said. Others, including school cafeteria workers, would lose four days pay.

Worried about the response from working people, Rossello balked, so the board gave him a short-term reprieve. If the colonial regime can come up with $200 million in additional cuts or income by June 1 and present a plan of right-sizing personnel measures by April 30, the furloughs and bonus cut might be put on hold.

At the current rate public workers pension funds will be bone dry by 2022. The fiscal boards fix? Slash pension costs by 10 percent by 2020 and replace public workers defined-benefit pension plans. Instead, they would have defined-contribution accounts, where workers put their own money into a retirement fund, which is invested in stocks and bonds.

The money for pensions was used to pay the debt, Pedro Irene Maymi, president of the CPT union federation, told the Militant March 20. The boards measures will just make the economic crisis worse. Maymi calls for a moratorium on debt payment.

The furlough is ridiculous, that would be living below the poverty line, Aida Diaz, president of the Association of Teachers of Puerto Rico, said by phone March 17.

Between the possible furlough and pensions cuts, teachers are telling me, Im going to go live with my adult children in the United States. At least Ill have a roof over my head, Diaz said, just a few hours before she led a march of teachers and school workers in San Juan, against the cuts.

Workers in the U.S. join their sisters and brothers in Puerto Rico demanding an end to the colonial arrogance of Washington and the disaster it is imposing there, the SWPs mayoral candidate, Hart, told the Militant March 19. As I talk to workers on their doorsteps across the city, I urge them to join protests against the Junta, which holds most of its meetings here on Wall Street, and to back Puerto Ricans fighting to throw off the boot of U.S. colonial rule.

The debt is unpayable, Hart said. I demand it be canceled.

If carried out, the Junta says, Rosellos plan would make $800 million a year available to pay on the debt, far less than the $1.2 billion a year bondholders expect.





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Revolution made the impossible a reality

Cuban revolutionary leader Armando Hart honored at Havana book fair

HAVANA  Armando Hart joined the revolutionary movement in Cuba in 1952 when he was in his early 20s.

One of the historic leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Hart became a central organizer of the July 26 Movements urban underground fighting the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship. The underground supplied the Rebel Army commanded by Fidel Castro with arms and provisions and carried out sabotage actions against the police, armed forces and other government targets in the cities. It mobilized a broad network of supporters who raised money and organized propaganda activity in Cuba.

The victorious advance and growing strength of the Rebel Army, combined with a mass insurrection of working people in cities and towns across the country, brought down the tyranny on Jan. 1, 1959, opening the way to Cubas socialist revolution. From that day to this, Hart has shouldered central leadership responsibilities in the Communist Party of Cuba, as minister of education and later minister of culture, and in other institutions.

The annual Havana International Book Fair, held here Feb. 9-19, was dedicated to Armando Hart. Above all, he taught people to believe in themselves, said writer Graziella Pogolotti, speaking at the main tribute to Hart. His lifelong revolutionary activity was honored at special events almost daily throughout this cultural festival. These events complemented book presentations, panel discussions, exhibits and other activities paying tribute to the historic leadership of Fidel Castro, who died last November.

Today Hart is head of the Marti Program, which promotes the publication and study of the writings of Jose Marti, leader of Cubas wars for independence from Spain. The program organizes social activities reaching out to young people with Martis example.

During the fair, a large number of prominent political and cultural figures participated in the panels, book launches and other programs on Armando Harts work. In addition to others mentioned in this article, they included Guillermo Garcia, a commander of the Rebel Army; Pedro Pablo Rodriguez, the foremost Cuban writer on the anti-imperialist legacy of Marti; and former Cuban vice president Jose Ramon Fernandez, who was imprisoned with Hart on the Isle of Pines during the struggle against the Batista dictatorship and who in 1961 led the main column that defeated the U.S.-organized Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. A photo exhibit, Hart: Passion for Cuba, was curated by well-known Cuban photographer Roberto Chile.

Hart never set out to write a book, he insists. He has concentrated all his energy and discipline on revolutionary political activity. As part of advancing those goals for 65 years, nonetheless, Hart has written enough to fill a 16-volume collection of his writings, the first six of which were presented at this years book fair. Issued by different Cuban publishing houses, these collections have been compiled by researcher and editor Eloisa Carreras, Harts wife.

A life of revolutionary activity

A revolutionary for all times was the name of the central event paying tribute to Harts life work. Speakers at the Feb. 14 panel, held at the Casa de las Americas cultural center, were Fernando Martinez Heredia, director of the Juan Marinello Institute for Cultural Research and a well-known writer on Marxism; Graziella Pogolotti, a prominent theater critic and essayist and longtime leader of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba; and Lesbia Canovas, honorary president of the Association of Cuban Educators. The meeting was chaired by Ana Sanchez, director of the Center of Marti Studies.

The practice of politics has been at the center of Harts life since he was a youth, said Martinez Heredia. A founding leader of the July 26 Movement, Hart was always an outstanding combatant. He was captured and jailed by the dictatorship three times  in 1954, then in 1957, when he made a bold escape, and again in 1958. Locked behind bars during the final year of the revolutionary war, Hart acted with exemplary dignity, Martinez said.

Harts writings during that early stage, published in the underground press, and the letters and speeches from the first year of revolutionary power, Martinez noted, are one of the most valuable sources for studying the historic movement that liberated the country and initiated the deepest transformations in the history of the Cuban people.

After the 1959 victory, Hart was alongside Fidel in the key political and state bodies, throughout all those glorious days. He became a leader of the newly forged Communist Party of Cuba, Martinez said, serving as its organization secretary for several years.

I will never forget Harts valuable contributions and the comradely attitude he extended to the group of young revolutionaries I was part of during the 1960s, Martinez recalled. I learned a lot from his example and leadership, his ability to listen and discuss, his dedication to hard work and attention to detail.

Hart has written extensively about how, as a Fidelista, he became an advocate of Marxism as a fundamental instrument for creating and developing a new culture, Martinez said. For Hart, Marxism was a guide to transform society, not an ornament or a straitjacket.

That revolutionary course, Martinez said, is the opposite of the system under which Marxism had been deformed and turned into a sterile dogma  a detour that prevailed for decades in the world, referring to what existed in the Soviet Union and its satellite regimes before they collapsed between 1989 and 1991.

What has been achieved through Cubas socialist revolution seemed impossible, Martinez said. But this is where Armando Hart was forged  in the fight to turn the impossible into reality. In face of todays challenges, the best tribute young Cubans can pay to Hart today is to emulate him.

Transformation of education, learning

Lesbia Canovas, a long-time educator and director of teacher training programs, focused on Harts leadership in the transformation of education and learning in Cuba, a transformation made possible by the revolution. Named minister of education at age 28, one of the two youngest in the cabinet, he directed the 1961 literacy campaign, which involved hundreds of thousands of working people. At the heart of that effort was the mobilization of more than 100,000 volunteers  mostly newly recruited teenagers, in their majority women  who went into the countryside and taught 700,000 people to read and write. Canovas herself, at age 13, was one of those volunteers.

Illiteracy, a scourge of Cubas capitalist past, was wiped out within a year. This past Dec. 22 we commemorated the 55th anniversary of declaring Cuba a Territory Free of Illiteracy, she said.

The literacy campaign, Canovas pointed out, was not organized by experts in teaching methods. It was prepared and carried out with the support of unions, the womens federation and other mass organizations.

The expansion of access to education, she noted, was intertwined with other social demands of workers and farmers, such as the aspirations for a land reform, the demand to create jobs for all and to end unemployment and poverty.

Another pillar of the measures overseen by Hart, Canovas said, was the 1962 University Reform, whose aim was to make it possible for the sons and daughters of working people to enter the universities.

To be meaningful, education has to have a real connection with life, with the basic problems of daily living, she said. In pre-revolutionary Cuba, schools were exclusive institutions isolated from the working class and the lives of the toilers in town and country.

Hart led the effort, Canovas said, to make the school the most important community cultural center  to open the school to its surroundings.

Hart as minister of culture

As a revolutionary leader, said Graziella Pogolotti, Hart has always been known as someone with an open mind, someone who understood the essence of Fidels ideas. That, she noted, made him a good choice both when he served as the Communist Partys organization secretary and then as Cubas minister of culture.

As organization secretary from 1965 to 1970, Hart helped lead the work to build the party under extremely difficult circumstances  which I will not go into here  of conflicts and confrontations with sectarianism, she said. Following Fidels lead, Hart was able to build a party of labor, above sectarianism, she added. That was the party Fernando Martinez and I both joined on the same night in the Chaplin movie theater.

In 1976, when Hart was named the first minister of culture, it was a moment of great happiness, Pogolotti said. We had just been through some difficult times, times we remember today as being painted gray.

During the first half of the 1970s, which later came to be known as the gray half-decade, the official National Council of Culture implemented policies against many Cuban writers, artists, and others deemed politically unreliable, preventing them from being published or from having the materials and conditions necessary to work. This marked a reversal of policies championed from the beginning by Cubas revolutionary leadership.

During those years, for example, the University of Havanas philosophy department, headed by Fernando Martinez Heredia, was closed, along with the magazine Pensamiento Critico (Critical Thinking) edited by Martinez. Socialist realism  imposed in the Soviet Union since the 1930s by the Stalinist regime in Moscow  made inroads in Cuba, especially in literature, theater, and film.

In 1976 the dissolution of the council and creation of the Ministry of Culture, with Hart as minister, initiated a radical transformation of this situation, Pogolotti said.

As the cultural policies promoted by the revolutionary leadership were re-established, Hart took on the delicate task of healing wounds, of restoring the confidence of many writers and artists who had lived through bitter moments during those earlier years. He helped fight prejudice against writers and artists.

Hart was a visible figure in the revolutionary leaderships efforts to widen access to culture, said Pogolotti. He worked tirelessly to promote the 10 Basic Cultural Institutions  libraries, bookstores, art galleries, museums, movie theaters, literary workshops, theater groups, choirs, bands and community cultural centers. Hart wanted to convince every single local official in Cuba of the important role of culture, she remarked with humor.

Speaking a few days earlier on Mesa Redonda, a national TV round table discussion, Pogolotti said that under Harts leadership the Ministry of Culture encouraged creativity, initiative, courage and, above all, the ability to listen.

A similar point was made by Abel Prieto, Cubas current minister of culture, also speaking on Mesa Redonda. Harts entry into the Ministry of Culture, Prieto said, undoubtedly marked the return to Fidels cultural policy as enunciated in his [1961 speech] Words to the Intellectuals. (The speech can be found in the Dec. 21, 1998, Militant.)

For new generation of revolutionists

One meeting that was part of the special events honoring Hart was a Feb. 18 presentation of two books. One was Armando Hart: Una vida, un sueno (A life, a dream), a comic-book-style biography of the revolutionary leaders early life aimed at young Cubans. Issued by Casa Editora Abril, publishing house of the Union of Young Communists, it was written and illustrated by Enrique Lacoste, a cartoonist for the political humor magazine Palante.

The other title, written by Hart, was Aldabonazo: Inside the Cuban Revolutionary Underground, 1952-58. Long out of print in Cuba, Harts account is published in both English and Spanish by U.S.-based Pathfinder Press.

On the platform were Armando Hart; Eloisa Carreras; Rubiel Garcia, president of the Saiz Brothers Association, a nationwide organization of young artists; Lacoste; and Mary-Alice Waters, editor of Aldabonazo and president of Pathfinder Press. Javier Duenas, director of Abril, chaired the event.

Among those in the audience were minister of culture Abel Prieto, Fernando Gonzalez and Antonio Guerrero. Gonzalez and Guerrero are two of the Cuban Five revolutionaries who spent more than a decade and a half in U.S. prisons for their actions protecting Cuba from planned attacks by U.S.-based counterrevolutionary groups.

Lacoste said his book, the first of two parts, is aimed at reaching a young audience. In a popular style, it tells the story of the Cuban leaders early study of Martis revolutionary legacy and how as a university student he joined the fight against the Batista dictatorship. The text and drawings depict Harts recruitment to the July 26 Movement and his participation in the urban underground through the Nov. 30, 1956, armed action in Santiago in support of the Granma expedition led by Fidel Castro.

Waters explained how Pathfinders edition of Aldabonazo had come about through collaboration  going back 17 years  with Hart, Eloisa Carreras, and Editora Abril. (See Waters full remarks on page 7.)

The more we absorbed the value of Armandos account of the clandestine revolutionary struggle, and how it was enriched by the leaflets, press accounts and other documents produced in the heat of the life-and-death battles, Waters said, the more we knew [we had to] make it available, in both English and Spanish, for new generations of revolutionary fighters in the U.S. and around the world.

For revolutionists, meaningful history is history that will be most useful in finding the road forward, Hart once wrote, as Waters reminded participants.

And that, she said, is precisely what Aldabonazo gives us.

Pathfinder published Aldabonazo because it is part of the political arsenal needed by working people in the United States and around the world. We need it to politically arm a mass vanguard for the class battles ahead of us in the 21st century.

Participants at this and other gatherings bought 75 copies of Aldabonazo, every one Pathfinder had. Many also picked up copies of Armando Hart: Una vida, un sueno.





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Revolutionaries need history that helps find the road forward

Hart broke down barriers, gave hope for the future







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Revolutionaries need history that helps find the

road forward

Armando Hart: Una vida, un sueno

BY MARY-ALICE WATERS

Thank you for the introductions, Javier. And on behalf of Pathfinder Press, thank you for the opportunity to join forces with Casa Editora Abril, the publishing house of the Union of Young Communists, to present here today both Armando Hart: Una vida, un sueno (Armando Hart: a life, a dream) by Enrique Lacoste, and Aldabonazo by Armando Hart.

The two titles, very different in format, have one thing in common. They bring to life the political course pursued by the young revolutionary Armando Hart and make his example accessible for new generations today and tomorrow.

Above all, of course, a very warm greeting to companero Armando and companera Eloisa [Carreras]. Its an honor once again to be working with you.

It was out of these same links that the Pathfinder Press edition of Aldabonazo was born.

In the year 2000, working together with Abril, and in collaboration with Aleida March, Pathfinder produced a wonderful little book, Che Guevara Talks to Young People. Pathfinder published it simultaneously in Spanish and English for distribution in the US and internationally, while Abril brought out the same book for distribution here in Cuba.

And Armando Hart wrote the preface.

Comrades from the Socialist Workers Party had the pleasure of meeting Armando and Eloisa for the first time when the book was presented here at the Havana book fair seventeen years ago. I still have a vivid memory of that day in La Cabana. It was freezing!

Thats when Armando asked Pathfinder if wed consider publishing a US edition of Aldabonazo, an unparalleled account of the revolutionary struggle that brought down the Batista dictatorship and opened the socialist revolution in our hemisphere. The first Cuban edition had been published three years earlier, in 1997.

After reading it, we told Armando that as much as we would like to, we couldnt possibly undertake to translate and publish a book with so many never-before-translated articles, leaflets, letters, and other documents of the revolutionary clandestine struggle to overthrow the Batista dictatorship. We simply didnt have the human resources to do it.

Thats when we experienced firsthand Armandos qualities as a revolutionary leader. He was not going to take No for an answer. We had several conversations here in Havana, and even one in New York when Armando was at the United Nations for some occasion. The truth is, we didnt want to say no either.

In the end, we came to agreement that Pathfinder would publish an abbreviated version, with fewer documents perhaps, drawn from the invaluable archive that Armando and Eloisa modestly call Armandos papers. We proposed a book of no more than 150 pages and asked him to suggest a way to cut the manuscript to come within that limit.

Being the experienced political tactician he is, Armando demurred, saying, Youll be better judges than I am of what is useful in the book. You should make the selection. He offered to entertain any suggestions we made.

The outcome is the book we have here today  a little over 400 pages! And different from any edition that came before or after it. This one has all the historic documents of the struggle initially selected by Armando incorporated into the chronological flow of his account, chapter by chapter, printed in readable size type. Earlier editions simply photographed the documents and placed them all together at the end, as a tantalizing graphic appendix. They were largely unreadable.

In addition to these four hundred pages, the Pathfinder edition includes another twenty eight of magnificent photos that bring to life the events recounted  even for young workers and students in North America who have never visited Cuba and know little of its history.

Ive taken the time to tell you this story because it is the best way I can think of to emphasize the importance of what you will find in Aldabonazo. The more we absorbed the value of Armandos account of the clandestine revolutionary struggle, and how it was enriched by the leaflets, press accounts, and other documents produced in the heat of life-and-death battles, the more we knew that he  and Eloisa  were correct. We had to find a way to publish Aldabonazo in full, with all its richness, to make it available, in both English and Spanish, for new generations of revolutionary fighters in the US and around the world.

In referring to the value of the account you will find in Aldabonazo, I mean one thing above all. And Ill borrow Armandos words to express it.

Meaningful history for revolutionists, Hart wrote in his preface to Luis Buchs The Cuban Revolutionary Government: Origins and First Steps,1 is history that will be most useful in finding the road forward.

That is precisely what Aldabonazo gives us.





The weapons needed by working people in the United States, as well as elsewhere around the world, are those that will politically arm a mass vanguard for the class battles ahead of us in the twenty-first century  battles that must be led and will determine the future, even the survival, of humanity. Like yourselves, we know we do not fight alone. But we also know that the hardest and most decisive battles are those that must be fought, and will be fought, within the belly of the beast.

Thats why we need to understand the Cuban Revolution, with all its contradictions and complexities. We need truthful history as told by those who led. History as told by those who know from the inside how each action was weighed, how each decision  sometimes difficult  was made, how each painful failure was learned from. And thats what we find in this book.

To cite just one example. Even those of us acquainted with Fidels repudiation of the so-called Miami Pact in 1957, including from Ches account in Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, we understood it better after reading Armandos account in Aldabonazo.2 You feel a burst of revolutionary energy just reading the opening sentence of Armandos December 1957 cover letter to a leader of the urban underground  the llano  accompanying Fidels declaration.

Here goes the depth charge, Armando wrote!

A little more than a year later, as he says at the end of that chapter, the revolution had triumphed.

The Cuban Revolution will never be copied. But it must be understood by those who seek to emulate its course.

That is why Aldabonazo strives to convey the fabric of history, as Hart writes. Thats why we published it. And it explains who we published it for.





I want to end by tying this to the political battles before us in the United States today.

The presidential election that took place a few months ago in the US registered the blows that have been dealt since the 2008 world financial crisis to the stability of the two-party system through which the US capitalist class has governed for almost a century. Neither party will emerge intact.

The outcome of the 2016 presidential election was settled by the protest votes of significant layers of the working class who face the devastation, the carnage, that Jack Barnes, the National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, documents in one of the other books we presented here at the Havana book fair, The Clintons Anti-Working-Class Record: Why Washington Fears Working People. That devastation has taken an increasing toll on the lives of workers and working farmers in the US over the last twenty-five years.

In his inaugural address four weeks ago, Trump boasted that this American carnage stops now. But thats false. It wont stop. There are no capitalist policies that can achieve that, and there is no imperialist politician who can change whats going to happen. The capitalist mode of production, with its own laws of motion, is stronger than any of them or all of them together. And until we  working people  are conscious enough and strong enough to put an end to the oppressors and exploiters system, the humble the world over will continue to pay for their crisis with our misery and blood.

As a result of these conditions, there is today greater openness in the US working class than at any moment in our lifetimes to discuss the broadest social questions and political issues. For communists that means growing opportunities along with enormous responsibilities.

The truth is that contrary to the picture painted by the liberal hysteria of the mass media, there is less racism and anti-immigrant chauvinism among working people than ever in US history. Contrary to the notion that Trump represents some kind of incipient fascism, there is more space, not less, to fight for organizing the unorganized, to demand amnesty for foreign-born workers, to mobilize against police brutality, to advance the struggle for womens rights, and to oppose Washingtons endless wars.

And most important, there is more space to win young workers and other youth to this perspective. To build a party, a communist party, within the vanguard of the working class.

It is along that road that the men and women capable of making a socialist revolution in the US will be forged, as they were here in Cuba  as we see unfold across the pages of Aldabonazo.





In the final chapter of the book, companero Hart tells a story about Col. Ramon Barquin, one of the officers of Batistas army imprisoned on the Isle of Pines for leading a military conspiracy against the dictatorship.

When those incarcerated there learned of the successful invasion of Las Villas province in central Cuba by two columns under the command of Camilo [Cienfuegos] and Che [Guevara], Barquin insisted: Thats not possible. Its not militarily feasible.

To which a companero replied, Colonel, they did it because they didnt know it was not possible.

That is the example for which Washington has never forgiven the people of Cuba. And why it will never do so.

Because those words convey the political confidence and courage the Cuban Revolution continues to give those on the front lines of revolutionary struggles everywhere.

And this explains how proud we are to have had a small but meaningful part in publishing and using Aldabonazo.

We want to say thank you to all the companeros at this years book fair whove helped put a spotlight on Armandos leadership in the revolutionary struggle since he was a youth.

And thanks to you, Armando, for your enduring and ongoing example.

1 Gobierno revolucionario cubano: genesis y primeros pasos by Luis Buch Rodriguez, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Havana 1999 (Spanish only).
Shia LaBeouf made headlines following Donald Trumps inauguration when he set up a live video feed, set to last for as long as Trump is in office, of people repeating the phrase he will not divide us.

But because of threats of violence and constant disruption when the actors project was initially set up at New Yorks Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), it was removed by the museum without notice and relocated to New Mexico  where disruption continued.

The installation, a project by LaBeouf and frequent collaborators Ronkko & Turner, has now received a new home far from the territory Trump rules  Liverpool.

A white flag with the words he will not divide us will be live-streamed from the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT), for four years, or the duration of the 45th Presidency of the United States.

The trio said in a statement: Events have shown that America is simply not safe enough for this artwork to exist.

FACT Liverpool describe the project as something that reflects the current state of politics.

In an era where elections can be influenced by activity online, a space with no physical borders, HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US resonates with the changing state of global politics. The work articulates the role the internet  particularly social media  plays in the construction of opinions, identities and ideologies, its website says.
When Gisele Fetterman realised her five-year-old daughter didnt have any dolls that looked like the mothers and grandmothers of so many of her Muslim friends, she decided to do something about it.

And Hello Hijab was born  an inspiring initiative designing and creating hijabs which children can put on their dolls.

For Good The tiny handmade headscarves will be available to buy in the US for $6 from April 1 and it is the first project from, a non-profit organisation which aims to help companies and individuals to do good in their local community.

(Maranie Staab/For Good)

Explaining the inspiration behind Hello Hijab, Fetterman said: I think little girls and little boys should have access to dolls that look different than them  To familiarise themselves that they will meet people who look different than they do, who believe in different things, but who all share this world together, and who deserve the same kindness and respect and compassion as everyone else.

Fetterman took her idea to her Muslim friend Safaa Bokhari and Kristen Michaels (her partner at For Good) and both of them, who are also mothers to young girls, loved it immediately. Bokhari, who wears a hijab and has faced discrimination living in Pittsburgh because of it, came on board the project as a partner.

(Maranie Staab/For Good)

People are always scared of things they dont know, said Bokhari. If their kids play with tiny hijabs, they will get used to the idea and eventually stop treating Muslim women who wear hijabs in the way we are treated today.

All of my friends who know about the project are so excited, because they feel the same way as I do, fearful but filled with hope, and wanting a better future for our daughters.

The women behind Hello Hijab say this isnt about promoting any one religion  they simply want to encourage tolerance.

(Maranie Staab/For Good)

We want children to understand that not everyone in the world looks the same or has the same beliefs, they explain further. We see dolls and toys as educational tools for children that can have a big impact.

If all dolls look the same, you can see how a child would think that people in our world might, or should too.

If a child is used to seeing a doll wearing a hijab, when they see a woman walk down the street in a hijab for the first time, hopefully it wont seem so strange or negative to them.

(Maranie Staab)

For Good is also printing tags to come with the doll hijabs, which explain what a hijab is and why the initiative is important.

(For Good)

When it comes to For Good, founders Fetterman and Michaels say it began because they knew they wanted to start an initiative, but couldnt decide on one issue to focus on.

Instead, the organisation plans to execute multiple projects, through which they hope to reach different populations in different, positive ways, while inspiring others to do the same along the way.

(Maranie Staab/For Good)

Future partnerships, for example, include a restaurant that is partnering with a non-profit that houses members of the homeless population, to serve their residents at the restaurant at no cost. Then theres a hair salon that is going to be opening its doors to welcome foster kids and their parents for no-cost haircuts and makeovers. And they are also working with a photographer who is going to take family portraits for undocumented families fearing deportation.

Meanwhile, Hello Hijab will directly impact the local community, as 100% of proceeds will be donated to four organisations: the Islamic Centre of Pittsburgh, Community Blueprint, ACLU of Pittsburgh and Jewish Family & Childrens Services of Pittsburgh.
UP CM Yogi Adityanath today summoned hospital authorities after gangrape and acid attack victim complained of negligence.

By India Today Web Desk: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today summoned King George's Medical University vice-chancellor Ravi Kant, after receiving complaints of negligence towards an acid attack and gangrape survivor.

Adityanath had met the woman on Friday and had assured every possible assistance.

The Chief Minister who was accompanied by Minister of Women Welfare Rita Bahuguna Joshi also gave a cheque of Rs 1 lakh to the victim's husband.

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The woman was forced to drink acid in a moving train on Thursday. Adding to the woes of the woman, women constables from Uttar Pradesh Police posed for selfies with her which later went viral.

Incidentally, the crime was reported few days after Anti-Romeo squads were introduced in the state which have been constituted to safeguard women from miscreants.

Meanwhile, three women constables suspended yesterday for taking a selfie in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) while on duty with a gang-rape and acid attack victim.

The Dalit victim was gang-raped earlier in 2009 and a case was registered in this regard in Unchahar town of Raebareli district.

She was subjected to acid attack for the first time 2011 followed by other serious attacks again in 2011, twice in 2012 and another in 2013.

Watch | UP: CM Yogi Adityanath cracks down on eve-teasers, anti-romeo squads spread out Also read:

CM Yogi Adityanath visits gang-rape survivor who was made to drink acid, assures speedy justice

Uttar Pradesh: Goons chop off girl's ears for resisting rape

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The classroom is a place for students to realise their potential, and this student realised that he potentially just nailed the best no-look trick shot of all time.

Samuel Grubbs, 26, makes the shot look easy as he casually leans back in his chair  in a classroom at the University of North Carolina  and throws the ball over his shoulder and into a bin across the room.

Watch it below.

The room erupts with cheers and screams and Samuel is carried out towards the door as everyone  bar the teacher  celebrates.

One guy even whips on a wrestling mask in the hysteria  casual.

Its good to know that education is being taken more seriously at university-level then, eh?
A fire broke out in a plastic factory in Delhi's Narela on Saturday morning. One factory worker has been injured and several others are feared to be trapped inside.

By India Today Web Desk: A fire broke out in a plastic factory in Delhi's Narela on Saturday morning.

One factory worker has been injured and several others are feared to be trapped inside.

As many as 25 fire tenders have been rushed to the spot.

(More inputs are awaited)

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By Press Trust of India: Imphal, Mar 25 (PTI) Demanding a white paper on the Naga Framework Agreement, Manipur Muslim Welfare Association has launched a 24-hour bandh starting 6 pm today in the state.

Association president Abdullah Pathan demanded that the BJP-led government should produce the white paper on the agreement signed between NSCN(IM) and the Centre within 24 hours.

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The bandh follows NSCN(IM) general secretary Th Muivahs reported remark at Camp Hebron in Nagaland recently that the Framework Agreement, which was signed two years ago, recognized the demand to integrate all Naga inhabited areas in the region.

Pathan also urged the state government to make public any ?hidden agenda? behind the induction of a Naga Peoples Front (NPF) MLA in the new council of ministers and criticized NPF for its reluctance to identify itself as Manipuris.

The new BJP-led coalition government in Manipur has the support of 4 NPF MLAs and one of them has been given a cabinet rank.

The Centre has today strongly refuted as "erroneous" the reports that it has agreed to carve out a larger Nagaland state.

Yet another general strike beginning from midnight tonight has been called by Democratic Students Alliance of Manipur(DESAM) to protest against the induction of Independent MLA Ashab Uddin as a parliamentary secretary.

He said Ashab Uddin was a "non-indigenous person" and strongly protested against the allocation of education and other departments to him.

The bandh would continue for 17 hours, DESAM President Nameirakpam Edison Singh said adding a stronger form of agitation would be taken up after the ongoing board examinations if the N Biren Singh government failed to comply with the demand for removal of portfolios from Ashab Uddin.

DESAM, Singh said, had boycotted Ashab Uddin before he was inducted as parliamentary secretary following which he had claimed that his family had come to Manipur in 1906.

All Manipur Bengali Students Association, Jiribam and All Manipur Muslim Organisation Co-ordinating Committee have urged DESAM to withdraw the boycott imposed against MLA Ashab Uddin. PTI COR KK KK

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Earth Hour is a reminder that the planet, which is home to over seven billion people, is facing serious challenges due to climate change. Tonight is the 10th anniversary of the WWF's Earth Hour.

By Prabhash K Dutta: At 8.30 tonight lights will go off in over 7,000 cities across the globe for one hour. The skyline will turn dark as the world will observe the Earth Hour.

Thousands of landmarks across the landmasses will plunge in darkness for one hour. The agenda of Earth Hour is to unite people to protect the planet by reducing pollution and adopting clean energy for future.

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Last year the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, Tokyo Tower and even the international space station marked the Earth Hour by switching off lights.

It is the 10th anniversary of the Earth Hour tonight. The Earth Hour travels this year from Samoa (independent country) to The Cook Islands (another independent country) across the international date line in the Pacific Ocean.

WHAT IS EARTH HOUR?

The Earth Hour is a movement to protect and conserve our environment. Organised by World Wildlife Foundation, the Earth Hour has gained immense support since its inception in 2007 from Sydney in Australia.

The Earth Hour has now reached to about 180 countries with millions of people switching of lights and shutting down electrical equipment to create awareness about environmental degradation and need to protect it.

The penetration of Earth Hour has increased with rising awareness about global warming among the masses across the world.

The earth's average temperature is rising at a faster rate than ever leading to extinction of species at an alarming rate. Scientists believe that one of six living species now faces the risk of extinction.

The WWF's Earth Hour aims at reversing the cycle of extinction of species.

WHY DO WE NEED EARTH HOUR?

Global warming and climate change have dominated the scientific discourse in the past more than one decade. With ever rising population of the world, the climate change has put the humankind at a great risk along with other species.

Global warming, rising levels of pollution due to ever increasing industrialisation, declining forest cover and rising sea levels are some of the dangers that drastically affect the workings of life on the earth.

Though the largest polluters are big industries, the WWF tries to make the masses more and more aware about the impending dangers of adverse climate so that they could put pressure on the respective governments to frame environment-friendly policies and laws.

With Earth Hour, the WWF aims to engage people across the globe to adopt more sustainable lifestyle. Turning off lights for an hour is just an annual reminder that if the world does not mend its ways, it will be heading to a dark age, literally.

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The WWF website says that the last year was the hottest year on record for the third year in a row signaling that the earth is constantly and consistently warming. It acknowledges the good works done by the world leaders in the form of the Paris Agreement - where India played a huge role. But, it is the time to deliver the action needed to protect the planet, it says.

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The AAP said that there is clear and irrefutable evidence of manipulation of results at polling booths in the Punjab Assembly Election.

By Pankaj Jain: In the interest of justice, transparency and fair play, the AAP has appealed to the ECI that the results of all polling booths where VVPAT had been deployed be cross-verified/cross-checked with the paper trail so that the cloud looming over the use of EVMs is settled and the faith of the common man in the electoral process is restored.

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Aam Aadmi Party national secretary Pankaj Gupta made a representation to the Election Commissioner today. The AAP said that there is clear and irrefutable evidence of manipulation of results at polling booths in the Punjab Assembly Election.

HERE IS WHAT THE LETTER SAYS In the letter submitted to the ECI, the AAP stated that, "After analysis of booth-wise voting pattern, we have reached to a conclusion that there has been large scale rigging through tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Initial analysis has shown that on several booths, where Aam Aadmi Party has secured very less number vote, voters in much bigger number than the total number of votes secured by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have come forward saying they had voted for AAP. These people are ready to file affidavits to support their claim. These people are shocked that their votes have either not been counted as votes to AAP or have been transferred to other parties by tampering the EVMs." AAP pointed out that the very survival of democracy depends upon elections being conducted in a free, fair and non-partisan manner. In a situation where the polling process is manipulated with the ulterior purpose of influencing the outcome of the elections, the faith of the common man, who exercises the right of adult franchise, is indisputably shaken and eroded. Not only does the manipulation of the electoral process violate the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, it amounts to a fraud perpetrated on democracy itself. Letter gave examples of developed democracies which have abandoned the EVM process as it is vulnerable to manipulation. It cited various parties, including the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party, who have made several representations to the ECI claiming that the EVMs are being manipulated. It also quoted the honourable Supreme Court which has stated that "The confidence of the voters in the EVMs can be achieved only with the introduction of the paper trail". AAP National Secretary Pankaj Gupta in a statement said, "ECI is the sentinel in the preservation of the sanctity of the electoral process and we have requested that they should cross-check the paper audit rail of the results generated through EVMs at all polling booths where VVPATs were deployed in the State Punjab in order to resolve the glaring inconsistencies in the results."

Also read:

SC seeks ECs response on plea alleging tampering with EVMs

Manish Sisodia on EVMs row: 'If EVMs are holy cow, then is paper trail a cow dung?'

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By Press Trust of India: London, Mar 25 (PTI) Tiny eye movements may reveal whether a person is lying about recognising someone they know, according to a new study.

The finding could be valuable to police when trying to confirm key identities in criminal networks such as terrorist cells or gangs, researchers said.

Using eye tracking technology, researchers from the University of Portsmouth in the UK found that peoples eyes move in a different pattern when looking at faces they recognise.

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"Criminal accomplices often deny that they know other members in their networks. However, if a co-conspirator denies recognition in this way, their eye movements when viewing photos of those suspects, may reveal this type of lie," said Ailsa Millen, lead author of the study.

The researchers recorded the eye movements of 59 participants while looking at 200 digital colour photographs of familiar and unfamiliar faces.

Familiar faces included people the participants knew in real life, famous celebrities and those only seen briefly before the experimental trials.

Sometimes the participants lied about whether they recognised the photos, sometimes they told the truth.

"We found that peoples eye movements were different when looking at photographs of faces they knew well compared to those they did not know, despite verbal reports denying recognition.

"When a participant looked at a face they recognised their eyes moved in a different pattern with fewer fixations. There is substantial evidence to suggest that this pattern is involuntary, which means it could be hard to control or fake," Ailsa said.

Ailsa and colleagues modified a memory detection technique known as the Concealed Information Test (CIT) to conduct the research.

The CIT differs from traditional lie detection techniques that attempt to directly assess guilt based on arousal.

It is considered the gold standard of laboratory methods to detect concealed recognition and has been researched and validated over decades of scientific studies. PTI SAR SAR

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Actress Neha Sharma, who will be seen in a special role in the upcoming film Mubarakan, says working with veteran actor Anil Kapoor is a delight.

"Anil Kapoor is a delight to work with. The one thing that I admire most about him is his warmth He makes it a point to greet everyone on set and brings this amazing energy on set and you enjoy the work," Neha said.

The 29-year-old actress says she also shares the same passion for fitness as Anil, who is also starring in Mubarakan.

"It's amazing every time I bump into him training at the gym or swimming," she said.

Asked about her role in the film, Neha said: "I have a special appearance in the film. It's an interesting part that I play, but it's too early for me to talk about it."

"Mubarakan", which is directed by Anees Bazmi, also stars Ileana D'Cruz, Arjun Kapoor and Athiya Shetty.

The film is slated to release in July.
The freedom of our Universities has been challenged by "narrow considerations" and there is need to defend them as "free spaces" and as sources of renewal of liberal values, Vice President M Hamid Ansari said on Sunday.

"In a period of rampant distrust of matters intellectual there is an imperative need to defend the universities as free spaces, as independent, critical repositories of knowledge, and as sources of renewal of liberal values that provide avenues of social mobility and equality to people," Ansari said.

Delivering the 66th convocation address at the Panjab University here, the Vice President said that recent events in our country have shown that "there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be".

The freedom of our universities has been challenged by "narrow considerations of what is perceived to be public good", Ansari said.

The rights to dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our Constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms, he said.

"Except in cases of illegal conduct or violence, a University should never seek to silence or influence faculty members or students to adopt or renounce any particular position.

"Indeed, universities should take all legal action necessary to defend their academic integrity and freedom," he emphasised.

The strong words from the Vice President come in the backdrop of a raging debate about incidents in educational institutions including a recent clash at Delhi University's north campus between students belonging to the the RSS-backed ABVP and the Left-affiliated AISA.

A university must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom, Ansari said.

"Intellectual dissent has the power to clarify differences and elucidate competing assumptions. It enables each of us to recognise the strengths and weaknesses in our thinking," Ansari said.

The Vice President said a university has the responsibility of speaking out without the fear of intimidation or giving offence, even at the cost of inviting protests.

"Not doing so would be to deviate from the path of rational enquiry and undermine our curiosity about the world by embracing ill-defined orthodoxies, which would impoverish our pursuit of knowledge," he said.
By Press Trust of India: From HS Rao

London, Mar 25 (PTI) Indian-origin British director Gurinder Chadha has been honoured with the Sikh Jewel Award for 2017for her immense contribution to British cinema.

Chadha, whose films include "Bhaji on the Beach", "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Bride and Prejudice", received the award from UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon at the Vaisakhi Dinner organised by the British Sikh Association at the Lancaster Hotel here Thursday night.

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The High Commissioner of India to the UK, Y K Sinha, who was the Guest of Honour, was also present on the dais.

Chadhas latest film, "Viceroys House" tells the true story of the final five months of British rule in India and coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Independence of India and the founding of Pakistan.

Receiving the award, Chadha said, "Some people use religion to divide - that is the theme of my film - and also the atrocities inflicted on us. It is a fair film."

Jasminder Singh, OBE, Chairman and founder of Edwardian Hotels,Jagjeet Singh Sohal, a writer, broadcaster ad communications consultant, and Khalsa Aid founded in 1999, also receivedthe Sikh Jewel Awards.

In his address, Sinha said, "We were really touched when we sawthe films screened on the occasion depicting the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers, mostly Sikhs and Gurkhas in the two world wars, winning more laurels than others.

"Sacrifices made by Sikhs are always remembered in India. The Government of India and the people of India gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by Sikhs."

Fallon said he would be visiting India next month and "utilise the opportunity to have greater defence cooperation between Britain and India."

"Sadly, the contribution of over a million Indian soldiers in each great war is not taught in British schools and if it were, there would be a better understanding about our shared history," Dr Rami Ranger, CBE, Chairman of the British Sikh Association, said.

He urged theDefence Secretary to convey "our request to the Education Secretary that the contribution of Commonwealth countries in preserving our freedom is taught in schools, especially in the wake of Brexit when we will need to revisit and renew our tried and tested bond of friendship with these allies."

Ranger also asked Virendra Sharma, MP and Councillor Julien Bell, leader of the Ealing Council to grantthe Association the opportunity to erect a befitting memorial in Southall to pay tribute to a community for its supreme sacrifices for our freedom.

The British Sikh Association also signed the Armed Forces Covenant alongside Fallon, to formally recognise the strong ties between the Sikh community and the Armed Forces. (MORE) PTI HSR JCH

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Taking a major decision in view of the upcoming academic session, the Punjab government has decided to make school text books available online from 1 April.

After taking a meeting with the officers of Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) on Saturday, the school education and higher education minister, Aruna Chaudhary disclosed that the textbooks can be read online at PSEB's website.

She said that 107 out of 350 textbooks have been made available at bard's website. As per the new initiative, the visitors of the website can find the online textbooks after clicking at book folder's e-books link to read the textbooks.

The minister further said that 22 more text books will be made available online till 15 April while 17 other such books will be

uploaded on the board's website till 17 May. Adding to this, 84 books have been adopted from the National Council of Educational Research and Teaching (NCERT) considering the national level curriculum.

"These books will be printed according to the necessity and feasibility of the board. The orders have been passed to upload these

books after getting NCERT's approval," said the minister.

She further said that they were into process to formulate such similar programs in consultation with the chief minister (CM) Captain Amarinder Singh.

The minister said that if there is any need of changes in 350 books from class I to XII, it will be done on an immediate basis to further

print the text books. This will help the students get books before the commencement of the academic session.

The books should be designed in such a manner so that they can help the students to develop their mental level," she added.
Bajaj Auto on Saturday said it has agreed with Japan's Kawasaki to end their decade-old alliance for sales and services in India from next month.

The Pune based company is focusing on its partnership with Austrian firm KTM, under which it has been converting its Probiking outlets, where Kawasaki motorcycles were also sold, into KTM dealerships.

"Kawasaki and Bajaj have mutually arrived at an amicable decision to end their alliance in India from April 1, 2017," Bajaj Auto President (Probiking) Amit Nandi said in a statement.

Consequently, Kawasaki motorcycles will be sold by India Kawasaki Motors Pvt Ltd  100 per cent subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Japan  through its dealer network. The unit was established in India in July 2010. It will also provide after sales service, including that for past customers.

"Bajaj and Kawasaki will continue to maintain their co-operative relationship across the rest of the world for current and future businesses," Nandi said.

Bajaj Auto formed an alliance with Kawasaki for the sale and after sales service of Kawasaki motorcycles through its Probiking network in 2009.

"We have progressively converted our Probiking network to be KTM dealerships," Nandi said.

The Bajaj-KTM partnership, launched its first co-developed product, the 200 Duke in 2012.

He said over the last 5 years, KTM achieved a CAGR of 48 per cent and sales volume in 2016-17 is estimated at 37, 000 units.

"Now the Duke & RC models are being offered in five SKU's through the over 300 KTM dealerships in India. Going forward, Bajaj intends to focus on the KTM brand," Nandi said.
Ten Central Trade Unions, including INTUC, AITUC, CITU and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) on Saturday expressed concern over life sentence to 13 workers and five years jail to four others in the 2012 Maruti agitation violence case and asked all trade unions in the country irrespective of affiliations to organise demonstrations on 5 April as a mark of solidarity with the Maruti workers.

The unions have demanded unconditional release of the Maruti workers and reinstatement of victimised workers, a joint statement issued by them said.
Indian Railways aims to save Rs 41,000 crore (over $6 billion) on electricity expenses by switching over to solar energy over the next 10 years, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu announced on Saturday.

He said the Ministry of Railways had prepared 'Mission 41K' to save electricity consumption charges by betting big on solar energy.

He was speaking after formally inaugurating various railway infrastructure projects at the Hi-Tech City railway station here.

The minister said efforts were also on to mop-up Rs 17,000 crore through non-fare revenue modes. "We will not only cut the costs but will generate additional revenue," he said.

He recalled that after taking over as railway minister, he had laid out a plan that energy should come down by 15 per cent.

Claiming that about Rs 4,000 crore was saved on electricity consumption charges so far, he said the target of saving Rs 41,000 crore would be met by generating 1,000 Megawatt of solar power in the next five years

"In addition, we have already started production of 26 MW in wind energy. We are also working on converting waste to energy and commissioned two such projects," Prabhu said.

The minister said 500 MW will be produced by installing solar panels on rooftops of railway buildings and another 500 MW through land based. "Traction power and non-traction power both will benefit from solar power and as well as reducing cost of energy," he added.

The Ministry is drawing up plans for investment to the tune of Rs 8.5 lakh crore. He claimed there was no financial problem for railways and that it had completely bankable projects.

He said the Ministry was focussing on completion of existing projects. He called up on state government to have joint ventures with Railways to implement more projects.
The All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) will decide on signing the tripartite MoU with the government and bank management after knowing its contents, a top leader said on Saturday.

Contrary to its earlier stand of infusing fresh capital in strong banks, the central government has decided to infuse fresh capital totalling Rs.8,586 crore into 10 weak banks subject to commitment to quarterly milestones by bank boards, management, employees and unions.

The government has said the SBI Caps will draw a bank wise action plan based on which a tripartite agreement between the government, bank management and employee unions will be signed committing themselves towards certain milestones.

"We are not averse to sign the MoU (memorandum of understanding). But we should know the provisions of MoU before committing ourselves," C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA, said.

"SBI Caps have not given any detail about the bank wise action plan. Some banks managements want the unions to agree. But agree to what is not spelt out," Venkatachalam added.

He said way back in 2002 when Indian Bank was in serious financial trouble, the union had signed an agreement to forgo some of the employee benefits-like leave travel allowance, overtime allowance and others.

The Indian Bank management had agreed that top officials will not use air travel, officers would not claim travelling allowance and such things, Venkatachalam added.

"Now there is no information as to the contents of the proposed MoU," he said.

The central government in a letter to the 10 bank heads had listed out five parameters under which the milestones would be fixed for capital infusion.

These are: (a) active management of non-performing assets (NPA), strengthening of lending and monitoring processes; (b) arranging capital from the market; (c) plan for disposal of non-core assets; (d) divesting stakes in subsidiaries, closure of loss-making domestic and international branches; (e) reduction in operational expenses including employee benefits to would be reversed once the banks turns around.

Venkatachalam said: "Going by the past experience, the banks would turnaround and then start building up bad loans calling for another turnaround with sacrifices by the employees."

The amount of capital to be infused by the government are:

Allahabad Bank (Rs.418 crore), Andhra Bank (Rs.1,100 crore), Bank of India (Rs.1,500 crore), Bank of Maharashtra (Rs.300 crore), Central Bank of India (Rs.100 crore), Dena Bank (Rs.600 crore), IDBI Bank (Rs.1,900 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs.1,100 crore), UCO Bank (Rs.1,150 crore), and United Bank of India (Rs.418 crore).
Former Telangana MP and senior Congress leader V. Hanumantha Rao was arrested on Saturday after he staged a sit-in protesting against a "false case" against him for allegedly abusing a police officer.

A day after police booked the case against him for abusing a police inspector and deterring him from discharging his official duty, Rao launched a sit-in at the statue of Rajiv Gandhi at Somajiguda area.

Several leaders of the Congress party including leader of opposition in Telangana assembly, K. Jana Reddy joined him in the protest to show their solidarity.

As the protest was leading to a traffic jam, police arrested Rao.

He was physically lifted into a waiting police vehicle and taken to a police station.

Rao, who is a secretary of the All India Congress Committee, alleged that a false case was lodged against him. He said the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government was imposing restrictions on the movement of opposition leaders.

The senior leader landed himself in a controversy after he allegedly abused a police inspector when the latter tried to prevent him from using the media point in the state assembly premises on Thursday.

Rao got angry when Palaparthy Sudhakar told him that the media point is only for members of the assembly and the council.

"Nee amma (your mother). Who the hell are you to stop me? You are acting like a ruling party agent", the former MP was heard saying to the inspector.

As the video went viral online, the police officer felt insulted and took to Facebook on Friday to express his feelings. He posted that he wants to resign from his job.

Sudhakar said that Rao may have abused him because he belongs to the scheduled caste. He was also unhappy over his senior officers not taking the incident seriously.

Following the inspector's Facebook post, senior officers persuaded him not to resign.
Pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Alishah Geelani on Saturday urged religious clerics to exercise their influence to make people boycott the bye-election for the Srinagar and Anantnag Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir in April.

In a statement, Geelani stressed that now is the duty for our religious clerics and intellectual class to apprise people about the negative aspect of these elections and make them understand that any kind of vote or support tantamount to betrayal with those who lost lives and eyesight during unrest in Kashmir last year.

Reiterating boycott call for upcoming bye-election, Geelani said that people in Kashmir are striving for right to

self-determination.

Participation of a few people in these elections never means any political decision regarding Kashmir issue, however if the contesting parties are desirous to ascertain peoples verdict about the political destiny of state, then not a single person will cast his vote in their favour, nor they will find a single poling agent for their parties, said Geelani.

Referring to those contesting these elections, Geelani in a sweeping statement alleged they are involved in scandals like corruption, sex rackets, embezzlements and soon as they get into power corridors, promote liquor trade, immodesty and impertinence.

Ridiculing the state administration, Geelani said, soon as bye elections were announced, the separatist leaders were detained and were prevented from meeting people.
Making a major populist announcement in the run-up to the upcoming elections to the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCDs), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday pledged that if his party comes to power in MCDs, it will abolish residential house tax levied by the municipal bodies and will also waive all related pending dues.

"As soon as the AAP comes to power in the MCDs with a full majority, we will abolish the collection of house residential tax and waive all pending dues with immediate effect. We are making this promise with full responsibility and after thorough study and planning," Kejriwal told a press conference here.

"After coming to power in Delhi (in 2015), our government kept its promise of halving electricity bills and offering 20,000 liters of water for free for each family within one month," the AAP leader said. The AAP's rival parties had then said that such measures would bankrupt the government but actually the Delhi Jal Boards revenue increased by Rs 178 crores, the CM added.

Describing the current house tax structure as "draconian", Kejriwal alleged that it has become a source of widespread corruption for municipal councillors and officers in all three MCDs being ruled by the BJP for 10 years.

There are an estimated 9 lakh property tax payers in Delhi and about Rs 600 crore in revenue is earned annually by the three MCDs.

Kejriwal said his party has examined the accounts of MCDs and that money to be saved by plugging corruption in them will be utilised to cover the shortfall in their revenue.

The AAP chief also clarified that industrial and commercial property tax will remain unchanged. In the name of house tax, people of the city are "harassed", he said promising that the AAP would put an end to it.

Kejriwal promised that within a year of coming to power in the MCDs, the AAP administration would turn around the finances of the loss-making Delhi municipal bodies and ensure that their employees get their salaries on or before the seventh of every month.

Pledging to make Delhi a modern, "model city" for "the country and the world" if his party wins the MCD polls, he said the AAP will soon release its manifesto for the MCDs elections to spell out in detail its proposals and pledges.

"Together the councillors of BJP and Congress have looted the MCDs on a massive scale, and will have to face the consequences of their corruption. They must answer to people how within 5-10 years they have moved from scooters to Mercedes and BMWs," Kejriwal charged, claiming that "We will end this loot and make sure the money spent by MCDs reaches the right people and right causes".

The CM also promised that "We will bring in more participation from among the RWAs and the citizens in matters of cleanliness and maintenance of parks, so that these services can be improved".

He alleged that MCDs have become a "den of corruption and misgovernance". "We have seen how BJP and Congress councillors have relaid the same roads over and over on paper and siphoned off all the money. The MCD has spent Rs 7 lakhs on fountains that never worked.Thousands of ghost employees are paid salaries, even as genuine employees are not paid on time. The AAP will put an end to this regime of corruption after coming to power," he claimed.

The 23 April elections to MCDs are set to be a litmus test for the AAP's popularity in Delhi after its dismal performance in recent Punjab and Goa assembly elections.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday promised to abolish residential house tax if the Aam Aadmi Party wins the civic polls.

"We will abolish residential house tax and waive off all arrears of such taxes of all citizens of Delhi if AAP comes to power in Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections," Kejriwal said.

According to him, the AAP has made all calculations related to the residential house tax.

Kejriwal said that his party has delivered most of his promises including reducing the rate of electricity.

The leader complained of corruption prevailing in the corporations and accused councillors of earning money through such practices.

He said the money paid to corporations through taxes was being stolen by corrupt people.

Elections to the 272 wards in three municipal corporations are scheduled for April 23. The results will be out on April 26.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will visit his Gorakhpur constituency on Saturday, first time after assuming office.

He will visit the city for two days and will return on March 26 to Lucknow.

With posters of the priest-politician donning the walls and electricity poles, massive preparations are underway in the city as party members are excited to welcome him.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made and security of the Gorakhnath temple has also been beefed up with metal detectors placed at all the entry points.

After reaching Gorakhpur airport, he is likely to go on a roadshow to Gorakhnath temple, Nandanagar, Mohdipurpur, University Chowrah, Ganesh Chauraha and the MP Inter College grounds.

He will attend a function on Sunday on the occasion of the death anniversary of Yogiraaj Baba Gambhirnath and will address a gathering there.

After becoming the chief minister, the five-time MP from Gorakhpur has taken a series of actions which includes closing of illegal slaughter houses, forming anti-Romeo squads and banning consumption of paan masala in offices.
The FIR has been filed by a 20-year-old model.

By Mustafa Shaikh: Indian television actor Parth Samthaan, who became a household name, thanks to the success of his show Kaisi Yeh Yaariyan, is in deep trouble.

A complaint of molestation has been lodged against the actor by a 20-year-old model.

Bangar Nagar police station has registered the FIR under section 354 A of the Indian Penal Code.

The FIR was filed last month, as the incident had apparently occurred on February 20.

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The actor has been summoned by the police, but he has not yet made his appearance.

Also read: Shilpa Shinde sexual harassment case: Here is what Saumya Tandon has to say about it

Parth had to face a lot of heat last year when he had accused former 'friend' and producer Vikas Gupta of molestation.

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Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday took a dig at the new state government, saying only "anti-Romeo squads and clean-up drives" have been witnessed so far.

The SP leader accused the new government of targeting officials of a certain caste.

"I am waiting for the new Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Yogi Adityanath to come up with something concrete," the Samajwadi Party President told the media here after its National Executive meeting.

"As of now, all we are seeing on television are cleanliness drives in government offices and the anti-Romeo campaign (against eve-teasing)," he said.

He also took a dig at state government officials who he said were in an overdrive to ensure cleanliness after a directive from Yogi Adityanath.

"I never knew these officials are so good at wielding brooms; or else, I would have given them this charge long back," he quipped.

He said so far not even the first state Cabinet meeting had taken place and the SP was awaiting its outcome.

Akhilesh Yadav was apparently referring to the BJP's poll promise that the loans of small and medium farmers will be waived in the very first Cabinet meeting if the party was voted to power in Uttar Pradesh.
The Democratic Students Alliance of Manipur (Desam) and two Muslim organisations have called a general strike from Saturday midnight till 6 p.m. on Sunday to protest against the "reward" given to an independent legislator who has extended support to the ruling BJP-led coalition.

The Alliance turned down the invitation of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh for talks and decided to go ahead with the general strike.

The general strike is called in a protest against the appointment of Ashab Uddin as Parliamentary Secretary by the Chief Minister. This lone independent from the Jiribam constituency had extended support to the BJP-led coalition ministry for which he was appointed the Parliamentary Secretary.

DESAM and the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS) objected to the support for Ashab Uddin.

JCILPS Convener B.K. Moirangcha said, "What Ashab Uddin has done is against the wishes of the people. We will examine his documents."

DESAM leaders said: "Precious lives had been lost during the agitation for the protection of the indigenous peoples. It is against the wishes of the people to take support from a non-indigenous MLA."

President of the All Manipur Muslim Welfare Association Abdul said: "The BJP national leaders had announced in Imphal that the framework agreement signed by the Central government and the NSCN(IM) is not against Manipur. Now the NSCN(IM) says that it envisages Naga integration. It amounts to cheating the people and the BJP leaders should clarify it. A white paper should be issued."

Another Muslim organisation, AMMCOC said that the state's territory is not safe. The three Inner Line Permit bills should be enacted soon so as to protect the indigenous people.

The general strike comes as a setback to the BJP-led coalition government. BJP national leaders and Biren Singh have been saying that the government will ensure a strike and blockade-free Manipur.

The Chief Minister also suffered a setback when his letter to the tribal activists did not yield results. Eight dead bodies have been in the morgue for the last 562 days demanding the withdrawal of the three Inner Line permit bills. Nine youths were killed during violence. One body had been claimed by the family.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said UP has been deprived till now, but the state will not be neglected anymore.

"Uttar Pradesh has been deprived till now, but the state will not be neglected anymore," the chief minister said after his arrival in his home constituency Gorakhpur on Saturday.

Saying that the BJP has placed a huge responsibility on all of them, he promised to fix the law-and-order situation and the other problems in the state.

"There will be no goondaraj, no differences in the name of caste, class or religion. There will only be development for all," he said.

Reiterating the PM's 'sabka haath, sabhka vikaas' slogan, he said that he will implement PM Modis vision.

"Will implement PM Modis vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas and will take up the development challenge in the state," he said.

Adityanath on Saturday arrived in his home constituency Gorakhpur to grand welcome for the first time after assuming office.

He is on a two-day maiden visit to the city to celebrate in his constituency as the chief minister and will return on March 26 to Lucknow.

With posters of the priest-politician donning the walls and electricity poles, massive preparations are in place in the city as party members welcomed him with excitement.

Elaborate security arrangements are in place as the city wore a saffron look and security of the Gorakhnath temple has also been beefed up with metal detectors placed at all the entry points.

He will attend a function on Sunday on the occasion of the death anniversary of Yogiraaj Baba Gambhirnath and will address a gathering there.

After becoming the chief minister, the five-time MP from Gorakhpur has taken a series of actions which includes closing of illegal slaughter houses, forming anti-Romeo squads and banning consumption of paan masala in offices.
Fearing that his visit to Sri Lanka might earn him the wrath of the Tamil community, Superstar Rajinikanth on Saturday canceled his proposed visit to Sri Lanka.

"VCK chief Thirumavalavan and MDMK chief Vaiko urged me not to visit Sri Lanka and I accepted their request because of cordial relationship," the superstar said after cancelling his visiting plan.

Rajinikanth was supposed to visit Sri Lanka next month to hand over keys of 150 houses built for displaced Tamil families there.

As part of his visit, being organised by Lyca Productions, Rajinikanth was expected to speak at a public meeting and plant tree saplings.

On Friday, a prominent Dalit leader in Tamil Nadu asked him to cancel his visit over concerns that his visit could lead the world to believe that things were back to normal in the island nation.

Meanwhile, a Congress leader from the state supported the decision taken by Rajinikanth and said the super star always takes right decision.

"The decision taken by Rajinikanth is right, he always takes right decisions," S Thirunavukkarasar, a Congress leader from Tamil Nadu, said.
When my older sister who lives in Germany came to Indonesia recently, we gave her the royal treatment. Well, shes family after all and had not visited in 12 years.

So if a family member hadnt visited in 47 years, the royal treatment would be quadrupled, right? Well, thats how long it had been since a Saudi monarch had come to Indonesia. The last time was the visit of King Faisal in 1970, so when King Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia came in February the reception was pretty over the top.

Family member? Yes, being Muslims, we are all members of the ummah(community of Muslims), which for some is even more meaningful than being connected by blood. Our qibla (direction Muslims face when praying) is toward Mecca, but more than that, lately Saudi Arabia is our qibla for many things we consider to be part of our Muslim identity.

Arabic-style attire is one example, but more importantly the adoption of a more rigid and literal interpretation of the Quran than the moderate Islam Nusantara (Islam of the archipelago) that Indonesia is famous for.

King Salman is one of the richest world leaders and, boy, did he ever show it! An entourage of 1,500 in eight wide-bodied jets, a few limousines and two gold-plated escalators  because of course, one isnt enough, right? We lapped it all up and various Indonesian dignitaries and political leaders were falling over themselves to pay obeisance to the custodian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina that Muslims make pilgrimages to. Well, at least we got the extra haj quota we were hoping for.

So why did he come after all this time, and at the age of 80, when most octogenarians would be ensconced in rocking chairs? Is it simply the ties of Islam? In economic terms, the visit to Indonesia did not do much to boost the relationship, which has never been fast and furious in any case.

Since 1980, Saudi Arabias investment in Indonesia has been into Indonesian culture and religion, devoting millions of dollars to exporting Salafism, a strict and dogmatic brand of Islam. It has built hundreds of mosques, a huge free university, provided teachers, scholarships and much, much more. Will this now change? Whatever the case, the investments have made an impact.

Despite the ostentatious display of wealth because of falling oil prices, Saudi Arabia is going through a recession.

Hence the ambitious one-month tour, not just to Indonesia, but also to Malaysia, Brunei, Japan, China, the Maldives and Jordan. Obviously, the trips to China and Japan have nothing to do with Islam, but are an attempt to look for partners and investors in the Asia-Pacific region to lessen Saudi Arabias dependence on oil revenues.

Besides China overtaking the United States as a big net importer of crude oil in 2016, there are also geopolitical considerations. With the uncertainty that comes with the Donald Trump presidency, China can certainly be seen as a counterweight to the US for Saudi Arabias foreign policy.

What about terrorism? Yes, that was mentioned too in King Salmans underwhelming two minute speech at the House of Representatives  which sounded more like the speech of a Miss World contestant  to stand united against global challenges, in particular against the clash of civilisations, terrorism and to work together to achieve world peace.

Funny that: Is decimating Yemen a way to achieve world peace? Yes, Saudi Arabia committed crimes in Yemen as evidenced by the destruction of infrastructure and the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children.

Addressing visiting members of the Supreme Revolutionary Council of Yemen, Ali Larijani, the Iranian parliamentary speaker, said, The scope of destruction is unprecedented in history and this clearly shows that Saudi Arabia is a rogue state in the region.

As for the clash of civilisations, its more like a clash of ignorance, which is the title of the essay that Edward Said wrote to debunk Samuel P. Huntingtons 1993 Foreign Affairs article entitled The Clash of Civilisations. The hypothesis is that peoples cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

Oh really? Is that why the US and the United Kingdom provide the arms used by Saudi Arabia to crush Yemen? Because, of course, Saudi Arabia is the US ally in the Middle East, maybe a bit less so after the US betrayed them by making deals with Iran, Saudi Arabias main rival.

But even if King Salman repeatedly listened to Paul Simons Fifty ways to leave your lover, Saudi Arabia could not break up with the US because it still provides them with the best weaponry and spare parts too.

But, Saudi Arabia is not all it appears to be. Its not by any means revolutionising, but it is evolutionising, as Ameera alTaweel said.

The 33-year-old drop-dead gorgeous US-educated princess, businesswoman, high-profile womens advocate and humanitarian philanthropist is the ex-wife of Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, 60. Hes one of the more progressive of the thousands of princes of the Saud family and one of richest men in the world, who is planning to give away his US$33 trillion to charity when he dies.

And would you believe that theres a vegan Saudi prince who wants to veganise the Middle East? Meet Khaled bin Alwaleed (yes, the son of Al-Waleed bin Talal), 38, handsome and a fervent environmentalist who believes climate change and the unjustified consumption of energy are two of the most serious issues we face today at the macro-level.

Hope hes saying this to his gasguzzling compatriots. Yes, Saudia Arabia is the worlds largest oil producer, but also the worlds sixth-largest consumer.

Then theres Ahmed Qassim al-Ghamdi, formerly an employee of the KSAs religious police who had a life-altering experience when he turned to the Quran to study the stories of the prophet Muhammad and came up with the conclusion that being Islamic is about being more liberal. No need to close shops for prayers, to cover women up, or to ban women from driving. Unsurprisingly, death-threats dogged him after he made these statements.

Like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia has a demographic bonus: Sixty percent of the population is under 30. Like Ameera and Khaled, they are connected to a globalised world and they will rebel against the strictures of the Islam espoused by their forbearers.

Change in Saudi Arabia seems inevitable, as it is becoming more progressive, climate-conscious and is espousing Western notions of rights (which the US under Trump seems to be abandoning), while Islam in Indonesia is becoming more Arabised and conservative. Ironic or what?

(The Jakarta Post)
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in talks to direct and star alongside actor Channing Tatum in an upcoming R-rated musical comedy film, with a working title Wingmen.

An R-rated film requires people under-17 to be accompanied by their parent or an adult guardian.

Gordon-Levitt and Tatum will also produce the film along with Marc Platt, Adam Siegel and Peter Kiernan. It will focus on the story of two pilots (Gordon-Levitt and Tatum) who crash-land in Las Vegas, reports aceshowbiz.com.

The movie is said to be a combination of Pitch Perfect and Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, with a touch of adult humour.

Wingmen will not go on the floors anytime soon as Tatum is about to begin filming action-thriller Triple Frontier alongside Tom Hardy.

If a deal is struck, the movie will mark Gordon-Levitt's return as director after 2013 romantic comedy drama Don Jon.
Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad on Saturday has been summoned by party chief Uddhav Thackeray following the case of assault on a Air India staffer.

Gaikwad is likely to meet Thackeray in Matoshree to justify his out-of-line action and present his side of the story.

Gaikwad has been asked to be present before a three-member panel formed by the Shiv Sena to probe into the matter, according to reports.

The panel will decide whether to suspend Gaikwad for allegedly hitting an AI staffer with his slippers over seat issue on Thursday.

The Sena leader was banned by AI and other top airlines with immediate effect on Friday and he boarded a train to Mumbai later in the evening. He boarded the August Kranti Rajdhani from Nizamuddin railway station in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, an FIR has also been registered against him by AI for repeatedly hitting their 62-old-year staffer that broke the victims spectacles.

Gaikwad, when asked about the brazen assault on the staffer on Friday, refused to owe any apology to the victim.

"I will not apologise, he (Air India staff) must come to me and apologise, Gaikwad said.
India and the US pledged to continue their strong defence partnership during a meeting here between Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis.

According to a readout of their meeting by Pentagon Spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis, Mattis hosted Doval at the Pentagon on Thursday to discuss the importance of the US-India relationship, and the role of both nations in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles.

Mattis specifically applauded India's efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region. Both of them reaffirmed building upon the significant defence cooperation progress made in recent years, the statement said.

Mattis and Doval discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters including maritime security and counter terrorism and the two pledged to continue the strong defence partnership between both nations.

Indian Ambassador to US Navtej Sarna was also present at the meeting.

Doval, who is on a four-day visit to the US, also met Secretary of Homeland Security General (Retd) John Kelly and National Security Advisor Lt Gen H.R. McMaster.

During his meeting with McMaster, both sides reviewed the security situation in South Asia.

Doval's visit to the US comes days after that of Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar.
Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Friday said it wants to fight the next war with Indian technologies.

"We want to fight the next war with technology on our side and not like the past," General Rawat said at the release of the 'Compendium of Problem Statements, Volume II' here.

The compendium has been prepared by the Army Design Bureau (ADB) after detailed interaction with all stakeholders, including soldiers deployed in the field.

Pointing out the drawbacks in trial equipment, he asked the industry and academia to focus on the fact that the Army will fight wars in varied terrain and weather conditions, a Defence Ministry release said.

He asked the industry and academia to come up with robust, rugged, miniaturised yet technologically compatible solutions.

The 28 new problem statements, part of Volume II, will allow industry and academia to understand the needs of the Army and come up with indigenous solutions for military requirements.

The first volume, with 50 problem statements, was released on December 5 last year.

The ADB, inaugurated last August, has been formed in a bid to meet the Army's longstanding need to create and modernise weapons indigenously.

It facilitate the weapons and technology building efforts between the Defence Research and Development Organisation, industry and the Army.
The world will celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday night by switching off lights and going "dark" for one hour to encourage participation in fighting climate change.

This year the event is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The initiative is supported by 7,000 cities around the world. Landmarks will go dark, and millions of people are expected to turn off their lights as a political statement against climate change and fossil fuels, and in support of carbon cuts and renewable energy, USA Today reported.

The global event will start at 8.30 p.m.

Started by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Australia in 2007, Earth Hour has expanded to a global event, with public spaces going dark, and in some places, people gathering with lit candles instead.

According to the organisers, "Earth Hour shows how each of us can be heroes for our planet".

The WWF said Earth Hour is not a one-hour commitment to conservation but rather a symbol of something bigger.

"Participation in Earth Hour symbolises a commitment to change beyond the hour," the website reads.

Despite the terror attack in Westminster on Wednesday, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben are joining more than 270 landmarks across Britain in switching off the lights for Earth Hour.

Buckingham Palace, Blackpool Tower, Brighton Pier, the Senedd Building in Cardiff, the Kelpies sculpture in Falkirk and Edinburgh Castle are among those taking part.

Starting in Samoa and ending 24 hours later in The Cook Islands, people in 184 countries will send the message calling for action to protect the planet.

Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, New York's Empire State Building, the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow, the Egyptian Pyramids and Tokyo Tower will be switching off the lights during their Earth Hour between 8.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m.

Members of the public are also being encouraged to take part by switching off their lights for the hour.
The blast took place at the Khamaria ordnance factory when an L70 shell was being loaded to be taken to Pulgaon. Some people are feared trapped inside the building.

By India Today Web Desk: Six people have been injured in a series of explosions at the Khamaria ordnance factory in Jabalpur.

The first blast took place inside the F-3 section of building no. 324 in the factory around 6.15 pm when an L70 shell was being loaded to be taken to Pulgaon. There were a few more explosions in short intervals after that too, damaging buildings 326 and 328 too.

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Jabalpur District Collector Mahesh Choudhary said that 25 fire tenders were pressed into service, and the blaze was put out by 9.30 pm, around three hours after it started.

The fire started at around 6.20 pm, when the factory workers had left, hence there were no casualties, said Choudhary, who visited the spot.

(WITH PTI INPUTS)

WATCH: 6 injured in explosion at ordnance factory in Jabalpur, some feared trapped

--- ENDS ---
Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said all political parties except the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were disintegrating and their leaders were abandoning them to join the BJP.

"BJP has been winning elections after elections after 2014 and parties like Congress, Samajwadi Party, AIADMK, AAP and others were disintegrating," Naidu said while addressing a huge gathering of party workers and supporters at Ramlila Maidan here.

He said the BJP has won the maximum number of elections in the past three years and has governments all across the country.

"Ever since Narendra Modi has become Prime Minister, there has been a movement in the country, BJP's flag could be seen across the country," he said, encouraging party workers to gear up for the upcoming civic bodies elections in Delhi next month.

He said there had not been even a single charge of corruption against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the past three years.

"During Congress' regime, there would be many corruption cases in a single day, but nobody can accuse us of any corrupt practice," he said.

Naidu also praised the BJP, saying that it was the only party which ensured representation of all sections of society.

"BJP has maximum Scheduled Caste, farmers and women MPs," he said.

The minister said that the NDA's demonetisation policy was criticised by many but people proved them wrong by giving the BJP a huge mandate in the just concluded elections.
The Border Security Force on Saturday received its first woman field officer after a convocation ceremony conducted in the BSF academy at Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district.

Tanushree Pareek, a resident of Rajasthan, led the passing-out parade at the BSF Academy as the first woman field officer. She was also felicitated at the ceremony.

Congratulating the BSF, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said," I am happy that BSF has got its first woman field officer and hope that many more women will join her in securing our borders."

Pareek started training last year in a 52-week Assistant Commandant training programme with the 40th batch of the BSF academy.
The government has asked the US to provide details of the 271 illegal immigrants it wants New Delhi to take back.

"This is an ongoing matter. The US authorities had conveyed to us sometime back that out of certain statistics provided to us earlier, 271 cases remained to be addressed."

"However, no details of these cases were provided. We have asked for the same," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday said in Parliament, "We have not accepted this list and have sought more details. We have said that it is only after we verify the details, can we issue an emergency certificate for their deportation."

The Donald Trump administration has given a list of 271 people, claiming they were illegal migrants from India.

Asked about the killing of an Indian woman and her seven-year-old son in the US last night, Baglay said India is in touch with the US authorities who are trying to ascertain details of the "very unfortunate incident".

He also said the Indian consulate was ready to extend all possible help to the family.
In the wake of the escalating tensions over border issues with neghbouring countries, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the international borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan will be sealed as soon as possible.

"We have decided to seal the international borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan as soon as possible," the Union minister said while taking part in the passing out parade of the Border Security Force (BSF) at Tekanpur in Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh.

"The BSF has changed the rules of engagement at international borders. Now the BSF is a known entity even in neighbouring countries," he said.

"The BSF is discharging its responsibilities in protecting the nation's borders properly. That's why, the trust and belief of the people towards the BSF have increased," he added.

Responding to a question by the media after the parade function, Rajnath said: "The borders would be sealed. Fencing would be done wherever it's possible and in case it's not, technology would be brought into application."
Resident doctors across Maharashtra on Saturday called off their five-day protest against a spate of assaults and resumed duties following an ultimatum from the Bombay High Court and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The state government had also given an assurance to the protesting doctors that their demands will be looked into.

"Most of the doctors have resumed duties. The OPDs have also become operational per schedule and resident doctors paid a visit to general wards as well. We are hopeful of things getting back to normal soon," said Dr Avinash Supe, Dean of civic-run KEM hospital here.

Resident doctors in Sion and Nair hospitals too have resumed work, he added.

The doctors called off their stir after Fadnavis yesterday gave an ultimatum asking them to resume duties or face legal action.

Indicating that the government has run out of patience, Fadnavis had yesterday told the Legislative Assembly that "enough is enough. If the doctors fail to resume work today, government will not sit quietly. We cannot leave the patients to die."

Also, the Bombay High Court had lambasted them for taking "undue advantage of its sympathy," and asked protesting doctors to report back to work by 8 AM today or be ready for suitable action by their respective hospital managements.

More than 4,500 resident doctors had gone on "mass leave" since Monday after a series of assault took place on resident doctors in various parts of the state, affecting health services in OPDs and general wards at government and municipal-run hospitals.

Though Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) did not extend support or endorse the protest by the doctors, it was involved in negotiations with the state government from day one.

According to a statement issued by MARD in the wee hours today, their meeting with the Chief Minister last night was satisfactory.

"The state government has issued a letter of assurances and we feel our demands are being addressed. We have asked our members to resume the duty from Saturday morning," it said.

Also, the state government, on March 22 had issued a circular stating that a total of 1,100 security personnel will be provided from Police Security Corporation of which 500 will be deployed by April 5 across government hospitals in Mumbai.

In the following phases, armed personnel will be deployed in Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad cities as well by April end.

The Maharashtra chapter of IMA, backing the stir of resident doctors in state government hospitals, had yesterday rolled back their support to them shortly after the High Court warned them against continuing the agitation.
Two top Senators have urged the Trump administration to push for the sale of F-16 fighter jets to India to build its capability to counter security threats and balance China's growing military power in the Pacific.

Senators Mark Warner from Virginia and John Cornyn from Texa in a joint letter to US Defence Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, the Trump administration must make the fighter jet acquisition a priority during initial bilateral discussions with India.

India has launched an effort to expand its combat aircraft fleet and the competition has reportedly narrowed down to Lockheed's F-16 and Saab's Gripen.

Noting that the last F-16 for the US Air Force rolled off the production line in Fort Worth in 1999, the two Senators said India remains the only major F-16 prospect customer.

"A primary factor in India's decision will be compliance with Prime Minister Modi's 'Make in India' initiative, which will require establishing some level of local production capacity," Warner and Cornyn wrote.

"Given the strategic significance of India selecting a US aircraft as the mainstay for its future Air Force and the potential for a decision this year, we ask that the administration make the fighter acquisition a priority during initial bilateral discussions," they said.

Warner, who is a Democrat and Cornyn from the Republican Party are the co-chairs of the influential Senate India caucus, the only country specific caucus in the US Senate.

"We urge you to weigh in forcefully with the White House on the strategic significance of this deal, both to America s defence industrial base and to our growing security partnership with India," said the letter dated March 23.

Making a strong case for the sale of F-16s to India, the two Senators said this would represent a historic win for America that will deepen the US-India strategic defence relationship and cement cooperation between our two countries for decades to come.

"It would increase interoperability with a key partner and dominant power in South Asia, build India's capability to counter threat from the north, and balance China's growing military capability in the Pacific," they said.

India, they said, increasingly serves as an integral partner in the United States' security architecture in the volatile South Asia region, helping to protect our joint interests and deter common threats, and has emerged as a critical trading partner, they noted.

As such "it is in our national interest to work with India to progress democratic principles through regional security partnership and burden sharing," they said.

"To this end, we support the co-production of our legacy F-16 aircraft in India to help sustain the United States' current fleet of aircraft and aid a critical Indian security need with a proven American product," Cornyn and Warner wrote.

The competition for the fighter jets, they wrote, presents an opportunity to solidify and strengthen the significant gains made in the bilateral US-India defence relationship over the two previous administrations, they said.
The CPI(M) on Saturday attacked the NDA government for not making public the data on the amount of junked currency deposited in banks post note ban.

Taking to Twitter, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury asked whether the Modi government is "that incompetent" that it is yet to come out with the numbers.

"Why don't we have the data on amount of old currency notes deposited even now? Is the Modi government that incompetent? Or complicit?" he said

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 8 last year announced scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.

The government had set a deadline of December 30, 2016 to exchange the notes with banks.

NRIs and those who could not deposit the invalidated high value notes because they were travelling abroad can deposit the old currencies with RBI until March 31 subject to verification.
A 17-year-old schoolboy in the UK has pointed out an error in the data recorded by NASA on the International Space Station (ISS), earning him appreciation from the US space agency.

Miles Soloman, an A-level student at Tapton school in Sheffield, contacted scientists at NASA, telling them that radiation sensors on the ISS were recording false data.

Soloman said it was "pretty cool" to email NASA, adding the correction was "appreciated" by the space agency, which invited him to help analyse the problem.

The research was part of a project which gives students across the UK the chance to work on data from ISS, looking for anomalies and patterns that might lead to further discoveries.

The detectors had recorded the radiation levels on the space station.

"I went straight to the bottom of the list and I went for the lowest bits of energy there were," Soloman was quoted as saying by BBC News.

"We were all discussing the data but he just suddenly perked up in one of the sessions and went 'why does it say there is -1 energy here?'" said Soloman's teacher and head of physics, James O'Neill.

What Soloman had noticed was that when nothing hit the detector, a negative reading was being recorded.

However, you cannot get negative energy. So Soloman and O'Neill contacted NASA.

NASA said it was aware of the error, but believed it was only happening once or twice a year. Soloman had found it was actually happening multiple times a day.
The Liberation Panther Party aka Vidhuthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) has advised superstar Rajinikanth to re-consider his decision to visit Sri Lanka to inaugurate a housing scheme. They said it might earn him the wrath of the Tamil community.

As part of his visit, being organised by Lyca Productions, Rajinikanth is expected to speak at a public meeting and plant tree saplings.

According to a source in VCK, Rajinikanth's visit might prove to the world that things are back to normal in Sri Lanka.

"Nothing has changed in Sri Lanka, especially the lives of displaced Sri Lankan Tamils following the civil war in 2009. They're using Rajinikanth's visit to fool the world that life has returned to normal but it hasn't. We want Rajinikanth to reconsider his decision. If not, he will face the wrath of Tamil community," the source told IANS.

VCK  a political party that supports the cause of Dalits in Tamil Nadu  is led by T. Thirumavalavan, who is spearheading the protest against Rajinikanth's visit.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the "Enthirana actor will hand over the keys to 150 homes built for Tamils by Gnanam Foundation on April 9 in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, according to a statement released by Lyca Productions.

Lyca Productions is also bankrolling Rajinikanth's upcoming release 2.o, a sequel to his 2010 Tamil blockbuster Enthiran.


Bill Condons directorial Beauty and the Beast is reportedly getting a sequel. The production company Disney wants to continue making the next instalment to follow the success of the Emma Watson and Dan Stevens starrer, reports HollywoodLife.com.

With the expected monster opening and the excitement that has surrounded the film, they are already considering a sequel to be released around 2019 or 2020. They want everyone back for an original story. It is the next phase of what Disney would like to do with their live-action sequels to their animated classics, said a source.

The sequel wont be surprising for some people who are familiar with the movie franchise. Beauty and the Beast (1991) had three direct-to-video instalments. Set within the events of the first animated film, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas came first and served as holiday special in 1997, followed by Belles Magical World in 1998. The third instalment, Belles Tale of Friendship, was released a year later in 1999 to promote Disneys TV series titled Sing Me a Story with Belle. Currently, the production company is busy developing live-action remakes of The Lion King, Dumbo and The Little Mermaid.
A firefighter in Santa Monica refused to give up on a lifeless dog he had pulled out from a burning building, and performed a cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him to save his life.

By India Today Web Desk: When a disaster like fire or earthquake strikes, our first reaction is to grab our dear ones and run. But what about the times when we get separated from someone we love in a moment of such crisis?

That's where real life heroes come in.

After an apartment in Santa Monica, California, caught fire recently, somebody's pet dog got trapped inside the burning building. When firefighter Andrew Klein noticed, he climbed into the building and rescued the poor dog.

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However, the dog, who's called Nalu, was no longer breathing and didn't have a pulse. Nalu had been "overcome by heat and smoke," the Santa Monica Fire Department said in a statement.

Klein, a fireman from the Santa Monica Fire Department, did not give up. He performed a CPR on Nalu as people and his colleagues looked on. Nalu was also given oxygen through an oxygen mask designed for animals.

Around 20 minutes after the CPR, as Klein and others kept coaxing him, Nalu began to breathe on his own again.

"It was pretty amazing because I've been on a number of animal rescues like this that did not come out the same way that Nalu's story did," Klein told KTLA 5. "It was definitely a win for the whole team and the department that we got him back."

Like Dr Derek Shepherd used to say on Grey's Anatomy, "It's a beautiful day to save lives." It always is.

|| Read more at FYI ||

Is culling the solution to stray dog menace in Kerala?

Chandigarh youth spins dog and mercilessly hurls it against the wall

Ever heard about dog therapy? This thought-provoking video about dogs will move you to tears

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--- ENDS ---
While Marvels Cinematic Universe has been well received by critics and fans alike, Warner Bros. attempt to replicate the Disney-owned studio has been met with widespread criticism. Upcoming feature The Flash and The Batman have both been severely delayed, the latter losing Ben Affleck as director while gaining Matt Reeves of Cloverfield and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes fame. Even Aquaman the next DC Extended Universe due for release after this years Justice League, has been delayed until 21 December 2018 (a fitting Christmas tale). As picked up by Den of Geek, Variety reporter Justin Kroll has claimed Warner Bros is looking to film at least one more DC flick this year. They just dont know which one.

The studio currently has a plethora of announced films that have no release dates and will choose from five including Suicide Squad 2, Gotham City Sirens, Dark Universe, The Flash and Green Lantern Corps. Legend of Tarzan writer Adam Cozad has reportedly signed on to write Suicide Squad 2, with Mel Gibson being pursued to direct the film.

David Ayer, will helm Harley Quinn-led spinoff Gotham City Sirens, rumoured to feature Megan Fox as Poison Ivy. Dark Universe also known as Justice League Dark has been in the works since 2013, when Guillermo Del Toro was on board to direct. After leaving the project, Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr & Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow) signed on to direct. Earlier this month, comic book stalwart Matthew Vaughn was revealed to be in negotiations with Warner Bros regarding Man of Steel 2 following his work on Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Whatever the case, there are numerous projects that could likely be chosen to film this year.

The Independent
At least 16 civilians were killed and 50 injured in airstrikes on a Syrian town on the outskirts of the country's capital, according to a war monitoring group.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the aerial bombings took place in the town of Hamoryah, located 12 km to the east of Damascus.

According to the Observatory, the attack came as part of the increased bombings carried out by Syrian regime forces against the eastern Ghouta region over the last few days.

The SOHR said the number of dead could rise since many of the injured were in a serious condition and several people were still missing, reported Efe news.

It added that the number of children and women among the victims remained unknown.
At least three people were injured after a gunman opened fire outside a metro station in the city of Lille in northern France, days after the attack in London.

Armed police rushed to the scene and sealed off streets near the Porte d'Arras Metro station at around 9.45 p.m. (local time) on Friday night, the Mirror reported.

The shots, say reports, were fired at Jacques Febvrier square, a few metres from the metro station.

Witnesses reported at least three injuries, including a 14-year-old boy. The boy is believed to have been shot in the leg, said the local media. They were taken to hospital and are not in a life-threatening condition.

The wounded were reported to have been shot several times, according to French news outlet La Voix.

The motive behind the shooting is not yet known. The shooter is reported to be still on the loose.

France has suffered a string of Islamist terror attacks during the past 12 months.

It comes after a suspected Islamist terrorist was gunned down at Paris Orly airport last week after launching an attack on a police traffic patrol.

Also, a suspected terrorist was arrested in the Belgian city of Antwerp on Thursday after he allegedly tried to drive a car into shoppers on a pedestrianised street, less than 24 hours after the Westminster attack.

The vehicle was reportedly full of liquid gas, knives and rifles.

The suspected driver, in camouflage, was later arrested by the police, the local media reported.

The incident, according to reports, was being investigated as a possible terrorist incident.
Army commandos on Saturday stormed a hideout of Islamist militants in Bangladesh's north-eastern Sylhet after nearly a 30-hour security siege failed to flush them out of a five-storey building.

Officials said army para-commandos led by a Major General and assisted by Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, counter-terrorism unit and elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion launched 'Operation Twilight' after the standoff with militants who were holed up in the building.

Some 78 people could be evacuated and moved to safe place ahead of the full scale military assault. Several residents were believed to be still trapped inside the building occupied by the militants.

"GOC (General Officer Commanding) of our Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the 'Operation Twilight' there," a military spokesman told PTI as the crackdown was launched at 9 AM.

Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) chief Monirul Islam said they got information that JMB chief Musa along with some other JMB militants are in Sylhet.

On a tip off, police had raided the building at 2:00 AM on Friday and cordoned off the whole area after suspected militants detonated small bombs.

The neo-JMB, said to be inclined to the Islamic State, was behind the July 1 terror attack on a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed.

"They (militants) were earlier thought to be staying only on the ground floor but now they are suspected to have taken position in three flats of the building," a newspaper said, quoting an unnamed official at the scene.

TV channels were barred from live broadcast of the operation but their footages showed commandos backed by the armoured personnel carriers taking positions around the building.

Witnesses and residents in the neighbourhood said they saw smoke billowing out from parts of the building and heard intermittent explosions and gunshots from inside the building.

Earlier reports said at least two suspected militants, including a female, were inside the Atia Villa's ground floor but a police officer later feared a "whole lot of them" could also be there, suspecting them as operatives of Neo-JMB.

Police used megaphones to ask the couple, who were living in the building for the last three months as tenants, to surrender, but they refused to give up.

The militants shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is the greatest) and told police 'send your SWAT team'.

"Since last evening, they (militants) have stopped responding," an eyewitness said.

Military police put barricade on adjacent thoroughfares including a regional highway.

Authorities overnight cut off the gas and power lines of the building. Police asked people in the neighbourhood to keep safe distance from the hideout and advise to stay indoors.

The Operation Twilight was launched after a suicide bomber last night blew himself up near the international airport in Dhaka, an attack claimed by Islamic State terrorist group, a week after an identical attack on a RAB camp here.

Police tracked down the Sylhet hideout less than a week after they busted two militant dens on the outskirts of the south-eastern port city of Chittagong when four extremists were killed.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack.


US Democrats were joyous after the House of Representatives cancelled a scheduled vote on President Donald Trump's bill to replace Obamacare, the media reported.

In a rare public comment, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the "victory happened because people in every corner of our country committed their time and energy to calling their representatives, showing up at town hall meetings, and making their voices heard," CNN reported.

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee also tweeted a series of messages highlighting people she encountered on the campaign trail who spoke to her about their health care issues or crediting Obamacare for helping them.

On Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said he and President Donald Trump agreed it would be better to withdraw the bill once it became clear that the measure would fail due to defections among the Republican majority.

Republicans have spent the last seven years denouncing Obamacare or the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), the signature domestic programme former President Barack Obama.

Other Democrats also joined in the victory celebrations.

"Hey Republicans, don't worry, that burn is covered under the Affordable Care Act," tweeted Bob Menendez, a Democratic senator from New Jersey.

Obama's spokesman, Kevin Lewis, tweeted several photos of the former President in celebratory poses, CNN reported.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said during a news conference on Friday, "Today's a great day for our countryIt's pretty exciting for us."

Meanwhile, Trump blamed the Democrats for the failure of his healthcare bill.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Trump said: "We couldn't get one Democratic vote, and we were a little bit shy, very little, but it was still a little bit shy, so we pulled it."

Repealing and replacing the programme known as Obamacare was one of his major election pledges.
India's new envoy to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri on Saturday arrived here and would submit his credentials to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Sunday.

Puri, a 1982 batch IFS officer, was on March 10 appointed as India's 24th ambassador to Nepal. His predecessor Ranjit Rae completed his three and a half year-tenure on February 28.

Puri, born in 1959, is scheduled to submit his letters of credence to President Bhandari tomorrow, according to reports.

Before being assigned to Kathmandu mission, he was India's Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Prior to Brussels, he was India's Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York from 2009 to 2013. He was also a senior member of India's Security Council team during the years 2011 and 2012, when India served on the Security Council.

From 2005-09, he headed the United Nations Division in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi dealing with economic and social issues.

In the course of his Foreign Service career, Puri has served twice in Germany (in Bonn from 1984-86 and Berlin from 1991-94). He was the coordinator of the Festival of India in Germany in 1991-92 and established the Indian Cultural Centre in Berlin.

Puri has a Masters degree in Management. He did his BA (Honours) in Economics from St Stephen's College in New Delhi.
The Islamic State has taken responsibility for a blast in front of a police box at the entrance to Dhaka's Shahjalal International Airport, describing it as a "suicide attack".

Terrorism monitoring group SITE Intelligence tweeted that the militant group's mouthpiece Amaq news agency reported the "suicide bombing" in the Bangladesh capital near the airport on Friday night, in which the bomber was killed.

"For the 2nd time in one week, #ISIS claimed a suicide bombing in the #Bangladesh capital #Dhaka, the latest targeting a police checkpoint," SITE said in another Twitter message.

An airport police officer had initially said it was a "suicide attack", but Dhaka Metropolitan Police later ruled it out as an attack of that nature, Bdnews24 reported.

DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia said that it is suspected that the man was carrying a bomb in the bag.

He declined to comment on whether militants were involved in the blast, which occurred a week after what the law-enforcing agencies said was a suicide attack on a RAB camp in nearby Ashkona.

Meanwhile, the security forces on Saturday launched a final assault on a suspected militant hideout in Sylhet city, after a 30-hour siege, that began in the early hours of Friday. Over 50 persons were evacuated from a building on the outskirts of the city.

Commandos launched the assault "Operation Twilight" at a complex housing two buildings in Shibbarhi area. The area was cordoned off by the security forces.

Police said the militants were holed up in a flat on the ground floor of one of the buildings. They said that at least two militants  a male and a female  were believed to be in the flat.

According to the report, gunfire was heard twice in the area. No other details were available.

Heavily armed members of the law-enforcing agencies surrounded the complex.

An Army officer said that the soldiers were leading the assault and "the SWAT was only helping them".

A police official said a search operation in Sylhet was carried out after getting information that militants have taken shelter in the district.

After finding the hideout at Shibbarhi on Thursday, police locked the flat from outside and cordoned off the complex early on Friday.

Police came under attack later in the morning. The suspects shouted "Allahu Akbar" while hurling grenades at the law enforcers. Police officials retaliated by opening fire, and the cordon was extended to the entire area, Sylhet Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner Rokan Uddin said.

Reports said 17 families from one of the buildings at the complex were evacuated on Friday. They were kept in a school in the area throughout the day. The families stranded in the flats of another building were told to keep their doors and windows shut.
People from the Jewish, Muslim, and Indian American communities gathered on the steps of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in northwest Washington and stood in solidarity against rising hate crimes in the US.

"This is about having peace throughout all communities and religions and races," said Rochelle Berman, who was present at the event on Friday night.

The slogan "We Stand Together Against Hate" was held high above the crowd at the top of the synagogue's steps, reported WJLA news portal, an ABC Television affiliate.

"There should be no discrimination based on race, or gender or skin colour," said a woman.

This year discrimination across the country fuelled vandalism, bomb threats and murders, such as Indian American Srinivas Kuchibholta who was shot and killed during a Kansas hate crime.

"There are just a lot of challenges out there that basically unity is going to bring us all together," said another attendant.

Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while another Indian Alok Madasani was injured in Kansas last month in an apparent hate crime.

An Indian-origin girl was racially abused on a train by an African-American man in New York on February 23.

A 43-year-old Indian-origin store owner, Harnish Patel, was shot dead outside his home in Lancaster County, South Carolina earlier in March.

A Sikh man, Deep Rai, an American citizen, was also fired upon in a racial attack earlier this month.

Also, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic threats and vandalism across the country, which included bomb threats at 90 Jewish community centres and the desecration of cemeteries in several US states last month.


The gruesome killings of an Indian IT professional and her 6-year-old son in a New Jersey town has sent shock waves in the neighbourhood with the motive behind the murders still unknown.

Sasikala Narra, 38 and her son Anish Narra were killed on Friday inside their residence at the Fox Meadow Apartments in Maple Shade in New Jersey's Burlington County.

The two were found murdered when Sasikala's husband Narra Hanumanth Rao returned from work Thursday evening.

Officers from the Maple Shade Police Department were called to the Hamilton Road residence just after 9 pm by Rao after he found the bodies of his wife and son.

Authorities said no arrests have been made and the deaths are being investigated as homicides.

Preliminary investigation revealed that both victims were "stabbed multiple times."

Narras' close family friend Mohan Nannapaneni said in a ABC6 Action News report that Rao had called him shortly after finding his wife and son in a pool of blood.

"When he opened the house and he couldn't find his wife and son and then he called Anish his son and he didn't answer, so when he went to open the bedroom and then he found those two people  dead and blood everywhere," said Nannapaneni.

Law enforcement officials have denied the killings were hate crime or a result of bias against the Indian origin of the victims, according to a statement provided by Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

"Contrary to some media reports, at this point there is no indication that this is a hate crime connected to the fact that the victims are of Indian origin," the statement had said.

The killings have shocked the Maple Shade community, which has expressed concern and sadness over the murders.

"What kind of monster would come up and do something that scary?" said Lisa of Maple Shade in the report in ABC6 Action News.

"Someone is crazy. Someone is really, really crazy.

Delusional, don't know what's going on in life," said Ashante Boorden of Maple Shade.

Alfred Maugeri of Maple Shade said in the report that it is saddening to see a child's life wiped out like that.

"It's unbelievable," he said.

Neighbours said they want whoever is responsible for the crime to be found soon and prosecuted.

Neighbours who were in their homes around the time of the incident said they did not hear anything suspicious, the report added.

They described the Narras as wonderful people, especially little Anish.

"He was always happy Smart little kid, too," said a neighbour who didn't wish to be identified.

Another neighbour Chris Davis said she heard Rao say "She's dead, she's dead! There's blood all over the place, She's dead!" as others tried to console him.

"This is sad, really said," said Iesha Zuniga, 26, a restaurant worker who had lived in the complex for more than a decade. We feel unsafe."
Myanmar has rejected the UN rights council's decision to investigate allegations that security officers have murdered, raped and tortured Rohingya Muslims, saying the probe would only "inflame" the conflict.

The Geneva-based body agreed on Friday to "urgently" dispatch a fact-finding mission to the Southeast Asian country, focusing on claims that police and soldiers have carried out violations against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

The army crackdown, launched in October after militants killed nine policemen, has sent tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.

Escapees have given UN investigators gruesome accounts of security officers stabbing babies to death, burning people alive and committing widespread gang rape.

The allegations have heaped enormous pressure on Myanmar's one-year-old civilian government, which has vigorously swatted back calls for an international investigation.

Myanmar's foreign affairs ministry on Saturday stopped short of saying it would block the UN-backed probe but said it "has dissociated itself from the resolution as a whole".

"The establishment of an international fact-finding mission would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues at this time," it added.

Myanmar is carrying out its own domestic inquiry into possible crimes in Rakhine.

But rights groups and the UN have dismissed the body, which is led by retired general turned Vice President Myint Swe, as toothless.

The recent crackdown is only the latest conflict to beleaguer the stateless Rohingya, who are denied citizenship and face brutal discrimination in the Buddhist-majority country.

More than 120,000 Rohingya have languished in grim displacement camps ever since bouts of religious violence between Muslims and Buddhists ripped through Rakhine state in 2012.

Most are not allowed to leave the squalid encampments, where they live in piecemeal shelters with little access to food, education and healthcare.
Passing a motion yesterday, the UK Parliament said that Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of Jammu and Kashmir, illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947.

By Prabhash K Dutta: The UK Parliament has said what India has been saying for 70 years. That Gilgit-Baltistan belongs to India as an integral part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir after it legally acceded to the Union in 1947.

Passing a motion yesterday, the UK Parliament said that Gilgit-Baltistan was a legal and constitutional part of Jammu and Kashmir, illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947.

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WHERE IS GILGIT-BALTISTAN?

Geographically, Gilgit-Baltistan is situated in the trans-Himalayan region on the northwestern corner of the Kashmir Valley, a part of which has been illegally occupied by Pakistan since it invaded the region after the partition of India.

Gilgit-Baltistan was part of the formerly princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (then identified as the state of Kashmir and Jammu). Under the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, the princely state consisted of five regions.

The five regions were: Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit Wazarat, and Gilgit Agency. With changing equations in the early 20th century after the formation of the USSR in 1917, the British took Gilgit Agency on a 60-year-lease from the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir in 1935.

THE PARTITION

After the Second World War, the British, unable to sustain pressure from India's freedom struggle, decided to partition the country into India and Pakistan.

It gave the princely states the right to merge with either of the two provided their territory had geographical continuity with the nation they wished to accede to.

The British also returned the Gilgit Agency to the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, 15 days after India attained independence. Gilgit again came under the direct rule of the Maharaja as a legal part of his state.

After independence, both India and Pakistan went for territorial consolidation. The Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir decided not to accede to either India or Pakistan. But, the situation soon changed as Pakistan invaded the princely state in October 1947.

HOW GILGIT FELL TO PAKISTAN

Pakistan captured a part of Kashmir by means of invasion and the entire Gilgit region - generally called Gilgit-Baltistan - by the treachery of British military officer of the Maharaja.

Under lease, Gilgit-Baltistan was protected by a British-controlled force called the Gilgit Scouts. After the British terminated the lease, they loaned two of their officers - Major W A Brown and Captain A S Mathieson - to the Maharaja for the purpose of looking after the defence of Gilgit-Baltistan till an alternative arrangement was found.

But as Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on October 31 in 1947, Major Brown revolted and captured King's governor Brigadier Ghansara Singh. Major Brown then informed this former British boss stationed at Peshawar about his decision to accede to Pakistan.

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The British decision was influenced by their understanding of the reactions of the Arab nations with regard to formation of Pakistan. The British did not want to antagonise the oil-rich nations by apparently taking an anti-Muslim stand at a time when the fears of Soviet communism dominated the West.

Major Brown defected on November 1 and the Pakistani forces occupied Gilgit-Baltistan on November 4. Since then, Gilgit-Baltistan has been under Pakistan's administrative control.

CURRENT STATUS OF GILGIT-BALTISTAN

After gaining control of the region, Pakistan renamed the Gilgit Wazarat and Gilgit Agency as The Northern Areas of Pakistan. It is directly administered by the federal government of Pakistan.

Gilgit-Baltistan has an elected Assembly with limited powers to frame laws. The area is governed by a council headed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Gilgit-Baltistan has been treated as a separate geographical entity by successive Pakistani governments. Gilgit-Baltistan does not find any mention in Pakistan's Constitution.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has further changed the dynamics. Pakistan has already gifted a portion (about 5,000-8,000 sq km) of Gilgit-Baltistan in 1963, a year after the Indo-China war.

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Pakistan, on the other hand, has been trying to change the demography of Gilgit-Baltistan for decades. In 1970s, former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had abrogated the State Subject Rule to allow Sunni Muslims to settle down in the Shia-dominated Gilgit-Baltistan. This has worked in Pakistan's favour.

Recently, a committee headed by Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Affairs Advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, recommended that Gilgit-Baltistan be officially recognised as the fifth province of Pakistan in addition to Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Also read | British Parliament condemns Pakistan's move over Gilgit-Baltistan, says it belongs to India

Also read | BJP member moves bill seeking Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha seats for Gilgit, PoK

WATCH VIDEO

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Nepal and China have pledged to further develop their ties as Kathmandu expressed its willingness to join China's Belt and Road initiative.

In a meeting with visiting Chinese Defence Minister and State Councillor Chang Wanquan on Thursday, Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal "Prachanda" appreciated China's neighbourhood diplomacy featuring amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness.

Prachanda also thanked China for its assistance to Nepal's socio-economic development and defence, especially the Chinese aid for post-quake reconstruction.

"Nepal is committed to the one-China policy and it will always stand against anti-Chinese activities. Nepal is keen to be a partner of the Belt and Road initiative," the Prime Minister said.

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative, known as the Belt and Road initiative, was proposed by China in 2013 with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes.

For his part, Chang appreciated Nepal's strong support to China in regard to its "core interest" issues of Taiwan and Tibet.

Chang said leaders from both sides have reached consensus on deepening bilateral ties.

China is ready to join hands with Nepal to further promote their comprehensive partnership of cooperation to benefit the two peoples, he added.
Specific intelligence indicators have shown that North Korea is ready for its sixth underground nuclear test at any time, US officials said.

Satellite imagery indicates a potentially significant change at the Punggye-ri test site, the officials told CNN on Friday.

For weeks, the satellites had observed extensive activity on the surface, including vehicles, personnel and equipment, as well as two tunnel entrances being dug out.

But the latest imagery shows that activity has now stopped, "a similar change in the pattern also observed before previous tests, indicating all final preparations were now complete."

The South Korean government issued a statement on Friday also saying a test can happen as soon as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un orders it.

"It is assessed that North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test anytime if its leadership decides to do so," Lee Duk-haeng, spokesman for South Korea's the Ministry of Unification, said in the statement.

He said that "South Korean and US intelligence authorities evaluate that North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test anytime on the leadership's decision."

North Korea also continues to move equipment and personnel that could be used to launch ballistic missiles, the US officials told CNN.

They warned that it was impossible for the US to know when a mobile launch or an underground nuclear test will happen.

According to the officials, the US is maintaining the presence of a WC-135 aircraft in the region that can conduct air sampling after a suspected underground test.


The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has issued a show cause notice to ARY News channel over comments on a statement by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The regulator on Friday took exception to remarks made by Shahid Latif, a guest on an ARY News programme, that termed a recent statement by Sharif blasphemous, Dawn online reported.

Shahid Latif made the remarks during 'The Reporters' programme which aired on Thursday.

"This is a very dangerous trend. The hosts of the programme did not intervene nor stopped him from passing such comments, which is a violation of Pemra rules," a Pemra statement said.

According to the statement, airing any offensive, provocative or derogatory remarks violate PEMRA Act 2007 and various sections and clauses of the PEMRA Code of Conduct 2015.

The ARY News was directed to submit its reply by March 31 and explain why action should not be taken against it for airing "hate speech".

Pemra said if the channel was found guilty, the regulator could ban 'The Reporters', cancel ARY's operating licence and impose Rs 1 million fine.

Pemra also issued show cause notices to nine TV channels  Ab Tak TV, Waqt TV, Channel 5, Sach TV, 7 News, Aaj TV, Roze TV, News One and Capital TV  for airing "fake news" of a plane crash near Rawalpindi.

The channels have been directed to submit a reply by March 31.

The penalty for airing fake news includes a fine of up to Rs 1 million and cancellation of the operating licence.

The Pemra also issued a show cause notice to Dawn News for not complying with its orders of suspending 'Zara Hat Kay' for three days.

The presenters of 'Zara Hut Kay' discussed a reference against Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which is pending before the Supreme Judicial Council, in an episode aired on March 9.

According to a Dawn News official, the channel had already obtained a stay order from the Sindh High Court against the notice.
The outgoing chief of UN peacekeeping forces has lauded India and other South Asian countries for contributing well trained and well behaved troops to the world body's peacekeeping missions.

"The contribution of South Asian countries is very valuable in terms of numbers because usually the three or four largest contributors rotate between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Those usually are among the three or four largest contributors," Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous told reporters here yesterday during his final briefing in this post.

He will be succeeded by another French diplomat Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

He said troop contributors from the South Asian nations have given the UN large numbers of peacekeepers but also "good people, people who are well trained, well equipped and in most cases behave correctly."

He said while there have been a few cases of disciplinary nature against South Asian peacekeepers, these have not been huge numbers.

"Countries of the region, yes, they have been very active peacekeepers, they have paid the price, unfortunately, in terms of casualties. I appreciated very much their role and contribution during my tenure," he said.

India is among the largest contributor of peacekeepers to the world body.

As of February 2017, a total of 7606 Indian peacekeepers were deployed in UN missions, including 6763 troops and 782 police personnel.

It has also suffered significant casualties with 163 peacekeepers making the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty.

Indian peacekeepers have maintained a clean record as the world body investigates allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation against the Blue Helmets.

India has said it has a policy of zero tolerance against sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers.

India has also informed the UN Secretariat it had appointed a focal point to handle future paternity claims related to sexual exploitation and abuse.

The outgoing chief said UN peacekeeping is becoming more agile and capable, even as the cost for each peacekeeper fell 16 per cent in recent years, dropping the entire budget of the blue helmets worldwide to around USD 7.2 billion.

"It s a lot of money at face value, but it's 0.4 per cent of world military expenditure," he said.

"No other army has done what the United Nations has done over the past six years," he added.

The price for UN peacekeeping operations is currently USD 7.2 billion, down from USD 8.2 billion in 2011.

"We diminished the cost per peacekeeper by 16 per cent without any diminution in the level of equipment.
Pakistan has agreed to allow former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif to head a Saudi Arabia-led 39-nation Islamic military coalition formed to combat terrorism, according to a media report.

This was disclosed by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif in a programme of private Geo TV.

Citing Asif, the channel said official documentation to issue the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) had not been done but the government has agreed in principle to issue the permission because the Saudi leadership had formally requested through a letter to let Raheel take up the command of the coalition.

Asif said he had visited Saudi Arabia for Umrah earlier this year, and had also met officials of the Saudi government.

In May, the advisory board of defense ministers of member countries will attend a meeting on the issue, he said, adding the structure of the alliance had not been decided so far.

"When General (Retd) Raheel Sharif joins he will define a structure," he said.

In January this year, the defence minister had informed the Senate that the former army chief had not sought an NOC to lead a Saudi-led military alliance.

Asif had said Raheel had returned to Pakistan after performing Umrah in Saudi Arabia and if he applies for the NOC, then it will be decided according to law.

From a few politicians to retired army officers, journalists, intellectuals all had questioned the decision of a former Pakistani army chief to join a foreign military alliance after his retirement.

Pakistani leaders were initially taken aback when Saudi Arabia, without proper consultation with them, had announced in 2015 that Islamabad was also part of the new alliance.

Iran was not included in the grouping which appeared as a vague attempt to forge a Sunni Muslim alliance against Shiite Iran to curtail its influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and rest of the Middle East.

Pakistan was in an unenviable position as it has good ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. It was also not ready to be dragged into the politics of Middle East.

Later, Pakistan confirmed its participation in the alliance, but had said that the scope of its participation would be defined after Riyadh shared the details of the coalition it was assembling.

According to Saudi Arabia, the alliance is formed to fight ISIS and other militant outfits.
The US military is investigating whether it was responsible for the deaths of nearly 300 Syrian and Iraqi civilians in three different sets of airstrikes this month, a media report said.

Civilian casualties have been alleged in all three instances, but each situation is different and complex, CNN quoted a US defence official as saying on Friday.

So far, there is no indication of a breakdown in US military procedures governing airstrikes, the official said, and the US is not contemplating a pause in military operations.

The most severe incident involves western Mosul in Iraq.

The US military is trying to determine if sometime between March 17 and March 23, bombs dropped in the neighbourhoods of al Jadidah, al Amel and al Yarmouk by American warplanes resulted in the deaths of over 200 civilians.

The chairman of Nineveh Provincial Council in Iraq, Bashar al Kiki, told CNN: "Most of (those) killed are civilians, among them children and women."

The Iraqi official demanded an end to military operations in the area until civilians' safety can be guaranteed.

The incidents military officials are looking into are based largely on local reports and social media accounts of the strikes.

While in Syria, the US military has begun a formal investigation into a March 16 airstrike, where local reports said a mosque was struck and more than 40 people died.

For days the Pentagon said there were no civilian casualties in the March 16 incident, even as numerous social media reports showed images of bodies being carried out of the rubble.

However, the US has not ruled out the possibility that the Islamic State (IS) terror group was using civilians as human shields, but the defence official told CNN that there was an urgency to find out if Washington was responsible.

The Central Command was also reviewing an airstrike against a school building on Wednesday near Raqqa, Syria.

Local activists have said an airstrike may have killed more than 30 civilians seeking shelter there. The US was conducting strikes in the area, the defence official added.
The US military is investigating whether it was responsible for the deaths of nearly 300 Syrian and Iraqi civilians in three different sets of airstrikes this month, a media report said.

Civilian casualties have been alleged in all three instances, but each situation is different and complex, CNN quoted a US defence official as saying on Friday.

So far, there is no indication of a breakdown in US military procedures governing airstrikes, the official said, and the US is not contemplating a pause in military operations.

The most severe incident involves western Mosul in Iraq.

The US military is trying to determine if sometime between March 17 and March 23, bombs dropped in the neighbourhoods of al Jadidah, al Amel and al Yarmouk by American warplanes resulted in the deaths of over 200 civilians.

The chairman of Nineveh Provincial Council in Iraq, Bashar al Kiki, told CNN: "Most of (those) killed are civilians, among them children and women."

The Iraqi official demanded an end to military operations in the area until civilians' safety can be guaranteed.

The incidents military officials are looking into are based largely on local reports and social media accounts of the strikes.

While in Syria, the US military has begun a formal investigation into a March 16 airstrike, where local reports said a mosque was struck and more than 40 people died.

For days the Pentagon said there were no civilian casualties in the March 16 incident, even as numerous social media reports showed images of bodies being carried out of the rubble.

However, the US has not ruled out the possibility that the Islamic State (IS) terror group was using civilians as human shields, but the defence official told CNN that there was an urgency to find out if Washington was responsible.

The Central Command was also reviewing an airstrike against a school building on Wednesday near Raqqa, Syria.

Local activists have said an airstrike may have killed more than 30 civilians seeking shelter there. The US was conducting strikes in the area, the defence official added.


Two senators have written letters to the Trump administration to push for the sale of F-16 fighter jets to India as well as to approve a drone sale to the country, a media report said.

Senators John Cornyn and Mark Warner sent letters this week to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary James Mattis, urging them to sign off on the F-16 production line in India and approve the export of the Guardian Remotely Piloted Aircraft, a non-lethal maritime surveillance platform, the Hill online reported on Friday.

The pair  co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus  said that both sales would bolster the US-India military relationship.

India has been looking to buy new fighter aircraft since 2007 and in October relaunched a competition with the F-16 and the Saab Gripen (multi-role fighter aircraft) as the two contenders, said the report.

US aerospace company Lockheed Martin has since pledged to open a production line in India for the F-16s, but the plan was yet to be approved by the new administration.

Both senators urged Mattis and Tillerson "to weigh in forcefully with the White House on the strategic significance of the deal", arguing the F-16 production line solely relies on international buys, with the last aircraft made for the US in 1999.

"Keeping the F-16 in production will help sustain a fleet of over 1,000 aircraft currently in the Air Force and help preserve thousands of American jobs. It will help maintain 800 high value design and engineering jobs in the US, and extend the only scalable single engine 4th generation fighter aircraft as a significant security cooperation tool for the US," wrote Cornyn and Warner.

The two senators also pushed for the sale of the Guardian aircraft to India in a separate letter.

India requested the Guardian in June, a request that has been pending with the US government since, reported the newspaper.

"The Guardian is exclusively manufactured in the US, and a potential sale to India is estimated to be valued at over $2 billion across the life of the programme," the second letter stated.
By Press Trust of India: prisons

Chandigarh, Mar 25 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today took a strong note of the Gurdaspur central jail violence yesterday and called a high-level meeting next week to review security in the states prisons.

The meeting of police and Home Department officials has been called in the wake of the frequent incidents of violence and clashes in the states jails since the past several years.

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The chief minister has directed a review of the security conditions in the states prisons and promised sweeping reforms to eliminate the rot that had allegedly set in the jails during the past 10 years of misrule of the erstwhile Badal-led regime.

At the meeting next week, the state government will review the recently submitted report by the high-powered committee on jail reforms and will initiate measures to improve the prison administration in Punjab.

"Captain Amarinder has ordered the concerned officers to deal with the situation in Gurdaspur jail as they deemed fit and ensure that law and order was restored in the prison without delay," the chief ministers Media Advisor Raveen Thukral said in a statement here today.

Expressing grave concern over the frequent violent clashes in Punjabs prisons, Amarinder said he had been in touch with senior police, prison and intelligence officials since the violence broke out in the Gurdaspur prison.

Six prisoners including two terrorists were freed by a group of armed men from the high-security Nabha jail in Patiala district in November last year.

"We have put up a plan on how to improve things in the prisons of Punjab. The chief minister is keen that the state of affairs of our prisons should improve. All things will be discussed in detail at the meeting next week," ADGP (Prisons) Rohit Chowdhary said.

Talking about the Gurdaspur incident, Chowdhary said that restraint was shown by the staff on duty, who did not cause any injury to any of the inmates even though they were forced to fire in the air to contain the miscreants.

"A case of assault on jail personnel, rioting, destruction of public property has been registered against 10-15 inmates who have been identified," Chowdhary told PTI, adding that it was a group of 100 inmates out of the total 900, who created trouble. (MORE) PTI SUN ASV

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Pope Francis meets with European Union leaders, at the Vatican, Friday, March 24, 2017. Leaders of EU and heads of EU institutions were received by Pope Francis ahead of an EU anniversary summit. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini/pool)
Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University has opened its doors for the students who want to study Economics (honours).

By Arpan Rai: Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University has opened its doors for the students who want to study Economics (hons), making the course accessible to lakhs of aspirants.

The university is going to start a three-year degree programme in Bachelor of Arts (Hons) (Economics) in the affiliated institutes of the university from the academic session 2017-18, confirmed Nalini Ranjan, university official.

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The desirous institutes have been asked to apply for the programme along with their application for grant or continuation of provisional affiliation.

The positions for faculty have not been advertised as the varsity plans to recruit teachers currently teaching the postgraduate students for the undergraduate course.

The varsity will admit students based on performance in CET under the course. "We have always tested the candidates' ability by an entrance exam and admitted a large number of students who could not afford a seat in DU. This will help a large number of students pursue the subject in the Capital," said Ranjan.

ALSO READ | RSS to lecture university professors on national value-based teaching

University students must have Aadhaar number to get degrees: UGC

ALSO WATCH | Campus or Prison: Gender discrimination at Banaras Hindu University

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By Press Trust of India: Jaipur, Mar 25 (PTI) Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje today said that medical staff need to establish better dialogue with the patients and their family members to curb conflicts at hospitals.

However, she also appreciated the doctors for working with dedication toward their patients.

However, she also appreciated the way doctors patiently do service to the people and work with dedication.

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Raje was addressing a seminar here on role of judiciary, executive and public in curbing violence in hospitals.

"Number of times, hospital staff and doctors work under tremendous pressure. People need to understand... State government has made a law and made ample efforts to curb conflicts at hospitals. Everyone needs to participate in curbing such unwanted incidents," Raje said.

On the occasion, keynote speaker Justice Arun Mishra said that those in the health care profession should be sensitive while dealing with patients especially poor.

He said that patients family members should not be burdened with unnecessary medical investigations and surgeries.

Transparency in treatment will automatically reduce conflicts at hospitals, he added.

Rajasthan High Court acting Chief Justice K S Jhaveri said that violence in any form cannot be tolerated.

"Violence in hospitals affect the entire system. If doctors remain sympathetic with patients, tension can be reduced," he said. PTI AG RCJ

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Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy

By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat
At a time when a nation-wide debate is going on over the ban on beef, a district collector in Telangana raised many eyebrows after he openly advocated consumption of beef. A. Murali, collector of Bhoopalapally, said that the dirty Brahminical culture of beef ban was adversely affecting the health of the poor in rural areas.

Addressing a gathering at Eturu Nagaram, a tribal dominated village, on the World Tuberculosis Day on Friday, Murali remarked that the dalits had become physically weak and under-nourished after being forced to stop consuming beef.

He even urged people to hunt wild boars and eat them, and assured them that they would not be booked for killing wild boars for meat. Taking a jibe at various religious vows like Ayyappa Maala Deeksha, Murali said, "After taking these stupid religious vows, people refrain from eating beef and meat. People are taking vows in the name of various gods. All this is waste. I ask the people of our community (dalits) to continue eating beef.

The collector said that some people had complained to him that they were not allowed to eat beef due to restrictions. He assured them that they could eat whatever they wanted to. Beef was the staple food of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the ban was affecting their health, he added.

This is a fact. Eating of beef has been our culture for centuries. We can eat whatever we have been eating to be healthy and fit, he said.

I was told that wild boars are destroying crops in tribal areas. But I am telling you, you can kill these boars and pigs and happily eat their meat. There is no ban on killing wild boars, and the forest department has permitted it. In fact, wild boar meat is a very popular dish in western countries, the collector said at the meeting.

Murali's remarks have drawn sharp reaction from the BJP which demanded his suspension for hurting the sentiments of Hindus, particularly the Brahmins.

The officer later apologised for using the word "Brahminical". I was only advocating consumption of protein-rich food to keep away diseases like TB, he said.
The decade-old Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha (SKP), fuelled by farmers' movement in Karnataka, merged with the Swaraj India on Saturday at a convention held at Freedom Park. Farmer activist and SKP's Melukote MLA K.S. Puttannaiah was declared the first legislator of the Swaraj India.

The merger was formalised in the presence of Swaraj India national president Yogendra Yadav, SKP president and Kannada writer Devanuru Mahadeva and Puttannaiah among others.

It was not a sudden development, say the two parties. The SKP, which had hoped to join hands with the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in 2014 'to change the direction of Indian politics', was left disillusioned with the Kejriwal's party. This time around, the SKP's quest for a like-minded party led to its engagement with the Swaraj Abhiyan, which had triggered simultaneous movements like Jai Kisan Andolan, Y4S (youth for Swaraj), ACT (anti-corruption team), Shiksha Swaraj and Aman committees (communal harmony).

The similarities in the two parties are hard to miss. If the Swaraj Party was an offshoot of the Swaraj Abhiyana movement started by Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Prof. Anand Kumar and many like-minded people hoping to build constructive politics, the SKP originated from the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmers' movement launched in 1980 by stalwarts like Prof M.D. Nanjundaswamy, H.S. Rudrappa and N.D. Sundaresh. While, the Swaraj India has yet to announce its plans to contest the upcoming assembly polls in Karnataka, the SKP has been fielding its candidates since 1994.

Swaraj India will continue to strengthen various regional forces that have been working with dedication to build India that is represented by all the marginalised sections of the country, asserted Yadav.

Yadav also announced the organising committee for the Swaraj India Karnataka, which will comprise Karunakar B.B., Chamarasa Mali Patil, Vasantha Kumar and Chukki Nanjundaswamy (treasurer). Devanur Mahadeva will be a member of the Swaraj India national presidium and Badagalapura Nagendra a national executive member. Puttannaih, who will be a special invitee to the national executive, is also declared the first MLA of Swaraj India.

A 63-year-old farmer activist, Puttannaiah joined the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha in 1983 and served as the president (1991-2012) and acting president of the SKP. He was elected to the Karnataka Assembly from Pandavapura for the first time in 1994. But he later lost three consecutive elections. In the 2013 assembly polls, Puttannaiah won the Melukote seat after defeating JD(S) candidate C.S. Puttaraju with a huge margin of 10,000 votes. He had the support of Karnataka Janata Paksha (a splinter party of the BJP, led by former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa). In the 2008 and 2013 elections, the SKP had put up 21 and six candidates respectively and managed to win one seat in all, while recording a vote percentage of 0.4 per cent and 0.3 per cent (of the total votes polled) respectively.
The activists have accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and the police of filing complaints based on rumours of beef being served at Hotel Hayat Rabbani.

By Rohit Parihar: Human rights activist in Jaipur have slammed the police and BJP leaders for registering complaints against owners and staff of a hotel under the pretext of cow vigilantism. The activists have accused the leaders and the police of filing complaints based on rumours of beef being served at this hotel.

Some cow vigilantes led by one Kamal Didi, president of the Rashtriya Mahilla Gau Rakashak Dal, were rescuing ill and abandoned cows from an open space in Jaipur on March 19 when they spotted two youths throwing some waste. She suspected it to be beef and later alleged that she had been receiving complaints about beef parties being held in Hotel Hayat Rabbani over weekends. However, the hotel owner Naeem Rabbani insisted that it was not cow meat.

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The sample has been sent for forensic test but on the night of March 19, Didi led a mob to the hotel where the staff alleged that some of them were beaten up as police watched.

Kamal said that it was not simply a matter of beef being served, but the stray cows fed on the waste dumped by the hotel staff.

JAIPUR MAYOR TERMED IT BEEF IN A MESSAGE?

People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which alerted the media immediately, insists that Jaipur Mayor Ashok Lahoti sent a message on WhatsApp terming the meat waste as beef even when he had no such evidence. This, PUCL alleged, put police under pressure to lodge a case against the hotel staff and arrest some of them before bailing them out.

The PUCL also alleged that the case against the mob was lodged under bailable sections only whereas the incident had serious dimensions of instigating communal sentiments and orchestrating attack on minorities on hearsay. It has been demanding arrest of Didi and disciplinary action against the police and a case against Lahoti for spreading the rumours.

An issue that has now come to the fore is that the hotel did not have the licence to serve meat but the hotelier said that meat, and not beef, was being cooked (only) for the staff. The local authorities also said that the hotel was dumping waste without following norms but according to PUCL, even other hotels do so.

A serious violence was averted in the incident but this indicates emerging undercurrents of hardening attitude of Hindu organisations.

ALSO READ | Jaipur: Civil rights, political and Muslim organisations protest against cow vigilantism

ALSO READ | Jaipur: Minority community representatives meet police commissioner over cow vigilantism, express concerns

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The passage of the Finance Bill, 2017, along with 40 amendments, including two other laws, have unified the opposition parties who are considering legal recourse against the hurried passage of the Finance Bill and the amendments in the Lok Sabha.

On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha, where the ruling BJP has a majority, had passed all the amendments to Finance Bill, 2017 by voice vote. Notably, the bill was passed after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan allowed Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to make exceptions to parliamentary rules to bring in some of these amendments as part of the Money Bill.

"With the pretext of the Finance Bill, they are mending so many Acts. If these amendments are not part of the Money Bill, it has to go to standing committee and the Rajya Sabha. But they are doing this to avoid threadbare discussions," said N K Premachandran from RSP and an MP from Kollam in Kerala.

On the day of the discussion on Finance Bill amendments, Premachandran stood up in Lok Sabha to oppose Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

"Nowadays, the Finance Bill has become a protective umbrella to make legislations without having a detailed scrutiny in the pretext of Money Bill," Premachandran said during the discussion at the Parliament.

He also invoked parliamentary rules urging the speaker of the house to exclude amendments that involve other laws and are not specific to the Finance Bill.

"The government wants to avoid threadbare discussions before bringing in permanent changes. The rules of proceedings of Lok Sabha are very clear about what could be included in it. I am considering to take legal recourse on this matter and we will discuss this in our party," Premachandran told THE WEEK.

Reacting to the manner in which the finance ministry sought some last minute amendments before discussion on them Lok Sabha chief whip of Biju Janata Dal Bhartruhari Mahtab drew attention of the Speaker, but to no avail. Consequently, he and his party members walked out of the Lok Sabha in protest during the passage of the Finance Bill amendments by voice vote.

"Our issues were about the last minute circulation of these amendments. This did not conform to any rules. The government expects MPs to blindly pass their amendments without doing any discussion," said Mahtab.

"For linking Aadhaar with Income Tax filing, they must amend the Company law first. Then they have opened floodgates for corporate funding to political parties. Removed caps to contribution that were existing or the need to make any revelations to anyone. All these will now create conflicts and result in litigations. The government may have avoided discussion now, but they may have to give explanations to courts later," said Mahtab, adding these litigations will be taken up individually later.

Earlier in 2003, a legislation was passed capping corporate contributions to political parties at five per cent of the average net annual profit of a company. The recent amendment seeks to remove this cap.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) was another party that lodged protest on the Finance Bill amendments this year and staged a walkout from Lok Sabha. TMC is also keen on litigations as the next step.

"All these are now the law. There is not much the party or any members could do about it now. The main objection was on Aadhaar being made mandatory for tax filing purposes. Our government will protest this," said TMC MP Saugata Roy, indicating that the TMC-ruled West Bengal government might approach courts over the amendment.

Apprehensions are also being cast on the powers that the recent Fiance Bill amendments have awarded to taxmen. "It is a very dangerous precedent to give boundless powers for search and seizure. Going ahead, this will result in more tax litigations," said Vincent H Pala, INC MP from Goa.

"Let them pass the amendments here. We will take it to the streets and to the court," said Pala.

Last year, too, the Finance Bill was passed in a similar hurried fashion in the Parliament and senior parliamentarian from INC Jairam Ramesh is known to have filed a litigation in the Supreme Court against the same.

According to Pala, the party could also make a fresh litigation in the court over the passage of Finance Bill amendments made this year, or it could add these to the earlier litigation that is due for hearing shortly by the apex court.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is everyone's hero of the day today. A Facebook post, in which he crushes a troll and defends the disabled, has gone viral.

The Terminator star and ex-governor of California yesterday met competitors at the Special Olympics World Games 2017, which was being held in Austria. He posted a video on Snapchat, where he says that the Paralympics athletes he met inspire him, and shared it on his Facebook page. The video currently has more than 3,76,000 views.

But one insensitive troll made it a point to share his opinion in the comments section of the post. A screenshot of the comment, along with Schwarzenegger's response to it, was posted on Twitter (found on Reddit), with the person's name blotted out.

So inspired by the athletes I'm meeting at Special Olympics World Games 2017 in Austria. Posted by Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday, 23 March 2017

The troll berated the Special Olympics. He said, The Olympics are for the best athletes in the entire world to compete against each other to determine who is the best. Having retards competing is doing the opposite!

To this, Schwarzenegger responded, politely but stingingly, calling it a teachable moment before deleting it. I guarantee you that these athletes have more courage, compassion, brains, skill  actually more of every positive human quality than you, he said, and couldn't have put it into words better.

He gave the troll two choices, either to follow their path and learn from them, and try to challenge yourself, to give back, to add something from the world. The other path, he added, was to keep being a sad, pitiful, jealous internet troll who adds nothing to the world but mocks anyone who does out of small-minded jealousy.

Another reason why I admire @Schwarzenegger. He knows how to CRUSH trolls.  pic.twitter.com/R1m070HKwn  Kyle O'Connor (@KyleThatKyle) March 24, 2017

He ended it with another mic-drop statement: I know what you really want is attention, so let me be clear: if you choose to keep going this way, no one will remember you. Read that in Schwarzenegger's legendary voice and accent and you'd get the real spine-tingling feel of it.

While the troll's comment, which is now deleted, got five likes, Schwarzenegger's on-point response got him more than a hundred likes. On Twitter as well as Facebook, fans and admirers praised him.
The Indian Army is considering replacing 10,000 sahayak jawans with civilians. The soldiers would then be posted at units across India.

By Manjeet Negi: The Indian Army, after consultations with the Defence Ministry, is considering cutting down the numbers of its sahayaks or 'buddies' by 25 percent.

This would translate to around 10,000 jawans as there are currently about 40,000 sahayaks in the Indian Army.

The move would come in the wake of the controversy over the tasks Indian Army sahayaks perform for officers and junior commissioned officers.

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Under the army's 'buddy's system, sahayak jawans are attached to officers and junior commissioned officers. A sahayak's tasks include working with the officer or JCO for army-related duties.

According to top army sources, the 10,000 sahayak jawans will be replaced by civilians. The civilian substitutes will be employed for officers in static formations such as the Army Headquarters or units in the Delhi area and not operational locations like battalions, brigades and division and corps headquarters.

Once their civilian replacements are in the place, the 10,000 sahayak jawans will be moved to army formations across the country.

This is perhaps the first step in the dismantling of the army's sahayak or 'buddy' system. The Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force do not have such a system in place.

The age-old system recently came into the spotlight after a few jawans posted grievance-filled videos on social media. The videos criticised the buddy system, with the soldiers alleging that they were often made to perform menial tasks for the officers whom they were assigned to

ALSO READ:

Buddy no more? Army chief supports restricting 'sahayak' system

Bye bye buddy? Army might replace sahayaks with non-combatant assistants in peace postings

ALSO WATCH:

Another jawan posts video on social media, slams Army's sahayak system

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After more than a year of wrangling, senators announced a bipartisan bill Thursday to impose mandatory sanctions on Iran over its spate of ballistic missile tests and support for a group that President Donald Trump may soon dub a terrorist organization.

The measure from top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee comes despite Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khameneis repeated warnings that expanding sanctions against Iran would jeopardize the nuclear deal struck in 2015  a deal that Trump promised to undo during his presidential campaign.

Leading Democrats resisted an effort last year from Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and high-ranking Democrat Robert Menendez, D-N.J.,  both of whom opposed the Iran deal  to impose similar sanctions over fears that it would put the nuclear deal in a precarious position. The Obama administration also opposed efforts to expand sanctions against Iran, over fears it could adversely affect the controversial deal.

But since before the deal was implemented, members of both parties have clamored for stricter tools to sanction Iran over its repeated ballistic missile tests and the activities of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps. Lawmakers argue the military outfit  which has enormous political influence in Iran  functions as Irans terror-promotion arm, through the training and support it offers other groups like Lebanons Hezbollah, which the United States has already designated as a terrorist organization.

Corker and Menendez tried to tie their sanctions push to a must-pass ten-year extension of existing Iran sanctions, but came up short when Democrats resisted portions of the package they worried could undermine the nuclear deal.

Some of those provisions been left on the cutting room floor in the latest version of the Iran Sanctions legislation, unveiled Thursday.

They include the elimination of a report on the value of the sanctions relief Iran received in exchange for giving up its nuclear program under the pact; a focus on outlawing off-shore, third-party dollar transactions, and language that would have prevented the administration from using its case-by-case national security waiver to enter into any international agreements with Iran. Democrats saw the last piece as antagonistic toward the Obama Administration, even after the fact, said an aide to Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

The aide added that those changes, which Cardin worked to strip from the deal, were critical for getting his boss  and several other Democrats  to sign on to the bill.

Democrats now supporting the legislation includes senators like Menendez and Cardin, who voted against the Iran nuclear deal, but also several senators who supported it, including Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Chris Coons, D-Del., and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.

Its unclear whether these changes will satisfy Tehran that the bill does not jeopardize the nuclear deal. Iran has argued that it has the right to conduct ballistic missile tests under the nuclear deal, which slightly watered down the legal prohibition by U.N. resolutions preventing Tehran from pursuing any nuclear-related activities  such as ballistic missile tests. Under the Iran deal, Iran is simply called upon not to engage in the practice.

Irans leaders have not yet weighed in on the legislation.

Still, the bipartisan deal still has the vigorous support of some of the Senates hardest-line Republicans when it comes to Iran, including Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and James Risch, R-Idaho, in addition to Corker, Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Todd Young, R-Ind. In 2015, all Republicans voted against the Iran deal  and see in Trump a chance to punish Iran for what it counts as infraction of it.

The president has said hes putting Iran on notice, and passing this bill would be an unmistakable sign of resolve, Cotton said in a statement. We will not tolerate Irans pursuit of supremacy in the Middle East or its sponsorship of terrorism, and we will make the regime in Tehran pay a steep price for its dangerous behavior.

(c) 2017, The Washington Post  Karoun Demirjian
Indian Coast Guard ship C-408 seized a Pakistani boat, which had entered the Indian waters, with 9 crew members off Jakhau coast of Kutch district of Gujarat around 1500 hours on March 24, Coast Guard officials said.

By Gopi Maniar Ghanghar : The Indian Coast Guard has apprehended a Pakistani fishing boat along with nine crew members off the Gujarat coast, officials said.

Indian Coast Guard ship C-408 seized a Pakistani boat, which had entered the Indian waters, with 9 crew members off Jakhau coast of Kutch district of Gujarat around 1500 hours on March 24, Coast Guard officials said.

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The fishing boat left the Shah Bunder base port in Pakistan at about 1400 hours on March 23. On sighting the Indian Coast Guard, the Pakistan boat crew members tried to flee.

The Indian Coast Guard ship intercepted the Pakistan boat around 3 pm yesterday.

PAK BOAT CREW BEING INTERROGATED

"The boat and the Pakistani crew members have been brought to Jakhau port and the crew members are being interrogated by the security agencies," they added.

Last month, the BSF had apprehended four abandoned Pakistani fishing boats near Sir Creek in Kutch district on the Indo-Pak border during an extensive search operation in that area.

The Indian Coast Guard has intensified patrolling along the International Maritime Boundary Line shared with Pakistan.

(WITH PTI INPUTS)

Also read | 2 Pakistani boats on way to India; Navy, Coast Guard on alert

Also read | Suspicious Pakistani boat apprehended by Coast Guard off Gujarat

ALSO WATCH

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By Press Trust of India: Kathmandu, Mar 25 (PTI) Indias new envoy to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri today arrived here and would submit his credentials to President Bidya Devi Bhandari tomorrow.

Puri, a 1982 batch IFS officer, was on March 10 appointed as Indias 24th ambassador to Nepal. His predecessor Ranjit Rae completed his three and a half year-tenure on February 28.

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Puri, born in 1959, is scheduled to submit his letters of credence to President Bhandari tomorrow, according to reports.

Before being assigned to Kathmandu mission, he was Indias Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Prior to Brussels, he was Indias Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York from 2009 to 2013. He was also a senior member of Indias Security Council team during the years 2011 and 2012, when India served on the Security Council.

From 2005-09, he headed the United Nations Division in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi dealing with economic and social issues.

In the course of his Foreign Service career, Puri has served twice in Germany (in Bonn from 1984-86 and Berlin from 1991-94). He was the coordinator of the Festival of India in Germany in 1991-92 and established the Indian Cultural Centre in Berlin.

Puri has a Masters degree in Management. He did his BA (Honours) in Economics from St Stephens College in New Delhi. PTI CPS AKJ CPS

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The Government is expected to call for price caps on energy bills  but only for the poorest households.

Its official response to a Competition and Markets Authority report into energy is expected within days and it is tipped to impose a top tariff on bills for those deemed fuel poor.

Energy firms give a rebate to customers who qualify for the Warm Home Discount Scheme if the full cost of heating would push them below the poverty line.

Heat is on: The Government may call for a top tariff on bills for the fuel poor'

The CMA raised the possibility of price caps in its investigation, but has backed away, except for caps on the amount suppliers can charge consumers on pre-payment meters, which come into force next month.

Extending this to consumers who qualify for the Warm Home Discount would allow the Government to claim it was acting to protect the most vulnerable while also maintaining the drive for competition.

But the Government is likely to face accusations that such a move falls short of the Prime Ministers commitment to tackle spiralling energy costs. Theresa May told Tory supporters this month that energy prices had risen by 158 per cent over 15 years, with the poorest hit by the highest tariffs.

She said: It is clear to me, and to anyone who looks at it, that the market is not working as it should.

The CMA report, commissioned in the wake of former Labour leader Ed Milibands call for price caps, was published in June after an 18-month inquiry, but the Government has yet to officially respond to its conclusions.

The Government said it was still considering its response, but energy sources believe there is little doubt it will call for price caps for the vulnerable. This is likely to be matched by further calls for reform in the Governments Green Paper on markets, due this spring.

Sharp price hikes from all the major energy firms except for British Gas, which has said it will freeze its prices till August, have added to pressure on the Government to act.

Last week, SSE raised its electricity prices by 14.9 per cent, adding 73 to the annual bill for 2.8million homes. The average dual-fuel energy bill is about 1,200 a year.

The firms have blamed rising wholesale energy costs and the increased costs of Government-imposed green taxes to subsidise the building of wind and solar power farms. They claim price caps would cut competition and remove the incentive for suppliers to offer low-priced fixed deals.
Diesel cars are a toxic hot topic, causing concern and confusion among millions of drivers who own one.

The arguments have left many motorists confused and the Volkswagen 'dieselgate' emissions scandal has added to the controversy.

Nearly 1.3 million diesel cars were sold in Britain last year - 48 per cent of total sales. But that has dropped.

Air quality: In pollution tests, Jeep's Grand Cherokee fared poorly. Diesel emissions are linked to health problems such as asthma, heart and lung diseases and premature births

In recent weeks:

Academics, environmentalists and doctors have demanded diesels be taken off the road.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a 10 per day 'toxicity tax' - on top of the congestion charge - for diesel cars that are more than a decade old, taking the total to 21.50.

Drivers in Westminster face a 50 per cent diesel surcharge for on-street parking, while Liverpool hopes to ban diesel cars.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond will 'explore the appropriate tax treatment for diesels' ahead of his autumn Budget.

So is it 'RIP diesel'? Not yet, says the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which has warned against the 'anti-diesel agenda'.

ALDI'S NEW BIKER RANGE FOR WOMEN Women bikers on a budget take note. Aldi will launch its first women's motorcycling clothing range on March 30. It includes a safety certified jacket made from a high-tech protective fabric (89.99), matching waterproof trousers with a connecting zip and breathable fabric (69.99) and a 100 per cent merino wool top (24.99), which helps to regulate your body temperature.

So how did we get here and how will it end? Invented by German engineer Rudolf Diesel in 1892, for years, it was an economical workhorse fuel.

By the Nineties, it was encouraged because it produces about 15 per cent lower levels of carbon dioxide  blamed for global warming  than petrol.

Duty on low-sulphur diesel was cut to encourage greater take- up. But there was a fatal flaw.

Older diesel engines  and even some newer ones  spew out a lot more nitrogen oxide, nitrogen dioxide and pollutant particles than petrol engines.

These are linked to health problems such as asthma, heart and lung diseases and premature births.

Many drivers now feel rightly duped. The testing regime is inadequate and will be replaced in September.

Independent tests show wide variations, with the worst performing modern diesel more than 20 times over the nitrogen dioxide limit when tested in real world, on-road driving.

Consumer watchdog Which? analysed 278 diesel cars between 2012 and 2016.

Renault and Jeep were among the biggest air polluters; BMW and Mini were among the best.

If you're driving to France this summer, don't fall foul of new environmental rules.

If you don't display an anti- pollution sticker, costing about 4, you could be hit.

Driving into Paris, Lyon and Grenoble without one will land you a 117 fine.

Buy from the website certificat-air.gouv.fr. It says stickers should be delivered within 30 days, but the RAC reports one took six weeks to arrive.
Road tax is being ramped up by hundreds of pounds for new car purchases from next month. The Mail on Sunday looks at the hike and explores ways to fight back by lowering other motoring costs.

The Government is raising vehicle excise duty that motorists must pay on new cars from April 1

UNDERSTAND COMPLEX NEW ROAD TAX

When the tax disc was scrapped three years ago, the amount of money pocketed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency fell by 93million as drivers began to dodge the tax.

To help make up the shortfall, the Government is raising vehicle excise duty  known as road tax  that motorists must pay on new cars from April 1. For all new vehicles there is a one-off, first-year vehicle excise duty based on the carbon dioxide the exhaust pumps out  calculated on the number of grams of carbon dioxide produced per kilometre of travel.

Those with a pure electric car emit no carbon dioxide so have no first-year emission tax to pay. But owners of Britains best-selling Ford Fiesta car, which emits 104 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, are liable to a 140 first-year bill. Those that cough out 255 or more grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, such as an Aston Martin DB9, get a one-off first year bill of 2,000.

But on top of this, if you buy a brand new petrol or diesel car that costs less than 40,000 from this April, you then also pay a flat rate of 140 a year from the second year. Hybrid vehicles that also run on alternative fuel such as electricity, liquid petroleum gas or hydrogen, will be charged a flat rate of 130 a year from year two.

Motors that emit no carbon dioxide, like electrics, pay nothing.

Buy an expensive vehicle and you are hit with a further premium tax bill. A car with a list price of 40,000 or more  regardless of whether it billows out lots of smoke or not  will be liable to a further 310-a-year surcharge as a premium for five years following the first 12 months of ownership.

It means that even owners of an expensive new all-electric car will be hit with a bill. Drive a top-priced gas-guzzler and you will get a double whammy of the standard 140 a year plus a further 310 from year two until year six  so be forced to pay a total of 450 a year.

Saving: Holly Wedgwood pays no road tax after converting her car to LPG

Older cars are still liable for the same rate of road tax based on emissions as before  at rates that are usually cheaper than the new flat rates introduced. For example, owners of older green vehicles releasing up to 100 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre into the atmosphere will continue to pay nothing.

Among them is actress Holly Wedgwood, 21. She pays no road tax on her Kia Rio car as it kicks out less than 100 grams per kilogram of carbon dioxide  having been converted to also run on liquid petroleum gas.

The conversion cost her 1,500 two years ago, but it saves 100 a month on her fuel bill, so has already paid for itself. Holly says: It cuts the cost of driving in half as gas is cheaper than petrol. I use petrol for turning on the engine and flick a switch for gas power to take over. The gas has a separate tank and I refuel when I see an autogas logo.

The cost for a Ford Fiesta emitting 104 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre bought before April is 20 a year  120 less than the new rate.

Owners of old planet polluters that emit more than 255 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre continue to pay 515 a year. Cars built before 1976 avoid road tax as historic vehicles.

I pay 140 a year to insure my MGB thanks to being in the owners club SAVE MONEY ON YOUR CAR INSURANCE Car insurance rose by an average of 95 last year to a typical 750 for fully comprehensive cover, according to comparison website Confused.com. Worst hit are new 17-year-old drivers, who can pay more than 2,000 for full cover, but even older drivers in their 60s are now paying an average of 450. Value: Linda Turner with her MGB GT A telematics box  a high-tech satellite device that monitors your driving  can slash premiums by 20 per cent. It sits unseen under the dashboard and is often provided and fitted for free. But although it will not inform the police if you break the national speed limit, it can ramp up your premiums if it does not like the way that you drive. Insurers offering black box cover include insurethebox, More Than, Hastings Direct SmartMiles, Sheilas Wheels, WiseDriving and the AA. Specialist motor club memberships can drive down the cost of insurance by about 15 per cent  as they have the bargaining power of a group. Linda Turner, 60, from Royston in Hertfordshire, pays 140 a year for fully comprehensive cover with Lancaster Insurance for her 1979 MGB GT worth 16,000. She says: I get 10 per cent off as a member of The MG Owners Club. Being a club member I also get a professional valuation. This is essential as otherwise the insurer might not give its true worth if the motor was involved in an accident. I have spent thousands on modern conversions, such as electric windows. Proving you are a good driver can also beat down premiums. You can knock more than 100 a year off cover by taking an advanced driving course. Motorists can take a six-hour practical course to improve skills from an approved driving instructor within 12 months of passing a driving exam, paying a total of 150 for a Pass Plus test. The Institute of Advanced Motorists also offers an advanced driving course for 149 recognised by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency for anyone who has passed their test. It is also worth scouring the market to see if you can get a cheaper deal. Comparison websites such as Comparethemarket can do much of the legwork. Fully comprehensive insurance usually works out best value  offering cover against damage to both your vehicle and any other involved in a crash.

HAGGLE BEFORE BUYING A NEW CAR

It is not only road tax that will hit buyers of new cars  the cost of Brexit has raised the price of vehicles by an average of 5 per cent in the last year.

This is because the value of the pound fell following the decision to quit Europe. This has led to a higher cost for importing cars and of raw materials used for manufacture  even when made in Britain. But by mastering the art of haggling, you might be able to knock 10 per cent or more off the list price.

You can check out the cheapest prices on offer using websites such as What Car? This service not only offers vehicle reviews but also a so-called target price to pay. You should be able to beat the advertised list price that is the full cost of a car.

Already discounted cars are worth targeting  and at this time of year there may be a glut of vehicles that sales staff are struggling to shift after an initial rush for March registration plates. But on top of this, look for extras to be thrown in to seal the deal, such as trim, upgraded stereos or sat-navs.

If you are intimidated by the prospect of being talked into a sale, take along a charming but tough negotiating friend or family member for the haggle. After initial sales talks, walk away without shaking hands and visit a competitor. It forces the seller to do the chasing. Playing one dealership off against another can also strengthen your hand.

The face-to-face appeal of a local trader is not to be underestimated, but online brokers such as Carfile, DriveTheDeal and Broadspeed are also worth looking at as they might undercut prices.

If you are getting rid of your old car at the same time, you usually get more money by selling it privately  using websites such as Autotrader and PistonHeads  than in a part-exchange at the garage.

PAY FOR A SECOND-HAND INSPECTION

When you consider that a brand new motor costing 20,000 depreciates the moment it is driven off the forecourt  and might be worth just 12,000 after only one year  buying second-hand can make sense.

As buying an older vehicle is fraught with danger for those who are not a car expert, it is worth paying a professional to check a prospective purchase.

Local garages will often offer their assistance for a private sale and charge between 100 and 250 for a full check of a motor.

You can also pay motoring organisations such as the RAC or AA for an inspection, which will charge a similar fee. Checks to be made include a thorough look at the bodywork, including signs of any crash damage repair, oil and engine leaks, electrics and that the mileage is genuine using tell-tale signs of wear.

Take it for a spin to make sure the gearbox, brakes, steering and handling all feel good. Listen out for knocking noises from the engine as this could mean a repair bill of hundreds of pounds.

It is also important to check the paperwork. This includes reading the V5C registration certificate. Ask for details of previous owners and any work done on the car. Ensure the person selling is the one named. You can contact the DVLA on 0300 790 6802 to check that the colour of the car, engine size and registration all match up if you are concerned.

Ideally, you will also have a service history with copies of receipts for maintenance work. Make sure to check the current MOT certificate and any advisory note, such as if the tyres are getting worn.

If you have a specific model of car in mind, then websites such as Parkers can provide a guide on prices. It even has a free car valuation by number plate facility to give you a rough idea if you have a specific car in mind. Buying blind off an auction website such as eBay is a gamble. You expect to pay more with a dealership but if it includes a guarantee against faults for the first few months it is excellent value.

Purchasing through a dealership should also give you protection under The Consumer Rights Act 2015 that what you purchased was as described, of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose.

You have 30 days after purchase to make a claim for a refund and after this period you can ask for a repair if it can be proved the fault was there when it was bought  and you should make the claim of fault within six months.
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.

M.M. writes: My wife and I have a problem with our bank, NatWest, which has placed our account into default despite an agreed repayment plan for us to clear the balance due. I am a qualified accountant and I only discovered this problem when I visited a different bank with a friend to help open a business account for his new company. The bank did a credit check on me and refused to proceed because of the default recorded on my credit file.

You have been completely open with me about the fact that you owe money to NatWest, which you are paying off by agreed instalments. You have not broken that agreement and you received no warning that the bank had placed a default notice on your credit agency file.

Mix-up: NatWest recorded a default despite a plan to repay debt

When you protested to NatWest, you say you were told that it had handed over the management of a number of similar accounts to a debt collection agency and that registering those accounts as defaulted was just part of that process. This was despite the fact that neither the bank nor the debt collectors claimed you had actually defaulted.

I asked NatWest to look into this and a spokesman assured me: My colleagues in the complaints department have spoken to Mr M and explained that no default has been recorded by the bank on his credit file.

According to NatWest, a member of the banks own staff had simply got it wrong and had mistakenly told you that a default had been registered against your name. There was no default and no such record and NatWest said it would offer you 50 by way of saying sorry for the unnecessary upset. So far, so good  except that the staff member turned out to be right and it was NatWest itself that was wrong.

I have seen your file with the Experian credit agency. As well as your name, address and date of birth there was an entry from NatWest showing a current account labelled Status: Default, with 2,425 owed by you. Your credit rating was shown as very poor.

Worse still, Experian asked NatWest to double check the entry and the bank confirmed it was accurate. Armed with all this, I went back to NatWest. This time I was told: Putting customers first is our main priority. Unfortunately in this case we made a mistake. We have since done everything we can to put it right.

Your credit record has been cleaned up and the bank has offered 150 compensation, which you have accepted. But given your profession and the damage that could be done to your reputation, I think NatWest has got off pretty lightly.

Ryanair wrangle cost me 622

G.C. writes: I was tasked with organising my friends stag do in Krakow. I booked flights with Ryanair, but when I attempted to check in online, I could not find the bookings. I rang Ryanair and was told there were no bookings for either of us. The outward flight was full so I had to book that leg with easyJet for 622 and the return leg with Ryanair. Just before we flew, I received an email from Ryanair saying I should check in urgently for the outward flight. It turned out we had been booked all along.

Refunds: Ryanair only accepted to refund part of the money

Ryanair refunded you for the duplicated booking on the return flight, but refused to cover the cost of what turned out to be your unnecessary booking with easyJet for the outward leg. This leaves you 622 out of pocket, even though you feel Ryanair has accepted it was at fault by giving back the cost of the return flights.

Ryanair even apologised, assuring you that your comments have been sent to our call centre manager so this kind of situation will not be repeated. But crushingly, it added that we regret we are not liable for any other airline expense incurred.

I asked Ryanair to look in to this, but the airline told me it has no record of the call in which you say you were informed there were no bookings. It asked for the name of the customer service person who told you this  though how many call centre staff give their full name and who would ever keep a record of it? In short, this is stalemate, though I think if I book with Ryanair myself, Ill tape any calls I have to make.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
Crux issue: Richard Pease has a zest for making investors richer

Fund boss Richard Pease has spent more than 30 years running investment portfolios for leading City asset managers.

Though now 58 and financially comfortable beyond reason, he has lost none of his zest for making investors richer. He still enjoys unearthing companies that go on to do great things.

Retirement, he says, is out of the question: As long as I am useful, I will continue. I love my job. If I did not, I would have got out a long time ago.

After spells at investment managers Jupiter, New Star and Henderson, he is now the linchpin of Crux Asset Management.

London-based Crux is the new kid on the investment block. Not yet three years old and 100 per cent owned by its 17 staff, it manages funds of 1.6billion.

The recent purchase of Oriel Asset Management brought 95million of new money under its wing. But it is the 1billion of assets that Pease took with him from Henderson in 2015  in the shape of the Henderson European Special Situations fund  that gives Crux its pulse.

That is now the 1.3billion Crux European Special Situations fund and Pease manages it with James Milne, an old Henderson colleague. The duo also run Crux European, which has a number of common holdings but a greater bias towards bigger stocks.

It would be odd if there was not crossover, he says. The common stocks are companies we believe in passionately. They include chemicals maker Sika and drugs giant Novartis, both Swiss, and Finnish financial firm Sampo.

Aurelius, a German quoted private equity business, is another. It is the biggest holding in Special Situations and the fifth largest in the European fund.

Unlike the European fund, Special Situations has a tail of smaller firm holdings

Pease says: Dick Marcus, chief executive at Aurelius, has a great record turning round distressed companies. He then generates strong revenues from them, selling them on for a sizeable profit when the chance arises.

Aureliuss success stories include Secop, which makes compressors for refrigerators. Bought six years ago, it is now poised to be sold at a vast profit. It has also revitalised stationery supplier Office Depot.

Aurelius shares trade around 60 (51.60), says Pease, but they have been paying a dividend of around 6. That is an attractive income. With Marcuss Midas touch, it explains why Aurelius is one of our favourite holdings.

Unlike the European fund, Special Situations has a tail of smaller firm holdings. It includes a recent holding in AIM listed IQE, which has a global reputation for its semiconductor wafer products. I went to see the management in Cardiff, says Pease, and was impressed. I was introduced to the world of layering, which enables yet more information to be stored on a semiconductor chip.

The funds rules allow it to hold a maximum five per cent of its assets in UK listed firms. Pease  whose wife Victoria recently wrote the City bonk buster Playing FTSE under a pseudonym  continues to get investment results.

European Special Situations is among the top performers in its sector over the past five years.

I have no idea how the political situation will pan out across Europe, he says.

But I do know there are plenty of firms that will continue to generate lots of cash and revenue. Businesses that will generate returns for investors in both our European funds.
Victoria is Britains largest carpet maker, with customers including the Queen, Harrods and the Chelsea Flower Show. The firm provided the red carpet for the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011 and those used in the James Bond movie Spectre.

Midas tipped the firm last March at 1377p. In September, the group did a one-for-five share split, so investors received five new shares for each old one. The stock is now 438p, equivalent to 2192p before the split.

The 59 per cent rise follows an action-packed year for Victoria, but chairman Geoff Wilding remains ambitious and the shares should continue to gain ground.

Prestige: The company made the red carpet used at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011

The industry is dotted with small, family-owned firms so, even though Victoria is the largest in the UK, it still has only a 7 per cent share of the flooring market and plenty of potential to grow via acquisition.

Last year, the firm bought Bradford-based underlay maker Ezi Floor, but last month, it also acquired Dunlop Flooring in Australia and two artificial grass makers in Holland.

The overseas deals are part of a well-planned strategy. Victoria has a sizeable arm in Australia, generating almost 30 per cent of group profits, so the Dunlop deal was a neat addition to the firm. Wilding is also very keen to expand in continental Europe, where the flooring market is valued at more than 60 billion, triple that of Britain.

Victoria has come a long way since Wilding took the chair in 2013, but provided the European venture succeeds, the company should continue to do well.

Reassuringly, the European industry is similar to the UKs, in that there are thousands of small firms, many keen to sell out. Victoria is picky about acquisitions, only buying firms that are profitable, growing, well invested and run by committed managers. But there are enough of those to furnish a steady acquisition strategy.

Wilding has also appointed a chief executive, Philippe Hamers, a Belgian with more than 25 years experience in the flooring industry. He will focus on the day-to-day running of the business, leaving Wilding to look for rewarding acquisitions.

Brokers expect revenues up 25 per cent to 318million this year, with profits soaring 55 per cent to 28million.

Midas verdict: Consumer spending may come under pressure this year but Victoria operates at the higher end of the market, which tends to be more resilient. The move into Europe should also drive growth, while the Australian business is booming.

Nervous shareholders may choose to sell half their stock to bank some profits, but they should keep the rest. Wilding is highly committed, owning 33 per cent of the stock himself, and takes a relatively modest annual salary. Despite the strong performance, new investors could still find rewards.
Thousands of major stores are shutting down in the United States  triggering fears of a wave of closures on this side of the Atlantic.

One of the biggest waves of store closures in decades looks set to leave malls across America empty as shoppers go online rather than into bricks-and-mortar stores.

It is feared that the so-called 'retail apocalypse' in the US will spread to Britain as traditional retailers struggle to deal with the rise of internet shopping.

Next this week reported its first fall in annual profits in eight years  and even cast doubt over the future of the UK High Street.

The fashion chain's chief executive Lord Wolfson said it was 'legitimate to question the long-term viability of retail stores and whether the possession of a retail portfolio is an asset or a liability'.

Warning he was 'extremely cautious' about the year ahead, he also noted a shift in spending away from 'things' such as clothes and accessories towards 'experiences' such as eating out and travelling.

Independent retail analyst Richard Hyman said: 'The growth of online shopping is having a huge impact on retailing in the UK and we are going to see lots of stores shutting. It is inevitable.

'What we will see is something starting to give as this year unfolds,' he said, but added that the battle for survival on the High Street will keep prices down.

Stores 'will not be able to make price rises stick because customers won't have it,' he said.

In the US, department stores JC Penney, Macy's, Sears and Kmart plan to shut stores along with chains Crocs, Abercrombie & Fitch and Guess.

Analysis by Business Insider shows more than 3,500 mall-based stores are expected to close in the next couple of months.

Discount shoe retailer Payless looks set to shut around 1,000 shops as it wrestles with unsustainable levels of debt.

Texas-based electronics giant RadioShack is closing more than 550 stores while foam clog-maker Crocs is shutting 160 sites and fashion chain American Apparel 110.

Even America's famous department store chains JC Penney, Macy's and Sears are closing nearly 250 sites between them.

The closure of so many stores could force shopping malls to shut down as well  particularly if anchor chains such as Sears or Macy's disappear.

And high streets and shopping centres in Britain are also feeling the pain.

A number of chains have gone under recently including BHS which collapsed last year after being sold by Sir Philip Green for just 1  and Austin Reed.

The malaise has continued this year with racy underwear chain Agent Provocateur and shoe shop Jones The Bootmaker among those fighting for survival. Footwear retailer Brantano collapsed into administration this week, putting more than 1,000 jobs at risk.

The British Retail Consortium has warned that the retail sector is facing up to 900,000 job losses and the closure of thousands of shops in the next decade.

The trade association blamed 'the structural change in the industry' as shoppers go online.

'The pace of change is quickening as the digital revolution reshapes the industry and the costs of labour versus technology diverge,' a BRC spokesman said.
Co-op bank was put up for sale last month

The Co-op Bank has sought to reassure markets it can find a buyer as speculation about its future reaches fever pitch.

Bosses put the battered lender up for sale last month as part of a desperate bid to boost its cash reserves following years of losses after an accounting scandal.

Since then traders have ditched its bonds in a sign they are concerned a rescue might be launched, which would put creditors' money at risk.

Yesterday, the bank moved to quell gossip that a sale would not happen.

It said several possible buyers had come forward and have been asked to submit expressions of interest by mid-April.

If the sale fails, the bank will seek to raise 750million from investors to plug a funding shortfall.
Repeat prescription: Ian McNeice, as Bert, earns residual fees from the show

The actor Ian McNeice believes investing in a pension at 60 was the best financial decision he ever made.

McNeice, who is currently in Cornwall filming the eighth series of Doc Martin for ITV, confesses he has not always handled his money wisely, running up credit card debts and struggling to pay his tax bill when he was younger.

Now 66, he is finally in the black and  thanks to his role as Bert Large on the popular television series  earning more money than he has ever earned before.

He lives in Brentford, West London, with his partner Cindy Franke and is this month supporting Marie Curie, the charity that supports people with terminal illnesses, by urging everyone to wear daffodil pins and donate to The Great Daffodil Appeal via mariecurie.org.uk/daffodil.

What did your parents teach you about money?

To not forget my roots. My parents came from working-class backgrounds and grew up in fairly poor circumstances in Blackpool. My father started his career as a travelling salesman for the American drug company Eli Lilly, and managed to rise through the ranks to become one of the managing directors.

It had always been his intention to send me to public school, which he did, when I was 11. I didnt want to go, but he thought it would be the making of me. I went to Taunton school, where I was surrounded by children much wealthier than me. My father tried to drill into me that rather than being grand about money, I should be careful with it.

Did you feel well off as a child?

Yes. I was quite spoilt really. Whatever I wanted, I got. My mother was a stay-at-home mum and I remember being well looked after. My elder brother died following a road accident when he was 11 and I was about seven. So it just became me, then. One of the reasons my father sent me away to school was because he was concerned that if Id stayed at home my mother would be too interested in making sure I was OK. He didnt want me being mollycoddled.

How much pocket money did you get as a child?

It was probably the equivalent of 50p or 1 a week today. Id spend it on sherbet dips.

What was the first paid work you ever did?

Packing drugs in the summer holidays at my fathers firm when I was 15. I was paid 10 a week. It was really hard work and everyone was well aware I was one of the bosses kids, so I felt I had to do well.

Martin Clunes as Doc Martin

What was your first full-time job?

Assistant stage manager at the Salisbury Playhouse, in 1968, for 2 a week. My first task was mucking out the coalhouse at the back of the theatre for the ponies in Cinderella. I told myself: Yes, Im shovelling s***, but Im shovelling s*** in the theatre. I can only go up from here. My father subsidised my wages with an allowance of 15 a week, which was a terrific amount of money in those days.

Have you ever been paid silly money per hour for a job?

I did a strange commercial for McDonalds in the 1980s, in which I played the hunchback of Notre Dame and rang bells for my loved one, while craving a McDonalds hamburger. We shot it in Paris over two days, and I was paid 5,000 in cash. I remember holding this wad of money  the equivalent of at least 12,000 today  and thinking it was ridiculous.

What was the best year of your life, in terms of the money you made?

It was 2014. I paid the highest rate of income tax that year: 45 per cent, which is levied on earnings above 150,000. The last two or three years have also been good. Doc Martin is hugely popular and I get residual fees from the repeats of the show, which are a percentage of what I originally earned. Its certainly lucrative. With the residuals from Doc Martin and other shows it was a bumper year.

Whats the most expensive thing youve ever bought yourself, just for fun?

A black Mini Cooper convertible bought second-hand for 14,000.

Treat: Ian spent 14,000 on a second-hand Mini

What is the biggest money mistake you have ever made?

Letting a firm claim back my mis-sold payment protection insurance instead of doing it myself. I got a nice windfall of maybe 14,000 but 6,000 went in fees. I dont think my father succeeded in teaching me to be careful with money. As soon as it comes in, it goes out again. There have been years when Ive had to plead with the taxman to let me roll over some of what I owed to the following year, or ask my agent to advance me fees for my TV work.

At one point, I maxed out five or six credit cards. Im not good with money. In fact, Im hopeless.

>Learn how to claim back PPI yourself for FREE using our step by step guide and letter template

And your best money decision?

Investing in an AXA Wealth pension fund, on the advice of my financial adviser, Tim Davies of Langham Financial. I started putting in 1,000 a month about seven years ago and it is now worth 150,000. That was a pleasant surprise.

Another good decision was to delay claiming my state pension while Im still working, which means Ill get more when I finally take it. Having these retirement pots has given me terrific peace of mind.

Do you own any property?

Taxi: Ian spends 60 to 70 a week on Uber

Yes, I have my home, a two-bedroom new-build flat by the lock in Brentford. I bought it for 300,000 six years ago and it was valued a year or two ago at 460,000. I had a farmhouse in the Cotswolds, in Broad Campden, where I brought up my children. That was sold after I split up with my wife, the actress Kate Nicholls.

How much cash do you typically carry?

Usually 150 to 200.

Do you pay off all of your credit cards in full?

For years, I didnt, and ran up quite a debt, but Ive got them all down to zero now.

>Skip to this is Money's round-up of the best credit cards

Whats the one little luxury that you like to treat yourself to?

An Uber minicab. Ive got arthritis in my knees so Ive stopped using public transport and Uber everywhere I can at a cost of 60 to 70 a week. I also have every conceivable device Apple has made. I buy whatever they bring out within a matter of moments.

If you were Chancellor of the Exchequer, what would be the first thing you would do?

I would make it easier and more tax-efficient to save in to a pension, and try to make people more aware of how important it is to do so. Id also increase the state pension.

Do you think it is important to give to charity?

Yes. I always ask people who want a photograph to put 1 towards my favourite charity. In just the last couple of years, Ive collected almost 5,000. I support Marie Curie because the work its nurses do for terminally ill people and their loved ones in their own homes and hospices is so important.

What is your number one financial priority?

To make sure that when I die, my children will get a little nest egg. I guess that follows on from what my own father did for me.

Ian McNeice was talking to Donna Ferguson
The bomber blew the explosives tied to his waist at a police outpost at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. He could not be identified immediately and no other person was injured in the bombing.

By Press Trust of India: A suicide bomber on Friday night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by Islamic State terrorist group, a week after a similar attack on a camp of Bangladesh's elite Rapid Action Battalion nearby.

The bomber, wearing jeans and shirt, was said to be in his early 30s. He blew the explosives tied to his waist at a police outpost at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

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The attacker could not be identified immediately and no other person was injured in the bombing.

ATTACKER CARRIED THREE MORE BOMBS

Police said he was carrying a trolley bag filled with three more bombs, detonated in a controlled-explosion later by a bomb disposal unit during which five people, including a policeman, were wounded.

"The man exploded a bomb in front of the police post and killed himself," a senior police officer told reporters.

Dhaka's police commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia told newsmen that the police vigil at the airport prompted the militant to commit suicide before he could attack the outpost.

According to a report on Bdnews24.com, the attacker triggered the bomb apparently in an attempt to target the security personnel present at the entrance of the airport.

BANGLADESH DISMISSED PREVIOUS IS CLAIMS AS WELL

Hours later the Islamic State group claimed responsibility through its propaganda news agency Amaq. It said the attack "targeted a Bangladeshi police checkpoint near the international airport in the city of Dhaka."

Bangladesh, however, has dismissed several previous IS claims, saying no foreign terrorist group has presence in the country.

According to a report on Bdnews24.com, the attacker triggered the bomb apparently in an attempt to target the security personnel present at the entrance of the airport.

Armed Police Battalion Assistant Commissioner Tanzila Akter told reporters the incident took place around 7 pm.

SIMILAR ATTACK ON RAB CAMP ON MARCH 17

The attack comes after a similar attack on a RAB camp nearby on March 17. Security had been tightened at airports and prisons across Bangladesh after the attack. A suspected suicide attacker was shot dead at a RAB check post in Khilgaon the following day.

The attack at the airport came on a day army commandos were called out to launch an assault at a militant hideout in northeastern Sylhet city. The elite police units have laid a siege to a five-storey building there since Thursday.

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Security officials said they were preparing to take out the militants, holding up with a huge cache of explosives, and who were believed to be operatives of the homegrown neo-JMB, a group inclined to the Islamic State. It was behind the July 1 terror attack on a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people, including an Indian teen, were killed.

ALSO READ | Suicide bomber blows himself up near RAB camp in Dhaka's Ashkona

ALSO READ | ISIS will meet al-Qaeda's fate in India, it will flop: Union Minister MA Naqvi to India Today

ALSO WATCH | ISIS letter recovered from Varanasi warns of attack in eastern Uttar Pradesh

--- ENDS ---
Britain's nuclear ambitions were thrown into doubt last night amid fears that a change of control at Moorside could set the project back by years.

The Cumbrian plant is one of the UKs three key nuclear power projects, alongside Hinkley Point and Sizewell.

It is to be built by NuGen, a firm 60 per cent owned by Toshiba, which will also supply the three reactors through its subsidiary Westinghouse.

On hold: An artists impression of the Moorside plant, at Sellafield

But the Japanese company has been dogged by concerns over its financial stability. And speculation is growing that US-based Westinghouse will trigger bankruptcy protection rules within days to restructure.

South Koreas Kepco last week signalled it may step in to rescue the Moorside plant. But local campaigners say that if Kepco scraps plans to use Westinghouse reactors in favour of its own, the power station would be unlikely to be switched on until after 2030.

Martin Forwood of Core, which opposes further nuclear development in the Sellafield area, said: Why would Kepco or any other new sponsor take on someone elses reactors?

NuGens target of a 2024 launch has already slipped by more than two years. Forwood said the approval process for new reactors would further delay it by four or five years.

He said more delays may continue to discourage other businesses, adding: West Cumbria has vast potential for renewable energy  wind, wave and tidal power  that we can start building today.
The savings crisis across the UK was laid bare today by figures showing that a significant minority of British adults have virtually no savings.

A House of Lords committee revealed that 40 per cent of the working-age population held than 100 in savings.

Financial advisers typically recommend that workers maintain a rainy day accessible savings pot of 2-3 months' wages - on top of spending money, and any pension or other investments.

Savings, what savings? A House of Lords committee revealed that 40 per cent of the working-age population held than 100 in savings.

At the estimated UK average salary of 27,000, that would be 4,500 to 6,750.

But many British households struggling with a combination of soaring housing costs, rising shop prices and stagnating wages, would consider such a savings cushion an exceptional luxury.

The Lords Financial Exclusion Committee also condemned the 'scandal' of the poorest people being excluded from basic financial services - with more than 1.7million people in the UK having no bank account.

The committee said estimates suggest at least 600,000 older people are financially excluded while 51 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds regularly worry about money.

It highlighted the problem of the 'poverty premium' which means those who can least afford it often end up paying the most to borrow money - in many cases because their choice of options is limited and costly.

It said that while a recent clampdown on the payday loans industry, which included a cap on charges, has been effective, similar restrictions should be introduced for other types of high-cost credit.

Urgent action is needed for new controls on 'rent to own' products and unarranged overdraft fees, peers said.

The committee said the Financial Conduct Authority remit should be broadened to give priority to tackling financial exclusion.

Depressing: The committee said estimates suggest at least 600,000 older people are financially excluded while 51 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds regularly worry about money.

New rules should be introduced requiring banks to have a duty of care to customers, it said. The Government should also appoint a Minister for Financial Inclusion and report annually to Parliament on progress made towards tackling the problem.

The committee said the Government, the FCA and banks should 'end the scandal of the poorest being excluded from even basic financial services and forced to rely on expensive and substandard products'.

Baroness Tyler of Enfield, chairwoman of the Financial Exclusion Committee, said: 'The UK financial services sector is a world leader which makes it doubly unacceptable that it is failing those who need it most.

'Too many people still have no bank account or cannot get access to basic or fairly-priced financial services. The poverty premium - where the poor pay more for a range of services from heating their home to accessing credit - contributes to a vicious circle driving people ever deeper into debt and distress.'

Baroness Tyler said disabled customers are being failed by banks, adding: 'We have heard of banks contacting deaf people by phone and sending written Pin numbers to blind people instead of using braille.

'Banks must review their own practices toward disabled customers to ensure they are making the reasonable adjustments already required of them by law. It is totally unacceptable that this situation persists, over 20 years after the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act.'

The report also highlighted an 'accelerating trend' for banks to focus on online services at the expense of their branch network, potentially excluding older people and others who lack access to the internet. It said 53 per cent of UK bank branches closed between 1989 and 2016.

More financial education could also help to reduce financial exclusion, the committee said. It said financial education should be introduced to the English primary school curriculum and Ofsted should assess the extent to which schools provide young people with financial knowledge and skills.

The Post Office has more physical outlets than the high street banks combined, and can offer banking services for 99 per cent of current account customers in the UK. But awareness of this service is low and a publicity campaign should address this, the committee said.

Consumer group Which? has also urged action over 'punitive' unarranged overdraft charges. A recent investigation by Which? found that borrowers needing as little as 100 could be charged up to 156 more by their bank than it would cost at a payday lender.

The FCA recently announced plans to put the high-cost credit sector under the spotlight.
The Government is about to launch a reform of tax breaks aimed at helping entrepreneurs in a bid to focus the benefits on growing companies and curb their use by property investors.

While there were no changes to tax-efficient investing in this months Budget, a patient capital review was announced by the Chancellor, Philip Hammond.

The review is expected to begin in May and will include the Enterprise Investment Scheme, which gives tax breaks of 30 per cent on investment in private companies, with reforms likely to be introduced in the autumn Budget.

Tax breaks: The review announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond is expected to begin in May

Kealan Doyle, chief executive of Symvan Capital, an investment fund manager dedicated to small and medium-sized technology firms, said Treasury officials had indicated a review was imminent.

Doyle, who has attended visits to the Treasury, said they were quite clear that not all sectors would be treated equally, and that they were very pleased with how effective they believe EIS has been in generating investment into growth sectors such as technology.

He added: At that visit, they also confirmed that EIS will be included as part of a review and a consultation will take place in May 2017 with a view to making recommendations which will then be announced at the 2017 autumn Budget.

This months Budget said: The review aims to ensure that high growth businesses can access the long-term capital that they need to fund productivity enhancing investment. Alongside identifying barriers to institutional investment in long-term finance, the review will also consider existing tax reliefs aimed at encouraging investment and entrepreneurship to make sure that they are effective, well targeted, and provide value for money.

Doyle said he believed there would be greater efforts to focus the EIS and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme on growth companies and not property investments.

The two schemes are designed to help smaller higher-risk trading companies to raise finance by offering a range of tax reliefs to investors who buy new shares in those companies.

Doyle said: The market for a long time has been focusing on the wealth management community, which is primarily buying these products as an asset-backed play, but the Treasury want it more for enterprise.

People like us, I think, are doing what EIS was designed for, because EIS goes back to [former Prime Minister] John Majors days. Theres a lot of people in the market who say give me 100 and in five years Ill give you 100 or 105 back. Would you invest in that if there were not tax breaks? The answer I think plainly is no, you wouldnt. So our philosophy is more like a California venture capital approach.

Octopus Investments, the largest manager of investments using EIS, pulled out of the market last year.

Crowdfunding platform Seedrs has predicted: We expect SEIS and EIS to be sticking around, especially with the Government striving to maintain interest in British businesses post-Brexit.

The EIS was introduced in 1994. A recent report from the Treasury said almost 80 per cent of EIS investors considered income tax relief to be a key driver when considering investment. Six in ten firms believed investment in them was either unlikely without EIS tax reliefs available to their investors.
A red alert has been sounded in Jammu city after the Personal Security Officer (PSO) of Maulana Syed Athar Dehlavi, a Delhi-based Muslim cleric, was attacked

The officer was admitted to the Government Medical College and Hospital. He had to receive 8 to 19 stitches on his head.

By India Today Web Desk: A red alert has been sounded in Jammu city after the Personal Security Officer (PSO) of Maulana Syed Athar Dehlavi, a Delhi-based Muslim cleric and the chairman of Anjuman Minhaje Rasool, was attacked with chilli powder.

The officer's assault rifled was snatched, in the first such case in the last two decades.

Police said four youths attacked Mohammed Hanief, a selection grade constable of the security wing, near Mandir Masjid Point in Jammu's Dogra Chowk.

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All four suspects are from Kashmir's Shopian district, they said.

CHILLI POWDER ATTACK

The youths threw red chilli powder in Hanief's eyes when he was on his way to his residence, after dropping the cleric at the state guest house on Canal Road. They also hit him.

The youths threw red chilli powder in Hanief's eyes when he was on his way to his residence. The youths threw red chilli powder in Hanief's eyes when he was on his way to his residence.

The officer was admitted to the Government Medical College and Hospital. He had to receive 8 to 19 stitches on his head.

Two of the suspects, Masood Ahmed Malik and Shahid are being interrogated, police said, whereas a manhunt has been launched to nab the other two- Asif and Amir.

The police is yet to recover the AK-47 rifle of PSO Mohammed Hanief.

All nakkas have been alerted and asked to check all outgoing vehicles, keeping in mind the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the city on April 2.

The PM will visit Jammu for the inauguration of the Chennani-Nashri tunnel.

ALSO READ | Jammu and Kashmir says goodbye to deployment of teachers for poll duties

Gilgit-Baltistan: Story of how region 6 times the size of PoK passed on to Pakistan

ALSO WATCH | British Parliament condemns Pakistan's move over Gilgit-Baltistan

--- ENDS ---
The decision has been hailed by the teachers' community and the parents in equal measure in the state which is to go for bypolls for the parliament seats next month.

By Shuja-ul-Haq : The Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to say goodbye to the practice of asking government teachers to be part of election duties.

The move which has come as a sigh of relief is aimed at ensuring that the education system doesn't suffer and get distracted.

While announcing this, Education Minister Altaf Bukhari said, "We want to provide teachers a congenial atmosphere and minimize disruption of academic activities. After brainstorming and thorough deliberations, it has been felt that teachers should be allowed to concentrate on their primary goal of imparting education and for that they should be relieved of all other duties".

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The decision has been hailed by the teachers' community and the parents in equal measure.

Most of the people have been complaining about this in the past. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has taken a lead in this direction.

This will infuse a fresh lease of life into Jammu and Kashmir's otherwise derailed education system. "Exempting us from all non-academic assignments including election duties to help them focus on their prime task of teaching is a great step. We all are welcoming it", said a teacher.

Next month the state will go for bypolls for the parliament seats in Srinagar and Anantnag.

Also Read:

Kashmir: Security clampdown on separatists ahead of next month's Parliamentary by-polls

NC-Congress opt for seat-sharing in Jammu and Kashmir for Parliament by-polls

--- ENDS ---
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By Patrick Donachie

JAMAICA  The NYPD was seeking a man who shot through the window of a Jamaica home Saturday evening, striking a woman in her right leg.

The incident occurred at about 11:20 p.m. near the corner of 171st Street and 105th Avenue. A 27-year-old woman was asleep in her home when a bullet struck her in her right leg, according to police. The NYPD responded and found a surveillance video which displayed an unknown individual shooting at the residence and then fleeing in an unknown direction, according to the NYPD. Police described him as wearing a gray hoodie, gray pants and black sneakers, and released the surveillance video to the public.
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By Patrick Donachie

State Sen. James Sanders (D-Far Rockaway) will be holding a symposium detailing the struggles and challenges facing women in the business world in honor of Womens History Month.

The event, which will be held at the American Legion Hall at 240-08 135th Ave. in Rosedale Sunday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., is a celebration of entrepreneurs, and the invitation is open to all who would be interested in learning more about business opportunities. The symposium is intended to serve as a source of information as well as an opportunity for business people in southeastern Queens to network with successful women from the community.

Panelists include Rhonda Binda, the executive director for the Jamaica Center Business Improvement District; Lourdes Zapata, the director of the Empire State Development; Julia Blair, director and owner of the JMB Training Schools Inc.; and Jessica Ormeno, the director of the Womens Business Center at the Queens Economic Development Corporation.

Anyone interested in learning more about the program or to RSVP can contact Sanders office for more information by calling (718) 523-3069 or e-mailing sande rs@ny senat e.gov .
It is a direct contest between the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party in the upcoming MCD polls in Delhi as Amit Shah lashed out at Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. The Congress seems to be out of contention. The BJP is ruling the MCD for two terms while AAP runs the government in Delhi. BJP chief Amit Shah

By India Today Web Desk: The BJP president Amit Shah launched a blistering attack on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as he addressed his party workers ahead of the MCD elections.

Amit Shah slammed AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accusing him of neglecting his duties in the national capital city.

Amit Shah said, "(Arvind) Kejriwal made promises to the people of Delhi but after the (Assembly) election, he was seen at Goa and Punjab but not in this city. He has created a record of losing everywhere he went from Delhi."

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AMIT SHAH ADDRESSES BJP WORKERS: 10 THINGS TO KNOW Eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi civic polls, BJP chief Amit Shah today alleged that corruption has flourished under the Kejriwal government and people must teach it a lesson. Addressing BJP workers ahead of the MCD elections, Shah referred to party's victories in the recent assembly polls and said a win the civic elections will help catapult the party to power in the national capital. Pointing to an India map near the dais, Shah said while the country is being painted in "saffron", Delhi continues to remain a "white spot" and asked the party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the civic polls. "After 2014, BJP has won nearly everywhere, except Delhi and Bihar. Today BJP workers will go back with a resolve to plug the gaps and so that the BJP's victory flag is unfurled in the national capital," Amit Shah said. Targeting the Delhi government, Shah accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons. The BJP President contrasted his party's "clean record" in governance with the AAP's "tainted" tenure, saying many of its legislators and ministers were arrested over charges of corruption and "rape". He also dared Kejriwal to take action against the legislators and ministers facing various allegations and order a judicial probe into the charges. "The AAP has indulged in corruption like no other party has in such a short time. His (Kejriwal) principal secretary was arrested by CBI. There was graft in procuring onions, in appointments in DCW, in procuring water tankers, street lights," Amit Shah said. "A minister is involved in hawala. There was scam in waqf board. And most importantly, AAP used Delhi exchequer's money in Gujarat, Kolkata and other states for putting out advertisements," Shah said. "This is not just an MCD election, but it is an opportunity to uproot the AAP government in next polls," Shah said, and appealed to party activists to work hard for the elections as it was Delhi where the then Jana Sangh, BJP's predecessor, came to power first. Shah also referred to the anti-terror surgical strike undertaken last year, saying the armed forces "barged" into Pakistan to avenge the killing of soldiers in Uri last year. Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel as well as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari were present at the event.

(With PTI inputs)

--- ENDS ---
Beaver County identifies mail-in voters with undated ballots

Anyone on the list should visit the Beaver County elections office by 8 p.m. Tuesday to make the necessary corrections.
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Washington

With the sting of a gut punch, House Speaker Paul Ryan delivered a stunning concession for Republicans on Friday: "We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future."

That was music to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's ears.

As it appeared to be heading for failure on the House floor, a vote on Ryan's American Health Care Act was called off on Friday, the second time in two days that voting was put on hold. This time, however, the hold appears to be indefinite.

"It is safe to say the bill is dead," Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, said.

For the Democratic governor, its death is cause for celebration after a week of feverish lobbying against the plan, which he contended would blow massive holes in the state's budget and could either leave Medicaid beneficiaries without coverage or force the state to raise income taxes on all residents to fill in the gaps. Saying he found neither palatable is an understatement.

"This bill appears to be on life support for now  it should be killed once and for all," Cuomo said in a statement. "Republican leadership may have counted on the complexity of the issue to confuse the debate, but at the end of the day it's actually quite simple. This Congress tried to play the people of this nation for a fool  they were wrong, and they lost."

The governor's opposition was driven in part by an amendment tacked onto the AHCA on Monday that would have required the state to pick up the counties' share of Medicaid costs  $2.3 billion  beginning in 2020.

What calling off the vote means for that idea moving forward wasn't immediately clear.

"I think it's too early to say; I haven't really contemplated the alternatives," Faso said in an interview when asked whether the cost-shifting plan could be approved in a standalone bill. "But I certainly will continue my efforts to finally end this 51-year-mistake that New York state has imposed on property tax payers."

The provision was derided as the "Buffalo Bribe" because it seemed geared toward securing the votes of upstate House Republicans and was added at the behest of Rep. Chris Collins, R-Erie County, and Faso, who proposed such a cost-shifting plan during his 2016 run for the 19th Congressional District seat.

The Republicans have said that amendment would lead to a noticeable reduction in local property taxes. They said the state could find fat in its budget to cut away in order to afford the $2.3 billion in costs. What's more, they say the state would get 2 years to find that fat.

An incensed Cuomo balked at such talk.

On Thursday, he threatened a lawsuit should the cost-shifting end up in law. Cuomo claimed the provision unconstitutionally targets a single sovereign state.

In the end, though, the bill's demise was spurred by much more than just Cuomo's smoldering rhetoric.

The legislation was victim to objections from the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative members of the House. In the closing days and hours, President Trump and Ryan did their best to add sweeteners to entice them, but none could move the needle.

The long-promised repeal-and-replace proposal ultimately kept some features of Affordable Care Act but radically altered most of it.

Where Obamacare provided tax credits for health insurance on the basis of income, the GOP plan called for similar credits based on age.

But the AHCA lifted the Obamacare limit of no policy for older beneficiaries costing more than three times the plan for the younger and healthier. The Republicans set the limit at five times, which Democrats derisively referred to as an "age tax."

The Republican proposal also took Obamacare's Medicaid expansion  which New York fully embraced  from an open-ended entitlement and turned it into a benefit capped after 2019 at 2016 levels.

The neutral Congressional Budget Office estimated 24 million fewer Americans would have health insurance by 2026 than if Obamacare had continued in place. Fourteen million would lose it in 2018 alone.

The CBO originally had projected $337 billion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. After GOP tweaks aimed at placating recalcitrant Republicans, the CBO lowered the estimate to $150 billion.

Of those who represent the Capital Region, Faso was the only confirmed yes vote heading into Friday.

"I do think we should be able to find incremental improvements in ACA that satisfy the need for more affordable coverage," he said.

Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, stood in vehement opposition to the bill.

"It's not what I would call a celebratory moment," he said in an interview. "It's about life and death choices. Rather than victory laps here, we need to acknowledge that voices, email, social media across span of weeks is what saved health care for 24 million Americans."

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Essex County, endorsed the Collins-Faso amendment but steadfastly refused to tip her hand. In a statement after the bill was pulled, she said that "Obamacare is broken" and "we need to continue working to find solutions we can agree on that will help fix our broken healthcare system."

Early Friday, she announced she and three other Republican members had succeeded in getting the GOP leadership to include in the bill $15 billion for maternity care, drug treatment and mental health to the states via the bill's Patient and State Stability Fund "while the nation transitions to the new health care system."

Although she appeared to support the bill, no vote means she never had to risk giving her opponents political ammo for the 2018 election cycle. A second term representative from a North Country swing district  which includes parts or all of Saratoga, Warren, Washington and Fulton counties  Stefanik played her cards conservatively, not wanting to jeopardize a close working relationship with Ryan and the potential of a rapid rise in House leadership.

"It's easier to be a profile in courage in your fifth term," said Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at SUNY New Paltz.

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10
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The Capital Region has a history of being a vibrant scientific research and development sector, from the founding of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1824 to the establishment of the Colleges of Nanoscale Sciences and Engineering 180 years later.

Now, the sector is encountering some headwinds.

SUNY Polytechnic Institute has been experiencing a brain drain in the wake of federal and state investigations into its president, Alain Kaloyeros, who faces a variety of charges. Several dozen staffers are gone, and some programs have been cut back or discontinued.

General Electric Co., under pressure from some of its largest shareholders, is doubling cost-cutting efforts among its industrial units, which include GE Power in Schenectady and the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna. The research labs, arguably GE's crown jewel, lost several dozen jobs in January, and some of its legacy research programs have been discontinued.

The Wadsworth Center laboratories of the state Health Department, Albany Medical College and the University at Albany are among the local institutions that could see deep cuts in research funding from the National Institutes of Health. President Donald Trump has proposed cutting next year's NIH funding by more than 18 percent nationwide.

Not all the news has been bad.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has added hundreds of jobs over the past year, and now employs about 1,900 people at its manufacturing operations in East Greenbush.

Semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries continues to hire, saying last month it planned to fill 200 positions at its plant in Malta, Saratoga County.

The number of jobs in the Capital Region classified as professional, scientific and technical services grew nearly 50 percent over the past quarter century, to 30,700 in 2016 from 20,600 in 1991, according to the state Labor Department.

Average wage for the professional and technical services category in 2015 was $83,240, the most recent year for which data was available.

Scientists and engineers typically have advanced degrees, with many scientists at the GE Global Research Center, for example, holding Ph.Ds.

When economic development officials early on sought to diversify the Capital Region economy away from its dependence on government employment, they targeted such areas as software and semiconductors.

And they've been successful, with GlobalFoundries employing 3,000 people locally.

Meanwhile, two dozen software companies in downtown Troy employ nearly 300 people.

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And with other software and technology companies located throughout the region, corporate recruiters say it's easier to bring a talented scientist or engineer to the area if the candidate knows there are other career options if the first job doesn't work out.

Clusters of jobs also present opportunities for socializing, sharing ideas and perhaps coming up with breakthroughs.

And they provide opportunities for the spouse of a job candidate.

Several initiatives, including a new Biomedical Acceleration and Commercialization Center at Albany Medical College, and plans to build a new home for Wadsworth Center, have the potential to create new jobs for researchers and entrepreneurs.

And some initiatives remain alive and well at SUNY Poly: An initiative to produce new power chips out of silicon carbide for high-energy applications is moving ahead.

eanderson@timesunion.com  518-454-5323
THE ISSUE:

Unlike most states, New York allows elected officials take endorsements from multiple parties.

THE STAKES:

It's a prescription for corruption  one the state can rewrite.

More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse

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No politician in his right mind would come out and say, "You help me get elected, and I'll give you a nice taxpayer-funded job." It not only reeks of slimy politics, but it could well get an elected official indicted.

Yet this quid pro quo goes on under New Yorkers' noses every day, corruption so routine you'd almost think this must be how government is supposed to work.

It isn't. New York can change it: By ending the ability of political parties to cross-endorse candidates.

The practice, called fusion, allows candidates to appear on multiple ballot lines. New York is one of only eight states that allow this in all races. California allows it in presidential elections only.

So we see candidates running, for example, on the Democratic and Working Families party lines, or the Republican and Conservative lines. The pairings (or triplings, quadruplings or what have you, depending on how many ballot lines a candidate can snag) don't always seem to make ideological sense; Democrats in the city of Albany sometimes appear on the Conservative line; Republicans in Rensselaer County might have a Working Families endorsement. We've seen major parties turn third parties into little more than endorsement proxies, and third parties created by major party candidates just to attract voters on a particular issue, such as the Women's Equality Party that Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo invented for the 2014 election.

Defenders of this system say it can serve a publicly beneficial role. Third parties can leverage their potential votes to persuade major party candidates to adopt more liberal or conservative positions than mainstream politicians might normally include in their platforms.

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The problem is that this too often boils down to a less high-minded result: political favors. As the Times Union's Chris Bragg found, for example, the state Senate Republican majority's payroll is amply stocked with Independence Party officials, notably from swing districts where the Independence line  which many people mistake for a party of independents  was likely helpful to a GOP candidate. The positions include part-time jobs that come with full health benefits and few enough hours to allow those folks to hold down private sector jobs, too.

And here's no surprise: New York has the largest legislative payroll in the nation, bigger even that California, which has twice New York's population.

If this really is about ideology, why can't the people in these third parties field their own candidates, or fight their battles within the major parties? If it's about patronage, why should hard-working New Yorkers have to pay for it?

There's a simple solution here: Change the state constitution to end this practice. Either the Legislature should do this willingly, or New Yorkers could try to make it happen through the Constitutional Convention that they'll have an opportunity to vote for in November, a chance they get to improve their government once every 20 years.

We wouldn't stand for politicians who openly trade favors for votes. Why, then, do we continue to accept a system that encourages them do just that?
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 25 (PTI) Union minister Venkaiah Naidu hit out at AAP government in Delhi for "lagging development" of the city due to its non-cooperation with the Centre and urged people to support BJP in the MCD elections in the capital.

The urban development minister, addressing BJPs Panch Parmeshwar booth-level workers meet at Ramleela Grounds here, said that unless the Centre, state government and municipal bodies work together, a city cannot develop.

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"In each city of the country development has sped up through Smart City and AMRUT schemes after BJP came to power. But, this city (Delhi) is lagging behind because the AAP government is not ready to develop Delhi together with Modi government," he said.

The Prime Minister has given the slogan of "Team India" envisaging cooperation among Centre, state governments and municipal corporations but the AAP government is not ready to even talk to him, he alleged.

Attacking Kejriwal, he said that wherever the AAP leader went he faced defeat and the same fate awaits him in Gujarat also.

"Kejriwal needs to be given the message to roam around the country and stay away from Delhi. He went to Varanasi and Goa and was defeated there. He will be treated similarly in Gujarat also".

Dubbing the municipal elections to be held next month as "Mini India elections", Naidu said people want to strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modis hands because he is an "able leader" dedicated to development.

Citing BJPs victories in recent Assembly elections, he said that the party is the only "united" political party of the country while other parties are "divided".

In a lavish praise of Modi, the minister said that he is a "messiah" of poor people.

"Modi is a messiah of poor people. He is a gift of God people feel," Naidu said citing various schemes launched by the Centre.

Coining the acronym "MODI - Making of Developed India", he said that the whole country specially poor, women, youth, workers and farmers supported his demonetisation move despite a scare created by Opposition parties.

Taking a dig at critics of EVMs, Naidu asked people to support BJP in MCD elections and push the button with party symbol Lotus assuring them that their votes will not be changed.

Speaking on the occasion, other party leaders including Union Minister Harsh Vardhan, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, BJP organisation secretary Ram Lal, and party MPs from Delhi also attacked AAP government in Delhi and mentored workers to ensure the partys victory in elections to three municipal corporations on April 23. (MORE) PTI VIT KUN

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[March 24, 2017] American Entrepreneurship Award Partners with Penn Law Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic to Present Law-UP: a Start-up Business Legal Clinic

The American Entrepreneurship Award (AEA), a non-profit created to support aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs in Miami-Dade County, Florida and the Bronx, New York, presents Law-UP: A Start-Up Business Legal Clinic. This introductory workshop, in partnership with The University of Pennsylvania Law School's Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic (ELC), is one of various collaborations with AEA's partner organizations. Law-UP: A Start-Up Legal Business Clinic is designed to assist aspiring entrepreneurs in learning how to structure, brand, and finance their new businesses. Penn Law students and faculty with knowledge and experience in these areas will lead sessions. In addition to first hand interaction with law students and faculty, attendees will also as hear from guest keynote speaker, Mike Brady, CEO of Greyston Bakery and The Greyston Foundation. This free event will take place at 9:30am on Saturday, April 1st, 2017 at Hostos Community College, located at 450 Grand Concourse, Bronx NY 10451. Registration for this event can be completed at: www.Law-UP.eventbrite.com.



About Penn Law Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic The ELC provides free transactional legal services to entrepreneurs. Through senior law students, the ELC is able to service a limited number of entrepreneurial ventures. Because of limited capacity, the ELC gives preference to ventures that impact society and communities in positive ways.

About the American Entrepreneurship Award Now in its second year, the American Entrepreneurship Award focuses on identifying promising entrepreneurs in Miami-Dade County, Florida and the Bronx, New York, whose business plans exhibit sustainability, innovation and a positive impact on the local communities. Launched with an initial $500,000 commitment from its founding partner, The Libra Group, AEA provides winners with a share of $125,000 in business start-up funding, as well as mentorship and business support services. The Group was inspired to create the award after becoming a founding sponsor of the My Brother's Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance), a non-profit organization launched by President Obama aimed at eliminating opportunity and achievement gaps for boys and young men of color. AEA supporters include Workshop in Business Opportunities, Hostos Community College, the New York City Department of Small Business Services, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as well as The Miami Herald, Miami - Dade College and The Idea Center at Miami Dade College. Deadline for the application is April 27th, 2017, and can be submitted to www.americanaward.com. Winners will be announced in June 2017. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170324005657/en/

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[March 24, 2017] ACO Compare 2.0 Powered by Datashop to Deliver Personalized, Drilled Down Reports on Quality, Expenditure, and Utilization

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovaccer Inc., a Silicon Valley-Headquartered Healthcare Analytics company, announced the launch of revamped ACO Compare, a one-of-its-kind, free tool for providers to track, monitor, and compare the quality of care, expenditure, and utilization of Accountable Care Organizations. ACO Compare incorporates extensively researched data about 400 Accountable Care Organizations currently active in the US with quality and performance data imported from CMS. The tool offers a review of the 33 ACO quality reporting measures broadly categorized into four domains as the basis of comparison: Patient/Caregiver Experience

Care Coordination/Patient Safety

Preventive health measures

At-risk Population measures With healthcare being at the doorstep of value-based care, ACOs constantly find themselves in need to identify care gaps, redesign care plans, and improve the quality of services they provide across populations. The revamped version of ACO Compare enables providers to learn about them and their counterparts in the state as well as the country, their performances, assess trends and help them generate patient-centered care plans and be the best in the industry. The upgraded tool now offers users an interactive dashboard with point-and-click interfaces for users to analyze and compare up to five ACOs at a time. The visually appealing, detailed dashboard offers a complete drilled-down analysis of quality, expenditure, and utilizationacross the country and the state. All these comparisons are displayed against the national and state benchmarks to provide organizations with a better understanding of where they stand through a global, single-screen comparison. The tool also offers personalized reports for every ACO, complete with recommendations for improvement and can be used for further analysis.



"Working with several major ACOs on the shift from volume to value-based care delivery made us realize the need for ACOs to continually assess the trends, tracking their performance, and be aware of how they and other best practices are faring against the larger market. ACO Compare was developed on the same lines, offering ACOs detailed and visually interactive solutions as a single source of truth and help them succeed in this value-based ecosystem," says Kanav Hasija, Co-Founder & President at Innovaccer. To know more about Innovaccer's journey with ACOs and health systems, meet the Innovaccer team at NAACOS Spring Conference, at Booth#35.

Check out ACO Compare here: http://www.innovaccer.com/aco About Innovaccer Innovaccer Inc is a Silicon Valley-headquartered, Healthcare analytics company. Innovaccer's aim is to simplify complex data from all points of care, streamline the information and help organizations make powerful decisions based on the key insights and predictions from their data. Its proprietary product Datashop enables provider organizations to use data as a source of innovation and has been deployed across 15 countries at academic institutions, governmental organizations, and several corporate enterprises such as Catholic Health Initiatives, El Paso HIE, Sonic Healthsystems, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Wolters Kluwers. For more information, please visit innovaccer.com or follow us on Twitter @innovaccer. Press Contact

Sachin Saxena

Innovaccer Inc

650-479-4891 Related Links Innovaccer ACO Compare 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/aco-compare-20-powered-by-datashop-to-deliver-personalized-drilled-down-reports-on-quality-expenditure-and-utilization-300429207.html SOURCE Innovaccer Inc.

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[March 24, 2017] American Entrepreneurship Award Partners with the Idea Center at Miami Dade College to Present Unlock the Block: An Ideation and Development Workshop

The American Entrepreneurship Award (AEA), a non-profit created to support American startup business and entrepreneurs, presents Unlock the Block: An Ideation and Development Workshop. This introductory workshop, in partnership with The Idea Center at Miami Dade College, is one of numerous collaborations with AEA's partner organizations. Unlock the Block: An Ideation and Development Workshop is designed to equip aspiring entrepreneurs with tools to find new solutions to old problems and take the first steps in developing and solidifying their business plans. The workshop will also aid attendees in preparing their applications to the American Entrepreneurship Award's annual business plan competition, currently accepting submissions. Attendance is free, and will take place on Thursday, March 30th, 2017 at 5:30pm at The Idea Center located at 315 Northeast 2nd Avenue Building 8, 5th Floor Miami, FL 33132. Registration for the event can be completed at: www.unlocktheblock.eventbrie.com.



For more information please contact Carolina Ordonez at [email protected]. About the Idea Center at Miami Dade College

The Idea Center at Miami Dade College is a business accelerator and co-working space connected to Miami Dade College that provides innovative programs and training sessions through its staff and professors. The Idea Center is industry-agnostic and welcome students and community members of all disciplines. The Idea Center offers more than fifteen diverse programs including Design for Miami and Innovation M. About the American Entrepreneurship Award Now in its second year, the American Entrepreneurship Award focuses on identifying promising entrepreneurs in Miami-Dade County, Florida and the Bronx, New York, whose business plans exhibit sustainability, innovation and a positive impact on the local communities. Launched with an initial $500,000 commitment from its founding partner, The Libra Group, AEA provides winners with a share of $125,000 in business start-up funding, as well as mentorship and business support services. The Group was inspired to create the award after becoming a founding sponsor of the My Brother's Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance), a non-profit organization launched by President Obama aimed at eliminating opportunity and achievement gaps for boys and young men of color. AEA supporters include The Miami Herald, Miami Dade College and The Idea Center at Miami Dade College, as well as, Workshop in Business Opportunities, Hostos Community College, the New York City Department of Small Business Services, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Deadline for the application is April 27th, 2017, and can be submitted to www.americanaward.com. Winners will be announced in June 2017. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170324005655/en/

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[March 24, 2017] Rice University Study: Freestanding ERs Costly for Texans, Yield Exorbitant 'Sticker Shock'

Rice University this week released research tracking the enormous growth and costly care of freestanding emergency rooms in Texas in a paper published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The study, conducted in conjunction with Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, found the rapid growth of freestanding ERs (FSERs) in Texas - accompanied by an equal increase in use of these facilities by consumers - has led to sizable out-of-pocket costs to patients in recent years. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170324005667/en/ Texans for Affordable Healthcare endorses a number of legislative solutions to crack down on FSERs (Source (News - Alert): Texans for Affordable Healthcare). "Rice University's comprehensive study confirms what we know to be true - that freestanding emergency rooms are costly to Texas patients, who often visit these faciliies for common conditions that could be treated for much less at an urgent care center," said Jamie Dudensing of Texans for Affordable Healthcare. "Consumers should be able to focus on getting the immediate care they need without having to worry about the exorbitant fees a freestanding ER is going to charge. We support every effort to crack down on the confusing advertising and skyrocketing billing practices of these facilities, and encourage all Texans to heed the advice of this important study - think twice about visiting a freestanding ER."



Key findings of the study include: In 2015, the total price of a FSER visit averaged $2,199 versus $168 for an urgent care clinic.

FSER use rose 236-percent between 2012 and 2015, compared with growth rates of 10-percent for hospital-based emergency departments and 24-percent for urgent care clinics.

15 of the 20 most common diagnoses treated at freestanding emergency departments were also in the top 20 for urgent care clinics. However, prices for patients with the same diagnosis were on average almost 10 times higher at freestanding emergency departments relative to urgent care clinics. Rice University's release comes shortly after the Texas House Committee on Insurance and Senate Committee on Business & Commerce took up House Bill 1566 (Frullo) and Senate Bill 507 (Hancock), respectively, to expand surprise billing protections for healthcare consumers at freestanding ERs and in all out-of-network emergency care situations. Both bills are expected to be acted upon by the House and Senate in the coming weeks.

Texans for Affordable Healthcare endorses a number of legislative solutions to crack down on FSERs. To view Rice University's press release about the study, click here. To learn more about Texans for Affordable Healthcare, visit www.TexansForAffordableHealthcare.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170324005667/en/

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[March 25, 2017] Desjardins Group Annual General Meetings - Guy Cormier reaffirms the need for cooperation and makes a push for innovation

A second Desjardins mobile branch to hit the road and a new innovation lab to open in Levis this year QUEBEC CITY, March 25, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - The Desjardins Group Annual General Meetings (AGMs) are being held in Quebec City today. Desjardins Group President and CEO Guy Cormier, who was elected in March 2016, summed up his first year at the head of the organization. He reminded the caisse delegates why it's important for Desjardins to refocus on its purpose, which is to enrich the lives of people and communities. "Working to continually develop and deploy the means Desjardins Group has at hand, working to improve our capacity to act and taking socio-economic leadership, in my opinion is playing a positive role in a world that needs positivity," he said. That is why earlier this year a $100-million development fund was earmarked for the socio-economic development of communities. Mr. Cormier also acted on his promise to give a stronger voice to young people by creating the Youth Advisory Board, which is made up of members, officers and employees ages 18 to 35. He reiterated that he wants Desjardins to become a single large organization that works in the interests of its members and clientsan organization that is people-focused, modern, high-performance and easy to do business with. A second mobile branch and a new innovation lab Mr. Cormier highlighted some of Desjardins's most recent innovations and achievements, including the mobile branch. Considering that the pilot project has been a huge success so far, he annunced the rollout of a second mobile branch to serve eastern Quebec.



In the same vein, Mr. Cormier announced the opening of a second innovation lab in Levisthe first one opened in Montreal last year. Still on the topic of innovation, he mentioned that earlier this week Desjardins launched Alert, a home insurance program to prevent water damage, available nationwide. "These cutting-edge solutions aren't coming out in 10 years, they're here now!" While technology plays an increasingly central role in our lives, Mr. Cormier is convinced that people will continue to make a difference. "In 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, our members will still want to talk to flesh and blood men and women who work in our caisses, our Desjardins Business centres, at Desjardins Securities, or at one of our insurers. Talk to competent people who want to provide high-quality service."

The cooperative model is more relevant than ever In a world filled with uncertainty and growing distrust, and where the majority of the population is so fed up with society, work and the economy that they're taking to the polls to express their frustration, Guy Cormier believes that somewhere down the road, there must be a shift. He firmly believes that cooperatives, and Desjardins Group in particular, have a role to play in leading the way for a societal shifta shift towards responsible and sustainable development that puts people first. "The cooperative model is open to others and to the world. It's based on strong and generous values: mutual aid, solidarity, money at the service of human development. And it's more relevant than ever," Mr. Cormier said. He concluded by inviting the caisse delegates to show leadership in their caisses in order to help members and clients build a better future, and to work on developing their communities. "Desjardins Group is in its prime. We're looking to the future. Let's stick to our ambitions. Let's take the organization even further. Let's play an even bigger role in a world that needs cooperation, today more than ever." About Desjardins Group Desjardins Group is the leading cooperative financial group in Canada and the sixth largest cooperative financial group in the world, with assets close to $260 billion. It has been rated one of the Best Employers in Canada by Aon Hewitt. To meet the diverse needs of its members and clients, Desjardins offers a full range of products and services to individuals and businesses through its extensive distribution network, online platforms and subsidiaries across Canada. Counted among the world's strongest banks according to The Banker magazine, Desjardins has one of the highest capital ratios and credit ratings in the industry. SOURCE Desjardins Group

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A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017
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...
The gunmen opened firing on a CRPF camp at Neloo in Kulgam district, intelligence sources said.

Picture for representational purpose only.

By Press Trust of India: Militants on Saturday night opened fire on a security forces camp in south Kashmir's Kulgam district.

The gunmen opened firing on a CRPF camp at Neloo in Kulgam district, intelligence sources said.

They said no one was hurt in the brief firing incident.

However, police officials refused to comment on the incident.

Also read | Kashmir: Militants murdered former sarpanch to create fear among political workers, cops say

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Terming the statue "unethical and anti-Islamic", the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation (ABMYF) has opposed the statue at the government run Baker hostel.

By Indrajit Kundu: A fringe Muslim group in West Bengal has demanded the removal of a statue of "Bangabandhu" Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh from a government hostel in Kolkata.

Terming the statue "unethical and anti-Islamic", the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation (ABMYF) has opposed the statue at the government run Baker hostel. The group says, the hostel is meant for Muslim students and since it has a mosque in its premises, such a statue could not be allowed in an "Islamic atmosphere".

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The 110 year-old hostel, located in central Kolkata was home to the great leader between 1945 and 1946 when he was a student at the erstwhile Islamia college in Kolkata. In 1998, the then left front government in the state had converted his room on the third floor of the hostel into a memorial and alter a white marble statue of Bangabandhu was also installed.

"We are religious people. It is our free right to follow our religion as per the Indian Constitution . We cannot read Namaz and also install statues at the same place. It is defiling to our religion," claimed Md. Quamruzzaman, general secretary of the minority body.

"No Muslim institutions have statues inside them. Aligarh Muslim University was built by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan but his statue was never installed at the university," he argued.

MAMATA BANERJEE EMBARRASSED?

Ahead of Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to India, the demand has embarrassed the Mamata Banerjee state administration as its sure to hurt sentiments on the other side of the border. In fact, the hardline Muslim group is known for its proximity to Trinamool leaders like Siddiqullah Choudhury and Idris Ali.

However, the fringe minority group remains unfazed with its demand and has even demonstrated outside the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata. "If it damages Bangladesh - India relationship in anyway, then Muslims won't be responsible for it. The onus lies solely with the government," says Md Quamruzzaman.

When asked about the controversy, the Bangladeshi Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata Zokey Ahad refused to speak on the matter. However, sources at the Commission claim that it is disturbed that Bangabandhu's name has being dragged in what it perceives to be a "political" controversy.

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On Friday, KCSourceLink released their fourth annual We Create KC report on the state of Kansas City entrepreneurship. Since 2013, We Create KC has been a useful report in tracking Kansas City's progress in the region's mission to nurture entrepreneurship and economic growth. KCSourceLink is a network of over 240 business-building resources that in 2016...
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens will visit Washington this weekend to talk policy with federal officials, including President Donald Trump. Greitens' spokesman, Parker Briden, said in an email Friday that the governor will meet with the president and Trump's nominee for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, to talk about Missouri's policy priorities.
Kansas City's Anchor Man Gold Standard

Heather Hall Talks Police Money

Urban Core Development Debate Rages

KCPS Confronts La Migra

Clay County GOP Targets KCMO Council

As we slouch toward the next Kansas City vote . . . Here's a glimpse of enduringand a peek at some of the top players displaying their influence. Take a look:A longtime hero of TKC,and he ends his career with a legacy of objective, straight forward and community-based reporting. Best of all, he stays winning and goes out at the top of his game rather than hanging on to local media glory as he looks to the next phase of his life and more family time.She fought hard to. Council Lady Heather Hall was ultimately unsuccessful but this Northland lady focusing on support for law enforcement amid KCMO politics that's mostly focused on development sets a brave example for all local elected officials.Supporters of the Central City Economic Development Initiative are taking their fight to City Hall andThis tax effort is the upstart effort of the April 4th vote and could surprise local political denizens with in the final days leading up to the election.and offers a glimpse of local resistance toward the immigration crackdown goals of Prez Trump's Administration.In the aftermath of the Missouri GOP Trump tidal wave . . . Local Republicans making a bold power move now have theirAs always, this list has been compiled according toand it's a weekly comprehensive guide to local powerful people.
THE FINANCING FOR THE DOWNTOWN KANSAS CITY CONVENTION HOTEL REMAINS SKETCHY AND MORE VIABLE ALTERNATIVES HAVE EMERGED!!!

ANYBODY CAN DIG A HOLE . . . FEAR KANSAS CITY DOWNTOWN CONVENTION HOTEL FAKE NEWS GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY AS PRIVATE INVESTMENT IN THIS PROJECT HAS FAILED TO LIVE UP TO EXPECTATIONS AND CITY HALL INSIDERS EXPECT YET ANOTHER REQUEST FOR MORE TAXPAYER CASH!!!

City Hall wants all conversation about the proposed Downtown Convention Hotel on lock down as the deadline for an April 4th GO BOND vote approaches. The convoluted hotel deal is one of the many corporate welfare examples which remind voters about the screwed up priorities of City Hall.Thanks to our, here's what we know . . .The bad news for developers gets even worse given that it's now come time to start planningTo wit . . .Again, all talk about the ponzi scheme that is Downtown Kansas City development is being put on hold until elected officials at 12th and Oak can get their hands on theup for approval on April 4th . . . If the campaign proves successful, residents can look forward to an even more crowded pipeline of taxpayer subsidized speculative projects.Developing . . .
THE KANSAS CITY PET PROJECTS LOOKS TO DISTANCE ITSELF FROM THE DIVISIVE GO BOND CAMPAIGN AND MAYOR SLY A SLEW OF ANIMAL FRIENDLY EVENTS!!!

KC Pet Project will hold a public rally for Question 3 at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the J.C. Nichols Foundation on the Country Club Plaza.

"Frankly, I don't care if Question 1 or 2 pass and I'd rather they didn't. But Kansas City really needs this animal shelter and there are a lot of people who have worked really hard for it. We're raising our own money for a separate campaign in the week leading up to the election and don't want (Mayor) Sly to be a part of it even though he and Troy keep trying to strong-arm us."

WILL CUTE DOGGIES AND ARGUMENTS FOR A NEW ANIMAL SHELTER CONVINCE VOTERS TO SUPPORT FOR KANSAS CITY QUESTION 3???

Here's a campaign move that' we've been talking about for about week and actually serves as a break from the junk mail that's clogging everyone's mailbox.Two wit . . .This one was put on blast earlier this week via social media:Question 3 supporters haven't been happy with the junk mail focused campaign and look to step out from Mayor Sly's shadow.Here is the KC Pet Project Campaign site with Sly and Troy pushed to the side of the frame . . .Money line:Junk mail might not be the best way to accomplish this aim and a doggie protest will grab the attention of a few TV cameras with cute puppies.What's more important is the question of effectiveness of. . .You decide . . .
"The constitution is under threat," the eminent jurist said when he was asked about Aditya Nath Yogi taking over as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Fali Nariman said the Contitution is under threat following Aditya Nath Yogi's appointment as CM of UP (PTI photo)

By Press Trust of India: Eminent jurist Fali Nariman today questioned the appointment of Aditya Nath Yogi as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi "if it is the beginning of a Hindu state".

Referring to the developments in Uttar Pradesh after the Assembly elections, he said the constitution is under "threat" and those who cannot see the motive behind appointment of Aditya Nath are either spokespersons of political parties or must get their head and eyes examined.

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"The prime minister may deny it but that is my assumption that appointing a particular person...as the chief minister is in itself an indication that he wishes to propagate a religious state," Nariman said in an interview to news channel NDTV.

"Is this the beginning of a Hindu state, the prime minister must be asked so that the people know what they should be prepared for," he said.

Asked which citizens rights he worries about or believes are under threat, he said, "The constitution is under threat. With the massive electoral victory in UP, a priest has been installed as the chief minister at the insistence of the prime minister... is a signal and if you cannot see then either you are the spokespersons of political parties or you must have your head or eyes examined."

Nariman, who lauded Modi for his remarkable and fantastic energy level, however, said he does not accept all policies of the prime minister.

"You must give it to the prime minister. He is quite forthright. He does not mince words and his energy is something remarkable and fantastic. I have never seen such a man. But I do not accept all the policies of the prime minister," he said.

ALSO READ | Yogi Adityanath backs anti-romeo squads to make UP safe for women; all that he said at Gorakhpur

ALSO WATCH | How Congress, SP, BSP and Shiv Sena reacted to Yogi Adityanath's swearing-in

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"The language from the court ruling allowing the new transportation development district (TDD) throws another wrench in streetcar advocates plans: no taxes or assessments can be collected from within the district until enough external fundingin this case federal fundsare available. The Trump administration has made the availability of federal funds highly unlikely. Congress could seek to continue federal New Starts funding, according to Rich Sampson of the Community Transportation Association of America, but it will be an uphill climb. And even if streetcar funding is provided by Congress, the administration may choose not to spend it."

DISGRACEFUL STREETCAR TDD EXTENSION ADVOCATES ARE THREATENED BY A FULL STOP TO FEDERAL FUNDING OF THEIR SKETCHY SCHEME!!!

Thankfully, government checks and balances are working against another corrupt Kansas City's vote that attempts to ram through the toy train streetcar by way of mail-in ballots and citywide voter suppression.Take a look:Here's the math from some of our favorite number crunches:Translation and posted just to ruin the Friday night of so many streetcar consultants, fanboys and acolytes . . .More importantly, the Streetcar is really a legacy of the Prez Obama Administration and GOP tidal wave of 2016 effectively ended public support of the former Prez and his policies.Finally, credit where it's due . . . This time around, while Clay Chastain's plan is also dependent on Federal cash, he has a better funding mechanism overall and isn't afraid to put his efforts in front of the entire KCMO voting public.And so, falling ridership numbers and increasingly angry and defensive streetcar "advocacy" signals a failed local transit experiment based on tax breaks, subverting local Democracy and hype rather than real world success.You decide . . .
Failing to continue the Greek programme would be an "irresponsible action," Germany's Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview with the Greek newspaper "To Vima" published on Saturday. At the same time, he added, it was necessary that Greece "implement its reform commitments, which must be accompanied by compromises on all sides."

Gabriel expressed hope that an agreement will soon be reached so that the second review of the Greek programme can be completed as soon as possible. He also noted that Europe's future cannot be protected by breaking it up and stressed that "no one wants this and Germany least of all."

The German vice chancellor referred to closer European cooperation in foreign policy, defence and security but said that now was not the time to begin a discussion on changing European treaties, since that would "deepen existing cracks" and was a "luxury we cannot afford."

Asked about a rise in euroscepticism, populism and nationalism, Gabriel said it was a mistake to think that the "EU promise of prosperity is an automatism" and noted that growth must not be "strangled" through excessively severe fiscal targets. The conviction that economic growth was sufficient in order to convince people about the value of democracy and freedom was incorrect, Gabriel said, while expressing admiration for the Greeks' "unswerving support of Europe" in spite of their truly difficult economic situation.

The German foreign minister also made it clear that the door to the EU remained open for the Western Balkans, "which are at a crossroads," while not concealing his concern about events in that area or in neighbouring Turkey. He especially expressed his irritation over the Turkish president's frequent comparisons between present-day Germany and the Nazi period in the country, noting that "there is always the next day in diplomacy, when you have to work with the other once again on very specific issues. It would be good if our Turkish partners kept that in mind. We are partners in NATO and partners in the region, in the fight against terrorism."

Gabriel said it was important to continue a common stance regarding EU sanctions against Russia, in response to its actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, while noting that Russia cannot be sidelined and that talks with Russia on issues where there are differences must continue.

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
Greece's Corruption Prosecutor Eleni Raikou resigned her position as head of the prosecutors investigating corruption on Friday, in a letter to Supreme Court Chief Prosecutor Xeni Dimitriou. Giving reasons for her decision, Raikou claimed she was being targeted by "unofficial power centres" due to her investigation of alleged extensive bribery of state officials by the pharmaceutical firm Novartis.

According to sources, Raikou's decision was prompted by a negative article about her published in a weekly newspaper at a time "when it was a common secret that we have the first important evidence in our possession, proving without doubt the extensive corruption but also the mechanism through which the above state officials were being bribed." She requested that she be replaced and complained that she had not been given sufficient "institutional protection" in her role.

Referring to the investigation into Novartis, the letter said that "substantial and crucial evidence" had been found showing that a large number of state officials, chiefly doctors, were receiving bribes directly from a Novartis bank account in Switzerland. The investigation also traced payments to legal entities that may have served as "vehicles" to cover up the illegal payments. The amounts involved, based on the evidence collected so far, were in the region of 28 million euros, while the involvement of other parties, including politicians, could not be ruled out, she said.

Corrupt state officials

The prosecutor also refers to evidence linked to investigations that resulted in the prosecution of businessman Thomas Liakounakos and the former defence minister Yiannos Papantoniou.

Regarding the article, Raikou said that she "refused to be sacrificed on the altar of the interests of corrupt state officials and the big pharma, who ahead of the revelations that have clearly leaked and which would certainly lead them before justice and possibly some of them to jail, did not hesitate to plan my moral extermination so that they might be able to demolish our investigation," she said.

Dimitriou is currently in Cyprus on a planned visit and is expected to put the issue fo the Supreme Judicial Council on her return. Raikou is the country's first head prosecutor against corruption and the Supreme Judicial Council was due to decide whether to renew her term for the third time in about a month.

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 UAE joined the rest of the world for the 10th annual Earth Hour by turning off lights at all landmarks and other famous sites on Saturday as part of a global effort to back action on climate change.



Earth Hour is a worldwide movement for the planet organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The event is held annually to encourage individuals, communities, households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour as a symbol of their commitment to the planet.



In recognition of Earth Hour, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and its joint venture subsidiaries Nawah Energy Company (Nawah) and Barakah One Company, switched off all non-essential lighting between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm today (March 25) as part of the global initiative to raise awareness of our impact on the planet.



We are proud to be able to highlight our ongoing commitment to tackle the effects of climate change and environmental consciousness by participating in Earth Hour, said Enecs CEO, Mohamed Al Hammadi.



We have a responsibility to protect our environment, the communities we serve and the world we live in, and ensuring that we operate safely and in a sustainable manner is of paramount importance to all of us here at ENEC and our partners, he stated.



Enec is committed to operating in a manner respectful of the surroundings of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant throughout all stages of construction and operations, and continues to collaborate with the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) in order to implement international best practices, ensuring environmental protection, habitat preservation, and water and energy conservation.



Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation too participated in the initiative, which was organised by The Dubai Supreme Council of Energy and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), under the patronage of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council.



Empower turned off the non-essential lights for one hour in all of its branches and plants. The company also urged its employees and clients to do the same during this international event.



Empower said it will also participate in the Earth Hour Walkathon at Bay Avenue Park in Business Bay.



Moreover, Empowers employees signed a pledge that they will not only turn the lights off at their homes, but also will not turn any home appliances as well as they will strive to save water and not waste any food.



This initiative comes part of Empowerscorporate social responsibility, said a top official.



"Energy conservation takes a central part in Empowers strategy. In all our projects, we always make ensure that our solutions are eco-friendly and conserve energy. We also striveto use the latest technologies which support our collective efforts in this regard," remarked its CEO Ahmad Bin Shafar.



"Empower always organises social events and initiatives targeting its employees, clients and the whole society to reduce energy consumption. A clear example of that is (Saving Starts At 24C) campaign that was held last summer which witnessed tremendous success and won an international award," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Emaar Malls, the shopping-centre arm of leading property developer Emaar, has made a bid for Dubai online retailer Souq.com, seeking to challenge an existing offer from online retail giant Amazon, according to a report.

The unit of Emaar Properties offered about $800 million for Souq.com this week, which includes a convertible deposit of $500 million, reported Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter.

Amazon has an exclusivity clause in its buyout talks for Souq.com, the person said. No final agreement has been reached with any of the parties, it added.

Amazon restarted talks to acquire Souq.com in a deal valued at as much as $650 million after walking away earlier this year, people familiar with the matter.

Dubai-based Souq.com, whose existing investors include Tiger Global Management and South Africas NaspersSouq.com, was valued at $1 billion in its last funding round, said the report.

The company had hired Goldman Sachs Group to find buyers for a stake last year, it added.
Oman Air, the sultanate's national carrier, will begin operating its new summer schedule starting from tomorrow (March 26) with the introduction of three new routes - Nairobi (Kenya), Kozhikode (India) and Manchester (UK).



The introduction of the new schedule coincides with the start of Summer Time in Europe, reducing the time-difference with Oman by one hour, said a statement from Oman Air.



For Nairobi, it will be a four-weekly service from its hub Muscat, while for Kozhikode, the Omani airline will fly a daily direct service from Salalah and for Manchester, it will be a daily direct service from Muscat starting from May 1.



The move comes following the acquisition of a new B787-9 aircraft by the end of April.



The implementation of the summer schedule brings about both a number of new routes and code shares and changes to existing services, all of which contribute to the airlines ambitious and dynamic programme of fleet and network expansion, said the statement.



The new summer schedule will also see a number of flight changes. Flights from Muscat to Frankfurt (Germany) will now depart early morning, rather than afternoon, which will enable passengers to take advantage of connecting flights with Lufthansa to 59 additional destinations in the US and Europe.



In Frankfurt and Munich, Oman Air will relocate to the Lufthansa Terminals (1 and satellite 2) and offer premium customers access to the Lufthansa lounges.



Oman Airs Frankfurt and Munich services will now carry a Lufthansa code share, it stated.



Also, the service from Muscat to Chittagong (Bangladesh) will increase from four times to six times per week, while the frequency of flights to the south Indian city of Hyderabad will increase from twice to thrice daily.



This growth in capacity follows the agreement between the Indian Government and Oman Air to increase the number of weekly seats.



CEO Paul Gregorowitsch said: "Our summer schedule demonstrates how we are continuing to grow our already expansive network and capitalize on new opportunities."



"We are continuously striving to offer our guests the best possible service; our new schedule offers an even greater choice and ensures that our award winning airline provides a truly seamless travel experience," he noted.



From June 25, Oman Air will increase due to high demand the capacity on its Bangkok (three per day) and Kuala Lumpur (two per day) services, said the statement.



Special code-share agreements have also been agreed with Lufthansa and United Airlines for North Atlantic traffic, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
Geneva is not really an ideal place for first-timers since it's one of the most luxurious cities there is. However, the city has a lot to offer from its outdoor activities, stunning mountains to its gorgeous lakes so it's really hard to resist visiting this place. If you're planning to go to Geneva, here are a few budget travel tips for first-time travelers

Accommodation Options

Booking a regular hotel is the easiest thing to do but keep in mind that they cost more. Try couch surfing, which is a community that allows you to live with locals at no cost. Getting shared rooms via Airbnb is also a good choice which would cost around $35-$60/night. In fact, you can even get an entire house if you're traveling with a group which costs about $70/night.

Food Options

The best thing about this city is its many food options. According to Nomadic Matt, supermarkets would have easy-cook meals that are sold around $5-$9. If your accommodation permits you to cook, a week of food groceries would cost about $130. If you really budget your food expenses, you're going to spend $20 a day for meals.

Get The Geneva Pass

A Geneva Pass gives tourists access to a lot of museums, attractions and galleries in the city for free according to the Geneva website. In fact, it also gives you free transportation to all these places. You have the choice of availing the pass for 1-3 days and would usually cost between $26-$45 depending on the length of days.

Avoid Drinking

It's not because of cultural or safety reasons that travelers should avoid drinking but it's the prices. Beers cost around $8 a bottle and wine costs between $10-$25 a bottle. But if you can't resist the urge to have some alcohol, don't drink in the touristy areas of the city -- get them from grocery stores.

Free Walking Tours

The city offers the Free Walk Geneva where tourists can spend time with the locals and tour around the city on foot. It's completely free and you'll have the chance to witness historical sites, feel the culture, and meet people.

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Irish blogger Kymann Power proved it was possible to travel to seven European countries on a budget below $200 if one looked for great deals online. However, with further perseverance and meticulous planning, traveling up to 15 European countries for only 300 ($3745) or nine countries across four continents for about $418 could be possible.

Spending only 300 or $375 traveling from London to Paris passing by Luxembourg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Zagreb, Rome, and Bern is indeed an affordable travel plan, but it would require a sacrifice: travelers could only travel by bus. According to The Sun UK -- citing study results from travel search platform Wanderu -- traveling by bus to different European countries only needs travelers to spend less than $400

However, with the lower transport price comes lengthy travel time. In a chart from Wanderu embedded in The Sun UK's post, the average bus prices going from point A to B are displayed together with its corresponding travel time length. One example is bus traveling from London to Brussels would take seven hours on average. The longest travel time is Rome to Bern, which takes almost an entire day and an hour ride between Vienna and Bratislava is the shortest.

To see the entire world, NerdFitness' founder Steve Kamb devised a plan using air flights to four continents visiting nine countries while spending only $418. He begins his travel to "The Rock Boat" music festival in Atlanta and passes through Los Angeles, into the Pacific to Australia and New Zealand, then he headed to Southeast Asia and returns back to San Francisco where he would travel to Ireland, Spain, and Argentina.

One of Kamb's greatest assets was acquiring "frequent flyer miles" often featured in flight passenger-oriented credit cards. He has kept about four cards that earn frequent flyer miles including American Airlines, British Airways, Starwood Preferred Guest and American Express. Kamb said one has to have "excellent credit, have their first year waived, use the card [to pay for] everything, and pay each card in full."

Using the cards frequently allows travelers to gain points. It does not defeat the purpose of saving especially when cardholders spend money on their card that they could repay by the end of the month completely. In the NerdFitness post, Kamb goes into detail about the amount one can spend and repay on each credit card to earn a specific number of points that would help one travel for less.

These two travel hacks are not perfect in saving travelers more money as it requires some pre-planning persistence, such as spending using cards to earn frequent flyer miles or planning for hour-long bus rides. But they indeed can save one money if made to work effectively with one's itinerary.

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Having the ultimate travel adventure sometimes requires you to wander off in the deepest parts of the jungle or swim in the deepest trenches of the ocean. Oftentimes these journeys are hassling and time consuming, but oh so worth the wait.

Craving an ultimate travel adventure yourselves? Guess what, just by venturing into Mexico, you'll find that you'll fill travel lust you are searching for. Want to know more? Here are some of the most beautiful towns of Mexico you should definitely visit:

Guanajuato, Mexico. The minute you step onto its streets you'll think that you're actually in a medieval town somewhere in Europe. Guanajuato never disappoints with its breathtaking Baroque and Neoclassical buildings, lively cobblestone alleyways, and artsy atmosphere.

Campeche, Mexico. Campeche is hailed as one of Mexico's best preserved colonial towns, and for a good reason. Today, this UNESCO site is a sight to behold and a marvel to wander in. Prepare to be swooned by the local cuisine and the pastel-colored houses from the colonial period. You'll never have to deal with rowdy crowds either-it's not as frequented by tourists as much.

Tlacotalpan, Mexico. Another UNESCO site, Tlacotalpan is an old river port in Veracruz. The architecture of the city is incredible, it seems that time is slower here than most places since you'll feel like you've stepped into a rural town in the 1800's. The locals are friendly, and a peaceful visit is promised. Don't forget to taste their food.

San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. If you're looking for culture and fun then heading to San Cristobal is an excellent idea. This mountain town is inhabited by Mayan descendants, and frequently you can see them in the cobbled streets selling their indigenous crafts and local artwork. San Cristobal also has 12 museums, and is a frequent host of varying cultural events.

Patzcuaro, Mexico. Get up close with one of Mexico's indigenous groups, the Purepecha people, in Patzcuaro. This native colonial town is fascinating, the influences of its colonial legacy and native culture have mixed seamlessly into the lively town it is today. Want a travel tip? Visit here during Dia de los Muertos, you'll find the experience is quite different and more intimate.

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Locals in Japan's "Snow Country" see Niigata Prefecture as their natural food refrigerator. The snow in the region gives their vegetables a sweeter flavor while extending their shelf life.

Highly remote and inaccessible, the residents find it difficult to travel to town to buy supplies for the harsh winter - especially good food. Nevertheless, since the 8th century, the people have adapted to the climate and turned their situation into an advantage by having their food buried on the ground.

According to Munchies, the food are dug and hid in snow houses called yukimuro and used preservation methods like koji rice "to give the dishes of the region a unique profile, even by Japanese standards." Local produce like carrots, radish, apples and even chili peppers are packed in plastics or crates and kept under the sleet of ice until spring. Farmers even have their fruits and vegetables stay underground until harvest time.

The food are buried at 0c and has high humidity concentration that alters the amino acids of the produce. Therefore, it resulted in a sweeter taste and aroma which most in the country children loved.

What used to be an essential lifestyle for people inhabiting the area, now turns to be a much-loved produce that Japanese restaurants and travelers themselves would want to have. Since Niigata Prefecture's fruits and vegetables supply are limited, most people preorder their foodstuffs beforehand.

Perhaps among the most popular food business in Niigata is Kanzuri which produces fermented red pepper-and-citrus paste, the most famous snow food in Japan. It's being preserved differently than other vegetables because farmers have to pickle the chilies with salt first before flinging it to the snow. They are left on the sleets three to four days just enough to remove the bitterness and hotness of the pepper.

Though many people have wanted a piece of the region's products, not many tourists or younger citizens have known about the prefecture's unique snow refrigerator. Kuniaki Tojo, the third-generation owner of Kanzuri, told BBC News, "The ingredients we produce here are some of the most natural in Japan. Foreigners don't know much about Niigata, so they end up traveling to more famous locations like Kyoto. But to experience real Japanese food culture, I think Niigata is unique. It's still a secret part of Japan."

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The Trump Administration is seeking to deepen its counter-terrorism cooperation with India and expand it further, sources say.

By Press Trust of India: The Trump Administration is seeking to deepen its counter-terrorism cooperation with India and expand it further, sources here said after National Security Advisor Ajit K Doval's high profile meetings with top US officials.

Doval during his US visit this week met US Defense Secretary, Gen (rtd) James Mattis, Secretary of Homeland Security Gen (rtd) John Kelly, and National Security Advisor Lt Gen H R McMaster.

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In all these meetings, the common thread was expansion and deepening of India-US co-operation in collectively addressing the challenge posed by terrorism in South Asia.

He also met Senator John McCain, Chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Richard Burr, Chairman of the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

US DEFENCE SECRETARY 'APPLAUDED' INDIA'S EFFORTS TO PROMOTE PEACE IN SOUTH ASIA

"Mattis specifically applauded India's efforts to promote stability in the South Asia region. Both leaders reaffirmed building upon the significant defence cooperation progress made in recent years," Pentagon Spokesperson Capt Jeff Davis said in a read-out of the meeting, adding that the two leaders discussed their role in cooperating to uphold international laws and principles.

"Secretary Mattis and NSA Doval further discussed collaboration on a wide range of regional security matters including maritime security and counter terrorism. The two pledged to continue the strong defence partnership between both nations," Davis said.

Doval and McMaster during their meeting at the White House on Thursday "committed" to work together as partners to "combat the full spectrum" of terrorist threats, affirming that both great democracies stand together in the fight against terrorism, a senior Trump Administration official said.

"All the meetings were very warm, very positive, very constructive. I think there is an open approach to India," Indian sources said as Doval concluded his meetings in Washington DC yesterday.

This was Doval's second trip to the US after Trump won the presidential elections in November.

DOVAL'S FIRST TRIP TO TRUMP'S US

In December, Doval had met NSA-designate Gen (rtd) Michael Flynn, who resigned a few weeks after he took over the job due to the controversy surrounding Russian diplomats during the transition and election campaign.

Flynn was quickly replaced by McMaster, who according to the officials, has a very positive view about India.

"The discussions (in all these meetings) covered India's economic plans, reforms, growth. They covered our core security concerns, regional concerns, defence and security aspect of the India-US engagement," the senior official said on condition of anonymity.

For instance, the meeting at the Pentagon covered India-US defence relationship, issues like maritime security. "Naturally the challenge, nature and manifestation of terrorism and co-operation with regard," the official said, adding that the sense from these meetings came out that the Trump Administration seeks to take forward the upward trajectory of this bilateral relationship.

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With Homeland security, issues of radicalisation, cooperation in border controls, issues of information sharing which can help fight terrorist sides popped up. The Trump Administration officials were interested in hearing from Doval on New Delhi's views in the region, in particular Afghanistan and vice versa, informed sources said.

In some of the conversations, issues like demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) also popped up, reflecting the close interest that the US has in the economic growth of India.

There was no specific discussion on Pakistan, but it figured in the context of terrorism in the region.

Inside the Trump Administration leadership, it is clear how this Indian neighbour is closely associated with terrorism, the official said.

ALSO READ | NSA Ajit Doval meets US counterpart, reviews security situation in South Asia

WATCH VIDEO | In Trump, India has a very friendly American President: RHC President Shalabh Kumar at India Today Conclave 2017

--- ENDS ---

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Food lovers especially will have the most amazing time discovering Taiwan's night markets and food bazaars, featuring the best authentic Chinese food.

From savory pork buns to delectable desserts, here are some of the best dishes you must definitely try in Taiwan:

Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang. The name is a mouthful to pronounce, but once you take a bite you probably would be incapable of saying sensible words for a minute because of the whole mouthful of goodness that will invade your mouth. Basically, it's Chinese sausage served on a bun of sticky rice with wasabi, garlic, and pickled bokchoi as usual condiments. Yum.

Gua Bao.This Taiwanese take on good old hamburgers will surely leave you wanting for seconds. Instead of regular buns, Gua Bao uses steamed bun sandwiches, and for the filling, a mixture of chopped braised pork belly, pickled Chinese cabbage, and powdered peanuts fill the brim. An overall hearty dish, it's usually found in the night markets of Taipei.

Taiwanese Beef Noodles. This savory noodle dish is a classic local favorite. Every day, queues of hungry locals and tourists alike line up for a bowl during lunchtime. This dish is so highly regarded and well-loved that each year, a Beef Noodle festival is held in Taipei. Typically served with side dishes such as tofu, cabbage, and seaweed, it's one dish that you will surely pine for after you visit Taiwan.

Braised Pork Rice. If you ask the Taiwanese locals what their favorite comfort food is, chances are most of them will say it's braised pork rice. What's so special about this dish? Well basically, the pork is roughly minced and slow cooked in aromatic soy sauce along with five spices and other secret Chinese herbs which are then served on top of steaming white rice. The dish is savory and flavorful and overall, we don't blame the locals.

Deep Fried Milk. For dessert, you must try eating deep fried milk. Found in the best night markets of Taipei, these tasty little nuggets are made by deep frying batters of sweet milk. Best served hot, they turn into soft golden brown custards that are fluffy soft and delightfully tasty.

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This electric bike is packed with features, including a mid-drive Bosch motor, a rear rack and dual fenders, an onboard lock, and front and rear lights.

While some e-bike companies are focusing on building 'stealth' electric bikes that look almost exactly like a conventional bicycle, others are looking at e-bikes as an entirely new breed of bicycle, and one that needs to be built as such from the ground up. And one of those manufacturers, Germany's Riese & Muller, has just launched a new e-bike model that looks to be a serious contender, as it's packed to the gills spokes with all of the e-bike bells and whistles.

The Delite series of electric bikes from Riese & Muller, which ranges from the basic touring model to the decidedly burly GX Rohloff HS model with an internal hub 14-speed gearset and top of the line motor, are referred to as "eAdventure" bikes, and are said to be the first dual battery bikes, which allow for double the riding range. The bikes are all built around mid-drive electric motors made by Bosch, which is one of the leading electric motor brands, and which can deliver higher performance and torque than hub motors (although some claim that this additional strain on the chain and gearset can lead to a shorter lifespan of individual components).

 Riese & Muller

The Delite series is available in variations ranging from the 25 kph (~15.5 mph) touring model with the Bosch Performance CX motor and 500 Wh battery pack to models capable of 45 kph (~28 mph) with the Performance Speed motor, and dual batteries are an option on all of them. Some of the models feature a Gates carbon belt drive paired with an internal hub gearset, while others are chain-driven and incorporate either a Shimano derailleur or a Rohloff hub gear, and all models have both front and rear suspension for a smoother ride.

The bikes also come with a rear cargo rack, front and rear fenders (mudguards), a front LED headlight and rear light, hydraulic disc brakes, and an Abus Bordo folding lock that mounts behind the seat so that securing the bike is as seamless as possible. And considering the investment necessary to get in the saddle of these Riese & Muller eAdventure bikes, which starts at about 4,300 (~$5300), securing the bike when you're not riding it is a high priority. However, when it comes to the cost of one of these e-bikes, which could enable some people to either ditch the car completely, or to only drive occasionally, any discussion of price should include the potential money-saving aspect of reduced or avoided gas, insurance, registration, and vehicle maintenance costs.

The Delite series comes in several color variations, and in three frame sizes, and more information about Riese & Muller e-bikes, including a sweet e-cargo bike, is available on the company website.
Right from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, chief ministers of all BJP-ruled states, all central ministers and senior leaders of the party will be present in this meeting.

By Brijesh Pandey: Following its impressive performance in local body elections in Odisha, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to hold its National Executive Meeting in Bhubaneswar on April 15 and 16 to make further inroads into the state.

Right from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, chief ministers of all BJP-ruled states, all central ministers and senior leaders of the party will be present in this meeting.

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The BJP decided to hold this national executive meet after its remarkable showing in local body polls.

TIME PERFECT FOR BJP TO EXPAND BASE

The party is of the view that this is the perfect time to consolidate its base in the state if it wants to win the next assembly election in Odisha and boost its chances for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

At present, the BJP has 10 MLAs as well as one Lok Sabha MP from Odisha. The party feels that with the momentum going its favour following its big wins in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and success in Manipur and Goa, the time is opportune for the party to think of expanding its reach in Odisha.

Last week in the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha meeting of the RSS, the possibility of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls witnessing opposition parties coming together to fight against the BJP was discussed. Therefore, the RSS feels that the BJP should start preparing for 2019 straightaway.

Odisha is among the many states where the BJP doesn't have a strong presence and this is why the RSS and the party are pushing hard to gain a stronger foothold.

Also read | Odisha panchayat elections: BJP wins big time, calls it beginning of the end of Naveen Patnaik's rule

Also read | Panchayat poll: BJP makes inroads in BJD bastion Odisha

Also read | In Odisha, BJP cashes in on Patnaik govt's failures

ALSO READ | Odisha panchayat polls: BJP's gains sound warning bells for Naveen Patnaik's BJD

--- ENDS ---
Pahlaj Nihalani-led CBFC has asked the makers of an upcoming film to delete the phrase 'Mann ki baat' from a dialogue because it is also the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monthly radio address to the nation.

By India Today Web Desk: The Central Board of Film Certification headed by Pahlaj Nihalani has asked the makers of the film Sameer to delete the phrase 'Mann ki baat' from a dialogue in the film.

The reason being that the phrase, as we all know it, is the name of the monthly radio address given to our country by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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In the last scene of Dakxin Chhara's film Sameer, after a series of twists, the actual identity of the lead character played by Subrat Dutta is revealed. At this point, the villain played by Zeeshan Mohammed tells him, "Ek mann ki baat kahoon? Tum character accha bana lete ho!" To which, the hero replies, "Waise sir, chai se ch***ya banana aap hi se seekha hai!"

According to a report in Mid-Day, the censor board strangely had no problem with the expletive that comes in the second line since the board placed in the context of the character always offering tea while conversing in the film.

"They categorically asked for the words 'Mann ki baat' to be removed from the first sentence. When I approached the Censor Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani, he told me: PM ka radio show hai, delete the line," director Chhara was quoted as saying.

When asked under what guidelines Chhara was asked to get the phrase deleted from his film, the director said, "We were not given an oral hearing before censor board members, which is supposed to be mandatory. The board, despite granting us an A (adults only) certificate, asked for certain scenes involving torture, and bomb blast, to be chopped mercilessly. If we comply, the impact of those scenes would be lost altogether."

Sameer, directed by Dakxin Chhara, is a thriller based on the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts and among others, it stars Seema Biswas and Anjali Patil.

Chhara at the moment plans to challenge the CBFC's 'Mann ki baat' decision.

ALSO SEE: 10 outrageous double-meaning songs that survived the censor board

ALSO READ: CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani throws out journalist after heated argument

WATCH: Government should stop giving work permits to Pak artists, says Pahlaj Nihalani

--- ENDS ---
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 24

In order to bring the crime rate down and tighten the noose around drug traffickers, the city police carried out search operations in areas including the local bus stand, Maqboolpura and the housing board colony near Ranjit Avenue here today.

Maqboolpura is one of the areas infamous for rampant drug abuse and bootlegging. Many of its male members had lost their lives to the menace in the past. Areas around the housing board colony are also suspected for drug trafficking.

During the search operation, the city police held around 50 persons for suspicious activities and several of them were later let off after verifying their antecedents.

Talking to this reporter, Deputy Commissioner of Police (investigations) Jagmohan Singh said the police were verifying the antecedents of remaining persons who were rounded up for suspicious activities.

A number of nakas were being put up in various parts of the city and these were being supervised by the DCP. He said additional police force from the Indian Reserve Battalion and the Punjab Armed Police has been deputed at these nakas. Vehicles entering and exiting the city were being checked.

The city police have been facing flak over the repeated instances of snatching and robberies besides firing in various parts of the city. Police Commissioner G Nageshswara Rao expressed his displeasure to the police officials during a meeting held a day before yesterday. Passing on the instructions given by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh for curbing drug trafficking, he also ordered them to roll up their sleeves and nail the criminal elements, especially the snatchers and robbers.

Repeated instances of snatchings and robberies have been haunting the local residents while these are proving to be a thorn in the flesh of the Police Department.

Jagmohan Singh said that checking crime and rampant drug abuse is on the priority list of the city police and appropriate measures are being taken to achieve this.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 25

As many as 799 students received their degrees at the 66th Panjab University convocation held today. Of these, 325 students were awarded PhD degree while 474 received degrees for various courses. In fact, 213 students got university gold medals, five special university medals, 45 endowment gold medals, 10 endowment silver medals, 38 merit certificates and 24 cash prizes. Also, 18 students were awarded for declamation contests. One alumnus also received the DSc degree during the convocation.

Vice President of India and Chancellor of Panjab University (PU) Mohammed Hamid Ansari was the chief guest on the occasion.

The highest number of students, which is 114, received the PhD degree in sciences. The second highest number of degrees were awarded from the Arts department i.e. 55. Students from Punjab got 123 degrees, Chandigarh 72 and Haryana 41.

Vice Chancellor Prof Arun Kumar Grover, in his address, referred to the historical event of the first inaugural convocation which took place on November 18, 1882, when the then Viceroy of India, Lord Rippon, was the chief guest. He presented the Doctor of Oriental Learning (Honoris Causa) to Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, the founder Principal of Government College, Lahore, and the founder Registrar of PU.

Other dignitaries who were present for the convocation were the Governor of Haryana Prof Kaptan Singh Solanki, Member of Parliament Kirron Kher, and officials from the UT Administration besides BJP leaders.

Chancellor of PU Mohammed Hamid Ansari gives away the degrees. Tribune Correspondent Arti Kapur speaks to various awardees.

Alumnus awardees

Prof Dr Dalip Kaur Tiwana, who was the first woman in the region to receive a PhD degree from the Panjab University in 1963. She was honoured with PU Sahitya Ratna Award for 2016-17.

Dr Parshotam Dass Gupta, who was an alumnus of the PU and also the student of the present Vice-Chancellor Prof Arun Kumar Grover. He was honoured with the Vigyan Ratna Award for 2016-17.

Gurdev singh Khush

A hero of the green revolution, Dr Gurdev Singh Khush, FRS, is acclaimed internationally as a provider of food security. A PhD in genetics from the University of California, Davis, USA, he is credited with the creation of more than 300 high-yielding varieties of rice. A modest estimate reveals that 60 per cent of the worlds total rice land is now planted with varieties developed under the leadership of Dr Khush and his team. Dr Khush led the rice breeding programme at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, for 35 years. He is a Fellow of 17 major scientific academies all over the globe. He has been awarded by India, Philippines, Vietnam, China, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia and the USA.

Nuruddin Farah

He is well-known in the world of literature with an ever binding emotional attachment to Panjab University, where he pursued a degree in philosophy, literature and sociology from 1966 to 1970. A novelist, who has written plays both for the stage and the radio, he writes short stories and essays too. His first novel, published in 1970, was titled, From a crooked rib, and portrayed the condition of women in Somalia, the country of his birth. He is acknowledged today as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world. His books have been translated into 17 languages. He has been nominated numerous times for the Nobel Prize in literature. He has been honoured with nearly all the other major international literary awards in Europe.

Murli Manohar Joshi

He is a distinguished elder statesman and an academician. With his deep comprehension of Indian civilization, he has made a significant contribution to Indian philosophy, literature and culture. He has emphasised the dialogue of culture and civilisation in the global world and the role of Indian culture and scientific heritage in many international forums. His numerous recognitions include Jawaharlal Nehru Award by the Indian Science Conference, Nicolay Rerikh Medal for his contribution in the sphere of ecology by the International Academy of Ecology, Man and Nature Protection Sciences, Lifetime Award by the Indian Science Congress and Padma Vibhushan.

God particle experiment participant awarded

Bhawandeep, a contributor in the CERN experiment at Geneva, also got her PhD degree. Her PhD is associated with the Higgs Boson project. Bhawandeep visited the CERN lab in Geneva thrice to study the measurements of the W/Z+ jets differential cross-sections at the LHC energy using the CMS detector. She was a part of the team from Panjab University that was involved in the project. After becoming a part of this project, the big challenge was to complete it on time, she said. She completed her postgraduate degree from the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar and did her MPhil from the PU. Now, Bhawandeep plans to pursue post-doctoral thesis.

64-year-old researched to motivate students

My dream of getting a PhD degree has come true after 45 years in Panjab University, said Dr JK Sharma. 64-year-old Sharma did his PhD in career maturity of school students from department of education of the PU. He did his graduation in 1980 and post-graduation in 1984. My area of research was how to motivate the students, especially of classes IX and X, as they are clueless about their career, he said.

Like daughter, like mother is Parminders wish

I want to be addressed as doctor like my younger daughter, was the motivation for 54-year-old Parminder Kaur who did her PhD from the department of womens studies at Panjab University. Parminder Kaur said five years ago, she had enrolled for the PhD on the topic Feminisation of rural poverty. The reason to choose this topic was that she wanted to work for women who are not empowered and get exploited at their workplace. She said her younger daughter, Mehar Dhillon, has completed her MBBS and would soon receive her degree.

Septuagenarian collects his degree after 50 years

Seventy-four-year-old Inderjit Singh was awarded a degree in DSc for his contribution to sciences. His area of research includes cytoskeleton and muscular dystrophy. He is an alumnus of Panjab University and visited the campus after a gap of 50 years to get his degree. He currently works as a professor at the medical university in South Carolina. He said he remembered his golden days on the campus due to which he had been able to achieve something in his life.

Col gets gold in disaster management course

Fifty-one-year-old Col Amit Khosla, a civil engineer in the Army Engineers, got a gold medal in disaster management, pursued the MA course to help him excel in his profession. Interestingly, Khoslas son is studying BTech at a regional centre of Panjab University. He got enrolled in PU in 2014 to pursue a masters in disaster management. He got a study leave of two years to pursue the course. Khosla was commissioned in the Army in 1988 and has completed 28 years of service. He is currently posted in the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) at HQ project Swastik in Gangtok. Disaster management is the field of his interest and he wants to serve the nation in this field, he said.

Cancer survivor tops diploma course in urdu

Defeating cancer, 50-year-old Arvinder Kaur staged a comeback in studies and topped the diploma course in Urdu for which she received a gold medal on Saturday. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 after which she did not pursue her studies due to her health conditions. I always wanted to learn Urdu as my grandfather and other family members knew the language well, she said. For Arvinder, appearing in the written exam was a big challenge due to her health conditions. She wants to pursue an advanced course in Urdu.

In Limca Book of World Records, judge adds another feather to cap

District and Sessions Judge, Pathankot, Tejwinder Singh, was awarded a PhD degree to study the legislative measures to control terrorism in India with special reference to Punjab. He found it interesting to excel in his own field by getting more knowledge about it. I am the fifth person in my family to study Law from Panjab University, he said. His wife was present on the occasion and congratulated him after he received his degree. Singhs name found its way into the Limca Book of World Records in 1993 as the youngest magistrate in India. He was 23 when he became a magistrate and enrolled in the PhD programme at PU in 2007.

Dignitaries meet PU Chancellor to discuss financial crisis

The financial crisis issue of the Panjab University was discussed by five dignitaries with PU Chancellor M Hamid Ansari who. Five dignitaries who meet him Ansari were Member of Parliament Kirron Kher, Governor of Haryana Prof Kaptan Singh Solanki, BJP leader Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, former MP Satpal Jain and PU Vice-Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover.

It was proposed that to have a permanent solution for the financial crisis, a joint meeting should be called by the Chancellor in which the representatives of the HRD Ministry, UGC, PU and the Punjab government should be present. The agenda of the meeting will be to resolve the financial issue which the PU was facing. MP Kirron Kher raised the issue with the Chancellor and other dignitaries that the heritage university should be saved.

Sources said Satpal Jain briefed the Chancellor that the Punjab government has proposed to withdrawn a grant of Rs 20 crore to the PU which will add on to the financial problem of the university. Dr Joshi also said, "The PU is a prominent university and it should be affected due to fund crunch for its functioning."

Sources said, "The Chancellor of the university has not assured to call any joint meeting of all the stake holders as suggested by the panel."
Amaninder Pal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 25

Murli Manohar Joshi, who headed the BJP when the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was at its peak in the early 1990s, today delivered a lecture peppered with references to Western philosophers Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon and Wilhelm Hegel and legendary scientists Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton and Erwin Schrodinger.

Joshi chaired the valedictory session of the three-day seminar on 'Social Science and Research Policy', organised here by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID),

The senior BJP leader was equally at home talking about Judeo-Christian philosophy and quantum mechanics. Joshi, who had been accused by his political opponents of attempting to saffronise education during his tenure as the Union HRD Minister, compared the Western and Oriental world view.

"Today's science is a product of Judeo-Christian philosophy, which tends to fragments everything, including various disciplines. However, the Eastern philosophical world view espouses an integrated approach. Life's problems can't be studied in parts and solved in parts. We must have an organic and holistic view of life, which is offered by Indian philosophy," Joshi added.

He ended his address by urging social scientists to question the theories propounded by scientists of pure sciences. "We should be equally critical of pure sciences and social sciences," he said.

As the Kanpur MP, who holds a doctorate in physics, moved out of the seminar hall, he was asked to comment on the recent political developments in UP. "I don't talk politics when I am among academicians and scientists," he quipped.
R. K. Kaushik

THE execution of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev was carried out on March 23, 1931, in Lahore Central Jail by executor Kala Masih of Shahdra near Lahore. The execution was supervised by the then District Magistrate, Lahore, AA Lane Robert  a 1909 batch ICS officer, along with GT Hamilton Hardinge, a 1915 batch IP officer, the then SSP of Lahore. Apart from them, the then IG prisons (Punjab) Lt Col F.A Barker, the then IG Punjab Police Cherris Stead (1898 batch) were present. However, little did the officers know that the execution of Bhagat Singh would bring monetary and economic benefits for several others.

After the execution, the British government honoured several persons as detailed:

Hans Raj Vohra, Jai Gopal, Phonindra Nath Ghosh and Manmohan Bannerji  had all become government approvers and gave statements against them in the case. They were among the 457 witnesses produced by the Punjab Police in this case. After the executions, all four were rewarded. Vohra refused to take monetary benefits. But he was sponsored by the Punjab government to study in the prestigious London School of Economics.

After a Masters in political science, Vohra got a degree in journalism from London University and was the correspondent of the Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore till 1948. He later shifted to Washington and in the 1950s and 1960s was the Washington correspondent of a leading Indian daily. He died in July 1995, in Washington.

Jai Gopal got an award of Rs 20,000. Phonindra Nath Ghosh and Manmohan Bannerji got 50 acres of land each in Champaran district of Bihar (their home district) in lieu of their services and loyalty to the British government. The then jail superintendent, Major PD Chopra, was promoted as DIG, prisons, Punjab, two days after the hangings. The Deputy Jail Superintendent, Khan Sahib Mohammad Akbar Khan, who had started weeping after the execution of Bhagat Singh and his two companions, was suspended but later taken back as Assistant Jail Superintendent.

His title of Khan Sahib was, however, withdrawn on March 7, 1931. The IG, Prisons, Punjab, Lt Col FA Barker, was honoured with the Knighthood of Sir and sanctioned ex-India leave before retirement.

The DIG Prisons Punjab, Lt. Col. NR Puri, was promoted as IG Prisons Punjab after a few days of the execution. The Investigating Officer of the Lahore conspiracy case, Khan Bahadur Sheikh Abdul Aziz, SP, was given an out-of-turn promotion as selection grade SP, leading to his promotion as DIG three years later. His was the only example in 200 years of British rule in India, where a person who had joined as Head Constable retired as DIG (in July, 1937).

Khan Bahadur Abdul Aziz's eldest son, Masood Aziz, was appointed as Deputy Superintendent of Police by nomination in November, 1931 in the Punjab Police. Khan Bahadur was also given 50 acres of land in Lyallpur. Sudarshan Singh, DSP, who disposed the bodies of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, was promoted as Additional Superintendent of Police, Kasur. He later retired as SP of Punjab Police in September, 1942. Rai Sahib Pandit Sri Krishan, PCS, a Kashmiri from Lahore was the SDM, Kasur, at the time of the executions. He was a trial magistrate in this case earlier. He was given an appreciation letter by the Governor and later promoted as ADM, out of turn. Batala-born Sheikh Abdul Hamid, PCS, Additional District Magistrate of Lahore and Attock-born Rai Sahib Lala Nathu Ram, PCS, City Magistrate, Lahore were also given appreciation in person by the Governor of Punjab, FW DeMont'morency ICS (1899 batch). GT Hamilton Hardinge, SSP Lahore; Amar Singh, DSP; and JR Morris, DSP were given the Kings Police Medal. DSPs Amar Singh and Morris had accompanied DSP Sudharshan Singh of Kasur for the cremation of the three martyrs.

Appreciation letters were given to all constables and head constables, who accompanied the Police Officers by IG C Stead. The four articles written by Bhagat Singh, smuggled out of jail on the day of his execution by advocate Pran Nath Mehta, were later handed over to Bhagat Singh's companion Bijoy Kumar Sinha, who was sentenced to transportation for life and had concealed these papers at a friend's house in Jalandhar. The friend expected a police raid during the Quit India Movement days in July 1942 and burnt all of them in panic.

So, four bunches of papers, written by Bhagat Singh and handed over secretly on the last day of his life, and read by Pran Nath Mehta and Bijoy Kumar Sinha, were lost forever. Bijoy died in Patna on July 16, 1992. He disclosed in a seminar in the late 1980s that Bhagat Singh on the last day of his life had predicted that the Britishers would leave India in 14-15 years. Prophetic words indeed!

The executioner Kala Masih's son Tara Masih hanged Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on November 4, 1979. During the British period, jail superintendents and senior officers in the Jail Department used to be from the Indian Medical Services and had to serve in the Indian Army before being posting in the Jail Department.

The writer is an IAS officer of the Punjab Cadre.
Syed Ali Ahmed

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 25

After forming governments in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur following recently held assembly elections, BJP National President Amit Shah today asked his party activists to work hard to win the elections of the Municipal Corporations of Delhi as it would be a base to form the government in Delhi state in future.

Addressing a party workers rally, Panch Parmeshwar at Ramlila Ground, Shah asked the activists to work hard in the national Capital, appealing electorates to exercise their franchise in favour of BJP candidates defeating the Aam Aadmi Party in the municipal elections to be held on April 23.

He said Delhi is the capital of the country. After coming to power at the Centre in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP has been winning most of the assembly elections. It should also win all three municipal corporations elections.

Ever since the AAP has come to power in Delhi, corruption increased in the government, ministers are involved in scandals, political career of 11 MLAs of the AAP is on stake and the Law Minister was arrested in fake degree racket. Besides, all the development works in Delhi came to a halt as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is always in fighting mood with the Centre. We want a government in Delhi that works in cooperation with the Centre , said Shah.

He said, The BJP believed in working, not in talking. Just after completing five years, we will explain in detail to the people about the achievements of the Modi government. We had assured to give befitting reply to Pakistan for terror attack. With order of the Prime Minister, the Army conducted surgical strike in Pakistan, around two crore women given LPG cylinders, begun Startup India and Make in India schemes.

The AAP had assured people for opening 500 new schools, appointment of 29,000 teachers, 20 degree colleges, three ITIs, free WiFi, women security, 900 primary health centres, 20,000 beds in hospitals and to make adhoc employees permanent. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been in power for the past two and half years but could not complete a single promise, the BJP president said.

He used government money for the AAPs political gains in Punjab, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Goa and other states.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 24

Standing behind their colleagues in Maharsahtra, resident doctors in the national Capital today sought Prime Minister Narendra Modis intervention into their concerns over security inside hospitals warning if issues remain unresolved they will be forced to go for a complete shutdown of services.

No more assurances, but concrete solution, said the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) in its memorandum to the PM and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The development came on a day when their striking counterparts in Maharshtra refused to buy any assurances from the state government even after Union Health Minister JP Nadda today appealing them to resume duty saying he has asked the state governments to respond proactively and ensure adequate security to doctors inside hospitals.

Nadda also took up the matter with the Indian Medical Association (IMA) which in the evening called off the agitation following an assurance by the Maharashtra government of resolving all issues raised within 15 days

We received a call from officials of the Union Health Ministry saying the Health Minister (Nadda) considers the issue serious and taken up the matter on urgency basis. IMA appealed to the doctors to resume their duties but resident doctors have refused to return to work. They are asking for implementation of the assurances. We are keeping our fingers crossed and waiting for the Maharsahtra government to act. We are going to hold a meeting over the meeting for our future course of action, said Dr Pankaj Solanki, president of FORDA.

After a series of happenings today at national level, the IMA protest against assault on doctors at multiple places, especially in Maharashtra was called off, said Dr K K Aggarwal, IMA president.

In its memorandum to the PM, FORDA has drawn attention to the recent spate of assaults on doctors by attendants in Delhi and across the country pointing out that "no conviction" has taken place in the city over the last two years.

We doctors are very much agitated in view of increasing number of assaults on doctors. In the last one and half years there have been more than 50 reported incidents and hundreds of unreported incidents in the capital with doctors while no one has been convicted. And for registering an FIR or even a complaint we have to go under lot of harassment, read the memorandum to the PM.
London, March 25

Indian-origin British director Gurinder Chadha has been honoured with the Sikh Jewel Award for 2017 for her immense contribution to British cinema.

Chadha, whose films include "Bhaji on the Beach", "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Bride and Prejudice", received the award from UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon at the Vaisakhi Dinner organised by the British Sikh Association at the Lancaster Hotel here Thursday night.

The High Commissioner of India to the UK, Y K Sinha, who was the Guest of Honour, was also present on the dais.

Chadha's latest film, "Viceroy's House" tells the true story of the final five months of British rule in India and coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Independence of India and the founding of Pakistan.

Receiving the award, Chadha said, "Some people use religion to divide - that is the theme of my film - and also the atrocities inflicted on us. It is a fair film."

Jasminder Singh, OBE, Chairman and founder of Edwardian Hotels, Jagjeet Singh Sohal, a writer, broadcaster ad communications consultant, and Khalsa Aid founded in 1999, also received the Sikh Jewel Awards.

In his address, Sinha said, "We were really touched when we saw the films screened on the occasion depicting the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers, mostly Sikhs and Gurkhas in the two world wars, winning more laurels than others.

"Sacrifices made by Sikhs are always remembered in India. The Government of India and the people of India gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by Sikhs." Fallon said he would be visiting India next month and "utilise the opportunity to have greater defence cooperation between Britain and India."

"Sadly, the contribution of over a million Indian soldiers in each great war is not taught in British schools and if it were, there would be a better understanding about our shared history," Dr Rami Ranger, CBE, Chairman of the British Sikh Association, said.

He urged the Defence Secretary to convey "our request to the Education Secretary that the contribution of Commonwealth countries in preserving our freedom is taught in schools, especially in the wake of Brexit when we will need to revisit and renew our tried and tested bond of friendship with these allies."

Ranger also asked Virendra Sharma, MP and Councillor Julien Bell, leader of the Ealing Council to grant the Association the opportunity to erect a befitting memorial in Southall to pay tribute to a community for its supreme sacrifices for our freedom.

The British Sikh Association also signed the Armed Forces Covenant alongside Fallon, to formally recognise the strong ties between the Sikh community and the Armed Forces. PTI
Ravinder Saini

Tribune News Service

Rewari, March 25

Farmers are forced to sell mustard crop below the Minimum Support Price (MSP) as the government is yet to start the procurement process.

Farmers said that the government had fixed Rs 3,700 per quintal as the MSP for mustard this year, but the crop was being purchased by private buyers at the rate of Rs 3,200 to Rs 3,500 per quintal. Taking a serious note of the farmers plight, the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) has launched an indefinite dharna outside the Mini-Secretariat here and sought immediate initiation of the procurement process so that farmers could sell their produce at the MSP.

Farmers are facing a loss of Rs 200 to Rs 500 per quintal, as they have to sell their produce to private buyers below the MSP. Since mustard crop has been harvested in most of the villages, the farmers cannot wait further for the governments procurement process to start, said Shobha Ram, a farmer.

Asha Ram, another farmer, said since the region had witnessed a bumper yield this time, the government should initiate the procurement with immediate effect to extend the benefit of the MSP to the farmers.

The government seems non-serious towards problems of the farmers as the date of procurement is yet to be decided despite arrival of considerable quantity of the crop in grain markets across south Haryana daily, said Ram Kishan Mahlawat, state secretary of the BKS.

Sunder Lal, district BKS chief, said they would not lift the dharna until the government either started the procurement process or ensured every purchase of mustard at the MSP.

Ram Kanwar, District Manager, HAFED, said the purchase of mustard was to be done by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) which had not so far issued any notification regarding the procurement process.

We shall start buying mustard immediate after getting directives from the government, he added.

Bijender Hooda, City Magistrate, said that the district authorities had sent a communique to the state government urging it to initiate early procurement of mustard so that farmers could sell their crop at the MSP.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 25

In its bid to combat the problem of Specific Apple Replant Disease (SARD), the government has obtained permission from the Central Insecticides Board, Union Ministry of Agriculture, for the import of chloropicrin chemical along with machinery and equipment.

Principal Secretary Jagdish Sharma today said the HPMC would import this chemical from the USA for providing it to the University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, for trials. He said the availability of chloropicrin chemical would go a long way in managing soil-borne pathogens affecting other fruits, vegetables and floriculture crops.

He said the chemical would be helpful in treating the soil in polyhouses between crop cycles. Chloropicrin is the best chemical which has been an effective combatant in the war against SARD. The chemical was not registered in India till date and thus, could not be manufactured or imported from outside for the use in soil treatment, he stated.

He said keeping in view the importance of the chemical, necessary steps were initiated under the ambitious Rs 1,134 crore World Bank funded HP Horticulture Development Project for getting the chemical registered in the country. The Centre gave permission for the import of chloropicrin.

The multi-location trials would be conducted in Shimla, Solan and Kullu districts during the current year. This would pave the way for registration of this chemical in India. This was one of the major initiatives by the state government which would especially benefit the apple growers of Shimla, Kullu and Mandi districts where the orchards had become too old and senile and need immediate replacement with latest varieties and root stocks.

Sharma said it had been a matter of concern for farmers, extension officers and scientists that new plantations did not perform well owing to SARD that occurs when apple trees were planted in soil where similar species had been grown previously. SARD was not only limited to apple trees but it also affects roses and a number of other fruit trees, including cherry, citrus, peach, pear, plum and quince.
By Shivangi Thakur: Indian television actor Parth Samthaan has issued a statement after a complaint of molestation was lodged against him on Saturday.

Negating the allegations he said that the case was false and baseless. "To start with , the case is completely false and baseless .. went to the police station today , gave my statement .. and I am out of it ... and yes it was a dispute among friends .. and she complained after almost 1.5 years ...at the station we also got to know from the cops that the girl Sushmita chokraborty had come with vikas Gupta to the station and hence plotted all those false accusations without any proof and filed the case ..the very next day she called me and said she realized what she had done and wanted to take the case back .. but since she filed an FIR , cops could not take the case back ... today ,I gave all my call recordings and WhatsApp conversations to the cops which I had with Sushmita where it is clearly mentioned that she wants to take the case back and did all this in the heat of the moment .. and then requesting me to sort it out as soon as possible..... time and again Vikas Gupta has been trying to demean me and that everyone is aware of .. don't need to say more as I know the audience is sensible enough of what's happening as they have already witnessed me getting into stupid controversies before ....also given the fact that women are given special rights by law over men in such situations .. to which I completely respect .. but does not mean that they should take undue advantage of it and stoop so low in order to demean me or anyone ....thank you," he said.

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A complaint of molestation was lodged against the actor by a 20-year-old model in Bangar Nagar police station under section 354 A of the Indian Penal Code.

The FIR was filed last month, as the incident had apparently occurred on February 20.

Also read: Shilpa Shinde sexual harassment case: Here is what Saumya Tandon has to say about it

--- ENDS ---
Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 25

Social media has become a way of life today as a lot of knowledge and information is disseminated through it but it has also become a bane of youth as it is being misused. This was the crux of the inter-college debate organised by The Tribune on the topic, Life in times of social media, here today.

In all, 28 contestants from 14 colleges participated in the debate. Speaking for the motion, students were of the opinion that social media had become a major job creator and had turned the world into a small village by providing connectivity. One can get information on the click of a mouse, get in touch with old friends and it can also be used as a rescue mechanism in times of crisis.

Social media has influenced our life so much that the idiom Neki kar, dariya mein daal is now converted to Kuch bhi kar, Facebook par dal, said one of the participants in the competition. Quoting an example, another participant said one could not measure the happiness of a grandmother staying in India interacting with her grandson living in America on Skype which had been made possible only due to internet and social media.

Expressing their views against the motion, the participants said social media represented an idealised version of reality and was responsible for increased stress and depression among the youth. Cyberbullying, harassment and trolling were increasing on social media which was leading to suicides in some cases. Social media also provides a platform to terrorists and anti-social elements besides opening doors of pornography for young and immature minds, the students argued.

Addressing the participants, Prof RS Chauhan, Pro Vice Chancellor of Himachal Pradesh University, who was the chief guest on the occasion, talked about the changing face of media and said the Communication and IT Ministry had become more important today than the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Principal of Government College, Sanjauli, Diksha Malhotra, who was also the guest of honour on the occasion, said social media had become a distraction for students as they spent most of their time on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The judges for the contest, Prof Meenakshi F Paul and Ravinder Makhaik, opined that sanskar blended with technology should be the approach adopted by the youth addicted to social media. They said the problem with information circulated on social networks was that it was difficult to differentiate between truth and lies.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 25

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah today termed the upcoming byelections in the Kashmir valley as a fight for the survival of secularism as he addressed a rally in central Kashmirs Budgam district.

The rally was also addressed by the partys working president Omar Abdullah, general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar, former Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather and Congress leader Tariq Hameed Karra.

Farooq, whose NC has allied with the Congress, in his address, described the upcoming byelections to two Kashmir parliamentary constituencies as not just the battle of ballot but fight for survival of secularism.

The outcome of the two parliamentary seats from Kashmir, should, therefore, send a terse message to the fascist forces, which are overtly and covertly trying to establish a foothold through the PDP, Farooq said.

He said the victory of NC and Congress candidates from the Srinagar and Anantnag parliamentary constituencies has to be massive to halt the tentacles of communal forces. The minorities in India are living under perpetual fear and uncertainty and if the divisive forces are not stopped, the day is not far when the situation in the Valley will become grimmer, he said.

The NC chief blamed the PDP for facilitating the BJPs growth in the state. For loaves of power, the PDP betrayed the mandate by hobnobbing with the RSS after seeking votes against them in the first instance, he said.

Omar, states former Chief Minister, asked people to realise the danger of fascism hovering over the state and get united to defeat it with full might. He said the current elections involved larger issues especially threat of communal forces and the mis-governance of the PDP-BJP government could not be kept under the carpet.

The only achievement the PDP can brag about is that the people were deprived of offering prayers in Jamia Masjid consecutively for 18 Fridays, he said.

In his address, Karra spelt the circumstances that forced him to part ways with the PDP last year. He denounced the PDP as importer of the communal and anti-Muslim RSS and the BJP into Kashmir.
Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 25

Clearing the decks, the Central government has issued a notification confirming the appointment of Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed as the new Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court after the President gave his consent.

Justice Durrez Ahmed, one of the senior-most judges of the Delhi High Court, was recommended as the next Chief Justice of the J&K High Court by the Supreme Court collegium last month. Subsequently, the J&K Government had also given its consent to his appointment.

Justice Durrez Ahmed is the son of former President Fakhrudin Ali Ahmed, who served as the President from August 24, 1974 to February 11, 1977.

The formal notification for the appointment was issued by the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice on Friday.

In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 95 of the Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir, the President is pleased to appoint Shri Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, a judge of the Delhi High Court, to be the Chief Justice of J&K High Court with effect from the date he assumes charge of his office, reads the notification signed by Rajinder Kashyap, Joint Secretary, Department of Justice, Union Ministry of Law and Justice.

Asked when the new Chief Justice is scheduled to take oath, a senior official at the J&K High Courtsaid the date is yet to be decided.

We are yet to receive the warrant and accordingly the arrangements for the oath-taking ceremony would be finalised, said the official, adding that the new Chief Justice had not conveyed when he would be assuming the charge.
Jasmine Singh

Suchita Malik has a message for the young generation, which is applicable to all of us. You cannot have a future without having a past, the soft-spoken writer elaborates and weaves a story around this message, and gives it a form of Scent Of The Soil, her fourth book, and the third in the trilogy, the first two being Indian Memsahib and Memsahib Chronicles published by Rupa Publications India.

Saturday morning saw friends, fans of her work and many dignitaries gather at Haryana Niwas, Chandigarh to talk about her latest book, the one that comes straight from her heart, like the rest of her works.

I do not write anything for the heck of it, I write about things that I strongly feel about, says the author whose heart found a setting, a space, a scenario, a reality that she was compelled to write about.

There comes a stage in ones profession (in the book this comes in the life of a civil servant), when enough is enough. This is the saturation point from where one is left to think about where life is moving or should it be.

And this is how her latest book Scent Of The Soil progresses. Suchita gives a peek into the inside world of her protagonist, a male civil servant.

I was asked when would I ever bring in a male protagonist in my books, since her earlier two books had a woman as the leading lady. So, this time my lead character is a male, Suchita smiles as she takes us along the storyline of her new book.

My protagonist is a celebrated civil servant who has only focused on his professional commitments, and his family life is in complete mess. His wife has left him and kids have gone astray. It so happens that this civil servant lands up in a hospital, and he finds himself surrounded by his family, his ex-wife, children and his grandmother, the ones he didnt care about when he was working. It is here that the kids strike a bond with their granny, who talks about the village life, and how the protagonist is already toying with the idea of going back to the village, Suchita gives a brief of the story for which, of course, she has done her research.

I went to a village, spoke to the people there and stayed with them for a few days. So, though this book is a work of fiction, it has the flavour of what I felt and saw in the village, says the author.

And it is time to ask her about reactions from the family. She smiles, My daughter is also a civil servant. I have asked her to take the message seriously but not everything as she is too young to feel exhausted or run away from something so important, Suchita holds that smile.

jasmine@tribunemail.com
Mona

Stay true to your conviction...is the dictum that actor Manav Vij believes in. When this homeopathic doctor landed in Mumbai a decade-and-a-half back, his acting earned criticism. With the sole aim to create his own identity, he continued slow and steady, and leapt from small screen first to Pollywood and eventually to Bollywood; he now has as many as six projects due to hit the screens in 2017.

He will be seen in two quite divergent films  a ghost story Phillauri and spy thriller Naam Shabana. Manav will be seen playing lead actress Anushka Sharmas brother in the first, a character very different from Udta Punjab where he played negative role. In Phillauri I play completely opposite to my last outing in Bollywood, opens up Manav, who enjoyed the initial workshop and eased in to the role.

Having done turban-bearded looks in these two films; Manav was surprised when Shivam Nair and Neeraj Pandey asked him to play clean-shaven character in their thriller. Playing a raw agent besides Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Kumar and Manoj Bajpayee was another challenge that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Happy note

What makes this actor really happy is that no more is the spotlight focused on the lead pair in any film, From when I started to act to now, the biggest change is that character-actors, screenplay writers and cinematographers are also being known, not only in the industry but among the masses too, shares the actor, who has people come up to him and narrate his dialogues.

Manav believes it is his desire to pursue acting that has got him to where he is today. Today, when I look back, I believe fate has played its role. Coming to Mumbai, Manav found a karmic connection with Ekta Kapoor, the Czarina of the telly world. Ekta not only gave me lots of works, but also got me hitched to Meher.

Having played his innings well on the small screen; Manav headed to Pollywood and it was Udta Punjab that got him noticed. Comparing the two, he finds not much of a difference in how the two industries function. As an artiste, I give my 100 per cent  be it Hindi film or Punjabi; web-series or a soap.

However, he enjoys shooting Punjabi films more as the atmosphere on the sets is more relaxed and due to the Punjabiat in his blood. With a father in Ferozpur and total faith in Nakodar Sai Ka darbar, each time Manav misses home, he is here. I have a friend philosopher and guide in Gurdas Maan ji. I am in absolute love with him, and his songs are the ideals by which I lead my life.

mona@tribunemail.com
Gwalior, March 25

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that the country's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh would be sealed by 2018

Rajnath said this while taking part in the passing out parade of the Border Security Force (BSF) at Tekanpur in Gwalior district.

"The BSF is discharging its responsibilities in protecting the nation's borders properly. That's why, the trust and belief of the people towards BSF have increased," the Home Minister told reporters.

"India will seal its borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh soon, Rajnath said, responding to a question. Fencing would be done wherever it's possible and in case it's not, technology would be brought into application".

Speaking on the increasing Maoist incidents, the Home Minister said: "These incidents have decreased 50-55 per cent in the last 2-3 years. Previously, 135 districts were Maoist infested, which has come down to 35 now." "The state governments are tackling the situation (Maoist incidents) and the central government is providing complete assistance," he added.  IANS/ ANI
The Border Security Force on Saturday inducted its first woman field officer after a convocation ceremony at the BSF academy at Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district.

Tanushree Pareek, a resident of Rajasthan, led the passing-out parade as the first woman field officer. She started training last year in a 52-week Assistant Commandant training programme with the 40th batch of the BSF academy.

The force had begun induction of woman officers in 2013. She will now be posted to command a unit along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said, I am happy that BSF has got its first woman field officer and hope that many more women will join her in securing our borders.
Chennai, March 25

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday ordered the transfer of Chennai Police Commissioner S. George ahead of the RK Nagar by-polls.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) had filed a petition for the Police Commissioners transfer to ensure free and fair polls to the RK Nagar Assembly constituency.

Karan Sinha, who was posted as the Additional Director General of Police in CB-CID, has been appointed as the new Police Commissioner.

A delegation comprising DMK MPs TKS Elangovan, RS Bharathi and Tiruchi Siva had filed a petition before the Election Commission earlier on March 17.

The DMK MPs had in the petition said that S. George could influence polling in favour of the ruling AIADMK.  ANI
Bhopal, March 25

A fire broke out at Ordnance Factory, Khamaria, in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday evening, setting off a series of explosion.

District Collector Mahesh Choudhary said that 25 fire tenders were pressed into service, and the blaze was put out by 9.30 pm, three hours after it started.

The explosions too have stopped, the Collector said.

The fire started at around 6.20 pm, when the factory workers had left, hence there were no casualties, said Choudhary, who visited the spot.

Cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, he said.  PTI
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 25

Highlighting the dangers of hate speech, the Law Commission has recommended to the government to take measures to expand and fortify the penal provisions to deal with the menace that often leads to communal violence in India.

Incitement of violence cannot be the sole criterion for determining hate speech and attempts to create hatred and fear should also be brought under its ambit, the commission said in its 267th report submitted to the government.

The Commission -- which was asked by the Supreme Court to examine the issue -- suggested adding new provisions to the Indian Penal Code, saying even a speech that did not incite violence had the potential of marginalising a section of society.

Hate speech is any word written or spoken, signs, visible representations within the hearing or sight of a person with the intention to cause fear or alarm, or incitement to violence, it said.

The Commission sought to highlight that political speeches often assume a divisive tone in order to exploit social prejudices for electoral gains.

However, it said the discourse must take place in an environment that does not foster abusive or hateful sentiments. Though, political rivalry might encourage the use of unwarranted language, it is unwise to restrict speech that merely showcases the tendency to evoke unwanted circumstances without intention. In order to promote robust and healthy debate, it is important that a fine balance is struck between freedom and restrictions, it said.

The Commission headed by Justice BS Chauhan drafted a new law  The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2017  inserting new Sections to the IPC on 'prohibiting incitement to hatred' and 'causing fear, alarm, or provocation of violence in certain cases'.

However, it said any legal regulation of hate speech must strike a balance between harm caused by hate speech and the threat to freedom of speech and expression.

The panel -- which advises the government on legal issues, also suggested certain non-legal measures to address hate speech.

It advocated subtly and effectively promoting harmony between communities through popular TV dramas; involvement of religious heads to build empathy across religious lines to reduce communal tension; and strategic interventions to monitor dissemination of hate speech and mob mobilisation by misuse of social media.

In the age of technology and social media, the anonymity of internet allowed miscreants to easily spread false and offensive ideas, it noted.

"These ideas need not always incite violence but they might perpetuate the discriminatory attitudes prevalent in society. Thus, incitement to discrimination is also a significant factor that contributes to the identification of hate speech," it said explaining parameters to judge hate speech.
By India Today Web Desk: Anushka Sharma had a lot riding on her second production venture Phillauri.

She and her brother Karnesh Sharma launched Clean Slate Films in 2014 with the sleeper hit NH10. This time around, they had banked on a supernatural comedy which starred, besides Anushka Sharma, Punjabi sensation Diljit Dosanjh (Udta Punjab) and Life of Pi actor Suraj Sharma.

advertisement

Considering it is s a solo-Anushka film, Phillauri had a decent opening day. According to reports, Phillauri managed to earn a modest Rs 4.02 crore on Friday.

Phillauri written by Anvita Dutt and directed by Anshai Lal is the story of Kanan (Suraj Sharma) who is married to a tree on account of being manglik. However, in the tree lived a spirit named Shashi (Anushka) who is now attached to Kanan. The rest of the film revolves how Shashi is sent back to the netherworld by Kanan.

While Phillauri does have some similarity to the Tim Burton film A Corpse's Bride, the similarity ends with the supernatural premise. How Phillauri fares eventually depends a lot on its box-office collection on Saturday and Sunday.

ALSO READ: Phillauri movie review

WATCH: Anushka-Diljit talk about Phillauri on In Da Club

--- ENDS ---
Our Correspondent

Hoshiarpur, March 25

Jasveer Singh, a soldier of 10th Battalion of Sikh Light Infantry, was cremated with Army honours at his native Ambala Jattan village near Garhdiwala. He had been missing since February 27, when he had left for home from the Indo-China border.

Army personnel of his unit who were accompanying the corpse said his body was recovered from a rivulet in Arunachal Pradesh, around 8 km from his units base.

On February 27, through a call from his unit, the JCO had informed his family that he had left along with 11 other jawans, but went missing after he got down from the Army vehicle on the way to drink water. Since then, nothing was known about his whereabouts.

On Thursday, Jasveers body was found from the riverside near Lohit Bridge over Karauti rivulet. Jasveers wife Kamlesh Kumari gave birth to a girl child on March 22, the same day when Jasveers body was recovered. Father Hukum Chand and village sarpanch Harbhajan Singh Dhatt asked Subedar Manjit Singh, accompanying the corpse, about the conditions in which he had died but he could not explain more than what was earlier conveyed by the unit. On this, the family and other villagers got agitated and refused to cremate the body. MLA Sangat Singh Gilzian and Naib Tehsildar Mukhtiar Singh talked to the higher Army officials on phone and on the assurance by them to ensure justice and complete assistance to the family, Hukam Singh agreed to cremate the body.
Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, March 24

Inmates went on a rampage in the Gurdaspur central jail this afternoon after two staffers were assaulted, forcing the police to fire into the air to contain rioting.

Trouble started when a jail staffer, Maheshinder Singh, was attacked as he tried to bring two gangsters  Jagtar Singh and Gurpreet Singh  out of the solitary confinement cells. Jail Superintendent DS Saini, who tried to intervene, was also assaulted. This triggered a clash between two groups of inmates, one owing loyalty to the two gangsters.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The jail siren went off thrice at 12.35 pm as inmates set off fires at several places and uprooted power cables and hand pumps.

Soon after, SSP Bhupinderjeet Singh Virk accompanied by senior officers and security personnel arrived at the scene. All 13 Station House Officers of the district also reached the jail even as more police force was requisitioned.

Virk started negotiations with the two sides, but inmates belonging to one group ended the talks and made their way to the roof of a barrack.

The police opened fire into the air to contain them, triggering panic in the area  the Gurdaspur jail is located in the heart of the city.

Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar, who was holding a meeting at nearby Panchayat Bhawan, asked Sub-Divisional Magistrate Sandeep Singh to reach the jail.

Smoke could be seen coming out of the jail premises even as two fire tenders entered the premises to douse the fires. An anti-riot vehicle remained stationed inside as a precautionary measure. Traffic on the jail road was suspended.

The incident occurred on the eve of IG (Border) Naunihal Singhs visit to the city. In the evening, ADGP (Prisons) Rohit Chowdhury and DIG (Prisons) SS Saini visited the prison and held meetings with officers.

The Deputy Commissioner has ordered an inquiry to be conducted by the SDM. Sources said the inmate-staff ratio at the jail stood at 1,500:90. Things could have been worse had police reinforcements not arrived quickly, said a jail official.

Inmates were reportedly teargassed after they sat on a fast. Power supply was disconnected as a precautionary measure. The ADGP (Prisons) reached the spot to take stock of the situation.
Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 25

The Gurdaspur prison arson and security breach just four months after the sensational Nabha jailbreak case has raised questions about security of such establishments in the state.

Prison officials have blamed the police for the shortcomings and denying them their own intelligence unit. Serious staff crunch and reforms too are another sore point with the former.

The Jail Department had moved a proposal about two months ago on its own intelligence unit but it was shot down. The intelligence wing of the police monitors the phone calls and analyses the confiscated phone sets. Also, they tell us which criminal is a gangster. The department asked for permission for its own unit as relevant information to help pre-empt such incidents either doesnt reach us or is delayed, an official said.

Sources last week requested ADGP Rohit Chaudhary for the unit and additional security in a letter to the DGP. We are functioning with half of the sanctioned strength. The paramilitary battalions posted after Nabha Jail break have been withdrawn post elections. Nearly 600 vacancies have not been filled. We need more men. We wanted to set up a security zone in Gurdaspur jail on the lines of other jails but due to inadequate security, it was not possible, rued a Jail official.

A senior official of the Punjab Police, wishing not to be quoted, said the proposal of the separate Intelligence unit for the Prison department was not possible as too many units would have caused chaos, It has to be centralised,he said.

Chaudhary said he has called for a review meeting for optimum utilisation of staff. He declined to comment on other issues plaguing the department.

The then Akali-BJP government had started recruitment of jail staff twice but it was cancelled on both occasions due to allegations of favouritism.
Salil Desai

What does a bunch of authors do when thrown together for weeks? They write, talk, laugh, argue, cook, eat and drink. They endlessly discuss books, the craft of writing and nervously inquire how much the others are writing. They feel like kindred spirits  and that is what writers residencies are all about, perhaps the only places in the world where writers dont feel like freaks because they are in the company of fellow freaks.

In late March, I was thrilled to receive a mail from Peter Q. Rannes, Director, Danish Centre for Writers & Translators, informing me that I was one of the four authors selected globally for their fully funded four-week International Summer Residency for Writers at Hald Hovedgaard in Denmark from June 1 to 27. Within minutes, I was mentally packing my bags.

Hald Hovedgaard is a serene and beautiful country estate in the Danish province of Jutland, 380 km from Copenhagen and 10 km outside Viborg city. The writers retreat is something right out of a Wodehouse novel  a two-winged, three-storied mansion with numerous rooms, a library, ornate sitting and dining chambers, banquet halls, fireplaces, sprawling green lawns, cascading onto a lovely lake. I could well have been Bertie Wooster at Brinkley Court.

The principal purpose of this international literary encounter, instituted at Hald since 2010 with support from Danish government, is the informal meeting of professional writers, living door to door in an inspiring environment. Hald has so far hosted over 30 writers from 20 countries. For the 2016 residency, besides me, the three other international writers selected were Fiona Shaw (the UK), Amanda Michalopoulou (Greece) and Jac Jemc (USA). The Danish writers who were to share the first fortnight with us were Mirjam Bastian, Bo Dahl Olsson, Elisabeth Flensted-Jensen and Rebecca Bach-Lauritsen. We hit it off almost instantaneously.

Life at Hald was just perfect for the writerly existence. After an exhilarating morning walk around the woods, I would have tea and biscuits, then grab my writing pad and go into the halls on the first floor, which had nice nooks to park oneself in and write. When hungry, I would descend to the kitchen, bump into fellow writers and chit-chat as we prepared and munched a hearty breakfast. That done, I would return to my lair and scribble away till lunch time. Lunch was a working meal or a leisurely one depending upon how much writing one had got done in the morning. Progress or the lack of it was writ large on peoples faces. Frets, frowns, pre-occupied gazes, monosyllabic answers were common. Anyone who appeared cheerful and conversational was envied.

Post lunch, I generally stole a quick siesta in my room, then took a relaxing shower and got back to work, this time outdoors. Thanks to an uncharacteristic spell of excellent weather, Hald was at its fascinating best. The birds twittered, the breeze blew gently and the bewitching setting produced a magical trance that was so conducive to writing. Words have never come easier to me.

We had formal dinners every Monday, when Peter and his wife Gitte served Danish delicacies. The staple Danish fare is roasted potatoes and different kinds of meat. Danish desserts were, however, not quite my idea of yummy-ness as they tended to be less sweet and much too sour. Fresh strawberries with cream are known as the taste of summer, Gitte told me. To enjoy it, however, I had to add so much sugar that the Danes were convinced I was heading for diabetes!

On other days, dinner was a casual, leisurely affair with all inmates relaxed and voluble. What came through is that authors everywhere, except best-selling ones, face the same existential struggles  how to keep writing and getting published while also earning a livelihood. Clearly, its only their passion that keeps them going alongside the hope that perhaps their next book might be the turning point, bringing with it either literary accolades or serious money...

Our last week featured a reading session in the Kings Chamber at Viborg. The sounds of appreciation from the small audience in this foreign land were gratifying to hear as I read out passages from my book, The Murder of Sonia Raikkonen.

Champagne was uncorked. Catchy Danish songs and ditties were sung. It seemed surreal to be leaving the next morning. Hald had already become a habit. Writing would never be the same again  for where else would I hear nothing but the sweet sound of scribbling and of my brain whirring contentedly with words.

Criminal Camaraderie

One highlight of my stay at Hald was meeting Danish crime writer Lotte Petri. With four books under her belt, Lotte is fast emerging as a prolific author. The more stable a society, the more scary things you want to write and read about, she remarked when I asked her about the popularity of Danish crime fiction. One likes to safely read about other peoples miseries. Her books so far have had a strong medico-biological angle. Every year, there is a new trend to the type of crime books being published in Denmark, Lotte explained, Last year it was erotic crime, the year before that scientific crime and a little earlier domestic crime.

Salil Desai is a Pune based crime novelist who was selected for the Hald International Writers Residency in 2016.
Chaman Lal

The University of Punjab at Lahore was set up on October 14, 1882. It was the fourth university of India although it was the first university that expanded its scope from being an examining university to teaching and examining both. Preceding it were the University of Calcutta (set up on January 24, 1857), the University of Bombay (July 24, 1857) and University of Madras (September 5, 1857).

The evolution of higher education in India is interesting. Till 1904, all universities had their own statutes. Thereafter, all five universities (the aforementioned four and Allahabad University (established November 16, 1889) were brought under the Indian Universities Act VIII of 1904. Many features still continue with all these five universities. These include elected Senate and Syndicates in these institutions. Till 1947, the British established in India 496 colleges and 21 universities, the last one being Sagar University in 1946.

At present, there are more than 750 universities, including private, deemed ones and more than 35,000 colleges in divided part of India. If Pakistan and Bangladeshi institutions are counted, it might cross 1,000 universities and 50,000 plus colleges!

Birth of an institution

It was the setting up of a Government College in Lahore on January 1, 1864, as part of the British scheme of expanding higher education in India that eventually led to the establishment of Punjab University. The college was housed in Dhyan Singh Haveli. It was renamed Lahore University College by 1869, and thereafter became Punjab University College, Lahore. There was a systematic campaign to upgrade the college to university for 13 long years before the University of the Punjab came about on October 14, 1882.

In between, the Oriental College, Lahore, was set up in 1870. It focussed on Indian languages like Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Punjabi, Hindi. Gurmukhi was recognised by Oriental College as early as in 1877 and Punjabi (Gurmukhi) department was opened in Oriental College in 1879. It was renamed Punjabi Language and Culture Department after Partition. The Hindi department has been functioning in the college since 1983.

Punjab Governor Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison was appointed the first Chancellor of the university. He appointed Sir James Bradwood Lyall as the first Vice-Chancellor. He was succeeded by Sir Baden Henry Powell.

Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, Professor of Arabic at Kings College London, was named the first Principal of Panjab University College. He later took over as the first Registrar of University of the Punjab in 1882 and contributed immensely to the universitys development.

Set up in 1875, Mahindra College, Patiala, was the universitys first affiliate college. St. Stephens College, Delhi, was established in 1881.

Distinguished Punjabis became the first Fellows/Senators of the university. They included Maharaja Ranbir Singh of Kashmir, Maharaja Rajinder Singh of Patiala, Raja Hira Singh of Nabha, Raja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, Raja Raghbir Singh of Jind, Nawab Mohd. Siddique Khan of Bahawalpur, Nawab Ibrahim Khan of Malerkotla, Raja Bikram Singh of Faridkot, Munshi Hukam Chand and Sodhi Hukam Singh among others.

It took a quarter of a century for the first Indian Vice-Chancellor, Sir P C Chatterjee, to be appointed in 1907. Dr Umar Hayat Malik took over as the first Vice-Chancellor in September 1947 at Lahore in post-Partition period. Punjab University, Lahore, as it was popularly known, catered the vast area in pre-Partition India. Apart from the undivided Punjab, which was a huge state, it also covered the Delhi region till 1922, Jammu and Kashmir, Baluchistan, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now known as Pakhtunwa in Pakistan, till 1947.

It is sometimes believed that the University of Lahore was spelled as Punjab and it changed to Panjab in Chandigarh to differentiate! This, however, is not true. Both spellings are in use in pre-Partition Punjab University records.

In times of trauma

After Partition, Punjab University went through traumatic times, particularly in East Punjab, the Indian part of Punjab. It was agreed at the time of Partition that examinations will be conducted by the University of the Punjab, Lahore, on both sides. For this purpose, Registrar (Examinations) of the University Madan Gopal Singh, who was in India at the time of Partition, travelled to Lahore from Shimla, leaving a note for eminent artist Krishan Khannas father  See you when I get back, that is, if I get back! He was murdered by his personal assistant in his office in the university!

Progressive economist Professor Brij Narayan, who was the head of the economics department and wrote on Sufferings of Peasants, had opted to stay back in Lahore. He too was similarly murdered in his office.

The long shadow of hatred destroyed the University of Lahores humanist tradition and the nascent government in East Punjab was compelled to bring an ordinance to set up East Punjab University on September 27, 1947, which came into existence on October 1, 1947. Sir Chandu Lal Trivedi, Governor of East Punjab, became its first Chancellor. The administrative offices of the university were set up in a camp in Shimla. Justice Teja Singh was appointed Honorary Vice-Chancellor of the university from February 8, 1948 till March 31, 1949, when he was appointed first Chief Justice of Pepsu High Court. The first convocation of the university was held on March 5, 1949, in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel. Justice Teja Singh was succeeded by G C Chatterjee for four months and then Dewan Anand Kumar for eight years, followed by the legendary Amar Chand Joshi for another eight years. Since 2016, economist Dr. Zaffar Mueen Nasir has been heading the PU Lahore as Vice-Chancellor while scientist Prof. Arun Kumar Grover has been the Vice-Chancellor of PU Chandigarh since 2012.

Both universities have expanded a lot since their inception. Punjab University, Lahore, has now five campuses  two in Lahore and three outside Lahore-Gujranwala, Jhelum and Khanaspur. Its original location Government College, Lahore, has now turned into a full-fledged research-oriented university named as Government College University, Lahore.

The Indian odyssey

PU administrative offices shifted to cantonment in Solan after 1947. The departments were also located in various places  Department of Chemical Engineering was located in Delhi Polytechnic, Delhi; Botany, Zoology and Chemistry departments started in Khalsa College Amritsar, so was Punjabi department agriculture college was also set up at Amritsar. Government College, Hoshiarpur, took care of many PG departments like economics, English, zoology, before all departments finally shifted to the present campus of Panjab University at Chandigarh by 1960.

Despite scoring almost equal to central universities like JNU, Hyderabad, Delhi University in academic world in rankings, Panjab University at Chandigarh is being given a step-motherly treatment by both the state and central governments. The Punjab Government has literally stopped contributing its 40 per cent budgetary share to the university since long and even the reduced meagre 8 per cent is not being paid by it. The central government, which is taking care of 92 per cent of universitys financial needs, keeps choking it of funds due to political reasons as it is not directly controlled by the MHRD.

Role in freedom struggle

During the freedom struggle, Punjab University Lahore, played a brilliant role. From the calendar of 1932, one reads the Senate proceedings relating to October 8, 1930, an incident in DAV College, Lahore, when the police entered the campus and beat up a professor and some students in his classroom. The context was: on October 7, the Lahore Conspiracy case tribunal had announced its verdict  committing Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru to gallows. Protests by students and teachers in Lahore was natural and the police tried to suppress these by entering the classrooms on October 8. Condemning the police act, the University of Punjab Senate protested and passed a strongly worded resolution that without the Principals consent, the police couldnt enter the campus!

A forgotten legacy

Sadly Panjab University, Chandigarh, has not even put any plaques in the university in memory of Prof. M G Singh, Prof. Brij Narain, who became victims of Partition-induced hatred and were assassinated in their offices in PU, Lahore, nor about Bhagat Singhs comrade Prem Dutt Verma, who taught in Panjab University, Chandigarh, after his release from jail.

The Lahore website of the university proudly claims Pakistani scientist Abdus Salam and Indian scientist Hargobind Khurana as its alumni Nobel laureates of 1968 and 1979 with photographs and brief biographies. The Chandigarh website does not even mention Hargobind Khurana.

 The writer is a retired Professor from JNU, New Delhi, and Fellow of Panjab University Chandigarh
Harish Khare

On Wednesday evening, a terrorist, armed with a knife, managed to break into the outer periphery of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British Parliament. He was shot dead, promptly and efficiently. But what was remarkable about the whole terrible incident was that there was no reckless rush among the British media to identify the deadly intruder. The nearest attempt was to suggest that the intruder was perhaps a person of Asian origin. It was only after two days of diligent investigation that the London police was able to declare that the dead man was born Adrain Russell Ajao but now used another name, Khalid Masood. There was a professional touch to this reticence.

A similar professional calm was on display in Washington when the FBI Director, James Comey, was asked to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on the nature of the Russian involvement in the Trump campaign. Despite provocation from the Congressmen, the FBI Director did not say a word more or a world less, than needed to be said. He, instead, preached to the Congressmen that the FBI is very careful in how we handle information about our cases and about the people we are investigating. Cool as a cucumber, as they say.

Such calm and professional styles stand in sharp contrast to how we do business in India. Within hours of an incident, our agencies whisper in the ears of this or that favourite newsperson the precise name of the Islamist organisation involved. Sometimes, even the seniormost politicos rush out to add to the clamour.

It is not just agencies dealing with security matters that leak like a sieve but even the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate are forever telling the media about incriminating documents discovered after every raid.

Often the objective is not to find the culprit but to use an incident to create a political narrative. The leadership in our agencies is obliged to understand the political masters requirements and fashion their investigation accordingly.

Yesterday, a reader wrote to recall how the British police reacted in April-May, 1980, when some armed gunmen had stormed the Iranian Embassy in London and taken a number of hostages. The situation was brought under control after five days of siege. Our reader recalls that all that BBC reported was that the SAS men disappeared into the thin air after performing their rescue act.

Our agencies have not appreciated the professional need to remain faceless, nameless; instead, we seek medals and media space. The Western media culture understands the need for secrecy. On the other hand, we have no qualms in besmirching peoples reputations and destroying hapless citizens lives.

All this has not served our cause. The NIA, our premier agency, has heaped professional shame upon itself by changing its investigation goals after a change of government in New Delhi. Its professional reputation is in the mud. No neutral international observer is willing to accept our agencies presumed foolproof evidence against Hafiz Saeed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

IT was reported the other day that the Punjab and Haryana High Court disposed of a case of culpable homicide after 34 years and the accused, the dead mans wife, walked free. Thirty-four years. What a shabby reflection on our presumed premier investigation agency. And, what a sad comment on our criminal justice system. Worse then Charles Dickens Bleak House.

It also occurs to me that Chandigarh seems to be having a particular taste for murder. This week, we had this horrible case of Ekam Dhillon murder. What I find particularly abhorring is the deceaseds wife, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and friends calming cutting up the body and nonchalantly going about disposing of the pieces.

And, then earlier, we had the Saketri village murder, on the outskirts of Chandigarh. Young men murderously settling scores over an alleged insult.

Something seems to be going terribly wrong in our society. Too much anger, too much money, too much greed, too much prideful aggression, too little respect for law and its deterrence. No wonder we rank so low on the global happiness index. Maybe because all the social reformers have become entrepreneurs, promoting dubious brands doubtful politicians; and, the so-called cultural organisations are busy providing foot-soldiers for the never-ending electoral battles. The social order is becoming precarious and fragile.

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ALL of us know a doctor  or rather have to know a doctor. At least, one if not more doctors. Because someone or the other we love  a daughter, a son, a grandchild, wife, husband, parents, in-laws, friends  falls ill or gets injured and needs medical attention and care. A doctor becomes god in that moment of intense personal vulnerability.

In India, as in any other society, all of us have strong views about doctors and hospitals. Each one of us can tell a long story  a tale of anger, frustration, satisfaction, exasperation  about an encounter with this or that doctor. Each one of us feels fleeced and short-changed after every visit to a hospital; sometimes we feel blessed having been healed by the magical touch of a surgeon or a perfect diagnosis.

Rarely do we get to know or feel the need to understand as to what goes on in the doctors complicated universe  the imperfections in medical knowledge and care. That is where we must meet Atul Gawande, a US-based surgeon, public health activist, and writer. Over the years, he has produced a number of best-selling books.

I find him fascinating not only because he is an engagingly brilliant writer but also because he opens the door and lets us in the mysterious world where a doctor often stands between life and death. He gives us a glimpse of the inherent nobility of the medical profession  the god-like gift and opportunity to save a human life. Our decisions and omissions are moral in nature, he writes in the introduction to his first book, Better.

Gawande tells us that after all the advances in science and technology, the knowledge, the experience, the tools and the environment often prove inadequate: The knowledge to be mastered is both vast and incomplete. Yet we are expected to act with swiftness and consistency, even when the task requires marshaling hundreds of people  from laboratory technicians to the nurses on each change of shifts to the engineers who keep the oxygen supply system working  or the care of a single person.

He is simply an excellent storyteller about his craft. Take for instance the chapter, entitled Naked. He talks about what the surgeon and the patient should wear at the time of examination. Practices and protocols differ from the United States to Ukraine to Venezuela, he tells us. Then, there is the ticklish question: should a nurse or chaperone be present when a male doctor examines a female patient?

I recommend him to all my younger journalist colleagues. He displays to a perfection the writers basic skill: power of observation, to observe the details, to see patterns and then make the most technical topics into a very, very readable and accessible language. He forces us to understand the critical importance of such mundane chores as on washing hands or on the Mop-up after an operation.

Or, the importance of making a checklist of things that need to be done by a doctor. There are a thousand ways the things can go wrong when you have got a stab wound, he writes about an emergency room experience, when the doctors had forgotten to ask the patient for the nature of the weapon.

There is a larger, simple message in Gawade stories: irrespective of the field of activity, we need to understand: what does it take to be good at something in which failure is so easy, so effortless.

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OUR new rulers in Punjab seem to be determined to want to squander away their goodwill even before the honeymoon period is over. Drunk with power, perhaps. I do not know what they are drinking, but whatever it is, it certainly cant be coffee.

kaffeeklatsch@tribuneindia.com
Saba Naqvi

Give me my Romeo, and, when I shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night,

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Juliet (Act III, Scene 2) From Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

FIRST, a confession: I am from a family packed with love jehadis. This misguided family (full of uncles, aunts, cousins and sisters who married and produced children with partners outside the barricades of religion) thought they were making love, not war. Im still trying to figure out the demographic change my clan has made to the statistics of children who would be Hindu, Muslim or Christian for I recognize thats now a matter of utmost national importance.

Theres also a little gem of information that I have concerning the known Muslim personalities in the BJP. Most of them (not revealing their names) have married Hindu women but Im sure that was before they knew it was love jehad, those damn Romeos! But now as a collective and congregational exercise they should all mull over the political and demographic implications of their personal actions. Are their children Hindus or Muslims? These are apparently the important questions of the day, besides Ram temple, illicit or licit slaughter houses, is the beef buffalo or cow and those anti-Romeo squads.

Delightful name thats apparently been given by the BJP leadership even though they have their Shakespeare wrong. Poor Romeo loved Juliet who also loved him and they both pined for love and eventually died in this famous romantic tragedy. Romeo was not a serial philanderer although he did have his heart set on one Rosaline before Juliet caught his eye. Still, he hardly adds up to what we in India so cutely call an eve teaser when we mean a man who indulges in sexual harassment.

Along the way to the death of these star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet we have some fabulous lines such as Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow. Or these famous lines: Whats in a name? That which we call a rose/ by any other word would smell as sweet. Or thus with a kiss I die

In the midst of all the news about Yogis coronation, there was a small news item about a couple in UPs Shahjahanpur district killing themselves on March 21. The report stated that Feroz Ahmed, 19, and Gunjha Sharma, 18, committed suicide after their families objected to their relationship. According to the report the teenagers hugged each other, after which Feroz shot Gunjha in the head and then killed himself with a pistol near the railway station at Bantara in front of shocked eyewitnesses.

This is an extreme case. We have no means of understanding the level of social ostracism that contributed to the psychological disturbance that can lead two young people to this horrific death. But what we do know is that it is normal for young men to pursue young women (and vice versa). It is part of the rite of romance.

Yes, we do live in a conservative society where religion, caste and gotra come in the way of free coupling, yet no one can deny the role of pursuit and courtship in romance.

Sexual harassment is an altogether different matter but young couples being separated by anti-Romeo squads amounts to nothing more than moral policing of normal teen and young adult behaviour. It can be traumatic for couples we see in all Indian parks to have the police swoop down on them on the pretext of saving the girls chastity. I can imagine the consequences today were it to be a mixed religion couple stranded in a park in some UP town.

What is really disturbing about these times is that intrusions into private spaces should be socially acceptable at any level. Fixing law and order and protecting women is different from stating that these are anti-Romeo squads as the name itself suggests moral policing.

Its best possibly to escape and remember the many memorable lines from the most performed play by William Shakespeare. Besides the romantic dialogues there are two phrases we freely use in English language that come from this play. Tempt not a desperate man and plague on both your houses. Shakespeare invented words and phrases. Weve taken a name from one of his plays and perverted its entire meaning and usage.
Aman Sood in Patiala

Youd easily say banks make money, they dont make history. After all, what of history; it holds no value to money, capitals prime interest. Yet, there are people with the primary task of monitoring your money who can make history. What would you say of a bank that, over the last 99 years of its existence, has come to represent a place, a countrys history and is worth Rs 1 lakh 90,000 crore! Its regional head office (covering Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and J&K) has 5,000-plus men and women whod vouch for your money. This is State Bank of Patiala (SBP), headquartered in Punjabs historical town, Patiala.

A few months from now, the bank will have been 100 years old. That is not to be. The State Bank of India (SBI) is set to take it over from April 1. The SBP will cease to exist, helping in the birth of the countrys largest bank, the SBI, promising to live its vision of Blending Modernity with Tradition. The SBI is the first public sector bank in the country to fully network all its branches.

Post-merger arrangements have been made. The employees as well as city residents talk about SBP, not as a has-been but as a living entity that grew with them. Heres whats at stake:

Historical significance

SBPs rich heritage dates back to the year 1917. It was founded by Bhupinder Singh, the maharaja of the erstwhile Patiala state, with one branch at Chowk Fort, Patiala. It was in 1913 when Daya Krishan was appointed foreign secretary by Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, and both felt the need to set up a bank as an autonomous body to be fully owned by the state and run commercially.

Later Rs 5 lakh were contributed by the state and Saligram Hoon was appointed as the first manager. Thus, the first branch came up at Chowk Fort, near Qila Mubarak, on Nov 17, 1917, a Diwali day. No other bank was allowed by the Patiala state to operate within the principality.

Originally, it was Patiala State Bank. Its explicit purpose was to foster growth of agriculture, trade and industry. Its constitution, scope and operations underwent a sea change with the formation of the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) in 1948. The bank was then reorganized and brought under the control of Reserve Bank of India. It was christened as the Bank of Patiala.

The grand merger

The aim is: Create a banking behemoth, with one-fourth of the market share in the banking sector (in terms of loans and deposits) and has an asset base of about Rs 40 lakh crore (currently Rs 23 lakh crore). The Centre cleared the merger of five associate banks, which will make the SBI among top 50 banks in the world. SBI is Indias largest bank with assets of Rs 30.72 lakh crore and figures at No. 64 in the global ranking of banks (as of December 2015; 2016 ranking is awaited).

SBP customers will shift to the SBI from April 1. To avoid overlapping offices in the same area, the SBI has decided to shut almost half the offices of these banks, including the head offices of three of them. This process will start from April 24. The SBI will retain only two of these head offices. Three head offices of the associate banks will be unbound along with 27 zonal offices, 81 regional offices and 11 network offices of the associate banks.

The five associate banks that will merge with SBI are: SBP, SBBJ (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur), SBM (State Bank of Mysore), SBT (State Bank of Travancore), and SBH (State Bank of Hyderabad).

The five associate banks will cease to exist as legal entities and become a part of SBI. However, the merger processes will start only after April 24, once the balance sheets of the five entities are audited.

The interregnum

General manager (planning, priority sector and new business) Jagir Singh Jandu says the employees understand that the future of the bank is in safe hands. As far as customers are concerned, other than the fact that some branches will be merged or shut, the they will not face any inconvenience, says Jandu, who joined the SBP in 1978.

For Patiala, it will be a big loss as apart from the prestige of the name, the people are used to the head office of the bank in Patiala. Over 500 officers are set to shift from the city. "Some officers at a particular level will be shifted, but there is an understanding reached with SBI that these officers will continue to serve under the Chandigarh division,Jandu said.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, March 25

State Congress president Kishore Upadhyay has accused the newly formed BJP government of giving scant respect to constitutional norms by depriving the Opposition of the post of Deputy Speaker in the Assembly.

Upadhyay, while addressing a press conference here today, said there had been a tradition of giving the post of Deputy Speaker to the Opposition. But the BJP has shown little respect to this tradition. It wants to take this post too, he added.

He had even written to the Chief Minister about the constitutional traditions and practices, he said. Law and order was on a down slide ever since the BJP government had come to power in the state. Congress MLAs had started getting threats. Only a few days ago, our MLA Mamta Rakesh received a threat to her life, he claimed.

He said a delegation of Congress leaders would meet the DGP soon and seek his intervention in this regard.

Upadhyay also expressed concern over the previous days incident of brutal killing of a forest guard by quarrying mafia. The quarrying mafia needed to be checked. The Congress would resort to a statewide agitation if the police did not take action against the mafia responsible for the forest guards death, Upadhyay added. State Congress spokesman Mathura Dutt Joshi was also present.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 25

India has signed a $100-million financing agreement with the World Bank for the Uttarakhand Health Systems Development Project. The objective of the project is to improve access to quality health services, particularly in the hilly districts of the state, and expand health financial risk protection for residents.

The project has two main components innovations of engaging the private sector stewardship and system improvement. Out of the total project size of $125 million, $25 million will be the counterpart contribution of the state government.

The financing agreement was signed by Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Finance Ministry, and Hisham Abdo, Acting Country Director, World Bank (India). A project agreement was also signed by Neeraj Kharwal, Additional Secretary (Health), Uttarakhand, and Hisham Abdo.

The planned design of the project consists of multiple self-contained clusters of clinical services managed by operators on a public private partnership (PPP) basis, providing services for free or at nominal charges, backed up by a robust oversight and monitoring mechanism fully integrated with the expanded health insurance programme in the state. It will be concurrent with strengthening the states capacity to implement the project. The closing date of Uttarakhand Health Systems Development Project is September 30, 2023.
By Press Trust of India: Lucknow, Mar 25 (PTI) Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today accused the Aditya Nath Yogi government of targeting police officials of a "particular caste", after IPS officer Himanshu Kumar was suspended for "indiscipline". Kumar was recently in news for his controversial tweets accusing senior police officers of targeting subordinates of a particular caste. "Only policemen of one particular caste are being suspended and transferred and everybody knows about it," said Akhilesh, whose party had all along been accused by political opponents of working in the interest of a particular caste.

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The Samajwadi Party chief was interacting with mediapersons ahead of a national executive meet. Earlier, a Home Department spokesman said, "IPS officer of the 2010 batch, Himanshu Kumar has been suspended for indiscipline." Though Himanshu Kumars tweet of March 22, that stirred a controversy in Uttar Pradesh, has since been deleted, its screen shot is still doing the rounds. The deleted tweet said, "There is now a rush among senior officers to suspend/send to reserve lines all police personnel who have Yadav surname." In another tweet, Kumar said, "Why DGP office forcing officers to punish people in the name of caste?" Later, Kumar put out another tweet saying, "Some people have misunderstood my tweet. I support the initiative of the government." Kumar was attached with the Director General of Polices (DGP) office in Lucknow. He had been shifted to DGPs office by the Election Commission. He was earlier posted as a Superintendent of Police in Manipuri and Firozabad, the region regarded as SP bastion. After his suspension, Kumar tweeted, "Truth alone triumphs." The IPS officer was in the news last July for filing a case against his estranged wife, Priya Singh, in Noida. He had alleged that she had hacked his e-mail accounts to obtain bank statements and personal details. PTI SAB AKK

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Rome, March 25

Europeans must contain their squabbling and carping about the EU if the Union is to survive, leaders warned on Saturday as they marked the 60th anniversary of its founding in Rome by signing a formal declaration of unity.

Meeting without Britain just days before it triggers its divorce. from the EU, the other 27 countries signed a new declaration on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

With the EU facing crises including migration, a moribund economy, terrorism and populism, as well as Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk called for leadership to shore up the bloc.

But days of wrangling about the wording of a 1,000-word Rome Declaration, May's impending Brexit confirmation and tens of thousands of protesters gathering beyond the tight police cordon around the Campidoglio palace, offered a more sober reminder of the challenges of holding the 27 nations to a common course.

We have stopped in our tracks and this has caused a crisis of rejection by public opinion, said their host, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, noting Britons' repudiation of the EU.

He said the failure to push the project forward during a decade of economic slump had fueled a re-emergence of blinkered nationalism. Rome offered a fresh start: The Union is starting up again ... and has a vision for the next 10 years, he said.

Others, however, are wary of such enthusiasm for giving up more national sovereignty-and also of others in the Union moving faster with integration. Poland's nationalist government has led protests against a multispeed Europe, which it fears would consign the poor ex-communist east to second-class status.

Leaders hailed the visionary war generation of leaders from old foes France and Germany who signed the Treaty of Rome in the same room on March 25, 1957, along with Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; some offered personal memories of their own generation's debts to the expanding European Union.

French President Francois Hollande said the message from Rome was, we're stronger together, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed: a great day for Europe.

The White House, meanwhile, congratulated the EU on its 60th birthday, in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels.  Agencies

What happened in Rome on March 25, 1957
Washington, March 25

President Donald Trump on Friday was dealt his biggest blow since taking office just over two months ago when House Republican leaders pulled legislation to overhaul the US healthcare system.

House Speaker Paul Ryan failed to garner enough votes in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives for the passage of the new healthcare bill to replace the Obamacare due to opposition from some of its own party lawmakers, in particular the one that have grouped themselves under the banner of Freedom Caucus.

The US House of Representatives --- similar to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament --- has 435 members. The Republican party enjoys a simple majority in the House with 235 members.

However, Ryan, who had been leading the effort on behalf of Trump, could not muster the majority 215 votes. As a result, in an effort to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, Ryan announced that he was withdrawing the move to have a vote on Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Throughout his presidential campaign and since taking office, Trump had repeatedly vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare, the signature domestic achievement of his Democratic predecessor Obama.  Agencies

Tweets on vow to repeal and replace Obamacare

March 7: Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster - is imploding fast!

March 9: Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!

March 13: ObamaCare is imploding. It is a disaster and 2017 will be the worst year yet, by far! Republicans will come together and save the day.

March 16: Great progress on healthcare. Improvements being made - Republicans coming together!

March 24: After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!

Trumps comments after Bill was dropped
Kathmandu, March 25

Indias new envoy to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri on Saturday arrived here and would submit his letters of credence to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Sunday.

Puri, a 1982 batch IFS officer, was on March 10 appointed as Indias 24th ambassador to Nepal. His predecessor Ranjit Rae completed his term on February 28.

Puri, born in 1959, is scheduled to submit his letters of credence to President Bhandari tomorrow, according to reports.

Before being assigned to Kathmandu mission, he was Indias Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Prior to Brussels, he was Indias Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York from 2009 to 2013. He was also a senior member of Indias Security Council team during the years 2011 and 2012, when India served on the Security Council.  PTI
Washington, March 25

The US military is investigating whether it was responsible for the deaths of nearly 300 Syrian and Iraqi civilians in three different sets of air strikes this month, a media report said.

Civilian casualties have been alleged in all three instances, but each situation is different and complex, CNN quoted a US defence official as saying on Friday.

So far, there is no indication of a breakdown in US military procedures governing airstrikes, the official said, and the US is not contemplating a pause in military operations.

The most severe incident involves western Mosul in Iraq.

The US military is trying to determine if sometime between March 17 and March 23, bombs dropped in the neighbourhoods of al Jadidah, al Amel and al Yarmouk by American warplanes resulted in the deaths of over 200 civilians.

The chairman of Nineveh Provincial Council in Iraq, Bashar al Kiki, told CNN: Most of (those) killed are civilians, among them children and women. The Iraqi official demanded an end to military operations in the area until civilians safety can be guaranteed.

The incidents military officials are looking into are based largely on local reports and social media accounts of the strikes.

While in Syria, the US military has begun a formal investigation into a March 16 airstrike, where local reports said a mosque was struck and more than 40 people died.

For days the Pentagon said there were no civilian casualties in the March 16 incident, even as numerous social media reports showed images of bodies being carried out of the rubble.

However, the US has not ruled out the possibility that the Islamic State (IS) terror group was using civilians as human shields, but the defence official told CNN that there was an urgency to find out if Washington was responsible.

The Central Command was also reviewing an air strike against a school building on Wednesday near Raqqa, Syria.

Local activists have said an airstrike may have killed more than 30 civilians seeking shelter there. The US was conducting strikes in the area, the defence official added.  IANS
Eight teachers from a private school in Bikaner have been booked for gangraping a minor girl student.

By India Today Web Desk: Eight teachers were booked two years after allegedly gangraping a minor student. The accused teachers, who work in a private school in Bikaner, also made a video of the heinous act.

The incident took place sometime in April 2015. The incident came to light after the girl's father gave a complaint to the Superintendent of Police.

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"An FIR has been lodged under Section 376-D (gangrape) of the IPC and other relevant section of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Act)," said Darjaram, Nokha police station SHO.

Police said that one of the accused teachers had earlier filed a case against the girl's parents and cousins for assaulting him on March 20 this year.

The SHO said that both the matters are being investigated.

Also read:

40 people do nothing but watch 15-yr-old's gangrape, live on Facebook: Welcome to 2017

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Superstar Rajinikanth has decided not to visit Jaffna, after stiff protests from pro-Tamil groups.

By India Today Web Desk: Following protest from the pro-Tamil groups like Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), superstar Rajinikanth has decided not to participate in the Jaffna event, which is scheduled on April 9.

Trade analyst Ramesh Bala shared Rajinikanth's letter on Twitter. In the letter, Rajini says, "I will not participate in the event, although I disagree with the reasons stated by Thirumavalavan and Vaiko."

. @superstarrajini decides not to go to Sri Lanka.. pic.twitter.com/BsM6gFUGnB- Ramesh Bala (@rameshlaus) March 25, 2017

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Rajinikanth says that the reason he wanted to visit Lanka was to see the places where Tamils lived. He also mentions that he wanted to meet Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, to find a solution for the pertaining fishermen problem. Taking a dig at politics, Rajinikanth says he's not a politician, but a mere artist.

As per a statement released by Lyca Productions, Rajinikanth was supposed to visit Jaffna to hand over keys built for Tamils by Gnanam Foundation.

However, the fringe groups alleged that Lyca Productions is based in Lanka, and protested against Rajinikanth for the same.

Over the years, Eelam is one issue that has spawned several heated debates across Tamil Nadu. In fact, some of the pro-Tamil groups protested against Ilayathalapathy Vijay's Kaththi (2014) and called for a ban on the film, which was also produced by Lyca Productions.

2.0, directed by Shankar, also stars Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson and Sudhanshu Pandey, and will hit the screens on Diwali this year.

ALSO READ: Katamarayudu Review

ALSO READ: Katamarayudu box-office collection Day 1

ALSO READ: Engitta Modhathey Review

ALSO WATCH: Rajinikanth faces protest from pro-Tamil groups

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MasterChef Australia is off to Japan this year.

The TEN series is currently filming a week of challenges for its upcoming season. It follows from previous seasons visiting the US, Italy, UK, Hong Kong, Dubai and France.

For us to go anywhere there has to be an amazing food culture and Japan has it, Matt Preston told News Corp.

Tokyo boasts 227 Michelin-starred restaurants. Around every corner and down every alley there is something exciting.

The first day of filming is at Tokyos famed Sensoji Temple, which is nearly 1000 years old. Mount Fuji is the backdrop for another episode.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is appealing for support for efforts aimed at bringing stability inside Somalia and to the countries hosting Somali refugees.

Speaking at the IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) Special Summit of Regional Heads of State on durable solutions for the protracted Somali refugee situation in Nairobi, UNHCRs Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, George Okoth-Obbo, commended Somalias neighbours for their generosity in providing international protection to refugees in spite of their own socio-economic, national security and environmental challenges.

UNHCR is delighted by this unprecedented regional effort that commits to providing collective protection and assistance to Somali refugees," said Okoth-Obbo, welcoming the outcomes of the Summit.

UNHCR called for global responsibility sharing with the region, where communities have been hosting and sharing limited resources with Somali refugees for years.

The UN Refugee Agency also appealed for the need to preserve asylum space for Somali refugees, unable to return home.

Countries hosting Somali refugees have to find alternative solutions for them locally, focusing on the socio-economic inclusion of refugees side by side with resilience support for host communities. We invite the countries to also consider local integration, especially for refugees who have integrated, for example, those married to nationals.

Though voluntary returns continue, security, access and absorption limitations restrict the scale of returns to Somalia at the present moment. Thus, UNHCR highlighted the importance of creating predictable peace, security, social and community conditions, for Somalis in the country and refugees whose decision to return, can thus be more sustainable.



At the same time the Summit highlighted that voluntary return is not the exclusive option and has urged heightened international solidarity and responsibility sharing through continued resettlement of Somali refugees and provision of complementary pathways for third country admissions  such as medical evacuation and humanitarian admission programmes, family reunification and opportunities for skilled migration, labour mobility and education.

More than 2 million Somalis have been displaced in one of the worlds most protracted displacement crises. There are an estimated 1 million internally displaced people within Somalia and 900,000 Somali refugees  many now third generation  in Kenya (324,000), Ethiopia (241,000), Yemen (255,000), Uganda (39,500) and Djibouti (13,000).

Okoth-Obbo said that, at the same time, the drought is a serious issue and finding solutions must be accelerated.

We need to recognize that the region faces new challenges, such as the current drought and food insecurity, gripping the region, threatening starvation and death.

Some 6.2 million people, half of Somalias population, are in need of humanitarian aid and levels of malnourishment among children are high, with 944,000 children in acute or even severe malnourishment.

Severe drought conditions across the region have led to food crises in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen. Countries are facing the worst drought in 60 years.

UNHCR is urging the need for an immediate scale-up of the response to the drought to mitigate and avert famine to reduce its adverse humanitarian impact, including with regard to displacement.

Time is of the essence and resolute action by humanitarian actors, strongly supported by the international community, is required, UNHCRs Okoth-Obbo emphasized.

Media contacts:
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said a new roadmap is afoot to strengthen border security and firmly seal the International Border with Bangladesh and Pakistan.

By Press Trust of India: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said a new roadmap is afoot to strengthen border security and firmly seal the International Border with Bangladesh and Pakistan.

"The Centre has chalked out a new roadmap to strengthen the border security and plans to seal the International Borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan," Singh said, addressing the Passing Out Parade of the BSF assistant commandants at the BSF Academy at Tekanpur near Gwalior.

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The parade also saw the first woman assistant commandant of India's border guarding force, Tanushree Pareek, passing out with Home Minister Singh registering his praise for the BSF's first woman field officer.

BSF A ' KNOWN FORCE' IN NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES: RAJNATH

An official release here quoted the Union Home Minister Singh as saying that the BSF had changed the rules of engagement on the International Border and now it was a "known force" even in the neighbouring countries.

The BSF built 73 Border Out Posts (BOPs) recently, and three more will be added soon, he added.

"We are also planning an effective grievance redressal mechanism in the forces," the Home Minister said.

The Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) were setting up such a mechanism, the release added.

BSF was the only force after the Indian Army to operate on land, water and air, he said.

It is not only the "first line of defence" but also the "first wall of defence," he added.

"Display courage in the face of professional challenges, (show) compassion to the troops under command and (observe) integrity of highest order," Singh said while addressing the passing out Assistant Commandants, according to the release.

ALSO READ | Gilgit-Baltistan: Story of how region 6 times the size of PoK passed on to Pakistan

ALSO WATCH | Why have violations on India-China border dropped in last 5 years?

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One of the most pressing concerns of many students who are about to graduate from high school is the cost of college education. With this consideration, the higher officials of Maryland hopes to extend help to those who aspire to earn a college degree by making college cost more affordable in the state.

This is a very important discussion, especially for parents who, by all means, do their best to help send their children to college. The good news is there is help available, they just need to know how to find it.

Dr. Maria Torres, with Maryland Higher Education Commission, said that now is the time to start looking at where the money is, and that the state actually has a lot of funds. She said that parents and students just need to be guided to get information on how to get access to these funds, WBALTV reported.

Maryland is just about to launch its college access and affordability campaign so that they can help students who are just starting out with looking for scholarships and grants, and those that are already currently enrolled. At some schools like Community College of Baltimore County, a scholarship called Fast Start Scholarships is already in place which makes the money available for students who accepted to take honors classes.

Dr. Rae Rosenthal, director CCBC honors program, said that the campaign is intended for high school graduates who are attending community colleges full time. And if they take at least one honors class at the beginning of the semester, they will be receiving $1,000 right away.

Meanwhile, there were other initiatives launched in the state earlier this year to help aid the cost of college education. An example is the 2017 Student Debt and Tuition Relief Initiative, announced by Governor Larry Hogan in January, according to the official site. The proposal includes legislation to make student debt interest payments tax-deductible for all residents of Maryland who are earning less than $200,000 per year.
The tech giant, Google, announced Thursday, that Howard University will be opening a satellite campus at the Googleplex in Mountainview, California. This will offer a chance to the university students to leave their city for the Silicon Valley, to study for three months a time.

According to Recode, the computer science students from the historically black university will be enjoying this networking opportunity because aside from the Howard faculty, their instructors will also include Google engineers. They will also be given the access to certain amenities including the popular cafeteria at Google's headquarters.

The satellite campus will serve as the three month residency for the junior and senior computer science Howard University students, because according to NBC News, it aims to get more black software engineers from HBCU involved in the tech field.

Howard University President Dr. Wayne Frederick said that Howard West will be producing hundreds of industry-ready Black computer science graduates, who will become the future leaders in transforming the global technology space into a stronger and more accurate reflection of the world. He also added that this program is envisioned with the goal of advancing a strategy that leverages

Howard's high quality faculty with the expertise of Google, while it rallies tech industry and other thought leaders around how important diversity is in when it comes to business and the communities they serve.

However, it was made clear that this is not an internship, nor a job because Google is not going to pay the students. It is the university that will provide the students the stipend that will help them pay for the housing and all other costs. Students will also be receiving academic credit.

Google has announced its commitment when it comes to hiring more diverse candidates and that they are willing to spend $150 million to make the company more inclusive.
The decline in trust with mainstream media today is not a simple phenomenon that is fast becoming prevalent among young individuals along the political and social spectrum.

A recent study from Data & Society and the Knight Foundation suggests that today's youth have a very low level of trust when it comes to news coming from traditional media. A sampling of 52 participants in three cities demonstrates that young individuals are highly skeptical of news and are concerned that sources of these items were either inaccurate or are biased.

A 22-year-old African-American female told researchers that what is presented in news is never the complete truth; she adds it may even be false in some aspects. Further, she stated that there is bias in language.

While young people may be skeptical of news media, that does not mean they do not know how to navigate news items. Teens also have grown to be more cynical in their choice of media, as they easily quickly discern between obvious biases and base their trust on a foundation of respect.

As a result, majority teens have turned to social media for their own news, citing specific reporters, news outlets or social commentary accounts for their information. This type of trust, however, can lead either to an informed opinion, or on blind trust that is bereft of factual research.

The study also shows that young people tend to check multiple news outlets to verify stories, keeping in mind the bias presented in many news outlets. Mary Madden, a researcher at Data & Society, and one of the authors said, "Teens and young adults are on the front lines of navigating an incredibly complex information environment."

Older Americans, on the other hand, are more likely to trust the media, however, media's trust rating declined between age groups in 2016. Gallup Analytics says that 18 to 49 age group have 26-percent trust rating, down from 36-percent from the previous year. Those aged 50 and older has 38-percent, down from 45-percent during the same period. Older Americans also mark 2016 as the first time trust ratings have dropped with mass media below 40-percent since 2001.

Primary cause pointed at by Gallup is the divisive presidential election last year. However, it needs to be pointed out that the significant slide in media trust has been happening during the past decade. It was common before 2004 that Americans to profess at least a trust in mass media, as of late, less than half of Americans have the same sentiment. Accordingly, only a third of the U.S. has any trust in the Fourth Estate, an alarming development for a long time institution designed to provide information to the public.
Eminent lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani was today admitted to a private hospital in Kochi.

By India Today Web Desk: Rajya Sabha MP and lawyer Ram Jethmalani was admitted to a private hospital yesterday in Kochi yesterday, where he'd gone to take part in a conference on criminal law.

The 94-year-old lawyer was admitted yesterday afternoon, officials at VPS Lakeshore Hospital said.

"He was brought to the hospital at 12.45 PM due to some heart-related ailments. His health is being monitored by a team of expert doctors of our hospital," VPS Lakeshore Hospital CEO S K Abdullah said.

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"He is alright. His condition is stable," he said.

According to informed sources, Jethmalani is keeping well and will be discharged either today or tomorrow, IANS reported.

Jethmalani was in Kochi to attend a conference on criminal law organised by lawyers.

(Inputs from PTI and IANS)

ALSO READ | Why Jethmalani told Justice Karnan I am convinced you have lost your mind

ALSO READ | Jethmalani to Jaitley in defamation hearing: You tested your reputation in Lok Sabha polls and lost by over 1 lakh votes

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Delhi Police's Crime Branch is probing the matter of Gaikwad assaulting an Air India staffer. It has yet to record witness statements.

Delhi police is unlikely to place ravinder Gaikwad under arrest any time soon

By Tanseem Haider: Shiv Sena Member of Parliament Ravindra Gaikwad, embroiled in a raging controversy over beating up an Air India staffer, is unlikely to be arrested any time soon.

Gaikwad is named in a First Information Report filed by Air India following the Thursday incident in which the MP beat up a AI employee with his slippers.

Gaikwad, who got into an argument with airline officials over being denied a business class seat, has not only refused to apologise, but has even boasted about slapping Sukumar Raman, the employee, "25 times".

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Following the incident, Air India and other prominent airlines, including Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet, barred him from flying with them.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police, with whom Air India filed its FIR, transferred the case over to the Crime Branch. However, even though arrested an accused is the prerogative of the Investigating Officer (IO), Gaikwad is unlikely to see the inside of a jail any time soon.

HERE'S WHY The Crime Branch has yet to record the statements of the eyewitnesses as well as that of Sukumar. Officials have written to Air India asking the airline to provide details of those who witnessed Thursday's incident. Sukumar's family has said they haven't yet been approached by the cops. When the Crime Branch does decide to question the MP, it can only do so after informing the Lok Sabha secretariat. This cannot happen until the next working day, which is Monday. The FIR has been registered under the Indian Penal Code sections 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide, not amounting to murder) and 355 (assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour person, otherwise than on grave provocation). Under these section, Gaikwad, if convicted, faces a maximum punishment of three years in jail. Section 308 is punishable is up to three years if imprisonment while section 355 is punishable by a jail term of not more than two years. In Arnesh Kumar v State of Bihar, the Supreme Court had ruled that an accused cannot be arrested in cases where the offence is punishable by imprisonment that is of a term less than three years. This is likely to work in the Shiv Sena MP's favour. However, the Crime Branch is expected to summon him. Sources tell India Today that he will be summoned within a day of the IO going through the case details.

Copy of the FIR against Ravindra Gaikwad Click here to Enlarge Copy of the FIR against Ravindra Gaikwad

ALSO READ | After Air India, IndiGo cancels Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad's ticket

WATCH | SlipperSena Row: Should Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad be put behind bars?

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After China and Hong Kong suspend all meat imports Brazilian officials say that exports have dropped from $63 million a day to just $74,000. (Photo: AFP/ANTHONY WALLACE)

The city, which is the biggest market for Brazilian beef, already issued a ban on all meat imports from the country earlier this week.

It comes after police in Brazil said they had uncovered a scheme to bribe corrupt health inspectors at processing plants to certify tainted meat.

China has also suspended all imports and Brazilian officials say exports have dropped from US$63 million a day to just $74,000.

Hong Kong's health secretary Ko Wing-man announced a "comprehensive recall" of all "chilled, frozen and poultry meats" which had already been imported from the factories at the heart of the crisis.

"We couldn't completely eliminate hidden dangers in terms of food safety," Ko told reporters when explaining the decision.

Ko said six of the affected Brazilian plants had exported meat to Hong Kong.

He hoped the move would help restore customer confidence in Brazilian meat that was not brought in from the factories involved.
The seminar brings together experts and radiologists from Vietnam and Singapore on application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in musculoskeletal diagnosis and treatment. All over the world, MRI is a modern, effective, and popular imaging method thanks to its high level of accuracy and safety. Nowadays, it is applied in examination of bodys organs to support treatment of cancer, neurology, cardiovascular diseases, and especially musculoskeletal disorders.

In Vietnam, magnetic resonance is increasingly preferred by doctors and patients thanks to the highly accurate non-X-ray non-invasive method, which helps to reduce potential risks and patients pains.

Prof. Dr. Pham Minh Thong, president of the Vietnam Society of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine emphasised the importance of MRI methods in diagnosis and treatment.

Currently, the fact that many patients do not come to hospitals until their diseases are getting serious causes a great difficulty for treatment. Advanced MRI technology will support early detection of symptoms, thus improving patients chances of opportune diagnosis and treatment, reducing costs of treatment, and enhancing the quality of life. By providing updated and valuable knowledge, the seminar will positively contribute to raise awareness about MRI, to support early detection of symptoms, and to enhance recovery opportunities, he said.

MRI is a vital method in early detection of diseases, especially symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders in order to support positive treatment. We do believe that with those updated knowledge and advanced technology, MRI will support examination and effective detection, thereby improving possibilities of treatment, said Dr. Poh Feng from Singapore.

On this occasion, Japan Vietnam Medical Instrument Company partners with Hitachi Healthcare to introduce the Echelon Smart 1.5 Tesla featuring silent scanning technology, low energy consumption function, and superior image quality. Vietnam is the first country in Asia to have this technology introduced.

This superconductive MRI scanner offers superior image quality and a patient-friendly examination environment. The equipment is featured with advanced contemporary technologies, namely Smart Comfort  Smart Eco  Smart Engine.

General director of Japan Vietnam Medical Instrument JSC Ngo Thanh Son said the first Echelon Smart 1.5 is expected to be delivered in July this year.
Occupational safety remains a critical issue in Vietnam as the number of work accidents and fatal work injuries both increased. In 2015, a scaffolding collapse at Taiwans Formosa steel complex in the central province of Ha Tinh killed at least 16 construction workers and injured 27. In the same year, a scaffolding suddenly gave way at the construction site of a 17-story building in Ho Chi Minh City, leaving three Vietnamese workers dead and four others injured.

According to the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs Department of Work Safety, 7,620 work accidents were reported in 2016 affecting 7,785 workers, of whom 666 were killed and 1,704 injured.

Employers were mainly blamed for lethal injuries, as nearly 53 per cent of deaths in workplace accidents were a result of negligence, including failure to adopt work safety processes and measures, unsafe equipment, and failure to train employees in work safety.

Work accidents caused serious losses not only to businesses and employees but the whole society. NS BlueScope recorded an outstanding safety performance of 8,000 days without lost time injury and has decided to share its experiences with the business community.

Speaking at its seminar titled Growing sustainably with partners today, Vo Minh Nhut, country president of NS BlueScope Vietnam, said that good safety management strategy has helped the firm to decrease the number of work accidents to zero over the past 23 years. The excellent safety performance proves the commitments of employers, employees, and stakeholders.

The high level of employee participation in our on-going workplace safety awareness programmes and a culture of concern for the well-being of co-workers and the work environment have made our operations at NS BlueScope safer, he said.

To promote sustainable development, NS BlueScope encourages its partners to participate in safety improvement activities and commit to continuous improvements in operational procedures.

He elaborated that work safety has been critical to the success of enterprises for three reasons. Employees will show more loyalty to their companies as they feel safe and cared for in the workplace. Companies will gain trust and credibility with partners for sustainable business practices. Lastly, unnecessary expenses for work accidents will be reduced significantly.

Scott Croll, managing director of Linfox Vietnam, highly appreciated the steady safety performance of NS BlueScope. Linfox is looking for long-term cooperation with NS BlueScope due to the similarity in their work safety requirements.

He added that there are several activities to improve safety in the workplace, like training employees and developing a safety culture.
Talking about the incident, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said that what happened was wrong. He should have kept calm.

By India Today Web Desk: Shiv Sena today said that MP Ravindra Gaikwad should have kept calm and should not have indulged into a brawl with Air India employee.

Talking about the incident, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said that what happened was wrong. He should have kept calm.

"What happened was wrong. He should have kept calm," Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said.

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But, senior party leader Manohar Joshi avoided commenting on the controversy. He said he would speak on the issue only after listening to the both the versions.

Manohar Joshi avoids commenting on the controversy

News agency ANI quoted Joshi as saying, "We will find out as to why this incident happened. I don't talk about anything without proper information and understanding. I would comment on it after knowing versions of both the side."

Meanwhile, the 56-year-old MP from Osmanabad in Maharashtra not only refused to apologise for the incident, but he even boasted about slapping Sukumar Raman, the employee, "25 times".

Gaikwad banned from boarding flights

Following the ugly brawl, Air India and six private airlines has banned Gaikwad from boarding their flights as he refused to apologise.

Gaikwad said, "I have the tickets, they can't blacklist me. I will board the Delhi-Pune Air India flight this evening. How can they not allow me?"

"I will not apologise. It was not my fault, it was his fault. He should apologise. First ask him to apologise then we will see," Gaikwad added. Air India Duty Manager Sukumar, who was assaulted by Gaikwad, yesterday said that the MP need to behave in a decent manner.

"I am not scared at all, either with Gaikwad or with the Shiv Sena. I have been serving public and have also faced many who get irritated on such issues. It's a common thing for me," he added.

Also read:

After Air India, IndiGo cancels Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad's ticket

Ravindra Gaikwad row: Shiv Sena MP unlikely to be arrested any time soon. Here's why

WATCH THE VIDEO:

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US President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House on Mar 24, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo: AFP/Mandel Ngan)

Barely two months into his term, Trump was forced to withdraw an embattled Republican health care bill, moments before a vote, leaving his campaign pledge to dismantle his predecessor's health care reforms unfulfilled.

"We were very, very close," Trump said in the Oval Office regarding support for the bill. But with no Democratic support, "we couldn't quite get there."

Trump had thrown his full political weight behind the measure, spending days arm-twisting recalcitrant Republicans, and he declared himself "disappointed" and a "little surprised" by the defeat.

The battle was an eye-opening experience for Trump, a billionaire real estate tycoon who entered the White House with no experience of politics or government, including the delicate navigation of Congress.

And the bill's defeat marked a second major policy setback for the new president who has seen his attempt to curb travel from Muslim-majority countries twice frozen by the courts.

The president met with House Speaker Paul Ryan earlier in the day, then spoke with him by telephone when it was clear the party did not have the votes to get its plan across the finish line. "I told him that the best thing I think to do is to pull this bill and he agreed with that decision," Ryan said.

But while Trump was quick to blame Democrats for not giving "a single vote" for his plan, Ryan owned up to the failures. "I will not sugar coat this. This is a disappointing day for us," said the top Republican in Congress.

While Trump expressed disappointment, he said he was optimistic that his lieutenants will be able to craft an "even better" piece of health care legislation.

START OVER

The Trump-backed plan, intended to bring free-market competition to the insurance industry and lower the cost of premiums for most Americans, would also have slashed public assistance to people who have no health coverage through their employer. Some 14 million people stood to lose their coverage starting next year, according to forecasts.

Basic benefits covered under Obamacare - such as maternity care and emergency room visits - would no longer have been considered essential. The bill now appears dead, with Republican lawmakers urging a return to the drawing board.

"Clearly the votes weren't there," said congressman Charlie Dent, one of several moderate House Republicans who expressed concerns over the bill's impact on poor and elderly Americans. "So I think it's important now that we start over, and we do a durable, sustainable health care reform and it be done in a bipartisan way," he added.

By pulling the bill, Ryan flew in the face of a White House which had declared negotiations over and demanded a vote on Friday. Trump had put his reputation as a dealmaker on the line with the high-risk vote.

Congressman Mo Brooks, a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus that largely opposed the measure on grounds it was too similar to Obamacare, said he was "pleased as could be that the legislation has failed," arguing it would have been bad for Americans.

But he refused to place blame on the president, who failed to rally enough Republicans to his cause despite days of intense negotiations. "I don't think this reflects on the president in any way, shape or form," Brooks said. "Quite frankly President Trump did the best he could trying to sell a very bad product."

'LAW OF THE LAND'

Passage would have handed Trump a monumental victory, and put him on a path toward fulfilling his promise to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. Instead, as Ryan said, "Obamacare is the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced."

It was not clear when Congress would turn once again toward health care, as Trump said he would shift quickly toward tax reform, another longstanding goal of Republicans.

Ryan, the reform's chief champion in the House, had initially planned a Thursday vote but was forced to pull the bill off the floor when it became clear it lacked sufficient backing.

But Trump issued an ultimatum to his party: Vote Friday, and if it fails, Obamacare will remain in force and he will move on to other items on his policy agenda.
After he was barred from flying, MP Ravindra Gaekwad had to board a train to Mumbai on Friday.

By India Today Web Desk: While media was abuzz with reports of Uddhav Thackeray's meeting with Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaekwad after he assaulted an Air India staffer on Thursday, the MP said that no meeting has been planned yet.

Gaikwad was reportedly to visit Matoshree to meet Thackeray and to narrate his version of the incident today. When asked if he was called he said, "I have not been called yet and there has been no communication with the Shiv Sena chief."

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On being asked if he spoke to Uddhav after the incident, he said that he did not have a detailed interaction between the party chief. He added that he was heading for his constituency Osmanabad.

He also refuted the rumours surrounding the creation of a three-member committee to probe the incident. "I have been to stay mum and not interact with any media," Gaikwad told India Today.

Earlier there were reports that the party was likely to issue a warning to the MP.

Gaikwad was barred from flying by prominent airliners after he assaulted an Air India staffer on Thursday. After he was barred from flying, he had to board a train to Mumbai on Friday.

Special Commissioner of Police Dependra Pathak said on Friday that an FIR had been registered and the case has been transferred to the Crime Branch for a through probe.

Pathak said Gaikwad had been booked on charges of attempt to commit culpable homicide and assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour a person under the Indian Penal Code.

Air India had lodged a complaint with police on Thursday, but Delhi Police took legal opinion before finally registering an FIR on Friday.

GAIKWAD ASSAULTS STAFFER

On Thursday, when Gaikwad refused to de-board, Sukumar said he first requested the MP in English to get off the plane but was told to speak in Hindi.

When he began to speak in Hindi, Gaikwad flared up and hit him with his slipper. Although Thursday, Gaikwad boasted how he had hit the staffer with his slipper "25 times".

"I will not apologise. Why should I? It is not my mistake. They should apologise first, then (we) will see."

Gaikwad also shot off complaints to Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan demanding an inquiry into the incident.

"We believe an assault on any one of our employees is an assault on all of us and on ordinary law abiding citizens of our country who work hard to earn a living," said Federation of Indian Airlines Associate Director Ujjwal Dey.

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Also read:

Air India staffer assault case: Delhi Police registers FIR against Shiv Sena MP Gaikwad

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Lucy Michaels, 5, left, of Edgewood, Pa., and Grace Fetterman, 5, play with dolls including two with the Hello Hijab at Fettermans home in Braddock, Pa.
Britain's anti-European Union party has lost its only member of Parliament, four days ahead of the country's formal exit from the EU.

Douglas Carswell, the only MP in Britain's anti-immigration UK Independence Party, announced that he was leaving the party Saturday, writing in a blog post that he was departing "amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won."

Carswell said he was leaving the party feeling that Brexit was in "good hands" and that his work with the party was done, though this would not mark the end of his career as a lawmaker.

Carswell has long been at odds with the party's founder, Nigel Farage, who accused Carswell of being too soft on immigration.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday in London against Brexit, Britain's formal departure from the European Union.

The "Unite for Europe" march held a moment of silence for the victims of Wednesday's attack on Parliament before marching on, carrying bright blue EU flags.

A few other anti-Brexit protests took place Saturday, including one in Edinburgh, Scotland, and one in Rome  outside of a meeting of EU nations commemorating the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Britain's Theresa May did not attend the Rome meeting.
The European Union celebrated 60 years since its creation with the signing of a new treaty in Rome Saturday, four days ahead of the start of Britain's formal exit from the bloc.

Twenty-seven countries met to sign a new declaration on Capitoline Hill - where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community, in 1957.

"Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago," EU President Donald Tusk said.

Though EU leaders renewed their commitments to the bloc looking forward and declared that "Europe is our common future", the question of Europe's future without Britain was one of the many looming concerns.

Britain absent

British Prime Minister Theresa May was absent from the talks held Saturday, and anti-Brexit demonstrators were among the tens of thousands protesting, both for and against Europe, outside of the meetings in Rome.

Inside the meeting, a point of contention in the Rome Declaration was the introduction of and commitment to a "multi-speed" Europe, which would allow countries to adopt certain policies on different timelines.

"We will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction," the addition to EU policy reads in the treaty - a concept which has faced opposition from a number of Eastern European states that was introduced by France and Germany.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who only recently confronted other leaders over the appointment of her predecessor, Tusk's appointment as EU president, only agreed to sign the treaty in the last minutes of the meeting, citing his opposition to the multi-speed addition.

Greece also held up approval of the document while pushing for a mention of social benefits.

Security in Rome and particularly in Palazzo dei Conservatori, where the meeting took place, was particularly tight in the wake of attacks in London earlier this week.
California's Department of Corrections has announced new rules to parole inmates more quickly, in the hope of reducing the state's prison population.

The proposed regulations still must be approved by state regulators. They would reduce the remaining time in prison for inmates who get a college degree or take self-help classes. One month of a sentence would be waived each year for prisoners who join and complete programs such as alcohol and substance counseling, anger management or life-skills lessons.

Those who complete a university degree would reduce their sentences by up to six months per year.

Reduced sentences would be available for almost all inmates, with the exception of those serving time for the most violent crimes.

Prisons near maximum population

The new rules also would allow non-violent felons to seek parole after completing the time behind bars set for their primary offense, instead of waiting until the cumulative time has been served.

The proposed changes are projected to release 9,500 inmates from California prisons over four years  a necessity because the state's 34 prisons are nearing a maximum population, set by federal courts, of about 116,000 inmates.

California already has had to shift some prisoners from state institutions to county jails, or to prisons in other states, to avoid exceeding the courts' limit.

The move is also part of a years long effort by advocates trying to improve the prison system by reducing the number of inmates. That move gained impetus in November when California voters approved a ballot initiative (Proposition 57) that allows certain felons to seek parole more quickly.

Police and prosecutors opposed the move for easier parole, arguing it would put dangerous offenders back on the streets too soon.

The new rules also change the process that prosecutors and victims use to object to early parole, doing away with lengthy formal parole hearings in favor of written statements. Prosecutors say victims have the right to be heard before any decision for parole is made.

Obama commuted sentences of more than 1,500 offenders

Former President Barack Obama was an advocate of modernizing the U.S. prison system and regulating sentencing guidelines to ensure equal treatment for offenders.

Obama commuted  reduced or eliminated  the sentences of 1,715 prisoners during his eight years in the White House, more commutations than the last 12 presidents combined. More than 500 of the prisoners had been serving life sentences.

On his last day in office before President-elect Donald Trump was sworn in, Obama commuted the sentences of 330 prisoners convicted on federal drugs charges, part of his effort to correct what he described as unreasonably long mandatory minimum sentences.

The number and pace of the commutations became a political campaign issue, then-candidate Trump warning of safety concerns after prisoners were set free ahead of schedule. Some of these people are bad dudes, Trump said last October.
By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Mar 25 (PTI) Resident doctors across Maharashtra today called off their five-day protest against a spate of assaults and resumed duties following an ultimatum from the Bombay High Court and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The state government had also given an assurance to the protesting doctors that their demands will be looked into.

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"Most of the doctors have resumed duties. The OPDs have also become operational per schedule and resident doctors paid a visit to general wards as well. We are hopeful of things getting back to normal soon," said Dr Avinash Supe, Dean of civic-run KEM hospital here.

Resident doctors in Sion and Nair hospitals too have resumed work, he added.

The doctors called off their stir after Fadnavis yesterday gave an ultimatum asking them to resume duties or face legal action.

Indicating that the government has run out of patience, Fadnavis had yesterday told the Legislative Assembly that "enough is enough. If the doctors fail to resume work today, government will not sit quietly. We cannot leave the patients to die."

Also, the Bombay High Court had lambasted them for taking "undue advantage of its sympathy," and asked protesting doctors to report back to work by 8 AM today or be ready for suitable action by their respective hospital managements.

More than 4,500 resident doctors had gone on "mass leave" since Monday after a series of assault took place on resident doctors in various parts of the state, affecting health services in OPDs and general wards at government and municipal-run hospitals.

Though Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) did not extend support or endorse the protest by the doctors, it was involved in negotiations with the state government from day one.

According to a statement issued by MARD in the wee hours today, their meeting with the Chief Minister last night was satisfactory.

"The state government has issued a letter of assurances and we feel our demands are being addressed. We have asked our members to resume the duty from Saturday morning," it said.

Also, the state government, on March 22 had issued a circular stating that a total of 1,100 security personnel will be provided from Police Security Corporation of which 500 will be deployed by April 5 across government hospitals in Mumbai.

In the following phases, armed personnel will be deployed in Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad cities as well by April end.

The Maharashtra chapter of IMA, backing the stir of resident doctors in state government hospitals, had yesterday rolled back their support to them shortly after the High Court warned them against continuing the agitation. (more) PTI ND DK DV

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A court in Cameroon has again adjourned a trial for a foreign reporter accused nearly two years ago of "complicity" with the Boko Haram terrorist group.

Ahmed Abba of Radio France International's Hausa language service says he has done nothing wrong, but he has been in custody for nearly five months and faces a death sentence if convicted.

His hearing Friday at the Yaounde military court was his first since November. During cross-examination to find out how he got videos and photos purportedly from Boko Haram, Abba said he downloaded some from YouTube and Facebook, while others were being shared on other social media.

Asked how he got information security services had discovered on his phone announcing planned attacks that never came to pass, the RFI reporter said all the information he had was shared on social media.

Journalist threatened, too

Abba questioned why the court did not believe him, adding that he also was threatened by Boko Haram, which might have gotten his telephone number from his Facebook page.

Cameroon judicial police said they interpreted discussions allegedly conducted between Boko Haram members and Abba speaking in the Hausa language. One of the messages was about a planned airplane attack, and another, which Abba claimed was from a friend, invited him to pray and fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Defense witness Yves Rocle, head of the Africa news section of RFI, testified that Abba had been an objective reporter since joining the organizattion.

Defense counsel Charles Tchoungang said the cross-examination sounded intimidating, but he was happy the trial had at last begun. He said nobody knew the whereabouts of Abba three months after he was arbitrarily arrested.

Documents required

The case was adjourned until April 6 to enable RFI to provide written documents that Abba is its correspondent in Cameroon. The court said verbal testimony from Rocle was not enough.

Abba was arrested in northern Cameroon in July 2015 and was taken to Yaounde two weeks later. His first court appearance was in November of that year. He faces charges of complicity in terrorism and failing to denounce acts of terror, according to the charge sheet provided by the court. He also is accused of acting as an accomplice with two members of Boko Haram, and of failing to warn authorities of activities by Boko Haram.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a media freedom organization, sent a letter to Cameroon President Paul Biya early this year that called for Abba to be released and charges against him to be dropped.

Cameroon introduced capital punishment for involvement in terror attacks or complicity in terrorism in 2014.
In January of 2011, Mumtaz Qadri killed the very person he was paid to protect. Qadri served in the squad of personal bodyguards for Salmaan Taseer, a liberal Pakistani politician and governor of Punjab province who advocated for liberalizing the countrys controversial blasphemy law.



After killing the governor, Qadri surrendered himself to law enforcement and confessed to his crime, citing religious reasons to justify his action.



Qadri considered governor Taseers soft stand on Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani accused of insulting Prophet Mohammad, as an effort to undermine the countrys contentious anti-blasphemy law.



Bibi had been sentenced to death, but after continued pressure from the International Community, her death sentence was "temporarily suspended" in 2015.

Being convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan carries the death penalty or life in prison, but so far because of pressure from rights groups and the international community, no one convicted has been executed.



Qadri was hanged, however, after being found guilty of murder by Islamabad High Court last year. Tens of thousands of religious people attended his funeral, blocking several main roads leading to capital Islamabad and chanting Qadri, your sacrifice will be remembered.

The slogan of remembrance at his funeral seems to have been followed through. Now Qadri is being hailed as a hero in Pakistan.





Earlier this month, thousands of his supporters paid tribute to his grave-turned shrine on his death anniversary.



Around three to four thousand people from different cities of Pakistan come here daily, Zameer Qadri, uncle of Mumtaz Qadri told VOA. This doesnt include the local villagers.

Located on the outskirts of the capital city Islamabad, decorated by four white minarets to imitate Muhammads Mosque in Saudi Arabia, the shrine is attracting large number of devotees on a regular basis.



Inside the shrine is the white marble grave of Qadri filled with fresh rose petals. The tombstone has inscriptions from the Quran. The ceiling is ornamented with detailed mirror-work and the walls are carved with names of God and Prophet Mohammad.



Glorifying extremism



For his followers, Qadri no less than a saint.



I have come all the way from Multan [a city in southern Punjab] to pay my respect to Mumtaz Qadri, Im sure my prayers at his shrine will be answered by Allah, Bilal Maqbool, a follower at the shrine told VOA with tears in his eyes.



The shrine has initiated a debate on extremism in the country. Human Rights activists believe the shrine in essence glorifies and nurtures an extremist narrative in a country already undermined by terrorism and extremism.



Government of Pakistan has done nothing to stop this grave becoming a shrine. The gravesite should never have been allowed to become a shrine, Zohra Yusaf, chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told VOA.

But to some in Pakistan, going to Qadris shrine is within the realm of freedom of expression and speech.

Its a matter of freedom of expression and speech, Jibran Nasir, a civil rights activist told VOA. Those who celebrated Qadris death anniversary in the U.S. were not held accountable under the laws of America, then why should they be held accountable in Pakistan?

Nasir apparently was referring to Gulzar e Madina mosque in Maryland, outside of Washington, which recently celebrated the anniversary of the death of Mumtaz Qadri, and announced the event through a local newspaper.



Shrines expansion



There is a table at the shrine where donations are collected for the shrine and its potential expansion into a religious school in the future.

The house where Qadri used to live is in the vicinity of the shrine, and his family commutes to the shrine on a daily basis to manage it.

Malik Muhammad Bashir, father of Mumtaz Qadri told VOA that donations collected from people would be used to build a mosque and to add a Madrassa [religious school] to the mausoleum, which is under construction.

God and his Prophet are supporting us. I agreed to collect donations only after talking to scholars and lawyers. I had no such intentions, Malik Bashir said.



We are facing no issues from the government or anyone else. People come, pray and leave, Bashir added.

Blasphemy law

Blasphemy law in Pakistan remains highly controversial, and rights groups and advocates say most of the people facing blasphemy allegations are members of minorities who usually are the victims of personal grudges and disputes.



Efforts to amend the law have been met with stern opposition in the past by those who support it. Opposition to the law is almost viewed as opposition to Islam.



Sarwat Ejaz Qadri, president of the Sunni Tehreek, is an ardent supporter of the blasphemy law.

295 C is the only law in Pakistan which all religious scholars, all political parties have agreed upon and passed it through the countrys parliament. Theres no need to make reforms in blasphemy law at all, Qadri told VOA.



Some who dared to amend the law have faced severe consequences, including death  like Governor Taseer.

Several faced that fate, a federal minister and several members of non-Muslim minorities have been killed in Pakistan for criticizing the anti-blasphemy law or seeking to amend it.

In some cases just being accused of violating the anti-blasphemy law will draw the attention of those that believe in its strict implementation and that means serious threat to ones life.



According to Human Rights Watchs latest annual report on Pakistan, at least 19 people are on death row after being convicted under blasphemy law and hundreds are awaiting their trail.



Despite criticism, Pakistans government adamantly enforces the anti-blasphemy law. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently ordered authorities to take measures against people posting anti-Islamic contents on social media.



As part of the governments crackdown, several bloggers have been arrested and the countrys Federal Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan announced earlier this month that a Facebook delegation is to visit Pakistan soon to discuss the issue of blasphemous content on social media with Pakistani authorities.



Pakistan has seen a surge in extremism over the last several decades. Rights activists are concerned that at a time when the country has vowed to destroy extremism, emphasizing on enforcing the anti-blasphemy law will only radicalize people, particularly the younger generation.



Muhammad Ishtiaq, from VOA's Urdu Service contributed to this report.
U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year's American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank.

In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists.

VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has stated that the combat losses and hacking never happened.

Some see overblown allegations

CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last year, but some cybersecurity experts have questioned its evidence. The company has come under fire from some Republicans who say charges of Kremlin meddling in the election are overblown.

After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by "Fancy Bear," a group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

CrowdStrike's claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media.

On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.

The company removed language that said Ukraine's artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS.

The original CrowdStrike report was dated Dec. 22, 2016, and the updated report was dated March 23, 2017.

The company also removed language saying Ukraine's howitzers suffered "the highest percentage of loss of any ... artillery pieces in Ukraine's arsenal."

Finally, CrowdStrike deleted a statement saying "deployment of this malware-infected application may have contributed to the high-loss nature of this platform"  meaning the howitzers  and excised a link sourcing its IISS data to a blogger in Russia-occupied Crimea.

In an email, CrowdStrike spokeswoman Ilina Dmitrova said the new estimates of Ukrainian artillery losses resulted from conversations with Henry Boyd, an IISS research associate for defense and military analysis. She declined to say what prompted the contact.

CrowdStrike defends report

"This update does not in any way impact the core premise of the report that the FANCY BEAR threat actor implanted malware into a D-30 targeting application developed by a Ukrainian military officer," Dmitrova wrote.

Reached by VOA, the IISS confirmed providing CrowdStrike with new information about combat losses, but declined to comment on CrowdStrike's hacking assertions.

"We don't think the current version of the [CrowdStrike] report draws conclusions with regard to our data, other than quoting the clarification we provided to them," IISS told VOA.

Dmitrova noted that the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community have also concluded that Russia was behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager.

The release of embarrassing Democratic emails during last year's U.S. political campaign, and the subsequent finding by intelligence agencies that the hacks were meant to help then-candidate Donald Trump, have led to investigations by the FBI and intelligence committees in both the House and Senate.

Trump and White House officials have denied colluding with Russians.
Rivalries over oil and gas exports between adjacent Middle Eastern states and their allies have been exacerbating tensions across the region. Rival pipeline projects across the Levant may also have been a key factor in disturbing already unstable regional fault lines.

Qatar and Iran share the largest known gas field in the Middle East, and both are actively seeking to export their gas resources to the region, Europe, Asia and beyond. Some experts argue that those riches are fueling latent regional conflicts in places like Syria and Iraq.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country is Europe's top gas supplier, intervened in Syria in September 2015, ostensibly to prop up the regime of embattled President Bashar al-Assad, but quite possibly to prevent other regional and world powers from taking advantage of its strategic location.

Putin has told Western states to take Russia's national interests into consideration in their actions, insisting that other disagreements would fall by the wayside. He has warned them that they must consider others and respect the interests of others.

Qatar is an ally of the West, and Iran is an ally of Russia. Qatar's North Dome gas field and Iran's South Pars field, which lie side by side, were discovered by Shell Oil Corporation in 1974. Neither Qatar nor Shell was pleased by the discovery at the time, since they had been searching for oil, and it was not an easy field to exploit, former Qatar Energy Minister Abdallah al-Attiyah told a Gulf energy forum.

Development came later

He said that Shell decided not to exploit the field and that Qatar was not able to exploit it for several decades until international oil and gas company Maersk took over the project and used advanced techniques, including horizontal drilling, to extract gas from the irregular-sized layers of deposits.

The former Qatar energy minister said Qatar is the world's largest producer of liquefied natural gas, with an output of 77 million tons a year. He said European markets were eager to buy and Qatar was ready to export, selling to Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland, with its own fleet of 55 ships.

Iran was engulfed in a brutal conflict (1980-88) with neighboring Iraq, however, making oil and gas exports a low priority for the regime. It was not until the late '90s and the era of reformist President Mohamed Khatami that South Pars became a target for exploitation.

A 25-phase project for exploiting South Pars began slowly and continued off and on, amid international sanctions, which crippled Tehran's energy sector.

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, a former president and finance minister of Iran, told VOA that Iran shares eight oil and gas fields with its Gulf neighbors, including Qatar, which he complained has been taking advantage of the Islamic Republic. He said Qatar produces twice as much gas as Iran, although the disparity used to be larger. He added that Iran's neighbors didn't respect Iran's rights.

But, despite prickly relations between Iran and Qatar, Bani-Sadr said he didn't think the two states were major rivals in getting their product to market. He said Qatar does not need to go through Syria or Iraq to export its gas, since it would be cheaper to build a pipeline via Saudi Arabia, while Iran would be better off to sell its gas via pipeline to Turkey, rather than via Syria or Iraq, which would cost twice as much.

Syria's Assad, however, during a state visit to Turkey in 2009, several years before a sectarian conflict erupted and relations with Turkey soured, insisted that Syria would be an ideal transit country for a pipeline from the Gulf to the Mediterranean.

Triggered war?

In a December 2016 interview, Assad claimed that it was possible that the existence of rival gas pipeline projects between Iran and Qatar could have ignited his country's six-year-old civil war.

He said there were two routes crossing Syria. One was north-south, related to Qatar, and the other was east-west to the Mediterranean, which crossed Iraq from Iran. "And at that time, we embarked on building the one going east-west, and I think many countries who opposed the policies of Syria didn't want [it] to be an energy hub," said Assad.

However, Qatar's former prime minister, Hamad Ben Jassem Ben Jabber al-Thani, said in an interview last year with the BBC Arabic service that he didn't think "that Qatar or Saudi Arabia have a policy of hegemony over Syria, because both need stability there, rather than just to exert their influence."

Hamad admitted, however, that both Qatar and its Gulf Cooperation Council partners were annoyed with Iran, Syria's powerful regional ally, for interfering in the region.

"I believe that we have to have an excellent and a good relation with the Iranians, but both sides have to know the red lines for the other party," he said.

Bani-Sadr argued that Gulf countries would like to see Assad deposed, because the Iranian project of putting together a "Shi'ite crescent," from Iran to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, "irritates Gulf countries."

Hamad, nevertheless, insisted that he was a proponent of good trade relations and cooperation with Iran, but that his GCC neighbors were less enthusiastic.

"I believe in cooperation with Iran, but if you say now, there is the security issue and the economic issue, true, but there is another issue  dominating areas in the GCC area by the Iranians  that is something not accepted by the GCC and irritates any GCC leader," he said.

No winners in 'zero-sum game'

Iran, for its part, is equally adamant about not being taken advantage of by the GCC and other rivals, according to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during a meeting with the European Parliament in late 2015.

"Globalization makes it impossible for you to have security when others are insecure, to have prosperity where others live in poverty," Zarif said. "That is the nature of a globalized world. We cannot gain at the expense of others. A zero-sum game, a game that is a win-lose game, will end up making everybody lose."

Until now, however, everybody has appeared to be losing, as regional powers and their outside backers jockey for position. A section of an Iranian gas pipeline through Iraq has reportedly been sabotaged a number of times, and rival Kurdish factions recently clashed outside Kirkuk in an area through which a pipeline was intended to pass.

Iran analyst Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute said any Iranian gas pipeline project is likely to meet multiple obstacles, given that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps usually has the political clout to win construction contracts, but often has difficulty completing them because of Western sanctions on the IRGC.

Vatanka also questioned the economic viability of a pipeline project through Iraq, but noted that Iran "often makes sentimental calculations over helping neighboring Shi'ites," rather than "weighing economic considerations."

In the meantime, as conflicts continue to rage in Syria and Iraq, U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to try to "cut a deal with Russia," and his secretary of state, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, knows the energy map of the Levant and the leaders behind it better than most diplomats.
The wounded warrior is now a cop  and he'll be walking the beat on titanium legs.



Matias Ferreira, a former U.S. Marine Corps lance corporal who lost his legs below the knee when he stepped on a hidden explosive in Afghanistan in 2011, is joining a suburban New York police department.



The 28-year-old graduated Friday from the Suffolk County Police Academy on Long Island following 29 weeks of training.



The 6-foot-1 (1.9-meter), 215-pound (98-kilogram) rookie passed all the physical training and other requirements just like any other recruit, including running a mile and a half in around 11 minutes. He begins patrols next week, a department spokesman said.



I just really want to be able to help people, said Ferreira, who immigrated to the U.S. from Uruguay as a child. I want to be involved in the community, and the police department definitely allows you to do that.

Jumped off roof on to mine



Ferreira was on patrol in Afghanistan January 21, 2011, when he jumped off a roof in a compound suspected of being a Taliban outpost.



As soon as I landed I knew something was wrong because it was like a movie almost. I heard a noise and everything went black, he said. A bomb had gone off beneath his legs, amputating both below the knees. I just saw blood throughout my pants.



He was evacuated to a local hospital. Within days, he was back in the U.S. being treated for his injuries. Three months later he was wearing prosthetic legs.



I was up and walking in prosthetics and really just starting my new life, he said.

New life, new activities

That new life has included many activities he had never tried before the explosion. He has played on a softball team of wounded warriors. He skydives, scuba dives, snowboards and rides a motorcycle.



Raised in Georgia, he met his future wife, Tiffany, when his softball team played a game on Long Island in 2012. The couple now has a 2-year-old daughter.



After working as a steamfitter, welding while hanging off bridges and overpasses, Ferreira decided to take the exam to become a police officer. He scored a perfect 100, and his fellow recruits later elected him class president.





He has served this great country with outstanding distinction, and will now serve and protect the residents of Suffolk County, Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said in a statement.



Ferreira acknowledges the job will bring challenges, but approaches his new career with a sense of humor. He said he was once asked during academy training whether he has concerns about injuries.



If I break my leg, I go in the trunk and put on a different one and I keep on going, he said.



He lives by the motto that life without limbs is limitless.



The only disability we have is the ones that we make, he said.
A teenage blogger from Singapore whose online posts blasting his government landed in him jail was granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge in Chicago ruled Friday.



Amos Yee has been detained by federal immigration authorities since December when he was taken into custody at Chicagos OHare International Airport. Attorneys said the 18-year-old could be released from a Wisconsin detention center as early as Monday.



Judge Samuel Cole issued a 13-page decision more than two weeks after Yees closed-door hearing on the asylum application.



Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore, Cole wrote.

Jailed twice in Singapore



Yee left Singapore with the intention of seeking asylum in the U.S. after being jailed for several weeks in 2015 and 2016. He was accused of hurting the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians in the multiethnic city-state; Yee is an atheist.

However, many of his blog and social media posts criticized Singapores leaders. He created controversy in 2015 as the city-state was mourning the death of its first prime minister and he posted an expletive-laden video about Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew just after his death.



Such open criticism of political leaders is discouraged in Singapore. The case, which raised questions about free speech and censorship, has been closely watched abroad.



Cole said testimony during Yees hearing showed that while the Singapore governments stated reason for punishing him involved religion, its real purpose was to stifle Yees political speech. He said Yees prison sentence was unusually long and harsh especially for his age.



Officials at Singapores embassy in Washington, D.C., have not addressed the case and messages left for the government on Saturday morning in Singapore werent immediately returned.

'Infinite amount of ideas'



Yees attorney Sandra Grossman said her client was elated with the news.



Hes very excited to begin new life in the United States, Grossman said.



Yee told the AP in a phone interview from jail this month that he feared returning to Singapore. But he said hed continue to speak out and had planned a line of T-shirts and started writing a book about his experiences.



I have an infinite amount of ideas of what to do, he told the AP.

Homeland opposed asylum

Department of Homeland Security attorneys had opposed the asylum bid, saying Yees case didnt qualify as persecution based on political beliefs. It was unclear whether theyd appeal the decision or if Yee would have to remain imprisoned if they did. Attorneys have 30 days to appeal.



Officials with DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement didnt immediately return messages Friday. A spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees U.S. immigration courts, declined comment.
The man who killed four people outside Britains Parliament was in Saudi Arabia three times and taught English there, the Middle Eastern countrys embassy said.



A Saudi Embassy statement released late Friday said that Khalid Masood taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009.



The embassy said that he had a work visa. It said he returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent.



The Saudi Embassy said that he wasnt tracked by the countrys security services and didnt have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was known as Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted at least twice for violent crimes.



Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record dating to 1983. The violence came later, first in 2000 when he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account.

Masoods last conviction was in 2003, also involving a knife attack. Its not clear when he took the name Masood, suggesting a conversion to Islam.

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine his motives and possible accomplices. Two people remain in custody for questioning. They are two men, aged 27 and 58, who were arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities havent charged or identified the two men. Others who were arrested in connection with the investigation have been released.



Details about how he became radicalized arent clear. His time in Saudi Arabia may provide clues. He was also jailed in Britain and may have become exposed to radical views while an inmate.
The first democratically elected president of the Maldives said Saturday that he has signed an agreement with his one-time archrival and former strongman to try to restore democracy in the archipelago state.

Former President Mohamed Nasheed told The Associated Press that the immediate goal of the agreement, which was also signed by two opposition party leaders, is to form a majority in a parliament now controlled by lawmakers supporting President Yameen Abdul Gayoom.

Nasheed said that as a result, they would be able to reform institutions like the elections commission and the judiciary, which he says are politicized, to enable a free and fair presidential election next year.

The 85-member parliament's majority will be tested when a vote to oust the speaker is taken up on Monday. Currently there are 21 lawmakers supporting Nasheed and eight votes with the two other parties, which are party to the agreement.

Former strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom runs a rival faction within the Progressive Party of Maldives, which is led by the current president, his half brother. The PPM has 48 lawmakers and the former strongman's faction says it has enough support within the party to give the opposition a majority.

The agreement says that the parties will work to safeguard civil and political rights, ensure that free and fair elections are held, and ensure that those jailed on politically motivated charges are released.

Nasheed was jailed in 2015 for 13 years for ordering the arrest of a senior judge when he was president in 2012. However, he traveled to Britain last year on medical leave and received asylum there.

Three other leading politicians have also been jailed after trials criticized internationally for a lack of due process.

A 2015 constitutional amendment allowing foreigners to purchase land in the Maldives will also be reversed, Nasheed said. His party has accused President Gayoom of planning to sell 21 tiny islands to a member of the Saudi royal family.

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom ruled the Maldives with tight controls from 1978 to 2008. Nasheed, who was a pro-democracy activist, was jailed many times under his administration. Gayoom led democratic reforms in his later years as president and lost to Nasheed in the Maldives' first democratic election, held in 2008.
U.S. Sen. John McCain is urging President Donald Trump to nominate a team of senior officials at the State Department to back up new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spoke Saturday during an event in Brussels. He pointed to "confusion" over whether Tillerson would attend a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. He does now plan to be there.

McCain said one aspect of that was that Tillerson "doesn't have a team there at the State Department. And I think it's incumbent for the president and the administration to get people nominated and confirmed."

The Arizona Republican added during a news conference at the German Marshall Fund's Brussels Forum that he expected "that would be a rapid process."
A Congolese militia decapitated 42 policemen in an ambush near the central Democratic Republic of Congo city of Kananga, a local official said Saturday.

Francois Kalamba, speaker of the Kasai provincial assembly, said the Kamuina Nsapu militant group ambushed a group of police officers traveling between Kananga and Tshikapa a day earlier.

The militants captured the police officers and decapitated 42 of them, Kalamba said, noting that the militants freed six of the officers because they could speak the local Tshiluba language.

The attack marks the deadliest encounter between security forces and the militant group since last summer when security forces killed the groups leader, sparking an insurrection that has spread to five provinces throughout the country.

According to United Nations figures, more than 400 people have been killed due to the violence in central Congo. Many of the dead have been dumped into mass graves, the UN said last week after discovering 10 alleged grave sites.
Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shivpal Yadav and Azam Khan stayed away from the Samajwadi Party's national executive today. When he was elected as SP president, Akhilesh Yadav had promised that he would hand over the reins of party back to Mulayam Singh Yadav.

A thing of past: Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav during SP meet in Kolkata in 2012

By India Today Web Desk: Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his all-weather companion brother Shivpal Yadav are not part of party's deliberations over what went wrong in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

The national executive meet of Samajwadi Party began on sombre note in Lucknow today as leaders close to Mulayam Singh Yadav and Shivpal Yadav stayed away from the event.

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Akhilesh Yadav as the president of Samajwadi Party chaired the national executive meet. Among those who stayed away included former UP Minister Azam Khan, who acted as an interlocutor between Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav when they were embroiled in a bitter battle over the party leadership.

Speculation was rife yesterday evening with a few senior SP leaders being quoted as saying that Mulayam Singh would participate in the national executive meet as nothing was left to fight over in the party.

Mulayam Singh is understood to have told some senior party functionaries that factionalism in the Samajwadi Party led to poll debacle.

THE BITTER FIGHT

On the last day of 2016, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was still president of the SP, expelled son Akhilesh Yadav from the party for anti-party activities. But, only a day later, the Samajwadi Party's special national convention called by Ram Gopal Yadav - who had also been thrown out of the party - elected Akhilesh Yadav as the national president of the party.

Mulayam Singh called the national convention illegal citing the provisions of the party constitution. The battle reached the Election Commission, which decided in favour of Akhilesh Yadav.

After dethroning his father from SP president's post, Akhilesh Yadav had declared that he would hand over the reins of Samajwadi Party to Mulayam Singh Yadav in three months - after the Assembly polls were over.

But, a leadership issue does not seem to be on agenda of the Samajwadi Party, which is likely to discuss the drubbing it got from the BJP in the Assembly election. The SP may launch a membership drive across Uttar Pradesh to mobilise the demoralised functionaries of the party.

--- ENDS ---
Warplanes of the Syrian government and its Russian allies pounded rebel targets across the country Saturday, killing scores of people, including inmates at a rebel-held women's prison in the northwestern city of Idlib.

Details of the overnight prison strike remained sketchy Saturday. But monitors from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the prison dead included 16 prisoners and prison staff. The Observatory said some of the detainees had been killed by prison guards as they attempted to flee after the airstrikes.

Separately, monitors said government forces targeted rebel positions east of Damascus, where at least 16 people were killed and 50 others wounded in Hamoria.

The government offensive, described as some of the heaviest fighting in weeks, came days after rebels seeking to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad launched a surprise assault on Damascus by burrowing into the capital through tunnels.

Concurrent attacks in recent days to the north targeted Hama province, where insurgents have seized about a dozen towns and villages since Monday. The Observatory said rebels had advanced by Wednesday to within several kilometers of a government airbase outside the city.

But monitors reported Saturday that heavy government rocket fire had forced rebels to withdraw from some of their forward positions.

In a related development, authorities said the second phase of an evacuation of Syrian rebels from Homs province had been delayed by fighting to the north that erupted early this week in Hama province between government and rebel forces.

The evacuation, which began earlier this month, is part of a deal to relocate rebels to northwestern Syria, along with their families and other civilians who choose to leave. Monitors have said as many as 15,000 people were expected to depart in weekly batches.

Homs city officials, in an email to Reuters on Saturday, quoted provincial Governor Talal Barazi as saying the evacuation would continue Monday.
The U.S.-led military coalition launched an airstrike that witnesses said killed more than 100 people during a battle to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants, U.S. officials acknowledged Saturday.

The U.S. announcement came after the Iraqi government said earlier Saturday that it would temporarily halt the battle to retake Mosul from IS jihadists after reports emerged of heavy civilian casualties.

The U.S.-led coalition fighting IS said in a statement that it had "opened a formal civilian casualty credibility assessment" into the allegation that recent coalition airstrikes killed more than 100 civilians in Mosul's Jidideh neighborhood.

"Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISIS's inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods,'' a coalition statement said. ISIS is another acronym for the Islamic State group.

'All reasonable precautions'

The statement also said coalition planes "routinely strike" IS targets in the neighborhood, and that coalition forces "take all reasonable precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians."

Before the U.S. announcement Saturday, Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told The New York Times the military was not sure whether the explosion in western Mosul had been caused by an American or other coalition airstrike, or an IS "bomb or booby trap."

But an Iraqi officer told the newspaper he knew exactly what had happened.

Major General Maan al-Saadi, a commander of the Iraqi special forces, told the Times that his men had called in a coalition airstrike to deal with snipers on the roofs of three houses in Jidideh. He said, however, his forces did not know the basements of the houses were filled with civilians.

Nawfal Hammadi, governor of the territory surrounding Mosul, told the French news agency AFP that IS jihadists had gathered civilians in the basement of the building to use them as human shields.

"The Daesh [Islamic State] terrorist organization is seeking to stop the advance of the Iraqi forces in Mosul at any cost, he said, referring to IS by an Arabic acronym.

'Humanitarian catastrophe'

Iraqs parliament speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, mentioned the apparent civilian deaths on Twitter on Saturday. He encouraged coalition forces to spare no effort to save civilians, but acknowledged the huge responsibility the liberating forces shoulder.

Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi, who is from Mosul, described the incident as a "humanitarian catastrophe."

More than a half-million civilians are still believed to remain in IS-held areas of Mosul. Civilians, humanitarian aid groups and monitoring officials have warned about the possibility of increased civilian casualties because of a growing demand for airstrikes and artillery.
Villages and entire cities in former Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq lie in ruins after months and sometimes years of airstrikes, mortars, suicide bombers and heavy gunfire.

In recent days, a story has emerged about a particularly horrific event, with some reports putting the civilian death toll at more than 100.

Local media say an airstrike hit a truck loaded with explosives in an area of Mosul packed by IS militants with civilian "human shields."

Coalition forces responded to calls for an investigation, saying it "opened a formal civilian casualty credibility assessment," and Iraqi officials say they are pausing operations to assess strategies to prevent further civilian casualties.

The disaster was reported in a neighborhood called New Mosul, or Mosul Jadida, cut off to journalists on Saturday and largely controlled by Iraqi forces on the front lines fighting IS.

Less than two kilometers away, only a few civilians venture out of their homes as missiles fly overhead, and IS gunfire pounds at Iraqi helicopters in the air. Even this close to New Mosul, civilians and soldiers say they don't know exactly what happened.

One small family, Mohammad, 50, and his wife, Atheel, 40, invite us into their borrowed home, saying they, too, don't know what happened in New Mosul, but they do know what it is like to survive an airstrike. This is the story of the day their home was hit, and the day they lost everything.

Mohammad: It was a holiday about six months ago, before Iraqi forces entered Mosul. We had lived in our home on the east side of Mosul for eight years.

We had finished lunch and my wife was in the kitchen cleaning up. I heard an airstrike hit the university across the street. I thought, "Thank God, it didn't hit us." I went to take a nap.

As I closed the bedroom door, another strike hit our house.The door flew off its hinges and slammed me back.

I was in the bathroom when the next airstrike hit. This time, it was the roof of my house. It was so dusty that I couldn't see anything, so I poured water on my head, desperately searching for my wife.

All of the pans and appliances had crashed from the counters and cabinets in the kitchen. All of the furniture  everything  was destroyed. We put wet towels on our faces to protect us from the dust and began to pick through the rubble. It took us an hour to dig a hole to escape our kitchen. We climbed over our collapsed garage and onto the street.

Atheel: Our money was burned in the airstrike, but we took some gold and our passports, but nothing else. By the time we got outside, my husband was having trouble breathing.

IS militants were on the street and I wasn't wearing a veil over my face. I was scared and covered up with a bit of my headscarf.

Mohammad: I saw the militants and they said, "How are you still alive? How did you survive that?"

They thought we were dead, and they didn't care. To them, we were nothing.

Atheel: Then another airstrike hit  I'm not sure exactly where  and we crashed onto the ground to protect ourselves from flying debris. When the sound subsided, we ran as fast as we could. There was no one to help us, no ambulances. No police.

When we were out of the area, we got a taxi to the hospital. But they couldn't help my husband because they had no oxygen. We stayed for three days and my brother-in-law brought us some oxygen.

But we had lost everything. Our home, our car, our family pictures, our marriage certificate and all of our other things. We had a nice home.

Mohammad: Now, we belong nowhere.
Pakistan says it has started fencing off its long border with Afghanistan and areas vulnerable to cross-border militant attacks are being given priority.

Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa revealed the project during a visit Saturday to tribal districts, including Mohmand, near the Afghan border where "terrorists" assaulted outposts from across the other side and killed five Pakistani soldiers this month.

Bajwa identified Mohmand and neighboring Bajaur district as "high threat zones", saying fencing them is the military's high priority.

An army statement quoted him as saying that efforts are also underway to "evolve a border security mechanism" with Afghan authorities.

"A better managed, secure and peaceful border is in mutual interest of both brotherly countries who have given phenomenal sacrifices in war against terrorism," the general said.

Without elaborating, the Pakistan army chief said that "technical surveillance means" are also being deployed in addition to regular air surveillance to enhance the border security.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share a nearly 2,600 kilometer, largely porous, border and both blame each other for encouraging terrorist infiltration to support deadly attacks on their respective soils.

Relations between the countries have nosedived in the last two years over mutual terrorism allegations.

Islamabad closed all border crossings with the landlocked country a month ago, saying terrorist attacks in Pakistan were being orchestrated by fugitive anti-state militants sheltering in Afghan border areas.

Pakistan reopened the crossings earlier this week to allow legal travelers and thousands of stranded Afghanistan-bound shipping containers to resume their journey.

Kabul rejects charges anti-Pakistan militants are using Afghan soil for cross-border attacks and instead demanded Islamabad close insurgent sanctuaries on its side of the border being used to fuel violence in Afghanistan, charges Pakistani authorities deny.
Philippine soldiers Saturday rescued one of two Filipino cargo ship crewmen taken captive two days ago by suspected Abu Sayyaf militants, a security official said.

The troops recovered Aurelio Agacac, the ship captain, in the remote village of Basakan in the southern Philippine province of Basilan, said Colonel Juvymax Uy, commander of the militarys 104th Brigade and Joint Task Force Basilan.

The kidnappers took Agacac and his companion Laurencio Tiro captive from a cargo ship off Basilan on Thursday, only hours after soldiers rescued two Malaysians held for about eight months on a southern island.

Uy said the abductors were forced to abandon Agacac to delay the pursuing troops and evade a firefight.

Uy said the soldiers also captured a wounded suspect during the pursuit who died while being transported to the hospital in Basilan.

Uy did not confirm that the kidnappers were Abu Sayyaf members.

Abu Sayyaf, a small but violent Islamist group known for kidnappings, beheadings, bombings and extortion, is still holding a number of Filipino and foreign nationals captive, including some Indonesians and Malaysians.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to impose martial law in the south, home to the majority of Filipino Muslims, to address the security problem there.
One extra day could not buy President Donald Trump and his Republican Congress the first major legislative victory they needed to set the tone for the new administration.

Republicans canceled a crucial health care bill vote at the last minute Friday rather than lose a battle of numbers on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

President Trump's Own Party Hands Him Stunning Defeat

The cancellation followed a chaotic Thursday when the leadership postponed a vote in the hope that 24 more hours could win a long-promised repeal and replacement of President Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act.

Ryan delivered the news

House Speaker Paul Ryan rallied his splintered Republican Party during an emergency meeting in the depths of the Capitol after delivering the bad news in person to Trump at the White House.

The once-certain health care bill victory threw into question the rest of the Republican agenda addressing tax reform, government spending and infrastructure funding. Even though Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House, the reactions of members leaving the meeting gave varying clues on how the party moves forward.

A grim-faced Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, offered no comment as he left the meeting led by Ryan. The conservative caucus helped bring down the Speakers bill, suggesting it was too close in form to the so-called Obamacare.

Other members looked visibly uncomfortable with questions about the next steps for Republicans.

Its unchartered territory, but it certainly doesnt bode well as our first attempt out of the box to govern, said Congressman Tom Rooney, a Republican from Florida. Were in power and we have the ability to do things and were not doing it.

Trump tweet

In a tweet Sunday morning, Trump suggested Republicans will wait for the current health care law to fail - something the president and other Republicans predicted as one justification for the attempted overhaul - before trying again to replace it.

Tense moments

Many Republicans leaving the meeting said they had no issue with Ryans leadership after the vote cancellation.

I will not sugarcoat this, this is a disappointing day for us, Ryan told reporters Friday afternoon. Doing big things is hard. All of us, all of us, myself included, we will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better.

The uncertainty of those final moments as Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Ryan worked back rooms and phone lines to squeeze out a victory, sent restless Republicans out into the hallways of Congress.

Trump supporters such as Congressman Chris Collins, who knew they would be a yes vote, could only wait and contemplate the accusations that might eat away at the party.

The anger in our conference would be palatable if they pull the vote, Collins told VOA during those tense afternoon hours when a vote was still expected.

Im not going to blame leadership, Im not going to blame the president, Im not going to blame the speaker, the leader, or the whip. Id say we line up 237 Republicans and say, Look in the mirror, read it,  he said.

Theres no way that its anything but an absolute, mitigated disaster, both for the president and for Speaker Ryan, Donald Kettl, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland told VOA. Theres no way that its anything but a personal failure for the president. He had said that what he was going to do was to prove himself the ultimate dealmaker, and the first deal he had to make he couldnt pull it off.

Spicer: Health Care Tackled First to 'Achieve Savings' for Tax Reform

The challenge of governing

But many Republicans leaving the emergency meeting hoped the experience would inform Trumps future legislative efforts.

My guess is that he has learned through this process that politics is different than business, said Congressman Bill Huizenga, a Republican from Michigan. With key 2018 midterm elections only a year and a half away, he said the president will need to remember the first priority for members of Congress.

For me, were all independent contractors that have 700,000 people that hire us every two years for our job review. So I dont hold to him for my job or my policy or my direction. I just think philosophically Im going to work with the guy where I can work with him, Huizenga said.

Other Republicans said there were ways around predictions that a failure over health care reform would doom their partys agenda.

A lot of people in this building, they talk and everything is potentially catastrophic, cataclysmic  well we know thats not the case. If you want to do health care reform, do it on a bipartisan basis, Congressman Charlie Dent, a Republican from Pennsylvania, told reporters after the meeting.

Dent is a member of the so-called Tuesday Group of moderate Republicans who objected to the changes suggested by the conservative Freedom Caucus, giving Trump and Ryan another front to fight the health care battle.

Despite todays loss, Dent told VOA theres still a way forward for the next items in the presidents policy agenda.

We should be doing tax reform and infrastructure absolutely, Dent said.

Empowered Democrats

Those efforts could be complicated by a newly empowered Democratic Party that Trump blamed for the loss instead of mentioning his own party.

We were very close to doing it, he told reporters Friday afternoon. But when you get no votes from the other  meaning the Democrats  its really difficult.

Democrats were more than willing to accept Trumps words after a week of negotiations that show he still has many to win over in his own party.

Did he blame us for the defeat of his flagship issue? elated Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked reporters. Well take credit for that.
Hundreds of fans and friends of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher gathered for a public memorial honoring the celebrated mother and daughter.

The two-hour ceremony Saturday was a mix of music and dance spliced with some never-before-seen footage of the mother-daughter duo reflecting on their lives. The poignant event was a laughter-filled memorial for the late actresses.

The ceremony was led by Todd Fisher, who lost his mother and sister one day apart in late December. Fisher said his mother didn't like memorials, so he was calling it a show that would reveal his loved ones like never before.

Deaths a day apart

Fisher, 60, an actress and writer who starred as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, died December 27 after suffering a medical emergency days earlier aboard a flight from London. Reynolds, 84, an Oscar-nominated actress who shot to fame after starring in Singin' in the Rain at age 19, died the following day after being briefly hospitalized.

She said, I want to be with Carrie, Reynolds son, Todd Fisher, told The Associated Press after his mothers death. And then she was gone.

People were granted attendance at the event, which was live-streamed, Saturday on a first-come, first-served basis.

The ceremony featured music by James Blunt and Star Wars composer John Williams and displayed Hollywood memorabilia that Reynolds collected throughout her life.

Moments included a dance tribute by performers from the dance studio Reynolds founded to music from "Singin' in the Rain," the classic film that made her a star.

The ceremony started with a video montage using "Star Wars" music to show Fisher from infancy, displaying tender moments with her and her mother interspersed with highlights from her career.

'Star Wars' remembrance

At the end of the montage, a working R2D2 unit came on stage and mournfully beeped at a picture of Fisher and at an empty director's chair with Fisher's name on it.

Actress Ruta Lee delivered a touching eulogy about Reynolds and her philanthropy. As with much of the ceremony, Lee sprinkled humor throughout.

Dan Aykroyd also cracked jokes, describing Fisher as a chatterbox who never let him speak during their relationship.

The ceremony also featured a new song Fisher's friend James Blunt wrote in memory of her.

The back-to-back deaths of two prominent actresses were stunning, but they were made even more poignant by the womens complex history. Fisher and Reynolds had a strained relationship that Fisher explored in her writing, but they later reconciled and became trusted confidantes brought closer by painful events in their lives.

Reynolds lost one husband to Elizabeth Taylor, and two other husbands plundered her for millions. Fisher struggled with addiction and mental illness, which she candidly described in books and interviews.

Fisher's last role

Fisher died after finishing work on The Last Jedi, the eighth film in the core Star Wars saga. Disney CEO Bob Iger said this week that Fisher appears throughout the film, and her performance will not be changed.

Reynolds earned an Oscar nomination for her starring role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

The actresses participated in an HBO documentary on their lives called Bright Lights, which aired in January.

Todd Fisher organized Saturdays memorial to give fans an opportunity to honor his mother and sister. Fishers daughter, actress Billie Lourd, is expected to attend.

Stars including Meryl Streep, Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry mourned the actresses at a private memorial in January.
Somalia's president on Saturday asked leaders of an African trade bloc to help his country find a durable solution to the Somali refugee crisis, including reintegration of returnees inside the Horn of Africa nation, where a civil conflict is now in its 26th year.

At a special summit in Nairobi on Somali refugees, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, commonly known as Farmajo, said that "about 2 million Somali refugees and IDPs [internally displaced persons] live in camps in and out of the country. Tragically, some have lived in these camps for three generations, all because the environment wasn't conducive enough in Somalia for them to return."

He said many Somalis have voluntarily returned over the past few years, as conditions in their regions have improved gradually, but the president said there are still challenges.

"The current drought and the looming famine pose yet another challenge to voluntary return. We must not leave a stone unturned to avert another famine in Somalia," he said at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development summit.

Resettlement strategy

Farmajo added that his government has a strategy to deal with the challenges facing the estimated 1.1 million IDPs in the country and the returning refugees once they are back home.

"Our durable solutions strategy calls for land reform, resettlement policies and investment in affordable housing. Taken together, these would facilitate the smooth return and reintegration of refugees and IDPs into their communities," he said.

The Nairobi summit took place as pressure grows on the Dadaab refugee camp, the biggest in the world, which has hosted hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees for decades and currently holds 249,000.

A joint Somalia-Kenya-UNHCR commission has facilitated the start of a voluntary repatriation project for refugees to return to Somalia, where drought and insecurity are still forcing many people to flee in search of food and water.

A Kenyan court has recently stopped the Kenyan government from closing the Dadaab refugee camp. The court said refugees must not be forced to return until conditions in Somalia improve and allow them to return in dignity.
Salvage crews towed a corroded 6,800-ton South Korean ferry and loaded it onto a semi-submersible transport vessel Saturday, completing what was seen as the most difficult part of the massive effort to bring the ship back to shore.



Government officials say it will take a week or two to bring the vessel to a port 90 kilometers (55 miles) away so that investigators could search for the remains of nine missing people, who were among the 304 who died when the Sewol capsized April 16, 2014.





Most of the victims were students on a high school trip, touching off an outpouring of national grief and soul searching about long-ignored public safety and regulatory failures. Public outrage over what was seen as a botched rescue job by the government contributed to the recent ouster of Park Geun-hye as president.



We just got over one hump ... we are trying hard to stay calm, Lee Geum-hee, the mother of a missing schoolgirl, told a television crew.

Bringing the Sewol back to the port in Mokpo would be a step toward finding closure to one of the countrys deadliest disasters. Once the ferry reaches land, government officials say it would take about a month for the ship to be cleaned and evaluated for safety.



Investigators will then enter the wreckage and begin a search for the remains of the missing victims and for clues further illuminating the cause of the sinking, which has been blamed on overloaded cargo, improper storage and other negligence.

Salvage began Wednesday



Workers on two barges began the salvaging operation Wednesday night, rolling up 66 cables connected to a frame of metal beams divers spent months placing beneath the ferry, which had been lying on its left side under 44 meters (144 feet) of water.



Relatives of the missing victims, some of whom who were watching from two fishing boats just outside the operation area, cried as the blue-and-white right side of the ferry, rusty and scratched and its painted name SEWOL no longer visible, emerged from the waters Thursday morning.



By Friday evening, workers managed to raise the ship 13 meters (42 feet) above the water surface so that they could load it onto the semi-submersible, heavy lift vessel that was about 2 miles away. The timing of the move was vital because dangerous water currents were forecast to worsen Saturday.



Five towing vessels slowly pulled the two barges with the partially raised Sewol tied between them. They had placed the Sewol on the vessels submerged dock by 4:10 a.m. Saturday, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.



Lee Cheoljo, a ministry official, said workers will spend several hours disconnecting the Sewol from the barges by removing the wires. They plan to lift the dock and fully raise the Sewol from the water by the end of Saturday before emptying the ship of water and fuel, Lee said.



The journey to the Mokpo port could be shorter than the initial two-week estimate, depending on weather and other conditions, Lee said.

How to search the ship



Victims relatives and government officials disagree on how to proceed with the searches. The government favors cutting off the passenger cabin area and raising it upright before searching for the missing victims, while families fear that cutting into the ship might harm any victims remains.



A group representing the victims families has also demanded that it be part of an investigation committee that will be formed to further study the cause of the ships sinking. Many bereaved family members and their supporters have been demanding a more thorough investigation into the governments responsibility over the sinking, questioning why higher-level officials have not been held accountable.



The ferrys captain is serving a life prison sentence for committing homicide through willful negligence because he fled the ship without ordering an evacuation.



Accusations that Park was out of contact for several hours on the day of the sinking were included in the impeachment bill Parliament passed in December. She was formally removed from office this month and is under criminal investigation over suspicions that she conspired with a confidante to extort money and favors from companies and allow the friend to secretly interfere with state affairs.
The United Nations begins negotiations Monday on a legally binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

This comes as the United States commences a review of what role its nuclear weapons should now play.

Shortly after taking office, the president directed a new Nuclear Posture Review to ensure that the United States nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21st century threats and reassure our allies, White House senior assistant press secretary Michael Short told VOA Friday. The review is underway and is being led by the secretary of defense.

Those around the world yearning for a planet free of nuclear weapons are likely to be disappointed with the outcomes both at the United Nations and the White House.

I personally support a world without nuclear weapons, said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. But I would also admit it would be very hard to get there.

NATO vote

The Obama administration last year strongly encouraged NATO allies to vote against the start of negotiations at the U.N., contending such a ban would hinder cooperation to respond to nuclear threats from adversaries.

The proposed U.N. treaty aims to delegitimize the concept of nuclear deterrence upon which many U.S. allies and partners depend, according to a notice Washington sent to NATO on October 17.

Some in the Trump administration would like to see it abandon Obamas stated goal of a world without nuclear weapons and lift the moratorium on U.S nuclear weapons testing.

We have not conducted an experiment in over 20 years. Since then weve made some changes to our nuclear warheads, and we dont fully understand how those changes might play out in operational scenarios, said Michaela Dodge, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Examining whether global nuclear disarmament is a realistic goal is part of the Nuclear Posture Review, according to Christopher Ford, the National Security Councils senior director for weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation, who spoke at a conference in Washington last Tuesday.

The Trump administration may come to a different conclusion than the Obama administration came to as to how realistic it is to make that a goal that drives your near and midterm policy approaches, Pifer, director of the Brookings Arms Control Initiative, said during a seminar the following day devoted to how U.S. and Russian leaders can avoid renewed nuclear tensions.

Number of weapons

Also on the table, according to National Security Council officials, are the number of U.S. weapons needed to counter other nuclear-armed countries and whether new devices should be added to its atomic arsenal.

I think over time President Trump and his team at the Pentagon are going to recognize that we do need to continue to have verifiable arms limits with Russia, said Pifer, also a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. We dont want a new arms race. We dont want to open the door to new types of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing, which would have grave ramifications for the global arms reduction and nonproliferation process.

That also appears to be the view in Moscow.

A former Russian arms control negotiator, who attended the Washington seminar told VOA the Kremlin desires resuming dialogue in this arena.

For the Russian side, if United States is forthcoming and comes up with something interesting, it would be very difficult for Russia to say, Nyet, were not interested. No. No way, said Victor Mizin, deputy director of the Institute for International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs.

The self-described former Cold Warrior terms the current situation as a hybrid cold war, contending the rhetoric is worse than it was in the 1980s.

For the past several years, the United States has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a landmark arms control agreement of the Cold War.

Ford, the only senior nuclear policy official yet appointed by Trump, said the administration is reviewing responses to Russias deployment of nuclear-capable cruise missiles, which led to the U.S. accusations.

What usually happens, as you well know, is the United States over-complies with agreements while permitting Russia to have more wiggle room in an effort to save the agreement itself, Dodge, at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA.

Arms control

Another influential Russian academic visiting Washington in recent days for conferences and seminars on arms control, Sergey Rogov, expressed concern about the Trump administrations apparent distaste for multilateral treaties, noting contradictory comments made by candidate Trump on nuclear issues.

Apparently today there is no nuclear policy for the new administration, said Rogov, director of the Institute of U.S.-Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who added, however, its still early. But the problem is the Republican Party has almost no arms controllers left.

President Trump, on the campaign trail, did speak both of a desire to see the abolition of nuclear weapons and of giving an unrivaled arsenal to the United States, which he said had fallen behind in its nuclear capabilities.

The president also mentioned the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Islamic State and publicly pondered whether countries such as Japan and South Korea, protected under the American nuclear umbrella, might be better off having their own such weapons.

The U.S. nuclear posture review is expected to take 12 to 18 months. The previous one was completed in 2010 during the first term of President Barack Obama.

U.S. nuclear policymakers will now also be keeping one eye on the activities at the United Nations where the negotiations threaten to upset the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That treaty allowed the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France, who are also the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, to retain their nuclear weapons for an unspecified time.

Anti-nuclear activists

Some anti-nuclear activists expressed disappointed with the Obama administration, despite its denuclearization rhetoric, because it requested large increases for nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. They are not expecting good news from the Trump administration.

But throwing out even this rhetorical commitment, arguing that a world without nuclear weapons is unrealistic, and hinting at the resumption of explosive nuclear weapon testing means violating international law, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and a clear expression of support for nuclear weapons, said Ray Acheson, director of the disarmament program of the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom.

Acheson told VOA her organization sees this as posing enormous risks to the existing nonproliferation regime and will essentially be equivalent to throwing the last several decades of iterative work towards nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation into the dustbin of history.
By Press Trust of India: rooms: Minister

Mumbai, Mar 24 (PTI) Maharashtra Excise Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule today said the Supreme Court decision banning liquor sale within 500 metres of national and state highways was not applicable to beer bars and permit rooms.

"As per the opinion of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, the Supreme Court order is applicable for wine shops, and not permit rooms and bars," Bawankule told reporters outside Vidhan Bhavan here.

advertisement

"Wine shops function as a takeaway joint and thus the decision of the Supreme Court applies to their licence, while permit rooms and bars sell liquor at its premises and it is to be consumed there itself so it is not applicable to them," the minister said.

The number of FL 3 (liquor permits) licence given to retail outlets in Maharashtra stands at 13,650. Out of these, 9,097 are hotels, restaurants and bars, said the minister.

The Supreme Court order is not applicable to these 9,097 permit holders, he clarified. PTI MR RMT SMN

--- ENDS ---
U.S. President Donald Trump is turning his attention to tax reform following the collapse of the effort to repeal and replace the nation's health care plan.

"I would say that we will probably start going very, very strongly for the big tax cuts and tax reform. That will be next," Trump said at the White House Friday after Republicans withdrew legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Republicans were forced to cancel a vote on the replacement bill in the House of Representatives because it did not have enough support.

Tax cut for middle class

Earlier Friday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during an interview with the news site Axios said he has been overseeing the administration's tax reform bill for the past two months.

He said the bill would include proposals to cut individual and corporate taxes. "Our primary focus is a tax cut for the middle income (earners) and not at the top."

Mnuchin declined to say what corporate tax rate would be proposed, other than it will be "a lot lower" than the current rate of 35 percent.

He also didn't reveal whether the tax proposal would include a contentious border adjustment tax that is part of a House tax plan. The adjustment tax calls for a 20 percent tax on imports and Mnuchin acknowledged it has both positive and negative features.

Mnuchin said the president's tax plan would be introduced soon and hopes it will win congressional approval as early as August.

Spicer: Health Care Tackled First to 'Achieve Savings' for Tax Reform

Presidential spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at the White House Friday an August deadline is an "ambitious one" but added it is a goal the administration "is going to try to stick to."

Health care rift

Failure to advance the replacement health care bill again exposed deep divisions within the Republican Party. The rift threatens other presidential agenda initiatives such as infrastructure revitalization and building a border wall.

The replacement bill, the American Health Care Act, fell victim to two competing groups of Republicans. Independent-minded grass roots conservatives, centered around the House Freedom Caucus, bickered with a group of moderates who tend to favor consensus over confrontation. The division cost the replacement bill a number of Republican votes and set the stage for potential legislative battles in the months ahead.

One such clash may be over a bill that funds federal operations. Congress must pass the measure by April 28 or face a government shutdown.

Congress will also begin debate in the coming months on whether to raise the U.S. debt ceiling.

Time running short

The time frame for the president to achieve legislative victories is narrow. Some lawmakers believe effective legislating is limited to the first 6 months of a president's term, just before the arrival of the next election season.

Meanwhile, Obamacare remains the law of the land in the U.S., but not for long, according to Trump's Twitter post Saturday.
The U.N. Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the destruction of cultural heritage sites and warned that attacks such as those carried out in recent years by al-Qaida, Islamic State and other terror groups could constitute war crimes.

The 15-member council singled out terrorist attacks on historic monuments like the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, whose most precious artistic and architectural treasures were demolished in several waves of attacks since 2015 by IS militants.

The resolution condemned those who attack sites devoted to religion, art, science and education, and it urged international cooperation on investigations and prosecutions to bring those responsible to justice.

The measure strengthens previous resolutions that condemned illicit trafficking in looted cultural items.

Audrey Azoulay, France's minister of culture and communications, said: "This resolution makes the link between the financing of terrorist groups and the trafficking of cultural goods. It strengthens the operational tools in place to deal with this issue over previous resolutions of this Security Council."

Azoulay cited the destruction of several landmarks and artifacts, including giant stone Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, that were mutilated and blown up by al-Qaida, and priceless manuscripts in Mali's ancient city of Timbuktu that were ransacked by militants linked to al-Qaida.

She also spoke about a statue of human-headed bulls destroyed last year by Islamic State extremists in Nimrud, Iraq, capital of the ancient Assyrian empire. "Deliberate attacks on human heritage are born of a desire to obliterate from memory, to reject the past, to strip history of its meaning and lessons," the French minister said.

Irina Bokova, head of the U.N cultural agency UNESCO, hailed the resolution as "historic."

"For us, for UNESCO, it is quite clear that protection of heritage is the best way to create a resilience in societies, to recognize the past but also to look for the future, because it is so strongly linked with identities," Bokova said.
Indonesia's air force says an American military plane made an emergency landing at an airport in Indonesia's Aceh province.



Air Vice Marshall Jemi Trisonjaya says the U.S. Air Force plane requested permission to land Friday after one of its four engines failed.



Trisonjaya said Saturday that permission was granted and the Boeing 707 successfully landed at Sultan Iskandar Muda airport in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province. The plane was carrying 20 military personnel to Japan's Haneda airport from Diego Garcia, an American military base in central Indian Ocean.



Trisonjaya said no one on board the plane was injured.



The cause of the plane's engine failure was unclear.
Love Actually. Photo: Universal Pictures

For all of the (frankly, appropriate) hype, people may be surprised that the Love Actually sequel is only ten minutes long. And since the rom-com initially employed most of the British Isles, that naturally means a lot of its characters are getting the short shrift 15 years later. Colin (Kris Marshall), who went abroad to get laid and found a consenting American in Denise Richards, is one such absence. But if youre really curious, director Richard Curtis does have a pretty good idea of his fate, and a lifetime of threesomes isnt on the agenda. My sons are particularly bitter that we dont see whats happened to Colin Frissell (Kris Marshall), who went to America and came back with Denise Richards. Im assuming that hes in prison now, but I hope Im wrong, Curtis wrote in an op-ed for the Radio Times. Shamefully missing from Curtiss reflection, which does include the fun tidbit on how Keira Knightley first thought Pirates of Caribbean was some pirate thing  probably a disaster is an update on Sarah, played by the luminous, lovely Laura Linney. We will happily wait another 15 years for assurance that she finally found someone with an ounce of patience and a bucket of worth. Go circle a drain, Carl.

Heres the latest trailer:
Rogue One. Photo: Disney

While all that most people get out of mangled Starbucks orders is a chance to complain on Twitter, Gareth Edwards found himself with a key part of the Rogue One mythology. The director was looking for a way to stick his own name into the vast and often garbled Star Wars mythos, with the target being the planet at the center of the films third act. But, as Edwards told CNN, his creative juices werent exactly flowing. I go over to get a coffee from Starbucks. Im thinking, What could be the name? It could be this. Maybe we could use that? Then at the very end, she gives me the drink and they must have asked my name and I must have said, Its Gareth, but they heard Scarif. They wrote Scarif on the cup and I was like, That sounds like Star Wars, he explained. And so a great Star Wars story was born. Boy is it gonna look good in that fancy opening scrawl.
Passion Pits Michael Angelekos. Photo: Alli Harvey/Getty Images for Spotify

After an erratic past year in which they announced and then immediately cancelled a set of tour dates, today, the band Passion Pit offered up some new music  for free. But theres a catch: If you want a digital download of the slowly gestating album Tremendous Sea of Love, you have to spread a message the band has tweeted out in support of government scientists with the hashtag #weneedscience. Per Pitchfork, Passion Pits bandleader Michael Angelekos handed the reins of his bands Twitter account over to a few scientists this past week, allowing fans to ask questions and raise awareness of the importance of supporting science and scientists and the funding that, in turn, supports their work. Angelekos had been slowly releasing a series of tracks that make up part of Tremendous Sea of Love via Facebook; recently he removed most of these. If you want access, get tweeting. After all, we all know you need music almost as much as you need science.

follow @mfwells5 because he is part of 40 scientists on the hill that are trying to raise money, because they're trying to save lives.  passion pit (@passionpit) March 23, 2017

and if you retweet this, and spread it, reply to this tweet with your email and i'll send you a digital copy of Tremendous Sea of Love https://t.co/BAE7u51adT  passion pit (@passionpit) March 23, 2017
If Howard Donald is to be believed, Take That never took America because, honestly, it seemed like a lot of work at the time. But that non-entrepreneurial spirit isnt to say that the British boy (man) band lacks the goods. After all, first James Cordens car, then, the world. Take That joined Corden for the most British session of Carpool Karaoke imaginable, give or take the left side of the road. The beloved Brits did the gig for the beloved British charity event Red Nose Day, which raises money for equally beloved British charity Comic Relief  about which, we might as well have just said, blimey, loo, Doctor Who, Nottingham, because these traditions are not ours to understand. Just sit back, enjoy the easy listening and easier choreography, and ask no questions.
There is an entire industry of sorts built around the unnerving precociousness that pageant kids evoke, so when you throw in the added element of an unsolved murder, well you just might go spastic from the chill that Casting JonBenets trailer will send up your spine. For the Netflix documentary-narrative-feature hybrid, filmmakers went to Boulder, Colorado, the site of JonBenet Ramseys murder to elicit responses, reflections and even performances from the local community. Somehow, that intriguing conceit turned into a young Burke Ramsey stand-in terrifyingly intoning, If you tell someone a secret, its no longer a secret. The film debuts on Netflix on April 28.
The actress claims that she had spoken about her situation to her former co-star Saumya Tandon.

By India Today Web Desk: TV actress Shilpa Shinde, who recently hit the headlines after she filed an FIR against Bhabi Ji Ghar Par Hai's producer Sanjay Kohli for sexual harassment, spoke to the media about the issue in detail.

"In our industry everything is taken lightly. Guys say so many things and if you react to them, they go like - 'We are kidding'. Things like - 'You are looking, hot sexy' - are common. Sanjay ji used to come on the set and while Binaifer (his wife) would take care of all the paper work, he would be the one who would talk like this to us," the Hindustan Times quoted the actress as saying.

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She further elaborated on the subject saying, "Once Sanjay ji told me that for the promotion of show, we will have to go out, and that we will have a nice time. Also, in the make-up room, he came close to me and photo lete huye and apna haath rakha mujhpe. I could feel that the touch was not right."

Also read: Shilpa Shinde accuses Bhabi Ji Ghar Par Hai producer of sexual harassment

The actress said that she had spoken on the topic with Saumya Tandon, her former co-star from the show, but had received a lukewarm response from her.

"I spoke to Saumya about this, but she was like - 'Humari industry mein koi rape nai karta Shilpa'. But I told her that I was feeling very uncomfortable. Later I got to know that Saumya had told Binaifer about the whole thing because two days later Binaifer asked me if I wanted to leave the show. She told me - 'Yeh kya keh rahi ho tum, koi pyaar se baat karta hai, toh tumhe yeh sab lagta hai. Humein do minute lagenge tumhara career spoil karne mein,'" reported the Hindustan Times.

However, Saumya Tandon, who plays Anita on the show, recently told the DNA that she was not aware about Shilpa's issue at all.

"I strongly stand against any kind of sexual harassment of women at work or any place. Having said that, there was absolutely no communication between Shilpa and me about this. Personally, my interactions with my producer has been very professional and I didn't face any problem. I can't comment on Shilpa's case as I am not aware about it."

Shilpa also revealed about why she had not opened up on the subject earlier. The actress said that she had hoped that she would receive an apology from the other end, which she didn't.

"They spoilt my career. Even when I was attending events such as a ribbon cutting ceremony, they would ask the organisers to not invite me...I am going to court. I am not going to leave them," the actress said.

--- ENDS ---
Shirish Kunder took to Twitter to apologise for his comments against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

By India Today Web Desk: Filmmaker Shirish Kunder found himself in trouble when he tweeted a series of messages that criticised the new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

In the tweets, which were deleted later, Shirish Kunder had written, "Hoping a goon will stop rioting once hes allowed to rule is like expecting a rapist to stop raping once hes allowed to rape (sic)".

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In a following tweet, he said: "Going by the logic of making a goon as CM so that he behaves, Dawood can be CBI director. And Mallya - RBI Governor (sic)."

Soon enough, a FIR was lodged against him for allegedly making unsavoury comments against the UP Chief Minister. The FIR was registered in Lucknow thanks to a complaint filed by the secretary of Thakurdwara Trust of Ayodhya, Amit Kumar Tiwari.

Now, Shirish Kunder has publicly apologised for the same on Twitter.

I unconditionally apologise. I never meant to hurt anyones feelings or sentiment.- Shirish Kunder (@ShirishKunder) March 24, 2017

ALSO READ: Shah Rukh asks Twitter to block Shirish Kunder. NOT

ALSO READ: Is Shirish Kunder's Kriti copied from Nepali short film BOB? Kunder tweets clarification

ALSO READ: Yogi Adityanath comments get Shirish Kunder bulldozed on Twitter

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: London, Mar 25 (PTI) Stem cell therapy may potentially reduce lung inflammation in patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis, a new study conducted on mice suggests.

Researchers from Queens University Belfast in the UK investigated the effectiveness of Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy in a mouse model of chronic inflammatory lung disease, which reflects some of the essential features of diseases such as COPD and cystic fibrosis.

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They delivered stem cells intravenously to mice at four and six weeks of age, before collecting sample tissue and cells from the lungs at about eight weeks.

These findings were compared to a control group that did not receive the MSC therapy. The results showed that inflammation was significantly reduced in the group receiving MSC therapy.

Cell count for both monocytic cells and neutrophils - signs of inflammation - were significantly reduced after MSC therapy, researchers said.

Analysis of lung tissue revealed a reduction in the mean linear intercept and other measures of lung destruction in MSC treated mice.

Researchers found that along with reducing inflammation in the lung, MSC therapy also resulted in significant improvements in lung structure, suggesting that this form of treatment has the potential to repair the damaged lung.

"These preliminary findings demonstrate the potential effectiveness of MSC treatment as a means of repairing the damage caused by chronic lung diseases such as COPD," said Declan Doherty of Queens University Belfast.

"The ability to counteract inflammation in the lungs by utilising the combined anti-inflammatory and reparative properties of MSCs could potentially reduce the inflammatory response in individuals with chronic lung disease whilst also restoring lung function in these patients," Doherty added.

Lung damage caused by chronic inflammation in conditions such as COPD and cystic fibrosis leads to reduced lung function and eventually respiratory failure.

MSC therapy is currently being investigated as a promising therapeutic approach for a number of incurable, degenerative lung diseases. PTI APA SAR SAR

--- ENDS ---
Armored vehicles, artillery weapons and pieces representing the history of the 124th Cavalry Regiments 1st Squadron helped families celebrate the legacy of past and present soldiers on the regiments 88th anniversary this weekend.

Hundreds of soldiers and their families visited the First Squadron Headquarters at New Road and Cobbs Drive on Saturday in honor of the squadrons founding. Displays of military equipment, wartime clothing and history lessons from the regiment Troops A, B and C connected families with the duties of former and current citizen-soldiers. Troops A and B are based in Waco, and Troop C is based in Grand Prairie.

We brought in a lot of our soldiers families, because a lot of the time, they dont get to see what mom and dad do here, said Lt. Andrew Simms, executive officer of Troop C. We also wanted to reconnect with people who may have retired or moved on to bigger and better things. Plus, it is always great to get with the families, because they can forget what we do on a day-to-day or month-to-month basis.

Families walked through the National Guard headquarters and spoke with soldiers who showcased each troops operational purpose. Children were able to visit troops to ask questions, sit in armored vehicles and hold military tools used in the field.

This is pretty cool, and I really liked the rocket launcher, Ethan Griego, 10, said after he climbed onto a Troop A military vehicle. Its pretty big up there.

Troop A Cmdr. Octavian Griego said he appreciates his sons interest about what soldiers do when they are called away.

This is awesome, because it gives him a good chance to see what dad does when I am away, and that was the biggest goal, Griego said. This shows them what we do, but it also helps bring in the families, because when we are away, it can be very challenging.

Lt. Col. Kevin Smith, executive officer with the squadron, said when soldiers are not deployed overseas, they respond to local disasters, including floods, tornadoes and other calls for services, on a regular basis. Outside of responding to modern-day incidents, Smith said the 124th Cavalry has a rich history too.

One of our claims to fame is that we were the last operational horse cavalry. We did not get off our horses until 1944, Smith said. When we got to Burma, we were dismounted and they made us a part of a long-range penetration task force with a regiment that is now the 75th Ranger Regiment, and we fought side by side in Burma.

Troop B Sgt. Robert Johnston said guests Saturday also included retired soldiers who came back for the anniversary ceremony. A member of Troop B since 1996, Johnston said visiting with former soldiers and families was the highlight of the celebration.

Everyone gets a chance to see what we are doing, gets a chance to hear about weapons capabilities and see the different platforms we have here, he said. This is a great chance for people to see what the National Guard and the soldiers stationed here in Waco can actually do.
The second suspect in prostitution arrangement involving a young boy was booked into McLennan County Jail on Saturday after Wisconsin police arrested him earlier in the week, Mart Police Chief Paul Cardenas said.

Brandon Ronald Peiffer, 27, of Ladysmith, Wisconsin, was booked into McLennan County Jail after Mart police issued a warrant charging him with first-degree felony aggravated sexual assault of a child. Cardenas said Peiffer is accused of having sex with a young boy after Kristen Eileen Brown, 31, arranged for Peiffer to have sex with the boy in her Mart home.

Brown was arrested March 7 on a first-degree felony charge of compelling prostitution for her alleged role in the incident. Police believe Brown made an agreement with Peiffer to have sex with the boy once at the home in Mart and possibly another time when Brown and the boy were visiting Wisconsin.

Brown remained in McLennan County Jail on Saturday with bond listed at $100,000.

According to Brown's arrest affidavit, the boy was in her care when Peiffer sexually assaulted him in Wisconsin when he was between 9 and 10 years old. The sexual contact also occurred at least once when Peiffer was in Mart, the affidavit states.

The boy told investigators that, while in Wisconsin, Brown had accepted $150 from the man for two hours with the boy, when he was assaulted, the arrest affidavit states.

Local authorities searched for Peiffer immediately after issuing a warrant for Brown but believed Peiffer had left the state. Cardenas said Peiffer was arrested by officers in Wisconsin before he was transported back to McLennan County.

Peiffer remained in custody Saturday with bond listed at $50,000.
A 28-year-old woman was killed in a two-vehicle crash near China Spring High School on Friday night, Waco police Sgt. Steve Graeter said.

Diana Escalante, of China Spring, died in the crash, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said.

Police were called to the 8200 block of North River Crossing shortly after 9 p.m., when an off-duty McLennan County Sheriff's Office deputy found a 2004 Buick LeSabre and a 2009 Honda CRV severely damaged from a crash, Graeter said.

After preliminary investigation, police determined the Buick was traveling east when it went off the roadway for an unknown reason, causing the driver to overcorrect and cross into the westbound lane, Graeter said. The Buick crossed into the path of the Honda, causing the two vehicle to collide.

"One person was ejected from the Buick when it was nearly T-boned by the Honda that was driving west," Graeter said.

Escalante was traveling with a man in the Buick.

Initial reports stated that Escalante was trapped under the Honda. She was pronounced dead at the scene, Swanton said. The man was taken to a local hospital for medical treatment, Graeter said.

Police said it was not immediately clear who was driving the Buick at the time of the crash.

The driver of the Honda was also taken to a local hospital, but her injuries were not considered life-threatening, Graeter said.

Emergency responders blocked the roadway for several hours as detectives and crime scene technicians investigated.

The crash remained under investigation Saturday. An autopsy was ordered for Escalante.
A judge postponed the first Twin Peaks shootout biker trial Friday for the second time after a new attorney was brought onto the case and said she could not be prepared by the May 22 trial date.

Judge Ralph Strother of Wacos 19th State District Court released a panel of 186 potential jurors Friday who had reported to fill out questionnaires for the trial.

Christopher Jacob Carrizal, a member of the Bandidos motorcycle group, was set to be the first biker tried in the May 17, 2015, Twin Peaks shootout that left nine bikers dead and dozens wounded.

Strother initially said at Fridays hearing that it would take an act of divine intervention to convince him to postpone the trial again. However, after addressing the jury panel for about 20 minutes, Strother met with McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna and prosecutors Michael Jarrett and Amanda Dillon, along with defense attorneys Landon Northcutt and Casie Gotro, behind closed doors.

When the group emerged 15 minutes later, Strother announced without explanation that he was releasing the jury panel, telling them that their services were no longer needed.

Attorneys on both sides declined to discuss what went on in the meeting and said Strother had placed them under a gag order.

A new trial date wasnt set Friday, but Strother scheduled a status conference in Carrizals case for April 26 to see where the parties stand.

At the earlier hearing before the judge released the jury panel, Strother was visibly agitated with Northcutt, saying his 11th-hour motion to substitute counsel in the case was a clear attempt at delay.

Whats going on here? Strother asked. This matter has been pending almost two years now. We have a panel here today ready to go. Somebody better explain this to me.

Northcutt, of Stephenville, said he and Carrizal have a conflict and Carrizal no longer wants his representation. Strother asked the nature of the conflict, and Northcutt said he had not been paid. He asked the judge if Gotro, of Houston, could substitute in as Carrizals lawyer.

Yall forgive me if the court is a little skeptical about the timing of this event, Strother said.

Strother said he could solve the financial dilemma. He declared Carrizal indigent and appointed Northcutt and Gotro to represent him at county expense.

Gotro offered to represent Carrizal for free but argued that Carrizal and Northcutt still have a conflict that likely wont be resolved.

Mr. Carrizal, you can hire any lawyer you want to but you are going to trial May 22, the judge said. Yall are playing games with the process. This is a sham. I am not going to allow it or put up with it.

Northcutt denied the judges claims, but Strother cut him off and said, Yes, you are. You are playing games. If that is not obvious to everyone involved here today, then they need glasses.

The parties moved to the courthouse annex, where the jury panel was waiting to fill out questionnaires to assist the lawyers with jury selection. Reyna announced ready for trial, but Gotro said the defense was not ready because she said it was her first day on the case and the first time she saw the questionnaire.

As Strother began his address to the jury, an audible groan went up from the panel when they learned they were there for a Twin Peaks case.

After the private meeting with the attorneys, Strother dismissed the panel without explaining why.

Strother said he reluctantly agreed to let Northcutt off the case because a defendant has a right to counsel of his choice if one is retained.

It was a manipulation of the system that left me no choice, Strother said.

The judge also appointed Gotro to represent Carrizal and agreed to the delay because Gotro needs more time to review the huge amount of evidence in the case provided to the defense by the district attorneys office.

The first Twin Peaks trial now is set to begin June 5 in Wacos 54th State District Court. Kyle Smith, 50, a Cossack from Kilgore, is the defendant.
For nearly a fortnight now, drought-hit farmers have been camping at Jantar Mantar with skulls they say are of farmers who committed suicide.

Drought-hit farmers have been camping at Jantar Mantar with skulls allegedly of farmers who have committed suicide

By Anand Patel: Two young farmers created a stir of sorts at the Jantar Mantar protest site Saturday morning after they climbed up trees to raise their voice against alleged government apathy towards their cause.

This on a day when support continued to pour in for drought-hit farmers from Tamil Nadu who are protesting at Jantar Mantar in the national capital.

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The duo is part of the ongoing skull protest at Janatar Mantar. The skulls, they say, are of their fellow farmers who have committed suicides in the face of the Cauvery basin's worst drought in the last 150 years.

While people from Tamil Nadu living and working in NCR have been helping the farmers with ration and supplies for over a fortnight now, the south Indian film industry too has risen to the cause.

Popular actors Prakash Raj, Vishal and noted director Pandiraj visited the protest side on Saturday to express solidarity with the farmers' cause. Talking to the media, Vishal expressed sympathy with the distressed farmers.

"Farmers are committing suicide for even loans of Rs 50,000, we spend more than this in parties, their voice should be heard," he said. The actors were reported to have promised the farmers a meeting with Prime Minster Narendra Modi, but left later in the day without much success.

84 FARMERS CAMPING AT JANTAR MANTAR

About 84 farmers are living in tents at Jantar Mantar for almost a fortnight to press for their demands. Ignored by the government, heat of Delhi is taking a toll on the young protestors.

Akilan, one of the protesters, climbed the tree with a fellow farmer out of frustration.

The 19-year-old engineering college dropout aimed to become a mechanical engineer, but was forced to leave college after first semester as his father was left with no money to pay for his fees after back-to-back crop failure. His family owns 10 acres of land in Namakkal district, one of the five districts of the Cauvery basin worst hit by drought.

Akilan told India Today, "I couldn't deposit 2nd semester fees, so had applied for education loan but was refused by the bank because my father already has a farm loan, so I was dumped out of the college two months back."

"My father has a loan of Rs 2.5 lakh, our onion and corn crops failed...(there has been) no crop in the past one and a half years," he adds.

THE DEMANDS

The South Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association has put forth a five-point demand to bail out distressed farmers. With very little rain, the Cauvery basin is experiencing its worst drought in 150 years.

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Agitating farmers are demanding the formation of a Cauvery Management Committee, linking of all rivers by Smart Waterways Project and profitable prices for agricultural produce apart from farm loan waiver for them.

P Ayyakannu, who is leading the farmers, said that they have met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh and Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti, but have had little success.

"The Tamil Nadu Government had demanded Rs 40,000 crore (in) aid for the drought-hit farmers but the Center has approved a paltry sum of about Rs 2000 crore so far," he told India Today.

T Haq, director of the Council for Social Development, told India Today that farmer distress has become an election issue for political parties but not enough is being done.

"BJP had made several promises in its 2014 general elections manifesto, UPA I had waived farm loans as well but a lot more needs to be done to stop farmer suicides, important steps like loan waiver for small and medium farmers and crop insurance scheme should be implemented in a better way," he says.

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NO ONE TO LISTEN TO THE FARMERS?

As the mercury continues to soar in the National Capital, the farmers, dressed in cotton loins and holding at least half a dozen human skulls allegedly of farmers who have committed suicide, may find the going becoming tough in the days to come as the union government looks in no mood to pay heed to their demands.

The debt-ridden Tamil Nadu government (its financial liabilities touched Rs 2 lakh crore in 2016), on the other hand, continues to empty its coffers to dole out freebies.

Interestingly, according to rough estimates, the sops sanctioned by the late Chief Minister J Jayalalitha on her first day in office last year could cost the exchequer up to Rs 8,000 crore annually and Rs 40,000 crore over a period of five years - the exact amount state government had demanded from the Centre to bail out its farmers.

The late CM had sanctioned farm loans from cooperative banks, mangalsutra for women getting married, free power for households and free power to handloom weavers.

WATCH | Tamil Nadu farmers bearing brunt of drought bring fight to Delhi, demand special financial package

--- ENDS ---

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What happens if Donald Trump comes after your company on Twitter?

A $US4 billion loss if you're Lockheed Martin. An opportunity to promote your startup company, if you're Ryan Holmes of Hootsuite.

And what happens if you're putting yourself out there as a thought leader advising companies on how to build brands on social media, but you tweet a lewd suggestion to a reporter whose story you don't like? Nothing much good, as Ryan Holmes knows. More on that later.

Holmes, a 42-year-old uni drop-out and Canadian corporate pin-up, has built a company he claims is worth more than $US1 billion on the back social media.
Kristina Keneally has not ruled out taking legal action against her employer Sky News after her colleague and fellow former politician Mark Latham called her an "Obeid protege" on air.

Keneally has made similar complaints to various media outlets before over similar assertions, which she told PS were "absolutely defamatory", explaining her first port of call in all cases has been to lodge a formal complaint before considering legal action.

So far she has not needed to sue.

Latham, a former federal Labor leader, alleged on television show Jones & Co on Tuesday night that Keneally, a former Labor premier of NSW, was a protege of the former NSW Labor powerbroker. The show has now been removed from Foxtel's catch-up streaming service.
A Bassendean lunch bar and a Perth wholesale food manufacturer have become the latest food businesses to be named and shamed for failing to meet WA health standards.

West Road Deli in Bassendean was fined $15,000 this month for failing to keep food at the right temperatures, store food correctly, keep pests from entering the premises and keep equipment clean.

West Road Deli and Lunch Bar is one of four eateries to be fined this year under the Food Act. Credit:Google Maps

The deli has been ordered to pay the fine following an inspection by Town of Bassendean health officers on 24 January 2017.

Meanwhile, wholesale food manufacturer Austone Foods Pty Ltd - operating out of a building signed Wu Ming's Food - and its director Ping Ming Wu, have received a whopping $275,000 in fines plus $9000 in costs for a string of non-compliance issues which occurred at its Canning Vale premises four years ago.
By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Mar 25 (PTI) Donald Trump today expressed his disappointment and surprise after House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan withdrew a healthcare bill aimed at repealing and replacing the Obamacare policy from vote after his party failed to muster the votes needed to get it passed.

Trumps disappointment came after a vote on the Republican healthcare bill was scrapped due to lack of support.

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The Republicans only lack little votes, and the Democrats would not contribute a vote, Trump said in a brief interaction with reporters on the sidelines of a White House event.

The US President said he is disappointed and surprised over the developments and from now on, he will move on to the next agenda - tax reform - which he said he shouldve done earlier.

However, he did not talk much on the fate of healthcare.

The US House of Representatives ? similar to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament ? has 435 members. The Republican party enjoys a simple majority in the House with 235 members.

However due to opposition from some of its own party lawmakers, in particular the one that have grouped themselves under the banner of Freedom Caucus, Ryan, who had been leading the effort on behalf of Trump, could not muster the majority 215 votes.

As a result, in an effort to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, Ryan announced that he was withdrawing the move to have a vote on Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

The White House and Trump had put up a brave face even till the last minute when they tried their best to muster support for their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

With the writing on the wall, Ryan drove to the White House to inform Trump to inform him he does not have enough votes to see the important legislation pass through the Congress.

Unlike India, the US Congress does not have an anti-defection bill, as a result of which US lawmakers are free to exercise their right to vote on a bill as per their wish and not according to dictate of the party leadership.

The White House said Trump did everything he could for the passage of the bill. "Theres no question in my mind at least that the President and the team here have left everything on the field... It is now going to be up to the members of the House to decide whether or not they want to follow through on the promise to that," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.

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Similarly, Spicer said, Ryan has done everything he could.

"Hes worked really closely with the President. I think at the end of the day you cant force people to vote," Spicer said.

Senator Mark Warner said it has now become clear that "Trumpcare" has been rejected.

Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty said the Affordable Care Act has problems that they need to work together to fix. "The American Health Care Act would solve none of these problems, and the American people know it. Instead of lowering costs or improving the quality of care, this bill would force millions of Americans to pay more money for worse coverage," she said.

"Americans throughout the country - including the thousands of folks in my district who called and emailed me - have sent a loud and clear message to Congress that they oppose this cruel and destructive proposal. Today, their voices were heard," Esty said.

"We wont fix the problems in our healthcare system with just one party negotiating against itself," she added. PTI LKJ AJR

--- ENDS ---
About 100 Guildford residents have held a protest against a McDonald's restaurant behind the historic Guildford Hotel.

Local residents have vowed to take the fight to the fast-food giant after it released plans to build a restaurant behind the historic Guildford Hotel, where high-rise apartments were once mooted.

Protesters gathered in Guildford to protest against a proposed McDonald's. Credit:Kelly Williams/ @Kelly9Williams

Residents fought property developer Luke Martino for years over his plans to build seven-storey units behind the pub, claiming the apartments would be out-of-character in the heritage precinct.

Residents lost the battle after the-then Planning Minister John Day overruled the City of Swan's recommendation to put a two-storey cap on units, allowing up to five-storey apartments to be built.
Paris: The International Criminal Court on Friday found a former militia leader liable for $US1 million ($1.3 million) in reparations to his victims and their relatives in a Congolese village. It also ordered that payments be made in small amounts of cash to individuals and for projects benefiting the wider community.

Noting that the militia leader, Germain Katanga, is imprisoned and penniless, the judges requested that the awards be paid out by the court's Trust Fund for Victims, which was created for this purpose.

Judges ordered reparations for victims in the Germain Katanga case at the International Criminal court in The Hague, Netherlands. Credit:AP

The ruling is notable for the court because it identifies the victims, estimates losses, sets amounts and directs the spending of funds. The court had ordered reparations in an earlier case involving Thomas Lubanga, a rebel leader, but those details have not been worked out.

Unlike international tribunals that adjudicate war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, stands apart because its mandate specifies that reparations to victims must be part of international justice.
The United Nations expressed its profound concern, saying it was "stunned by this terrible loss of life".

UN said it is stunned by the civilian casualties (Picture for representation; Reuters photo)

By Reuters: The US military said on Saturday a US-led coalition strike had hit an Islamic State-held area of Iraq's Mosul where residents and officials say as many as 200 civilians may have been killed as result of an air raid.

The American confirmation followed a decision by Iraqi government forces to pause their drive to recapture west Mosul on Saturday because of the high rate of civilian casualties, a security forces spokesman said, a move apparently motivated by the incident.

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With fighting intensifying to recapture Mosul, around half a million civilians remain in Islamic State-held areas in the west of the city, complicating use of air strikes and heavy artilliary to drive the hardline militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Iraqi forces are pushing into Mosul's Old City, where fleeing residents say militants are hiding among the civilian population, sheltering in family homes and using the narrow alleyways and streets to their advantage.

What happened in the incident on March 17 in Mosul al-Jadida district is still unclear. Some residents say a coalition air strike hit an explosive-filled truck, detonating a blast that collapsed buildings packed with families.

US military officials say they are investigating, but initial reports from residents and Iraqi officials in the past week said dozens of people had been killed after air strikes by US-led coalition forces.

Mosul municipality chief, Abdul Sattar al-Habbo, who is supervising the rescue, said 240 bodies had been pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings. Previous estimates from local officials had said around 130 people had died.

UN EXPRESSES CONCERN

The United Nations also expressed its profound concern, saying it was "stunned by this terrible loss of life".

US Central Command, which oversees U.S. military Middle East operations, said on Saturday that a review determined that U.S.-led coalition operation, requested by the Iraqi government, had struck Islamic State fighters and equipment "at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties".

It was investigating to determine the facts and the validity of reports of civilian casualties, it said. It did not specify which coalition nation carried out the strike.

The exact cause of the collapses was not clear but a local lawmaker and two residents said on Thursday the air strikes may have detonated an IS truck filled with explosives, destroying buildings in the heavily-populated area.

The speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Salim al-Jabouri, said in a statement: "What's happening in the west part of Mosul is extremely serious and could not be tolerated under any circumstances."

Up to 600,000 civilians are still believed to remain in IS-held areas of Mosul, a challenge to the government offensive tactically but also politically as the Shi'ite Muslim-led government seeks to avoid alienating people in the mainly Sunni city.

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NEW TACTICS

Residents escaping besieged western Mosul have told of Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition air strikes demolishing buildings and killing civilians in several cases.

The insurgents have also used civilians as human shields and opened fire on them as they try to escape Islamic State-held neighbourhoods, fleeing residents said.

"The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans," a Federal Police spokesman said on Saturday. "It's a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on."

The offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured the entire eastern side of Mosul and about half of the west.

But advances have stuttered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the alleys of the Old City, home to the al-Nuri mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

"We need to make sure that taking out Daesh (Islamic State) from the Old City will not cost unwanted high casualties among civilians. We need surgical accurate operations to target terrorists without causing collateral damage among residents," the Federal Police spokesman said.

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A US deputy commanding general for the coalition told Reuters on Friday that the solution could lie in a change of tactics. The Iraqi military is assessing opening up another front and isolating the Old City, US Army Brigadier General John Richardson said.

GRIM LIVING CONDITIONS IN MOSUL

Fleeing residents have described grim living conditions inside IS-held parts of Mosul, saying there was no running water or electricity and no food coming in.

But families are streaming out of the northern city, Iraq's second largest, in their thousands each day, headed for cold, crowded camps or to stay with relatives. Hunger and fighting are making life unbearable inside.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said that since the campaign on western Mosul began on Feb 19, unconfirmed reports said nearly 700 civilians had been killed by government and coalition air strikes or Islamic State actions.

The militants have used car bombs, snipers and mortar fire to counter the offensive. They have also stationed themselves in homes belonging to Mosul residents to fire at Iraqi troops, often drawing air or artillery strikes that have killed civilians.

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The United Nations chief humanitarian official, Lise Grande, said civilians were at extreme risk as the fighting intensified and all sides must to do their utmost to avoid such casualties.

"International humanitarian law is clear. Parties to the conflict - all parties - are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians. This means that combatants cannot use people as human shields and cannot imperil lives through indiscriminate use of fire-power," she said in a statement.

ALSO READ | ISIS chief Baghdadi flees Mosul, leaves local commanders to fight battle against Iraqi troops

ALSO READ | Iraq: Forces begin western Mosul offensive to drive ISIS out of its last urban bastion

--- ENDS ---
The standoff began about 11 a.m. Saturday with a shooting that killed one person and injured another.

By AP: A man riding on a double decker bus on the Las Vegas Strip pulled a gun and started shooting, killing one person and wounding another before barricading himself inside in a standoff that lasted hours before he finally surrendered.

The standoff began about 11 a.m. PDT Saturday on the bus when it was stopped on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Cosmopolitan hotel-casino.

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"He was on the bus. He was shooting people on the bus. He was just contained to that location. He never exited the bus," Clark County Assistant Sheriff Tom Roberts said.

Two people were taken to the hospital after the shooting, University Medical Center spokeswoman Danita Cohen said. One died, and the other was in fair condition.

For hours, crisis negotiators, robots and armored vehicles surrounded the bus with authorities uncertain if there were any more victims inside. Meanwhile, officers swept into the casinos to warn tourists to bunker down until further notice, leaving these normally bustling pedestrian areas and a road notorious for taxi-to-taxi traffic completely empty. The Strip was shut down for blocks in both directions.

Some in the Cosmopolitan - hotel guests out over their balconies, party people on the pool deck - saw the tense situation unfold below.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

Former NBA player Scot Pollard, who is staying at the Cosmopolitan, told The Associated Press by phone that he was at a bar at the hotel-casino around 11 a.m. when he saw several people, including staff, running through the area toward the casino and repeatedly screaming "get out of the way." After he was told that the area would be closed, he went back to his room, which oversees the Strip.

"We can hear them negotiating. We can hear them saying things like 'No one else needs to get hurt,' 'Come out with your hands up. We are not going anywhere. We are not leaving,' " he said.

Visitors were also hiding out inside some of the other prominent casino properties affected, including the Bellagio, Paris, Planet Hollywood and Bally, which in addition to hotels and casinos also hold restaurants, shops and attractions.

GUNMAN SURRENDERED WITHOUT INCIDENT

Las Vegas Police officer Larry Hadfield said just before 3:30 p.m. that the man, who had a handgun, surrendered without incident. Police did not open fire and said they believe the man is the only suspect. Terrorism or any connection to an earlier robbery nearby that shut down a part of the Bellagio has been ruled out. No other information about the man has been released.

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By 4 p.m., pedestrians were back in the area and northbound traffic on Las Vegas boulevard had reopened while investigators worked to clean up the other lane where the bus was still grounded.

The bus is operated by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. The agency said its bus driver was not hurt.

It's unknown how many people were on the bus at the time of the shooting but it appears that those who were there were able to flee. Police have started a hotline in search of those passengers to report what they witnessed.

ALSO READ | Hate crime in US: Probe on in Indian-origin businessman's death, says Swaraj

ALSO WATCH | Kansas bar shooting: Gunman who killed Indian engineer arrested

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From the Cato Institute

"What damage is being done by failing welfare states? What lessons can be learned from the best welfare states? Andis it too late to stop welfare states from permanently diminishing the lives and liberties of people around the world?

"Traveling around the globe, James Bartholomew examines welfare models, searching for the best education, health care, and support services in 11 vastly different countries; illuminating the advantages and disadvantages of other nations' welfare states; and delving into crucial issues such as literacy, poverty, and inequality. This is a hard-hitting and provocative contribution to understanding how welfare states, as the defining form of government today, are changing the very nature of modern civilization."

About the Author

"James Bartholomew is a journalist and an author with a wide range of international experience. He is a fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs and of the Adam Smith Institute. His previous book, The Welfare State We're In, won several awards including the Sir Anthony Fisher Memorial Award from the Atlas Foundation."

Praise for The Welfare of Nations

"Its refreshing to learn how other Western nations strangle opportunity with insane statist policies. America, Sweden, Greece, Italy, and France create problems for themselves that Singapore, Switzerland, and New Zealand manage to avoid. They are wise to do so. As Bartholomew explains, welfare states dont just make people less likely to work, they cause a pandemic of unhappiness. Bartholomews work is a pleasure to read.

John Stossel, FOX News Channel

"This book is an equal opportunity offender. It will offend teachers, showing them to be wedded to a system that relegates poor children to permanent educational deprivation. It will offend liberals, declaring that their welfare programs have contributed to the dependency that results in unemployment, loneliness, ignorance, and unhappiness. It will even offend libertarians because it fails to recommend destruction of welfare states. This stands as a book which tells the hard truth about how welfare states are changing the world we live in.

Ron Haskins, Brookings Institution

"All over the world, welfare states have been created with the intention of doing good. James Bartholomew's book brilliantly assesses unintended consequences liberally sprinkled around the globe: inferior education and healthcare; persistent unemployment; unsustainable government spending and damaged cultures. This is an unprecedented and highly readable guided tour - a vital read for anyone who wants to understand how our world is changing. It is also a search for models that can show us how to do less harm and more good.

Meir Kohn, Dartmouth College"

INFO

ISBN:978-1-939709-91-2 Number of Pages:456 Publication Date: November 15, 2016
India has refused to accept the list of 271 Indians living in the US, which the Trump administration identified as 'illegal' migrants. Ministry of External Affairs has sought more details from the US authorities.

By India Today Web Desk: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that the government is not yet ready to accept the US' version on a list of 271 Indians living in that country. The Trump administration has identified them as living in the US as 'illegal' migrants.

Sushma Swaraj has said that the US has given a list of 271 people claiming they were illegal migrants from India, but the government has not accepted it and would allow their deportation only after proper verification.

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Speaking during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, Sushma said, "We have not accepted this list and have sought more details. We have said that it is only after we verify the details, can we issue an emergency certificate for their deportation."

'NO CHANGE IN US POLICIES'

Addressing the concerns expressed by some Rajya Sabha MPs, Sushma said it would not be correct to say that there has been a change in the US policies after the Trump administration has come to power.

Several members expressed concern over the effects of the steps being taken by the Donald Trump administration on Indian citizens including skilled professionals living there.

Referring to skilled workers, Swaraj said regarding H1B and L1 visas for professionals, four bills have come to the US Congress but they have not been passed.

PROFESSIONALS VS ILLEGAL MIGRANTS

She said the government was engaging with the US at the highest level to ensure that the interests of Indian people or the IT industry are not affected.

"We are conveying to them that IT professionals are not stealing jobs but contributing to the US economy and making it stronger," the Minister said.

While greeting Swaraj on her recovery after having been unwell, Anand Sharma of Congress said it is important that skilled professionals are not confused with illegal migrants.

Swaraj said she had earlier stated that some Bills have been moved in the US, but the government was taking steps so that they are not passed in such a form. She said the Foreign Secretary had met US Congress members who had been all praise for Indians.

'OLD CONCERNS PACKAGED NEW'

Even in 2012, a figure had come that 11.43 lakh migrants lived there, of whom 2.60 lakh were Indians. "We did not accept the figure because it cannot be considered authentic without thorough verification," she said.

She said "there are no authentic figures on the number of undocumented Indian immigrants in the US", adding that the government provided travel documents only after the concerned person was conclusively identified as Indian.

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"In case we don't provide travel documents, they would be jailed," Swaraj said, adding that from 2014 till date, 576 people have been provided travel documents.Responding to questions on social security, she said these issues have been raised in the past and can be taken up again later "as you say right now a sword is hanging on jobs".

On H1B visas, she said there have been "flip-flops" in the past and the number of these visas rose from 65,000 to 1.95 lakh and then again went down to 65,000. "It is not that all these changes have happened only after the Trump administration has taken over," she said.

(With PTI inputs)

ALSO READ|

Indian mother, son found murdered in US, probe launched

--- ENDS ---
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 24, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 24, 2017 | 05:44 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Two people were arrested on drug charges Wednesday afternoon after a traffic stop.



The Paducah Police Department says Drug and Vice Enforcement detectives stopped a vehicle occupied by 30-year-old Robert Agee and 24-year-old Domonika Hoskins just before 2 pm because they were aware that both suspects were charged in warrants from Johnson County, Illinois.



Officers said they found synthetic marijuana and money believed to be related to drug sales in the vehicle.



The detectives obtained a search warrant for Agee and Hoskins' home, and say the search revealed a loaded handgun that had been reported stolen, and eight pounds of synthetic marijuana. They also reportedly found scales and materials to package and distribute marijuana, and an Alprazolam pill. Police say there were also three small children at the home.



Agee was charged with trafficking in synthetic drugs, possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, receiving stolen property (firearm), possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance. Hoskins was charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and trafficking in synthetic drugs.



They were booked into McCracken County Regional Jail.
By West Kentucky Star & MSU Staff Mar. 17, 2017 | 02:11 PM | MURRAY, KY

The coordinator for the event which brings hundreds of young musicians to the campus is Dr. Todd E. Hill, director of jazz studies at Murray State. Student assistance comes from the members of the Murray State jazz ensembles.





Mr. Aebersold has donated so much of his time and financial support to the jazz program at Murray State. He has been coming here off and on since the early 1970s when Professor Ray Conklin was heading up the jazz program. He is a great friend to the department of music, the jazz program, WKMS, and he has enriched the cultural life of the community at large in addition to everything he has done for jazz education internationally, said Hill of Aebersold, who has endowed a jazz scholarship for Murray State University.





Fourteen middle and high school groups from around the region will be participating in the festival, which is designed for educational, rather than competitive purposes. The students days will include commentary and clinics by professional musicians and educators (Professor Ricky Burkhead, University of Mississippi; William Brian Hogg, Northern Kentucky University; Dr. Todd M. French, Murray State University, and Dean Hughes, freelance jazz percussionist), clinics with Murray State jazz students, and two special jazz improvisation clinics with jazz education legend Aebersold and his rhythm section (Friday at 1:30 pm and Saturday at 9 am in the Performing Arts Hall). Anyone interested in hearing the clinics is invited to attend.





The KMEA All-First District Jazz Band will be rehearsing and performing during the weekend. Coordinator for the All-District Jazz Band is Dr. Derek Jones, Director of Bands at Calloway County High School, and will be under the direction of Richard Steffen, Professor of Music (Emeritus) at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn. The group performs at 3:15 Saturday afternoon, April 1 in Lovett Auditorium.



Using the vast expanse of Lovett Auditoriums stage, two groups can be set up simultaneously, preventing delay between performances and allowing near-continuous music from all the visiting groups. The Friday participant concert will begin at 3 pm with the Murray State University Jazz Band (Dr. Todd E. Hill and graduate assistant Jonathan Nash, directors), and will continue with the following schedule:

3:15  Trigg County Middle School Jazz Band (Brandon McKinley, director)

3:30  Hendersonville (TN) 3:15 Jazz Band (Dr. Jeff Phillips, director)

3:45  Graves County High School (Richard Burchett, director)

4:00  Apollo High School Jazz Band (Andrew Clark, director)

4:15  Hendersonville High School 4:15 Jazz Band (Dr. Jeff Phillips, director)

4:30  Murray State University Jazz Orchestra (Dr. Todd E. Hill and graduate assistant Jonathan Nash, directors).



On Friday, March 31 at 7:30 pm, the Jamey Aebersold Quartet, with National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Jamey Aebersold on alto sax, Luke Gillespie (Indiana University) on piano, Tyrone Wheeler on bass, and Jonathan Higgins on drums, will perform the headliner concert for the public in the Performing Arts Hall.





The Saturday participant concert schedule is as follows:

1:30  Paris-Henry County (TN) Middle Schools Combined Jazz Band (Chris Watson and Lucy Presson, directors)

1:45  Marshall County High School (Joel Roberts, director)

2:00  Henry County (TN) High School (Chris Watson, director)

2:15  Charleston (MO) High School (Mike DiPasquale, director)

2:30  McCracken County High School McBig Band and McVoices (Kelley Ray, director)

3:00  Murray State University Jazz Percussion Quintet (Dr. John Hill, director)

3:15  KMEA All-District Jazz Band (Richard Steffen, director)

3:45  Murray State University Jazz Orchestra (Dr. Todd E. Hill and graduate assistant Jonathan Nash, directors).



Our clinicians are some of the most respected teachers in this part of the country. The participants will be getting the high quality jazz education experience for which we are known. We dont have the bands competing with each other  there is so much of that already, said Hill. This is a musical event for sharing and learning. For Graves County High School, this is their eleventh consecutive appearance at the festival, and James Madison Middle School and Madisonville North Hopkins High School, all directed by Alan Emerson, are coming to participate in the clinics, although they will not be able to stay for the afternoon performance.



About Saxophonist and Clinician Jamey Aebersold: Jamey Aebersold is a native of New Albany, Indiana. He was awarded the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts designation as 2014 Jazz Master earlier this year in a ceremony in Washington, DC. He attended college at Indiana University and graduated in 1962 with a Masters Degree in Saxophone and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by his alma mater in 1992. He also plays piano, bass and banjo at a professional level. In 1989, the International Association of Jazz Educators inducted him into their Hall of Fame, joining Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Louis Armstrong as previous honorees. He has played with countless jazz legends through the years including J.J. Johnson, James Moody and Bobby Shew. Jamey is an internationally-known player and authority on jazz education and improvisation, and developed a highly successful series of Play-A-Long books and CDs for the development of improvisational skills. His Summer Jazz Workshops have traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Germany, England, Scotland, Denmark and Canada. These camps employ many of the finest player/teachers in jazz and are open to any serious jazz student regardless of ability or age.





Murray State University provides an Opportunity Afforded for more than 10,000 students through a high-quality education with experiential learning, academic and personal growth and the ability to secure a lifetime of success. Since 1922, the true value of higher education has been found at Murray State University, where our commitment is to afford endless opportunities for developing leaders in the community, the country and the world. The Universitys main campus is located in Murray, Ky. and includes five regional campuses. For more information on Murray State University, please visit murraystate.edu.

The 11th annual Murray State University-Jamey Aebersold Jazz Festival will bring jazz groups from three states to Lovett Auditorium on Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1.Middle school, high school and university jazz groups will be performing participant concerts beginning at 3 pm on Friday, and 1:30 pm on Saturday. Headlining in historic Lovett Auditorium, is the Jamey Aebersold Quartet performing at 7:30 pm in the Performing Arts Hall Friday evening. All concerts and clinics are free and the public is cordially invited.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 24, 2017 | SMITHLAND, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 24, 2017 | 04:20 PM | SMITHLAND, KY

Kentucky State Police are asking for the public's help as they investigate a 33-year-old cold case related to the death of a Sheriff's Deputy.



On Sunday, September 9, 1984, at about 11:20 pm, Livingston County Deputy Sheriff Carnie Hopkins notified dispatch he would be checking on a hitchhiker at the intersection of US 60 and KY 137, just east of Smithland, at an intersection also known as The Monument. A short time later, Hopkins was found murdered at this spot. He had obviously been in a struggle with his assailant(s) and died as a result of a gunshot wound.



Kentucky State Police are actively investigating new leads received within the last week. No arrests have been made in this case, and police are seeking assistance from the public. Anyone with information related to this case, even if it may already be known, is urged to contact Detective Cory Hamby at 270-856-3721 or by email at cory.hamby@ky.gov.



Tips can also be emailed by using KSPs Cold Case online reporting form at http://kentuckystatepolice.ky.gov/cold_case/post1coldcase7.html.



Citizens may also report tips anonymously through the KSP app. The app is available for iPhone, iPad and Android applications and can be easily downloaded free of charge through Apple and Google Play stores.
The UP Chief Minister is on a two-day visit to Gorakhpur, the constituency he represented for the last five terms as a Member of Parliament.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Newly appointed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be making his maiden visit to Gorakhpur today.

Ahead of the Chief Minister's visit, the wish of his supporters to see 'Yogi as PM in 2024' rose to a clamour.

Since early morning, thousands of Yogi supporters have thronged the Gorakhnath temple, the residence of the Uttar Pradesh CM, to get a glimpse of him.

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India Today spoke to few people at the temple who had come from far off places to see Adityanath Yogi.

"The kind of work Yogi Adityanath has started his phenomenal and we want that in 2024, he should become the Prime Minister of the country", said a local from Gorakhpur.

The administration and the cleanliness drive started by the new Chief Minister have compelled people to believe that he too is a hard task master like the incumbent Prime Minister and therefore, best suited to take over from him in 2024.

People believe that Purvanchal, the place from where Yogi Adityanath hails, will also see development in the days to come. Notably, Purvanchal is one of the most backward parts of the country devoid of any development.

"The work which Adityanath has begun is similar to PM Modi's. Also he is single and therefore, he will not think for his family and indulging in corruption. He will only serve the state and later the country", said another local from Gorakhpur.

The UP Chief Minister is on a two-day visit to Gorakhpur, the constituency he represented for the last five terms as a Member of Parliament.

Also Read:

Yogi Adityanath's challenges are bigger than slaughterhouses and Romeos

Yogi Adityanath to go on a 2-day visit to Gorakhpur

Also Watch:

Yogi Adityanath to ban slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh; butchers worried

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Iconic reggae star Bob Marley is the subject of this new musical which premieres at Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Using more than 20 of his songs, the production largely focuses on two years of Marley's life  two very tumultuous years. In 1976, Marley was scheduled to headline the Smile Jamaica concert but just days beforehand he, his wife and his manager were shot and wounded. Determined not to be beaten, Marley went ahead with the concert and then flew to England, not returning to his home country until 15 months later.

Written and directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, whose previous work Elmina's Kitchen also premiered at Birmingham Rep in 2005, the production uses this short period of time to show us the struggles Marley faced in terms of his political and religious beliefs, his role in modern Jamaica and his family crises.

It also reveals just how ruthless Marley could be in his attempts to find fame and how, once he'd found it, his uncertainties around the responsibilities that come with celebrity. Mitchell Brunings, who has also played the musician in the musical Marley in Baltimore, takes the lead role with confidence. Looking and sounding like Marley he also ensures the audience sees the multi-faceted humanity of the man.

Alexia Khadime plays wife Rita Marley with a gentle humility. Here is a woman who receives bullet wounds for her husband, fights to keep his children safe, knows he is unfaithful to her and yet still wants him to come home  so much so she travels to London to tell him so.

There's plenty of humour in the irreverence of the Wailers  with both Newtion Matthews as Bunny Wailer and Jacade Simpson as Peter Tosh playing their roles with gusto.

Kwei-Armah places Marley firmly at the centre of the Jamaican political turmoil of this time and so the characters of both Prime Minister Michael Manley (played by Adrian Irvine) and Edward Seaga (Simeon Truby) are also part of the story. The culmination of the musical takes Marley back to Jamaica for his One Love concert in 1978 at which he persuaded both political leaders to clasp hands before the people.

Marley was to die just three years later of skin cancer at the age of 36 and Kwei Armah ensures the shadow of this early death is present by including a scene in which the musician shares his decision not to have an amputation operation on the toe where the cancer was first detected. But despite the traumas and the dangers of the time, One Love is a musical as full of joy as it is of soul searching. Its soundtrack, featuring a host of Marley hits including "Punky Reggae Party", "Is This Love?", "Burnin' and Lootin'", "I Shot the Sheriff" and "Get Up Stand Up", reminds us how fine a songwriter Marley was.

Designed by ULTZ and using projection by Duncan McLean, the set successfully takes the audience from Jamaican street riots to the rock churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia and into the recording studios.

While Marley fans will undoubtedly be those most eager to see One Love, the show certainly isn't restricted to reggae enthusiasts. Its social issues, family drama and music will appeal to a much wider audience.

One Love runs at the Birmingham Rep until 15 April.
30-year-old Miskin's main operational zone was Barwani in Madhya Pradesh. She has finally been arrested by Delhi Police Special Cell in east Delhi.

By Mail Today Bureau: After her husband expired, Miskin, now a 30-year-old, got married to a criminal from UP, who was arrested in 2014 and was lodged in Deoband Jail.

It was then she came in contact with many local criminals and soon got in the gunrunning trade. Her main operational zone was Barwani in Madhya Pradesh. She has finally been arrested by Delhi Police Special Cell in east Delhi along with gang members Jabir and Balu.

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"Thirty countrymade illegal arms - two automatic sophisticated carbines of 7.65mm, seven semi-automatic sophisticated pistols of 9mm, two revolvers of 7.65mm and 19 semi-automatic sophisticated pistols of 7.65mm - have been recovered from them," police said on Friday.

Police said the recovered weapons bear marks of "Made in Etaliya", "Made in Japan" and "Made in USA". Of these, two carbines and 23 pistols have one spare magazine each.

The weapons were purchased from Pyarelal. Two pistols and two revolvers were to be supplied to Nafis in Trans Yamuna, two carbines and seven semi-automatic pistols of 9mm were to be supplied to Jahiruddin and his partner Julfikar of Meerut and remaining 17 pistols were to be supplied to Hafij, police said.

Earlier also, Miskin and Jabir had supplied arms in Delhi NCR and UP on several occasions.

ALSO READ | Smoking barrels: Buhar gun factories fuel a deadly spike in firearms-related violence in Jharkhand

Illegal arms: No licence to kill

--- ENDS ---
An IPS officer, who was transferred out of his district posting by the Election Commission, has levelled allegations against Yogi Adityanath government accusing it of harassing police officials of a particular caste. IPS officer was suspended today for indiscipline.

By Shivendra Srivastava, Kumar Abhishek: Days after he attacked the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, IPS officer Himanshu Kumar was suspended today.

An IPS officer of 2010 batch, Himanshu Kumar alleged in his now deleted tweets that senior police officers were are targeting subordinates of particular caste after the formation of Yogi Adityanath's government in Uttar Pradesh.

The UP police had ordered a probe into his allegations that the seniors in the department targeted subordinates with the Yadav surname.

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It triggered a controversy in Uttar Pradesh with some questioning the Yogi Adityanath government for allegedly stereotyping officials with Yadav surname as supporters of the Samajwadi Party.

THE ALLEGATIONS

Himanshu Kumar's tweet on March 22 that stirred a controversy in Uttar Pradesh has since been deleted. But, its screen shot is doing rounds. The deleted tweet said, "There is now a rush among senior officers to suspend/send to reserve lines all police personnel who have 'Yadav' surname."

In another tweet, Himanshu said, "Why DGP office forcing officers to punish people in the name of caste?"

Later, Himanshu put out another tweet saying, "Some people have misunderstood my tweet. I support the initiative of the Government."

Himanshu Kumar was currently attached with the Director General of Police's (DGP) office in Lucknow. He had been shifted to DGP's office by the Election Commission. He was earlier posted as a Superintendent of Police in Manipuri and Firozabad.

After the UP police suspended Himanshu Kumar for indiscipline today, Himanshu Kumar tweeted, "Truth alone triumphs."

ALSO READ|

As Adityanath heads to Gorakhpur, supporters raise 'Yogi as PM in 2024' slogan

ALSO WATCH

--- ENDS ---
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every year, Mentoring Artists for Womens Art (MAWA) hosts a month-long residency in Winnipeg, open to artists in all stages of their careers. And every year, MAWA sees between 45 and 80 applications from artists all over the globe.

Huda Takriti, 26, is a Syrian mixed-media visual artist. She was looking forward to spending July in Winnipeg as MAWAs 2017 artist-in-residence, but her visa was denied. And this isnt the first time, either.

I was supposed to go the first time 2016, in May, but I didnt get the visa, she explains over the phone from Vienna, where she is completing a masters degree at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

MAWA PHOTO Syrian artist Nisrine Boukhari (right) meets with MAWA community members

So it was postponed until July this year. But also the second time, I didnt get the visa.

The explanation she was given was the same both times. They dont think I will go back to Austria after finishing my residency because of my Syrian background, she says. I was really disappointed, especially the second time. I was really looking forward to one month in Canada.

MAWA has hosted Syrian artists before, and it hasnt been easy bringing them to Winnipeg. Nisrine Boukhari, a mixed-media and installation artist also now based in Vienna, completed her MAWA residency in the spring of 2015 after her visa was delayed once. In 2016, MAWA invited Nisrines sister, Abir Boukhari, as a visiting curator.

The visa process was just astoundingly difficult, says Shawna Dempsey, co-executive director of MAWA. (Abir) and her infant daughter had to travel from Sweden to Austria to get photographed and fingerprinted to even be considered for a visa. In the end, MAWA spent $1,248 on the visa process alone, which we didnt anticipate.

For Abirs visit, MAWA partnered with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, where Abir gave a lecture on creative resistance when she finally made it to Winnipeg last June.

Indeed, making art is a political act in Syria, particularly for women, many of whom live in exile. And making art is becoming harder to do. Abir and Nisrine co-founded AllArtNow in 2005, the first independent contemporary art centre in Damascus, Syrias capital city. After the civil war broke out in 2011, AllArtNow closed so the building could house families displaced by conflict.

MAWA PHOTO Huda ATakriti was supposed to be MAWA's 2017 artist-in-residence, but her visa was denied.

During her month-long stay in Winnipeg, Nisrine gave a lecture about how even contemporary art in Syria is considered transgressive or threatening. She talked about how artists work changed during a time of political instability, as well as the gutting of the contemporary art scene in Syria.

It was also interesting to hear Nisrine talk about Syria, Dempsey says. I had Western biases  like, Oh, you know, the Middle East is always in turmoil. She said, We were a very stable, progressive culture. If you had told us 10 years ago that this would happen, we would have said, No. Thats impossible. Maybe in other countries, but not our country. She grew up going to the beach, wearing a bikini. The freedom with which she experienced her body as a child and a youth had radically changed over the past five years.

Takriti was still an art student in Damascus when the war started. She tried to keep creating, to keep making art. A lot of the work she was creating was in response to the turmoil happening in her country.

At first, I was really influenced by it, she says. There was a huge rush to do something about what was going on, and express it. For me, I think the work I did at the time was really direct. Now, Im thinking about ways to express it without being so direct. All the Syrian art about it was really direct. But now its shifting, somehow.

Like Nisrine, Takriti also noticed how the Damascus art scene had eroded. I started to feel it after I graduated, she says.

MAWA PHOTO Abir Boukhari was invited by MAWA as a visiting curator in 2016. She finally made it to Winnipeg after a long visa application process.

There were no more curators or galleries. Basically, you graduate from the university of art and dont have anything to do. I was still painting and still trying to work on other projects. But it was only for me. Like, it was nothing to show anyone.

It got to the point that the only place she could show her paintings was in her (very supportive) parents living room, so she began looking for opportunities elsewhere  including MAWA.

On the surface, bringing Syrian artists to Winnipeg might seem like more of a hassle than its worth. But there is tremendous value in engaging with art and hearing perspectives from an region we often encounter only in headlines.

Were isolated here in Winnipeg, Dempsey says. When we bring artists in, it expands our vision of what art is, what art can be. It builds relationships between Winnipeg and the global contemporary visual art community and feminist community.

Abirs visit had immediate benefits for the MAWA community: she included two Winnipeg artists in a show in Stockholm.

Hearing these artists lived experiences also serves as a stark reminder that the rollback of human rights isnt just something that happens to other people in other countries.

For the portraits: Huda Takriti is a Syrian artist living in Vienna. She was supposed to be MAWAs 2017 Artist-in-Residence but her visa was denied. Credit: Huda Takriti

What I found so moving and disturbing about Nisrines visit here, because she was the first Syrian artist we had, was the realization that it could be me, Dempsey says. The speed at which her country has devolved into chaos  and she fears there will be nothing left  it could happen to us. We think, Thats impossible. That could never happen here. But thats what she thought.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @JenZoratti

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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An advertising boycott of YouTube is broadening in a sign that big companies doubt Googles ability to prevent marketing campaigns from appearing alongside repugnant videos.

PepsiCo, Wal-Mart Stores and Starbucks on Friday confirmed that they have also suspended their advertising on YouTube after the Wall Street Journal found Googles automated programs placed their brands on five videos containing racist content. AT&T, Verizon, Volkswagen and several other companies pulled ads earlier this week.

The defections are continuing even after Google apologized for tainting brands and outlined steps to ensure ads dont appear with unsavoury videos.

Diane Bondareff / Invision for Lincoln Center Global Exchange Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet Inc., says Google could get pretty close to guaranteeing companies' ads won't be placed with hateful material.

However, major advertisers across Europe and Asia are still appearing alongside extremist YouTube videos, days after Google said it was taking steps to protect its clients from inadvertently supporting hate.

An anti-Semitic clip claiming the existence of a Jewish World Order was featured alongside advertisements in Germany from insurer AXA, oil company Total in France, Range Rover vehicles in South Africa, footwear retailer Skopunkten and website Tradera in Sweden, Bloomberg searches of YouTube from each country found on Thursday. The video was also paired with brands in Asia  Castrol lubricants in India and Cow & Gate infant formula in Hong Kong.

The controversy over ad placement, now in its second week, is expanding across the globe at a pace Alphabets Google has struggled to match in its response.

On Thursday, as Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt said Google could get pretty close to guaranteeing companies ads wont be placed near hateful material, advertisers throughout Europe were confronting more than a dozen new examples and scrambling to protect their brands.

We didnt know that our ads were played in this context, Axa spokeswoman Anja Kroll said in an email. We have immediately arranged for an update of the filters and stopped the delivery of ads with these videos because diversity, tolerance and openness are values that are of key importance for us and that we practise daily.

While Axa hasnt pulled its ads from YouTube, the German unit is using blacklist filters to prevent its ads from appearing next to extremist, racist or other undesired content, Kroll said. In this case, she said, the filters apparently failed.

We dont comment on individual videos but as announced, weve begun an extensive review of our advertising policies and have made a public commitment to put in place changes that give brands more control over where their ads appear, a Google spokesperson said. Were also raising the bar for our ads policies to further safeguard our advertisers brands.

Range Rover said in an email it was suspending its YouTube campaign in South Africa while it investigates. Telenor Sweden, which had an ad showing before a propaganda video from a Swedish neo-Nazi group, also halted all YouTube advertising, according to Aron Samuelsson, a spokesman.

Nissan said it was urgently reviewing with Google, while Nilson Group, owner of Skopunkten, said it had asked its media agency about the ads and is awaiting answers, according to Linda Fernell, a spokeswoman.

In Sweden, an Ikea spot was found alongside a homophobic and anti-Semitic video titled, Gay Pride Parade a Tool of International Jews, while another clip in India tied the so-called gay agenda to Satanic Illuminati and touted the F3 Plus smartphone from Chinas Oppo. An ad for HBOs The Young Pope found its way to the pre-roll for Jewish Hypocrisy  Flooding Europe with Immigrants in Spain.

It is completely unacceptable that Ikea appears in a context like this, spokeswoman Cecilia Nettelbladt Stenberg said by phone. What weve done now is to ask our media agency to immediately investigate the reason behind this.

We dont control the YouTube ad placement, but we greatly oppose it, HBO said in an email. We will be taking steps to get it removed.

The advertisers discomfort highlights the reliance of Google and Facebook on automated software that maximizes volume to help them dominate online advertising. Digital advertising grew by 17 per cent globally to US$178 billion in 2016, according to marketing consultant Magna Global, which projects that digital-based ad sales will overtake TV to become the No. 1 media category this year.

The global array of companies caught up in the controversy illustrates the scale of the problem for Google, which risks potential financial and reputational damage. The company was already facing claims in a lawsuit by the family of a terror attack victim that it profits from ads linked to terrorist propaganda promoting violence. The latest crisis erupted after a Times of London investigation last week revealed ads running alongside offensive content. Alphabets market value has dropped by about US$24 billion this week.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ford Motor Co. suspended their YouTube ads on Thursday. AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, GSK and Verizon Communications joined the boycott earlier this week, after British Broadcasting Corp., Sainsbury, Volkswagen and Toyota Motor Corp. said they had pulled ads in the U.K.

The latest examples show the global scope of the Googles problem, reaching beyond the U.K. and U.S. to big European markets such as Germany, France and Sweden, as well as Hong Kong, India and South Africa.

While Googles tools can be incredibly sophisticated, allowing ads to follow users from site to site, the software hasnt fully matched the human judgment necessary to protect brands from inadvertently funnelling cash to causes their customers would find objectionable. The high number of intermediaries in digital advertising further complicates the problem. So Googles announced fixes may not solve the challenge completely.

Google isnt yet fully addressing advertisers concerns and needs to take stronger steps to regain the trust of brands, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

Google said Tuesday that it was increasing safeguards to protect advertisers, such as automatically excluding ads from videos deemed potentially objectionable and giving advertisers more control over placement. While YouTube revenue isnt reported separately by Google, analysts estimate the video site brings in billions of dollars each year, and say its among Googles fastest-growing businesses.

Schmidt, in an appearance on Fox Business Networks Mornings With Maria on Thursday, said Google had tightened its policies and increased the amount of time it spends manually reviewing the content, and so I think were going to be OK.

 Bloomberg News/Associated Press
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This article was published 24/03/2017 (2054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Public Insurance is hoping to save $6 million annually by streamlining the way it covers rodent infestations, but shops that specialize in those repairs are worried about the health of their customers and are preparing to lay off staff.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rosanne Montemurro, owner of Winnipeg RV Service and Repair, shows a vehicle's rodent-damaged hood insulation.

Would you want that in your car? asked Roseanne Montemurro, owner of Winnipeg RV Service and Repair, as she looks at the before photo of a Subaru with a mouse nest and a pile of excrement behind the dashboard. Now, we arent allowed to get in there and clean it out.

They want us to vacuum up what we can see and send the car on its way

 Randy Fincaryk, shop foreman at Winnipeg RV Service and Repair

Montemurros business is one of about 20 shops in Manitoba accredited for rodent-infestation claims. The Subaru in question was restored prior to March 1, when the new regulations came into force. The dash was cleaned.

Before March 1, MPI deemed an infested car to be such a health hazard that the company would advise customers to discontinue driving the vehicle immediately  and typically ordered a tow truck to take it the same day to the Plessis Road compound.

There, adjusters would don haz-mat suits and respirator masks before assessing the damage. The biggest threat is transmission of the hantavirus, for which there is no known vaccine or treatment.

Today, Montemurro said, the new regulations allow only superficial cleaning. If you can see it, you can clean it. That pile of contaminated material in the Subarus dashboard? Ignored.

They want us to vacuum up what we can see and send the car on its way, said Randy Fincaryk, Winnipeg RV Repairs shop supervisor, who added the policy allows shops to disassemble and clean heating and ventilation ducts.

MPI did not respond to specific questions about the new procedures. Instead, spokesman Matt Schaubroeck sent the following prepared statement:

Safety is our first priority, which is why our claim procedures are being aligned in accordance to guidelines established by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Manitoba Public Insurance is in the process of finalizing our rodent claim procedures while working together with the industry, the emailed statement said. Schaubroeck said the policy change is expected to save $6 million in claims cost annually.

SUPPLIED Mouse droppings, such as these in a Subaru, will now go uncleaned under new MPI policy.

Dr. David Safronetz, chief of viral zoonoses (diseases that cross species) for the National Microbiology Laboratory, said the risk of a hantavirus infection diminishes rapidly with the passage of time.

These are not overly robust virus particles, Safronetz said in an interview. It is widely believed these viruses do not maintain their infectivity beyond a matter of weeks.

Montemurro also worries about odour, particularly if rodents have died somewhere a shop cant access, and about damage to safety equipment, such as airbags. Rodents are known to have chewed wiring and airbags, possibly rendering the devices useless.

Manitoba had built up an industry around rodent infestations, with the numbers steadily growing. Some shops are heavily dependent on rodent claims, but Montemurro estimated the average claim size will fall from between $3,000 and $6,000 to around $250.

Were going to be OK, she said. We have other work that we do.

But she said she is likely to lay off staff and close one of her locations as a result of the changes.

Montemurro said she was told MPI based its new policy on an assertion that hazardous materials contained within a closed space posed no danger to vehicle occupants. Yet spaces such as those behind headliners and dash and door panels are not sealed, and she said she worries there remains a risk for airborne disease.

With cars today, air flows through all these spaces, she said.

Its worse in recreational vehicles, which typically have ductwork integrated into roof and side panels.

Safronetz agreed an infestation behind a porous material such as a fabric headliner would present a hazard, and he does recommend cleaning heating and ventilation systems, but said the risk diminishes quickly once the active infestation is eliminated.

Individuals would definitely have to consider, in a non-sealed container where the mice might be urinating down on you, it would be considered a risk, he said. But I want to come back to the point that these viruses, in respect to many different viruses, are very unstable. Once the active infestation is removed, even having the car sit for a period of time removes the risk.

Odour from decaying carcasses or urine would be unpleasant, but isnt a health concern, Safronetz said.

Other restoration shops in Winnipeg shared Montemurros concern, but werent ready to speak publicly.

Not disagreeing with what Roseanne said at all, but Im taking a different approach, said one shop owner, who wanted to remain anonymous. We are going to be putting our facts together and well have something to say then.

I just dont know how something thats unhealthy one day can suddenly become healthy overnight.

kelly.taylor@freepress.mb.ca

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Randy Fincaryk, Manager at Winnipeg RV Service and Repair holds an SUV's cabin air filter that has been tainted by rodent droppings.
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This article was published 24/03/2017 (2054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The case against a Beausejour man accused of burning down his 110-year-old home is heading to trial.

A one-day preliminary inquiry into arson and fraud allegations against Douglas Bergman ended Friday with provincial court Judge Mary Kate Harvie deciding there was enough evidence for a Court of Queens Bench trial. A trial date has not yet been set.

Details of the evidence presented during the preliminary inquiry cant be published under a publication ban meant to protect the accuseds right to a fair trial. The preliminary hearing was initially scheduled to go ahead in late February, but the case was delayed a month because a witness the Crown had described as being key to the case didnt show up for court  and was never served with a subpoena to do so.

BILL REDEKOP / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Doug Bergman maintains his innocence and says he arrived home from a wedding to find his house ablaze.

By the time the hearing began anew Friday, three Crown witnesses had been subpoenaed to testify, including the civilian who had been absent the first time. But in the end, only one witness testified  an origin and cause fire investigator from the fire commissioners office.

The other witnesses may be asked to testify during the trial.

Bergman, in his mid-60s, who is accused of deliberately setting fire to his 110-year-old heritage home on July 20, 2014. Bergman maintained his innocence, telling the Free Press in an interview shortly after the blaze that he arrived home from a wedding to find his house on fire and has no recollection of anything else that happened that night. He is being represented by defence lawyer Todd Bourcier.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
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This article was published 24/03/2017 (2054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man convicted of manslaughter for stabbing a stranger during Canada Day celebrations at The Forks is expected to serve time in prison.

Kevin Bunn is awaiting his sentence after he was convicted by a jury of manslaughter and aggravated assault in the July 1, 2014, stabbing that killed one man and seriously injured another.

Bunn, then 25, stabbed 25-year-old Tanner Beaulieu seven times, killing him. Bunn also stabbed a 31-year-old man who required emergency surgery to repair his chest and lung wounds, court heard. The victims and the accused had been with separate groups of people who didnt know each other, but disrespectful words created conflict between the two groups, Crown attorney Paul Girdlestone said Friday.

Bunns defence team indicated the first punch thrown may have come from the other side, but Girdlestone said whatever happened, (Bunns) fuse was exceedingly short.

He took a knife out of his backpack and stabbed the two men outside the Main Street Via Rail station around 10 p.m., as large crowds gathered to watch the fireworks nearby.

The Crown has recommended Court of Queens Bench Justice Richard Saull impose a 10- to 12-year sentence, while Bunns defence team has suggested eight years.

Bunn was intoxicated at the time of the stabbing and never denied doing it, his defence lawyers argued. He did argue whether he had the intent necessary to be convicted of second-degree murder and attempted murder. He was initially charged with those offences, but the jury instead found him guilty of the lesser charges of manslaughter and aggravated assault.

The victims mother, Debbie Beaulieu, told court her family is broken as a result of her sons death.

I wake up most nights to the same nightmare: my son dying alone. Nobody there for him, nobody there to help him, she said. This is not only a nightmare, but it is my everyday life, something that is in my head all the time.

Canada Day used to be a day of celebration. Good times, fireworks, family outing. Now its one of the saddest days, she added.

The judge has reserved his decision on Bunns sentence.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
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This article was published 24/03/2017 (2054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba judge has rejected an accused killers bid to have the case thrown out of court.

Mark Grant, 53, is on trial for the second time in the death of 13-year-old Candace Derksen, who was found frozen to death and tied up in a shed in January 1985, nearly two months after she went missing. Grant is charged with second-degree murder, but after a lengthy trial that relied heavily on DNA evidence, his defence team asked Court of Queens Bench Justice Karen Simonsen to drop the case entirely or, alternatively, exclude the DNA evidence the Crown argued linked Grant to the killing.

Simonsen dismissed both defence motions, declining to enter a stay of proceedings that would have allowed Grant to walk free.

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Wilma Derksen leaves the Law Courts building after a judge ruled to allow DNA evidence to be used against Mark Grant, Friday, March 24, 2017.

Defence lawyer Saul Simmonds had argued his clients charter rights were violated and he was subjected to prejudice because the decision to arrest him was based on DNA results that cant be replicated and that some experts have said were flawed.

The judge ruled that all challenged evidence that was introduced during the trial is admissible.

That includes a defence request to have the court consider whether a different, unknown suspect could have been responsible for the slaying. The trial heard about a second kidnapping victim who had been reportedly abducted when she was 12 years old. The alleged victim was found tied up in a rail boxcar in the same area where Candaces body was found months earlier and was reported to have happened while Grant was in custody. The Crown has argued the victim, now an adult woman who testified during the retrial, is not believable.

The retrial was called after the Manitoba Court of Appeal, and later the Supreme Court of Canada, overturned Grants 2011 second-degree murder conviction. The high court decided the trial judge erred by not allowing the jury to hear evidence that could have pointed to another suspect.

Simonsen also decided letters sent to CJOB radio in 1987, two years after Candaces body was discovered, will be admissible in the trial. Grants defence team argued they were written by someone who claimed responsibility for the killing.

It will be up to the judge to decide how much weight to give all of the evidence before she delivers a verdict.

Simonsen asked the lawyers on both sides to provide her with written submissions on their final arguments, which they are scheduled to present in court May 11-12.

The written arguments should cover the salient features of the evidence, but focus on the DNA evidence because it is very technical and I do not have the benefit of narrative reports from the experts, the judge said.

Candace Derksen

Candaces mother, Wilma, has been waiting more than 32 years for closure.

The whole story has to come out, she said outside court Friday, relieved by the decision. She said she believes the final arguments will connect the dots.

But Derksen said she is not as invested in the verdict as she was the first time around.

Even more important than the verdict is the struggle to continue to live and not get stuck, she said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Opinion

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This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Judith Lewis is tall, so thats a clue. The first time she met her birth mother at an emotional reunion in Vancouver, she marvelled at just how tiny the elder woman was.

I was so surprised, Lewis recalls. That was the first impression.

That was 21 years ago. They never met again.

Lewis' mother Olga Husack was featured in an Australian newspaper article in 1957.

There is just one other clue: Lewiss eyes are brown. Her birth mothers were blue. And most of her birth mothers family share the same light eyes, which leads Lewis to conclude that her birth father had brown eyes, and height.

After that, the trail goes cold. When Lewiss birth mother, Olga Husack, died in 2001, Lewiss best hope of ever finding her birth father died with her. Yet on the opposite side of the globe, she never stopped searching for answers.

Now, Lewis is hoping that somewhere in Manitoba  a province shes never been to, in a country she barely knows  someone will remember another clue. Maybe Husack confided in someone. Or maybe Lewiss birth father did.

It would mean the world to me, Lewis says, chatting over the phone from her home on the east coast of Australia. But I dont know where to start. Its been a closed door everywhere I go. Its been like that my whole life.

So, lets sketch out this story. In 1957, a 30-year-old schoolteacher from Fisher Branch arrived in Australia, ostensibly on a teaching tour and stayed for seven months. Near the end of her trip, a local newspaper clipping trumpeted her visit.

TEACHER ON WORLD TOUR, the headline read. (News was gleefully hyper-local back then.)

Yet by the time that newspaper was published, Husack was already carrying a secret. In Sydney, she had lived at a home for unmarried mothers. In January 1958, shed given birth to an infant daughter, and placed her for adoption.

She named the baby Judith and left the birth fathers name blank on the documents. The babys name never changed.

Husack would have been about five months pregnant when she left her teaching job in Sandy Lake and travelled to Australia. When she returned to Canada, she evidently told no one about the baby.

Lewis, meanwhile, grew up happy. Under the guidance of a Catholic priest, she was adopted by a couple who lived in Papua New Guinea, just north of Australia. They were loving parents, and Lewiss memories of her childhood home are warm ones.

Eventually, she returned to Australia and became a teacher, just like her biological mom.

Still, like many adopted children, Lewis always wondered where she came from, and who her birth parents were.

Its hard to describe to people who were not adopted. Some of it is practical  family medical history, for example; years later, Lewiss brother Chris, who was also adopted, died of a condition doctors suspected could be genetic.

But a good deal of what fuels the search lives in the heart. Thats more difficult to explain. Its ephemeral, English doesnt quite have the words for it, and it can change. It is, simply, wanting to fill in the spaces of ones own story.

When Lewis was 19, an Australian search service located her birth mother in Manitoba. Husack was thrilled; she would have done the same thing in Lewiss shoes, she says. For years, the two wrote letters and traded photographs.

By then, Husack had married and started a family of her own. She took pains to keep her relationship with Lewis private; she would go to the post office to pick up the letters, read them and tear them up before going home.

Looking back now, Lewis can see how much pressure Husack must have been under. Her whole life, it was like a double life, really, she says. It would have been so lovely if she had been able to confide in someone.

Australian Judith Lewis reconnected with her Manitoba birth mother, Olga Husack, 21 years ago. She is now seeking information on her birth father.

In 1996, they finally met in person. Lewis and her husband flew to Vancouver and met Husack for lunch. They talked for hours, and Husack seemed excited. She was very, very sweet, is how Lewis remembers her.

Yet when she asked about her birth father, Husack fell silent. She got flustered and put her hands over her face. It wasnt something she was ready to talk about. Lewis, not wanting to upset her, dropped it.

They stayed in touch, but in 2001 the communication dried up. Lewis later learned that Husack died that November. She eventually tracked down Husacks living relatives; they didnt know anything about her birth father, either.

Now Lewis stood at a crossroads: with all avenues to identify her birth father exhausted, should she end her search? Perhaps it would be best to let Husacks secret rest with her; thats what some people suggested.

She wrestled with that. But its a different time now, she decided. Its no longer common for women to be sent away to give birth under a veil of silence. Most people, it seems, can empathize now, understanding the emotional burden Husack must have carried all those years.

Besides, Husacks story has an ending. Lewiss is still being written. And for now, there is still a chapter that needs filling, one that informs later pages: her features, why shes tall, why she has brown eyes when her birth mother did not.

Its just wanting to know things, she says. Even just what he looked like. Id love to know what my father looked like. When I met Olga I saw a slight resemblance, but not a strong resemblance. I suspect I looked more like him.

So this is Lewiss last hope: that somewhere in Manitoba, someone will know. Maybe a man confided in somebody about a child he never got to see, one born in Australia and placed for adoption. Maybe hes alive and reading this now.

Or maybe someone remembers gossip from the late 1950s around Fisher Branch or Sandy Lake about the teacher who went away. Maybe the gossip included a name, something  anything  Lewis can brush off the dust to see where it leads.

If anyone has memories that might give Lewis some answers, they can email me. I will pass on the information.

And if not, well, at least Lewis knows she tried. Searching doesnt always find answers, but there will never be answers if you dont ask.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 24/03/2017 (2054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitobas overall benefit from public-sector wage controls will be far less significant than the straightforward spending reductions Premier Brian Pallister foresees, a University of Manitoba economist says.

How much less is almost impossible to calculate, Prof. Ian Hudson said Friday.

Pallister has said that about 70 per cent of public spending goes to wages and benefits, an estimated $10 billion a year. By imposing a freeze on the first two years of the next collective bargaining agreements for 120,000 workers, the premier believes, Manitoba will save $100 million for every one per cent raise that wont be paid.

TIM SMITH / BRANDON SUN Premier Brian Pallister

Because those contracts expire over a prolonged period  ranging from next Friday to 2020 the money from the freeze will not reduce provincial spending at once.

Hudson said $100 million for every foregone one per cent will not be the bottom-line savings because it doesnt account for additional tax revenues that would come from higher salaries and potentially increased spending in Manitobas economy.

Its known as a multiplier effect, as workers spend their salaries in the community on goods and services which, in turn, creates jobs and sales that generate taxes.

It works because even with the multiplier, the reduction in tax revenue will not be as large as the reduction of wages, he said.

Theres no way to calculate the net gain for 120,000 workers in different professions, bargaining units, jobs, pay scales and seniority, he said.

Its incredibly complicated, Hudson said.

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said this week that hes confident Manitoba gains more than it loses, though he could not offer any data.

If you were really serious (about proving the legislations benefits), youd track that portion of income throughout the economy, Hudson said.

Michael Benarroch, dean of the I.H. Asper School of Business at the U of M, wasnt aware of anyone whod researched the overall net impact of wage freezes here.

The Manitoba Business Council has no data and doesnt know whether anyone else does that kind of analysis, president and CEO Don Leitch said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police warn public of sex offender

Winnipeg police want the public to be aware of the release of a high-risk sex offender.

Winston George Thomas, 39, was released from Headingley Correctional Institution on Friday after serving a sentence of 18 months (in addition to 176 days of pre-sentence custody) for assaulting a peace officer and breach of probation.

He has a lengthy history of sexual and violent offences and has also been convicted of aggravated assault, assault, and breaching probation and recognizance orders.

Winston George Thomas

Thomas is 5-5, 234 pounds, with brown eyes and is aboriginal.

He has a scar on the left side of his face and a tiger tattoo on his right arm. He is expected to live in Winnipeg.

While incarcerated, Thomas participated in sex-offender programs but is still considered a high risk to re-offend in a sexual and/or sexually violent manner against all females, both adults and children.

Murder suspect sought by police

Winnipeg police are asking for the publics help in finding a 19-year-old suspect in the Feb. 6 murder of Canon Franklin Beardy in the North End.

An arrest warrant has been issued for second-degree murder for Joshua Leclerc, the third suspect linked to the killing of the 28-year-old Beardy, police said Friday.

Beardy, 28, died in hospital after police found him at about 11:15 p.m. on Feb. 6 suffering from critical injuries at a residence in the 500 block of Magnus Avenue.

Const. Rob Carver was not able to say if Leclerc is in Winnipeg.

Anyone with information about Leclerc is asked to call the Homicide Unit at 204-986-6508 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477).

Two men charged in inmates death

Two men are charged with second-degree murder in the death of a 50-year-old inmate at Stony Mountain Correctional Institution last month.

The inmate, whose name has not been released by RCMP, was found in his cell with severe injuries during the evening on Feb. 20. He died March 3.

Both accused were inmates in the prison. Carl Jessie Klyne, 23, of Swan River, and Tristan Storm Fisher, 20, of Selkirk, were scheduled to appear in provincial court Thursday.

Officer cleared in use-of-force probe

Force used by an RCMP officer during an arrest that resulted in a suspect suffering a broken collarbone was reasonable, the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba has concluded.

The incident occurred last September near Portage la Prairie.

The RCMP officer noticed a car driving erratically and activated his emergency lights for the driver to stop. The car ran off the road and into a ditch and the three occupants got out and tried to run.

The constable caught one of the suspects by the arm, but lost his footing and fell on top of him. The man was taken to the police cruiser where he complained of not feeling well. The break was discovered when he was taken to the hospital in Portage for X-rays.

In his report, civilian investigative unit director Zane Tessler said there was no evidence of excessive force.

He noted the officer was in the lawful execution of his duties when he activated his emergency equipment and chased the man and his companions.

The man was trying to evade arrest and the officer had a duty to stop him, Tessler said.

 staff
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For the past several weeks, asylum-seekers risking life and limb crossing frozen, snow-covered fields near Emerson have made headlines around the world.

Somali-national Abdirashid Mohamud is also seeking a new life in Canada. He arrived in Winnipeg Tuesday night with no fanfare, only greeted by his uncle.

His journey, while also perilous, stands in stark contrast. The 31-year-old spent much of his life in Dadaab  the worlds largest, bleakest and mostly forgotten refugee camp. In 2014, the Free Press visited him at the barren UNHCR site set up 25 years ago for people fleeing the civil war in neighbouring Somalia thats now home to more than 300,000 exiles.

Mohamud finally escaped the camp this week. There was no dangerous journey to the United States and then trudging through frozen fields under the cover of darkness. He arrived safely and in style at the Winnipeg airport Tuesday wearing a Baltimore Orioles hoodie, jeans and a big smile. He made it here safely thanks to an uncle in Winnipeg who sponsored him through our countrys privately sponsored refugee program  a uniquely Canadian program thats marveled at around the world.

Two months ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau boldly tweeted Canada would welcome all those fleeing persecution, terror and war, regardless of faith. Yet, the countrys flagship immigration program is being choked off and left to die, its champions say.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Abdirashid Abukar Mohamed (left) checks out his new surroundings at Richardson International Tuesday evening when he met his uncle Abdi Ismail (right).

The system is eroding as the world thinks we are the greatest thing since sliced bread, said Winnipegs Jim Mair, a long-time advocate for the privately sponsored refugee program.

The number of refugees we can sponsor each year  the number of new ones  is going down, said Mair, a member of the North End Sponsorship Team, a group of volunteers whove been financially and emotionally supporting and resettling sponsored refugees for decades.

Last year, not counting Syrians, there were 10,500 new refugee sponsorship applications allowed for Canada, not including Quebec, Mair said. Thats dropped to 7,500 this year but the need in Winnipeg alone is probably like 30,000.

While touting Canadas 2017 target of 16,000 privately sponsored refugees, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, himself a privately sponsored Somali refugee, doesnt mention that close to half are for Quebec alone, Mair said.

For generations, Winnipeg has been a safe haven for refugees. Once established, they typically send financial support to those left behind until they too can come to Canada. Now the world is seeing the largest migrant crisis since the Second World War along with the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric with the election U.S. President Donald Trump and similar right-wing populist movements in Europe. So far this year, close to 200 asylum-seekers in the U.S. have risked freezing to death by walking over the border near Emerson to make a refugee claim in Canada.

Mohamud understands their panic. Since arriving in Canada Tuesday night, hes received a flood of emails from refugees in Dadaab asking for help coming to Canada. Some of them were on track to be resettled in the U.S. until Trump was elected and their dreams derailed.

Trump refused the refugees, Mohamud said, who had neither the opportunity nor the money to flee Dadaab earlier on his own.

With a long-term drought, instability, and now famine looming in that part of east Africa, the situation in Dadaab is getting worse, Mohamud said.

He looks about 10 years older and 10 kilograms lighter than he did three years ago when this Free Press reporter interviewed him at his hut in the sprawling, windy refugee camp in northeastern Kenya. He fled to Dadaab after his dad was killed by militia in Somalia, his brother went missing and he became separated from his mom.

Food is even more scarce there today and hope is in short supply, he said Thursday, sampling Timbits and sipping a double-double at a coffee shop on St. James Street.

The people are very poor and they dont have much to live for, Mohamud said, with help from his younger cousin Guled Bashir, 22. Bashir, a Kelvin High School grad, has taken his cousin under his wing and acts as his interpreter.

Hes overwhelmed right now, said Bashir, of his cousin dealing with jet lag and culture shock far from the bare, orange desert sand of Dadaab and its dangers. He came from a different place.

That place has been under attack from Al Shabaab terrorists on one side and hostile Kenyan government forces who want the refugees gone on the other. The occupants are not allowed to erect permanent homes in the camp. Nor can they leave for jobs elsewhere in Kenya. Mohamud worked for an uncle who ran a makeshift electrical shop in the oldest section of the refugee camp, learning the hard way and getting a few shocks.

Abdirashid Abukar Mohamud, 28, in Ifo refugee camp whose uncle in Winnipeg applied to sponsor him to come to Canada in 2010.

Mohamud still wants to be an electrician, but he says he will spend his first few months improving his English.

Returning to Somalia is not an option for people in Dadaab, said Mohamuds uncle and sponsor, Abdi Ismail. Somalia is overrun with criminal gangs, and theres no stable government, security or civil society.

Some people tried to go back but they couldnt take it, said Ismail, who arrived in Canada more than a decade ago as a government-assisted refugee from Dadaab. In 2010, he applied through Hospitality House to sponsor his nephew in Dadaab.

Mohamud heard nothing from the Canadian government for six years until last April. He was told to board a special International Organization for Migration bus that travelled from the camp to Kenyas capital city of Nairobi for an interview with a Canadian visa officer. The day  April 19, 2016  is one he will never forget.

She was very nice, he recalled of the women who held his fate in her hands.

After questioning him at length and reviewing his documents, she told him he was approved to go to Canada. He was stunned. I stood up  Im very happy and excited. He thanked her and returned to Dadaab to await further instructions.

That wait lasted almost a year. When the travel arrangements were made and he was finally leaving Dadaab, Mohamud said he wasnt sad to go. Flying to Canada where family would welcome him felt like winning the lottery.

Im happy to go! he said in English with a huge smile, waving and laughing while replaying his Dadaab departure: Goodbye! Goodbye!

Mohamud was one of the worlds 65.3 million refugees in need of a safe place to call home and set down roots. Many countries that want to help them are looking at the success of Canadas private sponsorship program that brought Mohamud here.

In December, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the federal government held a conference in Ottawa with representatives from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S. to talk about Canadas private sponsorship model and how it could be adapted and supported in other countries.

Canada boasts about its PSR (privately-sponsored refugee) program but its merely a fig leaf covering the reality that were hardly doing anything, said Hospitality House Refugee Ministrys executive director Tom Denton.

The federal government isnt tapping into the programs enormous potential for boosting Canadas economic growth and reuniting families separated by war, famine and disaster, he said.

Last year, the faith-based charity responsible for the most private refugee sponsorships in Canada prepared a waiting list to see how many refugees Winnipeggers wanted to sponsor. In just a few weeks, the Hospitality House list had 30,000 names on it.

The federal government, however, has been cutting the number of new applications for private sponsorship while Canadians who want to support the program  and the global prestige of having it  grows, said Mair with Winnipegs North End Sponsorship Team.

Across the country, its huge  probably 100,000, said Mair. Theyre never going to give us that.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

A shop at the Dagahaley refugee camp In Dadaab, Kenya.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/03/2017 (2054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its rare for provinces to freeze professors salaries  and it may be illegal, the national academics union is warning.

Its not uncommon for provinces to use operating grants and tuition to influence universities spending, but trying to take direct control of wages is a rarity, David Robinson, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said from Ottawa.

Universities are considered to be autonomous institutions and outside government control, despite receiving public fund, he said. For the universities, he said, they are left with one valid question: Is this constitutionally legal?

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES University of Manitoba

The Pallister government introduced a bill earlier this week that will freeze public-sector wages.

The University of Manitoba declined to comment, while the University of Winnipeg said it has time to look at the legislation, because its faculty collective bargaining agreement doesnt expire until 2020.

Robinson said Ontario has capped postsecondary management salaries, but has not tried to impose wage controls on employees. A previous Liberal government under then-premier Dalton McGuinty tried to control wages of university faculty and public school teachers, but found it unworkable.

The only other province thats an outlier right now is British Columbia, whose cap on postsecondary salaries may be challenged as unconstitutional, said Robinson.

Robinson said that most provinces are increasing their support of postsecondary education, with the exception of Saskatchewan. Manitoba schools wont know their operating grants until the April 11 budget, but have already seen kindergarten to Grade 12 receive the systems lowest funding increase since the 1990s.

For public school teachers, wages will not be frozen until July 1, 2018. For the coming school year, theyll receive two 1.5 per cent raises four months apart.

An aide to Education Minister Ian Wishart said the government isnt talking about university grant levels before the budget gets tabled.

CAUT has seen a very competitive job market for academics in recent years, he said, adding freezing salaries in Manitoba, where salaries are lower than in some other parts of Canada, wont help recruit and retain professors.

Theres a very competitive job market out there, he said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Of course we all know about assisted suicide and the right to die.

But what about the other right to die  the signing of a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order, that permits doctors to abandon so-called heroic efforts to save your life?

Then theres the opposite option. What might be termed the right to keep living; even when death makes its first attempts to take you. It was a phone call from an angry neighbour friend that compelled me to begin considering the topic most of us would rather not think about. He was enraged by his perception of how a hospital thats part of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority was treating his 83-year-old father-in-law. The Charleswood senior was terminally ill with advanced lung cancer and in respiratory distress when he was rushed to hospital on March 15, exactly two months after his wife died. What disturbed the son-in-law, though, was a sense that the health-care system is in a hurry to get rid of seniors such as his father-in-law because theyre old and sick and its time to move on so others can move into their hospital beds, which are much in demand. The callers wife feels similarly.

Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press Files Emergency entrance at the Grace Hospital.

It kind of seemed like that, she said over the phone Thursday from her fathers hospital room.

The daughter  Ill call her Donna  said as soon as she arrived in the ER with her dad, she felt pressure from doctors to have a Do Not Resuscitate Order (DNR) in place, even though, as the WRHA later told me, a DNR order is not required for a palliative patient. Thats because, as the WRHA statement added, palliative patients generally opt for comfort care, which is care intended to manage pain and soothe a patient who is dying.

Yet, Donna said other doctors shes encountered in the hospital also wanted her to sign a DNR order. Donnas sister felt the pressure even earlier, when an ambulance arrived at the home the sister shares with the dad.

They said to her, Do you want us to resuscitate him?  Donna recounted. Do you want us to bring him back? And she said, Yeah. Hes just having breathing issues. Hes not dying. 

Donna said the paramedic  who later apologized  was yelling at her sister, telling her there should be a health-care directive in place for her father because they needed to know what to do. So her sister told the paramedic what to do.

Help him breathe.

On the way to the hospital, Donna said she and her sister shared the same fear of what could be ahead for their father.

We were terrified that they werent going to do what they can to make him feel better.

As it turned out, they had reason to be concerned. Around midnight on the day after their fathers fluid-filled lungs were mechanically cleared, a nurse phoned Donna at home.

The nurse said, Your dad, we dont think hes going to make it. I called you so you could comfort him in his last hours. 

When the sisters got there, it turned out the problem was no one had ordered his meds.

His last hours? Donna said in exasperation. Hes supposed to have comfort care. Hes supposed to have medical treatment. We thought, What if he didnt have family? What would they have done? He would have died.

Beyond being upset about doctors asking her to have her dads DNR signed, Donna senses something else from them.

They look at us like were in denial. Im not in denial. Ive been through this before.

At her mothers request, Donna waited until just before the end to sign a DNR for her.

I know exactly what were doing, she said. My dad wants to live.

Donnas father is far from alone in not wanting to sign a DNR. Some patients opt for whats known as a Full Code (FC) order, which means they want aggressive life-saving measures such as CPR. An academic Canadian study published online in 2011 attempted to get some insight on that by doing interviews with more than 40 medical patients from three Toronto hospitals who had recently had discussions with doctors about end of life options

DNR patients expressed a desire to avoid resuscitation in order to lessen the emotional burden on family members. the study found. FC participants requested resuscitation in hope of remaining with family members.

And then there was this: Only DNR patients cited societal considerations. Some were concerned about the burden their resuscitation and life support would place on health-care workers. Others were concerned about the financial costs to society as a whole.

About a week ago, a doctor arrived on her fathers ward, who made Donna feel differently about her hospital experience. Rather than more pressure, he brought a sense of peace.

He said, Listen, we know the long-term prognosis. But for sure we can manage symptoms and medically treat him for pneumonia or a chest infection. And he can be comfortable. Clearly hes not ready to go. Hes walking. Hes talking. He makes jokes. Well treat him. 

I was crying, Donna recalled. I said, Thank you so much because thats all we wanted. Youre looking at him as a human being. You have compassion and youre on the same page as us. 

A page, as she suggested, that doesnt have a DNR order to be signed. Not yet because her father isnt ready to go.

Now you should see him, Donna said. Hes looking great. He doesnt look like hes at deaths door. Hes planning Easter.

The celebration of the Resurrection. How perfect.

So, what does the WRHA have to say about all of this? Lori Lamont, vice-president and chief nursing officer, responded to my request for comment via email.

We recognize that this is a very difficult time for the family youve spoken to, Lamonts statement began. We understand that conversations theyve had with staff about advanced care planning have been difficult. While delicate, such conversations are necessary and we make every effort to prepare our staff to have them; which they do, often. Families, on the other hand, do not face these circumstances frequently. By the time they arrive at a hospital with a seriously ill loved one who is unable to speak for themselves, families are rarely prepared to deal with the uncertainty and weight of such personal decisions. This is what makes Advance Care Planning so very important.

Thats easy to say and to recommend, of course. But, in the end, there might be only one decision thats more difficult in life than signing a Do Not Resuscitate order about your own death.

Being a loved one who has to sign it for you.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/03/2017 (2054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A lone councillors call to fire the citys chief administrative officer is likely to be defeated but curiously there has been no rush by councillors to defend the mans reputation or his job.

Coun. Russ Wyatts criticisms of CAO Doug McNeil this week have been endorsed by several councillors who have repeatedly said theyve been ostracized by the citys top bureaucrat but Wyatts threat to bring a motion to council in April calling for McNeils dismissal has been met with silence from most members of Mayor Brian Bowmans inner circle, the group of elected officials seen as most closely aligned with McNeil.

The Free Press polled all councillors on how they would vote if Wyatt makes good on his threat and whether they agreed with Wyatts criticisms of McNeil. But of the six councillors on Bowmans executive policy committee (EPC), only three responded and none with any enthusiasm.

BORIS MINKEVICH/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES CAO Doug McNeil

I dont share Russs point of view, was all Coun. Mike Pagtakhan (Point Douglas), chairman of councils protection, community services and parks committee, said.

Wyatt has accused McNeil of failing to live up to the mandate he was given when hired in April 2015 to straighten out the senior administration and bring a halt to a series of expensive missteps. Wyatt echoed concerns from other councillors that McNeil is currying favour with Bowman and his EPC team while ignoring the other councillors  refusing to provide requested information, failing to reply to councillors in a timely and appropriate manner, and stalling the release of administrative reports.

Several other councillors said they hadnt reached a decision on whether they would vote to fire McNeil or didnt think his dismissal would alter the administration dynamic. Only one councillor from among the 10 who responded said he would vote to fire McNeil.

I will support Wyatt in a heartbeat, Coun. Shawn Dobson (St. Charles) said.

Dobson had found himself the target of McNeils indifference recently when he tried to gather examples of the good things civic departments are doing and release that information to his constituents on a monthly basis. McNeil told Dobson that was his job and department heads were instructed not to co-operate with Dobson.

I do not like to take drastic steps but I am running out of options, Dobson said. There was a large turnover of council in the last election because people wanted change. Openness and transparency was high on the list of what our residents wanted. Withholding information is neither open nor transparent.

Couns. Marty Morantz (chairman of public works) and Cindy Gilroy (innovation committee chairwoman) said they were surprised Wyatt is calling for McNeils dismissal when council recently approved a mechanism to review the CAOs performance, as well as that of three other top bureaucrats.

I am not sure why Coun. Wyatt is lashing out in such an angry fashion and politicizing this, when a proper process for dealing with HR issues is established, Morantz (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Whyte Ridge) said, adding he, like Pagtakhan, doesnt share Wyatts view.

Of the other EPC members, Coun. Brian Mayes said he would not comment, John Orlikow did not respond, and a spokesman for Scott Gillingham said he could not be reached and was not aware of the polling.

Deputy mayor Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry), echoed concerns raised by Gilroy and Morantz that a public debate on McNeils future is inappropriate and said she would not vote for his dismissal.

Most of the other councillors not on EPC  Jason Schreyer, Janice Lukes and Shawn Dobson  said McNeils actions appear to be dictated by the governance model and questioned whether a replacement would be any different. They, along with North Kildonans Jeff Browaty, hadnt decided how they would vote, if there is a vote.

Lukes (South Winnipeg-St. Norbert) said there is no requirement under the current structure for the CAO to share information with any member of council other than the mayor and his team and that wont change unless the governance structure is changed.

The model pits us against each other, Lukes said. The model does not facilitate collaboration. If we reveal too much, someone else can take you down. So everyone clams up and secrecy rules.

Schreyer (Elmwood-East Kildonan) said simply asking for information has pitted him as an opponent to Bowmans majority and a pariah to the administration and he doesnt understand why.

If someone believes differently than the mayors position, then theyre treated by the administration as the opposition, Schreyer said. Its not my job to vote with the majority on everything. My job is to act in the best interest of my constituents and that means sometimes I have to take a position thats not shared by the majority, but that shouldnt make me the opposition. 

Ross Eadie said Bowman is benefiting from the current approach where only he and his EPC members are provided with key information on important developments.

I am not ready to call for the resignation or firing of the current CAO but I want the mayor to do his job in his role as the head of the human resource committee, EPC,and instruct the CAO appropriately, Eadie said.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/03/2017 (2053 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadians generally hold politicians in low regard. In a 2015 survey, for example, the non-profit think tank Samara found only 40 per cent of Canadians trust MPs to do what is right. Sixty-two per cent believe politicians only want our vote.

Sometimes, politicians earn that enmity. They break promises. They avail themselves of the perks of public office and then wonder why people complain about their having become Otta-washed. And occasional examples of unethical behaviour give Canadians whole new reason to downgrade their regard for elected officials.

Its easy to paint all politicians with the same brush. We forget politicians are human and, like everyone else, they often have experienced hardship and tragedy in their lives. Its easy to see them as talking heads on television rather than as people.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Jane Philpott, federal minister of health, is one of several politicians who have experienced personal tragedy.

Former U.S. vice-president Joe Biden provides an example of a politician whose personal life has been marked by significant tragedy.

Biden served as a senator from Delaware for a stunning 36 years before becoming Barack Obamas vice-president. A few weeks after Bidens first successful run for the U.S. Senate in 1972, a tractor-trailer rammed into a car driven by his wife, Neilia, which was also carrying his three children. Neilia and the Bidens one-year-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in the accident; however, his two sons, Beau and Hunter, survived. Biden had lost his wife and daughter even before he was sworn into office.

Bidens long political career was marked by personal tragedy: it began with the deaths of his first wife and infant daughter and ended with the death of his son, Beau, in 2015, following a long struggle with brain cancer.

In 2016, Biden entertained the possibility of challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. The recent death of his son, however, plagued Biden: while campaigning, anything that evoked even the slightest memory of Beau drew tears. Obama himself expressed concern that Biden had not sufficiently recovered from his sons death to endure a gruelling run for office, especially against the Republicans hard-hitting nominee, Donald Trump.

After the campaign, Biden himself recognized that he wasnt ready, telling a New York Times journalist, I was more broken than I thought I was. Speculating on what would have happened had he run, Biden said, I dont know what Id do if I was in a debate and someone said, Youre doing this because of your son I might have walked over and kicked his ass.

Like Biden, Canadas health minister, Jane Philpott, also tragically lost a child. From 1989 to 1998, Philpott and her family, including two young daughters, lived in Niger, where she worked as a physician for a non-governmental organization. In 1991, the Philpotts two-year-old daughter, Emily, fell ill  Philpott soon spotted a rash she knew indicated meningococcemia, a potentially fatal and very rapid infection.

Philpotts family immediately began the two-hour drive to the nearest hospital so Emily could receive life-saving penicillin. An hour into the drive, however, Emily had a seizure and stopped breathing. It was the most horrible moment of my life, wrote Philpott. She and her husband were not ready to give up hope, so they took turns performing CPR on Emily as they kept driving, but the child never responded.

In the midst of all this, Philpott noticed that the same rash had appeared on her infant daughter, Bethany. The Philpotts, having lost one daughter, now faced the possibility of losing both. Thankfully and miraculously, Bethany survived long enough to arrive at the hospital and receive intravenous penicillin.

Despite the fact her kidneys had stopped functioning, Bethany survived through the night. The next day, the Philpotts attended a funeral for Emily, but Bethanys health continued to improve. Philpott reports that the only physical manifestation of the illness for Bethany, now a beautiful and brilliant young woman, is a scar.

Writing on the anniversary of her daughters death, Philpott wondered, What would her life be like? How would our lives be different if she were still with us?

It was impossible for me to look at Philpott the same way after I learned about this tragedy in her life.

In 2009, former Saskatchewan Conservative MP Dave Batters committed suicide in his Regina home following a long struggle with depression. He had declined to run for re-election in 2008 because of his depression as well as an addiction to benzodiazepine, a drug prescribed to treat depression combined with anxiety.

Batters, like Biden and Philpott, had tragedy in his background: when asked why he decided to run for office, he cited the 2003 murder of his friend, Michelle Lenius, by her estranged husband. Batters time in office was indeed characterized by a focus on criminal justice and mental-health issues.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper gave a moving eulogy at Batters funeral. I became aware that beneath this veneer of optimism, Dave struggled with severe anxiety and depression, said Harper, referring to Batters decision not to run for re-election. Harper reminds us that politicians smiling public faces may mask pain, adversity and tragedy in their personal lives.

In 1993, my old MP from British Columbia, Jim Abbott, entered Parliament as a fire-breathing, populist Reform Party MP.

As a candidate and MP, Abbott was quick to denounce politicians. Over the course of 17 years as a well-regarded MP, Abbott worked with and forged friendships with scores of other politicians.

Upon announcing his retirement, he let it be known that his opinion about how the public should treat politicians had changed: Abbott urged Canadians to cut us some slack.

I think thats a good general rule for everyone, including politicians.

As Biden, Philpott and Batters remind us, we see politicians public faces but not always the struggles and tragedies that exist in their personal lives.

Royce Koop is an associate professor and head of the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba.
PORTAGEA culinary arts team from Portage High School took third place in the Wisconsin ProStart competition this month, with help from a Baraboo chef.

The school also won Best Beef Entree from the Wisconsin Beef Council, the only extra award given at the competition held in Milwaukee, family and consumer science teacher Jane Hemming reported.

Portage was the second-smallest high school to compete out of 22. The team was also one of the smallest in the competition at three members: seniors Joseph Clemmons and Grace Krejchik and sophomore Anna Vitale.

By finishing in the top three, each member was offered scholarship opportunities valued at $6,000 from various schools.

They really came together and worked hard, Hemming said, noting the teams success came down to expert communication. They were so nervous before the competition, but then they just got focused and did what they needed to do.

Hemming invited Mike Althen of Elite Catering to serve as a mentor several years ago. He works with the students weekly.

I assist the students in developing the menu (attached along with the competition guidelines to follow), developing the recipes, costing out the recipes, setting the selling prices and practicing their knife skills, Althen said.

Hed like to see a similar program established in Baraboo and at other area high schools. The opportunities are almost limitless, Althen said.

Though Krejchik is the only team member not pursuing a career in the culinary arts  she wants a career in occupational therapy  she is still eligible for a $6,000 scholarship if she minors in culinary arts, she said.

I think its a really good opportunity, and if people are looking to go into the culinary field they should get into (this program in high school), she said.

For the judges the team prepared an entree of bacon-wrapped, smoked top-butt sirloin of beef with a black raspberry glaze. They also prepared an appetizer of lake perch and a dessert of clafoutis brulee.

In the menu, Hemming said, the biggest challenges were smoking the beef and the bacon wrap, overseen by Clemmons, who has aims to become an executive chef.

You have to pull it really tight and make sure its not too thick so it doesnt fall off, Hemming said of the wrap. As for smoking the beef, timing is everything. If its undercooked or overcooked, its not good.

This year was the best group of young go-getters I have had to work with to date, Althen said. I projected prior the event that we would be in the top five.
My job allows me to visit schools, which I find delightful. It allows me to share stories about students and teachers, which I consider a privilege.

In the last eight days, I visited two schools  Randolph Elementary Middle School and Rock River Intermediate School in Waupun.

Holly Swanson, the physical education teacher at REMS, sent me an invitation to the schools annual Jump Rope for Heart assembly. It is an event I look forward to and I have found it both uplifting and heartbreaking. The event often includes students sharing their rope jumping skills. This years assembly included two girls who cartwheeled in unison to start tandem jumping.

I brought my son along when I covered the 25th anniversary assembly for Jump Rope for Heart, held in the evening at Randolph High School. It included a performance by the Pink Panthers, a team of REMS students who pulled off some amazing rope jumping stunts.

Watching the community celebrate the success of the fundraiser and the talents of the students held a special significance for me that year- my son had just been accepted by the Randolph School District as an incoming middle school student through open enrollment. He participated in the Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser as sixth grader, and was mortified to have his mother at the assembly.

Swanson does an amazing job coordinating the fundraiser and the assembly, finding ways to motivate her students while teaching lessons about the importance of fitness for health and community service. She is quick to share credit for the success of the Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser with her co-workers and the generous hearts of the community.

Next year, REMS is on track to jump past raising a quarter of a million dollars for the American Heart Association, an incredible achievement in 36 years for a small school district.

Sue Krause, who teaches fourth grade at Rock River, sent me an invitation in February to attend the annual wax museum held on Monday, and thoughtfully sent a reminder about the event a few days before.

I walked in to the school gym not knowing what to expect. I left with more photos than I could use, and new knowledge.

I found fourth grade students dressed up as people with a connection to Wisconsin. This included historical figures, athletes, actors, authors and more. There were several girls portraying Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a visit to Pepin remains on my travel bucket list, as I adored reading the Little House series as a child. As a horse crazy kid, I devoured the books of Marguerite Henry, but did not know she was born in Milwaukee until I visited the wax museum.

I also did not know Oprah Winfrey once lived in Milwaukee until I came across girls portraying her in the wax museum. I also did not know that Golda Meir also spent part of her childhood in Milwaukee. I learned about Vel Phillips, Kate Pelham Newcomb and Ada Deer.

I remember watching Bonnie Blair skate in the Olympics. I did not realize she lived in Wisconsin to train until meeting several Bonnie Blairs at the wax museum. The museum taught me about Carrie Chapman Catt, a native of Ripon. It shames me to admit that I lived in Ripon for three years and do not recall learning about her while there.

Students also portrayed Fred MacMurray and Gene Wilder, with very creative costumes.

One boy dressed up as Richard Bong, the World War II flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient, whose life was cut tragically short while serving as a test pilot. My maternal grandfather also served as a pilot during WWII, flying cargo planes on the Pacific front. While traveling with him from Ironwood, Mich., to the Twin Cities, we stopped in Bongs hometown of Poplar, which has a replica of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter on display as a memorial to him.

I enjoy spending time with young people, and find their optimism and enthusiasm a balm for my soul. I once considered teaching as a career, but decided I lacked a trait necessary for a good teacher  patience. I salute teachers and aides who dedicate so much time to educate children.

Learning should be a lifetime activity, and I value opportunities that allow me to continue my education.
Placed unassumingly on a parlor table at the Sauk County Historical Society museum is an old violin.

In an attempt to determine its age, I used a flashlight to look inside one of the f-holes. Much to my surprise, I was shocked to see the following inscription: Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1719 Could it be? What are the odds? Could some benefactor have donated a violin to the society without knowing its true origin? An original Stradivarius violin would be priceless!

Antonio Stradivari was born in 1644 and ran an instrument-making shop in the village of Cremona, Italy. There he produced some of the worlds most perfect violins, which are, to this day, still sought after by professionals more than 250 years after their debut. It is said that the magical sound produced by a Stradivarius is a product of the type of wood used in construction, the varnish applied to the instrument, and the talented hands of a master carver.

Further research indicated that not all instruments with a Stradivarius label inside were produced in the 15th century. According to the Smithsonian website, thousands of copies were produced in the 19th and 20th centuries, imitating the great masters of Italy. It was not uncommon for these cheap reproductions to include a label inside which indicated that it was modeled on the design of a Stradivarius. It was a tribute to the great master and not meant to deceive. Purchasers of these instruments knew exactly what they were buying. But the Smithsonian article also indicated that such a label might be authentic. Only an expert examination could determine its true provenance.

In an attempt to learn more, I emailed an expert instrument dealer in Milwaukee, a man recommended in the Smithsonian article. I sent a description of the violin, and the words of the inscription along with a photo, and anxiously awaited an answer. It was not long in coming.

The expert advised that, ...your violin appears to be a common factory, commercial German instrument from circa 1900. He went on to write, They are found in Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Wards mail order catalogs from that era, costing $1.50 to $5.00.

These Stradivarius instruments were made of precut, mass-produced parts by snowbound cottage workers during the long middle European winters.

They were available in two different models, the cheaper one cost $2.45 ($71 today), and came with strings, a bow, and instruction booklet. The deluxe model came with a silver-trimmed bow, rosin, a hard case and instructions, all for $7.85 ($229 today).

So, dont expect to find a real Stradivarius violin at a garage sale or second hand store. Of the more than 1,000 Strads made by the master, all of them have been accounted for.

My foray into the world of musical instruments ended in disappointment. Oh, well, the society was rich for a day. I thought that we owned a priceless Stradivarius violin, but it simply turned out to be a common fiddle.

There was a small silver lining however. Our violin has an estimated value of between $300 and $500. Even at that, its quite an appreciation over the past century.
Federal law says that winery labeling can use a made in label for any wines made with 75 percent homegrown grapes. The Texas legislature is considering an update to that rule: if the legislation passes, wines will have to use 100 percent homegrown Texas grapes to use a made in Texas label.

The bill, sponsored by Dripping Springs Republican Rep. Jason Isaac, would establish a 100 percent requirement. But Isaac told the Texas Tribune that he would be open to phasing in the mandate rather than instituting it immediately.

Sounds innocuous, but both winemakers and the grape-growing industry in Texas are arguing that the labeling law would give an incumbent advantage to bigger winemakers and vineyards and hurt smaller businesses.

Winemaking is a delicate art and heavily subject to the weather. Winemakers whose small vineyards get compromised by storms or cold fronts dont want to have to re-label their wines in the worst-case scenario of major weather events that force them to look elsewhere for grapes.

As the Texas Tribune reported, Grape growers and vineyard owners are scattered on the labeling issue. Paul Bonarrigo, co-owner of Messina Hof Winery, the states third-largest wine producer in 2016, said he was opposed to the measure, and the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association said they dont back Isaacs bill, either.

Brian Heath, owner of Grape Creek Vineyards in Fredericksburg, said the bill could help the industry down the road, but if it passed now, he said it would limit winemakers options during unexpected events  like when strong Texas storms ruin grape crops. You cant predict what you cant predict, he said.

Texas isnt traditionally known as a major wine-producing region, but the industry is taking root in the state.

The Texas Wine & Grape Growers Association published a study in 2015 that said the industry is worth more than $2 billion to the Texas economy.

The measure would add Texas to a short list of states with similar 100 percent requirements.

California and Oregon both require 100 percent of grapes to have been homegrown for the wine to be labeled as from the state.

Other states have state laws requiring a higher percentage than the 75 percent federal baseline.

But Texass industry is not as entrenched as California or Oregons  partly because the climate is a more nontraditional one for growing grapes  and regulating it as others are regulated could end up harming more than helping.
A Gold Medal for the Legal Resources Centre

The University awarded the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) a Gold Medal for its sterling contribution to society.

The award was made to the LRC yesterday at the first ceremony of the 2017 graduations.

Receiving the award on behalf of the LRC, Janet Love, National Director of the LRC in South Africa extended her gratitude for the recognition.

I would like to convey our appreciation to the Council of Wits University for the honour and distinction bestowed upon us through this award, she said.

Anti-apartheid stalwart , Wits alumnus and Chairman of the LRC, Advocate George Bizos, who also attended the ceremony said the recognition and award was befitting.

There have been fundamental changes at Wits University and I think those people who say that nothing has changed had better come to have a look. I am impressed. The Legal Resources Centre was founded by four people in the late 1970s. It became a very important organisation during the apartheid regime. It played a very important role in helping people who could not afford legal representation.

The LRCs contribution to society and its fight for justice for vulnerable people over the past three decades is notable.

It provides free legal services for vulnerable people including those who suffer discrimination by reason of race, class, gender, disability or through historical, social and economic circumstances; and those who stand up against abuse of power and corruption.

During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, the LRC represented several families of victims of apartheid.

It successfully opposed, amongst others, the application for amnesty relating to the torture and death in detention of Steve Biko, the deaths of the Craddock Four, the application brought by Eugene De Kock and the amnesty of the Civil Co-operation Bureau.

In land struggles, the LRCs lawyers played a key role in land legislation drafting and policy formulation processes. The LRC pioneered the first rural land claims as well as the legal and institutional frameworks for community landholding arrangements. For example, the Mfengu and Riemvasmaak cases were initiated before 1994. While Riemvasmaak successfully secured the return of 74 000ha of state land, the Mfengu were the first community in South Africa to have their ownership of 19 white-owned farms in the Tsitsikamma restored.

The LRC continues to be at the forefront of using the law in the pursuit of justice and freedom. One of its major successes is the 11 years of work in litigating against Anglo American on behalf of a group of miners suffering from silicosis. Judgment in the Silicosis Class Action matter was handed down on 13 May 2016 by the High Court certifying classes of mineworkers involving workers from 82 mines, owned by one (or more) of the 30 named respondents. In addition, the High Court declared that any claim that has been made for general damages will be made transmissible to the claimants estate if he dies prior to the finalisation of the case. This decision is a landmark development in the jurisprudence of class action litigation.

The LRC seeks to advance development, equality and dignity, enabling our Constitution to use the law to make our constitutional framework deliver on its promise to all in South Africa. Yes, we provide free legal service to vulnerable people. We do this in a manner that is intended to deliver on the promise. It is intended to ensure that those who suffer discrimination. It is to deliver an alternative to them, says Love.
Glacier Media Inc. operates as an information and marketing solutions company in Canada and the United States. The company operates through three segments: Environmental and Property Information; Commodity Information; and Community Media. It offers environmental risk data and related products to environmental consultants, CRE brokers, financial institutions, and insurance companies; produces digital audit guides and compliance tools for use in environmental health and safety audits; and operates REW.ca, a residential real estate listings and property information marketplace, which provides consumers with key real estate information and insights to make better informed decisions about their home. The company also offers digital media, listings, publications, exhibitions, weather, and commodities marketing subscriptions for the Canadian grower and agricultural industry. In addition, it provides databases, conferences, digital media, and e-learning programs for the mining sector; local news, general community information, and classifieds websites; digital marketing services; specialty products and services; websites and digital marketing services; website design, social media management programmatic advertising solutions, content marketing solutions, and brand videos; and search engine optimization and search engine marketing services. Further, the company licenses community website platform software; and prints newspapers. It serves clients in various sectors, such as agriculture, mining and metals, regional business, real estate, environmental risk, regulatory compliance, community media, and weather. The company was formerly known as Glacier Ventures International Corp. and changed its name to Glacier Media Inc. in July 2008. Glacier Media Inc. was incorporated in 1988 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
General Mills, Inc. manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. The company operates in five segments: North America Retail; Convenience Stores & Foodservice; Europe & Australia; Asia & Latin America; and Pet. It offers ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, refrigerated and frozen dough products, dessert and baking mixes, bakery flour, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, snack bars, fruit and salty snacks, ice cream, nutrition bars, wellness beverages, and savory and grain snacks, as well as various organic products, including frozen and shelf-stable vegetables. It also supplies branded and unbranded food products to the North American foodservice and commercial baking industries; and manufactures and markets pet food products, including dog and cat food. The company markets its products under the Annie's, Betty Crocker, Bisquick, Blue Buffalo, Blue Basics, Blue Freedom, Bugles, Cascadian Farm, Cheerios, Chex, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, EPIC, Fiber One, Food Should Taste Good, Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups, Gardetto's, Go-Gurt, Gold Medal, Golden Grahams, Haagen-Dazs, Helpers, Jus-Rol, Kitano, Kix, Larabar, Latina, Liberte, Lucky Charms, Muir Glen, Nature Valley, Oatmeal Crisp, Old El Paso, Oui, Pillsbury, Progresso, Raisin Nut Bran, Total, Totino's, Trix, Wanchai Ferry, Wheaties, Wilderness, Yoki, and Yoplait trademarks. It sells its products directly, as well as through broker and distribution arrangements to grocery stores, mass merchandisers, membership stores, natural food chains, e-commerce retailers, commercial and noncommercial foodservice distributors and operators, restaurants, convenience stores, and pet specialty stores, as well as drug, dollar, and discount chains. The company operates 466 leased and 392 franchise ice cream parlors. General Mills, Inc. was founded in 1866 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.




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Five Wards Remain Closed at Wrexham Maelor Following Norovirus

This article is old - Published: Friday, Mar 24th, 2017

Five wards at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital remain closed to new admissions following an outbreak of norovirus.

Yesterday Wrexham.com reported that Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board were advising visitors to the Wrexham Maelor Hospital to take extra precautions following the outbreak of norovirus.

An update provided by the health board states that five wards at Wrexham Maelor Hospital remain closed to new admissions and transfers following a number of cases of norovirus over the last week.

33 patients are currently being treated for symptoms of the diarrhoea and vomiting.

Kat Boardman, Senior Nurse in Infection Prevention, said: Norovirus circulates in communities across North Wales throughout the year, but seems to have peaked in the Wrexham area over the last week.

Norovirus can be very unpleasant but it usually clears up by itself in a few days. If you experience sudden diarrhoea and vomiting, the best thing to do is to stay at home until youre feeling better. Try to avoid coming to hospital, as norovirus can spread to others very easily. Call your GP or NHS Direct 0845 46 47 if youre concerned or need any advice.

This is really important for us because although people who are generally healthy will get over a case of norovirus within a few days, for people who are already very ill, the side effects of norovirus can be more serious.

The Health Board is asking the public to support us in preventing spread of infection by not coming to hospital to visit, or for an appointment, if you have had diarrhoea or vomiting in the past 48 hours, or are suffering from a flu-like illness. Please have your flu jab if you have been offered it, as that offers the best protection against flu.

It is vital that that everyone follows the key rules to protect themselves, their families and, especially, our patients.

The rules

 Visitors must not come into any of our hospitals if they have suffered from diarrhoea and/or vomiting in the previous 48 hours.

 Patients who are due to come in but have had either diarrhoea or vomiting in the previous 48 hours are asked to contact us first for advice, and so we can make appropriate arrangements.

 All visitors to our hospitals should follow the advice on the signs and notices at ward entrances and any guidance from nursing or other staff.

 Children should not come visiting to affected wards

 Everyone entering and leaving a ward must use the hand rub or wash their hands.

Advice to the general public

The best way for members of the public to protect themselves is to ensure they wash their hands after visiting the toilet, and before eating, and avoid contact with people suffering from diarrhoea and/or vomiting.

Although norovirus is unpleasant, for most people who are generally healthy it is a short lived illness of two or three days and does not require specialist treatment or a hospital admission.

People with symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting should ensure that they do not become dehydrated by continuing to drink plenty of fluids. They can get advice from their GP practice (people with active symptoms should telephone rather than attending in person to avoid infecting other people) or from NHS Direct on 0845 46 47. Advice is available online from Public Health Wales or by downloading their leaflet.
Flags Fly at Half Mast Over Guildhall as Mark of Respect

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Mar 23rd, 2017

Flags are flying at half mast over the Guildhall today as a mark of respect for those who died in yesterdays terror attack in London.

Four people died yesterday when a lone attacker, armed with knives, mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge.

He then crashed his car into the perimeter fencing of the Houses of Parliament, stabbing 48 year old Metropolitan Police officer Keith Palmer who died at the scene, the attacker was shot dead by armed officers.

As a mark of respect flags at the Guildhall, across north Wales and the UK are being flown at half mast. At 9:33am there was also a nationwide minutes silence to remember those who lost their lives in yesterdays terror attack.

This morning Wrexham Council tweeted to say: Flags to fly at half-mast as mark of respect for Westminster terror attack yesterday. Mayor to send condolences to Mayor of London.

Flags are being flown at half mast across north Wales and the UK as a mark of respect.

The North Wales Police flag flies at half-mast to pay respect to Police Constable Keith Palmer and the other victims of yesterdays attack. pic.twitter.com/RBkXwzqQfA  DCC Gareth Pritchard (@NWPDeputyChief) March 23, 2017

North Wales released a brief statement online this morning, saying: Our thoughts are with all emergency services colleagues who are currently dealing with the incident in #Westminster #London.

Tonight at 6pm a candlelit vigil will take place in Trafalgar Square, with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan inviting all Londoners and visitors to the city to come together in solidarity and remember those who lost their lives
Police Hunt Man  Warn Public Not To Approach As May Possess Weapons

This article is old - Published: Saturday, Mar 25th, 2017

Police have issued the above picture of a man they are searching for, however warn the public not to approach him as he may possess weapons.

Police are searching for Jordan Davidson aged 26 who is linked to the Wrexham area.

Police said: He is wanted in connection with a number of recent burglaries and robbery offences.

There is a request that people ring 101 with sightings only, adding: He is not to be approached as intelligence suggests that he may be in possession of weapons.

Any information call 101 to speak to police.
With great sadness and sense of loss, the World Socialist Web Site reports the death of Beryl Hood, a long-time member of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Australia and its predecessor, the Socialist Labour League (SLL).

Comrade Beryl, 78, was a member of the Trotskyist movement for more than 40 years, having joined the SLL in 1975 at the age of 37. She died of a brain tumour on March 21, just three and a half months after the malignancy was diagnosed. Beryl spent her final weeks in a nursing home at St Marys in western Sydney, the area where she lived and worked tirelessly as a party member for many years.

Beryl is survived by five of her children, now all adultsBrett, Scott, Bronwyn, Julian and Melanieand seven grandchildren. Her eldest son, Peter, died at the age of 41.

Beryl left a deep impression on everyone who knew and worked with her, especially her comrades in the SEP and internationally. Always warm and approachable, she was unwavering in her loyalty and dedication to the Trotskyist movement and its fight for the emancipation of the working class through the world socialist revolution. The party became her lifelong passion; she was honest, forthright, compassionate and generousa fine and steadfast representative of the most advanced layers of the working class.

Internationalism animated every aspect of Beryls political life. She was intensely hostile to all forms of nationalism, especially Australian nationalism, which have always been used to pit workers against each other and divert them from a common struggle against the capitalist profit system.

Born during the Great Depression, Beryl was part of a generation whose parents were inspired by the victory of the working class in the 1917 Russian Revolution, led by Lenin and Trotsky but betrayed by the Stalinist bureaucracys nationalist perspective, which led to the degeneration and eventual liquidation of the Soviet Union.

The youngest of six children, she was born Beryl Maurice on November 29, 1938, less than a year before the outbreak of World War II. That war was to see millions of workers sent off to fight and kill each other, yet again, in the second global imperialist slaughter within a generation.

Her father, a plumber, was either a member or close supporter of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), which had been founded in 1920 in response to the October 1917 Bolshevik-led revolution, but, by the 1930s, had degenerated into a satellite of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union. During World War II, Beryls father was jailed for about six months for opposing conscription, in line with the CPAs initial condemnation of the war, following Stalins notorious 1939 pact with Hitler. Once the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the CPA became an ardent defender of the war.

After the war, Beryl grew up in a household that remained strongly influenced by the CPA. She was 18 when Soviet leader Khrushchev delivered his 1956 secret speech outlining some of the crimes of Stalin, and then ordered in tanks to put down the Hungarian revolution.

By then, Beryl had left school, at the age of 15, trained as a stenographer and begun secretarial work. She later separated from her first husband, Geoff, with whom she had four children. With no money, except for miserly government child endowment payments, she was eventually allocated a house in the then-new public housing estate of Mount Druitt, in Sydneys far west.

There Beryl had two children with her second husband, Rick, who later died of cancer. She was left to raise the six children on her own, facing immense difficulties in an increasingly impoverished neighbourhood, characterised by high levels of unemployment and poverty and myriad social problems.

In mid-1975, in what was to become the turning point in her life, Beryl met members of the SLL. They were doorknocking her area, selling copies of the partys newspaper, Workers News, to workers and their families and discussing Australian and world politics.

The SLL had been founded in 1972 as the Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), reestablishing the fight in the Australian working class for the revolutionary socialist and internationalist program of the world Trotskyist party. This proved extremely attractive to Beryl. She had been hostile to the illusions created among layers of workers and middle class people in the reformist Labor Party government of Gough Whitlam. Ending 23 years of conservative rule, Whitlams government had come to office on a wave of enthusiasm among workers and youth. Beryl, however, always insisted that the Labor Party, far from representing some kind of socialist alternative, was a capitalist party.

Upon joining the SLL, she became an avid reader of the partys press and the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, and an indefatigable campaigner for the partys program in the working class.

Despite the difficulties she encountered in raising her family as a sole parent, she became actively involved in the partys work, selling Workers News outside factories, in shopping centres and on doorknocks, pasting posters for party public meetings and discussing the partys analysis and program with party supporters.

The party played a huge role in her life, her youngest son Julian commented. Bringing up kids in an economically depressed area was very difficult. There were no jobs. It was tough. He went on to observe that if Beryl had not been a party member, she could not have developed into the strong woman she was. The party did more to help her politically and give her a moral grounding in life.

At the same time, Beryl was devoted to her children and did everything she could to assist them. She played a big role in my life, Julian said. She was tough and fiery. She had to be strong because of the life she led. But she was always encouraging me politically.

The 198586 split in the ICFI, which saw the defeat of the national opportunists in the British Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), further strengthened Beryls political understanding of and commitment to the internationalist principles that had attracted her some 10 years before. She played an active role in the fight against the supporters of the WRP leadership inside the SLL, and participated, to the very best of her ability, in the subsequent renaissance of Marxism within the ICFI.

During the 1990s, after working in several part-time jobs for some years, including as a clerical worker, Beryl joined the partys full-time staff, serving on the editorial board and later in the partys print shop. She strongly supported the transformation of the SLL into the SEP in 1996 and, above all, the launching of the World Socialist Web Site in 1998. Beryl read the WSWS every day, and was immensely proud of the breadth and depth of its daily analyses, the ongoing development of new and ever-younger writers, and the sites growing influence and audience.

In 2007, then 68, Beryl stood as an SEP candidate on the partys 15-member slate for the Legislative Council in the New South Wales state election, helping to strengthen the partys fight for the building of a new revolutionary leadership in the working class.

Throughout the party, among both her long-standing comrades and newer members, Beryl was a source of inspiration. She was deeply committed to the principles and program of the party and could always be relied upon to provide frank, honest and objective opinions based on the interests of the working class. Never overwhelmed by the difficulties of her personal situation, she understood adversity in its historical, political and social context and fought to change the world by educating herself and the working class in the fight to end capitalism.

Beryl was extremely proud of her children, and would talk about them often. She was also attentive toward her comrades, especially when they faced illnesses or other personal difficulties. Her youngest daughter, Melanie, said: My mother survived hardship that no one should ever have to. Being in the party gave her purpose. She was very passionate about her politics. She stood up for what she believed in, consistently, and definitely spoke her mind. She was also a very devoted mother and grandmother. She genuinely cared about all the people in her life, in the party and her family.

Comrade Beryl often spoke with pride of having been born in 1938, the year of the founding of the Fourth International. It was an important year, she would say. To the end, she was an intensely political person, even talking to ambulance paramedics, as they were taking her to hospital, about the economic and social crisis confronting workers. She will be deeply missed by all her comrades, as well as her children, grandchildren, other family members and friends.
The following article is being distributed at todays Unite for Europe demonstration in London.

With Prime Minister Theresa May set to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on March 29, warnings as to the impact of Britains exit from the European Union (EU) abound.

May is touring the UK promising to deliver a deal that works for everyone and describing Wednesdays beginning of the two year process of exiting the EU as a historic event [that] will precipitate a shift in our role in the world and see Britain begin a bold new chapter as a prosperous, open and global nation.

But she does so amid demands for a 57 billion divorce settlement from the EU, threats of punishment by the 27 remaining member states, reports of economic dislocation including banks such as Goldman Sachs and HSBC leaving London that in total threatens 230,000 finance jobs, and of a 92 percent fall in EU nationals registering as nurses in England.

The announcement will, moreover, be made under conditions in which the Scottish National Party-led parliament at Holyrood has made an official demand for a second independence referendum and with Sinn Fein in Ireland raising the issue of the continued status of Northern Irelands six counties as British territory.

It is against this background that the Unite for Europe national march to parliament has been organised.

There are clear and valid reasons for the concerns of those who will take part, including repugnance over the governments refusal to guarantee the rights of EU nationals already residing in Britain. In addition, the attacks on such protests that are centred exclusively on the insistence that they are impermissible because they seek to flout the public will, as expressed in last years referendum, have wholly reactionary implications.

Dissent with the result among the 48 percent who voted against Brexit is entirely legitimate and its suppression has nothing to do with a genuine concern for democracy. It merely gives carte blanche to the reactionary pro-Brexit wing of the British ruling class to complete what they describe glowingly as the Thatcher revolution, based on slashing corporation tax and public spending while stepping up the exploitation of the working class to ensure that the UK business can go out of Europe and into the world.

However, neither are those individuals and political tendencies leading the Unite for Europe protest and the broader opposition to Brexit the friends of democracy and progressive values, or the future of the younger generation, as they claim to be. Their sole genuine and overriding concern is that alienating the UK from Europe, above all exclusion from the Single Market, is damaging to the interests of Britains capitalists. Everything else they say, centred as it is on a politically degraded apologia for the EU, is moral effluvia and lies.

That is why, having first opposed efforts to "incite hate and divide communities," etc., the number one demand of Unite for Europes "open conversation where the UK's civil society is consulted and where Parliament or the people have the final say on our future" is: "We want to remain a member of the Single Market."

In the Brexit referendum campaign, the Socialist Equality Party refused to support either a Remain or a Leave vote because neither represented the interest of working people. We called instead for an active boycott and dedicated our efforts above all to explaining the fundamental issues posed for workers, not just in Britain but throughout Europe.

We wrote that the EU is not an instrument for realising the genuine and necessary unification of Europe, but rather a mechanism for the subjugation of the continent to the dictates of the financial markets...

The EU and its constituent governments have spent years imposing a social counterrevolution on Europes workers through unending cuts in jobs, wages and social conditions--in the process impoverishing millions and bankrupting entire countries.

As to associating the EU with free movement, its proper designation is that of Fortress Europe. It is a continent surrounded by razor wire, concrete walls and concentration camps, whose leaders have the blood of thousands of desperate refugeesforced to flee the consequences of wars waged by the US, Britain and Europeon their hands.

It is for this reason that the xenophobia whipped up by Brexit finds its corollary throughout Europe, above all in the rise of fascistic movements such as the National Front in France.

Likewise, the claim of Unite for Europe, whose real leadership is an alliance between the Blairite right of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democratsto be resisting not only hard Brexit but also US President Donald Trumpis equally bogus.

It is essential to distinguish between genuine popular opposition to Trumps nationalism, militarism, racism and misogyny and the use that it is being put to by the pro-Remain forces. They view Trumps presidency and Mays alliance with him as antithetical to the interests of British imperialism for two related reasons:

 His America First doctrine makes Trump an active opponent of the EU, because he sees it as a trade rival dominated by Germany that must be curbed.

 He has expressed reservations over the US commitment to NATO and the focus of the previous Obama administration on stoking up military hostilities with Russia, when China should be Americas main concern.

The response to this among Trumps political opponentsthe Democrats in the US and the European powers led by Berlinis wholly reactionary.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the main charge levelled against Trump is that he is a stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin for opposing NATOs military build-up on Europes borders. In Europe, all talk is of building an independent military capability to project the interests of the major powers on the world arenacombined with efforts to capitalise on US hostilities with Beijing by signing trade deals that make a clash with Washington ever more certain.

To side with the EU against Trump is therefore to tie the working class to an escalating drive towards trade war and militarism that can only mean accelerated austerity and a potentially catastrophic confrontation with Russia.

Brexit, Trump and the ongoing fracturing of the EU along national lines are all rooted in the irreconcilable contradiction of capitalism that twice in the 20th century plunged Europe and the world into warbetween the integrated and global character of production and the division of the world into antagonistic nation states.

Following the Second World War, the European powers, with the support of the US, sought to stabilise the continent and regulate such hitherto disastrous national rivalries through ever-closer economic and political integration.

This project has failed and cannot be revived. Only the unified and independent political mobilisation of the working class against all factions of the bourgeoisie, in Britain, Europe and internationally, offers a way forward.

The task at hand is the struggle for a workers government in Britain and the United Socialist States of Europe within a world federation of socialist states.

An essential foundation for such a movement is the conscious rejection by the most thoughtful elementsabove all by young people attracted to the pro-EU protest due to its support for free movement and declared hostility to xenophobiaof all efforts to divide the working class along pro- and anti-Brexit lines.
Levinson was reportedly on an independent investigation, possibly an unofficial mission to recruit a CIA asset, when he went missing on Kish Island in March 2007. A fellow American, Dawud Salahuddin, reported being briefly detained with Levinson by Iranian authorities, and the countrys state media later acknowledged the incident, although Tehran has subsequently denied any knowledge of Levinsons whereabouts or the circumstances of his disappearance.

The Press TV report that initially boasted of Levinsons detention was one of the pieces of evidence cited in filing the lawsuit around the time of the 10th anniversary of his disappearance. Voice of America News also quoted a lawyer for Levinsons family as saying that Iranian figures with knowledge of the case have leaked information confirming that Levinson remained in Iranian custody for years after the arrest.

Some have speculated that Levinson died while in detention, but his family has seen no evidence to convince them of this conclusion. CNN points out, however, that their lawsuit does point out that Levinson has likely been subject to physical and psychological torture during the intervening 10 years, since these tactics are frequently used in the questioning and punishment of Iranian prisoners, especially political prisoners.

At one point, Iranian authorities attempted to exploit speculation about Levinsons death by claiming to possess information to suggest that he had been taken to Pakistan by non-state actors, and that he had died and been buried at a specified location. But investigations into that location turned up no remains or other evidence of his having been there. If still alive today, Levinson would be 69 years old.

His advocates had been briefly hopeful that Levinson would be released or that his location and condition would be revealed around the time of the implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement in January of last year. That implementation coincided with the release of four other Americans who had been taken prisoner for dubious reasons in recent years, but Levinsons family discovered only after their release that his case had not been resolved along with these others.

The incident led to considerable criticism of the Obama administrations handling of Iranian affairs. VOA News indicates that some of Levinsons advocates continue to believe that he is being kept as a hostage in Iran, to be used as a bargaining chip in hopes of gaining more concessions like those that led to President Obamas successor declaring the nuclear agreement the worst deal ever negotiated.

This highly critical voice has seemingly encouraged Levinsons family and other victims of the Iranian regime to latch onto the administration of President Donald Trump as a source of hope for more assertive action on these sorts of cases. Indeed, VOA News reports that Robert Levinsons son Daniel had met with the administration personally and urged it to constantly annoy Iran until significant information is released.

Meanwhile, CNN quoted Robert Levinsons daughter Stephanie Curry as saying, We are very confident that President Trump has the deal-making skills that are necessary in order to bring him home and to take a stronger stance with Iran and demand his release.

Shortly after the announcement of the lawsuit, to which Iran has given no public response, it was reported that the Trump administration and two congressional committees had announced plans for new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, leaving the nuclear agreement in place but more aggressively targeting the country over its ballistic missile activities and support for international terrorism.
Less than one week after the Spanish government saw its decree attacking the working conditions of the countrys 6,140 dockworkers resoundingly defeated in parliament, the unions and employers are pressing ahead with wage cuts and job losses.

The decree, which would have opened the door to mass redundancies, wage cuts of up to 60 percent, the use of low-paid contract agency workers, and the destruction of safety conditions was defeated by 175 votes to 142 with 33 abstentions.

Its failure was the result of divisions within the ruling class over how best to implement attacks on the working class.

The minority Popular Party (PP)-led government preferred to unilaterally implement a reform without any previous agreements with the unions, the National Association of Stevedoring and Ship Consignment Companies (ANESCO), and the opposition parties. It claimed it was urgently required to abide by a two-year-old resolution of the EU Court of Justice rule demanding Spain liberalise the dockworkers sector or face sanctions.

The social democratic Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidos Podemos (comprising the pseudo-left Podemos and Stalinist United Left) opposed this line, fearing that such measures undermine the unions authority to straitjacket the working class in future workers struggles.

PSOE regional premier Susana Diaz criticized the decree for not seeking consensus and understanding between employers and workers. Unidos Podemos spokesman Felix Alonso made the claim that the PP was not aware of the economic and social repercussions of a solution that has not been agreed upon by the unions and port companies in the long-term, adding that the PPs unilateralism would mean future agreements involving the unions would become a dead letter.

The PP, of course, was aware of the repercussions of its draconian solutionit had the full measure of the PSOE and Unidos-Podemos knowing they would come to its rescue and respond with a slightly less draconian solution. As the World Socialist Web Site warned on February 27, the PSOE and Podemos may try to delay and manoeuvre, in order to better impose attacks on the workers without provoking a major strike against Spains minority PP government, which is very weak and unpopular.

They fear that a major port strike could trigger far broader struggles in the working classending the social peace overseen by the unions, potentially bringing down the PP government and doing irreparable damage to their economic and political interests.

This scenario is now unfolding.

Following a meeting with the employers association and government officials, the State Coordination of Sea Workers union (CETM) announced it is willing to cut wages by 6 percent. Of this, 1 percent is intended to facilitate early retirement and another 5 percent to increase productivity by upgrading infrastructure in the ports. This represents around 25 million euros annually for early retirement, a measure that had already been proposed by the PP government.

The unions, working with ANESCO, aim to convince older dockworkerssome 1,300 are over 50to join early retirement schemes with 70 percent of the wage. The aim is to open the floodgates to precarious contracts condemning new, younger workers to lower wages and worse conditions.

CETM spokesman, Antolin Goya, made it clear the unions commitment to enforcing an unending assault on the jobs, wages and conditions on dockworkers, stating that it was willing to contribute every worker to energize the sector in the face of the governments immobility.

The government has welcomed the proposal and is reviewing it. However, according to daily La Razon, it will present another Royal Decree even if it does not have parliamentary support in the hope that the PSOE reconsiders and does not block the reform.

The treacherous role played by the unions has facilitated a situation where workers have been isolated and their ability to block Spains ports severely weakened.

Ever since it was reluctantly forced to call strike action last month, the CETM sought to prevent the mobilization of the full force of the dockworkers which could have paralyzed the Spanish economy. Instead, they set out to isolate the strugglecalling the strikes on alternate days in each port, refusing to link it with other struggles in Spain and stopping it from becoming a global battle against the privatization of ports and the destruction of dockers jobs and living standards internationally.

Three times the unions called off proposed strike action. That, in turn, provided the International Dockworkers Council (IDC) with the opportunity to cancel their own paltry mobilisations scheduled at selected ports internationally amounting to token actions of between one and three hours, none of which would have had any effect.

IDC General Coordinator Jordi Aragunde duly stated that the defeat of the decree was a step forward, but also a great opportunity given to us by the opposition parliamentary groups. This was not a rallying call for the defence of dockworkers against the attacks of global capitalism and the downward spiral in wages and conditions internationally. Instead, Aragunde called for the unions, government and employers in Spain to come to an agreement on the best conditions for restructuring the Spanish port model and for complying with the ruling of the European Court of Justice.

At the same time Aragunde claimed the defeat of the decree would never have happened without the constant show of support and actions from IDC affiliates around the world, which helped to convince public opinion that the unilateral Royal Decree was reckless, dishonest, and harmful to the interests of the working classinterests which we proudly represent.

The whole fraternity of pseudo-left organisations that orbit around Podemos also stand exposed. Throughout the struggle, they have intervened to support the unions stranglehold over the struggle and prevent any independent mobilization of the dockworkers. They proclaimed the defeat of the decree a great victory.

Izquierda Revolucionaria, the Spanish section of the Committee for a Workers International, described it as a first triumph. Clase contra Clase, the Spanish section of the Trotskyist FractionFourth International, declared that the sole threat of a strike was enough to force the PSOE and Unidos-Podemos to vote against the decree. One of the most concentrated, unionized and coordinated sectors of the labour movement has shown muscle and this time it has been enough to prevent several parties of the Regime from voting with state responsibility that has characterized them at other times, it added.

No sooner has the ink dried on these articles than the CETM announced its proposals for wage cuts and job losses.

Like the PSOE and Podemos, the main concern of the pseudo-left is that the unions, in which they play an integral part and constitute the bulk of its well-paid leadership, will lose their authority under conditions in which the ruling class relies all the more on the trade unions role of policing workers.

The lessons of the dockworkers dispute, which has still to say its final word, sharply poses the need for workers to establish new forms of organisation independent of the unions and a new leadership in the struggle against the pseudo-left and the interests of the privileged middle class layers for which they speak.
Several residents of Flint, Michigan are facing imminent water shutoffs in the leading edge of the citys offensive to force residents to resume paying their water bills. Flint has been in the news worldwide since it was revealed in September of 2016 that its water was poisoned by high levels of lead. The catastrophe was the outcome of a series of decisions made by the state leading to the disconnection of the city from the Detroit water system and a switch to water drawn from the polluted Flint River, without proper treatment.

On Monday, Flint scheduled the shutoff of water to two apartment complexes, Orchard Lane Manor and Lakeside apartments, with, as described by the city, accounts drastically past due. This would have affected 18 residents who the city claims have not made water payments for at least five months. Subsequently, Orchard Lane Manor made a $9,000 payment on its $65,000 balance, to avert the shutoff, leaving Lakeside, with an out-of-state landlord owing some $50,000, targeted for shutoff.

In a press release issued Monday, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver stated, Unfortunately, we have several apartment owners who have not stepped up and instead ignored their responsibility to their tenants and our community. They are not allowed months and months of leniency on electric bills, and we cannot allow them to take advantage of the City of Flint.

This is largely a test case by Weaver and city officials, since only three of the 42 units at Lakeside are occupied. The announcement by the city of the resumption of shutoffs last month has provoked anger from residents who have suspected that the announcement by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January of improved lead levels in Flint would be used by authorities to sweep the water crisis under the carpet and get back to business as usual.

On February 7, Michigan Governor Rick Snyders right-hand man, Richard Baird, officially informed the City of Flint that the 65 percent subsidy to residents water bills would be ending at the end of that month. Weaver very publicly insisted on a meeting with Snyder, after which she professed to disagree with the states decision. At a press conference afterward, she said, He stated that Flints water now meets the same quality standards as other communities in Michigan and meets the federal quality standards and in his opinion the water is good. And I told him that I disagree.

Although the EPA reported lead levels have gone below its official action level, residents are warned by health officials not to drink the water without the use of approved filters.

A resident of Lakeside, David Martinez, is waiting for the landlord to make a payment on the water bill to resolve the shutoff threat, at least temporarily. He moved in with his wife and two children on February 1, and is already using a gas stove to keep his home warm. He told the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, Im crossing my fingers and hoping. Were not animals. We are a family.

Weaver and her administration are well aware of principled refusal among residents to pay for poison. Yet, Weaver is trying to play both sides; on the one hand, claiming sympathy for the residents and sharing their anger, while on the other, implementing the shutoff plan to keep water revenuesroughly $20 million a yearcoming in.

Flint resident Florlisa Fowler messaged this reporter on her feelings about fighting the shutoffs. I know Melissas group [Melissa Mays of Water You Fighting For] and I believe Flint Rising is advocating not to pay their bill. We on the other hand have not done so due to the fact that many of us are homeownersthe city would just tack it onto our property tax, then charge more fees. Then if it wasnt paid, they would take our homes and put them in the citys land bank. We have had this issue before, and it has been dubbed by the homeowners as the Land Grab.

Snyder has continued to weather the political storm caused by the criminal decisions and lies of his own agencies, claiming ignorance of the water crisis in Flint until October 2015a highly implausible scenario. His own appointees in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ)the body responsible for protecting water safetyconducted a systematic campaign of deceit from April of 2014 onward against any suggestion by residents or water experts that there was something wrong with the Flint River water.

After the exposure of the poisoning of Flints water, Snyders strategy has been to appoint panels and investigative bodies that have so far only indicted lower level officials while shielding those at the top. His civil rights panel has spent over a year producing a report covering up for the real class interests behind the crime against Flint and reducing the root of the water crisis against the mixed-race city to systemic racism.

A year ago, as the public was calling for his recall and incarceration, Snyder unveiled a 75-point plan to address the damage done to Flint. The following month, he announced tougher regulations for the MDEQ than the federal EPA for lead in water, by lowering the action threshold from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb, to be implemented by 2020.

This is already being exposed as a farce. Water experts and doctors acknowledge that there is no safe level of exposure to lead and that the EPAs 15-ppb action level is ludicrously outdated. Lowering it to 10 ppb amounts to little more than a grandstanding ploy.

Across Michigan, as lead testing results are being publicized, it has been revealed that the tap water of hundreds of thousands of residents is above Snyders new action threshold. Yet, there is nothing in place to deal with this crisis. The Detroit News published an article on Monday reporting that more than three-dozen Michigan public water systems, serving almost 380,000 residents, have test results exceeding Snyders threshold for lead.

One of the systems serves Monroe, a small city south of Detroit, where Water Department Director Barry LaRoy told the News that Snyders directive could be just an unfunded mandate.
Workers at information technology conglomerate Fujitsu struck across various sites in the UK, Friday, in a 24-hour stoppage. They are protesting plans by the company to impose up to 1,800 redundancies and attacks on pension rights. Strikers are demanding that Fujitsu pays them a living wage.

Fujitsu employs around 14,000 in the UK, with up to 15 percent of the UK workforce threatened by the companys latest restructuring. Jobs are going at Fujitsu operations in other European countries, including 400 jobs in Finland. Between 400 and 500 jobs are set to go in Germany, among Fujitsus 12,000 employees there. Those laid off will mainly be among information technology system and development services employees.

The strike was called by the Unite union, with pickets set up at Fujitsu headquarters in London and at sites in Manchester, Birmingham, Wakefield, Edinburgh and other towns and cities.

In Manchester, around 30 workers picketed Fujitsus main UK plant on Northampton Road. World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to pickets and distributed the WSWS article Fujitsu UK workers strike to protest job losses, attacks on pay and pensions. Reporters told pickets about the case of the 13 framed-up Maruti Suzuki workers in India, who have been sentenced to life in prison, and handed out copies of the International Committee of the Fourth International statement calling for their immediate release.

One of the pickets, Michael, explained, I am striking because weve got to make a stand. We have already lost a lot of staff, and six or seven people have already left because of the looming redundancies.

When reporters explained that Fujitsu had operations all over the globe, employing over 150,000 and that what was required was a European and global offensive to unite all workers against job losses, he said, Were making it national, maybe global is the next step.

Another worker, Jack, who has worked at Fujitsu for 15 years said, There comes a time when you have to look beyond your own circumstances and fight for the greater good.

Jack said some of his work colleagues are being placed in really difficult situations, while others depending on pensions are being fleeced.

He thought corporate greed was at the root of the dispute. Productivity was constantly being increased: The whole task is becoming automated, and one person is doing three peoples jobs. Im not shying away from hard work, but people have enough on their plate.

When asked what he thought about the fact that Unite were accepting compulsory redundancies and negotiating for voluntary redundancies instead, he said the company was going to get rid of people regardless.

Jack said of the need for a fightback based on uniting Fujitsu workers globally, In theory it sounds like a great idea. Change has got to happen at some point. I just dont know how youd get the ball rolling.

When reporters explained that the WSWS had mounted a campaign in defence of the Maruti Suzuki workers, Jack responded, Ill definitely sign the petition in support. Theyre trying to stop someones voice being heard, just fighting for basic things.

Michael has worked at Fujitsu for 30 years and said he had been a union rep for 20 years. He echoed the position of Unite, saying, What is achievable is to mitigate the redundancies. Unite had devised a scheme whereby someone who wants to leave can match up with someone who has received a compulsory redundancy notice. Unite had e-mailed thousands of staff about this, but the company would not accept their proposal.

While supportive of Unite, Michael said that only striking at plants in Britain against a global corporation was fighting with one hand tied behind your back. He added, The union are a little too friendly with the employersbut theyve got to be pragmatic. They have made concessions to employers.

Several Unite representatives mounted a picket line at the Fujitsus headquarters in Baker Street, London. Matt Whaley is a Fujitsu Service worker and the Deputy Chair of Fujitsus Shop Stewards Combine Committee. Asked what the main issues were in the strike Whaley said, As you mention in your article there are the job cuts in the UK. Theres 1,800 jobs expected to be lost initially. The company have since made an announcement of other cuts to other teams.

Another issue in the dispute was that of union recognition, said Whaley. He explained, Unite only has recognition in Manchester and couple of other small pockets in the company and we are trying to get national recognition for the whole UK for everybody that wants it, in particular after the company terminated the works council [Fujitsu Voice]. We used to have a majority of seats on the works council.

Of the Maruti Suzuki workers, Whaley said, I wasnt aware of this particular story but yes, I support them absolutely. And I am sure my colleagues will as well.

He continued, Ive been involved with Amicus [one of the unions which merged to form Unite] and now Unite for a number of years, and Ive heard a lot of shocking stories of multinational companies in India. They start up new companies for their global delivery quite regularly and the benefit of doing that is clearly that if you start up a new company in India, you are exempt from employment law for a period of time, so you can literally get away with doing whatever you want and then just start another company up.

I believe that new companies are also tax exempt for a period of time as well so these employers are not giving any social benefit to the community, to the local people. They just exploit workers with low wages and no benefits.

At Fujitsus site in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, a Unite representative attempted to prevent WSWS reporters from speaking to those on the picket line.

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Fujitsu UK workers strike to protest job losses, attacks on pay and pensions

[24 March 2017]
Border Patrol officers arrested an extended family of mixed citizenship status Thursday, March 23 in Geneseo, New York. The family was on their way to church when a Geneseo Police Department (GPD) officer pulled them over for a traffic violation on the campus of the State University of New York College at Geneseo (SUNY Geneseo). Much of the evenings proceedings were captured on video.

According to the Rochester-based Democrat & Chronicle, the minivan contained two adults, both sisters from Guatemala, and six children. Reports indicate that five of the children are US citizens, including an infant born in the United States in January.

Although the Village of Geneseo does not require that their officers call Border Patrol if they suspect an immigration violation, the officer who initiated the traffic stop did so, supposedly to confirm the identity of the person driving, according to Geneseo Police Chief Eric Osganian, after the driver could not produce a valid drivers license.

New York state does not permit undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, although twelve states do, including California and Vermont.

Mary Rutigliano, a village trustee and SUNY Geneseo student, confirmed to the World Socialist Web Site that GPD officers are not required to call immigration authorities. The village does not have a specific policy against it, but ICE is a federal obligation, the village does not have an obligation to complete their work for them, or even start it for that matter.

Over the course of the three-hour traffic stop, a crowd of approximately 100 people gathered despite sub-freezing temperatures, overwhelmingly opposed to the anti-democratic proceedings. WSWS reporters heard the word outrage used by many people in the crowd, which included students and Geneseo residents.

A person familiar with the farmworker family said that they were well regarded by their coworkers. They have never been in trouble and have been in the area for four years.

The proceedings Thursday night were Kafkaesque. WSWS reporters observed that the officer who called Border Patrol refused to give his name, noting that it was on his vest, but refused to allow people to get close enough to read it.

The Border Patrol officer who had kept a two-month-old infant from their mother for hours during the roadside detention cynically told the assembled crowd that the family would be taken care of and that they would not be split up, but refused to say where the family would be taken. The family requested that the US citizen children be released to the care of a family friend, but Border Patrol took the entire family to be processed in Rochester anyway.

Protesters chanted in English and Spanish, including Estamos con ustedes (We are with you), expressing support for the family during the hours they were forced to remain in an unheated vehicle awaiting transport by CBP officers.

After the family was taken to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office in Irondequoit, New York, a suburb of Rochester, approximately 75 people gathered to protest the detention. Border Patrol is the mobile law enforcement arm of CBP, which, along with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), operates under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security.

The protest was peaceful for several hours, with chants demanding that the family be let free. Protesters noted the irony of law enforcement using crime scene tape to cordon off the CBP office, as it was Border Patrol that had committed the crime of kidnapping US citizen children for several hours. As the protest wound down there was a brief confrontation and police arrested two protesters.

The CBP office was the site of a protest earlier this month against the detention of Jose Coyote Perez, an immigrant dairy worker and activist who works in the Geneseo area.

Late Thursday night the US citizen children were released to family friends, and the adults have since been released pending further immigration proceedings.

Immigration agents have been emboldened by President Donald Trumps xenophobic executive orders; enforcement guidelines from the Obama administration, including the limited protections for children brought to the US at a very young age, are a dead letter. At the same time, the Trump administration is putting pressure on municipalities and local law enforcement agencies to assist federal agents in their brutal anti-immigrant crackdown.

Jennifer Guzman, a faculty member at SUNY Geneseo, noted that it was unnecessary for police to call the Border Patrol on Thursday: Sometimes when the police pull over someone without a drivers license then they'll just make sure the person doesn't continue driving, they'll get someone a safe driver to get them home and they'll impound the car, so I was hoping that I'll get here and find that situation, but the Border Patrol was already here.

This is a dairy farm working family. This is a family where the dads all work on a local dairy here. They're members of the community; the dads have been working here in the local area for years.

"I think that this is a travesty, and this is a violation of people's civil liberty. There's absolutely no reason why Border Patrol, ICE needs to be called for traffic situations, Guzman continued. The police are here to protect our community and taking away our neighbors is not a form of protection.

"I feel that these are contributing members to our community and legal status is a political issue and there has not been a thorough review of our immigration policies in years and so we continue to have workers who make contributions to our society and economy and they are not granted the right of legal status.

Caroline, a SUNY Geneseo student, told the WSWS that she is teaching migrant workers English. When asked if she thought workers have the right to live where they choose, she said: "I think that migrant workers and immigrants whether legal or not legal benefit our country a lot more than most people like to believe. They lower the rates of our produce and do a lot of jobs most people don't want to do and I think they should be respected and treated well."

Metro Justice and the Worker Justice Center of New York had already planned a protest Friday evening at the Federal Building in Rochester, where over 200 people opposed the recent arrest of immigrant farmworkers in Albion, New York as well as the previous evenings detention of the extended family.

These protests and other protests nationally express popular hostility to the Trump administrations xenophobic measures. Despite negative portrayals of immigrant workers by politicians and the media, a recent CNN poll showed that the vast majority of Americans, some 90 percent, support a path to citizenship for many immigrant workers who have lived in the US for a number of years.

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[20 March 2017]
In another sign of continuing high regional tensions, the Chinese military issued a warning on Wednesday to a US strategic B-1B bomber flying over the East China Sea. The bomber was one of two B-1Bs deployed from Guam to take part in massive joint military exercisesFoal Eagle and Key Resolveunderway in South Korea.

US Pacific Air Forces spokesman Major Phil Ventura told CNN the bomber entered an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) proclaimed by Beijing in 2013 but not recognised by the US and its allies. Ventura claimed that Chinese officials told the B-1 pilots the plane was operating illegally in Chinese airspace and ordered it to leave. The pilots responded by saying they were conducting routine operations in international airspace and did not deviate.

While described as routine by US officials, the presence of an American strategic bomber off the Chinese mainland is an obvious cause for concern to the Chinese military. According to CNN, the aircraft was flying about 130 kilometres southwest of South Koreas Jeju Island, which is approximately 500 kilometres from Shanghai.

The B1-B was designed as a nuclear strategic bomber but, as of 1995, is no longer equipped to carry nuclear weapons, according to the US military. It is, however, a long-range, super-sonic bomber capable of carrying a huge payload of 34 tonnes of bombs, precision-guided munitions, missiles or naval mines. The B1-B is an integral component of the Pentagons AirSea Battle strategy for war with China that envisages massive air and missile attacks on the Chinese military and communications.

South Koreas Yonhap news agency reported that two B1-Bs flew in formation with South Korean fighter jets and took part in simulated bombing missions at the Kunsan Air Base. A South Korean official told the media the deployment was of great significance and the joint operations improved interoperability of US-South Korean fighting power. The bomber also participated in joint training with the Japanese air force.

The deployment took place amid a tense standoff on the Korean Peninsula as more than 320,000 South Korea and American military personnel continued two months of war games that are a thinly-disguised rehearsal for conflict with North Korea. Since 2015, US and South Korean forces have adopted a new strategy for fighting war against North Korea, known as OPLAN 5015. It includes pre-emptive attacks on the norths nuclear, military and industrial facilities and decapitation raids to kill its leadership.

Newsweek reported that US and South Korean soldiers this week staged a two-day exercise to simulate an attack on a North Korean chemical weapons laboratory. The Warrior Strike 6 drill involved the insertion of infantry and armoured units via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters to storm an imitation village.

The Foal Eagle war games also involve the US aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, and other naval warships. The anti-ballistic missile destroyer, the USS Stethem, arrived in South Korea last week and today is due to become the first American warship to dock in South Koreas newly-constructed civilian-military complex on Jeju Island. While built by South Korea, the complex is part of the Pentagons restructuring of its basing arrangements in Asia in preparation for war with China.

The annual joint military exercises have always provoked opposition from North Korea, which has responded this year with a series of ballistic missile tests. The Trump administration, which is currently engaged in a review of US strategy toward North Korea, has seized on the missile launches to justify the US military build-up in Asia, including the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea, and to make menacing threats toward Pyongyang.

During his trip to Asia last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared in South Korea that all options were on the table to counter North Koreas nuclear and missile programs. The American media has reported that pre-emptive military strikes on North Korea, as well as regime-change, were among the options being considered. While in Beijing, Tillerson undoubtedly used these threats to try to bully the Chinese government into taking tougher measures against North Korea, its neighbour and ally.

US and South Korean officials are speculating that North Korea could be on the brink of a sixth nuclear test. Two unnamed US officials told CNN yesterday that specific intelligence indicators based on satellite imagery show Pyongyang is ready to carry out another test at its Punggye-ri underground test site. Weeks of extensive surface activity, involving vehicles, personnel and equipment, have stopped.

The North Korean nuclear program, which has been accompanied by spine-chilling threats against the US and its allies, will do nothing to defend the North Korean people. Instead, it sows divisions in the international working class. Another nuclear test would play straight into the hands of the Trump administration and feed the clamour in Washington for reckless and provocative US action against Pyongyang.

Last week, Tillerson said Trump would not continue the Obama administrations policy of strategic patiencethat is, the imposition of tougher and tougher sanctions, accompanied by a refusal to talk to Pyongyang unless it ended its nuclear and missile programs. The US secretary of state also ruled out negotiations with North Korea, leading to the conclusion that Trump and his cabinet of generals, billionaires and fascists are contemplating actions that could lead to war on the Korean peninsula.

The death toll in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 was in the millions. One estimate put the number of South Korean soldiers and civilians killed or missing at 1.2 million and for North Korea at 1.1 million. In addition, China suffered 600,000 soldiers killed or missing and the United States 36,000.

The Pentagon is now preparing for a war, with far more devastating weapons, that would likely draw in other major powers. CNN reported: Privately, US commanders have said any pre-emptive strikes by the US would likely result in a North Korean attack on Seoul, leading to disastrous consequences. Yet that is exactly what US and South Korean forces are currently rehearsingincluding with the deployment of B1-B bombers.
Asia

Burmese food factory workers on strike

More than 1,000 workers from the Ever Sunny Foods factory in Yangon regions Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone (2) walked out on strike on Monday over various demands. The strike erupted after management announced that it was cutting the Myanmar New Year holidays to just five days. Workers told the media that management had persuaded them to work every day, including on weekends for the past month without being paid double wages, on the promise that the factory would close for 15 days during Myanmar New Year, which falls in April.

One worker said that the strikers wanted their rights as prescribed in official labour laws. We have to work for every Sunday. We are not allowed to take any leave. If we are absent, they cut our wages, he said.

The workers want paid leave, social welfare cards and to be allowed to form a union and that these conditions be written into a work contract. They have also complained about inadequate toilet facilities at the factory  there are only 10 toilets for the more than 2,000-strong workforce  and that the dining room was not large enough.

Meanwhile, some 500 workers at Running Tex, a Chinese-owned garment factory in Hlaing Tharyars Ngwe Pin Lae industrial zone protested last week to demand the full 10-day New Year holiday and other labour rights.

India: Assam petroleum tanker drivers end strike

Drivers and assistants for about 4,900 petroleum tankers operating out of depots and refineries of IOC, BPCL and HPCL in Assam ended an indefinite strike on Wednesday, two days after the walkout began on Monday. The workers were demanding the mandated minimum wage and other state entitlements. The strike had the potential to stop all energy supplies to Assam and neighbouring states within days if it had continued.

After two days of meetings between representatives of the Assam Petroleum Mazdoor Union (APMU), transporters, oil companies and the government, the transporters agreed to pay the minimum wage rates stated in their contract with the oil companies. Other demands, such as the provision of a provident fund, insurance facilities and registration under the employee state insurance scheme, have only been accepted in-principle.

The APMU has said that the transporters have until April 10 to implement the minimum wage (450.62 rupees per day [$US6.88] for drivers and 309 rupees for assistants) or further industrial action would be taken.

Karnataka rural health workers on strike

Around 10,000 anganwadi (rural health) workers are maintaining their demonstration at Freedom Park in Bengaluru to demand wage increases. Anganwadi teachers and helpers from 25 districts of Karnataka have been sleeping overnight in the park and along Sheshadri Road since Monday.

The Karnataka State Anganwadi Workers Association said it wants the government to increase the monthly wage of anganwadi workers from 6,000 to 10,000 rupees ($153) and that of helpers from 3,000 to 7,500 rupees. Protesters rejected a promise from the labour minister on Wednesday that the government would call a meeting on April 19 to resolve the issue. One protester said that workers were tired of false promises, adding, This is a crisis and we are not budging.

Tamil Nadu Hyundai auto workers strike

Over 300 workers at the Hyundai Motors plant in Sriperumbudur began a sit-in demonstration on Monday to protest managements decision to deny two workers entry to the factory. According to the Hyundai Motors India Employees Union, the company suspended the two workers for instigating a strike in 2012. The protesters said that the company had reneged on a promise to present any move to suspend the workers to the Joint Labour Commissioner before enforcing it.

Pakistan: Punjab municipal workers protest

Municipal workers in the city of Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab province demonstrated on Monday over the non-payment of salaries. The workers, mainly sweepers and water supply staff, said they had not received wages for four months and will resign if they are not paid soon.

In line with International Monetary Fund demands, the Pakistan government has slashed spending, forcing many institutions, especially at local government level, to delay wage payments.

Hyderabad water workers demand wages

Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) workers in Hyderabad have been holding daily protests and rallies since March 19 to demand payment of up to six months wages. The Hyderabad Development Authority Employees Union has threatened that if the authority did not distribute wages within 15 days the water supply and sewerage systems of all three subdivisions of Hyderabad would be shut down.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa university employees on strike

About 130 employees in pay scales 7 to 17 at the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, boycotted duties for an indefinite period on March 12 to demand job permanency. The strike has severely affected university administration, including registrations, tests and hostel operations. The workers have also accused the university authorities of corruption in recruitment and other activities.

The All Employees Association has warned that if its demands are not met the strike would be expanded. University authorities, however, have ignored workers demands and called in police to intimidate the protesters.

Australia and the Pacific

Western Australian building workers remain on strike

Asbestos removalist workers employed by building subcontractor Cape have been on strike for over three weeks following a take-it or leave-it pay deal from the company.

According to the workers, Capes contract with aluminium producer Alcoa-Australia has expired, and the subcontractor is to trying to impose a new enterprise agreement. Cape has told the experienced and highly skilled workers that they have to accept a 25 percent pay cut so that it can tender for a new contract with Alcoa.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, which recently imposed wage cuts on Maryvale paper workers in Victoria, has reduced the workers original log of claims. It has told Cape that the workers were prepared to accept a 12-month pay freeze.

Victorian insulation manufacturing workers on strike

Around 90 workers at Fletcher Insulation in Dandenong, Victoria have been on strike for more than a month after being offered an enterprise agreement that slashes working conditions and imposes a four-year pay freeze. The Australian Workers Union (AWU) has told the media that Fletcher Insulation wants to increase working hoursthe current glass industry standard is 35 hours a weekand remove minimum manning levels from the agreement.

Workers are also concerned that Fletcher, which took over ACI Glass several years ago, wants unlimited use of casual workers and to reduce existing redundancy provisions. New Zealand-based Fletcher is part of the multi-national building products supplier Fletcher Building Group with 20,000 employees around the world.

Parmalat lifts lockout after union deal

Over 60 maintenance workers at the Parmalat dairy processing plant at Echuca in northern Victoria returned to work on Tuesday after accepting a union-negotiated pay deal with management. The maintenance workers are members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and Electrical Trades Union (ETU). They were locked out on January 18, the same day they planned to hold a four-hour strike over Parmalats proposed new enterprise agreement.

Negotiations for a new work agreement began last August. Parmalats offer of a 9 percent pay rise over three years for permanent workers in exchange for major cuts in the hourly pay of all new employees was rejected by workers. The unions said that Parmalat wanted to reduce new employees wages by $8 an hour or 20 to 30 percent less than the existing hourly rate. Production workers are paid around $30 an hour.

Under the unions return-to-work deal, employees will receive annual two-percent pay increases over three years, production workers will be direct employees of Parmalat and current arrangements and protections for Parmalat metal and electrical trades employees will be maintained.

New Zealand disability support workers vote on strike action

Over 3,000 disability support workers across New Zealand have begun voting on possible strike action in a dispute over pay and conditions. Members of the E Tu employed by IDEA Services, which is funded by the government through the organisation Intellectually Handicapped Children's Association, will vote at 80 different stop-work meetings, with the ballot closing on March 31.

The vote follows five months of negotiations for a pay increase for administration and support workers. The union claims that these employees are only paid a maximum of $18 an hour, which is less than the official Living Wage. The E Tu said IDEA has made no pay offer, has ignored critical health and safety issues around current staffing levels and not agreed to job protection.
The campaign by the International Committee of the Fourth International to defend the framed-up Maruti Suzuki workers in India is winning support from autoworkers in North America.

On March 18, the Gurgaon district court in the northern Indian state of Haryana sentenced 13 Maruti Suzuki workers to life imprisonment on bogus murder charges and handed down heavy prison sentences against 18 other workers on lesser charges.

The case against the Maruti Suzuki workers has been concocted by the multinational auto company, working in tandem with state officials to make an example of these workers. Their only crime was fighting against the brutal conditions at Indias largest car manufacturer. The ICFI, which has launched an online petition, has called upon workers and youth throughout the world to fight for their release.

World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to autoworkers in the Detroit area as well as to workers in Ontario, Canada about the significance of the defense campaign for the interests of the working class as a whole.

A Socialist Equality Party campaign team spoke to autoworkers Friday at the Fiat Chrysler Warren Truck Assembly Plant north of Detroit. They distributed copies of the most recent WSWS Autoworker Newsletterwith a statement on the Maruti Suzuki case.

A young worker told the WSWS she was horrified by the facts that she had just heard about the Maruti Suzuki frame-up. They dont want us to know anything about this. It seems like the union has flipped over to management.

Another young worker stopped to speak to the WSWS. He said, Everyone wants the same thing, but we are strong when we are united. They are always telling us they are going to send our work overseas, so I can see that international unity is important. No one should be forced to work in an unsafe environment 

The worker said he appreciated the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter for keeping workers informed about the case and other important issues. It definitely lets us know what is happening. They dont let us know anything in there, he said pointing to the factory, besides what they want us to know.

Several workers noted the complete silence by the media as well as the United Auto Workers on the Marui Suzuki case. They dont want us to know anything about this, one worker said. They dont want us to read and know the truth.

Jenny, a former temporary worker at General Motors Indianapolis Stamping Plant, also spoke in support of the Maruti Suzuki workers. In 2010, the workers at her plant fought against wage cuts imposed by the company with the collaboration of the United Auto Workers. The workers won support all over the world for their fight.

Arresting these workers and giving them life sentences, all that is is a fear campaign to make them silent. The Maruti Suzuki workers are fighting for what they deserve.

The government in India wanted to kill the workers at first, for standing up for whats right. That is terrifying. What they are fighting makes what we faced in Indianapolis look like a cakewalk. We stood up against GM and the UAW that wanted us to take a 50 percent pay cut. They shut our plant. We had to move to another state to get work.

It doesnt matter if you are American or Indianpeople have to put that aside. We are all fighting for a decent living, to stop breaking our backs for the companies and to get what we deserve to live. The bigger companies use scare tactics to keep people down.

Were told workers in other countries are taking away our jobs. No, they are trying to live. They have babies to feed and bills to pay. Its not about Made in India or Made in America. The companies and unions tell us to shut up and be glad you have a job. Thats what the UAW told us in Indianapolis. No, were not going to be glad. We want a decent life too.

It will take a global effort by the working class. Everyone in every country should go out on strike for one day all over the world and everything would collapse. They would realize it is the workers who are making them rich.

Tiffany, a young Fiat Chrysler worker in Detroit, said, I signed the petition and read about this. I was shocked. There were so many people willing to take a stand, striking and standing up.

Its incredible that 13 workers were given life sentences. Theyre using the workers as scapegoats. There is no proof that they killed anyone. Its not surprising that the US government backs the Indian government because they want to do the same thing to us here.

The jailed workers are hopeful and not giving up. That says a lot about their character. They were sentenced to life for standing up. If the Indian government thinks nobody knows about this case, then they will try to get away with it. We have to share their story. I didnt have any idea about it until I read it in the World Socialist Web Site. We have to bring awareness of this case to other workers.

American autoworkers should stand with them. That could just as easily be us. Theyre there and we are here, but theres no difference. Their struggle is our struggle. They all stood up, they did not waver and they fought for what they believed in.

American workers can learn a lot from them. We take a stance for a while, like when we rejected the contract in 2015, but when we get threatened and things taken away, we give in. The workers in India are not doing that. Thats the kind of conviction we need. We need to stand up like them. You have to fight to the bitter end. The governments and the unions count on wearing you down, but they are not wearing down the Indian workers.

I read that a temporary worker makes $214 a month, half of what a full-time worker makes. That is horrible. They are billion-dollar corporations, and they dont give us what we deserveand were not supposed to stand up for our rights?

Sue, a worker at the General Motors assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, also spoke in support of the Maruti Suzuki workers. The Ingersoll factory was opened in 1989 as a joint venture between Suzuki and GM. Located southwest of Toronto, it was originally operated under the name Canadian Automotive Manufacturing, Inc. (CAMI). GM took full control of the plant in 2009 when Suzuki withdrew, and it expanded the plant in 2016 after it received a half a billion dollars in government tax breaks and other incentives.

Its my pleasure to speak up against the corporation. Suzuki used to have joint ownership of this plant with GM. We read the article about the Maruti Suzuki workers and sent the link to some friends in our industry who had also seen it shared on social media. We plan to print it and distribute it around the plant.

Just this week GM unjustly fired some of the temporary part-time workers [TPTs]. Our management team has made standardized work impossible, yet they discipline and/or terminate workers based on their [managerial] failures.

It is a sad reality when workers are attacked by the corporation, our own unions and the media as lazy, greedy autoworkers. The laborers ethics and morals are the focus of questioning and scrutiny while they turn a blind eye toward the blatantly unethical, and immoral operations by these same corporations in other countries where they exploit workers.

Bruce, a retired autoworker at the General Motor Delta Township plant near Lansing, Michigan said, We should be outraged by what is happening in India. We have the same interests as these workers.

The courts are following the corporate line in the face of little evidence. I cant believe they wanted the death sentence. They want to go ahead and apply this case as a rubber stamp around the world.

There has to be some sort of discrimination going on. The judge even admitted they were having problems with the evidence. It reminds me a little of the situation in Flint in 1937 when they brought in the National Guard. They set up machine guns on top of the hill and goons were trying to intimidate workers.

You wont see anything about this case on any American media outside of the World Socialist Web Site. The American worker has been told forever that we dont have classes, that there is upward mobility. It takes a realization that we have the same interests as workers in Japan, in Korea and everywhere.
On Wednesday, American filmmaker Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9 / 11, Bowling for Columbine, Roger & Me) called on the Democratic Party to declare a National Emergency in response to Donald Trumps being investigated for espionage. Moore was referring to the announcement Monday by FBI Director James B. Comey that the agency was investigating whether Trumps campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Moore has enthusiastically adopted the reactionary and diversionary anti-Russian campaign as his own. The documentary makeralong with the rest of the Democratic Party and its hangers-on, including the various late-night talk show hostsrefuses in large measure to oppose Trump for his militarism, persecution of immigrants, right-wing social policies and attacks on the working class, but instead lambastes the new president for his supposed collusion and obedience to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin [one of Moores recent tweets].

By a national emergency, Moore explained Wednesday in his Instagram message, he meant an effort by the Democrats to paralyze the US government. He urged the partys leadership in both houses of Congress to bring a halt to all business being done in the name of this potential felony suspect, Donald J. Trump. No bill he supports, no Supreme Court nominee he has named, can be decided while he is under a criminal investigation. His presidency has no legitimacy until the FBIand an independent investigative committeediscovers the truth. Fellow citizens, demand the Democrats cease all business.

Moore made his demagogic appeal to the Democrats and the FBI on the same day that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, as the WSWS has noted, floated the proposal for a palace coup against Trump. Friedman addressed an open letter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, implying that they should remove Trump from office and install a military-CIA junta in the US.

But Moore did not need to take a lead from Friedman. He has been arguing along these same general lines for some time, along with talk show hosts Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert, among others. Comic Rosie ODonnell, a week before the inauguration, urged President Barack Obama in a tweet to impose MARTIAL LAWDELAYING THE INAUGURATIONUNTIL TRUMP IS CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES [of involvement in the Russian hacking scandal].

In any event, Moore has reached the point where his politics and actions are entirely without principle. It is difficult to determine at times whether he fully believes some of the stupid and reckless things he says. Everything is subordinated to the need to confuse and disorient the mass opposition to Trump and channel it in a reactionary direction, thus preserving the two-party system.

It should be recalled that Moore spent the first part of 2016 firmly backing the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He denounced Sanders opponent, Hillary Clinton, for opposing reform of the financial system, an increase in the minimum wage and a free health care system. He taunted Clinton as the candidate of Goldman Sachs, a hawk and supporter of violence against the poor. He asked rhetorically, Can anyone with a conscience vote for someone who led us on to war in Iraq?

When Sanders dropped out of the race and threw his support to Clinton, Moore turned on a dime and did the same. The filmmaker proceeded to extol the virtues of the former first lady, describing her as our Pope Francis, someone who will kick ass in Congress.

Our very first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy, he told the media.

The election of Trump threw the filmmaker into a genuine panic. Not so much because of the billionaire presidents right-wing policies, although Moore nominally opposes many of them, but because of the immense crisis and discrediting of the political system that the election results entailed.

The outcome of the vote revealed the miserable failure and bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, which was unwilling and unablein the form of the Clinton campaignto present a program that could attract any significant popular support. Since November, Moore has striven above all to conceal the central responsibility of the Obama administration and its right-wing policies and operationsan administration he supportedfor Trumps victory.

Virtually from the moment the Republican president took the oath of office, Moore has vehemently denounced him as a Russian puppet and lobbied for his removal.

At the time of the February 13 resignation of Trumps national security advisor, Michael T. Flynn, because of Flynns earlier communications with the Russian ambassador to the US, Moore flew into near hysterics. He demanded Trump vacate the White House immediately, calling the president a Russian traitor.

On February 14, Moore tweeted Trump, Its now noontime in DC & it appears you are still squatting in our Oval Office. I gave u til this morning to leave. He added later, What part of vacate you Russian traitor dont you understand? We can do this the easy way (you resign), or the hard way (impeachment). He followed up the same day, Traitor! Resign by morning!

On Facebook February 14, Moore referred to a stunning bombshell from the New York Times, i.e., entirely unsubstantiated allegations about Russian interference in the US elections, and went on, Its what we all suspected. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on: TRUMP COLLUDING WITH THE RUSSIANS TO THROW THE ELECTION TO HIM.  If it turns out theres a traitor in the White House, the judicial branch must find a fair, peaceful way to un-do and then re-do the election of 2016.

Along with everything else, this business about Trump being a Russian traitor is a filthy effort to revive McCarthyite anti-communism.

In a revealing Facebook entry March 5, following Trumps claim that the White House had wiretapped his campaign in 2016, Moore commented: Did Obama tapp Trump? Lets Hope So. If youre like me, you have no love for the FBI, the NSA or the CIA. If you are from my generation, you know these are very often nefarious institutions. The FBI spied on Martin Luther King to stop his civil rights activities. The NSA was ordered to make up stuff on Iraq so [George W.] Bush could start a war. The CIA has had leaders of countries assassinated and democratically-elected Presidents (Iran, Chile, Guatemala) overthrown. These secret organizations have for decades committed so many acts in our name that have done much damage to good people and movements here and around the world.

After making this acknowledgement, Moore went on to suggest that if the Obama administration and the intelligence apparatus indeed had evidence that the Trump campaign was in contact with Russian officials, then it not only is possible that the Justice Department or the national security apparatus decided to get a warrant to dig deeper, I think most patriotic Americans would agree with me that the Obama administration HAD AN OBLIGATION to order that wiretap because an act of treasonTrump campaign people colluding with Russia to affect the outcome of our electionhad taken place.

So, without batting an eye, Moore expressed his support for and entered into a political bloc with the nefarious institutions he admitted only a few lines before had been responsible for global misery and murder, backing them in their internecine conflict with Donald Trump. The filmmaker should not have the slightest political credibility at this point.

Crude, pragmatic, generally swinish this is Michael Moore now, a political scoundrel.
TransCanada Corp., the company responsible for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, said Friday morning that the Trump administration has signed off on the project. The 1,179-mile cross-border pipeline would transport oil from the Canadian province of Alberta to the US state of Nebraska.

The Keystone XL, originally planned to open in 2012, would transport up to 830,000 barrels a day of Canadian and North Dakota crude to Steel City, Nebraska, where it would link up to existing pipelines to deliver the oil to the Gulf Coast states of Texas and Louisiana for processing. Most of the refined product would probably be exported.

Donald Trump repeatedly pledged during his presidential campaign to expedite the project. The US State Department, having jurisdiction because the pipeline would cross the US-Canadian border, issued the permit after a brief, 60-day study. This reverses the position of the Obama administration, which rejected the project in late 2015, saying it would undermine US efforts to curb reliance on carbon fuels.

Its a great day for American jobs, Trump said from the White House on Friday after the permit was granted. Today, we take one more step towards putting the jobs, wages and economic security of American citizens first. In fact, the few thousand jobs created for construction of the project would be temporary, and only a few dozen permanent positions would remain after completion.

The pipeline permit was signed by the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Thomas Shannon, Jr. The new secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of ExxonMobil, had recused himself from the decision. The oil industry has lobbied for the pipeline in opposition to environmentalists, who say it would contribute to climate change and endanger water sources.

In a statement, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said, The dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline is one of the worst deals imaginable for the American people, so of course Donald Trump supports it. After the violent clearing of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in late February, it is bound to provoke protests.

Trump signed executive orders reviving the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines in January. On March 10, thousands of Native Americans and others, led by the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, gathered in Washington D.C. to protest the presidents approval of the pipelines.

The exploitation of the land-locked Alberta oil sands has been associated with environmental destruction, much of this at the expense of Albertas impoverished aboriginal population. The route chosen by TransCanada also goes through environmentally sensitive areas.

Trumps support for the pipeline is in line with his opposition to regulatory restraints on big business. His pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, as Oklahoma attorney general filed more than a dozen lawsuits challenging the authority of the EPA to regulate industry.

The Canadian oil flowing through the pipeline is considered one of the dirtiest types of crude. A 2015 study funded by the US Department of Energy found that the Canadian oil sands emit 18 percent more greenhouse gases when processed into gasoline than that released from traditional US crude; diesel fuel derived from oil sands emits 21 percent more of these gases. Mining the sands also requires large amounts of energy for extraction and processing.

The Keystone XL still faces some hurdles. Before the pipeline can be built it must receive approval from the Nebraska Public Service Commission as well as local landowners who have concerns about their water and land rights. International interest in the Canadian oil sands among many oil companies has been waning due to sluggish oil prices. Also, extraction from oil sands, located in the sub-Arctic boreal forest, is expensive.

European energy giants Total and Statoil have abandoned their projects in the oil sands. ExxonMobil wrote down 3.5 billion barrels of reserves, saying they were not economically attractive to develop, at least over the next few years.

Canadian oil production, however, continues to grow, and the Keystone project is central to the future of TransCanada.

TransCanada had begun legal proceedings in January 2016 that involved filing a NAFTA claim seeking to recoup more than $15 billion in costs and damages following the pipelines earlier rejection. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has postured as an environmentalist, publicly supports the Keystone XL project.

In November 2015, when the Obama administration rejected TransCanadas application to construct the Keystone XL, Obama said the pipeline was not in the US national interest and would not provide a significant boost to the US economy, as was claimed by the projects Republican and corporate supporters.

Obama also said that the import of dirtier crude oil wouldnt have led to lower US gasoline prices and would have gone against his administrations efforts to lower oil imports by boosting domestic shale-oil production and transitioning America to a clean energy economy.

There was a large of amount of posturing in Obamas announcement rejecting the Keystone XL in 2015, coming as it did just weeks before the UN Climate Change Conference, where the United States would commit to nothing but nonbinding goals. Like other major powers, the US under Obama formulated climate change policies and green energy solutions that pushed the burden of responsibility onto its rivals.

In the end, Obama sought to promote his green credentials to curry favor with environmentalists in the Democratic Partys orbit, while postponing the ultimate decision on the Keystone XL to be taken up by his successors administration.
On Sunday, state elections are being held in Saarland. Although this small state on the border with France, with just under 1 million inhabitants, does not usually make headlines, the upcoming election has generated considerable nationwide interest.

It is regarded as a test run for a possible Social Democratic Party (SPD)-Left Party or SPD-Left Party-Green Party federal coalition government in Berlin. After the SPD chose former president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz as its leading candidate, whom the media depicts as an SPD modernizer, the campaign for a change of government in Berlin has been stepped up a gear.

In May, two further state elections followon May 7 in Schleswig-Holstein and on May 14 in North Rhine-Westphaliabefore Bundestag (federal parliament) elections in September.

In particular, the former Left Party chairman Oskar Lafontaine is drumming up support for a change of government in Saarland, where he was previously state premier. The 73-year-old heads the Left Party group in the Saarland state legislature. Lafontaine, who was SPD national chairman up to 1999, maintains close contact with that party. Lafontaine is also a friend of Martin Schulz.

Until recently, however, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has enjoyed a clear lead in the polls in Saarland. But the media hype about Schulz in the past weeks has also led to an upswing for the Social Democrats. As recently as January, voter surveys were predicting a CDU result of 38 percent, while the SPD, with 26 percent, lagged by 12 points. This has now changed significantly. The so-called Schulz effect means that the SPD is now almost on a par with the CDU. According to polling agency Infratest dimap, the SPD would now finish with 34 percent, close behind the CDU, which has fallen back to 35 percent. In other polls, both parties are running even.

In the polls, the Left Party is in third place, behind the CDU and SPD. Eight years ago, it polled more than 20 percent, mainly due to Lafontaines high profile in Saarland. Today, it polls around 12 or 13 percent.

With 5 percent, the Greens only just managed to get into the state legislature last time. At present, the party is polling around 4 percentas is the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP)and could fail to enter the state legislature. Should the recent polls prove correct, the SPD would be able to govern in alliance with the Left Party, but without the Greens.

The incumbent CDU state premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is showing clear signs of nervousness. This is behind her recent threats against appearances by Turkish politicians in Saarland. In a cheap attempt to win votes on the far right, Kramp-Karrenbauer last week imposed a ban on any appearances by Turkish ministers at a public meetingeven though there had been no announcement that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was sending anyone.

The CDU prime minister takes every opportunity to emphasize that the current collaboration with the SPD has been very close and successful, and that she would like to continue the grand coalition. However, the SPDs lead candidate, Anke Rehlinger, has declined this option. Although she too speaks of the close and successful cooperation over the past years, she avoids making any statement that could be interpreted as favouring a continuation of a grand coalition, and instead speaks about a possible left alliance.

Along with Lafontaine, the second figurehead of the Left Party, Gregor Gysi, is also drumming up support for a state government with the SPD in Saarland. Red-Red in Saarland would be an important signal, he said on Wednesday to the Berliner Tagesspiegel. Saarland could definitely be the first west German federal state in which the SPD and the Left Party govern together. It is the state where we get as many votes as anywhere else in the West.

Martin Schulz has also praised Lafontaine. Almost as soon as he was elected as the new head of the SPD, he said, I can remember when Oskar Lafontaine governed Saarland from 1985-1998 relatively successfully as state premier. He added, Lafontaine certainly enjoys a lot of experience as a Saarland state politician.

Many in the media are now actively discussing the new power option ( Handelsblatt ) and give it a realistic chance in Saarland. While the headline in the tabloid Bild asked, First change of power in election year? the pro-Left Party newspaper Neues Deutschland ran with the headline It looks like red-red in Saarland.

Handelsblatt even devoted a double-page spread to the so-called left coalition, and wrote, Approval for the SPD, Left Party and Greens is growing as a result of the Schulz-effect. According to recent opinion polls, a left coalition is increasingly becoming a serious option. Saarland could serve as a blueprint. Unlike a few weeks ago, a change of power now seems possible.

Last month, news weekly Der Spiegel had published an interview with Left Party leader Sahra Wagenknecht, who is married to Lafontaine, and is currently campaigning at his side in the Saarland election. If the SPD wanted to seriously pursue a more social policy, cooperation would not fail due to us, Wagenknecht said and then raved about a centre-left coalition.

In reality, the campaign of the Left Party, the SPD and the media is not part of a left project, quite the opposite. Even a cursory glance at the Left Partys policies where it has been in government makes this very clear. Wherever it has taken on government responsibility, it has long supported cuts in the budget, social spending and the workforce. For example, the Berlin Senate (state legislature) under Klaus Wowereit (SPD), in which the Left Party participated for 10 years, was a nationwide trendsetter for ruthless austerity measures.

Particularly in Saarland, Lafontaine was known as a ruthless and cynical politician who imposed drastic cuts in welfare and social spending behind a screen of social demagogy. During his 13 years as state premier (1985-1998), he organised the dismantlement of the coal and steel industry in close cooperation with the trade unions. The coalmines, where once 60,000 miners worked, are no more; in the steel industry, all that remains is around 6,000 workers employed mainly at the Dillinger smelter.

He combines these anti-social policies with nationalist tirades and trade war measures. For example, in the election campaign, he demanded the Saarland steel industry must be protected by tariffs similar to those of the United States.

At the same time, he rails against refugees and calls for faster and more consistent deportations. He told Die Welt, Those who have come illegally over the border should receive an offer to return voluntarily. If they dont accept this offer, deportation is the only option remaining. This is how the state governments in which the Left Party is involved see it.

Lafontaines right-wing, xenophobic slogans are not surprising. They arise directly from the bourgeois character of the Left Party, which defends capitalism and German imperialism. The former SPD chairman and former German finance minister is one of the pioneers of an anti-refugee policy.

Already in the early 1990s, at that time still as state premier in Saarland, Lafontaine passed emergency measures, including the introduction of collection centres, communal catering and payments in kind, as part of a nationwide campaign against refugees. In summer 1992, Lafontaine, together with the then SPD chairman Bjorn Engholm, imposed the so-called Petersburg turnthe repositioning of the SPD on asylum and foreign policy matters, which resulted in the de facto abolition of the right of asylum through the asylum compromise.

Following his resignation as SPD chair and resignation from the SPD, Lafontaine was one of the few who supported the controversial plans of Interior Minister Otto Schily (SPD) in 2004 to set up detention centres for refugees in Africa. A year later, he then deliberately whipped up sentiments against foreign workers. The state had an obligation to prevent family men and women being unemployed because low paid foreign workers take their jobs away, Lafontaine said in a now infamous speech in Chemnitz.

It is no coincidence that Lafontaine maintains a close friendship with Christian Social Union (CSU) right-winger Peter Gauweiler, and has published a joint column with him in the right-wing tabloid Bild for years. During his tenure as a minister in the Bavarian legislature in the 1980s, Gauweilernicknamed Black Peterimposed forced testing for HIV-infected people and their segregation in special facilities. In the late 1990s, when the exhibition about the war crimes of the Wehrmacht (Hitlers army) came to Munich, the state capital of Bavaria, Gauweiler organized a massive protest campaign. He described the exhibition as a malicious defamation of German soldiers and tried to have it banned by the courts.

A few days ago, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung drew attention to the fact that Lafontaine and Gauweiler are still friends, and quoted the CSU right-winger with the words, Lafontaine would certainly have been a good chancellor.

The Saarland election has a direct bearing on federal politics. It is to bring about a change of government which favours the SPD and Left Party. This will not be a left alliance, as is being claimed in the media. Rather, broad sections of the ruling elite regard the Merkel government as too weak and exhausted and the CDU-CSU as too divided to meet the challenge of the Trump administration, the growing transatlantic antagonisms and the break-up of the EU with a strong offensive towards German power politics.

Twenty years ago the conservative Kohl government was replaced by a Red-Green coalition that took over the federal government for the first time. The same government agreed the first ever post-war Bundeswehr (armed forces) missions abroad and passed the Agenda 2010 anti-welfare program. In similar manner today a red-red or red-red-green federal government in Berlin would herald a new right-wing bourgeois government.
Iranian state media claimed that South Pars production would rise to 35,000 barrels per day in just one week, according to UPI. And authorities have sought to give the impression that this sort of rapid output is needed in order to fulfill rising levels of international demand for Iranian oil. For instance, The Iran Project reported on Tuesday that NIOC had projected that outputs to the European market would increase from 500,000 barrels per day to 800,000 within the next two months.

However, that report also acknowledged that the vast majority of Irans current oil exports still go to Asia, and that these exports had doubled in the year following the implementation of the nuclear deal, whereas exports to Western countries had increased only modestly. This situation is certainly reinforced by persistent wariness among those Western countries. European markets fear the possibility of renewed US sanctions in the tense environment that has emerged since the January inauguration of US President Donald Trump. But as well as contributing to those tensions, the Islamic Republic has declined to take measures that might reassure Western buyers and investors regarding the preexisting conditions in the Iranian market.

Reuters reported this week that the Iranians had issued a formal request with the Bank of England to set up special clearing accounts to facilitate transactions between Iranian and British firms. These efforts have reportedly gotten some support from the British government, which is eager to find new sources of trade in the midst of its divorce from the European Union. But the Bank of England itself has been resistant to Tehrans requests, in no small part because of the murky and non-competitive business environment in the Islamic Republic.

The multinational Financial Action Task Force has uniquely identified Iran and North Korea as areas of highest risk for potential foreign investors, and the United States Treasury considers Iran to be an area of primary money laundering concern, owing to its historical support for international terrorism and the deep penetration of hardline institutions like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps into Irans economic infrastructure.

Nevertheless, there are other pressures that are working against the FATF and the US Treasury, although it is possible that these have been overstated by the Iranian regime in the interest of making the country seem like a more stable and attractive investment option. For example, Irans English-language propaganda network Press TV reported on Wednesday that state-operated banks in India were looking for new payment mechanisms for their transactions with the Islamic Republic, and that these mechanisms were expected to rely on correspondent financial institutions in Europe. Not only does this report understate the current unavailability of such Western correspondents, it also neglects tensions between Iran and India, which could threaten long-term economic collaboration.

On Tuesday, India.com pointed out that approximately three dozen Indian fishermen were known to be detained in Iranian jails as a result of their having allegedly strayed into Iranian waters. An official in the Indian government was quoted as saying that these individuals remained in custody even after the fines imposed by an Iranian court, and that a non-governmental organization had filed a formal complaint with the Islamic Republic over the situation.

The public commentary on this situation is noteworthy not just because of the possible long-term dispute that it suggests, but also because it stands in contrast to the silence that some Western powers have been said to maintain at a time when several Western nationals have been arrested without explanation inside Iran. Some human rights advocates and political groups have accused those governments of neglecting the situation out of concern that criticism could jeopardize prospects for trade and reconciliation in the post-nuclear agreement environment.

This accusation was specifically levied by Rebecca Jones last week when she criticized the British government for its failure to publicly condemn the arrest of her sister-in-law Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose status as an Iranian-British dual national apparently justified her five-year prison sentence on undisclosed charges. Theres money in Iran and I dont think they want our family to jeopardize that, Jones said, according to the BBC.

But even if this interpretation of the governments response is correct, it has not been sufficient to overcome the wariness of financial institutions, whose anxieties are only further justified by the apparent aversion to foreign trade among some highly placed Iranian figures. On Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reported that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the final authority on all matters of Iranian policy, had expressed desire for a ban on certain kinds of foreign imports. This recommendation was framed as part of Khameneis call for a resistance economy that is focused more on domestic development than foreign trade, something that AFP says has been a common refrain in his speeches for a matter of months.

The report went on to suggest that such commentary cast doubt on the willingness of Iranian government and financial institutions to adopt the deep structural reforms that are needed in order to improve the countrys investment prospects and its persistently stagnant economy. Khameneis resistance economy plan is the same that was touted while nuclear-related sanctions were in full force, as a way to weather the difficulty without succumbing to international demands.

Whats more, Khameneis plans are not facing the sort of resistance that one might expect from the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, who spearheaded the nuclear agreement on the Iranian side. This week, Iranian state media reportedly carried remarks by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warning that the country was prepared to resume full-scale nuclear enrichment if government officials determined that the US had created a situation that continuation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action would damage Tehrans national interest.

Zarif even went so far as to say that the renewed nuclear activities would be more advanced than they were prior to the agreement. He admitted that Iran had continued development of advanced enrichment centrifuges after the implementation of the JCPOA, resulting in devices that could create enriched uranium 20 times faster and more efficiently than the previous models. Such statements are sure to further justify the concerns of those Western policymakers who oppose the existing nuclear deal, thereby raising the likelihood of new enforcement measures that could bar the reentry of European firms into the Iranian market.

Of course, the US has already continued its sanctions of the Islamic Republic and Iran-linked entities over non-nuclear issues like support or international terrorism. Reuters pointed out on Wednesday that a court in Luxembourg had deferred judgement in a case wherein the Iranian government is challenging the seizure of Iranian assets for payment of compensation to victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York who had successfully sued Iran. And the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported that the United States Treasury had imposed new sanctions on two Bahraini nationals with links to Iran, declaring them Specially Designated Foreign Terrorists.

These and other such enforcement measures are all but certain to further encourage Supreme Leader Khameneis push for a resistance economy, which would in turn encourage Western economic disengagement from Iran.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP), the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), strongly denounces the life sentences imposed on 13 Maruti Suzuki auto workers in India and the three-to-five years imprisonment of another 18 workers by an Indian court on March 18.

The SEP calls on workers in Sri Lanka, India and internationally to come forward to defeat this frame-up. We fully support the campaign launched by the ICFI to demand these workers immediate release. We urge all working people and youth to sign the online petition launched by the World Socialist Web Site for their defence, and to fight for the widest possible support for this campaign.

These brutal sentences are a travesty of justice. Not a single charge has been proved. The only crime of these workers was to fight the horrendous conditions at their factory near Delhi.

They have been falsely convicted for the death of Awanish Kumar Dev, a human resources manager at the Japanese-owned Maruti Suzuki car assembly plant in Manesar, Haryana. Dev unfortunately died four and half years ago in a fire that erupted on the factory floor during an altercation consciously provoked by the plant management.

The prosecutions case was such a sham that even Gurgaon District Court Judge R.P. Goyal, in his judgment, conceded that the police colluded with the company management and fabricated evidence. However, repeatedly mangling the law, the judge shifted the burden of proof from the prosecution onto the workers: his conviction of 13 workers on murder charges was based on their failure to prove their innocence.

The fatal fire was an outcome of a joint vendetta carried out by the company, the Haryana state government and its police, with the help of hired thugs, to prevent the spread of the militancy among the overwhelmingly young Manesar workers. These workers had showed a powerful determination to fight against the slave-labour conditions required by the company in order to produce a car every 44 seconds.

Having understood the international significance of the Maruti Suzuki workers struggle, the SEP and the WSWS, intervened at the very beginning, in JulyAugust 2012. We have published a series of articles exposing the Suzuki corporations provocations and the anti-working class policies of Indian ruling elite, which begs for foreign investment. Some of these articles were translated into Hindi, the language spoken by most Maruti Suzuki workers, and circulated among them. Those interventions, based on a political perspective for defending workers rights against the treacherous abandonment of these workers by the trade union bureaucracies and Stalinist communist parties, will never be erased from the memories of workers in Haryanas Gurgaon industrial area and internationally.

The police arrested 148 militant workers, including the entire leadership of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU), established in 2012 as a result of a protracted struggle by Manesar workers for basic rights. At the companys initiative, they were arrested as suspects in the human resources managers death. Now these MSWU leaders have been subjected to life sentences, a form of cruel torture, to try to break the determination of workers at Maruti Suzuki and elsewhere.

A clear example of the close interest of the Indian capitalist class in this witch-hunt was a report in the Hindu on July 25, 2012. It quoted Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, a giant Indian IT company, who now has assets of $US16.5 billion, according to Forbes in 2016 . He demanded that the government act ruthlessly against the Maruti Suzuki workers, adding that the issue at stake was sensitive and represents social unrest, which is building up within the country and among the trade unions.

The court verdict against the workers has clearly demonstrated that the Congress party, which held power during that period, and the current ruling party, the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, represent these interests of the capitalist class.

The entire judicial process that subjected the Indian auto workers to these draconian sentences exposes the judiciarys repressive role as a defender of capitalist private property and profits. The complete acquittal of 117 workers on March 10 made it clear that the evidence was fabricated by factory management and the police. The court expressed no concern that the acquitted workers were jailed and persecuted for four and half years. So much for the independence of the judiciary in India, much promoted by so-called liberal thinkers, petty-bourgeois groups and pseudo-lefts.

This attack by the Indian ruling class on workers based on discredited evidence aims to issue a menacing warning to millions of Indian workers who are becoming increasingly militant. It also demonstrates that the Indian elite is prepared to ruthlessly use the police-state methods required by local and foreign investors to exploit this huge working class.

The assault comes under conditions in which reactionary protectionist policies are being pursued by the fascistic Donald Trump administration in the US and attacks on welfare and democratic rights are mounting in Britain following the Brexit vote to leave the European Union. Amid a protracted crisis of the world economy, the Indian ruling class, as well as other bankrupt bourgeois rulers in Asia, is waging an anti-worker offensive, desperate to attract foreign investment.

Despite all the obstructions and disorientation produced by trade union bureaucracies and political parties, including the two main pro-bourgeois Stalinist communist parties, Indian workers have demonstrated their readiness to come onto the streets in their millions against the pro-market reforms carried out by the Modi government. The BJP-led coalition is attempting to change labour laws to facilitate hire and fire policies and factory closures at the will of employers. It has introduced new laws to expropriate peasants land for big business projects, speed up privatisations and slash even the existing meagre subsidies and social spending.

Modis government is terrified by workers struggles against its attacks, including a one-day strike by tens of millions of workers throughout the country last September and a strike by about one million bank workers on February 28.

Overjoyed by the sentences imposed on the Maruti Suzuki workers, Vikas Pahwa, a lawyer for the company, told the Indian Express the court sent a strong signal to labour workers and union members that they cannot take the law in their hands. Baying for workers blood, he said the company would challenge the judgment in the HC [High Court] on the inadequacy of the sentence against the convicts and the courts acquittal of the 117 other workers.

This demonstrates the Japanese automakers ambition, assisted by the political establishment, including the government, courts and police, to ensure there will no challenge from workers to the extraction of super-profits through harsh working conditions.

The attack on the Maruti Suzuki workers is not a specific Indian phenomenon. That fact has been demonstrated clearly by the continuous assault by big business and its lackeys on workers struggles in the region and around the world.

In January, the Bangladesh government and employers in the countrys garment industry collaborated in sacking thousands of workers and filing court cases against hundreds of them. This followed a strike in the Ashulia industrial district, near Dhaka, demanding higher wages and other allowances from mid-December.

It was likewise in May 2011, when workers in Sri Lankas Katunayaka Free Trade Zonewhere slave-labour conditions also prevailprotested a pension bill introduced by the then government of President Mahinda Rajapakse. The police deployed by the government killed one worker and injured 200 by firing live ammunition, and hundreds were arrested.

Dozens of similar examples could be cited, demonstrating how the major corporations, and the governments and institutions that represent their interests, act against any challenge to their profit calculations.

A very striking issue in relation to the attack on the Maruti Suzuki workers, and on workers in other countries, is the treacherous role of the trade unions and pro-capitalist left parties. They facilitate, on behalf of the capitalist class, the use of repressive laws to crack down on workers resistance.

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), affiliated to the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, worked to discourage the Maruti Suzuki workers throughout their campaign. Now its only comment on the harsh sentences is that it is distressed and anguished. In contrast to this response, thousands of workers have already expressed their anger and opposition through protests and demonstrations against the frame-up verdict. But neither of the Stalinist parliamentary partiesthe CPM and the Communist Party of India (CPI), which act as appendages to the Indian bourgeoisiehave breathed a word against the conviction and sentencing of the workers.

To fight for the freedom of the Maruti Suzuki workers and against the anti-democratic attacks and austerity measures of the capitalist class, including the Modi government, Indian workers and workers in all countries, need a revolutionary leadership and perspective. The Maruti Suzuki workers and their colleagues in Gurgaon must unite with their class brothers and sisters throughout India, South Asia and internationally. That unity can be achieved only by building the ICFI and its sections, the Socialist Equality Parties, which are armed with an international socialist program.

Join the campaign to defeat the witch-hunt against Maruti Suzuki workers!

Build the revolutionary party of the working class!
The new sanctions do not take direct aim at the Iran nuclear agreement negotiated by Trumps predecessor, although CBS News reports that the announcement comes shortly after President Trump used a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare that no one has been able to figure out why the Obama administration signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in its given form.

Trump has long expressed hostility toward that agreement, but since taking office he has stepped back from former promises to nullify or renegotiate it, in favor of a broader emphasis on confronting Iran over its regional activities and military buildup. The ballistic missile issue was an early contributor to tensions between the new administration and the Islamic Republic, after the latter conducted a test of one such nuclear-capable weapon only nine days after President Trump was sworn into office.

The incident apparently led directly to the administration putting Iran on notice over its activities, thereby setting the stage for the types of assertive policies that continue with the announcement of new sanctions. CBS notes that this is the second such imposition by the current administration, although the previous set of non-nuclear sanctions had actually been made ready by the Obama White House before actually being put into effect by Trump.

However, there were also congressional efforts to impose new sanctions under the previous administration, which Obamas team worked against, even going so far as to oppose the reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act, although this measure did ultimately go through. The new environment created by the Trump administration seems to be freeing up Congress to take more of its own assertive actions against the Islamic Republic. This was evidenced by bills that were approved both by the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Friday, the former taking aim at the Iranian ballistic missile program and the latter seeking to extend sanctions on terrorist sponsorship to include the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Last month, President Trump initiated a review process in the State Department which could lead to the IRGC being designated as a foreign terrorist organization. This could be expected to have an even broader impact than the Senates proposed sanctions, in that it would mandate punitive actions against any entity that does business both with the IRGC and the US.

In reporting upon the Senate bill, the Washington Post pointed out that its cosponsor included several Democrats who had supported the nuclear agreement, which achieved congressional authorization by the narrowest of margins in late 2015. A number of Democrats were skeptical about the value of the agreement and about its long-term prospects for success, but their dissent was apparently kept in check by the former presidents leadership of the party.

With the executive branch and both chambers of Congress firmly in the hands of the Republican Party, there is less for Democrats to lose by breaking ranks on this issue. But this is not to say that the Democratic supporters of the sanctions bills have necessarily abandoned their former support for the JCPOA. Even though Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has warned that any new sanctions at all would be regarded as a violation of the spirit of the agreement and thus grounds for its cancellation, Al Monitor suggested on Thursday that Democratic support for the sanctions bills had been secured by attempting to minimize this risk.

The report indicates that the committees removed provisions that might have been regarded as excessively punitive or burdensome, including some that did connect the terrorism issue to the sanctions relief that was granted under the nuclear deal. These changes were supposedly secured primarily by the Senate committees ranking Democrat Ben Cardin, who also emphasized:

The important part is that there is nothing in this bill  that could cause a violation of the [nuclear deal]. It is strong in dealing with Irans other non-nuclear activities, such as dealing with the ballistic missile violations, their arms issues, human rights and dealing with terrorism. So the four areas that were not in the nuclear agreement we strengthened, but did it in a way that is directed toward those activities and has nothing to do with the nuclear issue.

However, despite this and despite the fact that President Trump reportedly assured his European partners that he was committed to abiding by the JCPOA, there is still some possibility that his administration could find ways of undermining it. This was the focus, for instance, of an ABC News article detailing the International Atomic Energy Agencys announcement that it would need more money from the nuclear deals signatories, including the US, in order to continue enforcing the deals provisions.

ABC points out that the US pays for about a quarter of the IAEAs annual budget, and that this in turn pays for about half the cost of JCPOA enforcement. But the article also notes that these existing funds may evaporate under Trumps leadership, as he has suggested cutting US support for international agencies like the IAEA, in order to offset increases in things like military spending. US support for this plan is tenuous, but if it goes through it may undermine the JCPOA in absence of a direct American attack upon it.
"It really bothers me that my son doesnt care whom hell marry. It could be anyone, as far as hes concerned. He doesnt see any importance in starting a family with a Jewish girl. I realize that I have been wrong all along. I thought it was clear to him, and I didnt do a thing about it for years. Now its already too late to explain to him how important it is.

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This painful monologue comes from an Israeli who has been living in New York for more than 20 years now. He, and many others who emigrated from Israel, thought that their built-in Jewish identity would be passed on to the next generation, but life in the United States and the failure to connect to the local Jewish community pushed the second generation far awaynot just from the Jewish identity, but also from the connection to Israel.

Israeli Americans. 'Most define themselves as secular and are not affiliated with any Jewish organization' (Photo: IAC)

The estimated assimilation rate of Israelis in the US is 75 percentmuch higher than the assimilation rate among local Jews. Considering the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in North America, the numbers are particularly high.

Prof. Lilach Lev Ari, an expert on migration and ethnic identity, explained, Most Israelis who immigrated to the US define themselves as secular and are not affiliated with any secular or religious Jewish organizations. When these people lived in Israel, they resided in an area with permanent Jewish characteristics in their day-to-day life: the community, the Hebrew language, the educational system, national holidays. Thats not the case abroad. When they move, Israeli immigrants find themselves in a pluralistic society, in which they must redefine their Jewish and Israeli identity.

One of the solutions to this phenomenon should have been an automatic connection between Israeli immigrants and the large Jewish community in the US. For decades, however, no connection was created. Surprisingly, there was even serious alienation between the two sides.

For the Israelis, Lev Ari explains, the local Jewish communities are perceived as different in their customs and in their activities, and there are many cultural differences. When the Israelis were asked whom they felt more similar to, the answer was local Americans, not Jews. The Israelis felt this was the Diaspora Jewry, and they were unfamiliar with all the feelings of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, like the feeling of a minority and dealing with anti-Semitism. They were not used to being a minority or labeled Jews.

A natural connection has not been created on the Jewish community side, either. There are congregations that have felt no need to take Israelis in, and no efforts have been made in that direction. Quite often, the cultural gaps have even created a negative image of the Israelis, and the local community has been reluctant to embrace them.

20-year alienation

Aya Shechter, who has been living in New Jersey for about a decade, says that the alienation between the Israeli and the Jewish communities began in the years when emigrating from Israel was seen as a very negative thing. Comments like a fallout of weaklings (as late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin referred to Israeli emigrants) reflected the fact that Israelis see a person who decided to live abroad as someone who is doing something negative.

Young Israeli Americans at an IAC activity (Photo: Israeli-American Council)

On the other side of the ocean, in the Jewish community, people were educated that Israel is the Jewish peoples national enterpriseand that the best thing they could do is immigrate to Israel, Shechter adds. They didnt know how to accept a phenomenon of people taking in the opposite path, from Israel to the US. They thought that the Israelis place should not be in America, and the connection between the sides failed.

The alienation was created mainly between secular Israelis and the Jewish community. Religious or traditional Israelis who immigrated to the US searched for religious institutions and Jewish schools for their children, thereby creating better connection points with the local community.

Working on Judaism on a daily basis

Shelly, a young Israeli-American woman, explains, In Israel, everyone celebrates the holidays. Everyone connects to something in the tradition. Here, in America, you actually have to do something to express your Jewishness and maintain it. This quotation provides an initial idea about the significant difference between secular Jews in Israel and secular Jews in the Diaspora.

In the United States, you have to work hard to preserve your Jewishness, another Israeli tells us. You have to invest time and financial resources. Israelis find it difficult to understand why you have to pay the synagogue to be a congregation member, because in Israel everything is free.

The Jewish schools cost tens of thousands of dollars a year as well, and many Israelis prefer to send their children to public schools, especially in areas where they are considered relatively high-standard. Israelis who were not used to spending money on Jewish activities in Israel are having trouble adjusting to this financial investment.

Hagai Elitzur, a senior director at the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, adds that the main difference between being a Jew in Israel or abroad is the passivity. In Israel, you wake up in the morning and you have a pulse, so youre Jewish. Abroad, you have to work on it and put efforts into it. If you dont put an effort into it on a daily basis, including financial and mental resources, it will disappear.

The Jewish community realized that the Israelis were its new blood and growth engine, Elitzur continues. We in Israel began realizing that too. There are a million Israelis in the Diasporain other words, about 10 percent of Diaspora Jewry are Israelis. The perception today is that they are a target audience of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs as well, and we need platforms to develop the Israeli community so that we dont lose it.

Well lose our childrens Jewishness

A leap forward by 20 years to the current era places both sides in a different position. The generation of parents sees the children losing their connection to Israel and to Judaism, and on the other hand, the changes and the openness of the local Jewish community lead to a recognition that the Israelis are here to stay and that the community should connect to them and find common ground.

According to Shechter, the change began 10 years ago, when the Israelis started creating local initiatives and organizations. Following the changes, some say that a new denomination was born in the US Jewry. The local Jews realized that Israelis were Jews too, and its a process which took a long time to mature.

The Israeli-American Council was established in 2007 in its initial version. About four years ago, it changed its name to IAC and embarked on more extensive activity in a bid to strengthen relations with Israel, and to reinforce unity between US Jewish citizens and their ties to Jewish organizations. The organization engages in social activities, Hebrew studies, initiatives related to Israeli and Jewish identity, and more.

I want my children to continue what Im doing today, says Shechter, the IACs New Jersey regional director. The goal is to preserve Israeliness and Jewishness. Israelis are experiencing assimilation in a serious manner, and we dont know how to pass heritage on to our children. When Israelis began immigrating to the US, they were not connected to Israel or to the community, but these things are changing.

Recently, in a meeting with members of an Israeli delegation on behalf of the Gesher Institute and the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, Shechter explained, I realized that if we dont take the matter into our hands, well lose our childrens Jewishness. I suddenly realized that Jews all over the world know basic Judaism, and I dont. I knew that things had to be different. If I let my children go on like this, they will be disconnected. I dont want them to be. Judaism is important to me. American Jewry is important to me, and so is the childrens future.

According to IAC co-founder and CEO Shoham Nicolet, the initiatives rationale is based on our unique added value in being able to talk Israeli and American and turn our community into a living bridge within the Jewish community. Our connection to Israel, to the language and to everything that Israeliness has to offer turns our community into a strategic asset for the State of Israel and for the Jewish community.

Ashkenazim assimilate more

Lev Ari, the migration and ethnic identity expert, explains that over the years, there has been a change in relations between the Israeli and Jewish communities. The emphasis is on the second generation of the Israeli immigrants, so as not to lose their connection to Judaism, she says.

The parents generation is very concerned about assimilation, and the current connection to the Jewish community is their reaction to this phenomenon. There is, by the way, a difference between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Ashkenazim assimilate more. The Sephardim are more traditional and tend to maintain relations with local Jews for the sake of community relations.

Asked what triggered the change, Lev Ari replied, Over time, changes happen. As an Israeli, you accept the fact that you are there and now you think forward: Who is your community and who will you be with. The group that has already been there for decades has more time for communality. In the eyes of the Jewish community, Israelis give the community a younger, supporting spirit. Its possible that there is a mutual need here. In the US, the sides have undoubtedly gone through a phase of building a relationship.

Shechter addressed the change of negative perception in Israel of their compatriots who have emigrated, saying, On the personal level, I was not criticized for the decision to move nearly 10 years ago. I feel that what has really changed is that in the past, when I would visit, people would ask me much more when was I coming back. Today, there are more people who tell me that they would like to experience life outside of Israel themselves.

I believe that the experience of living outside of Israel is enriching and important, and that whoever returns to Israel after spending a long time abroad brings back connections, tools, knowledge and ideas which enrich society in Israel. I also think that many Israelis accept the fact that there is an advantage in having Israelis abroad who are helping Israeli companies open doors in local markets.

(Translated and edited by Sandy Livak-Furmanski)
Eleven men and women in their twenties on Friday slaughtered a sheep and took their clothes off at the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, according to police and the museum at the site in southern Poland.

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The individuals aged 20 to 27, whose identities and motives are unknown, then chained themselves together in front of the camp's infamous "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work makes you free") gate, the museum said in a statement.

Nude protestors

Regional police spokesman Sebastian Glen said the seven men and four women draped a white banner with the red text "love" over the infamous gate.

They also used a drone to film the incident, according to local media.

Museum guards at the site in the southern city of Oswiecim immediately intervened and police said all those involved have been detained.

They include six Poles, four Belarusians and one German, according to Glen, who told AFP that "a knife was found at the scene."

Oswiecim police said in a statement that "one of the men used a sharp tool to kill the sheep on the premises."

Local police spokeswoman Malgorzata Jurecka told AFP that the individuals were being questioned at a police station and police officers were investigating on site.

She said they plan to inform prosecutors of the incident, adding that the people involved "will likely be charged with desecrating a monument or other historical site."

Oswiecim police said the individuals were also being investigated for the "unfounded killing of an animal."

'Shocked and outraged'

"We're shocked and outraged by this attempt to use this memorial site for a protest and which mars the memory of millions of victims. It's a reprehensible act," museum spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel told AFP.

"This is the first time something like this has happened at Auschwitz," added museum director Piotr Cywinski.

Auschwitz

"I have no idea what their motives were," he told AFP.

Unconfirmed local media reports said the incident was intended as a protest against the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Poland's chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said the actions of those involved were wrong, regardless of the group's motives.

"Any use of Auschwitz for political statements, even using Auschwitz for moral statements, is not how Auschwitz should be remembered," he told AFP.

"The Germans used Auschwitz to try to eliminate the Jewish people. Any happenings are a desecration of the memory of all those killed at Auschwitz: Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others."
Israel took no steps to comply with a Security Council call to stop all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and instead authorized "a high rate" of settlement expansions in violation of international law, the United Nations said Friday.

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UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the council the large number of settlement announcements and legislation action by Israel indicate "a clear intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory."

UN Security Council (Photo: EPA)

He was delivering the first report to the council on implementation of the resolution it adopted in December condemning Israeli settlements as a "flagrant violation" of international law.

Mladenov, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, reiterated that the United Nations "considers all settlement activities to be illegal under international law and one of the main obstacles to peace."

He called "the January spike" in illegal settlement announcements by Israel "deeply concerning." During that month, he said, two major announcements were made for a total of 5,500 housing units in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank exclusively controlled by Israel.

"Overall, the last three months have seen a high rate of settlement-related activity, especially when compared to 2016, which saw tenders for only 42 (housing) units issued and some 3,000 units advanced over 12 months in Area C," Mladenov said.

Settlement construction in Kiryat Arba (Photo: EPA)

Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon responded in a statement, saying "there is no moral equivalency between the building of homes and murderous terrorism.

"The only impediment to peace is Palestinian violence and incitement. This obsessive focus on Israel must end."

Mladenov said "many advancements in settlements in the past three months will further sever the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state and accelerate the fragmentation of the West Bank."

He said these actions in Kfar Adumim, Shiloh, Kokhav Yakov and Shavei Shomron "are in breach of international law and they must stop."

"Settlement expansion undermines the very essence of the two-state solution," Mladenov said, and the resolution states that the international community will not recognize any changes to the 1967 lines other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Middle East Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt (Photo: Kobi Gidon/PMO)

Mladenov's comments come 24 hours after Israeli and American officials released a joint statement on a series of conversations between Israeli emissaries and their US counterparts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The two sides discussed Israeli settlement construction, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington and Mr. Greenblatt's latest visit to Israel. The American team again emphasized President Trump's concerns about settlement construction in relation to progress towards a peace agreement.

"The Israeli delegation made it clear that Israel intends to adopt a policy on settlement construction that will take President Trump's concerns into consideration. The talks were serious and constructive, and will continue."

Israeli and American officials further commented that, "Officials concluded four days of intensive talks in which concrete steps are being taken to improve the climate in order to advance the chances of a real and long-lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
BEIRUT -- At least 16 people died after a Friday night air strike on a prison in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province including both prisoners and staff, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Saturday.

The Observatory said it had received information that some of those who died were shot dead while attempting to flee the prison after the air strike hit one side of it. Two jailers were among the 16 people killed.
Representatives of Israel's Arab sector announced Friday that anyone who harms innocent people while using weapons will be treated as traitors in the communities in which they live as well as Arab society.

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Adnan Jarushi, head of the Sulha Committee (a committee for traditional conflict mediation), made the announcement at the home of MK Dr. Ahmad Tibi in Tayibe.

The Sulha Committee at MK Tibi's home

"Whoever uses a weapon against his society will be branded a traitor to his public," said Jarushi. "To murder someone is a serious betrayal of the population. It is time to take steps to stop the shooting and violence."

Tibi commented on the announcement, saying, "Crime, violence and shooting  all of these frighten people in public places in Arab communities and they are terrible. Today, I hosted two quarrelling families in my home in Tayibe in order to prevent bloodshed. Together with the Sulha Committee, I have always been willing to do anything to avoid blood feuds and to stop these conflicts."

Tibi added that from the year 2000, nearly 1,200 people have been killed in internal conflicts and violence in Arab society.

"We cry to stop this bloodshed. The police have their role and we have ours. I have made legislation on this subject and we are carrying out our internal duties, but this is not enough. The weapons must be collected. Enough with the violence and killing. These weapons are killing us all," said Tibi.

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
MK Bezalel Smotrich called on religious Zionist to boycott a single round of IDF conscription in order to pressure the IDF to stop enlisting female soldiers in combat roles

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In comments made to B'Sheva newspaper, Smotrich said, "If the yeshivas and preparatory programs keep their students for several more months and skip one recruitment cycle, the IDF will ask itself what it prefersquality, motivated soldiers or mixed service at Bahad 1 (the IDF's officers training base)."

MK Bezalel Smotrich (Photo: Ofer Meir)

Smotrich made his comments in wake of the recent rise in tensions between religious Zionist rabbis and the IDF in regards to mixed-gender units.

Smotrich's comments have caused a firestorm in the Bayit Hayehudi party, whose chairman, Minister of Education Naftali Bennett, rejected the call, saying, "We are the IDF and we are not threatening ourselves."

Bennett continued, saying, "No group, and especially not religious Zionism, has the right 'to teach the IDF how to behave' or to refuse to be conscripted."

Minister of Education Naftali Bennett (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Director General of Bayit Yehudi, Nir Orbach, joined the fray, saying, "The Bayit Hayehudi party opposes any type of refusal or hint at refusal. Our yeshivas will not delay enlistment in order to correct processes that need it. The army is us and we will not cut off our nose to spite our face."

Party activist Prof. Asher Cohen warned party leaders that Smotrich's call could harm Bayit Hayehudi in the coming elections.

"If headlines are recycled during elections, Bayit Yehudi will struggle to get ten seats (in the Knesset). Seriously struggleand may not succeed."

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
JAKARTA -- Indonesia's air force says an American military plane made an emergency landing at an airport in Indonesia's Aceh province.

Air Vice Marshall Jemi Trisonjaya says the U.S. Air Force plane requested permission to land Friday after one of its four engines failed.

Trisonjaya said Saturday that permission was granted and the Boeing 707 successfully landed at Sultan Iskandar Muda airport in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province. The plane was carrying 20 military personnel to Japan's Haneda airport from Diego Garcia, an American military base in central Indian Ocean.

Trisonjaya said no one on board the plane was injured.

The cause of the plane's engine failure was unclear.
Jewish groups had pointed to scores of bomb threats against their communities as the most dramatic example of what they considered a surge in anti-Semitism. Some blamed a far-right emboldened by President Donald Trump.

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Now, that picture has been complicated by the arrest of a Jewish Israeli hacker who authorities say is responsible for the harassment.

Israeli police said the motive behind the threats was unclear. An attorney for the 19-year-old man, who was arrested Thursday, said her client had a "very serious medical condition" that might have affected his behavior.

The 19-year-old suspect (Photo: AFP)

Earlier this month, US law enforcement arrested a former journalist in St. Louis, Juan Thompson, on charges he had threatened Jewish organizations as part of a bizarre campaign to harass his former girlfriend. But Israeli police say the Jewish teen is the primary suspect in the more than 150 bomb threats in North America since early January.

Previously, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-Semitism and monitors extremism, had partly blamed Trump for creating an atmosphere that fueled the bomb threats and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, among other recent harassment. "His well-documented reluctance to address rising anti-Semitism helped to create an environment in which extremists felt emboldened," Greenblatt wrote last month.

On February 28, in a meeting with state attorneys general, Trump had suggested the phoned-in bomb threats may have been designed to make "others look bad," according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The remark raised concerns that Trump was downplaying bigotry. That same night, Trump opened his address to Congress with a strong condemnation of the threats and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, which occurred in suburban St. Louis, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

In a phone interview Thursday from DC, where Greenblatt was discussing anti-Semitism with members of Congress, he said, "It's not the identity of the culprit that's the issue," but the outcome of threats themselves, which terrified Jews and disrupted Jewish life.

He said anti-Semitism remained a serious concern, pointing to other recent incidents around the country. Swastikas were drawn throughout a New York City subway car with messages such as "Jews belong in the oven." In South Carolina, a white supremacist with felony convictions was charged with plotting an attack on a synagogue that officials said was inspired by the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. A Seattle synagogue was vandalized with a spray-painted message, "The Holocaust is fake history."

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL (Photo: EPA)

Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a civil rights and social justice group based in New York, said the arrest in Israel doesn't change Trump's record of being slow and insufficiently forceful in condemning anti-Jewish prejudice and bigotry in general. The center had repeatedly pointed to the bomb threats as evidence of "a national emergency of anti-Semitism" and accused Trump of failing to recognize the "real evidence" behind the problem.

"Nobody has said that Donald Trump himself has spray-painted swastikas or tipped over gravestones or that he picked up the phone and made bomb threats," Goldstein said. "What we were condemning was the silence. Organizations had to shame Donald Trump into responding."

The White House has not commented on Thursday's arrest.

Vice President Pence helps in cleanup vandalized Jewish cemetery

Melissa Plotkin, director of community engagement and diversity at the York Jewish Community Center in Pennsylvania, which was the target of a bomb threat last month, said it was "troubling" to find out the suspect was Jewish. "I'm trying to make sense of it and wonder what was going through the mind of the person when they were carrying this out," Plotkin said. The Jewish Federations of North America called the case "heartbreaking."

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, Connecticut, said the case was an uncomfortable reminder of what he had been through. In 1999, medical waste marked with swastikas was left in his synagogue parking lot. The incident prompted an outpouring of support from religious leaders and others in the community. But then police charged a member of his congregation, an outcome Hammerman described as "somewhat embarrassing" and "difficult."

The rabbi expressed concern that the arrest of the Israeli-American teen would fuel denial of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Goldstein said his office had received emails Thursday claiming all reports of anti-Semitism were "fake news."

"I think we should never jump to conclusions as to who did a particular act and allow the process of investigation to play itself out," Hammerman said in a phone interview. "On the other hand, we should be equally vocal in calling out those who seem to condone such activity or at least don't explicitly condemn it."

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon (Photo: AP)

Andrew Rehfield, chief executive of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, said "finding out this guy was Jewish was baffling to us." Rehfield was among local leaders who organized the community's response to the cemetery vandalism last month, which drew donations and offers of help from Christians and Muslims, and political leaders from around the country. Some Jewish institutions in Missouri had also received bomb threats.

Rehfield worried that efforts to combat anti-Semitism would be undermined not only by the identity of the bomb threat suspect, but also the partisan prism through which such incidents are viewed. Rehfield had been criticized by opponents of Trump for accompanying Vice President Mike Pence on a visit to the vandalized cemetery. Then on Thursday, Rehfield said a Jewish Trump supporter distributed an email demanding Jewish leaders apologize to the president now that police say a Jew was responsible for the threats.

"I think it does speak to the extremism on either side and the lack of charity and the lack of nuance," Rehfield said. "None of us attributed this to Trump. None of us attributed this to (White House chief strategist Steve) Bannon . None of us attributed it to David Duke. I'm not going to apologize for wanting the administration to clearly condemn anti-Semitism."
Two days after an Israel Police officer who was documented physically assaulting a truck driver in east Jerusalem was released on house arrest, his identity was cleared for publication on Saturday.

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Cohen assaulting Shawiqi

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Moshe Cohen, 34, is a resident of Jerusalem and a member of the Israel Polices riot division. Several days before the incident, the truck driver, Mazen Shawiqi, had damaged the policemans parked private vehicle and driven off. Cohen later tracked him down and initiated the confrontation at 7am on Wednesday morning.

Cohen and Shawiqi in the documented incident

On Friday, Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh released a public letter concerning the incident. He wrote, This is an irregular incident that has no place in the Israel Police, and condemned the blow to police officers public image that Cohen caused.

The police chief further announced that Cohen has been summoned for an administrative hearing that may result in his dismissal from the police.

(Article translated and edited by J. Herzog)
The Israel Police apprehended on Friday a man who had been filmed tricking cashiers out of money by concealing already-issued change.

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On Thursday, footage shared on social media showed the 52-year-old man from Rishon LeZion making a small purchase with a 200-shekel note at a newsstand. When the cashier issued him change, which included a 100-shekel note, the fraudster hid that note and claimed that he had been shortchanged, resulting in the cashier handing over another 100 shekels.

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The owner of the newsstand originally posted the security-camera footage to Facebook with a request to the public for their assistance in locating the man who had allegedly stolen in a similar manger from dozens of other business owners in Or Yehuda. The post went on to describe that the mans modus operandi in those other incidents were identical.

The business owner also wrote that this was the second time in the last half year that the same man had defrauded them.

As a result, the police began an investigation. After his arrest on Friday, the fraudster admitted to the infractions attributed to him and implicated himself in additional crimes during his questioning. He was to be brought on Saturday to the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court for a remand hearing.

(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
At the conclusion of their meeting in Hanoi last week as part of a state visit, Israels president asked his Vietnamese counterpart to reconsider his countrys votes concerning Israel at different international organizations.

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The meeting between Reuven Rivlin and Tran ai Quang was particularly warm and friendly, and Rivlins tone in his request was cordial.

We are friends, and friends tell each other the truth, even when its not always comfortable, Rivlin began. The Israeli interpreter who was relaying his words to Quang lowered his voice.

The two presidents in Hanoi (Photo: Reuters)

The Israeli president continued, We ask of you, as friends, to consider Vietnams votes in international institutions. Im of course not asking you to go against your heart, but saying that Jerusalem is not part of the State is Israel is like saying that Hanoi is not part of Vietnam.

At the conclusion of their meeting, Quang commented, We support the parties efforts to achieve peace for the Palestinians, for Israel and for the rest of the residents of the region leading towards the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestine, living alongside the State of Israel in peace."

The economic and security relations between the two countries are flourishing. Vietnamese government and business leaders speak of Israel in terms of admiration.

As part of its security collaboration, Israel has upgraded T-54 tanks for the Vietnamese army. Israel defense institutions are providing Vietnam with aerial defense systems, drones, rockets, cyber-defense systems and more. An Israeli company has even established a small-arms factory inside the socialist republic.

Rivlin visits a Vietnamese elementary school (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO) (Photo: Kobi Gidon/PMO)

The Vietnamese are keen to purchase as much as possible, but Israel is proceeding cautiously to prevent sensitive technology from being leaked to the Chinese or Iranians.

During Rivlins state visit, the Vietnamese pressured the Israeli president on this, but he made it clear to them that Israel must maintain its military superiority.

Despite this collaboration, Vietnams voting record at the UN on political issues related to Israel is more hostile, along with the country recognizing a Palestinian state. Vietnam consistently votes in support of the Arab bloc's positions.

Recently, Hanoi voted in favor of the controversial UNESCO resolution that disregards the Jewish religious connection to Jerusalem.

UN resolutions regarding the Jewish state that lack more overt political components have received Vietnamese support, however, such as in 2014 on a resolution submitted by Israel on entrepreneurship.

(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
The funeral of Mazan Fukha, the Hamas commander who was assassinated Friday night outside his home in the Gaza Strip, turned into a display of strength as dozens of armed militants marched beside the casket.

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Thousands attend the funeral

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Thousands participated in Fukha's funeral, among them Hamas senior official Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Fukha was released from prison in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal and was deported to the Gaza Strip.

Photo: Reuters

Hamas senior official Ismail Haniyeh (L) and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (Photo: EPA)

In the past, Fukha denied leaks by Israel's security forces saying that healong with other released prisonershad founded Hamas's West Bank headquarters and had helped organize and conduct terror attacks against Israelis from the Gaza Strip.

"The reports leaked by the Israeli Shin Bet using the Zionist newspapers have only one purposeto give the Shin Bet an excuse to harm released prisoners in the future, whether they are in the West Bank, in Gaza Strip or even abroad," claimed Fukha, adding that "it seems odd that a security organization leaks things that are supposed to be secret."





Fukha denied the allegations made following the leaks, saying that "they carry no truth."

Hamas' Deputy Director Khalil al-Hayya warned that "if the enemy believes that the assassination will cause a power shift, he should know that the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade (Hamas's military wing) know to react similarly."

The leader of the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza, Mohamed Al-Hindi, said that "the occupation hoped to crush the resistance through the murder of the martyr Fukha."





Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA

Photo: Reuters

Hezbollah also denounced his assassination, saying that the fingerprints of "the traitorous Zionist enemy" are clearly visible on it, responding that "this crime is another proof of the traitorous spirit lying within the abusive enemy and emphasizes the duty to keep fighting the abusive enemy until its banishment from all occupied territories."

Fukha's family

Fukha's father, who still lives in Tubas in the northern West Bank, also accused Israel of the assassination, saying, "Israeli intelligence officers came to our house many times and gave us messages that Mazen would be liquidated if he continued with his actions."

The family watched the funeral on television in their home in Tubas.

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)
The Ministry of Tourisms investment in promoting Israel in China has paid dividends, with a 68.6% increase from 2015 to 2016.

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The ministry has invested nearly ten million shekels a year, and Chinas largest private airline, Hainan, started offering flights to Israel

The Ministry of Tourisms data show that 79,268 tourists from China visited the Jewish state in 2016, but the ministrys goal is to cross the 100,000 barrier in number of Chinese tourists per year.

The average Chinese visitor is extremely interested in Israeli history and culture from biblical times to the modern high-tech boom. Their preferred destination is Jerusalem, with 81% of Chinese tourists visiting the capital with most making sure to visit the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Chinese tourists at the Dead Sea (Photo: Shutterstock)

Despite Jerusalems popularity, Israels second city still receives a fair amount of Chinese tourists, with 71% visiting Tel Aviv. The Dead Sea sees 56% of the Chinese who come to Israel.

According to the official data, the average Chinese tourist spends considerably more in Israel than the average European, with the former spending about $267 per day versus the latters $158.

Hotels adapting

Israeli hoteliers at the Dan and Isrotel chains have sought to adapt their offerings to their new guests from the Far East, with many hotels establishing a Chinese corner in the breakfast room. Apparently, many non-Chinese guests have also taken to the rice congee and steamed broccoli to start their day rather than the traditional Israeli offerings of salads, cheeses and baked goods.

Chinese corner at breakfast (Photo: Nitzan Dror)

Roy Kriezman, Manager of China and Far East Markets at Dan, told Ynet that representatives from his hotel chain are travelling to China to learn from Chinese hotels how best to accommodate the influx of new visitors.

Smaller slippers in a Dan Hotel (Photo: Amit Cotler)

Informational pamphlets in Chinese (Photo: Amit Cotler)

In addition to the breakfast offerings, modifications for Chinese guests include the coffee selections in the rooms being switched out with teas, the addition of two Chinese television station, written information being provided in Chinese, and providing smaller complimentary slippers.





Red flowers with more positive connotations (Photo: Amit Cotler)

A seemingly small detail has also been addressed, Kriezman shared: flower colors. Dan learned to change out the white flowers in its room with red ones, as white flowers symbolize death and mourning in Chinese culture.

(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
An airstrike targeting Islamic State militants in the Iraqi city of Mosul that witnesses say killed at least 100 people was in fact launched by the US military, American officials said Saturday.

US officials did not confirm the reports of civilian casualties but opened an investigation. In the days following the March 17 airstrike, US officials had said they were unsure whether American forces were behind the attack.

The statement issued by the US-led coalition said the airstrike had been requested by Iraqi security forces to target IS fighters and equipment "at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties." US.-backed government troops were fighting ISIS forces in that area of western Mosul, the statement said.

The coalition said it takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously and a formal Civilian Casualty Credibility Assessment had been opened to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties.
One could just feel the reaction from across Nebraska: not again.

This was after another prison disturbance earlier this month left two inmates dead at the Tecumseh State Prison.

Inmates started fires and numerous inmates were injured in the disturbance, with two left dead.

This came less than two years after a riot at the same Tecumseh prison caused $2 million in damage and threatened staff members. Two inmates were also killed in the nine-hour takeover of the prison in 2015.

It is clear that something is going on at the Tecumseh prison that state corrections officials just cant get a handle on.

Union officials have said that low wages and no reward for experience create constant turnover among prison staff, leaving inexperienced guards to handle difficult situations. They also point to short staffing and mandatory overtime leading to problems. There are currently 53 job vacancies at the prison.

Whatever the reasons, the state must do something to fix the situation at Tecumseh. Four deaths in two years is unacceptable.

Most of the state has been patient with Corrections Director Scott Frakes and Gov. Pete Ricketts. They inherited a terrible situation. The prisons are greatly overcrowded, staffing is a problem and corrections officials were miscalculating release dates.

Frakes has fixed the release dates miscalculations, but changes to state law have not had a significant impact on prison populations. Prison officials said changes made after the 2015 disturbance kept the recent riot from spreading. That is good and it is important that staff members were kept safe.

Ricketts also has asked the Legislature for $95 million in additional funds to hire more prison officers for Tecumseh and other prisons. In addition, the governor is seeking the building of a new inmate treatment center that will help ease overcrowding. Nebraska prisons are holding about 1,900 more inmates than they were designed to house.

Despite the lean budget times, the Legislature must address the prison needs. More funding for more guards and better pay for experienced staff is badly needed at Tecumseh and the other prisons. It cant wait for another year.

Lawmakers and corrections officials also should examine what it is about the Tecumseh facility that is leading to the deadly riots. Tecumseh is about an hours drive away from Omaha and Lincoln, which makes it more difficult to attract staff. However, other states have prisons in isolated locations and deal with it without any problems.

Is there a configuration at Tecumseh or a way that prisoners are grouped that is leading to problems? Is there a problem with the schedule? Or have the prisoners just become emboldened by the past disturbances and the talk of an inexperienced staff?

Whatever it is, state officials need to get to the bottom of it for the safety of the prison staff and of inmates. Nebraskans dont want to say not again one more time.
MONDAY 3/27

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Monday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

>> OB Enrollment is Monday, March 27 at 4 p.m. in the Lower Level of the Medical Office Building. Please attend class as soon as possible after your positive pregnancy test. For more information or to enroll in the online Childbirth Preparation class, contact OB Director Nancy Hengelfelt, RNC, at 402.362.04573.

TUESDAY 3/28

>> Sexaholics Anonymous, a 12 Step recovery group for those dealing with addiction to pornography, sex, and other forms of lust, meets Tuesday nights at 5:45 p.m. For more information please call our toll free number 1-877-889-8071 or visit sanebraska.org.

>> Cancer Support Group will meet Tuesday, March 28 at 6:30 p.m. at Willow Brook Assisted Living. For more information call 402.362.4662.

WEDNESDAY 3/29

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Wednesday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

THURSDAY 3/30

>> Weight Watchers meets in the basement of the York Towne House, 5th & Grant Ave., each Thursday. Weigh in 5:15 - 5:45 p.m.; Member meeting 5:45 - 6:15 p.m.

>> AL-ANON meets Thursday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

>> Narcotics Anonymous meets Thursday at 8 p.m. at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in the Annex building.

FRIDAY 3/31

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Friday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - AWOL Group meets Friday at 8 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

SATURDAY 4/1

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Saturday at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.
There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. - Don Herold

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Phillip K. Dick

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.- Frank Zappa
YEREVAN, MARCH 20, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the new Thermal Power Plant (TPP) in the vicinity of the Yerevan TPP in Erebuni administrative district.

The ceremony, which was held on March 20, was also attended by minister of economic integration and reforms, Vice Prime Minister Vache Gabrielyan, minister of energy infrastructures and natural resources Ashot Manukyan, CEO of Renco, President of Armpower Giovanni Rubini, Ambassador of Italy in Armenia H.E. Giovanni Ricciulli and other officials.

The Presidents Office told ARMENPRESS the Yerevan TPP combined steam-gas cycle unit (electricity station) has been designed with modern equipment and scientific experience, which, according to the responsibles and experts, guarantees the stations high efficiency and security. The participants of the event said the construction of the plant is an important step for the energy security and prosperity of Yerevan residents in the next decades.

Minister Manukyan and Renco CEO Giovanni Rubini signed a joint memorandum during the groundbreaking ceremony of the new TPP, which was placed in the foundation with a capsule.

The construction program of the TPP plans designing, developing, financing, constructing, using and technical maintenance of a combined cycle gas electricity station with 250 MW power and up to 53% total efficiency.

According to officials, investments will be around 285 million USD. Construction works will last 26 months.

900 temporary jobs will be created solely during the construction period, and after the launch of the facility over 200 permanent jobs with high salaries will be available.

Energy officials said the third 400 kV Armenia-Iran and Armenia-Georgia 400 kV new high voltage electricity line construction will be finished in 2019, and taking into account this new energy bloc will be available in 2019 as well, it will enable Armenia to provide the reliable and uninterrupted supply of electricity for neighboring countries.
YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. Six Russian servicemen have been killed and several more injured in a militant attack on a Russian National Guard base in the Chechen Republic, RT reports.

The incident took place near the Chechen village of Naurskaya, 70 kilometers north-west of Grozny.

According to a statement posted on the Russian National Guard website, around 2:30am on March 24 a group of armed militants attempted to enter the territory of one of the military camps of the Russian National Guard.

The militant group was spotted by an army detachment, which confronted it. Six attackers were killed. At the same time, six servicemen died in the shootout too while several more were wounded.

The National Guard says the militants took advantage of the thick morning fog for the attack.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire regime over 40 time from different caliber weapons on Artsakh-Azerbaijan contact line, Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of the Republic of Artsakh.

The statement released by the Defense Ministry says, Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire regime over 40 times from different caliber weapons on Artsakh-Azerbaijan contact line, firing over 220 bullets in the direction of Armenian border guards on March 24 and overnight 25.

The front line units of the Defense Army refrained from retaliation and continued to confidently carry out their military duty.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. The launch of activities of Investors club of Armenia non-public contractual investment fund was officially heralded on March 25 with the participation of the Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan and over 3 dozens of Diaspora Armenian businessmen from the Russian Federation. Note that back on January 25, 2017 numerous Armenian businessmen in Russia had issued a statement on their readiness to support the reform process in Armenia and to participate together with the Government of Armenia in the initiatives and business projects in Armenia.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Armenian Government, in his welcoming remarks the Prime Minister said, I personally know each participant of the club and I am in friendly relations with most of them. In reality this club will be groundbreaking for us not only for that healthy and long-term investments will be attracted to Armenia, but also will have a new corporal culture. I have repeated numerous times in meetings with our citizens that several countries which acquired new quality during the last 20-30 years faced no lesser problems than we face today. But their courage, ambitious projects, pragmatic and rational thinking, will, purposefulness and in some cases toughness have resulted in changing the country. Why cannot we have a good country? Why others can, but we cannot?

Karen Karapetyan stressed that each member of the Investors club of Armenia has created a business empire and by coming to Armenia they will change a lot. Karen Karapetyan thanked the members of the club, noting that their presence in Armenia will fill numerous gaps. He also stated that the club is not a charity club, but an aggressive business club.

The Investors club of Armenia is the first non-public contractual investment fund registered by the CB Armenia. The goal of the club is to foster the development of key spheres of the Armenian economy such as energy, including alternative, energy and tourism infrastructural, mining, ore processing, food and light industry by attracting domestic and external private resources.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Over 3 dozens of Russian-Armenian businessmen support all the programs of the Armenian Government that will ensure Armenias prosperity, Armenpress reports President of Tashir group of companies Samvel Karapetyan announced on March 25 following the launch of activities of the Investors club of Armenia.

I can tell on behalf of Tashir group and my friends who are today here that we are going to be actively involved in the works of this club for its success, Samvel Karapetyan said.

Referring to the activities of Armenian Premier Karen Karapetyan, he said that the Premier has still numerous surprises to do.

Its just a few months he has started but I am even amazed by the so much aggressive spirit of Karen Karapetyan. I reiterate, we will support and I am convinced goals will be scored every day in the near future, President of Tashir group of companies said.

He also stated that the investments of the near future will be mainly directed at energy sphere. We will try to assist by prompt investments so as the Government is able to revise the tariffs for reduction, Samvel Karapetyan concluded.

The Investors club of Armenia is the first non-public contractual investment fund registered by the CB Armenia. The goal of the club is to foster the development of key spheres of the Armenian economy such as energy, including alternative, energy and tourism infrastructural, mining, ore processing, food and light industry by attracting domestic and external private resources.
NEW YORK CITYAren't you glad you don't live in Manhattan? (Unless you do live in Manhattan, in which case ... never mind!) Because if you did live in Manhattan, you might be unlucky enough to catch sight of the "Free Speech Bus," pictured above, which has been rolling along the streets after being parked outside the United Nations building, Trump Tower and even in Times Square for a while on Wednesday, with a message that sums up a lot of the problem with some supposed "Christians'" myopic of human sexuality: Boys are boys and girls are girls, and never the twain shall cross because ... "It's Biology!"

The bus is the "brain"child of the Madrid-based homophobic pressure group Citizen GO, which describes itself as a "community of active citizens who work together, using online petitions and action alerts as a resource, to defend and promote life, family, and liberty. We work to ensure that those in power respect human dignity and individuals rights." (Among those "individual rights" are the "right" to stop people from getting abortions or choosing something other than a "natural end" to life, not to mention a right to "bodily integrity" and a few other homilies which are likely more honored in the breach than the practice.)

Citizen GO tried its "Free Speech Bus" stunt in Madrid first, before the City Council had the thing banned, allegedly for "breaching municipal rules on outdoor advertising," but in reality because of fears that it would incite riots in the liberal city. The mayor of Barcelona, where the bus was also scheduled to appear, tweeted, "In Barcelona there is no place for LGBT-phobic buses. We want our children to grow in freedom and without hatred." But then, Spain doesn't have a First Amendment.

The slogan on the Madrid bus was a little different than the one roaming Manhattan"Boys have penises. Girls have vaginas. Dont be deceived."but as adult industry members and supporters are already aware, too many Americans are far too sensitive to see words like "penis" and "vagina" on the side of a bus.

Anyway, the next logical place to take the hate campaign was the post-Obama United States! And along the way, the bus picked up a couple of more sponsors: the excrable National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which has fought steadily against the legalization of same-sex marriage, and its sister org, the International Organization for the Family, both headed up by one Brian S. Brown, which Huffington Post noted was behind the "Dump Starbucks" campaign because the company had come out in favor of same-sex marriage, which NOM was created to oppose.

"Boys are boys and girls are girls; it's very simple," USA Today quoted Brown as saying, regarding the bus tour's purpose and message. "We don't want men in girl's restrooms. We don't want schools and our law attempting to say that people are bigoted simply because they understand that there's a difference between male and female."

Brown was a little more honest when he talked to Breitbart News, however.

"Were seeing actual legislation trying to force schools to accept that boys can go into girls restroomsthats absolute insanity," he said, adding that recognition of transgender people and the claim that they and others like them can and should be allowed to change their sex have created a "mini-industry of medical specialists" who are performing radical surgery on children. "Were taking young children and essentially mutilating them  this is horrific, and people need to stand up against this."

Some voices of reason have also commented on the issue.

"I dont understand at all why putting all people into two, and only two, categories is so important," observed biology professor PZ Myers. "Ive met many people in my life, and the least interesting way to categorize them is by sex ... I have no plans or interest in having sex with any of them, so no, I dont care what chromosomes they have (and the funny thing is, most of these people have no idea what their chromosome complement is, anyway), I dont care what kind of genitals they have (and honestly, most of us dont see the genitals of 99.9% of the people we interact with), and I definitely dont want to know what kind of gametes they produce."

Some New Yorkers haven't taken too kindly to Brown's sort of bigotry, and yesterday, a couple of activists took spray paint and a hammer to the bus's back section, writing "Trans Rights Now" and "Trans Liberation" above the back wheel, as well as using the hammer to break the windshield and knock some holes in the sides.

But repairs are already under way, and the bus is expected to tour the entire United States, hitting the northeast region firstConnecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Islandand eventually, they'll work their way down to New Jersey and ... Pennsylvania, where they'll undoubtedly want to stop at the Boyertown Area High School, just east of Reading.

Why? Because the anti-trans crowd will probably want to weigh in on the lawsuit that was filed earlier this week by "Joel Doe" and his guardians against the Boyertown Area School District, its superintendant, and the principal and vice-principal of the high school where Doe is a junior.

So what's the problem? Well, according to the complaint filed by the far right-wing legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (a misnomer if there ever was one), "On or about October 31, 2016, Joel Doe began changing in the locker room for PE class, and when he was standing in his underwear about to put his gym clothes on, he suddenly realized there was a member of the opposite sex changing with him in the locker room, who was at the time wearing nothing but shorts and a bra. Joel Doe experienced immediate confusion, embarrassment, humiliation, and loss of dignity upon finding himself in this circumstance and quickly put his clothes on and left the locker room."

First, let's be clear: Doe didn't see anyone's genitals except his own in the locker room, but even if he had, so what? Any normal teenager who didn't come from a crazy religious background and had had a decent course in sex education would understand, in contrast to what he might have read on the side of a bus, that not all "Girls are girls ... and always will be," and that in the course of his life, there's always the chance that he will bump into a trans manand that it's possible to treat a trans man (or trans woman) pretty much the same as he would any other human beingwithout "confusion, embarrassment, humiliation, and loss of dignity."

"Boyertown School District had not informed Joel Doe or his Guardians that despite the words on locker room and restroom doors, they would no longer protect Joel Doe's expectation of privacy from viewing or being viewed by members of the opposite sex when he is present in multi-user private facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms," the complaint states. "The District's directive to Joel Doe was that he must change with students of the opposite sex, and make it as natural as possible, and that anything less would be intolerant and bullying against students who profess a gender identity with the opposite sex."

First of all, a transgender man is not a "girl," is not the "opposite sex" from Doe, and the kid's not "profess[ing] a gender identity with the opposite sex"; he is a man to the core of his being, even if his chromosomes, genitalia and gametes may not reflect that. And in order for this lawsuit to be successful, Doe is going to have to prove that he suffered some actual harm by seeing another human being in a bra and shorts.

After all, what's the problem? Did Doe get a hard-on right there in the locker room and was embarrassed about it? Was he afraid that someone with a vagina that close was going to attack him and try to rape him? Or, worse, see his weiner and make fun of it? From all reports, none of that ever happened. So what are the "damages"?

Well, Doe's ADF attorneys are trying really, really hard to make a case out of this: "The anxiety, embarrassment, and stress he feels as a direct result of Defendants' practice and actions has caused him to refrain from using restrooms as much as possible, stress about when and if he can use a given restroom without running into persons of the opposite sex, and opting to hold his bladder rather than using the school's restroom. This has caused an ever-present distraction throughout the school day, including during class instructional time. Failing to timely void urine has direct and adverse physiological effects, and the Defendants' policy inhibits Joel Doe from timely voiding."

That'd be funny if it weren't so sick. So their argument is, because Doe has a warped idea of what constitutes the "opposite sex," rather than seeing a shrink and getting rid of his obsolete notions about sex and gender, better instead to hold his pee-pee in and try to deprive all transgender students of their right to use the facilities corresponding to their gender identityand if Doe happens to catch a glimpse of a pussy in the "boys room," he should be compensated for that and the school should discriminate against its transgender students?

So far, the school district and the other defendants haven't responded to the complaintbut when they do, we'll report on it here.
SAN FRANCISCOTreasure Island Media has gone back to Fire Island for the fourth installment in its all bareback series Meat Rack, with this outing starring Sean Duran and Draven Torres.





Max Sohl has done it again, gathering up some of the hottest men in porn to fuck, suck and fuck some more in Meat Rack 4 . In the woods, on the walkways, by the pool, even underwaterjust about anywhere men can bend over and take a load under the sun. Fire Island is the biggest bathhouse in the world and this movie has it all.

Sean Duran and Draven Torres are featured in several scenes. Draven is tag-fucked by Hans Berlin and Rob Yaeger, and then picks up and gets double fucked by Sam Bridle and Seth Knight. Sean breeds Kyle Ferris in ab eye-popping "Meat Rack" scene at night. He fucks Hans Berlin with Randy Harden by the pool and takes Champ Robinsons 11-inch cock which squirts cum up his hole.



But even thats not all! Ray Dalton gets fucked by Ray Diesel; Tristan Flip seduces Luke Harding and Orin Edwards in the Meat Rack; and Killian James (in his Treasure Island debut) aggressively pounds and rams cumpup Stephen Harte.
U.S. President Donald Trump attends a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus Executive Committee at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., March 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Anthony Esposito, Dan Freed and Noe Torres

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's push to force U.S. industry to bring jobs home is opening investment avenues for Chinese companies in Mexico, an executive with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's largest lender, said on Friday.

Fears of a hit to foreign investment ran high when Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F - News) canceled a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico's central state of San Luis Potosi in January.

Trump, who had railed against U.S. manufacturers investing in Mexico, hailed the decision as a major victory, but Ford put it down to declining demand for small cars.

Yaogang Chen, head of ICBC's (Shanghai:601398.SS - News)(HKSE:1398.HK - News) Mexico unit, said U.S. industry's loss could be China's gain.

"If some U.S. investment projects don't (happen), there has to be somebody to invest. ... If Chinese companies think it is profitable, they will invest," he said in an interview on the sidelines of a banking conference in the resort of Acapulco.

In February, China's Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co Ltd (JAC Motor) (Shanghai:600418.SS - News) and Mexico's Giant Motors, along with distributor Chori Co Ltd (:8014.T), said they would invest over $210 million in an existing plant to build SUVs in the central state of Hidalgo.

Prior to Trump's campaign against U.S. manufacturers shipping jobs overseas, Chinese companies were making tentative inroads into Mexico.

China's BAIC Motor Corp Ltd (HKSE:1958.HK - News) in June 2016 started selling in Mexico its own cars imported from China and has said that it will look into building an industrial plant in Mexico to produce cars and electric vehicles.

BAIC is already a client of ICBC's in Mexico.

ICBC, one of the world's top banks by market capitalization and assets, received its banking license in Mexico in 2014 and started operations there in mid-2016.

"JAC, we think, will be a client of ours in Mexico too," Chen said.

Story continues

Still, Chinese foreign direct investment in Mexico is a tiny fraction of what U.S. firms have plowed in over the years.

State-controlled ICBC expects to grow its assets and loan portfolio in Mexico tenfold over the next three years to some 10 billion pesos ($533 million), Chen said.

The executive said ICBC aims to offer a service to allow clients to convert Mexican pesos to Chinese renminbi and vice versa, and make cross-border transactions cheaper.

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito, Dan Freed and Noe Torres; Editing by Richard Chang)
A home in the Calgary neighbourhood of Sundance was destroyed in a fire Friday night.

Two teenagers escaped safely from the burning home at 1319 Sunvista Court S.E. at about 6 p.m., said fire battalion chief Randy McRae.

"It's a two-storey, single-family home completely destroyed by the fire tonight. The homes on either side sustained very little damage," he said.

"There were two young men in the house at the time and they were actually asleep. They did wake up, discovered the fire and self-evacuated without injury."

The fire is under investigation and the cause is unknown.

"We'll have crews here all night on a fire watch rotation," he said.
By Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Influential Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Friday that only Iraq's military should hold territory recaptured from Islamic State, an apparent sign of concern that rival militias might use the gains to expand their influence. "It is necessary to support the Iraqi army and security forces to complete their victories in the usurped areas," Sadr told thousands of supporters at a rally in Baghdad. "They should be the only ones that hold ground after liberating it - no others, whether the occupier, foreign forces or others," he said. The ongoing U.S.-backed offensive to recapture the northern city of Mosul, Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq, involves a force of 100,000 Iraqi troops, Kurdish and Shi'ite fighters. The Shi'ite paramilitary groups, which include rivals of Sadr's own militia, have played a key role in encircling the extremist group in areas around predominantly-Sunni Mosul. There was no immediate reaction from Kurdish officials and other Shi'ite militia leaders. Some Sunni officials fear the Shi'ite groups will aim to hold territory in the region as the battle against Islamic State winds down, raising sectarian tension. Sadr's fears are more political, analysts say - he is concerned about rival Shi'ite militias gaining strength by taking ground in the north. Sadr's Saraya al-Islam, or Peace Brigades, are only deployed in and around the northern city of Samarra where the shrine of a holy Shi'ite Imam is located. Baghdad-based political analyst Ahmed Younis said Sadr's speech was a clear message to Shi'ite rivals. "It's quite a clear message for other Shi'ite armed groups not to take on the role of government forces and control lands under the pretext of fighting Daesh (Islamic State). Moqtada is trying to draw a line in the sand for his rivals," he said. Sadr's supporters in their tens of thousands waved Iraqi flags and chanted support for their leader as he spoke. Sadr, whose opinion holds sway over tens of thousands of Shi'ites, including fighters who battled U.S. troops in 2006-7, also threatened to boycott upcoming parliamentary elections, accusing Iraq's Election Commission of bias toward some parties. He is calling for a new commission and a review of the current election law, saying it allows influential parties to maintain their grip on power. (Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; writing by John Davison; editing by Richard Lough)
TAIPEI (Reuters) - China's failure to respond on the matter of a Taiwan man missing on the mainland is causing his family "anxiety and panic", Taiwan's ruling party said on Saturday, as it called on authorities to protect the rights of Taiwan people. Concern has risen on self-ruled Taiwan about the whereabouts of Lee Ming-che, a community college worker known for supporting human rights in China who disappeared on Sunday after entering China's Zhuhai city via the coastal city of Macau. Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Chinese authorities had repeatedly said they would protect the rights of Taiwan people on the mainland in accordance with law. "But after six days, there has been no official response by China to requests for consultations about the search by our government and his family," the party said in its strongest statement yet on Lee's disappearance. "This has caused the family anxiety and panic," Chang Chih-hao, a spokesman for the independence-leaning party said in the statement. The party called on Chinese authorities to respond promptly to requests for cooperation and "effectively protect human rights and not increase the risk of Taiwanese people traveling to China", Chang said. Relations between Beijing and Taiwan have worsened in the past year, largely because Beijing distrusts the DPP, which took power last year and traditionally supports independence for Taiwan. Beijing regards the democratic island as a breakaway province and it has never renounced the use of force to bring it back under mainland control. Beijing cut off official communications with Taiwan after President Tsai Ing-wen took office last year. Tsai, also leader of the DPP, says she wants peace but has never conceded that Taiwan is a part of the mainland. Taiwan's agencies for dealing with China  its Straits Exchange Foundation and Mainland Affairs Council  have said they have been unable to raise a response from their Chinese counterparts over Lee's case. Rights group Amnesty International's East Asia Director Nicholas Bequelin said Lee's case raised questions about the safety of people working with civil society in China. Lee had been supporting organizations and activists in China for years but went to China this time for personal matters related to mother-in-law's medical condition, Amnesty International said. "If Lee Ming-che has been detained, then please tell me the charges," Lee's wife, Lee Ching-yu, said at a news briefing on Friday organised by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights. "But please tell her if her husband is alive or dead, where is he," the rights group said in a statement. (Reporting by J.R. Wu)
SATURDAY, March 25, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- MRI screening might greatly reduce overdiagnosis and overtreatment of prostate cancer in older men, a preliminary study suggests.

Compared to the current screening method, MRI can reduce overdiagnosis of prostate cancer by 50 percent, and unnecessary biopsies by 70 percent in men over 70, Dutch researchers reported Saturday at a conference in England.

Prostate cancer is common in aging men, but it's often slow-growing and non-threatening.

Screening sometimes begins with a blood test to measure the level of PSA (prostate specific antigen). If elevated, it might indicate cancer. So, the next step is a needle biopsy, where a doctor takes multiple samples from the prostate and has them tested for cancer.

Because PSA testing is an inexact science, "the benefit of early prostate cancer detection with random biopsy generally does not outweigh the harm induced by screening," particularly in men 70 and older, said lead researcher Dr. Arnout Alberts.

These harms can include unnecessary radiation and surgery, explained Alberts, who is in the urology department at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

However, some elderly men may benefit from early detection, "and the use of MRI scans significantly reduces the harms and drawbacks of screening," he said.

For the study, Alberts and colleagues focused on 335 men, aged 71 and older, who had elevated blood PSA levels.

To determine who did and did not have prostate cancer, the investigators took six biopsy samples from the prostates of 177 men. Another 158 men had 12 samples taken, plus an MRI scan of their prostate before the biopsy.

If the MRI revealed a potentially cancerous area, then further MRI-targeted biopsy samples were taken, Alberts explained.

The research team found that biopsies using either six or 12 samples were, in most cases, able to detect serious cancers.

However, Alberts' team found that 70 percent of the men in the study would not have needed biopsies at all if MRI had been used beforehand, because no suspicious areas showed up on their scans.

Although MRI is more expensive than PSA testing, it could save money in the long run, in much the same way that mammography breast cancer screening has paid off for women, the researchers suggested.

One specialist, however, doesn't think MRI is the answer to the prostate cancer screening controversy.

"There is not enough data to say MRI is a home run, and there is not enough data to say it is cost-effective," said Dr. Anthony D'Amico, a professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Data from other institutions shows that MRI finds only 80 percent of severe cancers and misses 50 percent of the other high-grade cancers, D'Amico said.

"So having a negative MRI doesn't mean that you don't have aggressive prostate cancer," he added.

Alberts countered that a larger trial has started, with 40,000 men randomly selected for MRI screening at various PSA levels or for no screening.

"This trial will hopefully further elucidate the role of MRI in prostate cancer screening," he said.

D'Amico believes the only way to know for sure if MRI effectively screens for prostate cancer is to scan thousands of patients and remove their prostate to analyze the type of cancer.

"This would need to be done before we could justify the cost of MRI, which could be several thousand dollars, as opposed to a PSA, which is in the $50 to $70 range," D'Amico said.

D'Amico said MRI might be of value in certain cases, however.

"If you have a high PSA and you have biopsies and they are all negative, consider MRI, not for screening, but because you probably have a cancer that has gone undetected," he said. "But if you don't have a high PSA, we shouldn't be using MRI as a substitute for PSA."

The study results were scheduled for presentation Saturday at a European Association of Urology conference in London. Findings presented at meetings are usually considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

For more about prostate cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.
uber self-driving car accident Arizona

A self-driving Uber car was involved in an accident on Friday night in Tempe, Arizona, in one of the most serious incidents to date involving the growing fleet of autonomous vehicles being tested on US roads and prompting Uber to suspend autonomous-car testing in the state.

A photo posted on Fresco News' Twitter feed showed a self-driving Uber Volvo SUV on its side.

Another car, in the background, is pictured with dents and smashed windows. Nobody was seriously injured in the incident.

The Uber SUV was operating in autonomous mode when the accident occurred, Uber confirmed to Business Insider. Uber has halted its self-driving-car pilot in Arizona and is investigating what caused the incident.

"We are continuing to look into this incident and can confirm we had no backseat passengers in the vehicle," an Uber representative said in an email to Business Insider.

A Tempe police representative told Bloomberg that the Uber was not at fault in the accident and was hit by another car that failed to yield.

Still, the collision will likely to turn up the temperature on the heated debate about the safety of self-driving cars.

A Tesla operating in Autopilot mode crashed into a truck last year, killing the car's driver.

Google's prototype self-driving cars have been involved in several fender-benders over the years, though most were operating in manual mode at the time of the incidents.

Automakers and tech companies are rushing to develop and test self-driving cars, which some people think could eventually replace traditional cars. But there are many questions about the safety and reliability of the technology that regulators are still grappling with.

Problems at the DMV

Uber self-driving car accident Arizona

Uber launched its self-driving-car pilot in Arizona in December after a dispute with California regulators over the program.

Uber attempted to launch the program (similar to the one in Pittsburgh) in mid-December in California. But Uber neglected to obtain an autonomous-vehicle license before the launch, and that led the California DMV to revoke registration of the company's 16 autonomous vehicles.

Weiterlesen

Uber then shipped all 16 of its self-driving Volvo XC90s to Arizona on the back of its self-driving Otto truck.

Uber's autonomous pilot program ran in California for just a week, but the company's self-driving Volvo was caught on video running through a red light on a busy intersection in front of the city's Museum of Modern Art.

An Uber representative said at the time that the incident was the result of human error, but internal sources told The New York Times the Uber was driving itself when the incident happened.

San Francisco Uber self-driving

Uber is involved in a lawsuit over its self-driving technology.

Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving-car company, is suing Uber, alleging that the ride-hailing service stole the designs for its lidar system. Lidar sensors shoot lasers and allow self-driving vehicles to detect obstacles. Waymo filed an injunction asking a federal judge to freeze Uber's use of its self-driving tech.

Uber has been under intense scrutiny after a string of scandals.

The company has been accused of promoting a sexist workplace after former engineer Susan Fowler wrote a blog post detailing allegations of harassment and gender bias she said she experienced at the company.

The New York Times posted a bombshell report detailing a company retreat where a manager groped several female employees and was later fired.

Uber used a secretive tool called Greyball to evade government official and regulators at a time when city regulators were trying to block the ride-hailing service.

NOW WATCH: Uber is shutting down its self-driving cars in San Francisco  heres what it was like to ride in one





More From Business Insider


Tau pathology is one of the defining features of Alzheimer disease (AD), which is the most common form of dementia in older age. While symptomatic treatments exist, there are currently no preventive therapies for AD. Investigators at BWH and Rush University Medical Center reported the discovery of a new gene that is associated with Tau accumulation. Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the paper describes the identification and validation of a genetic variant within the protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor-type delta (PTPRD) gene.

Tau accumulates in several different conditions in addition to AD, including certain forms of dementia and Parkinsonian syndromes as well as chronic traumatic encephalopathy that occurs with repeated head injuries.

"Aging leads to the accumulation of many different pathologies in the brain; one of the most common forms of pathology is the neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) that was at the center of our study," said co-principal investigator David Bennett, MD, who directs the Alzheimer Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "The NFT is thought to be more closely related to memory decline than other forms of aging-related pathologies, but there are still very few genes that have been implicated in the accumulation of this key feature of Alzheimer disease and other brain diseases."

Leveraging autopsies from 909 individuals participating in studies of aging based at Rush University, the team of investigators assessed the human genome for evidence that a genetic variant could affect NFT.

Lead author Lori Chibnik, PhD, of BWH said, "The variant that we discovered is common: most people have one or two copies of the version of the gene that is linked to accumulating more pathology as you get older. Interestingly, tangles can accumulate through several different mechanisms, and the variant that we discovered appears to affect more than one of these mechanism."

The reported results offer an important new lead as the field of neurodegeneration searches for robust novel targets for drug development. In addition, the advent of new techniques to measure Tau in the brains of living individuals with positron emission tomography (PET) offers a biomarker for therapies targeting Tau.

"This study is an important first step; however, the result needs further validation and the mechanism by which the PTPRD gene and the variant that we have discovered contribute to the accumulation of NFT remains elusive," said Phil De Jager, co-principal investigator at BWH. "Other studies in mice and flies implicate PTPRD in memory dysfunction and worsening of Tau pathology, suggesting that altering the level of PTPRD activity could be helpful in reducing an individual's burden of Tau pathology."

###

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging.

Paper cited: Chibnik LB et al. "Susceptibility to neurofibrillary tangles: role of the PTPRD locus and limited pleiotropy with other neuropathologies" Molecular Psychiatry DOI: 10.1038/mp.2017.20
: So, How does that relate to conclusion. IRRELEVANT.

: Wow, as per my Pre Thinking. Correct

: Some of the?? What about the others? What does Some of the means? Is it 1 or 2 or all? We don't know. Incorrect.

Still man, it was higher no matter how much. Strengthener.

But what these 5 Uncles/Aunts suggest Didn't, right? Irrelevant.

Argument says The randomly selected Investment was more profitable at the end of the year while the investments selected by Experts were less profitable at the end of the year. So, it concluded its not worth spending money to hire those experts.I would say it is the weakest argument.May be what he selected was a Guess. Or May be what they selected is a Diamond over a long term and not a short term.A. The financial planners selected for the study are regarded as some of the top experts in their field.B. Most financial planners select investment portfolios designed to mature over a long period of time.C. The randomly selected investment portfolio included some of the same investments chosen by the experts.D. The magazines portfolio returns were only slightly higher than the returns of the financial planners.:E. Most investments decisions begin to pay off after one year. :_________________
The world faces the prospect of more tension with China over trade, security and human rights after Xi Jinping awarded himself another five-year term as leader of the ruling Communist Party and called for self-reliance in technology, a stronger military and protection of core interests abroad. At a party congress, Xi gave no sign of plans to change the "zero-COVID strategy that has frustrated Chinas public and disrupted business and trade. He called for faster military development and announced no change in policies that strain relations with Washington and Asian neighbors. Xi is tightening control at home and trying to use Chinas economic heft to increase its influence abroad.
Hi tushartiwari4u,First off, a 650/Q48 is a strong score (it's right around the 80th percentile overall), so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. Depending on the Schools that you plan to apply to, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile. There's a Forum full of them here:The process of applying to (and ultimately attending) Business School will require a big investment of time, money and energy on your part, so you really should make sure that the Programs that you apply to match your career goals/needs. There are a variety of factors that go into selecting the Schools that you'll apply to. Instead of just applying to Programs in which you might have a good chance to 'get in', here are some other things to think about:1) Is there a particular company that you want to work for or industry that you want to work in? Certain degrees are more appropriate than others if you have a specific career goal.2) What do you want your MBA to do for you?3) Do you want to go to School full-time or part-time?4) Are you willing to relocate? Are you comfortable with working through a program that is primarily online?5) Are you going to be applying for scholarships?Etc.It's okay if you don't have answers to any of these questions just yet, but you really should try to define all of the important variables in terms of your goals, so that you can tailor your entire approach to getting into the best School that matches what you're looking for. By extension, once you have a list of Schools, you'll have a better sense of whether you should retake the GMAT or not.GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,Rich_________________
Re: In contrast to the tense private drama, Act III is brought to a thrill [ #permalink

1 Kudos
Tue, 11/8 (10:30am ET): Recession Looming, Applications Down! Is It the Best Time to Get an MBA?
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Betty and I were indeed fortunate to take advantage of a day-long cruise aboard the Barbara Lee Steamboat as it cruised the St. Johns River in central Florida this past February.

Our adventure was scheduled by our friends operating the All Around Tours Charter Company based in Nokomis, Florida. This is the same charter company we used during our three-day trip to visit Savannah, Georgia, last year.

Leaving Venice at daybreak on February 21st, we took a bus to Sanford, Florida, arriving for the lunch cruise. Departing from historic downtown Sanford, the Barbara Lee is an unforgettable way to experience Floridas wildlife that we viewed on the cruise.

The Barbara Lee steamboat is an authentic paddle-wheel boat with the paddle wheels powered by diesel rather than steam used in the older boats of this size. With fewer than 200 passengers we had the opportunity to stroll along the walk-ways on the ship prior to our chef preparing our noon meal. The meals, all prepared on the ship, gave us an opportunity to select from several different entrees. We were given a selection of salmon, chicken or prime rib followed by dessert.

Prior to and during our meal, the owner of the ship gave us a very informative and interesting lecture as we cruised the longest river in Florida. At 310 miles long, it winds through or borders 12 counties flowing from the south to the north -- a relatively rare characteristic from most rivers that flow from north to south.

A very shallow river, the drop in elevation from headwaters to the mouth of the river ending in Jacksonville is less than 30 feet. Like most Florida waterways, the St. Johns has a very low flow rate of only 0.3 mph and is often described as lazy. Numerous lakes are formed by the river or flow into it, but as a river its widest point is nearly 3 miles across. Being a very shallow river, the temperature of the water tended to be warmer than many rivers and this brought an unusually high number of manatees to the area. Although we did not see any manatees, the captain assured us that there were beneath the surface.

A variety of people have lived on or near the St. Johns, including native American Indians and both French and Spanish settlers. Also, the Seminole Indian tribe, along with slaves and freemen, Florida crackers, and land developers, tourists and retirees have made their homes on or near the river. The river was the subject of Harriet Beecher Stowes letters home.

As many know, Florida was the location of the first permanent European colony in what would become the United States. It was the last U.S. territory on the East Coast to be developed and as such it remained an undeveloped frontier into the 20th century.

The St. Johns, like many Florida rivers, was altered to make way for agricultural and residential centers. The river suffered severe pollution and human interference that have diminished the natural order of life in and around the river. In all, 3.5 million people live within the various watersheds that feed into the river.

The St. Johns, named one of 14 American Heritage Rivers in 1998, was included on a list of Americans Ten Most Endangered Rivers in 2008. Since this time restoration efforts are now underway for the basins around the St. Johns as Florida continues to deal with population increases in the rivers vicinity.

Interesting to know that approximately 1,000 new arrivals move to Florida each day to become official residents. This, of course, does not count the thousands of snow birds spending their winters in Florida each year. Perhaps this is the reason we have gridlock on our highways.

During our lecture we were reminded that Florida was not accepted into the United States until 1821. Prior to this time there were many violent conflicts between white settlers and Seminoles, whose bands often included African slaves. It was Major General Andrew Jackson who was responsible for removing the Seminoles from the area around the St Johns River. The result of Jacksons offensive was the transfer of Florida to the United States.

Following the Seminole Wars, a gradual increase in commerce and population occurred on the St. Johns, made possible by steamship travel. Prior to the introduction of the railroad the steamboats were the only way to reach interior portions of the state. By the 1860s, weekly trips between Jacksonville, Charleston, and Savannah were made to transport tourists, lumber, cotton, and citrus. The soil along the St. Johns was considered especially good for producing sweeter oranges.

During the Civil War, Florida provided materials to the Confederacy by way of steamboats on the St. Johns, although the river and the Atlantic coasts were blockaded by the U. S. Navy.

Today, much of Florida is experiencing an influx of land developers. However, the small town of Sanford remains a quaint small town with little industry and the remains of older neighborhoods with their older homes.

I especially enjoyed standing on the walkways of the steamboat and watching as we passed the shoreline. Being closer to one bank we viewed the large oak trees with the Spanish moss hanging from the branches. Bird watchers tell us that they have identified 30 different varieties of birds. In addition, although we did not see any gators as the weather was somewhat cool with a light rain, they were probably in the mud at the bottom of the river along the shoreline to keep warm.
Our insane, clown president should be impeached for deliberately lying to the American public about the supposed wiretapping by the Obama administration (remember the birth certificate fiasco?) and then like a child caught lying, he compounds the lie by implicating the British! His health care program is in tatters as they try to force the states to pay for it -- HELLO! Illinois is bankrupt! New York and Palm Springs taxpayers are paying millions in security for this president who refuses to vacation at Camp David. More millions in security are spent for his sons to jet all over the world on Trump business and his daughter just moved into an office in the White House.

He refuses to divulge his tax returns or disentangle himself from his Washington hotel in direct violation of the contract. Now comes a $4 billion burden to taxpayers for his stupid wall. I hope the Mexicans roll up the cannons and blow it to smithereens. And, like all dictators before him, his paranoia will only be satisfied by funding a massive army -- to the detriment of social services, medical research, the arts and many other critical services. And does his desperate, sycophantic Republican congress dare to rein in this undiagnosed manic depressive? No!

We read of the antics of Kim Jong-un and think him a madman. What on earth must the rest of the world think of this vaudeville show in the White House with all the pratfalls and Miss Twinkie Conway taking photos with her microwave? If Obama had behaved in this manner there would have been such a hue and cry from the boobgeoisie.

This would be emperor is not wearing any clothes -- or playing with a full deck and both should be obvious to everyone by now.

Sincerely, Ellen Dick-Ferrera, Sullivan
As Sandi wanted, the blog continues. If you would like to make a donation of support, you can do so at the links below. Most of the donated funds go to the purchase of medical supplies and covering my medical bills. Some goes to the purchase of various reading materials which are eventually read and reviewed here.
Credit: George Hodan/public domain

Men unable to have an erection after prostate surgery enjoyed normal intercourse thanks to stem cell therapy, scientists are to report Saturday at a medical conference in London.

In first-phase clinical trials, eight out of 15 continent men suffering from erectile dysfunction had sex six months after the one-time treatment, without recourse to drugs or penile implants.

The positive result showed no signs of flagging during a subsequent year-long monitoring period.

"As far as we know, this is the first time that a human study with a 12-month follow up shows that the treatment is lasting and safe," said Lars Lund, a professor at Odense University Hospital in Denmark who took part in the trials.

"That is much better than taking a pill every time you want to have intercourse," he told AFP.

The results were promising enough to convince Danish health authorities to authorise so-called phase III "double-blind" randomised trials in which one group of men is given stem cell therapy and another placebos.

Only men recovering from prostate cancer and able to control their bladders will be enrolled in the new experiments, Lund explained by phone.

All-purpose stem cells

To perform the procedure, doctors remove fat cells from a patient's abdomen via liposuction.

The cells undergo a brief treatment and emerge as all-purpose stem cells, meaning they can mutate into almost any specialised cell in the body.

"We do not cultivate the cells or change them in any way," said Lund's colleague Martha Haahr, head researcher and lead author of a study detailing preliminary results, published last year in EBioMedicine.

The stem cells are then injected with a syringe into the penis, where they spontaneously begin to change in to nerve and muscle cells, as well as the endothelial cells that line blood vessels.

Men are under general anaesthesia while all of this happens, and are discharged from hospital the same day.

Prostate surgery is responsible for about 13 percent of erectile dysfunction cases. Up to 80 percent of men experience difficulty having sex immediately after an operation, previous research has shown.

Diabetes accounts for 40 percent of erectile dysfunction cases, and vascular disease another 30 percent.

Men with diabetes would be the next target group for clinical trials, Lund said.

The results reported at the European Association of Urology conference could be an effective "therapeutic option for patients suffering erectile dysfunction from other causes," Haahr said.

It is estimated that nearly half of men between the ages of 40 and 70 experience erectile dysfunction to some degree.

The global market for drugs treating the disorder is expected to top $3.4 billion (3.15 billion euros) by 2019.

Failure to perform sexually can also, in some men, result from relationship problems, performance anxiety or repressed homosexuality, Haahr said.

 2017 AFP
Eskom is urging South Africans to join the global community in raising awareness about climate change by switching their lights off during Earth Hour on Saturday night.

As has been the case over the years, South Africans will join millions of people, businesses, and landmarks around the globe, who will set that hour aside to host events, switch off their non-essential lights, and make noise for climate change action, the parastatal said in a statement.

Eskom said taking part in this event would serve as South Africas contribution to meeting its sustainable development goals. These include providing affordable energy and related services by integrating and considering economic development, environmental quality, and social equity in business practices.

Eskom strives for sustainable development principles and practices to be entrenched in all of its decisions, with the aim of ensuring long-term sustainability, it said.

The parastatal said it would inform South Africans of how much energy it had saved between 20:30 and 21:30 on Saturday night, which would translate into carbon dioxide savings.

Eskom also urged South Africans to conserve energy beyond the event, and integrate it into their daily lives.

We all know that we need to take immediate action to save our planet, but many of us assume that these changes will place an added burden on our pockets and with rising prices on our daily living expenses, people dont feel they can contribute.

However, this is possible. People are encouraged to reduce their energy consumption every day by using electricity efficiently, switching off all non-essential lights and appliances, it said.

Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia in 2007 and is organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature. More than 162 countries and territories worldwide are currently part of the initiative.

News24

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Dollar, euro gain value in Armenia

General: Iran riots were US plan to derail nuclear deal

Minister: 'Lydian Armenia' may start exploitation of gold mine on Mountain Amulsar

Armenia political scientist: Balance is formed in region thanks to Iran

Minister: 70 schools will be repaired or newly built in Armenia in 2023

UAE lifts most COVID-19 restrictions for tourists

Political scientist: There is no Armenian-American agenda

President of Finland says country has no plans to host nuclear weapons

Russian Ambassador to Armenia: We are not used to making PR and playing games

Flight restrictions extended to 11 airports in Russia

Kopirkin: Spiritual core will help Armenia, Russia overcome difficulties, challenges

Armenia ranks among top 5 CIS countries for winter tourism

Envoy: Russian president awarded Armenian philologist with medal

Iranian intelligence arrests 26 terrorists: an Azerbaijani citizen among them

Russian Defense Ministry confirms: Azerbaijan fired at Khramort village in Artsakh

Number of oil and gas drilling rigs is up in US

Economy minister: Azerbaijan aggression prevented increase of Armenia wheat sowing areas

Gegharkunik governor: There are observers who recorded that Azerbaijan carried out aggression against Armenia

The National Interest: Iran turns attention to the Caucasus

Tokayev: Kazakhstan is ready to use other measures, besides diplomacy, for its defense

Economy minister: Primary agricultural products ensure 11%-13% of Armenia GDP

FAO: World grain prices rise in October

Kremlin urges Yerevan and Baku to refrain from destabilization

Governor of Armenias Tavush on possible handover of enclaves to Azerbaijan: Not being discussed now

Governor of Armenias Vayots Dzor: We have pastures that are monitored by Azerbaijan

WSJ: Sullivan is in contact with Ushakov and Patrushev on Ukraine

Vayots Dzor governor: Azerbaijan military that infiltrated Armenia can be seen with naked eye from Jermuk city

Armenia President: Military clashes, hostilities have direct impact on soil, air pollution

IRGC seizes over 1,500 weapons in Iran riots

Minister: $879 million worth of agricultural products exported from Armenia

Japan to exterminate 150 thousand chickens because of bird flu outbreak

Armenia informational online platform for promoting highly qualified specialists engagement is launched

South Korea's president apologizes for crush in downtown Seoul

Documento: Greek PM Mitsotakis used intelligence services to spy on dozens of people

Close to $98M to be allocated from Armenia state budget for agricultural projects in 2023

Man who set self on fire near Armenia government mansion is in severe condition

Anti-Iranian action to take place in Baku

UN promises to lift restrictions on Russian grain exports in near future

Fighter jet crashes in Saudi Arabia

About $770M to be assigned to Armenia territorial administration, infrastructure ministry next year

Armenia parliament vice-speaker: There is very important note in Sochi statement

Copper falls in price

New York bank robberies up 42% this year

Armenia President to attend climate change convention in Egypt

Gold prices change slightly

World oil prices falling

Mirzoyan, Blinken, Bayramov to meet in Washington today

How long will it take to know US midterm elections results?

Iranian Armenian MP: Iran-Armenia trade is expected to reach $1B

U.S. National Park Service urges against licking the Sonora desert toad

Azerbaijan army units open fire in direction of Armenia positions

Minister: Britain's government faces tough decisions

Pashinyan: Teachers in Armenia must get 800,000, 1,000,000 and 1,200,000 drams wages

Boris Johnson from fighting for Conservative Party leader over fears of losing income

Greece slams Turkish authorities' temporary ban on Greek official's entry

Scientifically proven: EU is inscrutable

OPEC: To avoid unrestrained volatility we need to invest in oil

U.S. arms sales in Europe are soaring

Turkmenistan becomes regional energy center

Kishida pledges to strengthen Japan's naval and military capabilities

Germany and eight other EU member states plan to expand sanctions against Iran

Iranian Parliament Speaker's visit to Azerbaijan postponed

NYT: Kyiv plans total evacuation in case of power outage

Iran reveals new air defense missile

IRGC neutralizes terrorist group in southwestern Iran

Bahrain to continue building relations with Israel after Netanyahu's victory

Iran says it confiscated a large batch of U.S.-made munitions

Civilian exploded on mine in Artsakh

Iran successfully launches Ghaem 100 rocket, making the US nervous

U.S. sends warplanes to Iran

Washington Post: US privately urges Ukraine to show willingness to negotiate with Russia

Parisien: French man wins  160 million in European lottery

U.S. decides to block number of seats on planes because of the increase in passenger weight

BMW M4 turned into a pickup truck
The fact of Armenian Genocide should be recognized once and for all, U.S. Representatives David Trott, who introduced a new draft law recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide and prevention of new genocides in the House of Representatives, told Voice of America.

I think it is very important for the U.S. States to end this discussion once and for all, recognizing what happened. It is also important for the Armenian people, Trott said.

According to him, such bills have been previously introduced in Congress, but did not get the necessary majority.

These bills never reached the president's table for signing. Being a senator, Obama recognized the Armenian Genocide, but, for some reasons, he changed his position as a president, the congressman said.

In turn, Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Frank Pallone noted that today the Armenian Genocide is known and recognized all over the world more than ever.

We are determined to achieve recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Congress. I do not know when this will happen, but I do not doubt that it is inevitable. I will continue to support this process, Pallone said.

He also recalled that members of the Congressional Armenian Caucus, several dozen congressmen sent a letter to the White House, urging President Donald Trump to recognize the Armenian Genocide with a special statement on April 24, following the example of President Ronald Reagan.
YEREVAN.  President of Russia-based Tashir group, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan said he had supported and will continue supporting all programs for the welfare of Armenia.

Samvel Karapetyan on Saturday attended the opening ceremony of private investment fund Investors Club of Armenia.

Commenting on reporters remark that in March he promised to surprise everyone with investments, Samvel Karapetyan answered: I think we had already done this.

In turn, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan shared his expectations from the club. He believes that the investment fund will change business atmosphere, will contribute to a new business culture and intensification of financial and capital market.

Members of the club have partners around the world, and I expect that their participation will turn the club into a bridge between a large financial market and business. It's a completely private club, with business goals, and we have to work this way. We are not against grants, but we want to create an atmosphere where it is logical to earn money and to pursue profits. This will change way of thinking, this will change everything, he assured.
YEREVAN. - The test-demonstration of the technical equipment designed for the registration of voters during the upcoming parliamentary elections was held in Yerevans Anton Chekhov school on Saturday upon the initiative of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).

Presenting the process of voter registration, director of E-governance Infrastructure Implementation Unit (Ekeng) CJSC, Artur Tunyan noted: A citizen approaches the specialist operator and presents the document, which can be either an ordinary passport or an identification card. The first action which the operator should do is to check the identity of the citizen visually. He then downloads the document into the MRZ field. The system provides the data of the citizen, and if it doesnt recognize these data, a green light turns on, following which it is proposed to download the fingerprint.

Afterwards, a special invoice is printed, which is provided to the voter. The latter can then continue the process, approaching the registration log with a document and invoice provided to him.

In case of attempting a double registration, a special voice signal turns on and this fact is recorded. A special invoice is printed but in this case the document and invoice are not returned to the citizen. This is actually the first document for launching proceedings. It is handed to the police for launching proceedings, Tunyan said.

In his words, voters are not allowed to vote by a passport copy, since it is not considered a document. Passports or identification cards have an MRZ field. If the same data are noted on an ordinary paper, any device reading that field will always recognize those data. But if a person approaches and asks whether it is possible to register by a copy, the operator says: No, it is not, Tunyan stressed.

Head of the Union of Informed Citizens NGO, Daniel Ioannisyan, for his part, noted that this device aims to rule out the human factor. He asked: If someone from the thousands of specialists proves to be unconscientious and allows to vote by passport copy, will he manage to do that?

In response, Chairman of CEC, Tigran Mukuchyan, stressed: What you are saying is a criminal offense. But today, also considering the wide opportunities of public control in the district centers, such a crime simply cannot happen.

Tunyan also presented the process of closing the polling stations with the help of the registration devices.
YEREVAN.  All investment programs in Armenia are very interesting, because they mainly refer to energy sector, president of Russia-based Tashir group Samvel Karapetyan said.

His comment came after the official opening ceremony of the private contractual investment fund called Investors Club of Armenia.

We made assessments to choose investment programs. For our part, these programs are mostly approved, and we will try to make investments in this directions in the near future. All programs are of great interest, since they mainly relate to the energy sector. With the speedy investments, we will try to support the government so that they could reconsider reduction of rates, Karapetyan said.

In turn, Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan said: As I am overwhelmed with emotions, I just want to thank everyone. You cannot imagine how interested I am in all this, and you will never regret the moves you made. We will change the atmosphere in Armenia.
Marilyn A. Boesche, age 81, of Holiday Island, Ark., left this world to be with her God in heaven on March 22, 2017. She was born on September 5, 1935, to C. Harold and Ethel (Lenenga) Johnson in Muskegon, Mich. She attended Muskegon High School and graduated from Beloit Memorial High School, Beloit, Wis. She later attended Kansas City University.

On February 2, 1957, she married John C. Boesche in Kansas City. She was a Girl Scouts of America and Cub Scouts leader and was active in her church as a women's leader. She is a member of P.E.O. Sisterhood, Chapters GH Fremont, CS Lincoln, and A Eureka Springs, Ark. She was chairman of Nebraska Women's Fellowship Group for 10 years.

Her work life included First National Bank, Fremont, as assistant cashier and Valley National Bank, Tulsa, Okla., as operations officer and marketing officer. She also helped at The Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, in her retirement. She was an active member of First United Methodist Church, Eureka Springs, loved sailing and being on the water and spending time among her many family and friends.

Marilyn is survived by her husband; John, three children; Brian Boesche, Lincoln, Tim Boesche, Fort Worth, Texas, and Beth Crutcher, Houston, Texas, sister; Jan Carrothers, Holiday Island, Ark., brother; Cregg Johnson, Sarasota, Fla., six grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to First United Methodist Church in Eureka Springs, Ark., or PEO Sisterhood entrusted to the White Funeral Home, P.O. Box 890 Cassville, MO 65625. Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. on Monday, March 27, at the First United Methodist Church in Eureka Springs, with Pastor Blake Lasater officiating. Cremation arrangements are under the direction of the White Funeral Home and Crematory, Cassville, Mo.
YEREVAN. - The election campaign and elections are already illegitimate, cases of law violations being registered throughout the country and unequal conditions being created for parties.

Head of the election headquarters of Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) bloc, Armen Martirosyan, who is also the Deputy Chairman of Heritage Party, told the aforementioned at the meeting with voters in Metsamor town on Saturday.

He also recalled that the Union of Informed Citizens NGO on Friday published information, which shed light on the illegal activity of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the fact of abusing the administrative resource by them. It was in particular revealed that the directors of 100 schools and kindergartens drew up special lists of voters in favor of the ruling party.

In Martirosyans words, the information published by the NGO showed that not only schools and kindergartens appeared to have been engaged in the pre-election processes but also the entire system, including the self-government bodies, since the school principals handed the list of people, who will vote for the RPA, exactly to them.

Abuse of administrative resources is taking place everywherein the village administration, regional administration, ministries, schools, kindergartens, medical institutions, as well as all state institutions and many large private companies. If the international community declares these elections legitimate, it will be evident that they are acting hand in hand with the Armenian authorities, Martirosyan said, adding that 10 percent of what happened here was found out in European countries and if such violations were registered there in a few schools alone, the registration of the party responsible for all that would be annulled.

He also added that the fact that these violations were found out by an NGO and not the police or National Security Service (NSS) first of all proves that the latter do not fulfill their functions.

Among other violations committed within the framework of the pre-election campaign, Martirosyan pointed out to the attack on the members of his bloc, shootouts registered in several towns, as well as the arrest of former Karabakh defense minister Samvel Babayan.
The security of Armenia and Artsakh is our number one task, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, who is the commander-in-chief of the Armenian Armed Forces, said at the meeting with the servicemen and their family members in Artsakh Saturday.

In his speech he noted the following:

Any member of the society can be confident: we havent and wont spare any efforts and means, and also opportunities for further enhancement of our security and its replenishment with new components. Parallel with the efforts aimed at ensuring the external favorable conditions for the development of our country, we will continue our policy of modernizing, raising the combat-readiness of armed forces, and replenishing with modern and relevant equipment, which we actually have no alternative to.

Yes, together with the international mediators we will continue exerting efforts towards achieving peaceful and dignified settlement of the Karabakh conflicta settlement, which will record the inviolable and indisputable right of the Artsakh people to live freely and create on their historical land, as well as guarantee long and sustainable peace.

But from our recent pastthe April warwe are aware of the mentality dominating on the other side of the border, the values propagated there and the distorted and imaginary perceptions about reality and prospects.

I am stating very clearly and distinctly: our armed forces, which are our collective dignity and honor, will continue to force peace on the adversary by their readiness, armament and unbeaten morale, if, God forbid, the need for this rises again.

Let no one doubt that there are few nations in the world who know the price for the peace as well as we do. Let no one doubt that we are people, whose dignity cannot be a subject of haggling and who cannot be forced to make steps, which are against our dignity and sense of justice, as well as against the norms of international law.
Nancy W. Mead, 85, of Lincoln, formerly of Fremont, passed away Thursday, March 23, 2017. Nancy was born January 26, 1932, to James and Frances (Watton) Weir. Nancy was raised in Oklahoma City, later Galesburg, Ill., then moved to Nebraska to attend the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. There she was a member and president of the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority.

Upon graduation she married Joel Mead and together they moved to Fremont. After their daughters were born, Nancy opened the Yarn Shop with two dear friends. She enjoyed knitting, sewing, bridge, swimming at the State Lakes and raising her girls. Later she worked for the Department of Labor, first in Fremont, then upon the completion of her master's, in the Administrative office in Lincoln.

Nancy remained active in her Gamma Phi Beta alum group, PEO and her church. She spent much of her free time helping others. Throughout her life she chauffeured "the little old ladies," cared for invalids, baked and delivered meals and countless plates of goodies to family and friends. She was a friend to everyone who knew her.

She is survived by daughters Marcia Kirk (Tom Kay), grandson Brian Kirk, Sarah Mead (Brian Roberts), grandson Nathan Roberts, brother James Weir (Robert Willis), sister-in-law Mary Weir and the California cousins, special family friends Chad Schlueter and Jessie Dorval.

She is preceded in death by her parents, former husband Joel Mead and brother Marshall Weir.

Family and friends gathering will take place at 10 a.m. with the memorial service will begin at 11 a.m. Friday, March 31, at Dugan Funeral Chapel, 751 N Lincoln Ave. Fremont, NE.Memorials in lieu of flowers to The Cat House (in honor of her beloved cat, Bella), 1935 Q Street, Lincoln, NE 68503 or The Friendship Home, Box 85358 Lincoln, NE 68501.
For seven years, Lucielle's Piano Bar won this category by a landslide. Lucille's closed last year, so it was exciting to name Jo-Cat's Pub as the new winner.

The family-owned Jo-Cat's is a Brady Street staple with a down-to-earth environment featuring good music, affordable drinks and a friendly, upbeat vibe. What more do you need when rallying with your favorite females?

OnMilwaukee editors' pick: Jo-Cat's Pub

Runners-up:

2. Safe House

3. Victor's

4. Red Rock Saloon

5. Hamburger Mary's
US photographer James Balog speaks about his images at the "Extreme Ice" exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

For the last decade, American photographer James Balog has been on a mission to document climate change through his camera lens.

His effort has taken him to the farthest reaches of the world, from Antarctica to the northern ends of Greenland, where he has captured the movements and melts of immense glaciers.

The results of his work were on display at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, which on Thursday opened the exhibit "Extreme Ice."

"I want people to understand the ice," Balog told AFP in an interview at the show opening. "Ice is the manifestation of climate change in action."

That change, often imperceptibly slow, is invisible to the eye. But, through time lapse photography, Balog reveals how 24 glaciers around the world are evolvingshowing giant bodies of ice moving in currents, and crystal blue or green water pooling as melting accelerates.

A scientist by training, Balog's work has already garnered attention and been the subject of two documentaries.

This latest exhibit in Chicago, which juxtaposes photographs of glaciers taken years apart to show their rapid decline, offers updated images and new locations, such as Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

A boy touches one of the photos displayed at the "Extreme Ice" exhibit by US photographer James Balog at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

"(The images) make this subject alive and resonant in people's hearts and minds, in a way that just pure art or pure science wouldn't do alone," Balog said.

'Climate change is happening'

More than 90 percent of the world's glaciers are melting, with 75 billion tons of ice lost in Alaska alone every year. The scale of the problem can be hard to comprehend, but Balog's photographs make it more understandable.

Two juxtaposed images of the Bridge Glacier in Canadaa thick sheet of ice covering a vast valleyshow its substantial retreat over a period of just three years.

A section of the Trift Glacier in Switzerland, the height of a mid-rise building with beautiful white, blue and brown hues, appears shriveled to almost nothing over a nine-year period.

"People (who) don't believe in global warming and climate change, they need to see this exhibit. Because it's real," said Sharonya Simon, who appeared stunned while viewing the photographs.

Students on a field trip place their hands on a ice glacier replica during the "Extreme Ice" exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

Simon, a teacher, brought her elementary school class to the museum on a field trip. The children were enthralled by the photos and the giant wall of man-made ice which they could touch.

"These photographs, these films, these interactives, these are bringing people closer to the science," said Patricia Ward, director of science and technology at the museum.

"It's about making people more aware. People understand that climate change is happening, but it may not always be front and center in their mind," she said.

'Suddenly you're stunned'

Balog's images surprised even him back in 2007, when he first started placing specially outfitted time-lapse cameras in remote parts of the world.

"When you stand out there, you don't see any of these changes," Balog said. "When you string together a whole set of those images, suddenly you're stunned."

People attend the "Extreme Ice" exhibit by US photographer James Balog at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois

In the works for more than two years, the exhibit comes as President Donald Trump's administration moves to roll back US regulations aimed at curbing climate change.

Trump has threatened to pull the US out of the Paris accord on global warming, and proposed funding cuts to climate change research at home. The White House's budget director Mick Mulvaney has called such funding "a waste of money."

Through the exhibit, Balog and the museum in the United States' de facto Midwest capital, are putting a stake in the ground on the side of climate science.

"I see this as being a broad, broad issue that applies to everyone regardless of their partisan political interest. So, I find this intense politicization of the issue right now, in the current administration, to be a real problem," Balog said.

He is now embarking on his second decade of gathering images of the world's glaciers.

 2017 AFP
This enhanced-color image of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter seems to reveal a Jovian "galaxy" of swirling storms. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko

NASA's Juno spacecraft will make its fifth flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Monday, March 27, at 1:52 a.m. PDT (4:52 a.m. EDT, 8:52 UTC).

At the time of closest approach (called perijove), Juno will be about 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops, traveling at a speed of about 129,000 miles per hour (57.8 kilometers per second) relative to the gas-giant planet. All of Juno's eight science instruments will be on and collecting data during the flyby.

"This will be our fourth science passthe fifth close flyby of Jupiter of the missionand we are excited to see what new discoveries Juno will reveal," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Every time we get near Jupiter's cloud tops, we learn new insights that help us understand this amazing giant planet."

The Juno science team continues to analyze returns from previous flybys. Scientists have discovered that Jupiter's magnetic fields are more complicated than originally thought, and that the belts and zones that give the planet's cloud tops their distinctive look extend deep into the its interior. Observations of the energetic particles that create the incandescent auroras suggest a complicated current system involving charged material lofted from volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io.

Peer-reviewed papers with more in-depth science results from Juno's first flybys are expected to be published within the next few months.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud topsas close as about 2,600 miles (4,100 kilometers). During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Provided by NASA
Belarus authorities raided the offices of a prominent rights group Saturday, detaining dozens of people, including foreign rights workers, ahead of a planned protest by opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko. The police also detained dozens in the streets and seized a leading opposition leader, Vladimir Nekliayev, as he was returning from Poland, taking him off the train at the border and placing him in a detention facility. Scores of people that turned up for the 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) rally were grabbed by riot police and placed in vans, including several journalists. Some were beaten, an AFP correspondent observed. Viasna, a nongovernmental organisation that had been tracking arrests and protest rallies across Belarus in recent weeks, said riot police had broke down the door, "put people face down on the floor and told them to stay there". "There were 57 people detained, including foreign observers," it said on its website. Viasna's director, Ales Beliatski, later told AFP that about 1,000 people had been detained Saturday. The people seized at Viasna's offices were taken to a police station, where they were told they are "suspected of banditism," searched and let out of the station in small groups after most of the protest had been broken up, the group's lawyer Anastasiya Loiko said. "They put us on the ground, and they took some telephones," Masha Chichtchenkova, a Franco-Belarusian member of Front Line Defenders, told AFP after her release. "They put us in a minibus and took us to a gymnasium," she said. Saturday's protest was the latest in a series of events against Lukashenko's authoritarian regime, and the largest since the mass demonstrations that followed his disputed re-election in December 2010. Thousands have attended rallies in recent weeks to oppose a controversial new tax on "spongers" or "freeloaders" -- those who work less than six months a year -- as the country suffers an economic slump, with the swell in protests alarming the government. Authorities late Friday told organisers that the event would be illegal. On Saturday, scores of armoured police trucks and water cannons, as well as officers with automatic rifles, were deployed in the city. The European Commission called for all detained protesters to be "immediately released" by the authorities. "Respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms, including of expression, association and assembly, needs to be upheld," the commission's delegation to Belarus said in a statement. - State media silence - Dozens had already been arrested in the days ahead of Saturday's event, as state television aired reports of alleged weapons caches discovered while police armed with automatic rifles were in the city centre for the first time in decades. But there was no mention of the harsh crackdown by state media outlets on Saturday evening. The police had blocked off the Minsk square where the protest was to start and sealed off metro exits, and hauling off several people at the scene into vans. But several hundred others managed to walk with Belarusian red-and-white flags shouting "Shame!" before being broken up as riot police brandishing shields lined up to block main streets. Several journalists were also detained in Minsk and in Gomel, a city in southeastern Belarus, according to the Belarus Association of Journalists. The team from Belsat, an opposition channel based in Poland, had their camera smashed, it said. Amnesty International said on its Russian-language Twitter account that dozens of people were grabbed off the street "indiscriminately". Nekliayev, the opposition leader who was set to speak at the protest, was stopped at the border Saturday morning on his way to Minsk, his wife told AFP. "He is in a detention facility in Brest," Olga Nekliayeva said, referring to the city in southwestern Belarus close to the Polish border. Many had planned to travel to the capital from the provinces for the protest, but the Belarusian railway monopoly halted online sales for several hours overnight Friday to Saturday, ostensibly for "technical works".
A judge sent a 20-year-old Lincoln man to prison for nearly five to 10 years for his part in the armed robbery of a fast-food restaurant where he had been fired.

Talonn Brown pleaded no contest to attempted robbery for what happened Oct. 22 at the Little Caesars near 27th Street and Capitol Parkway.

At the time, he was on probation for a felony theft from J.C. Penney in 2014. Because of the new charge, Brown's probation was revoked, and he got an additional 20 months to five years in prison.

In court records, Lincoln police say Brown planned the robbery at Little Caesars with another man, alleged to be La'Braux Williams, 20.

A manager told police Brown had worked at the restaurant about a month before the robbery but was fired for stealing from the cash register.

Police believe Brown stayed in the car while the manager was robbed at gunpoint and later got half the proceeds, according to an affidavit to jail him.

Williams is awaiting trial.
European Union leaders renewed their vows at a special summit in Rome on Saturday, celebrating the troubled bloc's 60th anniversary with a commitment to a common future without Britain. With British Prime Minister Theresa May absent, the other 27 countries signed a new declaration on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957. Pro- and anti-EU protests took place in Rome, while in London tens of thousands of people marched against Brexit, which May will trigger on Wednesday. With the EU facing a string of crises on top of Brexit including migration, a moribund economy, terrorism and populism, EU President Donald Tusk called for stronger leadership. "Prove today that you are the leaders of Europe, that you can care for this great legacy we inherited from the heroes of European integration 60 years ago," Tusk said. After welcoming the leaders to the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said: "We have had 60 years of peace in Europe and we owe it to the courage of the founding fathers." The original Treaty of Rome was signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany to create the European Economic Community (EEC). - 'Our common future' - The new Rome Declaration that the leaders signed, using the same pen that was used six decades ago, proclaims that "Europe is our common future" in a changing world. But it also enshrines for the first time a so-called "multi-speed" Europe, in which some countries can push ahead on key issues while others sit out, an idea pushed by France and Germany but opposed by many eastern EU states. French President Francois Hollande said the message from Rome was, "we're stronger together," while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "a Europe of different speeds does not mean at all that there is no common Europe". European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker insisted the EU could ride out recent storms. "Daunting as they are, the challenges we face today are in no way comparable to those faced by the founding fathers," he said, recalling how the new Europe was built from the ashes of World War II. The leaders met with the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears -- on the eve of the summit, the pontiff warned that without a new vision, the crisis-ridden bloc "risks dying". The White House meanwhile congratulated the EU on its 60th birthday in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels. But the British premier's absence, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and a row over the wording of the Rome declaration underscored the challenges facing the EU. Greece, currently wrangling with the eurozone over getting more cash from its latest bailout, was the key country holding up approval of the document, by insisting on a mention of social benefits. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, fresh from a bitter row over former premier Tusk's re-election as EU chief, only agreed to sign at the last minute due to objections over the reference to a "multi-speed" Europe. - Pro-EU rallies in UK, Poland - Symbolising the divisions, rival demonstrations for and against the EU took place in Rome, watched by a heavy police presence. "I was a girl during the war and this grand European movement has become my political ideal," Catherine Chastenet, a 74-year-old marcher from Paris, told AFP. In London, around 80,000 people took to the streets to call for Britain to stay in the bloc with a sea of blue EU flags stretching out from Trafalgar Square. "I was told I could settle down, marry a Brit and make my life here. Yet today I am told I'm a foreigner and should go back where I come from," said Joan Pons, a Spanish nurse who has lived in Britain for 17 years. In Poland, thousands of Poles sang the "Ode to Joy" European anthem as they waved Polish and EU flags at rallies organised by the liberal opposition in dozens of cities and towns nationwide.
Somali soldiers walk near the wreckage of a car bomb attack in Mogadishu, Somalia Friday, March 24, 2017. A police official says the car bomb exploded near a restaurant and hotel in Somalia's capital killing at least one person and wounding others. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

WASHINGTON (AP)  Vowing he won't turn Somalia into a "free fire zone," the commander of U.S. Africa Command said Friday he wants greater authority to conduct airstrikes and use military forces in the African country to allow the U.S. to strike al-Qaida-linked militants more quickly.

Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said the White House hasn't yet approved the request. But he told reporters at the Pentagon the greater flexibility would help U.S. and Somali fighters combat al-Shabab extremists.

Last month, The Associated Press reported that senior defense leaders recommended the expanded authorities to the White House. The proposed changes would allow U.S. special operations forces to increase assistance to the Somali National Army, even if that puts U.S. forces closer to the fight.

"It's very important and very helpful for us to have little more flexibility, a little bit more timeliness, in terms of decision-making process," Waldhauser said, saying the increased authorities would give the U.S. greater ability to strike al-Shabab and weaken the group.

The military would act appropriately, he said, adding, "We're not going to turn Somalia into a free fire zone."

Al-Shabab was blamed for a suicide bombing that blew a hole in a jetliner last year, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Officials have cited the incident in recent days as an example of a laptop-borne bomb after the U.S. barred computers and tablets from the cabins of some incoming flights from overseas. The bomber was the only person killed in the explosion.

Separately, Waldhauser declared the hunt for warlord Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, largely over. He said possibly thousands of Kony's fighters and most of his top lieutenants are now off the battlefield, leaving the leader "irrelevant" and in survival mode. He said the U.S. would help the region guard against an LRA resurgence.

Story continues

On Somalia, Waldhauser dismissed suggestions that his request could lead to more civilian casualties in the struggling nation, where a devastating famine has uprooted citizens around the country. The military, he said, has already discussed and "war-gamed" the issue because so many people are moving around the battlefield in search of food and water.

Under current rules, U.S. troops in Somalia are largely restricted to defensive military measures.

U.S. forces can transport and accompany local troops. But they must keep their distance from front lines and can only engage the enemy if they come under attack or if Somali forces are in danger of being defeated. Currently, Waldhauser added, armed drones can launch defensive airstrikes if U.S. or partner troops come under attack.

His proposal would allow the U.S. to conduct offensive airstrikes and allow American forces to move along with Somali troops into the fight when needed, based on what commanders decide.

Military commanders complained that during the Obama administration they had to seek White House permission for many tactical combat moves.

Waldhauser said Friday the proposed changes would streamline decision-making, moving it to the combatant commander level. He and other high-level commanders, he said, are capable of such decisions.

Waldhauser also cited progress in Libya. He said the number of Islamic State fighters there is down to about 100-200 after they were routed from the city of Sirte last year. IS is trying to maintain a presence in Libya but doesn't appear to be seeking to gain territory, he said.

The U.S. has long operated out of Djibouti and Waldhauser said no new base in Africa is being built. He said the U.S. is using a base in Tunisia to launch drones and will eventually use one in Niger for intelligence gathering. Work isn't finished at the Niger base, so there haven't been any flights out of there, he said.
AFP News

The UN's COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt with warnings against backsliding on efforts to cut emissions and calls for rich nations to compensate poor countries after a year of extreme weather disasters. An alarming UN report said the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, with an acceleration in sea level rise, glacier melt, heatwaves and other climate indicators. "As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement, calling the report a "chronicle of climate chaos". Just in the past few months, floods devastated Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh also comes against the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the lingering effects from the Covid-19 pandemic. But Simon Stiell, the UN's climate change executive secretary, said he would not be a "custodian of backsliding" on the goal of slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late 19th-century levels. "We will be holding people to account, be they presidents, prime ministers, CEOs," Stiell said as the 13-day summit opened. "The heart of implementation is everybody everywhere in the world every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis," he said, noting that only 29 of 194 nations have presented improved plans as called for at COP26 in Glasgow last year. Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and the Earth's surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled last week. Promises made under the 2015 Paris Agreement would, if kept, only shave off a few tenths of a degree. Britain's Alok Sharma, who handed the COP presidency to Egypt, said that while world leaders have faced "competing priorities" this year, "inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe." "How many more wake-up calls does the world -- and world leaders -- actually need?" he said. - 'Loss and damage' - The COP27 summit will focus like never before on money -- a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change. The United States and the European Union -- fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework -- have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream. After two days of intense pre-summit negotiations, delegates agreed on Sunday to put the "loss and damage" issue on the COP27 agenda, a first step towards what are sure to be difficult discussions. Stiell said inclusion of loss and damage on the agenda after three decades of debate on the issue showed progress. "The fact that it is there as a substantive agenda item I believe bodes well," he told reporters. COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt said it would be unproductive to speculate on what outcome the negotiations will lead to, "but certainly everybody is hopeful." "Anything that we do effectively has to be on the basis of our common efforts and that we leave no one behind," he said. Shoukry also noted that rich nations have not fulfilled a separate pledge to deliver $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. He lamented that most climate financing is based on loans. "We do not have the luxury to continue this way. We have to change our approaches to this existential threat," he said. - US-China tensions - After the first day of talks, some 110 world leaders will join the summit on Monday and Tuesday. The most conspicuous no-show will be China's Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress. US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change. Cooperation between the United States and China -- the world's two largest economies and carbon polluters -- has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. But Sino-US relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House leader Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt. A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive. One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. bur-lth/mh/lg
AFP News

The UN's COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt with warnings against backsliding on efforts to cut emissions and calls for rich nations to compensate poor countries after a year of extreme weather disasters. Just in the past few months, climate-induced catastrophes have killed thousands, displaced millions and cost billions in damages across the world. Massive floods devastated swaths of Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the western United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes in a fraught year marked by Russia's war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the lingering effects from the Covid pandemic. But Simon Stiell, the UN's climate change executive secretary, said he would not be a "custodian of backsliding" on the goal of slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late-19th-century levels. "We will be holding people to account, be they presidents, prime ministers, CEOs," Stiell said as the 13-day summit opened. "The heart of implementation is everybody everywhere in the world every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis," he said. Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and Earth's surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled last week. Promises made under the 2015 Paris Agreement would, if kept, only shave off a few tenths of a degree. "Whilst I do understand that leaders around the world have faced competing priorities this year, we must be clear: as challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe," said Alok Sharma, British president of the previous COP26 as he handed over the chairmanship to Egypt. "How many more wake-up calls does the world -- and world leaders -- actually need?", he said. In a dire warning, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, with an acceleration in sea level rise, glacier melt and heatwaves. "As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement. - 'Loss and damage' - The COP27 summit will focus like never before on money -- a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change. The United States and the European Union -- fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework -- have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream. Delegates agreed on Sunday to put the "loss and damage" issue on the COP27 agenda, a first step toward what are sure to be fraught discussions. Inclusion of the agenda item "reflects a sense of solidarity and empathy for the suffering of the victims of climate induced disasters," said COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt. "We all owe a debt of gratitude to activists and civil society organisations who have persistently demanded the space to discuss funding for loss and damage," he said to applause. Shoukry also noted that rich nations have not fulfilled a separate pledge to deliver $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. He also lamented that most climate financing is based on loans. "We do not have the luxury to continue this way. We have to change our approaches to this existential threat," he said, calling for solutions that "prove we are serious about not leaving anyone behind". - US-China tensions - After the first day of talks, more than 120 world leaders will join the summit on Monday and Tuesday. The most conspicuous no-show will be China's Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress. US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change. Cooperation between the United States and China -- the world's two largest economies and carbon polluters -- has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. But Sino-US relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House leader Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt. A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive. One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. bur-lth/fz
2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #12

Posted on 25 March 2017 by John Hartz

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. Articles of signifigance as determined by the editor are highlighted in the Editor's Picks' section.

Editor's Picks

Record-breaking climate change pushes world into uncharted territory

A boat lies in the dry Cedro reservoir in Quixada, Brazil. Climate change increases the risk of extreme weather events like drought. Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images

The record-breaking heat that made 2016 the hottest year ever recorded has continued into 2017, pushing the world into truly uncharted territory, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.

The WMOs assessment of the climate in 2016, published on Tuesday, reports unprecedented heat across the globe, exceptionally low ice at both poles and surging sea-level rise.

Global warming is largely being driven by emissions from human activities, but a strong El Nino  a natural climate cycle  added to the heat in 2016. The El Nino is now waning, but the extremes continue to be seen, with temperature records tumbling in the US in February and polar heatwaves pushing ice cover to new lows.

Record-breaking climate change pushes world into uncharted territory by Damian Carrington, Guardian, Mar 20, 2017

Fighting Ocean Pollution and Climate Change Is a Two-Front War

Speaking to Pacific island leaders and diplomats in Suva last week, the incoming President of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn in November (COP23), Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, said his most important goal was to preserve the multilateral consensus for decisive action on climate change that was reached in the Paris Climate Change Agreement at the end of 2015.

We cannot afford to have any government renege on the commitments that were made. Many countries face short-term domestic pressures, and there is no doubt that changing the behaviors that led us to this crisis will not be easy, but the rewards will be great. And besides, we have no choice, he said.

The Fijian Prime Minister was speaking at a preparatory meeting for the UN Ocean Conference in June. The conference is designed to help reverse the decline in the health of worlds oceans, currently under threat from growing pollution and the impacts of climate change.

In a very real sense, we are fighting a two-front war. One front is the fight to keep the oceans clean and to sustain the marine plant and animal life on which we depend for our livelihoods and that keep the earth in proper balance, the Fijian leader said. The other front is the fight to slow the growth of global warming and, unfortunately, also to adapt to the changes we know are coming - to rising seas, encroaching sea water, violent storms and periods of drought.

Fighting Ocean Pollution and Climate Change Is a Two-Front War. by Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, UNFCCC/COP-23, Mar 20, 2017

Business leaders urge G20 to put climate change back on agenda

Children play amid icebergs on the beach in Nuuk, Greenland, June 5, 2016. REUTERS/Alister Doyle

Business executives and scientists on Tuesday urged the world's leading economies to put global warming back on the G20 agenda after finance ministers and central bankers failed to reaffirm their readiness to finance measures against climate change.

The G20's outreach organizations for business (B20), think tanks (T20) and civil society groups (C20) urged the Group of 20 leading economies in a joint statement to take fast and fundamental action to counter rising temperatures.

"Climate change represents one of the largest risks to sustainable development, inclusiveness, equitable economic growth and financial stability," the statement said.

"We need to be sure that (G20 leaders) will fulfill existing international climate-related commitments, foremost the Paris Agreement," it said.

The statement was signed by B20 chair Kurt Bock, who is also CEO of chemicals group BASF BASF.DE, and several leading scientists, including Ottmar Edenhofer from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change.

Business leaders urge G20 to put climate change back on agenda by Gernot Heller & Michael Nienaber, Reuters, Mar 21, 2017

Arctic Sea Ice Sets Record-Low Peak for Third Year

Constant warmth punctuated by repeated winter heat waves stymied Arctic sea ice growth this winter, leaving the winter sea ice cover missing an area the size of California and Texas combined and setting a record-low maximum for the third year in a row.

Even in the context of the decades of greenhouse gas-driven warming, and subsequent ice loss in the Arctic, this winters weather stood out.

I have been looking at Arctic weather patterns for 35 years and have never seen anything close to what weve experienced these past two winters, Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which keeps track of sea ice levels, said in a statement.

Arctic Sea Ice Sets Record-Low Peak for Third Year by Andrea Thompson, Climate Central, Mar 22, 2017

El Nino's Odds to Return By Late Summer or Fall Increasing

The odds of El Nino's development by the late summer or early fall have increased, according to the latest output from forecast model guidance.

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) officially declared La Nina's end in early February as sea temperatures have steadily warmed in the equatorial region of the central and eastern Pacific, and we're now in the neutral phase of the oscillation. Neutral means that neither La Nina or El Nino conditions exist.

As shown below, models currently suggest we'll be in the neutral category through the spring and into the early summer months (April-May-June, or AMJ), but after that, sea temperatures could be warm enough for El Nino conditions to take over.

The chance for various phases of El Nino, according to IRI's mid-March model-based probabilistic forecast. Red bars show the probability of El Nino's development during each three-month period. (International Research Institute for Climate and Society)

El Nino's Odds to Return By Late Summer or Fall Increasing by Jonathan Belles & Brian Donegan, WunderBlog, Weather Undergound, Mar 23, 2017

Sun Mar 19, 2017

Mon Mar 20, 2017

Tue Mar 21, 2017

Wed Mar 23, 2017

Thu Mar 24, 2017

Fri Mar 25, 2017

Sat Mar 26, 2017
WASHINGTON -- The nomination of Neil Gorsuch presents the Senate with a constitutional dilemma: Is this nation prepared to have Eddie Haskell serving a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court?

The most noteworthy thing to emerge from Gorsuch's testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee wasn't his judicial philosophy (conservative), his credentials (considerable) nor even the likelihood of confirmation (virtually certain). What stood out was his aw-shucks, good-golly manner: Gorsuch played a folksy sycophant straight out of the 1950s.

No fewer than eight times Tuesday he punctuated his testimony with "Leave It to Beaver" exclamations of "goodness" -- "goodness, no!" "oh, my goodness!" -- and, though only 49 years old, spoke in archaic phrases: "since I was a tot," "a fair and square deal," "doesn't give a whit."

Gorsuch made groan-inducing attempts at humor ("they haven't yet replaced judges with algorithms, though I think eBay's trying") and proffered self-deprecating demurrals: "I don't want to waste your time. ... I can't claim I'm perfect, but I try awful hard. ... I wouldn't count myself an expert."

Despite old memos showing him to be intensely involved in Republican politics and conservative policy, he said the closest he got to policy was when "I served on my kids' school board."

It's a good bet that Gorsuch, once he has charmed the grown-ups and secured confirmation, will, like Haskell, reveal himself to be a rascal and cause all manner of mischief on the court with abortion and gun rights, money in politics and presidential power.

But now Gorsuch is pouring on the flattery. When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had an aide named Eric bring Gorsuch a copy of a document, the nominee acted as if the senator had offered to throw him a confirmation party: "That'd be great. Thank you. That'd be wonderful. I'm happy to. Thank you. Thank you, Eric."

When Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) questioned him, Gorsuch remarked that the senator "would be a formidable companion in the courtroom."

Leahy noted that Feinstein told him not to let Gorsuch's flattery "go to your head, Pat."

"Oh, he should!" Gorsuch insisted.

And when Leahy asked Gorsuch to "trust me" on a historical point, Gorsuch gushed: "I trust you, entirely."

There seems to be little doubt that Gorsuch will be confirmed. Republicans may have stolen the seat, but that's done now; the donnybrook comes if Trump gets to replace a liberal justice. A measure of the acceptance: empty seats in the audience during Gorsuch's testimony Tuesday.

The most Democrats can hope for from Gorsuch is that he'll stand up to Trump when he exceeds his constitutional powers. Gorsuch, naturally, said all the right things Tuesday.

He assured Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) that Trump would have legal trouble if he were to attempt to ban Muslims from the military or reinstate waterboarding.

"So," Graham said, "in case President Trump is watching, which he may very well be. ... If you start waterboarding people, you may get impeached. Is that a fair summary?"

Gorsuch said "the impeachment power belongs to this body," but added: "No man is above the law."

Was he sincere about that? Hard to say.

Was he sincere in saying that he was a lowly "speechwriter" or "scribe" and not the brains behind a controversial memo he authored?

Was he sincere when he said "we were all surprised" to find his name on Trump's shortlist?

His exaggerated eagerness, his hearty guffaws at the senators' jokes and his constant solicitude ("I'm happy to answer another question, entirely up to you") suggest that maybe -- just maybe -- he was saying what needed to be said.

People ordinarily don't talk like this: "I have a loving wife, a beautiful home and children, a great job with wonderful colleagues. I'm a happy person."

Or like this: "I put my ego aside when I put on that robe, and I open my mind and I open my heart and I listen."

His was excruciatingly folksy, talking with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) about his daughters riding sheep ("mutton busting") at the rodeo. Being called a "young Perry Mason" years ago was a "career highlight," he said. And he recalled a recent visit to the Lincoln Memorial, which he boasted was made of marble from his home state. He quoted from one of its inscriptions, "government of the people, by the people, for the people," which he said was from Lincoln's second inaugural address.

One of the Democratic senators informed him that this was actually from the Gettysburg Address.

Gorsuch put his head in his hands. "Gosh," he said.
The consecrated bell will travel to Vatican as a gift for Pope Francis.

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Bell founder Michal Trvalec and his son from Zarnovicka Huta have been creating a special bell for three months. During Easter, it will be given to Pope Francis as a gift.

The bell measures 27 centimetres, weighs 10 kilograms and is made of bronze. Michal Trvalec made the bell with traditional methods that began in the 15th century. Despite modern technologies, the original way is still respected today.

Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement

Other local artists contributed to the manufacturing of the bell. Smith Pavol Maly forged the heart of the bell and academic painter Zuzana Komendova decorated it.

The piece of art will be given along with a pack of beer from Pilsner brewery, a tradition the brewery started in 2010.

(Source: TASR)

We looked at history and realized that at the end of the 19th century, Pope Leo XIII was ill. Doctors recommended that he regularly drink Pilsner beer to improve his health condition, explained Vaclav Berka, a brewer of Pilsner brewery, as quoted by the TASR newswire. He added that after the recommendation, the pope lived for another 25 years. In 2010, the brewery renewed the tradition.

The brewery always sends some piece of art from local artists with the beer. This time they decided to come to Slovakia where Michal Trvalec also uses beer when manufacturing bells  to compact the bonds of the materials.
24th March stands for World Tuberculosis Day and yesterday the whole world celebrated the auspicious occasion. But unfortunately, unlike other developed countries, India is still far-flung from being declared as a TB-Free nation. The latest report of World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that nearly 25% of the global TB cases are recorded in India only, and the publication of the report was none less than a Wake-Up Call for Indian administration.

With the aim of ensuring zero Tuberculosis (TB) demises and reasonably priced as well as high-quality healthcare to every Indian, Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry of India yesterday initiated a campaign for a Tuberculosis-Free India and Bollywood Icon Amitabh Bachchan has raised his supportive voices for the Government-initiated campaign.

The megastar of Bollywood, who once was also a victim of Tuberculosis, has come to the forefront for promoting the government campaign that aims at making India completely free from tuberculosis. The 74-year-old thespian took to Tweeter for expressing his support to the TB-free India campaign, endorsed by Minister of Health, India.

The luminary tweeted: I support Minister of Health for TB free India. On Friday, 24th March  the day which is observed as World Tuberculosis Day, the megastar wrote: Incomplete treatment leads to TB becoming Drug-Resistant.

Adding to his series of Tweets on the same day, the 72-years old superstar wrote, #TB itni badi bimari nahi jo pakad mein na aa sakey. Join #INDIAvsTB. Pledge support @ForTBFreeIndia @TheUnion_TBLH @usaid_india

In some of his tweets, the megastar urged his fans and followers to support the Government launched campaign for making India TB-free.

While celebrating World Tuberculosis Day, International Union joined force with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India for fighting against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases. In a bid to promote this mission, the Indian health Ministry also launched a TB-Free India campaign, #IndiavsTB featuring Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign is all about speaking and making people aware about how to identify the symptoms of TB earlier, how essential for TB patients to complete the treatment process, and How TB is socially encroaching on the households and children. The campaign also urges Indians to fight against the syndrome with a tagline, TB Harega, Desh Jeetega.

Directed by Shoojit Sircar and pondered by DDB Mudra, the campaign entails 5 TVCs. Every of the five TVCs features Mr Amitabh Bachchan in one role or the other, making an effort to make people aware of Tuberculosis. Mr Bachchan is also spotted requesting people to opt for an accurate check-up and also urging them not to run off the treatment in between.
"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist.

Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany urged the United States on Friday to rethink a report, commissioned under Barack Obama's administration, that said some European Union countries were dumping steel. Global steel prices have slumped as Chinese producers, which account for about half of worldwide steel supply, have flooded export markets, bringing protests and anti-dumping complaints by the United States and the European Union among others. In November, the U.S. Commerce Department said in a preliminary finding that nine exporters, including Germany and four other EU member states, had dumped certain imports of carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length (CTL) plate. German steel producers were assigned dumping margin of 6.56 percent by the U.S. Commerce Department while companies from other countries face anti-dumping duties of up to 130.63 percent. Among the German companies accused of dumping were Dillinger Huette [AGD.UL] and Salzgitter . The November preliminary report has been criticised for appearing to use alternative methods for calculating dumping margins, which breaks World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel is worried the report, which is expected to be finished soon, will be used by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to disrupt international trade. "It is to be feared that ... the new U.S. government might be prepared to allow U.S. firms to conduct unfair dumping competition, even if this violates international law," Gabriel said on Friday. "We Europeans must not accept this," Gabriel said, adding that he underlined his concerns in a letter to European Union trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and urged her to take a firm stance in talks with U.S. counterparts on the matter. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, is in charge of trade matters in the 28-member bloc. Gabriel said both Europe and Germany wanted the U.S. to stick to established WTO rules when calculating dumping margins, adding companies could have a disadvantage when other calculation methods were applied. He said German officials had contacted U.S. counterparts on various levels to insist that "established, fair rules" had to be applied in the case. The dumping case is likely to be the first to be concluded in the steel sector under Trump who has said he will bring back manufacturing jobs by putting "America first" and punishing imports through a border tax. (Reporting by Michael Nienaber,; Editing by Vin Shahrestani)
By Stephen Eisenhammer CURITIBA, Brazil (Reuters) - When government health inspector Daniel Gouveia Teixeira confronted a Brazilian processed meat plant with what he says was evidence of excess use of marrow, bone and other slaughterhouse by-products in food for human consumption, he was suddenly removed as the plant's inspector. The incident, nearly three years ago at the Peccin Agro Industrial Ltda plant in Brazil's rural Parana state, led Teixeira to tell police he suspected he was being undermined by corrupt superiors. It also prompted friends to start calling him "crazy" for taking on one of the country's most powerful industries. "Being honest and doing my job makes me crazy?" he asked in an interview this week. "That's crazy!" Teixeira, 39, is the agriculture ministry whistleblower credited by Brazil's Federal Police with triggering an investigation into alleged bribes paid by meat companies to government food-sanitation inspectors in the world's top exporter of beef and poultry. Police say in court documents the bribes were paid to cover up serious health violations by some companies in the meat industry, including the sale of rotten and salmonella-contaminated products. Their probe, dubbed "Operation Weak Flesh," has caused some of Brazil's biggest export markets to ban its meats. Police have accused more than 100 people, mostly inspectors, of taking bribes for allowing the sale of rancid products, falsifying export documents or failing to inspect meatpacking plants at all. Prosecutors have yet to present charges and the police allegations have not been proven. BRF SA and JBS , two of the world's biggest food companies, are among dozens of firms targeted in the investigation. Both have denied any wrongdoing. The anticorruption probe has led to the arrests of 33 sanitation officials and industry employees so far, with federal agents finding violations in at least 21 meatpacking plants across the country. Industry officials in the sector, which generates over $130 billion annually, have sought to portray the meatpacking arrests as isolated incidents. Luciano Inacio da Silva, an auditor at the Agriculture Ministry who reviews internal procedures, said the ministry was still investigating Teixeira's allegations but had not yet come to any conclusions. He cited a lack of resources as a reason for the ministry's investigation to lag behind that of the police. Teixeira worked as an inspector for five years in the state of Santa Catarina before moving to Parana in 2012. He said he repeatedly cited plants run by various companies in Parana, which is at the epicentre of the police investigation, but was routinely reassigned to other plants by his boss, Maria do Rocio Nascimento, each time he did. Nascimento was arrested by police on March 17 on suspicion of taking bribes from meatpacking companies to move inspectors away from certain plants, according to court documents. Her lawyer, who has not commented publicly, could not be reached for comment. In early 2014, Teixeira began inspecting the processed meat plant operated by Peccin Agro. After a month of biweekly visits, he said he noticed that one of the production lines was always down. "People were just standing around," he said, adding that he suspected they were just waiting for him to leave to restart the line. OVER THE LIMIT Teixeira then asked the company for documents outlining the raw materials it bought and used for sausage and other processed meat products. He concluded the documents showed the plant was using an excess of MSM or "mechanically separated meat." MSM is a paste of marrow, bone, skin, nerves, blood vessels and other scraps. Its use for human consumption is limited, due to concerns over the intake of certain components. In Brazil, a government document posted online states that MSM cannot exceed 60 percent of the content in hams and sausages. "They were using more than 85 percent MSM," Teixeira said. Authorities have not confirmed the amount of MSM used by Peccin and Reuters was unable to verify Teixeira's allegation independently. In September 2014, on the same day he confronted the company about his findings, investigators said owner Idair Peccin called Gil Bueno de Magalhaes, the agriculture ministry superintendent in Parana. Magalhaes, who like other such supervisors is a political appointee, removed Teixeira as Peccin's inspector. Magalhaes and Peccin, who have been in custody since their arrests on March 17, could not be reached for comment. Their lawyers have not made any public comments and also could not be reached for comment. A receptionist at Peccin headquarters, which also houses the plant, said no company officials were available to discuss the matter. The plant was shut last week. In a statement posted on the website for one of its brands, Italli Alimentos, Peccin said the accusations against it were false. Feeling that his work was being undermined by superiors, Teixeira said he went to the federal police shortly after his removal from the plant. In November 2014, two months after his Peccin discovery, Teixeira said he was removed from inspecting meatpacking plants altogether by his boss Nascimento. He was assigned instead to his current post -- inspecting veterinary medicines. (Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer; Additional reporting by Thais Skodowski in Curitiba; Editing by Paulo Prada and Tom Brown)
Syrian army soldiers have recaptured all the positions they had lost earlier in the week in a rebel assault in the north of the Jobar district of the capital, Damascus. Soldiers have been seen celebrating on the streets of Damascus, chanting God, Syria and Bashar (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad). Hama Syrian military sources say Russian aircraft have taken part in air strikes against insurgents to help repel a major attack on government-held areas near the city of Hama. Air strikes have now started and there is concentrated artillery firing against the armed groups and the headquarters of their leaders and supply lines, paving the way for the counter-attack, a military source told Reuters. The Russians are, of course, participating in these raids. Was this a fresh offensive? The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says rebel groups, spearheaded by jihadist insurgents, launched the attack on Tuesday and have captured at least 11 towns and villages. If confirmed, it would be the biggest attack by rebels in months. President Bashar al-Assad still holds the military upper hand in the war but the rebel gains have shown the challenge facing the Syrian army and its allied militia as they fight n numerous fronts. Peace talks The fighting has underscored the bleak prospects for a fresh round of UN-brokered peace talks that are underway in Geneva. The UNs Syria envoy says Russia, Iran and Turkey need to convene more Syrian ceasefire talks as soon as possible to bring the situation on the ground under control. Staffan de Mistura is mediating political talks in Geneva. A separate series of talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana  organised by Russia, Iran and Turkey  are supposed to guarantee the ceasefire. What has de Mistura said? He has made a strong suggestion that they do retake the situation in hand and hopefully there will be an Astana meeting as soon as possible in order to control the situation which, at the moment, is worrisome. I am not expecting miracles, I am not expecting breakthroughs and I am not expecting a breakdown, said de Mistura, adding he hoped to see incremental steps. The background Syrias cessation of hostilities was shaky from the moment it took effect on December 30 last year. Three rounds of talks in Astana have not managed to stem the fighting. This week, rebels launched their biggest offensive in months, attacking government-held areas around Damascus and near Hama city. The ceasefire talks have made no ground so far. A first round of diplomatic talks in Geneva was procedural, producing only an agenda for the current round. This will encompass four topics: a new constitution, fresh elections, reformed governance and the fight against terrorism. What the Syrian government is saying After meeting de Mistura, Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari branded all the opposition and their backers terrorists and said discussing the fight against terrorism would be his top priority for the talks. What the opposition is saying Opposition negotiator Nasr al-Hariri is vowing to keep pushing for a political transition in Syria. He says he wants a signal from Jaafari that he is serious about discussing one. We are still committed to political transition with a very clear objective which is to respond to the needs of the Syrian people and to end their suffering. And the key to all of that is through political transition.
By Tiemoko Diallo BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali's main Tuareg separatist factions said on Saturday they would boycott talks with the government next week on implementing a nearly 2-year-old peace accord that has been riven by quarrelling. The pact signed in 2015 was meant to draw a line under the conflict that pitted nomadic Tuaregs in the desert north against a government seated in the south and which has destabilised Mali, turning it into a launch pad for global jihadi groups. But implementing the agreement has been held up by bickering, while jihadists have exploited the security vacuum to step up attacks. "The CMA and Platform declare solemnly that they cannot take part in this conference," a statement by the Tuareg rebels said, explaining that it was not sufficiently inclusive and that they were not consulted about the date when it was fixed. "We cannot take part in a conference which, far from uniting, risks being divisive." After months of delays and arguments, there have been some signs of progress in recent weeks with the return of state authority to some cities from which it had been absent since the Tuareg uprising began in 2012. Joint patrols staffed by fighters from the various armed factions and the Malian security forces have also helped restore confidence. But tensions remain high. Earlier this month, armed groups surrounded Timbuktu, once a tourist trap because of its fabled history of gilded Islamic empires that grew rich on trade connecting Africa's interior with its Mediterranean coast. The armed groups were opposed to the return of state authority to the city, and no agreement has yet been reached to allow it to go ahead. Most government posts have been empty since the Tuaregs and desert jihadists took over northern Mali, before French forces intervened to push them back in 2013, but a breakthrough last month allowed authority to be restored to several cities. Despite continued French troop deployments, a U.N. peacekeeping mission and years of peace talks, Mali remains beset by banditry, unrest and ethnic strife. (Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Mark Potter)
An Arizona man and Omaha woman were arrested Friday after the Seward County Sheriff's Office reported finding over 5 pounds of methamphetamine.

A deputy first made contact with Rigoberto Cervantes at a closed gas station, and offered assistance to the motorist. Cervantes left, and Omaha police contacted the deputy about a man and woman traveling together on the interstate, but in different cars.

Cervantes and Gabriella Gonzales were then located at a Speedee Mart off of Interstate 80, near mile marker 379.

After Cervantes consented to a search, deputies discovered 5 pounds of methamphetamine, along with smaller amounts for personal use, the sheriff's office said. Further investigation revealed the pair picked up narcotics in Scottsdale, Arizona, to distribute in Omaha, according to authorities.

Cervantes and Gonzales were both arrested for possession of controlled substances with intent to deliver.
By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura called on Russia, Turkey and Iran on Saturday to salvage the tattered ceasefire in Syria that would also help keep peace talks on track. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies, Russia, Iran and Shi'ite militias from nearby countries, are seeking to staunch the biggest rebel assault in months, which began this week in the capital Damascus and the Hama countryside. "Growing violations in recent days are undermining the ceasefire regime addressed through the Astana meetings, with significant negative consequences for the safety of Syrian civilians, humanitarian access and the momentum of the political process," de Mistura said in a statement on the third day of peace talks. The U.N. envoy said he had written to the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, and Turkey -- the three guarantors of the ceasefire that came into effect on December 30, urging them to "undertake urgent efforts to uphold the ceasefire regime." Nasr Hariri, lead negotiator of the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said after meeting the U.N. envoy on Saturday that 15 civilians were killed and 70 wounded in the bombing of a market in Hamouriya in the Damascus countryside. "I am talking about the killing machine and terror machine of the Assad regime," Hariri said, reading the names of victims of the "massacre" to reporters in Geneva. He also accused the government of the forced displacement of civilians and imposing "demographic change". "Any political solution would not be meaningful or credible if it was not accompanied with a real ceasefire on the ground," Hariri said. "If we don't have that real ceasefire then things will deteriorate very badly." Hariri said the opposition delegation and de Mistura had discussed political transition, one of four themes that the two sides have agreed to as the agenda for this fifth round. The government delegation led by Syrian ambassador Bashar al-Ja'afari presented the U.N. mediator on Saturday with a paper on fighting terrorism, another agenda item that Damascus views as the priority. The Syrian Network for Human Rights said in a report it had documented 948 civilians killed, including 192 children and 91 women, "largely at the hands of the Syrian regime and Russia" since the last round of Geneva peace talks ended on March 3. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Helen Popper and David Evans)
WASHINGTON  The commander of U.S. Africa Command says he would like to be granted more authority to battle al-Qaida-linked militants in Somalia.

Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that it would be very helpful to be given more flexibility in combatting al-Shabab militants, both directly and through local partner forces.

He said this would allow him to deliver airstrikes in a more timely way.

The Associated Press has previously reported that recommendations for such expanded authorities have been sent to the White House.

Waldhauser said he already has held detailed discussions to ensure that expanded U.S. military operations in Somalia would not jeopardize the work of international civilian groups combatting famine.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

The problem is worse than anyone thought.

District Attorney Raul Torrez said in an interview Friday that there are about 7,800 Bernalillo County criminal cases dating back to early 2015 that were never prosecuted. Those cases include charges that were voluntarily dismissed by prosecutors and cases that were referred to the District Attorneys Office by law enforcement agencies but never prosecuted.

Previously, Torrez had estimated there were about 3,000 such cases.

Included in the nearly 8,000 cases that werent prosecuted are about 5,200 property crimes and drug cases, 1,100 violent crimes and sexual assaults, 770 white-collar crimes, 400 crimes against children, 120 felony drunken driving cases and 75 gang-related cases, Torrez said.

I think I can speak for everyone when I say we were astonished, he said.

He said that if prosecutors focused only on trying the pending cases, it would take the office several years to clear the backlog. And that doesnt take into consideration the cases that police officers and sheriffs deputies are currently working.

Were going to be facing some very tough decisions about who we prosecute and how we dedicate resources, he said.

The backlog of criminal cases began to significantly increase in February 2015 when new rules for discovery in criminal cases went into effect. Prosecutors in many cases voluntarily dismissed the charges with plans to refile charges once all the evidence had been collected, but many cases were never refiled.

Former District Attorney Kari Brandenburg has said her office started voluntarily dismissing cases because judges were throwing them out of court in large numbers when prosecutors werent meeting discovery deadlines.

Torrez said that in the coming months he will announce a reorganization of the office that includes a major crimes division in hopes of making sure serious cases and cases against hardened criminals dont fall through the cracks.

The division will be staffed with the most experienced prosecutors, and theyll be responsible for serious child abuse, sexual assault, homicides and high-impact repeat offenders, he said.

Albuquerque has had an uptick in crimes since the number of dismissed cases has grown. Many in the community, including most of the candidates running for mayor, are calling for more police officers to be hired.

As our police officers continue to grapple with repeat offenders who drive the crime rate in our city, it will be incumbent on the entire criminal justice system to do better. APD and our new DA are already working together to develop a more robust system to prioritize, and aggressively prosecute, those who perpetrate crime over and over again, Mayor Richard Berry said in an email. We will need the help of the judges and the court system to make the gains that I believe are needed, and that are possible.

Torrez said that even if there were more officers bringing more cases, there arent enough prosecutors, public defenders or court resources to try the cases in time.

It doesnt matter how big or small you make the top of the funnel, at the bottom of the funnel there is only so much we can do, he said.

But he said the situation is improving.

When Torrez took over as district attorney at the start of the year, the prosecutors office was filled with boxes of case files dating back 15 years. The stacks were so commonplace they were used as dividers between working spaces. He said they created an unwelcoming environment for crime victims and witnesses.

Recently, the office has partnered with the Bernalillo County Clerks Office to move those files to an election warehouse that has available space.

We were really delighted to be able to help with this, County Clerk Linda Stover said.

District Attorneys Office staffers are working to scan and save electronic copies of the files and then have the hard copies destroyed, Torrez said.

Torrez said getting the files out of his office has allowed him to create about 20 new workstations.

He said that in coming weeks hell work to complete agreements so that victim advocacy organizations, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving or the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico, can have a working space in the District Attorneys Office. He said other people with proper training have expressed interest in volunteering in some fashion, which could be done in the extra space.

Were trying to create ways for the community to engage their time, energy and passion within this office, Torrez said.
WASHINGTON  The nomination of Neil Gorsuch presents the Senate with a constitutional dilemma: Is this nation prepared to have Eddie Haskell serving a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court?

The most noteworthy thing to emerge from Gorsuchs testimony Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee wasnt his judicial philosophy (conservative), his credentials (considerable) nor even the likelihood of confirmation (virtually certain). What stood out was his aw-shucks, good-golly manner: Gorsuch played a folksy sycophant straight out of the 1950s.

No fewer than eight times he punctuated his testimony with Leave It to Beaver exclamations of goodness  goodness, no! oh, my goodness!  and, though only 49 years old, spoke in archaic phrases: since I was a tot, a fair and square deal, doesnt give a whit.

Gorsuch made groan-inducing attempts at humor: They havent yet replaced judges with algorithms, though I think eBays trying, and proffered self-deprecating demurrals: I dont want to waste your time.  I cant claim Im perfect, but I try awful hard.  I wouldnt count myself an expert.

Despite old memos showing him to be intensely involved in Republican politics and conservative policy, he said the closest he got to policy was when I served on my kids school board.

Its a good bet that Gorsuch, once he has charmed the grown-ups and secured confirmation, will, like Haskell, reveal himself to be a rascal and cause all manner of mischief on the court with abortion and gun rights, money in politics and presidential power.

But now Gorsuch is pouring on the flattery. When Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had an aide named Eric bring Gorsuch a copy of a document, the nominee acted as if the senator had offered to throw him a confirmation party: Thatd be great. Thank you. Thatd be wonderful. Im happy to. Thank you. Thank you, Eric.

When Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., questioned him, Gorsuch remarked that the senator would be a formidable companion in the courtroom.

Leahy noted that Feinstein told him not to let Gorsuchs flattery go to your head, Pat.

Oh, he should! Gorsuch insisted.

And when Leahy asked Gorsuch to trust me on a historical point, Gorsuch gushed: I trust you, entirely.

There seems to be little doubt that Gorsuch will be confirmed. Republicans may have stolen the seat, but thats done now; the donnybrook comes if Trump gets to replace a liberal justice. A measure of the acceptance: empty seats in the audience during Gorsuchs testimony Tuesday.

The most Democrats can hope for from Gorsuch is that hell stand up to Trump when he exceeds his constitutional powers. Gorsuch, naturally, said all the right things Tuesday.

He assured Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., that Trump would have legal trouble if he were to attempt to ban Muslims from the military or reinstate waterboarding.

So, Graham said, in case President Trump is watching, which he may very well be  If you start waterboarding people, you may get impeached. Is that a fair summary?

Gorsuch said the impeachment power belongs to this body, but added: No man is above the law.

Was he sincere about that? Hard to say.

Was he sincere in saying that he was a lowly speechwriter or scribe and not the brains behind a controversial memo?

Was he sincere when he said we were all surprised to find his name on Trumps shortlist?

His exaggerated eagerness, his hearty guffaws at the senators jokes and his constant solicitude (Im happy to answer another question, entirely up to you) suggest that maybe  just maybe  he was saying what needed to be said.

People ordinarily dont talk like this: I have a loving wife, a beautiful home and children, a great job with wonderful colleagues. Im a happy person.

Or like this: I put my ego aside when I put on that robe, and I open my mind and I open my heart and I listen.

His was excruciatingly folksy, talking with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about his daughters riding sheep (mutton busting) at the rodeo. Being called a young Perry Mason years ago was a career highlight, he said. And he recalled a recent visit to the Lincoln Memorial. He quoted from one of its inscriptions, government of the people, by the people, for the people, which he said was from Lincolns second inaugural address.

One of the Democratic senators informed him that this was actually from the Gettysburg Address.

Gorsuch put his head in his hands. Gosh, he said.

Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, @Milbank. E-mail: danamilbank@washpost.com. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group
The New Mexico Department of Tourism is on the move, not just promoting the states natural beauty and many attractions, but also highlighting the potential for entrepreneurs to consider the state as a great place to locate a business.

In partnership with the city of Albuquerque this year, the agency debuted new videos featuring New Mexico companies at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, last week. The conference has become a magnet for innovators, entrepreneurs and investors to network and check out new technologies and startups.

In recent years, the city has been a regular participant. This year, the tourism agency joined in with its branding and advertising efforts to promote the state. By combining tourism images with interviews with two entrepreneurs  Taos Mountain Energy Bar company and Albuquerque-based technology startup Innobright  about why they started their businesses here, the New Mexico True campaign is expanding its message about the value the state offers.

Were showcasing New Mexico through all these events, said New Mexico Technology Council President Nyika Allen. Were getting the word out about what makes us unique in a national and global forum.

Allen was part of a delegation to the conference headed by Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry. About a dozen local startups attended, along with public officials, economic development professionals and New Mexico-based entrepreneurs and investors. Some participated in panel discussions, of which some focused on Albuquerque and New Mexico.

The state has also purchased advertising that will play a New Mexico True commercial for anyone logging onto Wi-Fi at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in March. Its part of the tourism departments upcoming $170,000 advertising effort in Austin, although there is no paid placement plan for the ads as of yet. The agency manages a $9.7 million marketing and advertising budget.

I know what youre thinking: Its totally different, Tourism Secretary Rebecca Latham told business leaders in a recent presentation to the Economic Forum of Albuquerque. You dont market tourism the same way you market economic development, but there is definitely a synergy there.

Lets hope so. New Mexico has struggled for years to diversify the states economy  weaning itself with limited success from the government and oil and gas sectors by trying to expand private-sector industries that bring new money into the state.

Recent additions to the private-sector portfolio, including Facebook, Safelite and Keter, should provide some momentum. And if theres any question its needed, the latest unemployment figures that put the Land of Enchantment dead last in the nation for getting people to work  nearly two full percentage points behind the national rate of 4.7 percent  show economic development needs to be front and center.

The Tourism-Albuquerque partnership is a smart, coordinated move that pushes the agencys message beyond just hiking, biking and scenic photo-ops. Branching out into business recruitment is a natural outgrowth of the departments New Mexico True branding effort. Lets hope this synergy attracts more innovators to our state.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
WASHINGTON  Divided House Republicans on Friday abruptly canceled a vote on replacing the Affordable Care Act, acknowledging they lack enough support to replace the controversial health care law approved by Congress seven years ago.

With the conservative Freedom Caucus in revolt  including Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico  House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump were forced to concede a humiliating defeat of their health care legislation late Friday afternoon.

Trump, who made repealing Obamacare a hallmark of his presidential campaign last year, had urged Ryan to move ahead with the vote late Thursday, despite objections to the bill by conservative Republicans.

But when it became apparent the GOP did not have enough support to pass the legislation Friday afternoon, Ryan went to the White House to deliver Trump the bad news, and the new president agreed with Ryans decision to pull the bill from consideration.

Trump campaigned as a master deal-maker and claimed that he alone could fix the nations health care system. But on Friday, Republican lawmakers made clear they answer to their own constituents, not to the president.

At the White House, an unusually subdued Trump said the bill went down by a very, very tight margin and blamed a lack of Democratic support for its failure.

With no Democrat support, we couldnt quite get there, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. We learned about loyalty, we learned a lot about the vote-getting process.

Not one House Democrat supported the Republican bill Friday, arguing that it would cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. The Obama administration law was approved in 2010 with no Republican votes.

At the Capitol on Friday afternoon, Ryan said the defeat hurt.

We came really close today, but we came up short, Ryan told reporters shortly after the Republican bill was pulled.

I will not sugarcoat it  this is a disappointing day for us, Ryan added.

At the White House, Trump predicted that problems with the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, including high premiums and dwindling participation by insurers, would escalate in the coming year and lead to its eventual demise.

Ive been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode  its exploding right now, Trump said. I think the losers are (House Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi and (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare.

Although Trump said he would be totally open to negotiating a different health care bill with Republicans and Democrats, he declared that the White House would shift its attention to tax reform.

He also declared his continued support for Ryan, although some calls for the House speakers ouster were already percolating in the right-wing media.

I like Speaker Ryan; he worked very hard, Trump said.

Pearce  the New Mexico delegations lone Republican  told the Journal this week that he was leaning against supporting the Ryan bill. After the bill was withdrawn Friday, he said he was disappointed that Republicans failed to replace Obamacare.

I am disappointed that we were unable to get to an agreement this week on a plan that would bring affordability and accessibility back to health care marketplaces in the state of New Mexico and around the nation, Pearce said. More than anything, I wanted us to come to an agreement on a replacement plan that would protect the most vulnerable in New Mexico, while returning choice and affordability to middle-class families and the working class.

Although the Ryan-Trump bill died in the House Friday, it would have faced even tougher sledding in the Senate, where as many as a dozen moderate Republicans had voiced problems with it.

This isnt a time to gloat, said U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M. Its time to get to work, because Republicans have played politics for the past seven years instead of putting consumers, patients and families first. Maybe now they will work in earnest with Democrats to do the right thing for American families.
A Corrales-based tech company is experiencing success by leaving their best ideas literally on the table.

Ideum is a company that specializes in creating multi-touch tables equipped with custom hardware to be displayed in public spaces.

Each table comes with a custom locking enclosure equipped with a 3M projected captive touch screen, 80 touch points with palm rejection, a 4K display, two 10-watt integrated speakers, USB connectors, wireless keyboard with integrated track pad and much, much more.

The displays can range in size from 43 inches to 100 inches in size and use components from 3M, Intel, LG and NVIDIA.

If this product sounds cutting edge, its because it is.

Some of Ideums displays can be seen at the Canadian Space Agency, the German Aerospace Center, Amazon, Google and the Asian Art Museum  and the list goes on.

Jim Spadaccini, founder and CEO of Ideum, said he noticed multi-touch technology eight years ago and thought it would be a great application for the museum world.

The technology was there but nobody was building it the way we wanted to build it, Spadaccini said. First we decided just to build it for a couple of clients and then we turned it into a product that has evolved over the years.

Spadaccini said the tables are made in small batches and built to be incredibly tough. The custom casings for each table are made of aluminum and tested for durability.

These are giant, tough books, but theyre ready for museums, Spadaccini said. We manufacture touch tables and touch walls that have been sold in 38 countries around the world.

According to Spadaccini, all of the design and metal work are done in-house at the manufacturing facility in Corrales.

Ideum started out selling their product mainly to museums, but now, Spadaccini says, the tables are being sold to universities, research labs and many Fortune-500 companies.

Everyone from Google to Amazon Robotics has our hardware in their spaces, Spadaccini said.

After doing a project on Chaco Canyon, Spadaccini said he fell in love with New Mexico and decided to relocate Ideum to Corrales.

This 16-year-old company has 44 employees and continues to look toward the future of technology for cues to create new products, Spadaccini said.

Curtis Bennett, technical director for creative service, said he originally went into the gaming industry before using his skills to help create new designs at Ideum.

We use a lot of game technology, but our motivations are different, Bennett said. When you design a game, the purpose is mainly for having fun, but for this the motivation is really educational.

Bennett said the biggest challenge at Ideum is juggling projects and making sure they are of the utmost quality for the clients.

It varies, but (for) the majority of our projects Im involved in from the ground up, Bennett said. I like to ensure quality and we push ourselves on that for every project.

Chris Steinmetz, who has worked at Ideum for seven years, said he started working with Spadaccini as a way to break free from his cubicle job at a big company.

I was excited about this work, not so much what I was doing at my other job, Steinmetz said. I work in building and helping design and manufacture the tables.

Now Steinmetz works with the creative services team on large-scale exhibits for clients, he said.

We just broke out of doing all of our exhibits on multi-touch tables; now we build video walls or immersive projections, Steinmetz said. Our clients will come to us with an idea that sounds crazy, like something only seen in movies, and we come through with what we thought was impossible.

Steinmetz believes the sky is the limit with applications and design request from clients to create that push the envelope of technology.

In the end we leverage all of the new awesome technology that comes out to make this stuff happen, Steinmetz said.
The Sandoval County Commission recently approved a bid for construction of the new Bernalillo Senior Center, which will cost $1.78 million.

Commissioners unanimously passed the motion to award the bid during their March 16 meeting.

The county will be entering into a contract with Anissa Construction to build a new 7,200-square-foot building in Bernalillo to complete the Legislative Capital Outlay project funded through the (New Mexico) Aging and Long-Term Services Department, according to information on the project provided by the county.

Tommy Mora, manager of public works in Sandoval County, said the Town of Bernalillo gave the county a 99-year lease on one acre of land at Rotary Park to use for the construction of the center.

We consulted them along the way and they are eager for this project as well, Mora said.

The county will be responsible for the annual upkeep on the facility, Mora said, but he doesnt foresee those costs to be high for the first few years.

We did consult our energy audit folks as we designed this building to get some ideas from them so we could keep those costs down, Mora said. Energy costs will be routine for the first five or six years.

The county explained that the new building is needed to keep up with services provided at the existing center and provide a large commercial kitchen equipped to keep up with increasing demand for service.

In (Fiscal Year) 2016-17 we estimate we will serve 42,684 homebound and congregate meals out of the Bernalillo Senior Center kitchen, reads information provided by the county. With the growth in the number of seniors utilizing services, the (existing) facility is unable to continue to meet the needs of the seniors. The growth in the number of seniors 65 years of age and older has increased from 6.9 percent of the total population of the Town of Bernalillo in 2000 to 13.4 percent in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau.

During the comment from commissioners segment of the meeting, Commissioner Jay Block questioned when the county would consider the climate assessment form he introduced a month ago. He has said the form would serve as an anonymous gauge for employees to rate their superiors and relate important issues.

County Manager Phil Rios replied that a draft for the climate assessment is in the works, but he is not working on it; the human resources department for the county has taken control of it.

Block asked Rios when the commission would be able to review the draft.

Rios said he had no clue and jokingly said, Maybe after June 1. (His final day on the job is May 31.)

Chairman Don Chapman said the commission is set to meet with human resources in a closed meeting on March 30 to look over the draft and discuss where to go from there.

Block told the Observer he hopes to see a physical draft by the March 30 date proposed by Chapman.

It better be done there  I dont want to push this. I want to just get this done and get it out to the employees so they can fill this out and we can get a good feel for whats going on, Block said

Commissioners received several presentations at the meeting, as well, including one from Tom Bowen, COO of Jemez Community Development Corp., about making adobe blocks in Jemez by utilizing the areas natural resources.

We are able to use the materials found on the Jemez Pueblo, which allows them to control the commodity themselves, Bowen said. This will generate a large-scale production facility that will allow for sales of the pueblo as well as creating jobs.
Biologist Marc Wethington, a veteran of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, has landed the lifetime achievement award from the American Fisheries Society.

The 21-year veteran of the department received the societys award  known as the Fish Head of the Year Award  during a recent meeting in Farmington.

Wethington, 53, is a New Mexico Highlands University graduate and a Kirtland native. He has been stationed at the San Juan River below Navajo Dam his entire career, according to a news release.

It is an honor to have been recognized by my peers for the work that weve been able to accomplish here on the San Juan on behalf of all anglers, he said in a statement.

Wethington has overseen numerous habitat improvement projects along the river designed to mitigate low water flows and maintain the high-quality trout fishery.

The world-renowned San Juan River fishery boasts an estimated 70,000 trout, averaging 16 to 18 inches in length, occupying about four miles of river below the dam. It is widely regarded as one of the Wests top trout streams.

Wethington, in nomination letters, was lauded for his depth of knowledge, strong work ethic and ability to forge positive working relationships.

Anyone who fishes the San Juan knows what a great job hes done keeping it special, said Eric Frey, sport fish program manager for the department. Hes truly devoted his career to fulfilling that mission.

We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com.
SANTA FE  Former New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera has sued the state Attorney Generals Office, saying it failed to meet a legal deadline for producing public records she is seeking about two people she fired while in office.

According to documents attached to the lawsuit, Herrera attorney A. Blair Dunn filed a request under the state Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) on March 2. But the AGs Office said Friday it never got the IPRA request because Dunn mistyped an email address when trying to ask for public records.

Additionally, the IT Director for this office has confirmed no emails were received by our server to any of our email addresses regarding an IPRA request from Mr. Dunn. Thus, we will file a motion to dismiss his complaints, said AGs spokesman James Hallinan. He also provided a supporting affidavit from the IT director.

Dunn wants any emails, letters or other communications that employees of the AGs office had from 2009-2012 with Manny Vildasol and James Flores, who worked in the Secretary of States Office under Herrera and were fired in 2010. Hallinan said the Attorney Generals Office will immediately process these requests in a timely fashion and pursuant to law. Dunn could not be reached for comment Friday.

Herrera fired Vildasol and Flores during her unsuccessful campaign for re-election in 2010. The two men filed separate lawsuits claiming they were terminated for providing information to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies and that their terminations violated the Whistleblower Protection Act. Those lawsuits are still pending.

Also in 2010, former Attorney General Gary King launched an investigation that started over allegations by a former elections director at the Secretary of States Office that Herrera had violated New Mexicos Governmental Conduct Act by ordering employees to collect signatures for her re-election campaign and insisting that employees solicit scholarships or donations from businesses that contracted with the state to support training seminars for county clerk staff. Flores and Vildasol made similar allegations.

King closed the investigation in 2013 and filed no charges. Herrera has denied she did anything wrong and called the investigation politically motivated. She said the FBI never contacted her.
With the creation of Harlan County and the subsequent arrival of a branch of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, Orleans was almost perfectly situated to become the county seat and to host a denominational university.

Both came about, but were not destined to have long-lasting success.

In 1869, retired Civil War Gen. Victor Vifquain camped near what would ultimately become the village of Orleans while scouting land for settlement. There, on subsequent Section 17 about where the Orleans depot would be built, he and a small group of men built a 40-foot-square stockade with 2-inch-thick sod walls. The following year, Vifquain drew a town plan for what he called Napoleon, southeast of the later site of Orleans.

On June 30, 1871, Harlan County was created from a corner of the original Lincoln County, and an election to determine the county seat was called for July 3. Although the store Frank Bieyon built at the birth of the village of Melrose near the center of Harlan County was perhaps the only real building in the county, the seat of government was given to Alma, on a 37-5 vote, over Napoleon, which had no population, houses or buildings whatsoever.

In 1872, the stockade burned to the ground, but in June a newspaper reported that Republican City and Melrose each had a store, a hitching post and a clothes line.

On June 29, as a few other settlers arrived in the county, another election for the county seat yielded Republican City 37 votes, Melrose 36, Alma 31 and Napoleon 24, with none receiving a sufficient majority. Still, the county records were moved to Melrose.

Another vote was held Aug. 8, with Napoleon dropped for having no official townsite records on file, having had the smallest number of votes in the previous election and no population. There was still no legal decision, as state majority requirements were again not met.

Yet another vote was held Aug. 29, with Alma dropped as being the lowest vote-getter. Melrose was declared the winner and the second floor of Bieyons store became the courthouse. Although a question arose over the legality of the election, Melrose was considered the winner by default. Melrose also was platted the same year on the east half of Section 17 with east/west streets named for eastern universities and north/south streets numbered.

A post office opened in Melrose in January 1873, about a mile northwest of Orleans, with F.A. Bieyon as postmaster. At that point, Orleans claimed to have 10 buildings to Melroses seven.

Republican City challenged the 1872 election and sued to have the county seat moved there, claiming it had the largest number of votes in that election. Confusingly, Judge Gaslin ruled that because the later election had never been challenged, the county seat should be moved from Melrose to Alma even though most electors were satisfied with Melrose. Then, even though there was no suitable building in Alma, the records were moved with a little trickery  without violence.

Orleans filed incorporation papers in 1879 as a village in Section 22, less than a mile from Melrose. A $2,000 building termed a courthouse/auditorium was erected to woo the county seat. It became obvious that two competing villages could not exist so close to each other. The Melrose post office was moved to Orleans, with Bieyon again named postmaster, and the plat of Melrose vacated, with many houses and buildings moved to Orleans.

In the fall of 1881, another vote for county seat ended with both Alma and Orleans claiming victory. The Nebraska Supreme Court found voting irregularities in the Alma precinct, resulting in those votes being thrown out and meaning that Orleans would be the county seat. But at the same time, the court also ruled the entire election voided, meaning Alma still retained the seat.

As early as 1870 an annual Methodist Conference stated the need to establish 10 to 12 academies or seminaries (secondary schools) around Nebraska to feed students into Methodist colleges or universities. Orleans Burtons Addition  about a four-square- block provision bounded by North, Linn, College and Harvard streets  was set aside as the seminary grounds.

This land grant attracted Rev. C.M. Damon of the Free Methodist Church, based just across the state border in Kansas, to build the brick, two-story-plus sunlight basement Orleans Free Methodist College in 1884. The college was briefly joined by H.B. Beaches Business College, which converted the courthouse/auditorium building at Oak and Orleans streets to his school in 1886.

With Nebraska Wesleyans opening in College View, Nebraska, in 1888, it was pointed out that seminaries or academies would give students two years of education before more challenging college work, which gave Orleans Free Methodist College a continuing promise of success. The Free Methodist school closed in 1893, with the schools building going to the Methodist Episcopal Church, which reopened it as Orleans College. In 1895, it was reported as having a respectable enrollment of 456 students.

Unfortunately, the National Bank of Orleans failed in 1897, which in turn forced closure of Orleans College. In 1914, the then two-building complex was razed and materials reused in other Orleans buildings.

Today, memories of Orleans' days as a college community or county seat have faded nearly into oblivion. The village is perhaps now most remembered as once having the worlds largest co-operative creamery.
How should a judge go about deciding if a defendant is dangerous enough to keep in jail pending trial? And what kind of say should the defendant and a defense attorney have in that process?

The public can comment on proposed rules answering these questions about how the court system is to use the states new constitutional amendment allowing judges to keep dangerous defendants in jail pending trial.

The rules, posted on the states Supreme Court website, are open to public comment until April 17.

If approved, they would instruct judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys across the state in how to lawfully use the pretrial detention process authorized by New Mexico voters in the 2016 general election.

That amendment allows state District Court judges to outright deny bail to a felony defendant on clear and convincing evidence that no release conditions will reasonably protect the safety of any other person or the community.

Since the amendment went into effect early this year, court systems across the state have been improvising how exactly to detain defendants.

The rules, proposed March 17 by the state Supreme Court, are intended to firmly guide the process.

They lay out a timeline and particulars for the process: A prosecutor must file a petition with the judge and a hearing must be held within three days with a possible three-day extension; the defendant can cross-examine witnesses who appear to testify at the hearing; the defendant can testify too, but testimony cant be used at trial; and the burden is on the prosecutor to prove dangerousness.

Also laid out in the rules is a direction to judges to expedite a trial for a defendant who is held without bail pending trial. And a defendant has a clear process for appealing pretrial detention.

Its important that we have thoughtful, effective rules to implement the constitutional amendment. Its always important in a democracy for there to be a neutral judge to review an effort by the state to hold somebody, to deny somebody their liberty without any kind of a review the basis of the request, said Jeff Rein, an attorney with the Public Defender Office.

If you are going to deny somebody their liberty, there should be a judge to look at it and even before a hearing to show youve presented enough evidence that we are going to hold this person for three days.

Rein was on the committee that contributed to the proposed rules. He is most concerned about the order that triggers immediate pretrial detention the moment a prosecutor files a motion for detention. He said hed prefer that motion include evidence and information about why the defendant should be held, so a judge can decide if that person should be held.
WASHINGTON  Sen. Tom Udall said Friday that he will oppose the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, partly because the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals judge failed to answer key questions during his Senate confirmation hearings this week.

The announcement by Udall, D-N.M., came after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumers call on Thursday to block Gorsuchs nomination with a filibuster.

I have met with Judge Gorsuch, followed the hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and studied his record, and decided that I cant support his confirmation, Udall said in a statement. He failed to answer questions that are critical for me  his position on the rights of working mothers, whether women can choose their own health care decisions, LGBTQ rights, and dark money in our elections.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., also voiced concerns about Gorsuch late Friday but stopped short of saying he would oppose his nomination.

Sen. Heinrich increasingly shares many of the concerns New Mexicans have voiced about Judge Gorsuch, said Whitney Potter, his spokeswoman.

Udall, a former New Mexico attorney general, said controversies swirling around President Donald Trump factored into his decision to oppose Gorsuch, a Westerner who has drawn generally strong reviews for his intellect and courtroom demeanor.

In just the last couple of months, the president has taken constitutionally questionable actions affecting Muslim immigrants and freedom of speech and religion, Udall said. The FBI is investigating his campaign, and he faces scrutiny about whether his company is benefiting from his office. All of these issues could well come before the Supreme Court.

Its more important now than ever before that we have neutral, clear-minded justices sitting on the bench. But Judge Gorsuch didnt convince me that he would be an independent voice on the court.
TORONTO  Canadas natural resource minister said Saturday his government is happy the Keystone XL pipeline has finally been approved by the White House, but he noted that obstacles remain and said Canada remains determined to diversify its oil exports beyond the United States.

The minister, Jim Carr, told The Associated Press that President Donald Trumps approval of the pipeline is good news. But he said there are other important projects like the recently approved TransMountain pipeline that will allow for exports to Asia. Ninety-eight percent of Canadas oil exports now go to the U.S.

We want to ensure we have access to Asian markets, Carr said in a telephone interview. We want to ensure we have more than one customer, as much as we love Americans.

Canada needs infrastructure to export its growing oil sands production. Alberta has the third-largest oil reserves in the world and is Americas largest supplier of foreign oil.

Keystone XL would carry more than one-fifth of the oil Canada exports to the United States. The pipeline owned by TransCanada received a presidential permit Friday, but Carr said he expects protests and noted it still needs a permit from the state of Nebraska. Hes heard the Nebraska process could take eight months.

Canadians arent going to go down there and tell state legislators what to do. They have their own process. Well respect that, he said.

Carr will, however, meet with U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry in Washington on Thursday.

The objective is to make the point that the energy economies are integrated, he said. So much of the Canadian interest is aligned with the American interest. Keystone XL is a good example of that.

The 1,700-mile (2,735-kilometer) pipeline would carry roughly 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The presidential permit comes nearly a decade after Calgary, Alberta-based TransCanada applied to build the $8 billion pipeline. Keystone would strengthen U.S. energy security by increasing access to Canadas dependable supply of crude oil, said the State Department.

The decision follows a long scientific and political fight over the project, which became a proxy battle in the larger fight over global warming.

Without the pipeline, Carr said the oil would move by the more dangerous method of rail. A 2013 derailment killed 47 people when a runaway oil train from North Dakota jumped the tracks and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

The more pipeline capacity there is, the higher proportion of the oil will be moved by a safer method of transport, Carr said.
JERUSALEM  Jared Kushner, President Donald Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser, has deep business and personal ties to Israel that could raise questions about his ability to serve as an honest broker as he oversees the White Houses Mideast peace efforts.

But some say these ties, which include a previously undisclosed real estate deal in New Jersey with a major Israeli insurer, may give Kushner a surprising advantage as he is expected to launch the first peace talks of the Trump era. Having the trust of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the thinking goes, could make Kushner well positioned to extract concessions from the hard-line Israeli leader.

Kushners family real estate company has longstanding and ongoing deals with major Israeli financial institutions. These relationships, along with a personal friendship with Netanyahu and past links to the West Bank settler movement, could emerge as potential stumbling blocks by creating an appearance of bias.

Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. confirmed that it shares ownership and profits on a New Jersey apartment building with the Kushner Companies. Harel informed The Associated Press of the joint investment and said it had not previously announced it publicly. In addition, the Kushner Companies confirmed longstanding relationships with two major Israeli banks that have been investigated by U.S. authorities for allegedly helping wealthy clients evade U.S. taxes.

Financial investments in Israel would seem to only further complicate conflicts of interest issues, said Larry Noble, senior director of regulatory programs and general counsel at Campaign Legal Center, a group that advocates for strong enforcement of campaign finance laws.

Jared Kushner headed the billion-dollar family firm before joining the White House as a senior adviser in January. As a condition to taking the job, Kushner has agreed to file a financial disclosure report and divest some holdings that could create a conflict of interest.

The Trump administration has faced repeated conflict of interest accusations since taking office. Although the billionaire real estate magnate says hes no longer managing his global financial interests, critics say these businesses still stand to profit from the prestige or policy decisions of the presidency. In addition, they note that Trumps children continue to manage many of these ventures, opening the door for the president to continue to wield his clout behind the scenes.

While Kushners role in Mideast diplomacy remains unclear, Trump has said his son-in-law will work to broker a Middle East peace deal.

Last week, Jason Greenblatt, a White House envoy who reports to Kushner, paid his first official visit to the region, holding a series of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials on what was billed as a listening tour to sound out the sides.

As the U.S. pushes forward, Kushners familys business and personal ties to Israel have raised questions over his ability to mediate.

Of course the Palestinians are not happy dealing with Jared Kushner  but they have no other options, said Palestinian political analyst Jehad Harb. Kushner and the whole new American team assigned to handle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict  have very close ties with settlements (and) its unlikely they are going to understand the Palestinian demand of dismantling most of the Jewish settlements, but the Palestinian Authority cannot say no at this stage.

Indeed, Palestinian officials appear very mindful about alienating the new U.S. administration with going public with grievances about a feared bias. And they seem genuinely relieved in recent weeks to be in contact with various U.S. envoys and at signs the administration is moving away from early positions that pleased Israeli nationalists, such as the notion of moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The newly disclosed deal with Harel, one of Israels biggest financial groups, was for a multifamily residential building in New Jersey with Kushner, the Israeli insurer said, adding that both companies continue to collect tenants rent payments.

Harel would not say when the property was purchased, how much it cost or even give its address, though it said it was a relatively small investment. The company, which trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, managed some $50 billion in assets as of the end of 2015, according to its website.

Harel said it has also partnered with Kushner on a much larger deal: A consortium of lenders that provided some $50 million to the Chetrit Group and JDS Development, two New York real estate firms that are trying to build a 73-story residential tower that aims to be Brooklyns tallest. The loan was repaid and yielded a handsome profit, Harel said in a statement.

As is known, Kushner (Companies) are experienced and knowledgeable with proven ability in deals in the rental property sector in general and in New Jersey specifically, Harel said.

A Kushner Companies spokeswoman, Risa Heller, said the loan for the Brooklyn project was paid off, but she declined to say if Jared Kushner has sold his interest in the New Jersey property. Jamie Gorelick, an attorney who has advised Kushner on conflict of interest matters, referred questions to Heller.

The Kushner Companies also confirmed having a longstanding relationship with two major Israeli banks, Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi, but wouldnt elaborate. Both banks declined to comment.

The Trump administration has inherited a Justice Department investigation into allegations that Bank Hapoalim helped American clients evade taxes, and the bank could reach a settlement in the case as early as this year. Bank Leumi also allegedly helped U.S. customers evade U.S. taxes from 2002-2010, and reached a settlement with the Justice Department in 2014 to pay $400 million to the U.S. government.

There is no evidence that Kushner Companies was connected to either investigation, and the Justice Department declined to comment.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not answer specific questions about Jared Kushners ties to Israeli business partners. Mr. Kushner will comply with financial disclosure and ethics requirements, including the obligation to recuse from particular matters involving specific parties if a reasonable person would question his impartiality, she said in an email statement.

Kushner is covered by government conflict of interest laws, so he is required to divest himself of any financial interests that may present a conflict and must not participate in any matter that has a direct effect on his financial holdings.

While Kushner has divested himself of some financial interests, the assets were put in a trust run by relatives, presenting the potential for a conflict of interest, said Noble, the campaign finance advocate.

He said the Justice Department investigation into Bank Hapoalim is especially problematic if Kushner or the White House in any way influence the inquiry.

Kushners business ties are just one of the potential pitfalls to his diplomatic career.

Trumps son-in-law was also co-director of a family foundation that donated tens of thousands of dollars to Jewish settlement groups in the West Bank, according to U.S. tax records. The family also donated at least $298,600 to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, an organization that runs educational and cultural programs for Israeli soldiers, between 2010 and 2012, according to the tax records.

Palestinians and most of the international community consider Jewish settlements to be obstacles to peace because they are built on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war that Palestinians want for a future state. The Palestinians also revile the Israeli military after decades of bloodshed.

Kushner and his family also have longstanding personal ties to Netanyahu. At a White House news conference last month, Netanyahu joked that he has known Kushner since he was a boy.

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and co-chairman of an Israeli real estate fund that counts Kushners father, Charles, among its backers, said he doesnt know Jared Kushner personally but thinks his affiliations to Israel will be helpful in peace negotiations.

Theres trust. When theres trust on one side, there can also be a more conciliatory attitude on that side, Shoval said.

Prominent Palestinian politician Jibril Rajoub told foreign reporters that Trump made clear to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a recent phone call that he was his strategic partner in making a real and serious peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

There is very, very positive progress, Rajoub said.

___

Follow Daniel Estrin at

www.twitter.com/danielestrin

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Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
LAS CRUCES  Gov. Susana Martinezs nominees to two seats on New Mexico State Universitys five-member governing body are in limbo.

Thats after the state Senate didnt take action on their appointments in the legislative session that ended a week ago.

One nominee, Mike Cheney, is a current NMSU regent Martinez is seeking to reappoint. The second, whod fill the student regent position, is Margie Vela, a doctoral. candidate in water science and management at NMSU. Vela would replace Student Regent Amanda Lopez Askin, whose two-year term was set to expire.

Cheney and Lopez Askin will continue serving in the seats for now, according to the governors office and university.

Because the Senate failed to act on their duty to hold hearings on these nominations, Cheney will continue serving on an expired term until confirmed, and Vela will not be seated, said Martinez spokesman Michael Lonergan.

Cheney, a managing partner at Healing Source Chiropractic, has been a regent since 2011. His term was set to expire at the end of 2016.

Lopez Askin graduated in December with her doctorate degree in higher education leadership with an emphasis on social justice. She said shes willing to continue the regents role.

I love NMSU, she said. You cant find many people who love NMSU as much as I do.

NMSU Chancellor Garrey Carruthers said theres the possibility that Cheney or Lopez Askin could opt to resign, allowing Martinez to appoint someone to fill the resulting vacancy while awaiting a confirmation. But right now, both regents have elected to continue to serve, he said.

The other regents are Kari Mitchell, whose term expires in 2018; and Debra Hicks and Jerean Hutchinson, whose terms expire in 2020.

The confirmation process

The Senate Rules Committee first vets the governors nominees, not only for regents but also for various state boards. After that, they go before the entire Senate.

Martinezs appointments became a point of contention in the recent 60-day legislative session, when she pulled dozens of appointees from the confirmation waiting list and accused legislators of taking too long to do confirmations, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. And some lawmakers said the governor was side-stepping the process.

Senate Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, said the Senate rules committee did vet regents for some universities. But she said the panel had limited time, and the process of vetting an appointee is time-consuming. Plus, she said the panel is responsible for other duties, too.

A lot of work is done in that committee; its more than just appointees, she said.

Lonergan said the rules committee has constitutional authority to meet outside of session and confirmations can be heard in any legislative session, regular or special. He said the possibility remains open for the Senate to take up the nominees in a special legislative session, in addition to taking up the state budget.

(I)ts not final what will be on the call, but theres room for other items given that the Senate squandered two months of work, he said.

Diana Alba Soular may be reached at 575-541-5443, dalba@lcsun-news.com or @AlbaSoular on Twitter.



2017 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

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FARMINGTON  A federal judge has granted preliminary approval for a settlement of a class-action lawsuit regarding the alleged illegal detention of immigrants at the San Juan County Adult Detention Center.

The proposed settlement could cost the county as much as $724,000 and require it to implement new policies regarding inmates and their immigration status or national origin. Under the settlement, all claims made by the plaintiffs against the detention center would be released.

The lawsuit was filed on Nov. 19, 2014, by Somos Un Pueblo Unido, a Santa Fe-based immigration rights group, on behalf of dozens of plaintiffs who believed their civil rights were violated after they were held at the jail on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, immigration detainers.

John C. Bienvenu, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, said the proposed settlement is an important step for setting a precedent in regard to how county jails should respect immigration detainers only when accompanied by a judges order or warrant. He said if jail officials comply with immigration detainers without judicial orders, they are exposing themselves to violations of the U.S. Constitution.

Somos Un Pueblo Unido Executive Director Marcela Diaz said in a press release that the group is pleased the county is willing to settle and institute policies to protect the civil rights of every resident.

Plaintiff Susana Palacios-Valencia, who was one of the original plaintiffs identified in the lawsuit, is scheduled to received $25,000, and Somos Un Pueblo Unido could receive $15,000 if the settlement is approved. Palacios-Valencia claimed in the lawsuit she had been held more than a week on an immigration detainer in April 2012.

Also in the proposed settlement, 192 individuals detained at the jail on an ICE immigration detainer in the three years before the lawsuit was filed can submit a claim to receive $2,000 each.

And Travelers Insurance, the countys insurer, also will pay $300,000 for the plaintiffs attorneys fees and expenses as part of the settlement.

Federal law states jails can maintain custody of individuals up to 48 hours before transferring them into ICE custody or releasing them.

The lawsuit states the alleged incidents took place after a policy adopted by the San Juan County Board of Commissioners on July 1, 2014, prohibited the detention center from honoring detainment requests unless the individual is charged under federal statues or booked on state or local charges, according to Daily Times archives.

The stipulation of agreement in the case states that the policies were developed as a result of plaintiffs and plaintiffs counsels efforts preceding and during this lawsuit.

As part of the proposed settlement, an immigration detainer must be accompanied by a warrant or order signed by a judge in order for an immigrant to be detained or delivered into ICE custody.

County Chief Operations Officer Mike Stark said that part of the proposed settlement is the same as the 2014 policy, which is current.

Representatives of the San Juan County Sheriffs Office and the Farmington Police Department both said the proposed settlement will not affect their departments policies.

Bienvenu said portions of the proposed settlement will introduce additional safeguards for inmates at the jail.

For instance, jail employees will not ask about an individuals immigration status or national origin and such information will be treated as confidential, according to Bienvenu. And a notice will be posted in the booking area of the adult detention center notifying inmates they are not obligated to speak to or meet with ICE officials.

P. Scott Eaton, one of the attorneys for the county in the case, said recent federal court cases determined that detainers are not mandatory orders from the federal government, and local law enforcement officials dont have an obligation to enforce them.

For this lawsuit, Eaton said the county simply honored a written request by government officials to hold Palacios-Valencia, believing in good faith that it was appropriate and lawful. He added the county never intended to do anything in violation of the law.

A hearing is scheduled for possible approval of the proposed settlement on Aug. 10 in an Albuquerque federal court.

Joshua Kellogg covers crime, courts and social issues for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4627.



2017 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)

Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com

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HARTFORD, Conn.  The Connecticut Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case involving a private boarding school student who contracted a tick-borne disease during a school trip to China and was left brain-damaged.

A federal jury in Bridgeport issued a $41.5 million award in 2013 to the students family against the Hotchkiss School in Salisbury. The jury found the school negligent in failing to warn student Cara Munn about the risk of insect-borne illnesses in China and in failing to take protective measures. She contracted encephalitis in 2007 and is unable to speak.

The school appealed to a federal appeals court, which asked the Connecticut Supreme Court to decide whether state policy requires schools to warn and protect against insect-borne diseases for trips abroad.

Arguments are scheduled for Monday.
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.
Los Angeles-based Pay Per Swipe filed a lawsuit against its former partner TCT Mobile over a deal with Amazon, alleging that the defendant cheated it out of profits from Amazons program that offers deep discounts on smartphones to Prime members and is currently offering ad-subsidized Alcatel smartphones related to the case. The lawsuit was filed in California last week as the plaintiffs believe the TCL-owned firm violated a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and used information on lock screen ad solutions the two companies have been developing to promote its own goals. Pay Per Swipe is hence suing TCT Mobile for unfair business practices and breach of contract and is seeking damages for the alleged NDA violation, as well as a percentage of TCTs new deal with Amazon that the company claims wouldnt have happened without their former partnership. The developer of lock screen ads is only suing TCT Mobile and not Amazon as it apparently doesnt believe the eCommerce giant was aware of the irregularities that preceded its deal with the Irvine, California-based subsidiary of TCL, the company that currently manufactures Alcatel-branded devices it licenses from Nokia.

According to the lawsuit, TCT Mobile was double-dealing with Pay Per Swipe and Amazon for a considerable period as the firm collaborated with the plaintiff to develop a product strategy before producing a deal with Amazon while simultaneously cutting off Pay Per Swipe. The case filed with a court in Los Angeles also reveals some details regarding the ad-subsidized Alcatel A30 that Amazon announced on Friday as the eCommerce giant and Alcatel are reportedly looking to manufacture 500,000 units of the device as part of a deal worth approximately $50 million.

The NDA that TCT Mobile allegedly breached was signed last September, while Pay Par Swipe found out about its deal with Amazon this February. A legal representative of the Los Angeles-based company questioned the timing of the partnership, wondering for how long was TCT Mobile dealing behind Pay Per Swipes back, GeekWire reports. If the case ends in a trial, it will likely take years to be resolved, though its currently unclear if TCT Mobile is considering an out-of-court settlement. An update on the situation will likely follow later this year.
The FCCs rules for the 800 megahertz spectrum band have historically been tough on mobile operators and favored more traditional uses, but a few changes coming to those rules will change all of that soon, and make it far easier for mobile network operators to use the 800 megahertz band for LTE networks. Previously, the rules regulated things like power usage, licensing, international networking coordination, and license renewal. Chairman Ajit Pai dropped the hammer on these rules, calling them hopelessly obsolete, and ushering in changes that are aimed at allowing LTE networks and other carrier resources to exist alongside current uses for the spectrum.

The new rules dont just promote LTE use, of course; since the tweaks main target is power usage rules on the spectrum, originally put in place for safety and to prevent interference for users of the spectrum, those who would like to license just about any mobile technology on the spectrum can now do so much more easily, under far more lenient power and renewal rules. This comes at the perfect time, as it opens the door for network operators to start using the 800 megahertz band for 5G buildouts on small cells, fixed wireless options, and everything in between. The new rules cater nicely to the large number of standards and methods that carriers are bringing to the table as they all race to develop and deploy consumer-friendly, cost-effective 5G solutions.

This latest move is just another in what seems to be a long line of reforms being made by an FCC chairman with an entirely different attitude. Ever since former chairman Tom Wheeler stepped down and was replaced by Ajit Pai, a chairman handpicked by Donald Trump, the FCC has been making a number of fast and loose reforms seemingly aimed at making innovation, expansion, and buildout of network resources as easy as possible, especially for the wireless space. While the new FCCs fast pace of action and controversial attitude toward the net neutrality principles that Wheeler pioneered are causing their fair share of commotion, its impossible to deny that this new administration is bent on moving the United States into the future of networking.
Recognizing the care that doctors administer to residents at Lancaster Rehabilitation Center, representatives of the skilled-care nursing facility will be doing some house calls of their own next week.

In observance of National Doctors Day, four representatives of LRC will be making their own rounds on Thursday, March 30, personally visiting the offices of 53 primary-care physicians with whom they work.

The quartet representing Lancaster Rehab  Administrator Amy Fish, Associate Administrator Courtney Zemunski, Business Development Director Darcee Fricke, and Community Liaison Coordinator Sharon Schweitzer  will make personal visits, expressing their thanks and delivering tokens of their appreciation.

Its our way of acknowledging their services, said Fish. Theyre here for routine visits and for family meetings when theres a change in a patients condition, she said.

Having that trust is an integral part of any relationship between a skilled-nursing facility such as ours and the medical providers who care for our patients.

Recognition

Dr. Arif Sattar, who operates Nebraska House Call Physicians, is the medical director at LRC. He cares for about two-thirds of the roughly 200 patients in long-term care at Lancaster Rehab.

Working closely with the 70 professional nurses at LRC, Dr. Sattar cares for the needs of 65% of all patients in traditional long-term care at the skilled-nursing facility at Tenth and South streets.

In addition, Dr. Ted Triggs and/or his nurse practitioner provide medical care for about 50 patients in the short-term rehabilitation neighborhood. That figure accounts for most of the short-term rehab patients at Lancaster Rehab.

Convenience

The bedside care administered by the visiting physicians has been a hugely successful arrangement enjoyed by Lancaster Rehab patients since the doctor-rehab center collaboration began in 2008.

On-site visits mean no hassle with transporting patients, braving the elements, and arranging appointments with doctors offices. X-rays, EKG testing, and other procedures that typically take place in a doctors office are performed in the convenience and privacy of the patients room at Lancaster Rehab.

We enjoy a high level of trust with all physicians who provide care for our patients, said Fish. They serve as liaisons for us and are actively involved in our quality assurance program.
Samsungs vice-chairperson faced the shareholders of the company Friday at the annual shareholders meeting in Seoul, South Korea. In the shareholders meeting, Kwon Oh-Hyun apologized to the shareholders for the controversies the conglomerate has been involved in. These include the corruption scandal involving the impeached South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco.

Samsung got involved in the corruption scandal involving former president Park after the investigation by prosecutors revealed that some of Samsung officials bribed Park. The company allegedly paid bribes amounting to $37 million to Choi Soon-Sil, a close associate of the former president in exchange of convincing the National Pension Service, a major shareholder of Cheil Industries, to approve the merger with Samsung C&T in 2015. Further investigation in the matter resulted in the imprisonment of Jay Y. Lee, the Samsung heir-apparent. Aside from bribery, Samsungs Lee is also facing perjury and embezzlement in Seouls Central District Court. Kwon, despite the apology, stated that Samsung did not do anything illegal and the donations made to the foundations were legal and were executed under the normal procedures.

Kwon also apologized for the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. The Galaxy Note 7 was recalled twice in the previous year due to the phone explosions while charging. Further investigation revealed two major problems with the construction of the battery. Samsung had two suppliers for the Galaxy Note 7 batteries, Samsung SDI and Amperex Technology Limited. Batteries from both of the suppliers had problems of their own. A battery from Samsung SDI had failed due to damage to the negative electrode windings which resulted from the lack of room for the electrode assembly in the cell-pouch design. The battery from the second supplier had a tendency for the separator between the positive and negative electrodes to short-circuit. These battery problems resulted to a $6 billion loss to Samsung Electronics due to the recall, lawsuits and settlements, and costs of investigation. Samsung had then resorted to selling its older flagship, Galaxy S7 in place of the Galaxy Note 7. The debacle also resulted to new battery testing guidelines for Samsung for newer phones to be released in the following fiscal year.
YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. Regular consultations between the Foreign Ministries of Artsakh and Armenia took place on March 24. From the Artsakh side Deputy Foreign Ministers Armine Aleksanyan and Felix Khachatrian, as well as staff-members of the relevant departments of the Foreign Ministry took part at the consultations, while Deputy Foreign Minister Ashot Hovakimyan represented the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Armenpress was informed from the press service of the MFA Artsakh.

During the consultations, the sides discussed a wide range of issues related to the expansion and development of the existing cooperation between the Foreign Ministries of the two countries.

Issues related to conducting a coordinated policy within the frameworks of the international organizations and further expansion of the cooperation in this direction were a subject of special discussion.

The sides also touched upon the situation in peaceful settlement process of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict, exchanged views on different regional and international issues.

In the frameworks of the consultations, the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Armenia Ashot Hovakimyan was also received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Karen Mirzoyan. The Foreign Minister noted with satisfaction the high level of the current cooperation between the Foreign Ministries of the two countries and expressed confidence that it should be developed and deepened through joint efforts.
Honda revealed the 2017 Civic Si way back in November at the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show as a pre-production prototype. The Japanese automaker made it clear that theres a 1.5-liter Turbo VTEC hiding under the hood, but didnt go deeper than that. As in Honda forgot to say just how much goodies the 1.5-liter four-banger has to its name.In the Civic EX-T manual, the powerplant develops 174 ponies at 5,500 rpm and 167 pound-feet between 1,800 and 5,500 rpm. Move on up to the CR-V , and the same 1.5-liter Turbo VTEC ups the ante to 190 ponies at 5,600 rpm and 179 pound-feet between 2,000 and 5,000 rpm. In the Civic Si for the 2017 model year, its a given to look forward to more than the 205 hp churned out by the old 2.0-liter naturally aspirated VTEC motor.220 to 230 seems to be the sweet spot for the new generation, and as for torque, an e-mail sent by Honda to its subscribers reveals that 192 pound-feet will have to make do. The said e-mail, which was published on the Civic X forums , also states that those 192 lb-ft will be making your everyday errands more exciting than ever. Yeah, whatever you say, Honda, whatever you say.Civic enthusiasts that want proper excitement from their compact runabouts need no look any further than the Type R. Indeed, boys and girls, the automaker has finally decided to bring the Civic Type R in the United States, and its coming for the 2018 model year with a zingy 2.0-liter turbo engine.The 306-horsepower hot hatchback will have its official U.S. debut in April, at the 2017 New York Auto Show . There, Honda will also present the Clarity Plug-In Hybrid and Clarity Electric, two mid-size sedans that will complement the existing Clarity Fuel Cell.
To be more precise, Porsche won't build the clutch GT3s until late September, which is why the feature is currently missing from the configurator - we'll remind you that Zuffenhausen decided the stick shift is a no-cost option.Rob had already included the also-no-cost European delivery in his configuration, expecting to use the machine for some adventure drives on the Old Continent. So guess who's a little disappointed after selling his 997 GT3 in order to grab the new one for this summer?Speaking of configurations, you can find the spec of his Sapphire Blue Metallic Neunelfer here . Given the fact that the Porsche list of optional extras is nothing short of a black hole, the goodies listed here make for a reasonable proposal, one that can allow a driver to enjoy the car without having to sell his second kidney for the options.Hopefully, other 991.2 Porsche 911 GT3 owners have done their homework more thoroughly. However, if you happen to see a Porsche guy running around on the street and screaming, possibly imitating gearshift noises, such a shattered dream might be the reason behind the shenanigan.It's either this or the fact that Porsche has ended Cayman GT4 production. There's no reason to fret, though - as those of you tuned into Zuffenhausen stories know, the Germans are already working on an ever spicier GT4 RS. But this is the point where your financial consultant might have a headache, so, once again, we advise people to do their homework.
Trump's first 2 press calls on the collapse of Obamacare repeal were to reporters from the Washington Post...

And the NYTimes...
One of Uber's self-driving cars was hit by another car and rolled onto its side in Tempe, Arizona, according to local news reports. While there was a safety driver in Uber's self-driving car, it's unclear whether the vehicle was driving itself in that moment. There were no injuries according to authorities.

And Uber spokesperson told Axios that the company is aware of the accident and will provide updates when it has more information.

Why it matters: While it appears the accident was caused by the other driver, the accident will raise questions if it is found that the software was controlling the car at the time, including why it couldn't avoid the collision. Uber has been working to avoid regulation for its self-driving cars, though in Arizona, it had a heavy hand in shaping the state's legislation on self-driving car testing.
GRAHAM PUBLIC LIBRARY

UNION GROVE  Jerry Apps will present a program entitled Never Curse the Rain: A Farm Boys Reflection on Water at 1 p.m. Thursday, April 6, at Graham Public Library, 1215 Main St. Apps will share his memories of water, from its importance to crops and cattle to its many recreational uses. Donations will be accepted.

WATERFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY

WATERFORD  The Waterford Public Library, 101 N. River St., will offer these free programs:

Building Blocks Storytime, 9:30-10 a.m. Monday, March 27. For children ages 5 and younger, storytime includes books and musical activities to engage parents and children.

Teen Scene, 3-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29. Youth in grades six and above can hang out, do homework, or choose from available games and activities.

Book Club, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29. The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig will be discussed. Sign up prior to attendance.

Film Friday for adults, 1:30-3 p.m. Friday, March 31. The film Charade starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant will be shown. Sign up prior to attendance.

For more information or to register, call 262-534-3988 or go to www.waterford.lib.wi.us. A valid library card is required.

BURLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

BURLINGTON  The Burlington Public Library, 166 E. Jefferson St., will offer these free programs:

Spring Break Crafts, 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 28. Children of all ages will enjoy spring crafts.

Afternoon movie, 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 29. A movie based on the crazy-haired toys that were big business in the 80s. Registration is required at the circulation desk.

Lego Expo, 10 a.m. Thursday, March 30. Attendees may show-off their LEGO building abilities and bring a completed LEGO creation to the librarys Lego expo. All creations will be placed on display for others to enjoy. Awards will be given to most creative, smallest, largest and most complex creations.

For more information, call 262-342-1130 or go to www.burlingtonlibrary.org.
MOUNT PLEASANT  Mount Pleasant Police are investigating a shooting late Friday that sent a 15-year-old boy to the hospital.

Shortly after midnight, police pulled over a vehicle that was traveling east on Washington Avenue that was driving erratically and recklessly changing multiple lanes, according to a press release issued by Mount Pleasant Police Departments Sgt. Jason Vaccaro Saturday morning.

The car was pulled over in the area of the Walmart Neighborhood Market, 5625 Washington Ave.

When police made contact with the vehicle, the driver stated the reason he was driving erratically was because he was trying to get to the hospital because his 15-year-old cousin had been shot in the stomach. The victim was in the backseat, conscious and alert at the time that the vehicle was pulled over, the release stated.

The victim was then taken by South Shore Rescue to Ascension All Saints Hospital, where he remained in stable condition for non-life-threatening injuries as of Saturday.

Initial reports indicated that police were looking into the possibility the teen may have been shot at a party at a home in the Warwick Apartments, in the 1400 block of Warwick Way, also in Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant Police Sgt. Paul Maccari said officers executed a search warrant shortly after the stop and were actively following up on it.

Maccari added that one person was in custody, but officers were still following other leads.

Because the victim is a juvenile, his name will not be released. This matter remains under Investigation by the Mount Pleasant Police Department.
CALEDONIA  No people were injured but a cat was killed in a house fire Friday afternoon on Newman Road.

Caledonia and South Shore fire units were dispatched at 1:39 p.m. to a report of smoke coming out of the basement of the home, 3212 Newman Road, located north of Highway 38 and south of Three Mile Road.

Caledonia Fire Dept. Battalion Chief Gene Roeder said crews arriving on scene found smoke and flames coming from a basement window on the south side of the house, as well as smoke coming from the front door.

Roeder said residents of the house were home and a television contractor, who was at the house on a service call, discovered the fire. Everyone was able to get out safely.

Fire crews found fire in a bedroom area on the ground floor of the ranch-style house and in the basement, but Roeder said Friday night that investigators as of that point were not sure on which floor the fire originated or what caused it.

Firefighters remained on scene until nearly 5:30 p.m. investigating and checking for fire extension in walls and void spaces, Roeder said.

Damage to the house and contents is estimated at $50,000, Roeder said.

Busy day

Within 16 minutes of firefighters getting called out for the house fire, Caledonia received a call of a fully involved vehicle fire on Botting Road. Roeder said that call was turned over to Oak Creek and Raymond fire crews and no injuries were reported there.

South Shore fire crews also handled a rescue call for Caledonia while its crews were tied up at the fire and two other rescue calls were handled by off-duty Caledonia firefighters called in for staffing, Roeder said.
RACINE  A champion of social justice causes and a tireless voice for people who met violent ends, the Rev. Tony Larsen has announced he will retire from his position as minister of Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church, 625 College Ave., at the end of this year.

Larsen, who has served the congregation for more than 40 years, announced his decision to his congregation in a Sunday service and a written statement titled Sweet Sorrow. Sorrow, he said, because I will be sad to leave the people and the ministry that I have so enjoyed and found so fulfilling for the past 41 years. But joy because I got to be part of your lives and ministry for all this time.

In a recent interview, Larsen, 67, said he wanted to retire while he was still healthy. His husband, Craig Matheus, has been retired from his teaching job for several years, and Larsen said that full-time ministry is becoming more demanding than he feels ready to handle for the long haul.

He will remain as Olympia Brown Churchs minister throughout the year in order to give the congregation time to adjust to the transition, and because it will allow him to participate in the churchs 175th anniversary celebration in October, Larsen said.

Plus, Christmas seemed as good a time as any to begin a new era in our churchs life, he said.

Family ties

It's an era that began in 1975 when Larsen was hired by the church, after having been ordained as a Unitarian minister that same year. At the time, the California native thought he would stay in Racine for four or five years. And today, looking back, he said what has kept him here are the people.

He has enjoyed being able to be part of families lives, often from the time of a young childs christening or dedication ceremony through to their wedding and beyond.

It has provided a continuity that is not always available in our society anymore, he said.

Larsen said he also appreciates the opportunity to be involved with the churchs religious education program, and its focus on learning about world religions. The study of world religions is something that has long interested Larsen, who was raised Catholic and studied for 10 years to be a Catholic priest, before becoming a Unitarian. And he is proud to have played a role in helping raise kids to become better world citizens, by giving them a deeper understanding of other religions, he said.

Beyond the church

Larsens contributions in Racine also reach beyond OBUUC to include many years of involvement in the wider community, as well as on a national level with the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Perhaps best known here for his work with the Racine Interfaith Coalition, leading candlelight prayer vigils held for victims of violence, he has also carried out Unitarian Universalisms commitment to social action by serving on the boards of organizations including the Womens Resource Center, Southeastern Wisconsin AIDS Project, Racine Jail Ministry, George Bray Neighborhood Center, National Alliance on Mental Illness Racine County, LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin, Sexual Assault Services and SCAN (Stop Child Abuse and Neglect), as well as RIC.

A ministers job is not just to serve members of the congregation, he said. That is a large part of it. But members also want their minister to be involved in the community to represent their values.

The Rev. Michael Mueller, pastor at St. Andrew Lutheran Church, 1015 Four Mile Road, and a lead organizer of RIC, described Larsen as a presence in our community.

We see him regularly, always involved in a number of things, said Mueller, who has known Larsen for more than 12 years. He lifts up issues of justice and concern for the community.

And Larsen always brings a good sense of humor and a care for people to whatever hes doing, Mueller said. He speaks for them and he acts for them.

Time for other things

Looking ahead to retirement, Larsen said he hopes to continue preaching, part-time, at other UU churches, through the UUAs Pulpit Supply Services. While he plans to stay in Racine, church rules dictate that he not attend services at Olympia Brown for at least a couple years after retiring. That will be difficult, Larsen said, because he will miss the people.

My whole life has been here, he said.

He is appreciative of all the support church members have given him through the years, and said It meant a lot to me that the congregation affirmed my relationship with Craig and accepted me as a gay person  something OBUUC members did as far back as the 1970s, when other churches were not as accepting, Larsen said.

He is looking forward to the time that retirement will provide to pursue some of his other interests. As someone whose always been fascinated by linguistics, Larsen said he hopes to take some language classes (he already knows some French, Latin and biblical Hebrew, Greek and Arabic). Hed also like to eventually write another book (his last was Trust Yourself! You Have the Power, 1979). And the guitar-and-piano-playing minister said he might start writing music again.

I have a piano at home now and Ive been working on a little song I kind of like, he said.
Implant could offer long-acting, removable form of prevention not currently available

Chapel Hill, NC - Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have received a three-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a new implantable drug delivery system for long-lasting HIV-prevention.

Scientists in the UNC School of Medicine's Division of Infectious Diseases and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy are developing an injectable drug delivery system that forms an implant that steadily releases anti-HIV medication over long periods of time.

The injectable formulation includes an anti-HIV drug, a polymer and a solvent. The three-compound liquid will solidify once injected under the skin. As the polymer slowly degrades, the drug is released. Efficacy of the new formulation to prevent HIV transmission will be evaluated using state of the art pre-clinical models developed at UNC.

Currently, a once-daily pill exists to prevent HIV infection. However, adherence to this daily regimen can be challenging for some people.

"This long-acting injectable formulation could provide a discrete and efficient method to protect against HIV infection and improve adherence, which is one of the major challenges of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP," said Rahima Benhabbour, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and one of the study's co-principal investigators. "The formulation is adaptable to a number of drugs alone or in combination and can be fine tuned to meet a targeted release regimen."

Long-acting injectable drug formulations for PrEP are currently being tested in clinical trials to improve adherence to the medication regimen. A limitation to the long-acting injectable formulation currently under study is that it cannot be removed from the body.

"The goal of our study is to develop an injectable polymer-based delivery system for long-acting PrEP that offers durable, sustained protection from HIV transmission, high efficacy of HIV inhibition, increased adherence and the ability to be removed in case of an unanticipated adverse event or when considering discontinuation of this form of PrEP," said Martina Kovarova, Ph.D., the study's co-principal investigator and an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine's Division of Infectious Diseases. "If discontinuation of treatment is desired, the implant would be readily removable."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will assist UNC with further testing the injectable implant in animal models.

"We are excited to be part of the team that is undertaking this important study for HIV prevention," said Gerardo Garci-Lerma, Ph.D., a research microbiologist at CDC.

The team hopes the development and testing of this injectable implant will eventually yield a formulation that can provide a three months of HIV prevention.

"We're in the very beginning stages of this project," Kovarova said. "This novel formulation has oustanding properties, and we are excited to move ahead."

###

About the UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases

The mission of UNC's Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases is to harness the full resources of the University and its partners to solve global health problems, reduce the burden of disease, and cultivate the next generation of global health leaders. Learn more at http://www.globalhealth.unc.edu.

About the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy is an internationally recognized leader in pharmacy practice, education and research. The School develop leaders in pharmacy education, pharmacy practice and pharmaceutical sciences who make a difference on human health worldwide. The School offers opportunities in pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences that are simply not available anywhere else. Learn more at https://pharmacy.unc.edu/.
Farming union NFU Cymru is looking to highlight the integral role farmers play in community life by requesting applications for the eighth Welsh Rural Community Champion Award.

The award champions farmers throughout Wales who use the small amount of spare time they have away from the farm to help their local community thrive, as well as those who are digital ambassadors for the industry and champion farming and local farming related issues online.

The winner of the Welsh Rural Community Champion Award, which will be announced during the Royal Welsh Spring Festival in Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, will receive 500.

NFU Cymru Deputy President John Davies said: Farming plays such an important part in rural community life and we want to champion those lynchpins at the centre of it all helping to bring people together.

Potential award winners could be involved in all sorts of things which play an important part in making a thriving rural community, for example, organising traditional community events such as local shows, to embracing modern technology to promote food, farming and rural life to the wider community. The industry is moving forward and more is moving online. Anyone who uses the internet to champion farming through the online communities should also apply.

'Supporting communities'

The closing date for entries is Monday 17th April 2017 and the winner will be announced on the Sunday of this years Royal Welsh Spring Festival.

Principalitys Group Chief Executive, Steven Hughes said: We pride ourselves on supporting the communities in which we operate and our members live and we are delighted to have the opportunity to recognise individuals that share in this passion. Farmers play an important role in adding value to the local community and rural life and we believe, along with NFU Cymru, that their contribution should be both celebrates and rewarded.

If you are interested in entering the award, or want to nominate someone who you feel is a community champion telephone 01982554200.
It has been proposed that hill farmers and crofters in Scotlands most fragile and remote areas will receive a parachute payment in 2018 of 80% of their LFASS payment rate.

The future of the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) has been outlined because of compulsory changes to the scheme by the European Commission.

Changes are required as EU Rural Development Regulations do not permit the continuation of the scheme unchanged after this year.

Speaking ahead of next weeks hill farming summit, Rural Secretary Fergus Ewing said: LFASS is vital for our rural economy and remote communities, providing support to more than? 11,000 farmers and crofters.

However, EU rules do not allow us to continue with LFASS unchanged from next year. That is why, having looked at ?all options, and to provide as much financial stability as possible during these uncertain times, I intend to introduce parachute payments for 2018.

I am also actively consulting with stakeholders on how farmers and crofters in the Less Favourable Areas can access other support available under existing SRDP schemes, along with supporting priorities such as new entrants.

Unfortunately I am unable to give farmers and crofters assurance on LFASS from 2019 as, despite repeated requests, the UK Government has still not guaranteed that the scheme will be funded in 2019. I have therefore once again written to the UK Government seeking assurance over LFASS 2019 and also the 190 million in external convergence uplift as a matter of urgency.

It is only fair that we receive swift confirmation on LFASS 2019 and that the convergence monies are repatriated to Scotland, in full, so that we can provide certainty to our farmers and crofters, and afford to pay them a rate that ensure the economic viability and sustainability of these remote areas.

1.3 billion programme

The Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) is part of the 1.3 billion Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) 2014-2020.

The European rules do not permit SG to continue with LFASS unchanged after 2017. They foresee a change from LFASS to an Areas Facing Natural Constraint (ANC) scheme and area designation from 2018, or for those that do not make the transition to ANC in 2018, they may continue with their current schemes paying up to 80% of payments in 2018.

Degressivity will also have to be introduced, where above a set an area threshold payments will reduce. The changes to LFASS will require to be submitted to, and approved by, the European Commission before they are finalised.
President Donald Trump wants to kick defense spending up a notch. Actually, by quite a few notches -- he wants to increase military spending by $54 billion.

Now, if you're invested in defense stocks, that probably sounds like good news to you. More money for F-35 fighter jets, more money spent building aircraft carriers to carry them, and more money spent buying missiles to shoot from them -- this is all great news for Lockheed Martin (LMT 1.45%), Huntington Ingalls (HII 0.16%), and Raytheon (RTN), respectively. Yet if you look beyond all the military hardware changing hands, there are also more than a few line items in President Trump's proposed fiscal 2018 budget that investors in aerospace and defense might not like.

Things like ...

Zero dollars for ARPA-E

The Advanced Research Projects Agency- Energy (ARPA-E) -- is the U.S. Department of Energy analog to the Pentagon's DARPA. President Trump apparently isn't enthused with ARPA-E's focus on fostering green-energy initiatives, but ARPA-E is about a whole lot more than just windmills and shiny mirrors. It's one of the prime movers behind America's effort to develop better batteries for electric cars, for example.

With an annual budget of only $350 million, ARPA-E helps provide seed capital to incubate "transformational energy projects that can be meaningfully advanced with a small investment over a defined period of time." In addition to batteries, ARPA-E is helping develop better electric transmission technologies to improve the nation's power grid and eliminate blackouts. Why, it's even working on the holy grail of energy -- development of a cold-fusion reactor to create an endless supply of free energy for the nation, a technology Lockheed Martin has also shown interest in. If ARPA-E succeeds in making cold fusion a reality, America could free itself from dependence on OPEC oil, and from the need to spend so much ensuring steady access to that oil.

Free of Middle Eastern entanglements, the U.S. would finally be able to spend less on defense, which makes ARPA seem like something worth a few hundred million dollars' investment. And private industry agrees -- over the past eight years, companies have invested more than $1.8 billion of their own in ARPA-E-sponsored projects.

Putting the space tow truck fleet in "park"

Every year, America spends billions of dollars building huge, highly advanced satellites, and then paying Lockheed and Boeing to launch them into orbit. These satellites' missions cover everything from exploring the reaches of outer space to facilitating communication (and GPS) among U.S. troops, to keeping an eye out for nuclear weapons testing in North Korea. One huge drawback to this satellite fleet, however, is that it requires fuel to run on, and that fuel eventually runs out.

NASA has proposed a solution -- developing a Robotic Refueling Mission to pave the way for building a fleet of spaceships that could refuel satellites when they run out of gas, conduct repairs when they get glitchy, and even tow satellites into correct orbits when they wander astray. Just one such space tow truck could salvage literally billions of dollars' worth of space infrastructure investment. Yet President Trump's budget proposes to kill the Robotic Refueling Mission to save a measly $88 million.

I see nothing. I hear nothing. I want to know -- nothing!

Perhaps the greatest flub of the 2018 budget proposal, though, is the Donald's desire to cut $250 million from such climate change-oriented programs as NOAA's "Sea Grant" research, education, and training programs, zero out funding for "climate change research and partnership programs" as well, and ax various NASA missions also studying climate.

President Trump's antipathy for climate-change research is well known, and cutting funding for programs that keep an eye on rising sea levels is certainly one way to ensure the global-warming phenomenon gets less press. Yet the Defense Department itself calls climate change an "urgent and growing threat to our national security."

"Global climate change," wrote the Pentagon in a 2015 report, "degrades living conditions, human security, and the ability of governments to meet the basic needs of their populations." By inciting global turmoil, it poses a "security risk" to the United States. So in the opinion of the president's own generals, the government needs to keep aware of "the effects of climate change -- such as sea-level rise, shifting climate zones, and more frequent and intense severe-weather events -- and how these effects could impact national security."

The upshot

Put aside questions of whether global warming is caused by burning dinosaur bones or not. Whatever your opinion on the cause of climate change, it's still essential to know the facts about whether global warming is happening -- and if so, how fast, and with what consequences. That has serious national security implications for everything from the navigability of littoral zones to estimates of how soon China's super-expensive "fake islands" will be put right back underwater again by rising sea levels.

And the story is similar with the cuts in funding to ARPA-E, and to satellite refueling. Funding a $54 billion defense spending increase, by cutting a few hundred million in funds from projects that could make much of this spending unnecessary, seems incredibly short-sighted. This budget might be good news for defense contractors in the short term -- but it could cost taxpayers much, much more in the long run.
RACINE  The following Racine Unified School District schools will hold sixth-grade orientation from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 28:

Gifford Middle School, 8332 Northwestern Ave., Caledonia. During orientation students and families will learn more about the school and what to expect as a sixth grader. Students will have the opportunity to meet teachers and staff and tour the school. For more information, call 262-619-4550

Gilmore Middle School, 2330 Northwestern Ave. During orientation students and families will learn more about the school and what to expect as a sixth grader. There will be a 10-minute meeting at 6:30 p.m. After that, students will have the opportunity to meet teachers and staff and tour the school. For more information, call 262-619-4260

Jerstad-Agerholm Middle School, 3601 Lasalle St. Visitors are asked to enter through the north doors off the parking lot. This program is for all current fifth graders and their parents/guardian. At this program parents will meet principals, counselors and some sixth grade teachers. Parents will also learn about sixth grade scheduling, what to expect in middle school and the opportunity ask questions. For more information, call 262-664-6075

McKinley Middle School, 2340 Mohr Ave. This program is for incoming sixth grade students and their families. Information will be provided on the International Baccalaureate program, scheduling, counseling services and extra-curricular activities. Visitors are asked to park in the lot on the south side of the building and enter through the Activity Doors. For more information, call 262-664-6150

Mitchell Middle School, 2701 Drexel Ave. During orientation students and families will learn more about the school and what to expect as a sixth grader. Students will have the opportunity to meet teachers and staff and tour the school. For more information, call 262-664-6400

Starbuck Middle School, 1516 Ohio St. During orientation students and families will learn more about the school and what to expect as a sixth grader. Students will have the opportunity to meet teachers and staff and tour the school. For more information, call 262-664-6500.




Haiti - Dominican Republic : Already more than 180,000 Haitians expelled





Thursday, Lieutenant General Maximo William Munoz Delgado, Director of the Directorate General of Migration (DGM) revealed that his agency had expelled 8,383 foreigners in their respective country since the beginning of the year. He pointed out that foreigners in irregular migratory situations on the Dominican territory were arrested during 285 control operations in different regions of the country.



Most of the citizens were from Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba, and to deport them the authorities coordinated with the embassies of their countries. There are also undocumented immigrants from Albania, Armenia, France, India, Iran, Panama, Puerto Rico and Peru.



A report by the DGM indicates that between August and December 2016, 13,541 Haitians were repatriated by land via the Dominican-Haitian border, and 123 foreigners from Venezuela, Cuba from Albania, Armenia, France, India, Iran, Panama, Puerto Rico and Peru have been by Las Americas International Airport (AILA) in coordination with the embassies of these countries. What since August 2016 up to date represents a total of 22,047 foreign expulsions.



It should be recalled that between June 2015 and July 2016, according to the information made available by the Dominican DGM in combination with those of human rights organizations monitoring the process at the border, more than 160,000 Haitians would have returned to Haiti expelled or voluntarily. Bringing the total with the 2017 figures to more than 180,000 the number of Haitians returning to the country. It should be noted that this figure is probably higher, since voluntary returns are only recorded at official border crossings and do not include Haitians who return to the country through the many informal crossings between the two countries...



In addition, nearly 240,000 Haitians enrolled in the National Regularization Plan of Foreigners, whose deadline falls in July 2017 risk expulsion if they can not complete their file and do not have a compulsory passport, a document that Haiti does not cease promising them but never delivers them...



For its part, the DGM reiterates that it will remain firm in its commitment to control the entry and exit of foreigners on Dominican territory "in order to harmonize the migration movement with the needs of national development."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18780-haiti-politic-high-level-meeting-on-haitian-repatriations.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18008-haiti-dr-the-situation-of-returnees-remains-worrying.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-17698-haiti-social-more-than-160-000-haitians-have-left-the-rd-in-12-months.html



SL/ HaitiLibre
























Haiti - News : Zapping politics...





Control of subsidies in Public Administration

As part of the fight against corruption, President Jovenel Moise promises to exercise strict control over the use of public administration subsidies in the budgets of ministries whose use up to now was discretionary. He passed a resolution in the Council of Ministers on Wednesday to demand that the lists of grant recipient organizations, places of implementation of projects and the amounts granted, are transmitted to the Presidency. The Public Administration Subsidy Order was published in the official newspaper "Le Moniteur" No. 45.



Towards the reduction of police work

Earlier this week, Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Director General of the Haitian National Police (PNH), paid a visit to the Port-au-Prince police station. He resolved several on-the-spot problems and also informed staff that his team was working on several files relating to police working conditions, benefits and even work schedules, which should down from 12 to 8 hours a day.



The Minister of Justice visit his employees

Thursday, Heidi Fortune, the new Minister of Justice https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20440-haiti-politics-installation-of-the-new-minister-of-justice.html paid a visit to the various employees of the Institution. Through this nearly two-hour visit, he wanted to inquire about the functioning of the different departments and exchange with the employees in order to be better imbued with their works agenda.



The BCEN heard disputes

The National Electoral Litigation Office (BCEN) has already heard the 174 challenge cases for local elections, according to the BCEN chief of staff, Merline Fleurant. She informed that the two challenges for the legislative elections will be heard next week.



Chantal Laroche decorated by France

On Wednesday evening, the French Ambassador to Haiti, Elisabeth Beton Delegue, awarded the National Order of Merit to Mme Chantal Laroche, President of the Alliance Francaise of Cap Haitien at the residence of France.



The Border Development Commission meets Moise

On Thursday, President Jovenel Moses met with a delegation of the Committee of Defense and Border Development of the Chamber of Deputies.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Hindus have welcomed the inclusion of Diwali, most popular of their festival, as holiday by Herricks Union Free School District (HUFSD) in New York State on its School Calendar for 2017-2018.

Nearby Syosset Central School District, East Meadow School District, Half Hollow Hills Central School District and East Williston Union Free School District recently declared Diwali as an official holiday; while Mineola Union Free School District announced that no home work or examinations would be given on Diwali, reports suggest.

Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, describing it as a step in the right direction, urged all other public school districts and private-charter-independent schools in New York State to do the same.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, pointed out that it would be a positive thing to do in view of presence of a substantial number of Hindu students at schools around the state, as it was important to meet the religious and spiritual needs of these pupils.

Rajan Zed indicated that schools should make efforts to accommodate the religious requirements of Hindu students and show respect to their faith by not conducting regular business and scheduling classes on Diwali. We did not want our students to be put at an unnecessary disadvantage for missing tests/examinations/papers, assignments, class work, etc., by taking a day-off to observe Diwali.

If schools had declared other religious holidays, why not Diwali, Zed asked. Holidays of all major religions should be honored and no one should be penalized for practicing their religion, Zed added

Rajan Zed suggested all New York State schools, public-private-charter-independent, to seriously look into declaring Diwali as an official holiday, thus recognizing the intersection of spirituality and education. Zed noted that awareness about other religions thus created by such holidays like Diwali would make New York State students well-nurtured, well-balanced, and enlightened citizens of tomorrow.

Zed urged New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, New York State Education Department Board of Regents Chancellor Betty A. Rosa and New York State Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia; to work towards adding Diwali as an official holiday in all the 728 school districts, and persuading the private-charter-independent schools to follow.

Rajan Zed further says that Hinduism is rich in festivals and religious festivals are very dear and sacred to Hindus. Diwali, the festival of lights, aims at dispelling the darkness and lighting up the lives and symbolizes the victory of good over evil. Besides Hindus; Sikhs and Jains and some Buddhists also celebrate Diwali, which falls on October 19 in 2017.

Zed thanked HUFSD Board of Education President Nancy Feinstein and other Board members for supporting Diwali holiday. HUFSD, headquartered in New Hyde Park; operates schools in Williston Park, New Hyde Park and Albertson; and its Mission includes promoting intellectual curiosity and creative expression. It runs a free half-day Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program and has a Department of Spanish Language Immersion. Dr. Fino M. Celano is Superintendent.

Hinduism is oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and moksh (liberation) is its ultimate goal. There are about three million Hindus in USA.

Source : From Our Correspondent
Business The Irrawaddy Business Roundup (March 25)

Electricity cables and wires in Rangoon. An industry expert says some state organizations are not paying their electricity bills, resulting in problems for the state power company. / Reuters

Govt, Army Facilities Not Paying Electricity Bills

The state electricity company operates at a loss, and national institutions that do not pay their bills are not helping, according to an industry figure.

We are having many problems with government offices, army offices and other facilities that do not feel the need to pay their electricity bills, Daw Ei Phyusin Htay of the Barons Group of companies told the Oxford Business Group.

Another problem is that many users are adjusting the meters in their houses and factories in order to not pay their bills correctly. This is something that law enforcement must deal with and the state utility should take greater steps to eradicate, she said in an interview on Burmas energy sector.

In order to ensure a healthy revenue stream to the Myanmar Electric Power Enterprise, the government needs to conduct an analysis of how much revenue is being lost through these two channels and how much revenue is needed, Daw Ei Phyusin Htay said.

It should then create benchmark costs for electricity and gradually introduce a subsidy and tariff structure that would accommodate different kinds of consumers, she suggested.

Addressing Burmas wider national energy needs, Daw Ei Phyusin Htay said the government should conduct an analysis of how much energy can realistically be created from new natural gas sources and other sources by 2020.

If there was a shortfall compared to the need, a case could then be made for the otherwise unpopular option of coal-fired energy production.

Rainy Season Rebranded the Green Season

Mild weather and lush green landscapes are among the benefits of visiting Burma during the rainy season, tourism promoters are informing potential international visitors.

The main tourist attractions in Myanmar such as Bagan, Mandalay, Northern Shan State, Kalaw and Inle Lake only get a 25 percent chance of rainfall during the rainy season, and even if it rains on these days, its usually short, said Daw May Myat Mon Win, vice chairman (Marketing) of the Myanmar Tourism Federation in a release.

In the latest campaign to promote year-round tourism, Burma is pushing 10 top reasons to visit the country in monsoon season. The number one reason is the chance to see fifty shades of green, from paddy fields to forests.

Other lures are that its not too hot in the dry zone, not too cold in the mountains, and that the rainy season is the top time to experience Burmas impressive fruits and vegetables. The chance to avail of promotions is also on offer.

A number of leading local travel agents, hotels and airlines are offering packages for low season visitors, including stay for 3 nights, pay for two, and free and unlimited luggage allowances on affordable domestic flights.

Foreign journalists and tour operators will also be invited to Burma to experience the green season.

Myanmar Tourism Marketing is part of the Myanmar Tourism Federation and is mainly privately funded by key members of the tourism industry in Burma.

Burma Coffee Tastes More Success

Burmas coffee sector continues to make significant strides, with the quality of the product from mainly small-hold farmers seen to rise again at an annual coffee competition.

The winning coffee at the Third Annual Myanmar Coffee Association (MCA) Coffee Quality Competition scored a record-breaking 89.58 points.

The winner from the Mandalay Coffee Group was from a micro-lot from Ywangan in Shan State and was higher by two points than last years winner on the Specialty Coffee Association scoresheet, according to Global Coffee Report.

The winning coffee came out top in the dry natural process category as well achieving overall winner. It was described by judges as clean and complex, with the flavors of orange, lemon, strawberry and red currant.

The overall quality of coffees entered also rose, with 26 of 72 coffees achieving 85-points or better on a 100-point scale. Most of the high-scorers were dry natural processed coffees produced by smallhold community farmers.

The competition is a project of the Value Chains for Rural Development project funded by USAID and implemented by Winrock International. It is organized by the Myanmar Coffee Association and the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI). This years event was hosted recently at the Shwe Danu and Value Chains project office and coffee lab in Ywangan town, Shan State.

The international coffee sector will be able to taste some of the winning Burmese coffees at the London Coffee Festival from April 6-9 and the SCA Global Coffee Expo in Seattle on April 22.

FibreLink in Talks to Raise Funds

FibreLink Myanmar is in talks to raise $25 million equity as part of an $860-million investment plan, according to DealStreet Asia.

The company, which received approval in 2015 from the Myanmar Investment Commission to set up telecom infrastructure, intends to raise capital in stages, according to its CEO Garry Stephen. It is looking for interest from financial investors, including funds and high net worth individuals, and strategic investors that operate in the telecoms industry, DealStreet reported.

The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore-based FibreLink Myanmar Holdings Pte Ltd, which is owned by Hong Kong-based ECCL Advisory Limited. It received its license to operate a network facilities service (Individual) license (NFS) in December 2015.

Local partners include co-founder U Kyaw Myo Htoon, and U Zaw Win Oo of Bright Time Trading, Bright Time Resources Development and Bright Time Gems.

As of January 2017, nearly 41 companies have been granted a network facilities service license from the Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communications, the report said.

Jade Export Tax to be Assessed in Kyats

To help ease trade, tax on exports of finished jade products will be assessed in Burmese kyats instead of the US dollar from April, the Global New Light of Myanmar reported.

The tax rate will remain unchanged, according to U Myint Han, vice chairperson of the

Myanmar Gems and Jewelry Entrepreneurs Association.

A one-stop service for taxation of some grades of jade products started in 2011 and additional grades were added to the service in 2013.

MySquar Hooks Up with Telenor

The London Stock Exchange-listed social media applications company MySquar is partnering with Telenor Myanmar to ease payments for its games and services.

Mysquar announced the deal this week, saying it would give the company access to Telenors large subscription base and make purchases easier for users who are also Telenor subscribers.

Telenor will earn a share of revenues as part of the integration.

We expect this streamlined payment process will contribute towards monetization results for the financial year ending 30 June 2017 and thereafter, MySquars chief executive officer Eric Schaer said in a statement.

Bloomberg: Foreigner Law Hurting Property Sector

A law allowing foreigners to buy condominiums in Burma is unclear, and the confusion is helping to slowdown the residential property sector, according to a Bloomberg report.

Unanswered questions arising from legislation adopted in January, such as whether foreigners can buy existing apartments, is hurting efforts to woo investors, the report said.

The sector is now waiting for by-laws that will clarify the situation, according to Cyrus Pun of Yoma Strategic Holdings.

There was a very bullish market from 2011 as the economy opened up and investment came in, but residential property has quietened down quite a lot in the past 18 months, he said.

Mid-tier and luxury condominium prices have fallen significantly from 2014 when the property market experienced a bubble, but prices are still the highest in Southeast Asia, the report said.
Burma At Least 15 Injured in Letpadaung Clash

Local farmers protest the Letpadaung copper mine on May 6, 2016. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAY  At least 15 people were injured near the Letpadaung copper mine during a clash between police and locals on Friday.

The conflict broke out on Friday night when police fired rubber bullets at protestors who were blocking a road.

At least 15 locals were shot with rubber bullets. There were about 30 protestors from Moegyopyin village who fought back, firing sling shots and throwing rocks at the police,said U La Pyae, a resident of Moegyopyin village.

Locals said the crowd then dispersed and trucks were permitted to use the road.

The road, which connects the mining site with the Wanbao mining company, was blocked on Friday morning, and trucks carrying waste soil were unable to pass.

Locals say the dump trucks do not follow traffic rules and cause accidents, killing livestock and injuring locals. Moreover, they do not take responsibility for these accidents when locals complain to the company, they say.

Weve complained several times but local authorities ignore us, which is why weve blocked the road again, said Ma Zarchi Lin, a Moegyopyin resident.

On the same day, the regional administrative office issued a warning urging protestors to reopen the road or authorities would use force to disperse them. The statement also told locals not to protest or block the road in the future.

We are disappointed that local authorities still dont understand us. We are the ones who suffer. We want higher authorities, like the chief minister, to negotiate with Wanbao on our behalf, Ma Zarchi Lin said.

According to the locals, the protestors blocked the road again on Saturday and would continue to do so until the problem was addressed.

We will block the road if the problem is not solved, she said.

The mine is one of several Chinese-operated projects in the region that have been criticized by locals for land confiscation and inadequate compensation.
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TeleSur |  

A Turkish court has handed down a two-year, nine-month and 22-day jail sentence to a Kurdish artist because of her painting of a Kurdish village being razed by Turkish security forces.



Turkish Artist Zehra Dogan Sentenced to Prison for Painting of Kurdish Town Attack  Alexander Rubinstein (@AlexR_DC) March 24, 2017

Zehra Dogan, an ethnic Kurd from Diyarbakr in southeastern Turkey, was given the sentence by the Second High Criminal Court of the Mardin province after having been arrested last July. The painting in question shows the destroyed cityscape of Nusaybin, with Turkish flags draped across blown-out buildings.

Close to the border with Syria, Nusaybin is home to a large Kurdish population and Turkey says that the painting, along with her social media posts, are proof that Dogan has connections to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a group which has been pushing for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984, but which the Turkish state considers a terrorist organization.

Dogan, also an award-winning journalist, argued in court that all the crimes she is accused of are journalistic activities, for which she is registered with the state and a member of the Union of Journalists of Turkey.

I was given two years and 10 months only because I painted Turkish flags on destroyed buildings. However, (the Turkish government) caused this. I only painted it, Dogan said in a tweet which has since been deleted, according to Turkey Purge, self-described as a small group of young journalists who are trying to be the voice for Turkish people who suffer under an oppressive regime.

Following the collapse of a cease-fire between Turkey and the PKK in July 2015, Turkeys anti-terrorist operations against PKK militants across cities in the southeast of the country has had devastating effects, where Turkey has been continually criticized for serious human rights abuses against the Kurdish population.

Around 2,000 people  mostly Kurds  have been killed or jailed as part of Turkish security operations, with hundreds of thousands displaced, according to a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Turkish forces have also prevented Kurds from accessing food, water and medical care, and imposed harsh curfews which would often last weeks and prevent the evacuation of displaced people who were trapped in the middle of fighting.

Via TeleSur
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By Ian Berman | (Informed Comment) |  

Ever since the November election, Democrats have been looking for a reason to take down President Trump and vindicate Clintons loss. Refusing to acknowledge how flawed the candidate and campaign were, the focus has been on the allegation of the Russians Hacking the Election. With the FBIs announcement of investigating the President and his campaign staffs connections to Russia, the calls have become even more bold. Many Democrats are supporting Michael Moores call to shut down government activity.

The Democratic Party needs to declare a National Emergency. For the first time in our history, the President of the United States and his staff are under investigation for espionage. This announcement, by the head of the Trump-friendly FBI, is a shock to our democracy. The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate needs to bring a halt to all business being done in the name of this potential felony suspect, Donald J. Trump. No bill he supports, no Supreme Court nominee he has named, can be decided while he is under a criminal investigation. His presidency has no legitimacy until the FBI  and an independent investigative committee  discovers the truth. Fellow citizens, demand the Democrats cease all business. The American people have a right to know if their President is a crook.  Richard Nixon

So rather than focus on filibustering horrible bills and unqualified nominees, as the Democrats have finally announced they will do with Neil Gorsuch, they would rather set a horrible precedent. The thesis is a mere allegation of wrongdoing justifies effectively shutting down a government. Yet do Michael Moore and Democrats believe the Republicans would not make or even fabricate allegations and use the same tool going forward? This precedent is especially questionable considering how much the Democrats complained about the Republicans not working with President Obama for eight years.

Furthermore, the Democrats are not learning the lesson of setting precedents. Consider for example, that while Obama was bombing 7 Muslim countries without a single declaration of war, Trump has now turned Obamas campaigns into overdrive.

Moving to the investigation, we still have not seen any evidence of wrongdoing. We have only seen repeated allegations on the mainstream media. So to suggest shutting down the government on allegations alone is essentially adopting the principle guilty in the media until proven innocent.

The supporters of the Trump investigation are forgetting this FBI is still essentially the same political organization that was created by J. Edgar Hoover. Have we forgotten so quickly how the FBIs COINTELPRO worked to crush dissent? Today, the FBI spends tens of millions of dollars on identifying POTENTIAL terrorist suspects, giving them a plot to execute and the resources to do so, and then arresting them to show they are stopping terrorists.

Last, lets not forget that while the FBI investigates Trump and his campaigns allegedly illegal ties to Russia, for connections and business dealings in and of themselves are not by definition illegal, the FBI has done nothing to investigate the Bush Administrations War Crime of starting a war of aggression against Iraq when all of the reasons for the invasion were fabricated.

So why are all these Democrats cheering on the deep state?



Ian Berman is an entrepreneur and former corporate banker at leading global banks in New York City. He now focuses on renewable energy, financial advisory services and writing about representative government, equitable public policies and ending American militarism and Israels continuing colonization of Palestine.

Author notice:  2017. All rights reserved. Permission provided for publication with attribution.



Related video added by Juan Cole:

The Young Turks: Oops: Devin Nunes Backpedals Spying Claims
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

The struggle over health care in the United States is a form of class warfare, complicated by racism.

The Republican proposal for the American Health Care Act, as they called it, made this warfare clear. The bill was not so much a health care act as a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, paid for by tossing 24 million people off health care insurance.

In fact the bill failed because it made the class warfare too transparent. You cant give CEOs $500k tax breaks and throw 24 million people off health insurance and still be maintaining that you represent the people. When the GOP congressmen spoke on t.v. of letting the market solve health care, what they really meant is that the poor who cant afford health insurance would just not be able to have it. In the US, unlike India, the poor dont vote, so Congress has no reason to fear the poor. And since the corporations managed to largely get rid of unions, they dont fear workers, either.

The outrage is Trumps bait and switch. He campaigned on making sure everyone has health insurance. Then his healthcare bill massively reduces the number of people who have health care plans.

The US has a two-tiered society. The higher tier has health insurance through work. The lower tier is disproportionately uninsured. Uninsured in the US means, you get your health care at the emergency room, and there is enormous expense to taxpayers, and that you have little physician access or preventative care. (studies show that health depends on preventative care and physician access.) Or if you have a little money and you need a scheduled surgery, e.g. you lose your home or bank account to pay for it, pushing you into the ranks of the poor.

The US is the only major industrial society that does not guarantee access to health care insurance to everyone.

The rich did not for the most part want the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). They instructed all the Republican representatives and senators to vote against it, and all did. (Despite the occasional populism of some of them, the Republican Party politicians mainly represent the interests of the richest people in society.)

The Democratic Party is a hybrid, representing the middle class and also some types of corporation (Hollywood, Silicon Valley, etc.) I think President Obama genuinely cares about people, but for a professional politician who is a Democrat, the ACA had many advantages helping constituencies that vote Democratic and underlining the usefulness of government.

It seems fairly clear that the American public does not understand class conflict. They mostly were never taught sociology in school. The government turned over the limited resource of bandwidth to corporations that make money by broadcasting commercials by other corporations. Television tells generations of consumers from childhood that corporations are your friend, they are sort of like a loving big brother, they get you things that are neat, they have your best interests at heart. And this propaganda does seem to sink in.

In fact, for many in the top 0.01 percent, the ACA/ (Obamacare) involves a slight tax increase. Since they are fabulously wealthy, that tax increase did not hurt them. But they minded it because if you are fabulously wealthy you are trying to take over other millionaires and need every single bit of the resources you can muster for this game of Masters of the Universe.

So why isnt the public enthusiastic about an Obamacare that insures them and their relatives?

In part it is because Republican statehouses have figured out the vulnerabilities of the program and deliberately pulled funding, making it expensive for some people in some states, or introducing other defects. Deliberately.

In part it is because of fears that the government will tax white people and give the money to brown and black people.

In fact, half of those under the poverty line are white. But the corporations and wealthy who do not want their resources being used to keep the poor alive will make sure to play on these racialized fears.

So the GOP attempt to destroy Obamacare was a raid by the filthy rich on the slim resources of the poorer neighborhoods. It was a bank robbery.

It failed, this time. But bank robbers are persistent. Willie Sutton (1901-1980), a notorious such criminal, was asked why he robbed banks, and he replied, Thats where the money is. The wealthy and their hired guns in Congress will be back at the earliest opportunity. And most Americans wont even know what hit them.



Related video:

CBS News: Trump lashes out at Democrats after Ryan pulls health care bill
By Eugene Lee





The current state of relations between South Korea and North Korea can be described as "mini-Cold War." The stalemate has pushed the North Korean regime to an extreme and even more belligerent behavior than just a few years ago. For the Pyongyang regime, it has become a practice to shoot off various ballistic missiles while enraging its neighboring states and the U.S. On the March 6th Pyongyang has fired 4 ballistic missiles that landed in Japanese waters. As a response to that threat South Korea continues its push for the deployment of THAAD. It all happens in spite of the economic backlash against South Korean companies by the Chinese government, which feels that the missile system once installed in South Korea will undermine its own security. In China's argument, the THAAD is a system with capabilities that do not just counter against the threat of North Korea's missiles, but extends its functional reach to monitor and even strike deep into China's territory.

South Korea is trying to overcome its economic woes since last economic crisis of 2008. Any news against South Korea's businesses brings old fears of stagnation and instability, which in Seoul's perception are closely tied to its survival. The South Korean conglomerate Lotte is one of the businesses that has been hit the most, since the plan for THAAD deployment involved a land property of the business. Having sold the plot to the South Korean government, Lotte has made itself a primary target for China's attacks. The persecution has become so bad that the likelihood for Lottes complete withdrawal from China's market is not one of strategic possibilities anymore. Along with Lotte, South Korean travel agencies and cosmetics companies have also felt the Beijing unnerving economic push to dissuade Seoul from the THAAD deployment.

For China, it has been a normal practice to leverage its security interests via economic sanctions. It has done so with its other neighbors in very recent past. Mongolia, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, some Central Asian states have all one way or the other learned it hard way what it means to have negative relationships with China. An extreme act by Pyongyang triggers a vicious cycle of responses by states in the region that are, in fact, worsen the regional relations to worth. And that what no state really wishes for in the face of current feeble economic situation.

What seemingly is lacking a communication between the states in the region. No one is capable of breaking a vicious circle and delivering a message of a good will. We need active diplomacy put in place.

The suggestion is to get out of the mold of rigid framework set by the military stance. We need to look out of the region, find a middle ground and engage North Korea, we urgently need a mediator. As I have already written earlier, a Central Asian state of Kazakhstan could be a candidate well-suited for the task. Its diplomatic posture as a peacemaker along with its non-permanent membership in UN Security Council puts it in a very good position to mediate. Kazakhstan has already proven its goodwill and capacity to put all his abilities into practice. For example, on February 18th Kazakhstan pulled off something that recently been unimaginable. It completed the second round of negotiations between the government forces, Syrian armed opposition, Russia and Turkey in its capital of Astana. Kazakhstan has opened the path to peace by facilitating conditions where the parties have managed to negotiate the supervisory mechanism for the truce.

It would be credulous to think that North Korea will immediately come and start talking. As it was in the case in Syria, the pressure has been put on the sides to come and sit down at the table, the same logic applies here. I would argue that current actions by China and the United States may prepare North Korea to engage. There are certain rules in diplomacy and one of them tells to give a "window" for an opponent to maneuver. A negotiating table in Kazakhstan could be that window.

The South Korean government must start in organizing and orchestrating the diplomatic act, and not just simply rely on other state's calls for peace and proclamations that the only solution for the crisis is diplomacy. As it is in the Syrian case the solution won't come easy. There certainly will be lags and setbacks. But, be it the Six-Party Talks, bilateral talks or any new format of negotiations, we desperately need to find that starting point, we need a host and a place for meetings. Kazakhstan has been able to do exactly just that. It has become a motivator that led Syrian government, opposition, Russia, and Turkey to come to the negotiation table. The other benefit of it is an improvement in relations between the sides. Russia and Turkey, countries on the brink of major regional confrontation just few months ago, now reporting their relations are turning to "normal".

From day to day the situation on the Korean Peninsula is getting worse. We get more new intelligence coming and hypothetical projections about number of warheads and new delivery capabilities put on the table. The discourse has changed from words of disapproval to an outright threat of military resolution. The fear is that with such saber-rattling we may hit a tipping point of no return, when only a major military confrontation will be an exit strategy for all. It will be a big mistake. And we must not allow that to happen.

Eugene Lee is an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Governance in Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea. Write to mreulee@gmail.com.
By James Dorsey



Saudi Arabia's King Salman was visiting China as the final leg of his one-month six-nation Asia swing that included Japan. South Korea was conspicuously absent in the king's itinerary.



The Korea-Saudi annual trade amounted to over $30 billion with the former being the fourth largest importer of Saudi oil. Ex-President Park Geun-hye visited the kingdom in 2015, making the fourth presidential visit to the kingdom since their 1962 establishment of diplomatic ties. S-Oil, the oil refinery 63 percent owned by Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state oil company, accounts for a significant market share in Korea and its stock is traded at the Korean main bourse.



Therefore, Salman's decision to skip Korea despite these important bilateral relations, by all means, has enough grounds to be taken as snub by Korea and raises a couple of questions.



First, does the Saudi king not take Korea as a friend?



If he doesn't, then Korea needs to look to other countries to diversify the sources of its oil imports. Especially, it appears that the kingdom didn't even bother to consult the Korean government for his visit and this kind of slight without a corrective action often sours the nation-to-nation ties for a long time to come. Especially, the Saudi king rarely travels with his Japan visit, for instance, coming 47 years after the previous one.



Also it is obvious that the king has a short memory, having forgotten how he received a warm welcome when he visited Korea as one of princesses who had little chance of inheriting the throne in 1999.



Second, will Saudi Arabia exclude Korea at the risk of ruining the mutual beneficial partnership to help the king's plan to reduce his country's dependence on oil and turn the kingdom into a developed diverse economy?



True, Saudi Arabia will offer many great business opportunities for other countries and Korea will certainly want to participate in them. But by denying Korea, a technologically astute nation that contributed a great deal to the Middle East development in the 1970s and 1980s, the king would make the mistake of reducing his country's scope of choice for partnerships. That would be a lapse of judgment considering his plan is being pushed at a time when oil prices are sinking like a stone with the nation suffering a 10-percent joblessness and half of its work force being imported from outside.



Also, Salman's visit comes ahead of the initial public offering of the state-owned Aramco, dubbed as the largest deal of the century. During his visit to Japan, he had offered big deals and is expected to do the same in China.



Finally, if the king decided not to visit Korea for the absence of a president, he would have been ill advised because an acting president has been in place and, more importantly, his visit would be as much to meet politicians but for a show of good will to Korean people. He may well check his ambassador here or the head of S-Oil to see whether they served the king wisely.







James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Wurzburg's Institute for Fan Culture. This story appeared in the South China Morning Post which holds all rights.




24.03.2017 LISTEN

Pankese (E/R), March 24, GNA - Nana Kwesi Boampong, the Adontenhene of Pankese, a farming community in the Birim North District has appealed to the Eastern Regional Security Council, to help protect the peace and order in the town and its environs.

His appeal was based on a media report of March 3 that the chiefs and people of Pankese were going to install a new chief on Monday, March 27, at Pankese.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency at Pankese, Nana Adontenhene said as far as the Kingmakers of the community were concern, the town had a chief who was enstooled according to the tradition and practice of the area.

Nana Boampong expressed worry at the publication and said any attempt by any group of people to install a second chief in the community would undermine the peace and security of the community.

Nana Poku Asante II, Chief of Pankese described the actions of those behind the publication as malicious and provocateurs whose actions and activities could provoke violence in the community.

Nana Asante who was installed two years ago said an injunction was placed by the Koforidua High Court on the said installation of a new chief for the town.

He therefore pleaded with the District Police Command to as a matter of urgency move police personnel to the area to help maintain law and order before things got out of control.

Meanwhile, the New Abirim District Coordinating Director who doubles as the Chairman of the District Security Council, Mr Habib Mohammed said the Council had served letters to stakeholders in the Pankese Chieftaincy issue to halt all activities because of the injunction placed by the Court.

He warned that anyone who went contrary to the law would face the law.

GNA
Ho, March 24, GNA - Master Selorm Tsivanyo, a Senior High School student living with cerebral palsy has called on the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to design an innovative way of assessing

students with disability other than the general examination.

He said disabilities made it impossible for a large number of people living such conditions to pass final examinations at the basic and secondary levels and called for 'disability friendly' assessment schemes and special certificates.

Master Tsivanyo made the call at the launch of a survey report on 'Including Educational Needs of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in Local Government Budget at the Ho and Krachi East Assemblies.'

The survey was done by a coalition of non-governmental organisations in disabilities-Kekeli Foundation, New Horizon Foundation for the Blind and Lakeside Disability Rights Advocacy Initiative with support from Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC).

Master Tsivanyo revealed he was marked down by WAEC in Basic Education Certificate Examination and West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination because he could not write well due to his condition.

He said a good number of persons with disabilities also failed their examinations because they could not finish their papers within the alloted time because of their conditions of disabilities and appealed to WAEC and the Ghana Education Service to develop special schemes for PWDs.

Madam Charlotte Kpogli, the Economic Policy Analyst, ISODEC, who presented the survey report said though persons living with disabilities or their representatives were involved in the preparation of annual composite budget for the two Assemblies, they were not involved in the preparation of supplementary budget estimates.

She said the survey also established that there were no projects and programmes included in the 2015 Annual District Education Operation Plan, which targeted persons with disabilities regarding their education.

The report recommended the review of the law for the involvement of PWDs to ensure that they were involved in all stages of budget preparation and enough funds for inclusive education.

Madam Amanorbea Dodou, Acting Executive Secretary, National Council on PWDs, called on the Ghana Education Service and WAEC to be considerate in matters involving students with disabilities to bring out the best in them.

GNA
Accra March 24, GNA - An Accra Circuit Court has ordered the arrest of the Administrator of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital for releasing an accused person who was referred to the facility for medical care.

The Administrator released the accused to his grandmother without recourse to the court.

The administrator of the hospital was summoned to appear before the court but was absent when the matter was called.

The prosecution led by Detective Inspector Kofi Atimbire told the court that the hospital administrator was duly served but failed to appear in court.

He said presently the Police were unable to trace the whereabouts of the accused, Nicolas Dzifanu, a 20-year old porter and his grandmother.

The court presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku issued a bench warrant against the administrator of the hospital.

Nicolas Dzifanu was convicted on convicted for defilement of child under 16 years by having anal sex with a seven-year-old boy.

The matter has been adjourned to April 11.

At the last sitting, the court was informed that the administrator of the hospital and the medical doctor had released Dzifanu to the grandmother.

They were therefore subpoenaed to appear before the court on March 23, this year to explain why they released the accused to his grandmother after the court had convicted him of a second degree felony.

Dzifanu a head porter is said to have had anal sex with a seven-year-old at Community 18, Lashibi. The complainant, unemployed and mother of the victim.

Dzifanu lives in the same house with the complainant at Community 18 Lashibi.

On March 3, last year, at about 7:00pm the complainant wanted to bath the victim but she could not find him and begun searching for him in the area until 12:00am.

During the search the complainant was informed by the accused's grandmother that she heard the accused person conversing with the victim earlier.

Complainant, therefore, went to the accused person room only find him having anal sex with the victim. She raised an alarm and accused person was arrested.

The victim was sent to the hospital after the complainant had been issued with a medical report form.

The accused in his caution statement admitted the offence.

GNA
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - United Nations peacekeeping missions, under threat from budget cuts if Washington's promise to slash its UN spending goes ahead, are already costing as little as possible, a UN official said Friday.

The comments come after US President Donald Trump this month proposed to cut Washington's contribution to UN peacekeeping operations -- the largest share of funding for the organization's missions -- to 25 percent of their total budget, compared to just under 30 percent today.

"We are doing our utmost to spend as little as possible" and "modernize," Herve Ladsous, the outgoing head of peacekeeping operations, said during his final news conference after six years in his post.

"We diminished the cost per peacekeeper by 16 percent without a diminution of their quality," he added, noting that the US-based Rand Corporation think-tank recently calculated that UN-managed operations cost four times less than it would cost a large Western country.

"Sixteen missions and 120,000 men deployed around the world for 0.4 percent of the world's military expenditure, it's still very little," Ladsous said.

"We have always tried to reformat missions, whenever possible, to be as economical as possible," he added.

"We review mandates, staffing and equipment on a regular basis," he said, pointing to the closure of missions to Ivory Coast, Liberia and Haiti, which would result in "hundreds of millions of dollars in savings."

Ladsous is set to be replaced by another French diplomat, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who takes office for a one-year term in April after Ladsous declined an offer to stay on.

Ladsous also criticized what he called a lack of support from members of the UN Security Council who he said are sometimes too lenient toward governments that obstruct the work of peacekeeping missions, including South Sudan's.

He had recommended an arms embargo against Africa's newest country, a measure supported by Britain, France and the United States but rejected by the Security Council in December thanks to opposition by China and Russia.

Discussed at the council on Thursday, a resolution could still be put to a vote.

The Security Council should also continue the UN's mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, its largest -- at 19,000 troops -- and one of its oldest, Ladsous said. Maintaining the operation at the current force is necessary because of electoral turmoil in the country, he added.

Trump's plan for severe cuts to US funding has alarmed the United Nations, along with US allies and international NGOs. US military officials and diplomats also worry the cuts will reduce Washington's ability to play a leading role in the world.
Washington (AFP) - The US military is wrapping up operations against the Lord's Resistance Army in central Africa, even though its leader Joseph Kony is still at large, a top US general said Friday.

"This thing is coming to an end," said General Thomas Waldhauser, head of the US military's Africa Command.

A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony launched a bloody rebellion three decades ago seeking to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda.

The UN says the LRA has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children since it was set up in 1987.

Waldhauser said "several hundred, maybe thousands" of Kony's footsoldiers had been killed in operations against the LRA, and that only about 100 now remain.

"This operation, although not achieving the ability to get to Kony himself, has essentially taken that group off the battlefield," he said.

"For the last several years, they've really been reduced to irrelevance."

The operation to hunt Kony and his bandits has cost between $600 and $800 million since 2011, the general added.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

One of his top lieutenants, child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial there.

A concerted campaign by activists in the US led Barack Obama to sign a law in 2010 that allowed the deployment of around 100 special forces to work with regional armies to hunt down Kony.

One of the groups, Invisible Children, went on to produce a video two years later called "Kony 2012" that went viral with 100 million views in a matter of days, raising awareness of the rebel group's activities and its fugitive leader.

Waldhauser said America would remain engaged in the region to make sure the LRA doesn't make a comeback.
25.03.2017 LISTEN

The Chief Executive Officer of Strategic Security Systems International Limited (3SiL) the parent company of Strategic Power Solutions (SPS), the only solar panel manufacturing plant in West Africa, Mr. Ofori Boateng has lauded plans outlined by government in the 2017 budget statement towards the development of renewable energy.

Government has initiated plans to increase access to lighting in deprived off-grid homes by increasing solar lanterns in rural non-electrified households to two million.

It has also promised to scale up the Renewable Energy Programme.

Mr. Boateng said these are initiatives that can easily be attained with the right private sector partnership.



As the preferred developers for the 50 Megawatt solar hybrid Bui Power Authority project, SPS is willing to work with the Government and the Ministry of Energy to complete the project in a timely and cost-effective manner, he stressed..

Mr. Ofori Boateng mentioned that even though the Ghana Scaling-up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP) which will see the implementation of 55 mini-grids, 38,000 solar home systems in off-grid communities and 15,000 units of solar rooftop installations can help increase the renewable energy component in Ghana's energy mix, government needed to be more aggressive with its plans for the sector.

SPS launched West Africa's only solar manufacturing plant in March last year and has since produced at the capacity of 30 Megawatts which will be upgraded to 100 Megawatts by the end of 2017.

Its parent company, 3SiL, has under the Solar Lighting Programme', distributed 1.2 million solar torch lights to farmers across cocoa, sheanut and coffee growing areas of the country.
25.03.2017 LISTEN

The National Lottery Authority (NLA) has deployed stringent measures to flush out illegal lotto operators, commonly known as 'Banker to Banker' from the system.

The NLA is embarking on this action to secure the state from continuously loosing revenue for national development to the activities of illegal lotto operators.

Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, the new Director-General appointed to head the NLA, in a meeting with Association of Lotto Marketing Companies (ALMC) to update them on progress made by his outfit disclosed his plans to descend heavily on 'Bank to Banker' operators.

He assured them of some plans put in place to address their concerns of setting up a Lotto Taskforce to clamp down on 'Banker to Banker' operators, adding that, those found flouting the law will be prosecuted in Lotto Courts established nationwide.

Mr. Osei-Ameyaw said the NLA would provide the ALMCs with model kiosks which would be attractive for their operations and appealed to them to decentralize their businesses in all regions and districts.

He also assured them of addressing the issue of taxes on wins, commissions and other issues stifling their businesses.

The Director-General promised to hold periodic meetings with the ALMC to update them on progress made by the NLA.

He thanked the ALMC for their support and promised to work with them to further develop NLA in line with the vision of President Nana Akufo-Addo to generate revenue for the State.

Mr. Dan Mensah, Chairman of the ALMC, pledged the Association's support to the Director-General and assured him of their commitment to work closely with him and support his vision to promote the operations of NLA.

The Members of ALMC emphasised on the need to descend heavily on the Banker to Banker operators whose activities are not only crippling their businesses, but also, depriving the state of the revenue which should have ended up in the Consolidated Fund for national development.

Those monies go into individuals' pockets as a result of the fact that Banker to Banker operators do not pay taxes on their earnings and more often than not, they also swindle their patrons by refusing to pay up on wins.

The Members also decried the tax on lotto wins as it dissuades players from patronizing the NLA products and encourages them to rather play Banker to Banker.





By Bernice Bessey
25.03.2017 LISTEN

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IT Consortium, Romeo Bugyei, has called for an open ecosystem market for Africa, in order to create a single platform for businesses to operate across borders, without restrictions.

He said if Africa accepts the idea of operating a homogenous market, it would result in low cost of doing business and maximization of profit though they may be charging less.

He explained that businesses are able to make more turnovers when they have the opportunity to reach large spectrum of consumers.

Mr. Bugyei made this statement during a media interaction session at the African Fintech Unconference of stakeholders at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra yesterday.

The CEO of IT Consortium suggested that the idea of integrated markets should also be replicated by the telecommunication companies, especially in mobile money transactions, adding that it would allow the market grow and make services cheaper.

As an experienced IT Solutions and Software developer, specialized in payments and student information systems, Mr. Bugyei argued that transferring money from one network to another should be a challenge and consumers should be offered the opportunity to enjoy such services.

Currently, he disclosed, the Bank of Ghana doesn't regulate the Fintech operations, the platform on which the Telcos provide mobile money services; however, he was quick to state that the Apex bank controls activities of their partners which indirectly have impact on them.

He indicated that though the Apex bank is yet to regulate Fintech operations, it has however held meetings with them, adding I don't think government should regulate us now in order to make space for innovation. The mobile money is spreading but we are not yet there.

Vahid Monadjem, CEO of Nomanini who also addressed the media stated that though there are a large proportion of people using mobile phone; study has shown that more than 5million of Ghana's adult population don't have access to financial services.

He however, indicated that Fintech, through its partners would bring together solutions, especially for the informal sector to have access to loans as well as enable the unbanked population to have bank accounts via their mobile phones.

By Bernice Bessey


The turmoil in the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) since it lost the December 2016 general elections in a humiliating fashion to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) does not appear to be subsidizing.

This is because more senior members of the main opposition party are now accusing ex-President John Dramani Mahama of running a failed campaign by surrounding himself with 'young' and 'inexperienced' people, leading to the party's crushing defeat.

A party bigwig, Mark Owen Woyongo, who lost his seat as MP for Navrongo Central in the Upper East Region and was once Defence Minister, has given a damning verdict on the ex-president's style of leadership.

Woyongo has joined some leading members of the party like Koku Anyidoho, Deputy General Secretary; Anita Desooso, Vice Chairperson; Joseph Bipoba Naabu, MP for Yunyoo; Yaw Boateng Gyan, former National Organizer, among many others, who have blamed Mahama for the abysmal performance of the NDC leading to its humiliating electoral defeat.

Mr. Woyongo, who was also once Minister of the Interior under the previous Mahama administration, told Ultimate FM in Kumasi yesterday that I had reservations about Mahama's leadership style.

He said that then President Mahama fell short of quality leadership, although he (Mr. Mahama) had tried to 'satisfy' everybody.

I have my own reservations about Mahama's leadership style but that is a personal issue, he admitted.

I am waiting for the committee investigating our defeat and when they come around, I will raise my issues before them.

Mr. Woyongo, who was the Upper East Regional Minister under President John Evans Atta Mills and received the Ford Expedition vehicle 'gift' from a Burkinabe contractor on behalf of John Mahama, underscored, I think the former president tried to satisfy a whole lot of people but it didn't go the way it should have gone and I am not ready to talk about the issues in the mediaas I indicated, I am waiting for the committee.

That notwithstanding, if the party people elect him as our flagbearer in the next elections, I will support him. In fact, I will even want to see him leading the NDC in 2020 because he is already marketed and will easily be marketed another time.

On December 13, he attributed the loss of his Navrongo Central seat and the overall abysmal performance of the NDC in the election to the failure of the then NDC government in implementing key polices, and had said he was retiring from active politics.

He told 3FM in Accra that a combination of issues, including complacency and poor management of education-related polices like allowances were responsible for the NDC's defeat.

A combination of factors the fact that some policies did not go down well with a lot of the people in my areas, especially the youth, the issue of school fees, high electricity and water tariffs contributed to the defeat, he noted.

They talked about these and it influenced parents because they have to pay high fees such as two thousand Ghana cedis. Most of the time I spent most of my common fund paying fees, he added.

Mr Woyongo also said complacency set in during the NDC's campaign, saying, Coupled with that is the issue of complacency with which we approached the elections because we had done so much in the constituencies in the area of development and the party executives didn't see the need to strain themselves so everybody relaxed.

He reiterated his position on Ultimate FM that some policies of the Mahama government cost them the election.

There were some of the policies, national in character that cost me the election. Increase in electricity tariffs and the general economic hardship, aside the fact that my party executives did not work well to seal the victory, he noted during the interview.

By William Yaw Owusu
A tuberculosis patient in a mask

25.03.2017 LISTEN

It started as malaria so I went to the Ga South Clinic and I was treated for malaria. But I was coughing so they prescribed medication for cough for me and asked that I do an x-ray which I did, says 49-year-old Richard Musa Alhassan, an electrician.

The test conducted on Richard showed he had pneumonia and was treated as per the findings of the test.

But the cough still persisted, Richard says. And the doctor after several medications advised that Richard try alternative medicine.

Richard, however, indicated that after months of moving from one product to the other, his health rather deteriorated.

I grew lean and could not sleep at night. I was also coughing severely, sometimes blood was in my sputum, he adds. After more than a year in that condition, a Good Samaritan saw him one day and decided to encourage him to run another test, which, this time around, showed it was TB.

The Good Samaritan stood as the treatment support for Richard during his TB treatment and his sleepless nights were soon over as he was responding to the treatment.

TB Facts

Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis which mostly affects the lungs.

About one third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis (TB) bacteria. Only a small proportion of those infected will become sick with TB, but people with weakened immune systems have a much greater risk of falling ill from TB.

A person living with HIV is about 26 to 31 times more likely to develop active TB which they can spread to 10 to 15 close contacts per year.

The bacteria are spread from person to person by air through coughing, sneezing and spitting. In Ghana, prevalence of TB is 286 per 100,000 populations.

TB is the world's top infectious disease killer, claiming 5,000 lives each day.

The heaviest burden is carried by communities which already face socio-economic challenges: migrants, refugees, prisoners, ethnic minorities, miners and others working and living in risk-prone settings, and marginalised women, children and older people.

Multi Drug Resistant TB

Richard faced some family challenges during the time of his treatment and the love and support he expected from his family was not forthcoming.

This period of treatment, Richard says, was so difficult he missed some of his medications which resulted in him developing multi-drug resistance TB after he had early been treated for TB.

I was treated and told I was cured but it came back again, I was given injection for three months and an additional six months, but still no improvement.

So my sputum was taken for further tests and it showed I had multi drug resistant TB so I was referred to Korle-Bu TB Unit for treatment for two years, he explains.

I was so frustrated that I contemplated suicide because there was no one to help me and I was left all alone, he adds. He says but for the love and support he was shown by a faith-based organisation, he would have ended his life.

A nurse at the hospital called Sister Francisca really helped me with feeding and transport to and from the hospital. She encouraged me and I went through the treatment successfully, he states.

Dr Linda Van-Otoo, Greater Accra Regional Health Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), says patients develop MDR TB because they either do not complete their TB medication or miss some days for their medication due to various factors.

Poverty, malnutrition, poor housing and sanitation, compounded by other risk factors such as HIV, tobacco, alcohol use and diabetes, can put people at heightened risk of TB and make it harder for them to access care.

TB has a set of drugs used to treat it and normally the person must survive, sometimes they do not get cured and they go on to become resistant to these medications and sometimes its multi drugs, she explains.

More than a third (4.3 million) of people with TB go undiagnosed or unreported, some receive no care at all and others access care of questionable quality.

The Greater Accra Region has recorded some multi drug resistant TB over the years. In 2013, the region recorded 12 MDR TB, then 2 MDR TB in 2014, 15 MDR TB in 2015, and 17 MDR TB in 2016.

Lost TB Patients

TB cases that go undiagnosed and, therefore, untreated in the country are more than the diagnosed TB cases.

In the Greater Accra Region, according to new statistics by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) regional health directorate, only 49 TB cases out of the expected 268 per 100,000 population are found, translating into more undiagnosed cases of TB.

Within the 286 TB cases per 100000, there are more undiagnosed cases within the population and this is rather unfortunate because TB treatment is free and we must find and treat them, Dr Van-Otoo says.

Explaining further, Dr Van-Otoo adds that in 2014, the region of about four million inhabitants recorded a total of 2073 cases, the number of TB cases detected increased to 2,391 in 2015 and then decreased to 2,248 in 2016.

In Greater Accra with a population of over four million people, we are supposed to have over 11,000 reported cases but we have less than 3000, she says.

Dr Van-Otoo indicates that the trend poses a dangerous threat to TB control in the country, as an undiagnosed person with active TB can infect close contacts unknowingly or die without receiving treatment.

From Guidance to Action

One of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for 2030 is to end the global TB epidemic.

But new data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) reveal that the global TB burden is higher than previously estimated.

The WHO 'End TB Strategy' approved by the World Health Assembly in 2014 calls for a 90 percent reduction in TB deaths and an 80 percent reduction in the TB incidence rate by 2030, compared with 2015.

Countries need to move much faster to prevent, detect and treat TB if the 'End TB Strategy' targets are to be achieved in the next 15 years, the global health body states.

Dr Van-Otoo stresses that the Greater Accra Region has recorded impressive treatment results among those diagnosed with TB.

She indicated that the cure and success rate of TB determined by an examination of the sputum had shown 91 percent cure and 96 percent success rates respectively.

The Greater Accra regional health director appeals to stakeholders, particularly the media, to help improve the case detection by consciously creating awareness about TB and the importance of diagnosis and treatment.

But it is not easy to apply the principles of ethics on the ground, as patients, communities, health workers, policy makers and other stakeholders frequently face conflicts and ethical dilemmas.

The current multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) crisis and the health security threat it poses accentuate the situation even further.

Only when evidence-based, effective interventions are informed by a sound ethical framework, and respect for human rights, will we be successful in reaching our ambitious goals of ending the TB epidemic and achieving universal health coverage. The SDG aspiration of leaving no one behind is centred on this, says Dr Mario Raviglione, Director, WHO Global TB Programme.

New Tuberculosis (TB) Ethics Guidance

The WHO in commemoration of the World TB Day yesterday launched a new guideline which aims to protect the human rights of TB patients.

It also aims to help ensure that countries implementing the 'End TB Strategy' adhere to sound ethical standards to protect the rights of all those affected.

The new WHO ethics guidance addresses contentious issues such as the isolation of contagious patients, the rights of TB patients in prison, discriminatory policies against migrants affected by TB, among others.

It emphasizes five key ethical obligations for governments, health workers, care providers, non-governmental organisations, researchers and other stakeholders to provide patients with the social support they need to fulfill their responsibilities.

Other ethical obligations include refraining from isolating TB patients before exhausting all options to enable treatment adherence and only under very specific conditions, enable 'key populations' to access same standard of care offered to other citizens, ensure all health workers operate in a safe environment, rapidly share evidence from research to inform national and global TB policy updates.

The guidance we have released today aims to identify the ethical predicaments faced in TB care delivery, and highlights key actions that can be taken to address them, he adds.

TB strikes some of the world's poorest people hardest. WHO is determined to overcome the stigma, discrimination, and other barriers that prevent so many of these people from obtaining the services they so badly need, says Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General.

Richard who has now become a TB advocate says family support from health workers' care and adherence to medication was what helped him go through the treatment successfully.

If our families will stand with us and health professionals will encourage us so we keep to our medication, no one will die of TB, he says.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri


The Abeka District Court in Accra has set March 27 to deliver its ruling on the application for disclosure filed by lawyers for the Abelemkpe Branch Manager of Marwako eatery, Jihad Chaaban.

The court, presided over by Ms. Victoria Ghansah, set the date on Thursday after Augustine Asafo Adjei had moved the motion directed at the state prosecutors to furnish the defence team with all documents they intend to rely on for their prosecution.

According to him, their request if granted, would assist them to put up a more informed defence for their client.

Quoting Article 19 (2) (e) and (g) of the 1992 Constitution, the defence counsel argued that if the notion was not granted, it would amount to ambush trial.

Mr Augustine Asafo Adjei stated that for the trial to be fair, the accused person has to be given all he requires to defend his case as enshrined in the Constitution.

The prosecution led by Chief Inspector H.A. Hanson, however did not file any motion in opposition to Mr Asafo Adjei's, arguing that they would rely on the decision of the court.

Earlier, the prosecutor had told the court that he had intended to file the motion but was unable to do so because of 'dumsor.'

He said he was minded to make an oral application if the court would oblige him.

But Augustine disagreed, insisting that it was appropriate for the prosecutor to put his opposition into writing.

This compelled the court to suspend proceeding for 30 minutes.

Jihad, 26, is before the court for assault.

He is reported to have dipped the head of Evelyn Boakye, an employee of Marwako, into blended pepper on February 26, 2017.

According to Chief Inspector Hanson, Jihad Chaaban offensively conducted himself when he angrily called the complainant a prostitute.

Jihad is facing an additional charge of intentionally and unlawfully causing harm to Evelyn when he reportedly dipped the head of the complainant in blended pepper.

Meanwhile, the much anticipated further cross-examination of Evelyn Boakye had been shelved.

At the last sitting, the defence lawyers had expressed doubt over the actual substance the accused person is alleged to have dipped the face of the victim/complainant into.

Mr Augustine Asafo Adjei had claimed that the substance for which his client has been dragged before the court is a sauce but not raw pepper.

He said the material being a mixture of garlic, pepper, onions, ginger and tomatoes could not be described as pepper.

Jihad Chaaban, a Lebanese supervisor at Marwako Restaurant, was put before the court for allegedly manhandling Evelyn Boakye.

Chaaban has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Jihad, a brother in-law of the owner of Marwako Restaurant at the Abelemkpe branch, allegedly grabbed the neck of the victim and angrily dipped her face into blended pepper which poured on the table.

[email protected]

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson


By Morkporkpor Anku, GNA

Accra, March. 23, GNA - The Ghana Human Rights NGOs Forum and Kasa Initiative Ghana in Partnership with the Universal Peer Review (UPR) Info, Africa has called on government to adopt all the recommendations peered reviewed by the United Nations.

Mr Jonathan Osei Owusu, the Vice Chairman - Ghana Human Rights NGOs Forum, speaking at the end of a two-day Ghana Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) Pre UPR Reports submission workshop in Accra, said the UN made more than 140 recommendations of which Ghana accepted only 123 and rejected 25.

The workshop falls within UPR Info's project called 'Building the National Human Rights Architecture in Ghana' with an overarching goal of the project is to increase and strengthen the capacities of national stakeholders to employ the Universal Periodic Review as a driver to improve the human rights situation in Ghana.

The project is geared towards enriching both newcomers and CSOs that have previously engaged with the UN human rights system including the Universal Periodic Review.

He said the UPR was a mechanism used by the UN to measure the performance of its member countries on issues of human rights.

He said the two-day workshop was to build the capacity of the participants.

They were trained on the history, importance, stages, process and opportunities of the UPR and Ghana's past review, training/orientation on the UN Bodies, Treaties, Conventions, Covenants, Operations and provide tools for the CSOs to enable them develop and finalise reports that would subsequently be submitted for Ghana's pending UPR and consequently push the human rights envelop in Ghana.

'It is to form a working Committee responsible for the report and provide an opportunity to develop and deepen collaboration among Ghanaian CSOs through a formidable coalition,' he added.

He said government together with CSOs did not do well in adopting the recommendations in the fight for human rights in the country.

He said some of the recommendations included accelerate necessary measures for the training police personnel on the principles of human rights and minimum treatment of prisoners and detainees according to a clear curriculum.

He said the following recommendation enjoyed the support of government, which were in the process of implementation including the ratification of the international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance, strengthen the Commission on Human Right and Administrative Justice through financial and human resources.

The recommendation did not enjoy the support of Ghana including abolishing of the death penalty, adopting a formal moratorium on the application of the death penalty.

It also awaits de jure abolition, take the necessary measures to remove the death penalty from existing laws and sign and ratify International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights-OP21.

Madam Gifty Twum Ampofo - Deputy Minister-Designate for Gender, Children and Social Protection, commended CSOs for their role in developing the economy.

She said as a Ministry, they recognised the important role of CSOs in governance and the Ministry believed that 'we can achieve our set goals and targets if we work with each other'.

The Minister said government was committed to ensuring the active participation of CSOs in their work.

She said the comments and critics given by the working group had broadened and would shape global policy and forming a number of conventions.

She said government had incorporated and ensured that its policies were informed by the outcome of its review on the work they do.

'Our various legal and policy framework as a country are revolved out of the various review and feedback we get from the comments and critics of the report we submit to the international bodies,' she added.

Madam Christine Evan-Klock, UN Country Representative commended the CSOs for their work in keeping government and others in check concerning human right.

She said the UN agencies in Ghana were committed in supporting Ghana in achieving its human rights agenda.

'We will continue to work in partnership with other agencies to highlight the achievement of the country in promoting human rights issues.

GNA
25.03.2017 LISTEN

By Lydia Asamoah, GNA

Accra, March 24, GNA - Ghana needs a national campaign towards attitudinal change to ensure that things are done right by the citizenry, the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG), has said.

The Council has, therefore, called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to as a matter of urgency, lead a national campaign on topical issues like water pollution, road accidents and open defecation for the citizenry to be awoken and help stem the tide.

'We are calling on the President and the new administration to consider a national campaign programme on attitudinal change. Now the assumption is if you do the normal things and expect extra ordinary result, it will never happen,' the CCG has said.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Friday, Reverend Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, General Secretary of the Council, said just as the late Vice President Aliu Mahama-led national campaign for greater discipline among Ghanaians had a greater impact, so would President Akufo-Addo's campaign become successful.

He said the Council's fear and worry was that if things continued to be done as normal and as usually concerning the level of environmental hazards Ghana was witnessing, and water bodies being destroyed, then the result would be minimal.

Rev Opuni-Frimpong said such a national campaign should be multi-sectoral, bringing on board stakeholders, traditional leaders, religious leaders, security agencies, media, on the campaign.

He noted that there was also the need for a pragmatic programme that could be evaluated and measured from time to time to see the impact of such campaigns.

'Now if we don't see that then it is like we are going to have business as usual, this is the appeal we are making to the current President.

'Accidents on our roads and water pollution; these two cannot wait. Open defecation is also very disgraceful,' he emphasised.

GNA
By Lydia Asamoah/Elizabeth Tetteh, GNA

Accra, March 24, GNA - Ghana on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with South Africa, to help the country better manage its environment and natural resources in the face of numerous environmental challenges facing Ghana.

The MOU was signed on behalf of Ghana by Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation while Ms Lulu Xingwana, Higher Commissioner of South Africa initialed on behalf of her government.

The MOU would allow the two countries to exchange views and experiences on instruments for environmental protection policy and management, natural resource management, world heritage management as well as strengthening of environmental awareness, by means of environmental education and participation by their citizens.

It would also aid in the exchange of information and technical support related to environmental legislation and policies, environmentally sound technologies and their applications.

Ms Lulu said it was hoped that after the signing of the MOU, a plan of action would be drafted to aid the implementation of the co-operation.

She said South Africa had initiated a project with 10 countries of which Ghana was part.

She said under the programme, 15 Ghanaian students and 10 Kenyan students would be trained from April 20, in science and technology.

She said her country also signed an MOU with Ghana on science and technology in 2012 of which Ghana was being helped to construct the Kuntunse Satellite project in the Eastern Region that was expected to be inaugurated by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in May.

She explained that the Kuntunse Satellite project, which was initiated by South Africa was co-sponsored by UK government and that would help Ghana access the universe through a satellite.

Ms Xingwana expressed South Africa's continuous commitment towards the development of both nations while maintaining the cordial relationship between the two countries.

'Ghana is one of the first countries South Africa started a relationship with after we gain independence in 1994 even though the relationship dates back a longer time', Ms Xingwana said.

Prof Frimpong-Boateng commended South Africa for partnering Ghana in finding solutions to the havoc caused to the environment through the effect of climate change.

He said the issues of biodiversity, conservation of wildlife, management of mangroves and control of hazardous chemical control of e-waste were so dear to government.

He also thanked South Africa for helping in the training of some Ghanaian astronauts to monitor the universe from the Kuntunse station, as well as building the satellite station to help explore the universe.

The Minister said with the partnership, Ghana was on the right track in confronting its environmental challenges.

He gave the assurance that there was better commitment on the part of government towards addressing issues of the environment.

GNA
By Morkporkpor Anku, GNA

Accra, March 24, GNA - Ethiopian Airlines, the largest cargo operator in Africa, has announced the addition of Ahmedabad, a fifth cargo gateway to India, to its global cargo network as of March 28.

Ahmedabad, India's second oldest stock exchange and largest producer of cotton, is an emerging economic and industrial hub of India, inhabiting a population of more than six million.

Mr Tewolde GebreMariam, Group CEO Ethiopian Airlines said: 'Ethiopian cargo service to India dates back to the early 90's; launching our first cargo station in Mumbai.'

He said complementing the booming economic relations between India and the African continent at large, the airline had made available dependable cargo services to Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi and now to Ahmedabad; their fifth Cargo Gateway to India.

He said while operating in the major trade lanes between Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia, their cargo network was efficiently linking the Indian sub-continent and Africa farther with China and Hong Kong and providing the Indian market with minimum weekly import capacity of 240 tons per week.

'I believe our new services to Ahmedabad will further strengthen the existing trade and commercial ties between the two fastest growing regions of the world,' he added.

Ethiopian is the largest cargo network operator and one of the major global cargo players, serving 36 global freighter destinations with an average daily uplift of 650 tons, on top of the belly hold capacity of 150 tons to more than 90 destinations globally, deploying eight dedicated freighters including six Boeing B777-200LRF and two - Boeing B757-260F.

GNA
By Morkporkpor Anku, GNA

Accra, March 24, GNA - Africa's largest airline group, Ethiopian Airlines, has finalised preparations to launch flights to three new destinations - Victoria Falls, Oslo and Antananarivo - within three days from March 26 to March 28.

Mr Tewolde GebreMariam, Group CEO said: 'Three new flights to three new destinations in just three days is one of the greatest expansions in Ethiopian's long and illustrious history. We are proud that we are able to link these new stations to the Ethiopian network in such a short period of time.'

He said as of March 28, its vast global network would add three new destinations which would further strengthen its leadership in the continent in connecting more cities in Africa to more cities in the world than any other airline.

He said the airline flies 28 weekly flights to four destinations in China, 20 weekly flights to The Americas, 72 weekly flights to Asia, 65 weekly flights to Middle East, 400 weekly flights to 53 cities across Africa and almost daily 54 flights to Europe.

He said this was only possible due to the continued support and dedication of the thousands of Ethiopian Airlines' employees, who strive for the best service, best safety and best on time performance every day and the great vote of confidence that it enjoys daily from its valued customers.

Victoria Falls, Oslo and Antananarivo are three of the seven new destinations to be launched during the first six months of 2017.

Ethiopian started flights to Conakry in February 2017 and before July, Ethiopian would start service to three destinations in Asia: Chengdu, Singapore and Jakarta.

The Airline envisaged reaching 120 international destinations worldwide by 2025.

GNA
By Kodjo Adams, GNA

Tema, March 24, GNA- MTN Ghana Foundation has constructed a 40-bed maternity ward at Tema General Hospital to improve health delivery in the country.

The project, which started November 2016 and expected to be completed in September 2017, had seen a 43 per cent of work completed.

Speaking after an inspection of the project, Mrs Cynthia Lumor, Executive Director of MTN Ghana Foundation said the project was necessitated by a television news item which highlighted the struggle faced by the hospital to raise funds to complete to complete its maternity ward.

She said the Foundation had provided GHE4.2 million for the project including a theatre, seven bed monitoring and recovery ward, doctors' office nurses station, sluice rooms, consulting rooms and washrooms.

She explained that the project was part of the Foundations 20th anniversary and corporate social responsibilities to give back to society through improve health care delivery.

Mrs Lumor said the Foundation had over the years placed emphasis on maternal healthcare and the general wellbeing of women.

'The Foundation has constructed and commissioned several projects aimed at improving maternal and child mortality across the country including the provision of a 40-bed Neo-natal centre and construction of 20-bed maternity block for Tamale Hospital and furnished medical equipment and furniture for the Ejisu Hospital in Ashanti Region, she added.

The Tema Hospital is the third highest in the country with regard to deliveries and in 2015, the Hospital delivered about 7,000 babies with more than 12,000 pregnant women visit the hospital annually with 10 maternity beds.

Mrs Lumor said the Foundation would continue to support development initiative in the country, adding that it had opened an oil palm project in Juaso and a scholarship programme to benefit 300 children.

Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, Medical Director Tema General Hospital commended the Foundation for the support, adding that the project when completed would cater for the increasing number of patients in the hospital.

Dr Opoku-Adusei has pledged the Hospital's commitment to provide better services to the citizenry and make it as client-friendly as practicable.

Mr Nathan Ansah, Project Architect for MULTICAD Consulting Architect said work on the project had progress steadily and promised to finish the project before the scheduled month of September.

GNA
Accra March 24, GNA - A 38-year-old tailor who allegedly defiled a 12-year-old girl in his kiosk after she had gone there to look for pieces of cloth for needle work has appeared before an Accra Circuit Court.

Norbert Attey charged with defilement has pleaded not guilty.

He has been remanded into police custody to reappear on April 6

The court presided over by Mrs. Abena Oppong Adjin- Doku was informed by the prosecution that the complainant is a Security man at East Legon while the accused person live in his tailoring shop at North Legon, near Madina Zongo.

Prosecuting Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Agnes Boafo said in February this year at about 2:30 pm the victim and her friend, a witness in the case accompanied a certain woman to wash clothes for a client in the accused person's area.

On their way home prosecution said the victim and her friend decided to pass by the accused person's shop to collect pieces of cloth for needle work at home.

Attey allowed the victim and her friend into his kiosk and he proposed love to the victim.

Attey then lured the victim into the inner chamber of his kiosk and had sex with the victim while her friend waited outside.

When the victim came out she informed her friend about her ordeal. The victim and her friend hurried home and informed two other witnesses in the matter.

On February 24 this year, the victim's father got wind of the victim's ordeal and upon confirmation the matter was reported to the Police.

A medical report form was issued to the victim to seek medical attention and the accused was subsequently charged.

GNA
Accra March 24, GNA - Two Police officers have appeared before an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly robbing a student at gun point of GHE11,000.00.

The money was withdrawn from a bank by the student who had been sent by his elder brother.

The Police officers are General lance Corporal Isaac Amejor and Constable Samuel Asamoah

They were charged alongside Crosby Ofori Danso unemployed.

They have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit crime to wit robbery and robbery before court presided over by Mr Aboagye Tandoh.

The court has remanded them into Police custody to reappear on April 7.

Prosecuting Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mawuenyo Nanegbe told the court that the complainant is Christopher Haga while the policemen Amejor and Asamoah are police officers at the Rapid Deployment Force headquarters and Kasoa respectively.

On March 19, this year, the complainant was sent by his brother to withdraw cash in the sum of GHE11,000.00 at Global Access bank at Abeka Lapaz.

Prosecution said after withdrawing the money, the complainant was waiting for a taxi home when the accused persons attacked him.

Amejor who was in Police uniform and armed with AK 47 rifle together with Asamoah and Danso pushed the complainant into a waiting taxi and sped off to Nyaho Clinic at Dworwulu.

DSP Nanegbe said the accused persons informed the complainant that they have information that the money he withdrew from the bank was 'stolen money' as such he was needed at the Police headquarters for questioning.

According to the prosecutor the complainant disagreed with accused persons and denied any wrong doing.

Prosecution said the accused insisted the bank transaction was fraudulent.

The complainant however agreed to follow the accused persons to the Police headquarter but pleaded with them to allow him to communicate with his brother who sent him.

The prosecutor said the accused persons declined and drove the taxi to the Ghana International Trade Fair Site and at gun point threatened to kill him if he dared them.

The accused then took the money from the complainant and pushed him out of the taxi and sped off.

When the complainant informed his brother about the incident he advised him to return home. However on his way, the complainant spotted Amejor on duty at Prudential Bank, Bawleshie branch and informed his brother who mobilized to get Amejor arrested.

When Amejor was searched, GHE2,000.00 was retrieved from him. Amejor led the Police to arrest Danso who also refunded GHE4,056.00 as he share of the money taken from the complainant.

DSP Nanegbe said Asamoah who was then on interdiction was arrested by the Kasoa Police.

The accused persons admitted to Police that they took the money from the complainant.

GNA
25.03.2017 LISTEN

Kpone (GAR), March 24, GNA - Ms Rosina Adorbor, the Kpone Katamanso District Director of Education, has advised pupils to shun negative peer influences that would lure them into engaging in casual sex.

She urged adolescents to avoid pre-marital sex in order not to contract HIV and remember that 'prevention is better than cure.'

Ms Adorbor gave the advice at a workshop on the theme: 'HIV/AIDS Alert Model among Adolescents' organised by the SOS Children's Villages- Ghana, under their 'Quality Education Now' project.

She said global data indicates that every hour about 26 adolescents, between 10 and 19 years, got infected with HIV with girls being at a much higher risk.

She said global efforts had led to a 40 per cent reduction in HIV/AIDS among different age groups.

'Adolescence is one of life's critical transitions when experimentation, risk taking and active peer interaction is part of the development process,' Ms Adorbor said.

She said even though a lot of factors precipitated the spread of HIV/AIDS, casual sex among adolescents could not be overlooked.

Ms Adorbor said it was regrettable that a lot of adolescents had become sexually active in recent times due to negative peer and mass media influence.

She urged teachers, who are agents of transformation, not to relent in their efforts to continue with educating the pupils on the dangers of HIV/AIDS.

Ms Adorbor asked the pupils to be peer educators and share the knowledge they had acquired at the workshop with their peers, family and community.

She expressed gratitude to the SOS Children's Villages- Ghana for organising the programme.

Mr Michael Appeaning, the Co-ordinator of the 'Quality Education Now' project, urged parents to take the education of their children seriously and insist they studied hard.

The pupils were taken through a health screening exercise.

GNA
The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Joseph Adda has announced government support towards the one house one toilet project, setting up a national sanitation fund and a national sanitation agency proposed by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS).

Speaking at an event to mark the World Water Day Celebration in Accra, he noted that those policy recommendations are now more important than ever adding that his outfit will use a multi-sectoral approach in working towards achieving these goals.

The sector Minister added that he will involve Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and others to address the major challenges in the sector.

We are going to have a very bold approach to improving access to sanitation which is currently at 15percent so we can end open defecation and sanitation and water related diseases that cause death of children under five, he stated.

Hon. Joseph Adda emphasized that it is therefore his responsibility and the mandate of the Ministry to ensure that marginalized groups, regions with lower access rates are prioritized for service provision in the shortest possible time.

According to him, government has made significant and ambitious commitments under the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which implies that government is expected to dedicate significant resources to meet that obligation.

While acknowledging that we have made significant progress in terms of water delivery which stands at 89%, our coverage for sanitation is still quiet abysmal, he intimated.

Christopher Ackon, Programme Officer, EU-Ghana, indicated that safe drinking water and sanitation are crucial for a healthy and dignified life yet, 663 million people, 1 out of 10 people in the world, still lack access to safe water and are deprived of a basic human right.

He noted that the world has also fallen short of the sanitation target, leaving still 2.4 billion people, 1 out of 3 people, without access to adequate sanitation facilities.

Mr. Ackon added that the persistence of water scarcity and water stress, given climate change and demographic developments, are likely to affect more and more people in the future.

He noted that in Ghana, some of the major challenges to quality water provision are the continuous deterioration of the water bodies due to high population growth density, urbanization, climate change variabilities, and uncontrolled agriculture especially along water bodies.

Mr. Ackon also mentioned activities of illegal miners (galamsey), deforestation, and land degradation and pollution as a result of surface runoffs from large agro chemical fields, indiscriminate dumping of refuse and untreated domestic waste, and more.

According to him, these elements seriously impact negatively on provision of good quality water.

Quite recently in the news, it was reported of how the activities of illegal miners in the Western region have affected the quality of the Ankobra River. The activities of illegal loggers and miners in the Atewa forest in the Eastern region are also impacting on the integrity of the forest and the water bodies that the forest protects. Across the nation, several more watersheds and water bodies that serve as water sources for Ghana Water Company are seriously under threat, he stated.

The UN-Ghana rep intimated that if these activities are not halted and addressed, Ghana is getting to a point where they may have to import water.

Mr. Ackon posited that we all have a role to play and that the state should not sit back to allow a few citizens to destroy the very resource essential for our survival.

He said, on the occasion of World Water Day, as European Union they reiterate their commitment, through Agenda 2030, to achieve access and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, in particular to the most vulnerable groups.

Our commitment to leaving no-one behind means that no-one should be deprived of access to clean water. We also reiterate our commitment to the Paris Agreement and the Marrakech Action Proclamation which reaffirmed the world's determination to fight climate change and to help address the impacts of climate change, including on water, Mr. Ackon noted.

He posited that we need to reflect on what we can do additionally to ensure that water can be available for both current and future generations. We need to collectively work to address the challenges in the water sector from source to delivery.

According to him, we need to strengthen our institutions to play their roles to protect the resource and also to avoid wastage.

He concluded that posterity will not forgive this generation if we are to continue doing "business-as-usual" in this sector adding that this will be a total disaster.

2017-03-25 103442
25.03.2017 LISTEN

As the Inspector General of Police and Deputy Chairman of the National Liberation Council John William Kofi Harlley's appearance before the Prisons Commission set up by the junta following the death of Dr. J.B Danquah and the inhuman conditions prevailing at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison was significant.

He knew a lot of things and his no-disclosures went a long way in affording us better knowledge about what being a political prisoner meant under the obnoxious Preventive Detention Act.

It meant a lot of things some of which included poor nutrition, deliberate denial of adequate medical attention and above all humiliating treatment at the hands of prison warders.

Mr. Harlley appeared before the Commission on Wednesday, 17th May 1967 at 11.15am.

Your full name, please. (Witness

Witness: John William Kofi Harlley, Inspector-General of Police and

Vice-Chairman of the National Liberation Council.

Chairman: We thank you very much for accepting our invitation to appear

before this Commission. There are some one or two questions which have

cropped up during the course of our enquiry and on which we like to have your

views. We have prepared some notes on them which we would like you to go

through before.

Mr. Cameron: We have heard, Sir, that during the time of the late Director

of Prisons you actually overheard verbal instructions being given to feed

detainees on garri and water only, no visits were to be paid to them. Visiting

Committees were to be abolished and other instructions pertaining to their

treatment. Unfortunately we have not found any written instruction, and we

would be most grateful if you could verify them. The only document we have

is a letter from a former Director of Prisons, seeking confirmation from the

Ministry of the Interior about detainees being served with garri and water,

but to which there was no reply.

Witness: Up to the 8th of January, 1964, I was Head of the Special

Branch, and in that capacity I was in close contact with the ex-President.

Chairman: What is Special Branch?

Witness: It is the intelligence unit of the Police Service. In the course of

my duty I knew that Dr. Danquah was taken into custody under the P.D.A.

on 1st October, 1961, and was released on 30th June, 1962.

Chairman: Did you know the reason why he was sent to prison?

Witness: No, I didnt know. On 2nd July, 1962, there was a presentation

of Lenin Peace Prize to the ex-President, and I accompanied him (ex-President)

to the State House for the function. I was very much surprised to see Dr.

Danquah there, apparently having been invited. After the ceremony Dr.

Danquah advanced and shook hands warmly with the ex-President. When we

returned to the Flagstaff House, however, the ex-President angrily asked

whether I saw Dr. Danquah shake hands with him, and I said yes. He then

went on to say that Dr. Danquah looked stronger than he was. Wondering

why Dr. Danquah who had been released from custody just a couple of days

before should be so strong, the ex-President said that the prison officials had

been feeding detainees on eggs and bacon. Afterwards the ex-President sum-

moned me, my predecessor, Mr. Madjitey, the then Minister of the Interior,

Mr. Kwaku Boateng, the then Director of Prisons and his Deputy, Mr. Moses

and the late Abban, to the Flagstaff House, and he angrily repeated what he

had said earlier on, that Dr. Danquah and the other detainees were being fed

on sumptuous food, and that henceforth detainees should be fed on garri, salt,

and water only.

Chairman: This was all verbal, wasnt it?

. Witness: Yes, verbal.

Chairman: And nothing of it was put on paper.

Witness: No. On 29th August, 1962, Tawiah Adamafio, Ako Adjei, and

; some others were taken into detention, and in the afternoon of that same day

the ex-President ordered another meeting at which Mr. Kwaku Boateng,

Mr. Moses, and I were there. He then stressed again that those who had been

; taken in should be fed on garri and water and should be taken to Condemned

ceIls and chained.

Chairman: The Prisons Department has regulations governing the treat-

ment of prisoners, and this order would appear to contravene those regulations.

t Witness: That is correct, Sir.

Chairman: Mr. Moses was the Director of Prisons at the time and he

 wrote to the Ministry of the Interior for a written confirmation on the verbal

, instruction about garri and water. Do you know whether any written reply

went from the Ministry to Mr. Moses? (Mr. Moses letter read).

! 

, Witness: I would normally not expect Mr. Kwaku Boateng to put down

. anything about this in writing. I know he was a person who never liked to take

~ any responsibility for instructions he gave, and I had been reporting it to the

ex-President hence he (Mr. Kwaku Boateng) was transferred from the Interior

Ministry.

Talking about Dr. Danquah, since that time 1 clearly noticed that the

ex-President was determined to have him (Dr. Danquah) detained again; for

on 5th October, 1962, the ex-President called me to Flagstaff House and

handed me a letter written by Dr. Danquah dated 22nd September, 1962,

instructing me to detain Dr. Danquah for subversion. When I studied the

document -r didnt find it to be subversive, so I sent for him, had him interro-

gated, and allowed him to go home. Later on I went and reported to the

ex-President that it was unlawful to take Dr. Danquah into custody because I

had found out that he was innocent of the allegation.

Mr. Acquah: Did you expect any disciplinary action taken against you

for not obeying the ex-Presidents instructions?

Witness: No, we were used to each other so I didnt expect anything of the

sort. He would be angry, but later on would calm down.

Mr. Acquah: Yes, this is how a normal, responsible officer should work

with his boss. When his boss gives an order which he knows to be unlawful, the

officer is duty-bound to draw the attention of his boss to it and should not be

afraid of doing that. Your case with the ex-President is interesting to us, because

we have found other officers who are not able to do that.

Witness: Two days after the second attempt on his life by the late Con-

stable Ametewee, the ex-President verbally instructed me to be in charge of the

interrogation unit at the Burma Camp, investigating the attempt on the ex-

Presidents life. When I arrived at the Burma Camp I saw Dr. Danquah among

those brought there for interrogation. After interrogating him (Dr. Danquah)

I concluded that he was innocent of the incident, so I released him and duly

reported it to the ex-President. On the 8th of January, 1964, I was made the

Acting Commissioner of Police, and I learnt later on that Dr. Danquah had

been arrested and sent to detention, where he remained and died.

Chairman: Would you not know of Dr. Danquahs arrest and detention?!

Witness: At that time the Police Service was divided up into different units,

so Dr. Danquahs arrest was not done by the Police.

Mr. Cameron: According to the evidence we have had, the Police Service

was divided into three parts and Special Branch being amalgamated with

the other security service so it is possible that the Commissioner of Police

would not know anything about the arrest of Dr. Danquah.

Mrs. Bartlett-Vanderpuije: Who succeeded you as Head of the Special

Branch?

Witness: Mr. Ben Fodjuor.

Chairman: Would the division of the Police Service not affect its morale?

Witness: Yes, it did greatly affect the Service. Things became very difficult

indeed to manage, as politicians went about ordering the detention of people

by the Police. This made me issue instructions that no police officer should

detain any person without my authority, and as a result of this many police

officers who were unco-operative were expelled from the Service.

Mr. Acquah: In this case you would have expelled those police officers

who detained a lot of people at Bolgatanga and Bawku if their action had

come to your notice.

Witness: Unfortunately it was my predecessor, Mr. Madjitey, who, soon

after the Kulungugu bomb incident, led some police officers there to do the

arrest and detention. Although I had nothing to do about it directly, I wrote

several letters about the release of those detainees there, but to which I had

no replies, or promises which were never fulfilled. In addition to the move

I made about it, the medical officer in that area kept on reporting that condi-

tions prevailing in the detention camp there were affecting the health of not

only the detainees but the police officers who were guarding them, because

they had no proper accommodation and they had to sleep on blankets spread

on the bare floor.

(Dr. Danquahs letter dated 22nd September, 1962, addressed to the ex

President was read) .

Mr. Acquah: The importance in this particular case was your refusal to carry

out an order which you considered unlawful, after studying this document

and concluding that there was nothing subversive about it. I think the fact

should be made clear. Not many people can be so bold in the performance of

their duties. If officers would be so responsible and be guided by the duty of

their office, this country would be saved from a lot of misfortune.

Witness: I should say that I hold a stronger view than that. If police

officers had been well educated in their duty during the pre-Independence

days, it would have made it possible for the disbanded C.P.P. and the opposi-

tion to be heard; but the fact was that the disbanded C.P.P. was allowed a

hearing by the people whereas the opposition suffered acts of hooliganism

organised against it with the connivance of the police.

Mr. Acquah: In support of what you have said, Sir, we see that you are

taking measures to raise the standard of the police by bringing in fresh blood.

In the course of our enquiry we have found that the standard of education

of the prison officers is very, very poor indeed. We also uphold the view that

the Prisons Service is a very important arm of the administration of justice

in this country, and the standard of education of its officers should be very paramount.

By A.R. Gomda
The social and economic advancement of a Diaspora community to a large extent depends on the policies, efficiency, and competence of the embassy and particularly the Ambassador in charge. The embassies have two major focuses, one is the interest of the home country, and two is the interest of the people in the Diaspora. It is no secret that the first is of paramount interest to the embassy staffs.

The complaints about the working ethics of the embassy in Berlin become a daily talked about issue. A fact finding mission to the embassy was inevitable. To avoid a long essay, lets overlook the immediate past where the Ghana Embassies worldwide had no passport booklets, which was an extremely embarrassing development in our history.

Online Passport form

Before travelling to Berlin, I visited the Ghana Embassy Berlin website: http://berlin.ghpassportonline.com/ and filled the passport forms. As a Systems Engineer, I must admit it was not user friendly, a mixture of Postal Codes as practiced in Germany and Post office Box as done in Ghana. Then again, the Calendar integrated in the program could be better, though I finally found a way out. Lets be honest we dont apply for Passports on a daily basis.

But one could tell that it is a one system for all countries approach. I would suggest that the forms be adjusted to suit the Ghanaian embassies in various countries. This is a matter of deactivating some of the buttons, and working on the default fields. The forms accept too many errors

Nevertheless lets be proud we are advancing with the technological age as a country, there is always room for improvement.

Submission of Passport forms & Processing

When, I arrived around 10.30 the passport section -/front desk was filled to capacity, I spent majority of the time there, speaking to junior staffs of the embassy, A family from Manheim, a mother and daughter from Dortmund, a man from Stuttgart, and a lot of Ghanaians from Hamburg.

Challenges noticed

My forms were full of errors, and that of a post graduate student from Hamburg as well. Some of the errors couldnt be detected by the program, while others were man-made. The inability to complete the forms well is the main challenge and the source of delay.

Names

Most Ghanaians have multiple and compound names, for instance Beddy, John Desmond then again Beddy, Desmond John. Sadly some could not tell what their surnames was. All detected errors had to be filled manually by the workers at the counter. The allocated time of 20 minutes per person is absolutely inadequate since the error rate is about 80% per applicants.

Appointments

People coming to process their passports without appointments made up about 30 percent. Those with tangible reasons were served, the question is what tangible reason is? Kofi who comes from far away Munich has to insist on seeing the Boss, since his reason was not accepted. Funerals remain the number one reason why people insist they must be considered.

Older citizens and mothers with babies without appointments are considered to the detriment of those already waiting impatiently and hungry. Everyone is served according to the time of appointment.

Finger print machine

Another addressable challenge is the finger print machine, I had to try several times before it succeeded, remember at any given time it was someone elses turn.

For the first time I felt sad for the workers, the telephone was constantly ringing, picking a call means not serving the people, and then again people dont go straight to the point. Is it about a Passport or Visa? People first begin with a very long story without coming to point.

Visa Section

The Visa section which has been separated from the Passports section was a good decision, it was quite orderly, except one could notice it was a temporary arrangement not an outstanding working environment for a staff. Ghanaians holding German Passports have complained bitterly about higher visa fees as compared to other European countries like France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. Since it is a huge source of income to the government, I advise they take advantage of the RIGHT OF ABODE, which is obtainable at the Ministry of Interior for a fee.

Dialogue with Junior Staffs

It is no secret junior staffs could not say much, these days getting a job is not easy, and nobody wants to lose his or her job. At least they revealed they sometimes work on Sundays. Then again one said they come to work as early as 6.30 in the morning.

Dialogue with the Head of Consuler Section

I first congratulated Mr. Samuel Adotey Anum, Minister and Head of Consuler section about their good works and that within a short period they have introduced Visa and Passports online. Ghanaians love good news first.

I asked our senior diplomat how many times he goes downstairs to take questions. He confirmed several times a day, and added that Mondays and Thursdays are hectic. I went straight to the point, what are you people doing to address the challenges at the Passport section?

As I came to post we used to serve about 200 people per month, but as of today we are serving about 800 people per month. The concrete step is that we have acquired two capturing and processing gadgets in addition to the existing one. Soon we shall have two staffs at the front desk at a given time. One of the gadget is a mobile system, thus we will be travelling to the major cities to capture and process the passport forms. The people are then spared the stress and time of travelling to Berlin.

We have already arranged with the community leadership in Freiburg to go and have their forms processed and Bio details captiured there. For Hamburg it is going to be easier since we already have a Consulate there.

Receiving Calls

I had difficulty asking why calls are not picked at the reception, based on what I noticed.

What could be done

A form of Ticketing System could be introduced, with first and second level support. Two or three well trained workers with adequate efficiency in English, German, and some local languages could answer calls. They can solve minor issues and forward those complicated issues to the rightful workers.

IT- Training:

The leadership should constantly be upgrading and updating their staffs with periodic training, to keep them informed since the IT world is extremely dynamic.

More Staff & System

Obviously the consular section is under staffed and needs a few more working hands. Some could be employed on four hours basis per day. From 10 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon.

Time per Applicant

Time allocated to each applicant is inadequate, it needs to increase from 20 minutes to 30 minutes or decrease the appointments per day.

Community Leadership

Community leaders like UGAG, Ghana Unions, Opinion Leaders, Chiefs and Pastors who have access to the top hierarchy should occasionally undertake familiarization tours to the Embassy, dialogue with the Embassy and propose how best their people can be served. Let us be reminded that positions goes with responsibilities.

God Bless Ghana

God Bless Germany

Desmond John Beddy / TopAfric Media Network
Admittedly, the size of the current government is big and sometimes, it becomes difficult to convince the ordinary voter to accept it because of the lifestyles of our Ministers and the expenditure on them, especially the ex-gratia.

Nonetheless, the president cannot be faulted constitutionally as there is no limit to such appointments.

But, looking at the nature of the NPP, I think you would all agree with me that, the party believes in doing big things for the country.

History tells us that, it is through the UGCC that brought the big idea of securing political independence for Ghanaians in the late 1940s.

Again, the symbol of the NPP is the elephant and everybody is aware that, the elephant is one of the biggest animals, if not the biggest in world.

Our programmes and policies as a party, have always been big - NHIA, free SHS, One District - One Factory etc.

We built the largest edifice - Jubilee House as the seat of the president, not forgetting the presidential jet.

We were the first party to present 17 aspirants and expanded the Electoral College.

Currently, we are the party with the largest following (nearly 6m) and handed the heaviest defeat (1.5m votes) to the NDC in 2016.

Therefore, as we are set to implement our "elephantic" programmes this year, let's not dwell too much on the size of the government. This is because the president has already given reasons as to why he did that: let's give him the benefit of the doubt. The sweetness of the pudding, they say, is in the eating.

The challenges facing this country are enormous, and it's my hope that the new Ministers won't rest on their oars, but work hard to justify their appointments.

Sitting afar, I would go for at least, 100 ministers, cut down their allowances, and demand high performance from them, but the president knows better than me.

Therefore, let's support the NPP to succeed because the worst of the NPP is the best of the NDC. Whilst we can assemble over 30 presidential materials within 30 minutes, the NDC is even struggling to choose just one leader for their party.

For the NPP, we stand for big ideas, programmes, and policies to improve the lives of Ghanaians significantly: we think big whilst others can't think far.

On this note, I expect every patriotic Ghanaian to lend his support the current government to succeed.

Join the winning team by being a citizen and not a spectator.

Katakyie Kwame Opoku Agyemang - Asante Bekwai-Asakyiri

(0202471070//0547851100)

"Vision, coupled with persistency, results in true success"
The National Service Secretariat (NSS) has denied reports circulating in a section of the media that it has increased allowance for service personnel by about 80 cedis.

Reports widely circulated on social media on Friday, March 24, 2017 suggested that the secretariat had effected an allowance increase from GHs350 to GHs430.

According to the secretariat, it is still engaging parliament on the approval of its budget for 2017 which captures an expected increment.

In a statement issued by the Deputy Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Gifty Oware-Aboagye said: The scheme will in due course communicate officially to the General public and our cherished personnel on the outcome of our engagements with Parliament over our budget and increments in service allowances specifically.

Service personnel in the country are expectant of an increment in allowances from the current GHs350 to GHs559.

The previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in December 2016 announced an increment to GHs559 for service personnel but the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government after assuming office in January 2017 said it could not effect the increment because it was not captured in its budget.

Read the full statement below:

NATIONAL SERVICE ALLOWANCES AND MATTERS ARISING

The Management of the National Service Scheme is asking national service personnel and the general public to disregard news making rounds that National Service Personnel Allowances have been increased from GH350.00 to GH430.00.

Management wishes to state that increment in National Service allowances featured prominently in the Scheme's budget which is currently before Parliament for appropriation.

The Scheme will therefore, in due course, communicate officially to the general public and our cherished service personnel on the outcome of our engagements with Parliament over our budget and increment in personnel allowances specifically.

Management wishes to reiterate its commitment to ensuring that the utmost interest of service personnel is protected in all engagements over increment in service personnel allowances.

Thank you.

SIGND.

GIFTY OWARE-ABOAGYE

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

(FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION)



By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The complainant in the case of Bishop Daniel Obinim and two of his pastors assault case says the assertion by defence counsel that she was hungry for cheap popularity was wrong and misplaced.

Madam Irene Abotchie-Nyahe, a legal practitioner, told an Accra Circuit Court that she had worked for a long time for the downtrodden and she did not pick on the accused persons' case to become popular.

Continuing with her cross-examination by Ralph Poku-Adusei, counsel for the accused persons, the complainant admitted that she was a passive member of the congregation International Gods way International Church through the magic of television.

According to her, as a passive member of the congregation of the church, she did not need to be a member.

The witness said she saw the abuse by the accused persons on television and a video that had gone viral.

The first prosecution witness admitted that she did not personally know the victim in the case but maintained that she had personal knowledge of their abuse.

She explained that her attention was drawn to the abuse of the victim and she personally downloaded it on the internet

According to the witness armed with the video evidence, she proceeded to the Police.

She disagreed with counsel that she was downloading every video on the internet.

The complainant said it was the abuse of the victims that attracted her attention to the matter.

She, however, did not hide from the court Obinims several videos in which she alleged that the pastor had been seen squeezing penis of some men, stamping on pregnant women in the name of healing and jumping on other people.

Bishop Obinim has been dragged before the Court for allegedly assaulting two adopted children - a 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy who lived with him in the presence of his congregation.

He is said to have conducted that act with two of his pastors namely Kingsley Baah and Solomon Abraham. The two have been charged with abetment.

They pleaded not guilty to the charges and have been granted bail in the sum of GHC10,000 with one surety each.

The Prosecution narrated that the complainant, Irene Abochie-Nyahe, was a legal practitioner residing at Community 17, Lashibi.

That on August 17, last year, at about 1700 hours, the Accra Branch of the Church held a service, at which Bishop Obinim claimed he had a revelation from God that the two alleged victims were engaged in pre-marital sex and the 14-year old girl was pregnant.

The prosecution said Obinim said the victim was in the process of aborting the pregnancy, therefore, the Holy Spirit had directed him (Obinim) to chastise the (teenagers) in the presence of the congregation.

According to the prosecution in the full glare of the church, Obinim allegedly removed his belt and assaulted them.

The prosecution said in the process, his two pastors, Baah and Abraham, prevented the female victim from running away from the said punishment.

The prosecution said the victim could not bear the pain, hence she sought refuge with Florence Obinim, but her husband asked her to stay away.

He said the assault only stopped after Obinim became content with the alleged punishment.

The case has been adjourned to March 31.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
A tale of two DPMs and Dahals trip to China

No significant deals are likely with China during Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahals visit to the northern neighbour, but as he embarked on the trip, he has made some unprecedented moves at home, and credit largely goes to his two deputy prime ministers.
President Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, discussed removing from the US a Muslim cleric wanted by Turkey, according to ex-CIA director James Woolsey.

Turkey accuses the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, of orchestrating last July's failed coup.

In a video interview, Mr Woolsey told the Wall Street Journal he was present at a discussion about removal methods beyond the legal extradition process.

Mr Flynn disputes Mr Woolsey's account.

The meeting took place last September at a New York Hotel.

Those present included Mr Flynn, then an adviser on national security to the Trump election campaign, the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, according to the WSJ (paywall).

'Brainstorming'

Mr Woolsey, then also advising the Trump campaign, admitted he might not have heard "some kind of caveat" because he arrived late for the meeting.

But he told the WSJ: "There was serious discussion of finding some way to move Mr Gulen out of the US to Turkey.

"You might call it brainstorming. But it was brainstorming about a very serious matter that would pretty clearly be a violation of law."

He went on: "It was a serious and troubling discussion but it did not, repeat not, in my portion of being in the room, rise to a level of being a specific plan to undertake a felonious act."

In a later interview with CNN , Mr Woolsey called the meeting "suspicious" and "concerning", saying: "I felt I needed to say something to somebody, but was it a clear plot that they were going to seize him? No."

A spokesman for Mr Flynn, whose consulting company Flynn Intel Group carried out work for the Turkish government, disputed Mr Woolsey's version of events.

"At no time did Gen Flynn discuss any illegal actions, non-judicial physical removal or any other such activities," he said.

Mr Gulen has lived in the US for nearly two decades (Image copyright AP)

The presence of Mr Gulen in the US has become a major irritant in relations between Washington and Ankara. Turkey has repeatedly called for him to be handed over.

Mr Gulen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies involvement in the failed coup.

Mr Flynn was forced to step down as national security adviser in mid-February after just a few weeks in post over allegations he discussed sanctions with Russia before Mr Trump took office.

Private US citizens are barred from conducting diplomacy. Mr Flynn admitted providing the vice-president with an incomplete account of his conversation with the Russian ambassador.
Warri (Nigeria) (AFP) - While Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari was receiving treatment in London for an undisclosed illness, his energetic deputy Yemi Osinbajo was wooing the country's oil heartland.

In stark contrast with Buhari, a 74-year-old former general who rarely ventures outside the capital, Abuja, the vice-president went on a whirlwind tour around Africa's most populous nation.

Out of all his stops during Buhari's 49-day absence, Osinbajo's trips to the Niger delta -- the oil-rich southern swamplands that dictate Nigeria's economic fortunes -- were the most productive.

The result: a noticable thaw in frigid relations between locals and the federal government, and a lull in attacks on oil and gas infrastructure that hit production in the last year.

"The issues are very clear, we need to act quickly and that is my submission," 60-year-old Osinbajo said during a town hall meeting held in the Delta state capital, Warri, in January.

By February 25, the federal government had released 10 oil rebels who had spent more than two months in custody.

One of them, Smith Bounanaowei, said: "I believe Osinbajo is a man that has tried in the peace process.

"My advice to the federal government is for them to follow the steps of Osinbajo in bringing peace to the region," he told AFP at his home in Yenagoa, the state capital of Bayelsa.

Hands-on approach

Osinbajo's hands-on approach has among other things raised hopes among Niger delta leaders of a return of the "Egbesu" sword, which was controversially removed from a sacred waterside shrine earlier this year.

The perpetrators were said to be Nigerian troops combing the creeks for the Niger Delta Avengers, the militant group responsible for most of the attacks in the last 12 months.

Local leaders are also hopeful that construction will resume of a maritime university near Warri that was shelved when Buhari came to power in May 2015.

"He (Osinbajo) is actually putting action to his words," said Udengs Eradiri, a former president of the Ijaw Youth Council, an umbrella body for youths in the Niger delta region.

"We are grateful to him as he has come to the peace process with an open mind and a clear conscience."

Much has been made about Osinbajo's engagement in the region, which was hit in the early 2000s by rebels also motivated by a desire to see a more equitable distribution of oil wealth for locals.

The vice-president's style certainly seems more consensual than Buhari, whose military has called the militants "economic terrorists". Buhari sent in troops while Osinbajo pushed for talks.

Nigeria's government maintains the vice-president is not ploughing his own furrow and is working with Buhari to implement his policy.

"Their role in the presidency is one. It is a ticket," one of Buhari's spokesmen, Femi Adesina, told reporters earlier in March.

"Any attempt to begin to demarcate between the president and the acting president is (an) exercise in futility."

Nevertheless, experts say Osinbajo's more collaborative approach -- notably his willingness to physically meet a variety of regional leaders on their home turf -- has been invaluable.

"Osinbajo has been busy meeting with local stakeholders, focusing on the oil communities rather than on the usual suspects, whose main concern is entitlement," said Dirk Steffen, a security analyst at the Risk Intelligence consultancy in Copenhagen.

The question now is whether Buhari, who returned to Nigeria on March 10, can keep up the momentum.

Fragile peace

Just two weeks after Buhari's return, tension in the Niger delta already appears to be mounting.

Some former militants from the previous insurgency who receive monthly 65,000-naira ($205, 190-euro) stipends to stop them taking up arms have complained that they have not been paid since December.

"The ex-militants are starting to ask when will they be paid," said Dolapo Oni, Lagos-based energy researcher at Ecobank.

On Friday, Buhari met Niger delta leaders in Abuja while Osinbajo was again in the region on his troubleshooting tour. Again he pledged a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Steffen, who tracks the region and maritime security offshore in the perilous Gulf of Guinea where high seas pirates are active, said the lull indicated a fragile peace.

"There are some indications, and a general sense of foreboding in many parts of the Delta, that the violent part of the militancy isn't over yet," he said.

"Guns and explosives are readily available and the armed groups will not disappear overnight."
Lagos (AFP) - More than 150 Nigerians, some of them in tears, broke out in song as they touched down on home soil, after months stuck in Libya waiting to try to get to Europe.

"I don't leave Nigeria again-o! I will never forget my home!" they sang.

The rain fell heavily on the runway at Lagos international airport and night was drawing in but the atmosphere on the small bus taking the new arrivals to immigration control was almost hysterical.

They broke out in loud applause, waving at onlookers curious to see who had emerged from the chartered jet that had flown in from the Libyan capital.

"I'm so happy, it's like winning the lottery," said Osapolor Osahor.

The 24-year-old tailor said life was hellish in Tripoli: the sound of gunfire was everywhere and there was a mounting toll of deaths, particularly of black Africans.

"Some are in prison for so long, six months, seven months... I was put in a cell, like four, five months before I came back," he told AFP.

Increasing numbers

Four plane-loads of Nigerian migrants have now flown back from Libya in less than two months. Since the start of the year, 660 people in total have been helped to return voluntarily.

That compares with 867 for the whole of last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is running the repatriation scheme.

Most of the Nigerians are economic migrants who want to try their luck in Europe and travelled up to the Mediterranean coast via northern neighbour Niger and the treacherous route through the Sahara desert.

But with Libya in turmoil, many found themselves trapped by violence while others were arrested and held by militia even before they had tried to make the sea crossing.

Ozoa, a mechanic, was among the 155 people who arrived back in Nigeria on Thursday. Lying on a stretcher, he didn't sing or smile.

Last year he managed to get to the port of Zawiya -- one of the main departure points for migrants -- some 45 kilometres (30 miles) west of Tripoli.

The 30-year-old had a blank look and refused to speak to reporters. He knows he won't walk again.

"He was caught in the crossfire and he was shot in his back, in the middle of the vertebrae," said Aladin Abokhsoom, a doctor who made the journey with him from the Libyan capital.

Ozoa was scheduled to be transferred to a Lagos hospital to have an operation to remove the bullet from his spine.

For him and his family who made the trip from the southern state of Edo to welcome him home, the future is now on hold.

"We sold everything we had to pay his travel to Europe. I sold my land, I spent 950,000 naira ($3,000, 2,800 euros) in total," his older brother Abu Zika explained.

"What are we going to do?"

Reintegration

The IOM gives 20,000 naira to each voluntary "returnee" to help them go home. Most are originally from southern Nigeria.

Health officials checked the returning migrants as they came off the plane from Libya

Ozoa and about 20 other people considered vulnerable -- unaccompanied minors and pregnant women for example -- will also get "in-kind" support the equivalent of 1,000 British pounds ($1,250, 1,150 euros).

According to Julia Burpee, from the IOM in Nigeria, the aim is for them to use the cash to set up a small business such as a barber's, small kiosk or some other way to reintegrate into society.

Abdulahi Bandele Onimode, from Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said those who returned were driven by a sense that the grass was greener elsewhere.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and one of the continent's main oil exporters but most of its 180 million people live in poverty: the economy is in currently in recession and unemployment is high.

Onimode said those looking to leave should stay to help the recovery "because we can build a stronger Nigeria so that those countries will now envy our own economy when we join hands to build it".

Those whose dreams have been shattered in Libya and who have returned to Nigeria may be increasing but they represent only a minority of migrants who have left for good.

Humanitarian agencies fear many will try again in other ways.

In 2016, a total of 37,551 Nigerians managed to get to the Italian coast, according to the IOM, more than those from Eritrea, Ivory Coast and The Gambia.

That figure has quadrupled since 2014, when 9,000 arrived in Italy.
Ada (GAR), March 25, GNA - Mr Ishmael Ashitey, the Greater Accra Regional Minister has urged assemblies to see themselves as key development partners to the central government.

He therefore called on them to explore other avenues to enhance revenue generation in order to step up development of their respective areas.

Mr Ashitey gave the advice when he met with the staff of Ada East and West District Assemblies in the Greater Accra Region during his working visit.

He said both districts were endowed with natural resources such as lagoons, islands and salt and that if well harnessed could generate huge revenue for development.

He asked the heads of the assemblies to take measures to woo investors to develop the tourism potential in the area for job opportunities and revenue generation.

The Regional Minister raised concern about the perennial budget deficit that had characterised almost every assembly and called for prudent management to plug financial leakages.

Mr Ashitey urged the assemblies to imbibe professionalism, transparency and accountability in all their dealings to avoid unnecessary spending.

Mr Mohammed Ziblim, the Ada West District Coordinating Director appealed to the Minister to assist the assembly with residential accommodation for some of the staff as well as additional vehicles to enable them to reach out for revenue mobilisation.

GNA
Winneba (C/R), March 25, GNA - The members of the Hope Welfare Club at Winneba-Junction have commended the government for its initiative to revive the country's railway transport system.

The commendation was made in a seven-point resolution by the club at a meeting to support the government with prayers at the end of every month, to achieve its socio-economic targets.

Mr Charles Kwabena Okyere, the Patron of the Club said the revitalisation of the railway system would contribute enormously to help improve transportation and create job opportunities for the citizenry.

He described the 2017 budget as a well set out programme which would require the collective support, commitment and co-operation of all Ghanaians, irrespective of their political, ethnic and religious affiliations to ensure its total realisation.

Mr Okyere called on the people to embark on tireless prayers for strong divine protection, wisdom, courage and good health for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his ministers to steer the affairs of the nation successfully.

He appealed to Ghanaian workers to put aside partisanship and render dedicated and committed services for the country.

The Patron encouraged ministers, metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives to always strive to welcome divergent views from all political divide which could help them to efficiently discharge their respective national assignments.

Mr Okyere appealed to the members of the Council of State to help the government to carry out its agenda to meet the aspirations of creating better living standards for Ghanaians.

He called on religious bodies to continuously offer prayers for the country for national peace, unity, stability and socio-economic advancement of the economy.

He appealed to Mr Kwamena Duncan, the Central Regional Minister and Mr Afenyo Markin, Member of Parliament for Effutu to offer dedicated services to the people so as to maintain the confidence reposed in them.

GNA
Julius K. Satsi, GNA

Accra, March 24, GNA- The European Union (EU) is celebrating 60 years of the signing of the treaties of Rome to reaffirm the commitment to the values and objectives on which the European project was founded.

In a statement signed by Mrs Rejoice Esi Asante, the Press, Information and Communication Officer of the delegation of European Union to Ghana, by coincidence, March 1957 was not only the month of Ghana's independence but also the birth of EU.

'Since the birth of the European Communities in 1957, the citizens of our member States have enjoyed six decades of unprecedented peace, prosperity and security. The contrast to the first half of the 20th Century could not be greater,' the statement said.

The statement said although, two catastrophic wars in Europe between 1914 and 1945 left millions dead, and a continent devastated, divided and prostrate, European integration had been the most successful peace project especially for countries that had long been at war.

The statement said: 'We are living in unpredictable times and the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaties is the opportunity not only to reaffirm our commitment to the values and objectives on which the European project is founded but also to take pragmatic and ambitious steps forward.'

The EU was Ghana's first trading partner, top investor and leading source of development assistance, the statement adding that there was the need to deliberate on how to reinforce the close relationship.

The statement said a more fragile international environment called for greater engagement, not for retrenchment. 'This is why the EU will continue to support and help the United Nations.'

'Our cooperation with the UN covers peace missions, diplomatic efforts, human rights, tackling hunger and fighting criminality.

The European Union is also a strong and active partner of regional organizations such as ECOWAS and the Africa Union.'

"We stand for multilateralism, for human rights, for international cooperation. We stand for sustainable development, inclusive societies, the fight against all inequalities - in education, in democracy and human rights. For us, this is not just aid: it is also a smart investment in our own security and prosperity.'

The statement assured that EU would continue to promote international peace and security, development cooperation, human rights and respond to humanitarian crises at the heart of its foreign and security policies.

GNA
Cairo (AFP) - Egypt said on Saturday it would resume importing meat from Brazil after a brief suspension following allegations that exporters in the Latin American country had sold tainted beef and poultry.

"We suspended it (this week) until we found out what happened and now it's back, but we won't import anything from slaughter houses or factories that have a problem," said Mona Mehrez, a deputy to the agriculture minister.

Brazilian meat exports were worth $63 million a day until last week's announcement by police of "Operation Weak Flesh," which revealed that some meatpackers had paid crooked inspectors to pass off rotten and adulterated meat as safe.

Brazil's government had appealed Wednesday to the World Trade Organization's (WTO) 163 other members not to impose "arbitrary" bans on the country's more than $13 billion meat export industry.
Cotonou (AFP) - Benin is asking for the return of treasures that were taken during French colonial rule from the end of the 19th century, re-opening a thorny diplomatic issue that resonates across Africa.

Lawmakers and civil society groups from both countries have written to French President Francois Hollande, calling for the return of "colonial treasures", including royal thrones and swords.

Many are now on display in French museums, including the Quai Branly in Paris, which exhibits indigenous art from across the world.

Signatories to the open letter, which was published this week, described the objects as having "an exceptional spiritual and proprietary value for the Benin people".

France ruled Dahomey until 1960, when it was granted independence and changed its name to Benin. Dahomey included the kingdom of the same name that dates back to about 1600.

Most of the artefacts have not been documented but Benin's ambassador to the UN cultural body UNESCO in Paris, Irenee Zevounou, believes some 4,500 to 6,000 are in France, including in private collections.

France's stockpiling of treasures from Dahomey happened during colonial fighting between 1892 and 1894 but also by missionaries who "robbed communities of what they considered to be charms", said Zevounou.

"The negotiations are both with the French state and the French church", he added.

'Historic assets'

Modern-day Benin's President Patrice Talon railed against French influence in its former colony during the election campaign that brought him to power last year.

He said the repatriation of such treasures would allow people "to get to know better our cultural and historic assets" and also allow the tiny west African nation to develop tourism.

"We don't have oil, we don't have gold but we do have these treasures which aren't kept here," one of the letter's signatories, Beninese lawmaker Orden Alladatin, told AFP.

"That's crucial for the history of the country and the continent."

Benin first called for the return of its treasures in July last year, then in September it made a formal request to France's foreign ministry.

This month, Benin's foreign affairs and culture ministers travelled to the French capital. Another delegation is expected to follow suit.

In the letter, Hollande is asked to make "a gesture for history, a gesture for the future, a gesture for the friendship between peoples" in his last weeks in power before two-round presidential polls in April and May.

But the problem may not be as simple and as easily resolvable as it first appears.

For one, Benin has not drawn up a list of objects that it wishes to reclaim. But the main stumbling block is legal.

Diplomatic route

Benin's government stated earlier this month that it intended to rely on the UNESCO convention of 1970, which provides for "the transfer to cultural assets to their countries of origin or for their restitution in case of illegal appropriation".

But the convention, to which France and Benin are both signatories, is not retroactive: it only applies to the transfer of objects since it came into force.

France's foreign ministry is pushing this line and relying on "the legal principles of inalienability and imprescriptibility... of public collections", one official told AFP in an email.

"Since the works have been in museum collections often for more than a century, they are inalienable," added lawyer Yves-Bernard Debie, who specialises in art sales law.

"The other legal problem which is raised here is the actual origin of the objects. The Kingdom of Dahomey stretched across what is now Benin and Nigeria. Is Benin justified in making this request?

"In a personal capacity I understand... it's a painful and sensitive issue in Africa. But legally, there's nothing."

Benin's only recourse is therefore the diplomatic route, the same that its giant neighbour to the east, Nigeria, has used to try to get back artefacts taken by British colonialists in the same period.

"Talks are ongoing and have not stopped," said one member of the Benin delegation to UNESCO.

"It will perhaps be lengthy, because the process is difficult," added Zevounou. "But in diplomacy, you always end up by finding common ground."
The Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) has made a strong case for the government to clamp down on all importers of illegal products into the market if it is to provide fair competition in the industry.

The Chamber argues that the perpetuation of the act led to a revenue loss of about 490 million cedis in 2016 alone.

The Chief Executive of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, Senyo Hosi also tells Citi Business News the development, if unchecked could render legal operators in the industry insolvent and in extreme cases, inoperable.

Illegal products have flooded the market; people claim to be exporting products but drop them here. Losing a minimum of 490 million cedis is a major problemI bring in products in a legitimate way and I have to pay taxes and that will affect my final pricing but those who import illegal products will sell at a lower price because there is no tax component factored into the pricing, he said.

Mr. Hosi added, If I am forced to reduce my prices, that will be unfair to meWe must clamp down on the illegality and make sure things are consistent; people cannot keep evading taxes unfairly while others are subjected to pay.

The CBOD boss was speaking at the AGM of the Chamber in Accra.

Debt to BDCs estimated at 1.78 billion cedis

He further bemoaned how the government's indebtedness is hampering the activities of the industry.

Currently, the government is indebted to the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) to the tune of about 1.78 billion cedis.

This was after total receipts of about 1.024 billion cedis from the government in the last quarter of 2016 and 47 million cedis in January 2017.

The debt comprises Forex Loss Under-recoveries (FLUR), Real Value Factor (RVF) and FLUR interest.

Other concerns highlighted by the CBOD centered on regulations to guide the role of government's support to parastatal agencies.

In the Chamber's view, the policies should among others create a level playing ground for all players to benefit from the market.

Outlook for 2017

Though the Chamber views 2016 as a challenging one, it is, however, hopeful that 2017 provides an opportunity to turn around its dwindling fortunes.

This will also require responsible competition and astute management of its operations.



By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
Africas political cracks, as wide as these are, call for an examination to make clear the eventual fixes. For all the credit that can be given to the continents efforts, the challenges remain and need addressing. Even if fighting corruption appears to be high on the agenda, the typicality of the approaches is not without questioning. Politically at best, Africas performance remains disappointingly patchy. Independence for all that it promised has not made the breakthrough for the time that this framework has been in place. This paper examines the challenges by way of focusing on the fixes.

Politically, Africas neglect of her population in the underdevelopment that this entails can be cited as the fundamental flaw. This paper will refer to this as the African condition. By this, the damage of centuries of colonialism can be taken into account as being instrumental in the continents slow pace. Africa, for all the meanings that she wants to put to democracy is politically tied-back thus resulting in selling a falsehood to her population that abbreviates their expectations. The fact that this has not backfired, has to be credited as the goodwill, patience and well-meaningfulness on her part.

Independence if anything has added its own layer to the political cracks. Owing to this, Africans can be blamed directly for the failures and shortcomings. In part, the challenge means the reverse-engineering as the start from this point. Moreover, removing the hidden colonialism that has kept a stranglehold on Africas vast wealth is a must. The farcical day-to-day political enactment by Africans hides this painful truth which has to be admitted before the fixes can start. If anything, the scramble for Africas resources has just taken on the added complications of the political corruption and greed.

On the basis of the independence that the continent claims to have won can be radically questioned just on the basis of what is on the ground. The African condition has even invented labels that ensure that nothing can be done politically to tackle the underlying corruption and greed that comprises of the historical pillaging of Africas wealth. Worst, the top-down democracy made evitable confuses the fundamental question of who benefits from the status quo. For all the constitutional processes that the continent can come-up-with, what is meant by African liberation remains in question.

Sadly, the statement that Africa is fantastically corrupt can be made on the pretext that it will not be properly challenged. Yet, this is the reality has to be at the forefront of African thinking. Otherwise, what are the likes of Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and so forth being credited for when democracy is talked about? As such, even the xenophobia of late is not accorded to its right causes. Worst, Africa will go to war to justify pretexts that are made obvious by the political cracks. This paper owes as part of its integrity to be truthful about the status quo that has been kept as the norm.

As seen in the crisis of Liberia, Rwanda, Serra Leone and so forth, it is hard to get an African analysis let alone radical thought to this end. Helped by the continents lazy media, stereotypical views that Africans cannot manage their own affairs become unavoidable although these are without basis. Coupled with the colonial hangover, almost amateurish methods can be employed to scheme carnage, damage and dependency on a scale that slows Africa down further. Moreover, the silence of Africans protesting this, remains as a formidable hurdle to the eventual fixes.

Still, the strategy or solution holds at its core, the living conditions of the people rather than the political elite that exist as the result. Under this, the understanding of what Africans has to do must be asserted as achievable, believable and doable. This is critical to steer away from the crippling onslaught of aid and loans. Critically, the renaissance that the continent has envisioned has to put into focus. Politically, Africa cannot vote and then trust that miracles will happen. The hopes and aspirations of Africans must be carried towards the respected position that will prompt the genuine partnership to their cause.

In other words, the political cracks must be read as being resolvable on the basis that Africa has the resources and means for doing so. Next, these call for the focus with the value-base down of breaking the African condition. Thirdly, this makes imperative the bottom-up approach to carry people as part of the outcome. Moreover, peace has to be given the criticality that is linked to Africas economic well-being. Concluding, the required focus must bring together all the elements under the confidence, competence and consistency that Africa can do brave, outstanding and great things.

Richmond Quarshie
Chinese Defence Minister returns home

Wrapping up his three-day visit to Nepal, Chinese Defence Minister and State Councilor, General Chang Wanquan returned home on Saturday.
Ghanas democracy, at best, is nothing more than an elaborate maze. Even if this sounds harsh, this statement is not made lightly. At stake is the question of what Ghanaians benefit as the impact of their democracy? Looking at Africa on a whole, Ghana can take-pride in her high-rating so long as she does not overlook the faults or drawbacks. Moreover, it will be pretentious to deny, doubt or dismiss these. For Ghanaians, this realisation is critically required to bring a balance to their outlook on democracy. The paper puts forward this glimpse of the actual picture to help with a meaningful approach.

Admirably, Ghana does not have the problem of leaders refusing to go after their term. Yet John Mahamas humility in the face of defeat merits regard as a statement or encouragement. Nevertheless, this does not overlook the nature of previous handovers. Having said this, Ghana has settled into a democratic maze that makes this examination necessary. For this reason, any lessons that can be learnt as the result of this will be useful at all levels. To this end, this paper must start with the question of what Ghanaians are celebrating as democracy.

To be precise, Nana Akufo-Addos winning margin does not lay Ghanas challenges to rest. Specifically, her party-political positioning has reached a point that can be democratically questioned or cautioned to say the least. For all the positives that are abstractable, the winner-takes-all dispensation warrants a rethink. However, this cannot happen without examining the entrenched effects of colonialism for its reminder of the powerful adage of the elephant that has been killed that selected-hands on all sides of the party-divide have taken it in turns to make the most of the spoils.

Disappointedly, the revolution that Ghanaians often refer to was in truth, nothing more than a ripple that took a few more to the top. As such, the NDCs rendition that infrastructure was not enough to win them power is more worrying as a statement. Indeed, the same can be said of the excerpts of economic hardship, political arrogance, grassroots disaffection and so forth that have become apparent. Immediately, questions can be asked about the inclusivity that is regarded of democracy. In the same way, the distinction made between Ghanaians as citizens or spectators has to be reviewed.

Any arguments that come up therefore must make-sense of the linkages between democracy and the living conditions of Ghanaians. Similarly, so should any critique of the institutions, politicians, civil servants and so forth that comprise of its functioning. If it has to be said, the citizenry is almost forgotten after the curtain goes up on presidential inauguration. Particularly, for a large section of Ghanaians, they remain none-the-better by the experience. So the reports of party supporters on the rampage of taking control should be knocking some sense in Ghana.

As a statement, the frustrations say it plainly as to what is at stake. Within society, for example, the difference can be taken as attributed to the will, effort, resourcefulness and so forth of the citizenry. Importantly, Ghanaians must take-on an analysis that sees the chickens coming home to roost. Democracy, for all that it has been dressed-up to be, has to make evident and relevant the focus of development. Ghanaians, to this matter, cannot be apathetic, naive or politically-bias about this outlook. Moreover, its proximity to the question of who-gets-what of Ghanas wealth speaks for itself.

The ballot box, even if it has to symbolise everything, has to address the misconceptions of the said maze. Ghana can no longer hide the reality that most of her wealth continues to be in the hands of a selected-few while the rest shuffer and schmile as Flea Kuti is forced to sing. Democratically, this fact is what Ghanaians are now questioning. Whilst, not justifying the criminality and lawlessness in the wake of the last elections, the wake-up call is sounded. Importantly, those at the centre of this have made-clear frustrations that reverberate onto the sharing of Ghanas national cake.

For all the excitement, songs-repertoire right through to the colourfully-impressive inauguration ceremony, it is time that the impact is made-known. Democracy in Ghanas case has to hold reverence for the living conditions of Ghanaians. For all the show-boating, leaving this out of the picture only places the real truth in doubt. Worst, the typology of the few that continue to enjoy while the rest just tighten-their-belts is as embarrassing as it is noticeable. Moreover, how long can Ghana get away with this script whilst hiding behind the overkill of change promises?

The tsoboi mentality that Ghanaians toss-in as part of democracy has a place so long as it gives and makes sense of the impact. Even so, outlets of this must align with their living conditions and advancement. As a nation, Ghana cannot keep-up a democratic pretence whilst the impact remains in question. In truth, she can make what she wants of this but Ghanaians must appreciate the difference to bring in their contribution. The democratic maze that is viewed in this glimpse strikes an urgent note that Ghana must make of its purpose, practice and impact rather than just revel in what she is said o have.

Richmond Quarshie
Author

25.03.2017 LISTEN

Good afternoon fellow Ghanaians. The Holy Bible teaches us to live at peace with one another.

This is captured in Romans 12:18 "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone"

Peace could be defined as the state of being free from any kind of human conflict and violence.

It is a fact based on several research findings that, all the activities of a country runs smoothly in the situation of peace.

Peace is, therefore, a sign of development and prosperity. lt is again evident that Human rights are not violated when there is peace.

People can then walk freely from one place to another without having any fear in their mind, others do their daily businesses without any obstruction and most importantly respecting other's rights through rule and order.

Peace helps to promotes human rights, democratic norms and value.

Developmental process cant go ahead without peace and harmony.

Peace is therefore the mother of civilization but the behaviour of the invincible forces of NPP is a demon of destruction.

It is very sad, disheartening, disgusting, disgraceful and an affront to our democracy the gross misbehaviour of the invincible forces of the NPP after the President Nana Addo had won the 2016 general election.

They committed a lot of atrocities and brutalities in the country causing harm to several individuals and destroying property as well.

It was very sad and unthinkable how ASP Bruce who was a guard at the Flagstaff House during former president John Mahamas tenure was badly molested at the Flagstaff House by these invincible forces even in his uniform.

As a country we are only yet to read the outcome of that investigation on such a lawless act perpetuated at the presidency.

The Waste Management Group, Zoomlion did accused the Invincible Forces of forcefully taking over a mini waste transfer station belonging to the company.

This the company insists has caused financial loss to them and dire environmental consequences to the residents in the Tema metropolis.

The mini transfer station at the Presby Junction at Ashaiman, temporarily holds refuse for onward transfer to Kpone, where it is recycled he said.

This issue was again reported in the media just three days ago that it is likely to pose an epidemic. So one will ask whether we are now in a lawless state.

As for the seizure of toll booth it was as if they were in competition across the country.

Their lawless behaviour was largely extended to members and sympathizers of the NDC Party and this made the national executives of the party as a matter of urgency organized a peaceful protest in order walk across the streets of Accra to draw the attention of the international community against the attitude of these miscreants calling themselves Invincible Forces of the NPP.But had to call it off due to reasons which l will explain soon.

The name of the invincible forces again surfaced about 5days ago in the recent heartbreaking disaster which occurred at the Kintampo Waterfalls claiming several lives and others receiving treatment at the hospital.

It was shocking Nana Obiri Boahene came and supported their lawless action though. So Ghana at age 60 we cannot still call a spade a spade?What is wrong is wrong let us learn not to justify it.

It must be recalled that, the NDC requested for President Nana Add to disband and demobilise his illegal vigilante group, the Invincible Forces with immediate effect. This call was ignored by him.

Surprisingly the NPP came out and said it would not disband the group because it formed it at a time when the police refused it protection under the erstwhile NDC regime.

So now is NPP in opposition or in government?So they want this group to be causing problems around the country abi?

Nana Obiri Boahene is on record to have said over his dead body would they dissolved the invincible forces. So why is he so much interested in the operation of this miscreants?Does he believes in peace at all?

These ugly happenings became a worry to all Ghanaians then fortunately though late to some of us looking at how long the issues stayed the President in delivering the State of the Nation's Address on the floor of Parliament said "Mr. Speaker certain incidents occurred during the transition period which are matters of concerns to me and should be to every Ghanaian as has marred a dignified and successful transition.

Wrong doing has no political colour and I do not subscribe to the lawlessness of political parties supporters, simply because their party has been elected into office.

I condemn all such conducts and I call on all political parties especially the NPP and NDC to ensure that this is the last time such an undignified acts occurring during our transition period,the President entreated"

According to him,he instructed the former Inspector General of Police (IGP) John Kudalor to arrest law breakers of irrespective of suspects political affiliations which his successor David Asante-Appeatu also acted upon it to bring situation under control.

This statement made by the President was even applauded by the NDC party and made them to called off their already planned protect walk against such atrocities.

So one will say,after the Father of state has spoken definitely there must be calm and tranquility especially when the invincible forces belongs to the NPP or?

The question l therefore want to ask is whether the invincible forces have respect for President Nana Addo? If yes then why will they snub his orders and if no why?

The invincible forces have done it again on Friday when they stormed the Regional Coordinating Council in Nhyeiso which is the seat of the Ashanti regional minister.

They broke Louvre blades vandalised furniture and ransacked the office of one of the regions topmost security capos George Agyei in one swift move of unhindered bravado.

This their recent lawlessness shows clear disrespect for President Nana Addo based on his earlier orders. Have they grown wings and can no longer be handled?Nana Obiri Boahene must help us find answer to this question.

The President Nana Add has said,we should all be citizens and not spectators in order to develop the country.

Against that background l am calling on civil society organizations, human right activists,religious leaders etc to call on President Nana Addo to dismoblize the invincible forces of the NPP before it becomes something else.

A stitch in time they say saves nine.So act now Mr President!

God save our homeland Ghana from the hands of these miscreants calling themselves invincible forces.
Prophet T B Joshua is arguably one of the leading men of God in Africa who are held in high esteem the world over. He has followers not only in Nigeria but in all parts of the world. However due to his uncommon style in prosecuting evangelism, he is fast becoming unreliable prophet of doom. He is noted for waiting for disasters including natural happenings to occur before coming out to talk of having prior knowledge of them. He has often come out to claim knowledge of disasters in all parts of the world and election victories of persons such as Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo and general Mohammadu Buhari. However, when he ventured to predict the 2016 presidential elections in the United States of America he failed miserably.

After Temitope Joshua had predicted a narrow win for Hilary Clinton in the just concluded U.S. presidential election, Mrs. Clinton lost to Donald Trump of the Republican Party on Tuesday. Mr. Trump won over 270 electoral college votes to secure victory.

Nigerians trooped to social media to mock Mr. Joshua (popularly known as TB Joshua), the founder of The Synagogue Church of All Nations, for the failure of his prophesy to come to pass.

To save himself from disgrace TB Joshua who said a woman will win turned round to say that

you people didn't hear me clearly, I said woolman, the person whose hair on his head looks like wool. Lies eh?

It was not the first time TB . Joshua had come under public scrutiny over his acclaimed prophetic powers. When, in 2014, a refurbished six-storey building inside his church premises collapsed killing 116 people, mostly South Africans, many questioned the preachers inability to foresee an incident of such magnitude.

As expected T B Joshua has jumped into the disaster that struck the monarchy and people of the United Kingdom.

A video footage has surfaced on YouTube about how founder and General Overseer of the Synagogue Church of All Nation, SCOAN, Prophet T.B. Joshua, claimed he predicted the terror attack that took place near the United Kingdom Parliament Building at Westminster, London.

Prophet Joshua reportedly gave a televised prophetic message at the SCOAN, regarding an attack on Sunday, June 19, 2016, and tasked members of the congregation to pray for the nation, the United Kingdom.

He said,  Pray for the United Kingdom. I am seeing a strange thing happening to an innocent person. It is not yet over. They should pray and secure their lawmakers and their institutions. It can be recall that terror returned to the streets of London on Wednesday, March 22, as the UK parliament was attacked, leaving no fewer than five dead and about 40 injured. However, this is not the first time T.B Joshua would claim he prophesied about a terror attack. Emmanuel TV also released a video where the Prophet claimed he prophesied the terror attack that took place in the southern French city of Nice.

However, a whole lot of readers on line consider the man of God as an opportunist who has specialized in taking advantage of the people. Most of the people said his predictions are not God sent, otherwise he could have been warned about the disaster that befell his church in Lagos. Others felt that predicting terrorist act in England and any European nation is not difficult for anybody knows that all European nations are targets of terrorists.

Like all men of God, he has his good parts praying for people and nations and offering counsel. He must continue the good evangelical duties and avoid the dangerous paths of predictions and prophesies likely to place him in bad light.
BrasAlia (AFP) - Brazil won a major victory Saturday in the fight to restore credibility amid a tainted meat scandal, with key markets China, Egypt and Chile lifting their bans on its products.

The announcement of the reopening of the Chinese market to Brazilian meat imports did not come from Beijing, but from Brazilian agriculture minister Blairo Maggi who said the decision "attests to the rigor and quality of the Brazilian sanitary system."

Though the minister said China had "fully reopened" its market, he also noted China would maintain import restrictions on meat from 21 Brazilian processing plants under investigation.

President Michel Temer, in a statement, welcomed China's decision as an "acknowledgement of reliability" and expressed his "total confidence" that "other countries will follow the example of China."

Brazil, South America's largest economy and the world's largest meat exporter, has been reeling since March 17 when Brazilian police announced "Operation Weak Flesh."

The two-year investigation revealed that some meatpackers had paid crooked inspectors to pass off rotten and adulterated meat as safe.

Major markets

China quickly suspended all Brazilian meat imports on Monday, and Hong Kong followed suit the next day.

China is the second-largest importer of Brazilian beef, after Hong Kong, with more than $703 million in imports in 2016. For both meat and poultry, China also was in second place with nearly $859.5 million in imports.

Two other countries -- Egypt and Chile -- announced Saturday the resumption of meat imports from Brazil, with exceptions.

"We suspended it (this week) until we found out what happened and now it's back, but we won't import anything from slaughterhouses or factories that have a problem," said Mona Mehrez, a deputy to the agriculture minister in Egypt, the third-largest importer of Brazilian beef, at $551.2 million.

Chile said it was lifting the ban except on imports of beef, pork and poultry from the 21 plants under investigation.

Chile, the sixth-largest importer of Brazilian meat, at more than $300 million, had suspended all imports Monday, prompting Brazil to threaten retaliatory measures against its Latin American trade partner.

Other markets, including the European Union, Japan and Mexico, have announced bans on imports from the 21 businesses under investigation.

Damage control

Officials have been scrambling to contain the damage, both domestically and with trade partners. Police have arrested more than 30 people and three plants have been closed.

The scandal has rocked one of the strongest sectors in Brazil's economy, which has been grappling with its worst recession for more than two years.

Brazilian meat is exported to more than 150 countries, with principal markets as far apart as Saudi Arabia, China, Singapore, Japan, Russia, the Netherlands and Italy.

Sales in 2016 reached $5.9 billion in poultry and $4.3 billion in beef, according to Brazilian government data.

On Wednesday, the government appealed to the World Trade Organization's 163 other members not to impose "arbitrary" bans on the country's more than $13 billion meat export industry.

In its letter to the WTO, Brazil pressed its message that a few bad apples are at fault for the scandal and that the Brazilian food industry itself is in good health.

It pointed out that of 11,000 employees at the agriculture ministry, 2,300 work as inspectors on animal products and "only 33 individuals are being investigated for improper conduct."

The president several times has pointed out that only 184 consignments of meat were deemed by importers to be in violation of standards, among the 853,000 consignments exported in 2016.
Police in the Ashanti Region have arrested one person in connection with the attack on the Regional Security Coordinator, George Adjei.

The suspect, Kwadwo Bamba who is believed to be the organiser of the vigilante group Delta Force, stormed the premises of the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council with some thugs, demanding the removal of Mr. Adjei.

The group said they cannot work with Mr. Adjei who was recently appointed by President Akufo-Addo, because he did not contribute to the party's electoral success.

A statement from the Ghana Police Service said the suspect is currently assisting the Police with investigations.

Confirming the arrest to Citi News, the Deputy Public Relations officer of the Ashanti Regional Police Command, Chief Inspector Godwin Ahianyo said more arrests will be made soon.

We have made one arrest in the person of Kwadwo Bamba. An auto mechanic. He is in our custody assisting with investigations. We are just assuring the public that we will make sure that whoever was involved will be picked and assist in investigations.

He further asked those who were involved in the attack to report themselves to the Police, saying we are also asking those who were involved to make themselves available to the Police because at all cost we will make sure that whoever is picked is made to face the full rigors of the law.

The NPP's election victory in 2016 was followed by widespread reports of people believed to be NPP supporters taking over toll booths, public toilets and other state installations.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
25.03.2017 LISTEN

Part I

Mankind seems to be living on the brink of a time set for the fulfillment of certain events foretold by Yahuwah Elohiym, the Most High One, as a prelude to the destruction of all life on Earth, in order for Him to usher in His Day of Judgment of all flesh!

Typical of these events being fulfilled in todays dispensation is the revelation concerning a proliferation of knowledge and a scramble for it (knowledge) mentioned in DaniEl (Daniel) 12:4 of the scriptures!

And so, anyone living in this dispensation, blessed to be filled with and led by Ruwakh HaQuodeshthe true and genuine spirit of knowledge and wisdomand who would be diligent in his search for knowledge, will have so much of it given to him by the Most High One in order for him too to share same with his generation!!

Note that it is wrong and unacceptable for English translators of the Ivrit (Hebrew??) scriptures to seek to equalize Ruwakh HaQuodesh to Holy Ghost/Spirit, and that such an equalization results in an obvious error or deception to believers of the English Bible, since no two or more proper names existing in differing languages or cultures, such as Ivrit and English, should ever be attempted to be equalized to be same or equal in value, power, meaning, sound, effect, etc.! This is so because, in script translations, names and titles of people, names of towns and places and tribes, feast names and, indeed, all proper nouns so named, are deemed untranslatable from any one language or culture to another.

In this era of knowledge acquisition concerning the ways of the Most High One, I am very happy to say I am highly blessed by Yahuwah Elohiym and also privileged to have been led by Him into some irrefutable scripture-based revelations and or knowledge, which I am also mandated by Him to share with the world; All of which prove that the special kindred of humanity that was begotten out of the loins of Avraham as the first born son of Yahuwah Elohiymcf. Shemot (Exodus??) 4:22and from which the Savior of mankind, Yahushua HaMashakhYahu, descended, is eternally Negro (Black??)!!

Yes, you read me well in this statement of mine!! The Savior of mankind is eternally Negro, and this truth I am mandated to reveal to readers of this article! Yes indeed, Yahushua, the Son of the Most High One, the only Savior who can save mankind from every evil and sin and is also known as the Beginning and the Ending, is Negro, having been thus begotten by his Av (Father?)!!

Therefore, whoever salvation seekers have come to know and accept as having begotten Yahushua must Himself be Negro to beget a Negro! Conclusively, therefore, Yahuwah Elohiym, the Most High One, the Av of Yahushua, is Negro too! Can your mind grasp this truth?? Well, my mind can; simply because Negro (Black) begets all colors while no color begets black!!

It is evident that the Negro race on Earth has been the most abused, enslaved, tortured and despised of all people by its other fellow earthlingsbe they white, yellow, red or whatever!! It therefore seems obvious that all who hate and oppress the Negro race, from time immemorial, have all been led and empowered by HaSatan the GOD of this world simply because HaSatan hates the Most High One to bits, and thus His only true seed, the Negro, too!!

You see, as Yahushua who is Negro came from Shamayim (Heaven??) to his own people on Earth, a truth we learn from the Holy Ivrit scriptures in YahuKhanan (John??) 1:11, he is deemed to have come directly and purposely to his fellowsthe people of the Negro racewho are the most enslaved people of all humanity by HaSatan the GOD of this world in order to do the work of salvation and redemption of them from the hand of HaSatan, in fulfillment of promises made by his Av to His own created mankind!

But one may ask: How can we know in all certainty that Yahushua is Negro and that even his Av Himself is Negro too?? Well, the answer to the latter part of this question is very simple; for as is commonly said: like father like son!! That notwithstanding, we receive revelation and understanding from the substance of three pieces of scripture that are recorded in several locations, even in a highly blemished English Bible, as irrefutable evidence that Yahushua and his Av are both Negro colored!

This irrefutable evidence also establishes the fact that all of the brethren of Yahushua, all of whom must be the true children of Yisroel, must all be Negro eternally, by virtue of their status as the first born son of Yahuwah Elohiym!! Furthermore, all branches (inclusive even of the wild kind) that are foretold to be grafted, spiritually, into the holy HaGefen HaAmittit (the True Vine)cf. YahuKhanan (John??) 15:1-5, Romiyim (Romans??) 11:11-24to form a body for and of Yahushua must all be Negro, and NOT otherwise, in order not to create and establish incompatibility and confusion in the entire HaGefen HaAmittit, the only true spiritual body of Yahushua, made to exist and live in two worldsShamayim (Heaven) and HaAretz (Earth)!!

It must be said that even though all Negro is Black in skin color, not all Black skinned people are Negro. And so, not all of Black Africa is Negro!! This is so because there are two types of hair texture for all Black peopleone is a woolly texture for the Negro and the other, though close to being woolly is a curly or silk-like texture, for such Black people as the Ethiopian, Somali, and Fulani of Africa!

So then, the true Negro race is distinct from all others in physical appearance in two ways, namely; the unique texture of hair on his head and a black complexion of his skin! The Negro is the only race with a hair texture of wooland this is so for Yahuwah Elohiym, Yahushua, and all children of Yisroel, as revealed from the scriptures. This same wool-textured hair, unlike any other human hair texture, can also develop to have locks of hair in it if left in its natural state, untendered or undisturbed through combing, brushing, perming by chemical application, and plaiting, and allowed to be controlled by its Maker alone!!

This being the case, we can infer that the vows for a Nazir (Nazarite??), spelled out for him (her) by Yahuwah Elohiym in Bamidbar (Numbers??) 6:1-5, are instructions meant for only the Negro since it is only the Negro, out of all the races of the world, who can leave or allow the hairs on his head to grow and develop into locks (cf. verse 5, ibid)! Now, since Bamidbar and the whole Towrah, or even the entire Tanakh, were once upon a time a record of the instructions of Yahuwah Elohiym to ONLY Yisroel [and to their servants living with them in their habitations], it means that all of Yisroel is eternally Negro!! And, in fact, it is only Negro people who can truly and fully obey this particular Towrah of Yahuwah Elohiym to allow the hairs on their heads to grow freely and naturally develop into locks!

Again we read from Shofetim (Judges??) 16:13, 19, that Shimshon (Samson??), one of the sons of Yisroel of the house of Dan who was made to be a Nazir by Yahuwah Elohiym at conception in his mothers womb (cf. Shofetim 13:4-5), had locks of hair, developed naturally for him by Yahuwah Elohiym when he became of age; and in and by these locks of hair, extraordinary physical strength was given to him by Yahuwah Elohiym in order for him (Shimshon) to, singlehandedly, physically subdue and tame the nation of Pelishtim (Philistines??)!!

So then, if the physical strength in Shimshon was indicative, and a representation and show or display, of the might and glory of Yahuwah Elohiym manifested against Pelishtim, for and on behalf of the children of Yisroel, so also were all the hairs and locks of hair on the head of Shimshon to be seen to stand for this might and glory of Yahuwah Elohiymfor it must be obvious that holiness and power of Yahuwah Elohiym are locked up in the facial hairs of His servants!!

A rugged-looking navi (prophet??) who was greatly endowed with lots of rich facial hairs throughout his adult life, ElYahu (Elijah??), was also one of the greatest servants ever of Yahuwah Elohiym!! Please read a little about this choice navi of mine in Melekim Sheni (Second Kings??) 1:7-8.

And do please understand that the description of this navi in these verses in being hairy in outlook was all about his facial appearance of untendered hair with locks on his head, a full beard kept within its limits or borders as ordained for it by Yahuwah Elohiym, replete with a moustache and side burns, etc., and NOT about what hairs were to be found beneath his clothes!!

I can assure you that I would have ran to serve this choice navi of mine in order to worship and serve Yahuwah Elohiym under his tutelage, if I had lived in his day, without even being called to such service which one other man, Elisha, was blessed to be called to and succeeded him as navi after his demise!!

Yet another holy navi by name YechezkEl (Ezekiel??), because he was a Negro of Yisroel, came to have his hairs develop into locks of themselves, supposedly in fulfillment of vows he made as a Nazir, and by which locks of hairs he was lifted up by the form of a human hand and transported, once upon a time, into the Beit HaMikdash (YahuSalem Temple??) from his homecf. YechezkEl (Ezekiel) 8:3! What glory!!

Part II

I hope you know that the only parts of the human body which cannot and do not commit sin are the facial hairs of manwhether regenerate man or one still degenerate!! Please, think deeply about this statement!!

So then, it is for this reason that the holiest parts of regenerate man are his facial hairs and thus have instructions in the Towrah on their keeping and maintenance, and can be offered to Yahuwah Elohiym in vows of separation by a Nazir according to Bamidbar 6.

Interestingly, sometime in the history of the children of Yisroel, the dedicated facial hairs of a Nazir were considered the only part of a mans body that were deemed holy and worthy enough by which their owner (Nazir?) could swear in the presence of other men, just in much the same way as even Kes HaMishpat (The Judgment Throne of Yahuwah Elohiym) was sworn by among the children of Yisroelcf. MattithYahu (Matthew??) 5:34-36; note though that the practice of swearing by any holy objects of Yahuwah Elohiym was discontinued by the teachings of Yahushua when on Earth!!

Let us now read from the scriptures what hair texture Yahuwah Elohiym and Yahushua the Son both have, for which reason Yisroel too, as the first born son of Yahuwah Elohiym, must have that same hair texture as a perpetual identifying mark or property for and of a son!

First, let us read from DaniEl (Daniel) 7:9 about the hair texture of Yahuwah Elohiym the following,I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and Atik Yomin, (Ancient of Days??) did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool: his throne like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.

So then, it is clear from this verse that the hair texture of Atik Yomin is like wool, a hair texture known to belong to ONLY the Negro people of Earth, and thus makes Him the Numero Uno of all Negro!! Note that Atik Yomin is Yahuwah Elohiym, the Most High One!

What do we find in the scriptures about the hair texture of Yahushua? We find in Hisgalus (Revelation??) 1:14, not surprisingly after our read of DaniEl 7, that his hair is also wool-texturedHis head and hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; . . . So then, plainly, the hair texture of Yahushua is also woolly, just as that of his Av who begat him out of Himself!

Now, it must also be stated that ALL Negro wool-textured facial hairs have colors that progress from black at birth, to grey at mature ages, and finally to white when one is about to end ones life on Earth from an age beyond about seventy! It is thus obvious why Atik Yomin and HaBen (the son), being the oldest living beings who have neither beginning nor ending of days, and therefore are unchanging in looks, must always be seen in ONLY the one hair color of snow whitethe blessing of honor, dignity, and glory of the aged!

Note also that there exist other hair colors that come at birth to some non-Negro people other than a black color! These may be such colors as auburn, brunette and blonde, all of which progress to end in a whitish color at very ripe age!

Because there exists this strange hair color range of auburn, brunette, blonde, etc., ONLY among non-Negro people, the statement of Yahushua in MattithYahu (Matthew??) 5:36 about no one being able to make one strand of his hair change from white to black was an obvious address to ONLY Negro people, his own kindred Negro of the house of Yisroel, and was not meant for any non-Negro race!!

The book of Shir HaShirim of the Tanakh (Song of Songs? aka The Song of Solomon?? of the KJV Bible) is all about the romance between a romantic bride and her groom. Describing the beautiful locks of hair of her groom, the writer of this song leaves no doubt about the fact that her song is all and ONLY about two Negro people in a romantic relationship!

You may want to read and meditate on the verses 4:1, 3, 5:2, 11, 6:7 of Shir HaShirim! In particular, let us capture 4:1 & 3, here for easy reading: (1) Behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, which appear from mount Gilead. (3) Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks.

Wow!! What romantic words from a bride of her groom!

You see, from every indication in the scriptures, every time mention was made in reference to wool-textured human hairs with locks developed in them, it was unmistakable to determine that a Negro was being specifically and flamboyantly described. And as I stated earlier on that Yahuwah Elohiym gave His Tanakh to Yisroel to live by it without fault, it must ONLY mean that Yisroel was and is eternally Negro!!

Let us now consider the issue of color complexion of the skin of Yahushua and his Av! First let us read a bit from DaniEl (Daniel) 10:6 the following. . . and his arms and feet like in color to polished brass . . .! One can obviously infer from earlier verses of DaniEl chapter ten that this is in reference to Yahushua and none other!

Again, let us read of the translated words of the revelation of Yahushua to YahuKhanan (John??) according to Hisgalus (Revelation??) 1:15, thusAnd his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; . . .

From these two references of DaniEl and Hisgalus we learn that the skin color or complexion of Yahushua is as burned brass! But what is burned brass?? Now, since burned wood can only be charcoal black in color, so also must burned brass be thought about as ONLY being dark brass or blackish in color! And this is the Negro skin color or complexion by a very simple and commonsensical thinking!

And so, by the word of Yahushua in YahuKhanan (John??) 14:9 that, . . . he that hath seen me has seen HaAv (the father??) . . . the truth is firmly established that Yahuwah Elohiym is Negro in skin complexion! Wow!! Myself too Negro, I am just over the moon by this revealed truth!!

One skin complexion often mentioned in the scriptures and made to contrast sharply with that of true children of Yisroel, and sadly always of an unholy and unhealthy value, is whitish! Could anyone think of this whitish skin color as anything close to that of a Caucasian and thus, that the mention of it in unholy light in the scriptures may have some kind of bearing to him (Caucasian), spiritually, by the stretch of any imagination??

Well, this whitish complexion is deemed unholy because the reference or mention of it in the English Bible is always made in connection to a man who had contracted the dreaded skin disease called leprosycf. Shemot (Exodus??) 4:6-7, Vayikra (Leviticus??) 13:44-45, Bamidbar (Numbers??) 12:10 and Divrey HaYamin Sheni (Second Chronicles??) 26:20!

Let us capture right here the reference to Shemot 4:6-7, so we could read it together, thus: (6) And the LORD (Yahuwah Elohiym) said furthermore unto him (MoshEl), Put now thine right hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. (7) And he (Yahuwah) said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it turned again as his other fleshAll the words in parenthesis and all emphases are mine!

It is clear from this reading of Shemot, that, a great miracle is being wrought right before our very eyes even after centuries of its actual occurrence! You see, it was never possible for the skin complexion of MoshEl, a typical Ivrim (Hebrew man) and one of the most illustrious children of Yisroel, to ever be as the whitish skin color of a Caucasian without a miracle being performed on him by Yahuwah Elohiym!

And since miracles always manifest within two sharp contrasting or conflicting situations such as raising a man from death to life, ill health to perfect health, deafness and dumbness to being able to hear and speak at the same time and at once, etc., so must we understand that the two skin complexions of MoshEl displayed in this miracle MUST have been from Negro to white (indicative of a Caucasian??), simply because the sharpest contrast in skin color in this miracle can only be between Negro (Black) and White (Caucasian)!

So then, this single miracle involving changes in skin color of the hand of MoshEl from Negro (Black) to White (Caucasian) when placed under his garments, alone, establishes the undeniable fact that the normal skin color complexion for any true descendant of Avraham can only or MUST always be Negro (or Black!), eternally.

Part III

How then can any white-skinned people with silky hair, now living by virtue of a UN Charter/Mandate in the land once occupied by the true children of Avraham, be true in their claims of being descendants of Avraham??

Funnily, to further stretch their claims of being who they claim to be, they, in all ignorance, call themselves by a Goy (Gentile) word, Jews, a word very unrelated to the language of any true descendant of Avraham; and yet, they are very proud, pompous, arrogant and even joyful in this!! And then they commit more blunders by calling the name of their capital as Jerusalem and their religion, Judaism??

It is thus no wonder that these same people (Jews) would also think of someoneone of their fellows of white skin complexion with blonde silky hairmanifesting the typical features of a Caucasian, who some of their other kindred of Caucasians have named by the Goy words, JESUS CHRIST, as being the promised Savior of Elohiym to Yisroel [and to all mankind] born to the lineage of Melek (King) Dovid in Beit Lechem!!

By the way, Beit Lechem means House of Bread, but is wrongly rendered in English by translators as the meaningless Bethlehem!

In all of this, these Jews seek to think that if they would compel the whole Earth to believe that the true Savior of mankind was indeed called by a non-Ivrit name JESUS CHRISTa name which is obviously impossible for the Savior to ever have been called by in the era and linguistic environment that he was born intoand that he walked this Earth while manifesting the typical characteristics of a white skin complexion and blonde silky hair, typical of the Caucasian, then they can by that deception easily deceive an entire Earth that they too (Caucasians) were of the lineage of Avraham!!

What a bundle of lies, ignorance, contradictions and deceptions people choose willfully to live in and by!! Or do these white-skinned folks deliberately forge all these issues in order to deceive and or camouflage an entire Earth about who they truly areKharzars calling themselves AshkeNazis Jews (or are they not even pure Nazis then??) and Spaniards calling themselves Sephardic Jews??

You see, we now know that the letter J or Jay sound of English had never existed in Ivrit literature and culture, ever since Avraham the father of all Yisroel was called out of the land of Ur of the Chaldeans!! And so, such jay-sounding words such as Jews, Jerusalem, Judaism, JESUS, John, James, Jeremiah, Joseph, Benjamin, etc. could never be associated with any true descendants of Avraham since these are all Goy words anyway!!

For some present day settlers in lands once occupied by true children of Avraham to describe and define their identity and culture, of their own volition, by such jay-sounding words gives them up as fake in their claims to being of Yisroel!!

A people may lose much of their literature and culture to foreign influences or domination but if ever such a people throw away or forget completely the original name of their own tribe or race, how would anyone ever take them seriously in their claim to being who they say they are?? For, they themselves have forgotten who they are!!

So then, in so far as history clearly bears the record that the true children of Avraham some time ago were called Yahudiim by Yahuwah Elohiym, the area of their abode as Yahudah, and the holy capital city of their kings as YahuSalemwith all these names and many more bearing the prefix or suffix, Yahu, from Yahuwah, and belonging to past leaders of Yisroel, to establish the fact that these leaders are truly of or belong to Yahuwah Elohiym and come in His namewhy would anyone today take seriously those now occupying these same lands that Yahuwah Elohiym gave to the children of Avraham for their eternal inheritance from Him (Yahuwah Elohiym), when these strangers call or describe themselves by a Goy word, Jews, the location of their habitations as Judaea, and their national capital as Jerusalem, and yet claim to be true descendants of Avraham??

Nobody convinces anybody just by saying he is a descendant of Avrahamsimply because he lives today on the land once lived on by Avraham with his (Avrahams) true descendants at some point in time in historywithout any proof by genetic evidence of hair texture and skin color, and only by a cultural affiliation born out from adapting the Towrah-life as was once linked to and lived by the true descendants of Avraham!!

For instance, no true descendant of Avraham today would be living in the Holy Land after returning from any diaspora, at the behest of Yahuwah Elohiym, without portraying everything of the Torah-based lifestyle of the children of Avrahamobvious among which would be the keeping of a full beard and other male facial hairs visible at all times and maintained or kept within the permitted bounds of these hairs as determined by the Creator for every man, enforcing a male-only leadership in all spheres of life, wearing robe-like clothes all the time as a manifestation of the cultural and spiritual identity of all true children of Yisroel, having a certain uniqueness about the architecture for their permanent dwelling places, adhering to and practicing a patrilineal system of inheritance, etc.,even millennia after the demise of Avraham and following centuries of living in a diaspora!

These are some of the characteristics that are intrinsic of the manner of life of all true descendants of Avraham which could never be taken away from them, by any foreign influence, regardless the extent of time that may elapse, just as a leopard can never be delivered of its spots!

And so, any people living in the Holy Land that was once occupied by Avraham and his seed, with none of these holy Towrah-based traits mentioned being visible of their lifestyle, cannot be truthful in their claims to being true descendants of Avraham!! In fact, a return of any true children of Avraham to Yisroel from living outside it, such as those in times past under the leaderships of Ezra and NechemYahu (Nehemiah??), was always deemed as a return to the Towrah-life of obeying the instructions of Yahuwah Elohiym and to the joyous observation or celebration of His appointed feasts!!

The Jews in Israel today, the so-called descendants of Avraham, have since 1948 had one female as leader in the capacity of Prime Minister (Golda Meir, 1898-1978), numerous beardless male Presidents/Prime Ministers and cabinet members, and maybe, all of their male leaders who were and are obsessed with wearing tuxedo-style black suits and top hats instead of the robe (YalabYahu) that is known to have been worn by all true children of Avraham throughout the history of Yisroel!!

All of these lifestyles of these Jews today make them more at home with those of their so-called Nazi oppressors, who the Jews claim to be the people whose so-called persecution of them compelled their (Jews) return to their present place of habitation!!

Well, today, even the so-called holocaust is strongly denounced as anything which ever happened! Can you believe that??

Many people are now describing what was termed holocaust as a holo hoax instead!! Claims are that all the holo hoax stuff known to the Earth was only stage-managed so as to give some credence to a hoaxed holocaust and then as a justification for the occupation of the Holy Land in order to unleash the immediate post-1948 and current blood-lettings in the Holy Land, all in a quest to lay claim to white supremacy and to establishing a worldwide white hegemony over all races!!

Well, I can say in all certainty that those living in todays Yisroel, and who call themselves Jews, are just the descendants of Khazars of the ancient Turkey, and of Spain, Poland, Germany, etc. Their descendants practiced a religion called Judaism, just as they also do today; a religion that is completely out of sync with that of the true children of Avraham, which is known as HaDerekh (The Way) and is ONLY defined by the Towrah!!

The Jews living in Yisroel today are no different from all other Jews living elsewhere under various names for them ALONE to qualify for a claim to be of the ancestry of Avraham over and above all other Jews!! Therefore, when they call themselves AshkeNazi Jews, Sephardim Jews or American Jews, they simply are describing themselves as Khazars, Spanish, Polish, etc.

Well, is it not obvious that all these Jews are pure-blood Nazis living in various geographic locations, even as their own description of themselves as AshkeNazi clearly portrays all of them to be?? For, if Nazis were true enemies to the people who call themselves Jews, why would they be comfortable identifying themselves as AshkeNazi, another brand of Nazi??

I also urge readers of this article to read the scriptures in Melek Sheni (Second Kings??) 17:24, 31, 18:34, 19:13, and YashaYahu (Isaiah??) 36:19 in order to understand that the true origins of Sephardic Jews had been from ancient Ashur (Assyria??), and never of Yisroel!!

You see, the blood-letting the world has been witnessing in the Holy Land, not long after these Jews occupied it under a UN mandate, is a repetition of history!! For, whenever any wrong people settle on or occupy the Holy Land, a blood-letting of inexplicable origins ensues in obvious protest against the illegal occupation by strangers to the family lands of the true children of Yisroeltheir genuine inheritance from Elohiym due to them as His first born son!!

As you know, the true children of Yisroel first occupied the Holy Land on completion of their 40-year long journey from Mitzrayim. This was after their forefathers had waged bloody wars with the might and wisdom of Elohiym in their support and thus won over the then inhabitants, the Canaanites!

The support of Yahuwah Elohiym of the children of Yisroel in their conquest of Canaan establishes the conquered lands as the Holy Land, belonging forever not just to the true children of Yisroel, but indeed, to Yahuwah Elohiym! So then, anyone living on the Holy Land who does not live by ALL the Towrah instructions of Yahuwah Elohiym would simply be asking for his own blood to flow.

Part IV

My mention, earlier on, of history repeating itself was in reference to what happened to the children of Ashur (Assyria??) who came from their country to occupy the part of the Holy Land then known as Shomron (Samaria??) and were thus called Shomronim (Samaritans??), after their king had taken the children of Yisroel out of their inheritance into captivity in Ashur.

These strangers to the land had their blood shed through the attacks of wild lions sent against them by Yahuwah Elohiym, all because these children of Ashur did not know how to worship and pay respect to the Land OwnerYahuwah Elohiymbut instead, worshipped their idols of wood and clay which they carried into the Holy Land!!

It was not until the children of Ashur learned the secrets behind the invasions and mauling by wild animals, and thereafter had a young melek (priest??) of the family of Aharon (Aaron??) sent back from among the captives of Yisroel in Ashur by Shalmaneneser the king of Ashur to teach them how to live according to the Towrah of Yahuwah Elohiym, that they knew a modicum of peacecf. Melekim Sheni (Second Kings??) 17:24-41!

So then, the blood-letting between the two main illegal occupants of the Holy Landthe white-skinned Jews with a hair texture of silky nature and the people of reddish or brown skinned Palestinians (Arabs??) of fluffy hair textureeach claiming descent from the first land owners of the stock of Yisroel, is simply a matter of course!!

For, with no lions now present in the land to be used to maul and cause the blood of these illegal occupants of Jews and Palestinians to be shed, the two must turn on themselves to let their own blood flow on the land they occupy illegally in their attempt to usurp it from Yahuwah Elohiym!!

But then, all this will end someday when the rightful owners of this landthe true descendants of Avraham, who, though now lost to the eyes of the world, are known and being prepared by Yahuwah Elohiymto resurface and gather together in their eternal inheritance according to His will and timing!

When these true descendants of Avrahamwho are currently known as the Lost Tribes of Yisroelare made to reappear, I can assure you that they will all be Negro in skin color and have a hair texture of wool with hair locks in them for glory, just as it was in and with the Beginning; and so, must be at, in and with the Ending!!

At the moment, the true descendants of Avraham are living dispersed all over the Earth, in an unmixed Negro blood, with their main spiritual preoccupation destined for them being their engagement in the most abominable and despicable actsthe worship of idols of wood and clayby which they mean to stir the anger and wrath of Yahuwah Elohiym upon them even though they are ignorant that their over subscription to idol worship is in fulfillment of the word of Yahuwah Elohiym against them!!

Yes, the key to finding out who the true and legitimate descendants of Avraham could be in our world today is to know which Negro people (not just Black people) are most steeped into idolatry, more than any other race of people! If we find any such people, they definitely would be people living in fulfillment of all the curses of Devarim (Deuteronomy??) 28:14-68, as must be of these Lost Tribes of Yisroel who are lost to idolatry after being cast out of their inheritance, the Holy Land, by Yahuwah Elohiym in fulfillment of His word against them!!

So then, in their lost condition, it would take only the wisdom, power and grace of Yahuwah Elohiym to identify and uproot each and every one of them from within whatever idols they are lost in, and then wash them free of all stain of idolatrycf. YechezkEl (Ezekiel??) 36:25-27in order to take them back to Himself again, for them to become a part of His first born son who the whole family of Avraham is made to have become!!

Such are the people that Yahuwah Elohiym will settle in the Holy Land according to His will and timing as a prelude to the end time events foretold through neviim (prophets??) to come on the Earth! The Most High One, Yahuwah Elohiym, does not need the hand of the UN to facilitate the return home to Yisroel of all lost descendants of Avraham for the events He has scheduled to occur by His own authority!!

In fact, very soon, the wars being fought between Jews and Palestinians on the soil of Yisroel will begin to escalate as the return of the true, indigenous and genuine land owners draws nearer, and the result would be to wipe out many of these illegal occupants in order to make room for the habitation of a Negro people who are of the true seed of Avraham!

When this return and re-occupation is complete, Yahuwah Elohiym would then send His end time messengers to Yisroelthat is, the two witnesses of the holy stock of Avraham mentioned in Hisgalus (Revelation??) 11:1-11toward its final redemption as the first born son to Him!

You see, there has never been nor will there ever be any messenger sent by Yahuwah Elohiym to witness of and about Him who was not of the house of Yisroel and who was not living in perfect obedience of the entire Towrah.

So then, all these non-Negro people living in todays Yisroel at the behest of a UN mandate who are preachers of a Goyim religion by name Judaism and calling themselves rabbi, who are accustomed to wearing black suits and top hats, even though always sporting long full beards to Towrah requirements and specifications, are unknown to Yahuwah Elohiym as His messengers of truth, and will soon give way to holy and anointed teachers of truthtrue Negro of Yisroel, sent directly by Yahuwah Elohiym!! For, did you ever know of a non-Negro sent as a navi (prophet??), maggid (teacher??) or moreh (teacher??) by Yahuwah Elohiym to the children of Yisroel, to whom the salvation of Yahuwah Elohiym primarily belongs?

It must be said that throughout the history of the true children of Yisroel, anytime they returned to the Holy Land from any captivity, there was always a census and a screening to determine who among all the many people in the long caravans that came home, was indeed an Ivrim. And so, we find evidence to this fact happen under the leaderships of Ezra and NechemYahucf. Ezra 1:12:1-70 and NechemYahu (Nehemiah??) 7:4-73, respectively, in their return journeys from slavery in the east.

I suppose this was always done by the leading of Yahuwah Elohiym in order that imposters do not get to claim to be descendants of Avraham and thus be wrongly given a right hand of fellowship to ever hurt the spiritual and cultural sensitivities of the entire house of Yisroel. So then, the fact that this screening for true children of Yisroel was not done in the 1948 UN settlement initiative, when shiploads of Jews from all over the world were just dumped on the Holy Land, is the reason why all these non-Negro occupants in the Holy Land are there illegally, at a great risk and cost to their own lives!

When eventually the true children of Avraham are gathered in their inheritancecf. YechezkEl (Ezekiel??) 20:33-44, 37:21-23by the will and power of my and their Av (Father??), Yahuwah Elohiym, to await the end time preaching of His messengers of Hisgalus 11:1-12, there shall be no non-Negro called in!! I can tell you in all certainty that many of these children of Avraham would have been gathered into Yisroel from Africa, West Africa in particular, to which they fled out from Yisroel in about 70 AD to eventually settle in after years of trekking.

In fact, it has been revealed to me that a great representation of Negro peopleparticularly the Dagaaba tribe of the Mole-Dagbani ethnic group (or is this not rather Mogre-Dagbanba??) and coastal Fante cultures living in Ghana in West Africa who migrated from Yisroel as descendants of Avraham to their present habitationswill be among the elect of Yahuwah Elohiym that are re-called out of their current locations back into Yisroel onto coming glory!

My dear reader, I am just too happy to have been called to this teaching assignment and I do hope that you too, my fellow Negro, have been refreshed and given much hope that, after all, you also are counted highly and worthy to be given the opportunity to spend Eternity with Yahuwah Elohiym and HaBen (the Son). Well, the ball is now in your court; and what you do with it is up to you!!

And to finally conclude this matter, let us read from Hisgalus (Revelation) 2:9. . . I know the blasphemies of those which say they are Jews (Ivriim??), and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan . . .KJV, word in parenthesis mine.

Do these words not strongly conclude the matter that, after all, those who call themselves Jews are not the true descendants of Yisroel, and does this truth not also open the eyes of truth seekers to the real truth and the deception by those who call themselves Jews, all descendants of the Caucasian??

Shalawam!

PS: Should readers of this and any of my articles that are published in this column have serious questions or suggestions, they may contact me via e-mail by clicking on Contact on the Home Page of my website, http://sbprabooks.com/BongleBapuohyele You may also want to purchase a copy of my bookBeware of This False Doctrine: Of Reciting the Sinners' Prayer for Salvationvia the same web address so, together, we walk the narrow way to the presence of Elohiym. Shalawam aleikhem!
By Prosper K. Kuorsoh, GNA

Kperisi, (U/W), March 25, GNA - SEND-Ghana has re-echoed its call for the involvement of citizens in the planning and budgeting processes of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the country.

This, SEND-Ghana believes would increase citizens' awareness on the budget and its importance and, demystify citizens' view of the budget as a technical tool meant only for government technocrats and politicians.

Mr Mohammed Tajudeen Abdulai, a Field Officer of SEND-Ghana at a budget sensitisation meeting at Kperisi community in the Wa Municipality said citizens' participation in the budget formulation and implementation still remained very weak in spite of the numerous budget reforms in the country.

He said this was against the backdrop that numerous mechanisms had been put in place to ensure public participation in the budgeting process.

'A well informed citizenry would have increased interest in how the budget impacted their lives and could therefore be counted on to track budget implementation and to demand transparency and accountability in its utilisation', he said.

Mr Abdulai said it was based on this that SEND-Ghana initiated the project 'Making the Budget Work for Ghana' funded by the World Bank under its Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) initiative.

The four-year project (2015-2018) was being implemented in 30 districts comprising nine in the Northern and seven each in the Upper East, Upper West and the Greater Accra Regions.

Wa Municipal, Wa East, Wa West, Jirapa, Lambussie, Sissala East and Sissala West Districts are the project beneficiary districts in the Upper West Region.

The SEND-Ghana Field Officer noted that the project sought to address current governance challenges that affected the effective delivery of basic education and health services in poor areas in Ghana.

Mr. Julius Dabuo, the Wa Municipal Budget Officer who took the participants through budget preparations said every project captured on the budget came from the beneficiary communities themselves through their own action plans submitted to the Assembly.

He said community members' participation in drawing the Action plans could be described as low and urged them to take interest in drawing their own action plans.

Mr. Dabuo said under health, the 2017 budget of the Assembly would provide additional Community-Based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compounds and upgrade some clinics in various communities.

Under education, the Wa Municipal Budget Officer disclosed that electricity would be extended to schools within the Municipality that still lacked electricity; adding that it would also construct four-Number, three-Unit classroom blocks; provide furniture to all schools facing the furniture challenge and provide support to brilliant but needy students.

Mr. Yakubu Mohammed, Chairman of Kperisi Parents Teacher Association appealed to the Assembly to renovate the community's Junior High School (JHS) classroom blocks which according to him was now a death trap.

The budget sensitisation meeting was attended by Kperisi Dressmakers Association, Persons with Disability (PWDs), farmers, women groups, chief and opinion leaders and the Municipal Health and Education Directorates. GNA
- The battle between Senator Dino Melaye and Sahara Reporters is still on

- The senator representing Kogi west senatorial district is enmeshed in a certificate controversy

- He has since dragged the online medium to court

Sahara Reporters has claimed that Senator Dino Melaye was impeached as the president of National Association of Geography Students in Ahmadu Bello University because he stole their brand new television set.

Senator Dino Melaye has been having a running battle with Sahara Reporters

In a tweet on Thursday, March 23, the onine medium quoted unnamed classmates of the senator as its source for the information.

Melaye, 43, has been embroiled in certificate scandal since Sahara Reporters published a report that the senator never graduated from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he attended his first degree course.

Already, the Nigerian Senate's ethics and privileges committee is investigating the issue after it was brought up by Senator Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) brought up the issue during plenary.

READ ALSO: Paris Club refund: Presidency releases details, SEE how much each state got

Earlier today, Legit.ng reported that Senator Melaye dragged the online medium to the Federal High Court, Abuja instituting a N5 billion libel suit.

The court paper Senator Melaye filed against Sahara Reporters

He accused Sahara Reporters of defamation of character, wrongful accusation, among other charges.

Meanwhile, Senator Melaye has shared a picture of himself during his National Youth Service Corps in Kaduna state as proof that he graduated from school.

In a related development, ABU has made a u-turn concerning the disclosure of Senator Melayes academic result and to clear the air on whether he graduated from the school on not.

The university had promised to disclose the true academic qualification of the Kogi state senator.

Source: Legit.ng
- The management of Ahmadu Bello University has said that the Bachelor of Arts certificate purportedly obtained by senator Dino Melaye from the institution is fake

- ABU said it only offers B.Sc. Geography and not B.A. Geography as reflected on Melayes statement of results

- But Melaye's Bachelor of Arts statement of results has ABU logo

The qualification scandal that has enveloped the senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District at the upper chamber of the National Assembly, Dino Melaye, has deepened.

Senator Dino Melaye

Punch reports that documents it obtained through painstaking and thorough investigations showed that the embattled senator has a Bachelor of Arts certificate in Geography from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna state.

READ ALSO: London School of Economic denies Melaye attended institution

The senator, apart from bagging a third class, also possesses a diploma certificate from the University of Jos.

However, the senator only has a statement of results from ABU. And not only that, checks at the university revealed that it only offers B.Sc. Geography and not B.A. Geography as reflected on Melayes statement of results.

Dino Melayes Bachelor of Arts certificate

Legit.ng reported that Melayes trouble began on Monday, March 20, 2017 when an online news medium, Sahara Reporters, in a tweet alleged that the senator did not graduate from ABU for his first degree, against his claim that he studied Geography in the prestigious institution.

The news medium also alleged that Melaye, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory, bribed his Head of Department, who assisted him to forge his transcript.

In a series of tweets via its Twitter handle, @SaharaReporters, the online news medium said some lecturers in the Geography Department insisted that Melaye did not graduate from the department and that his name was not on the graduation list because he failed five compulsory courses.

Following the report, which gained traction speedily, Melaye dismissed the allegations, daring the news medium to sue him if it had authentic evidence to back its claims.

He took to his twitter handle and wrote, SaharaReporters, please sue me and ABU if it is true that I did not graduate from Zaria. Tell Magu (EFCC Chairman) to arrest and prosecute me.

Melaye also boasted that he was currently a student in ABU pursuing his seventh degree, adding, Go round all the UNIS (universities) I attended in digging more.

Dino Melaye certificate

A day after the news broke, Melaye, while speaking on the floor of the Senate, also addressed himself as an authentic graduate of ABU.

Meanwhile, Punch said that when it contacted ABU to verify the conflicting information, the institutions Information Officer, Adamu Mohammed, promised that the institution would come out with its position on Wednesday March 22, which it failed to do as of the time of filing this report.

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye spits fire, vows to send SaharaReporters publisher to jail

Amid the controversy, documents obtained by Saturday Punch revealed that the senator had a statement of results with the logo of ABU.

The statement of results read: This is to certify that Daniel Jonah Melaye having completed an approved course of study and passed the prescribed examinations as, under the authority of the Senate been awarded the Bachelor of Arts (Geography) with Third Class honours.

The statement, issued by the Office of the Registrar, Academic Office and dated February 3, 2000, was signed by B.B. Mshelthlila.

There are, however, certain discrepancies that beg for more clarifications. For instance, in the statement of results, his name was given as Daniel Jonah MELAYE. However, checks by one of our correspondents on https://abu.edu.ng/ revealed that Geography is in the Faculty of Science and not the Faculty of Arts as reflected in the statement of results.

Also, in the senators NYSC discharge certificate, which was issued on July 8, 2001, his name read Melaye Daniel and not Daniel Jonah as shown in the statement of results.

Also, in the diploma certificate issued to him by the University of Jos on August 3, 2006, his name read Daniel Dino Melaye.

READ ALSO: Fresh DSS reports puts Magu in more trouble

He was issued an Advanced Diploma certificate in Law, Security and Conflict Resolution. He finished with Lower Credit on August 3, 2006.

However, in his Senior School Certificate in 1992, his name read Melaiye Daniel Jonah O. with Melaye being wrongly spelt.

Source: Legit.ng
Chinese Defence Minister visits Basantapur Durbar Square

Chinese Defence Minister and State Councilor, General Chang Wanquan on Saturday visited the Basantapur Durbar Square, where various heritages enlisted in World Heritage site were damaged by the April 25, 2015 earthquake.
- Governor Ortom claims his former aide Terwase Akwaza, otherwise known as Ghana, is the mastermind of the recent attack on Zaki Biam which left scores dead

- The governor vows to arrest Ghana

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state has accused his estranged Senior Special Assistant on Security, Terwase Akwaza, otherwise known as Ghana as the mastermind of the recent attack on Zaki Biam which left scores dead.

Ortom made this known while addressing newsmen on Thursday, March 23, after visiting victims of last Mondays attack.

Governor Ortom names ex-aide as mastermind of Benue killings

READ ALSO: BREAKING: London terror attacker has a Nigerian father

The governor said he was pained that the state after recovering from the killings in Agatu has returned to another season of sorrow.

However, Ortom vowed that he would make sure Ghana is arrested and brought to book, Daily Post reports.

He said: Our suspicion is clear, that this is from Ghana. This heinous act has been perpetrated by Ghana and his group who have constituted themselves into a terror group and have been terrorizing the people.

This is not the first time they have been killing. He killed Civilian JTF, killed Vigilante Group members, killed traditional rulers, killed his uncles, he has been killing all over the place.

Just last week about eight people were killed in Ayati in the same Ukum local government area. This time again coming to attack a market, its a shame.

Ortom added: I want to take on the Sankera community; I want to invite them to a meeting. The traditional rulers who are the custodians of the land, I will give them an ultimatum to produce him because Ghana is still residing within Gbishe area, specifically in Katsina-Ala local government.

Security should be the responsibility of all, not just security agencies or government, it should be all of us working together to achieve peace. The police alone are not enough to provide security and at the same time do intelligence gathering and at the same time provide information.

The people must be willing to assist them. You can imagine the consequences of living with a terrorist like Ghana. We are going to hold a Security Council meeting and were going to take more decisive action based on professional advice that will be given to us. We know where this is coming from and if decisive action is not taken he will continue to recruit, hes recruiting more. You can see why I refused to arm the youths when I was campaigning and Im against it.

You can see the extent of damage that is being caused by this same people having guns in their hands.

You can now appreciate why I initiated the amnesty program to receive all those weapons from these criminals that were hovering around in the name of political thugs. I want to assure that Im going to go all out after my meeting with stakeholders here; I will let my plan known to them so that nobody is caught unawares in the process.

Legit.ng had gathered that at least 30 people were killed in Zaki Biam, Ukum local government area of Benue state, following a raid by some gunmen suspected to herdsmen.

READ ALSO: Stephanie Otobo's mother apologises to Apostle Suleman

The raid was carried out on Monday, March 20. A community leader, Chief Udam Wuhe, said more than 10 gunmen stormed the town from TorTonda- Zaki Biam road at about 5:00pm

Recently, Legit.ng reporters risked their lives to cover the devastation wrought by herdsmen within Southern Kaduna.

Below is a video of their findings.

Source: Legit.ng
The World Bank has approved a $200 million loan to Nigeria to support the federal governments effort to boost agriculture.

World Bank approves $200 million loan to boost agriculture in Nigeria

According to Premium Times, the loan from the International Development Association, World Banks low-interest arm, has a maturity of 25 years with a grace period of five years is to support small and mid-scale farmers.

READ ALSO: EFCC chair: Buhari to overrule DSS report, stick with Magu

The bank, in a statement on Friday, March 24, said about 60,000 individuals will benefit directly from the funding, of which 35 % are women.

Similarly, about 300,000 farming households will be affected indirectly.

In its statement, the World bank said, Priority value chains  will include products with potential for immediate improvement of food security, products with a potential for export and foreign currency earnings.

The funds will help tackle low yields, lack of seed capital to set up agro-factories, low-level adoption of technology and limited access to markets, the bank said.

Records show that Nigeria, Africas largest economy, spends $20 billion a year importing food.

With the fall in oil prices, it has been running short of dollars, which has also weakened the local currency, the Naira.

In February, the Nigerian government unveiled an economic recovery plan, tagged Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP, which included currency reforms to boost tax revenues.

The ERGP, among other objectives, also aims to achieve self-sufficiency in rice by 2018 and in wheat by 2019 or 2020.

By the latter date, it also hopes to be a net exporter of rice, cashew nuts, groundnuts, cassava and vegetable oil, some of the crops the World Bank loan is meant to finance.

Legit.ng recalls that the World Bank had declared that Nigerias economic recession will no longer last as the country is gradually recovering.

Mrs Eme Essien-Lore, the country manager in charge of International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank group, made the observation in an interview in Lagos on Thursday, March 16.

READ ALSO: Dino Melayes Bachelor of Arts certificate fake - ABU

According to her, Nigeria is growing very fast and will soon become the third largest country globally, after India and China.

After the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from his vacation abroad, Legit.ng decided to visit the market to find out if anything has changed with the prices of goods.

Source: Legit.ng
Senator Dino Melaye who is enveloped in an alleged certificate forgery scandal seems to have the confidence that God will deliver him from his current troubles.

Senator Dino Melaye seems to be unperturbed by his alleged certificate forgery scandal.

The senator representing Kogi west senatorial district at the National Assembly, has been embroiled in an alleged scandal since March 20, 2017, when an online news medium, Sahara Reporters, reported that the senator did not graduate from ABU for his first degree, against his claim that he studied Geography in the prestigious institution.

READ ALSO: Dino Melayes Bachelor of Arts certificate fake

The scandal deepened after the Punch on Saturday, March 25, obtained documents which showed that the embattled senator has a bachelor of arts certificate in geography from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna state.

Checks at the university revealed that the institution only offers BSc geography and not BA geography as reflected on Melayes statement of results.

Added to this, the federal government has has officially demanded that the authority of institution supply the academic details of lawmaker, to clarify the controversy over Melayes completion of his degree programme in geography at the university.

READ ALSO: Ifa priests reveal why people kill themselves by jumping into Lagos Lagoon

But while the controversy rages, Senator Melaye appears unperturbed as he took to his twitter handle on Saturday, March 25, to announce that God is with him in this period.

The senator also thanked some Nigerians who have shown solidarity with him during this trying times.

See some of his messages below:

Meanwhile, Legit.ng has reported that Senator Dino Melaye on Thursday, March 23 filed a N5 billion libel suit against an online media platform, Sahara Reporters.

Below is a Legit.ng video of Christians defending Apostle Johnson Suleman over his alleged love scandal with Stephanie Otobo.

The senator accused the Sahara Reporters of defamation of character, wrongful accusation, among other charges. The suit was file at the Federal Capital Territory High Court, at exactly 9am.

Source: Legit.ng
Empty chest-thumper

The worlds most notorious ape returns to the screen in Kong: Skull Island, the latest reboot of the 1933 classic that first introduced us to the jumbo-sized simian.
- The Esama of Benin kingdom Gabriel Igbinedion presented a seven-month tiger to the Oba Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin

- Igbenedion while making the presentation said the tiger is a mark of respect to the king in the palace

- The Oba of Benin urged parents especially those living abroad to teach their children to speak and write the Benin language

Chief Gabriel Igbinedion gave the Oba Ewuare II the tiger as a mark of respect to the palace

The Esama of Benin kingdom Gabriel Igbinedion presented a seven-month tiger to the Oba Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin on Friday, March 24.

Igbinedion while making the presentation said the tiger is a mark of respect to the king in the palace.

The new gift for the Oba threw the place into a wave of joy as many individuals thronged into the palace to have a glimpse of the new resident.

READ ALSO: Alleged certificate forgery: ABU management to release Melayes academic details

Receiving the gift, the Oba of Benin urged parents especially those living abroad to teach their children to speak and write the Benin language.

Legit.ng gathered that the Oba while receiving three pupils he awarded scholarship during his post coronation tour of Benin, said all Benin wards must be encouraged to speak and write the Benin language.

The Oba said speaking the language will serve as a better means of identification and display of the Benin culture by the people.

The tiger is seven-months old

He also tasked parents of the awardees to guide their wards through attaining proficiency in the use of Benin language.

He said the palace, under his leadership, will work towards reviving the rich Benin cultural heritage.

READ ALSO: Buhari's aide writes on his health, what he learnt from Abacha's death

The pupils - Agobor Aisosa, Osakpamwan Osagumwenro and Osukhon Gift of Osaretin Primary School in Egboko village, Orhionmwon Local Government Area of the state were awraded scholarship by the Oba of Benin during his post coronation tour.

The awardees had narrated an ancient Benin story in Edo language during the tour to the community.

Their families visited the Oba in the palace to thank the monarch.

Watch Legit.ng's video of the strongest man in Nigeria below:

Source: Legit.ng
- The Senate describes the new seven-page letter by the SSS expatiating on the corruption allegations against Ibrahim Magu as a vindication to the upper chamber

- The Senate's spokesperson, Abubakar Malami, says the recent report which is messier, shows that decision by the lawmakers not to confirm Magu as EFCC chairman is right

The Senate has justified its decision to reject Magus nomination as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The Nigerian Senate has called on Nigerians to continue to have full confidence and trust on its ability to discharge its responsibilities according to the Nigerian constitution.

READ ALSO: Senate summons Buharis men, four firms over e-passport deal

The Senate made the call on Saturday, March 25, in reaction to a recent leaked report of the, DSS, sent to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, on the integrity of the EFCC acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu.

The spokesperson for the Senate, Abdullahi Sabi, said the leaked reports had vindicated the decision of the upper legislative chamber to reject Magus nomination as chairman of the EFCC.

Abdullahi said: Following several calls made to me today by journalists seeking my comments on the leak report on Mr. Ibrahim Magu which was more damning than the one submitted to us, I can only say that myself and my colleagues have been vindicated.

From that report which is now public, it is obvious the DG SSS even tried to give Magu soft landing in the report that was sent to the Senate. The recent report is messier and shows that our decision not to confirm his nomination was right.

READ ALSO: Melaye allegedly has only 3 credits in his WAEC

We therefore call on all Nigerians to continue to have full confidence and trust on the Nigerian Senate as it discharges its responsibilities according to the letter and spirit of the Nigerian constitution."

Recall that Legit.ng reported that forces opposed to the confirmation of Ibrahim Magu as substantive head of the EFCC on Friday March 24, released a new seven-page letter by the State Security Service (SSS) expatiating on the corruption allegations against the anti-corruption czar.

The letter, which was circulated to select Nigerian journalists by a Faceless group, Advocacy Justice, was written by the SSS to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, to further push its relentless campaign against Mr. Magu.

The letter appeared to have been written in response to a request by Mr. Malami that the SSS should provide documentary evidence of its allegations against the acting EFCC chair.

In its response, the SSS, through one Folashade Bello, sent the minister at least 12 documents. One of the documents contained minutes of the 20th plenary meeting of the Police Service Commission in 2010 which reportedly reprimanded Mr Magu.

Legit.ng gathered that the eleven other documents simply laboured to link Mr Magu to Mohammed Umar, a retired air commodore being investigated by the SSS

Source: Legit.ng
Bernie Wrightson, a widely admired comic book artist who was known for his lush, intricate, otherworldly visions of horror and who was one of the creators of the popular DC Comics character Swamp Thing, died on March 18 in Austin, Tex. He was 68.

His death, at St. Davids South Austin Medical Center, was announced by his wife, Liz Wrightson, on Mr. Wrightsons website. The cause was brain cancer, which had been diagnosed in 2014.

Besides his comic book work, Mr. Wrightson did illustrations for horror magazines and novels, including Mary Shelleys 1818 classic, Frankenstein, and several by Stephen King. He also contributed character designs for films, including creatures, aliens and ghouls for The Mist, Galaxy Quest and the original Ghostbusters.

But his most famous creation was Swamp Thing, who first appeared in an issue of House of Secrets in 1971. The character was a tragic figure: an early-20th-century man transformed by a chemical explosion, unable to communicate to his wife that her new suitor was a murderer.
Gongabu building fire destroys property worth Rs 100 million

A commercial building in Gongabu, Kathmandu, that caught fire on Saturday gutted property worth Rs100 million.
In the auction world, there are few things more fascinating than the journey of a gem through the hands of the rich and famous. The Stotesbury Emerald, which will be included in the Sothebys Magnificent Jewels sale in New York on April 25, is one such stone.

Sotheby researchers have found a century-long tale of intrigue behind the unusual hexagonal-cut 34.4-carat Colombian emeralds journey through America (its whereabouts before then are unknown), linking it to some of societys most notable jewelry lovers.

The stone, which has a sales estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million, began its American tale in 1908 when Cartier created a necklace for the eccentric mining heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean featuring her 94.8-carat Star of the East diamond and the emerald. Three years later, the Parisian house and the socialite agreed to a complex exchange involving the emerald and the famous Hope Diamond that led to a bitter court battle, settled in 1912 with the emerald back in Cartiers possession.

Image Evalyn Walsh McLean, in a 1914 photograph. Credit... Library of Congress

Eva Stotesbury, the wife of a wealthy Philadelphia banker and a society hostess, became the emeralds next owner and the person for whom it is now named. In 1946 she sold the stone to the New York-based jeweler Harry Winston, which reset it as a ring and sold it to May Bonfils Stanton, another jewelry-collecting socialite from Colorado.
What about the rest of us? the nations unarmed majority might well ask. When it comes to public health, the noisier a gun is, the better the chances for innocent bystanders to hit the ground and for police officers to apprehend the shooter.

At present, silencers, also known as suppressors, are available only to gun owners who pay a $200 tax and undergo a rigorous nine-month vetting process. Like machine guns and hand grenades, silencers were considered a special menace by Congress back in the mob warfare days of the 1930s when tight controls were enacted.

Firearms sellers, eager to cash in on what has become a vanity item, argue that silencers should be regulated no more tightly than gun purchases. The latter, of course, undergo a shoddy process with dangerous loopholes that Congress has declined to close.

If the bill succeeds, ending the $200 tax and the vetting period, silencers will be much more available to the public. Inevitably, they will show up in the hands of the mass shooters who indulge macho fantasies in brandishing the adapted military assault weapons and large ammunition clips available in the civilian market. Before congressional lawmakers give in to the gun lobbys latest twisted demand, they had better ask themselves why they would want to help muffle a shooters deadly deeds.
My grandparents were Nazis. It took me until recently to be able to say  or write  this. I used to think of and refer to them as ordinary Germans, as if that was a distinct and morally neutral category. But like many ordinary Germans, they were members of the Nazi Party  they joined in 1937.

My grandmother, who lived to be almost 100, was not, as I knew her, xenophobic or anti-Semitic; she did not seem temperamentally suited to hate. Understanding why and how this woman I knew and loved was swept up in a movement that became synonymous with evil has been, for me, a lifelong question.

She and my grandfather grew up in a working-class suburb of industrial Dortmund, where unemployment was rife; it had been occupied by the French after World War I. They joined the Nazi Party to be youth leaders in an agricultural education program called the Landjahr, or year on the land, in which teenagers got agricultural training. My grandmother always maintained that she had joined the Nazis as an idealist drawn to the vision of rebuilding Germany, returning to a simpler time and, perversely, promoting equality.

In the Landjahr, sons and daughters of factory workers would live and work side by side with sons and daughters of aristocrats and wealthy industrialists. She liked the idea of returning to traditional German life, away from the confusing push and pull of a global economy. Through research, I understand the Landjahr program was part of Hitlers larger Blut und Boden (blood and soil) vision of making Germany a racially pure, agrarian society. The racially pure part was not something my grandmother ever mentioned.
Those agencies are already falling short, as we saw last year, when they couldnt effectively respond to the Zika threat. What will they do when we face a real pandemic? With 7.4 billion people, 20 billion chickens and 400 million pigs now sharing the earth, we have created the ideal scenario for creating and spreading dangerous microbes. Trade and travel have connected most points on the globe in a matter of hours. More and more people are living in the microbe-rich megacity slums of the developing world.

By some estimates, the 1918-19 Spanish influenza killed more people than all the wars of the 20th century combined. Today, an influenza pandemic could be more devastating than an atom bomb. We are already witnessing an outbreak of influenza in birds  the H7N9 strain, in China  that could be the source for the next human pandemic. Since October, over 500 people have been infected; more than 34 percent have died. Most victims had contact with infected poultry, yet three recent clusters appear to be from person-to-person transmission. Will H7N9 mutate to become easily transmitted between humans? We dont know. But without sufficient supplies of a vaccine, we are not prepared to stop it.

The spread of antibiotic-resistant microbes also continues at an ever faster rate. Last year a comprehensive review predicted that, if left unchecked, drug-resistant infections will kill more people worldwide by 2050 than cancer and diabetes combined. Without a global effort led by the United States to halt the spread of this resistance and support for development of new antibiotics, we are in danger of returning to a pre-antibiotic world in which a cut could prove deadly and surgery would not be worth the risk of infection.

Yellow fever, a mosquito-borne disease that can kill up to 50 percent of those who get seriously sick, is on the cusp of a major outbreak in some of Brazils largest cities, while MERS  Middle East Respiratory Syndrome  continues to infect people on the Arabian Peninsula. If an effective vaccine is not developed, it will continue to be transmitted around the world and cause fatal outbreaks like the one that closed Samsung Medical Center in Seoul to new patients for weeks. A similar outbreak could occur at the Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Since the election, it has been clear that Donald Trump cannot both be president and maintain a lease on the government-owned Old Post Office building in Washington, where he opened an opulent hotel last year. Now, a federal official who works for the agency that negotiated the lease (and that, conveniently, reports to the president) has come up with a bizarre, tortured and ultimately dishonest rationale for why Mr. Trump can keep it.

Mr. Trumps 2013 lease with the General Services Administration stipulates that no elected official shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom. Legal experts say the president is clearly in violation of that clause and the government should either terminate the lease or force Mr. Trump to transfer it to somebody else. On Thursday, however, an agency contracting official, Kevin Terry, declared that the president was not in violation because he had agreed not to receive any profits from the hotel until after he leaves office.

Mr. Terry engages in legal gymnastics that no lawyer could credibly defend. It should not matter when Mr. Trump accepts the profits from the hotel; he benefits even if he waits until after he leaves the White House to pocket them. Mr. Terry argues that as long as Mr. Trumps profits are reinvested in the hotel, rather than deposited in his bank account, there is no violation. But by reinvesting the profits, Mr. Trump is increasing the value of the hotel and its ability to earn more money in the future. He has a 60-year lease on the building, and not pocketing profits for a few years is hardly a sacrifice.

Then theres the not-so-little matter of the Constitution, which Mr. Trump is violating by owning the hotel. Article I of the Constitution prohibits all federal government officials from accepting gifts, profits and other payments from foreign governments without the approval of Congress. As it happens, foreign governments have been booking rooms and hosting events at the Trump hotel. In addition, Article II of the Constitution specifically bars the president from earning any emoluments, or profits, from the federal government or state governments in addition to his salary. Experts say that clause prohibits Mr. Trumps Washington hotel and his other businesses from earning money or receiving other benefits from federal or state agencies  including Mr. Terrys decision to let Mr. Trump keep the lease.
Which is pretty much what happened here. Despite their ceaseless attacks on the health care act since Mr. Obama signed it into law in March 2010, Mr. Trump, Mr. Ryan and their colleagues have never had a workable plan that could gain the support of a congressional majority. That is why they rushed their turkey of a bill to the floor without going through the laborious process of holding hearings and building coalitions. The last-minute wheeling and dealing did nothing to disguise the bills underlying and increasingly obvious purpose, which was to reduce taxes for the wealthy by cutting benefits for the needy.

Meanwhile, the great dealmaker at the White House was completely ineffectual. Mr. Trump spent a few days cajoling and threatening lawmakers, then threw up his hands and said he had done all he could and was now moving on to other matters. Groups representing doctors and hospitals, as well as public interest groups like AARP and the American Civil Liberties Union, fought hard, and even Republican governors like John Kasich of Ohio and Brian Sandoval of Nevada opposed the bill.

In fact, as Republicans moved closer to a vote, public support for Obamacare went up  49 percent of those polled this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation had a favorable view of the law, up from 43 percent in December. Obamacare, though not without flaws, has done a world of good. The percentage of Americans who do not have health insurance has fallen to 9.1 percent, from 16.3 percent in 2010. A 2016 Kaiser study of people who gained insurance in California found that 77 percent of them said their health needs were being met very well or somewhat well. By comparison, only 49 percent of those people said their needs were being met three years earlier.

There is no doubt that improvements are needed. Deductibles and premiums are too high for many people, and too many young people are forgoing insurance altogether. More generous subsidies for people with modest incomes could bring the cost of health care down at a relatively small expense to the government.

The worry now among advocates for lower-income Americans and the sick is that the Trump administration might seek to undermine the health care law through administrative steps. For example, officials could seek to reduce subsidies that help people earning just above the federal poverty line pay for out-of-pocket costs. Republicans in the House sued the Obama administration in 2014 to block those subsidies. That case is still pending, and the Trump administration could decide to stop defending the subsidies. Such a move would only compound the mistakes it made by trying to rush a half-baked bill through the House.
FRONT PAGE

Because of an editing error, an article on March 11 about the Kremlins plans to sit out the centenary of the Russian Revolution misidentified, in some editions, the subject of a statue in the city of Yekaterinburg and the man who a historian said had ordered Czar Nicholas II and his family shot there. The statue is of Yakov Sverdlov, a local Bolshevik commander, not Lenin. And while it has never been firmly established who issued the order to kill the royal family, the man the historian was referring to was Sverdlov, not Lenin.

INTERNATIONAL

An article on Tuesday about the rise in far-right populism in a German town referred imprecisely to the proximity of the Buch and Wedding neighborhoods. Buch is part of Pankow borough, which borders on Wedding; Buch itself does not border Wedding.

NATIONAL

An article last Saturday about Andrew Napolitanos assertion on Fox News that Britains top spy agency had wiretapped President Trump misspelled the surname of a writer of thrillers, the kind of novel to which a former Fox News contributor compared the gathering of evidence for the claim. He is Frederick Forsyth, not Forsythe.

NEW YORK

The Spotlight feature on Friday about Maggie Habermans attending her first White House briefing as a New York Times reporter referred incorrectly to The Timess assigned seat at the briefing. It is shared by the papers six White House correspondents, including Glenn Thrush; it is not usually occupied by Mr. Thrush.
Encourage insurance companies in wobbly markets?

There are smaller decisions ahead, too, about how to administer programs, whether to enforce the laws individual mandate, and whether to recruit insurers to participate in markets where competition is thin.

So far, Mr. Trumps secretary for health and human services, Tom Price, has taken every opportunity to gloat about the health laws setbacks, even as he is administering its programs.

Mr. Price, perhaps more than Mr. Trump, has long been committed to the Affordable Care Acts demise. But now he will have to manage the laws many programs. Obama administration officials called insurers, cajoling and reassuring them. If Mr. Trump wants the markets to be vigorous, he could use his self-described deal-making skills to woo insurance companies into the stabilizing markets.

Make the system more conservative?

If Mr. Trump and Mr. Price can make peace with the health law, there are opportunities to steer it in a more conservative direction. The law gives broad authority to the executive branch to shape health care policy. So far, the health law has been driven by Obama administration priorities, but that could change.

A few early regulatory changes have begun that process. The Trump administration plans to make it harder for people to sign up for plans midyear. It has given insurers more wiggle room to raise their deductibles. It may be able to make alterations that loosen up benefit requirements  though it wont be able to completely eliminate them, as Republicans sought to do at the last minute in the failed bill.

Offer states maximum flexibility?

The administration will also have enormous power to allow states to reshape their Medicaid programs  and even their local insurance markets  through waivers to existing law. Seema Verma, the just-confirmed administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was a consultant who helped states write pathbreaking conservative proposals for their Medicaid programs. She is ideally positioned to approve many more such waivers from Republican-led states, allowing them to impose premiums, cost-sharing and even work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries.

A new Obamacare waiver program has just gone into effect: It would allow states to overhaul their entire health insurance markets if they can show that their revised plans would cover as many people. That process could allow Ms. Verma and Mr. Price to approve state plans that hew more closely to the Republican vision for health care.
Cardinal Keeler was at the forefront of building interfaith bonds between his church and Jews, Muslims and the Greek Orthodox as well as Lutherans and other Protestant groups.

In 1987, as chairman of the bishops conference Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, he was instrumental in arranging Pope John Paul IIs meetings with Jewish leaders in Miami and with Protestant leaders in Columbia, S.C. And he was credited with playing influential roles in the Vaticans decision in 1993 to establish diplomatic relations with Israel and in a statement by American bishops in 2002 disavowing attempts to convert Jews to Christianity.

He came from the pioneering generation of post-1965 Catholic leaders, said Rabbi James Rudin, the senior interreligious adviser of the American Jewish Committee. There has been more positive done in Catholic-Jewish relations in the last 50 years than in the first 1,900, and Cardinal Keeler was the chief architect of that.

His response to the sexual abuse scandals was halting at first. When The Boston Globe riveted nationwide attention in 2002 with its reports of widespread abuse by priests along with church efforts to cover up the scandal, Cardinal Keeler took issue with the news media, accusing them of creating a feeding frenzy.

But within a few months he became the first bishop to publicly identify priests who had been credibly accused of child abuse. He posted the names of 57 on the website of his archdiocese, along with an accounting of the $5.6 million that he said the archdiocese had paid up to that point in settlements, legal fees and counseling.
The department reported that since the beginning of this year, 501 teenagers, who appear to be mostly black and Hispanic, had gone missing in Washington. Twenty-two of those cases and five others from 2014 and 2016 remained open on Tuesday.

Cmdr. Chanel Dickerson, who leads the departments Youth and Family Services Division, spoke in a Facebook Live presentation on Friday about the reports of missing children. The campaign increased public awareness, she said. Thats all.

Ms. Mikhaylova said, They leave voluntarily, they come back voluntarily or they are located.

Some of the circumstances that would lead an individual to leave home, that is a very complex issue, she said. They need to be talked about in the community with as much gravity as anything,

She added that human trafficking was a concern nationwide, but that we dont have an indication that that is what is going on.

There are no reports that any of the missing teenagers were abducted, Ms. Mikhaylova said.

Also on Friday, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a series of measures to improve the citys response to reports of missing children and address issues that lead young people to run away from home.

The figures that the police department reported on missing juveniles in the first quarter of 2017 are on track to equal or be lower than the totals in previous years. At the end of 2016, for example, there were 2,242 missing juveniles (aged 17 and younger) reported.
Huge cache of ammunition found in Bhojpur village

A huge cache of ammunition was found at Martel area in Salpasilicho Village Council-5 of Bhojpur district on Friday.
WASHINGTON  Reeling from a major blow to his legislative agenda, President Trump blamed Democrats on Friday after House Republicans rescinded their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He insisted it wasnt an immediate priority anyway.

Here is an assessment of his claims.

Mr. Trump denied that he promised to repeal the health law quickly.

And I never said  I guess Im here, what, 64 days? I never said repeal and replace Obamacare. Youve all heard my speeches. I never said repeal it and replace it within 64 days. I have a long time.

False. Mr. Trump has, of course, repeatedly vowed to repeal and replace former President Barack Obamas signature legislative achievement. While Mr. Trump never specified doing so within 64 days, killing the health care law was part of his 100-day plan, released in October, and he often promised an even more urgent timeline during the 2016 presidential campaign.

At a campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa, in October 2015, Mr. Trump said repealing the health law would be the first thing he would do as president.
WASHINGTON  At the end of the long day, the alliance of conservative ideologues who once shut down the government over President Barack Obamas health care law could not find the will to repeal it.

Since the Tea Party wave of 2010 that swept House Republicans into power, a raucous, intransigent and loosely aligned group of lawmakers known as the Freedom Caucus  most from heavily Republican districts  has often landed a punch to its own partys face.

Fridays defeat of the Republican leaderships bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act was a return to form, handing an immense defeat to President Trump and embarrassing Speaker Paul D. Ryan in his own House. It also challenged the veracity of their long-held claims that a Republican president was all they needed to get big things accomplished.

The most important question for Republicans now is whether the members of the Freedom Caucus will find themselves newly emboldened in ways that may bring the new president more defeats  or whether Mr. Ryan will do what former Speaker John A. Boehner could not, and find a way to shred their influence for good.
WASHINGTON  Paul Manafort, who served as President Trumps campaign manager and is under scrutiny for his ties to Russia, will testify before the House Intelligence Committee, the panels chairman said on Friday.

The chairman, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, said Mr. Manafort had volunteered to appear before the committee as it conducts its own investigation into Russian interference in the election. Jason Maloni, Mr. Manaforts spokesman, confirmed the announcement.

Mr. Manafort instructed his representatives to reach out to committee staff and offer to provide information voluntarily regarding recent allegations about Russian interference in the election, Mr. Maloni said in a statement. As Mr. Manafort has always maintained, he looks forward to meeting with those conducting serious investigations of these issues to discuss the facts.

Mr. Manafort has offered to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee as well, according to a Senate official who requested anonymity to discuss committee business.
What are the rules for using incidentally collected information about Americans?

The government puts raw, or not yet processed, emails and phone calls it intercepts into repositories that intelligence analysts then query in search of messages relevant to what they are working on. They can search the repositories using keywords or the names of people related to their investigation, including the names of Americans.

When writing surveillance-based reports for broader dissemination within the intelligence community, analysts are supposed to minimize any privacy intrusion into Americans. Generally, this requires them to mask any names and private information about Americans. For example, a report citing Ivans phone call with Joe might recount what Ivan said to U.S. Person 1, rather than using Joes name and remarks.

When might an Americans name be unmasked in a report?

Minimization rules make an exception to the masking requirement if the Americans words and identity are necessary to understand foreign intelligence. This exception would seem to cover keeping Mr. Flynns identity and words unmasked in disseminated materials about his conversation with Mr. Kislyak.

Much remains murky about the separate concerns Mr. Nunes expressed this week about intelligence reports that were unrelated to Russia and contained incidentally collected information about members of the Trump transition team. Mr. Nunes has suggested that he has concerns about unmasked names in them. But the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff, has said Mr. Nunes had clarified that they were masked in the reports and the problem was Mr. Nunes could still tell who they were.

Is incidental surveillance a new concern?

No. Long before the present controversies, the governments handling of Americans private communications that its surveillance programs collect incidentally has been the subject of a major public policy dispute.

Its called the backdoor search loophole when officials search raw repositories of surveillance information intending to pull out and read any incidentally collected private messages of an American  especially when those messages were gathered without a warrant in the first place. Notably, while most agencies may only perform such a search for intelligence purposes, the F.B.I. may sometimes do so for ordinary criminal investigations too.

There are two types of warrantless surveillance that incidentally gather Americans private communications. Under the FISA Amendments Act, the government, while operating on domestic soil, may target specific foreigners abroad without a warrant. Under Executive Order 12333, the government, while operating abroad, may vacuum up communications in bulk, without targeting anyone.
When you get zero from the other side  they let us down because theyre hurting the people, Mr. Trump said in a telephone interview shortly after he had agreed to pull the measure. Asked whether he was worried the loss would hurt Republicans, he said, Ill let you know in a year.

The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours that White House and congressional officials said proved a political education for Mr. Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control. This account is based on government officials who were present during the last-minute negotiations and who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

We all learned a lot, Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday afternoon. We learned a lot about loyalty, and we learned a lot about the vote-getting process.

Certainly for me, it was a very interesting experience, he added.

Mr. Trump, who initially had little involvement in crafting the health care bill, became more deeply engaged in recent weeks, promoting it at rallies outside Washington and holding meetings in the West Wing with conservative and moderate coalitions whose support was crucial to its passage.

But he made little secret of his ambivalence about addressing the issue  I would have loved to have put it first, Ill be honest, Mr. Trump said of tax reform in Nashville last week  yet he told aides he believed the measure could not pass without a push from him.

By Thursday afternoon, just hours before a scheduled vote, it had become clear that his efforts  along with those of Vice President Mike Pence and other senior White House officials  had fallen short. At a meeting in Mr. Ryans office in the Capitol with members of the recalcitrant Freedom Caucus, top White House officials laid out the changes they had made at the groups behest, including stripping it of federal standards for benefits that must be provided in health insurance policies, including maternity and wellness care.

Caucus members began outlining still more changes they needed to see before they could support the bill, angering Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trumps aides. Stephen K. Bannon, the presidents chief strategist, and Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, told the group that the White House was finished negotiating and that the president wanted to know its position on the bill  yes or no.
The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Friday that authorizes the use of criminal justice experts to devise legal strategies for eventual prosecutions of violations by North Korea.

Approved on the final day of the 47-member councils four-week session in Geneva, the resolution also authorizes the creation of a central repository for evidence to be used in such prosecutions.

The resolution amounted to what human rights experts called a significant warning to North Korea, one of the worlds most repressive and isolated countries. They called it a step toward a judicial reckoning for North Korean officials and institutions implicated in human rights crimes.

A 2014 report by a United Nations panel of inquiry on North Korea described systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations that included a vast network of prison camps and punishments like starvation that it said constituted crimes against humanity.
WARSAW  Nearly a dozen people in their 20s gathered beside the entrance to the Auschwitz memorial on Friday afternoon, slaughtered a sheep, stripped naked and chained themselves together. A fireworks device was set off in the nearby parking lot.

At one point, the young people draped a banner reading Love over the entrance gate to the former Nazi concentration camp with its infamous scrollwork bearing the three German words Arbeit Macht Frei, or Work Makes You Free.

On Friday evening, the authorities were still trying to figure out who the people are and what they thought they were doing.
I know maybe the president is watching.

So said Brian Kilmeade, co-host of Fox and Friends, on Thursday mornings show. It was no mere boast, since President Trump has publicly stated his affection for the show and for Fox News, the channel on which it airs. If Mr. Trump was indeed tuning in, he was far from alone. Fox News has been the most watched cable news network for 15 years, but depending on the hour, the news narrative it presents to its large and loyal conservative audience can sharply diverge from what consumers of other media outlets may be seeing.

We watched Fox News from 6 a.m. until midnight on Thursday to see how its coverage varied from that of its rivals on a day when cable news was dominated by the health care debate in Congress, the terrorist attack in London and the investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election.

One notable way Fox News stood apart from its competition, as it has been known to do for years, was in the stories it chose to highlight and the tone  in some of its opinion shows, unapologetically supportive of Mr. Trump and his agenda  with which it covered them.

There was extensive coverage of the health care vote, for example, but there was also considerable time given to topics, like a rape case in Maryland, that viewers would not have heard about if they had turned to CNN or MSNBC. The rape case, which involved an undocumented immigrant and went virtually uncovered on most networks, received almost hourly updates on Fox, and at times was used as proof that Mr. Trumps calls for tighter borders and a crackdown on immigration were justified.
Ms. Kohler said on Saturday that Uber was suspending the testing of its self-driving vehicles in Arizona, pending the results of the investigation of the accident. She said Uber had also suspended testing in Pittsburgh and San Francisco for the day, and possibly longer.

The news of the accident was first reported by ABC-15, an Arizona affiliate station.

The incident comes at a difficult time for Uber, which for the last two months has fielded multiple crises involving the companys workplace culture and business practices. Earlier in March, The New York Times reported the existence of a tool called Greyball, which Uber engineers used to skirt authorities cracking down on Uber drivers worldwide. In addition, Travis Kalanick, Ubers chief executive, was forced to apologize for his aggressive behavior after Bloomberg published video of a verbal altercation he had with an Uber driver.

Although Uber was not at fault in the Arizona accident, the incident is problematic for the company, a start-up based in San Francisco, which has gone head-to-head with regulators as it has tried to persuade cities to allow public testing of its autonomous vehicles. Google, General Motors and Ford Motor Company are all testing autonomous vehicles in California and have registered to do so.

After a successful introduction of the autonomous vehicle program in Pittsburgh last year, Uber ran into obstacles in December, when it tried to begin the testing of self-driving vehicles in San Francisco without registering for permits. The permits require companies to disclose the number of accidents their vehicles have been involved in.

Shortly after the San Francisco testing began, one of Ubers self-driving cars failed to recognize a stoplight and sailed through a crosswalk. The car was driving itself at the time, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.  In the new Zach Braff-directed heist comedy Going in Style, out April 7, the performer Ann-Margret stars as Annie, a supermarket employee who flirts, overtly, with a grumpy old man of a customer played by Alan Arkin.

They eventually end up in bed. More on that later.

Off the screen, it turns out Ann-Margret is actually not all that familiar with grocery stores.

I went once and I asked the lady next to me, Which one is spinach? the 75-year-old actress said, before breaking out into laughter.

Still, she was not joking.

When the movie  a remake of a 1979 George Burns vehicle about three elderly gentlemen who rob a bank  was filmed in 2015 in Brooklyn, Alan and I were doing a scene with vegetables, Ann-Margret continued. Whats that? I asked him. It was purple and it was perfect.
Implement safety policies to protect citizens, advise experts

Public health experts have warned that zoonotic diseases could reach pandemic proportions if there are no effective disease control measures in place.
T-shirts! Ms. Dunham said, T-shirts for all! Hashtag toddler.

A thoroughly modern memoir, the elements of The Rules Do Not Apply seem plucked not from the script of Girls, which has also been exploring reproductive issues of late, but Transparent  even Portlandia.

When Ms. Levy, at 30, marries her girlfriend, her left-leaning parents are put out not because she is a lesbian, but because they are against the square traditions of marriage. Are you impressed with how cool I am about all this? her father said when she brought home her first girlfriend. She has a gothic affair with a brutish and unhinged transgender man who hacks Ms. Levys computer. When Ms. Levy conceives a child with the sperm of a dear friend who is rich enough to pay the childs college tuition but wants a hands-off relationship to parenthood, you imagine a sort of Michael Cunningham utopia for Ms. Levy and her wife in their house on Shelter Island. Or perhaps a reality show. Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, colorful exemplars not just of same-sex marriage but also of Manhattans creative class, are their neighbors.

Of her generation, Ms. Levy writes: Sometimes our parents were dazzled by the sense of possibility theyd bestowed on us. Other times, they were aghast to recognize their own entitlement, staring back at them magnified in the mirror of their offspring.

Ms. Levy, who in person speaks in the vernacular of her era  dude and girl are her preferred terms of address  presents a memoir often festooned with self-mocking irony. Its her second book. Female Chauvinist Pigs, out in 2005, wondered just how liberated the heroines of raunch culture actually were. She knows she is a different sort of cultural cliche, a bisexual Wesleyan graduate who never quite learned to mind her pronouns. She wears her Jewish-urbane sensibility lightly. Before her wedding, Ms. Levy writes of trying to woo her wifes Minnesotan mother, whose strongest expression of emotion was the phrase, Oh, honestly. In conversation one day, Ms. Levy lets loose an Oy vey, startling her soon-to-be mother-in-law. As she writes, Ms. Levy had to explain, Thats what my people say when we mean, Oh, honestly.

She grew up, in Larchmont, N.Y., as an outlier. She was the only child of 1960s-inflected parents who didnt fit in with the suburban ethos of her neighborhood: her father wrote copy for Planned Parenthood, Naral and NOW, among other organizations; her mother worked with Down syndrome children and opened an after-school day care. And there was a family secret hiding in plain sight: Her mother was engaged in a long-term affair with a grad-school classmate who would appear periodically, camping on blankets in the living room.

By her account, Ms. Levy was a brash, overly-verbal, unpopular child who took to her diary for companionship, using a notebook to puzzle her way through a hostile social environment at school and the weirdness at home. That was my lifeline, she said. People didnt like me, I was loud and aggressive. People can take it from a 42-year-old, but when youre a little kid, and people are like, Youre loud and awful, you think, I guess I am awful, so writing and figuring out how to put things into words was the way I felt better.
Patients sometimes overestimate their ability to handle the unfamiliar stimuli of the operating room, said Dr. Stavros G. Memtsoudis, a researcher and professor of anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

The patient will keep asking, What is my heart doing? Is that beep normal? Is this normal? I might say, If youd rather go to sleep you can, because I can see your blood pressure is going up because youre so stressed and youll bleed more, said Dr. Memtsoudis, who is also an anesthesiologist at Hospital for Special Surgery, an orthopedic center in New York where regional anesthesia is common. He also keeps on hand headphones, music selections and video glasses to soothe anxious awake patients.

And when it is the assistants turn to try a technique, Dr. Michael L. Marin, a professor and chairman of the surgery department at Mount Sinai Medical Center, is particularly judicious. Rather than risk unsettling the patient with what might be a typical instruction to a resident  See if you can find your way through it  Dr. Marin may be more circumspect: We need to adjust this piece over here.

Throughout, he is both trying to assure the awake patient, and educate residents and fellows about the importance of doing so. You have to recognize that the patient may be listening intently and theyre nervous, said Dr. Marin, who specializes in aortic aneurysm repair. Sometimes Ill go overboard and say, Thats perfect! or It came together exactly the way we wanted!

That makes patients feel much better, he said. They want to know you are confident, focused and in control. They are not really interested in hearing doctors joke about the drinking they did last night.

Dr. Ilyas, the hand surgeon, who is also an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, began routinely offering awake options to patients about four years ago. Among other advantages, he said, patients enjoy having a better understanding of their medical problem. And because they are awake and can follow direction, Dr. Ilyas can test their mobility right away to learn whether he needs to do further repair.

You get more ownership and appreciation of the treatment from patients, he said.

Now when he gives patients the choice to be awake or asleep, Dr. Ilyas said, about 80 percent are opting to be awake.

But when Dr. Ilyas himself needs surgery, he is still rather old-fashioned.

I dont want to be awake and worrying about it, he said. When I had a vasectomy I had the awake option. But I said, Nope! Id rather be asleep. Im good, thanks.
What if the surgeon started slicing into my knee before it was completely numb?

That was my biggest fear, while weighing whether to remain alert and watch the operation on the cartilage in my right knee, or to be put to sleep, preserving my peaceful ignorance.

Rational or otherwise, my reasons for staying awake  an option increasingly taken by patients, the subject of the accompanying article  prevailed.

1) I dont like general anesthesias side effects.

2) For a long year, my knee pain had resisted straightforward diagnosis and treatment. I wanted an ah-ha! glimpse of the problem.

3) Ever since I was a child, I have watched when the doctor gives me an injection. Not because I am brave, masochistic or even curious. On the contrary. Looking away, I imagine something far scarier. So watching a medical procedure has always been a form of self-soothing.
Five magenta balloons bobbed above a crowd of onlookers, near the white caps of uniformed chiefs arrayed along University Avenue in the Bronx. They were held aloft by five strangers, united in sadness for a fellow Bronx woman whom none had ever met, but each felt they knew.

Across the avenue, packed for a half-mile with navy-clad emergency medical workers, firefighters and police officers, the bells of a towering gothic revival church announced the funeral on Saturday for Yadira Arroyo, a Bronx-born medical worker who was killed in the line of duty on the same Bronx streets she had vowed to serve.

Inside the sanctuary, the 44-year-old woman whom nearly everyone called Yari was remembered as a fighter, a healer and a mother to her five sons and to all those who came to know and love her at Station 26, where she worked as an emergency medical technician, badge number 2017.

There, her captain said, she was a rock. At home, she was a friend and confidante, the only person who truly understood me, one of her sons, Jose Montes, recalled.
Ive lived in the in-between since I can remember, holding opposing philosophies in my head at once, changing my clothes and diction and food and daily rituals depending on my needs. Ever since I surgically rid myself of my sharply hooked Iranian nose, Ive been mistaken for every nationality. Im proud of it. I can survive anywhere. Still, its exhausting always straddling, never committing to an identity. Some of my family members find it weak, even immoral, this willingness to become someone different in order to thrive in hostile surroundings. Mr. Alexie, though, speaks of being able to switch between his white and Indian selves midsentence. Of being a spy in the house of ethnicity. He describes it as a practice. Negative capability, Keats calls it.

All I know is that living as a chameleon has saved me from permanent sorrow when half the cities Ive lived in have been attacked by people with my own skin and hair, with my religion of birth, with names that appear in my family. I have an eerie track record. I was born during the Iranian revolution, just as the war with Iraq began. The year after I left, the war ended and Khomeini died. Then in Oklahoma, the Murrah building was bombed. My first month in New York City was September 2001. I was vacationing near Nice when a truck plowed through packed pedestrian streets. I was riding under Westminster on Wednesday at 2:45 p.m. Theres no magic to this. We live in violent times and one is bound to cross paths with terror. But for me as an Iranian, each encounter is a reckoning with who I am, and what I can say.

And what can I say? My people arent the victims. We arent the perpetrators either, but were close enough that its best for us to retreat into the shadows for a time. Should the mother of the school shooter show her grief? Its grotesque. Ive heard so many Arab and Iranian friends whisper this same sentiment: I swear sometimes I feel like I caused it, just by being around.

Each time something like this happens, the ground shifts under those of us from the Middle East. We recede into the margins, and we wait breathless until someone with a face or name like ours takes responsibility. Those of us who can (like me) sheepishly sidle over to one of our other tribes, our chameleon skin quietly changing. The rest hang their heads and suffer the blows. Thats the most practical thing you learn from being an Iranian in the West  how to blend and fit, how to be a nomad among the many tribes youve inhabited, how to shield yourself when one of those tribes is causing so much of the worlds grief. Is it an abdication? Is it cowardly? At least its a safe way of living.
My response was the opposite. Perhaps because my own faith journey has at times been characterized by questions and uncertainty, I found the fact that the 20th-centurys greatest Christian apologist would give voice to his doubts reassuring. And Lewis was hardly alone in expressing doubts. Jesus himself, crucified and near death, gave voice to the question many people overwhelmed by pain ask: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Jesus question, like ours, was not answered in the moment. Even he was forced to confront doubt. But his agonized uncertainty was not evidence of faithlessness; it was a sign of his humanity. Like Job, we have to admit to the limitations of human knowledge when it comes to making sense of suffering. From the biblical evidence, the Christian author Philip Yancey has written, I must conclude that any hard-and-fast answers to the Why? questions are, quite simply, out of reach. So, too, is any assurance that the causes of our suffering, the thorns in our flesh, will be removed. So what, then, does Christianity have to offer in the midst of hardships and heartache?

The answer, I think, is consolation, including the consolation that comes from being part of a Christian community  people who walk alongside us as we journey through grief, offering not pieties but tenderness and grace, encouragement and empathy, and when necessary, practical help. (One can obviously find terrifically supportive friends outside of a Christian community. My point is simply that a healthy Christian community should be characterized by extravagant love, compassion and self-giving.)

For many other Christians, there is immense consolation in believing in what the Apostle Peter describes as an eternal inheritance. In all this you greatly rejoice, he writes, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. It is a core Christian doctrine that what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal, and that what is eternal is more important than what is temporal.

But even so great an assurance as eternal life, at the wrong time and in the wrong hands, can come across as uncaring. Its not that people of faith, when they are suffering, deny the heavenly hope; its that in being reminded of this hope they dont want their grief minimized or the grieving process overlooked. All things may eventually be made new again, but in this life even wounds that heal leave scars.

There is also, for me at least, consolation in the conviction that we are part of an unfolding drama with a purpose. At any particular moment in time I may not have a clue as to what that precise purpose is, but I believe, as a matter of faith, that the story has an author, that difficult chapters need not be defining chapters and that even the broken areas of our lives can be redeemed.
Since President Obama began the fight against ISIS in 2014, the Pentagon has operated under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force that was passed after Al Qaedas 9/11 attacks. But that justification is of questionable legality because ISIS did not exist when the authorization was approved.

The United States can claim a legal basis for its involvement in Iraq because Baghdad sought American help, which includes airstrikes, drones and thousands of troops, some of whom trained Iraqi units and others who are advisers now positioned close to the fighting. But there has been no such request from the Syrian government, which believes that a U.S.-led attack on Raqqa would be illegitimate unless it were coordinated with Damascus, the chief Syrian negotiator to peace talks in Geneva, Bashar Jaafari, said on Friday. Such coordination is unlikely, given how little the Pentagon thinks of President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian backers.

Past efforts to enact a new ISIS-related authorization of military force, by Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, and others, have been stymied because of congressional fecklessness. But Mr. Kaine is quietly soliciting support for a new proposal. The issue received fresh attention last week when Senator Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, told Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that it could be argued that the United States had effectively invaded northern Syria, violating the sovereignty of a country in the Middle East.

Mr. Mattis replied that because ISIS had basically erased the border between Iraq and Syria, the United States could not draw that imaginary line in the midst of an enemy and say its safe on one side. Even so, he said he would take no issue if Congress passed a new authorization, viewing it as a statement of the American peoples resolve to fight ISIS.

More than just a political endorsement of the troops, however, a new authorization of force could make Congress seriously debate how the rest of the war against ISIS will be fought, and to consider a crucial decision the administration must make soon on whether to arm Syrian Kurds for the Raqqa fight and risk alienating Turkey, a NATO ally.
Reform groups around the country understand this. In addition to JustLeadershipUSA, VOTE (New Orleans), A New Way of Life (Los Angeles), Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (San Francisco) and dozens of other groups are all led by incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people or their family members. And the public role of these activists may have a ripple effect. Each time a formerly incarcerated person appears before a legislature, speaks at a news conference or writes about life in prison, walls of shame and stigma begin to totter, and others find it easier to speak up. In a nation in which nearly a third of people have been arrested by age 23, these voices could have a profound collective impact.

The criminal justice reform movement has also begun to embrace victims and survivors of crime. Pro-prison activists have long asserted victims rights on the assumption that if the criminal justice system took victims experiences and opinions into account, it would treat offenders more harshly. But today, advocates of criminal justice reform like Lenore Anderson of the Alliance for Safety and Justice in Oakland, Calif., are challenging the assumption that crime victims necessarily want punitive outcomes.

Ms. Anderson, who helped persuade California voters to pass progressive ballot measures in 2014 and 2016, told me: If you ask crime victims to choose between prison and nothing, they choose prison. But people really want more choices. If you ask victims whether they want prison or alternatives like mental health treatment, drug programs and education, they overwhelmingly choose the latter.

I saw the truth of Ms. Andersons words in my own practice as a public defender in Washington in the 1990s. One of my teenage clients robbed a man at a bus stop while armed with a knife. The evidence against my client was overwhelming, and with the prosecutor asking for a long sentence in a juvenile prison, my only hope was a long shot: to go talk to the man he robbed.

I went to his house and asked for a few minutes of his time. I told him about my clients history of parental neglect and explained that a neighborhood crew had put him up to the robbery. I showed him the apology that the teenager had written at the bottom of his signed confession to the police. Finally, I told him that I had found a job training and counseling program that would accept my client. Sending him there, I said, would better protect society in the long run, and offer him more hope than locking him up in juvenile prison. As I left, I asked if he would consider supporting our proposal.

A few weeks later, the victim arrived in court. He told an annoyed prosecutor and a surprised judge that he had given the matter a lot of thought, had prayed about my suggestion and had decided to endorse the proposal for my client to enter the program. The judge agreed, and my client got the second chance that most of us would want for our child. The last time I saw him, years after his case was over, he was a grown man working in construction and raising a son of his own.
The progress of womens equality has not exactly been swift in American history. The endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment on Wednesday by the Nevada Legislature  35 years after the congressional deadline for passage  is being read by supporters as an encouraging sign, however slow-paced.

The E.R.A., which would enshrine in the Constitution the guarantee that a womans rights are equal to a mans and shall not be denied or abridged, at first moved quickly toward passage in the 1970s. But it fell three states short of the 38 needed for final approval by 1982, the deadline set by Congress. Opponents in Southern and Western states had dug in with richly fantasized warnings of the legal and cultural chaos that would ensue from a broad mandate of gender equality.

Echoes of the same misogyny were heard from Republicans in debate before Nevadas Democrat-controlled Legislature approved the amendment after decades of earlier failures. Proponents insisted the victory was more than hypothetical  pointing to Congresss extension of an earlier E.R.A. deadline as evidence that Congress could do so again if two more states approved the measure. The National Organization for Women is already taking aim at Virginia and Illinois, where the amendment has had considerable support but has been defeated in recent years.

Even some liberals snickered at the news from Nevada about the revival of the amendment. But the equality movement pointed to a new galvanizing force: the outrage of women and men at President Trumps sexism and vulgarity that resulted in millions of Americans marching in protest after his inauguration.
LOS ANGELES  I was working at my desk the other day, overlooking my front yard, when I saw a man walk by the window and around the corner toward the back of the house. He was in his late 20s, wearing a rumpled gray sweatshirt; Id never seen him before.

I waited, expecting him to come back around, since there is no other way out. When, after a few minutes, he didnt reappear, it dawned on me he could be a burglar. There had been postings on Nextdoor.com about break-ins. I looked out the back window and saw him, systematically peering into windows.

Like many Americans, my first instinct was to grab a gun. I suspect I am not the anomaly that my friends and family think I am. I am comfortable with guns. I grew up shooting targets for sport and took part in marksmanship competitions. I have also voted for Democrats in most elections, strongly support gun control and am against the death penalty. I do not think the drafters of the second amendment envisioned concealed semiautomatic weapons and hollow-point bullets in everyones hands.

I always figured that in a life-or-death situation, I could reason or talk my way out of it. But a few months ago, we heard about a 70-year-old woman in Orinda, a Northern California town near where I grew up, who was shot twice by armed robbers. Luckily, she survived. Why did the assailant shoot her? Because she tried to communicate with him, which interfered with his idea of how the encounter should go. So, as a last resort: a gun.
Inclusiveness must for globalisation, free trade: PM Dahal

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that inclusiveness that lies at the core of Asian culture must prevail while we continue to embark upon the path of globalisation and free trade.
These would not be your average Home Depots: Amazon has considered using forms of augmented or virtual reality to allow people to see how couches, stoves and credenzas will look in their homes, the person briefed on the discussions said.

Amazon is also kicking around an electronics-store concept similar to Apples retail emporiums, according to two of the people familiar with the discussions. These shops would have a heavy emphasis on Amazon devices and services such as the companys Echo smart home speaker and Prime Video streaming service.

And in groceries  a giant category in which Amazon has struggled  the company has opened a convenience store that does not need cashiers, and it is close to opening two stores where drivers can quickly pick up groceries without leaving their cars, all in Seattle. It has explored another grocery store concept that could serve walk-in customers and act as a hub for home deliveries.

Overseas, Amazon is quietly targeting India for new brick-and-mortar grocery stores. It is a vast market, and one still largely dominated by traditional street bazaars where shoppers must wander from stall to stall haggling over prices and deliberating over unrefrigerated meat sitting in the dusty open air. Amazons internal code name for its India grocery ambitions: Project Everest.

Last week, Amazon opened its fifth physical book store in Chicago, and it has five more announced locations under construction.

It is possible that some of the store ideas will never see the light of day. Groups within Amazon are often encouraged to come up with zany initiatives (this is the company that popularized the idea of drone deliveries). Many ideas are chucked after deeper scrutiny by executives. Amazon declined to talk about any stores it has not announced publicly.

We are always thinking about new ways to serve customers, but thinking is different than planning, said Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman.
Farhad: Speaking of policy directives with no clear purpose, the United States and Britain issued a surprise ban this week on electronics in the air. Under the new rule, passengers on U.S.-bound flights from many Middle Eastern cities are not allowed to carry any devices larger than a cellphone on board. Large electronics  tablets, laptops, e-readers, basically everything you need to keep your sanity on a long flight  must now be checked.

The American government says these rules are meant to counter a security threat and have nothing to do with President Trumps immigration policies. But given the White Houses track record on banning stuff from other countries, lots of people were skeptical about the aims for this policy. If the government was simply trying to punish Middle Eastern airlines, making their long-haul flights far less comfortable would be a good way to go about it.

Mike: Whats next?

Farhad: Well, several companies, including AT&T and Johnson & Johnson, announced that theyd be pulling down their ads from YouTube because of fears that their brands were appearing next to ISIS videos and other hate speech. Its not clear that this will amount to a big financial problem for YouTube and Google, its parent company, but these companies fears do highlight a larger problem with the online ad business.

More and more ads are being sold programmatically  that is, through financial algorithms run by computers rather than by human marketers determining the exact placement of any given spot. But its not clear that the big programmatic companies, of which Google is the largest and most powerful, have perfected ways to keep prominent brands off some of the seedier corners of the internet.

Mike: I imagine Taco Bell probably doesnt want its brand new chalupas brought to viewers alongside alt-right Pepe frogs.

Farhad: I suspect this is a short-term problem. Google is good at search and mining content for meaning; it should be able to come up with a way, soon, to identify the worst parts of its network, and keep its biggest brands far away from that content. So as long as Google acts fast, I see this is a temporary blip. What do you think?
The state of Arkansas, which plans to execute eight inmates over 10 days next month, is struggling to overcome a logistical problem to carry that out: There are not enough people who want to watch them die.

A state law requires that at least six people witness an execution to ensure that the states death penalty laws are properly followed. But so far, finding that many volunteer witnesses to cover all of the scheduled executions has proved difficult, prompting the director at the Department of Correction to take the extraordinary step of personally seeking volunteers.

A department spokesman declined to say whom the director, Wendy Kelley, has approached for help, but she has extended invitations at least to members of the Little Rock Rotary Club, according to news reports. Ms. Kelley made the request, which the members initially thought was a joke, after delivering a keynote address on Tuesday.

You seem to be a group that does not have felony backgrounds and are over 21, Ms. Kelley told the Rotarians, according to The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. So if youre interested in serving in that area, in this serious role, just call my office.
During a meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House on Friday, Mr. Ryan told the president that he was sorry the votes were not there. Mr. Trump bluntly told Mr. Ryan that many people had said he should have gone against the speakers advice and pursued a tax code overhaul first, a refrain the president has returned to frequently.

But Mr. Gingrich rejected the idea that Mr. Trumps presidency would be hobbled by the health care debacle or any of the other setbacks. He predicted that the president would win confirmation of Judge Gorsuch, and noted that even as the health care bill failed, Mr. Trump on Friday reversed Mr. Obamas rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a project that is popular among Mr. Trumps supporters.

He was the president this morning. He will be the president tomorrow. He has all the advantages that that implies, Mr. Gingrich said. Hes having a better presidency than anybody in the Washington media thinks.

And Mr. Trump is not alone in making early missteps.

President Bill Clinton got embroiled in an early controversy over service by gays in the military. And the effort by his wife, Hillary Clinton, to overhaul health care failed just as spectacularly as Mr. Trumps did. Mr. Obama lost his bid for cap and trade legislation limiting carbon emissions, though that defeat came during his second year in office.

Still, the challenge for Mr. Trump is clear: how to move past the daily turmoil and infighting inside the West Wing and prove that he can use his background as a businessman to advance the policies that he promised as a candidate.

To win an overhaul of the nations tax code and a $1 trillion investment in public infrastructure, Mr. Trump will need to find a way to build winning coalitions in the House and the Senate by corralling the often-warring factions in the Republican Party. That may be even more difficult on a tax overhaul than it was on health care, given the moneyed interests watching every proposed change. On some bipartisan goals, the president will have to seize the chance to pick up some Democratic votes as well.
The reports of heavy civilian casualties have come at a critical point in the military campaign to defeat the Islamic State. Iraqi officials said that the Trump administration had appeared to loosen restrictions on the rules of engagement, making it easier for the Iraqis to call in airstrikes. The Iraqis had been frustrated by the Obama administrations deliberate approach.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the rules had not been loosened.

The coalition said in a statement on Saturday that the airstrikes had been conducted at the request of the Iraqi security forces, and that it believed it was hitting Islamic State fighters and equipment.

The coalition respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from ISIS brutality, the statement said. Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISISs inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods.

It added: Coalition forces work diligently and deliberately to be precise in our airstrikes. Coalition forces comply with the Law of Armed Conflict and take all reasonable precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians.

The civilian deaths occurred in the recently liberated neighborhood of Mosul Jidideh, and reports of mass casualties began emerging on Thursday, six days after the coalition said it had struck the area. That lapse may have been a result of delays in getting rescue workers to the area, some of whom traveled from Baghdad, 250 miles away.
At the Kings Valley Diner in Mr. Fasos district, stretching across the Catskills and north past Albany, the congressman won some harsh reviews. He had at first hesitated over the health care proposal, which the Congressional Budget Office projected would lead to 24 million fewer people having health insurance over a decade. But Republican leaders pursuing Mr. Faso shifted the cost of Medicaid programs away from upstate counties like the ones he represents, and he backed the bill days before it fell apart.

Faso played that whole thing like an idiot, to be frank, said Jim Palmatier, 62, who said he was disappointed to see the congressman horse-trading over a doomed bill. He tried to be a little too clever, and he just ended up looking like a fool. Theres no way Im voting for him next time around.

Eating breakfast with his teenage grandson, Mr. Palmatier, who described himself as a conservative, said he wanted to see the Affordable Care Act repealed but had been disappointed with the Republicans replacement.

They tried to get it through so quickly, they barely had time to explain the thing, he said.

In Representative Adam Kinzingers district, a Republican seat in a largely rural area outside Chicago, even conservative voters voiced unease with Mr. Kinzinger and his partys sputtering approach to health care. Bill Chivers, 64, a teacher in Onarga, Ill., who said he leaned Republican, questioned whether lawmakers understood the bill: Nobody knew what it was. Not even Congress  they dont even know what it means.

Anthony McIntyre, 55, who was grilling pork burgers for a fund-raiser outside the Hometown Family Foods store in Gilman, Ill., said he was relieved that the bill had failed. Mr. McIntyre, who has health coverage through his job in roofing, said he feared that the bill would have led to higher insurance rates.
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo  Members of a militia ambushed and then beheaded about 40 police officers on Friday in a central province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said on Saturday.

In recent months, the provinces in the Kasai region, in south-central Congo, have been the scene of fighting between the police and a local tribal militia called Kamuina Nsapu. Violence in the area has claimed more than 300 lives since August and displaced more than 200,000 people.

Military authorities reported on Friday that they had lost contact with a police convoy from the capital, Kinshasa, that was making its way toward Kananga, southeast of the capital.

Francois Kalamba, the speaker of the Kasai provincial assembly, confirmed on Saturday that the convoy had been ambushed by Kamuina Nsapu fighters between the city of Tshikapa and Kananga, and that about 40 officers had been decapitated.
I believe a diamond like this should be publicly sold in the country so that we know the value of it, what is due to the government and what is due to the people so that everyone can have their share, Mr. Koroma said.

Diamonds  especially so-called conflict, or blood, diamonds used by warlords to fund wars that have racked the region  have long been at the center of controversy in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in Africa.

Sierra Leones decade-long civil war, which ended in 2002 and killed 50,000 people, was started by rebels who claimed to be ridding the mines of foreign control. Millions fled their homes in a war that included gruesome amputations and child soldiers. The economy tanked  in a country where diamonds litter the soil in some areas.

The war is over and conditions in the mines have improved somewhat, but the industry still faces accusations of corruption. Smuggling to other countries is common.

The rock uncovered by Mr. Momohs crew is not the first big gem to surface in Sierra Leone, or the first to generate controversy.

In 1972, just a few years after Sierra Leone gained its independence from Britain, miners unearthed a rare diamond weighing 968.9 carats. The gem was nicknamed the Star of Sierra Leone and was sold for an estimated $2.5 million to a New York City jeweler. The proceeds of the sale disappeared, contributing to the souring of the nations economy, according to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission established after Sierra Leones civil war.

Mr. Momoh is a preacher in a small church in Kono, a district in eastern Sierra Leone, and sells peanuts as a side business. He also owns a mining license for a small diamond field and has been running a crew of miners for the past six years.
NEW DELHI  Two civilians and a police officer were killed in explosions in Bangladesh on Saturday as troops raided a building believed to be a hide-out for militants in the eastern part of the country, the police said.

Twenty-five people were wounded in the explosions, which took place on a road near an Islamic religious school, said Golam Kibria, a senior police official in the city of Sylhet.

Since Friday, paramilitary troops have been engaged in an operation to flush out a group of Islamist radicals holed up in a nearby building with a large cache of ammunition.

The police said that earlier Saturday, 78 civilians were rescued from the building as soldiers broke through a boundary wall.
JAKARTA, Indonesia  Parlin Sitio leaned back from a table of empty dishes at a restaurant in eastern Jakarta with a look of satisfaction. He had just enjoyed an order of rica-rica  dog meat with Indonesian spices.

Minimum, I eat it once a week, said Mr. Sitio, who sells mobile phones for a living. The taste is good, and its served fresh here. It keeps the body warm and the blood flowing.

In Indonesia, as in some other countries where dogs are eaten, the industry operates largely in the shadows, and reliable data on consumption is scarce. But restaurant owners, butchers, researchers and animal rights advocates agree that more dogs are being killed and eaten here.

That makes for a surprising contrast with other Asian countries like South Korea and China, where the practice appears to have been increasingly shunned as incomes have risen, along with pet ownership and concern for animal welfare.

Indonesia is an example of how economic development can also have the opposite effect, making dog meat newly affordable for people who have no particular objection to it, say people who have studied the subject.

Its a pattern, not just in Indonesia, but throughout the Southeast Asian region, said Dr. Eric Brum, a veterinarian and a country team leader for the United Nations agriculture agency in Bangladesh, who worked in Indonesia for nine years.

Some of these communities have more access to markets and greater disposable income, so theres more demand, he said. As dog demand increases, theres going to be more and more production, and more trade.

Many Indonesians who are still too poor to eat beef, except on special occasions, can now afford dog or cat, said Brad Anthony, a Canadian animal protection researcher and analyst who lives in Singapore.

From a strictly practical, agricultural point of view, growing dogs and cats for meat requires far less space and feed resources than growing cows, and is therefore cheaper, Mr. Anthony said. The economics of it all is likely the primary motivator for production and consumption.

Besides affordability, many who eat dog meat cite what they consider to be its special health benefits. (The warm quality that Mr. Sitio mentioned alludes to a traditional belief that certain foods have warm energy, others cold.)

The Indonesian government does not collect data on how many dogs are killed for food or consumed each year. That is because dogs are not classified as livestock, the way cows, pigs and chickens are. Because of this, the slaughter, distribution, sale and consumption of dogs are not regulated.

Many Muslims, who make up the overwhelming majority of Indonesians, tend to regard dog meat as unclean, though Islamic tradition does not forbid it outright, as it does pork.

But animal rights advocates say the practice of eating dog meat seems to be thriving in Muslim areas, as well as on the island of Bali, the countrys one majority-Hindu province, where it has also traditionally been discouraged. And some of Indonesias many ethnic minorities  like Mr. Sitios Batak, who are primarily Christian  have eaten dogs for centuries.

The Bali Animal Welfare Association estimates that as many as 70,000 dogs are slaughtered and consumed on the popular resort island every year.
Indian army chief Rawat to arrive Nepal on March 28

Chief of Army Staff of Indian Army Bipin Rawat is scheduled to arrive Nepal on a four-day visit starting March 28.
TAIPEI, Taiwan  The disappearance of a Taiwanese activist for human rights and democratic causes has raised fears here that he may have been detained by the Chinese authorities.

The man, Lee Ming-cheh, has not been heard from since last Sunday morning, when he boarded a flight from Taipei to Macau, according to friends and relatives. A friend went to the airport in Macau to meet him, but he never emerged from the arrivals gate, said Cheng Shiow-jiuan, the director of Taipei Wenshan Community College, where Mr. Lee is a manager.

Mr. Lee had crossed from Macau into mainland China on Sunday, but his whereabouts have been a mystery since then, Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council, a cabinet-level agency that deals with China-related issues, said in recent days.

China has issued no statements about Mr. Lee.

The fact that Lee Ming-cheh has gone missing once again raises serious questions about the safety of people working with civil society in China, Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty Internationals East Asia director, said in a statement on Friday.
LONDON  The short and happy life of the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, may be coming to a close after its only member of Parliament, Douglas Carswell, quit the party on Saturday to become an independent.

Mr. Carswell, 45, was considered a great catch, defecting to UKIP from the Conservative Party in August 2014 because, he said, he believed that the Conservative government was ambivalent about holding a referendum to leave the European Union.

In a message on his website on Saturday, however, Mr. Carswell told his constituents: Like many of you, I switched to UKIP because I desperately wanted us to leave the E.U. Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving UKIP.

The Conservative government, under Prime Minister Theresa May, is set to invoke Article 50 to carry out Britains departure from the European Union, known as Brexit, undermining UKIPs raison detre.
ROME  Proclaiming Europe is our common future, 27 leaders of the European Union signed a statement on Saturday in Rome declaring their commitment to integrating the Continent even as a series of crises has badly weakened the efforts and Britain prepares to leave the bloc.

The statement, known as the Rome Declaration and signed on the anniversary of the day the blocs foundations were laid 60 years ago, underscored the aspirations of a unique union with common institutions and strong values, a community of peace, freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

In a nod to reality, however, the leaders acknowledged that they were facing unprecedented challenges, both global and domestic, including regional conflicts, terrorism, growing migratory pressures, protectionism and social and economic inequalities.

The ceremony took place in a hall in Rome that was richly decorated in frescoes depicting scenes from the ancient world. It is the same room where the Treaty of Rome was signed on March 25, 1957, by six countries. That event helped lay the groundwork for todays union.
Man held with controlled drugs worth Rs 1 million

Police on Friday made public a youth who was arrested with a huge cache of controlled psychoactive drugs worth Rs 1 million in Dharan, Sunsari.
From Consortium News



Walter Raymond Jr., a CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist who oversaw President Reagan's 'perception management' and psyops projects at the National Security Council. Raymond is partially obscured by President Reagan and is sitting next to Nation

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Newly declassified documents from the Reagan presidential library help explain how the U.S. government developed its sophisticated psychological operations capabilities that -- over the past three decades -- have created an alternative reality both for people in targeted countries and for American citizens, a structure that expanded U.S. influence abroad and quieted dissent at home.

The documents reveal the formation of a psyops bureaucracy under the direction of Walter Raymond Jr., a senior CIA covert operations specialist who was assigned to President Reagan's National Security Council staff to enhance the importance of propaganda and psyops in undermining U.S. adversaries around the world and ensuring sufficient public support for foreign policies inside the United States.

Raymond, who has been compared to a character from a John LeCarre' novel slipping easily into the woodwork, spent his years inside Reagan's White House as a shadowy puppet master who tried his best to avoid public attention or -- it seems -- even having his picture taken. From the tens of thousands of photographs from meetings at Reagan's White House, I found only a couple showing Raymond -- and he is seated in groups, partially concealed by other officials.

But Raymond appears to have grasped his true importance. In his NSC files, I found a doodle of an organizational chart that had Raymond at the top holding what looks like the crossed handles used by puppeteers to control the puppets below them. Although it's impossible to know exactly what the doodler had in mind, the drawing fits the reality of Raymond as the behind-the-curtains operative who was controlling the various inter-agency task forces that were responsible for implementing various propaganda and psyops strategies.

Until the 1980s, psyops were normally regarded as a military technique for undermining the will of an enemy force by spreading lies, confusion and terror. A classic case was Gen. Edward Lansdale -- considered the father of modern psyops -- draining the blood from a dead Filipino rebel in a such a way so the dead rebel's superstitious comrades would think that a vampire-like creature was on the prowl. In Vietnam, Lansdale's psyops team supplied fake and dire astrological predictions for the fate of North Vietnamese and Vietcong leaders.

Essentially, the psyops idea was to play on the cultural weaknesses of a target population so they could be more easily manipulated and controlled. But the challenges facing the Reagan administration in the 1980s led to its determination that peacetime psyops were also needed and that the target populations had to include the American public.

The Reagan administration was obsessed with the problems left behind by the 1970s' disclosures of government lying about the Vietnam War and revelations about CIA abuses both in overthrowing democratically elected governments and spying on American dissidents. This so-called "Vietnam Syndrome" produced profound skepticism from regular American citizens as well as journalists and politicians when President Reagan tried to sell his plans for intervention in the civil wars then underway in Central America, Africa and elsewhere.

While Reagan saw Central America as a "Soviet beachhead," many Americans saw brutal Central American oligarchs and their bloody security forces slaughtering priests, nuns, labor activists, students, peasants and indigenous populations. Reagan and his advisers realized that they had to turn those perceptions around if they hoped to get sustained funding for the militaries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as well as for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, the CIA-organized paramilitary force marauding around leftist-ruled Nicaragua.

So, it became a high priority to reshape public perceptions to gain support for Reagan's Central American military operations both inside those targeted countries and among Americans.

A "Psyops Totality"

As Col. Alfred R. Paddock Jr. wrote in an influential November 1983 paper, entitled "Military Psychological Operations and US Strategy," "the planned use of communications to influence attitudes or behavior should, if properly used, precede, accompany, and follow all applications of force. Put another way, psychological operations is the one weapons system which has an important role to play in peacetime, throughout the spectrum of conflict, and during the aftermath of conflict."



President Ronald Reagan leading a meeting on terrorism on Jan. 26, 1981, with National Security Advisor Richard Allen, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and White House counselor Edwin Meese.

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Paddock continued, "Military psychological operations are an important part of the 'PSYOP Totality,' both in peace and war. ... We need a program of psychological operations as an integral part of our national security policies and programs. ... The continuity of a standing interagency board or committee to provide the necessary coordinating mechanism for development of a coherent, worldwide psychological operations strategy is badly needed."

Some of Raymond's recently available handwritten notes show a focus on El Salvador with the implementation of "Nation wide multi-media psyops" spread through rallies and electronic media. "Radio + TV also carried Psyops messages," Raymond wrote. (Emphasis in original.) Though Raymond's crimped handwriting is often hard to decipher, the notes make clear that psyops programs also were directed at Honduras, Guatemala and Peru.

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From Reader Supported News



President Barack Obama and White House staff react as the final votes are counted for the passage of the Affordable Care Act, March 21, 2010.

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Of course it doesn't get any easier when your party's figurehead and "closer" is under investigation by the FBI and Congress for being a Russian puppet. Does that matter? Likely, yes. Sure the Freedom Caucus wanted major concessions on the healthcare bill. But they might also have been leery of standing too close to a White House that, regardless of their denials, can't quite manage to photoshop Russian President Vladimir Putin out of their team picture. In parliamentary terms, the Republican retreat on the repeal of Obamacare was a vote of no-confidence on the party's leader. Trump's rise to power has given the GOP the power of its fondest dreams, and the baggage of its worst nightmares.

But that diverts attention away from the powerful and lasting affirmation of President Barack Obama's legacy. In direct terms, what turned back the Republican plot to overthrow the Affordable Care Act was white voters in red districts coming out in historic numbers to say, "Do not take my Obamacare coverage away." The Republicans tried to downplay the significance of the town hall demonstrations, but privately repealing Obama's signature achievement appeared, in electoral terms, like it had third rail written all over it.

What the GOP had convinced their base of in 2010 was that Obamacare was synonymous with Communistcare. A thoroughly dishonest meme that they rode all the way to capturing a House majority. Five short years after its enactment it is now viewed, particularly by low income Americans, regardless of political affiliation, as an indispensable lifeline to medical treatment and nothing short of an act of mercy.

What stands as the greatest testament to Obama's legacy is that his signature legislative achievement did not just survive, but the people it was intended to serve stood up and fought for it.

It's not what the Canadians have or what Europe has. The Health Care industry is still deeply entrenched and still reaping outrageous profits. It's not single-payer, a system that Americans have every right to build if they want to (think freedom). But it is, in the hearts and minds of the American people, worth standing up and fighting for.

Congratulations President Obama, now you can hang out with Willie Mays. Like him, you earned it on the field.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall's Bottom-Up weaves together the many strands of new thinking about how to use decentralized, non-hierarchical approaches to solve crucial social and economic problems. Bottom-Up presents a tapestry of ideas and examples that can inspire and guide readers."



Peter Plastrik, coauthor of Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact
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Sketch of George Lakey from 'Waging Nonviolence.com'

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1. Recognize that we represent the majority, not Trump. "

"

Three times more people participated in the Women's March in Washington, D.C., than were present at the inauguration the day before. He lost the popular vote in the election. Many of his own voters admitted in exit polls that they consider him unqualified to be president. Furthermore, Trump plans to target progressive policies that polls find to be supported by solid majorities of Americans.

Trump does have strengths in addition to his brilliance in manipulating mainstream media. Key parts of the economic elite have decided that they can use him for their own goals. So, they will support him -- as long as he can deliver acceleration of school privatization, for example, or the fossil fuel pipelining of America. His core voting base (the minority of a minority) may support him for a period, until his failure to deliver unrealistic promises becomes apparent.

Even before the inauguration, he alienated significant parts of the security state that he needs to depend on. He needs a vast professional bureaucracy to carry out his will, but it has many subtle ways of thwarting him. Harry Truman famously admitted, publicly, his frustration after he was repeatedly stymied by an uncooperative bureaucracy.

Trump's bullying is both a strength and a weakness. His style alienates many, including among his own voters, and stirs opposition.

Stopping Trump is not a slam dunk, but it is possible when he is given his due as a cagey opponent. It also helps when we decide to be strategic rather than led by fear and moral outrage, jumping from whichever tactic feels good in the moment, but has little impact. Now is the time when we can identify his pillars of support and lay plans to undermine them.

2. Strengthen civic institutions and their connections with targeted populations.

Trump will continue to turn to the age-old weapon of scapegoating to shore up his working-class base, and he'll feel more pressure to do that as his own programs for "making America great again" fail to deliver the goods to that base -- even while enriching the economic elite.

Some sanctuary cities have already made a good start by declaring their resistance to anti-immigrant moves by the federal government. Activists can reinforce these initiatives with a range of civic and religious institutions, urging them to strengthen their connections with scapegoated groups like Jews, immigrants and African Americans. The civics may not by themselves always think of this, so it may take activists within or near them to alert them to their responsibility of solidarity.

Because we are the majority, we can make full use of Bill Moyer's four roles of social change. Consider: How can advocates, helpers, organizers and rebels strengthen their solidarity impact? Training for Change organizer Daniel Hunter brainstormed some possible moves: Advocates persuade cities and states to give drivers licenses to undocumented people. Organizers create circles of solidarity in which citizens could physically intervene -- when immigrants are in danger --and surround the vulnerable ones. (The New Sanctuary Movement in Philadelphia calls this "sanctuary in the streets.") Helpers could insist that they provide food and healthcare to people in deportation centers, and if entry is refused, collaborate with rebels to break in with food and risk arrest.

3. Play offense, not defense.

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The Alamo at Night

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First of all I'm not a political consultant. Nor am I looking for anything from you except the Strength, Courage, and Wisdom to set the right course for this country, one that will understand from this point on its role and its people.

Here's the simple Truth: Despite the Republican's healthcare (sic) bill's demise, the Democratic Party is still losing the struggle. It always has lately and it always will unless you start to understand the reality of your failures. Simply put, you don't possess the Strength, Courage, or Wisdom to evaluate yourselves let alone go into battle against Republican-style tactics. With or without Trump the Republicans WILL own this presidential term.

Sitting back, waiting, watching how the Republicans are struggling with healthcare (sic), waiting for the final results to vote on the bill, is a recipe for failure. Did the Republicans do that while Democrats were in charge? No, they attacked until Democrats changed bills to their liking.

I assume the Republicans will delay but still come up with a satisfactory illusion bill that they can spin to their advantage. And you will now become the muted obstructionist party who refused to help form a better healthcare bill for the betterment of this country for the duration of their term. Unless, you allow your simple logic to finally enlighten you all!

While the Republicans have been bashing Obamacare, take a totally different approach, throw them a changeup.

"We forget the things that make the most sense: The simplicity of purpose, the logic of success. The purpose is low cost health coverage for all." My question is simple: "Which healthcare system works best, Obamacare, Ryancare, or Medicare?" *

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From Other Words

Trump's whole "jobs" panel is made up of Wall Street banksters and corporate powers.



WALL STREET SHUFFLE - the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy

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By golly, The Donald delivers.

Trump and his new blue-ribbon panel of working-class champions have announced a bold new initiative to create millions of American jobs. A spokesman for the panel, Steve Schwarzman, praised Trump as a leader who wants to "do things a lot better in our country, for all Americans."

Wait a minute -- Steve Schwarzman? Isn't he a billionaire hedge-fund huckster on Wall Street? Yes -- and holy money bags, there's Jamie Dimon, head of the scandal-ridden bank JPMorgan Chase.

Working-class champions? Hardly.

Trump's whole "jobs" panel, it turns out, is made up of Wall Street banksters and corporate powers like Wal-Mart that are notorious for laying off and ripping off workers.

Trump-the-candidate fulminated against such moneyed elites, calling them "responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class." But now, in a spectacular flip-flop, he's brought these robbers directly inside his presidency, asking them to be architects of his economic strategy.

Worse, he's doing this in the name of helping workers.

Hello! To develop policies beneficial to working stiffs, bring in some working stiffs! But there's not a single labor advocate on his policy council, in his cabinet, or anywhere near his White House.

Thus, the so-called "job-creation plan" announced by Trump and his corporate cohorts doesn't create any jobs, but calls instead for de-regulating Wall Street.

These flim-flammers actually want us rubes to believe that "freeing" banksters to return to casino-style speculation and consumer scams will give them more money to invest in American jobs.

Do they think we have sucker wrappers around our heads? Trump's scheme will let banks make a killing, but it doesn't require them to invest in jobs -- so they won't.

There's a name for this: fraud.
What is 'politics' a Senator's quip went ... 'Poli' he said means many in Greek, and 'tics' are bloodsucking parasites. It drew a large laugh not just from the audience and the Supreme Court nominee being questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but the senators themselves. Judge Neil Gorsuch, a Federal Appeals Court judge, talked very modestly about following the orders of his "bosses" i.e. past Supreme Court decisions, precedent and following the law irrespective of his own beliefs, which he refused to discuss, begging off questions with the stock answer that it might dissuade or encourage future litigants. And that it really did not matter because he followed the law through precedent and statutes even if his personal views disagreed.



Judge Gorsuch is most certainly going to be confirmed; he has the votes and unknown parties have gathered $10 million to assist his nomination. Yet the hearings droned on for three days with often the same answers and the same half-dozen cases being cited although he has ruled on over 2000. He is a brilliant man, attended Columbia University and Harvard Law School -- the latter when Obama was there and knew him but not well. 'It's a big place' he explained when asked. He then went to Oxford under a Marshall scholarship and earned a doctorate. His conservative pedigree includes his mother, Ann Gorsuch Burford, the notorious Environmental Protection Agency Director appointed by Ronald Reagan.



Our elected politicians are earning their keep perhaps as another hearing is seeking to ferret out the truth about any connections or understandings between the Trump campaign and the Russians i.e. their government, intelligence, friends of Putin, the man himself, etc. This is being held in the other body, the House of Representatives, before the House Intelligence Committee. Given the line of questioning from the two parties, a casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that this in fact is two hearings: one on the leak of intelligence documents to the press -- a crime with a maximum ten-year prison sentence -- and the other a closer examination of the content of the resulting newspaper articles revealing the alleged connections and the parties from the Trump campaign.



Meanwhile, Trump's allegations about being wiretapped are in a way confirmed because some of his team have been surveilled incidental to primary targets, it was learned this week.



The two being questioned were FBI Director James Comey and Admiral Michael Rogers the Director of National Intelligence as the hearing was ostensibly on Russian Cyber hacking and interference in the U.S. election. The oft-repeated answer to nearly every question: "I can't answer that because of the ongoing investigation." Another question: since when did it become a crime to have business dealings with Russia?



No mention of the fact that Russian interference consisted mainly of exposing corruption within a Democratic Party leadership conspiring to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination, instead of remaining neutral as they are supposed to. That kind of interference is like a necessary dose of castor oil.
After promising to "repeal and replace Obamacare on day one [of his presidency]", Donald Trump suffered an ignominious rejection on day 64.





True to form, Trump took no responsibility for the defeat of the Republican plan (the American Health Care Act) but, instead, blamed Democrats. Trump had attempted a "full-court press" to secure passage of his plan but was not successful winning over Tea-Party Republicans and, at the end, moderate Republicans who objected to last minute changes to the bill.





What have we learned?





1.The Resistance Works: 64 days ago, when Trump lumbered into the White House, it was unthinkable that he and his exuberant Republican allies would not succeed repealing the Affordable Care Act.





Then Democrats built a grass-roots resistance. They put aside whatever differences lingered from the stinging November 8th defeat and began to work together in every congressional district.





It's true that at the end, congressional Democrats stood united against the Trump-Ryan legislation, but the resistance pushed them to do this. Think of the millions of phone calls that were made to members of Congress -- supposedly 48:1 opposed to Trump's bill. Think of the all the citizens who showed up at congressional town hall meetings.





On the March 24th Rachel Maddow show, Rachel detailed how the resistance in Morris County, New Jersey, (NJ 11) convinced hard-line Republican congressman, Rodney Freylinghuysen to vote against Trump's plan. The resistance works and it is just getting started.





2. Trump's entire legislative agenda went into the toilet. The Trump Administration had planned on a big healthcare win to facilitate a massive tax reform -- big cuts for the wealthy -- and to follow this with a jobs bill -- faux infrastructure construction. Now it's "back to the drawing board."





Trump's problem is that he can't draw and has no "drawing board." ("There's no there, there.") What he has is a collection of tired campaign one-liners, such as "we're going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something terrific." The substance in the Republican plan came not from the Trump White House -- which has a tiny policy group -- but from the Republican Congressional leadership (and the network of conservative think tanks that support them).





Repealing the Affordable Care Act was the linchpin of the Trump legislative "agenda." Trump's huge loss has jeopardized Republican chances in the 2018 midterm elections.





The re-election cycle has gotten very long and, therefore, political observers says that any substantial Congressional legislation has to be accomplished in the first 200 days. We're a third of the way through these 200 days and it look like 115th Republican-controlled Congress is a bust. The 237 Republican representatives, who are up for re-election in 2018, have a huge problem.





3. Trump's approval ratings will get worse. Failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act might mean nothing to the Trump Administration if "the Donald" had high approval ratings, but he doesn't. His latest favorability ratings show him "underwater" by 20 points and headed down; even his support among Republican stalwarts has slipped -- and will slip further after March 24.





The longer Trump goes on with no significant legislative accomplishments, the more his ratings will decline. The more Trump's approval ratings decline, the less likely Republicans in Congress will be to defer to him. (And the less likely that Trump will get any significant legislation passed.) Before Labor Day, most Republican Congressmen will crank up their reelection campaign without Trump.





What happens next? The next focus of the resistance should be opposition to the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. As was the case with defense of the ACA, Americans should call, fax, and text their Senators. They should demand to see them to express their disapproval of this nomination.





Meanwhile the investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia stumbles through the Washington jungle. If it bogs down, the resistance needs to demand a special prosecutor.




Nepali man dies in Malaysia

A Nepali worker died after falling off an under construction high-rise building in Putrajaya, Malaysia on Friday.
Heres a little nice thing to cheer up the end of your week  Axis of Awesome frontwoman and beautiful human Jordan Raskopoulos is celebrating her second year of transition, with a beaut little video documenting the time since she first took that little blue pill.

Its not uncommon for someone who is transitioning to document their experience, and Jordan sharing her experience adds to the plethora of support that can be found online.

March 24, 2015 was the day I started my transition, Jordan says in the videos description.

Its been TWO YEARS since i dropped the first of those little blue pills and began my journey towards living a genuine life without shame. Thank you to everyone who has supported and loved me over this time.

Big ol congrats to you, Jordan. Youre doing a beautiful thing by being unashamedly yourself. Love ya.

Photo: YouTube / Jordan Raskopoulos.
Rivas Residence LO RES - Custom Firebox w: 48" Bur

Contact

The Bio Flame

***@thebioflame.com The Bio Flame

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-- With locations throughout Australia, The Bio Flame brand of ethanol fireplaces has just announced their new partner for the Melbourne region.Director of Marketing, Justin Orr announced today that the award winning ethanol fireplace manufacturer now has an exclusive distributor on the Australian Gold Coast! The company Sneddons has signed an exclusive distributor contract with The Bio Flame. As of March 15th, Australians in the State of Victoria, will be able to purchase Bio Flame products through a local distributor, making the product much more attainable."We thrilled with being able to further expand into the Australian market with our ethanol heaters and are quite happy with our new exclusive distributor,"stated Orr. "We have been looking for the perfect distributor to break into this region and are confident that with a location in Melbourne, Sneddons is just that." With distributors all around the world, Melbourne was a natural next step for the constantly growing Bio Flame.Now all of The Bio Flame's consumers in the State of Victoria now have a local distributor to purchase our ethanol fireplace product from. The Bio Flame believes this will allow the company to see continued growth across other parts of Australia over the next year."We are really looking forward to a strong launch into the Melbourne market. There has been a great demand for our ethanol fireplace and ethanol burner products in this region over the last several years and we are excited to be able to fulfill this," concludes Orr.With a Bio Flame retailer in most major Australian markets, including Perth, Brisbane Gold Coast, and now Melbourne, Bio Flame has your heating needs covered!www..comSneddons145-147 Geelong RoadFootscray, VIC 3011AustraliaT (03) 9689 2610www.About The Bio Flame ( https://www.thebioflame.com/ about/ Since 2007 The Bio Flame has been designing and manufacturing unique, eco-friendly, ethanol fireplaces. Bio Flame designers and engineers have continued to set the highest standards of bio ethanol burning fireplaces in the industry with custom designs and record breaking innovations. The Bio Flame has gained great popularity amongst home builders, architects, hotels/resorts and designers, and is now available in over 60 countries worldwide!Like what we've got to say? Come follow us on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/ TheBioFlame ) Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BioFlame) Tumblr (http://thebioflame.tumblr.com/)YouTube Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/thebioflame/)
Demand for Portland real estate has stayed strong, even as the number of listings remains thin. That's helped keep prices rising for 2017.

By: Winston Rowe & Associates

Contact

Staff Writer

processing@winstonrowe.com

248-246-2243 Staff Writer248-246-2243

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--2016 was another impressive year for the Portland housing market, with a surplus of buyers and a deficit of sellers, which drove home prices higher across the board, 2017 is expected to be much better.Winston Rowe & Associates, a national no advance fee commercial and investment real estate due diligence and advisory firm feels that the Portland Metro market is poised for growth due to the combined economic components.The local housing market has benefited greatly from healthy job growth, and this is likely to continue, albeit at a slightly more tepid rate, through 2017. Economic vitality is the backbone of housing demand, so we should continue to see healthy employment growth next year. This will translate to additional demand for housing. Migration to the metro area from other states will also continue in the coming year, putting further pressure on our housing market.Are we building too many apartments? Developers completed 3,700 units in 2015 and they will likely complete close to 6,500 new units in 2016  an impressive increase. In the coming year, we expect to see rental rate growth start to slow and concessions return as developers vie for prospective tenants. Demand may exceed supply in 2017 but the market will remain fairly tight.This year saw noteworthy increases in the number of Millennial buyers and we expect to see even more in 2017.Home prices will continue to rise. We expect to see price growth starting to taper. The market has been on a tear since the technical bottom out in 2011, with average home prices up by an impressive 64 percent from the low, and 16 percent above the pre-recession peak seen in 2008. Look for home prices to increase by an average of 8.5 percent in 2017.Winston Rowe & Associates a no upfront fee due diligence and advisory firm prepared this article their primary objective is to provide the most reliable and efficient means of sourcing both debt and equity funding for your commercial real estate loans.A principal is always ready to speak with prospective clients; they can be contacted ator check Winston Rowe & Associates out on line at
By: Mr. Yankovsky

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-- Pechersk district court in Kyiv satisfied the suit of Mykola Yankovsky, the owner of "Stirolbiofarm"LTD against the owner of the website yankovskiy-leaks.com. The information published on the website had been declared misleading and offending the honor, dignity and business reputation of Mr. Yankovsky. The relevant judgment was issued on December 22, 2016.It is to remind that it's not the first time when similar publications aimed to "prove" a relation of Ukrainian businessman to the terrorists of so-called "DPR and LPR", appear on doubtful resources; however, in all similar cases the Court and investigation bodies have already proved the absurdity of the published allegations.In particular, in summer 2016 the Investigation Department of the Main Administration of the SSU in Kyiv and Kyiv region ordered that neither Mr. Yankovsky, nor "Stirolbiofarm"or other related enterprises had committed any actions aimed at financial or material support of the "DPR". The criminal case was closed due to the lack of corpus delicti.At the same time, investigation found out that in 2014 "Stirilbiofarm"LTD took all measures, prescribed by Ukrainian legislation to transfer its activities to the territory controlled by Ukrainian public authorities;however soon after that the equipment, premises and production of the enterprise were seized by militants. This fact was confirmed by the decisions of the Kyiv City Appellate Court. The decisions prescribe that between May and July 2014 illegal military formations obtained the ownership over the property of "Stirolbiofarm"and used it for their own benefit.It's well known that after seizing of "Stirolbiofarm"raiders registered the enterprise with the same name in the territory of the "DPR" with new owners and management. The activities of the new enterprise caused spreading of misleading information by some mass media on the so-called financing of terrorism by "Stirolbiofarm"There are grounds to believe that militants carried out information attacks against Mr. Yankovsky within a common scenario of "legalization"of the seized property. In order to "export" to Russia, a new "management"was forced to re-register "Stirolbiofarm"at least at the relevant bodies of the unrecognized republic, but before that  to discredit the name of the legal owner.The NSDCU decision on the temporary suspension of carrying goods across the separation line in Donbas, enacted by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko on March 16, 2017, has to put an end to speculations over the activities of Ukrainian assets seized by terrorists. According to the President, enterprises in the occupied territories were declared "confiscated";thus, legal owners don't have any relation to their current "activities". The denial of this fact is in favor for the militants and constitutes another element of the information war against Ukraine.
By: USOH

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-- A weekly arti is reportedly held at Harvard University (HU), one of the world's top and United States' oldest institution of higher education established in 1636.Organized by Harvard Dharma (Harvard's Hindu Students Association), it is held in Dharma Prayer Space at Canaday Basement in Harvard Yard of HU in Cambridge (Massachusetts)on Fridays at five pm, reports suggest.Arti is a Hindu worship ceremony/offering performed in adoration/honor of deity/deities by circular movement of a lighted lamp accompanied by hymn singing and may include sounding of handbells and other instruments. Worshippers pass their hands over the flames of the lighted lamp and then touch their faces/heads with these hands, thus transferring the deity's blessings.Applauding Harvard for reported provision of dedicated prayer space, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, described it as a step in the positive direction. Zed commended Harvard for recognizing the intersection of spirituality and education, which was important in Hinduism.Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged all USA universities, colleges and residential schools; both public and private; to respond to the spiritual needs of diverse student body and provide permanent and dedicated Hindu prayer/meditation room for rituals, quiet reflection, festivals and spiritual exercise. It would help in the personal growth of Hindu students who were present in substantial numbers on various campuses. It was important to meet the spiritual needs of these students, Zed added.Rajan Zed suggested that these Hindu prayer rooms should have an altar containing murtis (statues) of popular Hindu deities like Shiva, Vishnu, Rama, Krishna, Durga, Venkateshwara, Ganesha, Murugan, Saraswati, Hanuman, Lakshmi, Kali, etc.; besides being equipped with ghanta (big metallic bell hanging from the ceiling), dholak (two-headed hand-drum), Shiva-linga, etc. He or other Hindu scholars would be glad to help, if asked, regarding the structure of "Hindu Prayer Room", Zed indicated.Harvard Dharma, focusing on Hindu spiritual and cultural life at Harvard University, also celebrates various Hindu festivals like Deepavali, Holi, etc.; organizes discussions and speaker events about Hinduism and related issues on the campus; etc. Priyanka Kumar, Gunjari Raychaudhuri and Aniket Zinzuwadia are Co-Presidents.HU, whose motto is Veritas (Latin for "truth") and which has about 22,000 students, boasts of "48 Nobel Laureates, 32 heads of state, 48 Pulitzer Prize winners". The Harvard Libraryclaimed to be the "largest academic library in the world"includes about 20.4 million volumes. Drew Gilpin Faust is the HU President, while Kenji Yoshino is President of its Board of Overseers.Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about one billion adherents and moksh (liberation)is its ultimate goal. There are about three million Hindus in USA.
New Indian ambassador arrives in Nepal

Newly appointed Ambassador of India to Nepal, Manjeev Singh Puri, has arrived Nepal on Saturday. He landed at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu this morning.
Launched in India earlier this year at a starting price of INR 9 lakh, 2017 Kawasaki Z900 was re-launched at a starting price of just INR 7.68 lakh, ex-showroom a few weeks later. The reason for price cut is the removal of accessories. Kawasaki India stated that the Z900 which was launched in March, was equipped with accessories. After taking customer feedback, they have launched Z900 without accessories, and thus the price has been reduced.

Today, Kawasaki India announced the launch of Z900 metallic spark black colour variant. Apart from new colour, the new Z900 also gets some graphical changes. Price and specs remains same as before.

Speaking on the new arrival Yutaka Yamashita, Managing Director of India Kawasaki Motors, said, Our Z900 received a very positive response. I hope that with this new addition, passionate customers those who waited for this colour will be happy. Responding to the requirements of our customers is one of our most important priorities. We, being a premium brand, always strive to maintain a certain class in our products through its appearance and technology.

New Z900 replaces Z800 from the company line-up. Loaded with more features, and a more powerful and refined engine, Z900s performance is among the best in segment. 2017 Kawasaki Z900 turns to a new trellis frame and sharper lines. Body lines flow from its front end to the rear. A twin headlamp design with a chiseled cowl, well sculpted fuel tank, minimum overhangs and Z shaped LED tail lamp make up its design language.

Commanding a more upright position, Z900 offers better comfort to the rider. Handlebars are flat and wide. Foot pegs are ergonomically positioned alongwith a lowered saddle due to which riding stance is enhanced. A low seat height and slim fuel tank ensure better leg position so a rider can place both legs on the ground during stops.

New Kawasaki Z900 Specs

Engine 948 cc, Liquid-cooled, 4-stroke In-Line Four Power 125 PS @ 9500 rpm Torque 98.6 NM @ 7700 rpm Transmission 6 speed 0-100 kmph 3.4 seconds Top Speed 240 kmph

New Z900 is powered by a BS IV compliant 948cc, in line, four motor engine. This is a downsized engine as compared to the 1043cc motor seen in Z1000. This DOHC, 16 valve engine offers 125 PS power at 9,500 rpm and 98.9 Nm torque at7,700 rpm.

Braking system is via dual semi floating 300mm petal discs in the front and single 250mm petal discs at the rear. ABS is offered as standard. Front suspension is in the form of 41mm inverted fork, and rear suspension includes horizontal back link.

New Kawasaki Z900 Dimensions

Length 2065 mm Width 825 mm Height 1065 mm Seat Height 795 mm Ground Clearance 130 mm Wheelbase 1450 mm Kerb/Wet Weight 210 kg Fuel Tank Capacity 17 litres Front Tyre 120/70ZR17M/C (58W) Rear Tyre 180/55ZR17M/C (73W) Front Brake Dual semi-floating 300 mm petal discs. Caliper: Dual opposed 4-piston Rear Brake Single 250 mm petal disc. Caliper: Single-piston

2017 Kawasaki Z900 measures 2,065mm in length, 825 mm in width and 1,065mm in height. Seat height is at 795mm and ground clearance at 130mm with 210kg kerb weight, and a 17 litre fuel tank.

Colors, Competition and Price

A host of new color options are being offered on the new Z900 to include Pearl Mystic Gray/Metallic Flat Spark Black, Candy Lime Green/Metallic Spark Black, Metallic Flat Spark Black/Metallic Spark Black, Candy Plasma Blue/Metallic Graphite Gray, Metallic Spark Black (Special Edition).

It competes with Yamaha MT-09, Suzuki GSX-S1000, Ducati Monster 821 and the upcoming 2017 Triumph Street Triple. The bike is imported as a CBU (Completely built unit)from Thailand.

News Release
White families with children continue to live in predominantly white neighborhoods, in part to send their children to predominantly white schools, according to a new study on racial segregation in 100 metropolitan areas.

"Neighborhood racial segregation has been in decline since the 1970s, but my findings show it declined more slowly among families with kids," said USC Assistant Professor Ann Owens, who analyzed 2010 and 2000 U.S. Census data to examine racial segregation trends.

"This means that children are surrounded by greater racial homogeneity in their neighborhoods than adults," added Owens, a sociologist at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "A lack of diversity could have a significant effect on the development of their racial attitudes and future education and employment."

In neighborhoods, housing and urban policies have been key for curbing segregation, she said. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule of 2015, for example, reiterated the aims of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, requiring municipalities that receive federal housing funds to conduct fair housing assessments.

"The progress made in integrating neighborhoods could be thwarted by policies or policymakers' efforts to dismantle these efforts," she said. "Because neighborhood racial segregation remains higher among children than adults, children may face greater consequences of any rollbacks of support for fair housing policies."

For the study, published on March 17 in The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Owens estimated school-age children's exposure to white and minority children within neighborhoods, and then compared it to adults' exposure. Owens also measured "evenness" -- how whites, blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans and others sort across neighborhoods. Both measures of segregation indicate that children are more racially segregated between neighborhoods than adults, with white children living in slightly more white neighborhoods than white adults.

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School district boundaries are a key factor contributing to segregation among families with children. Owens found that neighborhood racial segregation across the country appeared to be driven largely by white families with children who are choosing, consciously or not, to move to neighborhoods and school districts with fewer minorities.

Although segregation has declined overall, it remains a concern, Owens said, because segregation can be detrimental for child wellbeing. Scientific research has shown that low-income and minority children who grow up in segregated neighborhoods and attend segregated schools have worse educational and economic outcomes than children in more integrated areas. High levels of residential segregation have been linked to lower levels of income mobility across generations.

Among the 100 largest metropolitan areas, Los Angeles has one of the highest rates of segregation between white and Latino children, even after adjusting for the large Latino child population in Los Angeles, Owens said.

In 2010, Latino children, on average, lived in Los Angeles neighborhoods where 75 percent of the children in their neighborhood were also Latino and 9 percent were white.

White children lived in Los Angeles neighborhoods where, on average, 32 percent of the children in their neighborhood were Latino and 46 percent were white. The racial makeup of the neighborhoods did not reflect Los Angeles County's demographic composition of 61 percent Latino and 17 percent white among school-age children.

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"If segregation were not occurring, then all children would live in neighborhoods and attend school in districts with this majority Latino, minority white ratio," Owens said.

Owens said like the neighborhoods, school districts in Los Angeles County also do not reflect the county's demographic makeup.

For example, the Los Angeles Unified School District student body in 2010 was majority-minority, with 74 percent Latino and 9 percent white. The ratio differed significantly from the largely-white Beverly Hills Unified School District, (5 percent Latino and 74 percent white), the racially-mixed Culver City Unified School District (40 percent Latino and 25 percent white), and the South Pasadena district (19 percent Latino and 36 percent white).

Miami is similar to Los Angeles in demographic makeup. Even so, it had a lower level of segregation between white and Latino children.

Both Latino and white children in Miami in 2010 lived in neighborhoods where, on average, more than 60 percent of the children were Latino.

The Miami metropolitan area has one large school district. Owens ventured that segregation may be lower there because parents who live and work in Miami are less concerned than Los Angeles-area parents with having to live in a neighborhood that feeds into a particular school district.

Demographic trends may contribute to some of the difference in children's and adults' neighborhood diversity, Owens said. In 2010, 67 percent of the U.S. adult population was white, compared to only 54 percent of the child population. These trends signal that over time, younger generations will likely experience more exposure to Latino peers than adults do, Owens said.

Neighborhood racial diversity is also influenced by the factors that families, with and without children, consider when selecting where to live. Families with children appear more concerned about what school district their neighborhood is linked to, and they may even consider race as a factor, Owens said.

"White parents may be avoiding school districts where black and Latino children live because they use racial composition as a proxy for quality of a school and a neighborhood," she said.

Minority families may have different priorities in deciding where to live, Owens suggested as explanations for the differences between households.

"Black and Latino families have lower incomes on average than white families, and they face housing market discrimination that influences where they live, regardless of the high value that they may place on school options," Owens said.

When choosing a house or apartment, minority families may prioritize safety, home or apartment amenities, and the home's proximity to child care and employment over schools or other considerations.

"Minority parents also may evaluate schools differently than white parents and prefer schools where their children are not the minority," Owens wrote.

"As long as neighborhoods are demarcated by school district boundaries limiting enrollment options, parents will take these boundaries into account when making residential choices, which may contribute to segregation between white and minority children," Owens wrote.
Most older Americans drink alcohol. Given that this segment of the population is projected to almost double by 2050, reaching 112 million, in the future, there will likely be many more older drinkers in the United States than currently. Importantly, older individuals are more sensitive to alcohol's effects than their younger counterparts, and are also more likely to take prescription medications that can interact negatively with alcohol, potentially leading to falls and other injuries. This study examined trends in drinking status among U.S. adults 60 years of age and older.

Researchers analyzed data from the 1997-2014 National Health Interview Surveys: 65,303 respondents 60 years of age and older (31,803 men, 33,500 women) were current drinkers; 6,570 men and 1,737 women were binge drinkers. Analysis of respondents by sex, age group, and birth cohort showed differing trends over time.

The observed upward trends in drinking among adults 60 years of age and older, particularly women, are of public health concern. Among older men, the prevalence of current drinking trended upward an average of 0.7% per year, while average volume and the prevalence of binge drinking remained stable. Among older women, the prevalence of current drinking trended upward an average of 1.6% per year, while average volume remained stable; moreover, the prevalence of binge drinking increased an average of 3.7% per year. These findings indicate a need for alcohol-related public-health education, screening, and treatment for the growing older population.
In a new paper published in National Science Review, a team of scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature, and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology (all in China) described the most exceptionally preserved fossil bird discovered to date.

The new specimen from the rich Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota (approximately 131 to 120 million years old) is referred to as Eoconfuciusornis, the oldest and most primitive member of the Confuciusornithiformes, a group of early birds characterized by the first occurrence of an avian beak. Its younger relative Confuciusornis is known from thousands of specimens but this is only the second specimen of Eoconfuciusornis found. This species comes only from the 130.7 Ma Huajiying Formation deposits in Hebei, which preserves the second oldest known fossil birds. Birds from this layer are very rare.

This new specimen of Eoconfuciusornis, housed in the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature, in Eastern China, is a female. The ovary reveals developing yolks that vary in size, similar to living birds. This suggests that confuciusornithiforms evolved a period of rapid yolk deposition prior to egg-laying (crocodilians, which are archosaurs like birds, deposit yolks slowly in all eggs for months with no period of rapid yolk formation), which is indicative of complex energetic profiles similar to those observed in birds.

This means Eoconfuciusornis and its kin, like living birds, was able to cope with extremely high metabolic demands during early growth and reproduction (whereas energetic demands in crocodiles are even, lacking complexity). In contrast, other Cretaceous birds including the more advanced group the Enantiornithes appear to have lower metabolic rates and have required less energy similar to crocodilians and non-avian dinosaurs (their developing yolks show little size disparity indicating no strong peak in energy associated with reproduction, and much simpler energetic profiles, limited by simpler physiologies).

Traces of skin indicate that the wing was supplemented by flaps of skin called patagia. Living birds have numerous wing patagia that help the bird to fly. This fossil helps show how bird wings evolved. The propatagium (the flap of skin that connects the shoulder and wrist) and postpatagium (the flap of skin that extends off the back of the hand and ulna) evolved before the alular patagium (the flap of skin connecting the first digit to the rest of the hand), which is absent in Eoconfuciusornis. Even more unique is the preservation of the internal structure of the propatagium which reveal a collagenous network identical to that in living birds. This internal network gives the skin flap its shape, allowing it to generate aerodynamic lift and aid the bird in flight.

The nearly complete plumage preserves remnants of the original plumage pattern, revealing the presence of spots on the wings and the earliest documentation of sexual differences in plumage within birds. This new specimen suggests that female Eoconfuciusornis were smaller than males and lacked tail feathers, similar to many sexually dimorphic living birds and the younger Confuciusornis in which the plumage of the males and females are different from each other. Samples of the feathers viewed under a microscope reveal differences in color characteristics, allowing scientists to reconstruct the plumage. Female Eoconfuciusornis had black spotted wings and gray body with a red throat patch.

Researchers have not found fossils from any other bird from the Jehol period that reveal so many types of soft tissue (feathers, skin, collagen, ovarian follicles). These remains allow researchers to create the most accurate reconstruction of a primitive early bird (or dinosaur) to date. This information provides better understanding of flight function in the primitive confuciusornithiforms and of the evolution of advanced flight features within birds.

"This new fossil is incredible," said co-author Dr. Jingmai O'Connor. "With the amount of information we can glean from this specimen we can really bring this ancient species to life. We can understand how it grew, flew, reproduced, and what it looked like. Fossils like this one from the Jehol Biota continue to revolutionize our understanding of early birds."
Russia, with its defense budget now officially cut substantially for the foreseeable future, has been announcing contingency plans for current procurement programs. For the navy that means fewer new submarines and instead more major refurbishment of boats worth keeping in service. What money the navy has left for new construction will go towards a new class of SSBN (ballistic missile carrying nuclear powered boat, also called "boomers") because the old ones are old and less capable of getting the job done with each passing year. The SSN (attacks boats) and SSGNs (anti-ship missile carrying boats) will get production cut severely and see many more recent boats get refurbished. This approach gest the refurbed boats many of the capabilities of new designs but not as much time they can remain in service. Russia has a centuries old solution for that; use the refurbed subs much less. This was actually the norm doing the Cold War largely because Russian nuclear sub tech was far behind what American boats had and the Russians quickly figured out that whenever one of their nukes (nuclear powered subs) went to sea it was quietly (enough so the Russians rarely could detect their stalker) followed by an American SSN which considered this excellent practice for wartime conditions. So the Cold War era subs rarely went far from coastal waters or stayed at sea for long each time out. Russia confirmed after the Cold War that the American SSNs would often quietly enter Russian territorial waters (less than 22 kilometers from the coast) for training and espionage. The Russian submarine admirals were hoping they would get the money to build more competitive nuclear boats and put the Americans on the defensive some of the time. But now that goal has to be deferred. The refurbed boats will have better sensors, but can be done to improve noise control (how quiet the sub is under water). They will not be able to go to sea as much as the American boats but that will mean Russia will have a nuclear submarine force nearly half the size of the American one and, with China building more nuclear boats, the West will still feel threatened at sea.

For this strategy to work Russia needs better weapons for its remaining subs. Thus it was no surprise that in early 2017 the navy confirmed that it would replace most of the older heavy anti-ship (carrier killer) missiles on its subs with a more recent design that is very similar to the American Tomahawk. The Russian equivalent is 3M54 (also known as the SS-N-27, Sizzler or Klub/Kalibr), which many Russian and some Indian, Vietnamese, Algerian and Chinese subs are already equipped with. The Kalibr (Klub is the less capable export version) had growing pains that the Russians appear to have remedied. For example India was an early adopter but encountered reliability problems in 2010 when there were repeated failures of the Klub during six test firings. The missiles were fired off the Russian coast, using an Indian Kilo class submarine, INS Sindhuvijay. That boat went to Russia in 2006 for upgrades. India refused to pay for the upgrades, or take back the sub, until Russia fixed the problems with the missiles, which Russia eventually did. The 3M54 officially entered service in 2012 and has since used the surface ship and air launched versions of Kalibr in combat against targets in Syria.

Weighing two tons, and fired from a 533mm (21 inch) torpedo tube on a Kilo class sub, the 3M54 has a 200 kg (440 pound) warhead. The anti-ship version has a range of 300 kilometers but speeds up to 3,000 kilometers an hour during its last minute or so of flight. There is also an air launched and ship launched version. A land attack version does away with the high speed final approach feature and has a 400 kg (880 pound) warhead. What makes the 3M54 particularly dangerous is its final approach, which begins when the missile is about 15 kilometers from its target. Up to that point, the missile travels at an altitude of about a hundred feet. This makes the missile more difficult to detect. The high speed approach means that it covers that last fifteen kilometers in less than twenty seconds. This makes it difficult for current anti-missile weapons to take it down.

The 3M54 is similar to earlier, Cold War era Russian anti-ship missiles, like the 3M80 ("Sunburn"), which has a larger warhead (300 kg/660 pounds) and shorter range (120 kilometers). Even older is the P700 ("Shipwreck"), with a 550 kilometers range and 750 kg (1,650 pound) warhead. This missile entered service in the 1980s. The first Russian version of the Tomahawk (3M14) was still in development at the end of the Cold War and was finally put into service by 2001 as a land attack missiles. It took another decade to perfect the anti-ship (3M54) version.

The 2017 upgrade announcement confirms that the 24 P700 missiles (7 tons each) currently carried by the Oscar II (Antey) SSGNs in silos will have those 24 silos replaced with silos that can carry 72 3M54 (Kalibr/P900) cruise missiles that are smaller and weigh two tons. The American Tomahawk approach, the Russians are discovering, is cheaper, more reliable and smaller. That is worth refurbing some late Cold War era SSGNs for.

Back in 2015 the Russians announced that it would spend $180 million each to modernize the eight Oscar II SSGNs in order to extend their service lives twenty years. With the latest announcement that price has gone up to $250 million per Oscar II.

That cost may yet increase because the plan was to upgrade the Oscars with mechanical and electronics upgrades found in the new Yasen class subs. The modernized boats will also have needed and often long delayed) repairs made. What wont be changed much is the amount of noise these boats make while submerged. The noise is a fatal vulnerability for subs and the new Yasens are having problems with getting all their new gear to work. That is not a surprise because the Russian government has been having major problems with state owned firms that manufacture these warships and their modern weapons.

The Russians are responding to the U.S. Navy discovering that, given current sensor (sonar, magnetic, heat, chemical) technology it is possible to detect very quiet submerged diesel-electric sub. This includes the new ones using AIP (Air-Independent Propulsion) systems that allow diesel-electric sub to stay under water, silently, for several weeks at a time. Since 2000 the United States has done a lot of work on improving systems used to detect submerged subs. This included lots of tests on diesel electric and AIP subs that led to many small tweaks to existing sensors on subs and surface ships. AIP boats, in particular, were found to have many vulnerabilities. The AIP technology generated more noise and heat than just using batteries for underwater propulsion. The more the U.S. studied AIP subs in operation the more ways they found these subs could be detected. The passive (listen only) sonar systems in the new Virginia class SSNs (nuclear attack sub) were tweaked considerably to better find diesel-electric and AIP boats. The sensors on the Virginia are also among the best (if not the best) available for finding surface ships or other nuclear subs. But it depended on how noisy the other ships were. Diesel-electric subs operating submerged using battery power are theoretically the quietest. But the older a sub gets the more components become noisy and some diesel-electric sub designs are simply quieter. Even the older and noisier diesel-electric subs tend to be quieter than most nuclear subs, which have to run pumps at all times to circulate cooler water around the hot nuclear reactors. The most recent nuclear sub designs have found more ways to conceal the pump noise along with noise in general. Add that to more effective noise detecting sonar and you have a Western edge that Russia was getting close to matching when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Before 1991 the Russians had managed to steal a lot of the silencing tech and smuggle in special manufacturing equipment to create the quieter components. But all that ended in the 1990s and all the Russians had left were less than a dozen quiet nuclear subs that had been completed by 1991. After that Western, especially American, silencing and sensor tech continued to improve, although not as fast as during the Cold War.

Russia considers the Yasen their answer to the American Virginia class. But the Virginias are a more recent design while the Yasen is a late Cold War effort that had some tech upgrades in the two decades it took to build the first one. The first Virginia began construction in 1999 and entered service in 2004. So far twelve are in service, five are under construction and a total of 48 are to eventually enter service. The 9,500 ton Yasen were built after the Cold War but from Cold War era designs and are armed with 32 P-800 (SS-N-26 Oniks) anti-ship missiles fired from eight VLS (vertical launch system) silos. The three ton P-800 has a range of 600 kilometers. Each of these silos can hold five Klub/Kalibr anti-ship or cruise missiles instead of four P-900s and that shows how the Russians already saw the possibility of Kalibr displacing all the older Cold War carrier killer missile designs. There are also ten torpedo tubes (8 650mm and two 533mm).

The Yasen are highly automated, which is why there is a crew of 90 that is a third less than the 134 needed to run the new U.S. Virginia class boats. The Yasen is based on the earlier Akula and Alfa class SSNs. Russia had originally planned to build 30 Yasens, but now seven or eight seems a more realistic goal. Because of this Russia has gone ahead with a program for refurbishing Cold War era boats just to obtain a respectable number of subs in the future. What Russia has not been able to do is keep up with silencing and detection (sensor) tech. American sub commanders are not being overconfident about all this but base their assessments on growing opportunities for the quieter American SSNs (especially the Virginias) to detect and Russian SSN (or diesel-electric boat) and stalk it for days or weeks without ever being discovered. This was a Cold War practice as well and how the U.S. Navy discovered, in the 1980s, that the latest Russian SSNs were much quieter. But there are few of them and now improved American sensors make them easier to detect.

As of early 2017 only one Yasen has been to sea, another will soon do so, four more are under construction and seven more are on order. The U.S. apparently was able to detect and stalk the Yasen, getting a good sense of how much quieter (apparently not enough) it is. As improved as Yasen is it had lots of problems getting into service. For example it took two decades of construction effort and nearly six months of acceptance trials before the Russian Navy could finally put the first Yasen (Graney) SSGNs (nuclear powered cruise missile sub) into service during mid-2014. This boat, the Severodvinsk, set some of the wrong kind of records on its way to join the fleet. For one thing construction of the Severodvinsk began in 1993. Then there were the sea trials, which took two years during which the Severodvinsk was at sea 30 percent of the time (222 days) and submerged over a hundred times. There were at least five live firings of its cruise missiles. Sea trials are not supposed to go on for that long, but these SSGNs were special in so many ways.

Russian submarine building has been on life support since the Cold War ended in 1991. Many subs under construction at the end of the Cold War were cancelled, and the few that avoided that spent a decade or more waiting for enough money to resume construction. The first Yasen crew was put together in 2007 and then spent years training, and waiting. The crew now has their new boat in service, but only after record delays and time spent in the shipyard getting tweaked.
In 2013, rescuers found Goldie near the Nepal border in India - and they found him just in time. The 5-year-old bear was in bad shape - he was dehydrated and sickly, and he had a frayed rope tied through his nose, which seemed to be causing him a lot of pain.

Wildlife SOS

Goldie's handler had been using him "dancing bear," forcing Goldie to perform silly tricks for people in exchange for cash. "When the bears are still tiny cubs, their captors make a hole through the top of their snout with a red-hot needle," Lis Key, PR and communications manager for International Animal Rescue (IAR), told The Dodo. "Then a rope is threaded up through their nostril and out through the hole. The aim is to control the bear and make it 'dance' by jerking on the rope."

Wildlife SOS

Instead of allowing their snouts to heal, it's common practice for the handlers to keep the wounds open and raw so that the bears respond to pain and obey instructions, Key explained. If this doesn't work, the handlers will try other cruel tactics. "Sometimes thorns or even nails are knotted into the rope to cause even more pain," Key said. "If the wound heals up, the handlers either reopen it or create a new one."

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Wildlife SOS

Thankfully, Goldie didn't have to live like this forever. Dancing bears have actually been illegal in India since 2009, so a team from Wildlife SOS, as well as local police, rescued Goldie and three other captive bears - Truffles, Kandi and Oreo - who were found in the same area. The handlers had been trying to smuggle the bears into Nepal, according to Key.

Wildlife SOS

Goldie was then transported to the safety of one of IAR's bear sanctuaries in India, which are run collaboratively with Wildlife SOS and Free the Bears Australia, where he could live in the company of other bears.

Wildlife SOS

One of the first things the rescue team did was remove the rope from Goldie's nose. A gaping wound remained, but it would eventually heal.

Wildlife SOS

Goldie's teeth and gums were also in horrible condition. "It seems Goldie's handler had made several attempts to knock his teeth out to make him easier to control, and left him with terrible broken and infected teeth and gums," Key said.

Wildlife SOS

On top of everything else, the vet team discovered Goldie was blind. "It is either a result of the chafing of the rope across his eyes or from malnutrition, or blows to his head," Key said. The vet team couldn't restore Goldie's vision, but they worked on Goldie's teeth, removing the rotting ones and treating his gum infections.

Wildlife SOS

After this, Goldie became a completely different bear. He could finally eat and not feel any pain. He started taking huge gulps of porridge, cleaning his bowl, and even cleaning the other bears' bowls.

Wildlife SOS

"Goldie is very mischievous and loves to try to steal food from the other bears' dens before they get to it," Key said. "He eats his porridge and honey with relish and particularly enjoys treats of coconut chunks and dates."

Wildlife SOS

"He likes digging up insects in the termite mounds and lounging in his hammock during the heat of the day," Key added. "He's very possessive of the hammock and will tussle with Rocky bear, who often tries to share it," Key added.

Wildlife SOS

He might steal his friends' hammocks and food, but Goldie doesn't do without anything at the sanctuary. Now he gets all the food, water, attention and care that he needs - and he'll never have to "dance" on the streets again.

Wildlife SOS
When Lek Chailert saw the baby elephant, she knew she had to do something - and quickly. The 3-month-old elephant was so thin and malnourished, you could count her ribs. If she didn't get proper nutrition soon, she was going to die. Chailert, the founder of Elephant Nature Park, an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, was actually visiting another elephant orphanage in the neighboring country of Myanmar when she encountered the starving baby elephant.

Lek Chailert

While it's unknown what happened to the baby elephant's mom, or even how she ended up at the orphanage, the baby does have a name - Eyeyarmay.

Lek Chailert

Eyeyarmay isn't the only elephant at this orphanage. Two others - a 7-month-old named Yuyu and a 4-month-old named Mary - also live there, according to Chailert's Facebook post.

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Lek Chailert

All three orphans will need special care, but Chailert seems particularly worried about Eyeyarmay.

Lek Chailert

"The baby requires direct care at this time and motherly accompaniment," Chailert wrote on Facebook. "Baby nutrition ... is very sensitive because their life at this stage is very fragile."

Lek Chailert

In Myanmar, as well as other parts of Southeast Asia, every elephant counts. Asian elephants are currently listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Threats include habitat destruction, poaching and human-elephant conflict. Saving Eyeyarmay's life won't be easy. What she really needs now is milk, but Chailert said it's difficult to get elephant formula in Myanmar - and because the orphanage is new, it doesn't have the funding to import the formula from another country.

Lek Chailert

Chailert said the keepers have resorted to feeding the baby cow milk, but this can cause dysentery and other health problems.

Lek Chailert

However, things are looking up for Eyeyarmay. Following Chailert's Facebook post, hundreds of people have offered to help, and with everyone's combined efforts, Eyeyarmay's life might be saved.

Lek Chailert

Chailert is asking for monetary donations to help get elephant formula to the Myanmar orphanage. "One box can help to save this elephant's life," Chailert wrote.

Lek Chailert
NFC to sell rice earmarked for earthquake survivors

Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) has decided to sell 8,000 tonnes of rice offered by Bangladesh for earthquake survivors after it started to rot.
The Sociological Review Foundation makes available 10,000 each year to fund the organisation of scholarly seminars on subjects within the publishing interests of The Sociological Review journal. We support research seminars and/or symposia that bring together established and new researchers to share and produce imaginative, cutting-edge work of cultural and social significance. We are seeking proposals for online or in-person projects that involve collaborations across institutions and disciplines, and we also welcome collaborative projects that connect to wider communities and to the arts.
U.S. political leaders are showing a better-than-expected understanding of how important trade with Canada is to the health of the American auto sector, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said Friday.

Wynne, who met with several auto industry leaders in Toronto, said her government has been lobbying U.S. politicians to make sure they understand how much American auto sector jobs depend on an unfettered northern border.

That message is getting through, she said.

There is a deeper understanding of how interconnected we are than we might have expected, she said.

Ontario Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid echoed her statement, saying he was also a little surprised at U.S. leaders level knowledge about trade with Canada  despite this perception that . . . Americans dont know as much about Canada as we know about the U.S.

They are very aware that Ontario, in particular, and Canada is, for the most part, their number one international customer, he said. Were crucial to their economic vitality and were crucial to jobs in the U.S.

Read more: No reason for Canada to be enormously worried about U.S. trade reset: Trump official

Duguid said nine million U.S. jobs rely on an unfettered border with Canada.

However, Duguid said the provincial government is very alive to the risks Ontarios auto sector is facing from upcoming discussions about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), speculation about a border adjustment tax, and Buy American policies in U.S. states.

Neither Wynne nor Duguid explicitly named U.S. President Donald Trump in their remarks, but spoke of the protectionism associated with him.

Obviously, there is uncertainty, said Wynne. You know that as we all operate in this new reality, with the discussions that are going on south of the border, that we in Ontario need to be having a very robust conversation here with our partners.

Duguid said he expects that uncertainty to last a year or two.

Despite that, Wynne remarked on the optimism of the Ontario auto sector leaders she spoke to.

In the past five years Ontario has produced more cars than any other province or state in North America, she said. Almost 15 per cent of all car production across the continent happens right here.

However, Wynne said the provinces economic success depends on a strong business relationships with the U.S.

In Ontario, more than 100,000 people are dependent on, in one way or another, the auto sector for their livelihood, she said.

Magna CEO Donald Walker said the discussion was a candid one about important issues.

From a Canadian perspective, weve just got to make sure that we have whatever discussions we need to have with the U.S. to make sure were not going to be in an uncompetitive position, he said.

Walker said hed like to see Canada maintain a trilateral agreement with U.S. and Mexico, as having access to low-cost labour makes the North American market more competitive.

Unifor National President Jerry Dias said the meeting was productive. He said he welcomes the renegotiation of NAFTA, and said changes to the trade agreement are needed.

There is no question the fact a Mexican autoworker cant buy a car that he builds, or she builds, is ridiculous, so there has to be a change in labour standards, he said. But there also has to be a stop to the straight exodus of our jobs going to Mexico.

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The lingering shadows of war  physical, emotional, psychological and cultural  loom heavily over The Nightingale Wont Let You Sleep, the powerful fourth novel by Canadian writer and poet Steven Heighton. As a counter to that darkness, though, there is a faltering sense of light, a glimmer, not quite of hope, but of humanity, home and love, family and community. The combination makes for an unsettling, affecting read.

Elias Triffanis, a Greek-Canadian who joined the military in an attempt to endear himself to his dying father, has been sent to Paphos, Cyprus in the wake of an incident in Afghanistan. The facility, a former student residence on the west coast is intended to treat personnel on stress leave from the war, largely with rest, medication and counselling, but readers may sense theres more at work here. One hesitates to use the word cover-up, but its clear that Triffanis has been removed from public scrutiny.

He doesnt spend long at the facility.

On a weekend trip to the east coast to visit distant relatives, Triffanis finds himself drinking and flirting with a Turkish journalist in a bar, under the watchful eye of a handful of Turkish soldiers. When Trif and Eylul leave for the beach for a brief moment of intimacy, they are followed and attacked. Badly injured, Trif is forced to abandon Eylul and drags himself under the fence, into the abandoned city of Varosha.

In the early 1970s, the beach resort of Varosha was the jewel of Cyprus east coast, a destination for the global jet set including the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot. During the Turkish invasion of 1974, though, the entire population fled the city, and the resort has been under Turkish control ever since, fenced-off and decaying, forbidden, a ghost town.

At least, thats the official story, taken directly from history. The photographs of crumbling Varosha online are haunting and evocative; its easy to see why the city has captured Heightons imagination.

Within the novel, and inside the fence, Trif is rescued and taken into a small, secretive community living in the crumbling city, a collection of misfits and refugees, exiles and resisters. They exist in the shadows, growing their own food, trading with Colonel Kaya, commanding officer of the nearby Turkish troops. Trifs presence in the city  and the nature of his disappearance  threatens the delicate equilibrium between the villagers and the corrupt officer.

Heighton brings his powers as a poet  he was awarded the Governor Generals Award for Poetry last year for The Waking Comes Late  to service in The Nightingale Wont Let You Sleep, not in terms of elevated or specialized diction, but in keen observation, both of individuals and the larger world. Descriptions of life in the village and of the city are detailed; however, it is in his observations of his characters that this power truly comes to the fore. Heighton exhibits a sensitivity to expression, gesture and tone which lends verisimilitude to his characterizations and creates an almost visceral realism. Trifs relationship with Kaiti, a young widow with two children, for example, develops through gradual shifts of expression and, finally, contact: Kaiti has the rag  shes dabbing a gloss of sweat from her brow and upper lip. Here, she says, gripping his wrist  her fingers go only halfway around  and she swabs his palm with the damp rag and firmly pulls his fingers clean of pulp. The specificity and physicality of the language is evocative and, in context, electrifying.

While motivations may be unclear and secrets slow to reveal themselves, the narrative continues to build and shift, anchored in the bedrock of the richly evoked characters. Colonel Kaya, in particular, is a revelation. It would have been easy to use Kaya as a type, as the face of bureaucratic corruption, or as a man using the structures of the military and ongoing conflict to satisfy his own desires. Instead, Heighton reveals him with contradictions and conflicts: as a man mourning the end of his marriage and missing his children, who enjoyed intimate visits with dancers from the nearby hotel; a competitive man in a position of authority, who has crafted a life from his awareness of his own limitations; a likable man despite his sometimes terrible actions and manipulations.

Its a nuanced approach that is both emblematic of the novel and key to its success. In the ruins of modern civilization, in the aftermath of atrocities and within the continuing conflict over arbitrary borders and clashes of cultures, Heighton has created a novel about the meaning of home, the search for belonging, and the ongoing creation  and understanding  of the self. The novel serves as a stirring reminder that the fences we build can serve as both barriers and prisons, and may, at any time, be torn away.

Robert Wiersemas latest book is Seven Crow Stories.

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Human Rights Watch: Cinema remains a powerful tool for raising awareness of issues of human rights and social justice wherever those struggles take place in the world. But while stories from Syria, China, Egypt and Pakistan certainly figure strongly in the latest edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival  which runs March 29 to April 6 at TIFF Bell Lightbox  at least one film demonstrates that these fights are hardly confined to other parts of the globe. Director Alanis Obomsawins searing account of the landmark court case that highlighted the Canadian governments shameful record in regards to the education and welfare of indigenous children, We Cant Make the Same Mistake Twice,screens April 2 in a program that includes a discussion by the filmmaker and Metis lawyer Amanda Carling.

Human Rights Watchs program opens March 29 with A Syrian Love Story, an award-winning British documentary about two political radicals in Syria who first fell in love when they meet in prison and whose troubles intensify in the wake of the Arab Spring. Another recent doc thats been a favourite on the festival circuit, Tickling Giants is a portrait of Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian comedian, writer and physician who has fought for free speech in the wittiest ways possible. Director Sara Taksler  also a senior producer on The Daily Show  joins VICE national security reporter and Cyberwar host Ben Makuch and Human Rights Watchs Farida Deif for a talk after the screening on April 1.

The series closes on April 6 with Black Code, Toronto filmmaker and cinematographer Nicholas de Penciers illuminating primer on how all these struggles are being transformed (for better and for worse) in the digital age.

Never Eat Alone: A subtle, slow-burn story of unrequited love that merges narrative and documentary elements to remarkable effect, Never Eat Alone establishes Torontos Sofia Bohdanowicz as one of the countrys most distinctive new filmmakers. TIFF marks Bohdanowiczs arrival on the scene with a program at the Lightbox that includes the local premiere of her debut feature  which netted her the Emerging Canadian Director prize at the Vancouver film festival last fall  along with three of her similarly austere yet alluring short films on March 25. Two of Never Eat Alones stars  Deragh Campbell and Joan Benec  join the filmmaker for a post-screening Q&A.

O, Brazen Age: An art house version of St. Elmos Fire is how Sheila Heti describes O, Brazen Age, a Canadian indie drama that opens for a weeklong run at the Carlton. Indeed, this debut feature by Ottawa-bred filmmaker Alexander Carson  which shifts between the perspectives and poetic reflections of an interconnected group of Toronto millennials  has earned similarly warm praise from many other quarters since its premiere at VIFF in 2015. Its at the Carlton March 24-30 with a Q&A and after-party on opening night.

Water Docs: Feeling justifiably worried about renewed threats to our H2O in the age of Trump? Concerned viewers will discover many stories that will agitate and/or inspire them when Water Docs returns for its 2017 edition. The festival begins March 29 with a screening and panel on fast fashions toll on water sources at OISE Auditorium. Then on March 30, the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema hosts the local premiere of The Peel Project, a new film about six artists endeavours to celebrate and protect Canadas last pristine rivershed. The program closes with a matinee of short docs on April 2.

In Brief:

The Banff Mountain Film Festival satisfies viewers cravings for fresh powder and rugged scenery at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema March 24-26.

Sarah Polley visits the Lightbox to talk with Eleanor Wachtel about Alice Munro and Away From Her for TIFFs Books on Film series on March 27.

Indie 88.1 presents its latest free live-music-and-movie combo deal at the Royal with Rural Alberta Advantage and Terry Gilliams Brazil on March 28.

The Toronto Japanese Film Festival announces its upcoming 2017 program at a screening of the TIFF 2016 selection The Long Excuse on March 30 at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (6 Garamond Court).

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This week the prestigious Criterion Collection unleashed shock comedy director John Waters 1970 film Multiple Maniacs on Blu-ray and DVD for its first official release.

The underground comedy follows his drag-queen starlet Divine and gang of murderous misfits through a satire of volatile 60s politics and violence. An assault on good taste and hippie sentiment, the dirty little flick remains one of the filmmakers most aggressively outrageous efforts and, for Canadians, the release is particularly special given that Multiple Maniacs is technically still banned from sensitive Canuck eyeballs by our ratings board, as Waters cheerfully recalls.

I submitted it to some sort of Canadian distribution centre for underground movies and then I never heard anything back. Eventually I wrote a letter and got back a receipt from the (Ontario) censor board that said destroyed. Thats the best blurb that Ive ever gotten, but it did infuriate me. Thats real censorship, the now 70-year-old filmmaker told the Star recently.

We didnt get a rating this time. I wanted to submit to the MPAA and everyone else just to make them watch it, but were unrated and outside of the rating system.

Indeed, the movie  made before Waters poo-eating classic Pink Flamingos  still breaks enough taboos to deserve at least a warning for viewers, even by contemporary standards. I think its still shocking because the marches had signs saying things like Off the pigs. Today even the most radical protesters wouldnt say that. So its jarring to watch and amazing that Divine threatened Ronald Reagans life years before he was president, says Waters, through a sly laugh. When the restoration premiered, all I could think was, Thank God my mother didnt see this.

Though Waters early films are an assault on values and senses, they are also playfully inclusive. I wasnt really trying to shock anyone, Waters says. I was just trying to get people to laugh at the fact that there was anything that they could still be shocked by. It was a movie made for hippies that made fun of their morals. But thats who came. It was all minorities, really. All the people who turned into punk rockers later.

Multiple Maniacs holds up well amongst Waters filmography, which eventually grew into more mainstream subversions like Hairspray, Cry-Baby or Serial Mom. But its also a fascinating film for the current political climate, given that the type of shock comedy and free speech that Waters built a career out of have unexpectedly shifted into right-wing troll culture and people like Milo Yiannopoulos.

Its a phenomenon that Waters understands yet doesnt necessarily respect. Well, Milo, hes just the new Fred Phelps, he jokes. It was sort of funny when he talked about giving privilege grants to rich white men, but Ivana Wall isnt a great drag name. To me, hes more Boys in the Band than dangerous.

And I met Andrew Breitbart when he was alive. We got along fine and he told me, I do the same thing that you do, just from the opposite side. I learned everything from Abbie Hoffman.

Of course, Waters being Waters, he doesnt blame politics for diluting his humour of choice. To me, that went away because now Hollywood makes shock comedies for $100 million that arent funny, which is why I recently rewrote Pink Flamingos for children and had it in an art show called Kiddie Flamingos.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.Nothing, it seems, is permanent in ballet and Igor Stravinskys Le baiser de la fee (The Fairys Kiss) supplies a case in point.

Look this ballet up in reference books and you will find that the world premiere took place in Paris in 1928. Yet a visit to Florida this winter might have led to the conclusion the premiere actually took place in Miami in February.

Both answers are correct. Additional world premieres have also taken place in London, Frankfurt and New York, among other places. The difference in each case was not the music but the choreography.

Stravinsky fashioned the story from Hans Christian Andersens The Ice-Maiden and in his version, choreographed for the Ida Rubinstein Company by Bronislava Nijinska (sister of the great Vaslav Nijinsky), it told the tale of a baby rescued by a fairy from the snowstorm that killed its mother, fatefully kissed and, on the day of the grown-up childs wedding, reclaimed by the fairy as her own.

That isnt quite the story I saw handsomely danced by Miami City Ballet in Fort Lauderdales Broward Center for the Performing Arts earlier this month. But then, Alexei Ratmansky, former artistic director of Moscows Bolshoi Ballet, had chosen  like choreographers before him, from Frederick Ashton to John Neumeier to Kenneth MacMillan  to give the tale a new twist.

Stravinsky intended the ballet as a homage to Tchaikovsky, threading music from his fellow Russian notesmith into his own score, and Ratmansky chose to make the homage even more pointed by having the fairy claim the child (as presumably Tchaikovsky himself had been claimed) for a life in art.

Having already choreographed versions of The Fairys Kiss in Kyiv and Saint Petersburg, Ratmansky had to be persuaded to try again by Lourdes Lopez, artistic director of Miami City Ballet, who knew George Balanchines version from her years as a dancer with New York City Ballet, arguing plausibly that the passage of years and accumulation of experience had made Ratmansky a different person.

It proved even easier to invite Karen Kain, artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, to co-commission the new version. Both companies had already worked with Ratmansky, whose version of Romeo and Juliet has been toured internationally by the Canadian company.

I love the way he works with the dancers and the way he works with the music, always listening to it as he choreographs, Kain says. We had already done a version with James Kudelka, but I liked the idea of working with Alexei again. We (Kain and managing director Barry Hughson) went to see a performance of Fairys Kiss in West Palm Beach and found it to be a lovely ballet.

Lopez agrees. I think it is a masterwork, among Alexeis best. I had been looking for a company to co-commission and share the costs, and working with the National Ballet of Canada has been a pleasure. When it is staged up there (tentatively in 2020) well send our ballet masters to help teach it as well as sending our sets. Each company has to do its own costumes since the dancers will be different.

When I last saw Miami City Ballet many years ago it reminded me of the Royal Winnipeg, a company of fine dancers in different shapes and sizes. The dancers now not only look more polished, they have a more unified appearance, like those of New York City Ballet.

Both founding artistic director Edward Villella and Lopez danced principal roles with New York City Ballet and acknowledge an allegiance to its principal choreographer, the late Balanchine, and his principles. Indeed, Balanchines Walpurgisnacht Ballet was on the same program in Fort Lauderdale as The Fairys Kiss.

But so was Polyphonia by Christopher Wheeldon (whose The Winters Tale was given its North American premiere last season by the National Ballet).

I still hope to add ballets by Mr. B (as Balanchine was known to his dancers) and Jerry Robbins, Lopez insists, but I also have an interest in other choreographers, to challenge the dancers. It is my way of feeding them.

I loved Alexeis setting of Rachmaninovs Symphonic Dances so much I programmed the ballet in my first season. Then, two years ago, I met (Ratmansky) in New York and asked if he would do a new 45-minute ballet for us. We went back and forth through some Russian tales before deciding on The Fairys Kiss. I am very happy with the result.

Although The Fairys Kiss has gone through many transformations through the years, it has seldom stayed long in any companys repertoire despite the acknowledged charm of Stravinskys score (Balanchine even revised and condensed his version).

In Florida and Ontario the omens look good but, with fairies, as Hans Christian Andersen has taught us, you never really know.

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The Supreme Court of Canada has written the latest chapter in the ongoing litigation by two Trump Tower investors against a Toronto development firm, its principals and U.S. President Donald Trump.

But the two court cases are far from over.

Back in 2006 and 2007, Sarbit Singh and Se Na Lee signed separate agreements to purchase units in the Trump International Hotel, to be built in the financial district in downtown Toronto. The developer, Talon International, marketed the units as profitable rental investments, and distributed a document called Estimated Return on Investment showing a hypothetical profit stream.

Like other investors, the buyers believed they would profit by participating in the hotels Reservation Program. Under this arrangement, the buyers would place their units in a common pool of rooms to be rented out at luxury rates. Even after deducting monthly expenses, the investors expected the venture would provide good returns of between 7.7 and 20.9 per cent.

Sadly, they were wrong.

Read more:

Trump vs. Trump: Inside Toronto's 5-star tower struggle

Trump cant appeal court decision he misled Toronto investors

Torontos Trump Tower up for bids starting at $298 million

In the two test cases, Singh and Lee alleged the defendants were responsible for negligent misrepresentation and breach of the Ontario Securities Act. They claimed damages and an order rescinding the purchase agreements.

The main defendants were the developer Talon International Inc., and its two principals Val Levitan and Alex Shnaider. Donald Trump was also named as a defendant since he had licensed his name and trademark for use in the building.

The plaintiffs brought motions for summary judgment in their favour, without a trial.

Evidence at the hearing in June 2015 showed that, prior to marketing the units, the developers obtained a ruling from the Ontario Securities Commission exempting the sale of the units from registration and prospectus requirements  as long as the hotel units would not be marketed or structured for profit or gain, and that prospective purchasers would not be provided with rental or cash flow forecasts.

Ultimately, Lee suffered a loss of nearly $1 million and Singh, who refused to close on his purchase, was out his $250,000 deposit.

Justice Paul Perell found that the developers estimates were deceptive and filled with misrepresentations. Nevertheless, in a detailed, 49-page judgment, he dismissed the plaintiffs claims on other grounds and awarded costs against them.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal reversed Perells decision. It rescinded Singhs purchase agreement, awarded damages to Lee for negligent misrepresentation, dismissed some of the claims against Levitan, Shnaider and Trump, and sent the claim for fraudulent misrepresentation against the three individuals back to the lower court to hear more evidence and to calculate Lees damages.

As well, the court ordered costs of $180,000 against Talon and costs of $7,000 in favour of each of Levitan, Shnaider and Trump.

Obviously unhappy with the decision, the developers and principals applied for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court dismissed the application for leave to appeal.

While the two test cases were making their way through the courts, the Ontario Superior Court appointed FTI Consulting as receiver of certain assets and properties of Talon International Inc. The receivers role is limited to the marketing and sale of the Trump Tower.

Whether Singh and Lee will be able to collect costs and damages from a company in receivership is unclear.

Bob Aaron is a Toronto real-estate lawyer. He can be reached at bob@aaron.ca , on his website aaron.ca, and Twitter @bobaaron2.

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People returning from a trip to another country often bring home a souvenir or two, but three containers full?

Thats what a Windsor businessman did during his world travels, as he mapped out the creation of his waterfront mansion. The contents of the shipping containers, though, werent your typical souvenirs.

Cantera stone, Moroccan panels, handmade terra-cotta tiles and reclaimed hand-carved pine doors: They all found their way into the estate on the citys exclusive Golden Mile stretch of the Detroit River.

Built in stages over several years, the house had been a passion project for the owner, who collected both items and ideas during trips to Europe and Mexico, according to sales representative Lisa Robinson of Sothebys International Realty Canada.

The goal was to create a home with warmth, comfort and character, she says, noting the use of natural and organic materials had been important. I would call it a work of art more than a home. Its almost a living, breathing art space.

One of the most unique features is a two-storey glass atrium skylight that runs from the grand front entrance to the back walkout. Tucked into a niche alongside the atrium is a grotto, with water trickling down stone slabs into a shallow pond bridged by a burnished wood walkway.

The owner, a long-time resident of Windsor, built the original house in the late 1990s, then renovated and expanded it a few years ago. The result is a finely crafted, fully customized home with massive windows and large principal rooms designed around an open floor plan.

Years of thoughtful planning in collaboration with architect Daniel Soleski and interior designer Robert Gauthier produced a luxurious living space in which the additions blend seamlessly with the original construction, says Robinson.

Most of the materials have been shipped from Mexico, but inspiration for the design came from Europe and North America, according to Robinson.

Hints of Tuscan villa are evident in the custom textured walls and ceilings, while archways, limestone columns and pine casings provide architectural interest.

A floating staircase of rusted, hand-beaten steel that leads to the rooftop exemplifies the thought that went into the house, Robinson says.

The custom-landscaped exterior abounds with amenities for recreation and entertaining, ranging from an outdoor kitchen to a seating area around a gas fire pit. A whirlpool, koi ponds, two docks, outdoor speakers and a sunken saltwater swimming pool boasting three waterfalls complete the picture.

The estate, which occupies just over half a hectare of riverfront, also features second-level and roof-top terraces with views of Belle Isles 400-hectare park.

Wanderlust is again claiming the homeowner. He plans to relocate to Costa Rica, says Robinson. The perfect locale, perhaps, for collecting more souvenirs.

*

THE NUMBERS

Price: $5.695 million

Size: 5,266 square feet

Bedrooms: 3, plus den

Bathrooms: 4 full, 1 half

*

BRING IT HOME

Mementoes from trips can be incorporated into your decor a number of ways. Consider turning a bold-patterned kilim or tribal rug into cushion covers or upholstery for a bench or stool. Or add a thin cork backing to hand-painted ceramic tiles to use as coasters.

For small stuff collected during travels, a shadow box makes a great display space. Crafty types looking for a relatively easy and affordable source of wall art can create a wood transfer picture from photos taken in other countries. How-tos and videos are available online.

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OTTAWAFederal government spending on television sets is out of control, a Conservative MP says after he discovered departments spent tens of thousands of dollars on TVs, including almost $14,000 for a single unit at Indigenous Affairs.

Alberta MP Chris Warkentin says an average family can pick up a flat-screen television for $500 or less, adding he expects the government to institute improved spending practices for units often used for training and video conferencing.

Read more on the federal budget

Since the Liberals came to power in November 2015, overall amounts spent on TVs totalled $66,631 at Indigenous Affairs, $67,559 at Health Canada, $62,348 at Natural Resources and $1.29 million at National Defence, according to figures obtained by Warkentin through an order paper question.

I am quite frankly shocked at the scope and the extent the Liberals have been spending in this area, he said in an interview. I would expect the government could find better ways to save money.

Warkentin said indigenous people living in poverty in his riding would be outraged to learn Indigenous Affairs needed to spend thousands on a TV for bureaucrats.

It is, quite frankly, the ministers who should be held responsible for these expenditures, he said.

If theres a necessity for a monitor or a television in a particular location, there may be a defence for that, but I am not sure there is a defence to spend over $10,000 per unit.

Most Canadians would be surprised tax dollars are going toward $14,000 TVs for government departments, added Aaron Wudrick of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, noting the figure is substantially more than what the average person would spend.

Im not saying the government should not have any TVs, he said. The question is: why do they have so many? What are they using them for and are they getting the best value?

Liberal officials however, cited historical order paper answers that showed the previous Conservative government spent almost $6.7 million on televisions between 2006-07 and 2013-14.

They said the Conservatives spent more than $1 million on TVs in 2009-10 and more than $1.1 million in 2010-11.

Spokespeople for ministers of the departments cited by Warkentin note there is a process in place to ensure standards for approving all expenses, adding the units are used for business purposes.

All of the televisions that were purchased since Nov. 4, 2015, were for video conferencing purposes, Indigenous Affairs said.

The use of video conference allows the department to reduce travel costs.

Jordan Owens, a press secretary for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, noted the Canadian Forces is replacing broken and obsolete equipment.

Modern audio-visual equipment is an integral tool our military uses for situational awareness, public outreach, and morale and welfare support, she said in a statement.

The Department of National Defence has strict checks and balances in place to ensure that all purchases adhere to prudent stewardship of public funds.

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Toronto is still more than $7 billion short of what it requires to pay for urgently needed transit projects, despite an injection of funding from the 2017 federal budget.

Following the release of the Liberals spending plan Wednesday, Mayor John Torys office praised what it estimated would be a $5-billion investment for Toronto under the second phase of the Public Transit Infrastructure Fund. A statement from Tory said the money would provide major benefits for residents of the traffic-clogged city.

The federal government would not verify the mayors $5-billion estimate Thursday, but did confirm the funding would include $660 million that Ottawa had already pledged towards the one-stop Scarborough subway extension.

If the mayors math is right, that would leave the city with about $4.3 billion to spend on other priority projects that are partially or completely unfunded, including the relief line subway, the Eglinton East LRT, and Torys SmartTrack plan.

Speaking by phone from India, where he has been conducting a trade mission, Tory put the burden on the province, telling reporters it was time for Queens Park to step in and do its part.

The federal contribution is most welcome, he said, but now we have to move forward and see what the provincial budget does.

The provincial Liberals are set to table their own spending plan next month. A spokesperson for Finance Minister Charles Sousa would make no commitments about contributing more to Torontos transit projects.

Its important to remember that no provincial government in the history of Ontario has invested more in Toronto transit, wrote Jessica Martin in an email, citing provincial spending on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the Spadina subway extension, the Union Pearson Express, GO Transits regional express rail program, and a sum previously committed for the Scarborough subway project.

Ottawa committed to funding a share of the Scarborough subway extension under the former Conservative government.

The project wasnt on the list of priority projects that council voted in December to submit to the federal transit fund, and the subway also wasnt mentioned in a press release the mayors office issued Wednesday trumpeting Ottawas $5-billion investment. This led to initial uncertainty about whether the subway money was included in that sum.

Both the federal government and the mayors office said that including money for the Scarborough extension in the Public Transit Infrastructure Fund didnt dislodge money for the other Toronto projects.

We added previously allocated money into the new larger transit fund. Because of that, the citys Scarborough commitment does not displace any new funding, said a spokesperson for the federal infrastructure minister in an email.

But the fact that other transit projects will have to split the infrastructure funding with the underground extension has critics renewing their calls for councillors to reject the Scarborough subway when it comes up for a vote at next weeks council meeting.

The estimated cost of the six-kilometre extension of Line 2 to Scarborough Town Centre has already ballooned from $2 billion to at least $3.4 billion, even as the number of stations has dwindled from three to one and estimates of the number of new riders the project would attract have been slashed.

Council has prioritized the politically charged project over other lines and it remains fully funded at the new, higher cost.

Councillor Josh Matlow said the city should abandon the extension and use the money to build a 24-stop network of LRT lines in Scarborough instead. It would include Eglinton East and the seven-stop route that council scrapped in 2013.

Matlow asserted that we could serve so many more Scarborough residents, along with residents across Toronto, with the funds we currently have, but the mayor and other supporters of the subway extension on council are deciding to put politics before people.

According to the budget released this week, over the next 11 years, Ottawa is planning to spent $20.1 billion on public transit across the country through the second phase of the transit infrastructure fund.

The projects the city submitted for funding were: SmartTrack, estimated at $3.7 billion; the relief subway line ($6.8 billion); Eglinton East LRT (about $1.6 billion); and Waterfront transit ($1.5 billion).

Together, the projects are estimated to cost at least $13.6 billion.

The citys 2017 capital plan included close to $2 billion for SmartTrack, which, in addition to the federal funding announced Wednesday, would leave the remaining projects more than $7 billion short.

Its not yet clear whether the city could decide to use the federal money to prioritize some projects over others, or whether the money would be spread across all of them equally.

Tory said Thursday that how the funding would be allocated was one of those things that has not yet been sorted out.

With files from David Rider and Jennifer Pagliaro

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Our Emperor goes to China!

Our Emperor is now in China, hoping to enjoy some dumplings while he is on a week-long vacation.
Toronto Police are looking for an 18-year-old man wanted in connection to an alleged sexual assault near the Jane and Finch area.

Police say a 17-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by Anthony Pulido in an apartment close to Jane St. and Sheppard Ave. W.

She was then forcibly confined to the apartment after the suspect held a firearm to her head. The girl called police upon being able to leave.

Police later found the gun to be a replica after executing a search warrant at the residence.

Pulido, of Toronto, is wanted on seven charges including sexual assault and secretly recording a person for a sexual purpose. He is described as 54 tall, with a medium build, dark hair, and a light complexion.

Police believe the suspect may be attempting to flee the country to avoid arrest. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-3100, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477.

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The father at the centre of a constitutional challenge of Ontarios child support law says he is stunned by the attention the case has received.

This is bigger than me, said Wayne Watson outside Brampton Court Friday, where seven lawyers acting pro bono gathered to argue whether the law discriminates against adult children with disabilities.

This is for the government to look at, said Watson, who has paid child support for Joshua, his estranged 22-year-old developmentally disabled son, since the boy was 4 and now wants to stop paying.

This is not my fight. Im caught in the middle, he said.

Lawyers acting as friends of the court on behalf of Watson said it should be up to Queens Park  and not a judge  to decide if child support for disabled children of unmarried parents should continue into adulthood.

Laws are to be made by our elected officials, lawyer Gary Joseph told Ontario Court Justice William Sullivan. If there is a problem with the law . . . it should be subjected to the consideration of our provincial legislature with full debate and all of the stakeholders being able to have a say.

Under Ontarios Family Law Act, which governs unmarried parents, adult children are eligible for child support only if they are in school full-time.

But under the federal Divorce Act, an adult child who is unable to live independently due to disability, illness or other cause is eligible for support.

As a result, Robyn Coates, the single mother who has raised Watsons disabled son, launched the Charter challenge of Ontarios law, claiming it discriminates against the disabled children of unmarried parents.

Coates, an educational resource worker for students with special needs in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board, says she needs child support to help defray the costs of day programs and medical expenses for Joshua that can run as high as $1,400 a month.

Watson said he recognizes that Joshua is disabled, but he noted programs such as the Ontario Disability Support Program are there to help.

Im in a bind too, he said in an interview. I have two other kids who Im trying to do my best with. This is also causing a burden on me too.

Coatess lawyer Robert Shawyer noted that these children are eligible for support in every province except Ontario and Alberta and urged Justice Sullivan to bring Ontario law into line with all other provinces.

Joshua is being discriminated against because of his parents marital status, he told the court. It is not fair to treat one set of children based on federal law and another set of children . . . based on provincial law.

Although Justice Sullivan does not have the jurisdiction to change the law, he can decide not to apply it in this case because it violates the Charter, Shawyer told the court.

By extending child support to Joshua, Sullivans decision would set a precedent that could help other parents and send a message to the government that we cant do this. We need to change the law, he added.

If the case succeeds, thousands of single parents and their adult children as well as LGBTQ parents and their children could also claim child support in Ontario, added lawyer Joanna Radbord, an intervener in the case representing Family Alliance Ontario, an organization that supports individuals with disabilities and their families

Since same-sex marriage was not legal in Canada until 2003, disabled young adult children of LGBTQ parents also face discrimination under Ontario child support laws, said Radbord, who is also acting on behalf of the Sherbourne Health Clinic, which supports LGBTQ parents and children.

If the legislature isnt going to protect vulnerable minorities, its up to the court to apply the law  the supreme law of Canada, which is the Charter  to protect vulnerable minorities, she said in an interview outside court.

Although the provincial attorney generals office declined the courts invitation to intervene in the case, we are aware of the case and are monitoring it closely, said ministry spokeswoman Emilie Smith.

The Ministry of the Attorney General is always willing to consider proposals for reforms to Ontarios family laws, she added.

Justice Sullivan reserved his decision.

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A 90-year-old man struck by a car in Etobicoke earlier this month has died from his injuries, Toronto police said Friday.

An eastbound Jeep Patriot hit the man as he attempted to cross Rexdale Blvd. near Entrance Rd. on the afternoon of Mar. 4. The Jeep was driven by a 77-year-old man.

At the time, the victim of the crash was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries. He died hospital Wednesday, said the Toronto Police Service.

Anyone with information about the crash is encouraged to contact police.

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In the early hours of Oct. 6, 2008, the astronomers who study objects in Earths neighbourhood in the solar system made a startling discovery: One of those objects was going to hit Earth. In 12 hours.

Alerts were sent out to asteroid hunters around the globe, and dozens of observatories turned their telescopes to spot the swiftly approaching threat. Researchers at NASA calculated the impact site  the Nubian Desert in northern Sudan  and dispatched a fleet of airplanes to watch it fall. Fragments scattered across the desert. A professor from the University of Khartoum brought his students to search for the pieces. The rocks turned out to be a rare type of meteorite called ureilite, and they showed that the meteorite contained amino acids  important molecules for life.

Caltech astronomer Carrie Nugent says stories like this, recounted in her new book Asteroid Hunters, illustrate what makes asteroids so fascinating to study.

Theyre something you can see in a telescope and also hold in your hand as a meteorite, Nugent said. So, in some sense, we get a free sample return mission on some of these guys.

Nugent works at the space telescope NEOWISE, which uses infrared sensors to search for dark, nearby objects. The team has found 34,000 near-Earth asteroids  with a closest approach taking them within 1.3 astronomical units of the sun. (An AU is the distance from the Earth to the sun, about 150 million kilometres.)

Most astronomical work has to do with things that are very, very far away and dont affect our lives very much, Nugent said. But asteroids, as you know, can come and hit Earth occasionally. So I think its important to find these objects so you can predict where they are going and potentially deflect one if we find one on the way to Earth.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you even hunt an asteroid? Whats a day in your life like?

The basic method to find asteroids hasnt changed much in hundreds of years. So asteroids in a telescope look just like stars with one exception: They move with time. So to find an asteroid, you take an image of the sky, you wait a little bit, and you take another image of the same part of the sky, and you look for anything that moves between those images. Thats how the first asteroid was discovered. Obviously it wasnt with photographs; it was with drawings.

But these days we do the same thing. We have a telescope that takes images, and we use a very nice computer program to isolate the moving images. And then every potentially new asteroid is vetted by eye, so we take a look at each one, and then we send our observations to the Minor Planet Center.

Why is it important to know where all the near-Earth objects are?

I think most people are surprised to learn that an asteroid impact is one of the most predictable and preventable natural disasters. Theres been a lot of really great intensive research into earthquakes, but we cant predict an earthquake down to the day. We cant predict where a hurricane is going to be a month in advance.

But the thing about asteroids is theyre physically very simple systems. So you can predict an asteroids trajectory very precisely. If we can figure out where these things are going and know how to find them  and both those things we know how to do well  and you have the technology to deflect them, which we also do, then its really a solvable problem.

You want to find them now so you give yourself enough warning time so you can deflect them if you need to.

But asteroids have taken us by surprise before. Just look at 2008 TC3, the asteroid that landed in the Nubian Desert. Or the Chelyabinsk meteor, which exploded over Russia in February 2013.

Thats certainly true. But its useful to break down asteroids in terms of size. So weve discovered over 90 per cent of asteroids one kilometre or larger across, and asteroid hunters are working toward a second goal, which is finding over 90 per cent of the asteroids more than 140 metres across. One hundred and 40 metres is pretty big, and the thing that exploded over Russia was only 20 metres. So what I really want to emphasize on finding the asteroids is, its these really big ones. Certainly I wouldnt mind finding the smaller ones, too, but, you know, you prioritize it based on size.

The best thing to do is to study these asteroids so we know the range of parameters we would have to deal with and also to find them so we have as much time as possible to prepare.

And if something big was headed straight at us, what would our options be? Im guessing it wouldnt be like Bruce Willis in Armageddon.

The thing I was surprised to learn is that sometimes the best thing to do is simply get out of the way. If it is a small enough asteroid and, depending on where its going, you might just want to evacuate the same way you would for a flood.

And if getting out of the way isnt an option ...

I was able to interview Lindley Johnson, who is NASAs planetary defence officer, which is the coolest job in the world, and he said there are three main ways being considered.

The first way is the gravity tractor, which is where you would put a spacecraft next to the asteroid and slowly try to tug it off its course. The other option is the kinetic impactor technique, where you would have something heavy hit the asteroid and give it a hard shove. And you know the one everyone thinks of as the nuclear option. The thing is, that might make for a great movie, but its not the most controllable and predictable of these methods. And because of that we call it a last resort. But the plan would be to explode a nuclear detonation nearby and then irradiate the surface, not to drill and implant a bomb.

You talk about all this very calmly. How worried should people be about a devastating asteroid impact?

This is the only natural disaster we have the technology to prevent. The dinosaurs didnt stand a chance, but we have telescopes and calculus and computers, and we can really do something about this. I like that aspect of it. This is something that could be solved in my lifetime. We could really chart near-Earth space and have all of these hazards mapped out and perhaps find there is nothing headed toward us, which would be really wonderful. Or perhaps it would give us the warning time we need.

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NEW YORKJimmy Breslin scored one of his best-remembered interviews with President John F. Kennedys grave-digger and once drove straight into a riot where he was beaten to his underwear.

In a writing career that spanned six decades, the columnist and author became the brash embodiment of the street-smart New Yorker, chronicling wise guys and big-city power brokers but always coming back to the toils of ordinary working people.

Breslin, who died Sunday at 88, was a fixture in New York journalism, notably with the New York Daily News, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for pieces that, among others, exposed police torture in Queens and took a sympathetic look at the life of an AIDS patient.

Read more:New York journalist Jimmy Breslin, chronicler of wise guys and underdogs, dies at 88

His was the triumph of the local, and to get the local right, you have to get how people made a living, how they got paid, how they didnt get paid, and to be able to bring it to life, said Pete Hamill, another famed New York columnist who in the 1970s shared an office with Breslin at the Daily News.

Jimmy really admired people whose favourite four-letter word was work, said Hamill, speaking from New Orleans.

Breslin died at his Manhattan home of complications from pneumonia, according to his stepdaughter, Emily Eldridge.

It was the rumpled Breslin who mounted a quixotic political campaign for citywide office in the 1960s; who became the Son of Sams regular correspondent in the 1970s; who exposed the citys worst corruption scandal in decades in the 1980s; who was pulled from a car and nearly stripped naked by Brooklyn rioters in the 1990s.

With his uncombed mop of hair and sneering Queens accent, Breslin was a confessor and town crier and sometimes seemed like a character right out of his own work. And he didnt mind telling you.

Im the best person ever to have a column in this business, he once boasted. Theres never been anybody in my league.

He was an acclaimed author, too. The Gang that Couldnt Shoot Straight was his comic account of warring Brooklyn mobsters that was made into a 1971 movie. Damon Runyon: A Life was an account of another famous New York newsman, and I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me was a memoir.

Breslin was an intellectual disguised as a barroom primitive, wrote Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett in their book City for Sale.

He acknowledged being prone to fits of bad temper. After spewing ethnic slurs at a Korean-American co-worker in 1990, Breslin apologized by writing, I am no good and once again I can prove it.

But under the tough, belligerent personality was someone elsea son whose hard-drinking father left home when he was 6 to get a loaf of bread and never returned, Hamill said. Breslins mother supported the family by working as a welfare system administrator, raising the boy along with her two sisters.

The gruff personality was a mask a guy would don to get through the day, Hamill said. Under the mask, what you found at his core was being raised by women, so life is more complicated than a punch in the jaw.

In the 1980s, he won both the Pulitzer for commentary and the George Polk Award for metropolitan reporting. The Pulitzer committee noted that Breslins columns consistently championed ordinary citizens.

A few days after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, he wrote of the dwindling hopes for families.

The streets have been covered with pictures and posters of missing people, he wrote. The messages on the posters begging for help. Their wife could be in a coma in a hospital. The husband could be wandering the street. Please look. My sister could have stumbled out of the wreckage and taken to a hospital that doesnt know her. Help. Call if you see her. But now it is the ninth day and the beautiful sad hope of the families seems more like denial.

In other columns, Breslin presented an array of recurring charactersKlein the Lawyer, Shelly the Bail Bondsman, Un Occhio the mob boss. They seemed to blur the line between fact and fiction, until the first pair became key figures in Breslins 1986 exclusive on the multimillion-dollar Parking Violations Bureau scandal.

Of course I would betray a friend for the biggest story of the year, he said after doing just that on the last manual typewriter in the News old 42nd Street newsroom.

After such successes, he held court in Costellos bar in midtown Manhattanuntil he quit drinking in his post-Pulitzer years.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo knew Breslin as a fellow Queens native and a close friend of the family.

He was irascible, tough, but he was an authentic voice for New York, Cuomo said. He was the peoples voice.

Breslin demonstrated few early skills as a wordsmith, graduating from high school before a brief, undistinguished stay at Long Island University starting in 1948, while he was already working at the Long Island Press.

As a sportswriter, he bounced between papers until he landed at the New York Herald Tribune.

He became a news columnist in 1963 and quickly found a story when none seemed left to tell. As reporters from around the world arrived to cover President Kennedys funeral, Breslin alone sought out the presidential grave-digger, Clifton Pollard, and began his report with Pollard having a breakfast of bacon and eggs at his apartment on the Sunday following JFKs assassination.

Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living, Breslin wrote.

Polly, could you please be here by eleven oclock this morning? Kawalchik asked. I guess you know what its for. Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Breslin later covered Robert Kennedys assassination, in 1968, from a much closer angle. He was standing 2 metres away when Sirhan Sirhan struck at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

In 1969, Breslin joined author Norman Mailer on a twisted political ticket: Mailer for mayor, Breslin for city council president. After their predictable loss, Breslin observed, Im mortified to have taken part in a process that has closed the bar for the better part of the day.

By then, he was a successful author with a second book, Cant Anybody Here Play This Game? It was praised for its tales of the sad-sack New York Mets.

Breslin dabbled in television and magazine writing but returned to the newspaper business in 1976 as a Daily News columnist and became part of one of the citys most horrifying stories, the Son of Sam killings in 1977. David Son of Sam Berkowitz sent Breslin several letters and impressed the columnist enough for him to observe: Hes the only killer I ever knew who knew how to use a semicolon.

He jumped to New York Newsday in 1988, signing a contract for more than $500,000 a year. During the Crown Heights riots in 1991, the then-61-year-old columnist commandeered a cab and ordered the driver to head directly into the action. About 50 rioters yanked Breslin from the taxi, robbed and beat him. He was left with only his underwear and his press card.

Three years later, he underwent successful surgery for a brain aneurysman episode that led to his memoir.

While Breslin had crowds of admirers, he created an equal number of enemies. One of his most enduring feuds was with ex-Mayor Edward I. Koch, who once promised to give the eulogy at Jimmy Breslins funeral. Koch died in 2013.

Breslin had two daughters and four sons with his first wife, Rosemary, who died of cancer in 1981. He later married Ronnie Eldridge, a former New York City councilwoman.

On Sunday, just hours after her husbands death, she summed up their life together, saying: We were married for 34 years and it was a great adventure.

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Events in recent days have shown us that the risk of a nuclear war over North Korea ranks as perhaps the greatest threat to peace in the world today. And the drumbeats of war are getting louder.

We have a deeply unpopular leader with access to nuclear weapons, clearly paranoid and out of his depth, mired in self-inflicted controversies at home and abroad, obsessed with enriching himself and his family, hobbled by his own emotional insecurities and increasingly exposed as a bumbling authoritarian who is desperate for some wildly dramatic move that would show the world hes a man of action.

And thats just the American side. North Koreas Kim Jong Un is even worse.

Sadly, I didnt intend this as a joke. The fact is that Donald Trump and Kim make for an explosive mix.

During a visit to South Korea earlier this month, Rex Tillerson, Trumps secretary of state, announced what appeared to be a dramatic change in American policy toward the nuclear threat of North Korea.

Since the diplomacy of the past 20 years has failed, he warned, pre-emptive military action against North Korea is now on the table. Tillersons warning reflected the U.S. governments worry that Kims renegade regime is accelerating its nuclear program.

Since his confirmation, the former head of Exxon has been heavily criticized for his performance. Until his Asia trip, Tillerson had been virtually invisible and seemingly shut out of most of Trumps major foreign policy moves.

In a rare media interview during his trip, Tillerson revealed he had never met Trump before being offered the job. He also admitted that I didnt want this job and only took it because his wife said that God wanted him to. Tillersons warning about North Korea was his first high-profile act as Americas top diplomat.

Although North Korea is banned by the United Nations from conducting long-range missile tests, its stated goal is to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile, equipped with a nuclear warhead, which could reach the American mainland. Experts say that North Korea may get to this stage in the next few years.

This nuclear challenge has confronted several American presidents since the 1990s. It has also frustrated China, North Koreas neighbour and chief economic benefactor, which potentially stands to lose the most if the Korean Peninsula descends into chaos.

This sudden reference by the Trump administration to the possibility of pre-emptive military action against North Korea has rattled the region. There are few informed analysts who see this option, if pursued, as anything but a certain catastrophe.

North Koreas nuclear arsenal is thought to be widely dispersed throughout the country. No single military strike could destroy it. North Korea also has an even larger stockpile of chemical and biological weapons. Analysts believe that an attack would give Kims regime ample time to hit back immediately at neighbouring South Korea and at U.S. military bases in the region.

The potential death toll from such a conflict would be breathtaking. South Koreas capital city of Seoul has a population of more than 10 million and is only about 50 kilometres from the border.

Such an attack would likely also lead to what most experts believe would be the worst-case scenario for the region  the complete collapse of the North Korean government. That would be seen by neighbouring China as an existential threat to its security and would risk a wider war between China and the United States.

Rather than a pre-emptive strike, what is needed is increasing economic and diplomatic pressure  in tandem with China  to rein in the North Korean regime.

However, the Trump factor is an entirely new element in this high-stakes drama. The shocking revelations in Washington this past week have placed Trumps bizarre relationship with Russia in a far more serious light.

There are increasing signs that Trump and his colleagues not only benefited in the election from Russian efforts to destabilize Americas democracy, they may have actually colluded with the Russians during the campaign.

For the first time, we can wonder whether this president will even complete his term.

When cornered and under threat, we know that North Koreas Kim Jong Un is capable of reacting in dangerous and irrational ways.

After all we have learned this week, why shouldnt we assume the same of one Donald Trump?

Tony Burman is former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com .

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LONDONThe man who brought terror to the heart of London on Wednesday was British-born, and authorities have given no indication his planning unfolded transnationally. But the attack at the Palace of Westminster had instant ramifications for Europe and for the globe, not least because of the international profile of those killed or injured, among them Brits, Americans, Romanians and Italians.

There was another reason the attack sowed wider uncertainty, as it underscored questions about the terms of Britains planned exit from the European Union. At stake, analysts said, may be the future of police co-operation and intelligence sharing, which have been hallmarks of European counterterrorism efforts. Strikes similar to the one at the centre of the British government Wednesday have frequently involved people or weapons traversing state lines. The carnage in London took place a year to the day after men who belonged to a terrorist cell involved in the 2015 Paris attacks set off bombs in Brussels. Daesh, also know as ISIS or ISIL, claimed responsibility for each assault.

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Before U.K. Parliament violence, a timeline of other attacks on Britain

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Man, 75, dies in hospital becoming fourth victim in London attack as Daesh claims responsibility

Whats now obvious is that when a motor vehicle is used as a weapon, were all at risk, said Benjamin Bowling, a scholar of global policing at Kings College London. Whether the case is domestic or international, he said, you need proper sharing of information and a strategy in relation to people who are committing acts of this kind across borders. Without lawful processes for sharing information and working together post-Brexit, that kind of co-operation becomes much more difficult.

The attack immediately renewed debates over immigration and border policy, dominant issues in last years referendum in which British voters decided to leave the bloc. This week, then, was another occasion for far-right politicians and pundits to argue for tightened controls. Nigel Farage, the former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, asked on Fox Business: We already have a problem with homegrown terrorism. Why on Earth would you add to it by bringing people in?

If the relevance for Britains looming exit from the E.U. werent clear enough, the issue will be made manifest on Saturday, when thousands are expected to march on Parliament in opposition to Brexit.

The shadow of Brexit was perhaps clearest, though, in a meeting Thursday between British Prime Minister Theresa May and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who chairs Polands right-wing Law and Justice Party, about the terms of the British departure. Earlier in the day, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo told a Polish television station that it is impossible not to connect terrorism and immigration policy. It was the same day British officials identified the perpetrator, who was shot dead at the gates to Parliament, as 52-year-old Khalid Masood, a Briton whose birth name was Adrian Russell Ajao.

Kaczynski told media outside Downing Street that the meeting focused on the fate of Polish citizens in Britain. But the most pressing question about Brexit following Wednesdays attack is not about work visas, analysts and former diplomats said. At risk, depending on the outcome of exit negotiations, are core law enforcement and security institutions, they said.

In the event of a decisive break from Europe, Britain would retain bilateral intelligence relationships but lose access to multilateral analytic tools, as well as bilateral mechanisms involving police and judicial authorities, said Gijs de Vries, a former E.U. counterterrorism co-ordinator and Netherlands politician and a fellow at the London School of Economics. Various British intelligence agencies, such as MI5 and MI6, would continue to co-operate with European partners, he said.

What would change is the complementary exchanges at the analytical level, he said. For example, what patterns do we see throughout Europe of travel by potential terrorist suspects? These questions are discussed in the European Union Intelligence and Situation Center.

In the area of police and judicial co-operation, Britain could lose access to numerous vehicles of information exchange, said de Vries, who helped write the EUs counterterrorism strategy in 2005. Those include the associations law enforcement and judicial agencies, as well as databases that store security details, such as DNA, fingerprints and vehicle information. It could lose access to legal instruments that allow member states to quickly extradite criminal suspects, as Britain did with a suspect who fled to Italy after a failed second attempt at subway bombings in 2005. The first round killed more than 50 people. The attack Wednesday at Westminster, which ended with the death of at least four, in addition to the perpetrator, was the deadliest strike since the co-ordinated suicide bombings more than a decade ago.

Britain must decide whether to request access to these instruments as part of its negotiations, de Vries said. If it does, that will entail continued political affiliation with European partners.

If you want to opt in to these things, it means you stay part of the club in a number of particular areas, he said. If the Brits put sovereignty above security, everybody loses.

Other experts suggested Britains participation in police and security co-operation would outlast Brexit, particularly given that the organs of intelligence-sharing were not the source of Euroskepticism powering the leave campaign.

My starting point is that theres no concrete reason why intelligence co-operation shouldnt continue and be quite good, said James de Waal, a former British diplomat and a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, a research institution based in London. These are things that will have to be settled and negotiated.

In a report released in December, the EU committee of the House of Lords labelled security co-operation one of the governments top four overarching objectives in the forthcoming negotiations. It found considerable consensus among U.K. law enforcement agencies on the EU tools and capabilities they would like to see retained, including Europol and Eurojust, the Schengen Information System, the European Arrest Warrant and the European Criminal Records Information System.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said preserving security and stopping terrorism are among the prime ministers 12 negotiating objectives.

As part of the negotiations, we will discuss with the EU and member states how best to continue co-operating on security, law enforcement and criminal justice, the spokesperson said.

To label something a priority is not the same as guaranteeing it a solution, Bowling said.

The government does not want to reveal its hand  fair enough, he said. Meanwhile, the actual practical negotiations of how this is going to work  what the U.K.s relationship with Europol and the Schengen Information System is going to be, how it will run the European Arrest Warrant, which depends on the regulatory framework of the European Court of Justice  these are all really important questions.

The strike at the British government made these concerns newly urgent, Bowling said. We are moving rapidly toward the edge of a cliff, he said.

Even in the midst of uncertainty, some residents found reason for hope.

Geraldine Cooke, who works in publishing, came into London from the suburbs on Thursday evening to take part in a candlelight vigil.

Im a Londoner, she said. But she also saw in the attack new cause for European unity, volunteering a story in which she had left a trip in Italy last summer to return home to vote in the Brexit referendum. When she told Italians why she was leaving, she said, they clutched her arm.

Remain, they urged her.

We have to stick together, Cooke said.

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PARISFrench President Francois Hollande on Friday vigorously denounced suggestions by the conservative presidential hopeful that Hollande is trying to discredit political rivals behind the scenes by using dirty tricks.

The clash between the Socialist Hollande and the right-wing Francois Fillon threatens to further stain the French presidential campaign, already tainted by corruption scandals and voter frustration with the political establishment.

It has also drawn comparisons to U.S. President Donald Trumps accusations of wiretapping by predecessor Barack Obama, and Trumps attacks on the U.S. judicial system.

Read more: French probe into presidential candidate Francois Fillion to include, fraud forgery

Fillon, whose presidential bid is flailing because of corruption charges, told France 2 television Thursday night that he wants an investigation into suggestions in an upcoming book that Hollande intervenes in legal cases for political reasons.

I am going to accuse the president of the republic, Fillon said. If we are looking for a cabinet noir, we found the cabinet noir, referring to an alleged secret bureau tasked with damaging political rivals.

Tonight, I solemnly ask that there is an investigation opened on the allegations raised in this book, because this is a scandal of state, he continued.

Hollande, who is not seeking re-election, responded by saying he condemns these false allegations with the greatest firmness. He insisted he had never intervened in any judicial procedure, including the recent investigation into accusations that Fillon employed family members for years for parliamentary jobs they never performed.

There is a dignity, a responsibility that needs to be respected. I think that Mr. Fillon is beyond that, Hollande told France Bleu radio Friday.

Asked if there is a cabinet noir, Hollande said, There is an administration, fortunately, that functions. But it is not for us to meddle in judicial affairs. And my position has always been for the independence of the justice system, the respect for the presumption of innocence, and to never interfere.

The book, Bienvenue Place Beauvau (or Welcome to the Place Beauvau) asserts that Hollande profited from a network of allies in Frances intelligence and financial agencies and a complex mechanism to orchestrate judicial probes targeting prominent conservatives.

However, its authors say that Fillon oversimplified their findings  and the book itself says it is impossible to provide formal proof of such a secret bureau.

Hollandes predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, was accused of similar secret interference in legal cases for political ends.

Fillon, prime minister during Sarkozys presidency, was once the front-runner in Frances two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7, but has seen his popularity sink since the jobs investigation opened.

Fillon, who is facing preliminary charges, denies wrongdoing and says the case against him is a smear campaign.

Former lawmaker Marc Joulaud, who employed Fillons wife as his aide from 2002 to 2007, on Friday was handed preliminary charges for embezzlement of public funds, a source close to the investigation said. The source was not allowed to speak publicly on the ongoing probe.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Penelope Fillons work as Joulauds aide was a fictitious job.

Voters appear fed up with both Fillons conservatives and Hollandes Socialists. For the first time in generations, neither party is likely to win the presidency this year.

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MOSCOWNot everyone who has a quarrel with Russian President Vladimir Putin dies in violent or suspicious circumstancesfar from it. But enough loud critics of Putins policies have been murdered that Thursdays daylight shooting of a Russian who sought asylum in Ukraine has led to speculation of Kremlin involvement.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the shooting in Kiev of Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian Communist Party member who began sharply criticizing Putin after fleeing Russia in 2016, an act of state terrorism by Russia.

That drew a sharp rebuke from Putins spokesman, who called the accusation absurd. Throughout the years, the Kremlin has always dismissed the notion of political killings with scorn.

Read more:Official says trained Russian agent killed exiled Kremlin critic in Ukraine

But Putins critics couldnt help drawing parallels with the unexplained deaths of other Kremlin foes. I have an impressionI hope its only an impressionthat the practice of killing political opponents has started spreading in Russia, said Gennady Gudkov, a former parliamentarian and ex-security services officer, to the Moscow Times.

Here are some outspoken critics of Putin who were killed or died mysteriously.

Boris Nemtsov, 2015

In the 1990s, Nemtsov was a political star of post-Soviet Russias young reformers. He became deputy prime minister and was, for a while, seen as possible presidential materialbut it was Putin who succeeded former president Boris Yeltsin in 2000. Nemtsov publicly supported the choice, but he grew increasingly critical as Putin rolled back civil liberties and was eventually pushed to the margins of Russian political life. Nemstov led massive street rallies in protest of the 2011 parliamentary election results and wrote reports on official corruption. He also was arrested several times as the Kremlin cracked down on opposition rallies. In Feb. 2015, just hours after urging the public to join a march against Russias military involvement in Ukraine, Nemtsov was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. Putin took personal control of the investigation into Nemtsovs murder, but the killer remains at large.

Boris Berezovsky, 2013

A self-styled tycoon who become a fixture in Yeltsins inner circle in the late 1990s, Berezovsky is believed to have been instrumental in Putins rise to power (including a media campaign that smeared Nemtsov). But Berezovsky was unable to exert the influence under the new president he had hoped. His falling out with Putin led to his self-exile in the United Kingdom, where he vowed to bring down the president. He also accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer and whistleblower poisoned to death in 2009. Berezovsky was found dead inside a locked bathroom at his home in the United Kingdom, a noose around his neck, in what was at first deemed a suicide. However, the coroners office could not determine the cause of death.

Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, 2009

Markelov was a human rights lawyer known for representing Chechen civilians in human rights cases again the Russian military. He also represented journalists who found themselves in legal trouble after writing articles critical of Putin, including Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was slain in 2006. Markelov was shot by a masked gunman near the Kremlin. Baburova, also a journalist from Novaya Gazeta, was fatally shot as she tried to help him. Russian authorities said a neo-Nazi group was behind the killings, and two members were convicted of the deaths.

Sergei Magnitsky, 2009

Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody in November 2009 after allegedly being brutally beaten, then denied medical care. He had been working for British-American businessman William Browder to investigate a massive tax fraud case. Magnitsky was allegedly arrested after uncovering evidence suggesting that police officials were behind the fraud. In 2012, Magnitsky was posthumously convicted of tax evasion, and Browder lobbied the U.S. government to impose sanctions on those linked to his death. The sanctions bill bears his name and has since been applied to rights abusers in other cases.

Natalia Estemirova, 2009

Natalya Estemirova was a journalist who investigated abductions and murders that had become commonplace in Chechnya. There, pro-Russian security forces waged a brutal crackdown to weed out Islamic militants responsible for some of the countrys worst terrorist attacks. Like fellow journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Estemirova reported on civilians who often got caught between these two violent forces. Estemirova was kidnapped outside her home, shot several timesincluding a point-blank shot in the headand dumped in the nearby woods. Nobody has been convicted of her murder.

Anna Politkovskaya, 2006

Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian reporter for Novaya Gazeta whose book, Putins Russia, accused the Kremlin leader of turning the country into a police state. She wrote extensively about abuse in Chechnya, and once or twice appeared on radio shows in Moscow with me. She was shot at point-blank range in an elevator in her building. Five men were convicted of her murder, but the judge found that it was a contract killing, with $150,000 of the fee paid by a person whose identity was never discovered. Putin denied any Kremlin involvement in Politkovskayas killing, saying that her death in itself is more damaging to the current authorities both in Russia and the Chechen Republic ... than her activities.

Alexander Litvinenko, 2006

Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB agent who died three weeks after drinking a cup of tea laced with deadly polonium-210 at a London hotel. A British inquiry found that Litvinenko was poisoned by Russian agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who were acting on orders that had probably been approved by President Putin. Russia refused to extradite them, and in 2015 the Russian president granted Lugovoi a medal for services to the motherland. After leaving the Russian Federal Security Service, Litvinenko became a vocal critic of the agency, which was run by Putin, and later blamed the security service for orchestrating a series of apartment bombings in Russia in 1999 that left hundreds dead. Russias invasion of Chechnya followed later that yearand with it, the rise to power of Putin. Berezovsky was suspected to be complicit in at least part of the plot to bring Putin to the Kremlin, but he later sought to implicate Putin for Litvinenkos killing. Litvinenko also accused Putin ordering the murder of Politkovskaya.

Sergei Yushenkov, 2003

The affable former army colonel was a favourite of parliamentary reporters in the early 1990s, when I was learning the trade for the Moscow Times. Sergei Yushenkov had just registered his Liberal Russia movement as a political party when he was gunned down outside his home in Moscow. Yushenkov was gathering evidence he believed proved that the Putin government was behind one of the apartment bombings in 1999.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, 2003

As a journalist and author who wrote about crime and corruption in the former Soviet Union when it was still very difficult to do so, Yuri Shchekochikhin once joined me on a police raid of crack houses in Philadelphia in 1988. He was investigating the 1999 apartment bombings for Novaya Gazeta when he contracted a mysterious illness in July 2003. He died suddenly, a few days before he was supposed to depart for the United States. His medical documents were deemed classified by Russian authorities.

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HONOLULUA judge sentenced a man Friday to life in prison with the possibility of parole in the murder of his ex-girlfriend who disappeared while pregnant with his child in Hawaii.

A jury last year convicted 27-year-old Steven Capobianco of second-degree murder in the death of Carly Charli Scott. She was five months pregnant when she disappeared from the island of Maui in 2014.

Second Circuit Chief Judge Joseph Cardoza said Friday that Capobianco had lured Scott to her death. He said the defendant is self-centred for killing her and his own son because he didnt want to be tied to Scott as her childs father.

That is so tragic and senseless, the judge said.

Jurors who found Capobianco guilty also agreed that the crime was especially heinous, so Cardoza could have imposed a harsher sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. But the judge suggested Capobianco could successfully appeal that because its not clear how Scott died.

Family and friends addressing the court during the sentencing hearing urged Capobianco to reveal the location of Scotts body.

Where is she? Scotts mother, Kimberlyn Scott, whispered while facing Capobianco in court. Where are they? Give her back to us. Do one decent thing and give her back.

Carly Scotts father, Robert Scott, was removed from the courtroom after he lashed out at defence attorney Jon Apo.

Robert Scott shouted, pointed at Apo and said he should be ashamed of himself.

Capobianco, who is three years younger than Scott, met her in 2009. They lived together for two years, but the defendant would tell his friends that they were just roommates and he did not like to take pictures with her, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Robert Rivera told jurors in his opening statement at the lengthy trial.

They broke up, but Scott continued to love him, even though she knew he didnt care about her, Rivera said.

When they were no longer a couple, Capobianco had another girlfriend and Scott got pregnant. She decided to continue with the pregnancy even though Capobianco insisted on an abortion, Rivera said.

Apo countered that Capobianco was starting to come around to the idea of having a child.

Scotts sister, Fiona Wais, said in court Friday that Scott was forgiving.

She loved you enough to forgive so much, Wais said to the defendant. You took away the one thing she wanted to be. She wanted to be a mom.

Maui Prosecuting Attorney John J.D. Kim said he was disappointed in the judges findings but understood the reasoning.

Some of Scotts bloodstained clothing and her jawbone were found after her disappearance, ending any hope she might still be alive.

Jurors also convicted Capobianco of arson after prosecutors said he torched her sport-utility vehicle to cover up the killing. Cardoza sentenced him to 10 years for the arson, to be served consecutively with the murder sentence.

Capobianco didnt testify during his trial. He also declined to speak at his sentencing hearing.

Where is she? Where are they? spectators shouted from the gallery as Capobianco was led out of the courtroom.

The Hawaii Paroling Authority will determine how many years Capobianco must serve before being eligible for parole.

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Past agreements should be implemented: TMLP Chair

Tarai-Madhes Loktantrik Party (TMLP) Chairman Mahantha Thakur has hinted at avoiding the local level polls until the agreements signed with the government in the past were implemented.
BENI, CONGOA Congolese militia group has decapitated 42 policemen after ambushing them in Central Kasai province, which has seen a spike in deadly violence in recent months, a local official said Saturday.

Members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia staged Fridays attack between the cities of Tshikapa and Kananga, according to Kasai Assembly President Francois Kalamba. The militia members freed six policemen because they spoke the local Tshiluba language, he said.

Kasai Gov. Alexis Nkande Myopompa said investigations were underway into the decapitations.

Large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August when security forces killed the militias leader. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the UN Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of scores killed in recent weeks.

While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to Congos political crisis, according to Human Rights Watch. Anger has been growing in the country at long-delayed presidential elections, and dozens were killed in December amid protests as President Joseph Kabila stayed on past the end of his mandate. A deal reached between the ruling party and opposition to hold elections by the end of this year, without Kabila, remains fragile as the UN urges its implementation.

Security forces have been known to back local leaders seen as loyal to Kabila, while militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition, the rights group said.

Militia members have recruited large numbers of children and used crude weapons to attack security forces and some government buildings in Kasai, Kasai Central, Kasai Oriental, Sankuru, and Lomami provinces, Human Rights Watch said.

The decapitations were announced as the rights group on Saturday called on Congos government to co-operate with UN efforts to locate experts, including an American and a Swede, who have been missing in the Kasai region for nearly two weeks. The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo said its movements have been restricted by security forces in Kananga, the provincial capital of Kasai Central.

Michael Sharp of the U.S., Zaida Catalan of Sweden, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 near a remote village south of Kananga. They were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

Their disappearance is the first time UN experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

The missing UN team reflects a bigger picture of violence and abuse in the Kasai region, said Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. She called on the UN Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry into abuses there.

The UN in recent days reported the discovery since January of more than two dozen mass graves in three Kasai provinces. And five videos have emerged in recent weeks that appear to show Congolese soldiers firing on militia members.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.

But the Kasai Central province where the UN experts were abducted represents a new expansion of tensions.

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ROMEWith Britain poised to start divorce proceedings, the 27 remaining European Union nations put pen to paper Saturday in Rome to renew their vows for continued unity in the face of crises that are increasingly testing the bonds between members.

The EU nations marked the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty as a turning point in their history, as British Prime Minister Theresa May will officially trigger divorce proceedings from the bloc next week  a fact that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called a tragedy.

Determined to show that unity is the only way ahead in a globalized world, the EU leaders were able to walk away from a summit without acrimony, which was already sort of a victory.

We didnt have a major clash or conflict, contrary to what many thought, Juncker said.

EU Council President Donald Tusk said that sustained unity was the only way for the EU to survive.

Europe as a political entity will either be united, or will not be at all, he told EU leaders at a solemn session in the same ornate hall on the ancient Capitoline Hill where the Treaty of Rome, which founded the EU, was signed on March 25, 1957.

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To move ahead though, the EU leaders recognized that full unity on all things will be unworkable. Pushed by several Western European nations, they enshrined a pledge to give member nations more freedom to form partial alliances and set policy when unanimity is out of reach.

We will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction, said the Rome Declaration signed by the 27 nations.

The EU has often used a multi-speed approach in the past, with only 19 nations using the shared euro currency and not all members participating in the Schengen borderless travel zone. The approach has already been extended to social legislation and even divorce rules among EU nationals.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to assuage fears that it would lead to a further unravelling of unity.

The Europe of different speeds does not in any way mean that it is not a common Europe, Merkel said after the ceremony. We are saying here very clearly that we want to go in a common direction. And there are things that are not negotiable  the EU freedom of movement, goods, people and services.

With Britain leaving, the mantle of recalcitrant member seems to have been taken over by Poland. Still, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, unmissable in a bright yellow jacket, was more subdued than at the last EU summit two weeks ago, when she refused to adopt conclusions that need unanimity. Poland also balked at signing the new treaty until the eve of the ceremony.

The Rome declaration is the first stop toward renewing the unity of the EU, Szydlo told reporters.

In a series of speeches, EU leaders also acknowledged how the bloc had strayed into a complicated structure that had slowly lost touch with its citizens, compounded by the severe financial crisis that struck several EU nations over the past decade.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, host of the summit, said over the past dozen years the EUs development had stalled.

Unfortunately, we stopped . . . it triggered a crisis of rejection, he said.

At the same time, at the summit in sun-splashed Rome, where new civilizations have been built on old ruins time and time again, there also was a message of optimism.

Yes, we have problems. Yes, there are difficulties. Yes, there will be crisis in the future. But we stand together and we move forward, Gentiloni said. We have the strength to start out again.

At the end of the session, all 27 leaders signed the Rome Declaration saying that European unity is a bold, far-sighted endeavour.

We have united for the better. Europe is our common future, the declaration said.

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WASHINGTONFormer CIA Director James Woolsey has accused the Trump administrations former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, of participating in a discussion with Turkish officials about possibly subverting the U.S. extradition process to remove a Turkish cleric from the United States.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Woolseys comments and posted a video interview with him late Friday. A Flynn spokesman said Friday that Woolseys claims are false and that no such discussion occurred.

In the Journal interview, Woolsey says he walked into the middle of a discussion between Turkish officials and members of Flynns firm, Flynn Intel Group, late in the evening of Sept. 19 at Essex House hotel in New York City.

Woolsey said the discussion generally involved removing cleric Fethullah Gulen from the U.S. without going through the lengthy extradition process, though he said it stopped short of outlining a specific plan to sweep the cleric out of the country. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought Gulens extradition from the U.S. after accusing the cleric of directing a failed coup last summer. The U.S. government has rebuffed that request, and Gulen, who has a green card and lives in Pennsylvania, has denied involvement.

Woolsey described the discussion as brainstorming, but it was brainstorming about a very serious matter that would pretty clearly be a violation of law. Though, Woolsey noted that the discussion did not rise to the level of being a specific plan to undertake a felonious act.

Flynn spokesman Price Floyd told The Associated Press that Flynn Intel Groups work never involved discussing removing Gulen from the United States by any means other than the extradition process. He confirmed that Woolsey attended the meeting but denied that it involved subverting the legal process.

The claim made by Mr. Woolsey that General Flynn or anyone else in attendance discussed physical removal of Mr. Gulen from the United States during a meeting with Turkish officials in New York is false, Floyd said. No such discussion occurred, nor did Mr. Woolsey ever inform General Flynn that he had any concerns whatsoever regarding the meeting, either before he chose to attend and afterward.

Read more:

Trump security adviser Michael Flynn quits over Russia contact

Despite denials, Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador: officials

The meeting was part of lobbying work Flynns firm was conducting on behalf of a company, Inovo BV, which is owned by Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin.

Earlier this month, Flynn and his firm registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for the work for Alptekin, saying that it could have benefited the Turkish government. Flynns firm was paid $530,000 over the course of the contract, which ran from August through November while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. Alptekin has told the AP that Flynns firm registered as a foreign agent under pressure from the Justice Department.

As the AP reported earlier this month, Flynns attorneys twice disclosed to advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump after the election that it was likely Flynn would need to register as a foreign agent for the work. The first discussion was with the Trump transition team while Flynn was being considered for the top national security post. After Flynn joined the Trump administration, his attorneys then informed the White House counsels office that Flynns foreign agent registration was imminent. The White House has confirmed both contacts.

In the video interview, Woolsey said he didnt know if he missed a caveat to the discussion because he arrived late to the September meeting. In addition to Woolsey and Flynn, others present included Alptekin, Flynns business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, and two Turkish officials: Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogans son-in-law. Alptekin has told the AP that he arranged the meeting.

Woolsey said he doesnt remember if Flynn actively participated in the discussion. I dont recall who said what, Woolsey said in the Journal interview. Though in an interview with CNN, he said there was at least some strong suggestion by one or more of the Americans present at the meeting to the Turks that the U.S. would be able to get ahold of Gulen.

It was suspicious. It was concerning, and I felt I needed to say something about it to someone, but was it a clear plot that they were going to seize him? No, Woolsey said during the CNN interview.

Woolsey has said he informed then-Vice-President Joe Biden about the meeting through a mutual friend. Representatives for Biden declined to comment.

Woolsey, who served as CIA director under President Bill Clinton and briefly was a member of the Trump transition team, said he served on an advisory board for Flynn Intel Group but never did any work for the firm or received any payment from it.

Flynn, a former director of the Defence Intelligence Agency and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, was fired by Trump last month after Trump said Flynn misled Vice-President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his conversations with Russias ambassador to the U.S.

Flynns ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are part of House and Senate committee investigations into contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.

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MINSK, BELARUSPolice in the Belarusian capital have begun wide-scale arrests protesters who had gathered for a forbidden demonstration that they hoped would build on a rising wave of defiance of the former Soviet republics authoritarian government.

About 700 people had tried to march along Minsks main avenue, but were blocked by a cordon of riot police wielding clubs and holding shields. After a standoff, arrests began.

Theyre beating the participants, dragging women by the hair to buses. I was able to run to a nearby courtyard, demonstrator Alexander Ponomarev said.

There were no immediate figures on how many people were taken into custody.

Earlier, police raided the office of the human-rights group Vesna. About 30 of its activists were detained, said Oleg Gulak of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee.

In the days preceding the demonstration, more than 100 opposition supporters were sentenced to jail terms of three to 15 days, Vesna reported before the raid. Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Neklayev reportedly was pulled off a train by police during the night while trying to travel to Minsk.

Belarus has seen an unusually persistent wave of protests over the past two months against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994. After tolerating the initial protests, authorities cracked down. Lukashenko this week alleged that a fifth column of foreign-supported agitators was trying to bring him down.

Saturdays demonstrators shouted slogans including shame and basta (enough) and deployed the red-and-white flag that is the oppositions symbol. The flag was first used by the short-lived independent Belarusian Peoples Republic in 1918 and again after independence from the Soviet Union, but was replaced in 1995 after Lukashenko gained power.

In his 23 years as president, Lukashenko has stifled dissent and free media and retained much of the Soviet-style command economy.

The protests this year initially focused on his unpopular anti-parasite law that calls for a $250 tax on anyone who works less than six months a year, but doesnt register with the state labour exchange. But the protests broadened into general dissatisfaction with his rule, which some critics have characterized as Europes last dictatorship.

Protests attracted hundreds on Saturday in Brest and Grodno, two other large cities. No arrests were immediately reported.

Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.

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Re: Canadians know Palestinians deserve justice, March 23

Canadians know Palestinians deserve justice, March 23

I am deeply ashamed of Israels treatment of Palestinians, supposedly on behalf of Jews everywhere, like me.

Last week, I was on the West Bank and saw what life is like for Palestinians. There is constant land confiscation and theft of property. I met Bedouin farmers whose sheep, their main source of income, had been stolen by Israeli settlers.

Travel for Palestinians is restricted, their access to water is limited, and permits are almost never granted for house-building. Israeli settlers live under civil law, while Palestinians live under Israeli military law.

While Israel is entitled to counter terrorism, its policies go way beyond what is needed for security. Our federal government must acknowledge this and speak out against the appalling treatment of innocent Palestinians.

Harry Shannon, Dundas, Ont.

Correction  March 27, 2017: This letter was edited from a previous version.

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Your recent editorials on housing prices did not address the fact that prices are driven by supply and demand and, when demand is high, we need to dramatically increase supply.

Supply is largely limited by government policies. For lowrise housing, the greenbelt and lack of serviced land limits the supply of buildable land. For midrise and highrise, it is NIMBYs and restrictive zoning.

Supply will increase if everyone has the right to build and Toronto should experiment with zoning policies that would allow that. Incremental zoning would allow anyone to build one more storey than their neighbours, allowing so-called stable neighbourhoods to slowly grow.

Graduated-density zoning allows higher density on larger pieces of land and thus would encourage the consolidation of small parcels of land. Since the majority of us have to make do with market-priced housing instead of government-subsidized affordable housing, we need more policies that will help lower market prices.

Sam Wong, Scarborough

The Ontario Liberal government and Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing needs to be held accountable for creating overpriced GTA housing prices. The overnight introduction in 2005 of the Ontario Greenbelt without an accompany 50-year plan, where affordable housing of all types are to be developed, was irresponsible and even a danger to the Ontario and Canadian economy.

In Ontario, the Greenbelt, land adjacent to Canadas largest city is the size of Prince Edward Island. The real question is why is the Greenbelt so large? Building 100,000 new freehold low level homes a year in Greenbelt area immediately adjacent to the GTA is achievable and would create jobs, economic growth and make Ontario competitive as an affordable place to live. Reducing the Greenbelt to a more realistic area that includes the Oak Ridges Moraine and Niagara Escarpment would still mean that the Greenbelt is only half the size of Prince Edward Island.

Government policy-makers, planners, bureaucrats and politicians are very well paid in Ontario. The taxpayers of Ontario deserve better from the people who make these important decisions on residential housing. If you are wrong with improper analysis, then take responsibility and fix the mistakes. If not someone else should!

James Hershaw, Toronto

Your editorial, March 19/17, regarding soaring house costs in Toronto says that the government needs to get involved in curbing the escalating costs of housing.

I dont want the politicians meddling in the free market. For many years Toronto has been striving to become a world-class city, like New York City and London, England. This world-class status comes with a cost. Your editorial stated that a survey shows Toronto is among the top four cities in the world to live. Well Toronto has finally arrived, and somehow we now feel the need to apologize? Our real estate was undervalued and needed to catch up to other big cities. This is an adjustment, or a reckoning, in real estate pricing, compared to other world class markets. Lets stop feeling sorry for being successful.

The millennials can have a house, but they need to realize that you cannot have it without giving up some things. I bought a house, as did my parents before me. My parents rented out our flat, our neighbours got together with their siblings and bought a house. Our family trips to the beach meant going to the shores of Georgian Bay, not Cabo San Lucas or Costa Rica. Our car, for those who had one, was a used station wagon, not matching BMWs in the driveway. Our kids clothes came from hand-me-downs, or Honest Eds, not from designer displays. Our meals were homemade, not takeout, and leftovers were always eaten, not thrown out. Its called sacrifice! So Id ask millennials; whats your priority?

I dont buy the argument that housing was more affordable back then. Back then, (circa 1962) only dad worked, for about $2 an hour. He, and stay-at-home mom had an average of six children. Today the combined income for a young couple is about $80 an hour, with only one or two kids. Again, whats the priority?

To John Tory and the politicos, Id say leave it, dont touch it, because God knows what happens every time politicians get involved.

Joe Battista, Mississauga

Your March 18 editorial (time to cool the housing market with a foreign buyers tax) is disappointing for an investigative newspaper and yields no solution to soaring house prices.

We have only ourselves to blame for this terrible housing price mess for being so unproductive as an economy.

Foreigners are rushing to buy homes in the GTA for the simple reason that housing here is cheap. Armed with loads of American currency, they are house hunting like we enjoy shopping at Dollarama . . . for the bargains instead of buying in their home country.

Until we become more productive and our currency is at par with the U.S. dollar, nothing will stop this onslaught of worldly bargain hunters.

Mike Zichowski, Thornhill

Looking to downsize from a detached home in Erin Mills in Mississauga, and to live a bit closer to our daughters family up north, my wife and I toured the relatively newer areas of Vaughan and Brampton between Dufferin Street and Airport Road, a bit closer to our daughters home. What we found was disheartening: a never-ending monotony of detached homes, with almost no townhouses and not a single apartment building to be seen. Almost nowhere was easily walkable to shops, which are almost exclusively limited to multinational chain stores in ghastly smart malls that are the opposite of pleasant.

Maybe it was the cloudy weather, but I truly saw not a solitary soul out walking in those neighbourhoods. We were hoping to find diverse, higher density mixed neighbourhoods with townhouses, but everything seems to have been built as though everyone is the same, everyone wanting only a detached home. Theres no room for us.

And, by the way, is it good community-building if parents own sons and daughters, when they become adults, have to move far away to find an affordable place to live, rather than somewhere in the neighbourhood in which they grew up? Goodbye old friends. Goodbye roots.

What a depressing environment it was, on a huge scale that is likely to be repeated over and over again. Is this what our supposedly advanced urban planners think is good city-building, the livable and whole communities they claim to be building? If so, those people should be fired.

Another thought: Wouldnt house prices be lower if there were many more townhouses and apartment units that would suit people like my wife and I, or which are affordable, easing pressure on prices of detached homes?

Needless to say, in this huge area we found nothing that fits our situation. We may have to stay in our too-big house, far away from our daughters home. Sigh.

John Stillich, Mississauga

The past six months have been a litany of dashed expectations, anxiety, pre-emptive offers and heartbreak as Ive worked with my daughter and her partner to become first time home buyers.

Is a foreign-buyers tax in the best interest of real estate brokerages? The real answer is no, as it erodes their commissions. Hence their opposition.

The real problem can actually be easily traced to many examples of houses selling well over asking price. The asking price is a mythical number and is a bait and switch tactic in disguise. Artificially low asking prices are fuelling unrealistic bidding wars on a daily basis throughout the Golden Horseshoe. Bill C-34, the Competition Act legislation, specifically addresses the specifics of offers to sell so why exempt the real estate industry?

I believe there is a solution. It is time to legislate a new residential real estate levy that taxes the proceeds of the difference between the transaction price and asking price. An offer to sell with an advertised price should be exactly that, not an offer to sell with a minimum reserve.

This levy would provide a new revenue source for the various levels of government, something they certainly would not decline.

Robert Gumiela, Toronto

Renters need protection, Editorial, March 20

You write, the loophole to encourage rental apartment construction in 1996 didnt work. Loophole? This exemption was not an oversight. It was explicitly provided to encourage developers to continue to build more apartments, even though all buildings to that point were swept into the rent-control web.

After all, what developer wants to build rental units to be granted an annual increase of 1.5 per cent when utility costs alone are rising more than 10 per cent and property taxes by 12 per cent, unless he was exempt from rent controls.

Do you wonder why new apartment buildings are not built? Developers have simply lost all faith in governments promises to maintain the exemption on future construction. It takes 25 years or more to pay off the mortgage on a new apartment building, so developers need long-term assurances of stability before they will make such an investment.

Marvin Sigler, Gold Seal Management Inc., Toronto

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Jim Cramer fills his blog on RealMoney every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas. This week he blogged on:

How oil may not be able to say whoa

How you can't afford to miss opportunities

Click here for information on RealMoney, where you can see all the blogs, including Jim Cramer's -- and reader comments -- in real time.

Cramer: Can Oil Say Whoa to the Flow?

Posted on March 24 at 1:42 p.m. EST

Twenty-one more rigs. Darn. Halliburton (HAL) has too much business to handle. Drat. Permian drilling costs keep plunging. Ugh. Keystone's being built. Good grief.

And we wonder why oil can't stabilize.

Oil can't find its footing because we keep pumping more and more oil, 100,000 more barrels each month. That Baker Hughes rig count is simply on a nonstop trajectory because our oil companies can make a huge amount of money at these prices.

Unless the Saudis single-handedly decided to make a gigantic cutback, then every step forward in oil will be met with a step backward.

When oil hit my first downside target of $47, I thought it could probably hold. But when I see this big rig count move, I think it could still go to $45, my second level, where I think many oil companies that aren't stretched might shut down the spigot.

Either way, it is so hard for oil to catch a bid because there is too much of it. Supply and demand are in charge because in the end, of course, it is a commodity market.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, has no positions in the stocks mentioned.

Cramer: You Can't Afford to Ignore Opportunities

Posted on March 24 at 6:21 a.m. EST

How many people didn't buy Micron (MU) because of repeal and replace? How many people thought better of taking down some Action Alerts PLUS charity portfolio holding Western Digital (WDC) , which shares its flash business with Micron--almost as hot as DRAMs--because of Obamacare?

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long WDC.

How many people are frozen on the sidelines because the GOP decided to take up something that was so difficult to begin with and would have imploded anyway, given all of the withdrawals from the big health insurers?

No, it's not a waste of time to talk about repeal and replace. But the same people who have insisted that every point gain--or, now, loss--from this market can be tied to Trump have been boxed in and are no longer even listening to what individual companies are saying.

I have always found that to be a huge opportunity cost mistake. The moment you decide to wait for a specific event out of Washington to occur is the moment that it is too late to move, as Micron showed you last night.

So, sit on the sidelines. Wait for a better opportunity. Or, recognize that there are opportunities every day that aren't tied to Washington and you can't afford to ignore them if you are going to do better than the market, no matter what the gridlock grim reaper tells you.

RELATED: Jim Cramer on Micron's Blowout Results

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer manages as a charitable trust, is long WDC.
PM Dahal in Beijing, to meet Chinese prez on Monday

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal landed in Beijing on Saturday after addressing the Boao conference in Hainan Province.
Advisor to chief of the Security Service of Ukraine Yuri Tandyt has stated that 118 hostages are currently held in Donetsk and Luhansk.

He said this to journalists today, answering the question by an Ukrinform correspondent.

"There are 118 hostages now in Donetsk and Luhansk. The number has increased as several people were detained in Donetsk and they automatically became hostages," Tandyt said.

He noted that, unfortunately, the Russian Federation continued to use hostages to exert pressure on Ukraine.

ol
Kenya is interested in importing large amounts of Ukrainian corn, food products, simple processing equipment, pharmaceutical products and equipment for power engineering and is ready to make Ukraine its strategic supplier of agricultural products.

Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine, Ukraine's trade representative Natalia Mykolska posted this on her Facebook page.

"Kenya is ready to make Ukraine its strategic supplier of agricultural products. The chairman of the Kenyan delegation will raise in the parliament the issue of allocating quotas for duty-free imports of Ukrainian agricultural products," Mykolska wrote after the meeting with the delegation of Kenyan parliamentarians.

According to Mykolska, the Kenyan side has already confirmed its readiness to import free of duty 450,000 tons of corn from Ukraine through public procurement mechanisms.

ol
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and President of the European Council Donald Tusk plan to hold a meeting in Malta next week.

An Ukrinform correspondent in Brussels learned this from the office of Tusk.

"The bilateral meeting with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is scheduled for March 30," the schedule of Tusk's work reads.

The leaders' meeting will take place on the sidelines of the congress of the European People's Party, which will be held in Malta on March 29-30.

ish
European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn has condemned the introduction of amendments to the law of Ukraine on electronic declaration of incomes of officials.

The European Commissioner wrote this on Twitter, an Ukrinform correspondent reported from Brussels.

"Changes to the law on e-declaration are a step back, not forward, and they should be reconsidered," Hahn wrote.

He stressed that electronic declaration should help fight corruption in public administration, and not create barriers to the work of civil society.

ish
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has sent seven trucks with food and medicines to the residents of Donetsk region.

This has been reported by the State Border Service of Ukraine on Saturday.

"Seven trucks from the International Committee of the Red Cross were sent to the uncontrolled territory through the Novotroitske checking point," the report said.

As noted, the vehicles transported for the residents of Donetsk region food products and medicines for a total weight of 123 tons.

ish
PM expresses support to Xis OBOR project

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has conveyed to Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli that Nepal desires to become part of Chinas One Belt One Road initiative.
Every Saturday, Ken Nankervis treats customers at A. Litteri to a sampling of wine and food. (Dave McIntyre)

Its official: One of the worlds best wine stores  especially if you are a fan of Italian wines  is right here in Washington. And you may have overlooked it.

A. Litteri has been selling Italian foods to Washingtonians for 90 years. The stores current location in the old warehouse district of Northeast D.C. is just a block from the uber-hip Union Market, but its a time capsule to those family-owned neighborhood stores where regular customers are greeted like friends as they sample an aged Gorgonzola or order a cold-cut sandwich that would make Sinatra sing with joy.

[At Florida Avenue Market, kitchen supplies and cheap eats]

And theres wine, of course. Enter A. Litteri through a door that could be easily overlooked if the wall around it were not painted with the colors of the Italian flag, and the first thing you encounter is the wine closeout section. These are cheap bottles, including a $5 pink Catawba from Indiana and several other inexpensive wines a vintage or three beyond their prime. You might find something cheap and interesting here, but turn right and head to the main wine section. There, among claustrophobic shelves reaching to the ceiling and seemingly on the verge of collapsing on you, is one amazing wine selection.

This is the domain of Ken Nankervis, who took over A. Litteris wine program in 2012 and gradually transformed a selection based on closeouts to one of the best  especially for Italian wines  in the city.

[An Italian market near you: Go for pizza and subs, but theres much more]

Or maybe the world. Last month, A. Litteri was awarded the Leccio dOro prize from the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino in Tuscany as the best wine store outside Italy. The Consorzio naturally favors stores that specialize in Italian wines in general, and Tuscanys in particular, but the award was fitting recognition of Nankerviss efforts to build A. Litteris wine selection into a world-class program.

When I got here five years ago, all this space was dedicated to pinot grigio, Nankervis told me on a recent visit to the store, as he waved at a space of shelving about the size of a hefty nightclub bouncer. It took me two years to get rid of it all.



A. Litteris entrance is painted the colors of the Italian flag. (Holley Simmons)

Today, Nankerviss selection of about 3,000 wines from around the world is crammed into a space the size of a bomb shelter. It includes more than 30 indigenous Italian white-wine grapes, with names such as pecorino, erbaluce, grechetto and falanghina. There are several esoteric red varieties as well. Two-thirds of his wines are Italian, but Nankervis also offers small but high-quality selections from other regions, including Spain, Portugal and South America. (The U.S. selection is perhaps a little weak.)

People come in and ask for pinot grigio or chardonnay, and I just say, why? Nankervis says. He champions the sheer variety available from Italy.

One of the reasons Italy has so many categorized grape varieties is the Catholic Church, he says. They were so good at keeping tabs on people and what they were doing, that when people find some forgotten variety they can look in the church records to see who was growing it back then.



Customer Raymond Heer, right, is served by A. Litteri owner Mike DeFrancisci. (Evy Mages/For The Washington Post)

Theres a reason the Brunello consorzio took notice. I have 65 Brunellos from 2010 in stock, and 130 Brunellos overall, he said. I went to every store in Montalcino  the quaint Tuscan hill town that is home to Brunello  and none carry as many Brunellos as we do.

Mike DeFrancisci, the third-generation owner of A. Litteri, credits Nankervis not only with boosting wine sales but also making the store attractive to younger consumers, including those who frequent Union Market nearby.

With the area changing, our clientele has totally changed in the last seven or eight years, and Ken has been a big part of that, DeFrancisci said. We never had anyone here to sell wine and do wine and food pairings. Wine sales have increased dramatically since Ken joined us.

Nankervis, 49, discovered his love of all foods Italian when working at Cafe Milano in Georgetown. He then worked several years with Winebow, an importer and distributor specializing in Italian wines, before moving to A. Litteri. While upgrading the stores wine selection, he also rebuilt the shelves and put in new flooring. Every Saturday, he offers a tasting of 12 wines with 12 foods drawn from the stores larder and his imagination.



Ken Nankervis among his extensive wine selection at A. Litteri in Northeast Washington. (Dave McIntyre)

A consultation with Nankervis can be gruff and to the point. Hell ask how much you want to spend, and what recipe youre cooking. Hell throw out phrases such as wicked minerality to describe a wine, and blue cheese and Amarone is a match made in heaven for a favorite food-wine pairing. Its impossible to talk to him and not get hungry.

As I interviewed Nankervis, we were interrupted frequently by Silvia Buch, a precocious 2  -year-old in search of a breadstick, who was visiting the store with her parents, Ethan and Kristin, and her infant sister, Maria.

This is the next generation for Litteri, Nankervis said, lifting little Silvia into his arms.

I grew up in Eastern Connecticut, and my mother was from a big Italian family, Ethan Buch told me. This store takes me back to my roots. I have become friends with most of the employees.

So has Silvia. She easily scored some cheese and biscotti while her parents tried some delicious Chianti.
Adapted from an online discussion.

Dear Carolyn: What are your thoughts on wedding gifts when not invited to the wedding? A family member had a destination wedding six months ago. We were told they werent having any guests but later learned several couple-friends of theirs accompanied them. They spent nearly eight months doing extensive renovations to their new home, and then sent out invitations to a cookout to come see their new digs. When we arrived, this cookout was fully catered, had valet parking attendants and had over a hundred guests. There was a gift table  not everyone brought gifts  but I would say there were 25 or so on the table.

I have heard through the grapevine that this family member is very upset that we didnt acknowledge her wedding properly. We sent a card at the time and had a bottle of champagne delivered to their hotel room.

Have I missed something? Are understated, long-after-the-fact wedding receptions now a thing? It didnt occur to me that it was a gift-giving occasion, because it was so long after the wedding and the invitation didnt mention the wedding. The wedding we were not invited to attend.

The word is, this person is not speaking to me until I make things right. We often go a month or two without contact so I dont know if we just havent talked or if she is not talking to me. Should I clear the air or ignore?

(Nick Galifianakis/for The Washington Post)

Not Invited

Not Invited: Oh, my goodness, ignore  because thats the proper way to accept the gift of having a jerk drop voluntarily out of your life.

Since when do a card and champagne constitute a failure to acknowledge a wedding? One you were not invited to attend?

Maybe you need to get along with these people for the sake of the family, but if thats the case, then its incumbent upon the couple to talk to you directly. Their choosing to have invisible hoops for you to jump through, and then to punish you silently for your failure to jump through them, conveniently keeps all the responsibility with them  because technically you dont know anything about this.

Plus, the word of the grapevine is not only cowardly  be it on the part of the rumormonger if its not true, or on the brides part if it is  its also not binding. Again, how can you be accountable for something of which you have no direct knowledge?

So treat the couple as you always have. That is, act as if nothing is wrong, because you did nothing wrong, and let them come to you with any grievance themselves. If they act frosty to you, then act as surprised by that as you have every right to be. You didnt even say hello to me. Is something wrong?

Re: Bridezilla: You dont even know alleged Bridezilla said this. Who knows? The gift table at the party may have been a relatives suggestion, as people always bring gifts to everything. As Carolyn said, I would ignore the busybody who took it upon him/herself and keep on truckin.

Bridezillas Mouthpiece
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.
Alex Jones, the conspiracy-loving media personality, apologized Friday for his role in promoting Pizzagate, the baseless viral story that a Washington pizza restaurant was the locale of a child sex-abuse ring run by Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta.

In a surprising and rare bit of backtracking, Jones posted a six-minute video on his website, InfoWars, in which he read a prepared statement formally distancing himself and his site from what became a textbook story of fake news run amok. He addressed his apology to James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Ping Pong, the restaurant that was the supposed locale of the alleged conspiracy last year.

I made comments about Mr. Alefantis that in hindsight I regret, and for which I apologize to him, Jones said. We relied on third-party accounts of alleged activities and conduct at the restaurant. We also relied on accounts of [two] reporters who are no longer with us.

He added, To my knowledge today, neither Mr. Alefantis nor his restaurant Comet Ping Pong, were involved in any human trafficking as was part of the theories about Pizzagate. The story, he said, was based upon what we now believe was an incorrect narrative.

Jones, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, offered no comment or apology to Clinton or Podesta for outlandish statements about their alleged involvement in the abuse of hundreds of children.

(The Washington Post)

Jones didnt say what prompted his apology but it may have been motivated by a letter Alefantis wrote to him in February. The letter demands an apology and retraction for InfoWars postings about Pizzagate; it does not threaten legal action, but refers to what Alefantis describes as defaming comments by InfoWars.

But the timing of Joness apology suggests he was concerned about a potential lawsuit. Under Texas law, the Austin-based Jones had to retract or apologize for the stories by Friday  one full month after receiving Alefantiss letter  to avoid exposing InfoWars to punitive damages in a libel suit.

In a statement, Alefantis said, I am pleased that Mr. Jones has apologized and admitted that he and his employees repeatedly spread falsehoods about me and my restaurant. I wish that he would have made this admission and apology months ago. And his apology, while welcome, does nothing to address the harm he and his company have done to me, my business, and my community.

A spokeswoman for Alefantis said Friday that Alefantis and his attorney continue to evaluate our legal claims.

As the story spread, Alefantis and his employees received multiple death threats. The rumors culminated in December when a North Carolina man, Edgar Madisson Welch, came to the restaurant with a loaded assault rifle and handgun in what he called an attempt to investigate the claims. He fired the rifle several times while inside the restaurant, according to court documents.

Welch coincidentally pleaded guilty on Friday to weapons and assault charges in an agreement with federal prosecutors in the District.

InfoWars wasnt the principal progenitor of the false story. The story spread primarily through such user-generated sites as Reddit and 4chan, as well as through fake-news websites and social media.

But InfoWars played a role, publishing numerous articles and commentaries that speculated about the alleged involvement of Clinton and Podesta. Pizzagate was sparked by cryptic comments made by Podesta in emails that were stolen and later released by WikiLeaks during the campaign.

Among the more damaging elements cited by Alefantis in his Feb. 22 letter was InfoWars role in encouraging its followers to go out and investigate the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, to come to my restaurant and investigate lies.

In his statement, Alefantis noted, We can all hope that Mr. Jones retreat is the beginning of a process to hold accountable the people who motivated an armed gunman to travel across state lines and fire his weapon in a family-friendly restaurant.
The scene of a homicide investigation at the 13300 block of Edinburgh Lane in Laurel, Md. (Prince Georges County Police/Prince Georges County Police)

Police responding to a report of gunshots Saturday morning in Prince Georges County found a dead man inside a running car.

Officers responding to a 911 call at 5:20 a.m. found an adult male slumped behind the wheel of a sedan that had crashed into a trash dumpster in the parking lot of an apartment complex at the 13300 block of Edinburgh Lane in Laurel, according to Prince Georges police spokesman Cpl. Lamar Robinson.

The man had suffered trauma to the upper body and was pronounced dead at the scene. More details on the victim would not be released until the mans next of kin were notified, Robinson said, adding that police were still seeking to determine suspects and a motive.

This is an active investigation right now, he said. Investigators are on scene, combing the area, looking for witnesses and conducting interviews.
A Beirut businessman accused of presiding over a multibillion-dollar commodities shipping empire and evading U.S. sanctions for financing terrorism pleaded not guilty to an 11-count criminal indictment unsealed in Washington on Thursday.

Kassim Tajideen, 62, a dual Lebanese-Belgian citizen, was charged March 7 with conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. He allegedly operated a network of companies from Africa to the Middle East that dealt in secret with U.S. businesses after sending tens of millions of dollars to the Shiite militant group and political party Hezbollah.

The prosecution of Tajideen, who was extradited to the United States after his arrest March 12 in Morocco, marked the latest move in a long-running U.S. effort to ramp up financial pressure against Iran-supported Hezbollah. The group has been a U.S.-designated terrorist organization since 1997 and is now fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assads regime in that countrys civil war.

Tajideen and his brothers, Ali and Husayn, lead a family business that has dominated poultry and rice markets, amassed real estate, and is reportedly active in construction and diamonds in Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and western Africa, where Tajideen settled in Sierra Leone with his family in 1976. The three brothers were added to the U.S. governments terrorism sanctions list in 2009 and 2010 for their prominent support of Hezbollah.

The investigation of this case and the arrest and extradition of this defendant demonstrates our commitment to enforcing vitally important sanctions laws that are in place to protect our national security and foreign policy interests, Channing D. Phillips, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement announcing the arrest. Because of the hard work of law enforcement here and abroad, Kassim Tajideen will now face charges in an American courtroom.

Tajideen appeared relaxed in court Friday. He was detained at Casablancas airport while en route from Guineas capital, Conakry, to Beirut, on an arrest warrant issued two days earlier by Interpols Washington office, the Reuters news agency reported.

He pleads not guilty, defense attorney Matt Jones of the WilmerHale law firm told U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather during a brief arraignment. Meriweather ordered Tajideen held pending a detention hearing March 29 and notification of the Belgian and Lebanese consulates.

On Friday, U.S. officials said Tajideens arrest capped Project Cassandra, a two-year Drug Enforcement Administration-led and U.S. Customs and Border Protection-aided investigation into Hezbollahs global logistics and financing arm.

According to a 27-page indictment, Tajideen allegedly secretly restructured his multibillion-

dollar business after his May 2009 terrorist designation by the U.S. Treasury banned him from dealings with U.S. businesses.

U.S. authorities alleged that Tajideen and conspirators used new business names and misrepresented ownership to complete at least 47 fraudulent wire transfers totaling more than $27 million to unwitting U.S. vendors for illegal, unlicensed goods.

The Wall Street Journal in November reported that the Justice Department was investigating whether sales of wheat flour from Seaboard Corp., a Kansas-based food-processing giant known for its Butterball turkey brand, were being masked to firms linked to Tajideen.

Citing interviews with Tajideen and his civil lawyers, the Guardian newspaper in May reported that he had been working for several years with U.S. authorities to be removed from the terrorism blacklist. He argued that he was not a supporter of Hezbollah; that his actions were being conflated with those of his brother, Ali; and that he had severed ties with his brothers.

The U.S. indictment accused Tajideen of concealing his activities in representations to Treasury authorities in July 2010, December 2012 and April 2014, in which he claimed to present a complete picture of his financial holdings, submitted the results of forensic accounting investigations and committed to compliance with sanctions.

An earlier version of this article erroneously limited the 1997 U.S. terrorism designation for Hezbollah as applying to the groups militant wing. The listing applied to the organization.
Two men were found fatally shot in Southeast Washington in the past two days, one Friday and the other Thursday, D.C. police said.

The killings were the third and fourth in the city in the past five days. The high rate appeared to be a statistical fluctuation, with no link shown among the deaths.

The most recent killing was reported about 12:30 a.m. Friday. Maurice Nathaniel Jackson, 32, of Southeast, was found fatally shot in the 1900 block of Fairlawn Avenue, police said.

In the Thursday homicide, Daquan Hooks, 38, was found about 4:45 a.m. in the 1900 block of 13th Street.

It appeared that he had suffered a head injury, police said. An autopsy showed that he had been killed by a gunshot in the base of the head, police said.

Such wounds are often inflicted in what is known in street parlance as an execution-style killing.

Despite the high rate of homicide this week, the year as a whole is on pace to have fewer killings than last years 135.


Leaders from the District, Maryland and Virginia are working to establish a dedicated funding source for Metro. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

Marylanders narrowly support a regionwide sales tax to boost Metro funding, giving it the most support among several proposals to bolster the struggling transit agency, a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds.

The survey of Maryland residents offers a picture of local taxpayers preferences as leaders from the District, Maryland and Virginia ramp up their efforts to find consensus on a dedicated funding source for Metro  a move officials say is necessary to keep the transit agency financially solvent in coming years.

But there are mixed opinions on what that revenue source should be, as officials weigh the benefits and drawbacks of an increase in subsidies that the jurisdictions contribute to the agency, the launch of a Metro-dedicated sales tax, special tax districts near Metro stations or another method of funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the transit agency.

For residents in Washingtons Maryland suburbs, where appraisals of Metro have plummeted, a regional sales tax draws lukewarm support. But it is more popular than other options.

[Read full poll results | How poll was conducted]

Metro funding will be a key focus of a group convened by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and headed by former U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood. The independent panel will study the systems governance and long-term financial needs and will issue a report by fall with the goal of aiding Virginia and Maryland lawmakers as they head into their 2018 legislative sessions.

[McAuliffe taps Ray LaHood to head panel to study Metro]

Clearly, youve heard me say recently, [2019] is going to be an issue. I cannot continue to cut service and raise fares, cut staff, Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said, speaking about Metros operating budget for fiscal year 2019. At some point, we have to really think about how we are going to have a stable source of funding for the system.

Metro funding





Metro and many elected leaders say the agency needs a dedicated source of funding to pay for long-neglected maintenance, cover rising costs, make federally mandated safety improvements and recover revenue lost because of declining ridership. Wiedefeld says he has exhausted his options for internal belt-tightening and needs a new influx of money to keep the system afloat.

The Post-U-Md. poll posed questions on five proposals that would provide the agency with more funding, and the majority of Marylanders rejected four of them.

Sixty-six percent of all residents oppose cutting rail and bus frequency, while 56 percent do not want fare increases  two options that have already been adopted by the Metro board, which voted Thursday to finalize fare increases and service cuts that will start July 1.

[Metro makes it official: Higher fares, reduced service coming July 1]

Nearly two-thirds of Marylanders, 65 percent, oppose creating a new property tax on buildings and homes near Metro stations. Fifty-five percent reject a general increase in funding from the Maryland, Virginia and D.C. governments paid for by raising taxes or cutting other programs.

But by 51 percent to 42 percent, more Marylanders support than oppose creating a regional sales tax dedicated to Metro. Residents in the inner suburbs are more evenly split, with 50 percent favoring and 47 percent opposing a regional sales tax. The sales tax is supported by 55 percent in Montgomery compared with 44 percent in Prince Georges, although differences are within the polls margin of sampling error.

William Moreno, 54, is open to the idea of a regional sales tax. A registered Republican living in Silver Spring, Moreno said he has been increasingly dismayed at the quality of Metros service. The system was once his preferred option for traveling into the District for business meetings or Nationals games, but he is fed up with the chronic delays, the plodding pace of the Red Line and the stress of wondering whether he will arrive on time. Now, he drives.

Sometimes I think they should just blow it up and start from scratch, he said.

Despite his qualms, Moreno would be willing to consider a small sales-tax increase that went directly to the transit agency. He agrees that Metro needs more money for necessary repairs to improve safety and reliability. A sales tax is the best option, he said, because individuals would have more control over how much they would pay, cutting back on luxuries or recreational activities if necessary.

Living in Montgomery County, we are constantly being forced to look at taxes based on social criteria, and Im not into that stuff, Moreno said. I want it to be based on where and when Im spending, more than on what Im making or the house that I already spent a lot of money to buy.

He would like to see the federal government kick in a little more money, too, for Metros year-to-year operations.

Im not a big-government guy, Moreno said, but this is a little different. This is the federal city.

[Regions leaders split over 1 cent regional sales tax to pay for Metro]

Support for the other funding options fluctuates across counties in Maryland. The idea of increasing the subsidies that Maryland, Virginia and the District pay garners support from 56 percent of Montgomery residents, but two-thirds of Prince Georges residents oppose it. Clear majorities of both Montgomery and Prince Georges counties reject fare increases as a way to solve Metros long-term funding problems, outpacing opposition in the rest of the state.

Prince Georges resident James Cooks opposes a regional sales tax, saying county residents are already overburdened by taxes.

The Fort Washington resident and federal government worker is a fan of Metro  he uses the system a few times a week. He has faith that the agencys SafeTrack maintenance program will eventually lead to improved safety and reliability. And Metro deserves more money to support those efforts, he says. But he fears that a regional sales tax would disproportionately affect Prince Georges residents, who would end up paying more than their fair share while receiving less-than-stellar service.

Without a doubt, people generally are overburdened with taxes right now, said Cooks, who is in his 60s. Unless you can devise a way that the tax burden would be shared equally between the jurisdictions, I dont think its feasible. . . . If you look at the property tax situation in Maryland and in Prince Georges County, its clearly disproportionate.

Opposition is strong  and shared  in Montgomery and Prince Georges to three other proposals: Seventy-one percent of Prince Georges and Montgomery residents do not want service cuts, and 69 percent oppose special property-tax districts near Metro stations.

Perhaps surprisingly, Marylanders who live beyond the Districts close-in suburbs also are hesitant to support some proposals that would mainly affect those who live in areas served by Metro. Among suburban and rural residents outside the D.C. and Baltimore areas, more than 6 in 10 disapprove of special property taxes on buildings near Metro stations, and these areas split evenly on higher fares. Fifty-seven percent oppose greater funding from Maryland, Virginia and the District; but by 50 percent to 41 percent, more support the creation of a regional sales tax to fund Metro.

Tumbling ratings





The Post-U-Md. poll also finds that Metros image has plummeted sharply among Montgomery and Prince Georges residents since 2013, although they also are among the most optimistic that the system will improve in the coming years.

Sixty-eight percent of Prince Georges and Montgomery residents surveyed rated Metros rail system as excellent or good four years ago. Now, just 41 percent offer the same praise.

And during that period, the number who rated Metro most poorly increased significantly. In 2013, just 2 percent of Marylanders surveyed in the Washington suburbs rated the system poor. Today, 25 percent do.

The systems most generous reviews come from those who are distanced from its day-to-day dysfunctions: Metro receives higher marks outside the D.C. suburbs, where 45 percent rate the system positively and 25 percent view it negatively, although 30 percent of those people in the survey volunteer that they have never used it or have no opinion.

The deterioration in goodwill toward Metro has been most dramatic for higher-income residents in Montgomery and Prince Georges. In 2013, 77 percent of D.C.-area Marylanders making $100,000 or more gave Metro positive ratings  now just 34 percent do. Ratings also fell among lower-income residents, but not as sharply. The share of those with household incomes under $50,000 giving Metro positive ratings dropped to 47 percent from 61 percent in 2013.

[Metros overcrowding problem is easing. Heres why thats not a cause for celebration.]

Many see downturn, but express hope

In line with Metros falling ratings, 41 percent of Marylanders in the D.C. area say the system has become worse in the past five years, while 20 percent say it has improved. About a third, 34 percent, say it has not changed.

Prince Georges residents are particularly negative on Metro, with 48 percent saying the system is worse, compared with 35 percent who say the same in Montgomery.

But residents of the D.C. suburbs also express the most optimism that Metro will improve, more so than Marylanders in the rest of the state. While fewer than 4 in 10 of those in the rest of Maryland expect the rail system to improve over the next five years (37 percent), half of those in the close-in suburbs think it will get better. At the same time, 43 percent of D.C.-area Marylanders expect the system to stay about the same or to get worse.

The Post-U-Md. poll was conducted March 16-19 among a random sample of 914 Maryland residents reached on cellular and landline phones. The survey was conducted in partnership with the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland. Overall results carry a four-percentage-point margin of sampling error; the error margin is 6.5 percentage points among the sample of 317 residents in Marylands D.C. suburbs.

Scott Clement contributed to this report.
Drivers who hog the left lane soon could face fines up to $250 in Maryland under a bill designed to ease bottlenecks and reduce road rage by making it easier for motorists to get around slower vehicles.

The bill, which has passed the House and is pending in the Senate, would put Maryland among a growing number of states cracking down on drivers who seem to defy a basic lesson of high school drivers education: Use the left lane to pass, then move back to the right. Virginia lawmakers recently added a new mandatory minimum fine to their long-standing law requiring motorists to move right after passing.

The push comes as many states have increased their highway speed limits and lawmakers say their time-starved constituents are pleading for ways to make traffic move faster.

The bills sponsor, Del. William G. Folden (R-Frederick), said he sees the problem routinely on the Capital Beltway, Interstate 270 and other major roads.

Look at this guy! Folden exclaimed recently during a phone call from Route 100 in Howard County, as he drove home from the Annapolis statehouse during the evening rush.

There are nine cars behind this one pickup truck in the left lane, Folden reported, sounding exasperated. The speed limit is 55, and hes probably going 52 or 53  in the left lane!

[Will driverless cars save lives? Lack of data makes it hard to know]

Folden, a police officer who has specialized in traffic enforcement, said left-lane dawdlers are a hazard because they require others to pass on the right, in a drivers blind spot. They also cause more aggressive driving, he said, as people stuck behind them close in on their bumpers or dart in and out of other lanes to get around them. Leaving the left lane more open also would help police and emergency responders reach crashes, he said.

But some traffic safety advocates say theyve seen no evidence showing that such laws help prevent road rage or make roads safer. In fact, they say, they worry such laws could end up encouraging dangerous speeding.

My concern is this bill says the left lane is the fast lane and, unless youre going fast, dont use it, said John B. Townsend II, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Townsend said he knows many motorists will object, but he doesnt think the left lane needs a new law. Slower drivers should move to the right as a courtesy, he said. But he said people driving the speed limit in the left lane shouldnt get a ticket simply because they didnt make way for others who want to drive above the limit. He noted that about one-third of all fatal traffic crashes in the United States involve speeding, about the same number as drunken driving.

The person behind [the slower driver] is being unsafe and boorish if theyre trying to get them out of the way, Townsend said. We want to ticket the person whos being aggressive. Thats the person inciting road rage . . . I just think wed be ticketing the wrong people.

Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said he hasnt seen any data showing that left-lane laws make roads safer. He said hes concerned that laws protecting the fast lane are becoming more common as many states also have increased their highway speed limits, including some to as high as 85 mph.

With the additional 5 mph to 10 mph for the speed cushion that motorists know police typically allow before they issue a ticket, he said, The speeds are getting really high.

Its clear that everyone is in a rush, and people want to go faster and faster, Adkins said. Anything that makes that easier tends to get supported. Speed in general is a neglected highway safety issue.

[Teen drivers brains might hold the secret to combating road deaths]

Folden said most vehicles on highways that arent choked with traffic travel faster than the posted speed limit and that his bill doesnt protect the left lane for excessive speeders.

Someone said, Youre just encouraging very aggressive males to tailgate old ladies,  he said. No. Im just encouraging more courteous driving so people vacate the left lane.

Folden said about 40 states have laws that specify the left lane for passing or faster traffic. Some restrict it only to passing while others require motorists to move to the right if theyre blocking traffic. Maryland law prohibits drivers from impeding the normal and reasonable movement of traffic by driving too slowly, but its not specific to the left lane. District law requires motorists to pass on the left in most situations but does not limit the left lane to passing, according to D.C. police.

Foldens bill would apply to roads that have three or more lanes in one direction and a posted speed limit of 55 mph or higher. That would cover about 1,051 miles of roads, including the Capital Beltway, Interstate 95, I-270 and numbered state roads such as U.S. Route 50 and U.S. Route 301, according to the Maryland State Highway Administration.

It would not apply to motorists making a left turn or using a left exit or left HOV lane. To keep rush-hour traffic flowing, it also wouldnt apply when traffic bogs down by 10 mph or more below the posted speed limit. The fine would be $75 for a first offense, $150 for a second offense and $250 for the third or more.

Capt. Tom Didone, commander of the Montgomery County police traffic division, testified in favor of the bill, saying it would help traffic flow more efficiently and safely by keeping it at a more consistent speed. Motorists who drive significantly faster or slower than the flow of traffic create more potential for a crash, he said. That includes motorists who think theyre helping to keep a highway at a safe speed by driving the speed limit in the left lane.

People think theyre causing people to slow down, Didone said, but theyre going to cause a crash.

In Virginia, lawmakers recently added a mandatory minimum fine of $250 to the state law requiring motorists to stay to the right except when passing. The law currently has a maximum fine of $250.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) reduced that recently added mandatory minimum to $100, and the House approved it. The Senate will vote on the change April 5, when lawmakers reconvene to consider the governors amendments and vetoes.

[Left-lane bill fires up drivers but wont change much]

Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, said the organization is a little bit concerned that some motorists could misinterpret the law as permission to speed in the left lane. She noted that it can be difficult for people to move to the right when traffic is heavy.

Its not meant to give advantage to people who just want to drive excessively faster than you are, Schrad said. We dont want the wrong message to go out to drivers who routinely break the speed limit, that they can push people out of their way.

Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), who sponsored the recent Virginia legislation, said he was inspired by his travels to Germany, Italy and other countries where motorists who linger in the left lane receive loud honks and flashing lights from approaching drivers.

The feedback from motorists, he said, has been overwhelmingly positive.

Its an issue anyone who commutes every day experiences, Surovell said. Its extremely frustrating for anybody to feel bottled up because someone is being selfish and slowing things down for everyone.
Attendees listen to the speakers at Saturdays GOP candidates forum at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax. (Allison Shelley for The Washington Post)

One came touting a tax cut and a promise to unify a divided party and state. Another delivered dire warnings about the ravages of criminal illegal immigrants. The third unfurled a hefty legislative resume.

The three Republicans vying to become Virginias next governor made starkly different pitches Saturday in vote-rich but deeply blue Fairfax County, giving more than 300 GOP activists a chance to size them up side by side less than three months before the June 13 primary.

In the end, the man with the tax plan  former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie  walked away the winner of the Fairfax GOPs straw poll. But second-place finisher Corey Stewart got the most rousing response, with the audience repeatedly interrupting his broadside against illegal immigrants with chants of Corey! Corey! Corey! State Sen. Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach), who highlighted his devotion to transportation solutions as a veteran lawmaker, was a distant third.

Gillespie, who lives in Fairfax, won with 172 votes. Stewart, who recently lost to Gillespie in a straw poll in his own home county of Prince William, had 120. Wagner took just 16.

[GOP chair slams Va. gubernatorial contender for calling rival a cuckservative]

Though the results dont count in the nominating contest, straw polls are thought to provide an early read on where activists would like to take the party. And just where this swing-state GOP is heading is a matter of intense interest following Donald Trumps White House win.

Virginia is one of just two states  the other being New Jersey  with a governors race this year. So the primary contest could hint at whether, early in the Trump presidency, Republicans are still itching for outsiders or now pining for more conventional candidates.

The stakes are especially high in Virginia, where Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2009. While the GOP controls both chambers of the General Assembly, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has been able to thwart many Republican priorities on guns, abortion and other heated issues through executive orders and a record-busting use of his veto pen.

[McAuliffe breaks the record: Most vetoes by a Virginia governor]

The commonwealths politics are especially tricky. Trump, after all, won Virginias primary but lost the state in November to Democrat Hillary Clinton. Republicans energized by Trumps presidency might not get excited about an establishment figure such as Gillespie, a longtime political strategist who was a counselor to President George W. Bush. Yet the blunt-spoken Stewart, who led an immigration crackdown in Prince William and likes to brag that I was Trump before Trump was Trump, could turn off moderate Republicans and swing voters in the increasingly diverse state.

All three Republicans are vying to succeed McAuliffe, who is barred by the state constitution from succeeding himself. Two Democrats are contending for their partys nomination: Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former congressman Tom Perriello.

Before voting began at Robinson Secondary School, where Republicans running for attorney general and lieutenant governor also appeared, candidates spoke one after the other for seven minutes apiece, without interacting or taking questions. None of the candidates took direct swipes at rivals, but it was not hard to infer them at times.

I will unify our party, and I will appeal to all Virginians, and I will be a governor for all Virginians, said Gillespie, who went first. We need that.

Gillespie gave a nod to social issues, noting in quick succession that he would protect innocent human life, religious freedom, and the individual right to keep and bear arms. But he spent the bulk of his time talking about the need to improve the states economy, focusing on his chief solution: a 10 percent across-the-board tax cut.

[Gillespie proposes modest tax cuts]

Stewart, who went next, appeared one day after the state GOP Chairman John Whitbeck denounced him for describing Gillespie as a cuckservative. Whitbeck said that the insult, derived from the word cuckold, is a racist term popularized by white nationalists. Stewart said he was unaware of the racial overtones and meant it as a synonym for a RINO, or a Republican In Name Only.

On Saturday, Stewart held back on the insults but not much else, making a calculation that a Trump-style appeal would sell well to Republicans even in liberal-leaning Northern Virginia. From a brief nod to his wife and children, he dove directly into immigration.

As a father, 10 years ago, I saw something so despicable: people who are not supposed to be in our country in the first place committing rapes and murders and other heinous crimes, he said. Some people say, Why are you so mean against illegal aliens? Because theyre committing crimes against our families.

Stewart often taunts Gillespie by calling him Establishment Ed. He refrained on Saturday but blasted establishment Republicans in general, saying there is little difference between them and establishment Democrats.

If you want somebody whos not going to back down to the press and the loony left, then I am your candidate, he said.

All three candidates have spent their lives in and around politics. But Wagner, who went last, was the only one to explicitly tout the benefits of electing an insider. As a state Senate budget negotiator, he said, he knows state spending inside and out. As a senator who has pushed for transportation funding, he said, he knows how to make sure the state gets the most bang for every buck it spends on roads.

He also talked up his background as a Navy veteran and shipyard owner, saying that the latter made him acutely aware of the burdens of government regulations. If you ever want to go buy a regulated industry, go buy a shipyard, he said.

Some of the activists at the event said they could be happy with any of the three as governor.

Jane Lawler-Savitske of Springfield, who knitted a pink prayer shawl as she listened, said shes known Gillespie and Stewart for many years. She praised Stewarts support of an immigration crackdown in Prince William but said that it drove immigrants into Fairfax, causing an influx of MS-13 gang members, all covered in tattoos and running sex-slave rings around the county.

Still, Lawler-Savitske cast her ballot for Gillespie. I think he acts more like a statesman, she said.

Richard Rankin, a media specialist from Falls Church, was convinced Stewart would have a better shot.

Mush does not sell anymore, he said. You want hot issues to motivate people. . . . This is how Trump won. He tapped into the emotion.
Although House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) acknowledged Friday that Obamacare is the law of the land, its survival or collapse in practical terms now rests with decisions that are in President Trumps hands.

In the coming weeks and months, the White House and a highly conservative health and human services secretary will be faced with a series of choices over whether to shore up insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act  or let them atrophy. These marketplaces are currently a conduit to health coverage for 10 million Americans, but they have been financially fragile, prompting spiking rates and defections of major insurers.

In an interview on Friday with The Washington Post, Trump made his inclinations clear: The best thing politically is to let Obamacare explode.

The president said that the law remains totally the property of the Democrats and that when people get a 200 percent increase next year or a 100 percent or 70 percent, thats their fault. Former Obama administration officials countered that Trump and congressional Republicans are responsible for what happens next.

In the seven years since a Democratic Congress passed the law, public sentiment over it has been closely divided. Support has grown slightly in recent months as Republicans tried to begin dismantling it.

(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

There are many levers within the ACA that the administration could use to undermine the law or, instead, try to stabilize its marketplaces. In addition, federal rules could be redefined, giving the governments health policies a more conservative twist even with the law still in effect.

According to health-care experts from across the ideological spectrum, an imminent question is whether the political tumult surrounding the ACAs fate and the presidents talk of explosion could further shake the confidence of consumers and insurers alike. Doing so could prompt exits from the marketplaces.

Trumps threat could become a self-fulfilling prophecy, said Andy M. Slavitt, the acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the last two years of the Obama administration. Thats like inheriting an overseas war, and deciding you let your own soldiers get killed because you didnt elect to enter that war.

Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Healthcare, a small company covering about a million Americans through the ACAs insurance exchanges, said he is unsure whether it will lessen its participation. Its decision this spring will hinge on actions by the White House and GOP lawmakers, he said. The balls sort of in their court. The choices they make are going to determine what happens to the marketplace.

The decisions facing the administration are, in essence, a sequel to an executive order the president issued his first night in office, when he directed federal agencies to ease the regulatory burden that the ACA has placed on consumers, the health-care industry and health-care providers. So far, the main action stemming from that directive is a move by the Internal Revenue Service to process Americans tax refunds even if they fail to submit proof that they are insured, as the ACA requires.

But there are other steps the administration could take. A major one would be to end cost-sharing subsidies the law provides to lower- and middle-income people with marketplace plans to help pay their deductibles and co-pays. Those subsidies, which would have been erased by the House Republicans bill, are the subject of a federal lawsuit.

Another question is how the administration will handle the next enrollment season for ACA health plans, which will begin in November. The end of the most recent season coincided with Trumps first days in office, and the new administration yanked some advertising meant to encourage sign-ups  possibly resulting in a small dip in enrollment by the final deadline.

View Graphic Which Republicans forced Trump to pull the health-care bill

And while a set of federal essential health benefits, required of health plans sold to individuals and small businesses, will now remain in law, federal health officials could narrow what they require, limiting prescription drugs, for instance, or the number of visits allowed for mental-health treatment or physical therapy.

The administration also could take advantage of a part of the ACA that, starting this year, lets health officials give states broad latitude to carry out the laws goals  including more free-market approaches that conservatives favor. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and other top agency officials already have signaled they would allow states to impose work requirements on able-bodied adults to qualify for Medicaid  something Obama officials steadfastly rejected.

The administration could do everything from actively undermining the law to trying to reshape it to moving it in a more conservative direction, said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The question of whether the ACAs marketplaces can or should be strengthened is a matter of considerable debate. In comparing the House GOP bill with the ACA, congressional budget analysts concluded this month that the insurance market for people who buy coverage on their own would probably be stable in most areas either way.

During an afternoon news conference shortly after withdrawing the Republican legislation, Ryan reiterated his oft-stated contention that the marketplaces are beyond repair. He briefly suggested, however, that perhaps the Trump administration could improve their stability.

Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, said that policymakers must find a way to shore up the marketplaces because a broad swath of Americans rely on them. There always has been an individual market made up of entrepreneurs who own small businesses, and farmers and ranchers, and its sort of mandatory that there be policies available to them, Kahn said.

House Republicans were notably silent on Friday about the prospects of further work on health policy. A few senators sounded more hopeful that efforts to improve the law would continue.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in an interview that he disagreed with Trumps assertion that letting the markets explode would be the best course of action. I hope that doesnt have to happen, said Cassidy, co-sponsor of a separate bill that would preserve the ACA but tip more latitude to the states.

Harvard University economics professor David Cutler, who helped advise the Obama White House on health care, challenged Trumps argument that the ACA will always be associated with Democrats. He owns it now, Cutler said in an email, because he could take many steps to stabilize things.

Carolyn Y. Johnson contributed to this report.
Reopening of Tatopani border Chinas priority

Chinese Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan has assured that he would take up the issue of reopening of Tatopani border, a major trading point between Nepal and China, with his government.
Christine Emba edits The Posts In Theory blog.

No one saw the Great Flood coming, the first chapter ominously begins.

In The Benedict Option, a much-discussed new book describing itself as a strategy for Christians in a post-Christian nation, author Rod Dreher explores the implications of the cascade of Americans leaving organized religion  the number of religiously non-affiliated climbed to 23 percent in 2014 from 16 percent in 2007  and the squeezing out of traditionally minded Christians from public life.

The books verdict on todays culture is grim. Drawing from the work of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, Dreher describes modern society as governed not by faith, or by reason, or by any combination of the two. The picture is of an America deep in the grip of an unstable late modernity, a society that has become chaotic, fragmented, dissolute and increasingly hostile to traditionally minded Christians.

True, some of the books descriptions of imminent persecution and a fast-approaching End of the West are overwrought, and its written to appeal first and foremost to a conservative, religious audience. But the observations and advice offered in The Benedict Option shouldnt be shrugged off by everyone else. In fact, they ought to be thoughtfully considered by anyone worried about creating and preserving a healthy U.S. society, whether they spend Sundays at brunch or in the pews.

Many of the contentedly progressive would like to think that backing away from the strictures of religion has done our country a world of good. In fact, the opposite may be true. For one thing, theres the matter of simple social cohesion: Increasing secularization can often lead to less tolerance, not more. As Americans on the right and left untether themselves from the standards of organized religion, they often redraw their allegiances more broadly, rallying around identities of race or nationalism while setting aside tempering ideals such as charity and forgiveness. Think of the alt-right, the small, far-right movement that seeks a whites-only state, suspicious of Christianity because of its acceptance of many groups, or violent protesters on the left, more interested in tearing down their opponents than seeking opportunities for reconciliation. Such attitudes lead to a more partisan politics and more vicious public life.

On an individual level, becoming increasingly unmoored from traditions and norms leads more frequently to negative outcomes than positive ones. Witness the sharply growing numbers of middle-age, working-class Americans  those most likely to have lost their connections to the habits and support systems religious engagement tends to build  dying from what researchers are calling deaths of despair: enough of them to lower U.S. life expectancy for the first time in decades.

Its not necessarily true that Christian communities are flourishing in contrast to the rest of society; in fact, its a major conceit of the book that most are not. But in the face of the great unmooring, Dreher advocates that those who are serious about their faith act to embrace a sort of exile in place and commit to strengthening their families, churches and schools, forming a vibrant counterculture that will preserve Christianity despite a rising tide of secularism. His strategies for doing so would also benefit society at large.

The title of The Benedict Option is inspired by St. Benedict of Nursia, who founded the Western tradition of monasticism after leaving a fallen Rome in the 6th century. Benedicts Rule  originally for monks, but suggested in the book for the everyday Christian  involves an embrace of community, stability and hospitality alongside a thoughtful ordering of ones days. Meet the neighbors; create anchors of place; foster structures of personal discipline. Any of these would benefit believers and nonbelievers alike as anomie and loneliness become both more common and more deadly.

Other strategies for ostensibly Christian survival are similarly relevant to a broader audience. Addressing our attitudes toward work, Dreher proposes deprioritizing headlong professional advancement in favor of a more balanced, integrated life in which faith and community take precedence. This is worth considering even if faith isnt a factor: Shifting work from the center of our existence would allow more space for family, community and our own mental health, and would leave us less susceptible to the ravages of an unfeeling market.

The book also makes a fascinating case for rethinking our political life. Dreher urges Christians to recognize that conventional politics wont save them and that the current system is fundamentally inadequate to the challenge of fixing the bigger problems of society and culture. His alternative is one we could all embrace: Do what can prudently be done within the existing order, but direct more attention to creating parallel structures that will better serve society. Turn off the TV and log off Twitter, and instead join the volunteer fire department. Rather than depending on major parties to defend your values, consider the power of ordinary change.

To some, the premise of The Benedict Option  that Christianity in the United States is in danger of disappearing  may elicit a shrug. But in the face of a rising tide of isolating modernity, Drehers survival strategies are relevant to us all.
IT IS a political cliche that President Trump owes his electoral victory to the extraordinary support he received from white voters without a college degree, two-thirds of whom voted for the Republican. Much less settled is the question of why these largely low-income voters, once reliable Democrats, cast their lot with a brash billionaire from New York.

The precise source of the discontent that produced this outburst of reactionary populism is hotly debated; some of Mr. Trumps support reflects motives, such as xenophobia or racism, that can be neither comprehended nor respected. Yet there is an objective aspect to white working-class grievance. Anyone who doubts it need only read Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century, the new report by Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton of Princeton University and his colleague Anne Case, presented to a Brookings Institution conference Thursday. The gist is that death rates for non-Hispanic white men and women aged 25 to 64 rose steadily between 1999 and 2015, while death rates for the comparable age cohorts of all other demographic groups either held their own or continued to improve. The cumulative impact of these trends, the authors note, account for the stunning fact that overall life expectancy in the United States decreased slightly between 2014 and 2015, the first such decline since 1993, during the AIDS epidemic.

Even more troubling are the specific causes of rising mortality among non-college-educated white Americans: drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related liver disease, or, as Mr. Deaton and Ms. Case aptly call them, deaths of despair. If the despair could be cured by bringing back high-paying jobs that built the erstwhile blue collar aristocracy, as Mr. Trump promised during his campaign, then there might be cause for hope. However, the authors demonstrate that deaths of despair do not seem connected to falling income; otherwise, mortality would also have risen, not fallen, for Hispanics and African Americans, whose incomes fared no better than those for whites.

Mr. Deaton and Ms. Case blame cumulative disadvantage, whose components include not only job loss but also the breakdown of communities and the decline of marriage. That seems plausible. But it isnt immediately clear how government could reverse those long-term trends, although it is clear that Mr. Trumps policy agenda wont do much for the people who gave him their votes, and might hurt them.

The studys authors do emphasize one relatively controllable factor: mass prescription of opioids for chronic pain, which made the epidemic of despair-deaths much worse than it otherwise would have been. The rate of death from prescription opioid overdoses more than quadrupled between 1999 and 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), killing a total of 183,000 people during that period. Prescriptions, though not yet overdose deaths, have started to ebb in recent years, a trend fostered by policy shifts at the CDC in the latter years of the Obama administration.

If he does nothing else to keep faith with the people who elected him, Mr. Trump must at least continue the more rational policy on opioid prescribing that began, belatedly, under his predecessor.
Debby Ng is a journalist and visiting scholar at Colorado State University. Joel Berger is a senior scientist at the Bronx-based Wildlife Conservation Society and a professor of conservation biology at Colorado State University.

There are 700 million domesticated dogs globally. For most pet owners, these animals are companions  or mans best friend. But to a penguin, a grouse or an elk, dogs can be the difference between survival and death.

Domesticated dogs kill thousands of wild animals and livestock every month. As a result, theyve been persecuted and poisoned from Australia to Nepal to Alaska. Its time to rethink how we manage dog populations throughout the world and to promote policies that would humanely reduce their impact on wildlife.

Scientists traveling to the Himalayan highlands, the Gobi Desert and far beyond to study rare animals have returned with reports of dogs chasing and killing wildlife. One dog on the loose in New Zealand killed 500 endangered kiwis in six weeks. In Australia, three dogs killed 80 penguins in one night. And in Bhutans premier national park, a third of the parks young takins  an elusive and beautiful goat-antelope  were lost to dogs.

Globally, dogs have caused about 10 extinctions and continue to threaten another 150 species. In the United States alone, some 78,000 dogs roam habitats close to urban and suburban development. From marine shores and grasslands to woodlands and coniferous forests, dogs chase and attack wild birds and deer and terrorize native predators such as gray foxes and even pumas.

Even the scent of a dog is enough to compel wildlife to flee and hide. The presence of dogs accelerates heartbeats in bighorn sheep and causes marmots to be more hesitant to reemerge from their burrows. Some animals will abandon living in an area altogether if dogs visit frequently, forcing them to give up precious opportunities to feed and travel.

Elsewhere, dogs serve as reservoirs for a host of diseases  such as rabies, canine parvovirus and leishmaniasis (also known as black or dumdum fever). Studies from Brazil reveal that wildlife and livestock in proximity to dogs are particularly at risk of leishmaniasis, which infects roughly 1.6 million people a year. In Chinas Wolong Reserve, free-roaming dogs share at least four microparasites with the reserves giant pandas, threatening Wolongs precious pandas with several pathogens.

In poor countries such as Nepal, dog populations  originally used to ward off snow leopards  have exploded. Unwanted dogs are left roaming villages, living on food scraps or hunting wildlife in forest habitats. Inevitably, conflicts mount. In the Annapurna Conservation Area, villagers routinely poison dogs with strychnine, a readily available poison that induces a long, painful death. Its not uncommon to find dog carcasses in rivers and landfills. Sadly, when vultures and other scavengers eat the carrion, they are poisoned, too.

But dogs are not the main problem. We are. Its our responsibility to manage dog populations and to protect wildlife and vulnerable humans. In too many developing countries, dog management remains a reactive rather than a proactive strategy. Poisoning dogs has no lasting impact, and while culls are often touted as effective population control, they simply free up space for new dogs to claim. Many communities lack the capacity and capital to manage their dog populations.

Managing the threat of dogs has yet to be addressed as a conservation problem for wildlife. While the impacts of habitat loss and climate change may be better appreciated, their solutions require a complex web of diverse institutions. By contrast, dog management strategies can be implemented relatively easily, at varying scales and with profound effects on biodiversity.

Nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations working in Asia, Africa and Europe have made a tremendous impact on communities and wildlife by responsibly implementing mass neutering and vaccination programs where governments have failed to do so. Organizations such as the Global Alliance for Rabies Control and the World Health Organization advocate neutering and vaccination programs to curtail disease transmission. As a result, 15 countries and the state of Hawaii have been declared rabies-free.

As the human population expands, these organizations require support to maintain momentum. They should also be seen as cost-saving programs in terms of health care. The cost of saving a single human life from rabies, for example, begins at $10,000, which is why rabies remains a fatal disease for people in developing countries. The annual cost of vaccinating a dog against the disease, however, is $7.

With one dog for every 11 humans on Earth, these animals remain one of our most dominant carnivores  too often burdening a host of other species. We must work a little harder to ensure that our evolutionary bestie does not transform in our lifetime from friend to foe.

Debby Ng is a journalist and visiting scholar at Colorado State University. Joel Berger is a senior scientist at the Bronx-based Wildlife Conservation Society and a professor of conservation biology at Colorado State University.
Bob Taft, a Republican, was governor of Ohio from 1999 to 2007. Joseph E. Kernan, a Democrat, was governor of Indiana from 2003 to 2005.

Legislators in six states  Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia  have proposed legislation to prohibit the death penalty for individuals with severe mental illness. As former governors of states that are grappling with this issue, we strongly support this effort to end an inhumane practice that fails to respect common standards of decency and comport with recommendations of mental-health experts.

The overwhelming majority of people with severe mental illness are not violent; in fact, they are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crime. For the very small number who do commit a capital crime while suffering from a severe mental disorder, current death-penalty law does not adequately take the effects of their illness into account.

As a result, defendants with severe mental illness  such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury  continue to be sentenced to death and executed. Last March, Texas executed Adam Ward, a man recognized as diagnosed with bipolar disorder and placed on lithium as early as age four, according to appellate court documents. And in 2015, Georgia executed Andrew Brannan, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who also had a pronounced mental illness. He qualified for 100 percent disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs because of his PTSD and bipolar disorder.

Although their grave illnesses do not excuse these defendants crimes, we believe that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole would have been a more appropriate punishment. Illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are characterized by impairments that  when untreated  significantly affect ones ability to distinguish fact from reality, to make rational decisions or to react appropriately to events and other people. Under these conditions, the degree of culpability may not rise to the level of cold, unimpaired calculus that justifies the ultimate penalty.

In addition, people with severe mental illness are more vulnerable to being wrongfully accused and convicted. Research has shown that such people are overrepresented among cases of false confession because the conditions of their illness  such as proneness to confusion and a lack of assertiveness  may render them more vulnerable to interrogation techniques and impair their ability to invoke their constitutional rights.

Studies have also shown that death- penalty jurors often misunderstand mental illness, which is often viewed as an aggravating factor  that is, a reason to sentence someone to death  rather than as a mitigating factor, which is what it should be. The troubling consequence is that some defendants may end up on death row because of their mental illness.

The fact that the death penalty applies to those with mental illness also means that veterans with demonstrated PTSD may be executed. Even though most of the thousands of veterans struggling with PTSD do not commit the serious crimes that may be eligible for the death penalty, an estimated 10 percent of the United States death-row inmates are veterans  some of whom suffered from active and severe symptoms of PTSD at the time of their crime. These veterans have experienced trauma that few others have faced and have made a vital contribution to the safety of our country that deserves our recognition.

Legislation being considered on this topic varies by state, but each bill creates a case-by-case decision-making process  conducted by either a judge or jury  to determine if a defendant has a severe mental illness. Only those with the most serious diagnoses would qualify. The legislation has been endorsed by major state and national mental-health organizations, including the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, as well as by faith groups, elected officials and former public safety officials.

The death penalty was not intended for people in the throes of severe delusions, living with schizophrenia or suffering from combat-related PTSD. These are not the blameworthy individuals whose executions can be justified.

We come from different political parties, but we join the majority of Americans  supporters and opponents of the death penalty alike  who believe it should not be imposed on defendants with such serious impairments. This is a fair, efficient and bipartisan reform that would put an end to a practice that is not consistent with current knowledge about mental illness and fundamental principles of human decency.
FRUSTRATED BY Chinas relentless crackdown on civil society and human rights, Western governments have lately adopted the tactic of drawing up joint communications to Beijing. Last year the United States joined in at least two such initiatives, a declaration at the United Nations Human Rights Council and a letter raising concerns about new Chinese laws on cybersecurity, counterterrorism and nongovernment organizations. The appeals havent stopped repression by the regime of Xi Jinpeng, but they have at least embarrassed it, and forced senior officials to respond.

On Feb. 27, a new letter was dispatched to the Minister of Public Security, Guo Shengkun, on the vital subject of the torture and secret detention of a number of human rights lawyers. It was signed by 11 governments, including Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and Japan. But from Chinas point of view, the big news was the signature that was missing  that of the United States. Whether intentional or not, it was another signal that the Trump administration will play down human rights in its foreign policy, granting a free pass to regimes it regards as allies or with which it hopes to cut deals.

Such a policy can only mean more persecution of brave people like Xie Yang, one of the subjects of the new letter. Mr. Xie, who was arrested in 2015, provided his lawyers in January with a detailed account of the torture he has been subjected to, including repeated beatings and threats to his family. The letter called for an independent investigation into credible claims of torture against Mr. Xie and fellow lawyers Li Heping, Wang Quanzhang and Li Chunfu, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail, which first reported on the missive last week.

Beijings response to the letter exploited the Trump administrations own rhetoric. As the Globe and Mail reported, in the days after it was sent state media published articles describing Mr. Xies allegations of torture as fake news. The state news agency Xinhua called them cleverly orchestrated lies.

In fact, the State Department itself documented cases of torture and illegal detention in its latest human rights report, saying China was guilty of illegal detentions at unofficial holding facilities . . . torture and coerced confessions of prisoners and detention and harassment of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners and others. But that report was drawn up by States professional staff, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson chose not to make a press appearance when it was released earlier this month.

In a visit to Beijing last weekend Mr. Tillerson said he had made clear that the United States will continue to advocate for universal values such as human rights and religious freedom. So why not support a concrete appeal drafted by Americas closest democratic allies? A State Department official told us that the inaction was mainly the result of timing; Mr. Tillerson had just taken office and quick action was difficult. But its doubtful that Chinas leaders  or the courageous lawyers suffering torture  interpreted it that way.
As the Watergate probe was heating up in the summer of 1973, the special prosecutors office gained a silent partner: the Treasury Departments Internal Revenue Service. The Watergate scandal had engulfed the activities of corporations and corporate officials. An IRS investigation found tax violations committed with campaign contributions to the 1972 presidential campaign of Richard M. Nixon.

With information gained from the IRS, the special prosecutors probe resulted in 18 corporate officials and 17 corporations pleading guilty to violations of campaign contribution laws.

This week, FBI Director James B. Comey told Congress that the bureau is investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russias efforts.

Based upon what has come to light thus far, expect the FBI to be joined by Treasurys Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the IRS. They are the agencies best equipped to conduct financial investigations into any possible crimes dealing with or motivated by money  as in money laundering.

Case in point: The Posts March 21 article on a Ukrainian lawmakers release of financial documents allegedly showing that former Trump aide Paul Manafort laundered payments from the party of an ex-leader of Ukraine with ties to Russia using accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

If the financial documents are accurate and, as alleged by Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko, Manafort falsified an invoice to a Belize company to legitimize a $750,000 payment to himself, then the FBI and Treasury may come calling.

Manafort, according to the New York Times, denied the allegation, stating that the ledger is forged and that Leshchenko was part of an effort to blackmail him. However, Treasury agents, the Associated Press reported , have already obtained information about offshore transactions involving Manafort in connection with a federal anti-corruption investigation into his work in Eastern Europe.

If, during the investigation of links between Russians and Trump campaign associates, the feds come across financial transactions aimed at evading taxes on illegal income by concealing the source and amount of profit, those associated with such activities should prepare to hear the words: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury . . . 

Theres plenty of ground for federal agencies to plow.

The Financial Times reported in October that an investigation that it conducted had turned up evidence of ties between one Trump venture and an alleged international money-laundering network. Title deeds, bank records and correspondence showed that a Kazakh family accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars bought apartments in a Manhattan building part-owned by Trump and pursued business ventures with one of his partners.

This week, ABC News reported that from 2011 to 2013, the FBI had a warrant to eavesdrop on a Russian money-laundering network that operated out of Trump Tower in New York. The FBI investigation led to a federal grand jury indictment of more than 30 people, including one of the worlds most notorious Russian mafia bosses, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, ABCs Brian Ross and Matthew Mosk reported. He was the only target to slip away, and he remains a fugitive from American justice.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported this month: Two months before Trump broke ground in New York in October 1998, Russia defaulted on $40 billion in domestic debt, and some of the biggest banks started to collapse. Millionaires scrambled to get their money out and into New York. Real estate provides a safe haven for overseas investors. It has few reporting requirements and is a preferred way to move cash of questionable provenance. Amid the turmoil, buyers found a dearth of available projects. Trump World Tower, opened in 2001, became a prominent depository of Russian money.

Trump may be correct when he says he has no money in Russia and has never invested there. He cant say, however, that Russians havent invested in his real estate properties.

His son Donald Jr. said no less, claiming in 2008 that Russian investments were pouring in to Trumps business ventures.

So the feds must follow the money trail wherever it leads. Check records, bank accounts and real estate files where laundered money can ooze like water through a sponge. Who gave it, who got it, and when? Where is it now? And what was received in return?

Unfortunately, the IRS, which investigates violations of the Internal Revenue Code, is despised by Republicans in Congress who remain outraged over its handling of tea party groups applications for tax-exempt status. Several in the House GOP even tried, but failed, to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Can federal agents under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin count on Mnuchins defense against outside interference?

Congress strongly protected the integrity of federal investigations into Watergate. What about now?

Read more from Colbert Kings archive.
The March 13 Metro article on Gen. George S. Patton Jr.s heroics in World War I, Patton and the great war, described his exploits at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II as his finest hour and the sublime moment of his career. While this case is often made, his critical contribution to the U.S. victory over Hitler may have happened through his leadership of the phantom First U.S. Army Group  FUSAG  which was concocted as part of Operation Quicksilver, designed to deceive the Germans into believing that the invasion of France in 1944 would be at Pas de Calais, the closest point to England across the English Channel, rather than at Normandy. The Germans were convinced that the legendary and controversial general would lead the invasion forces, and through a variety of ruses, plus the commanding presence of Patton in East Anglia, the logical marshaling point for a landing at Pas de Calais, German Panzers and infantry units were held in reserve until it was too late. Had those reserves been used against the Normandy landings, the invasion likely would have failed.

Thus, Pattons greatest wartime contribution ironically might have occurred when Old Blood and Guts was far from the battlefield.

Glenn Marcus, Washington

I enjoyed the Metro article about Gen. George S. Patton Jr., which included brief mentions of his post-World War I experiences.

The tank in the opening photograph of Patton  a French Renault FT-17 light tank (190 similarly named variants were built in the United States)  was the same model tank then-Maj. George S. Patton Jr. used to help Maj. Gen. Douglas MacArthur quell the famous Bonus Expedition Force in the District on July 28, 1932. Patton also commanded the U.S. Army 3rd Cavalry at Fort Myer, Va., and was post commander from 1938 to 1940. (He was stationed at the fort four times and no doubt rode horseback in a polo match or two on the South Parade Field.)

Jack Richards, Alexandria
THE NEXT time someone argues that a businessman would manage the country better than an experienced politician, remember this past week. The attempt by President Trump and House Republicans to force through a health-care bill scorned by experts across the spectrum, projected to be a disaster for aging and low-income people and opposed by a large majority of Americans ended in debacle. Now the danger is that a wounded president and his GOP allies will act on their sore feelings by irresponsibly attacking the existing health-care system in other ways.

The right course for Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans following their decisive defeat would be to ensure that the system created by President Barack Obama is properly overseen, for the sake of the millions who depend on it. That would mean abandoning their unilateral and unpopular legislative push to replace Obamacare with a radically different scheme. None of the major repeal-and-replace proposals they have offered would improve the system  and repealing Obamacare without a replacement would invite disaster in health-care markets.

Unfortunately, there are signs that Mr. Trump will act rashly on his own, without Congress, weakening Obamacare on purpose or by sheer incompetence. Several times in recent weeks, Mr. Trump suggested that it would be savvier for Republicans to let the system persist  and collapse. Independent experts, including the Congressional Budget Office just this month, predict no such crumbling. Yet they may not have satisfactorily considered the likelihood of administrative sabotage: The Trump administration has already undermined federal enrollment efforts and the individual mandate that holds the system together. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who would lead any executive-branch regulatory overhaul, has shown himself to be a rigid ideologue on health-care policy.

Mr. Trump should not imagine that angry Americans will blame Democrats, who are totally locked out of power, if he presides over an unraveling of the system. Public reaction to the replacement effort, including in polls, showed substantial support for Obamacare and rejection of the Republican effort to destroy it.

A better option would be the one that Republicans have explored least: actually fixing the systems flaws. Mr. Trump could use his executive power to shore it up  enhancing enforcement of the individual mandate and encouraging people to sign up. Then he should approach Democrats to see if there is room for an agreement on a repair bill. This would have to be an authentic deal, not an ultimatum, in which Democrats traded things Republicans want, such as medical liability reform and some limited regulatory reform, in exchange for things they should want, such as enhanced subsidies for vulnerable people.

For the good of the country, Republicans must finally admit two things. First, Obamacare is mostly working and millions will be hurt if it is abruptly repealed. Second, the GOP is incapable of the near-unanimity on health-care policy that is required to act without Democrats.
Russia denies it is supplying the Taliban after Nato general claim

Russia has denied a top Nato general's allegation it may be secretly sending supplies to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mara Casey Tieken is an assistant professor of education at Bates College and author of Why Rural Schools Matter.

Last years earthshaking election brought new attention to rural America. This attention is overdue  rural America has long been largely ignored by reporters, researchers and policymakers  and much of it is useful, as this increasingly urban-centric country tries to understand and reconnect with those living far from cities.

But so far, the narrative emerging about rural America has been woefully incomplete, because so much of the media coverage has focused on only one slice of it: rural white America. Some stories are clear about their scope: Their authors have intentionally chosen a particular geographic and racial population to explore and explain. Others are less obvious in their focus, though details  region of the country or photographs  soon make explicit what is merely implied or assumed. Either way, though, a particular racial narrative is being told.

Theres another rural America that exists beyond this rural white America. Nearly 10.3 million people, about one-fifth of rural residents, are people of color. Of this population, about 40 percent are African American, 35 percent are nonwhite Hispanic, and the remaining 25 percent are Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or multiracial. And this rural America is expected to grow in the coming decades, as rural areas see a rapid increase in Latino immigration.

This rural America, much like rural white America, can be found from coast to coast. But these rural Americans tend to live in different places from rural whites: across the Mississippi Delta and the Deep South; throughout the Rio Grande Valley; on reservations and native lands in the Southwest, Great Plains and Northwest.

This rural America has a different history from rural white America: a history of forced migration, enslavement and conquest. This rural America receives even lower pay and fewer protections for its labor than does rural white America. And, as my own research shows, this rural America attends very different schools than rural white America, schools that receive far less funding and other resources.

In fact, the relationship between rural white communities and rural communities of color is much like the relationship between urban white communities and urban communities of color: separate and unequal.

And it also appears that these rural Americans vote for different candidates than rural whites. A look at county-level voting and demographic data suggests that this rural America voted for Hillary Clinton.

In defining rural white America as rural America, pundits, academics and lawmakers are perpetuating an incomplete and simplistic story about the many people who make up rural America and what they want and need. Ironically, this story  so often told by liberals trying to explain the recent rise in undisguised nativism and xenophobia  serves to re-privilege whiteness. Whiteness is assumed; other races are shoved even further to the margins.

The erasure of rural communities of color has other, more immediate risks, too. As community and service organizations rush to temper the effects of recent immigration and voter-ID policies, they may focus on urban areas and overlook the rural populations  immigrants, refugees and black communities  also affected by this legislation. And as hopeful progressives market themselves in the run-up to midterm elections, they risk alienating their rural supporters: rural communities of color.

Interest in rural America is welcome. But we need to make sure it is complete and inclusive  and genuine. We need to press the media for more balanced, more representative coverage of rural places and people. We need to push our politicians for legislation and programs that support rural communities of color. And we need to organize, building political coalitions that bridge lines of race and geography.
The March 21 front-page article FBI is investigating Trump-Russia ties reported that Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, accused FBI Director James B. Comey of putting a big gray cloud . . . over people who have very important work to do to lead this country by conducting an investigation into possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. This is misdirected blame.

Mr. Trump and his associates, not the FBI director, created the big gray cloud through their comments, actions, denials and lies (as cited by Eugene Robinson in his March 21 op-ed, Follow the Russia trail).

Rather than Mr. Nunes blaming the investigator and demanding quick action, it would be best for the American people if he would acknowledge the real cause of the gray cloud and respectfully support Mr. Comey in taking sufficient time for his own very important work for the American people with a careful, well-focused and thorough investigation.

William Wright, McLean

We recently discovered that the FBI has been investigating the relationship between Russia and the Trump campaign since last summer. It should trouble all Americans that FBI Director James B. Comey found it justifiable to announce the investigation of the email issue surrounding Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a far less serious charge than colluding with a foreign adversary. But Mr. Comey judged that the investigation of potentially treasonous behavior by the Trump campaign did not rise to the level of serious public concern, and therefore he did not announce this investigation until this week.

Regardless of the outcome of the current Russia-Trump campaign investigation, the withholding of information on one serious investigation and the announcement of a far less serious investigation at a key point in the presidential election campaign amount to major interference with the American electoral process, an act specifically disallowed by the Justice Department and a federal crime.

Mr. Comey must resign or be removed from office and an investigation must be held as to whether he and others at the FBI committed federal crimes. The 2016 election clearly was invalid..

Robert J. Rodino, State College, Pa.

Regarding the March 23 front-page article House Intelligence chair alleges spy agency abuse:

Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) should step down as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. He is casting doubt on our intelligence community. Instead, he should be protecting the American people from Russias interference in our democracy.

Sara Rothman, Silver Spring
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) tells a packed room of journalists that there would be no vote Friday on the American Health Care Act because it lacked the votes to pass. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

President Trump and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan made it a binary choice: Youre either for their health-care legislation or youre for Obamacare.

From Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) to Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), spanning the partys ideological spectrum, the answer came back Friday: No, its much more complex. It was filled with several different options and possible routes ahead, and dozens of Republicans agreed with their sentiment.

That left Republicans well short of the votes they needed to fulfill a seven-year promise to destroy the 2010 Affordable Care Act once they were fully in charge, delivering a stinging defeat to both Ryan and Trump.

It also suggested a new dynamic in which both the right and left flanks of the Republican conference are emboldened to challenge leadership. And that could make each future negotiation more difficult as the issue matrix gets more complicated and the pockets of internal GOP resistance continue to grow, not shrink, in the new era of Trumps Republican-controlled Washington.

Some parts of these botched negotiations looked a lot like the recent past. Franks and his House Freedom Caucus cronies played the role of obstructionists who will buck party leaders no matter if its John A. Boehner, Ryans predecessor, or now Trump, as well. These ideologues gobbled up tons of attention, resulting in much care from Trump, Vice President Pence and top West Wing advisers.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

By lunchtime Friday, Franks still would not commit to publicly supporting the bill  even though he admitted it was far better than current law. Of course it is, yeah, its a lot better than Obamacare, of course it is. Theres not even any comparison, Franks said a few hours before the legislation went down in flames.

Franks remained upset that conservative proposals were left out of the bill because they would have violated Senate budget rules, meaning that the proposal to replace the ACA was nowhere near to his liking.

That still is like putting dirt in ice cream, he said.

Other parts of the negotiation, however, were new and quite different from the previous six years of Republican control of the House. Nothing capped this off more than the stunning announcement Friday morning from Frelinghuysen, just three months into his hold on the coveted Appropriations Committee gavel, that bucked leadership.

Unfortunately, the legislation before the House today is currently unacceptable as it would place significant new costs and barriers to care on my constituents, he said in a statement.

A 22-year veteran whose family traces its establishment lineage to the Continental Congress, Frelinghuysen won his chairmanship uncontested with the blessing of Ryan and the leadership team. Hes not someone who rocks the boat  he supported impeachment articles against President Bill Clinton  but his pronouncement Friday sent a jolt through the Capitol.

He also joined a long list of influential centrists who rejected the proposal on policy grounds, not out of fear politically. Frelinghuysen has received more than 60 percent of the vote in all but one election.

(Alice Li,Jayne Orenstein/The Washington Post)

If anyone should back Ryan  hes a new committee chairman, hes safe back home  it would have been Frelinghuysen. Instead, he sent a message to a few dozen other Republicans who have more troubling districts that they, too, should break from the president and the speaker.

In some corners, Republicans saw the past week as a defining moment when lawmakers went from the hypothetical exercise of previous fiscal proposals, which they knew the White House of President Barack Obama would block, into the world of live ammunition in which these proposals could become law.

That gravity, among moderates and some mainstream conservatives as they saw Trump agree to concessions to the Freedom Caucus, altered votes. Sometimes youre playing Fantasy Football and sometimes youre in the real game, said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), a Freedom Caucus member whom Trump had won over to support the bill.

By the time Ryan arrived at the White House, delivering the bad news about the whip count for the vote, those Republicans were doing just that. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), who brought Ryan into her suburban district outside Washington, broke against the bill, followed by Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio).

Joyces district, a mix of suburbs and working-class towns east of Cleveland, actually went for Trump by more than 11 percentage points, as Joyce was reelected by a 25-percentage-point margin. In the past, his biggest political fear has been a primary challenge from the right, yet the slight hint of Trump-fueled challengers to those opposed to the bill did not sway Joyce.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) had accepted expanded Medicaid funding as part of increasing insurance coverage through the ACA. Ryans American Health Care Act would phase out the Medicaid coverage.

Joyce made a simple, binary choice about Obamacare: The American Health Care Act was not a better solution.

This new combination, with Ryans right and left flanks willing to buck him and the new president, presents deep concern for the long-term effort to take up the more complicated effort to overhaul the corporate and individual tax codes.

Before they can even get there, however, Ryan faces an April 28 deadline to come up with a funding stream for the federal agency budgets through the end of the fiscal year. In previous federal spending fights, the Freedom Caucus has refused to lend a hand unless policy riders were attached. Democrats, who have been relied on in the past to backfill those lost conservative votes, have signaled they will not do so this time if the legislation includes funding for controversial measures such as Trumps request for funding to build a border wall.

That messy task falls to Frelinghuysens committee  and it will become much more difficult for the new chairman to ask for loyalty votes on his legislation just a few weeks after he walked away from Ryan on the AHCA. Democrats believe this attempt, and failure, has left Republicans politically in charge of health care from now on. They cant complain about something if they cant come up with their own fix.

If it passes, they have to answer for it, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters early Friday. If it doesnt pass, they have to answer for that as well.

Some Republicans rejected that, but others took a more holistic view. Passing the Ryan legislation would have only led to a very messy fight in the Senate, setting up what might have been an even more contentious fight later in the spring between the two different pieces of legislation.

Said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), who opposed the legislation: Even if it passes today, its like  I wanna pick these words very carefully  the adolescent dance school will still continue in full view.

Read more from Paul Kanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Afghans watch Gulbuddin Hekmatyar during a broadcast of the signing ceremony for the agreement he reached with the Afghan government at the presidential palace in Kabul on Sept. 29. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

He is a ghost with a blood-soaked past, a man with so many enemies that even his closest aides, trying to orchestrate his return to the Afghan capital he once attacked, coyly insist they have no idea where he is.

Six months ago, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar emerged briefly from the shadows, appearing via video to sign a peace agreement with President Ashraf Ghani. The deal with the notorious fugitive warlord  whose rockets rained down on Kabul during the 1990s civil war  was touted as a breakthrough that could induce Taliban insurgents to follow suit.

[Afghan government signs peace pact with guerrilla group led by fugitive Islamist]

Last month, the U.N. Security Council voted to lift terrorism-related sanctions against Hekmatyar, 69, partially clearing his way to return home and participate in politics. His aides here envision a grand entry into Kabul worthy of Alexander the Great, with caravans converging on the city from four directions, thousands of armed guards securing his path, and swarms of loyalists following from camps in Pakistan.

The agreement has been made, and there will be no U-turn. He will come as a leader of the nation, and it will be a great help for peace. Big crowds will gather to welcome him, and their numbers will speak, said Qariburrahman Saeed, a spokesman for Hekmatyar, whose advance team is operating from an elegant, heavily guarded mansion here.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar speaks during an interview in Tehran on Oct. 2, 2001. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images)

But that prediction is beginning to look like a fantasy. Negotiations over the conditions of Hekmatyars return are at a standstill, and official enthusiasm is waning. Some analysts suggest that the immersion of such a polarizing figure in national politics, instead of helping to restore peace after 16 years of war, could aggravate the power struggles that are tearing the government apart.

Hekmatyar, known as a canny politician, brutal fighter and stern Islamist, has cut a dizzying path through successive Afghan conflicts. In the 1980s he headed an anti-Soviet militia sponsored by the CIA and Pakistan; after the Soviets withdrew, he became a transitional prime minister and then a destructive factional brawler in the civil strife that followed.

When the Taliban militia seized power in 1996, Hekmatyar went underground, moving between Pakistan and Iran. After the Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001, he declared war on the new civilian rulers in Kabul, sometimes fighting alongside Taliban insurgents. His political party, Hezb-i-Islami, was declared illegal, and the U.S. government designated it a terrorist group. Two efforts at reconciliation failed, and Hekmatyar has not been seen in public in two decades.

[CIA fails in bid to kill Afghan rebel with a missile ]

Ghanis invitation to this invisible adversary was viewed here as a desperate move rather than a considered strategy. In principle, Hekmatyar agreed to disarm his forces, respect the Afghan constitution and re-enter political life; in return, the government offered him amnesty for wartime abuses, freedom to organize politically, and generous subsidies for his lifestyle and protection.

But months later, negotiators are far apart on most crucial details. Hekmatyar wants to bring his own security; the government wants its forces involved. He wants hundreds of prisoners from his former militia released; the government says only a fraction of them can be freed. He wants tens of thousands of his returning followers to be given land; the government says that is not feasible.

To many Afghans, including those who suffered through the siege of Kabul by Hezb-i-Islami and other warring militia factions, even Ghanis original concessions seemed too generous, if not naive. Human rights groups especially condemned the amnesty for Hekmatyar and his commanders, who had garnered a reputation for exceptional cruelty over the course of three conflicts.

The impunity granted him by the government and the removal of his name from the U.N. black list will give him and his party free rein to continue their crimes, said Ubair Kabir, a member of the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan, which held protests against the accord. Justice cannot be sacrificed for peace.

The negotiations also have been stymied by political divisions in both camps. Ghanis power-sharing pact with his former opponent for the presidency, Abdullah Abdullah, has deteriorated into an open feud. One of Hekmatyars former rival groups, Jamiat-i-Islami, is in the thick of the fight. His aides, while negotiating with Ghani, are trying to revive old alliances with leaders on both sides of that divide.

[Divisions within Afghanistans government reach a new crisis point]

Hekmatyars party, too, has splintered into factions in the absence of its central leader. After Hezb-i-Islami was declared illegal, some members left to work for the government. Others stayed but pledged loyalty to various ex-militia commanders. Hekmatyars aides assert that once he returns, the membership will rally behind him, but so far they cannot even agree on whether he should return as a party leader, a presidential contender or a benign elder statesman.

Hezb is very fragmented, and its all about personal interests. We dont know whether these former commanders will unite around Hekmatyar or work against him, said Timor Sharan, who represents the nonprofit International Crisis Group in Kabul. He noted that Hekmatyar is rumored to be ill.

This is his last attempt to reach power, this time through elections, Sharan said.

As Hekmatyars political rehabilitation bogs down, hopes are fading that his return might inspire the Taliban to reconcile with the government, too. One government adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly and thus spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: There is a feeling that things have failed. Excitement is down.

Many Afghans argue that banking on Hekmatyar to influence the Taliban was unrealistic to begin with, given the insurgents increasing success on the battlefield and their denunciation of him as a criminal and traitor to Islam when the peace accord was announced. In some regions his forces have joined with the Taliban, but in others they have been competitors.

And although Hekmatyar remains popular in certain provinces, it is difficult to imagine him being welcomed back to the capital he once pounded with rockets. Well aware of this, his advisers in Kabul have been working to re-brand him as a thoughtful religious scholar and man of letters. Two weeks ago, they organized a conference here to showcase his writings, including more than 100 books, mainly on Islamic topics.

For 30 years, people only heard the opposition propaganda about us, said Kareem Amin, a longtime Hekmatyar adviser. We are not intransigent warlords. We want to unify and rebuild Afghanistan.

Although he said he was not in direct touch with Hekmatyar, Amin described him as a man of wisdom and knowledge who spends his time reading and writing. In the recent video, the aging warlord wore glasses and looked like a dignified elder.

But unless Hekmatyar ventures out of hiding and remakes himself as a man of peace, he is likely to remain lodged in the public imagination as the ruthless butcher of Kabul  a city where old buildings bear the scars of rocket fire from a quarter-century ago, and residents still describe cowering in their basements, cursing his name.

Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report.

Read more:

The U.S. was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
The Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, center, walks with demonstrators holding Russian flags during a memorial march in central Moscow on Feb. 26, two years after opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down yards from the Kremlin. (Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images)

When police break up your meeting because of a false bomb threat, that could be just bad luck. When someone glues your office door shut, that could be just a misunderstanding about the rent. And when a stranger comes up to you in the street and dumps green guck all over your face, that could be just a random act of hooliganism.

When this kind of thing happens to you every day, that means youre Alexei Navalny, Russias most prominent anti-corruption crusader and a declared candidate for next years presidential election  the mother of all uphill battles, given that your likely opponent is Vladimir Putin. And if youre Alexei Navalny, theres a good chance youre going to wake up Monday in jail.

Authorities have preemptively banned a rally Navalny has organized for central Moscow on Sunday, as well as others planned across Russia. The demonstrations were called to protest what he claims is rampant corruption in the Kremlin. Putins spokesman has said that even urging people to take part is illegal.

And Alexander Gorovoi, a senior Russian police official, warned Friday that authorities will bear no responsibility for any possible negative consequences for people who do show up. That could mean that if something is started by pro-government activists who routinely interfere with Navalnys campaign stops, officers might stand aside and let it happen.

Navalny, who has been arrested several times over the years, said the rally will go on.

In this photo provided by Alexei Navalny, the Russian activist appears in a selfie with supporters after an unknown assailant sprayed a green antiseptic on his face in Barnaul, Russia. Navalny was in the city to open a campaign office as part of his bid for the presidency in 2018 elections. (Alexei Navalny/AP)

The Kremlin sees us as their enemy, but what should I do? he said Thursday in his Moscow headquarters. Im not going away. I live here. Im going to live here.

What Navalny has done to provoke official enmity is issue frequent statements alleging instances of top Kremlin officials amassing huge fortunes. Most recently, he released a report and a 50-minute video detailing allegations that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has funneled more than $1 billion in bribes through companies and charities run by his associates to acquire vineyards, luxury yachts and opulent mansions.

[Russia dismisses sweeping corruption allegations against Medvedev]

The Russian government has barely acknowledged those accusations. One lawmaker in the State Duma, a Communist, asked for an inquiry into Navalnys report. Otherwise, the only palpable reaction has been that when the activist appears in public, eggs are tossed in his face, activists from the pro-government National Liberation Movement shout down his speeches and occasionally he is doused with a green, Soviet-era topical antiseptic known as zelyonka.

But that is shaping up to change Sunday when Navalny and his supporters  he anticipates tens of thousands  plan to challenge the bans on their rallies in Moscow and across the country.

In an interview Thursday, during a rare stop in Moscow, Navalny argued that staging the protests is worthwhile, despite the likelihood he will be arrested, because it will signal the breadth of the support for his message  that Russia needs to rid itself of what he sees as a kleptocratic and authoritarian regime. People in 100 Russian cities have indicated they will turn out Sunday, he said, and more than 10 million people have watched the YouTube video about Medvedev.

I know that I represent millions of people, I know that my positions are supported by the people, and if it were an honest election, Id win, he said, noting that he is denied access to state-run television coverage as well as the right to legal assembly.

Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, dismissed the idea of an official campaign against Navalny.

This issue has nothing to do with us or our agenda, he said in a text message, referring to Navalnys candidacy and perceptions of harassment.



Technically, Navalny is barred from running for president because of a February conviction and a five-year suspended sentence in an embezzlement case. The verdict echoed the one returned in a 2013 trial on the same charges and overturned after the European Court of Human Rights declared it prejudicial, saying that Navalny and his co-defendant were denied the right to a fair trial.

Even if Navalny were allowed to run, he would be a decided underdog to Putin, who has enjoyed an approval rating above 80 percent for the past three years. Lev Gudkov, director of the Moscow-based Levada Center, which tracks Putins rating, said in a recent interview that Navalny could probably win about 15 percent.

Thats not much of a threat, except when you consider that Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and the ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky are likely to run, splitting something like 20 percent of the vote between them, Gudkov said.

According to Gudkov and other analysts, the Kremlin is thought to be looking for at least 70 percent of the vote as a validation of Putins continued rule.

The elections will be more like a plebiscite of confidence in Putin, said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center, who suggested that anything more than 60 percent would be pushing the upper limits of Putins real electoral rating.

Unlike the support for Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky and the probable liberal candidate, Grigory Yavlinsky, who have all been running for president since the mid-1990s, the wave of political activity that Navalny is creating makes him more of a danger for the Kremlin, Kolesnikov said.

Being a threat to the establishment has been a hazardous profession in Russia; Ukrainian officials called the shooting of a Putin critic, Denis Voronenkov, in Ukraine on Thursday state terrorism. In Russia, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in 2015 outside the walls of the Kremlin, one of a list of prominent critics who died suddenly.

[Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways]

The Kremlin has strongly denied involvement in any of those deaths.

Navalny says he understands the danger of his position. He said he used to have a bodyguard but decided there was no point  if someone powerful wanted him dead, a bodyguard wouldnt be enough to save him.

It doesnt guarantee your safety, he said. Its an arms race I cant win.

Read more:

How to understand Putins jaw-droppingly high popularity rating

Putin foe Alexey Navalny found guilty in retrial, threatening 2018 presidential run

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has issued a directive that anyone who has set foot in territory controlled by the Islamic State must undergo a mandatory social media review. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Heightened security procedures for vetting some visa applicants at U.S. embassies worldwide will likely cause long delays for would-be travelers as the government scrutinizes everything from work history to social media, immigration lawyers and advocates said Friday.

Under new directives in a cable signed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week, anyone who has set foot in territory controlled by the Islamic State must undergo a mandatory social media review.

That could affect many visa applicants from Iraq, even though the country was removed this month from a list of majority-Muslim countries under a travel ban from a Jan. 27 executive order signed by President Trump, later revised. Until now, social media reviews had been done at the discretion of consular officials who approve or deny visas.

Additional screening measures are coming, as Tillerson ordered consulates to develop criteria for identifying applicant populations warranting increased scrutiny. The cable suggests that when considering applicants who fit the profile, consular officers should ask for further security guidance.

[Revised executive order bars those from six Muslim-majority countries from getting visas]

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Although the standards outlined in a March 17 cable by Tillerson are still being refined, and others reiterate existing procedures, they offer a glimpse of how the Trump administration plans to impose extreme vetting even though courts in Hawaii and Maryland have issued injunctions against portions of the revised travel ban.

This strikes me as an end run around the judicial injunctions, said Stephen Legomsky, who was chief counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Obama administration. The injunctions prevent the implementation of a travel ban by executive order. But nothing in them specifically prohibits new rules on visa denials overseas.

The Tillerson cable, first reported by Reuters, instructs consular officials to explore all available leads in investigating an applicants background.

Consular officers should not hesitate to refuse any case presenting security concerns, he wrote, adding, All officers should remember that all visa decisions are national security decisions.

It is unclear, however, how much time consular officials will be expected to dedicate to in-person interviews with applicants. It advises each official to schedule no more than 120 visa interviews a day, the equivalent of four minutes per interview, or about the same as before.

Immigration advocates say that even though Tillerson reiterated long-standing expectation that national security is paramount when consular officers decide whether to grant visas, it is likely to lead to more denials, even among applicants with legitimate reasons to visit the United States. The decisions of consular officials are considered final and virtually never subject to appeal.

If youre a consular officer, given how much attention is being paid to national security, if its at all close, youd rather be the officer who denies a visa knowing theres never a chance at review than the person who issues a visa to someone who commits a terrible act, Legomsky said. Its a strong incentive to deny a visa without a shred of concern for what that person might be.

[Rationale for travel ban undercut by internal administration data]

Though no countries besides Iraq are mentioned in Tillersons cable, the new rules do not apply to visa waiver countries  primarily most of the nations in Europe, plus Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

The memo contains no specifics about what criteria might be used, so it is not known whether nationality or behavior will be factors.

Immigration advocates say that the beefed-up vetting is bound to add to already-lengthy backlogs of applicants.

This is going to slow down the process for reviewing and granting visas, and create severe delays for businesses trying to have conferences or for their employees travel to the United States, as well as families waiting on visas, said Greg Chen, advocacy director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. If theres a legitimate national security concern about an individual, obviously additional screening is required. But it appears theres going to be a broader use of interview requirements and screening requirements placed on a wider set of individuals, without any clear, demonstrable national security benefits.

In most U.S. embassies around the world, visas are processed within a few days of an interview, even at missions in cities such as Baghdad and Beirut.

Thats going to change, said Greg Siskind, an immigration lawyer in Memphis who worries that many physicians, university professors and researchers will face delays or denials because of the places they come from.

If youre from certain countries, or religions, your odds are going up that a lot of people are not going to get visas in the three days that is typical, or even 20 days, said Siskind.

Mandating social media reviews for people who have been in territory controlled by the Islamic State  primarily parts of Syria and a sizable swath of Iraq  will be time-consuming and require proficient translators. It also, theoretically, could be the source of intelligence beyond the obvious search for radical websites connected to Islamist extremist groups.

Siskind thinks investigators could try to build databases of connections between people based on their Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

Maybe thats how you flag people, who are a second- or third-degree connection away from someone on the watch list, he said. Its not necessarily what youve said on social media. Its who youre connected to.

Cunningham reported from Istanbul.
The U.S. government has not figured out how to deter the Russians from meddling in democratic processes, and stopping their interference in elections, both here and in Europe, is a pressing problem, the top civilian leader of the National Security Agency said.

The NSA was among the intelligence agencies that concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a cyber-enabled influence campaign in 2016 aimed at undermining confidence in the election, harming Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and helping elect GOP nominee Donald Trump.

This is a challenge to the foundations of our democracy, said NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett, 58, who is retiring at the end of April, in an interview at Fort Meade, Md., the agencys headquarters. Its the sanctity of our process, of evaluating and looking at candidates, and having accurate information about the candidates. So the idea that another nation state is [interfering with that] is a pretty big deal and something we need to figure out. How do we counter that? How do we identify that its happening  in real time as opposed to after the fact? And what do we do as a nation to make it stop?

The lack of answers, he said, as an American citizen . . . gives me a lot of heartburn.

Ledgett, known as a straight-shooting, unflappable intelligence professional, began his NSA career in 1988 teaching cryptanalysis  how to crack codes  and rose to become the agencys top civilian leader . The NSA, with 35,000 civilian and military employees, gathers intelligence on foreign targets overseas through wiretaps and increasingly by cyberhacking. Its other mission is to secure the government computers that handle classified information and other data critical to military and intelligence activities.

Asked whether the NSA had any inkling that the Kremlin was going to orchestrate the release of hacked Democratic National Committee emails last July, he demurred. I actually dont want to talk about that.

At the same time, he said, what Moscow did was no strategic surprise. Rather, what may have been a tactical surprise was that they would do it the way they did.

Campaigns of propaganda and disinformation, dating back to the Soviet Union, have long been a staple of the Kremlins foreign policy. Now, however, it is making effective use of its hacking prowess to weaponize information and combine it with its influence operations, or what intelligence officials call active measures.

In general, if youre responding to nation-state actions like that, you have to find out what are the levers that will move the nation-state actors and are you able and willing to pull those levers? said Ledgett when asked how the United States should respond.

The Obama administration slapped economic sanctions on two Russian spy agencies involved in hacking the DNC, three companies believed to have provided support for government cyber operations, and four Russian cyber officials. The administration also ordered 35 Russian operatives to leave the United States and shut down Russian-owned facilities on Marylands Eastern Shore and on Long Island believed to have been used for intelligence purposes.

Yet, intelligence officials including NSA Director Michael S. Rogers and FBI Director James B. Comey said on Monday that they believe Moscow will strike again  in 2020, if not in 2018.

[FBI Director Comey confirms probe of possible coordination between Kremlin and Trump campaign]

So should the government mull other options, such as hacking Russian officials emails or financial records and releasing them in a bid to embarrass or show corruption? I think every element of national power is something we should consider, he said. That would probably fall under something like a covert action. But if thats the right answer, thats the right answer.

Ledgett is probably most well known for leading the agency task force that handled the fallout from the leaks of classified information by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013. The disclosures prompted a national and global debate about the proper scope of government surveillance and led Congress to pass some reforms, including the outlawing of bulk collection of Americans phone metadata.

But the disclosures also caused great upheaval in NSAs collection efforts, hurt morale, and damaged relations with allies and with tech firms that enable court-ordered surveillance, Ledgett said. It was a terrible time for the agency, he said.

He oversaw the probe of the internal breach; relations with Congress, the White House, foreign governments and the press; and the effort to prevent a recurrence. There was a bit of a narrative on the outside about this evil agency that hoovered up all the communications in the world and rooted through them for things that were interesting, and that wasnt actually true.

The operational hit was significant, he said. More than 1,000 foreign targets  whether a person or a group or an organization  altered or attempted to alter their means of communications as a result of the disclosures, he said. They tried with varying degrees of success to remove themselves from our ability to see what they were doing, he said.

The agency, which has some 200 stations worldwide, reworked capabilities including virtually all of its hacking tools. In some cases, we had to do things very differently to gather the same foreign intelligence as before.

Raj De, a former NSA general counsel, said Ledgett was relied on heavily by both Rogers and Rogerss predecessor, Keith B. Alexander. He has really been a source of steadiness for the agency, said De, now head of the Cybersecurity & Data Privacy practice at Mayer Brown, a global law firm. What is particularly notable about Rick is his willingness to engage with all types of people, to keep an open mind.

In December 2013, Alexander, when he was the NSA director, said that Snowden should be given no amnesty. But Ledgett told CBSs 60 Minutes then that my personal view is yes, its worth having a conversation about.

In his interview earlier this week, however, he said what he meant was that by engaging Snowden in conversation, the agency might have been able to learn what material had not been released and where it was.

Today, he said, there is no longer any need to talk to Snowden. Hes past his usefulness to us. Snowden, who is living in Moscow under a grant of asylum, has been charged with violating the Espionage Act, and Ledgett said he should not be pardoned. Ive always been of the idea that Hey, I think he needs to face the music for what he did. 

Julie Tate contributed to this report.
A Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) directive, published at the beginning of the month, calls on the military to better prepare personnelboth psychologically and in terms of equipmentto confront child soldiers. The paper has been prepared as Canadas Liberal government prepares to send hundreds of troops to Africa to participate in counter-insurgency operations.

The joint doctrine note, drafted in collaboration with Romeo Dallaire, a retired CAF Lieutenant-General and well-known proponent of humanitarian military interventions who served in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, is the first time the Canadian military has produced a document specifically outlining strategic guidelines concerning child soldiers.

The document begins by warning that "Encounters with child soldiers during operations can have significant psychological impacts for the personnel involved and that Canadian soldiers must be prepared for the possibility they will have to engage child soldiers with deadly force to defend themselves or others, i.e. to kill them.

The directive then explains that troops are likely to face child soldiers on an increasing basis in future UN or NATO-led missions. Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 300,000 child soldiersrecruited as suicide bombers, fighters, spies, manual labourers or sex slavesare involved in conflicts around the world. They are widely used in African countries such as Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia and Mali.

In the case of Mali, the childrens rights group Humanium reported in 2014 that children make up more than half of the countrys population and that their recruitment has been coupled with the destruction and closure of schools resulting from the bloody war that has raged in the country between Islamist forces and the US and French-backed Malian government since 2012.

But the directive argues the Canadian Army should not be disturbed by such a reality and, on the contrary, should respond with more brutality. Dallaire declared, These kids are under duress, a lot of them are drugged up, a lot of them are indoctrinated  You may in certain circumstances still have to use lethal force. Dallaire went on to say, Pulling away ... has been so much the norm and gives the advantage to the guy who is recruiting these kids.

The document also underlines that if soldiers are not sufficiently armed they could be vulnerable to human wave attacks using child soldiers, i.e. frontal assaults where the target is overrun. It therefore concludes that consideration should be given to providing Canadian troops with heavier, i.e. more deadly, weapons.

The doctrine says child soldiers taken prisoner should be handled differently from adult combatants, such as by placing greater focus on rehabilitation. The real concern of the ruling class and the military brass, however, is not the fate of the child soldiers, but the potential loss of Western troops and fears that the Canadian militarys implication in atrocities will fuel antiwar sentiment at home.

What caught a lot of these guys by surprisethe Dutch, the Germans and the Italians and the Chadiansin Mali was they were facing these Boko Haram kids and they didnt know what the hell to do, said Dallaire.

As Shelly Whitman, executive director of the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, told the Globe and Mail, South African soldiers deployed to the Central African Republic a few years ago were not at all prepared for the fact they were facing a field full of children. They lost 16 soldiers, said Whitman, because they were not mentally prepared for that.

While government officials have not yet confirmed where the next Canadian deployment to Africa will be, Mali is high on the list of potential locations. France has been pressuring Canada for military support in Western Africa, including in Mali, where France, the United States and Germany are seeking to eradicate Islamist rebels they themselves armed and financed back in 2011 to oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

The UN had held open command of its peacekeeping mission in Mali for a Canadian officer, but the UN planners, impatient and uncertain about Canadas involvement, recently announced that Maj.-Gen. Jean-Paul Deconinck of Belgium will take over.

Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has made two separate trips to Mali in the last year. An anonymous source recently told the Toronto Star that personnel from the Defence Department and Global Affairs Canada have made non-stop visits to the African country in recent months. The most recent visit came several weeks ago when officials attached to the newly formed Peace and Stabilization Operations Program in Global Affairs Canada spent several days in Bamako.

One of the reasons for the delay in finalizing a new Canadian military intervention in Africa is that the Trudeau government wanted to make sure the Trump administration approved of the deployment. According to the Globe and Mail, the Trump administration has now given the green light to Canada to dispatch troops to Mali. However, the Trudeau government, which seeks to camouflage an aggressive imperialist foreign policy in humanitarian rhetoric, has become concerned that the CAFs implication in atrocities that involve children will alienate the population, expose the real, imperialist character of such peace-keeping missions, and undermine it plans to hike overall Canadian military spending.

As the CAF directive notes, if an engagement with child soldiers is not well-handled, and communicated effectively, there is strong potential for significant negative impact on the mission, locally, in Canada, and at the international level.

The Liberals are also concerned over how to sell to the public a combat mission that will likely involve a high number of civilian and Canadian casualties more than 110 UN peacekeeping troops have been killed in Mali during the past four yearsand one that is likely to prove only the prelude to a far broader military adventure across the region.

The intervention in Mali, where 13,000 troops and 2,000 police from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and various other countries are active, is being conducted under the United Nations umbrella. But it is also part of the broader French-led Operation Barkhane, which includes missions in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger.

Although the various African missions, whether under the banner of the UN, France, or the US-led AFRICOM, are presented as counter-terrorism or even peace-keeping missions, they are part of a new scramble for Africa, in which the major powers are seeking to gain control over resources, markets and strategic countries.

Canadian imperialism is determined to have its share of the spoils. Canadian businesses, most of all the mining companies, have billions of dollars in investment throughout Africa and are eager to see the CAF increase its presence on the continent. The Canadian Army has been increasingly involved in West Africa. In 2011, Canadian Special Forces began attending the annual US-led Operation Flintlock exercise in West Africa, which brings together Special Forces from a number of neighbouring countries to undergo training.

When France sent troops to Mali in 2013, Canadian military transport planes were sent to ferry in French weaponry and supplies. The Liberal government agreed to similar assistance following its election in 2015.

A small contingent of 25 Canadian soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, based in the French-speaking province of Quebec, will soon take part in a revamped Canadian Armed Forces mission to train security forces in Niger, which shares a border with Mali. These new forces will take over from an ongoing deployment, known as Operation Naberius, that was kept secret for almost three years and involved Canadian Special Forces providing similar training.

To fund increased military deployments, the Trudeau government is significantly hiking military spending. In its first budget it maintained the commitment of its Conservative predecessors to increase defence spending by 3 percent annually for a decade. More recently, it has repeatedly signaled, including in Wednesdays budget, that bigger increases, aimed at moving Canada far closer to the NATO goal of a military budget equivalent to at least 2 percent of GDP, will be announced once the Liberals complete a year-long defence policy review.
An air strike on western Mosul on March 17, carried out by either the United States or one of its allies, resulted in the destruction of homes and the slaughter of as many as 200 civilians.

According to an eyewitness, the attack in Baghdad Street, in the suburb of Aghawat Jadidah, appears to have been called in to dislodge a lone Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) sniper who was holding up the advance of Iraqi government forces. Unnamed American officials told the Los Angeles Times a truck containing fuel or explosives may have been inadvertently hit, causing a massive explosion.

LA Times correspondents in Mosul reported on Friday: Bodies were still pinned under houses; blackened hands and a pair of feet in yellow high-top sneakers protruded from one place in the rubble. A woman, Munatha Jasim, who lost a seven-year-old son and four-year-old daughter in the attack, said: Just because one Islamic State [fighter] was on our house, the aircraft bombed us.

Before news of the latest carnage broke, the US military had already announced that it carried out four air strikes in Mosul on March 17, boasting that it destroyed 25 ISIS fighting positions and 56 vehicles. US Army spokesperson Joe Scrocca told the LA Times it will assess the allegations and determine what, if any, role a coalition strike may have had in that area.

The countries whose air forces and ground units are involved in bombing Mosul, and could be responsible, are the United States, Britain, Australia and France, as well as the Iraqi government itself. According to US figures, its coalition has unleashed over 18,000 bombs and missiles on the city since October 17.

The reported atrocity in Mosul follows the report on Tuesday that US air strikes against alleged ISIS targets in the Syrian city of Raqqa struck a school occupied by hundreds of civilians. Unconfirmed estimates placed the death toll at 30, though it may have been far higher. An earlier attack on a mosque in the Syrian province of Idlib reportedly killed at least 42 people.

There are no credible figures on the civilian death toll in Mosul. Hundreds of people are believed to have been murdered by ISIS, with thousands more killed or wounded by gunfire, artillery shelling and air strikes. Large parts of the city lie in rubble.

The US and its allies have dramatically intensified attacks on the city over recent weeks, as Iraqi troops push deeper into the western suburbs that are still held by ISIS. Iraqi government representatives claim that their forces are now just 500 metres from the 1,000-year-old al-Nuri mosque, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed an Islamic caliphate after ISIS captured Mosul in July 2014.

Bloody fighting is reportedly taking place in densely-populated residential areas. An estimated 400,000 civilians are trapped in the ISIS-controlled suburbs. A resident reached by Agence France Presse reported: Its been four months that we havent eaten fruit and vegetables. The kids ask for just a piece of chocolate, but there are only lentils, and even these are running out.

Another resident declared: When the planes strike, one Daesh [ISIS] dies for every 20 civilians. The homes are old, so if an air strike hits, it destroys more than one.

Unknown numbers of ISIS militants have been killed. Last October, when the siege began, as many as 10,000 ISIS loyalists were said to be in Mosul. It is believed a number escaped, including key leaders of the organisation, and crossed the border to its stronghold in Raqqa, Syria. A recent estimate, published by the Wall Street Journal, put ISISs remaining strength in Mosul at barely 1,500 to 2,000 fighters, of whom 70 to 90 percent are from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, China, the Central Asian republics, France and the Chechnyan region of Russia, along with small numbers from other West European countries, the US, Canada and Australia.

Some ISIS fighters have surrendered to Iraqi forces. The majority, however, are allegedly fighting to the deatha claim generally made during war time to justify the summary execution of captured or wounded opponents. Iraqi commanders have made little secret of their desire to exact vengeance for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi Army in 2014, when tens of thousands of its troops in the Mosul area abandoned their equipment and weapons and fled from an ISIS force.

The Iraqi government refuses to release statistics on the casualties suffered by its forces. The total was estimated at over 2,000 more than three months ago, well before the intense fighting for control of western Mosul began.

As the fighting and destruction has escalated, the number of civilians fleeing Mosul has risen exponentially. In just 10 hours on Thursday, the Iraqi military reported that some 15,000 new refugees passed through one transit point. Tens of thousands more are expected to flood out of the city over the coming days and weeks.

It is now estimated that 200,000 people are sheltering in desperately under-resourced refugee camps. Hundreds of thousands more have remained in their homes in the citys eastern suburbs, which were retaken several months ago by government forces.

An Oxfam representative told Reuters that people are arriving in camps traumatised, hungry, dehydrated and completely exhausted.

Aid agencies are struggling to cope. United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, Lisa Grande, warned this week that if numbers continue to grow at the current rate, its going to stretch us to the breaking point.
Former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was officially released from prison yesterday. His lawyer provocatively informed the public that the 88-year-old had left the military hospital in the Cairo district of Maadi and had breakfast at his familys home in the east of the Egyptian capital with some friends.

The ruling of the court of appeals is final. In early March, Egypts supreme court cleared Mubarak of any responsibility in the deaths of 800 demonstrators who were killed by his security forces in the first days of the Egyptian revolution. Before Mubarak was ousted on February 11, 2011, after 18 days of mass protests, he had ruled the country with an iron fist with the full support of the imperialist powers for thirty years.

The freeing of Mubarak is symbolic of the counterrevolution that has developed since the bloody military coup of July 3, 2013 against Islamist president Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Less than four years later, the new military rulers in Cairo, with the encouragement of the Western powers, have fully rehabilitated their former leader and are suppressing the Egyptian masses with even more brutal methods.

The junta led by the US-trained General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has incarcerated more than 40,000 opponents of the regime and condemned more than 1,000 to death. Shortly after the coup, according to Human Rights Watch, the worst incident of extrajudicial mass killings in Egypts modern history took place. The army and police stormed two protest camps set up by regime opponents and killed over 1,000 people, including women and children.

How is it possible that six years after the Egyptian revolution nothing appears left of it, and Mubarak, the ugly face of the old regime, is once again free to show himself in public? Who bears political responsibility for this, and what are the political lessons for the coming class conflicts?

The key to answering these decisive questions, which confront the working class in Egypt and internationally, is to be found in a study of the Russian revolution. In his lecture Why study the Russian Revolution?, David North, chairman of the World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board, explained the decisive precondition for the victory of the working class:

The movement of the Russian working class, supported by a revolutionary uprising of the peasantry, assumed gigantic dimensions in 1917. But no realistic reading of the events of that year permits the conclusion that the working class would have come to power without the leadership provided by the Bolshevik Party. Drawing the essential lesson of this experience, Trotsky later insisted: The role and the responsibility of the leadership [of the working class] in a revolutionary epoch is colossal. This conclusion remains as valid in the present historical situation as it was in 1917.

The Egyptian revolution was without doubt a gigantic uprising, and the working class was its driving force. On January 25, 2011, tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Cairo and other major industrial cities. On January 28, the Friday of anger, ever-growing numbers of demonstrators beat back Mubaraks notorious security forces in street battles. In the days that followed, millions demonstrated throughout Egypt. On February 7 and 8, a wave of strikes and factory occupations, which broke out across the entire country, delivered the decisive blow to Mubarak.

The working class continued to develop as the decisive revolutionary force after February 11. In the days immediately following Mubaraks overthrow, there were between 40 and 60 strikes per day. More strikes occurred in February than in all of 2010. Strikes and social protests continued to increase during 2012 and 2013. However, what was missing in Egypt, unlike Russia, was a political leadership with a revolutionary program.

The WSWS warned workers from the outset of the revolution against any illusions in the democratic character of the bourgeoisie. David North wrote in a February 1, 2011, perspective: As always in the opening stages of a revolutionary convulsion, the slogans that predominate are of a generally democratic character. The ruling elites, fearing the approach of the abyss, seek desperately to maintain what they can of the old order. Promises of reform slip easily from their lips

However, the sort of democratic unity proposed [] will offer nothing of substance to the working class, the rural poor and broad sections of the youth who have come out into the streets. The vital needs of the broad masses of Egyptian society cannot be realized without the most far-reaching overturn of existing property relations and the transfer of political power to the working class.

The strategic perspective that guided the Russian working classs seizure of power in October 1917 was the Theory of Permanent Revolution developed by Leon Trotsky. It stated that in countries with a belated capitalist development, the democratic revolution could only be realized through the conquest of power by the working class and as a product of the socialist revolution. And it further stated that the victory of a revolution in one country was only possible based on an international strategy to unite workers around the globe.

The Egyptian revolution confirmed the perspective of permanent revolution in the negative. Every section of the bourgeoisie proved itself to be a counterrevolutionary force at every stage of the revolution by collaborating with imperialism and defending the same essential class interests as the military. This applies equally to the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood as well as liberal bourgeois parties. Examples of this are Mohammed El Baradeis National Association for Change or the Nasserite Popular Current of Hamdeen Sabahi.

The most treacherous role was played by petty-bourgeois pseudo-left groups like the Revolutionary Socialists (RS), which is aligned internationally with the International Socialist Organization in the United States, the Socialist Workers Party in Britain and sections of the German Left Party. In every phase of the revolution, they worked to subordinate the working class to one or another faction of the bourgeoisie.

Immediately following Mubaraks overthrow, they boosted illusions in his generals and claimed that the military, under the leadership of Mohamed Tantawi, would implement social and democratic reforms. As mass opposition to the military increased, they backed the Muslim Brotherhood. RS proclaimed the Islamists to be the right-wing of the revolution and called for the election of Mursi in the presidential election. When Mursi won, they celebrated this as a victory for the revolution and a great success against the counterrevolution.

When mass protests then broke out against Mursi in 2013, the RS swung back behind the military. They described the Tamarod alliance, which was financed by the military and intelligence services, as the road to the accomplishment of the revolution. The military coup, which was the basis for al-Sisis counterrevolutionary regime of terror, was described initially by them as a second revolution.

RS now fears that the juntas repression and the mounting social catastrophe could provoke a new revolutionary upsurge of the workers. In a recent statement, RS declares, We need to rebuild the social and political opposition to the regime and its policies, through political organizations, workers unions, youth and student organizations and political fronts that can unite the forces of the 25 January revolution.

In other words, they are persisting with their disastrous policies, subordinating the working class to unity with the parties and organizations of the bourgeoisie.

The key question of the Egyptian revolution remains the construction of an Egyptian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International and the anchoring of the perspective of permanent revolution in the Egyptian working class. The study of the Russian Revolution must serve as the preparation of revolutionary struggles by the working class in Egypt and around the world.

To register for the ICFIs ongoing series of online lectures on the centenary of the Russian Revolution, visit wsws.org/1917
white middle class church praying rustbelt

It's only getting worse.

"Deaths of despair"  deaths related to suicide, drugs, and alcohol  continue to increase among middle-aged white working-class Americans without a high-school degree, according to research by Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Their deaths are now outpacing those of minorities of the same class by a stunning margin.

Titled "Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century" and published by the Brookings Institution on Thursday, the findings are an update of Case and Deaton's 2015 work on death and illness among different demographic groups.

Based on Case and Deaton's work, we know that what started as a scourge in the Southwest in the early 2000s has spread to communities across the country. Geography isn't a dominant factor  this isn't a rural or urban problem exclusively. Instead, the problem is a class thing. It's an identity thing.

And this isn't the first time that social change has caused self-destructiveness on a mass scale. Indeed, 19th-century French sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote about similar problems in his time, and might refer to the plague of white middle-class mortality we see today as "a state of upheaval."

Of course, the lesson of the 2016 presidential election was that working- and middle-class whites are suffering. What Durkheim offers, though, is the argument for why the newly elected government in Washington  voted in by this very constituency  is getting the solution all wrong. The way to fix this problem is not through less government  but through more.

Durkheim's seminal work, the 1897 book "Suicide," remains one of the most in-depth examinations of why these situations occur in society, and it is as relevant as ever. Its lessons are an indication that as a country, we are moving swiftly, carelessly in the wrong direction.

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Strange

The Americans we are talking about are white and middle class. They are aged 45-55. They are losing the battle against heart disease and cancer, and they are succumbing to drugs, alcohol and suicide at rates unseen in modern history or in other developed countries.

"The combined effect means that mortality rates of whites with no more than a high school degree, which were around 30 percent lower than mortality rates of blacks in 1999, grew to be 30 percent higher than blacks by 2015," Case and Deaton wrote.

case deaton by race

The easy thing to say is that these people are suffering from economic and social anxiety and leave it at that. What's harder to pinpoint is what exactly that means and how to fix it. Economic conditions for minorities in the same social class and in the same communities are as hard, if not harder, than they are for middle class whites. But death rates aren't increasing for them.

This is where Durkheim comes in. He wrote his work in the midst of another state of upheaval, as industrialization was taking over the world and old economic patterns were falling away. This was the beginning of modern life as we now know it. And it was killing people.

No one remembers your name

Durkheim found that the degree to which a person is integrated in society is inversely correlated to their likelihood to engage in life-threatening behaviors and suicide.

In his work, he identified three kids of suicide: altruistic, anomic, and egoistic.

Of the three, the most complicated is anomic suicide. Anomie essentially means the breakdown of social values and norms, and Durkheim closely associated anomic suicide with economic catastrophe.

Case and Deaton associate trends in modern American mortality with the "measurable deterioration in economic and social wellbeing" of white middle-class workers as manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the workforce since the 1970s.

One of the big factors, then, in the increase in substance abuse and suicide among the white middle class could be a decline in the social framework as a result of the rapid economic changes seen over the last few decades.

It is not a surprise, then, that Donald Trump won the presidency on promising to bring these jobs back. The appeal of a high-paying honest job that commands respect from one's peers is strong. As Durkheim wrote: The workman is not in harmony with his social position if he his not convinced that he has his deserts."

That last word, deserts, is important. Anomic suicide is associated with one's expectations for oneself in modern society. This could explain why white middle-class Americans are taking the decline in their economic fortunes harder than their minority cohorts: In the old economic order, it was more or less understood that members of the white working class could, through hard work, attain a good life with a stable, high-paying job.

You know, the American Dream.

It's obvious that white middle-class Americans have had their dream shattered. All the while, the market, and the rest of the country, has moved on with the normal "feverish impatience of men's lives," as Durkheim wrote.

Deaths of despair for white non-Hispanics, 2000 and 2014

Faces look ugly when you're alone

The other of Durkheim's three forms of suicide, egoistic suicide comes from a state of heightened individualism in which a person is untethered from society. This can happen at times of person or collective stress. It is an evaporation of feelings of community support or common identity. It is an intense feeling of loneliness.

It might occur when someone loses their job, abandons their church, their institutions, their family  things that make them feel like a part of something larger. These are all characteristics of (but certainly not limited to) individuals going through economic hardship, and so along with the broader breakdown of society we considered above, self-destructive behavior and suicide could be driven by more personal catastrophes resulting from the changes of our era.

"Excessive individualism not only results in favoring the action of suicidogenic causes, but it itself is such a cause. It not only frees man's inclination to do away with himself from a protective obstacle but creates this inclination out of whole cloth and thus gives birth to a special suicide that bears its mark," he wrote.

Fortunately, it's possible for a broader functional community to circumvent this disastrous form of suicide. This feeling of loneliness is a cruel end that government, a pillar of American identity, can step in and help prevent when individuals are hurting. And it should, because when individuals are hurting they're destructive to themselves and their communities.

This is what government is for, in large part, protecting the collective from the violence (physical or social) perpetrated by some individuals.

But what our current government is offering is the opposite. Donald Trump ran on leaving entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone, but that's not happening, as can be seen in cuts to the latter program in the Republicans' proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Poll after poll showed that Trump voters wanted more investment in education, but that's not happening either. They want their communities built up, but instead they're having their resources taken away  they're being broken apart.

Listen to Mick Mulvaney, Trump's budget director, talk about school lunches not having any impact on performance, and you might forget that a school is not just a school  it's a community.

Listen to House Speaker Paul Ryan talk about Medicaid, and you may forget that its expansion is helping to fight the opioid epidemic ravaging the very communities we're discussing. This is nothing but cruelty.

Durkheim did some work on that kind of callousness among the rich and powerful too. We are a wealthy country  the wealthiest, actually  and that wealth can lead to folly.

He wrote, "Wealth ... by the power it bestows deceives us into believing that we depend on ourselves only. Reducing the resistance we encounter from objects, it suggests the possibility of unlimited success against them."

But success is never unlimited. The reality of life in America is that objects  in the form of social structures or physical disabilities  can defeat human beings.

Based on the way we talk about government we've clearly forgotten that. The people of Durkheim's time did too. Modern political structures, he wrote in "Suicide,' all work to "reduce government to the role of a more or less passive intermediary among the various social functions."

That role fails to acknowledge that objects  in this case the invisible forces of economic change and class structure  are in front of all of us, some of us more and some of us less. We are not born onto a level playing field of equal opportunity, and that field will not simply appear because we're American. We have to invest in it.

Opening up avenues of opportunity takes a powerful, concerted effort from the government, and when we fail to see that, we allow people in our society to be defeated. Trump, Ryan, and their ilk might tell you that the market can offer those opportunities naturally, but the market has never pretended to care for any of us, and the idea that a person can face it alone is beyond laughable.

You see, we're playing ourselves.

We are living in a delusion of our own power, and in the process  by undermining the utility of government for public good  casting aside the power of the collective. We are untethering ourselves from the very things that bind us together as a society.

As we stand, our "deaths of despair" rate is not getting better, and it's not going to. We are choosing to make it worse.

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A rash of alerts about missing teens in D.C. area is causing a stir locally and on social media. While the alerts may be misleading in severity, there is still a national issue to address about missing teens. (Image: Instagram)

In recent days, discussions across social media regarding what appears to be an alarming number of missing black and Latin teens across Washington, D.C., has become a rallying point. However, metropolitan officials say that the number of missing child and abduction cases have actually dropped, although there is a long-standing issue to address involving unreported missing teens and children.

As reported by local Washington outlet NBC 4 (WRC-TV), an inaccurate post stating that 14 girls went missing in a 24-hour period spread on social media and sparked trending topics around the girls. Police responded saying that under no circumstance did those acts occur but did admit that their use of Twitter and other social media tools has called new attention on the cases.



Since last week, D.C. police have shared 20 missing persons fliers via Twitter with 10 of those being under the age of 18. Since the Mar. 19 posting of the fliers, six of the juveniles have been located. In fact, authorities said that there has not been any increase in abduction cases but because most of the missing girls are of color, it sparked concerns of citizens across the nation.

Missing Person: Anjel Burl, 16, last seen 3/22 in 200 block of 43rd Rd., NE. Seen her? Call 202-727-9099. #MissingPerson pic.twitter.com/1KrT8TPeQi  DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) March 24, 2017

Given the very real specter of human and sex trafficking occurring here in the states and across the globe, the suggestion that an uptick in kidnappings and missing children naturally inspired worry and attention on the matter.



But according to D.C. police, missing child cases in the city dropped from 2,433 in 2015 to 2, 242 in 2016. There was 2,610 missing children during 2001 so the trend does show a lowering in number. This year, DC has reported 501 missing children cases with 22 juvenile cases unsolved.

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Thanks @nbcwashington for this great article breaking down what's happening with our #missingdcteens https://t.co/18oC5fc1gF  DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) March 24, 2017

Celebrities such as Russell Simmons and others have been sharing the false report, which sparked one popular hashtag #MissingDCGirls. Black lawmakers have also rallied in recent days and called on the FBI to address their efforts in finding the missing girls from the viral postings according to an Associated Press report.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), founded in 1984 by John and Reve Walsh, stated in a Key Facts section of the organizations website that children are often unreported as missing which makes getting a firm number difficult. The FBIs National Crime Information Center listed 465,676 entries for missing children in their files, an increase in the prior years data.

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.
A New York couple has been indicted for allegedly murdering their teenage son, who authorities said was deaf and had special needs, and then setting fire to their home to cover up the crime.

Ernest F. Franklin II, 35, and his 33-year-old wife, Heather Franklin, of Guilford, New York, were indicted Friday on charges of second-degree murder in the death of their adopted son, 16-year-old Jeffrey Franklin, according to the Chenango County Sheriffs Office in New York.

Ernest, an Iraq War veteran, and his wife, a stay-at-home mom, were also charged with third-degree arson and tampering with physical evidence.

Clockwise from top: Heather, Ernest and Jeffrey Franklin.

They will be arraigned on their indictments in Chenango County Court at a later date, according to the sheriffs office.

The arrests came after the investigation of a fire on March 1 at the familys rural 1,300-square-foot home in Guilford, about an hour outside Syracuse, New York.

Investigators believe the fire was set to cover up Jeffreys killing, as an autopsy determined he died before the blaze, according to the sheriffs office.

Authorities have not said how or when he was killed.

His parents wed in 2011 and adopted him six or seven years ago, the sheriffs office said. Heather, according to her Facebook page, is pregnant.

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.

Jeffreys death and his parents arrest have left the usually quiet community shaken.

People are asking themselves, How could this happen?  Chenango County Sheriff Ernest Cutting Jr. tells PEOPLE.

Certainly for the public here, its a mix of anger and frustration and disappointment, he says.

The Franklins were arrested on Wednesday. They were initially arraigned at the Town of Guilford Court on Thursday, where they entered a plea of not guilty to the same crimes on which they were then indicted, according to the sheriffs office.

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The investigation is ongoing and further charges may be filed, authorities said.

After their arrest, Ernest and Heather were taken to the Chenango County Jail, where they are being held without bail.

Reached by PEOPLE on Friday, neither attorney for the couple had a comment on the case.

Still Feeling Lost

On Sunday, days before Heather was arrested, she updated friends and family on her Facebook page about how much she missed her son, whom she called JR.

I am still feeling lost without JR to take care of, she wrote.

She also let people know that she and her husband had added their needs and wants to the CheckedTwice.com Family Gift Registry, because they lost everything in the fire.

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.

A GoFundMe set up shortly after the fire to help the parents with expenses raised more than $11,000, WBNG reports. The page has been taken down.

In a statement, GoFundMe said it would refund donors: Its important to remember that the platform is backed by the GoFundMe Guarantee, which means that in the rare case that GoFundMe, law enforcement or a user finds campaigns are misused, donors will get their money back.

Heather wrote that she and her husband were staying with friends but had found a new home and would be moving in once we have a bed (being donated by metro mattress!) and food in the house

Just know we are getting into this home due to all the financial support we have received (and know our insurance only protected the lender, not us), she continued.

Suspicious Fire

Deputies who responded to a 911 call about 1:15 a.m. on March 1 found the Franklin house completely engulfed in flames, with Jeffrey inside and unable to escape the fire, according to the sheriffs office.

At the time, authorities said the cause of the fire appeared to be a wood stove, which was the residences main heating source.

As authorities continue to search for answers, the community is still reeling from the teens death.

People are wondering how anybody could do something so brutal to a developmentally disabled and handicapped 16-year-old boy, Cutting tells PEOPLE.

There are a lot of people who would have taken him. There are organizations that would have taken care of him. Why resort to that? he says.

Its just a terrible, terrible tragedy.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
Photo credit: Getty

From Esquire

The battle over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch wasn't lost during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. It was lost long before, in 2016, when progressives failed to adequately express the outrage they felt over the way Republicans blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland. It was over when the offices of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley weren't flooded with angry letters and emails and phone calls from people demanding that Garland get at least a hearing and a vote. It was over when no one called the mighty Republican bluff.

It was over when the Obama administration inexplicably failed to press the legal and political case it had to get Garland that hearing and a vote. It was over when too many Democrats believed, tragically, that they could wait out Garland's nomination and have President Hillary Clinton renominate him. It was over when Donald Trump became president. It was over because conservatives always have cared more about the federal judiciary than liberals, or at least always have had a better cynical strategy to ensure ideological primacy in the nation's courts. Neil Gorsuch is to blame for none of that. He ends up being the guy in the right place at the right time. Like the guy who takes home the prize at the fair because the guy with the winning ticket can't find it.

Gorsuch is the guy who takes home the prize at the fair because the guy with the winning ticket can't find it.

Gorsuch's confirmation hearing this week was, predictably, devoid of any details about his judicial philosophy or ideology. But it was not devoid of insight. Judge Gorsuch revealed himself to be something different than the folksy Westerner, the Gary Cooper, that Americans are expected to buy. He is an honorable man. He has impeccable credentials and qualifications and an obvious mastery of the law. He also is every bit the conservative ideologue that his most suspicious critics think he is. For all the happy talk of judicial independence and equal justice, of the earnest zeal to "faithfully" apply the law, all the mansplaining about judicial humility and deference, Gorsuch is going to rule overwhelmingly in favor of conservative causes and principles, just like the man who preceded him, Antonin Scalia. To paraphrase John Roberts: Justice Gorsuch will call balls and strikes all right, just like an umpire, only one team will get almost all of the strikes and the other almost all of the balls. No one should pretend otherwise.

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Every judicial nominee promises to "judge the law neutrally." Every judicial nominee pledges to keep an open mind. Every candidate sucking up for Judicial Committee votes says he or she will respect precedent and be true to Constitutional values. And then the nominee becomes a judge, or a justice, and is free to "judge the law neutrally" in a way that hews to his or her own political orthodoxy. This is true of Democratic nominees and it is true of Republican nominees and it explains why so many of the most contentious political cases end up with sharply-divided opinions of the Court. This is precisely the point an exasperated Sen. Richard Durbin made Thursday morning when trying to pin down the patronizing nominee. The law is not nearly as clear as anyone wishes it to be. There is room in every single hard case for competing judicial philosophies to generate reasonable rulings that are diametrically opposed. It has always been this way and always will be this way. "I don't see Republican judges and I don't see Democrat judges," the nominee kept saying, as if saying it over and over again makes it so. If it were so, Justice Garland would be working his way through his first term as the junior justice.

The nominee's ties to Colorado billionaire Phillip Anschutz, only briefly explored during the hearing, tell us more about what Gorsuch will mean to America than his homespun talk of mutton-busting and family ski trips. The nominee was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he has been chosen for the High Court by the Trump administration specifically because of his politics, as expressed through his work for the Bush administration, his time in private practice, and the jurisprudence he has revealed during his time as a federal appeals court judge. The think tanks and dark money donors who supported his nomination didn't just buy in on him on spec. Sen. Lindsey Graham was at least candid enough about that on Thursday. The nominee isn't a moderate compromise selection designed to occupy the Court's center. He's not an olive branch to the party that won the popular vote. The Republican plan for Justice Gorsuch is to patrol the furtherest right wing of the court with Justice Samuel Alito.

The Republican plan for Justice Gorsuch is to patrol the furtherest right wing of the court with Justice Samuel Alito.

And that is precisely what he will do. Good news for big corporations. Bad news for environmentalists. Good news for prosecutors. Bad news for citizens seeking to rectify injustice. Good news for those wanting more religion in government. Bad news for those fighting for voting rights and civil rights and consumer rights and equal rights for women. Good news for those seeking to dismantle the regulatory state. Bad news for those who believe states may lawfully permit physician-assisted suicide. Good news for the Second and Tenth Amendments. Bad news for the Sixth and Eighth Amendments. Every justice who ever has sat on the Supreme Court has imbued his or her decisions with deeply personal policy.

Is it possible that Justice Gorsuch will one day betray those who have spent so much to support his nomination? Sure. He will occasionally surprise the country with a ruling that angers conservatives and heartens liberals. It may even happen a few times each term. Is there a chance he will move more consistently toward the center, as so many Republican justices have done over the past 50 years? That's possible, too. The one mystery about this nominee, about any lifetime judicial nominee really, is the impossibility of knowing what sort of judge that person will become after 10 or 20 or 30 years of sitting on the bench. The experience, we know, changes some people more than others. But, today, there is no reason to think that Justice Gorsuch is going to become a Justice Souter or a Justice Stevens. Those jurists truly were moderates, and practical men, who stayed toward the center as the conservative legal movement churned rightward past them.

The difference between Neil Gorsuch and Merrick Garland is the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is the difference between Republican and Democratic control of the Senate. It is a difference that ought to forever end the debate that there is no difference between the political parties and that elections don't really matter because Washington is Washington is Washington. The ideological gulf between Garland and Gorsuch is going to make a difference in the lives of every American today and every person yet to be born here in the next half century or more. And that's going to be true even though half those people won't ever be able to name a single justice, including Justice Gorsuch, when some pollster asks about it years from now.

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Slavery is not good, and health care reform is not easy. Seemingly obvious?

Maybe not, according to President Trump, who has said multiple times in speeches and interviews over the last year that nobody knows or people dont realize certain facts that are, in fact, widely known.

While this may be little more than a verbal tic, Trump has gotten some criticism from the remarks. On the other hand, hes not entirely wrong, since there is evidence that a lot of people arent aware of at least some of these things.

Here are five things Trump thinks America doesnt know.

Abraham Lincoln was a Republican

Earlier this week, Trump thought he was spreading the word - and urged GOP lawmakers to do the same - when he said Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Great president. Most people dont even know he was a Republican, Trump said Tuesday during an address at a National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser. Right? Does anyone know? A lot of people dont know that. We have to build that up a little bit more.

Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president who freed the slaves, was the first Republican to lead the nation. Many local Republican groups hold Lincoln Day Dinners to honor him, and the GOP is often referred to as the Party of Lincoln. More than half of Americans surveyed in a 2012 Pew Research poll knew Lincoln was a Republican. Fifty-five percent of the 1,000 adults surveyed correctly identified Lincolns political party, while 28% said he was a Democrat and 17% were unsure. Still, the confusion over Lincolns party affiliation can be seen in man on the street interviews like a segment in Foxs OReilly Factor in 2014.

Health care is complicated

While House Republicans were still cooking up a health care plan to replace Obamacare last month, Trump said reforming health care is not an easy task. I have to tell you, its an unbelievably complex subject, he told a group of governors. Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.

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Frederick Douglass deserves credit

Trump left many people scratching their heads in early February when he said the late Frederick Douglass is gaining more recognition. Trump was praising the famous abolitionist and former slave during a breakfast with black supporters to mark Black History Month when he said Douglass is an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, according to CNN. Trump was speaking about the contributions of black Americans like Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman ahead of his visit to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

Slavery is not good

During his first tour of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, Trump is said to have come across shackles for slave children and other artifacts and didnt like what he saw. Boy, that is just not good. That is not good, the president reportedly said, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That is really bad.

President Obama deported a lot of people

Trump suggested Americans were unaware of how many people his predecessor deported during an interview last month with Fox & Friends. Trump was talking about how he has tougher immigration policies than former President Barack Obama had when he said, You know, people dont realize, he deported a lot of people, but were focused on the bad people. Obama was heavily criticized by immigration groups during his tenure for the rate of deportation, and he made headlines last August for deporting more people than any other U.S. president. Immigration groups even dubbed him the Deporter-in-Chief.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Tad Cummins, the former Tennessee teacher at the center a multi-state AMBER Alert after he allegedly groomed and kidnapped one of his teenage students, frequently thought hed be a great educator.

I have often thought that I would love to be a teacher, and just might excel at it, but it never seemed to be my destiny, the 50-year-old wrote in his 2011 employment application to the Culleoka Unit School in Maury County, Tennessee.

The application, which was obtained by PEOPLE, details Cummins long work history - starting in 1985 as a technician at a medical equipment center. According to Cummins letter, teaching was his ideal second career, at which he thought he would do well.

Cummins was apparently a capable employee, according to school documents obtained by PEOPLE. In the years following his acceptance to Culleoka in 2011, for the position of the high schools health sciences teacher, he was asked to return.

Last week, however, Cummins was terminated from his job and accused of abducting his 15-year-old student Mary Catherine Elizabeth Thomas, after allegedly having sexual contact with her in January.

A warrant has been issued for Cummins arrest on charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor. The latter charge stems from an alleged kiss between him and Thomas, in January on school property, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Thomas, who goes by Elizabeth, was last seen on March 13 in Maury County, after a friend dropped her off at a local Shoneys.

From left: Mary Catherine Elizabeth Thomas and Tad Cummins.

In a previous interview with PEOPLE, Thomas sister, Sarah, said Elizabeth looked up to Cummins and idolized him for his years of experience in the medical field, where she aspired to work.

Before he joined the Maury County Public School District in 2011, Cummins worked in the health care industry for more than a decade. Before that, during his 20s, Cummins worked short-time jobs - most lasting about a year - including as an office manager at a local gas station and as a service advisor at Sears.

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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.

Cummins career took a different turn when he decided to study respiratory therapy at Tennessees Columbia State Community College in 1991. Two years later, he graduated magna cum laude and obtained his therapist level license, according to a copy of his resume.

From there, Cummins worked at a hospital in Columbia, Tennessee, as a respiratory therapy supervisor from 1994 to 2003, the longest stay of his career.

In July 2003, Cummins left the hospital and began working freelance.

He described himself in his teaching application as a longtime conga and guitar player and Christian, who has worked with children at local youth camps and Sunday schools.

Tad Cummins

The high school was impressed with Cummins long resume, which also included a trip to Panama to participate in a medical mission campaign, as well as a two-week disaster relief mission to Louisiana immediately following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

On his application, the school marked him down as an outstanding candidate and well-suited for the position.

He taught his first class a month after his interview.

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.

A Possible Sighting in Texas: Reports

On Friday, local investigators confirmed they had a call about a possible sighting of Cummins vehicle in Corpus Christi, Texas. The tip, which is one of more than 800 received since last week, included a partial plate number, The Tennesseean reports.

The person said they possibly saw the vehicle and they had a partial license plate description with a Tennessee tag, Gena Pena, of the Corpus Christi Police Department, told AL.com.

We sent several units [to US Highway 181] but we have not substantiated the tip yet, she told the site. Officers are still checking freeway cameras and working the call. If they did come through our town, we are going to everything we can to help.

Authorities allege Cummins is likely keeping Elizabeth off the grid and theyve urged the public to search their properties, local campgrounds, rural areas and parking garages. Investigators previously said Elizabeth had been placed in Decatur, Alabama, after she disappeared. They declined to specify how she was tracked.

In an open letter Thursday, her family said they were desperate for information about her disappearance and again asked people to come forward if they know something.

The last ten days have been the most difficult in the life of the Thomas family, they said in their letter, which was released Thursday via their attorney and obtained by PEOPLE.

From left: Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas at Culleoka Unit School, in January, in Tennessee.

Elizabeth was last seen wearing a flannel shirt and black leggings. She is 5 feet 5 inches inches tall and weighs 120 lbs., with blonde hair and hazel eyes.

Cummins was seen driving a Silver Nissan Rogue with Tennessee license plate 976ZPT, according to the TBI. He is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 lbs., with brown hair and eyes.

The Thomas family concluded their letter Thursday with a short declaration: Elizabeth must be found. Time is of the essence.

Anyone with information on Cummins or Elizabeth should call the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
The failure of the GOP health care bill Friday marked the latest instance of the Affordable Care Act surviving its challengers.

Were going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said.

For as long as its been in place, the bill has faced challenges by political opponents. Heres a look at the other times the health care law survived a near-death experience:

2010: Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is elected

Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican, was voted into office in January 2010 in a special election to fill the seat long held by Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. Brown campaigned on a promise to be the 41st vote against the Affordable Care Act - a number that would enable Senate Republicans to filibuster the bill.

When Brown was elected, the bill had already passed the Senate and was under consideration in the House. While some House Democrats wanted to make changes to the legislation, they knew that would send it back to the Senate for approval, where Republicans could filibuster. Looking to avoid that scenario, the House Democrats passed the bill as it was, without a single Republican vote.

2010: Republicans win back the House

Republicans won control of the House in 2010, propelled in part by a promise to roll back the Affordable Care Act.

If all of Obamacare cannot be immediately repealed, then it is my intention to begin repealing it piece by piece, blocking funding for its implementation and blocking the issuance of the regulations necessary to implement it, House Republican whip Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said at the time, according to the New York Times.

Cantor vowed to use every tool at our disposal to achieve full repeal of Obamacare.

2012: Supreme Court upholds Obamacare

In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act by a vote of 5 to 4, handing another victory to Obama and Democratic lawmakers. The ruling held that it was legal for the law to require Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.

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Chief Justice John Roberts was the deciding vote in what TIME called the biggest case of his career.

2012: Mitt Romney loses the presidential election

Like his fellow Republicans, Mitt Romney campaigned on a promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act if he won the 2012 presidential election, and he doubled down on the pledge after the Supreme Court ruling.

Our mission is clear: if we want to get rid of Obamacare, we are going to have to replace President Obama, Romney said on June 28, 2012, according to the Times. That is my mission. That is our work. And Im asking the American people to join me.

But Romney lost the election, and Obama served a second term.

2014: Republicans win control of the Senate

Republicans won control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, giving the GOP a majority in both legislative chambers. Like House Republicans in 2010, they built a campaign strategy out of opposition to Obamacare.

2015: Supreme Court rules in favor of Affordable Care Act again

In June 2015, the Supreme Court again upheld a key part of the health care law, handing down a 6-3 decision that allowed the federal government to provide tax credits to help qualifying Americans buy health insurance.

We really should start calling this law Scotus-care, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the dissenting opinion, said at the time.

2016: Donald Trump elected president

Trump repeatedly promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act during his presidential bid. The failure of the GOP health care bill on Friday represented the first blow to that pledge.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen is exactly what happened today because well end up with a truly great health care bill in the future after this mess known as Obamacare explodes, Trump said Friday afternoon.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
During the phone calls, which came to House Speaker Paul Ryan at all hours, President Trump had one question more than any other: When can you get Obamacare repealed? The details didnt much matter for Trump. He wanted a victory.

It turned out that dismantling a law affecting one-sixth of the U.S. economy was a lot more popular as a slogan than as legislation, and that victory proved difficult to secure. Republicans made their first stab toward repeal on Friday, only to have the effort spiked at the hands of their own members. Democrats stood unified and the Republicans, who hold the majority, could not. Ultimately, Ryan pulled the bill from consideration just before members of the House were set to cast votes.

We came really close today, but we came up short, Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill. This is a disappointing day for us.

At the White House, Trump estimated he was 10 or 15 votes short of the finish line. We learned a lot about loyalty, Trump said, seated in the Oval Office and clearly stung by the loss.

Trump, Ryan and their allies made a number of tactical errors as they tried to deliver on a promise made repeatedly over the course of several campaigns. Ryan called repealing Obamacare a promise that demanded to be made into action, but many in his caucus agreed with the principle but not the specifics and rejected the path forward. Were going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future, Ryan said, suggesting healthcare was off the table for the time being.

Here are some of the reasons the Obamacare gambit failed.

Donald Trump campaigned with big promises. As a candidate, Trump told his crowds that he would improve and expand care, bring down costs for treatment and drugs, and give Americans more choices. His pledges won him huge applauses and enough votes to earn the presidency. But it left fellow Republicans in something of a lurch.

For one, the centerpiece of the Republicans healthcare plan was to scrap the requirement that everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty. By removing that requirement, it would reduce the number of people buying coverage, which, in turn, would make prices continue their climb upward. The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan referee of policy and money, estimated that some 24 million fewer people would have coverage under the plans the GOP considered.

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At the same time, Trumps promise to make care cheaper ran into stiff headwinds in the House. In a bid to win over conservative lawmakers, Trump agreed to scrap provisions of the bill that covered emergency room care, prescription drugs and mental health coverage. (In the end, the play wasnt enough and alienated many moderates who hail from states plagued by the opioid crisis.) And the promise to bring drug prices down through government edict ran afoul of legislative rules. Eventually, costs would come down, according to the budget chiefs-because older Americans, who require more care, couldnt afford to buy coverage in the first place.

Finally, Trump promised he would protect Medicaid, the health program for lower-income Americans. The CBO says the plan would spend $880 billion less over the next decade than if the law were untouched. The White House says thats not a cut, but merely capping spending increases at 3.7 percent instead of the currently projected 4.4 percent growth rate.

Trump believed his record was predictive. At first, they said Trump wasnt going to really run for President. Then, there were doubts if the thrice-married billionaire could carry a single state in a Republican primary. Then, he was going to be shut out of the race in South Carolina, Michigan, Florida and then, finally, Indiana. Opponents considered how to deny him the nomination at the partys convention in Cleveland, then mulled dropping him from the ticket as scandal engulfed his campaign just before the second of three debates. Finally, Trumps critics took solace the last weekend before Election in the polls that showed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leading Trump. Surely, he wasnt going to win the White House. At every juncture, these naysayers were proved wrong.

Before Friday, the laws of political physics had yet to apply to Trump. Even after being shown, on video, to brag about sexually assaulting women, Trump still carried the majority of white female voters. So he counted on his luck continuing as he pushed his first major piece of legislation in the face of a hostile reality. Everyone on the TVs he watches so much had often been proved wrong, and he wanted another shot at making them look foolish. After all, its how he arrived at the White House and winning against all odds was all he knew in politics.

Trump famously is not a details person. The New York billionaire is accustomed to striking the broad outlines of agreements and leaving his lieutenants to hammer out the minutiae of his business dealings. In health care, an incredibly difficult policy morass where one errant breeze can result in billions of accounting changes, glossing over the details as not useful.

Health care professionals in Washington and around the country alike guffawed when Trump made an offhanded comment to Governors and health executives meeting with him at the White House. Its an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated, Trump mused. Actually, many in the room were aware of the pitfalls and were there to urge Trump to more seriously consider what lay before him.

Even as the repeal plan appeared in peril, Trump turned to Twitter (of course) to cajole reluctant lawmakers from the conservative Freedom Caucus. He warned his 27 million online followers that if the Freedom Caucus didnt support the plan, they would in allow Planned Parenthood to keep open its doors. The President didnt seem to understand that the bills plan to defund the womens health group-which in addition to abortion at some clinics funds services such as mammograms and contraception-would not survive the Senate. Separately, a Quinnipiac University poll found 62% of all Americans oppose cutting off federal dollars, which cannot fund abortions, from Planned Parenthood.

Its tough to take away programs. Even those who despise Barack Obama and his health care plan have benefited from it. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found that at least 3 million people who live in consistently Republican-voting states receive health care subsidies to help them afford coverage. Adding in the swing states that Trump won, that number goes to 6 million people. Confronted with a Bloomberg analysis that the Republicans plan would disproportionately have a negative impact on countries that Trump carried, Trump seemed nonplussed. I know, he told Foxs Tucker Carlson.

Many lawmakers were insistent that any repeal effort be coupled with a replacement plan to fill in the gaps. As written, it had some serious limits that Democrats were eager to highlight. In the end, the pressure mounted and enough Republicans realized that ditching programs that touch every constituent back home was bad politics. There is, after all, a reason Republicans have never dismantled FDRs New Deal programs or LBJs Great Society efforts.

The outside groups did not buy in. Its tough to oversell the powerful hive of outside conservative groups that have tremendous influence in the Republican Party. Breaks with party orthodoxy often result in primary challenges from deep-pocketed interest groups who seek to punish scofflaws. In ways, these fights become proxy battles over competing spheres of influence in the GOP, and millions from outside the states are not uncommon. The Establishment-minded U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, backed a primary challenger in Kansas against a tea party firebrand who needled party leadership and had the backing of the network backed by billionaires Charles and David Koch.

This year, the nexus of outsiders stood ready. FreedomWorks, a libertarian group that organizes grassroots activists, staged a rally in opposition on Capitol Hill that drew favorites like Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas-both of whom lobbied allies in the House to stop the bill as written. Heritage Action, the political arm of the respected Heritage Foundation, sent lawmakers a reminder that it was strongly opposed an awful bill that will impact millions of Americans lives and is opposed by nearly every serious conservative health care analyst. This legislation is a policy, process and political disaster. And the Koch network was ready with millions to give defectors political cover.

By contrast, Trump threatened lawmakers who didnt sign on with re-election troubles of their own. Yet his outside political arm has yet to show its teeth. Its most memorable work so far has been a series of tweets and a commercial criticizing CNNs Jim Acosta. Its leaders have been busy on Twitter, but its tough to match millions in campaign cash with 140-character bursts.

Trump trusted Ryan. The union of these two was always rocky. Trump is an outsider who has few unbendable political beliefs, while Ryan was a junior aide to Jack Kemp and student of his conservative ideology. Trump prides himself on being unpredictable whereas Ryan likes order and regimen. Trump vamps his way to victories while Ryan met with reporters armed with a PowerPoint about their strategy.

Ryan, who considered going to the University of Chicago to study economics, had hashed through details and legislative language with his trusted inner-circle at the Capitol. Asked about potential amendments and changes just after the New Year holiday, aides dismissed them. The plan Ryan had crafted was the plan. And the White House sent aides regularly to the Capitol for updates.

A fractured House had other ideas. Freedom Caucus members were champing for more severe changes that would fun afoul of Senate rules if not Senate votes. Ryan tried to explain that if his conference wanted to take an absolutist repeal, they would need the almost-impossible 60 votes in the Senate and not just the 51 they were seeking under the current legislative process. Fueled by outsiders and folks like Cruz, the deeply conservative members insisted on more concessions.

Trump then opened negotiations. Trump sees himself as a talented negotiator. He is credited with a New York Times best-seller titled The Art of the Deal. He sees everything as a give-and-take-contracts, legislation, politics, family life. There are always better terms to be had. Trump agreed to some of the Freedom Caucus demands, such as letting states decide what were deemed essential services in plans regulated by state insurance commissions. (Governors and state lawmakers, it should be noted, were none-too-eager to have the choice about whether to cover pre-natal care land in their laps.)

Freedom Caucus members were goaded on. Rand Paul bought his House colleagues copy of Trumps Art of the Deal to highlight how Trump saw the world as a string of compromises in pursuit of a win. The Freedom Caucus had notched one victory. It was time for another. And another. And another. But they were not officially signing on as supporters, and ever shift rightward made it more difficult for lawmakers from swing districts or from moderate ideological backgrounds to acquiesce. Finally, Trump had reached his limit. He sent his budget chief, a former Freedom Caucus member, to the Hill to tell lawmakers that negotiations were over. He had done enough.

The Republicans forgot how to govern. After eight years with Obama in the White House, the GOP had forgotten how to pass legislation that the White House would sign. Ryan said he was aware of the problem during a 10-minute session with reporters where he accepted blame for the failure. He repeatedly said his caucus was used to functioning as an opposition party looking to move into a governing one. We werent just quite there today. We will get there, Ryan said.

Trump demanded a vote. His budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, and other top aides told Ryan that it was time to vote. The White House was done with the drama, at Trumps insistence, and was ready to move on. His team issued an ultimatum late Thursday. (None of this took into account the headache the Senate would have carried with it for several more weeks of bill rewrites and negotiations.)

Trump wanted a conclusion. What started as a way for him to declare major victory became a crisis in search of an exit strategy. He met with Ryan midday Friday, during which time the House Speaker urged him to reconsider his insistence on having a recorded and messy vote. Trump listened and agreed. It was the most serious setback for his young Administration. Trump wanted out-and, given his proclivities, an enemy to blame for this embarrassment that ultimately left him weaker as he looks ahead to the next skirmish.

- With reporting by Sam Frizell and Zeke J. Miller in Washington.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Scandal Season 6, episode 8 will be an Abby Whelan (Darby Stanchfield)-centric episode and will be told from the characters perspective.

In the previous episode, it was revealed that Abby instructed Meg (Phoebe Neidhardt) to kill Jennifer (Chelsea Kurtz) and Huck (Guillermo Diaz). Meg did as she was told, and she shot Jennifer in the chest and the forehead guaranteeing her demise. However, Meg shot Huck on the right side of his chest so it is possible that he is still alive.

Meg and Huck seemingly fell in love in the previous episodes, so it is highly likely that the former shot the latter for Abby. However, Meg could also not kill Huck and just lie about doing it to Abby. But what remains unclear is Abbys reason for wanting both characters dead.

Read: Did Meg kill Huck?

In the previous episodes, Abby has been working with Governor Frankie Vargas (Ricardo Chavira) and Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry) while the two campaigned to become the next president and vice president of the United States. Campaigning against them at the time were Mellie Grant and Jake Ballard for the same position. However, Frankie was named the president of the United States on election night.

Meanwhile, it was also recently revealed that it was Olivia Popes (Kerry Washington) dad, Rowan (Joe Morton), who assassinated Frankie after he was named president of the country. But he only did it as he was told to protect his daughter. Now that the secret is out, Abbys connection to Rowan and the secret organization hes been working for will also be revealed in A Stomach For Blood.

Scandal Season 6, episode 8 will air on ABC on March 30 at 9 p.m. EST.

Scandal

Photo: ABC

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Hong Kong (AFP) - Pro-democracy activists and hundreds of supporters marched in Hong Kong Saturday ahead of a vote for the city's next leader which they reject as a sham.

Hong Kong's next chief executive will be chosen by a pro-China committee on Sunday morning with former deputy leader Carrie Lam widely seen as Beijing's favourite for the job, but intensely disliked by the democracy camp who view her as a hardliner.

It is the first leadership vote in the semi-autonomous city since mass rallies in 2014 calling for fully free elections failed to win reform and comes as concern grows that Beijing is increasingly interfering in Hong Kong.

Some of the marchers on Saturday held yellow umbrellas, symbol of the democracy movement, and chanted "Oppose Chinese authorities' appointment -- we should choose our own government!"

The city's best-known pro-democracy campaigner, Joshua Wong, said he expected more protesters to gather Sunday as committee members cast their votes at the harbourfront convention centre.

"It will be a nightmare for us if Carrie Lam is elected, but we will still continue to generate more motivation to fight against suppression and the interference of China's government," said student Wong, 20, who became the face of the 2014 "Umbrella Movement" protests.

The pro-democracy camp makes up only a quarter of the 1,194-strong election committee, which is drawn from a range of special interest groups, ranging from agriculture to real estate.

Most democrats on the committee have said they will support Lam's main rival John Tsang, a former finance minister seen as a more moderate establishment figure.

Tsang drew thousands of supporters to his final campaign rally in central Hong Kong Friday night, and is a clear favourite in most public opinion polls.

However, the vast majority of Hong Kong's 3.8 million voters do not participate in the selection of the chief executive and Lam is widely expected to win thanks to support from pro-China members of the election committee.

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Democracy campaigners marching Saturday from the commercial area of Causeway Bay to a square near Sunday's voting venue said regardless of what people thought of the individual candidates, the system needed to change.

"I feel our power is still not strong enough to bargain with the Beijing government," said lawmaker Eddie Chu, but he added he still believed universal suffrage was Hong Kong's destiny.

The 2014 rallies left campaigners frustrated they could not force concessions from China and sparked a new wave of young activists calling for self-determination or full independence for Hong Kong.

However, it is not only the younger generation who are dissatisfied.

One 59-year-old protester who gave her name as Miss Lau said most Hong Kong residents want their own vote.

"I'm a Hong Kong citizen -- it is my right," she told AFP.

"We don't want the government to ignore us."
ISLAMABAD (AP)  Shahid Afridi has quit as president and player of Pakistan Super League champions Peshawar Zalmi due to personal reasons.

"My best wishes with Peshawar Zalmi nd as far as my Peshawar fans r concerned I know they are with me wherever i go," Afridi tweeted late Friday night.

Afridi hinted he might play for another franchise in the PSL next year, saying that he won the trophy for one team, "time for another."

The flamboyant all-rounder handed over the captaincy to West Indian Darren Sammy before the start of the second edition of PSL after he was named president of the Peshawar Zalmi franchise.

Earlier this month, the enigmatic all-rounder missed the historic final of the PSL in Lahore due to an injury in his right hand.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump, the author of the best-selling book, "The Art of the Deal," is about to see his deal-making abilities ratified in a legislative showdown on the House floor  or dramatically rebuffed.

Trump, in a message relayed by White House officials, demanded that House Republican leaders vote Friday on a GOP-backed health care bill embraced by the president, placing the legislation on the brink of failure and jeopardizing his vow to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's health care law.

By gambling on passing the major health care bill without the votes in hand, the former casino owner is staking the trajectory of his presidency on a roll of the dice, betting Republicans will go along rather than stand in the way of the long-sought repeal of "Obamacare." White House officials told lawmakers they would leave the health care law in place if the vote fails.

Trump's ultimatum came after House Republicans delayed a planned vote on the bill, a sign of possible defeat. In the weeks leading up to Thursday, Trump did his best to arm-twist resistant conservatives and moderates opposed to the legislation. He revived his campaign rallies to remind the voters, and their representatives, of the GOP's promises. He invited Republican lawmakers to the White House, having his advisers join them for bowling and pizza nights and cajoling them over the phone.

Famous for his lack of sleep, the president called lawmakers late into the night Wednesday in search of votes.

On Thursday, the president met with the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and the moderate Tuesday Group at the White House  but the lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill without a deal. Seeking a conclusion, Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney told lawmakers it was time to vote and to move on.

Earlier in the day, Trump dismissed the deadlock as pure "politics." But, even allies noted, politics is his new business and he may still have a learning curve.

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"I think he's probably discovering that the relationships on the Hill and the various groups are more challenging to negotiate than you would have thought and there's more history than he would have thought," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump supporter. "There are a lot of people who don't trust each other." Gingrich suggested that if the House was unable to win passage in the coming days, "then they have to take a deep breath and take a little longer."

To be certain, all aspiring presidents campaign on their ability to get things done, and many newly elected presidents later discover it's harder than it looks.

Still, the stakes for the president are high. Trump has referred to this health care legislation as the linchpin to an ambitious legislative agenda to overhaul the tax system and rebuild roads and bridges. A legislative defeat on health care only two months into his presidency would put into doubt his ability to win passage for those priorities and contradict the "Promises Made, Promises Kept" signs that have dotted his recent rallies.

It would also leave in disarray a young presidency already marked by a court challenges to a signature immigration policy, internal White House disputes, leaks, ethics questions and an FBI investigation into whether his campaign associates coordinated with the Russians leading up to the election.

Those aren't Trump's only troubles. He is negotiating with some lawmakers who have little incentive to cut a deal with an embattled president.

Several of the lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus outperformed Trump in their deeply conservative districts, leaving them scant reason to worry about retribution in the next election.

Conservative organizations like FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, Heritage Action and Tea Party Patriots oppose the plan  frequently calling it "Obamacare lite"  even after the facetime with Trump. That gives conservatives the backup to go against the president even in congressional districts that Trump won overwhelmingly.

The White House has made concessions to conservatives, offering to amend the bill to axe key Obamacare provisions that guarantee insurance coverage of maternity care, mental health services, regular checkups and other essential health services.

In a sign of the tug-of-war that the bill has created within the party, the concessions pushed some moderates away. The future of the provisions remained fluid.

For a president who frequently holds grudges, Trump has yet to openly threaten dissenters with potential primary challenges. And only on Thursday did he use his massive Twitter feed to urge the public to pressure their members of Congress to back the plan.

The White House refused to entertain the possibility of failure. Even as Republican lawmakers prepared to cancel a Thursday vote on the legislation, Trump maintained that the bill still had a chance to pass the House. He told a meeting with trucking executives and drivers, "It's going to be a very close vote."

It wasn't the first time Trump has appeared somewhat distanced from the health care debate. He has, at times, skated over the details of the policy, promising a "terrific" health plan but veering away the particulars.

In a meeting with governors last month, the president appeared to express surprise about the system's complexity. "I have to tell you, it's an unbelievably complex subject," Trump said. "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."

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Associated Press Writer Ken Thomas has covered the White House and national politics for The Associated Press since 2011.

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Follow Ken Thomas at https://twitter.com/kthomasdc

An AP News Analysis
PARIS (AP)  Police in Monaco say robbers have carried out an armed heist at a luxurious Cartier jewelry shop in Monte Carlo and one of the suspects has been captured.

The Monegasque police authority said three individuals carrying at least one firearm targeted the shop Saturday afternoon near the famed casino square in the French principality. Police say the robbers fled and set fire to their getaway car.

One of the armed men was caught by police who closed the principality's borders but the two others managed to escape.

Police were unable to specify what the robbers had stolen or how valuable it was.

Police say no shots were fired, no injuries reported and no hostages were taken in the robbery but some Cartier shop assistants have been given psychological counseling.
DHAKA (Reuters) - At least three people, including a policeman, were killed and scores wounded in two separate bomb blasts on Saturday near a militant hideout that was raided by commandos in northeastern Bangladesh, police said. The explosions in the Sylhet district came a day after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint near the country's main airport in an attack claimed by Islamic State. Two people were killed and more than 30 injured in one of the blasts near the hideout and a policemen died in the second in front of the building, police official Rokon Uddin said. Several army and police personnel were among the injured, he added. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Army commandos had stormed the hideout, which belonged to the local Islamist group, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, blamed for the cafe attack in July last year in which 22 people were killed, most of them foreigners. On Saturday, commandos rescued all 78 people trapped inside the five-storey building for more than a day in an operation that was still underway. The raid came after a string of suicide attacks on security bases this month. A forensic report confirmed that Friday's attack was a suicide blast that was the third incident involving explosives in the capital, Dhaka, in a week. Islamic State and Al Qaeda have made competing claims over killings of foreigners, liberals and members of religious minorities in Bangladesh, a mostly Muslim country of 160 million people. The government has consistently ruled out the presence of such groups, blaming domestic militants instead, though security experts say the scale and sophistication of the cafe attack suggested links to a transnational network. (Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Gareth Jones and David Evans)
- John Wall scored 22 points and Bradley Beal added 19 as the Washington Wizards completed a four-game season sweep of the Brooklyn Nets with a 129-108 victory on Friday. Brandon Jennings came off the bench to score 18 points with nine assists for the Wizards, who led by as many as 28 points. The Wizards have now won two in a row. They improved to 44-28 and moved one game ahead of the idle Toronto Raptors for third place in the NBA's Eastern Conference.

AFP
Minsk (AFP) - Belarus authorities raided the offices of a prominent rights group Saturday, detaining dozens of people, including foreign rights workers, ahead of a planned protest by opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko.

The police also detained dozens in the streets and seized a leading opposition leader, Vladimir Nekliayev, as he was returning from Poland, taking him off the train at the border and placing him in a detention facility.

Scores of people that turned up for the 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) rally were grabbed by riot police and placed in vans, including several journalists. Some were beaten, an AFP correspondent observed.

Viasna, a nongovernmental organisation that had been tracking arrests and protest rallies across Belarus in recent weeks, said riot police had broke down the door, "put people face down on the floor and told them to stay there".

"There were 57 people detained, including foreign observers," it said on its website.

Viasna's director, Ales Beliatski, later told AFP that about 1,000 people had been detained Saturday.

The people seized at Viasna's offices were taken to a police station, where they were told they are "suspected of banditism," searched and let out of the station in small groups after most of the protest had been broken up, the group's lawyer Anastasiya Loiko said.

"They put us on the ground, and they took some telephones," Masha Chichtchenkova, a Franco-Belarusian member of Front Line Defenders, told AFP after her release.

"They put us in a minibus and took us to a gymnasium," she said.

Saturday's protest was the latest in a series of events against Lukashenko's authoritarian regime, and the largest since the mass demonstrations that followed his disputed re-election in December 2010.

Thousands have attended rallies in recent weeks to oppose a controversial new tax on "spongers" or "freeloaders" -- those who work less than six months a year -- as the country suffers an economic slump, with the swell in protests alarming the government.

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Authorities late Friday told organisers that the event would be illegal. On Saturday, scores of armoured police trucks and water cannons, as well as officers with automatic rifles, were deployed in the city.

The European Commission called for all detained protesters to be "immediately released" by the authorities.

"Respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms, including of expression, association and assembly, needs to be upheld," the commission's delegation to Belarus said in a statement.

- State media silence -

Dozens had already been arrested in the days ahead of Saturday's event, as state television aired reports of alleged weapons caches discovered while police armed with automatic rifles were in the city centre for the first time in decades.

But there was no mention of the harsh crackdown by state media outlets on Saturday evening.

The police had blocked off the Minsk square where the protest was to start and sealed off metro exits, and hauling off several people at the scene into vans.

But several hundred others managed to walk with Belarusian red-and-white flags shouting "Shame!" before being broken up as riot police brandishing shields lined up to block main streets.

Several journalists were also detained in Minsk and in Gomel, a city in southeastern Belarus, according to the Belarus Association of Journalists. The team from Belsat, an opposition channel based in Poland, had their camera smashed, it said.

Amnesty International said on its Russian-language Twitter account that dozens of people were grabbed off the street "indiscriminately".

Nekliayev, the opposition leader who was set to speak at the protest, was stopped at the border Saturday morning on his way to Minsk, his wife told AFP.

"He is in a detention facility in Brest," Olga Nekliayeva said, referring to the city in southwestern Belarus close to the Polish border.

Many had planned to travel to the capital from the provinces for the protest, but the Belarusian railway monopoly halted online sales for several hours overnight Friday to Saturday, ostensibly for "technical works".
Rep. Beth Fukumoto, who served as the Republican leader of Hawaiis House of Representatives until being demoted for calling out President Donald Trump, resigned from her party Wednesday.

Fukumoto, 33, who was the youngest Hawaii lawmaker to be the states House minority leader, will now try to become a Democrat, NBC News reported Wednesday. Trumps presidential campaign rhetoric in which he frequently marginalized Muslim and Mexican communities caused the Republican Party to become a political group that tolerates racism and sexism, Fukumoto wrote in a letter announcing her resignation Wednesday.

Read: Hawaii Mosque Receives Threatening Messages Amid New Trump Travel Ban

Republican lawmakers in Hawaii stripped away Fukumoto's position as House Minority leader one day after she addressed participants of Hawaiis Women March in January and said Trumps remarks about women and minorities on his campaign were unacceptable.

"This party has chosen to be Trump's party. The Hawaii Republican Party is the party of Trump. Especially the things he says about minorities, if the Republican Party doesn't contradict them I do think it's going to hurt," Fukumoto told local reporters Thursday.

Fukumoto, however, has received an outpouring of support among her constituents about her decision to leave the Republican Party, with more than 70 percent of hundreds of letters from citizens applauding her for the move, according to Reuters. Fukumoto's resignation Wednesday caused her to become the only Independent in the state's House of Representatives.

Fukumoto, the granddaughter of a Japanese-American grocery store owner, reportedly became convinced that resigning was the clear choice when Trump and his Republican supporters failed to condemn the internment of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II while promoting a Muslim registry. Creating a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries would be legal and hold constitutional muster, Republican Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told CBS News on Nov. 17, citing the internment of Japanese-Americans and security measures put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks where non-citizen male U.S. residents over the age of 16 from countries considered as military threats had to register with government offices.

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Hawaii was the first state to take legal action against Trump's second attempt at banning citizens from Muslim countries from traveling to the U.S. Earlier this month, state attorneys filed a 40-page request to a federal judge saying the executive order was unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it discriminated against Muslims, NBC News reported.

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When 10-year-old Haden Edwards found out just how sick his brother Max was, he told their mom he wanted to take him on a shopping trip.

"So I asked him, 'Where's your money?'" Cynthia Davis told InsideEdition.com. "I said, 'You can mow the grass or help with the dishes, or do anything else to earn some money.'"

But Haden had a better idea.

"He said he's going to draw pictures," she recalled.

Read: Father Discovers 1-Year-Old Son's Cancer After Noticing a Minor Blemish on a Photograph

So Haden, who's always loved to draw, got to work. The youngster, who has autism, set up shop outside the family's home in Lincolnton, North Carolina with a sign that read: "Selling Drawings for Mad Max."

Davis put a note on Facebook asking her friends to come by if they had the time, and within 30 minutes, 30 people showed up, all asking to buy Haden's $1 drawings.

Since then, their mother estimates he's earned approximately $1,000 for his little brother, with help from donations to their Gofundme page.

Max, 7, is battling multiple medical conditions, including Neurofibromatosis, which is a genetic disorder that has caused tumors to grow on his brain. Last year, he underwent an unsuccessful brain surgery. He continues to take daily medications to keep seizures and cramps at bay but his pain is getting worse, his mother said. Next month, they'll find out if he'll undergo another brain surgery or chemotherapy.

A few months ago, Haden joined his brother at some of his doctors' appointments. For Haden, who has autism and bipolar disorder, those visits marked a real change.

"When he realized how sick Max was, it's like it calmed him down," Davis said. "He's not focused on his anger anymore. He's focused on his brother."

He used to enjoy drawing dragons, dinosaurs and lizards, but now he prefers to take requests. He's since drawn Pokemon, angels and memorial pictures for people who've lost a loved one or a pet.

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"If he's not sure how to draw something, he watches YouTube videos on different techniques, then he'll do it himself," his mom said.

Now he sells his drawings every few days. After he makes money, he shows Max and they decide how they're going to spend it.

Haden has treated his brother to ice cream and meals from his favorite restaurants, but most often, the money goes towards Legos.

"Then they'll just spend time together," Davis said. "They'll spend all day long with each other."

Haden has always loved to help other people, said Davis, who lives by the mantra "you get what you give." Twice a month, he volunteers for Meals on Wheels  delivering food and scrubbing the trays and he's also helped hold fundraisers for a nearby nursing home.

Read: Boy, 12, Diagnosed With Brain Tumor Right After Shaving His Head For Cancer Fundraiser

If they're out in a restaurant and Haden sees a veteran or an officer, he'll put $5 towards their meal. And most recently, he said he wants to grow out his red hair  "his pride and joy"  so that it can be turned into wigs for cancer patients.

Max is just as impressed with his big brother's acts of kindness, and he thinks the drawings "are the coolest thing in the world," Davis said.

And while the drawings have no doubt helped Max, they're helping Haden too.

"Being autistic, it's very hard to keep his self-esteem high," his mom said. "That is no longer an issue. Every time he gets a new [picture] request, he just lights right up."

Haden would particularly like to raise awareness about the work carried out by the Children's Tumor Foundation and the Chiari and Syringomyelia Foundation. Visit the family's Gofundme page here.

Watch: Boy With Cancer Sells Hot Chocolate to Raise Money for Other Sick Children

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London (AFP) - Britain's anti-immigration, anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) lost its only MP on Saturday when Douglas Carswell quit the party, just days before Prime Minister Theresa May is to launch the formal Brexit process.

Carswell defected from the ruling Conservative Party in 2014 to become the only UKIP member of the 650-seat House of Commons, but he has long been at odds with the party's founder, Nigel Farage.

In a blog post, Carswell said the party had played a leading role in last year's referendum vote to leave the European Union, but it was "job done".

"I will leave UKIP amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won," he wrote, adding that he would continue to serve as an independent lawmaker.

His announcement came just days before May plans to trigger on Wednesday Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, starting a two-year countdown to Brexit.

Carswell's ties with the rest of the party had long been strained, and Farage had accused him of being soft on immigration -- a key issue in the June 23 Brexit referendum.

Although Farage is no longer leader of UKIP, last month he asked Carswell to step down, saying he "actively and transparently seeks to damage us".

Arron Banks, a key UKIP donor and a key funder behind the Brexit campaign, responded to Carswell's decision by posting a smiling face emoticon on Twitter.

"Duplicitous Douglas Carswell, who supports mass immigration, is finally out of UKIP," added a tweet from Banks's Brexit campaign, Leave.EU.

"Was he a Tory plant all along?"

- 'Changing wind' -

Carswell was first elected to parliament in 2005 as a Conservative, and his 2014 resignation sparked a by-election in which he was re-elected as a UKIP lawmaker for the southeastern English seat of Clacton.

"Like many of you, I switched to UKIP because I desperately wanted us to leave the EU," he wrote.

"Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving UKIP," he said, adding that "Brexit is in good hands".

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He said he was not switching parties, which meant there would be no need for a new election. "I will simply be the member of parliament for Clacton, sitting as an independent," he said.

Carswell paid tribute to UKIP's efforts, saying that despite their failure to have more MPs voted into parliament, "In a way we are the most successful political party in Britain ever".

He even offered some praise for Farage, who failed several times to win a seat in the Commons, though he is one of 20 UKIP members of the European Parliament.

"Make no mistake; we would not be leaving the EU if it was not for UKIP, and for those remarkable people who founded, supported and sustained our party over that period," Carswell said.

But his resignation is a blow after months of infighting in the party, which is struggling to find a winning platform beyond its core message of euroscepticism and opposition to mass immigration.

Last month UKIP failed to win a by-election in Stoke, the city that recorded the highest vote for Brexit last year and which had been viewed as the party's best hope to win a second MP.

"Maybe Carswell senses the changing wind? Maybe he walked before he was pushed?" Matthew Goodwin, an expert on the political right, posted on Twitter.

"Maybe he should never have joined UKIP in the first place? Farage never saw Carswell as 'true UKIP'," he added.

For Tim Farron, leader of the pro-European Liberal Democrats, Carswell's decision to quit showed that the party had outlived its usefulness.

"UKIP have no purpose. Theresa May is now effectively UKIP's leader and has adopted their hard Brexit agenda," he said.
By Peter Henderson RIVERSIDE, Calif. (Reuters) - California on Friday challenged the Trump administration's approach to car pollution, approving standards that the White House said still need review and setting up a potential face-off between federal and state regulators. California Governor Jerry Brown and other state officials have vowed to lead the defense of environmental and other traditionally liberal causes against President Donald Trump. About a dozen states follow California's car regulations in full or part, and the potential face-off between federal and state regulators could be expensive for automakers and a headache for consumers. On Friday, the California Air Resources Board in a unanimous vote finalized 2022-2025 vehicle pollution rules for the state, set a mandate for zero-emission sales over the same time period, and ordered its staff to start work on targets for after 2025. Last week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it would reconsider the 2022-2025 tailpipe emissions targets after auto makers requested the review. The Obama administration rushed to finalize the federal standards after Trump's election and car manufacturers said there was not enough time for consideration. California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols chided automakers for requesting federal intervention and questioned whether they wanted to undermine California's authority. "What were you thinking when you threw yourself on the mercy of the Trump administration to try to solve your problems?" she said. She invited the auto industry to suggest implementation changes that would not undermine the program's goals. John Bozzella, president and chief executive of the Global Automakers industry alliance, focused on the potential for cooperation, rather than the board's criticism. "I think we are where we want to be, which is working together," he said. "We're committed to a national program." A White House official, anticipating the California vote, told Reuters the Trump administration was committed to protecting jobs and providing consumers with affordable cars. We are disappointed that California has chosen to refuse our good-faith offer to work together with all relevant stakeholders on this important matter, the person said. A two-track regulatory system would leave consumers with potentially higher prices and could complicate their ability to move cars between states. The California vote came on the heels of Congressional Republicans pulling consideration of a healthcare system overhaul, a defeat for Trump that appeared to energize the California board. "If anything, these standards should be more aggressive," board member Daniel Sperling said. The board would need federal approval for a post-2025 plans, but those rules may not be ready for review before the next presidential election. Federal regulators could try to challenge California's ability to make rules about greenhouse gases. Board member Hector De La Torre compared that to a divorce between federal and state regulators. "If a divorce is going to happen at some point, we are going to litigate that divorce strongly," he said. U.S. and California regulators last year projected that stricter pollution controls will add about $1,000 to the cost of each car sold in 2025, with mileage rising from 38.3 miles per gallon in model year 2021 to 46.3 in 2025. Automakers say they did not get enough time to review the study. (Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, Nick Carey in Detroit and Rory Carroll in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Lisa Shumaker)
By Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - Militia fighters decapitated about 40 police officers after an ambush in central Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said on Saturday, the deadliest attack on security forces since an insurgency erupted in the region last year. The Kamuina Nsapu militants struck on Friday as the police convoy drove from the city of Tshikapa in Kasai province to Kananga, the capital of Kasai-Central province, said Francois Madila Kalamba, speaker of the Kasai provincial assembly. "They were apprehended by the militia members and they decapitated about 40," Kalamba told Reuters. He added that witnesses said the fighters spared the lives of six police officers because they spoke the local Tshiluba language. The militia fighters, who are often armed with machetes but rarely carry firearms, made off with arms and vehicles during the raid, Kalamba added. Corneil Mbombo, president of the Civil Society of Kasai, a provincial activist group, also said about 40 officers had been decapitated following the ambush. The provincial governor and national police spokesman could not be reached for comment. The insurgency, which has spread to five provinces, poses the most serious threat yet to the rule of President Joseph Kabila, whose failure to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate in December was followed by a wave of killings and lawlessness across the vast central African nation. Friday's attack follows government reports of a wave of surrenders by fighters in neighboring Kasai-Central province in recent days. The Interior Ministry said on Saturday that 400 fighters had surrendered this week in the province. But as the insurgency has spread, the fighters operating under the name Kamuina Nsapu appear to operate increasingly independently and without a clear leadership structure. Some recent violence appears to be ethnic score-settling. More than 400 people have been killed in the violence, according to the United Nations, and the government said on Tuesday that 67 police officers and many soldiers had died in the clashes. Many of the dead have been dumped in mass graves. The United Nations said this week that it had identified 10 alleged mass grave sites and was investigating seven others. The military's top prosecutor announced last week that seven soldiers had been charged in connection with a video that appears to show soldiers massacring suspected militia members, including for murder and mutilation. Two U.N. officials, one U.S. citizen and the other of Swedish nationality, and four Congolese accompanying them were also kidnapped last week by unknown assailants in Kasai-Central. They have yet to be located. (Reporting by Aaron Ross; Editing by Tim Cocks and Helen Popper)
Chinese defense equipment on artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea is to maintain the freedom of navigation in the region, the countrys Premier Li Keqiang said Friday. The comments came during his five-day visit to Australia, where Li arrived Wednesday night.

Beijing had claimed almost all of the South China Sea and the other claimants of the international waters  Brunei, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam  have accused the country of militarizing the contested region. The U.S. has also warned China against its growing military aggression in the area. However, the country has defended its actions saying it is only adding to the regions defense.

During a press conference in Canberra, Li maintained the stance and said the military installations on the artificial islands are mainly for civilian use.

"Even if there is a certain amount of defense equipment or facilities, it is for maintaining the freedom of navigation," Li said. "Because without such freedom or without stability in the South China Sea, the Chinese side would be among the first to bear the brunt of it."

The premier also said his country is not militarizing the South China Sea, from where about $5 trillion worth of trade passes every year.

"With respect to the so-called militarization, China never has any intention to engage in militarization in the South China Sea," the 62-year-old said.

Furthermore, the aircraft and ships that sail through the waters belong to Chinas trading partners with Beijing, "so one can easily imagine how many Chinese interests are at stake here," Li added.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said all the involved parties should resolve conflict peacefully.

"We encourage all parties to refrain from taking any actions which would add to tensions, including actions of militarization of disputed features," Turnbull said.

Apart from having freedom of trade and navigation interests, Canberra also has economic interests, in the disputed region. Since 1980, it has been conducting air surveillance operations in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean called Operation Gateway.

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By Lisandra Paraguassu and Dominique Patton BRASILIA/BEIJING (Reuters) - China lifted a ban on imports of meat from Brazil on Saturday after Brazilian authorities clarified details of a police investigation into alleged bribery of health inspectors, in a victory for President Michel Temer's efforts to stem damage from the probe. The move by China, the biggest national consumer of Brazilian meat, was accompanied on Saturday by the lifting of import bans in Egypt and Chile, bringing hope of an end to a crisis that saw one-fifth wiped off the value of Brazilian pork and poultry exports last week. A slew of major meat importers issued bans after Brazilian federal police unveiled on March 17 an investigation into alleged payments to government health officials by meat processing companies to forego inspections and ignore abuses, codenamed "Operation Weak Flesh". Temer's government, alarmed the scandal could damage one of the few sectors that has defied a deep recession in Latin America's largest economy, launched a campaign to convince trade partners that any abuses were limited in scope. Meat is Brazil's third-largest export, after soy and iron ore. The country sold around $13.5 billion in chicken, beef and pork products last year. Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi welcomed China's decision and said the government retained a ban on exports from 21 processing plants directly linked to the federal police investigation as it carried out its own inspections. Lifting this suspension was the result of a giant effort by Brazil to explain that the investigation targeted the conduct of individuals and not the quality of the meat," Maggi told Reuters. Officials said that the only one of the 21 plants that exported to China is owned by Seara Alimentos Ltda, a unit of Brazil's JBS SA, the world's biggest meatpacking company. JBS has strongly denied any wrongdoing and said it upholds strict quality standards. Two sources in China confirmed that a ban remained in place on imports from the Seara plant, as well as any meat approved by seven Brazilian veterinary experts linked to the police investigation. Brazilian meat imports have already started being cleared in Shanghai, one of the sources said. China had suspended imports of all meat products from Brazil, the world's top beef exporter, on March 20 as a precautionary measure. An aide to President Temer told Reuters that he planned to call Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the coming days. In a statement, Temer voiced confidence that other countries would follow China's example in lifting restrictions. Chile on Saturday said it was ending a ban on meat purchases from Brazil, except for the 21 suspended plants, while Egypt also resumed imports after a two day-suspension. South Korea had already called off a short-lived ban on chicken imports from Brazil's BRF SA on Tuesday, after just one day. BRF, the world's largest poultry producer, has denied selling rotten meat and taking part in any corrupt activities. The decision by China was crucial because of its size: it consumed some $1.75 billion in Brazilian meat imports last year. In part, Brazil has been fortunate that rivals were ill-placed to fill the gap. With China's second-largest beef supplier, Australia, still rebuilding its herd after drought, it could not meet fast-growing Chinese demand. In the poultry sector, where Brazil supplies more than 85 percent of China's imports, other major producers, such as the United States and some smaller European markets, are banned from supplying to China due to bird flu outbreaks. Despite the government's success in containing the damage from the scandal, sources familiar with the investigation said there was a large amount of unpublished evidence pointing to widespread fraud and not just isolated abuses in the meat industry, sources told Reuters on Friday. (Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia, Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo and Dominique Patton in Beijing; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Bernard Orr)
(DENVER) - Colorado is considering an unusual strategy to protect its nascent marijuana industry from a potential federal crackdown, even at the expense of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax collections.

A bill pending in the Legislature would allow pot growers and retailers to reclassify their recreational pot as medical pot if a change in federal law or enforcement occurs.

Its the boldest attempt yet by a U.S. marijuana state to avoid federal intervention in its weed market.

The bill would allow Colorados 500 or so licensed recreational pot growers to instantly reclassify their weed. A switch would cost the state more than $100 million a year because Colorado taxes medical pot much more lightly than recreational weed - 2.9 percent versus 17.9 percent.

The measure says licensed growers could immediately become medical licensees based on a business need due to a change in local, state or federal law or enforcement policy. The change wouldnt take recreational marijuana off the books, but it wouldnt entirely safeguard it either. What it could do is help growers protect their inventory in case federal authorities start seizing recreational pot.

The provision is getting a lot of attention in the marijuana industry following recent comments from members of President Donald Trumps administration. White House spokesman Sean Spicer has said theres a big difference between medical and recreational pot.

Sponsors of the bill call it a possible exit strategy for the new pot industry. Its hard to say how many businesses would be affected, or if medical pot would flood the market, because some businesses hold licenses to both grow and sell marijuana in Colorado.

The state had about 827,000 marijuana plants growing in the retail system in June, the latest available data. More than half were for the recreational market.

If there is a change in federal law, then I think all of our businesses want to stay in business somehow. Theyve made major investments, said Sen. Tim Neville, a suburban Denver Republican who sponsored the bill.

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If federal authorities start seizing recreational pot, Colorados recreational marijuana entrepreneurs need to be able to convert that product into the medical side so they can sell it, Neville said.

His bill passed a committee in the Republican Senate 4-1 last week.

But its unclear whether the measure could pass the full Colorado Senate or the Democratic House. Skeptics of the proposal doubt the classification change would do much more than cost Colorado tax money.

Its a big deal for our taxation system because this money has been coming in and has been set aside for this, that and the other, said Sen. Lois Court, a Denver Democrat who voted against the bill.

Schools would be the first casualty of a tax change. Colorado sends $40 million a year to a school-construction fund from excise taxes on recreational pot. Its a tax that doesnt exist for medical pot.

Other items funded by recreational pot in Colorado include training for police in identifying stoned drivers, a public-education campaign aimed at reducing teen marijuana use, and an array of medical studies on marijuanas effectiveness treating ailments such as seizures or post-traumatic stress disorder.

The proposal comes amid mixed signals from the federal government on how the Trump administration plans to treat states that arent enforcing federal drug law.

Spicer said the president understands the pain and suffering many people, especially those with terminal diseases, endure and the comfort that some of these drugs, including medical marijuana, can bring to them.

But Attorney General Jeff Sessions has voiced doubts about pots medical value.

Medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much, Sessions said in a speech to law enforcement agencies in Richmond, Virginia.

Marijuana activists say giving the industry an option to keep their inventory legal is a valuable idea for recreational pot states. They point out that a change in federal policy wouldnt make the drug magically disappear from the eight states that allow recreational use, along with Washington, D.C.

It would be very harmful to the state if it reverts back entirely to an underground market, said Mason Tvert, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization activist group.

If the bill becomes law, Colorado would be the first pot state to take action to protect producers from a federal drug crackdown, marijuana analysts said.

A bill pending in the Oregon Legislature aims to shield the names and other personal information of pot buyers by making it illegal for shops to keep an internal log of customers personal data, a practice that is already banned or discouraged in Colorado, Alaska and Washington state.

Other states such as California are considering proposals that would bar local and state law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities on investigations into cannabis operations that are legal in their jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, members of Congress from some pot states have talked about trying to block federal intervention in marijuana states. Congress could reclassify marijuana so medical use is allowed, or it could try to block federal enforcement of marijuana prohibition through the federal budget.

But the proposed Colorado change may be a longshot effort.

Medical and recreational pot are the same product. The only difference between them is how they are used, and the U.S. Controlled Substances Act says marijuana has no valid medical use. Federal health regulators have rejected repeated attempts to carve out a legal place for marijuana use by sick people.

Sponsors concede there are no promises that reclassifying all that pot as medicine would stop a federal crackdown.

But they say Colorado shouldnt sit idly by and wait to see if the Trump administration starts enforcing federal drug law by attacking businesses that are legal under state law.

This bill allows the industry to know there is something after tomorrow, whatever tomorrow may bring, Neville said.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
DAKAR, Senegal (AP)  Congo's government must cooperate with United Nations efforts to locate experts who have been missing in the violent Kasai region for nearly two weeks, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.

Uruguayan peacekeepers and Tanzanian special forces who deployed to find the six people, including ones from the United States and Sweden, have faced a lack of cooperation, the rights group said. The U.N. mission in Congo said its movements have been restricted by security forces in Kananga, the provincial capital of Kasai Central.

Saturday's statement comes after the U.N. reported the discovery since January of more than two dozen mass graves in three Kasai provinces. And five videos have emerged in recent weeks that appear to show Congolese soldiers firing on militia members  a spike in deadly violence in recent months in the formerly quiet region.

"The missing U.N. team reflects a bigger picture of violence and abuse in the Kasai region," said Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. She called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry into abuses there.

Michael Sharp of the U.S., Zaida Catalan of Sweden, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 near a remote village south of Kananga. They were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

Their disappearance is the first time U.N. experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.

But the Kasai Central province where the U.N. experts were abducted represents a new expansion of tensions.

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Large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August when security forces killed the leader of the Kamwina Nsapu militia. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the U.N.

Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of scores of people killed in recent weeks.

While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to Congo's political crisis, according to Human Rights Watch. Anger has been growing in the country at long-delayed presidential elections, and dozens were killed in December amid protests as President Joseph Kabila stayed on past the end of his mandate. A deal reached between the ruling party and opposition to hold elections by the end of this year, without Kabila, remains fragile as the U.N. urges its implementation.

The rights group said security forces have been known to back local leaders seen as loyal to Kabila. Meanwhile, militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition.

Militia members have recruited large numbers of children, and using crude weapons have attacked security forces and some government buildings in Kasai, Kasai Central, Kasai Oriental, Sankuru, and Lomami provinces, Human Rights Watch said.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP)  The shroud has been lifted from a University of Kentucky mural that had drawn complaints from some students due to its depiction of black workers.

The Lexington Herald-Leader (http://bit.ly/2n4mgJt ) reports that when the cover was removed from the Memorial Hall mural, it revealed a new sign providing context for the painting.

The sign describes the mural's history, its format and concerns voiced about it over the years. In a blog post, UK President Eli Capilouto says the mural is now viewed through a modern prism.

Capilouto ordered the mural covered in November 2015 after a group of black students told him the piece was demeaning because of scenes of black workers  possibly slaves  planting tobacco, black musicians playing for white dancers and a Native American with a tomahawk.
Passengers sit on the top deck of a bus in the City of London.

A striking fact about the tide of nationalism sweeping through the West is that it is strongest in places with the least diversity. Supporters of Donald Trump, and his America first policies, generally come from areas of the US least touched by immigration. The parts of the UK that opted to take back control by voting for Brexit also clustered in areas with fewer foreign-born residents.

But as a group of economists note, although individuals may feel antagonism towards other groups in society, that prejudice is less strong if they interact with these groups in their daily lives.

In recently released research (pdf), Klaus Desmet, Joseph Gomes, and Ignacio Ortuno-Ortin go well beyond examining the demographics of Trump and Brexit voters. Their research explores whether contact theory, the belief that increased interaction leads to better relations between groups, or conflict theory, that interaction leads to more prejudice, is a better way to describe the current state of the world. They examined data from nearly every country in the world, and find that when diverse groups interact, it leads to better outcomes in terms of health, education, and public infrastructure. Chalk one up for contact theory.

A vast body of earlier research has found, however, that ethnic and linguistic diversity tends to reduce spending on public goods. This is usually explained as a preference not to share with people perceived to be different. For example, Swedens high government spending versus the US might be down to Swedens relative lack of diversity.

This suggests that diversity is not helpful if groups mainly keep to themselves. To test this assumption, Desmet, Gomes, and Ortuno-Ortin divided the world into a grid of five-square-kilometer cells and estimated the number of people who speak different languages in each. Using this data and country-level estimates of diversity, the researchers calculated two numbers:

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1) Country diversity: The probability that within a country two randomly chosen people speak the same language. A higher score means greater diversity in languages spoken.

A map of country diversity scores.

2) Local diversity: The probability that if a person was introduced to one person randomly picked from their immediate area, and one person randomly picked from the country as a whole, those two people would speak the same language. This is a measure of a countrys segregationthe higher the score, the less segregated the country.

A map of language diversity scores.

Taken together, countries like India score highly in terms of country-level diversity but low on local-level diversitythat is, the countrys many diverse groups dont interact much. The US, by contrast, is less diverse at the country level than India, but its various groups more readily mix in local areas.

The researchers found that while country-level diversity has a negative impact on things like child mortality and literacy, localized diversity has an opposite, very positive impact. This holds true after accounting for a countrys wealth, inequality, and geography. This suggests that the the high segregation of Zimbabwes linguistic groups might contribute to its poor socioeconomic outcomes relative to the similarly diverse, but less segregated Botswana.

More mixing produces large effects. For example, a local diversity score in the top 20%, on average, leads to a markedly lower child mortality rate versus a similarly diverse country in the bottom 20%worth a more than ten child-per-thousand decrease. Local diversity also appears to have a significant effect on measles immunization, literacy, and sanitationall outcomes driven by public investment.

The researchers conclude that society would be better off if governments promoted more interaction between groups. They point to public housing and school districting policies as ways to encourage such mixing.

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Dozens of inmates escaped from a prison in Mexico on Thursday by using an underground tunnel that officials believe took months to dig, Mexico News Daily reported. The prison break was reminiscent of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who staged his own daring escape through a miles-long tunnel under a different Mexican prison in 2015.

At least 10 of the 29 inmates who escaped Thursday were re-captured, but the others remained at large after using a tunnel under a prison in the state of Tamaulipas

that was more than 131 feet long. The tunnel was more than 16 feet deep beneath the prison in Ciudad Victoria

, the capital city of Tamaulipas.

Read: Will El Chapo Be Deported From US?

The escapees carjacked and killed a driver after surfacing from the tunnel, which Governor Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca

said likely took months to dig.

Prison breaks in Mexico have been fairly common in recent years. The son of a Mexican drug kingpin escaped from a Mexican prison last week, the Associated Press reported. Juan Jose Esparragoza Monzon

broke out of the prison with four other inmates. Monzon's father is Juan Jose "El Azul" Esparragoza Moreno, one of the leaders of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel which was led by El Chapo before he was arrested and extradited to the U.S., where he was facing a number of drug and murder charges.

Read: NY Inmates Detail Brutal Interrogations After Breakout

El Chapo's most recent prison escape  he's successfully fled prison's confines at least once before  involved a 1-mile long tunnel 10 feet deep, with a motorcycle on rails used to expedite the prison break in July of 2015. He was ultimately arrested again in January 2016 and extradited to New York City about a year later to face a bevy of drug-related and murder charges.

Those charges include a 17-count indictment for El Chapo allegedly leading " a continuing criminal enterprise responsible for importing into the United States and distributing massive amounts of illegal narcotics and conspiring to murder persons who posed a threat " to his drug empire, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) and Joan (Lucy Liu) will investigate a 12-year-old unsolved murder case in Season 5, episode 18 of Elementary after they find out that the brother of the victim thinks that Shinwell (Nelsan Ellis) was the perpetrator of the crime.

According to the synopsis for the episode, titled Dead Mans Tale, Sherlock and Joan try to find out whether Shinwell killed his fellow SBK member, Jameel Clark.

In last weeks Season 5, episode 17, Shinwell was shot at after he and Sherlock left the gym. Shinwell suspected that SBKs rival gang, Los Espectros, was behind the drive-by. But after Sherlock found out that a slug from the shooting was a match from bullets collected from Jameels unsolved murder case, the British sleuth thought that the latest attempt to end Shinwells life was personal rather than gang-related.

READ: How did Elementarys Aidan Quinn prepare for his TV directorial debut?

Sherlock learned from Jameels brother, Denton (Julian Elijah Martinez), that Jameel and Shinwell were pretty close. But when the detective asked Denton if he knows other information that would help the authorities identify Jameel and Shinwells shooters  who could be the same man Denton refused to offer any assistance.

Sherlock asked Shinwell if he and Jameel had a common enemy that would like to have them both killed. Shinwell then revealed that before Jameel died, he and Jameel  together with some of the latters friends  held up a liquor store in Atlantic City. Shinwell said that the owner killed one of their fellow robbers, and that thiefs brother blamed Shinwell and Jameel for the incident, telling them that hell kill them to avenge his siblings death.

For some reason, Sherlock felt that Shinwell was withholding information from him, so he continued his investigation until he figured out that Denton was the one behind Shinwells drive-by. Sherlocks theory was that Denton tried to kill Shinwell because he thinks Shinwell murdered his brother.

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In addition to finding out whether Shinwell got away with Jameels murder, Sherlock and Joan also search for a treasure map rumored to lead to pirates gold hidden in New York City.

Interestingly, the promo clip for the episode also sees a mysterious man hitting Sherlocks head with a bottle. Is this attack connected to Sherlocks investigation of Jameels murder? Or is it something related to the treasure map hunt?

Elementary Season 5, episode 18 airs on Sunday, March 26 at 10 p.m. EST on CBS. Watch the promo clip below:

Nelsan Ellis as Shinwell, Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock

Photo: CBS

Related Articles
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP)  Democrats need to prepare for an ongoing fight against Republicans at all levels of government, not just the White House, their newly appointed deputy national chairman said on Saturday.

"We can't just say it's all about Trump," Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's annual meeting.

Ellison, who lost his bid for chairman of the Democratic National Committee to former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, said the party had lost focus on state legislatures and governorships. Democrats, he said, need a cohesive national message that can inspire ordinary Americans.

"We've got to have a higher vision than just winning an election," he said. "When we set our sights as, really, agents and champions for the American people, people start feeling the flow."

New Hampshire Republicans, meanwhile, criticized Ellison as "out of touch" with a "dangerous worldview."

"New Hampshire Democrats are out of touch and out of line for embracing Keith Ellison's dangerous worldview," state GOP Chairwoman Jeanie Forrester said in a statement.

Ellison said he resists the idea that Trump is different than other Republicans and urged the crowd to keep an eye on what the GOP is doing at all levels. He slammed New Hampshire's Republican Gov. Chris Sununu for supporting a bill that would tighten the state's voter eligibility laws, among other policies.

"I think that (Trump) is a Republican on steroids," Ellison said. "He believes all the things that they believe, but he doesn't believe in watering it down or sugarcoating it."

Ellison took time to relish in House Republicans' failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act as well as the court's rejection of two Trump administration travel bans. But he told the crowd the fight to "literally save the nation" is just beginning.

"We gotta lace up," he said.
Ankara (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday it would be "easier" if the EU blocked Ankara's bid to join the bloc, suggesting he could even hold a referendum on the matter.

It was the latest barb in the bitter dispute between Turkey and Europe after Germany and The Netherlands blocked Turkish ministers from campaigning among expats for a "yes" vote in next month's referendum on boosting Erdogan's powers.

"What? If a 'yes' comes out on April 16, they would not take us into the European Union? Oh, if only they could give this decision! They would make our work easier," Erdogan told a rally in the southern city of Antalya.

Despite the strained relations, no EU leader has openly said that a "yes" vote would spell the end of Turkey's already-embattled bid to join the bloc.

If Turkish voters end up approving the constitutional changes, April 16 "would be a breaking point" in EU-Turkey relations, Erdogan said, adding: "Turkey is no one's whipping boy."

Later on Saturday at a Turkey-Britain forum, the Turkish strongman suggested he could even put EU membership to a vote after the April referendum, saying: "We could pursue a referendum and obey the decision taken by the nation."

Among some European politicians, there has already been talk about the future of Turkey's membership process.

Writing in Politico Europe, Kati Piri, the European Parliament's Rapporteur for Turkey, said that if the constitutional changes were approved, "the European Parliament will have to assess whether the countrys new governance structure meets the EU's Copenhagen accession criteria."

On April 16, Turks will decide whether to approve constitutional changes that would create an executive presidency and abolish the post of prime minister.

The government says the changes would provide political stability by avoiding fragile coalition governments, but critics fear it will lead to one-man rule.

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Another issue which has raised questions over Turkey's membership bid is plans mooted by Erdogan to bring back the death penalty if the move was approved by parliament.

"What? If the death penalty is introduced (to bring justice) for the 249 people killed (in last year's failed coup), Turkey has no place in Europe? Oh, let it not be!" he mocked on Saturday.

Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 as part of its bid to join the EU and Brussels has made clear that any move to bring it back would scupper Ankara's decades-long efforts to join the bloc.
By Jan Strupczewski and Isla Binnie ROME (Reuters) - Leaders of the European Union met in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaty and demonstrate that the EU can survive the impending departure of major power Britain. Under heavy security as the Italian capital braced for anti-EU protests and the risk of attacks such as that by an Islamic State follower in London last week, the 27 national leaders gathered in the Campidoglio palace where the six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957. Conspicuous by her absence was British Prime Minister Theresa May, who will write to EU summit chairman Donald Tusk on Wednesday formally to announce that its second-biggest economy will leave the Union in negotiations over the coming two years. Britain shunned the new European community at its creation, but finally joined in 1973. Its people voted to quit last June. Tusk, a former Polish premier, recalled his own life in war-ravaged Gdansk, shut in behind the Iron Curtain, to remind the leaders of the Union's achievements and urge them not to let it descend into petty squabbling and bureaucracy. "Why should we lose our trust in the purpose of unity today? Is it only because it has become our reality? Or because we have become bored or tired of it?" he asked, taking a dig at his own nationalist-minded domestic rivals, now ruling in Warsaw. "Europe as a political entity will either be united, or will not be at all ... The unity of Europe is not a bureaucratic model. It is a set of common values and democratic standards." BREXIT BLOW Without the so-called Brexit, it might have been a modestly hopeful summit in the palazzo where old foes France and Germany, with Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, signed the original treaty; all 28 EU economies are growing after a slump that has blighted the past decade and recent border chaos has largely abated as refugees are, for now, being held in check. But Brexit has undermined the self-confidence of a Union that has helped bring peace and growing prosperity to the continent, and has encouraged eurosceptic nationalists challenging governments from Stockholm to Sicily. It has also amplified the petty frictions among the more than two dozen national governments and obliged leaders' aides to water down a grand birthday declaration of unity. After days of carping from Poland and Greece, seeking to show home voters they were getting Brussels to give assurances about equal treatment and social welfare, the Rome Declaration the 27 will sign just before noon (1100 GMT) offers ringing phrases about peace and unity. "We have united for the better," the text concludes. "Europe is our common future." But it may disappoint those who think more ambition and coordination is the answer to the malaise. The declaration promises to listen to citizens. But locked away behind rings of armed police, the leaders may hear little of what thousands of protesters have to say on Saturday. For Ernesto Rapani, an official of Italy's right-wing eurosceptic Fratelli d'Italia party attending a demonstration in Rome, the bloc's trade and financial rules were skewed in favour of Germany and had to change: "At the moment the union is convenient for Germany and not Italy," he said. At the Vatican on Friday, Pope Francis told EU leaders that their Union had achieved much in 60 years but that Europe faced a "vacuum of values". He condemned anti-immigrant populism and extremism that he said posed a mortal threat to the bloc. (Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
DILI, East Timor (AP)  A former guerrilla fighter vowed Saturday to keep peace and unity as East Timor's new president, delivering a victory speech after the final tally showed he was on course to win the election.

Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres received 57 percent of the vote in Monday's election, according to final figures announced late Friday. His main rival, Antonio da Conceicao, got 32 percent. The remaining votes were divided among six other candidates.

The results released by the National Election Office still need to be vetted by the court of appeals before they are official.

While East Timor's president has a mostly ceremonial role, the prime minister heads the government.

East Timorese voted overwhelmingly in 1999 to end 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation that killed more than 170,000 people. Indonesia's military and pro-Indonesian militias responded to the independence referendum with scorched earth attacks that devastated the East Timorese half of the island.

Lu-Olo received a visit from da Conceicao conceding the election soon after the final results were released Friday.

Da Conceicao, the current minister of education and social affairs, said he had accepted the result.

"He was a guerrilla fighter during our resistance time. He deserved the people's trust and I'll always respect him," da Conceica said of his rival.

Lu-Olo welcomed the concession and gave a victory speech at his residence.

"I'll be president for all people in East Timor, even those who didn't vote for me," he told a crowd of supporters. "I'll keep fighting for peace and unity of our nation."

Lu-Olo led guerrilla attacks against occupying troops from the hills, rising quickly through the ranks. Eventually, he became the rebels' top commander.

It was his third attempt to win the presidency since 2007, when Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, secured an easy victory over him in a second-round vote. Lu-Olo lost to current President Taur Matan Ruak in the 2012 election, but this time he had strong support from resistance hero and former Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who remains influential in politics.
A member of President Donald Trumps transition team says he needs to do more to roll back climate regulations - and fast.



Myron Ebell, Trumps former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition chief, said Friday at a conference held by the Heartland Institute that he was anxious for Trump to fulfill his promise to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and undo the scientific and legal basis for regulating carbon dioxide emissions.

Trump has barely been in office for two months, but he and Republicans in Congress have already overturned several Obama-era environmental regulations and proposed a massive budget cut at the EPA.

Trump promised throughout his presidential campaign to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, an international deal aimed at keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2C (3.6F) by 2100 and the issue continues to resonate with his supporters. But Trump is reportedly considering keeping the deal thanks to pressure from his daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Ebell also criticized Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for his defense of the Paris Agreement. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson think its really nice to be able to go to international meetings and pal around with his fellow foreign ministers, he told the Heartland Institutes annual climate change conference. Rex Tillerson may be from Texas and he may have been CEO of Exxon, but hes part of the swamp.

Ebell also listed the carbon dioxide endangerment finding, the legal underpinning of President Obamas Clean Power Plan, as an issue where Trump needs to be pressured. Such a move would require the EPA to come up with a scientific argument for why carbon dioxide does not hurt human health.

At some point it needs to be pointed out to President Trump and his administration that the people who elected Donald J. Trump are not wealthy Manhattanites, he said, including his children.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
CAIRO (Reuters) - Four Egyptian soldiers were killed in an explosion that hit their armored vehicle on Saturday in the northern Sinai peninsula, where the government is battling an Islamic State-led insurgency, security sources said. The incident occurred about 20 km (12 miles) south of the Mediterranean town of al-Arish. An insurgency in Egypt's rugged Sinai region has gained pace since the army toppled President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest Islamist movement, following mass protests against his rule in mid-2013. The revolt, mounted by Islamic State's Egyptian branch, has killed hundreds of soldiers and police. Militants have also started to attack Western targets within the country. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former military chief who led Mursi's overthrow, describes Islamist militancy as an existential threat to Egypt, an ally of the United States. On Thursday, 10 soldiers were killed in the Sinai peninsula when their vehicles were hit by two improvised bombs during an operation in which 15 suspected militants were also killed, the army said. Two policemen were killed near al-Arish in a separate incident, the interior ministry said. (Reporting by Yusry Mohamed and Mohamed Abdellah; Editing by Dominic Evans and Helen Popper)
By Regis Duvignau and Bernard Grollier CAMBO-LES-BAINS/SAINT-DENIS-DE-LA-REUNION, France (Reuters) - Francois Fillon's aides used an umbrella to shield him from eggs thrown by protesters in south-west France on Saturday as the beleaguered conservative fell further behind centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-rightist Marine Le Pen in opinion polls. The contrast between former frontrunner Fillon, embroiled in a financial scandal, and new poll favourite Macron was striking as both candidates campaigned 29 days before the first round of France's unpredictable presidential election. Addressing a rally in the French island of La Reunion, in the Indian ocean, Macron departed from typical campaign speeches by inviting members of the audience -- including a six-year old who asked him "How do you get to be president?" -- on stage to ask questions on a wide range of issues. "It's historic, we need to decide whether we want to be afraid of the century that has just started ... or want to bring fresh ambition to France," the 39-year-old former investment banker said to chants of "Macron President!" Macron, a former economy minister to Socialist President Francois Hollande, set up his own centrist party last year. He has shot to first place in opinion polls since Fillon was put under investigation over suspicions he misused public funds by paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros as a parliamentary assistant for work she may not have done. Fillon denies any wrongdoing. Fillon slipped 2.5 percentage points on the week to 17 percent in a BVA poll published on Saturday, which saw Macron getting 26 percent of the first-round vote, up one percentage point from a week ago with Le Pen on 25 percent, down one point. The number of undecided voters for the first round remains high, with 40 percent of voters still undecided. The poll showed Macron winning a second round vote with 62 percent of the vote versus 38 percent for Le Pen, who is due to hold a rally in the northern France city of Lille on Sunday. The poll was carried out partly before a TV interview on Thursday night in which Fillon, 63, accused Hollande of leading a smear campaign against him. Met by some 30 protesters throwing eggs and banging pots and pans to shouts of "Fillon in prison" in the south-west France town of Cambo-les-Bains, Fillon told reporters: "Those protests are an insult to democracy ... the more they protest, the more French voters will support me." Less than two weeks after revelations that Fillon had been given expensive suits as gifts, franceinfo radio said he had received two watches worth 12,000 and 15,000 euros from a businessman and a watchmaker. It quoted one of them as saying nothing was requested in return for the gift. Fillon's team could not immediately be reached for comment. Meanwhile, a faction of the centrist UDI party, which is allied with Fillon's The Republicans, was kicked out of the party on Saturday for rallying behind Macron. The BVA poll also showed far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon gaining ground in the first round, up 2 points from a week earlier to 14 percent, now 2.5 points ahead of the ruling Socialist Party's candidate Benoit Hamon. (Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry and Andrew Callus; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Helen Popper)
Rep. Mo Brooks of the hard-line Freedom Caucus told CNBC on Friday the House Obamacare replacement plan is the worst bill he's seen in 30 years of public service.

The Alabama Republican said on "Squawk Box" he'll vote "no" when the measure comes up for a vote, which President Donald Trump demanded take place Friday.

Brooks blasted the GOP's American Health Care Act (AHCA)  backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump  as "the largest welfare program ever proposed" by Republicans.

"It's not a repeal. It's a marketing ploy," he said.

Brooks is calling for a straight repeal of former President Barack Obama 's 2010 health-care law, despite the long odds of ever getting the Senate to go that far.

"We can either go bankrupt as a country or do the right thing," he said.

Meanwhile, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told CNBC in a later interview the ultimatum he delivered from the president was to all House Republicans.

No one group, such as the Freedom Caucus, was being singled out, said Mulvaney, who had been a member of that conservative group when he was a congressman from South Carolina.

Mulvaney said he's not sure whether Republicans have enough votes for passage but stressed "the president has his offer on the table."

Brook said he won't be swayed by the White House or his fellow House Republicans.

One of his GOP colleagues, Rep. Bill Johnson, told "Squawk Box" earlier on Friday: "My Freedom Caucus friends have helped make this bill stronger. And I appreciate that."

But the Ohio Republican, who supports the AHCA, said he hopes conservative holdouts vote for the bill in the end because it's the best way to unleash competition.

"We're grossly underestimating what's going to happen when America's markets respond to getting the federal government out of the way," Johnson said.
Tokyo (AFP) - If gender bending fashion is suddenly all the rage in the West, think Pharrell Williams promoting Chanel's new unisex handbag, then nowhere has the look excelled more than in Tokyo.

Japan, for decades a pioneer of the androgynous look in the style of Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto and Kenzo, is spawning young designers blurring the lines expertly between masculine and feminine.

Genderless-looking boys are gaining traction in fashion circles and on the streets of Tokyo -- gay but mostly straight men who dye their hair and wear make-up -- not in an effort to pass themselves off as women but to create a new standard of beauty.

"Our big theme has always been 'unisex'," says Takeshi Kitazawa, one half of the design duo behind trendy label DRESSEDUNDRESSED, sold by dozens of stockists in Japan and abroad.

"'Genderless' is now really common," he explains after his show at Tokyo Fashion Week, a parade of eight male and four female models each wearing interchangeable clothes.

Staying true to its brand name, it was a half-dressed, half-undressed look of coats and trousers slashed at the side with deep splits and men -- rather than women -- parading down the catwalk in bare legs.

The only snatches of femininity were small red handbags dangled from the hand or strapped across the chest, on men as well as women, or delicate lace hems and high-heeled court shoes for women.

- 'Scary before' -

"Isolation" and "control" were written upside down on caps, oversized 1970s-style glasses partially obscured the faces. It was not always possible to tell if it was a man or a woman -- and that was the point.

"Japanese men especially are really flexible. They wear women's brands and Japanese women are the same as well. Perhaps Japanese culture really is 'genderless'," said Kitazawa.

With most Japanese designers ambitious to move into markets overseas, there is no trendier time for androgynous fashion than now.

Story continues

Twenty percent of US millennials identify as something other than strictly cisgender and straight, compared to just seven percent of baby boomers, a survey by LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD shows.

Transgender issues are back in the political spotlight thanks to Donald Trump's widely criticised decision to rescind US federal protections for school students to use the bathroom of their choice.

Former gold medal-winning male Olympian turned woman reality star, Caitlyn Jenner, is a household name. American actress Kristen Stewart and British model Cara Delevingne are poster children for bisexuality.

"Now it's acceptable to discuss it. It's acceptable to come out now. It was so scary before," pop star Miley Cyrus told Time magazine for a cover story last week on young people redefining the meaning of gender.

- No boundaries -

Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons fame, a pioneer of fashion androgyny, will be this spring's subject of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's first monographic show on a living designer since Yves Saint Laurent, the legend who put women in trousers and tuxedo jackets, in 1983.

Currently on show at the Japan Society in New York is the exhibition "A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Prints" seeking to shed light on the complex rules that governed gender in early modern Japan.

It focuses on wakashu -- male adolescents who were objects of sexual desire for both men and women and who appear to have constituted a distinct third gender in the Edo period.

Skirts in the form of shirt dresses, such as a tartan dressing-gown inspired number, each worn over trousers are clearly an autumn/winter 2017 Japanese trend for men as seen on the runway at Name.'s show.

ACUOD by CHANU is the brainchild of a Korean designer repelled by suits as appropriate dress for the 21st century man. He also sent down the catwalk shirt dresses, even quilted versions, worn over tight trousers.

"I want to get rid of any boundary among gender," explains designer Chanwoo Lee.

"The mask is (part of that) as well," he added of black leather surgical masks covered in grinning zip metallic zips in which he dressed all his models, obscuring much of their faces.
Germany announced Thursday its pledge to provide $253 million in funds for relief aid and rebuilding efforts in the war-torn countries of Syria and Iraq. The comments came soon after the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group (also known as ISIS) held a meeting Wednesday, its first since the election of President Donald Trump.

"Germany is already contributing the most to these important stabilization measures and this year we will continue doing this. In Washington, we promised an extra 235 million euros to people in Iraq and Syria for humanitarian aid and stabilization," German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said, according to Sputnik.

Gabriel added that a lot more needed to be done in terms of providing basic necessities  such as electricity, water, schools and jobs  in these nations. He reportedly made the comments in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper.

Read: US Denies Targeting Mosque In Northern Syria

Wednesdays meeting at the State Department in Washington, D.C., saw 68 countries and organizations discuss how best to contain the terrorism threat from ISIS and al Qaeda.

"I recognize there are many pressing challenges in the Middle East, but defeating ISIS is the United States number one goal in the region, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, according to Reuters. However, he added that as a coalition we are not in the business of nation building or reconstruction," emphasizing that funds should be used to counter the threat from militant groups, and in turn, enable the countries to rebuild themselves.

For this year, over $2 billion in assistance has been pledged for Iraq and Syria by the coalition's partners. With the United States, Turkey and Russia closing in on ISIS strongholds in the two most affected countries, the terrorist group has been losing ground in both Iraq and Syria.

Read: Israeli Fighter Jet Shoots Down Anti-Aircraft Missile In Syria

Story continues

Tillerson noted that in the last one year, there had been a significant drop in the number of foreign fighters entering Iraq and Syria, and that over one-third of the online propaganda by ISIS had been wiped out.

Reflecting on the past year or so, we should be encouraged by the significant progress we as a coalition are making, Tillerson said, according to the New York Times.

In comments during the presidential campaign, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of founding the extremist group.

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Maria Katasonova leads a Russian "women for Marine" movement, while also working for a high-ranking MP, studying law, and being part of a patriotic artist's collective.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pens visit to Moscow on March 24 went a whole lot better than her New York trip in January.

On that occasion, she was left stranded at the bottom of Trump Tower, drinking an awkward coffee in its cafe without being invited up to meet then-US president-elect Donald Trump. This time, however, she not only snagged a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, but got a heros welcome at the countrys parliament.

Waiting with a bunch of Le Pens signature blue roses was Maria Katasonovaa smoldering 21-year-old Russian nationalist who somehow manages her time between working for a high-ranking politician, heading up a Women for Marine movement, studying law, and being part of a patriotic artists collective.

  @MLP_officiel 17     .,     

Les Femmes avec Marine#Marine2017 #World4Marine pic.twitter.com/wCabx8JAYu    (@KatasonovaMaria) March 24, 2017

Katasonova, an aide to Evgeny Fedorov, a hardline Duma member in Putins party, is emblematic of Putins push to realign the world away from globalized liberal democracy to one run by fellow hardliners who share his transactional view of international relations. The Kremlin supported Trumps candidacy through a hacking and propaganda campaign, according to US intelligence agencies, and the attention has now turned to the two rounds of French elections in April and May.

Le Pens leading opponent, the centrist Emmanuel Macron, has claimed there have been Russian hacking attempts on his campaigns emails. Le Pen has in the past received millions of euros worth of loans from Russian banks. (She reportedly said that no talk of Russian funding came up in her meeting with Putin.)

As the French campaign heats up, Le Pen has been showered with praise on Russian TV, and been an inspiration for nationalist artists. The art group White Star (of which Katasonova is a member) produced an eye-catching triptych of Putin, Le Pen and Trump that was plastered across the internet, and which Katasonova used as part of her unsuccessful campaign for election to Russias parliament with the far-right Rodina party. Another member of White Star, Nikolai Shmatko, has made busts of Trump and Le Pen and said that he plans to give her the sculpture if and when she becomes president.

La presidente francais Marine #LePen  21eme siecle sans Macron etFillon. Ce sera la vraie France! pic.twitter.com/O1NfcIFeCX    (@nikshmatko) March 11, 2017

Katasonova, as befits her age, is an internet native. Her Instagram feed is a well-curated assemblage of leaders she admires, political events, tableaux of Moscow life, cat pictures, and sultry portraits of Katasonova herself. She responded within seconds to an interview request sent via Twitter, where she has nearly 29,000 followers.

She explained that her rationale for supporting Le Pen comes straight out of a Kremlin playbook that has long railed against Americas dominion over international relations. We have the chance now to change the whole configuration of global politics, and thats what Marine is pushing fornothing good will come of us acting like globalists, she said. Marine will stand up for her countrys interests but she also understands that the world is multipolar and that you need to have a dialogue with different countries.

Putin, Trump and Le Pen all stand up for their countries interests but they understand very well that cooperation and dialogue with each others countries can correct the mistakes that the Obama-Merkel-Hollande axis madereally serious mistakes like allowing for terrorism, an economic crisis, and a refugee crisis, said Katasonova. They can fix all that.

Maria Katasonova's campaign poster in her unsuccessful bid for the Russian parliament with the far-right Rodina Party.

Katasonovas campaign poster in her unsuccessful bid for the Russian parliament with the far-right Rodina Party.

She branded the election of Le Pen, who wants France to leave the EU, as crucial for the future of Europe. With her as president of France, the EU can escape the crisis it finds itself in, she said, though she refused to say whether she wanted the EU to fall apart altogether. (Le Pen has promised a French referendum on leaving the union if shes elected.) The bloc has proven a thorn in Putins side, particularly over Moscows annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, for which it hit Russia with sanctions that have hurt the countrys economy; Le Pen has promised to put an end to the sanctions.

Although her fan group emphasizes female support for Le Pen, Katasonova isnt feminist, at least not in the Western understanding of the term. She insisted that there are many female politicians worthy of respect in Russias heavily male-dominated political landscape, but refused to name any because she didnt want to divide politics between men and women.

Similarly, she brushed off suggestions that Trump is sexist. I dont know Trump personally, she deadpanned when asked what she thinks of his attitude towards women. When asked directly about his notorious Access Hollywood tape, Katasonova replied: Im not interested in who said what, when and where. What someone says in private doesnt necessarily reflect their politics, and if you look at American citizens, Trump was supported by a huge number of women.

The Kremlin has long had a reputation for allegedly funding cut-outs to play these kind of civil society cheerleading roles. Katasonova insisted that she is working entirely in her free time and with her own funds, and just wants to do her bit to help Le Pen to victory. Im sure she will win in both the first and second rounds, she said.

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By Angus MacSwan MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Islamic State gunmen are opening fire on men, women and children as they try to flee Mosul under cover of darkness, civilians who escaped the besieged Iraqi city said on Friday. Hungry and exhausted, thousands sloshed through the mud, past wrecked buildings and shattered pavements, to reach an army checkpoint. Some carried suitcases or bags, others had fled with just the clothes on their backs. They came by foot or piled into carts, and some pushed relatives in wheelchairs. A black-uniformed intelligence officer said about 6,000 people had come through on Thursday, the most he had seen at this exit, and a similar flow had poured in on Friday since about 4 a.m. Relieved to reach the safety of the checkpoint, some of those escaping described running a gauntlet of fire. "The snipers are professional, they do not care. Anybody that moves, they kill," said Faris Khader, from al-Abar district. The battle for Mosul, Islamic State's last major urban stronghold in Iraq, has now lasted more than five months. Government forces recaptured the east side in January and are besieging the militants on the western side of the Tigris river. At least 500,000 civilians are trapped inside, battered by government and U.S.-led air strikes and artillery, caught in the crossfire of ground fighting, or targeted by IS gunmen. The militants sometimes use residents as human shields. Khader blamed the government and international coalition for some of the death and mayhem. An IS sniper had been firing from the roof of his home when an air strike hit, he said. "There are many people dead under the rubble. Some in my family died. Nobody can take the bodies out. They were killed by an air strike." 'NO FOOD, NO WATER' Omar, a car mechanic, described life under IS. "It's very difficult. There's no food, no water. They are killing a lot of people. They kill anyone who goes out, they kill them in the street. "We have no money. We have suffered for three years," he said, clutching his young son to his shoulder. Salwan, 19, pushed his sister Noor, 21, who is paralysed and deaf, for more than two hours in her wheelchair to reach safety after their house was blown up. They were shot at during the trek, he said. Sweat poured from the face of Khaled Khalil as he trudged up the last stretch of the debris-strewn boulevard with his young son slung on his shoulder and his wife and three other children behind. He had no coat, no bag, and just a pair of plastic sandals on his mud-spattered feet. "I came like this. We had the chance so we fled," said the 36-year-old. "We have been travelling since yesterday. We are very tired but now we are safe." He was a carpenter but his shop had been destroyed. TAKING THE RISK Then an army jeep drove up with a wounded man on a stretcher. He was laid on the ground by an abandoned building. Bashar Hazem, 43, and Ali, 29, had carried out their brother Maan, 32, overnight. He was shot in the right thigh 20 days ago. He was bandaged up in the Jamhori hospital inside an IS-held area but left for home after three days because it was dangerous. He had no painkillers and grimaced as his brothers spoke. "We had no food. That's why we decided to risk escaping," Bashar said. They made a run with a big group in the early hours of Friday. But IS gunmen starting shooting at them and the group was split up. They saw three women shot in the legs. "Even if you are injured, they shoot at you. Our family is still inside but they are coming soon, God willing," Ali said. At the checkpoint, soldiers separated the women and children from the men. They waited, tired but visibly relieved, for buses to take them to a United Nations reception camp at Hamman al-Alil about 20 km (15 miles) away. The men were gathered in a park, sitting on the ground under guard by soldiers and awaiting questioning. "We do a first check here. Anyone we suspect of working with Daesh (IS), we pull to one side," the intelligence officer said. Some IS fighters had tried to leave disguised as women, their faces concealed by veils, he said, scrutinising arrivals. The men were then loaded onto trucks and taken to a centre for more thorough checks. An avuncular Sergeant Hussam Imad told jokes to a group of women and children waiting to be transported to the reception camp. They boarded the bus with smiles on their faces. (Reporting by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Rome (AFP) - With 29 days to go before the first round of France's two-stage presidential election, outgoing head of state Francois Hollande has urged candidates to keep faith with the European Union even as Britain prepares to leave the bloc.

Here are three things that happened in the campaign on Saturday:

- Let them throw eggs -

Conservative candidate Francois Fillon, under pressure over allegations of fake parliamentary jobs for the family which have hit his poll ratings, received a chaotic reception on a trip to the southern Basque region where some protesters pelted him with eggs.

Fillon, who has accused Hollande of helping foment a smear campaign against him amid claims his wife was on the public payroll but did little for her salary, ran the gauntlet in the small town of Cambo-les-Bains. Locals demanding an amnesty for radical Basque nationalists banged pots and pans, hurled abuse and objects.

"The more they demonstrate the more the French will back me," Fillon insisted before meeting with local officials.

- Warning on Europe -

President Francois Hollande warned would-be successors they should cleave closely to Europe as it was "impossible" that France could contemplate going its own way.

In a barb aimed at far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen, Hollande said: "So some want to quit Europe? Well let them show the French people they would be better off alone fighting terrorism without the indispensable European coordination...

"Let them show that without the single currency and (single) market there would be more jobs, activity and better purchasing power," Hollande said in Rome where he attended the ceremonies marking the EU's 60th anniversary.

Le Pen, favoured in opiniion polls to reach the second-round run-off vote in May, wants France to dump the euro, but Hollande said that would lead to devaluation and loss of purchasing power as he warned against nationalist populism.

Story continues

- 'Not Father Christmas' -

French centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, seen in polls as beating Marine Le Pen in the May 7 run-off, was in Reunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, where alongside discussing local issues, he told voters he was "not Father Christmas."

"I don't have the solution to all problems and I am not Father Christmas," the 39-year-old former economy minister and banker admitted, saying he had not come to make "promises."

He indicated he would focus on education as a priority on an island where around one in five youths are illiterate.
Paris (AFP) - With 30 days to go before the first round of France's two-stage presidential election, the incumbent Francois Hollande made a rare sortie into the campaign after conservative candidate Francois Fillon accused him of orchestrating a smear campaign.

Here are three things that happened in the campaign on Friday:

- Hollande slams 'smear' charge -

President Hollande lashed out at Fillon, saying the 63-year-old rightwinger had exceeded the bounds of "dignity and responsibility" with his claims.

"I don't want to enter the electoral debate... but there is a dignity, a responsibility to respect," the president said. "Fillon is beyond that now."

On Thursday, Fillon charged that Hollande had headed a "secret cell" that was responsible for revelations that have led to criminal charges against the candidate.

Fillon has slid from frontrunner to third in the presidential race following "fake jobs" allegations, with the first round looming on April 23.

- Le Pen shares Putin's 'vision' -

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen praised Vladimir Putin's "new vision" of the world after meeting the Russian president in Moscow.

"A new world has emerged in the past years," said the head of the eurosceptic National Front (FN). "This is Vladimir Putin's world, Donald Trump's world in the United States, Mr (Narendra) Modi's world in India."

Le Pen, 48, said she "shares with all these great nations a vision of cooperation and not one of subservience -- a hawkish vision that has too often been expressed by the European Union."

- Gay groups press candidates -

France's LGBT groups said they are sending questionnaires to the 11 presidential candidates asking them to spell out their policies on gay rights issues.

The questions concern marriage and civil unions, adoption and other parenting issues, health and discrimination.

The umbrella grouping Inter-LGBT said they will post the candidates' responses on the website www.lgbt2017.fr as they are received.
Hundreds of hate-filled emails and calls have been received by Rockville High School and the Montgomery County Public School District in Maryland following the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl by two other students, including one who authorities said came to the U.S. illegally from Central America.

Around 500 emails and 200 hate-based phone calls have been received, Derek Turner, a county school spokesman, told Fox News on Thursday. Threats included anonymous calls that claimed they will shoot undocumented immigrants in the school vicinity and burn down the school, according to CBS Baltimore.

Read: What Is VOICE? Trump's New Immigration Policy

The issue began flaring up after last Friday when 17-year-old Jose Montano and 18-year-old Henry Sanchez-Milian were charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual offense, according to the Associated Press. Police officials later revealed that Sanchez-Milian is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who came to the U.S. illegally in August and was caught by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Texas but was eventually released to live with his father.

Following Sanchez-Milians arrest in the alleged rape case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have asked local law enforcement to hold the suspect for a pending immigration review but ICE officials would not comment on Montanos citizenship due to his age.

The issue escalated and received national attention after being referenced during a White House briefing Tuesday. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the case was horrendous and horrible and disgusting.

I think part of the reason the President has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this, he said.

On Thursday, during a visit to a nearby elementary school, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also issued a statement about the case.

As a mother of two daughters and grandmother of four young girls, my heart aches for the young woman and her family at the center of these terrible circumstances. We all have a common responsibility to ensure every student has access to a safe and nurturing learning environment, the statement said, according to the AP.

Story continues

Sanchez-Milian will plead 100% not guilty, his attorney, Andrew Jezic, said Wednesday, according to Fox News. Sanchez-Milian is due to appear in court on April 14 and Montano has a hearing scheduled for March 31.

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Washington (AFP) - A rape at a Washington area high school has drawn intense scrutiny as part of the immigration debate launched under President Donald Trump, since the two alleged attackers are Latinos who entered the United States illegally.

Under normal circumstances, a case like this would not make national headlines. But these are not normal times in America.

The attack feeds perfectly into the Trump narrative that the United States has porous borders and does not give priority to native-born Americans, and that unauthorized immigrants mean more and more violent crime.

Jose Montano, 17, and Henry Sanchez Milian, 18, are accused of brutally raping a 14-year-old classmate in a bathroom during school hours. They have been arrested and are in custody as they wait to go before a judge.

The rape took place last week at a public high school in Rockville, Maryland, a Washington suburb in Montgomery County, which is strongly pro-Democratic.

Seventy-six percent of the county's voters went with Hillary Clinton in the November election.

News reports say Sanchez Milian was born in Guatemala and in August 2016 crossed the Rio Grande separating Mexico from the United States, as do many Latinos seeking to escape poverty and find a better life in the United States. He was picked up by border control agents.

A few days later, he was let go to join his father, who was living in Maryland while the youth waited to appear before an immigration judge.

That hearing has not even been scheduled yet, because of a huge backlog in the courts: half a million cases involving unauthorized immigrants waiting to see if they can stay or will be deported.

An estimated 11 million people live in the country illegally, most of them Mexicans and other Latinos.

- Xenophobia -

The rape unexpectedly threw gasoline on the red hot national immigration debate, including plenty of xenophobic commentary on social media.

Many Republican lawmakers wondered aloud how an authorized immigrant who does not speak English and is legally an adult, like Sanchez Milian, can be placed in a public school in contact with much younger people.

Story continues

Fox News, which is popular with conservatives, has provided blanket coverage of the rape in all its ugly, violent detail.

The television network also claimed there were links between the rape and so-called sanctuary cities, where local authorities do not cooperate with their federal counterparts on immigration and deportation matters.

The case took on national dimensions Tuesday. when White House spokesman Sean Spicer called the sexual assault "shocking, disturbing, horrific."

"I think part of the reason that the president has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this," Spicer said.

Rockville "should look at its policies," he added. Under Maryland law, anyone aged 5 to 21 has the right to go to school, even if they are in the country illegally.

The Trump administration is accused of trying to score political points at the expense of Montano, who was born in El Salvador, and Sanchez Milian.

Trump often links immigration to higher crime rates, although no serious studies back up this claim.

In announcing his candidacy in June 2015, Trump famously said that some of the Mexicans who cross the border illegally are rapists and drug dealers.

He has also called Latino migrants "bad hombres."

The controversy deepened when the Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, urged Montgomery County officials to cooperate fully with the probe into the rape. This was seen by some as a veiled criticism that they had been dragging their feet.

- Totally indecent -

Jack Smith, the Montgomery County Public Schools superintendent, said it is "totally inappropriate to suggest that we're going to deny a 14-year-old, a 16-year-old, an 18-year-old an education because of a horrible thing that happened in our schools last Thursday."

He defended putting 17- or 18-year-olds in class with younger kids if the former's educational level requires some catching up.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos tried to calm things down by visiting an elementary school in Maryland on Thursday.

DeVos, a billionaire, was a controversial choice for her post because she backs a mechanism under which taxpayer money can be earmarked for private or religious schools, and besides that, she has no experience whatsoever in education. Protesters greeted her at the elementary school.

By sheer coincidence, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released data Thursday for 2013-2014.

"These statistics make it clear that immigration-related offenses along the United States border with Mexico account for an enormous portion of the federal government's law enforcement resources and that we must enforce our immigration laws in a way that consistently deters future violations," said Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores.
(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday: HEALTHCARE Trump suffers a stunning political setback in a Congress controlled by his own party when Republican leaders pull legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, a major 2016 election campaign promise of the president and his allies. Trump says the healthcare legislation he supported had been "very, very close" to getting enough support in the House of Representatives and that now he probably will move on to tax reform. Wall Street's predilection for a glass-half-full view of Trump is on full display as investors back off fears that a failure to repeal Obamacare would endanger his entire agenda in favor of optimism that he will simply get on with tax cuts and infrastructure spending. Nearly half of American adults say the Republican healthcare reform measure that was pulled from consideration by the House is "not an improvement" over Obamacare, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. SURVEILLANCE The partisan divide over the House Intelligence Committee's probe of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election deepens when the committee's top Democrat suggested its Republican chairman canceled a public hearing after pressure from the White House. SUPREME COURT A third of Democratic senators have so far announced they will vote against confirming Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, adding to a chorus of opposition from the left, but leaving questions over whether there will be a concerted effort to block a vote in the Senate. PIPELINE Trump's administration approves TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline, cheering the oil industry and angering environmentalists even as further hurdles for the controversial project loom. ECONOMY U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says financial markets could improve "significantly" once they fully reflect the potential for economic growth from Trump's policies. TRAVEL BAN A federal judge in Virginia rules that Trump's travel ban was justified, increasing the likelihood the measure will go before the Supreme Court as the decision takes an opposing view to courts in Maryland and Hawaii that have halted the order. CALIFORNIA CARS California approves vehicle pollution targets that the Trump administration last week put on hold, setting up a potential face-off between federal and state regulators that could be expensive for automakers and a headache for consumers. JOBS Trump touts Charter Communications Inc's decision to invest $25 billion in the United States and its previously disclosed plan to hire 20,000 workers over four years. (Compiled by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis; Editing by Sandra Maler and Lisa Shumaker)
Republican lawmakers on Friday pulled the health care reform bill they had presented as a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, abandoning the plan after it became clear they lacked the votes for it to pass.

Obamacare is the law of the land. Its going to remain the law of the land until its replaced, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said at a press conference Friday afternoon, admitting that Republicans had -at least temporarily - tabled their long-held campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law. Were going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.

Ryan affirmed his support for the failed bill, calling it a dramatic improvement in our healthcare system, but he said that, lacking consensus, he felt the best step was to withdraw the bill and figure out what else could be done.

This is a setback - no two ways about it - but it is not the end of this story, Ryan said.

Ryan visited the White House on Friday to tell Trump he lacked the votes to pass the controversial bill, which faced opposition from Democrats as well as many Republicans and health organizations. Trump issued an ultimatum to Republicans on Thursday, warning that they needed to pass their healthcare plan now or he would move on to other policy priorities.

We just pulled it, Trump said in a telephone interview Friday with the Washington Post, adding that he didnt blame Ryan. In an interview with the New York Times, Trump faulted Democrats for the bills failure.

Trump said he expects Democrats will seek a healthcare reform deal within a year when Obamacare explodes because of higher premiums, according to the Times.

At Fridays press conference, Ryan issued a similar warning. Whats really troubling is the worst is yet to come with Obamacare, he said.

But Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hailed the announcement as a victory for the American people.

Asked whether the healthcare failure is a sign of future problems awaiting the Republican Party, Ryan said he was confident Republicans would be able to generate consensus around other issues in their agenda, specifically identifying border security, military strength and tax reform.

Yes, this does make tax reform more difficult, but it does not make it impossible, he said.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
ICEE, the iconic frozen beverage often found at movie theaters or local amusement parks, turns 50 this year, and the company will be celebrating for all of 2017.

The ICEE Company announced Thursday that it would be releasing new frozen flavors throughout the year along with limited-edition packaging. The special 32-ounce cups, golden spoonstraws and new flavors will roll out in select retail chains across the country.

The unique, new flavors will include the following: Dragon Fruit, Mango Strawberry, Lemonade and Strawberry Lemonade, Laffy Taffy, Fanta Sour Grape and Mango Lime Chili. The new flavors join the traditional roster of flavors that include Grape, Cherry, Banana and Cherry Lime.

Read: Dunkin' Donuts Spring Menu 2017: Where And When To Buy New Donuts, Beverages

For five decades, consumers of all ages have enjoyed more than 150 ICEE flavors, including our top sellers like Cherry, Blue Raspberry and Coca-Cola, while taking in the latest motion picture, embarking on a road trip with friends or cooling off during a hot day at the local amusement park, ICEE Company President Dan Fachner said in a statement. We look forward to unveiling some of our most innovative and exciting flavors to date, including a surprise mystery flavor to satisfy adventurous taste buds.

The ICEE Company first launched in 1967 in Los Angeles. As the story goes, founder Omar Knedlik, a Dairy Queen owner in Kansas in the 50s, would put bottles of carbonated sodas into the freezer to make up for the fact that he didnt own a soda fountain. Word caught on when customers started requesting the frozen sodas.

In 1987, the ICEE Company was acquired by J&J Snack Foods, the snack company behind supermarket items from Bavarian Bakery pretzels and Minute Maid frozen beverages and bars. The ICEE Company now distributes internationally and sells about 500 million ICEE drinks each year, or enough to a fill 141 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the release states.

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Senior Minister Meg Barnhouse knows she'll need beds, a dresser, chairs and a mirror to make the classroom at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin feel more like a home for a mother and her young daughter who are still deciding whether they will become the latest immigrants seeking sanctuary from deportation by moving into a church.

It would be the second time Barnhouse's congregation had offered sanctuary. She was hesitant in 2015 because of the unknown legal and insurance risks, but this time she agreed immediately.

There is growing fear in the city's immigrant community as President Donald Trump's immigration and executive orders go into effect. And as more than 50 Austin area residents were detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation raids last month, a growing number of churches in the Austin Sanctuary Network are volunteering to offer physical shelter or support to churches that do.

The Austin Sanctuary Network has broadened in the last year from a handful of churches and advocates to more than two dozen congregations and religious groups, three labor unions, several nonprofit groups and dozens of individual volunteers. This mirrors the loosely organized national sanctuary movement that has grown to more than 800 churches and congregations, with a good portion of those joining since Trump was elected.

"It's bewildering for people at this point. It's like trying to repair furniture when the house is on fire," said Pastor Jim Rigby, whose congregation at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin has provided sanctuary to Guatemalan immigrant Hilda Ramirez and her 10-year-old son, Ivan, for more than a year . "Opening our arms to our neighbors goes without question."

Pastor Laura Walter's small Presbyterian congregation in Bee Cave, 12 miles west of Austin, hopes her church can expand the network to reach immigrant communities outside city limits. They are still discussing whether the small church has room to offer shelter or whether they could get a permit to build a temporary shower.

Story continues

"Our faith calls us to live this out," Walters said. "In the near future we'll be at the very least helping support refugees and asylum seekers."

The churches are relying on a 2011 ICE policy directive telling agents to avoid "sensitive areas" such as churches, hospitals and schools when conducting deportation actions under most circumstances. Federal immigration officials said that policy is still in effect, but recent immigration arrests around the U.S., including inside courthouses, are increasing fears.

Austin, a liberal enclave in a conservative state, has had a strong base of immigration activists for years in opposition to a previous sheriff, who cooperated with ICE requests to hold inmates for possible deportation. During the city's involvement in the Secure Communities Program 7/87/8 a federal-local partnership on deportation ended in 2014 by the Obama administration  an average of 19 people were deported from Travis County each week. Trump has revived the program.

Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who took office in January, has decreased cooperation with immigration officials by not automatically granting requests to hold immigrants for possible deportation. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has withheld nearly $1.5 million in state grant funds from Travis County in response.

A Department of Homeland Security report this week singled out Travis County and a handful of other counties for denying immigrant detention requests, although local officials pushed back against some of the information in the report.

Many of the pastors say they are teaching civil disobedience when necessary, but because the immigrants are openly declaring sanctuary and letting immigration officials know where they are, they don't believe they are violating the law. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials declined to discuss the legality of sanctuary, but pointed to the sensitive areas policy.

The increased membership in the Austin network has meant more resources for outreach, including seminars on preparing deportation defense packets that designate who should take custody of children if a parent is detained for deportation proceedings.

The network has also partnered with local and national activists to teach more than 250 volunteers tactics called Sanctuary in the Streets designed to bring a church service to areas where deportation raids are happening to create a barrier between agents and immigrants. The volunteers also go with immigrants fearing deportation to court visits or immigration appointments.

Volunteers often go with Ramirez to appointments as she makes her case for asylum. For eight months, she never left the church grounds. The congregation built a green plastic barrier around a small outdoor space so she and Ivan could go outside without worrying about immigration officials.

Ramirez was granted a deportation deferment through October, meaning she can go to the store or do her own laundry, but she told pastors that with the aggressive immigration enforcement actions in recent months, she wants to stay.

The pastors have said the pair is welcome for as long as they want. At the Unitarian Church, Barnhouse and her congregation are also prepared to offer sanctuary for as long as the mother and daughter may need. Network volunteers declined to offer details about the mother until she makes her decision.

"It's very grounding and exciting for a church to be able to live out its mission this tangibly," Barnhouse said. "We gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives and do justice. That is our mission. ... This feels like all of it."

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For a related video go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5LCtjK2Tbg
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari said on Saturday universities must uphold liberal values and respect dissent, a month after violent protests erupted at a university in the capital Delhi over a speech by a student accused of sedition. Addressing students at a university in the northern state of Punjab, Ansari said commitments to the right to dissent should be revisited at a time when the "value and scope of academic freedom" was being called into question. "The right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms," he said. "Recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be. The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be 'public good'." Ansari appeared to be referring to violence at the University of Delhi last month involving Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a pro-BJP student union. According to media reports, ABVP protested against inviting the student to give a speech at a literary seminar and violent clashes broke out. The vice president's defense of plurality also comes as criticism grows over an apparent shift in course by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that could redefine the world's largest democracy as a Hindu nation. Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand Hindu ascetic with a history of agitation against minority Muslims, was sworn in to lead the country's most populous state on March 19, and observers said it marked a departure from the platform of development for all on which Modi rose to national power in 2014. (Reporting by Neha Dasgupta; Editing by Helen Popper)
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Israel has ignored a United Nations resolution demanding it halt settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territory that was criticized by the Trump administration, the world body's Middle East envoy said Friday.

Although the UN Security Council resolution passed December 23 demanded that Israel immediately cease all settlement activities, "no such steps have been taken," envoy Nickolay Mladenov said in his first report to the council since the resolution was adopted.

"The January spike in illegal settlement announcements by Israel is deeply concerning," he said.

In January, Israel made five announcements on settlement building that together totaled more than 6,000 homes in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem.

In early February, Israel declared its intention to build what would anti-settlement group Peace Now says would be the first new settlement by an Israeli government since 1992.

Mladenov also expressed concern about the Israeli parliament's approval of a new settlement law on February 6 that retroactively legalizes dozens of Jewish outposts and thousands of settler homes built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

The new law will allow Israel to legally seize Palestinian private land on which Israelis carried out construction without knowing it was private property or because the state allowed them to do so.

Palestinian owners will be compensated financially or with different land.

Mladenov said the law represents a major change in Israel's position on the question of legality in the Palestinian occupied territories.

Settlements in both the West Bank and east Jerusalem are viewed as illegal under international law and major stumbling blocks to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians want for their own state.

The Middle East envoy's report came before the 15-nation Security Council held a closed-door session to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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- New message under Trump -

Under the new administration, the United States, one of the five veto-wielding council members and a long-time Israel supporter, has pledged to back Israel more than Donald Trump's predecessor Barack Obama.

As president-elect, Trump in late December assailed Obama's outgoing administration for abstaining in the December 23 council vote on a UN resolution reprimanding Israel over its settlement activity.

By declining to use its veto, the United States enabled the adoption of the first UN resolution since 1979 to condemn Israel over its settlement policy.

The Obama administration justified its decision by citing frustration with Israel's attitude on settlement building.

The newly installed Trump administration in late January signaled that Israel did not have a blank check from America on settlement building.

But Trump sowed confusion in mid-February by seeming to distance Washington from the two-state solution -- the creation of a Palestinian state that coexists with Israel -- that has been supported by the international community for years.

His comment was quickly massaged by other US officials, including the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley.

The British ambassador Matthew Rycroft, who chaired Friday's Security Council discussion, said his country, "like many others," reaffirmed its commitment to a two-state solution during the talks.

The US representative, Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison, made no statement at the end of the talks.
Ottawa (AFP) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was quick to welcome Washington's approval of a major new pipeline from Canada into the United States, but observers say it creates political headaches for his administration.

Trudeau has sought to strike a balance between two competing policies -- supporting Canada's oil and gas sector, which is the sixth largest in the world, and slashing global-warming greenhouse gases.

In approving the Keystone XL pipeline -- which would move oil from landlocked Alberta, Canada to US Gulf Coast refineries -- US President Donald Trump reversed his predecessor Barack Obama's decision to block it two years ago.

The project had first been proposed in 2008.

In doing so, Trump has reignited a nearly decade-long feud between environmental activists and the energy industry, leaving Trudeau squeezed in the middle.

"I think Trump's decision hurts the Trudeau government," Matthew Hoffmann, co-director of the Munk School's Environmental Governance Lab in Toronto told AFP.

"I think they would have been happy to let Keystone die because of the US and not have to pay the political costs for its approval."

Trudeau's centrist Liberal government remains high in the polls, but critics have highlighted his conflicting climate and economic policies to try to pry open cracks in his armor.

On the one hand he has spoken enthusiastically about the need to stem global warming, but he also recently approved two new domestic pipelines.

It's an awkward position that Trudeau has "desperately clung to," said energy specialist Pierre-Olivier Pineau of HEC school in Montreal.

The approval of the Keystone pipeline, the first and most favored of projects touted by the industry, will however help to shore up his support on the center-right.

And it will help a political ally -- a fledgling progressive government in Alberta led by Rachel Notley. Her New Democrats swept to power for the first time ever in 2015 after four decades of conservative rule.

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- Oil sector is gushing -

The Canadian oil and gas sector is naturally pleased about the decision.

Alberta's oil has long been discounted $5-$10 below market values because there had been no way to get it to tidewater, leaving the United States as its sole buyer.

Keystone is expected to carry 830,000 barrels of oil per day, allowing Canada to significantly boost energy exports and demand a better price.

This would bring higher oil royalties and tax revenues at a crucial time when Ottawa is struggling with a large deficit, said Jean Thomas Bernard, an economics professor at the University of Ottawa.

The oil sector had been Canada's top economic driver for years but was hit hard by the oil slump and 2016 wildfires.

"Mr. Trudeau would like the oil sector to return to a high level of activity," Bernard said, in order to refill government coffers.

But there will be pushback from the left, which makes up an estimated 60 percent of Canadian voters. They typically split between the Liberals and a third-ranked socialist party.

"On the left the environmental movement has never bought this notion that we're going to trade progressive climate policies for pipelines," Hoffman said.

"The fact that the US had blocked Keystone allowed Trudeau to sidestep that debate, to some extent," he said.

"Now it's going to raise significant protests on the left and from the environmental movement."

- Climate commitment? -

Trudeau has pledged under the Paris agreement on climate change to eliminate 219 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 -- a 30 percent reduction from 2005 levels.

Keystone's approval "throws a wrench into his climate commitment," as it is expected to facilitate more oil sand development, Hoffman said.

The oil sands are Canada's top single source of CO2 emissions, and its fastest growing. The oil and gas sector is projected to produce 233 megatonnes by 2030, according to a recent Senate report.

In January, Trudeau was strongly rebuked by Albertans and oil sector executives for suggesting that the oil sands should be "phased out."

In order to blunt criticisms, Trudeau may ramp up climate actions to counter the increased emissions.

Additionally, according to Bernard, the green light for Keystone may ease pressure on Trudeau to approve any more domestic pipelines, including the hotly contested Energy East line from Alberta to the Atlantic Coast.
Dubai (AFP) - Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US Saturday, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through the world's busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai.

Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban, including Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport and Qatar's Hamad International Airport.

And while the ban has sparked anger across the region for again targeting majority-Muslim countries, some increasingly wary travellers shrugged off the latest restriction.

"It's a rule. I follow the rules," said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year.

"The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours."

Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

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Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

"When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again," read a statement emailed to AFP.

The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.

The United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.
MARKSVILLE, La. (AP)  The Latest on murder trial of a law enforcement officer charged in the shooting death of a 6-year-old boy (all times local):

9 p.m.

Jurors have convicted a Louisiana law enforcement officer of manslaughter in a shooting that killed a 6-year-old autistic boy.

Multiple news outlets report the jury late Friday found Derrick Stafford guilty on manslaughter and attempted manslaughter charges. Stafford had been indicted on charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder.

Stafford and another deputy city marshal opened fire on a car, killing Jeremy Mardis and critically wounding his father after a car chase in Marksville on Nov. 3, 2015.

Video from a police officer's body camera shows the father, Christopher Few, had his hands raised inside his vehicle while the two deputies fired.

Stafford testified he shot at the car because he feared Few was going to back up and hit the other deputy, Norris Greenhouse Jr.

Greenhouse faces a separate trial later this year.

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1:45 p.m.

A Louisiana law enforcement officer has testified at his murder trial that he was trying to save a fellow officer when he opened fire on a car, killing a 6-year-old autistic boy and critically wounding his father.

The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/2oe880h ) that Derrick Stafford cried Friday when a prosecutor showed him photographs of the slain child, Jeremy Mardis.

Stafford says he didn't know the boy was in the car when he fired and didn't see his father's hands in the air after a 2-mile car chase in Marksville in November 2015.

But he says he shot at the car because he feared the father, Christopher Few, was going to back up and hit another deputy city marshal with his vehicle.

Stafford is charged with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder.
Hong Kong (AFP) - Hong Kong's new leader Carrie Lam pledged Sunday to mend political rifts after winning a vote dismissed as a sham by democracy activists who fear the loss of the city's cherished freedoms.

Hong Kong has been semi-autonomous since it was handed back to China by colonial ruler Britain in 1997.

But 20 years on, there are serious concerns Beijing is disregarding the handover agreement designed to protect Hong Kong's way of life.

The former career civil servant was chosen as the next chief executive by a mainly pro-China committee and was widely seen as Beijing's favourite to head the city.

Critics say she will deepen divisions in the city, but Lam said she wanted to unify Hong Kong.

"Hong Kong, our home, is suffering from quite a serious divisiveness and has accumulated a lot of frustrations. My priority will be to heal the divide," she said after her victory.

Lam pledged to uphold Hong Kong's semi-autonomous "one country, two systems" set-up and protect its core values, including freedom of expression and an independent judiciary.

Asked how she would address concerns that Beijing is tightening its grip, she said there was "no difference" between the Hong Kong government and Chinese authorities' views in terms of safeguarding the city's status and freedoms.

It was the first leadership vote since mass "Umbrella Movement" rallies calling for fully free elections in 2014 failed to secure reforms, and came after a turbulent term under current chief executive Leung Chun-ying.

Leung, who is seen by opponents as a Beijing puppet, will step down in July after five years in charge. Lam, who will be the city's first woman leader, was formerly his deputy.

An emotional Lam, 59, bowed to supporters as it was announced she had won comprehensively with 777 votes against 365 for John Tsang, seen as a more moderate establishment figure.

The third and most liberal candidate, retired judge Woo Kwok-hing, received just 21 votes.

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Around three quarters of the 1,194 members of the election committee were from the pro-China camp.

Lam is intensely disliked by the pro-democracy camp after promoting the Beijing-backed political reform package that sparked 2014's massive protests.

That plan would have allowed the public to choose the city's leader in 2017, but would have insisted that candidates must be vetted first.

It was eventually voted down in parliament by pro-democracy lawmakers and reforms have been shelved ever since.

Since then frustration among activists has sparked calls for self-determination for Hong Kong, or even a complete split from China.

Hundreds of protesters including leading pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong gathered near the harbourfront voting venue.

Nearby, pro-China supporters played marching music surrounded by national and city flags.

Rebel legislator Nathan Law, who as a lawmaker has an automatic vote, said he would enter a blank ballot.

"It is still a selection from the Beijing government," Law told AFP.

- Uphill struggle -

Representatives of a broad number of sectors, from business to education, sit on the committee that chooses the chief executive, but the vast majority of the city's 3.8 million electorate have no say in the vote.

Pro-democracy committee members threw their weight behind Lam's main rival, ex-finance secretary Tsang.

But activists said he was still on Beijing's side and rejected the vote outright as unrepresentative of Hong Kong people.

Lam will face an uphill struggle to unite a city in which young people in particular have lost faith in the political system and their own overall prospects.

With salaries too low to meet the cost of property in an overpriced market fuelled by mainland money, getting ahead in life is seen as increasingly difficult.

While she said Sunday she wanted more democracy for Hong Kong, Lam said she intended to prioritise social issues such as housing.

Critics fear she will pave the way for more interference from Beijing after an number of incidents under Leung that rocked public confidence.

They include the disappearance in 2015 of five Hong Kong booksellers known for publishing salacious titles about China's political elite. The booksellers all resurfaced in detention on the mainland.

Last year, the disqualification from parliament of two publicly elected pro-independence lawmakers following Beijing's intervention also prompted accusations the city's legislature had been seriously compromised.
Beirut (AFP) - A Lebanese university will pay $700,000 to settle a US lawsuit over allegations it provided "material support" to entities linked to Hezbollah, US officials said.

The American University of Beirut confirmed in a statement Friday it was settling the lawsuit, which charged it had violated the terms of grants it received from US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The US Attorney's Office in Manhattan announced the deal on Thursday, saying AUB would be required to pay the US government $700,000 (650,000 euros) and revise its internal policies to ensure future compliance with US law.

"For years, the American University of Beirut accepted grant money from USAID, but failed to take reasonable steps to ensure against providing material support to entities on the Treasury Department's prohibited list," said Acting Manhattan US Attorney Joon H. Kim said.

"With today's settlement, the University is being made to pay a financial penalty for its conduct, and importantly, it has admitted to its conduct and agreed to put proper precautions in place to ensure that it does not happen again."

The civil lawsuit charged that AUB violated US law by providing media training between 2007-2009 to representatives of two media outlets -- Al-Nour Radio and Al-Manar television -- under US sanctions for their ties to Hezbollah.

It also accused AUB of listing the Hezbollah-linked Jihad al-Binaa, also under US sanctions, on the university's NGO database.

Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite political and military organisation, is listed as a "terrorist" group in the United States and entities linked to it are also under sanctions.

In its statement, AUB said it acknowledged the accusations.

But it insisted "AUB does not agree that its conduct was knowing, intentional or reckless."

It welcomed the settlement and said it would conduct additional training of faculty and staff on US law going forward.

AUB was founded in 1866 and is considered one of Lebanon's leading universities.
BOAO, China (Reuters) - The world's major nations are responsible for maintaining global peace, and all countries should remain committed to a road of stable and peaceful development, China's Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli said on Saturday. His comments followed media reports this week that North Korea was in the final stages of preparing for another nuclear test. Earlier this month, Pyongyang launched four ballistic missiles in response to joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, which it regards as preparation to war. "Large countries have the responsibility to maintain global peace, should increase strategic dialogue, increase mutual trust, and respect each other's core interests and major concerns," Zhang said at the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia in southern China's Hainan province. He did not identify the large countries. North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since the beginning of 2016. Washington has been pressing Beijing to do more to stop North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes. China has called for a dual-track approach, urging North Korea to suspend its tests and the United States and South Korea to halt military drills, so that both sides can return to talks. Beijing has also been angered by the U.S. deployment of the THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, missile defence system in South Korea, which it says will both harm China's own security and do nothing to ease tensions. "All parties should stick to dialogue to settle disputes and problems in a peaceful manner," Zhang said, without specifying what disputes and problems. Zhang's comments also came ahead of a milestone meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in the United States next month. During a recent visit to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Xi said China and the United States must strengthen coordination of hot regional issues, respect each other's core interests and major concerns, and protect the broad stability of ties. Trump has previously threatened a 45 percent tariff on China's exports and frequently said on the campaign trail that he would label China a currency manipulator. Trump has not followed through on either move yet. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has also complained about China's excess industrial capacity, unfair subsidies for state-owned enterprises and a lack of access for foreign firms to major sectors of the Chinese economy. "China remains committed to the strategy of opening up," Zhang said. "China's door to the world is open, and it will only be opened wider." (Reporting by Elias Glenn; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Robert Birsel and Christian Schmollinger)
In advance of the House vote on the Republican health care plan set for Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump tweeted about a small group of House Republicans known as the Freedom Caucus.

Trump was seemingly desperate to get the bill officially known as the American Health Care Act of 2017 (ACHA) through the House on Friday, even going so far as to threaten to give up his health care ambitions entirely and leave Obamacare in place if the bill doesn't pass.

So it was not surprising the president chose the Freedom Caucus as the target of his now-expected morning tweets. The roughly 30 members of the group (there is no official roster) have expressed disdain for the AHCA, which they see as "Obamacare lite" and not a full repeal of the landmark 2009 law.

Read: Paul Ryan Net Worth: Healthcare Plan Architect Worth Millions

Trump met with the group Thursday to elicit their support, an effort which failed, prompting House leadership to push the vote back from Thursday to Friday. With Democrats in universal opposition, the bill will fail if 23 Republicans vote against it. According to that math, Trump and Ryan need the Freedom Caucus to come to their side in order to fulfill the long-held Republican dream of repealing and replacing Obamacare.

So what, and who, is the Freedom Caucus?

The Freedom Caucus represents the conservative wing of the Republican party. On its Facebook page (the group doesn't have a website), the caucus says it "gives a voice to countless Americans who feel that Washington does not represent them. We support open, accountable and limited government, the Constitution and the rule of law, and policies that promote the liberty, safety and prosperity of all Americans."

Many of the caucus' members came to power in 2010 on the back of the tea party movement and its anger over Obamacare. The group officially formed in early 2015, and positioned itself as a group that could make or break deals during that year's budget fights. The real coming-out party for the caucus, however, was the battle over House leadership in late 2015 that pushed Speaker of the House John Boehner out of power.

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Freedom Caucus member Rep. Justin Amash, R-MI, said at the time that Boehner operated a "top-down system," a charge that members of the caucus have levied against Republican leadership in the current debate.

The current chair of the caucus is North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, who was elected to Congress in 2012. As of Friday morning, Meadows was a holdout on the bill, despite the fact that the president joked that he would "come after" the congressman if he didn't vote for the bill.

While negotiations will continue throughout Friday before voting begins late in the afternoon, the Freedom Caucus was expected to continue to press for conservative reforms, which could alienate their moderate colleagues. Any bill would need to go to the Senate before becoming law, but the fate of Obamacare could be decided Friday, and members of the Freedom Caucus could be the ones who decide it.

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Officials in Washington, D.C. asked the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the disappearances of numerous children and teenagers in the area in a letter to both departments Tuesday. More than 500 juveniles have gone missing in D.C. since the beginning of 2017: 22 cases were still unsolved as of Friday. Police, meanwhile, said there was nothing unusual about those numbers.

The letter, obtained by the Associated Press, asked FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to devote the resources necessary to determine whether these developments are an anomaly or whether they are indicative of an underlying trend that must be addressed. It was signed by Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents D.C. in Congress.

Read: Missing Baltimore Mother Found Dead, Police Searching For Boyfriend As Suspect

A town-hall style meeting hosted by Ward 8 councilmember Trayon White was also held Wednesday night in southeast D.C. to call attention to the situation, Fox 5 D.C. reported.

While they were concerned and actively searching for the missing children, the Metropolitan Police Department said that they were not an anomaly. Police data showed that the number of missing child cases actually dropped in the area from 2,433 in 2015 to 2,242 in 2016.

Weve just been posting them on social media more often, said Metropolitan Police spokeswoman Rachel Reid, according to the AP.

The police forces Twitter account is awash with posts asking the public for help locating missing children, most of whom are black and Latino. NBC News 4 D.C. also released an interactive map with the last known locations of the missing children.

Officials said that even if the number of missing children was less this year than in years past, an investigation should still be launched.

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We cant focus on the numbers, said Derrica Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation. If we have one missing child, thats too many.

Read: Missing Tennessee Teen Elizabeth Thomas Knew Something Bad Would Happen

Wilson expressed concern that the children might be victims of human trafficking, something police said they have no evidence of.

We have no indication to believe that young girls in the District are being preyed upon by human traffickers in large numbers, said police commander Chanel Dickerson, leader of the Youth and Family Services division, according to NBC News 4.

It is not so much about the numbers, said Wilson. It is about the ones that are missing, what we can do to get them safe.

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By Marcy Nicholson

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - More Americans are drinking a daily cup of coffee in 2017, a reversal of four years of declines, as gourmet brews gain in popularity, according to an industry group's report released on Saturday.

"More of us are drinking coffee, and younger consumers appear to be leading the charge," said National Coffee Association USA (NCA) Chief Executive Officer Bill Murray.

"A steadily growing taste for gourmet varieties is also driving a wider trend toward specialty beverages," he said.

Gourmet coffee is brewed from what survey participants view to be premium beans and includes espresso-based drinks like cappuccinos.

The National Coffee Drinking Trends report showed that 62 percent of more than 3,000 people who participated in the online survey said they had drunk coffee the previous day, which is interpreted as daily consumption.

This was up from 57 percent in 2016, said the report, which was released at the coffee association's conference in Austin, Texas.

The increase appeared in all age groups, with 37 percent of 13-to-18-year-olds reporting they had a coffee the day prior, up from 31 percent in 2016.

Daily consumption spread to 64 percent of 40-to-59-year-olds from 53 percent last year, but this brought levels around those of 2014, according to the report.

Among types of coffee, the increase was most pronounced in gourmet varieties. About 24 percent of survey participants said they drank an espresso-based drink the day prior. The jump from 18 percent in 2016 was the biggest for this category.

Ownership of single-cup brewers was also on the rise, increasing to 33 percent of respondents from 29 percent a year ago.

The association has been conducting the survey annually since 1950. The margin of error is around 1.7 percent.

(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco's Prime Minster Saad Eddine El Othmani said on Saturday he had agreed to form a coalition government with five other parties, breaking nearly six months of post-election deadlock. Othmani, from the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), was appointed as premier last week by Morocco's King Mohammed VI. He replaced PJD leader Abdelilah Benkirane, whose efforts to form a government following October elections had been frustrated. "The next steps will be deciding on government structure and ministerial appointments," Othmani told reporters, surrounded by the leaders of the five other parties. "We need to move beyond previous obstacles." Othmani said the government's priorities would include reinforcing stability, justice reform, education, rural development and energy. Before Othmani's appointment, negotiations had stalled largely over the insistence by the National Rally of Independents (RNI) party on including the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) in a coalition. Both parties are among those now expected to form a new government. The other parties are the Popular Movement (MP) and the Constitutional Union (UC). The inclusion of four smaller parties alongside the RNI is seen as weakening the PJD's position, which analysts said was why Benkirane had resisted such an outcome. (Reporting by Samia Errazzouki; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Near Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Air strikes have killed dozens of civilians in west Mosul in recent days, officials said Saturday, as the number of people fleeing fighting against jihadists in the area topped 200,000.

Hundreds of thousands more are still in danger inside the city, where Iraqi forces have recaptured a series of neighbourhoods since the operation to retake west Mosul from the Islamic State group began last month.

Both Iraqi aircraft and those from an international US-led coalition are carrying out strikes against IS in the Mosul area.

The coalition said it struck an area in west Mosul on March 17 in which civilian casualties were reported, and that it was investigating "to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties".

But some Iraqi officials referred to more than one day of strikes.

"There are dozens of bodies still under the rubble," Bashar al-Kiki, the head of the Nineveh provincial council, told AFP.

"Efforts to remove the bodies... are ongoing."

Nawfal Hammadi, the governor of Nineveh province of which Mosul is the capital, said the coalition was responsible for the strikes in the city's Mosul al-Jadida area.

Hammadi had put the toll at "more than 130 civilians" killed, but later referred to "the burial of hundreds of martyrs under the rubble of the houses in the Mosul al-Jadida area".

"The Daesh terrorist organisation is seeking to stop the advance of the Iraqi forces in Mosul at any cost, and it is gathering civilians... and using them as human shields," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

- Residential buildings hit -

Other officials also said that hundreds of people had been killed. It was not possible to confirm the tolls independently.

Omar Mohanned Sumayr and his uncle Manhal, both of whom have now fled Mosul, said that a building with 170 people inside next to their own house had been destroyed when IS forces in the area were targeted from the air.

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"The house fell on the heads of the families," Sumayr said, adding that all 170 people inside were killed.

He said IS fighters and an explosives-rigged vehicle were targeted, while Manhal said IS sniping had prompted the strike.

"Daesh snipers went up on the houses and opened fire on the Iraqi forces," after which a plane targeted them with a missile, Manhal said.

An Iraqi brigadier general said that bombing had damaged more than 27 residential buildings and that three were completely destroyed.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the strikes came after IS targeted military aircraft and attacked Iraqi forces with sniper fire.

The US-led coalition against IS, which has been bombing the jihadists for more than two and a half years, said Saturday it had struck a location in west Mosul where civilians were reportedly killed.

- 'Terrible loss of life' -

"An initial review of strike data... indicates that, at the request of the Iraqi security forces, the coalition struck (IS) fighters and equipment, March 17, in west Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties," it said in a statement.

At the beginning of this month it had said that "it is more likely than not, at least 220 civilians have been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes", while other incidents were still under investigation.

The United Nations said it was "profoundly concerned" by the reported deaths from the Mosul air raids, and called for all parties to protect civilians during the battle.

"We are stunned by this terrible loss of life and wish to express our deepest condolences to the many families who have reportedly been impacted by this tragedy," Lise Grande, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement.

"Nothing in this conflict is more important than protecting civilians.

"International humanitarian law is clear. Parties to the conflict -- all parties -- are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians. This means that combatants cannot use people as human shields and cannot imperil lives through indiscriminate use of fire-power," she said.

More than 200,000 people have fled west Mosul since Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake it on February 19, an Iraqi ministry said Saturday.

"The number of displaced from the areas of the right bank (west side) of the city of Mosul has risen to 201,275 people," the ministry of migration and displaced said in a statement.

The UN said Thursday that around 600,000 people were left in west Mosul, 400,000 of them "trapped" in the Old City area under siege-like conditions.
MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambique has extended until April 28 an investigation into government-owned firms that hid $2 billion in loans, state media said on Saturday. The Mozambican Attorney-General's Office PGR said it proposed the latest extension to allow collecting of data from banks and other institutions in Mozambique and abroad, state media reported. Debt-ridden Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries, is struggling to repay the loans which were not approved by parliament or disclosed publicly. In November, Mozambique's attorney general appointed multinational risk management firm Kroll to probe state firms that hid the loans from government and international creditors, a condition for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to resume aid talks with the war-scarred nation. The IMF said this week it hoped the audit would conclude in the next couple of weeks and that the government would publish the results. State media initially said Kroll was given until the end of February to deliver the audit report. That deadline was extended to the end of March and has now been pushed to April 28. The discovery of the loans, received by state firms including Mozambique's state-owned fishing company EMATUM, prompted the IMF to halt a loan last April and led to the collapse of its currency as well as investor confidence. Until recently one of Africa's strongest prospects, Mozambique now faces its biggest economic crisis since a 16-year civil war ended in 1992. (Writing by James Macharia; Editing by Julia Glover)
BARBABLANCA, Peru (AP)  Gathered along the edge of a mountain, the men, women and children of Barbablanca watched in stunned silence as a river of mud washed over their small village.

The mud slid into windows, covering carefully made beds and school desks. It buried fields filled with avocado trees and the village's prized ripe green cherimoya fruit. It left Barbablanca's hydroelectric plant an enclosure of metal rods planted in a blanket of sludge.

"We've lost everything," said Ricardo Lazaro, 73, whose life's savings were put into building a small hotel destroyed in the worst environmental calamity to strike Peru in nearly two decades. "I don't know who will help me."

The rains pummeling Peru, brought about by a warming of Pacific Ocean waters that climatologists are calling a "coastal El Nino," have left 85 dead, crippled the nation's infrastructure, ruined thousands of fields of crops and destroyed 800 villages, most much like Barbablanca.

Situated at the foot of the Andes 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the capital city of Lima, Barbablanca is a community of 160 people, many of whom are small farmers dedicated to growing the sweet, heart-shaped cherimoya. Life in Barbablanca revolves around the crops, a red schoolhouse, a medical clinic and a hydroelectric plant at the base of a giant mountain.

In January, the residents of Barbablanca began noticing steady, unusual rains, and in early March, the downpours became worrying. For two weeks, it rained for more than six hours a day. The residents decided that if rainfall worsened and a mudslide seemed imminent, they would flee up the mountain to higher ground.

Mudslides have struck throughout Peru in March as the rains have continued. On cellphone cameras, Peruvians have captured video of sudden gushes of water, mud and debris that swept up trucks, buses, people and cows. One woman, Evangelina Chamorro, survived after being swept nearly 2 miles (3 kilometers) from her home and emerging near a bridge covered in muck.

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On March 16th, the rain began to fall on Barbalanca so fiercely that being outside almost felt "like a shower," recalled Lazaro, who with his wife owns a seven-room hotel.

When the sound of thunder rumbled in the sky, Lazaro put a lock on the hotel door and decided to leave.

"Let's get out of here," he told his wife, joining several dozen other residents, a few in ponchos and others carrying plastic tarps, up the mountain.

They were perched high up on a gravel road when the unforgettable sound of a powerful current, churning with rocks and debris, filled the air. Suggeidy Rivera, 25, cried as she huddled with her three small children.

"I think we are stuck up here," said one man as he recording a video later uploaded on YouTube. "There isn't a way to get out."

When the mudslide stopped and residents were able to climb down and assess the damage, they found a village buried in mud. All the furniture in Lazaro's hotel had been swept out. The wall that divided his property from a neighbor's had been crushed. An avocado tree rested in his kitchen.

"This has been the work of all my life," he said tearfully on Friday.

An entire village left homeless, the residents of Barbablanca have been sleeping in a partially covered patio at a hydroelectric plant in a nearby village. There are no bathrooms and the families sleep on the bare ground, waking up with backaches. Most now own only the clothes that have been donated to them.

Peru is expected to spend at least $3.75 million in repairing bridges and roads, according to the Central Bank, but the economic toll is still accumulating. Another two weeks of rain are forecast and the state meteorological agency expects the ocean warming causing the storms to continue through April.

The Peruvian Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced the launch of an emergency appeal Saturday for $4 million to support 50,000 people in the hardest hit regions in northern Peru. Red Cross officials have expressed concern about the potential for outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses as the recovery drags on.

"This really is the worst disaster for the people of northern Peru in decades," said Michele Detomaso, head of the IFRC team in Peru. "Its severity - and the speed with which waters came in - surpassed the capacities of the population to cope."

Even in villages like Barbablanca relatively near the capital, there is little hope that residents will be able to entirely rebuild. At his age, Lazaro said he is clinging to the encouragement of his neighbors.

"They tell me, 'Lazaro, get up, make an effort,'" he said. "And I have to."

___

Associated Press writer Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.
A California congressman called for a complete "pause" on President Donald Trump's agenda in response to the latest media reports on the administration's ties to Russia. "We may have an illegitimate president of the United States currently occupying the White House," Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said in a statement Thursday.

Lieu's office issued that statement after CNN reported Thursday the FBI has information indicating Trump associates might have coordinated with Russian operatives to release hacked information damaging to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. At a congressional hearing Monday, FBI Director James Comey said his agency is currently investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign, as well as possible collusion between people within the Trump team and the Russian government.

Read: Trump Wiretap Allegation: James Comey Says 'No Information' Obama Tapped Headquarters, Confirms Russia Probe

"The bombshell revelation that U.S. officials have information that suggests Trump associates may have colluded with the Russians means we must pause the entire Trump agenda," Lieu said Thursday.

"Other than allowing routine governmental functions, there must be a total and complete shutdown of any agenda item being pushed by the Trump administration. Congress cannot continue regular order and must stop voting on any Trump-backed agenda item until the FBI completes its Trump-Russia collusion investigation," said Lieu, who was first elected to the House in 2014.

Lieu also called on Congress to form an independent commission and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of collusion. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was widely criticized for putting the independence and credibility of the committee in doubt after he bypassed his own committee and went to the White House and the press with unsourced revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies "incidentally" gathered communications of Trump associates.

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"At this point in our nation's history, there is nothing more important than finding out whether or not high crimes were committed by associates of Donald Trump or possibly by Trump himself," Lieu said.

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By Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has maintained readiness to conduct a new nuclear test at any time, a South Korean military official said on Friday, amid a report of a possible test within days as Pyongyang defies international pressure. U.S. and South Korean military surveillance assets were closely monitoring the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the reclusive state's east coast, said the official, who declined to be identified. Speaking by telephone, the official also declined to comment on whether there were fresh signs pointing to an imminent test. "North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test at any time, depending on the leadership's decision. We are keeping a close eye on its nuclear activities," the official said. South Korea has been aware that the North could move ahead with another test at any time since it conducted its last nuclear test in September. North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches, in defiance of U.N. sanctions, and is believed by experts and government officials to be working to develop nuclear-warhead missiles that could reach the United States. Fox News in the United States reported on Thursday that the North was in the final stages of preparing for another nuclear test, possibly within the next few days. The network cited U.S. officials with knowledge of recent intelligence. It quoted one of the officials as saying as saying the test could come as early as the end of the month. The Washington-based think tank 38 North said in February satellite imagery showed the North's nuclear site continued low-level activity in a possible sign that it could conduct another test soon. However, it said it was unclear exactly when such a test might take place. The South Korean military has said several times since the September test that Pyongyang was ready to conduct another nuclear blast at any time, and that a tunnel was available at the site to do so. North Korea said last year it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile and has been ratcheting up a threat that its rivals and the United Nations appear powerless to contain. A North Korean missile appeared to have exploded just after it was launched on Wednesday, the latest in a series of weapons tests that have alarmed the region. (Editing by Jack Kim and Paul Tait)
Kim Jong Uns North Korea issued a threat against the United States Friday in a statement that said the U.S. should be prepared for catastrophic consequences if it attempts to engage Pyongyang with preemptive strikes.

The statement, titled  U.S. should not run wild, pondering over the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its attempt at a preemptive strike, was published by North Koreas state news agency KCNA.

The threat from Pyongyang is reportedly the result of U.S. indicating that preemptive strikes on the regime to curb the nuclear threat posed by Kim Jong Un, were not off the table for the country.

Read: North Korea Will Launch Rockets 'At Any Time' Kim Jong Un Pleases, Officials Say

Last week, during a trip to Seoul, at a press conference, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: Twenty years of talking has brought us to the point we are today.

Talk is not going to change the situation, he said, adding that preemptive military action is on the table if forces from the U.S. and ally North Korea are threatened by North Koreas nuclear weapons program.

A North Korean envoy said Tuesday that Kim would launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time and at any place he pleased. The statement was followed by the failed launch of a missile off North Koreas eastern coast Wednesday.

In response, the U.S. flew one of its most powerful long-range bombers over the Korean peninsula Wednesday. The South Korean Air Force said in a statement, Through this exercise, the South Korean and U.S. Air Forces demonstrated their strong deterrence against North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

North Korea responded to the escalating tensions in the statement by saying: If the U.S. shows even the slightest sign of a preemptive attack on the DPRK, bereft of reason, the powerful nuclear strike means of the DPRK will blow up the bases of aggression and provocation with its-style offensive and preemptive nuclear attack.

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More than 20 million Americans have gained the security and peace of mind of having health insurance since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, which is why Republicans should not only preserve the sweeping health care law, but build on it, former President Barack Obama said in a statement Thursday.

On the seven-year anniversary of the health care law, with the House scheduled to vote on its replacement bill, Obama said his signature law established the ideology that health care is not just a privilege for a few, but a right for everybody.

"Thanks to this law, more than 20 million Americans have gained the security and peace of mind of health insurance," Obama said. "Thanks to this law, more than ninety percent of Americans are insured  the highest rate in our history."

Republican lawmakers introduced a replacement bill earlier this month that would strip the mandate requiring all Americans to buy health insurance, CNN reported Thursday. The new bill would offer refundable tax credits for citizens to purchase health insurance instead of slapping Americans with fines for not being covered. And it would require all able-bodied adults to have a job to be eligible for Medicaid, which provides health care to roughly 70 million Americans. The bill needs 218 Republican votes to pass the House if no Democrats join them. As of Thursday afternoon, 24 Republican House members publicly said they would vote against it, forcing House Speaker Paul Ryan to cancel the planned vote.

Obama pushed back on claims by Republican leaders that the mandates established under the Affordable Care Act led to increases in insurance premiums every year since the bill was put into place. President Donald Trump has called the mandate that prevented insurance companies from denying coverage to anyone with pre-existing conditions a disaster. Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies were able to drop people diagnosed with ailments like diabetes because they would have been more expensive to insure due to the need for pricey medications and operations. Insurance premiums have risen roughly 20 percent since 2011, a much slower pace than in the previous 10 years, the Los Angeles Times reported in October.

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Reality continues to discredit the false claim that this law is in a death spiral because while it's true that some premiums have risen, the vast majority of Marketplace enrollees have experienced no average premium hike at all, the statement reads. And so long as the law is properly administered, this market will remain stable .

Obama additionally urged lawmakers to build on this law rather than adopt a measure that would harm Americans' health. Since Obamacare expanded Medicaid in 2013, the law has enabled an additional 10.8 million low-income adults and children to be enrolled in public health program, one of the Affordable Care Act's chief architects told the International Business Times in January.

More than 90 percent of Americans had health insurance as of 2015, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau from September 2016. If Trump were to completely repeal the Affordable Care Act, the number of Americans signed up for health insurance would drop by about 19.7 million by 2018, according to a Commonwealth Fund study. And if legislation that allows people with pre-existing conditions to be dropped were to pass, approximately 52 million Americans under 65 would lose their insurance, a study released in December by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed.

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A Louisiana law enforcement officer was convicted Friday of fatally shooting a 6-year-old boy with autism while chasing his father's car, prosecutors said.

Derrick Stafford, a deputy city marshal, was charged with manslaughter and attempted manslaughter for opening fire on Christopher Few's vehicle on the night of November 3, 2015.

Read: Disturbing Footage Shows Police Shooting That Left Autistic Boy, 6, Dead

Few was seriously wounded but survived, while his son, 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis, was killed after being struck with four bullets.

Through tears, Stafford told jurors in Marksville on Friday that he didn't know the boy was in the car.

"Never in a million years would I have fired my weapon if I knew a child was in that car," he said after he was shown pictures of the boy. "I would have called off the pursuit myself."

Avoyelles Parish investigators initially said the marshals were chasing Few because of an outstanding warrant. However, the clerk of court, the district attorneys office, the Marksville Police Department and city court and did not find any in his name, according to an investigation by WAFB.

Stafford said that he opened fire because he feared Few would back up and hit his colleague, who had fallen in the road as they attempted to pull the driver over.

But bodycam footage released last September showed that Few raised his hands before the two deputies opened fire.

The footage appeared to show an officer at the scene check Jeremy for a pulse as his father was slumped over, bleeding on the ground.

"I never saw a kid in the car, man," Stafford was heard saying. "I never saw a kid, bro."

Few told the court that he didn't know his son had died until he woke up from a coma nearly a week later.

Read: Police Officer Arrested For Allegedly Dumping Emaciated Dog in Trash Bag in Park

He said he tried to get away from deputies because he wanted to take his son to his girlfriend's house, where he would be safe. But he added that "every day" he regretted not pulling over.

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The jury found Stafford guilty of manslaughter for Jeremy's death and found him guilty of attempted manslaughter in the wounding of Few. He will be sentenced on March 31.

A second deputy who fired, Norris Greenhouse Jr., will go on trial later this year after pleading not guilty to the same charges.

Two other officers at the scene did not fire their weapons.

On Friday, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said he was pleased with the verdict.

"As we have said all along, our goal in this case was to get justice for Jeremy Mardis, his family, and the people of Louisiana," he said in a statement. "Today, that happened."

Watch: Did Husband Die After Being Shot Because Ambulance Took Too Long to Arrive?

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In case there was still any doubt, Uber's top executives are really terrible.

A report in The Information out Friday night alleges that CEO Travis Kalanick and Senior Vice President of Business Emil Michael took Uber staffers towait for itan escort-karaoke bar in Seoul, where male Uber managers picked women working at the bar out of a lineup.

Again: Where Uber managers picked women working at the bar out of a lineup.

Women.

Working.

At.

The.

Escort-karaoke bar.

Out.

Of.

A.

Lineup.

Oh yes. This is real. A female Uber manager who was part of the business trip months later reported the incident to Uber's human resources department. But it wouldn't be a story about Uber unless there were another Uber-sized screwup within it. And oh yeah, there's definitely one of those, too, because Michael tried to get Kalanick's then-girlfriend, violinist Gabi Holzwarth, to lie about it. One more time:

Tried.

To.

Get.

Her.

To.

Lie.

About.

It.

The incident resurfaced as part of former Attorney General Eric Holder's investigation into corporate culture and practices at Uber. The investigation was called for after women began coming forward in February to share their experiences of sexual harassment while working for the international ride-hailing giant.

As a reminder, some of the allegations since all of this started: Uber protected high-ranking male managers accused of sexual harassment, created a culture that caused women engineers to leave the company and suffer "psychological trauma," and discriminated against women engineers by buying leather jackets for all the men on a team, and not the women, because there weren't enough of them.

Oh, and also, a top executive resigned after reports that he'd previously left Google amid charges of sexual harassment there, and just yesterday it was reported that an Uber recruiter blamed Uber's problems on systemic sexism in the tech industry at large. Oh! And then there was that time Uber's president resigned after just a few months on the job. That was last week.

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The aforementioned Seoul incident happened in 2014. And Emil Michael allegedly asked Holzwarth before the news came out Friday to say the bar was just a regular karaoke bar, no escorts involvednot a scene where "four male Uber managers picked women out of the group, calling out their numbers."

You might remember Michael from when he threatened to stalk female journalists who covered Uber via their Uber accounts in 2014. He apologized, as has Kalanick since this all began almost two months ago.

But Kalanick was spotted at a ping-pong party with the theme "Babes and Balls" just over two weeks ago. So, uh, progress? (No.)

Uber said in a statement:

"This all happened about three years ago and was previously reported to human resources. In early March it was referred to Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran as part of their review."

Kalanick's troubles aren't limited to his company's treatment of women. He also got slammed for perceived ties to President Donald Trump and a video that showed him berating an Uber driver as they argued over Uber pricing. At least 500,000 people deleted their Uber accounts the first week a #DeleteUber campaign took off in late January.

Safe to say, this probably won't make anyone who didn't like Uber before a fan of the app anytime soon. But as Holder finishes his investigation, the big question becomes: Is this as bad as it gets, or do the worst of Uber's skeletons have yet to show themselves out of the closet?

WATCH: Esports bars bring fans together to socialize and game
London (AFP) - British police admitted Saturday they may never know the motive behind this week's terror attack on parliament, after releasing all but one of 11 people held over the assault.

They have named 52-year-old Briton Khalid Masood as the man who killed four people in Westminster on Wednesday, but issued a fresh plea for any information that might explain why he did it.

"We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this. That understanding may have died with him," said senior counter-terrorism officer Neil Basu.

A new breakdown of the attack revealed that Masood, a Muslim convert with a violent criminal past, took just 82 seconds to wreak havoc.

His car mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge before driving along the road and footpath and crashing into the fence of the Houses of Parliament.

Masood left the vehicle and was shot by police, but not before fatally stabbing an unarmed policeman, Keith Palmer, who was guarding a gate.

"Our investigation continues at pace. I am grateful for the public support so far, but I am asking for more help," Basu said in a statement.

"We still believe that Masood acted alone on the day and there is no information or intelligence to suggest there are further attacks planned.

"Even if he acted alone in the preparation, we need to establish with absolute clarity why he did these unspeakable acts to bring reassurance to Londoners, and to provide answers and closure for the families of those killed and the victims and survivors of this atrocity."

A total of 11 people were held on suspicion of preparation of terrorist attacks in the wake of the attack.

But only a 58-year-old man arrested in Birmingham, the central English city where Masood last lived, remained in custody late Saturday.

One of the ten others who were released, a 32-year-old woman, is on bail -- the others have all been freed with no further action.

- 'Heartbroken' hero MP -

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The Islamic State group claimed that one of its "soldiers" carried out the attack, the worst in Britain since the July 2005 bombings which left 52 people dead.

But police are still trying to establish Masood's motivation.

"We are determined to understand if Masood was a lone actor inspired by terrorist propaganda or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him," Basu said.

In one of the most dramatic scenes of the attack, Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood was photographed desperately trying to resuscitate the stabbed policeman.

Ellwood, a former military officer who lost his brother in the 2002 Bali bombings, spoke out for the first time late Saturday, saying he was "heartbroken" he could not save Palmer's life.

Ellwood has been hailed as a hero for his actions, but he said: "I played only a small part that day, doing what I was taught to do."

Palmer's family said they were "overwhelmed by the love and support for our family, and most especially, the outpouring of love and respect for our Keith".

To those who tried to save him, they added: "There was nothing more you could have done. You did your best and we are just grateful he was not alone."
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during his White House swearing-in ceremony in February. (White House via YouTube)

Experts say the potential impact of automation and artificial intelligence could be one of the biggest economic issues of the 21st century, but Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says its not on his radar screen.

Mnuchin made his comments during a News Shapers sitdown with Axios Mike Allen. His observations are pointed enough, and brief enough, that theyre worth an extended quote:

Mnuchin: In terms of artificial intelligence taking over American jobs, I think were like so far away from that, not even on my radar screen.

Allen: How far away?

Mnuchin: Far enough that its 

Allen: Seven more years?

Mnuchin: Seven more years? I think its 50 or 100 more years.

Steve Mnuchin is not concerned one bit with AI and automation. pic.twitter.com/VvEooCoAbf  Axios (@axios) March 24, 2017

In contrast, a report from the Obama White House on automations effects raised concerns about job loss and said Americas social safety net had to be strengthened, not rolled back, to compensate. One group of researchers suggested that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI technologies and computerization over the next decade or two.

To be sure, the rise of AI and automation will create more opportunities as well. Last year, Obamas chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers said his biggest concern about AI was that we wont have enough of it.

But economists say itll take close attention to balance AIs opportunities and threats. Mnuchin, whose resume includes roles as executive producer for such techno-dystopian movies as Mad Max: Fury Road and Edge of Tomorrow, should know enough to keep AI on his radar screen.

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Heres how Mnuchins remarks were received by the tech Twittersphere:

If Mnuchin had done any previous reading or learning about #AI, he couldn't have uttered those ridiculous words this morning.  Amy Webb (@amywebb) March 24, 2017

This actually is kind of frightening, particularly the dismissal of the impact of AI and machine learning on jobs https://t.co/bMNVmFEDPj  larryirving (@larry_irving) March 24, 2017

As a user of self-service gas stations, self-checkout registers at the grocer, ATMs, and online retailers, I can only say, "WHAT THE DUH!?" https://t.co/tfsxjVHDD8  JastrzebskiJ (@JastrzebskiJ) March 24, 2017

Yikes. AI is already affecting jobs across USA & automated driving will soon have big labor impacts in Midwest. We need leaders to get this. https://t.co/Z3ThHjJp5j  Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) March 24, 2017

Mnuchin: Losing human jobs to AI "not even on our radar screen." Exclusive video of GOP radar screen pic.twitter.com/O8ufcRs3oz  Hunter Walk  (@hunterwalk) March 24, 2017

Another nugget from the interview stirred up a separate fuss: When Allen asked Mnuchin to put on his Hollywood hat and recommend a good movie, heres what the secretary said: Well, Im not allowed to promote anything that Im involved in. So I just want to have the legal disclosure that youve asked me the question and I am not promoting any product. But you should send all your kids to Lego Batman.'

Thats yet another movie on which Mnuchin was one of the executive producers.

The comment sparked a controversy over whether Mnuchin was guilty of the same type of ethics faux pas that Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway committed when she told people to go buy Ivanka Trump stuff.

In response to queries about Mnuchins comment, a Treasury Department spokesman told reporters that he clearly recognized that he generally may not promote private interests and specifically gave the legal disclosure that he was not promoting a movie, but answering a question he was asked directly.

Treasury Sec Steve Mnuchin appears to have violated an ethics rule  the same one that got @KellyannePolls into trouble https://t.co/tyCPXtNSww  OpenSecrets.org (@OpenSecretsDC) March 24, 2017

Treasury statement on Mnuchin comments this morning: he wasn't promoting Lego Batman by telling people to go see it https://t.co/hK40eg8J2n pic.twitter.com/LxwCf3uY7C  Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) March 24, 2017

Update for 11:27 p.m. PT March 24: Moshe Vardi, director of Rice Universitys Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology, has studied the impact of automation on employment for years. Heres what he had to say in response to an email inquiry from GeekWire:

It is utterly shocking that Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has asserted  regarding jobs concerns about artificial intelligence, that its not even on our radar screen.  It is 50-100 more years away. Just yesterday, Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton issued their report on Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century, where they documented the dramatic increases in mortality and morbidity among white working-class Americans in midlife since the turn of the century. These increases are due to drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related liver mortality  strong indicators of deepening despair among white working-class Americans. A primary cause of this despair is the collapse in manufacturing employment due to automation. It is inconceivable that the treasury secretary, who is is the principal economic adviser to the president of the United States, would be so out of touch with economic reality.

More from GeekWire:
Paul Manafort Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's mix of international politics and business has long raised eyebrows in Washington.

Manafort now finds himself at the center of an intensifying investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

This week, he has come under renewed scrutiny for his connections to a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin.

Raised in politics and business

Manafort was born in 1949 and raised in New Britain, Connecticut, a majority Democratic town where his father served three terms as a popular Republican mayor.

Like Trump, Manafort comes from a real-estate family. Alongside his political work, his father also ran the family construction company, Manafort Brothers Inc., founded by his Italian immigrant father.

Instead of taking over the family business, Manafort decided to pursue his interest in politics and moved to Washington, DC, where he earned both an undergraduate business degree and a law degree at Georgetown University.

A Republican operative and international 'gun for hire'



While working at a private law firm two years after graduating from law school, Manafort began advising Republican president Gerald Ford's 1976 campaign. Since the 1970s, he has established deep and sometimes murky, connections in Washington and around the world, serving as political lobbyist, adviser, and an international political consultant for leaders around the world, including dictators Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines.

Manafort's international work has long raised eyebrows among Democrats in Washington. In 2004, he became a top adviser to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian strongman whom Manafort is widely credited with helping win the presidency in 2010.

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Yanukovych was ousted in 2014 after widespread demonstrations again this decision to back out of a deal with the EU that would have distanced Ukraine from Russia and fostered closer ties with the West. On February 20, 2014, Ukrainian riot police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in central Kiev. Fifty-three protesters were killed that day, and dozens more over the next few days.

Ukrainian prosecutors have said Yanukovych ordered the security forces' attack on protesters, and at least one human-rights lawyer representing the victims is investigating what role, if any, Manafort played in encouraging Yanukovych's crackdown. Yanukovych fled to Russia amid the protests and is now living under the protection of the Kremlin.

A memorial for protesters killed in Kiev

'A sick f---ing tyrant'

The New York Times reported in July that Manafort was in debt to pro-Russian interests by as much as $17 million by the time he joined the Trump campaign.

Legal complaints filed by representatives of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the Cayman Islands in 2014 claimed Deripaska gave Manafort $19 million that year to invest in a Ukrainian TV company. The project fell through, and Manafort all but disappeared without paying Deripaska back, the filings claimed.

Deripaska and Manafort had worked together before. Deripaska signed a $10 million annual contract with Manafort in 2006, according to the AP, for a lobbying project in the US that Manafort said would "greatly benefit the Putin Government."

In another bizarre twist, last March hackers broke into Manafort's daughter's iPhone and published four years' worth of purported text messages  roughly 300,000 messages  on the dark web.

In a series of texts reviewed by Business Insider that appear to have been sent by Andrea to her sister, Jessica, in March 2015, Andrea said their father had "no moral or legal compass."

"Don't fool yourself," Andrea wrote to her sister, according to the texts. "That money we have is blood money."

"You know he has killed people in Ukraine? Knowingly," she continued, according to the reviewed texts. "As a tactic to outrage the world and get focus on Ukraine. Remember when there were all those deaths taking place. A while back. About a year ago. Revolts and what not. Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that, to send those people out and get them slaughtered."

In another text to her cousin, who was also her father's business partner, Andrea called Manafort "a sick f---ing tyrant."

A Ukrainian member of parliament has accused Manafort of accepting nearly $1 million from Ukraine's pro-Russia Party of Regions, and then laundering it through a company that claims to sell computers. Ukrainian lawyers also want to question Manafort about what role he played, if any, in the 2014 police killings of protesters in Kiev.

Manafort has denied all the allegations against him. Last February, Manafort said he has "never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration."

Manafort's ties to Trump

Manafort and Trump have been connected since the 1980s when Trump hired Manafort's lobbying firm to help the Trump Organization. Trump became close with Manafort's business partner at the time, Roger Stone, a self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" who served as an early adviser to Trump's presidential campaign.

In 2006, Manafort and his wife bought a Trump Tower apartment, which Manafort still owns and resides in when he's in Manhattan.

In March 2016, Trump hired Manafort to manage the Republican National Convention and wrangle delegates into supporting Trump. Manafort had experience convincing delegates to support Gerald Ford in 1976  the last time the Republican Party began a convention without having selected its presidential nominee.

In May 2016, Manafort was promoted to the position of campaign chairman and chief strategist. He became the campaign's de-facto manager after Trump fired Corey Lewandowski in late June.

The New York Times, citing ledgers uncovered by an anticorruption center in Kiev, reported on August 16, 2016 that $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments from Yanukovych's pro-Russia Party of Regions had been earmarked for Manafort for his work with the party from 2007 to 2012.

Three days later, Manafort resigned from the campaign.

Over the last several months, the White House has attempted to distance itself from Manafort. In March, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Manafort "played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time" in the campaign, despite having spent five months on the campaign and nearly three of those months as the chairman.

Last month, Trump attempted to minimize Manafort's contributions to the campaign.

"I know Mr. Manafort  I haven't spoken to him in a long time, but I know him  he was with the campaign, as you know, for a very short period of time  for a relatively short period of time," Trump said.

But last year those close to Trump were quick to attribute the campaign's success to its former chairman.

"We couldn't be more happy with the work that he's doing, the way he's tackling these things, the way he's handling the organization of everything going forward," Donald Trump Jr. told the AP in July 2016.

In August 2016, former House Speaker and Trump loyalist Newt Gingrich told Fox News host Sean Hannity that "nobody should underestimate how much Paul Manafort did to get this campaign to where it is right now."

Paul Manafort with Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller

The FBI investigation heats up

The Justice Department began looking into Manafort's dealings in Ukraine in 2014 and became the subject of a FISA warrant, which allowed the federal government to surveil him.

But since Mueller, the former FBI director, was appointed as special counsel to lead the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Manafort has come under intensifying scrutiny.

In early August 2017, the Washington Post reported that the FBI conducted a predawn raid of Manafort's home in late July. The agents, acting on a "no knock" search warrant, picked the lock to Manafort's home, seizing tax documents, foreign banking records, and other materials relevant to the special counsel investigation.

In order to obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must prove to a judge that there is probable cause that a suspect has committed a crime and that that the suspect might attempt to conceal or destroy relevant evidence if asked to turn the information over.

In the latest development, The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Manafort offered to provide "private briefings" about the Trump campaign to Deripaska.

"If he needs private briefings we can accommodate," Manafort wrote to his longtime employee Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian operative with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.

This email came roughly 10 days before Trump campaign representatives lobbied to alter the language of an amendment to the GOP's draft party policy on Ukraine that denounced Russia's "ongoing military aggression" in Ukraine. Many saw the changes as pro-Russian and some believed Manafort played a role in the policy shift.

Also earlier this week, CNN reported that US investigators had wiretapped Manafort both before and after the 2016 election, that Mueller's probe is looking into possible crimes committed over the past 11 years, and that the special counsel's team had warned Manafort that they are working to indict him on tax and financial charges.

Some legal experts think that Mueller's intensifying focus on Manafort is an effort to pressure the former campaign chairman into providing damaging information about those close to Trump, and maybe Trump himself.

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Dustin Johnson had reason to be rattled.

As he walked off the 12th green Saturday afternoon, the match referee said five words that Johnson heard for the first time all week in the Dell Technologies Match Play.

"The match is all square."

Until then, Johnson had led after each of the 71 holes he had played at Austin Country Club.

He wasted little time responding to a rare challenge. Johnson birdied three of the next four holes for a 3-and-2 victory over Alex Noren to advance to the semifinals and stay on track for a potential showdown between No. 1 in the world and Jon Rahm, golf's brightest young star.

"I wasn't frustrated that I was all square. I was frustrated that I kind of gave 10 and 11 away," Johnson said. "Came back strong after losing three holes in a row."

Rahm was so dominant he played only 27 holes in two matches Saturday. He hasn't had a match go longer than 14 holes since Thursday. And the 22-year-old rookie from Spain still hasn't played the 18th hole since a practice round Tuesday.

"The golf I've played the last three matches really has been very impressive, even to myself," he said. "And it seemed to get better as I played, which is something that doesn't happen often."

Rahm lost only one of the 27 holes he played in his 6-and-4 victory over Charles Howell III and his 7-and-5 victory over Soren Kjeldsen in the quarterfinals.

Rahm faces a semifinal match Sunday morning against Bill Haas, who ended Phil Mickelson's hopes with a 2-and-1 victory. Mickelson had advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time in 13 years with a victory against Marc Leishman.

Mickelson never trailed in any match until he fell behind on the first hole to Haas, and he had never led when the match ended on the 17th hole.

"I struggled making the putts that I have been making all week," Mickelson said. "That seemed to me to be the difference."

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Johnson, going after a third straight PGA Tour title, faces one of this tournament's biggest surprises in Hideko Tanihara of Japan.

"He looks unbeatable," Tanihara said. "I hope he doesn't feel good tomorrow, so maybe I have a chance."

Tanihara began the week by beating Jordan Spieth. On Saturday, he took down Paul Casey with two late birdies in the morning fourth round, and then he beat Ross Fisher, 4 and 2, to reach the semifinals.

Johnson has looked unstoppable all month.

He went to No. 1 in the world with a five-shot victory at Riviera. In his next start, he won the Mexico Championship after holding off a late rally from Rahm. Now he's two victories away from becoming the first player to sweep the four World Golf Championships.

None of Johnson's five matches has gone beyond the 16th hole. In the fourth round, he beat Zach Johnson, 5 and 4. Noren is the only player to really make him sweat, and that was Johnson's doing.

Johnson went 3 up at the turn, and then it was gone. He three-putted from 30 feet to lose the 10th hole. His tee shot on the par-3 11th hit the rocks and went into the water. And then he had to settle for par after leaving himself in an awkward spot, only to watch Noren hole a 40-footer to tie the match.

Johnson made a 10-foot birdie putt on the 13th  Noren missed from 8 feet  and then began to pull away with another 10-foot birdie on the 15th.

"That putt on 13 I think was a big one," Johnson said. "That was just outside of him, and to hole that putt, put a little pressure on him, and then he missed it, I think that was a pretty important shot there."

Haas is still amazed to even be playing. On Friday, he was on the verge of being eliminated when he hit into a hazard in a sudden-death playoff against K.T. Kim to decide their group. Haas took a penalty drop, chipped in from 120 feet for par to halve the hole and won on the sixth extra hole. Then he had to go 18 holes to beat Kevin Na in the fourth round before taking on Mickelson.

Haas made seven birdies in his match. He figured he will need something close to that number for his semifinal match against Rahm.

"I don't think a single player out here would argue that he's one of the top five, top 10 players in the world," Haas said. "He's hungry. He wants more. You can just see it in him. He's got that thing about him that's going to make him a big-time winner out here, and hopefully I can hang with him."

Fisher left with a consolation prize. By beating Bubba Watson in the fourth round, Fisher will move into the top 50 in the world and qualify for the Masters. Tanihara also was assured of being in the top 50 to get into Augusta National for the first time in 10 years.
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP)  A member of the MS-13 street gang who had been deported from the U.S. four times stabbed two women and sexually assaulted a 2-year-old girl in a New York City suburb, police said Thursday.

Tommy Vladim Alvarado-Ventura, 31, of Hempstead, pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail Thursday. His court-appointed attorney declined to comment.

Alvarado-Ventura is suspected of assaulting the child between Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning while the girl's mother was at work, acting Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said at a news conference. He said investigators are still working to determine exactly when the child was assaulted.

Krumpter said that in his 28 years in law enforcement, the alleged crime is "probably the most heinous criminal act I've ever seen. It really is nauseating."

Authorities said that Alvarado-Ventura had been in the home with the child late Tuesday night before going to a nearby bar, where he argued with a woman over a marijuana deal and then stabbed her in the parking lot. The woman, who was not identified, suffered a collapsed lung, police said.

He then returned to the apartment where the child lived, police said. When the child's mother returned home from work at about 4:15 a.m. Wednesday, she discovered injuries to her child and argued with Alvarado-Ventura. During that argument, he stabbed the woman, Krumpter said.

The mother was able to flee to another part of the apartment and called police. Alvarado-Ventura was sleeping when officers arrived and arrested him, police said.

Police say Alvarado-Ventura was deported to El Salvador four times between 2006 and 2011. According to Krumpter, he had a history of prior arrests for offenses including drunken driving, disorderly conduct, assault, false impersonation and contempt of court. Details on those arrests were not immediately released; police said their investigation is ongoing.

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It was not known when he returned to the United States. He was charged with attempted murder, assault and weapons possession, and he faces life in prison.

---

This story has been clarified to reflect exact time of alleged assault on child has not been determined.
Nobody gives you the Harambe treatment when you have scales instead of fur.

That's what we're learning after Zoo Knoxville officials in Tennessee revealed that 33 snakes and a lizard were mysteriously found dead on Wednesday morning. No crime scene clues of note and no message from the killer, just a bunch of dead snakes.

SEE ALSO: Extremely excited dog adorably fails his Crufts agility competition

And despite all the animal lovers out there, no one seems to raising all that much of a stink over the possibly non-accidental death of these innocent, slithering zoo residents, which included some endangered species.

Following the incident, surfaced by the Knoxville Sentinel, the rest of the animals housed in the building were moved while an investigation into the incident is being conducted. Sure, this could just be a non-malicious accident of some sort. However, at this point, officials have found nothing in the snake's habitat to indicate that the facility might have been the problem.

Join us for story time this morning at 10:30 in the log cabin. @zooknoxville @smotherb A post shared by Zoo Knoxville (@zooknoxville) on Jan 18, 2017 at 6:16am PST

When Harambe the Gorilla was killed, it didn't take long for social media to hop online and begin memorializing the animal as an innocent victim of human fear. And people are still angry about the death of Cecil the Lion.

Both gorillas and lions are capable of ripping humans limb from limb.

But the death of 33 snakes? Not a peep.

Apparently, the snuffing out of the lives of centuries old symbols of evil and menace in many cultures (in many cases, unfairly) just doesn't get the same human response as our furrier friends in the animal kingdom.

So aside from the "don't kill masses of snakes" lesson (because that's just not cool), the other lesson here is that in the animal memorial sweepstakes, unless you're a whale or dolphin, having fur helps. A lot. Especially when you're dead. And maybe need to be avenged.

WATCH: Heartbreaking images emerge of mass stranding of over 400 whales
(WASHINGTON) - President Donald Trumps accusation that his predecessor ordered snooping of his communications has fallen apart, slapped down by the FBI chief and again by the Republican leading the House intelligence committee, a Trump ally. The president gave up on arguing that Barack Obama tapped his phones, and he doesnt give up on anything easily.

A look at how that sensational charge and a variety of other statements by the president - on the failed Obamacare replacement bill, Russia, immigration and more - met reality checks over the past week:

THE WIRETAP THAT WASNT

Trump now says he never meant that Obama literally had his phone tapped. When I said wiretapping, it was in quotes, he told Time magazine Wednesday. It is just a good description. But wiretapping was in quotes. What Im talking about is surveillance.

THE FACTS: Several Trump tweets stated flat out that Obama tapped his phones, no quotation marks involved.

- Id bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!

- How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

On a few occasions, he hung quotation marks around the word. Says one Trump tweet: Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

House intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes said it was conceivable that U.S. surveillance of foreign entities might have picked up communications involving Trump aides or Trump himself through incidental collection. Trump claimed vindication - so that means Im right - and Republican campaign offices sought to raise money from the episode, with the National Republican Campaign Committee telling people in an email pitch: Confirmed: Obama spied on Trump.

But Nunes only confirmed the opposite, that Trump and Trump Tower were not targeted by the Obama administration.

We know there was not a wiretap on Trump Tower, Nunes said early in the week. That never happened, he said later in the week.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
The decision to cancel a vote to repeal major chunks of the Affordable Care Act was a humbling moment for President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Their failure to repeal the law on Friday came on the heels of an intra-party revolt between conservatives and moderates, laying bare deep divisions in the GOP despite its control of Washington. Republicans seized the White House and both chambers of Congress on the core promise of repealing the controversial healthcare law, and proved unable to deliver.

We were very, very close, said Trump said in the Oval Office, expressing dismay that conservative members of his party bucked the bill. He claimed he was 10 to 15 votes short, although in an earlier interview with the Washington Post he said the number was five to 12.

For Ryan, a policy wonk who made repealing Obamacare his top priority, it was the starkest failure of his leadership ability. For Trump it was a an even more sobering moment. He has built his political identity on his deal-making prowess, and the defeat of his inaugural legislative priority cast his entire agenda into doubt.

Being against things is easy to do: You just have to be against it, Ryan said in a rebuke of his own members.

Republican officials on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were quick to blame the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative bloc of about three-dozen lawmakers whom Trump and House leadership courted for weeks but who ultimately refused to get behind the legislation. White House officials and Ryan offered amendment after amendment designed to win the group over, but they couldnt get to yes, said one Administration official.

There is a bloc of no votes that we had that is why this didnt pass, said Ryan. Some of the members of that caucus were voting with us, but not enough were.

Some of those inducements to the conservatives alienated the moderates within the Republican conference, but officials appeared less inclined to blame them for the defeat.

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The failure on Friday was not for lack of trying on the Presidents part. Trump called members personally, invited them to the White House, granted concessions and used all the negotiating tactics he laid out in his book The Art of the Deal.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump left everything on the field in pushing for the vote. At a press briefing earlier in the afternoon, he highlighted how how detail-oriented, how personal it was for Trump. He added the president worked the phones until late in the night all week, and that his aides reached out over and again to wavering members.

But the man who once said I alone can fix it ultimately fell short. At some point you can only do so much, Spicer said. At the end of the day, this isnt a dictatorship.

Despite promising for seven years to repeal former Obamas signature achievement, Republican leaders now face a painful reality: Obamacare, the largest expansion of government entitlements in a generation, is here to stay.

Speaking to reporters after the vote, Trump expressed surprise that the Freedom Caucus wouldnt get on board the vote.

Im disappointed, because we could have had it, Trump said of the group. Im surprised.

Republican lawmakers who had hoped to pass the bill blamed the Freedom Caucus for bringing down the effort.

Quite frankly, if the Freedom Caucus had voted for this bill, which gave them 90% of what they wanted, it would have passed, said Republican Rep. Phil Roe of Tennessee.

Trump and Ryan were searching frantically for the votes to pass the bill right up until the decision to pull it. The GOP whip team sought on Friday morning to convince members in the halls of the Capitol building, and Administration officials such as Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price personally called lawmakers to try to sway them. Still, it was clear Republicans did not have the 216 votes in their own party to pass the bill by the time of a procedural vote shortly before noon.

At midday, Ryan traveled to the White House to brief Trump on the bad news: Despite all their efforts, House leadership and White House aides were still many votes short. Trump indicated he wanted to move forward with the vote, and the White House announced that it would take place Friday afternoon.

But two hours later, with no forward progress, Ryan recommended again to Trump that Republicans pull the vote. The president relented, sparing Republican lawmakers from a taking a politically painful vote on a GOP health care bill that polls show is deeply unpopular.

To moderates, the bill was draconian, cutting off the poor from access to health care - according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill would have caused 24 million people to lose insurance in the next decade.

For conservatives, it left too much of Obamacares regulations in place and did not go far enough in reducing the deficit and lowering premiums. Indeed, the CBO forecast that premiums would drop only 10 to 15%, after rising sharply through 2020.

The defeat suggests a trying future for the Republican legislative agenda. It further strains the credibility of Trump and Ryans relationship and their ability to whip votes and reinforces the power of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which played an instrumental role in destroying the bill. Trump and Ryan indicated they hope to proceed to tax reform - a task that will grow more difficult by the loss of more than $150 billion in budgetary savings that would have been included in the health care bill.

For a Republican Party used to being in the opposition, it was a calamitous result for its first test at governing.

Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains, Ryan told reporters Friday, trying to put a positive spin on the unmitigated legislative disaster. And were feeling those growing pains today.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
DUBAI (Reuters) - A Yemeni court in territory controlled by the armed Houthi movement sentenced the group's enemy in a two-year-old civil war President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and six other top officials in his government to death for "high treason" on Saturday. The decision by a court in the capital Sanaa, reported by the state news agency Saba, which is run by the Houthis, may render more remote the resumption of stalled peace talks to end the conflict which has killed at least 10,000 people. Saudi Arabia and a mostly Gulf Arab military coalition have launched thousands of air strikes and a small number of ground troops to try to dislodge the Houthis and restore Hadi to power. The Houthis, allied to Saudi Arabia's arch-enemy Iran, have progressively lost territory to the offensive but maintain control over the capital and most population centers. Several rounds of peace talks have ended in failure and the Houthis insist Hadi is illegitimate and must stand down, a position rejected by his government and the United Nations. Saba quoted the Sanaa criminal court as having convicted Hadi of "incitement and assistance to the aggressor state of Saudi Arabia and its allies." The death sentence for high treason was also passed down on several senior government officials including the ambassador to the United States Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak and the former foreign minister Riyadh Yassin. "With great pride my name is on this list of honor," bin Mubarak wrote on his official Facebook page, calling his convicted colleagues his "brothers". (Reporting By Noah Browning, editing by David Evans)
By William James LONDON (Reuters) - Britain risks looking as though it has put defense and trade ties with Turkey ahead of human rights concerns as it pushes to secure a closer relationship with Ankara, a committee of lawmakers said on Saturday. The warning comes as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to begin negotiating Britain's exit from the European Union - enacting a decision made at a referendum last year which has forced the government to seek new allies and trading partners. May and senior minister have visited Turkey this year to discuss tightening security cooperation to prevent Islamic State militants in neighboring Syria reaching Europe, and how to boost lucrative sales of defense systems to Ankara. But a committee of British lawmakers who visited Turkey to investigate bilateral relations, expressed concern at the direction of the diplomatic push. "Our impression has been of two countries that share interests more than they share values, and the UK risks being perceived as de-prioritizing its concern for human rights in its drive to establish a 'strategic' relationship with Turkey," the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee said. Turkey's own relationship with the EU, a bloc it has been moving at a snail's pace toward joining for decades, hangs in the balance. A referendum on handing President Tayyip Erdogan more executive powers has unnerved EU states, and Erdogan has said he wants to review political ties with the bloc. The committee criticized the British Foreign Office's (FCO) understanding of Turkish domestic politics following a failed coup last July and said diplomatic funding cuts could undermine its ability to make the most of post-Brexit trade opportunities. "The FCO knows too little for itself about who was responsible for the coup attempt in Turkey," the report said. Turkish authorities have accused Fethullah Gulen of orchestrating the coup attempt. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement. The committee, which took evidence from Gulenist groups, concluded that while individual Gulenists were involved in the coup attempt, evidence was so far inconclusive about the movement as a whole, or its leader, being responsible for it. Rights groups and some of Turkey's Western allies fear Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to stifle dissent, but he says mass sackings and arrests in the police army and judiciary are needed to protect democracy and root out Gulen supporters. "These purges risk undermining Turkey's reputation, its economy, the UK's ability to trade there and the capabilities of the Turkish military against shared enemies such as ISIL (Islamic State)," said committee chairman Crispin Blunt. "More fundamentally, they undermine the values of human rights and democracy in Turkey, already significantly weakened before the coup." (Editing by Stephen Addison)
Although Republicans have been vowing to repeal Obamacare since it was signed into law seven years ago, the failure of the American Health Care Act to reach the House floor for a vote Friday was a particular setback to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was spearheading the legislation and the vote count.

The House Speaker was visibly disappointed in remarks he made after the bill was withdrawn, and indicated that he may need to reach more compromises in future legislation.

Ultimately, he said, this all kind of comes down to a choice. Are all of us willing to give a little to get something done?

Here is a full transcript of Ryans remarks.

Youve all heard me say this before. Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains. And, well, were feeling those growing pains today. We came really close today but we came up short. I spoke to the president just a little while ago. I told him that the best thing I think to do is to pull this bill and he agreed with that decision.

I will not sugarcoat this, this is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard. All of us. All of us, myself included, we will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better. Ultimately, this all kind of comes down to a choice. Are all of us willing to give a little to get something done?

Are we willing to say yes to the good, the very good, even if its not the perfect? Because if were willing to do that, we still have such an incredible opportunity in front of us. There remains so much that we can do to help improve peoples lives and we will. Because thats I got to tell you, thats why Im here. And I know its why every member of this conference is here; to make this a better country.

We want American families to feel more confident in their in life. We want the next generation to know that yes, the best days of this country are still ahead of us. Im really proud of the bill that we produced. It would make a dramatic improvement in our healthcare system and provide relief by people hurting under Obamacare. And whats probably most troubling is the worst is yet to come with Obamacare.

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Im also proud of the long, inclusive, member-driven process that we had. Any member who wanted to engage constructively to offer ideas to improve this bill, they could. And I want to thank so many members who helped make this bill better. A lot of our members put a lot of hard work into this. I also want to thank the president. I want to thank the vice president.

I want to thank Tom Price, Mick Mulvaney, and the entire White House team. The president gave his all in this effort. He did everything he possibly could to help people see the opportunity that we had with this bill. Hes really been fantastic. Still, we got to do better and we will. I absolutely believe that. This is a setback, no two ways about it. But it is not the end of the story.

Because I know that every man and woman in this conference is now motivated more than ever to step up our game, to deliver on our promises.

I know that everyone is committed to seizing this incredible opportunity we have, and I sure am.

QUESTION: (Mr. Speaker, two questions on healthcare actually. One is you talked about real people. Now, youve got a law on the books the core (ph) (inaudible), that you guys dont want it, the White House doesnt like. But its gonna be the law for diversity of the country. Do you plan to try to help it along and prop it? Or are you going to just let with wither...

RYAN: Yeah, thats the problem. I - I worried - the question is - is - is weve kinda prop it all along and - and hesitate (ph)...

QUESTION: Trying to prop it up?

RYAN: It - its so fundamentally flawed, I dont know that that is possible. What were really worried about is - and youve heard me say this all along - is the coming premium increases that are coming with a death spiral in the healthcare system. That is my big concern.

We just didnt quite get consensus today. What - what - what we have is a member-driven process to try and get consensus.

We came very close, but we did not get that consensus. Thats why I thought the wisest thing to do is not - not proceed with the vote, but to pull the bill and - and - and see what we can do. But I dont think the law, as it is fashioned or anything close to it, is really going to be able to - to survive.

QUESTION: But will you work on legislation now to try to cut (ph) the gaps?

RYAN: Yeah, well see. Were gonna go back and figure out what - what - what the next steps are. Yeah?

QUESTION: Can you explain if it is the conservatives of the Freedom Caucus that effectively drove out you predecessor John Boehner? Are they responsible for the defeat here today?

RYAN: Well, I dont want to cast blame. It - there is a block of - of no votes that we had that - that - that is why this didnt pass. They were a sufficient number of votes that prevented it from passing and they didnt change their votes.

We were close. Some of the members of that caucus were voting with us, but not enough were. And therefore - and I met with their chairman earlier today, and he - he made it clear to me that - that the votes werent gonna be there from their team. And - and that - that was sufficient to provide the votes - the balance to not have this bill pass.

QUESTION: ...concerned with them? Mr. Speaker, you all swept the House, won the majority with a promise to repeal Obamacare.

The majority in the Senate with a promise to repeal (ph) Obamacare. The White House with the promise in repeal Obamacare. How do you go home to your constituents and send all of your members home to their constituents saying you know what, its not even 100 into the administration? Sorry folks, we just cant figure it out.

RYAN: Diane (ph), its a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you. I - I really believe that Obamacare is a law that is collapsing, its hurting families, its not working. It was designed in a fundamentally flawed way.

We believe this bill is the best way to go, but we just didnt quite get the consensus to get there.

QUESTION: Two questions for you, if you dont mind. The one, the bottom line is Obamacare right now remains the law of the land. Is that going to change in 2017?

RYAN: Yeah, I dont know what else to say other than Obamacares the law of the land. Its gonna remain the law of the land until its replaced. We did not have quite the votes to replace this law.

And so, yeah, were gonna be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future. I dont know how long its gonna take us to replace this law.

My worry is Obamacare is - is gonna be getting even worse. Actually, I think we were probably doing the Democrats a favor. I think we are doing the architects of Obama a favor by passing this law before it gets even worse.

Well, I guess that favors not going to be given to them and its gonna get worse. And so, I dont think the architects of Obamacare - Im sure they may be pleased right now. But when they see how bad this thing gets, they said all the projections were being told by - by the plans that are participating in Obamacare. I dont think theyre gonna like that either.

Look, five states you got one plan left, one choice. Over a third of the counties in America, one plan left. And the kinds of projections were being told from the people providing health insurance to these people in plans, its gonna get even worse.

And so, I dont think the architects of Obamacare envisioned this future. Its certainly not one we want for the American people. And I wish we had the kind of consensus we needed to bring a bill to the floor to pass and replace it but we just dont have that right now.

QUESTION: My second question speaker, Mr. Speaker, if you dont mind...

QUESTION: What about - what...

RYAN: Chad (ph)?

QUESTION: Thank you. What about, though, the political capital that was burned through? You have to keep the government open in about five weeks, the debt ceiling, you still wanna do tax reform.

I know you say that this is - this - this part was never gonna get to into that part. How much capital did you burn on this today? And how does that potentially injure those other bills?

RYAN: I think our members know weve did everything we could to get consensus. This is how governing works when youre in the majority.

We need to get 216 people to agree with each other to write legislation, not 210, not 215. We need 216 people in the House to agree with each other on how to write a piece of legislation.

We didnt have 216 people. We were close, but we did not have 216 people.

And thats how legislating works. And so, now were going to move on with the rest of our agenda because we have big ambitious plans to improve peoples lives in this country. We want to secure the border, we want to rebuild our military, we want to get the deficit under control, we want infrastructure and we want tax reform.

The last question you asked me about tax reform, Chad. Yes, this does make tax reform more difficult, but it does not in any way make it impossible.

We will proceed with tax reform. We will continue with tax reform. Thats an issue I know...

quite a bit about. I used to run that committee. I spoke with the president, the treasury secretary and his economic advisers earlier today about tax reform. So we are going to proceed with tax reform. This makes it clearly more - you know how the numbers work. Its about a trillion dollars. That just means the Obamacare taxes stay with Obamacare. Were going to fix the rest of the tax code.

QUESTION: You dont think what is passed is (inaudible), that portends bad things for (inaudible)?

RYAN: I dont think so. I dont think this is prologue for other future things, because members realize there are other parts of our agenda that people have even more agreement on, on what to achieve. We have even more agreement on the need and the nature of tax reform on funding the government, on rebuilding the military, on securing the border. This issue had a big difference of opinion not whether we should repeal and replace Obamacare, but just how we should replace it. And that is the growing pains of governing.

We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do. You just had to be against it. And now in three months time we tried to go to a governing party where we actually had to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things and we werent just quite there today. We will get there, but we werent there today.

Yes?

QUESTION: Anna Anderson (ph) from Bloomberg.

I was hoping you could kind of move ahead with things two and three, HHS phase two and hear (ph) what phase three legislation, and also if you can just talk about how the conference is doing right now.

RYAN: The conference is not done. The conference is disappointed. The conference - we were on the cusp of fulfilling a promise that we made. We were on the cusp of achieving an ambition weve all had for seven years, and we came a little short. We were close, but not quite there.

On your other issues, this bill would have made what we call phase two much, much better. Nevertheless, I think there are some things that the secretary of HHS can do to try and sort of stabilize things, but really we need this bill to make it better.

For instance, risk pools, we believe the smarter way to help people with preexisting conditions get affordable coverage while bringing down the health care costs for everybody else is through re- insurance risk or risk-sharing pools which this bill supplied for the states. That is not now going to happen, and therefore he wont be able to deploy that policy tool that we think is better than Obamacare.

So, we do lose a lot of the tools we wanted to help improve peoples lives and bring down health care costs in this country.

Thank you very much.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
After House Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly told President Trump that Republicans lacked enough votes to pass the GOP health care bill, Republicans canceled a vote on the American Health Care Act on Friday, putting the presidents promise to repeal and replace Obamacare in jeopardy.

Its the first major setback to the presidents agenda in Congress, but Republican voters are likely to hold Republican congressional leaders, rather than the president, responsible.

Ahead of the vote, Trump said Ryan should keep his job as House speaker even if the vote was unsuccessful. The president also told Robert Costa of The Washington Post that he doesnt blame Paul, in the immediate aftermath of the news that the vote had been canceled. But the White House has reportedly been gearing up to point the finger at Ryan if anything went wrong. Behind the scenes, the presidents aides are planning to blame Ryan if there is an embarrassing defeat on a bill that has been a Republican goal for more than seven years, Bloomberg reported earlier in the day, citing an unnamed administration official.

Recommended: The Republican Waterloo

And if Trump and Ryan clash as a result of the outcome, Republican voters may side with the president. In February, the Pew Research Center found that a majority of Republican voters were more likely to trust Trump than Republican congressional leaders in the event of a dispute. The survey also reported that Republican voters had a far more favorable view of Trump than they did of Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. An overwhelming majority of Republican votersat 86 percenthad a favorable view of Trump, compared to just 65 percent who held a favorable view of Ryan and just 57 percent who felt warmly toward McConnell. That suggests that Republican congressional leaders could face retribution from their base if they end up on a collision course with the president.

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Ryan himself has suggested there may be retribution from voters if the the GOP cannot pass an Obamacare replacement. Everybody running for the Congress and the House, everybody running for the Senate, and the president himself, said to the American people You give us this chance, this responsibility, this opportunity with a Republican president, with a Republican Senate, a Republican House, and we will repeal and replace Obamacare, Ryan said, describing the stakes of the health care vote earlier in the week. If we dont keep our promise, it will be very hard to manage this, he said.

Of course, its impossible to predict how Republican voters might react if the GOP health care effort fails, and whether that reaction will meaningfully alter election outcomes. Trump and GOP leadership may not turn on one another. The president may decide to focus his ire at Democrats, despite the fact that Republicans control both houses of Congress.

Recommended: The Republicans Fold on Health Care

One factor that might mitigate voter backlash is that Republican efforts to move ahead with a health care overhaul have proven widely unpopular. A recent Quinnipiac Poll found that a majority of American voters disapprove of the GOP plan to replace President Obamas health-care law, the Affordable Care Act. The plan even failed to win a majority of support among Republican voters, according to the poll, which found that only 41 percent of Republicans approved. Perhaps significantly, though, a majority of Republican votersat 64 percentdid indicate that they approved of the way Trump had handled the health care push, despite not approving of the bill he endorsed.

At a Friday afternoon press conference, Ryan spoke approvingly of Trump even as he faced reporters after the canceled vote. The president gave his all in this effort, the speaker said. Hes really been fantastic. But he conceded that they had not followed through with what they had vowed to do. We were on the cusp of fulfilling a promise that we made  of achieving an ambition that weve all had for seven years, he said.

And despite the health care bill setback, Trump could emerge relatively unscathed in popularity in the wake of a legislative defeat, even if congressional Republicans dont.

When a reporter asked the Speaker how he, and other Republican lawmakers, would return to their constituents without having advanced their health care agenda, Ryan responded grimly on Friday: Its a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
(WASHINGTON) - The Republicans capstone health care overhaul seemed in dire trouble Friday as Speaker Paul Ryan weighed strategy at the White House with President Donald Trump. GOP lawmakers and aides said they lacked the votes to succeed in the House, just hours before a do-or-die showdown demanded by Trump.

GOP leaders pushed toward a climactic House roll call, but their promise to stage the vote increasingly looked like a losing gamble for the new president and his GOP allies in Congress.

Vice President Mike Pence was meeting near the Capitol with the House Freedom Caucus. That groups hard-right members, along with a growing band of party moderates, have been driving GOP opposition and threatening to crash one of Trumps and Ryans top priorities.

I think the president has given it his all, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters in what sounded like a concession that the measures fate was bleak. He added, The speaker has done everything he can. You cant force people to vote.

Three more GOP moderates publicly declared their opposition: Reps. Barbara Comstock of Virginia, David Joyce of Ohio and Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Those announcements contrasted with no visible signs that leaders had the support theyd need to avoid a damaging defeat.

White House officials told rank-and-file Republicans late Thursday that the president was through negotiating with holdouts. White House officials said that if the measure failed, Trump would move to the rest of his agenda - leaving lawmakers to blame for blocking the partys long-time goal of overturning Obamas overhaul.

Well see what happens, Trump said Friday when asked his course should the measure fail.

The GOP bill would eliminate the Obama statutes unpopular fines on those who do not obtain coverage and the often generous subsidies for those who purchase insurance. Instead, consumers would face a 30 percent premium penalty if they let coverage lapse.

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Republican tax credits would be based on age, not income like Obamas subsidies, and tax boosts Obama imposed on higher-earning people and health care companies would be repealed. The bill would end Obamas Medicaid expansion and trim future federal financing for the federal-state program, let states impose work requirements on some of its 70 million beneficiaries.

In a morning tweet, Trump targeted the Freedom Caucus. The bill would replace major parts of Obamas law and block federal payments for a year to Planned Parenthood.

The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan! Trump wrote.

For Trump, victory would clear an initial but crucial hurdle toward achieving the GOPs lodestar quest to repeal Obamacare, the former presidents 2010 health care overhaul. Defeat could weaken Trumps political potency by adding a legislative failure to a resume already saddled with inquiries into his campaigns Russia connections and his unfounded wiretapping allegations against Obama.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the Republican bill would result in 24 million additional uninsured people in a decade and lead to higher out-of-pocket medical costs for many lower-income and people just shy of age 65, when they become eligible for Medicare.

Obamas law increased coverage through subsidized private insurance for people without workplace coverage, and letting states expand Medicaid for low-income residents. More than 20 million people have gained coverage since the law was passed.

Democrats were uniformly against the GOP drive to roll back one of Obamas legacy achievements.

This bill is pure greed, and real people will suffer and die from it, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.

In Fridays first meaningful roll call, the House used a near party-line 230-194 vote to approve changes that leaders hoped would win over unhappy Republicans. These included improving Medicaid benefits for some older and disabled people and abolishing Obamas requirements that insurers cover specific services like maternity care.

House leaders seemed to be calculating that at crunch time enough dissidents will decide against sabotaging the bill, Trumps young presidency and the House GOP leaderships ability to set the agenda..

Republicans can lose only 22 votes in the face of united Democratic opposition. A tally by The Associated Press found at least 32 no votes, but the figure was subject to fluctuation amid frantic GOP lobbying.

GOP aides were privately saying conservative opposition was softening, yet another moderate announced he would oppose the legislation. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the bill would place significant new costs and barriers to care on my constituents.

For one opponent, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Trumps declaration that Friday was the GOPs last shot at repealing Obamas statute seemed to inspire only defiance.

Were the legislative body last I looked, not the president, Gosar said.

Other Republicans said it was time for party loyalty.

Too many people on our team feel like we have team members that are not, theyre deserting us, said Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., an early Trump supporter. And in some cases for self-preservation. When someone says I have to vote no or I wont be re-elected, I dont respect that.

Republicans still face an uphill climb in the Senate, where conservatives and moderates are threatening to sink it.

In an embarrassing setback, leaders abruptly postponed the vote Thursday because a rebellion by conservatives and moderates would have doomed the measure.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
If Trump toilet paper isn't enough for you, sending the new president a pertinent message on TP and other bathroom items might do the trick.

A group of activist friends based out of New York City frustrated with the results of November's election are facilitating a sh*tshow of sorts straight to Donald Trump's mailbox at the White House.

If you write a message on toilet paper, a pad or a tampon, the group will mail it to D.C. as part of their "Million Mile Message" campaign. For $10, it's act of resistance that's a bit different to sending a postcard or letter.

SEE ALSO: New 'Ides of Trump' campaign will inundate Trump with critical postcards

Writing a message on toilet paper is an idea that organizer Alexander Puutio a human rights lawyer, helped concoct after writing down the most "ridiculous/sad/bigoted parts from Trump's incoherent monologues" during the debates during the campaign, he said in an email.

"Toilet paper matches the overall theme of bullshit so intimately tied with Trump," he said about the project.

Toilet paper as the perfect medium for a presidential letter.

Image: Million Mile message

Once the idea of toilet paper messages was introduced it quickly expanded to include sanitary napkins and tampons. Puutio says the feminine products are the perfect material because they are way easier to write on and "they really resonate with the idea of resisting [Trump's] horrific misogyny as a medium."

The group's goal is to send one million miles of toilet paper throughout Trump's term  hence their name. Some recently delivered messages are scathing quips about Trump's Russian ties, the popular vote and Trump's proposed border wall. Participants can choose to write on one- or two-ply toilet paper or a pad or tampon.

Any leftover money not spent on mailing the bathroom-inspired notes will go to journalism and freedom of the press organizations. The group says they want to "combat the spread of alternative facts."

After sending the president a toilet paper note you'll never think about your bathroom essentials the same way again.

WATCH: This creepy robot pup looks just like Zuckerberg's dog
New York (AFP) - Hours after his stinging failure on health care legislation, US House Speaker Paul Ryan found himself being teased by a more unlikely source -- rockers Papa Roach.

Ryan came up short on votes Friday in his key goal of overturning former president Barack Obama's signature health care program, in a major legislative setback for President Donald Trump.

As the news broke, a writer tweeted a fictitious line attributed to The New York Times saying that Ryan -- an avowed fan of the 1990s "nu metal" genre -- turned on the music as he left a White House meeting in defeat.

"Within moments, the muffled sound of Papa Roach's 'Last Resort' were heard blaring from the car as it drove away," it said.

The fake news item soon started trending on Twitter and the band itself weighed in.

"When we feel defeated," the band tweeted, "we listen to Paul Ryan."

In a likely sign the band realized the item was satirical, it also tweeted #RoachGate with a photo of Ryan, lifting weights while listening to music on earbuds, from Time magazine in 2012.

On a more serious note, Papa Roach said that "Last Resort" was about suicide and gave information for people seeking help.

Justin Halpern, the writer behind the original tweet, called the trending story "my greatest accomplishment in a career of incredibly mediocre accomplishments."

He said he thought it was obvious that his mock anecdote was a joke, but added that Ryan was "such a tool it was believable."

It was not the first time that the musical tastes of the 47-year-old Wisconsin congressman, known for his fervent belief in free markets, have aroused interest.

When Mitt Romney selected him as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, Ryan raised eyebrows by recounting his love of the group Rage Against the Machine, known for its leftist politics.

The band's guitarist Tom Morello at the time castigated Ryan, calling him the very sort of "machine" against which the group was raging.
Singapore (AFP) - A Singaporean teenager who was jailed twice after insulting the island's late leader Lee Kuan Yew and religious groups has been granted political asylum in the United States, his US lawyer said Saturday.

Amos Yee, 18, shocked Singaporeans in March 2015 after posting an expletive-laden video attacking Lee as the founding prime minister's death triggered a massive outpouring of grief in the city-state.

He was jailed for four weeks for hurting the religious feelings of Christians and posting an obscene image as part of his attacks on Lee -- whose son Lee Hsien Loong is now the prime minister -- but served 50 days including penalties for violating bail conditions.

He was jailed again in 2016 for six weeks for insulting Muslims and Christians in a series of videos posted online, but critics claim the real reason was to silence him.

The Singapore government had no immediate reaction to the ruling, which is still open to an appeal by the US government.

Yee's lawyer Sandra Grossman of Maryland-based Grossman Law LLC told AFP by telephone that US immigration judge Samuel B. Cole had granted her client's application for asylum.

"Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore," the judge said in the decision, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

"Accordingly, this court grants his application for asylum."

The judge said evidence presented during the hearing "demonstrates Singapore's persecution of Yee was a pretext to silence his political opinions critical of the Singapore government".

He also described Yee as a "young political dissident".

Singapore, an island republic of 5.6 million which has long been been criticised for strict controls on dissent, takes pride in its racial and social cohesion, which it regards as essential for stability in a volatile region.

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The US Department of Homeland Security had opposed Yee's asylum application, saying he was legally prosecuted by the Singapore government.

Yee, a filmmaker-turned-activist, was detained by US authorities after he arrived in Chicago airport in December.

Speaking by telephone from Maryland, lawyer Grossman, who has represented Yee for free, said the US government "has the right to appeal this decision" within the next 30 days.

"The law agrees that he is eligible for immediate release," Grossman said.

-- 'Quintessential political dissident' --

The lawyer said she contacted the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office on Friday and was told Yee will be transferred to an ICE detention facility in Chicago on Monday and will be considered for release.

Phil Robertson, campaign group Human Rights Watch's deputy Asia director, lauded the US judge's asylum decision.

"There was never any doubt that Amos Yee is the quintessential political dissident, escaping from the sort of a pressure cooker environment that city-state Singapore excels in devising for dissidents who challenge its prerogatives," Robertson told AFP.

"It's clear the Singapore government saw Amos Yee as the proverbial nail sticking up that had to be hammered down."

Activist Shelley Thio, of the rights group Community Action Network Singapore, said Yee's mother, Mary, received the news of the decision "with much relief".

"Grossman Law is now trying to secure Amos' release and we are hopeful that Amos will be released soon," Thio said.

In Yee's video attacking Lee, he compared the late leader, who was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, to Jesus, saying "they are both power-hungry and malicious but deceive others into thinking they are compassionate and kind".

It was watched hundreds of thousands of times before being taken down from Yee's YouTube page.
Google, Facebook and several other tech companies have been facing a major backlash from advertisers globally for placing their online adverts next to extremist material. And now, in an exclusive report, the Telegraph has reported that these companies may be prosecuted in Britain if they fail to monitor content being posted online.

According to the report, British ministers are looking into passing a law that would allow prosecution of several social media sites, including the Google-owned YouTube among others, if they fail to curb the circulation of extremist content.

The Telegraph said that British Prime Minister Theresa May has expressed her displeasure at these internet companies for publishing extremist content. The report quoted her saying that the ball is in their court over taking action.

We want to see them take on their responsibility. The problem with the law is in itself we can do what we can but these are global companies, the Telegraph quoted a source as saying.

The report quoted the prime ministers official spokesman, who said: The fight against terrorism and hate speech has to be a joint one. The government and security services are doing everything they can and it is clear that social media companies can and must do more.

"Social media companies have a responsibility when it comes to making sure this material is not disseminated and we have been clear repeatedly that we think that they can and must do more. We are always talking with them on how to achieve that

Joanna Shields, a former Facebook executive, is holding the talks with the tech companies on behalf of the Home Office.

The report comes even as Googles European chief publicly apologized after the ad fiasco. However, due to lack of clarity on whether the company would take strict actions and keep a vigil on the content posted via its platforms, British ministers see this as a matter of grave concern.

Last week, the U.K. government removed its advertisements from YouTube after concerns over the ads appearing next to inappropriate material, including videos with extremist views, BBC News, which was also affected, had reported.

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Read: UK Government Pulls YouTube Ads Over Offensive Content

On Thursday, following suit, several big U.S. firms  Verizon, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, and Guardian  also pulled their ads off these websites citing similar reasons.

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By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday acknowledged the unthinkable for a Republican leader: he could not deliver the votes to repeal and replace Obamacare, even though he and his fellow Republicans had vowed to do so for seven years. Nevertheless, Ryan's job did not seem to be under immediate threat, at least not in the House of Representatives he leads. Ryan's long-time news media nemesis, the website Breitbart, said Republicans were "openly discussing" finding a replacement for him after he pulled a bill to roll back Obamacare from the House floor just minutes before an intensely awaited final vote. The Breitbart article did not quote anyone by name. In the House, just after the bill was pulled, several lawmakers brushed aside suggestions that the failure spelled trouble for Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate, who many have speculated has presidential ambitions. Ryan, 47, has been speaker since October 2015. Under the law, he is next in line to the presidency after Vice President Mike Pence. Republican Representative Justin Amash, a harsh critic of the ill-fated healthcare bill, told reporters, "We can do better with the legislative process." But, he added, "Nobody is talking about" trying to oust Ryan as speaker. Amash had disparagingly dubbed the Republican healthcare bill "Obamacare 2.0," after Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. Amash is a member of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus, which in 2015 ousted Ryan's predecessor as speaker, John Boehner, from the post. The caucus played a key role in the demise of the healthcare bill. Ryan chose to make healthcare reform the first target on a list of legislative goals for the new Republican-majority Congress. He admitted on Friday that he was disappointed by the outcome. Republicans faced resistance to the healthcare bill from both conservatives and moderates, making the process of winning passage difficult for the leadership. Republican Representative Joe Barton, asked about the impact of Friday's loss on Ryan, told reporters: "The speaker is a human being. He's not Superman." Republican Representative Barry Loudermilk, who backed the healthcare bill, said he didn't think the loss weakened the speaker's hand. One Republican lawmaker who has been considered potential speaker material, Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, effusively praised Ryan, saying he had shown "phenomenal leadership." "It is my hope that we can regroup and rally behind him (Ryan) and the president as a conference to deliver on our promise" to dismantle Obamacare, Hensarling said in a statement. (Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Dustin Volz; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Jonathan Oatis)
Sherri Papini wasn't the only California woman who was reported missing Nov. 2. Stacey Smart, a 53-year-old mom from Lewiston, also disappeared last fall  and unlike Papini, she still hasn't been found. But police and family members have been working the case constantly, the Redding Record Searchlight reported Wednesday.

"We have had people come forward, and the investigator is following up on new leads. I believe we are getting close to finding answers," Smart's daughter, Nicole Santos, told the Searchlight.

Read: Kidnapped California Mom 'Having A Tough Time,' Seeing Counselors, Donor Says In New Interview

Smart, who also went by Stacey Hamilton, hasn't been seen since Oct. 12, when she was at home with her boyfriend. She stopped communicating with family members around Halloween, missed a relative's funeral and was reported missing Nov. 2. The Trinity County police searched the Lewiston area to no avail, while her family has hired private investigators with similar results. Nobody has been charged in connection with her disappearance, NBC News reported.

"It is not in my mother's character to not contact her family or friends, or just leave without any notice," Santos wrote on a GoFundMe page titled "Help Stacey Smart." "We will not quit searching for my mom until we get answers."

Meanwhile, Smart's boyfriend, Tony Brand, recently took a polygraph test in an effort to prove he wasn't linked to the case. "People that know me know its not possible," Brand told the Searchlight.

Read: Sherri Papini Kidnapping Investigation Took Detectives From California To Michigan: Report

Smart's disappearance has often been coupled with that of Papini, the 34-year-old stay-at-home-mom from Redding who was kidnapped while on a jog and later found in restraints, beaten and bruised, miles from home. The Shasta County police, who have been investigating Papini's case, haven't charged anyone in her abduction, either.

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Sheriff Tom Bosenko told KRCRTV in December that he was waiting on evidence to come back from state investigators. He's declined to comment on other details in the Papini case, citing the ongoing probe.

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Jonn Jonzz (David Harewood) finds himself clashing with President Olivia Marsdin (Lynda Carter) in Season 2, episode 17 of Supergirl.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jonn and President Marsdin go head-to-head in the episode after she gives him an order he doesnt want to do. Shes not very nice to me, Harewood said. Were quite at odds.

As to what that order is, Harewood previously revealed to TV Guide that it has something to do with Supergirl (Melissa Benoist).Shes asking me not to do something, and I do it, the British actor said. Its something involving Supergirl (Melissa Benoist). I disobey the President in order to help Supergirl, [because] at the end of the day shes his [figurative] daughter, and family first.

READ: Is there a James-centric Supergirl episode coming up?

While Harewood mentioned that Jonn is going out on a big limb in the episode, the result of the Martians decision remains unknown. Im waiting to see what my consequences are, Harewood said.

President Marsdin made her first appearance in Season 2, episode 3, in which she visited National City to sign her alien amnesty act. However, her motive for signing the act became questionable when it was revealed at the end of the episode that shes actually an alien posing as a human.

Unfortunately for fans, it seems that next weeks episode wont disclose President Marsdins game plan, as Harewood revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that Carters character remains mysterious after the episode. I still dont know that shes not who she says she is. Im waiting for that to be revealed, Harewood said.

Apparently, even Benoist is being kept in the dark when it comes to Carters storyline. I want to know whats going on with her character, too. I dont even know! Benoist told The Hollywood Reporter.

Supergirl Season 2, episode `17, titled Distant Sun, airs on Monday, March 27 at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.

Lynda Carter as President Olivia Marsdin

Photo: The CW

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The lights of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House were switched off for Earth Hour, marking the tenth anniversary of the event's inception. Electric lights in 7,000 cities across 172 countries will be turned off to focus public attention on the issue of climate change and to save a few megawatts in the process. The initiative began in Australia in 2007 as a grassroots gesture by the World Wildlife Fund. Other international landmarks switching off their lights for Earth Hour include the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, London's Big Ben and the Pyramids of Egypt.
London (AFP) - Tens of thousands of pro-EU protesters took to London's streets Saturday, in defiance of the terror threat, to mark the bloc's 60th anniversary just days before Brexit begins.

Organisers said around 80,000 people joined the march calling for Britain to stay in the European Union, even as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to start the withdrawal process on Wednesday.

A sea of blue EU flags stretched down Piccadilly and past Trafalgar Square, interspersed by signs saying "I am European" and "I'm 15 -- I want my future back!"

The crowd fell silent as it filed into Parliament Square, the scene of terror this week when a homegrown killer drove a car through crowds of people before crashing into a fence and stabbing a policeman.

"Terrorism won't divide us -- Brexit will," said one banner, while another said: "Stop sleepwalking, stop this madness."

Police said that "an appropriate policing plan is in place" but an AFP reporter said security was discreet.

The anniversary of the EU's founding treaty was marked by a special summit in Rome, where at least 10,000 people also marched in support of the bloc.

"I was a girl during the war and this grand European movement has become my political ideal," Catherine Chastenet, 74, a marcher from Paris, told AFP in Rome.

Around 4,000 people also gathered in Berlin, organisers said, holding up banners saying "More Europe" and the "EU is not dead" -- reflecting fears that Brexit may cause irreparable harm to the 27-nation bloc.

"2016 was a terrible year for Europe and the world, we are going to make 2017 a year of hope, the year that people stand up and say 'This is our Europe'," cried out one organiser as DJs played loud techno music.

Rallies were also held across Poland, one of the EU's newest and most enthusiastic members, where supporters sang the "Ode to Joy" European anthem as they waved Polish and EU flags.

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- 'I'm told I'm a foreigner' -

There were calls to cancel the London march after Wednesday's attack, in which the assailant, Khalid Masood, killed four people before being shot dead by police.

But organisers insisted they would not be cowed and sunshine brought out a large crowd of many different nationalities and ages.

"I'm a citizen of Europe and Britain but for me the European family is much more important than being an isolated nation," said Glenn Pierce, a 25-year-old teacher from Newcastle in northeastern England.

Britons voted by 52 percent to end their four-decade membership of the EU in the June 23 referendum -- but 48 percent, or 16 million people, voted to stay.

Many are deeply unhappy with May's plans to leave the EU's single market in order to cut immigration, and in particular her refusal to guarantee the rights of three million Europeans living in Britain.

"I was told I could settle down, marry a Brit and make my life here," said Joan Pons, a Spanish nurse who has lived in Britain for 17 years.

"Yet today I am told I'm a foreigner and should go back where I come from."

May declined to attend the EU celebrations in Italy marking the signature by six founding states of the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

On Wednesday, the prime minister will trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, starting a two-year countdown to Britain's exit.
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Thousands of Hamas supporters on Saturday called for "revenge" during the Gaza funeral of an official from the Palestinian Islamist movement gunned down the previous day.

"Revenge, revenge!" called participants at the procession for Mazen Faqha, 38, who was shot dead by unknown gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Friday.

Hamas-nominated attorney general Ismail Jaber on Saturday blamed Israel for the killing.

"This assassination has the clear marks of Mossad," he said, referring to the Jewish state's spy agency.

According to Israeli media, Faqha was responsible for cells of Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel arrested Faqha and sentenced him to prison over suicide attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis during the second intifada, or uprising, between 2000 and 2005.

He was released in 2011 along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years, and transferred to Gaza.

Prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, headed the procession from the Shifa morgue to the Omari mosque, an AFP photographer said.

Khalil al-Haya, a deputy to Sinwar, promised retaliation.

"If the enemy thinks that this assassination will change the power balance, then it should know the minds of Qassam will be able to retaliate in kind," he said.

Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip for 10 years.
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  Several thousand people including Orthodox priests have marched through the Romanian capital and other cities to express their opposition to abortion and their support for family life.

Members of anti-abortion groups gathered in a park in southern Bucharest on Saturday and marched, shouting slogans such as "Life!" They handed out colored balloons carrying messages such as "Every child is an angel coming into the world," and "Women deserve more than abortion."

The ProVita Foundation says about 210 abortions are carried out every day in Romania. Abortions are legal up to 14 weeks.

Former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu outlawed abortion and birth control in 1968 in a bid to boost Romania's population. Abortion was legalized in 1990 after his ouster and execution in 1989.
Tokyo (AFP) - A retired ballet dancer flipped the bird to her former profession on Saturday, making her Tokyo Fashion Week debut by laying bare the pain behind the beauty of classical dance.

Chika Kisada fused ballet with punk -- leather jackets paired with a gothic-style black tutu-esque skirt -- and sent her models out in comfortable pink brogues with large net bows instead of pointe shoes.

Ballet-style net pinafore dresses were worn over knits with a leather-strap harness for a bohemian autumn/winter 2017 collection of little-girl fantasy meets the perils-of-the-real-world look.

Dramatic gold face masks -- which mimicked the tiaras worn by ballerinas in classics such as "Sleeping Beauty" -- were rustled up with the help of a ballet costume maker whom she knows through her old life.

The 36-year-old turned to fashion after years of gruelling training and prizes failed to lead to the top-flight ballerina career that she had dreamt of "ever since I can remember".

She danced for 16 years, studying "from dawn to dusk" and ended up at Asami Maki Ballet, one of the leading classical companies in Japan.

Then she quit.

"I didn't do anything for a while, but when I thought of jobs I can express myself through the body, it came to me that being a designer could be similar," she told AFP.

While she launched a first fashion line 10 years ago, Kisada won an award last year for her eponymous second brand.

And if you think "elegance of ballet" and "vitality of punk" are an odd combination, then Kisada is out to prove you wrong.

Ballet, she explains, is "not only" the beauty on stage. What the audience doesn't see, she explains, is the torment and agony that dancers endure in a notoriously competitive and rigorous art form.

"I experienced the gulf between front and backstage, and the frustration. I want to stick my middle finger up at it," she told AFP.

"So I channelled that feeling into a punk spirit," she said. "I wanted to express that there is not only beauty. For example you see ugly injuries... and a painful expression behind a smiling face on stage."

Her ambition now is to dress independent women and crack the European market, having already acquired stockists in Canada, China, Lebanon and Russia.
HONG KONG (AP)  A committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites cast ballots Sunday to choose Hong Kong's next leader in the first such vote since 2014's huge pro-democracy protests. The election committee's 1,194 members voted at a downtown exhibition center, with the city's former No. 2 official Carrie Lam widely expected to win after getting the backing of China's communist leaders. Ballot boxes were being taken to the counting area to be tallied after the morning vote. Pro-Beijing and pro-democracy groups held competing rallies outside the election venue, and were kept apart by police hundreds of police officers. The pro-democracy crowd chanted "I want genuine democracy," the usual slogan for opponents of the current system.

WASHINGTON (AP)  A U.S. counterterrorism airstrike earlier this month in Afghanistan killed an al-Qaida leader responsible for a deadly hotel attack in Islamabad in 2008 and the 2009 attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, the Pentagon said Saturday. In confirming the death of Qari Yasin, U.S. officials said Yasin was a senior terrorist figure from Balochistan, Pakistan, had ties to the group Tehrik-e Taliban and had plotted multiple al-Qaida terror attacks. The airstrike that led to his death was conducted March 19 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. Yasin plotted the Sept. 20, 2008, bombing on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed dozens, officials said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  Days after South Korea's president was removed from office, a ferry was lifted slowly from the waters where it sank three years earlier  a disaster that killed more than 300 people, mostly schoolchildren, and ignited public fury against Park Geun-hye and became a nationally polarizing issue. The ferry's recovery has raised the question of whether that process can bring closure to a country that was roiled and split by the ferry sinking. The quick answer would be: "Not completely." And the ship's recovery is now political fodder ahead of a May election to choose a new president.

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  Salvage crews towed a corroded 6,800-ton South Korean ferry and loaded it onto a semi-submersible transport vessel Saturday, completing what was seen as the most difficult part of the massive effort to bring the ship back to shore nearly three years after it sank. Government officials say it will take a week or two to bring the vessel to a port 90 kilometers (55 miles) away so investigators can search for the remains of nine missing people who were among the 304 who died when the Sewol capsized on April 16, 2014. Most of the victims were students on a high school trip, touching off an outpouring of national grief and soul searching about long-ignored public safety and regulatory failures.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP)  Supporters of a jailed former lawmaker tried to break through a police cordon outside the national security agency's headquarters in Kyrgyzstan's capital, but police turned them back with flash grenades. Dozens were arrested. About 250 people had gathered Saturday in Bishkek, the Central Asian nation's capital, to demand the release of Sadyr Jarapov, who was arrested when trying to enter the country earlier in the day. It was not clear why he was arrested. Japarov had lived the past few years in Cyprus after serving a prison sentence for organizing a 2013 protest that turned violent. The protest was connected to disputes over the Canadian-owned Kumtor gold mine that is one of the country's main industries.

CHICAGO (AP)  A blogger from Singapore who was jailed for his online posts blasting his government was granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge ruled. Amos Yee, 18, has been detained by federal immigration authorities since December when he was taken into custody at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Attorneys said he could be released from a Wisconsin detention center as early as Monday. Judge Samuel Cole issued a 13-page decision Friday, more than two weeks after Yee's closed-door hearing on the asylum application. "Yee has met his burden of showing that he suffered past persecution on account of his political opinion and has a well-founded fear of future persecution in Singapore," Cole wrote.

SYDNEY (AP)  China's premier attended an Australian football game with the country's prime minister on Saturday, wrapping up a visit Down Under aimed at boosting bilateral ties and expanding trade between the two nations. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull took a break from trade discussions to kick back at the Australian Football League match in Sydney. Turnbull and Li have spent the past several days speaking out against protectionism and touting the benefits of free trade at a time when President Donald Trump is proposing an "America First" overhaul of global trade. China is Australia's biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding $107 billion and bilateral investment exceeding $100 billion.

NEW DELHI (AP)  Two civilians and a policeman were killed in explosions in Bangladesh on Saturday as troops raided a suspected military hideout in the country's east, police said. Golam Kibria, a senior police official in Sylhet city, said 25 people were also wounded in the explosions, which took place on a road near an Islamic religious school. Since Friday, paramilitary troops have been engaged in an operation to flush out a group of Islamist radicals holed up in a nearby building with a large cache of ammunition. Police said that earlier Saturday, 78 civilians were rescued from the building as troops broke through a boundary wall.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP)  Hazardous, heavily polluting tanneries, with workers as young as 14, supplied leather to companies that make shoes and handbags for a host of Western brands, a nonprofit group that investigates supply chains says. The report by New York-based Transparentem, released to The Associated Press on Friday, didn't say leather from the tanneries ends up in American and European companies' products, only that the manufacturers of some of those goods receive it. Some companies say they're certain the leather used to make their products was imported from outside Bangladesh, and the manufacturers concur. Still, in response to the report most brands had switched factories, banned Bangladesh leather or demanded improvements and audits.

HONG KONG (AP)  Hong Kong's next leader will be chosen Sunday by an election committee stacked with pro-Beijing elites who heed the wishes of China's communist leaders rather than the semiautonomous region's voters. The candidates are front-runner Carrie Lam, a career civil servant who is widely seen as Beijing's favorite, chief rival John Tsang and retired judge Woo Kwok-hing. A closer look at each potential replacement to unpopular incumbent Leung Chun-ying, whose term ends in June: ___ THE FRONTRUNNER  A lifelong civil servant who rose to Hong Kong's second-highest office, former Chief Secretary Carrie Lam is Beijing's preference. She's seen as loyal to China's Communist leaders yet without the polarizing persona of her former boss Leung, whose initials inspired Lam's nickname of C.Y.
They blame the establishment. They blame the Democrats. They blame the media.

But it seems that few voters in Trump country blame President Trump for the stunning collapse of the Republican-led effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

He did all he could, I think, said Edward Reede, 73, who was pacing the sidewalk as he waited for a relative in the rural town of Front Royal in northwest Virginia. You can only do so much as president. You can only twist so many arms.

STAT staffers fanned out across the country on Saturday, talking to voters in conservative pockets of Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Nebraska, Georgia, and Tennessee. Again and again, they voiced their continuing support for the president  and their faith that he would fix the health care system eventually, even though this first effort went up in flames.

We just need to give President Trump time, said Joleen Dudley, a real estate agent in Canton, Ga. He isnt one to give up, or he wouldnt be a billionaire.

Read more: GOP leaders pull health care bill, with no clear path forward on reform

House Speaker Paul Ryan made it clear on Friday that he and his colleagues have no plans to return to health care, at least not anytime soon. Obamacare is the law of the land, he said. Were going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.

But in the small towns and tidy suburbs that went decisively for Trump, voters said they just didnt believe their president would let that happen.

Im confident theyll get something done, said Mike Tomes, 56, who grows corn and soybeans in Utica, Neb.

Im a man of faith, and I believe that things are going to change, said Brian Bailey, 42, a landscape foreman in Murfreesboro, Tenn., a college town smack in the middle of the state. He blamed the Republican leadership in Congress for pushing too quickly to pass a bill that still needed some work.

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I dont know how long its going to take, but I believe the right main course is set forth, Bailey said. Its getting the details worked out.

Yet a day of talking to Trump voters across the country underscored just how tough it will be to ever work out details that appeal to all the fractious elements of his coalition.

In Seward, Neb., drugstore owner Michael J. Mueri is angry that he has to pay so much for insurance  $24,000 a year, he said. Hes angry about high deductibles, too; his customers constantly complain about them. Yet he wasnt at all fond of conservatives bid to try to drive down premiums by revoking the Obamacare mandate that all plans cover a bundle of essential benefits, such as mental health care and maternity care.

If pregnancy checkups, childbirth, and newborn care arent covered, Meuri said, Im not sure my kids can afford to have a baby.

Ditto for preventive screenings: He wants those covered, too. Otherwise, he said, People wont get a colonoscopy. Too expensive. People will weigh the odds and roll the dice.

But in Kennesaw, Ga., a suburb on the northern fringe of Atlanta, landscaper Michael Davis has quite a different prescription for health care reform: He wants all the mandates laid out in Obamas Affordable Care Act gone. He wants the government role as limited as possible. He wants true, conservative, free-market principles to rule the day  and he suggests Senator Rand Pauls stripped-down health care bill is the place to start.

Davis, whos a vice chair of his county Republican party, said he thought the GOP failed this time around because the establishment tried to box out the true grassroots conservatives. I think Trump kind of fell on board with it and was convinced, he said.

But hes not giving up on the president: My expectations are that they would repeal it. Thats what he said. Thats what he ran on. Thats what I believe his intentions are.

Trump himself seemed to promise as much in a tweet on Saturday:

ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017

One of the few voters to express even mild disappointment with Trump was J.D. Kennedy, 77, a Vietnam veteran, retired auctioneer  and a regular at the City Cafe in Murfreesboro. He arrives there at 5 a.m. sharp, six days a week, and reads his local paper over coffee.

I think he may have just ridden the wrong horse first. And thats ego that caused him to do that, Kennedy said. If he had gone for tax breaks or infrastructure or any of the other things, it would have been easier, but hes not one to go for easy things.

And Kennedy made clear his faith in the president remains rock-solid: He knows better, he said, and hell do better on the tax cuts.

Read more: GOP lawmakers slammed Obamacare for Medicare cuts. Trumpcare doesnt undo them

The key is overcoming a biased media and rallying the country, said Melinda James, 54, a health care worker from Broadview Heights, Ohio. No matter what happens, the media tries to side it one way, she said. They dont give a clear picture of whats going on. James said she was disappointed the health care bill had failed.

I really dont think people are trying to help Trump. We need to unify, she said. We need to give him a chance.

Out west in the suburb of Castle Rock, Colo., a well-heeled city in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, voters had plenty of ideas on how to parcel out blame for the collapse of an effort that the GOP has been pushing for seven years  and that Trump elevated to a central plank in his campaign.

In his feed store, which dates to 1902, owner Wayne Bennington diagnosed the problem as a failure of communication: Someone, somewhere dropped the ball on explaining to the American people just what the Republican bill did  and why they should support it, he said.

Somebody needed to go on air and go through this explaining exactly what it is, said Bennington, 60, whose store is packed with livestock feed, leashes, cowboy boots, and carved wooden animals (some of them painted in Denver Broncos orange and blue). Nobody knows what the bill is about, so if you push it through like that, shame on you.

Read more: Does good food count as health care? New research aims to find out

Down the street, in a warehouse full of vendors, Bill Moye figured it was the Democrats who should take the fall, even though the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the White House. The Democrats, he said, are obstructionist. They dont want Republicans to get anything done.

A Vietnam vet, Moye sells taxidermy busts of animals hes hunted, as well as elk antler chandeliers he makes himself. Hes happy with his health care, which he gets through Medicare and Veterans Affairs. And he thinks his fellow Americans shouldnt have to be afraid of losing insurance when theyre struggling financially.

At the same time, Moye sounds wary of entitlements: Were given too much in America.

Thats a tough circle to square. But Moye has confidence in Trump.

Its going to be rough, he said, but I think eventually the new president will be the best weve ever had.

Reporters Keith Cartwright, Lev Facher, Max Blau, and Casey Ross contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM (AP)  Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, has deep business and personal ties to Israel that could raise questions about his ability to serve as an honest broker as he oversees the White House's Mideast peace efforts.

But some say these ties, which include a previously undisclosed real estate deal in New Jersey with a major Israeli insurer, may give Kushner a surprising advantage as he is expected to launch the first peace talks of the Trump era. Having the trust of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the thinking goes, could make Kushner well positioned to extract concessions from the hard-line Israeli leader.

Kushner's family real estate company has longstanding and ongoing deals with major Israeli financial institutions. These relationships, along with a personal friendship with Netanyahu and past links to the West Bank settler movement, could emerge as potential stumbling blocks by creating an appearance of bias.

Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. confirmed that it shares ownership and profits on a New Jersey apartment building with the Kushner Companies. Harel informed The Associated Press of the joint investment and said it had not previously announced it publicly. In addition, the Kushner Companies confirmed longstanding relationships with two major Israeli banks that have been investigated by U.S. authorities for allegedly helping wealthy clients evade U.S. taxes.

"Financial investments in Israel would seem to only further complicate conflicts of interest issues," said Larry Noble, senior director of regulatory programs and general counsel at Campaign Legal Center, a group that advocates for strong enforcement of campaign finance laws.

Jared Kushner headed the billion-dollar family firm before joining the White House as a senior adviser in January. As a condition to taking the job, Kushner has agreed to file a financial disclosure report and divest some holdings that could create a conflict of interest.

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The Trump administration has faced repeated conflict of interest accusations since taking office. Although the billionaire real estate magnate says he's no longer managing his global financial interests, critics say these businesses still stand to profit from the prestige or policy decisions of the presidency. In addition, they note that Trump's children continue to manage many of these ventures, opening the door for the president to continue to wield his clout behind the scenes.

While Kushner's role in Mideast diplomacy remains unclear, Trump has said his son-in-law will work to "broker a Middle East peace deal."

Last week, Jason Greenblatt, a White House envoy who reports to Kushner, paid his first official visit to the region, holding a series of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials on what was billed as a listening tour to sound out the sides.

As the U.S. pushes forward, Kushner's family's business and personal ties to Israel have raised questions over his ability to mediate.

"Of course the Palestinians are not happy dealing with Jared Kushner ... but they have no other options," said Palestinian political analyst Jehad Harb. "Kushner and the whole new American team assigned to handle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ... have very close ties with settlements (and) it's unlikely they are going to understand the Palestinian demand of dismantling most of the Jewish settlements, but the Palestinian Authority cannot say no at this stage."

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Indeed, Palestinian officials appear very mindful about alienating the new U.S. administration with going public with grievances about a feared bias. And they seem genuinely relieved in recent weeks to be in contact with various U.S. envoys and at signs the administration is moving away from early positions that pleased Israeli nationalists, such as the notion of moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The newly disclosed deal with Harel, one of Israel's biggest financial groups, was for a multifamily residential building in New Jersey with Kushner, the Israeli insurer said, adding that both companies continue to collect tenants' rent payments.

Harel would not say when the property was purchased, how much it cost or even give its address, though it said it was a "relatively small" investment. The company, which trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, managed some $50 billion in assets as of the end of 2015, according to its website.

Harel said it has also partnered with Kushner on a much larger deal: A consortium of lenders that provided some $50 million to the Chetrit Group and JDS Development, two New York real estate firms that are trying to build a 73-story residential tower that aims to be Brooklyn's tallest. The loan was repaid and "yielded a handsome profit," Harel said in a statement.

"As is known, Kushner (Companies) are experienced and knowledgeable with proven ability in deals in the rental property sector in general and in New Jersey specifically," Harel said.

A Kushner Companies spokeswoman, Risa Heller, said the loan for the Brooklyn project was paid off, but she declined to say if Jared Kushner has sold his interest in the New Jersey property. Jamie Gorelick, an attorney who has advised Kushner on conflict of interest matters, referred questions to Heller.

The Kushner Companies also confirmed having a "longstanding relationship" with two major Israeli banks, Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi, but wouldn't elaborate. Both banks declined to comment.

The Trump administration has inherited a Justice Department investigation into allegations that Bank Hapoalim helped American clients evade taxes, and the bank could reach a settlement in the case as early as this year. Bank Leumi also allegedly helped U.S. customers evade U.S. taxes from 2002-2010, and reached a settlement with the Justice Department in 2014 to pay $400 million to the U.S. government.

There is no evidence that Kushner Companies was connected to either investigation, and the Justice Department declined to comment.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not answer specific questions about Jared Kushner's ties to Israeli business partners. "Mr. Kushner will comply with financial disclosure and ethics requirements, including the obligation to recuse from particular matters involving specific parties if a reasonable person would question his impartiality," she said in an email statement.

Kushner is covered by government conflict of interest laws, so he is required to divest himself of any financial interests that may present a conflict and must not participate in any matter that has a direct effect on his financial holdings.

While Kushner has divested himself of some financial interests, the assets were put in a trust run by relatives, presenting the potential for a conflict of interest, said Noble, the campaign finance advocate.

He said the Justice Department investigation into Bank Hapoalim is "especially problematic" if Kushner or the White House in any way influence the inquiry.

Kushner's business ties are just one of the potential pitfalls to his diplomatic career.

Trump's son-in-law was also co-director of a family foundation that donated tens of thousands of dollars to Jewish settlement groups in the West Bank, according to U.S. tax records. The family also donated at least $298,600 to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, an organization that runs educational and cultural programs for Israeli soldiers, between 2010 and 2012, according to the tax records.

Palestinians and most of the international community consider Jewish settlements to be obstacles to peace because they are built on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war that Palestinians want for a future state. The Palestinians also revile the Israeli military after decades of bloodshed.

Kushner and his family also have longstanding personal ties to Netanyahu. At a White House news conference last month, Netanyahu joked that he has known Kushner since he was a boy.

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and co-chairman of an Israeli real estate fund that counts Kushner's father, Charles, among its backers, said he doesn't know Jared Kushner personally but thinks his affiliations to Israel will be helpful in peace negotiations.

"There's trust. When there's trust on one side, there can also be a more conciliatory attitude on that side," Shoval said.

Prominent Palestinian politician Jibril Rajoub told foreign reporters that Trump made clear to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a recent phone call that he was his "strategic partner" in making a "real and serious" peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

"There is very, very positive progress," Rajoub said.

___

Follow Daniel Estrin at

www.twitter.com/danielestrin

___

Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's foreign ministry summoned Switzerland's charge d'affairs in Ankara on Saturday to complain about a protest in Bern that it said supported terrorism and included a poster calling for the assassination of President Tayyip Erdogan. Earlier on Saturday several thousand people including Kurdish protesters joined a rally in the Swiss capital calling for a 'No' vote in Turkey's April 16 referendum that could give sweeping powers to Erdogan under a constitutional overhaul. The referendum issue has already badly strained relations between Turkey and several European countries, including Germany, after they banned Turkish ministers from campaigning on their territory for a 'Yes' vote in the referendum. The Turkish foreign ministry said it expected Swiss authorities to launch a criminal investigation into Saturday's demonstration in Bern. "The judicial and administrative steps that will be taken by Swiss federal and local authorities will be closely followed by our ministry and our efforts on this will continue," it said in a statement. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also phoned his Swiss counterpart to express Ankara's anger, the ministry said. A spokesman for the Swiss foreign ministry confirmed Ankara had summoned its envoy and said the incident would be investigated. "The competent authorities will have to check whether the organizers of the rally have violated the permit requirements or if there are other criminal offences," he said. Organizers and Bern police said the rally had passed peacefully. Michael Sorg, a spokesman for Switzerlands Social Democrats, one of the organizers of the rally, confirmed the anti-Erdogan poster. "This was the only poster which fell below the limits of decency. All other posters were decent," he said. On Saturday, Erdogan also slammed Switzerland over the demonstration and said the crowd had included supporters of terrorist groups. Referring to the poster of him with a gun pointed to his head, Erdogan said: "Could there be such a mentality, such an understanding?" Ankara has accused some European countries of allowing 'No' supporters to campaign freely ahead of the Turkish referendum while deliberately banning rallies planned by the 'Yes' camp. Germany and the Netherlands, both home to many expatriate Turks with the right to vote in the referendum, have said the decision to ban several planned rallies was taken on security grounds and was not politically motivated. (Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara; Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Kirsti Knolle in Vienna; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Paris (AFP) - French anti-terrorism judges have charged two men suspected of involvement in supplying a weapon to the gunman killed at Paris's Orly airport after attacking soldiers, a judicial source said Saturday.

The suspects, aged 30 and 43, were charged Friday for "association with terrorist criminals" over the March 18 incident, the latest in France which remains on a state of emergency after a series of deadly jihadist attacks.

Both men are being held in custody, the source said. The younger one was also charged with arms possession related to a terror plot.

They are both from the Paris area and lived close to the assailant, Ziyed Ben Belgacem, but neither of them had links with any radical Islamic movements, according to a preliminary investigation.

The 30-year-old detained Friday is suspected of having given Ben Belgacem a revolver a few days before the attack, while the older suspect was present when it was handed over.

The younger man admitted once in custody having been in possession of the gun and kept it at his home, before Ben Belgacem came to get it, a source close to the investigation said.

Questioning of both of them revealed no further details about Ben Belgacem's plans, said the source.

The Orly attack, which came a month and a half after a similar assault at the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris, bears the hallmarks of the Islamic State (IS), but has not been claimed by the jihadist group.

- 'Die for Allah' -

Ben Belgacem was under the influence of drugs and alcohol when he attacked the capital's second busiest airport, according to judicial sources.

The 39-year-old, born in France to Tunisian parents, grabbed a soldier on patrol at Orly's southern terminal and put a gun to her head and seized her rifle, saying he wanted to "die for Allah".

His father insisted his son -- who had spent time in prison for armed robbery and drug-dealing -- was not an extremist.

He had, however, been investigated in 2015 over suspicions he had been radicalised while serving jail time, but his name did not feature on the list of those thought to pose a high risk.

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The attack at Orly came with France still on high alert following a wave of jihadist attacks that have claimed more than 230 lives in two years.

The violence has made security a key issue in France's two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7.

Soldiers guarding key sites have been targeted in four attacks in the past two years but escaped with only minor injuries.

In mid-February, a machete-wielding Egyptian man attacked a soldier outside Paris's Louvre museum, injuring him slightly, before being shot and wounded.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United Nations expressed profound concern on Saturday over reports of an incident in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul that caused a high number of civilian casualties. "We are stunned by this terrible loss of life," Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement. Local officials and residents said on Thursday that dozens of people were buried in collapsed buildings after an air raid against Islamic State militants in the al-Aghawat al-Jadidah district triggered a huge explosion last week. (Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Julia Glover)
By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - British police have spent years preparing the defense plan they put into action in London on Wednesday but have repeatedly said it would be difficult to stop a "lone wolf" attacker armed with unsophisticated weapons such as a car and a knife. Since the 9/11 attacks on the United States and the 2005 London bombings, the counter-terrorism police, the domestic spy agency MI5, the foreign intelligence and eavesdropping agencies have worked together more closely than ever before. (Details of London attack in graphic http://tmsnrt.rs/2o9CrW6) Boundaries have been broken down, joint meetings and information sharing has become routine and they have funding for more staff. Police said in the last four years they have thwarted 13 terrorism plots similar to the mass killings carried out by Islamist militants in Paris and Brussels. But such close working links do not guarantee all plots will be thwarted and one former anti-terrorism chief said it was down to luck that Wednesday's attacker was stopped before doing more damage. British-born Khalid Masood, 52, was named by police as the attacker who drove into pedestrians, killing at least two people, before stabbing to death an unarmed officer outside parliament. He was shot dead by police. Prime Minister Theresa May said he had been investigated by the MI5 security service "some years ago" as a peripheral figure over concerns about violent extremism. She appeared to dispel suggestions that he should have been more closely monitored by MI5. The police said Masood, who used a number of other aliases, had been previously convicted but not for any terrorism offences. "The case is historical  he was not part of the current intelligence picture," May said. "There was no prior intelligence of his intent  or of the plot." Police said his first conviction was in November 1983 for criminal damage and his last was in December 2003 for possession of a knife. Security services in Belgium and France have faced criticism at home and abroad for intelligence failures and their response to attacks in Brussels, Paris and Nice. Intelligence officers have repeatedly said they cannot monitor every suspect and that the conflict in Syria had led to a steep increase in Islamic State militant attempts to incite attacks on the UK. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued by its Amaq news agency, but it was not clear whether the attacker was directly connected to the jihadist group. MI5, which employs about 4,000 people, has been fully mobilized in support of the police in the wake of the attack. But the response of the police to Wednesday's attack and the security around parliament has already faced scrutiny, with questions about how the knife-wielding attacker was able to get into the perimeter of parliament and stab an unarmed officer. The attack took place in London's most heavily guarded area where armed police routinely patrol. The new headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police is also barely a stone's throwaway. PURE LUCK Kevin Hurley, the former head of counter-terrorism for the City of London police force, said it was "pure luck" the attacker was stopped and shot dead by a specialist VIP protection officer. He said it was time for all British police to be armed. According to government figures, only about 5 percent of British police are authorized to carry guns. "Here we are still with unarmed police officers at the front gate of Parliament Square directly on the high street," Hurley told BBC Radio Scotland. "So even now, in the middle of London, we are still complacent about the nature of the threat we face. If you don't stop these people immediately as we've just seen they go on to spread misery mayhem and murder wherever they are. I do wish we would wake up and see what's going on in the world." Bernard Hogan-Howe, who stepped down as London police chief in February, has previously said they were struggling to recruit the extra firearms officers. NEW TACTICS, NEW THREATS London police say they constantly update their tactics to adapt to new threats. Attacks requiring little planning or expertise have recently joined the threat list alongside sophisticated al Qaeda plots and the prospect of marauding militants. Armed police officers would now "go forward" to take on militants, Craig Mackey, the current acting London Police chief, told reporters on Thursday. Just three days earlier, armed police staged an exercise on the River Thames to simulate their response to the hijacking of a tourist boat. "The work we've done over many years, practicing and exercising for scenarios like yesterday has helped," Mackey said. But added: "Nothing prepares people ... for what the reality of what occurred yesterday." Defence Secretary Michael Fallon agreed there was little the police could do when faced with something that required little planning or technical expertise. "This kind of attack, this lone wolf attack, using things from daily life: a vehicle, a knife, are much more difficult to forestall," Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told BBC TV. "We're also dealing with an enemy, a terrorist enemy, that is not making demands or taking people hostage, but simply wants to kill as many people as possible. This is a new element to international terrorism." (Additional reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Anna Willard)
Muslims in London were reacting with anger and frustration to the resurfacing of stereotypes about adherents to their religion following the apparent Islamic State group terror attack near Parliament on Wednesday. The working assumption was that the perpetrator of the driving and stabbing attacks that left four victims dead and dozens more injured was a Muslim before the assailant was even identified.

The entire episode has forced many Muslims living in the U.K. to go on the defensive, the Washington Post reported Friday.

Read: Is London Safe? Attack On UK Parliament Raises Terrorism Security Concerns Citywide

"Why should we keep apologizing? These people do not represent us," one person told the Washington Post. "They do not represent Islam."

In a showing of solidarity with their fellow countrymen, a group of British Muslims have raised more than $25,000 to benefit the victims of the terror attack that included a car being driven by into a group of people on Westminster Bridge before the driver Khalid Masood crashed into the Parliament building, got out and went on a stabbing spree.

Masood's identity was not revealed until about 24 hours after the attack, right around when ISIS claimed responsibility for it. Prior to that, no one other than law enforcement knew who the assailant was, but that didn't stop "Muslim" from trending on Twitter beforehand.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is also a Muslim, released a brief statement following the attack that did not include a reference to any religion. Instead, he simply said it was "being treated as a terrorist attack."

Read: American Killed In London Terror Attack: Kurt Cochran Died On Westminster Bridge

Despite what may seem like an impossibility at times, British Muslims urged people not to associate terror with Islam.

"The targeting of innocents, the murder of civilians, the use of terror against a city  these are all strictly forbidden in Islam," one Muslim who lives in south London told the Washington Post. "I refute their manipulation of Islam and their false justifications for these reprehensible crimes."

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LONDON (AP)  The UK Independence Party is losing its only member of the British Parliament in a blow to the upstart anti-Europe party, which has seen bitter feuding between its top figures.

Douglas Carswell said Saturday that he's leaving UKIP and will serve in Parliament as an independent. He said his departure won't trigger a new election because he isn't joining another party.

Carswell has been in direct conflict with former party leader Nigel Farage, who played a key role in the successful Brexit campaign, and Arron Banks, the party's most generous donor.

Carswell downplayed these differences. He said the party's main goal of winning Britain's exit from the European Union had been achieved now that Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May is set to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday to begin the EU divorce negotiations.

UKIP had campaigned fiercely for more than two decades to convince Britons to leave the EU. That goal was met in a June referendum.

"By April 2019, Britain will no longer be a member of the EU," Carswell said. "After 24 years, we have done it. Brexit is in good hands."

Carswell, a former Conservative Party member, was the only UKIP candidate to win a seat in the 2015 general election. The more high-profile Farage lost his bid for a place in Britain's Parliament.

Farage, who recently left the party leadership and has spent time in the U.S. cultivating a friendship with President Donald Trump, had only harsh words about Carswell's departure.

He said Carswell "jumped before he was pushed" and should have left UKIP some time ago. He accused Carswell of trying to undermine the party.

Carswell, however, put a positive spin on his departure: "I will leave UKIP amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won," he said.

He said without UKIP's long-term battle against the EU, Britain would never have voted to leave the 28-nation bloc. UKIP had argued that EU regulations were stifling British businesses and that Europe's commitment to freedom of movement had brought unwanted immigration into Britain.

Carswell's abrupt departure will cost the party more than 200,000 pounds ($250,000), which represents its share of public funding distributed among all parties with members in the House of Commons.

The party still has members in the European Parliament in Brussels, including Farage.
BASEL, Switzerland (AP)  In the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State group became infamous for its spectacular variations on explosive vehicles. For attacks in the West, it has suggested a simpler method, encouraging followers to use regular vehicles to kill people on foot.

Experts say attacks in which cars or trucks are driven into popular pedestrian areas present a unique challenge for law enforcement officials as they are nearly impossible to predict and easy to pull off. They require no advanced training, no specialized materials. Almost anyone can own or rent a vehicle.

Some feel that these low-tech, lone wolf operations can have the same psychological impact as larger, more sensational attacks.

Four people were killed and dozens wounded Wednesday in London with this tactic  the worst attack on British soil since the transport network bombings on July 7, 2005.

Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, says what makes such attacks so frightening is the relatively low barriers to entry. The method was embraced by al-Qaida before being revitalized by IS.

"It makes for a very effective unsophisticated high impact, very frightening form of an operation," he said. "You don't need to know someone who can make you a bomb or buy you a gun in order to carry out an attack. It's a very difficult thing to fight against. There is no quick fix."

British authorities on Thursday identified Khalid Masood as the man who mowed down pedestrians with an SUV and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament. The British citizen wasn't on a terrorism watch list although he was once investigated for extremism. IS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying he was a "soldier" that answered its call to attack nations in the coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence group, says it is almost impossible for law enforcement agencies to stop IS-inspired attacks, especially vehicular-style ones like the one in London. Since 2014, this simple but effective attack has been promoted in IS propaganda online.

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"It's not a style of attack that you can monitor by increasing security and intel on who has weapons or other attention-grabbing variables," Katz told The Associated Press. "Every car suddenly turns into a possible weapon, so it's really very difficult to stop."

Vehicle attacks, like knife attacks, are aggressively promoted by IS and its online supporters. In its November issue of its online magazine Rumiyah, IS extolled the virtues of the car as a weapon and suggested the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York as a possible target.

"Vehicles are like knives, as they are extremely easy to acquire," points out the online magazine issue. "But unlike knives, which if found in one's possession can be a cause for suspicion, vehicles arouse absolutely no doubts due to their widespread use. "

Two weeks later, an Ohio State University student rammed his car into pedestrians on campus and then got out and started stabbing people with a butcher knife before being gunned down by a police officer. IS claimed the attack, which left 11 people wounded.

The devastating potential of such violence was dramatically illustrated last summer in the French beach town of Nice when a cargo truck took to the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in an attack that left 86 people dead and hundreds wounded. A truck was also used in last year's Christmas market attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, including the driver of the truck that was commandeered.

In the London attack on Wednesday, the weapon of choice was an SUV. Katz sees the similarities between these attacks as evidence that IS propaganda is taking hold and that more needs to be done to counter it. Winter says the copycat effect is also a factor.

Omar Ashour says these attacks are gaining traction precisely because authorities have their defenses up. The IS leadership began urging attacks on the West after the U.S-led coalition launched airstrikes on the group.

IS may provide "very detailed tactical information that helps the attackers to create more damage but there is a ceiling to that. They could not do as much damage as firearms or bombs would do," says Ashour, a lecturer in security at the University of Exeter.

Anne Giudicelli, director of the security risk consultancy firm Terrorisc, says such attacks are becoming a signature approach for IS in Europe. She says more can be done to fight the spread of IS ideology online and European countries could better cooperated in confronting this threat.

"At the level of strict security, the maximum is done," she told the AP. "The authorities are confronting the fact that all the outward signs  what we call indicators, the criteria for surveillance  are today very volatile because individuals adapt, they know what will get them detected."
Caracas (AFP) - Venezuelan defense minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez denied Saturday that troops from his country had intruded on Colombian territory.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said Thursday he had complained to his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro about the "totally unacceptable" move by Venezuelan troops who had camped out for more than 48 hours near the Colombian border town of Arauquita.

Colombia said the troops withdrew Thursday only after Bogota's energetic protests.

But Padrino insisted that his troops had never left Venezuelan soil.

"We are sure that the encampment, in the Los Pajaros sector, is in our territory," the general said in a video released by the Telesur network in Caracas.

A Venezuelan government statement said the incident was probably caused by a shifting of the course of the Arauca River, which marks the boundary between the countries.

"The riverbed is constantly changing as a result of flooding,"" said a statement read by Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez. This had led to previous "differences of interpretation," she added.

Rodriguez, without admitting to any error, said the issue would be taken up by "technical diplomatic teams."

Padrino, too, avoided any mention of a troop "withdrawal," saying only that soldiers had been moved "more to the interior of our territory to facilitate political dialogue" and to "clarify what are the correct and historical boundaries."

The two countries began reopening in August border crossings closed a year earlier after an armed attack on a Venezuelan military patrol that left three soldiers wounded.

That attack was blamed on Colombian paramilitaries, remnants of Colombia's long civil war.
(Reuters) - Venus Williams overcame windy weather and an unfamiliar opponent in Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia to reach the third round of the Miami Open on Friday. After rain delays pushed her match well into the night, three-time champion Williams moved past her 20-year-old challenger 6-4 6-3. The biggest upset of the day came when Elena Vesnina, fresh off her victory at Indian Wells, suffered a stunning 3-6 6-4 7-5 loss to world number 594 Ajla Tomljanovic. Williams told the Miami Herald she struggled with the windy conditions. It wasnt easy out there, the wind felt like a gale force, she said. I never saw her before. I didnt know what to expect. Im very impressed with her game and determination, and that will take her very far. Top seed Angelique Kerber also prevailed in her evening match, beating Duan Yingying Duan 7-6(3) 6-2. Croatian wild card Tomljanovic led 13th seed Vesnina 5-3 in the third set on Thursday when a thunderstorm halted play and returned on Friday to finish the job, sealing the victory on her third match point to move into the third round. Vesnina, five days removed from the biggest victory of her career at the BNP Paribas Open, committed a dozen double faults in the two hour, 12 minute match. French Open champion Garbine Muguruza, whose opening match on Thursday was also interrupted, fared better than Vesnina. The sixth-seeded Spaniard trailed 46th-ranked American Christina McHale 6-0 3-2 when play was suspended on Thursday but staved off a match point in the tiebreak before emerging with an 0-6 7-6(6) 6-4 victory. Romanian third seed Simona Halep was pushed to three sets by Japanese teenager Naomi Osaka before advancing 6-4 2-6 6-3, while seeds Timea Babos and Roberta Vinci were eliminated. American Madison Keys made quick work of Viktorija Golubic 6-1 6-2. (Reporting by Larry Fine and Jahmal Corner; Editing by Frank Pingue/Peter Rutherford)
At a meeting between far-right leading French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin Friday, the Russian president embraced her calls for intelligence sharing and pointed to her partys increased popularity  but stopped short of a formal endorsement of her candidacy.

Of course, it would be very interesting to share our opinions about how our bilateral relations are doing, and about the situation that is developing in Europe, he told Le Pen, the Guardian reported. I know that you represent a European political force that is growing quickly.

Read: Cold War Against Russia Is Threat To Europe, French Presidential Candidate Marine Le Pen Says

He also appeared to disavow suspicions that the Russian government had interfered in the French elections. En Marche!, the party of Le Pens center-left rival Emmanuel Macron, recently accused Russia of hacking campaign computers, which the Kremlin labeled absurd.

In recent polls for the April 23 first-round election, Le Pen and Macron were neck-and-neck, but polling for a hypothetical Le Pen-Macron pairing in the May 7 runoff showed him defeating her by a substantial margin.

We do not want to influence events in any way, but we retain the right to meet with all the different political forces, just like our European and American partners do, Putin reportedly said.

Although Putin hasnt given Le Pen an explicit endorsement  nor has he given one to populist far-right President Donald Trump, whom hes referred to as bright, talented and colorful  his government has a history of financing Le Pens party, the Front National.

Read: Will Marine Le Pen Hold Off Challenge Of Emmanuel Macron To Become Frances President?

As part of its effort to raise money for Le Pens campaign and those at the regional level, the Front National took a loan worth $11.7 million from the First Czech Russian Bank in Moscow. Le Pens father and the partys founder, Jean-Marie  later ousted over his anti-Semitic comments  received a loan of $2.5 million from a former KGB agents holding company, the French online investigative site Mediapart found in 2014. The Front Nationals treasurer, Wallerand de Saint-Just, reportedly defended the funding choice and suggested that the party might turn to Russia once more for financial help in the future.

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In February 2016, the Front National did just that, soliciting the equivalent of about $29 million from First Czech Russian. Saint-Just justified the request, noting that the party had been seeking foreign banks assistance, so why not Russian ones? Le Figaro reported.

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Dubai (AFP) - A controversial ban on carry-on laptops and tablets on flights from the Middle East to the United States and Britain went into effect Saturday -- with less fanfare and frustration than expected.

From Dubai to Doha, passengers on dozens of flights checked in their electronic devices, many shrugging off the measure as yet another inconvenience of global travel.

"It's a rule. I follow the rules," said Rakan Mohammed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year.

"The bigger problem for my family is the no smoking. On a long flight, they become restless after three hours."

At Dubai International, one of the world's busiest hubs, flag carrier Emirates dispatched staff to guide passengers through one of the most intense travel weekends of the year.

Around 1.1 million people are expected to pass through as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

Staff in red suits could be seen at the airport Saturday carrying signs explaining the electronics ban, ready to appease travellers with games and activities for children.

Government-owned Emirates, which operates 18 direct flights to the US daily, also began a service to enable passengers to use their electronic devices after check-in and until boarding.

Samuel Porter, who was travelling out of Dubai with his family, nonetheless decided to "avoid delays" at the airport by putting his laptop in the hold.

"The only issue is the kids. I have two kids and the iPad is always in their hands. Maybe they will watch a documentary and learn something useful this time", he told AFP.

The United States this week announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the Middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce the measures until at least October 14.

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The ban covers electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

- Further disruption -

Adding to the disruption on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban.

Britain has also announced a parallel electronics ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Royal Jordanian, which operates direct flights to London, New York, Detroit and Chicago, poked fun at the ban with a number of social media posts suggesting alternative in-flight activities, including doing "what we Jordanians do best... stare at each other!"

The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.

But the United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.

Turkish airports began enforcing the ban Saturday, with national carrier Turkish Airlines offering a similar laptop stowage service to Emirates.

Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

But those flying to the US from Abu Dhabi will still need to check in their electronics, Etihad said.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP)  Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein has withdrawn from the Australian Grand Prix and will be replaced by Antonio Giovinazzi from the third practice session on Saturday at the Formula One season opener.

Wehrlein completed two practice sessions Friday, but the team announced that he did not feel fit enough for a complete race distance, citing a "training deficit."

"My fitness level is not as it should be for a full race distance," Wehrlein said in a statement released by Sauber. "I explained the situation to the team yesterday evening. Therefore, the Sauber F1 Team has decided not to take any risks. It is a pity, but the best decision for the team."

Wehrlein completed 22 laps in the first practice session at the Albert Park circuit and 30 in the second, posting the 18th fastest-time in each session among 20 cars.

Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn said he respected the professionalism of the 22-year-old German driver. Marcus Ericsson drove the other Sauber car to 15th position in both practice sessions.

"This decision was definitely not an easy one for him, it underlines his qualities as a team player," Kaltenborn said. "The focus is now on his fitness level, and in such a situation we do not take any unnecessary risks. Pascal will be in China as planned."

The Chinese GP, the second event on the 20-race season, will be held April 7-9 at Shanghai.

In his debut F1 season in 2016, Wehrlein's best finish was 10th place at Austria.
The Cuyahoga River burst into flames, while the Potomac stunk from the hundreds of millions of gallons of waste added to its waters every single day.

As the Environmental Protection Agency becomes the subject of focus for major cuts under President Trumps proposed budget - and as the U.N. marks World Water Day on Wednesday - its worth looking back at the moment in time when the EPA was first created, and why Richard Nixon saw a need for the agency to exist.

Dirty water was only one ingredient. At the close of the 1960s, the United States could not escape the fact of, as TIME put it in 1968, the relentless degradations of a once virgin continent. The evidence was right in front of citizens faces. Pollution had gotten bad enough to be undeniable, and science had become advanced enough to make the reasons why clear. In 1963, smog had killed 400 New Yorkers, and Lake Eries oxygen content had become so depleted that the center of the lake sustained precious little life. An oil spill off the California coast in 1969 coated 400 square miles with slime and killed hundreds of birds. Scientists announced that auto exhaust was at high enough levels in some places that it could cause birth defects. The city of St. Louis smelled, as one resident put it, like an old-fashioned drugstore on fire.

The science of ecology - which still had to be defined for TIMEs readers - was expanding and attracting new thinkers, who showed that the U.S. bore more than its fair share of the environmental degradation that had swept the world in the previous decades. (The country had 5.7% of global population in 1970, by TIMEs count back then, but consumed 40% of the natural resources.) The reasons for such heavy consumption went beyond mere economic ability to consume, some theorized. The U.S. had been built, after all, on the idea that it was a vast land there for the taking. Those national myths began to fall apart on a broad scale in the 1960s and 70s, as the American Indian Movement and the environmental movement, respectively, reminded people that in fact that land was already being used and its resources were finite.

Despite backlash from all directions, the message was getting through to at least one person: Nixon, who was elected President in 1968.

These events and others that had come to a head in the years leading up to the election resulted in a sense of urgency that propelled the new president to quickly establish an advisory group to focus on pollution problems and the Congress to look for ways to coordinate the governments response to environmental problems, as courts began to crack down on those responsible for pollution.

In the summer of 1969, Nixon established the Environmental Quality Council, which TIME described as a Cabinet-level advisory group designed to coordinate governmental action against environmental decay at all levels, create new proposals to control pollution, and foresee problems. Shortly after, Congress passed the Environmental Policy Act of 1969, one element of which was to create a Council on Environmental Policy, empowered to review all federal activities that affect the quality of life and make reports directly to the President, per the magazine.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

As 1970 dawned, with American concerns about the War in Vietnam no longer dominating headlines, concerns about the environment became a further priority for the president. It is literally now or never, Nixon said at the time. A major goal for the next ten years for this country must be to restore the cleanliness of the air, the water, the broader problem of population congestion, transport and the like.

In his State of the Union address delivered that January, he underscored the point:

The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water?

Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces-these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now that debt is being called.

The cost of such clean-up action was estimated at $100 billion in the first half of the decade (though the cost to business of preventing future pollution would be much lower). One idea proposed to meet such costs, TIME reported (in an article that put the word recycle in quotes), was to charge companies by the pound for pollutants they contributed to the water system.

Nixon followed his State of the Union with a special message to Congress in which he put forth more than a dozen orders and 23 requests to address problems like automobile emission standards. (Critics noted, however, that some major problems, like enforcement, were largely ignored.) One problem, however, was that as awareness of various aspects of pollution had come to attention, different agencies and offices had popped up to address them. That separation was a mismatch with a scale of the problem and the reality of the environments interconnectedness.

And so, in the summer of 1970, Nixon issued the dryly titled Reorganization Plan 3, which provided for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, reflecting the new understanding of ecology and the environments status as a system. In doing so, he told Congress that it was clear that the piecemeal development of environmental agencies would no longer serve such a large project.

Our national government today is not structured to make a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food. Indeed, the present governmental structure for dealing with environmental pollution often defies effective and concerted action, he said. Despite its complexity, for pollution control purposes the environment must be perceived as a single, interrelated system. Present assignments of departmental responsibilities do not reflect this interrelatedness.

As the year drew to a close - and TIME named the environment the Issue of the Year for 1970 - future Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee William Ruckelshaus became the first director of the agency.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
To say America today is verging on Nazism feels like scaremongering. Yes, white nationalism lives in the White House. Yes, President Donald Trump leans authoritarian. Yes, the alt-right says many ugly things. But for all the economic pains of many Americans, there is no Great Depression gnawing away at democracys foundations. No paramilitary force is killing people in the streets. Fascism and Nazism have not arrived in the United States.

But there is a different and instructive story to be told about America and the Nazis that raises unsettling questions about what is going on today - and what Nazism means to the U.S.

When we picture a modern American Nazi, we imagine a fanatic who has imported an alien belief system from a far-away place. We also, not wrongly, picture captives in concentration camps and American soldiers fighting the Good War. But the past is more tangled than that. Nazism was a movement drawn in some ways on the American model - a prodigal son of the land of liberty and equality, without the remorse.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, America led the world in race-based lawmaking, as a broad political consensus favored safeguarding the historically white character of the country. That is, it codified white nationalism. Congress passed immigration legislation designed to guarantee the predominance of immigrants from northern Europe, largely shutting the door on Jews, Italians, Asians and others. As Nazi commentators approvingly put it, this was law intended to keep out undesirables. (Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a 2015 interview with White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon that that policy was good for America.) Jim Crow segregation blanketed the South. Thirty of the forty-eight states possessed anti-miscegenation legislation that prohibited interracial marriage - not only between whites and blacks, but also between whites and Asians - and sometimes threatened violators with harsh criminal punishment. In Maryland, they faced up to ten years in prison. Law made second-class citizens of blacks, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Asians and Native Americans. Most especially, it deprived these non-white Americans of any meaningful right to vote.

European racists took note. Among them was Adolf Hitler. In Mein Kampf, Hitler called America the one state making progress toward the creation of the kind of order he wanted for Germany. In 1935, the National Socialist Handbook on Law and Legislation, a basic guide for Nazis as they built their new society, would declare that the United States had achieved the fundamental recognition of the need for a race state.

Beyond its laws, the Nazis also admired Americas conquest of the West. In 1928, Hitler praised the Americans for having gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand in the course of founding their continental empire. And they knew that the United States had emerged as the dominant great power in the world after World War I. To them, racism had made America great. Plenty of Americans seemed to agree.

Of course, there was more to America than its racism. The Nazis despised the United States otherwise egalitarian and democratic traditions. Many of them believed that race-mixing would eventually doom America to decline. And they found it sad that American law had not yet targeted the race they regarded as the most dangerous of all: the Jews.

Nevertheless, American race law offered the model for anybody who sought to build a racist legal order. And after Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich and the Nazis took power in 1933, Nazi lawyers carefully studied the American example as they crafted the Nuremberg Laws, the most reviled race legislation of the twentieth century. Those laws followed the lead of the United States. They criminalized intermarriage; they relegated Jews to second-class citizenship. Their goal was to make Germany so frightening that the Jews would all flee.

That was the form that Nazism took in the early 1930s: It was about excluding and expelling outsiders, so that the Aryans of Germany could reclaim their dominant place in their country. Hitler and his followers were not yet planning the Final Solution. They were planning something different - something much closer to what the Far Right in Europe and the alt-right in America hope for today: The Nazi Party stood for the proposition that the benefits of life in Germany should be reserved for Germans alone.

Eighty years later there is once again an American political movement dedicated to the proposition that America should return to its white nationalist roots. We have witnessed a disquieting rash of anti-Semitic incidents and a Holocaust Remembrance statement issued by the White House that omits the Jews. There are new laws in many former Jim Crow states that limit access to the polls - laws that transparently target the black population, a disgraceful echo of a disgraceful American past. And bans have been put in place that once again seem to deem some would-be immigrants as undesirables.

Thankfully, we are still a long way from the 1930s. And thankfully, the very worst never happened here: Despite all of its similarities to, even its instructiveness for, the Germany of the 1930s, the United States did not fall into authoritarianism and become the Germany of the 1940s. America corrected its course. And the institutions that helped it do so - its courts, its civil rights infrastructure, its active democracy - remain intact.

Still, there are powerful figures in Washington who seem willing to return us to what did happen here, which was quite disturbing enough. It is a moment to remember the past and to stay vigilant. We all know that in Europe in the 1930s a country went mad in the attempt to rid itself of a supposedly alien race. But we need not look across the Atlantic to see the dangers - or the solutions.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
As Republicans try to shore up support for their health care overhaul, one group can't wait for the replacement: owners of tanning salons.

President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act imposed a 10 percent tax on tanning as a way to help fund provisions of the law that expanded coverage for some 20 million Americans. The so-called tan tax took a heavy toll on the industry.

Nearly 10,000 salons closed in the U.S. since Obama's law went into effect, representing about 55 percent of all salons operating at the time. Salon owners now expect relief.

Ric Rooney, who operates an upscale tanning salon in Colorado Springs, Colorado, estimates the tax cost him nearly $100,000 over the past five years. Finances had gotten so tight that last year that he considered closing the shop he had run for about 20 years and retiring.

"We've cut prices; we've tried cutting hours," said Rooney, who helped put Obama in office but voted for President Donald Trump because he felt like it was time to see what a businessman could do in the White House. "My wife had to come off the payroll last year."

After Trump won, Rooney knew there was a good chance the little-known tax would be repealed as the president seeks to make good on his promise to repeal the Obama-era health care law. Rooney, 63, took a risk and invested the money he hopes he will soon save in $200,000 worth of new tanning beds.

The tanning tax is among several taxes and fees Republicans plan to cut in their bid to replace the Affordable Care Act. Insurers, pharmaceutical companies and the wealthy also would benefit under the GOP plan.

The tax also was meant to discourage a practice known to increase the risk of cancer.

Health experts say the tanning tax is for the public good, similar to the high taxes imposed on tobacco products. The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network says those who use tanning beds before age 35 increase their lifetime risk of melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer, by 59 percent.

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Dr. Henry Lim, president of the American Academy of Dermatology, said the tax is a needed deterrent.

"There is no doubt there is a significant association with indoor tanning and skin cancer," Lim said. "A single indoor tanning session would increase the risk of a patient developing skin cancer by 65 percent."

Congressional experts projected the tax would raise about $2.7 billion over a decade to help expand health coverage for uninsured Americans, but the industry says it actually has raised just a fraction of that.

Salon owners say the tax pushed tanning bed use to less regulated locations such as gyms and private homes, which were exempt.

Its demise would come too late for Lisa Brooking, who owned 10 tanning salons in Indiana.

She lost 35 percent of her revenue from 2010 to 2012 and had to lay off employees. She had planned to leave the business to her two daughters when she retired, but ended up selling the salons because it became too hard to turn a profit.

Brooking, who voted for Trump, said she did not make money in the sale. Instead, she used the proceeds to pay off her debts.

She said the negative publicity surrounding indoor tanning was as harmful to the industry as the tax.

"They made us the villains," Brooking said, "and in my opinion put us in the same category as cigarettes and alcohol, when in reality 20 minutes in the tanning bed is equal to an hour of the sun."
A woman who thought her wallet was stolen eight years ago was stunned to get it back from the Boston Police this week  with her credit cards, social security card and $141 in cash still inside.

And in an incredible stroke of fortune, Courtney Connolly, a 30-year-old nursing student, told InsideEdition.com she desperately needed that $140 to pay for a spot in an important fitness competition this summer, and she had just three weeks to come up with the cash.

Read: At Thrift Store, Woman Finds Lost Urn Belonging to Family Who Lives on Opposite Side of U.S.

Now she wants to thank the good Samaritans who made it possible by handing over her wallet.

"There are still honest people in the world," she said. "People who go out of their way to make a difference."

Connolly was working as a production intern at the Harbour Actors Theater in Wellfleet, Massachusetts when the wallet vanished on July 25, 2009. That morning, she went to move her car and found the contents of her glove box strewn across the passenger's seat. "I think my window had been down," she said.

Her wallet was gone, and with it, the money she'd just cashed from her pay check. As a student on a fixed intern income, the loss hit her hard.

"You work so hard for that little bit of money," she said. "I was so furious. That was my money for food for the week. That was my money for gas for the week."

Courtney is pictured left during her time working at the theater in 2009.

She contacted police, who said they would be in touch if there was any activity on her credit cards, but that never happened. So after being forced to borrow money from family  "I'm sure I was a little ashamed"  and getting new copies of her credit cards and identification, she says she soon forgot about the missing wallet.

Until last Monday.

Her sister-in-law, who now lives with Connolly's brother in the house where they grew up, texted her to say someone had found her wallet and given it to a police officer in west Roxbury.

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At first, Connolly didn't understand. "I told her I had my wallet in my hand," she said.

But her sister-in-law insisted: "She says, "But I'm looking at your license.'"

"Then something from the depths of my memory made me think about that old wallet," she said. "I was convinced it was just going to be the wallet. Never in my wildest dreams did I think all my cards would be in there."

When Connolly picked up the wallet and discovered the untouched cash inside, she was floored. Not least because the wallet was found 100 miles from where it was taken back in 2009.

Read: Boy Finds Wallet, Mails It to Owner With Letter: 'Hopefully, I Have Made You Smile'

She said she's since learned that someone contacted police on Monday and told them the wallet had been thrown from another car into his car's open window. He then handed over the wallet to a police officer, who contacted the address on a pay stub inside.

"It immediately came into my mind that I really need this money," she said.

Connolly said she needed the cash to pay for a powerlifting competition this summer. The sport, which her boyfriend helped introduce her to a year ago, helps her deal with anxiety and depression, which she suffers following an assault years ago, she said.

"I pick up the bar and my mind goes quiet," she said. "It's just completely peaceful. I definitely see a difference, mentally and physically."

With the deadline to the competition fast approaching, one of the organizers agreed to hold open a spot for Connolly, provided she could come up with the cash  around $140  within a month, she said. That deadline was about three weeks away when she got the call from her sister-in-law.

With the money, she can now take part.

"It's going to cover the cost of the competition," she said. "I still can't believe it."

And she still can't believe the kindness of the good Samaritan and police officer.

"You did the right thing," she wants to tell them. "It would've been so easy to say you've found an empty wallet. There really are truly, genuinely good people in the world."

Watch: Family's Blind Dog Found Alive in Forest 7 Days After He Vanished

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Paris Jackson is getting political. (Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Her famous late father aside, Paris Jackson is known for being an activist. Her latest political statement: a fashionable FU to the patriarchy.

On Friday, designer Jeremy Scott posted an Instagram photo of the 18-year-old wearing a protest T-shirt that read: Our voice is the only thing that will protect us. Scott captioned the photo, My baby lady @parisjackson wearing the protest tee I designed to remind people to speak up and call their representatives with all our elected senators office numbers on the back. #Resist. Power to the people!

MY BABY LADY @parisjackson WEARING THE PROTEST TEE I DESIGNED TO REMIND PEOPLE TO SPEAK UP AND CALL THEIR REPRESENTATIVES WITH ALL OUR ELECTED SENATORS OFFICE NUMBERS ON THE BACK. #RESIST ???? POWER TO THE PEOPLE ! SLIDE TO SEE THE BACK SHOT  A post shared by Jeremy Scott (@itsjeremyscott) on Mar 24, 2017 at 1:57pm PDT

Jacksons subtle but powerful message was her newest rallying cry. In February, while introducing a performance by the Weeknd and Daft Punk at the Grammy awards, she threw her support to people protesting the North Dakota Access Pipeline. We could do with this much support at pipeline protests, she said. No DAPL. She was also seen attending a DAPL protest in Los Angeles, holding a sign that read, Children Cant Drink Oil. In January, she tweeted at the president, I hope you realize its because of your own words and actions that we will, sir, start a revolution. It will be beautiful, and scary times were living in. maybe the time has come for the human race to finally learn how to come together for a bigger cause.

She also caused controversy that same month by declaring in a Rolling Stone interview, I consider myself black because her late father would say, Be proud of your roots.

Over the past few months, style and politics have overlapped dramatically in a trend called woke fashion  during New York Fashion Week Prabal Gurung sent his models down the runway wearing T-shirts emblazoned with statements such as The future is female and Nevertheless she persisted.

Story continues

Models walking in the finale of the Prabal Gurung Fall/Winter 2017 collection wore T-shirts with feminist messages. (Photo by Marcelo Soubhia/MCV Photo for the Washington Post via Getty Images)

Christian Siriano debuted his People are people T-shirt and donated the profits to the ACLU, and Rachel Antonoff announced that she would be giving the proceeds from her 2015 Randys Reproductive Sweater featuring a uterus design to Planned Parenthood.

Models walking in the finale of the Prabal Gurung Fall/Winter 2017 collection wore T-shirts with feminist messages. (Photo by Marcelo Soubhia/MCV Photo for the Washington Post via Getty Images)

Even Vogue editor Anna Wintour chimed in with a Fashion stands with Planned Parenthood button she wore to Brock Collections show.

Other designers, including Zac Posen, Marc Jacobs, and Tom Ford, have been more blunt, flat out refusing to dress the first family.

Jackson, who explained her struggle to remain a private person and an active media presence, recently told Harpers Bazaar, Its a complicated answer. Its a feeling of doing something important, that actually matters, thats going to impact people. Plenty of times Ive thought about not doing anything in the public eye and having my own private life. Then I started seeing how everything in the world is going. And I feel like each year its getting worse.

Whatever their political views, props to celebs like Jackson for getting involved.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court has ruled in favour of Apple in design patent disputes between the Cupertino, California company and a domestic phone-maker, overturning a ban on selling iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus phones in China, Xinhua news agency reported. Last May, a Beijing patent regulator ordered Apple's Chinese subsidiary and a local retailer Zoomflight to stop selling the iPhones after Shenzhen Baili Marketing Services lodged a complaint, claiming that the patent for the design of its mobile phone 100c was being infringed by the iPhone sales. Apple and Zoomflight took the Beijing Intellectual Property Office's ban to court. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court on Friday revoked the ban, saying Apple and Zoomflight did not violate Shenzhen Baili's design patent for 100c phones. The court ruled that the regulator did not follow due procedures in ordering the ban while there was no sufficient proof to claim the designs constituted a violation of intellectual property rights. Representatives of Beijing Intellectual Property Office and Shenzhen Baili said they would take time to decide whether to appeal the ruling, according to Xinhua. In a related ruling, the same court denied a request by Apple to demand stripping Shenzhen Baili of its design patent for 100c phones. Apple first filed the request to the Patent Reexamination Board of State Intellectual Property Office. The board rejected the request, but Apple lodged a lawsuit against the rejection. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court on Friday ruled to maintain the board's decision. It is unclear if Apple will appeal. (Reporting by Ryan Woo, editing by David Evans)
Editor's note: YEN brings you a true story of a Ghanaian man living in the United States who finds himself in a dicey situation of marriage, family and survival. It is just one version of the story of thousands of Ghanaians who emigrate to the US seeking greener pastures. The identity of the subject has been concealed to maintain anonymity and the photos used in the story are actual pictures of the subject taken by YEN senior editor, Laila Abubakari.

They sadly stood in silence in front of the departure gate at the Kotoka International airport, both probably sinking deep into their biggest fears for the journey that lay ahead for one of them, but for the good of the entire family.

Get all the latest news from Ghana here

READ ALSO: John Dumelo caught with state vehicles

That was eight years ago when Jones (not actual name), now 34-years-old said goodbye to his wife with whom he had a daughter. They had been in a relationship for over 4 years before they decided to make it official. But Jones, who hails from the Ashanti Region did not want a civil marriage for one reason.

I was travelling on a B2 visa at the time, which limited me to just tourism and up to six months stay in this country. I wanted to work here and make more money to take care of my family and I had been advised to find someone here to marry to enable me get my papers.

PAY ATTENTION: Get snappy news on the go on the YEN mobile app

And so after working illegally at a warehouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey for over 6 months for a $13 an hour pay, Jones managed to save up most of his earnings to pay someone, preferably one with a citizenship, to marry him.

In the US, it is a common story to hear a potential migrant got married for papers (the common term for the authorisation to live and work in the US); most of the time at an expense. Some American citizens, at the risk of being caught and jailed, offer aliens the opportunity through marriage to become legally resident in the United States for a huge sum of money.

The first lady I was connected to charged me $6000. She said that was the best price she could offer, although she subsequently milked more money out of me for flimsy reasons. Hers was just to act like shes in love with me and has known me for years. Then we get married and start the paper work.

READ ALSO: Social media trolls John Dumelo for allegedly stealing state cars

However, things did not go as planned for Jones as his business partner pulled a fast one on him after their fake marriage and did not show up for any of the appointments with the lawyer for the process to begin. Of course, by then, she had been paid in full.

Jones lost his money and also had to pay for a divorce in order for him to start pursuing the next best option. Luckily for him, as he narrated, a friend he met at a gym had a crush on him and since he was desperate, decided to lure her into a marriage after dating her shortly.

His new wife was the happiest woman on earth, whose social media pages, which before, were very bland and dormant became alive with photos and updates of her new life as a wife in a loving relationship.

Before long, she announced to Jones that she was carrying their first child; essentially his second, but dare he speak a word. He continued to play along, even leading to a second child. All this while, he kept contact with his wife back home in Ghana who was waiting on her husband to come back for her as he had promised.

READ ALSO: Mzbel confesses to skin bleaching

Jones has his citizenship now and has visited his family back in Ghana a couple of times, but has managed to keep his new family away from the West African country.

I want to leave my American wife. I dont love her. I only needed her for the papers. We made a family in the process but hey, its a tough life. We must move on.

On whether he will tell his Ghanaian family about this secret life hes leading, he says: At some point they will have to know because I want my children to know each other. But for now, I have to think about how to leave my wife here to go back for my Ghanaian wife. I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life in America or with an American. I have to go home at some point and I want to be married to someone with whom I have cultural similarities. These American women are a lot of work.

While Jones waits for something horrible to trigger a divorce with his American wife, he is paying a connection man in Ghana to try and get his Ghanaian wife to come join him in the US. However, if he is able to go through with a divorce soon, he will return to Ghana, have a civil wedding and bring his wife with him to the United States.

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Want to be featured on YEN? Send your captivating story and pictures to us. We are available on info@yen.com.gh

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ANGOLA  One of the first required steps toward enacting a local option highway user tax for Steuben County will come April 18 in the form of a public hearing.

The hearing, scheduled coincidentally on income tax day, will be held in the Multi-Purpose Room of the Steuben Community Center, 317 S. Wayne St.

The public hearing, which is required before a new tax may be adopted, will be at 10 a.m. This follows the County Councils regular business, which starts at 9 a.m. The meeting is being held a week later than normal to accommodate publication of the proposed ordinance.

For the past few years members of the council have been debating whether to adopt the tax, something some feel would be the only possible way to raise enough money to adequately maintain Steuben Countys roads.

There are two parts to LOHUT, the wheel tax (charged of larger vehicles) and the motor vehicle excise surtax (mostly passenger vehicles, motorcycles and the like). A county cant pass one without the other and a vehicle owner only pays one of the taxes, not both.

The most the county could charge under the wheel tax would be $80 per vehicle, which is what was approved by the council on March 14. And under the excise surtax, $50 is the maximum, which also was approved.

A variety of steps must be taken by the council before July 1 for the tax to go into effect in 2018. It is possible the council will act on first reading of the LOHUT ordinance in its April meeting. A second reading of the ordinance could come in May. The final reading of the ordinance could come in June.

If the tax is approved by July 1, officials dont expect to see enough collection to have much of an impact during the 2018 road maintenance and construction season. The tax is collected when people pay their vehicle registrations, which is spread out over the course of the year.

Because of that, the county doesnt expect to start spending the money until 2019.
Joseph P. Girard, 58, of La Crosse died Wednesday, March 22, 2017, at Gundersen Health System, La Crosse. Services will be held at 1 p.m. Monday at New Beginnings Christian Fellowship, La Crosse, with visitation from noon to 1 p.m. Dickinson-Sletten-McKee-Hanson Funeral Home is assisting the family.
MOSUL, Iraq (TNS)  When an elderly man arrived at a front-line clinic this week, right leg burned while fleeing an airstrike, an American medic took one look and knew he needed to get the patient to a hospital fast.

If he doesnt go, hes going to lose his leg, said Tom Ordway, 32, a firefighter from Lake George, N.Y., volunteering in the war zone with the nonprofit NYC Medics.

Ordway called for the Iraqi commander supervising his trauma station in the carport of an abandoned house minutes from the front line on the besieged citys west side.

Maj. Tarek Gazali of the Iraqi Emergency Response Division explained to the burned man that they would transfer him to a hospital run by another U.S.-based nonprofit on the citys east side for treatment. But they had to act fast, he said, or doctors might have to amputate his injured leg.

The mans family fetched clothes, then helped medics and Iraqi forces load him into an ambulance.

We are like one team, the major said, praising American medics who built their first war zone trauma unit in a matter of weeks. They came all this way to save lives and help the people.

As Iraqis face the daily horrors of improvised explosive devices, mortar rounds, snipers bullets and airstrikes, nonprofit civilian groups from Europe, Canada and the U.S., are flocking to the war-ravaged nation to provide medical assistance.

The medics said the task is often overwhelming, as theyre called to treat not only injured soldiers and civilians but families living in surrounding neighborhoods who face shortages of medication, food and water.

Ordway, who arrived last week, had never served in the military, never been to the Middle East before. He was surprised by how welcoming west Mosul families were to strangers, despite shortages and the fighting nearby.

Its surreal to see kids growing up here with bombs going off and they dont know any different, he said as he prepared to treat patients at the clinic this week.

The Mosul offensive started in October, and the field clinic opened as fighting reached the west side in February. Since then, teams of eight to 10 medics have staffed it in 18-day rotations, treating several hundred soldiers and civilians, according to Kathy Bequary, NYC Medics executive director.

All of the medics must be certified to practice in the U.S. or Canada. They receive added training from the group on working in a conflict zone, Bequary said.

As troops advanced, so did they, moving from house to house to remain within a five-minute ambulance ride of the front line.

It maintains that golden hour, said Bequary, referring to the time doctors have to save those with traumatic injuries. Intervening in that golden hour saves lives.

Recently, medics were able to stabilize a 5-year-old girl shot in the stomach by an Islamic State sniper as she fled west Mosul, and the girl is recovering at a nearby hospital, Bequary said. The girls mother, who was also shot by a sniper in the leg as they ran to safety, was also recovering.

Last week, the medics were excited after successfully treating a father and two children injured by mortars as they fled. Then another father arrived with a 5-year-old girl who had been shot in the chest by militants as she slept.

She was dead on arrival, Bequary recalled. All we could do was clean her up and make her presentable. And then we had to tell the father.

They treated the father too, although he had only minor injuries.

All you can do is support the family members. But sometimes that doesnt feel like enough, Bequary said.

The same day, the clinic came under attack by mortars and had to relocate. It reopened a few days later.

Eunice Allen, 38, a nurse who came to volunteer from Hawaii, said she wishes more people in the U.S. understood how many Mosul civilians are caught in crossfire. One day this month, they treated 29 injured civilians.

War is changing. It blows my mind that theyre targeting people as theyre running away. Theyre either walking through land mines or getting shot, Allen said as she sat outside the clinic with fellow medics awaiting patients this week. What happens next?

Allen wondered where neighboring families were getting food, water and other staples. Iraqi troops police the streets. They dont allow cars or motorcycles in, so its difficult for civilians to import staples. That can pose challenges for the medics. Dr. Cornelius Woody Peeples, 50, an emergency physician from Bend, Ore., struggled to treat a diabetic woman last week seeking help with an infected toe.

This is a good example of what we dont have the capabilities to deal with, Peeples said as he examined the woman inside the field clinic.

He would clean the wound and write the woman a prescription for diabetes medication. But the nearest pharmacy was in another town, and even if the woman managed to find transportation, given local shortages, the pharmacy might not be able to fill it.

War is changing. It blows my mind that theyre targeting people as theyre running away. Theyre either walking through land mines or getting shot. What happens next? Eunice Allen, a volunteer medic from Hawaii
WASHINGTON (TNS)  Rudy Lane is a two-lane road that curves through the leafy suburb of Windy Hills east of Louisville, Ky. Broadway is a main drag downtown where the federal and state courthouses bump up against the 1920s-era Brown Hotel.

In the hottest spots near the two streets, the average temperatures in summer differ by 6 degrees. Why? Trees. Windy Hills has them. Downtown Louisville, not so much.

But in November, an anonymous donor gave Louisville a $1 million matching grant to plant trees. And now were planting furiously, said Maria Koetter, director of the Office of Sustainability for the Louisville metro government, which includes surrounding Jefferson County.

The move by Louisville to plant trees is part of a nationwide trend of cities bringing nature back to urban areas to help prevent a buildup of heat, which gets trapped in asphalt, parking lots and rooftops. The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental group, is working with 20 cities, including Louisville, to help cool their temperatures by providing tree shade among other measures.

Louisville is one of the fastest-warming cities in the U.S., in part because of its location on the Ohio River in a valley that traps air, smog and heat, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit that studies climate change. And that makes it an urban heat island that is significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas.

Urban parts of the metropolitan Louisville area are an average of 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than rural spots  making it the city with the fifth most intense urban heat island effect in the summer, according to a 2014 study by the group. Desert city Las Vegas is No. 1. But Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, Oregon and Seattle  cities you might think of as being leafy or shady  are on the groups Top 10 list, too.

Of the 60 cities it studied, Climate Central found 57 had measurable urban heat island effects in the 10 years leading up to 2014. Temperatures in some metro areas were as much as 27 degrees higher than rural areas on a single day.

Cities by their nature generate heat.

They have more densely crowded structures, said Alyson Kenward, senior scientist and research director of Climate Central. They use all these materials that hold in heat like concrete and asphalt, and dark roofs on buildings.

And they have people running machines, and cars generating heat, and power plants releasing hot air, and air conditioners running.

The trend toward hotter cities is deadly serious. According to the National Weather Service, heat is the No. 1 weather-related cause of death in the U.S.

The Nature Conservancy estimates that 12,000 people worldwide die every year because of heat, and the World Health Organization predicts that 250,000 a year could die from heat by 2050 unless cities adapt.

What kills people is when you have a period of normal temperatures and then all of the sudden its hot for an extended time. It comes as a surprise, said Rob McDonald, lead scientist for the Global Cities project of the Nature Conservancy.

Even cities in northern climates must deal with the repercussions of extended high temperatures, he said. The city of Toronto, for instance, is thinking about how to mitigate heat because much of its senior citizens housing is in tall buildings with no air conditioning. You wouldnt think Toronto would have to worry about it, he said.

Trees affect heat in several ways. Their shade keeps asphalt and concrete from getting as hot. They emit moisture to keep the air cool. And they soak in air pollutants and breathe out clean air.

That can affect the incidences of asthma, too, McDonald said. Theres a very clear link between poor air quality and asthma, and a clear link between trees and reduced asthma, he said. Trees can cut pollution and particulate matter by 10 percent to 25 percent.

Trees arent always an easy answer to urban heat. Desert cities like Las Vegas and Tucson, Ariz., for instance, have a tougher time increasing their tree canopies because there is little rain to support broad-leafed deciduous trees such as oaks or maples. They have to choose drought-resistant shrubs and trees.

Water and trees is a huge nexus for us, said Katie Gannon, program director for Trees for Tucson, a nonprofit that has been working to improve ground cover since the late 1980s. Were a fairly wet desert; we get rainfall in the winter as well as summer. But the city has had to be come expert at water harvesting.

The citys mayor, Democrat Jonathan Rothschild, set a goal of planting 10,000 trees, and progress is being made, she said.

Las Vegas, No. 1 on Climate Centrals list of hottest urban heat islands, gets only 4 inches of rain a year, said Marco Velotta, a city planner with the Las Vegas Office of Sustainability.

The city also has Lake Mead to the east, so were like a donut hole situation, he said. The part of the city near Lake Mead is cool, but downtown is hot. The citys goal is to increase its tree canopy from its current 14-15 percent to 20 percent by 2035, and its planting native trees and shrubs and those that dont use a lot of water to do that.

The trick is balancing water consumption with the species to provide a good canopy, Velotta said.

As U.S. and world populations move to cities, the issue of urban heat will become more important.

Trees are just part of the equation for cooling off hot cities, said Greg Kats, founder of Capital E, a national clean energy venture capital firm, who also helped develop the LEED system to rate green buildings for their energy- and water-saving characteristics.

Green building has really taken off, he said. Every large city in the country has preferences for new construction to be green.

Putting green roofs on buildings with plants and trees cuts energy costs. Using white surfaces instead of black on roofs reflects heat instead of absorbing it. Replacing asphalt parking lots with grass lots cools the air and lets the ground absorb water easier, which refills underground water tables.

New technology, such as glass for windows that darkens during bright sunlight and lightens when days get gray, is part of the future of urban building design, Kats said. Cities like Washington, D.C., are starting to experiment with these measures.

Last fall, 120 trees were planted along Broadway in Louisvilles downtown, and the goal is a 45 percent tree canopy for the entire metro area, said Koetter of the Office of Sustainability. That means tree foliage will cover 45 percent of the city and suburbs. The area has a 37 percent canopy now, and its been falling as ice storms, windstorms and tree age have toppled shade trees.

Louisville has lost about 6,500 acres of tree canopy since 2004, or about 54,000 trees a year, according to a study released in 2015.

The city also is facing an invasion of the emerald ash borer beetle, which was first discovered in southeast Michigan near Detroit in 2002. It was found in Louisville in 2009. The beetles are native to China and are an invasive species in the U.S. They have destroyed hundreds of millions of ash trees across the country already, according to Michigan State Universitys Emerald Ash Borer Information Network.

Its alarming, said Cindi Sullivan, executive director of TreesLouisville, a nonprofit that works with local governments and other groups to plant trees. We could be looking at a canopy of 20 percent in a few years.

But it wont be for not trying.

The city of Louisville doubled the money it will spend on trees this year to $500,000 and 6,250 trees will be planted, especially in low-income areas that have fewer trees and need them. The city is even giving trees away free to residents to plant in their yards.

We have to try any strategy so we can get more trees in the ground, Koetter said.
City residents could soon be allowed to keep bees under a proposed ordinance that would bring La Crosse into line with cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee that have embraced the increasingly popular hobby.

Beekeeping is just one element of an urban agriculture initiative spearheaded by Pam Hartwell, executive director of the Hillview Urban Agricultural Center.

With a $5,000 grant from the Coulee Food System Coalition, Hartwell evaluated city codes and ordinances affecting urban agriculture and came up with proposals to encourage people to produce more of their own food. Among her recommendations, endorsed by the Sustainable La Crosse Commission: allowing city residents to keep backyard chickens and bees without a permit and even goats, sheep, pigs and cattle on a handful of large parcels.

Current city code allows up to five chickens with a permit but bans residents from keeping bees as well as livestock and wild animals.

The vast majority of fruits and vegetables require pollination, Hartwell said. Native bees and populations are declining, but more people are trying to grow food in urban environments.

Hartwell, who first studied urban beekeeping ordinances when she served as mayor of Fairfax, California, in 2011, said shes heard from about a dozen La Crosse residents interested in keeping bees.

Weve got people that have been asking for years for this, said council member Jai Johnson, who is sponsoring the ordinance. Its a shame to keep preventing them from having this activity, especially because we need more honeybees.

Cathy Schuman started keeping bees about four years ago when a neighbor in Danville, Penn., was splitting a colony.

A psychologist by trade, Schuman said she knew nothing about bees but became fascinated as she learned the intricacies of their social organization and how thousands of insects work together to keep their colony alive.

Theyre just so behavioral, she said. I love that they work so collaboratively.

When she took a job with Gundersen Health Systems in 2015, Schuman packed up her hive and drove it to La Crosse. After leaving it with friends outside the city each of the past summers, Schuman hopes to install it this spring behind her house on South Ninth Street.

As proposed, La Crosses ordinance would allow residents to keep up to two colonies on city lots for personal use. Hives must be a certain distance from buildings, property lines and sidewalks or have a fence or hedge to serve as a flyway barrier. The ordinance also bars exotic strains of bees.

The proposed ordinance, which is scheduled for an April 4 hearing before the citys Judiciary and Administration committee, does not require a license, which City Attorney Stephen Matty cautions would diminish the citys ability to enforce violations. Matty also suggests the introduction of a mechanism to allow neighbors to voice objections before someone is allowed to keep bees.

Johnson is having the ordinance revised to require a license and advance notification of neighbors.

Hartwell said she opposes license or fee requirements, which she thinks will deter people from getting bees.

Were all for bees, Hartwell said. I think that regulating them is a challenge.

Schuman said shes never encountered any objections to her bees. To sweeten the deal, she gives her neighbors jars of the honey she harvests.

In my old neighborhood, they loved my bees, she said.

The city of Sparta passed a beekeeping ordinance last year, which city administrator Todd Fahning said came about in response to a growing interest in the hobby.

Weve had people in town that have had them for years and years and years, he said. We thought it would be a good idea to create something that would be monitored.

Fahning said the city has not had any problems with bees, before or since adopting the ordinance.

Tim McLean, whos kept bees for about six years in his Sparta yard, said when bees leave the hive they typically fly straight up before heading off toward the days source of pollen or nectar.

The only time bees really attack is when someone is taking honey off their hive, he said. They dont like that.

Matty has suggested there may be conflicts with those allergic to bee stings.

But Dr. Todd Mahr, an allergy and immunology specialist at Gundersen Health System, said honeybees are generally not aggressive, and the risk of a severe reaction to their stings is very low.

Theyre working bees. Theyre out doing what they do and they come back, he said. The majority of what we see are the yellow jackets and then the hornets.

Schuman said shes been stung fewer than a dozen times in her four years of beekeeping  generally when being silly. She enjoys sitting near the hive and reading, and said when she walks through their path the bees will bounce off her and continue on their way.

They have no desire to hurt us, she said. If they sting you they die.
TOMAH -- The spring rally of the Scenic Coulee Circuit of the Lutheran Womens Missionary Society will be on Sunday, April 2, at St. Pauls Lutheran Church, Tomah. Registration begins at 1:30 p.m. for the 2 p.m. meeting.
MANKATO, Minn. (AP)  Nyawargak Jack said she cried tears of happiness the first time she returned to Lincoln Community Center after passing her test to become an American citizen.

Jack, a refugee from Sudan, passed the test two weeks ago after about a year of classes in the community centers adult basic education program. The program includes citizenship classes, and Jack wanted to first thank longtime instructor Tom Tacheny.

When I came back to tell him thank you, I cried, she said. I cried because all the time when you ask him questions he listens to you and tells us what we need to do.

To call the road to citizenship difficult is an understatement. The community center is one place immigrants and refugees such as Jack can turn to for help along the path.

Citizenship classes at the center and elsewhere in Mankato have had slightly higher enrollments this year, an occurrence that roughly coincides with the initial travel ban implemented by President Donald Trump in January.

Karen Wolters, program coordinator of Lincolns adult basic education program, said the 20 percent bump in citizenship, math and English class enrollment this year may have to do with fear arisen by talk of the ban. Much of the student population at the center are either immigrants or refugees, many from Somalia. Citizenship for them could mean they can travel home to visit family without worrying about not being able to return.

This year there is some fear right now and people are wanting to get (citizenship) done as soon as they possibly can, Wolters said.

Although timed with the travel ban, the enrollment bump also may be part of a larger trend of steady or even slight increases in recent years. More than 80 new English as a second language, or ESL, families moved into the school district this year, leading to wait lists of between 35 to 50 students for enrollment in adult basic education classes each quarter. The community center even added a full ESL section for the second and third quarters to help meet the need.

Wolters said the increased demand goes against what similar programs report elsewhere. The thinking goes that workforce training programs  which the classes basically are  decline in enrollment when the economy is good. Thats not whats happening at Lincoln, a phenomenon Wolters suspects might have to do with how successful the program is. She touted the adult basic education program as consistently among the top programs for obtaining and retaining jobs in the state.

But citizenship class enrollment at Good Counsels Learning Center is also up since around the time the travel ban was enacted in January  the ban has since been struck down, along with the revised version. The program run by the School Sisters of Notre Dame is typically one-on-one tutoring. The citizenship portion has a modest seven students now, enough for director Dorothy Zeller to create a class for the first time. Four students make up the class  in comparison, Lincoln typically has classes of between 15 to 19 students. The rest of the learning centers citizenship tutoring is still offered one on one.

Zeller said the class came together as one person after another came in wanting to learn about citizenship.

I think it was right after the ban, she said of the timing. If I posted and actually advertised the citizenship in the evenings, itd probably get quite a few more.

The citizenship classes make up a small percentage of the 60 total students at the learning center. Its possible the center could take in more students in the future, Zeller said, but it would require more teachers.

Paging through the citizenship booklet that citizenship students receive, Zeller said the courses arent just about helping the students memorize facts. The students may have to know which sides fought in the Civil War, but learning the context of why the Union and Confederacy fought is just as important.

Memorization is part of the eventual test the students will take, though, along with writing and speaking portions. Students might have to know anything from who our first president was, the year we declared our independence, or which oceans border our country. Theyll also have to write out answers and tackle questions about themselves. To prepare, many students at Good Counsel and Lincoln Community Center are taking English classes at the same time as citizenship courses.

There are also many, agonizingly long steps between finishing the citizenship classes and actually becoming a citizen. Tacheny, the instructor at Lincoln Community Center, knows the process well.

First, he said, a refugee must establish residency here for five years  three if youre married to a citizen. Once you reach that point, youre free to take the citizenship test. Easy, right? Not if you arent proficient enough in English.

There are forms, and lots of them, to fill out. This helps explain why a refugee would seek out a citizenship or English class first rather than go it alone.

Plus, once theyre in the citizenship classes, they can be referred to nonprofits like the Minnesota Council of Churches, the secondary refugee resettlement agency for the Mankato area. Staff there help people fill out those complicated citizenship applications. Other resources in town, including the newly established Oasis Immigration Services in Mankato, provide similar services.

The process isnt over once the application is sent. Next, the hopeful applicant waits.

Tacheny said his students report three- to six-month wait times just to get in to provide a fingerprint. The print is needed so the government can run a background check. Then, more waiting.

If everything checks out, theyll finally get a call to schedule their citizenship test. The price? It costs $680  which, to be fair, is reduced if the applicant is on government assistance.

Jack is one of about 15 students at Lincoln Community Center who gain citizenship in a given year, all going through this same process with slight variations. All are recognized in a spring graduation and citizenship ceremony at the community center.

Recent graduates, Jack included, say it means a lot to come out of the test knowing youll become an American after all the time invested in the process.

Khadar Ismail, an American living in St. Peter, came here from Somalia in 2010. He spent two years taking classes at Lincoln Community Center before passing his citizenship test last year. He continues to take classes in pursuit of his high school diploma. He still remembers how daunting the path to citizenship seemed before he took the classes.

People think its difficult at first, he said. By the time they go to the test, it becomes easy.

Another American born in Somalia, Deko Ibrahim, attended her state citizenship ceremony in February after passing the test last October. She said shes excited to be a part of her new country with her husband and children, and hopes her citizenship enables the rest of their family to join them here.

I want to be a part of America, she said. Id like to bring my family here.

Wolters often hears this sentiment among the students in the citizenship classes. If more people came and saw the work theyre putting in, she said, the negative perceptions of refugees and immigrants might change.

I see people working their tails off trying to get ahead and trying to be part of the community, she said.

Tacheny said the students willingness to learn is what keeps him motivated to help them.

Its fun to help the people, he said. Most of the immigrants and refugees are great people and really appreciate the help.

They show their appreciation, too. Jack didnt just bring tears when she returned to the Lincoln Community Center after passing her test. She brought food for the staff, a show of appreciation for helping her become an American.
First ISIS hijacked my religion, and I despise them for that. I wanted my religion back. Now, I feel that my America has been hijacked. I want my America back  an America where diversity is valued and immigrants are welcomed.

This statement by Wahhab Khandker, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, indicates why there will be a rally at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Radisson Hotel ballroom in downtown La Crosse. Those who want their America of diversity back are encouraged to attend.

Khandker is a member of the La Crosse area Interfaith Shoulder to Shoulder Network (LISSN, pronounced listen), sponsor of the event. Im chairman of LISSN  first by default, now because I want to be.

At our first meeting about a year ago, Khandker gave me an exhausting study documenting groups raising millions of dollars to spread Islamophobia. I was saddened and shocked. I hesitated to be permanent chairman because of my age, but I looked around the table and saw June Kjome, then 95 years old and nearly blind. I remembered my belief that Gods call is at the intersection of my gifts and the worlds needs. I now lead by desire.

Right now, area residents are deciding whether La Crosse is a place of xenophilia or xenophobia. In other words, do we welcome strangers or hate them. My Muslim friends notice signs of hate. Some Muslim children come home in tears. Some Muslim adults dont get eye contact and friendliness that used to be so natural.

Khandker further writes about the immigration officer who authorized him as an immigrant of this country in 1981. He said respectfully, Welcome to the United States of America, sir. America needs people like you.

Khandker adds, It is unfortunate that the word immigrant now has become a flash-point of discussion in a country built by, with and for immigrants.

A Tuesdays rally, there will be music and light refreshments. We are grateful to the June Kjome Fund of the La Crosse Community Foundation for providing a grant to host this and future events.

I am excited about our program, Putting Out the Flames of Hate. The keynote speaker is Tim Scott, an attorney and educator who has spoken to thousands of students during the past 25 years about the Holocaust and its relevance today. During his presentation, Scott will share insights he has gained in reading thousands of student essays written in response to his message.

Some of these essays are filled with hate and intolerance; others with isolation and hurt. Still others contain hope, wisdom and eloquence. Through sharing insights that he has gained, Scott will challenge us to identify and extinguish the flames of hate, prejudice, bias and intolerance in our community, schools, families and, most importantly, in our hearts.

There also will be brief reflections by Khandker and others. One will tell the story of verbal and threatened physical abuse toward his dark-skinned son.

LISSN members realize their commitment to our organization is for several years. Although our current president has exacerbated xenophobia, he is more a result than a cause of it. It has existed, both publicly or privately, since the beginning of our nation.

What makes us ready to work to put out the flames of hate for the next several years? It is our faith. In an email conversation about this, several members referred to statements in the Bible, Quran or their wisdom literature. Balto quotes Leviticus 19:33-34: When strangers reside with you in your land, you shall not wrong them  you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Daoud Jandal quotes Quran 5:8: Do not let ill will towards any folk incite you so that you swerve from dealing justly.

Madeline Kepner, a member of Unitarian Universalists, quotes a Buddhist prayer: May all beings everywhere with whom we are inseparably interconnected be fulfilled, awakened, liberated and free.

As a Christian, I am motivated by the last judgment scene in Matthew 25, where Jesus identifies with the marginalized and says, I was a stranger and you welcomed me or did not welcome me. He adds that eternal life depends on my response.

What does your faith, or your human heart, say about your attitude toward the stranger? On Tuesday, we will continue the uphill struggle to Put Out the Flames of Hate in the La Crosse area with the gentle rains of compassion and acceptance.

Perhaps your faith or your heart will call you to join us.
Caring for our veterans is one of the most sacred duties we work to achieve as a state. We have been entrusted by the federal government to care for elderly and disabled veterans and their spouses at our veterans nursing homes. These facilities should have the gold standard of care. Unfortunately, like many other operations of the state, infrastructure and maintenance delays and failures have affected the lives of those in our nursing homes, most notably at the Veterans Home at King. This is NOT a money problem. Even when state finances were tight just after the recession, the veteran nursing homes have been building a surplus of funds.

While the federal government has decided not to limit how states can spend surplus revenues, we can still make the right choices here in Wisconsin and invest in our veteran care with money that was paid to care for veterans. The first step in that process is taking back control of transfers out of the veteran nursing home surplus fund. Currently about $35 million of revenue sits in this surplus fund. This money can be transferred out of the fund at any time not by the Legislature, but by a political appointee, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The only way the Legislature even knows about the transfers are because of a statutory required annual report to the Legislature on the veterans fund.

Why does the veterans nursing home fund have a surplus? These revenues are derived from an exemption from the nursing home bed tax, the federal per diem paid to facilities for the care of veterans, federal service-related disability payments made for the care of disabled veterans, the higher state rate for reimbursement for Medicaid and private payment from veterans and their families.

The 2013 budget included language that allowed for unlimited transfers from the veterans nursing home fund into the Veterans Fund without Legislative approval. The Legislature added JFC passive review, but the governor vetoed it. DVA can now transfer, at any time, surplus from our state veterans nursing homes facilities. Unfortunately, turning back the clock and granting facility upgrade requests is not an option. The $18.5 million in facility improvements in the last state budget were zero funded by Gov. Walker.

Our only choice as a Legislature is to move forward. That is why I am proposing a bill to re-establish Legislative oversight of all funding for the veterans homes. The DVA will transfer a total of $21 million away from the veterans nursing homes just this biennium. Passing the buck on financial oversight is wrong.

A state that supports its veterans spends state money for programs for veterans and does not use money meant for the care and comfort in nursing homes for agency administration and rent. Funds provided by families and the federal government for the care of our nursing home residents should be used at the veteran nursing homes first. For more information on the Veterans Fund please contact my office at sen.erpenbach@legis.wi.gov or 608-266-6670 or 888-549-0027.

Democrat Jon Erpenbach, Middleton, represents the 27th state Senate District.
Saturday, March 25, 2017

Alvaro M. Huerta of the National Immigration Law Center spent Wednesday morning reminding a court that, despite how far weve come, our nation still needs to protect the freedom to marry. The client, Viet Victor Anh Vo, was denied the right to marry the love of his life in his hometown in Louisiana.

The problem? In 2015, state lawmakers decided to require all marriage license applicants to show a birth certificate and prevented those born outside of the United States who might not have one from proving their identity through other means. Any immigrant without this piece of paper -- like Victor, who was born in a refugee camp in Indonesia and who has lived in the U.S. since he was three months old -- was legally barred from marrying the person they love. It didnt even matter that Victor has been a U.S. citizen since he was 8 years old.

With partners at the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom LLP, the National Immigration Law Center took Victors case for immigrants freedom to marry to court.

Check out a video on Victor's case and our successful fight for the equal right to marry:

Before the hearing was over, the judge had declared that the law must be put on hold because it was likely to violate the Constitution. We all erupted in hugs and tears of joy. Yesterday, the judge issued a formal order to prevent this law from harming any other Louisianan too.

Its shocking to believe that in 2017 -- five decades after the Loving v. Virginia decision that struck down laws preventing interracial marriage, and just two years since the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that reiterated the fundamental right to marry, regardless of sexual orientation -- a law like this could be on the books.

By fighting back against this discriminatory law, Victor paved the way for other immigrants in his state to get married without government interference, which helped him realize one person can actually make a change in the world."

Watch the new video and celebrate this victory.

KJ

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2017/03/love-wins-in-louisiana.html
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.
Parish council explains why it splashed the cash on a village coat of arms

A parish council that caused an outcry by spending on a coat of arms says it only wanted to do what other villages and towns do and have an identity.
Employees Kathy Thomsen, Joel Kinney and Beau Baker also honored

LEXINGTON  The City of Lexington hosted an open house on Friday afternoon to honor 50 years of service from longtime Lexington Police Department worker Lola VerMaas.

Also honored at the event, held at the Lexington Grand Generation Center, was Kathy Thomsen for 10 years of service as director of the Lexington Public Library. Beau Baker and Joel Kinney, both received five-year service pins from the Lexington Police Department.

VerMaas, who was constantly congratulated on her retirement by well-wishers, said she was blown-away by the community support.

"I'm overwhelmed. I have a lot of memories, some good, some bad. I'm surprised this many people showed up for this," she said.

Thomsen said it was nice to see friends from other city departments at events like the open house.

"It's always exciting to see other workers from city departments. We don't get to see each other that much, some work different hours," Thomsen said.

Her 10-years at the library had "gone really fast. I love what I do," Thomsen said.

Kinney, who was recognized for his five years of service with the Lexington Police Department, said it was nice to be recognized.

He said he enjoyed working for the LPD and helping people in the community.

Baker, also recognized for five years with the LPD, said he appreciated the show of support.

He said serving as a police officer is the fulfillment of his lifelong dream.

"This job is something that I have always had a passion for, for this department and this community. This is a great place to do this job," Baker said.
LEXINGTON  An exhibit titled "Yesterday's Vision, Today's Power," celebrating 80 years of Dawson Public Power, will finish its run in the art gallery of the Dawson County Historical Museum at the end of March.

The exhibit is a joint venture between the museum and Dawson Public Power District.

By viewing the exhibit, visitors can track 80 years of DPPD progress, explore the process of powering a home or business, handle safety gear used by line workers and further appreciate the convenience of electric power.

Also highlighted in the exhibit is the history of public power. Noted in the exhibit is how Nebraska U.S. Senator George Norris sponsored a bill early during the Great Depression to make electric power feasible to rural areas. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act to provide necessary funding. Within two years Dawson Public Power was established to make it happen.

The exhibit was designed by Cheri Bergman, DCHM exhibit coordinator, using artifacts and information assembled by DPPDs Chelsea Gengenbach. DPPD staff built the power pole shown in the exhibit
Sometimes in life its good to bend rules. Im not talking about breaking the law or Gods commandments. My moral compass, calibrated by the best parents, doesnt allow me to stray. Instead, Im talking about altering arbitrary rules, particularly ones that are self-imposed. The trouble is unless you are good at listening to intuition, one doesnt always know when its the right time to defy tradition or

do things differently.

One look at the calendar and I knew I needed to brace myself because once again its prom week.

For our family, over the last 20 years, it is traditionally a week of late nights and disrupted routines (no family meals together at the kitchen table) and far more family strain than usual. Thats because my husband Tom is a junior class sponsor and one of the organizers and decorators for prom.

Technically I fielded the phone call from then principal Sandra Block who mentioned she wanted Tom to help with Prom. Im not sure if I said yes for him or my not outright saying no way meant the job was his.

Tom and the other sponsors time is occupied with transforming a high school gym into a stunning or exotic place, such as New Orleans with a flair for jazz or Venice with a gondola on a canal. They help students construct big things like the pyramids of Egypt or a mountain lodge, and focus on details like a tree swing or sunset. While Tom is

occupied, I manage the feeding, homework and getting children to bed

at a reasonable time. At least thats how it used to be.

Nowadays, with only one Ward child left at home, who is already well versed at going with the flow, prom week doesnt seem as fearful and chaotic as it once did, but I still have a bit of hesitancy and something else that I dont know how to put in a word.

Thats because of the memories that flow this time of year and the realization that time has been passing, even though in many ways for me it has stood still. If my emotions are getting to me now, how will they be on that night? Its bittersweet to remember.

Five years ago, I bent the family rules regarding prom. They were my rules, set as a mother who tries to maintain order, which is generally a good thing. It still amazes me to think about what happened, how I didnt even

resist it at the time. It makes me grateful for an inner voice that instructed me well and that I listened. Life isnt meant to be lived with regrets, so thank goodness I listened.

In the past, typically, Ward children helped with prom decorating after school and in the evening so they could spend some time with Dad. We might show up at the high school with dinner and stay and cut out palm leaves or blow up balloons, depending on the years theme.

Prom day meant a trip to the high school for the big reveal and pictures. There have been some magical scenes through the years.

The night of prom, consisted of watching couples be announced during walk in and peek in the gym to see it filled with actual people mingling and dancing.

My childrens prom experience would get interrupted with my declaration of time to go home. A babysitter, and later an older sibling, was in charge of getting the home crowd to bed while I returned to the high school for chaperoning duties.

When the dance ended, there was basic clean up to do, which meant not getting home until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Five years ago, I never made the announcement that it was time to leave for home. One child, a senior, was at prom with a date and four others were there as extras, representing grades 10, 8, 4 and 1.

A group of elegantly dressed high school students observed a then nine-year-old boy enjoying the music and itching to dance. They asked Mr. Ward for permission to invite that boy, his son, to join them.

Permission was granted and Camden joined the sorta circular mass and

started to dance. He danced and danced and danced. All night long he

danced. Every time I went to check on him he had a huge smile on his face, maybe even bigger than the one he was known to wear, and natural comfort in his rhythmic moves. It didnt seem like something I should interrupt, so I didnt. I let him dance.

His siblings entertained themselves by playing with other kids who happened to be there that night, sometimes in the west gym and sometimes in a nearby classroom.

Before we knew it, prom was over and my children had been there the whole time. Just three months later that sweet and spunky boy was killed in an auto accident. I didnt know when I made the conscious choice not to cut him off from dancing, that it would be his last prom.

I thank God for a group of observant and intuitive high school students who extended the invitation for Camden to join them. Im amazed at their respect, to ask parental permission first, and at how welcoming they were. They didnt tire of Camden being with them and didnt complain about some kid crashing their prom.

Im also grateful for comments made at prom in subsequent years, of others remembering a boy who had a great time dancing, who was a fixture in a certain spot all night long. If you see me favoring a certain spot in the gym, chances are Im remembering with gratitude that my son got to experience prom too. That smile and enthusiasm for life is something I try to emulate, but not so much the dancing, at least not in public
LEXINGTON  Two deeply rooted Lexington pharmacies are merging with a pledge that its mostly a name change.

Beginning April 3, U-Save Pharmacy and Barmore Drug Store, Inc. will be combined together using the U-Save Pharmacy name.

Ultimately we think it is a great way to continue to serve the people in Lexington and the surrounding areas, said Travis Maloley, one of the co-owners, who currently runs U-Save Pharmacy.

Current customers with ties to each business will automatically be entered in the combined companys data base and phone lines will be tied together, he said.

Pharmacists from both businesses  including Maloley and co-owner Mark Vogt  will fill prescriptions. Additionally, two new employees will join the business after they graduate from the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Pharmacy in May. In the meantime, they will help with the transition as interns.

Maloley said customers can expect the continuation of convenience, friendliness and pricing, like they now receive.

Workers will operate out of U-Save Pharmacys location at 603 N. Washington St. This site offers a two-lane drive-thru pharmacy and off-street parking. Automated handicap accessible doors are being installed on both the front and back doors next week. Other pharmacy related services available include free in-town delivery and being able to leave a message after hours for automated refills.

Business supplies and being a drop off site for UPS will be retained, along with a selection of gifts.

The plan is to continue to sell gifts and home wares from the Barmores store across the street for a few months, eventually transitioning to U-Save after the Guatemalan store next door to U-Save is vacated. The lease is up in May. The space will be remodeled with an interior entrance or opening between the pharmacy and new gift area.

Dont worry, we will continue the gifts, said Maloley. The quality and selection wont drop off.

He said Pat Yung from U-Save, Julie Neher from Barmores and his mother Ronda Maloley will oversee the gift and home items.

People still appreciate having something like that in town. It will be just as good or better. I think people will be really proud, said Maloley.

Employees from both businesses will continue to work for the merged company. Dont worry Barmores customers, you will see plenty of familiar faces, said Maloley.

He said he is excited to combine staff within one location. Although there has been friendly competition between the stores through the years, due in part to proximity, both stores offer a friendly and fun atmosphere and together will create the same. He said a combined employee meeting Monday night was positive.

We can enjoy taking care of our customers, said Maloley. We have the same goal of taking care of patients and customers who utilize a hometown pharmacy.

With combined resources, Maloley said employees can become more task centered, allowing pharmacists the freedom to do more medication therapy management.

With medication therapy management the goal is to make sure medication is right for a patient in consideration of health conditions and that the best possible outcomes from treatment are achieved, he said.

Maloley said a pharmacist sits down with a patient and looks at the list of medications being taken, both prescribed and over-the-counter, looking for potential drug interactions and issues. It helps patients get the best benefit from their medications by actively managing drug therapy and identifying, preventing and resolving medication-related problems, he said.

Its not that we dont do it now, but we want to do more and we want to do it better, said Maloley.

It is a true merger, said Maloley of the drug stores combining. U-Save isnt buying Barmores and Barmores isnt buying U-Save.

He said he hopes people wont get too caught up in regret that the Barmore name is going away, because the spirit of what the Barmores established is continuing.

Maloley said he was thankful for Rick Barmore and his family for their examples of running a Lexington business while supporting the Lexington community.

Previously, Rick and Mary Barmore were the third generation of the Barmore family to own and operate the drug store, which was founded by Ricks grandfather Fred in 1933 and also included Ricks dad who became a pharmacist in 1955 and took over the store in 1962. Rick and Mary ran the business for 34 of its 83 years before selling to Vogt in November. Barmores had been at its current location since 1959.

Its an honor and privilege to carry on the Barmore tradition, said Maloley. The only thing that is changing is the name. People will get the same great service.

Im a hometown kid. I was born and raised here. I take pride in this community, said Maloley, noting he serves on the Lexington school board and tries to give back in other ways too.

Vogt has been a pharmacist for 20 years and first worked as a pharmacist in Holdrege. His wife, formerly known as Christine Reyes, once lived in Lexington along with her family. That connection to Lexington is what led Vogt to be interested in investing in Lexington. He has ties to seven other pharmacies throughout the state.

Vogt said his interaction with Maloley, which eventually led to talks of combining businesses, started during a snow storm when Maloley crossed the street and offered to help him scoop snow.

He was nice enough to help me. He had no reason to help me, recalled Vogt. It made an impression, especially coming from the competition.

From that simple interaction the two became friends and found that they think a lot alike, he said.

Vogt said there are currently no plans for the Barmore building, but he would like to see it used in some way. Im open to any ideas, he said, noting it needs some repairs.

In other changes, U-Save Pharmacy of Lexington separated from Cozads U-Save Pharmacy March 1. Tyler Sturgeon has his own store to make it easier to manage, but he is still part of the U-Save group, said Maloley.
Michael R. Ladwig, 58, of Lexington, died Thursday, March 23, 2017, at his home surrounded by his loving family.

Funeral Services will be held Wednesday, March 29, 2017, at 11:00 a.m. at Grace Lutheran Church in Lexington with Pastor Joshua Stibb officiating.

Visitation will be held Tuesday, March 28, 2017, from 5-7 p.m. at the Reynolds-Love Chapel in Lexington.

It was Mikes wishes his body be cremated following the funeral service with inurnment to be held later in Greenwood Cemetery at Lexington.

Mike was born July 27, 1958, in Lexington to William E. and Marilyn L. (VerMaas) Ladwig. He was a 1977 graduate of Lexington High School. During high school Mike worked for Electric Fixture & Supply and A&W. After graduating, he began his working career with his folks working at B&M Service, he then worked construction in Texas, he drove truck for Crete Carrier, and in 1990, he began work at IBP during the construction phase. This job he held for 20 years.

He loved racing, and to support his racing habit, he worked part-time for Chuck Tilson, then Darr Feedlot, Orthman Manufacturing, and was working for Masterhand Milling when he became sick with ALS, being diagnosed in 2016.

Mike was united in marriage to Colleen Wiley on Feb. 24, 1996, at Lexington. One daughter was blessed to this marriage, Mandy. Mike welcomed Colleens son, Chris as his own.

Mike had many interests throughout his life. Of course, racing was No. 1, working in his shop, fishing, bowling, working on motors, and just putzing around. He had a great sense of humor, he loved to tease, was a hard worker, a little stubborn, but had a fierce love of his family, and he will be so very missed.

Mike is survived by his wife, Colleen Ladwig of Lexington; daughters, Mandy Ladwig of Lexington and Holly Ladwig of Omaha; son, Chris Wescoat of Lexington; mother, Marilyn Ladwig of Lexington; two sisters, Cindy (Bob) Turner of Wichita, Kan., and Michele (Daryl) Divoky of Omaha; two grandchildren, Jason and Justice; sister-in-law, Chris (Dave) Luong of Seward; mother-in-law, Nancy Shepard of Lexington; father-in-law, Jerry (Patricia) Wiley of Youngsville, La.; uncles and aunts; Ken, Sr. (Lola) VerMaas and Susan (Ron) Gray, all of Lexington and Jim (Renata) Shepard of Clearwater, Fla.; as well as nieces, nephews, extended family and friends.

Mike was preceded in death by his grandparents, and dad.

Memorials are suggested to the family for later designation.

Reynolds-Love Funeral Home in Lexington is assisting the family with arrangements. Please share online condolences with the family by visiting: reynoldslovefuneralhome.com.
iStock/Thinkstock(MONTREAL) -- The aviation-safety arm of the United Nations has called for all newly-designed planes to have video cameras in the cockpit, according to a letter obtained by ABC News. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) sent the letter to national aviation regulators.

Supporters of the cockpit cameras say video footage would enable investigators to see what pilots were dealing with - and how they responded - in the case of a crash. However, many pilots oppose the move, citing privacy concerns.

As a compromise, the ICAO's proposal suggests the installation of cameras pointed directly at the flight instruments, with video records that could be deleted after successful flights.

The proposal would apply only to aircraft both certified and built after 2023 - meaning that any currently-flying plane models (like the A320 or 737) will not be mandated to include cameras, even if specific planes are built after that date.

The ICAO does not have the authority to require countries or companies to follow their recommendations, but the industry often opts to do so of its own accord. The regulators who received the letter have until April 20 to respond, with debate over the proposal likely to take even longer.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Donations sought for worldwide ministry

TWIN FALLS  United Methodist Magic Valley Ministries celebrates United Methodist Committee on Relief on Sunday. Offerings on UMCOR Sunday helps underwrites the costs of reaching out through worldwide ministries of food, shelter, health and peace. Gifts on UMCOR Sunday enable UMCOR to keep its promise that 100 percent of each designated gift goes to specific causes, not administration. Contributions on UMCOR Sunday ensures UIMCORs ability to respond in times of crises and offer help to restore and rebuild lives in the United States and around the world.

Final Sunday for Safe House in-gathering at Ascension

TWIN FALLS  Ascension Episcopal Church will observe the fourth Sunday in Lent with services of Morning Prayer at 8 and 10 a.m.

Nancy Koonce will be the homilist at the 10 a.m. service. Koonce recently completed a diocesan training program and is now licensed to preach at Ascension. Child care will be provided beginning at 9:30 a.m. A fellowship coffee hour will be held after the 10 a.m. service. This is the final Sunday of the March in-gathering of items for Welcome Bags to be given to residents of the Twin Falls Safe House. Duffle bags, personal hygiene items, new underwear, pajamas and inspirational messages are some of the items being collected. A full list of suggested items is on display in the gathering area of the church.

Ascension Cafe, the adult discussion group, will meet from 9:10 to 10 a.m. Sunday, concluding the discussion about Lent. Djembe Drumming (simple drumming in community) is offered at the church from 6:45 to 7:30 p.m. on Monday. For information, or if you need a drum supplied, please call 208-961-1349.

Thursdays in Lent include a simple Soup Supper at 6 p.m. followed by a Lenten study of the psalms from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. All are welcome to come for worship, study or fellowship.

Ascension Episcopal Church is handicapped accessible and at 371 Eastland Drive N. Twin Falls. More information about Ascension can be found at episcopaltwinfalls.org or call 208-733-1248.

Pianist John Nilsen performs in Burley

BURLEY  John Nilsen will be performing at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 1 at the Burley United Methodist Church.

Hollister Presbyterian to install new officers

HOLLISTER  The Hollister Presbyterian Church will have the installation of officers at 11 a.m. on Sunday. There will be a potluck dinner following the church service to dedicate the kitchen remodel. Visitors are welcome and invited to attend. The church is at 2461 Central Ave. in Hollister. For more information, call Linda at 208-733-9183.
TWIN FALLS  After a Washington woman was forced off Interstate 84 and viciously beaten in 2000, she eventually identified John David Wurdemann as one of her attackers. Two years later, a Canyon County jury convicted the Nampa man of seven felonies, including attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping.

But Wurdemann, 46, scored a huge legal victory in October 2015 when an appeals judge overturned his conviction, ruling his defense lawyers failed to provide adequate counsel at trial by not questioning the improper manner in which the victim identified Wurdemann as a suspect.

He scored another victory last month when the Idaho Supreme Court upheld the appeal finding.

The lineup in which Wurdemann was identified as one of (Linda) LeBranes attackers was clearly improper because, among other things, Wurdemann was the only participant in the lineup who met LeBranes description of her attacker, the Supreme Court ruled.

But despite the legal victories, Wurdemann cant seem to stay out of trouble. In February, he was arrested in Oregon alongside a Twin Falls woman after they fled police while tossing incriminating evidence out of his pickup, including a firearm.

Wurdemann has since pleaded guilty in Harney County, Ore., to several felony charges in that case, and this week he was charged in Twin Falls County with a felony count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

A Twin Falls judge signed a warrant for Wurdemanns arrest in January after police began investigating him on the gun charge Christmas Eve. Wurdemann was arrested Feb. 4 in Oregon and transported to Twin Falls earlier this week.

Police responding to a welfare check Christmas Eve found Wurdemann at a home where they were serving a protection order, court documents said. Wurdemann told officers he had a rifle in his truck, but was allowed to have the gun because his Canyon County convictions had been overturned.

But police found Wurdemann had other convictions that prohibited him from owning a gun, court documents said. They also discovered hed circumnavigated the background check process by providing money to a woman who purchased the rifle under her name.

Such purchases are known as straw purchases and constitute a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison, though federal court records show no charges for Wurdemann or the woman who allegedly purchased the rifle.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has reported that straw purchases rank near trade-show purchases as the most common ways guns are obtained illegally. And the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that 40 percent of convicts who obtain firearms do so through straw purchases.

Wurdemann is in custody in the Twin Falls County Jail in lieu of $150,000 bond, and despite his recent legal victories, he doesnt look set to walk free anytime soon.

If convicted on the gun charge in Twin Falls, he faces up to five years in prison, and the Idaho Press-Tribune reported the Oregon convictions netted him up to 5  years in prison, though hell be eligible for parole after 50 days. Wurdemann still faces a retrial in the motorist attack case, which would see him back in jail awaiting trial and possibly back in prison, depending on the outcome.
MURTAUGH  Even on a dull day, Star Falls could chew you up and spit you out.

Thats why visitors at the historic waterfall upstream from the Murtaugh Bridge were shocked recently to see several groups of kayakers take on the turbulent Snake River.

Below Star Falls, the Murtaugh Stretch of the river is considered a world-class section of whitewater too dangerous to float most years. Some kayakers and rafters would consider it too dangerous to float any year, but with the Snake as high as it is now, many will give it a go.

Well be here every weekend until the water stops, said Twin Falls kayaker Mike Bond.

A large group of sightseers had traveled to Murtaugh Saturday, crossed the Snake River Canyon at the Murtaugh Bridge, then followed signs along graveled roads to Cauldron Linn  otherwise known as Star Falls  to see the rarely raging river at its best.

During a normal spring, irrigation water would be backing up behind the Milner Dam, leaving only a trickle of water flowing between bone-dry boulders eroded away over thousands of years in the deep canyon.

But a plentiful snowpack in the mountains has streamflows this week at more than 20,000 cubic feet per second below the dam. Bond and his group stood at the bank and watched the river flow over a high terrace that almost never sees water.

Are they nuts? bystanders whispered as the men wearing wet suits and GoPro cameras pointed and planned their route over the waterfall, named Cauldron Linn by early trailblazers after a waterfall on the River Devon in Scotland.

The Wilson Price Hunt Party, hired by real estate and fur tycoon John Jacob Astor, met disaster upstream from Star Falls in October 1811 when an experienced steersman drowned after his dugout canoe hit a rock near present-day Milner Dam. The river proved impassable and others on the expedition ended up walking through the winter to Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River.

I dont want to discourage people, but I dont like to see people getting in over their heads, said Dennis Pettygrove, owner of River and Adventure Toys in Twin Falls. If youre not an experienced oarsman, you should have second thoughts about running the Murtaugh.

The Murtaugh Stretch is tough, Pettygrove said, but shooting Star Falls is nearly impossible.

But thats what kayakers are doing now, and have done every time the Snake River bulges at its seams.

Kayakers come in from literally all over the West to run the river, Pettygrove said, who has rafted the Murtaugh Stretch at 10,000 cfs.

Does his kayak and rafting business pick up when the river is high?

Not exactly, he said. Experienced kayakers have their own stuff and come in only to replace a broken oar or to make a repair.

But others are headed to the falls for commercial and recreational opportunities.

Jared VanderKooi, chief drone pilot for Reeder Flying Service in Twin Falls, has flown a drone over four waterfalls on the Snake River for a commercial video hes putting together.

I didnt even know Cauldron Linn existed, said VanderKoi, who moved here four years ago from Utah. My wife heard rumblings about it and went there a couple weeks ago.

Reeder Flying Service owns a $30,000 drone, and focuses on real estate and videography.

Private drones are also catching rides on billows of mist rising from the river as it slams through Star Falls 40-foot-wide chasm. Drone hobbyist Brian Skroback captured footage of Saturdays kayakers shooting the high terrace.

The Murtaugh Stretch, downstream from the Murtaugh Bridge, is rated 4.55, with a 6 being impossible, he said. The stretch runs 20 miles to the Twin Falls Power Plant several miles above Shoshone Falls and includes 16 major rapids in 14 miles.

Depending on the height of the river, the course can change rapidly.

You need to know a very experienced oarsman to lead you through the Murtaugh for the first time, Pettygrove said.

Drone footage on YouTube has greatly helped inexperienced thrill-seekers plan their adventures, he said, by revealing sights that wouldnt be seen until they were sitting on top of it in a kayak.

These kayakers make it look easy, Pettygrove said. Parts of the Snake will literally swallow you up and suck you down.
BOISE  The Idaho House passed the final version on Friday of a bill setting stricter standards for when police can seize the assets of suspected drug dealers.

The civil asset forfeiture reform bill had already passed the House but was amended in the Senate to address some concerns of police and prosecutors, said the bills co-sponsor Rep. Ilana Rubel, D-Boise.

It passed the House unanimously and will now head to the governor for his signature.
BOISE  A bill to make it easier for courts to get involved if children whose parents believe in faith healing are at risk of serious injury or death was voted down in the Senate Tuesday.

Most of the senators who spoke worried the bill went too far in violating parents religious freedom, although some said they would vote against it because it didnt go far enough to protect children. Its supporters said the bill was the best way politically possible to give some protection to dying children without turning parents into criminals for their beliefs.

After two hours of often emotional debate, the Senate voted 11-24 to kill the bill. Sen. Lee Heider, R-Twin Falls, read the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and said he believes in worshiping God according to his own conscience and allowing others to do the same.

We have to protect those rights from those that would take them away, he said. And I feel this bill is a taking of a right.

Heider said the government should not take the rights of a minority in the name of goodness, correctness, medical appropriateness, you name it.

I think its important that we remember our heritage and what our Constitution directs us and our religious beliefs personally, he said.

Heider, chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, was at the center of debate over the issue last year after declining to hold a hearing on a bill that would have removed the exemption from criminal prosecution for faith-healing parents.

The bill that was voted down Tuesday came from the senators who were part of a group of lawmakers who studied the issue before the session. Carried by Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston, it would have left the exemptions in criminal law in place but made some changes to civil law to open the possibility of a court ordering treatment in some cases where a childs serious injury or death could result without medical treatment.

Debate about the issue has mostly centered on the Followers of Christ, a church whose members dont believe in conventional medicine and practice treatment by prayer and methods such as anointing with oil. Its members mostly live in southwestern Idaho, and the states Child Fatality Review Team has identified 10 faith healing-related child deaths in the period from 2011 to 2013 which may have been avoided with medical treatment. This estimate was arrived at with information from death certificates and coroners reports, and the report says it could understate the total.

Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, whose district includes many members of the church and who has some of them among her neighbors and friends, spoke at length in defense of them as people and against the bill.

I can tell you they are hard-working, dependable people, she said. They take care of each other and they take care of themselves.

Lodge told her colleagues about a family she knows who have had three children die, including one, a young adult, on Sunday. Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, who favors getting rid of the exemptions from criminal prosecution, brought this case up Monday during the committee hearing on the bill. Lodge criticized him for spending four hours on Sunday investigating the death, saying it was traumatic for the family.

These are loving, caring parents, she said.

Other lawmakers said the bill didnt do enough to protect children.

I want to save lives, said Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint. And I want to save the lives of those who have no voice for themselves. And this bill doesnt get there for me.

Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, pointed to the debate and said a law that would prosecute parents who believe in faith healing would never pass.

For me, when I balance a parents right to practice their religion and I balance that against the childs right to live, I choose differently than some, he said. Does a parents right to practice their religion mean that the childs life stands in jeopardy?

Davis then read from the 1994 Prince v. Massachusetts U.S. Supreme Court case, which held the government can at times interfere with parental rights to protect a childs welfare, and said he believes in protecting life.

If it saves just one, he said, for me that vote is worth it.

Several dozen supporters of changing the law held a vigil at the Capitol Tuesday afternoon, standing around the first-floor rotunda around a table with 36 candles on it to represent children who might die without a change in the law.

Bruce Wingate, the head of Protect Idaho Kids, said the bills defeat was a victory because it didnt go far enough, but that advocates should keep the conversation going.

Its a difficult issue but well carry on the fight, he said.

Former attorney general, state Supreme Court Justice and Magic Valley native Jim Jones, who retired from the bench in January, said the state already steps in to protect children with laws such as banning child labor or child marriage.

Infants and toddlers in the faith-healing community dont have the ability to make the choice for themselves, he said. It is being made for them by others.

Jones said he finds it contradictory that the states official stand is opposed to abortion, yet Idaho doesnt always require you to give that child life-saving medical care.

Its really odd to me that we would be arguing over the idea of whether some people should be exempt from the criminal laws because of their religion, he said.
BURLEY  Shawna Wasko has been inundated with calls from nervous senior citizens since President Donald Trump released his proposed budget last week.

Many calls are from elderly folks who rarely leave their homes  and theyre not sure where theyd get lunch if their Meals on Wheels isnt delivered.

The presidents proposal calls for elimination of several programs including block grants that, in some states, help fund senior nutrition programs like Meals on Wheels. But Idaho doesnt receive that funding, said Wasko, spokeswoman for the College of Southern Idahos Office on Aging.

The home-delivery people who are calling are terrified, she said.

Meals on Wheels is not a federal program, Wasko said. It runs on a mix of local, state and federal money along with private donations.

How other proposed cuts to social programs will affect the senior nutrition program isnt certain.

The problem with a skinny budget is, it is lean on details, Ellie Hollander, president and CEO for Meals on Wheels America said in a statement. So, while we dont know the exact impact yet, cuts of any kind to these highly successful and leveraged programs would be a devastating blow to our ability to provide much-needed care for millions of vulnerable seniors in America, which in turn saves billions of dollars in reduced health care expenses.

The need for these types of services is rapidly growing, and federal funding has not kept pace, the statement said.

The news that Meals on Wheels funding would be cut has caused hysteria with our seniors, said Catherine Walcroft, director of The Senior Junction in Burley. They think theyll lose their lifeblood. We want to calm that hysteria. We are still providing meals and will continue to do so.

Future cuts could affect funding, Walcroft said, but cuts proposed last week dont affect the center or local Meals on Wheels recipients.

Meals on Wheels America represents 5,000 home-meal delivery organizations, and those groups get about 35 percent of their funding through the Older Americans Act Nutrition Program, which is distributed by the Administration on Aging in the Department of Health and Human Services. Details on Older Americans Act funding has not been released, and the presidents budget proposes a nearly-18 percent cut for Health and Human Services, which could put funds at risk, the Meals on Wheels America statement said.

The budget also proposes elimination of some block grants, including one that some senior centers use for kitchen upgrades and appliances.

Donations have always been crucial to keeping the doors of the senior center open, Walcroft said.

As long as we have support from the community, we will continue to provide these services to seniors, she said.

The cost to prepare, package and deliver a meal at The Senior Junction to a home-bound recipient is $6.50.

For about 50 home delivery meal clients, the center is reimbursed from $2.60 to $5.23 each from the Office on Aging, Medicaid or Blue Cross of Idaho.

The remaining 35 people who receive meals are private pay, which means the client or a family member pays for their meals.

Most of the private pay people are indigent, Walcroft said. A lot of our seniors are living on less than $1,000 a month, and they dont have the funds to help themselves. If they could cook a meal it would not be nutritious, and they would mainly snack.

Some of the recipients do not drive and have no way of doing grocery shopping. Often, they dont have caregivers or family nearby.

We have one lady who is so lonely, Walcroft said. Sometimes our driver is the only face she sees all day.

Sometimes that delivered meal serves as their only food all day, she said.

We want to help keep them in their homes, Walcroft said. It provides so much more than a meal, its a friendly face.

The centers 150 Club allows members to make a donation of at least $150 each month, which provide one senior a meal each day for a month. Anyone can eat at the center to support the program from noon to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday or make a tax-deductible donation in another amount.

The 150 Club keeps our doors open, Walcroft said.

Funding through the Older Americans Act has seen only a small increase while the senior population has continued to grow, Wasko said.

For the first time in 2016, we had a waiting list for Meals on Wheels, she said.

The eight-county region in south-central Idaho was the first in the state to need a waiting list.

A state law requiring all-stainless steel kitchens by 2018 for senior centers is also a concern, Wasko said. Centers in Idaho get some money from the Housing and Urban Development block grants, where budget cuts are proposed, she said.

My plea would be if you have a grandma or grandpa, she said, walk into their community senior center and donate.
Mary Ann Ruth (Selzer) Miller

FILER  Mary Ann Ruth (Selzer) Miller of Filer, a memorial service will be at 11:00 am on Saturday, March 25, 2017 at the Filer Mennonite Church in Filer, Idaho. Arrangements are under the direction of Farmer Funeral Chapel of Buhl, Idaho.

Martell Holland

BURLEY  Martell Holland of Burley, funeral services at 10:30 a.m. Saturday March 25 at the Burley LDS Stake Center located at 2050 Normal Avenue with a viewing Friday evening March 24 from 6 until 8 p.m..

Willis Bartholomew

JEROME  Willis Bartholomew of Jerome, funeral services at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 25 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jerome 1st and 3rd Ward Chapel, 825 East Ave B with viewing one hour prior to service.

LaRee VanLeishout

HEYBURN  LaRee VanLeishout of Heyburn, funeral at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 25 at the Heyburn 2nd Ward Church, 530 villa Dr. A visitation will be held from 6 until 8 p.m. Friday, March 24 at the Rasmussen Funeral Home, 1350 E 16th St, Burley and from 1 until 1:45 p.m. preceding the service at the church.

James Henscheid

RUPERT  James Henscheid, funeral services at 12 p.m. Saturday, March 25 at St. Nicholas Catholic Church of Rupert. Arrangements under the direction of Joel Heward Hansen Mortuary.

Bud Huddleston

TWIN FALLS  Bud Huddleston, gathering from 2 until 4 p.m. Sunday, March 26 at Rosenau Funeral Home, 2826 Addison Ave. E, Twin Falls.

Ronald Peterson

TWIN FALLS  Ronald Peterson, celebration of life potluck from 3 until 6 p.m. Sunday, March 26 at the Elks Lodge located on the corner of Hwy 93 and 200 S, Jerome.

Layne Jackson

JEROME  Layne Jackson of Jerome, funeral services at 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 28 at the Jerome 2nd, 5th and 7th Ward LDS Church, 50 East 100 South. A visitation will be held from 6 until 8 p.m. Monday, March 27 at Farnsworth Mortuary, 1343 S Lincoln, Jerome.
This appeared in Fridays Washington Post:

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., on Monday denounced what he described as the illegal leak of classified information concerning conversations between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials. He insisted that those who described those contacts to the press be tracked down and prosecuted. He demanded that FBI Director James Comey confirm that such revelations violate . . . a section of the Espionage Act that criminalizes the disclosure of information concerning the communication and intelligence activities of the United States.

Forty-eight hours later, Nunes himself held a news conference in which he cited a confidential source to describe what clearly appeared to be classified information about intercepted communications involving Trump associates. He did this outside the White House, where he had rushed to brief the president about the interceptseven though the House Intelligence Committee he chairs is supposed to be investigating the Trump campaigns possible connections with Russia.

Weve said before that it was doubtful that an investigation headed by Nunes into Russias interference in the election could be adequate or credible. The chairmans contradictory and clownish grandstanding makes that a certainty. His committees investigation should be halted immediatelyand Nunes deserves to be subject to the same leaking probe he demanded for the previous disclosures.

In offering his own leak Wednesday, Nunes was trying to provide cover for Trumps false claim that his campaign had been wiretapped on orders of President Barack Obamaa statement that Comey flatly described as groundless. Unsurprisingly, Trump declared hours lateragain, falselythat Nunes had proved him right.

In fact, as Nunes himself acknowledged, the intercepts he described were legal and appropriate, the result of routine surveillance of foreign targets, or that were approved by a secret court. The identities of the Americans who were picked up in the conversations were mostly maskedNunes said he was able to figure out they were Trump associates because of the context.

Nuness antics serve only to underline the urgency of a serious, nonpartisan and uncompromising investigation into Russias interference in the election and any contacts between Moscows agents and the Trump campaign. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is also conducting a probe, may make a useful contribution, but as McCain said, no longer does the Congress have the credibility to handle this alone. It is time to discuss the formation of an independent, nonpartisan commission with full subpoena power, like those that investigated the attacks of 9/11 and the intelligence failures in Iraq. In the meantime, House leaders should put an end to the embarrassing travesty being directed by Nunes.
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A bomb blast killed Friday in the Egyptian capital one person and wounded two others as the countrys former President Hosni Mubarak was allowed to return home after a court acquitted him.

The explosion took place in the Maadi suburb on Algeria Street, killing Hamada Abdel Aty, a 35-year-old property guard, reports say.



Aty reportedly saw the bomb in the street near where he was working, while cleaning the area surrounding the property.

The blast injured Atys wife and child who have been admitted to hospital.

Security forces rushed to the scene to comb the area and conduct investigation.

The Egyptian capital has witnessed a spill-over of Islamist attacks in the restive Sinai province where the army is struggling with the Islamic State group.

The Interior Ministry however rejected the terrorist attack version of the Friday blast. A spokesman for the ministry indicated that the incident will not be treated as terrorist attack.

The blast occurred few hours after the release of Hosni Mubarak from a military hospital. The former leader has been cleared of all indictments by a Cairo court.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday said armed men and United Nations peacekeepers in Central African Republic have occupied schools, preventing pupils across the country from receiving an education.

Central African Republic descended into chaos in 2013 when the mostly Muslim Seleka rebels overthrew the Christian president. The Christian anti-Balaka militia retaliated with a backlash against Muslim civilians.

Both groups have occupied, looted and damaged schools during the conflict, the Right group said in a report.

The 39-page report, No Class: When Armed Groups Use Schools in the Central African Republic, documents how the various groups, have used school buildings as bases or barracks, or based their forces near school grounds.

MINUSCA said its peacekeepers briefly occupied two schools in late 2016 and early this year in the West and Centre of the country while carrying out operations to protect civilians.

However, according to UN directives, its peacekeepers must not use schools for any purpose.

Around a fifth of schools across the country are closed, and one in three children is not in class, with displacement, a lack of teachers, and insecurity to blame, UN agencies say.

HRW said that the use of schools by armed forces deteriorates, damages, and destroys the countrys already insufficient and poor-quality education infrastructure.

Children have lost years of education in many parts of the CAR because armed groups have failed to treat schools as places of learning and sanctuary for children, said Lewis Mudge, HRWs Africa researcher.
The United States on Thursday joined the chorus to warn South Sudans government over deliberate starvation tactics, that are leading to a humanitarian crisis in the Worlds youngest nation.

About 50,000 people have died in South Sudans civil war, which began in December 2013 as a result of a struggle for power between President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar.

According to United States Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison, South Sudans government is mainly to blame for famine in parts of the war-torn country.

In her words, the famine is not a result of drought; it is the result of leaders more interested in political power and personal gain than in stopping violence and allowing humanitarian access.

The governments continued unconscionable impediments to humanitarians seeking access to famine-stricken populations may amount to deliberate starvation tactics, she said.

Earlier on Thursday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accused Juba for of ignoring the plight of 100,000 people suffering from famine, 7.5 million in need of humanitarian aid and thousands more fleeing fighting.

There is a strong consensus that South Sudanese leaders need to do more to demonstrate their commitment to the well-being of the countrys people, who are among the poorest in the world, Guterres said.

Relatedly, Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned that the thousands of South Sudanese refugees who fled to Uganda in desperate need for safety and assistance are seriously overstretching the UN refugee assistance efforts in the country.

Uganda is already hosting more than 800,000 people, the High Commissioner said, recalling that more than 70 per cent of the number in Uganda (about 572,000) arrived since July last year and given present rate of arrivals, the figure could surpass one million by the middle of 2017.

We are at breaking point Filippo Grandi warned, appealing for urgent and massive support to the South Sudanese people, that he described as the most vulnerable people in the world.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ugandas approach to dealing with refugees has long been among the most progressive anywhere on the African continent but the sheer scale of the influx has placed enormous strain its services and infrastructure.
King Mohammed VI and visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan inaugurated on Thursday at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, the landmark cultural and artistic event Africa in Capital.

The month-long event, which celebrates African arts, features scores of events including art exhibitions, concerts, films screening and lectures, the aim being to bring African art closer to the Moroccan public and shine light on the variety of Africans modes of expression.

This event reflects the Africa-oriented strategy spearheaded by King Mohammed VI and falls in line with his efforts to make of culture a real lever for development, peoples rapprochement, and a tool to promote the values of tolerance, openness and sharing.

King Mohammed VI and his guest toured three exhibitions, themed A Contemporary Look into African Art, Shared Presence, and Memorial.

The Contemporary Look into African Art exhibition explores the trends marking the African contemporary art and features paintings, sculptures and design items. It displays works by famous African artists such as Congos Cheri Samba and Cheri Cherin, Benins Cyprien Tokoudagba, Nigerias Bruce Obomeyoma Onobrakpeya and Ben Osaghae and Ghanas Kwame Akoto.

This selection, which deliberately adopts the diversity of subjects and their technical treatment, shows an African art firmly entrenched in its roots, and in its traditional, tribal or popular memory, and highlights at the same time the impact of artistic and economic globalization.

The Shared Presence narrates two experiences of a return to the roots in the African land by artists Kouka Ntadi (French-Congolese painter) and Wahib Chehata (Tunisian).

The third Memorial exhibition is a tribute to three inspiring photographers who passed away: Malek Sidibe Malian Coverages, Laila Alaoui the Moroccans and Othmane Dilami Trance Musicians.
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THE TRUE COST OF ALL THAT 'CHEAP' LAOR THAT DESTROYED AMERICA THE BIG SECRET DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW: Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeless largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens.
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HELENA  Montana lawmakers on Friday put off further discussion on dismantling and privatizing the state's massive workers compensation system, saying the task was too daunting to take up in the waning days of the legislative session.

Instead, the matter will be studied more thoroughly in the months after the Legislature adjourns.

Getting rid of the $1.6 billion State Fund would be a major undertaking  not only in practical terms because of the thousands of businesses that would be affected but also politically.

While Montana Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature, have generally favored privatizing some aspects of big government, they appear split on what to do about the State Fund.

Republican Sen. Fred Moore of Miles City is sponsoring the bill on behalf of a small group of insurance companies that say doing away with the State Fund would increase competition and reduce workers compensation premiums.

But Senate Majority Leader Fred Thomas, a Republican from Stevensville, and Republican Rep. Greg Hertz of Polson scheduled a news conference after Friday's committee hearing to express their opposition.

While opponents acknowledge that Montana has some of the country's highest premiums, they worry that premiums would further rise for high-risk trades such as logging and trucking.

Republican Sen. Ed Buttrey of Great Falls, who chairs the committee tasked with studying the privatizing of the fund, said he and other committee members needed more time to see how doing so would affect Montana businesses.

The fund serves about 26,000 policy holders. Its largest client is the state of Montana. It also serves many small businesses that might not be able to find a new insurance carrier because they would carry too high a risk or would be too small to be of economic value to underwriters.

Several insurance companies currently compete with the State Fund to provide workers compensation insurance in Montana.

One of the companies, Victory Insurance, argued that privatization would lower overall premiums in the state.

But critics of the plan said there was no guarantee that smaller companies would see lower premiums. And companies involved in high-risk businesses could find themselves in pools that generally pay higher premiums.
A 53-year-old Whitefish man who used Social Security numbers and personal information he obtained through fraudulent Craigslist job postings has been sentenced for using the information to file false tax returns and steal more than $230,000 from the IRS.

Steven Don Pjevach will spend the next three years in federal prison, and be on supervision for a year after that, under a sentence imposed in Missoula on Thursday by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Dana Christensen.

In summer 2012, a person who knew Pjevach saw him dumping a trash bag full of paper in the garbage outside her home, according to a court indictment. The woman opened the bag and saw lists of names, Social Security numbers and other information, as well as handwritten notes on the status of the false returns.

Investigators later discovered that from 2010 through 2013, Pjevach had made roughly 100 Craiglist job postings. He took the personal information of people who thought they were applying for work and used them to file 160 false tax returns, claiming more than $350,000 in refunds.

As part of his sentence, Pjevach owes the IRS just over $239,000, the amount the agency actually paid out on the returns.

Prosecutors say Pjevach was living in Montana and Nevada during the period he was filing the fraudulent returns. According to a federal arrest warrant issued in Billings, Pjevach was arrested in Huntington Beach, California, in May when charges were filed against him.

In December, Pjevach pleaded guilty to corrupt interference with the administration of the internal revenue laws as part of an agreement with prosecutors that dismissed ten counts of theft of government money and six counts of aggravated identity theft.
High-school students often observe our legislature in action. The bills being observed most often are noncontroversial with bipartisan support.

This is hardly a balanced view of how "political sausage is made." It benefits students to attend more spirited hearings.

I attended a hearing on Senate Bill 305, which would allow a county the option of using a mail ballot, clearly more fiscally responsible, plus it increases voter turnout and 54 of the 56 county election officials support it.

The Republican chair gaveled down a Democratic committee-woman, preventing a constituent from replying to her question. Proponents of the bill, which was opposed publicly by Republican Party leadership, were prevented from testifying after 20 minutes, with over 100 people still wanting to testify.

A 20-minute time limit is grossly inadequate. Other committees are more flexible, taking into consideration the interest in a bill. Our Capitol Building has been called the people's house. It may be, but the party in power holds the keys and all too often the "people" are locked out.

The character of the party in the majority can be judged by how fairly they wield the gavel.

This bill will probably die in committee. Not because it does not merit a vote by the entire Legislature, but because Republican Party bosses want to spare its legislators the discomfort of having to defend their vote on a bill, which would merely provide counties the option of holding an election in a manner they believe is in the best interest of their taxpayers and voters.

In reality, party bosses are against this bill only because they believe it would give political advantage to the other party.

Should Democrats ever gain the majority in our legislature, I hope they will remember how Montana constituents felt when their right to testify was suppressed and the People of Montana were denied their right to hear this bill debated on the floor.

Students need to see "how political sausage is really made." They would understand why they need to pay attention, get involved and, thus, make a difference.

Disgust is the mildest of my emotions after sitting through the hearing on SB 305.

John Ilgenfritz,

Helena
HELENA  Montana Gov. Steve Bullock vetoed a bill earlier this week that would have allowed doctors to charge patients periodic fees for basic health services that critics said circumvents protections from traditional health insurance.

In his veto message Friday, Bullock said the measure would have also created an additional revenue stream for doctors while providing little benefit to consumers. He said traditional health insurance already provides some of the services contained in the bill.

The governor vetoed a similar measure during the last legislative session.

Republican Sen. Cary Smith of Billings said he was disappointed by the governor's veto, saying that his measure would have given consumers added flexibility and cost savings in a time of uncertainty over the country's health care system.

"What the bill was meant to do was to help reduce the high cost of health care and make it possible for people who can't afford insurance to get health care," Smith said.

The direct primary care agreements, he said, would have benefited consumers who have high deductible insurance plans and must pay for non-covered services out of their own pockets. "This was a good alternative way to keep health care costs down," Smith said.

The governor, however, rejected that the bill would cut costs for consumers and reduce administrative expenses for doctors. "The bill does not prevent providers from selling these plans to some patients while accepting insurance for others, meaning the provider carries the same insurance-related overhead, but receives another income stream at the consumer's expense," the governor's veto message said.

So-called direct primary care agreements amount to a subscription service for medical care, but the plans are generally not regulated by state and federal laws that govern health insurance companies.

The agreements usually only cover basic medical services such as routine checkups, screenings and other services general y covered by most basic health insurance plans.
HELENA  Montana Gov. Steve Bullock's budget director warned Friday that House Republicans' stripped-down infrastructure bill could result once again in the state failing to pass a bonding bill for public works and capital projects across the state.

Instead, budget director Dan Villa said the governor considers the best way forward to be a parallel bill approved Friday by the Senate Finance and Claims Committee that would allow bonding for $65 million more in projects.

The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee broke up the Democratic governor's $150 million bonding bill and inserted many of those projects into other infrastructure bills that would be paid for in cash.

The House bill left out larger building projects, including $27 million for a new Montana Historical Society museum, $25 million to renovate Montana State University's Romney Hall and $11 million for a new veterans' home in Butte.

What's left is $33.4 million in bonding for water, sewer, roads and bridges projects across the state.

Too few projects remain, meaning that this bill could die for lack of votes, similar to how an infrastructure bonding bill died in the House by a single vote in the 2015 session, Villa told the committee.

"We are deathly afraid that we are on that exact same path today, as this bill is structured," Villa said.

The Senate bill, by comparison, includes the veterans' home and Romney Hall, along with other building projects removed by the House for Great Falls College and Montana State University Billings.

The $98 million in projects contained in the Senate bill represents the best chance of passing the House and Senate and being signed by the governor, State Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, said.

"We have an obligation to our state buildings because no one else is going to do it," Moore said.

House Minority Leader Jenny Eck, D-Helena, said she agreed to pull the Montana Historical Society museum project from the bonding bill and instead seek to fund it through an increase in the state's lodging tax.

Republicans, Democrats and the governor have all identified infrastructure as one of the most important issues for this legislative session, particularly after a similar 2015 bonding bill failed to pass. Some of the large projects included in the governor's bill have been waiting more than a decade for funding, while other projects would pay for roads, bridges, school repairs, water systems and wastewater systems.

Rep. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, said $33.4 million in bonds was the upper limit of what the members of the House Republican majority caucus could agree on. While some projects could be added back to the bill, Cuffe warned too many could cause the bill to collapse under its own weight.

"This bill was put together based on the appetite for bonding that I was able to find in polling the GOP caucus in the house," Cuffe said. "Other projects can be amended in, but there is a limit to what may pass."

House Republicans point out that $213 million in infrastructure projects that would be paid with cash are moving through the Legislature in separate bills.

The state would go into debt for 20 years to pay for the projects listed in the bonding bills. Because of that, a bonding bill requires approval of two-thirds of the Legislature, which is 67 votes in the House and 34 in the Senate. That means Republicans will need the support of the Democratic minority to pass a bill.

The Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee said they are unhappy with the House version.

"I see this as a lowball offer and there are 41 votes on our side," said Rep. Tom Woods, D-Bozeman. "We all have to do this together. I'm not there on this yet."

By contrast, some House Republicans testified in support of the Senate bill. Rep. Jeff Essmann, who is also chairman of the Montana Republican Party, said he supports the MSUB project in his home city of Billings, along with Romney Hall and the Butte veterans' home.

The Senate bill next goes to the floor for a vote. No immediate action was taken on the House bill.
HELENA  A bill meant to combat "revenge porn" seemed on its way to passage in the Montana Legislature, but it took an unexpected turn Friday when the state Senate unanimously rejected the measure.

The bill's doom was met with murmurs on the Senate floor after the dramatic reversal.

The measure sought to make it illegal to distribute sexual images of a person without that person's consent. Revenge porn was spawned by the ubiquity of cellphone cameras and the speed in which unauthorized images can spread on social media and other platforms,

The Senate had given the measure its initial blessing Wednesday on a 39-11 vote. But two days later, the chamber killed it with an unusual 0-50 vote during what was supposed to be a final and routine rubber-stamping vote.

While bills sometimes get rejected on third reading, those rare occurrences usually befall contentious bills garnering tighter margins during earlier votes.

Pressure from the Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence partly prompted the reversal.

"The strongest statute is one that places the focus of the crime on a perpetrator who chooses to distribute the images without the consent of the victim for any reason whatsoever. The focus of an effective statute is properly on the perpetrator, not on the victim," the group said in an email from Robin Turner, its public policy and legal director.

Turner declined an interview request.

The bill hardly seemed controversial when it passed the House 95-5 last month before being sent to the Senate.

The bill's main sponsor, Democratic Rep. Ellie Hill Smith of Missoula, blamed a "poison pill" that was dropped into the bill as it wound through the Senate. But she and others couldn't fully explain what occurred.

Sen. Tom Facey of Missoula, a top member of the Democratic Senate leadership, said there was clearly some confusion.

"There was some miscommunication between some of the stakeholders and some our Senators. The miscommunication had to do whether the amendments were acceptable to the stakeholder groups," Facey said.

While the Senate Judiciary Committee had tweaked some of the language before voting 8-3 to send it to the Senate floor, a seemingly small amendment during a Senate floor hearing helped push the bill to its doom.

During its second hearing on Wednesday, Republican Sen. Keith Regier won overwhelming support to insert the phrase "financially profit" into a section of the bill.

"The bill was barely acceptable before that amendment got on," Facey said. "It went from barely acceptable to finally saying that it was not a good deal at all."

But it remained unclear, even to Facey and other Senators from both sides of the aisle, what specific language caused the anti-sexual violence coalition to object to the final version of the bill.
I was born in 1956 in Madison, Tennessee, while my parents were attending Madison College. I grew up along the Front Range in Colorado, attending schools in Longmont, Brighton, Boulder and Loveland, Colorado. Two years after graduating from Campion Academy, I married my sweetheart, Regina. We lived in Loveland, Colorado for six years before moving to Mena in western Arkansas.





I love the people of Mena and the friendly easy going way of life here. I have owned and operated my own business since moving to Mena. I enjoy the natural beauty of western Arkansas and being out of doors.




HELENA  Montana Gov. Steve Bullock vetoed a bill earlier this week that would have allowed doctors to charge patients periodic fees for basic health services that critics said circumvents protections from traditional health insurance.

In his veto message Friday, Bullock said the measure would have also created an additional revenue stream for doctors while providing little benefit to consumers. He said traditional health insurance already provides some of the services contained in the bill.

The governor vetoed a similar measure during the last legislative session.

Republican Sen. Cary Smith of Billings said he was disappointed by the governor's veto, saying that his measure would have given consumers added flexibility and cost savings in a time of uncertainty over the country's health care system.

"What the bill was meant to do was to help reduce the high cost of health care and make it possible for people who can't afford insurance to get health care," Smith said.

The direct primary care agreements, he said, would have benefited consumers who have high deductible insurance plans and must pay for non-covered services out of their own pockets. "This was a good alternative way to keep health care costs down," Smith said.

The governor, however, rejected that the bill would cut costs for consumers and reduce administrative expenses for doctors. "The bill does not prevent providers from selling these plans to some patients while accepting insurance for others, meaning the provider carries the same insurance-related overhead, but receives another income stream at the consumer's expense," the governor's veto message said.

So-called direct primary care agreements amount to a subscription service for medical care, but the plans are generally not regulated by state and federal laws that govern health insurance companies.

The agreements usually only cover basic medical services such as routine checkups, screenings and other services general y covered by most basic health insurance plans.
MUSCATINE  In Friday's edition, the Muscatine Journal published only a summary of an 11-hour hearing for the removal of Muscatine Mayor Diana Broderson, because of the length of the testimony and the late hour. This article provides more details about the hearing and witnesses called.

Earlier this year, City Attorney Matthew Brick, with council approval, filed a document labeled "Charges for Removal," which accuses Mayor Broderson of making baseless complaints and claims about council members, city staff and members of the public, actions the charges allege constitute willful misconduct and maladministration of office.

The charges also list her failure to comply with the city code, a breach of fiduciary duties, misuse of power and neglect to perform within the scope of her duties in office as reasons for possible removal.

The hearing on Thursday ended with Brick on the stand. He had not been cross-examined by Brodersons lawyer, William J. Sueppel of Meardon, Sueppel & Downer, and will likely be a witness again when the hearing reconvenes at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 1. Broderson is also expected to take the stand that day.

Council members said Thursday a vote was not planned for immediately after the hearing on April 1, as both Sueppel and retired judge, mediator and arbitrator John A. Nahra will be given the opportunity to submit written opinions on the matter following the hearing.

Nahra called witnesses Thursday. Many depositions were entered on record, and were not read aloud if witnesses had no changes. Those depositions will be loaded onto the city of Muscatine website. All witnesses were cross-examined by Sueppel.

Councilman Bob Bynum, mayor pro tem, presided over the hearing.

Hearing before council

With one more vote, the hearing might have been moved to Muscatine County District Court on Allen Harveys motion at Sueppels request, but council voted down the motion 4 to 3.

Harvey said he had made the motion to fight public perception of council bias.

Sueppel said if Broderson is removed, he will likely appeal the matter in district court.

Councilmen Michael Rehwaldt, Philip Fitzgerald, and Harvey voted to move the matter to district court.

Witness: Dave Gobin

Mayor Broderson is being accused of talking to city staff without the permission of the city administrator, which the charges state is a violation of city code. Regarding this charge, Dave Gobin, community development director for Muscatine, was called as a witness over the telephone. Nahra entered a statement from Gobin into the record, and Sueppel began cross-examination.

Gobin said he has had conversations with Broderson at City Hall when he passed her office on the way to human resources or the coffee room, and said they mostly spoke about questions she had been receiving from citizens. I was always happy to oblige by getting on top of those issues, he said.

One conversation, Gobin said, was about Broderson asking if she could meet regularly with staff and department heads. The conversation was not long, he said, and although elected officials are required by city code to ask permission from the city administrator to speak to staff, Gobin felt the question didnt warrant permission, because it was a basic question.

He said Broderson also asked him about the port feasibility study he has worked to plan and Gobin said he responded as he would have to the council.

Sueppel asked about a trip he and City Administrator Gregg Mandsager had taken to China, and Gobin said, it was a very productive business trip, and business was the main purpose of the trip. The city provided the airfare for the trip, he said, and he had talked to council about an upcoming trip two or three times.

Witness: Deana Fleming

Deanna Fleming, regional manager for the Seldin Company that manages the Muscatine Tower Apartments, said Broderson called her to ask about bathrooms being locked, chairs in front of the building, and some other things.

The charges allege Muscatine County Supervisor and Chair Jeff Sorensen contacted the city and said Broderson had demanded as mayor that changes be made at the building, and that the apartment complex have a spaghetti supper for the Muscatine Police Department. This is not a city-owned building, but the residence of Broderson's mother.

During the phone call, Fleming said Broderson identified herself as the mayor.

Fleming said Brodersons mother was living in the apartments, but she had not known that at the time. When someone identifies themselves as the mayor youre assuming they would be conducting official business, she said.

Fleming said Broderson suggested the residents might feel safer if the apartments had a spaghetti dinner with the police department.

Sueppel asked if Fleming had ever called the spaghetti dinner a bribe, and Fleming said she had not.

Muscatine County Supervisor and Chair Jeff Sorensen said he was contacted by Fleming, who said former supervisor Kas Kelly had also contacted her about the Tower Apartments.

Sorensen said Fleming was upset, and he was concerned about liability for both the city and the county.

Witness: Jim Edgmond

Jim Edgmond, the city engineer for Muscatine, discussed an email he said was sent from Broderson to him, Mandsager and Gobin that raised concerns about a contractor in Davenport that may have submitted a bid for a city contract.

The Charges of Removal document alleges Broderson made allegations against members of the public by sending the email, which it states is a violation of the city's Ethics Policy.

Edgmond said the email stated the contractor had difficulties on a previous project in Davenport.

He forwarded the email to Mandsager, Edgmond said, then erased the original email.

Edgmond said he had been concerned it was hearsay and could have been used against the city, if the city had appeared biased in hiring or not hiring a contractor.

Witnesses: Police and Fire Chiefs

The charges allege Broderson told residents at a Coffee with the Mayor event that city staff were afraid for their jobs. Muscatine Police Chief Brett Talkington and Fire Chief Jerry Ewers both said during testimony they had never refused to talk to Broderson because of fear they might lose their jobs.

Witness: John Hintermeister

John Hintermeister, a Muscatine lawyer, served as a witness over the telephone. The charges allege Broderson discussed her disagreement over boards and commissions with the public personally and in a letter, and claimed the council was blocking her board and commission appointments.

Hintermeister said he contacted Tom Spread to point out the differences between the boards and commissions that are rarely advisory and the Muscatine Power and Water Board.

He said he had questioned the qualifications of Brodersons nomination to the board, Susan Johannsen.

Sueppel asked if he knew what the qualifications are for a member of the Muscatine Power and Water Board, and Hintermeister said he did not.

City employees and Facebook comments

Broderson is accused of violating city code by contacting city staff without permission from the city administrator, and asking staff to look into comments made on social media by other city staff members.

Michelle Metzger, a housing inspector for community development in Muscatine, and Shelley Meyer, a city accountant for Muscatine, both said comments they had made on Facebook were their own personal views, and they had not identified themselves as city employees.

Broderson allegedly claimed the two staff members had violated the citys Code of Ethics by posting some negative comments on Facebook.

When Sueppel asked Shelley Meyer, city accountant for Muscatine, about a comment she made calling another person an a**hat, she assured him the comments were mine and mine alone, she said.

Witness: Alan Ostergren

Broderson is accused of making "baseless claims," an alleged violation of the city's code of ethics, and contacting Muscatine County Attorney Alan Ostergren to ask him to pursue charges against the city and two reporters.

Ostergren said a letter, obtained by Broderson, sent to State Sen. Rich Taylor, D-Mt. Pleasant, from Jeffery Thompson, the solicitor general in the Iowa Attorney Generals Office, stated information on Iowa code regarding mayoral appointment of civil service commissioners.

The letter states the city is not exempt from Iowa Code section 400.1, which states the mayor is to appoint three civil service commissioners, with approval from the city council. After receiving the letter from Taylor, Broderson petitioned Muscatine County attorney Alan Ostergren to file criminal charges against the City Council.

When Sueppel asked why he did not press charges, Ostergren said he wrote a letter to the solicitor general to ensure he had been offering analysis and an interpretation, but he was not required to pursue charges based on the letter.

Ostergren said there were numerous reasons why a criminal prosecution is not feasible under these facts.

Ostergren said he agreed the council was wrong about changing the appointment process for the Civil Service Commission.

He also said Broderson asked him to prosecute two members of the news media when one of them recorded and broadcasted an interview with the other that Broderson considered off the record.

When Sueppel asked if Broderson had been demanding, Ostergren said he felt the word was too strong. I think she was asking me to look into it to see if a crime had been committed, he said.

When Nahra asked if she would have had the same access to him had she not been the mayor, Ostergren said staff often handles complaints, although sometimes he is contacted by other people in the community, and sometimes he refers people to an attorney.

Alleged Gender Bias claims

Broderson allegedly accused Mandsager of discriminating against her due to her gender, which the charges state was a baseless accusation and therefore a violation of the city's Ethics Policy.

Louis Savelli, of Homefront Security, said he investigated Mayor Broderson's claims of gender bias and hostile work environment at the request of Brick.

After interviewing several people in Muscatine  13, according to Councilman Santos Saucedo, who was reading documentation  Savelli said he and his team found all the allegations to be either unfounded or unsubstantiated.

When he was called as a witness, City Administrator Gregg Mandsager said he may have been negatively impacted by the investigation during a recent job search, because he was required to say he had been the subject of an investigation into gender bias.

Mandsager also said his health had been negatively impacted by the investigation and allegations made against him and council members during her term.

Witnesses: Randy Hill and Stephanie Romagnoli

Broderson was accused of questioning the employment and IPERS pension of Randy Hill, a retired city engineer who returned to work for the city, and of contacting IPERS about Hill's employment with the city.

Hill stated he did work for the city while working for a temp agency and then as an independent contractor, but would not have done the work if he thought his IPERS pension would be in jeopardy.

Because he worked for a temp agency, and then as an independent contractor, Human Resources Manager Stephanie Romagnoli said his pension had not been in jeopardy, and the city has gone through a temp agency before if assistance was needed from a former employee.

Sueppel also asked Romagnoli if she had seen complaints from staff about council members, and Romagnoli said while she had not seen formal complaints, she had seen statements requested by Mandsager. Three were in regard to Rehwaldt, she said, including an alleged incident when he had been speaking with an employee and made a joke about sicking his dog on her if she gave him another parking ticket.

Witness: Gregg Mandsager

Gregg Mandsager, city administrator, said the city code stating elected officials should go through the city administrator to talk to city staff is in place to avoid confusion.

Having direction coming from multiple individuals is not productive, he said.

Witness: Matthew Brick

Under Nahras questioning, Muscatine city attorney Matthew Brick described the results of his investigation and provided additional context for each of the points in Section 2 of the Charges of Removal he previously filed with the city under the direction of the council.

The section, Statement of Facts, outlines 36 incidents in which the mayor allegedly acted in a way that was an example of willful misconduct, maladministration in office or willful or habitual neglect or refusal to perform the duties of her office.

Brick said he investigated the incidents listed in the charges, which ranged from Broderson alleging gender bias in council and City Administrator actions, to her allegedly using campaign funds to send letters Brick said were not related to a campaign.

I found no basis for the allegations against the elected officials or city administrator, he said.

Sueppel did not cross-examine Brick Thursday.
Animal Radio for March 18, 2017

2017 NEW PET PRODUCT SPECIAL

Since 2003, Animal Radio has been showcasing the latest toys, gadgets and technology available for your pet. Our 2017 NEW PET PRODUCT SPECIAL is no different. We will be featuring the latest gadgets as well as cutting-edge technology for your pets. And the best part? We have giveaways for you!









World's First Self-Cleaning Indoor Dog Potty

Alan Cook, Brilliant Pet

BrilliantPad is the World's First self-cleaning indoor dog potty. It automatically replaces a soiled pad with a clean, fresh one. It also wraps and seals the waste to get rid of the entire odor, so your dog has a place to go indoors in a way that's easy, clean and hands free for you!

The BrilliantPad is designed for small to medium dogs up to 35 pounds. The pad area itself is 24x23 inches, which is similar in size to the most popular sized potty pads. The footprint of the machine is not much bigger than the pad itself.

Judy Francis has been training Ladybug, Animal Radio's Stunt Dog, to use the BrilliantPad. Ladybug has been using it for about a month now. Ladybug took to it immediately, because she has always used an indoor potty. However, her previous potty area consisted of potty pads in a litter box with artificial grass. As you can imagine, this can get pretty smelly after a while. Judy was forced to replace the pads daily and to wash the grass and replace it every few days. Not a pleasant task! To get Ladybug used to the BrilliantPad, she actually placed artificial grass over the pad and then eventually made the grass smaller and smaller until Ladybug was using the BrilliantPad without any artificial grass at all.

If your dog has never used an indoor potty, BrilliantPad will help you train them. They have a training guide developed by animal behaviorists from four university-based veterinary clinics, which includes easy-to-follow instructions. Training generally takes anywhere from a few days to several weeks. They also have additional resources, which include transition pads to help acclimate your dog, as well as an online training center and help desk.

The motor is also whisper quiet, so it didn't scare Ladybug when it was advancing the pad. This made cleaning up a breeze! All Judy has to do is either let the machine automatically advance the roll on a pre-set timer or she can manually advance the roll by herself. You can even leave it alone for days or weeks at a time. No more smelly areas to clean. And in fact - no more smells at all.

While the pad is thin, it is super absorbent, leak-free and has an odor shield lining. The pad lasted about 30 days and when it was removed, again there was no smell. The pad is wrapped around a disposable rod and caps, which are biodegradable. You just toss them in the trash and replace it with a new one. What could be easier!!!!

BrilliantPad is better for Your Dog and better for the environment because it uses one third less material than traditional pads.

BrilliantPad also allows freedom and flexibility. If you have to work late or if you are struck in traffic, you don't have to rush home to let the dog out! You never worry about leaving your dog home again!

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Reduce Feline Anxiety with New Noise-Cancelling Environments

Janet Marlow, Pet Acoustics

Janet Marlow is a Sound Behaviorist and Pet Acoustics CEO. She has been a recording artist and musician for 35 years, traveling around the world providing music for humans. Janet then transitioned her scientific background on acoustics and her 20-year research to animal hearing sensitivities - what it is, how they hear, how it affects them, what is the pressure in their ears and how it affects them in their environment.

Janet has been trying to educate pet owners for many years on this subject, because it is so important. To help do this, she has created Pet Tunes, which is a Pet Tunes Bluetooth speaker that is pre-loaded with special frequency modified music clinically tested and proven to reduce stress and calm pet anxiety. She has made several for specific species, which includes dogs, cats, horses and birds; all modified for each species specific ranges.

The sonic environments in which animals live affects their behaviors in ways humans are not always attuned to. Cats hear more than dogs and humans, and certain sounds or vibrations just don't sit well with them. By modifying their experience of the external noises through sound absorbing layers, Pet Acoustics can diminish behavioral feline stress associated with such.

Janet is excited to announce the new Safe & Sound line of noise and vibration-cancelling environments for cats. Designed to eliminate fear, anxiety and motion sickness resulting from travel and other sound stimuli, the new line of veterinarian-approved products is a safe and effective solution for cat owners and pet care professionals across the country.



"Feline anxiety is a very common and problematic issue that most cat owners experience in some way or another with their cats," said Marlow. "Their overwhelming fear and travel sickness can even deter pet owners from taking their cat to the veterinarian regularly which can lead to a number of greater health issues. This product line is going to change our relationships with cats for the better and I'm so glad to be able to be a part of that."



The Safe & Sound Cat Tunnel creates a sonic safety zone for cats to help them feel safe and secure. It's easy to assemble with a Velcro closure and two snaps in the back to keep the tunnel sturdy. The outside of the tunnel is covered in a black material for easy cleaning.



The Safe & Sound Cat Crate Liner is designed to fit most cat crates and carriers to diminish motion sickness and anxiety associated with travel. The liner is made from a waterproof canvas that can be wiped clean with ease.



The Safe & Sound Pet Bed keeps cats calm and comfortable while they sleep or rest. The bed made with sound-absorbing material works to minimize vibrations from floors as well as other common home and outdoor noises. It's covered in microsuede material that cats don't tend to scratch and is easy to wipe clean. The bed also has a built in pocket designed for use with the Pet Acoustics Pet Tunes speaker (sold separately).

Visit Website









5 Must Knows When Hiring a Pet Sitter

Robert Semrow, Listomania



There comes a time when all of us have to deal with the tough decision of who do I trust to watch my beloved pets? Maybe it's a family member, a neighbor, a pet sitter that was recommended or someone else. To help celebrate Professional Pet Sitters, and more importantly help all of our Animal Radio family, I thought I'd get your started with this truly critical task.

To begin with, decide what environment is right for your pet. Will your pets stay at your home, be boarded or travel with you and be cared for at your destination? The answer to this question sends you in different directions, but the result must be the same - a safe and caring caretaker for your pet.

Once we've established the where, we must begin by interrogating, errr, I mean interviewing the pet sitters. It is always great to get a referral or two from friends, but in the end I put everyone through the same process. I want to know what their experience in pet sitting is. Also, caring for their own pets is not experience in my mind. I want to know that they have undergone training, experienced different pets and environments and are prepared to deal with what can arise. I want to know if they will be taking my pet for a ride in their car and if so, what kind of travel safety will be used?

Next, I want to know if they are a professional. Do they have pet first-aid training, business insurance, and a contract clearly defining what the expectations and requirements are for all involved? I know that may sound a bit cold, but think about this, you are on a trip and your pet needs medical attention, is your pet sitter authorized to seek that care? Is there a dollar amount they are authorized to spend? What will be done when they visit and how many times will they visit with the pets? It is important that everyone has a clear understanding of what will be the expected level of care and responsibility so that if an emergency arises, they can respond quickly for your pet's sake.

I also want to know who their back up is if they become ill and cannot fulfill what the pets need. What contact numbers are available? How often will we communicate and what kind of updates will be provided to not only give me piece of mind, but to keep me aware of what is going on with my pet. I want to know how my pets are reacting to not having the family with them. This is important not only for the current trip, but for planning future trips and making sure you are making the right decisions for your pets. With so much technology in our hands these days it is much simpler for a pet sitter to send you an update with photos, video, text, etc.

Finally, and this sadly is where most begin, what services do they offer? At what intervals? At what costs? What does that service include? Doggy playtime means something different to everyone, so get some clarity. Make sure that your pets are getting what they need to be cared for mentally, as well as physically. Make a list of favorite toys, places and activities for that pet sitter. Make sure they know your home and where anything they will need to care for your pet is. If they are aren't asking you for the information and details of your pet that should concern you. They need to care almost as much as you do. Remember, your pet is counting on you to find the right person to care for them.

Share your Pet Sitter tips with us here at Animal Radio on our Animal Radio Facebook Page.

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Dizzy Old Dogs - Diagnosing Idiopathic Vestibular Disease -Dr. Debbie

I came running when I heard the crashing paw steps of my 12 year old Labrador, Magnum as he flopped and tumbled in a nervous frenzy. With head crooked to the right, Magnum's dizzy, wobbly movements resembled a carnival lover's exit from the tilt-a-whirl ride. His eyes darted back in forth in an uncontrollable movement. Many might assume Magnum suffered a stroke, and figured it was time to put the old guy to sleep. But fortunately there was hope - Magnum developed a typical case of Idiopathic Vestibular Disease.

What is Idiopathic Vestibular Disease?

Idiopathic Vestibular Disease, also known as Old Dog Vestibular Disease, is a condition commonly diagnosed in senior dogs, but also seen in cats. The term idiopathic basically means the cause is unknown. This condition affects the vestibular system and the pet's sense of balance, typically with a rapid onset of symptoms. In Magnum's case he literally was fine at the start of a television program, and was wobbly just one hour later.

Symptoms of Old Dog Vestibular Syndrome include a wobbly gait, head tilt, anxiety, panting, and an abnormal eye movement called nystagmus, a condition in which the eyes dart rapidly back-and-forth or up-and-down. In addition to mobility problems, the topsy-turvy sensation leads to nausea, vomiting, and an inability to eat or drink. Thankfully my sturdy stomached Labrador barely missed a meal during his bout.

The cause of idiopathic vestibular vestibular syndrome isn't completely known, but fortunately most dogs recovery from symptoms within 2 to 4 weeks. In some cases dogs may suffer from future bouts months to years later. Some dogs may retain a slight head tilt or unsteadiness at times.

What Can Be Done?

A veterinary examination is important to identify suspected cases of vestibular disease. Other possible causes of these symptoms could include an infectious or inflammatory condition, inner ear infection, cancer, or a brain vascular episode - a stroke-like episode. In order to rule out these potential causes, more detailed testing is needed and may include tests like a CT, MRI, and CSF tap.

There isn't a cure for a vestibular episode, and some pets recover without any treatment. But other animals require supportive care including anti-nausea medications, intravenous fluid therapy, hand feeding, and physical assistance to walk and protect from household hazards.

Caring for a frightened, disoriented, wobbly, nauseated dog can be difficult. My 80 pound Labrador needed physical support to get up, walk outside and required hand feeding at times. He couldn't be left home alone without risk of injury. And because of all the hoisting, blocking collisions with furniture, and guiding away from the depths of the pool, I injured my back during his rehab time. The reality is that home care of a small or toy breed with vestibular disease is much easier than the physical demands of a assisting a large or giant breed dog.

Lessons Learned

I have seen many a patient come to my veterinary office for euthanasia after developing similar vestibular symptoms. Some pet owners assume that the severe symptoms and rapid onset mean that there is no hope and euthanasia is the only choice. I'll admit that vestibular symptoms are scary and affected pets are tough to care for at home, but if given the tincture of time, many senior dogs will eventually improve. Perhaps Magnum's story will help other pet owner's opt to pursue treatment or testing, and give time a chance to heal.

Four weeks later and Magnum is back to playing with toys and energetically bounding on walks. He still retains a slight head tilt to the right, his badge of courage as I see it. I'm thankful for his recovery and adore his charming, lovable tilted perspective of the world.

Featured veterinarian known as "Dr. Debbie" on national pet radio program, Animal Radio. Ebook author of "Yorkshire Terriers: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend"; "Pugs: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend"; "Mini Schnauzers: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend"; and "Shih Tzu: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend."

Visit Website









The Dogfather's Grooming Tip with Joey Villani

5 Things To Know If Your Pet Has A Smelly Face

Have you ever gone up to someone's dog and wanted to kiss their face? But when you did, you noticed their face smelled really bad! Sometimes, no matter what a pet owner does, they can't get rid of the smell. Joey comes to the rescue with 5 things to remove the smell that even works on cats!

The first thing you need to do is to brush and comb your pet on a regular basis, including their face. They might have food particles around their mouths, which will be removed with daily care.

Next, if you have a dog that has folds on their face, like a Pug, you need to clean them frequently. It is easy to do with water and a cotton ball. You can also use Witch Hazel, an astringent that works very well and is gentle. This will also heal any irritation and remove smells.

One thing people fail to do is to clean their pet's eyes. This should be done at least once a day. Again, a cotton ball dampened with water works well. Just let it sit for a few minutes and then you can comb away any remaining debris.

People also don't realize how bad their dog's ears can smell. If their ears are dirty or slightly infected, they are going to smell. Joey knows of people who said their dogs smelled so bad, they wouldn't let them in the same room with them. It turned out their ears were very dirty, which is where the bad odor was coming from.

Lastly, you should check your dog's teeth. Even if your dog's teeth are fairly free from plaque, your dog's mouth can still smell. If you have a dog that likes to lick up every crumb on the floor, you can rest assured that they are also licking up their own hair. Believe it or not, this hair can sometimes get caught in their mouths and wrap around their teeth. The hair then starts to rot and leaves your dog with a horrible mouth odor. You can remove this with a cotton swab, a toothbrush or even your finger.

If you do these five easy things on a regular basis, your dog should have a better smelling face!









Animal Radio News - Lori Brooks

Court Upholds NY's Tough Restrictions on Sale of Cats and Dogs

A Federal Appeals Court has rejected a bid to overturn a New York City law imposing tough restrictions on the sale of dogs and cats. The verdict early this month is considered a huge victory for animal advocates and those animals that would normally be sold by puppy mills and mass breeding operations. The 2015 law says pet shops could only obtain dogs and cats from federally licensed breeders with clean recent animal welfare facility visits and could not sell dogs and cats over eight weeks old or weighing less than two pounds, unless they were spayed or neutered. The New York Pet Welfare Association, a group representing pet shops and dog breeders, sued to block the law, fearing it could force many members out of business. It said the law unconstitutionally burdened commerce by favoring animal rescuers and shelters over out-of-state breeders. But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying the interstate market, "Will have every incentive to meet demand" from pet shops needing to import puppies, while the spay-and-neuter requirement did not conflict with state law. New York City had argued that the law would help insure that consumers bought pets that were healthy and raised humanely. The judge stated, "The sourcing and spay/neuter laws address problems of significant importance to the city and its residentsand the city has enforced them for more than a year, with no apparent ill effects."

The Term "Cat Lady" Added to Dictionaries

Oxford Dictionaries has announced the addition of 300 new words and short phrases that will be added to its dictionaries. Among them "craptacular," "drink the haterade," and "cat lady" made this year's cut. So what exactly is the definition of a cat lady? It's a noun and refers to an older woman who lives alone with a large number of cats, to which she is thought to be obsessively devoted.

Family Rewards Firefighters Who Saved Pets

About 500,000 pets die in burning homes every year, but there's a family in New Jersey whose three pets survived a New Years Eve house fire. Now the family has had a chance to thank their heroes for saving their furry family. The fire caused about a million dollars in damage, but it could have been much worse. Here's the first lesson. The owners were not home, but the smoke set off their ADT alarm system. However, the owner did not answer the call from the alarm company, because it came from an 800 number and he thought it was a telemarketing company. Luckily, the alarm company called his daughter who was able to reach him right away. Because he was only about a mile away, the owner got there quickly and was able to tell firefighters there were a dog and two cats inside the house. The Deputy Fire Chief said they found Riley the dog and one cat, Romeo, huddled together as if they were protecting each other. They were not going anywhere without each other. The second cat, Chloe, was found in the basement. All three pets spent days in the hospital for burns and smoke inhalation but all are home and doing fine now. The grateful family took Riley their dog with them to the all volunteer fire department, and along with the alarm company, they presented the first responders with a gratitude check for $7,500. And a bonus note of happiness here: Riley has just been certified as a therapy dog and will start working with children this month.

Town to Erect Statue Honoring Supermarket Cat

A group of people in a town in England has launched a crowd funding campaign to honor a cat that once lived at their local supermarket. The 'Just Giving' campaign is almost to it's goal of raising $6,000 to erect a statue honoring Brutus who died in January. Claire Owens, a spokesperson for the group, says Brutus delighted children and adults alike with his cheeky 'cattitude,' investigating shopping in people's carts as they left the store, jumping into cars to play in the bags, sneaking down the pet food aisle to see what kind of specials were on and just generally being there daily for everyone to love and fuss over. But sadly Brutus was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease in 2013 and was put to sleep after his condition deteriorated. Regulars at the Morrison's Supermarket in the town of Stanley, and many of Brutus's more than 12,000 Facebook followers, were devastated. The storeowners say, "Brutus was much loved by our customers and he is greatly missed." The store is also contributing to Brutus' memorial.

Don't Finance Pet Purchase - It Could Costs Thousands

Don't ever buy a pet with financing. Here's why. The Sabin family had bought their new dog for $2,400 with financing offered at the pet store through a company called Wags Lending. Then they received a payment notice from another company, which was assigned the contract to collect the payments. The statement said she owed $5,800. Then when Dawn Sabin tracked down a customer service rep at the company she found out she didn't really own the dog after all. They told her, "You're not financing the dog, you're leasing.' Without quite realizing it, the family had agreed to make 34 monthly lease payments of $165 after which they had the right to buy the dog for about two months' rent. However, like all loans, you don't want to default on it or the lender could take back the dog, or if Tucker ran away or passed away, you could be on the hook for an early repayment charge. Sadly, for Tucker, this family wasn't impressed with his puppy antics and they fought a long battle with the company and sold Tucker. BUT, if they had kept him and saw the lease through to the end, they would have paid the equivalent of more than 70-percent in annualized interest, nearly twice what most credit card lenders charge. And that is not the only case of such horrors to financing pets. There are many similar cases. One customer paid over $5,000 for a $2,000 puppy according to a complaint collected by the Federal Trade Commission after she financed a Yorkie from a Georgia pet store and a cat lover bought a Bengal kitten from a breeder in Florida, for $1,700, then found out she was on the hook for 32 monthly payments of $129, or about $4,100. The Nevada man who is the brains behind Wags Lending says he can get away with it because, quote, "We're dealing with emotional borrowers." The lesson? Be patient and fill out an application with a rescue or your local shelter.

Everything's Bigger in  Russia

Former President Bush was on Ellen earlier this month and told a story about a time when Putin was at the White House and he introduced him to his Scottish Terrier Barney. Putin looked at him and said, "You think that's a dog?" Then Bush said he and wife Laura were in Russia one year later and Putin asked them, "Do you want to meet my dog?" Then across the yard this huge hound dog comes loping toward them. Putin with his icy eyes looked at them and said "Bigger, stronger and faster than Barney."





NEWS UPDATE brought to you by Fear Free. "Take the 'pet' out of 'petrified'" and get pets back for veterinary visits by promoting considerate approach and gentle control techniques used in calming environments.





Listen to the entire Podcast of this show (#902)
CATHEDRAL CITY  Two Southern California toddlers have been found safe after authorities located the car they'd been in when it was stolen.

Cathedral City police said on Twitter that the two brothers were in their babysitter's Honda Accord when she stepped out for an errand Thursday night and someone stole it.

An Amber Alert was issued identifying the boys as 1-year-old Jayden Cortez and 2-year-old Carlos Cortez.

The car and the children were found early Friday in Desert Hot Springs.

Police say they have no information on the suspect.

Desert Hot Springs is about 12 miles north of Palm Springs and about 100 miles east of Los Angeles.
WASHINGTON  Now that the effort to overhaul the nations health care system has collapsed, the Trump administration is turning its attention to tax reform.

President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that the administration will now focus on gaining congressional approval for a sweeping tax overhaul plan.

Trumps comments came after Republicans were forced to cancel a House vote on their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act because they could not get the support needed for passage.

After Republicans pulled the health measure, Trump told reporters at the White House, I would say that we will probably start going very, very strongly for the big tax cuts and tax reform. That will be next.

While the GOP decision to pull the health care proposal could be an ominous sign for tax cuts and the rest of Trumps legislative agenda, Trump was more optimistic, saying, now were going to go for tax reform, which Ive always liked.

Earlier in the day, Mnuchin, the presidents chief economic spokesman, suggested that tax reform might be easier to sell in Congress.

Health care is a very complicated issue, Mnuchin said. In a way, tax reform is a lot simpler.

During a morning interview, Mnuchin said he had been overseeing work on the administrations bill over the past two months and it would be introduced soon. He said it would be one proposal that would cover both cutting individual and corporate taxes in the same legislation.

We are not cutting this up and doing little pieces at a time, Mnuchin said.

He said the goal was still to win congressional approval of the tax measure by August. But if the timeline is delayed, he said he expected the proposal to pass by the fall.

At the White House, press secretary Sean Spicer acknowledged the August deadline is an ambitious one for such a comprehensive and complicated project, but he said its a goal the administration is going to try to stick to.

Tax reform is something the president is very committed to, Spicer told reporters. Mnuchin had lunch at the White House Friday with Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

In his earlier appearance, Mnuchin did not reveal whether the administration will include a contentious border adjustment tax that is in a House tax proposal. The measure, which would impose a 20 percent tax on imports, has positive and negative features, Mnuchin said. He also would not reveal exactly what corporate tax rate the administration would propose, other than it will be a lot lower than the current 35 percent rate.

In a wide-ranging public interview event with the news site Axios, Mnuchin also said Trumps proposal to boost infrastructure spending would probably include $100 billion to $200 billion in federal money and depend on public-private partnerships to boost the total to $1 trillion over the next decade.

Mnuchin was asked whether the administrations tax plan would lower rates at all levels but not include an absolute tax cut for high income individuals because the lower rates for the wealthy would be offset by increases in other areas such as reduced deductions. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, dubbed this goal the Mnuchin rule during his confirmation hearing.

Mnuchin did not commit specifically on the goal but said, The presidents objective is a middle income tax cut. ... Our primary focus in a tax cut for the middle income (earners) and not the top.

While Wall Street has staged a huge rally since Trumps surprising election victory, Mnuchin said he believed the market could move still higher as the administration succeeds in implementing its economic program to cut taxes and eliminate burdensome regulations.

He predicted Trumps plan would achieve economic growth of 3 percent to 3.5 percent, up significantly from anemic growth around 2 percent seen in the current recovery, the weakest in the post-World War II period. He said this is definitely not all baked in to market expectations.

The Treasury secretary, who participated in his first meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers last weekend in Baden-Baden, Germany, called the meeting a success. He said while news coverage focused on the administrations successful push to drop a pledge to oppose trade protectionism, that took only a small portion of the discussion time.

On trade, the point I made was that the president wants to have free trade ... but he wants to renegotiate deals that are not favorable for American workers, Mnuchin said.

In addition to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, Mnuchin said the administration was also planning to focus on stronger enforcement of other trade agreements.
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SACRAMENTO  For the third year running, a representative of Napa will again lead efforts in the state Assembly to study issues affecting the California wine industry.

With her appointment this month as chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Wine, Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters, will be at the forefront of identifying and examining issues that affect the wine industry in Napa and the state. In her new role, Aguiar-Curry succeeds former 4th District Assemblymember and current state Senator Bill Dodd, D-Napa, the committees previous chair.

While setup was underway Tuesday afternoon on the steps of the Capitol for National Ag Day celebrations the following day, Aguiar-Curry, in her fifth-floor office, discussed her new role and a deep-seated family background in agriculture that led her to seek it.

Explaining the committees function, Aguiar-Curry said, It gives us the opportunity to educate people about the wine industry and also for me and other legislators to find out about what are the issues for winegrowers.

The issues are many and vary throughout the state, requiring the committee to look well beyond Northern California wine country in Aguiar-Currys own district, which comprises all of Napa and Lake counties, along with parts of Yolo, Sonoma, Solano and Colusa counties.

Her goal, she said, is to hold meetings in both Northern and Southern California to educate and to find out whats going on, because the issues vary from region to region. Temperature, drought, water techniques, different kinds of (grape) varieties  all of those are different throughout the state.

Sen. Dodd, the committees previous chair, worked closely with the wine industry in Napa, in part as a member of the county Board of Supervisors for 13 years prior to assuming the Assembly seat Aguiar-Curry now holds.

But while Dodd had worked more directly with the nuances of Napas wine industry prior to chairing the committee, Aguiar-Curry cited her extensive agricultural background and its benefit to her new role.

I feel like Im really confident in doing it, she said. Ive been in ag. Ive actually been in the dirt.

Prior to her election to the Assembly in November, Aguiar-Curry was the first woman to serve as mayor of Winters, where she owns an 80-acre walnut orchard with her brothers. Her father owned a 40-acre ranch in the area, and growing up she would help farm its apricots, peaches, almonds and walnuts, she said. For the Ag Day celebrations taking place at the Capitol on Wednesday, she noted students would be visiting from Winters High School, where her father also taught agriculture for 37 years.

Aguiar-Curry described meeting with grapegrowers during her campaign who, she said, seemed apprehensive initially, but were swayed when they knew that I could talk the talk. Because I could talk about regulatory, I could talk about water, I could talk about technology in agriculture, I could talk about my concerns, the vision and they just go Yeah, we just didnt realize you know that much.

Rex Stults, government relations director for the Napa Valley Vintners, recalled meeting with Aguiar-Curry in the early days of her campaign for the Assembly. Stults said he was very impressed with her knowledge, her background in agriculture in general and her diligence in getting up to speed pretty quickly on wine industry issues.

The Vintners, Stults said, are very pleased that shes been appointed to chair the committee. It makes sense to have somebody thats representing the premier wine region in the United States to do that.

We see ourselves as a resource, Stults said of the Vintners role working with Aguiar-Curry and the committee. Representing 533 wineries in the Napa Valley, we kind of have a pulse of what is going on, what the hot topics and current issues are.

In the past, Dodds team would seek the groups input on various industry-related issues, Stults said, and we look forward to continuing to serve in that role for the assemblymember.

While no specific topic is currently at the forefront of the committees agenda, Aguiar-Curry acknowledged the need to consider a wide range of insights and opinions from small to large wineries, as well as the variety of concerns among different regions.

The issues thatll happen here will be much different than probably the issues that are happening in say Paso Robles or (the) Santa Barbara area, she pointed out.

As for potential issues concerning the Napa wine industry, Aguiar-Curry said, I wouldnt be surprised if some of it has to do with tourism and event centers and wine tasting rooms and that kind of stuff thats happening.

The issue of farmworker housing in Napa County has already garnered a set of bills from both Aguiar-Curry and Dodd. Assembly Bill 317, Aguiar-Currys bill, seeks to channel elusive state funding to the countys three farmworker housing centers. Aguiar-Curry and Dodd were each coauthors on the others bill.

Referencing the proposed legislation, and the broader farmworker housing issue, Stults said, I think it would be interesting to have some sort of hearing on that topic.

I think that Sacramento should consider using Napa Valley as a model  for other ag and wine regions in the state going forward, Stults said, and her platform as chair of this committee could provide an opportunity to do that.
artolympic/iStock/Thinkstock(FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.) -- A toddler and an infant who were reported missing and endangered in North Carolina have been found stabbed to death, authorities said.



Serenity Freeman, 2, and her 4-day old baby sister Genesis Freeman went missing in Fayetteville on Friday.



On Saturday morning, detectives located the bodies of the two girls in the Raeford area in the woods about 200 yards from the road. The children had been stabbed multiple times, according to the Hoke County Sheriffs Office.



The children were at the center of a domestic-related incident between their father, Tillman Freeman, and his wife, who was at the hospital at the time the young girls are believed to have gone missing, according to the Fayetteville Police Department.



Before the girls were found, Freeman was arrested and charged with two counts of child abuse and two counts of child endangerment on Friday, according to the Fayetteville Police Department. Police said he refused to provide any information on the whereabouts of his children.

We continue to look for the children & ask that anyone with info call 911, Detectives at 910-322-4101, or #Crimestoppers at 910-483-TIPS pic.twitter.com/wF2RwVRf3W  Fayetteville Police (@FayettevillePD) March 25, 2017

After the girls were found, authorities said Tillman was arrested and charged with two counts of first degree murder.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between the Karabakh and Azerbaijani opposing forces around 40 times, from late Friday night to early Saturday morning.

March 25, 2017, 09:24 Azerbaijan fired 220 shots at night

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 25, ARTSAKHPRESS: During this time the Azerbaijani armed forces fired more than 220 shots toward the position-holders of the Republic of Artsakh Defense Army, and with different-caliber shooting weapons, the defense army informed.

But the Artsakh defense army vanguard continue reliably maintaining their military positions.




It also does not reflect the views of the Firm of which the Author is working for.





Since the inception of this blog, the Author has avoided writing views and opinions of his clients or views and opinions which third parties has paid him to write.





The Author has maintained editorial independence since Day One.





Any individual or group affected by the opinions and views of the Author can write the author thru mangubat.patricio@gmail.com.

Opinions and views expressed in this blog are personal views of the Author and does not involve organisations and companies being serviced by the Author as part of his profession as a Strategic Communications professional.
ANCIENT ARTEFACTS unearthed in PNG provide some of the earliest evidence of human settlement.

Charred nut shells from Pandanus trees, fragments of animal bone and the remains of stone axes were found in the remote Ivane Valley near the Kokoda Track by a team led by Prof Glenn Summerhayes of New Zealands University of Otago.

The artefacts have been dated at between 49,000 and 44,000 years old. In Australia, the Lake Mungo burial ground has been dated at about the same vintage.

The PNG find "is among the earliest evidence of human habitation in this part of the world, or indeed any place outside Africa, India and the Middle East," Prof Summerhayes told Australian Geographic.

He said the evidence showed that people moved into highland valleys as soon as they got out of their canoes and did not remain on the coast through an adaptive period.

The archaeological work revealed campsites buried by volcanic ash where people made stone tools, hunted small animals and gathered the high energy nuts of the local Pandanus trees in conditions much colder than the present day.

The sites were occupied during a relatively warm phase of the last ice age when New Guinea was joined to Australia as part of the continent of Sahul.

Starch grains from yams recovered in the valley appear to have been transported there from their natural habitat closer to the country's steamy sub-tropical coast.

Prof Summerhayes led the team of archaeologists from New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea. He said the stone tools suggest the people deliberately modified the valley landscape, mostly likely to clear forest patches to promote the growth of useful plants such as Pandanus.

Our findings paint a picture of a highly mobile society that quickly adapted to and survived in a radically different environment to the coastal regions they had recently arrived from.

It is remarkable that this is occurring around 15,000 years before other modern humans would colonise Europe, Prof Summerhayes said.

All this is unprecedented evidence of careful, intentional colonisation over thousands of years, rather than people just wandering around foraging and moving on.

"These are unique footprints of humanity that challenge some current notions regarding at what stage humans can be truly said to have become modern in their thinking and behaviour.

Archaeologist Dr Andrew Fairbairn from the University of Queensland, who worked with Prof Summerhayes on the research, says it suggests early humans lived in small nomadic populations that moved up and down the mountains of PNG in search of food.

We assume [they lived in] some form of egalitarian structure, Dr Fairbairn said, but it's very difficult to say from the archaeological remains alone. It was a very cold period in history and these people were both resourceful and capable to be able to live at this altitude."

While DNA evidence proves a common ancestral link between Australia's Aborigines and their modern Melanesian cousins, rising sea levels around 8,000 years ago separated the two groups of people, leading to significant differences.

Photo: A resident of Ivane Valley, Paul Lamui, demonstrates how rocks were used to crack open Pandanus nuts - the same method used 50,000 years ago (Andrew Fairbairn)

Sources: PNG find prompts human migration rethink by Julian Swallow, Australian Geographic; Archaeologists shed new light on adaptability of modern humans ancestors, University of Otago website; 'Ancient man cool with high altitude living' by Brian Williams, The Courier-Mail, 1 October 2010

Spotters: Murray Bladwell, 'Peter'


Biological science professor Darren R. Sandquist is the new director of the California State University's California Desert Studies Consortium, which operates the Desert Studies Center. CSUF is the host campus.

For over 25 years, ecologist Darren R. Sandquist, professor of biological science, has taken countless treks to Californias arid regions to study plant ecology and teach his students about the rare and threatened plant and animal species, as well as the importance of conservation.

I love seeing others discover how amazing deserts are, said Sandquist, who studies how desert plants manage to grow, survive and reproduce in an environment with so little water.

Now in his new role as director of the California State Universitys California Desert Studies Consortium (CDSC), Sandquist is taking steps to advance cross-disciplinary research, education and training to better understand desert ecosystems.

The consortium of seven Southern California CSU campuses operates the Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx, located within the Mojave National Preserve, a federally protected area about 60 miles northeast of Barstow. CSUF serves as the host campus, providing administrative oversight of the desert field station. In its 40th year of operation, the Desert Studies Center attracts more than 2,300 visitors a year, including students, faculty members and other research scientists from across the globe.

Sandquist became consortium director last fall when longtime director William Bill Presch, professor emeritus of biological science, stepped down after serving in the post for 24 years.

What is your new role?

The consortium promotes research, education and outreach related to our California deserts. As director, I oversee consortium programs and operations of the center. This includes developing student academic skills and public awareness through instruction, research and special projects and programs  in and out of the classroom.

Why did you want the job?

I applied for the position because Im a great believer in the consortiums mission and field-based education. Having used the center since I arrived at CSUF in 1999, I believe it is an irreplaceable resource for both education and research, and I want to help increase the visibility and appreciation of both the consortium and center.

What has been the most rewarding so far?

Two things: The passion for the center expressed by our users  ranging from CSUF students who have visited multiple times to first-time visitors from as far away as the United Kingdom. The place can be infectious. What I always look forward to most is being at the center when students are there and seeing them discover and learn, and maybe even get hooked on desert research. Weve also received tremendous support from practically every level at CSUF, and I really appreciate that commitment.

What is your vision for the center?

I cant stop thinking of things Id like to see us accomplish. One of the main emphases right now is to increase our role in desert research. Research meets many important educational objectives, in addition to providing evidence-based information for decision-making and prudent management of desert ecosystems. I also want to provide greater opportunity for underrepresented students in STEM disciplines to both participate in academic field experiences and engage in field research.

I also look forward to building stronger relationships with our partner universities and with the Mojave National Preserve. Collectively, we have a tremendous amount of expertise in desert systems  and the consortium should be instrumental in mobilizing that expertise to help address the current and rising challenges faced by the wild and human residents of these arid environments.
I believe such perceptions are an insult to Dulcianas intellect and professional achievements such as being the deputy director of the Pacific Policy Institute and attaining degrees in law and political science.

I am writing because I believe there is a misconception that she is running for the East Sepik Governors post to replace her father, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare.

I AM NOT writing to defend Dulciana Somare-Brash against recent negative social media posts. She doesnt need anyone to fight her battles. Instead I am writing in support of her.

Papua New Guinea is a democracy and not a monarchy. Dulciana is a citizen of Papua New Guinea who has the Constitutional right and leadership skills that qualify her to stand for public office.

Her connection to the Somare family is a biological predetermination and not her personal choice. No one chooses the family they are born into.

It is therefore unfair on Dulciana to have the sins of her family members strung around her neck and dragged out in public.

No one should carry the blame for the sins of their parents or siblings. Every person including Dulciana should be judged on individual merit.

Christians know that salvation and judgement are based on individual faith and actions. If one is to apply the same principle in determining Dulcianas suitability to hold public office, many of the accusations against her do not hold water.

Even the narrative that a woman cannot lead the people of East Sepik for cultural reasons is a fallacy.

Of course one must respect traditional cultural institutions and the delegation of roles and responsibilities of men and women within the village setting. But to assume that the people of the East Sepik automatically apply customary practices to modern political institutions is an insult to the intelligence of Sepik voters.

The voters of East Sepik have been some of the most progressive in PNG. Their faith in Grand Chief Sir Michael Somares vision of an independent Papua New Guinea gave birth to a modern democracy that has stood the test of time.

I believe the people of the Sepik are forward thinkers who see the great need for development policy expertise in PNGs next parliament and are willing to help steer this canoe into the right direction.
The Auburn Rotary Club will host the first of a new series of Blue & Gold Club meetings at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6, at the Knights of Columbus Council 207, 47 Market St., Auburn.

The series provides an introduction to the club for those who might not be interested in joining and can't attend its normal Tuesday noontime meetings. Guests can meet members and learn about the club's 102-year history and current projects.

There will be pizza, soda and other beverages. A donation of $3 is suggested.

For more information, call (315) 729-0172 or (315) 246-8117, or visit auburnrotaryny.org.
"On behalf of the government, the people of India and on my own behalf, it is with immense pleasure that I extend warm greetings and felicitations to Your Excellency and the people of Bangladesh on the occasion of your National Day," Mukherjee said in a message to Bangladesh President Md. Abdul Hamid.

Lauding the recent strides in the bilateral relationship between the two countries, Mukherjee said: "We have succeeded in enhancing and intensifying our co-operation in areas of our shared interest. I am confident that our joint efforts will contribute to the realisation of the aspirations of our respective peoples."

President Mukherjee also wished for the continued progress and prosperity of the people of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh declared its independence from Pakistan on March 26, 1971.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled for a state visit to India from April 7-10.

--IANS rs/sm/bg

( 184 Words)

2017-03-25-14:28:07 (IANS)
A candle light march and seminar were part of programmes held on Saturday in Tripura to mark Bangladesh's observance of "Genocide Day" - in remembrance of the atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army on this day in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, 46 years ago. The programmes were organised by the Bangladesh Assistant High Commission here as part of the observance of the Day for the first time in the 46 year history of post-independence Bangladesh. Following a recent decision taken by the Bangladesh cabinet headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the country is observing March 25 as "Genocide Day" all across the world, Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh Mohammad Shakhawat Hossain told IANS. In Agartala, a seminar was held highlighting the importance of the day. Hossain and noted Bangladesh theatre and film director Nasiruddin Yousuff were among the participants. Bangladesh Assistant High Commission officials, other staff and their families took part in the candle light march in the city in memory of those who lost their lives, following a brutal crackdown ordered by the then Pakistani military rulers on protesters in Dhaka on March 25, 1971, after refusing to hand over power to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose party Awami League won the 1970 general election. The "Genocide Day" was observed a day before the Bangladesh Independence Day and National Day to be celebrated on Sunday. Hossain said a series of day-long functions have been lined up in Agartala on Sunday on the occasion. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar will be among the dignitaries at the programmes. A few days after the Pakistani forces had unleashed massive attacks across that country, Bangladeshi leaders vowed to win their independence on March 26, 1971, when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman launched a massive guerilla fight against the then Pakistani rulers. The Liberation War later turned into a full-scale India-Pakistan War, leading to the surrender of 93,000 Pakistani soldiers in Dhaka on December 16, 1971. India was the first country to recognise Bangladesh as a sovereign nation. According to Bangladeshi freedom fighters and experts, Pakistani forces during the nine months of Liberation War (March 26 to December 16, 1971) massacred over three million Bengali-speaking people, including children, and gang-raped over six lakh women. Over one crore families were uprooted from their ancestral homes and lands during that period. --IANS sc/ssp/pgh/rn ( 395 Words) 2017-03-25-21:12:07 (IANS)
The Financing Agreement was signed under the presence of Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs on behalf of Government of India and Hisham Abdo, Acting Country Director, World Bank (India) on behalf of the World Bank.

A Project Agreement was also signed by Dr. Neeraj Kharwal, Additional Secretary (Health), Government of Uttarakhand and Hisham Abdo, Acting Country Director, World Bank.

The objective of the project is to improve access to quality health services, particularly in the hilly districts of the State, and to expand health financial risk protection for residents of the State.

It will benefit the residents of hilly districts in particular with two main

components including innovations of engaging the private sector; and stewardship and system improvement.

The international financial institution aims to contribute USD 25 million to the State Government out of the total project size of USD 125 million.

The planned design of the project consists of multiple self-contained clusters of clinical services managed by operators on a PPP basis, providing services for free or at nominal charges, backed up by a robust oversight and monitoring mechanism fully integrated with the expanded health insurance program in the State. This will be concurrent with strengthening the state's capacity to implement the project. (ANI)
The wildlife conservation worker, like most of their subjects, is an elusive person. To celebrate the outstanding contribution of these simple, hardworking, humble yet extraordinary people, ZEISS group acknowledged these talented individuals in wildlife conservation through their annual ZEISS Wildlife Conservation Awards and this year on March 24th, 2017 at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi. 17th ZEISS Wildlife Conservation Awards was back to celebrate the selfless work of these extraordinary people in nature and wildlife conservation. Since 2000, every year Carl Zeiss, as a socially responsible corporate, has been acknowledging the outstanding contribution made by talented individuals in wildlife conservation. There have been 80 awardees till now and this year another six joined the honours list. The jury that decided the awardees includes Valmik Thapar, Tiger Specialist and Mr. Umender Shah, Business Head, Consumer Optics, Carl Zeiss India. The Lifetime Wildlife Conservation Award was presented to Bholu A. Khan who has spent his entire life working for the welfare of the Bharatpur Wetlands. He served in the forest department for 38 years and spent all his life caring for the park at Bharatpur. He monitored the park on a daily basis and fought with encroachers, poachers and wild res. The winners for Wildlife Conservation Award 2017 are: Bijo Joy - Deputy Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) at Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur who is instrumental towards the nature conservation. Dr. Rina Dev - She runs a critical care center for birds and exotic species in Mumbai. She is a specialist in Avian Orthopedic Surgeries and Critical Care. Nikhil Devasar, founder of Delhi bird group, has spearheaded many of the group's conservation efforts awareness and education programs for young people, monitors the status of the birdlife as well as their habitats and also discovers new birding sites while keeping the authorities abreast of the problems in the existing ones. Kalyan Varma- An award winning Wildlife Photographer, Filmmaker and Conservationist specializing in Environment, Ecology and Conservation in India. Minaram Gogoi-A daily wage labourer dedicated to the conservation of wildlife and its habitat at Nameri National Park, since 1991. Congratulating these awardees, Mr. Daniel Sims, Managing Director, Carl Zeiss India said, "It is a privilege for ZEISS to recognize and support these outstanding contributions to the conservation of India's natural species. We hope that as they have inspired the judges, that this award helps them to continue inspiring others to support conservation in India. " The past awardees include individuals from different spectrum of work and regions of India such that forest officers, forest guards, wildlife biologists, researchers, conservation practitioners, birders, writers, photographers and filmmakers. Commenting about the award night, Vikram Thapar, said "I am delighted that ZEISS has instituted an annual award for wildlife conservation. This will give an enormous boost to our efforts to save tigers and the rich wildlife of our country. The superb vision that ZEISS Binoculars provide will be a great asset for all those engaged in saving India's rapidly declining wildlife." The event was a token of gratitude to the real champions of our society who are constantly striving to safeguard our beautiful nature, salute to their passion and commitment. (ANI)
Vestas Wind Systems, the world's leading wind power solutions provider, today inaugurated a state-of-the-art wind turbine blade manufacturing unit in Gujrat. The establishment of the factory showcases Vestas' support to Prime Minister Modi's "Make in India" initiative and is expected to create hundreds of local jobsChief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani inaugurated the factory situated in Gallops Industrial Park, Bavla, Ahmedabad. This launch follows the commitment that Vestas' Chairman, Bert Nordberg, and Vestas' President and CEO, Anders Runevad, made to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2015. During the meeting with Modi, Vestas also committed to partnering with the Indian government in providing innovative solutions to make the Indian wind power sector "Best in Class" and the "Most Affordable" through Vestas'global experience and technology leadership. Vestas is also partnering with the Skill Council of India and is looking to hire hundreds for the new manufacturing unit. Today, Vestas has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Govt. of Gujarat to establish wind power projects over the next three to four years. If the MoU translates into firm and unconditional orders, the projects will bring investment and additional jobs to the state. Marketing and Public Affairs Director of Vestas India, Amar Variawa, said, "Vestas has put a strong strategic focus on India because of the ambitious target of 60 GW of wind installation by 2022. The new factory, is a promise fulfilled, and I'm very proud it only took 15 months from we made our commitment to our Prime Minister Modi to the inauguration today. The factory will expand Vestas' footprint in India, and reduce lead-time for blades supply, making Vestas more competitive in India. India's future energy mix belongs to clean energy and the wind energy market looks very strong. We will do our best to convert the MoU into firm and unconditional orders in coming time in the state." (ANI)
She may have carved a niche for herself across borders, but it looks like Priyanka Chopra is very much connected to her roots. In an interview to Marie Claire, the 34-year-old actor said, "I am like most Indian people. Because we are such an old culture, like 5,000 years old, there are a lot of little superstitions. So if something good happens in my life, I don't like talking about it too much." "I believe a lot in evil eye. It's called 'nazar' in India. If something nice or good is happening, you protect it," she added. She recently shared the link of the interview on her Twitter handle. PeeCee's forthcoming 'Baywatch' movie landed her eighth American magazine cover for its April issue, wherein she opened up about trusting her gut. "I like to find my own way, which is something my parents always encouraged in me," she says. "They were like: 'You got you.' I think my inherent sense of confidence comes from that. Also, my mom used to always tell me, 'You could make the biggest screw-up on the planet, but you can come tell me and I'll help you fix it.' And my dad used to tell me, 'You kill someone, break a car, you come and tell me. I'll fix it for you.'" The 'Quantico' star also talked about philanthropy and how that has been an essential part of her childhood. "Giving back was a big part of my upbringing. When you get so much, you've got to find a way to give back. You don't need a fat wallet. Time is something each one of us has and all it really takes to make the world better-and intention" (ANI)
Jake Gyllenhaal is all set to star in a drama about an American who joins the fight against Islamic state in Syria, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Gyllenhaal will be reteaming with 'Life' director Daniel Espinosa for this project, which is an adaptation of the Rolling Stone article, 'The Anarchist vs. ISIS'.

Espinosa is set to direct the film adaptation and will produce under his newly formed production banner BOZI alongside Ninestories' producers Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker.

"Thematically, we're often attracted to material about the search for identity, especially in a world where it's become easier to feel less and less connected. Seth's story is about people who abandon everything that's familiar as a means to connect in the most brutal of circumstances," said Marker in a statement.

Written by Seth Harp, the Rolling Stone article tells the true story of a ragtag team of American volunteers, socialists and outcasts who are fighting alongside the Kurdish militia known as the YPG to beat ISIS in Syria and establish an anarchist collective amid the rubble of war.

On a related note, Jake Gyllenhaal can be currently seen in 'Life,' alongside Ryan Reynolds and Rebeacca Fergusson.(ANI)
After six days of wide protests, Maharashtra resident doctors called off their strike and re-joined their duties with immediate effect in the wee hours on Saturday. The announcement was made after meeting Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan, who accepted all the demands put forward by the doctors, assuring the same in writing. Dr. Amol Parate of the Nair Hospital said it was an achievement for them, adding that they were glad with the decision. "Representative from each medical college met Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan. He accepted all our demands and within the time-bound period. He accepted the demands we had put forward through this mass leave. All colleges have been informed to join back with immediate effect," he told ANI. Dr. Amit, also from the Nair Hospital, informed that they had called-off their mass bunk and would resume their duties with immediate effect. "The government was giving us assurance verbally, but we wanted an assurance in writing which we have got today. The government has said that it will fulfill our demands such as security, two-pass system, alarm system within 15 days," he told ANI. "The government has accepted all our demands. All the doctors are joining back with immediate effect. The medical representatives of each college will be conveying the same to their respective college after which the doctors will join back their duties," he added. Doctors first and foremost demand was security i.e. presence of armed personnel in the hospital premises. Till now, there was no ground-level implementation, according to a doctors' statement. They were only being given assurances, but now the Medical Education Minister has set police personnel in every college. "Till April 5, there will be temporary force that will then be replaced by special Armed Forces of the Maharashtra State Security Corporation," one of the doctors told ANI. The strike by Maharashtra's doctors, who were protesting a spate of assaults on colleagues by patients' relatives, lasted for six days. Earlier on Friday, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) called off its strike after the Bombay High Court issued an order that punitive action can be taken against them by the Maharashtra Government and the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) if the doctors do not return to work by tomorrow. Following the warning, the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) earlier in the day assured that they would return to work by 8 a.m. the next day. Disassociating itself from the strike, the MARD had through an affidavit told the High Court that they don't have any objection if action is taken against the agitating doctors. (ANI)
Appreciating the U.K. Government for clearing India's request for the extradition of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Saturday said the 'fugitive' was needed in the country for questioning and examination. CPI leader D. Raja said the Indian Government should perceive the issue and see Mallya comes back to India as early as possible. "If you go by legal terms, Vijay Mallya is a fugitive and is needed here for questioning, examination, for his default of public sector banks. This issue has been raised in the Parliament and outside it also. Now, the British Government has agreed for his extradition and the Government of India should perceive the issue and see he comes back to India as early as possible," Raja told ANI. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday informed that extradition of absconding Mallya has been certified by Secretary of State of the U.K. Government and soon a warrant would be released against him. "Somewhere in the month in the month of February, the home office of the U.K. Government conveyed that India's request for extradition of Mallya has been certified by Secretary of State and sent to Westminster Magistrate court for a district judge consider issue of releasing of warrant," MEA official spokesperson Gopal Bagley said. Earlier in March, the Supreme Court fast-tracked the proceedings against Mallya and reserved its order on contempt proceedings against him for allegedly diverting $40 million to his children's accounts in foreign banks in violation of court orders. A bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit reserved its order on whether or not Mallya was guilty of contempt and what action should be taken to bring back the money. The court concluded the proceedings after a three-and-a-half-hour hearing during which the Centre contended that Mallya was mocking the Indian system after fleeing the country. It said the government was holding talks with U.K. authorities to get him deported. (ANI)
The Janata Dal (United) on Saturday took a dig at the newly-elected Uttar Pradesh Government, saying that the Bihar Police was capable of handling miscreants without forming 'anti-Romeo' squads. JD(U) leader Ajay Alok said the ones pointing finger at Bihar's law and order situation should first see Uttar Pradesh where the need for 'anti-Romeo' squads emerged. "Our police are capable of handling miscreants without forming any 'anti-Romeo' squad. They don't need to worry." he told ANI. Another JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav said that the government should stop doing such drama and fulfill what they promised during the recently held assembly elections. "During the elections, the BJP had said that it would first waive off farmers' loans. What they are doing (anti-Romeo squad) is the work of police. According to the Constitution, adults have the right to marry anybody irrespective of caste or religion. This drama should not be done. Police is roaming with law in their hands," Yadav told ANI. Following Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's orders for the safety of girls in the state, Director General of Police (DGP) Javeed Ahmed on Wednesday launched 'anti-Romeo' squads to check on eve-teasing in public areas. Ahmed also tweeted saying "Safety of girls or ladies is the sole intent of the anti-Romeo squads. No moral policing." Adityanath had directed the state police to adopt a zero tolerance towards crime and take immediate steps towards improving law and order in the state. (ANI)
The Montezuma Audubon Center will hold Derby Hill Hawk Watch trips from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, and Saturday, April 22, at the center, 2295 Route 89, Savannah.

Participants will take a van trip to Lake Ontario to see spring raptor migration and potentially see bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, turkey vultures and more.

The tour costs $25 for adults and $17.50 for children, and is sponsored by the Onondaga Audubon Society. Participants are encouraged to bring a packed lunch.

For more information, call (315) 365-3588 or email montezuma@audubon.org.
Dissociating the term 'anti-Romeo squad' from the Indian culture, Congress leader Salman Khurshid on Saturday said that some other name such as 'Heer-Ranjha' or 'Laila-Majnu' could instead have been taken, adding that it was the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) anti-cultural approach which led to this. Slamming the government over its recent move, Khurshid said it could not direct somebody on how to lead his life. "Discussion can be made on how it is right or wrong. A limit can be defined about it. Will the government decide how will one lead his life? This is wrong. If there is eve-teasing, there should be a check on it and it should be stopped but it will be very unfortunate if police resorts to teasing through this," Khurshid told ANI. Dubbing it as their regressive mindset, another Congress leader Meem Afzal said the BJP was pulling people 100 years back by this policy of theirs. "On one hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to make India like Europe, London and America and on the other hand, he wants to take youth, women and everybody 100 years back with this anti-Romeo squad and do moral policing as it used to take place a century ago. This gives an impression about the BJP's policies and ideology. Their policies do not match with their ideologies," he told ANI. Following Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's orders for the safety of girls in the state, Director General of Police (DGP) Javeed Ahmed on Wednesday launched 'anti-Romeo' squads to check on eve-teasing in public areas. Ahmed also tweeted saying "Safety of girls or ladies is the sole intent of the anti-Romeo squads. No moral policing." Adityanath had directed the state police to adopt a zero tolerance towards crime and take immediate steps towards improving law and order in the state. (ANI)
Ending their five-day strike, the resident doctors resumed their duties on Saturday morning upon receiving assurances from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and following the intervention by the Bombay High Court about their security. The Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) said in a statement that their meeting with the Chief Minister was satisfactory. "The state government has issued a letter of assurance and we feel our demands are being addressed. Adequate security will be deployed across hospitals. A 2-pass system per patient will be started immediately at casualty, while one pass will be allowed per patient in general wards. Visiting hours have been fixed at 7.30 am and 8.30 am in the morning, while 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm in the evening," a representative said in the statement. The statement further stated that, because of a few irresponsible people, they can't deny the rights of the poor in getting adequate treatment. "FIR regarding assault on doctors on duty is to be lodged strictly under the Doctor's Protection Act 2010 and by the institute. In emergency situations, an alarm to inform the staff will be installed at all government hospitals by April 30, 2017. All charges and punitive actions taken against doctors including expulsion to be revoked completely with no bearing of such actions on their academics in the future", he said. Further adding, "The Maharashtra State security corporation has been ordered to provide essential security in all government medical colleges accordingly 1,100 security guards shall be provided for the same. In the first stage, 500 security guards shall be provided by April 5 in Mumbai. In the second stage Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, while in the third stage the entire state will be covered by April 30. Out of the guards provided, some will be armed and will be deployed at sensitive locations," representative said. Yesterday, the doctors had called off the strike after Fadnavis gave an ultimatum to striking resident doctors to resume duty or face legal action. Mumbai Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan also asserted that state doctors have agreed to resume work by 8 am on Saturday, More than a thousand doctors in Maharashtra were protesting since Monday, demanding better security at hospitals with the increase in incidents of attacks by patients' relatives. The Emergency ward and Out Patient Department (OPD) have been affected the most by the ongoing strike. The Bombay High Court earlier on Tuesday ordered Maharashtra's resident doctors to resume work immediately or face action by the management. The court has specifically said that the hospital management is free to initiate action and contempt proceedings against the doctors on strike. While asking them to resume their duties immediately, the High Court on Tuesday said that it will hear the junior doctors' mass leave issue today. The state government has told the court that medical services in Maharashtra were paralysed because 60 per cent of the resident doctors across the state went on strike. (ANI)
Former Congress MP V. Hanumantha Rao was on Saturday detained for protesting over the FIR lodged against him for misbehaving with a policeman. "This is a conspiracy against me. I am from a backward class and, therefore, they are trying to put pressure on me. I did not say anything wrong," Rao told the media here. He added that such incidents do not take place in a democracy as this is the hooliganism of policemen. "I just asked why I am being stopped and who gave you the orders, on this they filed an FIR against me," he said. According to reports, Rao was seen shouting at a police official in the Telangana Assembly premises on Friday. The incident was captured in a video. A case has been registered in this regard against Rao in Hyderabad's Saifabad Police Station under Sections 353, 294-B and 504 of the Indian Penal code (IPC). Earlier on Friday, Rao had lashed out at a police officer for not allowing him to hold a press conference in Hyderabad and alleged that this reflected the dictatorial attitude of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. "I hold press conference on public issues, on how the government is treating people and what public has to say on this. I have been doing this since a long time. The dictatorship of the Chief Minister is visible which is growing every day. I did not misbehave with anybody. The government is trying to shut the voice of people," Rao said. "A Circle Inspector came and stopped me. He did not have the right to do so. But the Marshall told me to continue with my press conference. I asked them why I am being stopped from holding the conference and on whose orders," he added. Asserting that he being a former MLA has the right to hold a press conference, Rao said: "I was insulted for no reason which I will not accept." (ANI)
An inmate, identified as Sk Mongal, sustainedknife wounds during clashes between two groups of inmates inside high security Presidency jail in south Kolkata, police investigating the case said today. Sk Mongal, a criminal arrested from Kidderpore and undergoingtrial, was taken to SSKM Hospital where he was admitted with knife injuries. The Hasting Police station was investigating how knife and othersharp weapons had been smuggled inside the high-security prison in the city. The reserved force inside the jail was deployed after the rival groupsof Sk Ramua and Kallu were involved in clashes.UNI PC SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-1202698.Xml
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tripura state committee today charged the Left Front government with playing dirty politics with the common mass in the past 24 years and slammed CPI-M MP Jitendra Choudhury for triggering ''anti-India'' sentiment. BJP president Biplab Kumar Deb said CPI-M has been fomenting the situation in bordering villages of South Tripura after an unfortunate incident that killed three civilians, including a woman, in BSF firing on March 18 last. He alleged CPI-M party in an orgnised manner was campaigning against Border Security Force (BSF) following the programme and MP Choudhury unnecessarily was trying to trigger tension on communal line. They were trying to portray that BSF killed the civilians because they were tribals and branded them as smuggler, which was not yet confirmed. "Soon after the incident BSF authority sent top officials of the force to visit the spot and interacted with the all concerns including Chief minister and ordered court of enquiry while home minister Rajnath Singh assured all possible action and help to the victim families but CPI-M is simply suppressing the facts and terrorizing the situation," Deb alleged. He further stated according to the commitment made, BJP state committee today handed over cheque of Rs 50,000 to each deceased's family and Rs 15,000 to two injured persons as financial assistance. Deb also alleged that MP Choudhury raised anti-India slogans in social media and it reflects that he is having an investigative agency and submitted chargesheet over the killing of villagers at Harbatali. Without completion of investigation by police, he has been accusing BSF. While demanding investigation into the incident, he said party assured the families that BJP will take the responsibility of study of the children of these deceased's families. The party also urged the state government to hand over Rs 5 lakh to each of the deceased's family and offer government job to a family member.UNI BB SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-1202745.Xml
Puzzolana Group, a pioneer in infra machinery manufacturing solutions today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tata International (TI) to expand its footprint in the international market like Africa. The MoU was signed by Puzzolana Group Managing Director Prakash Pai and Tata International Executive Director and Head, Distribution Vertical Mr Len J Brand. Puzzolana Group, a pioneer in infra machinery manufacturing offers comprehensive solutions across design, manufacture, supply, installation and commissioning of Crushing & Screening plants on turnkey basis. The company has two in-house foundries in Telangana and one at Karnataka, producing about 36,000 tons annual capacity of steel castings. Its state-of-art-technology cater to diverse sectors including roads, mining, marine and defence sectors. The brand holds 47 per cent market share in the domestic market and has over 70 installations spread across 20 overseas locations. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Prakash Pai said "As part of the agreement, Tata International will be the distribution partner of Puzzolana for its Crushing & Screening business in the African Continent. This agreement will enable us to leverage Tata International's strength and expand our footprint in the tremendously potential African markets", he said. Mr Brand said " Tata International recognize that infrastructure development is crucial in Africa and it requires a cost effective solutions to drive best value for money. In Tata it is our endeavor to uplift the social level of community and this is a step in that direction to have this tie up and bring Puzzolana Indian products in Africa. This is the foundation stone in the Tata-Puzzolana partnership and we look forward to combining our industry knowledge with Puzzolan's world-class product range to offer a 'one-stop-shop for infra and mining customers", he said. Puzzolana Director Abhijeet Pai said in India, the total industry market size was Rs 2000 crore. The company has posted 100 per cent growth last year and expecting 110 per cent growth present fiscal. The company's exports was 15 per cent and expecting 50 per cent growth by 2025, he added. He said that the company also planning to enter North America as inorganic (acquisition) method.UNI VV CS 1453 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1202801.Xml
With the new industry policy announced by the Puducherry Government, entrepreneurs have started showing interest and are investing in the Union Territory.Addressing a press conference here today, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said to attract investors, the administration had announced several concessions in the industrial sector and issued 15 Government orders providing subsidies such as capital subsidy, interest subsidy, non-polluting subsidy, new technology subsidy among others.He said with this entrepreneurs from not only within the country, but also from countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, Germany and England. Discussions are already on with entrepreneurs from Dubai and Abu Dhabi on setting up of food processing and pharmaceutical industries in the union territory. Single window clearance has been arranged for the benefit of entrepreneurs.Mr Narayansamy said following request from the administration, the union government had agreed to provide more gas to the gas based power plant in Karaikal to enhance the power generation. Talks are on with the officials of the territorial administration and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) to provide more gas to the power plant from Narimanam to enhance the power generation from the present 25.2 MW to 100 MW.He added that steps are begin taken to supply cooking gas in every households in Puducherry and Karaikal regions through pipeline.The issue was taken up with the Centre and Puducherry was told that the connection could be given when the project to lay gas pipe line from Manali to Kanyakumari was taken up.On the ongoing dredging of the estuary by the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), the Chief Minister said they have delayed the process forcing the fishermen to turn against the government seeking compensation as they could not venture into the sea for over five months. The compensation would be sought from the DCI, he said adding that a fresh tender was floated and the contract to dredge one lakh cubic meter of sand was entrusted with a private party.UNI PAB CJ SW SNU 1529 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1202696.Xml
Defence experts on Saturday welcomed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's assertion that India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh by 2018 and said the terrorists sponsored by the ISIS have been infiltrating through the same route in the states of Assam and West Bengal. Defence expert Brigadier (Retd.) Anil Gupta said it is an important decision as the Bangladeshis have been sneaking into the Indian territory through this porous border. "We have the Muslims of Burma who have been infiltrating into India and especially terrorists sponsored by the ISIS who are infiltrating into India in the states of Assam and Bengal to make their bases there ," Brigadier (Retd.) Gupta told ANI. Another defence expert Commodore (Retd.) Praful Bakshi on his part said the borders between Islamabad, New Delhi and Dhaka must be properly sealed because illegal entries through these borders, especially from the Bangladesh side, have become a nightmare for India. "It does not mean the people will not be allowed to cross the border, but everything will be legalised in a proper Standard operating Procedure. Proper documentation will be done that will keep illegal entrants under check," he told ANI. The Home Minister earlier in the day said that India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh as soon as possible. "India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh as soon as possible. This could be India's major step against terrorism and the problem of refugees," he said in his address at the passing out parade of the Border Security Force Assistant Commandants at the BSF Academy in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh. Singh further said that the border with Pakistan would be sealed by 2018, adding this decision has been taken in the wake of the increase in infiltration attempts. "The project will be periodically monitored by the Home Secretary at the Central-level, the BSF from the security forces' perspective and the Chief Secretaries at the state-level," Singh said, adding that the government would apply technological solutions for sealing the border in difficult terrains. The government's decision to seal the border comes in the wake of rising tensions between India and Pakistan after the September 18 terror attack on a military base in Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian Army's surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control.(ANI)
A case has been registered against four former officials of a Syndicate Bank and six others in connection with an alleged fraud of Rs 209 crore in two branches of the bank in Rajasthan, a CBI spokesperson said. He said the case was registered under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act, following a complaint from Syndicate Bank against two fomer AGMs and two fomer Chief Managers related to a fraud of Rs 209 cr in its two branches at Jaipur and Udaipur. "It was alleged in the complaint that the accused in criminal conspiracy with each other availed home loans/ credit facilities from both the branches of the Bank on the basis of forged and fabricated documents. The funds disbursed by the Bank were diverted and fraudulently siphoned off to the companies owned by accused persons, thereby causing an alleged loss to the bank," the spokesperson said. He said that searches were conducted today at four places including Jaipur, Ajmer at the residence/ official premises of the accused persons. "It was also informed that two accused are still in judicial custody and other one accused is on bail on medical grounds in another case which was registered during March last and chargesheeted by CBI," the spokesperson said. UNI DS SHK 1802 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0177-1202984.Xml
Onondaga Community College will host the Upstate New York College Diversity Summit for the National Diversity Council Tri-State Diversity Council on April 1.

The event will be held at Gordon Student Center, Onondaga Community College campus, 4585 West Seneca Turnpike, Syracuse from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Empowering Tomorrows Leaders is the event's theme, with focuses on job skills encouraging workforce development, among other topics.

Roland Martin, host and managing editor of News One Now, will be the keynote speaker.

Dr. Carlos Medina, vice chancellor and chief diversity officer for SUNY System Administration will emcee the event.
The Meghalaya government has failed to realise royalty amounting to Rs 16.47 crore on 2.44 lakh metric ton of declared/assessed coal following the interim ban imposed National Green Tribunal on mining of coal in the State. Section 9 (2) of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) MMDR, Act lays down that every licensee or permit holder or lease shall pay the prescribed royalty in respect of mineral or consumed by him. In Meghalaya, the apex Green court banned the mining coal, but it however, constituted a committee to oversee the transportation of the transportation of extracted coal from across the state. The Committee also framed guidelines inter alia that royalty was payable on the quantity of extracted coal declared by the mine owners or assessed by the NGT, whichever was higher. The State's Mining and Geology department had directed that payment of royalty of Rs 675 per metric ton on coal should be made by mine owners within 45 days from the date of issue of permits by Directorate of Mineral Resources. Failure to pay royalty entails penalty at 25 per cent of the royalty amount. However, the Comptroller and the Auditor General (CAG) of India for the year ending March 31, 2016 revealed that 111 mine owners of East Jaintia Hills and nine miner owners of West Jaintia Hills under the jurisdiction of the DistriMO, Jowai (November 2015) that 4.16 lakh metric ton of extracted coal was declared/assessed as on November 2014 on which royalty of Rs 28.08 crore was payable. UNI RRK RN 1743 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0311-1203064.Xml
Pitching for development of Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday silenced all critics while asserting that any kind of discrimination will not be sponsored in the name of caste, religion and sex. "There will be no discrimination in name of caste, religion and sex. There will be overall development," Adityanath said in his address at the Maharana Pratap Inter College here. Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Adityanath said that the former has entrusted him with the responsibility to make the dreams of the state true. "Prime Minister Modi's development programmes are being made available to all the citizens. He had laid foundation for a fertilizer company and AIIMS hospital. Now we are confident that the population of the state will not feel left out. He wants that every citizen must get benefit from the schemes of the government," he added. Highlighting the loopholes of the previous government, Adityanath said Prime Minister Modi was worried as how to fix things and bring development in the state. "Brain drain was a problem. Businessmen were moving out, youngsters didn't see hope. Women, anganwadi workers continue to protest, and no heed was paid to the plight of workers and government employees," he added. Adityanath further vowed to turn Uttar Pradesh as developed state, saying that they would dedicate themselves to the service of the state. "We will fulfil all our promises. Uttar Pradesh will be turned into a developed state. We need your support to make that happen," he added. Vowing to curb corruption in the state, Adityanath said they will show as how the government works and performs. Slamming the hooliganism prevailing in the state, Adityanath said," Gorakhpur has been a laboratory for all such criminal activities. People would get scared if you told them you were from Gorakhpur. But now safety will be guaranteed. We want your support. Your support will be my strength to ensure law and order and safety here," he added. Adityanath, who is on a two-day tour to Gorakhpur has visited the city for the first time after taking charge as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. He is also scheduled to visit Gorakhnath temple after holding a road show. The entire city has been covered with billboards and banners for his welcome, while the local administration has provided adequate security. (ANI)
Over 100 people, including former minister P Rajavelu, were arrested for organising an agitation. They were protesting against the reported termination of more than 250 daily rated employees working with the boat house under the Tourism Development Corporation. The daily rated workers, along with Mr Rajavelu, locked the main gate of the boat house and organised a protest, preventing tourists coming to the boat house from entering it.As the agitation lasted for more than two hours, police arrested them.UNI PAB SHS RJ 1946 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1203271.Xml
India's Budget Airlines Vistara today launched its flights to Leh from New Delhi. According to an Airlines statement the flights will operate on Saturday and Sundays till May 9, 2017 and then it will be converted into daily flight. A spokesperson said, "We will be operating direct flights between Delhi and Leh on weekends from March 25, 2017 and thereafter, increase the frequency to daily flights starting May 10, 2017 onwards. Bookings are now open with an introductory one-way base fare of Rs 1,657 from Delhi. "With convenient same-terminal connections between domestic and international flights at Delhi Airport's T3, our new flights will open up Leh to more foreign visitors as well," Vistara CEO, Phee Teik Yeoh said.The Delhi-based airline currently flies to 19 domestic destinations with over 500 flights a week and has a fleet of 13 Airbus A320 aircraft.Leh is the seventh destination for Vistara in northern India. The other destinations in the region are Delhi, Jammu, Srinagar, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Lucknow.UNI ADP SHK 1943 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0429-1203344.Xml
Police recovered banned currency notes valued at Rs 2.49 lakh from a disused well of an ancient temple at Thiruvathavur, near here this evening. Police said a devotee who looked into the well located inside the Arulmigu Thirumarainathar Temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, stunned to see scrapped Rs 500 currency notes inside it. On a complaint from the temple authorities, police recovered banned Rs 500 notes valued around Rs 2.49 lakh. Melur police have registered a case and are investigating. UNI GSM CS 2006 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1203383.Xml
A day after the Indian Coast Guard apprehended a Pakistani boat with nine persons on board in Indian waters, the Pakistan Marine Security Agency today took away eight Indian boats with over 50 fishermen from near the international maritime boundary line (IMBL). These boats were captured from Arabian Sea off Jakhau Coast. Confirming the incident, National Fish Workers Forum Secretary Manish Lodhari said initially, reports of Pakistanis capturing four boats with 24 fishermen was received but later information of five more boats came in. He said the number of boats captured by the Pakistani Marine Agency may go up as they were still verifying the number of boats and fishermen in the region, which had gone out for fishing from Okha or Mangrol off Gujarat coast. The fishermen from India and Pakistan venture deep into the sea for better catch, at times inadvertently fishing in the region of disputed maritime boundary, leading to their capture. This being the peak season, the number of fishermen being captured by the Indian Coast Guard as well as Pakistani agency has been on the rise. Since the beginning of this calendar year, 25 boats with over 200 fishermen have been captured by the Indian security agencies, while Pakistanis have caught over 370 fishermen with over 60 boats in the last seven months. UNI ND PY RJ 2022 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1203427.Xml
The Ministerial Committee of both the Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will meet at the Raj Bhavan here tomorrow. The committee members will discuss in the presence of Governor E S L Narasimhan, the allotment of secretariat and electricity employees, besides the division of various corporations. The Committee will also ponder over handing over of government offices and buildings located in Hyderabad.UNI SMS PY RJ 2048 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1203479.Xml
The fire tenders reached the spot to douse the flame.

The injured people have been rushed to the nearby hospital for medical treatment.

No casualties have been reported as yet.

Further details are awaited. (ANI)
One youth was killed in police firing and about 50 houses and vehicles set afire, following a group clash at Vadavali village in Patan taluka of north Gujarat, this evening. According to police, the trouble sparked off from a minor quarrel between two students, while appearing in the ongoing high school examinations. But soon it assumed communal overtones and turned into a major group clash, involving people from at least three surrounding villages. The houses of a particular community were targeted by the violent mob with nearly 30 homes set on fire, while about two dozen vehicles parked in front of the houses were also set afire. Police from Patan and Mehsana districts rushed to the spot but as the situation threatened to go out of control, State Director General of Police P P Pandey sent the Gandhinagar range IGP to the riot-torn village to bring the situation under control. It also took more than 10 fire engines from Mehsana, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar to douse the flames. Police resorted to lathicharge and burst several teargas shells to disperse the mob but as violence continued unabated, police opened fire, in which one youth was killed. More than a dozen people sustained injuries in stone throwing between the two groups. A large contingent of police was deployed in the affected village and the police claimed late in the evening that the situation was 'under control'. UNI ND PY RJ 2100 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1203455.Xml
Andhra Pradesh BJP President and Vizag Smart City MP K Hari Babu today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's good governance, BJP's schemes for poor people and the latest victories of BJP in various parts of the country have improved the chances of the party to expand its wings in the southern part of the country. Talking to the mediapersons here, Mr Babu said the recent victories of BJP in Uttar Pradesh and few other incidents have clearly indicated that people have lot of faith on BJP and Mr Modi as development is only agenda of BJP. "Though the Opposition parties have tried to cash the vote bank by blaming BJP's demonetisation, people have refused the Opposition parties," he added. ''The NDA government will make an announcement, granting a railway zone for Andhra Pradesh with Vizag as its headquarters and Union government has been looking into the possibilities to allocate unallocated mines in the country to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), which is yet to get captive mines," he added. Refusing to accept the argument that special status is the only mantra for development of Andhra Pradesh, Mr Babu said AP is ineligible for the Special Status and the Special Economic Package, as it is better than the special status for development of AP.A total of 30 central institutes were sanctioned in Vizag region and around 20 to 25 central institutes will be functional by 2019, he added. Though the BJP leader has claimed that TDP-BJP alliance in AP has been pushing the development of North Andhra (Uttarandhra), Mr Babu indirectly expressed displeasure over the ruling TD government for delay in completion of various Union government projects in the region. He said the bureaucratic delays were the reason for slow progress of some of the Centre's projects in the state. For instance, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Labour and Employment, Bandaru Dattatreya laid foundation stone for a 300-beded Employees State Insurance (ESI) hospital at Sheelanagar area in Vizag in April, 2016. But, the state government is yet to issue GO to allocate 6.8 acres of land for the ESI hospital, he pointed out. Speaking on the demand for increasing the number of Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, he said the AP State Reorganisation Act-2014 provides for increase in seats from 175 to 225 and from 119 to 153 in Telangana. Hoping that the number would go up as there are chances that Union Government would amend the Constitution, if necessary for increasing the number of Assembly seats, he added.UNI BSR PY RJ 2145 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1203513.Xml
SKANEATELES  The Skaneateles Library Board of Trustees may reconsider plans to expand and renovate the library in its current building based upon feedback the board president heard at a public meeting Thursday afternoon.

Project Bookends  the group formed to look at establishing the Skaneateles Library and Learning Center at the former Stella Maris Retreat and Renewal Center property on East Genesee Street in the village  held the first of four community workshops to hear residents' comments on the proposal.

During a question-and-answer session at the workshop, many people spoke in favor of keeping the library at its current 49 E. Genesee St. location in the village's downtown area, expressing concerns about higher operating costs associated with the move, the zoning of the property, duplication of services that already exist in the community, whether the public will actually have a say and other topics in the two-hour meeting.

Like many of those who spoke, Skaneateles resident Dessa Bergen  a retired Jordan-Elbridge High School librarian  said the community already has "a public library that we love."

"We probably love it so much we don't want to see it change," she said, noting the school district already has four buildings each with a library and numerous computers that all take several hundred thousand dollars to operate.

She also expressed concern that the committee studying the relocation of the library to Stella Maris was appointed solely by Peter and Elsa Soderberg, who purchased the property in December 2015 and started Project Bookends.

"That's not representative of the community," Bergen said. "That's not our voice. I don't see how the community is going to be represented."

In an earlier comment, Bergen also suggested a committee  one not appointed by the Soderbergs  study keeping the library in its current location.

"Some of us are in favor of keeping the library, and we would like an independent committee so the library has a choice to make," she said.

Library Board President Scott Elia noted that the board  with the help of an architect and input through similar community workshops  did come up with a concept to redesign the current building, the plans for which are available at the library.

After hearing Bergen and others express a desire to keep the library where it is, Elia indicated the board would revisit those plans in the near future.

"I'm hearing that we need to go back to the library board and talk about this," he said. "We need to come back. We need to talk about what the prior process was and talk about what we want."

Amid developing that concept, Elia said, the board "concluded that there was an opportunity we wanted to pursue" in the Soderbergs' offer to purchase Stella Maris and move the library.

In response to a question, Elia said he feels no pressure to accept that offer but does feel it is worth considering.

"I think we have an exciting opportunity out there right now that includes a learning center. I think it's a cool idea," he said. "Is it feasible? That's what this conversation is all about. Is it something the community wants? That's what this conversation is all about."

Part of that conversation is the public funding that will used to cover the library's operating cost, which Elia called a "key deciding factor" in whether the board feels comfortable moving forward with the proposal.

"It's the board's position we will use public funding only for operating expenses," he said, noting no taxpayer funding would go toward construction  whether renovating the current building or building a new one.

As well as the board's position, Library Director Nickie Marquis said it is also education law that the library must use its public funding only for operations. Should the library need funding beyond the $350,000 it currently receives from local taxes, the public would vote on increasing that amount.

Skaneateles resident Kathy Dyson was among those who suggested seeing what can be done with the current library before moving forward with a new one. She also said the proposed public lands zoning designation for the new location "sounds dangerous" for the village.

"I'd like to see more," she said. "I really want to see that made available to all of us before we jump into a new facility."

Among those who want to make sure the public truly has a say, Mottville resident Chris Buff said residents of the town outside of the village need to be considered. Although the proposal falls under the jurisdiction of the village planning and zoning boards, town residents still support the library.

"We pay taxes," she said. "We should get a say on this whether we're in the village proper or not. ... We had best be heard by the village."

Skaneateles resident Julia Wamp asked Elia if the library board had yet voted to move the library, while a man in the audience suggested those present at the workshop take a hand vote to show their support or opposition.

In response, Elia said the board has not yet voted on the move but will have to at some point  and probably sooner rather than later so that the process does not drag on.

"This is a very intense process," he said, noting the board is waiting for the community's feedback among other steps. "We can't keep this process going for years."
The Governor of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh P B Acharya greeted all rank and file as well as family members of the Assam Rifles, on the occasion of 182nd Raising Day.In a greetings message addressed to the Director General of the Assam Rifles, Lt Gen Shokin Chouhan in Shillong, the Governor stated that the Assam Rifles has a rare distinction of having participated in World War I in Europe and Middle East, World War II in Burma, Indo China War of 1962, Indo-Pak War of 1971, Counter Insurgency Operations in Sri Lanka, Jammu & Kashmir and the entire North Eastern States of India, as well as part of UN Mission at Haiti. "Over the years, the brave soldiers of Assam Rifles have made numerous sacrifices while operating in hostile terrain and in strategic border areas of our country for which I salute them", he added.Governor Acharya also paid respects to the Veer Naris and their family members for bravely withstanding the supreme sacrifice of their head of family and their contribution in nation building. Stating that the Assam Rifles is the oldest Para-Military Force in India and have been implementing various welfare projects for the upliftment of tribal people of North East India besides safeguarding the country from within and foreign invaders, the Governor hoped that the Assam Rifles will continue to uphold the great traditions of the Nation. UNI AS RN 2147 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0311-1203529.Xml
The personnel of Assam rifles, along with Police representative, apprehended one NSCN-K cadre with arms and ammunition from Tuensang district. According to a statement, issued by the PRO of the Inspector General of Assam Rifles (North) today informed that the 15 Assam Rifles apprehended two cadres of NSCN (K) along with two pistols and other warlike stores in an operation in general area Kusang and Noklak under Tuensang district. The apprehended were identified as one resident of Noklak village and the other a resident of Kusong village of the district. The apprehended cadres along with recovered warlike stores were subsequently handed over to Noklak Police Station. In a separate statement, the PRO of IGAR (N) said based on specific input regarding presence of illegal arms and ammunition in a house at Kachari Gaon area of Dimapur town, the 32 Assam Rifles along with police representative, launched a search op in the area yesterday in Dimapur. During the search one 7.65 Pistol along with magazine and ten live rounds of point 22 Pistol were recovered from the suspected house of one suspected arms peddler. The apprehended individual along with the recovered items were handed over to West Police Station in Dimapur for further investigation, the PRO said. UNI AS RN 2153 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0311-1203535.Xml
Samajwadi Party President and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav today accused Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with targeting the officers of a particular caste after taking over as the new Chief Minister of UP. Taking a dig at the new CM, he said ''so far only the 'anti-Romeo squads,' where the police constable identifies a eve teaser from his eyes and clean-up drives with officers carrying the broom" have been witnessed so far. The former Chief Minister also targeted Yogi Adityanath for the 'shuddhikaran puja (purification ceremony) of the official residence of the Chief Minister at Kalidas Marg. ''After five years in 2022, I will deploy the fire tenders and use Gangajal to clean the official residence of the Chief Minister and that water will also be sprayed on the mediapersons. I have no problem with shuddhikaran of the CM house, I am concerned and wish for the well-being of the two peacocks I left behind. "I am waiting for the new Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Yogi Adityanath to come up with something concrete," Mr Yadav said, briefing the media after the meeting of the national executive of the party here. "As of now, all we are seeing on television are cleanliness drives in government offices and the anti-Romeo campaign (against eve-teasing)," he said. Mr Yadav alleged that the present BJP government was harassing the policemen of a particular community. "Only policemen of one particular caste are being suspended and transferred and everybody knows about it,'' he added. He said once the state Governor had also said that persons from the Yadav community are occupying all the key positions in the government. Questioning the performance of Yogi Adityanath, he said ''Mukhy mantri ne kaha humse ek saal badey hain. Hum kehte hain kaam me bahut pichey ho, umar mein toh badey ho skate ho (CM said he is elder to me by one year. But, I say you can be elder to me, but in work and efficiency, you are far behind)''. The SP cheif said the government officials are in an overdrive to ensure cleanliness after a directive from the new Chief Minister. "I never knew these officials are so good at wielding brooms; or else, I would have given them this charge long back," he quipped. In an obvious reference to the poll promise of loan waiver by the BJP, Mr Yadav said ''so far, not even the first state Cabinet meeting has taken place. SP is awaiting for its outcome. BJP in its election manifesto had promised that the loans of small and marginal farmers will be waived in the very first Cabinet meeting, if the party was voted to power in the state, he recalled. Mr Yadav said he would meet the media once every month. He said SP would launch the membership drive from April 15 and would continue for the next two next months. He said the party would review the performance of its candidate in each Assembly constituency.''I am confident that the party will return to power in 2022,'' he claimed. Mr Yadav said the elections would be held for various party posts soon and the election of the national president would be completed by September 30 this year. Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party in its national executive meeting took stock of the drubbing in the state Assembly elections. SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav chose to skip it. SP sources said Mr Mulayam was extended an invitation, but he chose not to turn up. SP General Secretary Azam Khan was also conspicuous by his absence.UNI MB RJ 2130 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1203379.Xml
A-level student Miles Soloman from Tapton School in Sheffield, was working on the TimPix project -- which lets school students in the Britain access data recorded by radiation detectors.

The project, held during British astronaut Tim Peake's six-month stay on the ISS, helps the school children look for anomalies and patterns that might lead to further discoveries.

Soloman found that radiation sensors on the ISS were recording false data and then emailed scientists at NASA, which according him was "pretty cool", the BBC reported on Wednesday.

The correction was said to be "appreciated" by NASA, which invited him to help analyse the problem.

"It's pretty cool. You can tell your friends, I just emailed NASA and they're looking at the graphs that I've made," Soloman was quoted as saying to BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

Soloman and his fellow students were given Timepix measurements in a giant pile of excel spreadsheets, where they analysed the radiation levels on the ISS.

"I went straight to the bottom of the list and I went for the lowest bits of energy there were," Soloman explained.

Soloman noticed that when nothing hit the detector, a negative reading was being recorded. But you cannot get negative energy. Thus, he contacted scientists at the US space agency.

It turned out that Soloman had noticed something no-one else had, including the NASA experts.

According to NASA, it was aware of the error, but believed it was only happening once or twice a year.

However, Soloman had found it was actually happening multiple times a day.

--IANS rt/ksk/vm

( 298 Words)

2017-03-25-13:34:10 (IANS)
A forum of ambassadors from Muslim countries, who met in the federal capital of Pakistan, on Friday unanimously decided to protect the sanctity and dignity of Islam and the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and said the entire Muslim ummah is united for the same. The meeting was announced earlier in the week by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and was attended by ambassadors of Muslim countries with the interior minister in the chair. During the meeting, a discussion was held on blasphemous content on the social media. A course of action to effectively raise the voice of the Muslim world on the issue was also discussed. It was also decided that a comprehensive strategy paper encompassing all legal and technical aspects would be circulated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs among the ambassadors of the Muslim countries. The Ambassadors will then apprise their governments in order to develop a future plan of action. The matter will then be followed up and brought to the attention of the United Nations. Legal options will also be looked discussed to bring the matter to the courts of countries from where the content is generated. With respect to this, the Ministry of Interior on Friday formed a joint investigation team (JIT) comprising seven members to investigate social media users who share 'blasphemous' content. The JIT was formed on the orders of the Islamabad High Court and will be headed by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Mazharul Haq Kakakhel. Two other FIA officials as well as officials from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Inter-Services Intelligence and Intelligence Bureau are part of the group. (ANI)
Recent satellite imagery indicates a potentially significant change at the Punggye-ri test site, as reported by CNN.

For weeks, satellites had observed extensive activity on the surface. But the most recent imagery shows that activity has now stopped. That is a similar change in the pattern of activity just before previous tests, indicating all final preparations are now complete, officials said.

The South Korean government issued a statement Friday saying a test can happen as soon as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un orders it.

"It is assessed that North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test anytime if its leadership decides to do so," Lee Duk-haeng, spokesman for South Korea's the Ministry of Unification, said in a press briefing.

North Korea has a history of moving military personnel and gear around to deceive satellites the regime knows are watching.

The United States is maintaining the presence of a WC-135 aircraft in the region that can conduct air sampling after a suspected underground test.

In past instances of Pyongyang's nuclear testing, one of the first signs that an underground explosion has happened is seismic activity picked up by the US Geological Survey in the location of the North Korean test site.

This comes as the Trump administration is reviewing whether there are newer options of dealing with North Korea, a situation that the Trump and Obama administrations agreed is extremely difficult to manage. (ANI)
A South Korean passenger ferry which capsized in 2014 killing over 300 people, was lifted out of the water on Saturday, rescue officials said. The ferry, Sewol, was successfully loaded onto a ship at 4.10 a.m., a spokesperson for the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries told Yonhap news agency. Over the next two or three days, rescue officials will secure the ferry to the vessel, which has the capacity to transport a load of up to 70,000 tonnes on its deck, before heading to the Mokpo port around 87 km away. It is estimated that it will take one day to reach Mokpo. The placement of Sewol on the semi-submersible vessel was one of the most complicated procedures given the fact it was greatly affected by weather and tides. South Korean officials had planned to complete this step before midnight Friday, but the process lasted more than seven hours because of the difficulty in turning the direction of the ferry - 6,825 tonnes and a length of 145 metres - and the two tugboats during the 3-km journey. The South Korean government had promised to carefully remove the ferry in order to find and deliver to the relatives the remains of nine passengers of the Sewol who were never found and were believed to be inside the sunken vessel. The salvage operation of the Sewol, which lay on the sea bed some 40 metres deep, started on Wednesday, almost three years after it capsized on the southwest coast of South Korea near the island of Jindo, killing over 300 people. Sewol capsized on April 16, 2014, and is the worst maritime accident in the history of the country. In total, 304 people were killed, including crew and passengers, most of whom were high school students on a trip. --IANS ksk/bg ( 306 Words) 2017-03-25-12:52:07 (IANS)
China's failure to respond on the matter of a Taiwan man missing on the mainland is causing his family "anxiety and panic", Taiwan's ruling party said today, as it called on authorities to protect the rights of Taiwan people.Concern has risen on self-ruled Taiwan about the whereabouts of Lee Ming-che, a community college worker known for supporting human rights in China who disappeared on Sunday after entering China's Zhuhai city via the coastal city of Macau.Reuters CJTaiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Chinese authorities had repeatedly said they would protect the rights of Taiwan people on the mainland in accordance with law."But after six days, there has been no official response by China to requests for consultations about the search by our government and his family," the party said in its strongest statement yet on Lee's disappearance."This has caused the family anxiety and panic," Chang Chih-hao, a spokesman for the independence-leaning party said in the statement.The party called on Chinese authorities to respond promptly to requests for cooperation and "effectively protect human rights and not increase the risk of Taiwanese people travelling to China", Chang said.Relations between Beijing and Taiwan have worsened in the past year, largely because Beijing distrusts the DPP, which took power last year and traditionally supports independence for Taiwan.Beijing regards the democratic island as a breakaway province and it has never renounced the use of force to bring it back under mainland control.Beijing cut off official communications with Taiwan after President Tsai Ing-wen took office last year. Tsai, also leader of the DPP, says she wants peace but has never conceded that Taiwan is a part of the mainland.Taiwan's agencies for dealing with China its Straits Exchange Foundation and Mainland Affairs Council have said they have been unable to raise a response from their Chinese counterparts over Lee's case.Rights group Amnesty International's East Asia Director Nicholas Bequelin said Lee's case raised questions about the safety of people working with civil society in China.Lee had been supporting organisations and activists in China for years but went to China this time for personal matters related to mother-in-law's medical condition, Amnesty International said."If Lee Ming-che has been detained, then please tell me the charges," Lee's wife, Lee Ching-yu, said at a news briefing yesterday organised by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights."But please tell her if her husband is alive or dead, where is he," the rights group said in a statement.REUTERS SDR BL1513 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1202759.Xml
Two additional threatening notes have been found at Flagstaff Unified School District schools.

According to Flagstaff police, a note was found Thursday evening in the girls bathroom at Flagstaff High School. A second note was found by staff written on a wall in the girls bathroom at Thomas Elementary School.

The threatening notes are the latest in a series that have been found over the past few weeks. According to police, on March 8, a student found a note in the boys bathroom at Flagstaff High School warning that there would be a shootout at the school. The student tossed the note because he thought it was joke.

A second note was found on March 9 in the girls bathroom at Flagstaff High. That note indicated that a Columbine-type event would take place sometime in March at the school. A third note was found on March 20 in the girls bathroom at Flagstaff High. That note referred to April 20, the anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. The latest note at Flagstaff High was found Thursday evening while staff were cleaning the girls bathroom. It mentioned the three previous notes that were found at the school.

The note found at Thomas Elementary School was also found by staff cleaning the bathroom. It also threatens a school shooting but does not look like the notes found at Flagstaff High.

Police are investigating the notes as a felony crime. A school resource officer has been assigned full-time during the school day at Flagstaff High for the next several weeks.

Anyone with information should contact Flagstaff Police Detective Barreras at (928) 679-4055 or Silent Witness at (928) 774-6111.
Leaders of the European Union met in Rome today to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaty and demonstrate that the EU can survive the impending departure of major power Britain.Under heavy security as the Italian capital braced for anti-EU protests later in the day and the risk of attacks such as that by an Islamic State follower in London last week, the 27 national leaders gathered in the Campidoglio palace where the six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.Conspicuous by her absence was British Prime Minister Theresa May, who will write to EU summit chairman Donald Tusk on Wednesday formally to announce that its second-biggest economy will leave the Union in negotiations over the coming two years.Britain shunned the new European community at its creation, but finally joined in 1973. Its people voted to quit last June.Without the so-called Brexit, it might have been a modestly hopeful summit in the palazzo where old foes France and Germany, with Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, signed the original treaty.All the bloc's economies are growing after a slump that has blighted the past decade and recent border chaos has largely abated as refugees are, for now, being held in check.But Brexit has undermined the self-confidence of a Union that has helped bring peace and growing prosperity to the continent, and has encouraged eurosceptic nationalists challenging governments from Stockholm to Sicily.It has also amplified the petty frictions among the more than two dozen national governments and obliged leaders' aides to water down a grand birthday declaration of unity.After days of carping from Poland and Greece, seeking to show home voters they were getting Brussels to give assurances about equal treatment and social welfare, the Rome Declaration the 27 will sign just before noon (1630 IST) offers ringing phrases about peace and unity."We have united for the better," the text concludes. "Europe is our common future."But it may disappoint those who think more ambition and coordination is the answer to malaise.At the Vatican yesterday, Pope Francis told them that their Union had achieved much in 60 years but that Europe faced a "vacuum of values". He condemned anti-immigrant populism and extremism that he said posed a mortal threat to the bloc."When a body loses its sense of direction and is no longer able to look ahead, it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying," said the Argentinian pontiff.Their response, he said, should be to promote Europe's ideals and values with more vigour and passion.He urged states to show more "solidarity", a vexed word today, where Germans complain Poles are not taking in refugees or Greeks bemoan a lack of debt relief from Germany.And the first non-European pope in over 1,000 years reminded them of the diminishing share of the world's wealth and people in Europe. They were a "peninsula of Asia", Francis told them, urging them to remain open to the rest of the world.REUTERS SDR BL1444 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1202784.Xml
Syria's army and its allies retook a village near Hama today, a Syrian military source said, as the government tries to turn back a major insurgent offensive, but bitter fighting continued, a war monitor said.President Bashar al-Assad and his allies, Russia, Iran and Shi'ite militias from nearby countries, are seeking to staunch the biggest rebel assault in months which began this week in the capital Damascus and the Hama countryside.Insurgents have made big advances towards Hama, taking about a dozen towns and villages and moving to within a few kilometres of the city and its military airbase, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said."Units of our armed forces and allied forces restored the town of Kawkab and continue their military operations in more than one direction of the northern Hama countryside," the military source said.The Observatory said rebels had been forced to withdraw under rocket fire from some of the positions they had occupied, but mutual shelling in parts of the Hama battlefront continued.In Damascus, the army said yesterday it had managed to recapture all the positions it lost early in the week to rebels in the Jobar area, which is on the northeastern fringe of the central district of the capital.REUTERS SDR BL1509 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1202815.Xml
Iraqi government forces paused in their push to recapture western Mosul from Islamic State militants today because of the high rate of civilian casualties, a security forces spokesman said.Residents escaping the besieged area have told of Iraqi and US-led coalition air strikes demolishing buildings and killing numerous civilians.The insurgents have also used civilians as human shields and opened fire on them as they try to escape Islamic State-held neighbourhoods, fleeing residents said.The US-backed offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured most of the city. The entire eastern side and about half of the west is under Iraqi control.But advances have stuttered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the narrow alleys of the Old City, home to the al-Nuri mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014."The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans," a Federal Police spokesman said today. "It's a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on."Local officials and residents said on Thursday that dozens of people were buried in collapsed buildings after an air raid against Islamic State triggered a huge explosion last week. Bodies are still being pulled from the ruins.The coalition has said the reports are being investigated."We need to make sure that taking out Daesh (Islamic State) from the Old City will not cost unwanted high casualties among civilians. We need surgical accurate operations to target terrorists without causing collateral damage among residents," the Federal Police spokesman said.An army statement published in the al-Sabah state newspaper said that future operations would be carried out by ground troops highly trained for urban combat."Our heroic forces are committed to the rules of engagement which ensure protection of civilians" the statement said.A US deputy commanding general for the coalition told Reuters yesterday that the solution could lie in a change of tactics. The Iraqi military is assessing opening up another front and isolating the Old City, where the militants have put up fierce resistance, US Army Brigadier General John Richardson said.Fleeing residents have described grim living conditions inside the city, saying there was no running water or electricity and no food coming in. Aid agencies say as many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western half of Mosul.But families are streaming out of the northern city, Iraq's second largest, in their thousands each day, headed for cold, crowded camps or to stay with relatives. Hunger and fighting are making life unbearable inside.The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said that since the campaign on western Mosul began on February 19, unconfirmed reports said nearly 700 civilians had been killed by government and coalition air strikes or Islamic State actions.The militants have used car bombs, snipers and mortar fire to counter the offensive. They have also stationed themselves in homes belonging to Mosul residents to fire at Iraqi troops, often drawing air or artillery strikes that have killed civilians.REUTERS SDR BL1609 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1202904.Xml
An Egyptian appeals court suspended a jail sentence today against the former head of the journalists' union for harbouring colleagues wanted by authorities and for spreading false news, judicial sources and a lawyer said.Yehia Qalash and two colleagues were sentenced to two years in jail in November in a case which Amnesty International condemned as a further crackdown on freedom of expression in Egypt.The appeals court today gave Qalash and the two board members, Khaled al-Balshy and Gamal Abdel Rahim, a one-year suspended jail sentence.Prosecutors had ordered the three men face trial last May, amid efforts by Egyptian authorities to quell rising dissent against army general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.The charges against them related to a police raid last May on the Journalists' Syndicate to arrest two opposition journalists who had sought shelter there from arrest.Union officials said police stormed the building for the first time in the syndicate's 75-year history. The interior ministry denied that, but confirmed police had arrested the two journalists, Mahmoud El Sakka and Amr Badr.Sakka and Badr, who are still awaiting trial, had criticised a deal between Egypt and Saudi Arabia which would have transferred two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. The deal has since been blocked by a court in Cairo which ruled the islands were sovereign Egyptian territory.Qalash's defence lawyer Shaaban Said said he considered today's ruling satisfactory but he still planned to appeal to the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest court.In the journalists' syndicate election earlier this month, Qalash and Balshy both failed in their bids for re-election. Abdel Rahim was re-elected as a board member.REUTERS SDR BL1718 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1202999.Xml
A new government report obtained by the Pakistani media has revealed that the major source of funding for terror and extremist groups in the country is crime including extortion, smuggling and kidnapping for ransom. The report by the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) in Pakistan titled "National Risk Assessment on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing 2017" reportedly details how terror groups generate funds through criminal activities. The News reported that the first of its kind report was planned to share with the World Bank (WB), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Asia Pacific Group (APG) of Money Laundering. A team of assessors of all the stakeholders under the supervision of the FMU compiled the report, which revealed that Pakistan was short of adequate resources, skills and manpower to sufficiently take into account money laundering and terrorism financing. "Annual operational budget of [these] terrorist organisations is from Rs 5 million to Rs 25 million. Average cost of operation per terror incident varies from Rs 0.5 million to Rs2.5 million depending on magnitude of incident," the 45-page confidential report revealed. "Main sources of income of terrorists in Pakistan include foreign funding, drug trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, extortion from business, vehicle snatching, 'hawala/hundi', cash couriers, dealings in foreign exchange, contraband items in Fata and sale of items looted from Nato/ISAF containers," the report added. On terrorism financing risks, the FMU in its report revealed that unrest in the Gulf led to mushrooming of extremist movements and militant organisation as the terrorists from hostile neighboring countries are expanding proxy war in Pakistan. Most preferred foreign destinations for parking billions of rupees and laundered money are the UAE, UK and USA followed by the South-Eastern countries. Pakistan on request of the World Bank decided to carry out this national risk assessment exercise on money laundering and terror financing in 2015-2016. For this purpose, Islamabad formed a national team, which used the National Risk Assessment tool of the World Bank where the FMU also engaged Federal Investigation Agency, Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan, National Accountability Bureau, Anti-Narcotics Force, State Bank of Pakistan, Federal Board of Revenue and Ministry of Commerce. According to the report, sense of money laundering threat alarmed the regulators when they seized an estimated Rs. six billion in past three years where the FIA, NAB, ANF, law enforcement agencies, Currency Declaration Units, SBP and FMU registered/investigated around 8,100 cases/complaints. In money laundering trends, the regulators noted in the report that corruption was identified as major predicate offence while smuggling, drug trafficking, cheating and fraud, tax frauds, kidnapping for ransom and extortion remained additional factors. Officials revealed that only one of 256 filed key cases of money laundering was decided by the courts in the last three years, adding that teams seized estimated Rs. four billion during this period. The regulators arrested some 491 of total 664 accused involved in crimes of money laundering while special teams, under the National Action Plan, arrested 848 accused involved in money laundering, 'hawala and hundi' and illegal money changing during this period. The teams under the NAP also seized Rs. 851 million since January 2015. Some of proscribed organisations are reportedly generating millions of dollars annually to conduct their operations within and outside the country. Among them the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipa-e-Mohammad are taking the lead. (ANI)
"Two civilians are killed and 28 people including two inspectors of bomb disposal unit sustained injuries in the blast," The Daily Star quoted Golam Kibria, Commissioner of Sylhet Metropolitan Police, as saying.

The blast took place around 6:50 p.m. on a road beside a madrasa, around 400 metres off the five-storey "Atia Mahal" where the paramilitary commandos along with police and SWAT were conducting an operation codenamed "Twilight".

Following the blast, police asked the civilians to leave the place for safety.

However, it is yet to be ascertained that who exploded the bomb targeting the civilians there. (ANI)
BANJUL, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The Gambian government on Friday expressed its appreciation of the online media for their role in ending the 22 years of tyranny in the west African country.

"On behalf of President Adama Barrow and the new government, we wish to take this opportunity to express appreciation to you, and through you the entire Gambian diaspora, for the significant role that each and every one of you played in the struggle to free our dear country from the clutches of tyranny and mal-governance," Gambian's Information Minister Demba Jawo said in a press release.

He also congratulated the local journalists and the Gambians living at home for their part during the struggle. "The vast majority of Gambians who remained at home during the struggle had been unquantifiable, but the role of the Gambian online media and by extension, the Gambian diaspora in general, had been quite formidable."

"It is hard to imagine how we could have gotten here without your contribution as well as the significant role played by the Gambian diaspora, both financially and through the effective use of social media to sensitize the population," said the minister who was a journalist himself.

"We want to work with you to consolidate the gains we have so far made in the emancipation of our people and how we can advance those gains," Jawo stressed.

He assured the government has no intentions of ever trying to control or manipulate their editorial policies, on the contrary, they will welcome fair criticisms of their comportment and actions, because it is through such criticisms that they can realize when and where they need to buckle up.

"Therefore, let us reiterate that the Ministry of Information and Communication Infrastructure is available at all times to answer to your concerns and queries with regards to issues pertaining to the government, and please never hesitate to contact us at all times," he urged. Enditem
NAIROBI, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to discourage exports of semi processed leather in order to promote value addition in the industry, officials said on Friday.

Kenya Leather Development Council (KLDC) CEO Dr Issack Noor told Xinhua in Nairobi that most of Kenya's leather exports consists unfinished wet blue leather.

"We want to discourage export of semi processed leather because it denies local leather manufacturers vital raw materials," Noor said on the sidelines of a Special Economic Zones forum.

Kenya is currently a net importer of leather products despite having a large cattle population.

The east African nation is currently developing a leather industry park that will help expand local leather sector.

The park will offer tax incentives to firms who set up manufacturing plants to produce leather products for export.

Noor said that the park will be a game changer for the leather industry as it will cluster all leather sector players in one area.

KLDC official said that the park will create 35,000 jobs in the leather value chain. Noor said that most of Kenya's footwear industry consists of small cottage industries that are not regionally competitive.

"As a result, Kenya is big importer of second hand leather products which are cheaper than locally produced goods," he added.

Government data indicates that the leather sector contributes 0.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

"This is very minimal and so government is implementing strategies to expand the role of the leather sector in the country," Noor said. Enditem
NAIROBI, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Global technology giant Google will scale up mentorship programs targeting Kenyan innovators to enable them to grow their technology start-ups into formidable enterprises, executives said on Friday.

John Kimani, Google's Head of Developer Ecosystem in East and Francophone Africa, said that mentorship is key to enabling young techpreneurs to acquire skills needed in the expansion of their businesses.

"This country has an abundant pool of talented web and mobile based application developers who require a supportive ecosystem to make their businesses thrive," said Kimani.

He noted that a combination of raw talent, funding, access to infrastructure and markets alongside basic financial literacy are key to stimulating growth of technology based enterprises.

Kenyan techpreneurs have benefited from Google's Launchpad, a mentorship program targeting start-ups in the emerging markets that was launched four years ago.

Kimani noted that innovators who have enlisted in this mentorship program have gained expertise on how to refine their early stage businesses and attract investors.

"We identify outstanding start-ups, mentor their founders and share best practices across the ecosystem to help build them into successful businesses," Kimani said.

He noted that boot camps organized by Google and key partners have provided Kenyan techpreneurs with expertise that is critical to growing their businesses.

"Our boot camps for early stage startups focus on problem solving. They enable developers to come up with a sound strategy to grow their businesses," said Kimani.

He added that Google's flagship mentorship program for techpreneurs has boosted their knowledge of regulatory issues, intellectual property and marketing.

Kenya is yet to actualize its dream of becoming a silicon savannah despite abundance of innovators and friendly policies.

Kimani noted that majority of technology based start-ups are collapsing in the early stages due to their inability to attract angel investors.

"Building a successful technology business in this market is hampered by many obstacles. Currently, only 20 percent of Kenyan start-ups survive to the next stage," said Kimani.

He added that Kenya has the potential to attract investors in the technology space if the country prioritized regulatory reforms and skills development.
ACCRA, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Some Ghanaian legislators on Friday called for enhanced security in the wake of the Westminster terror attack in the United Kingdom.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo Markin, said parliament as an organ of state required some level of protection, adding that the security of the House was as important as the security of the Judiciary and the Executive.

According to him, both the executive and judiciary were sufficiently provided with police officers as security but the same could not be said of the lawmakers.

"If you come to parliament, the situation is different and I think it is important that this is brought to the attention of the House considering what happened three days ago in the UK," he said on the floor of parliament in Accra.

The deputy minority leader of parliament, Sarah Adwoa Safo, shared the sentiments of her colleague and assured all MPs that the leadership of the House had instituted stern measures to tighten security.

"Leadership has taken note of those concerns and we will work together to ensure tighter security," she said.

Five people were killed and around 40 injured in Wednesday's London terrorist attack which British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned as "sick and depraved."

Seven of the injured remained in critical condition, according to London police authorities.

This is not the first time the legislators are making such demands.

They called for improved security early last year following the murder of Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, the MP for Abuakwa North, who was found in a pool of blood after his wife and domestic staff had called the police to report of unusual activity in his bedroom.

He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Police Hospital. Enditem